//------------------------------//
// Information Gathering for Fun and Profit 
// Story: One of Our Twilights is Missing 
// by FanOfMostEverything 
//------------------------------//

At this point in time, there were four ponies in all of Canterlot who fully and genuinely understood Spike: Rarity, Starlight, and his parents. Everypony else still wasn't sure what to make of the strange little dragon, not least because many were trying to fit him into the old Canterlot social framework.

He wasn't a majordomo—he certainly didn't have the training or authority the position demanded—and yet he still scuttled about smoothing the path for his princess. He wasn't a mere servant to Twilight, yet his eager servility tripped all the same mental switches in those accustomed to them. He didn't actually have any official position anywhere since he was still a legal minor by both equine and draconic standards, yet his air of wide-eyed innocence managed to open doors for him just about everywhere, even with the nictitating membranes.

Ponies had been trying to put Spike in a familiar box since Twilight had merely been the latest in a long line of faithful students, and he in his affable way had clawed out of all of those boxes and carved out his own niche in the Canterhorn. For while Twilight had absolutely no interest in the social doors her status had opened for her, Spike had. And Hoity Toity was but one of many connections he'd begun with a promise of exotic novelty and continued with his own charm.

The inches he'd gained since returning to Canterlot hadn't all been from the cognitive shift of being partially responsible for the country as a whole. Some of the height had come from fully reconnecting with a hoarded cross-section of Canterlot's movers and shakers that most ponies would kill for.

Spike's friends and family understood and loved him as a person. His contacts appreciated him as a dragon about town, and now he was calling in every favor he had to track down the one he loved most.

And, as indicated by the increasing amount of smoke billowing out of his nostrils as he flew from one district of the capital to the next, none of them were able to help.





The girls searched every inch of Canterlot known to Princess Twilight, up to and including the former site of the book bed about which Vice Principal Luna could neither confirm nor deny ever knowing anything. With nothing to show for their efforts, the Rainbooms filtered back into Canterlot Park. After the sixth inning (and the following pizza party, which she refused to interrupt on principle,) Pinkie guided Flash and the others to Canterlot High's front lawn.

Once Pinkie came to a stop, Applejack ground out,"Alright, now will you tell us what yer plan is?"

"Sure!" Pinkie passed Flash a sleeping mask with bows over each eye. "Put this on."

He looked from the mask to the other Rainbooms. Sunset offered a hesitant smile and said "It's for Twilight." The others mostly shrugged.

With a sigh and a "Sure," Flash donned the mask.

Pinkie inched closer to him, her grin widening to a concerning level. "Can you see anything?"

Flash flinched away from her voice. "No. And I'd like that explanation now."

"Same," said Dash, prompting a series of nods and agreeing noises from the others.

"Just a second. Bucket ready?"

Applejack held up a tin pail. "I brought one, if that's what you mean."

"Perfect. Begin!" Then Pinkie grabbed Flash by his waist and spun him like clay on a potter's wheel.

Once she stopped, Flash, blindfolded and dizzy, stumbled about the front lawn until he walked face-first into the base of the Wondercolt statue. "Ow."

Pinkie looked quite proud of herself. "And if you're going to throw up, we have a bucket!"

For a few moments, the only sound was wind hissing across the lawn. In time, Rarity said, "What exactly was that meant to accomplish?"

"If there's one thing we know about Flash, it's that he's a Twilight-seeking missile when he doesn't mean to be." Pinkie waved a hand at the statue. "So if we get him to move at random, he should lead us to her."

Flash groaned. "I should have known. We have the same computer science class. She really latched onto the idea of a 'random walk' algorithm."

After a moment to consider the idea, Sunset said, "I can't decide whether that's brilliant, silly, or both."

"Definitely Pinkie," said Dash.

Fluttershy furrowed her brow, the familiar expression of someone trying to follow Pinkie logic. "So... Princess Twilight is still in Equestria?"

"Probably!" Pinkie hummed and stroked her chin. "Or we got a false positive with glasses-Twilight. We should run a few more trials and—"

"No more trials." Flash went pale as he haltingly peeled off the sleeping mask. "I may need that bucket."

Applejack rushed to his side. "I gotcha."

A muffled buzz got Sunset to check her backpack and the journal within. "It's an update from Starlight Glimmer," she said as she began to read. "She says..." Sunset trailed off, looking back and forth between the book and her ex. "She says the princess was at her parents' house until recently."

Rarity looked as shocked as Sunset felt. "So Pinkie's idea worked."

"You don't have to sound that surprised." Pinkie held her scowl for all of three seconds before breaking into a giggle fit.

Sunset knelt to dig a pencil out of her backpack. "I'm going to tell Starlight. Maybe it'll work with the other Flash."

"Oh dear, " said Fluttershy," I feel bad for him already."

"Me too," said Flash, voice echoing oddly with his face in the bucket.

Rarity squatted by Sunset, carefully keeping her dress off the grass. "Is that all you're going to do, darling?"

Sunset kept her focus on the journal, definitely not just so she didn't have to see Rarity's expression. "Well, it's not like I—"

"Sunset. Darling. Precious boots." A manicured hand draped over her shoulder. "You've done your duty. We know for certain the princess isn't here, and if she does manage to get here, she'd have to sneak through her own castle to do so. That or strand herself on a deserted island."

"Should probably get somepony to check on that," said Sunset, and definitely not as a way to keep her gaze from Rarity.

The other manicured hand took hold of her chin and made her look into thoroughly unimpressed eyes. "If you want to help either Twilight, much less both, you know what you need to do."

Sunset sighed as her resolve crumbled. "You're right."

As she started writing, she realized it wasn't resolve that had crumbled. It was self-denial. Guilt. Maybe just a skosh of self-restraint.

Open the portal. I'm coming to help.

That really isn't necessary.

I don't care if it's necessary. I was groomed to serve as Celestia's viceroy for years and I've been my Twilight's emotional rock since the Friendship Games. There is literally no one in either world better suited to act as her advisor in this mess.

Open the portal. I am coming to help. This is not a request.

Starlight didn't write anything else, but Flash nearly fell backwards through the portal before Applejack caught him.

"Sorry!" Sunset called.

"It's fine," he groaned. "When you find Twilight, tell her we need to talk."

"You're next in line after me." Sunset passed the journal to Dash. "Hold onto this."

That got a salute. "You got it."

"Good luck!" said Fluttershy.

"Go get her!" Rarity cheered.

Sunset nodded and waved. "Be back soon. Hopefully."

It probably said something about Sunset's life that she was getting used to portal travel, including the surreal sensations of her body getting reshaped in a way that should have hurt. At this point, the experience felt more like a loading screen for reality. As Sunset beheld the swirling vortex guiding her through the space between spaces, she felt a hint of the same impatience as when watching the little demon walk in place in the corner of the screen between zones in Tirek's Revenge.

Soon enough, she emerged from the portal, windmilled her forelegs for a moment, and came down on all fours. "Okay, I'm here..." She looked around as the dazzling brilliance of the paracosmos faded from her vision, leaving one of her favorite sulking rooms from her bad old days at Castle Canterlot. "In a maintenance closet. Really?"

"Twilight wanted to keep the mirror close," Starlight said from the portal mechanism, "but not where just anypony could spot it and ask awkward questions." She frowned. "Now I can't say I'm thrilled with you ordering me around, but you did raise a reasonable point. Though you may need some catch-up yourself given how long you've been in that world."

Sunset nodded. "Fair enough. How's Twilight do—"

A voice came from outside the closet. "Sunset?"

The door opened, and there she was, just as Sunset remembered her during that awkward spring break: The slim build that spoke of potent magic reinforcing her muscles, the slender horn with the tight groove, the adorable glasses. Then other details filtered in: The breathtaking wings, the sparkling mane, the regalia befitting the title she'd earned when Sunset had demanded it be hoofed to her.

A perfect synthesis of the mare who'd saved her and the girl she'd saved stood before her, joy on her muzzle gradually giving way to concern. "Is everything okay?"

"I... You... Wow." At which point Sunset's terribly stressed and horribly conflicted mind shut down.

The last thing she heard before everything went dark was a familiar, obnoxious voice crowing "Can Trixie do a makeover or what?"





Spike flew through the castle’s anti-air defenses with contemptuous ease. There were things that were worth his time, and then there was security theater. The sight of ponies in one particular storage room confirmed that the Guard had indeed gone with the Second Star on the Right Contingency; even scant moons after moving into the palace, Spike was intimately aware of where every precious item could be found within its walls.

A knock on the window soon got him inside. Again, some things were worth his time, and courtesy was worth far more than barging through and making more work for the custodial staff.

Once inside, he took in the tableau before him: Sunset Shimmer unconscious in front of the portal after a Rarity-grade swoon, Trixie in her default state of smug confidence, Starlight in a familiar state of panicked uncertainty, and a Twilight who wasn’t his Twilight done up as well they could to try to disguise that fact. A carnelian doing its best to fill in for a ruby, Spike thought, and looking almost as uncomfortable as Starlight in the process.

He sighed. “Well, this is going about as well as I thought.”

“How have you been doing?” said Starlight.

“As well as you look. Nopony’s seen Twilight." Spike sighed as he considered the magnitude of the mess. "She must’ve planned this for weeks to fall off the map so completely.”

Trixie clicked her tongue as she slid Sunset away from the foot of the portal. “You didn’t even ask your own mother? For shame.” After a thoughtful ear twitch, she added, “On a related note, Trixie has a restaurant appointment to make.”

Spike frowned and turned to Starlight.

"Mrs. Velvet was covering for her until she collected herself enough to leave the city."

He processed that silently for a few moments, flexed his aching wings, and slowly buried his face in his foreclaws. “Oh,” came the muffled reply.

“Eliminating the other leads did a lot to narrow down the possibilities,” said Starlight, throwing in a pat on the back.

“Yeah, yeah. Still should’ve thought of that.” Spike sighed and walked up to the backup Twilight, who looked very elegant from the neck down. The rest of her he put at a six out of ten on the Twilight Anxiety Scale. “So, how are you holding up?”

She tried to smile, and the resulting grimace made Spike revise the rating to a six point two. “Well. I’ve gotten a crash course on local political factions that I’ve already half-forgotten, I managed to hold a pencil for all of three seconds before unbalanced telekinetic vectors embedded it in the ceiling, and my best friend fainted when she laid eyes on me. Also, the local analogue of my pet dog has a city-spanning information web, which somehow isn’t the most ridiculous revelation I’ve had today.”

Spike nodded and patted her on the foreleg. “Yeah, you’re doing as well as any Twilight could in this situation.”

She relaxed just a bit, wearing that particular distant look that Twilight had when she was trying to analyze her own emotional state. “That is… weirdly reassuring. Especially when coming from a Spike.”

He couldn't help but smile. “We’re good at that.” Spike turned to Sunset, just in time to see Trixie straighten up and act like she hadn't been poking her. “So, if she’s here, I’m guessing my Twilight isn’t in the human world.”

“I assume so. Sunset just said she’d be coming over to help and wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer.” Starlight shrugged. “I have to respect that.”

“Mrnlgrgn…” Sunset shook her head, smacked her lips, and furrowed her brow. “Right,” she said after a moment, “pony mouth.”

“Welcome back,” said Starlight.

Twilight trotted next to Sunset as the latter was getting to her hooves. “I’m happy to see you, but please don’t pass out again.”

Sunset visibly froze for a moment as she took in the wings and dress. “Right. Sorry. A lot of conflicting feelings going through my head at once there. You do look good.”

Twilight blushed in a way that Spike had almost never seen from his Twilight. “Thanks.”

A sharp whistle brought everyone's attention to Trixie. “Okay, you two, you can be lovestruck idiots after we track Sparkle down and drag her back to the throne.”

“I wasn’t—”

“She deserves—”

“Later!" Trixie stomped a hoof for emphasis. "Trixie hates having to be the responsible one, so I'm making this quick: The only clue in all of Canterlot is Sparkle going to her foalhood home. What do we do with that?”

“Any chance the guards brought in something Twilight touched recently?" Sunset said perhaps a little too eagerly. "I picked up psychometry in the human world. I should be able to get something out of any mental traces she left behind.”

Trixie quirked an eyebrow. “In Trixie’s experience, psychometry is a bunch of hocus-pocus and cold reading.”

Sunset glared at her and lowered her horn, tail lashing and hoof pawing at the ground. “I’ve traced the memories of a snowflake. I’ve got this.”

Trixie looked away. She tried to play it off nonchalantly, but her drooping ears spoke volumes. “Eh, not like we have anything to lose.”

A gentle tap on his shoulder brought Spike's attention to Starlight. “In the meantime, you did check with the Hive Thorax embassy, right?”

He nodded. “Yup. They’re fine with the press release.”

“Dare I ask?” said Twilight.

“Long story short, the local shapeshifters are okay with us saying that any Twilight sightings across the country are part of a silly prank campaign by young changelings who are doing it for kicks." Spike waved a foreclaw as he sped through the details he'd hashed out with Ambassador Waggle Dance. "Don’t press charges, do report to your local guard garrison, yadda yadda boilerplate.”

Twilight nodded. “Ah, the stupidity of teenagers.”

“If anything’s truly infinite…” Sunset trailed off, leaving the inside joke unfinished as the two of them shared a smile.

“Seriously, Trixie doesn’t know if she’s jealous or wants to gag.”





2099 Primrose Lane.

A perfectly average Fillydelphia brownstone jammed against its neighbors to form a wall of housing barely broken up by different eaves and window stylings. Ponies trotted by it every day without giving it a second thought, and the only ones who spared a second glance kept it to the address number on the mailbox.

No commemorative plaque. No bouquets of flowers. No police presence.

That last had been over and done with before Twilight had even been able to get the address. Apparently once the initial threat to the world had been resolved, the matter had moved to the eldest princess's remit, and she had presumably not wanted to bother Twilight with the details so soon after that first brush with a treacherous student.

Not that she had ever told Twilight that. Or that they had found Cozy Glow's actual foalhood home, rather than the empty lot in Ponyville she'd scrawled on her application forms. Not until Twilight had Luna, who had turned over the rock of Equestrian governance and asked the squirming things underneath.

(That wasn't fair; there were a lot of hard-working mares and stallions in the Equestrian shadow government, and Twilight had to admit that while those jobs were important, not many could be brought into the light. Not any time soon, anyway. And very few of those agents actually squirmed on a regular basis.)

She thought about talking to Cozy's parents, but she'd read the transcripts of their prior interviews. They were as shocked and confused as anypony by their daughter's turn for villainy, and hadn't said a word to the throne in the wake of her petrification. Presumably, they wanted to put the matter behind them as much as if not more than anypony else.

And yet...

She rang the doorbell and waited patiently. Between the nondescript traveler's cloak covering her wings and cutie mark and the expectations of the crowd, nopony gave a thought to the random purple unicorn on the random brownstone's front stoop.

In time, a pegasus mare with a red mane and a far too familiar pink coat answered the door, red eyes more genuinely confused than she had ever seen them before. Eventually, she asked, "Can I help you?"

"Warm Glow?" Twilight asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes?" Mrs. Glow took a step back, her brow wrinkling as she took in the cloak. "Are you collecting signatures for a petition or something?"

Twilight bowed her head. "I'm sorry I couldn't help Cozy. Not how she needed it."

Mrs. Glow shook her head and sighed. "Miss, after the last few days, I don't think anypony could help Cozy. Tartarus may be the only thing that will at this point. Now if it's all the same, my husband and I would really rather put this all behind us. I appreciate your intent, but it's been one embarrassment after another for us lately."

Twilight just nodded, keeping her full thoughts on the matter to herself. They wouldn't help Cozy either. Not here. "I just wanted to have the chance to tell you personally. Thank you."

Mrs. Glow nodded, not even closing the door all the way before muttering "Strange mare."


— — —


Sunset blinked as she came out of the trance triggered by touching the tear-stained pillowcase brought in by the Royal Guard. “Okay," she said, "I feel like I’m missing some context.”

After she described the experience, the others winced. Twilight was no longer there, being escorted about the castle to be seen and reassure everypony that everything was fine. Trixie had gone off to bed early after giving her the wings to keep up that appearance.

Starlight was still in the portal closet with Sunset. “That was a rough time for Twilight. Did she tell you much about Cozy Glow?”

"Bits and pieces. It was too fresh to really dig into when it happened, and more stuff came up on my end afterwards, at least until she came back and..." Sunset glanced at the castle grounds, knowing that somewhere out there was a statue of a terrified filly... who may have only been afraid of finally facing the consequences of her actions. "Well, there but for the grace of Twilight go I." She shook her head. “So, regret, obsession over past missteps, looking for ways to fix damage she’s not actually responsible for…”

Spike looked at the rising moon. It looked blessedly normal... this time. “It’s hardly the first time she’s had to clean up somepony else’s mistakes.”

Sunset smirked. “I was going to say it sounds awfully familiar.”

“Like teacher, like student, I suppose," said Rarity, who'd joined the group as soon as she'd exhausted her own more limited informant network in the city, which she usually used for securing good deals on fabric shipments. "Still, if this was what had been going through her mind earlier today, we can assume that her next destination will follow the theme. Only so many possibilities there.”

“Think she might head for Filly again?” said Sunset.

Starlight frowned. “It’s not out of the question, but after that last disaster, the Glows made it clear that they’ve washed their hooves of Cozy for good. They won't appreciate anypony bringing her up.”

Sunset sneered. “Some real champion parents there.”

“Quite.” Rarity yawned as delicately as she managed. Which was considerable, but it still slipped through. “Loath as I am to let such an urgent matter lie, I fear I’ve been racing around since the wee hours of this morning."

"You were the first pony I thought of," Spike mumbled, looking down at the floor and digging a toe into the stonework.

"And I'm flattered, darling, truly. In any case, Twilight’s trail isn’t getting much colder, and we’ve narrowed our options to a considerable degree. Sleeping on it may be the best option for the time being. It’s certainly the one I’m opting for." Rarity gave the room a nod and turned to leave. "Ladies. Spike.” 

The others agreed, words and yawns both reluctant. For her part, Sunset was on the wrong end of an adrenaline crash and soon found her hooves guiding her to her old room in the castle. Seeing that it had been dismantled and converted into yet another (very well-appointed) guest room made her heart ache a little, but it was something she could process in the morning.

The novelty of sleeping as a pony filled her thoughts, along with wondering how Twilight was dealing with the same issue and if she needed someone to sleep with her. A bit of her mind that sounded far too much like Trixie had her frantically revising her inner monologue until she fell asleep, cheeks still warm.

The revelation that send her rocketing to wakefulness didn't hit until just after midnight.