The Disappearening

by Abraman

Tome

The friends arrived at Ponyville later in the day. The first thing Twilight did after arriving was rush to her home to see Spike. It was urgent that a letter be sent to Princess Celestia as fast as possible.

Bursting urgently into her front room, she called for Spike, “Spike, where are you?”

“I’m right here Twilight, what do you need?” Said Spike as he stepped down the stairs, slightly confused as to why Twilight sounded so frantic.

“Spike, take a letter.” said Twilight, very officially.

“Wait, really? Do you still need me as your-“

“Spike, I don’t have time for this!” interrupted Twilight, sounding very impatient. “It’s very important that I get a letter to Celestia right now!”

“Alright, alright” Spike said as he reached for a parchment and quill.

“Dear Princess Celestia,” Twilight said, reminiscing on all of the times she had started a letter like that. “My friends and I visited White Tail and found a strange spherical indentation into the ground.”

“Wait WHAT!?” Spike said, as he looked up from the letter.

“Spike!”

“Ah, right, sorry. Spherical…”

“Is this what your scouts saw?” Twilight continued. “Because if it is, I would urge a more serious investigation into what happened to White Tail. Your faithful student, Twilight.”

“Did you add the part about the squirrel?” Fluttershy burst into the room along with the rest of Twilight’s friends.

“I guess I can add that.” Said Twilight as Spike readied the quill again. “P.S. We also found evidence that all of the inhabitants of the village disappeared along with the village itself.”

Spike rolled up the parchment and blew his green fire on it, sending the message on its way to the princess. At once Twilight’s friends all started buzzing, now that they were in private and could discuss the event without this sensitive subject falling on foreign ears.

“I can’t even begin to imagine what happened to the village.” said Rarity.

“I still say someone ate it!” exclaimed Pinkie, happily making her prediction known.

“Hey Twilight, do you think there’s some sort of book in here that might help with our investigation?” asked Rainbow.

“Investigation? What investigation? This isn’t an ongoing thing, Rainbow, that was-“ Twilight began to say, before she was abruptly cut off by a belching noise from Spike.

“I believe this is for you.” Spike said, handing the letter to Twilight.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight began to read the letter aloud to her friends. “This is not an isolated occurrence. Things like this have started to be reported all over Equestria.”

“Oh, my” whispered Fluttershy.

“This is obviously a serious matter that needs to be investigated, as per your recommendation. I am therefore placing you, Twilight Sparkle, at the head of the official investigation into this subject. Dearest regards, Princess Celestia.”

“So…investigation?” said Rainbow.

“Right, uh, start searching the library.” Twilight said, but the rest of the group was already on it. Any desire to keep this organized was quickly thrown out the window. The floor soon became cluttered with piles of already read books as the six ponies scoured the shelves, looking for something, anything, that would help them find out what was going on. Twilight hopped from book to book, quickly glancing at pages to find something that would help them.

It was Rarity who found the book they needed. It was titled 15 Seriously Strange Unsolved Mysteries.

“That doesn’t really sound like a very reliable source…” Applejack said, but trailed off as she realized her friends were too engrossed in the tome to pay her any heed.

“One of the greatest mysteries of Equestrian history is called ‘The Disappearening’” Twilight began to read aloud. “This occurred 427 years before the publishing of this book…” Twilight checked the inside page. “...which would have to be exactly 500 years ago. The Disappearening involved the strange disappearances of several villages across Equestria, most notably Albacoltque. The cause of this disappearance was never discovered.”

“So now what do we do?” asked Applejack.

“Yeah, we know what happened, but we still need to find out why.” chimed in Rarity.

“Well, as a student of the princess, and the head of the official investigation, I have access to most all of the records in Canterlot.” said Twilight.

“What, we have to do MORE looking through writing?” asked Rainbow, sounding very exasperated.

“Relax Rainbow.” Twilight reassured her. “There are six of us, it won’t take that long.”

Of course, Twilight said that before they got to the records room. This room was massive, containing records dating back to long before the six friends were born and with a back wall that was barely visible from the entrance. These records spanned a great many subjects, from agricultural yields to the current ruler and heir (the latter took up a very small amount of space).

After standing astonished for a fair amount of time, Pinkie finally broke the silence. “Well, there’s no use standing here. Let’s hop to it!” She cheerily said, bounding forward to look in the first records that caught her eye.

“Okay, first we need to rule out some subjects…” began Twilight, but her friends were already at it, searching through anything interesting, trying to find anything unusual from five hundred years ago.

“…or we could do it like that.” Twilight begrudgingly muttered under her breath as she started forward.

The search took many hours, and as such we won’t go into any great detail. It finally ended when Fluttershy found something strange in the electromagical activity records.

“Um, guys…” Fluttershy said, but everyone else was too busy frantically looking through records.

“Guys…” Fluttershy tried again, but her voice didn’t have much reach the second time either.

“EVERYBODY!” Fluttershy screamed, and this time everyone stopped what they were doing to pay attention to her.

“I found something.” Fluttershy said, back to her quiet self again.

“Her friends crowded around, looking at the records she had found. Around five hundred years ago, there had been a large, unexplained jump in elecromagical activity, centered on the Galloping Gorge.

“Ya know, I just thought about something. Why didn’t anybody notice this back then and put together the pieces?” asked Rainbow Dash

“These records are automated, Rainbow.” Said Twilight. “They have been for the longest time. The only pony interaction that’s needed is somepony occasionally coming in to check and see if it’s still running. Otherwise, this process is 100% magic controlled.”

“Hmm…” Dash said thoughtfully.

“Well, I would guess that merits a trip to Galloping Gorge then.” Said Rarity.

Weehee! Let’s go! Onward!” shouted Pinkie, gleefully.

Comments

[Maerx]

Nice. You have my attention..

[Shadowsciver]

can't wait to see where this goes

[cherished]

Looks great! Keep it up! My only complaint is that the mane six should've at least learned a bit more about why this is happening before baltimare dissipeared. A entire city seems a lot bigger than a village.