Twilight's Curiosity: War II

by Mr Anomalous

The Return

The Return

Twilight Sparkle was having another nightmare. They were a nightly occurance now, and there was no way to escape them. Except maybe the memory spell....no. That wouldn't work. She needed this knowledge. But, at the same time, she needed to escape from it, more than anything. She always found herself remembering the flames and the blood when she tried to read, or to spend time with her friends. She always hear the explosions and the clinking of spent shells when all that she wanted to do was to eat, or sleep.

So Twilight decided to do what she did best. Research. She looked into mental illnesses, and in to the psychology of ponies, and she even read about Karma and other not-so-sciency things. She had been doing much more reading than usual, what with those awful flashbacks intruding into her mind every time she so much as looked at another living thing. She had been doing enough reading to finally realize something. She needed to go back. She knew it sounded insane. How could more of something bad make it better? But she knew that she needed to do it. She needed to find out more, she needed to help these humans, help them see the light. She needed to give them a dose of peace. She needed to help them remember the good days. And, above all, she needed to learn more about them, the conflict, and about their culture. For Science!

She slipped out of bed, and spent a lot more time packing than last time. She grabbed food, water, extra clothes, first aid supplies....and, of course, books. She packed empty books and scrolls, for notes and journals, and packed books that she thought might help.

The Pony's Guide to Observing from Afar, and How to Record an Interaction With a New Species, (Ponies had thought of everything) She, hesitantly, packed Defending Yourself from What you are Observing: When your Experiments go awry.

She had two saddle-bags, a backpack, and a case that she carried with her aura, and everything was packed about as full as possible. No, not about, as full as possible. She was traveling to an alien world, without any guidance, all on her own. She needed to be prepared for anything.

This time, she walked. It was a long way, but not to long. She couldn't risk anyone seeing her in her balloon, and she couldn't take the train. (The conductor would have had to see her.) This has to remain a secret. Nopony should know where she went. She didn't even leave a note this time; she couldn't.

She was sad at the thought of leaving her friends. Possibly for a very long time. She was completely silent, she didn't even talk to herself as she walked further down the road. It was still dark. Twilight didn't know what time it was, she had forgotten to check, but she knew it was late. She had to get to Canterlot before the sun came up, so she began to pick up the pace. She used magic to help keep her energy up, but, by the time she was most of the way up the mountain, she needed a rest. She plucked off her large backpack and sat by the road, breathing heavily. She was going to need something caffeinated when she got to Canterlot (by this time, the sun had begun to peek over the horizon, so, Twilight correctly assumed, by the time she reached the Royal City, the Coffee shops would be beginning to open, and the ponies starting their days.

She was just beginning to think about how awesome an double-shop Espresso would be right now, when she heard a noise. Potential compromise incoming! Twilight dove for the bushes on the side of the street mountain trial, bags in tow, and hid there for a while, while the noise became louder. It was someone pulling a cart. Twilight peeked out of the bush right as the noise became really close, and was able to see two pairs of black legs, and two wooden wheels roll on by, the puller of said cart humming. His deep voice told her that the puller was a stallion. Just when it sounded like the cart and its owner were far away enough, there was a thudding, and then a clanking, then a curse from the black stallion. Something had fallen out. It rolled and rolled, and came to rest right in front of Twilight's bush!

She gasped, and pushed herself up against the back of the bush and the cliff wall with her back legs. She held her breath as the stallion came closer, and closer. He stopped in front of the bush and paused. Then he simply leaned over, grasped whatever had came loose from his baggage, and walked back up the trail to his cart. Soon, Twilight could breath again. She let out a big breath, and wiped a bead of sweat from her eyebrow with her left hoof. That was close.

Twilight realized something. If nopony was supposed to see her, how could she get to the Canterlot library? Worse, how could she get her much-needed caffeine!? She remembered The Pony's Guide to Observing from Afar, and reached into her bag to pull it out.

After her fishing (or booking, hahahaha) payed off, Twilight looked up and down the trail, searching for any signs that someone might be coming. After no ponies or dust trailer from carts were spotted, nor any pegasai in the clouds, Twilight opened up her book, and began to read. She learned that, even when one is observing from afar, one can be snuck up on, and there are a few tricks that one can deploy, both magic and natural, to keep from being seen...

Doughnut Joe had just gotten dressed, and had just flipped his open/closed sign around. He was cleaning the counters with a rag and had turned his back to organize some of the doughnuts inside of his display cases, when he hear the chime of a customer entering his shop. He turned to greet his customer, saying, "Hello and Welcome to Doughnut Joe-"

He stopped when he didn't see anyone. He could've sworn that the bell on his door had been rung.

Oh well, He shrugged, and got back to cleaning and organizing. Suddenly, he heard one of the coffee machines being activated. He whirled around, and saw that one of the nozzles was still dripping.

"Alright, come out, whoever you are. You can't get free coffee here. You don't wanna haffta be reported to the guard, do you?"

He felt a tapping on his shoulder. He moved fast, but still, he saw nothing. He heard clinking, and whirled around to face his counter again. There, two bits were still bouncing on the counter-top.

"Hehe. Must've scared 'em into payin'."

Twilight shot into an alleyway, where she downed her coffee. That was much better. She was quite proud of herself, she didn't know she had the sort of stealth in her. Yet another thing to add to her things-to-be-confident-about list.

But she forced herself to focus on the task at hoof. She needed to infiltrate the Canterlot library, and see whether she could find any information on inter-dimensional travel, and carry it out. All without being seen. Ugh. This was going to be a long day.

Twilight kept herself busy until night, when her plan was going to be sprung, by, well, being Twilight. She read. She read out of all of the books that she had brought, and she also mentally went through all of her plans, sifting through them. She made sure that they were foal-proof. In her mind, they were. After this, she used her newly acquired stealth skills to sight-see, though she had already seen most of the city, since she kind of used to live there. The only thing new were a couple of new buildings, just some shops.

Even though there was nothing very new, Twilight was actually anticipating the old. She was searching for things that would bring back memories. She found plenty. She saw the park where she and Shining Armor used to play every day, she saw her favorite old shop, where she used to go for sweets....the nice old lady who worked there was pretty much the only pony that Twilight ever talked to, aside from Shining Armor. She wished that she could drop in and say hi, but she was in strict incognito mode. Yessere, by the time it was finally getting dark enough for her master plan to be swung into action, Twilight was feeling a mite nostalgic.

She sighed, pushed all of the memories away, and began her sneaking.

Eventually, after a close call with a rather excited couple in the park, Twilight made it to the library. She did the exact same thing that she, Pinkie Pie, and Spike had done to enter the building when Twilight was freaking out about the future, and the disaster-that-never-happened.

Now, she was rescuing a race in need of love. And doing more research. Twilight knew that Celestia didn't want anything to do with these humans, and that she didn't want any knowledge of them out in Equestria, but Twilight thought that if she could fix these humans, and when they are peaceful, the Princess might change might change her mind about it. Twilight knew that it was risky, but she had to do it.

After entering the library (she never ceased to be amazed at all of the books there) She began searching. And searching. And searching. There was absolutely nothing. Twilight was on the verge of giving up when something clicked. The Starswirl the Bearded wing. He was the one who invented the spell in the first place, she should have checked there first!

She raced back up, and found herself facing the gate that led into the treasure trove of knowledge. She quietly picked the lock (another thing that she had recently learned) and went inside. She began her rummaging, and, it took her a while, but she found something.

She smiled with glee and began reading. She soaked up the information like a wet sponge. A smart, wet sponge. One that needed to travel inter-dimensionally.

When she was finished, she closed the book, and slowly replaced it where it needed to be. But then she took it back out. She just got hit by a realization. She didn't like it, but she knew that she had to keep this book. And more than likely some other scrolls. At least until she returns.

She, rather regrettably, added the book and a couple more scrolls to her bag, thinking all the while.

Twilight Sparkle! Stealing? From a Library? You should be ashamed of yourself!

She was, but she also knew that it was necessary. A phrase that had been entering her mind quite a lot lately entered yet again.

For Science. She quite liked it too.

Twilight quietly composed herself. She made sure that all of her bags were tight and secure, and that everything was ready to go. She drew up the energy, and the courage, she needed and her horn began to glow with her purple aura.

She began sweating. This was a difficult spell. She concentrated, and concentrated. There was a whirring sound, and a bright light, similar to her teleportation spell, but slower.

The light began to glow more and more, and loose papers in the library began to start flying. Twilight hoped that it was nothing important, and she finally pushed forward the last required surge of magic, and it went black.

Twilight was in a bright orb yet again, more shortly, and the bright blue shelves filled with books and scrolls and papers were replaced by gray. A big, gray wall. Twilight looked around, and realized that she was inside of an alleyway. She saw that the same fog that had been here when she and Luna had visited had returned. She smelled smoke. She was in the same city that she had traveled to several days ago. That was another thing that had worried her. She might have went somewhere that wasn't familiar with. Not that she was exactly familiar with place, but at least she had recognized it.

She began walking out of the alleyway. She had some science to do.

Author's Note:

This story is going to be a lot longer, than the previous! Also, make sure to recommend this to your friends, Up-vote, yaddayaddayadda, typical begging. Enjoy!

Comments

[xErickKingx]

Nice
Keep the good work my friend
and
have you think about to put a Theme song
also (this might be silly
FirsPost

[Totallyrandomdude]

Yea... long awaited... more like two days...

[Totallyrandomdude]

This is kind of wall-of-texty, ya know.

[ponybrony]

My rating of the series so far...

Five Flutterrages
(9.8/10)

[Dead Turtle]

Whew, an interesting start!

Also, nice cameo of Doughnut Joe there.

[Kadigan]

1896141
You haven't seen a wall of text in these parts, have you? ;D There was one story I really wanted to read, but... the first chapter had about a thousand words... in two paragraphs.

I tried. I failed.