//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7: Back in Town 
// Story: Subject #7 
// by StarryDay 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 7
Back in Town
June 11, A.C. 1014


Pinkie Pie bounced happily along the street on all four hooves, passing street vendors and random citizens, all of whom she greeted with incredible gusto. "Hi, Berry Punch!" she said happily. "How's the grape business going?"
"Good as ever, Pinkie!"
"How's the garden, Rose?"
"Awesome! Thanks for that fertilizer; it works wonders!"
"You're welcome! The secret ingredient is sugar!" Pinkie smiled and bounced off, leaving Rose seeming confused as to how sugar could possibly help roses, but then she brushed it off and muttered something about never understanding Pinkie.
Theseus and Fluttershy trotted over a bridge into town and walked in the general direction of Fluttershy's cottage. Pinkie Pie bounced over to greet them, passing numerous ponies on the way over.
"Hi, Fluttershy! Where've ya been? For a while there, I thought you might've fallen off the planet! But then I thought, 'If she fell off, why didn't we all fall off too?' And then I thought 'She couldn't fall off anyway, cause she has wings! She could just fly back up to the ground! And then I thought-
"Um, Fluttershy's friend," said Theseus, "please get to the point."
"Sorry, Theseus!" she said. "I'll try to be extra direct!"
"So, Twilight told you about me?" he asked.
"No," said Pinkie, happily as always. "I've never heard of you before in my life!" Theseus stared, confused.
"Then how did you know my name?"
"Just a hunch!" Her toothy grin took up more of her face than seemed possible, and her eyes sparkled like stars. Theseus simply moved on.
"Anyway, the point is—" Before he could get out any more, a cyan pegasus mare with a rainbow-colored mane and tail flew over and interrupted him.
"Fluttershy! I've been looking everywhere; where have you been?" She turned in Theseus's direction with a threatening look. "Did this dude kidnap you? I swear I'm gonna take that sword and cut your head off with it!" She rocketed towards him, but Fluttershy somehow man-aged to stop her with a single hoof.
"It's okay, Rainbow Dash," she said softly. "I went with him on my own. He just wanted to see his home. I went with him to make sure he didn't hurt that hoof of his again. Goodness knows what kind of trouble he could've gotten into? He might have fallen into a crevasse, or stumbled on some rocks, or drowned in the river!" Theseus placed a hoof on her shoulder, stop-ping her from getting too hysterical.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said. "I think I'm well enough to be able to swim. All it was was a scratch. Not like anything was broken." He set his hoof back on the ground, wincing slightly at the light pain about halfway up.
"I just..." she said. Then she blushed lightly. "Never mind." Pinkie, who had gone off to talk with the tomato salesman, came back to the group, bouncing with joy.
"I've got enough tomatoes to last through two winters!" Then she paused, and a horrified expression came over her face. "But wait! If I have that many tomatoes, won't they go bad before I can eat them all? Oh my gosh! I need to eat all these tomatoes before they go bad!" She stuffed a tomato in her mouth and smiled again, splattering tomato juice as she spoke. "Ah'll make shpaghetti an' veggie lashagna an' all kinds of yummy toma'oey treats!" In the distance, Theseus saw two stallions and a mare in black suits turning the corner behind Pinkie. As they rounded the curb, he realized they were agents from the facility. They must be looking for him! He grabbed Fluttershy and dove into an alleyway.
"Quick," he said, "duck!" Rainbow Dash followed, hovering near the second story window, but Pinkie simply stood on the road, looking left and right frantically.
"A duck?" she said. "Where?" Theseus put his hoof to his face in frustration. He thought about grabbing her and pulling her into the alley, but the agents were too close now.
“What are we hiding from?” Asked Rainbow Dash a little too loudly for Theseus's taste.
"Shh!" he said, putting a hoof to his lips. He looked back out from around the corner and saw Pinkie chatting up a storm with the agents. He hoped to Celestia she wouldn't say anything about him. "I can't go back there," he said quietly. "They'll have to kill me first."
"Go back where?" asked Rainbow, more quietly this time.
"I'll explain later," said Theseus. "Those agents'll never find me."
"Agents? AWESOME!" she yell-whispered. “This is just like when Daring Do was hiding from the museum guards while trying to return the ancient diamond of Saphron!” Theseus slapped his face again. Pinkie was still talking, but the agents might as well have been statues for all the reaction they showed.
"So, anyway, I was talking to Derpy, and I said, 'Derpy, you shouldn't have to wait around for him. He has a time machine; there's no excuse for him to be late! He can just go back in time and-'" Pinkie's tail suddenly began to twitch wildly. The expressions on the agents' faces changed ever so slightly, then more as Pinkie also took notice of her tail.
"Oh," she said. "Twitchy tail means watch out for falling things!" The agents were suddenly paying much more attention.
"Ah!" came a voice from above. "Look out!" Pinkie stepped elegantly to her left, and a large brown pot shattered against the ground right where she had been standing.
"Aww!" said Pinkie, looking at the shattered remains. "A perfectly good flowerpot wasted!" The agents looked at each other, then moved toward her. She started running down the street, and was pursued by the agents. One of the stallions, a unicorn, spoke into a walkie-talkie.
"Command, we have a Class 2 precog coming up on Mane Street North. Pursuit in pro-gress. Requesting backup.
"Ooh, chase!" said Pinkie, laughing. "Catch me if you can!"

"They'll never catch her," said Rainbow Dash, flapping in place next to a bookshelf. "Not unless she wants them to. She goes so fast I sometimes think there's more than one of her." She shuddered. "Wouldn't want that to happen again."
"I think you're underestimating their persistence," said Theseus angrily. He was impatient and it showed through as he paced the library floor, waiting for Twilight to return. Theseus had asked the dragon (what was his name again?) to send a note to Twilight telling of Pinkie's kid-napping and asking her to come back as soon as possible. "These ponies are dangerous," he said through gritted teeth. "They won't stop until they catch her and lock her up like they did me." Rainbow Dash looked at him suspiciously.
"Yeah," she said, "where did you come from? I've never seen you around here, and I fly, so I see everypony."
"I'll explain everything once Twilight gets here," said Theseus. "Until then, we sit. Or at least, you sit. Or fly, I guess. I pace." Finally, after a several-minute wait, Twilight burst through the door.
"I got the note!" she said. "How did this happen?" Theseus stepped forward.
"She's been taken by agents. They're from the facility I was being kept in."
"Why? What could they want with her?" He frowned and looked at Rainbow Dash. She urged him to speak. He addressed all three ponies and the dragon in the room.
"Because... She's like me." They all wore perplexed expressions, so he elaborated. "I was locked up in that place because of my magical abilities." He levitated his saddlebag off his back, away to his left and onto a small table. Rainbow Dash was flabbergasted.
"Whoa!" she said. "Am I the only one who didn't know about this?" The three ponies and dragon all replied in unison.
"Yes." Theseus continued his little speech.
"They take ponies with abilities, like me, and keep them locked up in a facility under-ground. There's more than 20 of us total, but they have the capacity for about twice that." Rain-bow was quite plainly miffed.
"You brought them here! The whole reason they were here is because they were following you!" Twilight held up a hoof to silence her, putting her own emotions aside in favor of a more diplomatic and friendly tone.
"Where is this facility?" she asked. "Do you know?"
"I know when Fluttershy rescued me, I was in a forest..."
"But you were the one that saved me," Fluttershy quietly protested. Hardly anyone noticed.
"Wait, wait," said Rainbow. "Do you mean the Everfree Forest?"
"Yeah, I think that was what Fluttershy called it." He looked around at the ponies' worried faces. "What?"
"The Everfree Forest," said Twilight, "is one of the most dangerous places in this part of Equestria. There are carnivorous and poisonous plants, cockatrices, and even manticores! Only a crazy pony would want to go in there!"
"What about all the times you've gone in there?" asked Spike.
"All of those times were emergencies," replied the alicorn. "The fate of Equestria was hanging in the balance. Or we were visiting Zecora, who only lives, what, a whole half a mile into the forest?"
"Well," Theseus said, "we need to do something. I don't want Pinkie to be trapped in that place forever. Their security is top-notch. I don't even know how I got out!"
"Yeah," said Twilight. "That's curious. Exactly how easy was it for you to escape?"
"Pretty easy," he replied. "Number Ten gave me an invisibility orb thingy, then I just walked out the door." Twilight was lost in thought, poking her hoof at her chin and scrunching her face in concentration.
"I've used invisibility orbs," she said thoughtfully, "and I can't even sneak past Rarity's cat. But a super-advanced security system specially designed for ponies with amazing abilities like yours?" She shook her head. "Color me skeptical."
"I was wondering myself how I did it. Five's power is invisibility, so they should have had special protocols in place or something."
"It's almost like they let you go on purpose," she thought aloud.
"They wouldn't do that." He paused. "Would they?"
"I don't know," Fluttershy said. "That looks an awful lot like what happened."
"But why?"
"Maybe they think you're gonna go all 'Nightmare Moon' on everypony and become a supervillain or something," said Rainbow Dash with a wide grin, punching the air repeatedly with her front hooves.
"Maybe. But what about Pinkie? We still need to do something; we can't just leave her in there."
"I would say 'go out and rescue her,'" offered Twilight, "but we would probably need an army." A light clicked on in Theseus's head.
"Then that's what we'll get!" he said. Twilight looked at him curiously.
"What do you mean?" she asked. Then Theseus saw the understanding cross her muzzle. "Wait, you want to rescue Pinkie with your royal army? Wouldn't that be misuse of resources?" Her tone gave away her distaste in the idea. "There's no sense employing an entire army for one pony, even a friend like Pinkie."
"But not for one pony," protested Theseus. "The whole facility. They shouldn't be in there. Even Seventeen doesn't deserve to be locked in there!" The ponies appeared confused as they attempted to discern who he was talking about. "Never mind," he said.
"I should go with you. Maybe the presence of an Equestrian Princess will help to convince them. And even with her personality, I think Fluttershy would protest being left behind." She aimed a smile to her left, and the mare blushed and looked at her hooves.
"Awesome!" Rainbow Dash said excitedly. "An adventure to a foreign kingdom? Count me in!"
"Now, Rainbow Dash," said Twilight, "this won't be like one of Daring Do's adventures. We could be dealing with real danger. What if the citizens are hostile?"
"Hopefully they won't be," said Theseus. "I'm the heir to the throne. Of all ponies, they should listen to me. Are you going to need to bring anything?" He looked at Twilight, who was lost in thought. She then looked up with an enormous grin.
"I'll need to make a checklist!" Rainbow Dash groaned in annoyance, leaving Twilight completely perplexed. "What?"