Maretropolis

Spike and Applejack found the mysterious road and followed it. They stopped and peered over a rock as a black van drove past a gated checkpoint. And beyond the gate was an abandoned building built on top of an industrial dam overlooking the waterfall.

Only the building wasn’t abandoned.

Her senses on high alert, Applejack signaled to Spike to follow her and they slowly snuck to the guarded gate. There were two Timberwolves on sentry duty. They were bulky figures, unarmed, dressed in black trench coats and pants.

The gate control shack was a metal structure with tall, wide windows on all sides. One of the Timberwolves was in it. Spike and Applejack scurried behind the outside guard, who stood watching the building on the dam, then past the gate control shack, where the other guard got off the phone.

Spike used sign language to tell Applejack that he was going to try and tiptoe past. She watched in alarm as he sneaked behind the second guard, whose wolfish nose started to sniff, picking up on his scent.

Spike tried to control his breathing as the guard began searching for the source of the scent. But before the guard could find Spike, Applejack, who was still hiding, impersonated a howling animal, grabbing the wolf hybrid’s attention.

“Ooooooooo!”

Hearing the sound, the Timberwolf hybrid couldn’t help but howl back.

The other guard approached and said sharply, “Quit it! You’re gonna start a howl!”

“I didn’t start it!”

“Ooooooooo!” Applejack howled again.

Unable to control themselves, the two guards howled back. Soon more and more Timberwolf hybrids joined in.

“Come on,” Applejack whispered as she grabbed Spike by the arm and they jumped the fence and hurried across the bridge above the waterfall.

“Clever girl,” Spike said, impressed.

As they scrambled over the slippery rocks, they spotted water pouring out of a large drainpipe overhead. Climbing inside, they walked until they removed a manhole cover above their heads, and climbed up into a dark, cavernous room.

Applejack shined her flashlight around the room and it picked out rusty, upturned iron beds.

“I think this was a mental hospital,” she said.

She saw a metal door at the far side of the room and walked toward it.

Spike moved forward and reached for the door handle. Then he stepped back saying, “You’re the officer. You go first.”

Applejack slowly pushed the door open and peered through it.

“All clear,” she said.

They cautiously walked in and Applejack took in the sight of a stylish desk, a pedestal stool and large, modern medical devices.

“This equipment looks brand new,” she said.

“Blondie,” Spike whispered.

He pointed to a collection of huge, deep grooves crisscrossing on the floor in front of him.

“More claw marks,” Applejack said.

Feeling scared, and a little intimidated, Spike started to back up.

“What do you think--?” he began.

He was suddenly interrupted by the growl of a hybrid that was locked up in a glass-fronted cell just a few feet away from him.

Applejack held up her flashlight and swiveled it around the room to reveal... dozens of eyes!

They walked along a long corridor lined with identical cells on both sides, until they reached the end. Each cell contained a snarling being pacing back and forth on all fours, including Steven Magnet.

Applejack shined her flashlight on the floor of the final cell, and a feral, elderly man with a mustache scuttled against the back wall of his cell, out of view.

It was Stratus Shy!

“It’s him,” Applejack breathed. “We found our missing man.” She spoke to him gently. “Mr. Shy, my name is Officer Applejack Smith. Your wife and daughter sent me to find you. We’re gonna get you out of here.”

Mr. Shy screeched and lunged toward the glass wall, as if trying to attack.

“I guess he’s in no rush to get home,” Spike commented.

Applejack looked back down the way they had come and counted out loud.

“Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen... excluding Magnet, that makes fourteen. Chief Iron Will handed out 14 Missing Person files. They’re all here. All of them are right here,”

Suddenly, the door to the containment area started to open, and Spike and Applejack quickly scampered out of sight, next to an empty cell.

They heard footsteps approaching.

Short strides, light, almost airy. A young woman.

Then more footsteps.

Faster, but a longer stride, with a heavier tread. A tall man, with good shoes, hustling.

Then they heard shouting.

It was Mayor Blueblood!

“Enough!” he shouted. “I don’t want excuses, Doctor! I’m demanding answers! Why can’t you give them to me?”

Applejack whipped out her cell phone and started recording Blueblood as he talked to a doctor.

He looked deathly serious, intense and tired.

“Mayor Blueblood, please,” the doctor said. “We’re doing everything we can.”

“I don’t think you are,” Blueblood said. “Because I have over a dozen of my citizens in here who have all gone off-the-walls crazy, and you can’t tell me why! I would call that very far from ‘doing everything!’”

“Sir, it may be time to consider their biology,”

“Just what are you implying?”

“Wake up and smell the reality! We both know what they all have in common! We can’t keep this a secret forever. We need to come forward,”

“Hmm. Tell the public. Good idea,” Blueblood said before he turned on the doctor again. “And what do you think will happen if we do? How do you think they are going to feel about me, their very own Mayor, who is a white male!? I’ll be ruined!” he yelled.

“Well, what does Chief Iron Will think?”

“Chief Iron Will doesn’t know a thing about this!” Blueblood snarled. “And we are going to keep it that way!”

Suddenly, Applejack’s phone broke the silence.

It was her parents calling.

“Oh, no, no, no!” she whispered, trying to stop the ringing.

Blueblood looked up, startled.

“Someone’s here!”

“Sir, you have to leave, now!” said the doctor. “Security, full lockdown! No one else gets in or out of the building!”

Spike and Applejack ran as alarms blared throughout the asylum and guards swarmed the halls. They ducked through the door to the dark room they had climbed into and Applejack barred the door with one of the iron beds.

“Great, we’re dead! We’re dead!” Spike declared. “That’s it. I’m dead, you’re dead. Everybody’s dead!”

“Can you swim?” Applejack asked Spike as she put her phone into an evidence bag.

“Yes, I can swim. Why?”

Spike watched Applejack jumped down the manhole. He closed his eyes and jumped down after her.

Three guards burst through the door, sweeping the area with their laser targets. One shined a beam on the manhole cover as Spike and Applejack slid through the pipe, twisting this way and that until they finally shot out, tumbling through the air and over the waterfall.

After a gasp of air, Spike swam to the riverbank. But Applejack was nowhere to be seen.

“Blondie? Smith! Applejack!” he shouted.

He sighed when he saw her emerge from the water, holding her bagged phone over her head.

“We gotta call Iron Will!”

In his office, Chief Iron Will was watching his simulated-self dancing with Countess Coloratura on his phone.

“Wow! You are one hot dancer, Chief Iron Will!”

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie burst through the door.

“Chief Iron Will!”

“Not now!” Iron Will said quickly, putting his phone down.

“Wait! Is that... Countess Coloratura?” she asked.

“No!”

“I’m Countess Coloratura, and you are one hot dancer!”

“You have the app, too?” Pinkie squealed. “Oh... Chief!”

“Pie, can’t you see I’m working on the missing persons’ cases?”

“Oh, about that! Officer Smith just called. She found all of them!”

Iron Will’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.

“Wow! I’m impressed!”

An hour later, half of the MPD surrounded the asylum while the other half surrounded City Hall. At City Hall, Iron Will led Blueblood away in handcuffs as Applejack read him his rights.

“Mayor Vladimir Blueblood, you are under arrest for the kidnapping and false imprisonment of innocent citizens,” Applejack said.

“You don’t understand!” Blueblood shouted. “I had to do it! I was trying to protect the city!”

“You were just trying to protect your job!” Applejack replied.

“No. Listen, we still don’t know why this is happening. It could destroy Maretropolis!”

“You have the right to remain silent,” she said. “Anything you say can and will be used against you...”