Yusei knelt down next to his runner, inspecting it as Twilight approached from the stairs with Spike and Fluttershy beside her.
“How much longer?” she asked.
“Give me about fifteen minutes, and I should be ready,” he answered.
Twilight then glanced at the toolbox by his feet. “What happened?”
“Making sure my Duel Runner hasn’t taken any serious damage from that attack at Sweet Apple Acres. I didn’t get the chance to inspect it then because our enemy had brought you all here.”
“Well, okay. I need to check something out at the Golden Oak Library, anyway. Seeing if the book I’m looking for is there.”
“Understood.”
“Fifteen minutes, right?”
“Yeah. What about you two?”
“I’m heading back home to check on my animal friends, to make sure they’re all still well,” Fluttershy answered.
“With Twilight, to help with her research,” Spike stated.
Yusei nodded, turning towards his Runner as the dragon leapt onto the alicorn’s back as she and the pegasus flew out of the castle.
The group split up, with Fluttershy turning towards her cottage, while Twilight and Spike headed towards their old home.
“Twilight, are you feeling alright?” Spike asked.
“Yeah, why do you ask?” Twilight replied.
“You seem a bit… stressed out. I mean, I know our friends are in danger in all and need to be rescued…”
No response.
“Twilight?”
She sighed. “It’s just… so much to take in. This mystery group of humans, part of this movement thingy… those Diamond Dogs working together with them… and who knows what els—” Twilight came to a stop in mid-air before descending to the ground.
“What is it?”
She planted her hoof in her face. “The mirror. I forgot to check the mirror! What if they found it?!”
“But didn’t you leave the mirror off?”
“I did! But what if they found a way to turn it on while I was away?! What do I do if they get captured, too?!”
“Hey, don’t worry!” Spike hopped off of Twilight.
“Spike?”
“I can go check on the mirror, see if anything’s been messed with!” The dragon sprinted off before Twilight could react.
She sighed once more. “Thanks, Spike.” As she spread her wings once more, she noticed a group of three ponies with bright coats—from the Crystal Empire, no doubt—together. One, whose cutie mark was a metal heart, stood across from the other two—both female, one of which had an expression that was filled with anger. One female was a pegasus who had a soft orange coat with a deep purple mane, whose cutie mark was a lantern. The other was an earth pony with a pink coat and blue mane with a compact for a cutie mark. “Steel Heart?”
“What don’t you get?” said the pegasus, continuing to glare.
“But, Lucid… I didn’t…” Steel Heart replied.
“Go. Away. We are not friends anymore. Let’s go, Rouge.” Lucid turned away and stormed off. Rouge gave a sorrowful glance towards Steel Heart before following her friend.
Steel Heart hung his head before another voice called to him.
“What happened here?” inquired Twilight.
“Nothing. It’s not important,” he answered, turning away.
“What was that about?”
“Please don’t ask. I just want to be alone right now.”
As she looked around the town, Twilight saw several other ponies engaged in disputes, though not nearly as heated. Some of the homes had been clearly ransacked by the invaders, and it would take a while for them to rebuild.
“I guess this whole mess has gotten to all of them,” she thought. “I can’t believe all this happened.”
“I need this so I can fix the hole in my roof! I can’t let my equipment sustain any possible damage with those clouds up there!” said a brown stallion, with an hourglass cutie mark.
“I need this to fix the hole in our wall! Who knows who might walk in?!” replied a mare with a bright coat and a cutie mark consisting of three pieces of candy. Next to the arguing ponies was a pile of wooden planks on a cart.
“Everypony, please! Calm down!” Twilight asked.
“Your Highness! Kindly tell this young mare that I need these supplies to be able to protect all my equipment!” the stallion said.
“Excuse you?!” the mare exclaimed. “My best friend and I would like to not have strangers trotting into our house!”
“You seem to be using that phrase a lot when you talk about her.”
“Just like you seem to enjoy your own friend dropping in with large gifts.”
“Those ‘gifts’, as you called them, aren’t mine! They’re packages for other ponies!”
“And yesterday?” the mare deadpanned.
“That one was actually mine. Besides, what are you so afraid of? Do you have some enemies you don’t want breaking in?”
The mare’s eye twitched.
“Both of you! Stop!” Twilight shouted. “You’re not getting anywhere like this.”
“The princess is right! Y’all need to stop bickerin’ like foals!” a young voice shouted.
“That voice…” Twilight turned her head. “Apple Bloom?”
“She should definitely get the supplies to rebuild that wall,” Sweetie Belle stated.
“And you can get a tarp to cover the hole in your ceiling until you get supplies to fix your roof!” Scootaloo suggested.
The mare and stallion glared at each other.
“Fine,” the stallion reluctantly spoke.
“Thank you,” the mare replied, pulling the cart away. The stallion turned the other direction and left.
Twilight sighed.
“You okay, Twi?” Apple Bloom asked.
“That seemed like something you would’ve figured out pretty quickly,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Twilight answered. “But what are you girls doing here? I thought Big Mac was walking you all home.”
The girls simply gave an unintelligible response, followed by the alicorn planting her face in her hoof.
Nearby, angry voices from several townsponies arguing with one another grew louder.
“I can’t believe things have gotten so bad in just a few days,” Twilight thought. “What should I do? I need to help my friends… but I can’t leave Ponyville like this.”
She glimpsed at her friends’ sisters before her, waiting for the princess’s response.
“Hold on just a little longer…” Twilight sighed, facing the arguing ponies. “First things first. Apple Bloom? Sweetie Belle? Scootaloo?”
“Yes?” the girls replied in unison.
“Think you could help me out?”
“Yeah!” answered Sweetie Belle.
“Of course!” Scootaloo added.
“Gladly!” said Apple Bloom.
“Done,” Yusei stated, wiping his forehead. He placed his toolbox beside him, briefly testing his Runner by revving the engine. “Doesn’t look like any major damage happened.”
“So are we all ready to go?” Spike asked, coming down the stairs.
“Yeah. By the way, what’d you come back for?”
“Twilight wanted me to check on the mirror, to see if any of those creeps messed with it.”
“Mirror?”
“Long story short, there’s a special mirror residing in my castle that acts as a gateway to an alternate world. On the other side is a world of humans,” Twilight described.
“I see. Are you sure you didn’t travel through that?” asked Yusei.
“That isn’t possible. I wasn’t in my castle. That, and I somehow take on a human form in that alternate world… yet…”
“You’re still a pony here,” Yusei finished. “So that could only mean this is a completely separate world from the human world you’ve been to before.”
“Yeah… it’s strange…”
“Doesn’t look like they did anything to it,” Spike said. “Also, that unicorn I just saw go into the library… wasn’t he…?”
“The same unicorn that fought alongside us? Yeah,” Yusei replied.
“Did he seem… different to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I dunno. He looked like he was sulking or something so I asked him what’s up… and he just walked right past me. Weird.”
Yusei briefly glimpsed up the stairs before placing his toolbox back in the compartment beneath the seat of his Duel Runner.
“So… what is this thing? What did they call it in that other world…? A car…?” questioned Spike.
“It’s a Duel Runner,” Yusei responded, donning his helmet and boarding the Runner.
“A Duel wha—?”
The conversation was cut short by the abrupt sound of another Duel Runner, landing on the ground and nearly running over Spike.
“Hey, watch it!” Spike rose to his feet, only to be startled by Yusei darting out the door on his own Runner. “Hey, wait for me!”
“Glad we’ve worked this out,” Twilight said, as two ponies walked away with expressions of reluctance yet acceptance at the alicorn’s decision. She sighed as she saw a few more groups approaching her.
“Hey, Twi?” asked Apple Bloom.
“Yes?”
“Which of these two do ya think needs this food more?”
“That’s… not a lot,” Twilight said, as she glanced at the nearly empty cart.
“I have a two kids to feed!” shouted a stallion.
“I have a foal!” replied the mare.
Twilight groaned as she partitioned what little there was of the food with her magic. “Here,” she said.
“My baby needs more than that!”
“I’m sure that baby of yours doesn’t need more than that. You know, being a baby and all,” retorted the stallion.
“Look,” Twilight stated. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid this will have to do for now until more food is grown or brought into Ponyville.”
“Fine,” the two ponies replied, in unison, carrying away what was given to them.
The alicorn sighed once more.
“You okay, Twi?” asked Apple Bloom.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Listen… ah think you should go.”
“What?”
“Ya know. Go rescue our sisters and friends.”
“But…”
“Look out!” A mare screamed in the distance.
Twilight and Apple Bloom sprinted toward the voice, until they were startled by two passing Duel Runners.
“That’s…” Twilight noticed the red Duel Runner.
“Twilight!” Spike panted as he barely caught up to the alicorn.
“Spike, what happened?”
“Just let me… just…” Spike bent down, hands on his knees as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo approached.
“Some guy on that… bike thing drove out of the castle and…”
“Out of the castle?!” exclaimed Twilight. “What was he doing there?”
“I don’t know… but he didn’t come from the mirror. I checked, and nothing seems to have been messed with. It’s still off.”
“Then why did he…?”
“Um,” Fluttershy spoke up, descending onto the ground next to them. “I think I saw a pony on one of the bikes.”
“What?”
“Not Yusei’s… but… the other one.”
“Who?”
“I think it was a crystal pony? I think it’s…”
“Steel Heart?”
“Yes, him!”
“But why… never mind. All of you, stay here. I’m going after him.”
“By yourself? Twilight?”
Everypony and Spike saw the alicorn already flying after the Duel Runners.
“Come on, Fluttershy! We gotta go after her!” Spike said.
“But Twilight said…” Fluttershy replied. “Spike?”
“Hey, you! Stop!” Yusei demanded.
The hooded rider in the Duel Runner before him briefly glimpsed back before making a sharp turn. His Runner then flew over a thin stream, followed by several other turns through the forest.
“That should do it,” he said. He then glanced behind himself once before. “What?!”
“You’re not getting away!” shouted Yusei.
The man then placed a card in his Duel Disk, slicing down trees before him.
Yusei gasped as an upcoming tree collapsed towards him and instinctively rotated his Runner and leaned it backwards, barely passing underneath.
“What are you doing with that unicorn?” asked Yusei, straightening out.
“It doesn’t matter to you,” the man replied, pressing a button on his Duel Runner. “I can’t have you pursuing me like this.”
“DUEL MODE ENGAGED,” said a computer voice, along with the image of Speed World 2 appearing on their monitors.
“Now he wants to Duel?” Yusei thought to himself.
“My name is Rudith,” replied the man, “and I will defeat you here.”
Twilight flew above the trees, following the sounds of the Runners until they were within sight.
“Wait… tell me they’re not…” she thought. She then looked up to see them veering slightly away from the mountain before them. “Are they… headed for Canterlot?”
A low boom then sounded in the distance, coming from the same mountain.
“What’s that?” she asked herself. Another boom. This time, as she drew closer, her eyes caught a dust cloud on the mountainside.
Twilight looked at the Runners and back at the mountain once more. After a momentary pause, she took a deep breath.
“All right, Yusei,” she thought. “Don’t let me down.”