[Click here for a SUMMARY / HIGHLIGHT REEL for chapters 1 – 9]
(A quick refresher for returning readers. Also available as an audio book. 
)
[Click here for a SUMMARY / HIGHLIGHT REEL for chapters 1 – 9]
(A quick refresher for returning readers. Also available as an audio book.
This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book:
> [click here] - no background music
> [click here] - with ambient music loop
Dash made her way through vacant streets, barren alleys and deserted boulevards.
What made it all worse was the silence.
Sure, there was the creaking of wood, the whistle of wind, the rushing of a waterfall somewhere in the distance, and if she strained her ears, she could hear all the little sounds of an old house; wooden planks creaking in the wind, amplified by a hundred-fold, audible just at the edge of her hearing.
And yet, at the same time, the silence was deafening.
At every turn, Dash almost expected somepony to come trotting down the road giving a friendly greeting, to hear sales-ponies enthusiastically advertising their wares, or the sounds of colts and fillies playing. Even her own hoof-steps were barely audible on the dirt-road. The subtly flickering, off-color light gave everything the quality of a fever dream. It truly was a ghost town, as close to the literal sense of the word as you could get without having any actual ghosts in it.
But that wasn't what was disturbing her. No, Rainbow “Danger” Dash could take any regular old ghost town any day of the week.
This wasn't just a regular ghost town.
The road had opened up to a wide, empty plaza, bits of debris scattered all about. Off to the side, Dash saw a pile of wooden boards – the broken remains of a wooden cart, and what once had been a market-stall. With some imagination, she could still recognize the faded image of five coins and a fruit on one of the wooden boards.
She had to look twice to reassure herself that the fruit wasn't an apple.
A shiver ran down her spine. Quickly, she left the abandoned marketplace behind.
She almost stepped on a sharp piece of debris, noticing it only just in time. It was part of a metal frame, smashed and twisted beyond recognition. Yet something about it seemed vaguely familiar.
Dash looked up to her right.
The cottage was in pretty bad shape. The roof had collapsed, and a good chunk of the wall was missing. Through the hole, Dash could see splintered furniture, and the bent and broken metal frames of several bird-cages. Or animal-cages.
Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the mark of three pink butterflies on the cottage's door.
...No, they weren't butterflies. It was a mark of three pink birds. Her eyes were just playing tricks on her. This time, at least.
She'd already discarded the notion of “unlikely coincidence” when she'd seen the “Quills and Sofas” knock-off. That by itself already had been downright uncanny. It had only gone straight down into “creepy town” territory from there.
For the umpteenth time, Rainbow Dash asked herself the same question: “Just what is going on here?”
“Alright, that's enough. What's wrong?”
Dash startled at the mare's voice. She'd completely forgotten Daring Do was even there.
“Huh? What?”
“That look on your face. And this is about the tenth time you've stopped in the last five minutes.”
“I, uhm, err...” Dash floundered. Daring's question had completely taken her off guard. “N-nothing”, she responded automatically.
Daring gave her a level stare.
Dash winced. She clearly wasn't buying it at all.
‘Yeah, this place looks like... like... uh... with Ponyville... err...’
She didn't even know how to phrase it in her own head! What would she even tell Daring Do? How could she possibly phrase that to not make it sound crazy?
Dash glanced around nervously, racking her brain, trying to somehow find an answer in the scenery.
“What are you looking at?” Daring asked inquisitively, just as Dash's eyes fell on another familiar sight.
“That's the Ponyville clock-tower!” She blurted out loud without thinking.
Within the next five seconds, Rainbow Dash realized two things.
For one, the bell-tower with its well-recognizable clock-face also doubled as a water-mill. Thin streams ran down its sides, onto a large, deteriorated water-wheel, glaringly contrasting against the tower's otherwise familiar features.
That, and Dash could practically hear Daring Do's eyebrows shoot up, as high as they could go.
“Oh... nevermind!” Rainbow Dash's voice came out with a tiny, squeaky quality to it.
There was a fatal silence that said more than words.
Slowly, Dash turned to face the adventurer.
Daring Do was looking at her with a strange expression, as if she was a complicated mechanism that needed to be solved to get at a treasure.
Dash recoiled. Daring frowned.
“Have you... been here before?”
“What? No!”
“But you do recognize that tower over there?”
“Well... kinda.” Dash fidgeted nervously.
Daring Do scratched her head, seeming uncertain. “...Are you homesick?”
“Yes! Wait, I mean – no!” Dash shook her head vehemently. “That's not the point!”
“So... What's the big deal, then?”
“Everything here looks like Ponyville!” Dash blurted. There. She'd said it.
It all came spilling out after that. Sugar Cube Corner, Fluttershy's cottage, the “Quills and Sofas”-store, the familiar cutie marks.
All throughout her explanation, Daring's expression remained blank.
"So, you're trying to say... your hometown looks just like this place?" Daring ventured, sounding more bewildered than incredulous.
“Yes, I–”
Rainbow Dash stopped, and looked at the buildings all around her as if seeing them again for the first time.
It took her a moment to spot, but Dash recognized the crumbled remains of what looked like one of Ponyville's restaurants, the “Clover Café”. Except that this one was made from solid rock instead of wood and bricks.
And further down the road, one of the buildings had an extravagantly curved roof she'd seen before, on a house – or was it a store? – next to... Ponyville's bowling alley. She'd never bothered to check what it was, but here, it seemed to be an inn, or maybe a tavern.
But those were only two buildings out of maybe two dozen. She'd been so focused on what had reminded her of home, she'd barely payed attention to anything else.
Here stood a home with planks made of metal, there stood a shop with a gemstone-motif. She saw a tower covered in strange geometric markings, and a wooden cottage twice as wide as any of the other houses. Many more buildings that had collapsed – partially or completely – of which she could only guess their appearance.
And of those, none of them reminded her of anything in particular.
Dash stumbled on her words.
“Uh, no – I mean… uhm, it kinda does... well, only some of the buildings do, but not exactly the same. Some of them look totally different than the ones in Ponyville! But you can still tell totally what building it is, and... the cutie marks! There's... there's a whole bunch that are the same as... as some of the ponies back home! Well, okay, not exactly the same, but some of them were, and... and..."
Dash groaned, realizing she was talking gibberish. “Look, I can't explain it. I don't understand it. I don't even know how any of this could be possible!”
There was silence.
Dash slumped. "Urgh. And now you think I'm crazy again."
Daring closed and opened her mouth a couple more times. “That's...” She blinked, then shook her head. “That's... strange, I'll give you that.”
Dash jerked her head up so fast she almost sprained a muscle. “You... believe me? You don't think I'm crazy?”
“Crazy?” Daring Do seemed surprised. “That... wasn't what I was thinking, no.” She narrowed her eyes for a moment, then sighed.
Dash looked at her with a mixture of hope and apprehension. If not her, then perhaps Daring Do could solve this mystery?
The adventurer's expression was unreadable.
“Nopony's been here in... a very long time.” Daring absently kicked aside a discarded floorboard. “So it's not like they could've gotten their inspiration from this place. There's obviously something very strange going on in your hometown.”
“Huh?” Dash was taken aback. What was Daring talking about?
Upon voicing her confusion, Daring gave her a strange look. She blinked, seemingly confused.
“The... similar architecture? The cutie marks? That's what we were just talking about.”
“What? No, nothing's wrong with Ponyville, it's this place that's all weird!”
Daring Do's reaction was an exasperated hoof to the face.
“Dash, you just told me your hometown bears a striking resemblance to an 8000-year old city from a long-dead civilization.” Daring Do crossed her forelegs smugly. “Now, how old is Ponyville?”
Dash opened her mouth to respond. Then she closed it.
“Thought so.” Daring smirked. “So... Has anything... strange been going on in Ponyville lately?”
“Eh.” Dash shrugged. “Not more than usual.”
This was a pointless line of inquiry anyway, Daring Do was wrong. Clearly, Ponyville wasn't what was strange here.
“You told me the town got attacked by... ursas and dragons.” Daring Do raised an eyebrow questioningly. “What about that?”
“Oh, you mean that sort of thing. Ursas, dragons, parasprites, diamond dogs, three headed dogs, giant timberwolves... Yeah, we get those.”
Rainbow Dash interpreted the expression on Daring Do's face as a prompt to elaborate.
She skimmed over a few memorable events that stuck out, mindful to leave out anything big, like the changeling invasion or the return of the Crystal Empire.
She was just in the middle of recounting one of the more recent events, the magical duel between Twilight Sparkle and a particularly boastful unicorn, when Daring Do cut her off.
“Woah, woah, woah”, Daring Do interrupted her. “Alicorn Amulet? The Alicorn Amulet?” Daring Do looked at her in shock.
Rainbow Dash froze up.
Daring Do knew of the Alicorn Amulet. Of course she did. Dash quietly cursed to herself for forgetting.
After all, it was only because of the “Daring Do”-books that she had even remembered what the amulet was called. The same amulet Trixie had used was the one that had been mentioned in the last two “Daring Do”-books.
Had she just screwed up?
Maybe not. The Amulet had been mentioned – but it had never actually shown up in any of the books. Not yet. She vaguely recalled fan-speculations on what would happen with the Amulet in a future book. Many had been expecting the Amulet to appear in – well, this book. It was the 15th anniversary of the series, after all.
Didn’t seem likely though, now that she was here.
“What do you know about the Alicorn Amulet?” Daring asked with a frown.
Hastily, Dash regained her composure.
“Well, it makes a unicorn super-powerful, able to cast all sorts of crazy spells – and it makes whoever wears it go completely nuts. Like, the 'mwhahaha, I shall now take over the world' kind of nuts.”
“What happened to it? Where is it now?” Daring Do pressed on.
“Uh, I think Zecora has it.” Rainbow Dash scratched her head. Only a split-second later did it occur to Dash that giving Daring any info about the whereabouts of the Alicorn Amulet wasn't gonna be of use to her, since it wasn't the same Alicorn Amulet. She didn't get much time to ponder this, as Daring urged her to go on.
“Zecora? Who's that?”
“She's a zebra who lives in the Everfree Forest”, Dash explained.
“...So it never occurred to you to bring the Alicorn Amulet to, oh, I don't know, the authorities?” Daring burst out. “So they could lock it up? In a guarded magic-proof vault?”
Dash opened her mouth to respond, but Daring Do cut her off.
“Do you have any idea what the Alicorn Amulet could do in the wrong hooves?”
Dash returned Daring's accusing gaze with a level stare.
“Yeah, I got a pretty good idea actually.” Dash monotoned. “As I was saying – the 'Great and Powerful' Trixie used it to take over Ponyville.”
Daring Do blinked.
“Hold on, back up a bit, I think I'm missing a story here.”
So Rainbow Dash told her.
“So, Twinkle – uh, Twilight Sparkle tricked that, ah, Trixie-character into giving her the amulet?”
“Twinkle?! Hahaha!” Dash laughed out loud. “Oh, I gotta remember this, that's a good one.”
But Daring didn’t even smile.
“I... see.” She said, simply. Then she went quiet.
And then she stayed quiet.
Rainbow Dash shot her a quizzical glance, but Daring Do seemed to be lost deep in her own thoughts.
After a minute or so, Dash's eyes inadvertently began scanning her surroundings again.
Sure enough, it didn't take long for her to spot a familiar sight.
The facade was painted in what once must have been bright, frilly patterns and plastered with decorative ornaments. Even if the building's shape was completely wrong, there were enough similarities for it to be easily recognizable as Carousel Boutique, mainly due to a near-replica of its decorative style.
The pony-shape on the sign might've also been a hint, even if Dash was hard-pressed to tell if the displayed equine wore a dress, or a piece of armor.
One of the windows was broken, and, thanks to a growth of brightly glowing crystals right outside, Dash caught a good look of its interior.
The inside looked... extremely cramped, cluttered with various odds and ends, and indeed a few pieces of ruined cloth hung up on the walls.
It bore absolutely no resemblance to Rarity's workplace at all. Not even in the slightest.
“Huh.”
Somehow, she'd not expected that.
“Wait,” Daring's voice startled Dash out of her thoughts. “What was that about a three-headed dog earlier?”
“Huh? What?” Daring's outburst had caught her completely off guard.
“I only just realized what you said. You mentioned a three-headed dog attacking the town?”
“Uh...” Dash scratched her head. “Oh yeah, that. Cerberus escaped and Twilight had to take him back to Tartarus that one time.”
“You're pulling my tail.” Daring Do stated flatly.
“What? No I'm not!” Dash bristled.
Daring Do stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. And perhaps a third.
“What in the hay was the guard dog of Tartarus doing in your hometown?”
Dash wrinkled her nose and blinked. “It... escaped from Tartarus.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got that.” Daring scoffed in annoyance. “But what was it doing in your hometown?”
“Uh...” Dash blinked, confused.
What was Daring Do trying to get at here?
Daring rubbed the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. “Please don't tell me they build Ponyville wedged in-between the Everfree and the gates of Tartarus.”
“What? No, of course they didn't.” Dash scoffed.
“Really, now?” Daring gave her a bit of a funny look, but didn't say anything.
“Huh? Hey, what's that supposed to mean?” Dash huffed indignantly.
Another odd glance.
“How close is Ponyville to the Everfree, exactly?”
“Huh?” The seeming non-sequitur took Dash by surprise. “About two minutes of flight?”
Daring seemed taken aback by this.
“That close?! Why in the hay would... Wait, is that speed-flying or casual flying?“
Dash shrugged.
“I dunno, casual? It's not much in terms of a race-course.” A sly grin crept over her face. “Well, heh, I guess it's casual for me.”
“Okay... that's slightly less insane.”
“Insane? What?” Dash reeled, utterly bewildered.
“Are you kidding me?” Daring snorted, shaking her head. “Who in their right mind settles right next to the most dangerous forest in Central Equestria?”
“What? Wha...?” Dash’s entire face scrunched up in confusion. She blinked a couple of times, then shook her head. “...I thought we were trying to figure out why this place looks so much like Ponyville?”
“We've been over this already.” Daring Do rolled her eyes exasperatedly. “Obviously, Ponyville design was inspired by Mareican architecture. Since nopony's been here in at least a few thousand years, the only way this is possible I can think of so far is that either Ponyville was founded by descendants of the Mareicans, or somepony in your town council has access to Mareican architecture designs and used them in city-planning. Whatever their reasons are, I don't think they did it just because 'it looked nice'.”
Daring bristled, then seemed to deflate.
“Urgh... Sorry.” She sighed. “I think we need to take another approach to this.”
Daring Do started saying something, then thought better of it. Instead, she took a few seconds to compose herself.
“Listen... About that teleportation-accident...”
“Hmm?” It took Dash a second to catch on to what Daring meant.
“I don't want you get worked up about this, but...” Daring hesitated, looking Dash straight in the eyes. “Could it be that it wasn't an accident?”
Before Dash could even respond, Daring Do pressed on.
"Think about it.” Daring urged. “The way we met. The only two ponies in the entire jungle.” She shook her head emphatically. “And you're not even just a random mare. You're a fan.”
For some reason, Daring Do glanced up at Rainbow Dash's mane.
“What are the chances for that?”
“Preaching to the choir, sister.” Rainbow Dash sighed.
Her shoulders slumped. There was an awkward silence.
Eventually, Daring Do was the one who broke it.
“What about Twinkle Sparkle… err, Twilight Sparkle?”
“Hehe, Twinkle Sparkle…” Dash snickered at the unintentional nickname. Her chuckle ended in a surprised choke. “Wait, what's Twilight got to do with this?”
Daring Do cocked an eyebrow.
“You said she was an extremely powerful mage.”
Dash stared at her for several seconds, uncomprehending.
“Sending somepony across continents...” The adventurer spoke, in a carefully measured neutral tone. "That sort of thing requires a very powerful spell-caster..." Daring Do paused meaningfully.
Rainbow Dash bristled. “Hey, wait a second, what are you trying to say here?”
Daring Do had her hooves raised in a defensive gesture even before Dash had finished her sentence. “Easy there! I'm not trying to say anything.”
“Good.” Dash narrowed her eyes. “Because Twilight Sparkle is one of my closest friends.”
“Well, who else could have sent you here, and had the magical resources to pull it off?”
“It was not Twilight Sparkle!” Dash growled.
From one moment to the next, her mood lightened considerably.
“And besides,” she smirked, “it couldn't have been her. Twi was still back in the library when it happened.”
“Oh?” Daring perked up, suddenly interested. “Say... What's the last thing you remember before the teleport?”
“I was flying to Sugar Cube Corner. I think I... crashed, and then I woke up with a splitting headache and you were there.”
“And... what's a 'Sugar Cube Corner' again?”
“It's Ponyville's bakery. Looks like a giant gingerbread house. Kinda like that bakery back there,” Dash gestured in the direction they had come from. “Only... well, ginger-bread, not regular bread.”
“So. You were flying to the... bakery.” Daring's eye twitched, ever so slightly. “And on your way there, you magically got teleported to the jungle, thousands of miles away.”
Daring's sarcasm wasn't lost to Dash, but she couldn't help but add her two bits. “Uh... Actually, I think I made it into the bakery before everything went dark.”
There was that eye-twitch again.
Hmm. Now that Dash thought about it, hadn't there been somepony shouting? Something about a cake? “Oh no, not the... cake?”
“Was the bakery at least closed to the public?” Daring Do asked, a sliver of hope audible in her voice.
“Uh... No...?” Dash shrugged. “The Cakes always open shop early in the morning during weekdays.”
Daring's face fell, shoulders slumping.
Dash, on the other hoof, was lost in thought. The last thing she'd heard had been somepony – probably Pinkie Pie – shouting “Oh no, not the... cake!”
It seemed trivial, yet she couldn't shake the feeling there was some important detail she was forgetting. Something in those last few moments before everything went dark that might be relevant.
There was some large pile of junk in the middle of the road. Without paying it any mind, Rainbow Dash swerved off to the right by reflex to get around the obstacle.
“Oh no, not the... something-something cake.”
A birthday cake? If so, then for whose birthday? Not hers, for sure. Though that would've been one heck of a birthday present, under other circumstances.
No, not a birthday cake... But she knew it had to have been something like that. She just couldn't quite put her hoof on it.
Rainbow Dash grimaced, brows furled in concentration.
Why did the occasion for the cake seem so important? It felt like the answer to it all was just out of reach. If only she could remember...
With a sigh of frustration, Rainbow Dash shook her head.
Idly, she threw a quick glance over at Daring Do – only to see a wall of rubble immediately to her left.
Disoriented and shaken from her thoughts, Rainbow Dash looked around in bewilderment. The road now seemed much narrower, and curved off to the right.
To her left was an entire row of collapsed buildings, right up until a natural rock-formation rose from the ground – and up, and up, and up, until it formed an insurmountable wall that went on to merge with the ceiling somewhere in the distance.
She squinted. There was something else, far down the road. Too regular to be natural, the dark silhouette of a massive structure towered over the city. Shrouded in shadow against a darkened backdrop, it was too far away to make out any details.
“Rainbow Dash?” Daring's voice sounded off from behind her, prompting Dash to turn, just as Daring walked around the bend.
The road had split straight in the middle, she realized.
“Ah, I figured you'd walked down the wrong path.” Daring noted. “Come on, there’s something I want to– woah.” She broke off abruptly, as her eyes wandered past Dash into the distance. “Well. Seems I'm not the only one who found something.”
.
Daring Do's own discovery wasn't quite as big and looming, but its sheer size and shine made it stand out amongst the houses and shops.
Dash couldn't make out much detail, the building was, again, too far away. There was, however, one thing she could tell with certainty, even at a distance. The entire multi-story building sparkled and glittered, as if the whole thing had been positively smothered in precious metals, and... it easily dwarfed a nearby clock-tower – which, again, looked suspiciously similar to Ponyville's own.
Rainbow Dash looked back at the cross-road. Daring Do stood there, eyes flicking back and forth, silently weighing their options.
She frowned.
“What's wrong?” Dash asked, thinking to return the favor Daring had provided earlier.
The other mare looked up at her sharply, startled by the question. For a few seconds more, she just stared blankly at her. Then Daring Do shook her head.
“It's nothing, Rainbow Dash.” She fell silent again.
It very clearly wasn't “nothing”, and Dash was about to object – when her attention was diverted by a familiar sight.
There, next to what appeared to be a union between a toy- and a candy-store that vaguely looked like somepony had put a giant jester's cap on Sugar Cube Corner's roof, stood... a second “Carousel Boutique”-like building. Unlike the first, this one definitely had the right shape down to a T – but all its decorations indicated that it was a flower-shop.
It even had –
Wait, wasn't that Cheerilee's cutie mark?
...Weird.
Dash turned back to face Daring just in time to catch an exasperated sigh.
The adventurer took a few moments longer, then came to a final decision.
“We need to split up.”
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