Day Two
“S-Sister?” Luna’s voice snapped Celestia out of her daze.
Celestia looked over to Luna, shock in her eyes. She had been staring at the letter from Spike for some time now. This was not even the first time she had read it. She had actually received it hours earlier, along with reports from several authorities in Ponyville including the Mayor and the local guard, who had never had to deal with a crime like this before and was in a complete panic.
Celestia gathered herself up, trying not to seem teary eyed. She didn't want to cause Luna undue stress; no one wanted that. She rose from where she was seated atop her throne, moving forward to stand in front of Luna as she approached.
“Yes Luna?” she asked with a bittersweet smile.
“This cannot be real can it? This doesn’t seem like a deed that any of the Element holders would perform,” Luna spoke with great knowledge. She knew the elements like no others could, having been on the receiving end of their combined friendship once when she was simultaneously saved by and kicked around by them.
“I can’t feel Twilight,” Celestia trailed off, sighing, “I can’t detect her life force anywhere, and I usually can when I’m so close to someone. And well, the only link we have between them is that they were all on their way to Pinkie’s party. Given that it appears that Pinkie attacked her own mentor, things don’t look good. While I don’t think Pinkie is directly responsible for the disappearances, I have a feeling that she knows something about it.”
Luna looked quietly at Celestia for a moment longer, her eyes then moving towards the royal pegasus guard who had been standing at attention before the two, patiently awaiting his orders after having flown to Ponyville and back himself to confirm the situation. He didn’t dare to speak or hurry up their decision; Celestia was never sure if such silent obedience made her proud or sad.
“Take a division to Ponyville,” Celestia finally spoke to him, “Find Pinkie Pie and bring her in. Locate the other Elements if possible; I want everything about this case to come to me.”
“Yes Princess! You can be sure that we will…” the guard started.
“Not harm her unless you absolutely have to in order to bring her in…alive. She is an Element holder, and if she did commit such a crime it was not of her own free will. We have to help her,” Celestia finished for him, making sure he understood. She knew that her guards could be overzealous at times, and stressed the word ‘alive’ severely. It seemed she had to punish overzealous guards more often than citizenry sometimes.
The guard bowed low before turning to take off out the door from the throne room. No doubt he would go towards the barracks to gather a small force. Celestia felt sick ordering a regiment to turn a town inside out looking for something. She felt sick every time she had to give an order that might result in somepony being hurt.
“Shall I go as well?” piped up Luna, standing tall as if getting ready.
“No sister. I would rather you not for now,” Celestia smiled to her sweetly.
“I can take care of myself, sister, I’ll be fine,” Luna sighed, a hint of frustration on her voice, then added quickly, “And I won’t crack and hurt any of our subjects. They need to get used to me… being around them.”
“I’m sure you can, and I’m sure you won’t, but if there is someone out there that can take down all of the elements in a single day, we have to proceed very carefully indeed,” Celestia explained as she reached over a hoof, pulling her sister close to hug her.
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Day Three
Pinkie Pie peeked her head over the top of the bushes, slowly sneaking past another set of nervous looking ponies. She heard them chatting quietly to each other and though she couldn’t make out what they said, she heard her own name several times. What were they saying? Did the ponies not like her anymore now? With thoughts like these, she had been straight-maned for another entire day, spending almost that whole time searching for Surprise without any success.
She had managed to sneak back to Sugar Cube Corner long enough to get her saddle bags again, so at the very least she had a few of her things, not that she expected a cupcake cannon, a coloring book, and party supplies to come in terribly handy at the moment.
Pinkie wasn’t sure what to do. Word had gotten around fast and she wasn’t used to everypony being afraid of her. The only thing she knew was that her friends would be able to help her, so today she had gone to each of their houses in turn to find them.
Actually finding them however, had proven more difficult than she had believed. First she had tried her best friend Rainbow Dash’s house, only to find the front yard wrecked and Dash’s most prized award lying on the floor where Dash would have never put it. What’s more, on her way to Fluttershy’s she found small trees that had been snapped as if something ran into them, hints of blood and several blue feathers.
At Fluttershy’s, she had also found nothing. The animals had been out feeding and had not seen anything, nor was there any sign of a struggle. There was even a neat little tea set out, though half-finished so somepony must have left in a hurry. There were tracks out front as if somepony had been dragged to a cart, and Pinkie had tried following the tracks, but she lost them as soon as they turned off the main road into tall grass.
Rarity’s had been a mess, from what she could see at least, but she couldn’t get too close because it looked like several guard ponies were investigating it at the same time. She had seen Sweetie Belle outside talking to one of them and crying. What had happened?
That was another thing. Why were there so many guards? Surely they couldn’t all be looking for her, could they? She felt like something worse must have happened, or was it just that her friends were hiding from her? She was too afraid to ask any of the normal pony citizens what was going on before she was certain.
She only had Twilight and Applejack left to try. Surely one of them would be there and able to help her, she believed. Slowly creeping around, she carefully opened the door to the library and slipped inside.
The library looked empty as well, but there was neither sign of a struggle nor any sign of any pony being dragged off. That was certainly a relief. And what was that? Pinkie heard a sound from upstairs, so she followed it to see what it was. Soon she realized it was the sound of Spike crying softly.
Starting to speak, Pinkie suddenly realized that if she just walked up to him, he might freak out, assuming he had heard the same thing others had. She hadn’t brought any gems, so wasn’t sure how to get his mind off of things. Finally she crept into the room, finding him there on Twilight’s bed, curled up and hugging her pillow. Pinkie felt her heart sink even more; was Twilight missing too?
“Uh… Spike? Don’t scream okay?” Pinkie tried to sound nice, even giving him a bright friendly smile, but it was hard to hide the fact that she was stressed out since her mane and tail gave it away. Spike had seen her like this before, and knew just a little of how she could get at times.
“Ah!” Spike nearly fell off the bed, “Have you come back to finish the job?”
“W- what are you talking about Spikey?” Pinkie blinked, but kept her smile.
“You… You got Dash too!” Spike pointed at her mane suddenly, where it just so happened one of Rainbow Dash’s feathers had landed while Pinkie was examining the tree earlier, “Did you take Twilight? Why are you doing this?”
“What are you talking about? Now come on Spikey Wikey, you know I wouldn’t hurt anypony,” she reasoned. However, half-way to the bed, she reached up to pull the feather out of her mane. A bloody feather. Oh. That would be hard to play off.
“You finally cracked, didn’t you?” accused Spike, pointing at her. “Just like when you tied me down and screamed at me, but worse, you didn’t even bring any gems this time!” It was as if that sealed the deal for him.
Spike looked back and forth, before suddenly seeming to realize something. He darted forward to the edge of the bed, leaping at Pinkie and belching out a burst of flame. Was he trying to mail her to Celestia or something? Either way, Pinkie wasn’t willing to test the theory, nor was she willing to find out if a pony could survive being mailed via dragon flame. She quickly dodged out of the way, which gave Spike the opening to run as Pinkie was slamming into the bookcase.
“Wait, Spike! It wasn’t me I swear!” Pinkie yelled as she wriggled all four legs trying to get up, only to have several books fall atop her head to keep her from it. By the time she finally stumbled to the door, the little one had already gotten away.
If she didn’t have her feelings hurt enough already, they were certainly drained all the more now. Spike had seemed so ready to believe that she had cracked that she started to wonder if she really had. Maybe her own memory was faulty?
She could try to catch him still, and probably would if she made an attempt, but would it really do any good? She sat there in the doorway to the library, head drooped low once again, before slowly rising to her hooves and trotting out. There was one more place to check.
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Applejack sat at the edge of the orchard, hiding off at the edge of the bushes there and waiting for Pinkie. She knew that Pinkie would be coming here, having heard about her being accused of Surprise’s rather violent deed, with some ponies even thinking she was responsible for her missing friends. It was really a bit convenient and she had a hard time feeling sorry for Pinkie at this point, given how annoying it had been to locate her.
“Won’t catch her, He says,” she grumbled to herself, “We’ll show Him that He can put His confidence in us.” She stuffed another apple into her mouth, a whole crate of them sitting next to her.
Sure enough, Pinkie came sneaking up the road, darting form tree to tree and hiding between each in turn. She seemed able to fit behind objects smaller than herself, which Applejack found every bit as strange as when she'd seen Surprise do it.
“That is so creepy. Well, all right, here goes,” Applejack said to herself, standing up on her shaky hind legs. “Uh.. Hay Pinkie Pie! Goodness, I’m sure glad you’re okay!” And she was, too, knowing that He would want to take care of her personally.
Pinkie couldn’t have been happier, spotting Applejack and darting over to her, skidding to a stop mere feet from her and panting. Looking over the earth pony, however, it was clear Applejack had been hurt from the way she stood; there was no faking that. Applejack's body had been carefully bandaged from flank down to her hind ankles, hiding her cutie mark in the process. The bandages looked like something Fluttershy would have wrapped her in, designed with cute little flowers, which brought Pinkie’s hopes up even more.
“Applejack!” Pinkie darted forward and hugged her, sounding relieved as she spoke, “I’m so glad you’re okay! Listen Applejack, I didn’t take the others or hurt Missus Cake. It was a weird Surprise pegasus; I think she might have time travelled from the eighties to re-replace us!”
Applejack stared, “I.. .is that so? Well uh… that would be the white pegasus? We found a white pegasus and we’re holding her in that old barn, right over there.”
Pinkie blinked, “You believe me?” Applejack had never believed her crazy nonsense prior to this; having her suddenly buy it actually destroyed some of the charm for Pinkie.
Applejack sensed as much, “Of course not.” She did think Pinkie was crazy, but had tried to play along with what she thought Pinkie expected. She didn't expect Pinkie not to expect... nevermind.
Pinkie wasn’t certain, but followed along nonetheless, peering at Applejack’s covered flank the entire way for some reason.
“What happened to you?” Pinkie asked.
“Me? I got into a fight with that white pegasus too, before we captured her. It was pretty weird, I barely beat her,” Applejack rambled on for a moment.
Pinkie, however, kept staring at Applejack, seeming to analyze her. She seemed nervous, but not nervous in the typical Applejack sense; it was almost like she was playing off her nervousness too well. There was also something else that was definitely wrong.
“Where’d your accent go?” Pinkie asked.
Applejack’s eyes shifted about, suddenly seeming to notice her mistake. She stuttered, “Accent? Oh my accent. Well, I just got back from vacation.”
“What does being on vacation have to do with it?” asked Pinkie, then turned to notice that they were headed towards one of the older apple barns that hadn’t been in use for some time; one that she was certain Applejack had mentioned was slated for tearing down. “And why did you put her in there?”
“Well it has everything to do with it,” Applejack focused on the first question, ignoring the second, “The… train, they lost my luggage.”
“The train lost your accent?” Pinkie blinked.
“Well they must have, else I’d still have it,” Applejack reasoned. She only had to keep Pinkie distracted for a few more moments, she thought, starting to walk faster, though she started getting less sure of her footing, tripping slightly from time to time.
“I guess that makes sense,” Pinkie answered; ironically a more feasible explanation would have seemed like a lie to her. Still, she wasn’t sure that the other pony was acting right. “I still don’t understand the old barn, though and the part about the fight. Are you really Applejack?” she finally asked outright.
Applejack turned her head about, trying to feign surprise, though looking a bit confused at the same time with what parts of this Pinkie was buying and which she wasn’t, “Of course I am!”
Arriving at the door, Applejack opened it up, clumsily reaching for the door with one hoof to try to hook the handle and pull it open. She offered to let Pinkie Pie in first, but the pink pony wouldn’t budge.
“Are you MY Applejack?” Pinkie Pie leaned over, turning one eye towards the earth pony and giving her the patented Pinkie Pie one-eyed stare, one eyeball seeming to bulge from her skull for a moment.
Applejack’s eyes got large, gulping solidly and clearly intimidated by the stare, not having expected it, “W.. Ah..” she stammered, unable to think of what to say in response to that.
“Gotcha!” another voice suddenly came out of nowhere, a pink and blue blur slamming into Pinkie from a nearby tree, knocking the dazed pony into the barn. Even Applejack found herself cringing at the subsequent crashing from within the barn.
“Surprise!” a second voice sounded. Surely enough, Surprise was in the barn, but certainly was not restrained. She was the second one to pounce Pinkie when she arrived, attempting to pin her down alongside Firefly.
“Firefly!” called out the pink unicorn that so recently had befriended Twilight, “We already told you, be careful with them! We can’t kill her yet!”
“What? I thought you said you already got-," Firefly started.
“Look He told us not to kill her right now, regardless,” Twilight screamed at her, cutting her off.
Notably, Firefly was still rather fried from her fight with Rainbow Dash earlier. Though she lacked any permanent injury, her wings and fur had obviously been blackened by the scorching she had gotten herself, her mane and tail having taken the brunt of the punishment and were now slightly patchy.
Twilight’s horn glowed, a purple mist moving to yank away a golf club that Surprise had just pulled out of her saddlebag with obvious intentions towards Pinkie’s head. The unicorn reiterated, “The no killing rule goes DOUBLE for you, Surprise.”
“My goodness, Firefly. You got dust everywhere. And be careful not to whip any more of it up Surprise,” Sparkler, apparently having joined them in the barn, complained, but didn't whine at least. She backed away from the dust cloud made by the impact.
“Aw come on!” Firefly huffed. She half stood, though still atop the struggling Pinkie, which couldn’t have been comfortable for the pink pony. “You guys take all the fun out of things!” she smirked and turned to the fashionable unicorn, “And don’t you start Sparkler. At least I didn’t take extra time to raid her house for useless trinkets.”
Sparkler hmph’ed, the unicorn taking a few more steps back as the dust cloud increased. “You’re all just so clumsy! It’s like you rush into every situation without a clue of what you’re doing!” she spoke, avoiding any admission that her own time capturing Rarity might have been a little fun for her.
Surprise chuckled, despite being deprived of her bludgeoning device, and moved to sit her plot down on Pinkie’s belly to hold her. This made Firefly stumble off of the pink pony, falling into Applejack as she came in and sending the earth pony tumbling against one of the barn’s support columns.
“Careful,” murmured Posey, who appeared to be huddled in the corner, “I don’t think this barn looks very stable.”
Surprise looked down, leaning forward so that her own face was inches from Pinkie’s as she giggled, “Were you surprised? Huh? Huh?”
"Stop stealing my lines!" Pinkie answered, suddenly ramming her head forward to head butt Surprise, sending the white pegasus falling back off of her as well, holding her head.
Pinkie’s resistance was short lived, however, as the horns of both present unicorns glowed. The magical energy caused Pinkie to float up into the air, held fast from both sides as she struggled to get a footing, only managing to run in mid air.
“So what now, Twilight?” Firefly smirked at the leading unicorn, dusting herself off after shoving Surprise away. Surprise just chuckled and slammed into the dirt, as if being treated as such was completely okay with her.
“Well we just need to get her back with the others. I can only teleport one pony at a time, so I’ll take her on ahead myself,” Twilight said as she walked towards the struggling Pinkie. She paused, however, turning her head to Posey, who was still huddled in one corner of the barn, “For goodness sake Posey! Please at least act like you’re a part of this team!”
Posey shook her head, silently trying to hold back her tears, “Why are we all acting so different than before? It’s like I don’t even… don’t even…” she shook her head, swaying, then stood straight up, suddenly putting on a braver face, “I’m sorry, I’ll try.”
Twilight hm’ed, staring at Posey for a moment, concentrating on her long and hard. She said nothing, but sudden fear filled Posey’s eyes.
“N-No!” Posey pleaded, “I’ll be good, I promise, you don’t need to tell him, please don’t tell him!”
“No! You won’t replace us!” Pinkie screeched as her feet flailed. She was still unable to touch ground. “You’re all just a bunch of meanie mean-pants!” she screeched again.
Despite appearances, Pinkie was taking note of the fear at which they spoke of ‘Him’, putting two and two together enough to know that what they were talking about was some sort of evil force. Was this why they wanted the elements out of the way?
Twilight rolled her eyes, walking towards the held pink pony, “Pinkie if you lived in my world for a few days, then you’d know what cruelty really is. Sometimes, you have to be cruel to survive.”
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Spike watched Pinkie as she snuck away from the library, heading directly towards Sweet Apple Acres. What was she doing? He held a piece of parchment and quill in his claws, but wasn’t sure what to write aside from that Pinkie had been there. Princess Celestia had told him to write back about any new information he received, but perhaps he should wait until he had something useful.
He watched as Pinkie headed onward, softly padding about behind her, trying to match his steps with her own so as to not be noticed. He followed her all the way to Sweet Apple Acres, amazed that she didn’t notice him the entire time. She must have really been distracted, he thought.
Once there, he saw the most unusual meeting unfold. At first he expected Applejack to try to apprehend Pinkie and was a little concerned when she didn’t. Was Applejack only pretending to be missing? Was she in on this? But why would she hurt the others? He was afraid to get close enough to listen to them, but followed them nonetheless.
An answer to his questions that he didn’t expect came as he watched Pinkie get tackled into the barn. Rushing to the door, he peeked around the edge just after Applejack entered within. What he heard next made his eyes grow wide.
He had to save Pinkie! But how? He couldn’t beat one pony, much less six of them that were potentially as strong as the Elements themselves. He decided to do what he knew best, pulling out the parchment and quill again and beginning to write.
“Hey what’s that?” Firefly turned, cutting off Twilight’s train of thought. Firefly moved to peer through a crack in the barn, “Is somepony out there?”
“What?” Twilight glanced in that direction, but didn’t want to break her concentration on Pinkie, lest she be allowed to struggle away. “You three!” she motioned instead to Applejack, Firefly, and Surprise with a hoof, “No witnesses.” As if to punctuate her sentence, she kicked the golf club back over to Surprise.
This didn’t make for a very orderly exit from the building, however. As Surprise bolted through it, the door slammed open into Spike in the middle of his message. The dragon had been holding his breath, ready to breathe on the letter as soon as it was finished, and this made him expel the load early to send the unfinished parchment.
“No!” Spike yelled out as he skidded across the ground, “It wasn’t done!”
He now had more important things to worry about, however. He knew that if these ponies beat up his friends, he wouldn’t be able to escape from three of them. Maybe if he was fast, however, he could at least save Pinkie.
“Surprise!” Surprise swung the club, coming inches from Spike’s head as the little dragon ran towards the barn, rapidly climbing up the side.
Firefly and Applejack hadn’t expected their prey to run towards the barn instead of away from it. By the time they realized it, they were ten feet out from the door. Applejack tripped as she tried to turn about, tumbling against Firefly before the pegasus had a chance to properly take off.
“Stop being a silly pony!” Firefly screamed angrily, shoving Applejack off of her and taking off as fast as she could with her still-singed wings.
This was actually where Spike lucked out. These ponies seemed extraordinarily bad at anything resembling teamwork, and Surprise darted up into the air just as Firefly charged towards the barn with the intention of smashing Spike into it. When Surprise swung the golf club at Spike again, she instead impacted the charging Firefly’s head, sending the pink pegasus off course and through the wall of the barn itself with a splintering crash.
“You clumsy idiots! I would say you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, Firefly, but I suppose that’s the only thing you can do,” Sparkler called out, trying hard to retain her concentration on the Pinkie grasp, “Um… Twilight dear. Shouldn’t you be doing something?”
“Oh, right,” Twilight stammered, having an equal amount of trouble concentrating. She shook her head slightly as if to clear her head of something, then walked over towards Pinkie once again. “I hate to think what will happen to you morons when I leave. I swear one tiny little thing and you all need your hooves held. Anyway… I wish… I wish…”
Firefly snorted at Twilight, “I’ll have that little guy’s head on a platter!” She then darted back outside, all the more determined.
However, Surprise was just flying up past the hole as Firefly was flying out of it. They slammed together and were both sent spiraling out of control, barely able to stop themselves before impacting the ground. By then, Spike wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Get off!” Firefly shoved Surprise aside again, moving up to start circling about the barn.
“Did you see where he went?” Surprise asked Applejack, turning to see that the earth pony had apparently stopped to stuff her face with more apples.
“I was busy,” Applejack said with her mouth full, bits of apple trickling down her cheek.
Spike had ducked into the roof through another hole and was now running about the rafters. Running towards the middle, he searched for the main support beam.
“I’m really going to regret this,” Spike sighed. With those words, Spike took a deep breath, and breathed his magical flame all over the main beam.
The next thing any pony knew, the whole barn creaked and began to crumble. The first plank to fall nailed Twilight directly in the head, disrupting her teleportation spell. Needless to say, the impact of wood against her head, followed by her head against the ground, broke her concentration well enough. The cloud of dust resulting from it broke Sparkler's concentration too as she immediately fled the building with no regard for her 'friends' still inside.
Freed from her magical binding and unaware of Spike still being nearby, Pinkie immediately darted off. The other confused ponies didn't notice the pink streak as it left out the front and across the orchard.
“Shouldn’t some pony be saving Twilight?” Applejack asked from outside, watching the barn cave in on itself as she casually stuffed another apple into her mouth.
“What?” Surprise responded, as if the concept of risking her life for some other pony was foreign to her.
Luckily for Twilight, Posey was still inside, and the yellow pony managed to pull the plank off of the unicorn’s head before shoving her outside. Twilight and Posey exited the barn shortly before it fully collapsed, the splintering of wood causing a huge bang. There was no doubt that any pony in earshot would be running to see what happened.
Spike wasn’t as lucky as the ponies, but at least he was atop the barn so not a great deal collapsed atop him. The next thing he knew, Firefly was pulling him out of the rubble.
“Surprise again!” a voice screamed.
If the collapse didn’t hurt enough, the slam of Surprise’s club to Spike’s head certainly did, sending the poor dragon flying to crash head first into the ground amongst the other escaped ponies. Firefly and Surprise dove again, death in their eyes.
“Waaaaait!” Posey yelled, pulling the baby dragon out from their targeted path, causing both pegasi to land hard on the ground.
“What the hay Posey?” Firefly screeched.
“Well that was surprising!” Surprise gave her that much credit.
“Oh what now?” Twilight glared at Posey, despite having just been saved by the pony, “This isn’t going to be another of your idiot love and peace speeches is it? I swear when we get back it’s condi-”
“He’s just a baby!” protested Posey, cutting Twilight off, “And we didn’t come here to kill babies! Besides, don’t you see? This is Twilight’s pet dragon, you said his name was Spike, right? He might be useful right?”
“Spike?” Applejack arched and eyebrow.
“Oh goodness, Spike? If he’s anything like our Spike, kill him before he speaks,” Sparkler whined as she covered her ears.
“Seriously!” agreed Firefly, “Most. Annoying. Voice. Ever. One baby dragon is enough!”
“No, she has a point,” Twilight shook her head, “As much as I hate to admit it, this could actually work well. Posey, we’ll talk on the way back, and perhaps we’ll reconsider your conditioning if you do better. Anyway, everypony scramble, there might be help on the way.”
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Far away, Celestia sat quietly on a pile of soft pillows in her study, worries filling her head. She had a book in front of her, trying hard to get her mind off of things.
“I still can’t believe that one of my own would do this,” she spoke to herself.
“No, I'm sure it's fine,” assured Luna, having entered the room, moving to sit across from her, “I agree. No need to worry big sister; we’ll get to the bottom of-"
She cut herself off as there was a spark in the air above Celestia, a letter appearing in front of the older Princess. It wasn’t folded and looked half-written, complete with a half-broken quill tumbling in with it.
Celestia caught the letter with her magic, moving it upright and reading it aloud, “Dear Princess Celestia. This is Spike. You told me to tell you if I saw Pinkie and I have. Now this is very important, so send help right away to Sweet Apple Acres as I don’t know if they’ll catch me before I finish this. Pinkie is in the barn with six other ponies that are all working together to…” the letter ended.
“Pinkie Pie is working with others to do what?” Luna peered, her voice taking a slightly more dangerous tone than before. Unfortunately, Spike had chosen a bad place to be cut off.
“I…” Celestia was speechless for a moment, then slowly closed her eyes, “Could this get any worse…”
And with those words, a large plank of support beam appeared over Celestia’s head, slamming down on her in a cloud of dust.
“Sister?” Luna startled, rushing over to pull it off with her own magic, “Are you injured?”
“Remind me… never… to say… that again…”