Sunny wasn’t sure if she was just imagining it, or if it was her nerves acting up again, but Maretime Bay seemed a little tense, like it knew that the pegasi were rebelling and were ready to fight back. But it was probably just her nerves, because everypony was just going about their daily lives like nothing was wrong. It was a little unsettling.
Hitch led the way to the sheriff’s office, and as they passed, everypony greeted him and Sunny and all their friends warmly. He pushed open the doors, revealing two earth ponies. One was pink with a golden mane piled on top of her head, her glasses slipping down her muzzle as she anxiously paced. The other was bright red, with a slightly paler golden mane, and looked both worried and grouchy, which he did most of the time.
“Oh, thank hoofness you’re here,” Phyllis Cloverleaf sighed as she saw the five ponies. She pulled them inside and shut the door. Hitch and Sunny glanced nervously at each other.
Sprout waved awkwardly at the five friends, who all still remembered how he had nearly killed Sunny and Izzy by breaking Sunny’s lighthouse while they were still in there, had nearly killed Alphabittle by almost running into him with his war machine, and had just all around not been the nicest pony ever. But whatever was going on was far more pressing than feelings left over from recent events.
“Phyllis, what is going on?” Hitch asked, tilting his head at the owner of Canterlogic as she hurriedly pulled the shades down over the door, locked the door, and shoved a chair in front of it, proceeding to hurry all the ponies to the back of the room, and she still didn’t look quite satisfied. “Did something happen?”
“Actually, I was hoping you five could explain that to me,” Phyllis whispered. “None of the townsponies have any idea, but it’s only a matter of time before word gets out that the pegasi overthrew their monarchy and are planning to go to war with the other pony tribes. Please tell me it’s all an elaborate hoax?”
Sunny looked uncomfortably at her friends. “Well, actually…” she started, and Phyllis’ briefly hopeful expression collapsed. “We’re not entirely sure what’s going on either,” Sunny added hurriedly. “The pegasi seem to still harbor some hard feelings against the royals for pretending to be able to fly for all those years, but the majority of them seemed to have made peace with the other pony tribes. I don’t know why they would get all riled up like this now, all of a sudden.”
“But how did you know about that?” Zipp inquired, narrowing her eyes at Sprout. “Do you have spies or something? The unicorns had no idea, so why should we believe that you just happened to come across this announcement in your daily email.”
Phyllis sighed. “I think there’s something I need to show you,” she said, turning towards the barricaded door. “Follow me.”
She lead the ponies up to Canterlogic, smiling and waving at the townsponies as they passed, trying to act natural, but they could probably tell something was wrong. Her smile seemed too forced and her waves too enthusiastic to be normal. But they went back to their daily lives as soon as she passed. Phyllis entered her office and, just like at the sheriff’s office, she blocked the window, locked the door, and shoved a spare chair under the handle before leading them to her computer on her desk.
“Ever since the three pony tribes got back together, I’ve been trying to get in on some pegasi and unicorn websites and social media platforms so I can see what’s good for business,” she explained, tapping away at the large keyboard. “But the unicorns don’t seem to really have many, so I’ve been mostly focusing on pegasi. I was on the ZBS website about a day or two ago and saw this.”
She clicked on a video, taken from a shaky cellphone camera, of the events that happened on that terrible night the pegasi rebellion had begun. Zipp and Pipp winced as they watched their downfall again and averted their eyes.
Once the clip was done playing, Phyllis paused it. “I downloaded the video so that I could look at it later, and it’s a good thing I did, because ZBS banned me and all non-pegasi an hour later,” she said, worry seeping into her voice. “Thankfully we didn’t have many earth ponies in Zephyr Heights, and none have come back here yet, so news hasn’t spread…” She bit her lip. “And after saying that out loud, I realized that should still be of some concern to me.” She shook her head. “One problem at a time. I’m assuming you saw this?”
She backed up the video to the part just before Zipp, Pipp, and Queen Haven fell from the sky, the freeze frame perfectly timed so that it captured the dark lightning zig-zagging across the sky. It looked much more menacing now that Sunny was looking at it closely, instead of it just flashing briefly across the sky. She noticed that the royal family’s wings were glowing, too, just a brief moment before they darkened and the magic glitched.
“You have no idea how hard we had to work to quell the rumors going around after that was seen in the night sky,” Sprout whispered to Hitch, who looked slightly uncomfortable. “Mom eventually convinced them that pegasi had control over the weather in the old days, and they were just testing out their abilities.”
“It’s like a reverse of what happened when magic was brought back,” Izzy said, noticing the same thing Sunny did. “Do you think… if the pony tribes do go to war… magic will disappear again?”
“Maybe we can use that to get them back together again,” Hitch said hopefully, but Pipp shook her head.
“When the pegasi were rebelling, they were saying that, if it meant that they could be isolated from the other tribes, they were better off without magic,” she said softly, not wanting to recall anything from that night. “They won’t join forces with other tribes so that those other tribes can get an upper hoof on them. And they survived for so long without magic before… they probably figure that they can do it again.”
“So… what do we do?” Sprout asked quietly, not wanting to draw attention to himself.
Sunny sighed. “Phyllis, keep this news from reaching the public. We just got back from visiting the unicorns, and we think they’re going to be chill about the whole thing, but we need the earth ponies to not get involved in the fighting, either. We need to buy time so that we can find out what happened before to make the pony tribes divide.”
The pink earth pony nodded. “Though, before you go do… um, whatever it is that you’re going to do, there’s one more thing I want to show you.”
The five ponies waited impatiently as she clicked away on her computer, muttering to herself as she did so. “I think I’ve got it,” she announced finally, stepping back slightly as everypony crowded around. “I put the video through slow motion earlier to try and catch any hidden details, and I found this.” She hit play and stood back.
The video was just like always, only a whole heck of a lot slower. It took nearly a full minute for Zipp’s wings to flap once. But when the dark lightning flashed out across the sky (even in slow motion, it was still incredibly fast), Sunny saw what Phyllis must have been talking about.
For a brief moment, what looked like a single gemstone, a bright pink that exactly matched Zipp’s mane, was orbiting her, leaving a glowing trail in its wake. While the rest of the video was still agonizingly slow, the gem seemed to be moving at a normal pace. It was no wonder it wouldn’t be seen before. The gem made one full rotation before disappearing with a flash of light.
All eyes turned to Zipp, who flushed from all the attention.
“Maybe it’s some sort of thing that happens to the royals when magic is in jeopardy?” Sunny proposed, sounding very unsure about the idea.
“I don’t think so,” Phyllis said, rewinding the video again. “Watch Pipp and Queen Haven in the back.” Pipp, too, had a gem encircling her, this one an aquamarine color, but Queen Haven did not. Furthermore, Phyllis gestured to the bottom of the screen, where Sunny, Izzy, and Hitch were watching. The three of them also had gems; Izzy a blue one, Hitch a turquoise one, and Sunny a lavender one, the deep shade of purple unsettlingly like her toy figure of Twilight Sparkle.
Phyllis stopped the video after the gems disappeared. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think that something bigger is going on here. And it’s directly tied to you five.”
Sunny took a deep breath and let it out. “We’ll worry about that later,” she decided. “We need to find out what happened to make the three pony tribes separate. Maybe we’ll find something about that while we’re on it. Just keep the ponies calm, okay? Whatever you do, don’t let them find out about this. We have to prevent something from happening like last time. Um… no offense,” she added quickly, glancing at Sprout.
The red earth pony sighed. “None taken.”
Hitch led the way out of town, and Sunny had to say that they did a much better job of acting casual then Phyllis. Nopony gave them funny glances or looked as if they suspected something was wrong.
“So, where do we go first?” Pipp asked over pizza for lunch. She tipped her head up and gently lowered the tip of her slice into her mouth.
Sunny, who wasn’t eating, was studying the journal some more. “I want to go back to Zephyr Heights, since it seemed that it was the capital of Ancient Equestria even back then, but that seems kind of risky. So… perhaps we stay here? Maretime Bay used to be called Manehatten, and it seemed to be a pretty big city. Maybe we’ll find some old archives or something that could tell us more.”
Hitch tapped his chin, leaving a smudge of grease there. “I think I know somewhere we can start,” he said, completely oblivious to the grease.
Zipp sighed and reached across the table to rub it off, which she did kind of roughly. “As long as we get plenty of pizza, I’m good,” she said as she reached for another slice.