Ponyville Fire Department

by Rescue Sunstreak

31 - Eureka !!

“Ouch! You did that on purpose!”

Rescue winced, glancing at Rarity who currently had a small needle and double-O silk thread held in her magic. She was stitching the gash in his ear and had a frown on her face. Around him he had quite a few mares with frowns and glares.

They had helped get him and Steel cleaned up in the lake, and were now addressing their wounds. Ailan had sent Scootaloo and Pipsqueak on a high speed dash to get Rescue’s first-aid harness and packs. Scoot had a small wagon hooked up to the rear of her scooter and they returned in no time at all.

“Darling, perhaps if you and your brother didn’t act like a couple of uncouth foals, then I wouldn’t need to do this for you. Now hush and let me finish, less you end up with a unsightly scar, or worse, a rip in your ear for the rest of your life. Honestly, who acts like that?”

Applejack spoke up. “Two idiots, that’s who.”

Grumbling, Rescue glanced over at his brother attempting to ignore the ponies, including Ailan, around him. Steel had the rest of the mares around him watching, as all five foals were wrapping him up in bandages and practicing their first aid skills. He could see the other draft was currently getting a chewing out from the pink filly. It was rather amusing, really, as she had a real talent for making somepony feel like a plot hole without being rude about it.

“Honestly, is that any way for a Battalion Commander to act? Why, what if you and the Chief had hurt each other worse? Did you think for an instant how it was going to affect us? We Explorers look up to you for our guidance, and—”

Rescue yelped again as Rarity pushed the needle in a bit deep again. The effect was for him to end up tuning out Diamond so his eyes roamed to lock on Bon Bon’s. She gave a little grunt and then snorted at him.

“You are both idiots.”

He blinked, watching every mare there, his father, and Ailan, all nod. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted the mares' pets sitting near a tree, did they just nod too? Wisely, he didn’t voice his opinions and simply gave a little nod.

“Yes, ma'am.”

He heard a slight sound, like someone snickering. Looking around, he could see no one amused, then it happened again. Glancing up, it was only now he caught sight of six small clouds around above them. On each were a few pegasi, including Thunderlane, and some of the others from the Ponyville Weather Patrol. All of them seemed to be quite amused at the antics going on down below.

It was at that moment, Diamond happened to look up, and her frown grew. Rescue thought to himself, she was going to make one hell of a fire inspector one day. She had the eye for detail, and the raw talent for keeping others in line.

“Rumble, don’t you hide behind your brother. I see you up there, do you all think this is funny? Two grown stallions acting like spoiled brats?”

Poor Rumble stuck his head out of the cloud and gave a sheepish look. “B-but, Diamond, Rainbow Dash laughed first,” hearing the colorful mare start to snort, and getting a poke in the side from Lyra. This, of course, triggered Ailan to start to snicker, spilling over to a few others. Soon, all but Diamond and Twilight were laughing.

The two exchanged looks, both were very much alike in their outlooks. Rolling their eyes, they spoke together. “Idiots.”

---

Sitting there, Rescue was nibbling on a daisy sandwich and watching as Pip got to know his uncle a bit better. After all of the laughter was over, he had Steel had pulled away from the others and had a long almost-hour long talk. A lot had been aired, and old wounds bound together so they would heal. Rescue looked back at memories, and regretted the ten years of ignoring his brother severely. That was ten years of life they would not ever get back.

He twisted his ears a bit to listen in, hearing Pip recount the tale of saving Scootaloo and earning his cutie mark.

“So, when I woke up, my dads showed me what I received,” looking at his flank a moment, then back up at the draft stallion.

Steel gave a nod. “I saw the report, and you should know we are all very proud of you, Pip. You and Rumble both showed a courage. Not only am I proud of you as the Battalion commander, but,” he got lower and said in a softer voice. “As your uncle,” blinking in surprise as the little paint leaped up and hugged him around the neck.

“Brothers are sumthin', ain’t they?”

Rescue glanced to his right where the apple mare had laid down next to him, staring over, then over where his father and Ailan sat, speaking with Rarity and Fluttershy.

“I ain’t sorry we got in the fight, we had to get that out of our system. It was coming for a long, long time.”

Applejack gave a soft chuckle. “Rescue, if y’all knew some of the drag-out brawls mah brother and I get in, you wouldn’t even need t'say that. Ah get it, but them youngins don’t.”

He gave a nod. “Yeah, I know, AJ, I know. Still, Pip has his uncle and grandfather back.”

She smiled a bit. “You got yer family, too.”

Rescue tilted his head and spoke softer. “No, the family grew, that is all. It just got bigger by two is all.”

“Well, heck, I guess in a way you are right. Why, you keep this up they are gonna have t'build more houses in Ponyville, we are goin' to get as big as Manehattan.”

Rescue’s ears shot up, and his head snapped around, staring at Applejack for a time. Her head pulled back some as she heard him say “AJ, what did you just say?”

“Ah... said we are gonna end up getting as big as Manehattan?”

His mind tumbled and ground away, before he spoke. “Before that.”

Her eyes narrowed some more. “Build more houses?”

“Build…”

Suddenly, Rescue leaped up, so unlike the big stallion he was usually, barking out in that no quarter given tone he took when in command. “Princess! I need to see a report of everyone who moved to Ponyville in the last year, and a list of all the houses built or repaired.”

The purple alicorn, mid bite of a cupcake, blinked and looked over, as did most of the others. “Can’t that wait? I mean, we—”

It was his turn to cut a mare off, as he snapped out, “No!“ recovering some and getting shocked looks from many of the mares. “I mean, no, no, ma'am, now. I mean right now. I... I think I know the clue we were missing.”

Her eyes grew wide, and she was just gone. Just like that, in a flash of light, she was gone, leaving everyone else to wonder what was going on. Rescue snapped up his badge and started to shrug into his harness and bags, Ailan trotting over and nuzzling him.

“Rescue, what's going on?”

Rescue looked at his mate, then around at everyone else. “Just... I need to get to the castle, I don’t want to say any more until I am sure, okay?”

Ailan kissed him very lightly on the lips. “Then go, I know that look,” then in a lower tone. “Go find him.”

---

It was midnight, both Rescue and Twilight had been at this for hours now. Stacks of newspapers, building reports, and residence requests lay all around them. New pins were placed on the map board on the wall of the small room, and tons of new strings colored red were hung.

Twilight set the last folder on a stack and sat down on the floor with a huff. “That was the last of them, how many names do we have?”

Rescue looked at his stack and shook his head. “Still twenty two of them. Too many, and all are just best guesses so far. We really need the residency reports from Manehattan and Los Pegasus if we are going to narrow it down more.”

She looked over at the tired and still rather haggard-looking fire pony. “Are you sure about this, Rescue? I mean, it is a very thin lead. We could end up blaming an innocent pony.”

Huffing and looking up at the map again, “It has to be it Twilight, nothing else is even close to giving us a name. Our firebug is in this stack.” Rescue put his hoof up on the folders.

“Princess Luna said she would have her best pour through the archives and get us the information as fast as they could find it. What do we do now? We have six days left, Rescue,” she said with a bit of a worried tone to her voice.

He set his jaw and looked at the stack. “We watch them all, and we wait. It's all we can do for now.”

With her ears down, Twilight nodded slowly.

---

Dragging himself into the bedroom quietly so as not to wake Ailan, Rescue slowly took off his bags and set them near the wall out of the way. Glancing to the bed, he saw the pegasus asleep, and gave a smile. Softly tiphoofing over and crawling up into the bed, he found his winged mate pushing back, kind of spooning up to his chest.

“You make any progress?” The tired pegasus muttered.

Kissing the top of his husband's head he gave a nod. “Yes, a little. Go back to sleep, it’s two in the morning.”

Ailan yawned some. “I know, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Rescue shut his eyes and pulled his hooves around the smaller stallion, pressing his barrel and chest to his mates back.

“Thank you, love. I am okay, just, we need to find this guy.”

Turning in his grip, so he was barrel to barrel, the large-winged stallion touched his mate's cheek with a hoof, looking into his eyes.

“You will find him, I believe in you, Sunny.”

Blushing at the nickname only Ailan used with him, he leaned in and collected a light, small kiss.

“I love you, Ailan.”

A slight smirk followed as Ailan cuddled in closer to go back to sleep. “You talk too much.”