"... la, Stella. Wake up!"
Slowly Twilight's voice started to reach me, I had a terrible headache.
"Where is she? What happened?", I asked.
"We heard something from the tower since we had been quite a bit away from it, we weren't sure what it was. Just as I walked towards it to check if something had happened, Lyra came out of it. She told me you bumped your head pretty bad and she would get some herbal medicine she saw on our way here. I had no idea she knew such things."
"That wasn't Lyra.", I said groaning with pain. "I have no idea what it is, but it's no pony."
"What are you talking about? I think you bumped your head harder than I thought."
"Is there a spell to locate somepony you know?"
"Well... yes, but to protect everyponies privacy, we're only allowed to use it in emergency situations like when a foal is lost."
"Please, use it now to find Lyra."
"But..."
"Please.", I begged her.
"Okay.", her horn began to emit a faint glow.
"That can't be right.", she said after a few seconds. "It's much to far away, I think it's near Ponyville."
"This thing, it is some kind of shapeshifter. It looked like Lyra, then it suddenly changed and turned into a black, greenish haired... creature. It looked and sounded like a mare... kind of. "
"I never heard of something like this, we have to ask Celestia."
"First we should try to reach the real Lyra as soon as possible, we don't know what she did to her."
"You're right, let's grab the crystals and hurry."
We took the Saddlebags and explained Cadence what had happened as we moved towards Canterlot train station.
...
When we left the train in Ponyville, Twilight immediately used her spell to locate Lyra's position. "She looks to be inside the Everfree Forest."
"We have to hurry, there is only about an hour of daylight left.", Cadence reminded us.
We ditched our original plan to bring Bon Bon with us and jogged... and trotted towards the forest.
...
"Not long ago I started my research of your world from here.", I remembered while we walked through the forest searching for Lyra.
"I'm so glad you did appear here and not somewhere else in Equestria or we may never met the way we did.", said Twilight brushing along my side.
"Do you miss your world?", Cadence asked and I felt my marefriend wince.
"Sometimes... but I haven't left much behind, there are only a few who will miss me."
"How is this possible? Surely you have friends who will miss you."
I took a deep breath. "I had lost my first love years ago in an accident, after this I was afraid to lose anyone again. I cut all my social contacts because it felt safer being alone and I convinced myself to be happier this way. When I came to this world you ponies had been so different from all I knew, I made friendships almost by accident without thinking about it. Before I noticed it I had new friends I cared about and even found a new soulmate I was able to love again."
"I'm sorry for bringing it up."
"You don't have to be, I'm happy the way it is.", I drew Twilight in a loving hug and a deep kiss. She had a slight blush when we separated and I felt her love through our connection, it was such a nice and warm feeling.
She focused on her spell again. "This way, it's very close now."
After a couple more minutes we stood in front of a small entrance to a cave.
"I guess we have found the place.", I commented. Close to each other we carefully entered the cave.
Cadence used a light spell and it took us only a few steps before we were able to see two green transparent cocoons hanging from the ceiling of the cave. As we got closer we saw Lyra and Carrot Top inside those cocoons.
"Oh, Carrot Top as well?", Twilight asked.
"I guess the thing took her spot first, I remember Bon Bon told me she was acting weird lately so Lyra went to cheer her up."
We looked at them for a moment, they seemed to be in a deep slumber or some kind of coma. They were hardly breathing and moved just a little maybe once a minute.
"How should we get them out?", Cadence finally asked.
"I would like to take a sample of this liquid they're in first.", I said and emptied one of my water bottles from my backpack. I held the bottle with my prosthesis and got close to Lyra's cocoon. Carefully I punctured the surface with my pocket knife...
It burst like a soap bubble and I got completely covered by this green goo while Lyra fell down with it, her impact softened by the goo underneath her.
"Well isn't this great.", I said while I scraped some of the stuff off my body into the bottle. "Would you please see how Lyra is doing while I try to clean myself."
After a few minutes I got most of the sticky substance of my body, the rest would only come off if I had a shower. To my surprise, it didn't stain and my clothing hadn't been dyed by it.
When I got back to the others they had cleaned most of it from Lyra's body as well and she was slowly waking up.
"Where am I? What has happened? I think she bit me!", she shouted in quick succession.
"Everything is fine now, you're safe.", I tried to calm her down.
She looked at Carrot Top who still was in the cocoon and her eyes went wide. "This doesn't look fine to me!"
"Please try to stay calm and listen to me. This thing which attacked you, it attacked me too. It seems you got stored in here while you got replaced."
"Like that?", she watched the cocoon again and shuddered.
"Yes, but you're out of it now.", I told her. "We will free Carrot Top as well and hurry back to Ponyville... I really need a shower."
"What about Bon Bon, is she alright?", Lyra asked in a sudden panic.
"I'm pretty sure she is, this creature tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, if she did something to her she would be here as well." This helped to calm her down a bit.
As we got Carrot out of her slimy prison we kept a safe distance. Twilight used levitation to prevent her from falling while Cadence used her magic to burst the outer shell. After another quick explanation, we were off to Ponyville while the moon started to show above the horizon.