When Rainbow Dash’s eyes fluttered open, she saw sturdy beams holding up a wooden ceiling above her. She closed her eyes again, and as per her standard for waking up in strange places, tried to think back to where she had been last.
And when she remembered that, she sat straight up, eyes wide, until her look of surprise gave way to a wince of pain from the twinge in her wings.
She was in a small, tidy room lying on a stiff bed. Her nose caught the faintest hint of cider – probably a saloon, then. Across the room, on another identical bed, Rarity lay. Her chest was wrapped tightly in bandages, but Rainbow could see it gently rise and fall as the other pony breathed.
Rainbow herself was in a similar state. One look behind her confirmed that her left wing was carefully stretched out against a wooden splint to keep it from moving.
“You’re lucky,” a voice said from next to her.
Rainbow jumped, and would have found herself floating up in the corner of the room had her wing not been incapacitated. Instead, she tumbled off the bed, landing muzzle-first against the wood floor. Her face grew warm as she heard a snicker, then a yellow hoof reached down to help her back up.
“Fluttershy?” Dash said.
“Lucky,” she repeated. “Doctor said you just barely missed having the bullet shatter the bone.”
Rainbow shivered. Her eyes strayed over to Rarity. “And her? She’s okay?”
“Was more touch and go there, but she’ll be fine.”
“And Pinkie?”
Fluttershy nodded. “Yes, everyone else is fine too. You just missed Applejack. Twilight came by and insisted she get some sleep, so I agreed to sit for a spell in case one of you two woke up.”
Rainbow’s brow furrowed as she thought back. “But the train… How—”
“Giant rainbow bridge across the entire gorge.” Rainbow’s eyes widened and a smirk crossed Fluttershy’s face. “Yeah, I wouldn’t believe it either, had I not been there.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.” Rainbow Dash leaned back gingerly, letting her wings rest. Her hooves fidgeted, tapping out an uneven rhythm against the bed as she kept her eyes on Fluttershy.
“You don’t have to worry about the law either. Twilight was true to her word. Pulled rank as soon as we got into town and has been running the local sheriff ragged in the meantime on all sorts of errands. She’s up to something, but I’m not sure what.”
“Mmhmm,” Rainbow intoned, still staring at the other pony.
Fluttershy looked back levelly, her cool expression revealing nothing.
“So,” Rainbow quietly said. “Where do we go from here?”
Fluttershy took a moment to seriously consider the question. “Forward. Whatever that means.”
Rainbow didn’t reply, but her hoof stopped its tapping.
Fluttershy’s eyes darted to Dash, muscles in her jaw tightening. “At least for me. I’m tired of living in the past. You can make your own decisions, and I know—”
Rainbow cut in, her gaze steely. “No. I won’t be running away any more.”
Fluttershy turned away so Rainbow couldn’t see the smile crossing her face. “Then forward together.”
---
The last tack forcefully stabbed itself into the wall and the aura around Twilight’s horn faded away. She grinned up at the map stretched out across the wall and turned to her makeshift podium, quickly shuffling through her cue cards to make sure they were all in the proper order.
All five of the girls were there, though Rainbow Dash’s eyes kept flickering to the bottles lined up behind the bar. Twilight knew the saloon wasn’t the best place to have commandeered for their purposes, but it was far more comfortable than the Sheriff’s office, and did provide a certain degree of privacy.
Applejack sat beside Rarity, who still wore her bandages but had insisted on receiving no help as she made her way down to the main room. Fluttershy leaned against the back wall, her eyes as sharp as ever, and Pinkie Pie couldn’t sit still, pacing back and forth as she watched Twilight with obvious curiosity.
Satisfied, Twilight cleared her throat and put on her brightest smile. “Now, I’m sure you all have a lot of questions—”
“Damn right we do,” Applejack broke in.
“—which I will be quite happy to answer, after I’ve—”
“What are these things?” Rainbow Dash pulled at the golden jewelry still around her neck.
Twilight paused, her mouth quirking in annoyance at already going off script. “You can call them the Elements of Harmony, though that’s less an official name and more of—”
“An’ what exactly does that have to do with…” Applejack twirled a hoof in the air, “giant rainbowy magic bridges? I ain’t never seen a unicorn manage something like that before.”
“Um, so, I’m still investigating the effects, but I think when invoked in full, the quantum magilecular structure best expresses itself through a full spectrum, similar to the contrail left by Rainbow’s flight patterns, if you—”
“Who are you?” Rarity said.
The other four considered that for a moment, and then directed their full attention to Twilight, who had started sweating a little. She stared down at her index cards, and her hooves fumbled as she flipped through them, trying to find her place.
It took a long moment, and only then did her smile return, and she kept her eyes down, not meeting those of the others. “My name, as I may have previously mentioned, is Twilight Sparkle. I work for Governor Celestia herself, officially as a high-level advisor on political matters. In truth, I’m the head of the Bureau of Unified Clandestine Knowledge, a classified organization that works behind the scenes to identify and eliminate certain threats to law and order that would be difficult to handle through conventional means.”
“So why haven’t I heard about you, then?” Rainbow Dash said.
“We wouldn’t be very good at our job if everyone knew about us.”
Rarity smirked. “You’re telling us about it now.”
“Well, yes. Because… Because I need your help.” Twilight glanced back at the map, biting her lip. “We’ve got a problem. A big one. There’s a certain outlaw on the loose.”
“Twilight,” Pinkie said. “I think you’re a little mixed up. We’re ‘certain outlaws on the loose’.”
Twilight shook her head. “No! You’re all— Okay, yes. You’re all bandits, but you’re all good ponies. This one, he’s something else – a danger to every stallion, mare, and foal in the entire state.”
“Then why haven’t I heard anything about that either?” Rainbow asked, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair. “I think some sort of legendary bandit raising hell across the state would get some headlines, wanted posters, the normal stuff.”
Twilight’s foreleg shot out to point at the map. “Look. Dodge Junction, Appleloosa, Salt Lick City. And smaller towns sprinkled all in-between. But here.” Her hoof gestured at a point near the bottom of the map where the dots all vanished, leaving a blank, empty patch. “There’s nothing here. Isn’t that odd?”
Pinkie shrugged. “So what? Is the big scary outlaw that nopony knows about busy robbing all the no-ponies who don’t live down south?”
“Um.” Twilight blinked. “Almost. I’m saying that there used to be settlements all through this region. They’re gone – and I don’t mean destroyed. They’ve been erased. Untethered from reality as we know it, so that no one even remembers them. And it’s the doing of him.” Her eyes darted back and forth before her next word came out in a hushed whisper. “Discord.”
Fluttershy leaned forward. “Is that name supposed to mean something to us?“
An awkward silence fell in the saloon, and Twilight looked from pony to pony, expecting to see dread in their faces, but finding nothing but confusion. She took a deep breath, trying to muster all the confidence that she had. It wasn’t much, anymore.
“And if what you’re saying is true, how do you even know any of this?” Rarity spoke up.
“We sent in a company of the 45th Infantry,” Twilight said. “At least, that’s what the only survivor said when he showed up at the capitol, bringing with him stories of a fierce gunfight – no… a massacre. No records existed of the original mission, or anyone else as ever having served in the entire company, save for that one private. That’s when Governor Celestia put me on the job.”
Twilight took a deep breath. “And that’s why I went in to investigate with my best team.” A brief pain flashed in her eyes.
“Still not seeing what I’ve got to do with any of this,” Applejack said. “What’re ya saying? Your next big idea is to round up a buncha outlaws and give it another go? That way at least we’re expendable?”
“No,” Twilight said. “My next option is to try again with my best team.”
The moment of silence stretched out, as her full meaning became clear. Rarity was the first to speak. “You can’t possibly mean—”
“Yes. I know it’s hard to believe but it’s the truth. Discord was on us from the very beginning, splitting us up and turning our greatest strengths into weaknesses before scattering us to the four winds. He left me alone, unchanged. I think it was one last joke of his.”
“No way…” Rainbow Dash looked up, confusion in her eyes. “I don’t remember—”
“You don’t get it. He can change everything. You remember the false memories he gave you.” Twilight gritted her teeth. “Fake stories meant to keep us apart.”
“How much?” Rarity said quietly. “How much is fake?”
“I don’t know.” Twilight looked up, forcing a smile. “But— But it’s okay now, because we’re together again, and everything is fine! All of the that past is just a dream, a nightmare even and now you can—”
“Hold on,” Applejack said. She glanced at Rarity for a moment before meeting Twilight’s gaze. “No offense, but I don’t rightly appreciate half-loopy unicorns tellin’ me my life’s all been some sorta dream.”
“But it’s a lie!” Twilight stomped one hoof against the ground.
“Don’t matter.” Applejack’s lips curled upwards, but her eyes remained serious. “Ain’t your place to decide. Even if you are right about it being a lie, it’s my truth now.”
Rainbow Dash nodded slowly. “Heck. I’d love to be able to say the past few years or however long was all made up. I’ve done a lotta things that I’m not exactly proud of. But… it’s all part of who I am.”
Twilight fell her heart sink. “So you don’t believe me?” The look on her face was stricken as she sought any positive indication at all from any of her friends. Pinkie Pie stared back at her coolly. Fluttershy had resumed leaning against the back wall. “Or… or you don’t care.”
Rarity coughed lightly. “It’s nothing personal, dear, but you have to understand that you’re springing a lot on us here.”
“But— The plan! The Elements!” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Our friendship.”
Twilight looked back at the map one more time, her eyes lingering on the blank patch. Faces flashed in her mind. The townsfolk who had once happily lived and worked all throughout that region, the soldiers of the 45th who had given their lives to try and protect others. And the faces of her friends – the friends she used to have.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Twilight mumbled to herself. “I thought they would believe me. I thought they’d be my friends again. I thought… I thought we’d have a chance against Discord.”
“Well, you got one part of that right,” Rainbow Dash said. “Heck. Two.”
Twilight’s head snapped up to look at the other pony.
Rainbow glanced away, one hoof rising to rub the back of her mane. “I mean, just cause I said I don’t buy the whole past-erased thing doesn’t mean I’m not gonna help you. Can’t have some second-rate bandit out there screwing things up for us pros. I’m the most feared outlaw in the West.”
Applejack snorted, earning a glare from the pegasus. “I don’t know about all that, but if we bring in this Discord fella, that means a pretty big reward, I’d bet. I wouldn’t mind a taste a’ that. Not to mention, I still owe you for saving my hide back on that train.”
“And I believe we had an arrangement, dear,” Rarity said, smiling at Twilight. “You still have my services. Unless you are planning on going back on your half of the bargain.”
“No, of course not,” Twilight said. “But I mean, you don’t have to—” Rarity cut her off with a raised hoof, shaking her head.
“I’m in too,” Pinkie said. A smile flickered on her face. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me a ‘good pony’ before. I kinda like that.”
Fluttershy didn’t even say a word. She just grinned, her head inclining in a shallow nod.
“Well,” Applejack said. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a team after all, sugarcube.”
Twilight reached up, her hoof wiping away wetness from her eyes. Her legs shook, but she felt something warm deep inside herself.
“But I reckon it’s going to be plenty dangerous,” Applejack continued. “Even if we were to believe you, that’s saying we’ve already taken out shot and missed. What’s the difference now?”
Twilight’s grin stretched across her muzzle. “This time. This time I have a plan.”