Shining Armor searched through the forest, the morning sun beaming down on him as he sat atop tree limbs. He was looking for any signs of a camp, but finding nothing right now. He makes the mental note that, after this whole thing blows over, he should join the army. This tracking stuff was easy! "A-ha!" He shouted, spotting the smoke from the girl's campfire. Leaping off the tree, Shining began heading to the source... well, after he would once he felt the feeling in his legs once more.
At the mentioned camp, Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow began training while Sunset, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Spike went to investigate the dome. After the events of last night bringing in more questions than answers.
"Perhaps it's semi-permeable?" Sunset thought aloud.
"Semi-what?" Pinkie asked.
"Semi-permeable, it means it's only letting certain objects in or out. It usually refers to a membrane-like object." Spike explained.
"Wow, you really are getting smart." Sunset admitted. "Now I REALLY want to see that IQ test Twilight mentioned."
"Is that just because of the magic or has she been giving you other things too?" Fluttershy asked. "Because your coat's got a lot more sheen to it."
"So wait, what about the dome? Why aren't we asking people to come help?" Pinkie interjected. Sunset took out her phone and shook her head.
"I posted a message for help an hour ago but it got deleted. I'm guessing Inapan's filtering them?"
"How? She hardly knows anything about our ways." Pinkie countered.
"What about that big guy? He sounded really upset with Twilight for messing with that panel..." Fluttershy chimed in.
"Maybe they've had this problem before, and bui-OOF" Spike suggested as the group ran into an invisible wall, Pinkie having stopped mere inches from it.
"Found it!" Pinkie shouted happily as the rest of them adjusted themselves.
"Yeah, thanks Pinkie..." Sunset mumbled and backed away.
"How'd you know it was there, though?" Fluttershy asked, the group backing up.
"Nevermind." Sunset dismissed, backing up and staring at the almost-glass-like object separating them from the outside world.
"Well, we know that there is a dome, and that we're stuck. I guess we head back now?" Spike asked.
"Now we have to see if it's penetrable." Sunset begins. "Pinkie, you brought Twilight's power tools, right?"
"Yep!" Pinkie took off her bag and unzipped it, revealing a power drill, Shimmer's Sledgehammer, a buzz-saw, and a welding torch and mask. "Thinking back, a lot of this stuff is pretty dangerous. But why does Twilight carry it with her?"
"Magic can be pretty dangerous too, Pinkie." Sunset grabbed the hammer, to start off small. "The only difference is that most people can't buy it in stores." She hefted up the hammer to her side, smiling brightly as she rubbed it against her face, lovingly. "Ah, the memories."
"You mean the time you threatened to destroy the portal?" Fluttershy asked, unnerved.
"Of course not! I had a life outside of Equestria too you know." Sunset set the sledge on the ground and spat on her hands, rubbing them together and picking the weapon back up once more.
"Now I'm just plain worried about you." Spike confessed, backing up to let her swing.
"Here goes nothing!" She said, swinging the hammer into the dome. In a split second the girls could see cracks on the dome's surface, which then quickly reformed backwards, the cracks returning to the source and sending Shimmer's Sledge flying into a nearby tree, embedding it. The group took a moment to stare at the dangerous weapon that had been tossed aside like a plush toy, and how deep it was stuck within that tree. "I- well, I think it's safe to say nobody would have predicted that." Whilst Sunset went to collect her dangerous keepsake, Fluttershy was up next, holding the cordless drill.
"Are we sure this is safe? Shouldn't we have some kinda protection or something?" Spike asked.
"Maybe you're right... give me a second." Pinkie dashed off, Sunset returning to the group with her sledgehammer in tow. Before she could say anything, Pinkie returned with a suit that consisted of pillows and one of Dash's old bike helmets. "Here, this should work!"
"It's better than nothing..." Spike confessed, Fluttershy breathing a sigh of relief and putting on the suit of pillows. She turned on the drill and tried to force it through the shield. While it seemed to be drilling a hole, the group cheered! ...That is until Fluttershy pulled back and revealed the drill bit had been ground down to a fledgling nub.
Pinkie and the power-saw was next, she wearing the same gear that Fluttershy had worn. She dug the saw into the dome's surface and sparks flew too and fro. When she pulled the saw away, its teeth had been ground off, leaving nothing but a flat metal disk.
Finally, Sunset had the welding torch and mask. The predictable result would have been that torch didn't work, or that it shot flames back at them, but neither of those things happened. Instead, the dome was pierced.
"A-ha!" She said, continuing to burn through the dome in the shape of a rectangle. While she worked the rest of the group would notice the dome resealing itself as she moved along. "There!" She said, getting up and turning off the torch. "To freedom!" She stepped towards where she'd cut through and... ended up with a face full of dome for her efforts.
Back at camp, Applejack continued to better her skills, trying to find out what constituted as a "living thing" and which didn't. As one of her fingers sprouted from an ant, a hand from a mossy rock, a leg from a large tree, and an ear from a passing bird, Applejack was growing tired of this exercise.
"This is pointless." She announced, Rarity rolling her eyes. "We should be out there saving Flash, or helping the city, or both!"
"Applejack, we can't help them if we don't know what we can do. Besides they will be fine, Inapan is interested in the portal, not them. Sunset Shimmer can call Flash at any time and ask him for an update, we have gotten rid of that lumbering brute they had working for them. All we have to do is wait until we have a chance to enter the ship, take Flash, and destroy it from the inside-out."
"Yeah, but then we'll have two furious super-villains trapped on Earth with no other goal in life than revenge."
"Fair point." Rarity thinks. "But there's the chance we could make them good, like with Sunset Shimmer and Twilight."
"But we didn't get the sirens. I wonder what happened to them." Before they could continue to speculate, a rustling in the bushes interjected and the girls entered fight mode.
"Wait!" came the voice of Shining Armor. "It's me, Twilight's brother!" He didn't seem to notice the extra limbs everywhere, at least, not before Applejack could remove her mask.
"Shining Armor? What on Earth are you doing here?" Rarity asked.
"I came here to warn you that something's happening with the aliens and Principal Cinch." The two girls looked at one another, then at him incredulously. "No, it's true! We need to talk to Twilight!"
"Let's humor this ludicrous idea of Principal Cinch betraying mankind to further a minor, petty revenge against us, and Tested going with it rather than just shooting her... how would you know?"
"I was there! It was in her office, after she'd blackmailed me into helping her. I thought Tested would kill her too, but they began talking!"
"Tell me..." Principal Cinch started. "What do you know of Twilight Sparkle? And why is she so important to you?"
"You tell me why I should care what you think." Tested growing upset her threats of violence weren't getting through to her.
"Because what you know about her pales in comparison to what I know. She used to work under my thumb, as my most diligent and intelligent student. She has studied under me for only three years, yet she is smarter than any member of my staff, or any student in the country. She has outplayed the state champion at chess, has solved formulas thought impossible, and discovered and harnessed the power of magic with her own home-made devices. You may think of yourself as a higher mind than her but she is equal, if not superior in every single facet."
"So you've called me here to gloat? To talk about how, as the teacher, human minds are the best of all the galaxy's?"
"No, I called you here because she's forgotten a few key pieces of her equipment that may serve some purpose to you." She opened a filing cabinet and removed a group of blueprints. "These were items proposed for various members of the college she wished to apply to. I kept copies for myself, for record-keeping reasons of course. Before she could get the chance to send them out, the... Friendship Games happened." She frowned unhappily, crushing a print in her hands. "I never understood her obsession with the paranormal, but now I know of course, she knew better than I. Take these plans and perfect them."
"Why are you helping us?" Tested asked, skeptically.
"Because she is no longer my student." Principal Cinch sat back down and watched as Tested looked over the plans, both of them not knowing Shining was peering through a crack in the door.
In the ship Inapan stared at the blueprints and plans set before her, the universal translator working fervently. "Sister, how are the clones coming along?"
"Flash is completed and waiting for programming. Sunset Shimmer has formed some anomalies. The genetics prevalent to her equine genomes are causing unusual mutations. Should we keep working on the project or abort it?"
"We keep going sister. These girls are anomalies in and of themselves."