//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Where There is Smoke // by Fizzy Orange //------------------------------// Trixie was already sitting at a table outside Berry’s when Pokey Pierce arrived. She had a glass of a blue soda mix sitting on the table next to her and she was enjoying a muffin, the spoils of her expedition to Ponyville’s post office. Pokey, for his part, had only streamers and confetti decorating his bowler hat to show for his trouble. He also got to eat a cupcake but he wasn’t about to let Trixie know that. He sat down across from the mare, under the shade of the table’s parasol. Using his shimmering silver magic he took off his hat and shook it free of party paraphernalia. “So, how’s Pinkie Pie?” asked Trixie, before taking a bite of her muffin. “Ridiculously energetic,” the stallion answered with a sigh. “Only ridiculously? She must be under the weather,” mused Trixie. “Did you manage to get something from her or did you just stammer while being lost in her sparkling green eyes?” “That joke’s getting a little thin, Trixie. Besides, I cantered down that road in the past and all I’ve got out of it was a face full of pink taco,” said Pokey, shaking his head. “Okay, I did not need to know that!” said Trixie, turning away in disgust. Pokey’s forelegs went up in indignation. “I meant that literally! Our only date at Mexicolt Delight ended with a food fight!” Trixie sighed in relief, but then she blinked in confusion. “Wait… since when are tacos pink?” “Since Pinkie likes frosting on her tacos. Pink frosting.” “Pink frosting? That pony is nuts,” said Trixie, earning a nod from Pokey. “Everypony knows you put chocolate frosting on tacos,” she added, this time only getting Pokey to recoil in disgust. “Anyway, I don’t want to know anything about anything you do in private. You or anypony else!” she finished, sticking out her tongue in disgust. The stallion rolled his eyes at his boss’ antic before he continued the conversation. “Anyway, Pinkie didn’t know of anypony new in town, or any other orange pegasus. And for your information her eyes are blue, not green. Was your little trip to the post office anymore successful than my journey to Sugarcube Corner?” “I solved the case of the missing breakfeast,” said Trixie, pointing to the muffin floating in a shimmer of blue light by her head. “It’s a new recipe I suggested to Ditzy a while back. I call it the word chain muffin. It has bell pepper, peppercorn, and cornflower in it!” “Okay, I did not need to know that!” said Pokey, turning green around the gills. “How can you eat that?” “Simple: Like this,” said the mare, taking a bite and taking her time to slowly chew in plain view of her assistant. “You two comedians should take your act on tour, you’d make a fortune,” said Raindrops, landing beside the table with an amused smirk on her face. “That’s what I said yesterday!” replied Trixie in mocked outrage. Pokey chuckled “Well, maybe next time. We’re already playing detective today. How much have you heard Rain?” Raindrops sat down next to the two unicorns. “Enough to deduce neither of you jokers got anywhere with your little errands.” “You have sharp wit my friend. Trixie should take lessons from you,” the male unicorn replied with a chuckle. The female unicorn for her part ignored him. “Yeah, Ditzy did not know any pegasus in Ponyville matching the color of that feather. Or had seen anypony new in town either.” “Speaking of feather… The more I think about your pegasus theory, the more I think it doesn’t add up,” began Raindrops, furrowing her brow. “None of the witnesses heard anything remotely like thunder, and the skies were pretty clear. How could a pegasus start a fire using magic without a lightning bolt?” Trixie put a hoof to her chin “Can’t some pegasi actually create electricity out of thin air?” “Some masters can use friction between their body and the surrounding air to cause static build up, similar to how ion charges build up in clouds but those masters are pretty rare. I’m not sure there are more than five of those alive today. Plus that discharge would still cause a peel of thunder to be heard.” “Seems to me like Raindrops just rained on your parade, Trixie.” Trixie glared. “I didn’t see you come up with anything better, chuckle colt.” At that point a voice came from behind Trixie, making her jump in surprise. “Good morning Representative Lulamoon.” Said Serious Audit. Trixie turned to the inspector and gave him an uneasy and awkward smile. “Mister Audit! What a surprise! What brings you out here?” “I found a damaged file at town hall and I needed to double check the date from the copy in the Residency archive. I was surprised to find your office locked and empty,” said the stallion in a dry tone, casting Trixie a disapproving glare. “Well, you see…” began Trixie, a bead of sweat forming on her forehead. “We’re on important business for the sake of the people of Equestria. We are investigating the recent string of arsons,” explained Pokey. “Ponyville is too small to have a dedicated investigator so we have to fill in. Mister Audit, this is our friend Raindrops, she is one of Ponyville’s volunteer firefighter.” “Charmed,” said the inspector, giving Raindrops a courteous nod. “Isn’t this sort of work usually outsourced to licensed private investigators?” “I have a license,” said the male unicorn. “Since when?” asked Trixie and Raindrops at the same time. Pokey shrugged. “I found the form for it while cleaning up, I figured it would be fun to have a P.I. license so I sent it in.” “I heard of those arsons, so far nothing very valuable was targeted,” said Serious Audit, looking at the still flustered Trixie. “I certainly hope this is not some kind of scheme you cooked up to make Ponyville appear more dangerous than it really is. It would be insulting for both of us.” Trixie was taken aback by this sudden accusation and stammered, before being cut once again by her assistant. “Please, Trixie isn’t clever enough for that kind of scheme. Besides it would be a fairly stupid one because arsons, and compensations thereof, don’t fall under the jurisdiction of the Royal Equestrian Public Safety Commission anyway.” Raindrops chuckled. “Are you saying she’s too dumb for it or not dumb enough?” Pokey shrugged. “A little of column A and a little of column B,” he said, earning himself a killer glare from the mare in question. Serious Audit coughed politely in his hoof, interrupting Raindrops’ second bout of chuckling, and spoke up as he turned toward his briefcase “Yes quite… let’s put that matter aside for now. I have the papers I need doubled-checked here with me in my…” It took a second for everypony present to realize that Serious Audit had stopped talking mid sentence. All three ponies turned to look in the same direction as him. “What’s wrong inspect…” began Trixie, only to stop as well. Perched on Inspector Audit’s briefcase was a peculiar bird. It was small, not much bigger than a sparrow, bright orange with a red tail and crest, and sported a ridiculously oversized beak that would have looked more at home on an adult parrot than the chick this appeared to be. The bird sat there, staring with eyes that looked like two golden orbs. The ponies and bird seemed to stare at each other for quite a while, but in reality it was only about four or five seconds. Suddenly, with a loud squawk, the bird seemed to explode in a wave of fire that ignited the briefcase. At once the ponies reacted and spoke up. “My briefcase!” cried Serious Audit. “Our arsonist!” shouted Pokey. “It’s a phoenix!” gasped Trixie. “Grab it!” called Raindrops. Pokey was the first to react to that order, pouncing toward the little phoenix chick still perched on the burning briefcase. Sadly the bird was too fast and it flew off, leaving Pokey to leap on top of the fire. With a yelp of pain he started to roll on the ground to put out the flames. Raindrops took off as fast as she could after the little bird, Trixie in full gallop behind her. “My briefcase!” said Serious Audit again. Pokey left him the singed item and he took up the chase as well. Carrot Top was whistling a merry tune as she exited Blossomforth’s shop and headed across the street to Bon Bon’s candy shop for a little hello. Her bags were heavy with her supply of her favorite shampoo and nothing could spoil her day. That’s when a small orange bird, tiny wings beating faster than a hummingbird’s, flew like a bullet right past her. She recoiled and yelped in surprise. “Out of the way CT!” shouted Raindrops, apparently chasing the bird down the street. Raindrops flew past Carrot Top at a speed that the farmer had rarely seen her pegasus friend achieve. It was nothing compared to the likes of Rainbow Dash, or even Cloud Kicker and Thunderlane, but it was much faster than her usual speed. Carrot Top stumbled out of the way, following Raindrops with her eyes. A few seconds later Trixie, closely followed by Pokey Pierce, barreled past the earth pony at full gallop, both apologizing to her while they did so. Carrot Top was thrown off balance and landed on her haunches. She sighed and looked in the direction of the chasing trio. “Something tells me I don’t want to get involved,” she said, to nopony in particular. Despite her head start Pokey had managed to catch up to Trixie and was actually in the process of passing her by. He didn’t seem very bothered by the full gallop while Trixie herself was already panting. Trixie was never much of an active pony, preferring to spend her free time sitting down. Pokey on the other hand had the habit of running laps around town every morning, and he was quite fit compared to most unicorn stallions. He had made fun of her sedentary life style more than once, but she hadn’t really given it much thought. After all Pokey mocked her pretty much all the time, at some point it just turned into background noise. The phoenix swerved into a side street, but Raindrops was hot on its trail and didn’t get distracted. Trixie and Pokey easily kept up with her as they weaved between buildings. Trixie suddenly became aware of a piece of music coming from behind her. She chanced a glance behind her and found Pinkie Pie, phonograph strapped to her back, smiling at her. “Pinkie! What are you doing?” asked the unicorn, making sure she wasn’t running into anything. “Helping!” simply answered Pinkie. Trixie decided the best course of action was to ignore the pink pony. The trio of pursuing pony, and their pink tagalong, emerged back into the Ponyville market place where they had started the day’s investigation. The market was a lot busier by this time of the day and the phoenix flew right above the head of the various ponies. It started to release blasts of flame, setting fire to hats, tarps and other knick-knacks. Raindrops kept up with the pyromaniac bird easy enough, but Trixie and Pokey found themselves faced with a panicked and confused crowd. “We’ll never…get…through!” said Trixie, panting. “I can get through anything,” replied Pokey, as his horn began to glow with silvery light. A beam of light flew into the crowd from his horn. Surprised ponies jumped out of the way, creating a clear path for the two unicorns and Pinkie Pie. Pokey offered apologies as they galloped through the crowd. Meanwhile Raindrops spotted one of her fellow volunteers in the crowd of onlookers, just as the phoenix flew above him and nearly sent his blonde mane of fire. Lucky for the tan stallion he managed to duck in time. “Coconut, warn the fire chief!” she said, flying by at full speed. “You got it dudette!” replied the surfer pony, saluting with a hoof. Once again the chase took the bird and ponies in the back alleys between the colorful buildings of Ponyville. The bird tried once again to lose Raindrops by quickly swerving between buildings but the pegasus would have nothing of it, often threatening the bird with bodily harm for trying to burn down her town. The distance between the two was being reduced by the minute. While Raindrops wasn’t very fast, nopony could deny she had stamina. “We’re gaining! It’s getting tired!” said Pokey. Trixie wanted to reply that it wasn’t the only one getting tired, but she needed all her oxygen to keep up with her friends so she didn’t bother. Soon the merry chase ended up in a dead end. The phoenix was surprised and looked around, considering its options. That moment of hesitation was enough for Raindrops to finally catch up and grab the unruly avian in her forehoofs. “You’re not going anywhere, you little twerp!” she said. Her victory smirk was short-lived as the phoenix in her hooves exploded into flames and she let go, yelping in pain. The fur on her forelegs was immediately singed black where she had held on to the winged arsonist. The phoenix let loose a cry that sounded awfully like laughter and flew toward Raindrops’ backside, letting another burst of flame roast her rumps. The pegasus quickly turned around and swung at the phoenix, but the little bird flew under her hoof and shot by her flank, adding another burnt mark right under her wing. This pattern repeated a few more times, each miss resulting in another black mark appearing somewhere on Raindrops’ jasmine colored coat. Trixie and Pokey stopped a few feet away, confused about how to process. “Enough!” shouted Raindrops, running out of patience. This time she didn’t held anything back and her foreleg swung true. Her hoof connected with the phoenix’ little body and sent it shooting through the air like a bullet. The orange body impacted loudly against a nearby wall, cracking the wall and slumping to the ground. Raindrops gasped in shocke and dropped immediately to the ground, holding a hoof to her face. Panic, guilt and fear all flashed across her face. Her ears were flattened against her head and tears were forming on the edge of her eyes. “Oh no! No no no! I… I didn’t mean to! No no no I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!” she said, looking back and forth between the two unicorns and the bird. She took a few tentative steps toward the fallen phoenix, wishing the little bird were all right. Before she could reach it though, flames suddenly consumed its body! In a matter of a second or two, all that was left was a pile of ashes. This development put a stop to Raindrops’ guilt and fear, and replaced them with sheer confusion. Things only got worse when the ashes started to move of their own accord, flying up and turning into a twister. In a flash the ashes were replaced by a phoenix. It looked like the previous bird Raindrops had been chasing, but it was bigger, older, and with more red over its wings and belly. Its beak still looked somewhat oversized but not quite as much. It also had a fairly angry sounding call. “Oh horseapples…” simply said Raindrops, reeling backward.