The Summerstar landed in a field outside Las Pegasus. Lightning Dust and Daring Do escorted Summerset off of the airship. There was already a squad of city guards waiting for them.
"Take him away, boys." said Lightning.
The guards approached Summerset, and put shackles around his wings so that he wouldn't fly away, and then escorted him to a nearby paddy wagon.
"I will find a way out of this." said Summerset.
"Well, I don't think that's gonna be any time soon." said Lightning.
"Yeah, I don't think the citizens of Las Pegasus would take kindly to the idea of someone flying an airship around and wrecking their buildings." said Daring Do. "Even if the pony in question happened to be the owner of that building."
"My influence in this city is too strong!" said Summerset. "You can't keep me in custody forever!"
"Yeah, yeah." said Lightning. "Tell it to the judge."
When Summerset was brought into the wagon and the door was closed, the wagon drove off to the city, just as Sunset Shimmer and her friends arrived in a convoy of coaches and wagons.
"Lightning Dust!" said Sunset. "Daring Do! It's so good to see you two are alright!"
"Yep!" said Lightning Dust. "And I was able to arrest Summerset as easy as one, two, three!"
"No way!" said Radiant Dawn, who just caught up. "You actually managed to arrest Summerset? That's very impressive."
"Yep!" said Lightning Dust. "That's right! And he was my very first arrest without any help from the Shadowbolts!"
Daring Do cleared her throat.
"Of course, I did have some help from this...ahem, civilian over here." said Lightning.
"Hmm...better?" said Daring, shrugging.
Later that day, Sunset Shimmer and her friends and family returned to the Golden Colt Hotel, and sat together at a private lounge, where they discussed they achievements.
"I bet Captain Star Shield and Princess Luna will wanna give you a promotion for this, Lightning!" said Radiant.
"Yeah, maybe I'll make Staff Sergeant or even 2nd Lieutenant for this!" said Lightning, confidently.
"Well, as far as I'm concerned, Lightning..." said Radiant. "You're second to nopony. You're the number one lady in my life--outside of the family, anyway."
"About that, son." said Golden Sun. "I would like to make an announcement."
He looked around at Trixie, Lightning Dust, Nose Nip, Frosty, Teddy, and even Daring Do (who was disguised again as A.K. Yearling), Quick Shot, Maximum Velocity, Thunder Lee, and Mr. Steel.
"Because of a mishap more than fifteen years ago, my family has been torn apart by both time and space." he said softly. "And my beloved son and daughter have jumped through countless hoops in their time without me and my wife to watch over them. As sad as this is, I think this time without our guidance has shown just as amazing and brilliant they really are. I really do think I have the best family a pony like myself could ever ask for."
Sunset, Radiant, and Scarlet all hugged Golden Sun.
"But that's not all!" continued Golden Sun. "Even with my marvelous wife and our truly wonderful children, I don't think all four members of this family would have been back together as soon as we have. I think it's safe to say that the four of us are all in your debt! That's why I would like to thank each and every last one of you for making this impeccable moment possible. From now on, I'm declaring each and every one of you honorary members of the Daystar household; anywhere we call home, you can call home, too. You've all earned it!"
Then the entire group applauded.
"Really, there's no need to thank me!" said Golden Sun. "Like I said, we ought to be thanking you!"
"I'm greatly honored, Professor Sun." said Yearling.
"And me, too." said Mr. Steel. "And I'll tell ya what: I think I'll postpone that favor I requested from your wife for another day! I'm a family guy, myself, so I think I can pull a few strings to give you all some time to spend with each other! As for me, I've got a couple-a things to manage now that Summerset's in the clink!"
And then he left.
"But there's one thing I really don't understand, dad." said Sunset. "Exactly what happened that caused you and mom to disappear, anyway?"
Golden Sun took a deep breath.
"Well, I guess I should explain it now." he said, uncharacteristically solemnly. "So it all started fifteen years ago, in our home..."
APPROX. FIFTEEN YEARS AGO...
Golden Sun was translating yet another ancient tome in his study, when he suddenly heard somepony knock on his door.
"Darling, have you seen little Radiant or Sunset anywhere?" said Scarlet Blaze. "It's time for both of them to take a bath!"
"Yeah, they're playing on the front lawn when I last saw them!" Golden Sun called back to his wife.
"No they aren't!" growled Scarlet. "I've just looked out there, and they're nowhere in sight! They're not inside either, or I would've known!"
Golden Sun gasped, climbed out of his seat, and unlocked the door.
"Goodness, I hope they're all right!" he said said he swung the door open.
"We'll have to go out and look for them!" said Scarlet. "Let's go!"
The two galloped down the stairs to the front doors.
"If those two aren't already running back home by the time we find them, I swear by Celestia that I'm grounding them both for a month!" growled Scarlet.
"Scarlet..." said Golden Sun, as he opened the door.
"Fine, I'll only ground Radiant for a month!" said Scarlet. "Sunset only gets a week of--"
"Scarlet, that's not what I'm talking about!" said Golden Sun. "Look outside!"
Scarlet used her telekinesis to open the door even wider, and saw a group of Changelings blasting the front gate to the estate open.
"What are those things, honey?" said Scarlet.
"Trouble." said her husband.
"You two!" said the apparent leader of the Changelings, a scrawny runt with big bulbous eyes and a short slightly-spiky mane. "We are hunting for two young ponies that intruded on territory of the Changeling Empire. I, Prince Embryo of the House of Thorax, demand that if you know anything about this, you tell us immediately before there's trouble!"
"What do these youngsters look like?" asked Golden Sun.
"A young amber filly with a red-and-blonde mane, and a reddish-orange colt with--"
"That's our children!" exclaimed Scarlet, who suddenly wore a furious expression on our face.
"Then I do believe that you two are responsible for this!" said Embryo. "Soldiers, subdue them immediately!"
But Scarlet unleashed a spell that blasted two of Prince Embryo's soldiers to the ground, where they lay lifeless. But there was still several more around them, with potentially even more along the way. The Changelings fired their own barrage of spells, which the couple either dodged or deflected. The projectiles instead wrecked several portions of Daystar Manor, including the front doors.
"Oh, dear." said Golden Sun.
"We're seriously outnumbered!" said Scarlet, who fired another spell that blasted another three or four Changelings out of the air.
"Umm...don't worry, my dear!" said Golden Sun. "I've got a spell that could get rid of these creatures in a heartbeat! I just hope it works!"
His horn began to glow, and an extremely bright projectile was unleashed. He was aiming at Prince Embryo, but suddenly a white-bodied Changeling teleported in-between the two, and deflected it. Scarlet Blaze turned and saw the spell was headed straight for her. She gasped in horror, and screamed as the spell hit her in the face. She was enveloped in a pale light, and disappeared into a vortex that appeared precisely where she stood.
"Scarlet! No!" Golden Sun yelled, horrified. "What have I done?!"
He stood there completely shocked. He wasn't even sure what spell he just cast, or what effect it would have on Scarlet. He could've sent her an unknown amount of years into the future, or even outright killed her for all he knew. He was so disgusted by his rash decision that he lost the will to keep fighting back.
"I give up!" said Golden Sun to Prince Embryo. "Do your worst."
Then the white Changeling dropped to the ground and approached him, his horn glowing.
"Just hold still." he said.
Suddenly, an extremely powerful freezing spell shot out from his horn, and Golden Sun found himself completely coated in green-tinted ice, and unable to move.
PRESENT DAY...
"...And then the next thing I know, I was being thawed on a fishing boat a couple dozen leagues from the docks of Las Pegasus, nearly twelve years later." said Golden Sun. "Apparently, the body of ice the Changelings trapped me in was dumped into the ocean, and I was drifting around and being carried by the ocean currents until that fishing boat caught me in a net."
"I can't believe those Changelings would just do something like that!" said Radiant.
"I don't know if they were the ones that did it, though." said Golden Sun.
"Well, I'd bet my bottom cent it was Ghost's doing." said Sunset. "I sure wouldn't put it past him to do something as heartless as that."
"Ghost was the white one, right?" asked Scarlet.
"Yep." said Sunset and Radiant at once.
"But dear, why didn't you go back to Vanhoover as quickly as possible?" asked Scarlet.
"I wanted to, honey." said Golden Sun. "But like I said, the closest settlement to where I was thawed out was Las Pegasus. And that's where I knew my friend Lionel Summerset was. So I went to his building to try and persuade him to provide me with transportation back to my hometown."
"What kind of 'friend' brainwashes his friends?" asked Sunset.
"Well, let's just say that Lionel became a little on-edge, even ambitious in recent years." said A.K. Yearling. "I'll assume that now he's met you again in such a long time, he didn't want to see you leave again."
"Correct, Ms. Yearling." said Golden Sun. "Lionel wanted me to stay and help him run his business empire. But I had to turn him down so that I could search for my family. And then he used an ancient talisman to brainwash me into being his lackey."
"And he did the same to me and Thunder." said Maximum Velocity.
"And that's where you all came in." said Golden Sun to Sunset and her friends, before frowning.
He tilted his head down sadly.
"I'm so sorry for what happened." he said. "This whole thing was my fault. If I didn't try casting that time spell, Scarlet wouldn't have disappeared, I wouldn't have been frozen and thrown into the sea, and my own children wouldn't have been left all alone to fend for themselves."
His eyes began to water, and he started to sob.
"I don't know how I'll ever be able to live with myself anymore." he wept. "I've failed myself as both a father and a husband."
"No, you haven't." said Sunset Shimmer, comforting her father. "You're wonderful, dad. You always have been. And even if we weren't all together as long as we would've wanted..."
"And no matter how much time and space divides us..." added Radiant Dawn.
"We're still family!" said the two siblings at once.
Golden Sun dried his eyes with his hoof.
"Thanks, kids." he said. "Scarlet and I really do have such wonderful--and wise--children."