Prologue

Prologue

There are two types of ponies in Equestria. Those who were morning ponies and those who required a steady injection of caffeine to make it into the afternoon.

Princess Celestia belonged to the second group.

The princess sighed as she grasped a ceramic mug with her magic and took a sip of the dark liquid inside. Black. No cream, no sugar. Not that she didn't enjoy sweet coffee, but it tended to make her feel slightly nauseous after the third cup. Besides, the taste wasn't the reason she was drinking it. She gloomily looked over the rather large pile of papers sitting on the left side of her desk. Many ponies seem to have this idea that being a princess was the high life. Though, who could blame them? After all, Celestia and Luna have done a very good job of playing to the crowd. Celestia had always assumed that maintaining a happy-go-lucky positive image to her people would help maintain peace and happiness throughout her land. This was true, to some degree at least. There may have been many threats to her kingdom in recent times, but her people had never given up their trust and loyalty in the rulers of their land. Still, it never gets easier hiding the stress (and boredom) caused by her workload.

Maybe I can convince the public that there is a shortage in trees so I can slow down the production of these blasted papers.

Celestia glared at the stack once more. Perhaps if she stared at it long enough, it would magically sort itself out. When it didn't, she let out a frustrated huff. This was always her least favorite part of her position. There is nothing more dull and tedious than sorting out the Equestrian budget. However, it had to be done. The stack of papers was composed of things such as the repair and upkeep of towns, loan documents, bank statements, and payroll information for government employees. In over a thousand years of ruling, the process of balancing Equestria's budget has never become any less arduous and complicated. If it weren't for the risk of the economy crashing, Celestia might have tried to push this task onto her sister so she wouldn't have to deal with it. As horrible as it might sound, Celestia wasn't convinced that Luna had a full grasp on the current policies and processes of the Equestrian economy. Luna may have been back from the moon for a few years now, but she was still adjusting to the change that a thousand years of absence brings. Celestia grasped the top page with her magic and placed it in the center of her desk. She then took a quill and began to read the document. Or she would have, had a guard not entered the room.

"Your Royal Highness! A thousand apologies for disturbing you, but two delegates of Saddle Arabia are here to see you," the stallion said.

Saved by the bell.

Celestia looked over and smiled. Beside the guard stood two rather tall ponies, their height on the cusp of rivaling the princess's. One was a brown stallion with a wheat blonde mane, wearing a blue and orange saddle and helmet. He also wore a leather saddlebag with a bulge on the right pocket indicating it was filled with something. The other was a blush pink mare with an indigo mane, wearing a blue and purple saddle and headdress. She nodded to the ponies standing in the doorway of her throne room and stood up from her desk.

"Ah, Haakim," Celestia said, motioning to the stallion. Turning to the mare, she continued. "Amira! It is wonderful to see you both again. I was wondering when you'd sav-" She let out a small cough quickly corrected herself. "Er, that is to say, I wasn't expecting to see you this early. Your letter seemed to indicate you would not be here until the early afternoon. Had I known you would be early, I would have prepared some tea for us." Haakim offered a respectful bow to the princess.

"My apologies princess," he began, "but we felt obligated to bring this subject to you in person, and as soon as possible." Celestia raised her eyebrows at that. The letter she received from the delegates a few days prior only contained the request of a personal meeting to discuss unspecified Equestrian matters. The lead-in Haakim gave her sounded much graver than the letter implied. Celestia nodded.

"I understand," she said. She motioned to the guard and smiled at him. "Thank you for seeing these two in. You may go now. Please be sure that no one disturbs us." The guard gave a quick salute and trotted out of the room. Celestia closed the door behind him and began walking towards her throne, motioning the delegates to follow. As she sat upon it, she resumed her conversation with Haakim and Amira. "Your letter to me was quite vague. If this matter is as urgent as you make it sound, why did you not write me some of the details? Perhaps I could have prepared more for this meeting." Haakim glanced nervously at Amira, unsure of how to respond. She reassured him with a quick nod before turning her attention to Celestia to give her an answer.

"We felt this issue was too sensitive to be discussed in letters." She spoke quick and concise, though her worried eyes deceived her confident facade. "We're not entirely sure what we have, and we did not want to risk this information falling into ill hooves." Celestia raised an eyebrow.

"Well," she asked, "what do you have then?" Amira stepped forward and began her explanation.

"Six days ago, many of our top researchers and unicorns sensed a large spike in magical energy outside the eastern border of our nation." She began slowly pacing past Haakim as she continued. "When it was first felt, many had assumed that it wasn't anything to worry about. We figured the most likely possibility was a spell gone wrong. When the energy didn't begin to fade away… well, our leader got worried after the first couple of hours. A search party was sent out to locate the source of the magical energy." Celestia held a hoof to her chin, taking in Amira's words. As she processed the information, a sudden realization struck her. It was something she should have realized the moment Haakim and Amira walked into her throne room. Her eyes widened as she stole a glance at the bulge in Haakim's saddlebags.

"Please pardon the interruption," Celestia begged in a slightly worried tone, "but you said the energy didn't fade?"

Amira stopped in her tracks and turned towards Celestia. Noticing the look the princess had on her face, she quickly shot a worried glance at Haakim. Haakim stayed silent, still unsure on how to proceed. After a few moments of awkward silence, he decided to just state the obvious.

"You feel it too, don't you?"

Celestia nodded. "You may continue." Amira cleared her throat, attempting to dislodge the sudden shakiness in her hooves.

"W-well, anyway. Our search team found the source of the magic out in the deserts bordering our nation. An artifact."

"It was lying in a crater in the sand," Haakim took over for his nervous partner. "The search party would have just brushed it off as a meteorite, but the amount of magical energy could not be ignored. On top of that, the crater was made by a magical force, not a physical impact."

"So the artifact was teleported then?" Celestia asked.

"That is our theory, yes. However, if true, the amount of magical energy that must have been used would be far past overkill for teleportation. Unless…" He nervously shifted his eyes to the side,

"Unless what?" Celestia asked softly. Haakim gave a small sigh.

"Unless the distance teleported exceeds that beyond what would be possible on our planet."

Celestia took in a sharp gasp. Her mind reeled through the implications that this had. The distance traveled would not be possible on the planet? Did that mean that the artifact was teleported from somewhere up in the stars? Maybe from the moon? Or even beyond! It was intimidating to think about. And what about the artifact itself? If it came from beyond the stars, why was it sent here? What purpose did it serve? There was a long bout of silence as Celestia mulled over her thoughts. The two delegates stood still, watching and waiting for the princess's reaction. Celestia composed herself and motioned her hoof towards Haakim's saddlebag.

"May I see the artifact?"

Haakim nodded and removed his saddlebag, carefully setting it down on the floor. With a quick push of a button on the latch, the saddlebag was opened. He reached in and pulled out the somewhat oddly shaped artifact. It had three sides. One side was concave in shape, and the other two were somewhat flat. The overall shape almost had a funnel-like quality to it. It had a worn tan-grey color with a heavily cracked surface on the concave side and strange purple glowing lines that curved slightly around the side. The other two sides seemed to hold the same glowing purple energy, though more of it. The light on the artifact flowed smoothly, creating an almost water-like lighting effect. Celestia stared at it, not having seen anything like it in her entire lifetime. Haakim offered the artifact to the princess, who grasped the object with her magic.

The moment her tendrils of magic touched the artifact, she could sense the energy flowing from within the strange object. It felt very odd to her. Over a thousand years of life would give anybody a good sense of understanding of their world. Celestia had thought she had that. As an alicorn princess, she felt that magic was something she knew absolutely everything about. She had seen, felt, and performed all kinds of magic throughout her life. After enough exposure of it, she thought she was done with being thrown curveballs. As she held the artifact up to her face to better examine it, she focused her mind on feeling the magic within. It wasn't the most powerful magic she had felt, but it was there, and it was definitely foreign to her. As farfetched as it might have sounded when she first heard it, Celestia was very much beginning to believe that this object was not born on this planet.

In fact, she wouldn't be surprised if it was not born in this galaxy.

Celestia shook the thoughts from her head and turned her attention to the delegates.

"Do your people know of this theory?"

"Only government appointed researchers," Amira answered. "And our leader of course. We do not want to cause panic amongst our people."

"A wise decision." Celestia sighed and pondered her options. She figured the number one priority would be to find out what exactly the artifact was. Perhaps if she could find the purpose of its existence, it would help answer her questions. Finding out what the magical energy is used for would be a good start. But how exactly would she do that?

She chuckled as she mentally answered her own question.

"I assume your researchers have already dug into the artifact in attempts to find out what it is?" The delegates both nodded in unison. "Well then. If your nation would allow it, I humbly request that you leave the artifact with me so I may attempt to solve this little mystery." She flashed a small grin towards the delegates. "I think I know just the pony who can tackle this sort of challenge." Haakim and Amira bowed at the princess.

"Of course princess," Amira said. "Our sole reason for coming here, other than to inform you of the situation, was to ask for your help. Saddle Arabia respects your wisdom as well as your kindness. We have faith that you will be able to figure this out." Haakim nodded.

"We shall leave the artifact with you. Do not feel the need to rush your progress, but do keep in touch with us yes? After all, this could end up affecting more than just Equestria." Celestia nodded.

"Indeed. Thank you for coming you two. I'd love to have some tea with you and chat but..." She glanced over at her desk mournfully. "Well, I have quite a bit of work to do. I promise I shall give you a progress report somewhat sporadically at least twice a month."

"Thank you," Amira said. "Peace be with you, Princess Celestia." The delegates turned and left the throne room, doors closing behind them.

Celestia exhaled loudly as if she had been holding her breath for the entire meeting. Now that she had been left to her thoughts, a thousand more possibilities entered her mind. However, now they were slightly clouded by a small semblance of a plan. It wasn't really a plan she had direct control over once she put it in action, but it was a start. First she had to tell Luna about this once she woke up. They needed to discuss this with each other before involving the other princesses, especially Twilight Sparkle.

She once again caught sight of the stack of papers on her desk. She eyed them with a dangerous glare before letting out a loud huff.

This is going to be a long day. Well, at least I won't need coffee to stay awake now.

Chapter 1

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Chapter 1

It was quiet inside the Castle of Friendship, as it tended to be whenever Princess Twilight Sparkle found something new to study. Princess or not, she was always eager to learn something new. She found an odd thrill at the prospect of not understanding something. If she didn't understand something, the only way to fix it would be to study it until there were no more questions to ponder. Becoming a Princess may have given her more responsibilities (as well as tedious paperwork), but she could always find the time to wind down with a good study session. It was very therapeutic for her. Fortunately, luck seemed to be on her side today. She had no paperwork to go through, no bills or decrees to look over, and no pony visiting her asking for advice. Which meant that she could spend all day locked in her library pouring over textbooks.

Twilight sat at one of the round wooden tables with her eyes eagerly scanning the text of one of the books she had picked out. On the table were several more books, each one reaching almost a thousand pages or more. She knew there was no way she would be able to thoroughly read through all of them in a reasonable amount of time, but she definitely liked the idea of knowing everything there was to know about this particular subject. The collection of books included such titles as Magic: The Foundation of Equestria, Measuring Magic: An Egghead's Guide and many others, all containing information on the laws and nature of magic. Not just unicorn magic, but all magic.

Twilight learned at a very young age that the world was built on a foundation of magic. All living things, as well as non-living things, contained some trace of magic within them, and this was common knowledge. What many ponies didn't know however was that all living things also interact with the magic of the planet whether they realize it or not. It's how Earth ponies interact with nature and plant life on a far deeper level than any other species. It's how pegasi manipulate the weather. Save for a few special instances, most Earth ponies and pegasi would not be able to explain how the magic within them works. In fact, it's likely that most of them have absolutely no idea they had magical energy within them unless they specifically study this topic. Unicorns and alicorns, however, have the luxury of being able to control their magic in ways that most other species will never be able to. Despite being the Element of Magic, she never really had the incentive to study something as complex as measuring and sensing magic in objects and other ponies. It wasn't until a few weeks ago when she had accidentally tapped into a new form of magic while helping Applejack with her farm.

After about an hour of carrying empty buckets and setting them up under trees, Applejack was able to convince Twilight to attempt to buck one of the trees. After a few failed attempts with no apples dropping, Twilight took a break and decided to observe Applejack's technique to find out what she was doing wrong. At first, she figured that she was just not strong enough for the job. Applejack had been working on the farm all her life, and she had plenty of experience bucking apples. Her hind hooves had the strength of ten stallions, that much was apparent. Her technique was also highly coordinated and very consistent with each tree she bucked. After a few moments of focusing on Applejack, Twilight had felt a strange surge of magic that did not come from her horn. Once she was aware of it, she redoubled her focus on Applejack's apple bucking. Every tree bucked released another surge of magical energy, with Applejack being its source.

Now that Twilight had experienced sensing magic first-hoof, she decided the only thing to do from there was to master the technique.

"Spike!" she shouted out towards the door. "Are you ready?" The voice of a young boy called back.

"Yep! Put your blindfold on, I'm coming in!" Twilight did as she was told. She heard the door open, followed by the pitter patter of a small dragons footsteps closing in on Twilight's reading table. She smiled as she started to sense Spike's magic within his body getting closer to Twilight. Mastering her technique in location based magic sensing was quite easy for her. In fact, magic sensing in general quickly became second nature to her. The next thing she wanted to work on was feeling the magic, for all forms of magic felt different from pony to pony, and object to object. She created this little test to see how well she can separate and identify different magical sources. A few light thuds were heard, and Twilight could feel slight vibrations on the table which indicated that the baby dragon was placing objects on her table. Once he was done, Spike turned to the blindfolded Twilight and spoke.

"Okay Twilight, here you go! Just like you asked! I put a few pieces of fruit on the table, and you're supposed to... um, do what exactly?" He grinned sheepishly, not that Twilight could see it anyways. Twilight chuckled.

"I need to identify the fruit using only my magic sensing capabilities," she explained. "As I've told you before, every source of magic feels similar to one another, so it's important to be able to pick up on the subtleties." She opened her mouth to continue further, but Spike was quick to interrupt her before she could.

"Okay okay, look I'm not here to learn the boring stuff. I'm just here to help you learn the boring stuff." Twilight sighed. It seemed she would never be able to get Spike to actively want to learn.

"Alright Spike, place one of the fruits directly in front of me." Spike did as he was told, opting to go for the apple first. She focused her mind on the very small amount of magic she felt emanating off of the item. Being that she had practiced this almost non-stop for weeks, she was immediately able to pick up on the subtleties of the magic.

Crisp. Very dense feeling for what little magic is there. Almost reminds me of how the magic in a tree feels, though much less prominent.

Twilight smiled as she spoke, "Apple."

"Whoa," Spike said in amazement with his jaw wide open. "That's kind of spooky Twilight. Pretty awesome though!"

"Thanks! Let's try another." Spike took the apple away and replaced it with another fruit.

Soft. The taste of the magic has a citrus tang to it.

"Orange," Twilight said proudly. Spike scratched his head.

"How are you even doing that?" he asked.

"Simple memorization of the taste and feeling of the magic. I only know them because I recognize them." It was true. After all, she had spent weeks sensing and measuring the magic in many objects. Fruit, plants, even non-organic objects. In fact, now that she thought about it, the only magic she hadn't tried to measure was a pegasus's. Maybe she'd ask Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash for help later on.

"Well, it's still kinda freaky," Spike said as he reached for the next fruit.

After finishing up her little experiment, Twilight sat back and let out a content sigh. She had progressed so much since starting her studies a few weeks ago. She had, of course, sent Princess Celestia reports on her progress. The Princess of the Sun was obviously quite proud of Twilight for the initiative she had put in. Celestia was the one who taught her how to control her magic since a very young age, and she was happy to see that becoming a Princess had not slowed down Twilight's desire to learn. Now that she looked over how much she had improved, Twilight felt another letter to Celestia was due. However, she wanted to get a feel for pegasus magic before sending the report.

Pegasus magic was still a bit of a mystery to Twilight. She had not yet delved into those sections in her textbooks, and she hadn't tried sensing pegasus magic actively. The closest thing to magic that Twilight felt come from a pegasus was the Sonic Rainboom during the Best Young Flyer's Competition. Of course, at that point in time, Twilight had not even considered the thought of sensing magic in the way that she was now practicing. Still, the amount of energy given off by the Sonic Rainboom could not be ignored. She had even felt it again during the wedding of Shining Armor and Princess Cadence. The Sonic Rainboom was a marvel of magic study, even more so since it was proven to be a real thing. If it weren't for the fact that Rainbow Dash was an Element of Harmony, she likely would have been overwhelmed with researchers and scientists asking her questions and requesting her to participate in experiments. It probably wouldn't have mattered though, since Rainbow would have likely brushed them off. She was never a pony meant for science, she was meant for one thing and one thing only. Speed.

She then realized that Rainbow Dash would be a perfect pony to attempt to magically sense. Her ridiculous speed while flying was already a bit of a marvel, but the Sonic Rainboom made her almost legendary. Twilight let out an excited giggle as she imagined the kind of magic that pegasus must hold within her body. Any pony that could break the sound barrier must be holding very powerful magic within their hooves. It might be hard to convince Rainbow to participate in a scientific experiment, but she couldn't pass up the opportunity to try.

Maybe if I word it just right, she won't mind. Besides, she's my friend. Why would she say no? Unless she was busy.

Twilight finally stood up and took a quick glance at the clock.

It's late in the afternoon. She should be finishing up her rounds in Sweet Apple Acres soon.

With that thought, she called out to her assistant who was reading currently reading a comic.

"Spike," she said, "I'm heading out for a little bit. Do you think you'll be okay staying here for a while until I get back?

"Yeah Twilight," he replied in a disinterested tone. "I got things handled here." He licked his claw and flipped a page in his comic book. Satisfied, Twilight exited the library and headed outside.

---

Poof!

High above the apple trees of Sweet Apple Acres, a multicolored blur could be seen racing through the skies. Following up from the cloud that had just dissipated, Rainbow Dash continued her ascent. Her speed began to slow in a controlled fashion as she flew higher in the skies. As the speed slowed to a crawl, she finished her ascent with a small flip and began rushing back down head first towards the ground. She looked at her next few targets with a grin, a plan forming in her mind.

She aimed at the first cloud below her, increasing her speed. She held her hooves out and stuck her tongue out in concentration, focusing on the feeling of the weather in the air. She flew straight through the cloud, giving it a sharp push with her hooves.

Poof!

She quickly pulled up and leveled herself parallel to the ground below, looking at her next target that was slightly above her. When she got closer, she quickly turned her body and began an aerial barrel roll. She hit the cloud at the peak of her maneuver.

Poof!

When she reached the end of the trick, she quickly followed it up with a large loop, passing through multiple clouds.

Poof! Poof! Poof!

Rainbow Dash began laughing, enjoying the thrill of her flight. Cloud busting was probably the best part of her job. It was almost like she was getting paid to practice her awesome tricks. She could never understand why the other pegasi who worked in Ponyville hated it so much. Sure, they weren't as awesome as Rainbow Dash was, but surely they could find some fun in flying around aimlessly punching clouds out of the sky. While Rainbow could not deny the importance of the Ponyville Weather Team, she felt that the members took the job a little too seriously. She especially hated her first few weeks on the job years back. The stiffs at the top of the management chain did not take so kindly to her stunt flying while on the job and had even threatened termination on multiple occasions. Of course, telling Rainbow Dash to stop practicing flight tricks was like asking Twilight Sparkle to stop reading books. Still, the unorthodox methods she used to complete her job bothered the higher ups. It wasn't until they took an objective look at her work performance by giving her a few random task inspections that they realized two things. Not only was Rainbow Dash extremely efficient at her job, but she was also extremely fast when it came to getting stuff done. She always liked to boast that she could clear the town's sky of all clouds in ten seconds flat, and it wasn't an exaggeration. Eventually, the managers of the Ponyville Weather Team decided to let the cyan pegasus be, albeit with random inspections every now and again to be sure she was doing her job correctly.

Poof!

Another cloud bit the dust as she reached the peak of an overbanked turn. She finished her routine off with a diving loop to take care of the last cloud in the area.

Poof!

She milked her routine a bit by diving down towards the ground, before quickly pulling up just before her hooves hit the ground and flew into a tight, quick loop. She flapped her wings quickly and hovered in the air for a brief moment before landing on the ground in the forest of apple trees.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen," she said egotistically to absolutely no one, "is how cloud busting is done!" She giggled at the imaginary crowd cheering her on and waved her clasped hooves in the air. Finally, she was done with work. Well, technically she wasn't really done. She was still on the clock, and she still had almost an hour to kill before she had to return to the Department of Ponyville Weather to find out her schedule from the managers and clock out. Perfect time for a nap.

She jumped in the air and fanned her wings towards the ground. Once she caught air she quickly ascended above the farm. She took a few glances around the area, looking for one of the Apple family members. If they were out and about doing farm work, she didn't want to nap in any of the trees. For one thing, she did not like being woken up from her slumber by the sound of a powerful buck, followed by her face planting itself into the ground below. Also, Applejack tended to get quite annoyed whenever she found the pegasus sleeping in one of her trees. Rainbow never really understood why. It wasn't like she was doing any damage to the tree. Sure she'd usually take an apple or two before napping, but Rainbow always made it a point to either pay Applejack back for the apples she took, or help her out on the farm to make it up to her.

Rainbow scanned the entirety of Sweet Apple Acres and didn't see hide nor hair of any of the Apple family members.

Huh, I guess they're all at the market. Or in the house. Either way, it's nap time!

She started to descend back towards the apple trees but stopped short when she heard a voice shouting from below.

"Rainbow Dash!"

She looked down towards where the barn stood, expecting to see the cowpony. She was surprised to see Twilight walking towards her. Rainbow flew over to the alicorn princess and landed in front of her.

"Hey Twilight, what's up?" Twilight smiled at the pegasus.

"Hi Rainbow, I've been looking for you. I was wondering if you had time to help me out with something?" Rainbow groaned internally. She had known that Twilight was wrapped up in her castle studying some kinda magic mumbo jumbo, but she never bothered to get the details. The look on Twilight's face was enough for Rainbow Dash to figure out that whatever Twilight needed help with related to her studies. It wasn't that Rainbow didn't want to help Twilight, it was that she didn't want to get wrapped up into some kinda weird and boring egghead-y science experiment. However, Twilight was a friend, and Rainbow would never leave her friends hanging.

Well, so much for nap time.

She smiled at Twilight and answered, "Sure Twi, what do ya need?"

"Well, you see, I've been doing a lot of studying on a few interesting concepts in Equestrian magic. I recently came across a technique to sense the complex magical energies that connect us and our planet as one whole. Such magic differs in many ways, depending on who, or what, the item in question is composed of based on a molecular, as well as..."

"Erm, Twilight?" Rainbow interrupted, cocking her head to the side and giving Twilight a confused look. "Can you speak, you know, non-egghead?" Rainbow loved Twilight as much as she loved all her friends, but her magical friend had a bad habit of getting lost in her science rants. That was one thing Rainbow could see never changed about Twilight ever since first becoming friends with her all those years ago on that fateful night. Twilight always had to find a perfect and concise way of explaining everything. Rainbow figured part of that was due to the purple mare's obsession with books and information. She might as well be a walking talking encyclopedia, who happens to be an alicorn princess. Though, Rainbow had to admit, it was kind of cute seeing Twilight getting so excited over science and information rather than normal awesome stuff.

Twilight chuckled nervously at the pegasus. "Aheheh, sorry Rainbow. In layman's terms, I've been practicing and improving my skills in sensing magic."

"Sensing magic?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "But you're an alicorn! Why would you need to sense magic when you can just use it?"

"Well, sensing magic has lots of applications. For instance, if there's some sort of magical imbalance in Equestria, regardless of what it's caused by, Princess Celestia would likely be able to sense it, track it, and figure out exactly what caused it in a very short amount of time. Being that I am now a Princess, I feel like it's something I have to learn."

"Oh, okay. I guess that kinda makes sense. So, what can I do to help?" Rainbow noticed Twilight's demeanor shift slightly, seemingly nervous about what she was going to ask.

"Um, well," she began. She paused in thought for a few moments, trying to figure out how to phrase it. "I was kind of wondering if you could show me your Sonic Rainboom?"

Rainbow's heart dropped slightly but she kept her expression neutral.

"Why do you want to see my Rainboom?" She shot Twilight a cocky grin. "I mean, yeah I know it's pretty awesome. Why wouldn't you want to see it, right?" Twilight giggled in amusement.

"Well, I won't deny that it's awesome. That's not why I want to see it, though. I'd really love to sense and feel the magic of your Rainboom." Rainbow shifted uncomfortably in her stance.

"Feel the magic? Huh?" The answer she got wasn't what she expecting. In fact, she wasn't even sure what Twilight meant. She remembered Twilight talking about her Rainboom being a magical entity before so she figured her signature move had some magic to it. However, what did Twilight mean when she said she wants to feel the magic? Since when could magic be felt, other than when unicorns and alicorns use telekinesis and other forms of physical magic?

For that matter, why was Twilight so excited about feeling the magic of the Sonic Rainboom? Was it really that amazing?

"It's sort of complicated," Twilight replied. "I'm not sure I'd be able to condense the complexities of sensing and feeling magic without boring you to sleep." She gave Rainbow a slightly embarrassed grin. "In any case, what do you say? Will you do it?"

Rainbow was torn. On one hoof, Here's Twilight, her very good friend. Not to mention Princess. She was asking for Rainbow's help so she could become a better Princess. To do that, she wanted Rainbow to perform aerial stunts which were her bread and butter.

On the other...

Just tell her no, Rainbow thought. You don't have to tell her why.

Except she did have to tell her why, because if she didn't her refusal would come off as rather rude. Rainbow didn't want to upset Twilight. Besides, she wasn't a pony who would let pride dictate her actions. Not anymore at least. Rainbow frowned.

"Sorry Twi," she finally answered. "I can't."

Twilight's eyes widened in shock, before shifting into disappointment. It kind of hurt Rainbow to see.

"What? Why not?"

"I uh..." Rainbow glanced nervously to the side. She let out a sigh. "I can't really do it consistently yet, ya know? It's not like I can do it every time I try." Rainbow forced out a chuckle. "Still working on it, though. Won't stop until it's perfected!" Twilight tilted her head to the side and raised an eyebrow.

"Really? I mean, I hope this doesn't offend you, but I thought you could do it on command by now."

"Yeeeah not exactly, heh." Rainbow's cheeks tinted slightly as she nervously avoided Twilight's questioning gaze. "I sorta still have trouble breaking the barrier. Sometimes I break it, sometimes... well, I don't."

"Well, what about at my brother's wedding?" Twilight asked. "You had no problem doing it after the ceremony."

"Yeah I guess. I didn't really think about it then. I just sorta did it." Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought.

"Have you done one since then?"

"...No."

Twilight's shocked expression hurt Rainbow more than she thought it would.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Twilight glanced away from Rainbow deep in thought. All Rainbow could do was stand there and try in vain to read Twilight's thoughts. She had never really confided in her friends about her troubles pulling off the Rainboom before now, besides Fluttershy anyways. The second time she ever pulled off the trick was right in front of all of her friends. After that had happened, everyone had sort of assumed that Rainbow had mastered the technique. This couldn't be further from the truth. It was a fluke. A fluke that saved the lives of the Wonderbolts and her friend Rarity, but a fluke nonetheless. She didn't even realize she had done it until she had caught the ponies falling from the air. After that spectacle, she spent months practicing the move yet again, almost on a daily basis. Not once was she able to break that damned barrier.

The Sonic Rainboom at the wedding was a little harder to explain. Like the occurrence at the Young Best Flyer's Competition, she wasn't even thinking about the Rainboom. She just did it. She would have liked to write it off as her being naturally awesome. However, even after the wedding, she found herself unable to perform the move again. This frustrated her to no end. The fluke at the competition was easily enough explained, but the wedding was another story. Why was she able to perform it with ease? Maybe not thinking about it was the key. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe she was just so overcome with joy at the wedding that the happy energy was able to give her the drive to perform the move.

Whoa there brain, don't go all sappy on me.

Rainbow felt it was finally time to break the silence.

"Um, I could still try it if you want." Twilight jumped in surprise, seemingly so lost in her own thoughts that she had forgotten the pegasus was still there. "I mean, hey! What if this time I get it?" Rainbow let out an amused chuckle as if laughing at a joke.

"Y-yeah," Twilight seemed very unsure about continuing this endeavor now. "I mean, if you feel up to it, I would appreciate it if you gave it a shot."

"Might as well."

She jumped into the air and began ascending slowly.

"Don't hurt yourself!" Twilight shouted to the pegasus in the air. Rainbow grinned.

"Don't worry, nothing can bring this pegasus down!" she shouted back with confidence. When she reached an acceptable height, she quickly dove down to gain some speed. She leveled herself out just above the ground, flapping her wings to gain even more speed. After a few hundred meters she began to curve upwards, gaining height at an incredibly fast rate. She looked back down on Ponyville and spotted a purple speck on the ground. She grinned and continued her ascent.

You got this Rainbow. You got this. No need to get nervous. There's only one pony watching, no big deal. I mean yeah she's an all-powerful Princess and also one of my best friends and...

Rainbow quickly shook her head, attempting to shake away her thoughts. She looked down on Ponyville once more. Only it wasn't just Ponyville she could see. From her height, she could see much of the surrounding area of the town. She could see the Everfree Forest to the south of Ponyville, which seemed to stretched on for miles. In the distance to the north, she saw Canterlot Castle as clear as day. She nodded to herself and began to slow her ascent. Just like when she was busting clouds, she did a small flip at the apex of her ascent and dived down back into the Earth. Her sights were set on Ponyville miles below. Her wings retracted into her body and she leaned into the fall, allowing gravity and her pegasus instincts to reach terminal velocity. After a few moments of falling, she began to push herself even faster using her wings. She could slowly see the barrier begin to form.

She took in a gasp as she realized she was getting close. She focused all her energy and concentration into building even more speed. Her eyes shut tightly as the sharp wind stung them. She forced her head down and gave it all her might. She could feel the barrier getting tighter. And tighter. Soon she felt the barrier all around her, but it's gradual rise in tightness soon came to a stop. She raised her head and opened her eyes to look at the center of the barrier. She was so close. She just needed one more push.

At that point, she realized that the ground was suddenly way too close for comfort. She thought she heard someone scream out her name. She knew she was in trouble.

She violently flared out her wings, attempting to slow the speed. It was working, but considering how fast the ground was reaching her it might not be enough. She could either continue attempting to slow her speed, or she could try to pull up. She looked ahead of her and noticed that she was close enough to make out Twilight's worried expression. She was still going to fast. She had to pull up. She angled her wings to catch air and desperately attempted to level herself out. The speed at which she was going made it difficult to make a tight turn. Her wings fought the wind and she began to become parallel with the ground. She could tell the turn was going to be too wide, and unfortunately, the speed she was going at meant she was going to have to attempt a running landing. Her hooves met the ground violently as she tried to get into a running stance. Unfortunately, her front hooves stumbled upon impact and she slammed into the ground, sliding and tumbling a considerable distance in the grass. The impact knocked her out cold.

When she came to, she was still laying in the grass. A purple figure was standing over her, apparently talking. As her vision cleared she realized it was Twilight.

"Rainbow Dash! Oh Celestia, are you okay?"

Rainbow groaned. She wasn't a stranger to violent crashes like this one, but that didn't make them any less painful. Her head throbbed in pain and her front hooves felt like someone dropped an anvil on them. She slowly got up off the ground and held her hoof to her head.

"Unngh... yeah, I'm alright. I'm a tough pony." She rubbed her face with her hoof, feeling something wet coming from her nose.

"Rainbow, you are not okay! You're bleeding!" Twilight looked over Rainbow Dash's face in horror. Nothing seemed broken, but the steady flow of blood seeping from her nostrils was not a pretty sight. "Here, follow me back to the castle. I think I know of a spell that will make it hurt less." Rainbow waved Twilight a dismissive hoof.

"Really, Twilight, I'm fine. I've crashed lots of times. It's just a nosebleed." And a throbbing headache. And the agonizing pain in her hooves.

"I'm not taking no for an answer! Follow me!"

Rainbow sighed, seeing she had no choice.

---

"There, do you feel any better?" Twilight asked. She had just finished casting the pain relieving spells she was reading from a magic medicine book in her Castle's library. The two ponies sat at a round table inside the room. The crash had been quite a scare for Twilight. She had witnessed her friend crash before, but never in a way such as this. She remembered watching the pegasus quickly approach the ground. Doing the calculations in her head, she realized that there was no way Rainbow would be able to slow down or pull up without a nasty crash. And while she had all the faith in the world in Rainbow, seeing her struggle with the barrier removed a lot of confidence Twilight had for the pegasus to be able to break the barrier in time to sharply pull up as she had done in the Best Young Flyer's Competition.

"Yeah, a lot better," Rainbow replied. Her bloody nose was gone, as was the roughed up and bruised look of her face and front hooves. Twilight grinned, proud of her work.

"Well, that's good." She looked to the side nervously and pawed a hoof on the floor. "I'm really sorry I convinced you to try the Sonic Rainboom."

"Whoa, hey there's no need to be sorry Twi. Crashes happen, and I kinda wanted to try the Rainboom for you anyways." Twilight smiled at Rainbow's response.

"Well, I still feel bad. If I hadn't convinced you, you wouldn't have been hurt."

Whatever response Rainbow had was cut short by a door slamming open. Spike ran into the room straight towards Twilight with a scroll in his hand.

"Twilight! Letter from Princess Celestia!"

Twilight and Rainbow glanced at each other with curious looks on their faces. Other than responses to Twilight's reports and personal musings to Celestia, the Princess didn't tend to send letters unless they were of the utmost importance. Naturally, Twilight immediately took the scroll and began reading.

Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,

It has been a while since the last progress report you sent me on the techniques and applications of sensing and measuring magic. I hope you won't take that in the wrong way. As you know, I am extremely proud that you have taken the initiative to learn something as complex and important as measuring magic. It is a subject that I am fond of, though not quite knowledgeable enough that I would have been able to teach it to you. It is very gratifying to see that you are finding ways of adjusting to the life of a Princess. Your newfound interest in this aspect of magic can only improve you as a pony and as a Princess. However as I was thinking about your last letter, it occurred to me that we never discussed such things in person.

As such, I would be honored if you could come to Canterlot Castle to discuss this at length. I also request that you bring the other Elements, as well as Spike of course. I realize that may sound like an odd request to you. However, I promise that everything will make sense once you are here. I have included seven train tickets from Ponyville to Canterlot to cover your traveling expenses. Please discuss this trip with your friends so we can sort out the best day for you all to come. I realize this is rather last minute, and I understand if you need a few days to sort everything out. However, I do ask that you come as soon as possible. I am rather eager to hear more about your progress, as well as sharing my own experiences with you.

Sincerely,
Princess Celestia

Twilight looked up from the letter.

"This is... well," Twilight paused for a moment. "Odd."

"What's so odd about it?" Rainbow Dash asked. "So the Princess wants to discuss magic stuff with you? I mean, yeah I don't really get why the rest of the girls have to be there, especially me, but still..." she trailed off. Twilight shook her head.

"I dunno Rainbow, she seems a little too eager about a visit from all of us for it to be something so little."

"Do you think something's happened?" Rainbow asked. Twilight paused at that. If something happened, surely the Princess would have said something in the letter? Unless it was something she didn't want to risk saying in a letter. Hundreds of possibilities flooded her mind, but dwelling on them wouldn't do any good. The only way she'd find out was to meet with Celestia, and as soon as possible.

"I don't know, but I guess we're going to find out."

Chapter 2

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Chapter 2

On the early mornings in Equestria before her sister raised the sun, Princess Luna could usually be found sitting in her room dream watching. One of the duties of the princess of the night was assuring that no pony in the kingdom slept restless nights due to their heavy emotion induced dreams. However, at that moment, Luna was far too distracted with her own thoughts. The long chat with her sister gave her a lot to think about. She ran over the extraterrestrial theory multiple times in her head, trying to make sense of it. There were a few things that didn't add up. Luna was an expert when it came to the stars and constellations. Surely if this item had come from the stars, Luna would have been able to connect the magic of the artifact with the magic of one of the stars. She too had felt the magical energy emanating from the object in question. Just like it was for Celestia, the feeling and power of the magic was completely foreign to Luna. She could not trace it back to any type of magic she had ever experienced, and a thousand years on the moon studying the magic in space meant she had a lot of references to work with. There had to be a better explanation for the artifact and its appearance. A light knock on her door pulled her from her thoughts.

"You may enter!" she called. She looked over the door and saw her sister walking in. Celestia smiled at Luna.

"Shift's over dear sister, it is time for me to raise the sun." Luna looked at her in slight surprise.

"Oh, already? I must have lost track of the time." She looked at the clock and let out a yawn. It was indeed the end of her shift, and now she would be able to finally sleep. "Thank you, 'Tia. Now if you'll excuse me, I must get some sleep."

"Well, don't sleep for too long. Princess Twilight and her friends are coming to meet us." Luna gave her sister a questioning look.

"We were not informed of this," Luna spoke her formal tone.

"I only found out myself a few minutes ago when Twilight sent a response. They will be arriving in the afternoon, and I expect you to be there." Luna held back a scowl. She always hated it when her sister talked to her like that. It felt a bit demeaning. It was as if Celestia still considered her a filly.

"There is no need to talk to us in that way, sister. We will be at the meeting." Celestia balked at Luna's reaction.

"Right," Celestia said. "Sorry Luna. I suppose I'm just a bit on edge." She gave a weary sigh. "I did not sleep well." Luna's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Surely you are not still thinking about this whole extraterrestrial nonsense, are you?" Celestia held her hoof to her face in frustration.

"Luna, I really do not wish to have this debate once more. I am not saying that Haakim's theory is fact, I am merely suggesting that we do not throw away the possibility." Celestia paused to collect herself before heading towards the door. "I need to raise the sun. Sleep if you must, but please be ready for when Princess Twilight comes." Celestia walked out of her sister's room and closed the door. Luna rolled her eyes and moved towards her bed, eager to get a few hours of shut-eye before the meeting.

---

“Ahh, Canterlot Castle.” Rarity scanned the halls of the castle’s entrance, taking in the sights of the stained glass windows and the lavish banners. “It never ceases to impress me,” she said.

The train ride from Ponyville was uneventful. Most of that was due to the early hour of the departure. Twilight never had problems waking up so early in the morning, but the same could not be said for some of her friends. She glanced over at Rarity, noticing her chipper attitude as she trotted through the Castle. Twilight knew Rarity had a tendency to avoid sleep thanks to her work, but somehow the fashionista always had a bounce in her step. Applejack had quite an alert demeanor as well, which Twilight assumed was due to the early hours she spent working on the farm. The others lagged behind, though. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy begrudgingly trudged on, forcing themselves to keep their eyes from closing for too long. Even Pinkie Pie’s happy skipping seemed a bit subdued. Spike had it easy, snoring loudly as he slept on Twilight’s back.

“How are you so damn awake, Rares?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I feel like I’m gonna fall asleep while walking!” She let out a loud yawn.

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity exclaimed incredulously. “There is no need for such vulgar language!” Rainbow rolled her eyes.

“Whatever, can we just get this over with? I don’t usually have to wake up four hours before my shift starts.” Twilight let out a small sigh.

“Rainbow,” the princess said, “I already told you. You’re not working today. I informed the Ponyville Weather Department that you would be missing work for royal duties. They didn’t even ask questions!”

“Yeah, the perks of being a princess, right?” Twilight shot a glare towards Rainbow Dash, who seemed to shrink slightly in response. “Eheh, sorry Twi. That’s just the sleepiness talking.”

“Sleepiness?” Applejack said with a grin. “With all the nappin’ you do in mah trees Ah sorta figured y'all would always be well rested.”

“Yeah well, this is about the time I’d start my first nap.” Applejack planted a hoof into her face.

“Yer really unbelievable Dash.”

“Um,” Fluttershy began cautiously. “Can we stop fighting please?”

“Flutters is right!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully. “We shouldn’t be acting like a bunch of negative nancies! I mean, we’re here to meet with the princesses! Well, except we already met with one of the princesses. She’s right here after all! Only these princesses have been princesses for like a million billion years! They probably won’t like it if we barge in with frownies on our faces! Not that Twilight likes it when we have frownies on our faces bu-“ Rainbow was quick to cut Pinkie off before she could continue.

“Alright, alright, I get it Pinkie. We’ll play nice.”

Twilight sighed as she continued to walk towards the grand staircase leading up to Celestia’s throne room. Pinkie was right; Twilight hated it whenever her friends fought. It made her feel like she was failing as the Princess of Friendship. Of course, she knew that wasn’t the case. One thing she learned about friendship in her years of study was that friends fought with each other every once in a while. The trick to it was knowing when to stop a fight before it went too far. She had firsthand experience with that, thinking back to the slumber party with Applejack and Rarity. Her friends arguing with each other was the last thing that she needed right now. Her mind was still reeling from the letter she was sent yesterday.

“Is everything alright, Twilight?” Rarity said as she followed up the staircase. “You’ve been unusually quiet ever since we got on the train.”

“I’m fine,” she replied a little too quickly. “I guess I’m just worried about this meeting.”

“For what reason?” the fashion pony asked. “You’ve met with the princesses countless times! What makes this meeting any different?” Twilight paused in thought before responding. She had told her friends about the meeting yesterday, explaining that it had to do with magic. Of course, the exact nature of the meeting was still unknown to Twilight, making it hard to explain why everyone needed to be there. No one really complained about it, though. Well, except for maybe Rainbow Dash.

“I dunno,” she finally replied. “Just a hunch.” They reached the throne room doors, and Twilight gestured to the two guards on either side of the entrance. “Princess Twilight Sparkle and friends, here to meet with the princesses.” The guards nodded and broke their stance, opening the doors. Twilight walked in and saw the Princesses Celestia and Luna sitting on their thrones, with guards flanking either side. Something was off though, and Twilight couldn’t quite put her hoof on it. Then, as she got closer she realized that she could feel something. Something magical. Her eyes widened.

What is that magic I feel? Is this why they brought us here?

The power of the magic grew stronger as they got closer to the princesses. It was completely different to anything Twilight had ever felt. It was pulsating slightly, and it had an uncomfortable feeling to it. The taste was bitter, like a mixture of dirt and metal. Twilight decided to ignore it for the time being as she reached the royal alicorns. Out of habit, she bowed towards them. Her friends followed suit.

“Greetings Princess Celestia,” she said. “Princess Luna.” Celestia waved her hoof at Twilight and her friends.

“Please, there is no need to be so formal around me,” Celestia said softly. “We are all friends here and we should be acting like it.” Spike took that moment to finally awake from his slumber. He rubbed his eyes.

“Are we there yet?” he asked groggily. Twilight giggled and let Spike down onto the floor.

“Yes Spike, we’re here.”

“Ah, Spike,” Celestia gestured towards the baby dragon. “It is good to see you again. Now that you’re awake I think you might enjoy a little snack.” She turned to one of her guards. “Please escort Spike to our gemstone stash.” Spike’s eyes widened with glee. He ran forward towards the guards before looking back towards the ponies.

“Welp, guess I’ll leave you guys to the boring talking! I’m off to put myself into a food coma!” He walked off with one of the guards and out of the throne room. Celestia looked back towards Twilight.

“I hope you don’t mind, Twilight. This meeting is a bit… sensitive in nature. I did not want him worrying too much.” Twilight raised her eyebrow in response. So, there really was more to the letter than what was actually written. “Besides,” Celestia continued. “I doubt he would be able to stay awake for most of it.” Twilight nodded in agreement.

“Of course, princess, but if you didn’t want him being here for the meeting then why did you want him to come in the first place?”

“I did not want him feeling left out.” Twilight supposed that made sense, thinking back to the first gala she attended. She looked up at the two princesses with a questioning glance.

“So, the magic that I’m sensing in this room.” Celestia and Luna gasped slightly at that. “I’m assuming that’s why you called us?” There was a brief moment of silence as the princesses considered their responses. Twilight continued to stare up at them, eagerly anticipating an explanation.

“I’m impressed Twilight,” Celestia said, beaming. “When I first came across it, the magic did not even register with me. I had to wait for an explanation before I even felt it.”

“Sister, please,” Luna finally spoke up. “Can we stop beating around the bush and get on with it?” Celestia nodded.

“Very well.” She flared her magic and floated a small chest from behind her throne. She placed it on the floor in front of Twilight, who knew that whatever was in the chest was the source of the magic she felt. “Open it.”

Twilight stared down at the chest and did as she was told. Inside she found a strangely shaped looking rock of some sort, grey and cracked with a strange purple energy imprinted on the sides. A bright purple light pulsated in sync with the magic that Twilight sensed. She stared at it and considered the magic that she was feeling. Now that the object was directly in front of her, the magic blocked out all her other senses. She began to conjure up magic in her horn to grab the item. She floated it in front of her face to further inspect it.

“So, um,” she said hesitantly, “what is it?”

“We do not know what it is,” Luna answered. “Obviously this artifact holds great magical power. A power that is unknown to Equestria. This concerns us. It is something we have not felt in our lifetimes. We know neither its purpose, nor its reason for being here.” She stepped off her throne and walked towards the object. She stared at it for a moment then looked towards her sister. “We also do not know for sure where it came from,” she said loudly. Twilight wasn’t sure if Luna was talking to her or Celestia.

“Luna, please.” Celestia turned back to Twilight. “It is true. We do not know anything about it other than the strange magical energy that it holds. Even that knowledge does not help us, considering the type of magic is unknown.” Twilight held her hoof to her chin in thought. She placed the artifact back in the chest.

“Where was it found?” she asked.

“In the deserts bordering the nation of Saddle Arabia,” Celestia replied. “Their people found this artifact after sensing a large magical imbalance outside their nation. They too did not know what to make of what they found. They left it in our hooves in hopes that we would be able to figure out what it is. In turn, considering your magical sensing skills far exceed that of my own, we felt this was a task that was best suited to you, Twilight." Twilight blushed at what she considered the highest form of a compliment.

---

“So then why are we here?” Rainbow Dash asked, motioning towards her non-alicorn friends. She had been impatiently tapping her hoof ever since the exchange between the three princesses had begun. The entire trip she had been racking her brain in hopes of figuring out why the princesses wanted everyone to be here, not just Twilight. Now that the nature of the meeting had been revealed, she was still confused. Maybe it would make sense for Rarity to be there, but not everyone else. Plus, as the conversation between the princesses went on, she almost felt like the alicorns had forgotten that the other ponies were also present. “I mean, if this thing is magical, why didn’t you just bring Twilight? Maybe Rarity too I guess, but it’s not like she’s an all-powerful alicorn.”

“Hmph! You don’t have to be an alicorn to be good with magic!” Rarity scoffed.

“Whatever,” Rainbow replied, “the question still stands!”

“Considering that this could involve the very fate of Equestria, we felt it necessary to inform the former Elements of Harmony,” Luna told her. “Would you have rather us kept you in the dark?” Rainbow backed down slightly.

“Well, no. I guess not.” She trotted over to the open box that held the artifact. To her, it just looked like a rock. She couldn’t fathom how something as dingy and dirty looking as this could possibly hold some kind of great power. She chalked that up to not being a unicorn. “I guess I’m confused what we’re supposed to do about it.”

“I admit that this is more of a task I wish to assign directly to Princess Twilight,” Celestia said. Twilight looked up at her, ready to receive her instructions. “I must admit, I am not quite sure where you should start. The only thing I can advise you to do at the moment is to take some time to study and sense the object. Do as much research as you can to see if you can find some sort of connection.”

“Alright then,” Twilight said. “I’ll do my best Celestia.”

“And that is all that I ask of you, Twilight.” The princess of the sun turned to the other ponies beside Twilight. “As for the rest of you, well I mostly wanted to inform you of the situation. I also would like to ask that you assist Princess Twilight in any way she requires, if at all. And make sure she doesn’t… well, overdo it on the research,” Celestia finished with a grin. Twilight giggled nervously.

“Right,” Rainbow said. “You can count on us!” She flashed the princesses a determined grin before turning her attention back to the object. Despite not knowing anything about magic, the artifact was beginning to intrigue her. She could not put her hoof on why. Maybe it was that cool purple light that glowed on the side of it. She reached her hoof out to grab the object. Suddenly, she saw a bright flash and closed her eyes tightly.

A vast open desert, clouded by dust in the wind. Strange mechanical devices race across the sands, frantic shouting being heard from within them.

A cave, covered in light blue crystals. Inside was a large circular room, with statues on either side of the path depicting alien like creatures holding blades in each hand. The end of the path holds a chest lodged inside an oddly shaped crystal structure, its contents unknown.

A small city being bombarded by powerful strikes from the sky. Screams of the dying pierce the area. A large purple aura surrounds the city as it begins to float in the sky. The city suddenly vanishes.

A bi-pedal furless creature, except for his head, sitting in the center of an altar. Bloodied and beaten. Lava flows all around the structure. He is kneeeled down beside a similar creature covered with strange markings on her body. More of these creatures crowd around them, holding weird looking devices all aimed on the dying man.

A strange symbol, like an upside-down V with a circle around it, scribbled on a wall.

“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight said suddenly. “Are you okay?”

Rainbow opened her eyes to see everyone shooting her a curious look. How much time had passed since she closed her eyes anyways? She honestly couldn’t tell. The strange vision completely knocked her senses out of whack. She was overwhelmed by confusion and, though she would never admit it, fear. All that death. All that screaming. Whether it lasted for a few hours or a few seconds, it was too much. She was desperately trying to keep her emotions inside her, not wanting to worry her friends.

What the hell was that?

She could figure that out later. Hopefully.

“Y-yeah,” Rainbow said, unassured of herself. “I’m fine. Just had a headache is all.” She faked a yawn. “Man, missing naps really takes it out of you.” If anyone else had noticed her change in demeanor, they said nothing about it. Rainbow was thankful for that.

“Well, do not allow us to keep you from your much needed sleep,” Luna said gleefully. She lowered her voice greatly before mumbling to herself, “You’re not the only one who needs a nap.” No one other than Princess Celestia seemed to hear her.

“Very well,” Celestia said, quicky firing off a warning glare to her sister. “I suppose that makes this meeting adjourned. Thank you all for coming. Good luck to you Princess Twilight, though I know you won’t need it.” She flashed a smile at her former student.

“Thank you Princess Celestia,” Twilight said. The ponies made their way out the castle and onto the streets of Canterlot.

---

Twilight was no fool. She was one of the brightest beings in Equestria, and everybody knew it. Years ago, the only thing you could say Twilight didn’t know how to do was make friends. However, now that she had spent all those years in Ponyville, she now felt she was an expert in that topic. And she was. In fact, she was the Princess of Friendship. You can’t go much higher than that. Being the Princess of Friendship meant that she had to be an expert in reading her friends.

And she was definitely an expert in reading Rainbow Dash.

Ever since they left the meeting, the usually brash and loud Pegasus kept to herself. She would only speak when spoken to, and would not add her thoughts to a conversation unless asked directly. Now that the six ponies and one dragon were on the train, Rainbow found an excuse to break off from the rest of the group. She told them she wanted to take a nap. It made sense, as she had been complaining about that throughout the day. But Twilight knew that was just an excuse to get away from the group.

It all stemmed back to the artifact. The moment Rainbow Dash had touched it, she seemed to change. It was subtle, but Twilight could see the small twitches in her eyes and face. Plus, again, Rainbow was abnormally quiet once they left the castle. And now, she used the first excuse she found to shack herself up in the sleeping compartment of the train away from the others. It was at that point that Twilight’s resolve broke. She didn’t want to talk to Dash about it at first, as she felt her pegasus friend would want some time to sort out whatever was going through her head. However, it seemed to already be at the point where Rainbow was beginning to push her frriends away. She walked up to the door to the sleeping compartment and began to open it. She could see Rainbow's bed through the window of the door.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t napping. In fact, she seemed to be wide awake reading a Daring Do novel. Twilight watched her friend’s head turn towards the door as she opened it. Rainbow Dash put the book down to address her friend.

“Oh, hey Twilight,” she said.

“What happened to taking a nap?” Twilight asked, hoping she didn’t sound too accusatory. She didn’t want to force Rainbow into talking. That would likely just scare her away.

“Ehh, headache kept me up.”

“You know reading would likely only make your headache worse, don’t you?”

“Oh.”

There was an awkward silence permeating the compartment. Neither mare wanted to be the one to break it. It was as if they were afraid breaking the tension would be strong enough to blow up the train. Twilight used this moment to walk up to the foot of Rainbow’s bed. Finally, she spoke.

“Rainbow, is anything bothering you?” Twilight decided to be blunt. It didn’t work. Rainbow was quick to shake her head.

“Nah, I’m fine Twi. Really.”

“No offence, but I don’t really believe you.” Rainbow Dash shrugged at that. Twilight started to feel a light twinge of frustration, but she bit it down. Now was not the time to start an argument, now was the time to help a friend who was obviously troubled by something. Plus, if this something had anything to do with the artifact, Twilight needed to know. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right? It’s not like I’m going to look down upon you for any reason. You’re my friend.” Rainbow nodded.

“I know Twi.”

“Is it about the artifact?”

Twilight watched Rainbow’s face turn from stoic to almost fearful.

“…Yes.”

Another bout of silence. Twilight’s frustration she felt earlier turned to worry. What happened? Did Dash sense the magic too? That didn’t make sense though, she wasn’t a unicorn.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Twilight asked.

“Yes,” Rainbow said. “But not right now. Can it wait until we get back to Ponyville?”

“Sure, but why?” Rainbow Dash turned away.

“I don’t want to talk about it while the others are around. It’s… it’s not something I want them to hear. Especially Fluttershy.”

Twilight raised her eyebrows. Whatever was bothering Rainbow must have been either embarrassing or traumatizing. Plus, it was about the artifact. She decided not to completely dismiss the theory that Dash had sensed the magic. It could explain why she was acting the way she was. After all, magic was something relatively unfamiliar to Rainbow Dash. Perhaps she had sensed the magic and was scared by how it felt? But if she really did sense the magic of the object, how did she do so? Can ponies other than unicorns and alicorns sense magic? It wasn't something that anyone in Equestria had ever heard of. As much as she wanted answers to her questions, it would have to wait. Twilight did not want to force it, especially since Rainbow was willing to talk. Just not right now.

“Okay Rainbow, I understand.” Though, she didn’t really understand, she figured she would tomorrow when they got to Ponyville. “Are you going to be okay?” Rainbow nodded.

“Yeah, don’t worry about me Twilight. Like I said, I’m a tough pony.” She flashed Twilight a genuine smile.

“Alright Rainbow. I’m heading back to the girls. Do you want to come?” Twilight knew the answer before she even asked.

“No thanks, Twi. I’ve got some serious Daring Do to catch up on.” She picked her book back up and continued reading. Twilight nodded, slightly disappointed but not surprised. She exited the compartment and trotted back over to her friends who were sitting on benches. Fluttershy looked over to Twilight and waved her over. Twilight sat down next to her animal loving friend.

“Is she okay?” Fluttershy asked. Twilight fought the urge to cringe, remembering what Rainbow had told her earlier.

It’s not something I want them to hear. Especially Fluttershy.

“She’s fine,” Twilight said with a smile. “She’s a tough pony.”

Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

Rainbow Dash flew through the sky at an incredible rate, practicing her flips and tricks. The green grass of the ground below swayed in the wind and stretched on for miles. Looking around, Rainbow found that she was completely alone. Not a single pony, or even a town, could be seen. All there was to see was large plains filled with grass.

“I must have flown past the Everfree Forest,” she said to herself, not remembering if that was actually true. How did she even get here anyways? All she could remember at that moment was flying. The exact location and nature of her flight were unknown to her. As she tilted her flight upwards to ascend above the clouds, she recalled her Sonic Rainboom attempt in front of Twilight. That must have been why she was here. She wanted to practice the Rainboom away from where anyone could see her. She increased her speed and continued her rapid ascent. Once she felt she was at an acceptable height, she halted her flight and looked down at the ground. She figured that the height she was at would allow her to see Ghastly Gorge or even the Everfree Forrest. She did not see them. All she saw was green. No gorges, no trees, and no towns.

She shrugged to herself and began to dive. She folded her wings to the side and began to rapidly gain speed. The barrier appeared at a much quicker rate than her previous attempt. It was already coning around her. She gave herself another push, flaring her wings slightly and giving them a powerful thrust. Her speed continued to increase. She was so close. Just one more push.

The barrier broke.

Her vision went temporarily white as her body smashed through the barrier. A huge array of colors exploded out from the broken barrier. The colors expanded and covered the sky as if some kind of rainbow colored nuclear device went off. Trailing behind her was a rainbow, tracing a line wherever she flew. She looked behind herself and saw the colors. A wide grin formed on her face, and she started screaming in joy.

“Yes! Finally! I did it again!”

Keeping her speed from the Rainboom constant, she began a small routine consisting of flips, barrel rolls, banked turns, and much more with precision. She had perfect control over her flight. She closed her eyes and began laughing. This is what she was all about. Stunt flying at incredible speeds, feeling the wind rip past her face. The only thing she needed now was an audience. She straightened out her flight, holding her speed, and looked down at the ground. She expected to see the same green field of grass she saw before, though she hoped she had flown far enough to reach Ponyville. She saw neither.

Instead, she saw an extremely rocky desert. The sand stretched on for miles, broken apart by a large number of cliffs and huge protruding rock formations. She quickly slowed her flight to a stop, confused as to where she was now. Did her Rainboom bring her all the way past Ghastly Gorge and into the San Palomino Desert? That was the only explanation she had, but it was quickly shot down when she realized that she had been flying north, not south.

“Maybe I over shot it. Like, by a lot.”

She decided to continue flying, hoping to find some sort of familiar landmark. To the north, she could vaguely make out a small building surrounded by piles of mangled metal and trash. Two neon signs could be seen near the building. From her distance, she saw the first one that was flashing yellow said “L’s.” The other one she couldn’t quite make out. The green light emanating from it, combined with the dust in the wind, made it so that she could only make out the first letter. “E.” She figured it must have been some sort of local dump or scrap yard. She turned to the west to see a small town of some sort built on top of a small cliff, surrounded by the protruding rock formations.

She headed towards the town, hoping she would be able to find some information there. She had so many questions. Where was she? Where was Ponyville? Was she even still in Equestria? The last question she felt she already knew the answer to. She was no geographer, but even she knew that Equestria held no place such as this. The San Palomino Desert, save for its large mountainous structure in the center, was pretty much nothing but sand dunes. This area was extremely rocky. Plus, as she had deduced earlier, she had not been flying towards that direction. Maybe she was in the deserts bordering Saddle Arabia? She wouldn’t know unless she asked. If only Twilight were here, as she would probably be able to answer that question.

As she grew closer to the town, she heard a muffled feminine scream come from somewhere within.

She entered the dingy town and landed on the ground in the center of a sort of cul-de-sac of buildings. Everything seemed to be built using salvaged scrap metal and garbage. There was a volleyball net next to where she landed. At that moment, strange thoughts began to fill her mind. Suddenly, she knew why she was there. She was looking for something. Something important. Something she knew would help her find her way home. How could she forget about that? After all, she had been looking for it for quite a while now. Her eyes widened as she remembered that she wasn’t the only one looking for it. Someone was with her. But where was that someone?

The scream was heard again, this time followed by the sounds of maniacal laughter.

Rainbow Dash turned her head towards the source of the noise. She slowly trotted over to one of the buildings, looking for an entrance to the half-cylindrical structure. She rounded the corner and came to a large opening. The laughter grew louder. She looked inside to see another one of those strange bipedal creatures with his back facing her. He was topless, showing off toned muscles and cracked skin. He wore orange pants with multiple straps and large gray boots. In his hand was a bloody ax, which was in motion towards the ground. It struck something. Red liquid sprayed out in all directions. Rainbow Dash stared past the man trying to make out whatever object the ax had struck. She saw a lavender figure lying on the ground.

“NO!” the pegasus cried.

The man ceased his assault and raised his head. In a flash, the man turned towards the cyan pegasus. Her jaw dropped as she stared into the man’s white mask, tears in her eyes. The man’s piercing blue gaze stared right back at her, boring a hole into her psyche.

“ANOTHER LITTLE PONY TO JOIN MY CAROUSEL! THE CHILDREN WILL BE SO PLEASED!”

---

Rainbow Dash shot upwards in her bed with a loud gasp. Her breathing was uncontrollably fast. The rumbling of the train speeding across Equestria did nothing to calm her hyperventilation. She quickly looked around and took stock of where she was. She was still on the train to Ponyville from Canterlot. The darkness of the room despite the open curtains on the windows indicated it was still night, or at least, very early in the morning. She looked around from her bottom bed bunk at the other snoozing ponies, apparently not disturbed from Rainbow’s sudden waking. Her nerves calmed significantly when she caught sight of a purple alicorn sleeping soundly in her bed. She let out a relieved sigh.

Just a dream, calm down.

Rainbow quietly got out of bed and headed towards the caboose of the train. There was no way she was going to be able to get back to sleep after that. First the strange vision back at the castle, and now this dream? It was too much for her. She looked back towards Twilight’s sleeping figure as she reached the exit to the sleeping compartment. Her mind wouldn’t let go of the last few moments of the dream. The sound of the ax impacting skin. The dread she felt when she realized what was happening. The soul crushing stare of the crazed man wearing that intimidating white mask. It felt way too real. She figured a quick night flight would help clear her head. She made her way to the caboose and exited the train, taking flight into the night sky.

---

Twilight awoke to a voice coming from the train’s intercom.

“The train will be arriving in Ponyville in five minutes. Please gather your belongings and prepare for arrival.”

The sleeping compartment was empty, save for the alicorn princess. She found it odd that she of all ponies was the last one to wake up. The events of yesterday must have been much more tiring than she had thought. Twilight made her way out of bed and into the next compartment over, where she saw Rarity and Fluttershy sitting on a bench. Their conversation ended as they made notice of Twilight and waved her over.

“Good morning, darling,” Rarity exclaimed. “Sleep well?” Twilight nodded.

“Like a rock. Where are the others?” Rarity held a hoof to her chin in thought.

“Well, Pinkie Pie and Applejack went to the dining compartment for breakfast. As for Rainbow Dash, well quite honestly I’m not sure where she went. I don’t think anyone has seen her since last night. She wasn’t in her bed when I woke up in any case. Perhaps she went for a flight?” Fluttershy nodded in agreement.

“Oh, yes,” the pegasus began softly. “She always goes out for a flight in the mornings.” Twilight frowned. It wasn’t hard to believe that Rainbow Dash would go out for a flight, but it was a little harder to believe that she had woken up before everyone else. If her attitude from yesterday morning was any indication, Twilight figured that Rainbow was anything but a morning pony. Her sluggish nature on the way to the train station indicated that she did not wake up as easily as other ponies. Her stomach growled in hunger, cutting off her thoughts.

“Well, I think I should try to grab something to eat before we arrive.” Before Twilight could start heading towards the dining compartment, a door opened in the back revealing Rainbow Dash. The pegasus entered the compartment and looked over at her friends. She trotted over to them and flashed them a smile.

“Hey gals, what’s up?”

“Hi, Rainbow Dash. Where did you go?” Twilight asked curiously. Rainbow Dash scratched the back of her head.

“Erm, well I kinda woke up pretty early and couldn’t get back to sleep. So, I figured I’d do some flying before we got to Ponyville.” Well, that answered that.

“Right, well, are you hungry?” Twilight asked. “I was just about to go get some food.” Rainbow nodded.

“Sure, I could go for some good eats. Let’s go!” Twilight turned to Rarity and Fluttershy.

“Do you two wanna come?” she asked. Rarity and Fluttershy shook their heads in unison.

“No thank you, darling,” Rarity replied. “We already ate.” Twilight motioned for Rainbow Dash to follow. They headed into the next compartment and stopped short when they heard another announcement through the intercom.

“Now arriving in Ponyville. Please be sure that you have gathered all of your belongings and prepare to exit the train when it comes to a complete stop. Thank you for riding the Equestrian Transit System and have a nice day!” Twilight groaned in disappointment, her hunger eating at her mood.

“Well, so much for breakfast,” Twilight muttered. She felt Rainbow Dash pat her on the back with a hoof.

“Don’t worry Twi,” Rainbow said. “We’ll go to that café in Ponyville to get some food. My treat!” Twilight eyed her friend suspiciously. She seemed far too happy this morning, especially considering the talk they had last night. Twilight decided not to think about it too much for the time being. They had a lot to talk about, and she was sure that her questions would be answered soon enough. She put on her saddlebags and grabbed the small chest containing the artifact with her magic, preparing to exit the train.

The six ponies, plus one dragon, made their way off the train and into the town of Ponyville. They broke off from each other, citing work responsibilities and such. Twilight had asked Spike to go with Rarity to help her with anything she needed, a task which he was all too happy to accept. She felt slightly bad about keeping him out of the loop, but at the moment, Twilight wanted to speak with Rainbow Dash alone. She didn’t think her pegasus friend would want to talk with multiple people. After the group split off into different directions into the town, Twilight and Rainbow Dash went their own direction towards the café. When they arrived, the earth pony hostess in front of the building took one look at Twilight and her eyes widened.

“Oh my goodness, Princess Twilight Sparkle! What an honor to have you here! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get the absolute best seating in the house!” Twilight blushed heavily. She never liked getting special treatment due to the nature of her position. She didn’t feel like she was any different to the rest of the ponies. She began to stammer.

“U-um, that’s okay. Just a private booth inside would be nice.”

“Certainly!”

They were lead over to a booth in the corner of the café, away from the rest of the patrons. The place was relatively quiet which was strange considering it was almost lunch time. Still, both Twilight and Rainbow Dash were relieved at the lack of ponies. They took off their saddlebags and placed them under the table. Twilight slid the chest next to her saddlebags. The hostess handed the two mares menus as they sat down, telling them that the waiter would be with them shortly. Rainbow Dash quickly turned all her attention to the menu in front of her. Twilight, however, was staring at Rainbow Dash. Was now a bad time to talk to her? She honestly couldn’t tell. The strangely chipper mood Rainbow had been in all day worried her. It was a complete change from last night. She wanted to break the silence.

“So…” Twilight trailed off, unsure of how to begin. Rainbow Dash was still staring down at her menu, apparently trying to figure out what she wanted. Her eyes were still, though, and she made no indication that she heard Twilight. Twilight decided to go straight to the matter. “Do you want to talk now?” Rainbow looked up from her menu and met Twilight’s eyes with a slightly sad stare. She nodded her head.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Did something happen yesterday at the castle?” Rainbow paused in thought. Twilight sat in silence, eagerly anticipating Rainbow’s answer.

“Well, it’s like, I mean I dunno.” Rainbow seemed to be having trouble gathering her thoughts. “Something happened, but I can’t tell if something actually happened or if it’s just my imagination.” She looked away from Twilight and continued. “When I picked up that, um, thing, I sorta saw something. Like a vision or whatever.”

“A vision?” Twilight gasped. This wasn’t what she was expecting at all. Rainbow Dash nodded to Twilight and continued.

“Yeah. It was like, once I touched it there was a bright flash, and I started seeing these things. Like, a bunch of places flashing in my mind or something. Deserts, caves, mountains, volcanoes,” Rainbow begin to trail off.

“Did you recognize any of them?” Twilight asked.

“No.”

“Did you see anything else?” Twilight saw Rainbow hesitate. The pegasus shifted uncomfortably in her seat and seemed to look everywhere except at Twilight.

“I-I saw…” She paused for a moment. Her face went from sad to fearful. “There was this city. It was being attacked with some kinda bombs from the sky or something. There was a lot of screaming.” Rainbow Dash took in a deep breath. “It floated in the air and disappeared.” She slammed her hoof on the table. “Just like that.”

Twilight took a moment to organize the information Rainbow Dash was giving her. It really wasn’t that much to go on and it didn’t seem to answer any questions she had about the artifact that Princess Celestia had given her.

“Anything else?” Twilight asked. Rainbow Dash shrunk into her seat. Her wings shifted tightly into her body and her ears fell downwards as if she was ashamed of something.

“There… there was this creature. He looked like one of those humans you talked about from your trip to that other world. Only he was…” Rainbow lowered her voice slightly. “I-I think he was dying. He had blood all over his body. There were others too. They were holding these… things. I’m not sure what they were, but they were pointed at that man.” Rainbow finally looked directly at Twilight with a mournful look on her face. “I think they were trying to kill him. I don’t know why.”

“Hello, madams, may I take your orders?” The waiter had taken that moment to walk up to their table. Twilight groaned internally in frustration at the interruption of Rainbow Dash’s story. However, she bit her tongue, not wanting to seem rude. She looked up at the cream colored stallion with blue hair.

“Yes,” Twilight said to him. “I’ll take a daisy sandwich and house salad, please.” The waiter scribbled the order into his notebook.

“And for you?” he motioned towards Rainbow.

“Hayburger and fries,” she said with no emotion, staring down at the table. The waiter wrote down the order, thanked the two mares and walked off to send the order to the kitchen. With the source of the interruption gone, the two mares sat in silence. Twilight mulled over her thoughts. What Rainbow Dash described was absolutely horrifying. It was not often that Twilight had to deal with the subject of death. It was a rather dark and depressing topic, so Twilight tended to stay away from it. It was the one subject she did not enjoy studying. It left a bad taste in her mouth. Pushing away those dark thoughts, she focused on figuring out the purpose of the vision. Who was the dying man? Who were the people attempting to kill him? What did any of this have to do with the artifact? And, perhaps most importantly, why had Rainbow Dash seen this vision? She looked over at her pegasus friend, who continued to avoid Twilight’s gaze.

“Oh Rainbow,” Twilight said, remorse ringing through her voice. “I’m so sorry you had to witness all of that.” Rainbow Dash shook her head.

“It’s not like it’s your fault or anything. I’m the one who decided to touch the stupid thing.” Rainbow sighed. “I’m not gonna let it bother me. I mean, it’s probably just my imagination running wild. I’ll be fine.” Twilight sincerely hoped that last sentence would turn out to be true. She didn’t like seeing Rainbow this way. She didn’t like seeing any of her friends this way.

“Is that everything you saw?” Twilight asked. “I mean, if you don’t want to go on you don’t have to. I just wish I could somehow connect all of this to the artifact.” Rainbow scrunched her face in thought before nodding. She grabbed her paper napkin and unfolded it on the table.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a quill and ink handy would you?” Twilight reached into her saddlebags with her magic and pulled out the items Rainbow had requested. Rainbow took the quill and began drawing on the napkin. When she was finished, she handed the napkin to Twilight. “I saw this symbol.”

Twilight looked at the symbol, an upside down V with a circle around it. As much as she racked her brains trying to place the symbol, she did not recognize it. She didn’t bother asking Rainbow Dash if she knew what it was, knowing what her answer would be. She used her magic to put the quill and ink back into her saddlebags, along with the drawing.

“Well, it’s not much to go off of,” Twilight said to her friend, “but I appreciate you talking to me about this. I was getting worried about you. I still am, actually.” Rainbow Dash chuckled.

“You don’t need to worry about me Twilight.” Twilight finally saw Rainbow give her that trademark smile. It was real. Genuine. It told her that she really didn’t need to worry. Rainbow Dash would be okay. She was always okay. Twilight returned the smile with one of her own.

“I guess not.”

They ate in silence when their food arrived, neither one wanting to break each other’s thoughts. Every once in a while, Twilight would steal a glance over at Rainbow Dash, trying to read her thoughts. It seemed Rainbow went through quite a lot in quite a short amount of time while in Canterlot Castle. Twilight knew she wouldn’t be able to understand the full extent of the vision her friend had seen. It obviously was very traumatic to Rainbow. The change in her demeanor was proof enough of that. Though Rainbow had indeed reassured her that she was fine, Twilight was still a bit worried about her. Rainbow Dash loved to exaggerate her emotions, and she was quite good at it too. Therefore, it would be safe to say that Rainbow knew how to fake emotions. This didn’t fool Twilight in Canterlot though, and she wasn’t going to let it fool her now.

“Rainbow?” she said softly to the mare in front of her. Rainbow looked up from her frantic eating and swallowed before responding.

“Yeah, Twi?”

“I um,” Twilight looked down towards the table for a moment, trying to find the right words. “I was wondering if maybe you wanted to stay over at the castle tonight?” Rainbow raised her eyebrow.

“Sure Twi, but why?”

“Well, considering the vision you had I thought maybe you would be of some help to me tonight. I plan on starting my research as soon as possible, and maybe with your help, we can get something done.” In truth, Twilight wasn’t entirely sure that Rainbow Dash would actually be helpful. However, she didn’t really want the pegasus to go home alone with the state that she was in. The state that she was hiding from her friends. “Plus, I kind of thought you could use the company,” Twilight added rather meekly. Rainbow smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, I guess I could use some company.”

They headed straight back to Twilight’s castle after their lunch, eager to get started. Or at least, Twilight was. She wasn’t so sure that Rainbow Dash would be too eager to see the artifact again. They entered the castle and headed straight for the library. Twilight neglected to remove her saddlebags for the moment and placed the chest she had been carrying onto one of the round tables. Her magic flared as she prepared to open it until she saw Rainbow staring pensively at it. Her wings were twitching slightly. Twilight’s magic ceased.

“If you don’t want to be here for this,” Twilight said to her friend, “you don’t have to. You can go read some Daring Do books or something in the throne room if you feel uncomfortable.”

“No,” Rainbow said, shaking her head. “I’m good. Just open it.” Twilight did as she was told. She grabbed the artifact sitting snugly in the chest with her magic and placed it down onto the table. She couldn’t help but notice Rainbow’s breathing quicken in pace slightly as she subtly backed away from the object. Once again, she felt the same magic she felt back in the castle. Still unfamiliar.

“Well,” Twilight said with a sigh. “I guess the first thing to do would be to see if I can find anything in my books.” Rainbow Dash gave her friend an amused chuckle.

“Leave it to you to go straight to the books, egghead.” Twilight lightly punched her friend on the arm.

“Well, while I gather books from the library, why don’t you go find a nice adventure novel to read, other egghead,” Twilight shot back at her friend playfully. Rainbow laughed at her comeback and jumped into the air, flying into one of the book aisles. Twilight smiled and shook her head. She spent the next few minutes pulling books from their shelves. They covered a wide variety of topics ranging from magic to ancient artifacts and symbols. Hopefully, one of these books would shed light on the object sitting on the table.

After a few hours of reading, Twilight let out a frustrated groan.

“Something wrong?” Rainbow asked, looking up from her Daring Do novel and over to Twilight.

“It’s just so frustrating,” Twilight exclaimed. “I’ve already gone through this entire book on ancient artifacts and symbols and I haven’t found anything relating to this stupid rock or your drawing!” She closed the book violently and winced at the loud clap it made, hoping she didn’t damage the spine or anything.

“I don’t think we’re gonna find anything about it in books, Twi. I mean, if even the princesses couldn’t figure it out, what makes you think you’re gonna find your answers in a book?” Twilight thought about that for a moment and realized that Rainbow was right. Studying textbooks would likely do her no good here. She would need a more hooves-on approach. She thought for a brief moment about Rainbow’s vision, and how the vision started with Rainbow touching the artifact. The object in question sat innocently on the table as Twilight gave it a considering stare.

“Hm, I wonder," Twilight muttered. Rainbow Dash's head perked up from her reading position and focused on her friend. Twilight trotted over to the other side of the table to get closer. She began to hold her hoof out towards the object.

“Twilight, don’t!” Twilight’s hoof stopped immediately when she heard the desperate cry of her friend. She looked over to see Rainbow staring at her, her face wearing the worry and fear she obviously felt. “Trust me, you don’t want to see what I saw.” The alicorn shook her head.

“Probably not, but if I’m going to figure this out, I might as well use all of the resources available to me.” She continued towards the object and brought her hoof over it. She let it hover over the object for a brief moment, keeping it still. Twilight closed her eyes and brought her hoof down onto the object.

…

Nothing.

She opened her eyes and looked at her hoof, which was now resting on top of the artifact. Her eyebrow raised and her face changed from worry to confusion. She picked up the object and held it in front of her face. She could feel the magic, but she did not see a vision. Rainbow Dash cautiously walked over to Twilight.

“Um, so do you see anything?” the pegasus asked softly. Twilight shook her head.

“No. Nothing.” Twilight continued to get a sense of feel for the magic coming from the artifact. She knew it fairly well by now, having kept hold of the object ever since leaving Canterlot Castle. The pulsating energy never seemed to have an off switch. It wasn’t particularly noticeable to those who weren’t actively trying to sense it, but with Twilight’s magical intuition it was impossible to ignore.

“I-I don’t understand,” Rainbow Dash croaked. “Why aren’t you seeing it? Why did I see it but you didn’t?” Twilight didn’t have an answer to Rainbow’s questions. She continued to focus her senses on the magic. Suddenly, for just a split second, Twilight felt something quite strange in the magic. She felt a small tug. It was like it was trying to pull Twilight somewhere. That or the magic in the object was connected with another magical source somewhere else. Her eyes widened as she had an idea.

“Stand back Rainbow,” Twilight warned. “I’m going to try something.”

“Twilight, don’t do anything stupid,” Rainbow pleaded.

“Don’t worry Rainbow, it’s just a simple spell.”

“I am worried,” Rainbow muttered quietly to herself. Twilight didn’t hear her though, and she turned her attention back to the object. It was a bit of a silly idea, but it kind of made sense in her head. The theory that it was connected magically with another object or place was too much to dismiss. She focused once again on the magic, concentrating on that pull she had felt earlier. She flared up her magic, intending to cast a location spell on the object. If it really was connected to somewhere else, she should be able to track the location of its source. The tendrils of magic began engulfing the artifact as she cast the spell. Once it was completely covered, a bright purple light shot out from the artifact, blinding the two ponies in the room.

“Twilight! Get away from that thing!” Rainbow screamed over the sound of energy blasting outwards from the artifact. Twilight could barely hear her, though, as her thoughts were distracted by the huge influx of magic she now felt. She found herself unable to control her magic. She wanted to scream out to Rainbow. She wanted to tell her friend to get away before something happened. She couldn’t. Her voice failed her. She couldn’t even scream, as much as she wanted to. She kept her eyes closed, hoping it would stop on its own. She opened them once more when she felt herself being physically pulled towards the artifact by an unknown force. She looked at the artifact and saw her magical aura surrounding the energy that the artifact spewed out. Her eyes widened as she felt even more magic. This magic, however, was very familiar to her. She knew exactly what it was and what was about to happen. The magic was uncontrollable, there was no way she would be able to stop it. She gasped as she felt Rainbow Dash’s hooves grab her, attempting to pull the princess away from the light. Twilight finally found her voice.

“Rainbow! You need to let go right now!” She practically screamed it into her friend’s ear. Her friend didn’t answer. Instead, she held on tighter, fighting hard against the pull of the artifact’s magic. Twilight struggled, trying to get Rainbow off of her before it was too late. The magic began to engulf both Twilight and Rainbow Dash. Twilight’s eyes widened as she screamed at the pegasus, pleading for her to let go. It was no use, though. Both ponies were now surrounded in Twilight’s magical aura. In a large explosion of energy, the room shook and was blasted with a bright purple light. Various books, papers, and furniture went flying throughout the room. When the light subsided, the room went quiet.

Over where the two ponies had stood was nothing more than a large scorch mark and a few blue and purple feathers.

Chapter 4

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Chapter 4

Ow. Head. Damn it.

Rainbow Dash’s body twitched in pain as she lay down in what she assumed was grass. She had yet to open her eyes, dreading what any source of light could do to her throbbing head. On top of that, she felt very nauseous. Whatever had just happened took a massive toll on her. She kept still, fearing any movement she made would cause her to vomit. She breathed steadily in and out. Gradually, as the pain and nausea began to subside, she started to gather her thoughts. What just happened? She replayed the events of the last few moments back in her head. She recalled the spell that Twilight used and the blinding light that her magic had caused. As Rainbow’s mind drifted to Twilight, her eyes shot open.

She looked around to see that she was in a small cave. The ground was indeed grass, scattered between patches of dirt. Grey cracked rock surrounded the walls and ceilings. A few small torches littered the cave, though, the light coming from outside the cave’s entrance rendered them unnecessary at that moment. Rainbow continued to study the cave and took notice of the strange, almost organic-like structures attached to the walls and ceiling. The insides were red and pulsating like a heart pumping blood. The “heart” was surrounded by ash gray linings made of rock. Or, at least, Rainbow hoped it was made of rock. The look of the cage-like enclosure reminded her of bones. She immediately thought of the way a ribcage looks. It unnerved her. Her eyes finally caught sight of Twilight, who was laying a few meters away apparently passed out. Rainbow jumped to her hooves, ignoring the pain that lingered in her head, and ran over to her friend.

After checking that Twilight had not sustained any serious physical injuries, she let out a relieved sigh.

“Twilight, wake up!” She poked at her unconscious friend, who began to stir. Twilight raised her head slowly and opened her eyes, meeting Rainbow’s worried gaze.

“Uhhn… R-Rainbow?” Twilight winced as her eyes fully opened. She must have been experiencing the same pain that Rainbow Dash was. Twilight attempted to stand up but struggled to get her hooves to support her weight. She dropped back down on the ground. Rainbow draped an arm around Twilight.

“Easy there Twi,” Rainbow said. “Take it slow.” Twilight took a few moments to rest on the ground as her breathing began to level out to an acceptable pace. She looked around to examine the cave they were currently sitting in.

“Where are we?” Twilight asked. Rainbow shrugged.

“I was hoping you could tell me.” Twilight shook her head as Rainbow let out a sigh. “Well, could you at least tell me what exactly happened back there?” Twilight wilted under Rainbow’s accusatory tone. Rainbow hadn’t meant to upset the mare, but she found it hard to keep her annoyance out of her voice. She gave Twilight one request. Don’t do anything stupid. Maybe it was a bit harsh to put it that way, but even Rainbow could see that casting magic on an unknown magical artifact might not have been the best idea.

“We… we teleported,” Twilight said softly. “All I meant to do was see if the magic of the artifact was connected to…“ She stopped short and gasped loudly. “The artifact! Oh no, where is it?” She frantically scanned her eyes across the cave. Rainbow Dash let out a frustrated huff.

“Are you really worried about that stupid thing right now? What about us? Where are we?” Twilight walked over to the corner of the cave near where one of the organic structures lay. Her eyes were set on the artifact that sat on the ground. She picked it up with her magic and shoved it in the saddlebags that were still attached to her body.

“Thank Celestia I still have these,” Twilight said to herself.

“Twilight!” Rainbow shouted from across the cave. “I don’t think now’s the time to worry about this. We gotta find out where the hell we are!” Her ears twitched at the sound of a low pitched growl, followed by what sounded like a loud gust of wind. Rainbow’s heart dropped as both ponies turned their attention to the entrance of the cave which they thought held the source of the noise. Strangely enough, they saw nothing. Rainbow looked back at Twilight, who met her fearful gaze with one of her own.

“Uh, maybe we should get out of this cave first?” Twilight suggested. Rainbow helped Twilight up onto her hooves, nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, good call.” Before they could make their way towards the cave’s opening, another growl rang out in the cave, this time much closer than before. The two ponies froze in place. Another whooshing noise. Twilight and Rainbow Dash stared ahead of them as they saw a creature suddenly materialize seemingly out of nowhere directly in front of them.

The creature seemed reptilian in nature, though its tail with a large spike at the end made it look a bit like a large scorpion. Its front legs were shaped into wing-like appendages with a large claw on each tip digging into the ground. The skin on the creature had a bluish color, with an orange tint noticeable on its neck and legs. The creature raised its tail and crouched down low, staring at the two ponies. Both mares began to back away slowly. Rainbow noticed the creature’s gaze was currently focused on Twilight. The pegasus stepped in front of her friend, unfurling a wing over her as if it would protect her. The creature let out another low growl and made its move. It jumped forwards from its position towards the two mares, opening its wings up wide to catch its prey. Twilight’s eyes widened in fear.

Rainbow Dash was quick to react.

In a flash, Rainbow jumped from her stance in front of Twilight and delivered a powerful buck directly into the creature’s oddly shaped head. The loud crack of hooves hitting the creature’s tough skin rang out inside the cave. The creature flew backward and slammed into one of the walls of the cave, falling onto the ground writhing. Its body twitched as it attempted to get back on all fours. Rainbow kept her gaze on the creature, waiting for it to make its next move. However, the creature stood still once it got off the ground. It stared back at the two ponies and let out a loud shriek. Rainbow and Twilight brought their hooves to their ears, attempting to muffle the ear piercing call of the creature. The shriek stopped, replaced by another sound. Not just one, but two whooshing sounds came from within the cave. The same sound they had heard before coming across this creature. The two ponies looked around them and saw two more of them had suddenly appeared.

“We need to get out of here,” Rainbow Dash said. “Now. Get in the air Twilight!” Rainbow Dash jumped and caught air. As she ascended she looked down at Twilight, who nodded and attempted to do the same. She failed to catch air and dropped back onto the ground. “What’s wrong?” Rainbow Dash asked frantically.

“I… I’m sorry. The magic from the teleport took a lot out of me! I don’t know if I have enough energy to fly right now!” Rainbow Dash eyed the three creatures in the cave cautiously. They made subtle movements towards the Twilight. There was little time left to act.

“Well, I guess we’re getting out the hard way then.”

In a burst of speed, she flew down towards the creature closest to Twilight and bucked it against the wall in the same fashion as the first creature. She curved her flight and made quick work of the second, bucking it towards the other two creatures. The three now dazed creatures caught their ground and lunged at Rainbow Dash in the air one by one. They swiped their clawed wings out at the pegasus, who dodged their assault with ease in the air. Rainbow was far too fast for them to have caught her. She turned back to Twilight, who had retreated to the far corner of the cave. This put the pegasus and the creatures between Twilight and the cave exit. Rainbow was hoping Twilight would find an opportunity to leave the cave during her assault, but that was not the case. She could try luring the creatures out of the cave, but the last thing she wanted to do was leave Twilight by herself. She turned back to the creatures, deciding to finish the fight before Twilight got hurt.

The creatures stared back at her. They suddenly vanished in unison with a loud whoosh.

“Oh come on! They can go invisible?” Rainbow Dash screamed out of frustration. She turned back to Twilight, who had a horrified look on her face. Rainbow zoomed over to her friend and asked her, “Any suggestions?” Twilight scrunched her face in thought. Her horn flared up and a small shockwave burst from it. Twilight and Rainbow Dash looked towards the center of the cave and could see three semi-translucent figures inching towards them.

“Simple motion detecting spell,” Twilight said quickly.

“Yeah, okay cool at least we can see them now but I dunno if I can take on all three of them for too long.” She caught one of the figures lunging at her and jumped forward to give the creature a solid buck. Once again, the creature slammed into the far wall. It seemed to have much more trouble getting back on its legs this time around. “At least they seem to be tiring out,” Rainbow said. She turned to Twilight. “Try to stay out of their way. If you see an opportunity to get out of the cave, take it. I’ll follow behind you.”

“Rainbow…” Whatever Twilight was going to say was cut off when Rainbow Dash flew back into the fight. She curved her flight towards the beasts and prepared herself for another strike. The creatures started to catch on to her maneuvers, however, and her target leaped out of the way. Rainbow Dash turned the corner just in time to see one of them leaping in the air, its claws trained on Rainbow. She couldn’t find enough time to dodge the attack completely and she felt a stinging pain on her side as the creature’s claw swiped into her.

“Rainbow!” Twilight cried. She stood up quickly and conjured magic into her horn. She shot a blast of magic at the creature that had attacked Rainbow, sending it flying. Its body twitched violently after hitting the ground. Rainbow shot Twilight a quick nod of thanks, as she ignored the pain in her side and went after another one of the creatures. She delivered yet another powerful buck to the translucent beast. The creature went down. She saw Twilight shoot off a few more bursts of magic as she continued her flying assault on the creatures. Their routine continued on for a while, each pony trading blows with the creatures. Eventually, the might and magic of the two ponies proved to be too much for the creatures. Their invisibility seemed to wear off, evidenced by the fact that the ponies could see their full bodies, and they collapsed onto the ground with a low hiss escaping from their strange mouths. The bodies twitched for a moment before going still.

Rainbow Dash stared at the creatures, breathing heavily. She waited for them to make another move. When they did not, she turned her attention back to Twilight who was still desperately trying to catch her breath.

“Are you okay?” Rainbow asked seriously. Twilight struggled to pant out her response.

“I… *huff* I think so… Just… exhausted.” Twilight held her hoof to her chest, trying to slow her desperate gasps for air. “Are… are they dead?” Twilight asked, her horrified gaze fixed on the three creatures which lay motionless on the ground. Rainbow Dash headed towards the exit of the cave and motioned for Twilight to follow.

“Let’s not wait around to find out. Come on.”

“One second, Rainbow.” Twilight flared up the magic in her horn and took out a small blue box with a red cross on it from her saddlebags. As she began to unravel some of the fabric, she met Rainbow Dash’s inquisitive gaze. “Always be prepared!” Twilight said with a shy grin. She pulled out a brown bottle from the box and dabbed some of the liquid inside onto a piece of the fabric. Rainbow braced herself for the incoming stinging sensation. After Twilight was done cleaning the wound, she spent a few minutes wrapping it in gauze. When she was done, Rainbow nodded to her friend.

“Thanks, Twi. Let’s go.”

The two ponies walked towards the exit. Rainbow helped Twilight up a small rocky ledge which led to a little shack just outside the cave. Outside the shack stood a mailbox, as well as several crates piled next to the door. Curious to see if she could find anything useful inside, Rainbow entered the shack, followed by Twilight. To her left were two green metal crates, both of which said “DAHL” on the top center. To her right were two small green lock boxes. They all bore a bright green button. Rainbow hit the button on one of the Dahl crates, which quickly flipped open. Inside she found boxes of strange metal objects she had never seen before. She took hold of one of them and inspected it closely.

“What are these things?” She held it up to Twilight, who was staring at the contents of the crate.

“Bullets,” she said softly. Rainbow shot Twilight an inquisitive look, curious of how her friend knew that.

“Huh?”

“They’re used for guns. I wouldn’t expect you to have known. Guns have never been seen in Equestria in its entire history.”

“Well then, how do you know what they are?”

“I came across them while researching in the world beyond that mirror,” Twilight explained. Her voice dropped before shakily continuing. “A gun is a device designed to discharge projectiles at an incredibly high velocity. They’re apparently incredibly dangerous and deadly weapons.” Twilight took hold of one of the boxes and opened it with her magic. She took out one of the bullets and examined it. Rainbow Dash looked closely at the small metal object, trying to imagine one flying through the air at the speed which Twilight described. As relatively small as the bullet was, she didn’t want to imagine what it would feel like to have one pierce her skin. Thankfully, Twilight broke her thoughts. “I’ve never seen one in real life before, not even the bullets.”

“Well, why would someone just leave them here?” Twilight shrugged at that.

“I honestly don’t know. Maybe someone lives here?” The two ponies shot each other worried glances at that thought. “We better leave.” Rainbow agreed and kicked down the loose metal gate that blocked the other doorway in the shack. They both exited through the opening and gazed upon the outside world. Directly in front of them stood a small water tower. To their left, they could see a small container with wheels. It was covered in the same organic material that littered the caves they had just exited. Next to that, a large waterwheel could just barely be seen behind a large building bordering a small river. Twilight’s eyes brightened and she magically opened her saddlebags, pulling out a water canteen. Rainbow smiled at her friend.

“Good thinking Twilight,” she said. Twilight grinned and walked over to the stream to fill her canteen. Rainbow Dash followed her, taking in the sights of where she was. Clouds scattered across the sky, blocking Rainbow’s view of the atmosphere above. The land was covered in an unfixed pattern of grass, dirt, and mountainous rocky structures. The river Twilight was gathering water from stemmed from a small waterfall to the right. Directly to the north of the two ponies in the distance, Rainbow could make out a group of buildings built into the rocky terrain. She decided to explore more as she saw Twilight take a desperate gulp of water. Jumping over the river and heading towards the west, Rainbow saw the river continue through the landscape. Blades of grass blew in the wind, broken up by dirt paths and small rock structures. Directly ahead of her was a larger rock structure, like a small mountain. To the left of that was a bridge that led to a large city miles away. The tall buildings were just barely visible in the distance. She wanted to take flight to assess the area even further, but she was reluctant to stray too far from her friend.

Her mind went back to her vision, and her dream. Or at least, she thought it was a dream. It felt way too real to her. After considering the events that had transpired, Rainbow Dash’s worries came back in spades. What if what she saw wasn’t just a vision? What if her dream was more than just that? Her gaze fell once again upon Twilight back near the river. She tried to block out the thoughts of the violent image of her friend being struck by an ax. No dice. The terrified feeling she had was here to stay. The only thing she could do at that moment was stay by Twilight’s side to make sure she didn’t get hurt. It wasn’t that Rainbow thought that Twilight was helpless. Far from it. She was an amazingly powerful alicorn princess. She had fought off countless monsters and villains over her years living in Ponyville, so there was no doubt in Rainbow’s mind that Twilight could take care of herself. At least, no doubt except for that dream. She shook the thoughts from her head and trotted over to her friend, who had just finished filling the canteen with water. Twilight handed the item over to Rainbow, who took a large swig from it.

“Feeling better?” Rainbow asked, putting the canteen down. Twilight nodded.

“Much. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was.” Each mare sat still next to the river, unsure of what to say. Rainbow was the one who decided to continue the conversation from earlier.

“You said that we teleported,” Rainbow Dash said. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could teleport us back to Ponyville?” As expected, Twilight shook her head.

“I don’t even know where we are in relation to Ponyville. I don’t even know if we’re in Equestria at all. Without a map or some kind of reference point, attempting to teleport to Ponyville would be highly dangerous. We could end up anywhere!” That shot down that idea pretty quickly. They had already teleported into unfamiliar territory once. Rainbow wasn’t eager to do so a second time.

“Great,” Rainbow Dash said with a frustrated huff, kicking at the ground with her front hoof. Twilight’s eyes avoided Rainbow, her ears flopping downwards.

“I’m sorry Rainbow,” Twilight said quietly. “It’s my fault this happened.” Rainbow rubbed a hoof to her face. She calmed her temper after realizing how hostile she was being to her friend. She took in a deep breath and shook her head.

“It’s cool. Don’t worry about it. I don’t blame you for anything. Besides, someone as smart as you will definitely figure out a way to get us home soon.”

---

“I hope so,” Twilight said. Rainbow’s words did not do much to reassure her fears. She mentally took note of the current situation. They had just teleported into an unknown area. They had very little supplies other than what she had in her saddlebags. She had no point of reference to be able to teleport back to Ponyville. On top of all of that, the artifact still remained a mystery.

The artifact. That damn piece of rock. That was the reason they had been teleported. Twilight was sure of it. The magic of her spell must have reacted with the magic inside the artifact, causing an influx of energy. Part of this energy shot back at Twilight, causing her actions to become uncontrollable. She felt the magic of teleportation begin to engulf her and her friend, despite her insistence that Rainbow needed to let go of her. All she had intended to do was cast a locating spell on the object in hopes she would be able to track the magical connection she thought she sensed. In a way, it had worked. Unfortunately, it was not her intention to teleport to the source of that connection. Suddenly, an idea struck her. If they had indeed teleported to the source of the connection, surely she would be able to sense it. She closed her eyes and focused her thoughts on the magic around her. Two things became immediately apparent.

First, the only sources of magic she could feel were from the artifact, Rainbow Dash, and herself. There was no indication that another magic source was around her, which confused Twilight. She was not used to sensing objects that held no magic, but the more she reached out to sense it the more she realized that wherever they were held absolutely no magic whatsoever. The ground, the buildings, the river, the mountains, none of them held a single whiff of magical energy. Come to think of it, she couldn’t even recall any magical energy emanating from the creatures they had encountered earlier. Perhaps the magical connection she felt in the library was just her imagination. However, if that was the case, why were they brought here? Maybe the magical source was somewhere else near where they ended up, and her teleportation spell was just inaccurate.

The second thing she noticed was the magic of Rainbow Dash.

She hadn’t realized it until this point, but she never did get a chance to sense Rainbow’s pegasus magic. During her first attempts, she had only wanted to sense the Rainboom, as she figured that would be the best beacon to sense the magic within the pegasus. The crash Rainbow had experienced completely blocked out any thoughts of sensing her friend’s magic. Ever since then, the thought of sensing Rainbow's magic at all seemed to slip her mind. She blamed that on the meeting with Princess Celestia. The nature of the meeting had unnerved her, and now she knew she was right to be worried.

Now that all other sources of magic she was usually around were no longer there, Rainbow’s magic blocked out all of Twilight’s other senses. It even overpowered the foreign magic of the artifact that had brought them there. It tasted, perhaps rather predictably, of the sky on a rainy day. It gave her the feeling of being fresh like she had just stepped out of a shower and dived into the sky. It was powerful. Unlike the pulsating magic of the artifact, the power was constant. Never wavering. It gave Twilight an entirely new perspective of Rainbow. She stared at her friend in awe, amazed at the untapped power that Rainbow held in her body. Rainbow looked back at Twilight and visibly blushed at the attention she was receiving.

“U-uh, everything okay Twi?” Rainbow asked hesitantly. Twilight quickly looked away when she realized how she must have looked.

“Yeah,” Twilight said. “It’s just… Well, I couldn’t help but sense your magic.” Rainbow raised an eyebrow.

“My magic?” Twilight nodded.

“I don’t really expect you to fully understand it, but I’m sensing a ton of magical energy inside you.” Rainbow looked over her body as if expecting to see some sort of deformation. When she didn’t, she looked back at Twilight in confusion.

“I’m not a unicorn Twilight. There is no magic inside me.” Twilight chuckled.

“I told you before Rainbow. All ponies have magic inside of them. Not just unicorns. Even Earth ponies have some magic. I mean, our world runs on magic, after all.” Rainbow said nothing. Twilight wasn’t convinced that Rainbow had fully grasped the concept, but now wasn’t the time for a lecture on magic. Now was a time for figuring out what the hell they were going to do now. She turned her attention back to the cluster of buildings in the north. Her eyes met a large gate leading into what she assumed was a town of some sort. “We should probably head to that town,” Twilight said, motioning towards the gate in the distance. “Maybe we'll find someone who can help us figure out where we are?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea Twilight?” Rainbow said with a shaky voice. “I mean, what if they’re not exactly happy to see us, ya know?”

“Well, I don’t see what else we could do. I think I might need a few more minutes on the ground before I can fly again, so we might as well check it out before surveying the entire area.” Twilight saw Rainbow Dash’s unsure expression and figured her friend did not like that suggestion.

“Well, alright, if you say so. Let’s go.” She paused a moment before adding more to her response. “Just stay close to me.”

They made their way over to the gate. As they passed by a small open building on the right, they heard a masculine electronic voice with a southern twang call out from within.

“Hey you, yeah you! Why the hell’re y’all walkin everywhere? CATCH A RIDE!”

Twilight looked at Rainbow who shrugged in response. They decided to ignore the strange voice and continued through the gate. Once inside, Twilight realized that wherever they were wasn’t a town. It seemed to be a facility of some sort though its purpose was unknown. A building that Twilight assumed to be a warehouse of some sort stood to the right of the entrance, blocked partially by a large water tower. A pipe ran from the top of the tower and over the entrance of the facility, leading into the second story of the warehouse. Up ahead, she saw the ground littered with crates as well as more buildings built into the small cliffs. She could just barely make out the faded text on the walls up above.

“Hyperion?” she asked to herself. Ignoring the text for the moment, she continued into the area with Rainbow following closely behind. The area seemed to be completely void of life. She nervously looked around, trying to spot anything that might lead her to information on where she was. They passed under the bridge above and continued down the wide alley the buildings formed. They came to a stop near a large cannon. It was painted yellow with a white stripe on the top. The rust eating away at the metal indicated it had not been used for a long time. “Interesting,” she said, staring at the cannon. Her thoughts were broken by Rainbow Dash’s shaky voice.

“Uh, T-Twilight?” She turned to meet the pegasus, who’s gaze was fixed on the sky. She raised a trembling hoof and pointed at the sky where she was looking. “L-look.” Twilight’s eyes followed Rainbow’s gaze. She gasped as she saw two things in the sky, which was now somewhat clear of the clouds that had passed by earlier.

The first thing she saw was the moon. Or, was it the moon? It sure didn’t look like it. For one thing, it was far too massive. Twilight couldn’t tell if it was just enormous or if it orbited incredibly closely to the planet. The surface was cracked with red markings, which Twilight assumed to be rivers of lava. Twilight's eyes shot wide open as she realized that the sun was still up. Why were both the moon and the sun in the sky? Did Celestia and Luna make a mistake? Did the magical energy from their teleport throw off the magic in Equestria somehow? None of it made sense unless…

Twilight shook that thought away, before it had enough time to materialize, and focused on the second thing she saw.

A city in the sky?

Twilight stood in shock as her head turned to Rainbow Dash.

No way.

“Is that the same city you saw?” Twilight asked. Rainbow didn’t answer. She continued to stare up at the island in the sky, fear plastered over her face. Twilight brought a hoof to her friend’s back. “We should start heading there.”

“Are you crazy?” Rainbow demanded. “Why the hell should we go to a city I saw getting destroyed in some kinda freaky vision? That’s just asking for bad news.”

“I know Rainbow, but right now it’s our only lead.” She was about to continue but stopped short when she heard soft footsteps growing closer to them. The two ponies turned around and were met with a human man. He wore raggy dirt-brown pants adorned with multiple straps going around the waist and legs. Another strap lay over his bluish-gray sweatshirt. His face was covered by a red bandana with a white insignia on it. An insignia Twilight felt looked rather familiar. In his hands was a mechanical device. Twilight recognized it in an instant as she stared at the barrel of the weapon pointed at the two ponies. They froze in place. Neither one dared to make a sound. The silent standoff did not last long. The man spoke.

“Huh, no idea what the hell you two are,” the man said in a low gritty tone, slightly muffled by the fabric that covered his head. Mechanical doors of the building behind him opened up, revealing several more humans wearing similar attire. They crowded behind the man, some of them aiming their weapons at the two ponies. “Come on, I heard you two talking,” the man continued in a somewhat amused tone. “Say something, will ya?” He lowered his gun and walked towards the two ponies. Rainbow Dash jumped in front of Twilight and flared her wings.

“Back off,” she snarled at the man. He laughed hysterically.

“Oh man, this is too fucking much. Looks like this little pony has some bite to her, huh boys?” An assortment of laughter and grunts rang out from behind him. Many of the men pumped their fists in the air.

“A NEW TYPE OF MEAT FOR US TO ENJOY!” a voice shouted from the back. Rainbow Dash’s stance seemed to waver, but she kept her angry gaze on the men in front of her. Twilight brought a hoof to Rainbow’s back.

“Rainbow, don’t,” Twilight pleaded. Rainbow made no indication that she heard Twilight.

“I’m gonna say it again. Back. Off.” She crouched down low and growled, seemingly ready to pounce at the man.

“Hm, well I don’t think I can do that,” the man replied simply. He raised his gun and pointed it back at the two ponies. “See, me and my men have this problem. We just ran out of skag meat, and I don’t think anyone here wants to survive the next few weeks on dirt and grass.” The men behind him grunted in agreement. “Now that you two are here, I think we’ve found a solution to our problem. Nothing personal girls, it’s just the circle of life.” Before he had a chance to fire his weapon, Twilight’s horn flared up to cast a spell. A purple shield of energy burst out from her, tossing the man onto his back towards his men. She kept the shield up. The man got up and looked at the spectacle in shock. He opened his mouth to speak.

“She’s… is she a Siren?”

“Fuck this shit! Everyone fire!” Loud shots cracked throughout the area. The explosion of each bullet firing from the men’s guns pounded against Twilight’s eardrums painfully. Every bullet shot stopped short once it hit the shield, falling safely on the ground. Twilight focused her efforts on keeping the shield up. Each bullet that hit the shield shot a small painful twinge through Twilight’s body as she strained to keep the shield up for as long as possible. She looked towards her friend.

“Rainbow! I’m not going to be able to hold this shield for too long!”

“Can you fly?” Rainbow asked. Though Twilight was unsure of that, she knew she had no choice. The only way they were going to be able to get out of this situation was to fly away as far, and as fast, as possible. She just hoped she was now well rested enough for flight. She turned to her friend and nodded her head.

"On my mark, we each make a break for it. I’ll follow you, okay?” Rainbow nodded.

“Okay.” Twilight grunted at the magical energy she was attempting to hold. She stared directly at the men, watching the bright flashing lights come from their guns. She was waiting for the perfect moment. After a while of the men’s assault, the gunfire ceased. Twilight saw them fumble with their guns, grabbing something out of their pockets.

“Now!”

Twilight broke the spell and shot into the air as fast as possible. The exhaustion had her crying out in pain, but it was mostly overridden by the adrenaline pumping in her body from the near death experience she faced. She looked ahead to see Rainbow Dash flying just in front of her. They flew at a forty-five degrees angle from the facility they were in, trying to gain as much height and distance as possible. She heard the shouting from below slowly begin to fade, but she then heard more muffled gunshots come from below. She gasped as she heard the bullets whizz past the two ponies.

“We gotta get above the clouds!” Rainbow Dash shouted back at her. “They won’t be able to see us from there!” Twilight continued to follow Rainbow Dash. The sounds of shouting and gunshots continued to fade away as they reached the clouds. They hovered above them for a moment, listening intently for more gunshots. They only heard silence. Twilight let out a relieved sigh as she plopped her body down onto the cloud. Rainbow sat beside her.

“Well, at least clouds seem to still work the same way here,” Rainbow said. Twilight said nothing in response. Her heart pounded violently in her chest. It was not the first time she had come across a life-threatening situation, but it was the first time she had ever been assaulted with gunfire. She never thought it was something she would ever experience, and she sincerely hoped it would be the last experience with guns she ever had. She seriously doubted that would be the case. Tears began to form in her eyes as she recognized the seriousness of the situation.

“Oh Celestia,” she sobbed. “What are we going to do?” Rainbow put a hoof over Twilight’s neck and pulled her into a hug. Twilight cried into Rainbow’s shoulder. “W-we don’t know where we are, we don’t have many supplies, and everything we’ve come across so far wants to kill us. What next?” She continued to sob, her cries growing louder as Rainbow Dash patted her on the back.

“Hey, don’t cry Twi,” Rainbow said softly. “We’re gonna figure this out, I guarantee it!”

“I wish I believed that, Rainbow.”

They spent the next few minutes in silence, staring at the city in the sky. Twilight’s cries began to subside.

“I guess we should start heading over there,” Rainbow said nervously. Twilight looked at her pegasus friend with worry.

“A-are you sure? I mean, I know you don’t want to.”

“No, but we have to. Like you said, it’s the only lead we have.” Rainbow stood up from her position, lifting her hooves off of Twilight. She walked slowly on the cloud in the direction of the floating city, staring at it pensively. “Come on, let’s go.” Twilight nodded and followed Rainbow. With a quick jump and a flap of their wings, the two ponies were in the sky.

---

Miles above the Dust, Mordecai stood on the edge of Sanctuary just outside of Scooter’s old garage. It wasn’t really somewhere he wanted to be. He tended to avoid the garage ever since he heard the news of Scooter’s death. While the two weren’t exactly best friends, they both knew and respected each other. Mordecai had to admit that the man knew his way around a vehicle. He simultaneously hated to admit that he was going to miss the stupid bastard, just as he already missed his friend Roland and his best friend Bloodwing. The deaths of his friends still hurt, but he would never admit that the death of his beloved bird was the hardest pill to swallow.

Hope you’re doing okay out there Blood, wherever you are.

He took a long swig of the bottle that sat by his feet. He lowered the bottle and winced at the taste. It was the strongest stuff that Moxxi had on hand. She, of course, was pretty reluctant to sell it to Mordecai. His addiction to drinking was well known throughout the entire town, but she seemed to be the only one who actually cared enough to try to get him to quit. That, or the past they shared together caused her to do everything she could to keep her ex-boyfriend away from the one thing that made him truly happy. It was all in vain, though. Asking him to give up alcohol was like asking him to give up his sniper rifle. It just wasn’t going to happen.

He let out a loud belch and picked up his trusty sniper rifle, a slag infused Maliwan Rakehell. A powerful weapon indeed and one that he had been carrying ever since he found it in a chest shortly after the whole Handsome Jack situation came to light. He brought the scope up to his face and scanned the rock filled grassy area out in the distance. Just like the last time he scanned the area, his search came up with absolutely nothing. He moved his sights to the town of Overlook, expecting to see some sort of commotion. When he found the town to be empty and quiet, he lowered his rifle with a sigh. Everyone must have decided to stay inside. He didn’t blame them. The facility that their town was built near had been taken over by bandits recently. Walking around in a town that stood under a large bandit encampment would not have been a good idea. He made a mental note to check the town out later on if his companion did not do so already.

Mordecai heard footsteps coming from behind. He turned to see a tall and skinny man wearing a black and gray armored jumpsuit. On the left side of his chest was a red number zero. His face and eyes were hidden behind a shiny black helmet with no facial features on it. A sword sheath hung tightly from his belt. Mordecai nodded to the tall man.

“Did you find anything in the Highlands, Zer0?” Mordecai asked the mysterious man, slurring his words slightly.

“I have found nothing / To explain the disturbance / I felt earlier”

“Yeah, I figured as much. I’m not seeing anything either, even from this vantage point. Then again it’s hard to see shit with all these damn clouds blocking my view.” Mordecai looked back towards the Highlands from his position. “You sure you felt something?”

“I make no mistakes / Believe me or don’t, it’s there / Do not question me.”

“Alright alright already, sheesh. I’ll keep looking.” He brought the scope to his face once more before adding, “You know, it’s kinda freaky hearing you talk like that all the damn time. Don’t you ever get tired of it?” Zer0 began to walk away before answering.

“It is how I speak / It’s how I will keep speaking / For the rest of time.”

“Whatever. Hey, if you have time, could ya stop by Moxxi’s and grab me another bottle? This one’s running low.” Mordecai held up the almost empty bottle and shook it. The small amount of liquid splashed around on the bottom.

“Yes, more alcohol / To keep the drunkard on point / I’ll get right on that.” Zer0 walked up the stairs leading to Zed’s makeshift hospital.

“Was that sarcasm?” Mordecai shouted back at him. He shook his head. “Whatever, you don’t gotta be such a dick about it,” he muttered. He continued his search of the Highlands, hoping to spot something out of the ordinary. After another ten minutes of searching, he groaned and set his gun down leaning against a nearby wall. Behind him, a lady was walking towards his position. She had fire red hair and a tank top of a matching color. Her eyes glowed bright orange, giving her quite an intimidating look. The left side of her body was covered in strange blue tattoos. Mordecai turned his attention to her.

“Find anything?” the lady said.

“Nothing. Hey Lilith, do you believe Zer0? I mean, he says he felt something, but he didn’t find anything in the Highlands.” He turned back towards the empty sky. “I’m not seeing anything from up here. The clouds aren’t really helping my case either.” Lilith stood next to Mordecai and nodded.

“Yeah, I believe him. I felt it too you know. Maya as well.” Mordecai looked at her in disbelief.

“Really? Why the hell didn’t you say something?”

“I did,” she answered accusingly. “You were probably too goddamn drunk to process our little meeting!” Mordecai laughed.

“I’m never too drunk to do anything.” He continued gazing into the sky. His eyes widened under his goggles as he thought he saw a flash of movement in the distance towards the Highlands. “Wait a minute…”

He picked up the rifle and brought the scope to his face once more. The sights trained onto the area where he had thought he detected movement. It took him a few moments of scanning the area to find what caused the movement he caught. Two strange figures were in the sky, heading towards Sanctuary. One of them was cyan blue, with what Mordecai thought was rainbow colored hair of some sort. The other was a lavender color. He could see the wings of the two figures moving up and down frantically. Could they have been rakk? If they were, they were the weirdest looking rakk he had ever seen. Most creatures on Pandora did not wear such bright colors on their bodies, whether natural or not. As the figures grew closer, he began to realize what they looked like.

“Whoa, maybe I really do need to stop drinking,” Mordecai said in a hushed tone. Lilith looked at him with a confused expression on her face.

“Did I seriously just hear those words come from you?” Mordecai brought the rifle down and pushed it into Lilith’s hands.

“Here. Look in that direction,” he pointed to where he was aiming before. “Tell me. Am I just drunk? Or are two brightly colored ponies flying directly towards us?” Lilith raised an eyebrow as she took the rifle. She brought the scope to her face and pointed it at the area that Mordecai had indicated.

“Huh,” she said simply. “You don’t see that every day, do you?”

“What do you think Lil?” Mordecai asked. “Should we shoot ‘em?” Lilith shook her head.

“No. I’m kind of curious. If they’re heading this way, I’ll gather some of the raiders so we can corner them when they arrive. If they turn out to be dangerous, we shoot. Sound good?” Mordecai hesitated to agree with Lilith’s plans.

“I dunno. Last time you led a firing squad it didn’t exactly turn out so…”

“That was different!” Lilith screamed a bit too loudly. She calmed herself before continuing. “There was a lot at stake. Was I irrational? Maybe. That’s in the past, though. Athena and I aren’t exactly on good terms, true, but at least we’re not at each other’s throats.”

“Look, just don’t do anything without thinking this time, okay?” Mordecai put a hand on Lilith’s shoulder. “I’ve been kind of worried about you ever since we finished that business with Handsome Jack. You’ve changed, Lil.” Mordecai waited for Lilith’s response. None came. She pushed Mordecai’s hand off of her shoulder and began her trek back to the Crimson Raiders Headquarters, leaving Mordecai alone once again. He stared back at the two ponies in the distance closing in on his location and took a large swig of the bottle he had been nursing. He tilted the bottle straight up, attempting to take in every last drop of the precious liquid. Once empty, the bottle was thrown against the wall, shattering into tiny pieces.

I’m definitely going to need more booze for this.

Author's Notes:

Holy smokes! Over 7k words in this one! And I had originally intended for this chapter to go on for longer than this! Oh well, I'm sure I can squeeze it all into the next chapter. Or the chapter after that. I dunno, we'll see.

Anyways, yeah. Chapter 4. I started writing it at about 3pm today. As of writing this note, it is past 3am. 12 hours. Granted, it wasn't just 12 hours of nonstop writing/editing/proofreading. I did manage to take a few breaks here and there. Plus procrastination is always a fickle mistress. I was desperate to get this chapter out before Sunday, considering I go back to work then. Now that it's finished, I can rest easy.

Next chapter might not be out for a few days. I'm aiming for Monday night or Tuesday afternoon (EST), but don't count on it. As always, like the story if you haven't already (unless you don't like it), and throw me a comment or two! I'm very happy with how much you folks are enjoying this story so far! I'll see you in the next chapter!

Oh, and I made a small edit to the story's synopsis to warn readers of Tales from the Borderlands spoilers. I realize I'm a bit late in doing this, but given the nature of this chapter I knew it had to be done. Hopefully no one is too upset with me if they read the spoiler before they read the warning, though if you are I apologize for not warning you all when I first posted the story.

Chapter 5

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Chapter 5

A faint light shone from one of the windows of the Carousel Boutique. The source was a candle inside Rarity’s room. The mare had been up late working on outfits for her current client. Spike had been a big help that day. With so much to do in so little time, Rarity had given Spike the responsibilities of fetching her any tools she needed from her workshop as well as holding pins with his thick scales. She made a mental note to do something special for the baby dragon as a token of her gratitude. As the day began to break into night, she sent the baby dragon home. Rarity figured that Twilight wouldn’t like it if her number one assistant came back to the castle after hours. Plus, there wasn’t much else Spike could do to help her at the moment. She still had lots of designs she needed to draft and she figured Spike would have gotten bored after a few hours of sketching.

Rarity was currently at her dresser getting ready for bed. Though she was far from done with her work, she knew her limits. The tired mare finished getting into her sleeping gown and blew out the candle on her nightstand, eager to get some sleep. She smiled as she carefully situated herself under the covers and put on her sleeping mask. Before she could drift off to sleep, a loud knocking echoed from her front door. Her eyes shot wide open and she removed her sleep mask. In a frustrated huff, she got out of bed and headed towards the front door.

Honestly, why would anyone be here at this hour? This is late even for me!

Rarity struggled to keep herself from being visibly annoyed. When she opened the door her frustration vanished in an instant. Standing on the welcome mat of the Carousel Boutique was Spike. His eyes were puffy and red. Tears could be seen streaming down his face reflecting the light from the inside. His entire body quivered as he failed to hold in his sobbing.

“Spike?” Rarity asked. “Whatever are you doing here at this hour? What’s wrong?” She moved aside and motioned Spike to enter. He didn’t move. Staring at the ground, he took in several sharp breaths as he attempted to calm down. Rarity looked at him in shock. The poor dear looked absolutely destroyed. “Spikey?” Rarity said softly. Spike finally looked up at Rarity.

“R-Rarity,” he managed to choke out. “Twilight… she’s,” Spike drew in another deep breath. “I think she’s gone.” Rarity’s eyebrows shot up. She took a quick glance outside, trying to see if anyone was around listening in.

“Come on, let’s get inside Spike.” The two entered through the door. When the door shut, Rarity turned back to Spike continued. “Now, what do you mean Twilight’s gone? What happened?” Spike walked over to the display stage in the center of the room and sat down. He turned his attention to Rarity and slowly continued.

“Twilight wasn’t home when I got back to the castle, so I figured I’d read some comics until she got back. But when I got to the library...” Spike’s voice trailed off. His breathing quickened in pace a little. Fresh tears welled up into his eyes. Rarity put a hoof around Spike to comfort him.

“Go on, Spike,” she encouraged. He sighed and looked down at the ground.

“I-I don’t know, it looked like some kind of bomb had gone off or something. All the bookshelves were toppled over or broken and there were books everywhere. Twilight would never let something like that happen, let alone leave it there for who knows how long! So, I just sat and waited for her to get back but…” Spike began sobbing again. His body shook as he curled his head into Rarity. She didn’t wait for him to continue. She merely sat at his side as he sobbed, comforting him with gentle pats on the back.

Rarity at first assumed that the destruction of the library was the effect of one of Twilight’s many experiments. She knew the past few weeks have kept her friend busy with a seemingly never ending study session. She let out a quiet gasp as a single thought had struck her. If Rarity knew Twilight, she knew that the first thing the studious alicorn would do would be to study the artifact. Surely Twilight’s curiosity would lead her to attempt to experiment on it.

“Spike,” Rarity said calmly, “I want you to come with me. We’ll go round up the others and bring them all to the castle.” Spike turned his dreary gaze to Rarity’s eyes.

“But why?” he said.

“We’re going to figure out what happened to Twilight.”

---

Spike trudged alongside Rarity as they made their way Fluttershy’s cottage. It was relatively close to the Carousel Boutique, and they needed Fluttershy to gather Rainbow Dash from her cloud home. Spike’s eyes were fixed on the ground as they walked. He desperately tried to hold in his sobs. He wanted to believe that he was overreacting. Maybe Twilight had just gone out for a midnight walk? He liked to think that when they got to the castle she would be there cleaning up the library. She might even ground him for going out after hours. Spike knew that wouldn’t be the case. After all, Twilight would never leave Spike alone without leaving some sort of notice. Something bad had to have happened.

When they got to Fluttershy’s cottage, Rarity knocked on the door. A light flicked on from inside the cottage. A moment later, the door opened revealing Fluttershy’s tired gaze.

“Rarity? Spike?” The mare rubbed at her eyes and fought against a yawn. “What are you two doing here so late? I mean, not that you aren’t welcome to visit but…” Rarity cut her off.

“Fluttershy, darling, I’m dreadfully sorry for bothering you at such a late hour but we’ve got a bit of an emergency.” Spike caught Rarity’s worried gaze turn to him for a brief moment. “Apparently Twilight has gone missing.” Fluttershy brought a hoof to her mouth in surprise.

“Oh my,” she said softly. She turned her head to Spike, who was still trying to recover from his grief.

“Indeed,” Rarity said. “We need to gather up the girls and head to the castle. Do you think you can get Rainbow Dash and meet up with us there?” Fluttershy nodded.

“Of course, Rarity.” Fluttershy turned to Spike again for a brief moment before gesturing towards Rarity. “Um, do you think this has something to do with you-know-what?” Spike raised an eyebrow.

“Huh?” he said. Fluttershy backed away slightly and shrunk into the ground.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say.” Spike scuffled out from behind Rarity. He threw his hands out in frustration.

“Come on Fluttershy,” he pleaded. “If you know anything please tell me!” Fluttershy looked at Rarity with an unsure gaze. Rarity nodded at the mare and turned towards Spike.

“When we in Canterlot,” she began, “Princess Celestia gave Twilight a strange artifact. She wanted Twilight to study it and figure out what it was.” She turned back to Fluttershy. “I don’t know if it has anything to do with her sudden disappearance though.”

“Wait,” Spike said with a claw to his face. “Why did no one tell me about this?” Rarity and Fluttershy looked at each other.

“Well,” Rarity said cautiously, “Princess Celestia felt you, uh…” She broke off for a moment as if she was trying to find the right words. “She didn’t want to worry you,” she finally said. Spike felt anger and frustration building up from within.

“Worry about what? Some stupid artifact?” he yelled angrily. “Whatever, it didn’t work! I’m pretty worried now!” He thought back to the meeting in Canterlot. Suddenly he understood the gemstones the princess had offered him. It wasn’t just a kind gesture, it was a way to keep him out of the meeting they had. It was a way to keep him out of the loop. He couldn’t believe it. Princess Celestia had actually specifically left him out of whatever seemingly important information she had given to the ponies. He felt absolutely betrayed. Not just by the princesses, but also by his friends. He shot a glare at Rarity and Fluttershy. “Why didn’t you girls tell me?” Fluttershy was the one to answer his question.

“Um, well I didn’t think it was my place to say. I kind of assumed Twilight would have told you.” Rarity nodded in agreement.

“Well she didn’t!” Spike yelled.

“Darling, please calm down,” Rarity said quietly. “I know you’re upset but yelling at us isn’t going to help.” She turned around to face Ponyville. “We must to gather the others and get to the castle. Fluttershy, you get Rainbow Dash. We’ll see you there.” Fluttershy nodded and flew off. Spike stood still, fuming at what he just learned. “Come on Spike.”

“This conversation isn’t over,” he said dangerously. He roughly brushed past Rarity, stomping his feet into the ground as he walked.

When they had reached the castle with Pinkie Pie and Applejack trotting behind, Rarity and Spike came to a stop at the front door. It seemed that Fluttershy had not yet gotten back with Rainbow Dash. The group decided to wait at the door for the two missing ponies. Spike leaned his back against one of the walls of the castle and folded his arms. His gaze avoided the ponies who had betrayed him. He hadn’t said a word to any of them since leaving Fluttershy’s cottage. The anger he felt inside prevented him from willingly conversing with any of his “friends.” One thing was for sure, Princess Celestia would be getting one heck of a letter from him once this was over. He faintly heard the sound of wings flapping in the air and looked up. He expected to see Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash making their way towards the castle. Instead, he only saw Fluttershy who was flying solo. He raised his eyebrow in confusion as she made her landing. The other ponies crowded around her.

“Where’s Dash?” Applejack asked. Fluttershy shook her head before giving her shaky reply.

“I-I don’t know, she wasn’t in her house.” Applejack stomped a hoof into the ground.

“Consarn it, why can’t anyone find that pegasus when we really need her?” Spike watched the exchange from the corner of his eye. In truth, he didn’t care if Rainbow Dash wasn’t here right now. He didn’t even really care if anyone else was here. Deep down, he knew that there wouldn’t be anything that the ponies could do. He was holding onto the hope that one of the ponies knew where Twilight was. Now that he knew they didn’t, he didn’t really see the point in gathering at the castle. Surely the first thing they should do would be head straight to Canterlot, right? After all, this emergency affected not just Spike and Twilight’s other friends, but Equestria as a whole. A princess was missing. After a while of banter between the ponies, Spike let out a loud grunt.

“Ugh, whatever! Can we just go inside please?” Spike angrily slammed the door to the castle open. He walked in, leaving the speechless ponies outside the entrance. They slowly followed him inside.

The door to the library was open. Bookcases were toppled over. Many books and papers were lying on the floor in crumpled piles. Spike’s heart dropped slightly as they approached the doorway. He had yet to take a step inside for two reasons. One, the way was blocked by a toppled bookcase. Two, he was afraid of what he might find inside. He nervously stood outside the library staring at the destruction inside. The other ponies gasped as they followed from behind.

“Oh dear,” Rarity said. She looked at Spike. “You weren’t kidding when you said it looked like a bomb had gone off.” Spike didn’t reply. He walked over to the bookcase blocking the entrance and attempted to push it out of the way. After his failed attempt, Rarity moved it with her magic. Spike shot her a thankful glance and made his way into the library. He was shocked at what he saw.

Over by the window was Princess Luna pacing back and forth. Her eyebrows were furrowed in thought. She didn’t seem to take notice of the ponies and dragon that had entered the room. Spike’s eyes caught a second pony in the room. Princess Celestia sat motionless in the middle of the room with her back facing the rest of them. She was sitting before the black singed floor staring down at it. Her ears were down and her wings were wilted. She didn’t make a single noise. She grabbed a few of the feathers off the ground with her magic and brought them to her face. No reaction came from her when Luna finally noticed they had company. The princess of the night stopped her pacing and walked over to the group.

“We were wondering when you all would arrive,” she addressed the group.

“Princess Luna?” Rarity said. “What are you two doing here? What happened?” Luna briefly turned her sad gaze to Princess Celestia before answering.

“We felt a magical disturbance coming from this castle,” Luna answered. “We came here to investigate. Have any of you seen Princess Twilight Sparkle or Rainbow Dash?” Spike’s attention turned back to Luna. His eyes widened in surprise.

“Wait, Rainbow Dash? Is she missing too?” Spike asked. Luna grabbed some of the feathers from off the floor and showed them to Spike. The feathers were blue and purple. At the sight of the feathers, Spike began to tear up again.

“We assume that she was teleported along with Twilight,” Luna said simply.

“Teleported?” Rarity asked suddenly. “How can you tell?” Luna’s humorless chuckle caught the group by surprise.

“Perhaps you should get into studying magic a bit more, Rarity. We knew what the magic was as soon as we felt it.” Applejack walked forward to address Luna.

“Well, where did they teleport to?” she asked. Luna shook her head sadly.

“We do not know.” Spike turned his attention to Princess Celestia, who still had not moved an inch. He held an angry expression as he walked over to her and pointed an accusing finger at the sullen princess.

“Why did you not want me knowing anything?” he demanded. Princess Celestia did not respond. She did not flinch. She did not make any indication that she had even heard Spike. The dragon continued. “Well? Are you gonna say something?” More silence followed Spike’s furiously toned question. He growled in frustration. “Unbelievable! Am I really that useless to you? Do you really have such a low opinion of me that you want to keep me out of the loop whenever something important happens?”

“I am sorry,” came the shaky reply of Princess Celestia. Spike backed down slightly at the sorrow filled tone of her voice. Still, he was undeniably angry with her and he wanted to let her know it.

“You’re sorry?! You send me out of the room so you can have your stupid little meeting about a stupid artifact without me knowing anything about the artifact that you gave to Twilight. Now Twilight and Rainbow Dash are gone and you’re sorry?! Is that all you have to say to me?” Celestia finally made a move. She turned her head to look down at Spike. The dragon gasped as he spotted the tears flowing freely down her face. Her body shook visibly. It was not a sight that anyone in history had ever seen. In fact, until now, Spike had assumed that Princess Celestia never cried. And yet, here she was, sobbing quietly.

“I will make no excuses for my actions. What I did was wrong. I should have told you what was happening, and I am sorry for that.” She turned her gaze back to the scorch mark on the ground and continued to sob. “This is my fault.”

“Sister, please,” Luna said compassionately. “No one knew this would happen. No one even knows what exactly happened.” Celestia brought in a deep breath.

“I think I know.”

“Go on,” Spike said to Celestia, eager to learn anything he could about where Twilight and Rainbow Dash went.

“My theory is,” Celestia explained, “Twilight must have started experimenting on the artifact magically. Somehow the magic in the artifact must have reacted with her magic and teleported her somewhere.”

“But where?” Spike asked desperately. Celestia did not answer. Luna walked over to her sister and whispered something inaudible into her ear. Spike tried to hear what was said, but the voice was too quiet to make out any of the words. Celestia looked at her sister with an unsure expression. After a moment, she nodded her head. Spike sighed in frustration. “So are you going to tell us anything? Or are you just gonna keep us out of it?”

“We do not know where she went,” Luna stated. “We only have a… theory.” Her face darkened at that last word.

“When the artifact was first found in Saddle Arabia, the magic in the air indicated that the object had been teleported,” Celestia explained. “The amount of magic used implies it was teleported from a great distance away. A distance that is not possible in our world.” She closed her eyes and raised her head upwards as if she was trying to sense something. “Haakim was right,” she muttered. “There’s way too much power in this magic for it to be a short range teleportation spell.”

“So, what does that mean then?” Spike asked. Celestia hesitated a moment before answering honestly.

“It means that Twilight and Rainbow Dash could have been teleported to somewhere beyond the stars.”

The silence that followed was agonizing. Each pony stood still in thought, their jaws wide open in shock. Spike followed suit. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what Celestia had just told him. He didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t believe it. There was no way something as crazy as that had happened. Twilight was powerful in magic, that was true. However, Spike knew her limits well. There’s no way she would have been able to teleport two ponies across space. He knew one of the basic principles of teleporting was knowing exactly where you wanted to go. Any pony who wanted to teleport needed to know everything about the area. They needed to know where it was in relation to where they stood. They needed to have a perfect mental image of wherever they wanted to teleport to. Spike had been with Twilight his entire life and not once did he ever hear about Twilight going to space. It didn’t make any sense and surely the two princesses knew that.

“I don’t get it,” Spike said. “How is that even possible?”

“We do not know,” Luna replied. “Hence why it is only a theory.” Spike groaned loudly while attempting to hold back more tears. He felt he was beginning to run dry.

“So, we don’t know where they are. We don’t know how they got there, and the only explanation you two have come up with is absolutely nuts! What are we supposed to do?” Spike kicked his foot out in frustration. The two princesses looked at each other as they considered their options.

“We… we’re working on that,” Princess Celestia said slowly. “For the moment, Spike, I’d like you to come with me to Canterlot so you have a place to stay.” Spike turned his back to the Princess.

“Forget it,” he snapped. “I don’t want to stay in Canterlot with you.” Celestia’s face fell at Spike’s response. She looked like she was going to argue with the dragon, but decided against it.

“Very well, I understand.” She looked over the ponies who were watching the exchange. “Would one of you take in Spike? I don’t want him staying inside this castle alone.”

“I’m fine!” Spike yelled. Celestia flinched.

“I’d feel much better if you stayed with one of your friends,” Celestia told him cautiously. “I don’t think…” Spike cut her off.

“I don’t care what you think or how you feel! Why should I anyways? You don’t seem to care how I feel or think!” Celestia brought a hoof to her face. She let out an exasperated sigh.

“Well, what about you? How do you think you’ll feel living in an empty castle with no one to talk to?”

“S-shut up!” The ponies gasped loudly. Luna shot a dangerous look towards Spike’s direction. She stepped forward to address the dragon.

“Be silent!” she said in her royal Canterlot tone. No one in the room dared say another word. Spike stared directly at the ground, not wanting to meet Luna’s furious gaze. He knew he was acting like a jerk, but he couldn’t help it. The betrayal he felt overrode all other emotions from within him. He was letting his emotions speak louder than his words. Luna took a deep breath, calming her tone, and continued. “We realize that you are upset, but don’t you dare take it out on my sister!”

“Spike can stay with me,” Rarity said quickly to break up the argument. “It’s not a problem at all.” Spike felt a little better when he heard Rarity’s words. He always felt better when he heard Rarity. He turned to her and stammered.

“U-um, really Rarity. I’m fine. I’ll just stay in the castle.” Spike wasn’t really sure why he was so adamant about staying. Perhaps he just wanted to prove that he was mature enough to live on his own given the circumstances. He was still devastated by Twilight’s (and Rainbow’s, of course) disappearance, but he didn’t want to let bad events such as these run his life. It seemed, however, that Rarity would not be taking “no” as an answer.

“You will do no such thing!” she said. “I understand why you are upset, but the princess is right. It will do you no good staying in this castle alone. You can stay at my boutique until Twilight and Rainbow get back.” Spike begrudgingly nodded his head.

“We must get back to Canterlot,” Celestia said sadly. She turned to address her sister. “I don’t think there’s anything else here that can help us.” Luna nodded in agreement. She turned back to Spike who shrunk under her now neutral expression.

“We will send you a letter if anything comes up,” she promised Spike. He said nothing, still recovering from the princess’s harsh words. “As for the rest of you, be on guard. Report anything suspicious to us. We have no idea what might happen next.” The ponies in the room nodded at Luna’s request. Luna and Celestia walked out of the room. Spike continued to avoid the princess’s eyes as they left.

“Come on Spike,” Rarity said softly. “Let’s go back to the boutique and get some sleep.”

“Yeah…”

---

The two princesses flew quickly in the night sky. Luna was reflecting on what had happened. She frowned at the thought of the theory Celestia gave. She never liked the whole “outer space” idea. At first she hated it because she didn’t like the thought that she had missed something in the starry sky that she knew so well. It was a bit of a pride thing. However, now with a princess and a former Element of Harmony missing, she hated the theory even more. Because it was probably true. She felt the magic alongside her sister when the disturbance had first occurred. Now that they had investigated the castle and felt the lingering magic from a teleportation spell, she could no longer deny that the theory was beginning to hold weight. If it was true, then Twilight and Rainbow Dash were completely out of reach from anyone in Equestria. Or even the world.

She looked over at her depressed sister as they flew. They had not spoken since they left the Castle of Friendship. Hating the silence, Luna spoke up.

“Do not worry yourself over Spike, dear sister. He will be fine.”

“He was right,” Celestia said, briefly turning her head towards Luna. “We should have included him in the meeting. I’m a fool.”

“You are not a fool. You’re just worried about him.” Celestia shook her head.

“No. Not anymore. He has matured greatly since leaving Canterlot.” Celestia sighed. “I am worried about Twilight and Rainbow Dash. I can’t help but feel responsible for their disappearance.”

“But why?” Luna asked. “You know as well as I do that you did nothing wrong.”

“The artifact was gone,” Celestia shot back. “Their disappearance obviously is connected to the artifact we gave them. I should have known something would happen. I should have never given it to Twilight in the first place.”

“You doubt Twilight’s magical ability.” Luna’s response wasn’t a question, but a statement. Celestia did not respond. Luna continued. “If I know Twilight, she will find a way back from wherever she was sent. She is an exceptionally smart pony.”

“Smart, yes,” Celestia said with fear laced in her voice. “But what if they were sent somewhere dangerous? What if they get hurt or…” Celestia didn’t finish that sentence. Luna chuckled.

“She’s with Rainbow Dash. There’s no way the former Element of Loyalty would allow any harm to come to a princess, or a good friend.”

The rest of the flight to Canterlot was made in silence. Luna hoped her words had helped Celestia feel better about the situation, but she knew deep down the princess of the sun was hurting greatly. Her former faithful student was gone. Luna knew how much Twilight meant to Celestia and she knew the coming days would not be easy on either of them. The first thing they needed to do when they got back to Canterlot was form some kind of plan.

Hopefully they could figure something out before it was too late.

Author's Notes:

Phew, got it out just in time before I had to leave for work. Hopefully it doesn't feel rushed. I didn't have enough time to read over it more than twice, so hopefully I didn't leave some stupid mistake somewhere in the chapter.

Another short one. Sorry if this chapter isn't really all that interesting to you. I'll admit it's a bit dull, at least to me it is. I wanted to make sure you didn't think I was going to ignore Equestria from now on. That definitely isn't the case. I probably could have done a better job writing this chapter, but I didn't want to keep you guys waiting for too long. If I didn't get this chapter out today, I likely wouldn't have been able to post it until Thursday, or even Saturday. Oh the joys of being a wage-slave.

Anyways, nothing else to say here. Send me a like if you enjoy the story! Or a dislike if you don't! Either way, I wanna see those numbers go up! And, as always, be sure to leave me a comment or two! Until next time folks!

Chapter 6

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Chapter 6

It had been almost a half hour since the two mares took flight towards the floating city. Neither mare had spoken a single word. Rainbow Dash alternated her attention between the direction she was flying and the mare beside her every so often. Twilight looked absolutely lost. Rainbow could only guess at what was going through her mind. Hopefully a way out of the situation they were in.

In truth, Rainbow had many questions she wanted to ask Twilight. Unfortunately, looking over at Twilight’s distraught expression, Rainbow knew the last thing Twilight needed was a game of twenty questions. Twilight needed time to think and adjust to their situation. She needed time to figure out the answers to all the questions both of the mares had. Rainbow didn’t think her friend would have all the answers, but she at least wanted to hear Twilight’s theories. It was hard for the pegasus to make heads or tails of what exactly was going on. She didn’t know anything about magic. There was no way she would be able to understand exactly how or why they were teleported. What scared her most was she had absolutely no idea where they had ended up. Rainbow knew Twilight didn’t either, but there was a nagging thought in the back of her mind. It had been there ever since they had spotted the abnormally large moon and the city in the sky. Rainbow Dash was too afraid to reach deeper into these thoughts. She already had a lot on her mind without bringing in even more uncomfortable thoughts.

Like the vision. And the dream.

The last thing Rainbow Dash wanted to do was to head to the floating city. The vision of air strikes and screaming had haunted the mare ever since she left Canterlot Castle. There was no telling what to expect when they got there. Rainbow figured that the vision she saw must have been in the past. She recalled the city beginning to float in the air moments after the air strikes started. Surely if the vision was a premonition the city would still be firmly in the ground. This thought led her to believe that the other things she saw were in the past as well. Her mind switched to the dying man and the altar surrounded by lava. The humans that had surrounded him. The guns they aimed at him. She started to think that the city was somehow connected to that event. Maybe she could find out whom that man was when she got to the city?

The dream she saw was another one of those thoughts she was desperately trying to bury in her mind. It was not something she wanted to address. She especially did not want to bring it up to Twilight. She didn’t have an exact reason other than not wanting to scare her. It may have been a dream, but considering the vision was beginning to seem true, Rainbow did not want to bring it up for both Twilight’s sake and her own. The best thing she could do at that moment was block it out and make sure Twilight did not leave her sight.

Wanting to break the silence, Rainbow Dash finally spoke.

“Hey, I just realized. Wasn’t it night time when we were at the castle?” Rainbow looked at Twilight inquisitively. Twilight's body jumped out of the catatonic state she had been in since they left the comfort of the clouds. After a few moments, she answered.

“Honestly, I’m trying not to think about that right now,” she said in a timid voice. It seemed Rainbow was not the only one trying to block out thoughts.

“Right, yeah I understand,” Rainbow said awkwardly. She looked ahead of her to get another look at their destination. They were closing in on the small city. Rainbow could make out the tall buildings made of grey stone. Many of them had strange spires on top of them. The tallest structure in the middle of the city stood out from the rest. Blue light glowed along the outline of the structure as well as all around the top. Rainbow squinted her eyes ahead and looked at what she figured was the city’s entrance. She could just barely make out one of the buildings. It looked like a garage of some sort with a large sign above the doors. Unfortunately, she was too far to see what the sign said. However, she wasn’t too far to see the multiple figures that stood outside the garage and all around the entrance.

Rainbow Dash gasped and widened her eyes. She probably should have expected seeing humans in the city, but the fear from earlier was still fresh in her mind. Meeting more of the creatures was not something Rainbow was particularly excited for. If they had guns, which Rainbow assumed they did, this could be very bad for both of them. Not only would the two ponies be thrown into danger again, but it would also completely demolish their only lead they had on figuring any of this mess out. Rainbow was determined to press on regardless of the fear she felt. She looked over at Twilight, whose expression had somehow turned even more frightened.

“Do you see them?” Rainbow asked simply. Twilight slowly nodded in response. Rainbow took another look at the group in the city's entrance. Now that they had gotten even closer, she noticed something frightening. All of the humans were facing the direction of the two ponies. They also seemed to be holding something. Rainbow had a feeling she knew exactly what they were holding. Twilight, no doubt, knew the very same. Rainbow took in a deep breath. “Looks like they see us coming. What do you wanna do, Twi?” Twilight took only a moment to gather her thoughts before answering.

“I… Well, we can’t turn back. We have to investigate this city, if only to figure out more about your vision.”

“To be honest,” Rainbow sighed, “I’m not exactly all gung ho about learning anything more about it. I just want to go home.”

“Well, at the very least, we need to figure out where we are.” Rainbow scoffed loudly.

“Oh, right. Because that worked so well last time, huh? Look at them Twilight.” Rainbow stopped her flight and gestured towards the city as Twilight floated next to her. They were almost close enough to make out the faces of the humans, and certainly close enough to see the weapons they held. “They’re all facing us. They have guns. They obviously know we’re coming. What if they’re just waiting for their next easy meal?” Twilight brought a hoof to her chin and hummed.

“What if they’re just there to greet us?” Rainbow shot Twilight a deadpan expression. Twilight sighed. “I’m not saying I don’t see your point Rainbow, but… I-I’m willing to take the risk.” The end of Twilight’s sentence gave away her brief façade of bravery. Rainbow knew Twilight didn’t want to go to the city any more than she did. It didn’t matter what either of them wanted to do. What mattered was what they needed to do. Like it or not, they had to enter the city.

“Do you have enough energy to do that shield thing again?” Rainbow asked. A moment of silence filled the air. Rainbow was almost afraid Twilight wouldn’t answer.

“I guess we’ll find out,” she finally replied.

“I don’t like this.”

“That makes two of us.” Twilight began flying towards the city again.

“WAIT!” Twilight stopped in her tracks and looked back at Rainbow with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked. Rainbow flew in front and faced her before replying.

“Stay behind me.” Rainbow mentally begged Twilight not to ask why. It was not a conversation she was ready to have. Thankfully, Twilight acknowledged her wish with no questions asked.

They continued their flight towards the city. The distance they had traveled gave Rainbow an opportunity to better scope out what they were flying into. First, she the sign she noticed before above the garage read “Scooter’s.” She turned her head to count six humans flanking the stairs and alleys leading into the city. Four of them were wearing red armored chest plates and helmets. In front of these four were two other humans. One was a slim man wearing red fabric around his torso, as well as a red bandana and goggles. Attached to his back was a sniper rifle. Beside him was a female with fire red hair and a matching shirt. Along the side of her body and arm were strange blue markings. Unlike the others, she held no weapon.

As they grew closer to the city, Rainbow heard a loud gasp come from her friend.

“What’s wrong?” Rainbow asked. Twilight shook her head.

“N-nothing… it’s nothing.” Rainbow wanted to press Twilight for more information, but they were closing in on the city entrance. This didn’t leave her enough time to ask questions. They landed on the edge of city in plain view of the humans that had them flanked on all sides other than behind them. She began to panic as she drew her gaze along the faces of their welcome party. Being the only one not wearing facial accessories, the lady was the only face Rainbow could read. It held a neutral expression, though with a hint of curiosity. Her ears suddenly perked up at the sound of multiple guns cocking. The armored men standing around the two presumed leaders of the pack raised their weapons and aimed at the two ponies. Rainbow Dash was quick to step in front of Twilight as she growled at the humans.

“Hold your fire!” the lady shouted. Rainbow took notice of Twilight’s heavy breathing. It seemed she was beginning to hyperventilate. Whether it was out of fear or exhaustion, Twilight collapsed in a heap on the ground.

“Twilight!” Rainbow yelled. Gasps and murmuring rang out from the humans behind her. She ignored them and bent down towards her friend. Twilight’s eyes were still open and she was still breathing. Relieved, Rainbow asked, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah… just… need a minute,” Twilight slowly breathed out. After Twilight got back onto her hooves, Rainbow turned her attention back to the humans. The armored men’s stance had wavered, but they kept their guns trained on the two ponies. The other two just stared with their mouths agape in confusion.

“So uh,” the lady with fire red hair said. “You can talk.” Rainbow looked at her, then at the weapons the men behind her held.

“It’s easier to talk when my life isn’t being threatened,” Rainbow said viciously. The woman raised an eyebrow before addressing her men.

“Lower your weapons!” The men obeyed her command. Now that the guns were no longer pointed at them, Rainbow Dash felt a little bit more relaxed. Still, she didn’t let her guard down. She kept her angry stance in front of Twilight as she glared at the group around them. Just because they weren’t being aimed at didn’t mean they weren’t still in danger. After a few moments of silence, the woman spoke again. “So uh, what exactly are you?” The man beside her suddenly burst out in laughter. His stance wavered as the somewhat over exaggerated laughter rang out from him.

“C’mon Lilith. I’m drunker than I’ve been since Blood died and even I can tell they’re ponies.” His voice slurred heavily and Rainbow Dash could smell the sharp odor of alcohol as he walked towards the two ponies. Her body tensed as he grew closer. He stopped in front of her and kneeled down to eye level. “Still, you two are probably the weirdest looking ponies I’ve ever seen. I mean, damn you two are tiny. And what’s with the colors?” He gestured towards Rainbow’s hair. She narrowed her eyes at the man and snarled.

“Mordecai, don’t be an asshole,” Lilith said to the man. He stood up and turned towards her.

“What’d I do?” Mordecai answered, flabbergasted at Lilith’s insult. She didn’t answer him. Instead, she walked closer to the two ponies. Another gasp came from Twilight as Lilith stopped right in front of them. Rainbow ignored it for the moment and looked the woman in the eyes.

“What are your names?” Lilith asked simply. Rainbow didn’t answer at first. She was rather reluctant to continue talking to them. Leaving the city was beginning to seem like the best option at this point. The two ponies had already been put into life threatening danger the moment they had landed in the city. While the humans had lowered their weapons, that didn’t mean things couldn’t turn south very quickly. Her first experience with the humans back at that facility made that very clear. Still, the humans in this city did back down and they seemed more willing to talk things out.

“My name is Rainbow Dash,” she finally said. She stepped aside from in front of Twilight and motioned to her. She paused for a moment. At first, Rainbow was going to address her friend by her royal title. But, for whatever reason, she decided it might not be a good idea. “And this is Twilight Sparkle,” she finally finished.

A loud drunken laughter exploded from Mordecai.

“Ha ha, oh shit. Are you for real?” His hysterics did not subside. Rainbow Dash glared angrily at his antics. “Seriously,” Mordecai continued. “Rainbow Dash? Twilight fuckin’ Sparkle?” Rainbow caught Twilight twitch slightly in her peripheral vision.

“Mordecai!” Lilith screamed. “If you’re just here to be a drunken asshole, then take it somewhere else!” Mordecai struggled to contain his laughter. He began to pace back and forth, slowly letting out the last few giggles.

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” Mordecai snickered once more and turned back to face Rainbow, who was giving him the death stare. “It’s just, you know. Kinda odd names I guess.”

“And Mordecai isn’t?” Rainbow asked, raising an eyebrow. “Seriously, your friend’s right. You are kinda being an asshole.”

“Rainbow!” Twilight finally spoke up. Rainbow turned to see her friend’s shocked expression. Vulgar language was not something that often came up among ponies in Ponyville, or even Equestria for that matter. It wasn’t that the words didn’t exist. They were just regarded as absolutely foul and unnecessary. They were never to be used in common conversation. It was at this moment that Rainbow realized it was probably not something that Twilight was ever exposed to in a great deal before now. Rainbow had never heard a crude term ever come from the alicorn’s lips. And while Rainbow herself was no saint when it came to filthy language, Rainbow had very rarely used it when she was amongst her peers.

This place was beginning to get to her.

“Sorry Twi,” she said softly. Lilith looked at the exchange curiously.

“Huh, I guess you’re not used to hearing cuss words,” she said to Twilight.

“N-no,” Twilight stuttered.

“We’re also not used to everything we come across trying to kill us,” Rainbow butted in angrily. She decided to make a genuine effort to improve her language around Twilight. “Just what the hay was that all about anyways? Why were you pointing those guns at us?” She watched as Lilith and Mordecai glanced awkwardly at each other, and then back to the ponies.

“First time on Pandora?” Mordecai asked in a low tone. He seemed far more serious and grim than he did moments ago. Twilight perked up at his remark.

“What’s Pandora?” she said curiously. Mordecai turned his head to her and answered.

“It’s where you are.”

“Huh?” Twilight cocked her head in confusion. “What, you mean this city?” Mordecai shook his head.

“No, I mean this planet.”

A long moment of silence was finally broken by the stutters of Twilight. Rainbow, for her part, was completely silent. Her mind was still processing what Mordecai had said. They were on a planet called Pandora. A planet that was not her own. Twilight and Rainbow Dash had been teleported across space. Her heart dropped. What exactly were they supposed to do now? Twilight had already explained that she would not be able to teleport if she did not know where she was. Considering Equestria could be just about anywhere out there beyond Pandora’s atmosphere, there was no way they were going to be able to get back. Rainbow fell on her haunches and her ears flopped down. She looked over at Twilight, who was already beginning to leak tears from her eyes.

“I… but where,” Twilight stuttered as she tried to hold back her sobs. “What are we supposed to… oh no. No no no no no! This is not good. This is very very not good.” Rainbow felt her own small dose of panic rise inside her as she watched the distraught Twilight shake her head violently. Her fears had been confirmed. Twilight had no idea how they were going to get back home. Though Rainbow did not know that herself, she couldn’t handle seeing Twilight break down like this. She brought the alicorn into a comforting wing hug.

“Hey, it’ll be okay Twilight,” Rainbow said. “We’ll figure something out.” She wished she could believe that.

“No, it won’t be okay!” Twilight shouted angrily, tears streaming down her face. “It hasn’t been okay ever since Princess Celestia gave us that stupid artifact! Now we’re trapped here and it’s all my fault!”

Mordecai and Lilith glanced over to each other.

“Artifact?” Lilith said to Mordecai curiously.

“Princess Celestia?” He giggled. Lilith huffed in annoyance and turned to Twilight.

“What’s this about an artifact?” she asked. It seemed to Rainbow that Lilith was very eager to hear about the item in question if she was reading her expression right. Lilith had an almost knowing look on her face. Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure if telling the humans about it would be the best idea, but the thought that they might know something about it was appealing to her and most likely to Twilight as well. Rainbow looked at her friend, who seemed just as unsure. Rainbow slowly nodded to her. Twilight conjured up her magical aura to remove her saddlebags. The small crowd of humans began murmuring to each other. Lilith’s eyes filled with shock as she let in a quick breath and watched the spectacle of Twilight’s magic. Once the saddlebags were removed, Twilight went into one of the pockets and pulled out the object with her magic. She held it up to the group in front of them.

Suddenly, every human in the area gasped loudly and stood at attention to the object floating in front of them. Many of them shouted out in unison. Rainbow Dash could only make out a few of the phrases.

“A vault key?”

“What the hell are they doing with that?”

“How?”

“Why?”

A few of the armored men standing around suddenly gripped their guns tighter. The men raised their weapons in an alert stance while they stared at the artifact. The murmurs in the small crowd continued to grow louder. Rainbow uneasily looked at Twilight who looked perplexed at the reactions. The crowd ceased their voices when Lilith screamed out.

“EVERYONE SHUT THE HELL UP!”

All eyes were on Lilith, who looked like she was just about at the end of her rope. She stared at the artifact, then at the two ponies that came into the city with it. A deep breath came from inside her. Rainbow didn’t dare speak. It seemed the humans knew exactly what the object was. What was it that human yelled out? Vault key? A vault to what exactly? Rainbow had many questions. However, she did not tempt fate with the furious woman before her. Her piercing red eyes turned once more at the artifact and she brought a hand to her head.

“Private Jessup!” she commanded, not looking away from the object.

“Y-yes ma’am!” One of the soldiers stood at attention and saluted at her.

“You’re coming with me and Mordecai to escort our… uh, guests.” She finally broke her vision away from the artifact to oversee the rest of the grunts. “The rest of you go back to your posts.” The men did not question her orders. They broke off into various directions. One of them, presumably Jessup, walked forwards and joined the four. He looked down at the two ponies, though his armored helmet blocked his gaze. Mordecai turned to Lilith.

“So, what are we gonna do?” he asked.

“Uh, does anyone here wanna tell us what’s going on?” Rainbow asked, annoyed. Lilith walked towards the stairs next to the garage. She motioned for the group to follow. Twilight put the artifact back in her saddlebags before joining them.

“Look,” she said, “I’m sure you have a lot of questions. Believe me, I have plenty myself. Let’s just wait until we get to our headquarters.” She turned back for a moment and looked at Rainbow Dash. “Plus, we should probably change that bandage you have there.” Rainbow cocked her head and looked at her right side where she had been slashed by one of those creatures from the cave. The bandage was dark red with dried blood where the wound was. To be honest, she had almost forgotten about it.

They continued up the stairs. Along their way, they passed a couple more humans standing around. Rainbow assumed these were average citizens of the city. They shot the two ponies a variety of looks. Many of them were curious. Some of them, scared. Rainbow felt very uneasy as she walked through the alleyway. She felt out of place, and rightfully so. The thought suddenly hit her that to these humans, Twilight and she were aliens. At that thought she felt far more self-aware and vulnerable. She subtly took a few steps towards Twilight, unconsciously seeking comfort. They looked at each other in silence, unsure of what to say.

When they had reached the top of the stairs, Lilith turned left towards a building with a large red neon sign above the entrance. Before Rainbow could read the sign, Mordecai suddenly spoke up.

“Whoa, hold on. We’re going to Zed’s? Are you serious?” Lilith shrugged her shoulders.

“Hey, he has the supplies we need.” Rainbow suddenly felt very nervous about going into the building.

“Yeah,” Mordecai said. “But you know Zed. He’ll take one look at those two and ask us if he can dissect them.” Rainbow’s eyes widened and her tail shot up. She may not be one of the smartest ponies, but knowing Twilight for as long as she did allowed her to pick up on some words. Dissect was one of them. She felt relief as she realized something.

“Wait, Twilight. Don’t you have bandages in your bag?” Twilight searched through her saddlebag for the first aid kit. Looking inside the kit, she pulled out the roll of bandage. She eyed it carefully and her face fell.

“I hate to say it Rainbow,” she said fearfully, “but I don’t think I have enough to properly cover that wound.”

“Don’t worry,” Lilith said. “We won’t let anything happen to you. It’s not like he’s going to be the one to patch you up.” Her words didn’t do much to reassure the two ponies. Regardless, Mordecai and Lilith entered the building, followed by the two ponies and Private Jessup.

The first thing Rainbow noticed was the stench. It was a heavy, almost muggy stench unlike anything she had experienced. It was as if someone decided to merge the Ponyville dump with the Ponyville raw sewage treatment plant into one. Rainbow and Twilight began gagging at the smell. Looking at the room itself, the interior looked like some kind of haunted hospital. The floors were checkered white and black. At least, they would have been had they not been splattered all over with a dark red substance. Somehow, Rainbow Dash doubted that it was paint. It was splattered all over the walls and even on the ceiling. Rainbow wanted to leave. Now. She couldn’t stand in this room knowing what horrors must have gone on in there. She glanced nervously at Twilight who looked to be on the verge of a comatose state. Her pupils were as small as pinpricks. Her jaw was in danger of falling off her face completely. If Rainbow looked close enough, she just might have been able to make out the small tears that were in danger of falling.

“C-can we please leave?” Twilight asked quietly. An answer never came, as it was interrupted by a man standing over by a gurney.

“Now what in the hell are you two supposed to be?” His loud gruff voice echoed in the not so sterile room. He stared down at the two horrified mares. He wore a bloodied blue scrub and a surgical doctor’s mask. His left arm bore a strap with a red cross and a heart in the middle. The mares were far too terrified to answer him. Mordecai took one look at the ponies and quickly got to the point.

“Zed, we need some bandages. We’ll talk about this later,” Mordecai pleaded.

“Now, wait just a damn minute!” Zed argued loudly and stomped his foot. “You burst into my clinic with these two… things, you don’t tell me what’s going on, and you’re just gonna demand that I give you bandages?”

“Zed, please,” Mordecai said calmly. Rainbow perked up at the sniper, grateful that he was trying to hurry this along. She then realized the man seemed to sober out whenever he looked serious about something. Zed stared at Mordecai wide eyed, back at the ponies, then back to Mordecai and Lilith. “Look, we’ll tell you all about it later. We need to go.” Morrdecai took a quick glance back at Rainbow and Twilight. They returned his look with a small thankful smile. It looked like Zed wanted to argue more, but he eventually gave in.

“Fine! But don’t expect me to give ‘em out for free!”

“Whatever, pendejo.” He pulled out some paper bills from his pocket and threw them at Zed. As the “doctor” scrambled to pick up the fallen cash, Lilith walked over to one of the storage cabinets and pulled out some bandages. The group quickly made their way out the door of the building, and not a second too soon. Rainbow felt she was on the verge of vomiting at the sight and smell of the room. Jessup closed the door behind the group. Twilight slowly made her way next to Rainbow, still trying to recover from the horrifying room they had left. Lilith walked up to the side of Rainbow and knelt down.

“Hold still,” she said as she began pulling off the bloodied fabric. Mordecai walked in front of the two ponies and bent down, meeting them at eye level. He had a small frown on his face.

“I’m sorry about all that,” he said seriously. “To tell you the truth, it didn’t even cross my mind that you two wouldn’t be used to seeing blood and stuff.” Twilight looked up at Mordecai sadly.

“You mean you’re used to it?” she squeaked. Mordecai solemnly nodded.

“Comes with the territory, amiga.”

---

After Rainbow’s bandages had been changed, they headed to what Twilight assumed to be the city square. Though, it was more of a city circle. The center of which stood a tall black structure emanating an eerie blue light on the outlines of the metal panels it was built from. Out of curiosity, Twilight attempted to sense any magic coming from it. Alas, she felt none. Well, she did feel magic, just not from the structure. Lilith noticed Twilight’s curious gaze at the large structure.

“If you’re wondering what that is,” the woman explained, “it’s how this city stays afloat.” This confused Twilight. How was the city staying afloat without magic?

“How exactly does it work?” Rainbow asked as she looked up at the structure. Lilith shook her head.

“I honestly don’t know the details. The town’s old mechanic would have been able to tell you, but uh…” She trailed off for a moment. “He’s not here right now.” Twilight noticed Lilith’s sad tone, but decided not to question it. They continued towards a large building in the alley. Above the building was a large sign with a banner underneath it. They read “Sanctuary City Archives” and “Fight back! Join the resistance!” respectively. Twilight assumed this building served as a sort of town hall. When they approached the door, Lilith turned to the private that had been escorting them.

“Wait outside Jessup,” she said. “Don’t allow any of the citizens entry until I give the word.” Jessup gave Lilith a quick salute. The moment the four stepped through the door they were met with an extremely loud high pitched shriek.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing bringing these… these filthy animals in here? Do you have any idea how many disgusting diseases they could be carrying?”

The source of the angry yelling was a woman standing across the counter. She had very short black hair, with goggles strapped to her forehead. She wore a black tank top covered by a dirty red leather jacket. Her horrified gaze was frozen on the two ponies in the room. They each returned her gaze with a confused one of their own. Twilight felt quite insulted by this woman’s outburst. Had she no tact? Sure, the two ponies were technically alien creatures from another planet but… Twilight quickly shook those thoughts out of her head. It was still overwhelming for her, and every time it entered her mind she could feel herself breaking down. Her thoughts began to cloud with the fact that they were never going to see Equestria ever again.

Desperate to shut her mind up once and for all, she decided to attempt conversation with the crazy woman.

“You don’t have to be so rude,” she said simply. The woman screamed again.

“Oh my word, the thing can talk?” Twilight and Rainbow Dash scoffed angrily in unison.

“Tannis, shut up please,” Mordecai said calmly. “Go back to whatever the hell you were doing, and we’ll go upstairs out of your way.” He turned to the two ponies behind him. “Don’t mind her, that’s Patricia Tannis. She’s a wacko, but she means well.” Patricia grunted in frustration.

“As much of a ‘wacko’ as you perceive me to be there is no way I will allow you to harbor such beasts in my place of work!”

“Alright, that does it,” Rainbow spat angrily. She jumped in the air and floated directly in front of the horrified woman and stared into her eyes. Patricia was completely silent. “Well? Come on then, insult me again. I dare you.” She narrowed her unblinking eyes at the scared woman.

“Rainbow, please calm down,” Twilight pleaded. As insulted as she felt by Patricia’s comments, she was in no mood to have to deal with an argument. She was exhausted and didn’t have the energy for such antics. Not wanting to hear anymore arguments from Patricia, the group made their way upstairs and into a large room with a table in the center. On top of the table seemed to be some kind of screen. It displayed a map of an area unknown to Twilight. She looked up at the ceilings and walls and saw tons of other screens mounted up high. Most of them seemed to show camera feeds of the city. Others held even more maps of different areas. Twilight looked at it all in wonder. She was no stranger to electronic technology. She had spent enough time in the world beyond that mirror to get a good grasp on a lot of human technology. This though, was something on a whole different level. Everything in the room looked extremely high tech. Despite the rustic and primitive look of everything she had seen on this planet so far, she was beginning to believe that they had reached a level of technology that far surpassed that of the world which held Canterlot High.

Twilight continued to scan her eyes around the room. The two ponies and humans were the only ones to occupy it. Mordecai was quick to sit on one of the chairs near a computer console at the left side of the room. Lilith motioned towards the couch in the back left corner.

“Feel free to take a seat if you want. You two look exhausted.” The two ponies quickly sat down on the somewhat small couch. There was just barely enough room for them to fit. Lilith tapped a button on a strange device that was latched onto her waist.

“Brick where the hell are you? We called you a half hour ago.” Twilight’s ears perked at the static laced voice coming from Lilith. Unfortunately, she could not make out what was said. “Well hurry up, this just got a hell of a lot more important.” She sighed and turned to Mordecai. “He’ll be here soon.”

“What about Maya?” Mordecai asked. “We’re not gonna wait for her?”

“She’s a little busy scoping out the Highlands right now with Zer0. Seems these two caused a bit of a commotion and the bandits have been threatening Overlook.” She looked over at the two ponies. “Apparently they think Overlook is hiding them.” Mordecai joined Lilith in staring at Rainbow and Twilight.

“What exactly happened before you two flew here?” he asked.

“Well,” Rainbow began shakily. “We were attacked.”

“By bandits?” Mordecai asked.

“I guess? I mean they were humans. They all wore these weird cloth masks.” Rainbow Dash shivered. “They wanted to… eat us.” Mordecai chuckled.

“Don’t take it personally. Bandits will eat literally anything as long as it’s meat.”

“Mordecai,” Lilith said, annoyed. “I don’t think now’s the best time for your jokes.” She sighed and turned back to the two ponies. “Sorry, I hope you don’t mind if we wait for a… um, friend before we talk about everything.” Twilight felt uneasy at Lilith’s tone of voice, but did not argue. “Are you two hungry?”

“Yeah, I could eat,” Rainbow said as her stomach growled. Twilight nodded in agreement.

“Am I right to assume that you two don’t eat meat?” Lilith asked. “You know, being ponies and all.” The two mares nodded in silence. Lilith sighed. “Alright, well I’ll go see if I can’t scrounge up some fruits from our reserves.” She left the room and headed back downstairs, leaving Rainbow and Twilight alone with Mordecai. The two ponies stared at the man’s curious gaze. He turned his gaze when he noticed a bottle sitting by the computer panel. He swiftly grabbed it and took a large sip.

“So,” he said quietly. “Are you two okay?”

This question surprised Twilight. Given the experiences she’s had since arriving on this planet, she had been starting to think that empathy was not an emotion that was felt by its inhabitants. Though it was hard to tell through the goggles, Twilight thought Mordecai looked sincere.

“I… well, no.” Twilight closed her eyes and sighed. She would have been crying had she not already been run dry.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Mordecai took another large swig from the bottle before setting it down and standing up. “If I had to guess, I’d say you two don’t come from a violent place, yeah?”

“Well, it’s not like we haven’t faced violence before,” Twilight explained. “Just… nothing like this.” Mordecai nodded.

“Well, I’d ask more, but Lilith would kill me if I did without her and Brick.”

“Who’s Brick?” Rainbow asked.

“An old friend of ours. A bit of a brute, but I trust him with my life.” At that moment, Lilith walked into the room holding two apples. Behind her was an extremely tall muscular man with three nasty deep scars embedded in his right arm. “Speak of the devil,” Mordecai said as he smiled at the man.

Brick stood frozen in the room’s entrance. He stared at the two ponies, shell shocked.

“Holy shit, what the hell is this?” he said loudly. “You pull me away from looting my rival bandit camps for this? Some kinda weird fruity ponies?” Twilight sighed. She was growing tired of the rude comments.

“Seriously, what is it with you people always insulting us?” the alicorn asked, frustrated. She knew exactly what the man would say next.

“And they can talk? This just gets better and better, don’t it?” It was beginning to sound like a broken record at this point.

“Look, that’s not what’s important right now,” Lilith said with a hand to her frustrated face. “Brick, this is Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight did her best to ignore the amused giggling that came from Brick. “What’s important is what they came here with.” She motioned towards Twilight. “Pull it out.” Twilight did as she was told and pulled the artifact out of her saddlebags with her magic. She floated it in front of Brick who had an unreadable expression on his face.

“Huh,” Brick said, motioning towards Twilight. “You know, normally I’d be confused how you’re doing that, but at the same time IS THAT A GODDAMNED VAULT KEY PIECE?” His extremely loud screaming caused everyone in the room to flinch. Twilight looked curiously at the object she held in her magic.

“What do you mean it’s only a piece? And what the hay is a vault key?” Brick chuckled at the mare’s choice of words.

“Heh, hay. Cause you’re a horse. I like it!” Lilith groaned. She handed the two apples over to the two ponies before taking hold of the vault key piece. Twilight grasped them in her magic and handed one two Rainbow, who quickly dug right in. Twilight examined the apple for a moment. It was bruised and beaten, and it didn’t have the same red shine of the apples in Ponyville. She took a small bite out of it and chewed. It was pretty bitter. It certainly didn’t hold a candle to the apples of Sweet Apple Acres. Still, food was food. Twilight was pretty hungry from this whole ordeal, so anything was greatly appreciated.

“To answer your question,” Lilith said to Twilight. “Well, it’s sort of complicated. Not that I don’t want to answer, but before I do I’d like to ask some of my own questions. Is that okay with you two?” Twilight looked over at Rainbow Dash. She could tell the pegasus was not okay with that, but didn’t seem like she wanted to argue about it.

“That’s fine I guess,” Twilight said reluctantly. Lilith nodded.

“Well, first off, where exactly are you from? Obviously you’re not natives of this planet.” Twilight slowly nodded her head. It hurt to be reminded that she was no longer in Equestria, but she pushed on.

“Well, we’re from a kingdom known as Equestria. It’s inhabited by many different creatures, though ponies are the dominant race in most areas.” The humans all gave the mares slightly unbelieving looks. Lilith motioned towards the vault key piece.

“Did you come across this artifact in your kingdom?” Lilith asked.

“Well, no. It was found in a kingdom that borders our own, Saddle Arabia. It was sent to Princess Celestia, who in turn sent it to me. She wanted me to figure out what it was.” Twilight’s heart dropped as she thought of her former mentor. It caused a domino effect in her mind. She began to think about all the ponies Rainbow Dash and she had left behind when they had teleported. Would they have any idea what had happened? Princess Celestia might, but that didn’t mean she would know how to get Twilight and Rainbow Dash back to Equestria. She knew in her mind that everyone would be alright, but it killed her to think of how much her friends would worry. Especially Spike. She almost teared up when her mind came to him. She couldn't even imagine what must be going through his mind,

“And who is this Princess Celestia?” Lilith questioned.

“She’s one of the four alicorn princesses who rule over Equestria.” Mordecai perked his head up at this information. He turned to Twilight in disbelief.

“Alicorn? Wait, does that mean you’re a princess?” Mordecai asked. Lilith turned to him with her mouth open in surprise.

“Mordecai, how the hell do you know what an alicorn is?” she asked.

“Hey, I like to read about mythical flying creatures. Got a problem with that?”

“No, just surprised I guess.”

“Well, he’s right,” Twilight confirmed somewhat nervously. “I am a princess.” There was a small silence as everyone in the room contemplated what Twilight had said. She subtly sank into the ground in embarrassment.

“So we’re standing in the company of royalty then?” Brick asked. “I’ll be honest, that freaks me out a little bit.” Lilith ignored Bricks comment and continued her questioning.

“So how did you end up here?”

“Well, I tried casting a magic spell on it to try and find a magical connection, but I lost control of my magic and we ended up being teleported here,” Twilight explained.

“Magic huh?” Mordecai slurred. “So is that what that purple thing you do with your horn is?”

“Well, yes.” Twilight turned to Lilith. “Sorry if this seems a little forward, but doesn’t magic exist on this planet? I can sense it coming from you.” Lilith’s eyebrows raised in surprised. After a moment, she chuckled.

“I dunno if I’d call it magic. I prefer to use the term powers.”

“Why do you have these powers but the others don’t?” Twilight asked. "I can't sense any magic in any of the other humans I've come across."

“Because I’m a Siren.” She noticed the inquisitive gaze Twilight was giving her. “It’s… complicated. I dunno if we have time to get into that right now.” Twilight nodded. There were more important questions she had anyways. Before she could ask them however, Rainbow did it for her.

“So what about this vault key piece thing then? What’s the deal with it?” She cocked her head to the side and stared at the piece Lilith held.

“A vault key is an ancient Eridian artifact that opens up a vault,” the Siren explained simply.

“What’s in the vault though?” Twilight questioned. Lilith shrugged.

“Depends on who you ask. Most people will tell you it’s filled with treasure. Others, who have had first hand experience dealing with vaults like us, know better. Generally Vaults contain an ancient Eridian warrior who’s duty is to guard the vault from anyone who opens it.” Twilight cocked her head in confusion.

“Eridian warrior?” Lilith nodded.

“According to legends, the Eridians were an ancient race who were the first ones to inhabit and colonize Pandora. Before their race was wiped out, they left behind several vaults.” Lilith walked to the center of the room and fiddled with the screen on the table. A humming noise was heard and suddenly, a holographic image was portrayed above the table. It brought up a large map of some sort dotted with symbols that Twilight and Rainbow Dash knew well. That very same upside down V that Rainbow had drawn for Twilight. “Before we thought these vaults were native only to Pandora and its moon Elpis, but it seems that there are others out there in the galaxy. They left these vaults in the hands of their fiercest warriors to protect their contents.” Twilight stared at the map in front of her.

“What contents though?” she asked.

“We’re still a bit iffy on that,” Lilith explained. “The first vault that was opened contained an extremely valuable energy resource that is still being used to this day. The others... well they contained other various things such as knowledge or control of the warrior that guarded it. There are tons of other vaults still out there and there’s no telling what they could contain.” Twilight turned her gaze back to the vault key piece.

“You said this was only a piece of the key. Where are the others?” She scanned her gaze across the three humans. They shrugged in unison.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Lilith said, “but we have to get working on that as soon as possible. Whatever is in this vault cannot fall into the wrong hands.”

“Hang on,” Rainbow Dash spoke up. She stared uneasily at Lilith. “If this vault warrior is as strong as you say I don’t think it’s a good idea to actively try to open it.” Lilith shook her head.

“I wouldn’t expect either of you to understand. There’s still so much more you would need to know. I don’t think I would be able to tell you in just one day.” She walked over to the room adjacent which held a large vault. She opened it to put the artifact inside. “Besides, we’re Vault Hunters. It’s kind of our job to hunt vaults.” Twilight was about to question Lilith’s words, but as she walked into the other room with her, she caught sight of yet another piece similar to the one Twilight had. She gasped.

“I-is that another piece? You already have one of the pieces?” She was confused. First off, if they were holding one of the pieces of the key, why didn’t anyone say so? Second, why couldn’t she sense any magic coming off of this second artifact? Lilith turned her attention to Twilight and shook her head.

“This piece is inactive. It was already used recently, and it needs time to charge. A lot of time.” She closed the vault. “Besides, the piece we have doesn’t go with your piece. All keys are bound to a single vault. Besides, if our piece went together with yours, it’d hold the same exact charge.” All of this confused Twilight greatly. Though she got many answers from the group, she found herself left with even more questions. Twilight wanted to go on, but the fatigue from the day’s events had caught up to her. She yawned loudly. Catching the yawn, Rainbow soon followed suit. The pegasus must have been just as tired as Twilight was. Noticing the dwindling energy of the two mares, Mordecai motioned towards them

“It’s getting late. You two look tired as hell.” He began to make his way towards the stairs and beckoned the two ponies to follow. “Come with me. I’ll get you set up with a nice place to sleep. Well, as nice as we can offer anyways.”

"But I still have tons of questions!" Twilight protested.

"Don't worry," Lilith said. "We'll have plenty of time to answer your questions tomorrow, I'm sure."

They followed Mordecai outside in silence, their minds still reeling from the information they had been given. They passed by the large structure in the center and walked through one of the alleyways next to a news stand. Twilight consciously avoided the curious gaze of the citizens. They came up to a door of one of the buildings in the alleyway. Mordecai opened it and motioned the two ponies to go inside.

“Sorry it’s kinda small,” Mordecai said sheepishly. “There aren’t really any other buildings available for you to crash in. We’re pretty close to max capacity in this city.” Twilight and Rainbow entered the small dingy room. “Get some sleep,” Mordecai continued. “We’re gonna have a big day tomorrow.” Twilight didn’t like the sound of that. Mordecai closed the door and left the two ponies alone. The room was dimly lit by a single lamp on a desk. A crude office chair sat beside the desk. Twilight gasp as she realized something important.

There was only one bed.

She looked over at Rainbow Dash, who seemed to notice the same exact thing. It wasn't a very big bed, though Twilight thought it might be possible for both of the ponies to fit. However, it'd be a tight squeeze. It also probably wouldn’t be comfortable unless they cuddled up close to each other. Twilight blushed as she forced that thought out of her head as quickly as it came.

On the one hoof, the bed looked so damn inviting and comfortable, despite it’s extremely worn appearance.

On the other, Rainbow probably could use the bed more due to her injury.

“Um, I don’t… I mean with your injury and…” Twilight awkwardly stammered. Embarrassed, she was at a loss of what to say. Rainbow didn’t give her a chance to continue as she lay down on the dirty carpet in the corner of the room.

“You can have it.”

Twilight opened her mouth to argue, but ended to staying quiet. Rainbow was a stubborn pegasus when she wanted to be. Twilight knew this would be one of those times. She watched as Rainbow shifted positions in attempts to get comfortable. Twilight sighed and situated herself in the bed. Before nodding off to sleep, she felt the need to talk.

“Rainbow?”

“Yeah?” Rainbow looked up from her position and met Twilight’s sad gaze.

“I, um,” Twilight paused. She was having difficulty finding the right words to say. Or maybe she was just having trouble thinking of anything to say at all. “What are you thinking?” she finally asked. She cringed internally at the stupid question.

“Nothing. I kinda just wanna sleep. Maybe I’ll wake up in my cloud home and this will all just be a nightmare.” Rainbow turned her back to Twilight. “Goodnight, Twi.”

Twilight lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling. She was far too tired to get a full grasp on everything that had happened. Perhaps sleep was a good idea. She could hopefully figure everything out tomorrow when she was better rested.

“Goodnight, Dash.”

Author's Notes:

Well, I sure took a hell of a long time to get this chapter out didn't I?

Hit a small bout of writers block with this one. Decided to take a couple days off from writing to replay some parts of the Borderlands series. I wanna make sure I've got the games' stories memorized well before venturing too far into the world of Pandora. I'm likely gonna play around with the lore in the next few chapters, but I wanna make sure what I have planned meshes well with the world the games have built for us. Plus, I want to make sure any references to the story of Borderlands are as accurate as possible! So, a few days of playing Borderlands, add in time spent at my job, multiply by how much I procrastinate and you've got a general idea of why this chapter took so long. It was actually written in the span of about 3-4 days. I'm still not satisfied with it, as I had to condense some stuff to keep it from being too long (over 8k with this one! That's almost double the last chapter! Kinda ridiculous really).

Sorry it's so dialogue and exposition heavy. Things will get more exciting in the next chapter, I promise! Hopefully the grammar and writing style is okay with this chapter. As of posting this, it's 6am and I've been grinding through this chapter, re-reading it several times making changes here and there. I should probably wait until after I sleep to post this so I can read over it again with a fresh mind, but I desperately wanted to get this chapter posted. Hopefully nothing is too screwy with the writing.

I'll also do my best to keep you guys from waiting this long for a chapter again. No promises, but hey. I'm not perfect.

Anyways, comment, rate, blah blah blah. See you next chapter!

Chapter 7

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Chapter 7

Twilight’s eyes shot wide open as a loud knocking from the front door woke her up. She sat straight up in her bed, momentarily confused as to where she was. It didn’t take long for her memories from the previous day to catch up with her mind. Her heart dropped when she realized that it had not been a dream. Out of habit, she looked around for a clock. How long had they slept anyways? She was still exhausted from the events of the previous day and was slightly irritated at the sudden awakening. Before she got up, she would have liked to at least check what time it was. Unfortunately, no clock was found. The absence of windows in the small building she and Rainbow had slept in made it impossible to judge the time by the position of the sun. Though, the more Twilight thought about it, the more she realized that probably wouldn’t have helped her anyway. Considering she was on a foreign planet, it wouldn’t be wise to assume the rotation of the sun followed the same schedule the princesses did. Especially considering the moon and the sun were both in the sky yesterday. Maybe it was something she could ask those humans.

Another loud knocking came from the door. Rainbow, who had been sleeping in a corner of the room, angrily threw the blanket she was wrapped in off of herself and grunted. She sat up from her position and stared furiously at the door.

“Ugh, come on!” she whined. “Can’t a mare get some sleep around here?” Twilight didn’t respond to the angry pegasus. Instead, she got out of bed and headed towards the door as Rainbow slowly got herself on her hooves to follow. Twilight opened the door and was greeted with the sight of a slightly drunk looking Mordecai. He flashed the two tired ponies a small smile and waved.

“Hey you two,” he slurred slightly. “Sleep okay?” Rainbow looked up with angry eyes at the man.

“I might have if you had given me a couple more hours,” she spat as she pointed an accusing hoof at him. “What’s the big idea waking us up anyways?” Twilight looked cautiously at the angry mare. She knew Rainbow wasn’t a morning pony. However, Twilight really didn’t want to start the day off with a fight. She bit her tongue for the moment and hoped that Rainbow would calm down as the day wore on. Mordecai shrugged at the two ponies.

“Hey, sorry Rainbow,” he replied sincerely. “Wasn’t my idea. In fact, I was trying to convince everyone to let you two sleep more. I bet you need it.” Rainbow shakily opened her mouth to speak but closed it as the man’s last words seemed to hit her. She merely nodded in agreement. “Anyways,” he continued, “come with me. I got some stuff for you two.” He beckoned for them to follow. Twilight grabbed her saddlebags and quickly put them on before exiting the small house. Rainbow followed closely behind. It was at this point that Twilight realized that the sun was still out. As they turned the corner and walked up the stairs leading to the center of town, Twilight looked up at Mordecai.

“How long did we sleep anyways?” she asked. Mordecai shrugged.

“Dunno, maybe six or seven hours. I don’t really keep track of the time.” Twilight cocked her head in confusion.

“Huh? Then why is the sun still out?” she asked. He looked up in the sky towards the light of the sun. The sun itself could not be seen due to the buildings of the city blocking the view, though they had a perfect view of the large moon that orbited Pandora.

“Days and nights last pretty long out here,” Mordecai replied. “How long do they last on your planet?” Twilight paused in thought as they walked to the right around the large central structure that kept the city afloat. The three continued on towards the city’s headquarters, desperately trying to ignore the odd looks from the many citizens that were out and about.

“Well,” she quietly mumbled to herself. “Princess Celestia begins raising the sun about five-thirty in the morning. By eight o’clock at night, Princess Luna raises the moon as Celestia sets the sun.” Twilight looked back up at the curious looking Mordecai and spoke more clearly. “I’d say days last about fourteen hours. The remaining ten hours of the day consist of the night cycle.” Mordecai chuckled to himself and shook his head.

“So, you go by the twenty-four-hour structure then,” he said simply. Twilight nodded her head.

“Yes. What do the people on this planet do to know the time then?” Mordecai shrugged at that.

“Depends on the person really,” he replied. “Me? I don’t give a shit what time it is.” Twilight winced slightly at the foul word. “I sleep only when I’m tired. There are towns and bandit camps who try to run a twenty-four-hour time schedule, but it’s all so damn inconsistent. You could go to Overlook, and they’d tell you it’s two o’clock. But then you go to Opportunity, and the clocks say six. It’s all bullshit.” Twilight decided to ignore the foul language. She felt it wasn’t right to try to impose her world’s standards on a foreign one. She took a moment to look back at Rainbow Dash, who had been unusually quiet. A subtle agitated scowl plagued her face. It seemed she still had not recovered from being woken up. That or something else was bothering her. Twilight quickly looked away the moment Rainbow had met her gaze.

The three reached their destination and entered the building. Ignoring the disgusted scoff of Patricia Tannis, they headed upstairs towards the large vault. The two ponies stood behind Mordecai and watched him open the vault. He reached towards one of the lower shelves and took out a large cardboard box. Closing the door, he set the box down on one of the bottom bed bunks that sat on either side of the vault. Twilight and Rainbow Dash peered over at the box in curiosity. The first thing Mordecai pulled out looked like a strangely shaped saddlebag of some sort. It had two large pockets that seemed to be roughly stitched where they met the belt. The belt itself held many small pockets and loops. He motioned towards Rainbow Dash.

“This is for you,” he said. “It’s meant for humans, but I had a friend of mine in the city re-stitch the pockets. Should fit you okay.” Twilight grabbed the belt with her magic and strapped it to Rainbow Dash. The large pockets sat snugly on her flank, indicating that it did indeed fit well. Rainbow shot Twilight a grateful thanks, then looked over her new wear. She looked up at Mordecai and raised an eyebrow.

“Uh, thanks, I guess?” she said. “But what’s it for?” Mordecai pulled two more items from the box. To Twilight, they looked like some kind of strange radio device from the world beyond the mirror. The front held screens that took up half of the device. Below that were various knobs and switches. They each had a handle on top, as well as a strap to attach it to a belt. He held the objects out to them.

“These,” he said raising them up to the ponies, “are Echo Communication Devices. Echo Comm for short. They let us talk to each other using radio waves. As long as you’re tuned into our group’s frequency, you can always contact us using it.” As Twilight took the two devices with her magic, Mordecai pulled out two earpieces from the box. “Here. Hopefully these will fit okay.” He put the ear pieces onto the ponies and gently clipped it onto their ears. Thankfully, they seemed to stay snug. “Strap those Echo Comms on your belts. You can use the dials to tune into the group’s frequency. I’ll have Lilith give you the info later, though. You won’t need them right now anyways.” Twilight’s eyes rose at the mention of the woman as she followed Mordecai’s instructions.

“Speaking of, where is everybody anyways?” Twilight asked. “I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask Lilith.” Mordecai shook his head.

“Sorry Twilight,” he said remorsefully. “Everyone’s at Overlook right now. Things are getting kinda crazy over there since you two arrived. They wanted the extra men to help defend the city.”

“Defend the city?” Rainbow Dash spoke up. She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at Mordecai. “What’s happening?” Mordecai sighed.

“Well, that bandit camp you escaped from is pretty pissed that you two got away. They started making threats towards the town they’re situated above. Lilith thinks they’re gonna attack the town.” Mordecai shook his head. “Let’s worry about that later. I’ve got more stuff for you.” He continued to pull out more stuff from the box. One of the objects the two ponies received was what Mordecai called a shield. According to his explanation, it defended the wearer from taking any damage to their bodies while it still held a charge. Twilight was definitely happy at the prospect of being able to have a shield without using magic. Still, she understood that the charge went away after significant damage was taken and she still had to be careful. The two ponies attached the shields to their belts and immediately saw a translucent aura momentarily flash over their bodies, indicating the shields were working. Mordecai then gave each of the two ponies a stack of green paper bills.

“Here’s some cash for you. Five thousand each. Should be enough to let you live comfortably for a while.” Twilight looked down at the cash in her hoof. She gasped as she realized exactly what Mordecai had just said.

“F-five thousand?” she asked shakily. “I…I dunno if we can accept this much.” She ignored Rainbow’s grunts of disagreement. Mordecai waved Twilight’s worries off.

“Don’t worry, I can spare it. Besides, you two are gonna need it for food. And, uh, other stuff too.” Mordecai sounded very hesitant as he finished his statement. Twilight decided to save questions for later.

The next thing Mordecai pulled out was called a “heads-up-display.” This small circular device, Mordecai had explained to the ponies, would allow them to access many different types of information. Twilight smiled when she learned that it would also allow her to keep a personal log. Mordecai said the log was for marking off tasks that Vault Hunters would often receive, but Twilight doubted she would use it for that. Mordecai walked over to the two ponies and prepared to clip the devices to their belts. He gave them a sheepish smile.

“Fair warning, this might sting a tiny bit,” he said. Twilight’s eyes widened.

“What?” she yelped.

It was too late. Mordecai had already clipped both of the strange circular devices onto the two ponies’ belts simultaneously. As the metal clip made contact with her body, Twilight felt a small electric shock shoot through her and she jumped along with Rainbow Dash. The pain left as quickly as it came. Immediately, Twilight saw what she could only describe as a strange digital loading menu appearing in her vision.

BOOT SEQUENCE INITIALIZED

INITIALIZING HEALTH DISPLAY MODULE

INITIALIZING SHIELD DISPLAY MODULE

INITIALIZING DIGITAL MAP DISPLAY MODULE

The menu disappeared. At the bottom left of her vision, Twilight could see two digital bars. One blue, one red. The top right of her vision held what she assumed was the digital map that the boot sequence had mentioned.

“Wha…w-what is this?” Rainbow Dash asked desperately. Her hooves visibly shook as she backed away. Twilight was also a bit frightened at what she was seeing, but she kept calm. She recognized that the technology was just part of this world. Mordecai turned to Rainbow and tried to calm her down.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he waved his hands at her. “It’s just your heads-up display. The blue bar is your shield’s capacity and the red bar is your vital signs.” Twilight felt a strange chill ripple down her at the prospect of needing to know your vitals at all times. “If you don’t feel comfortable seeing the display all the time, you can turn it off by…”

He continued to explain to them how to use the devices. Within less than an hour, the two ponies were able to pull up maps of the area as well as their personal logs. After Mordecai felt they were comfortable enough with their new equipment, he turned to the vault once more.

“One more thing,” he said somewhat sullenly. The two ponies looked over at him in curiosity as he opened the vault once again. He shifted through some of the many items inside, apparently looking for something specific. Twilight tried to peer past Mordecai to see what he was grabbing, but his hunched over body had unfortunately blocked her view. When he found whatever it was, he stood back up and closed the vault door. He slumped his shoulders as he let out a heavy sigh. He turned around to face the two confused ponies. The goggles on his face blocked his eyes, but Twilight could still see the frown on his face. Mordecai brought out his hand from behind him and held it out to Twilight. She backed away slightly in fear of the object sitting loosely in his open palm.

It was a gun. A pistol, if Twilight remembered her studies correctly.

“Here,” Mordecai said simply to her.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash stared at the gun in his hands in a mixture of confusion and fear. The pistol had a silver barrel, with a stock that almost looked like it was made with a golden-stained wood. Twilight stared directly at the barrel. She didn’t like what was being implied.

“Uh…I…W-what is…” Twilight stammered her words. She didn’t even know what to think. A hard painful lump formed in her throat. Rainbow Dash stayed silent, though her wide eyes and slight hyperventilation gave her fearful emotions away.

“This,” Mordecai said as he firmly grasped the gun in his hand, “is a Jakobs Iron. It’s a very powerful revolver with a ton of stopping power and pin-point accuracy. This model can shoot twelve shots before it needs to be reloaded, which gives a lot of room for error. Shame it doesn’t have a scope, though.” He rapidly twirled the gun around his finger and caught it with the barrel facing up. “It’s also pretty easy to use. Great for beginners.”

“No.”

Twilight blinked. She realized that she was not the one who had spoken. She turned to Rainbow Dash, who had a vicious scowl on her face. Her eyebrows dug into her as she narrowed her eyes. She stepped out in front of Twilight as if to protect her from some sort of danger.

“No?” Mordecai asked, cocking his head. Rainbow threw a hoof out towards Mordecai.

“No. Absolutely not. There is no way we’re using those… those things.” Rainbow’s voice cracked as she finished her statement. Twilight meekly looked at Mordecai and nodded her head.

“I… I agree,” she said shakily. “Guns don’t even exist where we come from. After being on the receiving end of gunfire for the first time in my life, I could never bring myself to use one. I don’t see why we’d need to anyways. We aren’t looking to put ourselves in danger.” Mordecai let out a humorless chuckle.

“Not many people on Pandora are,” he said. “That don’t mean they’re never in danger.” He let out a sigh and put his free hand to his face. “Look, I get it. I mean, I can’t imagine what you two must be going through right now experiencing this world for the first time.” He lowered his hand and held the weapon out to Twilight once more. “Unfortunately, there really isn’t much time for you to adjust. If you’re gonna to survive on this planet, you’re gonna have to learn to play by its rules. And rule number one is always carrying a gun on you at all times.” Rainbow snarled back at Mordecai.

“You can’t just expect us to commit horrible violence!” She ruffled her wings in frustration. “And why are you giving it to her? You’re gonna force a royal princess to shoot a gun?” Mordecai frowned at the pegasus.

“I’m not expecting or forcing her to do anything, other than learning how to protect herself,” he said with a slight edge in his tone. “And the reason why I’m giving it to Twilight is because I thought she’d be able to operate it with her magic. I dunno if you’ve noticed Rainbow, but nothing on this planet is built to be used by ponies. How do you expect yourself to shoot a gun if you don’t even have fingers to pull the trigger with? Hell, how would you even be able to aim? You’d have to stand on your hind legs just to be able to hold the weapon!” Rainbow didn’t have a reply. She merely stared angrily back at Mordecai. After a short staring contest between the two, Mordecai broke eye contact and turned to Twilight who had been contemplating Mordecai’s words.

“I…I don’t know about this,” Twilight said shakily. “I mean, I have no idea how to use a gun. What am I supposed to do with it?” She let out a shaky breath and stared at the ground. “E-even if I knew… I mean, I could never shoot…” She trailed off as tears began to form in her eyes. Mordecai finally put his hand down and placed the pistol in one of his free holsters before letting out a loud sigh. He stared off to the side of the two ponies.

“Twilight, believe me. The last thing I want you to do is to shoot someone. I’m not saying you have to shoot anybody. In fact, I’m not even saying you have to use this pistol in combat at all.” His gaze met Twilight’s distraught eyes. “But knowing how to use a weapon is the difference between life and death out here in this wasteland of a planet. And I’m going to teach you how to use that pistol.” Twilight broke the man’s gaze as she thought about what he said. Twilight didn’t know anything about this planet other than what she had learned in less than a day of being here. She did have first-hoof experience of how dangerous it could be, however, she had a feeling that it could only get worse. The thought of even holding the weapon in her magic frightened her. She didn’t want to imagine actually using it.

“What about my magic?” Twilight asked desperately. “Can’t I use my magic to defend myself?” Mordecai shook his head.

“All the magic in the world ain’t gonna do shit if you got a bullet in your brain.” Twilight winced once more at the harsh and blunt language. “I admit I don’t know much about your magic stuff, but if it’s anything like how Lilith’s is, I’m sure using too much magic in too little time can tire you out. If you want to use magic as your primary means for defense, that’s fine. You still need a backup plan if your magic doesn’t end up working out so good.”

Unfortunately, Mordecai had a very valid point. Twilight knew exactly how draining magic could be. She still felt exhausted from the ordeal she had been through. Magic was certainly taxing on the mind and Mordecai was correct in assuming that using a large amount of it could drain any pony’s energy quite rapidly. Twilight considered her options, though she knew she really only had one option in the end. Besides, like Mordecai said, she didn’t have to use the gun if she didn’t need to. She just needed to know how to use it.

“Okay,” Twilight finally said. “I understand.” Rainbow Dash shot her head towards Twilight so fast the alicorn almost thought she heard a snap.

“You’re joking!” Rainbow shouted.

“He’s right,” Twilight asserted, turning to face her friend. “If my magic can’t defend us in a situation, we need to have a backup solution.” Rainbow shook her head violently. Her pleading eyes met Twilight’s. She brought her front hooves together and begged Twilight.

“Twilight, no way. Please reconsider. Please.” Rainbow almost looked to be on the verge of tears. Twilight wanted to think she understood why her friend was acting like this, but honestly, this was a bit too much of an overreaction to be merely an aversion to using guns. She opened her mouth to speak but only let out small short breaths. Rainbow’s behavior had been very strange ever since they had teleported. Still, she figured the unwanted change of scenery and setting had really messed with the pegasus’s mind. She shook her head.

“It’ll be okay Rainbow,” Twilight said softly. “I’m not going to use the gun on anyone. I’m just going to learn how to use it.” Rainbow let out an angry huff but did not say anything more. Twilight looked away, unable to meet her furious eyes anymore. She turned back to Mordecai who had started walking out of the room.

“Come on, follow me,” Mordecai beckoned them.

They exited the building and turned left, heading further into the city. Twilight’s steps were small and shaky. Her heart pounded at the prospect of using the weapon, but she had already made her choice. She was already beginning to regret it as she stared at the pistol that sat in Mordecai’s holster. They all once again ignored the strange looks from the citizens. Twilight was beginning to get used to them. She turned to Rainbow Dash, noticing the agitated expression she had been wearing ever since she woke up. Twilight sighed at the sight. Hopefully, she could figure out a way to cheer the angry pegasus up.

They followed the road towards a building with a large sign above it. The sign had a picture of a funny looking smiling man with the word “GUNS” emblazoned underneath. Mordecai entered first and began walking down the stairs with the two ponies following behind. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they were greeted with a booming voice with a slight Russian accent to it.

“Mordecai! So good to see you once again! Here to finally replace that rusty old sniper of yours, da?” Twilight looked up at the source of the voice. Behind jail-like metal bars sat a heavyset man with short hair and a burly goatee. His arms were held out open as if to welcome them. He didn’t seem to catch sight of the two ponies yet. Mordecai scoffed at the man.

“Hell no,” he said waving his hand at the man on the other side of the cell. “Definitely not with one of your crappy guns Marcus. Call me when you start stocking something that isn’t made of plastic.” Mordecai brought his palms up in defense.

“Hey now, there’s no need to be like that. Maybe you should check out my item of the…” He was cut off by Mordecai.

“No thanks. Last ‘item of the day’ you offered was a fuckin’ rubberized Bouncing Bettie. What makes you think anyone would buy that crap?” Marcus sighed and finally took notice of the two ponies following behind Mordecai.

“What’s with the freaks?” he asked. Rainbow made a rude gesture with her hoof at the large man.

“Screw you!” Rainbow lashed out. Marcus raised an eyebrow. Twilight wanted to ask Rainbow to calm down, however, the anger she felt from Marcus’s insult kept her mouth shut. Mordecai shook his head.

“Look, we didn’t come to start a fight with you,” Mordecai said. “We just want to use your shooting range.” Marcus pounded a fist on the counter in front of him.

“Bah! I really should start charging you Vault Hunters to use it. Those bodies aren’t easy to come by, you know.” Twilight and Rainbow Dash exchanged glances and simultaneously mouthed “bodies?” to each other. Mordecai leaned in closely and dropped his voice, though not quite enough that Twilight couldn’t hear him.

“Just give us paper targets.” Mordecai looked back down at the two ponies and met their worried expressions. He nodded to them and turned back to Marcus. “And ix-nay on the odies-bay," he whispered. Twilight didn’t want to ask exactly what they were talking about.

“Eh, whatever,” Marcus said as he shook his head. “Help yourselves.” Mordecai broke off from the man and walked over to the vending machine that sat against the wall to the left. Twilight looked at the vending machine. It bore the words “AMMO DUMP” and had a cartoonish picture of a bullet casing with legs juggling grenades. Twilight expressed her disgust at the tasteless imagery. Mordecai ignored her and pulled out a few paper bills out of his pockets. After inserting a few into the machine, Mordecai pressed some buttons and received a few boxes of ammo clips. He opened the box and clipped a few pistol magazines onto the strap Twilight’s saddlebags. He put the rest into one of her pockets.

“Alright, you’re stocked up on ammo. Follow me.” The two ponies took tentative steps towards Mordecai as he walked through the doorway of the shooting gallery. It had four lanes where anyone could practice their sharp shooting skills. The lanes seemed to last forever as the light in the room gradually faded further down the lanes. Twilight’s ears perked at the sound of machinery grinding. Moments later, a metal panel came forward from the darkness of one of the shooting lanes. It held a piece of paper with an outline of a human head and torso. Twilight shivered as she looked at it and couldn’t help but imagine a real human in place of the target. It stopped roughly one hundred feet from the standing area of the range. Mordecai walked up to the lane that held the target and detached the holster holding the pistol from his belt. He turned to Twilight and waited expectantly. Twilight turned to meet Rainbow’s upset gaze for a brief moment. Rainbow said nothing and turned away from her to sit against the wall.

“Hey,” Twilight said softly to her friend. “If you don’t want to be here for this, you can go back to our, um, house and go back to sleep.” She looked up at Mordecai. “Right?” Mordecai nodded.

“We can come find you when we’re done,” Mordecai said. Rainbow shook her head defiantly.

“No. I’m not leaving Twilight here alone.” Twilight cocked her head.

“Rainbow, I’ll be fine. I promise.” Rainbow merely shook her head once more. Twilight sighed. It was then that Twilight realized that Rainbow had been extremely protective of her ever since they arrived on Pandora. It wasn’t entirely unexpected. After all, Rainbow had been the Element of Loyalty and Twilight was a princess. It shouldn’t surprise her that Rainbow would go out of her way to keep Twilight away from harm. However, Twilight trusted Mordecai. He seemed to be the friendliest human they had met so far. And yet, Rainbow refused to leave her alone with him. Maybe Rainbow just didn’t trust him yet.

“Okay Rainbow,” Twilight said sadly. She turned to Mordecai who had attached the gun’s holster to the strap of her saddlebags. He pulled out the gun and held it up to her, pointing out a small latch on the back of the gun.

“This is the safety," he told Twilight. "Keep it on for now and don’t take it off until I say so. Here.” Twilight cautiously grabbed the gun with her magic. “Normally,” he continued, “I would tell you to always keep your finger off the trigger unless you intend to pull it, but I dunno how that applies to your magic... stuff.” He gestured his hands towards the purple aura that surrounded the gun. Twilight adjusted her magical grip and held the gun steady, keeping her aura away from the trigger. Mordecai pulled out another pistol from his backpack. “Before we even get into shooting, you need to know how to hold a gun.”

Mordecai went on with his lecture for a little while. He taught Twilight how to aim down the iron sights as well as how to reload the gun. Thanks to her studious nature, Twilight already knew a few things about the weapon. This made it easier for Mordecai to teach her the more subtle natures of holding and aiming a gun. After enough time had passed, Mordecai nodded in satisfaction. He walked over towards the door that led to where Marcus sat and called out.

“Hey, Marcus! Can we borrow some earmuffs?” The door opened and revealed the confused heavyset man.

“What, are you joking? Since when did you ever need earmuffs?” Mordecai frowned and motioned his hands towards the two ponies. “Ah, right.” He went back into his store and grabbed the items that were requested. He handed Mordecai three pairs of strange looking earmuffs. They were far bigger than the ones Twilight was used to and they seemed to be made out of hard plastic. Mordecai put one pair over his ears before handing one to Twilight. Rainbow looked over in curiosity.

“What are those for anyways?” she asked as Mordecai walked over. Rainbow took the last pair of earmuffs and put them on snugly over her ears.

“To protect your ears obviously. Guns are loud, amiga.” He turned back to Twilight who had been sitting in front of one of the lanes. Her pistol was grasped firmly in the tendrils of magic. Mordecai stood next to her and looked down at her. “Okay, we’re gonna try shooting the gun now. Here, I’ll go first so you can get a good look at how it’s done.”

Mordecai steadied his stance and brought his pistol up. He used his other arm to steady his aim. He took in a deep breath and flicked the safety off. After a few moments of steadying his aim, he pulled the trigger. Both Twilight and Rainbow Dash jumped at the explosion of noise that came from the gun. Even with the protective earmuffs, it was extremely loud. It wasn’t the first time they had heard gunfire, but considering the circumstances Twilight felt her resolve almost break at the noise. As the gunshot still rang in her ears, she shook in her hooves. She looked at the pistol she had been holding. She was supposed to fire this thing? Looking over at the target Mordecai had been aiming at, she saw a bullet hole in the dead center of the silhouette’s head. Chills ran down her spine.

“Alright, your turn,” Mordecai said suddenly. He relaxed his stance and backed away from Twilight. “Take the safety off.”

With a small gulp, Twilight flicked the latch on the back of the gun. This small action made her doubly aware of the dangerous power the weapon held. Now that the safety was off, there was nothing stopping Twilight from pulling the trigger. Well, nothing but her nerves. She took in a deep shaky breath and raised the gun with her magic. She tried to brace herself with a firm stance, however, the uncontrollable shaking in her hooves had not subsided. The gun’s barrel twitched slightly as Twilight somewhat clumsily adjusted her aim. She was just about to pull a tendril of magic around the trigger when Mordecai gently put a hand on her back to stop her.

“Hold the gun further from your face,” Mordecai told Twilight. "You don’t wanna get hit by the recoil.” She did as she was told. “And you gotta relax more,” he continued. “I know you’re jittery, but do your best to keep calm. Focus.”

A bulb went off in Twilight's head as she recalled Cadence’s old stress relieving technique. She took in a deep breath and brought a hoof to her chest. She threw he hoof out forward and exhaled before bringing it back into her chest. Repeating this technique several times had always helped calm her down in the past. While she had never come across circumstances this grave before, it seemed that Cadence’s tried and true method still worked. She ignored Mordecai’s strange looks directed at her as she felt the shakiness in her hooves subside a little. After a few moments, she breathed in deeply once more and re-stabilized her stance. Twilight could almost sense Rainbow Dash tensing behind her. She took aim once more, this time a little more confident, though no less scared. A small aura of magic looped around the trigger. Eyes narrowed, Twilight took the shot.

She nearly dropped the weapon in shock of both the noise and the recoil of the gun. Rainbow Dash behind her had yelped loudly. The quick breathing of Twilight was the only thing that was heard immediately after the gunshot. Twilight’s adrenaline had shifted into overdrive. Her eyes looked up at the target. A second bullet hole could be seen just below the target’s neck. She almost smiled at the prospect that she had even hit the target at all. Realizing the implications of the situations she was training for, however, kept her smile in check. Mordecai suddenly started clapping.

“Alright, Twilight! Not bad at all!” Twilight looked up at him and caught his wide smile. “Seriously, the fact that you hit the target on your first try is impressive!” Twilight chuckled lightly and forced a smile.

“Y-yeah… thanks.” She looked back at Rainbow who met her eyes with a somewhat neutral expression. No forced smile, though Twilight didn’t see any indication if the mare was upset. That one was probably a given, though. The pegasus had been upset since they teleported and as time went on she only seemed to be getting worse.

“Yeah, good job Twi,” Rainbow said with strained enthusiasm. Twilight frowned and turned back to Mordecai.

“Well, let’s keep going,” he said. Twilight nodded and took her stance once more.

---

After about a half hour of Twilight practicing in the shooting range, Rainbow Dash had grown far past agitated. Seeing Twilight shoot that wretched weapon over and over again really struck a nerve with every shot she took. Since the only experience she had with guns was being on the receiving end, she never wanted to see another one ever again. That, of course, was nothing more than wishful thinking. If Equestria was run by magic, then Pandora must be run by guns. Rainbow looked up at Twilight as she took another shot with her pistol. The pegasus winced yet again at the loud bang that echoed in the room. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. She absolutely despised the idea of Twilight using a gun. She certainly didn’t want to watch her do that very same thing. As dead set on staying by Twilight’s side at all times as she was, the prospect of leaving became more and more appealing as time dragged on one gunshot at a time.

“Awesome, you made good progress Twilight,” Mordecai suddenly said. “I think it’s time you get used to using other types of guns.” Rainbow shot up on her hooves.

“Hold on, you’re gonna give her even more guns?!” she yelled. Mordecai shook his head and tried to calm the mare down.

“No, I’m just gonna show her a few other guns you two might come across. It’s best if you know the basics of how to use everything, Twilight.” He turned to Twilight and rummaged around in his backpack. Rainbow threw her hooves up in frustration.

“Ugh! You keep acting like we need to protect ourselves,” she said angrily. “I mean, I get Pandora’s dangerous and everything, but isn’t that what this city is for? To keep everyone out of danger? I don’t get why Twilight needs to learn how to use a gun. It’s not like we’re gonna leave the city looking for something to try and kill us!” Mordecai sighed and turned towards the angry Rainbow Dash.

“Well, to be honest with you, we kinda figured you two help us find the other pieces of the vault key,” he told her.

“Seriously?” Rainbow spat. She cocked her head and her brow went up. “That stupid thing is what brought us here! What the hell makes you think we want anything to do with it?” Twilight turned towards Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow, Princess Celestia assigned me to…”

“I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHAT PRINCESS CELESTIA SAID!” Rainbow Dash’s loud yell cut Twilight off. Twilight’s jaw dropped wide open. Mordecai subtly backed away. Rainbow’s breathing had increased significantly. She looked at Twilight, then at Mordecai. The tension in the room could have been enough to blow up the city. “I j-just want to go home,” Rainbow’s voice cracked. She broke her gaze and stared down at the floor.

“Rainbow,” Twilight said softly, taking a few tentative steps towards the pegasus. “Believe me, if I knew a way to get home, we would be there already. But I don’t. And right now, I’m willing to try everything.” She stood next to Rainbow and put a comforting hoof on her shoulder. “That piece is what brought us here. What if it’s the key to getting us home?” Rainbow thought about that for a moment. It seemed to make some sense, but at the same time, the risk far outweighed the very uncertain reward. If she was assuming correctly, attempting to find the missing pieces of the key would surely put both ponies in great danger. Most importantly, it would put Twilight in danger. Rainbow didn’t like it. Unfortunately, even if the alicorn’s fearful expression told Rainbow that she too did not want any part of this, it was clear that Twilight had made up her mind. Rainbow sighed, shook Twilight’s hoof off of her, and headed towards the door.

“Whatever,” she said, defeated. “Do whatever you two want. I’ll see you back at the house, Twi.” Ignoring the pleas from Twilight to reconsider, Rainbow stomped out of the shooting range. She passed by Marcus and headed for the stairs.

“Having problems, I take it?” Marcus asked from behind the bars. Rainbow turned and glared at the man. He had what Rainbow would call a shit-eating grin on his chubby face. His gold tooth seemed to twinkle in the light. It only made Rainbow angrier.

“Fuck you, pal,” she spat. Marcus just belted out a hearty laugh.

“Sorry for laughing,” he said as he snickered. “I just didn’t expect to hear such… ah… colorful language from you.” The man snickered once more. Rainbow turned away and began walking up the stairs.

“Whatever.”

“You should listen to Mordecai,” Rainbow heard Marcus call out to her. “You know, without a gun on this planet, you’re nothing but skag food.” Rainbow ignored the man and headed outside. The daylight seemed to be slowly fading away as the sky had turned slightly dim. The many buildings of the city blocked Rainbow from checking the position of the sun. Deciding to explore the city a little, she took a left turn and walked down the street. The baffled looks from the citizens Rainbow had gotten so used to seemed to die down, though only slightly. Those who didn’t stare at her simply ignored her. Her eyes narrowed every time she passed one of the armored guards she had been flanked by the day before. None of them paid her any mind, merely looking away whenever Rainbow had caught their gaze. However, her attention mostly kept to the guns they carried and she huffed in disgust every time she saw one.

As she continued down the street, she came across a building with a large pink and red neon sign. A small animation of a leg kicking up and down sat above the sign that spelled “MOXXI’S.” Rainbow assumed it to be a restaurant of some sort. That thought suddenly made her stomach very aware of how empty it was. The idea of food was something that enticed her very much. She entered the building.

Inside was indeed a restaurant, complete with a bar top in the front. Loud electronic music blasted throughout the interior. The décor of the place reminded her a bit of those lavish bars that could be found in Las Pegasus. The placed seemed to be busy, though not overly crowded. Neon lights and signs were plastered all over the place, some in the shape of stars. The walls above were adorned with short red curtains attached to the ceiling. Perhaps the strangest decorations were the traffic lights that sat on posts by the bar. Rainbow took a look around, trying to find a place to sit. Most of the booths seemed to be occupied. Not really wanting to sit near anybody at that moment, she opted to sit in one of the chairs at the surprisingly empty bar top. With no bartender in sight, Rainbow suddenly felt very aware of some of the stares she was receiving from the other patrons of the establishment. The conversations that were ringing throughout the building had also gone suspiciously quiet. She looked at them angrily.

“Well, what are you all looking at?” she spat out at them. Many of them gasped. “You got a problem or something? Can I not walk through this stupid city just once without everyone staring at me like I’m some kinda fucking walking disease or something?” Everyone who had been staring quickly shot their eyes elsewhere. The conversations picked back up and Rainbow turned away angrily. She was suddenly met with a woman standing behind the bar.

“So, I’m guessing you’re one of the new arrivals?” The woman talked in a sultry, almost seductive tone. Her crazy choice of outfit played off the almost sexual nature of the woman. She wore a loud purple top with black and white striped sleeves and collar. The outfit covered almost everything except her rather large cleavage. The massive amounts of makeup she wore almost made her look like some sort of twisted clown with rosy cheeks. Atop her head sat a purple top hat which matched her outfit perfectly. Rainbow cocked her head at the display for a moment before answering.

“Yeeeaah,” she said unsurely. The woman smiled and held out a hand.

“Sorry, let me introduce myself,” she said sensually. “The name’s Moxxi. I run this little tavern.” Rainbow hesitantly met Moxxi’s hand with her hoof and shook it.

“Nice to meet ya, Moxxi. I’m Rainbow Dash.” She paused for a moment as she waited for the laughing that surely would come from Moxxi. When it didn’t come, Rainbow continued. “Um, do you serve food here? I’m starving.” Moxxi nodded.

“You like pizza?” Rainbow’s expression finally morphed into some semblance of happiness. With a small grin, she nodded enthusiastically.

“Hell yes! Uh, no meats please,” she added.

“Anything to drink, sugar?” Rainbow felt slightly awkward at the nickname Moxxi had used, especially with that tone of voice. Rainbow thought for a moment.

“Do you have apple cider?” she asked hopefully.

“Only if you like it hard.” Moxxi giggled slightly at her own innuendo as Rainbow rolled her eyes. She thought about it for a moment before answering. She never was a big alcohol drinker. Being a lightweight does that. The only time she’d ever even have one drink was in a social setting. Drinking alone was something Rainbow had always vowed to avoid. Not only was it a depressing prospect, it was potentially unhealthy if it became a habit. For a moment, she considered just having water. Then again, she really could go for some good apple cider, even if it was alcoholic. And on top of that, maybe the alcohol would help take the edge off.

“Yeah, alright,” Rainbow said. Moxxi was quick to pull a bottle from a cooler behind the bar and poured it into a mug. She slid it over to Rainbow who immediately grasped it in her hooves and took a nice big sip. It didn’t hold a candle to Applejack’s secret hard cider stash, but it was certainly refreshing. The subtle twinge of alcohol was mostly overpowered by the taste of fresh (though, not as fresh as AJ’s) apples. She took the mug away from her lips and gulped down the remnants of her chugging. Letting out a deep breath in satisfaction, she gestured to Moxxi. “That’s some pretty good stuff, Moxxi.” Moxxi smiled at her.

“Thanks, sugar. I try to only stock the best.” She walked out of the bar area and towards a door nearby. “Wait here. I’ll go put your order in.” She opened the door and headed though which left Rainbow Dash alone at the bar. A few minutes passed by as she sipped at her cider. She was honestly surprised it tasted as good as it did. With how run down and crappy everything seemed to look on this planet, she didn’t expect them to have the luxury of great tasting drinks. Hopefully, the pizza would be just as good. Rainbow’s head perked up as Moxxi walked back through the door and into the bar. She turned her attention to Rainbow and leaned her arms on the bar counter in front of the mare.

“So, weren’t there two of you?” Moxxi asked. “Where’s your friend?” Rainbow broke her gaze and huffed angrily. She stared into her drink as she tried to calm her emotions.

“Shooting range,” she said sharply.

“And I’m guessing you’re not exactly happy about that?” Moxxi asked knowingly. Rainbow shook her head.

“The last thing I want Twilight to be around is a gun,” Rainbow stated. “And now they’re making her learn how to use one. All because they want to find those stupid vault key piece things.” She took another sip of her cider. Smacking her hoof on the bar counter, she angrily continued. “And the worst part is she’s actually going along with it.” Moxxi hummed to herself.

“You’re very protective of her, aren’t you?” she asked. Rainbow nodded.

“Well, yeah. She’s like, one of my best friends.” She paused for a moment. “She is my best friend.” Moxxi brought a hand to her chin in thought.

“Well, if Twilight is agreeing to it,” Moxxi said as she motioned her arm towards Rainbow, “why are you so upset?” Rainbow stopped for a moment to consider Moxxi’s question. As she did, certain memories flooded her mind. Memories of the vision, and more importantly of the dream. She shivered visibly and looked away from Moxxi.

“I… because…” Rainbow’s shaky voice trailed off. When her answer didn’t come, Moxxi continued.

“I hate to say it sugar, but the first thing you need to learn about Pandora is that no one lasts long without a gun to protect themselves. Even this city isn’t safe from violence.” She motioned towards the many patrons of her establishment. “Murders have happened here in the past, and unfortunately, they’re likely to happen again in the future. No matter what anyone tells you, nowhere on Pandora is safe.”

Rainbow Dash was speechless. Considering how friendly Moxxi had been up to this point, it was shocking to hear her be so blunt. The implications of her words came crashing down upon Rainbow. She had no reason to believe that anything Moxxi had said was false. In fact, she knew exactly how dangerous this planet really was. She hid her face in her hooves resting on the countertop as she felt her emotions begin to bubble up. She tightly closed her eyes to keep the tears from falling down her face. Unfortunately, she failed to withhold the gentle sobbing she began to display. With each cry, her entire body shook. She desperately tried to bottle it back up once more. Despite how awful everything had been, she still did not want to let a stranger see her cry. Moxxi put a comforting hand on Rainbow’s shoulder.

“Hey, come on,” she said softly. “What’s wrong?” Rainbow struggled to stop her cries. She directed her tear filled eyes at Moxxi.

“Have you ever had a dream… where someone very close to you died?” she asked through her sobs. Moxxi raised her eyebrows.

“That’s what this is about?” she asked. “A dream?” Rainbow desperately shook her head.

“It wasn’t just a dream,” she insisted. “It… it felt so real. It felt just like the vision I had when I touched that vault key back in Equestria.” Moxxi cocked her head.

“Vision?” Rainbow waved her off with her hoof. She took another sip of her mug, which was almost empty.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” she said. “I don’t even wanna think about it. All I’ve been able to think about since I got here is that dream. I keep hearing the screams over and over again. I can’t get rid of the sight of Twilight lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood. If we go along with finding the other pieces, all that’s going to do is put us in more situations where that dream could become reality.” Rainbow sighed shakily. Despite the horrifying nature of the dream, it actually felt good to finally talk to somebody about it. Moxxi shrugged and stared sadly at Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow, listen to me,” Moxxi said. “I’ve lived that dream. And I’m not even a Vault Hunter. I do my best to stay out of trouble. Hell, I’d bet most of the people on Pandora have lived it too. People die on this planet all the time.” Rainbow’s tears welled up again.

“I… shut up,” she spat angrily and shook her head. “That’s not helping. I can’t let Twilight die.”

“Which is exactly why she needs to learn how to use a gun,” Moxxi rebutted. “Honestly, if you could use magic too, you’d still be at that shooting range with her learning how to shoot. It’s one of the most important skills to learn here.” Suddenly, a ding was heard. Moxxi perked her head up and looked towards the door by the bar. “Your pizza’s ready. I’ll be right back.”

In a flash, Moxxi had gone through the door and retrieved Rainbow’s food. She set the pizza box in front of Rainbow and opened it.

“Here,” Moxxi said as she offered Rainbow some napkins and paper plates.

“Thanks.” Rainbow wasted no time and dug right into the cheesy pizza. Within seconds, the first slice was gone and Rainbow was already placing another onto her plate. She took the last sip of cider from her mug and exhaled happily, glad to finally have some food in her stomach. Moxxi looked at the display with some amusement.

“Listen sugar," she said to Rainbow. "You can’t think of your friend learning how to use a gun as a bad thing. The only thing it will do is help protect both her and you. Even if you don’t go along with the Vault Hunter crew to find the other pieces.” After a few moments, Rainbow slowly nodded her head.

“I know.”

“Do you want another cider?” Moxxi asked, motioning to Rainbow’s empty mug. Rainbow considered saying no. Two hard ciders probably weren’t enough to get her drunk, but it was best not to give into temptation. Still, it was damn good cider. And who could eat pizza without a drink of some sort? One more couldn’t hurt too much.

“Yeah, screw it. Hit me.” Moxxi pulled out another bottle of cider and poured the golden liquid into the mug. Rainbow thanked her and took a big sip from her mug before biting into her second slice of pizza.

“This pizza ain’t half bad, Mox,” Rainbow said happily. Moxxi laughed.

“You’re lucky I like ya sugar,” she said with a small wink. “Usually, no one would get away with calling me by pet names like that.”

“Heh, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, sug'.”

Rainbow continued to munch on her food, as well as drink her alcoholic beverage. The two new friends shared a few stories, though Rainbow was the one doing most of the talking. She explained to Moxxi a little bit about Equestria, such as the princesses as well as the different races of ponies. Moxxi had her own story to share as well. She told Rainbow Dash about what she called her Underdome. She seemed to spare a lot of the details though, which Rainbow was grateful for. From what Moxxi told her, it sounded absolutely barbaric and brutal. Still, Rainbow wasn’t gonna let that ruin her new friendship. She was beginning to realize that violence and death were just some things that were commonplace on Pandora. She still didn’t like it, but unfortunately, it didn’t matter what she liked or didn't like. What mattered was that she had to adapt to her new surroundings. It wasn’t going to be easy, but if Twilight could do it then so could she. Rainbow decided to apologize to Twilight as soon as she saw her.

Though, as she finished off the last of her cider and went for her fourth slice of pizza, she decided that her apology could wait just a little a bit longer. The alcohol had given her a nice buzz. It felt good. Really good, in fact. She actually felt happy for the first time since she arrived on Pandora with Twilight. Rainbow Dash stared at the empty mug for only a moment before looking back up at Moxxi.

“Hey Moxxi, how ‘bout another cider?”

Chapter 8

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Chapter 8

“I’m not so sure about this, ‘Tia.”

Celestia had been pacing outside the door to the Canterlot Castle’s main balcony. Her trusty coffee mug was grasped shakily in her magic. Blood-red veins stained her tired eyes. Her normally perfect flowing mane was disheveled. She had not slept since learning of Twilight and Rainbow Dash’s disappearance. Part of that was due to a lack of trying. There was far too much on her mind to be able to drift off to sleep. Instead, she spent the entire night at her desk trying to piece together what could have happened to the two missing ponies. It didn’t do her much good, unfortunately. Without more information, she was completely stuck. Celestia took another desperate sip of her bitter caffeinated drink. Luna looked over at her exhausted sister and spoke once more. “Do you really think this is a wise decision?”

Celestia halted her pacing and momentarily peered outside the glass door to the balcony. Below on the ground was a large group of ponies eagerly awaiting the appearance of their princesses. Celestia had sent out messenger ponies earlier that morning to gather ponies at Canterlot Castle. Celestia looked over at her sister.

“What would you have us do, Luna?” she asked. “Keep our citizens in the dark?” Luna closed her eyes and huffed.

“Causing a panic throughout Equestria would do us no good,” Luna replied.

“And neither would it do us good to lie to our subjects,” Celestia shot back. She turned once more to the balcony doors. “A princess of Equestria and former Element of Harmony has gone missing. If the citizens figure out what happened before we tell them, it would be far worse than if we told them outright what’s going on.”

“Have you told Cadance and Shining Armor?” Luna asked. Celestia nodded her head in response.

“I sent them a letter last night. I imagine they will need a few days to get their affairs in order before they arrive in Canterlot.”

Celestia walked up to the doors and her magic flicked to life. The magical aura pushed the doors open and she walked through the threshold leading to the balcony. Luna followed her closely behind. A large group of ponies stood at attention below. As the two princesses made their appearances known, cheers rang out from the crowd. Normally, this is the part where a princess would smile down upon her subjects. Unfortunately, Celestia could not bring herself to fake a smile today. With a flick of her horn, Celestia’s voice dramatically increased in volume. She walked to the edge of the balcony and looked down upon her subjects.

“Good afternoon, citizens of Canterlot,” her tired voice boomed out to the ponies below. “I thank you all for gathering here on such short notice.” The cheers and murmurs from the crowd subsided to allow their princess to speak. Celestia raised her head and puffed out her chest in faked confidence. She had gotten this far. It was too late to back out now. “If the many years of being in my position have taught me anything, it is this: trust is everything. After all, if you do not trust in somepony, how do you expect them to lead an entire nation? Most importantly, without the trust of others, friendship cannot blossom.” She paused for a few moments to let her words sink in before continuing. “Part of earning a pony’s trust comes from keeping them informed. And, that is what brings us here today.” Celestia glanced back at Luna momentarily who returned the princess of the sun’s worried gaze with a small nod. Celestia let out a weary sigh and prepared herself for the inevitable panic her next words would surely cause.

“Last night, shortly after the moon was raised, Princess Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, friend and hero of Equestria, went missing.” Gasps and shouts echoed from the crowd below her. Many of them awkwardly shifted their stances and looked around at each other in panic. The voices of the crowd grew louder and harder to distinguish. Celestia patiently waited for the crowd’s murmurs to die down. Perhaps rather predictably, they did not. Luna decided to cut in.

“Be silent!” she roared. Realizing how harsh she must have sounded, she raised a hoof to her mouth and shot an apologetic look towards the crowd. Harsh or not, Luna’s outburst worked. The crowd had gone silent as they stared up at the two princesses. Celestia nodded to her sister.

“Thank you, Luna,” she said softly. Turning back to the crowd, she continued her speech. “Needless to say we understand your concerns and we wish to address some questions you may have. However, in interest of keeping Equestria safe, please understand that we must withhold certain information.” Soft murmurs once again echoed throughout the crowd of ponies. “So far, all we know is Princess Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash have been teleported. Obviously, we do not know where they ended up. We are in the middle of organizing a search party to comb the land of Equestria. On top of that, we have sent letters to the nations bordering Equestria in hopes that we may find them. Do not despair, for even if we are unsuccessful in finding them, I have faith that Princess Twilight Sparkle will find a way to return home with Rainbow Dash. She is far more resourceful than even I, after all.”

“As for the immediate future, my sister and I request all ponies other than the former Elements of Harmony keep out of Castle Friendship in Ponyville. There will be guards posted outside the castle’s entrance to enforce this request. Secondly, until further notice, Canterlot Castle will be off limits as well. Princess Luna and I require some time to ourselves to plan our search without interruptions. Any and all questions or requests should be sent by letter. I cannot guarantee that we will reply to all of them. However, we will do our best.”

“That is all for now. I promise to keep the citizens of Equestria up to date as we uncover more information on this situation. May peace and harmony be with you all.” When Princess Celestia finished her speech, the crowd began to disperse noisily. Celestia turned back to her sister and nodded before walking through the balcony door. Luna followed closely behind.

As the two princesses headed back into the castle, they did not notice the knowing grin of a single pony in the crowd staring up at them.

---

The streets of Canterlot were busier than usual. Ponies zipped every which way. Many of them were caught up in conversation regarding the disappearance of Princess Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash. On many of the street corners, filles and colts waved newspapers in the air spouting the latest headline. It did not take long for the news to reach those who did not appear by the castle for Princess Celestia’s speech. Despite the princesses’ wish to keep panic to a minimum, it wasn’t a surprise that worry gripped the city.

One mare, however, was not worried. In fact, she was smiling.

The mare in question was an ash grey unicorn with a straightened violet mane that stopped at her shoulders. A thin line of dark blue hair created striped the side of her mane. Covering her body was a simple brown tunic, which blocked the view of whatever cutiemark she bore. Her narrowed grey eyes were trained on the path in front of her. The determined walk of the mysterious mare was mostly ignored by the panicked pedestrians around her. A select few ponies shot her confused looks as they noticed her strangely chipper demeanor, but the mare paid them no mind. She had far more important things on her mind to be worrying about what others thought of her. Besides, it’s not like she would have cared anyways. The only opinions that mattered to her were her own.

She trotted gracefully through the city towards her destination. After walking past multiple blocks of the city, the royal castle doors came into view. The entrance to the castle was flanked by two earth pony guards standing tall. Any other pony in the mysterious mare’s position may have frowned at the obstacle that lay before her. After all, there was no way she was going to be able to get past the two guards without causing a ruckus. However, she continued to smile, confident that it would be no trouble for her. Deciding to try the civil approach, she approached the door to the castle. The two guards crossed their spears over the entrance, blocking her.

“Halt!” the guard to her right commanded. “State your business!” The mysterious mare merely bowed to him, smiling.

“I seek audience with the Princesses of Equestria,” she said. Her tone was low and mature. The guard who spoke raised an eyebrow.

“Didn’t you hear the news?” he asked. “The princesses are not allowing anypony into the royal castle under any circumstances.” The mare brought a hoof to her mouth and giggled.

“Oh, I heard,” she told the guards. “I still wish to see them.” The guard to her left shook his head.

“Sorry ma’am, but I can’t let you in there,” he told her. “If you absolutely must speak to them, I’m afraid you’ll have to send a letter by mail.” The mysterious mare huffed in frustration, narrowing her eyes.

“That would take far too long. My time is precious and cannot be wasted.”

“The same could be said of the princesses, ma’am,” the guard to her right rebutted. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do. If you absolutely have to meet with the princesses, you’re going to have to wait until they allow the citizens back into the castle.” The frustrated mare paused in thought for a moment. It was clear that neither of these guards were going to budge. Maybe if she explained the nature of her visit, they would allow her to pass.

“Even if it’s urgent?” she asked desperately. “After all, it’s regarding the disappearance of those two ponies.”

“Any information regarding the recent disappearance of Princess Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash can be reported to the Royal Guard,” the guard droned. “If you like, I’d be happy to pass along your message to HQ.” The mare shook her head.

Looks like it’s time for plan B.

“No, I’m afraid that won’t do,” she said. “Pity. Well, perhaps I’ll come back another time then.” She turned away from the guards and began to canter back towards the city. Halfway down the stairs, she stopped short and turned back to the guards with a sinister grin plaguing her face. “Oh, but before I go, how would you two like to see a magic trick?” she called out to them. They both raised their eyebrows and shared a confused look.

“Uh, excuse me?” one of them said, perplexed at the sudden and strange proposition. The mare turned and pointed a hoof towards the buildings of the city.

“Watch closely!” she said excitedly. Her horn flared up in a dark purple aura. The aura grew continuously as the mare focused her magic. After a few moments, a small shockwave burst out from her horn.

The next thing that was heard was a large explosion, followed by the screams of ponies within the city.

Not far from where the mysterious mare stood, a small building had been destroyed in a large magical explosion of energy. Splintered wood from the building shot in all directions. The ponies around the area scrambled away from the explosion, some of them being literally thrown by the shockwave. Other ponies could be seen lying on the ground, struck by the debris of the demolished building. The screaming did not subside in the aftermath of the destruction. Ponies continued to scramble away, though some tearfully ran towards the destruction shouting desperately. In the spot where the building once stood was nothing more than a pile of rubble. The surrounding area was dotted with debris and the bodies of unconscious ponies.

The mysterious mare turned back to the two shell-shocked guards with a proud grin on her face. She waved a hoof in the air and took a bow.

“Ta-da!”

The moment after the ash grey unicorn finished her fanfare, she was violently tackled to the ground by one of the guards. The other guard quickly rushed to help his comrade restrain the violet-maned mare. She felt them latch a strange device to her horn. In an instant, she felt the magic within her horn fade away. As the guards wrestled her on the ground, she began laughing.

“So, did you like it?” she sneered. “Personally, I don’t think it’s my best work.”

“SHUT UP AND STAY DOWN!” the guard screamed. He latched another device around her neck. It was a metal collar of some sort with a few lines of chain attached. A few more guards had arrived, these ones being unicorns. They grasped the chains with their magic and pulled tight, ensuring their newly caught criminal would not be able to escape. One of the earth pony guards stood in front of her and stared at her in fury. “Take her to the dungeon immediately!” he commanded.

The mare smiled widely with narrowed eyes as the many guards led her into the castle.

---

The loud clacking of hooves on stone echoed out in the long spiral staircase as Princess Celestia made her way down to the castle dungeon. It had been almost an hour since she was informed of the terroristic attack made on Canterlot. Upon hearing about the explosion, she ordered the royal guard to do everything in their power to help citizens in need. She had been tempted to leave the castle to assess the situation herself, but the news of the perpetrator’s capture kept her from doing so. Priority number one was finding out what had happened, and why. Interrogating the suspect would hopefully give Celestia the answers she was looking for. Plus, she wanted to take a good long look at whoever had attacked her land and citizens.

Princess Luna was instead sent to oversee the rescue and cleanup operations in the city. The royal guard had not disclosed to either princess the overall extent of the damage. However, they did confirm that the explosion caused many injuries and likely a few casualties. Celestia suddenly shuddered at that thought as she reached the end of the staircase. At the foot of the stairs was a metal door blocked by a unicorn guard. He bowed under the presence of the princess. Celestia nodded at the man and spoke.

“I am here to speak with the prisoner,” she said.

“As you wish, your Highness.” The guard turned around and unlocked the door, granting Celestia access to a wide corridor filled with large metal doors. Each door led to a windowless cell with walls made of metal. It was not often that Celestia found herself down here. With the nation of Equestria being as peaceful as it was, she almost thought of the dungeons as completely useless. Well, until now. The guard stepped through the threshold and motioned Celestia to follow. “Right this way.”

They passed by a few of the doors, their gaze aimed at one door in particular that had two unicorn guards on either side. The guard that led Celestia gave them a nod as the other two stepped aside. As he unlocked the door, he turned to the princess.

“I shall escort you inside,” he said. Celestia shook her head.

“That will not be necessary. I wish to speak with her alone.” All three guards gulped and looked at each other.

“Are you sure?” one of them spoke up. “She’s proven herself to be very dangerous.” Princess Celestia raised an eyebrow and considered the guard’s statement.

“Have you properly restrained her?” she asked. The guards nodded. “Then I do not see the problem. Please allow me my privacy, but do keep the door unlocked.”

“As you wish,” one of them bowed. Celestia pulled the door open with her magic and stepped inside the dimly lit cell. Her eyes were met with the almost satisfied gaze of an ash grey unicorn mare with a violet mane and tail. She was chained to the floor by her metal collar which limited her movement greatly. A magic restraining device was tightly strapped to her horn. Out of curiosity, Celestia took a look behind the mare, but was disappointed to see a brown tunic blocking her cutiemark. The mare smiled, stood up and bowed towards Celestia.

“Greetings, your Highness,” she said mockingly. “It is an honor to meet you.” Celestia did not reply. She scrunched her face in thought. Something was off about this mare, but Celestia could not figure out what it was. Perhaps it was the strangely confident demeanor of the mysterious mare. Despite being locked away in the most secure cell in Equestria, the unicorn was smiling. “I was wondering when you would finally show up,” she said. Celestia narrowed her eyes.

“Have you a name?” the princess asked. The grey unicorn brought a hoof to her chest.

“You may call me Becca,” she replied.

What a strange name for a pony.

“Well then, Becca,” Celestia said bitterly. “I don’t suppose you wish to explain your actions?” Becca’s smile grew even wider.

“I needed to talk to you,” she said simply. “I figured getting thrown in a dungeon would be the easiest way.” Celestia balked at that. Was this mare absolutely insane?

“So, you attacked my citizens in order to get to me?” Celestia almost yelled at her. Internally, Celestia was absolutely furious. It was very probable that some ponies died in the attack. All because this crazy unicorn wanted to speak to her. Becca shook her head and motioned towards Celestia.

“I tried to be civil,” she explained. “But your guards were quite insistent on keeping me out of your castle. If anything, blame them.”

“Don’t you dare pass the blame of your actions onto my subjects,” Celestia hissed. “You have a lot to answer to.” Becca waved a dismissive hoof at Celestia.

“I suppose so,” Becca said as she shrugged. “Why don’t we have ourselves a little chat then, hmm?” Celestia felt her temper rise. How could this mare be so dismissive of what she had done? Regardless, she struggled to keep her temper in check. After all, a chat was exactly what Celestia had come down here for.

“Very well,” the princess relented. “What made you so desperate to speak with me that you felt the need to blow up part of the city?”

“I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have,” Becca said. “However, I have many questions of my own, and I do not wish to answer yours until you have answered mine.” Celestia closed her eyes in frustration.

“Fine,” she said, defeated. “Ask away.” Becca nodded happily and began pacing as much as her restraints would allow.

“A few days ago, a bordering nation came across a mysterious object. A magical artifact.” Celestia felt her heart drop sharply.

“H-how did you—“

“Ah ah,” Becca cut her off, shaking a hoof at the princess. “No interruptions please.” Celestia shut her mouth, feeling her temper rise even further. “As I was saying, in my travels, I have come to learn that your nation received this object. Is this correct?” Celestia could not believe her ears. She had thought that the information regarding the artifact had been kept confidential. Was there a leak somewhere?

“I… y-yes but I don’t—“ Celestia’s shaky voice was cut off once more.

“Do you still have it?” Becca questioned.

“No.”

“I thought as much,” Becca said, nodding. She paused in thought for a moment before asking, “Who did you give it to?” Celestia stood tall and shook her head.

“I’m sorry, but I will not divulge that information.”

“It was that Princess Twilight Sparkle you spoke of in your speech. Wasn’t it?” A small gasp escaped Celestia’s lips. It seemed this mare was smarter than Celestia had imagined. Regardless, she did not want to answer the question. It didn’t matter though. “It’s okay, you don’t have to answer,” Becca continued. “I already suspected, and this just confirms my suspicions.” Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“What do you know about that artifact?” the princess asked.

“Quite a bit actually,” Becca responded. “It is only a mere piece of an even larger artifact.”

“A piece?” Celestia asked unbelievingly.

“Indeed. I came here following the magic of it.”

“And what does this artifact do, exactly?” Celestia asked. Becca brought a hoof to her chin in thought, as if debating on whether or not she should divulge that information.

“It’s… complicated. Let’s just say it’s a key of sorts.”

“A key? To what?”

“Well, to be honest, it could be anything. Personally, I’m hoping to find another source of power.” Celestia’s breathing increased slightly. The more they talked, the more Celestia began to realize how dangerous this mystery mare must be.

“So how did a piece end up in Saddle Arabia?” Celestia asked. She very much hoped Becca would be able to answer that question. It had been bugging her ever since the Saddle Arabian delegates brought the issue to her attention. Unfortunately, Becca shook her head.

“I’m not entirely sure,” she replied. “Though, I do have my own theories,” she added sinisterly.

“Do share,” Celestia pleaded, waving an encouraging hoof at Becca.

“Sorry,” Becca said apologetically. “It’s too complicated to explain. Besides, it’s probably total bullshit anyways.” Celestia winced slightly at the foul word and frowned. Not letting it bother her, she continued her interrogation.

“You mentioned earlier you suspected I gave the artifact to Princess Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said. “How did you know?”

“I’ve been tracking the artifact’s magic ever since I arrived in Equestria,” Becca explained. “I eventually tracked the magic to this city, but I didn’t want to make my move until I was better rested.” Becca sighed sadly and stared down at the floor. “It was foolish of me. I should have acted immediately, but it’s been a while since I’ve slept in a bed.” She looked back up at Celestia. “When I woke up, the magic was gone. I tried tracking it again, but by the time I caught up to it, the magic disappeared completely. I came back here to maybe find some answers. I just so happened to catch your speech earlier today, and when I heard two ponies had mysteriously disappeared via teleportation, I was able to put the pieces together from there.” Celestia sat still in silence, mulling over her thoughts. There were so many things about this mare that she did not understand. A terrible feeling in her gut had been sitting dormant ever since she laid eyes on the grey unicorn. Perhaps it was her overly-confident demeanor. Or maybe it was something else.

“Who are you, exactly?” Celestia asked. “Where are you from?” Becca neglected to answer her questions.

“That is not important right now,” she said. “What’s important is I am looking for the remaining pieces of the Vault Key. I have been able to secure once piece already. Using the magical connection between the pieces, I was able to locate another. That was your piece.” She pointed an accusing hoof at Celestia. The princess’s mind was racing a million miles a minute.

“Magical connection?” she asked shakily. Becca nodded in affirmation.

“Yes. All three pieces share the same magical energy which connects them as one whole. If you can track the connections, you can find the rest of the pieces. That is what brought me to this world.” Celestia’s eyes rose at her words. If what Becca was telling her was true, then it’s very possible that this magical connection is precisely what caused Twilight and Rainbow Dash to disappear. If only they had left behind the piece of the artifact, then Celestia might have been able to track them down by following the connection. That left the mystery of where they ended up. With that thought, the last of the grey unicorn’s words rang within her mind.

“W-what do you mean by ‘this world?’” Celestia asked cautiously. She did not like what those words implied. Becca laughed her question off and shook her head.

“Oh, I’m so very sorry Princess,” she said in fake disappointment. “Our time here is unfortunately at an end. My questions have been answered, and now that I know there are no other Vault Key pieces here I think I will take my leave.” Celestia cocked her head. What exactly was this mare planning?

“And where exactly do you think you’re going?” the princess asked. She motioned her hooves around the small cell. “Do you really think you will be able to escape this dungeon without your magic?” Becca looked Celestia directly in the eyes and smirked evilly.

“No, princess. I do not.”

With her last words spoken, the grey mare closed her eyes in concentration. All of the sudden, Celestia began to feel a trace amount of magic emanating from the mare. She glanced at Becca’s horn in shock as the magic gradually grew stronger. Her horn was indeed still adorned with the magic restricting device, which made the magic Celestia felt perplexing. Perhaps even stranger was the nature of the magic itself. Just like the artifact she had sent to Twilight, the magic was almost indescribably foreign. It felt dark and bitter. Celestia could almost feel despair taking over her emotions as she focused on the magic. An extremely dark purple aura began to surround Becca. Celestia couldn’t help but notice it was unlike any magical aura she had ever seen in her life. It was as if a black hole was forming around the mare. Celestia raised her wings in alarm, expecting the mare before her to attack. In a dark shockwave of magic, the room exploded with the strange magic. Celestia brought her wings over her face as if to protect herself. As the explosion of magic subsided, she heard the distinct clanging of metal hitting the stone ground. When she removed the wings form her face, she almost screamed at what she saw.

Becca was no longer there. Her metal collar and magic restraining device sat innocently on the floor. She had teleported.

She sat motionless and began to hyperventilate slightly. How had Becca teleported when she was wearing that device on her horn? They were specifically designed to stop any and all magic that a unicorn had access to. It made no sense that the mare was still able to teleport out of the room. Panic gripped her as she realized she had no idea where the mare could have gone to. She could still be somewhere in Canterlot.

Celestia finally moved from her spot and quickly threw the door to the cell open. The three guards were standing outside, staring at her in curiosity. She doubted they would have been able to hear the conversation through the thick metal walls, however the empty cell behind her would definitely need some explaining. She addressed the three guards before her.

“Gather any troops not currently working on the rescue operations in Canterlot,” she ordered. “Have them put together a small search party and comb the city. Our prisoner has escaped.”

“Escaped?! But how?!” The three guards exchanged worried glances. Princess Celestia shook her head.

“I… I am not quite sure. She teleported but…” Celestia trailed off. She still could not quite believe what she had seen. She shook her head and continued. “It doesn’t matter right now. She could have teleported back into the city. I want whatever guards who aren’t involved in the search party posted at every street corner in Canterlot to keep our citizens safe!” The three guards bowed to her.

“We shall make it so!” With that, the three guards cantered off out of the dungeon. Celestia gave out a deep sigh as she turned back to the empty cell, still perplexed. Still trying to sort out what little new information she got from the mysterious mare in her mind, she headed towards the spiral staircase leading outside the dungeons.

Her tired hooves could barely carry her up the large staircase. The lack of sleep, combined with the stress of the past few hours made her feel dead on her hooves. Her anxious mind was not helping matters. She already had so much on her plate. The encounter and subsequent disappearance with that grey unicorn had only made things worse. She found herself with more questions than answers. More worries than reassurances. And most importantly, still no way of finding Twilight or Rainbow Dash. She yawned loudly in exhaustion as she reached the top of the stairs. After over twenty-four hours of being awake, Princess Celestia felt it was high time for a nice long nap. Unfortunately, with so much to do, she couldn’t see a good time to actually fit that nap in. First, she needed to find Luna and bring her up to speed. Everything else could be planned out during their talk. After crossing the threshold of the dungeon exit, she froze in fear as a frightening thought occurred to her.

If Becca was looking for the pieces of this Vault Key and she had the means to track them, then that meant...

"Oh no," Celestia whispered tearfully.

Wherever they might be, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash were certainly in grave danger.

Pandora's Key

by NoNumbers

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8