The night in Ponyville passed for Ponyville. And the next morning, Twilight woke up to the sweet smell of pancakes cooking in the kitchen. Looking at Spike's bed, she figured out that it was Spike doing the cooking as he wasn't currently asleep.
Twilight yawned and stretched her legs. She then got out of bed, tidied it up, then walked over to her mirror to comb her mane into shape.
"That pony last night......it's the first time I've seen him around here.....if there's one thing I'm hopeful for is that he isn't related to those disappearances.......he's a strange pony indeed, but that's just going by what I saw last night. What baffles me is his cutie mark. Fire? Oh, Celestia, he isn't an arsonist is he? I haven't brought an arsonist into a library that's a tree, have I? That's the last thing anypony wants to see right now.....the library on fire....."
She sighed and put the comb back into her drawer. "I hope there hasn't been any more disappearances overnight. We really need to get a move on and find these ponies already. I'll go and check the missing list on the town noticeboard later."
She walked out of the bedroom, then walked down the stairs. The checked the couch and saw the pink maned pony was still asleep. Only one thing. He was snoring quite loudly. Twilight flattened her ears to drown out the noise and carried on walking to the kitchen. There she saw Spike merrily working on the pancakes, humming a little tune.
"Morning, Spike!" Twilight greeted with a smile.
"Morning, Twilight!" Spike returned the greeting with a grin. "You're just in time! Breakfast's almost ready!"
Twilight smiled and nuzzled her little friend. "I gotta say you're a better cook than I am. Remember what happened last time I tried?"
Spike rolled his eyes. "How could I forget? We spent the next hour keeping the fire tamed!"
Twilight turned her head back into the main room. "Speaking of fire, what do you make of that pony's cutie mark?"
Spike brought his claw up to his chin and thought. "Well it's different......I'll say that much. It's certainly not something you see around here every day. So there's gotta be more to this pony than meets the eye.......you know how dragons have an enhanced sense of smell?"
Twilight gave him a curious look. "Yeah?"
"Well.........call me crazy, but.......this guy kind of has the scent of a dragon....."
Twilight's eyes widened. "The scent of a dragon?! But...how can that be possible?!"
Spike held his claws up. "I dunno, that's what I'm trying to figure out! Well that and why the only ponies to have disappeared recently are unicorns........"
Twilight shuddered. "So who's disappeared so far?"
"Well so far on the list there's Lyra Heartstrings, Vinyl Scratch, Mochacchino, Amethyst Star, Lemony Gem, Minuette, Pixie, Perfect Timing.......the list just goes on........I'm worried, Twilight. What if Rarity goes missing...or you....?" Spike trailed off, his head hanging low. Twilight smiled and gave him a tight hug.
"Don't worry, Spike. We're gonna get those ponies back from whoever's doing this. And I won't let myself get caught. That you can be sure of."
Spike hugged Twilight back. "Hehe. Thanks, Twilight."
It was then they heard a crash and a yelp. "Arrrgh! What the hell is going on?!"
This made Twilight and Spike nearly jump out of their skins. They then rushed into the main room and saw the pink maned pony, and judging by the sound they jumped at, it seemed he woke up in quite a bit of shock. How? Because his eyes were wide and he was sprawled on the floor.
"Where the hell am I?!"
Twilight immediately answered his question. "Y-you're in the library! You came to our door last night and collapsed on the floor!!"
The pony seemed to calm down slightly. "I did?"
Twilight nodded. "Don't you remember?"
The pony then thought on for a minute. "Well I remember finding a tiara thing and waking up and..........oh yeah. Oh crap, Happy!!" He got up off the floor and galloped out.
Twilight widened her eyes and followed him out. "Wait!! Who or what is Happy?!"
He stopped for a second and turned around. "He's my friend! We musta got separated coming here. Stupid tiara thing with it's stupid star and it's stupid purple glow...."
Twilight widened her eyes. "Wait, what was that?"
The pony tilted his head in curiosity. "What was what?"
"'Tiara', 'star', purple glow'?!" Twilight asked quite frantically.
The pony raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, why? Is that so important?"
Twilight's eyes widened even more. "Yes, it is!! You found the Element of Magic!!"
"The Element of........what? 'Magic'? You can use magic here?!" The pony asked with excitement.
It was Twilight's turn to tilt her head. "Uhh, yeah? You're a unicorn too, you should know! Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Twilight Sparkle. And this is my best friend, Spike." She motioned to he dragon, who gave a smile and a wave. "And what's that symbol on your shoulder?"
"Oh, I'm Natsu Dragneel! And this mark on my shoulder is the insignia of the Fairy Tail guild!" He stated with a grin.
"Fairy...........wha...?" She asked with a look of confusion.
"A guild of wizards that do jobs and missions and also help out those who need it. We're also like one big family. And that's why I'm not gonna rest until I've found Happy!" Natsu claimed with a serious look on his face.
The idea of a guild of magic users that treat each other like their own family and go around helping others excited Twilight for a moment. But then she was snapped out of that thought when she saw a yellow pegasus with a pink mane galloping up to them. She had a panicked expression and tears were streaming down her face as she ran. As soon as she reached the group, she collapsed to the ground, buried her head in her hooves and sobbed. This pony was Fluttershy, Element of Kindness. She had a cutie mark of three pink butterflies and true to her name, was quite shy, rather timid and a little bit sensitive.
"T-Twilight...!!" She shouted out in between sobs.
Twilight immediately trotted over to her friend and laid a single hoof on her shoulder. "Fluttershy! What's wrong?!"
Fluttershy looked up at her unicorn friend with her teary eyes. "A-another.......on the list.......you need to come look...!"
Twilight's eyes widened and she galloped off to the town's noticeboard. Natsu, not knowing what's going on, leaned down to the timid pegasus. "What was that all about?" Fluttershy slowly looked at the pink maned unicorn.
"M-missing....unicorns....list...in the town square..." She said before her eyes widened. "Eeep! Twilight, wait!" She immediately got up from the floor and flew off in the same direction Twilight went. Natsu was a little taken aback by this. He turned to Spike.
"Missing unicorns?"
Spike nodded. "We don't know why it's just unicorns getting kidnapped. But the last time I checked the remaining few unicorns in Ponyville were........" It's at this point Spike's eyes widened considerably. "Oh no..........." And with that he ran off in the same direction as the last two ponies. Natsu decided to follow the two.
In the midst of the commotion, they'd all forgotten to lock up the library, and some sort of figure was able to sneak in and close the door without any suspicion.
In the town square, ponies had gathered around the noticeboard and were looking crestfallen about it all. Twilight approached the noticeboard and noticed three fillies stood right in front of it, one of them tears streaming down her face sobbing into her hooves, the other two comforting their friend. Twilight approached and laid a hoof on her shoulder. "Sweetie Belle? What's wrong...?"
The filly looked up to Twilight. "L-look........the bottom name......" Twilight did so and scanned the name list.
When she caught sight of the bottom name, her eyes widened. "No............Oh, no........"
At that point, Natsu and Spike reached the noticeboard as well and saw Twilight;s widened eyes. Spike looked up to the noticeboard and when he saw the last name on the list he fell to his knees and shouted into the air, "NOOOOOOOO!!"
The last name on the noticeboard was the name of one of the Elements of Harmony. The name read "Rarity". This particular pony was the Element of Generosity. The filly, Sweetie Belle, was her little sister who she lived with. And her two friends who she was with were Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. Natsu looked on at the scene and it reminded him that his guildmates probably saw the glow and are out searching for him around the mountains.
Twilight regained her composure and shook Spike, snapping him out of his moping. "Spike! We need to get back to the library and alert Princess Celestia! Now!!" She galloped off in the direction of the library with Spike following. Natsu was about to follow as well when something slammed into him and sent him flying through a few a few market stalls.
He flipped himself upright and landed on his hooves, facing his assailant. A cyan pegasus with a messy rainbow mane. She was in an attack stance, was pawing her right hoof at the ground and had a meeeaaan look on her face. She snorted mist once before shooting right at him, her speed taking Natsu by surprise. She brought a hoof back and slammed it into his face, the force of the punch boosted by her momentum. It sent him flying back again and this time,, he flipped himself and bounced off a tree which he was close to hitting.
But to his surprise, she wasn't there. All of a sudden, he felt something which he presumed to be the pegasus, slam into his back and plow him into the floor. "Whoa, this pony could give Jet a run for his money...!"
"Rainbow Dash, calm down!!" An orange pony with a stetson shouted before running up and tackling her to the ground. "Ah know that y'all wanna help the missing unicorns but this is NOT the way to do it!!"
Natsu soon got up and glared at this pegasus, who he presumed was named Rainbow Dash. She, in turn, glared back at him, and it's then he saw the look in her eyes. It wasn't the look that said she wanted to beat him up just for the sheer joy of it, it was a look that said that she was desperate to find her friends. He recognised it well as he wore it once. When his guild and the whole of Magnolia was sucked into Edolas from the Anima.
At that point, everypony there turned their heads towards the library as they heard a screaming coming from there. Rainbow Dash immediately forgot what she was doing, then shot to the library. 30 seconds passed, and she came back with a sullen look on her face. On her back was an unconscious Spike and in her hoof was a rolled up piece of parchment. Surprisingly she threw the parchment to Natsu, who caught it in his mouth. "Read. Now."
Natsu complied with Rainbow Dash's demand. He put the piece of parchment on the floor and opened it with his snout, then proceeded to read what's on it out loud. "Dear Ponyville. Should you be reading this, we have managed to capture all of your resident unicorns. We're not gonna reveal too much but one thing we will say is that we'd like to see you try and get them back. No, seriously, we would! It would be so entertaining! Anyway, you should know where we are. After all, we have managed to get ahold of one of your precious ponies before! And then she whines about how she's not getting the treatment she deserves, then her friends roll in and take her back! It was so humiliating! So just try and stop us. Because this time, we'll be ready... Oh, by the way, we also have a weird talking blue cat. Don't know if it belongs to anypony.
Signed
Rover of the Diamond Dogs."
"Happy...?"
"THOSE CREEPS?!" Rainbow Dash immediately shouted at the top of her voice. "Why I oughta.." She was about to fly off before she felt somepony grabbing her by the tail. "Ugh, AJ, let me go-" She turned around, ready to force AJ to let her go when she saw it wasn't AJ keeping her from going, it was Natsu.
"Listen, I don't know what these Diamond Dogs are or what they're planning, but you can't do this alone!" He stated through his teeth.
Rainbow Dash hovered there, dumbfounded for a couple of seconds before arguing back. "And why not?! They have friends of ours hostage! We've been wondering where they are and now we have a lead! I'm not about to let it go!"
Natsu narrowed his eyes. "They also have a friend of mine held hostage too. I want to get these guys just as much as you. Besides, wouldn't it be nice to let your friends in on the action as well?" At that point, he flashed his toothy grin while chuckling.
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at this pony's attitude, then sighed. "Fine. But can ya let me go, please?"
Natsu nodded and let the pegasus go. He was thinking for a moment and then a sudden realisation came to him. "Hey, when the hell did a bunch of dogs learn to read and write?!"