Chapter 3: The Mystery Begins
Celestia's sun had barely risen the next morning when Rainbow Dash flew out of her house and headed straight for Twilight's castle. The image of the masked pony from the night before had been on her mind all night, and as a result, she could hardly sleep at all. During that time too, she also came up with the idea that maybe her friends had come up with this new masked pony. After all, they were the ones that created the Mysterious Mare Do Well some moons back, but if they are responsible for this pony, then why?
Twilight was still sleeping in her room and dreaming of organizing books in a magical library. In her dream, she was about to put away her one hundred millionth book when she heard some banging. It woke her from her slumber, "ohh, just when I was getting to the best part."
She let out a big yawn and got out of bed. The banging had also woken up Spike and Starlight Glimmer.
"Who would be knocking at the door this early?" Starlight groaned as she strecthed her legs. "It's far too early for anypony to be up."
The banging continued, until Spike walked down the hallway and towards the front doors, "hold your horseshoes, I'm coming!" he called sleepily. "This had better be good."
He opened the door and Rainbow Dash zoomed in, "I need to talk with everypony. Please go to the throne room, I'll be right back." And before Twilight could say anything, Rainbow Dash was gone in a flash.
"Alright, let's go to the throne room. Maybe we can get a quick nap before she returns," yawned Twilight.
"Doubt it, with how fast Rainbow Dash can go, she could be back in ten seconds flat."
Twilight rolled her eyes, and still rather sleepy, all three of them made their way to the throne room.
It wasn't just Rainbow Dash who was up bright and early. The police chief was up early too, looking at some of the files he had recieved from the Wonderbolts headquarters, and other police officers from across Equestria.
"This is just like those times. Criminal activity happens in the middle of the night, but in many cases, an unknown pony appears on the scene and starts beating down on the criminals."
"And it's definetly happened more than once," said one of the other officers. "Cloudsdale, Baltimare, Manehatten, this has happened everywhere, and nopony has gotten any sighting of the attacker."
"Not quite," said Silver Badge.
He pulled out a photograph from the Dodge Junction file and showed it to the officer. It showed of a masked pony with a big floppy hat and a cape flapping in the breeze of the night.
"Could that be the pony that's been beating down on criminals over the last two nights?"
"Could be," nodded the police chief. "But we won't know for sure until we see this pony for ourselves. We'll have to work late tonight and see if we can spot them."
"Then what do we do? Do we try to arrest them?"
"I suppose, they are beating up on ponies in the middle of the night. On the other hoof," the chief continued, "they are doing us a favour. After all, this pony has caught these crooks twice, and even returned the goods. Plus as you will see in all the files, no police force has ever tried to arrest this pony."
"Except the city of Fillydelphia," corrected the police officer. "They tried to arrest this pony on more than one occassion, but failed everytime. They said and I quote 'nopony takes the law into their own hooves'."
"Perhaps, but look to Princess Twilight and her friends. When trouble comes around, they're always first on the scene, yet we never arrest them. I think the Fillydelphia police chief wanted to arrest this pony just to make a name for himself. I mean, you've met the pony right? He's always craving attention."
"Does he ever?" chuckled the officer and rolled his eyes.
"No, I think if we spot this pony, I just want to talk to them and see why they are sneaking around in the night."
At that moment, another officer walked into the office, "I hate to bother you at this time, but the mayor is asking for answers. She says ponies are starting to get nervous."
Silver Badge sighed, "I'll talk with them once Celestia's sun rises. Tell the mayor to arrange for a meeting outside town hall."
The second officer nodded and walked off. The first officer looked back to the chief, "but Sir, we don't have enough info to give."
"I know, but we got to reassure them that they are safe in this town." He sighed and leaned back in his chair, "that mayor has got such terrible timing."
After ten minutes, Rainbow Dash had managed to get everypony to the map room. They were tired and a little grumpy, except for Pinkie Pie. She was tired, but she was, as always, her cheerful self.
"Why would Dashie call for us this early?" yawned Rarity. "A pony needs her beauty sleep."
"If this is for us to see a new trick of her's, I'm going to buck her in the flank," grumbled Applejack.
Rainbow Dash finally emerged into the room, "I'm sorry for getting you ponies up early. Normally I would wait until the sun has risen and we're all wide awake, but this was too important to keep waiting."
"This better not be for a high flying stunt," said Applejack.
"No, it's not that. Now listen, last night, I was taking Scootaloo back to her place when the two of us came across the sight of some bad ponies stealing from one of the shops here in Ponyville. I was about ready to go in and stop them, when all of the sudden, this other pony showed up and started beating up on them. I mean, you should've seen it, this pony was jumping around all over the place, throwing punches and kicking them hard, it was like watching an action packed movie. Then later, they tied up the criminals, left the goods and disappeared into the night."
The six ponies and one dragon looked to her firmly.
"What?"
"Are you sure you and Scootaloo saw that last night, or were you dreaming of beating up Changelings again?" Applejack asked angerily. "Cause if this was a dream, then we're leaving."
"It was no dream. Just to prove it, I brought along Scootaloo. Tell them Scootaloo."
Rainbow looked over her shoulder, but the little pegasus was asleep.
"I think you were dreaming Rainbow Dash," yawned Twilight.
"No, no, no, it was for real. Scootaloo!" she shouted. Scootaloo woke up with a start, "come on, tell them the truth, did you or did you not see a masked pony beating up on criminals last night?"
Scootaloo yawned, "yeah we did. I had been watching Rainbow Dash pick out the next leader for the weather team, then as she took me home, we saw it all."
Applejack looked to Scootaloo's face. Although she was tired, Applejack could tell Scootaloo was telling the truth.
"Okay, so you did see some pony beating up on criminals last night," said Applejack. "That's nice, but couldn't this have waited till the sun was actually up?"
"Sorry but no, we haven't told you the most important part. This pony was dressed in a similar style to the Mysterious Mare Do Well."
Five of the ponies gasped and looked to each other with shocked looks. Starlight though was confused, "who is the Mysterious Mare Do Well?"
Twilight looked back to Scootaloo, who had fallen asleep, then she whispered the answer.
"The Mysterious Mare Do Well was a masked pony hero that we created many moons ago. You see, Rainbow Dash had done some heroic deeds around Ponyville, but the fame of becoming a hero was going straight to her head."
"Like most things," muttered Applejack.
"Hey, I heard that!" snapped Rainbow Dash, which woke Scootaloo up.
"I'm too tired, can I go home now?" she yawned.
"Of course you can. Spike, why don't you take Scootaloo back home?" suggested Twilight. Spike nodded and walked off with Scootaloo back to her place. Now Twilight could speak with normal volume, "she was going on about being the best, and even having Spike write up a story about her. In the end, we created the Mysterious Mare Do Well to teach her that a real hero doesn't brag."
"Though nowadays we all agree that we should've just pulled her aside and talked with her," said Fluttershy. The other ponies all nodded in agreement with that.
"Hey, I did learn a lesson from that day and I don't brag when I save lives. You do get that, right?" she asked as she raised an eyebrow.
"Where are you going with this Rainbow?" Rarity asked.
"I'm asking, are any of you involved with this masked pony I saw just last night?!"
"How could you even ask that?" Rarity asked in complete shock. "We all agreed it wasn't our best decision, and even I didn't like the costumes after we created the hero. It's fine for a comic book world, but not here."
"Besides, we got no reason to do this again," said Fluttershy. "You've matured alot since that time, and you already got the message as you just said."
"So, none of you are connected with this masked pony?"
"Certainly not," they all said in unison.
"Oh. Well then, I feel really stupid for ever suggesting that you guys would do this again. I'm sorry."
"It's okay Rainbow Dash, given how things went the last time, it shouldn't really come as a surprise," said Twilight kindly. "But tell us, what did this pony actually look like?"
"Well the pony had a bigger hat than any of yours, they had a scarf wrapped around their neck, a big floppy cape and had a belt wrapped around their waist."
"Definetly different from our outfits," said Applejack.
"Indeed," nodded Rarity. "I would never even think of adding a scarf to an outfit like that." She shuddered just thinking about it.
"What did your old outfits look like?" Starlight asked curiously. "Can I see them?"
"Afraid not Starlight," answered Fluttershy. "We all give up our outfits to Twilight so she could make sure nopony ever found them."
Using her magic, Twilight lifted a box out off a very tall shelf and brought it down. She opened the lid and pulled out a burnt purple hat, "this is all that is left of the original Mysterious Mare Do Well costumes. But I can tell you, it was purple and had a cape. However, it was just for show, not fighting crime like this pony that Rainbow and Scootaloo saw."
"Maybe somepony got inspired by our work and decided to create their own hero," suggested Fluttershy.
"Perhaps, but who would want to do that?" asked Rarity. But nopony had any answers.
Later on, Rainbow Dash had finished another practise session with the Wonderbolts and was returning back to Ponyville. She was quite worn out, the lack of sleep and flying about made her just want to get something from Sugarcube Corner and then go home to read a Daring Do book.
"Which one should I read tonight? Daring Do and the Trek to the Terrifying Tower? Or Daring Do and the Marked Thief of Mara..." but her thoughts were interupted as she saw a large group of ponies heading for town hall. "Hello, what's going on down there?" She flew off to find out for herself.
When she arrived, she found just about everypony in Ponyville at town hall and shouting.
"Is our town overrun by criminals?!"
"Who is this pony in the middle of the night attacking them?! Are we going to get attacked next?!"
"Why aren't the police force stopping these guys?!"
Rainbow Dash flew down towards Fluttershy, who was with Angel Bunny, "hey guys, what's going on around here?"
"Seems everypony in town is getting nervous about the previous two evening's attempted robberies, and the pony you were telling us about this morning. They want answers."
The Mayor stepped out of Town Hall, followed by the police chief.
"Alright everypony, please calm down!" the Mayor called out firmly to them. But some were still talking. Thankfully, Twilight Sparkle was there and using her magic, was able to help the mayor's voice be heard. This silenced the ponies, "good, now our own Police Chief, Silver Badge will answer any questions you have."
"Thank Miss Mayor," said Silver Badge. "Well in answer to the first question, we can say for sure we are not being overrun by criminals. If we were, would any of you ponies even be standing out here?"
All the ponies had to admit that Silver Badge had a point.
"As for the pony in the middle of the night, we are a hundred percent sure they are not going to attack innocent ponies. We have gone through reports from other cities and towns, and they all speak of similar events to these, and none mentions innocent ponies getting hurt. For the fourth question asked, we are trying to talk with the criminals to learn why they are here in Ponyville, but they seem to have taken a vow of silence. We will however be working late into the night to make sure none of your homes or businesses get robbed or attacked again." He looked back to the mayor and nodded.
"And to make sure of that, Ponyville will now have a curfew. Everypony must be back in their homes by nine thirty, no exceptions."
"But what about late night deliveries?" asked Mrs Cake, "We do get those sometimes."
"Yeah, and some construction work has to get done in the middle of the night too!" called Hard Hat, a male construction pony.
"You'll just have to get your work done before nine thirty," answered the mayor. "As for deliveries, you'll have to talk with suppliers and get them delivered before then. It's for your own good, we wouldn't want any of you to get hurt in the middle of the night, now would we?"
"No I guess not, that's a good point," many of the ponies said to each other.
"Anypony that is caught out in the middle of the night," went on Silver Badge. "Will either be given a warning, or taken to the station."
Night time soon arrived. By Nine thirty, all the ponies in town were in their homes and waiting for the next day to arrive. The only ones that were out were the police officers, "alright everypony, keep your eyes open at all times. We do not want these criminals to get away with any crimes, and I still want to talk with this masked pony."
"Yes Sir," they all said.
They split up, with two officers patrolling each street. What none of them realised was that above them on a house roof were Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer.
"Remind me, how in the name of Celestia we got talked into this?" Starlight whispered to Twilight.
"It's because you guys are just as curious as I am," Rainbow answered before Twilight could say a single word.
"Yes, but we're going to get into trouble if we're caught. I think we should just go back to the castle and stay there for the night."
"Will you keep it down? With you talking so much, we are going to get caught," Rainbow whispered.
Twilight spoke with a whisper to Starlight, "we're just tagging along to make sure Rainbow doesn't get into too much trouble. Plus, she is right, I am curious to see who would dress up in a similar style to the Mysterious Mare Do Well.."
"Okay, if you're sure about this."
They waited and waited, and then waited some more. However, the only activity they saw was from police officers having conversions about the Wonderbolts show in Vanhoover.
"I wish they were doing another one here," said one officer, "it would be awesome to see them."
"Yeah, but we get to see them all the time. The ponies of Vanhoover don't."
"True. Oh well, at least I'll get to see them during my vacation."
"You mean if you go on vacation. Silver Badge may keep you working until this matter is sorted out."
As Midnight approached, there was no activity whatsoever. Starlight was falling asleep, and more than once, she nearly slid off the roof. Twilight let out a big yawn, "okay, I think that will do it for tonight. We should really get back to our homes and rest up, especially Rainbow. You do have that show coming up."
Rainbow sighed, "yeah I guess you're right. Okay let's..." but she was interupted by the sounds of hoofsteps. She looked down to the streets and saw three shady characters walking along. "Follow them."
"Whoa Rainbow Dash, hold up there." Rainbow was about to take flight, but Twilight grabbed hold of her tail and pulled her back.
"Will everypony stop grabbing my tail?!" she said angerily. Twilight placed a hoof over Rainbow's mouth.
The shady characters looked around, but could see nothing, so they carried on. "Rainbow Dash, we're only here to watch, not take part in the action."
Rainbow smacked Twilight's hoof away, "I know that, I just want to see if the masked pony will show up at...wherever they're going."
Before Twilight could stop her, Rainbow Dash had already taken off. She sighed and looked back to Starlight, "guess we better follow her."
"Guess so," yawned Starlight. "But after this, can we please go back to the castle?"
"Of course we can." Twilight nodded, then let out a big yawn. "Believe me, I'm tired too."
Since using her magic would only alert everypony of them spying, Starlight climbed onto Twilight's back and silently, they took off into the sky and after Rainbow Dash.