Rainbow Dash trudged in silence. Her bandaged wing still ached, and the recent fall onto a trampoline had aggravated her headache. Looking behind her, Rainbow saw the sprawling clouds of Las Pegasus floating high above, frustratingly out of the reach of anypony confined to the ground. Ahead, a cobblestone path led to the train station, where the locomotive that would take her back to Ponyville belched smoke into the clear sky.
Pinkie Pie bounced along merrily a few steps in front of Rainbow Dash, energetically singing some ridiculous song about thrilling adventures, epic odysseys, and tubas. The ever-eager party pony did not seem to mind the fact that she would not be able to attend the celebration she had spent weeks planning. She just leapt into whatever happened next, which in this case involved fleeing the changelings still searching for them in Las Pegasus.
Not Rainbow Dash, though. Given the choice between soaring in the Wonderbolts’ airshow that night and taking a train halfway across Equestria, she would have definitely preferred the former. She was made to fly, not sit by a window and watch the countryside pass her by. Maybe it was just her wing injury making her restless, but Rainbow felt a strong but somewhat indefinable aversion to leaving Las Pegasus. Still, if Pinkie was going to make the trek back to Ponyville, of course Rainbow Dash would accompany her.
She kicked forcefully at a pebble in her path, sending it flying into the air. The pebble landed somewhere in the mess of Pinkie Pie’s mane and was immediately consumed by the inexplicably deep ocean of hair. Pinkie did not even notice.
With a discouraged groan and a rough shake of her good wing, Rainbow Dash picked up her pace. She came up beside Pinkie Pie and glanced over at her skipping friend, her head bobbing slightly as it followed the motion of Pinkie’s bounces.
“Hey, Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash said.
“Yes, Dashie?” Pinkie turned her entire body to face Rainbow Dash. Without missing a beat, she continued to skip along sideways.
“Uh, can I ask you something?”
“Of course!” came the boisterous reply. As she spoke, Pinkie Pie seamlessly inserted a cartwheel into her sideways bouncing. “Unless it’s about the mirror pool. I signed a non-disclosure agreement that prevents me from saying anything about it or even mentioning it by name.”
“You said you could tell there were changelings following you in Las Pegasus. How’d you do that?” Rainbow Dash raised a hoof to cut off Pinkie Pie’s inevitable response. “And don’t say it’s just you being Pinkie Pie.”
Her mouth already open to give that very reply, Pinkie Pie froze in sudden silence. She stopped mid-hop to hover several inches above the ground, her body rendered immobile by her brain’s efforts to recalibrate. Rainbow would have smirked at the comical response, if she had not seen it happen so many times before. Plus there was the annoying fact that Pinkie Pie could still float in the air whenever she felt like it, while Rainbow Dash was confined to the ground. Pinkie's hovering certainly was not true flight, but the mere reminder of what Rainbow was missing still stung.
After a couple of steps without seeing a response from Pinkie, Rainbow Dash stopped and turned toward her lagging friend. “Look, it’s fine if it’s just because you’re Pinkie. I was only wondering if you could show me how to spot changelings, so I won’t have a repeat of what happened with Soarin’.”
Rainbow’s reassurance only seemed to deflate Pinkie further. In fact, a long squeak of air leaking from a balloon issued from her as Pinkie gently lowered until her hooves once again touched the path. Her mane sagged ever so slightly, though without loosing its characteristic curl.
“I don’t really know how I do it.” By her standards, Pinkie Pie was almost whispering. Of course, that still would have been a shout, had it come from Fluttershy. “There’s something off about changelings. Maybe it’s the smile, or the eyes, or the shape of the kidney. I first saw it when a changeling copied me during our fight in Canterlot. It was kind of disappointing, seeing a changeling do only the fourth-best Pinkie impression I’ve ever seen. Well, fifth, if you count the mirror pool I’m not allowed to mention, and sixth if you count the other mirror and the Pinkie I met when—”
“So you can’t teach me how to see through changelings?” Rainbow interrupted before Pinkie’s rambling could derail the conversation too much. “I mean, apart from being a cool trick, I think it’d be really useful about now.”
“Sorry, but I can’t. It might be one of those things only I can do.” Pinkie shook her head dejectedly. An instant later, her head shot back up with a new burst of energy. “Ooh! But I can teach you how to build a party cannon. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Um, I think I’ll pass,” Rainbow Dash said. “I already have a dozen cannons at home.”
“You do?” Pinkie Pie asked with complete sincerity. She quizzically rotated her neck until she was peering sideways at Rainbow Dash.
“Yeah, Pinkie, I do.” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “And I see you’ve finally figured out sarcasm.”
“Yep!” agreed Pinkie. Her eyes lit up as she spotted something ahead. “And we’ve made it to the train station. Step seven completed.”
Suppressing the urge to ask Pinkie what the first six steps had been, Rainbow Dash squinted to see the train station emerge from behind a hill as the two ponies walked around a bend in the road. In typical Las Pegasus fashion, the station radiated a glamor that was lacking in all equivalent structures found in cities across Equestria. Rows of bright lights lined the walls and roof, some flashing on and off to deliberately create an atmosphere of excitement. The walls themselves were glass, providing an unobstructed view of the picturesque countryside to ponies waiting in the station or disembarking from incoming trains. A fleet of brightly colored hot-air balloons clustered on the far side of station. As Rainbow and Pinkie approached, one of the balloons detached from the parked fleet and ascended toward Last Pegasus, bearing several last-minute arrivals toward the party about to start in the floating city.
Life bustled on, ponies completely oblivious to the changeling threat among them.
Rainbow Dash rustled her wings irritably, shaking herself from her thoughts. The habitual act sent fire through her injured wing, but Rainbow ignored the pain and hurried forward to catch up with Pinkie Pie.
Ponies scurried around the two as they walked up to the main entrance of the train station. Most came from inside the building, pushing against one another as they scrambled to be the first outside. Several pegasi took flight as soon as they made it through the train station’s front doors, streaking upward in multi-colored blurs. A throng of ground-based ponies, meanwhile, surged eagerly toward the waiting transportation.
“Looks like a train just pulled up,” Rainbow Dash commented.
“Yep!” said Pinkie Pie. She held up a map of Equestria in one hoof, complete with color-coded lines indicating train routes. “That’s the 5:08 train from Tall Tale.” She helpfully traced the path with her free hoof. “In an hour, it will leave for Filly Delphia, stopping by Ponyville and Canterlot along the way.” Three more hooves pointed to the cities in question. “We’ll take that one back to Twilight and the others.” Another hoof traced the track that lead from Las Pegasus back to their home.
“So let’s get going,” Rainbow replied. If they were really going to leave, she was impatient to get the journey underway as soon as possible.
“Okie-dokie-lokie.” Pinkie Pie stashed the map behind her and bounded up the staircase in front of the train station. She hopped up the steps three at a time, her mane bobbing with the same enthusiasm she herself possessed. Rainbow Dash quickly scrambled after her.
Then Pinkie Pie froze one hop away from the top of the stairs. Not noticing the abrupt halt, Rainbow Dash continued on to the landing and pushed the door open. She took a step back to let an earth pony family with three excited foals exit the station. As the last foal scampered through the door and shot after his siblings, Rainbow glanced behind her to see Pinkie Pie frozen in place.
“You ok, Pinkie?” Rainbow asked.
In a flash, Pinkie Pie zoomed over to Rainbow Dash, one hoof clamped tight across back in a conspiratorial manner. She leaned in to whisper in Rainbow’s ear, “There’s a changeling inside the station.”
“What?” Rainbow exclaimed. Or, at least she tried to, but a pink hoof swiftly covered her mouth and prevented her cry from coming out as more than an indistinct blob of sound.
“Keep it quiet!” Pinkie whispered with surprising ferocity. She waited for Rainbow Dash to nod in acknowledgement before removing her hoof. “I’m going to go scout ahead.”
An instant later, she zipped ahead in pursuit of her quarry. Rainbow Dash watched as Pinkie pressed against a wall for cover, peering around the glass structure through an open doorway. After completing a thorough scan of her surroundings, Pinkie Pie slipped through the door and proceeded to slink through the middle of the terminal, her body pressed against the ground as she crawled.
Glancing around warily, Rainbow Dash followed at a distance. She did her best to keep her friend in sight as Pinkie slithered among the ponies going about their business. At the same time, Rainbow Dash walked with an air of forced casualness as she pretended to not be associated with the strange pink pony who was now climbing the side of a ticket booth to get a better vantage point.
Pinkie leapt onto the roof of the small stand. She twirled around as she scanned the terminal, one hoof shading her eyes as she searched for signs of the changeling. A frown darkened her features as she looked about, apparently unable to locate her quarry. The ticket vendor behind the counter leaned out to see who or what had spontaneously taken up residence atop his booth. Rainbow Dash hurried up to the pony before he could notice Pinkie Pie and begin questioning her intentions.
“Two tickets for the next train to Ponyville,” Rainbow declared assertively, doing her best not to glance up at the sight of Pinkie Pie peering through a periscope.
“That’ll be thirty bits, please.” The vendor reluctantly stopped trying to spy what was on the roof and turned to fix Rainbow Dash with a disinterested stare.
“No problem,” Rainbow assured him. She reached a wing behind her to fish some bits out of her bag. That was when Rainbow realized the fundamental flaw of performing a daring escape from Las Pegasus without any preparation: neither she nor Pinkie had brought any of their belongings with them.
“Yeah, about that,” Rainbow Dash said with a gulp. She nervously took a step backward.
“Here you go!” Pinkie Pie reached a hoof down and deposited a pile of bits on the counter. Both the vendor and Rainbow followed the hoof upward to see Pinkie return to setting up a reflecting telescope so she could make more precise observations.
“Um, thank you,” the vendor said. He clearly had no idea how to react to Pinkie Pie. After staring blankly at the sight for a few seconds, he mechanically reached below the counter to grab two tickets and give them to Rainbow Dash. “Have a nice trip.”
“Thanks,” Rainbow said. She snagged the tickets with her good wing and strolled away with all the laid-back composure she could manage. Casually glancing around, she spotted the platform for the train to Ponyville. Rainbow started toward it before realizing Pinkie Pie was still on top of the ticket booth she had just walked away from.
With a sigh, Rainbow Dash turned and waved a hoof to catch her friend’s attention. “Hey, Pinkie. Let’s go.”
In the time it took Rainbow to blink, Pinkie was by her side again, her head leaning in conspiratorially. “I can’t find the changeling,” she whispered urgently.
“Then let’s get out of here,” Rainbow replied, not bothering to keep her voice down. An immediate shush from Pinkie caused her to roll her eyes and comply. “Unless the changeling’s following us, we’ll be able to get away on the train.”
Pinkie Pie slowly nodded in reluctant agreement, not entirely wanting to give up her hunt, but willing to comply with Rainbow’s decision. Then she gasped and pointed a foreleg toward the train that would take them to Ponyville. “There he is!” she exclaimed. In an instant, she shot forward through the crowd in pursuit.
Rainbow hurried after her. Though nopony on the platform looked suspicious, she trusted Pinkie’s instincts. If Pinkie Pie had seen a changeling, then a changeling was there, and it was up to the two of them to deal with the creature. Pushing her way around ponies wandering the station, Rainbow struggled to catch up to Pinkie and her target.
Ahead, Pinkie Pie disappeared into the train, vaulting over the conductor in a giant leap. The conductor tried to cry out in protest, but the pink blur had already vanished into carriage. Rainbow Dash reached him a moment later, roughly shoved two tickets into his outstretched hoof, and ran inside after her friend.
The carriage was crowded with lively ponies coming and going. The last few stragglers from the train’s arrival were still trying to disembark, a task made more difficult by the surge of travelers flooding into the compartment. A weary, old earth pony nearly dropped the stack of suitcases atop his back as a pair of pegasus fillies darted beneath his hooves. A pair of unicorns next to him shouted at each other in an animated argument, one of them unconsciously flinging a cup of water around in his magic as he punctuated his arguments with sweeping gestures. Across the aisle, a group of school ponies gathered around a map and pointed eagerly at various cities as they debated which one they had just arrived in. Only one of the ponies had bothered to look out the window and take in the view of Las Pegagus floating above them.
In the very center of it all sat a very still Pinkie Pie. She did not move, not even blinking as a stray paper airplane tossed from the other side of the compartment passed within an inch of her nose.
Rainbow Dash carefully stepped around the energetic pair of fillies and made her way over to Pinkie. “Where’d the changeling go?” she demanded.
Pinkie Pie hung her head. “I lost him,” she answered, a hint of dejection in her cheery voice.
“Well,” Rainbow Dash said, suddenly and uncomfortably aware that Pinkie was upset by her inability to catch the changeling, “we’ll find him. He has to be on the train somewhere, right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” came the reply. Without warning, Pinkie shifted back to her usual jovial personality. “Well, let’s get going! All we have to do now is track down a changeling spy, get him to explain their evil plot, make it back to Ponyville, meet up with our friends, and fight off an entire invasion!” He grin indicated that she found the whole thing to be a grand adventure.
Rainbow laughed lightly, not nearly as enthusiastic as her friend. “Right. Easy.”