//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Of Magic and Memories // Story: The Problem of Evil // by Quixotic Mage //------------------------------// Growing up, Twilight Sparkle had been paranoid.  She would not have called herself paranoid, she would have said that she took precisely the appropriate measure of caution.  She would point to the statistic that 76.8% of talented unicorns cast dangerous spells in their sleep while undergoing training. Twilight would also bring up the time when she had dreamed she was cold and accidentally set her room on fire.  Tearfully she would ask what would have become of Spike had it not been for the fact that, as a baby dragon, he was completely immune to both the magic of a foal, talented or not, and the fire itself.  Finally she would point out to Celestia, who was the only pony that would sit through the entire two hour presentation on proper caution, complete with slides and graphs, that when data and anecdote agreed surely the truth was on that side.  At which point Celestia would gravely agree that that seemed to be the case and try desperately not to laugh at how adorable Twilight was in her little tweed lecturing suit. Once she had secured Celestia’s approval Twilight promptly put together a list of 13 wards against kinetic, thermal, electrical, nuclear, magnetic and magical energies, as well as assorted other potential methods of dealing damage.  Every night after she brushed her teeth Twilight would cast protection spells against each and every type of damage, often knocking herself out from magical exhaustion.  After a week of this Celestia took pity on her and taught her how to cast more permanent protection spells in the form of wards, so they didn’t have to be recast every night and could be checked to see that they were still working properly.  After the week it took to get set up, Twilight had the full set of wards automatically protecting her bedroom at all times. After moving to Ponyville Twilight recalled the naiveté of her earlier self with amusement.  She had once been so proud of her childish caution and set of wards, but she had certainly outgrown all that. Twilight now had a total of 43 wards around the tree-library she called home.  By building the wards up over time she had vastly improved the original thirteen wards to the point where it would take a fully powered magical blast from somepony stronger than an alicorn to break through.  She had also added wards with a number of other effects, including one against teleportation by anyone not authorized with the proper spell signature.  After Luna’s return a ward against dream walking seemed appropriate.  After Discord’s release she’d added one against Chaos magic, though that one was designed to attract chaos magic in hopes of employing some kind of magical reverse psychology.  Finally, after recalling the memory spell she’d used to recover her friends to themselves and defeat Discord, she added a ward against memory spells operating on anyone in her home. All of which was to say that when an incredibly powerful memory spell blasted across all of Equestria, the wards on the Great Oaks Library blazed to life and pushed back against the incursion.  Inside, Twilight stirred from slumber long enough to note that her wards had activated and were still standing.  Since they hadn’t fallen nothing could have gone too wrong.  Resolving to deal with it in the morning she smiled sleepily, turned over, and went back to sleep. *** The next morning Twilight was awoken by the sun shining in her eyes.  Since she hated waking up to an alarm and since Princess Celestia raised the sun at exactly the same time every day, she had calibrated her room such that the sun shone directly in her eyes at precisely 6:43 and 27 seconds. Twilight also believed that waking up on round numbers inhibited creative thought. She yawned and stretched her hooves up over her head.  Out of habit she glanced over at her wall clock and her mouth dropped open. 6:45 blinked innocently back at her. “Spike! Wake up!  Something terrible has happened,” she shouted at the little dragon nestled in his bed-basket. “Yeah Twi,” he responded, rubbing sleepily at his eyes.  “What’s up?” “The sun was late!”  Strands of hair were curling out of her mane and a wild look had entered her eyes.  She had already left her bed and was rummaging through her bedroom bookshelves.  There wasn’t anything in those books that would be helpful, she kept the useful books in the basement stacks, but the act itself was calming. Spike slowly made his way out of his blanket.  “How late exactly?  Because anything less than 5 minutes and I’m calling it within the margin of error.” “Ah, hmm, well…” slowly Twilight’s gaze dropped from the bookshelf to the floor and she blushed slightly.  “Adding in the time it took to yawn and stretch and it was a little less than a minute and a half.” “I rest my case.”  Spike scampered over to Twilight and gave her a hug.  “Even if it did happen, Princess Celestia’s probably just sleeping in.”  He headed off down the stairs and called over his shoulder, “Now come on, I’m making strawberry and ruby pancakes for breakfast.” Following him, Twilight chuckled, “Hold the rubies on mine please.” “One of these days I will get you to try gem-cuisine and you will love it,” Spike insisted. Twilight caught up to him and ruffled his spines.  “Not today I’m afraid.”  With the ease of long familiarity Spike shrugged her off and stuck out his tongue.  The two siblings laughed and set off downstairs to enjoy their breakfast. *** After a delicious stack of pancakes, sans rubies, Twilight set out for the market.  While Spike was probably right about the sun Twilight still wanted to double-check that nothing odd was going on.  It was a little early to call on most of her friends but she knew that, as a farmer, Applejack was an early riser and would have already set up her stall. Relishing the cool clean morning air, Twilight broke into a gallop for the sheer joy of running on a beautiful day in the country.  The weather patrol hadn’t yet seeded the day’s clouds and the deep blue of the sky imparted a certain solidity to the idyllic thatch-roofed cottages of Ponyville. She nodded and smiled greetings to the other early risers as she passed them. At last she neared the town square.  The streets opened up into a wide courtyard with a fountain containing a statue of a mythical animal, a dolphin if she remembered correctly, spitting water up into the air.  A few market stalls were already set up with sellers shouting their wares at the passersby.  Panting, Twilight skidded to a stop in front of a familiar wooden applecart. “Whoa, nelly!  You in some kind a hurry there sugar cube?”  Applejack peered over her cart in concern and Twilight held up a hoof as she tried to catch her breath. “Felt like galloping… forgot… out of shape…” Twilight gasped out.  “Water…” she wheezed and collapsed to the ground. Applejack rolled her eyes at the dramatics but she trotted over to the fountain and brought back a cup of water for Twilight to guzzle down.  “Land sakes girl.  I know you ain’t an athlete but a simple run ‘cross town shouldn’t tire you out that much.” Standing up, Twilight tried to gather the shreds of her dignity.  “Some of us, dear Applejack, are burdened with the weight of great knowledge,” she said haughtily.  “We must move with deliberation save on those rare occasions when we may surrender to the enjoyment of the natural world.” Applejack chuckled.  “Oh aye, you’re burdened with a great weight alright.”  She poked Twilight in the belly and said, “trouble is it ain’t all in yer head.” Twilight blushed as her belly jiggled a bit then laughed along with her friend.  “Alright, alright.  I should spend more time out of the library.” Nodding firmly Applejack said, “I just want you to take care of yerself, sugar cube.  Now what brings you to the market this time of day?  I usually see you come ‘round in the afternoon.” “I wanted to ask you a question,” Twilight replied, growing serious.  “Have you noticed anything odd today?  Anything weird going on with the sun?” “With the sun? Can’t say I have.  Though I’ve not been paying it any particular mind.” Applejack admitted. “It didn’t seem like it rose later than usual?” Twilight prodded. The orange pony shrugged. “Not that I noticed.  Why?  Something going on with it?” Frustration crossed Twilight’s face.  “I thought it rose one minute and thirty seconds late.  Spike thinks I just imagined it.” “That’s probably it,” Applejack said, nodding.  “Or maybe Princess Luna’s sleeping in a bit.” “Yeah, that’s what Spike–“ Twilight froze.  That was not what Spike had said.  “Applejack, what did you just say?” Applejack looked at quizzically.  “Princess Luna’s sleeping in, you mean?  I know you idolize yer teacher but even she’s got to take breaks sometimes.” “I’m not Luna’s student,” Twilight said with growing alarm.  “I’m Princess Celestia’s student.  You know, bright white pony, raises the sun every day?”  Applejack just stared blankly.  “Half of the diarchy?  Ruled alone for a thousand years while Luna was on the moon?  None of this is ringing a bell?” “Twilight, Princess Luna’s ruled the lunar monarchy for as long as anypony can remember.”  Applejack spoke slowly and carefully, as if she was afraid Twilight had gone around the bend again.  “You’re the egghead, you’d know better than me if there was somethin’ different but as far as I know it’s only been Princess Luna.” The two ponies stared at each other across the cart, each concerned about the other’s tenuous grasp of reality.  Around them the market had filled with shoppers and the murmur of trade filled the square. “Alright, well, a survey of just two ponies is clearly inconclusive.  Let’s increase our sample size.”  Twilight grabbed the nearest passerby, a brown earth pony wearing blue and red glasses with an hourglass cutie mark, and dragged him over to the cart.  “Sorry sir but my friend and I are having a bit of a disagreement and were hoping you could resolve our little dispute.” She smiled cheerily, her eyes and grin each just a little too wide. “Al-alright,” he stammered.  “What is it?” “Could you please name the pony that raises the sun every day?” Twilight requested sweetly. For a moment the earth pony looked confused.  He looked down and fumbled for a second with a silver pocket watch.  Then he shook his head and said confidently, “Princess Luna, of course.  Who else could raise the sun?” “What?” Twilight squawked as hair sprung from her main like springs.  “But, but what about Princess Celestia?” The earth pony had started backing up at Twilight’s exclamation.  At her question he jumped and ran off as fast as he could.  “Never heard of her,” he called back over his shoulder. “Ah told you, sugar cube.  I’ve ain’t never heard of this Celestia—“ “Princess Celestia,” Twilight snapped.  She rushed up to the nearest passerby, a mint green unicorn with a harp cutie mark and a black hoody. “You. Princess Celestia. Ever heard of her?” “N-no?”  The unicorn said uncertainly. Twilight dashed off and grabbed another pony, this one a gargantuan white pegasus with tiny little wings.  “Never heard of Princess Celestia either, have you?” “Yeah!” “You have?” Twilight confirmed excitedly. “No, I mean ‘yeah, I have never heard of Celestia’” He corrected. “RRRRGGGHH!”  Twilight’s mane was starting to stand up and the tips had begun to smoke.  “Has anyone in this Celestia-blasted market heard of Princess Celestia?” she shouted. Her magic caught her voice and magnified it until it boomed across the entire square and cut off all conversation.  All eyes turned to purple unicorn crackling and smoking with involuntary magic.  “Princess Celestia!  Anyone?” Eyes turned aside, embarrassed for the pony ranting in public. “Please,” Twilight almost whimpered.  “Somepony must know.  Somepony… the princess, you must know. Please.” “Here now, sugar cube.”  Applejack walked up beside her and slung a comforting foreleg over Twilight’s shoulders.  “Let’s get you back to the library.  You’ll forget this whole thing with a good long rest.”  She began to lead the distraught unicorn toward home. Applejack’s words sparked something in Twilight’s memory.  “Hold on…  There was something last night.  I woke up and felt something.”  Her purple face paled towards a Rarity shade of white.  “Oh no, the spell.  The one that hit my wards.  But which ward activated, what did it do?”  She shook her head to clear it and faced Applejack, her eyes growing serious but with a measure of control now that a hypothesis had been identified. “Applejack, I need you to gather the others and meet me in the library as fast as possible.  I’m not going crazy, something is going on, and it’s potentially as bad as Discord.” “I don’t think I should leave you alone, sugar cube.”  Applejack said worriedly.  “You’re not actin’ right.” “I’m acting in a manner entirely commensurate with the trauma of losing one of my existential anchors,” Twilight snipped.  “Besides, you can’t stop me, I’m already gone.”  As she spoke her horn glowed brightly and with a flash of purple light the unicorn disappeared. “Ah hate it when she does that.” Applejack muttered.  “Fine, get the others.  Might as well.  Best case scenario’s that Twi’s gone a little cuckoo, again.”  As she trotted off she grumbled under her breath, “and if she’s right then here we go again.” *** Back at the library Twilight appeared with a quick flash and a puff of smoke.  Nestled in his favorite seat Spike looked up from his comic book as she appeared. “Hey Twi, welcome back.”  He broke off suddenly as he caught sight of the worry on her face. Standing up he hurried over to her and his tone turned serious.  “What’s going on?” “Spike!  Quick, who’s the pony that raises the sun?” she asked.  Her hooves jittered in place from nervous energy and he gaze kept darting around the room. “Princess Celestia, of course.  Did something happen to her?” he asked, fear beginning to creep into his tone. Twilight took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down, for Spike’s sake if not her own.  Just hearing him say “Princess Celestia” and knowing that she wasn’t the only one to remember her beloved mentor had already helped.  “Something might have,” she said, in answer to his question.  “The fact that you remember her suggests that my hypothesis is correct, but I need to verify it.” “Right,” Spike said confidently.  “How can I help?” “There’s nothing you can do right now, I just need to check my magisterium lexiconus.” “You mean that book you use to keep track of your wards?” he asked. “Spike, proper names are important,” Twilight chided. “Yeah, but you only use the long name when you’re nervous…” he trailed off.  “Oh.”  Twilight offered a wobbly smile that was supposed to be reassuring but came off as anything but.  Spike wrapped his arms around her neck in a tight hug.  “Don’t worry Twilight.  Between you and the other girls and of course your number one assistant we can handle anything.” “Thanks Spike,” she said, patting him on the back as her smile firmed.  “I’ll try and minimize the freak-outs.”  She paused for a moment in thought.  “Actually there is something you can do to help.” “Name it! Anything,” Spike said enthusiastically as he broke the hug and stepped back. “Could you make up a big batch of your special tea?  The girls are coming over and I have a feeling we could use something calming to drink.”  “Gotcha,” he said, trotting toward the kitchen.  “One batch of sapphire steeped Darjeeling tea coming up.” “Oh, and Spike?” she called after him. “Yeah?” “Hold the sapphires.” “One of these days,” he grumbled as he disappeared into the other room. Smiling and shaking her head Twilight turned her attention to the wooden statue of a horse’s head that decorated the center of the library. Energy, warm and familiar flowed through her veins.  Channeling magic felt like slipping into a hot tub filled with coffee instead of water; every muscle in the body relaxed but the mind buzzed awake with possibilities. Broadly speaking, magic in Equestria could be divided into three categories: spells, free magic, and immortal magic.  Spells were the easiest and most common form.  They consisted of the execution of a specific simple command.  For instance, the telekinesis spell that most unicorns learned was the command ‘move object’.  On the other hoof, Twilight’s teleportation was the command ‘move me’, which was more complex since to execute it successfully the caster had to implicitly understand how to move themselves without injury.  In addition to the telekinesis spell, unicorns tended to learn a number of other spells based around their special talent.  The number of spells a unicorn could learn was directly related to that unicorn’s magical skill.  Wards were just permanent negation commands.  A ward against fire would be the command ‘no fire’ and it would persist until attempts to create fire drained the ward of the magic initially put into it.  Finally, spells followed predictable patterns in terms of effort; lifting one kilogram was exactly half as difficult as lifting two kilograms. Free magic was more difficult to explain precisely.  Rather than a specific command it consisted of a conscious understanding by the unicorn of all the necessary components for executing the magic on the environment.  For instance, to lift a kilogram with free magic would require the unicorn casting the spell be familiar enough with the object in question to determine relevant physical facts such as center of mass, air resistance, and elasticity.  Free magic was also more energy intensive than using a spell.  All mortal magic began as free magic and only after a unicorn mastered a spell in free form could they develop a spell to accomplish the same task more easily and then pass that spell on to successors to save them from repeating the same effort.  This was one of the ways magical research progressed. For reasons of efficiency and ease of use, most unicorns used free magic only when a task was easy to comprehend but difficult to phrase as a simple command.  Illusion magic especially lent itself to free magic since once the properties of light were understood any illusion could be produced.  Otherwise, it would take a unique spell to produce each different illusion, and mastering that many different spells was a much more difficult undertaking than understanding light well enough to use free magic on it. Twilight had earned her title of Archmage in part because she could both learn a vast number of spells relatively quickly, and because she had such a deep understanding of the natural world that she could confidently use free magic for most tasks.  By contrast, Rarity only knew the telekinesis spell and a gem detection spell and would hesitate to use free magic for most purposes.  However, because of her work making and modelling dresses, she was very skilled with telekinesis and often used minor illusions to show her dresses off to best effect. Interestingly enough, spells and free magic as categories could be applied to pegasi and earth pony magic as well.  Rainbow Dash was, in many respects, the pegasus equivalent of Twilight.  To fly, a pegasus would assemble a collection of innate spells for controlling the air flow around them in precise ways; the more spells a pegasus had and could use at one time, the better they were at flying.  Rainbow had developed enough flying spells that she could actually fly upside down, something conceptually impossible to most pegasi because they lacked her innate understanding of the applications and combinations of flight spells.  Her understanding of the weather was similarly intuitive, enabling her to use free magic to alter an entire sky’s worth of clouds in “ten seconds flat”. Applejack was similar in her skills to Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle. Earth ponies traditionally developed a core set of spells which enhanced their strength and resilience.  Earth pony free magic tended to deal with encouraging life and growth.  It also tended to be more fundamental than unicorn or pegasi free magic.  With free magic a unicorn could grow a seed to a mature plant in a matter of minutes.  An earth pony could grow an orchard from seedlings to fruit producing trees in a year.  Naturally, Applejack had had many opportunities to hone both spells and free magic while working on the farm and it was more through hard work than any inborn genius that she was on a similar plane as Rainbow Dash and Twilight. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were both odd cases.  So far as Twilight had been able to tell, Fluttershy eschewed magic entirely and communicated with her animals purely through empathy and experience born of long practice.  For a time, Twilight had suspected the kind yellow pony had somehow tapped into a well of earth pony magic, but nothing had ever shown up on her detectors.  Pinkie Pie, on the other hoof, was a drunken master of free form magic.  Probably.  Twilight still hadn’t actually been able to guarantee that Pinkie was using magic at all, but it was the only hypothesis that made any sense. Immortal magic was different. Both spells and free magic were, at heart, a mechanical process.  Any pony that cast a given spell would get the same result.  Any pony with the same degree of focus and knowledge would produce the same result from free magic.  Granted, few ponies had exactly the same level of focus or knowledge, but results would generally fall within the same ball park.  Using free magic Twilight could turn a teacup into an orange and Rarity, attempting the same thing, would probably end up turning her teacup orange and perhaps imbuing any tea within it with slight citrus overtones. Immortal magic was less predictable and more personable, inextricably tied to the self of the caster.  For alicorns and other immortals it was a birthright.  Even just reaching out to it would produce tangible physical changes.  They would stand, larger than life, beautiful and terrible, awe-full in the oldest sense of the word, and as they held that power all the world would grow still and lean in to listen to their will. Another piece of immortal magic were the mantles of the natural world.  Through carefully questioning of Princess Celestia, Twilight had teased out that the power to move the sun was immortal magic, but that it was connected to the sun, not to the princess.  Her own immortal magic allowed her to possess or pass on the mantle.  While she had it, it was tied to her and changed her for possessing it, but in the end it belonged only to the sun. Similar to the connection between immortals and mantles, those rare mortals that touched immortal magic were indelibly marked by it.  Anypony that knew how to look for it could see the traces on the bearers of the Elements of Harmony.  They would be able to tell which trees Applejack had bucked instead of her brother, or which clouds Rainbow had created.  There were subtler effects as well, a weight leant to their opinions and presence that led other ponies, even the mayor, to defer to the mane six.  Every time the Elements were used the effects grew more pronounced, and not even Twilight could say for sure how mortal ponies might be changed by prolonged exposure to immortal magic. Naturally, this effect applied in spades for the princesses and other immortals.  Any use of their magic, spells, free, or immortal, was clearly marked as having been cast by an immortal, though it was not necessarily clear which immortal was responsible.  To those few magical researchers that worried about such things it was a relief that, no matter how powerful or esoteric the spell, it was irrevocably marked as the product of the magic of an immortal and thus identifiable as Princess Celestia’s work, at least until Luna had returned. Twilight had never before had cause to examine a spell to determine if the caster was an alicorn or not.  Still, she was confident she could translate the theory she knew into practice.  As she removed her magisterium lexiconus its hiding place, she reviewed what she knew of the process.  The spell that had pinged her wards would have left a trace.  Her knowledge of immortal magic would inform a free magic comparison between that type of magic and the trace that had been left.  If she did it right a positive result would indicate that an alicorn had been responsible for the spell and a negative result would mean that it had been an ordinary pony. By the time her friends arrived Twilight had cast the spell and confirmed her hypothesis, assuming that she had done it right.  She estimated that the odds of her having made a mistake were about one in four, which was good enough for the moment. Spike pushed around his tea cart, serving the newcomers, as the five ponies all settled in around the center table where Twilight had set up her work. “Now then dear,” said Rarity, sipping her tea.  “What ever is going on?  Applejack said you sounded agitated earlier today.” “Agitated?  Applejack said she was all mane-springy and eye-twitchy and we all know what that means.”  Pinkie bugged her eyes out in an attempt to convey her message.  When that failed she threw her hooves up and shouted, “there’s a big meany thingamawhosits and we’re going to have to blast it with rainbow harmony magic.”  Without two of her supporting hooves Pinkie thudded to the ground only to spring off her mane and back to her feet. “Blasting is the only way to make friendship magic sound cool, but I still think we should just give them the old one-two,” said Rainbow Dash as she boxed with her shadow. “Or we could, you know, talk to the problem.  I’m sure a nice quiet conversation will let us solve Twilight’s problem and send a friendship letter to Princess Luna.”  As everypony looked at her Fluttershy shrank back and sipped at her tea.  “Or we could blast things, if you wanted too,” she whispered.  Then, even more quietly she said, “I’m really not a fan of blasting though.” “I’m afraid we might have to use the Elements of Harmony after all.  Here, look at this.”  Twilight placed her spellbook on the table so everyone could see it.  On the page was a bar graph showing a number of small bars and one very tall one covered the full two page spread. “What exactly are we lookin’ at here, Twi?” asked Applejack. “It’s a graph of the wards on my library,” Twilight explained.  “The smaller bars represent small uses of magic that have been deflected, mostly from the Everfree or residues of other ponies’ spells.  It’s this bar here that’s the problem.”  She pointed to the long bar.  “That’s my memory spell ward, it prevents anypony from altering the memories of any living thing inside my library.  Late last night it blocked a large scale memory wiping spell.” “Meaning… what exactly?” “Meaning, Rainbow Dash, that the rest of you and quite possibly all of Equestria had your memories wiped last night.  Based on the conversation I had with Applejack I think it’s pretty easy to guess what, or who, was removed from your memories.” Rarity delicately raised a hoof in question.  “Now hold on a second.  If this was a memory wiping spell then wouldn’t there be a gap in our memories?  I can’t speak for everypony but my memory is most certainly not full of holes.” “Minds are pretty resilient,” Twilight answered.  “Given the chance your mind will fill in gaps all on its own.  And a memory spell supercharges that natural process.  We might be able to find differences in your memories if we spent a couple of days rigorously comparing everypony’s memories since I’ve come to Ponyville, but we don’t have time for that.“  She tapped the page with her hoof.  “Right now, Princess Celestia has been forgotten by everypony except me.  I don’t know exactly what’s happened but it’s clear that she needs our help.” Rarity and Applejack exchanged skeptical looks.  “So you’re sayin’ that this Celestia pony—“ “Princess Celestia,” corrected Twilight, wincing at the informality. Applejack rolled her eyes.  “Alright so, as you explained earlier, Princess Celestia is actually the ruler of Equestria and has somehow been erased from everypony’s mind. And you figured this out because the sun might’ve risen one minute late and one of your wards is actin’ funny?”  She shook her head.  “Sorry Twi but that’s a mighty tall tale to swallow.” “It’s true,” Twilight snapped.  “Spike remembers too. Tell them, Spike.” “I do remember Princess Celestia as well.  It’s hard to forget your surrogate mother,” his voice trembled a little from worry.  It firmed a bit as he pushed the tea cart around again.  “More tea anypony?” he offered, glad to be helping in some small way. “Please, darling,” said Rarity holding her tea cup out in a dainty blue field of magic.  “This feels like a two tea cup problem, at least.” Spike still blushed when Rarity talked to him but his claw was steady as he poured the tea, the result of several hours of practice after a rather embarrassing Rarity related tea mishap.  Everypony considered the situation as he poured except Pinkie, who had got stuck when Rarity mentioned holes in her memory and was now considering the possibility of holes in memory being like holes in Swiss cheese and wondering what a memory would taste like. “If Celestia—“ Fluttershy began. “Princess Celestia,” Twilight corrected waspishly, rubbing at her temples. Fluttershy meeped at the sharp tone but continued anyway.  “I think If Princess Celestia needs our help then we should try and help her.  Though I don’t really know what I can do.” “That’s a good point, Fluttershy.”  Rarity turned to look at Twilight.  “Even if you’re right, what exactly can we do about it?  Not even you can cast a spell across the entirety of Equestria.  You’d have to be an alicorn to cast such a spell.” Twilight shifted uneasily.  “That’s what I was checking when you all came in.  I believe the memory spell was cast by an alicorn. What do you remember about the first time we used the Elements of Harmony?” “We used them to blast the Nightmare and send it packing,” Dash declared confidently. “Right, but what was the Nightmare?” Twilight pushed. “It was, uh…” Dash paused uncertainly.  “It was some monster that had been stuck on the moon, yeah?  It got loose and we had to take care of it.” “That monster was Luna,” Twilight said, to gasps from the others.  “She was under the control of the Nightmare and we used the Elements to set her free.  I think she’s under its power again and has done away with Princess Celestia and wiped out the memory of her so no pony can rescue her.  Well I for one do remember, and I’m not going to abandon Princess Celestia!  We’re going to go and use the Elements of Harmony on her again and fix this mess.  Got it?” she challenged. Everypony was silent as the dangerous idea Twilight had espoused hung in the air before them. “Twilight, that’s,” Rainbow hesitated.  “That’s almost treason.  Even if you are her student—“ “I’m not!” Twilight slammed a hoof down on the table.  “I’m Princess Celestia’s student.” “Student to a princess no pony else remembers,” Rarity shot back, her voice rising. Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “I remember her, and right now she needs my help.  Our help.  What happened to the ponies that ran into the Everfree forest with a stranger on the off chance that it might help the Princess?” Winces crossed the table at Twilight’s biting words. “Hey!  Don’t talk to Rarity that way,” Rainbow Dash jumped in.  “You’re the one acting all weird, talking about things no pony else remembers.” “Why’s everypony getting all shouty?” Pinkie asked sadly, ears flat back against her head. Fluttershy also tried to intervene.  “If we could just all calm down a little?  Please?” They both went unheard as Applejack joined the fray.  “You can’t come to us with fairy tales about some pony named Celestia and expect us ta just up and attack Princess Luna on yer say so.” Twilight shot to her feet, head pounding.  “Princess Celestia isn’t a fairy tale!  But fine! If you lot won’t take this seriously then I’m going to save her myself.”  She stomped over to the door, pausing briefly to call back to Spike, “come on, she needs us.” Spike quickly removed his apron and ran to follow.  From behind Rarity called, “Spike, maybe you should stay with us.”  Twilight hesitated at the door but didn’t turn around to look.  Spike didn’t even slow down.  He caught up to Twilight and before anypony could say anything else the door slammed behind them. Outside, anger drove Twilight at a punishing pace as she stalked toward the train station and Spike had to practically run to keep up with her.  Noting his effort she slowed slightly and said in a clipped tone of voice, “thanks Spike.” He patted her shoulder.  “I’m not getting left behind again,” he said firmly.  “I hope you have a plan though because I’m not sure what we can do about the Nightmare alone.” “I had planned to use the Elements, but without my friends,” Twilight shook her head.  “I don’t know.  Why didn’t they just help?” she asked plaintively. “You can hardly blame them,” Spike offered reasonably.  “I’m sure this all looks pretty odd from their perspective, even considering the stuff we usually get up to.  Attacking a pony they think of as the princess to rescue Princess Celestia when they don’t even remember her.  And it didn’t help that you got angry pretty fast.” “Maybe I shouldn’t have shouted,” Twilight conceded reluctantly.  She rubbed her head.  “This situation’s painful and this headache’s not helping my temper.  Whatever.  It doesn’t matter now.  We need a way to prove to them that Luna has become the Nightmare again.  And to do that we need to be in Canterlot.” “So that’s why we’re headed to the train station?” Spike asked. “Yes,” Twilight confirmed.  And, she thought, I hope I can think of a way to face down an angry alicorn by the time we make it to the Canterlot, or we might end up in just as much trouble as Princess Celestia, wherever she is.