//------------------------------// // Equestria's Most Wanted // Story: My Little Pony: Through Space and Time // by Magic Step //------------------------------// Princess Twilight raced up the stairs at a regal canter, her telekinesis keeping Spike in the air behind her. "I can't believe this has happened," she kept muttering to herself. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime." She kept repeating this in a way that only made Spike more nervous. Finally they'd reached the top of the tower. A door magically materialized, looking like it would just lead to a steep drop into the castle moat, but instead it opened to a laboratory filled with bubbling beakers, scales, and metal machines with blinking lights and big red buttons. "I have so much to do," the princess said, putting Spike on a table. "Measurements of metabolism, heat, energy, alertness... So much to do, I'd better make a list... Oh, but first I should do a general measurement." Spike was whisked into one of the machines. Princess Twilight telekinetically snapped cuffs to Spike's neck, tail, arms, legs, waist, and an extra one around his arm. "Wh-what are you doing to me?" Spike asked. "Measuring," Princess Twilight said, pressing a couple buttons. The machine began to vibrate. Some of the lights pulsed. "T-twilight!" Spike said. "Suddenly the machine stopped. A screen lit up, showing a bunch of numbers that meant nothing to Spike, but they seemed to excite Princess Twilight Sparkle. She whipped out a notebook and started writing things down frantically, her horn pulsing as the quill flew across the pages. "These readings... I have to do more experiments! Oooh, I wish I had some metahypercabornicacelytic minerals!" She leaned back and took a deep breath. "In time, Princess Twilight; in time. First, though, I need a reading on adrenaline." She pulled out a hypodermic needle. Spike fliched. "Now let me see..." Twilight used her magic to rumage through a drawer. "Metaphylylia... hexachloricana... Starswirlium... Ah ha, got it!" She pulled out a triangle-shaped beaker filled with bubbling yellow fluid, enveloped in her magic. "Now if I can just..." She opened the back of the hypodermic needle and hovered the beaker close to it. Both instruments shook from concentration as slowly, slowly, the princess tilted the beaker forward, the liquid edging ever so slightly toward the opening, the mouth poised exactly over the opening in the needle... "Hey, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash shouted, flinging the door open. "GAH!" The needle and the beaker went flying as Princess Twilight collapsed on the ground. The beaker was flung against one wall and set some papers on fire with a bright red flame, while the needle embeded itself in the wall next to the machine Spike was in, about at eye level. Spike promptly fainted. Princess Twilight whirled to face Rainbow Dash, and said in her best Royal Canterlot Voice, "I TOLD YOU NEVER TO INTERRUPT ME!" Rainbow Dash winced and shuffled her hoof. "Sorry, Twilight, but you see, my guards have just arrested Applejack..." "Really?" Princess Twilight brightened. "You mean at last, we actually have her?" "Er, see, that's the thing." Rainbow Dash had planned what to say carefully, in the hopes of getting more information and helping her friend without blowing her cover. "She doesn't seem to know what she's been arrested for. It seems a little... strange." Princess Twilight Sparkle drew herself up and took a deep breath before screaming in a magnified voice, "HOW CAN SHE NOT OWN UP TO WHAT SHE HAS DONE!? SHE KNOWS FULL WELL WHAT SHE DID! AND NOW... OH, NOW SHE SHALL PAY FOR-" But then she shrunk. "Wait..." Then, looking a little freaked, said, "Please bring her to the throne room." Applejack's hooves were bound together with a shining green rope. Her mouth had some kind of silver band around it that prevented her from talking. The two guards hurled her rather unceremoniously to the floor, and all she could see was the bottom of the steps. Then a set of lavendar hooves appeared at the bottom of the staircase. They were a shade Applejack knew well. "Where did you find her?" asked a voice that Applejack also knew. "In the heart of Canterlot, your majesty," the younger one said. Your majesty? Applejack thought. "Did she seem frightened, or nervous or anything like that?" "She seemed perfectly relaxed," the guard said. "It was unnerving." He paused. "I-I mean, before we captured her! Nobody would act calm while they were being arrested!" "I'm aware of that," Twilight Sparkle said coldly. "Applejack, how did you dare come back to Canterlot?" Applejack wondered why Twilight Sparkle was even asking her questions when she obviously couldn't answer because she was gagged when she felt the metal ring loosen. She muttered, "Canterlot's free to the public, ain't it?" Then the ring tightened up again and she had to be quiet. "You aren't exactly 'public', Applejack," Twilight said. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused?" The ring loosened again. "I din't do nothin', Twilight! You know me! Where's Celestia?" There was a pause. "Oh my Celestia," Twilight Sparkle said. "They've spread!" "Who's spread?" The older guard asked, on the alert. "Nothing!" Twilight said. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with right now! Great work capturing Applejack! You may take her to the dungeon- the high security dungeon. I'd like to talk to Princess Rarity and Captain Dash alone, if you don't mind. One foot!" The last comment seemed out of place, but then the lime green rope snapped with magic and grew a little to let Applejack move her hooves. The guards hoisted her to her feet and herded her out the door by lightly touching her shoulders with their wings. Applejack wanted to say something, anything. If she couldn't convince this... brainwashed Twilight Sparkle of her innocence, she could at least try to figure out what was wrong. But the metal ring cut into her mouth when she tried to open it. She was led through the hallway and down, down, down the stairs. Applejack had seen the dungeon before. The day after the Grand Galloping Gala, the girls had stayed in town one more day to take in some sights, and so that Fluttershy could socialize with the no-longer-on-edge animals in the garden and Rainbow Dash could have a chat with the no-longer-busy Wonderbolts and Twilight Sparkle could get come quality time with her mentor. Princess Celestia had offered them a tour of the castle. The dungeons consisted of about twenty clean but secure cells. There were only a handful of prisoners, and some of the cells were being used for food storage. Princess Celestia had said that the most prisoners they'd ever had was twenty. Twenty prisoners who were too dangerous, or had committed crimes too high, to be kept in one of the smaller dungeons in another town. She said she'd felt like a failure. The cells Applejack was led past were not the ones she'd seen on the tour. They were carved from a cavern of gemstones- maybe the mine Twilight had mentioned being trapped in before, Applejack didn't know. She stopped counting the cells, but each one had at least six prisoners, and the line of cells never seemed to end. The ones she saw first were all unicorns, lying on the ground, sick or weak. Some gave her sad looks as she went past. Some didn't seem to care. Some glared at her, like she was the reason they were in these cells. But none got up from where they had collapsed. As they went on, the cells now held pegasai and earth ponies. These weren't weak at all. Some crowded at the bars, whispering "Is that Applejack?" "No! It's can't be!" "It is!" Many were crying. Some seemed scared to cry. Some looked like all their hopes had been crushed. Some snarled at her, lept at the bars screaming "This is all your fault, you traitor! I hope the princess turns you into a parasprite!" Some, especially the little ponies, just looked at her and burst into tears. Applejack looked at the guards on either side. Neither showed any sign of emotion. What did I do? She longed to cry out. What have I done to them?