"Starlight!" They all screamed her name when the unicorn flashed away by a recognizable purple aura. Trixie immediately panicked when she knew what it meant.
"No no no no no no no!" Trixie immediately started breathing hard. "Twilight took her away!"
"No need to point out the obvious." Discord retorted, but he was almost as horrified as Trixie.
"What do we do?" Applejack asked them, concerned.
"I'll fly around and see if I can spot them." Rainbow Dash volunteered.
"But who knows where Twilight teleported her?" Rarity pointed out. "You could only go so far before you start getting tired from exhaustion."
But Rainbow almost laughed at her. "I'm literally the fastest pegasus around and you're telling me that I will get tired?"
Rarity nodded. "How can you not?"
"Oh please! I could zip around Equestria as quick as a flash." Rainbow Dash bluffed. "I can do a sonic rainboom for Celestia's sake. I'm sure this one will be a breeze."
"Ok, then do it." Rarity challenged.
"Enough!" Fluttershy got in between the two. Trixie was shocked by how assertive she was getting. "This isn't helping us find Starlight!"
"It can! I can find Starlight while proving Rarity wrong!" Rainbow protested, to which Rarity responded with an annoyed eyeroll.
"Fine, since you're so confident, go and search the entirety of Equestria. I'm not going to stop you." Rarity muttered the last words.
"Sweet!" Rainbow quickly opened the castle doors and zoomed away.
"So... what do we do in the meantime?" Applejack asked Trixie and Discord.
Trixie was a little shocked by her question. Was she the leader now since Starlight is gone? "Uh, we wait, I guess." she stammered.
Applejack looked outside through the doors that Rainbow Dash bolted through. "It's starting to get a little late." she told them. "I'm going back home to get some sleep. I will see all of you tomorrow." she ended with a yawn.
"Wait, you're throwing in the towel now?" Trixie called her as Applejack started walking out the door.
"I need to sleep." Applejack argued.
"So do we." Rarity and Fluttershy said at the same time, while Pinkie just hopped outside.
Trixie looked at them, dumbfounded. "So you guys are concerned about sleep when Starlight is in potential danger with an enraged alicorn?"
"What can we do, darling?" Rarity asked her. "We, unfortunately, can't do anything about that matter. Its up to Starlight to take care of herself and bring Twilight back to her old self if she can."
"Plus Starlight has super duper powerful magic!" Pinkie now started talking. "I'm sure its going to take a while before she starts going down."
"But... she can be emotionally unstable at times," Trixie told them, while recalling the memories of Starlight being terrified by her own village once she had been invited there, due to past leadership trauma. But even if she did get over that, she knew that Starlight would have a hard time having the courage to battle her friends. "and I'm pretty sure her fighting her old teacher again would make her have a mental breakdown."
"We will have to see until tomorrow." Fluttershy said softly. "But until then, all we can do is wait. Sorry Trixie."
Then the three trotted away, while Fluttershy just walked slowly, looking back at Trixie with apologetic looks.
Trixie just stared at them as they left, not even caring about Fluttershy's looks. They dismissed Starlight that quickly?
"Some friends they are." Trixie muttered.
"They do have a point, you know." Discord stated as Trixie walked inside the castle and slammed the doors.
"Huh? We're supposed to be on the same side!" Trixie exclaimed.
"Doesn't mean I will blindly disagree with them." Discord crossed his arms. "What do you expect them to do, exactly?"
"I don't know, wait, I guess?"
"And that is what we have to do." Discord finished. "She is out there on her own, and as Pinkie stated, she is 'super powerful'. So I am sure she will be fine."
Discord now yawned and stretched his lion paw. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm sure Twilight won't mind if I slept on her bed. Although these magic blockers will make sleeping a pain to do."
Now it was Discord's turn to get stared at by Trixie. Discord shot nervous looks at Trixie's death stare, as he quickly rushed up the stairs to avoid her gaze.
Et tu, Discord? Trixie sighed sadly. Maybe she was overreacting just a tad bit... but it didn't matter. If Starlight had been defeated, captured, or even worse, things could go awry very quickly.
Soon, she started yawning, and was starting to get tired as well. Trixie, hesitantly, decided to take the other's advice and go to sleep. But she wouldn't be sleeping in one of Twilight's guest beds.
Instead, she opened the castle doors, and sat beside the stairs that led up to the castle. She didn't even care that she was shivering by the cold wind. She would wait outside, in the cold, just to wait for Starlight and Twilight to return back home.
Safely, please. Trixie wished in her head, before slowly closing her eyes, and was enclosed in slumber.
Starlight yawned as she started waking up from her sleep. She looked behind her. Twilight was still asleep, although in a curled position, as if she were a cat. Starlight smiled warmly at her.
She started to walk out of the cave, and looked at the lush forest, and wet from the rain. She embraced the beautiful sunshine and enjoyed hearing the birds chirp in the background. Although her mane and coat did get a little wet thanks to the raindrops that dropped from the leaves of the giant oak trees.
Starlight's ears perked when she heard Twilight yawn in the cave. She turned and saw Twilight start to get up and stretched her hind legs.
"Good morning, Twilight." Starlight greeted her when she reentered the cave. "How did you sleep?"
"Eh." Twilight said with a shrug. "Not good but not bad either."
"Oh." Starlight simply said. She wanted Twilight to have a pleasant sleep after their fight. "Are you feeling better now?"
"Yeah." Twilight answered. She looked outside the cave. "I think the rain stopped."
"I can tell." Starlight said with amusement. She prodded her with her hoof. "Ready to go back home?"
Then Twilight's stomach started to growl. "I am getting a little hungry." she said as she looked at some daisies with a wide-eyed expression. "Ooh!"
Starlight looked at the daisy, then back at Twilight with a confused expression. "Uh, what's so cool about a daisy?"
But she galloped to it anyway and lowered her head to start eating it. Starlight looked very surprised. She didn't expect a princess like her would want to eat a daisy that was planted on the ground.
"Twilight?" Starlight called her, with one part of her amused by what she was seeing, and the other nervous by her sudden eating habits. "What are you doing?"
"Eating a flower." Twilight said, while she looked behind a shrub. "More!"
Twilight then immediately jumped behind a bush, leaving behind a stunned Starlight. And I thought Tranced Twilight was crazy.
She followed her and peeked behind the bush. She saw her friend eating daisies with delight. "I forgot how good these were!"
Starlight still felt stunned.
Twilight plucked a daisy off the ground and levitated it to Starlight. "You must try one."
But Starlight pushed it away. "I think I'll be fine."
After Twilight's flower craze, they eventually returned to Ponyville thanks to Twilight's teleportation spell. Starlight still felt nervous about being around town with the ponies who still gave her the death glares. But she also noticed that the majority of them gave Twilight a perplexed look. They certainly didn't expect to see Twilight be suddenly chill with a pony that she hated just hours ago.
"Is she forgiven now?" a pony asked.
"What's Twilight doing with her?" another mysterious pony asked. "And why is she so... happy?"
As they went by a few towns, they were immediately noticed by three fillies, with each one being a different race. And they all looked at Twilight and Starlight in surprise.
"Twilight looks happy." a light-yellow earth pony whispered to her friends.
"She does." an orange pegasus agreed, before turning her gaze coldly onto her. "Especially if she's with her."
"Well, she is the Princess of Friendship after all." a white unicorn told them. "She is known to forgive anyone."
"Well, there are some ponies that shouldn't be forgiven." the orange filly said, before finally glaring at Starlight as she walked by. Starlight tried her best not to look at them.
She sighed in relief when they were finally away from the three fillies. But Starlight had a concerning question, since she saw them look at her with confused and hostile glances.
"Do we need to beat up foals?" Starlight's voice quivered. "We can't do that... will we?"
"Don't worry. The foals won't be harmed." Twilight told her reassuredly. "After this whole thing is over, we can convince the foals to listen all the good deeds about you and the others. They will surely come around."
"Hopefully." Starlight said, a little reassured by what Twilight said. The last thing she needed right now was to injure innocent foals.
They made their way to Twilight's castle as they continued talking. As she looked at the castle, she suddenly stopped and put her hoof out, stopping Starlight. She followed Twilight's gaze and saw that Trixie was sleeping near the stairs to her castle doors. She was upside down while waving her hooves around dreamlike.
Twilight and Starlight both shared amused smiles.
Starlight walked up to Trixie quietly and gently patted her on the head. "What are you doing?" she asked.
Trixie slowly opened her eyes, but became wide awake when she saw her friend. "You're back!"
Trixie quickly got to her fours and pounced on Starlight and gave her a big hug, while knocking her to the ground. "Trixie was so worried!"
"I guess so." Starlight looked at Twilight awkwardly, who just shrugged.
"I thought Rainbow Dash found you by now." Trixie told her as she got up. "She said she was going to fly around the entirety of Equestria to look for you."
"That's ridiculous. Rainbow Dash may be fast but she isn't that fast the search Equestria in one day-" Twilight was suddenly interrupted when a blue pegagsus crashed into her, knocking both of them to the ground.
"Sorry!" Rainbow Dash quickly got up, and offered Twilight some help. "Are you back to your normal self?"
"What does it look like?" Twilight groaned as she got up from the crash. "I'm not attacking those two."
"Yeah, right." Rainbow Dash smiled while rubbing the back of her neck.
"What took you so long?" Trixie demanded. "You said you were fast enough to circle around Equestria in one day. Shouldn't you have found them by now?"
"Hey, cut me some slack!" Rainbow Dash retorted. "You try flying around Equestria in one day!"
"You just said hours ago-" Trixie was about to say before getting interrupted by Twilight.
"Let's continue this discussion later." Twilight told the two of them. "We're back, safely, and that's all that matters."
Starlight started shuffling her hoof at the dirt. "So now that you and your friends are back, who's next?"
"Starlight, I think you know who it is." Trixie raised an eyebrow at her.
Starlight titled her head, then her eyes narrowed in fear as she finally realized. "Oh no."
Trixie nodded grimly.
"Oh no what?" Twilight now started to get nervous. "Who is next?"
Starlight and Trixie looked at her nervously.
Twilight's ears suddenly lowered. "You must be joking."