//------------------------------// // IV: Because I'm Not Myself, You See // Story: Chasing Rabbits // by Shinzakura //------------------------------// It was the raindrops that finally brought Beat back to consciousness. This far from the big cities, the weather was usually allowed to exist on its own, though Radourmeire’s Rest did have a small volunteer weather team to deal with emergencies if needed. But nopony scheduled rain in this part of the country and so when it came, it came naturally. Looking around, the first thing she noticed was her vision blurring, the result of a pain that echoed through her body like wildfire. She noticed that most of what was left of the keep had been shattered and ruined beyond identification: The ground was blackened and scorched and by some minor miracle, she had survived whatever blast had incinerated everything else in the area. Forcing herself to her hooves, her body ached with pains she didn’t even know could exist. As she finally stood on all fours, she wobbled dizzily for a second but soon righted herself. As she looked around, she noticed she was covered in ash and soot, the result of whatever had burned, but she was still alive. A groan sounded next to her and ignoring her own pain, she moved towards it, helping Divine dig himself out of the ash as the rain began to turn everything into so much gray mud. “Wha…what happened?” he asked. “I don’t….” Her jaw dropped. “Oh, buck me,” a third voice sounded as Corner dug her own self out. “Never drinking that much again…wait, I wasn’t drinking, was I?” Divine looked at the shocked unicorn mare, then his eyes followed her own. A second later, his own jaw joined hers on the metaphorical floor: everything around, as far as the eye could see, despite the rain was still aflame with rainbow fire or scorched into near nothingness. The distant entrance to Mareington Gulch, having been blocked by the boulders and leading towards the bizarre garden, had been torn open, with a massive blaze of prism-hued forest fire burning, and gray-tinged rainbow-colored smoke rising into the sky. But worst of all was what was happening in the east: the sun was beginning to rise, an indicator that they had all been unconscious for hours. “No,” Beat gasped, a look of terror coming over her face before she took a step and collapsed from shock. “Nooooo!” she shouted, trying to force herself back to her hooves. Divine moved to her side immediately. “Beat! Calm down, you’re going to get hurt!” She tried to get out of his grip. “No! The town! That creature’s going to flatten the town and then who knows what it’s going to do? My family’s there, Your Highness! I have to—!” “I know! But panicking isn’t going to make things better, you should know that!” he told her. “Please calm down. I’m going to let you go now, so promise me you’ll relax.” As he did, she sat down, looking with dismay at the wreckage of where they’d been the past two days and how it had been destroyed by the giant caterpillar monster that was so far ahead of them it was no longer even on the horizon despite its size. “I’m just worried.” Having slid on her goggles and activated their binocular function, Corner looked towards the ruined remains of Mareington Gulch. “That overgrown bug is so far ahead of us, even if we knew what to do about it, I don’t think we have the hoofpower to stop it. Plus, I don’t know about you two, but I feel like I just wrestled with a manticore and came out the wrong side, so I couldn’t even carry one of you much less both.” “I guess we’re going to have to teleport then,” Divine told them. “Uh, Your Highness, if I—” “Please, all my friends call me Div,” he told her. “Half the time I don’t feel princely enough as is.” “Maybe because you’re dating a bookworm?” Corner teased and the stallion rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay, I get it,” Beat stated. “But unless you have alicorn-level power, I don’t think anypony would be capable of teleporting from here to home!” “You’re right: under normal circumstances, I couldn’t. But I have an edge in case of crises like this one.” He unsheathed his sword, then tapped a hoof on the nebula amethyst embedded in its hilt; at the tap, the gem rang with a musical sound and flared with purpure power, as the inside of the precious stone roiled and glittered as if it were made of the purest magic available. “This is my sword, Violaine. Given to my ancestor by Princess Celestia so very long ago, it has been passed down in the family because it is a sword of honor, a sword that defends. Needless to say, this sword is special; it has a spell enchanted on it that will allow me to use the stored magic power within it as a conduit to be able to do a single alicorn-level spell…like a long-distance teleport, for example. However, once it’s done, it’ll completely drain the magic from the sword for a month – and from me for at least twenty-four hours. Under normal circumstances, I’m going to be magically useless for a day if I cast this. But given how weakened we are right now from that spell from earlier? I don’t know what it’ll do to me.” “You sure you want to do that?” Beat asked him. “Without a doubt,” he told her, conviction in his voice and eyes. “As I always say, it’s my divine right to protect my fellow ponies from harm – and I’ll do anything it takes to do so. However….” He looked at her and deflated slightly. “Normally I would be able to do this on my own, but I don’t know enough about this part of the country to be able to pinpoint a safe landing location, so I’ll need your help with that.” “What can I do?” Beat asked, her own eyes filling with the same surety. “Take my hoof,” he told her, putting his right hoof out, “and concentrate on where we need to go. I’ll do the rest.” He looked at Corner. “Grab onto my tail or something, so that you don’t get left behind.” “Normally I would joke about Princess Twilight being angry that I got a piece of your tail, but I think the situation doesn’t call for that,” she said semi-seriously. “I would appreciate that,” he responded drily then turned back to Beat. “Are you ready?” She nodded wordlessly and as she did, he slammed the blade into the ground, and a violet circle of magic blossomed out from the center, blowing the rain away in cascading sheets until it seemed as though it had added its own small vortex around the spell. Motes of violet light danced around the three ponies, intertwining from the spell cast from his horn and the magical power flowing from the gem. Ribbons of gold and purple twisted and danced around them, enveloping them both in a warm caress. “On violet wings I fly,” Divine incanted, “for my sword is true, my aim is noble and my heart is pure.” With a sudden burst of power, the spell spattered raindrops everywhere and kicked up ash and dust as the trio vanished. With a massive helix of energy spraying up everything around them, the three appeared in a ruined, smoldering field of what used to be the freshest clover in the Unknown West. But now it looked like cheddar cheese and the ground appeared to have a strange, checkerboard-like look to it. Small tufts of rainbow fire burned here and there, an ominous sign if there was one. “BRAMBLE!” Beat shouted, instantly seeing the remains of her friend’s home. It was twisted and distorted from its original shape, and it took a second for the unicorn to realize it had been reshaped into a sort of mushroom-like appearance. Rushing into the house, she found it to be a riot of what it was a couple of days ago: everything had become a misshapen mess of various sizes, lengths, and configurations, with the table on the ceiling and chairs on the wall as if gravity decided to just give up. She rushed through the house, desperately looking for her friend and her husband, but thankfully neither of them was there. Finally, she left the house just as Divine and Corner had arrived. “They’re not here,” she said. “I hope that’s a good sign. You okay?” “I feel like I just hoofwrestled with Tirek for two straight weeks,” Divine said, catching his breath. “I might be a bit winded and slightly worse for wear, but I can still fight even without my magic.” “I think I’ve recovered enough to get airborne again,” Corner told them. “I’ll fly around and check for damage.” “Hopefully everypony should be at town hall,” Beat told her. “There’s a safety shelter there. Be careful.” “Oh, if there’s a baddie, you can be sure as hell I’m going to give as good as I get!” she shouted back as she vaulted into the air. As they entered Radourmeire’s Rest proper, the view of the chaos that had been wrought on the poor town had become immediately apparent: more of the strange mushrooms from earlier sprouted in the streets, and several buildings had been toppled by flowers taller than trees. Corpses of oversized bugs littered the ground and what few buildings remained had been twisted into distorted, funhouse versions of themselves, including, Beat was saddened to see, her family’s general store. But worst of all was the central statue of Radourmeire. The bronze depiction of the creature had been shattered beyond comprehension, with only the head left. And while the visage of the sculpture had shown a mouse with a pleasant smile and kind face, the strange magics had twisted it into a parody of itself, the face of the mouse-like creature showing alarm and terror, as if it had been a living creature of its own that had seen hell just before it was slain. She wondered, if Radourmeire truly had existed, would his final moments have been like that? “Beatrix?” She turned to see her mother and father looking at her, relief washing over their faces as they realized she was safe. “Mom! Pop!” She rushed over and glomped both, the family holding each other in relief as adrenaline and joy overcame them. With a flourish, Corner came to a landing next to Divine. “Just did a sweep of the town. Had to put down a couple of oversized crickets; exhausted half my throwing knives on them,” she said. “Spell’s going to take a few to regenerate them, assuming it wasn’t affected by whatever that thing is.” She paused. “What do you think it is?” “I honestly don’t know,” the prince stated. “At first, I’d say it was like Discord, but the chaos god has always been capricious and mercurial, not…mad. This is pure and utter insanity, and it looks like it’s intending to do something.” Letting go of her parents, Beat said, “We’d better get to town hall. Most of the survivors are there.” “Most?” “Some…didn’t make it,” Well told them. “I take it you’re here to oversee rescue?” “As much as I can,” Divine promised. “Lead the way, sir.” A few minutes later, the trio arrived at the town hall, where Stonehoof and her deputies had already prepared a safety zone. All around, the wounded and the traumatized sat, in silence from shock or trying to help where they could. But what caught her attention most was Left Goon – the mare was crying over two figures covered by sheets and it didn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to figure what was going on. Beat walked up to her. “What happened?” “It…it…the thing attacked Rorie,” the mare sobbed, wiping her eyes. “Thought she was Princess Celestia herself, said that the world was wrong and topsy-turvy, and it had to be put right, whatever that means. It tried to step on her, but Grassie got in the way and….” The mare started to break down again, crying once more. “Why did Princess Celestia do this to us?” Divine opened his mouth to argue, but suddenly heard, “The Princess didn’t do this to us.” He turned to see Corner, a stern but firm look on her face. “The Princess didn’t do this, nor did Queen Luna. This is the work of a mad creature who has a vendetta against ponies and we don’t know why. Even if he said that the Princess is to blame, then why attack an innocent pony?” “Aurora tended to try to look like the Princess,” Beat explained. “Even still. Trust me, mare: I’ve seen ponies with legitimate reasons to hate the alicorns, and I’ve seen ones with reasons that aren’t really good, but they don’t think anypony is listening to them. This is neither case – this is a mad creature, just like Discord once was, and maybe if somepony like Discord can be saved, maybe this one can be, too.” Beat took the mare’s hoof in hers. “I know it’s hard to believe in the Crown right now, especially with the news we heard the other day and now this. But there are good ponies in government, good ones who are trying their best to protect and help us. You can’t just give up now, or else what’s the purpose of being a pony?” “Are you sure?” Left sobbed. “Absolutely,” Beat said in her most resolute voice. “I guess Rorie wasn’t completely right about you,” Left admitted, wiping her eyes. “I know we shouldn’t have picked on you all the time, but I think Rorie was jealous, because you knew what you wanted in life. Me, Grassie, Rorie? We’re never getting out of this town because we’re not good enough. But you, ner…I mean, Beat…you have what it takes.” “May I have your attention? May I have your attention, please!” A voice sang out and ponies turned to see the mayor, Burgomaster, standing on the steps of what remained of town hall. “Now it’s come to my attention that the initial danger has passed. So with that in mind, town ordinance 3499.D specifies that you must all clear out of the shelter and go back home as soon as possible.” “What home?” a pony shouted. “My house got flattened by a giant petunia!” “My husband got squashed by a giant ladybug!” another shouted, her eyes red from tears and indignation. “That doesn’t matter,” Burgomaster told them. “Under the provincial laws established by Baron Seigneurie and town ordinance 138.J, you are required to depart as soon as—” “No, they’re not. These ponies need help, and laws or not, you’re going to give it to them,” Divine argued. “On whose authority? Yours?” Burgomaster told him. “I’m the town mayor, and I make the rules here! I’ll have you know I was assigned this position by the Baron himself!” “SILENCE!” Divine’s Royal Canterlot Voice split the air. The look on his face was stern as he raised his sword. “For those of you who don’t know who I am, let me familiarize you: I am Prince Divine Right, a member of the royal family.” He showed Stonehoof his identification as proof. “As of now, I am implementing Midnight Protocol One. Your ordinances, and the province’s, are null and void until I say otherwise. And the first thing I’m going to say is that these ponies need help and you’re going to help them, am I clear?” You can’t do that!” the earth stallion spat. He looked at Stonehoof. “Tell him he can’t do that!” Stonehoof, in turn, gave the mayor a glance that said, Really? However, just for formality’s sake, she looked over Divine’s identification. “It’s legit. Are you taking over as Guard captain or prince?” she asked. “Whatever it takes to take care of these ponies who need help,” Divine said. “Works for me.” Stonehoof looked at Burgomaster. “He’s the boss now.” “But-but-but…town ordinance 225.A.2 specifies that—” sputtered Burgomeister, only to be cut off by Divine’s glare. Divine pushed the mayor aside; if any angrier, he likely would have done so literally. “Okay, here’s what needs to be done: grab all available supplies from wherever you can: the general store, remaining houses, the hotel—” “But what about my hotel?” Hospitality shrieked in a tone far too high for him to hit normally, as he reached his threshold. “And how am I going to have to pay for sheltering and feeding all these…deadbeats?” “Would you rather be at the mercy of all these so-called ‘deadbeats’?” Beat snarled, getting in his face. “Your Highness, would you be so kind as to do me a favor?” “I’ll take it under advisement,” Divine said in a tone hinting he would very much agree with her request. “If he says something stupid again, arrest him, please?” “I think that’s my job,” Stonehoof interjected, “and yes, I’ll be happy to do that as town ordinance 9935.C allows me to do that in case of emergencies.” Divine grinned. “And who says town laws are all pointless?” It took another couple of hours to get everything under control, but by the time the sun reached high noon, the relief effort was underway, and Beat was relieved to see her friends Bramble and Rocket, tired but unharmed, having served as auxiliaries on the volunteer weather group and had moved the rainstorm away from the town in order to redirect it to put out the strange fire. “Ah’m glad t’ see that yer okay, sugarcube,” Bramble told her. “Wuz thinkin’ the worst when that big’un trampled everything.” “No kidding!” Rocket added. “Glad to see that you’re okay, Beat!” “Yeah, but I….” She shook her head; now was not the time to feel guilt for not stopping the creature. “Nevermind, it’s not important. Did you guys see where that thing went?” “Ah dunno, sugarcube. Too worried ‘bout the strange fire,” Bramble admitted. “Hell, even th’ storm we brought over wuzn’t puttin’ it out for a while there.” “Yeah, but at least most of the town survived, although it’s going to need some extensive rebuilding,” Beat told them. The rest of the day had been spent either helping with the relief effort or trying to get the train ready for the next day; due to the now-ongoing emergency, the rest of the passenger cars would be decoupled, leaving only the engine, which would take Divine and Corner eastward in order to find the strange creature and save whatever ponies were in danger – and no mistake, a colossal caterpillar with powers on the scale of a draconequus but without the charm and whimsy of such was an absolute threat. By the time the sun began to sink over the horizon, Beat stumbled her way back home. By a minor miracle, her family home had been one of the very few properties in town that had survived. Bramble and her husband were staying at Rocket’s home, which had also survived, and to regain their strength, Divine and Corner were staying with Beat’s family as well. Though Well and Marketplace apologized profusely for having a guest room “not worthy of a prince”, but Divine waved it off, saying he wasn’t there as a prince but rather as a Guard captain, so it was more than adequate; furthermore, given that he’d first been there under the disguise of Hitchhike, it was more than enough for him. “Then maybe you need to become the one to stop it,” an unfamiliar voice spoke. Beat looked around the room, seeing nopony. “I guess I’m more tired than I thought I was,” she said, heading towards her bed. “I’m beginning to hear things.” “You didn’t hear things, you heard me,” the voice said, sounding a bit cross. “And I would like to think I’m hardly nothing.” This time a warm glow lit in the room and Beat turned in the direction of the aura. To her absolute shock, Oxford sat there, on her desk, looking as if it was just a normal day. But the fact that her pet rabbit wore wire-rim eyeglasses, a sharp-looking blazer, waistcoat, shirt and tie gave that lie away. “It took you long enough to notice,” the rabbit said, a matter-of-fact look on his face. “WHAT THE BUCK?” Beat shouted at the top of her lungs, loud enough that it woke the entirety of the house. A split-second later, a small stampede of hooves were sounded and the others within the house entered Beat’s room. “I heard something,” Divine said, his sword already in his hoof. “Are you…?” He paused. “Is that rabbit…glowing?” The rabbit bowed. “Why, yes I am, Your Highness. Thank you very much for noticing.” The rest of them filled in and shortly, all eyes fell on the pet, who just sat there as if he were a teacher patiently waiting for the class to come in so he could start his lecture. “Wait…did you do something to Oxford?” Marketplace asked her daughter. “No, no one’s done anything to me, Marketplace,” the rabbit told her, “although…I do remember the time when you tried to give me radishes. I do so dislike those; they give me a tummy ache.” “Sorry!” she said, before a thought then crossed her mind. “Wait – I’ve never given you radishes! You’ve always fed yourself or Beat has fed you! In fact, the only rabbit I ever gave radishes to was Mr. Grasshopper, Well’s pet rabbit from back when we were dating!” “And do you remember when Mr. Grasshopper passed away?” Oxford asked her. As a blank stare came over both Well and Marketplace, the pet chuckled. “I’m fairly old for a rabbit. One could argue I’m fairly old in the same way that Her Majesty Princess Celestia is fairly old but let us not get into that.” The rabbit had a suddenly sad cast, his smiling muzzle fading away into timeless sorrow. “The fact is…it’s time.” “What’s time?” “The Huqqa…it is free. And in its madness, it has embraced the worst of its chaotic nature. You see, I….” The rabbit moved as if he was dizzied. “No, I…I can’t…” “Oxford?” Beat said, her voice worried. The rabbit reached behind him, and with a flash, brought out a pony-sized pocketwatch. It glittered with both magic and the golden sheen of its cover. “I don’t have much time. And this time I truly mean it. The Huqqa…he has taken too much….” The rabbit took an ungainly step forward and fell, plunging off Beat’s desk. She caught him in her magic, but he suddenly looked weak and old, far more than he had just seconds before. “I am…I am a creature of magic, not of flesh and bone. Or perhaps you are creatures of magic, and my flesh and bones are too worn out. It is all the same, really,” he coughed, looking at Beat with rheumy eyes. “But I have served this family faithfully since the day my first master, Radourmeire, asked me to keep watch on the line of Blazing Lance. He—” The rabbit started to cough violently, enough to make his body shudder. Worse, his glow began to weaken. “Don’t die on me, Oxford. You can’t!” “Take the watch and Remember. Please. You are the next, Beatrix. You are the Wonder.” The rabbit, his strength flagging, reached out a gentle paw to caress her muzzle. “In all the centuries, in all the masters I’ve had, your father and you have been the kindest to me and I have cherished every moment of that.” The now-blind, aged pet, his hair starting to fall out, looked in the direction of Well. “You have done me a great service when you decided to keep me after your cousin did not. And now, I will repay that love in my own way.” With what little strength he had, Oxford pointed at the pocketwatch, still seated on the table, glowing on its own. “Take it and Remember. Only you can do this. The line has nearly faded into nothingness…but nothing is ever gone until there is nothing left. You have the chance to take nothing and make it something.” The rabbit gave Beat one final look of love and whispered ancient words: “It is wrong from beginning to end – you must make it right.” And then he breathed no more. And a second later, the rabbit faded away into nothingness, as if he had never been there at all. Beat sat there, silent for the longest time. Then she stepped forward and took the pocketwatch in her left foreleg. “I have been surrounded by it my entire life,” she said. “And I didn’t know. I just didn’t bucking know.” Well looked at his daughter. “I don’t understand, honey.” “I have a hunch,” she thought, “but I will have to work on it later. Right now, as weird as it sounds? Apparently the world needs me.” Marketplace looked at her daughter. “Beat, honey, you’ve had a rough day, sweetie and I don’t think—” “No. I’ve been thinking. And that’s the problem. I’ve overthought. I thought when I should have moved. I pondered when I should have taken action. And this is the result.” She clicked the top of the watch and with an audible snap that sounded like the thrum of a rabbit’s racing feet, the watch opened, with a flash of light spilling out, bright as the sun. A second later, a letter, along with small bottles sat on the table. The letter seemed to be made of the finest parchment available, the kind that typically was used for royal proclamations. The bottles, each made from an ornate, expensive crystal, held a single pill in it, one small red pill and one large blue pill. Beat picked up the letter and opened it, looking at the very ornate hoofwriting: “One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you’re going to fall, Go ask her, and feel ten feet tall” Come to where the beginning is the end, and the end is a beginning. Come…and Remember. -A&S “I need to go back,” she suddenly announced. “Back? To the Western Keep?” the others asked at once, surprised. “No! You’ll be hurt! Or worse!” Marketplace said, her face a mask of utter worry. “No. No, she won’t.” The pony that said that was surprisingly not Beat herself, but Well. “She might be the first one in our family in ages that truly does understand what’s going on.” He looked at his wife. “You know that ever since our branch of the family didn’t inherit the title, that we pretty much left the military life behind. Our son, however, is the first in a long while that has returned to the family roots.” “And if I may say so, he’s served admirably,” Divine stated. “Thank you, Your Highness. But the truth is, there’s somepony just as capable, possibly more so. Even though she’s somehow been found wanting each and every time, our daughter has had skills and talents above that of the ordinary station. I just don’t believe our daughter is meant for something as small as this town. In a sense, I’ve always known it.” The stallion looked at his daughter, pride showing in his eyes. “You do what you have to do, Beatrix. We have everything under control here, and when you’re ready to come home, come home. But until then, chase the stars. It’s your time to shine.” The following morning, the trio, along with Beat’s parents, met at the train station. The railponies had worked themselves to the bone overnight to make sure that the track was clear and that all the previous cars had been decoupled from the engine; now it was warmed up, its stack smoking – a signal that it was ready to rush off as quickly as its wheels could carry it eastbound. Looking a little better, Divine gave a worried look to Beat. “I wish I could go with you,” he admitted, “but we don’t know where the creature’s heading and all we do know is that it has a grudge against the alicorns, and that means that my aunts are in trouble – and by extension, Canterlot and the nation as well. I have to find a way to stop it, and that means that we need to part ways.” “Not a problem,” Beat said. “I have a feeling this was my own path to tread.” “It won’t be yours alone forever, you know,” he told her. “When this is over, I’m going to ask Twi to look into it. You’re an incredibly talented mare, Beat, and for all the times you’ve been turned down and such, I suspect that something was done on purpose. I don’t know why, but I have my suspicions.” “Yeah, you’re not the only one. From what I can tell, you buck serious ass, mare, and knowing the Covenant like I do, I think you were targeted,” Corner told her. “I can’t promise the same things that Div can, but I can promise you I got your back if you ever need it. But for now, I’ve got a long flight ahead of me; I need to make it to our nearest Agency base if I’m going to get this info to Director Smokechaser in time.” Beat looked at her two new friends; she hadn’t met them all that long ago, but the experience they’d been through made her feel as close to them as she was to Bramble and Rocket. “You two take care, okay?” Div chuckled. “That’s my line, isn’t it?” Corner, for her part, flashed a cocky grin. “Oh, mare, don’t you worry: When I see that overgrown bug, its biggest worry’s gonna be me.” Beat went over and hugged her two friends, and then with that, Corner slipped on her goggles and threw herself at the sky and was gone in a flash. As for Div, he teleported onto the train engine, and with a final “all aboard” cry from the engineer, he waved as the “iron horse” (as the bison tribes tended to call them) began picking up speed and heading away. “And that’s that,” she said a few minutes later. She turned to her parents. “I need to get going. It’s going to be tough, but I’ve gotta do what I’ve gotta do. Don’t tell Bram or Rocky where I’m going because they’ll be worried otherwise.” “And we won’t?” Marketplace said, hugging her daughter. “I don’t want you to do this, Beatrix! It’s dangerous!” “Mom, I have to, or else…look, I really don’t want to entail what ‘or else’ could mean. Just…this is what I have to do. I’m sure Princess Twilight’s mom never told her not to do what she does.” “I really doubt that,” Well said as he hugged both of them. “But I suspect the Princess’ parents took the same stance I am: you might be a hero, but you’re also our daughter and we’re going to worry.” Her new sword at her side, Beat had begun a steady canter out of the town in order to head to Mareington Gulch and the ruins of the Western Keep. She knew galloping wasn’t going to be worth it; for one, she was no earth pony and she’d wear herself out in a heartbeat. Second, even still, with the place in ruins because of the giant caterpillar’s rush through the place, she had no idea how bad things were now and what used to take two days might now take longer. Lastly, with all the gulch’s normal fauna completely spooked by what had happened in the past couple of days, being worn out might not be the best condition to be in if she had to defend herself from something. So with her mind focused on her destination, she was so tied up in that, that she almost didn’t hear the other pony call out for her. Finally, Beat came to a stop, coming to face with Left Goon. “Look, I don’t have time for any distractions,” she explained. “I need to get back to the Western Keep as soon as possible.” “I know,” Left said. “I’m going with you.” Beat shook her head. “No. For one, you probably can’t defend yourself. Secondly, the town needs every able-bodied pony that they can for emergency relief, and I’ve been tasked with this by Prince Divine himself. Lastly—” “You were brave enough to stand up against Rorie and us when we picked on you,” Left told her, a look of shame coming over her face. “I knew it was wrong and I should have said something. But I didn’t and I found out the hard way how an adult pony shouldn’t act. And how one should. So….” She offered a hoof to bump. “I’m hitching my star to you. Maybe I should have done that a while ago.” “Look, thanks. I really appreciate that except….” A sudden thought then came over Beat as she looked – really looked – at the mare. “Wait…why haven’t I noticed you were a pegasus before?” The mare laughed. “Probably because me and Grassie…Grasslands have the same colors, so people thought we were twins. We’re not even related, and as you can see,” she said as she spread her wings, “I’m not an earth pony.” “Uh, what’s your flight weight ratio?” “I can carry more than the usual flight weight-load of a pegasus and have faster speed than average – that’s my cutie mark’s special talent – but I’m no Rainbow Dash and I can’t carry a full-size pony. Why?” Beat immediately took off her sword and saddlebags and handed them to the mare. “Here, I need you to take these. You wanted to make it up to me? Now’s your chance.” “Sure, I can do that, but didn’t you catch me when I said that I can’t carry a full-size pony? Even foals would be an issue.” “Don’t worry, I have that covered. But you’ll have to be quick.” “Quick? I can do quick, no sweat.” Beat looked at the mare with new eyes. “Then welcome to the team. Let’s get this started once more.” She offered a hoof to bump. “Beatrix.” The pegasus reached out and bumped back. “Pinion Feather. Now, how are you going to pull this off?” Beat reached into her bag and pulled out a small crystal vial containing a small red capsule. “One pill makes you small….” the unicorn said enigmatically as a grin flashed onto her face.