Applejack walked around the city getting things for the others. It was getting late and she started to head back to the house. Along the way, she noticed a light coming from an alleyway. Curious she went into the alleyway. She saw the bright light grow.
"What in tarnations…" Applejack stated as she got engulfed by the light.
It was the next morning, the ponies were worried about Applejack.
"Has Applejack come back yet?" Rainbow Dash asked Twilight.
"No, she hasn't." Twilight replied. "I'm getting worried." Basil came in.
"I found out about something." Basil stated. "There were several disappearances throughout Coltabasso. Ponies are vanishing without a trace."
"Are we to investigate this?"
"Yes. We were supposed to investigate this and find clues to the disappearances."
"We should head out soon."
"I'll stick with you, Twilight."
"All right." She turned to the ponies. "We need to find some clues be back here by sundown." So, the ponies went out. Basil and Twilight did work and returned to the house. When they got back, only Pinkie Pie was there.
"Pinkie, you're here." Twilight said. "Where are the others?"
"I don't know." she replied. "They haven't come back yet."
"Have you found anything yet?"
"Yeah, there is a shop that has been empty for a few days. Strangely, it was closed the same days as the disappearances."
"Which shop is that?"
"It happens to be Blocks and Bricks."
"Blocks and Bricks?" Basil stated. "That's Coltabasso's most famous toy shop."
"You know about it?" Twilight Sparkle asked.
"Yeah, and I know the owner of it: Crosswood Strings. It would seem to be a good idea to visit him."
"I don't know though." So, the ponies arrive at Blocks and Bricks. Like Pinkie said, there was no business going on. There were various toys on the selves because of the time of day. It was starting to get a little creepy.
"It appears to be an innocent toy shop." Then, Pinkie saw a jack-in-a-box. Then, she turned the crank.
"There don't seem to be anything wrong here." Then, when it popped Applejack appeared as the doll in the jack-in-the-box. "Holy crap." Twilight, Basil, and Pinkie Pie looked at it. "Applejack?" The doll didn't reply but Twilight was able to tell that the toy was Applejack.
"Applejack, what happened to you?" Twilight asked. Over on another shelf, Basil found a Rainbow Dash action figure.
"What the hell…" Basil replied. "Rainbow Dash is an action figure." Unfortunately, Rarity was turned into a dress-up doll and Fluttershy was turned into a stuffed animal.
"Are our friends turned into toys?" Pinkie Pie asked. "This is flanked up."
"But I noticed something."
"What?" Twilight asked.
"His personal puppets are missing." Then, they saw a light that engulfed Pinkie Pie.
"PINKIE!" they both shouted. Then, they saw Pinkie Pie changed into a pony clown doll. They heard laughter that sounded like it came from a crazy pony.
"Who is that?" Twilight asked. A psycho pony came out and picked up the Pinkie doll. The psychotic pony was a tall red unicorn. His green mane was twisted as well as his smile. His cutie mark was a cross with strings coming down. It was blaringly obvious he has snapped.
"So…" he stated crazily constantly keeping a smile. "There are more ponies for me to play with."
"Who is…" Twilight asked.
"Holy crap, It's Crosswood. He's gone mad." Basil stated.
"You have a lot of nerve coming in my shop." He laughed like a maniac.
"What happened to you?"
"I bet you were the ones with my puppets. Where are my puppets?" He started a spell. "Where are my puppets?"
"Run for it!" Twilight and Basil ran out of the shop before the spell fired at them. The spell missed due to range issues. The two could catch their breath. "What the flank happened?"
"Does he normally act like that?"
"No."
"Then, how do we stop him from turning ponies into toys?"
"He did state 'where are my puppets?' So, maybe it has something to do with puppets." Then, a paper blew up to his face and it spooked him. "Get it off."
"Relax, it's just a paper." Basil felt a little stupid.
"Uh, I knew that." Twilight Sparkle grabbed the paper off his face and began to read it, and found a story that was fortunately relevant to their current situation.
"Crosswood Puppet Theater Show: Cancelled due to stolen puppets" She thought. Then, she replied. "Well, if he has a puppeteer cutie mark…"
"Which he does."
"That would explain why he'd go crazy."
"So, all we need to do is find his puppets and return them to him?"
"He's going through Tatuaje Psychosis or TP for short."
"That is…"
"When ponies are unable to fulfill their responsibilities for their cutie mark, their mentality breaks down and their psychotic behavior relates to the cutie mark itself."
"So, let us find this puppet thief." So, the two began searching for the thief who took away Crosswood's puppets. It took them forever to find clues. So, they decided to go to where the black market is. The black market was full of rough and tough ponies. A punk came to Twilight.
"Hey, cutie." The punk said to Twilight. "What are you doing in a place like this? How much you want?"
"Sorry, punk." Basil said. "She's taken by me."
"Damn." The punk then recognized Basil. "Wait a minute, you're Basil Rodelero XIV." Then, everyone stopped what they were doing and faced Basil. Twilight felt very uncomfortable and scared. Basil, on the other hand, was not afraid and was going to protect Twilight. "What is the son of the famous general doing here?"
"I came looking for clues on a thief and track him down and get his stuff back."
"What are you looking for?"
"We are looking for the stolen puppets of Crosswood Strings."
"Wait, you are looking for those things."
"And because he didn't have the puppets for his show. It got cancelled." The punk turned to everyone.
"All right, which one of fellows stole Crosswood's puppets?" The ponies paused. Only one, an earth pony, was looking suspicious. "Hey you, you look suspicious." The punks cracked their hooves. Nearby punks ganged up and started beating up the suspicious pony.
"Ow, that is going to leave a mark." Basil thought. The pony was beat up.
"Okay, where are the flanking puppets?" the earth pony replied.
"Quit beating me up." the punk stated.
"We will not stop beating you up until you tell us where the puppets are."
"Fine. The puppets are in a bag buried beneath the dumpster behind the toy shop."
"Oh, so that's where it is." Basil stated. "Well, that was easy." Twilight and Basil went back to the toy shop to the dumpster out back.
"Uh, it stinks back here." Twilight said. Then, she used her magic to move the dumpster. The two noticed some dirt moved like if something was buried there. "What are we going to use as a shovel?" They noticed two shovels near the wall. "Oh." Basil grabbed one of the shovels and began to dig. Twilight used her magic to shovel up the dirt. And about three feet beneath them, they found the bag with the puppets inside it. As they open the bag, they found the puppets. The main puppet in there was a marionette made of oak. It was an earth pony with a black mane and tail. Its eyes were blue. Unlike the other puppets, the marionette didn't have a cutie mark. "That's odd. That puppet doesn't have a cutie mark."
"When Crosswood becomes sane again, we can ask him." Then, they went through the front door again, hoping that Crosswood would not ambush them. Then they found him still insane.
"So, you come back to join my toy collection have you?" Crosswood asked.
"We have your puppets." Basil stated. "You can have them." He tossed it and Twilight Sparkle used her magic to give the puppets to Crosswood. Crosswood took them out and played with them. He slowly returned to his normal self.
"Oh, thank you for returning my puppets."
"You're welcome."
"Is there anything I can do to return the favor?"
"Well, you can turn our friends back to normal. You turned them into toys."
"Wait, I didn't do that."
"Yeah, you did." Basil replied. "The proof is behind you." Crosswood turned around.
"I don't remember those toys there."
"That's because they were originally ponies."
"So, you have no memory of what happened between when you went insane and now?" Twilight asked.
"I can't remember anything." Crosswoods replied. So, using his magic, he returned all of the ponies to normal again. The ponies wanted to beat the crap out of him. But they were informed that he was not himself and has no memory of what happened.
Things would be peaceful with the ponies until that night. Basil had very frightening images in his dream including a giant monster leading the Heriotza. He woke up that night in sweat from the dream. He, then, decided to head down into the library to look for information about that vile group.