“Uh… h-hello there, Starswirl… n-nice to see you… what are you doing here?” Flash Magnus struggled not to stutter, but he couldn’t help it. He was usually pretty good at keeping his cool under pressure, but this was Starswirl. One of the strictest ponies of all time. Also one of the greatest unicorn wizards of all time. Also one of the fiercest fighters of all time. Flash would know. The Pillars had been fighting together for over a decade before the limbo incident.
“Twilight Sparkle wanted somepony to go find you, and I needed a break from her fangirling. The opportunity was perfect.”
“Oh, Twi,” Pinkie commented. “I’ve been friends with her for quite some time, and I love her dearly, don’t get me wrong, but she can be really super-duper-ultra-mega obsessive about her studies, and it gets a bit grating on the nerves after a while. Kinda like a cheese grater. Except you wouldn’t actually want to grate your nerves like cheese. It would hurt and grated nerves wouldn’t make for a very tasty sandwich.”
Starswirl just blinked at her. Slowly.
“Yeah, I know I can go off on a lot of random, confusing, and occasionally disturbing tangents pretty much any time I’m talking, but don’t worry. I’m not insane. At least, not clinically. I took the test seven times to be sure!”
“... if you say so, Pinkie Pie,” Starswirl said hesitantly. “Anyway, Flash, as I previously mentioned, Twilight wishes to see you at the castle.”
“Why?” Discord piped up. “I guess it isn’t really my place to know, but I want to know anyway.”
“Oh Discord,” Rainbow muttered flatly before directly speaking to the draconequus. “You might not have heard, but Twi’s having all the Pillars stay in her castle for a few weeks to catch them up on the basic points of history that they missed, explain current technology and customs, and other various stuff like that.”
“And after that, off to adventure!” Flash exclaimed. “To explore! To learn! To admire the growth that comes with time and mourn the losses that the centuries have wrought!” Flash flew into the air with this statement, lifting his head up confidently in the manner of a seasoned soldier, unafraid and daring. His armor shone in the sunlight, and his eyes shone with excitement. The impressive display of courage and the brief yet theatrical monologue drew the attention of the rest of his pranking gang, throwing them all headfirst into a reverie of awe and respect for the noble hero.
“Keyword, after,” Starswirl remarked, as they were all harshly snapped back into reality. “For now, Twilight wants you back at the castle, and immediately.”
Flash hesitated, but not for long. “Very well. I’ll return at once for whatever the Princess has planned for us,” he said, in his best voice of emotionless professionalism. He landed on the ground, taking the stance of an obedient soldier receiving his orders.
If Starswirl had been at all off-put by the juxtaposition of Flash’s behaviors, he showed no sign of it whatsoever. “Good. Let us go,” he said simply, and the two headed in the direction of Twilight’s castle.
Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Discord were not completely happy about this.
“Oh come on! We had just gotten to the good stuff!” Rainbow vehemently protested.
“Why don’t we just keep going?” Discord suggested.
“No way, buster. We’ve formed a team, and we’re sticking together. That means no pranking if a team member is missing, no pulling pranks on another team member, no ditching the team for any stupid reasons, or anything else like that!” Rainbow paused to breathe, before turning to look at her pony friend. “Pinkie? Find any loopholes in that?”
“Nopey-dopey!” Pinkie replied cheerily. “We’re all set to run off free without the fear of falling into any holes! We are free to gallop amuck in the prairies of life!”
“... right. Pinkie. No questioning,” Rainbow mumbled.
“And I heard that. And you’re right. Don’t question me. You might not understand what I’m doing. I don’t even understand everything I’m doing all of the time!”
Rainbow sensed that this train of conversation was heading down the tracks to Weirdville, and decided to flip the railroad switch back in the direction of comprehensible territory. “Knowing Twilight, Flash will probably be gone for the rest of the day. Why don’t we all go back to our normal lives, or as normal as it gets for us anyway, and we’ll reconvene tomorrow?”
“Reconvene? Seriously, Rainbow, did Twilight give you a dictionary for last Hearth’s Warming or som-”
“Quiet, Cordy.” Rainbow shot back. “Two slightly advanced words that I’ve learned over the course of the years is hardly any basis to accuse me of eggheadism. Now if you excuse me, I’m getting a bit tired, seeing as how I got up earlier than usual, and I have a Wonderbolt meeting later today. I’m gonna go home and take a nap.”
Rainbow made to fly off, but a tug on her tail stopped her mid-flight. It was Pinkie, holding onto Rainbow’s tail and the precious pranking manual. “Don’t forget the book, Dashie!”
“Oh, thanks Pinkie.” Rainbow took back the book and flew off for real this time, heading for her home. As she soared through the bright, buttless skies, she passed over Flash Magnus and Starswirl, overhearing a snippet of their conversation.
“...understanding of the expectation to make all of our plans well known. Speaking of which, what were you doing with Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and the draconequus?”
“His name’s Discord, y’know. And, uh, we weren’t really doing anything that important… just hanging out…”
Their dialogue faded away into the sounds of the world as Rainbow flew on, longing to arrive home so she could rest her wings. Thankfully, it was only a couple more minutes until she alighted on the soft butts of her floating home. She trotted inside, repeating the very same process she had went through after first finding the book and bringing it home.
*****
Knock knock knock.
Rainbow rolled out of her bed at the sound of somepony sharply rapping on her door. As in, literally rolled. She was still too tired from the Wonderbolts meeting, which had dragged on two hours longer than it was scheduled to do. Landing on her stomach, and bouncing slightly on my butts that made up her bedroom floor, she opened one eye to look out of her window. To her annoyance, she saw that the sun was still slowly rising.
“Who could possibly want me at this hour?” she grunted as she struggled to stand up. “I hope it isn’t urgent. I can’t whoop anybaddie’s butt at this awakeness level.”
Making her way over to the source of the loathed knocking, Rainbow cautiously opened the door, only to find nopony in sight.
“Huh?” Rainbow looked around for whoever had been knocking, up, down, left, right, down again- and she caught a glint of light, peeking out from under her floating home. It looked like whatever was causing the reflection was made of bronze, and she knew only one pony who wore bronze armor and could fly.
“Flash Magnus? Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. I don’t think Twilight is out around here right now, but just in case, do you see her anywhere?”
“What? Oh, you’re trying to hide from her, right?”
“Yep. Can I come in?”
“Sure!” Rainbow stepped back into her house, and Flash darted in as quick as he could. Rainbow promptly slammed the door shut, to ward off any chances, however slim, of Twilight finding him.
“So, it’s been difficult escaping her watch, huh?” she said.
“Yep. She was even awake when I tried to sneak out. Thankfully, she was too absorbed in making a checklist to notice me at all.”
“That’s my Twily,” Rainbow remarked with a giggle. “Did you get any chance to have breakfast, though?”
“Nope. I wanted to escape, uh, er, leave the castle as soon as possible. I also came up with a new plan for a prank, if you want to hear it.”
“Of course I do!” Rainbow said, an enthusiastic gleam in her eye. “Howzabout I get us both something to eat first, though?”
“Sounds good to me,” Flash replied, and the two flew into the kitchen.
After a nice breakfast of toast with peanut butter and fresh strawberries, the two went over the latest pranking idea.
“So, remember that recipe in the book for a potion that is originally colorless, but turns neon green when heated?” Flash asked, wiping a smudge of peanut butter off of his cheek.
“Yeah, I think I remember reading that,” Rainbow replied, collecting up her strawberry stems on her plate.
“Well, last night I found out that Somnambula has a secret compartment in her crown-scarf-thingy that she stashes extra eyeliner in.”
“Wait, seriously?”
“Apparently so,” Flash said with a shrug. “She said it was actually quite common for ponies of her tribe to do that, as eye makeup was seen as a status symbol.”
“Fascinating,” Dash said. “I’m just glad that isn’t the case here.”
“I know, right?” Flash said with a laugh. “Anyway, my point is that this potion can also be mixed into other liquids for the same effect.”
“Oh… oh,” Rainbow said, getting the hang of what he was suggesting. “But wait, won’t that ruin it? I don’t want to upset her too badly.”
“Don’t worry, she has two containers,” Flash reassured, earning a boggle-eyed stare from his prismatic-maned friend. “I was thinking of putting the potion in the container that’s less full, for the least amount of damage. Thankfully, Twilight doesn’t make us get up until 7:30, so we still might have time to pull this off before she wakes up… what time is it now, again?”
“It’s 6:23,” Rainbow said, checking her wall clock. “Y’know, Somnambula might be Pinkie Pie’s harmonic ancestor thingy, but she’s starting to sound more like Rarity. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hears this story and then makes herself a headpiece just as an excuse to carry around makeup.”
This sent both of them into laughter. Then, Flash spoke up. “Speaking of Pinkie Pie, should we go find her now, or wait a little bit longer?”
“She’s pretty energetic. I don’t think she’ll mind being woken up early. How about you go find her and tell her the plan? I’ll clean up here, then we can meet up, summon Discord, and get to work.”
“All right,” Flash said. “Are you sure you don’t want help cleaning up?”
“Nah, I’ll be fine,” Rainbow reassured. “I can have this place cleaned up in no time!”
“I’m guessing that’s another modern idiom, as I don’t think anything can happen in exactly no time at all.”
“Right you are, Flash,” Rainbow said, then sent Flash on his way to wake up Pinkie Pie. As she put both plates in the sink, she tried to picture Somnambula with neon green eyeliner. The mental picture was hilarious enough. Rainbow couldn’t wait for it to actually be played out.
*****
“This is gonna be so funny!”
“Pinkie! Don’t talk until Discord puts up the anti-detection shield!”
“Oh, right! Sorry Flashy!”
“Can you please not call me that?”
“Why not? It’s so much fun to call your friends by silly nicknames!”
“It isn’t for me.”
“Will you two please stop fighting? It’s annoyi- oh Discord put up the shield! I can hear her hoofsteps!”
“Good call, Dash,” Discord replied as he circled the four of them in his anti-detection bubble. And not a moment too soon, as all of them burst out laughing at how ridiculous Somnambula looked with thick, vibrant green eyeliner around her eyes.
“Now, we just wait until she looks in the mirror,” Rainbow said through her chuckling. And she didn’t have long to wait.
“What the- AAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGHHHHHHH!!! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FACE‽‽‽”
This sent the four mischief makers into fresh gales of laughter as Somnambula continued to panic. Until-
“Why did you screa-what happened?”
“Oh, crud! Not him!” Flash yelled out, causing the other three to cease laughing. The pony who had come to the prankee’s aid was none other than-
“Starswirl!” Pinkie screamed. “We have to hide!”
“We’re already hidden, Pinkie.” Rainbow reminded her.
“Oh yeah! Wait, what’s he saying?” Pinkie turned her attention back to the two ponies outside their bubble.
“I can’t say for sure what caused this, but it does seem familiar… very familiar, in fact,” Starswirl said. “And I heard from Twilight Sparkle that Flash Magnus has apparently gone missing. If he’s been at the old castle ruins anytime recently, I think I might know who and what caused this.”
“Double crud!” Flash yelled, in full-blown panic mode. “ What if he breaks our protection? Discord, can you get us out of here?”
“Don't worry, this shield is very much safe," Discord said, patting said shield as he spoke.
"Yes, well, this is Starswirl we're talking about. We can't afford the risk," Flash reasoned, winning Discord over. He teleported the group to a comfy patch of grass right behind Twilight's castle, although he did throw in an extra eye roll as well.
"Phew! That was close!" Pinkie sighed with relief.
"I still don't think it was that big of a deal, and I wanted to see more of Somnambula's reac-" Discord grumbled, but before he could finish the sentence, he felt a sharp jab in the side from Rainbow. He glared at her, but before he could start complaining, he noticed her facial expression. Her face was practically flooded with shock and fear. Following her gaze, Discord saw none other than Starswirl, glaring at all of them from just a few feet away. Discord's face quickly assumed an expression nearly matching Rainbow's.
“So…” Starswirl started to say something, but before he could get any farther than the first word, Discord teleported the pranking quartet away with a snap, a flash, and a POP!
Many miles away, on one of the summits of the Foal Mountains, chaos descended.
“AAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGHHHHHHH!!!”
“We’re all doomed!”
“I didn’t even get a chance to write my will!”
“I never got to do a sonic rainboom through a thundercloud!”
“I’m too beautiful to die!”
“I haven’t told Maud that I love her enough!”
“This is the end!”
“Why did we do this?”
“Why were we so stupid?”
Cacophony echoed throughout the mountain range as they continued screaming pointlessly until Rainbow Dash snapped out of it and told them all to be quiet. Or rather yelled, “SILENCE ALL YOU MINIONS!” at the top of her lungs.
“Minions?” Pinkie asked, still with a panicked expression on her face.
“Yes! Minions! Warriors! Champions of pranking! We will not fall, no matter how many annoying purple alicorns and stuffy unicorn wizards sneak on us!”
The others seemed to recover a bit of bravery from Rainbow’s pep talk. Encouraged by their response, she continued.
“Will we be thwarted by their efforts? WILL WE?”
“Yes,” a calm, serious voice said from behind them.
They turned to see Starswirl, who had teleported after them. Panicking and screaming yet again, the vanished with another snap from Discord’s talons. Their next stop was in a back alley in Fillydelphia.
“How did he find us?” Flash asked, slightly out of breath from screaming.
“I know this trick,” Discord said. “If a unicorn or other capable creature teleports from one location to another, another unicorn can trace the previous creature’s imprint while teleporting to follow them to their destination. It only works if the unicorn knows, and is able to perform, advanced enough magic, and only if the creature they are following has a strong enough magical imprint.”
“Fortunately, both conditions are met,” Starswirl remarked from further down the alley, prompting another panic attack and emergency teleportation, this time to an apple orchard off to the east of Appleloosa.
“Don’t worry, everypony,” Discord shouted over their screaming. “I’ve left a false trail to the middle of the Whitetail Woods so that monster won’t find us.”
“Are you… sure it will… work?” Rainbow asked between gasps.
“No,” Starswirl said, stepping out from behind an apple tree. And away they went this time to just outside Twilight’s castle. This time, however, they made to move away from their teleportation destination. Discord immediately flew away, Flash followed him closely behind, Rainbow grabbed Pinkie and followed them, and they all went as fast as they possibly could away from the castle. After a good 10 minutes of flying nonstop, the finally hid in a clump of bushes for some much-needed breath-catching.
“Did… we… lose… him?” Discord panted. “I… don’t want… to do that… again.”
“I… hope he’s… gone,” Pinkie gasped.
“I am not gone, unfortunately for you,” Starswirl said, then he levitated them out of the bushes and teleported them all one last time to the foyer of Twilight’s castle. He carefully set them down before turning to stare at them all, and they could tell he was angry. He wasn't even attempting to keep his face expressionless anymore.
“Discord? Can you get us out of here?” Rainbow hissed, trying not to be heard.
“No, I can’t,” Discord whispered back. “When… when I was reformed, I… I lost some of my magical strength, trading it for greater control over my powers. I’ve exerted myself too much with all of that long-distance teleportation, and that last burst of speed flying.”
“Why didn’t you tell any of us this magical loss business earlier?” Rainbow was barely in control of her volume.
“I didn’t think it was important,” Discord replied with a small shrug, not meeting Rainbow’s eyes.
“The two of you can talk to each other later,” Starswirl said, snapping them back to attention. “Answer me, what were all of you discussing when I found you?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Pinkie piped up, with a lot less cheer in her voice than normal.
“Just as much as your reply is,” Starswirl said. “Were you four also behind the incident with Rockhoof’s shovel?”
“You heard about that one too?” Flash groaned.
“It’s hard to ignore the sound of one screaming in a panic, especially so in a castle with aggravatingly echo-inducing hallways.”
“Ouch. Maybe we should have thought through these a little bit more…” Rainbow muttered.
“Exactly. Now, have any of you been in the Castle of the Two Sisters lately?”
“The what?” Flash asked, confused.
“If you had paid any attention to Twilight’s lectures, Flash, you would know that the Castle of the Two Sisters is the modern name of the Trinity Kingdom Castle.”
“Oh,” Flash said, mildly embarrassed at having been called out for his wandering mind. It wasn’t his fault, there was just too much to do to have to sit through multi-hour lectures!
“Before you ask any more questions, I have one for you, mister,” Discord said with a hint of mockery in his tone.”
“Yes, Disc-”
“How did you keep teleporting so far? Equestria isn’t exactly the smallest country, you know!
“First of all, it is rude to interrupt,” Starswirl said, eliciting a frown from Discord. “As for the teleportation, Twilight and I have been going over spellwork together, and she showed me a project she had been working on, a modification to the then-most recent iteration of the teleportation spell, attempting to make it more efficient. With my help she was able to finish it, thus enabling longer distances and shorter travel times when teleporting. Plus, there is the fact that I naturally have high levels of raw magical power, allowing me to keep up with you easily. Now, if that is all you have for questions, I would like to know how exactly you found the same potion that my students used on me once over 11 centuries ago.”
Rainbow had sensed that he would go on a magic-themed rambling, an instinct honed to perfection by her "egghead" friend, and had tuned out for most of his monologue. On the last sentence, however, her attention snapped back on, and she instinctively shoved the precious pranking manual under her wings. Unfortunately for her, Starswirl noticed it immediately and levitated the book from her desperate grasp.
“Dontreaditdontreaditdontreadit!” Rainbow yelled as fast and as loud as she could muster her voice to yell. Until Starswirl put a silencing spell on her.
The pranking party could only watch in horror as Starswirl cracked open the book and read the first page. They knew at that moment, they were doomed. This was the most serious, no-nonsense pony any of them knew, and he had just caught them in the act of playing pranks on various other ponies. They waited for him to speak again. They watched as his eyes followed down the rest of the page. And soon, all too soon, he spoke.
“Oh my goodness… those two… I can’t believe they…”
The rest was lost as Starswirl broke down laughing. Hysterically.
The other four just stared at him like he had sprouted an extra head that sang Hearth’s Warming carols and spurted orange juice from its left ear.