8:00 p.m.
~ 11 Hours Until Dawn
"Surprise!” Pinkie Pie screamed as soon as Spike walked into the kitchen. Spike got such a shock he almost screamed his lungs out. Coming out from their hiding places were Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and their draconequus friend, Discord. With big smiles on their faces they welcomed their dragon friend to the snowy mountaintop getaway. Spike, who was still trying to put himself together, leaned on a nearby chair and gasped for breath. Just then, Twilight and Starlight ran into the room, panicked, to find that their friend was in no danger at all.
“Welcome to the Blackhoof Mountain Getaway Party!” Pinkie screamed, and the rest of the ponies cheered. Twilight and Starlight took a moment to take in what was going on, and a wide smile grew on their faces.
“You threw a special welcoming party, just for us?”
“Of course silly! We didn’t want you to feel left out because we were here a night before you were, so we decided to throw you a special awesome welcoming party!” said Pinkie.
“Wow,” Twilight began to tear up, “You guys are the best.” And the mane six proceeded to hug one another.
Spike finally got himself together and was breathing alright now, and was also glad to know that their friends threw them a special welcoming party for their arrival.
Discord was hovering above them, watching the six share a very special moment. With an evil grin on his face, he leaned closer to Twilight, “Twilight, I’m your friend too right? Aren’t YOU glad to see me here?” Looking up, Twilight’s smile immediately turned into a scowl.
“Wait, I thought we were inviting close friends only?” she said, her joy replaced by annoyance.
Applejack tipped her hat and started to explain, “Well Fluttershy thought it’d be good to bring Discord along and ah,” Applejack shrugged, “Ah couldn’t really turn her down.”
Fluttershy stood up to explain her view on things. “Discord is our friend. Of course he gets to join us in our little getaway! I couldn’t imagine leaving him behind while the rest of us have the time of our lives here without him.” Saying that, her eyes widened, begging Twilight to let Discord stay.
No one could withstand the adorable force Fluttershy wield, and the same went for Twilight. She felt a bit of remorse for the way she reacted and apologized. “I’m sorry. I just, didn’t expect him to be here.”
Discord, seizing the opportunity to tease Twilight some more, went ahead to comment, “My Twilight, I thought we were close friends? Now I know how you truly feel about me,” Saying this, he crossed his hands in a fit, glancing a little just to see the priceless look on Twilight’s face. Twilight just rolled her eyes at him.
Finally Pinkie broke the awkward moment. “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s party!”
And so our heroes danced and laughed and ate lots of cake. And they partied all the way into the night. At the end of it, they dragged their tired bodies to bed and had a good night's rest. And tomorrow they would enjoy a wonderful day of interesting bonding activities and this would have been the best vacation ever.
If only that had happened.
But instead, all the lights suddenly went off at 8:37pm. This was greeted by a couple of screams first, then a panicked attempt to get the lights turned on again.
“Everyone!” Twilight shouted, trying to control the situation, “Please calm down!”
She used her horn as a glow and Starlight and Rarity followed suit. Being able to see again, Twilight began to assess the situation. “There must have been a disruption in power,” She looked at Pinkie, whom she assumed would know something about this place, and asked, “Pinkie, do you know where the fuse box is?”
Pinkie thought for a moment before a giant light bulb flashed on top of her head, “Oh I do know! It’s in the basement. Here, I’ll take you!”
“Alright,” Twilight looked at the rest of the gang, “Pinkie and I are going down to the basement to see what’s wrong, you guys stay put.”
Everyone agreed, but Discord had other ideas. With a snap, he made a giant hamster wheel appear. “We don’t need that, we can make our own electricity! Now if one of you won’t mind-”
“Discord,” Twilight broke him off mid-sentence. "You’re not helping."
“Well not with your attitude, Twilight," he replied sarcastically, "Now if one of us is just willing to run-”
“Discord-” Twilight hung her face in her hooves, “-just stop.”
She didn’t get what is wrong with Discord sometimes. He could have easily turned the electricity back on again but he simply chose the way that will humiliate and make fun of other ponies. Twilight didn’t even bother asking Discord to use his magic properly. He was the God of Chaos and making him do things the conventional way would be like asking him to change his name to ‘Order’.
Twilight sighed and followed Pinkie into the basement. Discord just stood there, watching her go.
Down in the basement, Twilight examined the circuit breakers in the fuse box. After some tinkering, Twilight still couldn't figure out what was wrong.
“Pinkie, where does the electricity here come from?”
“Hmmm... There’s a generator not far from here. It powers up all the electrical circuits on this mountain. Except the radio tower and cable car station, those run on a different electrical supply.”
“Okay, so we got to find this generator and see what’s wrong with it.” Twilight said strategically. They returned upstairs to explain the situation.
Someone had to go outside to check the generator.
“I’ll do it,” Starlight immediately responded.
“Yeah, and I’ll follow her,” followed Spike.
Twilight looked worried. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to send her two best friends out into the snow when they had only gotten out of it a while ago.
“You guys sure about that? I mean, I can send someone else to go…”
“Don’t worry about us, Twi. We don't mind going out into the snow again if it means our friends will be safe and warm. Plus, me and Starlight make a great team! So all of you here just sit back and relax while we go see the generator,” Spike said confidently.
Twilight hesitated, but ended up complying to their request.
“Just be safe ok?”
“Don’t worry about us, Twilight. We got this!” Spike said as he happily skipped to the front door.
“I’ll make sure he stays out of trouble,” Starlight reassured Twilight. And with a hug they were on their way. Out into the wilderness where danger awaits them.
Skipping happily in the snow, Spike started talking to Starlight. “So what do you think caused the power cut? A raccoon? A bear? The Abominable Snowpony???”
Starlight chuckled. “I’m sure it’s just out of gas. Maybe they forgot to refuel it or something,” Starlight said, “We won’t know until we get there.”
The duo continued walking until they saw something, something peculiar.
“Is that, police tape?” Starlight approached what seemed to have been an investigation site.
“Woah,” said Spike, taking his time to relate the police tape to the missing poster. “Wait a second... I remember! I saw a poster of these two missing girls at the cable car station. Maybe they never found them?”
Starlight was startled at the comment and the two of them stood there for a while, imagining the worst possible fate of those two girls, until they realised they still had a mission to complete.
“Come on Spike, the sooner we get out of here the sooner we can get the electricity back on again,” Starlight ushered, and the both of them braved into the growing storm.