//------------------------------// // Act 1 - Chapter 1 // Story: The Curious Case of Vanishing Unicorns // by Virydyan //------------------------------// "Case File 0526 - Opening Statement." "This case is one that I'll never forget anytime soon, not just for what had happened during it, but for what was going on underneath our noses all along, without us being aware of it until it was nearly too late. I should've known something was wrong as soon as I saw the number of ponies that had vanished, but at the time I was still stuck in my old by the book routine of following protocol, I believed I couldn't help those who had reached out to me since they were not under my jurisdiction... what a seriously stupid mistake of mine looking back on it now... Sunny must've known that it was going to be a bad move on my part in the end, and now here I am finding myself agreeing with her. I was so foolish to not jump onto this case while the trail was hot, and instead I nearly let it go cold, how could I call myself a sheriff if I can't even do my job correctly? This case that I am about to talk about here turned out to be much bigger than anypony had expected, one that nearly brought ruin to the town of Maretime Bay, and all the effort that me and the others had worked hard for almost thrown away... a case that ended up becaming known as..." THE CURIOUS CASE OF VANISHING UNICORNS It was a beautiful morning in the bayside town of Maretime Bay, the sun shown bright in the newborn sky, with not a cloud in sight. The ponies who lived in the town were all getting ready for another busy day downtown, whether it's taking a ride on the local pony drawn carriages, getting on the tram lines, paying a visit to the local vendors at the seafront, or even better, paying a visit to what is growing into the main attraction currently in the town, Mane Melody. Run by the Princess of Zephyr Heights Pipp Petals, the salons' reputation for fine hooficures, makeovers, hairstyles and more have proven to be a hit so far with the towns folk, business is going well for it, and most ponies have come away from it feeling fresh and new, even the notoriously high standard Phyllis Cloverleaf, former head of the now defunct Canterlogic corporation. Sure there may have been a few ponies that felt otherwise about the place, but it has done little to damage its reputation. Other than a few incidents of the different pony races arguing to each other or getting into fights, the town has largely been at peace internally. It was on this day that Hitch Trailblazer had started his work early at his post at the Maretime Bay Police Station. As the town's local sheriff, and currently it's only active authority after his former deputy was discharged and sentenced to community service for his role in the destruction of his good friend Sunny's lighthouse among other crimes a couple of months ago prior, he found his job growing harder and more stressful by the weeks. Despite repeated attempts by a few ponies and his friends to convince hiring a new deputy or start hiring officers, he's rejected them in favor of continuing to work as he is. Hitch has never shied away from any challenges, something he admired from his father the former sheriff of Maretime Bay, and is determined to not let the pressures that were now on piling up on him crush his resolve. "Every day is a brand new day yet there are more things to do, and fewer opportunities to relax and recline. But such is the life of a sheriff in this one horse town, being kept busy comes with the job, and honestly I'd take that over a boring day, any day." Hitch said to himself after organizing his desk for the day's work. He had already made a shortlist on what he planned to do today, most of it was pretty routine; do a morning patrol around the town twice over to check for any littering and suspicious activity, but especially littering, that was Hitch's pet peeve among all others. Next was organizing the complaints, reports and any other letters of interest received today in his mail onto his notice board, which is rarely empty if at all these days. it was always Hitch's least favorite part of his day job, and one that he always usually left to last since it took so long to get all done and organized. Then he would go on his afternoon patrol to again check everything twice over for the above mentioned activities, and the last thing he needed to do before the day was finished was to fill out a daily report on what he did today, any incidents or activities, and file it away in the usual weekly dossier in his filing cabinet, that job was usually the easiest one to do as such he left it for last. That was pretty much it for the shortlist today, rarely does anything else get added onto it at the last minute. Maretime Bay has been relatively peaceful for the last few weeks, as a result it's allowed Hitch to focus more on the tasks at hoof rather than getting distracted with irrelevant things on the side. "Right then, first things first, let's see how much post I got in the mail today." Said Hitch as he made his way to the letterbox built into the wall. Lifting a hoof up to the letterbox, he pulled down on the back hatch causing it open up, out of it came a whole bunch of letters, a pretty decent amount of them today compared to the last few days, making Hitch raise his eyebrow. "Well then, that is quite a large amount of post that came in today, I think I better skim through a few of these to see who sent what, and why." Said Hitch to himself as he scooped up as many letters as he could into his hoofs, then making his way back to his desk to dump the pile on top of it. He then sat down in his chair and started skimming through the letters one by one. He saw right away that a bunch of them belonged to Posey Bloom, a local citizen of Maretime Bay who had been very outspoken about the other pony tribes that have been moving into the town and all the problems it's been bringing her and the other Earth ponies. "She seems to have a new complaint to post almost every day, no surprise there." Said Hitch with a deadpan tone. Hitch decided to skip ahead and skim the rest of the post since they all seemed to either be more complaints, reports of various incidents and other such redundant matters. Hitch sighed in disappointment, it was just so routine for him now that if he was honest with himself for a moment, it was just boring. Deep down he kind of wished, just for once to have something different, something new and exciting that could lead to a case developing, a mystery that he could investigate as a detective. Little did he know that his wish for such a thing was about to come true. He came across a letter that caught his attention right away, the address on it was not from anywhere in Maretime Bay, but instead it seemed to have came from Bridlewood, the home of the Unicorns. It was easy to tell since they used a slightly different kind of writing than what was used in Maretime Bay, that and it was adorned with a strange symbol. Hitch stared at the letter for a few moments, puzzling over the strange symbol stamped on the front of it, this wasn't the first time that he had gotten a letter like this, in fact he had been getting them quite frequently in recent times. "Another one, seriously? That's like the third letter from Bridlewood I've gotten in the last week now." Said Hitch, rubbing his temple with his hoof, "I wonder why I keep getting these letters sent to me of all ponies, and what does this weird symbol on the front even mean?" Even though Hitch was a police sheriff and thus an established authority with the right to enforce, he technically had no legal authority over that area, that belonged solely to the unicorns leader Alphabittle, at least that was to Hitch's own assumption. To Hitch it felt a little odd that the ponies living there would be asking him for help instead of their own leader, and if Alphabittle did need his help, he would've let him know about it instantly, so the fact that he hadn't heard a thing from him was a little perplexing. "I wonder if there is some kind of trouble going on over there right now, I mean I would love to help them out, but unless Alphabittle says anything, I can't exactly do anything, not unless he gives me permission." Said Hitch, shaking his head as he put the letter on the side with another pile of similar letters. Whatever seemed to be going on with the Unicorns over in Bridlewood, it sure seemed to be intriguing, and if it lead to a case happening, he would certainly want to investigate it right away regardless. "I think I'll give this letter a read over later on along with the others when I get back, for now I better get on with my first patrol around the town, I don't want to be late." Said Hitch as he got up from his desk. He then gave whistled over to his animal pals who had followed him to the station from the Brighthouse, the crab called McSnipps-alot, a Pigeon with a can of sardines on his head named Kenneth, and his fellow deputy pigeon, they all immediately stood up for attention. "Hey there McSnipps, Kenneth and Deputy, I've got a job for you three to do while I'm out on patrol, I want you all to clean up my notice board of last week's letters, then once you've done that I want you to organize all of the mail i've got today into neat piles, that way I can easily sort them out when I get back from my patrol in around an hours time." McSnipps-alot and his fellows gave Hitch a salute, then they all went over to the notice board getting straight to work, ripping off the papers from the wall and sorting out the piles. Hitch was impressed by how quickly his animal pals were working, he admittedly was at first a little put off when months ago all of the animals started to gravitate towards him randomly for unexplained reasons, but now in the present he didn't mind it at all since he learned that he could understand them and even speak to him, strange as that sounds. In fact his new companions have proved useful in helping to organize his workplace, patrolling the town, and intelligence gathering whenever he needed it. Smiling, Hitch was now free to head out of the door and begin his first of two patrols of the day. He went on over to his clothes rack, grabbing his sheriffs belt with his freshly polished badge proudly on display, a whistle and his trusty log book, then he moved on over to the front door and opened it up, he was instantly greeted by the bright sun shining on his face, and the loud sounds coming from downtown not far away. "Sounds like it's already going to be another lively day over in downtown Maretime Bay. I'd better go check it out and see what's going on." Said Hitch as he put his sunshades on, then started making his way there down the lane. Hitch had little idea at the time of just how busy of a day it was going to be for him. Downtown Maretime Bay was as bustling and packed as ever, all of the ponies were going back and forth around the place. Whether it was to shop at the nearby stores, browsing the various vendors near the seafront, or hanging about with friends to have a catch up on matters along the promenade, there was plenty to do downtown. As Hitch arrived to start surveying the scene before him, he saw right away that there were long queue lines going towards two shops in particular. The first queue line was at the Mane Melody Saloon which was of no surprise to him since everypony loved to go there for a makeover or karaoke, and the other queue was at the nearby smoothie vendor, ran by his oldest friend, resident hero, and former troublemaker Sunny Starscout. Sunny was very busy working away, serving her customers and brewing up her signature smoothies using the fruitiest fruits she can get her hoofs on, or at least if her usual delivery mare can get there on time without incident. Hitch was impressed that she could serve customers as quickly as she could without issue, he decided to trot on over to the stand to check up on her and see what she was up to. "There we are little fillies, three Cheering up Cherry smoothies, that'll be 9 bucks in total." Said Sunny to the three fillies in front of her. "Thank you, Sunny!" Said the middle filly of the three who was an Earth Pony, handing Sunny the money. "You are welcome little ones! Say, i've been seeing you three around quite a bit recently, what are your names?" Sunny asked them. The filly on the left who was a Pegasus stepped up first, "My name is Glory, I just moved here from Zephyr Heights!" The one on the right who was a Unicorn who had floated the smoothies down to her friends spoke up next, "My name is Peach Fizz, I too have just moved here, from Bridlewood." "Really? That's cool! What about you in the middle there?" Said Sunny. "My name is Seashell, I grew up here in Maretime Bay, but my mama never let me outside much before because of her crazy superstitions and warnings of danger." Said Seashell, no doubt referring to how Earth ponies used to be afraid of the other pony races, at least until recently when they were unified again. "That's why I've probably never seen you around much, it was your mother I probably served the smoothies to beforehand." Said Sunny thoughtfully, then she leaned over the counter in curiosity, "So then are you three all good friends then?" "That's right! The three of us met each other after we found out we all followed the same pony on Clip Trot, we all bonded easily because of how much we love her." Said Glory. Sunny smiled, she seemed to have a pretty good idea about who they were talking about, so she decided to ask the obvious towards them, "And who is it that you three follow on Clip Trot, may I ask?" All three of the spoke in unison, "The one and only, Princess Pipp Petals!" "Huh, I never would've guessed." Said Sunny with a warm smile. "As her loyal Pippsqueaks, we three do our best to follow her latest clips, photos, trends, and anything else she streams daily! Furthermore we're also-" "Can you three fillies hurry up!? I'm getting thirsty over here!" Shouted one of the ponies in the queue making the trio jump in surprise. Sunny realized she still had a whole lot of customers still waiting to be served. "Ooof, sorry girls but I have to get back to work, but we can catch up later okay?" Said Sunny with a reassuring smile. "Sure, sorry about that Sunny." Said Seashell as she and her fellow Pippsqueaks walked off with their smoothies. No sooner did they walk off that the next pony in line walked on up to the stand, Sunny recognized the pony as Flare, another Pegasus pony. "About time, sheesh those three can be such a nuisance sometimes." Said Flare, flicking her hair to the side. "Aw come on they're harmless Flare, so do you want to have the usual?" Said Sunny with a smile. "The usual, with extra ice mixed in." She said, flashing a cocky grin. "Coming right up!" Said Sunny as she got to work. Hitch who had been watching everything unfold chuckled to himself, "Seems like Pipp has already started taking over the lives of everypony in Maretime Bay, including the little ones, but I can't say I didn't see that coming at all, Pipp has ways of getting everypony's attention." He said to himself as he walked over to the stand. "There we go Flare, the usual with extra ice!" Said Sunny as she gave her the smoothie. She began taking the next orders when she spotted Hitch standing next to her stand on the right, "Oh hey Hitch, didn't see you there!" "Good morning Sunny! I see you are being kept super busy as usual." Said Hitch, looking over the establishment and at the queue. "You know it sheriff, ever since the other pony tribes came together, I've been busier than ever, and raking in more profits too! I might be able to finally afford that new smoothie making machine at this rate, this one here is starting to show it's age a little bit." Said Sunny, as her machine continued to churn away at making smoothies for the customers with a noticeably hard grinding noise. Hitch let out a chuckle, "That makes two of us Sunny, I've been finding my workload getting heavier for the last few weeks now because of how much traffic we've been getting, I mean I know Maretime Bay always gets busier during the Summer time, but this is still much more than usual." Sunny looked at him thoughtfully, "Well, me and the girls have been asking you for the last little while if you would consider hiring a new deputy to help ease the workload on you, after what had happened to Sprout-" "It's fine Sunny don't worry about it. I welcome any challenge head on, just like my Dad did, and his Dad before him. Yes this might be stressful, and I'll admit it is very tiring for me, but I can do this, I have to as Maretime Bays sheriff!" Said Hitch, bringing a hoof up to his chest in pride. "Are you really sure about it Hitch?" She said to him with raised eyebrow, not sounding convinced. "Sure as sure can be, just leave it all to me!" He said with a huff. Sunny rolled her eyes at him, serving a smoothie to a customer, "Whatever you say sheriff, suit yourself." "Anyway!" Said Hitch, eager to move onto a new topic, "Have you seen the others around today? They were all gone by the time I got out of the bathroom for breakfast." "Oh Zipp and Pipp have flown off back to Zephyr Heights for a royal meeting with their mother the Queen, they got a phone call from her just before breakfast time, and judging from the look on their faces it sounds like it was something super important since they took off just before I made them food. As for Izzy, she said she was heading to the junkyard to find some 'thingies' for another one of her projects, knowing her she likely won't be back until dinnertime, with a whole lot of junk trailing behind her too." Said Sunny shaking her head. "I don't doubt that one bit, that Izzy can be so weird sometimes with her projects, yet I don't doubt how they turn out so functional." Said Hitch thoughtfully. "That's Izzy for you." Said Sunny as she started brewing more smoothies. "Say, do you know anything about what the meeting they're having is about?" Asked Hitch, now curious about the matter. "No idea at all, they said nothing about it when they left, but I assume they'll let us know about it when they get back." Said Sunny as she served out another smoothie to a waiting customer. Hitch was still curious to know what was going on with that meeting, but he knew he wouldn't know about it until later on today. As he looked up at the nearby clock hanging outside the local shop, he realized that he was running behind on his morning patrol and needed to get going. "Well I'll be sure to ask them all about it when they get back, but anyway I need to get back on my morning patrol, catch you later Sunny." Said Hitch with a salute, who turned around and stared to walk off. He didn't get very far when a voice rang out from the queue of ponies behind him, "W-w-wait, s-sheriff please!" Hitch heard it and turned around straight away, he saw a Unicorn mare coming up to him looking very stressed out. "Yes that's me, what seems to be the trouble miss?" Asked Hitch. "It's Plum Library sir, but just call me Plum. Listen, a few days ago I sent you a letter to report a pony missing from Maretime Bay, but I haven't heard any reply from you yet at all, you did get the letter, didn't you?" She said to him sternly. Hitch thought for a moment, he had been getting more letters than normal for the last week or so, perhaps that one got lost in the pile he still hasn't sorted out yet. Hitch shrugged, he can always go check it out when he gets back to the station. "I believe I have received your letter miss, don't you worry about it, I'll file the missing pony report as soon as I get back to my station." He said to her with a reassuring smile, but the Unicorn in question didn't seem to be impressed. "You mean you haven't read it yet at all? Sheriff, this is a serious matter! As the authority of Maretime Bay the safety of the ponies, and I do mean all ponies should be your number one priority!" She shouted at him, making him step back a little. Various ponies in the queue behind her started muttering behind her back. "What's got her so worked up? Typical Unicorns making trouble around here as usual. So rude, how dare she shout at the sheriff like that!" Hitch was taken aback by the outburst just how a little bit, but he soon regained his composure and looked at the Unicorn more seriously, "That is correct miss, the safety of everypony here in Maretime Bay, whether they are Pegasus, Unicorns, or Earth ponies, all of their well being and safety is my job, and my absolute number one priority above all overs. As I just said to you, I will look into the missing pony report, file it, and investigate it as soon as I get back to the station, you have my word on it." Plum signed to herself, she seemed close to tears, "Thanks sheriff, I'm sorry for shouting at you, but I'm really worried sick about them... that Unicorn was a friend of mine from back home, and she hasn't been around for the last few days now. I really hope nothing bad has happened to her, I wouldn't forgive myself if she's been hurt..." "I'm sure she's fine Miss Plum, say if you do know anything else that might prove helpful to the case, feel free to visit the station, I'll likely need more information about what's going on anyway." Hitch said to her reassuringly. "I will, thank you sheriff." Said Plum who seemed to feel a little better after the talk. "Good, well I'll be on my way now, see you later everypony." Said Hitch to the crowd as he took his leave to continue his rounds, the ponies all waved back to him, Plum included. Sunny however was deep in thought, she had overheard the conversation that just transpired in front of her, it seemed that a pony who was a good friend of Plum's was missing, and that Hitch hadn't gotten around to investigating it. That didn't seem like him at all, normally Hitch was all over a case like that instantly, she wondered if all the workload was slowly getting to him. She shook her head, regardless of what was going on with him, there was a pony missing from the town, and that was a serious matter. "I hope Hitch can find that missing pony, and hopefully they aren't in any trouble." Sunny said to herself. Plum herself sighed heavily, she was worried sick over her missing pony friend, she didn't mean to get mad at the sheriff like that at all, but her emotions boiled over and she had to let it out. On the plus side, she hoped now that the Sheriff will start looking into the matter seriously once he got back to the station, the sooner her friend was found, the better for her. "Excuse me miss." Came a voice from the nearby crowd of ponies. Plum peaked her ears up and looked to her side to see another pony next to her, she recognized him as Redwood Pine, a local Earth pony around Maretime Bay, he was never seen without his fancy looking straw hat on his head. "Yes? How can I help you Mr Pine?" Said Plum. "Pardon me for eavesdropping on the conversation you had just now with the sheriff, but if I heard it correctly, you said that a friend of yours was missing and you sent a letter about it to him?" Said Redwood. "Yes I did, she hasn't been seen for days now, i'm so worried about her... I hope she'll come back soon?." Plum replied. "Would your friend happen to also be a Unicorn?" Said Redwood curiously. "Huh? Well... yes, yes she was a Unicorn, why do you ask?" Said Plum cautiously. Redwoods expression became serious, with a hint of sadness underneath. "Well the funny thing is, I also had a friend who has also disappeared, and they were also a Unicorn." Said Redwood. Plum's eyes went wide, what were the chances of that happening. "W-what? You also have a missing friend, and they're a Unicorn too??? That's crazy!" Shouted Plum. "It's not crazy, and I'm afraid I'm not the only one who has lost a Unicorn friend." Said Redwood, turning his head to look behind him. Plum followed his lead and looked as well, she noticed a few ponies around the square asking about missing friends, and another pony putting up a poster that said 'missing' on it, with a picture of the pony in question also being a Unicorn. Plum felt overwhelmed from the sight of it. "How many ponies are missing from Maretime Bay!? Why just Unicorns??" She shouted out loud. "I don't know miss, but one thing is clear, something is going on, and I hope the sheriff will be able to find out and find out what happened to our friends." "I hope so Redwood, I really hope so..." Said Plum, sitting on her haunches. As the two ponies looked on silently, a certain yellow pony with pink hair and bow ties had been watching everything unfold in front of her, huffing in annoyance, she then proceeded to walk away from the drama. "Typical, so typical, it's always Unicorns causing problems around here, always." Something strange was definitely going on around Maretime Bay, but as everypony would soon find out, this was only just the beginning.