The next morning found the big brown stallion in his office. Even with the door closed, he could hear the other firefighters going about their day. Open in front of him on the desk sat a simple folder filled with reports, the one on top was one he had been waiting for. Wildfire had brought it down from Canterlot herself at the request of the Fire Chief.
Wildfire was an interesting pegasus. Rescue had chance to work with her once or twice before. The yellow-coated, black-maned mare was blind. However, thanks to a special-built flight suit and headset unit, she could still fly missions as well as the sighted pegasi could. The scrappy mare had earned even his father's respect. This was why she was here with information of a highly-classified nature.
He frowned again and then picked up a fresh piece of paper, starting to write out another request. He would have to deliver this himself.
---
Two hours later, he sat in the meeting room at the castle. In the room all watching him were the Elements of Harmony, Mayor Mare, Wildfire, and of course, Princess Twilight. He found himself not wanting to believe but, the evidence didn’t lie. He looked up and around, then to the alicorn in the room.
“You are sure the room is sealed, it is only this group that can hear what I am about to say?”
He watched her nod and then say. “Yes, Chief, I sealed it myself. But, what is so secret?”
Exhaling slowly, he slid a folder to each of the mares in turn, taking note of the confused look on many of their faces.
“Princess, Mayor, ladies, before you is a report I have been waiting on for almost a month. Please, take your time, look it over some.”
He grew silent for the next few minutes before the Mayor lifted her hoof.
“It... looks to be some kind of report on the last three fires here in Ponyville, including the one that…” she trailed off.
He gave a nod and spoke in a softer level of voice. “I want you to all look at page eight. That is a chemical analysis and breakdown of residue found at every site.”
It was the purple alicorn who spoke up. “I don’t understand, Chief, they all look identical.”
His frown grew and he bobbed his head in a gentle nod. “They are, Princess, identical in every way.”
Applejack lifted her head to make eye contact. “So, Rescue, what are ya tryin' to tell us?”
Noting all eyes on him, he laid his ears back and tapped the folder in front of him. “What you are seeing is a compound known as Tetrahydrofuran. Its primary use is as a solvent in varnishes, mostly house paint and lacquers,” he took a pause. “It was used as an accelerant. I found the traces at the orphanage site, the big woods fire, and... Archer’s family's house.”
It was, perhaps by surprise, that Fluttershy was the first to speak up. “Chief Rescue, sir, are you saying that the fires were set by somepony?”
His eyes moved down, away from the sixteen pairs of eyes locked on him, then he gave a nod of his head. “Yes, we, ladies, have an arsonist and a murderer in town.”
The mares all reacted different. Applejack and Dash bolted upright from their chairs and gave off growls of anger. Fluttershy let out a sob-like squeal, while Rarity brought her hoof to her chest and muttered the word No! The mayor was speechless, as was Wildfire. Pinkie, oh poor Pinkie and her mane let out almost instantly, looking as flat as it was the day of the funeral and when she came to talk to him in his hospital room.
Twilight had perhaps the reaction he had not expected, the folder in front of her glowed with purple magic around it, crumpled into a ball, that continued to crumple, and crumple, imploding on itself before it erupted in a flash of fire and smoke with a pop. This brought all the girls to spin and look at their friend. Twilight, for her part, just focused on the now marble-sized ball of ash held in her magic.
Rescue had never seen Twilight this angry before, and it dawned on him just how much power, how much magic it took to do what she just did. He watched her look of calm returned and her head lift to look at him.
“Who,” is all she said with a dark tone in her voice.
Rescue shook his head. “I don’t know yet, I have very little to go on. Whoever it is, is very good at covering their tracks. They use easy-to-find items. I can find no residue of an ignition source, so, I have to go on a educated guess and say they are a unicorn,” he paused. “And yes, before you ask, Princess, I already had Wildfire—” giving a nod to the mare next to him, “—bring a detector crystal with her. Whoever it was, knows enough to not leave behind a magical signature, they use just enough to ignite the fire but not enough to leave behind their magical mark, so to speak."
She flattened her ears down and looked around at the others who, other than Rarity, were appearing a bit confused. “You see, when a unicorn uses magic, they have a unique signature, like a hoof print. However, if they only use small things, such as making a few sparks or lifting a item up off the ground, it doesn’t leave enough of that... mark... to track them with.”
The mayor spoke up now. “Chief Sunstreak, what can we do to prevent this?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know yet, Mayor Mare, but I do know this. Each fire was exactly thirty two days apart.”
Applejack’s head snapped up, and she blurted out. “But that there means—”
A grave look crossed his face. “Yes, Applejack, that means it will happen again tonight if the pattern holds true.”
It was the plucky firefighter pegasus who spoke up, but in a subdued voice. After all, here she was in a room with a princess, and five of Equestria’s national treasures. “Chief Sunstreak, is... is there any chance this could be wrong? An arsonist, there hasn’t been a recorded one in at least forty years.”
He gave a nod and answered the young firefighter. “I am sure, it's not possible for this chemical to have shown up in such concentrations in three fires. Couple that to the exact timing, and there is only this conclusion to come to.”
He didn’t mean to put as much power into his hoof coming down. However, when it did, the thud and the resulting crash of the cup that he crushed under it made everypony else jump in surprise. The big stallion's voice was low, angry, and cold.
“It means, firefighter, that Archer was no accident, she was murdered.”
He let that sit in the air, silent. He noticed every face, their sorrow, their anger and righteous indignation. It was Mayor Mare that broke the quiet of the room once more.
“What can we do, Chief?”
Feeling all eyes back on him, Rescue let out a long, slow breath and slumped back into his seat some.
“Truth be told, Mayor, sit and wait,” throwing up a hoof to cut off the anger he saw Rainbow Dash’s face light up with. “I do not mean do nothing. I mean, we can’t tip our hoof. We will have to man the station fully for the next few nights. We can quietly set a few more patrols in town, but...”
Pausing to look down, he blinked, seeing his hoof was bleeding. Calmly, he plucked a sliver of glass out of it and grabbed a napkin off of the table to hold against the small cut. He shook his head when he spotted Fluttershy starting to move.
“I am fine, Miss Fluttershy, but as I was about to say,” he paused again, looking around at the ponies. “The only ones that can know, is this group. If it gets out, it could cause panic, or worse.”
Applejack’s voice cut in. “What is worse?”
Rescue laid his ears back once more and looked over into his best friend's eyes. “Pony versus pony, folks panic and start to throw blame. Someone gets caught with something that looks off, and suddenly a lynching happens and an innocent pony dies.”
Twilight jumped up some “That would never—”
Rescue cut her off. “Oh? So the incident with the zebrican, Zecora, never happened?”
She closed her mouth, then sat down with a frown and a thud. “Point made.”
---
Rescue had sent Wildfire back to Canterlot with a mission; collect a small group of firefighters together and start searching through the records, to look for patterns that fit this one and look for causes that were suspect, and contact other departments and search for patterns in other cities across Equestria. There was no way, he thought, this was isolated or new to Ponyville.
It was going to be a long night. Rescue looked over at Ailan, then around the sleeping quarters at the others. No radio on, and the lights were down low as if the whole station was asleep. Twelve of them total sat, while at their homes the rest of the volunteer department waited by pager boxes for the alarm to go off.
Out in the small town, Twilight had put five more sets of two guards on patrol, but spread them out so they would not seem out of place. Suddenly there was a soft noise and Rescue had to look up. His eyes grew wide as he saw two thestral guards slid from the shadows near the slide pole. Both made almost no sound, even with their armor on, as they walked over.
Rescue noted one of them looked familiar, he had seen him before. “Sergeant?”
The bat-winged stallion dipped his head. “Chief Sunstreak, may I introduce Captain Darkblade. As we did not have a chance in our last meeting, I am Sergeant Nightstrike.”
The one introduced as the captain spoke. “Our princess was informed of the issue by Princess Twilight Sparkle. She bid a unit of her guards to come and watch the night with you and yours.”
Rescue glanced around at the other fireponies, almost all of whom were still kind of shocked to see two ponies just slide out of the shadows like it was a pool of water. He turned back to the two thestral ponies.
“We are honored. Where is the rest of your squad, Captain?”
He gestured. “They watch from the shadows and are in teams of two. Orders are to send one back to report to me, here, if you do not mind, and not stop anypony unless immediate harm to another is threatened.”
Rescue gave a nod and was about to say something, when the horn mounted in the squad bay below, started its series of tones. There was no time for talk, as he, and eleven other fireponies started cramming their legs into turnouts and pulling on his steel pulling shoes.
“Captain, Sergeant, you can ride in the rear of the rescue wagon,” he ordered just as he leaped out and caught the pole to slide down with that speed and grace born almost twenty years as a firefighter. Once down, he moved over to the big board and looked up. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see two of the others starting to shove the big barn doors open and block them so they wouldn’t swing closed again.
Bull trotted over and gave a grunt. “Box three,” not even bothering to catch Rescue’s nod. He moved to the call out board and turned the dial to three, then pressed down on the big red button again, knowing the foals had been ordered to stand down for tonight's callout.
Both of the Lunar guards watched on, impressed with how the fireponies moved. No waste of motion or time, it was like watching a dance happen. The captain noting how each team knew where to go, how each pony helped the other get dressed and into harnesses.
“Impressive how fast they can gear up, eh, Cap?” the Sergeant mentioned as he watched on.
“Nightstrike, I will say this, they are faster than even our unit is. Look at them, not one out of place—”
Rescue cut him off as he jogged past. “Asses and hooves, move it like you got a pair. Captain, Sergeant, in the back of the wagon, we are moving out,” speaking even as he got to the front of the wagon and started to hook in next to Jim, who was his pull partner tonight. He would prefer to have Big Mac on the rescue squad with him, but he needed Mac on the pump wagon tonight pulling as wheel pony.
Sirens cranked up, with a glance over at each other, eight ponies hooked to two wagons with four hanging onto the back of the big pump, two Lunar guards sitting in the back of the rescue wagon, all pulled out into the street together. The smaller squad taking lead and building speed up followed by the bigger pump squad. The wagon’s flags fluttered in the night air, red and blue lights strobing across houses as the thunder of wheels and hooves, sirens and bells echoed down the street.