Prologue

~ OST: Deliberation ~

Twilight had finally done it. She had solved the most difficult mystery that she had ever encountered. Even though she had made countless mistakes while trying to keep these ponies safe, the curious case of Everdale was finally coming to a close.

“I knew it!” one of the ten ponies in the room exclaimed, breaking Twilight out of her quiet reverie. “You six can’t be the Elements of Harmony! You've only been trouble since you arrived! If you hadn’t shown up—”

“You asked for help,” Twilight interjected, “but we only made matters worse. I know. Trust me, I know.” She had already resigned herself to taking responsibility for everything that had happened. “We messed up. No, I messed up. I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I’m just asking for your trust.”

“And you expect us to trust you?" One of the other ponies felt the need to twist the knife with their words, making Twilight wince. "You're the most suspicious out of this whole lot! If you're the one pulling the strings, then everything would make sense!"

Everything they said was correct, but Twilight knew that she couldn't prove her innocence. Words were the only things she could defend herself with, but words had lost their meaning long ago.

"That's why I'm asking for your trust," Twilight replied, attempting to sound calm despite the churning in her gut. "I trust my friends. I know that all six of us are innocent. All of these incidents can be explained without our involvement."

The remaining ponies began to look around warily, all of them looking like they were about to bolt for the door. These four were nearly all that was left of Everdale, the small town that they had come to save. Nopony wanted to talk about the previous victims that had inexplicably vanished.

In the silence that followed, Twilight ran through her deductions again. This was the only answer. There was no other way that this could have happened! The desperate look that she was getting from Rainbow Dash and Pinkie only strengthened her resolve, since those two had been trying to crack this case from the very beginning. Without any of Twilight’s friends, not just the two of them, the remaining residents of Everdale would have already disappeared.

"Whatever, hurry up and explain it," an off-white mare challenged. "It still doesn't change the fact that you're responsible for well over half of what has happened here."

A burnt orange pegasus nodded. "Explaining it won't bring them back."

“I know,” Twilight responded again, her voice still tinged with regret. “We’re not superheroes. We thought we could help, and believe me when I say that we tried as hard as we could, but now it’s time to fix the problems that we created. If you can’t give me your trust, then give me an ear. Hear me out.”

Twilight’s eyes roamed around to each pony individually, studying them each in turn. Every single one of them, her friends included, stared right back like they expected her to point her judgmental hoof in their direction. Ever since this case began, wedge after wedge had been driven between Twilight and her friends, creating a distance between them that she hadn't felt since Discord had been revived. This had to end. This had to end now.

“Think about everything that has happened so far,” Twilight spoke calmly, her voice slicing through the heavy atmosphere of the candlelit room. Sheets of rain pelted the windows loudly enough that Twilight had to project her voice to make sure that everypony heard her. “This theory will account for everything. The note, this room, and the lobby.... If I had known sooner, I might have been able to stop this.”

Twilight bit her bottom lip and glanced at Fluttershy, who had resigned herself to mindlessly staring at the corner of the room. The pegasus had run herself ragged trying to help everypony in the past few days, but Twilight refused to let her efforts go to waste as she continued her explanation. “Now that I know, I'm going to make sure that this stops here. While I admit that I have no idea what happened to the ponies that have already disappeared, I know exactly who is behind this.”

A thunderclap brightened the room for a moment, highlighting the shadows of doubt that lingered on everypony's expressions. Twilight winced as she saw the fear in her friends' eyes, finding herself unable to look away for a few painful moments. After this, everything would go back to the way it was. No more suspicion. No more pointing hooves.  Mysteries were supposed to be uplifting and witty, just like they were in all of the detective novels she had read, but instead of a detective’s confidence, she found herself dreading the culprit's inevitable demise. Solving a mystery was supposed to be exciting, right?

So why do I still feel like I’m missing something?

With grim determination, Twilight readied herself. There was no room for hesitation, especially after she had made it so far and dragged all of these ponies along with her. “First, I want to apologize to everypony here. Yes, I even want to apologize to the guilty party. You must have worked hard to create this complicated crime. Now that I can see everything that happened, I have to say that I’m impressed. If this had been a duel between the two of us, I would have lost. I wouldn’t have been able to solve this without the help of all of my friends.”

Lightning cracked outside of the dark window, almost as if the power of nature was giving credibility to her words. All eyes were on Twilight as she deliberately lifted her hoof and closed her eyes, letting her determination guide her.

Allowing herself a moment of weakness, Twilight hesitated. Was it wrong for the detective to sympathize with the culprit? All of the fictional detectives that she had imitated as a filly had a clear nemesis, a dastardly villain that wouldn’t hesitate to foalnap a pony in cold blood. In this mystery, Twilight felt empathetic towards every single one of the suspects, making it even more difficult to raise her hoof in the culprit’s direction.

Struggling to keep her resolve, Twilight began to think out loud. “There’s no motive here. Nothing. All that we have to go by is cold, hard facts. Those facts only leave room for one answer, an answer that I nearly overlooked. And it all starts with one pony.”

Twilight leveled her hoof at the culprit.

“It was you.”