Maretropolis

A misty fog hung in the air as Spike and Applejack crossed a rope-bridge to a garden apartment high up in the canopy. Once the fog cleared, they could see the moss-covered door to Steven Magnet’s home.

Applejack rang the doorbell. There was no response, which wasn’t completely unexpected. It was late, and Magnet was probably already in bed.

“Mr. Magnet? Officer Smith, MPD!” she called out. “You’re not in trouble. We just want to know what happened to Stratus Shy.”

The door unlocked and slowly creaked open, just a crack. The chain lock prevented the door from opening all the way. Through the space, they could see that Magnet was a sea dragon hybrid and he was wearing a sleeveless vest.

“You should be asking what happened to me!” he said.

He had been badly beaten, covered with bruises, scratches, and a black eye.

“Whoa!” Spike said. “A fifty-two-year-old florist did that?”

“What happened?” Applejack asked.

“He was an animal!Down on all fours and growling...He wasa savage!”

Magnet described the scene, sounding haunted, like he was reliving it.

He adjusted the rearview mirror and saw Mr. Shy tearing up the cushions of the seat. Then he turned his head and looked at the empty back seat.

Suddenly, Stratus Shy attacked Magnet. The limo swerved off the road and Magnet was thrown from the driver’s seat. He looked up in horror at the snarling elderly man as he ran away.

“There was no warning. He just kept yelling about the Snapdragons. Over and over. The Snapdragons!”

“So, you know about the Snapdragons too?” Spike asked. “That’s good, because that is what we are here to talk about. So, if you just open the door and tell us what you know, we’ll tell you what we know. Okay?”

Magnet considered a moment.

“Okay,” he said before he shut the door.

As he unlocked each of the locks from inside, Applejack glanced at Spike, impressed.

“Clever boy,” she said with a smile.

Suddenly, they heard a clattering inside the apartment and Magnet scream.

“Mr. Magnet?” Applejack asked. “Are you okay?”

A loud thud sounded, then the door creaked an inch.

Applejack slowly pushed it open and saw Magnet hunched over, on all fours, in the middle of the room.

With a low growl, Magnet turned to them. His eyes were huge and his teeth were bared. Then he raced at them like a primal predator.

“Run,” Applejack told Spike. “Run!”

They turned and ran for their lives and Magnet chased after them.

“What is wrong with him?” Spike shouted.

“I don’t know!” Applejack replied.

They ran across the slippery suspension bridge with Magnet close behind.

“We’re not gonna make it!” Spike shouted.

“Jump!” Applejack yelled.

They leapt off the rope bridge and landed on a low branch. Then they ducked into a hollow log, trying to hide, but Magnet continued to stalk them.

Applejack frantically picked up her police radio.

“Officer Smith to Dispatch! Pie, can you hear me?”

Inside the Precinct One police station, Pinkie Pie was casually chatting with a convict as she showed him a video on her cell phone.

“Are you familiar with Countess Coloratura, the biggest popstar in the world, greatest singer of our lifetime, angel without wings?” Pinkie asked, not seeing the red light blinking on the dispatch phone. “Okay, hold on. Keep watching. Who’s that beside her? Who is it?”

She pointed to the screen, where she was dancing on stage with Coloratura.

“Wow, you are one hot dancer,” Coloratura’s voice started, finishing with a more robotic tone. “Pinkamena Diane Pie.”

“It’s me!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Did you think it was real? It looks so real. It’s not, it’s just a new app.” She chuckled. Then she finally noticed the dispatch phone and clicked the speaker button. “Hold on a sec. Hello?”

“PINKIE PIE!!!!” Applejack yelled.

Magnet, trying to get inside the log, took a swipe at her.

“Pie, this is Smith, I’ve got a 10-91! Hybrid gone crazy! Everfree District! Vine and Tuh-junja!”

“It’s pronounced ‘Tuh-hunga!’” Spike shouted, correcting her.

“Okay, we’re sending backup!” said Pinkie, hearing the racket on the other end. “Smith? SMITH?!”

Magnet took another swipe at Applejack and she dropped her radio as she and Spike scrambled out of the log and continued to run with the driver still in pursuit.

“There!” Applejack shouted when she spotted the gondola station up ahead. “Head for the sky tram!”

They ran toward the gondolas and Applejack darted out of Magnet’s way, but she slipped and almost slid off the platform.

“Blondie!” Spike cried, trying to hold on to the gondola.

“Go!” she shouted, struggling to regain her footing on the slippery surface of the bridge.

Spike hesitated as he held on to the door of the gondola. But it pulled away.

Spike froze as Magnet moved toward him. Then he screamed as Magnet lunged at him full speed. A split second before he reached Spike—clank! Magnet was yanked back by a handcuff on his left foot.

Applejack had cuffed him to the lamppost!

Magnet struggled angrily, knocking Spike and Applejack over the edge of the walkway. Applejack grabbed a vine with one hand and struggled to hold Spike with the other. As the two swung over the canopy, Spike looked at the bottomless abyss below.

“Applejack, don’t let me go!” he shouted.

Applejack’s mind raced as she tried to figure out what to do next.

“I’m gonna let go!”

“No, you, what?”

Applejack let go of the vine and they flew through the air, into a net of vines. Spike couldn’t believe it.

“Applejack. You saved my life,”

“Well, that’s what we do at the MPD,”

Snap!

The vines broke and they plummeted like a pair of bungee-jumpers toward the ground! Luckily, a cluster of vines wrapped around their bodies and stopped them right before they hit the forest floor.

Sirens wailed and converged on their position. Then, faint white lights, then red, and blue. Pale luminous spheres snapping and popping through the gloom. A convoy of police squad cars screeched to a halt.

Out of one stepped Chief Iron Will. He stared at Spike and Applejack, who hung upside down, tangled in the vines, suspended in midair, in front of him.

Applejack smiled.

“Well, this should be good,” Iron Will sighed with a snort.

Applejack led Chief Iron Will and the other officers to the wooden walkway up in the canopy.

“I thought this was just a missing person case, but it’s much bigger. Mr. Shy did not just disappear. I believe he and this hybrid, they went insane, sir,”

“Insane?” Chief Iron Will scoffed. “This isn’t the Nineteenth Century, Smith. People don’t just go crazy. Especially not for no reason.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Applejack replied, “until I saw this.”

They turned a corner to where she had handcuffed Magnet—but he was gone! Even the handcuffs had vanished.

“What? He was right here!” she said, confused.

“The ‘insane’ hybrid?” Iron Will asked.

“Sir, I know what I saw! He almost killed us!”

“Or, maybe any aggressive hybrid looks dangerous to you humans. Let’s go!” he told his men.

“Sir, I’m not the only one who saw him. Spike!”

Chief Iron Will scoffed again.

“You think I’m going to believe a known felon?”

“He’s a key witness,” Applejack said. “And I enlisted his services.”

“Two days to find Stratus Shy or you quit. That was the deal. Badge,” Iron Will said as he held out his giant, muscular hand.

Spike, flanked by two officers, looked at Applejack in dismay as she stared at Iron Will’s outstretched hand.

He felt terrible. He had wasted her time, not knowing that she had only 48 hours to solve a missing persons case, or that her career was on the line, and he could have cared less.

And it was all his fault. He had never felt so guilty.

“But, sir--” she began again.

“Badge!” he repeated firmly, waiting for her to hand it over.

As Applejack slowly reached up to unpin her badge, Spike spoke up.

“No,”

Iron Will glared at Spike.

“What did you say, Dragon?” he asked.

“I said ‘no.’ She will not be giving you that badge,” Spike stated firmly. “First of all, you gave her a clown vest, a three-wheeled joke-mobile and two days to solve a case that you and your whole department haven’t been able to solve in two weeks? Well, now it’s no wonder why she had to get help from someone like me. None of you were obviously going help her! Were you?”

Iron Will opened his mouth to say something.

“And another thing, Chief!” Spike added. “You gave her forty-eight hours? So, technically, we still have ten left to find Mr. Shy, and that is exactly what we are going to do. So, if you will kindly excuse us, we have one very big lead to follow and a case to crack. Good day, sir.”

Applejack followed Spike while Chief Iron Will watched in stunned silence as they climbed aboard the sky tram.

“After you, Officer Smith,” Spike said as he held the door open for her.

The bell clanged and the gondola glided up into the night sky like a firefly, leaving the Chief and the rest of the officers far below.