"Me and my big mouth." Lyra Heartstrings stared out her bedroom window in the pre-dawn light—only it was just after three-am. The moon and the sun were both low on the horizon which, if it was Earth, wouldn't have been such a problem. The sun and the moon of Equestria, however, should never be up at the same time unless something Very Bad™️ had happened.
"What are you doing, Lyra? Why do you have the light on?" Sweetie Drops asked.
"Well, you might want to get your armor on, Bonny. I don't know what's going on, but I promised Twilight I'd keep Ponyville safe for her until next week, and I didn't even last a day." Turning for the bedroom door, Lyra felt a tight grip on her tail that halted her in her tracks.
Sweetie let go of Lyra's tail with her teeth and cleared her throat. "Breakfast first. It'll be a fast breakfast, but you need calories if you're going to be using magic all day and you skip lunch."
"You're right. Do we still have those muesli bars?" Lyra asked, her plans now diverted to finding something to fuel her for the day ahead.
Lyra left the room just ahead of Sweetie and reached the stairs first too before an orange nose poked out of the second bedroom. "What's going on?" Scootaloo asked.
"Have you already put your hoof-claws on?" Sweetie asked, ignoring the question she had no answer for. "You might as well come down and grab some food too. Lyra thinks the world is ending."
"Again?" Scootaloo hadn't gotten both her hoof-claws on yet, but it took her barely a moment of trained and efficient motion to get the second one on and strapped in place before she walked out of her bedroom. "I saw the moon and sun and figured something strange was going on."
"Breakfast first," Sweetie said. "Then we will work out what's going on. And don't use your claws at the table."
Emptying the dry storage tub of the bars, Lyra dumped them on the table and started brewing coffee. "Have two of those for breakfast, Scoots, and save tw—ten of them for later. Two more for your lunch and the rest for your friends if they don't get anything." She dropped six in front of Sweetie and grabbed six for herself.
"Lyra, make sure you grab two bottles of liquid lightning in case you need it." Sweetie was already in the process of ripping the top off one of the bars. She bit into it, the oats and bran stuck together with honey a welcome taste.
Three cups of coffee were on the table as fast as Lyra could serve them. She set one down before Scootaloo.
"This bad?" Scootaloo asked, her nose wrinkling at the smell of the bitter drink.
"I know I said you shouldn't drink it, but if something bad happens in the next two hours, you might need to be sharp as a tack. I hate this instant stuff too, but coffee is coffee at this hour." Lyra's nose fared no better under the assault of the coffee, but she gulped down half the cup before she started on her first bar.
Silence—relative silence broken only by the sounds of chewing—reigned at the table. With two of the bars to get through, Scootaloo used the coffee to add lubrication while the honey hid most of the bitterness of the drink. When she was done with the second bar—finally swallowing the last mouthful—she said, "We have to be the only family that sits down to have breakfast before saving the world."
Lyra gulped down the last of her third bar. "We probably won't save the world, that's kinda the job of bigger heroes. We might have to save a bunch of ponies from minor—"
"Very minor," Sweetie cut in.
"Right," Lyra said. "… very minor, mini catastrophes. We don't even know what's going on yet, but you can bet if it involves disabling Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, it's waaaaay above our pay grade."
Sweetie nodded to that. "So, get in the air when we head out, keep away from anything that looks dangerous, and get us a sit-rep. We'll deal with any immediate issues we can see on the ground and then wait for your report. Once there are no obvious fires to put out, we'll work on a plan."
Lyra used her magic to dump all the empty mugs in the sink and ran some water into them to stop rings forming at the bottom of the mugs. While she cleaned up and assembled three saddlebags, Scootaloo and Sweetie both left to fit their armor. "Wish I had my armor here. Had to pick the worst time in history to change positions and need my armor adjusted."
When Sweetie came from the armory with her new and improved heavy plate on, Lyra couldn't help but admit to herself that she loved seeing her wife in armor. "Here you go. I found your stash of liquid lightning, you have six bottles plus a dozen bars." She passed the first heavy bag to Sweetie. "Scoots, you get the ten bars. If you find anypony who needs help, find Sweetie." The smaller pack for Scootaloo, and specially made not to interrupt her flying.
Slinging the last of the panniers over her own back, Lyra used her magic to fasten them. "Come on, let's go be—very minor—heroes."
The gloom of not-day-not-night hung over the town. Lyra barely even heard Scootaloo's wings as she sailed into the sky. "I've got this eye of a storm vibe. Something really bad is happening, somewhere, but things here are calm for now."
"Lyra, this is Ponyville. When are things ever completely calm?" Sweetie planted her hooves on the ground and reached out. It was fairly obvious that something was moving all around—deep in the ground. "I don't know what it is, but it's under us."
"Is it moving fast?" The lack of urgency on Sweetie's part was already a relief to Lyra, but she wanted more information.
"Slow, really slow. We have time to prepare." As she spoke, Sweetie watched more ponies stumble out of their homes, looking around with confusion evident on their faces. "Or we could wind up with half the town getting caught in this."
"Where's it coming from?" Just as Lyra asked, an orange streak dropped from the sky beside her.
Scootaloo folded up her wings and rolled her shoulders. "Whatever's going on, it's coming from the Everfree Forest. There are all kinds of wild black vines snaking out from there, and I don't think they look friendly."
"Vines! That's what'll be under the ground." Sweetie reached out and gave Scootaloo a hug. "Thanks for the report. Now, we need to start warning everypony and giving them the option to deal with it here or flee to the west if they wish."
"Ahem." Lyra rolled her eyes up toward her softly glowing horn. "I'll get to warning everypony in town. Scoots, can you swing by the places closest to the forest? Start with Fluttershy."
"Scoots, if there's a problem," Sweetie said, "focus on getting ponies to safety. You can be a hero, just don't make yourself a target."
"Alright. I'll head to the town square and try to get everypony gathered so we can, at the very least, defend each other. What are your plans?" Lyra asked.
"First thing, find a pegasus and have them get word to Canterlot."
"E-Excuse me. Uh, you said you needed a pegasus?" Derpy Hooves asked, approaching Lyra and Sweetie with her filly by her side. "If you can take care of Dinky for me, I'll get the message through."
"I'll keep her at my side." Lyra nodded to Sweetie. "Captain Sweetie will give you the message." Looking down at Dinky, who was keeping to Derpy's side and looking nervous, Lyra asked, "You want a ride?"
Derpy lifted Dinky onto Lyra's back, relieved that she could help and get help. She waited while Sweetie ran back into her home. "Now, you be good for Mrs. Lyra, Dinky. She has an important job to do too, and you're going to help her with it."
The solemness in her mother's voice convinced Dinky, even if the sun and moon being out together hadn't already convinced her something was wrong with the world. "Yes, Mommy."
Lyra waited until Sweetie returned with an official messenger scroll with her personal ID on it. Derpy got her instructions from Sweetie and, after she'd kissed her filly on the cheek again, Derpy took off—headed north and west. "Alright, Dinky, we have to go tell all the ponies in the town square what's up. Can you tell me what spells are best for getting attention and telling a lot of ponies what to do?"
"Um…" Dinky had to think. She didn't know all the spells yet, but she knew some of the more fun ones that books Lyra had gotten her had. "Farwhistles Fabulous Fart? If you use enough power, that should be nice and loud, and what pony wouldn't try to work out who made that big a sound?"
The suggestion was too good not to take. "Right, so once I have everypony's attention, then what do I use? Something to make my voice nice and loud."
Dinky knew exactly the right answer. "Echo's Expansive Address!"
"Yup. I'll give them a good ol' Fabulous Fart, then clear my throat over Expansive Address, and then I'll show you my special superpower." Turning a corner, Lyra saw hundreds of ponies milling about in the town square. Preparing the first spell, Lyra built up the pattern and poured her magic through it—only to have fireworks go off into the sky. "Uh?"
"That looked like Farwhistle's Fabulous Fart. What went wrong?" Dinky asked.
"Magic seems screwy. Don't try any spells yourself." Clearing her throat, Lyra fell back on her superpower. It wasn't the Royal Canterlot Voice, though the volume a training sergeant could raise their voice to was close. "Everypony! We have a situation!"
Heads turned toward them, and though Dinky's eyes were wide, her ears were pinned down at how loud Lyra had been. Under her breath she said, "Wow."
"What's going on?"
"Why is the sun up at all?"
"Where's Twilight?"
Lyra cleared her throat again, and the entire crowd went silent as if in fear of her shouting at them. In a moderate tone, she began, "Honesty is the best policy, as Applejack would say, so I'm going to lay it out. The Everfree Forest is sending out some kind of vines that are even now traveling overland toward the town and burrowing under it.
"Everypony here has the choice to try to fight them off or heading north-west to clear the area. Word has been sent to Canterlot already, so we can expect help soon. Given that I don't know when that help will come or what is responsible for all this, I'm going to suggest grabbing anything of worth and coming with us.
"Anypony who wishes to send their foals with me are welcome to, but I'd appreciate a few adults along too." Scanning the crowd, Lyra saw Cup and Carrot Cake, along with their foals, and Pinkie Pie standing nervously too. "We'll also need some food. Now, it's important for unicorns not to use their magic. There's a lot going on here we don't understand, and we just have to persevere until somepony comes to help us take care of it."
"Like Twilight?"
Lyra was well past trying to live up to Twilight's power/popularity standard. "Yes, I'm pretty sure a princess will be able to deal with this." But, she wasn't above using Twilight's status by reminding ponies they had a local town princess. "Anypony who would rather stay, I would suggest finding a stout axe.
"Now, Pinkie Pie?" Lyra waited for her friend to bounce forward. "Do you think you could get anything baked to help give everypony energy and get us ready to move?"
When the Cake family walked up behind Pinkie, and each of the parents put a hoof on her shoulder, she giggled. "I think we can handle that, Lyra." Turning to the crowd, Pinkie Pie did what she always did best. "Come on, everypony, let's go have breakfast and get ready to give Twilight some space to do her thing!"
Lyra, as she drafted more and more ponies into cooking, reflected on how good making food was at distracting ponies from disaster. Everypony was eating and fueling up for what was probably going to be a rough day, when Lyra started seeing the vines spread through the town.
Black and more than a little evil-looking, she watched as Sweetie was trying to fight them off in the distance—with little success. Just as the vines started nearing Sugarcube Corner, four friends approached the library in the middle of town.
"Pinkie!" Lyra looked around and spotted her friend looking back at her curiously. "Pinkie, I think your friends are gathering at the library. I bet Twilight will be arriving soo—" Lyra cut short when she watched Pinkie gesture upward with a hoof.
"Way ahead of you. Good luck, Lyra. Keep everypony safe." Shrugging out of her apron, Pinkie began trotting toward the library as if she hadn't a care in the world. She did, though. If she didn't reach the library before Twilight did, so her tail-twitches and mane-wobbles hinted, there would be a big disaster.
"Well, everypony, that was our princess and her friends come to save the day. I think we should give them a little room to do their thing." Everypony around Lyra started gathering up the food, mumbling about this and that, but they were still doing what she wanted.
The march out of town was a little disheartening. Lyra could feel the worry among all the ponies that Ponyville might be destroyed without them, but with the majority of the town evacuated, she knew it would give Twilight space to do whatever was needed.
Sweetie, with Scootaloo flying alongside her, appeared nearly an hour later. Lyra could see several other ponies with them. "What's going on?" Lyra asked when they got close.
"The princess and her friends summoned Discord. I don't know the precise story, but all Twilight's friends stayed in the Everfree while she and Spike returned—then went back in. I have no clue what's going on, but she did free this lot from Discord's fun." Sweetie shivered again at how wrong the ground in Ponyville felt. "Now I'm going back to see if anypony else is left. I can't really do much to the vines, but they can't stop me either."
"There's no point," Scootaloo said. "Everypony is here now. The town's empty."
Sweetie looked at Scootaloo for several seconds. Fighting the vines for a full hour had left her feeling lethargy and hot. She detested not having a single objective—an enemy to bring down. "There might be somepony you missed."
"Wait, there's more going on here." Lyra tried to focus on what had happened. "It's almost like, like our magic is being subdued."
Just about to leave, Sweetie was looking back at the town and felt a deep desire in herself not to approach it. "What do you mean?" Even as she asked the question, Sweetie realized Lyra might be right.
"I felt it too." When Lyra and Sweetie looked back at her, Dinky sat up a bit straighter. "The magic drain. It's not all draining, though."
"Wait, is that right?" Sweetie asked.
Focusing on her magic, Lyra realized why things had felt so strange. "She's right! Friendship magic is still working!" Building up a flood of magic in her horn, Lyra prepared to cast a spell and froze. "But there aren't any friendship spells."
Scootaloo snorted. "Didn't you say that was one of your jobs? What Twilight had assigned you to do?"
"Well, yeah. But I expected to spend days meditating on the new magic type and slowly build up an intent to find what it wants to do—not just spit out a spell for it like I was some kind of fortune cookie." Thinking about it, and twirling the magic in the air, Lyra did start to get some inspiration.
Climbing up a bit higher, Dinky whispered in Lyra's ear. "I think it wants to make ponies happy."
Not one to question the way harmony twists ponies to give her inspiration, Lyra thought about all the ponies who'd left Ponyville and most of their possessions behind just to ensure everypony was safe. Strong, full hearts—full of love and friendship.
Focused completely on the sensation, Lyra started drawing a pattern in the air—one that no unicorn in Equestria had made before. It was full of bonds, knots, and also edges ready to bind more. It was uplifting and powerful. When she had the complex pattern assembled, Lyra fed friendship magic into it.
The rush of power spreading out to wrap up all the ponies present spread further still. Lyra's eyes stared blindly as she felt all the ties she had to other ponies flare bright with colors of the rainbow. Some launched up toward Canterlot, some to Manehatten, some to the far reaches of the frozen Crystal Empire, and yet others south to lands she'd never visited before—even to the ponies of the town around her.
But the magic didn't stop. From each pony it touched more threads spread out to find all the ponies they'd touched, then more, and more, and more. It was dizzying for Lyra to feel all that connection. Just when she thought the spell was going to finish, there was an explosion of power from deep within the Everfree Forest—and the bonds grew stronger still.
Leaning over to kiss her wife on the cheek, Sweetie Drops was careful not to use her own power. She felt the bonds of friendship knit all over Equestria now—then it all finished.
The huge spider-web of magic collapsed, but the way it had touched everypony remained. The townsfolk around Lyra were silent until Scootaloo raised her voice. "The vines are gone!"
Blinking in surprise, Lyra felt a change come over the world—or at least the area around the Ponyvillians. There had been a fog clouding not just magic but also harmony. What was was trying to work out is if her spell had broken it or if it was just something that happened at the same time. "Well, I'll call that a win for Twilight and her friends, then. Come on, everypony!"
A cheer ran through the crowd. Everypony seemed to feel the change as the fog the vines had been producing was gone along with their black tendrils. They just reached the town center to find Celestia and Luna—along with Twilight and her friends—in the process of fixing the sun and moon.
Raising her head, Luna reached through the gap of space to her moon and, with all the tenderness of a mother for her wayward child, eased it to rest once more.
Celestia's blinding light spilled forth, flooding the town with beams of pure golden magic. She only had to nudge her sun to set it on the correct path across the sky.
Feeling a little less triumphant, Twilight watched the other princesses restore the day-night cycle to rights and let out a sigh. "Girls, I know we've give up the elements, but we have to move beyon—"
"Twilight!" Lyra cantered right up to Twilight, halted, and nailed a salute. "Did you see what I did? I made a friendship magic spell!" Unable to contain her glee, Lyra trotted in place. "Wait. Why are you all looking sad? What happened?"
"The only way to stop the vines and free the princesses was to put the elements of harmony back into the tree where they came from. I don't know the full explanation, but Princess Celestia said that's where they came from, so…" Twilight felt the loss of the elements as a personal one. Discord might have been the source of the vines, but she couldn't even blame him given the time frame. "I don't know if we can protect Equestria any longer."
"Hey now, sugarcube, don't go saying that!"
"Twilight, we're too awesome to give up just because we don't have a bunch of rocks."
"As if we needed cool necklaces to be bestest friends."
"Um, uh, we can still do it?"
"Though I did quite like those darling things, we don't need them to be gorgeous."
Twilight couldn't stop herself from pulling her five friends into a hug. "Thanks, girls. This means I need to work extra hard trying to come up with an alternative to the elements. I've got a feeling this isn't the end of things."
What Lyra could appreciate was how Twilight's friends jumped in the moment she seemed to lose heart. She waited for the little group to finish their moment and for all but Twilight to excuse themselves and return to their homes. "Okay, so this tree thing got rid of all the vines?"
"It's been a day, Lyra. Why don't we go somewhere we can relax and discuss the different—Is that Scootaloo?" Twilight stared at the filly striding confidently along beside Sweetie Drops. "When did she start flying?"
"Twilight, don't you pay any attention to what's going on in Ponyville?" Nudging Twilight's shoulder, Lyra nodded toward the library. "You'll both need to come and give us a debrief."
Having learned every little detail of what happened while she and her friends were dealing with the vines and the tree, Twilight Sparkle realized that she very much didn't need to know every little detail of anything.
Sweetie Drops' rundown of her fight with the vines in town and evacuating the last of the ponies out had been expected—Twilight knew that the mare was basically a national hero—but then finding out that the only reason Fluttershy had made it to town at all was Scootaloo's work (and that report had been given in exacting detail too) had left her stunned as she listened.
What she wanted was Lyra's report. Turning to the mare in question, Twilight raised one eyebrow. "Alright, I think we've got a good idea of what happened with the ponies and with the town itself, what happened with the magic?"
"As it turned out, I was lucky to have Sweetie Belle and Dinky with me. They helped me think around the problem. You remember what magic was like in the town with all the vines here?" When Twilight shook her head, Lyra chuckled. "Well, those of us without as much magic as an alicorn had problems using any of it. I was at a loss until my pupils mentioned that friendship magic was still working fine.
"They then helped me come up with a spell that would use friendship magic. It—I think whatever you did might have affected it, or maybe it was just that we needed something to remind us all what we needed. It should have spread through the townfolk and no further."
Twilight was fascinated with this. "How far did it spread?"
"Well…" Biting her lower lip, Lyra blew out a very equine snort. "I think it stopped around Los Pegasus in the south and reached as far as the Crystal Empire in the north. I think."
Snorting herself and almost laughing, Twilight said, "Show me the spell."
Dialing her magic to a trickle, Lyra sketched out the pattern in the air—making careful note to get every little embellishment correct—and then shrugged at Twilight. "This is it."
Examining the spell with the level of knowledge she had, Twilight could piece together elements and pluck out intention. Not all of it was purely functional—there was a lot of artistic flair in places—but it practically thrummed with all the themes of togetherness, friendship, and kindness. "Lyra, without a doubt, this is the first friendship magic spell. The range parameters are all correct, but I suspect the emergency overload element you added here is the reason for the widened range."
As soon as Twilight mentioned the element she'd added to protect the spell from overpowering, Lyra knew what had happened. "And it got a burst of magic from—"
"No, it's more than just that. New magic has been building for a while. Nopony has been using friendship magic, so it's been gaining in mass and pressure. You cast the first spell of it—with a literal hurricane of magic behind you. That the spell didn't affect the whole world means you used up the excess, at least." Twilight patted Lyra on the shoulder to reassure her. "And it's not like this spell was ever going to hurt anypony."
"You know the strangest thing, Twilight?" Lyra asked. She gestured at the spell and waved her hoof at all the details. "I don't have to memorize this. It's just there."
"That's odd. I wonder if it's because you created it?" Twilight asked, her own focus on memorizing the complicated spell so she could record it later. "Perhaps try meditating specifically to forget it—once I've got it recorded—and see if you can still cast it?"
It was a relief to work with Twilight. The mare knew exactly what Lyra was capable of, which greatly simplified any technical discussions. "Just let me know when you have it safely written down."
"Excuse me, ma'am." Sweetie Drops saluted. "If we have your leave, I'd like to inspect our home for any damage, and I'd better go rescue Spike from Dinky."
It took a moment of recontextualization for Twilight to understand what Sweetie Drops meant or even that she was being addressed. "Right. Yes, of course you can. Can I—Can I just ask you to treat me as Twilight when I don't have a tiara on?"
Shaking her head, Sweetie pointed at Lyra. "Maybe for them, but I'm a commander of the Guard, if you raise your voice above a whisper and I hear it, it is a possible order." Sketching a salute, Sweetie turned and escorted Scootaloo downstairs where she saw Dinky and Spike were reading comics. "Dinky? We're heading home. Lyra and Twilight have a lot to catch up on still."