//------------------------------// // Chapter Nine // Story: My Little Dashie: A sequel // by ty500600 //------------------------------// Hey there guys, just letting you know that Athanix and I are going to be taking a break for New Years, we will be back on the 2nd or the 3rd, haven't decided yet. Happy New Years everyone! Urgent knocking on the door stirred Twilight from her long sleep. She rolled over and peaked out one eye. She had slept for nearly 15 hours. She bolted out of bed, disgusted with herself. ‘How could I let myself sleep that long?’ she thought. “Spike! Open the door!” Twilight yelled, brushing her mane, she was ready to get back to researching. The knocking persisted, “Spike? Where are you?” She yelled. She sighed after getting no response other than knocking. She trotted down the stairs, “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she grumbled impatiently. She pulled open the door to see Princess Celestia standing on the front step. “Twilight, may I come in? This is urgent, and I felt I must speak with you in person,” The Princess said hurriedly. Twilight was taken back a bit by her urgency. “Of course Princess, make yourself at home,” she said, stepping out of the way of her teacher. “Could I get you something to drink?” The princess politely declined as she walked into the tree house, “No thank you Twilight, I need to hear what you have learned.” “Yes Princess. First thing, I apologize to you beforehand. I have been sleeping ever since you sent that letter concerning Rainbow Dash. I had wanted to be up sooner but I over slept,” Twilight said, ashamed of herself. “Twilight, there is nothing to apologize for. You have more than applied yourself for the past few days. You need your rest, now please, what do you know?” The Princess inquired. “Right, well main thing that I have discovered is that there are strange weather patterns over the skies of Ponyville. Clouds are moving on their own, no one is controlling them. This was brought to my attention by Pinkie Pie who had noticed them. I had read that some of the ancient wizard ponies had documented that long distance teleports would leave lasting effects on the areas where they occurred. One of the effects was that the portals remained open for short periods of time. What I believe is happening is that Rainbow Dash is doing something that uses great amounts of energy and compressing that energy into a small area which is opening the link back to Earth, the only other place where she has a portal connection,” Twilight said, slightly elevated that she finally had something to report to the Princess. The Princess’ reaction was not what she had expected, however. “Yes, I feared as much,” Celestia said, shaking her large head. “The situation is becoming worse every minute as well I’m afraid. Every time Rainbow Dash uses her untamed energy, she slowly opens the portals more and more. Not only are physical objects starting to come through the gates, but certain elements of physics are too. The time difference that the two worlds shared, the one day here was one year there has decreased. In fact, my advisers and wizards believe that it is as close as one day here is two weeks there,” she elaborated. Twilight’s eyes grew large at hearing this fact, “But Princess! You said that our worlds were never made to mix, that we can’t house each other! If what you saying is true, how long would it be until the two worlds merged together?” Twilight was panicking now. She started ranting about the repercussions of the two worlds colliding, but Celestia cut her short. “Yes Twilight, I am well aware to the gravity of the situation. My advisers have agreed only upon one thing; Rainbow Dash needs to have her powers stripped. If she doesn’t, the raw power of the energies she controls will surely spell disaster across Equestria and Earth,” Celestia said with a grave tone. She saw Twilight cringe at the thought of trying to take another thing away from her friend. “She must be willing to give up her powers; otherwise there is no way that I would be able to remove them. They would resist me due to their uniqueness.” “What if she resists? Then what will happen,” Twilight asked frightfully. “Let us hope she does not. We must explain the gravity of the situation to her, and hope she understands what we are trying to do. Then, sadly, we will have to give her memories of Equestria back to her, and we know what that will do,” Celestia said quietly, almost at a whisper. Twilight knew what that meant, and she hung her head at the thought. *** The group of ponies set out into the forest for the second time, only this time with the Princess and her two loyal body guards. Twilight and the Princess had gone and rounded up their friends again to look again for Rainbow Dash. Like last time, Fluttershy was flying above the tree line, but this time she had a companion, Philomena. The Princess opted to bring her pet along do to its sight and magical attunement. “Okay Philomena, lead the way!” Princess Celestia shouted up. The majestic bird cawed in response, and took off low over the forest, circling back every so often to allow the group to catch up. “Did you guys happen to check Zecora’s home when you were out last time?” Twilight asked her friends. Applejack and Rarity swapped glances. “Well...Uh-,” Applejack stammered out until Rarity cut her off mid-sentence. “What she means to say is...no, we didn’t. We figured that, if Rainbow Dash couldn’t remember any of us, she would have no need to go to Zecora’s, or even remember how to get there,” Rarity said, a little ashamed to hear it out of her own mouth. “Well, I suppose I see where you guys are coming from, but that would have been the first place I would have checked. Knowing Zecora, if she found Rainbow Dash lost in the forest, she would have taken her in,” Twilight said, a hint of scold in her voice. The other two ponies hung their head in shame. Pinkie Pie was bouncing behind the group, stopping to look at anything that caught her attention. The Princess was heavily focused on watching her pet, trying to determine where she might find the cause of the trouble in her land. “It’s been awhile since I have set hoof into the Everfree Forest, and now I remember why,” Celestia said with a slight shudder. Twilight looked on her mentor. ‘Even the Princess is afraid of the forest,’ she thought to herself. She didn’t blame her, especially now with the two worlds closing in on each other. She had yet to actually tell her friends the urgency of the situation, but she didn’t want to scare them. She was hoping it was the right thing to do. “Princess, how many times do you think Rainbow has opened the portal to the other world?” Twilight said as she turned around to face the princess. “Well Twilight...-” Suddenly the princess stopped dead in her tracks, the others were soon to follow. A look of shock adorning each of their faces. As Twilight froze too, she summoned all the willpower she could muster to turn back around. What she saw she couldn’t comprehend. “...She must have opened it more than once that is for sure...” The Princess said. “Yeah, this is like my fifth time here.”