Strange occurrences in Equestria! Why are whole villages mysteriously disappearing all across the land? It's up to Twilight and her friends to find out, and stop this malevolent force for good!
Set sometime between the events of Keep Calm and Flutter On and Magical Mystery Cure, a crisis looms over Equestria. An entire village has been reported missing to the west. As Twilight and co. investigate, it seems more settlements will suffer the same fate as the first. Princess Celestia puts Twilight in charge of the investigation, and it's up to her and her friends to discover the cause of these disappearances, and put it to rest once and for all.
The ball sailed across the field on a warm, sunny day. It hung in the air for a while following a long, lazy arc through the blue sky. Eventually, it hit the ground, barely visible in the distance.
“Hah! Beat that!” exclaimed Rarity, as she sauntered to the end of the line.
“Why are we even letting her and Twilight play?” asked Applejack, to nobody in particular, as Spike stepped up to take his turn. “They’re unicorns, they can just use their magic to throw it as hard as they want.”
“Okay, I need a quick rundown of the rules again.” Said Spike.
“Spike, this game literally has only one rule. Throw the ball as far as you can in that direction.” said Twilight, almost in disbelief.
“Spare me, Twilight.” Spike said, winding up to take his throw. At the moment he started to swing his arm forward, Spike felt that feeling again. Opening his mouth to expel the flames, and the parchment that came out with it, his throw went wildly off course and about half as far as Fluttershy’s had.
As the rest of her friends laughed with Spike at his atrocity, Twilight, more interested in the letter he had delivered, picked it up and opened it.
“Dear Twilight Sparkle,” the letter began, as all of Princess Celestia’s letters did. “Your studies are coming along nicely. Your journal entries have been fun, to say the least, and it’s good to see how well you’ve progressed.
“But this isn’t about your day-to-day routine. To the west, something very strange has happened. The village of White Tail has mysteriously disappeared. The scouts I’ve sent discovered something very strange, something that I’m not totally inclined to believe. There may be a magical forcefield distorting their view, or something to that effect.
“This leads to why I am contacting you. I want you and your friends to journey to White Tail and report to me what you find. Take the Elements of Harmony, as it may be dangerous there. I don’t know what’s going on, but I trust you, my most faithful student, to find out for me. Dearest regards, Princess Celestia.”
The letter left Twilight confused. A magical forcefield around a village was nothing, but to distort the view of anyone outside it? This was serious magic if it was true, and aside from doing the duty that the princess had entrusted her with, she wanted to check that out.
Twilight turned around to find her friends in tears. Spike was dramatically reenacting his wild throw, to the great amusement of everyone. Waiting until the commotion was done, Twilight got their attention.
“Everyone, the princess has informed me of strange happenings in the White Tail woods, specifically around White Tail village. She has asked us to journey there and check it out for her.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Rainbow asked. “Let’s go!”
“Well, we’re bringing the Elements, so we have to get those first.” said Twilight.
“Wait, we need the elements?” Fluttershy asked, sounding very worried. “Is it going to be dangerous?”
“It may be, Fluttershy, but we need you to be strong for the group and come with us. We couldn’t leave a good friend behind."
“O…okay” said Fluttershy, not entirely consoled.
After a short trip to Twilight’s house to retrieve the Elements of Harmony, as well as various other trips made by her friends to get some of their things, the six of them boarded the next train to Las Pegasus. During the ride, Twilight pondered why Princess Celestia never did anything herself. She obviously used to, as it had been her and her sister, Luna, who had originally found and retrieved the Elements of Harmony from the Everfree forest. Unfortunately, that matter had to be put aside, as the train pulled into Las Pegasus Station and more pressing matters needed to be attended to.
“Ooh, the grand city of Las Pegasus!” Rarity exclaimed excitedly as they stepped off of the train. “Certainly not as wondrous as Manehattan, but it truly is as great as they say!”
“Well, sugarcube, sightseeing is going to have to wait.” said Applejack, nudging Rarity as she passed. “We have more important matters to focus on.”
“Yeah, like lunch!” interjected Pinkie. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and boy am I starving!”
The six friends started on the trail to the White Tail Woods. Their walk was relatively uneventful; apart from a few rattlesnakes, which Pinkie pointed out they had never seen before, it was actually kind of boring, as Rainbow Dash had loudly made clear.
White Tail Woods was actually very pretty. Unlike the Everfree forest, which was dark, imposing, and intimidating, the White Tail woods was calm and soothing, the beams of sunlight filtering through the canopy giving it a therapeutic atmosphere.
Drawing ever closer to White Tail, Twilight began to wonder what these “strange happenings” Princess Celestia was talking about were. She certainly hadn’t noticed anything strange up until then.
That all changed suddenly, when Pinkie, leading the way, suddenly vanished over the next hill with a shriek. As Rainbow Dash dived down after her, the rest of the six ran up to the crest of the hill where Pinkie had vanished. Stopping short, their mouths dropped, agape at the sight that met them. A perfectly spherical indentation had been made into the earth. It was as if the ground had suddenly vanished. Even the overhanging trees had been cut perfectly into the sphere that was taken out of the earth. The other side of the crater was barely visible to them, demonstrating that the area taken was about as spacious as Ponyville.
“Well,” said Applejack, consulting the map. “Welcome to White Tail, everypony.”
“It’s like someone took a BIG ice cream scoop and took a huge chunk out of the ground!” pointed out Pinkie, having been carried out of the crater by Rainbow. “Hmm…earth flavored ice cream. I wonder how that would taste?” she pondered.
“This…it…” stuttered Twilight. “The amount of magic required to lift an entire village, along with the ground around it, out of the earth…oh, I don’t even want to think about it. Oh my, I have some measurements to take…”
Rarity noticed Fluttershy talking to a squirrel just off the path. She walked over to her friend, curious as to what she was doing.
“Oh, my goodness, that’s terrible!” Fluttershy exclaimed. Turning to Rarity, she informed her, “This squirrel says its whole family was inside White Tail while it was out gathering acorns. Oh, he’s so worried, he just doesn’t know what to do!” turning back to the squirrel, she comforted him. “There there, it’ll be OK. We’ll find out what’s going on.”
Rainbow was still astonished at the crater in front of her. “It’s so big!” she said. “Rainbow Dash, with the incredibly insightful input.” Applejack joked. “Oh, shut up.” Rainbow smirked.
Teleporting out of the hole, Twilight informed her friends, “I’ve just verified, it’s a perfect sphere. I am also fairly certain that this was done by very powerful magic.”
“My friends are just so full of very not-obvious information today!” Applejack sarcastically remarked as Rainbow snickered.
Twilight ignored her. Addressing the whole group, she said, “We’ve done everything we came for. Let’s go back to Ponyville so we can send a report back to the Princess." Turning around, they began the long walk back to Las Pegasus. They had only one thing on their minds: what in the world had happened to White Tail?
The friends arrived at Ponyville later in the day. The first thing Twilight did after arriving was rush to her home to see Spike. It was urgent that a letter be sent to Princess Celestia as fast as possible.
Bursting urgently into her front room, she called for Spike, “Spike, where are you?”
“I’m right here Twilight, what do you need?” Said Spike as he stepped down the stairs, slightly confused as to why Twilight sounded so frantic.
“Spike, take a letter.” said Twilight, very officially.
“Wait, really? Do you still need me as your-“
“Spike, I don’t have time for this!” interrupted Twilight, sounding very impatient. “It’s very important that I get a letter to Celestia right now!”
“Alright, alright” Spike said as he reached for a parchment and quill.
“Dear Princess Celestia,” Twilight said, reminiscing on all of the times she had started a letter like that. “My friends and I visited White Tail and found a strange spherical indentation into the ground.”
“Wait WHAT!?” Spike said, as he looked up from the letter.
“Spike!”
“Ah, right, sorry. Spherical…”
“Is this what your scouts saw?” Twilight continued. “Because if it is, I would urge a more serious investigation into what happened to White Tail. Your faithful student, Twilight.”
“Did you add the part about the squirrel?” Fluttershy burst into the room along with the rest of Twilight’s friends.
“I guess I can add that.” Said Twilight as Spike readied the quill again. “P.S. We also found evidence that all of the inhabitants of the village disappeared along with the village itself.”
Spike rolled up the parchment and blew his green fire on it, sending the message on its way to the princess. At once Twilight’s friends all started buzzing, now that they were in private and could discuss the event without this sensitive subject falling on foreign ears.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what happened to the village.” said Rarity.
“I still say someone ate it!” exclaimed Pinkie, happily making her prediction known.
“Hey Twilight, do you think there’s some sort of book in here that might help with our investigation?” asked Rainbow.
“Investigation? What investigation? This isn’t an ongoing thing, Rainbow, that was-“ Twilight began to say, before she was abruptly cut off by a belching noise from Spike.
“I believe this is for you.” Spike said, handing the letter to Twilight.
“Dear Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight began to read the letter aloud to her friends. “This is not an isolated occurrence. Things like this have started to be reported all over Equestria.”
“Oh, my” whispered Fluttershy.
“This is obviously a serious matter that needs to be investigated, as per your recommendation. I am therefore placing you, Twilight Sparkle, at the head of the official investigation into this subject. Dearest regards, Princess Celestia.”
“So…investigation?” said Rainbow.
“Right, uh, start searching the library.” Twilight said, but the rest of the group was already on it. Any desire to keep this organized was quickly thrown out the window. The floor soon became cluttered with piles of already read books as the six ponies scoured the shelves, looking for something, anything, that would help them find out what was going on. Twilight hopped from book to book, quickly glancing at pages to find something that would help them.
It was Rarity who found the book they needed. It was titled 15 Seriously Strange Unsolved Mysteries.
“That doesn’t really sound like a very reliable source…” Applejack said, but trailed off as she realized her friends were too engrossed in the tome to pay her any heed.
“One of the greatest mysteries of Equestrian history is called ‘The Disappearening’” Twilight began to read aloud. “This occurred 427 years before the publishing of this book…” Twilight checked the inside page. “...which would have to be exactly 500 years ago. The Disappearening involved the strange disappearances of several villages across Equestria, most notably Albacoltque. The cause of this disappearance was never discovered.”
“So now what do we do?” asked Applejack.
“Yeah, we know what happened, but we still need to find out why.” chimed in Rarity.
“Well, as a student of the princess, and the head of the official investigation, I have access to most all of the records in Canterlot.” said Twilight.
“What, we have to do MORE looking through writing?” asked Rainbow, sounding very exasperated.
“Relax Rainbow.” Twilight reassured her. “There are six of us, it won’t take that long.”
Of course, Twilight said that before they got to the records room. This room was massive, containing records dating back to long before the six friends were born and with a back wall that was barely visible from the entrance. These records spanned a great many subjects, from agricultural yields to the current ruler and heir (the latter took up a very small amount of space).
After standing astonished for a fair amount of time, Pinkie finally broke the silence. “Well, there’s no use standing here. Let’s hop to it!” She cheerily said, bounding forward to look in the first records that caught her eye.
“Okay, first we need to rule out some subjects…” began Twilight, but her friends were already at it, searching through anything interesting, trying to find anything unusual from five hundred years ago.
“…or we could do it like that.” Twilight begrudgingly muttered under her breath as she started forward.
The search took many hours, and as such we won’t go into any great detail. It finally ended when Fluttershy found something strange in the electromagical activity records.
“Um, guys…” Fluttershy said, but everyone else was too busy frantically looking through records.
“Guys…” Fluttershy tried again, but her voice didn’t have much reach the second time either.
“EVERYBODY!” Fluttershy screamed, and this time everyone stopped what they were doing to pay attention to her.
“I found something.” Fluttershy said, back to her quiet self again.
“Her friends crowded around, looking at the records she had found. Around five hundred years ago, there had been a large, unexplained jump in elecromagical activity, centered on the Galloping Gorge.
“Ya know, I just thought about something. Why didn’t anybody notice this back then and put together the pieces?” asked Rainbow Dash
“These records are automated, Rainbow.” Said Twilight. “They have been for the longest time. The only pony interaction that’s needed is somepony occasionally coming in to check and see if it’s still running. Otherwise, this process is 100% magic controlled.”
“Hmm…” Dash said thoughtfully.
“Well, I would guess that merits a trip to Galloping Gorge then.” Said Rarity.
The journey to Galloping Gorge was relatively uneventful. Apart from Rarity beating Rainbow Dash at checkers fourteen times in a row (“I quit!” Rainbow screamed in anger), it was a quiet trip. Almost too quiet, Twilight thought. It was like the calm before the storm. She felt like she should be using this time to prepare for something, but she didn’t know what or how she should be preparing. Eventually she just settled in to watch Rarity and Rainbow play checkers.
“This place is, like, a gazillion times bigger than Ghastly gorge!” said Dash, and while hyperbole, it was a good way to describe Galloping Gorge. The sight struck the six friends with awe. Stretching as far as the eye could see, the gorge was not only long but very wide as well. They stood there for a minute, taking in the view.
“Well, you know what they say, time is candy!” said Pinkie, breaking the silence. She bounded down the start of the trail into the gorge.
Walking down the trail, the friends passed many tourists taking pictures. Twilight wondered if their activities would disturb the tourists, and she thought about warning them. She had no idea what was going to happen in the gorge. But warning the tourists would take too much time, something that the six friends didn’t have much of. If they waited too long, eventually all of the towns in Equestria would be snagged by whatever was taking them. She would have to chance the danger and get to the bottom of this mystery quickly, before that happened.
Arriving at the bottom of the gorge, the Galloping River was galloping down its path toward the ocean. The rapids were fierce, and the spray hit the six friends in the face as they trotted down the path toward their destination.
“According to the records we found,” Twilight said, “our destination should be about ten miles down the river.”
“Man, that’s a lot of walking.” Rainbow Dash said with a smug smile on her face.
Walking at a brisk pace, the six arrived at their destination in under a half an hour. The spot Twilight had taken interest in was a curve in the canyon that went about fifty meters in from the river. There was a lot of space between the river and the wall of the canyon.
“Alright, start looking I guess.” Twilight said to Rarity, who nodded as her horn lit up in a magical glow. “The rest of you, just have a seat or something while Rarity and I look for some trace of magical activity.”
Twilight and Rarity began to slowly pace the enclave, scanning with their horns for any sign of something magical, any prick of magical energy. It took a very long time to do, as the enclave was bigger than it had first appeared. The four ponies who were not searching eventually got bored and hosted a few small tic tac toe tournaments. Pinkie won most of them.
Eventually Twilight felt a prick in the back of her brain. She was near the back of the enclave, towards the wall away from the river and as far away from her friends as she could probably get. The area was in the shade, and Twilight felt a chill go down her spine. This was definitely what they were searching for. Now she just needed to figure out what to do with it.
“Hey everyone!” Twilight called to her friends. “I think I’ve found it.” The rest of the ponies crowded around Twilight and obviously began looking for some sort of physical object.
“No, stop looking and concentrate.” Twilight said. “Feel.” As soon as she said that she could visibly see shivers run down her friends’ spines. There was no doubt in Twilight’s mind: this was the spot they needed. Now all she needed to do was figure out what to do.
“Now what?” Applejack voiced Twilight’s thoughts. The six stood there, not really knowing what to do. They all looked around awkwardly, before Rainbow suggested “How about we try the elements?”
Twilight had completely forgotten that they had all brought the elements with them. She had put it on when they went to White Tail and forgotten about it. It had been on for so long that it almost felt like a part of her.
“It’s worth a shot.” Said Rainbow, and the others agreed. Forming a circle, the six friends concentrated on their friendship. As they did, their elements started to glow. The magical energy swirled around a point in the center of the circle until a shockwave sent all six ponies flying backwards in a cloud of dust. When the dust cleared, the friends were shocked to find a ball of energy floating there, crackling with energy. It looked deep, and it was a dark purple in color. It was just as big as a pony. Almost as if it was…
“A portal.” Twilight exclaimed, breathlessly, as her friends gathered around her.
“D-d-do we have to go through it?” Said Fluttershy, looking quite timid.
“I would guess we do, if we’re going to see what’s causing these disappearences.” Said Twilight. “Don’t worry, we’ll all go in together.” She reassured her friend. This calmed visibly Fluttershy down, but she still seemed uncomfortable at the fact that they would have to enter the portal.
“Everyone ready?” asked Rarity, and the rest of the group nodded.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” exclaimed Pinkie. “Let’s go!” she said, as she bounded through the portal, the rest of her friends following in tow.
Twilight thought for a second about how Pinkie seemed to be the initiator of travel for the group, then cautiously stepped through the portal.
