Strange Voice on the Phone

It had been three days since the attack on Fluttershy and the entire town of Ponyville was in a state of quiet chaos. Royal Canterlot guards were now investigating every lead they could on the mysterious caller in pure desperation that they would get a break on the case. They even went door to door investigating every pony in Ponyville, putting everypony through a rigorous investigation that often left the citizens of Ponyville even more paranoid about The caller. It was far from uncommon that the investigation would reduce some of the weaker ponies in the town to hysterical tears. But interview after interview after interview led to no new leads at all. In an act of desperation, the griffin inventor of the phone was called in to see if he could adjust his invention to track call locations, but since the technology was so new, nopony had too much hope that that endeavor would bring about much success. with the constant stress of the guard's investigations and the growing fear that anypony could be the next to receive a call at any moment, the town was in a constant state of terror. Doors were locked, ponies stayed in tight groups at all times, and the young ponies in the town were never seen outside when the night came. In an unfortunate turn of events, the male unicorns of the town were being shunned from the society for fear that they were the mysterious attacker. Few ponies wanted to talk to them, even those that had been their friends for years.

Twilight Sparkle stood next to her brother, a worried expression on her face as she watched two guards knock on the door of a Ponyville resident. "Have you had any leads on a potential attacker?" she asked. Shining Armor grimaced.

"I'm technically not allowed to tell you anything but in all honesty, you know just about as much as we do as pretty much all of our info has come from your friends. I gotta say that I don't think the choice of potential victims was random. You six are quite well known throughout Equestria and it is possible that somepony might have a grudge. Is there anyone you can think of off the top of your head?" he asked hopefully. Twilight thought for a brief moment.

"Well, there was a pony who came through a while back who called herself the 'Great and Powerful Trixie'. She was a real showoff and left Ponyville because she was embarrassed that I was more powerful than she was. I guess she could be back for revenge," Shining Armor nodded.

"Good, we'll look into that. Anyone else?"

"We ran a salesman duo named the Flim Flam Brothers out of town. Maybe them?" said Twilight. This time Shining Armor shook his head.

"No one has seen them since they left your town. Investigations into that have yielded little results although we do find a few pieces of their destroyed machine every now and again. We actually suspect foul play," he said grimly. Twilight's jaw dropped in surprise at this news. Sure the duo was annoying but did somepony actually think they were annoying enough to kill?

"Wow. I'm not quite sure how to think about that," Twilight decided to put it in the back of her mind for now and went back to the matter at hand. "Unfortunately, that's all I can think of right now."

"Well, it is helpful to have another potential suspect, but I kind of doubt she is really the one. We're pretty sure the attacker was from Ponyville."

"How do you know?" asked Twilight curiously.

"I can't give you that info, sorry," said Armor. They sat in silence for a few seconds when Twilight began to notice a nervous look creep slowly onto her brother's face.

"What's wrong?" asked Twilight picking up on his mood. Shining Armor sighed and rubbed his brow with his hoof.

"Well sis, we're so dry on leads right now that we haven't really ruled out any unicorns in Ponyville."

"What are you saying?" asked Twilight, who was kind of afraid of the answer.

"Well, don't tell anyone about this but you are a suspect."

"WHAT!?!?!?!" said Twilight in pure shock.

"Your friend Rarity as well."

"But this is...I...wha....HUH!?!?" said Twilight, reeling from the news that she was a suspect in the attempted murder of two of her best friends.

"Look, only a base suspect. You are only a suspect in the sense that we can't rule any Ponyvillian unicorns right now," said Armor in an attempt to calm her down.

"But you don't think I did it right?" said Twilight in a small voice. Shining Armor's eyes widened.

"No of course not!" he said putting a comforting hoof on her shoulder. "None of the other men really believe you did it either, or Rarity for that matter. I know you two, we all do, and we know that you would never hurt your friends. Having said that, we just can't afford to rule out any suspects right now."

"I can promise you I didn't do it," said Twilight in a strained voice.

"I'm pretty sure you're right," said Armor, taking his hoof off of Twilight.

"Pretty sure as in there is a small chance?"

"Like I said, we can't afford..."

"To rule out any suspects," said Twilight glumly.

"Don't worry, it'll turn out okay," said Armor comfortingly.

"I hope so. Pinkie and Fluttershy were lucky. I don't know if the next pony who is attacked will be so lucky," said Twilight turning towards the nearly empty streets of Ponyville and surveying them for anything interesting.

"I gotta be honest Twi, I have my doubts that we'll be able to stop the attacker before...you know. Whoever attacked your friends seemed very intent on causing them serious harm and they only got out without being hurt because they were very lucky. I don't know if we can catch him soon enough but we're all doing what we can."

"I hope it's enough," said Twilight worriedly.

"So do I," said Armor with a worried look on his face. "So do I. Our best bet is to predict who the attacker will call next. If I'm right that it is you six in particular that this pony is after, we'll probably have better luck watching you. I'll have guards posted around your houses, especially Pinkie and Fluttershy. I don't want to risk the attacker coming back to finish the job he or she failed to complete the first time." Twilight nodded and looked uneasily at another pair of guards knocking on another door.