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Chapter 11,263 words
Chapter 21,591 words

Chapter 2

Sunset Shimmer and Princess Cadance were sitting opposite each other in the train. They were in a private compartment and had an entire room to themselves. The seats were green and were facing opposite each other. Each one could hold two ponies in it. There was a brown table in between the to seats with three empty plates on it. The walls of the compartment were cream and the sliding door was brown. Sunset had bought a private compartment because she knew that she and Cadance would attract a lot of attention, both because Cadance was a princess and from the makeover a certain purple unicorn gave them.

Twilight was looking excitedly out of the window at all of the towns and villages that they passed. She was excitedly asking questions about how the train worked without magic and Sunset was more than happy to let Cadance answer Twilight while she read her book.

“Why is there smoke coming out of the of the chimney?”

“Emmm, I don’t...”

“How does it go so fast?”

“Look, I’m not really an expert on...”

“Why does it need a track to move?”

“ I know! How about we all play a game of I Spy. That should be fun” Cadance suggested through gritted teeth, “ I’ll go first. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with “T”.”

Twilight looked around, “Is it a... turtle?”

“No,” Cadance answered, “Where do you see a turtle?”

“I don’t,” Twilight replied happily, “Your turn Sunset.”

Sunset looked up from her book “My turn for what?”

“For I Spy, of course. It’s something beginning with “T”.”

“Is it... the trees?”

Cadance groaned. “This is going to be a long train ride” she muttered.

After a very long game of I spy, Cadance and Sunset got off the train. They had almost missed their stop so they had to run to get out. The moment they stepped off, the train left the station.

“Whew... It’s been a while since I ran so fast.” Cadance puffed, out of breath.

“Well, not all of us have wings,” Sunset snapped, “I can’t shake the feeling that we have forgotten something, though.”

“It’s probably from how quickly we got off the train” the pink alicorn reassured “ We didn’t bring anything with us anyway.”

They continued walking towards the exit until Sunset stopped.

“Oh horseapples, we forgot Twilight!!!”

Twilight was having the time of her life. She had sneaked into the front of the train and was watching the driver levitate coal into a furnace. So far, nopony had noticed her. It was very interesting watching the ponies at work. She vaguely wondered if she should go and find Sunset and Cadance, but decided against it. After all, she wasn’t sure if she would get a chance to do research like this again. She stayed there for a while hidden in the shadows.

“Hey you!” came a shout. Twilight whirled around to see a blue stallion with black hair looking down on her. “You're not allowed here! Where are your parents!?”

Twilight turned and ran back into the train. She had to find Sunset and Cadance. They’d protect her, right? But the stallion was catching up to her. She needed to act fast. She darted into a nearby compartment and locked the door closed. Thankfully, the compartment was empty. She didn’t want to have to explain to anypony why she randomly locked herself into their compartment. To her absolute horror, she heard the lock jiggle and the door slid open, revealing the pony who had chased her down and the unicorn she was watching levitate the coal into the funace.

“Was this the end?” She wondered “I’m going to be in so much trouble with Shining Armor when we get home.”

Sunset and Cadance were looking around the station to see if Twilight had gotten off with them. So far, nopony had seen a young unicorn filly with purple skin and black,pink and purple hair.

"Oh no, what am I going to tell Shining Armor?" Cadance asked, sounding close to tears.

"That's your main concern!? What Shining Armour is going to think!?" Sunset shouted, incredulously, "Not the fact that there could be a young filly on a train heading to Celestia knows where!?"

Sunset's shouting had drawn even more attention to them than their make-up did but neither one of them cared.

Eventually, an old earth pony walked up to them.

"Listen, the train is going towards the crystal mountains. You'll have to go fast if you want catch that train"

"Thank you so much, ma'am," Cadance said.

Cadance spread her wings and prepared to take flight.

"Hold on," Sunset demanded "What about me? I can't fly, remember?" She looked at Cadance's wings and a look of jealousy briefly flashed on her face before she smirked. "Let me show you why I am Celestia's personal student"

Sunset turned to the old mare.

"How far away is the train station in the crystal mountains, give or take? And I'd greatly appreciate it if you could point out roughly where it is as well."

The old mare pointed down the track.

"I'd say it's about 80 miles away. It's straight down there. The track doesn't turn."

"Thanks, ma'am"

With that, Sunset dragged Cadance off the station platform and out of the station.

"What are you doing!?"Cadence exclaimed.

"I need an unpopulated place so that I won't accidently teleport some random pony with us," Sunset explained

Her horn glowed blue and with a flash, they were at another train station.

Sunset left a stunned Cadance standing in the middle of the platform and walked up to the conductor.

"Excuse me, sir," Sunset asked the conductor, "when is the train from Manehattan going to get here?"

"In about ten minutes, miss" the conductor replied.

"Say, you wouldn't happen to know how fast the train is going, would you?"

The conductor looked at her strangely, "The top speed of our trains is a 100 miles an hour."

Sunset thanked the conductor and walked back over to Cadence.

"Great, now I can teleport us onto the train and get Twilight... Why are you looking at me like that?"

"H-how can you figure out where the train just from that information?" Cadance spluttered.

"Math," Sunset replied before her horn glowed again and they teleported away.

They arrived in the hall of the train with a blue flash. They fell through the air, limbs and wings flailing and landed with a crash. As Sunset was desperately trying to pull he hind quarters out from underneath Cadance, she saw a pony walk out of a compartment to investigate the noise.

"Pardon me, but have you seen a purple unicorn filly around here?" She inquired

"No! And keep the noise down, would you!?" the pony snapped angrily and slammed the door shut.

"I still can't believe that you just did that," Cadance muttered, "We have to look for her. We have no time to lose!"

Both Sunset and Cadance ran from compartment to compartment, yelling Twilight's name and getting odd looks from other passengers. Eventually, after five minutes, they burst into the dinner carriage. There, they found Twilight sitting at a table, eating ice-cream and talking to two stallions about trains.

"Can they really go up to a 100 miles an hour?"

"You can bet your right hoof they can."

"Oh sweet Celestia, we found you Twilight" Cadence exclaimed "We were so worried about you. Where were you!?"

"Don't worry ma'am, we found her in the train engine watching us" the blue stallion explained "She bolted after I confronted her. She's a speedy little thing, isn't she? Anyway, she ran into a empty compartment so me and my partner here started to check each one. When we found her, she explained that she was lost. We took her down to the dinner carriage, gave her some ice-cream and waited for you to come."

"Thank you so much. Here, take some bits for your troubles," Sunset offered.

"Thank you ma'am" the other stallion said, "Well, now that we know that she's safe, we better get back to work."

With that, the two stallions got up out of the seats and left.

"Am I in t-trouble?" Twilight asked.

"No you're not, dear. If anything, we're sorry. We didn't check to see if you had come with us. How about you finish this ice-cream and we can forget that this ever happened, ok?"

"Ok," the young unicorn said, happily.

Once Twilight was finished eating, all three of them walked into an empty compartment. Sunset's horn glowed once more and with a flash, they were gone.

They teleported to Manehattan and spent the rest of the day there. When they arrived back in the castle, it was nearly time for Twilight to go. Sunset and Cadance had bribed the purple unicorn into keeping quiet about the whole thing, including losing her on the train, with more ice-cream. Both Sunset and Cadance agreed to never talk about it again, in fear that Celestia would find out. Cadance had arranged with Shining Armour to meet him in the castle gardens.

"Hi Shinning!"

"Hi big brother!"

"Hey Cadance," Shining Armour greeted, "Thanks again for agreeing to take care of Twilight here. I don't know what I'd do without you. I hope that she wasn't too much trouble?"

"Oh she was no trouble at all," Cadence assured.

Shinning Armour took a step towards Cadance and started to study her face.

"I'm glad to hear that. But I must ask, what happened to your face!?"

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