The Everfree Forest practically thrived on the oncoming massacre that was about to happen. The trees seemed thicker, and even closer together than they were before. The girls hadn't felt this familiar feeling of impending doom within the Everfree since the Nightmare Moon incident. Having grown up near the forest, Fluttershy and Applejack both felt the disturbance closing in on them. They were being watched, what was worse, they were being followed.
This knowledge did them little good as they found themselves trapped in a line of trees. "I don't believe this! Why did Twilight have to come here of all places? It's hard enough finding Zecora's hut in here, but this?" Rainbow shouted to nopony in particular.
"You wouldn't be saying that if you weren't hurt by what she said to us last time, darling." Rarity replied with a hint of indifference to the situation. Rainbow Dash's ears folded back at the statement. She was hurt, in her mind maybe irreparably so. Dash didn't like to admit it, but her mental well-being depended greatly on her friends' opinion of her, and to have Twilight of all ponies just drop her like a rock was agonizing.
"How do we even know that she'll give us answers? She was pretty clear she was done with us." the Pegasus asked, slumping to the ground.
"Cause that filly owes us answers. We've done a lot for her since the day we met, an' I'll be darned if we're not gonna collect on answers from her." AJ replied with a fiery determination in her eyes. Like Rainbow Dash, she was hurt by Twilight's words in a way unique to her personality. Being the Element of Honesty, she just couldn't bring herself to believe that what Twilight said was the truth. She had to be lying, and AJ wouldn't rest until she found out the truth.
"But is that all we want from her, answers?" Fluttershy asked, drawing in a silence that was deafening. Cruelty wasn't alien to Fluttershy. She'd been surrounded by variations of it throughout most of her life, but she was never the true victim of cruelty until Twilight. Gilda was mean, but Twilight was cruel. It broke her heart.
"What do you mean, Fluttershy?" Pinkie Pie asked. Normally, she'd be bouncing around as giddy as ever, but the situation did not call for such actions. Never in her entire life had Pinkie lost a friend. She would remember that day as the worst day of her life. Even in death, friendships can last forever, but when somepony severs the ties of friendship, it's different. Pinkie was left wondering what she did wrong.
"She means are we also trying to get her back." Rarity replied. Rarity's pain was perhaps the most devastating of them all. Unlike the others, the Fashionista reserved a small amount of hatred for Twilight. She'd spent the last day seeing what Twilight had done destroy her Spike from the inside out. The pain plastered on that dragon's face tore Rarity's insides apart. She would not forgive Twilight so easily as the others.
"Are we?" Pinkie asked. There was a pause amongst the group once more.
Rainbow Dash was the first to respond. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't imagine life without her. We have to at least try to get her back." she replied. There was a chorus of agreements from everypony, save Rarity who remained silent. Nopony among them noticed.
The conversation was broken by a low growling noise, one Applejack was all to familiar with. "Oh no. We strayed too far West. We're in the Timberwolves' territory!" she cried, earning panicked cries from the others. As if to prove her point, several Timberwolves emerged from the shadows.
"We're trapped. The trees are too thick for Fluttershy and me to fly out, let alone carry another pony." Dash said.
"We shoulda gone sooner!" Applejack said as the Timberwolves closed in for the kill. Everypony prepared to fight their way out of there.
Then a voice reached their ears, a voice that froze the Timberwolves in their tracks. They hadn't smelled, nor sensed another presence beyond those five ponies, yet something had made itself aware to them. "I'm afraid even then you would've wound up in a similar situation. You've been in their territory for half an hour now. You're lucky they didn't attack earlier." Everypony recognised the voice to be hers. The pony they were out looking for. Twilight emerged from between the trees behind them, walking to the front of the group. She wore her cloak with the hood down. They couldn't quite pinpoint it, but she seemed different, less emotionless than before. She actually had a smirk on her face.
"Twilight?!" the mares said in unison.
"So, seven Timberwolves and Six ponies... Care to even the odds, Zero?" Twilight called out. AJ and the others wondered who she was talking to when another pony clad in a cloak identical to her own dropped from the treetops onto a Timberwolf, killing it instantaneously. "Six on six... better." she continued.
"How did you find us?" Fluttershy asked.
"Wasn't that hard, actually. Kinda got a network going through here. Eyes and ears and all that." she replied.
Zero, after having dispatched the first Timberwolf went on to the next. He took it out with ease. It wasn't until the third was gone, the remaining four even noticed he was there. They charged him all at once. Over the snarling, he heart Twilight mutter something about the six on six being null and void.
In a motion quicker than the eye could follow, he used his metal magic to take down all four Timberwolves before they even touched him. They fell to the ground before him. It had been a while since Zero had felt a sense of accomplishment. He figured that having saved Twilight's friends would put him in their good books. He retreated into the shadows after hearing two words followed by a sound he knew all too well.
Twilight was caught off guard as she turned to face her friends. Rarity was the first to reach her, but instead of an embrace, like she expected, she heard two words come from her mouth. "You bitch!" the declaration was followed by a hard smack to the face.