Mooncrescent yawns, trotting along the cobblestone on the way to the forensics b for the third time in the past week. “How long do we wait before we just decide they’re traitors?” Mooncrescent asks idly. “It sure seems like it's taking a long time for results to come back.”

  Starbze shakes his head. “Forensic science isn't that fast, Crescy. Besides, we have a couple other leads to follow up on, if there’s nothing to find here this time we’ll just have to set off for the Everfree and see what we can find.”

  That was, of course, because of the burr’s discovered at the scene of the crime; According to the expert they had brought in, those were native only to the Everfree Forest east of Canterlot. The only reason the two of them hadn’t set off looking into it immediately was that the train ride to the nearest settlement on the frontier was a full day's journey away, and they wanted to ensure they had followed up on every lead in Canterlot first.

  Mooncrescent shrugs. “Alright, alright... I am going to be very suspicious, though.” The colt insists before swinging the door to the Canterlot Investigative Department and trotting on through to the forensics b.

  Nopony stops the duo, probably on account of their guard uniforms; Starbze notes this with a distinct feeling of unease. Would it be so easy for anypony in a guard outfit to get back here? Ponies trusting nature could be a fairly major detriment at times.

  At least the body was still there, in the b; Starbze was half expecting somepony to have snuck in and removed it. “Oy!” Mooncrescent shouts, waving a hoof to get someponies attention. “Royal Guards Mooncrescent and Starbze, here! We’re here to check on your progress!”

  A frazzled looking, sleepy eyed mare with a double helix cutie mark looks up from her work over some manner of arcane machinery, practically jumping in her seat before rushing over to attend the two of them, bowing her head deeply. “M-my apologies, I was too focused to see you come in. What can I help you with?”

  “It's been almost a week.” Starbze states, grimly. “I’m going to need whatever information you’ve been able to dig up about our ‘friends’ over there, it can’t wait any longer.”

  “Oh! Yes, right, of course. Actually you came at a perfect time, I was just recording some of the results. Right this way.” The mare pushes up her gsses and sits back down, rifling through some of the papers she had been working on as well as the oddly shaped device complete with eyepieces and some manner of holding mechanism in the center. “We strung together the most complete segments of DNA we could find from the corpses and cross-checked them with our records, but we couldn’t find a single match. Now missing one or two matches would be typical but, this many separate instances of no matching records in our systems seems impusible. For those who still had teeth, there were no matches for dental records, either, so that’s what really set me off.” The forensic scientist started expining.

  Starbze blinks and scrunches up his muzzle, somewhat struggling to follow along. He had heard something about the discovery of something called ‘DNA’ at some point, but he couldn’t really recall what it meant; Mooncrescent at least seemed to be paying rapt attention. The scientist removed a couple folders and flipped through them searching for something.

  “Anyways, since nothing else was coming up, I delved a bit deeper looking for partial matches. We were actually able to find a few this time. They could be siblings or parents, maybe an avuncur retionship but it’s unlikely they’d be simir enough unless it was a case of inbreeding.” The scientist continues, removing a hooffull of papers and pcing them on the table. “You can take a look here. I imagine the pattern should stick out to you.”

  Starbze took the stack of papers and hoofed through them. Cherry blossom, born thirty seven years ago. Died fifteen years ago from unspecified causes, two years after having a foal. Snake Eyes, born thirty-eight, shanked in an alleyway after winning it big in gambling. Velvet Carpet, forty four years ago. Had a colt three years before disappearing mysteriously.

  It wasn’t exactly hard to figure out the connecting thread. Starbze drops the papers on the table. “Yeah, lot’s of would-be parents of orphans. Why haven’t you come forward with this yet?”

  The mare scrunches up her muzzle. “Well, I was going to, I was just running over the papers one more time to make sure I had looked through them all thoroughly enough. But there’s more than that, they’re all around the same age range, thirty-five to forty-five. All of them are from eastern Equestria or Canterlot, lower css origins, or at least were lower css until right before their death in Snake Eyes’s case. Deaths all in the same time period, too.” The mare moves the papers around and presents one to the brothers. “This is the only one who didn’t show up in any obituaries. I can’t confirm that he’s still alive, but at least there’s no reason to think he’s dead, other than the general trends.”

  Starbze flips open the file. Colr Blue, 37 years old. Canterlot undercity district, works on and off at the railway depot. There was a sizable selection of notes below; Starbze looks up at the scientist with a raised brow, flicking his eyes down at the folder. “There’s a lot more in here than the rest. What gives?”

  The scientist nods, eagerly. “Mhm, well, since he was the only apparently-living example, I thought the investigative team would want to know more. So I had my colleagues run a full background check and audit. Some very interesting tidbits came up.” She nods her head along eagerly, seemingly rather self-assured with her progress on the case.

  Starbze pauses before nodding. “Noted. Turn the full report into the pace when it's done, we’ll see if we can pick up on some of these loose threads.” Starbze motions with a jerk of his head to Mooncrescent, who had filled the time Starbze spent talking to the forensics analyst by poking around the room, and the duo are able to trot out of the building in no time at all.

  “Well, gd we didn’t have to issue a formal request or something.” Starbze remarks as they trot down the stairs.

  “Let’s hire a carriage going down to the undercity, we can read the rest of the notes on the way there!” Mooncrescent suggests cheerily from the side. “We should go and find Colr Blue if he’s still around, and no time like the present.”

  Starbze nods. “Go ahead and signal one, I’m going to just sit down and look through these.” He remarks, opening the folder once again to look over the details more thoroughly.

  The tip of Starbze’s tongue pokes from his mouth while he peruses the files. The area around him had blurred to nothing as he focused, counting on Mooncrescent to tell him if there was anything of interest.

  No criminal record, but in the right demographic where it wouldn’t be surprising. Says he spends every night drinking out, married but his wife isn’t working. Surprising he could afford that on his sary. Starbze is interrupted from his pondering when Mooncrescent taps him on his shoulder.

  “Look, we’re coming up on the undercity now! Wow, it’s been a while since we were down here, huh Bzey?” Mooncrescent points a hoof forwards. The sprawl of sometimes-technically-legal structures built underneath the grand terraces of Canterlot proper, carved into the mountainside, comes into view.

  The Undercity District was, strictly speaking, not supposed to be there; It had started as a result of nobles getting inventive with property w as a way to advertise more and more ‘Downtown Canterlot Residential Buildings’, which in reality were underneath the city. An exploitation of property ws which only considered the nd’s titude and longitude, not its altitude. The w had been amended and a crackdown on the practice had been implemented, but it was too te; A sizable chunk of apartment buildings or condominiums had already been constructed, shortly thereafter followed up by suburbia the likes of which you’d find in other less affluent cities, and then by slums poputed by short-sighted dream seekers who’d moved to Canterlot without the wealth required to actually get a piece of the pie there.

  Well, dream seekers and those off the straight-and-narrow. It was little secret that the guard rarely showed up down here; Partially a consequence of security measures designed before the Undercity had cropped up, partially because it was a decidedly ungmorous and unpopur assignment amongst an organization rgely consisting of spoiled aristocrats who were quite capable of forcing their way into gmorous and popur assignments.

  “Guards aren’t popur around here, Crescy.” Starbze murmurs to his brother. “Best to keep that to ourselves if we don’t want everypony to seal their muzzles shut. We don’t really have jurisdiction to go around interrogating every random civilian, so we’re going to need some discretion if we want information.”

  Mooncrescent rolls his eyes in an all-too-deliberate manner, making his dismissal patently obvious. “Don’t you have any faith in me? You know I know that.” Mooncrescent announces, stowing whatever gear they had that made their position obvious into a pair of small saddlebags, before cracking a grin towards Starbze.

  “And here we are! That will be ten bits if you please.” The carriage stops and the driver gnces back at the two. Starbze sighs, pays the obviously exorbitant fee, and hops off into the street as the carriage gallops back up towards Canterlot.

  “Let’s see... Looking for...” Starbze scrunches up his muzzle as he looks down at a map of the district in one hoof and his folder in the other. After a moment, he sighs, slumping noticeably. “...Would it have killed whoever built this pce to have some kind of organization? I can’t find any rhyme or reason to these.”

  When he gnces up, Mooncrescent is already conspicuously absent. Bolting upright and stuffing the papers into his saddlebags, Starbze looks around in arm for his younger brother, only to find him bounding up to somepony on the streets.

  “Excuse me, mister! Do you know where I can find a pony named Colr Blue? He lost something important at the depot and I was sent to make sure it was returned to him!” Mooncrescent was cheerily asking the random stranger, who regarded him with an intense look of suspicion.

  “Never heard of ‘im. Keep your distance.” The stallion replies, keeping a close hoof on his own saddlebag, walking at an uncomfortably fast pace to get away from there.

  Undeterred, Mooncrescent simply turned to the next closest pony and repeated the same line of questioning. Sighing, Starbze shakes his head and trots along after him.