The chief sat in his chair, forehooves supporting his chin as he laid it on them. The rain had started falling again, right after Scootaloo had finished with her testimony. His eyes looking down at the filly, who sat in one of the vacant chairs in the meeting room. Mayor Mare, and Carrot Top had gone silent as well while the other officer was tapping a rearhoof onto the floor, seemingly trying to think in time with the beats on the floor. Scootaloo had, on the other hoof, calmed down and glanced at the four ponies. The officers at the door had not uttered a word since the meeting had began, and were obediently guarding the door.
The rain certainly isn’t helping us think. Of all the time it could rain, it happens now. Mayor Mare mentally facehoofed. Looking over at the wet-coated filly, Mayor Mare couldn’t help but wonder what had gone wrong. The ponynapping of the other ponies had gone well, so why is a simple and helpless filly like Scootaloo still here with us? This either meant that the perpetrator was getting sloppier in his work, or was probably trying out other methods to catch ponies. Mayor Mare looked shifted her gaze over to the chief, who was still keeping his chin on his hooves. I’m sure everypony at this table would be doing the same. But only the chief had done so. Mayor Mare let out a sigh, which caught the attention of everypony in the room.
The chief looked up. “Is something wrong?”
Mayor Mare looked over at Scootaloo, who was looking back at her. Mayor Mare went through everything Scootaloo had said ten minutes ago.
“Somepony tried to ponynap me!” Scootaloo exclaimed. The smell of rain wafted into the room as the two officers shut the doors of the meeting room. Mayor Mare, along with the other officers in the meeting room stared at Scootaloo, eyes wide. Scootaloo coughed a bit, took in a breath, and sat down in a vacant seat next to Mayor Mare. The chief ran his eyes over the filly, with a look of concern on his face. The filly was fine save for a few lacerations and bruises on her hooves and abdomen.
Carrot Top was first to pop a question. “Would you mind running that by us one more time?” Carrot Top asked, her voice laced with uncertainty. Scootaloo grunted, but answered.
“I said somepony tried to ponynap me! How could you not hear that?”
The chief spoke, voice full of authority. “Now Scoots...” Scootaloo hated when ponies called her that, but listened anyway. “If you came here to report about an attempted ponynapping on you, then I expect you to do it politely. That way it’ll be easier for us to take in your statement. You understand, right?”
The filly looked down at the reports on the table. The officers had made a mistake marking the case file as “Serial Ponynapper”, from the look on Scootaloo’s face. But before any of the officers could react, Scootaloo swallowed and nodded. If I’m not the only one.....
The other officer at the table, her mane a streak of two colours, Burgundy and a light pink, gave a reassuring smile to the filly, hoping that she would not make it any harder on any of the officers. The two at the door stood their ground, somewhat unmoved by what the five were discussing. In fact, if it weren’t for the gazes of the two ponies, the chief could have sworn that the two were daydreaming.
The chief reached out to grab the file on the table. Setting it in front of him, he gestured for Scootaloo to speak. Scootaloo didn’t understand gestures that well. Officer Roseluck spoke for the chief. “You may start your statement now.”
Scootaloo nodded. At first Scootaloo stuttered, throwing and replacing words that she wasn’t sure how to use. A few moments passed before Scootaloo began.
“Lets see... You know the kind of stuff me and the Cutie Mark Crusaders get into? This evening we were supposed to get together for another one of our....adventures again. So I was on my way to the CMC clubhouse in Sweet Apple Acres. I was actually hoping to see Dash but she wasn’t around the whole day, which is kinda strange.” Scootaloo shrugged. She paused for a moment before continuing. “Anyway, while I was looking up at the sky, I heard somepony approaching behind. I thought it was Applebloom, I mean, after all, it’s her farm anyway. So I thought I’d just let her sneak up on me. She really doesn’t sneak that well.” Scootaloo exhaled. The officers waited for Scootaloo to continue as she continued looking for words.
Scootaloo tapped a few times on the meeting room table before continuing. “Applebloom would normally try to tackle me, so when I was taken from behind I really didn’t expect somepony else. But when whoever tackled me didn’t let up, I knew something was wrong. Normally Applebloom would let go after tackling me, but who ever was on me didn’t let up. So I did what had to. I bucked whoever it was in the face and I sped off. I didn’t bring my scooter along with me.”
The fact that Scootaloo hadn’t brought her scooter with her was surprising itself. Roseluck finally broke the silence.
“Scootaloo....”
Scootaloo looked up. “Hmm?”
“Why weren’t you on your scooter, like you usually are, when you went to your clubhouse in Sweet Apple Acres?”
The little orange filly had been expecting the question, and answered back quickly. “The wheels on my scooter were punctured. The CMC and I had a little road trip last week, if you didn’t remember.” The four ponies around the table knew very well. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were trying out daredevil stunt in another attempt to get their cutie marks. Applebloom was in a straight jacket over a barrel of water, Sweetie Belle was sewing a dress blindfolded and Scootaloo was to jump over a few nails laid out on the road. Neither of the stunts turned out well.
Mayor Mare raised a question, hoping to get an answer to something she had been wondering about for so long. “Scootaloo, did you recognize who it was that tried to ponynap you?”
Scootaloo went quiet for a short while, sifting through her thoughts as Mayor Mare and the officers waited for a response. However, what Scootaloo said next brought Mayor Mare’s hopes down.
“Nope, I didn’t really recognize the pony. All I can tell is that whoever it was, it was a mare.” The chief’s ears perked up upon hearing that last sentence. Immediately, cutting off what Scootaloo was about to say, the chief asked Scootaloo, “How sure are you that it was a mare?” Scootaloo stared at the chief. She stared hard. Scootaloo hated being interrupted, and the chief had just done something that Scootaloo wouldn’t forgive. But seeing as the chief was just doing his job, Scootaloo let it slide. “Because when I bucked whoever it was, it let out a yelp, as if the pony wasn’t expecting such a thing. Now stallions would expect the unexpected, so the sudden yelp from other bucking really gave her away.”
The chief was ecstatic, from the look in his eyes, but was hiding it rather well. Not well enough to hide from me. Mayor Mare turned to Scootaloo. “Anything else you could tell us about the pony? Size, mane, coat colour, mane colour and what type of pony she was?”
“To be honest, I didn’t really turn back to look at whoever it was that tried to ponynap me. I just knew that I had to get out of there, so that’s what I did. I galloped as far as I could. Though my wings can’t help me fly yet, they really do add a little thrust when you’re galloping away.” Scootaloo shrugged again. “Thats how I keep getting awesome air on my scooter, though I guess I wasn’t fast enough to avoid the nails on the path. So yeah, forgive me. I can’t really tell much about whoever it was that tried to ponynap me.” Scootaloo pointed a hoof at the chief. “You mind sliding that over here? I just wanna have a quick look.”
The chief, sensing that somehow keeping secrets at this point would be useless, complied. He slid the file across the maple meeting table, the surface of the table still perfect, the same way they had bought it, but this one was much older. Even so, the file slid with ease towards Scootaloo. Mayor Mare suddenly felt a wave of panic go through her. Did the chief remove Rainbow Dash’s report yet? If Scootaloo sees that, she’ll freak! Mayor Mare glanced over at the chief, who was grinning and giving her one of those “I’ve got you covered” smiles. The Mayor sighed as Scootaloo went through the missing ponies file.
“You three continue, I’m going to go notify the town about whatever it is that’s happening now.” Mayor Mare stood up, and proceeded to walk toward the double doors as the three continued asking questions related to the events of that day.
Berry went through her bag, looking for something she was sure the missing unicorn had taken. And indeed, the “key that unlocks all” was missing. Berry cursed as she bucked one of the walls in the cafeteria. She had trusted him to stick around and help the group, but now he himself is missing. He had wanted to get out of his vest, but after obtaining the key he ran away. What’s worse being that the unicorn had taken the golden key with him. She gave a sigh as Twilight trotted over to her, wiping any tears leftover from her eyes.
“We have to get that key back.” Was all that came out of Berry’s mouth. Twilight nodded, once more rubbing her eyes. Stepping outside the cafeteria, the two were met by Colgate, who was lurking in the shadows of a pillar, just in case anypony came by. She stepped out of the shadows smiling at Berry and Twilight. Behind her, in the dark, were the harpoon guns taken from the assembly hall.
“Where’s Rarity?” Berry and Twilight looked around, only to be answered by Colgate, “She went upstairs to check on Dash. Did you guys make it through?”
Twilight stared at Colgate, hoping to Celestia that Colgate was joking. However, Berry was the one who answered for Twilight, in a much more respectful tone than Twilight would have ever used. “We’ve lost her.”
Colgate nodded, looking over at Twilight. “I thought you knew how to revive the dead?” Twilight glared at Colgate, as if to say that Colgate should have known from the start that certain spells had their own rules in order to activate.
“The spell is only effective if it was casted within five minutes of anypony’s death. But by the time we got to Pinkie, she was already long gone.” Twilight sniffled back a tear and once more rubbed her eyes. Twilight shook her head, and looked at Berry. “Don’t forget your saddlebag, Berry.” Which was in fact what happened. Berry had been so busy coping with what was going on that she had forgotten to take her saddlebags. She turned to go to the kitchen to get her saddlebags as Twilight and Colgate further discussed.
“You mean to tell me that the dead can come to life under certain conditions?” Colgate inquired.
Twilight sighed. This is going to take a while...
One floor above them, the unicorn that had betrayed Berry was walked around in the hallway, hoping to find a way to break into one of the offices on the floor. The stallion heard the sound of crying a floor above and decided to go against bucking at a door in order to not attract attention. The unicorn carefully stopped in front of an office marked “7”. On the door, a warning note was pasted, warning that anypony who didn’t follow the rules would have to suffer the consequences. As far as I’m concerned, what’s the worst that could actually happen? The door, like the door in the cafeteria’s freezer, had a numeric lock in place and required a combination of numbers to get through. The unicorn casted an orange aura-ed spell on the lock, and the numbers started moving slowly.
The stallion waited in front of the door, the spell unlocking the door. He stretched his hooves out a bit. Am I glad to be out of that vest. He didn’t really plan on stealing the key and running away with it just for his own use, but since nopony was looking at him at the time, he took his chance and stole Berry’s key from one of her saddlebags when she was busy helping Twilight crack the numeric code. He had sneaked out of the cafeteria without anypony noticing and considered himself lucky.
He had escaped his trap, and had just escaped a group of potentially dangerous ponies. The stallion smiled. What’s next? I can probably get myself out of anything now that I’m free of that blasted vest. The sound of a click on the other side of the door got his attention. The door swung open, and what happened next took him by surprise.
A cannon was in place, much like the office one floor above. It was propped up on a stand, with a string traveling around from the door, to a pulley on the floor, to a string tied around the trigger of the cannon. However, the cannon was much thinner and longer and was separated into two barrels. Inscribed on the side of the cannon, were the words “shotgun”. This didn’t surprise the unicorn. He had seen such a thing before.
What he wasn’t expecting was the sound of a boom filling the whole hallway, and quite possibly the whole building, the feeling of pellets being embedded into his torso and neck and the free flow of blood cascading down his neck as he collapsed on the floor. It seems that my game is over. The unicorn lay there, finally accepting the fact that he wasn't meant to live for what he's done.