Sunny Starscout felt her heart drop in her chest when she and Zipp descended the lift down to the first floor, and saw the damage to the front of her home. The front wall had been smashed inward, and the front door had been blown off its hinges, and was now splintered and prone on the floor in front of the doorway. She saw outside that the awning above the front door was severely damaged, hanging by its left side and touching the ground.
Worse yet, Izzy, Pipp, and Sprout were nowhere to be seen, and she heard a growing commotion in the late evening outside.
The answers were no more clear as the earth and pegasus mares stepped outdoors. They saw Hitch over by the cliff edge to the left. He turned, and had a clear look of panic on his face.
"Zipp! Zipp! Can you get down there? As fast as you can? See if you can pull them out of there!" Hitch yelled, before turning to see a small crowd of curious earth ponies begin to come of the hill and gather. "Toots! Go get paramedics down to the beach, now!!!" Hitch screamed as he started to take control of what was clearly a very chaotic situation.
Sunny watched as Zipp galloped over to where Hitch was, looked over the cliff, and she immediately nodded at Hitch, spread her wings, and jumped, gliding down to where smoke was rising into the sky, blocking out the stars and moon on an otherwise clear night sky. She heard galloping come from the right, and saw Pipp and Izzy come from over the hill towards her.
"Sunny, thank goodness you're okay!" Izzy said, hugging her friend briefly. "After the first hit, Sprout told us to run."
Sunny was still trying her best to grasp what had happened in the past few moments. She saw the large tracks in the dirt and grass leading up to the lighthouse, and from the damage, it had been clearly been rammed right into the structure. She saw Hitch turn and gallop at full speed down the hill towards the beach, while Toots and Sweets ran back down the road into town towards Maretime Bay General Hospital. She finally got the courage to gallop over to the cliff where the tracks led, and she gasped as she peered over the edge to see a mangled, flaming wreck of a vehicle on the rocks. The evening tide wasn't doing much to douse the flames, but she saw Zipp on top of what looked like a gigantic robotic version of Phyllis Cloverleaf. She turned, reared back with her back right hoof, then bucked the front windshield, shattering it enough to jump in. She looked back at the beach and saw Hitch gallop into the tide towards the wreck. She watched in stunned silence as Hitch, nearly obscured by the smoke, flames, and darkness, climbed up onto the wreck, and helped Zipp pull out two limp bodies from the vehicle, before carefully jumping into the surf with them, keeping their heads above water as they made their way back to the beach.
"Sunny, you okay?" Pipp asked.
Sunny turned to Pipp and realized that she must have had a look of stupor on her face, because she had not moved as she watched Hitch and Zipp pull the limp bodies up onto the beach as the paramedics arrived with stretchers, which were absolutely not intended to be wheeled across sand.
"Yeah... Yeah, sorry. I feel kind of helpless right now..." Sunny said, looking back over at her severely damaged home. A moment later, she got her wits about her, and headed north along the cliff edge towards the beach. By the time she had gotten to the beach, she saw that it had been Sprout and Phyllis that had been pulled from the wreck, and that once they were on the stretchers, it had taken Hitch, Zipp, and all four paramedics to get the stretchers off of the beach and back out onto the road.
"Hitch!" Sunny called, galloping over to him. "Hitch, what happened?"
Hitch and Zipp were both sopping wet.
"Phyllis has lost it, that's what's happened. Sprout tried to put a stop to it, and the whole ridiculous vehicle just went off the cliff. They're both breathing, but they're unconscious, and are both hurt pretty badly. Sprout has a pretty concerning head injury. They're taking them both to the emergency room."
Hitch saw the crowds that had continued to gather that had followed Sunny down the cliff towards the commotion.
"Alright, listen up!" Hitch called out to the crowd, his voice unquestioningly commanding. "We've had a very serious situation tonight. I will address it directly at a town meeting in front of the precinct at 10 AM tomorrow morning. If it is possible for you to be there, then I highly suggest you do so. For now, please return home. I am declaring a curfew until 6 AM tomorrow morning. Is that clear?"
Hitch got nods and mumbled and confused acknowledgements.
"Good. Now clear out. We'll settle this in the morning."
Once the crowds had begun to disperse, the five friends found themselves alone on the coastal road in front of the beach.
Hitch took a deep breath.
"Alright. Zipp, Pipp, Izzy, this is not the Maretime Bay welcome I wanted you to have. We'll start over tomorrow morning, I promise. For now, to avoid any more drama, you can all spend the night at my house. Sunny, here's my spare house key. I'm going to Maretime Bay General to get any updates I can with Sprout, before I come back and try to get some sleep before tomorrow morning's town meeting."
Hitch got tired nods from his friends before going after the stretchers down the road towards the hospital.
Sunny took another shuddering, deep breath as she forced herself to not look up the hill at the lighthouse again.
"Alright, this way, girls. Let's get inside and out of sight for now..." she said. As she lead her friends towards Hitch's house, she heard the clinking of the unity crystals in her saddlebags with each step she took.
If this was unity, she was hoping it would get better. Because so far, it had gotten off to an absolutely disastrous start.
The double sliding doors parted as Hitch trotted into the emergency room of Maretime Bay General, and came up to the admissions desk.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" Hitch said, getting the attendant's attention. "Where is the attending physician?"
"Right here," came a stallion's voice right as the attendant was nodding towards the doctor who was coming out of a pair of swinging doors of the operating theater. "Good evening, Sheriff. I'm Doctor Wellhoof. They just brought Phyllis and Sprout in, they're getting checked out now."
"Thank you, doctor. I'll be out of your way shortly to go get some badly needed sleep. I just need to make myself perfectly clear; do not, under any circumstances, release Phyllis Cloverleaf after treatment. She's in police custody. Please let me know their conditions as soon as you can, even if it's the middle of the night," Hitch instructed.
Doctor Wellhoof nodded.
"Their injuries looked pretty serious... And understood. I've already been hearing whispers among my staff about what just happened up at the lighthouse. Was it really that bad?" the doctor asked.
"There will be a conference out in front of the precinct in the morning to clear things up. One thing is certain, doctor; Phyllis Cloverleaf is going straight from here to my holding cell as soon as she is physically able."