One week of searching, and we turned up absolutely nothing. Somehow the girls had made time to finish their finals, but even now with entire days to search, there was not a single trace of anything remotely magical. I was ready to give up and go back to Equestria, but there was no way I could abandon a mission I had undertaken from Princess Celestia’s direct order. There was likely still some time left before Discord gave up, though I imagine before that happened the Princess would send Twilight here to ultimately save the day, as usual. No way would I face the shame of returning to request she deal with this. No way in Tartarus.
Thankfully Applejack was able to take me in while I was here. The apple farm was not much different than in Equestria, which was a nice change of pace from the town and its… cars. And I thought Manehattan’s streets were loud and busy. We still regularly met up at Pinkie’s house though, trying to map out where we had searched already and where to search next. At this point we were only searching on the outskirts of town, which is where something finally occurred to me.
“It’s in Hollow Shades!” I exclaimed, startling Fluttershy who was my searching partner this morning. “Sorry. Can you call the others and tell them to meet back at Pinkie’s? I think I know where the entity is.”
Fluttershy looked anxious, but she quickly started calling the others on her phone as we made our way back into town. Such an interesting little device. If anything came close to magic, that was it. Probably not something we could defeat the entity with though.
Everyone seemed anxious when we finally got together. I didn’t spare a moment to explain. “This world isn’t a parallel one to Equestria, but it’s very close. There’s a Celestia in my world and one here, and the same goes for Twilight’s friends and Canterlot. So obviously there are a number of things that are parallel, in a way, and when the entity escaped my sword, it was in a place called Hollow Shades. Do any of you know if there’s somewhere in this world called that?”
They all began thinking, but Applejack was the first to speak up.
“I think I know where you’re talking about,” she said, then hesitated. “It’s… a ways off, and not the kind of place to visit casually.”
“Sounds about right,” I said. “How long will it take to get there?”
“The bus takes two hours to get there. If we leave now and find that magical entity, barring any horrible disasters, we should be back before dark, and you can return to Equestria tomorrow.”
“Alright, let’s do it. Whatever you all think you’ll need, get it quick. I’ve got a feeling we’ll be finding this monster today.”
Roughly twenty minutes later, we were all on a bus headed for Hollow Shades. Buses were a sort of car, so Sunset told me, but they seemed more like miniature trains to me. No rails, but the with the way people drove these things, roads may as well have been rails. Much bumpier rails.
Sunset Shimmer sat next to me. We chatted about Equestria and what had changed since Sunset was exiled; not much it turns out, but Sunset was amazed at some of the more major events, such as Discord’s first appearance, then his reform, and other seemingly world-ending events that Twilight and her friends had stopped. I left out any amount of my involvement, since it mostly consisted of failure. I was done remembering my failures. This trip was going to be my first real success, the first time I was the one who saved Equestria. Sure I had the help of Twilight’s friends in this world, but ultimately it was going to be me who stopped the entity.
Me. Only me. My problem, my responsibility.
“Hey, can I ask you something a bit… weird?” Sunset said.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Weird? Well, me answering will depend on how weird the question is.”
“Probably not that weird, but, ever since I learned the truth about friendship, I’ve had all these questions about it. Twilight’s friends have helped answer a lot of them, but not all. I’m just curious if you might have some different insight that might help, being a Royal Guard and all.”
“Insight? About friendship in general?”
Sunset nodded. “Everyone still has a hard time of accepting me after… what I did. What would you do in my position?”
I snorted. “I’d say you’re asking the wrong guard. But honestly, I’d do exactly what you’re doing right now; something that actually matters. Friends are great, but most of them aren’t around when you really need them. You’re lucky to not have that problem with these girls. So what if the rest of the humans at that school aren’t accepting of you? It’s just pointless work to try changing them. If you’ve already changed yourself, they’ll see that on their own eventually. Don’t waste your time or theirs trying to force it.”
“Wow. Is that something you had to go through too?”
“No, I just have a good idea of what’s worth spending time on. Being a Royal Guard does that. But like I said, you’re asking the wrong guard, so take that with a grain of salt.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m not like Twilight; I don’t have close friends that are always around or ready to be there when I need them.”
“Come on, you must have some friends if you’re a Lieutenant of the Royal Guard.”
“Well sure, I have friends, but not like how Twilight has friends. She makes it look easy, always off saving Equestria all the time with the help of her friends. You know how many times I tried to save Equestria from the exact same things they faced? Every time, and there was always something that stopped me, whether because I was too slow, or I was fighting alone, or I was sent away to let Twilight handle the problem. This is the first time Equestria has truly been in my… well, hands right now, but you understand, I can’t fail this time. This is my chance to finally prove myself. I won’t let Equestria or Princess Celestia down.”
Sunset looked confused. “Isn’t the job of a Royal Guard supposed to be defending the Princesses and Canterlot? How come you want to save Equestria so much?”
“Because I need to—” I stopped myself before I blurted make my father proud and disguised the pause as a fit of coughing. “Something caught in my throat, um…” I actually didn’t know the answer anymore, but I couldn’t just not give an answer, so I made one up. “Because I need to show that I can, and then maybe I’ll be promoted to Captain.”
Yeah, that sounded believable, and Sunset seemed to accept it. Our conversation died down from there, and all I could think about was why I still wanted to save Equestria so badly. I had derived that desire so much from wanting to please my father, but now that he was gone… what was the point? Saving Equestria had nothing to do with me wanting praise or acceptance or recognition from anypony but him. Maybe it was just my sense of duty, that because of past failures I owed it to Equestria to save it for once, despite never having needed to even try. Well, that sounded true enough; I did feel like I owed Equestria something.
“So, what’s the plan when we arrive?” Sunset asked, and the rest of the girls shifted their attention to me.
I looked between them all and grimaced. “First we have to find the entity. As for stopping it, I’m not sure.”
“I say we beat it into submission!” Rainbow Dash said, pounding a fist to an open palm.
“Maybe we could talk to it,” Fluttershy said. “What if it’s not an evil magic monster after all?”
“Judging from what the Lieutenant’s told us, I doubt that,” Applejack said. “We should try to capture it. Maybe if we can send it back to Equestria by force, he can deal with it there with his magic.”
“Or we could shoot a magic rainbow laser at it like we did to Sunset Shimmer when she was a raging she-demon!” Pinkie said.
“You what?” I blurted. “You all have used magic?”
“Not exactly I would say,” Rarity said. “It was mostly Twilight who started it, but she said that it was the magic of friendship uniting us together that let us defeat… erm, save, Sunset.”
“It was all of us together with Twilight,” Applejack said. “I don’t know if we could do it again without her.”
“I think we could,” Sunset said. “Twilight said the magic of friendship exists in both Equestria and this world. Maybe, if we all work together as friends, we can stop the entity and trap it back in Swordulan’s sword.”
I nodded slowly, thinking. As far as using magic went, this sounded like the best bet, though I had never experienced using the magic of friendship. I had no idea how to direct it or anything, but perhaps it would just come to me in the moment. Or it would all be handled by the girls.
Well…
…
“Let’s try,” I said. “We have to be willing to do anything to stop this thing. Who knows how much damage it could cause both of our worlds? The magic of friendship it is.”
“Good, because it looks like we’re here,” Applejack said.
Looking out the window, it definitely looked like the area surrounding Hollow Shades.