"So...we're here because?" Applejack asks as she, like the others that didn't fall back to look after the downed and unusually quiet Pinkie Pie, followed on behind Twilight. She felt a little out of place in the palace. The opulence is lovely but it's one of those places that you can either see yourself living in or not. The shiny-shiny fanciful fantasy of having more lavish rooms than you could possibly ever need, ever in your entire lifetime was simply frivolous for Applejack.

Well, unless she invited her entire family to live with her. Regular reunions were one thing but she couldn't think of some cousins staying together longer than a day without dire consequences. Bad apples in every group somewhere.

The thought was pushed to the side. Twilight needed their focus. Her, Rainbow Dash and Twilight could probably figure this one out. Come on! Twilight read enough on detectives to absorb a little Private Eye skill, along with enumerable subjects and Rainbow Dash was fast. Plus, flying could help out. She would be the slow comb and they'd have this licked in an afternoon, tops!

"We're here to look for clues." Twilight assures her. The door ahead of the trio had been where Twilight had stood for about thirty seconds now. If there were any clues, they'd surely be on the other side where Princess Celestia was resting. Twilight had been just sitting there, staring at the door. You could practically hear the little gears in her head jamming. It was obvious what was happening here. She was petrified.

"OK, should we stand outside while you talk to the Princess?" Applejack asks. If it was any of her family, Applejack would be inside in an instant but this was a fallen idol in there. The unicorn looks back at her.

"N-no you don't have to."

Confirmation, if ever she needed it. It was awful to think Twilight would be mainly aiming to bring the entire group to Canterlot just to see the injured Princess. But, she also couldn't blame her. It was kinda obvious. They'd seen the creature rush off into the trees. She gave some cockamamy idea about looking for the creatures likely next move by studying the scene of the kitsoonie-whatsit tussled with the Princess. Maybe he dropped something. 'Maybe somepony knows something!' Twilight had buried her head in that book she'd found and didn't take it out for hours.

She watches Twilight sigh. She drew in a long breath, possibly to steel her courage. Maybe to inflate her body to keep her upright. The doorknob glows and turns.

"We'll be at the vault if you need us, OK Twi?" Applejack said. Twilight nods and trots inside. As soon as the door closes, both ponies turn and head back along the corridor. Applejack on hoof, Rainbow Dash hovering beside her.

"I don't think I've seen her so bummed out." Rainbow Dash said, glancing back at the door.

"She looks up to the Princess. Like a superpony, you know that. She spent the whole of the Great Galloping Gala tryin' to chat to her." Applejack replies, also glancing back at the door for a moment. "Heck! She went nuts tryin' to find something to write about that one time. Had the whole town going haywire over some little stuffed toy, d'you remember?" It was quite the story when she heard it from Twilight herself. At first she barely believed it but then finding the toy itself in Big Mac's room brought it into sharp focus for a moment.

Made his birthday gifts a lot easier to figure out from then on.

"Yeesh! I got no idea what that's like. She'll be OK though. Twilight's tough. In her own way. I know she'll be alright." Rainbow said, keeping her sight ahead of her. She seemed to be trying to stay focused on the job at hoof.

Applejack nods: "Yeah, in time. This is just a wobble. She's just scared. Twilight'll be right as rain once she sees that the Princess will recover." She gives a small smile to Rainbow, who returns it.

"Now! We got ourselves a little-"

"Excuse me." Both ponies freeze at this new voice and turn around in an instant. They both look up to the source, right into the soft eyes of Princess Luna. "I believe you are harbouring something. Some items you took from the fugitive?"

"Items? Oh!" Applejack smiles in realisation. "The weird knickknacks? Sure! The glowing necklace and the metal thing that fox was swingin' around are back at the hotel room with Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie."

"We're kinda keeping the necklace in a bucket. In the bathtub." Rainbow adds. Luna frowns, clearly, and rightly confused.

"Why would it be in there?" She asks.

"It...err...It get's really hot. Like, really, really hot. It boiled water."

"How...Bizzare." Luna said, intrigued. "You must show me."

"We can take you back to the hotel room, if you want." Applejack offers.

"Very well. Lead me there." The two ponies nod and turn. They begin moving with the Princess in tow.

"We should let Twilight know where we are." Applejack comments.

"I will leave a message for her to come find us." Luna assures them. "Tell me, how many tails did this fox have?"

Rainbow Dash answers, not really sure how it was relevant: "Uuuhh...Two? Yeah, two."

"Hmm...Interesting." Luna ruminates. "This one is young. That may explain his aberrant behavior. Thankfully, that limits the damage he may do."

"It does?! How?" Applejack asks.

"Any more tails and he'd be harder to track. Older Kitsune know more tricks."

~ | ~

"Fluttershy dear, there must be something you can think of!" Rarity insists, looking from the deeply asleep Pinkie to the yellow jittering bag of nerves hovering next to her.

"I-I've never had to resuscitate somepony before. Usually, I find it's best to just leave them be and let them wake on their own." Fluttershy responds quietly, placing down remedy #9: 'The Hot Sauce Douche'. Trying to make the dreaming pony sniff or breathe in the fumes didn't even make her flinch. Inversely, Rarity's eyes were like a running tap for a good ten minutes.

"But it's Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie, the party mare! She should have enough energy to power a whole town! I dare say the only reason she doesn't is the matter of keeping her still long enough." Rarity gestures in a grandiose manner to the sleeping pony; flank high in the air and face smushed into a pillow. Apparently this was comfortable, although Pinkie appeared so drained that being fed into a mangle would only illicit slight irritation. "This is...This is! This is abhorrent! It's a crime against nature!"

"I'm not sure it's that bad." Fluttershy descending to land next to Rarity. "But it is bizarre to see her so quiet. You'd think she'd be more like this all the time, what with all the sugar she eats."

Rarity's eyes widen in sudden epiphany. Every little cog of her mind that would ordinarily be knitting together patterns had a wonderful little idea stitched together in no time. She giggles, smiling to Fluttershy: "I have it! What if we could give her something so sugary sweet, she has to wake up and get moving? Thus breaking whatever that horrible fox did to her!"

"I don't know..." Fluttershy retreating her head into her shoulders a little. "Are you sure it's OK to pump her up like that?"

"Fluttershy, this is Pinkie Pie we're talking about: she practically lives on sugar. I'm sure this will work perfectly fine."

~ | ~

"An ancient race of magic, ghost foxes." Applejack says out loud, just to see how it hangs there in the quiet that Princess Luna's explanation had created. To her, it seemed hideously paradoxical. She wasn't stupid but that just seemed to make as much sense as as a tree that grew potatoes. "How can a ghost be solid?"

As the chariot flies over the streets, the royal transport carrying the three over Canterlot. Princess Luna looks out over the passing rooftops, almost avoiding eye contact just to garner a little more time to formulate some sort of response that wasn't simply 'because it can'. The details were sketchy, information limited to some journals and chance encounters smeared in either bigotry, exaggeration or fear when it came to their recorded retelling. There were conflicting details everywhere, with only the predominant theme of danger trending through each account.

"Because...They can." Luna replied, a little embarrassed at her bland response. "Information is scarce and what I do have is unreliable at best. Little more than ghost stories otherwise. From what can be believed is that they are tricksters. Often praying upon the arrogant and the cruel, tormenting them for their ways in any manner available to them. Some ponies claimed to marry a disguised Kitsune, only discovering their true form decades later."

"How about stealing stuff?" Applejack asks. "They supposed to do any of that?"

Luna shakes her head: "No. This Kitsune does not conform to what is expected. He chooses to be in the open. He chooses to steal from my sister. He chooses to attack directly. He appears to be on his own. This may be an outcast or simply a wondering nomad."

"So what if it acts weird?" Rainbow adds, hovering overhead because why sit in the chariot when she could be stretching her wings a little. "We find it, we beat it, case closed! Why can't we just find the fox and dish out a little Rainbow Justice?"

"Any creature such as this can ensure it cannot be found as a second sense, as if melting into a shadow. It would be as if tasked with bottling smoke." The Princess replies, her mane billowing in the wind like a shimmering night sky.

Rainbow Dash frowns in confusion: "Huh?"

"She means finding this guy would be as hard as findin' a needle in a haystack, probably 'cause of some ghost ju-ju." Applejack explains, adding a sigh. "I got harvests to buck. I ain't got time to play detective."

"Hey! You got me here!" Rainbow Dash giving a big, determined grin. "Nothing outruns me."

"Ah, I know, Sugarcube." Applejack smirks at the hovering pegasi. "Princess, is there some way of lurin' this ghost out?"

"Hmm...There are possibilities."

~ | ~

"I-I still don't think this is a good idea." Fluttershy protests with the force and gale of a feather fluttering to the ground.

"Nonsense! We need Pinkie Pie's account, sooner rather than later." Rarity hushes, her magic whisking up some thick, slopping substance inside a bowl hovering by her side. It would occasionally puff little clouds of icing sugar into the air as she mixed. The bowl is moved in front of Rarity's face, inspecting the mixture. "There is a monster on the loose. There's a chance Pinkie has a vital clue. Besides, this does not look healthy for her."

"Neither does the remedy..." Fluttershy mumbles.

Rarity sets the bowl on the bed, grabbing a spoonful of the dribbling, viscous substance. There wasn't just three types of sugar. Oh no! There was honey, maple syrup, candy floss, melted chocolate, sprinkles, glazed cherries and a little hot sauce. Why not? It's to kick her back awake, right? She spins the spoon to catch as much of the runny excess as possible before moving the spoon over to the specially prepared Pinkie. She was now sitting upright, mouth open with Fluttershy on hand.

In goes the spoon, into Pinkie's mouth. Fluttershy helping her eat the viciously sweet liquid and massaging the throat to help her swallow it. It seemed to work, the majority of it hitting it's mark and...

Pinkie's eyes open. Her eyes are wide as she falls forwards onto her hooves, the other two keeping their distance.

"Pinkie! How do you feel?"

The pink pony smiles, licking the excess from around her mouth: "Mmmmm! That's so good! Needs more chocolate, less maple syrup. It sounds crazy, but it's true!" She jumps, up off the bed and next to Rarity. She then hops around the room to the window. "Huh! When did I get here? Oh! Are we in Canterlot?! Oooo! Are we seeing a show? Or is Twilight taking another test? Oh, oh! We're here to deal with another meanie monster bad guy, right?"

"Well, close enough." Rarity answers. "Twilight, Applejack and Rainbow Dash are checking the scene of Celestia's fight with the fox thing for clues. We were trying to figure out how to cure what the brute did to you."

"Oh! You mean Tyro! I never forget anypony! He was really weird. We were playing hide and seek and I spotted him so he jumped down and..." Pinkie screws up her face in thought. "Aaaaand...uuuhhhhh..."

"We don't know for sure, but we think he laid a curse on you." Rarity answered. "We found you deeply asleep. You've been out cold for hours. You didn't even budge one inch all the way here."

"But, it's OK! Because you've made a super special, anti-fox, funky-flavoured, super miracle cure!" Pinkie giggles, going back to hopping around in place. "We should be totally safe from any more curses."

"Pinkie! I don't think you should be so active so soon. Your still recovering!" The pink pony apparently didn't listen to Rarity at all as she bounds for the door.

"I feel great! Come on! I've been sleeping long enough! Let's go hit the town!"

Rarity looks to Fluttershy with concern, seeing a similar expression back at her. They both rush for the door.

They don't need to go far to find Pinkie Pie. The pony had slumped against the door opposite, hanging from the door knob by her hooves and snoring quietly. She seemed somewhat stable, despite having a tiny amount of room to perch upon.

"Oh! Oh dear..." Fluttershy said as they inspect her. "Do you think it wore off?"

"All we accomplished was giving her a sugar rush." Rarity picks Pinkie up as best as she could, dragging her back to their room. "It worked but I assume she burned through it too quickly. I think it best we let her rest before trying again."

~ | ~

Author's Note

Version 0.0.4