Scene 04: We Shall Go To Town
About half an hour later, the six friends trotted back into Ponyville. Stomachs had been calmed, grass had been consumed, and Twilight had been thoroughly poked by her companions about the overwhelming ‘success’ of her attempt.
“Yanno, I’ve been through a lot of loops in my time, and I’ve pulled a lot of sick moves, but nothing’s ever quite hit me in the gut like that,” Rainbow crowed, a teasing grin on her face as she gave a sidelong glance at Twilight. The amiable bookworm simply rolled her eyes.
“Hey, I did it, didn’t I?” the unicorn responded, “So it was a little rough. It was my first try and we made it here without a hitch. That’s pretty good, if you ask me.”
“And I agree.” Rarity chimed in, trotting up on the other side of Rainbow Dash, “Sure… it left us all a bit…” she swallowed hard and gave a nervous laugh, “…queasy. But, sacrifices must be made, and an upset stomach is a small price to pay for such fantastic service. Rapid transport, just like in the big city!” She let out a crystalline laugh. She may have been a little dusty, but at least she wasn’t all sweaty and tired. Two out of three wasn’t bad, after all.
Fluttershy didn’t look all that pleased, however, her eyes cast down at the ground in a vacant stare. She was dragging behind a bit, only slightly ahead of Pinkie Pie who was bouncing along a few lengths behind the group, as upbeat and oblivious as always.
“I… I don’t know,” said the pegasus after a long silence, “that was kind of… scary. With the bright light… and all those awful noises.” She began to shudder just thinking about it.
“That happens normally when you teleport from place to place. It’s the distortions of the world around you as it moves past. The thing is, it’s moving too fast for you to really comprehend it, so the sounds are distorted to begin with and everything you hear piles on top of itself in a sort of “audio feedback loop”. It’s just that ponies don’t normally spend that long in a teleport. It’s usually instantaneous, but since the distance was so large, we experienced it for a few seconds rather than it going by in a flash.”
“Frankly, Ah’d have rather not’d experienced it ayt’all.” Applejack said, walking ahead of the group. She still looked mighty tired and the whole experience seemed to have taken a good bit out of her. ”Ah don’t mind y’all unicorns and yer magic. Ya’ll know that, but that was jest a bit much fer this little-old farmgirl, here.”
“Applejack…” Twilight gave a soft sigh and shook her head. Applejack didn’t respond, a stubborn glower set on her face.
At that moment, Pinkie suddenly came to a dead stop, her head swinging back and forth as she looked from shop to shop, her eyes wide. Fluttershy noticed first, stopping to look back at Pinkie Pie before hopping forward and tugging on Twilight’s tail with her teeth to get her to stop. Dash and Rarity took notice of this and looked back to see what was the matter. Only Applejack continued on, walking a few lengths before realizing that there weren’t any hoof-falls behind her and glancing back to see what was going on.
They all just stood there, staring at Pinkie as she did double and triple and quadruple takes, her eyes zipping from one object to another. Then, sitting straight up with enough force to make her entire mane flex like a riding crop, she blinked one time and gave a gasp before shooting off in a random direction like a great pink blur. The others stood there for a moment in dumbstruck confusion as confetti fluttered to the ground where Pinkie had been just a few seconds earlier.
“What the…” Rainbow Dash began.
“Oh, y’all don’t be worryin’ about her,” interjected Applejack, “y’all know that one’s plow is missin’ a few teeth. She probly left the milk out’r somethin’ and jest now remember’d it.”
Applejack smiled a bit, finally relaxing a little now that she was definitely home.
Passing by Sugar Cube Corner, the girls said their goodbyes and separated, each one heading back to their respective homes. Twilight was a bit tired, to be truthful. Magical exertion like that didn’t just take a lot of concentration; it also burned up a lot energy. Consequently, she was pretty worn out. Still, this sort of thing could revolutionize the way ponies got around if applied in the right manner; the technique just had to be refined. It was an exciting prospect. It was a wonder no pony had ever thought of it before. Maybe it just required too much magical energy. Who knew?
Twilight gazed up at the sky as she thought about it, taking in a breath of the warm summer air. The morning haze was completely gone now, and the sky was clear, save for a few scattered puffballs. It was a vibrant blue and it seemed somewhat darker than it usually appeared, though that was probably due to the lack of clouds and its effect on the ground’s albedo. Twilight thought about this, idly trying to remember the different cloud shapes that the pegasi were trained to produce as she made her way back home. She bet it took a lot of training to get them just right.
Soon, the library that acted as Twilight’s home was just up ahead, and as she approached the old, hollowed-out tree, she began to make a mental list of all the things she wanted to read up on. Clouds, weather systems, magical frequencies, motion sickness... My, she had a lot of reading to do! Of course, it was an excuse and she knew it, but if more people actually made excuses to read, instead of excuses to avoid it, then the world might just be a little bit better of a place. At least, that’s how Twilight saw things.
Once inside, she set her saddlebags down by the door and procured the old tome she’d been carrying. Setting it upon the table, she then turned her attention back to the shelves, scanning the titles intently. Pulling a few choice selections from them, one at a time, she stacked them neatly in midair, arranging them in the order that she wished to read them and lowered them gently down onto the table. Opening the first book, she took to the text with childish glee, leaning forward with both elbows upon the table. There was nothing better than relaxing after a rough spell with a good book.
Just then, something caught her ears and she gave a glance back towards the loft where her bed was. A voice? She could have sworn that she had heard someone talking just then.
“Spike? Spike, is that you?” Twilight asked softly, “Spike? Spike!” She called louder and, after a moment, proceeded to trot over towards the ladder leading up to her bedroom. Scaling it, she found that everything was neat and in order; Spike’s bed was still made, just as she had left it before leaving for vacation. Nothing had been disturbed and there was no sign that the little purple dragon had returned from his trip yet.
…There it was again. She could swear that she had heard someone talking. This time, however, it was back down on the first floor. Returning to the ladder and glancing over the railing, she scanned the room slowly for any sign of another pony or creature. No Spike. No Owlicious. No one.
She managed a short hop, her horn sparking as her magic came to life. A thick, translucent blanket caught her in midair and slowly lowered her down to the floor, letting go just above the surface. Landing on all four hooves with a loud clomp, she shook her head and proceeded back towards her books before stopping dead in her tracks just short of the table. There was another whisper. This one was behind her, somewhere towards the back of the building. Hesitantly, she turned around and saw a hint of motion disappear into the other room.
“S-Spike! This isn’t funny,” the unicorn stated, as she began to make her way towards the back room. Peeking around the corner, the voices became audiable again, slowly getting louder as she stood there. The room was full of old books, stacked all the way up to the ceiling and covered in varying degrees of dust. She had been organizing these by alphabet and was writing them down in the catalogue so that she knew just what she had in stock at the library. The dark columns stood against the back wall, giving no clues as the whispers continued in the room.
“I mean it. Spike! I know you’re hiding in here!” Twilight began to sweat, looking for any signs of movement. A shadow, a flash of purple and green, anything. The voices grew louder by the moment, coming from nowhere in particular, as if they were swirling around the room itself. She could hear them clearly, but it was impossible to make out anything discernable and she slowly began to back into the main room. She swallowed hard, sweat running down her forehead as she scanned the room. There had to be some sort of explanation for it… something!
She felt a cold touch on her flank and the lavender unicorn let out a high shriek, whipping around and readying a burst of magic in her horn, the white light bathing the room. Her stool fell over with a loud clatter, rolling about in a circle before coming to rest. Taking a few deep breaths, Twilight closed her eyes and slowly let the magic dissipate.
There was an explanation for it. She was probably just tired. That spell had beat her flank pretty hard and she had a bit of a headache from it anyway; her horn was feeling kind of fuzzy as it did after all of her really big spells. It was a sort of strain, like a pulled muscle or pinched nerve, but nothing terribly important or problematic. She was just getting a lot of static from it, that’s all. Nothing to worry about…
Returning to her reading, she dove into her books, wading through the pages on meteorology and the weather. It was pretty interesting stuff, actually, with long paragraphs describing how the pegasi tracked what rain was needed and where, diagrams of all the different cloud-building techniques, and tables displaying the difference in chemical composition between rain clouds and regular old fair weather clouds.
Before Twilight realized it about an hour had passed and she was suddenly wrenched from her literary bliss by a knock at her front door. It was loud and frantic, continuing incessantly as she placed a bookmark between the pages of her book and shut it. Sauntering over to the door, she willed it open, and found that on the other side was Applejack, who quickly stepped in as soon as she could, shutting the door behind her.
Something was definitely up. There was a look of total desperation in her emerald eyes; her blonde mane let out of its bindings, falling every which way, mussed with dirt and soot; and she was sweating profusely, both visibly and… well you could tell. She had been exerting herself something fierce.
“Applejack. What’s wrong? You look terrible!” Twilight leaned in close and put a hoof on her friend’s back. Applejack was panting heavily, her muscles tense as bound rope…
“Twilight. Ah…” She swallowed hard, trying to force the words up out of her throat, pushing them out one at time, slowly and surely. “Ah… Ah can’t find Apple Bloom. …or Granny Smith. …or Big Macintosh.” She looked as if she was on the verge of hyperventilating.
“What?” Twilight blinked and shook her head, not understanding.
“There’s no note, an’ no sign of them leavin’. Th’ front door was unlock’d. Th’ barn was open. Ah. Can’t. Find. Them! An nopony Ah’ve walked up to, will talk t’me!”
“What do you mean ‘they won’t talk to you’, Applejack?”
“They won’t talk! Ah ask ‘em, but they don’t say nothin’! They jest look at me and walk away…” The straight-laced country-girl shook, just for a moment, and looked Twilight in the eyes, pleading silently. “Somethin’ is wrong, Twilight. Bad wrong.”
“I’ll say it is!” Their pink pony friend’s chipper voice permeated through the door, causing Applejack and Twilight to both look to the window. Sure enough, outside was Pinkie Pie, dressed in an old beaten up trenchcoat and a hat that looked like it had been run over by a tractor. Twilight opened the door again.
“Pinkie, what are you doing?”
“Well I was looking around town and I couldn’t help but overhear what you two were talking about, on account of me leaning up against the door after I saw Applejack walk inside. So I was listening and I think there’s a big problem, too!”
“Okay...” Twilight responded, motioning for Pinkie to come inside. She shut the door behind the pink pony, turning the lights up a bit so that it was a little homier inside as Pinkie Pie carried on.
“Well, when we got into Ponyville, I noticed something was strange, so I ran around town as fast as I could to see if I could confirm my suspicions! Then I got back to Sugarcube Corner and sure enough, no Mr. or Mrs. Cake! I couldn’t even find Gummy! I knew something was up. See remember when I first saw you, Twilight, and I went- GASP! -because I’d never seen you before, and if I’d never seen you before, you must be new! Because I know everypony, and I mean everypony in Ponyville! And if you were new, that means that you needed to meet ponies, because I didn’t want you to be lonely-“
“Pinkie.” Applejack interjected wearily.
“-so I decided to throw a big surprise party and invite the entire town, because there’s no better way to meet people and have fun than a party! So I got up all the streamers, ribbons and balloons I could and started decorating up the library, because nopony lived there and I had heard-“
“Sugarcube…”
“-so I got a cake and punch, and we got my record player set up in the corner and I knew it was going to be the biggest, bestest surprise party for any pony in all of Ponyville. I mean what better way to welcome a new pony than-“
“PINKIE PIE!!! AH DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!!! Get to the consarn’d POINT, already!!!” Applejack screamed, wheezing through her teeth as she glared at the stunned pink pony. Of course, it only took Pinkie a second to recover. Popping up the collar on her coat, she leaned in close to Twilight and Applejack, glancing around as if someone was watching them.
“See… the weird thing is… since we got back, I haven’t seen anypony that I recognized, and I’ve been all the way around Ponyville today! I don’t know any of these ponies!” Pinkie Pie glanced about one more time before turning back to Applejack and Twilight once more, speaking in a guarded whisper.
“I don’t know any of them at all.”