They arrived at the entrance to the Everfree forest and Charlie immediately walked in without an ounce of hesitation. Twilight cringed a bit but followed him.
"Where's the crime scene?" he asked, looking around.
"There's a clearing on the right side of the path soon-ish, that's it. The EBI thinks the pony hung himself, but we've yet to even get identification on him."
"Unicorn?"
"Pegasus."
"You have flying horses?"
"Flying ponies. But yes."

They arrived at the crime scene and saw a pony with a green coat and a pale yellow mane, his wings drooped down to the sides. He had on a blue and yellow skin-tight shirt that came up to and covered his cheeks. His cutie mark seemed to be three red lines of three different lengths.
"Odd cutie mark," Charlie noted in his thoughts, continuing to look around. There was a coil of thick, white rope – the same kind of rope that was used to hang the pony from the tree. There were a few large scrapes across the ground and a few vaguely ovular shapes pressed into the ground below those scrapes. Near the bushes at the edge of the clearing, away from the pathway, there was a short piece of rebar. His eyes quickly darted between the scrapes across the ovular depressions in the dirt and the rebar. A series of equations ran through his head.

"Twilight!" he exclaimed, rushing over. He nearly lost his balance – he wasn't used to running yet – but he hardly cared.
"Ugh… could you stop thinking so loudly?! I can't comprehend a single word of it and I can't concentrate!"
"But Twilight, I think I've got it!"
"Take over," Twilight said to a few ponies in white vests with blue letters spelling out "EBI" on the fronts. They nodded and said, "Yes, Princess." Twilight followed Charlie over to where he'd been standing previously – at the edge of the pathway.

"Okay, what is it? He's a pegasus – that's hardly my area of expertise. I was checking the rope over there – it was handled in somepony's mouth, that's how non-unicorns carry things most of the time. If we could only find something else we know he touched, we might be able to find out the pony who handled the rope, therefore the pony that killed him. But as I said, that's hardly my area of expertise."
"Doesn't need to be. See those scrapes across the ground? They're fairly deep – too deep for someone to have done it with a wing-tip or… a horn or a… a hoof. But see that piece of rebar over there? I'd have to do some calculations and measure the rebar as it relates to the depth of those gashes and I might be able to see if that rebar is the thing that made those gashes."
"But what does that piece of rebar making those gashes have to do with…"
"See these ovular markings that were obviously made BEFORE the gashes? They're most likely hoof prints. The pony who made those gashes was probably trying to cover their hoof prints, probably with that rebar over there. As such, if we can identify if those gashes were made by that rebar…"
"We'll be able to see if the last pony who handled that rebar was the same pony who handled the rope!"
"Exactly."

~Meanwhile…

"Eppes." Charlie's brother Don answered his phone. He only listened for a few seconds before nodding and closing it.
"What is it, Don?" his father asked.
"We have a suicide… they guess. Guy hung himself in a forest. He's a champion runner in-training; we can tell that by his costume… we're still trying to identify him. We've got the Feds on the scene already. I'll be there as well, let's see what I can do. Hey… where's Charlie? He might be helpful in this."
"Charlie's gone. Somebody called T.S. took him for a week."
"What?! What for?!"
"Don, they said not to worry. Whoever it is has things under control." He showed Don the note.
"…I still don't trust this T.S."
"I'd be heavily surprised if you trusted anybody you hadn't met."
"I'll go investigate this, but if I don't get word from Charlie…"
"You'll send out the full SWAT team."
"Exactly."

Don arrived at the forest and climbed out of his car. He saw the signature yellow tape, from a tree hung the body of a blonde, slender man with a track suit on.
"This is Clyde Dachel. He's an up-and-coming track runner; he's been sprinting since age 4. We're still working on a profile for him," another agent by the name of David informed him.
There were a set of footprint-like markings on the ground, but they were covered by a set of gashes. It looks suspicious, and something told Don that this must be crucial evidence, but Charlie would've been so much better at this. There wasn't really anything that jumped out at him other than that. The gashes were odd for being made by a branch, which was probably what it was. However, if whoever's tracks these were had any sense, he'd have long since thrown the branch away or into a river or something, so they didn't actually have any evidence.

And so he was about to call up the person who was closest to Charlie and might have known how to solve it when he actually received a call. The number wasn't known, so he asked,
"Hello?"
"You're Charlie's brother, correct?"
"Uh… yeah."
"You may have read my note. I'm T.S. It stands for Twilight Sparkle, that's my name. I've taken your brother to Equestria."
"You're T.S."
"Mm-hmm."
"And where is Equestria, exactly?"
"Parallel universe. I called because I need to pull somepony- er, somebody else into my world. I'd like your permission and her location."
"You won't have my permission until I hear from Charlie."
Then Charlie's voice came onto the phone. It was oddly staticy but Don could hear his brother confirm all his questions as to if he came to 'Equestria' voluntarily and to that T.S. was treating him just fine, as well as a few remarks that he could handle things himself. When Twilight came back on, she asked,
"Do I have your permission now?"
"Who is it you want?"
"I believe her name is Amita."

~Fifteen minutes later, at Amita's…

The phone rang. She picked it up.
"Hello?" she asked.
"Hey, Amita? You know where Charlie is?" Don's voice came over the phone.
"No… I haven't seen him since yesterday. Why?"
"Somebody called Twilight Sparkle pulled him into a… parallel… universe I think… and now she's asking to bring you there as well."
"Who's Twilight Sparkle? It's certainly an unusual name."
"She didn't say. She's from Equestria, she told me."
"Who or what is Equestria?"
"Equestria is that parallel universe. She's investigating a case there, from what she told me it's on the suspicious suicide of a per- uh, pony called Cloud Dasher. They're all ponies over there. Seems incredibly similar to a case I just got. It's a suspicious suicide of a person named Clyde Dachel."

"Names are similar, what else?"
"Well, on each scene there's a set of prints leading toward the body that are covered in scratches. Charlie thinks he figured out what made the scratches in that world, but could it be a coincidence that they're so similar?"
"Not very likely… And actually, as much as going into another universe might be odd, it might help me understand your case. I'll just ask Twilight Sparkle to bring me right back so I can note the similarities on your case personally."
"Sounds good, Amita. I'll try to redial Twilight Sparkle and tell her about it."
"Okay, thanks Don."

~Meanwhile…

"Who were you talking to?" asked Charlie.
"I wasn't talking. I was thinking," Twilight replied.
"Well you were thinking pretty loudly… hey, is that magic?"
"Yes! You're getting the hang of it – Great!"
"Who were you thinking to?"
"Your brother."
"Why?"
"He told me that Amita agreed to come help with this."
"She is? She has? She's coming? When?"
"…Now."

As if on command a pony figure appeared out of thin air in a cloud of magenta-colored smoke and coughed a little as the smoke dissipated.
"…Charlie?"
"Amita?"
"Yeah. Am I… a horse?"
"Pony," corrected Twilight and Charlie at once.
Amita looked over her hooves and her light blue coat and dark violet hair.
"Is my hair supposed to be purple?"
"I suppose," Twilight said, "I'm not in charge of your physical appearance in the terms of dual-universe translation processes."
"Is anypony?"
"No, Charlie, I don't think so."

Amita tried to take a few steps and nearly fell over.
"I know, it takes getting used to," Charlie said.
"Last I checked, your hair wasn't black."
"You're right. As Twilight put it, it's the fault of the dual-universe translation processes."
"All ponies are this… colorful?"
"Yes, Amita, all ponies are this colorful. I need you to help out here, though."
"Wait a moment. You're Twilight Sparkle?"
"Yes."
"Well, Twilight Sparkle, there's something that may concern you. That…" she pointed to the body, "Is Cloud Dasher? We have a similar case involving one Clyde Dachel. He's a runner, up and coming."

"Cloud is pretty obviously a Wonderbolts Academy trainee. Or at the very least, was. We're trying to contact a next of kin," Twilight said, pointing to the costume.
"I'm assuming the Wonderbolts Academy is some sort of athletic thing," Charlie said. Twilight nodded.
"It's an elite flying academy, dedicated to weed out who can and will become Wonderbolts," Twilight explained, "You have to be in good standing with the Wonderbolts team themselves to get in to the Academy, then you have to work your tail off to get to the top. After the week spent in the Academy, a leader is chosen. Said leader must take a written test on Wonderbolts history as the next step to becoming accepted into the Wonderbolts themselves."

"So the Wonderbolts are really good," Charlie said, "And pegasus ponies have to work hard to get there."
"Precisely."
"So, Twilight… what did you need me for?"
"I needed you because you might be able to tell us the probability that those scratches there came from that rebar over there. Also, tell me whatever else you find out."
"I can try," Amita said, carefully walking over to where the scratches were and proceeding to look at the rebar.
Charlie levitated the rebar in front of his face and said, "Hmm… Amita, can you tell me what these are?"
He pointed to but didn't touch a few small dents in the surface of the rebar. He levitated it in front of her face so she could look at it closer.

"Those seem to be… bite marks! But who on Earth would bite rebar?"
"Somepony who can't hold it up with magic," Charlie replied, keeping the rebar in his magical grasp as he galloped back over to Twilight.
"There are bite marks at the top of this rebar."
"Amita figured that out?"
"Yeah."
"That means we can rule out a unicorn as the possible suspect, since any unicorn would prefer not to leave any evidence if possible. That leaves earth ponies and pegasi."

"Actually, it only leaves pegasi," Amita replied, having just as carefully walked back over.
"How?" Twilight asked.
"From what I gather, pegasi can fly. To hang this pony, you'd need to be able to either fly or hoist the rope up by some other means. See how high up it is?"
"Magic," Twilight said.
"But since he grabbed the rebar in his mouth, he's obviously not a unicorn," Charlie pointed out, "So what Amita's saying is that the pony who hung Cloud is obviously a pegasus."
"Makes sense," Twilight replied. Everypony else nodded.