After realising her element of harmony is missing, Rainbow Dash enlists the help of Twilight Sparkle to find it.
Rainbow Dash discovers her element of harmony to be missing, and so asks Twilight for some help. As luck would have it, the element appears to somehow be in the world on the other side of the mirror portal. With explicit instructions to stay as far away from Canterlot High School as she can, Rainbow Dash is sent through the mirror to retrieve her element, but staying away from CHS might prove harder than she thinks....
As the Sun shone down on another almost unrealistically hot Sunday afternoon, Kuiper Glitch was digging the dirt in his back garden to make its relief even in order for a shed to be built there. That's right, a shed. Kui wasn't a big fan of work anyway, but working on the weekend was even worse.
He kept dreamily staring at his bedroom window, longing to be back in his room lounging around and probably playing a videogame of some description. But, as usual, this wasn't the time for that. Kui shook his head a few times to clear the thought, put his headphones on and kept reluctantly digging and spreading the dirt around his garden. If only my Dad could do this himself, he thought. His Dad was a generally better labourer than he was, largely due to Kui spending most of his days on his computer instead of outside doing work. He kept thinking about how much easier this would be for his Dad to do, until-
*CLINK*
He instantly flinched, before scanning the area he was digging to see if anything was there. Nothing appeared to be, so Kuiper Glitch ignored it and tried to dig again. And again. And again. And a surprisingly high amount of times after that before he dropped his shovel, took his headphones off and actually got on his knees to see what this object supposedly was. After not much moving of the dirt, he came across a strange looking crystal. It appeared a bright red colour, and glistened heavily in the Sun's light. Kui thought it looked pretty cool, being shaped like a lightning bolt and all, so he put it in his back pocket and simply continued working in the back garden.
"It's gone!" Rainbow Dash cried out as she woke up. She breathed heavily a few times, before sitting herself up properly. She'd had a strange dream, where her element of harmony had gone missing. After a little while of shock, she brushed the thought off and got out of bed.
Getting ready for the day wasn't too difficult. It generally involved a teeth-brushing or mane-brushing, but that was about it in the morning. Once she was done, Rainbow Dash decided to head upstairs and relax for a bit. As she reached her room, she suddenly remembered a certain dream she had last night, and so she briskly trotted over to her bedside drawer. Opening it, she relaxed, seeing the golden necklace safely stored away. Picking it up, she breathed a sigh of relief...until she turned it over. Her eyes widened and she nearly dropped the necklace, but quickly kept a hold of it and dashed out of her house, flying straight towards the home of a certain egghead she knows.
*Knock Knock*
"Twilight! Come on, open up!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she kept knocking on the oak door. With each knock she became more impatient, until the door slowly opened to reveal Princess Twilight Sparkle, clearly having just woken up.
"Oh, good morning-" Twilight yawned heavily "-Rainbow Dash. What can I do you for?"
"I've got a super serious emergency, Twi! My element of harmony is gone!"
"What are you talking about? It's right there," she said, pointing to the necklace.
Rainbow Dash sighed and rolled her eyes, before pointing out the missing crystal and bluntly saying, "Look closer."
Twilight stared in worry at the necklace, before shouting back into the library, "Spike! Get down here! And bring all three of my 'How To Find Lost Items' handbooks, please!"
After Dash was invited inside, the three sat down to discuss possible theories of what to do. Each handbook was surprisingly large, containing a wide range of items and, as you would expect, how to find them. Twilight opened each book to the contents and scanned them thoroughly, before quickly picking up the third volume with her magic and skipping forwards to a specific section. As Spike watched the whole scene, he casually remarked, "Why are there so many ways to find things, Twilight? I mean, surely you could just retrace your steps, or something as clichéd as that, right?"
Twilight ignored him.
"Uh, Twilight?"
Still ignoring him, Twilight was intently scanning each page in section 5.6a of the handbook, 'Magical Gizmos'. She continued doing so in silence, growing more worried with each page turn.
Spike walked closely to Twilight and asked, "Hello? Twilight? Are you-"
"I've got it!" she yelled out a little too enthusiastically.
Rainbow Dash stood up and exclaimed happily. Twilight briefly explained the apparent solution, before setting off out the door. Rainbow Dash quickly followed, understanding nothing from what Twilight said apart from the mention of Canterlot. She quickly followed Twilight to the train station, still unsure of Twilight's whole solution.
By the time they arrived, it was around midday. The streets of Canterlot were quite busy, but it wasn't that difficult for a Princess to get where she wanted to be. Rainbow Dash and Twilight, closely followed by Spike, reached Canterlot Castle and cantered inside.
Twilight led Rainbow Dash through an almost never-ending maze of corridors and stairwells, until they reached a small room at the very end of one corridor. Dash recognised this corridor, but she didn't want to. As Twilight opened the door, Rainbow's presumptions were correct, as in the corner of the room stood an all-too-familiar mirror. Twilight said nothing, but grabbed Rainbow Dash's element necklace and seemed to perform a spell on it, causing the necklace to point in the direction of the mirror. She sighed.
"Looks like you've got a world-hopping challenge ahead of you," Twilight said, almost nervously.
"Wait, is the portal even open at this time?" Dash replied.
"Actually, yes! But, not for very long. From my guess, I'd say you have about 3 days to find it before it'll close again."
"Wait, me? As in, just me?"
"Why yes! Considering it is your element, it could be risky sending somepony else in to go and find it."
"That...is...awesome! Finally, A solo Rainbow Dash adventure, where I can show just how awesome I can be by myself!"
"Calm down, Rainbow. It's a quick task. Get in, find the element, and get out before 3 days are finished. Can you do that?"
Rainbow looked at Twilight as if her awesomeness was being questioned.
"Fine, fine, go! Good luck with finding your element! Oh, and one more thing: If that world has stayed the same since my last visit, I'd advise you to stay away from Canterlot High School. You don't need to know why, just don't go there, okay?"
Rainbow Dash nodded, before smirking and quickly flying into the mirror, eagerly and, admittedly quite cockily starting her own adventure.
"Agh! I'm up! I'm up!" Kui yelled as he nearly jumped out of bed, almost falling flat on his face. His alarm kept blaring out at him as he quickly got dressed in his usual attire: a simple brown t-shirt accompanied by a bright blue hoodie and a pair of black jeans. He grabbed his headphones, scooped up his backpack and turned his alarm off, racing downstairs.
Breakfast was over with pretty quickly, largely because he didn't have breakfast. Kuiper Glitch said bye to his parents before making it outside his house and setting off for school. He never really complained about school, but it was tricky for him to get up early enough to go, largely due to him staying up way too late on a night. Despite his usual habits, today he got up surprisingly early, which led to him walking to Canterlot High School at a more leisurely pace than usual. It was nice, as it allowed him to take in the local scenery in a lot more detail.
Looking to his right, he mostly saw the estate he lived on, but on his left were a few acres of fields that were very rarely used for anything. Kui kept walking, putting his headphones on once he remembered he had them. A large majority of the walk was fields and stores, until he reached the town. From there, more stores could be seen and the place was definitely more urbanised than near his home, but he kept on walking. A couple of CHS students often said hi and waved at Kui, which he usually reciprocated gladly...if he noticed. As you might guess, his music is often quite loud, and due to this he doesn't notice too much around him.
That iconic statue soon came into view, and Kui took off his headphones, turning right to head down the path to the main doors of Canterlot High School. As he walked towards the doors, he looked around. Wait, where is everyone?, he thought. He quickly checked the time and panicked. He ran towards the doors and inside to his first lesson, unaware of a strange 'thud' kind of noise, followed by a few quickly-paced footsteps.
Rainbow Dash seemingly flew through the portal, and smirked as she came out the other side. That smirk soon vanished, however, as she collided with the floor, creating a small 'thud'. Confused, Rainbow Dash tried to flutter her wings, but nothing happened. Now she was worried. She awkwardly turned around repeatedly trying to touch her wings, similar to the way a dog sometimes chases its own tail. As she finally gave up and submitted to the fact that her wings were now non-existent, Rainbow Dash decided to look around for clues. Her search was quickly cut short, however, as a certain deep red crystal caught her eye. She turned around, and saw a part of her crystal sticking out of some kid's back pocket. Nostrils flared slightly, Rainbow dashed after the kid. But then she stopped. Though she wouldn't admit it, she stopped due to her inability to walk on two legs, let alone run. Though this played a big role in stopping her, the majority of the cause was the sign above the main doors:
"Canterlot High School"
Rainbow grunted and kicked the ground after she had gotten up shakily. She knew she wasn't supposed to visit this place, and that in fact she was supposed to stay as far away from it as possible, but of course the solution to the problem would be in the one place Rainbow Dash was told not to go anywhere near. After an almost surprisingly short time, she decided to venture into the school.
Most corridors appeared empty, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because it meant not many people would see her, but bad because it meant she had no idea where this school kid was. It didn't take long for her to get used to walking on two legs, and so she was acrobatically sneaking around the school in no time. She looked through as many classroom doors as possible, but the kid seemed to be nowhere! As determined as she could ever be, she kept looking, until she bumped into an oddly familiar face.
"Oh, uhm, h-hi, Rainbow Dash..." came an almost inaudible greeting.
Rainbow Dash took a step back, before blurting out, "Fluttershy?! What are you doing here?!"
"Uhm, I go to school here? You know, Canterlot High? Our, uhm, school, where you're, uh, the captain of most sports teams?" replied Fluttershy, trailing off slightly near the end.
"Wait, what are you-" Rainbow suddenly realised the now-presumable reason why Twilight said not to go here.
"What am I what?"
"Uhhh, never mind... hey, you couldn't quickly do something for me, could you, Fluttershy?"
"Well, I probably can, but that would mostly depend on what you want..."
"I'm looking for a specific kid, about *this* tall, brown hair, blue highlights, wearing a blue hoodie and a brown backpack. You seen him?"
"Oh, you must mean Kuiper Glitch... he's fairly new here, so I'd presume he'll be either in, uhm, Principal Celestia's office for a newbie checkup, or in Pinkie Pie's Astronomy class. Probably the, uhm, latter..."
"Okay, thanks, Fluttershy!"
"M-my pleasure!" she squeaked as Rainbow Dash ran off down the corridor towards the science block.
Fluttershy continued walking down the corridor, enjoying her free period, when she turned a corner and saw Rainbow Dash again. She stared quizzically for a moment, before walking up to her and saying hello. Rainbow Dash reciprocated the greeting and asked Fluttershy how she was.
"Oh, I'm okay...how's your search going?"
"Search? What search?"
"Uhm, the one you just talked to me about a few minutes ago? About looking for Kuiper Glitch?"
"Yeah, I don't remember that at all..." Rainbow Dash said, confused and concerned.
"Oh... well, uhm, maybe tiredness is finally getting to me, what with looking after Angel most nights..."
"It's okay, Fluttershy, I guess you just need a good night's sleep and you'll be back to your adorably awesome self in no time!"
"That's a very good point, Rainbow Dash... uhm, thankyou..."
"You're welcome, Fluttershy! Anyway, we better get going to class. I know we technically saved the world, but that doesn't stop us getting told off for being late!" she said before grabbing Fluttershy and dashing off to their first lesson.
It didn't take long for the Equestrian Rainbow Dash to reach the science block, and even less time to find the room Pinkie was in. She scanned the room from behind the window, until her hint from Fluttershy had proven useful. She backed away from the door slightly and went to enter the room.
"Okay class, can anyone tell me one characteristic of the Van Allen belts?"
An energetic hand was thrown wildly into the air.
"Yes, Pinkie?"
"Well, the Van Allen belts are shaped like two giant doughnuts, which is useful for when giant alien space monsters know which planet will be the tastiest, because it will be ours because of the two giant doughnuts, which would be undeniably yummy and scrumptious, except they would taste all icky because they're actually made of highly toxic radiation which would be very very very unscrumptious for your stomach!"
"Well, you certainly took the long way round in saying that, Pinkie, but yes! The Van Allen belts are two doughnut-shaped rings of radiation that surround our pl-"
*Knock Knock*
The teacher signalled the visitor inside the room, asking what they required.
He walked slowly to the classroom door at Rainbow's request. This was an unusual thing to happen to him, but the fact that it was Rainbow Dash made it that much more odd. What could a sporty girl like Rainbow Dash need to talk to a nerd like him about? He ended up on the other side of the classroom door, while Rainbow Dash shut the door behind him. Kuiper Glitch turned to face her, only to find her stood incredibly close to him, visibly angry.
"Uhh, can I help you?" he asked, nervously.
"You know exactly what you can help me with!"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't, so... a little clarification would be nice."
"Quit joking around, kid! I know you took it!"
"Uhm, what did I take, exactly?"
"The gem from my element of harmony? That awesome-looking thing in your back pocket?"
Kui quickly checked is back pocket, his eyes widening slightly as he felt the weird crystal he had found yesterday. He laughed nervously and presented the gem to her.
"I don't suppose you mean this gem?"
"Well, considering I said it was in your back pocket, and you took that from your pocket, and the fact that it looks exactly like my element gem, I think I'll say yes!" she said, quite sarcastically.
"Well, if it's yours, I'm guessing you want it back?"
"Well, duh!"
He extended his arm. "Well, take it!"
Rainbow shook her head. "No way, don't think that'll get you out of prison!"
"Wait, p-prison? Why?"
"Well, you stole something, and so where I come from, you'd now be considered a criminal. That usually ends up with prison," she explained in a very patronising manner.
"But I had no idea it was stolen!"
"Yeah, yeah, keep talking, kid. Save it for when we get back to Equestria."
"Wait, Equestria? What are you-" he paused, glancing over Rainbow Dash's shoulder to see...Rainbow Dash?
Kui took a step back and kept switching his gaze between the happy Rainbow Dash walking down the corridor, talking with Fluttershy and the furiously frustrated Rainbow Dash who stood before him. He thought to himself, Okay, so this Rainbow Dash is presumably not the same Rainbow Dash from this school, if she's even Rainbow Dash at all..., before subconsciously backing away from the 'fake' Rainbow Dash.
"Woah, woah, woah, where do you think you're going?" Rainbow Dash said, quickly getting Kui's attention again.
"Uhm...back to class?"
"Nu uh, no way am I gonna let you get out of this that easily!" she said, grabbing his arm and yanking him to follow her, not that he had much choice.
"Well, where are we going if we're not going back to class?" Kui said, trying to get Rainbow Dash to let go, but failing.
"I'm going home...and you're coming with me!" she snapped, continuing to drag Kui away from the science block.
They went through a couple of corridors, before finally Rainbow Dash had made her way out of the main doors, Kuiper Glitch forcibly in tow. She kept walking, albeit slightly shakily considering she'd only been walking for the best part of an hour or so. Soon enough, she reached the front of the Canterlot High statue, releasing her hold on Kui slightly.
"Okay, now here's what's going to happen. You're going to go in here-" she pointed towards the base of the statue, "-and I'm going to follow you, just to make sure you actually go through. Now, go!" she said, letting go of his arm and nudging him towards the statue.
He walked towards the statue slightly, before stopping and turning around. "Uhh, in case you hadn't noticed, there's no way I can go through that. It's a solid statue! Practically impossible to-" he touched his hand to the statue and instantly freaked out.
"What the what is wrong with the statue?" he said, panicking.
"Nothing, it's a portal, duh!"
"Well, there is no way I'm going through that statue. It's just, really weird, and unnatural, and it shouldn't be happening! I mean, it's a supposedly magic portal! You really expect me to believe that?!"
"I don't expect you to believe anything. I just expect you to go."
"Yes, I'm fully aware that you do, but I really don't think that-" Rainbow pushed him in, and quickly ran into the statue after the alleged criminal.
