The Storm's Challenge

by OneLonelyPickle

3 - Twilight's Mysterious Journey

The gentle humming of a propeller filled Twilight Sparkle’s ears. She slowly opened her eyes as she woke from a brief nap. She looked around and saw that ponies were starting to gather up on the top deck of the airship.

We must be landing soon, Twilight reasoned.

She stood up from her lounger, got onto her hind legs and peeked out over the airship’s portside. A walled city, spread out as far as she could see along the horizon, was in front of her, with a vast forest filling out the landscape in any other direction Twilight looked. Here and there there were patches of empty land dotted with tents and contraptions, possibly forestry operations.

She turned her gaze from the ground far below to the sprawling metropolis about to devour her. Smoke billowed out from within its awe-inspiring walls, and airships by the dozen were seen leaving or entering the city in all directions.

While it was only noon, the mass of pollution rising from the city shaded the sky and produced a filter of orange over the land that made it seem like the day was ending. It took Twilight aback; in Equestria proper, nopony would ever let a city get so dirty. Even Manehatten or Trottingham were much cleaner, and they were the industrial capitals of the country.

She remembered just how much it worried everypony in Ponyville when one dragon’s smoke started to poison the air. Here, it was like ten snoring dragons were exhaling their black death.

The airship was full to the brim with passengers, its two-hundred pony capacity pushed to its limits. A colt rudely bumped into Twilight, and a second later so did a teenage filly. The pony of twelve or thirteen shouted some obscenity before continuing on her way. This caused Twilight to frown. Some ponies were just unforgivably rude.

The princess wondered how differently they’d all react if she thrust off her brown shawl and showed them she was actually an alicorn like Princess Celestia or Luna, but Twilight was strictly warned not to reveal her form. Apparently, it would only cause unnecessary trouble.

She moved briskly to the exit of the airship and for a few minutes waited patiently in line to leave. The airship passed an entrance port and was then inside the city. A short distance away, Twilight read the words on an imposing sign:

The line of ponies waiting to exit the airship moved quickly and as Twilight read the last word of the sign, she hurriedly flashed her passport to the ticketpony. The ticketpony nodded as Twilight was carried along the stream of passengers, hoping to escape out a side passage and lose the crowd.

Twilight had also been warned by Celestia prior to leaving Equestria about the dangers of the leader of Clopstantinople, a certain "prince", but surely not all of the ponies in the city shared his sentiments? Why did she need to hide her appearance? It all seemed crazy to Twilight, though nonetheless business was business, and she reminded herself that not everypony in the world thought the same as her and the ponies of Equestria.

Contrary to what she had told her friends in Ponyville, Twilight was not just on a trip to perform routine “princess-related duties” and meet officials. Indeed, her real task was about as UNprincess-like as the average Equestrian might imagine...

Deciding to revisit her thoughts later, Twilight finally found an opportunity to get away from the crowd. She quickly trotted down a new path and found it led all the way down to the ground level of the multi-tiered city. She saw far fewer ponies ahead than behind.

According to what Twilight had heard while eavesdropping earlier in the day during her journey through Vanhoover to get to Clopstantinople, there was going to be a series of races for pegasi held in Canterlot over the next week. She was sure Rainbow Dash was going to join, and Twilight dreaded having to miss something she was sure was going to be very special to her friend. Hay — Twilight would have enjoyed such a series of games herself even if her friend wasn’t participating. But a duty is a duty, and Twilight’s was one of the country’s most important. She had become a princess, and unfortunately, Twilight was beginning to reason that that meant friends sometimes had to come second to her duties as one of Equestria's leaders.

“I just hope I can settle things here without having to use… that,” Twilight said solemnly, now at the top of the road that led into the city’s lower level. From her position she could see most of Clopstantinople, the furthest part of its surrounding wall so far away that flying pegasi looked like floating dots, and the vision took her breath away.

Tall buildings of brick and mortar filled nearly every inch of space all the way to the back wall, only being divided by streets where appropriate. Smog and soot cascaded upwards from innumerable smokestacks, and great clanking machines were no doubt being operated, hidden visually inside the buildings that housed them but all too obvious by the pounding and thunderous noise they generated. Busy pegasi were constantly lifting off or landing all throughout the city like sparks crackling out of a fire.

When Twilight squinted, she could see near the centre of the city an impossibly huge structure with spires coming out from it, and around it were nicer buildings of limestone or marble. No smoke came out from that area. Twilight shook her head and sighed.

"How the heck am I going to find my way around this city?!"

“Did you hear that, Dash? They’re almost here!”

Spitfire hadn't even needed to ask, because Rainbow's eyes were glued to the approaching steam engine in the distance.

A few minutes earlier, Rainbow and the Wonderbolts had started a conversation about some of the other contestants, and that eventually led to somepony mentioning that, on that very day, a few of the "competition" (as Soarin’ called them) were arriving in Ponyville via train.

“Do ya think Zephyr’s on that train, Soarin’?” asked Spitfire as the party of pegasi made its way to the platform where the "competition" train was set to stop.

“I doubt it," Soarin' replied, "Zephyr’s a pretty high profile fellow. He’ll definitely be coming in, like, a giant limousine carriage or something. I think the only ponies coming this early would be other no-namers like us.”

It was a good thing Rainbow wasn’t eating any food, because she’d have certainly spit it out all over the Wonderbolt beside her. She turned, wide-eyed, to Soarin’.

“‘No-namers like us’? Are you CRAZY? You guys are, like, the most famous pegasi in all of Equestria! You’re the flippin' Wonderbolts! I can understand you calling ME a no-namer, but, I mean—!”

Rainbow had to catch her breath. Spitfire and Soarin’ looked at each other and laughed.

“I’m flattered you think so highly of us Dash, but we’re really not all that popular outside the Canterlot area,” said Spitfire, “The Equestria Flyers League and its members get most of the attention in the rest of Equestria and in cities like Vanhoover, Manehatten, and Fillydelphia. Doesn't mean we're any less good, though." Spitfire finished with a fiery grin.

Rainbow opened her mouth, but was not able to be shocked for long, because a piercing whistle alerted everypony to the arrival of the train. A few of the other contestants were present to size up the new arrivals, but most of the crowd was comprised of fans seeing which of their favourite flyers had come, or paparazzi waiting to snap their next meal ticket.

“They’re coming out! They’re coming out!” yelled out somepony as cameras began to whir and blind the crowd. Ponies started cheering. Rainbow held her breath.

Sherclop Pones had come to Ponyville. At least, that’s what one would have thought if they had seen Pinkie.

Never one to take a situation too seriously, the super sleuth Pie was waving her magnifying glass in front of anything with as much as a clump of dust on it, and her deerstalker hat and corn-cob pipe did little to decrease the impact of the humor.

“Hmmm… elementary!” she proclaimed while staring a little too intensely at an ordinary wicker basket. The owner of said basket, a pony named Lyra, drew back.

“H-hey Pinkie, what, uh, what are you doing?”

“I’m looking for clues my dear pony! Clues to a mystery most purple flexing.”

“Err, I think you mean perplexing.”

“I know what I said, and I said what I know, which is not a lot, so I need to search for more clues!” With that Pinkie was off once again. Lyra just shook her head and rejoined her friend, Bon-Bon.

Pinkie slinked around Ponyville, magnifying glass pressed up against every thing and everypony she passed, until she found herself looking up at a sign that read "The Big Cheese" outside of a restaurant. It was a good place as any to start asking for the whereabouts of her nemesis, Pinkie surmised.

“W-would you mind repeating the name of the pony you were looking for, Miss… um?”

Pinkie performed a little flourish with her magnifying glass as she answered the head waiter of the restaurant.

“Pie, Pinkamena Sherclop Pie. Best detective this town has ever had — well, the only detective this town has ever had, which is really weird ‘cas a lot of weird stuff happens here — but that’s not important right now! What is important is that I need to find Morariarty!”

“More… Rari …Arty? That’s a rather peculiar name for a pony in these parts — in any case, no, I haven’t heard any pony of that name come here today. Sorry.”

Pinkie performed a one-hundred and eighty degree turn and, in true Pinkie Pie fashion, shot forwards with a puff of smoke behind her. She was a mare on a mission, and that waiter hadn’t helped her at all! Where was Morariarty — the dastard! The villain was most likely dining at a more regal establishment, and using stolen money to pay for it no less!

Pinkie snickered uncontrollably as she trotted along. It was just so much fun to play pretend! It was even better since she was actually looking for somepony. A high-class voice called to her.

“Yoowho! Pinkie Pie, over here! I have the may—BWHOA!” was all Rarity could utter before the genius detective was upon her.

There was a short wrestling session before Pinkie realized she had taken the game too far. She dismounted Rarity and helped her up. Rarity cleared her throat over-dramatically as she noticed ponies give weird stares and mumble to one another.

“Well, Pinkie, that was an awful way to greet me, you know. And you’ve gotten the mayor’s vest all dirty!”

“I’m super-duper sorry about that Rarity! I got carried away with my pretending that I pretended you were an evil mastermind professor bad mare and I pretended to tackle you except I didn’t pretend I actually did it and umphphphp!”

Rarity corked her friend’s mouth with her hoof and then used her magic to pick up the vest. She gave it a few good pats with her hoof to get rid of the dust while her magic cleared away any dirt and pebbles.

“Don’t worry about it, darling! I’m quite alright, after all, and so is the mayor’s MUCH desired vest. Here,” Rarity cheeped, as if the tackling hadn't occurred, and floated the vest in front of Pinkie, “you hurry now and give it to her! Sorry, I was busy with my… eating, before, but I'm all done now, and have to get back to work.”

“Well, at least stay for a ‘cake break’!” offered Pinkie, pulling a big cake out of seemingly nowhere and then depositing the mayor's vest inside her space-time-warping mane. Rarity looked at the cake, dripping with pink icing, and grimaced. She waved her hoof.

“Oh no dear, I couldn’t POSSIBLY eat… that... after my meal at the restaurant — I’m STUFFED! Thank you for the offer though, Pinkie Pie. I’ll see you later!”

"Okay! Bye Rarity!"

Rarity quickly escaped the confrontation, leaving a cake-inebriated pony in her wake. With one giant, unnatural lick Pinkie gobbled up the cake, and with one more she cleaned the residue around her mouth. She belched, excused herself, then took off once more.

Pinkie hummed one of her favorite tunes as she (literally) bounced down Ponyville's main street.

“Hopefully Mayor Mare will give me the rest of the day off, and then I can go see Applejack!” Pinkie thought out loud. She began to think of all the fun things her and Applejack could do on such a beautiful day: see who could buck the most apple trees with their eyes blind-folded; see who could balance the most apples on the tips of their noses; see who could get Big Macintosh to say something other than “Eeyup” first…

Pinkie's humming naturally evolved into full-blown, unabashed singing. The happiest pony alive was having a great day, and it stood to reason that it was only going to get even better with no interruptions to her happiness at all!