//------------------------------//
// I: And I Can't Wait To See You Again 
// Story: Pompeii 
// by CaptainExtremis 
//------------------------------//



Rainbow Island was...different. Sure, it was still called 'Rainbow Island,' but the Richards' kids found the roads were in different places, the people they knew so well were either gone or didn't remember them, and they felt far too old to be back there, but somehow, it didn't forget them; and in some small way, they never let go of it, either. It was quite bittersweet...beautifully bittersweet.



~ "The Isle Beyond Imagining," page 5.






Even before she fully woke up, Twilight had the feeling today was not going to be a fun one. It manifested as feeling more tired than normal as she picked her head up from her pillow and cracked one eye open. Her room looked the exact same as it did last night, so something standing over the edge of her bed was mercifully out of the question. Twilight sighed, but wasted no time in pushing herself up off the mattress. She yawned and swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up to stretch before she levitated a skirt and tank top out of her closet and put them on.

Adjusting to being a princess was not exactly the smoothest transition she'd ever made; she'd spent the night after her coronation wide awake, and she'd run through her "Get-To-Sleep-Quickly" checklist at least twenty times with no luck. The day after, she'd shown up at the royal castle in person; it took Princess Celestia at least two hours to convince her she didn't need to do any of the kind of things Celestia did on a daily basis, like presiding over the court, which only served to make Twilight more anxious until Rainbow Dash and Applejack showed up and practically dragged her back to Ponyville.

Then to top it all off, the plunderseed vines started to invade. At least that fiasco was days behind them now.

Twilight left her room behind and gingerly made her way down the stairs to the main floor, where Spike was already busy at the stove, wearing his chef's apron. Twilight smiled

"Good morning, Spike!"

"Morning, Twi!" Spike replied. "I'm making omelettes with hash browns. Whaddaya want on yours?"

She pressed a finger to her lips and thought for a moment before she answered, "Green onions, bell peppers...and just go light on the cheese, please."

"Got it."

Spike reached over and chopped up a couple of the vegetables he had ready and let Twilight's breakfast cook. His own omelette was bedecked with rubies, sapphires, and a couple opals for good measure, and pretty soon the whole house smelled of fried eggs and fresh veggies, and Spike took both omelettes off the stove top and placed them on plates that quickly went on the table. Both he and Twilight sat down and got a couple bites in before Twilight said, "Gee, Spike, I'm impressed. I didn't even have to wake you up!"

"Yeah, 'cause you slept in. You've been really out of it the last few days," he quipped back.

"Then maybe you should try being a princess," she deadpanned as she pointed her fork at him. Before he could get a word in edgewise, Twilight suddenly blanched a bit. "...Wait, I slept in? What time is it?"

"Um, it's only a quarter past nine, Twi. I don't see what the big-"

"A quarter past nine!? Oh no, oh no, oh no, I'm late!" Twilight shouted as she launched herself out of her chair. "I should have been rearranging the encyclopedias an hour ago! That means I'm gonna have to push my Practical Applications of Color Spells study session back and now my schedule's a mess!"

She spread her wings and flew back up the stairs, with Spike remaining behind to shift his expression to a put-upon look. While he groaned and grabbed a box to put Twilight's breakfast into for later, she practically threw herself into her room and began ruffling through the pile of scrolls on her desk until she found one labeled "1853.1." At the top of a laundry list of tasks was "Rearrange encyclopedia sections by alphabetical and chronological order," scheduled to start at eight-fifteen. Twilight grabbed a pen and scribbled the time out as she walked over to her bed and began mulling over the rest of the list. "Okay, um, so that's been pushed back, along with the book about color spells..." she muttered. "So...will I have to cancel lunch with Pinkie Pie...? Ugh, no, I'll...um, pop over there later and tell her I might be running a little late..." She scribbled a couple fixes next to "Lunch with Pinkie." She paused a moment and rested her head in her hand. "Or knowing Pinkie, she'll already know, thanks to her Pinkie Sense, or something really metaphysical..." After a couple more corrections, Twilight glanced at the rest of her list and said, "So, if I'm not gonna cancel lunch, I might have to put off reading Theory of Metaphysical Elements in Aether for tomorrow. But that's gonna be really tough, since I'm totally booked! In every sense of the word!" Twilight gently bit on the other end of the pen and swung herself around so that she was able to rest her head against the pillow.

However, Twilight barely had time to think of how to start rearranging her schedule when she noticed something strange outside her window. Narrowing her eyes, her curiosity piqued, she gently propped herself up on her elbows to get a quick look at the small, white object that had gotten her attention before her field of vision had gone lower than the window sill. Once she got a good look at it, however, she thoroughly wished she hadn't bothered: hanging in the sky directly on top of the horizon line was the moon, and it didn't seem to be moving, plain and simple. "Wh...what...?"

"Twilight, front door!" Spike's voice jolted Twilight out of thinking too hard about it, and she whirled her head around to look at her bedroom door. She dropped the list in her hand onto the floor and made a beeline for, and then through, it and flew down the stairs. She landed in front of the alcove that led to the front door just in time to see Spike jump out of the way as Rainbow Dash threw it open.

"Twi!" she exclaimed. "What the hay's going on outside!? I woke up this morning and got around to rearranging the clouds just to see the moon staring at me over the horizon!"

"I...I don't know," Twilight stuttered. "I, um, just noticed it and I have no clue what's going on."

"Should I get the girls?"

"Yes." There was no hesitation in Twilight's voice or her eyes, and Rainbow Dash pivoted and charged back outside, and Twilight turned around as well after she shut it. "Spike, take a letter..."

There was already a quill and piece of paper in his hands. "Way ahead of you, Twilight."



In a matter of minutes, Twilight's friends had already gathered at the library and were discussing ideas on how to resolve the unexpected situation.

"Look, all I'm saying is if I keep a bunch of clouds over the sun and moon, we'll at least keep everypony in Ponyville calm," Rainbow Dash said.

"And Ah'm tellin' you you know it ain't gonna hold," Applejack replied. "If we tell'em all we don't know what's happenin', we can at least say we're busy workin' on fixin' it."

Well, maybe not so much "discussing" as they were "throwing mud at the wall and hoping it stuck."

Rainbow Dash and Applejack had taken seats in reverse on a chair and on a bean bag, respectively. Rarity and Fluttershy were sitting at a table, Spike dutifully beside Rarity, and Pinkie was busy rifling through bookshelves. Twilight was pacing back and forth across the width of the library's main floor, hands clasped behind her back and her eyes constantly darting around as if she were searching for an answer that would make itself appear out of thin air.

"Listen everypony, there's only one way to put a hold on incoming disaster!" Pinkie called back. "And that..." All eyes were on her now, waiting on bated breath. Pinkie smiled and threw her arms out wide and it was complemented by several invisible party poppers going off behind her, releasing confetti and streamers, and one larger popper that released a rubber chicken, several clown horns, lemon-meringue pies, and Gummy, of all things, straight up into the air. The alligator flew up several inches before he came right back down and landed in Pinkie's hair. "...Is the biggest, loudest, most splendariffic party Ponyville's ever seen! With the biggest, tastiest, most un-resistable cake ever baked by ponykind...! With cherry frosting! All the cherry frosting!" Gummy shifted around, perhaps trying to get comfortable, but it was enough for Pinkie to grunt in confusion before she reached up and plucked him off her head. "Gummy! Is that where you've been all morning?" she giggled. Pinkie quickly slung him under her arm. "You're so silly sometimes, Gummy."

All of them continued to stare at Pinkie before Applejack spoke up. "Actually, Ah think Pinkie's got a point. It'll keep everypony distracted better'n a curtain of clouds, that's fer sure."

"Yeah! And if anypony does notice the sun and moon are out of place, we can just say the princesses are coming by later to explain why!" Pinkie exclaimed. She turned back to Twilight and asked, "So Twilight, whaddaya think? Can we throw my Disaster-Proof-Distraction Party? Huh? Huh? Huh? Can we...?"

"Um..." Twilight pursed her lips and pressed a finger to her lips thoughtfully. "I guess, but only as a last resort. Once I find out what Princess Celestia says, we'll figure out if we should get that desperate this early."

As if on cue, they all heard a knock at the door, three hard raps against the polished oak. The seven of the exchanged worried glances; for all any of them knew, it was one of the townsponies coming to ask why the heck the sun was still sitting on the horizon line when it was about ten'o'clock in the morning. Twilight swallowed the lump in her throat and said hoarsely, "I'll...um..get the door..."

Applejack and Rainbow Dash quickly stepped forward and joined her side. "Sugarcube, if tryin' to answer questions for whoever's out there starts wearin' on ya, we'll be right here."

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash cheered.

Twilight glanced from her to Applejack and back again, and then to the front door. Her heart was still hammering in her chest and she could feel sweat start to accumulate at her hairline, but at the very least she felt her mind calm down. Twilight smiled. "Thanks, girls." Refusing to hesitate any longer, she grabbed the doorknob and pulled. To her surprise, however, there wasn't a Ponyville resident on the other side of the door, but instead...

"Princess Twilight!" a middle-aged stallion exclaimed. His fur was snow white and he was flanked on both sides by two other ponies that looked just like him, save for obvious species differences. He was an earth pony, and the other four were an equal number of unicorns and pegasi, but the single unifying factor they all had was the golden armor of the Royal Guard.

Twilight quirked an eyebrow. "Sir...? What's going on?"

"Here to return your letter, Princess Twilight," the stallion explained as he held out his hand, clutching Twilight's letter.

"Oh...! Oh, that's great!" Twilight took it back and smiled back up at him. "Did Princess Celestia read it? Bit of an...odd way to contact me back, but I imagine she must be busy doing...something, if the sky's any indication."

The stallion paused, and glanced from her back to the four other soldiers under his command. "That's just it, Your Grace," the sergeant said as he turned back. "Your letter was express-delivered to the throne room, I was there to see it. But..." Twilight felt her heart skip a beat. "It didn't reach the princess because...she wasn't there."

She felt her blood freeze in her veins and her mouth went dry; suddenly, Twilight found it hard to keep herself standing upright. "We've been searching Canterlot Castle all morning with no sign of Princess Celestia."

"Then what..."

"Or Luna," he continued before Twilight could ask. "And between the general state of disarray and the fact our soldiers who guard the entrances have had to turn away visitors, progress has been slow." The sergeant took a deep breath and explained, "We've been asking for reports from our outposts in other major cities, but every single one has come back negative. For all intents and purposes, both princesses are M-I-A." He paused to release a shaky breath before he rolled his eyes as if he had just thought of something. "...Again."

When he looked back at Twilight, he noticed her body was completely rigid, her arms looked glued to her sides, and her expression was completely blank. The only indication she was still processing anything were her eyes (now the size of pins) twitching violently in their sockets. The sergeant raised an eyebrow. "...Princess Twilight? Are you alright?"

Just as soon as the last words left his mouth, Pinkie Pie suddenly slid into his field of view and threw her arms around Twilight's neck and chanted, "'Twilight.exe' isn't working right now, we're gonna reboot the program real quick and get right back to you!" She then pulled Twilight back with one hand and reached out and shut the door with the other.

While the recruits behind him leaned over to whisper a couple questions to each other and respond in kind, the sergeant just sighed and turned to face his soldiers with a resigned expression. "Well, we've done our part. It's up to the Elements of Harmony to solve what's next. Let's get back home, gentlecolts," he said.

The guardsponies saluted and sounded off, and the sergeant took the lead and led them back to the carriage they had all used to fly down from Canterlot. On the way however, one of the recruits spoke up. "Uh, sir? Permission to speak freely?"

"Permission granted. What is it, private?" the stallion replied.

"What the hay's an 'e-x-e?'"

The sergeant stopped in his tracks for a second, only a second, before he kept walking. He didn't say anything for awhile, but before they reached the carriage, he said, "Listen, son. I've read the file on Miss Pie, and believe me, you're better off not questioning it. Ponyville's a weird place, so count your lucky stars you ain't stationed here."

||\\ //||

The vast fields of nothing passed by under the great nothing in the sky. It was all blotted out with clouds, no stars to be seen anywhere, and sometimes the fields themselves only held dying cornstalks. It was the middle of November, after all, and November smack-dab in the middle of Midwest nowhere to boot. Megan watched it all go by from the safety and comfort of her car. She paid the outside cold and dying plants no mind; she was more concerned about meeting up with her siblings anyway. Almost a whole year come and gone again, and with the world and their jobs bearing down on their shoulders, barely any contact, save for the occasional phone call on Saturday or Sunday night. Strange, how fast time could fly; she didn't expect it to move so fast after how soul-crushing it had felt when...
Megan quickly squeezed her eyes shut and stopped her train of thought from moving any further. It was no use thinking back to her teenage years; they were long gone by now, and that meant Ponyland was, too.

It was strange, how she remembered it so vividly, despite all evidence pointing to it being a dream. But there, she had friends, she had her siblings, she had adventure...she barely thought about home at all, or how to get back. Then, one night, she went to sleep in her cottage and when she woke up...

She was back in her old room.

The shock had kept her in bed for several minutes, but she finally got up and raced around like a madwoman, looking for...well, she didn't really know at the time. A calendar, one of the ponies, a magical locket she had misplaced the previous night, but nothing could be found. Danny and Molly woke up after her and they all confirmed with each other that either they all had the same dream, or Ponyland was real. Upon walking around the house and then checking the barn outside, they found no way to get back to Ponyland, or that the rainbow that carried them there even existed in the first place, obviously. Megan and Danny were distraught, but saying Molly was continents and beyond that was an understatement. When she realized she was never going to see Buttons, Ribbon, North Star, and the others again, she had a mental breakdown that not even their parents could fix. It took three days for her to finally leave her room, and weeks for her to actually smile again. And of course, Megan and Danny knew no one was going to believe them, but Molly swore up and down she wasn't crazy every time she told that story to someone else. That went on for three years before she realized no one was taking her seriously.

The sight of lights from streetlamps and other cars in front of her snapped Megan out of her thoughts abruptly, but it might have been for the best. She didn't cry as often anymore, but sometimes, the tightness in her throat got too overwhelming to ignore. The normal TV static that buzzed in her head during the workday sometimes let up, leaving her unoccupied mind to wander into darker, bleaker places. Not for the rest of the night, though, with any luck. She glanced out the window again. The street was populated by a moderate amount of pedestrians on the sidewalks and even more cars on the road, and she sighed and kept her grip on the wheel and her eyes straight ahead. She passed through one light, then two, then several, until she found the place she was looking for; a large strip mall on the boulevard, asphalt lots as far as the eye could see. She turned her turn signal on and moved over to left lane, and then turned into the lot. It didn't take long to find a parking spot; somewhere close to the road, not the actual shopping outlets. She wasn't picky, and she quickly got out of her car to check her phone. It read seven thirty at night, and by now, she didn't need to message her siblings, especially when she noticed, out of the corner of her eye, two people walking toward her.

Megan recognized them instantly.

She didn't have anything with her, since her home was about two hours away. The two people approaching, however, had come in from out-of-state: Molly from Pennsylvania, and Danny from Michigan. Molly had changed drastically: she dropped her giant pigtails from when she was seven, and her blonde hair came down below her shoulders. She no longer wore the dresses and frills of her childhood, instead sporting tight sweatpants, an Ambercrombie shirt, and a jacket to keep the cold air away.

Danny looked very much the same as he did when he was ten, though he wore less denim. On top of that, the freckles on his cheeks had spread to the rest of his face and his ginger hair had grown longer. Much longer. Where it had come down to his neck in high-school, it was now shoulder-length, and he had tied it up in a ponytail (ugh). The first time he came home with his hair tied up, their mom almost had a stroke and Megan made sure to look disgusted when she looked at it or look disappointed in Danny, but he either didn't notice or ignored her intentionally; knowing Danny, it was probably the latter.

Megan herself had ditched keeping her own hair in a ponytail and had simply just cut it into a sweeping, "boyish" style. Less hair to worry about keeping neat anyway, and was probably the best-dressed out of the three of them. Normally, she would have changed to something more casual, but the three of them had to switch their yearly meetup from Saturday to Friday, and she hauled ass out of work to make it on time. Megan grinned as the two of them came over and they all hugged each other. "Was wondering when you'd get here," Danny said.

Megan rolled her eyes as she held him in place and scoffed, "Shut the hell up."

They all broke apart, which prompted Molly to exclaim, "So, we ready to get going?"

"'Course we are," Megan replied. She gestured forward with her hand and continued, "Let's go."

Danny and Molly nodded, and the three of them set off toward the strip mall. It wasn't an unassuming block of shops, fairly standard for midwest America. There were a few clothing outlets, electronics, office supplies, and the like, but almost at the opposite end of the building in its entirety was a small tavern called "Koban's." It had officially been called "Koban's Korner" before the nineties ended and people realized having "krazy letterz" did not automatically make things cooler. The three siblings approached the door, which Danny grabbed and held open. He bowed slightly and said, "Ladies first."

Megan rolled her eyes again and walked in, but Molly approached him and countered, "What about 'age before beauty?'"

Danny straightened up and frowned. "You calling me 'old?'"

"You said it," she replied before she slipped inside. Danny kept glaring at her as he let go of the door and followed her. The inside of Koban's was, perhaps not "cozy," it was a bar first and foremost, but certainly inviting. There was a moderate amount of noise permeating the air with the patrons who were already inside, talking, drinking, and eating. The three siblings approached a booth near the back wall, as the sign near the front read, "Please seat yourselves."

The three of them sat down and looked over the menus for a couple moments before a stocky, tanned man with a beard approached them with a small smile, apron, and a notepad in hand. "Well, if it ain't my three favorite customers! Gettin' the uzhe'?" he asked.

Megan and Molly nodded, but Danny shook his head and replied, "Nah, just get me water with the fish. Been celebrating all week and I don't think my liver can take any more cheap beer."

"'Cheap beer?'" he exclaimed mockingly. "When have we ever served cheap beer?" The three of them couldn't help but laugh lightly at the old man's joke as he grinned back and turned around toward the door that led into the kitchen. "Two ambers and a water, comin' right up."

There was a moment of silence as the three settled into their seats and enjoyed the heat of the restaurant before Megan leaned forward with a smarmy grin on her face. "So, Danny's cheaping out on the cheap beer tonight?" she asked wryly.

"Yeah, we played our last showing of 'Husbands For Sale' last week. Didn't I tell you that before?" Megan and Molly glanced at each other and shook their heads. Danny's eyes widened and he scratched his chin as he muttered, "Oh, shit, I've been busier than I thought..." The newest rom-com stage play had proven itself to be rather popular for theater-goers, though it certainly didn't have the elements needed to become the "lightning-in-a-bottle" that plays like "Rent," "Hamilton," "Heathers," or "Cats" were. Still, it proved to be successful enough to draw in a full house...though, considering it was localized to southeast Michigan and northern Ohio, "full house" wasn't saying much.

"It's not your fault," Molly said as she reached over and placed her arm around his shoulder. "Wish I had known, though! I've read a little bit about the plot, and it sounds hilarious!"

Danny huffed, blowing some loose strands of hair out of his face. "You say that, but I've got Stars From Me To You and the 'egg-in-the-laundry-room' bit practically burned into my fucking brain." Molly giggled a bit and Danny continued, "Seriously, it's not funny! I could probably recite the whole damn thing Rain Man style at this point!"

Megan quirked her eyebrow and asked, "You played the lead role, right? Mister whatshisface?"

"One of the lead roles. And that's Mister Fergus Whatshisface to you."

Danny's jokes were barely palatable normally, so Megan didn't want to encourage him with a laugh. "Ugh, forget I asked," she scoffed. She was about to ask Molly about her life before the waiter came back and dropped off their drinks. "So Molly, anything new happen to you this past year?" Megan asked, changing the subject.

Molly glanced away from Danny and perked up immediately and she exclaimed, "Oh, yeah! We had a special guest come in at the end of August!"

"Hmm, really? Who was it?"

"You'll never guess!"

Danny huffed and grabbed his glass of water. "That's why we're askin', ya dummy," he muttered after he took a drink. Molly must have heard it, because she glared at him and lightly whacked him in the arm. "Ow...! That hurt, Molly!"

"Then don't be a smartass," she replied. "Anyway, I go in on the...twenty-ninth, get into the back office and finish some paperwork from last night when Doctor Parikh comes in, twinkle in his eye that was probably only matched by the night he brought his wife home for the first time, and tells me in that thick Indian accent, 'Molly, Molly, you won't believe this!' He brings me to room two, and who do I see but Bianca Perry and good old Jumper!" Bianca Perry and her golden retriever, Jumper, were two rising stars in the film world, so hearing their place as patients in some small veterinary clinic in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was understandably jarring.

Megan's jaw dropped. "Bianca Perry and her dog? What in God's name were they doing all the way out in Harrisburg?" she exclaimed.

"An on-site scene for Skytouched, obviously!" Molly replied excitedly. "Unfortunately, Miss Bianca noticed Jumper was sluggish and was having trouble going potty, so she brought him in after convincing the producer and director to delay shooting scenes with him in it."

"Find anything wrong with him?"

Molly's smile fell a bit. "...Yeah. He...he has a tumor growing on his large intestine."

Danny took the opportunity to gag, cough, and make a big show of how disgusting he thought bodily functions were as Megan glared at him. Molly tried not to notice. "To make a long story short, we told her to keep him inside most of the day and made sure he stayed rested and hydrated. We're going to be doing surgery on him in two days." Silence descended on the three of them, and she took a swig of her drink and promptly separated the mug from her mouth. "Oh, Gawd," she gagged. "I'll never understand how people drink this crap."

"Quickly and without stopping," Megan quipped.

"Prolly cause it hurts less than rejection. Or getting cheated on. Or facing a loved one's death. Or dealing with life in general," Danny deadpanned. When he saw Megan glare at him, one side of his mouth curled into a smirk.

"Really, Danny?"

"What?"

At some point, Molly had received a small Caesar salad from the waiter; Megan hadn't been paying attention. She rolled her eyes and went back to drinking sporadically, until Molly piped up, "But, hey! Enough of me being a depressing old fart! How've you been, big sis?"

She paused a moment, then sighed dejectedly and leaned back in her seat. "I..." She trailed off and sighed again. "It's just been same-old, same-old for me. Still writing programs I barely understand for people I don't like." She couldn't help but chuckle at her own bad joke.

Danny put his glass down on the table, maybe a bit more forcefully than he expected himself and he asked, "Why did you not become an author like literally everyone told you to?"

"Danny, we've argued about this before. I write, just not professionally." Megan rolled her eyes. Going into computer science had shocked her parents and her siblings, but she considered herself pragmatic for going into an up-and-coming, high paying field where specialists were in high demand rather than go through dozens, if not hundreds, of hurdles to become an author. Of course, once she got her first job in Green Bay, working for a database publisher and manager was the last thing she had in mind. She didn't hate it, but the monotony dragged her down sometimes; at least with being an author, schedules could be rearranged and she would have been able to take a walk whenever she pleased to clear her head. But as the saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20. "Besides, I'd rather be known for something while I'm alive besides crippling alcoholism," she added half-jokingly.

Of course, the real reason she walked away from being an author was the fact that either your book became an instant best-seller, or it was lost in the sea of books exactly like it. Danny scowled at her "But it's not about writing for a living," he groaned. "It's about writing because you can!"

Megan slumped in her chair a bit and crossed her arms. "Spoken like a true theatre kid," she snorted.

"Hey, I heard that!"

She chuckled to herself as Danny glared at her, and the three of them went quiet for a moment. There was consistently less and less to talk about year after year, but considering they were all the same blood, it hardly mattered. As they aged out of their volatile teen years, the silence came to convey more and more trust and peace. They simply sat there, taking in the comfortable heat of the bar, the distant sound of cars outside, the taste of the drink, and each other's company. Megan, despite her earlier reservations, couldn't help but smile as she took another sip of her ale. This was probably the only time of year she truly felt content.

The waiter came back not even three minutes later with a platter with a healthy five ounce hamburger and fries, which he gave to Molly. Next was a platter of two beer-battered cod, breaded and served with fries, coleslaw, and tartar sauce on the side, which he passed to Danny. Finally, there was another hamburger, but topped with bleu cheese instead of American, also served with fries, which he placed in front of Megan. He stood back up with a warm smile on his face and said, "Nice to see you kids back another year."

Megan glanced up from her plate to Danny and Molly, who were already picking up their forks, food speared on the end, and then up at him. "It's nice to be back."


||// \\||


The six ponies (plus dragon) had remained silent for at least five minutes, mulling over what Twilight had relayed before passing out. Only Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack were really trying to think their way out of it; Rainbow Dash was reading a book on ancient Equestrian myths and Pinkie was snacking on two blueberry muffins and a raspberry scone she had procured from her hair. Twilight was busy being unconscious on the bean bag Applejack had been using before. It took awhile for anyone to break the silence, but finally, Rarity said, "Well, this is quite a pickle we've found ourselves in."
"It's a grim-lookin' situation's what it is," Applejack mused.

"...That's what I just-"

"Personally, I've always wondered if pickles know they're just...sour cucumbers," Pinkie interjected.

Rarity rolled her eyes and said, "Listen, everypony, it does look rather...erm, hopeless right now, yes, but we need to do something!"

Rainbow Dash glanced over the top of her book and then looked right back down. "Yeah, well, it's kinda hard to find an answer with Twi off in dreamland," she said. After a pause, she looked back up and continued, "Should I just go with the original plan? Move as many clouds around as possible to cover up the sun and moon?"

"Ah still say we'd be better off tellin' everypony what's happenin' if they don't start breakin' our doors down sooner," Applejack said. "May as well be me."

"Well, um, we could always look through a few of the books in here," Fluttershy added. "It's what Twilight would do, and it might give us some different ideas." She looked back at Twilight herself, still sprawled out on the beanbag. "...I don't think she would mind, anyway."

The other four took quick glances at each other, shrugged, and spread out across the room. "Hey, just remember," Rainbow Dash called back, "make sure you put the books back where you found'em. Twi'll freak out even harder when she wakes up."

"Ugh...do what when I...what...?" Everyone stopped and glanced back to see Twilight slowly stretch her limbs and rub her eyes, muttering all the while.

"Twi!" Spike wasted no time in jumping off his chair and he dashed up the stairs and came right back down thirty seconds later, cold rag in claw. He approached her side and wiped up some lingering sweat on her forehead. "You okay?"

Twilight groaned as the cold water soaked into her fur. "Y...yeah, but what happened? How long was I out? What year is it?"

"Don't worry, darling, it's only been about..." Rarity glanced back at the wall-mounted clock and continued, "Twenty minutes."

This, surprisingly, seemed to have the opposite effect of keeping Twilight calm, because she pushed herself upright and yelled, "Twenty minutes! Oh no, the sun and moon are probably fully visible by now and everypony in town can see it and they're all gonna throw a fit and probably come to me but I won't be able to help because I don't know what's going on, and that means there's gonna be a riot and ponies are gonna get trampled—"

"Twilight!"

She closed her mouth immediately and turned to face Applejack, who had her hands on her hips, and while her expression wasn't necessarily angry, it was stern. "What's gotten into ya? This ain't no different than when we was holdin' off the plunderseed vines, so what's buggin' ya?"

"It's...I don't..." Twilight stammered as she glanced between each one of her friends. She kept panting and muttering for another minute before she shut her eyes, gripped her hair and yelled. "Everything! Everything's happening at once! First I'm told I'm the new Princess of Friendship, they tell me I'm going to be responsible for Ponyville and the surrounding area and I'm going to be part of the next Summer Sun Celebration, but then Celestia and Luna disappear, we give up the Elements of Harmony back to the Tree, but now they're both gone again and it's just happening all over again!" She collapsed back into the beanbag with her hands over her eyes, rubbing intensely. "I just need some time to take it all in. I'm not complaining, I just...I just..." She trailed off and choked up a bit, much as she tried not to make it obvious.

Twilight tried to keep her breathing steady and the lump in her throat from overpowering her, but despite her best efforts she sniffled and felt a couple tears flow out of her eyes. She wiped them away and opened her mouth, but then felt someone wrap their arms around her neck. When she looked to her right, Spike was right by her side, hugging her tightly. Then another presence on her left, which was Fluttershy hugging her neck. Twilight looked from Spike to Fluttershy, and then just as quickly, the other girls surrounded her and all hugged her tightly, too, silence turning to stifled giggles to happy laughter as they all brought Twilight up to stand on two legs. "Shoot, sugarcube, ya know if ya ever feel like the princessy stuff is gettin' too complicated, ya can just come talk to one'a us," Applejack said. "And sorry fer pressin' the issue earlier."

Twilight wiped her eyes one last time and smiled. "Don't worry about it, Applejack," she said.

"Twilight, you can always come talk to me if you feel too heavily burdened," Rarity added. "We'll make a spa day out of it, and with you as a princess, I'm certain Aloe and Lotus will give you a discount for their services, if not a free session! Or VIP treatment!"

"Yeah! And if you ever need to run from your responsibilities for awhile, you can always crash at my place! I'll cover for ya!" Rainbow Dash added.

"Ha! Thanks, Dash, but I don't think it would look too good for my track record, especially with so many ponies depending on me," Twilight laughed.

"Meh, whatever you say. Offer still stands if you need it," Dash said with a shrug.

"I'll keep that in mind."

The pause that followed was quickly interrupted by Fluttershy, who whispered, "Um, I don't mean to rush you, or stress you out more, but shouldn't we be...um, trying to find the princesses again?"

"...Yeah, right," Twilight said. "Did...anypony else have ideas while I was, uh...out of it?" She glanced around at the others, who just kept shaking their heads.

"Didn't really get past how to break the news," Rainbow Dash explained.

"Yeah," Applejack added. "But if anypony can figure it out, it's you, Twi."

She went quiet, her expression fell to a neutral look, and Twilight started to scratch her chin thoughtfully. She even began to walk forward and pace a few steps back and forth across the floor before she stopped. Twilight perked up, snapped her fingers, and exclaimed, "Yes, that's it!" before she power-walked to the table and sat down. Twilight then conjured a large sheet of parchment, quill, and inkwell, and she began to hastily scribble on it. The other girls shared curious glances with each other before they crowded around to watch her work.

There were triangles and circles written on it by now, as well as dozens of sigils meant to channel arcane power, and words written in small stanzas and down the edges of the paper in Old Ponish. As Twilight continued to write more words and shapes on the paper, Pinkie slowly rose up from under the table, gazing at her wide-eyed. Eventually, she asked softly, "What'cha drawin'?"

Twilight took a quick look at her and went back to writing as she explained, "Well, I really don't want to sound like a negative neigh-sayer, but the fact that Princess Celestia and Luna are gone again so fast can't be coincidence, so I'm...kinda inclined to assume the worst."

"...What's that mean...?" Fluttershy squeaked.

"It means I won't feel bad doing something really crazy," Twilight finished. All Fluttershy did was whine quietly as she turned and asked, "Spike, is the book Ley Lines for the Uninitiated up there?" as she pointed to a shelf on the wall to her left.

"Uh...maybe?" he replied. He scrambled over and gave the shelf a couple quick once-overs before he turned around and said, "Or maybe not, I don't see it up here."

Twilight clenched her jaw and sighed. "Will you go-"

"Oh, you mean this book?" Pinkie exclaimed as she held out a hard-cover textbook, bearing a map of Equestria crossed by multicolored lines.

Twilight whirled her head around, eyes wide. "Y...Yes, but where did you...?"

"Oh, I just thought the cover looked pretty! Skimmed through it a bit before you woke up, looks interesting! What'cha need it for?" Pinkie held the book out, and Twilight took it after the surprise wore off.

She placed it on the table and flipped it open to a little past the halfway point. "I'm going to adapt some of the arcane theories in here," Twilight explained. "You're all familiar with ley lines, right?" She only glanced up to see almost all of them nodding (even Pinkie, which reminded her to be thankful that she was on her side). "Well, since Ponyville has several ley lines passing through or around it, I'm going to attempt to tap into them to cast a very...unorthodox summoning spell. Specifically, a spell designed to hijack the energy of the ley lines to point them toward a target that gives off high amounts of thaumaturgical energy, regardless of placement relative to our plane of existence."

"Can you translate from egghead, please?" Rainbow Dash asked with the ghost of a smirk on her face.

Twilight turned to look at her and stuck out her tongue before going back to drawing a strange, circular symbol on the bottom of the parchment. "Okay, think of it like...a really big S.O.S. signal, except that signal, instead of just calling for help, can actually go out and track the help we need and can bring back the best-fit creature for the job, regardless of where they are in the universe!"

The others all looked at each other again; they all looked impressed to some degree, except Fluttershy, who looked more than somewhat worried. "Gotta say, sugarcube, it's definitely shapin' up to be one'a yer more...ambitious spells," Applejack said.

Rainbow Dash shrugged exaggeratedly. "But also sounds really...I dunno, extreme?"

"In this case, I'd rather be safe than sorry," Twilight replied. She glanced back down and put the finishing touches inside the circle and began to explain, "But it's really not that advanced when you get down to it! I'm basically just breaking down the components needed to access the ley lines to the bare essentials, which are the 'call' and 'command' phrases, and from there I just tweak the spell to act more like 'Tranquila Mare's Transcendental Mana-sight' and then command it to go off and search for whatever value or value range I specify. The trick comes from making the spell actually fetch the desired mana level, which already requires and concentration levels greater than even the most adept ancient wizards-"

"So it'll work, darling?" Rarity asked when she noticed Rainbow Dash starting to grip her hair.

Twilight stopped short and looked from her down to the sheet of parchment on the table. "It...should." The spell was done and written, but considering it was a spell she had cooked up in under ten minutes, the chances of it misfiring were...higher than normal. Having something to go off of from a reputable, scholarly source was obviously preferable over this; it allowed the spell to be tweaked within logical parameters while this was little more than throwing magical power into a pot and cooking it on high for several seconds. It was part of the reason she was even able to complete Star Swirl the Bearded's magnum opus, having the first half of the spell to work off of. This spell had the potential to either go horribly wrong...or stupidly right. Twilight hardened her gaze and grabbed the paper and stood up to face her friends. "Rainbow Dash?"

"Yeah, Twi?"

"I need you to rally the town."



Town square was packed. Every resident of Ponyville was standing in front of town hall, muttering to each other about why and how they'd been called away. But honestly, when the local folk hero flies over the whole town announcing that the newest Princess of Friendship has an official statement about the fact the sun and moon were both sharing the sky, it would be stupid not to go out and listen.

Said princess was up at a podium, though she hadn't spoke to the crowd directly yet. Twilight was instead busy shuffling through some note cards, checking and rechecking and three-checking what she had; her friends were all standing dutifully at the forefront. The crowd of ponies continued to shuffle around, mutter to each other, and occasionally shoot glances at Twilight until she exhaled, turned, and tapped the mic on the podium to test it. "Um, excuse me, everypony? If I could have your attention, please..." she began. They all turned to look at her, and she cleared her throat and continued, "Okay, so you've probably noticed...that the sun and moon are still up in the sky and it's...about eleven'o'clock."

"Yeah, what's the deal with that!?" a blue mare with a periwinkle mane called from the middle of the crowd. Her outburst was echoed by most of the other ponies asking for input from the ones closest to them and most others parroting the question back at Twilight.

Twilight bit her lip and leaned over the podium and said, "Um, it's...a bit complicated..." She glanced down at her friends quickly and saw their stern but not impassionate faces, and quickly lifted her head back up. "They...I heard from the royal guards that...well, they've gone missing...both of them."

The pause was thick and hung heavily for the two seconds it existed. Then, shouts rose up from the crowd, ponies crying, some began to run in circles, and for a moment Twilight regretted saying anything, but she quickly shoved those thoughts to the side. "Yes, I know! I get it!" she yelled. It got most of the ponies to top and look back at her. "It's bad! But I've got a solution!" She then stepped out from behind the podium and off the platform it was on, and toward her friends. When Spike saw her walk forward, he immediately stepped out and held up the scroll with her improvised spell, which she took and whispered, "Thanks, Spike," with a smile.

At that point, she spread her wings and picked herself up off the ground, and stopped to hover as she thrust her arm above her head. "And this is what it looks like!" she declared. Twilight quickly descended again, into the thick of the crowd, still holding up the parchment as she continued, "I designed this spell to search for high amounts of mana concentrated in whatever creature in whichever corner of the universe its magical energies need to find. That way, I can summon somepony...or something...that's powerful enough to help us track own the princesses."

The entire crowd went dead silent for what felt like hours, even though it couldn't have been longer than three minutes, but eventually another pony spoke up. "But will it work?"

Certainly not the first time that question was asked, but by now, Twilight had a better answer than simply "maybe" or some sort of deflection. She looked right into her face, gaze unchanging, and stated, "It has to."

Without another word, Twilight turned around and raised her arm, and the scroll she was holding into the air. "Stand back!" The crowd close by only had a couple seconds to register and comply with her warning before Twilight threw the paper at the ground. Coupled with the arcane energies already written into the symbols on it and a simultaneous stimulus spell cast by Twilight herself, the paper hit the ground and promptly burst into golden flames. Those same tongues of fire spread out from their point of origin and began to form arcane sigils in the air, which only remained still in the air for less than a second before each one surged forward, the yellow light splitting into new forms, until it had created something new and more beautiful than it once was; a massive stairway, with handrails of solid granite dyed golden yellow, and the steps were made of multicolored stained glass that were transparent near the center, but outlined in color that led up to a massive pillar of bright yellow light on a marble platform that hung in midair. Ionic columns with half a domed roof surrounded a pillar of light in its center that extended up, up, beyond their eyesight, into the night sky. It burned and convulsed and twisted, raw power forcibly being held in check by...whatever had brought the stairway there. When the lightshow had finished, the other members of the Mane Six all slowly strode forward and took a place around Twilight, and they and the residents of Ponyville stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at the arcane monolith before them.

"Now what?" Spike whispered to her.

"...We wait," Twilight replied. "It's the only thing we can do for now."

||\\ //||

Two hours and an extra glass of beer later, the Williams kids had eaten their fill and paid their tab. The bar was a bit emptier now, most everyone else had gone home, but the three of them stayed and continued to talk. Not about life or work, but instead telling jokes and remembering their days going through elementary, junior high, and high school. Of course, anything pertaining to Ponyland was never mentioned, even by secondhand events. It made it rather...cumbersome to talk about anything when they were entering teenage years. But, like all good things, time marched on, and eventually the three of them cleaned up, bid goodbye to their waiter on the way out (Molly giving her compliments to the chef as usual), and entered the cool night air once more.

The sky was near black by the time Megan had arrived, but for some reason, it felt darker as the three of them filed out into the parking lot. As they approached their cars, Megan looked back at her siblings and grinned as she thought of one last witty remark. "So, looks like Danny's the designated driver tonight..." she began.

"Oh, screw you." Danny huffed and pulled out his keys as Megan chuckled and turned around to face her car. However, Danny just as quickly perked up and exclaimed, "Wait, actually...! Before I forget..." he began. Megan froze and pivoted quickly to look at him, and Molly likewise stopped midway in unlocking her car door, parked next to Danny's, to glance up. "How about we mix things up a little bit? Do something we've never done before before we take off and like, not talk to each other for a month?"

Molly and Megan glanced at each other before Molly smiled and said, "Why not? Not like I've gotta get to work tomorrow anyway."

Megan kept staring at Danny before she pursed her lips, thought for a moment, and then shrugged. "Sure, I'm game."

He grinned back at her and said, "Cool! So, I was thinking we could drive up to the old farm-"

"Nevermind, I'm out."

Megan threw up her arms and turned around to walk back to her car, but Danny was obviously not letting go that easily. "Hey, I just wanted to suggest we go up to the old farm and have a look around. See what's changed, y'know?"

"Danny, we can't just 'go up to the farm' on a whim!" Megan shot back. "The place's been abandoned for two years!"

"Megan's got a point," Molly interjected, now leaning her arm on the roof of her car. "Technically, it's not even ours anymore. We could get fined for trespassing."

"What the police don't see won't hurt'em," Danny replied with a dismissive wave.

Megan groaned and turned around. "Either way, I'm not driving another forty-five minutes further away from home when it took me almost two hours alone to get here," she stated as she turned and walked toward her car, fishing through her pocket for her keys.

As she walked away and Molly finally opened up her car door, they both heard Danny say something that made their blood run cold. As he brought out his keys and got into his car, he called, "Well, fine! If that's how it's gonna be, I'll go up there myself. I'm feeling way too nostalgic to just walk away if you two won't go with me." They both looked back around at him, and Molly tried to get his attention, but by then it was too late. He was in his car, the engine was on, and about five seconds later, he had pulled out and was cruising through the parking lot, and the two of them just watched him go as he pulled out onto the main road, turned left, and disappeared into traffic.

Sometimes, Megan forgot how stubborn her brother could get.

She sighed and glanced over at Molly, who was still searching the road for Danny's car. Eventually, she looked over at Megan and grimaced. "Guess we gotta go after him, huh?" Megan asked.

"Yep." Megan sighed and walked over to her car, got inside and ignited the engine. After a couple seconds, she saw Molly's car drive past and out toward the road. Like Danny before her, she turned left and disappeared into the traffic. Megan sighed again and stepped on the gas pedal, pulling her car out of its parking spot and she steered it toward the main road. She stopped to make sure no cars were coming and just like that, was off into the night.



The Williams' old ranch was forty-five minutes away from Korban's, on the city limits. Megan couldn't claim to know its history, but she knew enough. When her dad died of a sudden heart attack, she, her siblings, and her mom knew there was no way she could keep the place running without him, doubly so with the siblings working jobs in different states. So, Megan, Molly, and Danny pulled some money out and got their mother into a decent nursing home on the other end of the city.

The car had been bouncing along an old dirt road flanked on both sides by farmland, but Megan quickly turned left after it split into a fork and the trail wound up a steep hill. Eventually, she stopped in front of a small grove of trees, where two other cars were parked in the dirt trail, and both Molly and Danny were waiting, Danny sitting on the old wooden fence around the grove and Molly standing by her car, checking the time.

"Well, here I am," she said as she approached the other two.

Danny grinned and hopped off the fence, and he made his way over and clapped her on the shoulder. "Hey, sis! Glad you decided to stop being a killjoy and come with. Don't worry, I know you probably feel uncomfortable, so we won't stay long." Megan only glared at him.

"If the police catch us, I'm throwing you under the bus first."

Danny looked back at her and muttered, "Jesus," under his breath. He walked back to the fence and jumped it, followed by Molly, and then Megan, who had a bit more trouble than her younger siblings.

"Stupid goddamn long legs," she cursed to herself. The three of them all trudged up the hill and through the path between the trees until the land opened up. Ahead just up the way was a small house sitting on the edge of a cliff, though not a very severe one. It dropped off into a small, winding brook about thirty feet down. Closer to them, about ten feet from the house was a barn; both the buildings had seen better days. It was easy to tell even with only the moonlight to guide them. The house had chipped, peeling paint on every surface, one of the windows was broken while the rest had been boarded up with plywood, something the front door was completely blocked off with, and there was graffiti written on the first-floor walls. The porch had been broken up, boards either sticking up from the floor or gone entirely, revealing the mess of uncut grass, moss, and small bones under it, most likely from small animals ingested by snakes. The barn, surprisingly, looked in better condition, though it wasn't saying much; Megan walked around to the front double doors and stared up at the roof. Light blue paint was still peeling from the walls, but the windows and door hadn't been blocked off, and from she could see, the roof hadn't caved in yet.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, she placed a hand on the door and pushed it open, the wood straining against her as it creaked open and the rusted hinges squealed in agony. The inside of the barn was much the same: a wide center corridor with four pens, two on each side, walled in by chipped, rotting wood. There was nothing left in the way of personality inside the barn, only the concrete floor and accumulations of dust on some shelves that, if one could look closely, would notice the spread was uneven, less where items had sat years before.

Megan sighed as she quietly, solemnly, strode forward. She almost walked to the back of the barn, but stopped to turn and face a pen on the right side. It was empty, like the other three, but she looked up at a pillar of wood the formed the edge between the door (that was now missing) and the wall of the pen. She reached up and placed her hand on the wood, gazing wistfully at a discolored patch where she remembered a plaque had been nailed years before. After another minute, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and shifted her eyes to see Molly standing at her side, gazing at where the plaque had once been with her.

"TJ was such a good horse."

Megan only held her gaze on her sister a second longer before she grimaced, nodded, and looked back at the discolored wood. They remained there for what felt like hours before they heard the door creak open once more. "Hey." Megan and Molly turned around to see Danny standing in the doorway. In contrast to his earlier grin and excited persona, he seemed much more subdued, with the moonlight from outside silhouetting him against the grass and horizon. "You two okay?"

"Yeah, we're okay," Megan replied. Her hand fell back to her side and she walked back out of the barn with Molly at her side. Danny stepped aside to let her pass and when she returned to the cool night air, Megan realized just how...idyllic it was. She could see out across the untouched forest at the foot of the cliff, bathed in incandescent moonlight, the celestial satellite itself hanging high in the sky with her whole face visible for all to see. The blue-grey light coated the old house and barn in a blanket of light that almost made it look...whole, as if she and her siblings still lived there. Even the old well, missing the bucket it needed, added to the tranquility of the old homestead.

Which, as usual, was promptly shattered by Danny getting his mojo back.

"So whaddaya say we check out how the inside of the old house has been doing?" he asked.

Megan's eyes shot open and she whirled around to stare at him, dumbfounded. "What? Danny, are you nuts!? We can't get into the house, the front door's boarded up!"

"I know. That's why we gotta go in through one of the second floor windows."

"What!?"

"Danny, we can't do that either!" Molly exclaimed. "That's way too dangerous! What if the roof caves in? Or what if the floor caves while we're inside? Someone could get hurt!"

"Oh, come on! Why are you two so against having fun? It's not like we have much time left, and you're an old woman anyway!" he exclaimed as he gestured to Megan.

She opened her mouth and let out a small, offended gasp. "Twenty-nine isn't fucking old, Danny!"

"Whatever you say, grandma," Danny scoffed back as he turned and headed for the house.

Despite every fiber of her being telling her not to, Megan still followed him. She was his big sister, after all, and that meant she had to make sure he didn't end up hurting himself...even if he wholly deserved it sometimes. She caught up and lightly slapped him on the head, illiciting a small grunt of discomfort from him. "Well, if we were to go with you, hypothetically, how would we even get up to the roof?"

"Easy," he replied as he walked up to the porch and turned to face Megan and Molly. "We can either do it the safe way or the military way."

Megan and Molly glanced at each other before Molly asked tentatively, "...What's the military way?"

"One of you runs toward me," Danny replied as he bent his knees and clasped his hands together, "and jumps into my hand and I toss you up. The easy way is if I get on the ground and boost you with my shoulders."

Molly glanced up at Megan again before her gaze hardened and she turned back to Danny. "Okay, Danny, get ready to pitch me."

His face lit up like the night sky above them. "Oh my God, you're serious...? You really wanna go with me into the house? I mean, if you really don't, I understand, I can find my own way in-"

"Nah, I'm gonna take my chances," Molly said. "It's not like I'm getting any younger anyway. And besides..." A grin crept across her face. "Someone's gotta make sure to stick around in case you bite it so they can tell you 'told ya so.'"

Danny's smile fell to a frown and his face went slightly red, but he quickly turned his attention to Megan. "And you?"

There was a pause before Megan groaned and said, "Well, if my sister's gonna trust her life to your stupidity, I guess I've got no choice."

"...You two gonna keep dragging me or're we gonna get going?" he deadpanned.

Molly giggled a bit and then settled into a ready stance. "On three?"

"Sure." Danny bent his knees a bit more and focused on keeping his fingers tightened to withstand as much force as possible. "Ready? One...two...three!"

Molly broke into a sprint, charged at Danny, and before she made contact, she jumped into his hands and he heaved her up. She sailed into the air and deftly grabbed the edge of the roof over the patio and after a bit of struggling, she pulled herself up; God only knew it would have been harder if the gutters stayed on after the house was foreclosed. When she was on the roof, kneeling down and facing the other two, Danny turned back and resumed his previous stance, though the grin on his face seemed more pronounced. "Okay, Megan, your turn."

This was, in all actuality, a terrible idea. But Megan had come this far, and while she could have just gone back to her car and left (she was an adult, of course), she really didn't want to: for both Molly's and Danny's sake. And, though she'd never admit it, the fact they were all breaking the law like a bunch of teenage delinquents made her heart pump and adrenaline levels surge. Just like the good old days.

She huffed, braced herself like a wound spring, and then ran at Danny until, like Molly, she almost made impact before she jumped into his hands, and Danny launched her up. She grabbed the edge of the roof, and was quickly grabbed by Molly, who helped pull her up. "Thanks, Molly," she muttered as she looked up at her sister.

No sooner was Megan righted and kneeling next to Molly than they heard Danny call up, "A'right, help me up, you two."

Instead of reaching down to help him, however, they glanced at each other and, in a moment of familial mind-melding, grinned deviously. "Hmm...I dunno, Molly. Should we help him?"

Molly couldn't help but giggle. "I don't think so. I mean, he didn't even say 'please!'" They giggled to themselves and then glanced back down at Danny, who stared at them incredulously for a moment before, slowly, a smile crept across his face and his eyes lost their indignant edge.

"And you two said you were too old for this shit," he said.

"I'll admit," Molly said, "I wasn't too keen on coming here with you, but y'know...maybe it's what I needed."

In that brief pause, all three of them shared a happy laugh, something they probably hadn't done in quite that way since the old ranch still belonged to them. A laugh that sounded like they never lost the spark of innocence in their eyes. After it died down, Danny, still smiling, looked up at his sisters and said, "Great! Now help me up, dammit."

Megan tsk'ed and waggled her finger. "Ah-ah-ah, what's the magic word...?"

Danny glared at her a minute, then sneered. "Please help me up, dammit," he sassed. Megan turned back to face Molly, and they both shrugged before the leaned over the roof and held out an arm, one each. Danny jumped up and grabbed them, and they pulled him up, with no small effort. Once he was on the roof, he stood up and dusted himself off. "You're both pure evil, by the way. Did I tell you that?"

"You're the middle kid, it's basically in our job description," Megan commented as she and Molly stood up too.

Danny scoffed, and the three of them walked around the roof, to one of the broken windows. They stepped as carefully as they could, testing the shingles they walked on, just in case it looked like it would give out from under them. It made walking around take a minute-and-a-half longer than normal. When they stopped, Danny reached for the frame and pulled on it as hard as he could; amazingly, he was able to force it up after two hard pulls. The three of them clambered inside to find a dusty old room, longer than it was wide, with a doorway in the upper-right corner. The only piece of furniture that remained were the metal skeletons of two beds. Megan remembered it; so did Danny and Molly. "...Our old room," Megan whispered to her sister.

"Man. It's been so long."

Their memories were interrupted by Danny walking past both of them. "I'm gonna go check out the basement," he said. "Probably looks spooky as hell."

As he made his way to the door, Molly jogged up behind him and grabbed his shoulder. Danny looked surprised, almost scared for a moment before she said, "I dare you to stay down there longer than five minutes."

There was a pause, but then Danny grinned. "Bet."

The two of them jogged away, leaving Megan enough time to yell, "Be careful and don't fall to your deaths!" before the silence of the house crept in again. She remained where she was, however, and simply looked around the room. It used to have floral wallpaper across every square inch, and the frames used to have double-mattresses covered in several downy blankets. Megan's bed lost them as she grew up, but Molly always had trouble sleeping when she was younger; more than seven blankets was a necessity. Her side had been closest to the window, while Megan's was closest to the door. It was a clever ploy by her parents to get Molly up in the morning in their stead. She did it anyway. And there were all the times she and Molly played together on the floor with dolls and horse figurines; things Megan had grown out of, but did to humor her sister. Especially after they "returned" from Ponyland, and no one believed her when she tried to explain that Wind Whistler was real, and was her friend, and she knew she'd go back to see them soon and she'd take pictures to prove it.

But some of the boys and the older girls who'd been listening only laughed in her face and called her things Megan wouldn't dare say in front of her parents; they were called in later because Molly had run home, sobbing her eyes out.

Her parents were called in again when Megan learned those kids' names.

She left the bedroom behind, and came into an L-shaped hallway. There were four other empty doorways, two on the right side, including her room, one on the left, one at the very end of the hall. The one on the opposite side used to be Danny's room; the other one was for the bathroom. The doorway at the end led into their parents' old room, which had its own study that their father was usually in on most weekends. Megan walked down the hall until she got to the empty frame, then turned left and cautiously went down the stairs. They led to the empty living room, but Megan could see everything in her mind's eye so clearly that she felt she could close her eyes, reach out, and feel her father sitting in his chair by the television set, reading his favorite book on ancient myths for the thousandth time. She swore that for a moment, just for a moment, she could smell her mother's cooking wafting through from the kitchen. Megan had learned her chicken and dumplings recipe years ago, but what she thought she smelled at the moment was how it should have been, not the dry thing she sometimes cooked on the weekends she didn't feel like going out.

Quickly snapping herself out of reverie, Megan shook her head to clear her thoughts and walked forward. She came to the kitchen, which was at the front of the house: it was set at a diagonal, so if one walked in from the front door, they would see the kitchen to the left behind a short row of counters, the dining room dead ahead, and a small archway that led to the mudroom on the right. She sighed and walked forward until she was at this crossroads, and turned to stare at the door, long blocked off with plywood. The window next to it served as a quick way to see any guests who might be arriving, but it hadn't seen anyone living for a long time by now. Amazingly, the glass pane was still intact.

Heavy footsteps resounded throughout the empty halls, and Megan glanced back toward the kitchen to see Molly round the corner, followed by Danny. She looked like she'd seen a corpse, and the reason why was made clear as they got closer: Danny had his hand outstretched, holding something that looked like a massive clump of poop at first glance. It quickly became clear that it was actually an insect with shiny chitin.

A giant scarab beetle, to be precise.

"Ew, ew, ew, Danny, that's thing's disgusting! Don't let it touch me!"

"Aw, come on, Molly, it's just a beetle! It hasn't bitten me to death yet, you'll be fine!" he called back.

"No I won't!" she yelled back.

Megan scoffed and quickly strode forward, allowing Molly to pass and hide behind her. Danny slowed down to a stop his hand still outstretched. The beetle was, surprisingly, busy not giving a damn about the shenanigans her brother and sister were up to, instead opting to study this strange, fleshy platform it now found itself on. Megan glanced back up at Danny, who still had a smile on his face. It they had been near fifteen years younger, he'd be trying to hide that thing behind his back in an attempt to not get chewed out. "Danny," Megan said, "go put Mister Beetle down, please. He has a wife and three loving kids who probably want to see him come home in time for dinner."

There was a small pause before Danny's smile got wider and he brought his hand closer to him. "Aw, okay, okay," he deferred as he walked around Molly and Megan and placed his hand down on one of the kitchen counters, palm facing up. With a little bit of gentle shaking, he coaxed Mister Beetle off his hand and onto the dusty linoleum. With his passenger safely disembarked, Danny wiped his hand on his shirt and turned back to Megan, still smiling. "Sounds like you had some time to reconnect with your inner kid."

"You bring out the best in me," she replied, half-jokingly.

It got a couple good laughs from him and Molly, and they both looked at her. "Okay," she said after a moment, "is it about time to get going?"

Danny and Molly glanced at each other before they both nodded, accompanied by a small "Yeah," from Molly.

"Yeah, sounds about right. Let's go."

Megan nodded once and turned around, intent to lead her family back upstairs and out onto the roof. "I can only hope nobody saw our cars and called the pol-"

A brilliant golden light flashed outside and then remained, and the three of them could see it clearly through the window next to the door. It made them freeze in place immediately until the light died down slightly, and it remained a lazy but significant glow. Still, the three of them didn't move, instead opting to stare at the front door blankly, waiting for the police to call them out. When no voice was heard, they didn't know what to expect, but still refused to move, though it didn't stop them from talking to each other through gritted teeth.

"What's going on?" Molly asked.

"Don't ask me," Danny muttered back.

"Is it the police...?"

Megan tilted her head to get a better look at the other two and said, "If it is, they ain't no police force I ever heard of."

"What do we do?" Molly whispered again.

Megan sighed and blew some loose hair out of her face. "Don't say anything and don't move. Maybe whoever it is'll just...go away."

So they remained still and waited. They waited for thirty seconds. Then for a full minute. Then longer. The minutes seemed to drag on for hours, and still the golden light persisted, something Danny was quick to point out.

"They're not goin' away, Megan."

"Really. I hadn't noticed." Megan began to move again, or more like she forced her body to move. By now she was sweating from the sudden panic, and freezing in place for so long hadn't done much good for her muscles. She pushed herself forward and she cautiously gazed out of the front window. She heard Danny and Molly follow close behind, felt Molly's hands on her shoulders and could see the telltale flash of Danny's red hair enter her peripheral vision. But she paid them no mind, for she could see outside, and she could see it clearly.

Her eyes widened when she saw what was making the golden light, an ethereal sigil, placed on the ground only several feet away from the front porch, on the lawn. She couldn't see what it was, but she could see the aurora rising from it, and in that moment, she felt her heart become gripped with a mixture of fear, shock, and hope; it sapped her courage as much as it made her want to go outside.

"What the hell is that...?" Danny asked, breaking the silence.

"...I dunno, but it looks like bad news to me. At least it's not the police, though. I think," she said half-heartedly.

Danny groaned and rolled his eyes. "I could've told you that," he said. "The real question is, what is it doing here and how do we get rid of it?" Molly only shrugged with a worried grimace on her face, which prompted Danny to look down at Megan. "Well, sis, what do you-woah, shit!"

Almost too fast to react to, Megan shot upright, nearly pitching Danny off his feet, and she gripped the window frame with every ounce of strength she could muster and pulled. The pane came up to the sound of the squealing of rusty hinges and once it was open as wide as it could go, Megan practically shot through it like a bullet and out into the yard. Danny kept yelling while Molly cried Megan's name and ran out after her as quickly as possible. Danny was the last one to squeeze through the window and join them gathered around the strange sigil.

It was made of golden light, as mentioned, with two rings, one on the inside, one forming the outer barrier. In between them were strange symbols and smaller sigils with looping lines, written all around the edge. Megan, Danny, and Molly only stared at it, and they kept staring, trying to understand its form and function, until Danny said, "Okay, does anyone have any idea of what we're looking at right now?"

"Not a clue," Molly replied smalley.

"Gotta be some kind of practical joke," he murmured. "...But I dunno who'd be pranking us."

Megan tilted her head and wrinkled her nose. "I doubt it. There's no way someone spent this much time creating something this elaborate. Besides, who do we even know would do this?"

Another moment of silence, briefly disturbed when Molly muttered, "Oh my God."

Danny asked, "Well...assuming this isn't a joke, what the hell do those symbols say?"

Megan shook her head a bit and replied, "This shit might as well be Greek to me, but...God, I dunno. I mean, if you squint at it, it looks like letters, and it looks like it says...'Reach out to ones left behind, the friendships forged and promises kept. History keeps them no longer enshrined, but the threads of magic never forget."

"Oh, my God..."

Danny's gaze hardened, but he couldn't harden it enough for the curiosity to stop shining through. "...I dunno, Megan. This sounds really sketchy."

Megan picked up her head, and Danny met her gaze only to shrink slightly when he saw her doing something she only used to do when they were teens: glaring at him with the intensity of a dying star. "Then you'll have to forgive me if I am making a Faustian deal, but this is too crazy to just let slide." Before he could react and reach out to stop her, Megan took one confident step forward and into the circle.

The effect was immediate, and majestic.

The circle flared to life again, casting its light in every direction. It intensified and seemed to lift itself off the ground while still remaining parallel to it, and it began to spin around Megan's body. She could only look at it and watch in awe as the sigil spun faster until it became a ring of solid yellow light that raised itself over her head and then straightened up, now perpendicular with the ground. Then, it stopped, yet still remained a ring of solid light. It was still for less than a second before another beam of light shot out of it, dissolving the ring and turning it into a living aurora that surged forward, toward the edge of the cliff, and the Williams siblings watched with wide eyes as the light began to change shape and reform into something new that climbed away, out into the air, shifting and building something. The yellow light split into new forms, until it had created something new and more beautiful than it once was. The light died down once more, and allowed the three others to glimpse its beauty, but only Megan found the words to speak, even though they weren't above a whisper.

"...The Rainbow Bridge...?"

But this was no Rainbow Bridge. Not anymore. Instead, it was a massive stairway, with handrails of solid granite dyed golden yellow, and the steps were made of multicolored stained glass that were transparent near the center, but outlined in color that led up to a massive pillar of bright yellow light on a marble platform that hung in midair. Ionic columns with half a domed roof surrounded a pillar of light in its center that extended up, up, beyond their eyesight, into the night sky. It burned and convulsed and twisted, raw power forcibly being held in check by...whatever had brought the stairway there. All the while, the Williams siblings stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at the arcane monolith before them; and Megan couldn't speak for Molly and Danny, but she felt her chest ache and her heart leaped for joy for reasons she could not define.

After what felt like days condensed into several seconds, Danny finally cried, "No way. No way, no fucking way!" His words went from barely a whisper to near screaming.

"Oh my God," Molly choked out. "Oh my God, this isn't happening. I'm dreaming. I...I passed out at the wheel and I crashed and I'm dead and there's no way this is actually happening."

Megan, however, said nothing. She only stared up at the arcane structure, throwing light into the night sky for several seconds before a thought entered her mind. It was a word. A simple word. A harmless word. A word that would change her life again.

Go.

Without any more hesitation, she went.

Megan ran forward, toward the prismatic steps, and launched herself up two at a time, while Danny and Molly looked on in fear, and Danny called, "Megan, what the hell are you doing!? Stop!"

She didn't stop, obviously. Megan barely heard Danny over the sound of the roaring, crackling energies being launched into the sky as she passed the halfway point of the stairs and her brother and sister only watched, until Molly, still wide-eyed and unblinking, took one hesitant step forward and then launched herself after Megan, which was met with Danny yelling, "Molly, what—stop! What are you..." He trailed off when he realized words weren't going to cut it, and instead groaned and turned around, smacked himself in the head with both his fists to psyche himself up, and then turned back around and ran after his sisters.

Danny and Molly had made it almost all the way to the last few steps when Megan managed to touch the platform at the end. She tried to stop, but the golden light ended up pulling her forward as if it had it's own gravity well, and far enough that as soon as she entered the pillar of light proper, she didn't hit the arched ceiling as she felt solid the ground disappear from under her, and could see the structure around suddenly drop. Megan blinked a couple times and looked around to find that she could see the surrounding countryside through wisps of a yellow aurora. The treetops, other ranches, and the dirt roads were all made clear, and the horizon line was far lower than before. Her eyes widened and she looked down to see Molly and Danny directly below her, and further down, the rainbow stairway. It was slowly dissolving into thin air, but Megan didn't care about that; all she knew was that right now, she and her siblings were flying. Molly was right below her and Danny further down, but both were staring back up at her. Molly blinked a couple times before she finally smiled up at Megan, and she smiled back and flashed her sister a thumbs-up. Megan could even make out a small grin forming on Danny's face.

"So!" Molly yelled. "Do you know where this thing's taking us...?"

"Honestly? No clue. But I've got a couple guesses...!" Megan called back.

The earth below kept retreating, further and further, until all three of them passed through a cloud and kept rising. Megan heard Molly laugh and couldn't help but chuckle herself. They kept flying up into the night until Megan realized the light did in fact end at a point, or at least, that's what it looked like to her: a bright sun-like ball of light above them, and coming up fast. Megan shut her eyes tightly as the light intensified and swallowed her, and then she quickly felt gravity release its grip on her for only a second before it latched back on and reasserted itself by dragging her down. After she felt the wind start to rush by her, she decided it was safe enough to open her eyes and she found herself surrounded not by a night sky, but clear blue skies and bright sunlight...sort of. The vista she could see from thousands of miles up in the air was half day, half dusk. Megan turned her head around to see, in addition to the large stretches of grassland all around them, there was a forest to the south and mountains directly to the northeast. They were descending past one that towered over all the rest and on it, was a medieval city complete with a fortress-keep that towered over the rest. That's a nice looking castle, Megan thought. She looked around a bit more and saw that Danny and Molly's positions had been rearranged as well, and all three of them were now almost side by side as they descended; if Molly's smile were any indication, they were doing okay, which allowed Megan to sigh in relief.

"Hey, Megan?" Danny began.

She turned her head. "...Yeah?"

"Prepare for landing." Megan frowned a bit before she looked down. She could see some sort of hamlet directly under them, and coming up fast. Her eyes widened again and she grit her teeth, along with Molly and Danny when they saw how close the ground was getting.

A split second later, a loud, thundering explosion rang out, and Megan, Danny, and Molly all felt themselves hit solid ground. There were aftershocks coursing through their bodies, but oddly, none of them felt worse for wear; perhaps some leftover adrenaline, but no broken bones, no twisted ankles, nothing. Megan opened her eyes and stood herself up from a kneeling position and she saw they had landed on a structure that, from the inside, looked exactly the same as the one that had appeared to them on the farm, though the mini-forum they were in was surrounded by some sort of misty smoke that obscured anything beyond the columns and the first two stairs. "Well, Toto, we're definitely not in Kansas anymore..." she quipped dryly.

Molly stood up next and looked around at the structure in awe, and Megan glanced back to ask, "Molly, you good?"

She didn't answer for a second, still obviously consumed in wonder, but eventually she whispered, "Huh...? Oh, um, yeah, I'm fine."

They both heard someone start coughing hard enough to hack up a lung and spun around as Danny slowly picked himself up off the ground. "Hack, hurgh, augh...! Wow! Dusty," he said.

Megan rolled her eyes and turned back to the stairway when she noticed the smoke around them becoming thinner. "Guys..." Danny and Molly glanced up at her and saw Megan walk toward the stairs and followed quickly, and once they were at the top, the smoke began to dissipate.

The first thing they saw were the thatched rooftops. Homey, simple, but nothing to write home about. Then, the saw figures, standing on the ground at the foot of the stairway, dozens of them. Something looked familiar, something about their statures, something about their shapes. Then, the smoke thinned out completely.

Molly's pupils shrunk and she quickly placed her hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Danny's eyes went wide, too, but he was stuck staring, too dumbfounded to say or do anything. Megan could only stare in awe as well. There were ponies. Dozens of them. None they had seen before, or could pick out of the crowd, but they were there. They existed. But were they illusions? Figments of a mind deluded by childish fantasies? Megan didn't rightly care at the moment. She knew something had changed. She knew she might not like what it was. But she knew she was home.

Mustering all the composure she could without spontaneously bursting into tears, Megan breathed in and slowly took a step down the stairway. They were all watching her, the little ponies, and she could feel Danny and Molly's eyes on her back too. But she had to be strong; if not for herself, for them. Step by step, she marched down to the ground, where she could get a better look at the ponies waiting for her. Danny glanced at Molly and placed a reassuring arm around her neck. "Hey...come on," he whispered. He took a step forward, following Megan, and Molly followed suit, though she never took her hands away from her mouth. "That's it. Baby steps."

They followed Megan, who continued to gingerly walk down the stairs, never once taking her eyes off the ponies. They were almost exactly as she remembered, though their faces looked a bit different; the muzzles weren't as pronounced, their eyes were slightly bigger. They were watching her, too, shock and confusion written all over their faces. Megan tried to ignore them without appearing disinterested. All she knew was that she and her siblings had been called here, and even she wasn't sure if it was still the Ponyland she remembered or somewhere else, she knew it wasn't for tea and biscuits.

Maybe.

Before she could speak up herself, a pony pushed her way out of the crowd, light purple and sporting not only a horn, but a pair of pegasus wings as well. Said pony froze when she saw Megan and seemed to blank for a moment before she cleared her throat and said, "Uh...H-hello! I'm Princess...Princess Twilight Sparkle," as she took a bow.

Megan needed a couple seconds to register what was happening before she smiled warmly and bowed in turn. "A pleasure to meet you, princess," she said. "I'm Megan Williams, and these two..." She trailed off and turned around to look at her siblings as they made their way down and continued, "Are my brother and sister. That's Danny, and that's Molly." Danny looked up and smiled lightly as he waved; Molly waved too, once she slowly removed her hands from over her mouth, and the two of them joined Megan.

"It's nice to meet you, Megan!" Twilight was quickly warming up to the three of them, helped by the fact that they didn't seem overtly hostile. She glanced back at the crowd and added, "Oh, I should probably introduce my friends. That might help, uh..." She looked down to see Spike walk up to her side, and she quickly knelt down and put a hand on his head. "Well, first of all, this is my assistant, Spike."

Megan, Danny, and Molly's faces went nearly white, and Megan put a hand in front of her mouth. "...Spike...?" she whispered hoarsely.

This, understandably, didn't go unnoticed, and both Twilight and Spike glanced up at them; Spike looked both confused and weirded out. "Uh...yeah. That's my name. Is something wrong with that...?" he asked slowly.

Megan stood there, her mouth open slightly for a minute before she realized that Spike probably didn't remember her for some reason, and she blinked a couple times to clear the mist from her eyes. She coughed into her fist and croaked, "I...no. It's nothing. I'm okay."

Twilight glanced behind her just in time to see a couple ponies push through the crowd behind her, and she turned back around to say, "Okay, so this is Applejack and Rainbow Dash..."

Applejack tipped her stetson and only said, "Howdy." Rainbow Dash only winked and flashed a peace sign. Megan waited for Applejack to say something about why she and her brother and sister were there, but as the seconds passed, it became obvious that Applejack didn't remember her either. Or maybe, this one was different than the one Megan knew; she shivered, but tried to ignore the sensation. Another pony appeared behind Applejack but remained in her shadow, trying to hide. "And that's Fluttershy. She's actually much braver than she lets on," Twilight said.

Fluttershy peeked around Applejack, but kept most her her face hidden behind her mane. It wasn't enough for Molly not to notice her and quickly place her hands over her heart. "Oh my God, look at you," she cooed. "You're so cute!"

Danny snorted and rolled his eyes. "Molly, I know you've got a weakness for cute stuff, but c'mon, they're all cute. No reason to go gaga over one."

Fluttershy only squeaked and hid behind Applejack again as Twilight chuckled. Another pony left the crowd, and Twilight turned to face her and said, "This is Rarity..."

Rarity smiled at the Williams and made a graceful bow. "Charmed."

"Alright, so that leaves—"

Twilight got cut off as a pink-colored pony spontaneously appeared from behind Megan's back and hopped around to the front and yelled, "Hi...! I'm Pinkie Pie! And you must be the super-powerful heroes Twilight called for! That's awesome!" She paused long enough to gasp loudly and exclaim, "Ohmygosh, that means I gotta throw you a Welcome-To-Ponyville Party! And a Huge-Hero-Homecoming Party! Ooh! I'll combine'em! It'll be a 'Superhero-Social-Soiree-Supreme!'"

No sooner had Pinkie finished and started to jump up and down happily than Danny cried, "Megan!? Megan, oh my God, she's just like Surprise, oh my God, my heart! Aaaargh...!" He then feigned agony as he grit his teeth and doubled over, clutching his chest.

Megan rolled her eyes and looked down at him. "Danny, there's literally no reason to gaga over one cute thing, they're all cute." She sighed and looked up at Twilight and continued, "Ignore him. He's a total drama queen."

"Hey...!"

Megan only laughed, along with Molly, Twilight and other other girls, until a silence fell over them. Eventually, Twilight's nervous facade fell a bit and she coughed into her fist and declared, "So! We, uh, have a lot to talk about! And you probably have questions!" She chuckled nervously but turned around and gestured for the Williams and her friends to follow her. "Come on, everypony! To the library!"





The walk to the library was uneventful, though they were followed by some of the more curious ponies in town, mostly the younger folk, but they dispersed when Twilight told them she needed to talk to them privately (though not without disappointed sighs). The Mane Six led the way into Golden Oaks, and once inside, Danny immediately ran over to a couple beanbags they'd left out and threw himself down on one. Molly continued to talk with Fluttershy, as she had done on the way over; she hadn't made much progress at first, but once she mentioned she was a veterinarian...

"...And then there was Rufus. Oh, you should have met him! He was this big Saint Bernard with deep yellow eyes, and he was the friendliest dog I've ever worked with! And that's saying something!" she said.

"Oh, he sounds wonderful!" Fluttershy exclaimed. "I...just wish I knew what a 'Saint Bernard' looked like..."

Molly blinked a couple times, unsure if Fluttershy meant she'd never seen a Saint Bernard or if this world didn't even have them, but decided to quickly rectify the situation. "Hold on a moment," she said as she reached into her pocket and fished out her phone. She turned it on and noticed first thing that she had no cell phone or Wi-Fi reception; in hindsight, it wasn't hard to believe.

"...What is that?" Fluttershy muttered.

Molly glanced back at her, then to her hand and reassured her, "Oh, it's just my phone. You don't have phones here...?"

"Oh, we do," Fluttershy said. "But...but not like, um...that. Does it even...work?"

Molly shrugged. "Well, it makes calls, sends emails, plays games, so I'd like to think it works." Judging by her face alone, Molly could see Fluttershy didn't understand cell phones, but Molly sighed and said, "Y'know what, just don't worry about it." Moving on, she navigated to her photos and brought up the albums she had saved and moved to "Good Boys," and once she tapped it, scrolled up a bit until she found a photo of the table in one of the rooms. There was a Saint Bernard on it, large even by breed standards. "There he is."

Fluttershy's eyes widened a bit, but then she clasped her hands together and smiled. "Oh my goodness, he's so beautiful," she whispered. Molly couldn't help but smile.

Megan, on the other hand, made her way to the bookshelves and searched through them; once she found the "H" section, she combed each line carefully for anything marked with "history," and eventually found an anthology of sorts, which she removed from the shelf and began to flip through absentmindedly. She looked for words and names she remembered: "Dream Valley," "Princess Starburst," "Tambelon," "Buttons," "Paradise Estate," Megan searched for them all, but...nothing. She sighed and put the book away before she turned around and clapped her hands gently. "So," she said to no one in particular, "where are we, exactly?"

"This is Equestria!" Twilight replied cheerfully. "And specifically, you're all in my home, Golden Oaks Library!"

Equestria. Megan brought her hand up to her chin and started to rub it. Sounds a bit more elegant than Ponyland, I guess.

After a couple minutes of silence, Rainbow Dash decided she had enough of waiting around, as usual, and asked, "So, I think we gotta ask the question that's definitely one everypony's mind...just what the hay are you?" as she gestured to Megan, Danny, and Molly.

"...I think names have already been established," Danny said.

"I think she means our species," Megan retorted. "We're humans, Rainbow. From Earth." She searched the others' faces for any semblance of recognition, but they all stared at her as if expecting something else from her. "...Not...ringing any bells?"

"...No."

Her face fell, and Megan sighed. "I see." Megan dragged herself over to a chair at the table and sat down without another word, head held in her hands.

Rarity, however, could sense something was wrong, and quickly walked over to her. "Megan, dear..." She glanced up from the table and saw Rarity leaning over, both palms planted firmly on its surface. "When Twilight introduced us, I couldn't help but notice that you seemed...distressed when she introduced Spike." The dragon grinned and puffed his chest out upon being recognized. "And then," she continued, "when you met Applejack, you were staring at her just a tad longer than what I would believe as normal. Is there...something we are missing?"

In that instant, Megan was suddenly seized with fear. Not only was she looking at the uncomfortable options of telling all of them she and her brother and sister had been here before, or at least someplace like it, but that would bring up the consequences of telling them; how would they react, hearing that the three of them had seen ponies that might not exist here? Had they been gone for decades? Centuries? Was Equestria even the same place as Ponyland? All of them swirled around in Megan's head until she heard Rarity' voice again. "...Miss Megan? Are you all right?"

She looked up into Rarity's eyes and knew she could sense the sadness in her own, but quickly stood up and took a deep breath to prepare herself for talking. She opened her mouth ,but found the words came from someone else. "We've been here before." Megan opened her eyes, and she along with everyone else in the room looked over at Danny. He was holding a set of kazoos, and Pinkie was standing in front of him. Despite this, his face was completely stoic. "Or at least...we've been through this experience before," he corrected himself. "Megan disappeared one night, leaving me and Molly worried sick. Then she comes back the next morning and tells us she got abducted by a pegasus and killed a demon with the power of sunshine and rainbows."

"...Did she?" Fluttershy asked.

"Yeah, she did!" Molly exclaimed. "She marched up a dark and gloomy castle with a bunch of her friends and used the Rainbow of Light to blow that jerk to smithereens, freeing a prince and all of Ponyland with it!"

"I thought she was nuts," Danny said. "But not even two days later, who do I see coming down from the sky like angels decreeing I should shut the hell up? Wind Whistler and Northstar!" He threw his hands into the air for emphasis and then glanced around at all the eyes looking at him. "Those names not familiar?"

The others all shared confused glances and Twilight said, "N...No. I don't even think they've been mentioned historically."

"So you don't even know...Buttons? Firefly? Lickety-Split? Heart Throb?" Molly asked.

"Yeah, I've never heard of anypony with those names," Rainbow Dash replied before she glanced at Danny. "But I've heard of Surprise. She's part of the Wonderbolts and..." She trailed off, and then started to chuckle as she pointed at Danny. "You think Pinkie is just like her...? It'd be funny if it wasn't so scary since you said you'd been here before."

"But it's so cool you got to go on a big, adventurous adventure! What happened next? What happened next?" Pinkie interrupted as she jumped onto Danny's back.

As Danny stumbled and tried not to fall over, Megan breathed in and said, "Well...we decided to stay, after we beat a bunch of evil witches. But then, after a couple months, the three of us went to bed one night and when we woke up..." She swallowed. "We were back at home. And Applejack and Spike look...exactly like two of the old friends I remembered," she said as she looked over at Applejack herself, who looked halfway between skeptical and stoic. "The only differences were that...well, I don't remember the Applejack I know wearing a stetson." Everyone went quiet again as they let Megan's words sink in, until, finally, Megan herself got fed up with wallowing in the silence of self-pity. "Anyway, that...that was then. This is now," she said as she looked over at Twilight. "That just leaves me with one question."

Twilight blinked a couple times and tried to hide the shock on her face with a small smile. "Oh, of course! What is it?"

"Why are we here?"

Twilight's expression immediately soured, and she grimaced as she lowered her gaze toward the ground. She opened her mouth slowly, but no words came out for a minute before she finally found her voice again. "This morning..." she murmured, "I woke up and found the sun and moon up in the sky at the same time. It...it only does that if Princess Celestia and Luna are in danger, since they control both of them. But I sent a letter asking them what was wrong, and when I got it back, the guards said...they said Celestia and Luna were gone!"

"So that's why the lighting outside's fucked," Danny muttered to himself.

"So I designed a spell that would seek out high concentrations of mana, and pick the most powerful one to bring back to help us. And it picked you," she finished.

Megan, Molly, and Danny were dead silent, and shared a quick, nervous glance with each other. None of them seemed willing to tell Twilight the truth for several minutes before Molly swallowed the lump in her throat and stepped forward. "Twilight?"

Twilight turned to look at her, and then pivoted in place. Her face was mostly neutral, but seemed anxious for what Molly would say; Molly herself didn't know if she could read her mind, but she supposed it didn't matter anyway. "Your spell...It didn't...well, it's kinda flawed," she said. "We're not...powerful sorcerers. We can't use any kind of magic, and the only thing we had that could work...the Rainbow of Light...it disappeared the night we came back from Ponyland." She looked over at Megan to confirm, and she nodded sadly. "So...I'm sorry, but we're not the powerful mana-wielders you were looking for."

Silence descended again, for what felt like ages. No one talked, they barely even moved; even Pinkie's mane seemed to deflate a bit. Then, finally, Applejack spoke up. "Well...y'all might think that, but maybe that spell didn't mess up. Maybe, even if ya can't sling spells around like Twi here, it knew we jus' needed some help, and maybe it had ta come from folks who ain't from around here," she theorized.

Megan sighed dejectedly and replied, "Listen, Applejack, I appreciate the sentiment, but...but we're not the same kids who crossed over to this world all those years ago...if this even is the same place as before."

"A-actually," Twilight interrupted. Everyone looked over at her as she continued, "I didn't put any other kind of targeting precepts in that spell, and magic behaves under a certain set of rules, but more often than not, it bends those rules by itself, as if it's...I don't know, sentient. It's hard to explain, but if you say you've had experience with us...with our world before...then I doubt it brought you here out of sheer coincidence." It took a couple seconds to process those words, but it made...something burn in Megan's chest. Despite all that, Twilight was smiling at her. "So what do you think? Will you help us?"

She didn't make a sound, and Twilight's words hung in the air for a moment. And Megan thought.

When she ran up those steps, she had hoped to see all her old friends again, but looking back, that was a rather...childish notion. How could she have expected nothing to change? This wasn't some children's television show that had the same plots and the same characters running around, solving all of life's little problems. And yet, with everything she knew gone, something had remained. She didn't know what; it wasn't something she could see, but she could feel it, something in the air that soothed her. She wondered if Molly and Danny could feel it, too. Megan closed her eyes and thought a little deeper, and then, came to a realization: even if things were different, it was obvious the little ponies needed her. Needed them. Again. "...Molly?"

She glanced up at her sister, and her gaze asked the only question she needed to answer, and Molly nodded vigorously in response. A grin slowly spread across Megan's face before she glanced the other way and asked, "Danny?"

Danny's stoic expression dropped in an instant and he crossed his arms. "Hmph. Like you have to ask," he scoffed.

She looked from her brother to the faces arrayed around her, from Twilight's glimmering eyes to Rarity nodding in approval and Pinkie bouncing in place with a smile wide enough that she could probably use her teeth as a mirror. Megan didn't know them, and they didn't know her. The Ponyland she knew was gone, but that didn't mean she hadn't forgotten it. Somehow, it felt like that place hadn't forgotten her, either.

"Alright," Megan said, "let's go."