Twilight jumps up as she tastes magic in the air. Having a higher amount of raw power than any other unicorn in Equestria allows her to know things inherently that others practice for ages before mastering.
Something is off about this magic. It tastes off. It’s similar to the “Come to Life” spell I used on the snowplow during Winter Wrap Up, but this is much more powerful. It’s also obviously non-unicorn magic.
Wait! The only non-unicorn magic I know is Z-force, which ponies manifest on their hooves to pick things up as if they had fingers like dragons and minotaurs.
I must investigate this newfound magic and report it to the Princess. Buuut I’m halfway through the book-project the Princess sent me, well actually 70.83% through. If I stopped now, I’ll…be…TARDY!
She wasn’t going to let that happen.
I’ll finish this first, and then I’ll investigate this new magic.
Bitter Sweet continues her search for her brother with Zecora but all they know is he went that-a-way. That is not a specific enough direction to find an unconscious pegasus.
“This is hopeless,” Bitter Sweet exclaims putting her han…I mean, hooves up in defeat. She would have loved to close her eyes and rest for a little but she can't do that outside her hut (chaos pony stuff).
“Hope is not lost, for we know our way, if we continue in the direction, we’ll find the stray,” encourages Zecora.
“What if we passed him? Or what if…” starts Bitter Sweet’s panic attack before Zecora clicks pause on her VCR, metaphorically I mean.
“If you want you could try, something with a magical third eye,” Zecora rhymes.
“I’m not good with astral magic, I am more physically oriented,” Bitter Sweet replies. “I am really bad with teleportation, astral projection, and the like. I am better with fire, wind, and water based magic; you know, elemental stuff.”
“Well find something on the physical side, that will help be your guide,” Zecora says simply, as if thinking on your fee…hooves is easy.
Hmm. What am I good at that will help find Sol? Shimmer ponders. I’m good with animals, I could probably see if some animals want to help. But the Everfree wouldn’t want to help.
“I got nothing. Zecora, help me!” Bitter Sweet pleads.
Before Zecora started rhyming, small spheres start to shine from the shrubbery darkness. Usually seeing shiny spheres in the trees meant eyes, which came with razor sharp teeth, but this time there was only shining colors with no teeth under them.
One of the spheres approach Bitter Sweet and begins to speak.
“We’re willing to help, if you like,” the tiny pegasus says. If her coat were shyellow instead of navy blue, I would have thought Fluttershy got shrunk.
“Yes, please help us little fairies, we need to find somepony in these very trees,” Zecora tries to recruit the main fairy.
“Yes please, thank you for helping us on such short notice,” Bitter Sweet says, using her etiquette training with the Princess. “Lemme show you what he looks like.”
She hits the ground and a flame starts to grow. The flame begins to spew smoke and the smoke shapes itself until it reaches a pony shape…that looks identical to Solar Nuul; except, it is smaller than him. Wow, she even got the mane color right. I wonder how she made the highlights green.
“Thank you for the wonderful picture miss,” the blue fairy tells Bitter Sweet. “Canyoumakeitgoawaynow?”
“Sure,” Bitter Sweet says with a clap of her hooves. The flames decided to leave this party with a poof. Dang now she got me rhyming. It also seems fairies are scared of fire.
“Now that we are all together, we can find Sol like change in weather,” Zecora concludes as they all go to find Sol.
After a day of dealing with Spike the As You Wish Dragon, Applejack decides to go to the Golden Oaks Library to have a word with Twilight.
“Twilight? Twilight, are ya there?” Applejack asks while going up the library steps. “Twilight!”
She had found Twilight but that book had her absorbed. Suddenly, a wicked idea enters AJ’s mind. If I move one of these inkwells Twilight’s CDO will knock her to her senses.
“Ahh!” Twilight exclaims as the Feng-Shui in the room is disturbed.
“Mighty sorry, didn't mean to scare you, Twilight.”
Twilight sighs. “No, it's okay, I need to take a break anyway.”
“What's going on?” Twilight asks while rearranging her inkwells.
“I know Spike told ya that he was gonna follow his dragon code, and serve me forever for savin' him from the Timberwolves, and that ya were okay with it, but…”
“Wait, WHAT‽” Twilight Interrobangs.
“He said he told ya all about it,” AJ explains as shame runs across Twilight’s face. “I'm guessin' maybe ya were a little distracted when he told ya.”
“Um,” Twilight says, “maybe a little...”
“I should've realized you wouldn't've let him go so easily,” AJ says not looking directly into Twi’s eyes. “Well, now that you know what's goin' on, maybe you could talk some sense into him.”
“Oh, Applejack, I wish I could, but this is dragon code we're talking about. Surely you know how important the dragon code is to a dragon!”
“I sure'm startin' to,” Applejack says remembering when Spike managed to build a giant rock tower when Dash asked him to earlier today.
“There's only one other way Spike is gonna fulfill the debt he feels he owes you,” Twilight starts with a devilish grin emerging from the corners of her mouth.
The princess of the night wakes up with her hooves clutching her ears shut.
“Arg! What is that horrible noise‽” Luna Interrobangs. Wow. Two in one day. Kinda makes you want to look up what it is.
‘Tis the sound of chaos magic. Tralalalala-lala-lala. T’is can only mean one thing: Discord is back! Nananana. Celestia will need my help. Lalala-lalala-lalala.
Sorry I couldn’t help myself. Ignore my singing.
Luna quickly gets up and puts on her breastplate and shoes. She runs down the hall to where Celestia is holding Day Court.
Egads! T’is be more crowded that seven Night Courts combined.
And she was right. If you were to count the amount of ponies that went to Night Court and compared it to how many ponies are in Celestia’s Day Court, you would find that there are 7 to 8 times more ponies now. Either being an Alicorn enhances your counting skills or Luna had a lucky guess.
Luna uses mind speak to get Celestia’s attention without bothering the petitioning ponies. It is super effective.
What is it sister? Celestia think-asks.
Discord is escaping! We heard him use his chaotic magic. It sounded like a “Come to Life” spell. He is turning inanimate objects into warriors again!
What are you saying? Use your nose next time; it was only our chaos ponies. Do not worry; today was designed for them to let loose. Besides magic travels at a fourth of the speed of sound and taking into consideration the distance between here and Ponyville, it means it was more than 15 degrees of sun ago.
Could thou not say an hour?
Ignoring Luna, Celestia continues. Besides I know they need it. It must be difficult to keep your eyes open for your whole life. Luckily, they can relax in their hut. Either way, I ramble; I sent Twilight enough books to stay focused while they have fun in the Everfree.
Oh, thou hath planned the whole day? Okay we shall be back in bed if thy needs us.
“Ms. Sweet we found your brother,” the blue fairy whispers into Bitter Sweet’s ear.
“Please, my friends call me Bitty,” Bitter Sweet replies modestly. “Just show me where. Zecora, stay back, his eyes are likely closed.”
“You know what is best; I will try not to be a pest,” Zecora rhymes.
Guided by the fairies, Bitter Sweet finds a small clearing. It was obviously not a clearing before Solar Nuul landed because everything is smoking with his magical touch.
Unexpectedly, a bolt of yellow-green lightning strikes a tree and it turns into a zap apple tree.
“Hmm. Usually subconscious chaos does something bad,” Bitty thinks aloud. “What’s so bad about a zap apple tree?”
As if the tree heard her, it attacked her and her newfound fairy friends with a bolt of blue electricity.
Luckily, Bitter Sweet, being the go-to-gal for elemental magic, knew what to do with electricity. Obviously, electric types have a weakness for ground type attacks.
She taps the ground softly and rose vines wrap around the zap apple tree, rendering it harmless, except for the thorns that now cover the tree.
“Wow! Fire and ground magic,” the tiny pegasi squeal. Now, if they were a lighter blue, I would say they are Rainbow Dash talking about the Wonderbolts.
“Ah, sheesh t’anks,” Bitter Sweet blushes. “Now let me wake my brother up before something else happens.”
After a Timberwolf-chop-busting-filled day, AJ and Spike run towards the rest of the mane 6.
“What happened to you guys back there,” Twilight asks. “I thought you were right behind us.”
“My hoof was stuck,” Applejack says lifting her back hoof, “and that Timberwolf was coming right at me!”
“Wait,” Rarity interrupts, “you were actually stuck?”
“But Spike picked up a pebble,” AJ said, “and rocketed that thing right at the huge Timberwolf's mouth, and saved my life!”
“Aw,” Spike replied to the slightly exaggerated story, “it was nothing.”
“It was somethin' alright!” Applejack rebuts, “Course, I wouldn't've needed help if I hadn't been tryin' to stage a fake Timberwolf attack in the first place.”
“Yeah, what was that all about?” Spike says crossing his arms and staring at AJ’s soul with his eyes of blazing inferno.
Applejack sighs, “I know this code thing's important to you, but if somethin' like this comes up in the future, think maybe we can go back to my code, say ‘that's what friends do’ and leave it at that? I promise I won't think of you as any less noble.”
“Sounds good to me,” Spike concurs. “But, maybe let's just try to avoid situations where one of us actually needs the other one to save their life?”
“You got yourself a deal.” AJ says while giving Spike a bro-hoof.
“Well today was a quite the stressful day, lets hope my mane hasn’t turned more gray,” Zecora rhymes to herself.
She is back in her hut after a day of the twin’s arguing and chaotic magic. The blue fairy princess finds her way into Zecora’s hut.
“Thank you for your help my friend, but you did not need to go to such ends,” Zecora tells her.
“It is fine, Zecora,” the fairy responds. “We can see that the orange pegasus is as trust-worthy as you.”
“I hope you are right, even if Celestia trusts them does not mean they are not dangerous.”
Hey Zecora didn’t rhyme that time. It looks like Sol has won that battle.
“There are too fairies in the Everfree!” Bitter Sweet yells at her brother.
“There aren’t! They are just a urban legend!” Solar Nuul fights back.
“How are you going to deny the existence of something that helped find you?”
“You and Zecora did that on your own!”
“WE…HAD…HELP!!” Bitter Sweet says smoke coming out of her ears.
“Woah, calm down, you’re smoking like a train,” Sol says to make Bitty chillax a bit. “Take a couple deep breaths. Close your eyes if you want; you can in the hut.”
“I remember; how else do you think we sleep? With our eyes open?” Bitty says looking up to the narrator. Hey wait, that’s me, she’s not allowed to look at me!
“Ah-ha! I knew it! You did notice that voice talking before!” Sol proclaims as he won the battle of getting his sister to notice the narrator. If I am the one narrating, why am I calling myself the narrator? What if there is another narrator? Ugh, Confound these ponies; they drive me to drink. Says the narrator grabbing a cup filled with with hot sauce.
“Nuh-uh! I didn’t hear anything I just looked up to…um…fix that loose straw in the roof,” Bitty says sitting down to clap her hooves and fix said straw roof.
“Riiiight,” Sol says with a wink. “Whatever you say.”