Prologue: What's Done Cannot be Undone

Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: All characters in this story are copyright of their respective owners. If I make any money off this story I’ll be just as surprised as you.

Prologue: What’s Done Cannot be Undone

Rainbow Dash stood alone against all odds to defend Fluttershy’s honor. Breathing deeply, she snorted and watched as her breath steamed in front of her face. Fluttershy raised the flag and she licked her lips one last time as a precaution against the cold winds she’d surely encounter. The flag went down and she launched herself off the starting line. The race was unlike anything she’d done before, the speed, the adrenaline, the wind in her mane, Fluttershy’s screams of terror, she liked it. Wait, Fluttershy’s screams of terror?

Rainbow Dash looked over her shoulder to see the cloud Fluttershy had been standing on was empty and her friend was falling towards the ground. Fluttershy was the kindest pony Rainbow Dash knew but by far the worst flier. If she didn’t do anything Fluttershy would die. Sparing not even a second thought for losing the race Rainbow Dash changed direction and sped towards the ground after her friend. Fluttershy had the good sense to spread her wings and legs as much as she could to slow her fall but Rainbow Dash still had an awful lot of sky to make up.

Thrusting her hooves out in front of her to break the air and pumping her wings Rainbow Dash started making up that sky. Faster and faster she flew, there was no way those bullies could have kept up with her flying this fast. Fluttershy grew rapidly from a yellow and pink spot to a frightened Pegasus with blue eyes wide from terror grasping out to Rainbow Dash.
As she closed the last tens of yards the air itself seemed to be fighting back; growing thick in front of Rainbow Dash and forcing her to push harder than she ever had to gain the last bits of speed she needed to catch Fluttershy.

And at last catch Fluttershy she did. Pulling up at the speed she was going was not an option, nor was their landing one of Rainbow Dash’s prouder accomplishments. But they were both alive and aside from some scrapes and bruises both were more or less in one piece. Looking around at their surroundings Rainbow Dash saw animals she had never seen before poking their heads out of various hiding places to look at the two newcomers.

“Thank you Rainbow Dash!” Even near yelling Fluttershy wasn’t very loud but the feelings carried just fine, “If it weren’t for you I might have died.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” Rainbow Dash sighed as time caught up with her. It had probably been less than a minute from the start of the race to the ground but it felt like hours if not days. “I knocked you off that cloud in the first place. If it weren’t for me you never would have come close to dying.”

“Oh that’s not true at all, I don’t think we’ll ever know who knocked me off that cloud and it was you who came and got me. Those other ponies cared more about winning the race. And besides, it’s wonderful down here. All these animals I never knew about, the plants are so beautiful up close, and… and… I don’t know if I ever want to leave.”

“Come on Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash decided she needed to get Fluttershy back to reality in a hurry, “I think your parents would get a bit worried when you didn’t come home from flight camp.” That seemed to deflate Fluttershy, in fact a bit too much. “But I’m sure once you learn how to fly you can come down here all the time!”

That brought a smile back to Fluttershy’s face without putting crazy ideas in her head and Rainbow Dash finally let herself crack a smile at what she’d pulled off. Even if she’d thrown the race she’d saved her friend’s life and done some pretty awesome flying to do it. A small roar from above was the only clue either pony had that the race had ended.

“Stupid ponies!” Rainbow Dash answered with her own roar that doubtless failed to reach the sky but felt good to her all the same. “I hope… I hope… I hope you trip on the finish line and sprain your wings so you can’t fly for the rest of camp!”

“Oh Rainbow Dash you don’t mean that,” Fluttershy’s admonishment was gentle but still made Rainbow Dash feel about as big as one of her hooves.

“And you scared all the animals,” Fluttershy wasted no time in going around to the various trees and bushes drawing out their inhabitants. Even sticking her head underwater to coax some frogs who had dived when startled by Rainbow Dash.

“See, it’s all better, there’s nothing to worry about.” Rainbow Dash watched more than a little impressed as Fluttershy gathered the animals about her. And as much as she’d wanted to win that race she couldn’t help smiling when her friend’s flank flashed and three butterflies appeared on it.

Applejack had never felt so homesick in all her days as she watched the sun rise over the mountains. Granny Smith and Big Macintosh were probably bucking their way through the red delicious trees right then. What she wouldn’t give for just one bite of an apple from Sweet Apple Acres, city food might have looked good but the chefs put so much effort into making the food look good they forgot to make enough. Maybe the sophisticated city life wasn’t for her. Aunt and Uncle Orange were good ponies but she didn’t much like their friends and she hadn’t found anything in the city she’d like to do more than go back to Ponyville and buck apples.

All Applejack wanted was a sign of what to do, as independent a filly as she was to make it to Manehatten on her own a little help now and then would be appreciated. But the sky outside was as calm as it ever was. Celestia’s sun rose slowly as the noises of the city began to pick up for another busy day. With a dramatic sigh that surely would have drawn her aunt or uncles notice Applejack flopped herself back on her bed. No matter how she worked the thoughts in her head this city adventure just wasn’t working out. It might take some of the fancy talking she’d learned from them to smooth it over but Applejack was going to have to tell her aunt and uncle that she was going back to Ponyville.

“This is horrible!” was the first thing Applejack heard from the living room as she opened her door. Curiously she walked into the living room to see Aunt and Uncle Orange at the dining table with the paper spread out before them.

“I don’t expect our government to be filled with saints,” Applejack watched her uncle continue on what was apparently a tirade at something he’d read in the paper, “but this is just ridiculous. Bribery, nepotism, really just about every joke you heard about corrupt politicians come true. And then trying to lie his way out of it and pin everything on some poor other pony. I swear, if they wouldn’t be different ponies doing the same things this would be almost enough to make you wish for the days when Celestia was an absolute monarch and appointed the city’s government.”

“Oh hush dear,” Aunt Orange peeked out from behind whatever section of the paper she was reading. “At least somepony is trying to keep them all honest. And if you keep going like that you’ll wake, oh hello Applejack dear.”

“Good morning Aunt Orange, Uncle Orange.” Applejack made herself take on the cultured tones of Manehatten, “I had hoped to talk with you about something but might I look at the paper first?”

Her uncle surrendered the paper to her waiting hooves and Applejack dove into the story about some politician on the city council being arrested for just about every type of corruption under the sun and it sounded like a few types over the sun. As she read on her homesickness became quickly forgotten. Before they’d died her parents had always stressed the importance of being honest and had done their best to live up to it. More than anything it was the lies the city ponies told that made Applejack yearn for the farm but this was something new. There were ponies here who told the truth and more than that worked against the lies other ponies told.

“Applejack?” Aunt Orange’s voice cut through the haze the filly had built around herself as she read, “you said you wanted to talk to us about something.”

“Yeah,” Applejack started in the drawl she’d grown up with before correcting herself, “Yes, I know that the school year will be starting soon and I have to choose between going back to Ponyville and staying here.” Applejack took one last look at the paper before taking a breath and choosing, “I’d like to enroll here in Manehatten.”

Rarity had no idea where her horn was taking her; she may have been the only unicorn in her class but she knew unicorn magic didn’t happen without a reason. Maybe it had to do with her love of fashion, or maybe even her cutie mark! Her happy dreams of what her magic might mean came to an abrupt end as her horn guided her rather unceremoniously into a giant rock. It was only a small mercy that nopony was around to see her pick herself up and dust herself off from such an ignominious occurrence.
But no matter, Rarity knew that her magic had led her here for a reason, it had to be her destiny!

“A rock?! That’s my destiny?!” Rarity cried out as she at last took in her surroundings.

“What is your problem horn?!” She tried to throw as menacing a glance as she could manage at the rebellious appendage. “I followed you all the way out here for a rock!?”

“Dumb rock!” Rarity vented quite a bit of anger into her scream but still had more than enough to spare.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself somewhat Rarity looked again at her surroundings, there was nothing spectacular to recommend the place. Or anything unspectacular for that matter. All her eyes could see was a dry riverbed and a few scraggly trees between the mountains.

“Dumb rock!” Rarity whirled back at the uncaring monolith. “Dumb horn!” Rarity felt very much unsatisfied at her ability to vent at the source of her problems. “Dumb place!” Rarity cried as she turned and hit the one thing she could, the earth beneath her hooves.

“Ouch!” Rarity cried, in pain this time, as she jerked her hoof from whatever it had hit. “What in Equestria?” She looked down at the hole she had gouged in the dirt and saw a sparkle glint in the late morning sunlight.

“Is that a gem?” Carefully Rarity wedged the rock from the ground to find herself looking at one of the beautiful almost pre-cut gemstones useful for so many things to ponies and other creatures all across Equestria. “I wonder…”

Rarity’s next venture into the ground was much less painful than her first and she was rewarded with a gold nugget about the size of a bit. It was heavier than it looked but Rarity barely noticed the weight. Squeezing around the rock she walked to the edge of the overhang her horn had brought her to. The whole riverbed, the whole landscape as far as she could see looked just like where she was. And if there were gems and gold under that bit of land then what was there under all that land?
“Sorry horn,” Rarity’s next glance up was much more apologetic. “But you rock,” she whipped herself about to glare at its unchanging face,” I don’t care if you’re filled to bursting with gems, you tried to keep me from my destiny!”

She could easily find enough gems here to replace the costumes for the school play with nothing but gemstones but that had already fallen to the back of her mind. Gems weren’t particularly rare in Equestria but even her untrained eye knew these were gems of the highest quality. And gold certainly didn’t grow on trees or it wouldn’t be useful as a currency. Ponies all across Equestria needed what she’d just found. And she would be the one to bring it to them, maybe with a little help to cover all this land. The middle of nowhere was the last place Rarity had imagined she’d be when she got her cutie mark. Still it made no difference when the shovel and pickaxe overlaid on a diamond appeared on her flank as the epiphany of her future struck her.

Pinkamena Diane Pie, Pinkie Pie to her friends, or at least she would be if she had any friends, pushed another rock into the pile she was building. The rock farm on which she and her sisters lived with their parents was just a bit outside Ponyville. She spent her days working the fields, there was no talking, there was no smiling, there were only rocks.

The dinner bell calling the family to the evening meal broke Pinkamena from her melancholy reverie. It was an endless series of long days moving the rocks from the south field to the east field. And when that endless series of long days finally ended there would be another endless series of long days moving rocks from other fields into the newly cleared south field.

As she walked towards her house Pinkamena sighed and looked up at the sky hoping for some change from the dullness of her life. But no there was only the nigh eternal cloud cover that condensed from the spray at the bottom of the Canterlot Waterfalls. Barely an hour’s trot away in Ponyville where she and her sisters went to school as often as their parents could spare their time it was sunny more often than not. Pinkamena loved the sun, it was so bright and cheery, and it made rainbows! Once they’d gone to the actual base of the falls and the sun through the water had made a spray of more colors than Pinkamena had though existed.

But those were happy memories of another time. At least the school year would be starting again soon and she’d get to go into Ponyville and the sun. But beyond that all Pinkamena Diane Pie could see in her future was rocks, no talking, no smiling, there were only rocks.

The start of the school year had Pinkamena nearly bouncing off the walls with happiness at the prospect of getting off the farm even if only for most of one day. She rarely had the opportunity to be happy and when chances like this came around she milked them for all they were worth. Seeing the other ponies always made her a bit sad though. They had friends to hang out with and smile and laugh with. Pinkamena only had her sisters, not that she didn’t love them. She just wanted some friends who weren’t also family. And she wanted to smile, it looked like so much fun.

Pinkamena had noticed the white unicorn from the next class up watching her and her sisters. It was hard not to notice unicorns and pegasi in an earth pony town like Ponyville. There were no pegasi at the school and counting the white one only four unicorns. She was still surprised when one afternoon the white unicorn with a purple mane and a cutie mark of a shovel and pickaxe over a diamond came trotting up to the farm.

“Um hello?” The white unicorn called out as she approached Pinkamena.

A quick glance revealed that the rest of her family was occupied elsewhere leaving Pinkamena to handle this stranger.
“You’re from my school,” Pinkamena pointed a hoof, perhaps accusatory, at the unicorn.

“Yes,” the unicorn seemed a bit taken aback at Pinkamena’s hoof, “My name is Rarity. I was hoping I might speak with you or one of your sisters.”

“What about?” Pinkamena’s curiosity had always been nearly insatiable and this was no exception.

As Rarity told Pinkamena what exactly she had in mind the pink pony felt and did nothing to stop the smile that grew on her face. In her perfect world she would leave both the rock farm and rock farming, except of course to come home and visit her parents. But this was absolutely a way off the farm and more importantly Rarity could be her friend.

“Call me Pinkie Pie, all my friends do. If you really can find those gems and gold we totally have a deal.”

Pinkie Pie looked up at the sky and for the first time in longer than she cared to remember the sun broke through the clouds over her farm.

Twilight Sparkle was scared out of her mind. Yes it had been her dream to come here ever since she’d seen Celestia raise the sun with her magic. Yes she had absorbed a small library’s worth of books about magical theory and technique. Yes she had driven her parents half mad with practicing and they’d been supportive of her the whole way through. But when the maintenance pony wheeled in the cart with the dragon egg and she looked up at the examiners with their looks of impatience to outright hostility she felt her legs turn to jelly and it was a small miracle she stayed on all four hooves.

Twilight felt sweat break out on her forehead as the examiners started making notes, nothing good she thought. Turning to the egg she started to simply channel magic into it. The small library she’d read hadn’t had anything about dragon eggs, let alone how to hatch them. She was on completely unfamiliar ground and as much as her parents being there meant, they couldn’t help her.

The stress of the situation combined with the examiners proving to be outright rude meant that where Twilight usually had no problems making her magic work she now had to scrape for every bit of it she could muster. Despite nearly flinging herself about the room a few small sparks was all she could muster.

“I’m sorry I wasted your time,” she muttered as she fell onto her haunches in defeat.

The examiners faces were unreadable beyond being unkind as they scribbled more on their clipboards with their magic. Twilight Sparkle turned to her parents to apologize to them only to see them still smiling, still encouraging her on. Renewed by her parent’s enthusiasm Twilight ignored the examiners and started pouring all the magic she could muster into the egg. Deeper and deeper into her magical power she kept going, well past what she’d done in practice at home. Still the egg just sat there, unmoving and unchanging.

Planting her hooves and groaning from the strain Twilight pushed herself to her limits and kept going. The first sign she had that she’d done something wrong was the feel of something warm running into her clenched teeth from her nose. As she tried to figure out what the warm substance was the shock of trying to channel far more magic than her young body could handle finally caught up to Twilight Sparkle and she collapsed in a pile on the ground. Her parents gasped and ran up to check on her. As blackness took her Twilight saw only the cold faces of the examiners as they kept writing on those clipboards.

Princess Celestia, ruler of all Equestria, was normally not much of a night pony. Certainly she could stay up late if called upon to and did so regularly without complaint, at least without complaints to any other pony. But her time always had been and always would be the day lit by her sun. Tonight though she had stayed up late without anypony asking her to, she was expecting mail and she did not intend to let it wait till morning. To say the mailpony making the late rounds was surprised when Celestia walked out onto her balcony to collect the letters in person would be an understatement.

Celestia waved the still very surprised Pegasus off into the night sky and then turned back inside. In truth she only wanted to see one letter in the pile before her. Quickly sorting through the papers with her magic she came across an envelope from her school for gifted unicorns and opened it.

The smile Celestia had worn quickly disappeared; she had had such high hopes for Twilight Sparkle. She was almost certain that the filly was one of the Elements of Harmony. But, Celestia reflected, she had seen in her life empires rise and fall on ‘almost.’ As much of a shame as it was to be wrong about Twilight Sparkle she had to trust the ponies she’d put in charge of the school or there was not much point to them being there. Nor would Twilight Sparkle be the first time in her long life that she had been wrong. However, Celestia thought as she looked out at the moon and stars, she was running out of time to be wrong.

“And I had so hoped you would be the one Twilight.”

An Ill Favoured Thing

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: I’m going to have to say this a lot aren’t I? I don’t own My Little Pony.

Chapter One: An Ill Favoured Thing

“Twilight. Twilight! Twilight Sparkle!” The pony in question jerked herself awake from her small desk as her roommate’s shouts finally yanked her from the depths of sleep.

“Finally, you need to get going or you’ll be late for work. I swear, I don’t even know why you have a bed. Most of the time you fall asleep at that desk anyways.”

Twilight only half heard her roommate after she was through shouting her name as she dragged herself back to consciousness. Her first concern upon waking was making sure she hadn’t drooled on her books or done anything else while asleep that might damage them. A quick check revealed they were all undamaged. Twilight held in a relieved sigh at her discovery, she was nearing graduation and selling her books back to the college was an annual ritual that always netted her some much needed bits.

At last nearing something resembling being awake Twilight started shuffling around her small room getting ready for work. Her saddlebags took next to no time to pack; they’d have taken even less if it wasn’t paynight tonight. Not that her saddlebags ever took much time to pack, such a small room didn’t allow the possibility of having enough things to ever make a lengthy packing process.

Since failing the entrance exam to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns Twilight Sparkle had stumbled from one failure to another. Being rejected by one top level magical school seemed to chill all the others on her admission. Being neither nobles nor particularly wealthy, Twilight’s parents couldn’t talk or buy her way into any prestigious schools. So she’d gone home and been incredibly bored in public school with other unicorns who could have been earth ponies for all the interest in magic they had.

Not that she wasn’t smart or intelligent, quite the opposite in fact. Twilight Sparkle had a most impressive aptitude for book learning. Unfortunately ever since the day she’d failed her entrance exam she didn’t have the magic power to back her smarts up. Some of it, a fair bit she would admit, was due to her being scared she might repeat that day. But there had been since that day a sense that maybe she really had injured the parts of her body that handled magic by trying to push them so far at such a young age.

Worse than injuring her magic or being rejected from multiple schools, she was still a blank flank. She’d tried everything she could think of to try and find her talent but years of effort had left her with nothing to show for it. At wits end she’d decided to continue studying magic for no other reason than that she liked it. Just because she had no talent was no reason to be miserable about it.

Being a non-wealthy commoner of only middling magical ability Twilight Sparkle’s choices for higher magical education had been quite limited. The Starswirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever Universities in Canterlot proper wouldn’t even look at Twilight’s application; never mind that they seemed to still remember her failed exam all those years ago. The Princess Platinum Academy on level one of the undercity looked at her application, but that was a mere courtesy. Twilight felt lucky enough to have made it into the Canterlot 4th Level Magical College on her book scores. Level four of the undercity was still a solidly middle class population.

Level six, where her apartment was, was the border between the middle classes of Canterlot’s undercity and the poorer ponies below. And work, lovely work, was on level seven. The Touchy Hooves Gentlecolts club was hardly the sort of place Twilight wanted to work but ever since failing that exam it was the sort of place she somehow knew she’d end up working.

It could have been worse, Twilight reminded herself in an effort to cheer up. She’d gone down to level nine once on a dare from a classmate and would never do that again. She couldn’t imagine working let alone living down there; and she hadn’t even seen the lowest three levels where the absolute poorest ponies lived hoof to mouth.

Touchy Hooves though was bad enough though. If Twilight hadn’t needed the money to pay for college she never would have taken the job. The tips she made did bring in a lot of money, more perhaps because unlike nearly all her co-workers she didn’t spend all her money on drugs just as soon as she got her bits. Lots of the others also spread their legs after work to various ‘patrons’ to get more bits that went right into their drug habits.

“Hey Twilight, ready for another ‘exciting’ night?” Twilight turned to see the only other pony at the club she regarded as anything close to a friend.

“Good evening Shady, I’m more excited than most nights,” Twilight stepped around several of ponies to reach the vanity where she would gussy herself up for the amusement of the patrons, “It’s paynight tonight.”

“I’ll be more excited next paynight,” The dark pink earth pony planted herself at the vanity next to Twilight’s, “It’s the Summer Sun Celebration tomorrow so lots of ponies will be out partying tonight and for the next few nights. That means lots of tips.”

Twilight sighed, “Celestia knows I need the bits, it’s why I asked to be up on stage tonight rather than serving drinks. Tuition racks up pretty quick when you add summer semester classes to the normal load. But it’s cheaper than another full semester.”

“I know you’re graduating at the end of the summer,” Shady laughed, “you practically jump around back here when you talk about it. At least you’re out of here after that, I’m so jealous of you.”

“I hope I’m out of here, I’ll still need a job once I graduate to pay back all my student loans.” Twilight smiled nervously. “I landed an interview at the royal library tomorrow before all the celebrations kick off. If that goes well I don’t know that I’d even wait for next paynight before quitting.”

“I wouldn’t blame you. I keep looking for any other job, but with no high school diploma I don’t exactly have offers piling up at my door. I know I could get my degree and try some college on my off hours like you but I don’t know how you stay sane, I’d never pull it off.”

Twilight was about to respond when she heard the music change, she knew that was her cue to get ready to go out dancing. She thought she looked ridiculous in the makeup and outfits required for the job but it was what brought in bits.

“Even if I do get out of here there’s one thing I’ll always wonder. We don’t wear clothes most of the time anyways. So why do stallions come here rather than sit at a street side café and watch mares go by?”

“Don’t think about it,” Shady laughed, “If you’re getting out of here the less you think about this place the better. Now go make bits so you can ditch this place forever.”

Rainbow Dash walked down the streets of Ponyville; her wings mostly tucked but still slightly let out in an effort to cover her blank flank. The sky had only a few clouds left in preparation for tomorrow; a clear sign that the weather team she was part of was a top notch unit. And a good chunk of that was her personal work. She might not have been the best flier in all Equestria, joining the Wonderbolts would only ever be a dream, but she knew she was still a good flier and would never leave anypony hanging.

Not that she ever had many opportunities to leave ponies hanging. Her flying skills were good but not good enough to make up for her short temper or the disdain with which most ponies viewed blank flanks. Her only real friend over the years had been Fluttershy. After Rainbow Dash had saved her at the pegasus race the yellow pegasus had saved her many times over, more often than not from herself. This latest weather team was composed of good ponies and with Fluttershy’s urging she was trying mightily to control her temper. She hoped it would work out but she was already steeling herself to spend another stretch of nights on Fluttershy’s couch as she looked for another job.

Speaking of her only friend, Fluttershy was floating next to a tree filled with birds chirping out a lively melody that would accompany Celestia’s arrival tomorrow.

“Hey Fluttershy,” her interruption scattered the birds and caused the yellow pegasus to drop to the ground with a squeak.

“Oh, Rainbow Dash, you scared me.” Fluttershy calmed considerably upon seeing who had interrupted her, “and you also scared the birds away.”

“That’s no big deal, I’ve been scaring animals for years and you always bring them back. I’m starting to think your cutie mark isn’t talking with animals it’s coaxing them back after I scare them.”

“You aren’t that bad with animals. You just need to be a bit quieter with them. And you know, not snap at them. Not that you’re snappish or anything.”

“It’s okay,” Rainbow Dash sighed, “I know I’ve got a short temper. But I’m getting better… I mean I’ve been with this same team for almost four months now! Just keep making sure I don’t screw this up and there might finally be a time in my adult life where I don’t spend most nights out of the year on your couch.”

“I don’t mind you sleeping on my couch.” Fluttershy somehow managed to make it seem like she was the one imposing on Rainbow Dash. “You’ve learned how to be good at cleaning up after yourself and how to get around really quietly when you come in late.”

“I…” Rainbow Dash fumbled for a response, “I should probably let you get back to practicing. Ponies might not look up at the sky tomorrow before the sun comes up but they’ll definitely hear the singing.”

Waving goodbye to her friend Rainbow Dash decided to fly back into Ponyville. The banquet wouldn’t be laid out until tomorrow but there was some food already set up for the ponies working in town hall. She was sure nopony would mind if she ducked in and grabbed a bit for herself, it might not have been indoor work but weather patrol was still work.

“Miss! Excuse me miss!” The shout interrupted Rainbow Dash as she was so close to her prize that she had to bite back several choice words.

Rainbow Dash looked down to see an orange earth pony with a blonde mane piled on her head in curls. Of course it would be some stuck up city pony with an ego bigger than the sky bothering her. Descending, she saw the pony’s cutie mark was a quill and what looked like a magnifying glass running parallel across a sheet of paper. What in Equestria did this pony want with her?

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash landed rather roughly hoping that combined with her tone of voice it would convey her irritation, “what do you want?”

Applejack was rather taken aback at the brusqueness of the pegasus who had just thumped down in front of her. She’d thought before moving to Manehatten that the more rural areas of Equestria were populated entirely with ponies much more polite than their urban counterparts. Every time she came back to Ponyville to visit her family that was a belief she found to be more and more of the silly childhood variety.

“My name is Applejack,” long lessons from the Oranges let her betray nothing of what she thought on her face, “I’m a reporter from the Manehatten Times and I’m doing a story on the Summer Sun Celebration.”

“And I’m just in town for weather patrol,” the foul tempered pegasus replied, “so I’m no good for any of your stories. Now if you don’t mind I’d like to get some lunch sometime today.”

“Actually that’s not the case,” Applejack was determined that at least one pony in this conversation would remain polite, “the preparations for the celebration are quite important and I’m trying to talk to at least one pony from every preparation team. I’m actually rather impressed that somepony whose talent isn’t weather would be on the weather patrol for such an important event.”

“You got a problem with blank flanks?!” Applejack knew that blank flanks could be touchy about their lack of a cutie mark but this pegasus seemed to combine that with a particularly short fuse on her temper. “I can clear this sky in forty five seconds flat! I bet you can find somepony who’ll claim they can do it in something crazy like ten seconds flat but they have no idea how dangerous it is flying that fast. You make one mistake and ponies can get hurt, ponies can die. So yeah you want some crazy flier you can get anypony you want but if you want somepony who can do the job and keep everypony in one piece then you want me, Rainbow Dash.”

“Okay,” the outburst made Applejack come dangerously close to reverting to a drawl before recovering, “I never said I didn’t believe you. But I do note that there are still clouds in the sky, an opportunity to make good on your boast?”

“Hey I don’t leave ponies hanging,” Rainbow Dash jabbed Applejack with a hoof, “they leave me hanging.”

The sky blue pegasus took off into the sky and true to her word set back down forty five seconds later having cleared the sky of clouds. It had been quite a show, clearly she was a skilled flier, but Applejack couldn’t help noticing, flightless though she was, that Rainbow Dash seemed to be holding herself back.

“I told you, forty five seconds flat. Now I’m going to go get some food before it’s all gone.” Before Applejack could even open her mouth the pegasus had taken back to her wings and set off for town hall.

On hoof it took Applejack several minutes to reach Ponyville’s town hall. By then Rainbow Dash had apparently raided the food set out for the workers and made her escape because she was nowhere to be seen.

“More gems everypony! This place is going to be a party when the sun comes up tomorrow and I want them to smile so big their faces crack when they see what we’ve done with the place!”

The pink earth pony with a cutie mark of two blue balloons and one yellow balloon was every bit as loud as the blue pegasus had been but seemed to be possessed of a much cheerier disposition. It came as no surprise to Applejack however when a quick look at the end of one of the strings of gems revealed the stylized R of Rare Gems.

Of course one of largest gem mining companies in Equestria would get the contract to decorate Ponyville for the Summer Sun Celebration. That its CEO Rarity was a personal friend of Princess Celestia had absolutely nothing to do with any of the contracts Rare Gems ever got.

Applejack would have given her back left hoof to bust somepony like Rarity just as some of her co-workers had busted other corporate fatponies but the unicorn seemed to live up to all her grandstanding about generosity. She’d exposed several other executives skimming corporate funds but while Rarity did live well Applejack had dug up nothing about incriminating about her despite her best efforts.

“Will you have all those gems strung up in time for the Princess to raise the sun?” Applejack walked up to the pink earth pony apparently in charge of the decorations.

“Of course silly, Rarity and I are both from Ponyville. There’s no way we’d let this be anything but the biggest and best party this town has ever seen!”

Again Applejack was thankful to the Oranges for their lessons that let her show none of what she felt behind the mask of a polite smile. This was Pinkie Pie, Rarity’s partner and the chief gem inspector of Rare Gems. Regardless of if it ever led to the very top of the chain any dirt Applejack could dig up on this pony could only do good things for her career. Even if she was as squeaky clean as Rarity looked this could be a huge scoop for the paper.

“My name is Applejack,” she extended a hoof that Pinkie Pie took and pumped quite energetically, “I’m a reporter for the Manehatten Times doing a story on this year’s Summer Sun Celebration. I do hope it wouldn’t be imposing on you to ask for a little bit of your time.”

“Oh not at all,” Pinkie Pie seemed to nearly quiver with excitement, “Like I said Rarity and I want this to be the biggest and best party Ponyville has ever seen. So we went out and got these gems ourselves, just like we did when we were fillies growing up here. And they’re going to look great! It took Rarity forever to be satisfied with the gems but it was totally worth it. When Celestia raises the sun tomorrow this place is going to look like a sonic rainboom went off in here!”

Applejack let Pinkie Pie keep talking for several minutes, she seemed to need no urging to keep going, and got plenty to run a story that would make her editors back in Manehatten a group of very happy ponies. Nothing even remotely useful for an exposé though. Applejack had harbored a distrust of the upper crust of pony society, except Princess Celestia, ever since reading that newspaper article all those years ago. As unpleasant as it was to even admit possibility it was possible that Rarity and Pinkie Pie were indeed simply country fillies who had made it big and not let the wealth go to their heads.

Before she could continue down that particular line of thinking she was interrupted by a very familiar voice. “Applejack, Applejack! Get over here!”

Quickly excusing herself Applejack turned to face the one pony in all Equestria who well and truly scared her. “Hello Granny Smith.”

Her response was the painful impact of a hoof with her head, “Don’t you talk all fancy city like to me young filly. You’re a country born and raised pony.”

It wasn’t a true effort to switch but Applejack had spoken like a Manehatten pony for so long that she did have to think to go back to the drawl the Apple family used. “I know, I know, I just gotta talk all fancy like with some of these ponies or they think I’m stupid. Sometimes that’s useful but if I’m gonna get this story done I gotta sound like a smart city pony.”

Granny Smith’s glare said she clearly didn’t believe Applejack but wasn’t willing to push the issue. “Well you don’t need to talk fancy like to go set up the table for the food tomorrow. Now go help your brother and sister so I can go home and make sure the farm hasn’t burned down yet.”

“But Granny Smith I just got this great interview and I gotta go write it up right now if I’m…” Applejack was a strong willed pony but before her grandmother’s glare she was still the nervous filly who had set off for the big city, “Yes ma’am.”

It wasn’t that Applejack didn’t like spending time with her family; she was staying at the farm and even planned to stay a few days past the celebration to visit them. She just really needed to get this story written before somepony from some other paper beat her to it.

“Thanks for helpin’ us Applejack,” Applebloom had apparently wandered over from where the tables were being set up. “I promise we’ll try to work fast so you can get back to the farm and write your story.”

“Thanks Applebloom,” Applejack decided to stick with the drawl as long as she was working with her family, “we can get this done faster than greased lighting. Ain’t that right Big Macintosh?”

“Eeyup,” came the reply.

It would be nice to work with her brother and sister again but once she got back to the farm Applejack was really going to have to write faster than greased lighting to get that story out first.

----

Quick note: I’ve decided to use the blog to post commentary on the chapters, go check that out and make people think it’s the cool thing to do.

Something Wicked This way Comes

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: I’m going to have to keep saying I don’t own this aren’t I?

Chapter Two: Something Wicked This way Comes

“Two hours before your appointment is a good time to show up, right? I mean it says that I’m serious about this. It says that I care about being part of the team. Or does it say that I have no life, no friends, and couldn’t help anypony at the library?”

Eager to spend as much time above ground as possible and to escape her roommates Twilight Sparkle had left for her Ten AM interview at the library at half past Seven. Not that anypony could tell by the sky since the sun wouldn’t come up till half past Ten when Celestia raised it for the Summer Sun Celebration. Of course having nopony with whom to celebrate Twilight simply thought of this as another day of studying followed by work.

“Oh but what if I walk around this park too long and miss my interview? No, that can’t happen I mean I’m right in front of the royal library. It’d be silly to somehow walk far enough that I’d get lost. But what if I did? I’d make the library ponies mad at me. I mean they’re probably already mad working on a holiday and it wouldn’t take much to put them over the top. I’d never get a job after I graduate if I got on their blacklist.”

Twilight’s teachers had been telling her for years that she had an ability to work herself into states of panic over things that were far less worrisome than she made them out to be. Any of her teachers who had stumbled upon her on this particular day would have considered themselves wholly justified in their opinion. None of her teachers were in that particular park on that particular day so ponies out and about before going to watch the sun come up simply avoided the odd lavender pony pacing in front of a bench near the library.

“Calm down Twilight, deep breaths. You won’t do yourself any favors if you go into this interview frazzled and nervous. This is the royal library, you have to look and act the part if you’re ever going to get them to see that you’re smart enough to work here. But what if all this time I’ve spent walking around has made me look frazzled? I don’t have anything with me to brush my mane or smooth my coat and it’s a half hour home. If I go home by the time I fix myself up I’d have to run back and I’d look terrible, and I can’t bring a mane brush with me or anything. They’d think I’m some airhead pony trying to get the job on my looks. Oh I still don’t know what they’re going to do when they find out I’ve been working as a stripper. They’ll probably throw me right out on my flank when they find out, but it’d be even worse if I tried to hide it from them and they found out.”

The next two hours were unpleasant for Twilight Sparkle to say the least. Not least because she spent most of them watching the clock on the library tower tick down minute by minute so two hours of constructing various worst-case scenarios for her interview and then topping herself felt more like half a day of torment. By the time it was a quarter of Ten and she made her way into the library with hooves that seemed to weigh about as much as Celestia’s castle she was convinced the interview would go so badly from word one that she would be expelled from college, fired from her job, disowned by her parents, shunned by any other potential job, and wind up the poorest of the poor on level twelve of the undercity.

“Hello,” she somehow scratched out to the pony at the front desk of the administration wing, “I’m Twilight Sparkle, I have an interview at ten.”

“Oh hello,” the secretary’s smile was surprisingly bright for having to work on what should have been a day off, “your interview is with Bow Tie, the head administrator of the library. He felt that since you were coming in for an interview on what should be a holiday that he’d do you the courtesy of conducting your interview himself. Oh and where are my manners, did you want some water before your interview?”

“That would be great.” Twilight managed to smile despite her stomach falling somewhere between levels three and six of the undercity. The head administrator was going to be interviewing her? Maybe it would be better if she saved everypony the trouble and moved down to level twelve right away.

The water was cold and probably some fancy brand that cost as much per bottle as Twilight made in a night but it did nothing to wet her throat. Since she’d had the courtesy to show up early the administrator did her the ‘courtesy’ of starting her interview early. One more ‘politeness’ Twilight could have done without.

“Good morning Miss Sparkle,” Bow Tie was an older earth pony with a brown notebook and blue pen for a cutie mark, “I know you weren’t expecting to have your interview with me, but I had to be in here today to meet with a potential donor to the library and since you were going to be in here anyways I decided there was no need to waste anypony else’s holiday.”

“No problem,” Twilight tried and mostly succeeded at not sounding like the nervous wreck she was on the inside, “It just caught me a little off guard is all. They’d said I should expect a lot of technical questions about the library and I’m not sure what to expect now.”

“Well you are sort of getting kicked up a round of interviews. Normally you’d start with a technical interview with a junior administrator. Then if they liked what they saw you’d come in for a second round with me or another senior administrator. I’ve looked at your school records and your written scores are plenty high enough that I don’t feel too bad skipping another test I’m sure you’d breeze through.”

“Oh, um thank you.” Twilight had spent so much of the morning thinking about what would go horribly wrong during the interview and how to fix whatever had just gone horribly wrong that something going right was enough to knock her off her stride.

“Don’t thank me yet. Lots of ponies who do just fine with the technical aspects of the job fall flat when dealing with pony relations. Some high and mighty noble walks up to the desk, wants their family history for some reason totally over your head, and then reams you out for fifteen minutes because you didn’t have it right there is something they don’t cover in school.”

“That isn’t something they cover in school,” Twilight’s attempt at a smile may or may not have helped, “the college library is staffed mostly with student volunteers and it’s mostly students checking out books. I doubt there’s a single noble at the school and since lots of us have classes together being high and mighty is a quick way to no friends.”

Twilight very purposefully didn’t mention that despite being neither high-born nor mighty she had no friends at school.

“Most of my job is dealing with ponies who had the world on a silver plate when they were born and complain the plate wasn’t diamond encrusted gold rimmed platinum. Usually we like our applicants to have previous experience in library work, but like I said your written scores are high enough that I think with a little time you can pick up everything you need. I guess that seems like as good a place to start as any, where do you see yourself in five years if you get this job?”

The question was one that Twilight had anticipated, eventually. Eventually being the key word she’d done next to no thinking about how to answer it. Nor had she pursued her favored approach of reading about these sorts of interviews in the college library. Her answer left her, unsurprisingly, cringing on the inside. Her lack of magical talent made her biggest weakness an easy enough question though it did bring up her failure to enter Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

In all Twilight didn’t think she did too badly, nowhere near the panic she’d worked herself up to. But as Bow Tie had said she needed to be the best to work here and while she’d done okay she wasn’t sure she’d gotten the right impression across in her nervous and rushed state. Even the topic she’d dreaded most hadn’t totally crashed and burned. Bow Tie had said that bits were bits and a pony had to get through school however they could, but that it would still be a good idea not to mention it to anypony else.

“I think that just about does it,” Bow Tie ran a hoof down the list he seemed to be drawing from, “thanks again for coming in on what should be a holiday. And remember, I know firsthand that we sprung this interview on you and I’m the last word in hiring for the library.”

“Thank you so much for giving me this chance,” Twilight started backing towards the door, “I really didn’t mind coming in on the holiday, not at…”

Twilight’s profuse thanks were interrupted by a bump, a gasp, the sound of water and a glass hitting the floor, and a high pitched shriek.

“Oh my goodness I’m so sorry!” Twilight felt her mouth freeze as she turned around to see who she’d bumped into. She’d seen that face, at least when dry, and cutie mark on posters all over Canterlot. Rarity was the CEO of Rare Gems, rumored to be one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria, and even occasional magical student of Princess Celestia herself. Twilight Sparkle had just knocked over and soaked one of the wealthiest and most powerful ponies in all Equestria.

All the worst case scenarios she’d thought up before the interview were just idle speculation beside this. The ponies on level twelve wouldn’t have her after this. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad living as a hermit in the Everfree Forest. Twilight had never been much of an outdoor pony, but if she could somehow get her hooves on any books she’d have plenty of free time to read them without being bothered. And not having to go back to Touchy Hooves wouldn’t be the worst fate in the world.

“Oh no no no no no, let me help with that.” Twilight was so panicked that it was a minor miracle when her horn actually started glowing and the various papers strewn about the floor lifted into a semi-organized pile. That accomplished she collapsed into a pile of her own with her hooves covering her eyes so she couldn’t see the world come crashing down around her.

“I’m so sorry,” Twilight moaned, “please don’t banish me to the Everfree Forest.”

“It’s quite alright dear, this is all my fault.” The cultured laughter only hammered home how influential a pony Twilight had just bowled over. “I was in a hurry and barged in before your meeting was over. I should hope,” Twilight glanced up at the pause to see Rarity looking past her, “that you suffer no negative consequences as a result of this little incident. It was after all, primarily my fault for being in a hurry. And I most certainly consider fairness in pony to pony dealings as criteria for deciding where to make my donations.”

“Miss Sparkle?” The secretary intervened to pull Twilight from her worst nightmare come to life, “I’ll escort you from the building. It usually takes a week to ten days to make a decision though since you interviewed with Bow Tie it might take less time. Regardless, when he makes a decision we’ll be in contact.”

As she stepped out of the library into the soft moonlight the only thing running through Twilight’s mind was ‘what just happened there?’ Had she just ruined her chance at the job only to have one of Celestia’s friends intervene to make sure she’d get the job? Twilight was smart, well-read, and worldlier than she cared to think of but this was simply beyond her.

Another thought began running through her mind, “Bow Tie said that my good grades counted for something. If I’d thrown my grades a bit harder could I have gotten some other job than Touchy Hooves? Could I have actually gotten through college without becoming a stripper?”

Heaving a sigh that filled her lungs Twilight got up and started walking back to her apartment. She’d panic until she heard one way or another, but like a mistake on a turned in final exam it was out of her hooves. For that other… thing, she’d made her choice of employment long ago and with any luck she’d be finished there in a matter of days. The less she thought about it the better.

The clock on the library tower struck eleven and Twilight glanced up at the moon still high in the sky. Celestia should have raised the sun half an hour ago but nopony seemed terribly put off by the delay.

Twilight had very much wanted to go to Ponyville for the celebration but the logistics were simply impossible. During the time in which she’d indulged her dream she’d done some reading on Ponyville. The town was late every year for Winter Wrap Up so it should come as no surprise they wouldn’t be ready for the Summer Sun Celebration on time either.

Ponyville was mostly an earth pony town but the Summer Sun Celebration had it packed to bursting with all types of ponies. Ponies who didn’t know how close to being late with the preparations the town had come. Adding to the stigma of being perennially late with Winter Wrap Up had convinced everypony in town to pitch in, and by some miracle everything was ready on time for Celestia to make her appearance.

“Isn’t this exciting?” Pinkie Pie nearly bounced with joy as she stood next to Applejack and Rainbow Dash near the food table. “Are you excited? Cause I’m excited! I’ve never been so excited!”

Before Pinkie Pie could continue any further on what Applejack was sure would be a non sequitur of epic proportions the bird choir burst into song drawing every eye and ear to the stage. The yellow pegasus Applejack had learned was named Fluttershy kept the beat by flapping her wings to stay aloft in front of the birds completely ignoring the parting of the curtains for Celestia to take the stage.

“Fillies and Gentlecolts,” the town’s mayor spoke from a lower stage, “As mayor of Ponyville to announce the beginning of the Summer Sun Celebration.”

This announcement was met with general applause and cheering. Though somewhat muted since while indoors ponies were always careful not to stomp too hard in applause lest they risk damaging the floor.

“In just a few moments,” the mayor took a break in the applause to begin speaking and recapture the audience’s attention, “our town will witness the magic of the sunrise and celebrate this, the longest day of the year. And now, it is my great honor to introduce to you the ruler of our land, the very pony who gives us the sun and the moon each and every day. The good, the wise, the bringer of harmony to all of Equestria, Princess Celestia!”

The bird choir struck up a triumphal entry and a mint green unicorn with a lyre for a cutie mark grabbed the rope and yanked it aside to reveal Princess Celestia ready to raise the sun. Except Princess Celestia was nowhere to be seen.

“Remain calm everypony,” the mayor hurriedly tried to rein in the situation before chaos erupted, “there must be a reasonable explanation.”

“Oh!” Pinkie Pie started jumping in excitement, probably the only pony in the building not taking this as a deadly serious event, “I love guessing games, is she hiding?”

“She’s gone!” The mint green unicorn returned from backstage with a look of what had to be near terror on her face.

Her terror immediately spread to nearly everypony in the audience with Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie being among the few not wearing their terror on their faces. As much as she disliked the pegasus with the rainbow mane Applejack did have to give her credit for having a level head where her temper wasn’t concerned.

“Ohhh she’s good.” Pinkie Pie seemed totally disconnected from what was really going on.

“Ahhh!” It was of all ponies, Pinkie’s scream that brought attention to the dark swirl of energy rising from where Princess Celestia was supposed to be standing.

The energy coalesced into a pitch black alicorn with teal eyes bearing slit pupils Applejack had only seen in drawings of dragons. She wore armor of sorts and gazed down on the assembled ponies with a look somewhere between imperious coldness and outright hatred.

“Oh my beloved subjects,” her voice had all the warmth of the highest peak in the griffon lands far to the north where winter perpetually gripped the land, “It’s been so long since I’ve seen your precious little sun loving faces.”

“What did you do with our princess?” Applejack had not at all expected Rainbow Dash to be the one to leap right into the situation. Her earlier talks with the pegasus gave her the impression that something had happened to make her very wary of reckless actions.

Nevertheless Rainbow Dash recklessly sprang forwards before Applejack could recover from her shock and flew directly towards the unknown pony. The intruder simply stood there impassively until Rainbow Dash was about to reach her and then swatted her aside with magic so strong the pegasus left an impact mark in the wall where she impacted. Fluttershy, who Applejack had gathered was a doctor in addition to being Rainbow Dash’s friend gasped and quickly flew over to the injured pony to start treating her.

“Hahahaha,” the laugh was soft and yet sent chills down Applejack’s spine, “why, am I not royal enough for you? Don’t you know who I am?” The last was accompanied by a menacing flaring of her wings, far larger and stronger looking than any normal pony’s.

“Oh, oh, more guessing games.” Applejack was beginning to think that for her genius at gem selection Pinkie Pie was insane. Clearly the unknown pony had done something to the princess and did not mean them well and here the Pinkie Pie was trying to play games.

“Um, Pokey Smokes, how about Queen Meanie, no Black Snooty! Black Snooty!” Applejack hurriedly grabbed a cupcake from the table and stuffed it in Pinkie Pie’s mouth before she found a way to get them all killed.

“Does my crown no longer count now that I have been imprisoned for a thousand years?” The pony moved with surprising speed to loom over Fluttershy’s efforts to help Rainbow Dash.

“Did you not recall the legends? Did you not see the signs?” She was standing before Applejack and Pinkie Pie in less than the blink of an eye. Her mane was the same sort of energy as Celestia’s but where Applejack had heard the princess’ mane was warm this seemed as cold as the far side of the moon when it brushed under her chin.

“Well, well, well,” the alicorn flew back above all the ponies with a single, powerful flap of her wings. “Such ignorance I find on my return. Do you not know history? Do you not know to fear the name of Nightmare Moon?”

That rang a bell in Applejack’s head and if the groans of terror around her were any indication it had the same effect on everypony else in the building.

The chuckle that followed was profoundly unsettling, “remember this day little ponies. For it was your last. From this moment forth, the night will last forever!”

As if that wasn’t bad enough Nightmare Moon broke out in truly evil laughter and spread her mane until it was a swirling tempest of crackling energy.

“Seize her!” The mayor shouted, “Only she knows where the princess is!”

Though not bound to follow her orders the royal guards knew a good idea when they heard it and leapt in unison towards Nightmare Moon.

“Stand back you foals!” Nightmare Moon turned to face her newest adversaries as her eyes took on an eerie glow. Lightning crackled from her mane and struck down the guards even more harshly than she had dispatched Rainbow Dash.

Nightmare Moon laughed as she disappeared in a swirl of energy towards somewhere nopony could even guess at.

“Come back here.” Applejack turned to see Rainbow Dash barely returning to consciousness grasping futilely with her hooves towards the rapidly vanishing swirl of energy.

“Nighttime forever? This can’t be good.” It was a true testament to how rattled Applejack was that she brought out the whole sentence in a drawl. It had been years since she’d spoken more than a word or two in her drawl without meaning to.

“Thank goodness you’re alright Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy helped her friend to shaky hooves, “I was worried about you.”

“She has the princess,” Rainbow Dash took an unsteady step towards the door before thinking better of the idea, “we have to go after her.”

“You’re right,” Applejack returned to the voice she used most every day, “but it’s quite apparent that we’re all terribly ignorant about Nightmare Moon and what she’s capable of. If we’re going to have any chance at retrieving the princess we must begin by learning about Nightmare Moon. Pinkie Pie, your associate Rarity is still in Canterlot isn’t she?”

“Yep,” the irrepressibly cheery pony replied, “and I bet she know all about what’s going on. Rarity’s smart like that!”

“That’s what I was hoping for,” Applejack started pacing in front of the impromptu group, “if there’s anypony who can figure out how to bring the princess back it would either be Rarity or Celestia’s personal student Trixie. We should gather what supplies we can and make for Canterlot immediately.”

“Agreed!” Two loud votes of agreement and one quiet made a unanimous decision.

You do Assist the Storm

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: Consider this story disclaimed!

Chapter Three: You do Assist the Storm

Level one of the undercity was nearly as spectacular as the surface. Since no noble would ever sell to a commoner no matter how high the offer the wealthy commoners had retaliated by building large and opulent dwellings immediately below the surface. Four, even five story houses built solely to snub the nobles on the surface who would only ever sell to one another. In Twilight Sparkle’s wildest dreams she had a condominium or house on level one of the undercity. Realistically, if she got the job at the royal library she could get an apartment on level five. She could dream of an apartment on level four but a life of disappointments had taught Twilight never to get her hopes up about anything.

That was a lesson she was finding very difficult to remember after what had happened in the interview. On just her answers alone she didn’t think she’d make it in. She had been caught very much off guard and without reference guides she was shooting from the flank, hardly her strong suit. But Rarity, Twilight still couldn’t quite believe she’d met the mare in person, had almost seemed to take pity on her for the circumstances of their meeting. Part of Twilight wished it had never happened so she could say she had gotten the job or failed to get it solely on her own talents. But another, much larger, part insisted that Twilight not pass up any opportunity to escape from Touchy Hooves.

Levels two and three were normally almost like a visit to level one. Though not out and out wealthy the ponies who lived there were prosperous and knew it. Today though Twilight’s trip through levels two and three was almost deathly silent. The moon was still up Twilight noted as she passed down from level one to level two and the surface was lost to view. Normally she approved of Celestia’s attempts to reach out to all parts and levels of Equestria, but giving the Summer Sun Celebration to Ponyville was hopeless idealism. With a chuckle she hoped the sun would be up by the next time she made it up to the surface again in a few weeks.

“What in Equestria is going on?” Twilight asked nopony as she descended to level four.

The ponies of level four might not have been particularly wealthy but they were still well within the middle class. Normally level four hummed with the activity of commerce and day to day life. Today though Twilight saw ponies scurrying towards level three nervously. Many with saddlebags and not a few pulling carts towards the cargo ramps that serviced the undercity.

“Excuse me,” Twilight stopped at the door of a shop.

“Go away you foal!” Twilight was cut off by the door slamming shut before she could continue any further. From behind the door she could hear the sound of a hammer and nails. Why was the shopkeeper boarding up her shop?

Pushing her way against the building flow of ponies Twilight slowly made her way towards level five. Occasionally she would try to listen in to the conversations of ponies around her. Nopony truly seemed to know what was going on but they all seemed to agree that something bad had happened on the lowest levels of the undercity. Some ponies seemed convinced there was an uprising underway but Twilight doubted that. Ponies had been talking about the poorest ponies rising up for years, like legends about humans Twilight would believe it when she saw it.

Level five made her start thinking that maybe something really had gone wrong on the lowest levels of the undercity. If level four was nervous then level five was in out and out panic. Ponies were running about and Twilight could swear that she heard sounds of what could only be fighting and violence from the stairs ahead down to the level of the undercity she called home. What in Equestria could have set the lowest levels into riots? It couldn’t be anything with the Summer Sun Celebration; even Twilight only made it up to the surface every few weeks. The ponies of the lowest three levels saw the sun so rarely in their lives they could probably count the times on their hooves.

As much as she loved figuring things out Twilight forced all thoughts of ‘why’ from her head as she made it to level six. She was just a simple college student; fixing this problem would concern her only as far as it let her get back to school and work. Besides, pausing to think over questions of life was not a wise decision in the middle of a war zone.

A war zone was the only description that came to Twilight’s mind when she saw her home. The ponies of level six may have lived on top of a sometimes thin line separating them from the lower classes of level seven and below but compared to the lowest three levels they lived a good life indeed. Twilight didn’t know what had happened to the residents of the levels below her but these ponies seemed determined to pillage and raid their way as high as they could go. Given the reactions she’d seen as she descended through the undercity plenty of ponies seemed to think this could go on for awhile.

Over and over as she snuck through the darkest shadows towards her apartment Twilight heard a cry that touched unpleasant memories just on the edge of being pieced together. ‘Nightmare Moon’ seemed to be the refrain of all the dirty, smelly, and generally angry ponies taking their vengeance on those literally and figuratively above them.

The door to her apartment building hung limply on its hinges. That was definitely a bad sign, but still far better than the buildings already burning or worse yet reduced to charred skeletons. It was even more definitely a bad sign seeing all the doors on the first floor hanging open. Most if not all with signs of being forced open. Clearly the rioters had been here and Twilight could only hope they had been here and gone. Twilight’s apartment was about halfway down the hall of the second floor. Her door had been forced open but so had the doors beyond.

Despite her fear Twilight crept into her apartment utterly silent. Since taking on the job at Touchy Hooves she’d worked late hours and had to deal with getting into her apartment without waking up her roommates. One research binge at the college library later and Twilight had discovered a spell to mute the sounds she made. Covering more ponies would take more magic than she could muster but for just herself even her meager abilities sufficed.

“Well what have we here?” Twilight had always imagined that if she met another blank flank they would bond over their mutual lack of cutie marks. The reality was proving disappointing to say the least.

The smells, the unkempt mane, the scars, none of those were particularly off putting. Twilight herself tended to neglect her mane if she didn’t have to work that night. But even before she saw her roommates’ unmoving bodies in the bedroom they shared the pony’s eyes and smile set off every alarm and self preservation instinct Twilight possessed.

“You’re a pretty one aren’t you; we can have some fun if you want.” Twilight knew she didn’t have a chance of winning a fight with her hooves. But as scared as she was it was all she could do to make her horn take on a dim magenta glow.

“Now don’t be like that, your friends didn’t wanna have fun so I had to show them how we deal with ponies like that on level twelve.”

Twilight Sparkle never believed she would have the magic to blast a pony through the wall of her apartment. Even after the intruding pony brushed her with one of his hooves and she did indeed blast him through the wall of her apartment she couldn’t quite believe it. Stumbling to the impromptu window she’d made Twilight gasped at what she’d done. She’d very nearly sent the pony through the wall of the apartment across the alley and surely nopony could live with their neck at that angle.

“I… I didn’t mean… I just wanted him to go away…” Twilight had killed somepony. Yes he said he’d killed her roommates, yes he’d wanted to do horrible things to her, and he’d probably done many bad things in the past but that didn’t change what she’d done.

Then her head exploded, or at least it seemed like it as the worst headache Twilight had ever had came crashing down on her. Her horn felt like it was burning and she was sure the pressure was going to break the poor thing. She reached a hoof up to her nose as she felt something warm running from it; her lavender fur came away stained red. Recognizing what came next didn’t make Twilight’s collapse particularly easier. As blackness closed in on her she noticed small sparks seemed to be coming from her horn.

“That’s new,” was all she managed before blissful unconsciousness took her.

If Twilight dreamed while she was out she didn’t remember anything when she woke. She didn’t know exactly how long it had taken her to get back from the library but a glance at the clock still thankfully on her small desk made her think she’d been out somewhere between two and three hours.

Stumbling to her hooves Twilight summoned her saddle bags to her, or at least she tried to. The surge of pain through her horn when she tried to tap into her magic nearly made her black out again. Worried that she’d injured her magic further Twilight made herself go grab her saddlebags with her mouth. She couldn’t tell whether she’d done anything to her magic in this place and even if she could she couldn’t treat herself. A blanket, a wilderness guide she’d checked out from the library dreaming she could go to Ponyville, and some canned food was all she needed to grab.

Fastening her saddlebags without magic was a bit of an adventure but in a few short minutes Twilight was ready to flee. With any luck the violence had moved on from level six and she’d be able to make her way out of Canterlot without interruption. Before leaving though she stopped to drape a blanket over her roommate’s bodies. She might not have known them very well but they weren’t bad ponies by any stretch and they’d deserved better.

“Okay,” Twilight indulged talking to herself just to hear anypony speak, “I know there’s a way out of the city down through level twelve but I’ve never been down there and that could get really dangerous in a hurry. I also know there’s a few ways out on the surface and I’ve been there but that could get really dangerous in a hurry.”

Up or down? Down or up? On the one hoof there might not be many ponies on the lower level and if that one pony was any indication she might blend in as a blank flank. But on the other it was just as far to go up and if there were going to be any places left in the city where it was still safe they would be in that direction. Up, surely Princess Celestia would return from Ponyville to put an end to this and she would start from the surface.

It was much more difficult making her way up to the surface than it had been down. For one the lower level ponies seemed intent on not just raiding and pillaging but actually holding the levels of the city they had taken. Barricades blocked access to much of the undercity and hastily organized roving gangs kept the remaining locals cowed.

Not that the flag they were flying, as much as a flag could fly underground, helped. Pitch black but for a white circle, representing the moon Twilight figured, with what appeared to be the Mare in the Moon. Maybe that was supposed to be the Nightmare Moon they’d been shouting about on her way down?

At last Twilight reached the surface, and what little hope she had died. The moon still hung high in the sky. Something had gone beyond grievously wrong with the Summer Sun Celebration. More than that the castle was ablaze, and it looked to have been going on for awhile. If nopony could care for the royal castle itself then what was going on was very serious indeed.

Kicking herself mentally for once again philosophizing in a war zone Twilight set off away from the main entrance to the city. It was far too obvious a choice for fleeing ponies and no doubt the ponies behind the revolution would be watching it closely. She knew of some caves at the back of the city however that led to a small path down the mountain. A much more laborious journey but what was important was that she made it out alive.

“Not feeling so high and mighty right about now are you?” Twilight heard a familiar voice, “That will teach you to mess with the Nightmare Children. Not that you’ll live long enough to put the lesson to use.”

“Shady!” Twilight burst around the corner happy to at last see a friendly face on this crazy day, or was it night? Twilight’s happiness withered as she stopped and looked at what was happening.

“What’s going on?” Shady had donned robes the same black as those flags and was surrounded by several other tough looking ponies. In the middle of all of them, looking somewhat the worse for wear, was Rarity, the pony Twilight had unfortunately quite literally run into earlier at the library.

“Twilight!” Shady seemed disturbingly happy for such a situation, “I’m so glad you made it out of all this alive! I wanted to tell you about Nightmare Moon, I really did, but I couldn’t convince the others you were trustworthy. They barely took me in at first and I lived down on level eight.”

“What are you talking about Shady?” Twilight really, really wished she could use her magic right about now. “Why are you dressed like that? What are all these ponies doing? And what are you doing to Rarity?”

“Celestia’s rule is over, Twilight.” Shady’s smile was definitely creeping Twilight out, “Nightmare Moon has escaped her prison and brought about nighttime eternal. Now all the ponies like Rarity who lived high up under the sun and on our backs are going to pay for everything they’ve done to us. Join us Twilight, you’ve had to push harder than any of us to get ahead and it’s just sheer luck that you had a chance to get out of the undercity.”

Twilight couldn’t believe her friend was some sort of crazy cultist. Well maybe not a crazy cultist since they appeared to be doing a good job of taking over Canterlot but still. Even so it never crossed Twilight’s mind to accept Shady’s offer. There would be Tartarus to pay for these ‘Nightmare Children’ when Celestia returned. But at the same time she couldn’t figure a way out of this without far more magic than she’d ever had.

The decision was taken out of Twilight’s hooves as Shady and the other ponies with her took on a blue glow and shot several stories into the sky before abruptly reversing course. None of them being pegasi the results were predictable if grim.

“That was certainly unpleasant,” Rarity walked towards Twilight with her horn glowing brighter than Twilight could ever imagine her own horn managing, “I detest violence but I refuse to die here. I remember you and you look quite harmless, but they looked harmless enough to catch me by surprise. So should I thank you for distracting them or finish the job?”

Twilight wanted to protest her innocence but her mouth had dried so much she couldn’t get a word out of her mouth. Her eyes though apparently spoke her terror well enough as Rarity let her horn cease glowing.

“Come along,” Rarity whirled about to start walking the way Twilight had been headed, “I haven’t a clue what’s going on here but somepony certainly saw you with me. These ‘Nightmare Children’ seem to have it out for me and you’re guilty by association after this.”

Still futilely working her jaw Twilight scrambled to her hooves and began following the other unicorn towards the city exit.
Rarity appeared to know where the caves out of Canterlot were located as she kept a quick pace towards the mountain pausing only to avoid roving gangs of ponies with those black flags. Twilight was beginning to think that maybe she couldn’t have found the caves in this maze of shops and mansions. Knowing which area of the city they were in was one thing but the surface could be as much of a maze as the undercity ever was.

“Well, well, why am I not surprised to see you here?”

“Trixie,” Rarity turned to face a blue unicorn with a white mane waiting in the shadows near the cave entrance, “your being here isn’t terribly surprising either. Shall we play twenty questions or will you come right out and say what your part in all this was?”

“So nice to see your brains haven’t been rattled around by all this. Yes Trixie is responsible for all this. Celestia never appreciated me as her student. She never realized how it made me better than other ponies, put me above them. So when I learned about Nightmare Moon and her return I sought out her followers and agreed to help them overthrow Celestia. I told them when Nightmare Moon would return and how to overcome the police and guards. In exchange, Trixie stands below only the queen of Equestria and everypony is going to know it and act like it!”

“Oh kill me now!” Rarity sighed, “I mean it. If I have to live in a world where you’re in charge of things then I choose death. Twilight do be a dear and find my sister to tell her about this.”

“Sorry, Trixie is not that kind.” Trixie laughed. “I want you to fight me with everything you have. You’re all Celestia has left and I want to beat you totally. Everypony will see it and they’ll have no choice but to finally admit that Trixie truly is the greatest pony to ever walk Equestria!”

For the third time that day Twilight watched as what she was sure was certain death left her alone. She was at that point ready to simply accept it as something out there not being finished laughing at her expense.

“Why that little…” Rarity on the other hand seemed to be reacting with barely contained fury.

“Um, what do we do now?” Twilight decided to interrupt the other unicorn before she could go storming off to get them both killed.

“Ponyville,” Rarity calmed herself with a visible effort, “my little sister was there for the Summer Sun Celebration and I’d like to make sure she’s come out of all this unharmed. After that we need to start looking for a way to bring back Celestia. Like I said I never knew anything about this so I haven’t even the faintest clue of where to start.”

“A library,” Twilight muttered as they started into the caves out of Canterlot, “Trixie said she knew Nightmare Moon was coming. It must have been written down somewhere and that book might have clues of how Celestia defeated her in the first place. It’s all I can think of right now.”

“It’s more than we had to go on a minute ago.”

Rainbow Dash loved and hated her custom made saddlebags at the same time. She loved them because being set further back than normal saddlebags meant they covered her blank flank. She hated them because setting that weight so far back made her inherently unbalanced when she flew.

“I don’t get it,” Rainbow Dash tugged a few last straps tight, “why in Equestria do we need to bring all this food? It’s just Canterlot I mean Fluttershy and I could go, get either of these ponies you wanna talk to and be back in a day.”

“If only it were that simple.” Applejack had ditched the curled mane and tail for tying them at the ends with simple red hair ties. The appearance was distinctly at odds with her cultured Manehatten tones. “There’s no guarantee that Trixie or Rarity are still in Canterlot. If we wind up walking all the way to Baltimare we’ll want to put off buying food as long as we possibly can.”

“I’m not exactly rolling in bits,” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, “but I’m pretty sure that even if we have to chase them to Baltimare or wherever all the markets aren’t going to magically disappear or anything.”

“Um I don’t know about that,” Fluttershy spoke softly as ever, “it’s been almost a day and the moon hasn’t moved. If Nightmare Moon doesn’t bring the sun back up how are ponies going to grow food?”

“It’s worse than that,” Applejack went on, “even if they don’t know exactly what’s happened ponies are going to know something has gone dreadfully wrong. They’re going to start hoarding supplies, especially food, if they don’t know when or if they’ll be able to grow more.”

“Well, okay,” Rainbow Dash sulked, “but we’re all packed and if Pinkie Pie ever shows up we can get going already.”
“Right here sillies!” Pinkie Pie hopped into the room, saddlebags already packed, “I’ve been waiting for you for like forever. Now let’s go save Equestria so we can have an awesome party to celebrate!”

She hadn’t even known the pink pony for a day but Rainbow Dash had already learned that the wisest course around Pinkie Pie was to just go along with her and not ask questions. Down that route lay a dark, dark place it was scary to even think about.

Applejack had suggested they simply take the road from Ponyville to Canterlot. Rainbow Dash was the type of pony to argue with authority for the sake of arguing but not in front of Fluttershy. Applejack said her heartfelt farewells to Granny Smith and Big Macintosh. The other three politely thanked them for taking them in without question on such short notice.

“Applejack! Applejack!” Two fillies came running up to them from Ponyville at met them at the gates of Sweet Apple Acres. “We found something!”

“What is it sugarcube?” Applejack’s ability to switch seamlessly between a drawl and Manehatten was impressive, but Rainbow Dash would never admit it.

“There are pictures of you and my sister up all over Ponyville,” a white unicorn filly with a pink and purple mane, her name escaped Rainbow Dash, held up some papers to Pinkie Pie.

“Hmmmm,” Pinkie Pie took the posters, “that’s not good. Looks like Queen Meanie doesn’t like us very much.”

“Let me see those,” Applejack seemed to stick to the drawl around her family, “sedition, rebellion, treason. If I cared a lick about Nightmare Moon I’d say we were gonna be in serious trouble just standing next to you Pinkie Pie. But I don’t really care about her, so there.”

“Oh yeah!” Applejack’s sister piped up, “there was one more. Any of you recognize her?”

The four of them crowded around a picture of a lavender unicorn with a dark blue mane with pink stripes. Rainbow Dash noted more than anything that the spot for her cutie mark on the wanted poster was blank. All of them quickly concluded that they had never seen this mare in her life.

“If we find her I say we let her tag along,” Rainbow Dash said, “anypony Nightmare Moon doesn’t like is okay in my book.”

“I’m okay with that,” Applejack crumpled the posters into a little ball and tossed them onto the ground, “but first we’ve gotta find another way to get to Canterlot. The road isn’t gonna work if half the guards are looking for us.”

“Um the Everfree Forest isn’t a place many ponies go.” Fluttershy was again barely speaking loud enough to be heard. “But that’s because there’s lots of dangerous creatures. So it’s a bad idea, just forget I said anything.”

“No can do!” Pinkie Pie shouted, “We’ll be in Canterlot before any of those creepy crawly thingies in the forest know we were even there!”

Applejack hugged her sister goodbye and after sending the two fillies back towards the farm they turned off the road and headed into the darkness that was the Everfree Forest.

Band of Mares

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: 99 bottles of disclaimer on the wall, 99 bottles of disclaimer…

Chapter Four: Band of Mares

Twilight’s bed was harder than usual; maybe she’d fallen asleep on her books again? And the water was running too, that meant she hadn’t made it to the shower first and would be taking a cold shower today. She groped around with a hoof trying to find her small clock to see how late she’d slept in. At least she had half the week off because of the Summer Sun Celebration. The Summer Sun Celebration!

Twilight jumped up, throwing her blanket off her and looked around frantically. She nearly jumped above the treeline when her bags and all her possessions came crashing down around her. Opening her eyes once again she saw Rarity calmly sitting under a nearby tree watching her.

“You very nearly gave me a heart attack when I woke up and saw all your goods floating about.”

“I lost control of my magic yesterday.” Twilight refused to meet the other pony’s eyes. “I accidentally drew way more than I can handle. It’s why I couldn’t do anything with my magic when we met in the streets. It’s happened to me before and when my magic starts going again things like that happen.”

“Well that’s good to know,” Rarity casually lifted herself to all four hooves and with no apparent effort set Twilight’s scattered belongings back to rights, “I’ve no idea how to even begin helping a unicorn who injured their magic and as long as Celestia is missing I doubt we’ll have the opportunity for long rest to let you recover.”

The small hill she and Rarity had finally stopped on after fleeing for more hours than she could easily remember was covered in enough trees to block being seen from the air but still clear enough that they could easily run if spotted. More than that a small river ran at the base of the hill meaning they had clean water.

Seemingly immune to the impact of Celestia being overthrown, a cult of crazed ponies seizing power, and their wanting her head in a very personal way Rarity walked down to the river and began cleaning herself as well as she could.

“I suppose any hair care is simply out of the question,” Rarity said after dunking her mane in the river and shaking free the elaborate curls she’d worn since yesterday, “I dare not hope you packed any personal care items in your saddlebags darling?”

“I’m afraid not,” Twilight shook her head, “I just grabbed food, water, a blanket, and some survival guides when I ran. I didn’t even grab a knife to use until my magic gets back to normal. I should count myself lucky I ran into another unicorn who can handle those sorts of things, I’d be in trouble otherwise.”

“Not at all dear Twilight,” Rarity had tried several hairstyles before settling on letting it fall loose about halfway down her legs, “it’s the least I can do after dragging you into this mess and killing your friend before your eyes.”

“I’m not sure any more if Shady really ever was my friend.” Twilight returned her gaze to the ground, “I mean she was probably the only pony at work I respected and I thought I knew her pretty well. But then she helped overthrow Celestia, and even though I don’t know you all that well trying to kill somepony isn’t something one of my friends would do. She was talking about finishing her high school diploma and getting out of there!”

“I wish I knew what to say,” Rarity had done a surprisingly good job cleaning herself of dirt and grime with the small river’s flow, “but it would be a complete lie to say I have any experience of the sort. If you think it might help I’d be more than willing to provide a friendly ear.”

“Thanks for the offer,” Twilight sighed, “but I always promised myself that when I got out of that place I’d never think about it again. Not quite the exit I’d planned but I think even if we come out of this alive that I’m going to be fired. And I don’t even know where to begin talking about Shady or everything that’s going on.”

“Okay,” Rarity let it slide, “we really should get going though. You slept for quite awhile and I can’t imagine this Nightmare Moon or her cronies will leave us alone forever. It’s slower going through the forest but we should make it to Ponyville in no more than two days even so. Hopefully it’s not too hard to find Sweetie Belle in such a small town and then we can start looking for a library.”

Twilight decided to show her agreement by merely putting on her saddlebags. Or at least that was the idea as when she lifted her saddlebags with her magic they didn’t slowly lift over her flanks but rather shot up what had to be close on fifty feet in the air.

Rarity looked up at the saddlebags slowly rotating in the air, then back down to Twilight’s look of amazement at what she’d just done, and lastly back up at the saddlebags.

“I hope you don’t mind if I take the saddlebags for now. I’d hate to think your food might wind up in Cloudsdale when you tried to get it out.”

Twilight didn’t respond at all as a blue glow overtook her magenta glow over the saddlebags and they floated down to rest on Rarity’s back. What in Equestria was going on with her magic? Her saddlebags were never a test of her magical ability to lift but it felt like she’d unleashed a flood of power when she tried to use the trickle necessary to lift them.

Fortunately navigation by the stars required no magic beyond that of learning how to do it. Having mastered that art as an obviously unsuccessful attempt to earn her cutie mark Twilight had no problem pointing them towards Ponyville. The next few hours passed mostly silently. Rarity seemed possessed of a single-minded determination to find her sister while Twilight was still trying to absorb the events of the past day.

She had no way to know for sure but Twilight thought it was about an hour or two past midday when they stopped to eat. Eating grass was as un-sophisticated as meals came and Rarity complained the whole time. She however did not have an answer to Twilight’s point that they had a limited amount of canned food and even having grabbed her latest pay before running they weren’t exactly swimming in bits on hoof.

“After mining the gems for the Summer Sun Celebration I thought I would be done with… outdoor labor for some time. I would give my back left hoof for a day at the spa and a proper meal.”

“And I’d give my back left hoof for the sun to come up,” Twilight could hold herself silent no longer, “but I’d settle for some peace and quiet.”

“I’m sorry darling, but even if you’re the only one to hear it I feel like taking this horrible coup without complaining would feel almost as bad as simply laying down without fighting.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie feels you’ve complained more than enough.”

Twilight and Rarity had gotten so caught up that neither had noticed the arrival of the pony responsible for the mess they were in.

“Great and Powerful?” Rarity raised an eyebrow in skepticism, “what, being Celestia’s student wasn’t enough for you?”

“Of course not!” Trixie spat, “You got wealth and fame for knowing the Princess. Everypony clamors for the opportunity to get into the same building as you! And what do I get? Books and lessons, I’m stuck in the library writing an essay about Starswirl the Bearded while you have ponies fawning over your every whim!”

Twilight didn’t dare involve herself between the two mares but she truly would have given her back left hoof for even five minutes in Celestia’s private library. The history she could read, the cultures she could study, and then there was the magic. Even if she’d never have the skills to perform any of it just knowing that magic would be worth a lifetime at Touchy Hooves.

“… I’ve seen the files, you just sabotaged the other ponies trying to be Celestia’s student.” Twilight had apparently missed part of the argument while daydreaming, “You’re nothing but a second rate hack!”

“You did not just call the Great and Powerful Trixie a second rate hack!”

“You’re right, that would be an insult to second rate hacks all across Equestria.”

This was apparently the straw that broke the pony’s back as Trixie let loose a scream of anger and accompanied it with a bolt of lightning from her horn. Rarity’s horn immediately began glowing blue and a chunk of earth in front of her lifted into the lightning’s path just before it struck her.

“How ironic,” Trixie sneered, “the pony who so hates dirt is reduced to using it to fight for her life.”

“Only touching it,” Rarity glared knives at the other unicorn, “a miner should appreciate what the earth can do for them. Like this!”

Several other pieces of earth shot up and sped towards Trixie. They came to an abrupt halt as the blue glow surrounding them mingled with Trixie’s off purple magic. Twilight quickly realized that the fight had turned into one of brute magical strength. A fight moreover that Trixie probably had the edge in due to a good night’s sleep and eating a full meal rather than grass.

Twilight dearly hoped her magic had gone back to normal, or at least normal enough for her to control. The only way she and Rarity were going to get out of this alive would be if she could distract enough of Trixie’s attention for Rarity to win their contest of strength.

Her horn took on its normal magenta glow as Twilight started gathering magical energy. She opted to simply use straight magical force. After the fiasco with her saddlebags she had no confidence that she could throw anything around her let alone something as complicated as lightning. Trixie however noticed this and though it meant the pile of rocks made some distance towards her she conjured and shot a bolt of lightning at Twilight.

The lightning bolt hit the very tip of Twilight’s horn and for the lavender unicorn the world exploded. Had Twilight Sparkle remained conscious of what was occurring she would have seen Trixie’s look of horror as the forest between the two of them simply ceased to be. She would have then seen Rarity staring, slack jawed, as the wall of force obliterated Trixie’s hastily erected defenses and sent the blue unicorn tumbling back.

Had Twilight still been connected to the world she would have seen her companion look, with not a little fear, at her glowing eyes and the very air around her crackling with power. She would have felt the blood start to run down her face and her legs cease to support her weight.

“Twilight, Twilight are you okay?” Rarity’s insistent pleading finally dragged her back to consciousness.

“Rarity? What happened?” Twilight’s eyelids felt like they had lead weights on them.

“You put on quite the magical show darling,” Rarity helped her to her hooves, “I had no idea you had that kind of power in you.”

“I don’t,” Twilight rubbed at the dried blood on her face, “my head feels like it’s about to burst. I don’t think I could use my horn as a light right now.”

“Twilight, dear, if you really had as little power as you think you do you truly would be dead after a show like that. Let me get your saddlebags and we can get out of here and on our way.”

Rarity quickly lifted the saddlebags onto her own back and fastened the straps. Twilight meanwhile had shook her head several times and taken a few cautious steps in an effort to regain her bearings after nearly frying her brain for the second time in as many days. Before the two could start off several gusts of air announced the arrival of several royal guards.

“Oh thank goodness,” Rarity sighed in relief at the appearance of the white pegasi in their golden armor, “I think we…”

“Rarity, Twilight Sparkle,” one of the guards abruptly cut Rarity off, “by order of Nightmare Moon you are under arrest for treason against the crown.”

Twilight was beyond words. This had to be some sort of karmic punishment for her daring to think yesterday that things might finally be going her way.

“Seize them!” The same guard who had spoken before shouted.

Twilight’s magic was completely fried. There was absolutely nothing she could do. She closed her eyes and lowered her head hoping at least her end would be quick. The universe though was not done with Twilight Sparkle quite yet. Realizing that the guards were in fact hostile Rarity chose that moment to flare her horn bright enough that one might as well have looked directly into the sun. The guards, all looking at the white unicorn, eyes adjusted to the darkness promptly found themselves blind and in no small amount of pain.

“What?” Even closed during the flare Twilight’s eyes were still watering from its effects.

Rarity’s response was to literally start dragging Twilight with her magic. Twilight quickly recovered and before long was moving alongside Rarity at a brisk trot.

“Sorry for the rough handling dear but I didn’t want them to even hear which way we were going. If this Nightmare Moon has somehow turned the royal guards to her side then we are in very deep trouble.”

“I’m more concerned with how she did it,” Twilight was slightly panting at the brisk pace, “any sort of mind control is normally very difficult magic. If Nightmare Moon really is more powerful then Celestia there’s no telling how many ponies she could make work for her.”

Nighttime at Sweet Apple Acres, real proper nighttime. It was always nighttime without the sun but clocks allowed ponies to divide that nighttime into time to work, rest, and sleep. Sweet Apple Acres was this night particularly quiet. The hurried departure of many relations in the wake of the Summer Sun Celebration meant that the sprawling farmhouse felt even larger than normal to its three inhabitants.

Fitfully but deeply asleep none of them noticed the black mist the swirled up from the orchards. Staying low to the ground it flowed over, around, and seemingly through everything in its way to rest, roiling in front of the house. This was not a normal or a natural mist, weather teams all over Equestria were in too much chaos to dream of something so basic.

Already a dark spot in the night the mist turned even darker as it took on form. Wings, a horn, and armor that seemed to diminish what little light there was. The foals opposing her were spread out in little groups and had proved frustratingly adept at hiding. If anything their families were even more widespread, several not even in Equestria at the time. But not here, here she could strike at one of them.

The flames started low and dim. She could have simply wiped the house and its inhabitants from the face of Equestria with a thought but there was a certain satisfaction to drawing out the process like this. Her first goal was surrounding the house with flames to ensure nopony could escape. Again she could have made sure of that quite easily by other means but doing it in such a manner was almost… fun. She took a small shortcut after surrounding the house. It would take some time for the flames to grow large enough to wake the inhabitants and the meanwhile would be dreadfully boring. What had been a small ring of fire grew to a raging inferno in the blink of an eye and what had been the sounds of peaceful slumber grew satisfyingly quickly into screams of terror.

Nightmare Moon’s smile barred her sharpened teeth to gleam in the firelight. It felt good to instill fear in ponies. And surely the now lone member of the Apple family would hear about this and suffer for it.

Applejack shot upright, awash in sweat and adrenaline leaving any fatigue unfelt. She jerked her head about in panic expecting to see the glow on the horizon of Sweet Apple Acres. She knew that was ridiculous, they had put too much distance between them and the farm to see it burn but she still craned her neck towards Ponyville trying to see any clues at the edge of her vision.

“Hi Applejack!” A mass of pink bounced its way into her vision, “you couldn’t sleep either? I mean of course I couldn’t sleep, I hate wasting day. Well night I guess but either way I hate wasting it.”

“Pinkie Pie?” Applejack snapped herself to attention, “We have to turn around. We need to go back to Sweet Apple Acres right away.”

“Did you forget something?” Applejack was far from a delicate city pony but even she was baffled how Pinkie Pie could be so energetic at this hour without coffee. “We could totally send Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy back for it and race them! See how much farther ahead we can get before they catch up to us. I totally bet we can make it all the way to Canterlot before they find us.”

Applejack laughed in spite of herself, “I wish it were so simple. I’m afraid Nightmare Moon already knows who we are and I’m worried she could hurt our families to get to us.”

“Oh silly,” Pinkie Pie’s smile was annoyingly infectious, “Was that what your bad dream was about? Black Snooty wouldn’t need to do that; we’re coming right to her! So laugh that bad dream away and let’s get this day started!”

Applejack’s first few laughs were pitiful at best, but before long she and Pinkie Pie were guffawing with peals of laughter that left her ribs aching. Somewhat unsurprisingly their companions did not remain sleeping through the noise.

“Wha?” Rainbow Dash was perhaps even worse with mornings than Applejack.

“Oh no!” Fluttershy leapt from her blanket with impressive speed, “Oh no oh no oh no oh no! We overslept terribly late. I’m so sorry Applejack, Pinkie Pie, please don’t leave us behind. I promise we’ll get up earlier from now on.”

“Relax girls,” Pinkie Pie giggled, “Applejack and I were just up really early. But it’s great you girls are up early! Because we can get going earlier, and then we can find Rarity earlier, and then we can beat Queen Meanie earlier, and then that means we’re closer to the biggest party ever!”

It was way too early for Rainbow Dash. The pegasus hated being up before the sun with a passion just about as hot as the sun. With the moon perpetually overhead and the sun nowhere to be seen she was convinced she was up too early whatever the time really was. Pinkie Pie’s boundless energy didn’t help matters any. The pink earth pony had spent the last several hours prattling on incessantly about anything and everything.

Despite Fluttershy’s best efforts Rainbow Dash was on the verge of throttling her travelling companion when Applejack motioned them all to be silent.

“What is it?” Rainbow Dash crept up to Applejack and whispered.

“I saw something,” Rainbow Dash could barely hear the other pony mere inches away, “in those trees over there.”

Rainbow Dash didn’t see anything in the trees Applejack pointed to but if whatever was in there thought it had been seen it might be lying low in hopes they wandered into its reach.

“On three,” Rainbow Dash whispered back just as quietly, “one… two… three!”

The two of them leapt into the trees and tackled a pair of ponies to the ground. The unicorn under Rainbow Dash briefly began using her magic but whether through shock or sheer luck it collapsed in a cry of pain.

“Girls! Wait!” Pinkie Pie interrupted Rainbow Dash just as she was about to show the unicorn how bad an idea it was to mess with her.

“Hi Rarity!” Pinkie Pie bounced next to Applejack and started waving at the pony pinned to the ground.

“Wait,” Rainbow Dash turned to look at the other pony without taking any weight off the pony underneath her, “I’ve seen pictures of Rarity and that doesn’t look a lot like her.”

“You try being accosted by ruffians in Canterlot, attacked by Celestia’s traitorous student, and then forced to trek through this horrid forest and see if you still look prim and proper. Of course looking at you I don’t think that mane has ever seen a salon or those hooves any sort of spa treatment.”

“That’s Rarity alright!” Pinkie Pie reduced herself to peals of laughter.

“And we would both appreciate it if you would get off us!” When Rarity pushed up Applejack allowed herself to be moved. Rainbow Dash was not so forthcoming with the unicorn under her.

“So who are you and why should I trust you?” She turned back to the lavender unicorn with a glare.

“Her name is Twilight Sparkle,” Rarity answered, “and I assure you she’s quite trustworthy. She’s saved my life twice since this whole method started.”

Rainbow Dash lightly flapped her wings to lift herself off Twilight Sparkle. “Sorry about the rough greeting, but Nightmare Moon is out to get Pinkie Pie and I guess Rarity too so we kinda have to be careful.”

“I know all about Nightmare Moon hunting somepony,” Twilight staggered to her feet, “I fried my magic when Trixie attacked us so I’ve been hoping that the next time something came out way Rarity could handle it. Lucky us you turned out to be friendly.”

Twilight hadn’t been expecting some great feat of oration from the rainbow maned pegasus but staring at her flank was really coming out of left field and kind of creeping her out.

“You’re a blank flank.”

“Yeah,” Twilight said defensively, “what about it?”

The pegasus responded by loosening her saddlebags, when they fell down Twilight gasped to realize that she too had no cutie mark.

“You don’t have a cutie mark either,” now Twilight was the one staring blatantly at the other pony’s flank, “I’ve only ever met one blank flank my age. He was working for Nightmare Moon so it didn’t go over too well. ”

“That doesn’t sound like fun. But I can’t believe I’m really meeting another grown up blank flank! Finally somepony who actually gets what I’ve been through my whole life. Oh, I’m Rainbow Dash by the way.”

Twilight took the proffered hoof, “Twilight Sparkle, but you already knew that. I can’t wait to compare notes on what you’ve tried to find your talent. I mean obviously we can both do things the other can’t, but maybe I’ve thought of things you haven’t and vice versa.”

“Not like we’re gonna have lots of time to try stuff while we’re running around trying to save Equestria from eternal night. Hey, maybe something we do trying to beat Nightmare Moon will get us our cutie marks! I mean it can’t be a simple as hocus pocus and she’s gone. This is gonna be complicated, lots of stuff to do, lots of chances to get our cutie marks.”

“Deal,” Twilight said, “let’s promise that we help each other get our cutie marks before the sun comes up again.”

“That was so sweet,” Rarity’s voice caused Twilight to turn to see four other ponies looking at her and Rainbow Dash.

“You see Rainbow Dash,” a yellow pegasus said, “I told you that someday you’d meet another pony like you and you would help each other get your cutie marks.”

“You were right Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash groaned, “again.”

“I hate to rush us along,” an orange earth pony with a blonde mane interrupted, “but you said something about a possible way to defeat Nightmare Moon.”

“Ah yes,” Rarity said, “Twilight this is Applejack. Sweetie Belle is safe and sound at her family’s farm so we can go looking for your book if you’d be so kind as to enlighten us.”

“It’s not really a plan,” Twilight protested, “more like an observation. Trixie said she knew Nightmare Moon was coming back, and she even had a good idea of when. I’m sure we’ve all heard of Nightmare Moon even if only on Nightmare Night but just as a scary story. I’m thinking that for Trixie to find out exactly when Nightmare Moon was coming back it had to have been written down somewhere. And if there’s one copy of that book there might be others. I’d bet she read it in the royal library, but if we can find another copy somewhere else it might tell us how Celestia defeated Nightmare Moon the first time around.”

“Alright girls we’ve got a plan!” The pink pony who had recognized Rarity shouted, “But the Ponyville library was already locked down. Where could we find another copy of Twilight’s book?”

The look of concentration she took on was almost comical but she was shortly interrupted by Applejack.

“Manehatten, I live there so I know my way around and we’d have someplace safe to say. It’s also a large city so it would be easy to blend into crowds if Nightmare Moon’s thugs try to stop us. And most important there are several large libraries where your book could be and it could very well prove difficult for them to track down and destroy.”

“I guess it’s a plan,” Twilight was feeling a bit uncomfortable with everyone looking to her for guidance, “unless anypony can think of anything else I think we’re off to Manehatten.”

“Manehatten!” Came the unanimous agreement.

Brisk and Giddy Paced Times

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: Chapter disclaimed in 3… 2… 1… chapter disclaimed!

Chapter Five: Brisk and Giddy Paced Times

“Am I the only one who thinks splitting the group up is a bad idea?” Twilight Sparkle gestured as much as a pony could while lying on all four legs.

“Second vote for not getting ourselves killed.” Rainbow Dash raised a hoof.

“This is not splitting the group up.” Applejack said in exasperation. “We need to go into this town to get things we simply didn’t bring from the farm.”

“And, well, the three of you can’t come into town because you know…” Fluttershy glanced upwards just long enough to speak.

“Twilight, darling, as much as I would normally agree with you we don’t have a choice in the matter.” Rarity sighed, “I look rather out of place as the only pony without saddlebags and sooner or later it’s going to draw notice we can’t afford. And while eating grass once was… charmingly rustic it simply won’t do as a solution all the way to Manehatten.”

“Pinkie Pie, what do you think?” Twilight asked the one member of the group who hadn’t yet contributed.

The pink earth pony was silent for quite awhile in obvious thought. “You should bring back balloons and cake and streamers and party hats and a piñata! Because we’re totally a group now and we haven’t had a party to get to know each other and how can you really know a pony if you haven’t partied with them?”

“I guess it’s decided then.” Applejack got to her hooves. “Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, grab your bags and lets go. I’m sure we’ll all feel much better the less time we spend separated from one another.”

Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy all began putting on their saddlebags. As much food as they’d brought it was obvious that they would at some point have to replenish their stocks. Twilight hadn’t grabbed as much food as she had thought back in Canterlot, and given the circumstances of her escape Rarity hadn’t taken anything at all. Likewise her lack of saddlebags made her a sore hoof for the group if only because the presence of saddlebags on everypony else made her look important and therefore possibly worth remembering.

“Be careful,” Rainbow Dash turned to see Twilight Sparkle walking up to her, “I don’t care how necessary this is if it comes down to getting out of there alive or us eating enough grass to get us to Manehatten and back twenty times over just get out of there.”

“Twilight you worry too much,” Applejack’s Manehatten tones sounded at odds with the almost rough way she wore her mane, “nopony has any reason to suspect the three of us. We’ll look exactly like what we are, three mares heading back to Manehatten after the Summer Sun Celebration. As much as I dislike even the appearance of deception I don’t believe honesty requires me to be stupid and volunteer every little dirty secret I’ve ever had.”

“Speaking of deception,” Rainbow Dash wrestled with her saddlebags, “how are we going to pick up saddlebags and enough food for six ponies without anypony getting at all suspicious?”

“I was thinking,” Fluttershy almost silently walked up, “I know your saddlebags work just fine Rainbow Dash but some ponies might think they’re broken. You could just say you’re picking up a new pair. And well… I know you don’t want to eat grass again Rarity but it would mean having to buy a lot less food if we could have grass for just a few more meals.”

“I suppose sacrifices will have to be made for the greater good.” Rarity’s sigh was one of the more dramatic sighs Rainbow Dash had ever seen. “I’ll just be forced to think of it as an enlightening experience. Darlings, if you could bring back something that would let me do anything at all with my mane I’d be eternally grateful.”

“I don’t like lying about the saddlebags,” Applejack walked a few steps towards the town before turning back to face the others, “it feels wrong and it could backfire on us if a shopkeeper notices that Rainbow Dash’s saddlebags aren’t really broken.”

“Then just don’t lie,” Rainbow Dash walked past Applejack, “I’ll be the one getting the saddlebags so I’ll do the lying.”

“We’ll be back as soon as we can.” Fluttershy hurried off to catch up to the two ponies bickering their way towards town.

“Bring back stuff so we can play pin the tail on the pony!” Pinkie Pie shouted to the three departing ponies.

Coltcinnati was a medium sized town. Ponyville would have seemed positively rural beside it but it wore the same distinction beside the metropolises of Manehatten or Canterlot. At the moment it had no more traffic than Ponyville might have without the influx of ponies brought by the Summer Sun Celebration.

“I dunno,” Rainbow Dash looked around, “think they’re all staying inside because of Nightmare Moon?”

“I wish I could stay inside because of Nightmare Moon,” Fluttershy trembled beside her.

“Why did you come along with us?” Rainbow Dash stopped to look at the other pegasus, “I mean I’m not exactly gung ho about all this and you normally make me look hot headed.”

“It’s for the animals,” Fluttershy visibly swallowed her fear, “if we don’t bring back the sun they won’t be able to eat, they won’t be able to find their way around, and they could even get hurt or… die. I won’t let Nightmare Moon do that!”

“That’s Fluttershy for you,” Rainbow Dash turned to Applejack, “she won’t lift a hoof for herself but if we could get Nightmare Moon to look menacing near an animal she’d tear her apart in ten seconds flat.”

“If only it were that simple,” Applejack laughed, “we should hurry up and get what we need though. Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight Sparkle have most of the Royal Guards out for their heads and every minute we leave them in one place is another minute they could be caught.”

The three of them walked quietly through the near deserted streets. The few ponies who did share the streets with them seemed to go out of their way to avoid them.

“I’ve heard of towns not being friendly to strangers,” Rainbow Dash whispered, “but this is just silly.”

“I’ve a hard time blaming them.” Applejack whispered back. “Celestia was overthrown in a revolution. Hard to know who’s friendly and who’s not.”

“I guess…” Rainbow Dash began but was interrupted.

“Hail Nightmare Moon!” A pony in a vest bearing some coat of arms put himself in their path.

“Um, hail Nightmare Moon?” Applejack was the first to recover, “I’m sorry but we’re just travelers passing through and we’re a bit out of the loop.”

The officious looking pony looked them over before continuing, “I don’t recognize you as living here so I’ll overlook your failure to pay proper homage to the queen this once. Nightmare Moon has ordered notices about her new order posted in the town market. Proceed there immediately and read them, you’ll not be warned again.”

“That’s just where we were headed,” Rainbow Dash started pushing both Applejack and Fluttershy, “we will get right on that. Thanks for telling us.”

Rainbow Dash kept pushing the other two ponies until they came to a large open space in the middle of the town filled with tents and storefronts. A ways away on top of a hill sat a rather dreary looking castle, presumably the lord’s residence.

“Let’s see,” Rainbow Dash walked up to a large board with notices plastered liberally over its surface, “Item one, les… less.”

“Lese Majesty,” Applejack pushed her aside, “it means it’s now illegal to insult Nightmare Moon. And she and her goons get to decide what’s insulting her. Hence that full of himself pony and his wanting everyone to hail Nightmare Moon.”

“That’s terrible,” Fluttershy said, “why would she want to be so mean?”

“Don’t ever tell Pinkie Pie I said this,” Rainbow Dash glared at the other two ponies, “but I think she was right calling Nightmare Moon Queen Meanie.”

“My lips are sealed,” Applejack smiled, “now item two, Nightmare Moon will use her magic to ensure food can grow under the moon’s light. She will not however, make it equal to the light of the sun. Those ponies who are strong, smart, and worthy will survive. Those who are weak will not.”

“That’s… that’s…” Rainbow Dash had seen Fluttershy tremble in fear more times than she could count. Trembling with rage was a very different story. “That big… dumb… meanie! I won’t let her hurt anypony!”

“I’m starting to think you may have been on to something when you said she can be a very different pony if pushed to it.”
Applejack leaned in towards Rainbow Dash. “There’s more on there but I don’t think any of us care to read it. Let’s go get what we need and get out of here.”

The market square was marginally busier than the rest of the town but it was clearly populated at a mere fraction of its normal business. Rainbow Dash looked around at the various stores, a disturbing number were outright closed.

“Sure be handy if we could just go in there,” Rainbow Dash pointed to a hastily boarded up Rare Gems shop with a guard standing out front, “not that we can eat gems or anything but we wouldn’t have to worry about bits for a long time.”

“We don’t have to worry about bits for quite awhile,” Applejack pointed out, “Pinkie Pie was carrying quite a sum back in Ponyville. Now let’s try that general store over there, we should be able to find everything we need in one stop.”

The three of them walked up to a bored looking pony standing behind a counter.

“Hail Nightmare Moon,” he sounded just as bored as he looked, “now keep walking. I don’t have anything to sell to strangers.”

“Hail Night… what now?” Rainbow Dash had the sneaking suspicion that Applejack’s sudden drawl was a deliberate choice on her part.

“I said I don’t have anything to sell to strangers. There’s gonna be less of everything, especially food, coming into town. I gotta feed myself and my family first then ponies I know, if there’s anything left over I’ll think about selling to out of towners.”

“Now look,” Applejack was surprisingly convincing as a simple country pony, “we don’t want anything fancy. We need some new saddlebags, just look at those poor things. I need a few ties to hold my mane and tail, and if you have any food you can spare well eating grass will keep you alive but that’s about it.”

“I might have a pair of mane ties, can’t think of much else those are good for. No way on the saddlebags, I don’t care how messed up those are I can use all the ones I have. And food, tell me another one and you can go open up a big comedy act in Manehatten.”

“Surely y’all got unicorns that can handle any lifting you’d use saddlebags for.” Applejack deadpanned, “And we ain’t tryin’ to make off with half the food in town we just need enough for a few days.”

“Look lady, unicorn can lift something for a few hours easy. The saddlebags, anypony can use to lift stuff for years. So unless you’re saying that you’re gonna put down roots I suggest you move on.”

Rainbow Dash had had just about enough of this holier than thou pony lording it over them. She was about to lay into him when a hoof on her shoulder brought the oncoming tirade to a halt.

“It’s okay girls,” Fluttershy smiled, “we didn’t really need any of this stuff, and I’m sure we can find somepony to fix Rainbow Dash’s saddlebags. He’s right that times are going to be hard and we’ll just have to work together to make sure we come through all right.”

Rainbow Dash took several deep breaths and not without effort calmed herself down. Fluttershy was right, just because this pony was being a jerk was no reason for her to do likewise. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t have felt real good to rip into him. In one of her more epic losses of temper Rainbow Dash had once brought another filly to tears through just screaming. Afterwards she’d felt terrible about it, but she was pretty sure she’d be fine tomorrow if she pulled the feat off with this jerk.

She was not looking forwards to Rarity’s whining when they returned empty hooved. The unicorn would just have to tough it out though. Maybe some rough living would do good for her incessant talk of how she longed for a spa treatment and a fancy meal and her fancy house back in fancy Canterlot. Rainbow Dash had never been to a spa or anything even resembling a fancy restaurant, and she was pretty sure she’d never make it through the door of anything much fancier than Fluttershy’s house.

“Wait,” came the voice from behind the three retreating mares, “I think I can spare some stuff. Make me feel like some lowlife who beats his mare and foals why don’t you.”

“You see girls,” Fluttershy said quietly, “you just have to be kind to other ponies and when they have the chance they’ll return the favor.”

Once they got into their stride the poor shopkeeper was no match for Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s good cop bad cop approach to bartering. Rainbow Dash had no clue nor did she desire to have a clue what sort of hair ties went with a purple mane. She thought Applejack might have known but again she didn’t know or care to know whether the other mare did anything with whatever she might have known about fashion.

She had the same thoughts about saddlebags. They held stuff and stayed on, end of story. She was sure Rarity could have gone on at length about how wrong she was. Rarity however wasn’t shopping with them, so she didn’t get a vote.

Their saddlebags were pleasantly heavy as they headed away from the town market. Rainbow Dash didn’t mind eating grass at all but she wouldn’t breathe a word of complaint about having real food for the rest of their journey to Manehatten.

“Let’s check out the library.” Rainbow Dash pointed a sign showing the town did indeed have a library.

“How will we know which books to look for?” Fluttershy pointed out, “Twilight Sparkle is the one who knows that sort of thing.”

“She did say it would be some sort of ancient Equestrian history book.” Applejack was back to her normal voice. “We could at least see if they have any books of that sort and if they do then we can figure out what to do from there.”

Getting to the library was barely a detour from their way back, and nopony could complain at taking the chance to find what they were looking for as soon as they could. When they reached the library however their hopes fell apart. A pair of royal guards, very odd looking royal guards, stood grimly in front of the library making it clear that it was closed for business.

Rainbow Dash glared at the guards from a distance, “What do you want to bet one of those other things in Nightmare Moon’s new rules was banning a whole bunch of books?”

“I imagine it’s a few books in particular,” Applejack replied, “at least this makes me think we’re on the right path. Let’s go find the others and plan how to deal with this.”

As quickly as they dared while maintaining their calm the three mares headed back out of town.

“Twilight, really, I’m beginning to suspect that calling your magical education subpar would be giving it credit far beyond its due.”

“You went to public school too Rarity, I got the exact same magical education you did.”

“Not at all!” Rarity scoffed, “Ponyville is a prosperous town. It could afford to bring in a specialist to teach four unicorns in magic. I’m sure you went to wonderful schools but they probably picked two or three unicorns on staff to teach close to a hundred of you in a given year.”

“Ninety seven.” Twilight said sullenly.

“Semantics Twilight,” Rarity smiled, “the point remains the same. You clearly didn’t get the sort of magical education a unicorn of your talent requires.”

“I’m a unicorn of below average talent,” Twilight retorted, “I…”

“Took out that forest and Trixie like you were cleaning dirt off your hoof.” Rarity rather brusquely interrupted. “Unicorns of above average talent couldn’t do that. I doubt I could have done that even had I been in top form. All you need is the proper teaching and who knows what you can accomplish.”

Twilight fixed the other unicorn with a rather flat look, “In case you haven’t noticed we can’t exactly walk into any top tier universities and get me a private tutor to figure out what’s going on with my magic. And we’re also kind of short on princess’ to give me the same training regimen you went through.”

“Don’t be scared that you can’t keep up! Pinkie Pie jumped over from whatever it was she was doing to wrap Twilight in a great big hug. “I know something that’ll cheer you right up!”

The pink earth pony took a deep breath and began singing, “When I was a little filly and the sun was going…”

The song was abruptly cut off as both Twilight Sparkle and Rarity jammed hooves into Pinkie Pie’s mouth to silence her.
“Pinkie you’re a wonderful singer dear,” Rarity slowly took her hoof from the other pony’s mouth, “but you can get a teensy bit loud at times and the last thing we want right now is to draw attention to ourselves.”

“Sorry,” Pinkie Pie’s smile was appropriately sheepish.

“Does she do that often? The singing.” Twilight turned to Rarity as Pinkie Pie went back to… actually Twilight wasn’t sure what Pinkie Pie was doing.

“Almost as long as I’ve known her.” Rarity used her magic to grab a small rock and levitate it in front of her. “She wasn’t quite so boisterous before getting her cutie mark. Which, incidentally, happened not long after I met the princess. Use your magic to pull on the rock as hard as you can Twilight, it’s one of the ways Celestia helped me build up my magical power. I don’t expect you to be wrenching it from me for some time but I’ll tell you how I met Celestia to help pass some of it.”

Twilight was skeptical that she’d see any improvements from Rarity’s training, but she appreciated the thought and the chance to learn from a pony who’d been taught by Celestia herself.

“Of course you’ve heard how Pinkie Pie and I met,” Rarity began, “it’s plastered over enough of our stores and material that I can’t imagine how you couldn’t. It makes for a rather touching marketing campaign and it’s always nice to remember how I met my best friend but it’s irrelevant to my story.”

“This is the place.” Rarity turned to her new, was friend the right word?

“Looks like a good place for gems to grow.” The pink earth pony next to her looked out over the landscape. “How’d you say you found the gems again?”

“By accident.” Rarity looked down rather sheepishly. “My horn led me here in the first place but I can’t make it find the gems on purpose.”

“Hmmm.” Pinkie Pie rubbed at her muzzle in thought. “If we have to go digging around here at random we aren’t going to find many gems. Are you sure you can’t use your magic to find them again.”

“I’ve tried,” Rarity was coming dangerously close to whining and she knew it, “but when it happened it was more like a foal’s magical outburst than anything controlled. Every day when I get home from school I try to make my horn find gems but all I get is a rather pitiful glow.”

“You can do it Rarity!” Pinkie Pie smiled at her. “I bet with all the gems around here it’ll be easy to find them.”

It was true that Rarity had only tried with the few gems lying around her parents place. Perhaps more gems would get a reaction from her magic.

“Okay, stand back.” Rarity planted herself firmly on all four hooves and began to concentrate. She wished she’d known what her horn was doing from the very beginning. The feelings had been so clear then but she’d forgotten them almost like a dream.

She pushed all the magic she had into her horn and tried as hard as she could to remember what it felt like when she’d been pulled to this place. Barely visible in the bright light her horn began to glow with a soft blue light. This was as far as she’d gotten at home, to get any feeling beyond that of straining she had to be all but on top of the gems. And of course if she was already on top of the gems out here then she didn’t need to be doing anything with her magic.

It was different this time though. Maybe Pinkie Pie had been right after all. It felt as though she was trying to look at something just beyond the edge of her vision. If she tried just a little harder. No! Her parents had warned her about what could happen if she pushed her magic too far. She didn’t want to think about what could happen to her all the way out here.

“We’re close,” Rarity opened her eyes and let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, “it’s different out here. I can almost feel them, but I think I need more practice to find them.”

“That’s okay,” Pinkie Pie bounced over to the bag she’d filled with shovels and picks, “I’m sure we can find enough to make this trip worth it. And even if you can’t find the gems right now you’ll get better at it!”

Rarity smiled at her new friend, definitely the right word, and went to grab a shovel of her own.

“Over there Pinkie Pie.” Rarity pointed towards a spot otherwise indistinguishable from the barren landscape around them.

“Okey dokey!” Pinkie Pie attacked the spot with a vigor Rarity had become accustomed to over the years. “It’s a big one!” The pink earth pony shouted as she pulled an emerald the size of one of her hooves from the ground.

“I think that just about does it.” Rarity swiped her brow with a hoof. She’d never like sweat, dirt, or labor if she lived to be a hundred. But such sacrifices would be unavoidable if she and Pinkie Pie were ever going to make something more than a hobby of their gem mining.

“Let’s check the list.” Pinkie Pie threw the emerald into a large bag and followed it to a nearby list. “I think you’re right! That’s all the gems ponies back in Ponyville wanted us to find plus more than enough for our stockpile.”

“And in good time too.” Rarity looked with satisfaction at the sun just beginning to sink towards the horizon. “I shudder to think how long this used to take us before I could find gems with my magic.”

“I don’t think we filled up one of these bags in six months,” Pinkie Pie laughed, “and now look at us! At this rate we’ll have enough gems and gold stored up to open our shop when you graduate.”

“When we graduate Pinkie darling.” Rarity lifted the bag of tools along with a gem filled bag and started back towards Ponyville. “I’ll get the claim to this land next year when I graduate but we’ll wait for you to graduate before we open the doors of Rare Gems.”

“Sure thing partner!” Pinkie Pie flipped the other gem filled bag onto her back and followed. “Now let’s get you to a spa before your mane is as much a mess as mine!”

Rarity trotted through the streets of Canterlot drinking in the attention of the stares directed at her. All the effort she’d put into making sure she looked immaculate for her audience with the Princess was paying off! Surely she’d make an excellent first impression when she petitioned for title to the land she and Pinkie Pie had been mining. It never occurred to her that the stares might be because a mare barely out of high school was calmly levitating a bag that looked like it carried a ton of gems and gold.

Indeed the large bag she was levitating did contain a ton of gems and gold, or near enough to make no difference. Most adult ponies of all types weighed about a hundred pounds and could carry, pull, or levitate somewhere around three to four times their body weight. Being of slight build Rarity was somewhat lighter than average. A unicorn’s ability to levitate wasn’t particularly tied to their body weight, it was mere coincidence that the upper limits fell in the same place, but regardless very few ponies could have moved that bag much less carried it.

“I have an appointment with the Princess.” Rarity walked up to the gates of the castle.

The guards took a moment to get over their shock at seeing the magical feat in front of them but recovered and escorted her to the throne room.

Rarity’s breath began to come quicker, she was prepared for this, she had rehearsed it endlessly in her mind, but that didn’t mean things couldn’t still go very wrong. The doors opened and the time for worrying was over. Rarity walked calmly forward before lowering the bag of gems to the floor and bowing before Celestia.

“Please rise,” the princess said almost as soon as Rarity had come to a full bow, “I’ve never seen much use for bowing. It takes up so much time, but all my ministers go into fits whenever I suggest doing away with it.”

Rarity couldn’t help staring at Celestia. This was not what she had thought the audience would go like.

“Normally my Ministry of Lands and Titles would handle this but I had to see such an audacious claim from somepony so young with my own eyes.”

Celestia lifted the bag of gems but before opening it she paused and turned her gaze to Rarity. “This is most impressive.”
“Princess?” Rarity was now thoroughly confused.

Celestia was silent for some while seemingly studying Rarity. “You have a remarkable amount of magical talent. I already have an apprentice, but if you’d like I’d be more than happy to help you develop your magical skills.”

Only a complete and utter foal would have refused that offer. Rarity was not a complete and utter foal.

“I never knew how powerful I was.” Rarity was holding the ball back from Twilight with disgusting ease. “With only three younger unicorns learning magic with me it was a surprise to no one that I did the best in the class.”

“That story always brings tears to my eyes.” Twilight looked over to see that Pinkie Pie had sat down next to her during Rarity’s tale. “Oh, Rarity, let me finish! I wanna tell Twilight how I got my cutie mark!”

Fresh paint, new furniture, perfect displays, and a willing mare behind the counter, the gem shop was ready for business. Pinkie Pie happily trotted up to the door and flipped the sign to open. Stands outside and placards in the windows proclaimed the grand opening of Rare Gems and the deals inside.

“Any customers in our first two minutes of business?” Rarity walked down the stairs from the small apartment above the shop.

“Not yet,” Pinkie Pie turned to the other pony with a smile on her face, “but I just know we’ll have some before the day is through.”

“If you don’t mind holding down the shop for awhile I’ll see what I can do about getting us some customers today.” Rarity paused at the door. “Yesterday when Celestia had me up at the castle for lessons one of the petitioners brought up that he was remodeling a noble’s mansion. I mentioned that we were opening our little shop and he asked me to come by and make a bid on the job.”

“All right Rarity!” Pinkie Pie pumped a hoof. “I’ll be fine here all day. You go and get us some customers. They’ll tell other ponies how good we did and before we know it we’ll have lines out the door!”

Pinkie Pie smiled and waved to Rarity as she left and kept right on smiling. When a customer finally came in she wanted their first impression to be her smile. An hour later Pinkie Pie was nearing even her limits of continuous smiling, she needed to practice, when the bell over the door finally rang.

“Welcome to Rare Gems, I’m Pinkie Pie, how can I help you?” Rarity had told Pinkie Pie many times over the years that her personality could be a bit… overwhelming. The last few weeks she’d worked long and hard to make sure she didn’t scare off any potential customers by bounding up to them as they came in, and somehow she actually succeeded when the time came.

“Hi.” The potential customer was a pegasus whose cutie mark was obscured by a light jacket meant to keep the worst of the summer sun at bay. “I’m uh… proposing to my marefriend this weekend and well I need a ring.”

“That’s fantastic!” Pinkie Pie had never done anything as difficult in her life as not bounding up to the other pony. “What kind of ring do you want?”

“I don’t know,” the pegasus rubbed at the back of his neck, “I’ve kind of put this off.”

“Well you’ve come to the right place to answer that question.” Pinkie Pie ducked under the counter. “Let me show you some of the most popular stones for an engagement ring.”

It took nearly another hour of pulling out various trays of gems but finally a pile of bits and a finely cut diamond traded places.

“Thanks,” the pegasus said, “I’m sure she’ll love it. And I think she’ll actually say yes.”

“You’re both going to be so happy!” Pinkie Pie was nearly bursting with joy, “And that makes me happy because I love making ponies happy!”

Pinkie Pie had known this fact for years but had never had an opportunity like this to make another pony’s day. Perhaps that was why only after so many years did a light flash on her flank and leave behind two blue balloons and a yellow one.

“And that’s how Equestria was made!”

Cry Havoc! And let Slip the Ponies of War

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: You don’t still think I own any of this do you?

Chapter Six: Cry Havoc! And let Slip the Ponies of War

“I guess it’s good to know that we’re on the right track.” Twilight had somehow found herself in front as the group made its way away from Coltcinnati towards Manehatten. “But how much good is that going to do us if Nightmare Moon has already found and burned the book we’re looking for?”

“It’s not so bad as that.” Applejack’s voice came from behind her. “Manehatten is large enough to have several library branches. All of them are large and none of them have ever been particularly organized. It should take them some time to find this book if it’s there.”

“Don’t be sad you two!” Pinkie Pie bounced up next to Twilight, “Even if this doesn’t work out there’s lots of libraries in Equestria. I’m sure we’ll find your book somewhere!”

“Um, Rainbow Dash wanted me to tell you that there’s something up ahead.” Fluttershy soundlessly descended through the trees around them. “And she’s not sure whether it’s friendly or not.”

“We shouldn’t assume that anypony we don’t know is hostile.” Rarity walked up to join the conversation. “But we should find out who they are so we can decide if we need to sneak around or not.”

“Not friendly! Not friendly!” Rainbow Dash came through the trees much faster and noisier than Fluttershy. “They’re soldiers for the local lord, somepony named Arabus, and they’re going to execute a bunch of ponies for speaking out against Nightmare Moon.”

“I recognize that name!” Rarity gasped. “He got in some big trouble with Celestia a few years back. Dark magic, horribly mistreating his subjects, and a whole host of other things I can’t quite recall. Celestia came down quite hard on him and we all thought he’d learned his lesson. But I guess with Celestia gone he’s found quite the kindred spirit in Nightmare Moon.”

“We have to do something about this.” Applejack stomped a hoof. “We can’t allow Nightmare Moon’s thugs to tear Equestria apart.”

“Nightmare Moon will tear Equestria apart much worse than this Arabus pony ever could.” Rainbow Dash got back on her hooves. “I know it sucks to leave but if we stop to fix every little problem we’ll never find Celestia.”

Silence descended over the group and when Twilight looked up from the ground she saw the others looking at Rarity and her.

“Why’s everypony looking at us?”

“Um, well,” Fluttershy nervously hooved the ground. “Rarity knew Celestia really well and ran that big mining company. She’s used to making tough choices like this. And it’s your plan we’re following Twilight. If anypony knows whether or not we can afford the delay it would be you.”

“My plan is to find a book and hope it has something we can use.” Twilight deadpanned. “I don’t think…”

“I’ve found them!” The shout cut Twilight off.

“I guess we’re going to crash the party here.” Rainbow Dash shrugged.

“This area is off limits.” four unicorns and about a dozen earth ponies came crashing through the trees. “You rebel scum should know that resistance against Arabus and Nightmare Moon is futile. Attack!”

Beyond a few scuffles with particularly drunk patrons trying to get a bit feely at work Twilight had never been in anything resembling a fight. Even those few scuffles had been quickly broken up by the club’s bouncers.

The same however could not be said of her friends. As the several unicorns started to weave spells their horns were suddenly surrounded by a blue glow and all of them suddenly found themselves struggling to not be cut off from their magic all together.

“Twilight, their weapons!” Applejack shouted as she leapt at the earth ponies reaching to draw various weapons.

Somehow grasping the hint Twilight wrapped all the various hilts, handles, and grips in a magenta glow. Then all the soldier ponies tried to draw their weapons.

“I can do this.” Twilight gasped as the strain in her head surged. “I won’t let the others down!”

A battle against a number of strong ponies all exerting force at once wasn’t a battle Twilight could win. It was in fact a battle Twilight couldn’t even fight for very long. Fortunately however it wasn’t a battle Twilight had to fight alone.

Applejack had likely gotten into some rather tough scrapes as a reporter before. She certainly handled herself like a pony used to using her hooves. Rainbow Dash, cautious as she was, had never struck Twilight as one to shy away from a fight and she was not finding her opinion disappointed. Twilight hadn’t thought Pinkie Pie possessed so much as a mean spirited thought. Twilight was wrong. The pink earth pony was quite frankly terrifying.

With the element of surprise Applejack and Rainbow Dash were each able to down one pony and put another on the defensive. Pinkie Pie outnumbered the rest one to eight.

With their attackers forgetting their weapons Twilight was able to let go of them with a sigh of relief. Looking about briefly she noted that Rarity was holding her own against the four unicorns. The white unicorn seemed to be channeling a fair bit of anger after her duel with Trixie. Fluttershy was even less of a fighter than Twilight and it didn’t surprise her a bit to see the pegasus huddling a ways back from the action.

Trying to use her magic directly would have only ended badly for Twilight. Luckily she found herself surrounded by sticks and stones that were quite light and would doubtless hurt and distract ponies when they hit. Stepping forwards a smile formed on her face as Twilight’s horn flared with magic.

“Is everypony alright?” Once the last of their attackers had fallen Fluttershy had wasted no time in leaping forwards.

“A few scratches and bruises.” Rainbow Dash spoke for all. “Nothing that’s going to slow anypony down. But what are we going to do with these guys?”

A misty blue glow drifted from Rarity’s horn and settled over the heads of the unconscious ponies. “That should keep them asleep for a good night’s rest. But they are going to wake up in eight hours or so and be quite unhappy. When we make it to town we should see if the ponies there have something slightly more long term they can do.”

Twilight stepped in front of her friends. “We need to save those ponies that are going to be executed first. Maybe they can watch over all these guards.”

With no one voicing any disagreement they followed Rainbow Dash to a sizeable clearing where five bored looking ponies were standing guard over close to twenty miserable looking prisoners. A block and an axe testified to what the ponies were there for. The guards seemed to be contentedly waiting for their fellows to return, probably with Twilight and friends in tow.

“Twilight,” Rarity whispered, “you wouldn’t have any problems flinging a rock or two into those brutes would you?”
“Just tell me which one or two you want hit.” Twilight smiled.

Being bored and overconfident the guard ponies never saw the rocks that shot from the trees and sped right into their heads. After waiting a few seconds to make sure that they were all indeed unconscious Fluttershy flew out of the trees to make sure none of them had been seriously injured.

“Thank you.” A tired looking pony said to Applejack as she used a key lifted from one of the guards to unlock their chains. “We thought we were all going to die.”

“Think nothing of it.” Applejack replied. “We can’t save everypony from Nightmare Moon but when it’s right in front of us we can hardly ignore what she’s doing. I hate to inconvenience you but we incapacitated the other guards a ways back from here and if nopony is there to watch them they are going to wake up quite angry at some point.”

A handful of the least ragged looking prisoners set off the way Applejack pointed at a trot.

“We need to stop this Arabus pony or all this is just going to keep happening.” Twilight walked up to the newly freed prisoners. “Is there anything you can tell us about the last few days that could help us?”

“Just that Arabus has sided with Nightmare Moon.” The ragged pegasus shook his head. “I suspect you already know that though. I don’t think he knew Nightmare Moon was coming back. But Celestia never convinced him to stop his dark arts and cruelties as much as plain forced him to. When the sun disappeared and it became obvious something had happened to Celestia Arabus and his minions cowed the others and started everything you see here.”

“What kind of dark magic exactly was Arabus practicing?” Rarity walked up next to Twilight.

“Nopony outside Arabus’ inner circle ever knew what they were doing.” An equally ragged unicorn replied. “We only ever saw the results of what they were doing. But it was enough to know that they’re into some pretty dark and I’m sure equally forbidden magic.”

“Let’s head into town.” Applejack gestured to the others. “If we’re lucky nopony is going to notice these guards are running late and we can try to sneak into the castle.”

Fluttershy protested feebly that she wanted to stay and help the ex-prisoners but between the insistence of the others and the assurances of the newly freed ponies that they were fine she joined the rest of the group in heading back towards Coltcinnati.

Once they made it back to Coltcinnati Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were able to retrace their steps through the town with fair ease. They hadn’t actually been to the castle but as it was visible from pretty much everywhere none of them thought it would be particularly difficult to find their way.

“Celestia coddled you under her sun! She forced you to care for the weak among you and hold yourselves back in the name of fairness!”

As they passed by the market square a haranguing voice ringing from the square caught the attention of all six ponies.

“That’s new.” Applejack mused. “We must have barely missed her the first time.”

“Glad we did.” Rainbow Dash snorted. “I can’t believe there are ponies out there who would betray the princess like that.”

“Be grateful for eternal night!” The cultist ranted on. “The foul sun blots out a million more of its kind and hides the image of our glorious queen!”

“That’s not true.” Fluttershy muttered. “You can still see the moon when the sun is up.”

“Nightmare Moon isn’t a very nice pony at all.” Pinkie Pie grumbled.

“The moon watches over and protects us. The nightmare and her children need only be feared by those who cower in the day. Join me my brothers and sisters! The Nightmare Children were once legion and with you we shall be again!”

“I can’t take this anymore!” Rainbow Dash was quite the spectacular flier when she chose to be. A rainbow trail streaked towards the cultist and the crack of hoof meeting face was audible across the square.

“Down with Nightmare Moon!” The cry came from innumerable throats at once and chaos was soon the master of the market square.

Twilight had never seen a riot erupt before so she was in a way grimly impressed with how quickly the mob spread throughout Coltcinnati. Here and there a few guards tried to stem the flow of ponies but like virtually everywhere else in Equestria the police forces were not even remotely equipped to handle a full scale riot.

“Wonderful job Rainbow Dash.” Applejack glared at the rainbow maned pegasus. “I’m sure we’ll have no trouble at all sneaking into the castle with them on full alert.”

“Come on.” Rainbow Dash glared right back. “You couldn’t stand that crazy pony any more than I could.”

“That’s not the point darling.” Rarity’s look was quite withering. “If any of us liked Nightmare Moon we wouldn’t be here. But if we tear apart Equestria while saving it then what good are we really doing?”

“That’s…” Rainbow Dash looked painfully at the looks of all her friends. “Twilight, I thought we were going to get our cutie marks fighting Nightmare Moon.”

“And we will.” Twilight’s attempt at a smile fell utterly flat. “But not like this. This is how Nightmare Moon overthrew Celestia and if we do exactly the same are we any better than her?”

“Fine.” Rainbow Dash huffed. “Ignore the one pony actually trying to do something to help us.”

“That’s not fair.” Fluttershy admonished her friend. “We’re all helping in our own ways. And girls, even if Rainbow Dash did make a mistake she meant well and we have to make the best of it now.”

“Yeah.” Pinkie Pie jumped so she was half sprawled over Fluttershy. “If we’re fighting each other that means Queen Meanie wins. So let’s turn those frowns upside down and go storm ourselves a castle!”

Pinkie Pie’s advice had gotten the group to stop feuding and make for the castle but even with Coltcinnati in chaos Twilight didn’t think they’d be doing any storming of the castle.

“Who goes there?”

Twilight bit back a curse. She’d just had to poke a little further out to see the gates and she’d paid for it.

“I have information about the rioters.” Twilight threw a desperate plan together, stepped into the dim torchlight, and hoped the guard hadn’t seen or paid too much attention to her wanted poster. “My fellows and I must speak to Lord Arabus.”

“Riots?” The guard sighed. “That’s what all that noise is? You’d better tell Lord Arabus right away. He’ll probably overreact and use some of his freaky dark magic but we have to stop the rioters.”

The guard seemed a little surprised to see six mares go through the gate but he was clearly not dedicated or paid enough to make anything of it.

Twilight immediately understood why so few locals wanted anything to do with Arabus. The castle decorations started at disturbing, went quickly to macabre, and only descended from there. The air itself seemed wrong somehow. Even her meager magical abilities could feel the sickly presence of dark magic. Next to her Rarity seemed on the verge of flight or vomit but somehow overcame both.

Hanging slightly back from the others Rainbow Dash was feeling sorely misused. She couldn’t believe that every last one of them had objected to taking the fight to Nightmare Moon. She’d spent years forcibly squashing every possibly dangerous impulse only to see time and time again how she would have come out fine if she’d indulged. Then the one time she did what felt right everypony came down on her like a ton of horseshoes.

“Rainbow Dash, you aren’t still sulking are you?” Fluttershy paused for a few steps to let the other pegasus catch up to her.

“So what if I am? Twilight Sparkle and Rarity can use magic, Applejack has her fancy talking, you were in medical school before all this started, and Pinkie Pie is well… Pinkie Pie. I’m not a very good flier so all I can do is fight them head on. And then everypony gets on my case for helping the one way I can. So yeah, I’m sulking.”

“You don’t think they’re still mad at you do you?” Fluttershy’s voice said plenty about what she thought of sulking. “I’m sure they’ve already forgiven you for letting your temper get the best of you and the only reason they haven’t said so is because they’re just a little busy.”

“That’s a nice thought Fluttershy.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “But this is what happens when I try to work with a group of ponies. I blow my stack and once they know what I’m really like they let me know I’m not welcome anymore. I’m just sorry you finally got caught up in it. At least I’ll be able to keep your place clean while you’re off saving the world.”

Rainbow Dash never heard what Fluttershy would say to that. As the yellow pegasus opened her mouth a cry came from up ahead. Apparently some of the castle guards had paid attention to the wanted posters.

Rainbow Dash flapped her wings to get above her opponents only to painfully crash into the ceiling. While she was regaining her bearings the others crashed into the guards who’d attacked them. Rarity and Twilight seemed eager to destroy the various decorations and use the remains to attack the guards.

None of the guards in this town seemed to expect their victims to attack them head on. That being the case the element of surprise once again worked in favor of the unexpected attackers. Applejack and the scarily effective Pinkie Pie had gone barreling into the several guards attacking them and using the narrow corridor to their advantage kept numbers even or occasionally on their side.

Outclassed and with no unicorns to fight back against Twilight Sparkle and Rarity the fight was one sided from beginning to end. The hallway was an absolute mess but it didn’t look like Applejack or Pinkie Pie had gotten so much as a scratch on them.

“Are you okay Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy grabbed her and started looking at her head.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash waved the other pegasus off. “I’ve hit my head harder plenty of times when my landings aren’t so awesome.”

They inched their way forwards for several minutes until at last they were all sure that nopony had heard the guards’ shouts or the brief fight that ensued afterwards. The further they made their way towards Arabus’ council chambers the fewer ponies they ran into. One or two briefly stopped and appeared to recognize them but they were quickly knocked out before anything more than recognition could cross their minds.

“You girls ready?” Applejack braced herself to buck down the doors.

“The sooner we stop Arabus the sooner we can get to Manehatten.” Twilight Sparkle spoke for all of them.

Whether weakly constructed or simply very strongly bucked the wooden doors splintered inwards on Applejack’s first attempt. The room was dimly and principally lit by a large fire in the middle of the long hall. Alternating down the walls were banners showing Arabus’s cutie mark, what appeared to be shadows flowing into a cloud, and new banners showing what Rainbow Dash knew to be Nightmare Moon.

Several guards immediately poised themselves to defend their lord but a single motion from a charcoal grey unicorn whose cutie mark matched the banners on the wall brought them back to stiff attention. Around the raised platform where Arabus set and along the walls stood a number of smug looking ponies. No doubt they were his lackeys and those who had thrown in their lots with him.

“Why Miss Rarity, so kind of you and your friends to pay me a visit.” His voice sounded like what Rainbow Dash always imagined a shady used chariot dealer would sound like.

“Spare us the meaningless pleasantries.” Rarity bristled with indignation. “Clearly you learned nothing when Celestia disciplined you last time. And since she’s unavailable right now we’ll just have to see if we can do a better job of teaching you to keep your hooves out of dark magic.”

In the blink of an eye Arabus dropped the friendly mask and became downright chilling. “Celestia was an addled foal. She never could see the power in front of her and when she could she refused to grasp it. She refused to rule Equestria like a true queen should. She allowed peasants to advance beyond their stations, always seeking out ‘counsel’ from her favorites, and directing her anger towards anypony who dared expose the system for the sham it was.”

“You’re just jealous.” Rarity’s laugh seemed designed to drive Arabus up the walls. “You knew that Celestia would always be more powerful than you and that ponies would always love her more than you. Well I have bad news for you Arabus. You’ll never be more than a cockroach to Nightmare Moon and ponies will always be far more terrified of her than you. You’ll only ever be a mean spirited foal playing with forces you can’t comprehend.”

Normally when a unicorn summoned their magic their horn began to glow. When Arabus summoned his magic the light seemed to dim around him. Both Rarity and Twilight gasped and stepped back and even Rainbow Dash felt the small hairs of her mane stand on end.

“Forces I don’t comprehend?” Arabus sneered. “I’ll show you just how much I comprehend the dark forces of Equestria!”

Rainbow Dash found herself suddenly unable to breathe, or to move more than her eyes for that matter. Ahead of her she could see a few sparks fly from Rarity and Twilight’s horns as they tried to match the dark magic Arabus was using but Rainbow Dash didn’t need to be a great magical scholar to see that the fight wasn’t going well.

“How pathetic,” Arabus said to general tittering laughter from his followers. “Did Celestia teach you nothing? One of you would need more magic in your back left hoof than you have in both your miserable bodies to challenge me!”

Rainbow Dash had associated with some fairly rough ponies and other creatures in her life. Weather patrol was also a fairly dangerous job at plenty of times. But she’d never felt this close to death. There had always been a way out, something she could do, or a way to buy the pony off. Her vision began to darken around the edges and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest as it tried to move the last breaths of oxygen in her lungs to her starved body.

Suddenly an unpony wail pierced Rainbow Dash to her core. She collapsed to the ground and suddenly found that she could once again breathe. Sucking in several lungfuls of life giving oxygen she opened her eyes to find herself face to face with a massacre.

The wail was emanating from Twilight Sparkle who was levitating in a crackling white and purple sphere of energy. Her horn was as bright as the sun and beams of energy were radiating from it as if nothing could contain that much power. Rainbow Dash watched as one of those beams found a cowering pony along the edge of the room and they simply ceased to exist.

The lavender unicorn slowly rotated to face Rainbow Dash and where there were normally purple eyes endless glowing wells of power looked at the rainbow maned pegasus. At the end of the room Rainbow Dash saw Arabus cowering in fear at the display of raw magical power she didn’t imagine anyone short of Celestia or Nightmare Moon could match.

As Twilight rotated the large chamber seemed to be wiped clean of life. Only Rainbow Dash and the rest of Twilight’s friends were spared her wrath. At last Twilight stripped the room of all life except herself, her friends, and Arabus. As she turned to face the terrified Unicorn Rainbow Dash could have sworn that what had been a raw and uncontrolled reaction became suddenly focused and angry.

The light once again dimmed around Arabus but compared to Twilight Sparkle he was a laughing stock. In desperation he fired off a spell at her but when it impacted the glowing field around the lavender unicorn the spell simply stopped. The endless void that served as Twilight’s eyes narrowed and a pulse traveled back along the spell Arabus had used. Rainbow Dash had never seen a pony spontaneously combust and burn to death from within, conscious all the while. She hoped most dearly that she never saw such a thing again.

“Twilight?” Fluttershy of all ponies was the first to muster the courage to approach the unicorn.

The wail that would haunt Rainbow Dash’s dreams turned pained and Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes as she quite visibly fought to regain control of her body and magic. Slowly the field of magic began to collapse back into the lavender unicorn. Her horn gradually dimmed to the point where the others could bear to look at it for longer than a fleeting glance. When Twilight finally touched back down on the ground she seemed to let go of all the power at once and slumped to the ground, utterly exhausted.

“Help,” Twilight muttered as blood started leaking from her nose and her eyes closed.

A few hours later found Rainbow Dash and Applejack sitting in a room with several members of the town council. Applejack was doing the bulk of the talking and Rainbow Dash was monumentally bored.

“We can’t imagine that Nightmare Moon will be terribly pleased with our overthrowing a noble so firmly behind her.” An elderly earth pony said. “But we would have been driven to revolt against Arabus’ excesses sooner or later and even if it is only for a few days we are our own masters. We’ll help all those who have spoken out against Nightmare Moon escape into hiding. We can count on most of the guards to help us. The officers were by and large loyal to Arabus but the rank and file were held in line mostly by fear.”

“I spoke with Rarity,” Applejack had dropped the drawl around other ponies. “She recommended that when Nightmare Moon sends somepony to investigate you tell them that she was responsible. As she put it she’s already the most wanted pony in all Equestria so they can’t do anything worse to her.”

“It may take some doing to convince whomever Nightmare Moon sends that you acted completely on your own but we’ll make it work somehow.”

“If you need to you can mention us.” Applejack gestured to herself and Rainbow Dash. “Nightmare Moon doesn’t know about us quite yet but it’s only a matter of time. I had originally thought that Rainbow Dash’s action in starting the riot was a mistake but with the benefit of hindsight I find myself forced to admit that I was wrong and she was right.”

Rainbow Dash hadn’t absorbed a word in twenty minutes and Applejack seemed to have this all in hoof. “I’m going to make sure Twilight’s doing okay.” She excused herself and headed through the castle towards the bedrooms.

“Hello Rainbow Dash.” The rainbow maned pegasus bumped, quite literally, into Rarity as she stepped into the hall where Twilight’s room was. “Have you wrapped everything up with the town council?”

“Applejack can handle all that on her own.” Rainbow Dash waved a hoof. “I decided I’d come up here and see how Twilight is doing.”

“She’s gone back to sleep.” Rarity looked back down the hall. “She’s been quite distraught over losing control over her magic. She wanted to have her horn removed and go into exile but I wouldn’t hear of it. As much power as she showed I think she could still be a danger to herself and others even without a horn. It took quite a bit of convincing but I finally brought her around to realize that her best chance is learning to control her magic.”

“We aren’t going to have to carry her out of here are we? Because I’m pretty sure that Nightmare Moon is going to find out about this sooner than later and we’re going to have to leave in a hurry.”

“Twilight’s a tough pony, tougher than she looks. I can’t vouch for her magic for the next few days but even if she’s not ready to gallop all the way she should be ready to head for Manehatten tomorrow morning. Or at least that’s what Fluttershy said when she checked in on her. Speaking of Fluttershy, she and Pinkie Pie are down in the market gathering supplies. It seems that saving the town has convinced the locals to suddenly become generous with their goods and I’m sure they could use a hoof figuring out what we need and then carrying it back here.”

“Gotcha,” Rainbow Dash started back down the stairs. “I’ll make sure we’re good to head out of here tomorrow morning.”

The guard at the gate waved her through and Rainbow Dash stepped back into the town. Coltcinnati had come through the riots fairly well. Once Twilight had eliminated Arabus the guards had turned on their officers and the few ponies who truly supported Arabus. There hadn’t been much fighting after that. Looting on the other hoof had fallen on Arabus’ supporters quite hard.

Not that Rainbow Dash had much in the way of sympathy towards those who would betray the princess. Rainbow Dash had a short temper in general and there were a great many things that could set her off. None though could do it quite so quickly or completely as the thought of being a traitor.

“Rainbow…” The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

“Who’s there?” Rainbow Dash looked around. The street she was walking down was completely deserted.

“We’ve been watching you Rainbow Dash.” Again the voice seemed to have no particular point of origin.

“Me, why?” Rainbow Dash spun around a slow circle trying to find who was talking to her.

“Because you’re the best flier in Equestria.” The voice seemed to laugh. “And we want you to join us.”

“Who are you?” Giddiness and suspicion were warring in Rainbow Dash’s mind. “Because if you’re the Wonderbolts I have totally wanted to join for ages!”

“No Rainbow Dash.” The pony in question turned to find herself face to face with three pegasi in matching dark uniforms. “We want you to join us, the Shadowbolts!”

“The who now?” Rainbow Dash had never seen any group with the purple and black uniforms cut to resemble lightning bolts. Nor did she recognize their logo consisting of a winged skull.

“The Shadowbolts.” The pegasus in the middle stepped forward. “We’re Nightmare Moon’s personal guard. We’re the best, the fastest, the strongest fliers in all Equestria, and we… want… you.”

“Nightmare Moon!” Rainbow Dash hopped back several steps into a fighting stance. “I’ll never join Nightmare Moon!”

“Surely you must realize that there’s more to Equestria than mindlessly following Celestia.” Rainbow Dash didn’t see the Shadowbolt get behind her to whisper in her ear. “Have you even heard our side of the story? Nightmare Moon wanted to make Equestria stronger, better, to let ponies enjoy her night forever, and Celestia banished her to the moon for it!”

Suddenly the Shadowbolt was back in front of her. “You know how that feels, don’t you? Your so called ‘friends’ think less of you for doing something about a danger right in front of you. But Nightmare Moon appreciates your initiative. You were stronger than the Nightmare Child who came here and so you triumphed.”

“I… well…” Ponies had been telling Rainbow Dash to listen to the other side of an argument for years. Did it have to be now of all times their advice started to sink in?

“We’re asking much of you Rainbow Dash.” The Shadowbolts started backing away. “Take your time and think about what we’ve said. We’ll meet again.”

Truth Will Come to Light

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: Ha ha! The not owning has been doubled!

Chapter Seven: Truth Will Come to Light

Just how far was it from Coltcinnati to Manehatten? Applejack had guessed it would take about a week of travel but she had never mentioned the landscape would be this monotonous. Even Pinkie Pie’s spirits seemed tested by the sheer repetitiveness of their trek.

More than that, they were all on edge. After what they’d done in Coltcinnati there was no way Nightmare Moon didn’t know who they were and more importantly what they were doing. Eyes were constantly flitting to the sky to look for white pegasi in golden armor calling down Trixie and the royal guards.

For all their supposed preparedness they were still caught off guard when they rounded a corner to find themselves face to face with Trixie and a squad of guards.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie would say this was just business, but as much trouble as you six have been Trixie is going to enjoy this.”

Rainbow Dash took to the sky, this time unhindered by a roof, and engaged several guard pegasi. Unlike her fellow pegasus Fluttershy quickly moved back from the battle and readied herself to tend to any wounded. Applejack and Pinkie Pie leapt together into the guards who remained on the ground. Again their opponents didn’t expect them to attack while outnumbered and again they used it to their advantage.

That left Rarity and Twilight once again facing off against Trixie. Rather that left Rarity facing off against Trixie and Twilight looking on.

Being in much better condition than the last time they’d fought Rarity seemed to be holding her own with much less effort. Keeping an eye on the other two unicorns Twilight turned her attention to helping her other friends. She didn’t think her magic was back to where it had been before Coltcinnati quite yet but it was more than enough to pick up small rocks and fling them at the guards.

The trouble started when one of the flying guards broke off from fighting Rainbow Dash to attack Fluttershy. The yellow pegasus couldn’t possibly hope to defend herself from an ill tempered rabbit let alone a trained soldier. Twilight looked around and saw that it was up to her to help her friend.

Grabbing the diving pegasus with her magic seemed a good idea at the time. It did not occur to Twilight until afterwards that such an abrupt stop might do bad things to a pony’s neck. The snap wasn’t audible to the lavender unicorn but the particularly abrupt cessation of resistance told her everything she needed to know about what she’d just done.

“Oh no, not again,” Twilight stumbled back. This was the third time killed somepony using her magic and the first without losing all control of herself.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Twilight dropped onto her belly and closed her eyes against the world.

All of a sudden that bottomless well of power was there and drawing her in. Twilight fought as hard as she could but she could feel the power welling up in her horn until it couldn’t possibly do anything but leap outwards.

Twilight felt herself lift from the ground and a scream that could only have come from her rang in her ears. She felt the power in her horn crest and it leapt out in a single unbelievably large pulse. Twilight fell to the ground and felt the air explode from her lungs in one great burst.

She opened her eyes to see a ruined landscape that looked more like the surface of the moon than anywhere in Equestria. As far as she could see there was only ruined and burnt desolation. A few smoldering piles of dust was all she could see to mark that there might have ever been another pony anywhere near her. Perpetually just outside the edge of her vision Twilight failed to notice the midnight black alicorn smile and disappear.

“What have I done?” Twilight felt hot tears start running from her eyes.

A terrible scream of pain and anger ripped from her throat but there was nopony there to hear it.

Twilight Sparkle jerked awake in the small copse of trees they’d taken shelter in to sleep. Her fur was matted with sweat and her throat was as dry as the desert one had to cross to reach the mild west. She looked at the destruction around her and saw… her friends peacefully sleeping. Had that been a dream? It had felt so real.

Hesitantly she took hold of her canteen with her magic and lifted it to her lips. Everything worked like it was supposed to. Her horn didn’t feel like bursting and she didn’t launch the poor canteen halfway back to Canterlot.

“Hi Twilight!” Pinkie Pie appearing out of nowhere did come close to making Twilight jump halfway back to Canterlot with surprise.

“Pinkie Pie?” Twilight could feel her heart pounding in her chest. “Weren’t you just asleep?”

“Yep,” the pink earth pony wore a humongous smile despite the hour. “But once I’m awake I don’t like wasting any time.”

Twilight couldn’t help laughing a little at her friend’s antics. “Normally I’d take any chance I can get to catch up on my sleep but I don’t think I’m going back to sleep tonight, today, whatever time it is.”

“Oh that’s okay,” Pinkie Pie said, “if we all get up earlier we can find your book earlier. And we can have a ‘we found Twilight’s book’ party! Then we can beat Nightmare Moon and we’ll have the most epic party in the history of Equestria!”

“I don’t know about that,” Twilight sighed, “we still have to find the book in the first place. And even if we find the book and it says how Celestia beat Nightmare Moon there’s no guarantee we can pull it off. And besides, I’m dangerous to be around. I’ve been dreaming about it, I could hurt all of you without meaning to.”

“Do you think we care about that?” Pinkie Pie looked truly curious. “You’re our friend Twilight. We trust you, or we wouldn’t be here.”

“But it’s been getting worse when I lose control,” Twilight groaned, “it hurts more and more ponies each time. I don’t know how I didn’t kill you back in Coltcinnati and I can’t be sure that I won’t the next time I lose control. I’m still not sure I did the right thing when I let Rarity talk me out of having my horn removed.”

Pinkie Pie started giggling. “Are you going to worry about that all the time you worry wart? Rarity’s teaching you how to control your magic. Fluttershy was able to stop you when you were all wooshy glowy. And the rest of us will do everything we can to make sure you don’t go all wooshy glowy again. Now turn that frown upside down miss!”

Twilight’s first attempt at a smile left much to be desired. Pinkie Pie was not however a pony easily deterred from making others laugh. Once the pink pony started laughing it proved infectious and soon both were on their backs gasping with peals of laughter.

“Pinkie Pie,” came the grumble from a rainbow colored patch sticking out from under a blanket, “can you stop getting up so early? Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“No can do Dashie!” Pinkie pie said between laughs.

“You want me to what?” Twilight gaped in disbelief.

“You heard me darling,” Rarity had a fantastic poker face. “All of our belongings for as long as you can manage. Every time you’ve pushed your magic has been through a catastrophic release. I want you to push it under controlled conditions so you can learn your limits, how to handle them, and hopefully build up your magic.”

“But Rarity I’ve been trying to get my magic down for years.”

Rarity did not appear to care that Twilight not might her laughing at that. “Oh Twilight. You and your teachers went about teaching you in completely the wrong way. After seeing two of your little shows I’ve come to think you probably have enough magical power to make Trixie and I look like bumbling amateurs.”

“Leave the joking to Pinkie Pie,” Twilight glared at the other unicorn. “Believe me, I’m incredibly thankful that you’re teaching me more magic but I came to terms long ago that I’ll never be anything special. Besides, we’re trying to not attract attention. Don’t you think one pony carrying six ponies gear is something that would draw notice?”

“I’m sure anypony we come across could be easily convinced that you’re merely a good friend doing a favor. And please, Twilight, have some faith in me. I may not be a professional teacher but I do know the methods Celestia used to teach me and everything I’ve seen you do makes me think that these are the sorts of lessons you need to make real progress with your magic. I for one think that I speak for all of us when I say that the rewards are well worth the risks.”

“I trust Rarity’s fast talking. If it lets me not carry my saddlebags for a few hours then I’m all for Twilight doing some learning.”

“Gee thanks Rainbow Dash,” Twilight turned her glare to the pegasus.

“Twilight,” Applejack was much more diplomatic than the other two, “we’re not asking you to carry our bags the rest of the way to Manehatten. And if Rarity is even partly correct then you could improve your magic a considerable amount. If it will help pass the time I’ll tell you about Manehatten and how I came to live there.”

“Fine,” Twilight sighed.

To say that Applejack was nervous on her first day of school in Manehatten would be quite the understatement. She’d gotten up extra early, and her aunt had helped make sure her hair was perfect. None of the city born students would be able to criticize her appearance. Likewise her uncle had helped make sure all her bags were packed and that she’d done all the reading for the first day. Applejack was normally the sort of pony to have done all that on her own but between her nervousness and trying to truly settle in Manehatten she was glad for the help.

That evening found Applejack crying into her aunt’s mane. “They kept laughing at me because I’m from Ponyville and it’s not a fancy city. Then when I couldn’t take it anymore and I started talking in a drawl they laughed at me for that!”

“Don’t cry Applejack dear,” her aunt stroked her mane. “They don’t know you yet and they’re just acting out. I’m sure after a few days they’ll figure out how stupid they’re being and they’ll start to warm up to you. If it keeps going your uncle and I can always talk to your teacher. We’ll see if suspending half your class gets the message through that bullying our niece is a bad idea.”

Her uncle’s tone was surprisingly gruff. “I know I didn’t spend as much time on the farm as my brother but I know how much hard work goes into bucking apples. If any of the other students ever looks like they want to do more than laugh at you I want you to just buck something near them. If that doesn’t make them think twice I don’t know what will.”

“Thanks Aunt and Uncle Orange,” Applejack wiped her eyes dry with a hoof. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Junior high, Applejack could hardly believe she was already in junior high school. She could hardly believe how much she wanted to go to junior high for that matter. Her aunt and uncle had made good on their promise to speak with her elementary school teachers and after an anti-bullying seminar failed to fix the problem several students had indeed been suspended for bullying. That combined with the increased awareness of the teachers had succeeded in more or less stopping the other students from picking on the country born pony. It had done nothing however to make Applejack anything but an outsider to her classmates.

When her aunt and uncle suggested she attend a different middle school than the rest of her classmates Applejack’s response had been mild irritation that it had taken them so long to suggest the idea.

She wouldn’t lie and say she wasn’t from Ponyville, but if nopony ever asked then she would be just another student. She hadn’t spoken with a drawl in a year and a half and while she didn’t want to lose the ability she was simply becoming more comfortable speaking like a cultured Manehatten pony. And most of all the school had a student run paper! She wouldn’t be able to join it her first year but in her second and third years she could finally plunge into the reason she’d decided to stay in Manehatten.

“How was my niece’s first day of junior high?” Uncle Orange walked through the door that same evening.

“It went very well,” Applejack called from the dining room where her aunt had her setting the table. “There are several other ponies not from Manehatten and I’ve lived here the longest of any of them. Hardly anypony seems to care whether or not a pony is from Manehatten.”

“I told you that a new school would do wonders for you,” Aunt Orange carried out several plates of food the chefs had prepared earlier. “It’s such a relief to see you at a different school than those… barbarians.”

“Thank you dear,” Uncle Orange took his plate. “So have your teachers given you any homework yet Applejack?”

“Don’t remind me,” Applejack groaned.

High school, Applejack swallowed more fear than she cared to admit at the thought. She’d done well in junior high and wound up editor in chief of the student paper but now she was a small fish in a big pond. And even if she was stuck with all the menial work she was on the school paper’s staff from day one. Her first assignment, interviewing the principal about the upcoming year, was about as dull and unoriginal as it got but it was a start.

Her aunt and uncle thought that their niece deserved better but they tended to think that about most everything. Applejack appreciated the thought but having risen to editor in chief once she knew she could do it again. She hadn’t given up on her dream of being an investigative journalist but she now knew that there were a great many steps she had to go through first.

“Excuse me miss, Applejack was it?” The principal’s secretary looked over at the young mare. “I need to go use the little filly’s room. If Miss Hackney finishes up with her other appointment she’ll let you in on her own.”

Applejack nodded and the other pony left the office. On her own Applejack lasted about thirty seconds before her curiosity about Miss Hackney’s other appointment made her sneak up to the door and press her ear against it. Applejack was rather proud of herself for lasting that long.

The door was too thick for her to make out exactly what was being said but what she could make out sounded quite interesting indeed. She couldn’t be exactly sure, but it sounded like there was some interesting bookkeeping going on at the school. None of her teachers had covered accounting or the like in school yet but she remembered very well the newspaper article that had convinced her to stay in Manehatten.

Not being able to make out exactly what was being said Applejack only barely made it back to the chair she’d been sitting at when the door started to open. Applejack didn’t recognize the unicorn who walked out of the office, but if her new found suspicions were correct she didn’t think she was supposed to recognize the unicorn.

“Applejack,” Miss Hackney turned to face her, her chalkboard cutie mark making clear the earth pony’s talent was education. “I’m going to go to the teacher’s lounge to refill my coffee. Take a seat in my office and make yourself comfortable. We’ll start the interview for the paper when I get back, okay?”

Applejack nodded again and calmly walked into the office. As soon as the door closed behind her she bolted behind the desk. There was a pair of ledgers on the desk that were clearly not for students to look at. Applejack promptly ignored this, took note of where the ledgers were, and opened them up.

Not being intimately familiar with the school’s finances she couldn’t tell exactly what was going on but there was clearly something fishy between the books. One was well worn, obviously the one shown to the public, while the other seemed to be handled only by a few ponies. Applejack scribbled down several figures from both books showing discrepancies between the two and hurried back to the chair where she was supposed to wait. She hoped she didn’t seem too distracted during the interview knowing what she now knew.

“This is very interesting Miss… Applejack was it?” Applejack had decided to take her finding to the Manehatten Times. “How did you say you found out about this again?”

Applejack retold her story for what felt like the hundredth time since she’d walked in the doors. At least the white pegasus with a red mane, Paradise the name plate on her desk said, was a reporter. Applejack had worked her way through more secretaries and bureaucrats than she’d thought lived in all Manehatten to get here.

“That is rather… believable,” the pegasus paced out from behind her desk. Applejack didn’t see how two green palm trees and an orange crescent moon made a reporter’s cutie mark but she was still a blank flank herself so she couldn’t very well complain. “I pulled a few papers while you were working your way up here and what I’ve read does seem to fit this. The teachers at your school are screaming from every rooftop that they’re short of money and yet when the district did an audit it came through squeaky clean.”

“So you believe me?” Applejack didn’t even try to keep the smile off her face.

“I’m not going that far yet,” Paradise said, “but it looks like you’ve found smoke. And where there’s smoke there’s probably fire. We have a few more investigative tools at our hooves than a high school paper. You’ll probably have to tell your story a few thousand times more but I think I can convince my editors that this is worth looking into.”

Applejack loved the Manehatten University campus. Perhaps more than that she loved being at Manehatten University with a cutie mark. High school had put her among the latest of late comers to getting a cutie mark. She didn’t know any ponies in university without a cutie mark but she liked to think that if she met any the length of time she’d gone without getting her cutie mark would give her some empathy for their plight.

The day the story about Miss Hackney had run had been the greatest day of Applejack’s life. It was a long, long step closer to her dream to be published in a real paper, the Manehatten Times no less! Her aunt and uncle had been beyond proud of the niece who was as close to a daughter as they would ever have. Paradise had been quite happy with the young mare she’d been working with, and she wasn’t exactly distraught that this could help her career for that matter. Applejack had been beside herself when the first paper came off the presses and then Aunt Orange had exclaimed that she was now the proud owner of a cutie mark.

Applejack had been a little worried when Miss Hackney had cried that she would have vengeance as she was being hauled away, but Paradise and the police officers who’d hauled away the ex-principal had assured her that was a common threat and one rarely made good on. The fame hadn’t particularly followed her to university but she and Paradise had kept in touch. She was in fact on her way to see Paradise at the times.

She wasn’t sure why the pegasus wanted to see her but she’d learned from her aunt and uncle never to pass up an opportunity to make, improve, or maintain a business relationship. When she showed up at Paradise’s cubicle she was directed by one of Paradise’s cubicle neighbors to an office instead.

“Hello Applejack,” Paradise smiled as she poked her head into the open door. “How’d you like to come work for me?”

“What?” Applejack hadn’t unintentionally spoken in a drawl since junior high. It was fortunate for her that her streak was broken where only a pony who already knew her could hear.

“I’ll spare you the chain of resignations and promotions,” Paradise waved the other pony into the office. “But I’ve gone from writing about the news to telling other ponies what news to write about. There’s still a hole from my promotion and even though you’re still working on your journalism degree I know that you can do the job. So what do you say?”

“When do I start?” Applejack finally managed to stammer out.

“I’ve thought about doing some night school to finish my degree,” Applejack said as she finished her tale. “But I’m quite satisfied with my job and I haven’t quite talked the paper into paying for it.”

“Great story,” Twilight wheezed. “Now would you all like to take your bags before you have to carry me the rest of the way to Manehatten?”

“An hour and fifteen minutes,” Rarity said matter of factly, “very good for a first try. I’ll expect you to do better tomorrow.”

“I’m going to do this again?!” Twilight gaped at the other unicorn.

“Of course,” Rarity looked as though Twilight had just told her that her mane had turned green. “Everyday if I can manage it.”

“Please don’t get mad Twilight,” Fluttershy barely managed to make herself heard. “We’re only doing this because we’re your friends. And, and we’ll carry your bags for you when you’re not carrying ours if it helps you rest more and feel better.”

Twilight was not sure it was physically possible to be mad at Fluttershy. The righteous indignation she’d been feeling at her friends setting on her fell flat in the face of the yellow pegasus.

“Oh, oh!” They all turned to see Pinkie Pie gesturing frantically, “That pony looks like he’s coming from Manehatten! Let’s ask him what the city’s like.”

Twilight started with the group towards the oncoming pony and then stopped. That pony looked… No, she promised she would never think about that place again!

“Hi there strangers,” the oncoming pony didn’t seem at all sad for a chance to stop pulling the cart behind him. “On your way to…”

Twilight did recognize him. He’d been a regular at ‘that place.’ Worse, he seemed to recognize her. Twilight had served drinks more often than she’d gone up on stage but it wouldn’t have been at all difficult for a regular to learn her face. And the moonlight made the road about as bright as the inside of the club had often been. The perfect circumstances to recognize her, Twilight thought with a sigh.

“Moondancer?” There was no doubt about it now. He knew what she’d been and he was about to blab it to her friends. “Is that you? Touchy Hooves burned and I didn’t hear anything about any of the girls before I had to make this delivery. Are you trying to find a new club in Manehatten? I stopped at The Bare Flank while I was there and it seemed like a good place.”

Twilight couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe there was something to Rarity’s so called training because Twilight could feel far more power than usual easily surge through her horn. The luckless pony who’d recognized her was blasted off the road by a wave of force Twilight conjured. Normally it was a spell outside twilight’s reach but apparently not today. Glancing at the pile of sticks his cart had become Twilight noted a twitch and let out a small sigh of relief. As angry as she was she didn’t want to kill him.

She turned to her friends and saw every question she didn’t want to answer readable on their faces. It had been nice having friends while it lasted but Twilight had long since given up believing that anything could ever go right for her. She briefly considered trying to lie on her hoofs but Applejack was much too good at figuring that sort of thing out and she couldn’t bring herself to lie to the ponies who’d been kindest to her in her whole life next only to her parents.

“Moondancer was my stage name. I worked at Touchy Hooves as a… well no other way to put it, I was a stripper. I never did drugs like all the others or spread my legs! And I only did it to pay for college. Look, thanks for being so kind to me. I’ll help you find that book in Manehatten and then I’ll get out of your way.”

“Twilight,” Rainbow Dash’s face was a mess of emotions. “We don’t… we all got to know you for you. What I’m trying to say is we don’t care about what you did to pay for college. We know Twilight Sparkle and we like her.”

“Thanks for trying,” Twilight refused to look at any of the others. “But you’re not the first group of ponies to find out about what I do for a living. I know how this all works and I don’t like it but that’s the way it is.”

Head low, Twilight slunk off towards Manehatten. The others looked helplessly at each other before starting after their newly wayward friend.

Fair is Foul, and Foul is Fair

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: The power of Twilight Sparkle compels you to realize I don’t own My Little Pony.

Chapter Eight: Fair is Foul, and Foul is Fair

It had been far too long since Rainbow Dash had been able to simply fly. And as far as she was concerned that clock was still running. Sure she’d used her wings plenty on the trip to Manehatten but that had been fighting or scouting. And now that they’d made it to Manehatten did she have time to just fly about the city and enjoy the feelings of defying gravity? Of course not, she had to go fly inconspicuously about the library Applejack wanted them to break into.

They were definitely going to be breaking into the library from the looks of things. The Manehatten Central Library was a sprawling structure of mostly marble facing. The original core of the building was done in a very classical style but its several wings had been added on in whatever style was popular at the time they were built. At the moment ‘impenetrable fortress’ seemed to be the popular style. Rainbow Dash might have been joking if she said there were a dozen royal guards between here and Canterlot, or she might not have been joking. There was definitely something in there Nightmare Moon didn’t want them finding.

Rainbow Dash sighed and was about to head back to Applejack’s apartment when something caught her eye. Amidst the white and gold of the royal guards and the black robes of the Nightmare Children with them a teal unicorn with a white mane stuck out like a sore hoof. She’d never seen Celestia’s traitorous student before now, but Rarity and Twilight had been able to give a quite accurate description of Trixie. Suppressing a groan at being out here even longer Rainbow Dash gradually lowered her orbits around the library to get a closer look.

That proved to be a mistake. High up in the night sky Rainbow Dash was just another pegasus flying about. Once she came down though her rainbow mane stood out enough for anypony who had been told about the ponies behind the trouble in Coltcinnati to immediately pick her out of the crowd.

That was exactly what happened when Trixie shouted, pointed a hoof at Rainbow Dash, and followed up the hoof with a bolt of lightning that narrowly missed the now fleeing pegasus. Had that been the end of it Rainbow Dash would have gotten away completely unscathed. A number of pegasi in gold armor took to their wings upon seeing Trixie’s hoof and were in hot pursuit almost before the unicorn had sent off her bolt of lightning.

Rainbow Dash was by no means a bad flier, but the royal guards could probably out fly anypony short of the Wonderbolts. Pumping her wings with all her might Rainbow Dash sped away from her pursuers into the maze created by the many skyscrapers of Manehatten. The guards certainly had the numbers to swarm large areas but Manehatten was a very large city and Rainbow Dash was one small pony in that very large city.

For all those advantages she still had a number of close calls swooping between the brightly lit buildings. And even mind controlled by Nightmare Moon, Celestia’s guards were proving nothing if not persistent. More than that they were as good as everypony said they were. They nearly collided with each other or with buildings several times while chasing Rainbow Dash, but nearly was always the key word.

For her part though Rainbow Dash was flying for her life, and that meant she was flying with a speed and skill she’d never known she possessed. Under skybridges, between overhangs, and in one case through the girders of a construction crane she weaved a chaotic high speed course she hoped would shake her pursuers. Part of her worried about getting lost, but that was a problem for later.

Gradually some of the guards simply became unable to keep up with the madly careening pegasus and had to drop off or risk injury. She noticed however as more and more of the guards fell behind that a small group of pegasi was keeping pace.
Unlike the rest of her pursuers these pegasi were not white with gold armor. Rather they were garbed in dark flight suits with a winged skull where their cutie marks normally would be. Rainbow Dash looked around and saw no royal guards still pursuing her. Knowing that she could never hope to outrun the Shadowbolts she landed on a rooftop to see if she could talk her way out of her predicament.

“I thought you were going to give me time to think.” Rainbow Dash said as she looked around for any signs of other pursuit.

“You needn’t worry that we’ll be interrupted.” One of the Shadowbolts, leader or merely spokespony Rainbow Dash couldn’t have said, calmly walked up to her. “And we’ve given you five days of time to think our offer through. Your ‘friends’ won’t be too happy to hear that you’ve tipped Trixie off to your being in Manehatten. We merely thought we’d give you the option of coming with us rather than subject yourself to their anger again.”

Rainbow Dash stood and thought about that. She had just blown the element of surprise. Otherwise known as the only thing they had going for them in this crazy adventure. But Applejack had taken her aside on their way to Manehatten and made sure that she knew the other pony wasn’t mad at her for her actions in starting the riot back in Coltcinnati. Plus there was her promise with Twilight Sparkle to get their cutie marks fighting Nightmare Moon. And could she really abandon Fluttershy after everything the other pony had done for her over the years?

Finally Rainbow Dash said, “Is there any way my friends can come along? I know that most of them aren’t pegasi and can’t join the Shadowbolts but they’re all smart, talented ponies who could do a lot of good for Equestria.”

The Shadowbolt sounded awfully insistent. “It has to be you, or do you really think any of your friends would ever think of this as anything other than betraying Celestia? You’re the only one with horizons wide enough to see that helping us is helping Equestria, and helping your friends. And we can protect them too. They would certainly be prisoners, but the others would never stop long enough to take your friends alive.”

Rainbow Dash thought again. The others truly did seem to only be thinking in terms of bringing Celestia back. With her history of one failure after another Rainbow Dash may well have been the only one of the group to actually think about the possibility that they couldn’t beat Nightmare Moon. She thought Twilight might have been able to think along the same lines but the lavender unicorn was so caught up in worrying about her magic and depression over the others finding out that she used to be a stripper that there was room for nothing else in her head.

But if she said yes here and now it would feel like nothing else but leaving her friends hanging. She had to talk to them about this and maybe talk them into this. Rainbow Dash was certain that even broaching the topic of failure, let alone trying to plan for it, would meet a rather hostile reception. She would need a way to make her friends see the possibility of failure without sabotaging anything. And just maybe her latest screw up would be the opportunity she needed.

“I need more time,” she said at last, “I understand what you’re saying but going with you right now would feel like I’m abandoning my friends. Just give me some time to try and talk to them. I don’t know that I can convince them that this would be best for Equestria but I have to try.”

“Take all the time you need,” the Shadowbolt who was speaking with her smiled. “You know the night will last forever so you have all the time in the world. We’ll wait for you to talk with your friends and see how things go from there.”

Twilight Sparkle sat on Applejack’s couch and watched the lights of Manehatten. Canterlot had more ponies living within but so many of those were underground that it never seemed like such a press of ponies as this. And despite all those ponies around her Twilight had never felt more alone in her life.

Her once upon a time friends insisted that knowing about her past didn’t change anything, but Twilight knew better. Her roommates had never treated her quite the same after finding out. He hadn’t said anything but she’d seen the look on Bow Tie’s face when he read that particular line on her resume. And the handful of others who had found out always thought less of her. As much as Twilight appreciated their kindness and generosity in keeping her around a bit of honesty would be refreshing if only to put her on familiar ground.

A knock at the window briefly startled her until she looked up to see Rainbow Dash waiting outside.

“There’s a perfectly good door Rainbow Dash.” Twilight said as she opened the window to let the other pony inside.

“This is faster. You finally finished with your mope parade?”

“It’s not a mope parade,” Twilight glared at the other pony. “Why don’t you just say what you think of the stripper already?”

“We’ve already had that conversation several times Twilight,” Applejack walked into the room. “So how did it go Rainbow Dash?”

“I think we’re in trouble. I thought I saw Trixie at the library and when I went in for a closer look to make sure they saw me. I managed to lose them before I came back here but they’re going to be waiting for us. I think we need to start thinking about a plan b.”

“Nonsense Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said as she, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy all came into the room, “I think we came out quite ahead on that exchange. From the number of guards you’ve seen before it’s clear that what we’re looking for is in there. We now know we have a new enemy to get past and I don’t see how they can do much more to block us off from the library.”

“Can’t do much more?” Rainbow Dash looked at Rarity like the other pony had just spoken in a language she’d never heard. “In a few days they’re going to have so many guards in that library it’ll be impossible to sneak in. We’re all smart and talented ponies. I’m sure we can convince Nightmare Moon to spare our lives. I bet we could even do pretty well for ourselves if we work together.”

“Oh Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie Pie snorted before dissolving into giggles along with everypony except Twilight Sparkle who was still thoroughly mired in sulking.

“You guys I’m serious,” Rainbow Dash glared at her friends. “I’m pretty sure I’ve tanked this whole beat Nightmare Moon plan.”

“It was always a long-shot,” Fluttershy said a she recovered from laughing, “but we all knew that from the beginning. And we haven’t just been sitting around here while you were out scouting. Applejack knows the layout pretty well and we’ve been planning how to search such a large building in a hurry. It might make getting in there a little harder but once we’re in we can pull this off.”

“Look,” Applejack said, “we all knew it was only a matter of time before they found out where we were and what we were up to. This way they don’t know anything more than that we’re in Manehatten so we’re still safe in my apartment. They were already looking for this book we need to find so all they gain is confirming that we’re on to them. And knowing that Trixie is here as well means one less surprise that Nightmare Moon can spring on us tomorrow. I know that anything less than perfection feels like a failure to you but I think I speak for all of us when I say that we came out ahead today.”

“Wait.” Rainbow Dash held up a hoof. “Tomorrow? As in we go to sleep and when we wake up we go do this tomorrow?”

“We’re nearly as ready as we’ll ever be,” Applejack replied. “I’ll drop by my aunt and uncle’s apartment later tonight to say my goodbyes and when I return we can put the finishing touches on our plan. Any delay at this point just lets Nightmare Moon get closer to having enough guards in the library to make sneaking in or out impossible.”

Rainbow Dash looked in disbelief at her friends. “This is…”

“Crazy enough to work,” Rarity interrupted. “We know there’s a book in that library that will tell us how to defeat Nightmare Moon. If we can get in there, get that book, and get out alive this goes from being a crazy scheme to something we really can pull off.”

Rainbow Dash had no response to that.

“It’s taken some doing but I think I can manage Twilight’s quite spell well enough to help us. Twilight, do you feel up to muffling our sounds for a long time? Twilight? Twilight Sparkle, are you listening?”

The lavender unicorn was in fact not listening but was wallowing herself deeper and deeper into self-pity until a poke from Pinkie Pie made her jump halfway to the ceiling.

“What was that for?” Twilight shot a rather offended look at the pink earth pony.

“Twilight we’re trying to make sure we all know our parts for tomorrow,” Applejack answered. “Are you still with us even a little bit?”

“Not really,” Twilight said, “it’s obvious you don’t need me. And I really don’t appreciate all the pity going to poor little Twilight Sparkle. I’m a big pony and I can deal with you not liking me anymore because of what I used to do. So just get it all out of the way and I can be out of your manes so I’m not holding you back tomorrow.”

“That’s not true,” Fluttershy’s gasp still sounded offended even after all Twilight’s protests. “You’re our friend Twilight, and we don’t care what you did to make it through school before you met us. You wouldn’t have to do that now but if you’d known us then you wouldn’t be the Twilight Sparkle sitting here right now.”

“She’s right,” Rainbow Dash said, “I’d give my back left hoof for Fluttershy to not have fallen off that cloud all those years ago but there’s nothing I can do about it now. It’s part of me but I manage to not think about it every time I look in the mirror. Working at a strip club will always be part of you but you have to stop thinking that you’re a stripper every time you look in the mirror. We don’t think that about you. The only one who can think that and kick you out is you.”

“Thanks for the thought you two. It’s definitely the kindest send off I’ve ever gotten but all the strip clubs were on the lower levels of the undercity for a reason. Someday I’ll find somewhere I can get a new start without anypony finding out about my past, and I really wish it had been with you girls. But I learned long ago to not want anything because life is just going to make sure I don’t get it in the cruelest way possible.”

Twilight stood up and her horn began to glow as she summoned her saddlebags. The small bags floated into the front room until they met Applejack’s hoof and stopped.

“Sit down,” Applejack fixed her best imitation of her grandmothers’ stare at the unicorn and it did the job. “Now what makes you think any of us care where you worked? If you think that I never saw the worst parts of Equestria working as a reporter then you really aren’t half as smart as you think you are. I saw plenty of ponies who lived hoof to mouth without anything resembling hope. All they wanted was their next hit of whatever they used to escape the pain, and they didn’t particularly care what they had to do to get the bits for it. You weren’t lying to us when you said you’d never done any of that were you?”

“Of course not!” Twilight protested. “But the next pony who believes me or cares will be the first. Really, I appreciate the kindness you’ve shown me and letting me stay here a few nights is incredibly generous but I know how this works. It’s only a matter of time before you ask me to leave and I’d rather leave on my own terms before that.”

Applejack buried her face in a hoof. “The only thing that’s making me want to throw you out on your tail is your poor little me whine whine whine act. I know some of us have done better than others but none of us was born with a silver spoon in her hoof. I know you’ve had it the worst but we all had to work to get to where we are today. And none of us will judge you for working to get ahead in the world. Anypony who did or does judge you doesn’t deserve to call themself your friend. So let me ask you one more time, are you ready to get off your pity train and help us save the world?”

Twilight opened her mouth several times and never met Applejack’s eyes but she stayed put.

Applejack put a hoof under Twilight’s jaw and brought the other pony’s eyes to her own. “Now listen, what I’m saying to you is the honest truth. We know Twilight Sparkle. We know that Twilight Sparkle used to work at a strip club to pay for college. We liked Twilight Sparkle before we knew she worked at a strip club. And we still like Twilight Sparkle knowing she worked at a strip club. You’re our friend Twilight, and you’re going to have to try a lot harder than working at a strip club to make us stop being your friends.”

Twilight was silent for nearly a minute before tears started welling up in her eyes. In short order she was crying like she’d never cried before into Applejack’s mane.

“You really mean it? You still want to be my friends?”

“Of course we do silly!” Pinkie Pie made an impressive leap onto Twilight Sparkle. “Why would we care that you spent some time walking around like we almost always do? I mean seriously, why do ponies even go to places like that? Wouldn’t it just be easier and cheaper to sit by the street and watch ponies go by?”

Twilight couldn’t hold in her laugh. “Pinkie Pie, I’ve been wondering that since about a week after I started. I still don’t have an answer.”

“Twilight, darling, why ever would you think we would care about something like that?” Twilight looked to see that Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash had all joined the group hug. “I’ve seen you perform downright terrifying magic and I’m still proud to call myself your friend. Applejack is right dear, you’ll have to work much harder to stop being our friend.”

“She’s right,” Fluttershy said, “there’s nothing wrong with what you did. And even if it was wrong, what kind of friends would we be if we didn’t forgive you?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash added, “we’d never leave you hanging.”

“I’m sorry girls,” Twilight sniffled. “It’s just that other than my parents nopony ever really cared about me. And I hope you can understand that I really didn’t want them finding out about my job. There was one pony who worked with me I thought was different, but Rarity can tell you how that turned out.”

“Not well, I assure you. Now I don’t mean to sound insensitive Twilight, but if it’s not too much trouble we really should get back to planning how we’re going to break into the library tomorrow morning.”

Twilight rubbed her face with her hooves. “Right, I promised myself I never wanted to think about that place again and I won’t! Let’s figure out how to get this book out from under Trixie’s grubby little hoofs.”

“That’s the spirit!” Applejack slapped Twilight on the back. “Now, Rarity was saying that she can use your quiet spell to get us into the library through the sewers.”

“Only under protest,” Rarity interrupted, “I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to get the smell out of my coat or my mane back to what it was before all this began.”

“I’m sure you’ll survive,” Applejack deadpanned. “As I was saying, Rarity can get us into the library. Hopefully once we’re in we won’t need to be as quiet since it appears that most of their effort is being directed towards keeping us out in the first place. If you can manage to silence yourself and Rainbow Dash I think it would be best to have only you two looking. I know you two don’t want to split up the group but stealth will be our only hope and the smaller our numbers in any one place the better.”

“As long as I don’t have to keep it up all the time I should be able to manage two ponies. Say, if I only have to do it when we land or if we spot somepony and need to hide.”

“Wonderful,” Rarity said, “covering four ponies won’t be particularly easy. But if we can find a dark corner and stay still it shouldn’t be too hard to keep up while you two search for a likely book.”

At that moment a swirl of green fire erupted over Rarity’s head and solidified into a corner of paper that floated down in front of the surprised ponies.

After staring at it for several long seconds Rarity plucked the paper from the air with her magic and read it. “The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide, I recognize this handwriting! Celestia’s dragon, Spike, must have overheard Nightmare Moon and Trixie talking and somehow managed to send this to us. Oh I don’t know how he managed to do this but bless his little heart.”

“This is it!” Twilight took the piece of paper. “This must be the look we’re looking for. I don’t know what these ‘Elements of Harmony’ are supposed to be, but if this tells us where we have to go to find them we could have a real chance of beating Nightmare Moon!”

“I don’t recognize the title,” Applejack said, “but I do know where they keep all the reference materials. Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, I think with this in our hooves you two should simply speed through that particular part of the library to find the book. We’re certainly going to have to make sure that we’re all ready to leave Manehatten in a hurry tomorrow. I don’t think we’re coming back here and I don’t think we’ll have many chances to rest once we get this book.”

The next hour or so was spent cramming what useful goods they could into their saddlebags and making a list of what they still needed. After a simple but welcome dinner Applejack and Fluttershy, the only two with a chance of not bringing the guards down on them, set out to buy what they could off the list of things they still needed to live cut off from towns and cities.

Stores were still selling but both of them were shocked at how much prices had skyrocketed in the two weeks since Nightmare Moon had come to power. Suddenly that large store of bits they had didn’t seem so large anymore.

“I think that’s everything we’re going to be able to get.” Applejack looked at their list as they walked out of a store. “Or at least that’s as many bits as I feel comfortable spending right now when we don’t know when we’ll be able to get more.”

“We have to stop Nightmare Moon,” Fluttershy said, “if we don’t stop her soon ponies are going to start starving soon because they can’t afford food. I’ll go back to your apartment now if you want to go say goodbye to your aunt and uncle.”

“Thanks,” Applejack said, “I won’t stay long. We’re all going to need our sleep if we’re going to be ready for tomorrow.”

Applejack waved to the other pony and started off towards her aunt and uncle’s condominium dearly hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she ever saw them.

The Game's Ahoof

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: Going once! Going twice! I don’t own My Little Pony!

Chapter Nine: The Game’s Ahoof

Twilight Sparkle fought back a yawn. The moon was high in the sky as it always was since Celestia disappeared, but she was pretty sure they were up early enough for the moon to still be in the sky even if Celestia had never left. Manehatten was a city that never slept, but there were definitely hours where it dozed. With bulging saddlebags and coffee in their systems trying to keep them awake six ponies made their way through near deserted streets.

“I’ve been out at plenty of odd hours before but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Manehatten this quiet.”

“I’m not surprised Applejack,” Twilight said, “with Nightmare Moon’s thugs all over the city what pony in their right mind would want to go anywhere they could run into them?”

Having gotten up earlier than the others to primp herself Rarity looked especially tired. “She certainly has enough thugs out in this city. Fluttershy, dear, was it this bad when you and Applejack were out last night?”

“No, it wasn’t nearly this bad last night.”

“Oh that Queen Meanie really makes me mad! Keeping ponies inside and afraid, ponies should be able to go out and laugh and be happy.”

Across the street they watched a pony in black robes kick another pony out at this early hour to the ground and walk off laughing. It wasn’t the first time this morning they’d seen ponies loyal to Nightmare Moon assaulting civilians for what seemed no reason whatsoever.

“Come on,” Rainbow Dash said, “he looks alone. We could drop him and be back on our way to the library in a minute.”

Applejack put a restraining hoof on the other pony’s shoulder. “That’s exactly what Trixie and Nightmare Moon want us to do. Trixie and the guards with her are in the library right now searching for our reference guide. And even if it’s just a minute we delay out here it’s another minute they have to find and destroy that book and plunge Equestria into truly eternal night.”

“That’s a change of pace,” Rainbow Dash smiled grimly. “I remember you wanting to charge back into Coltcinnati and break some heads.”

“That was a mistake,” Applejack said, “as much good as we did there we’ve put ourselves at a much greater risk of losing everything to Nightmare Moon forever. Besides Rainbow Dash, you don’t think they’re going to let us simply stroll out of Manehatten do you? Once we have that book every guard and Nightmare Child in the city is going to descend on the library and do their best to kill us. I’m sure you’ll get your fill of breaking heads and more before we escape Manehatten.”

“We’re here,” Rarity interrupted.

‘Here’ was a ponyhole cover into the sewers under Manehatten. It would be wet, cramped, smelly, bug infested, dirty, dark, potentially dangerous, and all around unpleasant for everypony. But they were all sure enough to risk their lives that neither Trixie nor Nightmare Moon would expect them to try to enter the library from below.

Looking around to make sure they were alone Applejack signaled the all clear after several seconds that seemed to last about an hour. The metal circle was surrounded by a blue glow, lifted, and settled on the pavement without making a sound.

“That smell is simply horrid! There’s no way I’m going down into that rotten place.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Twilight stepped up to the hole. “I’ll go first and light the way. Rarity, you go last so we have light behind us as well.”

Twilight wouldn’t admit it but Rarity was right, the sewer smelled absolutely terrible. Twilight had read that toxic gasses could easily build up in the cramped corridors they were going into and she hoped that they would safely make it to the library. But, like she’d said, they didn’t have a choice about going through the sewers. Taking one last breath of clean smelling air she lit her horn and descended the ladder. The Manehatten sewers were clearly not designed for unicorn comfort. She was going to have to pitch her head forward to avoid having her horn scrape the rock above.

“Applejack, are you behind me?” Twilight didn’t dare move her head to look behind.
“Yes,” came the answer, “what do you need?”

“Slight hitch in our plan. I can’t look very far ahead unless I want to grind my horn on the roof. You’re going to have to look over my shoulder and navigate us to the library.”

A slight blue glow came from behind and Twilight knew that everypony was down in the sewer. She stepped towards the library and on her very first step her hoof came down into something she didn’t want to think about. Twilight bit back a sigh and tried to reassure herself by thinking that this had to happen sooner or later and now it was over. Or at least she hoped it was over.

As they walked a series of whimpers somehow managed to reach Twilight’s ears. “Just put one hoof in front of the other Rarity. Don’t think about what’s under your hooves, or what’s getting into your mane, or how long it’s going to take to get this smell out of your coat. You’re trying to save the world and sacrifices must be made!”

Twilight straightened as much as she could and quickened her pace. Her friends couldn’t be having any fun down here, not even Pinkie Pie. And while she didn’t want to admit it to anypony else she was close to terrified that they were going to get to the library just in time to see The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide go up in flames.

“Turn left here.”

Twilight didn’t know how Applejack knew where to go but then all she could see was the dirty water and other things she wasn’t thinking about on the sewer floor. She turned when the sewer widened slightly in a four way intersection. Craning her eyes up as much as she could Twilight could see the bottom of the plaque that numbered this intersection. Had she been on her own her only choices would have been blind wondering or crouching into the muck below to read the signs. Suddenly Twilight was struck with gratitude for her friends being down here with her.

They slowly made their way through the sewers for close to an hour. Above ground it would have taken a fraction of the time. But above ground there were countless guards and Nightmare Children all looking for them. The air quality was not improving with time and Twilight was beginning to worry that even if they didn’t run into any toxic gases simple lack of oxygen would do them in.

At last though Applejack shouted that there was an open area ahead she believed to be below the library. Running was out of the question, but Twilight still went as fast as she could for the open area. The air wasn’t much better on the broad brick floor but at least Twilight didn’t feel like she was slowly suffocating anymore.

As soon as Rainbow Dash entered the open area she opened her wings and seemed to revel in it. “I am so glad we’re done with that. Pegasi are not meant to go underground.”

Rarity for her part looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown after so long in the dirty and smelly sewer.

“Twilight, darling,” her smile was clearly on the verge of cracking, “would you mind opening our way into the library?”

Twilight nodded and propped herself on the ladder leading to the ponyhole cover into the library. A magenta glow surrounded it, it started to lift, and…

“It’s locked,” Twilight said.

“Just push the locks,” Rarity was sounding dangerously close to panic. “You can do it Twilight.”

Twilight turned her attention back to the lid, lifted it, and then focused her magic on the two padlocks holding it down. She briefly tested the locks and was not surprised to find the iron rather unmoving. Closing her eyes Twilight started to push the body and arched connector in separate directions. The metal of course resisted this and Twilight began to push harder.

Rarity had tried to drill into her head over and over that Twilight’s biggest obstacle to unlocking her full potential was herself. Twilight still doubted that she had power enough to make Rarity and Trixie look like rank amateurs, but she had to admit to herself that she’d made rather impressive progress under Rarity’s teaching.

The metal resisted, Twilight took a deep breath and tapped into her power. As though it were just over her shoulder she could feel the bottomless well of power she’d used to drive off Trixie and kill Arabus. It scared her quite a bit to think that she might be able to unleash that side of herself at will. It seemed though like every day she could push a little closer to that well without falling in. Twilight pushed up to the edge and felt the satisfying feeling of the metal in the lock giving way.

“We’re in,” she turned to her friends, “I’ll use my quiet spell and poke my head up.”

Twilight’s horn glowed, the ponyhole cover slid aside, and silent as a shadow she went up the ladder.

Pinkie Pie walked next to Rarity. “Wow, Twilight was really something wasn’t she. You’re a great teacher!”

“I suppose so,” Rarity stammered, her surroundings forgotten for the moment. “The student has already surpassed the master though. Twilight broke those locks in a few minutes. If I’d been doing it we would have been down here half the day for me to work one to where I could snap it. And I don’t think she was trying all that hard. If she ever realizes how truly powerful she is I don’t know if anypony this side of Celestia or Nightmare Moon could beat her in a straight fight.”

“I’m no magical expert,” Applejack said, “but from what you’re saying it sounds like Twilight is developing her magical power extremely quickly. Is that normal?”

Rarity started pacing back and forth. “I’m not sure. Unicorns normally take a number of years to develop their full power. It wouldn’t do to have a foal’s temper tantrum cause major damage because of their power after all. It could be that because Twilight is older her power is growing more quickly. Or her stunted development could be a product of her injury when she was younger and her rather lacking magical education. The simple fact is that I really don’t know why her power is increasing so fast or where it will stop. I’d be lying if I said that thought didn’t scare me a bit.”

“But she’s still our friend isn’t she?” They all looked over to see Fluttershy actually speaking. “I mean if something like this is happening to her we can’t let her go through it all alone can we?”

“Of course not!” Rainbow Dash seemed to bristle at the thought. “Even if we have to drag her kicking and screaming the whole way we’re going to do what’s right for her. And that means sticking by her no matter how much she whines that she’s dangerous.”

“It’s clear,” Twilight’s head poked back down through the hole. “The ladder comes up into a maintenance room. Trixie put guards in the main hall though.”

A glorified janitor’s closet was a bit cramped for six ponies all at once but between being a bit cramped and going back down into the sewer it wasn’t much of a choice.

Rainbow Dash silently opened the door and looked through the crack. “I don’t think we can sneak through that.”
“I haven’t come this far just to give up,” Applejack said, “think we can them?”

Rainbow Dash looked back into the main hall. “I don’t know. There’s about twenty-odd of them but if we can take them by surprise…”

“Intruders!” A guard shouted.

“So much for surprise!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she shot out of the door in a rainbow colored blur.

“Let’s not let Rainbow Dash scout anymore,” Twilight sighed, “she gets caught too much.”

The other five burst out of the door and the battle was joined. Twilight took a brief look around her and her horn started glowing. A metal book cart lifted and sped towards a unicorn in the black robes of a Nightmare Child. His horn took on a whitish glow and Twilight felt the cart slow a little, but it only slowed a little before plowing the unicorn into a wall.

She paused briefly to make sure Fluttershy was staying out of danger. The Yellow Pegasus had come out of the maintenance room with the rest of them but had taken refuge behind the librarian’s desk. It was a heavy construction of marble topped solid oak so as long as nopony went after her directly Fluttershy was considerably safer than the rest of them.

As Twilight turned her attention back to the rest of the battle she saw a guard pegasus break off from Rainbow Dash and speed towards the gigantic front windows. He could only be trying to alert the main body of guards and Nightmare Children and if he succeeded they’d be swamped by sheer numbers. Stopping a pegasus mid-flight was a difficult undertaking and Twilight wasn’t sure she was up to it. But Rarity either didn’t see the pegasus or was too busy to deal with him so Twilight didn’t have a choice. Her horn started glowing again and a magenta glow surrounded the pegasus’ tail. Being a rather unrefined version of the spell it didn’t quite stop the fleeing pegasus. Instead it yanked his tail right off. Suddenly off balance and in a considerable amount of pain the pegasus fell from the sky into a collection of shelves.

Twilight didn’t know what had happened to the guard but before she could start worrying if she’d hurt somepony her attention was taken by an earth pony Nightmare Child who came at her with a knife in her mouth. Twilight jumped back and yanked a small statue of a foal reading a book off its pedestal. Despite having a larger weapon with a longer reach Twilight was a complete novice with weapons and possessed next to no natural talent to fall back on.

So fall back she did. It was quite lucky for Twilight that the central wing of the Manehatten Library was a large open area designed mostly for ponies to sit down and read a good book without crowding each other. Several times Twilight fell backwards over large plush chairs and avoided being cut by distressingly narrow margins. As much as Twilight was worried about fighting a clearly superior opponent it was the look on the other pony’s face that truly scared her. Like Shady back in Canterlot this pony looked like she had felt set upon her whole life and looked forward to getting her revenge on as many ponies as she could in as painful and bloody a manner as she could. Looking into those eyes Twilight knew she wasn’t just facing a pony who would kill her but one who would enjoy every moment of it.

Suddenly an earth pony guard came flying into the Nightmare Child attacking Twilight and sent her sprawling into a pile of limbs on the floor. Twilight looked to see where the pony had come from and saw Pinkie Pie still facing off against six ponies. These guards and Nightmare Children seemed leagues above Arabus’ guards and Pinkie Pie was barely holding her own against them. Watching for a few seconds Twilight managed to identify the most dangerous pony and used the statue she’d grabbed to knock him unconscious from behind.

“Thanks Twilight!” Pinkie Pie shouted as she ducked under several attacks and sent another of her attackers flying to land on one of the unicorns attacking Rarity.

Rarity had ripped up a number of the polished granite floor tiles and was whirling them about her in a shield that her attackers couldn’t get through. This however had the effect of equally sealing Rarity in. Moreover while the library was a rather large place there were still only so many floor tiles and Rarity’s attackers showed no signs of slowing their assault.

Twilight couldn’t quite hold in her chuckle as she brought her statue back to float in front of her. “I don’t think this is quite what my teachers meant when they said that knowledge is a weapon.”

Again her trusty statue turned blunt weapon served her well. The three unicorns attacking Rarity were suddenly two unicorns. Taking advantage of the help Rarity made her shield of floor tiles explode outwards and in short order the two unicorns had taken several rather heavy granite tiles to the face and joined their comrade on the ground.

Suddenly the twenty-something attackers had been reduced to eight and those that didn’t jerkily fight under clear mind-control were feeling the fear of being so thoroughly beaten about. Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack quickly rejoined the two unicorns and they confidently faced down the guards and Nightmare Children still standing against them.

“You know,” Rainbow Dash said, “I still say if this doesn’t work out we can make some nice positions for ourselves under Nightmare Moon. I mean look at how we’re taking out her minions.”

Applejack’s look said plenty about what she thought of that idea. “We’re going to pull this off Rainbow Dash. Nopony said it was going to be easy, and it hasn’t been easy. But look how far we’ve come and how well we’re doing. Now let’s finish these ponies off so we can be on our way.”

“Get them!” One of the remaining Nightmare Children shouted. “For Nightmare Moon!”

Rarity and Twilight both lifted heavy chairs and took down a pair of royal guards. Rainbow Dash took advantage of the large open area to lift up the last royal guard and drop him from a height that would keep him from getting back up for awhile but was unlikely to be fatal.

That left five Nightmare Children standing. Despite being clearly outclassed they showed no signs of giving up. Instead they tightened their grips on their motley assortment of weapons and charged. They made up for a shortage of skill with sheer brutality. Their attacks were clumsy and easily deflected but each attempt at a blow was an attempt at a killing blow so Twilight and her friends had to be cautious.

Not surprisingly Pinkie Pie was the first to overcome her opponent. As soon as she could help one of her other friends it was a simple chain reaction until all the Nightmare Children were unconscious on the floor.

“Are you girls alright?” Fluttershy crept out from behind the desk she’d taken shelter under.

“You even have to ask?” Rainbow Dash brushed at some imaginary dust on her coat.

“Well it looked like quite the fight,” Fluttershy said, “and I couldn’t watch everything all at once so I didn’t know if one of you had gotten hurt while I wasn’t watching.”

“I hate to sound so grim,” Applejack blew at one of her mane curls that had fallen loose, “but with the way they were swinging their weapons around if we’d gotten hurt I think it would have been impossible to miss.”

“I guess,” Fluttershy looked down at the floor. “Oh! I almost forgot about the other ponies who got hurt!”

“Come on,” Rainbow Dash said, “they were trying to kill us. I don’t think you need to worry too much about what happens to them.”

“No!” Fluttershy’s glare made the other pony take an involuntary step back. “If we only show kindness to our friends then how are we any kinder than Nightmare Moon? Real kindness has to be given to anypony, anywhere, at any time.”

Fluttershy walked over to the guard who’d had his tail accidentally ripped out by Twilight Sparkle and set to work. They didn’t have many medical supplies nor did she have much time to work but she managed to bandage the stump of his tail and ensure that he wouldn’t bleed out and might someday heal from this injury.

Most of the guards and Nightmare Children were simply unconscious so Fluttershy was able to move quite quickly only pausing here and there to bandage small cuts. When she came to the earth pony who had been attacking Twilight though she jumped back in surprise. The peach colored pony was still thrashing about clumsily, her dark pink mane spread about on the ground from all her flailing.

“Won’t let you take me alive,” she said weakly. “Rather die than fall into Celestia’s hoofs.”

Fluttershy cautiously walked back up to the other pony. “We won’t hurt you. We didn’t even want to fight you in the first place. It’s why we were trying to sneak by you. Now, my name is Fluttershy and I’m a doctor, or at least I was almost done with medical school. It means I try to help everypony I come across who needs it. What’s your name?”

The other pony gave back a flat look. “I’m not telling you anything. Celestia banished Nightmare Moon to the Moon for daring to fight back against her tyranny. You’re all her loyal little dogs so I know what’s coming. Go ahead and do your worst!”

“I would never!” Fluttershy stepped back. “I told you, I promised to heal anypony I came across who needed it. I can’t promise that we won’t tie you up afterwards to keep you from stopping us. But we won’t hurt anypony more than we have to.”

Fluttershy slowly approached the other pony again. The peach colored mare stiffened when Fluttershy laid a hoof on one of her legs bent at an obviously broken angle.

“Your leg is broken,” Fluttershy said, “and it’s going to hurt a lot when I set it, but if I don’t it won’t heal properly. Alright, I’ll set it on three. One… two… three!”

Twilight probably only imagined that she heard bones grinding against each other when Fluttershy set the other pony’s leg but it looked extremely painful nonetheless.

Fluttershy looked around her and grabbed a pair of broken table legs. A roll of packing tape found in the librarian’s desk bound the table legs about the pony’s leg into a crude but effective splint.

“I’d stay off that leg for several weeks if I were you,” Fluttershy looked over her makeshift splint. “And you really should get that splint replaced by a proper cast as soon as you can.”

“You, you helped me.” The peach colored pony didn’t sound like she quite believed what she was saying. “Nopony outside the lowest levels of the undercity would ever help any of us. I… my name’s Patch.”

“Nice to meet you Patch,” Fluttershy smiled. “That’s a lovely cutie mark you have, what’s your special talent?”

Patch looked at the square of cloth adorning her flank. “The basics of survival are hard to come by on the lowest levels of the undercity. I’m good at finding materials to make clothes out of and then making clothes.”

“That’s a great talent to have Patch. You get to help out all your friends and you can see the difference you’re making in their lives.”

“You’re here for the book aren’t you,” Patch’s answer wasn’t a question. “We aren’t supposed to know much beyond what you look like and that we’re supposed to kill you on sight, but Trixie can’t keep her voice down any more than I can raise the moon.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened at the answer. “Have you found it? Do you know where it is?”

“Not as of forty-five minutes ago. Trixie has her mind controlled guards searching the southern wing. They searched the first floor and I guess they didn’t find it because Trixie is sending them back in to search the other floors. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Probably because I don’t have the slightest clue how to act when somepony is actually showing me kindness.”

“Don’t worry,” Fluttershy said, “we won’t tell anypony that you told us all this. Now you just lie down and I’m sure you’ll be asleep before you know it.”

“That was amazing Fluttershy!” Twilight gaped at her friend as she walked back towards them.

“It’s like I said before,” Fluttershy looked quite pleased with herself, “sometimes we all just need to be shown a little kindness.”

“Well then what are we waiting for?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I’ll take Twilight up to that window over the door, she can use her quiet spell and pry it open without anypony noticing, Fluttershy and I can slip in, grab the book, and be gone before Trixie knows what’s going on.”

“Make sure to grab a few books on either side of it when you find the book. For all we know The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide isn’t the only book to talk about Nightmare Moon and any information we can find from other books will be a big help.”

“Right,” Rainbow Dash nodded, “now let’s go steal a book!”

Rainbow Dash hooked a hoof under each of Twilight’s front legs and the two lifted off. The window in question opened directly onto the third floor and if they could silently open it they would be able to move about completely undetected.

“Is that Trixie down there?” Rainbow Dash was pointing at a blue unicorn with a white mane.

“Yeah,” Twilight said, “but the armor is new. I guess her ego makes her want to look like Nightmare Moon in addition to being her student.”

Trixie had donned a series of metal plates that were a lesser imitation of Nightmare Moon’s armor. The effect was rather lessened by her lack of wings and the fact that her helmet didn’t want to lie particularly flat on her mane.

“It doesn’t matter,” Twilight turned her attention back to the window. “Let me get this window open and we’ll be set.”

Twilight’s horn started glowing and slowly a group of window panes just larger than a pegasus started glowing with the same magenta glow.

“Here goes,” Twilight muttered.

The window panes started to silently slide out. Twilight stuck her tongue between her lips and focused on keeping everything utterly silent. Then she sprung the trap that had been laid on the window. A massive magical surge pulsed through the window and into Twilight. As blackness took hold Twilight Sparkle pushed the last bits of magic she could control into keeping the trap focused entirely on her.

All the World's a Stage

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: Remember two things. Exercise daily, and I don’t own My Little Pony.

Chapter Ten: All the World’s a Stage

Twilight blinked away the blackness as consciousness slowly returned. Groaning at how sore she was the lavender unicorn rubbed at her eyes with her hoofs. She knew she had to get back up but while she was down she wanted to take just a few seconds to relax on her soft bed.

Wait, soft bed?

“Twilight!” The cry came from several throats and suddenly the pony in question found herself pressed into the bed by the weight of several ponies.

She opened her eyes to a riot of colors. Snapping her eyes shut against the onrush of her senses Twilight gathered herself and slowly opened her eyes again. The riot of colors came back but this time Twilight was ready for it, and after a short while the colors resolved themselves into the coats of her friends.

“Girls?” Twilight croaked. Her throat felt like she’d had barely anything to drink for days. But that was impossible; she’d had breakfast at Applejack’s apartment before leaving for the… the library!

Her friends slid off her when they heard her speaking and Twilight took the opportunity to examine her surroundings. She was lying in a positively opulent four post bed with enough pillows to serve her entire apartment building back in the undercity. The slightest movement told her that the sheets were made of silk and she suspected the curtains hanging from each post would prove similarly soft.

The room she was in would probably better be described as part of a suite than a single room. The floor was polished black marble with flecks of what looked like gold in each tile. Plush carpets, Twilight assumed they were made of silk or something equally expensive, were strewn liberally about the open areas. The walls, at least the ones she could see, were an expensive looking white limestone that reflected light about the room.

Finally her eyes came to rest on the bookshelves. Virtually every inch of wall that wasn’t a window or a hardwood paneled door was given over to shelf after shelf of books. If Twilight didn’t know better she’d swear somepony had emptied half the royal library and brought it into this room just for her. Here and there a few curtains hung in dark yet tasteful colors, but a quick estimate made Twilight think those spaces were where another bookshelf wouldn’t quite fit.

“We were so worried about you Twilight.” Fluttershy’s voice brought Twilight out of her observations and back to her friends.

“You gave us quite a fright there darling,” Rarity said.

“What, what happened?” Twilight asked. “Last thing I remember we were in the library in Manehatten and I was opening that window. I think there was a spell on it or something because after I got the window pane out the whole world went black.”

“Oh dear,” Fluttershy’s smile dropped, “I was afraid this would happen.”

Twilight looked at her friend’s faces for an answer that wasn’t coming. “Afraid what would happen?”

“Best just to say it straight out,” Applejack said. “You’ve got a fair case of memory loss.”

“Memory loss?” Twilight looked and saw no hint of joking on her friend’s faces. “I… Well… How did that happen?”

“Trixie,” Rarity scowled at the name. “She’s never been able to let go of her jealousy for you and this time she took it too far. I have it on very good authority though that she didn’t get away this time and she’ll finally pay for her crimes.”

“And good riddance to her!” Rainbow Dash pounded the large bed with a hoof. “I’m only sorry I wasn’t the one to bring her in.”

Turning to look at Rainbow Dash almost made Twilight jump out of her fur. Her friend was wearing a dark purple flight suit with black hoof coverings. A pair of goggles hung around her neck and where her cutie mark would appear once she got it there was a winged skull emblazoned on the flight suit.

Apparently though Twilight’s surprise was enough to draw the notice of her friends. “I told you not to wear that fashion disaster,” Rarity scolded. “Even if Twilight had all her memories I can hardly imagine wanting to wake up to that.”

“Well excuse me, princess demandy-pants. Some of us happen to have real jobs around here and we were actually working before coming here. Besides, once Twilight gets her memory back she’ll be fine and we’ll all laugh about this.”

“I have a real job,” Rarity scoffed. “How well do you think you would eat without the food my ministry distributes?”

“Pretty well,” Rainbow Dash laughed, “what pony in their right mind would say no to the Shadowbolts?”

“Twilight!” The unicorn in question could have sworn she heard Applejack’s voice, but when she looked over at her friend all she got was a questioning glance in return. “Sorry, I thought you said something.”

Rarity and Rainbow Dash were glaring at each other, clearly ready to restart their sniping, when they were interrupted by Pinkie Pie. “Come on you two. I’ve been telling you over and over that only ponies like Trixie win when we fight each other.”

“Indeed,” boomed a voice from the doorway, “I do not like my highest ranked subordinates fighting.”

Twilight looked where the voice came from and saw a midnight black alicorn in armor and with the night sky for a mane standing in the door to her room. Every instinct in her body said to fight or flee but sheer surprise suppressed those instincts when she saw her friends bowing before the pony she could have sworn was supposed to be their mortal foe.

“Welcome back my faithful student. It is good to see you are unharmed.”

Faithful… Student? She was Nightmare Moon’s student? Twilight had lost more than just her memories, she’d lost her entire world. What could have happened that she’d gone from trying to overthrow Nightmare Moon to taking Trixie’s place at her side?

“Um, your majesty,” Fluttershy squeaked, waiting for Nightmare Moon to glace her way before continuing. “It looks like Twilight has lost a lot of her memory. She said right after waking up that the last thing she remembers is breaking into the library in Manehatten.”

“I see,” Nightmare Moon stepped into the room. “You must find the world changed a great deal from what you remember. I will allow your friends to bring you up to speed. After that, meet me in my private study.”

Twilight nodded numbly at the retreating monarch and then turned back to her friends.

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy was smiling, “we’re here for you Twilight. We’ll help you get over any bumps till you’re back to normal.”

“I…” Twilight paused and thought. “What happened after I opened that window?”

“We got the book darling,” Rarity said.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, “Fluttershy and I went in and they never saw us. We scooped up your precious reference guide and by the time we came back you were starting to come to.”

“It was that easy?” Twilight knew her friends wouldn’t lie to her but she couldn’t quite believe what they were saying.

“Come on Twilight,” Pinkie Pie grinned. “After all the work we put into getting that book we deserved to pull it off like that.”

“Besides,” Applejack shouldered aside her friends, “that’s not the whole story. After you got back on your hooves we went back into the sewers. We started heading out of the city in a random direction to throw off all the pursuers Trixie was going to send our way. We were going to read the book once we were safe but when we came up onto a deserted street it wasn’t quite as deserted as we thought. Nightmare Moon was waiting for us.”

“And we’re still alive how?”

“That’s what we thought at the time,” Applejack continued. “We knew how completely outclassed we were and I don’t think any of us expected to live past the next few minutes. But thankfully for us Nightmare Moon had something different in mind. Rather than wiping us out she offered us a chance to work for her. Of course the alternative was wiping us out but we were still quite surprised to get the offer in the first place. It turns out she’d been watching us and was impressed with us. At the start we were skeptical to say the least, but she lived up to her end.”

“Not killing us or giving us fancy jobs?”

“Both, darling,” Rarity took over. “Nightmare Moon wanted to reorganize the government she’d taken over from Celestia but she needed capable ponies to put in charge. After seeing us in action she’d decided we could be those ponies. It was, I admit, a bit of a shock coming back to Canterlot in the company and employ of the pony we’d sworn to vanquish. And it took more than a little getting used to at first to work with ponies we’d previously seen as villains. But, we were all there to serve Nightmare Moon and Equestria. Over time it became easier for all of us.”

“But what about all the horrible things she wanted to do? All those terrible things you read about in Coltcinnati.”

Rarity’s smile somehow didn’t make it to her eyes. “If we’d said no in Manehatten we couldn’t have done anything to help anypony ever again. Here though, even if we can’t stop all those things from happening we can at least make sure they aren’t as bad as they might have been. Scant comfort sometimes, but the simple fact is that we lost the second Nightmare Moon defeated Celestia.”

“What about Trixie? Didn’t you say she attacked me or something?”

“She’s a traitor twice over,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. “When we got back to Canterlot and Nightmare Moon made you her student Trixie decided to do what we’d been trying to do. She proved rather dangerous already knowing where the elements were, but she couldn’t beat the six of us when she was working for Nightmare Moon, and she had even less of a chance once we were working for Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight flopped back into her pillows. “I’m going to need a really strong drink or a lot of time to process all this. Any idea when all my memories are supposed to come back?”

“I don’t know,” everypony turned to Fluttershy at the question, “it could be in an hour or you could never get that part of your life back. Memory loss can be tricky to deal with under the best of circumstances, and magically induced memory loss isn’t the best of circumstances. The best thing we can do is keep you in familiar surroundings and help you through this.”

“We’ll give you a few minutes to yourself,” Rarity said, “but do stop by our suites after you speak with Nightmare Moon. Even if you don’t remember anything we can still give you a list of do’s and don’ts to help you muddle through until your memories do come back.”

“Twilight!” She swore she heard Rainbow Dash cry. “Did you say something Rainbow Dash?”

“What?” The pegasus turned around. “No. Just hurry up and get better, okay?”

Twilight waved to her friends as they walked out the door. Slowly she slid out of bed and began walking around her bedroom. She walked over to a full-length mirror and took a look at herself. Lavender coat, purple eyes, horn in place, same neatly trimmed mane, and was that a cutie mark? She turned to look at her flank and sure enough there was a crescent moon and what she took to be several stars adorning her flank. Twilight wasn’t sure what to make of that. Yes she’d dreamed of getting her cutie mark for years, but to get one serving Nightmare Moon?

Pushing the thought out of her mind she walked out into the hall, and realized she had no idea where to go. Fortunately a royal guard was standing outside her door and motioned for her to follow him. As they walked through the halls Twilight realized that she was quite content to be following. She’d gotten a look at his eyes and they had the soulless look of a pony being mind controlled by Nightmare Moon. How could her friends and her other self ever be okay with that?

And this all felt… wrong somehow. She’d never been in the royal castle so she had no clue how it was supposed to look, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with her beyond losing her memories. She looked around and didn’t see anything particularly odd or out of place but that subtle feeling refused to go away.

Being apparently incapable of speech the guard simply stopped when they reached Nightmare Moon’s study. Fortunately however he was also apparently incapable of getting mad when Twilight unceremoniously walked into him from behind. Silently the guard walked away and Twilight was alone.

She waited several long seconds before knocking on the door. At the summons from within she opened the door and stepped into the study of her worst enemy, and apparently lately her master.

“Ah, Twilight Sparkle, it is good to see you up and about. Good help has been almost impossible to come by since I banished Celestia and destroying every rebel group by myself would prove endlessly tedious.”

Twilight blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry, I’m not quite following you.”

Nightmare Moon walked out from behind the large desk. “Simply put, there are still ponies who resist my rule. As my apprentice it is your duty to use what I teach you to put an end to them.”

“I… kill ponies?”

“Oh I can see you have lost your memory,” Nightmare Moon chuckled. “What did you think your cutie mark represented? Your special talent is helping me bring about nighttime eternal. I think I’ll order the executioners to make Trixie’s death a particularly long and painful one for stripping me of your assistance.”

Twilight fought every instinct in her body not to scream and run from the room.

“I suppose I can place your brother in charge of the squads that will carry out your duties while you’re incapacitated. Talent appears to run in your family.”

Shining Armor? But Twilight had made absolutely sure to not mention that her brother was a royal guard. She’d made sure to not mention she had a brother at all. If he were to show up and attack them she didn’t know that she could raise a hoof to defend herself. But a Twilight Sparkle working for Nightmare Moon wouldn’t have that problem. In fact, being Nightmare Moon’s apprentice’s brother would probably help his career. Back before she’d lost her memory, the real world a part of her mind insisted, he’d only been promoted to a junior lieutenant a few weeks before the Summer Sun Celebration. She rather fondly remembered that their parents had taken them both out to dinner to celebrate his promotion and her impending graduation.

“My brother?” Twilight finally stammered.

“Ah, I can see how you’d ask that,” Nightmare Moon’s smile failed to reassure Twilight. “Since you and your friends joined me I’ve been trying to find among the guards ponies who can operate for me on their own initiative. One of your first acts as my apprentice was to suggest your brother and convince him to accept my offer.”

Twilight sighed in relief that her brother was safe but it still felt wrong that either of them was serving Nightmare Moon voluntarily.

“What to do with you though?” Nightmare Moon tapped her chin with a hoof. “I suppose having you study the basics of what I taught you will have to do for now. Best to operate on the assumption it will take you long enough to recover your memories that I can simply teach you what you need over again. I’ll have a list of what I want you to read by tomorrow sent to your suite. Be back here again tomorrow no later than three hours past moonrise.”

“Uh, yes your majesty.” Twilight had lost, or never had in the first place, her experience of dealing with royalty.

Twilight stepped out of the door to see Applejack talking to a pony. The orange earth pony waved her over and dismissed the other pony.

“I see you survived your meeting with the queen,” Applejack smiled, “how did it go?”

“Well I’m still alive,” Twilight replied, not sure if that was a joke or not. “Nightmare Moon basically wants me to start over in my studies. Nopony knows how long it’s going to take me to get my memories back and it will keep me busy while I’m waiting.”

“That makes sense,” Applejack nodded. “And I’m sure we’ll all feel much better knowing you’re back on your hooves and studying again.”

“Thanks,” Twilight watched a pony go by with a stack of papers in her mouth. “So what brought you over to this part of the castle?”

“I was just making sure we had the official line of a story going to press right. It wouldn’t do for the Ministry of Honesty to be telling lies.”

“Wait,” Twilight said, “’official line’? Isn’t the truth supposed to be you know the truth?”

“Of course,” Applejack didn’t sound very convincing, “but how you tell the truth matters a great deal as well. The Ministry of Honesty makes sure that ponies get honest news in an appropriate manner. After all, the greatest truth is our duty to Nightmare Moon and I have to make sure that nothing in the news contradicts that.”

Twilight stayed silent. Her friends had become very different ponies and she wasn’t sure the change was for the better. For that matter what would happen to her when her memories came back? She wasn’t sure she wanted them to come back anymore.

“Twilight!” She turned to see Pinkie Pie walking down the hall, and the exact same pony she’d seen walking down that hall with a stack of papers in her mouth just a few minutes ago. She shook her head and while the pony was gone the sense of déjà vu remained.

“Hi Pinkie Pie,” she called.

“Oh, hi Twilight!” The pink earth pony smiled and waved frantically. “I didn’t see you over there. Are you feeling better now?”

Pinkie Pie hadn’t seen her? But she’d shouted Twilight’s name. And the déjà vu with that pony walking down the hall. Something was seriously wrong here.

“So how’s the castle?” Pinkie Pie bounced along next to her. “It must be so much fun to get to explore it all over again for the first time. You get to meet everypony again, and make all new friends! I definitely won’t have any trouble making sure you’re happy.”

Twilight was a good liar only in comparison to Applejack. Fortunately Pinkie Pie was on such a roll that Twilight suspected she could have said pretty much anything and her friend would simply keep going.

“Yeah, it’s great being here with you girls. Everything’s all new to me all over again. Say, I never caught what it is you do around here.”

That last one seemed to catch Pinkie Pie’s attention. “Oh, silly me! I forgot that you forgot. Well, I run the Ministry of Laughter. You see, if ponies aren’t happy they might blame Nightmare Moon for their being unhappy, and if they blame Nightmare Moon because they’re unhappy then they might go join ponies like Trixie who were trying to overthrow Nightmare Moon. So it’s our job to make sure they’re always happy and laughing and to convince ponies who aren’t happy and laughing that they should be.”

Twilight was suddenly struck with the thought that she really, really didn’t want to know how Pinkie Pie’s Ministry of Laughter ‘convinced’ ponies to be happy about living under Nightmare Moon. It was cruel really, these ponies looked like her friends, they walked and talked like her friends, but Twilight was certain beyond a doubt that they weren’t the friends she’d last seen in Manehatten.

“Please come back Twilight.” Twilight looked around; she could swear she’d just heard Fluttershy! But the yellow pegasus was nowhere to be seen. Fluttershy, Twilight didn’t even want to think about what her kind hearted friend would be like in this horrible mockery of a world.

Desperate to be alone Twilight turned at the next intersection, and ran directly into Rainbow Dash.

“Hey there Twilight,” Rainbow Dash untangled herself. “Better watch where you’re going, you don’t know this place anymore.”

“Yeah,” Twilight tried and failed at laughing. As she was getting back up she noticed Rainbow Dash had doffed the flight suit but on her flank was still the winged skull. “You put your cutie mark on your flight suit? I knew you wanted a cutie mark pretty bad Rainbow Dash but isn’t that just showing off?”

Rainbow Dash looked at her flank and then as she looked back to Twilight realization dawned on her face. “This? The logo was on the flight suit first. When we signed on with Nightmare Moon I became captain of the Shadowbolts and head of the Ministry of Loyalty. The Shadowbolts are her personal guard. And the first time I went out with them it just clicked. This is what I was meant for. When we came back and I took off the flight suit this little baby was there.”

Rainbow Dash was the captain of Nightmare Moon’s personal guards? Twilight didn’t need to ask about what the guards did, or the Nightmare Children who worked alongside them. The thought of one of her friends doing the same made bile rise up in her throat. She pushed past Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie and took off down a hall at random.

As she ran down the empty halls she swore they were changing. Paintings didn’t look the same as she passed them, the patterns in the marble floor seemed to swirl as she approached, and she noticed that while the hallway was perfectly bright none of the torches were lit. She finally skidded to a halt and flopped down onto her haunches. Twilight didn’t want her memories to come back. Whatever she had become she didn’t like it one bit.

She looked at a nearby door and bit back a scream. Three butterflies could only mean one thing. No, she refused to see what had become of Fluttershy. After her other friends she didn’t think she could take another horrible revelation. She thought it would break her completely to see what horrors Fluttershy was inflicting on other ponies in this sick and twisted world.

“Twilight!” She swore she heard all her friends calling her name, but she was alone in the hallway. And the wall in front of her seemed to be cracking where it was solid a moment ago.

“What’s going on here?” She frantically looked around. “Am I going crazy or what? No, there was something with that window back in the library. There was that alarm, but an alarm spell wouldn’t have made me go unconscious. But I don’t know any spells that could do this to a pony. If I thought she was real I’d ask Rarity…”

“Did somepony say my name?” Twilight turned to see the pony who looked exactly like her friend. “Why Twilight, I didn’t expect to see you in this part of the castle. What brings you down here?”

Twilight fought down her urges to run, scream, vomit, and generally make another scene. Instead she forced herself to smile and follow her friend down the hall.

“Just exploring,” she said, “I do need to learn where everything is all over again.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Rarity seemed completely unfazed as a painting changed from Starswirl the Bearded to a scene of the view from Canterlot at sunset. “The sheer number of things you have to listen to me Twilight.”

Twilight stumbled and stared at her friend.

“What?” Rarity stopped. “Is there something on my face? Oh dear, don’t tell me my makeup is fading already.”

But Twilight wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. Instead she watched as a series of cracks ran their way down a wall. Twilight wasn’t an architect but she was pretty sure that walls weren’t supposed to do that.

“Rarity,” she said, “do you see what’s happening to that wall?”

“Of course darling,” Rarity said with a dismissive wave. “Everypony knows none of this is real.”

Twilight should have been shocked but she was beyond that. This world was all wrong and one way or another she was going to bring it crashing down. She started drawing magic into her horn until sparks began to come off it. Rarity should have noticed something was terribly wrong but instead she simply prattled on about how her Ministry of Generosity set the food rations that condemned most ponies of Equestria to slow starvation.

That was just one more nail on a lid long since closed tight. Rarity, the real Rarity, would have torn Canterlot down brick by brick before being a part of wholesale murder. All her friends were nothing more than cruel perversions of what made them unique. Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, none of them would ever do the things she’d heard them casually talk about.

Twilight kept drawing magic into her horn until she couldn’t hold anymore. Just when she felt like she was on the verge of injuring herself she forced all the magic out in a huge wave. It was a terribly crude way to fight a spell but she didn’t see any other options. The world turned stark white behind the wave of magenta energy and then exploded around Twilight Sparkle.

That Way Madness Lies

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: Set course for maximum not owning. Engage.

Chapter Eleven: That Way Madness Lies

Twilight Sparkle twitched and blinked on the cold stone floor. Her vision slowly cleared and she was gladder than she could say to find herself back in the Manehatten Library. But did she have to be lying on the floor? It wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of chairs and tables that had survived the fight earlier.

“Twilight!” The cry came from several throats and suddenly the pony in question found herself pressed into the hard floor by the weight of several ponies. As glad as she was to be back in the real world she did miss that soft bed. When this was all over she was buying a big soft bed just as soon as she could afford it.

“Thank goodness you’re all right!” Rarity fell back on her haunches, relief evident on her face. “I can’t believe Trixie would use such a vile spell! When I catch up to her…”

“Spell?” Twilight croaked. Logically she knew that Trixie had used some sort of magic but her brain hadn’t quite caught up with that yet.

“Yes,” Rarity visibly calmed down, “Trixie enchanted the window to keep any pegasi from doing exactly what we tried to do. She used a particularly invasive form of mind control to make you hallucinate. It was lucky that Celestia had shown the two of us how to counter the spell in case we ever ran up against it. Unfortunately the cure is very nearly as bad as the disease. I can’t even imagine what it was like to work your way out of that spell.”

“It was…” Twilight thought about the ponies who’d looked like her friends, the walls melting around her, and the constant nagging sense of wrongness she’d constantly felt. “You know what, let’s just add that to the list of things I really don’t want to think about any more. I mean I’m not going to have any side effects from being in there for, how long was I in there actually?”

“Just a few minutes,” Rarity helped her to her hooves. “The spell is designed to let you live out a whole horrible life in there while you die of thirst here in a few days. Fortunately we got you out of there right away so besides any bad memories you should make a full recovery.”

“That’s good to know,” Twilight smiled. “Speaking of catching up to Trixie did you tell them what we saw Rainbow Dash?”

“Ah, no,” Rainbow Dash said, “I got you back down here and then we were kind of busy with you being all cursed.”

“I guess that makes sense. Rarity, you aren’t going to have to wait to catch up to Trixie. She and Nightmare Moon want this book badly enough that Trixie is here personally leading the search.”

“And we’re not going to burst in there and reveal ourselves,” Applejack put a restraining hoof on both Rainbow Dash and Rarity’s shoulders. “We have that back door opened, we know roughly where the book is, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy can get in there silently now. Let’s let them go get the book and then we’ll try to slip out silently the way we came.”

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash flexed her wings, “we’ll start at ‘E.’ If it’s not there Fluttershy will work her way back towards the start of the alphabet and I’ll work my way towards the end. What do we do if it’s not there?”

“Search every other shelf you can,” Twilight shrugged. “Applejack said Manehatten’s libraries aren’t particularly well organized so you might have to look a bit farther than we were hoping. If we can’t find it here we’ll deal with that when you come back.”

“Right,” Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy looked at each other and took to the sky.

“Wait!” Pinkie Pie very nearly shouted. “Try starting under ‘R’ for reference guide!”

The others stared at Pinkie Pie before turning to Rarity to see if she knew what her long time friend was saying.

“It’s worth a try,” Rarity said at last. “Pinkie Pie does have a knack for making leaps of intuition like this. I mean if you don’t find it under ‘E’ you’re going to have to try it eventually and it does make some sense.”

“Well there are two of us,” Fluttershy’s response was normal for her at barely above a whisper. “There’s no reason one of us can’t look at each letter.”

Silent as shadows and just about as invisibly Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew up to the window Twilight had opened. After a look through Rainbow Dash sent back an affirmative hoof and the two slipped through.

“I hate this part,” Applejack grumbled as soon as the two pegasi were lost to view, “waiting without being able to do anything.”

Twilight had promised not to think about the spell Trixie had used to trap the window but she couldn’t help herself. Those images of her friends had been so different but at the same time so eerily similar. Could they, could she, ever serve Nightmare Moon? Finding the Elements of Harmony and hoping they could somehow use them was a very long shot. Twilight liked to think that if they found themselves in the same situation that she and her friends would tell Nightmare Moon to go jump in a lake. But she didn’t know that any of them, not even her, would do that.

And just what would she do if she ran into her brother while they were searching? So far as she knew nopony knew that Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor were related. And as long as that was the case neither Trixie nor Nightmare Moon had any reason to think that he was anything but a pony who’d finally made lieutenant in the guards barely a week before the sun disappeared.

She’d seen over and over that the guards weren’t themselves, and if he showed up it wouldn’t really be her brother. She knew that if he could talk her brother would shout at the top of his lungs for her to fight and run. But literally for the life of her she knew that she simply was not physically capable of bringing herself to hurt him. Her only consolation was that she hadn’t seen him yet. Twilight was fairly sure that if Trixie or Nightmare Moon knew she had a brother in the guard they would use that against her as soon as they could. Every day she didn’t see him was another day he was safe. Not for the first time Twilight swore she would find a way to bring the sun back before she had to face her brother.

Twilight looked around and saw that all her friends were equally pensive. Even the normally hyperactive Pinkie Pie was quietly looking at the window Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had gone through. Applejack was absentmindedly juggling a fragment of floor tile from hoof to hoof. Perhaps unsurprisingly Rarity was taking the lull to pick at dust and stray hairs only she could see with the aid of a mirror that had somehow come through the fight intact.

Twilight got back on all four hoofs and started shaking her legs. If they had to make a sudden escape she wanted to be loose, limber, and not lose any time getting up. A glance at a clock on the wall illuminated by moonlight showed that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had only been looking for a few minutes. It only felt like they’d been in there with all those guards and Nightmare Children and Trixie for a week or so.

All four ponies snapped to their hooves when the door to the wing Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had gone into began to bulge with an audible groan. Light began to spill between the crack opened up between the two huge oak doors and suddenly they blasted off their hinges and flew through the air to land behind the waiting ponies. Through the newly opened gap came two pegasi, one light blue the other yellow, with ponies chasing them and spells flying around them.

“Run!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she sped towards the main doors. Twilight noted with some relief as she started running that each pegasus appeared to be carrying a book.

Rainbow Dash burst through the main doors of the Manehatten library. In front of her was a courtyard for ponies to read, picnic, and play in under the sun. The courtyard was currently bathed in moonlight, and instead of being full of happy ponies frolicking it was full of angry and mind controlled ponies who wanted to kill her. Looking back just long enough to see the others run out of the door Rainbow Dash flew straight up to get a big picture view of the situation.

It didn’t look good to say the least. Her friends were running fast but they had a ways to go before they were even off the library grounds let alone out of the city of Manehatten. The guards and Nightmare Children were spread out over a lot of ground, but there were an awful lot of them and they were all heading towards the group of escaping ponies. At the doors to the library she saw a blue unicorn in rather silly armor stop in the doorway and shout at the ponies around her.

Rainbow Dash grasped The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide in her hoofs and dove towards the ground. She had something resembling a plan as she started picking up speed. At least she thought she had something resembling a plan. One of the numerous bad crowds she’d fallen in with had played a, in retrospect stupid, game of diving as close to the ground as you could before pulling up. Rainbow Dash was good at that game. Every time she’d played that game a nagging voice in the back of her head had reminded her of Fluttershy and that cloud. But then she supposed that was why it was called a bad crowd she had fallen in with.

This time though Fluttershy was off flying on her own and the only ponies besides her who could get hurt were not what one would call good ponies. Pumping her wings Rainbow Dash shot right past her terminal velocity and felt the air start fighting back against her. She’d heard that it was possible to go fast enough that you could outrun the shock wave, but even if she’d thought she was a good enough flier to try this was neither the time nor the place.

In fact it was just about the time and place to start pulling up if she didn’t want to become a rainbow colored splat on the ground. The trick to her plan would be to level out just in front of her friends and use the shock and surprise of her dive to open up a corridor for them to run through. She really, really hoped that nopony thought to stick something up into her path.

Nopony did stick something up into her path, and her dive was so perfect she thought she felt the longest hairs on her tail brush Twilight’s horn. Nightmare Children dived out of her way and though it had made her worry it seemed like even under Nightmare Moon’s mind control the guards still retained enough of a survival instinct to get out of her way.

With plenty of speed to spare Rainbow Dash shoved open the gates to the library. Under normal circumstances they were completely for show, but when fleeing for their lives every second could count and now they didn’t have to stop to open the gates. Rainbow Dash did have to stop then to duck under the lightning bolt that Trixie shot at her. Apparently the unicorn was perhaps a little bit angry that they might be stealing her precious books out from right under her nose.

The gates took on a magenta glow as they ripped away from their rather shoddy hinges and flew at her friends. Just as it seemed like they were going to hit they leapt up and slammed into the ground just behind them. The guards and Nightmare Children closest to them had to stop as they ran into and around the gates and in the confusion Rainbow Dash’s friends had a clear run off the library grounds.

This was apparently some sort of signal to drop all pretenses of taking them alive. Rainbow Dash briefly wondered just how much the Shadowbolts had to do with that pretense. And then she briefly wondered where they were. Surely with all the commotion going on they would show up sooner or later. What she’d do if they did show up was something she resolutely didn’t think about.

Then she didn’t have any more time for deep philosophical questions. A fusillade of spells flew through the air and it was only through some rather impressive dodging that Rainbow Dash came through unharmed. She glanced behind her and saw the spells take a rather sizeable chunk out of an apartment building across the street from the library. It was the middle of what was supposed to be the day so there shouldn’t have been anypony in there but Rainbow Dash still worried.

Of course since it was the middle of the day that meant there would be lots of ponies out on the streets that were about to see a running battle. As she started flying down those streets Rainbow Dash hoped those ponies would get out of the way in time. Though if they kept being as loud and flashy as they were now she didn’t think anypony would have much trouble knowing what was coming their way.

Rainbow Dash kept herself at just above rooftop height of the narrow streets her friends were running through. They’d chosen narrow streets because the guards and Nightmare Children wouldn’t be able to use their full numbers, there would be fewer ponies on those streets, and she noted as Rarity pulled down several fire escapes, the narrow streets would be easier to block behind them. Though the blast which ripped apart Rarity’s improvised barricade testified that under Nightmare Moon’s control the guards didn’t particularly care that what they did might hurt other ponies.

She looked around and saw a large number of pegasi chasing after Fluttershy, but gripped by absolute terror the yellow pegasus was flying so fast they had no hope of catching her. Rainbow Dash wanted to go help her friend, but as she dodged a pegasus diving on her and let him impact a rooftop she reflected that she had problems of her own. And as she shouted for Twilight to blast a pony trying to climb up onto the rooftops to attack her friends from above Rainbow Dash reflected that she had to deal with her friend’s problems as well.

A downright evil smile crossed Rainbow Dash’s face as she kicked aside a Nightmare Child who had been getting ready to jump down on her friends. Picking up speed she went into a steep climb. Judging herself high enough she turned over and went into an angled dive. Water towers were designed to withstand rain, wind, the occasional pony doing something stupid on a rooftop; they were in no way designed to withstand a pegasus making a precision dive at high speed. The wooden supports snapped like twigs under her well timed kick and with a lurch the water tower started to fall.

Ever since her escape from the guards several days earlier Rainbow Dash had come to a realization. She was a good flier. Not just a good flier, a great flier. If she didn’t have to worry about hurting another pony and could simply let loose she was fast, agile, and powerful in the air. Ever since the accident with Fluttershy flying had been a guilty pleasure, but no longer.

As the heavy water tower fell it took large parts of the buildings it hit with it. The rocks that rained down on the street took on a rainbow of colors and began flying back and forth as Rarity and Twilight fought with the unicorns among the guards and Nightmare Children. Her friends were severely outnumbered but desperation combined with raw talent made them more than a match for the numbers their foes could cram into such a small area.

All good things had to end though. Apparently tired of failure and no longer caring about collateral damage the guards and Nightmare Children, with Trixie in the lead, started leveling whole buildings at a stretch in an effort to kill their prey or at least open up more room. Rainbow Dash bit down a grimace and forced herself to fly on. There was no way that there weren’t ponies caught up in all that destruction, but if they failed here than those ponies would die in vain.

The streets below quickly became filled with chaos. Rarity and Twilight alternated between throwing up shield spells and hurling the abundant debris back at their pursuers. Applejack and Pinkie Pie meanwhile quickly dispatched any guards or Nightmare Children who managed to get in front of them. There were still plenty of pegasi in the air but Rainbow Dash’s frantic maneuvering made sure that they never managed to attack her in overwhelming numbers. Fluttershy’s pursuers would have overwhelmed her if they’d caught her, but that if always stood between them and the yellow pegasus.

Countless windows exploded just behind Rainbow Dash as Trixie sought to bring her down while flying by a glass faced skyscraper. Even in the moonlight the rain of glass seemed to bring a thousand rainbows falling to the ground. A magenta field suddenly sprung up at an angle and brought all the falling glass shards onto the leading guards and Nightmare Children. Several of them suddenly stopped running as rather sharp glass sliced through their hoofs.

Taking a much more direct route the pursuing unicorns decided to simply focus as much force as they could on the shield Twilight Sparkle happened to be holding up at the moment. Rainbow Dash had to look away briefly as Twilight’s horn glowed with the effort to keep the shield up but it was a fight she could never hope to win. Rarity though was not using her magic for anything and as Applejack threw a luckless Nightmare Child through a storefront Rarity’s horn shone blue and the ground under Trixie and the unicorns with her began to shake.

Almost immediately the assault on Twilight’s shield stopped as for close to a hundred feet from where Rarity’s spell hit it was now impossible to stay upright. The lone exception was a narrow strip of pavement Rainbow Dash’s friends continued to dart down. Pavement started buckling behind the fleeing ponies and Rainbow Dash watched as more windows shattered and several buildings lurched ominously but somehow stayed upright. Even from high up Rainbow Dash could see the toll the spell had taken on Rarity. The white unicorn was panting heavily and the blue glow that had surrounded her horn almost since they’d fled the library was considerably dimmer.

Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, she saw them. The skill, the speed, the black and purple flight suits, all dead giveaways that the Shadowbolts hadn’t stayed away from the chaos and destruction unleashed on Manehatten. Her friends were going to have to deal with some more pegasi for awhile. Rainbow Dash could fight off the guard pegasi and the Nightmare Children pegasi or she could try to talk the Shadowbolts down. She couldn’t do both at once. And she refused to think about their lingering offer. It was so tempting, but it still felt too much like betraying her friends.

As soon as Rainbow Dash broke away from her friends she noticed the Shadowbolts changed their direction to keep pace with her. The pegasi behind her quickly proved unable to keep pace with her and soon she’d left the immediate area of destruction. The whole city of Manehatten seemed to be on edge though. Ponies were casting furtive glances towards the sky and every pony she saw moving was darting from place to place.

“Hello Rainbow Dash.” Before she knew it the Shadowbolts were flying alongside her. Unlike the other pegasi in the city they seemed to have no trouble keeping up with her.

“I don’t mean to sound rude or anything,” Rainbow Dash slowed until she was hovering in midair, “but I was kind of busy when you guys showed up.”

“And you were magnificent,” only one of the Shadowbolts ever seemed to speak. “Everything we’re looking for in a captain.”

“C-captain? You’re joking, right?”

“No Rainbow Dash, we want you, and we want you to be our captain.”

Her, captain of the Shadowbolts? Even if they did work for Nightmare Moon there was no doubting that they were an elite flying squad. Just joining an outfit like that would be fulfilling the dreams Rainbow Dash had when she was dreaming, but to be their leader. She had to shake her head a bit with a hoof to make sure this wasn’t all a very weird dream. No, she was awake, which meant she was getting the job offer of a lifetime and her friends were still in very real danger.

“And did I mention,” the Shadowbolt spoke into Rainbow Dash’s silence, “that as our captain you’d stand beside Trixie in rank. You could order your friends made safe and if anypony didn’t obey we would make sure they regretted it for the rest of their very short lives.”

“I… could?”

“Yes, and from the looks of things your friends need all the help they can get.”

Rainbow Dash looked back the way she came and saw a huge dust cloud rise from some sort of explosion. Given how tired Rarity had looked and that Twilight must be busy with a shield spell there was really only one possible source for a spell of that magnitude.

“Just say the word,” the Shadowbolt had once again gotten behind Rainbow Dash without her ever seeing, “and we’ll save them. We’ll pluck them right out from under Trixie’s hoofs if that’s what you want. And then you can convince them that you’re right. You can convince them to serve Nightmare Moon and you’ll live like royalty. Even if they say no Nightmare Moon has promised that she’ll merely banish them to a country estate and keep them from leaving. A cage yes, but a very comfortable cage don’t you think? Much more comfortable than the fate that awaits them if Trixie crushes their skulls with a building or captures them and gives them to the Nightmare Children.”

Rainbow Dash looked at the cloud of dust slowly rising into the sky. Would it really be betraying her friends? They all knew how long of a shot this adventure was and what stakes they were playing for. But now that she was watching them face down imminent death could she stand by and idly watch? Was it more loyal to her friends to let them stand by their choice or to save their lives?

Rainbow Dash didn’t know the answer, or if there was an answer for that matter. If she saved them they might hate her for awhile but she’d have a lifetime to change their minds, and if she let them die, and she lived, then she had a lifetime of regret ahead of her.

“Save…” Rainbow Dash never finished that fateful sentence. Magenta light shone as bright as the sun and even so far away Rainbow Dash could feel the short hairs of her mane stand on end from the magical power in the air. A brief second later a dull thud passed through Rainbow Dash.

She didn’t know what Twilight Sparkle had done but it was clearly one of those things that made Rarity think Twilight was more powerful than any unicorn save Celestia or Nightmare Moon. Her friends were ready to fight Nightmare Moon to their last breaths. Maybe at that last breath she could pull them out of the fire but not until then. Doing anything else would be breaking her promise with Twilight to get their cutie marks fighting Nightmare Moon.

“Sorry,” she turned briefly back to the Shadowbolts, “but we don’t need your help yet.”

She didn’t fail to notice the scowls on their faces as she flew back to her friends as fast as she could push herself, but she’d live, and if she had anything to say about it so would her friends.

“That was amazing Twilight!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed yet again as they rested in the forests outside Manehatten.

“It really wasn’t that impressive,” Twilight waved off the praise. “Just hope they don’t find us because I don’t think Rarity and I could light a candle between the two of us. I don’t think I’ve ever used my magic so hard for so long.”

“I agree with that,” Rarity groaned, “but don’t sell yourself short darling. You were using magic over and over again that would have exhausted me after one use. I can’t even imagine how skilled and powerful you’d be if you’d gotten into Celestia’s Academy and been properly taught.”

Twilight started to object but was cut off by Applejack. “I’m sure you two can argue for hours about this but can we please read these books so we can get some sleep? If we don’t start now I might fall asleep before we finish.”

Everypony nodded agreement at that.

After cutting a swathe of devastation through Manehatten in their attempt to escape they had somehow finally eluded Trixie’s pursuit and had run as far as their tired legs and wings would take them. Finally they had all collapsed in a small forest on the verge of falling asleep on their hoofs. They had though made it out of Manehatten with two books: The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide, and Predictions and Prophecies. Twilight knew the first book would be invaluable but the second might yield a few clues to how Trixie had known Nightmare Moon was coming back.

First she cracked open Prediction and Prophecies. “Mare in the Moon, I guess that’s an old name for Nightmare Moon, a myth from olden pony times. A powerful pony who wanted to rule Equestria, she was defeated by the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned in the moon. Well that proves it. The Elements can beat Nightmare Moon if we can find them. Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year the stars will aid in her escape and she will bring about nighttime eternal.”

“Anypony want to bet that this year was the thousandth year since Nightmare Moon was sealed in the moon?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Sorry darling,” Rarity said, “but I don’t think any of us are gullible enough to take up that bet.”

“Settle down girls,” Twilight reached over for the other book. “Let’s see what the Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide has to say so we can get some sleep.”

She opened the book and began to read. “There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: kindness, laughter, generosity, honesty, and loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery. It is said the last known location of the five elements was in the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters. It is located in what is now the Everfree Forest.”

“The Everfree Forest?” Rainbow Dash groaned. “But that’s back past Ponyville. That’s going in a great big circle!”

“It’s not all bad,” Applejack smiled. “At least now we know where we’re going, and we’ll have a place to stay in Ponyville. My family lives there.”

“Well then,” Twilight said, “everypony get some sleep. Tomorrow we head back to Ponyville and the Everfree Forest.”

“E-excuse me Lady Trixie,” a pony in the black cloak of a Nightmare child walked up to her, “but would you like us to continue the pursuit of the fugitives? The wounded who are going to recover without lengthy treatment are back on their hooves.”

“No,” Trixie said, “it was a good thing they got that book. Now we know where they’re going and we can wait for them there. Send word that Trixie commands the army to move to the castle of the royal pony sisters in the Everfree Forest. And one other message, Trixie will have an old and dear friend of one of the traitors waiting for them there.”

O, Villain, Villain, Smiling, Damned, Villain

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

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Chapter Twelve: O, Villain, Villain, Smiling, Damned Villain!

Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure who had set such a fast pace away from Manehatten, but with a sizeable army on their tails nopony was going to argue about putting distance between themselves and the city. They hadn’t seen any guards or Nightmare Children since leaving Manehatten, and they were all intending to keep it that way. Trixie had read about the Elements of Harmony and would know where they were going. If they gave her the chance she’d have guards and Nightmare Children shoulder to shoulder around the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters.

“Let’s take a water break,” Applejack said as they crested a hill. “This is as good a place as any, and we’ll start slowing down if go much longer without drinking.”

Stopping, even for a water break, was a suggestion that didn’t bring any argument from the exhausted ponies. Within a few seconds they were all standing around, trying to catch their breath, and drinking deeply from their water bottles. They would have to start walking before long if they didn’t want to deal with cramps, but for now they could take a welcome rest.

Twilight’s yawn was truly a full body yawn. “Am I the only one who’s about to fall asleep on her hooves?”

“Not by a long shot,” Rainbow Dash said. “When was the last time any of us slept?”

“We don’t really have a choice though,” Rarity pointed out. “If we want to beat Trixie and her army to the castle we have to move as fast as we possibly can.”

“I know, I know,” Rainbow Dash groaned. “I’d just like to get some sleep between Manehatten and Ponyville. Are we even going to stop there or are we just going to keep running?”

“It depends on where Trixie is,” Twilight wiped her mouth. “None of us like dozing for fifteen minutes here and there. But between us being tired and eternal night across all Equestria I choose getting a bit more behind on my sleep. And speaking of Manehatten I’ve got a question for you Rainbow Dash?”

“Oh?” Rainbow Dash had been to Manehatten once in her life. She was just leaving the city from that one visit. She wasn’t sure what Twilight expected her to know that would escape Applejack.

“Well,” Twilight took a deep breath, “when we were escaping and you were providing air cover there was a gap of a few minutes when those ponies in those weird uniforms showed up. Now, even I can tell that they were clearly in a different league from the guards and Nightmare Children chasing us, and it makes sense that you’d want to lead ponies like those away from us so you could fight them with plenty of room. But Fluttershy saw you and those ponies hovering just out of view from where we were running looking rather friendly together. As in one of them was whispering in your ear and you seemed fine with it, even friendly. Either we have a super secret group of ponies looking out for us or I think there’s something you’d like to tell us. So go ahead Rainbow Dash.”

Normally in such a situation Rainbow Dash would bite back numerous swears. Biting back swears however implied the ability to speak, and Rainbow Dash couldn’t get a word out to save her life. Her friends were all glaring daggers at her and she knew that the longer she stayed silent the deeper a hole she was digging for herself.

“I…I… Look, you guys had more ponies chasing after you than I could flap my wings at. And Trixie and those unicorns were leveling whole city blocks trying to kill you, and Rarity had used up all her magic so it was just Twilight trying to hold all those ponies off. I thought we were all about to die and if that had happened it would have meant eternal night. And when the Shadowbolts, that’s their name by the way, offered to save your lives… I didn’t say yes! I just thought that if it meant eternal night either way at least we could all be alive and together. They were going to make me their captain; I could have kept anypony from hurting you girls. I know you don’t like Nightmare Moon, but I thought it would be worse to let you get killed! I’m not going to say I’m sorry for trying to save your lives.”

Even though every word was the truth Rainbow Dash still somehow felt like she was lying to her friends. And from the looks on their faces they thought the same thing.

“How selfish could you be?” Rarity started quietly but was shrieking by the finish. “Turning on us for a comfortable position? I thought you were better than this Rainbow Dash. But then I never thought Trixie would turn on Celestia either, so clearly I should rethink which ponies I put my trust in!”

“Wait just a second!” Rainbow Dash stomped a hoof on the ground. “I would never turn on you girls. I only considered taking their offer because I thought it would save your lives. And the only reason I would have become their captain was because I thought I could help save you!”

Rainbow Dash may have been better off speaking to a brick wall for all the good her protests did.

Applejack had fixed her with a particularly cutting glare. “I’ve had lots of ponies lie to me lots of ways since I became a reporter, but this has to be one of the worst. Dragging us along while you plotted with Nightmare Moon to turn us in, and then claiming you were doing it to help us? If I hadn’t heard it straight from you I never would have believed it. But like Rarity said I think we should really be rethinking who we trust.”

Rainbow Dash could only sputter indignantly as her friends twisted everything she said to mean the worst possible thing. It all felt like a bad dream but her friends kept coming.

“This would all be funny if it weren’t true,” Pinkie Pie’s frown was actually rather scary. “But trying to betray your friends so you can get ahead isn’t funny at all. Why didn’t you do it Rainbow Dash? Did Twilight taking out all those ponies ruin your plans? Or are you holding out for a better deal from Nightmare Moon? Did you want to be captain of the royal guard and captain of these Shadowbolts? I can’t believe you’d do this to us. Weren’t we supposed to be your friends?”

Pinkie Pie was right about one thing. This all would be really quite funny if it wasn’t real. Normally watching ponies completely ignore what another pony would be saying was a laughing matter. But it was anything but normal that the result of a pony being ignored would be not only losing her friends forever but being thought a traitor.

“What about our promise to get our cutie marks fighting Nightmare Moon? Did that mean anything to you Rainbow Dash? I’ve never had friends like you girls in my whole life. I know you want to get ahead in life. I want to get ahead in life too. I wanted it so bad I took a job where I put on clothes just to take them off again. But I would have never thrown my friends under a cart like that just to get ahead. You always talk about never leaving ponies hanging but maybe you should have spent a little more time making sure you actually didn’t leave us hanging.”

That hurt. The promise she’d made with Twilight meant a lot, and Rainbow Dash hadn’t forgotten it. But thinking that Twilight and the others could die she’d simply thought that she had to keep them alive. Of course she’d already made that argument, and like a bad comedy it had fallen on completely deaf ears.

The only one of her friends who hadn’t abandoned her was Fluttershy. Her oldest and closest friend was silently staring at the ground. Rainbow Dash hadn’t liked the others speeches to put it mildly. But if Fluttershy thought she had betrayed her it could really break the rainbow maned pegasus.

“I forgive you Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy looked up at her. “I think we should be willing to forgive when ponies make bad decisions. But I think it would be a bad decision to ignore what they did. I know you always had a hard time getting along with other ponies. During flight camp I don’t know how many times I patched you up after those fights you got into. It was probably the first time I thought about going into medicine. I always forgave you, but how many times did I tell you to stop getting into fights? And after flight camp when you met Gilda I thought she wasn’t a good griffon from the start but I still forgave you after all those ‘pranks’ she wanted to pull turned out to be very dangerous. But do you remember how I talked you out of some of them, or how I always tried to keep you from doing anything like that after you and Gilda stopped talking? So yes, I can forgive you for wanting to turn us in to Nightmare Moon, but I won’t ignore what you did. I don’t think you should be around us anymore because I don’t think we can trust you and I don’t think we’ll be able to trust you for a long time. You can stay at my house until we beat Nightmare Moon, but when I get back we’re going to have a long talk.”

Rainbow Dash didn’t feel the first few tears. Once they started coming in a steady stream though she started angrily wiping them away. Her friends had so easily thought the worst of her and hadn’t listened to a word she’d said. Had they ever really been her friends, even Fluttershy?

“Fine! I’ve spent most of my life alone anyways. If you don’t want me around anymore then I won’t bother you any longer!”

Vision still blurred with tears Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and shot into the air. None of her friends could have caught her, but it twisted the knife in her heart a little more when she glanced back and saw that none of them had even so much as raised a hoof to try to stop her. She’d go back to Fluttershy’s house, but she didn’t think she’d stay there long. For now though she just wanted to fly off her anger. She hadn’t had a chance to just fly since this whole mess started and even if she’d give anything to not have this chance she wasn’t going to waste it now that she had it.

She didn’t know how long she flew for, long enough to stop crying, but eventually her wings started getting tired and she set down on a hill in the middle of a field. She didn’t know exactly where she’d flown to but without anypony bothering her it wouldn’t be too hard to find her way back to Fluttershy’s house. And then between heartbeats she wasn’t alone.

“Oh my little pony, so betrayed, so alone.”

Rainbow Dash whipped around to find herself facing none other than Nightmare Moon. Her worst enemy of nearly the last month was standing in front of her looking for all the world like she’d come to pay a visit.

“What do you want?” Rainbow Dash flared her wings and dropped into a fighting stance.

“Now, now,” Nightmare Moon chuckled, “I’m not here to fight you. You know that if I wanted you dead you’d already be a pile of bones on the ground. I’m here to talk. I know what your friends did to you, and I think it’s terribly unfair. I just wanted to help my friends all those years ago, and they called me a monster for it. I know exactly what you’re feeling Rainbow Dash.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“A fair question, but not the right one. My Shadowbolts have told you only the truth. I’m going to build a better Equestria, and I want you to help me do it Rainbow Dash. Your so called ‘friends’ are so wedded to their vision of what Equestria was that as soon as you stepped out of their happy little fantasy they branded you traitor and banished you. But did the ponies who serve me ever lash out at you because of their failings or call you a traitor because you stood up for what you believed in? The right question you should be asking is why shouldn’t you believe me?”

Rainbow Dash was groping for a reply when suddenly she found herself lying on the ground with her vision filled with pink. She thrashed about until suddenly the pink lump rolled off of her and revealed itself to be Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie Pie?” Rainbow Dash groaned and rolled herself to her hooves. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry Dashie,” Pinkie Pie smiled, “I had to use the bathroom, which was actually just a tree, and all these trees are blocking out a lot of moonlight, so it was hard to find my way to that tree. Since I needed something to make sure I didn’t get lost I looked for the brightest thing in camp, and that rainbow mane of yours is really bright. I just picked a tree that was close enough to camp that I could still see your mane, but I kind of had to step over you to get back to my blanket and well…”

“Never mind,” Rainbow Dash groggily blinked. “I’m going to get something to drink and then see if I can get a bit more sleep before we have to get moving again.”

“I hope so,” Pinkie Pie smiled, “because when I stepped over you the first time you looked like you were having a really bad dream. And ponies never sleep good if they have bad dreams, and if they don’t sleep good then they’re grumpy, and if they’re grumpy then they’re mean to other ponies, and ponies being mean to each other is just bad!”

“Um yeah.” Rainbow Dash had started thinking about that dream. It had felt so real. From the sense of betrayal when her friends had disowned her to her conversation with Nightmare Moon she’d swear that if she’d pinched herself she wouldn’t have woken up.

“Rainbow Dash?” Pinkie Pie poked her. “Was it a really bad dream? Do you want to talk about it?”

Rainbow Dash wasn’t normally one to get all happy feely with what she was feeling, but that dream had just been wrong and she was sure it would keep eating away at her if she didn’t do something.

“You girls were all yelling at me, and then I ran away, and Nightmare Moon showed up and she was saying how if I followed her she wouldn’t ever abandon me, and I think I was going to say yes.”

“Well that was just mean of us!” Pinkie Pie’s shout jerked the others awake. “What were we even yelling at you about?”

Rainbow Dash knew perfectly well what her friends had been yelling at her about, but just remembering that dream she didn’t dare say what she’d been doing to bring it about.

“I don’t remember, but I think it was something I’d done that wasn’t very good.” That got the general sense across and that meant it wasn’t as bad a lie, right?

“Well I’m sure whatever you did wasn’t that bad. And anyways it wasn’t real or anything. I mean come on, Nightmare Moon trying to be your friend? How silly is that?”

Rainbow Dash tried to smile but couldn’t. “That’s the thing Pinkie Pie. It felt real. I mean I’ve woken up I know it’s not real, and I’d still swear I was on that hill talking to Nightmare Moon.”

“Talking to Nightmare Moon?” Applejack straggled over to them. “Why would Rainbow Dash be talking to Nightmare Moon?”

“She was having a bad dream,” Pinkie Pie said, “and she’s letting it get to her. We were yelling at her and it made her run away. Nightmare Moon found her and she was being all friendly.”

“Nightmare Moon, friendly?” Rarity laughed, “If that doesn’t say you’re in a dream I don’t know what would.”

“I know,” Pinkie Pie giggled. “Come on Rainbow Dash, stop being all miss serious face and lighten up. Nightmare Moon isn’t anywhere near here and you’d have to try really, really hard to make us angry enough to yell at you. And we’d still forgive you. Now are you going to believe me, or a pony who was moving around Ponyville as a black poof of smoke?”

Rainbow Dash finally started laughing. “I guess being friends with a poof of smoke is kind of silly.”

“That’s the spirit!” Pinkie Pie’s smile split her face. “Tell all those scary bad thoughts to just take a hike and then laugh them away!”

Once Rainbow Dash and the others began to laugh it was like all the fear and doubt she’d been harboring started to melt away. Thinking about bargaining with the Shadowbolts had been a bad idea but her friends would forgive her for it. Not that she was going to bring it up unless she had to or anything.

Once the laughter died down they all silently agreed that they wouldn’t be going back to sleep and broke camp for another long night of travel. There was no way they would beat Trixie’s army to the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters, but they’d broken into one place she was guarding and they could do it again.

They walked for several hours before taking a break. The mountain that Canterlot rested on had crept over the edge of the horizon soon after they set off and they were angling themselves to keep it that way. The woods on the far side of Canterlot weren’t as bad as the Everfree Forest but ponies didn’t avoid them simply because the road to Manehatten ran on the other side of Canterlot.

“What was that?” Applejack held up a hoof at the head of the line and everypony behind her stopped. “I thought I heard something up ahead. Rainbow Dash, go check it out. Be sure to make plenty of noise on your way back if it’s not friendly.”

Rainbow Dash nodded and took off into the trees ahead. These woods weren’t wild like the Everfree Forest but they hadn’t been laid out in an orderly fashion and it had been some time since anypony made an effort to tend this forest. Even if Applejack hadn’t seen anything this wasn’t the kind of place to ignore the possibility of something unfriendly up ahead.

“Hey there Rainbow Dash.” A gruff voice from the side made Rainbow Dash nearly fall out of the sky with surprise. Righting herself she turned to see a very familiar face sitting in a tree.

“Gilda?” She still asked the question even though the griffon was right in front of her face. “What are you doing here?”

“Following you, of course.” The griffon snorted. “I only recognize the yellow wimp but this looks like a group of grade-a losers you’ve fallen in with. Let’s ditch these lame-o’s and go have some fun. There’s no one telling us what to do so we can pull some awesome pranks.”

Rainbow Dash’s suspicions flared immediately. She and her friends had gone about as far off the beaten path as a pony could, so how had Gilda found her? And then there was her asking Rainbow Dash to go off and pull more ‘pranks’ with her. It had been years since their rather epic falling out over Gilda wanting to pull ever more mean spirited pranks that could really hurt ponies. Even though her friends were close behind Rainbow Dash was treading on some very thin ice here.

“Didn’t we have this conversation before?” Rainbow Dash preferred to tread the same minefields over again. “You didn’t come all this way just to tell me that I was right and you realized you were being a jerk all those years ago, did you?”

“I see you’re still letting Fluttercry keep you in boring old nice to each other land. That crybaby could always make a wet stick seem like the life of a party. And it sounds like she’s still got you thinking that doing anything that could put a scratch on someone makes you some kind of serial killer or something.”

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash shouted with real anger. “Don’t you go talking about Fluttershy like that! Those pranks you were pulling by the end were downright dangerous and you were happy when ponies got hurt. I was just lucky I had a friend like Fluttershy who stuck by me long enough to get me to see that so I could get out before it was too late.”

Gilda stuck a talon into her beak and mimed gagging. “Spare me the touchy feely happy trip. I thought after your precious little sun princess got herself beaten up by a pony who deserves to be running the show around here you might have wised up. Guess that group of namby pamby wimps got their hoofs in you a lot more than I thought.”

“Those ‘namby pamby wimps’ are my friends.” Rainbow Dash was hoofing the ground in anger. “So why are you really here Gilda?”

“I think that’s obvious,” Gilda’s smile was not at all pleasant. “But I think we’re about to have company, so let’s have this conversation again after I kill your friends.”

Rainbow Dash heard her friends crashing through the trees towards her but before she could shout a warning Gilda dove at her with talons stretched out.

Thinking quickly Rainbow Dash flapped her wings just enough so her hoofs brushed Gilda’s wingtips. Another flap of her wings turned her around to see Gilda’s beak digging rather painfully into the dirt. Turning around also let her see her friend bursting through the trees clearly prepared for trouble.

“Gilda!” Fluttershy squeaked upon seeing the griffon.

“This is too easy,” Gilda smirked. “One down Dashie!”

“Eek!” Fluttershy started to cringe as the griffon made yet another killing dive.

Instead of meeting pegasus flesh that lunge was interrupted by an orange earth pony’s hoofs audibly connecting with the griffon.

“Ha!” Applejack had a hint of a drawl in her voice from excitement. “I haven’t bucked something like that since the last time I came back to help out on the farm.”

Gloating turned out to be a horrible mistake as Gilda recovered quite a bit faster than anypony had thought she would. Applejack’s first reaction to the claws raking across her wasn’t pain, but surprise. The pain became perfectly evident as she started collapsing to the ground with a cry. Not quite finished Gilda’s beak flashed down and Applejack gasped as her front right leg broke with a crack the others had no problem hearing.

“Not who I was aiming for,” Gilda turned a cruel smile at Rainbow Dash, “but like I said, one down Dashie. Say anything you want to say to your loser friends soon because they’re going to be joining her.”

Pegasus flight, even Rainbow Dash’s, was graceful. Gilda’s flight away from them was all raw power. Shocked out of their stupor at seeing Applejack hurt Twilight and Rarity sent numerous bolts of magic after the fleeing griffon. But like Rainbow Dash, Gilda was much too good a flier to get hit by so few ponies.

Rainbow Dash tensed herself to pursue her now definitely former friend. But a low groan from behind snapped all thought of ripping Gilda apart feather by feather from her head.

Her first thought was to rush to her friend’s aid but when she turned to do just that she saw Fluttershy already kneeling next to Applejack with her saddlebags open. Flapping her wings to go look for signs of Gilda, the guards, or Nightmare Children was one of the hardest things Rainbow Dash had ever done. But she knew that if Fluttershy was interrupted while treating Applejack it could mean the death of the earth pony.

Fluttershy couldn’t have spent more than twenty minutes cleaning Applejack’s wounds, bandaging them, and setting her broken leg. It only felt like half a day to Rainbow Dash. Twenty minutes or half the day though Rainbow Dash didn’t see any signs of pursuit or Gilda turning around for another attempt on their lives.

“I’ve done everything I can out here,” Rainbow Dash heard Fluttershy say through the trees.

Twilight was the first to speak. “Good everything you can do, or bad everything you can do?”

“I don’t think she’s in any immediate danger of dying,” Rainbow Dash nearly fell out of the sky with relief. “Her wounds look a lot worse than they really are. That’s probably why Gilda thought she’d killed Applejack. But she’s not going to get better without proper bed rest. The only place I can think of where we can stop for a few days to let her heal is her family’s farm outside Ponyville, but, um, I don’t remember the way.”

“Oh, oh!” Pinkie Pie was jumping up and down waving her hooves in the air. “I still know the way! Pick me, pick me!”

“That settles it then,” Twilight levitated Applejack’s saddlebags onto her own back. “Lead the way Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash, make sure we don’t have any more surprise visits. Rarity, you and I can take turns holding Applejack so she doesn’t get bounced around.”

She knew Twilight couldn’t see her through the trees but Rainbow Dash still nodded. She circled slightly higher and started looking around for movement as they set off. It was going to be a long way back to Ponyville.

Author's Note : I'll be out of town next week and likely won't have access to the internet. Therefore there will NOT be an update next Friday. Instead Chapter Thirteen will be released on Friday, June 15.

Come All Sad, and Solemn Shows

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: I used to own My Little Pony back in 1840. But I lost it in a bet with Abraham Lincoln.

Chapter Thirteen: Come All Sad, and Solemn Shows

“How did I meet Gilda?” They’d been slowly walking for little more than an hour after the attack when Twilight had asked the question out of the blue. They’d all in that time offered to carry Applejack, even Fluttershy, but Pinkie Pie kept insisting she was fine and she was keeping up with the group.

“I don’t want to pry,” Twilight waved her hoofs in protest. “It’s just it sounded like you knew her pretty well. So I was wondering how she wound up working for Nightmare Moon and you’re here with us. It sounds a little bit like what happened between Shady and I, but I get the sense that you two knew each other a lot better than we did.”

“Oh, that makes sense. Well it all started at the end of flight camp. The ponies running it decided to have some sort of ‘cultural exchange’ for the last week, and Fluttershy and I drew the short straws to show our visitor around.”

“This is a total bummer!” Rainbow Dash kicked the clouds beneath her hoof. “There’s only a week of flight camp left and I still don’t have my cutie mark. And now I have to show this griffon around all week. Do you know how many pegasi still don’t have their cutie marks after flight camp? Me! That’s who. I’m going to be a laughing stock at school.”

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” Fluttershy meekly said. “I mean for all you know your special talent could be working with griffons. And even if it isn’t you’re still a great pony. Cutie mark or not you came after me when I fell of that cloud. That has to count for something.”

“Thanks for trying Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash sighed, “but let’s just go get this over with.”

Griffons were one of the few species besides pegasi capable of naturally standing on clouds. They opened the door to the small cloud shack and got their first look at a griffon. She stood on four limbs like a pony and had wings like a pegasus, but the resemblance ended there. All four of her limbs ended in wicked looking claws and the sharp curve of her beak left no doubt what she ate. Griffons didn’t, normally, eat ponies and she wouldn’t eat any meat in front of them at all, but Rainbow Dash still had to stomp down a fair bit of nervousness.

“You’re the best they had at flight camp?” The griffon’s curious look carried not a little malice. “I knew Equestria was lame-o loser ville, but a blank flank and what are those, butterflies? I just knew I’d be saddled with a pair of dweebs while I was here.”

“Rainbow Dash isn’t a dweeb.” Fluttershy’s meek exterior dropped away. “When I fell off that cloud a few weeks ago she almost did a sonic rainboom to rescue me.”

“Come on,” Rainbow Dash patted at Fluttershy with a hoof, “a sonic rainboom is just an old mare’s tale. It was a nice bit of flying but I wasn’t even close to a sonic rainboom.”

“Sonic rainboom?” The feathers over one of the griffon’s eyes rose. “That’s actually pretty awesome. I’m Gilda. Stick with me after we get out of this lame place and we’ll spice boring town right up.”

Graduating high school as a blank flank. Was there anything in the entire world that could possibly be worse? Well, okay, maybe there was one thing that could be worse. Rainbow Dash looked into the audience and saw most of her friends throughout high school watching the ceremony, and not just because they weren’t allowed to walk. They’d all be coming back to school in the fall as students. She’d probably be with them if Fluttershy hadn’t browbeat her into really studying for her finals and limping through several classes with gentlecolt’s C’s.

“You see Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy whispered to her. “I told you that you could do it.”

“Thanks,” Rainbow Dash smiled back. “But I still have no clue what I’m going to do now that I’m out. Without a cutie mark I don’t know what to do with my life and nopony is going to hire a blank flank for long.”

After getting their diplomas all the newly graduated ponies were milling about with one another.

“We did it Rainbow Dash, woo hoo!” Fluttershy’s shout of excitement left a fair bit to be desired.

“And now to get out of here!” Rainbow Dash threw her robe into a growing pile and stretched her wings. “You might be hitting the books to go to med school, but me and Gilda are going to go enjoy the world before we have to slave and toil in a dead end job.”

Fluttershy’s smile disappeared like it had never been there. “I’ve said it before Rainbow Dash, but Gilda isn’t a good influence on you. I know I’m particularly sensitive, but even I can tell that her pranks are just plain mean. Somepony is going to get hurt sooner or later if you keep hanging out with her and I’m afraid you’re going to get in trouble for it.”

“I never quite went to jail hanging out with Gilda, but I came pretty close a few times. I was fresh out of school and didn’t know a thing about the world so I thought it was just the police being as Gilda would put it ‘totally lame,’ and it never occurred to me that what we were doing was stupid and probably dangerous to other ponies.”

“It started becoming a problem when I came back to Ponyville to start looking for a job.”

“I’m sorry miss, uh,” the weather pony looked back down at her paperwork, “Rainbow Dash. But working with the weather is a job that requires us to trust you, and that means a background check. When we ran one on you… well the fact that you haven’t been to jail isn’t for a lack of trying. You don’t work well with others, you don’t respect authority, your definition of ‘fun’ is probably closer to most pony’s definitions of trying to get somepony killed, are you getting my point here?”

“What? But all those were just harmless pranks. I mean I know that wouldn’t be cool if I was on the job but that was just going out and seeing Equestria after getting out of school.”

“Filling a seniors home with alarm clocks set to go off at random times at full volume is not my idea of a harmless prank! Lots of those older ponies have weak hearts. You’re lucky nopony died or we wouldn’t be talking right now because you’d be in jail.”

Rainbow Dash sputtered angrily but eventually walked out of the weather office. Everywhere she went was the same story. With the entry level positions she was looking for her being a blank flank was no problem, but as soon as they did some digging into her past with the police potential jobs couldn’t throw her out the door fast enough.

“You didn’t get the job.” Fluttershy said as Rainbow Dash walked through the door to her apartment. The yellow pegasus had gotten a part-time job at an animal hospital that earned her credit towards her medical degree as well as paying enough for her to afford a small apartment.

“No,” Rainbow Dash sighed as she flopped down on a comfy cloud couch. “Same old, same old, as soon as they find out about all that stuff I did with Gilda they stop being interested. At least this job told me no face to face. Usually it’s a letter, or more often they just forget I ever existed.”

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy smiled sadly. “I just know you’ll find somepony who will give you a chance someday. Even if it’s just for one storm or to move some clouds, and once you show them what you can do things will get better.”

“Thanks Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash smiled. Her best friend always knew what to say to lift her out of a funk.

Fluttershy flew slowly back from her classes. A cloud of birds and butterflies following her made it too beautiful a day to waste rushing from place to place. It was her day off from the animal hospital and as much as she wanted to spend the day resting back at her apartment she was determined to spend some time with the cute little critters that had convinced her to come down to the ground in the first place.

She flapped her wings and giggled at how the butterflies flowed around her wings to keep pace with her. Most ponies didn’t stop to appreciate how beautiful all the life around them was so Fluttershy tried to appreciate it enough to make up. Eventually though, even her sedate pace though Fluttershy had to get back to her apartment. Not that she didn’t like her apartment.

“Hey Fluttershy,” the yellow pegasus was less surprised than she cared to admit at seeing Rainbow Dash sitting on her couch.

“You’re not supposed to be back from this weather job for two weeks. Please don’t tell me you got kicked off another weather patrol team.”

“It’s not my fault!” Rainbow Dash complained. “I only hung out with Gilda on my day off. And I made sure that nothing we did got anywhere even close to the other weather ponies. How am I supposed to help it if all those ponies are total sticks in the mud?”

“Oh Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy sighed. “Didn’t you listen at all to that one pony who told you that being a weather pony is a job that means other ponies have to trust you? You can’t just be a good pony on the job and then go almost get arrested on your day off. What did Gilda even have you doing that got you kicked off the weather team?”

“It was great!” Rainbow Dash started laughing. “We got a whole bunch of plastic ties and tied everypony’s doors together. Nopony could open their doors! It was so funny watching all those ponies standing outside their doors looking totally helpless. They had to get the fire department to come cut all the ties!”

Fluttershy had been told her glare was actually rather terrifying. For that reason she didn’t use it on her friends unless she had no other choice. She didn’t think she had any other choice after hearing Rainbow Dash.

“That wasn’t funny at all Rainbow Dash. Locking all those ponies out of their homes was very cruel. And what if somepony was hurt and help couldn’t get to them because the door was locked? Or what if being stuck caused them to miss an important meeting, or what if they were late to work and go fired because of your prank?”

“That’s,” Rainbow Dash was clearly sulking, “nopony got hurt, so it was cool, okay?”

“It’s not cool, and you know it. But you always let Gilda talk you into these sorts of things. You have to learn to say no to her Rainbow Dash. Or someday she’s going to have you do something that I can’t help you after, and I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

“I’ll try.” Rainbow Dash said at last.

“That’s all I’m asking for,” Fluttershy smiled. “Now, let’s go out and get something to eat. It’s a far too beautiful day to spend it inside.”

Fluttershy was not good with confrontations. So perhaps that was why she’d chosen to closet herself in her bedroom while Rainbow Dash and Gilda screamed at each other in her living room.

The griffon was apparently taking her friend’s reluctance to go along with her latest ‘prank,’ messing with a town’s water supply to give it drastically low pressure, as a rather serious and personal betrayal. Fluttershy didn’t have words to describe how proud of her best friend she was for realizing all the ways such a prank could go horribly wrong and hurt lots of ponies. She rather doubted that Rainbow Dash was happy at having to choose between her friends, but Gilda’s latest plan really would be over the line that would get them both arrested.

“… thought there was one pony here who wasn’t a twerp!” Gilda’s shout came through the door.

“You’re being a total jerk!” Rainbow Dash shouted back. “You were a great friend to go flying with, but until you stop wanting to hurt ponies for kicks just get out!”

Fluttershy heard some more angrily muttered words after that and then one of the more memorable door slams of her life. She waited about half a minute, just to make sure it was all over, before venturing out into the rest of her apartment. Rainbow Dash was sitting in the, fortunately unwrecked, living room.

“Are you okay Rainbow Dash?”

Her best friend turned to her. Fluttershy had never seen Rainbow Dash cry before but there were definitely darker streaks of her coat that could be nothing else.

“I’m… I feel like a jerk. I called Gilda a jerk, but I still feel like I left a friend hanging.”

Fluttershy hugged her friend. “That’s not true Rainbow Dash. You did everything you could to talk her out of this. You saved me from falling off that cloud, but something I learned in school is that you can’t save ponies, or griffons for that matter, from themselves.”

“I know, you’ve tried hard enough to save me from myself.”

“Well you might not be the best case.” Fluttershy laughed. “I guess I saved you from yourself.”

“Thanks Fluttershy. I probably don’t say this enough, but I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

Rainbow Dash stepped into Fluttershy’s apartment and let her saddlebags drop to the floor. Another month another being let go from a weather team. At least this time it had been because they hadn’t needed another pony on the team and being the newest member she was the obvious choice. She’d long since grown used to, and tired, of blowing her top at something or somepony and being let go from a weather team as ‘not a team player.’

“I’m home Fluttershy.”

“Oh, Rainbow Dash, I thought you’d be home a few days ago. You went almost two weeks before letting your temper get the best of you. That was almost a record. We’ll find you a permanent weather team soon at this rate.”

“Actually, it took thinking all your happy feely slogans till I heard them in my sleep but I didn’t let my temperature get the best of me,” Rainbow Dash smiled. “It just turned out to be a less complex job than they thought and they didn’t need all the ponies they’d brought on for the job. I was the newest pony on the team so I got let go.”

“I’m so proud of you Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy smiled and wrapped her friend in a hug.

“Fluttershy, I still have to breathe.” Rainbow Dash croaked through her hug constricted throat. Fluttershy gasped and let go with a blush. “Thanks though, I mean it. I promise I’ll get a job with a weather team and keep it. First thing I’ll do when I do get that job will be to get out of your mane and give you back your couch.”

“I don’t mind you staying on my couch at all.” Fluttershy managed to sound like she was the one apologizing. “You’re a nice roommate, you’re clean, you don’t let your temper snap when I’m around, and I’ve gotten so used to you sleeping on my couch that if you left I honestly don’t know what I’d do with it.”

“Thanks, I think. Look, I’ll unpack a few things and then start looking for a new weather team tomorrow.”

“Actually I might be able to help with that,” Fluttershy smiled. “I try to keep an ear out for any job openings and I heard that Ponyville is looking for a new pony for their weather team. I know it’s a chance since you couldn’t just leave the city if you lost your temper, but I really think you can handle this. There’s something really big coming up in Ponyville in a few weeks. If you can make it through that without losing your temper I think you can make this last.”

It would definitely be a risk, but Fluttershy had never steered her wrong before. “Alright, I’ll do my best.”

“I didn’t know it at the time but turned out Gilda decided to go ahead with her prank without me.” Rainbow Dash wound down her tale. “And Fluttershy was dead right. Gilda got herself arrested and deported. I’d probably still be in jail if I went along with it.”

“That still doesn’t explain what Gilda is doing back in Equestria.” Rarity pointed out the glaring hole in Rainbow Dash’s story.

“I wish I knew,” Rainbow Dash shrugged, “but after she stormed out of Fluttershy’s apartment I haven’t seen or talked to Gilda until today. I guess she probably got dumped somewhere in the Griffon Kingdom and then went back home. I thought about sending her a letter every few months, but when I’d try to start it I never got anywhere.”

Twilight turned as they trotted along. “Well whatever brought Gilda here it’s not much of a surprise that Nightmare Moon would be inviting all sorts of ponies and creatures who didn’t get along with Celestia to serve her. That would make it easy to build army that wouldn’t have any problems hurting all the ponies who used to look up to Celestia. There is one thing in particular that worries me about Gilda and any other Griffons Nightmare Moon has recruited. Griffons are carnivores, and even if ponies haven’t been part of their diet for a long time I wouldn’t put it past Nightmare Moon to put us back on the menu if she thought it would help stamp out resistance to her rule.”

“That’s horrible!” Fluttershy gasped. “How could Nightmare Moon do that to other ponies?”

“I don’t think she really cares about other ponies Fluttershy.” Rainbow Dash tried to be gentle with her friend. “And the way Gilda was talking and acting back there I think I could see her eating a pony just for kicks. We’re going to have to be really careful from here to Ponyville. When Gilda finds out she didn’t kill Applejack she’s probably going to come right back to try finishing the job.”

“Well that’s what you’re here for darling,” Rarity smiled at Rainbow Dash, “to keep a lookout so Gilda and her horrible thugs can’t sneak up on us.”

“Shhh!” Pinkie Pie signaled from up ahead where she was carrying Applejack. “There’s somepony up ahead.”

They hadn’t been a particularly loud group to begin with, but as soon as Pinkie Pie whispered her warning they were quiet enough that one could have heard a pin fall into the earth.

“I guess Gilda brought some friends,” Twilight whispered.

“We still have to get to Ponyville,” Fluttershy whispered back. “Applejack isn’t in any immediate danger out here but if she doesn’t get some proper rest at some point that could change or she might not heal properly.”

“We can’t stay here,” Rarity edged towards the others. “Twilight, do you think we could use your quiet spell to cover ourselves while we move? It will slow us down quite a bit but at least we’ll still be moving.”

Twilight responded by lighting her horn and waiting for her friends to get ready. Slowly they crept up to where Pinkie Pie was waiting with the unconscious Applejack. From Pinkie Pie’s vantage point it was obvious that while they were still a ways away there were lots of ponies in the woods ahead searching for them.

“We should get moving,” Pinkie Pie said as they slid up alongside her. “They’re probably expecting us to be pretty close to where we were when Gilda attacked. So if we can get close to where they are now they might not be looking as hard.”

Twilight was shocked at the seeming change of attitude from the normally jubilant pony, but a look at Rarity said this was one of those times where Pinkie Pie was simply being Pinkie Pie.

Nopony seemed to have a better idea so they set off as quickly as they dared to avoid notice and hurting Applejack. Rainbow Dash was constantly waiting for somepony or something to jump out of the trees at them but they followed Pinkie Pie’s unerring directions and met nothing as they worked their way towards the ponies looking for them.

“Rainbow Dash,” she heard Twilight whisper. “If we get caught I want you to take Applejack and get away from here.”

“What?” Rainbow Dash tried to shout at a whisper. “No way, I’m not going to leave you guys hanging if we have to fight our way to Ponyville.”

“Please,” Twilight pleaded. “I know you don’t want to leave, but if we’re caught there’s nopony else who knows how to beat Nightmare Moon. You have to take Applejack and get out of here. Let her heal up and then you two can go find the Elements of Harmony and use them to bring back Celestia, defeat Nightmare Moon, or whatever it is they’re supposed to do.”

Rainbow Dash glared at her friend before softening her look and sighing. “Fine, but only if it looks like it’s a fight we can’t win. And if I do have to take Applejack and run I want you guys to hoof it to Ponyville as fast as you can. We’ll try to meet up and go from there, okay?”

Twilight nodded and turned forward with a look of determination on her face.

Pinkie Pie led them forward for several more minutes before stopping in front of a particularly thick stand of trees.

“It’s a good hiding place,” Rarity gave the trees an appraising look, “but it’s an obviously good hiding place. It’s certainly the sort of place I’d look if I were looking for somepony.”

At that moment they heard a rustling in the trees off in the distance that could only be the sounds of ponies looking for them. Good hiding spot or not they were going to be using the stand of trees. Horns glowing Rarity and Twilight tried to move aside branches and bushes to let them into the trees without leaving any trace that anypony had ever been there. It was a chore moving Applejack into the stand of trees but they somehow managed. In short order five pairs of eyes tried to pierce the thick cover of plants shielding them from the searching ponies outside.

Seconds later four ponies in black robes came into view and started poking around the neck of the woods Rainbow Dash and friends had hidden in. Pinkie Pie’s plan seemed to have worked as none of the Nightmare Children seemed to be searching too hard.

“Why are we even looking here?” One of the Nightmare Children complained. “Even if those traitors were crazy enough to attack us head on there’s no way they’d have made it this far in so little time.”

“Orders are orders,” another black robed pony chided, “and you don’t want to deal with that crazy griffon for not obeying orders do you?”

“I guess not,” the first pony replied. “Anyways, this looks like as good a place as any.”

As good a place as any for what? The ponies in the stand of trees looked nervously at each other.

“Go back and find Gilda,” the second pony said, “and tell her we’ve found a location for her to move her command post up to.”

“Yes sir,” a third voice said.

She couldn’t see anything through the trees but she could hear the sounds of a pony going back the way the four ponies had come. Gilda must have been somewhere back there, and soon she was going to be right outside the stand of trees they were hiding in with Celestia only knew how many ponies.

“We have to run right now,” Fluttershy whispered. “They’ll find us if we stay here, and we can’t outrun an army of them if we’re carrying Applejack.”

“We could try to fight our way out,” Rarity said, “but I’d rather not go through what we went through in Manehatten again. Even if there’s nopony around this time to get hurt.”

“I just don’t like our chances of fighting our way out,” Twilight sighed. “We’re down a pony, a pony and a half since one of us has to carry Applejack, and we can’t move nearly as fast as we did in Manehatten.”

“Can we try sneaking our way out?” Pinkie Pie carefully lifted Applejack to rest on her back. “We’ve got Twilight’s quiet spell, and we wouldn’t have to move all that fast so carrying Applejack wouldn’t be a problem.”

“That’s not going to work and you know it,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. “You girls take Applejack and run. I’ll fly out of here as fast as I can before that and draw them all off. You know they can’t keep up with me. I’ll lead them around for awhile, lose them, and then catch up with you.”

The other ponies all started to protest, but as they tried to think of something that would work better they all came up blank.

“Be careful Rainbow Dash,” Twilight levitated the pegasus’ saddlebags onto her own back. “If you can’t find us try to make your way to Ponyville. We’ll meet there.”

Rainbow Dash nodded and started slowly counting to three with a hoof. On three she burst out of the stand of trees as fast as she could. She made a circle around the surprised Nightmare Children to hide where she’d started and then she took off in a random direction. A pegasus racing through the sky quickly caught the attention of the ponies serving under Gilda and before long Rainbow Dash had a number of followers. Sadly Gilda herself didn’t make an appearance. Rainbow Dash really wanted to rub her beak into the dirt before leaving the griffon in her dust.

The ponies following her were a persistent bunch though. They knew how to fly in a pattern so that one pony took the wind resistance and left the others fresher than they might have been. They were smart enough to keep up with her, but were they fast enough?

Rainbow Dash pumped her wings and started climbing. The ponies behind her would have to work plenty hard to keep up with her, and she hadn’t even started trying yet. The ponies behind her tried to keep up for awhile before realizing it was futile. Proving unpleasantly smart once again they stopped climbing and started circling below her, waiting.

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash smirked, “let’s take smarts out and put skill in!”

She dove.

The ponies below her were waiting but there was no way they could be ready. A rainbow colored blur shot by them and kept heading towards the trees. Rainbow Dash plummeted towards the sea of green beneath her. The air was thick around her and it was fighting back as she tried to dive faster and faster. She remembered the old stories about pegasi flying so fast the air stopped fighting them. If she went just a little faster…

No, she had to lose these ponies so she could get back to the others and help Applejack. She dialed the speed back just a bit and tore through the trees. Leaves and branches tore at her wing feathers but she didn’t lose anything important. Going even lower she started weaving between the trees. It was risky, but the leaves above wouldn’t rustle so her pursuers would have no clue where she was going. She spent several minutes like that before slowing to a stop.

Silence enveloped her and she listened. Her mad flight had scared the animals to silence and without any breeze the only sound she could hear was her own breathing. She’d drawn the guards and Nightmare Children away from the others and lost them. Now she just had to catch up to the others, but how was she going to do that when she didn’t even know where she was?

Small Cheer and Great Welcome

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Chapter Fourteen: Small Cheer and Great Welcome

Twilight Sparkle wanted to protest Rainbow Dash’s mad plan more, but before she could voice any more protests the rainbow maned pegasus had burst from their stand of trees. Before Twilight begin to call to Rainbow Dash to stop, the ponies who had been standing there had disappeared in pursuit of her friend and the forest was again quiet.

Waiting several seconds just to make sure she propped herself up on a tree with her front hooves to get a better view. Off in the distance she could see several ponies running towards Rainbow Dash, but the coast near them was clear.

“Let’s go,” she turned to her friends.

She and Rarity pried open the stand of trees with their magic and they started towards Ponyville again. From the start they moved slower than Twilight had hoped, but without risking further injury to Applejack there wasn’t much they could do. They tried to move as quietly as possible, and every time they heard something approaching she or Rarity would use her quiet spell to give them cover. Several times they still had to duck into bushes or shadows and hope that guards or Nightmare Children making their way towards Rainbow Dash didn’t spot them and start a second pursuit in the forest.

“Let’s stop here,” Fluttershy said after about an hour and a half, “it’s not good that we’re moving Applejack around so much after an injury. I know you don’t like stopping unless we have to but if we have to move her it’s much better to stop every once in awhile and let her rest.”

“I don’t want to hurt Applejack more than I don’t want to stop,” Twilight sighed as she stepped into some shadows. “We haven’t seen anypony in awhile, and it will give Rainbow Dash a chance to catch up to us if she’s managed to give all those ponies the slip.”

The others all seemed to share her desire to get to Ponyville as fast as possible. But they also recognized that between letting Applejack rest and letting Rainbow Dash catch up they needed to stop at some point.

“You know what girls?” Pinkie Pie said as she gently laid Applejack down. “When we get to Ponyville and Applejack gets better we need to have a ‘we’re really close to beating Nightmare Moon and Applejack is all better’ party! I mean we barely celebrated after we beat that mean nasty Arabus in Coltcinnati, and we were only in Manehatten long enough to get those books. We’ve done good girls and we should celebrate!”

“I heartily agree dear,” Rarity was unsurprisingly the pony to bring Pinkie Pie back down to Equestria, “but we are in a bit of a hurry. If we don’t get the elements and beat Nightmare Moon soon ponies are going to start starving to death.”

“I know, but we’ve been working so hard to bring back the sun and we haven’t had a single break. I’m just worried that we’re going to get all tired and sad and then we won’t be able to save anypony.”

Twilight smiled, Pinkie Pie really did just want them to be happy. “I promise Pinkie Pie, once we get the Elements of Harmony and beat Nightmare Moon we’ll have a party ponies will be talking about for a thousand years.”

“Thanks Twilight!”

Suddenly there was a rustling from the trees and silence descended on the group. They all ducked back into the trees and prepared to fight whatever came out of the trees at them. Their biggest fear was the guards or Nightmare Children, but between hydras, manticores, cockatrices, or even an Ursa there were plenty of things to worry about in this forest.

Twigs started to snap and Twilight lit a small flame above her horn while Rarity lifted a chunk of earth, Pinkie Pie edged closer to Applejack and Fluttershy made ready to bolt for other cover. The noise came closer and closer and they all nervously waited to see what they would have to face next.

They were not expecting Rainbow Dash.

“Wait,” Twilight whispered, “we don’t know if anypony is following her.”

Rainbow Dash looked around, probably for signs they had been there, but they’d been careful to cover their tracks. It was only when the rainbow maned pegasus was about to head on to look for them somewhere else that Twilight finally stepped out of her cover and caught her friend’s attention.

“What were you waiting for?” Rainbow Dash griped. “I was just about to take off somewhere else and leave you behind.”
“Sorry,” Twilight said, “but we weren’t sure if you were being followed or not. I’m guessing you managed to lose them?”

“Duh,” Rainbow Dash smiled as the rest of the group emerged from hiding, “they all came running and flying after me, and they never had a chance.”

“Wonderful darling,” Rarity floated Rainbow Dash’s saddlebags over to her. “Now let’s take advantage of not having an army nipping at our tails for a change and get as far towards Ponyville as we can.”

That was an idea everypony could get behind. Rainbow Dash buckled her saddlebags while Pinkie Pie lifted the unconscious Applejack. Still casting about with all their senses for signs of pursuit they set off towards Ponyville as quickly as they dared.

They continued on for several more hours pausing only when they had to let Applejack rest from being moved around. Finally they spotted a small hill near a pond that would do to catch a few hours of sleep before moving on again.

“This place is nice,” Twilight sighed with relief at being able to drop her saddlebags after a long day. “Fresh water, a good view, and the forest around here is quiet enough that we’ll hear anypony coming a long way away.”

“This whole part of the forest has been quite noise-free,” Rarity pointed out. “I wonder if all the ponies running around making noise has scared the wildlife off?”

“I don’t think so,” Fluttershy said from where she was looking over Applejack. “I noticed a lot of broken branches and crushed plants while we were walking. I think there’s a large creature in this part of the forest the other animals are scared of.”

“Fantastic,” Twilight rolled her eyes, “just what I needed to help me sleep. A large scary thing out there that might decide to come our way.”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Fluttershy hurriedly said. “Very few animals eat ponies, and even those that do will only hunt ponies if they have no other choice.”

“Not helping Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Sorry,” Fluttershy whispered, “I’ll just keep quiet.”

“It’s fine,” Twilight tried to comfort her friend, “we’re just all on edge from being chased for so long. And the possibility of something else coming after us really isn’t doing any of us any good.”

“What we all need is some relaxation,” Rarity opened her saddlebags and pulled out a bowl normally used to hold food. “I for example am going to go get some water and use it to try and clean myself though I don’t harbor any delusions that it will be particularly effective or long lasting.”

Twilight stifled a laugh. Whatever the circumstances Rarity would gripe about dirt and try to keep herself pristine. But like all the others when the time came she would dive into whatever muck and grime was in their way if it meant coming closer to the Elements of Harmony. Not for the first time she felt unbelievably lucky to have made such good friends.

Taking Rarity’s advice she decided to pull out the books they’d stolen in Manehatten and read them once again. In particular she wanted to search for any clues about the elusive sixth element of harmony. Both books said it was a complete mystery, but if she could gain so much as a clue to what the sixth element was or even wasn’t then she would feel like her research had succeeded.

Pinkie Pie was the first one to notice trouble. She perked her head up and looked about trying to find the source of the bad feeling. “Do you girls feel that?”

“Feel what?” Rarity said from where she was toweling her face.

Twilight heard a dull thud and saw the water in Rarity’s bowl ripple ominously. “Girls, I think we should get ready to run in a hurry.”

They began to frantically pack but it was becoming clear that whatever was coming their way would be on them very soon. Already Twilight could see trees bending and swaying with its passage. Whatever it was it was huge. She wasted a few precious seconds of packing to look over at Rarity’s bowl of water just in time to see a terrifying ripple again. What in Equestria was so big it could do that just walking?

Then it roared.

The air around them seemed to vibrate, and Twilight was sure she wasn’t the only one who felt that roar in her bones. At last Twilight got her first look at what was coming their way. Of all the things she feared they’d run into on their way to Ponyville an Ursa Minor ranked behind probably only Nightmare Moon herself.

“Um, what now?” Rainbow Dash asked the question they were all thinking.

Twilight swallowed hard, she was the best read about creatures like this, so if anypony knew how to get them out of this alive it would be her.

“Fluttershy, get Applejack somewhere safe then come back here.” The yellow pegasus nodded before grabbing the unconscious earth pony and flying off. “Rainbow Dash, when it gets closer I want you to start flying around it. Annoy it so it concentrates on you but don’t get yourself hurt. When Fluttershy gets back she’ll give it something else to be mad at.” Rainbow Dash performed a rather flamboyant salute before taking to the sky. “Pinkie Pie, I need you to uproot a tree. It has to be big enough and tough enough that the Ursa can hold on to it for awhile.” Pinkie Pie smiled wide and bright before running off to find a tree to bring down. “Rarity, once the others have the Ursa distracted we’ll need to find a way to put it to sleep. It’s just a baby Ursa so I’m hoping the tree Pinkie Pie brings back will be like a stuffed toy to a filly or colt. Once it’s asleep we’ll need to find a way to move the Ursa away from here. Otherwise when it wakes up it could still have our scent and if it decides to follow us it wouldn’t hesitate to follow us into Ponyville or Canterlot itself.”

“You certainly don’t think small, do you?” Rarity laughed nervously.

“The only thing minor about an Ursa Minor is its name. I don’t think there’s an easy way to deal with something like this.”
Rarity sighed. “Well I suppose anything going easy for us was too much to hope for. Any ideas how to put something the size of a city block to sleep?”

“Maybe,” Twilight watched the moving forest with apprehension, “how good are you at making wind?”

“Hardly an expert, but it’s useful to clean off just unearthed gems so I can manage a little bit.”

“Okay,” Twilight paced back and forth, “those reeds down by that pond where you went to grab some water should make some sort of note when you send wind through them. I’m not looking for a masterpiece. All we need is something to put the Ursa to sleep. I’ll start lifting it and when it’s asleep you can join in and we’ll send it somewhere that’s not here.”

Another roar of anger sounded and the movement in the trees started jerking back and forth as it made its way towards the two unicorns. Rainbow Dash had apparently started annoying the Ursa Minor.

“I’ve got Applejack behind some rocks,” Fluttershy came flying back.

“Good,” Twilight said, “now go help Rainbow Dash keep the Ursa distracted. You don’t need to hurt it, just keep it from paying attention to what Rarity and I are doing.”

“R…Right.” Fluttershy didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic but flew off nonetheless.

The thrashing of the trees increased as the Ursa gained yet another target for its ire. Twilight didn’t think that Fluttershy would approve of something as minor as making an animal angry, but they didn’t exactly have a choice if they wanted to stay alive.

Another sound of branches breaking started coming from behind and Twilight her adrenaline start to pump before turning and realizing it was just Pinkie Pie dragging a tree towards them. She had to briefly pause to think how much her life had changed to think of a pony dragging a tree as nothing out of the ordinary.

“Is this good?” Pinkie Pie eagerly asked as she deposited the tree at Twilight’s hoofs.

“Perfect,” Twilight smiled. ”Rainbow Dash! Fluttershy! You can bring the Ursa over here now!”

Twilight’s horn started to glow and the tree slowly lifted. Before she’d started learning magic from Rarity she wouldn’t have dreamed of something like holding a tree, but if her crazy plan was going to work a tree would be just the beginning of what she was going to demand from her magic. She watched her friends out of a corner of her eyes and saw Rainbow Dash dodge a swipe of a paw so narrowly that rainbow colored tail hairs went flying. Every instinct in Twilight cried for her to run or help her friends right now, but she forced them down and concentrated on her magic.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy began leading the Ursa towards Rarity’s waiting spell. As the last few trees between the Ursa Minor and the ponies on the hill crashed down a note began to sound through the air. Twilight would never have called Rarity’s musical effort anything but amateurish, but it was a steady note, and if Twilight remembered correctly that was all a pony needed to lull an Ursa Minor to sleep. At least that was the plan. Rarity’s talent wasn’t making wind and she seemed tapped out working so far from what she was used to. And while the Ursa was definitely drowsy but it was still swatting and snapping at Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, and worse it was still coming towards the hill.

The whistling note grew louder as Twilight added more magic to the wind going through the reeds. That had the desired effect as the Ursa began to totter on the verge of sleep. At that moment she floated the tree Pinkie Pie had uprooted, leafy branches first, towards the Ursa. Just as she’d hoped the creature sleepily grabbed the poor tree and cuddled it just like she’d done with her Smarty Pants doll so many years ago.

Even asleep the Ursa’s breathing was a deep rumble that Twilight felt as much as heard. Letting Rarity once again take sole control of the wind Twilight started to lift the Ursa and the tree. She’d hoped to have help with this but she’d have to find it in herself to do it on her own.

Twilight had done more with magic since the sun disappeared than she ever thought she would. All of that was peanuts compared to levitating and moving an Ursa Minor and a sizeable tree. She poured magic into her horn until it seemed her whole world was a relentless tide of power, and still it seemed she was barely holding on to the spell. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, Twilight Sparkle began to move a creature that would consider a pony’s house a light lunch.

Gradually the Ursa Minor began to float back the way it had come. It would never win any races at the speed it was going, but then it was taking everything Twilight had just to keep it afloat. Her friends were completely silent with awe at the feat being performed in front of them. They had always believed that when confronted with such a creature a pony had two options, run or die.

As the Ursa Minor disappeared from view Twilight reached her limit. With a groan she let the creature down and collapsed to the ground. She didn’t think she’d ever been so tired in her life. It felt like she’d run back and forth between Canterlot and Manehatten about three or four times without stopping to rest. After what she’d been through her friends wouldn’t mind if she lay down and got… a little… sleep…

“Oh come on!” Rainbow Dash’s shout brought Twilight awake with a jerk.

“Wha?” She groped about for words with a brain that had three hoofs in dreamland and the last hoof waiting to let go.

“We just beat the biggest, meanest, and angriest thing in all Equestria, and neither of us got our cutie marks!”

Twilight laughed drowsily. “Is that all? I’ll care when I wake up.”

Twilight Sparkle’s first impression of Ponyville was… rustic. On a clear day the town was visible on the horizon from the surface of Canterlot, and it was popular among tourists who wanted to venture to the edges of the Everfree Forest without being in too much danger. It was also, if she remembered correctly, where this whole mess had begun.

“Home sweet home, I guess.” Rarity looked about the near empty streets of the town. Everywhere they went it seemed like fear of Nightmare Moon kept ponies indoors. Except, of course, the guards she was controlling and the Nightmare Children who served her.

“This place looks so sad,” Pinkie Pie frowned.

“I know it’s hard,” Twilight put a hoof on Pinkie Pie’s shoulder, “but we have to keep quiet and keep moving. Nightmare Moon can see this place from the royal castle in Canterlot, and we know that both Gilda and Trixie are around here. If they find out where we are we’re finished. We’re so close to the elements now. We’ll go to Sweet Apple Acres and once Applejack is safe we can go into the Everfree Forest and get the elements.”

“Not without me you aren’t. I missed too much while I was out and I’m not missing anything more.” Applejack had regained consciousness the morning after their fight with the Ursa Minor. Between her broken leg and the deep cuts courtesy of Gilda she was moving slowly and only by leaning on one of the others. Twilight was still amazed at how fast Applejack was healing. It might not have been as flashy as unicorn magic or pegasus flight, but earth ponies had plenty of gifts of their own.

“Okay,” Twilight smiled, “not without you.” Twilight’s first instinct told her to get to the elements as fast as possible, but there was a persistent voice at the back of her head that said she’d need Applejack both to get the elements and then to use them.

“What are we doing to do if we run into somepony who recognizes us?” Rainbow Dash looked around as though she suspected somepony to come shouting their names at any second. “I mean even if Applejack lived there Manehatten was a really big city. But Ponyville isn’t exactly packed to bursting with ponies. Rarity and Pinkie Pie are celebrities here, Applejack was born here and visits all the time, and Fluttershy and I live just outside of town and came into Ponyville all the time. If there’s just one pony here who likes Nightmare Moon, or wants to get that huge bounty on our heads, or even a pony who’s just scared that if we get through Nightmare Moon might take it out on the town we’re in trouble.”

“I’m sure nopony here would do that,” Fluttershy muttered. “Ponyville is full of good ponies, ponies who are our friends, and they wouldn’t…”

“Stop right there!” It wasn’t a native of Ponyville who had stopped them but a group of ponies in black robes.
“So much for sneaking,” Rainbow Dash whispered.

“Wait!” Rarity whispered back. “Didn’t you hear Twilight? If we start fighting our way through Ponyville we’re finished. Let’s try to talk our way out of this until we have no other choice.”

“I don’t recognize you,” the lead Nightmare Child arrogantly stepped up to them, “state your names and your business in Ponyville.”

Twilight didn’t want to do it. She’d sworn that part of her life was behind her. She wasn’t going to do it, she wasn’t, she wasn’t, she wasn’t, she wasn’t! She was.

She lowered her eyelids just a fraction, placed a soft yet promising her face, and shook her mane just so. Making eye contact with the Nightmare Children she slowly walked towards them with a step that barely but noticeably swayed her hips from side to side as she walked, and lastly she curved her tail just enough to be visible to the Nightmare Children without revealing anything.

The trick to getting large tips at Touchy Hooves had been to look attracted and attractive to a customer, but in the end to simply string them along for as much as they would give. The stakes here were a little higher than a few bits but the game, the rules, and the way she’d win were all the same.

“I’m sorry.” It would have been a mistake to call Twilight’s voice sultry. It hinted at sultry but promised nothing. She slowly walked up to the Nightmare Children, by some miracle all males, and made sure they got a good long look at her. Their ears perked up at her voice and as she brushed one of the Nightmare Children with her tail she knew she had them wrapped around her hoof.

“We weren’t planning on stopping in Ponyville, but my friend hurt her leg and she needs to rest.” Twilight Sparkle’s co-workers at Touchy Hooves had always said her best feature was her rear. She made sure all eyes were watching that rear as she walked back to point at Applejack’s splinted leg. A quick look back disguised as a sultry look told her she had their undivided attention. When she looked back away from the Nightmare Children she sent a pleading look at the others to do something with the distraction she was creating.

“It’s not a problem, is it?” Twilight set a pout on her face that made her look weak and helpless. Just the sort of mare who needed help and was willing to be generous in her ‘rewards.’ “I know we’re supposed to be careful going somewhere without getting royal approval, but we didn’t have a choice, and it would just be a few days until we’re on our way again.”

“Well,” the Nightmare Child in charge seemed quite flustered yet taken in by Twilight’s performance, “normally we do discourage unauthorized travel. But your friend is clearly injured and I think we could easily be… convinced… that you’re not a danger to Nightmare…”

He was rudely interrupted as empty flower pots came down on his head and those of all the other Nightmare Children who had stopped them. Immediately Rainbow Dash jumped forward in case any of the Nightmare Children hadn’t been completely knocked out.

“They’re out cold,” she said after a quick check.

“I think I need a shower after that,” Twilight shuddered, “I swore I’d never do anything like that again.”

“Don’t worry Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, “we all know you used to be a stripper and we’re okay with it.”

“Thanks Pinkie” Twilight sighed, “I’m just afraid I’ll never live it down. We’ll save Equestria, I’ll die at the age of ninety five, and the first line on my obituary will still be an exotic dancer at a club in Canterlot.”

“That’s not true!” Pinkie Pie insisted. “Besides, you’re not the only pony here who’s done things she’s not proud of. Before we became rich and famous Rarity and I had to mine all our own gems, and once when we were mining we left a Diamond Dog to die.”

Twilight wasn’t sure whether she was more surprised by Pinkie Pie’s revelation, or that Pinkie Pie was acting rather serious for once.

“She’s right,” Rarity sighed, “Diamond Dogs are greedy, territorial brutes. We were lucky not to run into them while we were still fillies or we might not be here right now. Our luck ran out towards the end of high school, but by then we knew the dangers of mining so far from civilization and we were ready. Most of the Diamond Dogs ran away as soon as they realized we would put up a fight, but several were greedier and kept coming. Eventually they gave up and dragged most of their wounded away, but there was one Diamond Dog who was missing a leg and none of his friends was around to drag him away. If I’d been a bit older I probably would have put him out of his misery, but I was still young and the idea of directly taking a life was still something beyond me. Pinkie Pie was willing to do it but I talked her out of it and we went home. We stayed away from that particular gem field for some time, of course. But when we came back we stopped to take a look and sure enough there was a corpse right there. Not one of our prouder moments, but Twilight you have to realize that everypony has done things they aren’t proud of. Your lower moments at least turned out to be useful.”

“Thanks girls,” Twilight smiled, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Probably curl up in a ball and get nothing done.” Rainbow Dash smirked.

“You know Rainbow Dash,” Twilight deadpanned, “call me an egghead, but I don’t think you’re going to get a cutie mark as a psychologist.”

“I don’t want to interrupt,” Applejack said from where she was leaning on Fluttershy, “but somepony is going to miss this patrol sooner or later. We should get to the farm as soon as we can so nopony comes looking for us.”

Thoroughly chagrined, the others followed Applejack through Ponyville and out onto the road towards Sweet Apple Acres. Upon seeing the farm Twilight’s first thought was that it looked like a place that was normally much busier than what she was seeing. Under only moonlight she noted the trees seemed limp and unwilling to put forth more than a few unappetizing apples.

“Somepony should have spotted us by now,” Applejack looked like she really wanted to lie down.

“Applejack?” A yellow filly with a red mane and hair bow poked her head out the front door of the main house. “Applejack! Big Macintosh, Granny Smith, Applejack’s back!”

Several lights came on in the house and knowing that they were surrounded by friends Twilight Sparkle felt safe for the first time since the Summer Sun Celebration.

Our Doubts are Traitors

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Disclaimer: If I owned stock in Hasbro I could say I own some infinitesimal part of My Little Pony.

Chapter Fifteen: Our Doubts are Traitors

Applejack was clearly related to her brother, sister, and grandmother. It was perhaps an obvious statement, but Twilight had never met Applejack’s family before. Applebloom was close to cuteness incarnate and showed every sign of knowing just how dangerous that made her. Big Macintosh was probably the biggest pony Twilight had ever seen. She supposed that a lifetime of working on a farm combined with hearty food might do that to a pony. Granny Smith joked that she was older than dirt and she spent most of her time sleeping, but Twilight got the sneaking suspicion that she was smarter than everypony else in the room combined.

Rarity had tearfully latched onto her sister when they’d arrived at the farm and had refused to let go. After being together with her for so long nopony was surprised at the over the top drama coming from Rarity. Twilight had heard enough from Rarity about Sweetie Belle to recognize her on sight but she was still surprised at the family resemblance, but for the two-tone mane and olive green eyes Sweetie Belle was Rarity in miniature. She didn’t seem to be as much a drama queen as her older sister, but Sweetie Belle seemed perfectly content to cry along with Rarity.

Twilight was pointedly reminded that she hadn’t had word from her parents since before the Summer Sun Celebration. She hoped, and thought, that they were safe from all this and after they got the elements and brought back Celestia she could make sure they were okay. For not even the first time that day she hoped that some miracle would keep her from running into Shining Armor until this was all over. She hoped beyond hope that going so long without meeting him meant that Nightmare Moon had no clue they were related, but long and hard experience had taught her how dangerous hope was.

The others were quite content to stand watching and drink in the sensation of not being in imminent danger for the first time in an unpleasantly long while. The happily reunited families however were determined to share their joy. The resulting ponypile, unsurprisingly she thought, had Twilight Sparkle at its bottom.

“Can’t breathe,” she croaked from the bottom of the pile. It took a little bit for her words to penetrate but once everypony knew what she was saying they jumped off her.

“Sorry about that,” Applejack had barely participated in the pile for obvious reasons.

Granny Smith whacked her on the head. “Yer brains didn’t get rattled out there. Talk like ah raised you and not a fancy city pony. And howdy to the rest of ya, welcome to Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Yes Granny Smith,” Applejack’s drawl made her sound like a completely different pony. “Granny Smith, Big Macintosh, Apple Bloom, y’all know Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie. This here’s Rarity and Twilight Sparkle, they’re helping us with… well y’all know what we’re up to. We’re here fixing to do something, so ah’ll get into bed, rest up, and we can head out before you know it.”

“Pleased to meet you, and thank you so much for taking all of us in on such short notice.” Twilight made sure to get the pleasantries out of the way before turning to Applejack. “I know you want to come with us, but Nightmare Moon is looking for us. And if we stay in one place for too long we’re going to wake up one morning to find an army surrounding us. I’m sure we can find a way to mark our trail that Trixie and Gilda can’t follow so you can catch up to us when you’re better.”

“Pish-posh,” Granny Smith scoffed, “everypony here knows what a bad apple that Nightmare Moon is. If she wants to send any of her ponies here she’ll have to go through everypony in Ponyville. Even if she does come here we’ll know about it with plenty of time to spare. I wouldn’t go setting down roots here quite yet, but you don’t have to let Nightmare Moon run you out of here just as soon as you got here.”

“Oh, um, that’s good to know.” Twilight was used to failure, but not being shot down so quickly or thoroughly. “What do you think girls? Can we afford to spend a day or two here and still get where we need to go?”

She carefully avoided mentioning where they were going or what they were looking for. What Sweetie Belle and Applejack’s families didn’t know they couldn’t be forced to tell.

“You know that Trixie and Gilda will be there before us.” Granny Smith didn’t look like she cared for Rarity’s ‘fancy city speech,’ but not being related to her there wasn’t much she could do about it. “I think we’ll be better served by planning our way through this the way we did back in Manehatten. And I certainly won’t object to having some more time to spend with Sweetie Belle.”

The others nodded agreement and Twilight sighed at being unanimously outvoted.

“Okay, but don’t get too comfortable. We still might have to leave in a hurry, and we’ll still want to leave as soon as possible.”

“Oh don’t be such a party pooper Twilight,” Pinkie Pie giggled, “this is our first chance in like forever to let our manes down and relax.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Twilight whispered as she followed the others towards the farmhouse.

As much as she wanted to leave right away Twilight found it hard to argue with a real home cooked meal after weeks of canned food and even grass. She felt a little guilty for eating food that she didn’t know if Applejack’s family could spare or not, but if they were worried about more mouths to feed showing up on their doorstep they hid it well.

“I hate to talk business after such a delicious meal,” Twilight patted her belly to show just how delicious she thought it was, “but if we’re going to be staying here for a few days it would be a real help if we could take a look in the town library.”

Twilight had in mind looking at any maps of the Everfree Forest she could find as well as seeing if there was anything more she could learn about the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters.

“Nnnope,” Applejack’s brother said.

Twilight waited close to half a minute of silence before asking, “Um, why not?”

“Y’all can go to the library,” Granny Smith answered, “but it’s just an empty tree. About a week after the sun went away a bunch’a goons in black robes showed up and took everything out of there. Books, papers, even the statues and paintings, it’s all gone.”

“Gone? But without knowing where we’re going we’ll never find the…” Twilight stopped herself before she could say anything everypony would regret.

“It won’t be that bad Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said. “All we need to do is find where all the guards and Nightmare Children are going and we’ll know where to go.”

“Not quite what I was hoping to hear,” Twilight sighed, “but thanks for the thought anyways. I guess we’ll have to spend as much time as possible while Applejack’s getting better thinking about what we’re going to do.”

“You could try Zecora,” Applejack’s sister piped up.

“Zecora?” Twilight was unsurprisingly unfamiliar with the name.

“No,” Applejack said in her Manehatten tone before going on in a drawl. “Everypony knows that Zecora is a bad apple. Ah only spend a couple of weeks a year here in Ponyville and even ah know that. Twilight’s a smart pony. She’ll find another way to get what we need.”

Twilight wasn’t sure she was even close to being as capable as Applejack was saying but Apple Bloom shot back before she could demur on the praise.

“No she ain’t. She’s just a zebra, and she lives in the Everfree Forest. So everypony thinks she’s evil or something. She’s just different, and she won’t hurt anypony unless they try to hurt her first. Plus I bet she knows all about the forest, so she might know about what y’all are looking for.”

“Apple Bloom’s right,” Sweetie Belle came to her friend’s defense and shrugged off Rarity’s effort to keep her quiet with a hoof on her shoulder. “Zecora’s just trying to get by like any other pony, or zebra I guess, and she’s not hurting anypony. I bet she doesn’t like the sun being gone any more than we do. I’m sure if you give her the chance to help she’ll help you.”

“Nnnope.” Big Macintosh seemed to pack nearly a lecture into that one word.

“That’s right Big Macintosh,” Granny Smith seemed to understand that lecture. “I’ve spent all my life around the Everfree Forest dagnabbit. It’s a bad place any anypony, or zebra, who wants to live there is a bad apple.”

“That’s not true!” Apple Bloom was remarkably unfazed by her grandmother’s glare. “It’s not. Have you ever seen Zecora do anything evil? Ah mean have you ever even talked to her?”

“Don’t need to talk to none of those Nightmare Children to know they’re evil,” Applejack pointed a hoof at her sister. “And ah don’t need to talk to Zecora to know there ain’t nothing good in that forest.”

“Um, excuse me.” Fluttershy proved brave, or crazy, enough to enter the argument. “I don’t know whether this Zecora is evil or not, and I don’t know whether or not her living in the Everfree Forest has anything to do with whether or not she’s evil. But I don’t think she likes the sun being gone any more than we do. Even if she doesn’t like us that much she might be willing to help us fight Nightmare Moon. But if we keep thinking the worst about her then we might just make her want to help Nightmare Moon.”

“Ah ain’t saying I believe you,” Twilight still couldn’t believe how different Applejack sounded, “and I ain’t saying I don’t believe you. But what do we do if we go see this Zecora and it’s a trap?”

“Then it’s a trap,” Fluttershy said, “and we can be ready for that. But Trixie and Gilda probably already know we’re around here, and they know what we’re here for. So even if it is a trap, as long as we get away they won’t be any better off. And if we can get this Zecora to show us where we need to go then we won’t have to spend days wondering around the Everfree Forest hoping we don’t run into Trixie, or Gilda, or any of the things in there that could gobble us up in one bite.”

“I’m with Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said to nopony’s surprise. “I mean for pony’s sake I’ve screwed up more times in my life than I think anypony can count. If I just went off what everypony said about me I’d probably say I was evil too. I say we at least give her a chance.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie Pie smiled, “I’ve never had a party with a zebra before. I’m going to need to learn a bunch of new songs, and I’ll need new party favors, and oh, I wonder what zebras eat? Now I really wish we could get into the library. What if I say something wrong, or zebras don’t like pink hair, or what if they don’t even like parties? Oh now I’m so worried!”

Pinkie Pie grabbed onto Rarity’s hoof and started worrying. The white unicorn was clearly not sure what to make of her friend’s actions and so did nothing.

“Y’all are grown mares,” Granny Smith grumbled. “Even you Applejack, ah think. And if’n y’all want to runoff and get yerselves killed then fine.

“I guess that settles it then,” Twilight said, “we’ll let Applejack get better and then we’ll go see Zecora, and from there… I guess we’ll see what we do from there. Thanks again for letting us stay here. I wish we could tell you what we’re doing, but it’s probably best for everypony that we don’t say anything.”

“Eeeyup.” Big Macintosh was clearly not a stallion of many words.

Was there any good in marking a difference between day and night when the moon was perpetually overhead? Twilight Sparkle supposed that ponies still needed to sleep, and a clock to know when stores and such opened. And, she thought, so that ponies like her could complain that they were up all night without sleep without sounding plain silly.

Her job meant that Twilight had long since become used to staying up late. But for once she wanted to get to sleep and she couldn’t. Ever since the Summer Sun Celebration she’d normally been so tired at the end of a day she fell to sleep almost before her head hit the ground. But for some reason tonight was different.

Her crazy and insane plan was actually coming together and she was worried that she’d be the pony to drop the ball. All her friends were so talented and accomplished that she didn’t know how a pony like her had ever fallen in with them. All she could do was heft around a lot of magic, and, well… shake her rump. In a fight the risk that her inexperience with magic could hurt her friends, innocent bystanders, or even guards who were attacking them against their will was too great. Yes there was their fight with the Ursa Minor, and she was incredibly proud of herself, but circumstances like that were a major exception to the rule of how things normally went for them. Her second, talent was really not the right word, was only marginally more useful. It had proven useful earlier today, but she still felt dirty having done it and there were far too many ways it could have gone horribly wrong for her to count on it ever working again.

And there was always the fear that she might lose control of her magic again. Pinkie Pie had helped her get over it, but at the back of her head she kept seeing that horrible destroyed landscape of her dream. She knew it was just a dream, but the possibility that it could ever come true… well, there maybe there were worse possible worlds than the one Trixie had made for her back in Manehatten.

Before the Summer Sun Celebration Twilight had loved the night. It was probably a bit of a requirement to live in the undercity and not go insane from the perpetual darkness. But if they actually brought back Celestia and the day she’d make it a point to spend a lot more time under the sun. She supposed that was a bit unfair to the night since it was Nightmare Moon who had made the sun disappear. But for pony’s sake she wanted to feel the sun on her fur again.

Wait, what was that close to the farmhouse? Was that somepony walking around? Twilight had plenty of faith that the Apple family and the ponies of Ponyville would do their best to keep Nightmare Moon from sending any ponies to attack them, but she had a bit less faith about how good their best would prove to be. There was definitely somepony moving around the farmhouse. The figure was moving slowly to avoid notice, but they hadn’t counted that somepony like Twilight might spot them from farther out.

Twilight started sneaking back towards the farmhouse. She had to move slowly and quietly to not draw attention to herself, but the figure she was stalking didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss. She hoped it was a Nightmare Child out there. A royal guard wouldn’t be able to answer any questions under Nightmare Moon’s mind control.

The full moon made it easy to see the silvery gray mane of the pony walking around the farmhouse. Twilight smiled, it wasn’t a royal guard. The pony was even humming as it confidently walked around. Oh this was going to be so easy. She’d capture the Nightmare Child and with only a little luck they could find out everything they needed.

“Howdy there Twilight. Out for a late night stroll?”

Twilight almost tripped over her hooves at the voice. “Granny Smith?”

“In the flesh. At my age ah’m up when ah’m up and ah sleep when ah sleep.”

Twilight didn’t have an argument against that.

“Still,” Granny Smith sighed wistfully, “it’s mighty good to have ponies visiting. Farm can feel a mite empty with just the three of us.”

“How do you keep this farm running with just three ponies?” Twilight asked. Even with only moonlight to see by she could tell that the acres part of Sweet Apple Acres was not just in the name for kicks and giggles.

“Ha, I wasn’t always older n’ dirt you know. Besides, Applejack comes back to help her family when she can. And we usually have enough left over to hire on a few hooves every harvest to help buck all the apple trees. Oh we had a few hard years when she left. Apple Bloom was still just a foal, Big Macintosh wasn’t big yet, and the spring was going out of my step even then. But family looks out for family and we made it through.”

“Applejack’s lucky to have such a wonderful family,” Twilight smiled. “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened to her parents? I’ve never heard her talk much about them.”

“They died,” Granny Smith answered bluntly. “But her aunt and uncle took her in like she was their own, and we’ve always been pleased as pie at everything she’s done. Even if they’d lived though I think Applejack would’ve left the farm sooner or later. She was always digging for the truth, and a small farm wasn’t the best place for that.”

“I wish I knew what I was supposed to be so good at.” Twilight looked sadly back at her blank flank. “It’s my crazy idea we’re counting on to beat Nightmare Moon and this sort of thing isn’t my talent at all. My friends, and everypony, are counting on me to save the world, and I don’t think I can do it. I’ve screwed up everything I’ve ever done before, and I mean everything. I just know that something is going to go wrong before the end and it’s going to be my fault.”

Laughter was not the reaction Twilight Sparkle was expecting.

“I’m sorry. But when you live as long as I’ve lived you see lots of things, and you aren’t the first pony I’ve seen thrown in way over her mane wondering if she’s up to the job. Back when I was a mare about your age Ponyville wasn’t much of a town. In fact it was just a few houses of ponies who’d come out to trade with the farm and decided to stay. Y’all are gonna head into the Everfree Forest in a few days, and if you think it’s dangerous now you have no idea how bad it was when Ponyville was new.”

“I don’t know,” Twilight couldn’t help herself, “I’m kind of expecting everything in there to try and kill us.”

Granny Smith fixed her with a withering look. “Back when I first came here things didn’t stay in the forest to kill you. This was all their land before we came and took it and you’re plenty dumber than you look if you think they just let us have that land. There were more of them back then too. You think one hydra is bad? Try seven at the same time! And then there were the griffons. Canterlot used to be the end of Equestria and the griffons didn’t claim the Everfree Forest but they used it plenty. When we started moving into the Everfree Forest they didn’t take it sitting down either. Lots of good ponies went into that blasted forest and never came back.”

Twilight had read about this part of Equestrian history before but hearing about it from somepony who lived it was quite different.

“But a lot more ponies found out they were a lot stronger than they thought they were. They went into the Everfree Forest and made homes for themselves, and more than that they stayed there. I won’t say any of it was pretty. And that the ponies going into the Everfree Forest didn’t do lots of things they probably weren’t too proud of later. But even if they could have handled things better at least they didn’t roll over and give up. What I’m saying is I don’t expect y’all to do everything spit shiny clean and perfect, but don’t y’all go giving up on fighting Nightmare Moon just because it gets a little tough.”

“Thanks Granny Smith. I think I get what you meant. I think I can get some sleep now. Unless you’d rather I stay up with you.”

“Off to bed with you. I’ll sleep plenty during the day, but you’ll probably be hopping like a cricket till you go to sleep again.”

“Good night,” Twilight said as she left the elderly pony and walked into the farmhouse.

It was easy to find her way around the farmhouse with the moonlight streaming in through the windows. Of course if there weren’t any moonlight Twilight could have always used her horn to light her way. Applejack’s rapid healing may have been a fantastic example of earth pony magic, but Twilight wasn’t going to give up her horn for anything.

A yawn escaped her as she walked up the stairs to her bedroom. She’d be fine after some sleep but it had been a long and tiring day. She paused as she walked past Fluttershy’s bedroom. Was there noise coming from the room? She didn’t think Fluttershy was prone to insomnia, but if she was Twilight could help her get to sleep before going to her own bed.

Moving slowly to keep the floorboards from creaking and waking somepony else Twilight made her way to Fluttershy’s door. Just as she was about to softly knock on the wood Twilight heard soft laughter from within and the door opened to reveal Pinkie Pie.

“Hi Twilight!” Pinkie Pie broke into a huge smile. “Are you here for a party? Because I was totally thinking we should have a we’re so excited to be here that we can’t sleep party! And now there’s three of us here so we can go get the others! So do you wanna get this party started?”

“Ah, no.” Twilight didn’t think she’d get used to Pinkie Pie’s energy if she lived to be twice as old as Granny Smith. “I mean I can’t sleep, but it’s not because I’m excited, and I don’t really want to celebrate not being able to sleep.”

“Oh,” Pinkie Pie seemed to deflate before her eyes, “okay.”

“What were you doing in Fluttershy’s room?” Twilight quickly said in an effort to take Pinkie Pie’s mind off being sad.

Twilight was glad to see Pinkie Pie perk back up. As far as she knew the only thing scarier than happy Pinkie Pie was sad Pinkie Pie. “Well, I was thirsty so I went downstairs to get some water, and let me tell you this farm has some great water. So once I got a drink I was ready to go back to sleep. Because I love to party, and partying takes lots of energy, and sleeping is a great way to have energy! Anyways, I came back up the stairs and I heard Fluttershy crying. Now if there’s one thing that really sets me off it’s ponies being sad. So I decided to do something about it. Because what kind of friend would I be if I saw one of my friends being sad and didn’t do anything about it? I came in and saw Fluttershy having what must have been a really bad dream. I woke her up and before you know it I had her smiling, and laughing, and back to being the Fluttershy we all know and love!”

Even if it were somepony other than Fluttershy, Twilight would have been unsurprised at her not speaking a word. Once Pinkie Pie got on a roll it was just this side of impossible to get so much as a word in edge-wise.

“Are you going to be okay Fluttershy?” Twilight glanced at the yellow pegasus barely peeking out from under her covers.
“I think so,” came the muffled reply. “I’ve been having nightmares for several weeks about all the animals freezing to death or starving because there’s no sun. I didn’t want to bother anypony about it because we have so much to worry about. Pinkie Pie finally made me talk about it, and made me realize how silly my nightmares were because we’re so much bigger than all the creatures I’ve been dreaming about so if anything was going to die first it would be us and we’ve been fine out in the wild.”

“Pinkie Pie does do that,” Twilight said. “I think she’s probably helped almost all of us through one kind of nightmare or another and made us laugh the fear away.”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Hehe, it’s just like my Granny Pie used to say. Giggle at the ghostie and all those silly fears will go away.”

“I wish it was always that easy,” Twilight sighed, thinking of everything they were up against. “Anyways get some sleep girls. We’ll be busy tomorrow getting ready for when Applejack is better, and once she is better I don’t think we’re going to have much of a chance to rest until this is all over one way or another.”

Be All Thy Sins Remembered

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: This disclaimer is 20% more Twilightlicious than the last one.

Chapter Sixteen: Be All Thy Sins Remembered

“Are you sure you’re all healed up? I don’t like the waiting, but I think we’ll all like it a lot less if your wounds open up again in the middle of the Everfree Forest.”

Three days, if Twilight wasn’t seeing it with her own eyes she would have never believed that Applejack could be back on her hooves with just three days of bed rest. Twilight thought that if it was her in that bed she would have been there somewhere between three weeks and three months.

“I’m fine Twilight,” Applejack said quietly, probably so Granny Smith couldn’t hear her talking in her Manehatten voice. “I just want another go at that annoying featherbag. No way I’m going to let an overgrown bird get the best of me.”

Twilight smiled, that was Applejack all right. She watched as her friend made a few final adjustments to the pile of curls on top of her head before nodding and turning away from the mirror.

Everypony was waiting downstairs for them. Rarity and Sweetie Belle had moved a little ways from the group and were engaged in tearful, dramatic, and totally over the top theatrical farewells. Twilight wouldn’t have it from her friend any other way.

“You got everything packed up Big Macintosh?” Applejack switched back to a drawl to speak to her family.

“Eeyup.” Twilight was still convinced there was a whole conversation in that one word she was somehow missing.

Apple Bloom came into the room with Applejack’s saddlebags in her mouth. The filly could obviously barely hold the weight but it was just as obvious that she wanted to help her sister out in whatever way she could.

“Thanks sugarcube,” Applejack took the saddlebags from her sister. “Now you don’t make any trouble for Big Macintosh and Granny Smith while ah’m gone ya hear?”

Apple Bloom nodded, clearly too chocked up with emotion to speak. Instead she hugged her sister and began to quietly cry. Looking away from the obviously personal moment Twilight was torn between a desire to see her family and the fear of how tough such a reunion would be. Even if Shining Armor were perfectly normal the prospect of saying goodbye to him and her parents with the very real possibility that she would be coming back dead was something she didn’t know if she could face.

“Well,” Rarity sniffled, having disentangled herself from Sweetie Belle. “I suppose we have to leave at some point. Otherwise we’ll never… well, you know.”

It still hurt to not talk about what they were doing or where they were going in front of others, but deep down they all knew it was for the best and they endured. Sighing at one more straw on her emotional back Twilight levitated her saddlebags onto her back and grunted at the weight. They hadn’t wanted to take the food Applejack’s family had offered since they could all see hard times coming if the sun didn’t come back. But they were unlikely to see anywhere they could get food for awhile, and so far as they knew they weren’t just the best, but only hope to beat Nightmare Moon.

“All right girls,” Twilight said, “let’s go visit this Zecora and see if she can point us in the right direction. Make sure to be careful though. Even if she is on our side there’s no telling if Trixie or Gilda hasn’t gotten ahead of us to lay an ambush.”

“We know Twilight,” Rainbow Dash groaned. “You’ve only been saying that every time we go over this plan for the last three days. At this rate we’re all going to be seeing ambushes in our nightmares.”

Twilight had the good grace to look ashamed. “Sorry girls, I’m just worried about this. We’re so close to actually pulling this off and I don’t want us to trip on the finish line.”

They all walked out into the yard and with a last wave the six ponies started heading towards the gate.

“Y’all be safe now, ya hear?” Granny Smith called after them.

“I wouldn’t dream of getting hurt again Granny Smith!” Applejack shouted back in her Manehatten voice before turning to the others and continuing. “She’s been trying to make me drawl for years, and I’ve been having fun with her like that for just as long.”

“Well let’s go see Zecora now,” Twilight said, “I don’t know about you girls, but as much as I enjoy your company I’m ready for this to be over.”

They left Sweet Apple Acres and turned towards the small, nearly overgrown, path that led into the Everfree Forest. Apple Bloom had told them that Zecora occasionally came into Ponyville to buy certain things and that since she only knew of this one path into the Everfree Forest that this would be the most likely path to Zecora’s home.

They walked for nearly an hour before coming across signs that somepony, or rather some zebra, lived nearby. The path became much clearer, plants were cut back, the dirt was packed harder, and there were large and rather macabre masks hanging from trees. Clearly a sign that visitors were not particularly welcome.

“I guess this must be the right path,” Applejack looked askance at one of the masks as she walked past.

“Whee!” Pinkie Pie bounced along. “Soon we’ll have a new friend! I’m so excited!”

A few more minutes of walking brought them to a particularly large tree out of which a house had been rather obviously made. Or at least Twilight didn’t think that doors and windows and dried herbs grew on trees without outside intervention.

“Why what have we here? Six ponies who it seems have no fear.”

Canterlot was as worldly a city as any but Twilight had still never seen a zebra before. She looked rather like a pony, though the stripes were odd, and while it was accented she seemed to speak the common language of Equestria.

“Hello,” Twilight said, “we don’t want to bother you. We were just wondering if you could give us some directions and we’ll be out of your, um, mane.”

Twilight had neglected the fact that Zecora didn’t wear her mane in a normal fashion. Rather it was shaved but for a narrow strip that she wore held up in a mohawk.

“Do not think you can earn my trust so soon. For I do not know if you serve Nightmare Moon.”

“We’d never work for Nightmare Moon!” Rainbow Dash flew up into Zecora’s face with an accusing look on her face. “How do we know you don’t work for her?”

“I assure you that I speak the truth. But to know your heart I need part of your tooth.”

Zecora moved with almost unbelievable speed and before anypony could react she was standing back where she started with a small white chip resting on a hoof. Rainbow Dash grimaced and reached a hoof into her mouth. Snapping it back when she realized one of her teeth was no longer whole.

“I will soon know if you speak true. Then I will fix your tooth with a potent brew.”

Rainbow Dash looked very much in a fighting mood, but magenta and blue glows surrounded her tail as both Twilight and Rarity grabbed onto her to keep the situation from going downhill.

It was several long minutes of waiting but eventually Zecora emerged again. “What you say is no lie. Hope in these times brings a tear to my eye. Now to re-grow your tooth just take a drink, and your mouth will be whole sooner than you think.”

Rainbow Dash took the proffered mug with a suspicious look, but after some not so gentle prodding from her friends she tilted it back and emptied the contents.

“Hey,” she said, feeling around her mouth with her tongue at the same time. “My tooth is all better now! Thanks, maybe you’re not so bad after all.”

“Many a powerful thing can be found in the right jar. Now if you will, tell me who you are.”

“Oh, right, I’m Twilight Sparkle, the pegasus you just helped is Rainbow dash, and this is Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy.”

“Who comes to my home I can now see. So please, ask what you would of me.”

“Yes,” Twilight said, “you know that we aren’t friends of Nightmare Moon. And we’re trying to defeat her or bring back Celestia so the sun can come up again. We think there’s something in the Everfree Forest that could be the key to either of those. But none of us has ever been in the Everfree Forest before. So we were hoping you might be able to show us the way to the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters.”

“Ah, into the forest you seek to go very deep. But beware that many who venture fall into eternal sleep. With my own eyes this place I have not seen. But perhaps its location is knowledge I have been able to glean.”

“All right!” Pinkie Pie pumped a hoof into the air. “We’re gonna be on our way, and that calls for a party!”

Rarity sighed. “What she means to say is we’d be ever so grateful if you did have a map or directions to the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters.”

Zecora went back into her hut and came out several minutes later with a roll of parchment.

“My knowledge of the forest I have drawn. I hope it will help you bring back the dawn.”

“This must be it!” Twilight saw a particularly inaccessible part of the forest that Zecora had never been to. “Thank you so much. I promise we’ll use this to end the night.”

“One last warning I must give you to you. I have seen many soldiers here passing through.”

“That’s no surprise,” Twilight grumbled, “but thanks for the warning all the same.”

Twilight would have loved to stay and learned more from and about Zecora. But every minute they dallied was another minute of eternal night and another minute for Trixie and Gilda to make getting into the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters closer to impossible.

They followed the path Zecora indicated deeper into the forest. At first it was well trod and easy to follow in the moonlight. Quickly though they reached the parts of the forest where Zecora didn’t go so often and before long after that they were breaking their own trail through the brush.

“Ugh,” Rarity shuddered, “all this mud is never going to come off my hooves.”

Applejack gave her a look totally lacking in comprehension. “I thought you didn’t mind the dirt. Isn’t that part of being a miner? You know, working in the dirt.”

“Dirt that I know very well. Dirt that I know how to avoid as much as possible, and that I’ve had years to learn how to get the rest out of my coat.”

Soon though the overhead branches started getting so thick they could barely see past the end of their noses. It did however have the positive side effect of keeping Rarity from seeing, and therefore complaining about, the mud getting all over her. At least until she tripped over a root she couldn’t see and covered herself in mud.

“Get it off! Get it off!” Rarity shrieked as she flailed about splattering the others with mud.

“Hang on Rarity,” Twilight rather more carefully picked her way over to her fallen friend. “Let’s just light our horns and them it shouldn’t be any problem to clean you right off.”

Their horns lit up to reveal their surroundings and they all stared in stunned silence.

“Well I thought watching her trip into mud was pretty funny.” Gilda stood among the trees smirking.

“Agreed,” Trixie said, “the great and powerful Trixie always finds the suffering of her enemies to be amusing.”

“Wha?” Twilight stuttered in stunned disbelief.

Trixie laughed rather cruelly. “The best pawn is one who truly believes they aren’t on your side. Poor, poor Zecora led you right into our trap thinking the whole time she was helping you. The great and powerful Trixie loves it when a plan comes together.”

“I hear that,” Gilda lifted a leg and absently picked at a claw. “And I hate to leave a job unfinished. I think this time I’ll take your heads off to make sure.”

“Twilight,” Rarity sounded almost unnaturally calm for being surrounded by their enemies and worse covered in mud, “do you remember just outside of Canterlot after we first met?”

“What do you… oh, right.” Twilight turned slightly to face her other friends. “Girls… close your eyes!”

Rainbow Dash wasn’t quite sure why Twilight wanted her to close her eyes, but she sounded like she knew what she was talking about and Rainbow Dash trusted Twilight. That turned out to be a good choice as no sooner had she closed her eyes than it felt like the sun exploded behind her eyelids. The light was gone as quickly as it came but Rainbow Dash still blinked away spots for several seconds after opening her eyes.

She saw all of her friends likewise looking around and much to her amusement she saw Trixie, Gilda, and all the ponies with them writhing on the ground clutching at their watering eyes. Her happiness was short lived though as she heard shouts from above and looked up to see pegasi diving towards them.

“Run!” She shouted. “I’ll take care of all the pegasi!”

If Rainbow Dash had learned one thing about the ponies who served Nightmare Moon it was that they would never fail to take the bait she offered by flying up into their midst. They didn’t fail to take the bait this time and the chase was on. She quickly found that trees of the Everfree Forest were rather similar to the buildings of Manehatten. Rainbow Dash had led the guards and Nightmare Children on a merry chase there and she saw no reason not to do the same thing here. And this time she didn’t have to lug a big book around for Twilight Sparkle. Oh this was going to be fun.

“Hello Rainbow Dash.” She nearly fell out of the sky when a voice whispered in her ear. Even before she turned her head she knew she’d see the purple and black flight suits of the Shadowbolts. This made things a little tougher. They weren’t supposed to show up yet.

Rather than get into a verbal sparring match she knew she’d loose Rainbow Dash grimaced and flapped her wings to fly even faster through the trees. It wasn’t long before she heard something else crashing through the trees behind her. Rainbow Dash didn’t have to look back this time. She’d known Gilda long enough to know the griffon would come after her, and that she would be looking for blood. Rainbow Dash had been in plenty of tight spots in her life, several quite recently, but this one was definitely going way up on her list.

“Why are you running from us Rainbow Dash?” The Shadowbolts didn’t seem to be having any trouble keeping up with her. “We can give you and your friends everything you’ve ever wanted. All you have to do is say yes to Nightmare Moon.”

“Go to Tartarus.” Rainbow Dash grumbled. Things were not supposed to be happening like this. Gilda and the Shadowbolts could actually keep up with her. She was too used to guards and Nightmare Children that she could fly loops around in her sleep, while sick, and carrying an open drink.

Things had turned around depressingly quickly. Rather than leading a bunch of second rate amateurs around by their muzzles and laughing the whole time she was flying for her life in front of the only fliers in all Equestria and beyond she feared she might not be able to out fly. Then, as if things weren’t already bad enough, Gilda started laughing at her. Gilda had a rather mocking laugh and only ever used it when she was sure she’d won and she wanted to rub it in.

No way, Rainbow Dash had refused to lose to Gilda when Fluttershy had been her only closer friend. Now that Gilda was squarely on her list of enemies Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to even think about letting that bag of fur and feathers win.
She started climbing and much to her chagrin Gilda and the Shadowbolts kept pace. More annoying, Gilda was still laughing and the Shadowbolts were still whispering everything they could do for her. The Shadowbolts had always been incredibly persuasive and even now Rainbow Dash could see in a corner of her mind her desire to put on that purple and black flight suit and fly like this whenever she wanted.

No, she had to get away from them before they actually got to her. She couldn’t count on Twilight to do some crazy magical trick to snap her back to her senses. Taking a deep breath Rainbow Dash turned over and dove almost straight down.

She’d dove, and flown fast before, but never like this. The wind seemed to flow around wings that beat with almost effortless ease, the wall of air she had to fight through seemed much thinner than normal, and it felt like her eyes weren’t leaking any tears at all. But it still wasn’t fast enough. She could still hear Gilda laughing and the Shadowbolts whispering. She flapped her wings and flew even faster, and there was the wall of air she was used to. Even the rush of air through her ears wasn’t enough to drown out all the noise. She just had to fly a little bit faster. She dug deep, deeper than she’d ever dug before, and put everything she had and more into outrunning her demons.

And then suddenly the wall of air wasn’t there anymore. Rainbow Dash flew on in complete silence. She glanced back and saw a ring of light with all the colors of the rainbow expanding behind her throwing Gilda, the Shadowbolts, and all the pegasi with them aside in its wake. And behind her was a trail of rainbow light. She’d done it. She’d done a sonic rainboom. In all the excitement Rainbow Dash quite understandably missed the small flash on her flank.

She felt like she could fly like this forever, but off in the distance she could see a large and unnatural shape jutting up from the landscape. Flying at the speed of a sonic rainboom it took no time at all until she was landing in front of the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters. And nopony else was there. Her friends were still out there with Trixie and all her minions. Maybe even Gilda, the Shadowbolts, and all the ponies who’d been after her if they could recover fast enough.

Rainbow Dash flexed her wings to take off but stopped herself at the last second. She had no clue where her friends were, and she didn’t know what exactly was after them. If she went stumbling around the Everfree Forest who knew what she’d run into? It was one of the hardest choices she’d ever made but she’d won her battle, and now she had to hope her friends could win theirs and find her. At least there was no shortage of places to hide and wait in a ruin this size.

Twilight Sparkle had been more tired and beat up than this after Manehatten, but only barely. And okay, there was the fight with the Ursa Minor where she’d been ready to fall asleep standing up afterwards. And she supposed she’d been worse off those times where she’d actually collapsed afterwards and not been able to use magic for awhile. Okay, the point was it had been a long and hard fight with Trixie and her minions and she was glad it was over.

And now that she was seeing the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters with her own eyes it was all worth it. The Elements of Harmony were in there, they’d find and use them, and then this would all be over and she’d… Actually Twilight hadn’t given any thought to what she might do after all this, she’d been so focused on survival and one goal after the other that the future had completely slipped her mind. And now wasn’t the time to focus on the future she reminded herself. They still had to get and use the Elements and there were a million things that could go wrong between now and then.

“Well I guess this is it,” Applejack seemed quite impressed by the ruins. “The Elements of Harmony must be somewhere inside there. I just hope Rainbow Dash manages to catch up.”

“Me catch up?” They all nearly jumped out of their fur at the voice behind them. “I’ve been waiting for you guys to catch up for hours!”

“Sorry darling,” Rarity didn’t sound at all sorry. “Next time we’re in a running battle for our lives with Trixie and her minions we’ll try to make it a little bit faster so we don’t dare inconvenience you by making you wait.”

“Works for me,” Rainbow Dash shrugged and started walking past them. “Now let’s head in there and find these Elements of Harmony so we can hurry up and beat Nightmare Moon already.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Fluttershy nervously flapped her way next to Rainbow Dash. “You had an awful lot of ponies, and Gilda, after you. And then there was that huge explosion. We were so worried about you.”

“I was fine,” Rainbow Dash laughed, “and that explosion. Gilda and the others never knew what hit them. I bet I sent them halfway to the mild west!”

“That was you?” Twilight’s curiosity was going full tilt all of a sudden. “What in Equestria was that.”

Barely able to keep her jaw up it was Fluttershy who responded. “A sonic rainboom. You did it Rainbow Dash! I told you that you almost did a sonic rainboom all those years ago and now you did it!”

Rainbow Dash casually buffed a hoof against her chest. “Well it wasn’t all that much. Oh who am I kidding? It was totally awesome! You should have seen it Fluttershy, Gilda and all the pegasi with her were right on my tail. So I started diving and they were keeping up, and then all of a sudden it just came to me. It was like my wings didn’t weigh anything and the air just flew apart in front of me. And then I looked back and there was this huge ring of rainbow light behind me and I was trailing a rainbow. It. Was. So. Cool!”

“Wait a second,” Twilight tapped at her chin with a hoof. “Trixie almost had us cornered and then that explosion threw all her plans into chaos. The Nightmare Children started panicking and more than a few of the guards just collapsed like something had gone wrong with Nightmare Moon’s control over them. That sonic rainboom probably saved our lives!”

“Well,” Rainbow Dash sounded like a sonic rainboom was just another day at the office, “what are friends for?”

“Come on everypony,” Applejack interrupted. “We’re all very pleased with you Rainbow Dash, but Trixie, Gilda, and their army are still somewhere out there. And if we all stand around here slapping ourselves on the back they’ll catch up to us and we’ll be sorry when that happens.”

“Besides,” Pinkie Pie bounced by them towards the castle, “we can’t have a party out here. Let’s go get the Elements, beat Queen Meanie, and then party down!”

Laughing they all followed Pinkie Pie into the large main hall of the castle. The roof had long since fallen in but they could all tell how impressive it must have been in its day. Of particular note was a pillar in the middle of the hall with five arms coming off it with indentations where something clearly would have been put.

“I think the Elements must have been here,” Rarity walked around the pillar. “I can feel the power in the air from them.”

Twilight stared at an indentation at the top of the pillar. She was almost certain it represented the sixth element. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Let’s spread out and look for the Elements.”

Despite how big the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters had appeared from the outside it didn’t take them long at all to search. So much of the castle had crumbled into rubble that in the end there were only a few places to look for the Elements.

“Well I’m sure the Elements were here.” Twilight studied the small crystal Rarity had found while searching near the pillar. “But I’m just as sure they’re gone now.”

“It makes sense,” Rarity sighed. “Trixie knew where the Elements were so it would have been no problem at all for her to have told Nightmare Moon. Then I imagine they came here, got the Elements of Harmony, and who knows what they did to them from there.”

“Just imagine what we could have done with them. I can feel my magic getting an incredible boost from just this little piece of one of the Elements. Nightmare Moon wouldn’t have stood a chance if we’d had all six.”

“We’ll just have to find another way. In the mean time why don’t you hang on to that crystal? You certainly have a knack for discovery and I’m sure you can find a way to make it useful.”

“I couldn’t!” Twilight levitated the crystal and pushed it towards Rarity. “Rarity, this is a powerful magical artifact. It could make any unicorn a dangerous foe, and you’re much more talented with magic than I am.”

“Nonsense,” Rarity pushed back on the crystal with her magic. “You have more magic in your back left hoof than Trixie and I have in our whole bodies. I’m sure if you hang on to this you can brush aside anything we run into.”

“Rarity, this is part of one of the Elements of Harmony. And you’re Celestia’s student. If there’s anypony who’s qualified to use this it’s you.”

“Twilight, please, I’m giving this to you. You brought us all together and kept us going on a plan that actually could work. We all believe in you, so please, take it.”

Rarity combined her plea with wide almost tearful eyes. As much as Twilight didn’t think she was the right pony for the job she couldn’t say no to Rarity.

“Fine, you know when we find the Elements of Harmony you’re going to be able to give the element of generosity lessons on how it’s supposed to work. Giving me a chance, lessons in magic, and now this.”

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash butted into the moment, “if you two are done being all happy feely would you like to help us figure out what we’re going to do next?”

“Do next?” Twilight stared at her pegasus friend.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash sounded like she was talking to a slow filly, “do next. We were going to use the Elements of Harmony to beat Nightmare Moon, but in case you forgot they aren’t here. So unless either of you knows something else we can find that will let us beat a pony who took on Celestia and won we’re kind of back to square one.”

Twilight sat down and looked at the shard of one of the Elements. They were indeed in trouble. She’d been counting on finding the Elements of Harmony and using them to solve their problems, but like Rainbow Dash had said they were Element of Harmony-less.

“Canterlot,” the answer hit her like an Ursa Minor falling from the sky, “the Elements are in Canterlot.”

“What?” Applejack clearly had no clue what she was talking about. “Care to let the rest of us in on your little secret Twilight?”

“Think about it,” Twilight started talking with a frantic energy. “What’s the one thing that can beat Nightmare Moon? The Elements of Harmony. So where’s the safest place in all Equestria for her to put the Elements? The one places where to get to the Elements of Harmony you’d have to beat her, Canterlot.”

Fluttershy was the first to grasp Twilight’s point. “You can’t beat her without the Elements, and you can’t get the Elements unless you beat her.”

“Exactly,” Twilight sighed.

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash said, “so let’s go get them. Steal the Elements of Harmony right out from under Nightmare Moon and then blast her into orbit with them.”

They all looked at each other looking for a hole in the plan or anything better.

“All right,” Twilight said at last, “looks like we’re going to Canterlot to steal the Elements of Harmony and beat Nightmare Moon.”

Courage Mounteth With Occasion

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: The power of Twilight Sparkle compels you to realize I don’t own My Little Pony!

Chapter Seventeen: Courage Mounteth With Occasion (King John)

“Well,” Applejack said, “I guess question one is how do we get from here to Canterlot? In case we’ve all forgotten, there’s an army, two in fact, between here and there. And they don’t seem particularly interested in picking up and going somewhere else.”

“Easy,” Rainbow Dash opened her wings and preened, “I’ll just go out there and pull off a sonic rainboom whenever they start getting too close. We can just walk there and they’ll never be able to touch us.”

Twilight should have known something like this would happen. “I don’t know about that Rainbow Dash. Can you do a sonic rainboom multiple times, on demand? And I don’t think we can make it from here to Canterlot in a day. What happens when you have to go to sleep? If we wake up surrounded by Trixie and Gilda’s armies I don’t think a sonic rainboom is going to help us all that much.”

“Fine,” Rainbow Dash huffed as she turned to sulk. “So who else has an idea how to get out of here? We kinda don’t have the Elements of Harmony to blast our way out in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Well,” they all turned to see Fluttershy meekly looking at them, “we could try waiting. Lots of ponies don’t like being in the Everfree Forest. Plus we know that there are lots of big, scary, and mean creatures here so Trixie and Gilda can only keep all those ponies here for so long before they have to leave. Once they’re all gone I’m sure it would be much easier to get out.”

“One problem with that dear,” Rarity tried to speak as gently as possible. “If we don’t go now they’ll surround and flood the castle with guards and Nightmare Children. We’d never sneak in there to get the Elements.”

“Oh,” Fluttershy dropped her gaze to the floor completely. “Sorry for wasting your time.”

“It’s cool Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash put a hoof over Fluttershy’s shoulders. “It was still a good idea. It just didn’t work out. It happens all the time.”

Fluttershy looked up to smile at her friend but before anypony could say anything a huge gasp from Pinkie Pie made them all jump and look over at her.

“What is it Pinkie Pie?” Twilight lit her horn with a wave of magical force at the ready.

Pinkie Pie gasped again, even louder. Apparently unable to form words for a change she pointed a hoof at Rainbow Dash.
Twilight looked past her friend at first expecting to see something coming to attack them. But when Fluttershy gasped and jumped away from Rainbow Dash, Twilight looked back at the pegasus and saw what everypony was so excited about.
Rainbow Dash had gotten her cutie mark.

A blue, yellow, and red lightning bolt streaked from a cloud on her flank. Beating an Ursa Minor might not have been enough to get Rainbow Dash her cutie mark, but pulling off a sonic rainboom to save their lives seemed to have done the trick.

They all cringed again when Pinkie Pie produced a noisemaker from seemingly nowhere and went completely wild with it. Rather she went completely wild with it till Rarity yanked the noisemaker from her mouth and replaced it with a hoof.

“Pinkie Pie, do you want Trixie and Gilda to come crashing through the doors and roof to kill us?”

Pinkie Pie shook her head no.

“Okay then,” Rarity slowly removed her hoof. “We’re all terribly excited for Rainbow Dash but we have to be careful with how enthusiastically we show it. We are in a little bit of danger right now.”

“Sorry,” Pinkie Pie grinned before continuing on in a much more appropriate voice. “But I’m just so excited! I mean it’s been forever since I got to celebrate somepony getting their cutie mark! And just when we needed to have a party so badly Rainbow Dash went and got hers.”

“We’ll just add it on to the list of things to celebrate when we beat Nightmare Moon. Twilight was truly happy for her friend. But a small part of her couldn’t let go of the fact that now she was the only pony she knew of even remotely her age who was still a blank flank. And if it had taken a sonic rainboom to get Rainbow Dash her cutie mark what was it going to take to get Twilight hers?

“Hey,” Twilight wasn’t surprised that Rainbow Dash was the one to guess what was on her mind. “We’ll find your cutie mark before this is over. And even if you don’t have a cutie mark after we blast Nightmare Moon back to wherever she came from we’ll still stick by you.”

“You don’t think we really care whether or not you have a cutie mark do you?” Applejack asked. “Pinkie Pie and I were just about the latest of late comers to our cutie marks so we know what it feels like to be waiting for one. And most of the time I ignore or even forget that you don’t have your cutie mark. You’re plenty smart and talented without one and we’ll all be your friends even if you’re a hundred without a cutie mark.”

“Absolutely darling,” Rarity said. “You don’t really think we’ll just scatter to the winds after all this do you? I for one would never stand for you returning to a hovel in the Undercity. I know you still need to actually get your diploma, but I think of this as a month plus letter of recommendation to fill one of the spots at the mining company I know are going to open up after all this.”

Twilight opened her mouth to thank them but the breath was knocked out of her lungs and her friends piled on her in a group hug. Twilight dearly loved her friends, but sometimes she wished they weren’t so huggy. She always seemed to end up at the bottom of the pile.

“Girls,” she croaked, “can we get going before I turn as blue as Rainbow Dash.”

The others laughed and piled off her. They made a quick check to make sure they all had everything they were supposed to have, and then they faced the inevitable. Hoping that her darker coat wouldn’t show up as much against the doors to the castle they decided Twilight would be the one to poke her head out the door and see what they were up against.

“They’re gone,” Twilight couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “I can’t see anypony, or any griffon for that matter.”

The others were understandably skeptical, but they each took a turn looking through the cracked door and all agreed that the army of ponies that had been hunting them had simply disappeared.

Applejack scratched at her head. “I suppose it’s probably too much to hope for a dragon or an Ursa to have come along, eaten Gilda and Trixie, and then simply left.”

“I dearly wish you were right,” Rarity paced back and forth, “but it’s clear they’re up to something and we need to figure out what it is.”

“Come on,” Rainbow Dash said, “isn’t it obvious? They’ve been chasing us all over Equestria and they haven’t beaten us once. They finally wised up that it’s never going to happen and gave up.”

“Yay!” Pinkie Pie jumped about in obvious joy. “We totally did it girls. We’ll just walk to Canterlot and when we tell Queen Meanie to bring the princess back she’ll have no choice!”

Twilight sighed. “I wish it was that simple. But Trixie and now Gilda have been chasing us from the very beginning. I doubt Nightmare Moon would let either of them give up. If they aren’t fighting us here it’s because they want to fight us somewhere else.”

“Um, excuse me,” Fluttershy had actually raised a hoof like a filly in school, “but I think you’re both right. Nightmare Moon does still want to fight us, but she thinks Trixie and Gilda can’t do the job anymore. Remember how we were just talking about the only way to get the Elements of Harmony is probably to go through Nightmare Moon? Well that’s probably exactly what she’s counting on. We have to go to Canterlot if we ever want to win, and she can fight us there on her home ground.”
“You’re right Fluttershy,” Twilight looked out across the Everfree Forest. “But we can’t just leave Nightmare Moon in charge of an eternal night. There has to be a way into the castle that we can sneak in, get the Elements, and get out alive. Once we have them I’m sure Nightmare Moon is going to come after us herself, but hopefully using the Elements of Harmony won’t be nearly as hard as getting our hooves on them.”

A look at Rarity told Twilight she didn’t want to hear what was coming. “Well I hate to ruin the mood, but unless you known of a way into the castle through the undercity I’m afraid I don’t know of any secret passages or entrances we could make use of.”

“The undercity is totally out of the question. The lowest levels of the undercity are where most of the Nightmare Children we’ve seen are coming from. They never saw the sun and they thought Celestia and everything she stood for was holding them down. I can’t be sure but I’d bet that since Nightmare Moon came to power they’ve been converting ponies in the middle of the undercity.”

“Let’s figure that out when we get to Canterlot.” Rainbow Dash started flying around them. “Standing around here isn’t doing us any good.”

“You’re right,” Twilight sighed. “But I’d love to stay here and study these ruins. Imagine how much history there is in here. I mean this structure clearly dates back to when Celestia fought Nightmare Moon for the first time if not even earlier. If we weren’t betting all our hopes on the Elements of Harmony I’d want to stay here to see if we could find some other way to beat Nightmare Moon.”

“Plan B,” Applejack said as she put an exploratory hoof on the bridge they’d used to cross over to the castle. “If we can’t get the Elements or we can’t make them work then we can come back here and look for another way to beat Nightmare Moon.”
Twilight approved of that. Not that she didn’t want them to not beat Nightmare Moon or anything, but she was happy they had a fall back plan, and that it involved a chance to come back here and explore these ruins more thoroughly.

They crossed back into the forest one at a time and started making their way towards Canterlot. The forest seemed empty, but then they’d had no clue Trixie and Gilda were there until she and Rarity had lit up the area they were in. Still, it seemed like Twilight’s first impression of the Everfree Forest had been right. They’d spent close to an hour in the castle, but that was still not a lot of time to move a whole army’s worth of ponies far enough to be invisible.

“Okay, where is everypony?” Rainbow Dash looked as nervous as the rest of them felt. “Just let me fly ahead a bit, and if I see them we know I can get away.”

“We know they’re somewhere out there,” Rarity sounded calm even as she cast nervous glances about. “Our best bet is to simply use the fact that there are only six of us in a very large forest and even with as many of them as there are it’s still a lot of ground to cover. Scouting about may tell us where they are, but it’s just as likely to tell them where we are.”

“I know,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. “I just hate not doing anything. It’s like we’re just hoping we don’t run into them.”

“That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Applejack pointed out. “But I don’t think you’re really going to tell me we can beat a whole army in a stand up fight and expect me to believe it. We managed to fight them off in Manehatten after getting the books because we could run away while we did it. But we have to go to them here. It would be like our trying to fight our way into the Manehatten library. It would have been suicide then and it would be suicide now.”

“Fine, we’ll just hope we don’t run into them. But when a whole army comes down on us and we didn’t know about it I told you so!”

No army ever did come down on them despite the fact that they spent the whole day jumping at every noise in the forest. There were several times Twilight almost gave in to Rainbow Dash’s standing offer to go off and scout. But each time she reminded herself that the reasons she’d had to refuse the request in the first place were the right ones and if she changed her mind now it would be a decision born of fear.

Near what should have been evening, but didn’t look at all like it due to the unmoving moon overhead, they neared the edge of the Everfree Forest at the base of the mountain Canterlot rested on. Twilight had lived most of her life on top of that mountain, but until she had to climb it the hard way she’d never stopped to think how high up Canterlot really was. It was not going to be fun climbing the mountain. Carrying heavy saddlebags and having to do it by moonlight would make it even worse.

“Normally I’d say we should wait until the sun came up to climb this,” Rarity was craning her neck to look up at Canterlot. “But we all know that’s not going to happen so let’s try not going mountain climbing while we’re tired. I’d at least like to get one last halfway decent night of sleep before we have to madly run because Nightmare Moon herself is on our tails because we stole the Elements of Harmony right out from under her.”

“I can totally fly you guys up there,” Rainbow Dash scoffed. “We’ll be in there and out with the Elements before they knew what hit them. By the time they think we stole anything we’ll have already beaten Nightmare Moon.”

“Nice plan,” Applejack sighed, “but it won’t work. No offense, but I don’t think Fluttershy is going to be able to handle us. Maybe she can carry some of our saddlebags. So you’d have to carry four grown mares up to Canterlot, steal the Elements of Harmony, carry us back down, and then be able to fight and run until we can use them. Do you really think you can do that?”

Rainbow Dash seemed on the verge of saying that she was in fact capable of such a feat, but a withering glare from Applejack made her rethink the idea.

“Well girls,” Pinkie Pie was as perpetually cheerful as ever. “If we’re going to be sleeping here tonight then dibs on first watch.” They all stared at her. “What? We’re right outside Nightmare Moon’s evil lair. If she’s going to try to catch us anywhere it’s here.”

“How does she do that?” Twilight whispered to Rarity as she took her saddlebags off. “The whole crazy one second smarter than all of us put together the next.”

“I’ve known Pinkie Pie since we were both fillies. And I think I started asking that question about five minutes after we met. When I have an answer I’ll let you know.”

Pinkie Pie was right though. Twilight grabbed several stalks of grass of varying length and held them between her hooves so nopony could tell which one was which. One by one her friends came up to her and picked a stalk of grass. Only when they were all done did they show off which stalks they’d each drawn.

“I guess it’s up in the middle of the night for me.” Twilight looked at the shortest stalk.

“That’s terrible.” Fluttershy had the first watch. “You’ve been working so hard Twilight. Let’s switch so you can get a good night’s sleep.”

“I’ll be fine.” Twilight didn’t think she could force Fluttershy to wake up in the middle of the night. “I’m actually the best choice for this time. I worked nights before all this started so I’m used to sleeping, getting up and going to work, and then going back to sleep.”

“If you’re sure.” As Fluttershy had said, she wasn’t good with confrontations.

“It’s okay Fluttershy,” Twilight laughed. “By the end of this we’re all probably going to be so tired an hour of sleep one way or the other isn’t going to make much difference.”

Everypony laughed rather nervously at that. This was almost certain to be their last night of even halfway decent sleep for quite awhile. Unless Nightmare Moon fried them all or by some miracle the Elements of Harmony were far simpler to use than they dared hope.

For all her talk of being used to late nights Twilight was a less than thrilled pony when Applejack nudged her awake.

“It’s been quieter than Fluttershy around here. Just sit around for about an hour and a half and then go wake up Rainbow Dash.”

Speech was still a bit beyond Twilight’s muddled brain so she simply nodded to Applejack and waved the other pony to her blanket.

And then she sat.

Applejack was entirely right when she’d said there was nothing and nopony to see around where they’d decided to camp for the night. Just how had Trixie and Gilda gotten so many ponies to move so far so fast? Maybe Nightmare Moon could teleport legions of ponies over vast distances? She thought that was unlikely since if it was true they probably would have been caught several times over by now. More likely they’d had a plan in place in case they couldn’t keep Twilight and her friends from the Elements.

Still that meant there was likely most of an army up on that mountain between them and the Elements of Harmony. Getting into the castle, let alone out of it, was going to make everything they’d done to this point look like a leisurely walk in the park.
Other than an occasional breeze through the woods the only noises Twilight heard was the breathing of her friends and her own hooves when she got up to stretch and walk around a little bit. By the time she was starting to think about waking up Rainbow Dash staying awake had proved the hardest challenge of the night.

“Hey Twilight,” Twilight nearly jumped out of her fur at the voice.

“Rainbow Dash?” She whirled around to see the pegasus already up. “You just about gave me a heart attack sneaking up on me like that!”

“Sorry about that.” Rainbow Dash surrounded uncharacteristically serious. “We’re probably not going to come out of this one are we?”

Twilight Sparkle opened her mouth to start with a hopelessly optimistic reply. But before the words could come out of her mouth she shut it and thought before replying. “We’re six ponies who met pretty much out of nowhere going up against the ruler of all Equestria with a ruthless army at her back. I thought we’d be toast before we were halfway to Coltcinnati. We’ve done far better than I ever could have imagined and we’re really looking at a chance to pull this off. But yeah, I was just thinking that this is going to make everything else seem like one of Pinkie Pie’s parties.”

Rainbow Dash laughed without any humor. “I kinda wished I’d last long enough to see one of Pinkie Pie’s parties. They sound totally awesome and I was looking forward to going to one after all this. But yeah, I think you’re right that this is going to be just about impossible. If you don’t mind, there’s something I’d kinda like to get off my chest in case we don’t make it back.”

Twilight had had plenty of dreams about somepony confessing their undying love to her. She had to admit that she had never dreamed it would be her friend, another mare for that matter, or that it would happen in a place and at a time like this.
“Rainbow Dash,” she began. “You’re one of my best friends and I care about you a lot. But I don’t like mares like that. I know it takes a lot…”

“What in Equestria are you talking about?” Rainbow Dash interrupted her. “You don’t think I’m… Twilight, I’m sure there’s somepony out there for you. But no, just no. I mean where do you even start thinking something like that?”

“Well,” Twilight blushed with embarrassment. “In all the stories when ponies spend a lot of time together on an adventure like this it’s pretty normal for one pony to start having feelings for another pony in their group. Usually, actually always that I’ve read, it’s a stallion and a mare. But it’s just us here, and we’ve all been spending an awful lot of time together. So…”

Rainbow Dash had to bite her hoof to hold back her laugh. “Twilight, that’s probably the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. You actually think real life works like one of those egghead romance novels? Oh that’s good. I’m glad I had a last laugh like this.”

“Okay, so if that wasn’t what you wanted to get off your chest than what was?”

Rainbow Dash’s smile died almost immediately. “You remember back in Coltcinnati how I screwed up when we were fighting Arabus? Well I may have been a bit more ticked off than I let on that all of you thought I’d screwed up…”

Twilight became progressively more and more stunned as Rainbow Dash continued her tale of being approached by the Shadowbolts and their offers to her. She hadn’t suspected a thing, and she didn’t think any of the others had the slightest idea that Nightmare Moon’s personal guards had tried to talk Rainbow Dash into joining their side. Or for that matter how close these Shadowbolts had come to securing Nightmare Moon’s victory.

What would have happened if Rainbow Dash had said yes to them? According to her, Twilight and her other friends would have been ‘saved’ and locked away in a velvet cage. But Twilight couldn’t get the fake world Trixie had manufactured back in Manehatten out of her mind. She was certain that they couldn’t succeed without all six of them. So if one of them actually switched sides to work for Nightmare Moon would the rest of them follow?

Some questions were better left unanswered.

After Rainbow Dash wound down her tale Twilight sat there and thought. She would have liked to sit and think the whole night, but a look at Rainbow Dash’s face said she needed Twilight to say something.

“That’s a lot to digest in not a lot of time. I don’t think you expected me to go jumping around in joy like Pinkie Pie after telling me all this, and I’m not, but even though you should have put your hoof down with them a lot earlier you still said no every time. And I have a bit of a hard time blaming you for trying everything you can think of to save our lives when it looked like we were going to die. So I’m not really happy with you, but part of being friends is still being friends even when you’re not happy with each other. Plus you’re not the only pony here with something in her past she’d rather forget or do over. I’d give my back left hoof for a chance to go back and tell myself that I never needed to set foot in Touchy Hooves. And I’m sure Pinkie Pie and Rarity would rather forget just about everything they ever had to do with Diamond Dogs.”

“You’re not gonna scream or yell at me? I mean I almost betrayed you guys for a cushy position and power. I’d be ready to throw me in the deepest ditch I could find and pile dirt on me.”

“And I don’t think you should be spending a lot of time alone with the Shadowbolts. But the important thing is that you didn’t betray us. I’d definitely be careful with all this if I were you. Like you guys said back in Manehatten when I was moping over you finding out that I used to be a stripper, until you give me a reason not to be your friend I’m still going to be your friend.”

“Thanks Twilight.” Tension visibly seeped from Rainbow Dash

Twilight knew she needed as much sleep as she could get. But Rainbow Dash needed the company more, so they sat together in silence until it was time to wake Rarity up for her turn.

Six tired ponies walked along the base of a mountain. Despite their best efforts none of them had slept particularly well with the weight of what they were about to attempt bearing down on them.

“This looks like a good place.” Applejack paused by a shallow part of a small river running at the base of the mountain. “We should be able to climb the mountain and not hit the main road to Canterlot until well up the mountain. Hopefully most of the guards will be below us and we can sneak into the city before they know we’re coming.”

“I refuse to get myself soaking wet crossing this river.” Rarity turned her nose up at the running water. “We’ve all endured quite enough during this trek and there’s no need to suffer even more.”

Twilight chuckled and looked around for a solution. “Think we can use some of the downed trees as a bridge?”

“Brilliant darling,” Rarity smiled at not having to ford the river. “I’ll hold them while you cross, we can both hold them while the others cross, and then I’ll go last.”

Twilight quickly crossed the river and climbed onto a small rocky outcrop. The surrounding landscape appeared clear so she took hold of the logs with her magic and signaled for the others to cross. Rainbow Dash unsurprisingly flew across and joined Twilight on the outcrop. Fluttershy however preferred to remain on the ground with Pinkie Pie and Applejack as they filed across one at a time.

Just as Rarity let go of her end of the logs several rocks detached from the mountain and crashed down onto the improvised bridge.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie did not say you peons could go any closer to Canterlot.”

“You again?” Rarity rather calmly turned to face the pony who had somehow snuck up on them. “I thought you’d somehow managed to learn your lesson by now.”

“Hang on Rarity!” Twilight shouted across the river. “We’ll get back over there as fast as we can.”

“No need darling,” Rarity easily floated her saddlebags to land at Twilight’s hooves. “This is a chat long overdue between Trixie and myself.”

“Agreed,” Twilight still thought Trixie looked silly in her imitation of Nightmare Moon’s armor. “You’ve thought yourself The Great and Powerful Trixie’s equal for far too long. After this all Equestria will know Celestia only took a weak and incompetent unicorn like yourself as a student out of sheer pity.”

“Do hurry on up the mountain dears. I’ll be right along after I beat her senseless and bury her up to her mane in the ground. After all, I’m sure Celestia can come up with far more inventive punishments than I ever could.”

As much as Twilight wanted to stay and help, or even just watch, she reluctantly picked up Rarity’s saddlebags and started climbing towards Canterlot.

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

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Hoofed By Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: This is the eighth best disclaimer you will ever read.

Chapter Eighteen: Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Rarity did not like Trixie. That they were trying to kill each other may have made that obvious, but Rarity had not liked Trixie from the very first time they’d met. The loathing she knew, and in fact had known from the very first time they’d met, was entirely mutual. When Celestia had been in control they’d never quite come to blows, but that was not for a lack of arguments or trying between the two. Had Celestia not intervened they likely would have torn each other and a chunk of a palace apart several times over before either of them had ever heard of Nightmare Moon or the Elements of Harmony.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie thinks this look suits you. Covered in dirt and filth and vainly trying to fend off your inevitable death and failure. Trixie only wishes that Celestia could be here to see her last hope dashed to a red paste on the rocks.”

“I see a month and a half under Nightmare Moon has done nothing for your ego,” and then sneering at Trixie’s armor, “or for your fashion sense.”

“Ignorant as ever of what you truly face. Nightmare Moon grants only her most capable and powerful adherents the honor of wearing armor like hers into battle. Trixie is her most powerful and most capable adherent. A lesson you’ll learn but won’t live to use.”

“Oh for pony’s sake, are you still on that whole greatest unicorn of all history delusion? You’ve seen how powerful Twilight Sparkle is. She has more power in one hoof than we could ever hope to muster. I knew you were always lacking in brains, but your ability to ignore reality in favor of your own little fantasy is almost unbelievable.”

“Fantasy? The only fantasy world is the one you’re living in. Trixie worked for everything she has. You waltzed into the castle and Celestia gave you everything! She took your little bauble shop from a storefront to an empire, she gave you influence second only to her, she made sure your lessons were the ones that had magic you could use in the real world, and you just simpered and smiled along with all of it! And what did Trixie get? Nothing but a worthless title and endless hours locked away in musty old towers with useless books written by long dead fools. You were always her favorite while Trixie labored in thankless shadows. When Trixie succeeded at unlocking arcane secrets of magic that baffled the greatest minds for decades she got a pat on the back and another worthless lesson. When you mastered spells a feeble minded earth pony should have had no trouble using you were hailed as a new Starswirl the Bearded and showered with bits and rewards. But Nightmare Moon recognizes true power. She knew that Trixie alone could master the darkest and most powerful secrets of unicorn magic and make all others bow before her as the true magical genius she is. And once Trixie throws your broken body at the steps of the royal castle Nightmare Moon will make sure that all Equestria knows she is a goddess and Trixie is but a short step below her. Trixie will at last have the rewards her power and talent deserves.”

“That’s it? The reason you betrayed Celestia, plunged Equestria into eternal night, forced her guards into mindless servitude to a tyrant, unleashed every pony who ever dabbled in dark magic on their neighbors, scattered families, and condemned countless ponies to starvation, oppression, and possibly death is because she didn’t give you enough gold stars in school? That is the lowest and basest sort of treachery imaginable. You think Celestia didn’t give you anything? Tell me, did you ever have to pay for a single thing in your life after you became her apprentice? Did you ever have to do any sort of manual labor, or did you have servants jumping to tend to your every whim? Was Celestia threatening to throw you out on your poor oversensitive haunches in the slums of the lowest level of the undercity, or did you have ponies scrambling to offer you job after job and nearly coming to blows over the prestige of hiring Celestia’s apprentice? You had ponies falling all over themselves to offer you everything you wanted. Power, money, sycophants, it could have all been yours if you had stopped wallowing in self pity long enough to reach out and grab the world they offered you. But it still wouldn’t have been enough would it? You’re one of those ponies who could have the moon hoofed to them on a silver platter and you’d complain the stars weren’t on the platter as well. Even if you beat me I wonder how long it will be until Nightmare Moon realizes that you’ll never be happy under her. You won’t be happy until you’re in her place with everypony worshiping you. And until you’re either on top or in the deepest and darkest dungeon in Equestria you’re just a traitor waiting to happen to everypony you work with.”

Trixie’s face contorted in rage and she shot a bolt of lightning at Rarity. Rarity already had several rocks ready to block Trixie’s attack, and even before the dust had settled to the ground she was charging the other unicorn. Over a month of desperate fighting, and fighting alongside pegasi and earth ponies, had taught her the importance of fighting with everything she had at her disposal as well as fighting dirty when it was necessary.

Trixie had unfortunately learned a few tricks too, so Rarity failed to gore the other unicorn with her horn and end the fight right there, but she at least scored a satisfying cut along Trixie’s side. The two of them tumbled to the ground and engaged in a brutal and entirely graceless beating with their hooves, teeth, and horns. Rarity had hoped she might catch Trixie off guard with this move. But, she wryly thought, Nightmare Moon encouraged far too much brutality and treachery in her subordinates for Trixie to not have prepared for this sort of thing.

Oh well, she would just be a little longer than she’d hoped. Still plenty of time left to catch up to Twilight and the others and end this once and for all.

They’d quickly wound around the mountain climbing up towards Canterlot and Twilight couldn’t see Rarity and Trixie anymore. The last she’d seen them the two unicorns appeared to be shouting at each other, but she worried about what could be going on out of her sight between the two very personal enemies. She scrambled up a bit of loose rock and rather abruptly started worrying about her own circumstances. It was a long way to the ground, and large chunks of rock almost all the way. Falling would be a very bad idea right about now.

For the first time in her life Twilight Sparkle wished she weren’t a unicorn. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were slowly circling up with their earth bound friends and showing no signs of strain or being worried about falling off the mountain. They had at least taken all the saddlebags so Twilight, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack only had to get themselves up the mountain.

They were making decent progress, but as she thought such a cheery thought Twilight made a bad decision. She looked up and saw exactly how much mountain they still had left to climb. She didn’t have to worry about how long it might take Rarity to beat Trixie anymore. They were going to be climbing for most of the day. And then they still had to break into the castle, steal the Elements right out from under Nightmare Moon herself, and escape alive. No problem.

At least it wouldn’t be a problem as long as nopony spotted them. Rainbow Dash assured Twilight that she could do another sonic rainboom if she had to in order to get them out of any trouble, but that would give away their position and bring down lots of trouble. So it figured that at that exact moment somepony spotted them, or rather some griffon spotted them.

“Still hanging around with these twerps Rainbow Dash? I guess you really are chronically un-cool.”

“Still here Gilda? I thought when I did that sonic rainboom it would have taught you your lesson about messing with me or my friends.”

“That was sheer luck dweeb. I’ll show you what real talent is. And lucky me, I’ll get to do it the hard way.”

Twilight barely caught the saddlebags Rainbow Dash was carrying as the pegasus sped off. At the same time she made the mistake of looking down towards the ground and saw again just how far she’d fall if she lost her grip with any of her hooves. Scrambling back to press herself against the mountain Twilight looked up to see Rainbow Dash flying for her life.

Twilight knew that Rainbow Dash was an incredibly skilled flier, and that she’d come a long way since the Summer Sun Celebration. But Gilda wasn’t a novice by any means either, and she was flying with the sole purpose of killing Rainbow Dash. Her friend seemed to be fairly easily dodging Gilda’s attacks, but since the griffon only had to succeed once that thought failed to make Twilight feel any better.

Twilight had never been the sort of pony to sit by and let another of her friends fight for their life without doing anything about it, and this time wouldn’t be an exception. Her horn lit up and several small fireballs started orbiting it. Hopefully they could hurt, or at least distract, Gilda without giving away their position to anypony else.

“Don’t,” Applejack put a hoof on her shoulder. “This is about those two, and it wouldn’t be right to jump into it. I want to help Rainbow Dash just as much as you do, but this is her fight.”

“But what if Gilda hurts her or kills her? Rainbow Dash wouldn’t just stand around while that happened to one of us.”

“Does it look like Rainbow Dash needs our help right now?” Applejack pointed out to where Rainbow Dash seemed to be leading Gilda on a merry chase. “We can always help her if she needs it, but only if she needs it.”

“Fine,” Twilight huffed and released the magic. “But girls, for the record, if we ever run into a mortal enemy of mine and we start trying to kill each other I want you to help me. I’d rather just win than go on some adventure of self discovery and fulfillment through combat.”

“I’d just rather avoid a fight,” Fluttershy muttered, “or having enemies at all.”

“I want an enemy!” Pinkie Pie jumped about distressingly close to the edge of the rocks. “Because then I could throw them a party and make them my friend. And then I could throw them another party because now I had a new friend!”

“Girls,” Applejack was the only one to keep her mind on the task at hoof, “let’s keep watching Rainbow Dash so we can help her if we need to.”

“Get back here Rainbow Crash!” They could hear Gilda shout. “You can’t run from me forever!”

“Who says I’m running from you?” Rainbow Dash shouted back. “I’m just flying around and you’re so bad at this you can’t keep up!”

Gilda just growled and swiped at a laughing Rainbow Dash. Dodging the swipe Rainbow Dash cast a glance back at Twilight and the others before speeding away from the mountain. Applejack seemed to read something from the glance as she stepped away from the others and turned to face the mountain.

“Applejack,” Twilight asked, “what are you…”

“I’d stay back if I were you.” Applejack was carefully watching Gilda chasing Rainbow Dash over her shoulder. “And if this goes wrong you might want to get ready with some fancy magic.”

Twilight stumbled back and lit her horn back up. Looking at where Applejack was and what Rainbow Dash was doing she thought she had a clue what the two had in mind, and if she was right and things went wrong she would have to scramble in a hurry with her magic.

Rainbow Dash turned, and after dodging a few more attacks started flying straight towards the mountain, or more precisely straight towards Applejack. In her single minded rage Gilda failed to notice the other pony and kept pursing Rainbow Dash with a grim determination.

“Flying towards a mountain is the best you can do?” Gilda chased her would be prey. “You’re mine dweeb face!”

Rainbow Dash didn’t say anything. Instead she was completely focused on her flying. Seeing the two fliers approaching Applejack set her hooves in a clear bucking position, and Twilight readied her magic in case the whole plan fell apart. Her problem was that she wasn’t sure if she would need to act first to save Rainbow Dash and Applejack, or to incapacitate Gilda.

She needn’t have worried. Rainbow Dash pulled off her maneuver so perfectly Twilight thought that she could have bitten off some of Applejack’s hair if she’d wanted to. Instead she sped upwards, and confused by her apparent early pull up Gilda didn’t realize the trap until it was far, far too late. Flying into a mountain at full speed would have been bad. Getting bucked by Applejack would have been bad. Flying full speed into one of Applejack’s bucks was very bad.

Applejack’s hooves connected with a dull thud. Gilda crashed to a halt seemed to freeze in the air before taking a few unsteady flaps backwards and plummeting towards the forest below. The last Twilight saw of her, Gilda was trying rather unsuccessfully to control her descent into the trees. She didn’t think they’d have to worry about Gilda for some time after that. Maybe even long enough to get out alive with the Elements of Harmony and use them.

“That was fun,” Rainbow Dash settled down next to Twilight. “Good teamwork Applejack.”

“I suppose you did okay,” Applejack flipped several saddlebags back to Rainbow Dash. “You wasted enough time though. Now let’s get going before Rarity takes a different path up the mountain and beats us to Canterlot.”

Rarity was used to working while tired. It had been a long hike when she and Pinkie Pie were first starting to mine gems. And while hiring their first few employees had made the mining a bit easier the paperwork that had gone along with running a small business had taken up just as much time, and been in its own way just as hard. Then she’d had to balance lessons with Celestia, her new found social obligations, and running a rapidly expanding business. So yes, Rarity knew how to give her best when she was running on less than a hundred percent.

But she’d been sleeping and eating far too little for over a month now and it was starting to take its toll. Rarity had always been extremely careful with her weight and had never had much fat to burn. She’d burned it and more besides since fleeing Canterlot. She was easily in the best shape of her life, and adrenaline was a wonderful thing, but she was clearly going to lose the race to exhaustion.

“Not so mouthy once you realize how pitiful you truly are. Can you feel your death approaching? Don’t worry, Trixie has other things in mind for you. You’ll beg to die by the time you are finally given the mercy of death.”

“Don’t go taking a victory lap before you’ve won. You’ve taken quite a few lumps yourself. I’m rather fond of that cut under your eye. I think it will scar over and give you a nice prisoner look when you’re rotting away in the deepest and darkest dungeon in all Equestria.”

Trixie scowled and summoned several clouds that began flinging lightning towards the ground. Rarity responded by rolling away from the clouds and firing several rocks at Trixie. The blue unicorn erected a shield to protect herself and Rarity noted with distaste that her attack didn’t seem to be straining Trixie’s shield.

Pressing her advantage Trixie began to blanket the area with lightning. Reluctantly, Rarity stopped throwing earth at the other unicorn and concentrated entirely on dodging Trixie’s attack. Each lightning bolt wasn’t terribly hard to dodge, but there were a lot of lightning bolts coming down and the effect added up. Her graceful rolls and sidesteps soon dissolved into throwing herself about and scrambling from safe ground to safe ground. All the while Rarity was burning more and more energy without hurting Trixie.

Once forced completely on the defensive it was only a matter of time until Rarity wouldn’t be able to dodge one of Trixie’s attacks. Despite the fact that she knew it was coming being hit by lighting hurt. A lot. It hurt even worse once she rolled over and saw the large spot where her fur had been burned away. If she lived through this that was going to take forever to grow back and style properly.

Rarity saw Trixie calmly walking towards her and tried once again to attack the other unicorn with several needle sharp rocks speeding towards her. Trixie however was smart enough to sill have her shield up and Rarity’s attack was quickly reduced to gravel raining on the ground.

“Ha!” Trixie stomped down on Rarity with a hoof. “Trixie is victorious once and for all. Skill and power proved far superior to your pathetic grace and elegance. Trixie will throw your broken body to the streets so all can see Trixie’s superiority. Then you will be the one to suffer in the deepest and darkest dungeon in all Equestria. Nightmare Moon spent a thousand years in the moon plotting her revenge. Trixie knows she thought of several very creative torture methods during that long time and you will be the first to experience them.”

Rarity knew she couldn’t match Trixie’s magic in her state so she tried to wriggle out from under Trixie and fight with hooves and teeth again. A filthy and barbaric exercise yes, but she had to do whatever she could to win and catch up with Twilight and the others. Unfortunately all she succeeded in doing was driving Trixie’s hoof deeper into her side.

“Trixie finds it all the more satisfying that you fight with everything you have. You should know that you are well and truly beaten when you admit your defeat. But how to truly break you? Ah, Trixie has the perfect idea. You think your precious sister is safe at that farm in Ponyville. You’re wrong. Nightmare Moon has known where your pathetic little families have been this whole time. Trixie will break your darling little sister and then remake her to be Trixie’s apprentice. Trixie will teach her to hate everything you love, to be loyal to Nightmare Moon, and you will watch every second of it.”

Rarity was more exhausted and beaten up than she had ever been in her life. She was weak and tired, and nowhere near her full potential. And Trixie was a skilled, powerful, and magically protected unicorn. All that did her absolutely no good against the wave of magical force Rarity threw at her.

“Don’t you dare lay one filthy hoof on Sweetie Belle!” As the beam of raw power faded, excess magic literally rained from Rarity’s horn.

“Trixie did not say you could get up!” Trixie’s horn glowed brilliantly and a bolt of lightning shot straight at Rarity.

The lightning bolt simply ceased as Rarity’s eyes began to glow with power. As Trixie staggered back in shock a wave of earth erupted in front of Rarity surged forward until it reached and engulfed Trixie.

“I’ll tear you apart limb by limb if you even think about disturbing a single hair on her.” The calm detachment with which Rarity spoke seemed to scare Trixie more than rage ever could.

Trixie’s horn glowed brighter and her earthen prison slowly began to crumble under the assault. She broke free into a fighting stance, but before she could move a rock almost as large as her came hurtling from her side and hit her with a sickening crunch. The blue unicorn went sprawling and before she could struggle back to her hooves Rarity had a number of sharpened shards of rock hovering in front of her face.

“Go ahead and kill me.” Trixie groaned and wheezed. “Nightmare Moon will make me suffer worse than you can imagine before she kills me after a failure like this, and Celestia’s ‘mercies’ would be even worse to a traitor.”

“So you can talk about yourself in something other than the third person,” Rarity said coldly. “But no, I want you to live so you can suffer the consequences for everything you’ve done.”

Trixie coughed, “I thought you self proclaimed ‘heroes’ were supposed to always do the right thing.”

“Such a charming and naïve thought.” Rarity laughed without humor. “Twilight Sparkle however compared me to the element of generosity, not kindness. So I’m afraid you’re asking the wrong pony if you’re looking for a quick out from everything you’ve done. Stay here or run, it won’t matter once Nightmare Moon catches you or Celestia comes back and gets her hooves on you.”

Rarity used a little magic to keep the rocks hovering over Trixie awhile longer. But she never looked back as she turned and walked away to start catching up with her friends.

Rainbow Dash loved being a pegasus. Even before she’d done a sonic rainboom she wouldn’t have traded her wings for anything in all Equestria. Sure Rarity and Twilight had their fancy schmancy magic, but Rainbow Dash was sure it couldn’t compare to the feeling of flight. Today though she was also grateful that she was a pegasus. While she and Fluttershy were lazily riding currents of air up the mountain and only occasionally flapping their wings Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie were huffing and puffing up the mountain.

They still had quite a ways to go, but before long they would hit the main road up to Canterlot and the going would be much easier. At least it would be much easier for the earth bound ponies. Rainbow Dash couldn’t care one way or another about the terrain beyond any impact it had on her ability to fly. She would have much preferred to not be carrying a bunch of saddlebags as she flew, but if her friends had to climb with their saddlebags this would take even longer than it already was. And that was on top of having to slow down so Rarity could catch up. This was taking forever.

“Hey Twilight,” she said, “I’m gonna fly ahead and see if there’s anything we need to look out for.”

“Okay, but be care…” Twilight was cut off as Rainbow Dash dumped all the saddlebags she was carrying onto the unsuspecting unicorn before speeding off in a rainbow colored blur.

They weren’t far at all from the main road it turned out. Once she hit the paved switchbacks Rainbow Dash started a rapidly ascending spiral towards Canterlot itself. The city gates were quite massive, but a quick look said that they were far more for show than any real sense of protection. That had always come from Celestia. Down below Rainbow Dash could see her friends looking up at her and she waved to them to show that they were all clear.

She saw Twilight wave back and turned for a last look at the gates. Then she saw that Twilight hadn’t been waving, but had instead been gesturing a warning. She looked up and saw a group of ponies in black and purple flight suits diving towards her. Rainbow Dash knew she could outrun them, but not this time. This time Rainbow Dash knew she could beat them at their own game.

“Hello Rainbow Dash,” they pulled up in front of her in formation. “You’ve become a truly magnificent flyer since the last time we talked. You can out fly any pegasus in all Equestria, and Nightmare Moon is prepared to give you all Equestria to have that talent serve her. So name your price. Anything short of Nightmare Moon’s throne itself can be yours. All you have to do is ask. Piles of bits, a palace the size of Manehatten, throngs of adoring worshipers, your enemies strung up for your amusement, none of it has to be out of your reach if you want it.”

“Thank you,” Rainbow Dash shook her head, “but no. You’re offering me the world, and I’d love to take it. But if you gave me the world and I had to give up my friends for it I don’t think I’d actually get anything in the end. So go back and tell Nightmare Moon that I’m not on her side, and I won’t ever be.”

The Shadowbolts glared at her behind their opaque goggles, and for a few fleeting seconds Rainbow Dash thought she would have another fight on her hooves, but then they turned and flew off back into the city. As they got farther and farther away they seemed to become almost translucent until they seemed puffs of stardust disappearing in the distance. Rainbow Dash descended much more directly and rapidly than she’d gone up and before long she was landing in the middle of all her friends.

“Good job Rainbow Dash,” Applejack slapped her on the back. “We were all very worried about you.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Rainbow Dash looked like Applejack had been speaking buffalo. “You know I’d never leave my friends hanging.”

Twilight smiled at her and floated the saddlebags back to her. The smile Rainbow Dash was okay with. The saddlebags she could have done without.

“There you are!” They all turned to see Rarity scrambling up the rocks behind them. I’d worried you were all already in Canterlot without me.

“Of course not silly.” Pinkie Pie giggled. “How would we have our ‘we beat Nightmare Moon party’ together if we left you behind?”

Twilight gasped. “Are you okay Rarity?” Rainbow Dash belatedly noticed that Rarity was covered in scrapes, had dried blood all over her previously white coat, and she had a particularly nasty spot where it looked like the fur had been burned away and the skin below burned.

“Just flesh wounds.” Rarity elegantly trotted past them. “And besides, you should see what I did to Trixie.”

“I’d rather not,” Fluttershy muttered. “I don’t like fighting.”

Confident that there was now nothing between them and Canterlot they made very good time towards and then up the main road. Rainbow Dash had never been to Canterlot, and even under its present ownership she was eager to see the capital of Equestria. She noticed however that Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, and even Pinkie Pie had nervous looks on their faces. This was their home, and who knew what had befallen it. Suddenly her eagerness faded.

“Ready?” Twilight asked Rarity.

The other unicorn nodded and together they opened one of the massive metal doors to Canterlot. The six stepped through into Canterlot and Rainbow Dash heard a strangled gasp from Twilight Sparkle.

The Rest is Silence

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: Breaking news! I don’t own My Little Pony!

Chapter Nineteen: The Rest is Silence

It wasn’t fair. The finish line was right in front of her. She’d given everything she had, found new depths, and then given those too. All that just to have her goal yanked out from under her as she was about to finally grab it. She fought to control her breathing, but it was a losing battle.

“Hey there Twilee.” Shining Armor said. His eyes bore the dull, unfocused look of a guard under Nightmare Moon’s control.

Twilight staggered back and just barely stayed upright on her hooves. She’d never mentioned her brother to her friends or anypony else. As far as she knew nopony knew that Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor were related. But somehow Nightmare Moon knew. And she’d saved the biggest emotional blow she could throw at Twilight until she was staring victory in the face.

“Big brother.” She croaked. No point in keeping the secret now. Surely the others would understand why she’d wanted to keep something like this to herself.

“I’m really proud of you little sis,” the pony who looked exactly like her brother twisted the knife deeper. “I knew you’d make it this far. And I’m here to take you all to Nightmare Moon so this can all be over.”

“Shut up!” Twilight Sparkle shouted. She’d been angry plenty of times in her life. But she’d never been even remotely close to being this angry. “You might look exactly like my brother, and you might sound exactly like my brother, but you are not Shining Armor!”

Twilight was going to kill Nightmare Moon. She’d killed ponies before, by accident, and even set out to hurt a few when it was necessary. But Nightmare Moon had made this personal, and now Twilight was going to kill her. Rarity had said she thought Twilight might be the most powerful unicorn alive, and now she had part of one of the Elements of Harmony boosting her power even more. She was sure Celestia was more powerful than her, and Celestia had lost to Nightmare Moon, but Twilight was sure Celestia hadn’t tried to kill Nightmare Moon, and she was going to.

“Whoa there killer,” Twilight snapped back to the real world as Rainbow Dash grabbed her by her shoulders. “He might be being mind controlled, but somewhere down there is still your… brother.”

Twilight gasped and calmed down. She hadn’t realized it, but in her anger she’d had her horn crackling with dangerous energy and been ready to reduce her helpless brother to a pile of ashes. Wouldn’t that have been perfect? She took several deep breaths and forced her mind back to the bigger picture. Shining Armor was as much a victim of Nightmare Moon as anypony. Now she knew what so many families all across Equestria were going through and she was going to do something about it. One way or another this was all going to end tonight.

“Come on,” she said to the pony who was not her brother, “take us to the castle.”

They stepped through the gates and as the city vista spread out in front of them Twilight couldn’t help remembering the first time she’d come into the city with her family.

Canterlot! The capital of Equestria itself! Twilight was so happy she was literally hopping with joy in a circle around her parents and her big brother.

“Slow down Twilee,” Shining Armor put a hoof in her way. “If you keep hopping around like that we’ll never get to see Canterlot.”

In an instant Twilight stood perfectly still. Her parents and brother laughed at her over the top eagerness, but there was only love behind the laugh. Finally they stepped through the gates and Twilight stood still as a statue again. Only this time she was standing still in awe. Spires and towers glittered in a thousand colors in the bright sun. Golden domes and rainbow tiled roofs adorned magnificent palaces that seemed to outdo each other for grandeur without straying into extravagance.

Canterlot was a dream come true.

“So where do you want to go first Twilight?” Her mother leaned over her with a smile on her face.

“Everywhere!” Came her immediate response. Even though it was her first time in the city Twilight knew this was the place for her. When she grew up she was going to make her mark on this fantastic, wonderful, incredible city.

Twilight had long since been cruelly relieved of her childish fantasies about Canterlot. The surface was a rotten cesspit of feuding nobles vying amongst each other for goals and gains nopony cared half a rotten horse apple about. The buildings were all built to look magnificent, but that was all. Everything that went on inside was full of corruption and deceit. Perhaps her opinion was a little bit biased, but having experienced firsthand how the ponies of the undercity had to struggle to make ends meet she wasn’t feeling particularly charitably inclined towards the aristocracy.

“Look at that everypony.” Applejack’s voice caught Twilight’s attention and she looked where Applejack was pointing.
There in the windows on both sides of the streets were eyes. Thousands of pairs of pony eyes watching them, and every pair with the dull lethargy of mind control.

“How powerful is Nightmare Moon?” Rarity shuddered. “I can’t imagine the kind of magical skill needed to bend an entire city to her will.”

“Powerful enough to beat Celestia in a straight fight.” Twilight said softly. “Not to mention powerful enough to freeze the moon in place and keep the sun from rising for a month and a half.”

They fell silent after that. The thousands of pairs of unblinking eyes following them proved to be profoundly unsettling. Even more eerie was the silence. For all the ponies watching them from the surrounding buildings the streets were devoid of life except for Twilight Sparkle, her friends, and the pony who was most definitely not her brother. That meant Twilight could only hear the sound of their breathing and the steady sounds of their hooves on the pavement. Not even a breeze rose to stir the mountain air, and the stillness seemed doubly oppressive for the circumstances. It was like the whole world was standing still. Almost as if the world was holding its breath waiting for the coming battle.

She’d long since grown used to the moon hanging overhead, but for some reason this time it put an unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach. Seeing all those ponies stripped of their free will reminded her of what that unmoving moon represented. If she’d chosen her friendship with Shady over her trust of Rarity when this all started would she be one of those blank eyed ponies watching some other group of would be heroines walking up this street?

How had Shady turned out like she had? Ever since Twilight had first met the mare Shady had been nothing but friendly and caring.

Twilight was going to do this. Twilight could do this. Twilight was going to do this and earn a mountain of bits to pay for college. First though she had to open the door to the Touchy Hooves Gentlecolts club.

“Hi, can I help you?” Twilight turned in surprise to see a dark pink earth pony with a greenish yellow mane and green eyes standing behind her.

“Oh, um hi.” Twilight laughed nervously. “I’m new here. It’s my first night and I’m not exactly sure what to do.”

“I swear,” the other pony grumbled, “they always want new mares to dance and wait tables, but do they ever tell us about it so we can train them up? No, that would actually make sense! Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Shady, and I’m one of the dancers here.”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight took the hoof Shady offered. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be dancing or waiting on tables.”

“You’ll probably start dancing.” Twilight followed Shady through the door into a darkly lit and not particularly clean hallway. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that nopony ever taught you how to dance at a strip club.”

“I’m afraid not…” Twilight stopped as they reached the dressing room. The ponies in various states of undress didn’t bother her, but then there were the ponies shooting up every kind of drug Twilight had ever heard of, and was that one stripper actually doing… with a stallion… right in front of all of them? What had she gotten herself into?

“Hey,” Shady prodded her till she had her attention. “This is a rough job, and these ponies definitely aren’t those delicate nobles from up on the surface, but if you don’t want to do drugs or see clients on the side than you don’t have to.”

“I guess that’s one less thing I have to worry about.” Twilight forced her breathing back to normal. “But I still don’t know how to dance or when I’m going out.”

“I’ll see if you can join me for a double dance.” Shady sat down at a mirror and motioned for Twilight to take the adjacent one. “You can watch the other ponies dance and it shouldn’t take you more than a few days to get the hang of it. You don’t happen to know how to walk in heels do you?”

“I’m not going to up and fall over.” Twilight had worn heels to a few things like her high school graduation, but those had been short walks and she’d been able to ditch the heels right away. “But I wouldn’t trust myself to do any dancing in them.”

“One more thing you’ll have to learn.” Shady said. “Don’t worry though. I’ll show you what you need to know to make it around here, and one day we won’t have to work at a strip club anymore.”

Twilight smiled, maybe she actually could do this.

Thinking back, Shady had still been caring towards Twilight even after she apparently decided to follow Nightmare Moon. She’d wanted to recruit Twilight into their ranks, and had seemed ready to guide her through being a Nightmare Child the same way she’d guided her through learning how to be a stripper.

Twilight shook her head and made herself focus. She needed to remember what was at stake here, and thinking how a decent pony like Shady could have followed Nightmare Moon would only distract her. Besides, thinking about all the different ways the world could have turned out would only drive her crazy.

They rounded a corner and through a gap in the buildings Twilight could see a place she was far too familiar with, the Smart Cookie Memorial Hospital. After her failed entrance exam to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns when she was a filly she’d been cooped up there for far too long recovering.

The first thing Twilight had seen when she woke up was more blackness. That was only momentary as she looked around and saw she was in a room, not hers, lit by moonlight and the glow of several monitors. She tried to light up her horn to see more details, it was often the first spell a unicorn learned, and gasped in pain as fire ran from her horn into her head.

Then it all came back to her, the dragon egg, trying harder than she’d ever tried in her life to use magic, then the nosebleed and collapse, and always the cold faces of her examiners. Twilight had known while blacking out that she’d hurt herself during the exam, but she never thought it would be nearly this bad. Taking a deep breath she concentrated and tried to light her horn again. She was ready for the pain this time, but it still forced an anguished gasp out of her and her spell fell apart long before it reached completion.

She rubbed her horn in irritation and sat up just as her door clicked open to reveal a white earth pony with dark pink hair and a cutie mark of a red cross with small hearts in the corners. Even a filly like Twilight could tell she was a nurse.

“Oh my,” the pony quietly said, “we didn’t think you’d wake up for awhile yet. My name is Redheart, I’m a nursing student. I’m glad to see you up Twilight Sparkle. Is there anything I can get for you?”

Twilight paused at that. She’d been so focused on her horn and magic that she’d forgotten entirely to think about how her body was doing.

“I’m thirsty,” she said at last, “and hungry.”

“Well I can take care of that.” Redheart smiled. “And after we get some food and water into you I’ll get the doctor and he can take a look at you.”

Twilight nodded and watched as the nursing student walked back into the halls. She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious. But if her magic was damaged enough that she couldn’t do something as simple as making light with her horn then she was going to be spending awhile here in the hospital.

Twilight had been out for four days, and had spent another week in observation at the hospital before being allowed to go home. Most unicorns were only unconscious for a few minutes after magical accidents, so the fact that she’d spent several days out had made the doctors very worried. Her parents and brother had turned up the same day she’d woken up and didn’t leave until visiting hours were up and Redheart had to gently, but firmly, prod them from Twilight’s room.

Twilight remembered that she’d hated being cooped up in her hospital room, but that she’d rather enjoyed Redheart’s company. The mare was a nursing student in her first year and had the night shift since it was the slowest, and therefore easiest, and used most of her time to study. For awhile after getting out of the hospital Twilight had been sure she’d grow up to be a nurse. But despite reading a small library about nursing she’d turned out to have no talent whatsoever for it and had given it up like so many other fillyhood dreams.

She wondered briefly if one of those pairs of eyes staring at her was Redheart. Probably not she decided. Redheart had talked about leaving Canterlot after finishing her schooling. Maybe when all this was over, if she was still alive, Twilight would look the mare up and thank her for her help all those years ago. It was definitely an easier thought than thinking that yet another pony she cared about had been hurt by Nightmare Moon.

“You know,” Rainbow Dash whispered, “something tells me we’re not going to be doing any escaping once we have the Elements.”

“I don’t want to hurt anypony else,” Fluttershy quietly said. “I’m sure once we have the Elements if we ask Nightmare Moon nicely she’ll bring Celestia back and let all those ponies go.”

Applejack quietly snorted. “I rather doubt that Fluttershy. I don’t think there’s a good bone, hair, or feather in her body. But you’re right about one thing. If we’re going to escape Canterlot once we have the Elements it would mean hurting a lot of innocent ponies. Have you figured out how to use the Elements yet Twilight?”

“I don’t have any idea,” Twilight admitted. “All I could find in either of the books we got in Manehatten was that Celestia used the Elements of Harmony to banish Nightmare Moon to the moon. But neither of them said anything about how Celestia used them. For all I know you just put them together and they fire, or you have to do some special dance, or maybe you can only use them on a Tuesday after reciting the legend of Maredessyus and painting yourself with polka dots.”

Rainbow Dash frowned. “So what you’re saying is we have our work cut out for us, right?”

“I’m sorry girls,” Twilight sighed. “This really isn’t going to plan. I’m afraid we’re in real trouble this time.”

“We, we trust you.” Fluttershy smiled. “You’ve gotten us this far after all.”

“Thanks Fluttershy. I guess we’ll just have to deal with using the Elements or getting out of Canterlot once we’re in the castle.”

The future, to put it bluntly, was not looking good at the moment. Nightmare Moon had the elements, an army of innocent pony shields, and she had Twilight and her friends exactly where she wanted them. It hadn’t been long ago at all that Twilight was as confident about the future as she’d been in a long time.

“We are so proud of you two!” Twilight’s parents positively beamed. “An officer in the royal guards, and a graduate from one of the best colleges in Canterlot. We always knew you two were destined for great things.”

“Come on,” Twilight blushed. “It’s just the Canterlot Fourth Level Magical College. It’s not like I’m graduating from anywhere special or anything.”

“That’s a great school.” Her father waved a dismissive hoof. “All those fancy schools with the fancy names are just country clubs for the rich and the nobles. They only let in a few charity cases for good PR. As soon as you get into an interview and they see what a smart, talented, and wonderful pony you are anypony would have to be crazy not to hire you.”

“You too young stallion,” her mother said. “An officer means responsibility where other ponies can see you. I’m sure you’ll do wonderful wherever they station you. Why before you know it they’ll make you captain of the Canterlot Guards!”

“Mom.” Shining Armor’s embarrassment showed much more under his white coat. “They’re only making me a second lieutenant. I’m one of those charity cases who gets to look in the windows of the fancy places. And it’s only probably because I knew Cadance all those years ago. My ‘responsibility’ at this point is pretty much not to screw up. If I keep my head down and don’t make any waves I might, might get another promotion in another few years, but captain of the Canterlot Guards? Maybe if I stay in the guards till I’m a hundred or Twilight suddenly becomes I don’t know Celestia’s apprentice or something.”

Twilight couldn’t hold in her laugh at her brother’s joke. Her, Celestia’s apprentice? That would be the day.

“It’s not that farfetched.” Her mother shot her a gentle but stern look. “It was pure luck that your father and I met, but once we’d met we had to make it work. All you two need is the right circumstances and the ability to make the most of your lucky break. We know you two can make the most of even the tiniest break. Who knows Shining Armor, maybe you’ll run into Cadance again and all of a sudden you’ll have promotions coming faster than you know what to do with them.”

“And Twilight, a diploma is just a piece of paper. Once you get your first job and ponies realize what you’re capable of I’m sure you’ll have ponies fighting each other for the chance to offer you a job.”

“Thanks dad, but I kind of doubt that I’m going to climb the corporate ladder without a cutie mark. All I want is a decent job I enjoy that will let me pay off my loans and pay my bills.”

“Don’t be like that Twilee,” her brother playfully shoved her shoulder. “You know why I always say you don’t have a cutie mark. You’re so talented at so many things that your cutie mark couldn’t decide what to be.”

Twilight smiled. Her brother always knew what to say to make her feel better. With her family at her side she felt like cutie mark or no she could take on the world.

Twilight frowned. Her brother was a soulless puppet serving the evil pony who’d overthrown Celestia. Her parents were hopefully safe, but even if they were they couldn’t possibly help her. And it felt like she had the entire world against her.

Well maybe not the entire world. As much as she missed her family she’d made lifelong friends on this adventure. The possibility that her life would be distressingly short from this point was a thought she refused to consider. She wished though that she could have had more time with her friends. As long as she’d been an anti-social loner it hadn’t seemed so bad not having friends. But now that she’d made such good friends and knew what she’d been missing out on it seemed like she’d just started living and now she was staring down her end at the hooves of Nightmare Moon.

Twilight had never spent much time exploring the surface. Most of the times she’d come up she’d either gone to the library or spent her time in one of the many parks near the library enjoying the chance to stretch her legs in the bright sunlight. Canterlot’s surface was proving surprisingly large. It made sense she supposed. While only nobles lived up here there were plenty of commoners who worked on the surface, and then there were all the tourists coming to visit, and the various monuments, museums, and public buildings needed their space as well. Oh well, one more thing she’d probably never have the chance to do. It wasn’t like that list was growing by the hour or anything.

She was surprised at how quickly and completely all the damage to Canterlot had been repaired since Nightmare Moon took over. The last time Twilight had been in the city there had been rubble in the streets, bodies lying haphazardly where they’d fallen, and fires had raged uncontrolled through the city. In just a month and a half though Nightmare Moon had driven the ponies under her command to rebuild the city to its former glory. Twilight noted with distaste as they passed through a circular intersection that the statue of Celestia in the middle had been replaced by a statue of Nightmare Moon.

“I see the décor has been… improved.” Rarity noted without any hint of an attempt to hide her distaste. “I wonder what other changes Nightmare Moon has made since she took up residence?”

Rainbow Dash went further and paused to spit on the statue. “Nothing good I’m sure.”

Twilight had briefly worried that Rainbow Dash’s action would cause the ponies watching them to become angry and attack. She needn’t have worried. The watching ponies just stood there unblinking. Had she even seen one of them so much as blink since they entered Canterlot? This was intimidation on Nightmare Moon’s part, and Twilight had to admit that it was working.

They turned down the last boulevard to take them to the castle itself and Twilight could see a hilly park, and on the other end the royal library. How different her life would be if Nightmare Moon had never come. She’d have a nice normal job working at the library. Maybe she’d have made some new friends. If Shady hadn’t turned out to be an insane cultist Twilight could have tried to find her another job away from Touchy Hooves.

She could imagine it now. A nice apartment on level five of the undercity, some decent roommates for a change, and a job she wasn’t ashamed of. It wouldn’t be anything spectacular, but then Twilight had never been a pony who particularly enjoyed the supposed glamour of the rich and famous. She supposed Rarity and Pinkie Pie fit into that glamorous world, but then they weren’t exactly average as far as rich and famous went, and Pinkie Pie wasn’t normal as far as anything went.
No, she’d been over this before, this was no time to concentrate on what was or what could have been. Every step brought them closer to Nightmare Moon and the Elements. She needed to think as hard as she could to find a way past Nightmare Moon to the Elements and then a way to use the Elements.

She was coming up totally blank.

As angry as she was at Nightmare Moon she knew that even with the shard of one of the Elements she was hopelessly out of her league fighting against a pony who had beaten Celestia herself. Rarity was a powerful unicorn yes, but she was hurt and exhausted from fighting Trixie. Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to be able to do a sonic rainboom indoors, and Twilight wasn’t sure what good it would do against Nightmare Moon anyways. Applejack and Pinkie Pie were useful in a fight, Pinkie Pie especially so, but as powerful as she was Nightmare Moon could just hold them with magic and probably try even a little bit. Fluttershy would be safe off in a corner but wouldn’t be any use fighting Nightmare Moon.

They were in trouble.

She was sure they would have to get through Nightmare Moon herself to get anywhere near the Elements of Harmony, and the more she thought about it the more she realized they were going to need some kind of miracle to have even a chance against Nightmare Moon. Maybe Fluttershy would be right and Nightmare Moon would just do what they asked… and maybe the Elements would just fall right into their laps on a solid gold platter with a hundred piece orchestra accompanying.

“Are you ready little sister?” Twilight was jerked out of her morose thoughts as the pony who’d brought them here spoke in her brother’s voice.

“I thought I told you not to talk.” She nearly growled. “Girls, let’s do this. However this all turns out I can’t imagine a better group of friends to go through all this with.”

“Agreed,” Rarity said, “it’s been an honor fighting Nightmare Moon alongside all of you.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, “I never thought I’d meet any ponies who’d stick by me like you girls did.”

“I’m gonna miss all of you!” Pinkie Pie bawled. “We never got to have that party they’ll remember for a thousand years!”

“There there Pinkie Pie.” Applejack gently patted her on the shoulder. “As long as we stick together we’ll be fine whatever happens.”

“It’s been nice.” Fluttershy actually looked at all of them eye to eye. “I really liked getting to know all of you. Rainbow Dash was my only friend for so long. It was, um, nice to have more friends while it lasted.”

The gates into the castle itself were like the gates into Canterlot, massive, but it was more for show than any real protection. The pony pretending to be Shining Armor took hold of them with his magic and opened them with a deep, slow groan. Twilight Sparkle had never been in the royal castle before, but she strode forward with purpose. This was all going to end tonight and it would be up to her to distract Nightmare Moon long enough for the others to get and use the Elements of Harmony. If she thought about what she was going to do she would probably panic and run to curl up in some room somewhere. So she walked forward even faster and only thought about what strategies and spells she could use against a pony immeasurably more powerful than her.

Even as focused as she was Twilight couldn’t help notice how impressive the castle was. Trixie’s illusion had tried, but failed, to do the real thing justice. Torches in mirrored recesses made the hall as bright as a noon day that hadn’t been seen for a month and a half. Twilight’s hooves clicked on marble tiles polished until they reflected almost as much light as the mirrors. The midnight black tiles with flecks of diamond made it seem as if she was walking on the night sky. She imagined that when Celestia ruled here they would have been white as clouds with flecks of golden sunlight throughout. As far as places to meet her end went there were definitely worse options.

She could have easily spent a lifetime she didn’t have looking at the tapestries that adorned the walls. The stories of Clover the Clever, Commander Hurricane, and all the other heroes of Equestrian history played out in intricate detail on the walls for her. Somehow the pictures made the history seem more real than all the books she’d read in school.

Twilight wondered if she and her friends would make it up there. She was sure in the future that ponies would read about the story of how Nightmare Moon courageously vanquished the last few ponies who futilely clung to Celestia’s day and brought about at last unchallenged eternal night. Not quite how Twilight wanted to be remembered, but then the victors wrote history.

They came to an ornate set of doors that could only lead to the throne room and Nightmare Moon herself. Not waiting for her false brother to let them in Twilight yanked the doors open and stormed into the throne room. The doors slammed shut behind her almost as soon as she was through and Twilight turned to her friends to make sure one last time that they were all ready for this. Only to notice that she was all alone. In her single minded determination to get to Nightmare Moon she’d gotten ahead of her friends and walked right into Nightmare Moon’s trap all alone.

“Hello Twilight Sparkle.” She gulped and turned to see Nightmare Moon herself sitting on the throne. “I’ve been waiting to meet you for quite awhile. I believe you’re here looking for something I have.”

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

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Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: For the LAST time! I don’t own My Little Pony!

Chapter Twenty: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Twilight’s heart pounded in her chest. She could hear the beating of hooves on the other side of the door, but the gilded doors were unmoving and Twilight felt utterly alone against the most powerful pony in all of Equestria. She had a lump in her throat the size of a full grown hydra, but she forced herself to stand tall and glare at Nightmare Moon. If she was going to die she was going to die fighting and on her hooves.

Nightmare Moon simply stared at her. Twilight found the gaze of those alien eyes to be incredibly unsettling and it became ever harder to not tremble in fear.

Finally her patience ran out and she cracked. “What? You aren’t going to just blast me into a pile of dust? I know you can! Or do you want me to bow down and worship you like those crazy black robed cultists of yours? Or I know! Now that I’m here and Trixie lost you want me to turn my back on my friends and become your apprentice. Well I’ve got news for you, it will never happen!”

Nightmare Moon yawned like she was incredibly bored before idly repositioning herself in a very relaxed sitting position. Twilight didn’t know what was going on. Elements of Harmony or no wasn’t this supposed to be the epic last confrontation between good and evil? Why did Nightmare Moon look like she was about to fall asleep watching a particularly dull play?

“Would you ever worship me?” Despite her indolent position Nightmare Moon’s voice was sharp. Before Twilight could snap a defiant retort Equestria’s ruler continued. “I know you would never give up trying to defeat me and bring back your precious sun. Oh I could make you an obedient little puppet easily enough, but I’m sure you know I already have plenty of those. In fact, I’m sure you know that better than just about any of my subjects.”

“You let my brother go!” Twilight’s horn flared with magic. “I’m the one you want, and I’m here. So let Shining Armor go.”

Nightmare Moon softly laughed. “Oh you just don’t get it my little pony. I know you will never bow down and worship me, but make no mistake, I will be worshiped as a goddess, I will see every pony in every corner of Equestria bow before me and sing praises to the eternal night, and I will make anypony who dares defy me very, very sorry before I allow them to die.”

“So then why am I still alive? Why are my friends alive? You know we’ll never stop trying to beat you. You tried hard enough with Rainbow Dash. And I know you could have found us any time you wanted and killed us all before we knew you were anywhere near us.”

“Why? Because you amuse me. Watching you struggle so mightily against utterly hopeless odds has been an endless source of laughs. You feared it ever since you learned of them, you suspected it ever since you read about them in Manehatten, and you knew I had the Elements ever since you went to Ponyville. Yet you still came here to face me. How a group of ponies could so blithely march to their deaths is simply beyond me. And now here we are Twilight Sparkle. You’re alone, the Elements of Harmony are hopelessly beyond you, and you have no idea what you’re going to do now.”

Nightmare Moon was right. Twilight had no idea where the Elements were and she had no hope without them.

It was a desperate gamble, but it was her only hope. “So then why not show me the Elements? You have them and I’m sure I can’t use them while you’re in control of them. We both know you can kill me as easily as you’re breathing, but you don’t just want to kill me, you want to beat me. And the only way to do that is to break me, and if you’re going to do that you have to show me that I’ve failed.”

“True,” Nightmare Moon abandoned her languid pose to tap a thoughtful hoof against her chin. “But no. After a thousand years in the moon I’ve learned that victory itself is far more important than how you win. I would love to dangle the broken shards of the Elements of Harmony before you. To see you broken in both mind and body before I kill you, but I would hardly call it settling to remove such a dangerous pony as you from my world.”

That was it. Twilight had nothing left. All she could do from this point on would be buying her friends time to realize they couldn’t help her, and from there trying to escape to fight another day. She wished she could have seen her brother and parents one last time to say good bye to them. But she’d made the best friends she could have imagined and together they’d come farther than she ever dreamed they would. There was only one thing left to do. If Nightmare Moon was going to kill her than Twilight was going to die with nothing left.

She took hold of the crystal that was once part of the Elements of Harmony with her magic and immediately she could feel her concentration sharpen and power swelled into her. As the power swelled into her she felt over her shoulder that seemingly bottomless well of power she’d tapped into those few times in her life when she’d lost all control over her magic and gone on destructive rampages. This time instead of shying away from it she dove into it and mastered it. Enough power surged into her horn that she felt she could juggle a collection of Hydras and Ursa Minors like it was foals play. She didn’t have much time to think though. Even she could only control this much magic for a very short time before it burned her up from inside.

And she had the perfect place to send all that magic. The back wall of the throne room simply vaporized as a beam of pure light erupted from Twilight’s horn. The air around her crackled with energy and bits of the columns that held up the room were blasted off as that energy split the air with cracks of lightning. Twilight grit her teeth and forced the magic under her control. She could only keep this up for a few seconds and she had to make it count. The beam of light narrowed, but at the same time grew in intensity.

Even behind her closed eyes Twilight found the light painful. Then almost before she knew she had started her attack she was slumping to the ground, utterly exhausted. She sucked in several deep breaths and blinked spots and tears out of her eyes for several seconds. As her vision cleared and the dust slowly blew clear she began to see the results of her magic. The once elaborate throne room had been completely trashed. The windows were all shattered, the carpets were ripped and burned, most of the tapestries were bare threads hanging from pitted walls, and still standing on the throne’s dais was Nightmare Moon.

Twilight hadn’t really thought that her attack would actually kill Nightmare Moon. But couldn’t the pony look like she’d at least had to try to guard against Twilight?

“Very impressive Twilight Sparkle.” Nightmare Moon’s smile made Twilight shiver involuntarily. “I can see now that Trixie never had a chance against you. I may have to rethink forcing you into my service.”

Twilight gulped and stepped back from the throne. Being forced to commit all sorts of horrible acts by the very pony she’d tried so hard to defeat? Dying seemed like the better choice by far.

“I’d rather die first!” Twilight tried to sound as resolute as a totally exhausted and defenseless pony could. “And even if you kill me my friends will escape and find other ways to stop you.”

It was totally cliché for a pony in her situation to spout off defiance at her victorious opponent. But when she found herself in the position Twilight actually understood why ponies in all the stories did it. Nothing she could do would change the fact that Nightmare Moon was going to kill her, or worse, and she wanted her last act to be one that said she fought to the bitter end with everything she had.

“Will they really?” Nightmare Moon’s smile was perfectly conversational, but it still chilled Twilight to the bone. “Do you truly think you and your little friends are the only ponies clinging to their pitiful hopes of bringing your precious sun back? Do you truly think I don’t know where every one of them is at every moment of the night and that I couldn’t wipe them all out if I ever chose to do so? Do you truly think that if even Celestia needed the Elements of Harmony to beat me that any of you pitiful creatures could do the same when the Elements are ground to dust and scattered to every corner of the winds?”

“Somepony will! You’re powerful, but Celestia beat you a thousand years ago, and somepony will figure out how to beat you again. Even if it takes another thousand years the sun will come up again!”

“Ignorant foal!” Nightmare Moon sneered. “Do you think that Celestia merely batted an eyelash, summoned the Elements of Harmony, and banished me to the moon in the space of one night? We warred across Equestria for years! We made day and night change as easily as you would toss aside a broken quill. You pathetic ponies are so sheltered many of you have even forgotten the word ‘war.’ Our armies raised the blackest horrors of the abyss to throw at one another. How pitifully naïve your so called histories are. Do you think I could not revisit those horrors on your cities if ever you truly posed a threat to me? What do you think Celestia locked away behind the guarded gates of Tartarus? Why do you think so many books are locked away in the deepest corners of the royal library? And do you think those worthless hordes of scum who parade about are true Nightmare Children? No, the true Nightmare Children of a thousand years bound themselves to me body and soul. They were extensions of my will and the number of pegasi alone was once enough to blot out the sun. With no pesky sun princess to oppose me I will build an army of Nightmare Children who will crush all who would dare oppose me!”

Twilight Sparkle felt herself fall into a sitting position as her legs could no longer support her. They’d never had a chance against Nightmare Moon. They should have simply blended back into the masses after they’d escaped. Working at Touchy Hooves was a terrible life, but she’d made enough to get by, and nopony would bother such an inconsequential pony on a poor level of the undercity.

Nightmare Moon started to laugh. Her mane and tail swirled with energy and grew until they completely covered the hole in the wall Twilight had blasted open.

“You could never hope to defeat me with one shard of one broken element, but you will serve me with that shard. I think I will make a puppet out of you. I will teach you how to use that magic of yours to bring about terror and bloodshed that will make ponies fear the very mention of your name. And then before I release you from my control I will make you enjoy serving. Who knows, I may even extend your life so you can continue to be my terrible puppet long past when you should have died.”

Twilight couldn’t even bring herself to react to Nightmare Moon telling her about a fate that made Trixie at her worst seem almost a kind as Fluttershy. Twilight had thrown everything she had at her opponent and it hadn’t been enough. She knew she was about to be subjected to a fate worse than death, but literally for the life of her she couldn’t think of anything she could have done differently.

“Twilight!” The heavy doors into the rest of the castle cracked down the middle under the assault of her friends.

Twilight Sparkle had never had a eureka moment in her entire life. Certainly never one as life shaking as the moment she had hearing her friend’s voices. The shock of the moment brought her back to her hooves like the last several minutes had never happened.

“You think winning is as easy as breaking some rocks and hiding them? It wouldn’t matter if you’d dumped the Elements of Harmony at the bottom of the very deepest part of the Mareneighas Trench.”

Nightmare Moon actually looked puzzled as Twilight’s friends blasted the door open and ran to her.

“The Elements of Harmony are far more than whatever pretty rocks they were. They’re the best parts of what makes us all ponies, and they’ve been here all along!”

Across the farthest flung reaches of Equestria, from the snowy peaks bordering the Griffon Kingdom, to the burning deserts of the mild west, to the deep waters outside Baltimare, and a few places deep in the dark heart of the Everfree Forest piles of otherwise unremarkable dust began to glow, and vanished.

“Applejack, who made me realize my friends don’t care about my past, represents honesty. Fluttershy, who healed the ponies you sent after us just because they were ponies, represents kindness. Pinkie Pie, who taught us to laugh in the face of the fears and nightmares you made us suffer, represents laughter. Rarity, who gave me her trust, lessons in magic, and gave up her chance to have one of the Elements of Harmony, represents generosity. And Rainbow Dash, who turned her back on you when you offered her the world in order to stay with her friends, represents loyalty.”

“You foal!” Nightmare Moon’s horn began to crackle dangerously. She wasn’t holding back anymore. “You only have five Elements, and I’ll blast you out of reality itself before you can find the sixth!”

“Wrong!” Twilight shouted. “My friends got us all this far, and now I know that our friendship is the spark we were looking for all along. That spark, the strength from my friends, the friendship that lives in all ponies, creates the sixth element, the Element of magic!”

A light flashed through the room, and though Twilight shut her eyes against it the light wasn’t in the least bit painful. Even with her eyes closed Twilight somehow knew that the weight that settled on her head was a magnificent gold wrought crown with a six pointed magenta star adorning its peak. In the same way she knew each of her friends now wore necklaces in the shape of their cutie marks. Butterflies for Fluttershy, a lightning bolt for Rainbow Dash, balloons for Pinkie Pie, a quill for Applejack, and a small mining pick for Rarity. They’d done it, they’d found the Elements of Harmony.

And not a moment too soon. With a scream of alien rage Nightmare Moon’s horn unleashed a torrent of magic that made Twilight’s attack look like a filly making her first tries at magic. The Elements of Harmony were a completely unknown power to Twilight Sparkle, but somehow she knew exactly how to channel the unbelievable power into a bubble of pure light that met Nightmare Moon’s best effort to kill them.

“No!” Nightmare Moon’s shout held a note of desperation. “I did not spend a thousand years exiled in the moon, bend the heavens themselves to my will, and defeat Celestia herself only to be bested by a whore!”

There was a time that insult would have stung Twilight deeply, but that time had passed the moment she’d realized what kind of friends she’d made over the last six weeks. Nightmare Moon pumped more power into her attack until the stones of the castle, each bigger than a full grown stallion, began to crack. Safe inside the protection granted by the Elements of Harmony Twilight could have withstood the attack forever. But every second she waited ponies all across Equestria were suffering without the sun.

It was time for this to end.

The shield took on all the colors of the rainbow and Nightmare Moon’s attack disappeared in a column of rainbow light that streaked towards her.

The would be ruler of Equestria cringed and screamed as the Elements of Harmony surrounded her in a tornado of light. The stones blasted from the walls onto the floor began to lift into the air from the sheer power Twilight was harnessing through her friends. A soundless roar of power drowned Nightmare Moon out. Twilight opened her eyes to a world of pure white light that pulsed with color for a brief instant, and then blackness.

Twilight blinked her eyes as she returned to consciousness. Her head felt like a tribe of buffaloes had decided to use it as the stage for a week long dance festival. She heard groans from her friends and gathered that they were in much the same position. They were alive. Somehow they’d beaten Nightmare Moon. Now she could look for her parents and her… Twilight bolted upright, and even though her legs felt like jelly she ran to the remains of the door back into the castle and practically threw herself through.

Shining Armor had a nasty looking lump on his head, but his chest was steadily rising and falling. Her friends must have knocked him out when Twilight went into the throne room so they could break down the door. Only after seeing her brother alive and well did it truly begin to sink in that they’d done the impossible. Nightmare Moon had been powerful enough to beat Celestia and to stop the sun and moon in their tracks, and they’d found the one thing in all Equestria that could beat her.

Twilight staggered back into the throne room to see her friends back on their hooves. The sight of all her friends moving around brought her almost as much relief as knowing her brother would be okay. The relief lasted only a few seconds though as she saw Rarity pointing, and the others looking, at what looked like a pony lying near where Nightmare Moon had been.

No, after all they’d been through, after finding the Elements of Harmony, Nightmare Moon couldn’t still be alive. Could she? Ever so cautiously Twilight crept towards the dais to look at the mysterious pony. She was definitely a mare, definitely an Alicorn, but she didn’t look like Nightmare Moon. This new pony was smaller than Nightmare Moon for one thing. She was about the same size as Twilight’s brother. Her coat was the color of the dusk sky, and her solid mane was only a marginally lighter shade. What caught Twilight’s attention was the pony’s cutie mark. Like Nightmare Moon’s it was a crescent moon, but this was a white moon on a splotch of fur the color of Nightmare Moon’s whole coat.

“I don’t know girls.” Twilight turned back to the others. “She doesn’t look like Nightmare Moon, but she has the same cutie mark and she’s right where Nightmare Moon was.”

Then Twilight noticed the broken shards of armor lying around the pony. This pony had definitely been Nightmare Moon. The question was, was she still Nightmare Moon?

And then Twilight’s attention was captured by the most wonderful sight she’d ever seen. Light began to pour through the many rents and openings in the throne room as the eastern sky brightened and the sun began to rise over the horizon.

“Twilight Sparkle.” A voice full of authority boomed.

The mysterious pony forgotten Twilight looked around for the source of the voice. She didn’t look long before a point of light descended from the quickly rising sun to resolve itself into Celestia herself.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Celestia said, “I am sorry.”

Twilight blinked in confusion. Had her parents not made it through all this, had being mind controlled done something to Shining Armor, had she used the Elements wrong and now she was dying? She quickly began to hyperventilate as she thought about what could be bad enough Princess Celestia needed to apologize in advance of the bad news.

Then Celestia bowed before her. Now Twilight was really confused.

“Years ago Twilight Sparkle, I did something horrible to you.” Celestia straightened upright with sadness in her eyes. “I knew that Nightmare Moon would be returning on the thousandth year since I defeated her, and that I could not defeat her on my own this time. I began searching for ponies who could wield the Elements of Harmony, and I believed one of those ponies could be you.”

Twilight had gone beyond confusion. She was going to have to hear everything Celestia had to say before she even started trying to piece it all together.

“I devised a special test for your entrance examination to my school to make sure you were who I thought you were. You saw firsthand what Nightmare Moon is capable of and I hope you understand how afraid I was that I might send the wrong ponies against her and cause all Equestria to suffer under eternal night. But having lived so long myself I forgot how young you were when you took your test and how much growing you and your magic still had to do.”

Celestia had given her a special test? Twilight hadn’t ever thought about it, but it made sense that most ponies wouldn’t try to hatch dragon eggs as fillies. What would her life have been like if she’d gone to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns? Certainly she never would have gone to work at Touchy Hooves, and Shining Armor would probably be far beyond a second lieutenant in the guards.

“I wish that were the only thing I had done to wrong you. But you see I can accept students into my schools regardless of what the ponies who run it day to day might recommend. I know that they think less of ponies of lower classes merely because of their birth, and I use my selections to pick talented ponies who can help bring other commoners to better lives, and hopefully show the nobility that ability is more important that birth. In your case though I let my doubts get the better of me and allowed them to keep you out merely because you were not of noble birth. And for my folly I nearly brought about the disaster I sought to prevent.”

“It, it’s not your fault Princess.” Twilight finally managed to get a few words out. “I mean out of all the ponies in Equestria there’s no reason to think I’d ever be special.”

“No!” Celestia’s sharp voice caused Twilight’s mouth to snap shut. “You are a special pony Twilight Sparkle. You are all special ponies. Each and every one of my subjects is special and precious in their own way. I allowed fear and doubt to cloud my judgment and all Equestria paid the price for it. You all performed magnificently to save Equestria. You all discovered who you truly are, and it is no surprise that those of you looking for your cutie marks on this adventure found them.”

Twilight looked up at Celestia. What was she talking about? Twilight hadn’t… She looked down at her flank. There it was. A purple six pointed star over a smaller white six pointed star surrounded by five small white six pointed stars. Twilight Sparkle had finally gotten her cutie mark.

She didn’t realize she’d started crying until her friends all piled on her in a giant hug. Why was she at the bottom of the hug again?

“Princess,” Rarity cautiously said as the pony pile separated, “you said you suspected Twilight might be one of the ponies to use the Elements of Harmony. I never asked, but is that why you made me your student when I first came to Canterlot?”

Celestia sighed before looking out at the rising sun and speaking. “After my failure with Twilight Sparkle I doubted my ability to find and guide the ponies who would bear the Elements of Harmony. After a few years I came up with a different plan. I would find a talented pony who could find and guide the Element bearers in my stead after Nightmare Moon returned. When I made my choice after my search I knew about Trixie’s underhanded methods to gain the spot, but I knew that Nightmare Moon would not play fair and I thought that a pony who could do the same would have an advantage. And then you showed up. I did originally only see you out of curiosity over the scope of your claim, but when I saw you I knew you would be one of the ponies to bear the Elements of Harmony. And this time I wouldn’t let any other ponies dissuade me from it.”

“Sorry,” Twilight interrupted during a pause, “but if you don’t mind my asking, how did you know that we might be able to use the Elements of Harmony?”

“There are certain perks to being a princess.” Celestia smiled. “Once I was sure Rarity would wield one of the Elements I began to train her for the task. In fact I trained her to take the role I had hoped you would have Twilight. I kept training Trixie to help Rarity find the other Elements and guide their ponies, but it seems that Trixie’s pride overcame her better nature. She and I will have a long talk when we are finished here.”

Up till now Celestia had been gracious and polite, but as she spoke of Trixie, Twilight remembered that this single pony was the reason Equestria had only a token police force and virtually no military.

Celestia continued. “I had my doubts about Trixie as the time drew near. She seemed increasingly resentful of Rarity, and she constantly complained that she was not being treated like she deserved. I had thought that when Nightmare Moon returned and Trixie saw the true gravity of the situation that she would realize why I had acted as I had. It is one more failure of mine to have not seen Trixie’s betrayal coming. Because of her many ponies voluntarily bound themselves to Nightmare Moon. Ponies like Shining Armor only served Nightmare Moon under a spell they could not hope to fight, but those ponies who donned black robes did so knowing what it meant. And thanks to Trixie there are still a great many of those ponies, and ponies who allowed Nightmare Moon to bring out the worst in them bringing suffering to a great deal of Equestria. I know I have asked too much of all of you already, but I hope that you will help me to bring those ponies who served Nightmare Moon to justice.”

Twilight and her friends had only to look at each other before they turned back to Celestia and said that whatever she needed of them they would do.

“You have my thanks, and the thanks of all well meaning ponies across Equestria. And hopefully we will have another ally when my sister wakes up.”

Sister? Twilight watched as Celestia walked over to the pony lying where Nightmare Moon had stood.

Celestia looked her apparent sister over, and apparently satisfied turned back to the others. “A thousand years ago my sister, Princess Luna, allowed her jealousy to turn into envy, which turned into hatred, and that hatred corrupted her into the creature of darkness you knew as Nightmare Moon. She sought to bring about an eternal night and an age of evil. I could only use the Elements of Harmony to banish her to the moon. You ponies however were able to unlock the full potential of the Elements of Harmony to purge Nightmare Moon and bring back Princess Luna. That is yet one more thing I must thank you for.”

“There is one last thing I would ask,” Celestia said. “I appear to be lacking an apprentice after recent events, and I’ve grown rather used to having one. Twilight Sparkle, I understand you recently graduated from a rather prestigious college but that you are still looking for a job.”

Twilight could only sputter incoherently. Was Princess Celestia asking her to…

“Sorry Rarity,” Celestia laughed, “I know you’d hoped to have Twilight come work for you when you defeated Nightmare Moon, but this once I think I’m going to invoke my royal prerogative.”

“All right!” Pinkie Pie leapt into the air and threw confetti she’d gotten from nowhere Twilight could see. “We did it girls! Now let’s party!”

“Spike!” Twilight shouted. “Spike!”

“Coming!” Came the reply from one of the many other rooms of the suite Twilight had inherited.

Twilight had accepted Celestia’s offer, of course, and had moved into Trixie’s old quarters in one of the towers. She knew that Trixie had had a rather inflated opinion of herself, but the unicorn had put a mirror on every wall to see her reflection, and pretty much every spare bit of wall was taken up with portraits of Trixie. The first thing Twilight had done had been to have those removed.

The other thing Twilight had inherited was Spike. Celestia had tasked the baby dragon to be Trixie’s assistant and companion. Trixie had apparently ignored the latter responsibility and interpreted the first as being a beast of burden and a living message sender. Despite having private rooms almost the size of Twilight’s old apartment building Trixie had put Spike in the smallest and barest closet and forbade him to come out unless she called for him. The second thing Twilight had done in her new home was to give Spike the run of the place and let him know that he could sleep wherever he chose.

Her new assistant had been more than okay with that new arrangement. Spike had also proven quite useful in another way. Since the Summer Sun Celebration Twilight had become rather accustomed to having other ponies around. Now though all her friends had gone back to their homes to check up on their families. Twilight had dearly wanted to go look for her parents, but Shining Armor had recovered rather quickly from being controlled by Nightmare Moon and Celestia had given him a leave from his duties as a royal guard to go make sure their parents were safe and sound.

They would all be back in a few days and then they could start thinking about what to do next. Celestia had decided that the worst thing she could do to Trixie would be to show her mercy. A small room in the lowest level of the lowest dungeon with no mirrors, only bread and water, and a guard coming by twice a day to read off exactly what Trixie had done to deserve her punishment. And oh yes, an enchantment placed on Trixie that would force her to eat her meals and prevent her from harming herself. Trixie would, Celestia assured her, live a very long life.

The only sign of Gilda they’d found was blood, feathers, and broken tree limbs where she’d fallen in the forest. Twilight didn’t know if the griffon was still alive to nurse her grudge against Rainbow Dash, but with Celestia returned to power Twilight did know that Gilda would think long and hard about ever setting hoof back in Equestria.

As for Princess Luna she still hadn’t woken up since being separated from Nightmare Moon. Celestia had told them that having been controlled by Nightmare Moon for so long Luna would be awhile in finding herself and coming back to consciousness. But Celestia was confident that her sister would awake before too long, and that when she did Luna would prove a powerful ally.

That still left several thousands of Nightmare Children and other ponies who’d thrown in their lot with Nightmare Moon or done more than dabble with dark magic during the long night. The royal guards and police would handle most of the now leaderless rabble. But there were still a number of dangerous and powerful ponies who had worked with Nightmare Moon and couldn’t take it back once Celestia returned. They would have to be apprehended or otherwise dealt with by Twilight and her friends.

“What did you want?” Spike came running into the large sunlit room.

“Slow down there Spike,” Twilight laughed, “you don’t have to make Rainbow Dash look slow every time I call.”

Twilight had gotten the impression that when Celestia hadn’t been around Trixie had been a bit less than magnanimous to Spike and he’d learned to come running when summoned.

“I know,” Spike said, “I’m just excited to be working with somepony who’s not totally self absorbed. And you’re actually friends with Rarity! Do you uh, think you could put in a good word for me with her?”

Twilight laughed again. “Simmer down there Romeo. Rarity won’t be back for a few days, and Princess Celestia has plenty for us to do in the meantime. Item one on the list is to give her a written account of everything that happened from the Summer Sun Celebration to when we beat Nightmare Moon with the Elements of Harmony.”

“This is going to mean a lot of writing isn’t it?” Spike groaned.

“I’ll take you out for a basket of gems when we’re done.” Twilight rubbed his spines with a hoof. “Now here goes. Dear Princess Celestia.”

-The End-

Thank you all so much for coming along on the ride that was this story. If you had half as much fun reading it as I had writing it then you are some happy campers indeed.