Fire over Maretime

by The Blue EM2


Escalation

Sunny, after travelling for a few minutes through Maretime Bay and the surrounding countryside, pulled up outside her home, which as previously stated was currently undergoing stabilisation work on the lighthouse tower after Sprout badly damaged the structure. Sunny glanced up to the pegasus overseeing the repair works, none other than her friend Zipp Storm, and tried to get her attention. "Hello?"

Zipp quickly glanced down. "Oh! Hey Sunny! Here to see how construction is coming along?"

"Not really," Sunny replied. "I need to get access to my archives. Has the east wing been stabilised yet?"

"Yeah, that should be safe to go in," Zipp answered. "Will you be needing to move documents or is this a digital transfer?"

"Luckily, I digitised the entire archive, so I only need to get my memory stick and all should be good," Sunny noted. "Thanks for the help Zipp!"

"Sure thing! Come on ponies! Let's speed this- Pipp, why are you filming this?"

"I'm posting it on Hoofnote to showcase how ponies are all getting along these days!"

"Did you ask for their permission under the Pony Data Protection Regulation?"

"Did I need to?"

"Yes, as well as the Pegasus cinematograph process and recording act."

"I don't think that applies in Earth pony territory."

Sunny quickly stepped in through her door and trotted over to the desk, and pulled open a drawer, rummaging around. "Come on, come on! Where is it?"

She moved stuff about for a few seconds, before finally finding an orange memory stick and pulling it out. "Gotcha! Now I'll be able to access the data I need, and hopefully put it on my dropbox whilst I'm here."

She exited through the door, remembering to hold it this time and ensure it did not slam in her face. "Alright guys, I've got what I need! You can resume work now!"

"You heard the lady!" Zipp called. "Let's get stuck in! That includes you, Rob!"

"I can't see any corn on the cob," said a confused voice.

Sunny quickly continued with roller blading down the road, flying with great speed towards Hitch's house. With luck, she would be able to use either a laptop or Pipp's SkyPad in order to read the files in detail. As the sun continued to glow in the sky, she turned through the door. "Is anypony in he- OW! Not again!"

Sunny had forgotten that the door had a dual hinge to allow it to be opened both ways, and it had smacked into her face again. She trudged indoors, dropping her bag off, and grabbed the memory stick in readiness for her research. Whilst there, she grabbed her phone and dialled a familiar number. "Hey, Izzy? Can I ask you something?"

"Tada!" Izzy called, suddenly appearing right alongside Sunny. "These teleportation spells are great! I can't imagine what we did without them!"

"Well, a little warning would be nice," Sunny answered. "Could you be getting these devices booted up? I need a warm drink."

"I think I'll make a herbal tea for me too!"


After a few minutes spent preparing hot drinks for the pair, Izzy levitated a tray through the door and lay it down on the table. "I'd forgotten how efficient this was!"

Sunny, on the other hand, had layed out two separate devices, one for each of them. As manually pouring over every bit of text was going to take too long, Sunny instead decided to make use of the search function. She took out her notes on Sugar Moonlight's description of the object, and proceeded to type it in. "It was mostly silver in design, with a red jem set into the centre. Set atop the body of the object was a depiction of a unicorn head with wings coming off the side, also coloured in silver and red."

The device slowly began to search through the different pages to try and find a match for the object. However, it seemed as though the search would take a while, so Sunny and Izzy took to idly chatting whilst they waited. "So," Sunny started, "how are things in Bridlewood?"

"Oh, they're better than they were," Izzy grinned. "We've really gotten our energy back along with our magic, which has considerably reduced the number of things we need rituals against. After all, if we can control it we don't need protection, huh?"

Sunny laughed. "Sounds great! I caught up with Zipp and Pipp, and getting their magic back has really helped them. Being able to move stuff by pegasus is so much quicker than crane."

"Oh, that's why the repairs on your lighthouse are proceeding so fast!" Izzy realised. "Yeah, that's handy. No need for wires anymore, or anything else?"

Sunny paused. "Oh, one more thing. What was it that caused unicorns to consider mayonnaise a bad thing?"

Izzy froze. "Bing... bong!" She then laughed. "I'm just messin' with ya! I don't actually know. Alphabittle would probably have a clue, but-"

Suddenly, their devices beeped, indicating that they were done with their search. Sunny took a closer look after a quick sip of hot coffee. "The object has been identified. According to this document, this device can dramatically amplify the wearer's magical abilities, but gradually corrupts the user, and cannot allow them to perform spells that are impossible. The wearer also can be the only one who can remove it. What?"

"That sentence is a little wonky," Izzy noted.

"Remember that dad was transcribing out of Middle Ponish. That stuff was weird sometimes, and can be quite hard to understand. If my understanding is correct, this is none other than the Alicorn Amulet, which was once used by an ancient mage to try and defeat Twilight Sparkle, the last Princess of Imperial Equestria, albeit before she became princess. I have no idea how it survived, but we need to get out there and ensure that it is recovered, pronto!"

Sunny and Izzy dashed out of the door and headed off to find the pegasus sisters. Neither of them noticed that Izzy had not even touched her tea.


Having seen off the blue hedgehog (informing him that he would see him in Green Hills), Hitch turned his entire attention to his deputy, Sprout. Safe to say, this was not going to be pretty. "Well then, Sprout. Seems you made quite the mess whilst I was away; not a good record for a deputy sheriff. Do you have any idea of the charges that could be placed against you?"

"Well, technically, given that I made the laws whilst I was running things, none, since nothing I did could be declared a criminal act in that regard."

"Wrong." Hitch's face was cold and unusually devoid of emotion. "Usurpation of town charter, repeated violations of national rights, inciting and forming a mob, starting a riot, inducing said mob into disorderly behaviour, seizing assets belonging to private individuals for state purposes without a compulsory purchase order, using said assets for manufacture of machinery and compenents prohibited under the law, massive property damage, taking away a locomotive of war without owner's permission, driving an unlicensed vehicle, careless driving, ignoring pedestrian crossing, failing to observe traffic sign, causing ashes and/or sparks to be emitted on highway, driving on the wrong side of the road, failing to report accident, malicious damage, excessive noise, defective tyres, unauthorised discharge of weapons, destruction of assets of great national value, loss of property to residents. Need I go on?"

Sprout's face said it all as he looked at the floor. There was little chance of wriggling his way out of this one, even if his mother's firm supplied the bulk of the police department's equipment and technology. He said nothing, initially.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Hitch asked, after a very awkward silence.

Sprout's response was unintelligible.

"You know I can't hear you when you speak that quietly."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Hitch sighed loudly. "Well, it wasn't. Even if you had succeeded, consider what would have happened. The pegasi have a far bigger military machine than we do, and can field far heavier weaponry than we have the capability to manufacture or deploy. How would it have helped if they'd dumped a megaspell on Maretime Bay? Everything would have been gone in a flash?"

"Well, when you put it that way it does seem rather poorly thought out. But I only had the best intentions of the town at mind!"

Hitch ignored that remark. "You only deployed a single war engine, and yet the factory records show that more machines were built than Sproutus Maximus (a stupid name if ever there was one). Whatever happened to those?"

"Well, they should still be at the factory, as I can't think of any reason to move them anywhere other than the factory. I had no intention of selling them to anybody, or something like that."

Hitch indicated to the door. "We're heading down to the factory," he said. "And we're going to resolve this matter. Permanently."