It took Rainbow a little longer than she would have liked to find a cloud that could suit their purposes. The sky hadn’t been particularly dense with the things, to begin with, and those few that were in the sky had already been used up in their efforts to replant the downed apple trees. Eventually, she was forced to take a trip back into Ponyville proper and head for the weather office.
Unfortunately, her adamant insistence to follow all the same rules and protocols as a typical weather team member meant that getting her desired clouds involved more than a healthy amount of bureaucracy— a fact she was seriously lamenting as she waited patiently for Thunderlane to fill out another piece of parchment.
“Ugh, could you hurry it up?” Rainbow asked with a snort of impatience. “My friends are waiting for me.”
Thunderlane shot her a look. He briefly set down his pen and raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you just give me an order?” he asked bluntly. “If you’re in such a hurry, you can pull rank.”
“I can, yeah,” Rainbow said, unable to suppress a shudder. “But you know how much I hate doing that, especially with mundane crud like this.”
Thunderlane shrugged. “Well, then you get to go through the paperwork like everypony else,” he said with a small smirk before leaning down to pick up the pen again.
Rainbow groaned in frustration, burying her face in her hooves. The more time she wasted here, the more likely it was that Twilight and Applejack would move on, and given Twilight’s condition when last she saw her, Rainbow was not keen on leaving her side for too long.
Especially given the nightmare Twilight had gone through. Rainbow’s brow furrowed. Twilight hadn’t spoken a word of it, but Rainbow could tell that whatever it was she had experienced, it was deeply, deeply unsettling. She knew the feeling—far more intimately than she cared to admit—and imagining Twilight dealing with it right now set her senses on edge.
She began to walk in place, tapping her hooves anxiously on the floor as she waited for Thunderlane to finish the necessary paperwork. Finally, he leaned back, offering her a reprieve, as he read off what was on the sheet. “Okay, so, in summary, you want to procure a bundle of ten small rainclouds, stated purpose being to help Applejack replant what was torn up during the, er, ‘incident’ a ways back. All that sound about right?”
“Yes!” Rainbow half-shouted, leaning forward. “Please, can I just take my white fluff and go now?!”
Thunderlane jumped slightly in surprise. He looked at her critically, searching her for something. Whatever he found, it seemed to concern him. His earlier teasing look gave way to a frown. “...Sure. Just sign the paper and-”
Rainbow snatched the sheet the moment it was held out to her. As quickly as she could, she signed her name in the marked boxes and passed the sheet back to Thunderlane. “Ugh, finally! Thanks, Lane!” she said, flashing him a small smile. She didn’t wait for him to say anything, though, and instead turned to dart outside. She knew where to get the clouds already, and at this point, she was willing to skip a step and fetch them herself.
After procuring her needed clouds, she took to the air and shot back for Sweet Apple Acres. She pushed the clouds in front of her, partially obscuring her view and protecting her from the wind. She took the chance to breathe, allowing the sound of rushing air and the softness of the clouds to calm her anxious mind.
Ponyville beneath her gradually thinned out, and soon enough she had returned to the sprawling orchards around the farm. She slowed her pace at this point, her eyes sweeping this way and that for any sign of where she had left the others. She soon found one of the spots where they had been before, judging by the signs of freshly moved dirt and the tracks left by Big Mac’s wagon.
She followed the path, spotting more signs of the group’s earlier passage. As she went, though, something began to feel off. She frowned, slowing to a halt.
“...Huh?” she asked out loud, her eyes narrowing in confusion. She was flying right over where Twilight, Applejack, and Big Mac had last been when she left. Under normal circumstances, she might have assumed that they just moved on without her—and indeed, for a moment, she figured that was the case.
But then she saw the wagon, with no sign of Big Mac. The mess of splintered scraps of wood from Twilight’s earlier breakdown had only partially been cleaned up, and no hole for planting had been dug. A deep, dark sense of foreboding began to fill Rainbow, pooling in her gut like a puddle of poison. She quickly descended, bringing her clouds along for the ride.
“Yo, AJ!” she called out once her hooves touched the ground. “Where are ya?! Twi? Big Mac, c’mon!”
There was no answer. Growing increasingly concerned, Rainbow released her hold on the clouds and nudged them to one side with her hind leg. They’d get caught in a tree or something and she could grab them later. For now, she looked around the scene, her lips drawn back into a thin, suspicious line.
As she surveyed the scene, she caught sight of tracks in the dirt. She eyed them carefully. These were definitely Applejack and Big Mac’s prints. One set was larger than the other, and both had torn and broken the earth as they went. Had they been galloping? If so, why? She followed the tracks with her eyes. They went deeper into the orchard, in the direction of the Everfree Forest.
Rainbow swallowed heavily, her wings ruffling against her sides. She quickly stored the clouds under a tree and then sped off after her friends, following the tracks they had left in their wake as quickly as she could. The sense of unease she felt only grew worse the farther she ran, and she began to grow concerned for Twilight. She thought back on how tired and distraught she had been all day long, and her breath hitched as, for just a moment, the image of Midnight flickered into her memory.
She shook her head to banish the notion. “No! No, that’s ridiculous. Twilight wasn’t anywhere near upset enough for that to happen. She’s fine. They’re fine. They must have just gotten distracted or something. Everfree fruit bats chomping on AJ’s apples, maybe?”
It was the only explanation she could think of that made sense. Applejack was excessively protective of her crop. Understandable, given it was her family’s entire livelihood. But still… Something about the explanation rang false in her mind.
After about two minutes of running, she came to the border of the orchard and the Everfree. She slid to a stop, gasping for breath, and took in the scene. She saw Applejack and Big Mac, both of them appearing anxious and confused, standing before the splintered ruins of an everfree tree. It had been felled partway up the trunk, the wood having exploded outward in an uneven pattern.
But there was no sign of Twilight.
The anxiety was growing steadily worse. Rainbow stepped into the clearing, her ears drooping. “AJ!” she called out, drawing the farmer’s attention.
Applejack turned to Rainbow with a start, then offered her a worried frown. “Rainbow… There ya are.”
“Yeah, here I am,” Rainbow replied, looking at the felled tree in confusion. “What happened here? Where’s Twilight?”
Applejack flinched, her ears drooping. She looked away after a second, her eyes darting this way and that. “Ah, uh… Ah dunno, Dash.”
Alarm bells rang in Rainbow’s mind. She marched closer to Applejack, her heart quickening. “What do you mean you don’t know?” she parroted incredulously. “She was with you, wasn’t she?”
“She ran off!” Applejack said, taking a step back. “She ran off, we heard an explosion, came here and- And she was gone! This was all we found!”
Rainbow’s mind blanked. She mouthed like a fish for several seconds as she hunted for words. Eventually, she clamped her jaw shut and eyed the fallen remains of the tree, her anxiety increasing rapidly. “What do you mean, ran off? Why? What happened?” she asked, taking a second to lower her voice and calm down. Panicking would not help her right now.
Applejack took a moment to compose herself as well. She turned to the carnage. “After y’all flew off, Ah sat down with Twilight while Big Mac worked on clearin’ out the debris. Ah asked her what had been botherin’ her, lately, and she told me ‘bout how much she’s been upset with the princesses lately, and about how much it’s makin’ her angry that she can’t go home and see her parents…
“But then she said somethin’ real weird-like. Said that some nightmare she’d had weren’t a regular nightmare…”
Rainbow blinked, raising an eyebrow. “What in the heck does that mean?”
Applejack sighed and shook her head. “Ah dunno. Ah asked her to tell me, but it was like she couldn’t figure out how to say it. Kept openin’ her mouth and workin’ it, but she never got out anythin’ more than a shaky stutter. Suddenly, she just gets up and runs off, sayin’ she needed to be alone fer a minute to clear her head.”
More alarm bells. Rainbow turned back to Applejack, eyes wide. “And you let her?” she asked incredulously.
Applejack turned to Rainbow with a defensive look on her face. “Hey, now, don’t get on my case, Dash! Ah was just tryin’ to respect her privacy. Ah wanted to go after her, but it wasn’t my place to go chasin’ her down.”
Rainbow took a deep breath and let it out with a heavy sigh. “Okay… fair point,” she conceded. As likely as it was that she would have gone after Twilight without a moment of hesitation, she had the excuse of being Twilight’s partner and childhood friend. That was a luxury Applejack did not share. After a few seconds, Rainbow turned back to Applejack. “What then?”
Applejack sighed and shook her head. “Not a whole lot left to tell. Big Mac kept workin’ on clearin’ out the rubble and whatnot, and Ah helped him. We figured Twi’d come back once she’d had a chance to calm down and figure out what was what. But then we heard this big boom, and the sound of a fallin’ tree in the direction she’d been runnin’. We dropped everythin’ and chased after her, only when we got here, well…”
Applejack gestured vaguely at the scene before them. “This is all we found. Ah thought ah heard her just before we turned up, but she weren’t here after that. But… Dash…”
Rainbow’s blood ran cold when she saw the nervous look in Applejack’s eyes.
“It sounded like she was crying.”
A lump formed in Rainbow’s throat that stubbornly refused to go away when she swallowed. Her mind raced with a hundred questions, but no answers were forthcoming. What could have possibly upset Twilight enough that she would have been crying? And more than that, what could have set her off so fiercely that she would blow up a tree? Had she been attacked, and this was a remnant of her trying to defend herself? They were right up against the Everfree Forest, after all.
Still, that didn’t seem right. Ever since Twilight’s memories were restored, she was back to being the epic powerhouse of a mage that she had been ever since they were foals. It would take something pretty substantial to even remotely threaten Twilight as she was now. If she had been attacked, then the fallen tree was more likely evidence of the utter destruction of whatever had been dumb enough to jump an upset alicorn.
But that thought wasn’t any more comforting. Twilight hated fighting. She’d do it if she had to, and Rainbow recalled she was surprisingly good at it when it counted, but she’d avoid violence if at all possible. And even if it wasn’t, she’d still show restraint…
Rainbow growled and smacked herself in the forehead. “Guh! Darnit! We can’t just guess blindly in the dark! We don’t know enough!”
Applejack sighed. “Ah wish Ah knew what to tell ya, RD…”
“Eeyup,” Big Mac solemnly agreed, idly kicking at a loose stone.
The trio fell into an uncomfortable silence. Rainbow took the opportunity to look around for any more clues as to what had happened. There was precious little to find, aside from a spot where she could only assume Twilight had been standing. Her prints were in the dirt, seemingly stepping over themselves in one spot several times as if she had been turning in circles or running in place.
It was as Rainbow was trying to piece together what that could mean when, finally, a lead came to her. Literally. She felt a familiar tingling sensation on the tips of her ears. Her heart skipped a beat, and she looked up just in time for a tell-tale burst of green flames to erupt in the air in front of her face. She took a reflexive step back, squinting into the light.
A rolled-up sheet of parchment fell out of the smoke. Rainbow quickly reached out and caught it, her expression contorted with confusion. “Huh?”
“A letter from Spike?” Applejack asked as she trotted over. “Open ‘er up, let’s see what he’s gotta say.”
Rainbow wasted no time in doing just that, unrolling the sheet and looking at the contents, and reading them out loud.
Rainbow,
Twilight just came back to the library and locked herself in her room. She won’t open the door, and every time I knock she tells me to leave her alone. She sounds really upset. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s scaring me. You two didn’t have a fight, did you?
Whatever happened, please come back and help me sort this out as soon as you can. I’m really worried about her, and I don’t want a repeat of Canterlot.
-Spike.
Rainbow’s stomach twisted in on itself in her belly. That didn’t sound good, but at least now she knew where Twilight was. She turned back to Applejack. She opened her mouth to speak, but the farmer stopped her by holding up a hoof.
An understanding look was on Applejack’s face, and when she spoke, there was no room to argue with her voice. “Go to her.”
Rainbow opened her mouth to say something but quickly thought better of it. She passed the letter to Applejack before bending low, giving her wings a quick stretch, and then kicking off as hard as she could. She felt the wind pushing back against her as she gained altitude, lending a sense of frustration to her already swelling urgency.
“Shove off!” she growled under her breath, pumping her wings for all they were worth. In a matter of moments, the air began to form a near-solid barrier slowing her down. Only seconds later, with a shout of effort, she punched through. Her ears were filled with a deafening roar, and the world around her was bathed in the familiar prismatic glow of a sonic rainboom.
“Hang on, Twilight,” she thought as she sped through the air for the Golden Oaks Library. “I’m coming!”