"Alright, alright! Settle down!" Twilight called to the increasingly upset crowd. Time was a matter of importance here, and she couldn't have things spiraling out of control on her doorstep. There was already what appeared to be a small mob forming, and she knew she had to take charge of the situation before panic broke out.
"Everypony! Listen up! Those of you with a missing child, step to the front of the crowd! Everypony else step back! We're going to do this neatly and efficiently."
There was some degree of grumbling, but the crowd obeyed, resulting in six ponies standing near the front, Applejack and Derpy among them. The rest hung back, more nervous than frightened.
"Alright!" Twilight said. "That's good. Those of you with children at home, when we conclude our business here go home to them immediately, and keep an eye on them. I don't have enough evidence just yet to declare a state of emergency, but we're going to play it safe." This was met with a few murmurs of approval, as well as protest.
Turning down to look at Derpy, Twilight asked calmly. "Tell me exactly. Leave nothing out." Derpy did exactly that, and Twilight listened with sympathetic concern. Her frown deepened upon hearing how suddenly the child had simply vanished. "Did you see anything suspicious, anything at all?"
Derpy shook her head. "Nothing, Twilight." She honestly hadn't seen anything, it had just been a normal day at the park until everything had gone horribly wrong. Dinky was all she had in the world, and she wanted her back safe more than anything.
"What about hoofprints in the snow?"
"No, the snow was clean, honest! No tracks except mine and Dinky's! It's really cold still, so the park was abandoned. But Dinky loves the swings, and she wanted to go anyway."
"I see," Twilight said. "Applejack?"
The country pony related her own story with an unusually serene calm, her voice filled with sadness and anger. "I s'pose she coulda just run out an' disappeared through the back of the barn, but that ain't like her at all," she said. "She's spunky, but ain't never skipped out on chores like that b'fore. Fair amount of complainin' sometimes, but never straight up vanished. Why, when I found out who's responsible fer this, they're gonna face the fury of a nest of hornets, I tell ya what!"
"Alright, but let's just focus on the facts for now. You didn't see anything?"
"Not a thing."
Twilight rubbed her chin, and went down the rest of the line. The stories were different, but all had two common denominators. They featured a child who'd been left unsupervised for as little as five seconds, and none of them had seen or heard anything. The children in question had just dropped off the face of Equestria.
"Here's what we're going to do," Twilight said finally. "Before I declare an emergency curfew, I'm going to set up a few traps with bait using the conditions that you've all told to me, and I'm going to see if I can reproduce the vanishing effect. It's the first step to getting some answers."
Fluttershy stepped out from her silent vigil by the door, with Courage still on her back. Both looked shocked at this proposal. "You are not using the remaining children for bait, Twilight!" the pegasus gasped. "Absolutely not!"
Twilight cracked a small smile. "Who said anything about using children?" She said, and her eyes fixated on Courage. The dog blinked several times, processing this, and immediately broke into a rapid babble of protest and whining.
"Relax," Twilight said. "We're going to be watching you the whole time. Nothing's gonna happen."
Courage was still violently shaking his head, and Fluttershy was glaring at her.
"It's the best option we have right now!" Twilight insisted. "He's small enough, we can set up an experiment to attempt to reproduce the conditions of the vanishings. We're not going to hurt him, and we'll all be watching."
"I... I don't know..." Fluttershy whimpered. Courage was looking between them, and finally gave a hefty sigh. He'd been through worse before, after all.
"Alright, alright," he said finally.
Twilight didn't seem to hear this, but she did seem to understand he was coming around. "Great!" She said. "We have a plan. Everypony else, go home, and spend time with your loved ones. Keep them safe for now until I have more answers. Girls, you come with me."
---
Half an hour later, Courage was sitting in the middle of a clearing, wearing a large blue bonnet primarily reserved for foals, with a pacifier stuck in his mouth. "The things I do for love," Courage complained.
Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were all spread in a wide circle around Courage at the approximate four points of the compass, hiding behind conveniently placed bushes. They stared at him with an unrelenting gaze, none of them daring to take their eyes off him.
"This is so lame," Rainbow whispered, though there was nopony that could hear her. "This is never gonna work."
Fluttershy was beyond nervous, having taken very closely to Courage and not wanting anything to happen to him. If anything did, Twilight was never going to hear the end of it.
"This is never gonna work," Applejack muttered to herself, unknowingly sharing Rainbow Dash's exact sentiments. "Nothing's gonna be so stupid as to fall for-"
She was cut off by a sharp yelp from Courage as he was enveloped by a bright purple flare, and then was gone. For a moment it had seemed almost as if the dog was simultaneously being pulled into the ground and simply fading out of existence. The entire process took less than two seconds. All four of them saw it, and all four stared in unbelieving shock where the dog had been standing not five seconds previously, before slowly emerging from the bushes and converging towards the central point.
"No way," Rainbow whispered. Her voice was a mixture of complete terror and awe as if she'd just seen the coolest thing ever.
"It worked!" Twilight said excitedly. "I can't believe it! And you all said my experiments were a waste of-" she caught a glance at Fluttershy, who was glaring at her with such contempt that her gaze could have melted a concrete pillar. The Stare was back, in full force, with such strength that Twilight shrank away from it.
"Nothing's gonna happen, huh?" Fluttershy asked through gritted teeth.
"Heh... well... what I meant was-"
"Get. Him. Back." Fluttershy hissed. "Get them all back, but if anything happens to Courage, things are going to become extremely unpleasant for you."
Twilight blinked in shock. Had Fluttershy... FLUTTERSHY... just threatened her?
"Like... what?" Twilight asked hesitantly.
"Like the next time you ask me to water your plants when you're out, I might just accidentally forget to water one of them." This was, admittedly, about the meanest thing Fluttershy could think of.
Twilight sighed in relief. "We're going to get him back," she promised. "We're going to get them all back. More importantly, now we know for sure that something is going on. There's forces of evil at-"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL!" Pinkie Pie shouted, running past all of them with such sudden unexpectedness that all of them jumped. "EEEEEEEEEVIL!"
"...Yes," Twilight continued, pretending that hadn't just happened. "Forces of evil at work, and I suspect it may have something to do with the fogponies we battled last time. And I'm going to get some answers." She narrowed her eyes. "Pack your bags, Rainbow Dash. We're going to Canterlot."
Rainbow, who had been sort off in her own little world until now, snapped back to attention.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," she said. "Me? Why me?"
"We can't all go and leave Ponyville unattended, what if more children disappear before I get back? I need to get to Canterlot and back as quickly as possible. Princess Luna helped us last time, she may be able to help us again. So unless you know somepony faster than you-"
Rainbow Dash shook her head almost instantly. "That's a nice story you got there, Twilight, and I'm gonna let you finish, but we all know I'm the greatest pegasus of all time. When you put it like that, of course I'll go!"
"Twi?" Applejack asked. "We're gonna get em all back, right?" Her eyes shone with worry for her little sister.
"Yes," Twilight promised. "Every single one of them."