Sleep came with difficulty that night, when it came at all.
Apple Bloom tossed and turned beneath her sheets. The bed she shared with her two friends was soft, far softer than the one at home. She wondered how anypony was meant to sleep like this, constantly sinking into their own bed without the comforting weight of a straw mattress beneath them. She was plenty tired, too; after lunch Cheerilee had taken the group on a proper trip to the beach, ostensibly to help sweep up debris but mostly to let them finally play in the surf. It might have been the highlight of the trip, if it hadn’t been tainted by the shadow of anticipation and dread that had been hanging over them all since that morning.
She sighed for the umpteenth time, glancing to her left and right. Sweetie Belle seemed perfectly at home on a feather bed, dozing contentedly, while Scootaloo curled up with her wings spread and a smile on her face. With a little reminder of her friends' warmth, like carrying a piece of home on either side of her, Apple Bloom laid back on her pillow and willed herself to relax.
Rest wasn't easy to find. A dark weight hung in the pit of Apple Bloom's stomach, and whichever way she twisted it hung against her insides, taunting her. But as her sister had reminded her a number of times before, "Ain't no use losing sleep over something you can't help. Heck, if help is what you want to do, you're best to get all the rest you can."
But every time she closed her eyes, every time she started to drift into an escape from the doubting fears of the past day, all she could see was the one red eye of the great black unicorn...
Apple Bloom woke up with a start, shivering. Her heart fluttered rapidly before slowing down as the darkness and warmth of the night came back to her. Groaning, she rolled over again and stretched as she yawned, her left forehoof brushing against Sweetie Belle's mane. Her right, however, met only air.
The filly blinked in the darkness. She reached around sleepily, feeling only a slight depression on Scootaloo's side of the bed. Realization struck and she bolted upright. The covers had been thrown back, and Scootaloo was gone. A knot rising in her throat, Apple Bloom shook the pony on her left. "Sweetie Belle! Wake up!"
Groggily, Sweetie Belle began to stir. At the same time, another voice called out softly from the other side of the room. "What is it?" Archer sat up and turned on the lamp next to the other bed in the room, lighting up the chamber. "Is it an emergency?"
Instead of answering, Apple Bloom waited for Sweetie Belle to open her eyes before continuing. "Scootaloo's missing!" she said. "What do we do?"
Archer shrugged. "She probably just went for a walk or something."
"Turn off the light!" Peachy Pie moaned beside her, putting her head under her pillow. On the far side, Tornado Bolt continued to sleep like a log.
"What if Cicada took her?" Apple Bloom asked, raising her voice a little.
"He didn't. I heard her walk out of here like twenty minutes ago." Archer gestured to the door, which sure enough hung slightly open.
"And you didn't stop her?"
Archer shrugged. "If she wants to get herself in trouble, that's her problem."
The light clicked off. Sweetie Belle shivered, looking around nervously. "Should we tell Cheerilee?" she whispered.
Apple Bloom considered this. She hopped down from the bed and trotted over to the window, peering out between the thick curtains. They were on the top floor of the hotel, one of the only buildings in Seaddle that rose above three stories, and she could see most of the town stretching out before her. Moonlight covered everything, glinting off the distant ocean. "Nah," Apple Bloom decided. "We don't have to get her in trouble. Ah think Ah know where she's gone."
Confidently, Apple Bloom crossed the room and walked out into the hall. Sweetie Belle followed, more slowly. They waited to see if the others would follow, but Archer only turned out the bedside light and rolled over.
Everything, even the most familiar of settings, was more frightening in the dark. Both fillies instinctively tensed up as they entered the hallway. It was after the town’s curfew and all the hotel’s lights were out, only a faint haze of cloud-covered moonlight guiding them towards the stairs. They crept across carpets that hadn’t made a sound during the day but seemed as if they might now, breaths held, their tortured pace making the path seem several times longer than it was hours earlier.
They were almost to the stairs when there was a sound from behind them: the faint click of a door being shut. Sweetie squeaked and pressed herself against the wall, while Apple Bloom looked back and searched for another shape in the darkness. There was none. Their own door still hung open by a few inches. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Sweetie Belle whispered.
“Don’t matter,” Apple Bloom whispered back. “Scoots is our friend. We gotta find her.”
“But... what if we get caught?”
Apple Bloom sighed. “Ah don’t think that’s really our biggest worry any more.” They continued down the stairs and weren’t stopped as they left the hotel.
Seaddle’s main street was quiet and empty. The carnival ponies were mostly packed up, just a line of carts filled with tent fabric showing signs of their continued presence. A cold breeze blew in from the ocean, clearing the fillies’ heads as they cantered in the direction of what had once been the cliffs. It wasn’t long before Apple Bloom caught sight of a figure in the distance, sitting in the middle of the road. She called out and charged ahead, Sweetie Belle close behind.
In a sense, the cliffs of Seaddle hadn't been destroyed, only pushed back. The path to the ocean ended with a sheer dropoff where the side of Pollinia's robot had broken through the stone like a knife, resulting in an irregularly-shaped coastline that dropped down sharply into shallow and foaming waters. Scootaloo sat on the edge of what had once been the road up to the lighthouse, watching the ocean surge and roll over the rocks below. She didn't look back as she heard two sets of hoofsteps gallop up behind her, but she did break into a smile. "Hey, guys!" she called over her shoulder. "Check out this view."
"Scootaloo..." Apple Bloom panted, drawing to a halt. “We were worried about you.”
Sweetie Belle let out a deafening yawn before speaking as well. “What are you doing out this late?” she asked, flopping down on the grass beside her.
“Just... thinking,” Scootaloo answered. “About tomorrow. I didn’t think you were going to wake up.”
Apple Bloom joined her at the road’s end, careful to stay a safe distance away from the edge. “Are you really gonna go through with it?” she asked. “With the battle?”
“Well, duh,” Scootaloo answered with an eye roll. “I’d be crazy not to. And you guys are gonna do it too, right?” She looked back to her left and right when her friends didn’t immediately answer. “Right?”
Sweetie Belle rolled onto her back. She seemed about to fall back to sleep, but still managed to keep her eyes partly open. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “I really think we should have told Cheerilee about this. All of this feels really, really dangerous.”
“She’s right,” Apple Bloom continued. “Ah don’t care what Cicada says, this doesn’t feel like a game. What if it’s real?”
After a pause, Scootaloo shrugged. “So?”
The others stared at her. “Whaddaya mean, so?” Apple Bloom all but yelled. “You could be in real danger! We all could!”
“I know, but... so what?” Scootaloo shrugged again. “You heard what Cicada said. We all signed the contracts. We’re all going to fight, no matter what. So why does it matter if it’s real or not? I’ll try to win just as hard either way. Besides...” She smiled, and a faint blush came to her cheeks. “I kind of want it to be real. Because if it is, then we get to save the world.”
“Us?” Sweetie squeaked. “But we’re not ready for that kind of responsibility! We don’t even have our cutie marks yet!”
“I know, right?” Scootaloo exclaimed, her smile widening. “We get to save Equestria from destruction before we even have our cutie marks! Well... our real ones, anyway,” she added, looking back at her circle-spotted flank.
“What’d you tell Cheerilee that was for, again?” Apple Bloom asked.
“I forget. Spinning, or something. But I know what it means to me.” She grinned fondly at the indecipherable whiteness attached to her. “I know that when the next monster comes, I’m going to fight it. And no matter if this is a game or not, I’m going to fight like the whole world depends on it. And who knows? Maybe this can become my destiny after all.”
She stood up, stretching her stubby wings to the sky. “This could be the start of something big. What if my special talent is saving the world? Scootaloo, professional monster-slayer and world-saver. I like the sound of that. And some day, when I’m older and my wings have grown out, I’ll come back here and fly out over the place where the cliffs used to be, and I’ll think back to where this all started. Right here, and right now. And...” She looked towards her friends. “You guys are gonna be with me the whole way. Right?”
“Right!” Sweetie Belle chirped.
“Uh... right.” Apple Bloom gulped. “But Scoots... what if you lose?”
“Come on, guys.” Scootaloo laughed. “Do you really think I’m going to lose?”
The others looked at each other. Before they could answer, another voice boomed from behind them. "It's good to hear you're enthusiastic."
The three fillies jumped. Scootaloo's hoof hit the edge of the dropoff, and she flinched away from the edge. "Cicada!" she yelled, turning around to see the enigmatic mouse floating nearby. "Could you not do that while we're on the edge of a cliff?"
"If you asked, I would catch you if you fell." Cicada drifted closer. "That is beside the point, of course. You seem enthusiastic. Are you ready for your battle?"
"Am I?" Scootaloo dropped into a fighting crouch and stomped menacingly. "I'll take on anything you can throw at me."
"Good." For a second the sky seemed to light up. "Because it's time."