“Okay, we’re almost there…” Twilight said, her words strained from exhaustion and frustration. She turned her weary, drained eyes back on her friends. They were still squabbling, arguing and even fighting each other. Twilight felt her heart sink with misery at the sight. Shaking her head, she returned her attention to the Library, as it was finally in sight. “I hope Spike is okay…” she thought.
She looked the library up and down, finding that it was surprisingly untouched compared to the rest of Ponyville. Its wooden walls were still wooden, still had the shape of wood and still had the consistency of wood. The leaves were all as they were supposed to be, too. It was like the whole world had turned into a candy box of insanity while the Golden Oaks remained exactly the same.
Then her eyes trailed up.
“Rainbow Dash?!” She blurted, stopping in her tracks with wide eyes. Sure enough, the pegasus sat atop a cloud just above the library, eyeing the surrounding environment like a bird of prey. In fact, the resemblance she held to one as she surveyed the area was… unsettling. She ignored Twilight’s call, opting to turn slightly to gaze in another direction. Twilight’s ears fell flat. “Rainbow… Rainbow, it’s me! Twilight!”
“Go away.” Rainbow shouted back harshly, not even bothering to look at Twilight.
Twilight wilted and took a step back. “R-Rainbow…?” she muttered, fresh tears in her eyes.
“I’m busy,” the pegasus snapped, glancing over her shoulder at Twilight. The fire and venom in her eyes was enough to make Twilight’s veins run cold. “And I’m not going to be distracted by you.”
“What if I distract you, then?” Fluttershy asked tauntingly, drifting up to Rainbow Dash with that wicked smirk.
“Go. Away!” Rainbow growled before reaching out and shoving Fluttershy, hard. She yelped in alarm while tumbling out of the air, her wings having gone out of sync from the unexpectedly hard push.
Twilight stood upright, a spark of anger lighting in the back of her head. “Rainbow! What was that for?!”
The cyan mare ignored her, continuing to stare out over the landscape, looking for something.
“Oh, well forget her then!” Rarity scowled, putting her nose in the air. “I, for one, see no reason to associate with somepony so foul. And besides, she’ll try to take Tom!”
Twilight felt her body temperature rising with barely controlled anger before a defeated sigh slipped out of her. Her shoulders slumped and she opened the door of the Golden Oaks with her magic. “Everypony just… go inside. Please.”
“I don’t wanna.” Applejack said bluntly while cantering right in.
Fluttershy said nothing while entering, though she did take a moment to crush a decorative bush that was to one side with her hooves before heading in.
“I hate libraries!” Pinkie scowled while walking in.
Rarity was struggling with ‘Tom,’ trying to lift the boulder onto her back again. It seemed, however, that she had lost most of her strength in lugging that enormous hunk of stone all this way.
Twilight shot Rarity a hard look. “Rarity. Inside.”
“Not without Tom!” Rarity seethed before clinging to her rock and hissing like an angry cat.
That was it.
“Rarity…” Twilight began, her voice uneven and shaking. Her horn lit up and grabbed Rarity by the tail, lifting her with a harsh yank. “I have had just about enough of your attitude. Now, you are going to go inside my library, you are going to help me find the elements, we are going to blast Discord to kingdom come, and then I am never going to talk to any of you again...” by now, Rarity was dangling upside down and face-to-face with a Twilight Sparkle who looked about ready to get mercilessly violent. “Got it?”
Rarity gulped. “Uh, yes…”
Twilight nodded, then turned and hurled Rarity into the library hard enough to send her sliding across the wooden floor and into the far wall, sending all of the books on the shelves falling onto her head. “Good.”
Twilight then paused and took a moment to catch her breath before turning her eyes up to Rainbow Dash, who was still ignoring them completely. Her ears fell and her anger was washed away, replaced by sorrow. She sighed and made her own way inside the library. As soon as she was inside her ears were met with the sound of a splash of water and Spike gasping heavily from the sudden rush of cold that had been dumped on him.
Fluttershy’s evil smirk never left her face as she watched the poor little guy try to figure out what just happened. Finally, Spike looked up at Fluttershy with confused eyes. “What did you do that for, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy snickered. “You looked so peaceful.”
Spike hesitated. “I, uh… huh?”
Twilight decided to intervene at that point, scooping Spike up onto her back as she trotted by. “Ignore her. Ignore all of them.”
“What? What’s happened to them?” Spike asked uneasily, looking to the other mares. “Why are they so… gray?”
“Don’t ask.” Twilight said flatly before coming to a stop in front of a specific bookshelf. “Help me find the reference guide to the Elements of Harmony, would you?”
“Oh, aye-aye!” Spike saluted before hopping off of Twilight’s back and beginning his search.
“Hey, Twilight? What’s soaking wet and clueless?” Fluttershy asked from the air.
Instead of responding with words, Twilight simply decided to light up her horn and yank Fluttershy back down to the ground by her tail. “Don’t know, don’t care. Sit down and be quiet,” she said bluntly while her eyes scanned the shelves.
“Oh, here it is!” Spike announced before withdrawing the book in question from a few shelves up.
“Good, bring it here-” Twilight went to say before Fluttershy swooped by, dunking another bucket-load of cold water over Spike- and the book in his claws. Twilight’s eyes widened as Spike toppled from his place on the latter, the book, now soaked and sopping, falling with him. In the back of her head, Twilight could feel a certain tension building. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.
Then Fluttershy laughed mockingly.
“GET! OUT!” Twilight suddenly shrieked at the top of her lungs. Her horn lit up with several layers of magic before a shockwave tore its way out of the tip. Every single living thing that wasn’t her or Spike was unceremoniously hurled against the farthest wall. Twilight turned to all of them pinned against the walls. “JUST GET OUT! GO WAIT OUTSIDE!” her horn sparked dangerously before each of the other mares was enveloped in a lavender glow.
“Let me go, you-” Rarity tried, but didn’t get to finish. She, along with all the others, was shoved forcefully out of the library’s main entrance, which promptly slammed shut behind them.
Nothing moved.
Silence.
Twilight blinked, the light around her horn fizzling out. She then fell to her haunches, her ears falling flat against her head. “...Spike?”
The baby dragon offered only a small, gentle hum as his response, slowly approaching Twilight with the tips of his index claws meeting over his chest. “Twilight…?”
The silence resumed, Twilight unable to muster the words to express how she felt. A small sob tore its way out of her. “...I can’t do this…” she finally managed in a pitiful whimper.
“Sure you can,” Spike reassured her gently, resting a claw on her shoulder. “I mean, you stood up to Nightmare Moon, right?”
“Yes, but-” Twilight had to stop as another sob tore it’s way through her. She was shaking horribly now. “B-but I had friends, then… now…”
“You still have friends, Twilight,” Spike said softly, squeezing her shoulder. He then reached out with another claw to lift her chin so they could look each other in the eye. “And you’ve still got your number one assistant right here.”
Twilight’s eyes closed, her lip trembled and her body shuddered. Weakly, she reached out and pulled Spike into an embrace. For a long minute, the two just sat there, with Twilight crying into Spike’s shoulder. Slowly, her eyes managed to open themselves again. Through the tears blurring her vision, something seemed… off. She blinked a few times to clear her eyes of tears before they widened in realization.
The reference guide to the elements was sagging and, oddly, the cover was molding around something contained inside. Something shaped like a starburst atop a tiara. Something shaped like her element of harmony.
Still shaking, Twilight gently dislodged herself from Spike and made her way towards the ruined book. Spike took notice of where she was looking and joined her in approaching. For a moment, neither of them did anything except idly examine the oddly shaped lump. Then Spike reached out and pulled the soggy remains of the book off of whatever was under it. Both of them gasped.
For hidden beneath the reference guide, no, hidden within the reference guide were the elements of harmony. The five necklaces and one tiara were haphazardly piled on the floor where the book had landed, indicating that they had been jostled by the fall. For a moment, Twilight felt her heart flicker with hope. She retrieved each of the elements in her magic, a hopeful smile appearing on her face. “Right… okay. We can still do this.” she weakly managed.
“That doesn’t sound like the Twilight I know,” Spike scolded gently. “Go on, say it like you mean it. Say it with the enthusiasm Rainbow Dash kept drilling into us since we moved here.”
Twilight nodded sharply, her face taking on a more resolute expression. “We can do this. We will do this. We’re going to stop Discord and put things right. Nothing is going to stop us!” She said. Her words started off uneasy but soon swelled with determination and passion.
Spike grinned. “That’s the spirit! You go get ‘em!” he gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder and a nod. With the fire in her chest relit, roaring strong and bright, Twilight opened the door in her magic and galloped back out into Discord’s madness.
She then skidded to a halt, her eyes opening wide and her jaw dropping.
They were gone.
Nopony was there. There was a notable stretch where the checker-patterned ground had been parted by something large and heavy, creating a deep dirty trail leading off into a corner of the town obscured by buildings, but aside from that, there was no evidence of any of her friends outside the library. Turning her eyes up, Twilight was horrified to find that even Rainbow Dash and her cloud were gone.
“Wha… where…?” she choked out, the hope she had felt just a moment ago being snuffed out in an instant.
“Ponies don’t like being thrown around with magic, you know,” Discord commented, appearing by a tree that he then proceeded to casually lean against. “I figured you would have figured that one out from your time with Rainbow Dash.”
“What did you do to them!?” Twilight demanded, stomping forward.
Discord shrugged innocently. “Me? Oh, whatever makes you think I did anything to them? You’re the one who kicked them out of your house.”
“Discord…” Twilight growled out, taking another step forward.
“Well, they’ve all gone home. You offended them Well, except for Rainbow Dash. I don’t really know where she went, but I think she wanted to get away from all the noise,” Discord said noncommittally before plucking a giant pretzel out of thin air. “Oh well.”
Twilight’s anger began to melt away. In its place she felt guilt, inadequacy and… loneliness.
“Right when you needed them most, too… how tragic.” Discord commented before disappearing in a flash of light.
“Twilight?” Spike asked from the doorway, having been watching the whole exchange. Twilight didn’t answer his call. Instead, she lowered her head and fell to her haunches. Then the color began to bleed out of her, leaving her coat just as dull and gray as those of the ones who left her.
“...Just… just leave me alone, Spike… I need to think…” Twilight said quietly, though her words echoed horribly in Spike’s ears, each one feeling like a punch to his gut.
Without another word, Twilight stood on shaky legs and walked away, leaving Spike alone on the doorstep of the Golden Oaks Library.