One of the side caverns of the Bunker was located right under Town Hall. This was the Situation Room. The room lacked the sunlight illumination of the other caverns, but instead the six walls of the room were lit up with images from outside: a set of camera obscuras projected strategic views down a series of mirrors to allow the ponies in the Sit. Room to monitor the monster…and what the ponies on the surface were doing to stop it.
“Thunderlane, could you please move your right rear hoof? You’re blocking the view,” Raven calmly said into a speaking tube leading up to a widow’s walk surrounding Town Hall’s roof.
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” the pegasus could be heard to reply before the obstructed view cleared.
Raven and the Mayor were surveying the situation from just outside the circle that was painted in the center of the room. There were a half-dozen other ponies trying to stay out of the way, all curious as to how the battle outside was progressing.
Inside the circle, taking in all of the views, was a very-frustrated Rarity. “Rainbow Dash!” she exclaimed into a tube in vain—the pegasus could be seen hovering over the battle, shouting warnings to Applejack and Twilight, instead of hovering at her assigned post atop Town Hall. “How can you relay my brilliant plan for tying up the monster with the super thread I invented if you’re not here to receive it?!” With a huff, she turned to the pony standing silently beside her. “Is there anything else they could be doing?”
That pony was Dr. Fauna, the town’s veterinarian. “I keep telling you, I never specialized in invertebrates in college. That colt Snails could probably be more help to you than I am.” At that moment a thick strand of webbing shot out of the tarantula’s abdomen to ensnare Applejack. “I do know that tarantulas are not supposed to be able to shoot webs like that!”
“It’s a monster,” Rarity said with exasperation. “They love breaking the rules. Most of them don’t even respond to Fluttershy’s Stare! But I would like to know what the rules in this case are!”
Dr. Fauna sighed. “All right. A tarantula is an arthropod, with an exoskeleton. That means they are run by hydraulics.”
Rarity hummed in thought.
“I’m sure Fluttershy told your team all this already.”
“Possibly. Now go on.”
Dr. Fauna sighed once again.
Standing in front of one of the panels was Bon-Bon, a severe frown on her face.
A moment later, Lyra turned a corner and spotted her. She then looked around her at the situation room and sighed. It reminded her of other situation rooms from her past—ones that were offensive rather than defensive in nature. Quietly, she walked over so she was standing beside her friend. “Hey, Bons. What’s up?” she asked.
Bon-Bon said nothing.
With a roll of her eyes, Lyra lightly nudged her.
After acknowledging her, Bon-Bon responded by pointing silently at the projected scene before them.
Lyra sat down and looked at the scene for a few seconds, then back over to Bon-Bon to figure out the source of her seething. “Is it Twilight Sparkle?” she ventured at last.
“I just don’t trust that unicorn!” Bon-Bon hissed.
Lyra looked at the screen once again, hesitation showing on her face. So often in the past had she faced screens like this, only to watch helplessly as friends and allies fell before the unstoppable hordes. But not family—that happened during the part of her life when she had no family.
But things were different now. Equestria was different. These ponies would prevail, and afterwards Lyra would be able to return to her new parents, the ponies who had given her back her stolen childhood.
Twilight was now on the ground, having used a spell to rescue Applejack from her confinement. She was now running around the tarantula and blasting it with percussive rays of magic while the earth pony recovered from the contact poison coating the web. At Rainbow’s barely-heard exclamation, Twilight leapt back before one of the monster’s legs could grab her.
“She looks like a great addition to Applejack’s team!” Lyra exclaimed, beaming like a filly. “In fact, wasn’t the monster-fighting team all Apples before Twilight joined? With two unicorns and two pegasi, they are sure to wear any monster down much faster.”
Bon-Bon turned angrily on her friend. “And while they are doing that, how much rogue magic are they generating?” she demanded. “Twilight Sparkle wastes magic at a ridiculous rate—” (The unicorn took that moment to loudly teleport a total of two body lengths.) “—See? Like that! And Rainbow Dash is nearly as bad with that Buccaneer Blaze trick of hers.”
Lyra frowned for a moment, being forced to put her adult guise back on. “That isn’t the real reason,” she said. “You don’t believe that she’s reformed.”
This caught the attention of the other ponies in the room.
“What? No! Of course she’s reformed!” Bon-Bon said loudly.
The other ponies turned back to the battle.
Bon-Bon sat down and pulled Lyra in close. “No, I don’t believe it,” she whispered.
“Despite saving the town and, I don’t know, the whole world when she took down Nightmare Moon?” Lyra asked with a smug grin.
“Look, I know her type,” Bon-Bon explained. “The hot-stuff genius who thinks she’s going to change the world and doesn’t really care about any pony other than herself. You were here a few times in the years before the Summer Sun Celebration. You saw what she was like during her visits.”
“Yeah, I saw,” Lyra admitted. She failed to mention that she knew Twilight far before that period as well, and had witnessed her descent into mania. “She was convinced that she could clean out the entire Everfree all by herself, and all she wanted us to do was plan the celebratory party and prepare a pit for the mountain of monster bodies she planned to drag out. If Princess Celestia didn’t keep sending out guards to drag her back to Canterlot, she’d probably be in a pine box by now.”
“Multiple pine boxes,” corrected Bon-Bon. “She says she had a change-of-heart bonding with her new friends in the Everfree, but this was the same mare that tried to hire Applejack, Monster Hunter Supreme, to be her sherpa right after Nightmare Moon went into the Everfree. Her sherpa!” She ducked down when the raised volume once again attracted unwanted attention for a few seconds.
Lyra quietly took in the audience reaction. “I think something happened to her in the Everfree,” she whispered. She changed to a normal tone of voice to declare, “I think she’s changed.” She stared at Bon-Bon, challenging her to call Lyra on that statement.
“And I think, at best, that she’s just exchanged one obsession with another,” Bon-Bon replied.
There was a cheer from the rest of the room. Bon-Bon and Lyra turned to see that Fluttershy was picking up the now normal-sized tarantula to return it to the forest.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” Lyra challenged, pointing at the screen. Twilight was headed right for the cavern entrance, Spike running out from his designated hiding spot to join her.
“You know what? I will!” Bon-Bon said with a huff, getting up and walking out.
Lyra continued to watch the image of Twilight. She remembered the sweet little unicorn with rotten people skills that she used to be, before she became consumed by monster hunting. In Lyra’s eyes, it was almost like Twilight had become possessed by a … but those sorts of things didn’t happen in Equestria.
She sighed, remembering the N-Verse, remembering the last time she had stared helplessly at a screen. “I’m sorry I failed you, Rozetri,” she whispered as she turned to leave.
“Did you see that?!” Twilight demanded as she stomped her way to the Bunker to make her report to the Mayor. “Pinkie Pie just dropped out of the sky! How did she do that? Did you see a pegasus drop-lifting her? Because I didn’t see a pegasus drop-lift her!” A few strands of mane popped loose from the side of her head.
Spike shrugged. “Nopony can figure out Pinkie Pie.”
Twilight turned on him. “Who says?”
“Everypony in Ponyville. That’s what I heard.”
“Oh, really? Well mark my words, Spike: by this time next week, I will have completely explained Pinkie D. Pie.”
“Wait, she has a middle initial?” Spike asked.
Twilight ignored him.
“Ah, Twilight Sparkle! Congratulations on vanquishing the monster!” the Mayor cried out. She was standing at the entrance of the Bunker, and was splitting her time between speaking with the unicorn mage and acknowledging each pony as they exited.
“Oh, well the planning as always was Applejack’s,” Twilight said demurely, smoothing down her wild mane.
“And I performed the aerial reconnaissance!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, flipping into place above them. “In fact, if it wasn’t for me, you would have been toast!”
“Yeah, I saw you!” Spike exclaimed. “How were you able to predict that spider’s movements every time?”
Rainbow spent a moment reviewing the battle in the head, and realized that she had in fact perfectly predicted every one of the monster’s moves a split-second in advance. Even the webbing of Applejack could have gone much worse if she hadn’t been forewarned by Rainbow Dash. And Rainbow had no idea how she had done this.
“Well, she obviously was able to see the tarantula’s tells from the air, which we couldn’t see from the ground,” concluded Twilight. “Right, Rainbow?”
“Err…right.” No one noticed the lack of Rainbow’s trademark enthusiasm in that statement.
“Anyway, you make a great team! Bravo!” exclaimed the Mayor.
“I’ll be sure to let Applejack know.”
Mayor Mare looked around her. “Where is Applejack anyway?”
“She needed to go back to Sweet Apple Acres,” the barely-audible voice of Fluttershy could be heard from behind Twilight’s back. “She’s teaching her sister how to harvest apples today.”
With a nod, the Mayor and her assistant left to make their way back to Town Hall. Fluttershy made her exit at the same time.
Unseen by the others, Mrs. Peel made a beeline for the farm as soon as she learned where her cousin was heading.
“Applejack has a sister?” Spike asked Twilight. “How come we’ve never met her?”
Rarity took that moment to march past them. “I’ll get started on repairs,” she announced. “Again.”
“Wait, I’ll help!” Rainbow Dash declared.
Rarity pointedly ignored her as she continued on into the town, the large spool of unused super thread floating behind her, ready to be deployed in argument against the proud pegasus at the best possible opportunity.
Twilight watched the pair leave with a bemused smile on her face.
Spike tugged on her leg. “I said: How come we’ve never met Applejack’s sister?”
“Oh Apple Bloom?” Twilight replied absently. “She’s being home-schooled by the Apple Clan.”
“OK, but how come she never comes into town? I mean, I don’t think I’ve run into any fillies with Applejack’s accent.”
“It’s a…” Twilight waved a hoof in the air absently. “Some sort of Apple tradition. Or more like, little Apples have to learn all the Apple traditions before they are allowed to be seen in public. Something like that.”
“So when will we see her? When she gets her cutie mark?”
“Ha!” Twilight barked. “According to Applejack, her sister is due to get her mark sometime in the next hundred moons, if she’s lucky. Come on, I want to get repairs finished ASAP, so I can get some time in my booth before sunset.” She marched off towards the market square, without bothering to see if her “number one assistant” was following.
Spike was instead looking around him at all of the ponies of the town, most of them setting up shops of their own. They all looked so confident, guided by their cutie marks in how their lives intersected with the destinies of all ponies. He looked sadly down at his forever-blank flank. “At least she’s gonna get a mark someday,” he mumbled.
Then he noticed that he was alone. “Hey, wait for me!”