Twilight awoke to pain. Also the smell of waffles and coffee, but mostly pain. "Uuuuugh..."
She barely made out Spike's voice over various bits of her body complaining. "Wings, horn, hooves, or body?"
"Yes." Her wings ached from the long flight, her knees had been locked all night, her horn still pulsed from having a spell dragged out of it involuntarily, and those were just the most notable issues. Twilight was not Rainbow Dash. Her mind might be willing, and her spirit might have been reforged into something greater than it once was, but her body was still that of a bookworm whose primary form of exercise was the occasional bit of world-saving. Even her eyelids hurt, enough that actually opening her eyes was unthinkable.
The coffee smell intensified. Twilight stuck out her tongue, found the essence of life at a temperature that wasn't immediately scalding, and began lapping it out of the mug. "You're the best," she said when the level had lowered far enough that she couldn't get out more. It was still enough caffeine to sit up.
Spike gave her a wry smile that said volumes about how this was far from the first time they'd gone through this routine, and both knew it would be far from the last. He'd had a lot of chances to practice that look. "I try."
"You succeed." Twilight took the mug in her magic and finished step one of feeling equine again. Just nine more to go.
"So, how'd it go yesterday? You were gone since lunch."
Twilight shook her head as she struggled to her hooves, biting back a yelp as she put her weight on them. Ponies could sleep standing up or lying down, but the equine body didn't appreciate trying to split the difference. "Later. I want to let everypony know at once, and I still have some more data to gather. Also waffles." Rather than coordinate fork and knife, she just grabbed a whole waffle in her magic and took a fluffy, berry-laden, cream-topped bite.
All pain and misfortune in the universe vanished for a few blessed seconds. "O Great and Honorable Spike the Brave and Glorious, rightful Dragonlord and true master of Namepending Castle, I am eternally in your debt."
Spike just chuckled. "Yeah, I've been tweaking the batter."
Sadly, not even dark magic could make the waffles last forever, and so Twilight dragged herself through the rest of her morning routine. After her shower, the muscle aches that had built up yesterday had lessened to twinges that only flared up when she moved. The hornache subsided with time. The mental fatigue of crossing horns with Celestia had cleared up after, if not a good night's sleep, then at least that of a night that was well on its way to reforming itself and becoming a productive member of chronology.
Twilight found herself vaguely amazed by how early it still was when she got out of the castle, but she wasn't complaining. She trotted to the post office with minimal wincing, finding an imposing mug of coffee at the front desk, along with the pony it was supervising.
"Morning, Twilight," Ditzy Doo said with a yawn. She took the small ceramic cauldron in both forehooves and drank deep. "What can I do for you?"
"Firstly, where do I get a mug like that?" Twilight looked at it with naked envy and a complete absence of shame.
Ditzy beamed and turned the mug so Twilight could see "Best Mommy" shakily painted on one side. "Have Equestria's best daughter and get it as a Mother's Day gift seven years later. Everypony told Dinky she was making it too big. She knew better."
"Not sure I'm ready for that kind of time investment," Twilight said with a smile. "In any case, I was hoping for directions. I'm trying to locate a town and my other sources are coming up blank."
"Well, neither rain nor sleet nor geographic esotery stays us messengers." Ditzy pulled a map out from under the desk and unfolded it until it hung over both sides. "Which town?"
"Galloping Grove," Twilight said with as much lightness as she could.
Ditzy hissed through her teeth. "Oh. Well then."
"I take it you know of it."
A long sip of coffee preceded Ditzy's response. "See, rain and sleet are one thing. Well, two things. But that town is right up there on the 'Don't Ask' list with big green things with teeth and Mrs. Cake."
"What's so bad about Mrs. Cake?"
Ditzy winced. "Let's just say I hope Pound and Pumpkin don't try going through any rebellious phases."
"Look, I'm not asking you to deliver anything. I just need to know how to get to the town myself." A little voice that sounded a lot like Pinkie Pie piped up in Twilight's mind. "And you must know how to get there in order to not go there, because otherwise, how could you avoid it?"
Ditzy's eyes drifted as she contemplated that. After one started rolling back into her head, she shook herself and pushed her coffee mug towards Twilight. "I think you need this more than me."
With a great exertion of will, she pushed it back. "I need information more than caffeine, Ditzy."
"Fine, fine." Ditzy rolled her eyes as she slid the map about. One kept going for several seconds. "Just don't blame me when you get there. That place isn't right."
"Could you elaborate on that?"
"Yes."
A lengthy pause followed that. Eventually, Twilight said, "Will you—"
"Absolutely not. I usually pretend that place doesn't exist, and I wish it didn't. You'll see for yourself soon enough." Ditzy reached out with a pinion and poked a spot on the map nestled between Neighagra Falls and the Crystal Mountains. "Right there."
"Thanks. I won't bother you anymore."
Ditzy shook her head as she started refolding the map. "It's no bother, Twilight. Just be careful."
Twilight gave her a flat look. "That would be much easier if I knew what to be careful of."
Ditzy stayed silent for a stretch. Just as Twilight was about to turn and leave she said, "Approach the town from above. They don't look up."
"Well, that's about as much as the princesses give me to work with," Twilight said with a humorless smile. She waved a wing. "Have a good day, Ditzy."
"You too. You know, relatively speaking." Ditzy looked down at the origami tesseract that had once been a map of Equestria. "Huh."
Twilight's thoughts raced as she left the post office. Given such an ominous warning from such a normally happy-go-lucky mare, maybe it was best if she just went directly to Galloping Grove without—
"TWILIGHT!"
"Pinkie?" Twilight found herself hovering after a surprised jump. She landed and said, "What's the matter?"
"Well, my head shook, then I felt a pit in my tummy, and then my hoof smacked my forehead like this." Pinkie demonstrated a textbook facehoof. Literally. It was a perfect recreation of the illustration in Dr. Shrunk's Reading Expressions for the Socially Inept.
"And what does that combo mean?"
"You're about to go off on some dangerous mission without any of your friends!"
Twilight opened her mouth to deliver a counterpoint, but then stopped to think about how often she must have done that for Pinkie to recognize that particular Pinkie Sense. "I mean, I was planning on getting you all together and discussing my findings."
"Was. Past tense. Right now?" Pinkie leaned in close enough that their eyes were practically touching.
Twilight took a step back. "It's not like we know for sure that this is going to be dangerous, Pinkie."
"You don't. I do."
"Evidently." Much as Twilight wished otherwise, there was no arguing with the Sense.
"Sooooo?" Pinkie gazed deep enough that Twilight wondered if Fluttershy had been giving lessons.
Twilight sighed. "I admit, I was considering going on ahead to protect you guys."
"And now?"
That got a rueful grin. "Now I get the feeling you won't let me."
Pinkie went from an interrogator's stare to a wide smile in an eyeblink. "Rightaroonie!" She pronked off towards the castle. "Come on. I'll get everypony together in the map room and we can figure this out together like a Princess of Friendship should."
"I'm not sure if Rainbow Dash is even awake right now," Twilight said as she followed.
A bit of intensity crept back into Pinkie's expression. "Oh, she will be. She will be."
Once they convened, she was. She clearly wasn't happy about it. Though to her credit, she did contain herself until after Twilight summarized her findings. "How do you keep getting into my house?"
Pinkie leaned back in her throne, the very image of smugness. "Balloon mark."
"That's for parties!" said Dash.
"Among other things."
"Girls, could we focus?" Twilight looked about the room and once again wished she had an option for Starlight other than an obviously mismatched chair or just standing at her left hoof. "I'd like to hear all your thoughts before I move forward."
"Don't you mean before we move forward?" said Rarity.
"I admit, I'm nervous about bringing any of you with me. We have no idea what could be waiting for us. It could be anywhere from another Ponyville to an active warzone waiting to happen."
"Are you sure you're not overreacting?" Spike said from her right hoof. "A name like Galloping Grove doesn't exactly scream 'villainous lair.'"
Pinkie slammed the map table with a hoof. "That's exactly what the lairing villain wants you to think!"
"Pinkie's got a point," said Applejack "I'd be a lot more suspicious of some place called, I dunno, 'Bloody Hoof Gulch,' an' that Thunderhoof mare knew what she was doin'."
Fluttershy gulped. "Could we please never go to Bloody Hoof Gulch?"
"Just an example, Shy. Pretty sure there ain't no such place."
"Good."
"At the risk of playing Discord's advocate," said Starlight, "What exactly is the difference between Thunderhoof's philosophy and firing the Elements of Harmony at Nightmare Moon?"
"It's a fair question," said Twilight. "I asked Luna that, back during her first Nightmare Night. The Elements ultimately offer a choice to your subconscious mind. When Celestia used them on Nightmare Moon, she'd just transformed. She was still full of rage and jealousy and hatred. She deliberately chose the option that would hurt Celestia the most, leaving her alone and able to see her mistake every time she raised the moon. When we used them, Luna had had a thousand years to think about that choice. Under all the bluster, she was tired. She was lonely. She wanted a new start, and she got one.
"It's the same thing I did with you at the end of our time battle. You were the one who chose to end it, to seek something better than revenge. But Thunderhoof wouldn't offer any choice. She would force ponies to accept her vision of Harmony, and dissenters wouldn't be tolerated. At best, they'd end up in a locked room with a record of propaganda stuck on repeat." Twilight coughed into a fetlock. "Um, no offense."
Starlight waved it off. "None taken."
"Do you think that's what Galloping Grove is like?" said Fluttershy.
Twilight wingshrugged. "I don't know. That's what concerns me."
"Look, Twilight," said Dash, "if this place is dangerous, that means we should definitely all go. Remember the last time we went to some creepy village in the middle of nowhere? We'd still be stuck there if it wasn't for Fluttershy! No offense, Starlight."
Starlight's smile took on a plastic quality. "Some days, I really empathize with Sunset Shimmer."
"It's the 'if' that bothers me," said Twilight. "I want to take this one carefully. I'm tired of charging in half-blind and getting ambushed by whatever scheme lies in wait. No offense, Starlight."
"Seriously?"
"I want to approach subtly and observe before acting. That works better with as few ponies as possible, and..." Twilight's wings fidgeted as she considered her next point. "Well, you all know I don't like getting special treatment, but you can't ask for better covert reconnaissance than a single mare who can fly and cast spells."
That got grudging nods from the rest of the table. Rarity spoke up next. "That's all well and good, but what will you do when something goes wrong?"
"Don't you mean 'if'?"
"Consider our track record, darling."
Twilight did. Then winced. "'When' it is. Alright, fine. We're all here. Let's put our heads together and figure out a few contingency plans. But I still want to head to Galloping Grove soon. Today, if possible."
"Why the rush?" said Spike.
"Duh. When's the last time we talked about something way before we had to keep it from destroying the world?" Pinkie stretched out her forehooves to emphasize the time gap.
Everypony took a moment to think about that. Twilight answered first. "Cerberus leaving his post. That was more than a year before Tirek made his move."
"An' I'm still waitin' for the Flimflam brothers t' try that hostile takeover of Equestria Twi saw durin' the time battle," added Applejack.
"Okay, but still. I bet you the Map's going to light up with a friendship problem in Galloping Grove any second now." Pinkie stared at the Cutie Map with laserlike focus. "Aaaaany second—"
Fluttershy cleared her throat. "Um, didn't you use that gag yesterday?"
Pinkie froze from the neck down, her face slowly drooping into an expression of purest horror.
Twilight considered the Map herself. "The fact that it hasn't notified us about any friendship problems there is what most concerns me."
"What do you mean?" said Spike.
"Two possibilities. Either there aren't any friendships that can become problematic... or the citizens of Galloping Grove are so thoroughly indoctrinated that they really are harmonious in their own horrifying way."
"I think you're missing an important point," said Starlight.
Everypony turned to her. Dash spoke first. "What?"
"Both of those could describe Ourtown back in my bad old days."
"No offense!" Pinkie cried.
Starlight stared at her for a few moments, expression unreadable. "Thank you, Pinkie. The point is that if the Map sent you all there, then it definitely would have picked up on Galloping Grove if it was reaching some critical point in fulfilling Thunderhoof's legacy."
"So yer sayin' there's nothin' t' worry about?"
"I'm saying there isn't as much to worry about. I was still spreading equality for years before you all came to town." Starlight rubbed her forehooves together. "So, about those contingency plans..."
Galloping Grove wasn't terribly far from Ponyville, but the trip still took longer than one to, say, Manehattan or Vanhoover. The closest train stop was miles away, and it was only available on a local that made every stop in between. And while Twilight might have been willing to exercise alicorn privilege to keep her friends safe during a stealth mission, she wasn't going abuse her authority to force a train to violate its schedule. That way lay tyranny. Besides, it gave her time to get used to the new earring, made from the crystal of her castle.
Once Twilight got off in the town, inexplicably named Buffalo despite its distance from the Mild West, she drew every eye. The place was roughly the size of Ponyville and didn't have anywhere near the same degree of alicorn exposure. By the time she walked out of the station, she walked into a wall of sound.
"We love you, Princess Nightmare Moon!"
"We really do! Please don't blot out the sun again!"
"Can I have your autograph? Sign it 'To Liquid Despair, my most devout disciple'!"
Twilight made a mental note to bring this up with the EEA. If ponies literally didn't know her from Luna, something was going terribly awry. Still, she had other concerns at the moment.
She eventually managed to extract herself from the misinformed crowd through a judicious combination of apologies, promises for later photo opportunities with the mayor, and a long-distance teleport. From there, it was a matter of following the map and the magnetoreception that pegasi used as a built-in compass while making a mental note to study illusions more in the near future.
"Rarity was right," Twilight muttered to herself. "I should've just worn a hat and posed as a very tall pegasus."
Still, what was done was done, and the afternoon sun offered plentiful thermals for free lift. Twilight couldn't help but note the complete lack of roads beneath her; there was no sign that anypony else had travelled in this direction for some time. After a while, Rainbow Dash's lessons came to the forefront, and Twilight made a game of seeing how few flaps she could get away with. That made the miles flow by, and she soon found herself approaching a settlement.
It seemed... normal. Certainly nothing like Firefly Mesa or any other military installations, purpose-built for the most efficient possible use of space and optimized to defend against invaders. There was something familiar about it as Twilight approached. Not like Ponyville or Canterlot; the houses weren't built in the style of either, but they still tickled some part of Twilight's memories. She let the thought worry at her mind as she alighted on a cloud. She'd figure it out soon enough.
A little nestling—something else Rainbow Dash had taught her—and Twilight was encased in the cloud, barely anything but eyes and ears poking out. She began observing Galloping Grove, and made a key observation almost immediately:
Nopony else was in the air.
It wasn't unusual for surface-level towns to have a low pegasus population, but this went far beyond "low." There were no weatherponies tweaking microclimates. No shopkeeps stretching their wings on a flying break. No foals tearing up the skies as they got out of school.
Where was the school?
Twilight frowned down at the town. To answer that question and several others, she'd need a better look, and getting closer was an unacceptable risk. She lit her horn. First was Red Mercury's Antonymous Auditory Augmentation, a reversal of the great bard's signature spell. Rather than amplify outgoing sound, it would boost what Twilight heard; angling her ears would let her aim the clairaudience. After that came a spell from Red's colleague Galileo Figaro. The Magnificent Magnifier formed a lens out of the air in front of her, letting her see fine details on the surface.
The moment Twilight got a good look at a pony, she was glad she hadn't gone with the original, slightly more efficient Galileo Figaro Magnifico. That spell infamously triggered a heartsong if the caster's concentration lapsed. Had Twilight been using it, she surely would've blown her cover the moment she saw what the stallion held in his hoof.
"Is that a cell phone!?"