Ponyville's New Mayor

"Fillies and Gentlecolts, the Fishing Tourney is about to being."

"Huh? What was that?" Rainbow Dash asked while waking up in the morning.  "Six?  Six?  Who makes an announcement at six in the morning?  And where did that voice come from?"

Rainbow woke up on an early Sunday morning to the announcement of the so-called annual fishing tournament, which had actually never happened before.  She decided to look out the window of her floating mansion to all of the ponies down below.

"This should be exciting.  I'm so happy our new mayor has brought some of his country's customs and celebrations over to our small town," Lyra said to Bonbon.

"I didn't put those in my bag," Bonbon responded with a yell.

"All of the ponies in this town seriously have issues," the rainbow-maned pegasus muttered to herself.

It was about three weeks since the disappearance of Mayor Mare, and there was no good news yet.  She hadn't been found, a reason was not given, and no leads were even discovered.  In fact, the reason to her disappearance was the most important issue.  Nopony knew if she had been murdered, fell off a cliff, turned into a trophy on the wall, or if she had just gone on vacation and nopony knew about it.  The five members of the main six who remained in Ponyville hoped that it was the latter, as the Royal Guard had not made any kind of progress in the search.

Rainbow continued to look outside, and she was surprised to see all of the ponies running toward the river with fishing roods somehow attached to their bodies.  Everypony was excited for this new competition.  The prize?  Nopony knew just yet.

"Do ponies even eat fish?" Rainbow asked herself.

Since her friends were not as suspicious towards the new mayor as she was, she decided to take matters into her own hooves.  She decided that she was going to continue her investigative work on this human, who seemed very nice, but oh-so weird.

Rainbow looked in her closet, hoping to find something that she could fish with.  She had never felt the need to fish before, but fishing beside the mayor could be a good way at getting a closer look at him.

After not finding anything that she could fish with, she decided to just go down to the ground and make her way to the river.  But before she took off, she passed her mailbox.  The flag was up, and for some reason her mailbox was making a beeping sound, which it had never done before.  Upon opening it, she pulled out a single letter that was inside.

Rainbow opened the envelope, revealing a poorly hand-written note, which read,

"To Rainbow Dash,

Hello, friend.  Let's be friends.

From, Mayor."

There was something else in the envelope, though.  She reached into the envelope, which fit in her hoof, and pulled out a one-and-a-half metre long fishing pole, which somehow fit inside.

Rainbow was starting to begin to think that she was going crazy.  The ponies in the town were all acting out of their minds, physics had seemed to change, and yet nopony seemed to have a single concern in the world.

"Remember what Twilight said," Rainbow muttered to herself, "'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'  There's no logic here.  I'm not asleep, on drugs, or in a new world.  This must really be happening."  She could hardly believe it, but it this entire ordeal was really happening.  The only way she could keep herself from going mad was to just go along with it.

Rainbow made her way to the river.  Even though it was early in the morning, nearly every pony in the entire town had drawn together as a crowd.  They were looking toward a small wagon that was by the side of the river.  The wagon had a creature beside it, hideous in nature.

"Welcome to the first annual Ponyville Fishing Tourney," the ugly creature responded.  Rainbow deduced that he was some kind of beaver that stood on his hind legs.  "I'm Chip, the organizer and judge of this tournament.  Today you will be looking for bass.  Nice, tender, delicious bass. Whoever brings me the biggest, most delicious, juicy, scrumptious..."  He looked out at the crowd, staring at him in confusion.  After clearing his throat nervously, he continued, "Bass will be crowned the winner.  I will be measuring to see who will catch the biggest one.  After today, I will be off to another town to eat more delicious bass.  Ready... Set... Go!"

Everypony who was in the crowd went to all different sections of the river that flowed through the town.  The mayor was the first to cast his rod into the blue, peaceful waters of the Ponyville River.

In nearly seconds, everypony had grabbed their fishing rods and were patiently waiting for a bite.

Rainbow went to go find a spot close to her friends, who were all standing directly across from the mayor.

"Rainbow, we're so glad you could make it," Rarity said.

"Yeah, sugarcube, take up a spot next to me," Applejack added.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow and nodded, not trying to look like she was suspicious of the whole thing.  She cast her fishing rod in the river.  The bobber floated on top of the water, and it went downstream a few metres before stopping in place when the line could go no further.

She looked around at all of the other ponies.  There must have been nearly a hundred ponies fishing.  She looked over to Chip, who was speaking to Vinyl, who seemed to have caught a bass.

"Let's see what you've caught today," Chip said.

Vinyl pulled reached beside her, the spot where Rainbow could not see, and pulled out a sea bass.

"Um, this isn't a bass," Chip said.  "Well, technically it is a bass, but not the kind of bass I'm looking for.  You'll have to catch one in the river, not in the ocean."

"We have an ocean in Ponyville?" Rainbow mumbled.

Vinyl trotted back over to the river.  The DJ dropped the bass, and it fell into the fresh water and instantly died, because it was a salt water fish.

Rainbow rolled her eyes and continued to try and fish.

"Whoa, I think I caught something huge," she said as her bobber moved around in a circle violently.  She pulled with all of her strength, desperately holding on to her pole.  At any second it could have just flown right out of her hooves.  She yanked hard and pulled out of the water a small goldfish.

"Oh, goodness, it's so cute," Fluttershy came over and said.

"Yeah, but it's not what I'm looking for," Rainbow replied as she threw it back into the water.

After continuing to fish, Rainbow looked up and saw the mayor directly across from her.  She looked down at his reflection in the water.  As she raised her head, she saw the mayor staring back at her, smiling maniacally; or normally, she wasn't quite sure.  His face didn't seem to change.

He looked back down to the water.  His rod began to shake; his bobber violently spinning in the water.  He fought back hard, while still holding his smile, and pulled out a large bass.  He showed it off and the other ponies clopped their hooves in reply.

He shoved the bass in his pocket, walked over to Chip, and pulled it back out.

"Now that's what I'm talking about," Chip said enthusiastically.  He grabbed the bass, measured it, and said, "Thirty-seven inches long.  Scrumptious."  The way he said his final word just wreaked of love.  It was almost as if a heart could appear over his head, in order to show how excited he was.

He grabbed the bass, ate it in a few bites, and belched loudly.  "We have a winner," he announced.

Everypony looked over to Chip, who held up the mayor's hand up high, signifying that he had won the tournament for the day.  Everypony applauded in sheer excitement.

"Here is your prize," Chip said.  He handed the mayor a large green leaf, and the mayor put it in his pocked.  "Please take your trophy."

Rainbow had to give her head a shake.  A leaf.  A leaf was the trophy.  There were literally thousands, neigh, millions of leaves around the forests of Ponyville; yet that was the prize.

She said her goodbyes to her friends for the day, and followed the mayor back to his home from the skies.

The mayor ran as fast as he could, with no apparent reason for it, back to his house, which was a small one-story home with a red roof.  It almost looked comically small.  As he went inside, Rainbow went to the window.  The house seemed much bigger inside as it did outside.

The mayor pulled out the leaf he won from his pocket, and threw it on the ground.  The leaf instantly turned into a trophy that was about the same size as the human himself.  Rainbow could hardly believe her eyes.  Her face, which beheld her shock, told the whole story.  She cocked her head back, gave herself a shake, and looked again.  Her eyes didn't betray her- there really was a trophy in his mostly empty house.

Once again, Rainbow saw enough for the day.  She had to return home to keep her sanity, hoping that somehow, someway, this would eventually all make sense.  Patience was the key.