Maretropolis

The Maretropolis City Hall was a big building, with a brave stab at decoration, but it still had the glum atmosphere government buildings have.

It didn’t take long for Spike and Applejack to find Assistant Mayor Inkwell. She was struggling to hold a stack of files while keeping up with Mayor Blueblood.

“Sir?” she said. “If we could just review these very important—”

As Inkwell continued to struggle and dodge out of the way inside the busy lobby, she almost stepped on a little Breezie.

“Oh, I’m sorry... sir!”

“I heard you the first time, Inkwell!” Blueblood shouted as he set a folder on top of her already huge stack. “Please, just take care of it! And clear my afternoon. I’m going out.”

“No, no! But, sir, you have a meeting with—Sir, if I could just—”

Blueblood continued through the door to his office, letting it slam right in Inkwell’s face, and all the files she was carrying were knocked to the floor.

“Oh, pony feathers,” she sighed as she tried to collect the scattered pieces of paper.

Applejack approached and helped pick up one of her files.

“Assistant Mayor Inkwell,” she said. “We need your help.”

They saw a flash of surprise in Inkwell’s eyes as she looked up at Spike. They didn’t know why. Maybe it was his status as a hybrid. It just had that effect on people.

After Spike and Applejack helped Inkwell pick up her files, she led them to her tiny, cramped office. Spike and Applejack looked around, surprised. Her office was a janitor’s closet cluttered with boxes marked, “Urgent.”

Inkwell led them to the far corner where she had set up a little work space like an office cubicle.

“We just need to get into the traffic camera database,” Applejack said.

As Inkwell typed on the keyboard of her computer, Spike snuck a feel of her hair and whispered, “Sooo soft!”

He was mesmerized.

“You can’t just touch a woman’s hair!” Applejack whispered back.

“It’s like silk!”

“Stop it!” AJ scolded, swatting his hand away as she tried to keep Inkwell from seeing Spike.

“So, where to?” Inkwell asked as she looked up at Applejack, catching her in mid-swat.

“Everfree District, Vine and Tujunga,”

Spike and AJ shared a smile. This time, she had pronounced Tujunga correctly.

“There! Traffic cams for the whole city,” said Inkwell. “This is so exciting! I mean, I never get to do anything this important.”

“But you’re the Assistant Mayor of Maretropolis,” Applejack said.

“Oh, I’m more of a glorified secretary than anything,” Inkwell replied.

“What were you before?” Applejack asked.

“I was the District Attorney, actually,” Inkwell replied. “I think Blueblood just wanted the female vote... But he did give me that nice mug.”

She proudly pointed to a secondhand mug that read “World’s Greatest ~~Aunt~~ Assistant Mayor.”

“It feels good to be appreciated,” she said.

“Stinkwell!” shouted Mayor Blueblood through the intercom.

Inkwell cringed and groaned.

“Ugh. That’s a fun little name he likes to use. I called him Blueballs once. He did not like that at all. Let me tell you, it was not a good day for me.” She pressed a button on the intercom. “Yes, sir?”

“I thought I told you to cancel my afternoon!” he yelled.

“I gotta go,” she told Spike and Applejack. “Let me know what you find.”

“While I’m still young, Stinkwell!” Blueblood’s voice boomed again as she opened the door and hurried out.

“Do you think when she goes to sleep she listens to a recording of herself?” Spike asked.

“Shut up,” Applejack told him as she took a seat in Inkwell’s chair. “Okay. We’re in.”

Spike bent so that he was shoulder to shoulder with her. No more animosity. Just the thrill of pursuit.

They found the footage showing Magnet acting wild on the walkway, creeping towards Spike. And then, after he and Applejack fell, a black van pulled up. It skidded to a stop and two male hybrids jumped out of the back of it.

Shoulder to shoulder, the two men were tall, athletic and well-groomed. Fair skin, in black boots, black jeans and black T-shirts.

They looked almost exactly like the men that had attacked Spike and destroyed his theme park all those years ago.

Except on the back of their shirts, was a very distinct symbol... of a wolf.

“Timberwolves,” Spike and Applejack growled.

“Look at these dumb-dumbs,” Spike added.

They watched as the two hybrids caught Magnet via a net-launcher.

Applejack gasped while Spike just shook his head.

“Bet you an emerald one of ‘em’s gonna snap his jaws and then start howling,” Spike told her. “And there it is. What is it with the wolves and the jaw-snapping? The howling, I can understand, but the snapping?”

“Snapping? Snap. Dragons. Snapdragons,” Applejack said. “That’s what Magnet was afraid of! Timberwolves! ‘Snapdragons’ must be a codeword for ‘Timberwolves’! If they took Magnet—”

“You think they took Stratus Shy, too?” Spike asked.

“Only one way to find out: find out where they went,”

Spike and Applejack continued to examine the footage onscreen. As the black van drove off towards the tunnel leading to Dragontown, it disappeared into the tunnel... but it didn’t come out on the other side.

“Wait, where did they go?” Applejack asked.

Spike squinted at the screen.

“You know, if I wanted to avoid surveillance because I was doing something illegal, which I’ve never done, I would use the old maintenance tunnel 6B. Which would put them out... right there,”

He clicked over to another camera’s footage, then another, and another, and then the van emerged.

“Well, look at you, Junior Detective,” said one very impressed Applejack. “You know, I think you’d make a pretty good cop.”

Spike clicked through some more surveillance videos, tracking the van through back roads.

“Eeyup. They’re headin’ out of town,” Applejack said. “Wait. Where does that road lead to?”

“Oh, no,” Spike breathed.