//------------------------------//
// An Old Friend 
// Story: Disharmony's Parallel 
// by Xutiepops 
//------------------------------//

The Crusaders had less than a relaxed trip. They hadn't expected many ponies to even be travelling north-west, the place was desolate and supposedly full of crazy-ponies. Yet the train was packed, forcing the three to stay cooped up in the last few carts in cargo. 
Scootaloo's groaning didn't help. "These coats aren't even good pillows!" She complained as she shoved Apple Blooms coat on top of hers, shoving her head onto them. Her conclusion on if adding the second coat was a good idea was a groan. 
"Hush, we'll get caught," Sweetie Belle said as she peaked over the wall of crates that they were using for cover, her tail flicking over Apple Bloom's waist and in Scootaloo's face due to the cramped space. 
Scootaloo shot up, spitting out Sweetie Belle's tail as she growled. "Keep your tail between your legs if you're gonna spend your whole time watching," she complained. "Who cuts their mane off and not their tail?" 
Before Sweetie Belle could retaliate, Apple Bloom shoved a hoof at either of them, her stare moving between the two. "We don't need to argue, the louder we are, the more they wanna check back here. Sides, what happens when they just check for some reason and you two are pulling out each other's mane?" The two tried fighting her stare, before falling away with a sigh. 
"Sorry," Sweetie Belle mumbled as she pulled her tail next to her. Scootaloo repeated it as she crossed her hooves, using the coats as a backrest instead off a pillow. "With all that pounding we did getting on the roof, I thought they would've checked back here for stowaways," she continued as she put a hoof over her eyes, trying to see clearly in the dark without having to activate her magic. 
Scootaloo got as comfortable as she could before she put her hooves behind her head, crossing her hind legs that reminded the others so much of Rainbow Dash. "Probably didn't expect anypony to jump on a moving train. Isn't teleportation kinda a difficult spell?"
"Yeah, where'd you learn that?" Apple Bloom asked Sweetie Belle whose stare didn't move away from the door. Sweetie Belle gasped before putting a hoof on the two's heads, not giving them time to question as she shoved them down, looking over her shoulder as she crouched down herself. 
The two didn't fight as they heard hoofsteps, pushing themselves as close to the floor as they could get when light flooded the wall behind them. 
"Listen, sir, I assure you no pony without registration is on the train. Besides, we usually aren't allowed to let civilians back here," a shaky voice spoke as the hoofsteps towards them got louder. Each of them put their hooves over their mouth, watching the shadows on the wall behind them. 
"My precious daughter is on this train, I'm not going to let some stowaway take off with my little girl," a voice fought, all of their eyes widened as they recognized the voice, and realized who his daughter must be. "The things pony will do these days, it's horrible. And my little filly is a prime target to some freak with no money."
Scootaloo looked at the shadow, recognizing that silhouette and that voice belonged to Filthy Rich. She gasped as her heart ached at a familiar voice. Apple Bloom's hoof shoved against her mouth, she looked to her two friends and saw angry stares. 
"What was that?" Filthy Rick asked, his shadow telling them he was looking in their direction. Apple Bloom's mind ran with ideas, they would surely be caught, but where would they go? They couldn't ride on top of the train for the rest of the ride, even with Sweetie's magic, there was a mountain they'd have to pass under. She inwardly sighed as the best idea was to hop off and wait for another train. 
Just as she was about to explain the plan briefly, she heard the carts end door open, she looked up and saw it was flung open, drawing the attention of Filthy Rich and the other stallion. As the two investigated, Sweetie Belle's magic covered their coats as she crawled closer to them, draping the coats over all of them. 
"G-Guess it just fell open..." the stallion with a shaky voice said as the back door of the cart was shut.
"So now the train's not safe?" Filthy Rich asked as the three waited anxiously for the two to leave, holding their breaths as they felt eyes on them. "And who needs coats? It's summer."
"W-we don't know what's in the cargo, we just transport it! Maybe some of the soldiers at the north front need them," the other stallion suggested. They heard Filthy Rich huff as the hoofsteps slowly got quieter. 
Once the door shut, they sat up and took a deep breath of relief before smiling at each other and laughing. "Great thinkin', Sweetie!" Apple Bloom said as she pushed the coat off of her. "I was fixin' to jump out and wait for another train."
"Yeah! You've gotten pretty good at magic," Scootaloo said, leaning back against the boxes around them. 
Silence hung over them before Scootaloo spoke, "So Diamond Tiara's on this train, huh?" 
"You think she's still got Silver Spoon?" Sweetie Belle asked, pushing her coat off of her and throwing it at Scootaloo who used it to make the hard floors the tiniest bit comfier. 
"Doubt it," Apple Bloom said as she looked over the dark room, the only light coming in from the windows on the doors as the boxes stacked high and their contents rattling sometimes. "Spoon's family probably booked it for Los Pegasus, 'least then they got the Flim and Flam business to keep the town alive."
The two nodded as they all laid down, too afraid to talk as the back cargo was checked quite often. They didn't sleep as Scootaloo continued to hog all the satchels and coats in an attempt to make an impossibly uncomfortable surface comfortable. It didn't work.
Just as Scootaloo started to drift into a sleep, she was pushed awake before the coats and satchels were torn away from her. "Hey! What's going on?!" She sat up, watching her friends slip on their coats and satchels as they stood up and climbed over the boxes. 
Scootaloo followed suit when she noticed the train slowing down slightly. Apple Bloom stared at the others, "The second the train stops, we run for it." The two nodded as the train quickly got slower and slower. 
It was almost at a stop as Apple Bloom threw open the cart's back door. She looked around, seeing a sign that said, 'Thank you, come again!' with a painted unicorn waving. 
She smiled as the train finally stopped, the three hopping off as they heard the other door slide open. They heard some yelling as they sped past the train station, ponies filing out of the train as it whistled. 
They smiled in success as they ran into town, a small town on the western coast of Equestria. As hopeful as they were for the conditions, their hopes were crushed. The town was as dull as every other town they'd been too, including Ponyville. The sun didn't shine as bright, the ground didn't absorb the sun and shoot it right back, the colors of the buildings were dull and dark, murky and dirty with a lack of care. 
All the ponies moped, their heads hung as they walked, some of them with mud in their fur that was already drenched. Sweetie Belle put her hoof to her nose at the smell of the town. Everything smelt like fish, and it was gross for a mare who came from a town that smelled like apples and cake. Even a forest that smelt like a forest!
"We hang here tonight," Apple Bloom piped up as they followed her lead in where they were going. She started towards the center of the town as she looked up at the signs.
"Really? It reeks," Sweetie Belle whined as she looked at the dirty signs. "I thought a coastal city was supposed to be pretty." She peaked down an alley and saw a pony in a hood shoot her a smile, a shiver ran down her spine as she turned away and followed the others. 
"We should've jumped off earlier, then I wouldn't be so worried, but it still doesn't hurt to wait. I ain't sittin' at that train station all night just for it to get here in the mornin'," Apple Bloom explained as she smiled up at a sign with a bed on it. She skipped inside with a high head. 
The mare behind the counter popped her gum at the sight of them. "We only got two bed rooms. Sorry," she said with a sarcastic tone as she used her horn to flip the page of her magazine, popping her gum again. 
"Two beds is plenty fine," Apple Bloom said, already wanting to punch this mare's teeth in as she glared up at her. "How much?"
The mare sighed as she sat up in her seat, pushing her magazine aside. She sighed loudly again before she spoke, "Twenty bits a night." She stared at them as she used her magic to drop a key into Apple Bloom's hooves. "We don't do breakfast and the bathroom's at the end of the hall. Enjoy you're stay at the best hotel in town, The Red Salmon like our most profitable fish. Stay again if you ever visit our fishy, fishy town," she said all in a sarcastic tone. She dropped back into a slouch in her seat as she pulled her magazine back in front of her. "Oh yeah, you're the only guests we got right now."
Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow with an amused look as the other two snickered behind her. "Got it, thanks," she said as she dropped a bag of bits in front of the mare. 
As they climbed the stairs, they heard a much more enthusiastic voice yell. "A little more emotion next time, darling!" A stallion yelled. The three snickered as they found their room and opened the door, seeing the cramped room and sighing. 
"We ever gonna get a break?" Scootaloo asked as she fell onto a bed, Sweetie Belle falling onto it with her. She groaned. "And why can't I get my own bed?"
"You hogged our coats and satchels the entire ride here!" Sweetie Belle fought as she sat up, slipping her coat and satchel off of her and onto the bed. She started digging through her satchel as she continued talking, glancing up at the strange décor on the walls. "It's not like I wanna share a bed with you anyways."
"Then go sleep with Apple Bloom!"
"You don't deserve a bed to yourself so I'm making sure you aren't getting it," Sweetie Belle said with a wide smirk as Scootaloo pouted. She pulled a few apples out of her satchel and tossed them to the others before eating one herself. 
Apple Bloom looked out the window over the weary town as she bit into her apple, her mouth flooding with nostalgia. "Get a good sleep tonight, I doubt we'll be able to sleep on the train north," she said as she watched ponies carry bags of fish with sneers. 
"It's a long walk to the Unicorn Range, aren't we gonna sleep while we're out there?" Scootaloo asked, thinking back to what little geography she had actually taken in from her job and Cherrilee's lessons. 
"It's cold here, isn't it super cold over there?" Sweetie Belle asked, reminding herself she rarely ever travelled this way North with her sister. 
"We got the breeze from the coast mixed in here," Scootaloo said, trying to figure it out for herself. 
"We make it there in one trip," Apple Bloom finalized, pulling the girls away from their theorizing. "We'll get too nervous and mess it up if we wait longer while we're up there," she said, the girls sighing as they fell onto the bed, Sweetie Belle using her magic to throw away all their apple cores. 
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle settled into bed, their satchels and coats sitting at their hind hooves as they tried to sleep. They had left late their village in the morning, and that ride took hours out of their day, the sun already turning the room orange as it set.
It took them awhile to sleep, Apple Bloom was right, they were nervous and excited. Emotions turned in their stomachs as happiness filled their minds, they were halfway to the Crystal Empire, they were halfway to seeing their sisters. 
Apple Bloom didn't even lay down until the others were asleep, not from any protective motherly instinct, but mostly from thought. Diamond Tiara was a common thought, mostly because she made it a common thought, she didn't want to think about how close they were to the Empire. Or how perfect their plan seemed in thought. 
She laid back on her bed, staring up at the moon through the window. She remembered the simpler days, when she was scared of Nightmare Moon. She smiled as she curled up in the blanket and looked up at the moon. Now the moon reminded her of Zecora, a watchful eye keeping her safe on her journey. 
She shut her eyes and fell asleep just as she heard carnival music outside followed by quiet screams. 



Apple Bloom groaned as somepony shook her lightly. She swat the hoof away and snuggled into the blanket, "Quit it, Scoots."
The hoof left her shoulder and she smiled. "Apple Bloom?" A stallions voice asked. Her eyes shot open at the name on an unfamiliar voice, she sat up in her bed and saw lilac eyes staring back at her. The stallion sported a grey coat with deep black man slicked back and short. He smiled as he leaned towards her. "Apple Bloom!"
"Rumble?" She asked, not recognizing the deep voice. "You're Rumble?" He nodded with a smile. Thunderlane was at the front of her mind as his smile was in front of her eyes. She pushed him away slightly. "What are you doing 'ere?" 
He shook his head in disbelief, going back and forth between staring at her and the surroundings. "I can't believe this! I didn't think I'd see you ever again!" 
"What are you doing 'ere?" She asked again as if she shouldn't be a question directed at her as well. He backed away sheepishly as his gaze fell more on the surroundings other than her. 
"I-I got a job here, the family's real nice and they kinda took me in ever since I left Ponyville," he said with a smile, his deep voice a complete opposite of his nervous attitude as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Wha-what about you?" He asked, pointing at her.
"Uh," she started when she remembered where she was. "Actually, what are you doing here in this room, specifically?"
He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow at her before standing up straight with wide eyes. "Oh! Since I was out at the coast all day yesterday, my boss told me to wake up the ponies that stayed here last night."
She groaned as she looked past him to see Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo sleeping peacefully. She rolled her eyes before hopping out of the bed, looking at the floor for their belongings. "So... uh... what brings you to Tall Tale?" He asked, keen on making small talk with an old friend. 
She looked back at him as she slipped on her coat, only seeing Thunderlane. She sighed and went to respond when they both heard a voice climbing the stairs. "Uh.. Hello? Anyone here?" The voice rang, posh and uptight as if she deserved it all, all that mixed in with a certain softness. 
She turned to Rumble frantically. "You have to distract her," she said quickly. She started pushing him out of the room, "Please! She can't see us, she might know who we are."
"What?" He asked as she pushed him towards the doorway, getting him face-to-face with one of their leaders. He backed away with a nervous smile and a laugh. "Y-Yes, how may I help you?"
"Escort me to the coast," the mare stated simply. Apple Bloom overheard their conversation as she woke up Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, throwing their coats and satchels at them when they understood the voice at the front of the room. They frantically and quietly put them on as they wondered if Trickery had kept her promise. 
"I'm sorry, I-I'm the only one available right now, so I kind-kinda need to be here," he said nervously, trying to glance into the room over and over again. 
She raised an eyebrow at him, "Fine. Do you know anypony else that actually lives here that can take me to the shore?" Apple Bloom scribbled something onto a piece of paper and hid it under the pillow.
He started to think as the Crusaders shoved past them. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle successfully made it to the stairs, Apple Bloom yelling something he didn't hear. The mare had stomped a hoof on Scootaloo's tail, making her turn back and look up at one of their corrupt leaders standing over her. And she was known to be terrifying. She heard Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle yell her name as the mare investigated her. 
Light yellow fur matched with light pink hair pulled back into an intricate hairstyle that Scootaloo didn't know how to describe. Some was pulled back at the front but the back of it still fell down her shoulders. She wore a sleek red dress, form fitting as a light pink amulet sat on a black collar, something swishing inside the gem.
"Sorry, you scared me. I must've caught your tail when I went to put my hoof back down," Merciless explained as she raised her hoof. Scootaloo nodded as she stood back up, running after her friends with adrenaline and fear filling her veins. 
They all ran out of the shop when they knew Scootaloo was alright, only to be stopped by a regal carriage. Bright, soft pink stretched up the sides, only leading to hems of jewels of blues and pinks, all with something swishing inside. The front was just as beautiful with chocolate brown wood, golden ropes with crimson red cushions. They all didn't know where the driver was, or the ponies who were supposed to be pulling it. 
"Excuse me," they heard that feminine voice ring and they looked behind them to see Merciless staring at them calmly. They nodded and stepped aside, trying to smile through the confusion and hatred towards this mare that looked so much like their sweet Fluttershy. The door of the carriage opened on it's own when the mare went to step inside. They all watched in amazement as she sat down, and stared at them. "Are you heading to Van Hoover?"
Before the others could say something, Apple Bloom stepped in front with a nod, "Yep!"
A pink fan appeared in front of the mare's face, they didn't understand, she wasn't a unicorn, and there was no unicorn around that she told to do that. "Be careful," she said as the door shut. A goose with large teeth dressed in a suit appeared in the driver's seat. Breezies, a small species of fairy, appeared under the reins for ponies, picking them up and shooting off with incredible speed. 
"Let's go," Sweetie Belle said, shaking her head to clear the attempt to try and understand what just happened from her mind. The others nodded and running off after her.
"Wait! Apple Bloom!" Rumble yelled after them as he peaked outside the door, holding a note in his hoof. He stared down at it, the contents shaking him to his core. 
He just met three old friends on an extremely random occasion, wasn't able to talk to them, and one of them left a note for him. Thunderlane, his big brother was alive and well, apart of a rebellion against disharmony deep in the Everfree Forest. She even drew a map, he looked up in the direction they ran off in, tears falling down his face. 
"Thank you," he said as he hugged the note. She trusted him with this information, he was absolutely marveled. 
"What are you doing?" The mare the Crusaders encountered last night spoke from behind him. He smiled up at her and wiped his eyes. 
"Nothing! What are you doing, grumpy?"
"Ew, were you crying?" She asked and recoiled away from him with a smile. 
"No, it's the sand," he joked and grinned as he pulled a smile out of her, standing up next to her.
She noticed the note in his hooves and punched his shoulder playfully. "What's that? A note from a girl?" She asked, emotion seeping into her voice. He laughed as he walked inside with her.