1. Another boring day - Part 1

Author's Notes:

Warning!

First story ever!

You've been warned!

This Story contains a male pony OC added to almost each episode of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, viewed mostly from his perspective.
I try to avoid most cliches that are known in those kinds of stories as much as I can but I can't promise anything.
Of course, if you don't like this kind of stories, then I advise that you should pick something else to read.

This story gets updated once or twice a week so make sure to hop along early ^^.

Whether it's something you like or something you didn't, please make sure to leave some kind of feedback behind to help me out as a writer and consider to leave a thumbs up. That would be nice of you ^^.

Also keep in mind that the quality of the story gets better later on (I think...).

If you still here, then I wish you a good time while reading my story ^^.

Six ponies live their daily life, destined to save Equestria.

Chosen by six Elements that bring harmony.

In the little town of Ponyville.

But there is one pony that is thrown out of his boring life to accompany them on their journeys.

Chosen by an unknown Element of Harmony.

Learning the meaning of friendship for the first time.

Even though he doesn't want that at all.

But what can he do about it?

This is his new life after all...

Is he even meant to do something like that?

Soon everything will make sense and he will find out the whole truth about the Elements of Harmony...

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship

A new morning in Equestria began...

Princess Celestia, the ruler of all Equestria, used her magic to raise the sun and the moon each and every day. She did that from her castle which was located in the capital of Equestria, Canterlot. Today, it was no different. Early in the morning, the sun was slowly rising in the sky and gave everypony a sign that a new day was about to begin. The same goes for the ponies in a little town, not too far away from Canterlot.

Ponyville...

It was a small and quiet town, filled with ponies of all kinds equally...Earth Ponies, Pegasus, and Unicorns. Of course, being a small town like that, there was usually not much going on. The perfect town to live a quiet and normal life. And today was just another day like this.

Ponies began to walk around on the streets after the sun was up. The Pegasus started to clear the skies and removed the clouds because today it was set to be a sunny day. They were usually very early since Cloudsdale, the city in the skies, home of many Pegasus and the center of the weather management in all of Equestria, was not too far away.

Shop owners, opened the doors of their shops, ponies who worked on a farm, began to get to work on the fields, fillies and colts were on their way to school, and so on.

However, not everypony was up just now...

The beams of the sun also began to shine through the window of a wooden house and into the still closed eyes of a light green coated stallion. Awoken from the sunlight, the green coated pony looked out of his window and saw the sun rising on the horizon. It was a beautiful sight outside but the pony didn't seem to be impressed at all and let out an annoyed sigh. He slowly got out of his bed and stretched a little. He had enough sleep but he slowly crawled through the room as if he was half-asleep.

"...Another boring day begins," the pony said with an almost expressionless voice accompanied by a bored face. The pony walked past a goldfish bowl that was sitting on a small cupboard. "Morning, Comet," the said half asleep as he walked past the bowl where an orange fish was swimming in, motionless with its eyes pinpointed in front of it, even after the pony's greeting.

After getting out of bed the pony started his daily morning routines as well, like showering, eating breakfast and brushing his teeth, while still in a half asleep state. In his house were two floors. The ground floor was his living area. There was a wooden table in the middle of the room and three doors that lead to a closet, the kitchen, and the bathroom. On the upper floor was only his bedroom with a window next to it and a cupboard where his goldfish was standing on. He was taking it really slow, as usual. If there is one thing that he hated, then it's stressing himself in the morning.

After his morning routine was done, he attempted to leave his house but not before taking a quick look at his mirror to check if he was ready.

He was an earth pony with a light green coat, a dark green mane, which has five spikes scattered on his head like a star, light green eyes, and a dark green tail which ended with six spikes. He also had no Cutie Mark and therefore hasn't discovered his destiny or his special talent yet. Other ponies would find this rather weird because you usually get your Cutie Mark when you are younger. But this pony was already full grown and couldn't give any care about something "minor" like that.

When he looked into the reflection of his eyes, inside of the mirror, he quickly noticed the bored look on his face and tried to get rid of it and forced himself to make a more relaxed face. "Well then, let's go to work," he said in a more optimistic but also really forced tone. Maybe it was sarcasm or maybe he tried to put a smile on his face. Whatever it was, it didn't work and the smile quickly vanished and turned into a more neutral and slightly grumpy expression.

"Well...that should be enough..." He said, deciding to leave it at that so that he could finally go to work.

He left his house and walked towards his destination while inspecting his surroundings in Ponyville. It was always the same things going on. Some Pegasi clearing the sky, ponies opening their shops, some fillies who were going to school and more. For some reason, It felt more lively than usual and most of the ponies looked pretty excited for something. It was almost suspicious.

"Why is everypony so cheerful today?" The pony wondered as he looked over all of Ponyville. At first, he tried to figure out what this was all about but after putting some thought into it, he decided to just not care about it. That would make things easier for him.

The pony avoided eye contact with anypony and had his sight focused in front of him again. For him, it didn't matter what every other pony was up to. All he had to do was to take care of himself and his own life. Everything else didn't matter. Thankfully, Ponyville was a relatively quiet town. Nothing ever happens here, to which he was very thankful. If Ponyville was filled with ponies this early in the morning, for some unknown reason, then just the thought of other bigger towns being filled with even more ponies was enough to get the pony a little uncomfortable.

The pony shortly arrived at his destination, a workshop which was formed like an anvil with a big sign over the entrance that said "Iron Hammer". A brown coated Earth Pony with a silver mane and a hammer as his Cutie Mark stepped out of the workshop and noticed the green coated pony.

"Good morning, Star Twinkle," the brown pony greeted with a smile.

"Morning, Steel Hammer," Star Twinkle replied grumpily.

Steel Hammer was the owner of the "Iron Hammer" and Star Twinkle's boss. He was the classic hard worker type of pony who enjoyed his job and was not afraid to take every advantage to boost his business, much to Star Twinkle's dislike because it usually involved him doing either some additional work or something else. Steel Hammer was anything but mean to Star Twinkle and didn't put much pressure on him but Star Twinkle is not that kind of pony who speaks much with anypony and Steel Hammer was no different for him. This caused the two of them to share a very neutral relationship. For Star Twinkle that was more than enough. He was well aware that he was not a very social pony and that others were not fighting over him in order to spend time with him or something like that. But that is exactly the way he liked it.

Steel Hammer was carrying some wooden planks and placed them in front of the workshop while greeting Star Twinkle. After that Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer walked inside the workshop and both ponies started their work. They were both carpenter ponies. Their work includes repairing or building of furniture for other ponies and general repairs in Ponyville, including houses, town properties or anything else that could be fixed again with some wood or metal work. Clearly, it wasn't his destiny or his special talent to work with wood or tools because of the absence of a Cutie Mark but if there was something that he was remotely good at, then it was repairing stuff so he didn't mind his job that much.

"Let's get started and finish our work for today! it's a special day after all!" Steel Hammer said excitingly.

"Really?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Really?" Steel Hammer replied surprised "Don't you know what day it is today?" He asked almost shocked.

Star Twinkle took a few seconds to think, but couldn't find an answer that Steel Hammer probably expected. "Ehm...Tuesday?" He said, which was probably not the answer that Steel Hammer wanted to hear.

There was clearly a disappointment in Steel hammers facial expression, which Star Twinkle noticed. Star Twinkle was thinking but couldn't find the answer, it was just another boring and uneventful day for him, that is all that he knew.

Eventually, Steel Hammer decided to explain things to Star Twinkle. "Hello!? Today is the Summer Sun Celebration, the longest day of the year!" He said with an excited smile on his face.

"Oh," he replied Star Twinkle with an emotionless tone in his voice. "That would explain why it was a little more lively today," he figured.

"What ya mean OH?!" Steel Hammer said almost shocked. "Today is a big day and all you have to say is "oh?""

"What's so special about this day being the longest day of the year? What am I supposed to be excited about?" Star Twinkle replied. He clearly didn't show the same enthusiasm than his boss. In fact, he didn't care about it one bit.

"I don't understand it either, to be honest," Steel Hammer agreed. "But!" He then exclaimed, causing Star Twinkle to flinch for a moment. "The sun rising may be the highlight of the day, but what most ponies are looking forward to is what follows. Spending time together with each other, going to a party or just having a bunch of fun with your friends," he said, clearly getting excited about all of this already.

Star Twinkle was well aware what the celebration was about but that didn't change anything for him. He had his sight focused on his tools gave a quick answer. "So it's Just another boring day..." he said in an emotionless tone. Steel Hammer looked at Star Twinkle with a concerned look on his face. He probably didn't expect this cold answer. "Well let's start work I guess," again, there was little emotion in his voice, but that was probably intended by Star Twinkle.

Grabbing some tools and putting them in a saddlebag, he went off to his work, while Steel Hammer just followed him with his eyes, before going back to his work. Steel Hammer let out a sigh because of Star Twinkles behavior, even though he was used to it. "...This pony really needs some friends to comfort him. It must be hard to live like this every day", he said with concern.

Later...

Since it was the day of the Summer Sun Celebration, the Iron Hammer closed a little earlier than usual. It actually worked kinda in Star Twinkle's favor since he didn't have to work too much. Steel Hammer said that he had to prepare for some kind of party that he was about to attend. He even asked Star Twinkle if he wanted to join as well but, not surprisingly, Star Twinkle refused. The green coated stallion left the workshop after all work was done and started to head home. He was not sure what to do with the rest of the day since it was still a little early so he decided to walk back home to somehow skip time till Princess Celestia raises the sun.

“It's gonna be a loooong day now,” he said in an annoyed tone in his voice. "Does Princess Celestia really expect me to wait this long so that she could raise the sun?" He started to complain. “Should I take a nap until then? It's not like I have anything better to do anyway...Argh...but everypony will be up until Princess Celestia raises the sun...I don't think that I can sleep with all those noises outside!” The longer he thought about what to do, the more frustrated he got.

Whenever something bothers him, he could not help but complain. Events like the Summer Sun Celebration were not his cup of tea. He liked it when it was quiet. But sadly, every now and then some events force him to get out and do something really annoying. Like staying up all night until Princess Celestia arrived in Ponyville. The Summer Sun Celebration hasn't even started and he was already annoyed to no end.

But then suddenly, Star Twinkle's thoughts were interrupted when he noticed how a golden chariot landed in the middle of the road from Ponyville. He noticed how a purple-coated unicorn and another creature he didn't recognize left the wagon. Something like that was quite unusual in this quiet town.

"Well, there's something you don't see every day," he said surprised. The chariot was pulled by members of the Royal Guard, a group that was under direct command of Princess Celestia. "Is she royalty or something? With an entrance like that...and was that "thing" her pet or something?"he thought to himself, trying to figure out an answer. "Maybe some royal who came here for the Summer Sun Celebration?" The purple pony and the other creature walked past him, not even noticing Star Twinkle. He didn't mean to eavesdrop but he could swear that they were both talking about the Summer Sun Celebration when they walked past him. He couldn't resist but to turn his head after her out of curiosity. "Is it really worth coming to a boring place like Ponyville to celebrate the Summer Sun Celebration? Maybe this pony was some kind of important guest or something?" All this thought were going through his head but in the end, he ignored the purple pony and decided to go home again. It had nothing to do with him after all.

"Whatever..." He said before he continued to get on his way home again.

He arrived at his house again and instantly went upstairs to his bedroom and laid down on his bed, facing the ceiling. Star Twinkle didn't have many hobbies so it was always hard for him to spend his time in some way, so he usually laid down on his bed and thought about things. He is often lost in thoughts, probably because he spends too much time alone or because he doesn't speak much with anypony else. He could spend his time with some friends but the problem is...that he doesn't have any.

But what could he do about it? He has no interest in making friends. He is happy the way it is right now. It may be a boring and uneventful life but it wasn't complicated, full of responsibilities or troublesome. Having friends means way too much trouble. At least that's what he keeps telling himself. He didn't like thinking about this matter but he quickly found out that this was much harder then he thought because no matter where he was going, there were always ponies hanging around with their friends somewhere so it kept coming back to him.

"I could just stay here and do nothing...like always," he mumbled to himself before looked out of his window next to him.
"Or I could go to the town hall to wait for the Princess...like everypony else..."

He was playing with this thought but couldn't decide. Either way, it would still be the same. He would be alone and bored.
There were no friends waiting for him in the town hall so he would just stand there on his own in some corner, waiting this day to be over.

He kept focusing his eyes on the ceiling while thinking but closed them after a while and napped through half the day. Eventually, as time passed and Star Twinkle actually decided to make his way to the town hall of Ponyville to celebrate with everypony else...in his own way.

As expected, the town hall was filled with ponies. Every one of them, talking with their friends, laughing and having fun. Not the best place for Star Twinkle.

“Sure is crowded here,” he said looking across the hall, already regretting to come to this place.

If there was one thing that Star Twinkle didn't like at all, then it was crowds. Like parties, where you are surrounded by ponies from everywhere. One of his life goals is to stay away as much as possible from anypony as often as possible, to avoid conversations. But at the same, he also didn't like to stay in the center of attention, which most likely will lead to other ponies talking to him. So he decided to get closer to the middle in order to "fit in".

But not too much since he wasn't used to talking with other ponies. It's not like, he is turning into a stuttering idiot or anything but he just doesn't know what he should talk about with anypony. His life is not exactly exciting and would probably bore everypony who was asking him about it. As soon as he would tell anyone how he spends most of his days at home doing nothing, it would be over. At the same time, he was also not interested in the life of other ponies. Hearing how their life was either just as boring or more exciting as his own would not leave an impression on him. He would just pretend to listen if somepony was telling him his or her life story or find a way out of the conversation.

While trying to fit his way in the crowd he accidentally bumped into somepony. Both of them got startled a little and after noticing what just happened, Star Twinkle quickly apologized.

“Uff!...sorry about that”, he apologized.

The Pony he bumped into turned around in confusion but seemed to didn't mind much. It was a gray Pegasus mare with a yellow mane and bubbles as a Cutie Mark. Star Twinkle also instantly noticed that she had crossed eyes. Of course, he wondered what was up with that but he tried not to stare at them in order to be polite.

"Sorry about that. You're not hurt are you?" He asked showing a little concern.

The gray pony looked at Star Twinkle but didn't say anything. Right now, the worst thing that could happen, happened, he was caught in a conversation, and a really awkward one to top it all of. It's exactly those situations, that made him uncomfortable. He doesn't know how to talk with other ponies and talking with a pony with the same problem will only end very awkwardly. Star Twinkle was feeling really awkward about this whole situation and just wished that it would end.
Until...

”Muffin?” All of the sudden, the mare had a muffin in her hoof, probably offering it to Star Twinkle.

“What?” He asked surprised, not sure what he should say.

The gray pony just smiled, while Star Twinkle wasn't sure what to do.

“Ehm...no thanks?” He said with a forced smile on his face.

After Star Twinkle's answer, the gray pony shrugged her shoulders and began to eat her muffin, while turning around again, leaving behind a really confused Star Twinkle.

"Okay...you seem to be alright, I guess. Well, I am on my way then," he said while backing away from the gray pony and started to fight his way back out of the crowd again. "That...was terrible..." he thought after this encounter.

He was thinking about staying somewhere in the back so that something like that would never happen again. And so he did, almost standing near the entrance, completely separated from the mass of ponies in the middle. It felt much better for him to stay away from all ponies, he didn't even care if could not hear anything from this far but then again, he didn't come to listen to the speech or anything. In fact, he didn't know why he was there in the first place.

Maybe because he thought he had to? Or because he didn't have anything better to do? Again dozens of questions piled up in his head, making him wish that this evening would end soon so that he could go home.

"Yup...this is just the way I imagined it to go. Me standing somewhere in the corner, waiting for this night to be over..." Star Twinkle mumbled to himself.

While waiting for the Princess like everypony else, Star Twinkle noticed Steel Hammer from afar together with some ponies he didn't know. They were probably Steel Hammer's friends. He decided to stay alone, without even thinking about going over to Steel Hammer. There were too many ponies he didn't know, that would mean that he had to be introduced to them and THAT was something he didn't want right now. He waited like everypony else for something to happen. It felt like an eternity for him to stand there.

"Can't they just get over with all that? What is so special about this day anyway? It's the longest day of the year, so what?
It's a day like any other..." Star Twinkle thought with an annoyed look on his face, waiting that this day could be over soon.

If there was one thing that Star Twinkle was good at, then it was thinking. Although that could also be considered a problem. Since he avoids talking with anypony as much as possible, he spends a lot more time thinking about various things. That usually puts him in a gloomy mood but at the same time, it kept him from going insane.

Finally, a choir of birds began to sing who directed by a yellow Pegasus. Things were finally starting and the mayor of Ponyville stepped up and spoke to the citizens. Star Twinkle noticed the mayor as well and also focused his eyes on her, waiting that she could hurry up and get it over with so that he could leave again.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, as mayor of Ponyville, it is my great pleasure to announce the beginning of the Summer Sun Celebration!”

All ponies began to cheer after those words...except for Star Twinkle who was unimpressed.

"Yay..." he mumbled sarcastically to himself.

The mayor continued. “In just a few moments, our town will witness the magic of the sunrise, and celebrate this, the longest day of the year!" She said, causing another reaction from the crowd who were all cheering. "And now, it is my great honor to introduce to you the ruler of our land, the very pony who gives us the sun and the moon each and every day, the good, the wise, the bringer of harmony to all of Equestria... Princess Celestia!” After this words, a white unicorn lifted the curtain to reveal the Princess.

But to the shock of everypony, she was nowhere to be found...

All ponies in the hall let out a huge gasp at once after they realized that their princess is nowhere to be found. And just like everypony else, Star Twinkle was confused about what was going on. The mayor tried to calm down the citizens but it had little success and it didn't get better after the white pony reappeared from behind the curtain and said that Princess Celestia was gone, causing the crowd to gasp in shock once more.

"Maybe Princess Celestia was busy? Or maybe she forgot this festival? Like me?" Star Twinkle tried to find some answers on his own so that he could calm himself down but it didn't work and he also became nervous.

The ponies inside of the town were all whispering words to each other, trying to find an answer too. Some of them panicked, some of them screamed, some of them tried to listen to the mayor for an explanation. But all that stopped after something happened up on the balcony where Princess Celestia was supposed to appear, causing all the ponies in the room to release a loud gasp in shock.

The dark mist started to fill the whole area. It was a dark blue cloud that looked like the night sky. The mist went up to the balcony where Princess Celestia was supposed to be and turned into a big figure. It was a pony who had the same size as Princess Celestia but at the same time, her appearance was completely different. Her fur was pitch black, her mane was dark blue and looked like the night sky. She also wore a blue armor and a helmet. Nopony had any idea who that was but whoever she was, she didn't look friendly at all.

“Oh, my beloved subjects. It's been so long since I've seen your precious, little sun-loving faces,” she said in a calm voice.

From afar Star Twinkle heard a voice who was probably speaking to the black coated mare.

“What did you do with our Princess?!”

The black mare just chuckled by this question.

“Why, am I not royal enough for you? Don't you know who I am? Does my crown no longer count now that I have been imprisoned for a thousand years? Did you not recall the legend? Did you not see the signs? “ She asked, much to the confusion of everypony.

“I did,” a voice then suddenly said from within of the crowd.

Everypony turned their heads to see where this voice came from. Star Twinkle recognized that it came from the purple-coated unicorn that he saw earlier, this day.

“That unicorn from earlier?” Star Twinkle thought to himself.

“And I know who you are. You're the Mare in the Moon – Nightmare Moon! ” She said, as she glared over to the evil pony.

And yet another gasp filled the hall while Star Twinkle tried to figure out what exactly was going on.

“Well well well, somepony who remembers me. Then you also know why I'm here,“ Nightmare Moon asked.

“You're here to... to...” she seemed to struggle with the last words hinting, that she knew something.

“Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last. From this moment forth, the night will last FOREVER! Hahahahahaha“

Star Twinkles whole body shivered after hearing those words. He didn't know how to react to this situation and just had fear colored in his whole face. He looked up to Nightmare Moon as she laughed at the despair of everypony while panic was quickly spreading in the room.

"Mare in the moon?
Nightmare Moon?
The night will last forever?
What is going on here?"

To be continued...

2. Another boring day - Part 2

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There was still panic in the town's hall of Ponyville. Created by that dark pony in front of everypony.

Nightmare Moon...
The mare in the moon...
Everlasting night...
All those words were circling around Star Twinkle's head, while he looked at the still laughing mare that appeared right in front of everypony in the Ponyville town hall...

The Mayor ordered a group of Royal Guards to attack Nightmare Moon but she used her magic to create some lightning to stop them. They were clearly no match for her. After that lousy attempt, she transformed back into this blue mist and left the town hall to who knows where. A blue Pegasus followed her, who probably tried to stop her. Star Twinkle could just watch and was left paralyzed by the whole situation until some ponies spoke up.

“What are we gonna do?”

“The Horror! The Horror!”

"A disaster! Terrible, terrible disaster!"

Those were just some of the words that could be heard in the town hall of Ponyville after Nightmare Moon's visit. The mayor tried her best to calm every pony down and gave some orders to the royal guard to deal with this situation. One of them is that they should look for Princess Celestia who was supposed to be present in the town hall at this moment. The fact that Nightmare Moon appeared and Princess Celestia didn't, gave the impression that Nightmare Moon might have done something to the princess.

While listening to the Mayor's speech as well since he was starting to panic too and didn't know what to do now. However, in the midst of the chaos, Star Twinkle noticed how the purple unicorn from before left the town hall. He figured that staying here would not help in any way so he also left the town hall. The moment he got out, he instantly noticed the darkness above him.

“Oh no,” he said in shock after looking up to the sky.

It was dark outside, just like Nightmare Moon said. Her eternal Night has already started. Shocked by the sight and the realization that the sky will look dark like this left Star Twinkle in a mix of Confusion and frustration. “What now? Is this time for panic? Argh! I don't even know what is going on! What are you gonna do in times like this?” He said in a panic, not sure how to deal with this kind of situation.

"Should I go home? Princess Celestia will do something to prevent all this, right? I don't even know exactly was going on so there was no way that I could contribute anything to stop this, right?" All those thoughts were like an excuse for Star Twinkle to not do something stupid. To prevent him from getting involved with any of this. He knew he was afraid and confused so he figured that he shouldn't bother to come up with some answers or ideas to stop all this. But while still in confusion, Star Twinkle noticed how a group of ponies ran past him.

"Come on everypony, we need to follow her! She is maybe the only pony who knows what's going on,” Somepony said in the middle of the chaos that was going on in Ponyvile.

It came from an orange coated mare who was leading a group of ponies to follow her. Star Twinkle figured that she is talking about that purple unicorn that knew about Nightmare Moon. She was probably the only one who knew exactly what happened here. That gave him enough reason to follow the group of ponies. If he is going to spend his days in this eternal night, then he might as well get some answers about anything, right now.

They all walked into a tree house, which Star Twinkle instantly recognized. It was the Golden Oak Library, the only library in Ponyville as far as Star Twinkle knew. But he can't remember ever being inside of it before. He was about to enter it as well but after realizing that he was about to enter it for the first time, he noticed something and stopped on his way.

“Wait! Should I just go in? I barely know any of those ponies. Sure there were some familiar faces but...does that matter at times like this?” He said to himself, trying to prevent some awkward situations.

He eventually decided to look inside the library from the outside through a window that he carefully opened in order to listen to their conversation. Everypony seemed to gather around the purple coated Unicorn to get some answers out of her. They came to the same conclusion than Star Twinkle and knew that this Unicorn knows something about Nightmare Moon and her return so they bombarded her with questions. They didn't seem to know her as well but unlike Star Twinkle, who was watching them all through a window in secret, those five ponies were just straight out walking up to her. It only made Star Twinkle feel even more uncomfortable about himself.

After he scanned his eyes through the room, he quickly realized that he actually knew everypony in the room in some way.

First, he looked at the orange coated Earth-Pony with the blonde mane, green eyes, the Stetson on her head and the three apples as a Cutie Mark. “That pony works at Sweet Apple Acres. Was it Applejack? Me and Steel Hammer had to do some repairs on their farm before. From what I have heard, Applejack is a very dependable pony...”

He then looked at the blue-coated Pegasus with the rainbow-colored mane, the cherry colored eyes and the lightning bolt that came out of a cloud as a Cutie Mark. “I saw her taking care of the weather before, but I am not sure about her name. I think she is a very fast flyer though...”

His eyes then turned to the white-coated Unicorn with the purple mane, the blue eyes and the three light blue diamonds as a Cutie Mark. “She works at Carousel Boutique, I think she makes dresses, I don't know her name, dresses really don't speak to me,”

He switched his eyes to the yellow-coated Pegasus with the pink mane, the cyan colored eyes, and the three pink butterflies as a Cutie Mark. “I saw this pony before too, she usually is in company with some animals, I don't know her name either. I don't think I have ever seen her speaking with anypony before,”

Then he looked at the pink-coated Earth Pony with the pink mane, the light blue eyes and the three Balloons as a Cutie Mark. “That's Pinkie Pie, she works at Sugarcube Corner, it's pretty hard not to know her when you live in Ponyville,”

Lastly, he looked at the light purple-coated Unicorn with the dark blue mane that had some purple stripes in it, dark violet eyes, and a six-pointed star as a Cutie Mark. ”And she is the pony that arrived today in Ponyville and knew about Nightmare Moon. She probably knows even more about what is going on right now,”

Just after thinking about all that, Star Twinkle realized something. ”What am I doing? They are talking for a while now and I haven't even listened to one word they said. I should probably start listening...” he said while focusing on the conversation this time.

The purple-coated unicorn used her magic to lift out a book out of a shelf and began reading out loud of it. ”There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, and Loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery. It is said, the last known location of the five elements was in the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters. It is located in what is now..... “ she seemed to struggle with the last word “The Everfree Forest?!”

Everypony else reacted in shock as soon as they heard that. “But isn't that this creepy forest full of monsters and other scary stuff...and...and, “ the yellow pony said but Just speaking of it seems to scare her so much that she couldn't continue.

“Well. What are we waiting for!? Let's just go and find those elements so that we can stop Nightmare Moon!” The blue-coated Pegasus said, determined to which everypony except the purple coated pony agreed to in unison.

“Are they crazy?" Star Twinkle thought in shock, overhearing their conversation. "The Everfree Forest is way to dangerous! They are not seriously planning to go there, right?” He wondered while keeping in check that nopony would notice him.

The purple-coated unicorn then looked concerned, despite every other one of the ponies being determined to go to the forest. The rest of the ponies were not sure why and gave her looks of concerns until the unicorn made her move. ”I'm sorry girls...” Without explanation, she ran out of the group and towards the door.

Star Twinkle realizing that he had to hide and just ducked under the window. The unicorn ran past Star Twinkle without her noticing him, making him let out a sigh of relief. The other ponies then quickly followed her outside, trying to catch up with her and again Star Twinkle was hiding below the window in hope nopony would see him. After everypony ran past him, he got out of his hiding spot and looked over to the direction everypony went off to with a worried expression on his face.

“Are they really going to the Everfree Forest? It did seem like they didn't really know what to do. Something about Elements of Harmony and the Castle of the Royal Princesses. I followed them because I wanted answers and not more questions!” He said in frustration All the questions were multiplying in Star Twinkles head, but in all the confusion was one thing that he couldn't stop thinking about. One thing that always remained in his head for some reason. “The Elements of Harmony...” he mumbled to himself confused. “Why does that sound so familiar? He wondered.

He stood in front of the library and was not sure what to do. He was too afraid to go up against Nightmare Moon. He also didn't know what he could do to help. But the words "Elements of Harmony" kept him interested for some unknown reason.

“I want to know...” He mumbled to himself. “I want to know more about the Elements of Harmony!” He said before he ran to the same direction to where the group of ponies went to.

“What am I doing?” He thought. “I'm about to follow them to the Everfree Forest! Am I crazy? It's dangerous in there!
And Nightmare Moon is dangerous too!” He thought to himself in order to remind himself, that what he is doing right now is stupid. “But no matter how I look at it...Just the thought of finding out something about the Elements of Harmony, makes my body move on its own!”

Later...

Before he knew it, he found himself in front of the entrance of the Everfree Forest. He slowly approached the entrance and nervously entered it while asking himself why he followed them in the first place. There is no knowledge in the world that is worth going through so much danger. But here he was. Entering a dangerous forest, filled with monsters and other dangers. At least that's what he heard. Of course, he never set hoof in this forest before and didn't know if all those things were true but just by looking at the forest alone made it at least look dangerous.

He kept up his guard at all cost and inspected everything carefully before he took one step after another. But after he wandered a while, he heard a Noise behind a bush, which bought up his attention. “Hello?” He said nervously while looking at the bush, which was still shaking. He was desperately hoping that it was one of the girls he saw before but after a little more shaking a giant beast jumped out of the bush and approached him. He let out a scream from the shock of this beast he just saw. It didn't take long until he found himself running away in fear of this beast. He did wonder what kind of creature it was, though. It looked like a lion, with a scorpion tail and wings. But due to his fear, he came to the conclusion that he didn't really care about it. Strangely enough, the beast didn't follow him and just seemed to be confused by Star Twinkle's reaction and quietly walked away again.

Star Twinkle, still running away, ran into a river and bumped headfirst into some big purple thing. “Ouch,” he said in pain.

He looked behind himself to make sure that he wasn't followed anymore and let out a relieved sigh. But after snapping out from the crash, he looked up to the purple thing that he bumped into. It didn't take long until he realized that it was some kind of big snake.

The Snake looked down to him and began to speak. “Hey, that kinda hurt!” It said in a calm voice. Being still in shock after the previous encounter, Star Twinkle knew only one thing to do now. He screamed again in fear and began to run again and jumped over some, what he believed to be purple rocks, that were conveniently placed so that he could cross the river. “Oh my, what a drama queen,“ the big snake said to himself while brushing his orange and purple mustache.

All this running was draining Star Twinkle's energy really quickly. He looked behind him again in order to make sure that he wasn't followed and let out a relieved sigh once more. After some more walking, Star Twinkle who seemed to have cooled down now found himself in front of a bridge. He looked across the bridge and saw a big castle. It must be the castle of the two princesses, that the purple unicorn spoke of. Thinking about that made him realize that, that none of the ponies from before were anywhere around him.

“Are they already inside? Did they already found the elements?” While staying positive, he also seemed to be worried.

The more he caught up with them, the more he got nervous and the more he thought about what he could do to help. After all, he still didn't know what those Elements of Harmony were supposed to be or how they could stop Nightmare Moon. While still thinking about his options, he saw a bright light in one of the towers of the castle. All the things he thought about just vanished in an instant and he ran towards the castle. He ran up the stairs of the tower from where he saw the light. As he ran up he heard some familiar voices.

”Twilight!” A bunch of voices shouted in the distance.

Star Twinkle recognized the voices and hurried. The voices were coming closer and closer as he made his way up the tower. He finally arrived at the top and saw all six ponies as well as Nightmare Moon in front of them. The six ponies were standing in front of Nightmare Moon, determent to defeat her with the purple-coated Unicorn in front of them all. Star Twinkle didn't know what was going on and hid in the doorway to prevent himself from getting caught and watched how the events will unfold.

”You think you can destroy The Elements of Harmony just like that? Well, you're wrong, because the spirits of The Elements of Harmony are right here!” The purple-coated Unicorn said determinedly.

“What?” Nightmare Moon replied confused.

“Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of... honesty!”

”Fluttershy, who tamed the manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of... kindness!”

”Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the spirit of... laughter!”

”Rarity, who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift represents the spirit of... generosity!”

“And Rainbow Dash, who could not abandon her friends for her own heart's desire represents the spirit of... loyalty!”

All of the ponies had some kind of crystal shards orbiting around them, whenever the purple one was speaking about them. Despite the purple unicorns confidence, Nightmare Moon was still full of herself. “You still don't have the sixth Element! The spark didn't work!”

”But it did! A different kind of spark. I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I cared about you. The spark ignited inside me when I realized that you all... are my friends! You see, Nightmare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the... the spark, that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth element: the element of... magic!”

All six ponies now levitated in the air and were engulfed by a bright light. Each of the shards turned into a necklace, which resembled their Cutie-Mark and the purple unicorn got a crown on her head. Star Twinkle was not exactly sure what happened there but judging from Nightmare Moon's expression, things were not going according to her plan.

”Yes! They did it!” Star Twinkle said with a bright smile on his face.

Maybe it was because of the shock but Nightmare Moon's expression changed after she watched the six ponies for a while. It turned from shocked to confused after a while. The six ponies landed back on the ground waiting for something to happen.

But...

Nothing...

There was no reaction from the elements anymore.
No light.
No levitating
Nothing.
Nopony understood what went wrong, even Nightmare Moon was confused by the situation, not to mention that Star Twinkle who had no idea what was going on in the first place.

The purple unicorn tapped her crown as if she wanted to get out another reaction but nothing happened.

“I don't understand. The book said...The Elements, the castle...ehm” the purple unicorn said in desperation.

Even though Nightmare Moon was not sure what happened, one thing was clear: The Elements of Harmony didn't work so Nightmare Moon declared her victory over the six ponies and laughed maniacally. “Looks like your precious elements have lost their power! With the elements out of my way, nopony will ever be able to stop me! You lost my little ponies!”

A huge gasp filled the room as they just realized that they failed to stop Nightmare Moon. She used her magic to summon some lightning bolts, like she did before and attacked the ponies, leaving them defeated on the ground. Star Twinkle could just watch how they all fell to the ground, defeated by Nightmare Moon who continued to laugh in her victory.

”No...this can't be happening,” The purple-coated unicorn said in exhaustion.

Nightmare Moons spell seemed to have weakened them too much that they couldn't even get back on their hooves. There was only the laughter of Nightmare Moon that filled the room which only demoralized the six ponies even more. Seeing them helpless on the ground, made Star Twinkle fell helpless as well.

“What now?” He said in shock after watching how everything got worse in an instant.

Nightmare Moon was ready to prepare another spell to finish of the Six ponies while Star Twinkle still stood in the background paralyzed from fear.

”Come on...move! Do something! But what? What can I possibly do?” He thought, struggling with himself. “The elements are the only thing that can stop Nightmare Moon!”

Nightmare Moon continued to walk up to the six ponies while still charging up her magic. “How about I'll send you and your little elements to the moon?” Nightmare Moon suggested with a smile on her face.

“No! Not the moon! You can't throw good parties there!” Pinkie Pie said, which was probably not the best time to say right now.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle still continued to look over the seven mares, trying to convince himself to do something. “If they are gone, then it's over for Equestria! Come on Star Twinkle just do something meaningful for once in your life!”

The whole situation was putting a huge pressure on Star Twinkle. Should he go help them? But what could he do? The worst thing that could happen is that he is being defeated by Nightmare Moon and who knows what she would do to him?

Nightmare Moon was finished to prepare her magic and attempted to shoot out a beam out of her horn.

”No!” Star Twinkle shouted as he jumped between the six ponies and Nightmare Moon, leading her to stop her magic for a second.

Nightmare Moon was not sure how to react to that and just had a puzzled expression on her face.

”Who are you? What are you doing!?” The purple unicorn asked confused.

”I have no idea!” Star Twinkle replied, also confused.

”I don't know who you are, but it doesn't matter! May you share the fate of these ponies!”

Nightmare Moon began to shoot a magic beam to the seven ponies and since Star Twinkle was in front of them, he would be hit first, so he closed his eyes out of fear.

He had no idea what would happen now. Will it hurt? Does magic hurt? Will it be over before he noticed anything? Will he be sent to the moon? The magic beam was already flying towards him but it felt like hours that passed in this very moment. It all went as he expected how it would go. He was not able to do anything. He was merely saving those six ponies he didn't know for a few seconds. The Elements of Harmony were not able to help them. What was he expecting to happen when he jumped between Nightmare Moon and those six ponies? But he would lie if he said that it didn't felt good to attempt, helping other ponies for once instead of thinking only about himself. At least he went out, knowing that he did it for somepony else. With that thought in mind...the only thing he could do now was to smile...

When suddenly...

...A strange light engulfed Star Twinkle. He opened his eyes again and found himself glowing in the same light, like the other six ponies before him. Not only that but the magic from Nightmare Moon also seemed to disappear. Once again a huge gasp filled the room as everypony watched Star Twinkle. Needless to say, Nightmare Moon was shocked as well.

Suddenly, the crown and the necklaces of the six ponies shot out a laser at Star Twinkle. It formed another necklace which had a white star as a symbol.

”Another element?” The purple unicorn said in surprise.

”What? Since when are there seven Elements of Harmony?” Nightmare Moon said in shock.

All the elements began to shine once again together with their bearers, who floated above the ground, creating a rainbow, that attacked Nightmare Moon. The beams of the rainbow circled around Nightmare Moon, causing her to scream in fear. It slowly engulfed her whole body, making it impossible to see her anymore in this rainbow.

After the attack was done, everypony were bathing in a bright light that filled the whole room but the elements were slowly ”deactivating” themselves and everypony landed on the ground unconscious. Eventually, everypony got up on their hooves again. Star Twinkle woke up but was still weakened by the shock but he could hear the voices from the other ponies. Though he was too exhausted to recognize them immediately. He had no idea what happened just now. All he knew was that he was relieved how everything turned out in the end. He looked down for a moment and just now realized how he was wearing a necklace with a white star on it. It looked exactly like the necklaces that the other ponies were wearing. He managed to shake off his shock and tried to get up but seemed to struggle for a moment.

”Need some help?” A familiar voice said to him.

Star Twinkle looked up and he saw how the purple Unicorn was offering her hoof, to get him back up.

”...Yes...” He said hesitantly before he took her hoof and got back on his hooves ”Thanks...um,”

”Twilight,” she Introduced herself, followed by a smile.

”Twilight,” also followed by a light smile from Star Twinkle.

”Gee, Twilight! I thought you were just spoutin' a lot of hooey, but I reckon we really do represent the elements of friendship,” Applejack said relieved.

”Indeed, you do,” a gentle voice said from afar.

The Sun was rising and a sphere of light appeared in front of them, banishing the eternal night, Nightmare Moon created. The Sphere turned out to be Princess Celestia. Naturally, everypony was bowing before her, except Twilight, who approached her.

”Princess Celestia,” she said excitingly.

”Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student. I knew you could do it,”

”But... you told me it was all an old pony tale,“

”I told you that you needed to make some friends, nothing more. I saw the signs of Nightmare Moon's return and I knew it was you who had the magic inside to defeat her, but you could not unleash it until you let true friendship into your heart. Now if only another will as well. Princess Luna!”

Princess Celestia approached the defeated Nightmare Moon, whose appearance had changed into a slightly smaller pony. Princess Luna seemed to be scared, facing her sister after all she has done. But Princess Celestia just kneeled down trying to comfort her.

”It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this. Time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister. Will you accept my friendship?” She said trying to comfort her.

Everypony was waiting for Princess Luna's answer. Princess Luna seemed to hesitate for a moment but eventually approached Princess Celestia with tears in her eyes hugging her in the process.

As they both hugged each other Pinkie Pie began to tear up...At least for a while...

”Hey, you know what this calls for? A PARTY!”

”Yea, let's go back to Ponyville and celebrate!” Said the blue Pegasus who seemed to be full of energy again.

”Yes let's go back,” Said Princess Celestia after helping up Princess Luna.

Star Twinkle wasn't a fan of parties so he was about to say that he will go home, but was interrupted by Twilight.

“Come on,” Twilight said in excitement.

Twilight grabbed Star Twinkles hoof in her excitement.

”What? Me too?” He asked confused.

”Of course,” she happily said.

”We couldn't defeat Nightmare Moon if it wasn't for you,” said the yellow Pegasus in a shy tone.

”Yes! We also have to celebrate for having a new friend,” the pink pony added happily.

Star Twinkle didn't know what to say, cause he never heard someone calling him a friend before. It caught him off guard but he tried not to show that as he replied to Pinkie Pie.

”I'm your friend?” He asked confused.

”Well. Duh. It's also better than sneaking up on us without us noticing,” she said followed by a grin.

“Wait! How did yo-”

Interrupted by the white unicorn he stopped to continue his sentence.

“I think we were not introduced before?”

”Um Yea,” he said embarrassed, even though he knew some of their names but he thought that it would be inappropriate to say that he was following them in secret.

”So what's your name? Unless you want us to keep calling you “You”.” The orange pony jokingly asked.

They all awaited his answer. He felt kinda uncomfortable being stared at by so many ponies, but he managed to introduce himself.

“It's Star Twinkle,” he said in a proud tone in his voice.

After that, everypony was properly introducing themselves to Star Twinkle. He just pretended he didn't know half of the ponies and remembered their names easily. But it was now time to get back to Ponyville and tell everypony about the defeat of Nightmare Moon. Just when Star Twinkle was about to leave with the other ponies, Princess Celestia approached him.

She looked down at him, almost as if she was inspecting him. Star Twinkle was a little shocked that the ruler of Equestria was standing before him. Princess Luna was standing next to Princess Celestia as well. This made Star Twinkle more and more uncomfortable because he didn't know if he should ask why they looked at him like that or if he should bow down since they were royalty.

"I see," said Princess Celestia as if she figured something out.

He was already confused and Princess Celestia was not doing him a favor by saying those things.

"But I thought there were only six of them?" Asked Princess Luna to her sister.

"Yes, I have to explain some things to you when we get back," replied Princess Celestia.

How about explaining all this stuff to me? Star Twinkle almost shouted in frustration but of course, he couldn't act like that in front of royalty, making him even more frustrated. The two Princesses then walked past him without explaining anything to him. He felt a little left out of this situation. But after letting out a sigh of frustration, he eventually followed everypony outside.

They all went back to Ponyville where they were greeted by all the townfolks. There were lots of cheers, probably because everypony knew that Nightmare Moon was no more. But Twilight seemed a bit sad, so Princess Celestia asked her if something was wrong.

”Why so glum, my faithful student? Are you not happy that your quest is complete and you can return to your studies in Canterlot?”

”That's just it. Just when I learned how wonderful it is to have friends, I have to leave them,”

Princess Celestia understood and had an idea.

”Spike, take a note, please,”

The purple creature, Star Twinkle saw before, took out a scroll and noticed everything the Princess said.

”I, Princess Celestia, hereby decree that the unicorn Twilight Sparkle shall take on a new mission for Equestria. She must continue to study the magic of friendship. She must report to me her findings from her new home in Ponyville.”

”Oh thank you, Princess Celestia! I'll study harder than ever before,” she said while the other five ponies comforted her in a big group hug.

As Star Twinkle was about to leave the picture, Pinkie Pie dragged him into the group hug. He wasn't used to this kind of treatment, but he didn't seem to mind for the moment. Steel Hammer watched from afar and couldn't believe his eyes.

”I don't know what happened, but he looks happy, so I guess it's okay, he he he,” he said with a smile on his face.

After the day was over, Star Twinkle returned to his cottage and lied down on his bed, with a bugged expression on his face.

”Well...today was very exhausting.
I went through the Everfree Forest, I fought an evil pony who was trapped in the moon for thousand years, I was chosen by one of the Elements of Harmony AND helped to save all of Equestria.”

While thinking about his words he just said, he realized that he could only think about those six ponies, who he could now call his friends which makes his expression turn into a smile.

”But...I would say....today was not...another boring day,”

And with those words, he closed his eyes and began to sleep.
So that he could wake up soon enough to start his next day in Ponyville.

At the same time, far away from Ponyville...

The night was as beautiful as ever. Bright stars were glowing in the sky. One pony was watching those stars above him.
Standing in the middle of an open grass field. A pony who was hiding his face under a gray hood.

“I can feel it...” he said to himself while looking at the stars above him.

Almost hypnotized by the sight, he formed a smile beneath his covered face as he looked at the stars.

“The Elements have returned...”

3. Ticket Terror

View Online

The day after Nightmare Moon's return...

Despite Equestria almost being covered in an Eternal Night by Nightmare Moon, everything seemed to have settled down again in Ponyville and everypony returned to live their life. Princess Luna, who turned out to be Nightmare Moon, was stopped by the Elements of Harmony and returned to her sister Princess Celestia.

And...Star Twinkle was one of the ponies who was chosen by the Elements of Harmony and became friends with six ponies who were chosen as well...

This was roughly everything important that happened...

Having these things summed up in Star Twinkle'S head was really weird for him...

Star Twinkle was working together with his boss, Steel Hammer, at this very moment. They both carried a cart across the road of Ponyville filled with some wooden planks and tools, ready to deliver them to somewhere else. While doing that, they couldn't help but talk about the events that took place a day before.

"So let me get this straight, I mean in case I got something wrong," Steel Hammer said.

"Okay," Star Twinkle replied casually.

Steel Hammer took a moment to collect his thoughts before he asked away. "So after Nightmare Moon's return, you thought it would be a good idea to go to the Everfree Forest..." he started.

"I didn't think it was a good idea..." Star Twinkle thought while he kept listening

Steel Hammer continued. "...To help some ponies to find something called The Elements of Harmony...which were the reason why Nightmare Moon was imprisoned in the moon in the first place...and you were chosen by one of those Elements of Harmony...which means that you pretty much helped to save all of Equestria," Steel Hammer continued.

Star Twinkle didn't interrupt Steel Hammer and just nodded in response while they both continued their walk.

"But not only that!" Steel Hammer continued. "You also had the chance to meet Princess Celestia in person!" Steel Hammer finished.

"Yes," Star Twinkle replied, confirming everything that Steel Hammer said so far. "Sooo...what do you think?" Star Twinkle replied while he waited for Steel Hammers final opinion on the matter.

"Pretty awesome...I guess?" Steel Hammer said in uncertainty. From another ponies point of view, it might be but Star Twinkle still couldn't believe all of that himself. It all happened so fast and there was no time to think everything through.
"It's just hard picturing you in all this!" Steel Hammer added further.

"That was a given..." thought Star Twinkle. He looked up at the sky, thinking about what happened and what it meant for him. "Yes...it is really hard to believe..."

Later...

After their work was done, Star Twinkle was sitting outside of a restaurant on a table with an empty plate sitting on the table in front of him, indicating that he was eating something there. After Steel Hammer brought the matter up again, Star Twinkle was now focused on the Nightmare Moon event as well. He desperately tried to figure out some answers about what exactly happened because he couldn't believe it, even though he was there. One moment he was living his normal, boring and lonely life and in another moment he helped to save Equestria from an evil pony that was about to cover the whole world in an eternal night because he and six others ponies were chosen by the Elements of Harmony, the most powerful magic in Equestria. Just thinking about those things and putting himself into this picture was unbelievable.

Another thing was, that he now has befriended six other ponies. He had no idea what to think about that as well. He never had any friends before so it was hard for him to figure out how to feel about it. But even if he came to the conclusion that it was a good thing, his mind was focused on only one thing most of the time...

"Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Loyalty, Magic and…." he mumbled to himself with his head on his table.
"And what!?" He exclaimed frustrated. "Urgh! Not even Princess Celestia knew anything about a seventh element! How am I supposed to figure something out!?"

He laid his head down on the table out of frustration.
Twilight and Magic,
Applejack and Honesty,
Rainbow Dash and Loyalty,
Rarity and Generosity,
Fluttershy and Kindness
and Pinkie Pie and Laughter.
Why was only his element unknown? Why is only he supposed to be left in the dark? It didn't feel fair.

Of course, he had only a little chance to talk with both Princess Celestia and her little sister, Princess Luna to talk about all this since they were both happy to see each other again after one thousand years. Star Twinkle and his Element of Harmony were probably trivial compared to that. Also, it was not like as if he could just talk with two royal princesses like that.

Dealing with all those facts made Star Twinkle feel a little frustrated. "Why am I even thinking about that? I mean Nightmare Moon is defeated so there is no reason to use the Elements of Harmony again...which means that thinking about them is pointless, right?" He said to himself in an attempt to make him think about something else.

But it didn't work...

"Why is my mind so focused on the elements? It's sometimes the only thing I can think about. But why?" He asked himself in frustration. He then lifted his head up again and put on a fake smile to cheer himself up. "Enough of that! I am probably the only one who has to worry about unnecessary things like that," he said, again trying to think about something else.

"I CAN'T DECIDE!" A female voice then exclaimed from a few meters away.

Star Twinkle was startled by this loud voice coming from a table behind him and jumped for a moment. He turned around and saw how Twilight and Spike sat on another table. The waiter left the table so Twilight seemed to have made her order. They didn't seem to notice Star Twinkle so he first thought about leaving them alone. But Twilight was clearly bothered by something so if he talked with her then he would eventually be caught up with it as well.

And that is something he didn't want...

"Maybe I can leave without them noticing me?" He thought before he slipped out of his chair and tried to walk the other way. He already had his own problems to deal with so the last thing he needed was somepony else's problem. Unfortunately, Spike waved over to Star Twinkle, completely unaware of his attempt to sneak away so the stallion had no choice but to go up to the two with a fake smile on his face. "Great..." he thought annoyed.

Star Twinkle walked up to Twilight's and Spike's table. "Is something wrong?" He asked.

Twilight's head was dropped on the table, something that looked a little familiar to Star Twinkle. Twilight and Spike then explained the situation to Star Twinkle. Apparently, Princess Celestia has given Twilight two tickets for something called "The Grand Galloping Gala". But Twilight couldn't decide who should get one ticket and who doesn't since she didn't want to make anypony think that she likes one of them more than the others.

"Do you know what I should do?" Twilight asked Star Twinkle in her frustration.

But Star Twinkle was just shaking his head, much to the disappointment of Twilight. Star Twinkle was thinking about, what he would have done if he was in her position. But in the end, he was glad that he didn't have to decide but of course, he couldn't say that to her. "What is this "Grand Galloping Gala" anyway?" He asked out of curiosity.

"It's just some girly party, nothing more," Spike explained while rolling his eyes.

Twilight, who also rolled her eyes because of Spike's explanation, protested and said that it is one of the most important events in all of Equestria and that it is an honor to be invited by the princess herself. Despite all this information Star Twinkle didn't seem to be so impressed because it sounded like any other party so naturally, he was not interested.

"So it's a really big thing I guess?" He asked, in an uninterested tone.

Meanwhile, a waiter brought in the food that Twilight and Spike ordered. Spike already began to eat the hay that he ordered. Twilight, on the other hoof, could not stop worrying. "Of course! That's why everypony wants one of the tickets. But I can't decide who I should give one. I have the feeling that if I don't decide soon, they will drive me crazy by the end of the day," she said frustrated.

And here Star Twinkle thought he had problems. He couldn't help to think that her problem wasn't as major as she might think. "Aren't you overreacting a little? I mean they can't be that bad, right?" Star Twinkle said.

Twilight was beginning to think that as well and raised her head. "You're right. I'm sure everything will be much clearer once I eat," Twilight said relieved as she lifted the sandwich on her plate with her magic in relief.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle realized how water dropped on his head, making him look up in surprise. Dark clouds were building up above them and it was clear what happened next. "You better hurry with your eating cause it looks like it's going to -" But just in the middle of his sentence heavy rain was suddenly pouring down on his head, leaving him soaked. "Rain..."

Twilight was confused about what was happening until she heard a familiar voice up in the sky.

"Hi there, best friend forever I've ever ever had. Enjoying the sunny weather?" Rainbow Dash said, sitting on a cloud above the table where Twilight sat. For some reason, she left a space of clouds open so that the sun would shine through right where Twilight was sitting.

"Rainbow Dash, what are you doing?" Twilight asked bothered.

"Whaddya mean? I just saw the smartest, most generous pony about to get rained on, so I thought I'd kick a hole in the clouds to keep her dry so she could dine in peace, that's all," Rainbow Dash explained.

But Twilight quickly realized what was going on behind Rainbow Dash's action. "Rainbow, you're not trying to get extra consideration for the extra ticket by doing me extra special favors, are you?" Twilight asked.

"Me? No no no, of course not," Rainbow Dash innocently replied. However, Twilight had problems believing that and looked at her in disbelieve. "Seriously, I'd do it for anypony," Rainbow Dash added.

Twilight looked at Star Twinkle to confirm Rainbow Dash's statement and was now soaked with his mane covering his eyes and an annoyed look on his face. Star Twinkle was just wondering what he is still doing there, standing in the rain, waiting for something to happen on its own. To which Rainbow Dash just responded with an embarrassed laugh.

"Rainbow, I am not comfortable accepting unwanted favors so I'd appreciate it if you close up that rain cloud right now," Twilight demanded.

Rainbow Dash didn't like to hear that but did as Twilight told her to and closed the gap in the clouds, leaving Twilight happy and Star Twinkle worried because he knew exactly what was about to happen. Now it started to rain on Twilight as well. Making it impossible to eat the sandwich she ordered, cause it is now soaked. Twilight let out a growl of frustration while Spike could just laugh.

"Alright, I'm soaked enough...so how about we get out of the rain?" Star Twinkle suggested.

Seconds later, Rarity who had an umbrella to keep herself dry approached the two soaked ponies and offered the two to come with her so that they no longer have to stay in the rain. They were all practically dragged to Carousel Boutique which was the place where Rarity lived. While Rarity took care of Twilight and Spike, Star Twinkle looked around the Boutique. It was the first time for Star Twinkle to see the "Carousel Boutique" from the inside. There were Mannequins, where Rarity probably put her dresses on, a podium surrounded by mirrors, colorful curtains, and dresses that were hanging all over the place. He came to the conclusion that it was a little too colorful and girly for his taste.

Shortly after Star Twinkle's body was dry again, he noticed how Spike approached him in a rather fancy light blue outfit, paired with a blonde wig and a black hat. While Star Twinkle thought that Spikes looked hilarious, he tried his best to not laugh but couldn't help to at least grin a little. "Why do you look like that?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Don't ask," the little dragon annoyingly replied.

Spike left the Boutique after getting out of his funny garment and Star Twinkle walked up to Twilight and Rarity. Twilight was also dressed very fancy while Rarity seemed to fantasize about something.

"And oh, my goodness, what a coincidence. I happen to have an ensemble of my own that matches yours to a T. We would be the belles of the ball, you and I. Everpony would be clamoring for our attention. All eyes would be on us, and then everyone would finally know, the most beautiful, most talented, most sophisticated pony in all of Equestria is Rarity the unicorn," Rarity fantasized in front of the two ponies unaware of the reaction of them. As soon as Rarity looked over at Twilight who gave her a mean look, she realized that she might have chosen the wrong words to speak out. "He he...And Twilight Sparkle, of course," Rarity corrected.

But Twilight knew exactly what was going on again. "I see what's going on. You're just buttering me up so I give you the extra ticket. Well, it's not gonna work. You're going to have to wait for my decision just like everypony else." She walked to the door removing her clothes at the same time while Star Twinkle followed her. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've been trying all day just to get some lunch," Twilight said as she stood in the door of the boutique.

"Did somepony say lunch?" A female voice from outside said.

Out of nowhere, Applejack appeared and dragged Twilight out of the door to present her a carriage full of food.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Twilight said in an annoyed tone as soon as she saw all this in front of her.

"I got apple pie, apple fritters, apple tarts, apple dumplings, apple crisps, apple crumblers, and apple Brown Betty. Uh, the dessert, not my auntie. What do you say there, best friend?" Applejack asked with the dessert on her head, offering it to Twilight.

Star Twinkle could hear a grumbling stomach sound, which came undoubtedly from Twilight who became more and angrier and frustrated. "No. No," she exclaimed. "I don't know who I'm giving the ticket to, and all these favors aren't making it any easier to decide. In fact, I'm less sure now than I was this morning. Come on Star Twinkle we're leaving!" She said while running angrily away.

"We?...err I mean yes, right behind you," Star Twinkle said who felt more and more involved in Twilight's problem. Something that he didn't like at all. He always dealt with his problems on his own. Not that he had any friends that he could ask for help. The only thing he wanted was that nopony would involve him with their problems. But that was exactly what happened right now.

Of course, Star Twinkle followed her, even if he wasn't really sure why. He walked her home but they didn't talk much. Probably because they were both annoyed about this ticket situation. But at least gave Star Twinkle time to think. "Aren't they supposed to be friends? Don't they realize that they put too much pressure on Twilight? Why doesn't Twilight tell them that she can't decide because she doesn't want to let anypony down?" Star Twinkle wondered.

It's all those questions that he had no answers for that made him unsure if he really belongs in this group of "friends".

"You see what I mean?" She asked Star Twinkle who was still in deep thoughts.

"Huh? Oh! Yea!" He replied, pretending that he listened to Twilight.

They both arrived at Twilight's library where Twilight just wanted to forget about the ticket for today. "Thanks for walking home with me," she said giving him a little smile.

"No problem," he replied casually. He was actually glad that this was over as well.

Star Twinkle turned around and attempted to leave but he heard a humming from inside the treehouse as soon as Twilight opened the door. The humming came from Fluttershy, who seemed to clean Twilight's library, much to the despair of Twilight. "Fluttershy, not you too?" Twilight said in frustration.

Star Twinkle felt bad for Twilight but he had enough of this whole "ticket situation" and pretended he didn't notice Fluttershy and tried to leave. Thankfully, Twilight walked into her house to talk to Fluttershy, so it was safe to leave.
At least, that's what he thought. As soon as Star Twinkle turned around to walk away from the treehouse, a Squeaky voice greeted him.

"Hi, Star Twinkle!" It was Pinkie Pie. So things will become difficult, he thought. All he wanted to do is trying to escape from Twilight so that he never has to hear something about tickets for the rest of the day. But knowing Pinkie Pie, that was probably not an easy option right now.
So Star Twinkle talked to her in hope that it would be a short conversation.

"Hey! Um...What are you doing here?" He asked, clearly not knowing what he should talk about with her.

"Oh, just trying to convince Twilight to give me the ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala," she replied openly.

Star Twinkle was surprised to get such a direct answer, but he wasn't surprised to hear the word "ticket" again. He already had a bad feeling that this is not gonna be pretty. "Yeah, I don't think this is a really good idea now," he advised.

"Don't worry. I have a very good plan!" She said while turning around to a group of ponies, that Star Twinkle just noticed.
"Ready girls?" She said as she turned her head to the group behind her. The ponies replied with a motivated cheer and Star Twinkle didn't know what this all was about but he knew that Twilight would see through it again. Twilight was standing in front of the door now. She pointed with her hoof outside of the door, probably trying to make Fluttershy leave her house.

She then was surprised by a loud "Surprise!" that the group of ponies who dragged her outside, throwing her into the air multiple times while Pinkie Pie was singing. Twilight didn't seem to happy about this "Surprise" at all demanding Pinkie Pie to drop her. Star Twinkle could only imagine how annoyed Twilight was at the moment and watched. She knew what Pinkie was planning because it was quite obvious.

"Yeah, this will totally work..." Star Twinkle said with sarcasm.

After a loud scream from Twilight, Pinkie Pie finally lets her down or rather forcefully dropped her on the ground and almost expected that this little action would guarantee her to get the ticket for the Grand Galloping Galla. "Yes, Twilight?" She said while excitingly waiting for Twilight's answer.

But as expected, Twilight smelled her plan a mile away already. "At least, the other ponies tried to be subtle about the ticket," Twilight pointed out annoyed.

One of the ponies stepped out of the group to ask what ticket Twilight was talking about. Pinkie Pie explained to them that Twilight had one ticket left for the Grand Galloping Gala. Star Twinkle saw where this was all going and tried to interrupt Pinkie but it was too late for that. Ponies all around Twilight now tried to somehow get the ticket, from compliments and gifts to personal services, Twilight was now harassed from every direction. The only thing left for her to do was running away from this crowd of ponies. Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie just watched how things got out of control real fast.

"What's wrong with her?" Pinkie Pie asked in confusion to which Star Twinkle didn't even respond.

"What in the hay was that all about," Applejack asked as she witnessed how a crowd of ponies walked by her, as she approached Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie.

"Well..." Star Twinkle was about to explain the situation but he noticed how Rarity showed up, who carried another rather fancy light blue dress.

Applejack asked what she was trying to do with that dress, cause it was obvious what her intent was. "Well, I just wanted to give Twilight one of my dresses as a gift. That is all," Rarity replied innocently.

"And you're sure it has nothing to do with that ticket she promised to me?" Applejack corrected.

Suddenly, a voice from above could be heard, which was familiar one everypony recognized. "Don't you mean my ticket!?" It was Rainbow Dash who landed in front of Applejack with a mean look on her face.

"And just what are you doing here?" Applejack asked annoyed at Rainbow Dash.

"Me? I just wanted to remind Twilight what good friends we are. But the question is what are YOU doing here?" She asked back to Applejack.

Fluttershy who was inside the Treehouse the whole time overheard the conversation and came outside. As the other ponies noticed her, Rainbow Dash approached her to ask her what SHE was doing in Twilight's house.

"I...um...just wanted to...ehm..." Fluttershy said hesitantly.

Rainbow Dash suddenly realized that Fluttershy also wanted the ticket for herself. Applejack tried to defend Fluttershy while also making sure that she is the one deserving the ticket. Soon Rarity and Pinkie Pie joined in and they all started to argue about the ticket.

"What is going on?" Star Twinkle wondered. "They are friends, right? So why are they arguing about something minor like this?"

Needless to say, Star Twinkle had the feeling that he had to say something before it got completely out of control.

"Girls!" He said in a poor attempt to make them stop.

But they weren't listening and argued more and more, making Star Twinkle feel uncomfortable. Were this supposed to be friends? Was he supposed to be part of this? Is this what friendship was supposed to be? He tried to make them stop but they weren't listening, making him feel kind of helpless as he could just watch how this so-called "friends" argued about one stupid ticket, for one stupid gala, forgetting how Twilight must feel in this situation. A mix of frustration and confusion was building up inside him, watching this until it turned into sadness and even anger, ultimately exploding in a loud shout.

"ENOUUUUUGH!" The stallion shouted in the middle of this mess.

Suddenly, all ponies were startled by Star Twinkles outburst and stared at him in surprise since they probably never saw him like that. Except for Pinkie Pie, who just said "Whoa Deja vu". Star Twinkle let out a relieved sigh after getting everyponies attention back but he soon realized that this is not exactly what he is used to, making him nervous at first. But he came this far, so he might as well finish it by saying what he wanted to say.

"Listen I don't know why that ticket is so important to you all but I don't think it's up to you who Twilight gives her ticket too.
Besides the problem is not that she can't decide who to take with her, but who she can't take with her. At least, that's what I think. You are all her best friends and she doesn't want to let anypony down, so don't put even more pressure on her!" He explained with some anger in his voice.

The five ponies who argued seconds before were completely silent and looked at each while listening to Star Twinkle.

"If you really think one day on this Gala is worth all this then do what you want," he added. "Some friends you are..." he added, giving them all a disappointing expression before he walked away.

Everypony looked at the ground in shame after hearing the last sentence, realizing their mistakes. Star Twinkle just walked away not even bother looking back. He was not used to such stressful days, aside from that Nightmare Moon incident so he was In a really bad mood, to begin with. He was still thinking about what he said to them and was surprised to hear those words coming out of him.

"Some friends you are..." he repeated to himself.

This sentence made him feel the worst. How can he, who never experienced friendship in the first place, say that they are bad friends? He stopped walking for a moment and decided to go back to them to apologize. No matter if it was needed or not, he just wanted to do it, to make himself feel better.

The sun was already gone till he arrived at the Treehouse but it looked like he was too late anyway. Nopony was in front of the Treehouse, so he couldn't apologize, making him feel bad again. The lights of the Treehouse were on, so Twilight must be home. Suddenly the door opened and six happy ponies walked out of the tree house. Each with a ticket floating above their heads, probably from Twilight's magic.

"What's going on here?" The Confused pony asked

"Oh, Star Twinkle! Perfect! Here!" Twilight said as she walked up to Star Twinkle and levitated a ticket in front of his eyes.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle was confused. "Are those all tickets for the Grand Galloping Gala?" He asked.

"Yes! I gave my tickets back to Princess Celestia, so she gave me enough for all of my friends. Here this one is for you," she explained as she offered Star Twinkle one of the tickets.

"Gave them back? Why did you do that?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

The other ponies approached him as well, explaining the situation.

"We have you to thank for that," Rarity said in a grateful tone.

"Yes! If you hadn't told us what bad friends we were, then we would have never realized, how bad we would make Twilight feel," Pinkie Pie said in an unfitting happy tone.

"They came and apologized to me, saying that they didn't want to go to the gala anymore. That's when I realized that I didn't want to go either if it means leaving one of my friends behind. After all, it wouldn't be as much fun, if not all of my friends could come," Twilight explained.

"Come on Star Twinkle, we gonna get Twilight something to eat, because of all the trouble we caused, you should come too," Applejack suggested.

They all walked away happily, laughing and smiling. It was surprising how good this all turned out at the end, judging from the rest of the day. Was it really that easy? Is what Star Twinkle thought, but he was kinda glad, to see them all having fun again. Spike also walked by him now, having one ticket himself in his claw and giggling, which he stopped after he noticed that Star Twinkle was looking at him.

"I mean, gross, I have to go too?" He said before he continued giggling after he walked away.

Star Twinkle just gave him a light smile, while thinking about what Twilight said. "It wouldn't be as much fun if not all of my friends could come..." Star Twinkle mumbled to himself. "Yes, It must be bad if you have to leave even one friend," he figured. Thinking back, he would probably not have liked it if one of his friends would have been left behind and he surely didn't want to be the one who had to decide who it would be. Realizing that he felt kinda happy that

He followed the others slowly and noticed how Twilight looked back at him, giving him a smile, that almost said thank you, making Star Twinkle look away kind of embarrassed.

Later that night...

After the day was over, as usual, Star Twinkle lied in his bed, spending some time to think about stuff. He again thought about the seventh unknown Element of Harmony, what it was, why he was chosen by it and other stuff.

"I am the only one thinking about this, am I?" He said in his frustration while he stretched out his legs.

After an awkward silence, the stallion looked to his left, towards a wooden table stood, where the Ticket for the Grand Galloping Gala was laying on. He remembered how all of his friends had a set goal in mind on what to do at the Gala. But of course, he was the only one who didn't. Just another thing that bothered him.

But maybe he didn't need to know, just like with his element and things will work out when the time was right. The longer he looked at the ticket, the more he told himself that, whether it was true or not. In the end, he came to one conclusion...

"I don't know what I am supposed to do on the gala, but that doesn't matter, right? Cause I will be there with my friends, That's what I should think about," he said to himself in a calm voice.

He closed his eyes and decided to go to sleep now, trying to forget that whole Element of Harmony Stuff and thought about the Grand Galloping Gala and all the fun that he will have there with his new friends. That way he had something to look out for.

4. I don't need help

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It was closing time for the Iron Hammer and both Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were preparing to end their work for today. The last thing, that had to be done was storing some materials and tolls inside of the workshop. Star Twinkle was pulling a cart full of tools, iron, wood, and other heavy stuff which were clearly too heavy for him judging from how hard he was breathing and how his whole body was shaking in the process.

His boss, Steel Hammer, watched that and couldn't help but ask if he was able to do it himself. “You sure you can handle this alone?” Steel Hammer asked in concern.

“Yeah, no problem,” Star Twinkle assured as he pulled the cart behind him, accompanied by some heavy breaths.

Steel Hammer realized that Star Twinkle was just acting tough and walked up to him to help. "I mean it's no problem for me to stop my work for a second to help you,” Steel Hammer offered.

But Star Twinkle was too stubborn to accept and continued without him. "No! I'm all good. No need for that!” Star Twinkle insisted before he let out some heavy breaths again.

Steel Hammer was not believing him but he also didn't want to argue so he left it at that. "If you say so...” he said before he walked away to get back to his own work again.

Despite struggling a lot, Star Twinkle eventually managed to pull the cart inside the workshop on his own, causing him to let out a huge breath of relief. His exhaustion seemed to be gone and turned into happiness and confidence after this painful experience. "See? Told you I can do it!” He said proudly as he raised his head in arrogance.

But looking at a shaking and exhausted Star Twinkle didn't seem to impress Steel Hammer that much. It was like looking at a house of cards, that was about to fall over. "Great! Then let's get the second cart in too,” Steel Hammer said as he pointed at another cart next to the workshop.

The content of the cart was the same as the last ones but for Star Twinkle, it looked like even heavier making his happiness completely disappear as he could only let out a huge sigh of frustration. "You've gotta be kidding me..." he thought in dislike.

Later...

It was a quiet day in Ponyville. Star Twinkle was not sure how to spend the day so he walked around in Ponyville in order to find something to do. He quickly figured that he should meet up with one of his newfound friends so that he could ask them if they had time to spare. Conveniently, he soon met Twilight and Pinkie Pie, who had a conversation, even though Pinkie was doing most of the talking. As usual, Star Twinkle was just "there", he mostly listened to his friend's conversations since most of the time, he doesn't know what to say or what to talk about. At least not something that he wants to share with them. Aside from the Elements of Harmony and the battle against Nightmare Moon, he didn't even know much about them anyway.

It was probably the same for them too. There was no way that they should know much about him either since he barely leaves his house, talks with anypony or interacts with somepony on his own. However, they didn't seem to mind that he wasn't talking that much and didn't ask him to go away or something so he figured that it was okay to stay with them. Either that or they didn't bring themselves to make him go away...which is something that he hoped was not the case.

Soon, while the two mares still continued their conversation, Star Twinkle noticed how the ground was shaking. Wondering what it caused he looked around to find it out. Rainbow Dash who was close by, noticed the shaking too and took a quick look in the distance. She noticed how something got closer to Ponyville and the next thing she said was:

“STAMPEDE!”

As soon as this word was said, panic started to spread really quick. Everypony hid in their houses or ran away to save themselves from whatever was coming towards them. Star Twinkle asked Rainbow Dash, what exactly was going on and what caused that shaking. “There's a whole bunch of cows running in this direction!” Rainbow Dash explained.

“Cows!?" He asked in shock. "Well then let's get out of here too!” Star Twinkle said to Twilight and Pinkie Pie but mostly because so he can save himself.

But all he saw, was Pinkie Pie who had way to much fun with the shaking ground. “Hey! This makes my voice sound silly!” talking in a vibrating tone caused by the shaking. She definitely didn't see how serious the situation was right now.

“Pinkie Pie, are you crazy? Run!” Twilight said while she also started to run away now.

Star Twinkle grabbed Pinkie Pie and tried to drag her to safety but then Rainbow Dash prompted everypony to take a look in the distance. Somepony was already trying to do something about the stampede. It was Applejack. Everypony watched in relief how Applejack took care of the situation all on her own, with a little help of her dog. She managed to draw the cows away from Ponyville in mere seconds, calming them down again. There seemed to be some kind of misunderstanding, nopony really knew because Applejack took care of them while they were still far away. Whatever the reason was, Applejack managed to save the town from potential damage and that is all that mattered.

After the cows were “tamed” again, Applejack ran off in the distance, like it was just some normal routine for her. The whole town was heavily impressed and thankful for what Applejack did just now. So was Star Twinkle who was also relieved how everything went well, thanks to Applejack. The mare was surely the theme of the day after this. Star Twinkle had to admit that he didn't know much about her but what he did know was that Applejack was not far away if you needed her help. She is a really hardworking pony, unlike Star Twinkle, so naturally, he couldn't understand why helping others was so normal for her but he didn't need to know if he ended up benefitting from it in some kind of way. Not that he wanted that...

One week later...

To thank Applejack for saving Ponyville, everypony decided to throw a party in her honor. It was the least what they could do to show some kind of appreciation for everything that she kept doing to help someone in need. Everypony helped to decorate Ponyville for the party, ranging from colorful ribbons to balloons, confetti and much more. Everything was set and the only thing missing was the pony this party was dedicated to. Even though Star Twinkle was not a fan of parties, he didn't seem to bother much to help with the decoration since it was for Applejack, for who he was thankful as well. He didn't like parties but this one was for Applejack. She would be in the spotlight and he could just dive down into the masses or go home once he found out it was too much for him.

Still, he wished that preparing the party was a little bit less work...

Star Twinkle approached Twilight and Rarity who lifted a banner with an apple on it to the front of the town hall. “Are we ready now?” He asked, praying that he doesn't have to work anymore.

“I don't know, are we?” Twilight asked Rarity.

“Yes everything is ready,” she proudly replied which was music to Star Twinkle's ears.

“Then we just have to wait for Applejack,” Twilight said.

Everypony was now waiting in front of the town hall. Being organized, as usual, Twilight prepared a little speech in Applejack's honor and of course, she wanted to share it with everypony but she was constantly interrupted by some of her friends who wanted to share their thoughts on Applejack as well. They also kept telling how Applejack was about to help them with something later and how they were happy that Applejack was always helping them whenever they needed help with something.

After hearing that, Star Twinkle couldn't help but wonder how Applejack had the motivation or energy for all that. It sounded like a nightmare for him to always have to do something or having to help somepony. His mindset was a little too self-centered to understand it. Being really lazy was probably also a reason.

Twilight attempted to give her speech another shot but as soon as she saw the Mayor next to her, who wanted to have the last word, Twilight gave up and threw the notes away that she had prepared for this situation. Annoyed, the mare joined her friends who stood in the crowd listening to what the Mayor was about to say.

“I was preparing for this speech the whole day...” Twilight annoyingly mumbled to herself, causing her friends to laugh a little at her frustration.

Twilight knew that everypony was appreciating Applejack just like she did so she understood and tried to not get bothered about it. Especially after the praising kept coming in.

Star Twinkle tried to get into that too. “Applejack sure is somepony you can rely on, huh?” He said, trying to actually sound a little impressed.

“Of course!” Pinkie Pie said. “She always helps out her friends when they need help. That's why everypony likes her,” she added proudly.

“Yes...I guess she is,” He said, with a little smile on his face that was actually a mix of some admiration and confusion. Pinkie noticed his smile and smiled right back at him, making him respond with an awkward expression on his face. "What?" He asked confused after being stared at by Pinkie Pie like that.

“You should do that more often,” She replied as she pointed at his face. Confused by that sentence, Star Twinkle asked what she meant by that. “Smiling, of course,” she said, presenting him a smile as if she wanted to show how it is done.

“She's right,” Rarity added. ”You have a lovely smile and should show it more often. Don't get me wrong but most of the time you look a little gloomy,” she said, trying to make it sound a little more subtle.

The stallion was a little embarrassed to hear those words but he kinda knew what she meant. He doesn't smile nearly as often as his friends, he was fully aware of that. He was wondering why. It's not because he was sad, most of the time, or because he lacked some sense of humor. He wasn't making sure if he was smiling enough or too much. There are times where he would laugh too but it just was something that wasn't in his daily life. Before he realized, he found himself again in his own world of thoughts, ignoring his surroundings completely but he snapped out after realizing that his friends gave him some concerned looks.

“I think the mayor is finished now!” He said trying to change the subject as he looked up to listen to the mayor.

“And so, with no further ado, it is my privilege to give the prize, Pony of Ponyville Award, to our beloved guest of honor, a pony of the utmost trustworthiness, reliability, and integrity. Ponyville's most capable and dependable friend: Applejack,”

Everypony cheered to welcome Applejack, expecting her to be behind the curtain that the mayor opened, only to find out that she was nowhere to be found, leaving confusion in the crowd. Not having the pony around at the party that everypony threw for her was not good. Eventually, after a short awkward pause, Applejack did show up, working her way through the crowd of ponies and approaching the mayor to accept her award, which was a huge gold trophy. It was quite obvious that Applejack was acting a little different than usual. She had problems keeping her eyes open and she seemed to be a little disorientated.

Twilight tried to give her proper thanks in the name of Ponyville but Applejack stood just there barely listening to her and even fell asleep on the spot for a few seconds. It was a pretty awkward situation and Applejack just left dragging the trophy right behind her, causing everypony to look at her awkwardly. And just like that, she was gone again.

With the main guest leaving, nopony really thought about staying any more and left again with a lot of confusion in their minds. This only left, Star Twinkle and his friends who were also pretty confused about Applejack's short visit.

Star Twinkle was probably the only one who thought that decorating all of this was a huge waste of time and he didn't hold back to openly say it in a subtle tone. “Did anypony else think we overdid it with the decoration?” Star Twinkle said hinting at Applejack's rather short visit.

Of course, after Applejack left, everypony removed the decoration again. While Star Twinkle was busy removing some ribbons strapped to a tree, Twilight approached him asking him if he noticed Applejack's strange behavior. It was quite obvious to him like it was for everypony else.

“Yes, you think she is alright?” Twilight asked with concern in her face.

“I don't know,” he said calmly while in his head he was more likely thinking: it's not my problem but he couldn't just say that out loud in front of Twilight.

Applejack is a strong and independent pony, so she will probably be okay, is what he thought. Twilight was not stupid and noticed Star Twinkle's reaction and was a little disappointed. She wanted to hear things like: “Yes, I am worried too” or “Yea, we should help her”. But Star Twinkle continued to remove the decoration almost like Twilight wasn't even there. Twilight's determination to ask Applejack, however, didn't seem to have changed so she decided to help her.

“We better go to Applejack and ask her what's wrong,” she then said, causing Star Twinkle to think that he misheard something.

“We?” The stallion replied confused.

“Yes, let's go,” she said, either being completely oblivious or intentionally ignoring Star Twinkle's reaction.

“But I am not done here yet!” He replied pointing at some of the decorations.

“I am pretty sure you can still do that later,” she said while she used her magic to drag Star Twinkle on his tail behind her, much to his disapproval until he decided to follow her on his own.

A little later, at Sweet Apple Acres...

They both made their way to the farm of Sweet Apple Acres, where Applejack usually did her apple bucking. Star Twinkle, as usual, felt kinda out of place. He never liked being dragged into other ponies problems. It wasn't his fault if Applejack was too exhausted or something after all. If he meddled around in her business, then he would only end up being part of the problem. But with Twilight dragging him all the way around, he quickly found himself already involved...

They quickly spotted Applejack bucking an Appletree. Even though, it didn't look as professional as Star Twinkle thought. She barely hit the tree and on her next attempt, she even kicked over one of her barrels.

“What on earth is that pony doing?” Twilight said with a confused look on her face. Twilight tried to get her attention but Applejack quickly fell asleep on the spot again. Twilight, however, was persistent to wake her up and asked her why she behaves like this. Applejack explained that it is Applebuck season which is basically harvesting time on Sweet Apple Acres, where they collect all apples from the trees to sell them. Big Macintosh, Applejack's big brother, was injured so it was up to Applejack to gather all the apples on her own. Twilight asked her if she wanted some help but Applejack refused to say that she can handle it on her own and doesn't need anypony to help her. This was reason enough for Star Twinkle to leave but Twilight insisted that it was too much for Applejack and that she should accept some help, but hearing that only made Applejack more persistent to continue her work alone.

After an effortless talk, Applejack returned to her apple bucking while Twilight and Star Twinkle left the farm. Applejack refused to listen to them and wanted her work done soon so she had no time to talk with the two.

This especially bothered Twilight. “I can't believe that she is so stubborn. Why can't she just accept our help? It would be much easier for her,” she explained.

Star Twinkle was listening to Twilight's words but he couldn't understand why she had the urge to help her that badly. The only thing he could think about was what Twilight would gain from helping that mare but he didn't want to say that because he felt like as if Twilight didn't want to hear that now.

But that didn't prevent him from saying something that made Twilight angry anyway. "We asked her...she doesn't want any help sooo problem solved..." Star Twinkle said as he casually continued his walk.

Twilight gave Star Twinkle a mean look after that sentence. She couldn't understand why Star Twinkle thought that things are okay as they were right now. "What do you mean problem solved? If she continues to work alone, then she may hurt herself or even worse!” Twilight exclaimed angrily, not understanding how Star Twinkle didn't bother at all.

“But we can't just force her to accept our help,” he replied as he turned around to face Twilight again.

“We are Applejack's friends. And friends should support each other,” she insisted.

“Maybe, as a friend, she doesn't want to bother us..." he replied, speaking from his point of view.

Twilight continued to give him a mean look, eventually getting a little angry at his words. “What is wrong with you, Star Twinkle?”

“What!?” He asked in surprise, not getting why Twilight got so angry all of the sudden.

“Back then, when we faced Nightmare Moon, you didn't hesitate to help us but now it's like you don't even care!” She exclaimed as she jumped in front of him and facing him with an eye to an eye.

He didn't give an answer to that, although there were numerous things that Star Twinkle could say at this point. For example, he did hesitate and he wasn't even sure why he helped them in the first place and it was true that he didn't care about Applejack's problem because he thinks that things are gonna be okay. However, Twilight makes him look like he is the one who is in the wrong all this time. But from Star Twinkles point of view, she is the one who should tone it down a little.

“You said that we are Applejack's friends and Applejack thinks of us as friends too so if she doesn't want to bother us by asking for help then we should not help her...” Star Twinkle explained.

That sentence confused Twilight because she just realized that Star Twinkle didn't even understand the problem. “It's not because she doesn't want to bother us. She is just too stubborn to ask for help! She will overwork herself!" Twilight exclaimed angrily.

“Whatever,” Star Twinkle said in an uncaring way, that only made Twilight even angrier.

“Ugh! There is no point talking to you! I am going home now,” Twilight replied.

Twilight's patience was at its limit so she decided to leave, seeing that she could not convince Star Twinkle to see the problem. She gave him a disappointing look as she walked away from him but he didn't seem to notice because he already walked away.

A little later...

Star Twinkle returned to his work near the town hall to help remove the rest of the decoration for Applejack's “Party”.
It didn't take too long since there was not much left and after he was done, he decided to go home. Being home again, he laid on his bed lost in thoughts as always. He didn't want to be bothered by the whole thing with Applejack but Twilight's words were just stuck in his head, making it hard to relax at all.

“If Applejack thinks of us as friends, then she would ask us for help but she doesn't so she doesn't want to bother us with that...right?” He asked himself. “She didn't hesitate to help us with the stampede, so she won't hesitate to ask us if she needs help...right?” He repeated to himself in various ways, believing that it was true.

He closed his eyes while thinking about the situation over and over again until he eventually fell asleep. He always feels tired after discussions like this. After he fell asleep, he had a strange dream. There were no images, there was only a voice that he couldn't identify. But for some reason, it also felt familiar.

“I don't need help...

I can do this on my own...

I don't want...

Yes, that's exactly why...

Because...”

Suddenly, a familiar shaking woke him up from his dream. He panicked for a second due to the surprise until he heard something from outside.

“STAMPEDE!”

It was Rainbow Dash who alerted everypony once again from an upcoming stampede. Star Twinkle was surprised to hear this word again and looked out of his window to see how bad the situation was outside. “Cows again? Or something worse? Like...like...” But he instantly got his answer by looking down at the ground. “Bunnies?” Surprised by the sight of a bunch of bunnies running through the town Star Twinkles fear quickly vanished.

After the “Stampede”, Star Twinkle was walking around in town to ask how exactly it came to this. He asked Fluttershy, who was trying to calm down the bunnies. She said that Applejack tried to help her with the bunnies but things seemed to have escalated a little. He also talked to Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash who asked her for help earlier this day. They all seem to have encountered some problems as well.

“Applejack, huh?” Star Twinkle wondered.

For some reason, Star Twinkle went to Sweet Apple Acres to look for Applejack, expecting to see her doing some apple bucking again. But to his surprise, he found her unconscious next to Twilight and a red stallion with an orange mane. The stallion was Applejack's big brother Big Macintosh. Star Twinkle did meet him on one or two occasions when he was doing some work on the farm. He didn't talk much and Star Twinkle wasn't bothered by that but it made it hard to judge his character. He thought Big Macintosh was okay, though.

But the pony he didn't want to see right now because of their last conversation was Twilight, who still had a mean look on her face whenever she looked at Star Twinkle.

“What are you doing here?” She said while almost sounding bored to talk with Star Twinkle.

“And now I regret coming here,” He mumbled to himself, so nopony could hear it.

Twilight looked at Applejack in concern who was still unconscious.

“See? If we had helped her none of this would have happened,” she explained.

“Oh, so you knew that there would be a mass poisoning and bunny stampede as a result?” He jokingly said but Twilight wasn't really in the mood for jokes at the moment.

“Look at that,” she said while pointing to a huge field of apple trees. “She passed out after seeing how much work is left,” she explained.

Star Twinkle was more than surprised to see that many apple trees left after Applejack's hard work.

“Do you still think she should do it on her own?” Twilight asked.

“...No,” he said accepting that Twilight was right. “But I still think that she should ask us if she needs help or at least not refuse our help. I don't know why she doesn't want to accept our help but if she is our friend then she should at least let us help her. I don't feel comfortable helping somepony who doesn't want my help,” he explained, almost as if he was speaking from experience.

Twilight kinda understood what he was getting at, even though she didn't approve of it. But she didn't want to argue with him anymore so she gave him an understanding look.

In the meantime, Applejack woke up so Twilight rushed to her side to confirm that she was okay. “Are you alright?” Twilight asked with concern.

“Oh, hi Twitwinkle and Starsparkle,” Applejack greeted with her eyes still spinning.

“Wow, she is really messed up,” he said, resulting in Twilight to give him a mean look once again. “Sorry,” he said noticing that it was maybe a little inappropriate.

Twilight decided to no longer watch this and wanted Applejack to understand which situation not only she but also her friends were. “Now Applejack, I completely respect the Apple family ways. You're always there to help anypony in need, so maybe you can put a little of your stubborn pride aside and allow your friends to help you,” she asked, in hope that she would come to her senses.

“Yes but we can't help anypony who doesn't want our help, so let us please help if not for your sake then at least for ours,” Star Twinkle said.

Applejack looked at how many apple trees there were left and realized by now that it was too much for her to handle, so she swallowed her pride and finally accepted their help. Twilight and Star Twinkle let out a sigh of relief after hearing that and both lent a hoof to Applejack, helping her up again.

Now the only thing left was to get the rest of their friends to help Applejack out on the farm. They were probably all willing to help out as well, especially, after Applejack helped them out just recently.

Later...

Star Twinkle, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy all ended up helping Applejack with the apple trees and the whole work was almost done at the end of the day. Not only was Applejack still standing after that, but the work was also done quicker then she expected.

As a thank, Applejack prepared some drinks for her friends after they all did their fair share of work. They all gladly accepted some refreshments and stopped their work and gathered around her.

“How about y'all take a little break? I got some fine apple juice waitin' for ya!” She said as she presented some drinks in front of them.

“Uh! Apple juice!” Pinkie Pie said excitedly.

Applejack realized that she was acting a bit stubborn and thanked her friends for their help. She also admitted that she was wrong and promised to ask for help, the next time something like that happens. Hearing that, made Twilight, who was worried about her for the whole day, clearly feel a little better.

Star Twinkle, however, couldn't care less. At least that's what he was telling himself. He couldn't help but to reflect Applejack's behavior from before a little on himself and wondered if it was good.

While they all drank a little apple juice spike offered them some rather unhealthy looking muffins. They all were disgusted even by the look of them. Star Twinkle came to the conclusion that those may be the muffins Applejack helped to make, so he didn't even think one second to taste one of them even if Spike generously offered one of them.

Eventually, the work was done at the end of the day and they all went home again. Star Twinkle was exhausted but he also felt good for helping Applejack, for some reason. He didn't know if it was because he liked to help out his friend or if it was because he felt like repaying Applejack for saving the town from the stampede. Not knowing that actually made him feel a little weird and he wished that he could just ignore it.

...

At that night, he once again had that strange dream. Once again there were no pictures, there was only a voice that he didn't recognize.

“I don't need help...

I can do this on my own...

I don't want you to get involved with this...

Yes, that's exactly why...

Because we're friends...”

On the next day...

It was later this day and he almost finished his work at the Iron Hammer. Once again he had to pull a cart full of tools, iron, and wood inside of the workshop. He was struggling because it was heavy as usual and Steel Hammer noticed that...as usual but he didn't say anything, knowing that Star Twinkle would give him the usual answer. But then he heard something that completely surprised him.

“You know...that cart sure is heavy,” Star Twinkle indirectly implied.

“Yes, so?” Steel Hammer said not knowing what Star Twinkle was getting at.

“I mean...it would go along much easier if somepony would help me...you know?” He said still trying to be a little subtle about it.

Steel Hammer was slowly getting what Star Twinkle tried to say, even though he was surprised to hear it from HIM. But he didn't say anything and helped him without hesitation even smiling at him like he wanted to say: I am proud of you. Star Twinkle didn't know how to react to this and just continued to on the cart, which was now much easier to pull.

Star Twinkle continued his work while thinking about the events from yesterday. He felt that the dream he had last night was somehow connected to the situation. But why?

“If somepony is offering you his help, then it's not because they think you can't do it on your own?” He thought to himself. “Or do they want to help you because they want to make it easier for you?”

He didn't fully understand it and he also didn't want to worry about it too much since thinking about all those things would just ruin his days in Ponyville

At least that's what he thought...

5. Prankster

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After a hard day of work, Steel Hammer was generous enough to invite Star Twinkle for a drink. They were both having some juice in a nearby restaurant in Ponyville and talked about some casual stuff. But in the middle of the conversation, Steel Hammer got distracted by something. He looked in Star Twinkles direction who was drinking his juice at the moment but he noticed the look he received from him.

“What?” He said while interrupting his drink.

Steel Hammer was puzzled for a second but then he quickly took out some bits and gave them to Star Twinkle. “I am still a little thirsty so how about you get us both one more drink? It's on me of course,” he insisted.

Star Twinkle was wondering why Steel Hammers behavior was changing all of the sudden but didn't think too much about it. He went to the counter to get two drinks and returned to the table. He placed the drinks on the table and noticed how Steel Hammer gave him a very wide grin making Star Twinkle very suspicious.

“What?” He asked once again.

“Nothing,” Steel Hammer replied while trying to keep a straight face.

Star Twinkle grew more and more suspicious of Steel Hammers behavior and wanted to ask him why he acted so strange but as soon as he sat down a loud farting sound echoed from Star Twinkle. There was an awkward silence at the table until Steel Hammer started to laugh at Star Twinkle who felt very embarrassed at the moment.

“Hey! that wasn't me!” He insisted while trying to act calm.

He suddenly noticed that his seat felt weird and that he was sitting on something. It was a whoopee cushion that made the fart sound. He picked it up and looked at it weird but then he heard some laughter behind him so he turned around. He saw Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash who giggled at him.

“Does that belong to you?” He asked while lifting the cushion.

“Yep,” Pinkie said while still laughing. “Your reaction was hilarious,” she added.

“Thanks for not blowing us out Mr. Steel Hammer,” Rainbow Dash said.

“No problem girls,” he said giving them a wide grin and waving at them.

They waved back at them and left, probably searching for another victim for another prank. Meanwhile, Star Twinkle laid down the cushion and sat down again.

“You knew about this?” He asked Steel Hammer while giving him an annoyed look.

“Yeah, they put it on your chair while you got us the drinks,” Steel Hammer explained.

“That would explain why you were grinning so much after I came back,” Star Twinkle said.

“Oh come on, it was just a harmless prank,” Steel Hammer said, trying to calm down Star Twinkle who seemed to be a little annoyed.

Star Twinkle was looking around him and noticed that there were like two or three other ponies sitting outside of the restaurant so the audience for that prank was not that big. He looked at the cushion in with a weird expression on his face.

“I guess,” Star Twinkle replied in a monotone voice.

After spending some time outside of the restaurant Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer parted. It was still early and Star Twinkle didn't know what to do, so he aimlessly wandered through Ponyville. Maybe somepony would like to spend some time with him. He actually came across somepony he knew, it was Fluttershy who ran towards Star Twinkle. Star Twinkle hesitated a second to try and get her attention since he hasn't spoken to her that much and she didn't seem like a pony with whom you would have long in-depth conversations but he had to start somewhere so he decided to call her out.

“Hello, Fluttershy,” he called out but she didn't seem to notice him and continued to run towards him.

Before he realized that she didn't hear him it was already too late. They crashed into each other, leaving them both on the ground. Star Twinkle already regretted to even try to talk to her, since he knew it would be a little difficult, but that was just unnecessary. They both got back on their hoofs and Star Twinkle was annoyed already but tried to be forgiving since he knew that Fluttershy is very sensible.

“Ehm...Are you okay?” He said, not trying to sound too annoyed.

Fluttershy got back up on her hoofs and that's when Star Twinkle noticed that she had tears in her eyes. Suddenly, his whole reaction to the situation changed. He knew that she was crashing into HIM but he didn't care about that right now. She must be hurt because of the clash, which made Star Twinkle instantly feel bad so he tried to comfort her as good as he possibly could. But Star Twinkle was not really good when it comes to this kind of situations, mainly because he never had friends before that needed comfort and since Fluttershy was very sensible, to begin with, he had to choose his words carefully which was difficult since he began to panic but before he could say anything, Fluttershy ran off and left Star Twinkle in the middle of the road, while still having tears in her eyes.

“Well, that didn't go as I thought it would,” he said to himself while still feeling bad.

“Don't worry it was not your fault,” Pinkie Pie said.

“Are you sure? It looked like...” he stopped in the middle of his sentence as he noticed that Pinkie Pie was suddenly standing behind him and jumped in shock. “Wow! Where did you come from?” He said in surprise.

Pinkie Pie just smiled as usual when she talked to Star Twinkle, probably because she enjoys his reactions to her randomness. “Hey! I'm going to throw a party later this day and you are invited too!” She excitingly said.

"Way to change the subject," Star Twinkle thought. He didn't want to go, as usual, but he knew that he would end up going to it, whether it was because of Pinkie Pie or his boredom. But Pinkie Pie insisted that he should come since it was very important as she said and Star Twinkle agreed to come, in the end. Pinkie Pie left with a smile and Star Twinkle went home to prepare himself for the party. That's when he realized that she didn't tell him for what occasion she was throwing a party. Was it a birthday? Or another important occasion? Pinkie Pie said it was important after all. But either way, it's not like he would change his appearance since he or pretty much every other pony rarely wear clothes.

Later...

He arrived at Sugar Cube Corner a few hours later where Pinkie Pie greeted him in the doorway. He used this opportunity to ask Pinkie Pie why she was throwing this Party in the first place to what she answered that it was a party for an old friend of Rainbow Dash named Gilda. Star Twinkle didn't know what he had to do with all this, after all, he didn't even know this Gilda person. Rainbow Dash wasn't anywhere to be seen so he was most likely a little too early to the party. Fluttershy, on the other hoof, was already present and Star Twinkle decided to talk to her so he could at least apologize for crashing into her, even though she was the one bumping into him. He wasn't hurt or anything so it wasn't a big deal for him, she was much more fragile and sensible so it felt just right to him to say sorry or something.

“Hello, Fluttershy...again,” he awkwardly said.

“...Uhm...hello, Star Twinkle,” she said while trying to avoid eye contact.

Normally, somepony would say something to keep the conversation going but since Star Twinkle and Fluttershy rarely talk much, this "conversation" was bound to go wrong somehow.

"Great, this situation is already awkward," Star Twinkle thought to himself.

He didn't know how he should approach her at all and she clearly didn't want to talk with him, making this conversation a lot more complicated as he thought.

“So...do you know this Gilda pony?” He asked.

“Yes...but she is not a pony, she's a griffon...” she said, still avoiding eye contact as much as she could.

“Oh, so you've met her already?” He asked.

“...yes...” She seemed to get more and more uncomfortable, making Star Twinkle feel more and more uncomfortable.

He thought he was out of options, so the only thing left was to get out the apology as quickly as possible. “Hey, earlier today when I bumped into you...” he was surprised how hard it would be to just say sorry, he never had to do that before because he avoided as much contact as possible with other ponies, therefore avoiding conflicts as well. But Fluttershy noticed that he was struggling, which caught her attention, making it even harder for Star Twinkle to concentrate on his words. “I just wanted to say, that I'm sorry, okay?” It felt like a huge relief for him to get those words out but he then realized that she still had to accept it, making him nervous again.

“Sorry? For what?” She innocently asked him, while looking at him confused.

“Well, for hurting you earlier this day, when we bumped into each other,” he explained.

Fluttershy seemed to be confused by Star Twinkle's behavior but then she remembered that she was crying earlier this day and that Star Twinkle may have misunderstood something.

“Oh no! I didn't cry because we bumped into each other so don't worry,” she assured him.

Star Twinkle felt relieved to hear that but couldn't help to doubt her words a little. Maybe she was just saying that to make him feel better or because she didn't want him to talk to her because she felt awkward about it. But would she really do something like this? He wondered. Once again, Star Twinkle was caught up in his inner monolog but he eventually snapped out and said something.

“Okay...I thought I was the one who made you cry or something so felt kinda bad about it,” he said in relief.

“You don't have to, you are a really nice. You would never do something to hurt somepony,” she proudly said.

This triggered another monologue in Star Twinkles head. "Why is she saying that with so much confidence? She barely knows me so how could she assume that I am “nice”? Is she just being naive? Or does she really think about me that way? I wouldn't call myself a bad person, but she doesn't know that. She can't possibly know what I think about her or anypony else since I rarely speak with anypony!"

Fluttershy noticed how Star Twinkle stared at her suspiciously, wondering if she said something wrong, she shyly backed away a little. Star Twinkle didn't notice that because he was too focused on his thoughts until he noticed some creature that entered the room. That creature had feathers instead of fur, claws, and paws instead of hoofs, giant wings, and a long tail. Star Twinkle was positive that he never saw something like that before.

“Who is that?” He asked Fluttershy.

She had a shocked expression on her face and tried to hide behind Star Twinkle, who was confused by her behavior.

“What's wrong?” He asked Fluttershy.

“It's nothing,” she replied in a quiet voice.

Star Twinkle saw how this unknown creature was accompanied by Rainbow Dash so it was possible that this was Gilda. Whenever she was or not, Pinkie Pie greeted her like any other guest, shaking hoofs with her...or claws to be precise. But suddenly, Gilda was shocked by something after shaking hoofs with Pinkie Pie, much to the surprise of anypony. Seconds later, Pinkie Pie revealed that she had a buzzer in her hoof, which was most likely the cause of Gildas extreme reaction.

“A prank, huh?” Star Twinkle thought.

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were playing some pranks on the citizens of Ponyville today. At least that's what he heard from Twilight, Applejack, and Rarity.

"So it was a party involving pranks?" He thought.

After this little prank, Pinkie decided to introduce everypony to Gilda.

“I'd like you all to meet Gilda, a long-time, dear friend of Rainbow Dash. Let's honor her and welcome her to Ponyville,” Pinkie Pie said to all the ponies in the room.

After those words, Star Twinkle instantly notice something about Gilda. She was not comfortable or at least didn't like how Pinkie Pie introduced her to all the ponies. Maybe she was like Star Twinkle and didn't like to be pushed in the spotlight like that? After all, he only noticed because she was giving a fake smile most of the time when she got the attention of every pony, which is exactly what Star Twinkle would do in her situation.

Pinkie Pie was offering Gilda some vanilla lemon drops, who didn't hesitate to take one. But again, Gilda showed some unusual behavior, in fact, she was breathing fire all of the sudden. Star Twinkle assumed for one second that this is something griffons are able to do, but he was familiar with Pinkie Pies sweets to some degree. She once gave him a cupcake with hot sauce, which almost burned his tongue away. As a natural reaction, Gilda tried to find something to drink. She took a glass of punch but there was a hole in the glass and it all dripped on Gilda, most likely another prank. Eventually, Gilda found something to drink and cooled herself off, but she didn't seem to like how she was treated.

Rainbow Dash pointed out the presents for Gilda, so Gilda excitingly rushed over to them. When she opened one of them, to her surprise, a bunch of spring snakes jumped out of the present. Even though this party was arranged for Gilda, she didn't look happy at all, in fact, she looked a bit angry. Star Twinkle didn't understand what was going on exactly but he at least wanted to talk with Gilda once This party was held so that everypony gets to know her after all. So Star Twinkle approached her while mentally preparing himself and thinking about what they should talk about.

“Hello, my name is-” but he was interrupted by her before he could finish his sentence.

“Get lost, pony!” she said while walking past him in an annoyed tone.

Not sure what exactly happened there, Star Twinkle decided to just stand there confused while Gilda approached Rainbow Dash with who she seemed a little more comfortable.

“Did I say something wrong?” He wondered.

The party went on. Everypony was having fun, except Star Twinkle who felt out of place. Some of his friends accompanied him so he at least had somepony to talk to, even if they did most of the talking. Pinkie Pie was bringing in a big Cake with some candles on top. Twilight was suggesting that Gilda should blow out the candles since it is her party. So Gilda rushed to the cake and attempted to blow them out but to her surprise, they lit again. After some unsuccessful attempts to blow them out, she gave up. They were more likely re-lighting candles, meaning that she could never blow them out on her own. Gilda didn't seem to like getting all those pranks played on her and Star Twinkle was wondering if this party really was such a good idea.

Everypony took a slice of cake and talked about some trivial stuff. The cake tasted really good, even though Spike has ravaged most of it before anypony could eat a piece. Star Twinkle noticed how Gilda gave Pinkie Pie a mean look from time to time and wondered what that was all about. For him, it looked like Gilda wasn't even trying to get along with somepony other than Rainbow Dash.

After the cake, Applejack announced that it was time to play “Pin the tail on the pony”. It was a popular party game, where you have to pin a tail at a picture of a pony, preferably at the right spot, all while being blindfolded. Rarity wanted to go first but Gilda insisted that she should go first so she took the tail and Spike blindfolded her so that she could start. Pinkie Pie led her to the poster so that she could pin the tail, but for some reason Gilda turned around and walked in the other direction, where she slipped on a piece of cake, that laid on the ground, making her slip right into the kitchen.

She was a mess after she came out. There were cake and flour all over her body and the tail was now on her face.
And Pinkie Pies comment that she pinned the tail on the wrong side didn't make it better at all since all ponies were now laughing at her. Star Twinkle felt a little bad for Gilda but even he couldn't resist smirking a little. Gilda, on the other hoof, didn't seem to found it funny at all. She was quite angry in fact and finally snapped, letting out a scary roar that stopped the laughter of all ponies.

“This is your idea of a good time? I've never met a lamer bunch of dweebs in all my life.” She said in her anger, flying above the heads of everypony.

She was especially angry at Pinkie Pie, for playing all those pranks at her and said that she and Rainbow Dash are way too cool, to hang out with such a bunch of lame ponies. So Gilda attempted to leave the party and prompted Rainbow Dash to follow her, but to her surprise Rainbow Dash refused.

“You know Gilda, I was the one who set up all those weak pranks at this party,” Rainbow Dash admitted, to the surprise of everypony.

Rainbow Dash said that it was pure luck that Gilda was setting them all off. But Gilda didn't believe her and still blamed Pinkie Pie for all those pranks so that she could make Gilda look like a fool.

“Me? I threw this party to improve your attitude. I thought a good party might turn that frown upside down,” Pinkie Pie said, making a sad frown herself since her plan didn't work.

Rainbow Dash was upset that Gilda treated her new friends like that and advised her that she should find some new cool friend if that is all that she was caring for.

Gilda took the advice and left the party, leaving every pony confused in the room. Rainbow Dash apologized for bringing Gilda to the party but every pony forgave her. She said that she would rather hang out with her “boring” and “uncool” friends and so the party went on as if nothing happened.

It was still a fun party and nopony left with a bad taste in his mouth but Star Twinkle was always bothered by something and this time it was no exception. Having a conversation about Gilda was unavoidable after all that happened and Rainbow Dash really didn't understand why Gilda was behaving like that. She was just assuming that all her friends could get along no matter if old or new.

This conversation made Star Twinkle think that friendship is a lot more complicated than he thought and if it is all worth this complication.

He was never really Gildas friend, to begin with, but doesn't sharing a friend like Rainbow Dash automatically make them friends too? But instead, Gilda and Rainbow Dash just lost one friend. Was Star Twinkle indirectly responsible for that? Because he was one of Rainbow Dash's friends?

Thankfully, Star Twinkle didn't have to worry about things like that in the future because he doesn't have any old friends that he has to introduce to his new ones, so things like that could never happen. Star Twinkle wasn't as strong as Rainbow Dash. He probably couldn't decide which side he would have picked. But Rainbow Dash did, making him wonder if she was also talking about him when she was defending her friends. If she could have chosen between him and Gilda who would she have picked?

Star Twinkle actually thought about asking her but scrapped this idea really quick for unknown reasons. Maybe because he knew the answer? Or because he didn't want to bother Rainbow Dash? Either way, the party was coming to an end and Star Twinkle went home. And as usual, he fell asleep while thinking about the events of the day.

His last thought at this day was: “I feel sorry for Gilda...”

6. Great and Powerful Boasting

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While walking through Ponyville, Star Twinkle noticed a huge crowd in the town square. Wondering what it was all about, he decided to watch from far away since he didn't like crowds like this but Applejack, who stood there with the rest of her friends called him over so he practically had no choice but to go over there.

“What's going on here?” He asked Applejack after approaching the group.

“It looks like some kind of fancy magic show,” she replied unimpressed.

“I heard that it is run by the greatest and most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria,” Pinkie Pie excitingly said.

“And who is that?” Star Twinkle asked.

“I don't know,” Pinkie Pie replied confused.

Star Twinkle noticed a small wagon in front of the crowd. He was a little confused by the fact that the greatest and most powerful unicorn was living in a small wagon like that. A loud voice could be heard from the wagon that grabbed every ponies attention. The magic show was most likely starting right now.

“Come one, come all!" A loud voice said from inside the wagon.
"Come and witness the amazing magic of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

Soon, a unicorn with a blue coat and a light blue almost silver colored mane stepped out of a smoke cloud. She was wearing a wizard hat and a cape, both were purple and had yellow and blue stars on them. The crowd was gasping for a moment after this entrance and the great and powerful Trixie smiled, enjoying every moment of it.

“Watch in awe as the Great and Powerful Trixie performs the most spectacular feats of magic ever witnessed by pony eyes!” She said while fireworks and other special effects underlined her performance.

The great and powerful Trixie continued to talk about her greatness and how her magic was the most impressive thing that nopony has ever seen before. Star Twinkle was not too familiar with magic but he knew that unicorns usually possess little magic which is connected with their special talent. So he was wondering if her special talent was magic, just like Twilight's and if Trixie's magic is on par with hers.

However, some ponies seemed to be a little annoyed by Trixie's boasting, except for Twilight who said that there was nothing wrong with being talented. But the others said that it is wrong to show off your special talent even if you are better at it than anypony else.
That is something Star Twinkle didn't understand since he has not discovered his special talent yet. Is it really that bad to show off your special talent? Isn't a Cutie Mark like a representation for that? But how should he know.

The great and powerful Trixie overheard all this talking and told everypony a story of her past to let them know what she is capable of.

“Only the Great and Powerful Trixie has magic strong enough to vanquish the dreaded Ursa major!”

She created an image with her magic, showing some bear-like creature, followed by a little picture of herself, slaying this bear.

“When all hope was lost, the ponies of Hoofington had no one to turn to, but the Great and Powerful Trixie stepped in, and with her awesome magic, vanquished the Ursa major and sent it back to its cave deep within the Everfree Forest!”

The crowd was impressed by her story, except for Star Twinkle and his friends who were just listening in disbelieve. Star Twinkle didn't even know what an Ursa Mayor was, but judging from the reaction of the crowd, it was probably a big deal. Some ponies were still watching in disbelieve so Trixie challenged all ponies in Ponyville. She said that anything they could, she could do better.

Nopony stepped for so Trixie randomly picked Twilight, but Twilight was struggling, so Applejack was volunteering.

Applejack decided to perform some tricks with her lasso, making the audience cheer for her. She used her tail to spin the lasso and jumped through it multiple time. After that, she grabbed an apple with it and caught it with her mouth, eating it in one big bite.
But Trixie was unimpressed. She used her magic to move the lasso and distracted Applejack with it. While Applejack was distracted, Trixie quickly used the lasso to tie up Applejack from behind, making the audience laugh in the process.

“Once again, the Great and Powerful Trixie prevails,” the great and powerful Trixie said in confidence.

After that performance Rainbow Dash stepped up, saying that it is her job to show off.
But she might also want Trixie to stop her performance.

Rainbow Dash impressed the crowd by showing off some of her flying skills while manipulating the clouds and the air a little, creating a rainbow above her head after she landed back on the ground.

But once again Trixie was not impressed and manipulated the rainbow with her magic, making it swirl around Rainbow Dash and throwing her off the stage, much to the amusement of Trixie and the audience. Star Twinkle was not sure what he should think about all that. Sure, her boasting was a little annoying but wasn't this suppose to be a magic show? Why did all that turned into a competition between Ponyville and the great and powerful Trixie? At least he wasn't involved in all of that.

Spike suggested that another unicorn should challenge her, to outmatch Trixie's magic. Rainbow Dash and Applejack agreed, hinting at Twilight, who seemed to be unsure about all this, much to Star Twinkles confusion. Rarity stepped up because she thought they were talking about her, which was obviously not the case. But she didn't want to challenge Trixie, she instead said that she was above this ruffian kind of magic. But after Trixie made some bad insult about Rarity's hair, she eventually gave in and walked up the stage.

Rarity took some of the curtains that were part of Trixie's stage and formed a beautiful blue dress out of it while also changing her hairstyle to something more graceful. But once again, Trixie was not impressed and shoot a magic blast at Rarity, that turned her hair into a green mess.

Rarity knew that she did something to her hair and demanded a mirror. Her friends knew how she would react so they said that it wasn't that bad. Except for Star Twinkle who just plainly said that it was green.

“Green hair! Not green hair! Such an awful, awful color!“ Rarity said while running away in, trying to hold her tears back.

Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Applejack looked at Star Twinkle as if they were blaming him for Rarity's reaction.

“What? What's wrong with green hair?” He asked confused while looking up to his dark green, star-shaped mane.

Trixie asked the audience if there is somepony else who dares to challenge her but nopony volunteered. While watching in disinterest, Star Twinkle was poked by somepony on the side almost demanding something from him. He noticed that it was Rainbow Dash, who just pointed at Trixie but Star Twinkle wasn't sure what she was meaning by this gesture.

“What?” He asked her.

“Go up there and do something about her!” She said in a demanding voice.

“What?” He said once again but this time a little bit more surprised.

“Yes, it's your turn now to teach this pony a lesson,” Applejack said.

He was wondering why all of the sudden they were relying on him to do something about Trixie. Maybe they were desperate and out of options, he thought. Of course, he didn't want to go up there because that would mean that all eyes were focused on him.

“And what am I suppose to do?” He asked.

“I'm sure you will figure out something!” Rainbow Dash replied.

“But I don't want to go up there.
This whole thing is stupid,” he said in a rather annoyed voice.

But just after he finished saying that, Trixie looked over him and Star Twinkle knew exactly why.

“What about you green one?
Do you think that you are better in something than the great and powerful Trixie?”

It was easy for Star Twinkle to answer that question, even though he was starred at from all directions.

“No not really,” he replied in an annoyed voice.

Trixie was a little surprised to hear him say that like it was the most normal thing in the world. But shortly after she just raised her head in confidence, while smiling as if she was expecting nothing else. Rainbow Dash sighed in frustration and Applejack was just looking at Star Twinkle in disappointment, of which he was aware. He knew he was feeding her ego but he didn't care about that even if it meant for him to draw some disapproved looks on him.

“Well, is there anypony else who dares to challenge the great and powerful Trixie?” She said looking around in the crowd again.

Spike wanted Twilight to jump in and end this but Twilight refused and even denied that she was better than anypony, grabbing Trixie's attention in the process.

“Hah! You think you're better than the Great and Powerful Trixie? You think you have more magical talent? Well, come on, show Trixie what you've got. Show us all,” Trixie demanded.

But once again Twilight refused, denied any kind of talent and ran away to get out of this situation, leaving Trixie without any competition.

“Ha! Once again, the Great and Powerful Trixie has proven herself to be the most amazing unicorn in all of Equestria.
Huh, was there ever any doubt?” She arrogantly said while leaving the stage, pretty much ending her show.

Star Twinkle was wondering why Twilight acted like that. He knew why he didn't want to compete with Trixie but Twilight had most likely another reason. He asked Spike if he knew something about Twilight's behavior. Spike was also a little confused why she acted that way. In terms of magic, Twilight would have won against Trixie said, Spike. But something kept her from doing exactly that.
Whatever it was, Trixie's show was over and nopony cared about her anymore, at least Star Twinkle didn't.

Later that night when Star Twinkle decided to go home, he saw how Trixie was still in town. She was in front of her wagon and attempted to get inside but stopped after she noticed Star Twinkle.

“Why did she have to park her wagon right in front of my house?” He thought in annoyance.

While walking past her, he tried to avoid eye contact as much as possible, cause he didn't want her to get on his nerves.
She did seem to notice his glance but was not making anything out of it and got inside of her wagon.

A little while later, Star Twinkle was getting ready to go to bed but some noises from outside grabbed his attention so he went outside to look for the cause and saw how Trixie and two other colts run past him.

"What are they doing in the middle of the night?" He wondered.

But then, the ground began to shake heavily behind him. Almost as if something really huge was landing behind him. He hesitated to look for a second but he eventually turned around and saw a huge blue bear, which was twice of the size than his house.
Star Twinkle couldn't move, immobilized by fear, seeing this monstrosity in front of him.

This giant beast roared at him on top of his lungs, making him run away in fear. He was running along with the three ponies who ran past him before until they reached a dead end. The bear had no problems following them, because of his size so it was pointless to run away from him forever. They all stood there while this huge bear came close and closer. While in the face of danger Star Twinkle recognized the two colts that accompanied Trixie. They continuously adored Trixie, back then at the magic show.
He didn't know their names, though.

“Great and Powerful Trixie, you've got to vanquish the Ursa,” said the small one with the light blue coat and the orange mane.

“Yeah, vanquish so we can watch,” said the slightly bigger one, with the light orange coat and the turquoise mane.

“It took a lot of trouble to get that thing here,” said the small one, leaving both Star Twinkle and Trixie in shock and confusion why they would bring this thing to Ponyville in the first place.

But they believed that the great and powerful Trixie could handle this Ursa and eagerly awaited some magic from her.
Star Twinkle didn't know what he could do so he prompted her to try at least something.

Trixie pulled off some of her magic and tried to stop the Ursa, like trying to tie him up with a rope or striking him with lightning that came out of a cloud that she summoned.
All the tricks that she used before to deal with Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

But her magic was not enough.
The rope was way to small to hold down anything and the lightning that she summoned didn't even scratch him.

After running out of options Trixie ran away, followed by Star Twinkle and the other two colts. The Ursa continued to run wild in Ponyville, waking the citizens in the process and causing a huge mass panic. Twilight soon joined the four scared ponies and asked what happened. Her reaction was similar to Star Twinkles and Trixie's after hearing the explanation from the two young colts, who still waited for Trixie to vanquish the Ursa but then Trixie admitted something.

“I can't, I never have. No one can vanquish an Ursa major. I just made the whole story up to make me look better,” she admitted.

The two colt were surprised to hear that from her but Star Twinkle and Twilight were not surprised at all.

“Big shock,” Star Twinkle replied in sarcasm but he apologized after Trixie gave him a mean look and he realized that this is no time for jokes.

The Ursa Major stood right in front of the group of ponies, who didn't know what to do now. Until Twilight stepped in front of the beast with a determent look on her face. She used her magic to manipulate the air around some cattails, creating a sound that calmed down the giant bear. Her horn began to glow even more intensely than usually, probably because she is utilizing more magic.
She levitated the water supply container of Ponyville and replaced the water inside with milk that she took from the cows inside of the cow stall. Meanwhile, the Ursa slowly fell asleep from the sound of the cattails and Twilight levitated him back to the cave where he was sleeping before, giving him the milk from the container to drink.

Star Twinkle saw it with his own eyes but he couldn't believe it. Everypony was impressed by Twilight's magic but instead of accepting compliments, she apologized and didn't want anypony to hate her. Of course, everypony was surprised to hear that after this performance. As it turns out, Twilight was worried that her friends wouldn't like her anymore if she would use her magic as they did with Trixie.

But it was obvious that they didn't like Trixie because of her behavior and not because of her magic. After all Twilight's magic is part of her, so there would be no reason to hate her for that.

So a Cutie Mark is not only your special talent but also part of your personality, Star Twinkle thought to himself. Magic was Twilight's special talent and everypony knew that. It would be unfair to treat somepony different just because of their Cutie Mark.

After all that was clarified, Twilight explained who she knew what to do with that Ursa Major. She did a little research after Trixie's bragging earlier that day to verify if it is possible to vanquish an Ursa Major all by yourself. But as it turns out, this giant bear was only an Ursa minor, a baby. Which only opened up the question how a real Ursa Major looked like. Star Twinkle didn't even want to think about that.

But even after this performance, Trixie seemed unimpressed and continued to brag.

“Huh. You may have vanquished an Ursa minor, but you will never have the amazing, show-stopping ability of the Great and Powerful Trixie!” she said while running off in the distance after summoning a smoke bomb.

Twilight wanted that the two colts, who were responsible for all this to clean up the mess in Ponyville and so they did. Everypony helped to clean up the mess, the Ursa Minor has caused in Ponyville. Star Twinkle was walking by Trixie's Wagon, which was destroyed by the Ursa Minor and decided to remove it first.

“She was a traveling magician. So that was pretty much her home. Must be hard for her to continue her work now,” he asked himself.

Star Twinkle didn't understand it but for some reason, he felt bad. He always only cared about himself...since there was nopony else to care for. He didn't even know that he was capable to fell like that after spending so much time alone.

He was approaching the wagon and tried to clean this mess but he was surprised by what he saw on the other side. It was Trixie who lifted some of the remains with her magic while trying to cause as little attention as she could. But that didn't work at all because Star Twinkle could see her clearly and she noticed how he was staring at her. They both looked at each other awkwardly until Star Twinkle broke the silence.

“What are you still doing here?” He asked her.

Her awkward look turned into her usual confident face expression and of course, she spoke in her typical manner.

“This wagon belongs to the great and powerful Trixie! So if you don't mind, green one, Trixie want's to retrieve the remains of her wagon, so that she can leave this stupid little town,” she added.

It was impressive how she still had the same attitude after what happened today. She actually managed to lift all the remains about her head but it obviously looked very stressful for her. Star Twinkle couldn't watch how she had so many problems lifting her wagon and came up with a stupid idea.

“Try to bring the pieces inside of my house, it's in the middle of the night.
You can stay at my place until tomorrow and leave in the morning,” he said while leading the way to his house, which was only a few hoof steps away.

Trixie felt mocked but after realizing that she had no other place to stay, she ultimately gave in and followed him inside with the remains of her wagon above her head. She placed the remains of her wagon inside of Star Twinkles house, piece by piece and stepped inside. Of course, she was not impressed by Star Twinkles house and felt like she was under treated, giving him an arrogant look.

“Yes I know, it's not really big but its better than nothing, right?” He said to her but she didn't give him a response and just looked at him as if he was unworthy to talk to.
“My bed is just up this stairs, you can sleep there,” he said while pointing at a wooden staircase.

“Do you really think that the great and powerful Trixie would go so low and sleep in a bed of a pony like you?” She quickly replied with her usual attitude.

“Well, you don't HAVE to sleep in my bed. If you want to sleep on the ground then fine. I don't care,” he replied annoyed because of her answer, even though, Star Twinkle was trying to be as nice as he could.

Once again Trixie felt mocked, she didn't feel comfortable to be treated like that but she was also too tired to complain anymore and walked upstairs to get some sleep. Star Twinkle stayed downstairs letting out a big sigh of frustration.

“Well I hope at least SHE sleeps well,” he said before he looked at the remains of Trixie's wagon, that laid in front of him.

On the next day...

Trixie woke up early in the morning. She wanted to leave Ponyville as soon as possible so she tried to sneak out of Star Twinkle's house. She went downstairs and was shocked at what she saw. The parts of her wagon were gone. The first thing she suspected, of course, was that Star Twinkle had something to do with this.

“What did that green pony do with my wagon?” She angrily said.
“Where is he anyway?” She added while looking around in Star Twinkles house.

But she couldn't find him so she went outside.

“If Trixie finds this pony then...” but she stopped her sentence after what she saw outside.

It was her wagon, fully repaired. She couldn't believe her eyes and wondered how it could be. The wagon was completely destroyed last night and now it looked like it was never damaged in the first place.

While inspecting the wagon from the other side, she noticed how Star Twinkle was still hammering some nails on the walls. Star Twinkle noticed her and greeted Trixie but it seems like he was quite tired after working all night on the wagon.

“You did this? All on your own? How did you manage to repair it so quickly?” She asked confused with wide eyes.

“Well, repairing things is my job,” he replied casually.

“But why?” She asked still not knowing why he did it after how she treated his friends.

“I don't know. It just felt right to me to do this,” he replied while in truth he didn't know the answer himself.

Star Twinkle finished his work on the wagon and Trixie was ready to go now. She was getting in front of the wagon so that she could pull it behind her and attempted to leave Ponyville. But she stopped for one second and turned around to Star Twinkle who just looked at her with an emotionless look on his face.

“Thank you,” she said in an uncomfortable quiet but also honest tone.

“Your welcome,” he replied.

Once again she attempted to leave but she then turned around again to Star Twinkle to ask him something.

“What's your name anyway,” she curiously asked.

“It's Star Twinkle” he replied with a light grin.

Trixie gave a light grin back at him after hearing his name.

“Star Twinkle,” she repeated to herself.
“The great and powerful Trixie shall remember that name!” She said in her usual boasting manner as she left Ponyville with a smile on her face.

He didn't know why he did this. It wasn't like him to invest so much energy and work for somepony else. He would have never done something like this a while back ago. But he was too tired to worry about all that now. After Trixie was out of sight Star Twinkle went inside of his house and closed the door. He let out a huge yawn, immediately collapsed on the ground and fell asleep.

7. Dragonphobia

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Star Twinkle was right on his way back home after he finished working at the Iron Hammer. On his way, he noticed a black smoke cloud above Ponyville. He wondered what this was all about but then decided to proceed to go home.

“Whatever that is, I'm sure somepony will take care of that. It's none of my business,” he said while entering his house and closing the door behind him.

But as soon as he closed the door, somepony knocked on it so Star Twinkle opened it again with a bad feeling in his mind as if he knew what was going to happen next.

“We need your help,” said Twilight after Star Twinkle opened the door with a concerned tone in her voice.

“Of course, you do,” he replied annoyed while looking at Twilight bothered.

Star Twinkle followed Twilight to the Golden Oak Library where the rest of his friends waited. Apparently, a dragon was sleeping in a nearby mountain of Ponyville and his snoring caused this giant smoke cloud that Star Twinkle saw before. Princess Celestia ordered Twilight and her friends to take care of this dragon or else all of Equestria will be covered in smoke for the next one hundred years.

Star Twinkle couldn't even believe what he was asked to do. Is he supposed to face off against a dragon? That was just ridiculous. But he also couldn't say anything because it was Princess Celestia who asked them to do it. So it was either going up against a dragon or the ruler of all Equestria. They defeated Nightmare Moon somehow so a dragon is also possible, he thought while still having a bad feeling about that. It's once again, one of those moments where he wished to return to his quiet and boring life.

He returned home and prepared a saddlebag that he filled with some random stuff. After all, he didn't know what to bring against a dragon...

"A dragon..." he thought.

"A dragon!" He exclaimed angrily. "I am supposed to go up against a dragon?" He asked himself, still believing that this was some kind of sick joke.

If he never met his new friends, then he would never be asked to accompany them to face off against a dragon. He was pretty sure that fighting dragons didn't have the slightest to do with friendship. But what could he do about it now? Should he stay in Ponyville? How does that look like? He wasn't thinking like some kind of macho stallion but just the thought about six mares going up against a dragon while the only stallion bails out was hurting Star Twinkle's manliness a little.

After getting ready like everypony else, Star Twinkle met his friends again in front of the Golden Oak Library where they discussed the situation. The dragon was sleeping in a cave on top of a mountain so the first thing they have to do is climb up. So they all went towards the mountain.

When everypony arrived at the mountain, they all heard a very loud ground shaking noise. Twilight explained that this is what a dragon snore sounds like. It already sounded very dangerous for Star Twinkle, making him startle a little but he calmed down after he saw how Fluttershy was literally shaking with fear. It was at this moment where he was wondering why she even accompanied them. Star Twinkle was definitely not the bravest pony but Fluttershy seemed to be on a whole different level. But nopony said anything about her behavior so Star Twinkle kept his mouth shut too.

Rainbow Dash, who was rash as always tried to fly to the top but Applejack stopped her and advised that the group should stay together. A plan that Star Twinkle happily agreed to.

Everypony climbed the mountain except Star Twinkle and Fluttershy. Star Twinkle was not really looking forward to meeting this dragon so he wanted to go last and let the girls go forward. It was maybe not the most gentlecolt-like behavior but they didn't seem to be scared at all so they might as well go first then. But Fluttershy hesitated and Star Twinkle knew exactly why. Her face and her body language were pretty obvious to him. And it didn't help that Rainbow Dash was putting more pressure on her. Fluttershy was even too scared to fly up the mountain after hearing another dragon snore.

“Hey, listen! This may take a while so how about we go around the mountain and met you up there?” Said Star Twinkle to the rest of the ponies.

The rest of the group was probably not too fond of this idea, especially Rainbow Dash but Star Twinkle didn't know any other solution. However, the group agreed and continued their climb while Star Twinkle and Fluttershy went around the mountain in really slow pace

The others were probably there already but Star Twinkle wasn't bothered by that. Fluttershy, on the other hoof, was following him really quietly while looking at the ground most of the time. Star Twinkle took this opportunity and asked her the obvious question.

“You're scared, right?” He calmly asked.

Fluttershy was shocked to hear this question, probably because she thought she was good at hiding it and didn't think that somepony would notice. She didn't answer him but the answer was obvious to him.

“Glad that I'm not the only one,” he said, making Fluttershy wonder.

“You are scared too?” She curiously asked, while slowly catching up to Star Twinkle's walking speed.

“Of course, I am. I don't think going up against a dragon is a good idea at all,” he almost nervously said.

Fluttershy seemed surprised to hear that and said that she didn't expect him to be afraid at all. But then she said something that made Star Twinkle almost angry.

“Back then, against Nightmare Moon, you didn't seem to be scared at all,” she proudly said.

Hearing that made Star Twinkle lower his eyebrows in annoyance.

"There it is again. I was judged once again by one moment. My "friends" all behave like they know me, even though they don't. Things like: “You're normally not like this” or “Back then you were...” It's always like I have to exceed their expectations. And that is something I just can't do...I can't be somepony they want me to be...I can just be myself..." He monologued in his head.

Now Star Twinkle was the one who looked at the ground most of the time. Fluttershy noticed that he was in thoughts and decided to not bother him. She was not sure if she said something wrong or if he just didn't want to talk so she followed him slowly like she did before.

After a while, they finally caught up with the rest, who didn't seem to be bothered at all considering that they had to wait for a fair amount of time for Star Twinkle and Fluttershy to catch up. They continued to climb up the mountain and came across a cliff, where they had to jump over to proceed. As usual, Star Twinkle waited for everypony to go first and once again it was him and Fluttershy who was left.

Fluttershy was too afraid to jump and stayed on the other side, making Star Twinkle sigh in frustration.

“What now?” Star Twinkle said, to the rest of the ponies, while shrugging his shoulders.

Pinkie Pie decided to jump over to motivate Fluttershy with a little song. It actually worked and Fluttershy was gaining some courage, through the song. She closed her eyes and leaped forward but after Twilight advised her to not look down, out of reflex, she did look down. But considering that the cliff was only like two hoof steps long nothing happened and Fluttershy stood between the two ledges. Rainbow Dash also let out a sigh of frustration and pushed Fluttershy to the other side, followed by Star Twinkle who casually jumped over the ledge.

The needlessly complicated journey continued and Star Twinkle became more and more annoyed by the fact that the dragon was no longer his main concern for the day. Twilight advised that the group should stay quiet since they were entering an avalanche zone. Hearing that calmed Star Twinkle down a little. Fluttershy may be scared by a lot of things but at least she was quiet while doing it. So there should be no problem, he thought. But as soon as he thought that, Fluttershy attempted to scream in fear, caused by unknown reasons. Luckily Applejack stopped her before an avalanche could start. There was a loud echo of Fluttershy's scream but it didn't seem to cause an avalanche so everypony sighed in relief. But it was too early to relax because those exact sighs caused an avalanche, making rocks almost fall from the sky.
Everypony tried to do their best to avoid the rocks while running forward and they all managed to get out with no injuries. The avalanche only lasted roughly one minute but it felt a lot longer for them, considering the danger there were in.

After regrouping, they realized that the path was blocked by rubble caused by the avalanche. So the only thing they could do now is climb over it, which again would take more time than necessary. Fluttershy, who felt responsible for this apologized but everypony was very understanding about all this. Except for Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash who was really annoyed by all this. While climbing up the rubble Star Twinkle slowly lost his calm and began mumbling to himself.

“As if dealing with a dragon wasn't bad enough,” he mumbled to himself while continuing his way downhill over the rubble.
“This day has been nothing but a drag. Can't believe that I'm saying that but I hope we reach this dragon soon,” he mumbled to himself while turning around to see if Fluttershy is still behind him.

She was slowly climbing down the rubble as expected from him. But she suddenly slipped and fell down the hill crashing in Star Twinkle, Rarity, and Applejack on the way downhill. Star Twinkle never thought that the day would come where he was too annoyed to complain but there it was. Rainbow Dash flew over to them and tried to help them up. Out of courtesy, Rarity apologized but Rainbow Dash was hinting who's fault it really was.

This trip was annoying Star Twinkle more and more and he wished that it would end soon and it looked like his wish was about to come true, cause they finally arrived at the top and in front of the cave where this dragon was sleeping.

All of the sudden Star Twinkle realized again why he thought that this was a bad idea. Now there is no turning back and his fear showed up again. But that didn't stop Twilight to give some orders to deal with the situation.

Rainbow Dash was ordered to clear the smokes with her wings. Star Twinkle, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity should start a diversion to distract the dragon if things would get too hairy. Applejack was preparing some apples to attack him if he starts to attack. And Fluttershy's and Twilight's job was to convince the dragon to leave the mountain.

“So if things get “hairy” I basically have to draw the attention from the dragon to me? Great...” he said not feeling good at all about this plan.

He would gladly switch places with Rainbow Dash if he was a Pegasus. That way he would at least stay far away from this dragon. Twilight was going in, expecting Fluttershy to be right behind her but Fluttershy was still outside hiding from the dragon. Everypony tried to shove her in the cave but she wasn't moving one inch but they stopped after she said that she couldn't go in. Much to the shock and frustration of everypony.

“Oh, yeah I forgot. She is scared of dragons,” Star Twinkle bluntly said.

“Scared of dragons?” Said Twilight in surprise. “Don't be ridiculous,” she said amusingly.

“No, it's true,” Fluttershy confirmed.

Everypony was confused to hear that, except for Star Twinkle, who was wondering why they even thought that she could speak to a dragon.

“But Fluttershy. You have a wonderful talent dealing with all kinds of animals,“ said Twilight.

“Yes, because they're not dragons,” Fluttershy replied.

“Oh come on! We've seen you walk right up to a horrible manticore like it was nothing,“ said Rainbow Dash.

“Yes, because he wasn't a dragon,” Fluttershy replied.

“Spike is a dragon. You're not scared of him,” said Pinkie Pie.

“Yes, because he's not a huge, gigantic, terrifying, enormous, teeth-gnashing, sharp-scale having, horn-wearing, smoke-snoring, could eat a pony in one bite, totally all grown-up dragon! ”

Followed by one more snore coming out of the cave, covering everypony in smoke.

“Well she does have a point there,” Star Twinkle said while still coughing up from the smoke.

Twilight asked why Fluttershy didn't say anything about her fear of dragons to which she replied that she was too scared to tell them. They all tried to convince Fluttershy to do her part of the plan but she was just too afraid to. So it was up to the six remaining ponies to come up with another plan.

Twilight decided to go in and tried to persuade the dragon to leave on his own.

“You think it will work?” Applejack asked the remaining ponies who waited outside.

“Not really but it's not like we have another choice right?” Star Twinkle desperately said.

A few minutes later, Twilight walked out of the cave followed by another smoke cloud which probably meant that the dragon isn't going anywhere.

Now it was back to square zero and somepony had to come up with a new plan. Despite the situation, Rarity was relatively calm and insisted that they should try some “charm” to get the dragon out of the cave. So she confidently went inside while the rest waited outside again. And once again, after a few minutes, Rarity came back and the dragon was still inside the cave.

This situation was just as Star Twinkle imagined it. There is no way that they could do something against a dragon. If he was smaller then maybe they could forcefully get him out somehow. It wouldn't be the most polite way but the future of Equestria was at stake, Star Twinkle thought. Even Pinkie Pie came up with a plan to take care of the dragon. But Star Twinkle had some problems understanding her “Plan”. She was dressed up as a birthday present, had balloons strapped around her and wore some other random stuff. Her plan was to make the dragon laugh but Star Twinkle was not sure how that would get the dragon out of the cave. Needless to say, her plan failed and she came back out of the cave after a few seconds. Judging from her torn “clothes”, the dragon didn't seem to be amused by Pinkie Pie. Star Twinkle was not surprised by this outcome and just kept his mouth shut before he would say something unnecessary.

Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, had enough of wasting any more time and decided to smack some sense into this dragon. So she Dashed inside of the cave as fast as possible.

“Now I know that THIS is a really bad idea!” Said Star Twinkle, knowing the results of Rainbow Dash's plan before it even happened.

After only a few seconds, everypony heard a loud roar from inside the cave and Rainbow Dash came back spinning, crashing into everypony in the process followed by the dragon, who didn't look too happy now. It was a giant red dragon with sharp claws and scales, he was almost as big as the cave entrance itself. The only thing everypony could do at this moment was shaking in fear, just by the sight of this thing. The dragon was breathing out some smoke outside of his mouth, which was enough to push the six ponies against a boulder on the other side of the cliff, breaking it in the process and revealing Fluttershy who was hiding behind it.

Star Twinkle was not sure what he should now, they were no match for this dragon at all and it certainly didn't look as if it want's to talk anymore. But suddenly after losing all hope, he heard Fluttershy's voice.

“How dare you,” is what he could hear in a mean and almost angry voice as he looked up to see if he wasn't hearing things but it was indeed Fluttershy.

“HOW DARE YOU!” She said again but this time, it was louder and clearer that she was angry.

She flew up to the head of the dragon and literally talked him down, much to the surprise of everypony else.

“Listen here, mister. Just because you're big doesn't mean you get to be a bully! You may have huge teeth and sharp scales and snore smoke and breathe fire. But you do not-- I repeat-- You do not! Hurt! My! Friends! You got that?“

Star Twinkle couldn't believe what was happening right now. This shy little pony, that was scared by practically everything on the way up to this mountain, not to mention that she said a few minutes ago that she was afraid of dragons just made the dragon cower in fear instead.

After a little more lecturing from Fluttershy's side, the dragon was bursting out in tears but Fluttershy was not angry anymore and advised that the dragon should go and look for another place to sleep. A place where no other place is in danger to be engulfed in a giant black smoke cloud.

Everypony was impressed how Fluttershy handled that dragon all on her own and cheered for her, making her blush. The dragon flew away and the job was finally done so everypony decided to go back.

“Alright everypony let's go back to Ponyville and inform Princess Celestia about our success,” said Twilight as she was leading the way.

Star Twinkle followed them at a slow pace while thinking about what happened.

It still didn't make any sense for Star Twinkle how Fluttershy was suddenly able to overcome her fear like that. He had no idea that Fluttershy can be like that. It actually reminded him to back then, when he was trying to stop Nightmare Moon, where he also acted out of his usual self. So does that mean that Fluttershy was always this brave and that she was only holding herself back? Everypony expected her to go up against the dragon even though, she thought she couldn't do it.

"Do they think about me the same way? Is that why they still spend time with me? Because they think I'm..."

“Let's go, Star Twinkle,” said Fluttershy, interrupting Star Twinkles thoughts.

“Oh, yes,” he said while walking at a more normal speed.

“By the way,” he said while turning around for a moment to talk with Fluttershy.

“You did great there. That was really impressive,” he proudly said.

Fluttershy was embarrassed to hear those words, making her blush but also smile in happiness.

“Thank you...” she shyly said, lowering her head in embarrassment.

On the way back he spent his time to think about what he realized though Fluttershy.

"Some things are not always how they seem to be. You can be kind and shy but also strong and fearless. But what can I be?" He wondered as he walked away with his friends back to Ponyville.

8. Star Twinkle Alone

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It was a really sunny day and Star Twinkle was walking around in Ponyville, thinking about what he should do or with whom he should spend the day with. Since he met his new friends, Star Twinkle's daily life has changed a lot. Not only does he leave his house more often, to spend time with his friends, he also gets dragged into situations that he himself would have never stumbled across before. One day he has to help a friend on an orchard, then he has to deal with a boasting magician, and then he has to help to get rid of a dragon. And all of that in just this short time. There was not nearly as much variety in his life before.

Of course, Star Twinkle was well aware of that and he was okay with it. He was never looking for a more exciting life. His life was quiet and boring. That's what he was used to. But with his new friends, all of that changed.

While still thinking about all those things a raindrop was dropped on Star Twinkle's head. As he looked up in surprise, he noticed how some Pegasus arranged the clouds above him. They were rain clouds so it was probably about rain. Before he realized what was about to happen, rain started to come out already. It was a lot more rain than he expected and he also could swear that heard some thunder in the distance. Definitely, no weather to stay outside, he figured. He ran as fast as he could until he reached his house to escape this storm. He was soaked when he entered his house but at least he was safe now. It may not be the safest place for him to stay since his house is made out of wood but nothing happened before so he didn't worry too much. Also, it's not like he has multiple houses to choose from...

“This storm came out of nowhere. Wasn't it suppose to be sunny this day?” He wondered as he was drying himself with a towel that he got from his bathroom.

He walked up the stairs and sat down on his bed, watching out of his window to see the rain pour down from the sky.

“I hope this rain stops soon...” he said while watching outside for good amount of time.

It was dark, wet and almost dangerous looking in Ponyville. Not a good time to go outside. Star Twinkle didn't plan anything for today but he wanted to spend some time with his friends, no matter who it was, somepony always had some time to spare. It didn't matter what they would have done because he didn't care much.

He spent almost an hour looking outside waiting for the rain to stop. There were some ponies outside from time to time, who ran to search for shelter from the rain. So Star Twinkle watched them if they were running past his sight.

“It's not stopping...” he said almost in a sad voice while wondering why it bothered him that much.

“Come on! It's just some rain! How bad can that be?” He said in an optimistic voice, as he walked downstairs to the door, ready to open it and go out.

“I just go over to somepony and see if they have some time to spare,” he said while opening the door and stepping outside.

But only after one step outside, he was soaked and almost afraid to go any further after hearing the sound of a thunder that was nearby. It didn't look that bad from the inside, he thought as he closed the door again, drying himself again with the same towel than before. After that failed attempt he returned to his bed and looked outside again. Thinking about how to spend the day, he came up with another idea.

“Oh! I know! Maybe Comet wants to play!

Star Twinkle almost excitingly jumped out of his bed and walked to the other side of the room. He approached a cupboard with a fishbowl on top of it. Star Twinkle moved his head near the fishbowl to look inside. Inside of it was a little goldfish, who barely moved from his spot.

“Hey, wanna play something?” He asked Comet who showed little reaction.

But Star Twinkle smiled as if it was the most exciting thing ever. What it probably was, considering how his previous day looked till now. His excitement eventually disappeared slowly as he watched his goldfish who was probably not interested in playing right now.

“Oh!” He suddenly said, rushing away for one moment to get some goldfish food.

“You hungry?” He said showing him some pack with goldfish food.

He poured some of it inside of the bowl to feed his fish. But again, Comet showed little reaction, letting the food fall down beside him. Star Twinkle realized that Comet didn't want to be bothered and left him again. He returned to his bed again and looked out of his window. While watching the weather, he thought about some options until one thought came to his mind.

“Maybe I find something to read?”

Once again he walked downstairs to his living area. There was a small bookshelf with roughly twenty or thirty books in it. He approached the shelf in hope to find one book that he could read.

“Alright what do we have here?” he said while scanning through the shelf with his eyes.

He randomly picked one book and looked at the cover to see what it was.

“Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone,” he read out loud in a monotone voice. “I already read that one. It was okay I guess. I think there are more entries but I only got this one,”

He put the book back to its original place and picked another one out.

“The many Tales of Star Swirl the bearded,” he read to himself again. “I think I read that one too. I don't even know where I got this one from,” he said while putting it away again.

“Come to think of it, there are many books from which I don't where I got them from or why I even have them,” he said while looking at some titles of his books.

“Pranksters 101, The Beautiful nature of Equestria, Monstrous Manual, The How to make quick Bits Business Guide?" He seemed a little surprised to have such a random collection of books judging from his reaction.

But the nearby sound of a thunder made him snap out of his confusion, making him look outside of a window.

“Well I don't think that can read in peace with this weather outside,” he figured.

He found himself once again lying on his bed looking out of the window next to him. He got more and more bored, the longer he looked out of his window. Once again he jumped out of his bed but this time, he looked more determined than ever.

“Alright!” he said in determination. “I will find something in this house! And this something will free me from this boredom,” he said while walking downstairs again.

He looked around in all corners of his house and found dozens of stuff that he randomly found somewhere. First, he found a yellow ball that was below his bed the whole time. Before thinking anything, he placed it in the middle of the room and kicked it across the room. But after kicking it he realized that this was a really bad idea since it did hit multiple things across the room just as he feared. Thank goodness that he didn't have anything valuable in his house. It also was a bad idea since there was a fishbowl in the room. That could have turned out really bad, he thought. He put the ball back to where he found it and searched for something else. It didn't take too long until he found something. He found a deck of cards inside of a shelf and tried to build a tower of cards. It collapsed very easily so he always had to start over again. But after a few attempts, he gave up and threw the deck back into the shelf.

After that, still full of determination, he searched for something else. He found a flashlight that he placed on his kitchen table. Then he attempted to do some shadow play and do some figures but then he realized that doing figures with hoofs is not so easy. So he searched for something else. He came across a hammer and then decided to get the rest of his tools do some unnecessary repairs. Tables, chairs, his bed, and literally everything made of wood in his house was ongoing some repair. But that was a bad idea since he did more damage than expected, almost destroying his whole furniture. Which made him worry because if there is something that he is good in, then it's repairing.

So after re repairing everything again which didn't take too long, he put away his tools. He took a quick look outside after that.

“The weather is still like this,” he mumbled.

It was unclear for him how much time has passed since the storm started but it felt like an eternity. An eternity of boredom, he thought. He spent a good amount of time thinking about something else he could do but he ran out of options, so he returned to his bed and gave up.

“Do I even have any hobbies? I mean what did I do before I met my new friends?” He asked himself.

He tried to think about the time before the Summer Sun Celebration before he met his friends so that he might remember what he did when he was alone.

“I was alone...,” he said. “I was always alone,” he repeated.

So being alone is something that he should be used too. So why did he have problems now? What did he do before? He never complained about his loneliness before. He just accepted it, like it was normal. But now he discovered friendship for the first time.

“I still don't know anything about friendship and I still like to be alone most of the time,” he said to himself. “So this is just a normal day like always...”

He continued to watch the rain outside. It made him kinda sleepy watching the raindrops dripping down on his window. So sleepy that he dozed off.

He once again had a strange dream. It was like his previous dream that he had a while back. No images. Only a voice.

He couldn't make out if this voice was his own or from somepony else, because it was far away and sometimes really hard to understand. But this time, the words were easy to understand because they were the same one than before.

“I don't need help...

I can do this on my own...

I don't want...

Yes, that's exactly why...

Because...”

But then a sound of a thunder awoke him, making him jump out in fear for a moment. As a reflex, he looked out of the window again just to see that the weather hasn't changed one bit.

“Come on! I can't even sleep with this weather outside?” He said in frustration.

Despite the shock, Star Twinkle thought about the dream he had. It was the dream he had before. But what does it mean? He never had this dream before. This dreams just started recently, around the time after Nightmare Moons defeat.

“What is that voice? Me? Somepony else?” He asked himself, trying to come up with an answer.

He slowly analyzed his dream. Making out some sense of the words he kept hearing, believing that those were his own words.

“I don't need help,” he repeated to himself.

That's what he thought like a while back.

Help from who? His friends? But he never had friends before. No friends meant no help for him. Where was he suppose to get help from?

“I can do this on my own...” he repeated to himself.

Of course. He had to do everything on his own. Because there was nopony that could have helped him. So there was no choice but to do anything on your own.

“I don't want...” he repeated to himself.

I don't want what? Help? Because nopony was there to help him.

“Yes, that's exactly why...” He repeated to himself.

What? That's exactly why he doesn't want help

“Because...” He repeated to himself.

Because...He was all alone.

That is what he came up with. Those words were pretty much his thought process when he was all alone.

Only caring about himself and nopony else. That's all that he had to worry about before.

But that changed.

Now he has not only one but six new friends who care for him. It didn't change his thought process right away but he managed to change a little. He became more extrovert to other ponies. Not to an extreme level but it was more than before.

But is that really what he wanted?

He didn't want to change at all because he didn't feel wrong or anything. But most of the time his friends look at him in disappointment whenever he makes some statements or decisions that seem normal for him but not for his friends. Almost as if they were expecting him to be somepony else.

Somepony who you could always depend on. Somepony who is always thinking about others first. Somepony who doesn't hesitate to help his friends.

But he wasn't like that.

He doesn't always know what to do He likes to mind his own business first. He always hesitates when his friends need help. Meddling in some ponies problems is something he didn't like to do. But recently this was more than once the case. Much to his disapproval. But what can he do about that? He can only be himself.

Then he remembered something that bothered him for a while now.

“The Elements of Harmony...” he said.

“The others have it easy,” he mumbled to himself.

“They all know what elements they are because it's obvious. Their Elements represent them perfectly
Fluttershy is kind
Applejack is honest
Rarity is generous
Rainbow Dash is loyal
Pinkie Pie likes to laugh
and Twilight is good in magic”

It was easy for him to list all elements and his friend because for him it was obvious. But then he thought about himself.

“So what am I?” he asked himself confused.

“I am: easily bored, I like to be alone, And I think obviously way too much,” he said in a monotone voice.

“So that would make me: The Element of boredom, The Element of Loneliness, or the Element of thinking?”

“OR. Maybe I am the element of Questions because I ask way too many of them,” he said while rolling around in his bed frustrated.

Once again he looked out of the window while still being bored.

“I really hope it isn't raining tomorrow,” he said before he tried to get some sleep again.

Meanwhile far away from Ponyville

A stallion in a dark gray hood watched the stars after the terrible storm ended. Almost as if he was hypnotized by the sky.

“What a beautiful night,” he said while watching the sky with a happy smile. “The stars are so bright tonight,” he added.

“That reminds me. I should pay him a visit some day. But I don't think I should visit him while I am like this,” he said in a more serious tone.

He then looked away from the sky and down to the ground.

“Not while I am not done,” he said.

After saying that a light laugh could be heard from him. He then turned around and walked slowly away.

“He will be fine. I know that. That's just how he is...How he always was,”

He said while walking off into the distance.

9. The Evil Enchantress

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It was unusually quiet today, thought Star Twinkle while walking around in Ponyville. Nopony was out on the street and all the windows were closed. This looked familiar for Star Twinkle but he couldn't figure out why. He walked around the corner and got suddenly really nervous from what he saw. It was a pony in a brown hood who was digging on the ground. Star Twinkle knew exactly who that was and tried to back away nervously. The pony then suddenly turned around but Star Twinkle was already around the corner, hiding from her. After realizing that there was nothing the pony turned around again and continued digging.

“Zecora!” He said in a panic. “That's why it was so empty on the streets...that was way too close,” he said in relief while he looked around the corner to make sure she didn't see him.

“Star Twinkle!” Said a familiar voice to Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle turned his head to the direction from where the voice came from and found out that it was Pinkie Pie, who stood at her door trying to call him over in her house. Star Twinkle rushed over to her and went inside and to his surprise, the rest of his friends were also there. After Pinkie Pie closed the door she continued to watch outside, most likely to keep a close look on Zecora.

“You're not hurt are you, sugar cube?” Applejack asked out of concern.

“No, I'm okay, I don't think she noticed me,” he replied.

“That's good. Who knows what this sinister pony would have done to you,” Rarity said in concern.

“Yeah, Zecora can't be trusted at all,” Rainbow Dash added.

Pinkie Pie was still standing at the door to make sure to keep an eye out for Zecora. She seemed to spot something and then suddenly spoke up. “Oh! I see Twilight and Spike! Should I call them over too?” She asked.

“Yes! Get them inside before they stumble across Zecora too!” Rainbow Dash demanded.

“Okey Dokey Lokey!” She replied while trying to get Twilight and Spike inside as well.

While that was going on, Star Twinkle couldn't help but notice a filly behind Applejack. She had a yellow coat, a red mane, and no Cutie Mark. Star Twinkle could swear that he saw her before, on Sweet Apple Acre, but he asked Applejack just to make sure.

“Who is that, Applejack?” He asked.

Applejack seemed surprised because she didn't realize that she hadn't introduced her to Star Twinkle. Her name was Apple Bloom and she was Applejack's little sister. Of course, that would explain why he saw her on Sweet Apple Acre, he thought.

“Hey there,” he said to Apple Bloom with a slight grin.

She quickly returned the grin while introducing herself. His first impression was, that she seemed okay.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie managed to get Twilight and Spike inside. But unlike the rest of the group, they were rather surprised by everyone's behavior. Twilight was asking why they were all hiding. She probably didn't know what was going on, which made sense because she didn't live in Ponyville for long so she probably didn't even know about Zecora.

So everypony explained the situation to her...

Zecora was a pony who lived in the Everfree Forest, who comes to Ponyville once in a month. Some of the ponies described her as mysterious or creepy. She is supposed to be an evil enchantress that brews evil stews and put curses on other ponies.

At least that's what Star Twinkle heard. He never actually saw her doing anything like that. That's when he realized that he knew nothing about Zecora at all, except that she was digging the ground in Ponyville. But the fact that she lives in the Everfree Forest is for him proof enough. After all being an evil enchantress and using some curses probably helps a lot to survive in there, he thought

She also has some black stripes on her body, something very unusual that nopony else ever seen but a soon as somepony mentioned them, Twilight explained that Zecora was a zebra. Everypony in the room was confused since they never heard the term “Zebra” before. According to Twilight, zebras come from a faraway land and she has those stripes because she was born with them and that they were perfectly normal for Zebras.

But everyponies opinion on Zecora didn't seem to change one bit. It even led Pinkie Pie to write a song about her. Something about evil enchantresses and stews, Star Twinkle didn't really listen to the song since Pinkie Pie always does that. It became routine for him real quick.

The discussion went on and on about Zecora being evil or not but it didn't really go anywhere. Twilight insisted that everything that Zecora does can somehow be explained if somepony is brave enough to talk to her and her friends were advising her to stay as far as possible away from her. In the middle of the discussion, Applejack noticed that the door was open and as if that wasn't bad enough, Apple Bloom was nowhere to be found as well.

“She went outside!” Rarity exclaimed in shock.

“And Zecoras's still out there,” Rainbow Dash said in shock.

Everypony became worried and decided to walk outside to look for her while Spike waited inside in case Apple Bloom would return. Zecora already went back to the Everfree Forest followed and didn't seem to notice that Apple Bloom was sneaking behind her. Luckily, the rest caught up on the two before something could happen. Applejack dragged Apple Bloom quickly back to the group and away from Zecora, who just seemed to notice that she was being followed.

As soon as noticed the group of ponies behind her, she began to shout out a warning which only made everypony even more cautious of her. “Beware! Beware, you pony folk! Those leaves of blue are not a joke!”

She was probably referring to the blue flowers, everypony was standing in. But nopony noticed them because they were all too focused on Zecora and tried to throw her out of Ponyville. Shortly after, Zecora went back into the Everfree Forest and didn't mind her followers anymore.

After that, Apple Bloom got scolded by her big sister for leaving the group while Zecora was still out there. Once again, a discussion started whether Zecora was evil or not. And again, it didn't go anywhere. This slowly started to get on Star Twinkle nerves so he tried to say something so that they could finally go home.

“Listen,” he said, making them all stop talking for a moment. “She is gone now and she only comes to Ponyville once a month so could we please continue this matter in the next month?” He explained, trying to finally end this discussion.

“Star Twinkle is right,“ Applejack agreed. “Zecora is gone now so there's no reason to get all fussy about nothing,”

Everypony agreed on that and then decided to head back to Ponyville. The whole Zecora situation was not mentioned for the rest of the day, much to Star Twinkles relief. He likes to end discussions or other problems like this as fast as possible and not worry about them too much. The day was over quickly without anything else serious happening and Star Twinkle went home after hanging around with his friend.

On the next day...

After sleeping through the night without getting some weird dreams or anything like that, Star Twinkle woke up and felt really refreshed. Maybe because it was unusually quiet outside. That actually made him kind of worry for a moment so he looked out of his window. Maybe Zecora was back in Ponyville and everypony was hiding again. But that wasn't the case. There were lots of ponies outside and everything seemed rather normal.

After making sure of the situation, Star Twinkle was relieved and left his house after getting ready for the day. He walked outside and was surprised how peacefully quiet it was. It was actually much to his liking. He likes it when it is quiet. This way he can sort his thoughts much better. But it almost felt too quiet for him so he looked around wondering why. He watched everypony he came across to look if something was wrong because the way how quiet it was actually made him worry for a moment.

“It all looks normal to me,” he said almost confused.

But right after saying that he noticed something and became confused.

“What?” He said in confusion.

After that, he continued to look around and carefully inspected everypony. Now he was completely sure what the problem was. Before even continuing his thoughts Star Twinkle ran towards the Golden Oak Library to see Twilight. He figured that she would be the only one who could help him with this kind of problem. But he wasn't prepared for the next thing he saw after he opened the door of the library. To say that the thing he saw was confusing or weird would be a huge understatement. All of his friends waited inside of the library but they looked a little different than usual.

Twilight's horn was all wobbly and had blue dots on it,
Rainbow Dash's wings were now on her lower side around her stomach,
Pinkie Pie's tongue was all swollen and also had blue dots on it,
Applejack was around one-tenth of her normal size now,
and Rarity's mane and tail looked like a total mess.
Fluttershy and Apple Bloom were the only ones who looked normal for Star Twinkle.

“Star Twinkle!” Said Twilight in relief. “Am I glad to see you! You look normal and you were with us yesterday so could you please tell those ponies that there is no curse, that caused all this,” she said in relief.

But Star Twinkle showed no reaction to Twilight, he saw how she was talking to him but that only reminded him why he was there in the first place.

“WHAT!?” He shouted at her on the top of his lungs, making her flinch.

"Why are you screaming like that?" She asked confused.

“TWILIGHT!” He shouted again. “I'M SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU VERY WELL! I THINK ZECORA HAS PUT A CURSE ON ME YESTERDAY, SO I CAME HERE IN HOPE THAT YOU MAYBE KNOW HOW TO CURE THIS!”

Twilight was holding her ears most of the time since it was rather painful to listen to Star Twinkle while he was shouting like this. She quickly figured that Star Twinkle couldn't hear anything and that he shared the same problem that everypony else seemed to had. Meanwhile, Spike, who was also in the room, had the time of his life and started laughing. Probably because he quite enjoyed the state that everypony was in.

“This is hilarious! Look at all of you!
We got:
Hairity,
Rainbow Crash,
Spitty Pie,
Apple Teeny,
Flutterguy,
Starscream,
and...”

He then struggled for a moment to come up with a name for Twilight. “... uh... I got nothin'... Twilight Sparkle. I mean seriously, I can't even work with that,” he said, much to Twilight's dislike who was in not in the mood for jokes right now.

“This is no joke, Spike. Now start looking for more books so I can find a cure!“ She said annoyed.

“I think we'll find a cure to this curse at Zecora's place!” Rainbow Dash advised.

“MAYBE WE FIND A CURE TO THIS CURSE AT ZECORA'S PLACE!” Star Twinkle shouted.

“I already said that Star,” Rainbow Dash corrected.

“WHAT!?” Star Twinkle replied confused, making Rainbow Dash flinch because of the volume of Star Twinkle's voice.

“It's not a curse!” Twilight demanded annoyed.

“I agree with Dash and Star Twinkle! We'll go to Zecora's and force her to remove this hex!” Applejack suggested.

“It's not a hex either!” Twilight demanded again.

And again, just like yesterday, a discussion was going on between Twilight and the rest of her friends. And again, it didn't really go anywhere. After some more arguing about if this was all a curse or not, Rainbow Dash decided to confront Zecora and asked if everypony was with her. But while asking around, she noticed that Applejack was not there anymore.

“If she's gone-pft!”, said Pinkie Pie while spitting all over the place in the process.

“HEY, I THINK APPLEJACK IS GONE!” Star Twinkle shouted.

“Pf- I already Pf- said that-pft,” said Pinkie Pie.

“WHAT!?” Star Twinkle replied, making Pinkie Pie flinch.

They all checked their hoofs and their behinds in case somepony stepped or sat on her on accident. Apple Bloom has vanished as well so they all came to the conclusion that they have gone to Zecora. So everypony went outside and walked towards the Everfree Forest to go after Zecora. Star Twinkle was not sure what was going on but he followed them because he didn't know what he should do on his own.

There was some chaos going on on the way, Rainbow Dash went missing for example. But Star Twinkle and the others couldn't worry about that right now so they went on and looked for Zecora's place.

After a while, they found a strange looking tree with windows on it in the middle of the Everfree Forest. It was most likely where Zecora lived, Star Twinkle thought. They approached the tree and looked through a window where they saw Zecora. She was brewing something in a cauldron while speaking in a strange language that nopony recognized.

“THERE SHE-,” said Star Twinkle who was interrupted by Twilight who covered his mouth so that they won't get recognized by Zecora.

There were some strange decorations inside of Zecora's “house”, making some of the ponies really nervous.

“You saw those terrible things. Now, do you believe us Twilight?” Rarity asked Twilight.

“Scary looking masks, confusing incantations, and a great big bubbling cauldron? Everything is pointing to Zecora being... bad.” Twilight nervously said.

“Or... what if Zecora is just making soup?” She added still believing that everything can be explained.

But then Twilight heard how Zecora was mumbling something to herself.

“The perfect temperature for ponies, I presume. Now, where is that little Apple Bloom?“

After hearing that Twilight became scared and worried at the same time since now everything was implying that Zecora was trying to cook up Apple Bloom.

“Or... what if she's making Apple Bloom soup?!“
This made everypony scream in fear, except Star Twinkle who barely knew what was going on.

“WHAT!? WHAT!? WHAT IS IT!? WHY DO YOU ALL LOOK LIKE YOU ARE SCREAMING!?” He asked in confusion.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash crashed inside of Zecora's house with Applejack who was riding her through the room. Zecora tried to stop them and spoke in a strange language but Rainbow Dash couldn't control where she was flying to. Since Rainbow Dash's was cursed, it was really hard to maneuver so they crashed in almost everything, destroying some of Zecora's decoration.

This was the perfect time for the other ponies to jump in action. They opened the front door to confront Zecora.

“What have you done with Apple Bloom?” Said Twilight, demanding an answer from Zecora.

Applejack tried to attack Zecora and jumped off from Rainbow Dash but that didn't work out well because of her current size, making Zecora wonder what this was all about. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash continued to blindly crash into everything, knocking over Zecora's cauldron in the process.

“No! You know not what you do! You've gone and spilled my precious brew!”

Zecora looked upset about that but Twilight still insisted that she should undo her curse and tell them what she has done with Apple Bloom.

“We got you now Zecora! Now undo this curse and tell us where Apple Bloom is.”
“I didn't want to believe that you cursed us, but the evidence is overwhelming!”

“You made me look ridiculous,” said Rarity.

“You made me sound ridiculous!” said Fluttershy.

“Pf-You made me speak ridiculous!Pf-” said Pinkie Pie.

“You ruined my horn!” Said Twilight.

“WE GOT YOU NOW ZECORA! NOW UNDO THIS CURSE AND TELL US WHERE APPLE BLOOM IS!”Shouted Star Twinkle.

“I already said that,” said Twilight to Star Twinkle.

“WHAT!?” He replied in his usual loud voice.

Zecora was clearly not happy that they all accused her and gave them a mean look.

“How dare you! You destroy my home, destroy my work. Then rudely accuse me of being a jerk?” she replied in an angry tone.

“You put this curse on us, now you're gonna uncurse us.” demanded Rainbow Dash, which only made Zecora angrier.

“It is unwise to venture down this road. Your actions will make my anger explode!” Zecora threatened, angered by the group of ponies.

Those words startled the ponies after realizing that Zecora was probably the wrong zebra you want to mess with.

“WHY IS SHE SO ANGRY NOW!?” Asked Star Twinkle
“DID WE GET HER TO UNDO THE CURSE!?” He wondered.

But in the middle of all that Apple Bloom entered the room and wondered what in Ponyville was going on. Applejack was relieved to see her sister unharmed, much to Apple Bloom's surprise.

“Apple Bloom! You're okay!” Said Applejack In relief.

“Why wouldn't I be?“ Apple Bloom asked.

“Because Zecora is an evil enchantress who cursed us and was gonna cook you up into soup!” said Twilight leaving some confused looks on Apple Bloom's and Zecora's face, who then started to laugh.

Apple Bloom explained that there is no such thing as a curse and that Twilight should know that. But since everypony looked like that Twilight was sure of what she spoke of.

“Apple Bloom, sweetie. You can't just stand there and tell me this isn't a curse,” said Twilight fully confident of her words.

“This isn't a curse,” Apple Bloom calmly replied, while approaching Zecora.

“HEY LOOK APPLE BLOOM IS ALRIGHT!” Said Star Twinkle who just realized that she was there.

Zecora then explained that she was trying to warn them of a flower called “Poison Joke” which was growing in the Everfree Forest. Back then when they tried to save Apple Bloom from Zecora, they all stepped in a field of blue flowers. And this “curse” was only the side effect of this flower. But they still wondered why Zecora had this creepy decoration or why she was chanting while brewing the stew in her cauldron. To which Zecora explained that there were treasures that she bought from her homeland. The Language she was speaking was obviously her native language. She was chanting a nursery rhyme in her language back then. And the soup she was brewing was a remedy for the Poison Joke in which you have to take a bubble bath.

But Twilight was still wondering why she couldn't find a remedy in all of her books to which Zecora showed her the book from where she got the remedy from. Twilight recognized the book, she said that she didn't look inside of it because of the title.

“Supernaturals: Natural Remedies and Cure-alls That Are Simply Super,” she read out loud.

Twilight suddenly felt bad for causing Zecora so much trouble for no reason, even thought she had the answer the whole time.
She apologized to her but Zecora wasn't angry at all and offered to mix up another bubble bath. But the problem was that she can't finish it because she is missing a herb from Ponyville since every shop is closed because everypony is afraid of Zecora.

“Oh! I think I can help you with that,” said Twilight.

The group then walked back to Ponyville to get the remaining herb, explaining the situation to some ponies in Ponyville, who still believed that Zecora put a curse on them.

Star Twinkle who still didn't know what exactly was going on was dragged to the spa. He saw how the girls went to the other side of the spa because obviously, they couldn't bath together. There was a huge pool of water and Spike tried to explain that he should go inside to cure the curse.

“SO THIS WATER IS SUPPOSE TO CURE THE CURSE!?” He asked Spike who stood there making some gestures in hope that Star Twinkle would understand them.

Star Twinkle then dived into the water for a few seconds. After he came back up he realized that he could hear a lot better now, making him sigh in relief.

“ARE YOU BETTER NOW!” Spike shouted directly into Star Twinkles ears, making him flinch.

“Yes! I'm fine unless you want me to be deaf again,” he annoyingly said.

“Are you better now Star Twinkle!?” Said Twilight from the other side of the spa.

“Yes!” he replied.
“How about you?
Did that evil enchantress Zecora take away the curse from you too?”

He then suddenly heard laughter from the other side. He didn't know what that was about and got confused.

“What?” he asked.

“We will explain everything later, just enjoy your bath for now“ Twilight replied.

The bubble bath did feel really relaxing so Star Twinkle didn't mind. So he took his sweet time and waited until everything will be explained to him later this day.

10. Little Pests

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As it turns out, Princess Celestia is visiting Ponyville tomorrow so every pony made sure to decorate Ponyville as best as they could for the princess. All flowers will be freshly watered, colorful ribbons and stripes will be placed everywhere and so on.

Normally, Star Twinkle would help to decorate Ponyville but he had to help somepony else. He and Rainbow Dash were inside of Carousel Boutique to help Rarity making some clothes for tomorrow. They were both wearing some fancy dresses and suits so that Rarity could edit them. Both of them were not really excited to do this kind of work, making them wonder why they did that in the first place.

“Stand still, Rainbow Dash,” said Rarity while working on a dress that Rainbow Dash was wearing.

“I caaan't, I need to flyyy! This is waaay too boring for me,” she replied, she was clearly not interested in doing this kind of stuff.

Rainbow Dash was wearing a pink dress and an enormous hat.
Star Twinkle was wearing a yellow fancy suit with lots of accessories on it.

“Take Star Twinkle for example. He wasn't moving one bit,” she proudly said.

While that was true, Rarity made it sound like Star Twinkle enjoyed that. Which was not the case at all, In fact, he was happy that he could take of this clothes.

“You're already done with me, right?
So can I take off those clothes?” He asked desperately.

“Yes, of course, darling,” she happily replied.

He was about to take his suit off but then Twilight entered the boutique, complementing on Rarity's work which Rarity gladly accepted.

“Hey you look good Star Twinkle,” said Twilight followed by a little giggle.

Star Twinkle was not sure if she was teasing him or if she meant what she said. He thought he looked ridiculous and he just wanted to get out of this suit as soon as possible.

While Twilight was inspecting the dresses a chirp could be heard from her. Everypony was wondering what caused it and looked around. But then Twilight revealed four little creatures that were hiding inside of her mane.

They looked like little insects with wings and googly eyes. Star Twinkle never saw those creatures before. Twilight seemed surprised, to have more than one in her mane, she said she had only one a moment ago. So Rarity and Rainbow Dash took each one of them.
Twilight also offered one to Star Twinkle but he refused since he didn't know what to do with one of them.

Suddenly, Steel Hammer walked in and asked for Star Twinkle but he was surprised to see him in a fancy suit like this.

“Hello? I was told that Star Twinkle was inside of here so-” but he stopped in the middle of the sentence
when he saw Star Twinkle in his outfit.

He then started to laugh at him, much to Star Twinkles dislike.

“Yeah yeah, I look really funny, I know,” Star Twinkle sarcastically replied to Steel Hammers amusement.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he apologized straight away.
”We need some helping hoof out there so if you're done here, could you please come outside and help us?” Steel Hammer asked.

“Yes, as soon as I get out of this clothes,” Star Twinkle replied.

“Why? It looks good on you,” he amusingly said.

“Thank you,” Star Twinkle sarcastically replied.

Steel Hammer waited till Star Twinkle was done but he then noticed how Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash were playing with those strange creatures. He became curious and asked them what those creatures were. Meanwhile, Star Twinkle got out of his suit and was approached by Steel Hammer.

“Are we ready now?” Steel Hammer asked.

But Star Twinkle was surprised to see one of those insect things in Steel Hammer's silver mane.

“Why do you have one of those?” Star Twinkle asked.

“I asked the girls if I could have one of them, so they gave me one,” he answered.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, they looked adorable,” he answered.

Somehow this was not the answer that Star Twinkle expected from him but he didn't really care for his reasons and just wanted to do something else besides playing the dress up doll for Rarity.

So after decorating Ponyville for a little while Star Twinkle returned home and end his day. He agreed to meet with Steel Hammer on the next day to make sure that everything was ready for Princess Celestia's visit.

On the next day

Princess Celestia would arrive in Ponyville in a few hours so there was enough time to make sure that everything was ready.

Star Twinkle was waiting at the spot where he and Steel Hammer agreed to meet each other but Steel Hammer was nowhere to be found. Star Twinkle wasn't even too early or anything. He was just in time, making him wonder why Steel Hammer was not there yet.

“It's unlikely for him to be late,” Star Twinkle thought.

Just when he thought that Steel Hammer wouldn't come at all, he saw him in the distance walking towards him or rather, running towards him as he suddenly noticed.

“Why is he running so fast?” he wondered.

But then Star Twinkle noticed how a big swarm of those flying things was chasing Steel Hammer. Star Twinkles face changed from confused to panic in a mere second when he noticed that this swarm was coming right at him. Out of panic, Star Twinkle ducked to avoid some of those creatures who flew past him but Steel Hammer stopped right in front of him taking some of them with him.
Resulting them both to be surrounded by them making it hard to even see each other.

“Where did all those things come from?” Star Twinkle asked in a panic.

“I dunno I just had one yesterday!” Steel Hammer replied.

“That's what you get if you take things home that you don't know,” said Star Twinkle annoyed.

“Could you please stop scolding me and help to get rid of them?” Steel Hammer said in frustration.

“And how am I suppose to know what to do?” Star Twinkle replied.

But then a familiar voice was heard by Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer.

“There are some more of them!” It was Applejack who was collecting another swarm of those things.

“Just lead them to me so we can corner them in,” she said to the two colts, who did as she demanded.

The three of them were cornering them all to a big ball. The rest of Star Twinkles friends were also helping.
Each of them had collected a bunch of this insects to combine them into a huge ball. They then pushed the giant ball into the Everfree Forest so that they won't be bothered by them anymore.

After getting rid of those things everypony was relieved. Those things could all have caused some trouble in Ponyville. Especially when the visit of Princess Celestia was only a few hours away.

“We did it. Nice work, Applejack,“ Twilight happily said.

“Couldn't do it without you all,” Applejack modestly replied.

They then decided to go back to Ponyville to clean up the little mess that these insects have caused. Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer started where they were supposed to meet before, cleaning up some things in the process.

“Am I glad that those things are gone now,” Star Twinkle said in relief.

“Yeah, imagine what would happen if they were around while the Princess was here,” Steel Hammer replied.

“That would not have looked good,” Star Twinkle said.

“Yes. It would kinda look like this,” said Steel Hammer while pointing behind Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle didn't exactly know what Steel Hammer was getting at so he turned around and was shocked by what he saw.

It was another swarm of those insects who were eating everything eatable what they could find. The two colts were surprised to see them again. After all, they just got rid of them so why are they, here again, Star Twinkle thought. Fluttershy then approached the two colts asking them for help.

“I don't understand. Why are they still here?” Star Twinkle asked.

“Well, I may have kept just one. Heh. I couldn't help myself. They're just so cute,” she innocently replied while smiling.

“One has to learn to not be charmed by cute looks my little girl,” Steel Hammer said, trying to sound wisely.

“Wasn't that the exact same reason why you took one of them?” Star Twinkle said, scolding Steel Hammer to which he just innocently smiled, trying to copy Fluttershy.

“Yeah it doesn't work that well if you try it,” said Star Twinkle who was unaffected by Steel Hammer's fake innocent smile.

Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Rarity then approached the three. They thought about a solution how they could stop them. Then Twilight had the idea to cast a spell that would make them stop eating all the food. Twilight was casting the spell and for a moment, I did seem to work. Much to the relief of everypony else. But the spell did seem to have a little side effect. Now instead of eating all the food, they started to eat everything else. Ranging from wood to metal and practically everything else.

Then Rarity realized something.

“Oh no...if they get inside my store...Everypony for herself!” she screamed, running to her store in a panic.

This made Steel Hammer realize something as well.

“Wait. What if they get inside of MY store?” he said in panic while watching how a swarm was heading towards his store direction.

“Oh no, you don't!” He angrily said running after them.

Star Twinkle could only watch how the panic spread around the town. But just when he thought things couldn't get any worse.

“Huh?” he said while watching how a little swarm was heading his houses direction.

“Hey! That is where MY house is!” he said in panic while also running after them.

He then made it to his house only to find out that there were already dozens of them inside. They were eating some of the furniture, taking a bite off of the walls and so on. Panic was spreading quickly inside of Star Twinkles head. He took a broom that he found in on of his closets to fight them off.

“Get out of my house, will you” he screamed in panic while fighting them off.

He was swinging around the broom to get them outside.
But then a few of them were eating the broom away, much to the shock of Star Twinkle.

“Oh yeah, I forgot...” he said after realizing that they now eat everything and that a broom would not help much in this situation.

After that, he didn't know what to do and just sat in the corner wishing that they would just go away on their own and to his surprise, they actually did. They were flying in a straight bouncy line outside of his house. Wondering what caused them to leave, he was following them outside where he heard some music in the distance.

It came from Pinkie Pie who was playing multiple instruments at the same time, making the insects following her. Star Twinkle approached Twilight and the others to ask them what was going on but they seem to be as confused as him. Twilight then noticed how Princess Celestia landed outside of Ponyville so she rushed to her side followed by the others. After a proper greeting, Princess Celestia noticed the insects but she thought it was all part of a parade. Of course, everypony went along with that and played innocent to avoid any trouble. Luckily The Princess couldn't stay for very long because she was informed about an emergency in Fillydelphia. Apparently, a swarm of creatures was causing them some trouble. Everypony knew what this could be all about but they again played innocent.

After Twilight gave away her report, Princess Celestia already left again, much to the relief of everypony. Pinkie Pie shortly joined the group and asked about the princess. Twilight explained the situation and Pinkie Pie was offering her help but Twilight said that the princess would take care of that.

Apparently, Pinkie Pie knew about this creature's all along but nopony would listen to her. Considering that a lot of Pinkie Pie's actions didn't make any sense at all, Star Twinkle would have probably not listened to her too.

Star Twinkle was just relieved that this was all over and wanted to go home already. But then Twilight pointed out that Ponyville needed to be cleaned. So it looked like he will be busy for the rest of the day. Much to his dislike.

11. Winter Mess Up

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Today is Winter Wrap Up Day. On this day, all the folks in Ponyville clear the town from the snow of the winter and bring in the spring. For that everypony will be assigned to one of three teams: The plant team, the animal team, and the weather team

The plant team removes the snow from the fields and plants new seeds for the upcoming spring. The weather team moves the clouds away to let the sun melt the snow and lead the birds so that they can return from the south. And the animal team wakes up the hibernating animals and prepare their food.

This would normally not be too hard if you could use magic but since Ponyville was founded by earth ponies, magic was not allowed.
It is tradition to do it this way and even since unicorns moved to Ponyville, this tradition was untouched.

Like everypony Star Twinkle was on his way to the town center to get his vest, that would decide which team he was assigned to.
A green vest would mean the plant team, a blue one the weather team and a tan one the animal team. The mayor would decide the teams and their leaders but Star Twinkle was sure which he would fit in the most.

“I'll guess I will be in the animal team again.
Can't do much as an earth pony in the weather team.
And plant team sounds like way to much work,” he said.

He went to the town hall where a bunch of ponies were waiting for their vests. Star Twinkle was waiting in line and noticed how most of the ponies were already assigned to a team.

“Actually, it doesn't even matter which team I will be assigned to.
The leaders of the team will give me a job and I just do as they say nothing more,” he said while in secret he wished for the animal team.

It was finally his turn to get his vest. When the mayor was about to give him one a pony beside her stopped her and whispered something in her ear.

“Oh yes, that's right!” She said.

It was probably some kind of adviser or something, Star Twinkle wasn't sure but this little delay made him wonder.

“Alright here you go,” said the mayor handing him over a tan vest which made him sigh in relief.

“Thank you,” he replied.

Just as he thought, he was assigned to the animal team. He quickly put on the vest and looked for the team leader, who was indicated by a star on the vest, instead of a bunny, a leaf or a sun.

The mayor then thanked everypony for being there so early and advised them to go to their team leaders but Star Twinkle couldn't find his team leader in this crowd so he walked back a little to get a better view.

“That's better now where's my team leader,” he said while scanning through the crowd of ponies.

Meanwhile, a group of ponies gathered around him. They were all wearing a tan vest so they were all on the animal team, just like him. None of them had a star on their vests so none of them was the team leader. But they all looked at him, which confused him.

“Are you looking for our team leader too?” He asked.

They all looked confused at each other until one of them spoke up.

“Not anymore,” said on of the mares.

Star Twinkle didn't know what she meant by that but then suddenly a really bad thought crossed his mind. To confirm his thought he took a close look at his vest. And what he saw on the emblem shocked him. It was a star, which could only mean one thing.

“What!? I am the team leader!?” He said in shock.

No wonder why they were staring at him like that. They were waiting for instructions. Meanwhile, the group of ponies still waited for him to give some orders, making him even more nervous.

“Well what should we do?” Said one of the mares.

I don't know, is what he was about to say. But he obviously couldn't say that out loud.

“Wait here I have to talk to the mayor for a moment,” he said marching towards the mayor again.

He thought that this was all part of a bad joke and wanted the mayor to explain, why he was decided to be the leader.

“It's kinda ironic to have a star on my vest,” he thought practically making fun of himself.

He then approached the mayor to get an explanation.

“Not to sound ungrateful or anything but don't you want to rethink your choice of making me the leader of the animal team?” He said, trying to not sound too annoyed, it was the mayor after all.

“Why should I?” She calmly replied.
“You got recommended by some ponies and I believe that they were telling the truth,” she said in confidence.

"Recommended?" He thought.
"Who would recommend me as a leader? You got to be kidding me," he thought in frustration.

“Is something wrong?” Said Fluttershy in concern while she approached Star Twinkle.

She was accompanied by Rarity. They both were on the animal team judging from the color of their vests.

“Ah darling, you have been assigned to be the team leader,” Rarity proudly said.

“A perfect choice if you ask me,” Fluttershy happily said.

"A perfect choice?" He thought confused.

There was nothing perfect about this at all. He doesn't like to be in a position of leadership and more importantly, he doesn't know how to guide or order other ponies around. If some of them make a mistake, it's all his fault. There is no way that he can handle that pressure.

While still complaining in his thoughts, he noticed how the rest of the animal team was still standing in the back, waiting for instructions.

“Oh no I completely forgot!” He said while rushing back to his team, making Fluttershy and Rarity follow him.

For him it felt like their eyes were piercing him, slowly waiting for him to say something wrong. Despite that, he was slowly calming down and thought to himself that he somehow can manage this situation. How hard can it be to order some ponies around?

“Okay! Let's go and wake some animals!” He confidently said.

“Who?” One pony replied.

“What?” He asked in confusion.

“Who of us should wake the animals?”

“Yes and who of us should clean their homes,” said another one of them.

“And who of us should make the birds nests?” Said another one.

"Are they doing that on purpose? If they know what they should do, then why are they waiting for me to decide?" He thought in annoyance.
"How should I know? Who is fit for which activity? They haven't even started to work and I am already frustrated!"

“Alright!” He shouted, trying to make himself sound confident.

“Fluttershy, since you are good with animals, you will wake them,” he said, while she approved in
confidence.

“You, you, you and you, will clean the homes of the animals,” he said pointing at some random ponies.

“Rarity, your fashion sense will be needed for creating the bird nests,” he ordered, to which she happily saluted.

“The rest of you will gather food for the animals,”

After that everypony went to their assigned task, causing Star Twinkle to let out a huge sigh of relief after all that was done.

“That was easier than I thought,” he said in relief.

Some hours have passed and it seemed like everything was going according to plan. There were no complaints, everypony was doing their job and nopony was questioning Star Twinkles decisions. But that didn't stop him from checking up on everything, to make sure that it would stay this way. Most of the time Star Twinkle was helping out at some points, helping them with their tasks. But he was actually making sure that nopony would make a mistake so that nopony would blame him. To his surprise, everything went well.

While making sure that everything went well, he was visiting Rarity to look how many birds nests were ready.

“How are things turning out here?” he asked while having a surprisingly good mood.

“Well, take a look for yourself,” she said presenting him a beautifully made bird nest.

“Yeah looks good if you ask me. So where did you place the finished ones?” he asked.

“Right over there,” she said while pointing to the single bird nest, that she showed him a moment ago.

“Um, Rarity?” He asked in concern.

“Yes, darling?” She replied casually.

“How many bird nests have you completed this far?” He asked wishing to not hear the answer that he was thinking about.

“One,” she calmly replied.

This made his ear twitch for a moment. There was no way that Rarity only finished one bird nest in, this time, he thought.

“But we were working for a few hours now!” He said in frustration.

“Well, you just can't expect me to left a nest unfinished,” she replied not seeing that she was at fault at all.

"Where are the birds suppose to lay their eggs if the weather team brings them back? We can't just present them one nest!" Star Twinkle thought in frustration.
"The mayor is gonna-"

But before he could finish his thought Twilight and Spike appeared, making him forget about his troubles.
Twilight looked happy but Spike seemed a little tired.
Both of their behaviors were confusing Star Twinkle.

“Hey guys,” she greeted them.

She then noticed right away that Star Twinkle was the team leader because of the star and his band that he was starting to wear for a while now.

“So you are the team leader Star Twinkle?
Congratulation,” she proudly said.

Star Twinkle was slowly starting to think that he was the only one who thought that this was a bad decision.

“Please tell me that there is something I can help you with,” she desperately asked.

Star Twinkle thought that this was perfect. If Twilight helps out Rarity, then they may catch up some work, he thought. But before he was starting to beg for help a voice in the distance was calling out his name.

“Star Twinkle!” Somepony shouted.

He turned around to see who it was coming from. It was a mare with a pink or almost reddish coat, a yellow mane and a cherry as a Cutie Mark. It was one of the ponies he sent to clean the homes of the animals.

“We have some problems, we need your help,” she said in concern.

Of course, this was the exact opposite what Star Twinkle wanted to hear from one member of his team.

“I'm coming,” he said while preparing for the worst.

Before he followed the pony, he turned around to Twilight to give her some orders. But because he was panicking his words were maybe not too accurate for her.

“You. Help. Bird nests. Many! Have to go,” he said following the other pony of his team.

Twilight was confused by Star Twinkles behavior, making a confused face.

“What is up with him?” she asked Rarity.

“I don't know,” she replied shrugging her shoulders.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle arrived at where the pony was leading him.

“So what is the problem?” He asked the mare.

“Look!” She said while pointing at a group of ponies who were sitting together without doing anything.

“Why isn't anypony working? Didn't I send you here to clean the animal homes?” He asked in confusion to the group of ponies.

“Yes, we were,” one of them replied.
“But now we have no more animal homes that we can clean because most of them are still asleep,”
she said in boredom.

“And what stops you to simply wake them?” He asked in frustration.

She then pointed to Fluttershy who had her head inside in on of the holes, probably waking the animals inside.

“Uh, Fluttershy...” he said annoyed.

He approached her while she was getting her head outside of the hole, before noticing him approaching her.

“What's the problem here, Fluttershy?”, he asked

“There is no problem at all,” she replied.

“I heard that most animals are still asleep, so would you mind to wake them up faster?” He asked.

“No, you have to wake up animals slowly. There are very sensitive after hibernation, so we must wake them with the utmost caution,” she explained.

Star Twinkle kinda got what she was trying to say but it was a fact that they were already behind. Rarity is already behind so he could send some ponies to her if things are finished elsewhere. But if things slow down here too, then there will be some problems.

“Alright, Everypony, change of plans!” He said to the group of ponies who had nothing to do.
“All of you will help to wake up the animals-”

“Slowly,” Fluttershy added, interrupting Star Twinkle.

“Slowly...,” he repeated.
“And THEN clean up their homes and provide their food after they are all awake!”

The ponies did as they were told and Star Twinkle was sure that he defused the situation. But then he was approached by another pony who informed him about another problem.

Turns out that the weather team is letting the sun out too early, making the snow melt faster which meant that some of the animal holes were in danger to be flooded so Star Twinkle had to talk with Rainbow Dash about this because she is the leader of the weather team.

He quickly found her flying in the air, ordering some ponies around. It looked so easy for her, making Star Twinkle feel even more pressured. He approached her to talk about the situation.

“Rainbow Dash!” He shouted.

After noticing him, she dived down to the ground so that they didn't have to shout. She quickly noticed the star on Star Twinkles vest and of course had to make a comment about it.

“So you're the team leader huh?
Wouldn't expect anything less,” she said while smiling proudly.

At this moment, Star Twinkle would usually think about why everypony is thinking like that but he didn't have time for that. He quickly got to the point and discussed the matter with Rainbow Dash.

“Listen. Our team is terrible behind and we need some more time so could you please slow down the “letting out the sun thing” a little?” He asked without trying to sound too desperate.

Rainbow Dash thought a moment about Star Twinkles request but she decided to do it.

“Alright, Star but next time you better take actions in your own hoof,” she said almost scolding him.

"Didn't I just do that?" He thought.

Even if they wouldn't have messed up so much, if the weather team gets in their way, then there is no way that he can fix things on his own. It normally wouldn't even bother him that much if any of the other teams were messing up but if any of their mistakes is interfering with his team, then he needs to do something. As long as nopony is pointing at him because of some mistakes everything is okay.

“Star Twinkle!” shouted a voice from afar.

It was one of his team members. She didn't look too happy so Star Twinkle was preparing himself for the worst.

“Ugh, what is it now?” He asked in frustration.

“We are short of food for the animals,” she said.

“How did that happen?” He replied.

“The snow is holding some ponies back. It would be easier if the snow was gone,” she said being unaware of Star Twinkles frustration, that is starting to grow again.

“But I just told Rainbow Dash to slow down with the snow melting,” he said frustrated.

“Well, you're the team leader so I'm sure you find a solution,” she said.

This is the last thing Star Twinkle wanted to hear right now. Rainbow Dash was already gone so he had to find her again. But even if he would find her again, she probably already told her team to slow down. She probably wouldn't like to hear that she has to change plans again. And if she did then the animal homes would be flooded again.

Frustration was growing more and more in Star Twinkles head. He knew that this day was going to be bad since the moment he was chosen as the leader but this was just too much for him.

While thinking about numerous solutions to his problems a Pegasus with a gray coat and a yellow mane was approaching him.
She looked confused and tried to get Star Twinkles attention.

“Um, hello,” she asked but Star Twinkle was too caught up in his thoughts and didn't notice her.

“Do you know which direction is south?” she asked without noticing that Star Twinkle wasn't noticing her.

“Um, excuse me?” She asked once again.

“What?” said Star Twinkle while still thinking and not really paying attention to the Pegasus.
“Oh yeah, this way I guess,” he said while pointing in some random direction.

“Thank you!” she politely replied while flying to the direction where Star Twinkle was pointing to.

“Yeah, whatever,” he replied while still being in deep thoughts.
“Who was that? Sounded familiar” he mumbled to himself.

He then decided to go back to the animal holes. There were some animals running around in a panic but Star Twinkles reaction to that was just a deep sigh. It's like he wasn't even caring anymore. He didn't even want to know what happened anymore. He just wanted this day to end as quickly as possible, avoiding as much trouble as possible.

After a little while, Star Twinkle was informed by one of his team members that the mayor wanted to see him. Star Twinkle was not really thrilled to hear that but after literally, everything else went wrong today it was just a matter of time until he would be confronted by the mayor.

He was on his way to the town hall preparing himself to face the consequences for his mess ups. But on his way, he noticed how Spike was talking with a bush which he thought was really strange. Spike then noticed Star Twinkle and approached him.

“Hey, Star Twinkle, you have to talk with her,” he asked.

“With who?” He replied.

Star Twinkle then noticed that Twilight was hiding inside of the bush. She looked sad and since he thought he was the only one who had a real reason to be down right now, he decided to talk with her.

“What's Wrong, Twilight?” He asked.

At first, she was avoiding eye contact as much as possible but then she calmed herself down and talked to him.

“I just wanted to help everypony. But as it turns out, I am totally useless,”

Maybe it was because Star Twinkle felt the same right now but seeing Twilight like that made him feel like he should say something to comfort her.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"I tried to find out which team would fit me the most but every time when I tried to help, everything went wrong," she said in a sad voice.

This kinda sounded familiar to Star Twinkle.

“Hey, you tried to help and did your best. Nopony could expect anything more from you,” he said in a comforting voice.

“Yeah, but my best was just not enough. I'm a Winter Mess Up,” she said in a sad voice.

“YOU'RE are Winter Mess Up?” He replied.
“I am the leader of the animal team. Everypony is expecting from me to make the right choices. But everything I did wasn't helping at all, even though I tried so hard,” he said making him feel bad now.

There was a short silence after Star Twinkle said those words. Both of them were looking at the ground. Star Twinkle didn't know what was going through Twilight's head but he knew what he was thinking right now.

“You're not a mess up,” he said proudly.

Twilight was not used to hear him speak like that looked at him confused.

“You're not a mess up,”
"unlike me," he thought.

“You tried to help because you wanted to,”
"unlike me," he thought.

“And you're smart so you'll find something out. That's what I believe,” he said happily.

Twilight was looking a little better now after Star Twinkles words. He decided to leave her and walked to the mayor, who was waiting in front of the town hall. He believed that he heard a soft thank you from her but now he was more worried about what the mayor was saying.

“Now if I just manage to cheer myself up...” he mumbled while walking to the front of the town hall.

He noticed how Applejack and Rainbow Dash, the leaders of the other teams were also there. Fluttershy was also there, they seem to argue about something. After getting a little closer, he kinda figured out what was going on. Applejack was asking Rainbow Dash if her team could melt the snow faster. But Fluttershy wanted Rainbow Dash to slow down so that the animal holes won't be flooded.
This, of course, was driving Rainbow Dash insane because they couldn't decide, leading the mayor to step in into the picture.

“What in Equestria are all you arguing about? This sort of silliness is why we were late for spring last year, and the year before that, and the year before that,” she said.

“I mean just look at this catastrophe. The ice scorers made the ice chunks too big to melt. The nest designer is horrendously behind, we need several hundred, and she's only made one,”

Star Twinkle completely forgot about the nests and was surprised to hear this number.

“Ugh, Rarity,” he mumbled in frustration.

“And don't get me started on all the clouds in the sky, the icicles on the trees... This isn't good, not at all!“ She said getting more and more frustrated in the process.

Meanwhile, Big McIntosh arrived and told Applejack that some of her team members lost some seeds. After that, one of Rainbow Dash's team members arrived and told her that on of the Pegasus was flying in the wrong direction to get the southern birds.
And here Star Twinkle thought he was the only pony who messed up. It didn't make the situation any better but he was kinda relieved to hear that the other teams had problems too.

“Stop this at once. We don't have time to argue. It's almost sundown. Spring is going to be late again. Another year of scandal and shame. If only we could be more organized,” said the mayor.

Star Twinkle didn't really care about any scandals or shame but he also wished that this trouble would end soon. He was feeling really uncomfortable in this group and he didn't want to argue at all so he was stepping back slowly until he heard a long bird chirp, which also stopped the conversation of the other ponies.

It was Twilight who used a bird as a whistle with her magic to which she apologized right away. It managed to get the attention of everypony.

“I know you all want to complete your jobs on time, but arguing is no way to go about it. What you need is organization, and I'm just the pony for the job,” she said being in a completely different mood than before.

She looked confident just as Star Twinkle would have expected from her. Everypony was out of options so they might as well listened to what Twilight was planning.

The teams continued with their work, doing exactly what Twilight ordered them to do. Star Twinkle didn't know exactly what she said to the other teams but they all looked way more organized than before. Even his team managed to catch up their work which seemed impossible for him.

Star Twinkle did exactly what Twilight ordered him, pretty much passing on her orders to his team which was much more to his liking. He was even helping out the other teams on her behalf.

It was a long exhausting day but at the end, every team was finished with their work.
Winter was cleaned up and spring is finally here on time.
It was like a miracle for everypony to be on time for the last years.

After Twilight's work the mayor praised her for her organization skills and prepared an official vest for her along with the title “All-Team Organizer””

After this day, everypony was on good terms again. They were all just relieved that spring was on time this year. Star Twinkle would be lying if he said that he didn't care but he was also relieved that after this day everything somehow worked out well.

Later...

Star Twinkle and his friends were meeting at Sugar cube Corner after everything was done to celebrate a little.

“Thanks to you everything went out well Twilight,” said Fluttershy.

“Yes, it was a little close until you helped out every team,” said Applejack.

Twilight was blushing after so much praising but was also grateful for their words.

“Thanks, girls but you did as much as I did to help out,” she modestly replied.

But after some time together Star Twinkle decided to go home. Of course, his friends tried to convince him to stay but they also were understanding that he may be a little tired so they let him go. After exiting Sugar Cube Corner thought, Twilight was approaching him.

“Wait,” she shouted.

He turned around and wondered why she was following him but he wasn't bothered by it. She said that she wanted to go home as well and followed him on his way home. They didn't talk as much like usual until eventually, Twilight broke the silence.

“I didn't have the chance to thank you for before,” she said happily.

“For what?” He asked in confusion.

“For cheering me up when I was depressed,” she replied.

“Oh, that. No problem,” he said.

“You believed in me when I was doubting myself. That gave me strength to continue,” she said smiling at Star Twinkle.

“I said that because I knew you could do it. That is all,” he replied.

It was silent once again as they continued their walk. And once again Twilight broke the silence.

“You should believe in yourself too,” she said sounding kinda sad.

Star Twinkle was surprised to hear that. Maybe because he knows that it was true. Or because he wasn't used to hearing somepony say that in his face.

“Maybe,” he quietly replied.

“No. Not maybe,” she demanded.

“What?” he asked surprised.

“I know that you always struggle with what you can or can't do but remember what you said to me? You tried to help and did your best. Nopony could expect anything more from you,” she repeated.

Star Twinkle wasn't sure if he liked having his own words used against him. He knows that what Twilight is trying to say is true but it was hard for him to believe those words.

“Before doubting yourself next time, just try to do your best okay?” she said.

"Was she expecting so much from me? Why is it so important for her?"

For him believing in yourself and trying to do your best are two different things. He always tries to do his best. But if his best isn't good enough, then there is nothing that he can do about it.

“Okay, I'll try,” he halfhearted replied.

This answer seemed to be enough for Twilight, even though Star Twinkle wasn't really believing those words.

They both parted after they reached Star Twinkles house. After saying goodbye to Twilight he went inside and prepared himself to go to sleep.

While he laid in his bed, he thought about Twilight's or rather his words.

“Try your best.
Nopony could expect anything else,” he repeated to himself.

“I should not throw around words that I don't believe in myself...” he mumbled.

But those words didn't bother him too much and he fell asleep real quick.

12. Cutie Mark Crusaders Honorary Member - Part 1

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Star Twinkle was asked by Applejack to do some kind of favor. He was asked to repair some old Treehouse that was in the middle of the woods of Sweet Apple Acre. While not looking forward to doing some work, it was at least not that hard to repair for Star Twinkle so he was not bothered much. Applejack was also helping a little and overlooked his work.

“This looks like some kind of Clubhouse,” he mentioned to Applejack.

“It sure does! That's because it is one,” she replied.

“Aren't you a little too old to play in a Clubhouse,” he amusingly asked.

“Don't be silly. This was my Clubhouse years ago. Now I want to give it to my little sister and her Cutie Mark Crusader friends,” she amusingly replied.

“Cutie Mark Crusader?” He asked in confusion.

“Yes. She and her little friends don't have their Cutie Marks yet. So they formed this group to find their special talent,” Applejack replied.

"A club to find out what your special talent is and to get your Cutie Mark?
Are they really that eager to get their Cutie Mark?
Is it really that important?" While asking himself all those questions, he looked down to his bare flank.

“I always told her to not rush those things. I mean a Cutie Mark appears, when the time is right and trying to force it won't help,” Applejack said as if she was scolding Apple Bloom right now.

But those words didn't mean much to Star Twinkle. He was very patient when it came to his Cutie Mark. He always thought that nothing would change even if he got his one. But seeing how other ponies are influenced by their Cutie Marks or rather not existing Cutie Marks, he began to think about it a little different.

“No offense,” Applejack apologized, noticing how in deep thoughts Star Twinkle was in.

“Offense?” He confusingly replied.

“It's probably not nice from me to talk about those things while you still have to find your special talent yourself,” she explained.

"I didn't even say anything. And I didn't felt offended at all..." Star Twinkle thought while making a rather neutral face.

“I'm not worried about my Cutie Mark,” he replied.

"Right?"

Applejack didn't know if she fully believed him or not so she didn't mention this matter anymore as necessary.

After a little while, the Clubhouse looked almost as good as new. At least from the outside. It was still empty inside. But compared to before the Clubhouse looked a lot better. Applejack and Star Twinkle were pretty impressed by how good it looked now. A few hours ago it was totally demolished and had spiderwebs everywhere. But it was nothing that Star Twinkle and Applejack couldn't handle.

“Thank you a lot Sugar Cube, I know that I could count on you,” she said while winking at him. “Now if your could wait here for a few minutes, I'm going to bring my sister and her friends here,” she added while walking off to get them.

Star Twinkle did as Applejack said and waited in front of the Clubhouse. He looked up to the Clubhouse while thinking about those Cutie Mark Crusaders and their goal.

“A group that dedicates itself to find their special talent, huh. Well as long as they have fun,” he said while trying to understand the concept of their club.

A few minutes later Applejack returned accompanied by three fillies. Star Twinkle only knew Apple Bloom from the bunch so he looked at the other two to see if he recognized one of them. One of them was a Pegasus with an orange coat and a purple mane. The other one was a unicorn with a white coat and light purple and pink mane. The second one looked familiar in some way but he was sure that he never saw her before. Applejack proudly presented the clubhouse to the three fillies, who seemed really surprised and excited. They quickly ran up the wooden stairs that led to the Clubhouse to get a better look.

“Looks like they like it,” Star Twinkle whispered to Applejack.

“Yes, good to know that our work was not for nothing,” she replied.

Star Twinkle couldn't agree more. It did take some time to repair it and see how happy they were made Star Twinkle a little happy. The three fillies walked outside of the Clubhouse to share their excitement.

“It is great Applejack thank you!” Said Apple Bloom while hugging her big sister.

“Now now, sweetie save some thanks for Star Twinkle too. He actually did most of the work,” said Applejack pointing to Star Twinkle who looked away in modesty.

Apple Bloom then approached Star Twinkle and thanked him as well. Star Twinkle accepted her thanks while continuing to look away in modesty.

“It's still a little empty, though,” said the Pegasus filly.

The unicorn filly then poked her in the side implying that this was not polite to say that after they just got a brand new Clubhouse. But Star Twinkle and Applejack didn't take any offense. They knew that there was nothing inside but they planned to get some furniture or anything else what the three ponies wanted. Applejack just wanted to give them the Clubhouse as a start and add some things later.

“Hey mister Star Twinkle, can you built us some things for our Clubhouse?” said Apple Bloom.

Mister? I'm not that old Why was nopony poking her right now? After all, THAT was something that offended him. He thought offended but he tried to focus on the answer.

“Yes! You can do that right?” sSaid the unicorn who jumped excitingly in front of him.

“Yes! Pretty please,” said the Pegasus who also joined in.

Suddenly Star Twinkle was surrounded by three puppy-eyed fillies. There was no way that he could say no to that image even if it meant more work for him. He eventually gave in and agreed to help. The three fillies cheered in happiness while Star Twinkle put up a fake smile to not ruin the mood. But from the inside, he knew that he just got himself into more work.

On the next day

Star Twinkle was inside of the Clubhouse, ready to do some work. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were nowhere to be found but they did mention some things that they would like to have inside. Tables, stools, some better-looking windows, the usual stuff. They also wanted a podium for some future meetings. He wanted to finish his work as fast as he could so Star Twinkle wasted no time.

He was working peacefully inside of the Clubhouse until he heard a somepony outside entering the Clubhouse, probably one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, he thought. But he turned around to make sure. It was the white unicorn one. Her name was Sweetie Belle if he recalled, Applejack told him the names of the other two the day before. She was apparently Rarity's little sister. That's why she looked familiar to him.
And the Pegasus one was called Scootaloo if he remembered right.

After she noticed Star Twinkle, she began waving and smiling at him but Star Twinkle got back to his work, not showing much response to her. She then approached him and sat beside him, watching him work. While he was not bothered by that, it still felt a little weird. He was working at a table at the moment, that was not the most interesting thing to watch. But she watched as if it was the most interesting thing ever.

“What are you doing,” she asked curiously.

“Building,” he responded.

“Oh,” she replied.

There was a short silence after that but Sweetie Belle once again broke it.

“What are you building?” She asked.

“A table,” he answered.

“Oh,” she replied.

She clearly had no idea what she should talk about with him. That is exactly why Star Twinkle favors silence before forcing a conversation that goes nowhere. But Sweetie Belle wasn't aware of that and continued this “conversation”.

“Is it fun to build things?” She asked.

That was actually a good question, thought Star Twinkle. He was working for years as a carpenter pony and never really thought about it being fun. He was doing it because he was good at it, he thought.

“I guess,” he answered confused.

She didn't show much response and just continued to watch him. Meanwhile, the other two fillies arrived at the Clubhouse. They happily greeted each other and talked about what they should do today to get their Cutie Marks. Star Twinkle was focused on his work and didn't pay much attention to their discussion but somehow it felt like he was being watched. When he turned around he saw how the three fillies were watching him work.

“What are you doing?” asked Scootaloo.

This situation felt familiar to him but he still answered.

“Building,” he answered.

“Oh,” she replied.

He was taking a guess what the next question would be and his guess was actually right.

“What are you building?” Asked Apple Bloom.

But instead of Star Twinkle, it was Sweetie Bell who answered.

“A table,”

“Oh,” the two other fillies replied.

While still working without getting bothered by those questions, this situation felt more and more awkward for Star Twinkle. But he didn't say anything. After all, this was their Clubhouse. It would feel bad to tell them what they should in their own Clubhouse.

“Is it fun to build things?” Asked Scootaloo.

But there is only so much patience that Star Twinkle has.

“Don't you have to find your special talent or something?” He said while trying to not sound too annoyed.

This sentence seemed to make them realize not to waste any more time. After a quick discussion that didn't seem to make much sense in Star Twinkles ears, the Cutie Mark Crusaders rushed outside.

They shouted from outside that Star Twinkle should take care of their Clubhouse in the meantime. That confused him because he was only there to build some stuff and not to take care of their Clubhouse. As soon as he finished his work there he is gone, he thought.
But at the moment he was just glad that he was alone again so that he could peacefully continue his work.

Some time has passed since the Cutie Mark Crusaders left and Star Twinkle managed to almost finish his work. He built a table, some stools, some picture frames, some wooden boxes where they could store some stuff and even the podium they requested. He also removed the splinters and painted it in a new yellow tone. It looked almost as good as new.

Just when he finished his work, the Cutie Mark Crusaders returned with a disappointing look on their faces. Looks like their Cutie Mark Hunt didn't go too well, Star Twinkle thought.

“I can't believe bug catching wasn't our special talent,” said Apple Bloom.

“Or cooking,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Or hoof wrestling,” said Scootaloo.

It was the complete opposite from how they acted before. Hopefully seeing the inside of the Clubhouse would cheer them up, thought Star Twinkle.

“No luck getting your Cutie Mark?” He asked already knowing the answer.

“No,” they all sadly replied.

But they quickly forgot their disappointment after seeing how their Clubhouse looked.

“Hey now that's more like it,” said Scootaloo after noticing the differences in their Clubhouse.

“Yes, now it looks like a real Clubhouse!” said Sweetie Belle.

Star Twinkle was glad to hear that after putting all this work into this, so he prepared to leave. But the Cutie Mark Crusader were eager to thank him, making his leave a bit complicated. Not only that but they were asking some weird questions.

“Do you think that we can earn our Cutie Mark by building something too?” Asked Scootaloo.

“I don't know,” he replied confused.

“Do you think that we can help you in your workshop someday,” asked Apple Bloom.

“That's not up to me,” he replied but he was sure Steel Hammer would let them help if they asked.

“Yes, I wish I had a special talent in building things,” said Sweetie Belle.

After that sentence Apple Bloom coughed to get Sweetie Belles attention and pointed at Star Twinkles blank flank, making Sweetie Belle realize that he doesn't have a Cutie Mark as well. This made Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle gasp in surprise. After a short silence, Sweetie Belle apologized. Star Twinkle was not sure what this was all about but he tried to calm them down.

“Hey, It's okay I'm fine. I don't really care about my Cutie Mark,” he said trying to calm them down.

This time, all three of them were gasping in surprise. So much for calming them down, he thought.

“You're fine with that?” Asked Scootaloo.

“You don't care?” Asked Apple Bloom.

“That is not okay,” said Sweetie Belle.

Star Twinkle realized that this conversation would go in a bad direction but he didn't know what to say at this moment. He could explain in detail why he was not so eager to get a Cutie Mark but he figured that that would lead to nowhere. So he tried to find some excuse to get out of this situation somehow until Sweetie Belle asked something that made him stop thinking.

“You want to join the Cutie Mark Crusaders?” She excitingly asked.

“Huh?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

Join the Cutie Mark Crusader? Why did she ask something crazy like that? He thought in confusion.

But not only he was confused. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo also gave her some confused looks.

“Cutie Mark Crusader secret meeting!” Scootaloo shouted.

“Secret meeting?” Asked Sweetie Belle in confusion.

“Just come over here for a minute,” Scootaloo replied while the other two fillies followed her to a corner of the Clubhouse.

“What are you doing?” Asked Scootaloo.

“What do you mean?” Said Sweetie Belle who didn't realize what the problem was.

“You can't just invite him to join our club!” Scootaloo replied.

“Why not?” Sweetie Belle replied.

Scootaloo then struggled to come up with an answer for a moment.

“Well I mean he is old. I mean real old,” she explained.

“Well we don't really set a rule for that,” said Apple Bloom. “Besides, he is just like us. He doesn't know his special talent yet. Can you imagine how hard it must be to live for so long and not knowing your special talent,” she explained.

Just listening to that made Scootaloo feel bad, making her frown.

“Yeah, I guess your right. No wonder why he is always so grumpy,” said Scootaloo.

“Must be really hard for him,” said Sweetie Belle in a sad voice.

They then stopped their discussion for a moment and turned around to Star Twinkle and looked at him with sad puppy eyes. He, on the other hoof, was looking a little offended.

“You do realize that I can hear every word you're saying right?” He said in an annoying voice, probably because he felt offended by all those things they said about him. “And besides I am not THAT old,” he protested.

After a little while of more discussing, they finally approached Star Twinkle again with some happy smiles on their faces.

“What?” He asked.

On the next day...

After he finished his work at the Iron Hammer, Star Twinkle walked around in Ponyville and was heading in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash were approaching him on his way. They asked him if he would accompany them but he had to refuse because he was busy.

“Busy?” Asked Rainbow Dash.

“I promised to be somewhere,” he explained.

“Where?” Twilight asked.

At first, he was hesitating to give an answer right away but then he mumbled something.

“The Cutie Mark Crusader Clubhouse...” he mumbled.

“Oh, you mean this group where Sweetie Belle is part of? Where they try to find their special talent?” Rarity asked.

“Yes,” he mumbled.

They were a little confused. Star Twinkle was behaving a little strange. They didn't try to be too pushy but they were also little curious.

“Do you still need to repair some things there?” Twilight asked.

“No,” he replied.

“Do they need help for some school project?” Rarity asked.

“No,” he replied again.

“Or maybe you need to go there because you're their newest member? You know because you don't have a Cutie Mark as well,” Rainbow Dash amusingly said.

Star Twinkle didn't reply to this and prayed to Celestia that they would not put two and two together. But sadly his luck wasn't that good.
They then started to giggle except Rainbow Dash who was bursting out in laughter. Not that he would have expected any other reaction but he was still annoyed by this.

“Yes, I know. Really funny,” he said in an annoyed voice.

They then calmed down a bit trying not to laugh anymore which was harder than expected. The sad thing was that he couldn't even blame them. A grown up pony hanging around with a bunch of fillies, playing Cutie Mark hunt. He would probably laugh too.

“I'm sorry darling it's just-,” but Rarity couldn't stop herself from laughing and stopped in the middle of the sentence.

“How did it come to that,” said Twilight who almost calmed down completely.

“I am not sure myself. It just happened,” he explained.

Maybe it was because he can't say no. Or because he didn't have anything better to do? He honestly didn't know how exactly it came to this.
They asked him if he would join because they think that he is sad for not having a Cutie Mark, even though he said he was okay directly into their faces.

“Now if you excuse me. I don't want to be late to the meeting,” he said realizing how stupid it sounded.

He was pretty sure that he could hear them laughing after he was walking a few steps. But he couldn't worry about that right now.

After a while, he found himself inside of the Clubhouse sitting on a little stool that was way too small for him, making him loose balance every now and then. Kind of ironic that he would sit on a stool that he build himself, which was actually intended for fillies. He sat in the middle next to Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, while Apple Bloom was climbing the podium to start the meeting.

“I proudly announce our first Cutie Mark Crusader meeting inside of our new Clubhouse,”

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS! YEAH!” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle shouted.

“Of course, this meeting couldn't be possible without our newest member who repaired this Clubhouse in the first place,” Apple Bloom proudly announced.

“That is you,” whispered Scootaloo while poking Star Twinkle.

But he didn't show any reaction to that. He felt so out of place and was thinking about many, many things at the moment. Like how it came to this or why he can't just leave. It's not like they were forcing him or anything. But it's moments like this that made him wonder, why he couldn't open his mouth at the right time.

“We should really work on some sort of ceremony in case we get some new members,” suggested Sweetie Belle.

“I'm on it!” said Scootaloo.

“How about we show you around in the Clubhouse?” Apple Bloom said rushing to on corner to another.

Of course, Star Twinkle knew the Clubhouse inside out because he worked on it for two days now. Actually, he should know it even better than the Cutie Mark Crusaders. But Apple Bloom continued to show him around.

“...And on this is the podium where we announce stuff,” she said.

“Yes, I know. I built it. And that's what podiums are for,” he said in an emotionless tone.

“Wow! He is good!” whispered Sweetie Belle to Scootaloo.

The meeting then continued. There was some talking about some trivial stuff, like their day on school or other stuff where Star Twinkle was not really part of. Eventually, Scootaloo pulled out some piece of paper. There were drawings of some buildings. It was probably some kind of map from Ponyville. Sweet Apple Acres, the Golden Oak Library, Sugar Cube Corner, and some more places were on it.

“This map will help us to get our Cutie Mark for sure!” said Scootaloo in confidence.

“Yes. If we visit all these places, at least one of them will get us a Cutie Mark!” said Apple Bloom.

They then marched outside and Star Twinkle followed them at a slow pace. Everypony was excited except Star Twinkle who still felt out of place. Maybe now was the right time to tell them how he felt. After all, he was clearly not as excited as them and they didn't have to feel bad for him if he didn't have a Cutie Mark. So he decided to tell them.

“Hey listen I-” but before he could say anything Apple Bloom interrupted him.

“Are you ready Crusaders?” She asked.

“Yes!” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle replied with a shout.

But they were just standing there as if they were waiting for something. Star Twinkle was wondering what this was about and got confused until they turned around and looked at him.

“Ehm, are you ready too?” Asked Scootaloo.

And once again they looked at him full of expectations, just like they did when they asked him to join. He was about to say that he wouldn't come with them but now he was hesitating for some reason. They were so eager to get their Cutie Mark and he wasn't. The answer of the question should be obvious. He didn't know the reason. Whatever it was he decided to give a different answer.

“Yes, I'm ready!” He confidently replied.

They were happy to hear that answer and turned around again to start their Quest for a Cutie Mark.

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, LET'S GO!” The three fillies shouted in excitement.

They then rushed off to their first destination, followed by Star Twinkle. He didn't know why he tagged along and he didn't think about it too much.

Or maybe he did know the answer. Maybe he wanted to tag along because he also wanted a Cutie Mark. He thought that trying to get your Cutie Mark is impossible and that your destiny or your special talent will show up some day on its own. But what if that is not true?
Maybe you have to find your destiny and maybe you have to archive it on your own.

He wasn't trying to ask himself those questions but he was also not ignoring them. Right now there was only one question that he was asking himself before he went after the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“What have I done?”

To be continued...

13. Cutie Mark Crusaders Honorary Member - Part 2

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It's days like this where Star Twinkle wished that he was more open with other ponies. That way he wouldn't be in this strange situation. Going on a hunt to find his special talent with three fillies he barely knew. Doing things from who he knew, that he would never get his special talent from.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders decided to visit every place on the map, that Scootaloo drew. One of the activities in one of those places should give them their Cutie Mark. That was the plan at least. But Star Twinkle had his doubts that he find his special talent in one of this places. The Cutie Mark Crusaders, on the other hoof, were excited and absolutely sure that their flank would be empty no more after this day. Star Twinkle didn't want to ruin their expectations so kept his thoughts to himself and played along. But he knew that this would be an exhausting day.

Pig feeding in Sweet Apple Acre

“Here's another one,” said Apple Bloom, who gave Star Twinkle a bucket filled with stuff from which he didn't even know what exactly it was.

It was food for the pigs obviously but Star Twinkle didn't even know half of the stuff that was inside the bucket. But one thing was for sure. It smelled really bad. While he didn't have a problem with this work itself, he was not sure if he wanted pig feeding as his special talent. Star Twinkle and the Cutie Mark Crusaders filled the food in one of the feeding troughs. While doing that Star Twinkle noticed that they don't seem to mind this work. He guessed that they were way too excited to get their Cutie Marks to mind anything else. Whatever it was he continued his work and was not really paying attention to the Cutie Mark Crusaders anymore until he heard something that got his attention.

“Alright! Bring them in!” Scootaloo shouted.

Star Twinkle startled after hearing that since it was way too early.

"Bring them in?" Thought Star Twinkle while turning around and trying to stop them. But it was too late. Apple Bloom opened the gate and several pigs ran towards the feeding troughs. The three fillies waited excitingly in front of the gate and got run over by this pig stampede. Star Twinkle who was still standing near the feeding through, was knocked over by the pigs but not without making a total mess out of him.

Eventually, he broke free of this pile of pigs and rejoined the Crusaders who didn't look any better than him. The three fillies quickly looked at their flanks, probably to check if they got their Cutie Marks. Star Twinkle didn't even bother to check but the three fillies stared at him as if they want him to look at his flank so he did too with a fake smile on his face. And not to his surprise, still a blank flank.

After they overcame their disappointment, the Crusaders went on to the next location on the map. And of course, Star Twinkle followed them.

Taffy making in Sugar cube Corner

Now that was something more relaxing, thought Star Twinkle. This was no hard work. Star Twinkle knew some basics in cooking and baking but that didn't seem to be necessary. There was a giant mixer and all that they had to do was to put in the ingredients and activate it. The mixer was basically doing all the work. There were all kinds of colors inside the mixer. It almost looked like a rainbow.

That was easy, thought Star Twinkle. Apparently, the Cutie Mark Crusaders thought so too, hoof bumping each other in celebration and wondering if their Cutie Mark would have those rainbow colors too. But of course, something had to go wrong.

Scootaloo's tail was caught up in the mixer after she turned around hoof bumping Sweetie Belle. They all noticed quickly and tried to pull her out before she get's drawn in too. But that was already impossible. The rest was shortly drawn in the mixer too while trying to pull Scootaloo out.

The next thing Star Twinkle knew was that he was inside the mixer together with the Crusaders. It wasn't painful or anything but it wasn't really nice either. While being inside there, he still managed to think how taffy making could have gone so wrong.

After the “mixing” was done the four ponies walked out of the building. They were all stuck together now so walking was kind of difficult. While trying to get this stuff off off them they once again checked their flank. Again they expected Star Twinkle looked at his flank too, so he did. And again, no Cutie Mark as expected.

Can you even get a Cutie Mark if you fail at a task? He wondered.

But the Crusaders haven't given up yet. They didn't waste much time and went to the next location. After all, there were still many locations left. But that was precisely what made Star Twinkle worry.

Mane Dying in Carousel Boutique

He never understood why somepony would dye their mane at all. He was fine with his dark green mane. But then again he wasn't much into fashion so he was clearly the wrong pony to judge other ponies. He didn't know how to color a mane and he wasn't too eager to find out either. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were inside doing all that, while Star Twinkle and Apple Bloom were outside, getting the customers inside. And that's when he realized that he much rather would like to be inside. His job was pretty much trying to get attention from other ponies and that's something that he would like to avoid.

But on top of his usual concerns, this time, it was a little different. Because this time his concerns were legit. There actually were ponies walking past, that giggled at him. He was thinking why that was the case. Was it because he didn't look too excited to do this? Or because he was a stallion and mane dying was more like a mare thing? But he realized that it may be because there was a filly next to him, that constantly cheered for him and tried to convince him to put more emotion in his attracting strategy.

That was probably it, he thought.

He could swear that he heard some ponies say stuff like “how cute” or similar things. What was cute? He thought. A full grown stallion spending time with a filly? Or that he was a member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders? But that couldn't spread so fast, he thought. Or maybe it was because a filly was constantly scolding a full grown stallion because he was barely paying attention.

That was probably it, he thought.

But his concerns were over really fast after the first customers ran out of the building, mostly crying or shocked with ridiculous mane colors on their head. It looked like Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo didn't have much luck inside. Eventually, they came out and decided to end this crusading session. But not without looking at their flank before. Star Twinkle knew the drill by now and also looked at his flank even though he knew that there was no Cutie Mark.

Every time when they look at their flanks, they are full of expectations. And every time when they found out that it is still blank, they always get upset. Star Twinkle just played along to avoid further discussions.

After a while they quickly decided to go to the next location and as usual Star Twinkle followed.

Mountain Climbing on Mount Ponyville (Named by Scootaloo)

At first, this one sounded like a stupid, really bad and dangerous idea. But as soon as Star Twinkle saw the “mountain” that they were supposed to climb, he just thought that this was a stupid idea. The mountain was barely bigger than his house. Calling “this” a mountain would be more than a compliment.

There were all connected with a rope, which was actually pointless. Normally, that would prevent them from falling because it would catch the one pony that would fall down of this “mountain”. But given the size of that “mountain” that was really pointless.

Star Twinkle was leading the way. He had no problem to reach the top. But the Crusaders seemed to have more problems, probably because their legs were a little shorter. They eventually also reached the top, except Sweetie Belle who had to be pulled up to the top. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo attempted to pull her up in one go but they put too much strength into it causing them to fall down on the other side and since Star Twinkle was connected to them, he also fell down.

The fall didn't hurt them too much, except for maybe little bruises. They quickly stood up again, ready to look at their flanks.
But no Cutie Mark in sight.

He once again thought that you have to be successful at a task to actually get your Cutie Mark. After all, if you don't succeed in mountain climbing than it most likely won't be your special talent. So they should know the answer beforehand. That's his way of thinking at least. And that's why he isn't going to be sad every time they look at their flanks.

Once again, they marched to the next location on the map. And once again Star Twinkle followed.

Diving in Lake Ponyville

This was another more relaxing activity. Going swimming after a day like that didn't sound too bad for Star Twinkle. Of course, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were determent like always and had only the usual thing in mind. They were all underwater and Star Twinkle followed them wherever they were headed. He didn't know what they were searching or what else they should do underwater but he continued to follow them. What are you suppose to do underwater anyway? He thought. There was not much in the water to see but at least it was safe and not stressful at all. But Star Twinkle doubted that he would get a Cutie Mark from diving.

After some diving in the river, Sweetie Belles seemed to have found something around a rock so everypony followed her. Star Twinkle was not sure what it could be. What else is there in the water except, rocks, plants or fishes, he thought. But to his surprise, it was something entirely different. An Octopus almost twice the size than him revealed himself behind the rock.

Of course, the four ponies swam away from it in shock. Why is everything that involves those ponies bound to go wrong in some way? He thought in confusion while swimming away from the octopus.

After getting back on dry ground they once again checked their flanks. And Star Twinkle did the same as usual, knowing that there would be no Cutie Mark. It was the same every single time. This can't go on like that, he thought. At least not for him. He didn't want to try out new things. He was glad that he already had some things where he was good at, even if there weren't much.

After realizing that nothing worked until now, they headed back in the direction of Ponyville. But this time, they were walking slowly and with sadness written on their faces. Star Twinkle was surprised to see them like this. First, he wanted to say something to make them feel better. It kinda felt like the right thing to do now, he thought.

But what should he say? Tomorrow is another day? There are still more things that they could try?

He didn't believe in those words so why should he say them in the first place? So he decided to follow them as usual without saying anything.

Back in Ponyville

They were back in Ponyville, still with sad faces, except for Star Twinkle, who was not surprised by the outcome at all.

Well, that was a total waste of time, Star Twinkle almost said out loud. But looking at the three sad fillies made him keep his thoughts to himself.

“I can't believe pig feeding wasn't our special talent,” said Apple Bloom.

“Or mane dying,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Or mountain climbing,” said Scootaloo.

Star Twinkle felt like he had a Deja vu. It was just like yesterday only with different activities.

“You think we will ever get our Cutie Marks?” Asked Scootaloo to the group.

“Of course!” Said Apple Bloom. “We just have to try even more things!” she said trying to cheer the group back up again.

“I bet there are still more places that we can visit today,” said Sweetie Belle excited.

The mood quickly changed and they were full of energy once more.
It was almost astounding how fast they recovered from all these failures, making Star Twinkle wonder just how important a Cutie Mark is for them.

After some more discussing they decided to continue their crusading. Just the thought about more random activities made Star Twinkle sigh in frustration. This was the moment where he reached his limit. He was not exhausted at all but he knew that he could never go on like this. A Cutie Mark was not that important to him. In fact, he didn't even care if he would ever get a Cutie Mark.

It was not because he was grown up and they were still fillies anymore. And even though it was a club that was found by fillies, he was putting way more meaning in this than he should. But that still didn't change the fact that it was a club that has the goal to get a Cutie Mark. So Star Twinkle was sure that his decision would be the right one.

“I'm out,” said Star Twinkle, bringing down the mood again a little.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders then looked at each other confused. They probably didn't expect to hear this from Star Twinkle so they asked just to make sure.

“What do you mean with, you're out?” asked Apple Bloom confused.

He didn't want to repeat himself because he knew that they might be sad or that they might not understand his reasons.
After all, they had a whole different perspective than him when it comes to Cutie Marks. But eventually, he did repeat his words.

“I mean, I'm out, out of this looking for a Cutie Mark thing,” he explained.

Of course, they asked why he would say such a thing and didn't understand. He could explain why he didn't want to try more things out and why he didn't want to rush his Cutie Mark but he didn't know how he should say this to them without ruining their theme of their club.

He could say that he wasn't interested in a Cutie Mark at all. Or that these activities were all a waste of time. But saying that would maybe let them questioning why they do all this stuff in the first place and he didn't want to do that. If they want to do all this in hope to get their Cutie Mark, then he isn't going to stop them.

But before he could explain anything a voice could be heard from the distance, that draw the attention of the four ponies.

It was a filly. She had a pink coat and a purple mane with white stripes and a light blue tiara on her head which strongly resembled her Cutie Mark. She was also accompanied by another filly with a gray coat and a light gray mane. She was also wearing blue glasses and had a spoon as Cutie Mark.

“Well, well, if it isn't the Cutie Mark Crusaders,” said the pink filly in an arrogant tone.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders seemed to know them and greeted them.

Judging from their manner of speak, they weren't friends with the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They were calling them Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Even though the two did their best to insult the Crusaders, they didn't seem to be upset at all.
Or rather oblivious to their insults.

“Still trying to fill that blank spot of yours?” asked Diamond Tiara in an arrogant like tone.

“Yes, We four tried almost everything today to get our Cutie Mark," answered Sweetie Belle

The two fillies seemed surprised to hear that and looked at each other in confusion before asking.

“Four,” Silver Spoon asked.

Star Twinkle suddenly felt like he was pushed in the center. He was starred at by Diamond Tiara and Silver spoon. It looked like they were inspecting him for a few seconds which made him feel uncomfortable.

“Aren't you a little too old to hang out with this bunch of fillies,” asked Diamond Tiara.

“Don't tell me that a full grown stallion like you is a member of those Cutie Mark Crusaders,” Silver Spoon amusingly added.

"Well, they got me there," he thought.

But what was he suppose to say? He didn't really think that it would feel right to argue with fillies. But before giving an answer they were interrupted by Apple Bloom.

“No,” said Apple Bloom in a sad tone.

“Yeah! He is just a friend,” added Scootaloo.

“Nothing more,” Sweetie Belle added.

They all sounded kind of sad while saying that. Star Twinkle seemed to know the reason. "Are they sad because I said that I left the Cutie Mark Crusaders?" He wondered.

“Well of course not,” said Silver Spoon.

“Yes, I mean who would join a stupid club like yours anyway,” added Diamond Tiara.

“Besides, you're just wasting your time, doing all that stupid stuff to get your Cutie Mark,” explained Silver Spoon.

“Yes losers, will always be losers,” added Diamond Tiara.

Star Twinkle didn't like how they were talking about them, which confused him because the wasting time part was exactly what he thought too. They didn't have the right to ruin their fun in pursuing their Cutie Mark.

That's when Star Twinkle realized something. Something that he had never thought about before.

Their goal was to get a Cutie Mark but, that's not the only reason for their club.

Now he knew why they were so excited every time. Or why they didn't want to give up.

To have fun together.

They all three had no Cutie Marks, that is what connects them. That is why they have so much fun together even if they fail multiple times. They are the same. They wish for the same and have fun to reach their goal together.

After thinking about everything that they did so far, he realized that not everything was THAT bad Maybe getting your Cutie Mark with somepony at the same time is not so bad, he thought.

Is that why they were so sad? Because they thought Star Twinkle had something in common with them? It's like with his friends and the Elements of Harmony. If he wasn't chosen by one of the elements, then he would still be alone.

All these thoughts crossed his mind, making him realize things that he overlooked up to this point. Eventually, he stopped thinking and made up his mind turning to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to give an answer.

“Actually,” Star Twinkle said gaining the attention of everypony.
“I am,” he proudly said.

Those words confused everypony, especially the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who remembered his words from before all too well.

“Yes, I am too, a member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders,” he proudly admitted even though he was not sure if what he said were his real thoughts.

Still, those words left everypony in silence and shocked expressions on their faces. The Cutie Mark Crusaders then quickly had a happy smile on their faces. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, on the other hoof, started to laugh at him.

“That's the funniest thing I heard in a while,“ said Diamond Tiara while still laughing uncontrollably.

Star Twinkle didn't know what to say since he kinda expected this reaction. Still, he could feel how he got slowly annoyed and angry from the inside.

“Whaaaat?” Said a familiar voice in surprise from afar.

It was Rarity, who was accompanied by Twilight and Rainbow Dash.

“I didn't know that YOU would be a member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” She said in an overly dramatic tone.

"What is she talking about? She already knew about this, so why is she pretending that she didn't know?" Star Twinkle wondered.

“Yes, it must be a great honor to have him in the Cutie Marks Crusaders,” said Twilight.

Star Twinkle doesn't seem to be the only one who was surprised. The fillies were all confused as well.

“What do you mean?” Asked Diamond Tiara confused.

“Wait you didn't know?” Said Rainbow Dash in an overly confused tone.

Star Twinkle was still not sure why they behaved like that. It kinda looked like, they were acting. But why would they do that? He wondered.

“First, he made the defeat of Nightmare Moon possible, then he was chosen by one of the Elements of Harmony and now he is a member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders,” Twilight added.

It was kinda like she was making sure that everypony around would hear that, much to Star Twinkles dislike. But before he could complain he noticed, how Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were stunned and looked at Star Twinkle with open mouths.

"Wait...Are they trying to impress these two? So that they would leave The Cutie Mark Crusaders alone?" He figured.

“Common Silver Spoon, let's not waste time here and do something else,” said Diamond Tiara to Silver Spoon as they walked away.

It did seem to work, though, he thought. They left with a rather intimidated expression on their face. As if they didn't know how to response to that.

“Did you act like that on purpose?” Asked Star Twinkle.

“Well after standing up for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, we thought we should also stand up for you,”
Explained Twilight.

So they heard what he said back then, which made him feel a little embarrassed. But at least the two fillies weren't bothering him and the Crusaders anymore. And the three fillies seemed happy too. They approached him and asked him questions about Nightmare Moon and the elements of Harmony. But they asked so many questions at once, he couldn't concentrate at one of them.

They eventually stopped after Twilight interrupted them.

“You know, Star Twinkle might not look like this but he is, in fact, a very busy pony,” Twilight explained.

“Yes and we would like to spend some time with him too from time to time,” Rarity added.

“Besides, Star Twinkle has a one tracked mind, so doing different things at once is a little more difficult for him,” explained Rainbow Dash.

He didn't like that they were so direct, even thought it was true. It made The Cutie Mark Crusaders thinking. But Star Twinkle was not lying when he confronted Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. He at least wanted to make everypony know that much.

“Still,” Star Twinkle interrupted. “I guess it wouldn't hurt THAT much if I come and visit you from time to time in your Clubhouse so that we can discover our Cutie Mark,” he said trying not to sound too bothered, even though he meant what he said. “I mean if I'm still allowed in the club,” he added.

The Crusaders seemed happy to hear that and formed a circle to discuss something.

“We, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, hereby declare you as,” said Apple Bloom.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Honorary Member!” All three of them shouted.

“Honorary Member?” He asked confused.

“That means that you're always welcome in our clubhouse whenever you feel like it,” Scootaloo explained.

“Oh. Well, I guess I am okay with that,” he said in relief.

It somehow turned out well for everypony, which was not expected from Star Twinkle. The Crusaders then went off to find their special talent again without Star Twinkle. He then turned around to the three ponies to thank them.

“I guess I have to thank you,” he said to Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash.

“You know, you could have just told them that you didn't want a Cutie Mark, right?” Said Rainbow Dash.

He didn't know what he should say to that, since it was true, making him look down in frustration as if he was scolded.

“You didn't want to let them down right?” Twilight asked.

“I guess,” he answered but he didn't know if that was the real reason.

For the first time, he felt like his friends knew him better than he did himself.

“If you don't want to help and like to be alone more often, then you should say it,” explained Twilight trying to comfort him.

“Yeah we promise that we won't be angry or anything,” added Rainbow Dash.

“That's just who you are after all,” said Rarity.

Is it okay for them to leave him alone?
Why did feel so sad to hear that?
He should be happy to hear that.
But on the other hand, he was also glad if he could spend time with his friends.

“At the moment I would like to spend some time with you,” he said in a happy tone.

The three ponies were glad to hear that and turned around inviting Star Twinkle to follow them.

“But only if you want to,” said Twilight.

“Yes, I do,” Star Twinkle answered.

14. Running of the Leaves Race

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Today was the annual Running of the leaves race. The race was always held in Fall and served the purpose to remove the leaves from the trees. In order to do that, a race is held because that would create enough hoof stomping to remove the leaves.

Star Twinkle was also competing in this race and waited at the starting line. Next to him was Steel Hammer who also participated in the race.

Every pony who ran in the race had a number on their flank. Steel Hammer was number twelve and Star Twinkle was number thirteen. It felt weird for him to have something on his flank for once, also number thirteen was a really bad sign, he thought.

“I must say, I was surprised when you said that you would run in the race too,” said Steel Hammer while getting warmed up for the race. “I mean, I never thought of you as an athlete,” he added.

“I just felt like joining the race. That's all,” Star Twinkle replied with a bored tone in his voice.

Steel Hammer was used to Star Twinkles rather short explanations, so he didn't bother to ask any further.

While the two stallions were warming up, they noticed Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Figured, thought Star Twinkle. They were both very athletic, so it was assumed that they would join the race too. They both approached the two mares, who were also surprised to see Star Twinkle in the race. Applejack was number eight and Rainbow Dash number eleven. Also, Rainbow Dash's wings were tied up with a rope much to Star Twinkles surprise.

“Why are your wings tied up like this?” asked Star Twinkle curiously.

But Applejack explained before Rainbow Dash could answer.

“To prevent her from cheating, like before,” explained Applejack.

“I was not cheating! You just never told me, to not use my wings,” explained Rainbow Dash in an almost aggressive tone in her voice.

“And I already explained, that I didn't think I needed to remind you, to play fair!” Applejack replied, also in a rather aggressive tone.

It was obvious to the two stallions that there was some tension between those two. Star Twinkle didn't want to know what this was all about and pretended he didn't listen to their little argument.

After talking for a while another mare approached the group of ponies. It was Twilight, who had a number forty-two on her flank, indicating that she was running in the race too. That surprised everypony since Twilight was more into studying than sports. She looked confident but the four ponies had to restrain themselves from giggling or laughing. Twilight explained that she read books in order to prepare herself for the race. That made Rainbow Dash laugh uncontrollably and even Applejack couldn't stop herself from laughing a bit. Star Twinkle also had his doubts that Twilight would come far in this race. But that is not exactly what this race is about, he thought.

It's all about tradition. Running trough the forest, create a lot of hoof stomping, make the leaves fall from the trees, he repeated in his head. But none of that was a reason for him to join this race. He was actually wondering why he decided to participate. He didn't know the reason. It was like, he just had to no matter what.

But before going into any more detail, Pinkie Pie, who was in a hot air balloon that flew above the heads of the contestants along with Spike, was about to start the race. Everypony was now getting ready for the signal.

“Good luck, Star Twinkle,” said Steel Hammer to Star Twinkle.

“Yeah, you too,” he replied.

“Hope you at least make it under the top five,” he said.

“I wouldn't count on that,” he replied.

It was not of importance for him what place he would make, as long as he would finish it, he was completely fine.

“All right, ponies, are you ready? “ shouted Pinkie Pie.

“Get set,” Spike added.

Then a bell officially started the race and everypony began to run. Star Twinkle just realized how many ponies were actually competing in this race. There were around thirty or forty ponies, he thought. For the first minutes, there was no clear first place. There was a huge crowd of ponies, they almost moved like a stampede.

Finally, Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who was already in front of everypony managed to separate themselves from the crowd and were now fighting for the first place.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle found himself inside of the crowd, much to his dislike. He was around the middle and had a nervous look on his face. As always he was not comfortable being in a huge crowd like this. There were ponies all around him, accidentally bumping into him on accident. He slowly got more and more nervous and tried to ignore all this but it didn't work.

Eventually, Star Twinkle couldn't stay calm anymore. “Ah I can't take this anymore!” He said to himself in frustration.

Suddenly he sprinted forward drawing some confused looks on him. It didn't take long for him to get out of this crowd.
Now he was suddenly in front of them, meaning that he was third place. He looked back and realized that he was now in front of everypony but that wasn't enough for him.

“Still, too close,” he said to himself, while further increasing the distance between him and the rest of the ponies.

He was actually surprised how easy it was to increase his distance. While running Star Twinkle was constantly looking back, to check if he could see the ponies anymore. The distance between them was now big enough, that he couldn't see them anymore, making him sigh in relief.

“If I just keep up this speed, there should be no way for them to catch up with me,” he said in relief.

He then was surprised to hear a voice talking to him, making him startle a little.

“Well, what do you know?” said Applejack in surprise.

“Not, bad Star Twinkle!” said Rainbow Dash. “You're faster than I expected,” she said in surprise.

He was catching up to Applejack and Rainbow Dash, making him wonder just how fast he was running to escape the other ponies. Of course, Applejack and Rainbow Dash were also surprised to see him that far ahead. After all, he was just behind the two in a good third place.

“Looks like it's not only between the two of us,” said Rainbow Dash to Applejack with a smug smile.

“No, it's between you two,” said Applejack also with a smug smile, while running ahead little.

Now Applejack was in first place, followed by Rainbow Dash and Star Twinkle. But Rainbow Dash was not giving up and increased her speed, catching up to Applejack again. Star Twinkle just watched how the two of them were competing like that and was lost in thoughts. This looked a little familiar too as if he saw this scene somewhere before. But he couldn't exactly figure out from where he saw that.

While still in thoughts, suddenly Applejack tripped and fell over. Star Twinkle managed to dodge her so that he wouldn't fall to the ground too. He then looked back and watched how she was getting more and more out of sight.

“Should I help her?” He asked himself while looking back. “I guess she will be alright,” he said trying to convince him that she was okay.

Rainbow Dash also looked back in surprise and wondered what happened. But at the same time, she was also happy that nopony could stop her now from winning the race. Rainbow Dash then slowed down a little but not to the point where Star Twinkle could catch up. He didn't want to anyway, he was just happy to finish the race.

After a while he notices how Applejack ran past him and Rainbow Dash, who was surprised to see her catching up to her, leaving her standing in surprise which allowed even tar Twinkle to catch up. Now he was in second place, much to his surprise. But it was only for a short time since Rainbow Dash was quickly catching up again, making him third place again.

But that was also for a short time. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash tripped and fell over. Once again Star Twinkle dodged her and looked back in concern. Applejack also looked back in surprise and wondered what happened.

Star Twinkle was still concentrating on the race, as long as he isn't tripping nothing else is going to bother him.

It didn't take long before Rainbow Dash caught up to them again. In fact, she passed even Applejack with no problem and left her behind.

While increasing her distance to Applejack, Rainbow Dash grabbed a branch from one of the trees that she was running past and let it go immediately, causing it to whip Applejack, who ran past that tree. Applejack then fell to the ground and was surprised by Rainbow Dash's action. Of course, Star Twinkle saw the whole thing and wondered why Rainbow Dash would do something like that. But right after thinking that, he saw how Applejack flew past him, confusing him even more.

“What are those ponies doing?” he asked himself while keeping his normal running speed.

Rainbow Dash was also surprised to see Applejack fly past her but then she got angry and a little more competitive, increasing her speed to catch up with Applejack.

Star Twinkle then also increased his speed and tried to catch up to both of them, trying to find out why they acted like that.
He eventually got closer to Rainbow Dash, who was concentrating on catching up to Applejack. In the distance Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash could see how Applejack was kicking a tree with a beehive on it, making it fall to the ground, almost at the feet of Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash. Of course, the bees inside of the hive were angry and chased after the two ponies, who were running away in fear. But that only made them run faster than before, passing Applejack who was just surprised by this outcome.

“What are you two ponies doing?” shouted Star Twinkle in shock to Rainbow Dash, while still running away from the bees.

“Hey that one was Applejack's fault!” replied Rainbow Dash.

Star Twinkle decided to abandon Rainbow Dash and jumped into a nearby bush to save himself. Luckily for him, the bees continued to chase Rainbow Dash. He felt a little bad for her but he didn't want to be involved in this fight that Applejack and Rainbow Dash obviously had right now.

Applejack then caught up a little and Star Twinkle decided to ask her about this whole situation while running right next to her.

“Just what are you both doing?” He asked in confusion.

“What do you mean? It's a race and only one of us can win!” Applejack explained.

“Well, for me it starts to look like you both try to knock each other out!” He replied in frustration.

While still discussing the matter they both saw how the path was splitting in two directions. But a sign showed them that they should go left, so they ran to the left up to a mountain path.

“All I am saying is that this race is mainly held so that the leaves can fall down from the trees and not-” but before finishing his sentence he paid close attention to where they were right now.

It was a mountain path, so naturally, there were no trees, making Star Twinkle doubt that they were going in the right direction. Applejack then stopped after she noticed that the path was ending at a cliff. That only confirmed Star Twinkles guess, that they were going the wrong way.

Shortly after Pinkies balloon came closer to the two ponies and of course Pinkie Pie and spike also wondered why Star Twinkle and Applejack were up on this mountain. Applejack quickly came to the conclusion that Rainbow Dash was responsible for that. She probably changed the sign, thought Star Twinkle.

Pinkie Pie and Spike offered the two ponies a ride with the balloon so that they could catch up with the other racers.
They both accepted the offer and jumped into the balloon. It would probably take them a few minutes but it's better than running all the way back.

Applejack was a little angry and was probably thinking about how her payback would look like. Star Twinkle, on the other hand, had his own concerns right now. He didn't look too good, he was cowering on the ground as if he was ill. Pinkie Pie and Spike quickly asked what was the matter and rushed to his side.

“What's wrong?” asked Pinkie Pie surprised.

“Nothing. I am perfectly fine,” he said while covering his eyes with his hoofs.

“You shouldn't be down there,” said Spike. “Here, look out of this Balloon. We are so high up, everypony looks like ants from up here,” explained Spike.

All these explanations only made Star Twinkle more and more nervous.

“That's maybe a bad time to tell you but, I might be afraid of heights a little,” he explained.

“That doesn't look like a little,” said Spike in confusion.

Still, Pinkie Pie was a little confused by this and had a question in mind.

“If you're afraid of heights, then why were you able to climb the mountain back then when we were going up against that giant dragon?” she asked.

“I don't know because we were on the ground?” He replied, while not being sure if those words were true.

“Maybe you're just afraid of flying?” Spike suggested.

“Yeah, whatever, could you please hurry up and land this thing somewhere so that I can get off?” he said while still covering his eyes in fear.

”But we are already on the ground,” said Pinkie Pie much to the confusion of Star Twinkle, who opened his eyes, just to realize that the balloon was on the ground.

“Oh,” he replied.

He was a little embarrassed but tried not to let them both know. Applejack was already gone, so she probably is back in the race again. The racers were not that far away, he could clearly see them in the distance. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were of course in the lead. Star Twinkle did his best to catch up to them again but he had to go past that crowd of ponies again to reach them. Twilight was in the second last place, enjoying the scenery.

“Hey Star Twinkle, I thought you were in front of me,” she asked in confusion.

“Yes, some things happened,” he replied with an annoyed tone in his voice.

“Isn't it beautiful?” Said Twilight while looking around the orange colored trees. “I am so glad that I joined this race, the view alone is reason enough,” she happily said.

“I'm afraid not everypony shares your opinion on this race,” he said, once again with an annoyed tone in his voice.

“Applejack and Rainbow Dash?” Twilight guessed.

“Yes,” Star Twinkle replied

“I know. It's sad that they are ignoring the tradition,” she said in concern. “After all this race is about letting the leaves fall from the trees,” she explained. “That's why you joined the race too, didn't you?” Asked Twilight.

“No,” he quickly replied.

Twilight wasn't expecting a quick answer like that, especially from Star Twinkle, who often gives indirect answers.

“I don't know why I joined this race in the first place but seeing Applejack and Rainbow Dash fighting for the first place like that makes me feel kinda...mad,” he explained with a sad tone in his voice.

“Mad? Why that?” Asked Twilight.

He didn't give an answer to that question and instead made a decision.

“I won't allow it,” he said in determination.

Twilight was surprised to hear something like that from him and wondered what he would mean by that. Suddenly Star Twinkle accelerated and ran past Twilight. He was running towards the group of ponies and ran past every single one of them with no problem. Now there were only Applejack and Rainbow Dash left. The two mares were expecting him to catch up to them again and were a little excited. But to their surprise, Star Twinkle ran past both of them without even making eye contact with them. Of course, they were surprised to see that since Star Twinkle didn't seem to make any effort to win this race before.

“What's with him all of the sudden?” Asked Rainbow Dash in confusion.

“I don't know but it seems like we got more competition now,” Applejack replied.

Star Twinkles didn't care for anything else right now. He wants to win this race fair and square and there was nothing that will stop him, he thought. But to his surprise, Applejack and Rainbow Dash caught up to him, running right next to him now.
Applejack managed to get in front a little and tried to sabotage Rainbow Dash by knocking off some bucket with tree resin, that now covered the ground. Since Star Twinkle was right next to Rainbow Dash, he was also was in danger to get caught up in their little fight.

Rainbow Dash stepped in the tree resin and got stuck in it but Star Twinkle jumped over Rainbow Dash to avoid any disruption. Star Twinkle slowly caught up to Applejack and managed to get past her.

But then suddenly Rainbow Dash was flying past Applejack causing Applejack to spin like a tornado. While spinning Applejack bumped into Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash getting them caught up in the “tornado”. They then crashed into a nearby mountain and struggled to get up, since everything was spinning in their head. After getting up on their hoofs again, the plate of rocks the three ponies were standing on started to crumble. It was then sliding down the mountain and stopped in the middle of the track.

Meanwhile, the rest of the contestants ran past them. Before Applejack and Rainbow Dash could realize what happened, Star Twinkle rushed forward and left them both behind. He was still determined to win the race and didn't want to give either of them the first place, even though he was not exactly sure why.

He was beginning to get tired a little and had problems catching up to the other ponies but he still managed to get past everypony.

Steel Hammer was right in the middle of the crowd and watched how Star Twinkle was taking the lead and was impressed by his speed.

“That's my co-worker!” shouted Steel Hammer as If he wants to brag about him.

After a little more running Star Twinkle actually managed to cross the finish line before anypony else and was greeted with cheers from the ponies who waited there. It took him a moment to realize what just happened, he couldn't believe that he was first place. Now it was no more of importance for him who would come in next. He expected either Applejack or Rainbow Dash to cross the finish line next but to his surprise, a lot of other ponies were approaching. Twilight was actually far in the front and managed to be a good fifth place. She then approached Star Twinkle to congratulate him for being first.

“Congratulation, Star Twinkle,” she said with a happy smile on her face.

“And you're the fifth place that's not bad either,” he replied with a light smile on his face.

“Way to go, Star Twinkle,” said Steel Hammer who just finished the race himself. “Here I grabbed this for you,” he said while handing Star Twinkle a golden medal, probably the award for the first place.

While looking at his medal, he still didn't see Applejack or Rainbow Dash nearby. He then heard a bunch of noises from afar and saw how the two mares, were bumping into each other in order to determent who will cross the line first.

It made Star Twinkle a little sad to see them like this but he didn't know why. After a little more hustle and pushing, they both came in at the same time and tied for the last place. They were surprised to hear that because they were sure that they were first place.

“Then who won?” Asked Rainbow Dash.

Then they both noticed the gold medal that Star Twinkle was wearing and figured that he would be first place. But they were even more surprised that Twilight made it to the fifth place, which was also surprising for Star Twinkle.

“I paced myself, just like my book said. Then at the end, when all the other ponies were worn out, I sprinted to the finish,” Twilight explained.

That's pretty much what Star Twinkle was doing in the first half of the race, so it made sense to him.

“I don't believe it. Twilight beat us,” said Rainbow Dash with a shameful tone in her voice.

“Well, with all your horsing around, it was quite easy,” Twilight added.

That's what Star Twinkle was about to say but since Twilight already said it, there was no reason for him to get involved anymore. After all, they did seem to admit their mistake.

Suddenly, a familiar voice could be heard from everypony. It was Princess Celestia who visited Ponyville for the Running of the leaves Race. The two mares quickly apologized for their bad sportsmanship but the Princess was very forgiving. She could understand that they were drawn into the excitement of competition. But Friendship should always be more important than the competition.

That is something Star Twinkle could agree with but he still wondered why he was thinking like that all of the sudden.
He never thought much about competition or friendship at the same time. But this whole race seemed so familiar and important to him, so he didn't want to see that Applejack and Rainbow Dash ruined all this because of their fighting and cheating in the race

The Princess then pointed out that there were many trees left with their leaves on so Applejack suggested that she and Rainbow Dash can handle that. Rainbow Dash agreed happily and they both ran back closely together on the track to let the leaves fall down from the trees.

Now that sight was more to Star Twinkles liking, making him happy from the inside and drawing a smile on his face.
But in the same time, he also felt kind of lonely at this moment for unknown reasons.

He was then surrounded by everypony who cheered for him, for making the first place.
As usual, he felt a little uncomfortable being put in the spotlight but it also made him forget his sudden loneliness.
From where ever it came from...

At night, far away from Ponyville on a quiet grass plateau

A pony in a gray hood looked up to the sky watching the stars. A leaf was flying by him and grabbed his attention, reminding him of something.

“If I am not mistaken, today was the Running of the Leaves race.
I hope you found somepony to race with you as a friend,” he said to himself quietly. “After all, that's what the race meant to us back then,” he added.

There was a sad tone in his voice after saying that. He closed his eyes and thought about some things before saying something again.

“Someday we both can go back to those times,” he said quietly.

He opened his eyes again and concentrated on the stars, who almost hypnotized him.

“Yes. Someday,” he said with a smile on his face.

15. Does this suit me?

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The Grand Galloping Gala was getting closer and closer. Because of that, everypony who attended the gala needs to wear formal attire. At least that's what Rarity said to Star Twinkle. After saying that he was not in possession of any formal clothing, Rarity intended to make a suit for him.

He was then invited to Carousel Boutique to take a look at the suit that Rarity made for him. After finding Rarity in her usual working spot, she happily greeted him and could not wait to show him his new suit.

“I can't wait till you see it!” she said in excitement while pushing Star Twinkle to his new suit.

Compared to Rarity, there was no excitement at all seen in Star Twinkles face but he appreciated that Rarity was going to the trouble to make a suit for him. He was then dragged to one of Rarity's mannequins and she proudly presented the suit.

“And don't forget, be completely honest,” she modestly said showing Star Twinkle a beautiful and elegant white suit.

Star Twinkle was positively surprised after seeing it. It was not as fancy as he imagined, which was good. He likes it a little more simple and the suit did have some minor things that he would like to have a little different or removed but since Rarity was giving it to him for free, he didn't complain about those things.

He doesn't like to feel like being in some kind of debt or something so even if he would not have liked the design, he was already planning to say that it was okay, no matter what just so that Rarity didn't have to work anymore for him. But to his surprise, the suit was not bad and therefore he honestly thanked Rarity for her generosity.

“It looks good Rarity. I like it,” he gratefully thanked Rarity.

“Oh! I knew it!” she replied followed by a giggle. “After all, I was carefully thinking about you while making it,” she explained while being a little smug.

Star Twinkle didn't know if he should feel embarrassed or flattered by the last sentence but now he had something that he could wear at the gala without standing out too much, so he was satisfied for the day.

“If you liked your suit, then I'm sure the others will like their dresses too!” Rarity said happily.

“Others?” Star Twinkle wondered.

“Yes, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie,” replied Rarity.

Rarity then showed off five dresses to Star Twinkle, which also all looked really good too in Star Twinkles opinion. They all had unique designs but Star Twinkle could instantly figure out which dress was for which one of his friends. Maybe it's because he is normally the ungrateful one of the group but he can't imagine that his friends would decline these dresses.

“I wanted to show you the suit before I showed those dresses to the girls. You know for a first opinion,” Rarity explained.

“I'm sure they will like their dresses too,” Star Twinkle said in confidence.

“That's sweet of you, darling,” she replied with a happy smile on her face.

"But wasn't that too much work?" Asked Star Twinkle who was a very skeptic when it came to working.

If he was asked to build something for everypony he would probably not do it, to avoid too much work. But knowing himself, his friends would probably find a way to somehow make him. But Rarity was most likely not thinking like that.

"Oh, it was nothing," she modestly replied. "Besides, it was really fun making those dresses and the suit," she added.

That's something Star Twinkle would never say when it came to working. Naturally, his reaction was very surprised and far from understanding.

"If you say so," he said because he couldn't find any other words at the moment.

Rarity was not aware that Star Twinkle didn't understand her motivation for work so her mood was unchanged.

"If you don't mind, I would like to keep this suit for today, so that I can show it to the others?
You can take it with you tomorrow," Rarity asked.

"That's fine by me," Star Twinkle replied.

"Perfect!" she happily replied.
"Then I'll see you tomorrow," she said before Star Twinkle left the boutique again.

Now he doesn't have to think about the gala for a while.
Star Twinkle wasn't doing much for the rest of the day and just went home after a while.

On the next day...

Star Twinkle stopped at Carousel Boutique after he was done with his work at the Iron Hammer. He entered the Boutique but Rarity was nowhere to be found. She was probably in the same place than yesterday, he thought.

"Alright, I'm here," said Star Twinkle, who entered Rarity's usual working place.

It looked like she was ready to work on his suit, which surprised him. She quickly turned around to greeted him before dragging him in front of the suit.

"Star Twinkle! Perfect! We can start right away," she said almost excitingly.

"Start what?" He asked while being dragged in front of his suit by Rarity.

She then quickly rushed to his side. They both silently looked at the suit until Rarity glanced at him as if she expected him to say something.

"Well?" She asked confused.

"What?" He replied confused.

“Tell me what I should change!" She demanded.

“Change? Change what?” He asked confused again.

Rarity looked like she was expecting something from him but Star Twinkle didn't exactly catch on and gave her some confused looks.

“The suit!” she said while pointing at the suit. “Tell me what I should change about the suit!” She demanded once again.

"Why would I want her to change anything on the suit? Yesterday, I said that it was completely fine," Star Twinkle wondered.

Rarity also seemed happy that Star Twinkle liked the suit, so why all of the sudden would she think that he wanted to change something? Star Twinkle didn't even know how she would come to that conclusion.

“It's okay the way it is,” he said feeling that this was not the answer she wanted to hear.

“No, there has to be something wrong!” she said in a stressful voice. “Is it the size?” She asked confused.

“The size? I haven't even tried it on yet!” He replied confused.

Rarity wasn't making any sense for Star Twinkle. Did he miss something? Or was she working too much and couldn't think straight anymore? It all made no sense to Star Twinkle. And Rarity was just kept going, giving Star Twinkle no chance to figure out what exactly was happening here.

“Is it the color?” She then asked. “Of course! What was I thinking making the suit white! I will change it right away!” She said while leaving Star Twinkles side to get some tools.

It was all going way to fast for Star Twinkle. Rarity was clearly stressed by something. But seeing her running all over the place made Star Twinkle realize something. There was all kind of different stuff scattered in the room. Pictures of star signs, streamers, balloons, The whole place looked more like a junkyard.

Rarity was still searching for some tools but couldn't find anything in this mess. Star Twinkle tried to get her attention but Rarity was either too focused or completely unaware of his voice until he almost screamed her name.

“Rarity!” Shouted Star Twinkle, which finally got Rarity's attention.

She got startled a little but at least she was standing still for a moment so that Star Twinkle could talk to her.

“I'm sorry for shouting, just now,” he apologized. “But could you please calm down a little? You don't have to work at the suit. I told you that I liked it yesterday, remember?” He explained in hope that she would calm down.

“You were just saying that so that my feelings won't get hurt!” She replied doubtfully.

Normally he would say stuff like that to avoid conflicts at all costs but this time, he was completely honest and was hoping that Rarity would understand that. But she was still stubborn as if she wasn't even listening to him.

“Why do I have to tell you that this suit looks good enough? You're the one who does this on a daily basis. You have more knowledge of this stuff than anypony else I know,” he explained.

“But there must be something that you don't like! So just tell me!” She said while showing some signs of sadness in her voice.

She was not listening at all but Star Twinkle could feel that there was more to her behavior.

“No, Rarity it is perfectly fine. I don't have a single problem with the suit,” he explained once again.

“I don't believe you!” She replied stubbornly.

“Rarity!” Star Twinkle said with an almost angry-sounding tone, probably because he was slowly losing his patience.

They then glared at each other silently, which was probably not the best thing to do in this situation but for Star Twinkle it was better than discussing any longer.

“You...really mean it?” She asked in an insecure tone in her voice. “You like it, the way it is now?” She added.

Star Twinkle was sighing in a mix of frustration and relief and tried to cool down again before answering her question.

“Yes, Rarity. I like it the way it is, right now. There is nothing that bothers me. And I don't want you to change anything.
Please don't let me say it over and over again,” he calmly explained.

He was preparing himself for another discussion but thankfully Rarity seemed to stop asking him about the suit and decided to calm down.

"Yes, of course. My work always looks perfect, right?" She said in confidence but also with a little concern.

Now that's more like it, thought Star Twinkle. That's the Rarity he knew. Still, he could feel that it was not over yet. There was way too much commotion going on before, to simply end it with those words. But Star Twinkle tried to keep the mood like this to prevent any more discussion.

"What's the matter, Rarity?" Star Twinkle asked so that he could find out the reason for her behavior. "You look like a complete mess," he added.

It was probably not a good idea to be so blunt, he thought after saying that, especially to Rarity. But she didn't seem to mind, she clearly had bigger problems right now.

"Yes," she replied followed by a big sigh. "I was working on this dresses, all day now," she said pointing at five dresses that stood in a corner of the room.

At least Star Twinkle thought that they would be dresses. It looked like all the stuff that was scattered across the room, somehow formed five dresses. It didn't even look remotely like something that Rarity would have made.

"Wow they look...uh," he tried to figure out how he could describe them without hurting Rarity, seeing how she is in this state right now.

For some reason, Rarity looked at him, as if she could not wait to hear his opinion. That made it even harder for Star Twinkle to describe them. But no matter how he looked at them, he could not find any words to describe them in a good way. He just decided to say his honest opinion and prayed that she would not be too upset.

"They look...not good..." he said while still trying to be a little gentle.

"I KNOW! THEY LOOK TERRIBLE!" She quickly replied with a scream.

That was easy, thought Star Twinkle. This reaction surprised him. At first, he thought that Rarity misunderstood him.

Rarity then finally explained the situation to Star Twinkle. As it turns out, the dresses that Rarity designed for her friends didn't quite match their expectations. So Rarity had to redesign them all and that meant, that she was forced to design them exactly by the taste of their friends. That would explain the looks by some of them.

"Yeah, this dress is definitely screaming, Pinkie Pie," he said while inspecting the dress, that had balloons and muffins all over it.

It surprised him that his friends didn't like Rarity's work. Even if they didn't like her dresses, they could have at least said that they like them. They were all present's from Rarity after all. If Star Twinkle would inspect the suit carefully, he probably would find something that bothered him too. But since it was a present from Rarity, he wouldn't mind that.

Why is it always, that he is doing something completely different than somepony else? he wondered. Was he the one who did something wrong? Should he have said something? For once, he was sure that his decision was the right one.
While overthinking all this, he realized how Rarity was looking at the five dresses as if she was embarrassed to show them to anypony.

"Don't worry," he said to her, trying to cheer her up, to which she looked back at him still with an embarrassed look on her face.

"I'm sure they will realize that your designs looked way better and want them back soon.

It looked like she was feeling better after hearing that.

"Maybe you're right," she said. "Thank you," she said which sounded a little more relieved.

Later this day, a fashion show was announced in front of Carousel Boutique. Of course, after hearing that, Star Twinkle immediately went to Carousel boutique because he had a really bad feeling about this.

Steel Hammer accompanied him because Star Twinkles behavior was worrying him. He knew about the dresses too, thanks to Star Twinkle but he was confident that the worst case scenario, that Star Twinkle had in mind wouldn't come true.

"Why do you look so nervous?" Steel Hammer asked Star Twinkle who was sitting next to him in a big crowd of ponies in front of Carousel Boutique. "Oh yeah. Crowded places," Steel Hammer figured.

"No," Star Twinkle replied nervously. "I mean yes but that's not the only thing," he added. "I'm just hoping that they don't wear the dresses that I saw before," he explained while looking around in paranoia.

Steel Hammer noticed how Star Twinkle slowly got more and more nervous and tried to calm him down a little.

"Don't worry. If the dresses are really that bad like you said, then I'm sure that they changed them at the last second," he explained to Star Twinkle.

The fashion show then started and Spike actually did a good with the opening. Everypony from Ponyville were expecting the usual work of Rarity but what they got was something completely different. It was exactly what Star Twinkle expected.
All five of them were wearing the new dresses and of course, everypony was shocked and confused.

"Or maybe not," added Steel Hammer referring to his previous sentence.

Twilight and the others didn't seem to realize how bad they looked at first but eventually, they noticed the reactions of the crowd and felt bad in the process.

Meanwhile, somepony spoke up and made clear that he didn't like the design of the dresses. He had a grayish blue coat, light blue grayish hair, and sunglasses. He was also speaking in a rather upper-class kind of voice. Star Twinkle didn't know who that was but Steel Hammer did. His name was Hoity Toity. He is supposed to be some big celebrity in the fashion business in Canterlot. Hoity Toity quickly demanded who was responsible for this dresses.

"This can only end badly," said Steel Hammer to which Star Twinkle was only silently sitting there as if he was ashamed himself.

Rarity, of course, revealed herself behind the curtain as demanded. And of course the words that Hoity Toity was saying to her weren't pretty but Rarity was not even trying to discuss with him, fully taking responsibility for her work.

Star Twinkle was sure that everypony was just wishing that this night would be over really fast.

Some days have passed since that disastrous fashion show of Rarity. She wasn't coming out of her room for days and that made her friends worry. Everypony was standing in front of her room trying to convince her to come out but she was too upset to show her face again in Ponyville. Everypony was well aware that it was their fault and apologized multiple times but that didn't change a thing.

In the end, the six ponies discussed what they could do to make her come out again. Applejack conveniently had an idea right away. "We just need to make another fashion show for this Hoity Toity fellow, so that he will realize that Rarity's work is fancy enough for him," explained Applejack.

"I don't think he will be interested in another fashion show from Rarity after seeing our dresses," Twilight added with a concerned look on her face.

But Star Twinkle hasn't given up and an idea crossed his mind.

"I think I know how to deal with Hoity Toity," said Star Twinkle in confidence.

They were surprised to hear that in a moment like that but they also had no idea themselves so they trusted Star Twinkle on this one.

A little time has passed and the others were left to deal with Rarity in the meantime. Now it was time to set his plan into motion.

Star Twinkle was walking around in Ponyville searching for Hoity Toity, who was still somewhere in town. He was also wearing the suit that Rarity made for him. It was very comfortable, thought Star Twinkle in surprise but that was not important right now. He searched for a while now and finally found his target.

"There he is!" Star Twinkle said after spotting Hoity Toity.

He quickly rushed to him, without Hoity Toity noticing him, almost sneaking up on him before starting a conversation.

"Excuse me!" said Star Twinkle to get Hoity Toitys attention. "I was just wondering if you could recommend a good place to eat in this fine little town," he said while trying to imitate Hoity Toitys speak pattern as good as he could while trying to get him to notice the suit.

"I'm sorry I just arrived here in this town, so I am a little lost myself," explained Hoity Toity.

Of course, Star Twinkle knew this and was prepared for an answer.

"Me too!" he said in a fake overly exciting tone. “I come from Canterlot to this little town to get a look at some of the local fashion designs. I just thought that, since you definitely have a good fashion sense, just like me, that you could help me out best," he explained still trying to get Hoity Toitys attention on Star Twinkles suit.

"Hey Star Twinkle!" said Spike who walked past Star Twinkle. "Why are you talking so weird? Oh and by the way, nice suit," said Spike while walking off again.

After that, Hoity Toity was inspecting Star Twinkle carefully. That was just bad timing, thought Star Twinkle while trying to figure out an excuse. But Hoity Toity asked a question before Star Twinkle could figure out one.

"That suit..." he mumbled.

"Finally," thought Star Twinkle. Now he got his attention on the suit just as planned.

"Might I ask where you got that elegant suit from?" he asked curiously.

"This old thing?" Star Twinkle replied. "I got this one in Carousel Boutique," he explained making it sound like the finest establishments in Ponyville, what it most likely was.

"Carousel Boutique?" Hoity Toity asked.

"I'll get you right to it," Star Twinkle intended before Hoity Toity could even give an answer.

Star Twinkle then dragged Hoity Toity to Carousel Boutique. After entering the boutique, they both realized how the lights were out. Star Twinkle knew at this moment that everything was set up and let out a sigh of relief. Hoity Toity, on the other hoof, was wondering what this was all about and sat there in confusion.

Eventually, Spike started the fashion show and everypony presented their dresses again but this time, they were all wearing their previous dresses and performed in a slightly more professional way this time. Needless to say, Hoity Toity was fascinated by every single dress that was shown to him.

After seeing the five dresses Hoity Toity once again demanded who was responsible for this dresses.

And once again Rarity revealed herself, who was also wearing a dress, that was made as an apology from Twilight and the others and a present for Rarity.

Hoity Toity was not stopping giving Rarity more and more compliments for her designs and Rarity was relieved to hear that.

In the end, everything turned out well somehow. To think that a little generosity could end in something bothersome like that. If the other would have just accepted the dresses from the beginning, none of that would have happened.

Doing something for a friend of your own will. That is something Star Twinkle didn't fully understand at the moment.

A gift, for example, shows that you care about somepony but it could also mean that you are trying to buy their friendship?
And if a friend doesn't accept your gift, does that mean that you are not accepting his friendship?

It's a fact that Star Twinkle is thinking like that but he didn't want to. He didn't want to concern himself with those thoughts anymore. Everypony was happy right now, except him.

Why?

He should be happy too, he thought to himself. And that's what he was doing.

Being happy.

On the outside...

16. Don't question Pinkie Pie...

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Star Twinkle was on his way to go home but stumbled across Twilight, Spike, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack. What confused him was that Applejack was hiding under a fruit cart and looked up at the sky in fear. While Star Twinkle didn't exactly want to know what was going on there, his curiosity was just too great from this image alone. So he decided to approach Applejack and asked what was going on.

“What are you doing down there?” Asked Star Twinkle Applejack who was still hiding under a fruit cart in fear.

“Pinkie Sense,” Applejack quickly replied.

“Pinkie Sense?!” replied Star Twinkle. “Which one?” He asked in shock.

“Twitchy Tail!” Applejack replied.

“Oh, okay!” He said before he joined Applejack under the fruit cart to hide.

But Spike assured them both that the prediction already came true and that there is nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, Twilight was letting out a big sigh as a reaction for Applejacks and Star Twinkles behavior.

“Don't tell me you both believe in this stuff, too?” Twilight asked in confusion while walking towards the two earth ponies.

“I know it doesn't make much sense, but those of us who have been in Ponyville a while, have learned over time that, if Pinkie's a-twichin', you better listen,” explained Applejack who got up from the fruit cart.

Twilight then looked at Star Twinkle who was still hiding under the fruit cart. Her face was a mix of confusion and disappointment since she never expected him to believe in this ridiculous stuff.

“Honestly, Star Twinkle, from all ponies around here I never thought that you would believe in this stuff,” said Twilight who was shaking her head in disappointment.

Star Twinkle felt a little offended but still believed that his actions were justified and explained why he acted like that.

“Yeah, yeah I know,” he said in an almost provocation tone in his voice. “But the first time I came in contact with Pinkies Twitchy Tail, I almost got crushed by a piano that fell down from the sky!” Star Twinkle explained.

“A piano? How did that happen?” Twilight asked confused.

“I don't know! That's why I am hiding right now!” He exclaimed while still keeping an eye out of his surroundings.

Pinkie Pie then quickly rushed in front of everypony saying that her ears are flopping, which they did. Spike, who also heavily believed in Pinkies Pinkie Sense asked what that meant, to which she responded that she will start a bath for Twilight.

Of course Twilight was jokingly responding to that until she was covered in mud caused by somepony pulling a cart running past her. Angered by this “coincidence” Twilight accepted Pinkie Pies offer for a bath and followed her to Sugarcube Corner.

Star Twinkle knew why that “Pinkie Sense” bothered Twilight. When it comes to things like that, Star Twinkle was very similar to her. If there is something which cannot be explained, then he is also eager to find out a logical explanation.

But when it comes to Pinkie Pie, Star Twinkle has given up long ago to question her. He was arguing with himself if that was the right decision but he came to the conclusion that it was to much trouble to think about this anymore, so he just accepted it.

“Well, we did warn her,” pointed Applejack out, to which Star Twinkle just replied with a shrugging of his shoulders.

After Star Twinkle spent some time alone, he was asked by Twilight if he could help her with something. When Star Twinkle asked what kind of help she needed, she just replied with the word: Science. Of course, that was way too little information for him, so he asked a little further.

“We are going to examine Pinkie Pie and prove that her Pinkie Sense can be explained with logic,” explained Twilight.

“Didn't you learn anything since the last time?” Said Star Twinkle trying to get this idea out of Twilight's head.

But Twilight's motivation to find out the secret of the Pinkie Sense was unchanged. Star Twinkle didn't want to mess with that since he already made a bad experience and didn't want to endanger himself but Twilight knew exactly how to convince him to tag along.

"Come on, don't you want to know how her Pinkie Sense works?" Twilight asked, trying to convince Star Twinkle.

"No," he replied with little to no emotions in his voice.

"Don't you want an explanation how it works?" She asked once again trying to convince Star Twinkle to tag along.

"...no" he replied again but this time, it didn't sound too convincing.

Twilight knew exactly how close she was now. There was only one a little more until Star Twinkle would give in now.

"Don't you want a logical explanation?" Twilight added.

To this Star Twinkle didn't even reply because he just realized what Twilight was doing right now. And the worst thing was, that it worked.

The next thing he knew was that he accompanied Twilight in order to find out her secret. They were hiding inside of a bush a few steps away from Pinkie Pie, who was doing some random stuff.

"I know we are spying on her..." but he was interrupted by Twilight in the middle of the sentence.

"Researching!" She quietly exclaimed.

"Researching," he corrected. "But is it really necessary to wear this getup?" said Star Twinkle while pointing at his safari hat, that Twilight made him wear.

"That is proper clothing for research purpose," explained Twilight who also had on on her head but Star Twinkle didn't seem to listen and tried to concentrate on Pinkie Pie.

But before they could start their research, Spike approached the two ponies and asked what they were doing and of course, Twilight explained the situation to him.

" We're doing scientific research. We're observing Pinkie Pie, scientific name: Pinkius Pieicus, in its natural habitat," said Twilight, confusing Spike with using unnecessary scientifical terms.

Twilight was having way too much fun, thought Star Twinkle, who continued to watch Pinkie Pie. He then noticed how Pinkies nose was itching and reported it to Twilight. Pinkie Pie then hid and looked up in the sky just like Star Twinkle and Applejack before. Twilight was quickly thinking about her Twitchy Tail prediction.

"Aha," she exclaimed. "That makes no sense! She is hiding as if something is falling down from the sky. But a Twitchy Tail means that something is falling, not an itchy nose," she explained to Star Twinkle, who figured out that much by himself too.

While Twilight was sure that she figured everything out about Pinkie Pie, Star Twinkle noticed how a swarm of bees was coming closer to them. Spike, who also noticed them ran away in fear and Star Twinkle quickly joined him, leaving Twilight confused inside of the bush. Before she realized what happened, the swarm attacked the, stinging her multiple times.
While Star Twinkle felt kind of bad, he was also relieved that he was not caught up into that.

They then followed Pinkie Pie a little further to continue their research. Spike also joined them out of curiosity.

"What's she doing now?" Asked Spike.

"Smelling a flower," replied Star Twinkle who was watching Pinkie with his binoculars.

"Holy guacamole! I wonder what that means?" Spike wondered.

"Probably that it smells good" replied Twilight who also watched Pinkie Pie with binoculars. "Wait. I'm getting something. Ear flop, eye flutter, knee twitch," said Twilight referring to Pinkie Pies unusual movements.

"Hold on... You told me that's the combo that says "watch out for opening doors!”," added Spike who quickly looked out for any door in reach.

So did Star Twinkle. He looked around to avoid being in the range of any doors nearby. Of course Twilight could just shake her head because of Spikes and Star Twinkles behavior. You guys really, really believe this stuff, don't you?" said Twilight as if she was looking down on them.

"Here, let me show you there's nothing to be afraid of," she said while leaning to one of the barn doors.

"You see? I promise you there's nothing to fear from that," but as soon as Twilight walked off to prove her theory, a door opened from bellow leading to one of Applejack's new apple cellar. Twilight fell down the cellar and Star Twinkle could only hear Twilight's painful grunts from outside.

"That's what you get by trying to understand Pinkie Pie," thought Star Twinkle. Maybe that will make her give up soon but knowing Twilight, that only made her eager to continue.

After the last two fails, Twilight convinced Star Twinkle to get a little closer to Pinkie Pie. To serve as some kind of field researcher. He was not sure if that would change anything but he gave Twilight's idea a chance.

Star Twinkle did as he was told and approached Pinkie Pie but as soon as he got close to her, her tail was twitching again and Star Twinkle knew exactly what that meant and jumped into the nearest bush before Pinkie Pie could even notice him.
At the same time, he was worrying about Twilight and Spike and looked over to them. Judging from Spike who was running, he already noticed.

Star Twinkle then looked up in the sky to see if there was anything that could fall down. There was a movers truck flying above Twilight in the clouds. Some Pegasus tried to move out some stuff outside of the truck but they failed since one of them waved at Star Twinkle leading some things to fall out of their hooves. It was a Pegasus with a gray coat and a yellow mane, that looked kinda familiar to Star Twinkle. And of course, several things dropped down on Twilight who was unaware from all of this.

After retrieving Twilight from this mess, she still insisted on following Pinkie Pie. Star Twinkle, on the other hand, was worrying about his luck, that protected him so far from all incoming predictions.

Once again, he was more or less ordered by Twilight to approach Pinkie Pie who was accompanied by Applejack now.

“Hey, what are you both doing?” Asked Star Twinkle trying to start a conversation somehow.

“Takin' more apples to my new apple cellar,” replied Applejack.

“And you Pinkie Pie?” Asked Star Twinkle.

“Oh, letting you and Twilight secretly follow me all day without me knowing,” Pinkie Pie bluntly replied.

“What!?” Star Twinkle and Twilight exclaimed in surprise.

Thinking about that, Star Twinkle should have known better. After all, she was the only pony who noticed him following her and her friends back then when Nightmare Moon returned.

Spike, on the other hand, was just worried about any more tail twitching from Pinkie Pie. She assured that there was nothing to worry about until she started shaking uncontrollably. Everypony was wondering what that was about but Pinkie Pie didn't even know herself. The only thing she was sure of, was that it was something that nopony would ever expect and that it would happen at a place named Froggy Bottom Bogg.

Applejack quickly pointed out that Fluttershy was heading to this place. Everypony except Twilight now believed that Fluttershy was in danger and headed to Froggy Bottom Bogg.

While traveling through Froggy Bottom Bogg which was a swampland close to Ponyville, Spike was imagined the worst but Twilight believed that there was nothing wrong with Fluttershy at all. They eventually found Fluttershy, who was carrying some frogs to the swamp. Fluttershy didn't know why they were all so worried and of course, Twilight couldn't let the chance slip, to brag about how she was right all this time.

But the moment she was celebrating her victory, something rose up behind Twilight, without her noticing. It slowly became bigger and bigger to the point where it was several meters high, scaring s everypony in front of Twilight.

It was some red, scaled beast, almost like a dragon but it had only two legs and four long heads. Pinkie Pie then came to the conclusion that this thing was a hydra. But Applejack didn't care what it was and advised everypony to run.
That was something Star Twinkle could get behind.

They then all ran away in fear, thankfully the hydra was not catching up on them but they couldn't run forever since there was a hill in front of them.

Star Twinkle was trying to jump over first but realized that it was a little too high for him and hesitated in the last moment.

"Common jump! The hydra is coming any second!" said Twilight demanding Star Twinkle to jump on the tall rocks that were the only way to cross the hill.

But Star Twinkle hesitated and let Spike, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy jump first. The problem was that the hydra almost caught up on them. Twilight decided that she will distract the hydra until everypony crossed the hill.

Star Twinkle was now thinking what could be worse. Either jump over the hill, which was too high and scared him.
Or helping Twilight distract the hydra which also scared him. He quickly decided to aid Twilight, who was surprised but also relieved to get some help. But they feared that the odds were still against them.

"I don't think that we can stop this thing, Twilight," said Star Twinkle, whose legs were shaking just by the sight of the hydra.

“Don't worry, we just have to distract it, said Twilight trying to convince herself with those words.
"What would a brave pony like Rainbow Dash do?” asked Twilight to herself.

“I don't like where this is going...” said Star Twinkle, who prepared himself to do something really stupid.

Both ponies then charged at the hydra directly. The Hydra didn't seem intimidated at all and lowered it's head to get them.

"Now!" screamed Star Twinkle in the last second before the heads could reach them.

After this signal, both of them ran in different directions. Twilight ran to the left and Star Twinkle to the right. Two of the heads who followed them then tried to get them at the same time but ended up tripping in confusion.

That gave them enough time to get across the hill. Or so they thought. The hydra launched one of her heads at the two ponies just when they were about to jump, destroying the tall rocks that served as a bridge to jump over to the other side.
Twilight and Star Twinkle now had no choice of getting over to the others.

“T-T-T-twilight, S-t-t-tar T-T-T-twinkle! You have to jump!” said Pinkie Pie, who was still shaking because of the doozy.

“We'll never make it!” Twilight exclaimed.

But it was either jumping or getting eaten by a hydra and Star Twinkle was way too frightened to make logical decisions at this point so he prepared to jump.

“Here goes nothing!” exclaimed Star Twinkle before he ran to the end of the cliff joined by Twilight, who decided to jump too.

The Hydra then attacked the two ponies but once again missed them, actually giving them both some momentum but that wasn't enough to reach one of the tall rocks and they both fell down into the swamp. But due to some incredible luck, a bubble appeared in the water just before they reached the ground bouncing them both backup, making them land on the other side of the cliff.

They both hit their heads after reaching the other side but except that, they were unharmed and safe now. Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy and Spike quickly rushed to their side and were relieved that they made it to safety. This experience gave Twilight some insight in terms of Pinkie Pie and her predictions.

“I don't know how it happened; coincidence, dumb luck, or what, but you said there'd be a doozy here at Froggy Bottom Bogg, and I'd say we just had ourselves one heck of a doozy. I mean that hydra—“ but she got interrupted by another heavy shaking, that looked similar to the ones before.

Pinkie Pie then explained that the hydra wasn't the doozy because then the shaking would have stopped. Twilight was slowly getting angry hearing that after all what they went through up to the point to growl angrily and at least Star Twinkle thought he was imagining that she was bursting into flames for a few seconds.

“I give up,” said Twilight in a frustration in her voice.

Star Twinkle was having some kind of Deja Vu. It was like seeing himself when he was accepting Pinkie Pies predictions for the first time. So he knew how Twilight was feeling right now.

“Give what up, Twi?” asked Spike confused.

“The fight. I can't fight it anymore. I don't understand how, why, or what, but Pinkie Sense somehow... makes sense. I don't see how it does, but it just does. Just because I don't understand doesn't mean it's not true,” Explained Twilight in defeat.

“Y-Y-Y-You m-m-mean you b-b-b-believe?“ asked Pinkie Pie who was still shaking.

“Eeyup, I guess I do,” replied Twilight.

After that, Pinkie Pie was shaking and moving even more out of control for a few seconds. But it soon stopped and the shaking was gone. It turns out Twilight believing Pinkie Pie was the actual doozy. After realizing that Pinkie Pie just joyfully left the group and left everypony in a confused state.

“Well, that was a thing,” said Applejack, pretty much summing up everyponies thoughts.

Twilight could only let out a sigh of frustration by Pinkies calm reaction but Star Twinkle was there to comfort her.
Either that or he wanted to brag, that he told her so. But since the day was already stressful enough, he was not even thinking about that and just left it at that.

“I just wanted to understand it,” said Twilight in defeat.

“I know,” replied Star Twinkle. “But sometimes it's better not to overthink everything,” he said while not believing in what he said since he is always overthinking everything.

“I guess that's what friends are all about,” said Twilight leaving Star Twinkle confused.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“What I mean is, that you just need to believe in your friends even if they don't always make sense to you all the time,” Twilight explained.

Believing in your friends without questioning them? Is that really a good thing? Maybe that was the case for Pinkie Pie but was that true for everypony?

Star Twinkle didn't reply to this and started to think about Twilight's words.

Believing in your friends?
Accepting your friends the way they are?
Yes, maybe that is actually true, thought Star Twinkle.
Are they thinking of me like that too?
Are they accepting me the way I am?

But Star Twinkles thoughts were interrupted by his friends who called out to him. He then followed them and they all went back to Ponyville together without thinking any further about Twilight's words.

17. The Sonic Rainboom

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Twilight was studying last week really hard. That is why she asked Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Star Twinkle to help her clean up her library. It didn't take too much time as Star Twinkle thought to clean up everything but it was way too boring for him and he was glad once the work was done.

“Last one,” said Twilight after putting the last book in one of her shelf's. “Thank you so much for helping me clean up all these books, guys. It was a crazy week of studying,” she said while rolling her eyes.

"Finally, now I can finally go home and relax," Star Twinkle thought. But just when he was about to announce his leave, he saw how Rainbow Dash came flying towards them trough the window.

“Look out!” He exclaimed but it was too late.

Rainbow Dash crashed into all of them, ruining the library in the process. Shortly after, Fluttershy landed in a window and cheered for Rainbow Dash or at least Star Twinkle thought that this was supposed to be cheering, since Fluttershy was not really convincing.

Rainbow Dash then apologized for the performance to which Fluttershy pointed out that it wasn't that bad. But little did she know that Rainbow Dash was talking about her and her cheering.

Of course, everypony was wondering what this was about and Rainbow Dash explained that she was training Fluttershy to cheer for her in the Best Young Flyer Competition. In this competition, all the greatest Pegasus show up to perform their best flying skills.

Since the competition is held in Cloudsdale, only Pegasus could watch, since every none Pegasus can't walk on the clouds and only having Fluttershy to cheer for you was probably not that encouraging.

Pinkie Pie, who was overly excited as always, wished that she could be there to watch Rainbow Dash perform a Sonic Rainboom. Twilight asked what this Sonic Rainboom was, taking out the words of Star Twinkles mouth, who also wondered what that was.

“The Sonic Rainboom is legendary! When a Pegasus like Rainbow Dash gets going sooo fast... Boom! A sonic boom and a rainbow can happen all at once!” explained Pinkie Pie

“And Rainbow Dash here's the only pony to ever pull it off!” Applejack proudly added.

Apparently, Rainbow Dash was only a filly when she first did that Sonic Rainboom, which was quite impressive. Performing one again should be a piece of cake by now, thought Star Twinkle.

When asked if Rainbow Dash could perform one again, she hesitated to answer at first but then she confidently assured that she could do Sonic Rainbooms in her sleep. And Rainbow Dash intended to win the competition since the grand price was a whole day with the Wonderbolts an expert flight acrobat group and Rainbow Dash's long life heroes.

She then decided to rest up for the competition and left the library. Shortly before Fluttershy left too, she explained that Rainbow Dash was trying to perform the Sonic Rainboom over a hundred times and that she was never even close.

After the two Ponies left, Twilight was asked by Rarity if she could find a way to get them all to Cloudsdale. Rarity figured that Rainbow Dash was a little nervous, which Star Twinkle could agree on. She didn't seem as confident like usual for him too.

Eventually, Twilight agreed to find something if there wasn't a huge mess in the library again. Pinkie Pie then gave her a book, which landed on her face after Rainbow Dash knocked her over. Twilight quickly found a spell which allowed Earth Ponies or Unicorns to fly for three days but was also difficult to pull off so she needed a test subject to volunteer.

Since that spell sounded like a personal nightmare for Star Twinkle, who was afraid of heights and flying, he was not even thinking about raising his hoof. But to his relief Rarity quickly volunteered, saying that she would do it for Rainbow Dash.

Twilight then used her new found spell on Rarity, engulfing her in a bright light. This worried Rarity at first but she pulled trough and stood still the whole time until the spell was complete. The result was quite surprising. Everypony let out a huge gasp as a reaction. Rarity had two colorful, butterfly-like wings on her back and Twilight deemed her spell a success.

Rarity was surprised but also happy from the result.

"Oh my, would you look at those beautiful wings!" Rarity said happily.

Star Twinkle was not sure if he wanted to look like this too. But as it turns out, Twilight was heavily exhausted from doing the spell. So Twilight looked for an easier one. After finding one, she then cast a spell on Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Star Twinkle and herself. Twilight also deemed this spell a success, even though they didn't look different at all.

"Now we're all set," said Twilight confidently.

"I don't really feel different," Star Twinkle pointed out.

Twilight then explained that she cast a spell that would allow them to walk on clouds so that they could also watch Rainbow Dash.

The next step was to get to Cloudsdale because Rarity was the only pony who could fly right now, they somehow needed to reach Cloudsdale first. So they used Pinkies hot air balloon to get there. Of course, Star Twinkle needed some "convincing" to get one hoof into this balloon because of his fear of height and flying. He spent most of the trip cowering in the corner, covering his eyes in fear.

"We are getting closer to Cloudsdale everypony," announced Twilight.

"Yeah...," Star Twinkle said in a scared tone in his voice while cowering on the ground of the balloon.

Rarity was already ahead of them to surprise Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy while the balloon landed on a free spot in Cloudsdale. Star Twinkle realized that they landed and opened his eyes again. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Rarity were already waiting nearby. Judging from the expression on Rainbow Dash's and Fluttershy's faces they seemed surprised to see their friends. They were both surprised to see their friends suddenly walking on the clouds, thanks to Twilight's spell.

"We all came to cheer you to victory!" said Applejack.

Rainbow Dash seemed relieved to hear that because she was even admitting that she got just a little bit nervous.

While everypony greeted Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, Star Twinkle stayed in the balloon, still cowering on the ground.
Twilight noticed and approached him, trying to calm him down.

"Common, Star Twinkle," Twilight said in a caring voice.

"Is it really safe to walk on this clouds?" Star Twinkle said while shivering a little.

But Twilight assured him that it was saved and Star Twinkle put one hoof after another outside. After staying on all of his four hoofs again, Star Twinkle was getting more and more confident and quickly overcome his fear for now. It also helped that he got distracted by the sight of Cloudsdale. It was his first time in Cloudsdale after all. The City was literally in the clouds. It was expected that everything looked with but Star Twinkle still had to get used to it. Thankfully, Rainbow Dash offered to show everypony around.

Rainbow Dash explained a lot of things about Cloudsdale. Like how it was the biggest city in the sky or that most famous Pegasi came from Cloudsdale. But those were things that Star Twinkle already knew.

Rainbow Dash decided to show them the Weather Factory first. Star Twinkle only heard about it before and was a little interested in the factory himself. As the name indicates, this factory manages the weather in Equestria and creates stuff like snowflakes, rainbows or clouds.

Through the whole tour, Rarity was paying little attention and was only focused on herself and her new wings, even though Twilight explained that her wings are very delicate and that she should be careful with them. Her wings were eventually drawing some attention to some construction workers of the weather factory. They seem to now Rainbow Dash since they were bullying her with some lame words but since Rainbow Dash was nervous enough as it is, she may take some of their insults serious.

Completely unaware of Rainbow Dash's frustration, Rarity showed off her wings to everypony who crossed her way.
One of them even suggested that Rarity should join the Best Young Flyer competition and much to Rainbow Dash's shock, Rarity agreed.

Now it was obvious to everypony that Rainbow Dash was really frightened about the competition but Rarity was too caught up in her wings and the attention that she received, so she didn't notice anything. It was kind of ironic that the pony who asked to support Rainbow Dash was now doing the complete opposite.

Eventually, time passed and the Young Flyer Competition started. It was held in the Cloudeseum. A very popular building in Cloudsdale. Star Twinkle didn't think that it would be such a big thing but the Wonderbolts and even Princess Celestia were in the audience, so it must be important, making it probably even harder for Rainbow Dash.

Everypony was excited to see the contestants but Star Twinkle had problems to focus and could just think about how high they were above the ground.

"We are really high up here," said Star Twinkle trying to not sound too scared.

"Well, duh. We are in the clouds after all," Pinkie Pie corrected.

That was not something that Star Twinkle wanted to hear right now. It only made him more nervous. But Pinkie Pie didn't seem to notice and continued.

"I mean if you look down closely, everypony looks like ants," she said carefree.

Almost like out of reflexes Star Twinkle looked down, making him feel really dizzy. He then fell unconscious in front of Pinkie Pie who was still oblivious to Star Twinkles fear.

"Oh look at that. He is so excited about the show that he fainted, hehe," she said while giggling.

Meanwhile, Twilight and Applejack, who watched the whole thing only shaking their heads.

Star Twinkle missed most of the contestants because he was unconscious most of the time. He was slowly waking up when the last one was about to start.

"Hey, Star Twinkle, wake up Rainbow Dash and Rarity are next," said Twilight , who woke up Star Twinkle.

While still being dizzy a little, he was hearing Twilight's words and got confused a little.

"Both of them?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I guess there was only enough time for one contestant, so they decided to let both of them go at once," explained Twilight.

"That still doesn't explain why none of them showed up till now," Applejack pointed out.

"Yes. I practiced to cheer for both of them really hard," Fluttershy said.

"Really? Let's hear it," said Pinkie Pie.

"Alright," Fluttershy said before taking a deep breath.

She then let out a really quite "yay" that everypony could barely hear. But Fluttershy grinned proudly as if she did completely fine.

Finally, after enough waiting, Rainbow Dash and Rarity came out to start their performance.

Rarity looked a little different than before. She was wearing a lot more make-up and some weird outfit that looked a little too silly for Star Twinkles taste. Star Twinkle was focused on Rainbow Dash and noticed that she looked a lot more nervous than before.

"You think she can pull off that Sonic Rainboom?" Star Twinkle questioned.

"I hope so. She may fail to do it after a hundred thousand times but I am sure that she can pull it off now," said Fluttershy full of confidence.

That's not really convincing, thought Star Twinkle, who then looked back at Rainbow Dash and Rarity.

Both of them were performing their own tricks separately from each other. Rarity was showing off some dance moves while Rainbow Dash started to perform her Sonic Rainboom.

“She is about to start phase one,” explained Fluttershy.

“Phase one?” Star Twinkle asked.

Rainbow Dash flew through several pillars in a slalom but slipped up on one of the last ones, which was probably not suppose to happen. She then crashed nearby the ponies who bullied her before. It was obvious that they were amused by Rainbow Dash's poor performance. But Rainbow Dash quickly got up again and continued. She was flying to some nearby clouds, circling around them in rapid speed and making them spin.

“Look! Phase two is working,“ said Fluttershy excited.

Star Twinkle was not sure if these maneuvers were essential to improving her speed or if they were just for show. Either way, Rainbow Dash seemed to have messed up again and one of the clouds was spinning towards Princess Celestia, who barely lowered her head and dodged it.

This will probably influence Rainbow Dash's score at the end, thought Star Twinkle. Rainbow Dash already nervous enough and all this mess ups will probably make it even worse.

While thinking of mess ups Star Twinkles eyes wandered to Rarity, who flew up higher and higher in the sky. Nopony was sure what she was trying to do up there and just watched in confusion. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash also flew up in the air but much faster and higher.

After Rarity reached a high enough point, she stopped and spread her wings letting the sun shine through them, covering the whole Cloudeseum in some beautiful colors.

"Look upon me Equestria. For....I...am...Rarity!" she shouted out while posing in the sky, proudly presentation her wings.

"What is she doing?" Star Twinkle wondered.

But after inspecting Rarity for a few more seconds, he realized how her wings crumbled away due being exposed to the sun too much and he was fearing the worst.

"Rarity watch out! Your wings!" Star Twinkle screamed much to the surprise of everypony.

"Yes! I know! My wings! Aren't they just..." but before she could finish, her wings completely evaporated and Rarity was falling down from Cloudsdale. The Wonderbolts quickly attempted to go and save her but Rarity somehow managed to knock them all out in panic and now they were also falling down.

Rainbow Dash quickly noticed their fall and attempted to save them too but it seemed like she wouldn't make it in time.

“Oh, I can't look!” said Fluttershy who covered her eyes.

But just when everypony feared the worst Rainbow Dash accelerated to an enormous speed, creating a Sonic Boom in rainbow colors. That must be the Sonic Rainboom, thought Star Twinkle. Rainbow Dash also left a trail in rainbow colors and caught everypony before they hit the ground.

It was a really fascinating sight for everypony, who were just gasping in surprise, except for Fluttershy who was now cheering on top of her lungs.

“A Sonic Rainboom! She did it! She did it! Wooo!” Fluttershy screamed in excitement while jumping up and down from her seat.

After Rainbow Dash brought back Rarity, the whole Cloudeseum was cheering for her, which was well-deserved since she saved the lives of four ponies. Of course, Rainbow Dash enjoyed the cheers and was in her usual spirit again.

The competition then came to an end and everypony gathered at the balloon, where Rarity apologized for her behavior and for joining the competition to put more pressure on Rainbow Dash. It was unclear who won the competition since it kinda stopped because of the recent events.

Because of that Rainbow Dash was still upset that she didn't win the first price so that she could meet the Wonderbolts.
Until one of them poked Rainbow Dash on the shoulder and thanked her for saving their lives and how impressed they were by Rainbow Dash, which made Rainbow Dash nervous again but this time in a rather good and understanding way.

Even Princess Celestia was impressed by Rainbow Dash's bravery and her Sonic Rainboom and decided to personally give Rainbow Dash the grand prize, making her freak out even more.

Now even the bullies from before apologized for their behavior and congratulated her for winning the competition and even asked her if they could hang out with her. But Rainbow Dash gratefully declined and she flew off with the Wonderbolts to spent the rest of the day with them. After all, that is what she wanted from the very beginning.

It was funny how everything turned kinda well. If the Sonic Rainbow didn't succeed then a lot of things would have gone bad. Just one action and everything changed for the better.

Star Twinkle didn't believe in destiny but the recent events got him thinking. It reminded him how he was helping to defeat Nightmare Moon. If he weren't there at this exact moment, what would have happened to Equestria?

He obviously put way too many thoughts into this like usual.

Now his thoughts were just focusing, to leave Cloudsdale and getting back on the safe ground of Equestria.

Meanwhile far away from Ponyville

The pony in the gray hood noticed on his way the Sonic Rainboom getting closer to him.

"A Sonic Rainboom?" He wondered.

He followed the Sonic Rainboom with his eyes and turned around as it flew past him, looking at it in a hypnotized way until it was out of reach.

“It's been a very long time now since I saw the last one,” he said to himself. "It looks just like the one back then. The one we saw together,” he said while turning around to the different direction again

“Right, Star Twinkle?" he said to himself before going on his way again.

18. Putting on a Show

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It was this time again where Star Twinkle was accompanying the Cutie Mark Crusaders to find his special talent.
As always he was sure that this wouldn't work but he still tried his best to fill his blank flank. After all, he was a Crusader too.

After doing some minor activities, the four of them ended up in the Golden Oak Library to get a librarian Cutie Mark.

"I think we should have asked Twilight first before we entered the library," said Star Twinkle to the Crusaders who were already picking out some books out of the shelves.

"Don't worry. The door was open and Twilight was not here so I am sure It will be okay," assured Apple Bloom.

"How does Twilight not being here, allow us to be here?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Well, If she is not here, then we can't bother her," Sweetie Belle explained.

"Yes. Always think ahead, junior Crusader," Scootaloo said in a teasing voice.

While Star Twinkle tried to figure out the logic of that, he was thrown out of his thoughts after hearing what name Scootaloo called him.

"Junior Crusader?" He asked confused.

"Yes. You are the newest member after all," Sweetie Belle explained.

Star Twinkle never really figured out if the three fillies were sometimes teasing him or if they were serious. Either way, he still needs to get used to them. They were not bad ponies at all. Except if they caused some mess ups for others after their usual failed attempts to get a Cutie Mark, which usually meant for Star Twinkle to do some explanation. He was expecting this to be no different if Twilight returns.

Before he realized, they already had almost every book scattered around in the library.

"What now?" Asked Star Twinkle while looking at a giant pillar of books.

"Now we're gonna put them inside of the shelf's again," Apple Bloom explained.

That seemed easy enough and also kinda pointless from Star Twinkle's view but he decided to do it before Twilight returned and saw what happened to her library.

"Okay. Where does this one go?" He asked while picking up a random book but instead of an answer, he only got silence and confused looks. He thought that they may not know where this one needs to go. "What about this one?" He asked while showing them another book. But again all he got was silence. He slowly realized what the problem was and asked just to make sure. "You don't remember where you got any book from, right?" He asked expecting them to answer with no.

"No," they all replied at the same time.

Spike, who just entered the library was not really happy to see in which state the library was.

"Sweet Celestia!" He shouted in shock. "Twilight is gonna..."

And speaking of her, Twilight entered the library accompanied by an Earth-Pony with a purple-reddish coat and a light pink mane. Her name was Cheerilee if Star Twinkle was not mistaken. She is a teacher in the local school. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were also talking about her a few times.

"I had nothing to do with this," Spike quickly said to save his skin.

Star Twinkle couldn't blame him. He would probably do the same thing in this situation.

Of course Twilight wanted to know what happened to her library but the Crusaders didn't even notice her and were too focused on their hopeless task.

"Well, we sure aren't getting our Cutie Marks for being librarians," said Apple Bloom frustrated.

Twilight then approached Star Twinkle. "Still on a hunt for a Cutie Mark?" asked Twilight amused.

She was surprisingly not angry about the whole mess and amusingly asked about the situation.

"Sorry for the mess," apologized Star Twinkle while smiling in embarrassment.

Twilight then suggested that the Crusaders should try some things that they already like instead of things with whom they are not familiar with. Cheerilee then showed them a flyer of a school talent show in Ponyville. Of course, the Crusaders were overly excited to participate as well and saw it as a chance to find their special talent. But Twilight then pointed out that it is not a chance to find some new talents but to improve what they already like to do. Star Twinkle was just happy that it was a school talent show and that means that he can't participate and get involved in something crazy.

There was only one day left to prepare for the Talent show, so there was little time to prepare.

On the day of the Talent Show

Star Twinkle couldn't help with most of the preparations since he was at work most of the time. There were only a few hours left until it started after Star Twinkle finished his work. He decided to check up on the Crusaders and how far they are with their performance. Applejack accompanied him to check up on the Crusaders too so they both walked to the Cutie Mark Crusaders Clubhouse.

"You think they are finished with their preparations?" Applejack asked.

"They should be. There are only a few hours left," Star Twinkle said while showing little interest.

"Do you mind telling me what exactly they are doing?" Applejack asked with curiosity. "Apple Bloom is making a big mystery out of it and I'm sure a fully fledged Cutie Mark Crusader knows more than I do," she added while putting on an amused smile.

But Star Twinkle didn't seem to be amused by those words and Applejack quickly realized how his face showed some annoyance.

"Sorry, didn't mean to tease you," she said with an honest smile on her face.

Star Twinkle accepted her apology and then answered her question.

"They are doing some dance performance along with some singing," he replied.

"Well, that sounds like a good idea," said Applejack with optimism.

"Yeaaah..." Star Twinkle said in worry.

"What's the matter?" Asked Applejack who got confused by Star Twinkles reaction.

"I think it may be better if you see yourself," he said while going up the clubhouse stairs.

They didn't enter the Clubhouse and watched from the outside through the window. As they watched through the window they saw how the three fillies were starting a practice.

After only a few seconds both ponies were stunned by their performance. Star Twinkle only saw their performance once before and thought that they improved since the last time. But only a little...Meanwhile, Applejack looked at Star Twinkle with an open mouth as if she wanted an explanation from him.

"Yep," Star Twinkle replied to Applejack's shocked reaction.

Meanwhile, Scootaloo noticed both of them and asked if the saw their practice.

But both of them replied really vague not trying to hurt their feelings. The Crusaders interpreted it as speechless.
Speechless was right, they both didn't know how to respond to what they just saw.

“See we're gonna leave them all speechless,” Scootaloo said in joy.

That's what Star Twinkle and Applejack feared too but they couldn't bring themselves to tell them.

“You know there is still time till the show starts, so you should practice some more,” suggested Applejack in hope that the Cutie Mark Crusaders would somehow get better till the show started.

Star Twinkle realized what Applejack was trying to say but what they needed now was not practice but a miracle.

“We will leave you alone now...you know...for practicing,” said Applejack putting on a fake smile.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders then waved them goodbye before starting another practice. Star Twinkle and Applejack walked down the Clubhouse stairs to discuss the situation.

"Well didn't expect that," said Applejack, who had mixed thoughts about what she just saw. "How did it come to all this?" She asked confused.

Star Twinkle then did his best to explain the situation to Applejack.

"Well, Sweetie Belle was too afraid to sing in front of a crowd so Scootaloo took her place. Sweetie Belle wanted to be like her sister and decided to do the designs of the performance. And since Apple Bloom couldn't dance to take care of the dancing part, she instead is doing some Kung Fu moves," Star Twinkle explained to Applejack.

After the explanation, Applejack let out a huge sigh. She probably half expected that something like that would happen.

"I really hope that they know what they are doing," said Applejack worried.

They then heard some noises from inside of the Clubhouse again. Their reaction was similar as before, they looked at each other with worried faces.

"I hope so too..." replied Star Twinkle also worried.

Later that day, at evening to be precise Star Twinkle arrived in front of the talent show. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were the last to perform in the show so Star Twinkle couldn't miss them yet. They must be backstage, he thought so he went to the other side of the stage. And indeed, they were there, waiting for their performance. They were all dressed in some kind of suits and their manes and makeup looked way too over the top. They were waiting impatiently while thinking that their performance will be the next big thing in Equestria.

"Break a leg!" Said Sweetie Belle to two fillies who walked past her.

"Sweetie Belle!" Applebloom exclaimed. "What a thing to say," she added.

Sweetie Belle was first confused but then explained to Applebloom.

"No, no, no. You see, in the theater, it's considered bad luck to say "good luck". Do you say break a leg instead," Sweetie Belle explained.

Luck is something they desperately needed right now, thought Star Twinkle. If their performance didn't change so far, then he would not be surprised if they actually break their legs.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders then noticed Star Twinkle and greeted him. They seemed excited to see him and couldn't wait to hear his opinion based on their last practice and now on their new designs.

"Are you here to wish us good luck?" Scootaloo asked.

"No, he is here because he wants us to break a leg," Apple Bloom corrected.

"Oh, right," said Scootaloo.

Sweetie Belle then showed off her suit, to which all three of them then struck some poses.

"What do you think of our new costumes?" Sweetie Belle asked awaiting Star Twinkles answer.

"Now how can you give an answer without hurting their feelings or robbing them of their motivation?" Thought Star Twinkle.

"They look...unique," he replied, trying to carefully choose his words.

"Awesome!" Scootaloo shouted with joy.

"If the costumes are already good, then just wait what everypony says after we perform," Apple Bloom said.

That's also what Star Twinkle was wondering or rather afraid of. He decided to go back in front of the stage and watch them from there. Applejack was waiting in the audience and Star Twinkle joined her while trying to not look too worried.

"How bad is it?" Applejack bluntly asked.

The lights went out before he could answer which most likely meant that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were next.

"We'll see," he replied while preparing for the worst.

As expected Scootaloos singing did not improve at all. The costumes were also not that good but Star Twinkle already know that. Rarity's fashion sense doesn't seem to run in the family, thought Star Twinkle. And Apple Blooms "dance moves" were also weird to look at.

The only thing that seemed okay was the text, which was about the Cutie Mark Crusaders and their hunt for their Cutie Mark. But it was hard to like the text if everything else was this bad.

They really tried their best to make the performance look good but not everything went well. Apple Bloom for example accidentally kicked into one of the stage background pictures, Sweetie Belle also lost control over some of the special effects and tried her best to save the show. One mess up followed the next leading to more and more chaos.

Star Twinkle and Applejack again looked at each other out of embarrassment for the three fillies. Star Twinkle decided to cover his eyes since he couldn't watch this catastrophe anymore.

Eventually, he heard a really loud noise as if something collapsed. He figured that the stage somehow got destroyed or something similar.

The crowd then began to laugh just as Star Twinkle expected but he couldn't bring himself to open his eyes.

“They are laughing. Does that mean it's over?” He asked Applejack who didn't reply and just looked at the stage with an open mouth.

Eventually, he opened his eyes and saw how the stage was destroyed and how the Cutie Mark Crusaders were leaving the stage in embarrassment. Of course, that was to be expected, thought Star Twinkle but he imagined it not to be this bad.
Applejack seemed to think the exact same thing, judging from her facial expression.

“You think they are all right?” Asked Applejack.

“They are probably a little down right now,” Star Twinkle replied bluntly.

Applejack responded with a worried face and asked if Star Twinkle could check on them behind the stage. But he didn't know what he should say to them or what else he could do. There was a whole crowd laughing about them so his opinion shouldn't weight anything at this moment. While trying to talk his way out of the situation every filly who participated in the show, returned to the stage and waited for their awards. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were also there but tried to stay in the background.

Cheerilee gave out different awards for different acts. When she announced the last award, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were surprised to hear their names. The got an award for the best comedy act and by the looks of it, they seemed happy about that.

“They look happy now,” said Star Twinkle.

“Looks like it,” replied Applejack. “Common let's congratulate them,” she added before they both left the crowd to go behind the stage.

Star Twinkle was relieved that he didn't have to cheer them up and just wanted to congratulate them but when he noticed that they looked sad again. They were happy just a minute ago, so why were they like this again? He wondered.

Before they walked up to them, Twilight greeted Star Twinkle and Applejack from behind. She was watching the show too and wanted to congratulate the Crusaders. They all three decided to congratulate them together but the Cutie Mark Crusaders only looked on the ground in disappointment.

“Hey, you don't look too excited,” pointed Twilight out.

“We worked really hard and won a prize, but we still don't have our cutie marks,” said Scootaloo in disappointment.

That's what it was all about, thought Star Twinkle. They should have realized that everything that they did on stage was definitely not what they were good at or destined to do.

But the Cutie Mark Crusaders seemed to quickly realize something.

“But we think we know why,” said Apple Bloom.

“Yes. We know why ” Sweetie Belle Added.

“Oh? Tell me, I'd love to make a special report to the Princess,” said Twilight, who couldn't wait for their realization.

“Well, maybe we were trying too hard,” said Sweetie Belle.

“And instead of forcing ourselves to do something that's not meant for us...” said Scootaloo.

“We each should be embracing our true talent!” Said Apple Bloom.

“And that is...?” asked Twilight curiously.

The three ponies then took a moment before they answered and said...

“Comedy!” all three of them shouted.

Twilight was certainly not expecting this answer and got confused just like Star Twinkle, who couldn't make out any sense of their behavior.

Applejack then took care of the fillies and left with them, leaving Star Twinkle and Twilight confused behind the stage.

“Well, at least they are happy...” said Star Twinkle, with a little annoyance in his voice.

“They will get it someday,” said Twilight proudly, while approaching Star Twinkle.

“Get what?” asked Star Twinkle.

This question threw Twilight off and confused her. She didn't think that what she said was in any way confusing.

“What I mean is, they will know what they are good at and then try to improve at that,” Twilight explained, which now left Star Twinkle confused, who raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“But what if they don't know, what they are good at?” Star Twinkle asked.

“They will eventually,” Twilight said with a confident smile.

“But what if they don't?” Said Star Twinkle, this time in a more serious tone in his voice.

Twilight got confused by Star Twinkles sudden reaction. She didn't know why Star Twinkle took this matter so seriously and got a little worried and didn't quite know how to respond to this.

“What are you so serious about now?” asked Twilight out of worry.

Star Twinkle took a moment to respond and then spoke out his feelings.

“You can't improve if you don't know what to improve at,” explained Star Twinkle, still with a serious face.

Twilight was slowly figuring out what this was all about and decided to bluntly ask Star Twinkle.

“Are you talking about them...or you?” Twilight asked now also with a serious face.

Those words caught Star Twinkle off guard, causing him to flinch in surprise. He didn't realize it but he thought that Twilight was right. After thinking about her words he took a quick look at his bare flank with a sad face. But he quickly turned his head back to Twilight and showed her his serious face again.

“Whatever. I'm going home,” said Star Twinkle before he left, leaving Twilight sad and disappointed.

She looked at him while he left and thought about his words, which made her sad.

“It seems that you also have some things to learn, Star Twinkle,” she said in a worried voice.

But Star Twinkle was long out of reach to hear her and continued to walk away.

Star Twinkle walked home while thinking about Twilight's and his own words. Looking down at the ground while he walked, he looked at his flank and sighed.

“Was I talking about me?” He asked himself. “They are still young. They figure out what they are good at. What their destiny is supposed to be,” he said to himself. “But still,” he mumbled. “I really hope that they don't end up like me,” he said while he walked through Ponyville which was covered by a beautiful night.

Everything went well for the Cutie Mark Crusaders and there was no reason to feel bad.

Which made him feel once again, out of place...

19. Save the Lady

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Star Twinkle would never say that his life was exciting, even if it came more lively recently but sometimes he wished that one day was a little more quite again. In the hope of that, he laid down on his bed starting to take a nap but was interrupted by a loud knocking on his door.

“Well, so much for my quiet day,“ Star Twinkle sarcastically said to himself before he went to the door.

He opened the door and found a very hysterical Spike, who was stuttering some stuff that Star Twinkle couldn't quite put together.

“Rarity... woods... jewel... dogs... hole... taken... Save her!” said Spike before fainting in front of Star Twinkle's door, leaving Star Twinkle in a really confused state.

“What?” Replied Star Twinkle confused, clearly not knowing what this was all about.

Spike was often overreacting but this time, it looked a little too serious so Star Twinkle played safe and took Spike on his back, before gathering his friends to find out what happened.

Star Twinkle was a little worried but also a little annoyed after analyzing the situation.

Rarity seemed to be in some kind of danger. At least that is what he could make out so far. Why didn't he go to Twilight or somepony else? It was obvious that Spike didn't ask anypony else before, so why did he have to ask Star Twinkle?
Does he expect that Star Twinkle knows what to do?

He felt that it was not right to think like that when somepony was in potential danger but it still annoyed him.

Star Twinkle took Spike to the Golden Oak Library. After all, Twilight maybe knew were Spike and Rarity were going before if Spike informed her. Coincidentally Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were there too and Star Twinkle took the opportunity to tell them all that Rarity might be in danger.

They all got worried for a moment before they decided to go and rescue her. As Star Twinkle expected Twilight knew where they were going and lead the way. Twilight lead them outside of Ponyville.

Meanwhile, Spike was awake again, he explained where they all needed to go, while heavily breathing in panic. He and Rarity were looking for some gems in the woods because she needed them for some dresses for somepony named Sapphire Shores. Rarity was then captured by some guys called “Diamond Dogs” and was dragged down in a hole in the ground.

“Well, this sounds mighty easy. Just take us to that hole and we'll save Rarity,” said Applejack fully confident.

But when they arrived at the place they noticed that there were not one but several holes in the ground, making it far more difficult to find Rarity.

“Holy moly, that's a lotta holeys,” exclaimed Pinkie Pie.

“I suppose you don't recognize the right one, Spike?” asked Star Twinkle while knowing the answer already by Spikes expression on his face.

So they had no choice but to check every single hole to find Rarity. But the Diamond Dogs seem to notice them and began to fill up the holes before they could look inside. Slowly every hole was filling up, making them impossible to go down anymore.

Everypony tried to go down a hole before it was closed but they were not fast enough. After a few failed attempts to go down, there were mud piles over every single hole. While nopony in the group had problems to dig through, Rarity, however, would not even touch mud, making them think how miserable her condition must be right now.

But after thinking about that, nopony decided to give up and tried to dig through the mud piles. But once again the Diamond Dogs noticed and prevented them from going down a single hole. Whenever somepony tried to dig, one of the dogs came out and either distracted or pulled them away from the holes.

That's the first time they even saw what they were dealing with. Obviously like the name was indicated, they were dogs, who wore spiked collars and jackets, filled with all kinds of gems.

“Is that them?” Star Twinkle asked.

“Yes! They are the one who captured Rarity!” Spike exclaimed

But as soon as Star Twinkle tried to approach one of them, they quickly dug underground again. They were way too fast for Star Twinkle and the others. The group got quickly exhausted by all this and took a moment to think about Rarity again.

“All those scary monsters popping up everywhere. Oh, poor Rarity must be terrified,” said Fluttershy in a worried tone in her voice.

Star Twinkle was also certain that Rarity must feel very bad, being imprisoned by those dogs but he started to wonder something.

“What do they even want from Rarity in the first place?” Star Twinkle asked out of confusion.

“They probably need her because of her gem finding magic,” Spike explained frustrated.

“What magic?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

But Twilight overheard their talk and explained it to Star Twinkle.

“It's a spell that lets you see gems in the ground, Rarity showed it to me a while back,” Twilight explained.

“So they are after gems,” Star Twinkle mumbled to himself.

Suddenly Spike was getting an idea to get to Rarity.

“I got it! I'll save you my sweet,” said Spike, before he took out a blue gem.

Nopony could make out what this was supposed to mean but Spike seemed confident enough so they watched him. He tied the gem to a fishing rod and sat nearby a hole that was not closed yet, trying to lure out the Diamond Dogs. This idea could actually work, thought Star Twinkle, while he and everypony else waited near him in case something would bite.

Apparently, Spike got this blue gem from Rarity after helping her finding some gems before. Twilight was proud of Spike to sacrifice one of his gems to save Rarity but Spike insisted her to be quite so that he could concentrate. As far as Star Twinkle knew dragons like to eat gems and Spike especially liked them but when it came to Rarity it was kinda obvious who Spike would choose.

Nothing happened for a few minuted yet Spike was eager to save Rarity but Star Twinkle noticed how he was lost in thoughts while waiting for something to bite. He didn't mind that until Spike's head turned to Star Twinkle with his eyes closed and his mouth formed like as if he wanted to kiss Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle was shocked and looked at him with wide-opened eyes, while slowly moving his head away from Spike. Spike eventually opened his eyes and realized that Star Twinkle was in front of him.

“What are you doing?” asked Star Twinkle, slightly annoyed by Spikes behavior.

Spike giggled and moved his head back in embarrassment. Star Twinkle was figuring that he was daydreaming or something because he thought, heard him mumbling Rarity's name.

Suddenly, the pole was moving on its own, meaning that something was biting it. Spike tried to pull, whatever it was out of the hole but it was too strong and dragged Spike down into the hole. Everypony rushed to him, hanging into him before he was dragged down.

They were all grabbing each other's tail before being dragged down in the hole themselves, sliding down in the underground tunnels system that the Diamond Dogs dug.

Star Twinkle was second to last and hung into Fluttershy's tail while Pinkie Pie was grabbing his little tail. But after being dragged into the tunnels Pinkie Pie decided to ride on Star Twinkles back while they were sliding down.

“Wheee!” screamed Pinkie Pie in excitement.

“Hey!” Star Twinkle exclaimed, being annoyed by how Pinkie Pie enjoyed her ride.

The sliding eventually stopped and they landed somewhere on the ground. But from there, things only got more complicated. The way was splitting into different paths now. Spike who was happy a moment ago for getting closer to save Rarity let out a scream out of frustration.

“All these tunnels... How are we ever gonna find Rarity?” Twilight asked in the group.

“Guess we're just gonna have to start going down them one by one,” Applejack suggested.

“That could take forever! There's gotta be a way to narrow it down,” said Rainbow Dash to which Star Twinkle could only agree too.

“I know!” Spike exclaimed.
“I bet they've taken Rarity down the tunnel with the most gems,” he said.

That made sense thought Star Twinkle. If Rarity had to use her gem finding spell, then they most likely ended up somewhere with a lot of gems.

"But Spike, Rarity is the only one who knows how to find gems,” Twilight pointed out.

"No, Twilight. You can! You can copy Rarity's gem-finding spell,” Spike said with a little frustration in his voice.

Twilight then remembered that Rarity showed her the spell before. She just needed to remember it right in order to pull it off.

There was no other option so Twilight tried it. Her horn then began to glow and released a bright light. It seemed to work, Twilight was leading the was so could probably see all kinds of colored gems in the ground and the walls. Just as expected there was a tunnel that had more gems than usual so they followed it, in hope that Rarity would be at the end of it.

"We're getting close. I can feel it,” said Twilight leading the way while everypony followed her.

Suddenly a distant crying could be heard in the direction where they were heading. It was undoubtedly Rarity so everypony made haste and ran to the direction of the scream.

"It's coming from down here. Come on!” Said Spike who was still eager to save Rarity.

Again the Diamond Dogs noticed the group and confronted them attempting to stop them. The Diamond Dogs jumped on the backs of everypony and tied their mouths with a rope.

Star Twinkle did not approve of that and wasted no time to shake of his rider with ease.

"Yeah, I think not," he said while easily shaking of the Diamond Dog on his back. "I don't like it when somepony is riding on my back," he stated.

"You didn't seem to mind when I was on your back," Pinkie Pie said, as always being oblivious to Star Twinkles words to which he did not reply.

Meanwhile, Applejack also to threw off her rider while trying to motivate the others to do the same.

"Hoh, doggies. If you can take this bull by the horns, you better be ready for a ride. Come on, ponies! Kick 'em up, kick 'em out. Buck 'em up, buck 'em," Applejack said in excitement, showing everypony how it's done.

The others then threw off the Diamond Dogs on their backs as well. The Diamond Dogs then escaped in fear.

"Yeehaw! Get along, little doggies!" Applejack joyfully exclaimed.

They then noticed some noises behind a steel door, which was also in the direction where Rarity's scream came from.

Star Twinkle remembered them why they were there in the first place and suggested that they should go through that door next.

"Let's not get too excited. We still have to find Rarity," said Star Twinkle putting the others back on the right track again.

"He's right!" Said Spike, before he climbed up on Star Twinkles back. "I'm coming for you, milady. Hi-ho Star! Away!" He said while sitting on Star Twinkles back in excitement.

Star Twinkle was about to throw off the little dragon but he decided to not get to rough and talked to him.

"Excuse me?" Said Star Twinkle almost as if he was asking him to get off of him.

"Please, Star Twinkle. Just give me this,” Spike begged.

Star Twinkle was not amused but he gave in and let Spike have his moment for now.

"Alright but that is the last time that somepony is riding me for today," he said before he ran through the steel door where the noises came from with Spike on his back.

"Lady Rarity, I'm here to save you!" Said Spike heroically after entering the room.

But then three dogs rushed to Star Twinkle and Spike, crawling on their knees and begging. They both got confused and listened to what they had to say.

"Save us!" Said one of them

"Please save us!" Said another one of them.

Star Twinkle and Spike were both surprised by this sight. The dogs did everything to stop them rescuing Rarity and now they want to be the ones to be saved.

"Um...we are not exactly here to save YOU guys," Said Star Twinkle who was unsure what exactly was happening right now.

"So picky,”

"And critical,"

"She won't stop talking,"

"And crying,"

Those were only some words that Star Twinkle could make out of this situation.

"We, uh, give her back. Yes," said one of them.

After that "rescue" Rarity showed up behind the dogs, much to the relief of everypony.

"Rarity! You're safe!" Said Spike in relief who rushed to her site hugging her.

She looked more than just safe. In fact, she looked relatively unharmed to Star Twinkle.

"Why, yes. Hello, girls. Star Twinkle. You arrived just in time to assist me," she said to whole group showing them some carts packed with gems.

"You're letting her leave with all these... jewels?" asked Spike while looking at the carts with mesmerized eyes.

The Diamond Dogs insisted or rather begged that they should take back Rarity. Meanwhile, Star Twinkle had no idea what was going on anymore and just dealt with it. They each grabbed one of the carts and got out of the tunnel again.

That sure was some waste of time, thought Star Twinkle, almost saying it out loud. It did surprise him though that Rarity could handle the situation all on her own, He was sure that she would at least have some trouble with the Diamond Dogs.

“I can't believe you got all these gems!” Pinkie Pie said excitedly.

“I can't believe you tricked all those dogs,” said Rainbow Dash surprised.

Star Twinkle couldn't believe that Rarity wasn't scared at all getting dirty but he didn't say it out loud.

“Just because I'm a lady doesn't mean that I can't handle myself in this sticky situations. I had them wrapped around my hoof the entire time,” explained Rarity.

“I can't wait to write to Princess Celestia to tell her what you taught me today,” said Twilight to Rarity.

“Me? What did I teach you?” asked Rarity confused turning her head to Twilight.

Twilight then stated what she would write in one of her reports, that she always writes to Princess Celestia.

“Just because somepony is ladylike doesn't make her weak. In fact, by using her wits, a seemingly defenseless pony can be the one who outsmarts and outshines them all,”

Everypony was listening to her report, even Star Twinkle was carefully listening and thinking about this words.

"Outshines" is right,” said Spike. “Now you have enough gems to cover Sapphire Shores' costumes,” he added while

“Not if you eat them all, Spike,” said Rarity jokingly, levitating the gem out of Spikes hands again.

Everypony was laughing at that, except Star Twinkle who thought about Twilight's words.

“A defenseless pony can outshine them all...” mumbled Star Twinkle to himself.

“What was that?” asked Rarity who overheard his words.

Star Twinkle didn't think that anypony would hear him and got startled in surprise. He looked away and pretended he didn't say anything. Rarity believed him and didn't mind him any longer, who then continued her talk with Twilight.

Still, the words that Twilight said were still in his head and bothered him on his way back to Ponyville with the others.

He was wondering if he could have manage the situation if he was captured by the Diamond Dogs. Could he have outsmarted them? Could he have outshined them? Thinking about all that, he realized that something was bothering him.

“Outshine them all,” mumbled Star Twinkle, this time making sure that nopony else heard it. “Why does that sound so familiar?” he wondered.

It was a relatively quiet trip back to Ponyville from his side but nopony seemed to wonder. Maybe they were already used to how Star Twinkle was the quiet type and didn't want to bother him. Either that or he was making the impression that he didn't want to talk to them, which was true to some degree.

After delivering the gems back to Rarity's Boutique, Star Twinkle went home. For him, the whole trip was some kind of a waste of time. If Rarity could handle herself, then there was no need for them to go and rescue her. But it already happened so there was no use thinking about that anymore.

He tried to think about what he could have done in her situation, which kept him busy until nighttime. But he decided to give up and slept without getting an answer.

“Outshining them all,” were the last words that he said at this day.

20. Green is my color but...

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Once again Star Twinkle was persuaded to help Rarity in her Boutique. This time, it was for somepony named Photo Finish.
She was some kind of fashion photographer. Star Twinkle didn't care who it was or what she was doing. He had nothing to do anyway but that doesn't necessarily meant that he was ready to help every time when he was free.

Hoity Toity...
Sapphire Shores...
Photo Finish...
He never expected to come in contact with all these popular ponies in some way and he certainly never wanted to.

Fluttershy had to do some modeling for Photo Finish in Rarity's Boutique and Star Twinkle, Twilight, Pinkie Pie and Spike had to help in every way possible to make sure that everything was perfect when Photo Finish arrived.

"We have to hurry! She can be here any minute! Everything must be perfect!" Rarity demanded stressfully.

Rarity met Photo Finish in private and asked Fluttershy to serve as a model. Of course, Fluttershy had to wear one of Rarity's dresses so that Rarity's Boutique could be promoted. It was obvious for Star Twinkle that Fluttershy didn't enjoy her part too much. She probably only did it because it was important for Rarity and because Fluttershy couldn't say no. Something that Star Twinkle was all too familiar with.

"Remember, she's going to want to see attitude and pizzazz," Rarity explained while circling around Fluttershy.

"Pizzas?" said Star Twinkle confused.

"Oh! I love pizzas! Especially with candies and marshmallows!" Pinkie Pie joyfully exclaimed.

"That didn't sound too tasty," thought Star Twinkle. Whatever it meant, Fluttershy repeated Rarity's words and believed in them.

Rarity was demanding all kinds of changes, whether it was the decoration or Fluttershy's dress and of course, everypony did as demand.

Spike was especially eager to help Rarity. He served as a pincushion for Rarity and didn't seem to mind that. Twilight was wondering if it didn't hurt Spike, to which he replied that it didn't since he has thick scales and couldn't feel a thing.

"And even if I could, there is no pain that could keep me from assisting the most beautiful creature in the world," Spike added clearly referring to Rarity to which he looked with mesmerized eyes.

"I'm gonna tell you three a secret. But you have to promise not to tell anyone," said Spike, while making sure that Rarity didn't hear him.

"I promise," said Twilight.

"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," said Pinkie Pie accompanied with some weird gestures.
It was probably Pinkie Pie's way to say that she promised too.

"Yes. What she said," said Star Twinkle while looking at Pinkie Pie confused.

Star Twinkle was not sure what promise, Spike was about to tell them but that didn't matter. He wasn't planning to tell anypony anyway. He never liked to tell anypony his thoughts or secrets so keeping promises from somepony else shouldn't be too hard.

Spike then asked them all to come closer to make sure that Rarity didn't hear them. He then spoke out the secret but Pinkie Pie seemed to be the only one who was surprised since it was rather obvious to Star Twinkle and Twilight.

"I have a crush on Rarity!" Spike whispered into their ears.

Pinkie Pie assured that she wouldn't tell anypony but Star Twinkle and Twilight found it rather silly and said that everypony already knew about that. Pinkie Pie, on the other hoof, took the promise very seriously and made sure that they both kept theirs.

"You promised Spike you wouldn't say anything. He trusts you. And losing a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend forever!" said Pinkie Pie in an almost threatening tone voice.

Twilight and Star Twinkle then assured Pinkie Pie that Spikes secret was safe with them but they also were sure that Rarity would figure it out on her own. After all, it was quite obvious that Spike had a crush on Rarity for everypony.

Eventually, Photo Finish finally showed up in a flashy entrance accompanied by two ponies who worked for her.

"I, Photo Finish...have arrived," she said probably fully aware of her reputation.

Rarity tried to greet her but Photo Finish ignored her and started to take pictures of Fluttershy.

"We begin...now!" She said while putting up her camera.

Rarity gave Fluttershy some last second advises before Photo Finish started the shooting. Fluttershy seemed uncomfortable but Rarity was striking some poses behind Photo Finish's back. Fluttershy mimicked every pose but Photo Finish didn't seem to like them, making Fluttershy sad and feel uncomfortable which Photo Finish seemed to like.

After a few seconds, Photo Finish stated that she was done, packed her camera away again and attempted to leave.

"She hardly took any pictures," said Twilight who seemed as confused as Star Twinkle.

Fluttershy and Rarity were sure that the photo shooting wasn't a success at all and got both upset.

At least until Photo Finish shared her opinion.

"It seems that I, Photo Finish, have found the next fashion star here in Ponyville.
And I, Photo Finish, am going to help her to shine all over Eqvestria," said Photo Finish, quickly changing the mood from Rarity from sad to overly excited.

Photo Finish then announced that she would hold a photo shooting in the park on the next day and left. The group was happy to hear that the shooting was a success but the one who was excited the most was, of course, Rarity.

"Did you hear that? I am going to "shine all over Equestria"," said Rarity who still couldn't believe the situation she was in right now.

"Oh, Rarity. I was so worried I'd ruined everything," said Fluttershy almost apologizing to Rarity.

But Rarity wasn't worried a bit and knew that Fluttershy would be perfect. She tried to be professional but she eventually couldn't hold back and giggled full of excitement. Star Twinkle was happy for Rarity but he also wanted to go home now since everything worked out fine.

"Well if I'm not needed anymore then..." he said while already walking in the direction of the exit.
But he was stopped by Rarity who asked him for one little demand.

On the next day...

Star Twinkle was asked to help in the photo shooting, once again helping Rarity with small stuff. It was still early in the morning and Star Twinkle was still half asleep. Star Twinkle blamed himself for being in this situation. Rarity didn't force him nor was she begging for his help. He simply said yes after she asked him. Maybe she thought he likes to help other ponies and that he would be happy to help her. But in reality, he was just annoyed and blamed himself for not being able to say no.

Meanwhile, Rarity dressed up Fluttershy in a blue dress. He didn't pay much attention to them and just waited for Photo Finish so that he can go home and take a nap. Eventually, Photo Finish arrived and wanted to start the photo shooting.
But she seemed displeased by something.

"Oh, nonononononono. The model should be in something more simple! Something inspired by...the nature! Something like," Photo Finish tried to find the right words and her eyes wandered to Star Twinkle who was yawning at the moment.
"Like him!" she said while pointing at Star Twinkle.

"Him?" Rarity exclaimed surprised.

"Me?" Star Twinkle also exclaimed.

Photo Finish then approached him out of curiosity.

"Tell me, Photo Finish, your name," she asked.

"Star Twinkle..." he replied uncomfortably.

To which Photo Finish seemed even more excited after hearing his name.

"That is just perfect! Becoming a star must be your destiny!" Photo Finish exclaimed.

After hearing destiny, Star Twinkle immediately thought about his bare flank and he knew that becoming a model is definitely something he didn't want to be. A model is always in the spotlight and Star Twinkle wanted to be far away from that.

Meanwhile, Rarity had to find a quick solution to get both Fluttershy and Star Twinkle dressed.

"Just give me a moment and I'll, uh, put a little something together," said Rarity trying not to look too stressed.

"Yes...that will not be necessary," said Photo Finish, confusing everypony.

"But...but...how are you going to help me and my designs to "shine across Equestria" if I don't design something new for these pictures," Rarity asked confused.

"I am not going to help YOU shine across Equestria. I am going to help them shine. They are my stars," said Photo Finish, pointing at Star Twinkle and Fluttershy before she asked Rarity to go.

Rarity, of course, was shocked to hear that. Meanwhile, Star Twinkle tried to defuse the situation until it was too late.

"Count me out," Star Twinkle quickly said, making sure that things don't get worse for him.

But Rarity quickly rushed to him and tried to convince him to change his mind.

"You can't just say no! This is a once in a lifetime chance!" Rarity exclaimed.

"But it was supposed to be your chance, not ours," said Fluttershy worried.

"But you must! Photo Finish wants to make you both a star!" Rarity exclaimed.

"I'm perfectly fine by just being a star as in Star Twinkle and not as in Star of Equestria," Star Twinkle said bothered.

"I know we were all hoping it was my lifetime, but nonetheless, you can't throw away this chance. You must do this for me. You must! You must! You must!," Rarity insisted.

Star Twinkle kinda knew what was going on right now. Rarity was forcing her dreams on them. That didn't change anything for Star Twinkle but it worked on Fluttershy, who was now also asking him to do it.

Of course being unable to say no when it really matters, Star Twinkle agreed too and they both left with Photo Finish, leaving Rarity who looked back at them with a sad expression on her face.

From that point on Photo Finish always circled around Star Twinkle and Fluttershy. Apparently, Star Twinkle was representing the simply ponies. He didn't know if that was supposed to be a compliment or if he should feel offended.
Either way, it was not the right life for him, that was for sure.

He had to walk on stage while being watched by several ponies from all over Equestria. Needless to say, he wasn't looking forward to this.

Fluttershy was with him before they walked on stage for the first time. Both of them were backstage preparing themselves for their first performance. Fluttershy was also nervous but she thought about Rarity and her dreams and didn't want to let her down.

“Why am I doing this?” he mumbled to himself.

“For Rarity,” Fluttershy replied quietly and unsure.

“Yeah, right...” he said annoyed. “Don't tell me that you are looking forward to this? ” he asked confused since he knew about Fluttershy at least that much.

“Well, I'll be honest but you have to promise me not to tell anypony, especially Rarity,” she replied almost as if she wanted to tell somepony.

“Yeah sure...um, Cross my eyes and hope to cry, stick a muffin in my eye,” he said while trying to do it like Pinkie Pie did before.

Fluttershy then came closer to him so that nopony would hear it and whispered it in his ear.

“I hate being a model,” she whispered in Star Twinkles ear.

Another promise that didn't surprise him. Of course, she doesn't like to be a model, she is way too shy and she also likes to be in the background, like Star Twinkle.

“Why don't you want to tell anypony? I'm sure Rarity will be okay if you tell her,” he said.

“No! I can't let Rarity down. She is would be really mad,” Fluttershy replied quietly.

It was all too complicated for Star Twinkle and he wanted to convince Fluttershy to somehow tell it to Rarity but the show was about to start and there was no more time for talking. They both were about to walk on stage, Fluttershy surprisingly went first and Star Twinkle followed not trying to look too bothered. But it seemed that the audience was not too upset about him which only meant that this nightmare won't stop for a while.

After doing some more work in the fashion business for Photo Finish, Star Twinkle was finally allowed to leave. He could not wait to go home and think about how to get out of all this. But first, he needed some sleep.

"Am I glad that this day is over..." he said while walking home ready to take a nap.

But then he suddenly heard multiple ponies screaming his name. Some of them were at the fashion show that he attended.
They ran towards Star Twinkle in excitement and he ran to get away from them.

“How do they know me? It was just a few hours ago!” he asked himself while running in the direction towards his house.

He safely reached his house and closed the door behind him but could still hear them screaming and knocking on the other side of the door. Star Twinkle decided to go upstairs so that he couldn't hear the noises anymore.

He laid down on his bed upstairs and closed his eyes, trying to get some sleep. There were still some noises from downstairs but they were quiet enough for him to sleep. But just when he was about to fall asleep some flashes outside of his window woke him up again.

There were Pegasi flying in front of his window taking pictures of him.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" He said frustrated while running downstairs.

He spent the rest of the day sleeping on the ground floor, in a corner where nopony couldn't see him from outside of the windows.

On the next day...

As expected his night was not very comfortable and he barely got any sleep.

He went on his way to work as usual but this time, it was a little noisier and stressful. Again multiple ponies followed him while screaming his name. He got closer to the Iron Hammer but unlike usual, he ran past it. Of course, Steel Hammer who was standing in front of the entrance noticed how Star Twinkle ran past him accompanied by a mob of ponies.

"Star Twinkle!" Shouted Steel Hammer, which caught Star Twinkles attention.

He looked back at Steel Hammer, making him notice something very important.

"Oh, Yeah! That's it!” said Star Twinkle to himself happily. “I already got a job!” he exclaimed.

With an idea in mind, he quickly went to Photo Finish in hope to end all this.

"What do you mean you can't work as a model?" asked Photo Finish confused.

"I'm a carpenter pony," Star Twinkle replied almost happily.

"I Photo Finish, give you the chance to shine all over Equestria and you want to be a carpenter?" She replied shocked.

"Well, Ponyville has many carpenters and with one gone, who knows what would happen here?" Star Twinkle explained.

He knew that this wasn't true but he had to make some excuse in order to get out of this mess.

"Don't worry about that," said a familiar voice.

It was Steel Hammer, who overheard the conversation.

"I won't stay in your way of becoming famous!" He said much to Star Twinkles demise.

"You can't be serious!" said Star Twinkle frustrated.

"I am," Steel Hammer happily replied, who probably misinterpreted Star Twinkles words.

That means that Star Twinkle was back at square one again. Who would have thought that Steel Hammer would agree with all this?

"Of course, I wouldn't mind if word gets around that Star Twinkle once worked at the Steel Hammer in Ponyville," hinted Steel Hammer to Photo Finish, clearly trying to get some profit out of all this.

Suddenly Star Twinkle was no more surprised and sighed in frustration.

"Wunderbar! Now that that is settled we can continue to make...the magic!" Photo Finish said before taking Star Twinkle with her, who let out a big sigh.

The days continued to be even more stressful. It was unbelievable how quick words got around that he became a famous model. In his frustration, Star Twinkle looked for help from Twilight. He explained to her that he is not interested in being a model and asked if she got an idea.

Of course Twilight said to him that, he should tell Rarity that he doesn't want to do that. After all, it was the best solution.
He was not sure why he didn't do that. He didn't want to be a model at all so why didn't he just say that to Rarity?
All he knew is that it got him confused.

"Also Fluttershy is..." but when he was about to tell Twilight about, how Fluttershy doesn't want to be a model either, Pinkie Pie suddenly popped up out of nowhere.

"Forever!" she said again in an almost threatening voice, reminding Star Twinkle of the consequences of breaking a promise.

“Wait, how did you know about my promise with Fluttershy,” he asked confused.

“Oh, I don't know what you promised but you made a Pinkie Promise and I'm always aware of those,” she said expecting everypony that this was completely normal before vanishing again.

Star Twinkle was confused but he had more important things in his mind right now.

“Doesn't Photo Finish see that modeling isn't your thing?” Twilight asked.

Somehow those words gave Star Twinkle an idea that could get him out of his mess.

“Modeling isn't my thing! That is it!” Star Twinkle exclaimed happily before leaving the Golden Oak Library.

When he was about to walk in the next fashion show, he intended to set his plan in motion. He planned to ruin his performance. If he does something that made him look unprofessional or unattractive then Photo Finish and everypony in the Fashion show would realize that he can't be a model anymore. That way he didn't have to tell Rarity that he didn't like it and avoid any complicated conversations.

As usual, Star Twinkle was waiting backstage together with Fluttershy but surprisingly, Fluttershy didn't seem nervous at all.
Maybe she got used to all this? Star Twinkle thought. Either way, he was waiting for his signal to go out.

When it was his turn to go out, the first thing he did was stumbling on purpose, leaving everypony in the room in shock.

“Yes it works!” he whispered to himself before realizing that most of them were looking at Fluttershy, who was behaving really strange.

She was making unusual sounds and movements that were not very like her. Naturally, her behavior drew all the attention to her.

“I don't know why she acts like that all of the sudden but if she continues, nopony will notice my horrible performance!” Star Twinkle said to himself before he attempted to act even stranger.

The whole show was a disaster with the two of them jumping around all over the stage acting like imitating animals accompanied by weird sounds. Some of the ponies even demanded that this show should be stopped. Everything was going as planned.

Until somepony was clapping her hoofs in the audience. It was no other than Rarity, who probably tried to save them both.

“Bravo! I say bravo!” She screamed happily.

She was clearly lying. There was no way that she would have liked this performance. Star Twinkle was sure that her actions were effortless.

“Now that is a pony who clearly knows a thing or two about fashion,” said one of the ponies in the audience, clearly referring to Rarity's dress. “Well, if that fabulous pony likes it, then I do too! Bravo!” She said while clapping and cheering for Star Twinkle and Fluttershy, followed by everypony else in the audience.

Star Twinkle couldn't believe that after all this, everything turned out like this. He became more and more frustrated until he couldn't take it anymore.

"That's it!" Star Twinkle shouted, causing to fill the room with a lot of gasps.

He then took off his suit, threw it on the ground and attempted to leave. Rarity, who was watching it all was shocked and tried to stop him.

"Star Twinkle, what are you doing? You are throwing away your popularity!” She said.

“I know,” he bluntly replied.

Photo Finish also tried to stop Star Twinkle from leaving.

"But what about your career? Don't you want to be known as a star in Equestria?" Photo Finish asked.

But Star Twinkles mind was set and he knew exactly what he wanted.

"The only star I need to be is Star Twinkle," he said determent before leaving.

Rarity still followed Star Twinkle in hope to convince him to change his mind.

“But don't you want to be in the spotlight? Don't you want to be somepony who is known by everypony in Equestria?” she desperately asked.

"No I don't!" he desperately replied. "I don't want to be in the spotlight. In fact, I hate being a model," he explained.

Rarity was shocked to hear that since she thought that Star Twinkle would like his new career.

"But why didn't you tell me right away?" Rarity asked.

Star Twinkle didn't reply but he looked at Fluttershy, who then looked at the ground ashamed. He also didn't say anything to Fluttershy but his face was pretty much saying, that Fluttershy should tell Rarity the truth.

“I don't know. I wanted to but something kept me from it. I don't know what,” he replied confused.

“You didn't want to let Rarity down,” said Fluttershy who approached both of them.

Was it that? Star Twinkle thought. He was not sure. That would explain why he didn't say anything to Rarity.
But still, he was unsure if that was the reason.

“To be honest, I was kinda glad that you both had this silly performance,” Rarity admitted.

“You did?” Star Twinkle and Fluttershy replied confused.

“Yes, I was so jealous of you two because you got all this attention so after seeing you mess up like that made me happy.
But after seeing how everypony was reacting to your performance I just couldn't let you fail at something that you love so much. Well, at least what one of you two loves,” she explained, referring to Fluttershy.

“Love? Oh, Rarity. I hate being a model too,” Fluttershy shyly admitted.

Of Course, Rarity was confused to hear that. Everything was just a huge misunderstanding between the three of them.
Star Twinkle didn't want to let Rarity down. Fluttershy was afraid that Rarity would get mad if she quit. And Rarity thought they would think of her as a terrible friend if she wouldn't support them.

After everything went to normal again the three of them promised to not keep their feelings a secret again.
But Star Twinkle was not sure if he could keep this promise that easily.

Surprisingly Photo Finish was convinced pretty easily that Star Twinkle and Fluttershy were giving up their modeling career.

Star Twinkle was just happy that it was all over and laid in his bed, trying to relax. Nopony was bothering him anymore just like the way he wanted it too.

“Am I glad that this is over. No more modeling. No more Spotlight and no more secrets that I have to keep. The only secret I have to keep now is Spike's. But I mean really everypony already knows that he...”

Suddenly Pinkie Pie jumped out from under Star Twinkles bed screaming “FOREVER” in a threatening voice.
Startled by her sudden appearance Star Twinkle threw her out of his house annoyed.

“Get out of my house!” Star Twinkle exclaimed after throwing her out of his house.

“Okay dokey, see you next time,” she happily said while bouncing away from Star Twinkles house.

Meanwhile far away from Ponyville in an unknown town...

The pony in the gray hood walked past a poster where Star Twinkle was on.
He silently looked at it confused, not believing what he was seeing.
There was only one thing that he was thinking right now.

“...What?” he said confused to himself before going on his way again.

21. You gotta share...

View Online

In the south of Equestria, a town named Appleloosa was built recently and Star Twinkle along with his friends was given the task to provide one of Sweet Apple Acres apple trees to their local orchard.

Since nopony of them except Applejack were in Appleloosa before, they agreed to come along. They had to travel by train since it was quite a distance to Appleloosa. It was getting dark already outside while they were only half there.

Star Twinkle wanted to get some sleep till they arrived but Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were still up talking, bothering Star Twinkle, Rarity, and Spike, who tried to get some sleep.

“Would you mind? I'm trying to sleep here!” Star Twinkle exclaimed before turning around in his bed.

“Yeah, I was up early fire-roasting those snacks you're all eating, and I'm pooped!” Said Spike, who was referring at the popcorn that some of them were eating now.

“Uh, speaking of, some of these popcorn kernels didn't get popped,” said Rainbow Dash teasingly.

To which Spike replied with a fire breath aimed at Rainbow Dash's popcorn, burning it to crisps.

Spike seemed grumpy too when not getting enough sleep. Star Twinkle was looking back at his days where he was mostly sleeping through the day because he didn't know what else to do. But now, with his new friends, almost every day keeps him busy and sometimes his sleep has to suffer from that. This exact moment just reminded him.

Eventually, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy decided to dim the lights and went to sleep as well much too Star Twinkle's approval.

But the four ponies were still talking in the dark, sadly it was loud enough so that Star Twinkle could hear them.

"Psst! Pinkie Pie, you asleep yet?" Rainbow Dash whispered.

"No, are you asleep yet?" Pinkie Pie whispered back.

"If I was sleeping, how could I have asked you if you if you were asleep?" Rainbow Dash replied.

"Oh yeah!" Pinkie Pie replied, giggling in response.

Star Twinkle, of course, heard everything and tried to ignore it and tried to fall asleep with little success.

"When we get to Appleloosa, you think we'll have to carry that heavy tree all the way from the train to the orchard?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"What tree? You mean Bloomberg?"

“No, Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash sarcastically replied

“Fluttershy's not a tree, silly!” Pinkie Pie replied, not picking up on Rainbow Dash's sarcasm.

"Can't they discuss, whatever they are talking about on the next day?" Thought Star Twinkle.
Even Twilight seemed to join, Pinkie Pie's and Rainbow Dash's conversation, much to Star Twinkles dislike.

“What's going on?” asked Twilight.

“Rainbow Dash thinks Fluttershy's a tree!” Pinkie Pie explained.

“I do not think she's a tree! I was just–“ Rainbow Dash replied frustrated.

“Did you say she was a tree?” asked Twilight confused.

“No. Well... Yes. But not exactly–“ Rainbow Dash tried to explain.

“Ya know she's not a tree, right?” asked Twilight in all seriousness.

“She's not a tree, Dashie!” Pinkie Pie added.

“I'd like to be a tree...” Fluttershy said, who also overheard the conversation.

But they were interrupted by Spike who got up and left the cart in a grumpy mood. He went to the next cart away from all the talking in the middle of the night. Star Twinkle thought it was a good idea to follow him since Spike was most likely to be quiet. It was the cart where the tree, that they had to deliver to Appleloosa was stored in. Apparently, the trees name was Bloomberg, even though he looked like any other tree for Star Twinkle. Spike was surprised to see Star Twinkle behind him but he also had a guess why Star Twinkle followed him.

“Deciding to escape from the girls chattering?” Spike asked.

“Pretty much...” Star Twinkle boldly replied.

There was only one bed in the whole cart and that one was occupied by a tree. It was a little confusing for Star Twinkle to see a tree in the bed but Applejack demanded that “Bloomberg” needed some special care for the trip. Spike managed to climb into the bed but Star Twinkle would not fit into it so he decided to sleep on the ground with a pillow under his head that he bought from his bed.

“I should warn you. I tend to snore a bit,” Spike informed Star Twinkle.

“Don't worry. I'm sure it's not that bad,” Star Twinkle replied, clearly too exhausted to be bothered by something like that.

After saying their good nights they then both went to sleep. Although Spikes snoring made it hard for Star Twinkle to fall asleep at first. It was a little noisy through the night but Star Twinkle managed to sleep peacefully without any interruptions despite sleeping on the ground while being on a moving train.

On the next morning, Star Twinkle was abruptly awakened by some noises that came from outside. He got up and wondered what caused it, trying to take a look outside.

He looked out the window and noticed a buffalo stampede running right next to the train. The Buffaloes were ramming the train several times, causing Star Twinkle to bounce all over the cart. It eventually got a little quieter so Star Twinkle got back up on his hoofs and tried to wake Spike who was still asleep.

“Hey wake up! Something is happening!” Star Twinkle said in a panic trying to wake up Spike.

Spike, who was still half asleep was slowly getting out of the bed, wondering why Star Twinkle was in such a panic.

“What's wrong, are we already in Appleloosa?” Spike asked, still half asleep.

Star Twinkle tried to respond but he quickly noticed something about the cart.

“Wait, are we getting slower?” He wondered.

He then looked out of the window again and noticed how their cart was separated from the other one, where Twilight and the others were in. The others were looking at him in shock from the other cart, realizing that he and Spike got separated from them. Spike who also realized the situation he was in, looked out of the train and screamed for help.

“Heeeelp! Spike shouted.

“We're being trainnapped!” Star Twinkle added.

But there was nothing anypony could do at the moment, the train was already out of sight. The only thing they both could do right now was waiting till the train stopped.

“What are we gonna do? What if they'll eat us?” Spike asked out of panic.

“I'm pretty sure buffaloes don't eat ponies,” Star Twinkle boldly replied.

“And what about dragons?” Spike asked.

“Don't know about that...” Star Twinkle replied almost amusingly.

Eventually, the cart stopped and Spike wanted Star Twinkle to peek outside. But after setting a few hoofs outside, Star Twinkle was surrounded by a group of buffaloes that stared at him in a threatening way.

"A pony?" One of them asked.

"Where did he come from?" Another one said.

"Little Strongheart, look if there are any more of this Appleloosa ponies inside," said one Buffalo to a younger female one, who did as she was told.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle was carefully observed by the Buffaloes. He was too nervous to even move a muscle in fear what they could do to him. Little Strongheart then came out of the cart with wide opened eyes.

"You won't believe what is inside!" She said in excitement.

The Buffaloes turned to her in surprise and noticed Spike, who was hiding behind Little Strongheart.

"Hello...um...big...friendly buffaloes," said Spike in fear while hiding behind Little Strongheart.

"A dragon?" Almost every one of the buffaloes said at the same time surprised.

The Buffaloes seemed pretty excited to see Spike. They apologized right away to him, for capturing him along with the tree.
Spikes fear vanished in an instant after realizing how he is treated. Star Twinkle, on the other hand, was still looked at with judging eyes.

"What should we do with the pony?" One of the buffaloes asked.

But Star Twinkle knew from the treatment he received so far that they didn't want him around. Luckily Spike saved him by saying that Star Twinkle was with him, making him less suspicious for the Buffaloes.

"Let's have a feast in honor of our special guest," said one Buffalo happily before turning to Star Twinkle. "Are you from that Appleloosa place?" The Buffalo asked Star Twinkle in a menacing tone in his voice.

"No. I'm from Ponyville..." Star Twinkle carefully replied to which the facial expression from the Buffalo suddenly changed from threatening to friendly.

"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?" The Buffalo replied friendly. "Then let's have a feast for our two special guests!" The buffalo said happily.

Star Twinkle and Spike were then taken to the camp of the buffaloes. There were multiple tents, where they probably lived in or at least slept for the night.

Spike was getting everything he wanted, while Star Twinkle was watched by most of the Buffaloes. So the best thing he could do is to stay by Spikes side most of the time.

Eventually, the Buffaloes seemed to get a liking to Star Twinkle because he wasn't doing anything suspicious. Some of the Buffaloes wanted to go outside of the camp for a while, to get some food, water, and other things for the night. Spike accompanied them but Star Twinkle was staying and thought about when or how he will be reunited with the others.

Little Strongheart, who probably was not accustomed by ponies since she sat away from him was with him a few feet, avoiding eye contact as much as possible.

"Can I ask you something?" Star Twinkle asked. To which Little Strongheart looked at him surprised.

"Yes?" She asked.

"Why did you kidnapped the train?" He asked boldly.

Little Strongheart probably didn't expect this question and hesitated for a moment before answering.

"We only wanted the tree. So that the ponies of Appleloosa can't plant any more trees in their orchard," Little Strongheart explained.

"And what's the problem with that?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"It's a problem because we can no longer hold our traditional stampedes because of all the trees they planted," said Little Strongheart.

"Can't you just walk around the orchard?" Star Twinkle asked.

That seemed to anger Little Strongheart a little, causing her to get closer to Star Twinkle.

"No, we can't! As I said It's tradition!" Little Strongheart exclaimed.

From what Star Twinkle gathered after talking a while with Little Strongheart, the land belonged to the Buffaloes for a long time now but the ponies of Appleloosa planted the trees without asking the Buffaloes for permission. He didn't know what to think of that since he didn't know the story of the Appleloosans and he also didn't care. Trying to get involved in all this could only lead to even more trouble.

A little time later, Spike returned, accompanied by Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. They seemed relieved to see Star Twinkle save and sound. Star Twinkle and Spike explained the situation to them but Rainbow Dash seemed a little mad about something.

Little Strongheart returned with a bowl of gems in her mouth, which was probably food for Spike. Spike then introduced her to Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, the later becoming really mad after seeing Little Strongheart.

After seeing her, Rainbow Dash didn't even bother to look at Little Strongheart, who tried to apologize several times.

"What's wrong with Rainbow Dash?" Asked Star Twinkle Pinkie Pie.

"It looks like Rainbow Dash doesn't quite approve of her circus act skills," Pinkie Pie replied.

As usual Star Twinkle couldn't make out anything that Pinkie Pie was saying and gave up asking.

Rainbow Dash even attempted to leave the camp until Little Strongheart repeated what she told Star Twinkle. She suggested that everypony should listen to what Chief Thunderhooves had to say.

They gathered around a campfire in the middle of the camp, where Chief Thunderhooves explained everything in great detail. He pretty much explained the same thing, Little Strongheart said before. Only much slower.

"The ponies refused to move their trees, so we are stuck here, and it's not fair!" Little Strongheart said frustrated.

Eventually, Rainbow Dash was convinced to help the Buffaloes with their problem and try to talk with the citizens of Appleloosa on the next day. Star Twinkle felt this was a lost cause but they eventually had to go to Appleloosa so he didn't say anything for now.

They decided to stay at the camp for the night so that they could head to Appleloosa the next morning. The plan was to talk with the Appleloosans about the buffaloes and the stampede and figure out a peaceful solution. Everypony except Star Twinkle was eager to talk with the ponies from Appleloosa. He didn't feel like getting involved in the problems of other ponies was a good idea.

Star Twinkle, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Little Strongheart then met up with Twilight, Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy and another stallion that Star Twinkle didn't recognize. He had a yellow coat and an orange mane with yellow stripes and a red apple as a Cutie Mark. He was also wearing a vest and a hat similar to Applejack's. Star Twinkle quickly figured that it must be Braeburn, Applejack's cousin from Appleloosa.

They were surprised to see their friends back so early since they only just left to look for Star Twinkle and the others.

Of course, Star Twinkles group didn't waste any time to speak with Braeburn about the Buffalo matter.

“We brought our new pal Little Strongheart here to explain to the Appleloosans why they should move the apple trees off Buffalo land,” Rainbow Dash explained to the group.

Braeburn seemed interested in this information but was interrupted by Applejack.

“That's weird. 'Cause my cousin Braeburn here wants to explain to the Buffalo why they should let the apple trees stay,” Applejack said, clearly not speaking for Braeburn

Little Strongheart seemed very tolerant about that matter but she was also interrupted, this time from Rainbow Dash.

“The land is theirs! You planted the trees not knowing that. Honest mistake. Now, you just gotta move 'em, that's all,” Rainbow Dash said continuing to support the Buffaloes.

“They busted their rumps here! An' now they're supposed ta bust their rumps again, just 'cause some Buffalo won't stampede someplace else?” Applejack's replied

“Plant the trees somewhere else!” Rainbow Dash demanded.

“Where?! It's the only flatland around these parts!” Applejack replied.

“The Buffalo had it first!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“The settler ponies need it to live!” Applejack exclaimed.

It more and more looked like a personal argument between Rainbow Dash and Applejack. Braeburn and Little Strongheart couldn't even say something since these two stubborn ponies were so caught up in their argument.

This was exactly how Star Twinkle imagined the situation but he thought it would be between the buffaloes and the Appleloosans. After some more arguing, Pinkie had an idea how to get the two factions together. She wasn't explaining the details but everypony and Buffalo got invited to Appleloosa. They had to come in front of a stage where Pinkie Pie was preparing something.

Star Twinkle looked around and wondered if it was a good idea to put those two factions so close to each other.

"The sheriff of Appleloosa and Chief Thunderhooves are standing right next to each other..." Star Twinkle pointed out.

"Yes. Things could go wrong really fast," Twilight added.

Finally, the curtain on the stage opened and Pinkie Pie revealed herself under a giant white shell. She wore a weird black dress and to no surprise, was performing a song.

The reaction to the song or the message at least, which was about sharing and getting along, was not well received by most of the audience. Star Twinkle figured that a song wouldn't just fix the problem and the others seemed to agree on that judging from their reaction.

Yet the two leaders surprised everypony with their response.

"It appears that Sheriff Silverstar and I have come...an agreement," Chief Thunderhooves said.

"We have," Sheriff Silverstar added.

Everypony was relieved that Pinkie Pie's song actually worked.

At least until they continued...

"That was the worst performance we've ever seen," Chief Thunderhooves baldly said.

"Abso-tively!" Sheriff Silverstar added.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the Buffaloes threatened to start their stampede at noon. If the orchard was still there by then, the Buffaloes will run over it along with the whole town.

Now the worst case scenario that Star Twinkle imagined happened. It would have come down to this eventually but now he felt kind of responsible for all this.

The whole town was preparing them for the buffalo stampede. Improving their defenses and getting some apples ready to defend themselves. Star Twinkle and the others tried to convince the Appleloosans to stop this fighting but they wouldn't even listen to them. Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash also tried to talk with the Buffaloes but it had no success too.

Time was running short and both factions were ready to attack after the town's clock tower was at twelve o'clock.

“So are we just waiting here till one of the factions wins?” Asked Star Twinkle.

“You heard them right? They didn't want to listen to us at all,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“But there has to be something that we can do!” Fluttershy said concerned.

Meanwhile, the Buffaloes were waiting on top of a hill until it was twelve o'clock, ready to start anytime now. Everypony was waiting until somepony made a move. There were still some minutes left and Star Twinkle felt like doing something.

“... I think I'm getting a crazy idea again...” said Star Twinkle bothered, before running to the Buffaloes.

“What is he doing?” Asked Rarity confused.

“I don't know but, he better be careful,” Twilight said worriedly.

Star Twinkle walked up the hill and jumped in front of Chief Thunderhooves, blocking his way.

“What are you doing here? We're about to start the stampede!” Little Strongheart said.

"Out of the way!" Chief Thunderhooves exclaimed loudly.

Star Twinkle got startled by the loud voice of the chief but he tried to hide it as much as possible. Why do I have to be heroic at times like this? He asked himself. But since he was already there, he might as well shared his thoughts about all this.

"No! This is insane!" Star Twinkle exclaimed. "Listen! I don't know much about your traditions and I think it's unfair too that they planted the orchard without your permission. But destroying the town will only cause more trouble. So please reconsider your next actions," Star Twinkle said in a serious voice.

Chief Thunderhooves was listening to Star Twinkles words but was most likely not accepting him judging from his face.
But he could tell from Star Twinkle's facial expression that he was serious.

"He is right Chief!" Said Little Strongheart, trying to support Star Twinkle.

Chief Thunderhooves looked at the two and began to think about their words.

Then the bell from the clock tower of Appleloosa was heard. Everypony knew that this was the signal for the Buffaloes to begin their stampede. Star Twinkles became more nervous after hearing the bell but still didn't moved.

Thankfully Chief Thunderhooves wasn't making a move. He just let out a sigh. Star Twinkle and Little Strongheart knew what that meant and also both let out a sigh. That was close, thought Star Twinkle relieved.

But just after everything seemed okay again, Pinkie Pie's voice could be heard. She was singing the song from before.

The second when Star Twinkle heard that song, he became nervous again. Chief Thunderhooves anger was rising again and Star Twinkle knew what would happen next.

"Pinkie Pie!" Star Twinkle shouted angrily before he was run over by several buffaloes. Thankfully he got away with only some bruises and stood up again.

"I really hope she was run over by them too," Star Twinkle mumbled to himself angrily.

The Buffaloes were all running towards Appleloosa where they were bombarded by pies that the Appleloosans threw at them.

Star Twinkle only saw flying pies and raging buffaloes in the town and was hiding himself to not get caught up into all this.
He didn't know where his friends were and giving the situation he is in right now, he didn't seem to care much.

But he found the sheriff who was throwing some pies as well. Chief Thunderhooves noticed the sheriff and angrily charged at him. It looked like Sheriff Silverstar was out of pies and accepted his defeat letting Chief Thunderhooves continue his charge.

Feeling like he should do something Star Twinkle looked around to find something to help. Star Twinkle saw a pie right in front of him and picked it up. After taking good aim, he threw it in direction of Chief Thunderhooves. The pie was hitting him right in the face causing him to fall to the ground, missing the sheriff.

Because of that, the fighting was stopped. The Buffaloes cried for their leader and the ponies were sad that it had to come to this.

"I had to do it..." Star Twinkle said in regret.

"Yes we know..." said Fluttershy trying to comfort him.

The pie on Chief Thunderhooves head was dripping down on his face. But one little piece landed in his mouth and woke him up again.

“Hey, I've got a much better idea!” Said Chief Thunderhooves after getting a taste of that pie on his head.

The two factions actually came to an agreement.
The Buffaloes allowed the orchid to stay as long as the towns ponies share some of their apple pies in exchange.
Of course, the sheriff agreed to avoid any more fighting and both factions were happy in the end.

Applejack could plant her tree Bloomberg in the orchard and Little Strongheart was waving the group goodbye while leaving with the rest of the Buffaloes.

The Ponyville group decided to leave Appleloosa again and entered the train after saying their goodbyes, ready to return to Ponyville.

"It's really fascinating!" Twilight said.

"What?" Asked Star Twinkle.

"Oh I'm just thinking about what I could write in the next letter for the princess," Twilight explained. "Something like:
Friendship can be strong enough to even turn your enemies to friends as long as you're ready to understand and compromise," Twilight added.

"You know that they could have prevented all this if they just talked to each other before, right? Preventing them to be enemies in the first place" Star Twinkle said, doubting Twilight's words.

Twilight was not sure how to respond to those direct words but she still believed in her own words.

"I'll doubt that friendship is that powerful," Star Twinkle mumbled to himself, which was not heard by anypony.

"By the way!" Rarity said from the other side of the cart. "That was really brave of you back there, standing your ground in front of all the buffaloes," Rarity complimented.

"Yeah. It also looked like they were about to stop if somepony wouldn't have interrupted you," said Applejack hinting at Pinkie Pie, who only grinned in embarrassment as a response.

All friendship seems to do is making you do crazy stuff in the end. That's at least what Star Twinkle thought. But he was getting used to that lately. As long as everything is working out in the end, it's probably okay.

Either way, there is no way for him to change that anymore.
Since this is his new life now.

Right?

22. Surprise Party

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Star Twinkle was just getting home and prepared himself for a quiet evening but after entering the door and closing it behind him, somepony knocked on it. He was wondering who it was since he didn't saw anypony on his way back.

When he opened it, Pinkie Pie greeted him with a song accompanied by her pet alligator Gummy.
Pinkie Pie seemed a little exhausted and Star Twinkle could barely figure out the words she was singing because she was breathing too heavily, causing her eventually to collapse to the ground from exhaustion.

A letter, that she was holding a moment ago fell down on the ground and Star Twinkle figured what this was all about.

"I guess this is an invitation for a party?" He asked while already knowing the answer.

Pinkie Pie didn't answer and just smiled in embarrassment at him in response.

"Alright I'll come," he replied.

He felt like refusing her invitation in her current state would make her only sad so he just accepted it.

She shouted out a little yay, which could barely be heard because of her exhaustion and crawled away from Star Twinkles house.

He took his time to read the letter in detail after Pinkie Pie left. Apparently, her pet alligator Gummy turned one year old and Star Twinkle was invited to his birthday party. He didn't know much about her pet but he already said that he would come so there was no turning back.

A little time later, Star Twinkle showed up at Sugarcube Corner at the appointed time. After knocking on the door, he was welcomed in typical Pinkie Pie fashion. Streamers, balloons, and confetti were coming out of Sugarcube Corner after Pinkie Pie opened the door.

"Star Twinkle! Welcome!" Pinkie Pie greeted him to which he entered the room.

Everypony was already there spending time with cakes, games, and dancing. The party was actually not bad, thought Star Twinkle. Even though it wasn't much different than any other party that Pinkie Pie was throwing. Nopony was complaining or bored but this is usually how Pinkie Pie's parties go.

Maybe Star Twinkle thought it was better than usual because it was only his friends who were present. No matter what it was, he wasn't bored most of the time and quite enjoyed himself.

Pinkie Pie took care of everypony equally while having fun herself. Star Twinkle spent most of his time eating cake and drinking punch. That's how he spent most of the parties he's invited too.

“Having fun?” Asked Pinkie Pie who made sure that Star Twinkle was enjoying himself.

“Yeah. The cake and the punch are really good,” he replied.

“Alright! Good to hear!” She replied bouncing back to the others.

Star Twinkle was leaving with everypony else at the same time. It was already dark outside and he thought he stayed way too long now.

“You sure you don't want to stay?” Asked Pinkie Pie, who was watching how everypony left Sugarcube Corner from a window upstairs.

“No. It's getting a little late. But it was fun Pinkie Pie,” said Stat Twinkle waving goodbye to Pinkie Pie

Pinkie Pie seemed a little upset but quickly smiled again and also waved goodbye.

After that, Star Twinkle joined everypony on his way home. They were talking about the party and how they liked it, although Star Twinkle mostly just listened.

"Pinkie Pie always throws the best parties!" Rainbow Dash said happily.

"Yes but next time she will be the one who is going to be surprised," Applejack said.

"Oh yeah, her birthday is coming up soon," Twilight said.

Star Twinkle remembered too. Pinkie Pies birthday was tomorrow. Everypony was talking about it in secret lately.

"We should all plan a surprise party for her," Rarity suggested.

"Yes, she would probably love it," said Fluttershy.

"We can set up everything in a barn in Sweet Apple Acre," Applejack offered.

“Yeah, it's settled then!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

Star Twinkle was okay with this idea too since Pinkie Pie threw so many parties for them already so he figured throwing one for her is just fair.

The preparations for the party were held tomorrow in one of Applejack's barns but until then Star Twinkle rested for the rest of the night.

On the next day...

The party was held at three o' clock this afternoon so there was much time left for preparations. But early in the morning somepony was knocking on the door. Star Twinkle thought it was somepony who would tell him what he should do to help for the party but when he opened the door, he saw Pinkie Pie.

She was bouncing up and down again and gave him an invitation just like the day before. It felt like a deja vu for him and of course, he was confused to be invited to another party since she was already throwing one yesterday.

“Another party?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“Yes silly,” she giggled. “It's Gummy's 'after birthday party,” she added.

Star Twinkle never heard of such kind of a party before but he was more surprised by the date it was held.

“It's this afternoon at three o' clock,” she said excited, ready to give him an invitation.

Needless to say, he was surprised and confused to hear that. After all, that's exactly when her surprise party is gonna be.

"This afternoon? As in “this afternoon” this afternoon?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Uh-uh!" Pinkie Pie excitingly replied.

"But Pinkie Pie this afternoon is..." but Star Twinkle stopped after realizing that he obviously can't tell her about her own surprise party.

"What's this afternoon?" Pinkie Pie asked.

Star Twinkle tried to think about some excuse, normally he would say the truth but this time, it was different. He didn't like to lie to her but he couldn't tell her the truth either.

"I...um...can't. I have to do some more work in the Iron Hammer later," Star Twinkle said as an excuse.

Pinkie Pie was glaring at him causing him to sweat a little. She is definitely not buying this, he thought but he was already saying it so there was no going back anymore. It got a little awkward from his point of view, being stared at by Pinkie Pie's over analyzing eyes. But her stare turned to a smile again in the last moment before she answered.

"Okay! No problem! See you next time!" She said while bouncing away again.

Star Twinkle waved at her while she left and could not believe that she believed his excuse.

"Phew. That was close," Star Twinkle said in relief.

Later that day, Star Twinkle helped to decorate the barn where the party was held. From streamers and balloons to the cake, everything should be perfectly decorated until the party started.

Rainbow Dash was the only pony missing to help with the preparations but she eventually should join later.

“Excellent, the decoration is starting to take shape,” Twilight said satisfied.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy was placing the cake in the middle of the room. Star Twinkle was taking a look at it too out of curiosity.

“You think she'll like the cake?” Fluttershy asked, who was the one who brought the cake to the barn.

The cake had Pinkie Pie's face on it and there was “Happy Birthday Pinkie Pie” written on it. As for the taste, it was probably super sweet just like Pinkie Pie would like it.

“I'm sure that she will like it,” Star Twinkle assured which made Fluttershy smile in relief.

It was only a few hours until the party was about to start and everypony was excited about it. Applejack was busy with apple bucking until now and was about to enter the barn until she noticed something in the distance.

“Quickly Pinkie Pie is coming this way!” Applejack's said in a panic.

“What? But we are not done here yet!” Rarity exclaimed.

Twilight then, out of panic, pushed Star Twinkle in direction of the barn door.

“What are you doing?” Asked Star Twinkle.

“You have to stall her somehow,” Twilight demanded.

Of course, Star Twinkle wondered why he had to be the one but again he was probably the best one when it comes to lying, making excuses and avoiding stuff. Thinking about that made him feel a little offended since the others were probably thinking about him that way. But that was probably only his imagination.

He went outside and saw how Rainbow Dash was flying towards the barn. Now it was no wonder why Pinkie Pie was approaching the barn. Rainbow Dash was entering the barn and Applejack closed the door behind her and now it was up to Star Twinkle to save the surprise party.

He just now noticed how fast Pinkie Pie was running towards the barn, scaring him a little since she doesn't look like she was stopping anytime soon. But eventually, she did stop right in front of him, startling him a little.

Pinkie Pie looked like she was about to say that he should move away, giving him the same glare like before. The glare was accompanied by a rather awkward silence making Star Twinkle rather uncomfortable.

“Uh...Pinkie Pie,” said Star Twinkle nervously.

“Star Twinkle,” Pinkie Pie quickly replied in a serious voice.

“What are you doing here?” He asked.

“I saw Rainbow Dash entering the barn,” she quickly replied again

“Oh, really? Must have missed that,” he answered.

Star Twinkle didn't know if Pinkie Pie believed his excuses but he was going so far already and so he mind as well go all the way through.

“By the way, weren't you suppose to work?” She asked directly.

It took Star Twinkle some seconds to remember his previous excuse which probably made him even more suspicious right now.

“Oh! Yeah. I am working...uh...here! Yes! Steel Hammer sent me here to work at the barn! That's right!” He explained while putting on a fake smile.

Pinkie Pie was continuing to look at him with analyzing eyes.

“Mind if I take a look?” She asked.

“...Yes...” he replied boldly.

Pinkie Pie attempted to get across Star Twinkle but he tried his best to block her way every time. It looked like Pinkie Pie was getting more angry, making it harder for Star Twinkle to predict what she was about to do. Just when thinking that Pinkie Pie walked forward pushing her forehead against his pushing him slowly back against the barn.

She was now close to the barn door and tried to open it. Star Twinkle couldn't stop her since he noticed too late.

“No don't open...” he said.

But Pinkie Pie was opening the door, ready to take a look and ruin her own surprise party. Thankfully Applejack was in front of the door and blocked her sight so Pinkie Pie didn't saw anything inside.

“Howdy! What are you two doing out here?” Applejack asked, clearly trying to distract from the party.

This couldn't get any closer from blowing the party but at least now Star Twinkle had some support.

“Nothing. I was just telling Pinkie Pie how I was sent here to do some repairing inside of this barn, “ he said while giving Applejack some obvious hints behind Pinkie Pie's back.

“Oh. Yeah! Was mighty nice of him to work around the barn," she said while putting on a really uncomfortable fake smile.

"Let me see," Pinkie Pie asked trying to peek inside of the barn.

"No!" Star Twinkle quickly responded.

"Why not?" Pinkie Pie asked a little angered.

"Could be dangerous," Star Twinkle replied.

"Yeah! We're gonna renovate the whole thing. Don't want you to get hit by some falling stuff inside. There's a lot of construction work going on!" Applejack exclaimed.

After that, the rest, who was inside, tried to imitate some construction work noises in order to convince Pinkie Pie. But they sounded incredible fake and Star Twinkle thought that it was only a matter of time until Pinkie Pie figured out something.

Eventually, Pinkie Pie gave up, whether she was convinced or not. She quickly backed off while staring at Star Twinkle and Applejack. They both felt very uncomfortable but also relieved that this was over.

"You think she believed us?" Applejack asked nervously after Pinkie Pie was out of sight.

"...No..." Star Twinkle replied bothered.

"Well, it doesn't matter. If she sees what we got planned for her, everything will be alright," Applejack assured confidently.

Star Twinkle hoped what Applejack was saying was true but he never saw Pinkie Pie this angry before. Was this all about her Gummy after birthday party? Why would she be so angry? Star Twinkle just hoped that the surprise party would fix all of this again.

It was almost three o'clock and thankfully the party was all set. The barn was fully decorated with balloons and streamers.
In the middle of the barn was a big cake and some presents were placed on a table. Now the only pony who is left is the birthday pony.

"Oh, I can't wait until she sees all this," Rarity said excitedly.

"We are all ready now. Would you two go and get Pinkie Pie?" Twilight asked while looking at Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash.

"Leave it to us!" Rainbow Dash replied while saluting.

"Alright," Star Twinkle replied with a little less excitement.

"It's probably better than just waiting in the barn," thought Star Twinkle so he was fine too.

Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash then left for Sugarcube Corner to get Pinkie Pie and to surprise her with the party.

"I can't wait till she sees it! This is gonna be so awesome!" Rainbow Dash said with confidence.

But Star Twinkle had some doubts after seeing Pinkie Pie before. She didn't seem too happy earlier and she also had doubts about Star Twinkles and Applejack's excuses. But he figured that Pinkie Pie is easily amused about little things so she probably will be happy to see her party and forget everything they lied about.

They both entered the door of Sugarcube Corner and Rainbow Dash greeted Pinkie Pie who was sitting at a table in the middle of the room.

Pinkie Pie looked a little different. Her mane was down and she also still looked a little angry. She looked even more different than before and Star Twinkle felt very uncomfortable to enter the room.

"You think she is alright?" Star Twinkle whispered to Rainbow Dash nervously.

"I don't know but we have to get her to the barn," Rainbow Dash whispered back.

That would be the best solution right now but things looked a little more complicated.

“How about we go to Sweet Apple Acres, Pinkie Pie?” Rainbow Dash asked.

But Pinkie Pie refused and claimed that she was spending time with her real friends right now. Star Twinkle hoped that she didn't mean the things that were sitting on the other chairs next to her. There was only a bucket with turnips, a pile of stones, a clump of lint, and a sack of flour.

“I'm already having lots of fun, isn't that right Madame le flour?” Pinkie Pie said hanging into the sack of flour. “Oui! Zat iz correct, madame,” said Pinkie Pie trying to make it sound like that the sack of flour was speaking.

Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash got even more confused by this behavior and looked at each other while feeling very uncomfortable. Now it was obvious to Star Twinkle that Pinkie Pie was not behaving normally anymore. They quickly needed to get her out of Sugarcube Corner and bring her to the barn in Sweet Apple Acre.

“Aaallrighty. What do you say we get on out of Creepytown and head over to Applejack's barn,” Rainbow Dash said, trying to get her out as soon as possible.

“Yeah, it also would be better for your health if you...” said Star Twinkle but he was interrupted by Pinkie Pie who shoved a bucket of turnips in front of his face.

“She's not going anywhere,” She said pretending that the turnips were the one who talked.

“I most certainly am not. I'm having a wonderful time right here,” Pinkie Pie added in her own voice.

But Rainbow Dash demanded that Pinkie Pie should come with the two ponies instead of spending time with whatever she was doing right now.

“You should really come with us,” Rainbow Dash said with a slightly concerned tone in her voice.

“You heard the lady! She ain't goin' nowhere, chump!” Said Pinkie Pie in a different voice as she pushed the pile of rocks in front of Rainbow Dash's face.

“Who you calling a chump, chump?!” Replied Rainbow Dash to the pile of rocks.

“Rainbow Dash...” Star Twinkle said annoyed, pointing out that Rainbow Dash is talking back to a pile of rocks.

This is getting really frustrating, thought Star Twinkle shaking his head in annoyance.

“Listen. I know you might be upset because of earlier but..” and again Star Twinkle was interrupted by Pinkie Pie who shoved the sack of flour in front of his face.

“Mademoiselle Pinkie Pie doesn't need ze likes of you to tell her what she has to do!”

Star Twinkle just rolled his eyes as he was looking around the sack of flour to look into Pinkie Pie's eyes.

"Pinkie Pie, I am not talking to a sack of flour," said Star Twinkle in an annoyed voice.

"Her name is Madame Le Flour!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed to which Star Twinkle didn't know how to respond too.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash tried to use force to get Pinkie Pie outside but it didn't seem to work. Rainbow Dash was overpowered by Pinkie Pie's stubbornness and was pushed to the wall. Eventually, Rainbow Dash got tired of all this and didn't want to hold back anymore. She demanded that Star Twinkle should help her so that bringing Pinkie Pie to the barn wouldn't take any longer.

Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash then dragged her out of Sugarcube Corner with Gummy clinging into Pinkie Pie. It took a good while until they finally reached the barn since Pinkie Pie was resisting a little but eventually she gave up and let herself get dragged to Sweet Apple Acre.

When finally reaching the barn both Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash were exhausted from dragging Pinkie Pie behind them but they also were relieved that everything will be okay again.

“We're... here...” Rainbow Dash exclaimed exhausted before opening the barn door where everypony else was waiting for them. In good old fashion, they all greeted Pinkie Pie with a bright “surprise” but Pinkie Pie seemed confused about all this and just stood there until Rainbow Dash pushed her closer to her friends. Star Twinkle also joined his friends and put on a forgiving smile for putting Pinkie Pie through all this. But instead of a happy cheerful smile, Pinkie Pie just looked at them angrier than ever.

“I really thought she'd be more excited,” Fluttershy said confused.

“Excited? Excited?!” Pinkie Pie shouted angrily. “Why would I be excited to attend my own farewell party?!” She said almost upset.

Of course, everypony was surprised to hear that and asked what she was talking about.

“Yes! You don't like me anymore, so you decided to kick me out of the group and throw a great, big party to celebrate! A "Farewell to Pinkie Pie" party!” Pinkie Pie said angrily before she turned around and sat down in sadness.

Star Twinkle figured that Pinkie Pie was having some problems to realize her surroundings judging from her tea party with her “Real Friends”. Maybe she was telling herself that out of paranoia, thought Star Twinkle. Everypony approached her, trying to comfort her and assuring that it was nothing like what she thought it was.

“Why in the world would you think we didn't like you anymore, sugarcube?” Applejack asked concerned.

“Why?” Pinkie Pie quickly replied in their faces. "Because you've been lying to me and avoiding me all day, that's why!” She explained angrily.

She was probably hinting at the excuses that everypony made in order to prepare for the party, thought Star Twinkle. Of course, they had to make excuses, they couldn't just tell her that they had to prepare her own birthday party. In fact, isn't she aware that today is her birthday? Is she so caught up in her paranoia that she forgot her own birthday?

Everypony gave her obvious answers and explanations why they couldn't tell her, leading Pinkie Pie to think about the situation and calming her down for a moment.

“We'd been planning this party for such a long time, we had to make excuses for why we couldn't attend Gummy's party so that we could get everything ready for yours,” Rarity explained.

“If this is a farewell party, why does the cake I picked up from Sugarcube Corner say "Happy Birthday, Pinkie Pie"?” Twilight said pointing at Pinkie Pie's birthday cake.

“You of all ponies should know what kind of party this is and why we were throwing it today, right?” Said Star Twinkle further hinting at the obvious.

Pinkie Pie analyzed the situation further and noticed the decoration and the cake. Not much longer her hair turned back like it's used to look like and her sad and angry face turned into a bright smile of joy.

“Because it's my birthday!” She said excitedly. “Ooh, how could I have forgotten my own birthday?” She added.

That was exactly the same what Star Twinkle was about to say but he wasn't saying anything because he just wanted to avoid any more complications.

So in the end, everything was fine and the party was a success. Pinkie Pie apologized because she was doubting her friends but nopony seemed offended by that and proceeded with the party.

“I'm just glad I haven't been replaced by a bucket of turnips,” Rainbow Dash said after Pinkie Pie's apology, which confused some ponies. “You don't wanna know,” she added.

Again another party came to an end. Star Twinkle will most likely never be a pony who goes full out on parties but he was getting used to it after befriending Pinkie Pie.

To some degree, he could understand why Pinkie Pie was doubting her friends since he is the one the group who does that on a daily basis. He is never sure what to expect from his friends or if he should believe in them as much as they believe in him. Thinking only about himself is enough for him.

He wondered how he would have behaved if he was in her situation but he quickly removed this thought out of his mind because he felt that he would have ruined everything.

But thankfully it didn't come this far...

...yet...

23. Star Twinkle is ill

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Princess Celestia raised the sun in Equestria like every day and as usual, everypony would start their day by now. The sun was slowly rising on the horizon and the sunlight would often wake Star Twinkle from his sleep but this time, he had a hard time getting out of his bed. It was unbelievable hot outside, sweat was dripping down Star Twinkles face and it became hard to breathe.

Star Twinkle was immediately taking a bath after crawling out of his bed but that only helped for a few minutes to cool him down. He realized that he was already late for work and tried to skip some of his morning routines in order to make it on time somehow.

He stepped out of his house and slowly walked in the direction of the Iron Hammer but it somehow became very exhausting really fast after only a few steps outside.

"Wow. The princess is really overdoing today with the heat," he mumbled to himself, even though he didn't know if it works that way.

A few steps later, he noticed Twilight approaching her with an owl on her back, that he never saw before. It was not the best time for her to talk with him right now since he had to go to work real quick.

"Good morning, Star Twinkle!" She greeted happily, followed by a "who" from the owl.

"Morning, Twilight. I'm sorry but I can't talk now. I'm already late for work," he quickly replied, wasting no more time so that he can go to work.

But Twilight looked at him after he walked past her, noticing his slow steps and how sweaty he was even though it was relatively cool today. Out of curiosity, she decided to follow him and inspected him further only to realize that he was breathing heavily and had problems walking straight.

"Are you alright?" She asked out of worry while following him.

"Of course. It's only a little hot right now but I'm sure that will change later," Star Twinkle replied not even bothering to look back at her.

Suddenly Twilight walked in front of him, blocking his path. He wondered what this is all about and felt annoyed since she will cause him to be even later at work now. Twilight then took her left front hoof and placed it on Star Twinkle's forehead only to realize that it was burning hot.

"My goodness, Star Twinkle! You're glowing," Twilight exclaimed.

"I am?" He asked confused. "I thought it was hotter than usual today," Star Twinkle wondered.

"It's probably a fever. You can't go to work like this. You need rest!" Twilight demanded.

"I'm sure I get better after a while," Star Twinkle assured.

"Not if you spent the day with working! You look like you will collapse any second!" Twilight exclaimed worriedly.

"I'll be fine, don-"

But he stopped after realizing how serious Twilight was. She looked angry but he could swear he saw how her eyes were tearing up a bit out of worry.

Now Star Twinkle began to think about the situation a bit more logically. It probably would not be a good idea if he was working in this state, in fact, it only would make things worse which was probably the reason why Twilight asked him to rest.

After some more thinking, Star Twinkle came to the conclusion that it would be better to stay home and rest just like Twilight said.

"It's really that bad, huh?" He asked out of the blue making Twilight calm down again.

"Don't worry. You'll be alright again soon," she said relieved. "First we need to get you in your bed again," she said before levitating him over the ground with her magic and carrying him back inside.

Normally Star Twinkle would get annoyed and tell her to let him go since he doesn't like it whenever she was doing that but he was way too exhausted to complain right now.

After placing him inside of his bed again, Twilight took his bed sheet and covered him in it. It felt weird for him that somepony was taking care of him like that. He couldn't remember when he was ill the last time but it always came down that he had to take care of himself and had to wait till he got better.

"You just stay like this and relax until you feel better, okay?" Twilight said with a carrying smile that a mother would show to her beloved son.

"Alright," Star Twinkle replied quietly, not sure how he should respond to this situation.

Twilight was making sure that Star Twinkle had everything he needed. A cup of water on the commode next to his bed and a bowl of water with a cloth inside of it, which Twilight took out with her magic, placing it on Star Twinkles forehead.

Meanwhile, the owl watched everything from the window next to Star Twinkle, making him wonder why Twilight was carrying an owl with her in the first place.

"By the way. Why is this owl following you?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Oh! Owlicious? Well, it's a long story. He is basically my new pet since Spike got in good terms with him," Twilight roughly explained.

Star Twinkle didn't exactly understand what she meant but he also didn't care to this extent. The owl didn't bother him and just watched everything so Star Twinkle thought Owlicious was okay.

"Is there anything you need?" Twilight asked.

"No. I think I just take a nap," he said, staring at the ceiling with empty eyes. There was nothing else he could do anyway.
"But could you go and tell Steel Hammer that I won't show up today?" Star Twinkle added.

"Of course. Leave that to me!" Twilight replied confidently. "I'm afraid I can't stay any longer for now but I'll make sure that you will be taken care of,' she explained.

“What do you mean with that?” Star Twinkle asked.

“You don't have to worry about that just relax for now. You need all the rest that you can get,” Twilight explained winking at him.

She seemed to have a lot more fun in this situation than she should. Did she like to take care of Star Twinkle? Or was she just happy that she could help him in his current situation? Those were usually questions that would circle around his head but his fever prevented him from thinking clearly.

Meanwhile, Twilight was looking around in Star Twinkle's house, inspecting every little detail. Of course, Star Twinkle didn't know what this was about first but he figured that it was because it was the first time since Twilight was inside of his house.

His house was nothing special. It was made out of woods, as well as all the furniture inside of it. Everything was in a light brown color and there was not much decoration at all, like pictures, flowers or stuff like that so there was not much to look at but Twilight was staring at random stuff as if they were the most interesting things she ever saw.

Before it got awkward, Twilight realized how she spaced out and talked with him again.

“I have to do some work in the library but I'll make sure to check on you later. So you better stay in bed until then,” Twilight said with a gentle smile on her face.

"Yes, doctor Sparkle," Star Twinkle replied sarcastically.

"At least your humor isn't suffering from your fever," Twilight said followed by a giggle.

“I have something like that?” Star Twinkle wondered.

Before he knew it Twilight left the room and the owl was following her. Star Twinkle leaned over his window and saw how Twilight was walking away from his house. She turned around for a moment and noticed Star Twinkle to which she angrily pointed to his house. Star Twinkle figured that she was telling him to get back in his bed again to which he quickly returned to his bed.

“Well, time to get some sleep then...” he said to himself, closing his eyes to get some sleep.

It didn't take long until he fell asleep from the fever, it actually made it easier.

While sleeping, Star Twinkle had a strange dream again. It was one of those dreams that had no images or images that were clear enough to identify them as some kind of pictures. At least that's all that Star Twinkle can remember about his dreams after waking up. They were always confusing him, making it rather pointless to put many thoughts into them. It felt like a waste of time for him. The words that he could hear this time were:

You better recover fast...
Seeing you like that really worries me...

His nap didn't take too long and he was quickly awake again. Star Twinkle's eyes were slowly opening and he saw a pink color in front of his half-opened eyes. But before everything became clear again, a loud shout woke him up.

"Surprise!" Pinkie Pie shouted, startling Star Twinkle, nearly giving him a heart attack.

"Pinkie Pie?" Star Twinkle asked confused, while still recovering from the shock.

"Welcome to your "Get well" party! Want some cake?" She said offering him a piece of cake.

But Star Twinkle refused and wondered why there were balloons, confetti, streamers and even a giant cake in the middle of the room.

"Twilight told me you were sick so I quickly went to your house to visit you but then I had an even better idea! I thought why not throw a party for you? After all, that's way more fun than just laying in your bed all day,"

Of course, Pinkie Pies solution for everything would be a party but right now, that is exactly what he doesn't need.

"Yes, but having fun won't make me feel better while staying in bed and resting does," Star Twinkle explained.

"Yeah, I guess you're right..." Pinkie Pie said in a sad voice but she also seemed to understand. "Okey dokey, then get well soon so that I can throw a "got well" party," she added before bouncing out of the room.

After this little interruption, Star Twinkle laid down in his bed again but not before looking around the room which was filled with colorful decorations, wondering why she was going through the trouble to set all this up.

"Must have been a lot of work to put this all together..." he mumbled before closing his eyes again.

I'll make sure that you get well again...
After all, there's nothing more healthy than a good laugh!

Again his nap didn't take too long and he opened his eyes again.
And again somepony else was in the room.
He started to wonder if that's what Twilight meant with "You will be taken care of".

"Howdy Sugarcube! Hope I didn't wake you up," said Applejack, greeting the still half asleep Star Twinkle who didn't reply and just wondered what Applejack was doing in his house.

He noticed how she was placing a warm, delicious smelling apple pie on Star Twinkle's commode. While never openly admit it, Star Twinkle was starving and could almost not hold back just by smelling that apple pie.

"Since you were stuck in your bed all day I figured you're might be too weak to make yourself something to eat. So I prepared a little something just for you,” she said winking at him happily.

“Oh. Thank you Applejack...” Star Twinkle said hesitantly with a light smile on his face.

“Ah, no need to thank me. I just want you to be healthy again as soon as possible,” Applejack assured. "But now I have to go back to my chores so do me a favor and get better again, will ya?"

Moments later, Applejack left and Star Twinkle didn't waste any time and ate the apple pie in almost one swoop. Maybe it was because of his fever but this pie tasted for him like the most delicious thing in the world. Probably because it was the first thing that he ate today.

He eventually decided to continue his nap and closed his eyes, falling asleep really easily again.

If there is anything that I can do to make you feel better, just tell me.
That's what friends are for!

Once again Star Twinkles nap didn't take long. He was awoken again by some noises in his house. This time, it was Fluttershy who was placing a soup on Star Twinkles commode.

"Uh..."

"Oh my! I'm sorry if I woke you up..." Fluttershy apologized right away.

"It's okay..." Star Twinkle replied looking at the soup that Fluttershy brought.

“It's just a little soup to help you get better. It's mostly made out of carrots. Angel and all the other animals always get better after some of those,” she explained calmly with a gentle smile on her face.

Star Twinkle was about to say that he is not one of her animals but he noticed how he was still hungry and decided to not refuse anything edible right now.

“Thank you, Fluttershy but you didn't have to,”

“Oh, it's nothing special if it helps you to recover fast. I just wanted to bring this over and let you rest again,” Fluttershy assured.

Eventually, Fluttershy left the room and Star Twinkle tried to close his eyes again to get some sleep after eating her soup.
It did taste really good and just by eating it, he already felt better for some reason.
He could feel that he was getting better already just from sleeping through most of the day so he continued to do so.
After some minutes it was peacefully silent in his room again and he closed his eyes to take a nap again...

But...

"Hey, champ!" Shouted a familiar voice into Star Twinkle's ear.

Startled from that shout, Star Twinkle's eyes were wide open again unable to get some sleep for at least a few minutes.
He then looked at Rainbow Dash with an annoyed look on his face, who was flying in front of Star Twinkle's window.

"Oops, hehe sorry," said Rainbow Dash embarrassed.

"I wasn't about to sleep anyway," Star Twinkle sarcastically replied.

He then sat up and looked at Rainbow Dash, who sat down in his window and looked back at him silently.
...
There was an awkward silence between the two, making Star Twinkle feel very uncomfortable.

“What does she want? She is just standing in the window without saying anything,” he thought in annoyance.

"Sooo...is there something you want?" Star Twinkle asked.

"No, not really, just checking up on you," Rainbow Dash replied.

She was looking around confused as if she was searching for something but still didn't said anything, making her appearance rather pointless. Meanwhile, Star Twinkle got thirsty and grabbed a glass of water next to him, drinking it in one big swoop. The glass was only half empty so his thirst was not completely satisfied, making him look almost sad into the empty glass.

“Oh! You're thirsty?” Rainbow Dash asked after noticing Star Twinkle's look into the glass.

“Yes a little but-”

But before he finished his sentence, Rainbow Dash quickly grabbed the glass and flew off into Star Twinkles house only to return in a few seconds with a full glass of water again.

“There you go!” She said before handing it over to Star Twinkle.

“Uh...thank you,” he replied hesitantly before taking another sip.

“Must be really boring to be stuck in your bed all day,”

“Uh...yeah,” he replied, even though it didn't felt much different for him than any other day.

When he is not spending time at work or with his friends, this is pretty much his whole day. The only difference now is that he is sick and has to stay a few hours more inside of his bed.

“Well, I will take a nap- err I mean work nearby in the clouds so if you need anything just holly and I'll be there in a filly-second!” Rainbow Dash explained.

She then flew off and left Star Twinkle confused in his room. He kinda figured that it was the same as with Fluttershy and that Rainbow Dash just wanted to help in some way. She was probably trying to find out how she could help because she clearly had no idea what to do. But instead of helping it kinda started to bother him that everypony was invading his house, keeping him from resting.

He took this moment of silence to close his eyes again and get some sleep. And of course, his sleep was accompanied by some strange dreams again.

You'll be fine in no time!
As long as you have friends that will support you!

I'll do anything...
If it means helping a friend...

Again, Star Twinkle woke up by some noises from downstairs. A few seconds later Rarity walked up the stairs and greeted Star Twinkle who was already fully awake again.

“Darling! Have you slept well?” She greeted Star Twinkle.

“How is everypony entering my house anyway? Did Twilight leave the door open when she left?” Star Twinkle wondered.

“What are you doing here, Rarity?” Star Twinkle said while trying to hide how annoyed he is,

"Well you see, after hearing that you were sick, I just wanted to help in some way. But I didn't know how so I decided to clean your house a little since you were probably too weak to do it yourself right now," Rarity explained.

"Wait, the whole house?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

"Yes of course. I took out the trash, cleaned your furniture, made your dishes...

Star Twinkle felt kind of embarrassed since he was not doing all this work properly in the first place given the lazy pony he is. He felt like some filly who could not do his homework and had to ask his mother to help him.

“You really should not have to go to the trouble of all that,” Star Twinkle said embarrassed, covering his face with one hoof.

“Oh, darling don't be ridiculous! You are ill and somepony has to take care of you in the meantime,” Rarity protested, clearly not noticing how embarrassed Star Twinkle was.

That may be true but Star Twinkle didn't understand what cleaning the house would have to do with him getting better again. Rarity explained that it was not hard at all, to do all the work in the house but Star Twinkle only got more embarrassed after hearing that. It was clearly a lot of work but Rarity would never admit it.

It felt unusual to Star Twinkle to be treated like this but since he was still sick, he pretty much had no choice but to accept any help that he could get. It was not like he could stop her in his current state anyway. He just thought that it was nice, that she wanted to help just for the sake of helping.

“Anyway, I'm done here and let you rest again,” she said leaving the room.

Rarity seemed to be done with the work in his house and left the house. And again since it became pretty much routine, Star Twinkle closed his eyes and went to sleep again.

You need rest...
So rest...

“You think he is asleep?”

“Of course not, he is supposed to rest!”

“Then shouldn't we leave him alone?”

Some voices were slowly pulling Star Twinkle out of his sleep resulting him to open his eyes. When his eyes were open again, he saw three familiar fillies who were watching him closely.

“Good morning!” all of them shouted together right into his face, making him jump in shock.

“I don't think it's morning anymore,” said Star Twinkle while looking out of the window where he could see that it was already getting dark.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders didn't seem to notice how annoyed Star Twinkle was from all those interruptions.

Meanwhile, Twilight was coming up the stairs, surprised to see Star Twinkle awake.

“Girls, you're not bothering Star Twinkle are you?” Twilight asked, almost scolding the Crusaders.

“We just wanted to make sure that one of our members is healthy again,” Scootaloo explained.

“And maybe getting our medicine Cutie Mark,” Sweetie Belle added.

Twilight then got close to Star Twinkle and put her left front hoof on his forehead again, to check his temperature.

“Looks like you're already better,” Twilight said with a smile on her face.

That confused Star Twinkle at first but then he noticed how much better he already felt. He wasn't sweating anymore and felt way less exhausted, in fact, he felt like completely fine again.

“I think you're right. I feel much better now,” he said while getting out of his bed.

“You think you can get out already?” Twilight asked worriedly.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” he replied calmly.

“Well, how about we go and tell the others right away?” Apple Bloom suggested.

“Right! Go down and tell them,” Twilight said to the three fillies who then rushed downstairs.

“The others?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“Yes follow me,” Twilight replied before going back downstairs.

Star Twinkle followed her and walked down the stairs only to find out that all of his friends were downstairs and getting shouted at from Pinkie Pie again.

“Surprise!” She shouted in Star Twinkles ear, who jumped as a reaction.

Everypony then quickly noticed Star Twinkle walking downstairs, welcoming him in his own house.

Everypony he knew was there. Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and the Cutie Mark Crusaders It was the first time that his house was filled with so many ponies. But before realizing what actually was happening, he spent the first minutes assuring everypony that he was alright again.

“Must have been my Apple Pie that cured you,” Applejack proudly said.

“Who cares?
As long as Star Twinkle is better again,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“They are all here...”

“We were all so worried about you,” Fluttershy said.

“Yes, I was shocked after hearing that you were sick, darling,” said Rarity.

“They were all worried...”

“Yes but now we can all celebrate with a “got well” party!” Pinkie Pie explained.

“Yes but we should not overdo it, he just got better after all,” Twilight added.

“I was just sick for one day...”

“You think it's polite to ask for a slice of cake, even though it's his party?” Scootaloo asked Applebloom, who just shrugged her shoulders.

“And now they were all happy...”

Star Twinkle was not saying much like always when he is with all of his friends. Normally it is out of disinterest or because he felt like he was dragged around by his friends. But this time, he didn't know what to say and was just kind of happy.

It was a quiet party since it was already late and everypony left after around one hour. Now he was all alone again just the way how he liked it.

“Were they always taking care of me like that? I just seemed to notice just now,”

He then looked at the ceiling confused, thinking how the day went.

“Now what do I do?” he asked himself, realizing that he was fully awake because of all the sleep that he got.

But eventually, he slept through the night quietly without interruptions, even though it was especially those that he missed right now.

24. A Day to remember

View Online

Another day of work was over and Star Twinkle was happy that he could go home and relax. He was not planning to do something with his friends and just wanted to relax.

But of course, his relaxing day was interrupted quickly after he got home. Somepony was knocking on the door and Star Twinkle tried to think who it possibly could be. He opened the door and saw Scootaloo on her scooter and Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom behind her inside of a cart that Scootaloo was pulling behind her.

"Get your stuff! We will get our Cutie Mark!" Scootaloo exclaimed.

“Of course, that's the one and the only reason why they would show up,” thought Star Twinkle.

As always, he was not very excited to go on a Cutie Mark Hunt. It always feels like a waste of time for him.

"Well, actually, we wanted to ask Rainbow Dash how she got her Cutie Mark," Sweetie Belle corrected.

"Why?" Asked Star Twinkle boldly.

"Isn't it obvious? If we listen to her awesome story, how she got her Cutie Mark, it may inspire us and help us to find our special talent!" Scootaloo explained overly excited.

"Rainbow Dash's story how she got her Cutie Mark? Why would I want to know that?"

The only thing it would do is making Star Twinkle even more insecure about his blank flank.

"We wanted to ask other ponies how they got their Cutie Marks so that we can find out how we can get ours," Apple Bloom explained.

He never asked about how other ponies got their Cutie Marks and as a foal, he never saw how a pony got his Cutie Mark.
Most of the time they just showed up the next day exclaiming that they finally got it, usually making him think about himself. He was also imagining how his Cutie Mark would look like or what his destiny would be. But as soon as he realized that most ponies his age already got theirs years ago, he started to stop thinking about that.

First, he was telling himself that his blank flank was the reason why he never got any friends. But that was not true...
He imagined countless times how his life would be if he had a Cutie Mark.

If anything would have changed. If he would have gotten more friends by now. If he would do something else to earn his bits. If he would be happier...

Which all brought him back to the three fillies and why they wanted to know about Rainbow Dash's Cutie Mark.

Suddenly Star Twinkle's expression changed completely and he had a deferment expression on his face.

"Alright, let's go!" Said Star Twinkle unusually excited, leaving the three fillies surprised but also excited. "But I also want to hear some other stories from some of my friends," he demanded.

"Yeah, whatever, but first Rainbow Dash," Scootaloo demanded.

He had the chance to talk about this topic with his new friends. Maybe if he finds out something about the Cutie Marks of his friends, then maybe he can understand how important a destiny is and why he is so insecure about his own destiny.
Maybe they were also lost before they got their Cutie Marks? Maybe everything changed after that. Just thinking about that was calming him down.

Moments later the Star Twinkle was also sitting down inside of the cart which was pulled by Scootaloo and her scooter.

As always when Star Twinkle was around the Crusaders, giggles could be heard from everywhere.

It probably looked really strange to see a full grown pony hanging around with three fillies. And if that wasn't the reason for their giggles then probably the look of a filly who was dragging him and two other fillies in a cart behind her.

Suddenly Scootaloo stopped abruptly because three rabbits, each holding an apple were blocking the road. Moments later Applejack jumped out of a bush and accidentally crashed into the four ponies.

“Even if they don't look for a Cutie Mark, they still manage to get me hurt in some way,” thought Star Twinkle annoyed.

"Hey, sis! How did you get your Cutie Mark?" Apple Bloom asked right away after looking at Applejack's Cutie Mark.

"Hey, I thought we gonna ask Rainbow Dash!" Said Scootaloo almost protesting.

"We need all the help we can get," Apple Bloom replied.

Applejack didn't mind to share her story but Scootaloo didn't seem too excited to hear Applejack's story. Star Twinkle, however, was listening very careful as if Applejack was about to tell him the meaning of life itself.

To Star Twinkles surprise, Applejack's story began with her saying that she didn't want to spend her whole life on a muddy old apple farm.

As a filly, Applejack left Sweet Apple Acre and wanted to live with her relatives in the city of Manehattan.

Star Twinkle heard about Manehattan before. A big modern city with big buildings and very big crowds of ponies on the streets which was too much for Star Twinkles taste. Imagining Applejack in this kind of place was for him...unimaginable.

She wanted to stay with her uncle and aunt and planned to live a more sophisticated life. But when Applejack arrived in Manehattan, things weren't how she thought they would be. Life there was more complicated for a filly that lived her whole life on a farm.

But one day after looking out of the window in depression, thinking about how her life will go on, she saw a rainbow passing over Manehattan, pointing back to her home. After that, Applejack realized that she missed the life on the farm more than anything else and quickly returned to Sweet Apple Acres to find out that working on the farm was her destiny.

It was not exactly how Star Twinkle thought. Applejack was not aware of her destiny and only after experiencing something that was not like her at all, she found out what is most important to her.

Going by that logic, Star Twinkle should already have his Cutie Mark after going crusading with the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

After sharing her story Applejack ran after the rabbits from before.
They most likely stole the apples, that they were carrying and the Crusaders continued to look for Rainbow Dash.

Scootaloo was getting slower for some reason, making the trip a little slower paced.

"I think you're way too heavy, Star Twinkle," Scootaloo said who couldn't drive faster because of his weight.

"You didn't have to add "way" you know? He replied a little offended.
Wait. I get off so that you can-"

But after getting out of the cart the three fillies immediately accelerated, leaving him far behind.

"Hey! Wait!" he shouted running after them, earning some laughs from the ponies around him.

Eventually, the fillies were stopping a few meters away from him or rather crashing a few meters away from him.

"What happened?" Asked Star Twinkle who just saw how the three fillies were laying on the ground disorientated.

Fluttershy was in front of them, carrying some ducks across the street which was probably the reason why the Crusaders stopped so abruptly.

Fluttershy asked what they were up to and Scootaloo explained the situation.

“We're trying to find Rainbow Dash, so we can hear how she earned her Cutie Mark,” Scootaloo explained. “Oh, that would be interesting. You know, I wouldn't have gotten my Cutie Mark if it weren't for her,” said Fluttershy quickly getting the attention from Scootaloo after hearing the name Rainbow Dash.

Before they knew it, Fluttershy started to tell her story of how she got her Cutie Mark and once again Star Twinkle listened carefully.

Her story started in Cloudsdale in the summer flight camp, which was some sort of camp, where she was bullied by some other pegasi for being a weak flyer. Of course, unable to talk back to them due to her shyness, Rainbow Dash appeared and stood up for her.

Rainbow Dash was provoking the bullies that if they continue, they have to deal with her instead. Not being intimated by that, the bullies wanted to race Rainbow Dash to see if she is not only big talk.

Fluttershy, who stood in front of the start line, opened the race but the pegasi who flew past her knocked her of her cloud, leading her to fall down from Cloudsdale.

She imagined the worst after seeing how the ground got closer and closer but thankfully Fluttershy was saved by a swarm of butterflies who softened her fall. She never left Cloudsdale before and was fascinated by the pretty animals that she saw for the first time. Seeing all these new animals around her living in harmony, Fluttershy just felt happiness.

But after spending some moments in this beautiful new world an explosion was startling her. It was a rainbow that appeared nearby. The impact scared away all the animals, who ran in fear but Fluttershy quickly calmed them down, making them come out of their hiding places.

This was the moment where she realized that she somehow could communicate with animals and that's when she knew that taking care of animals was her destiny, causing her Cutie Mark to appear on her flank.

That's probably the reason why she lives in Ponyville and not Cloudsdale. Because there are more animals in Ponyville.
So her Cutie Mark helped her with that decision.

So Fluttershy has not discovered her destiny either. If she had never found those animals, then her Cutie Mark would not have appeared at that moment.

Does Star Twinkle not have found his destiny yet? Does he have to find something that is connected to his Cutie Mark?

He didn't have much time to think about that since Scootaloo wanted to get to Rainbow Dash already. She didn't seem to like Fluttershy's story, probably because of the lack of Rainbow Dash.

The next stop was Carousel Boutique. Sweetie Belle suggested that they should ask Rarity about Rainbow Dash's location.

Rarity, of course, took to opportunity to tell the four ponies about her Cutie Mark Story as well.

She was already designing dresses or rather costumes for other ponies as a filly. Once there was a school play where she had to make dresses for some ponies in her class.

While working on those costumes, her horn was suddenly glowing and leading her to her destiny, dragging her far away from Ponyville. Star Twinkle was not sure if he understood that since he wasn't a unicorn himself but apparently if magic happens out of nowhere, then it has to do something with a Cutie Mark.

Eventually, she reached her destination. It was a giant rock in the middle of nowhere. Of course, Rarity was not happy at all for being dragged by her horn to some dumb rock but as it turns out, this rock contained some beautiful gems which were revealed after the Rainbow traveled past her. Stunned by this sight, Rarity had the idea to use this gems for her costumes and needless to say, the play was a success and Rarity then discovered her destiny to create dresses.

This story confused Star Twinkle. “Does that mean your destiny can find you?” He asked himself.

He was no unicorn, so there was no way that this could happen to him. If there is something that Star Twinkle is good at, then it is waiting. But he can't just wait for his whole life for his destiny to appear.

Scootaloo couldn't take it anymore. She was complaining about all those uncool stories and just wanted to find Rainbow Dash. So the group left Rarity's shop only to run into Twilight minutes later. And of course, after revealing their plans, Twilight happily shared her story too.

It all started when Twilight saw Princess Celestia at a Summer Sun Celebration when she was a filly. Stunned by the view how Princess Celestia raised the sun, Twilight decided to learn everything she could about magic. After her parents realized how important magic to her is, they tried to send her to Princess Celestia's school for gifted unicorns in Canterlot.

But in order to get accepted, she had to pass an entrance exam to see if she was skillful enough. The exam required her to hatch a dragon egg with her magic. Star Twinkle figured that this would have been Spike. Unfortunately, Twilight's magic was not strong enough to hatch the egg right away.

At least until a rainbow came across Canterlot. Scared by the impact, Twilight's magic ran out of control hatching the egg on accident.

Princess Celestia noticed the commotion and managed to calm Twilight down before things could get out of control. Impressed by Twilight's magical potential, the princess offered Twilight to be her personal student. Of course, Twilight accepted happily since for her it was a dream come true and without realizing it herself at first, Twilight also got her Cutie Mark in that exact moment too.

“Must be lucky to have parents that support you and your special talent...” thought Star Twinkle.

He couldn't remember the last time when he saw his parents. They were born in Canterlot but lived in Ponyville when Star Twinkle was born, living there with him until he got old enough to take care of his own. They then wanted to return to Canterlot with him but Star Twinkle refused to leave Ponyville for reasons that he couldn't remember all too well anymore.

They were supportive too but Star Twinkle was a complicated filly who did not know what he wanted to do back then, making it really hard to support him in any way.

When it came to his Cutie Mark, he was on his own...

It took Star Twinkle some moments until he realized that Twilight was bouncing up and down in excitement after telling her story. She probably remembered how happy she was at that moment and all those good thoughts came right back to her.

The Crusaders decided to leave her alone in her excitement or rather took advantage of it so that they could leave.

Anypony could now tell that Scootaloo was getting more and more frustrated for not being able to find Rainbow Dash.

“Ugh! Why don't we ever smash into Rainbow Dash?!” Scootaloo said annoyed.

“You're looking for Rainbow Dash?!”

Suddenly Pinkie Pie sat inside of the cart, along with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.

“How did she? I didn't even notice her until she spoke!” Thought Star Twinkle who walked beside the cart the whole time without noticing how she entered it.

Pinkie Pie was suggesting to look for her in Sugarcube Corner and since the Crusaders went to almost every other place it was only logical to look there next. Of course, Pinkie Pie then took the opportunity to tell her story of how she got her Cutie Mark.

Pinkie Pie grew up on a rock farm which was hard to imagine for Star Twinkle. Times at the farm were pretty dull, boring and there was no fun at all.

Pinkie often had to mine rocks for her family, who were very strict and disciplined. Fun was something completely unknown in that farm.

One day when Pinkie Pie was doing her usual work of farming rocks, a rainbow went past her, making it the first colorful thing she ever saw. That rainbow was opening her eyes and putting a smile on her face. She then quickly decided to bring some fun to her family too.

For that, she started a party in their home with balloons, confetti, and all the usual stuff, Pinkie Pie was known for today.
Her family was happy to experience fun for the first time and Pinkie Pie was happy that her family was the first ponies to get a smile from. After that, her Cutie Mark showed up and Pinkie Pies destiny to throw parties was set.

Star Twinkle could relate to that story the most, so far. Pinkie Pie's life was boring and uneventful but after seeing the rainbow, she quickly knew what to do. The only exception is, that he still didn't know his destiny, which slowly frustrated him after five stories.

The four ponies then followed Pinkie Pie inside of Sugarcube Corner in hope that Rainbow Dash was there too. And to Scootaloo's relief, she was and she was also aware that the Crusaders were looking for her.

“I hear you're looking for my Cutie Mark story,” she said proudly.

She clearly could not wait to tell her story to the three fillies and Star Twinkle, giving her proud expression.

Her story also took place at Cloudsdale, when Rainbow Dash was participating at the race where she was defending Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash would have won eventually but she was still flying like there was no tomorrow. Knowing Rainbow Dash, she probably enjoyed the race more than she should, given that she was racing for Fluttershy.

While racing the bullies Rainbow Dash realized that she wanted to win no matter what, accelerating to unbelievable speed until she broke the sound barrier, creating the Sonic Rainboom.

That must be the Sonic Rainboom, Star Twinkle heard about from the others a while back. So it was at that time where she made it happen.

Needless to say, it was that moment where Rainbow Dash discovered her destiny to fly faster than anypony else, making her Cutie Mark appear.

Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and even Scootaloo seemed to enjoy the story judging from their impressed faces. But just when Rainbow Dash finished her story, Fluttershy approached her, revealing something interesting.

“Wait a second. I heard that explosion. And I saw the rainbow too. Rainbow Dash if you hadn't scared the animals, I never would have learned I could communicate with them and gotten my Cutie Mark,”

Thinking about that, Star Twinkle did remember that a rainbow was involved in Fluttershy's story. Since she was close to Cloudsdale at that moment, it was obvious that she saw the Sonic Rainboom too, thought Star Twinkle.

“I heard that boom!” Pinkie Pie said after hearing Fluttershy's explanation. “And right afterward, there was this amazing rainbow that taught me to smile,” She added.

Star Twinkle also remembered that but before he could think about that in depth, the other ponies continued to add more information.

“When I got my Cutie Mark, I saw a rainbow that pointed me home. I bet it was your Sonic Rainboom!” Applejack explained.

“Wait a minute...” thought Star Twinkle.

“There was an explosion I could never explain when I got my Cutie Mark,” Rarity explained.

“They all saw that rainbow?”

“This is uncanny! If that explosion didn't happen when it did, I would have blown my entrance exam. Rainbow Dash, I think you helped me with my Cutie Mark too!” Twilight exclaimed.

“All of them?”

Rainbow Dash could not believe it and stood there stunned with an open mouth.

“We all own our Cutie Marks to you!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed after jumping at Rainbow Dash in joy.

“All of them...”

“Do you realize what this means? All of us had a special connection before we even met,” Fluttershy said.

“Yes, they did...”

“We've been BFF's forever and we didn't even know it!” Rarity said happily.

“Except for me...”

Star Twinkle could only watch, how they all hugged each other after this realization. He could feel how a feeling that he hasn't experience for a while was getting stronger in him. Something that he experienced a long time ago. But he swore to remove this feeling for his own sake so that it wouldn't bother him in his life. Yet, it was getting stronger any second, while watching this six ponies.

"Isn't that great Star..." but she stopped in the middle of the sentence after realizing that Star Twinkle was nowhere to be found.

Everypony was wondering why he left without saying anything.

“Where did he go?” asked Fluttershy confused.

“I think he went outside,” Sweetie Belle informed the confused ponies.

Star Twinkle was already on his way home. His head was down while slowly walking on the streets of Ponyville. He thought about all the different stories that his friends told him about and how they were all connected to the Sonic Rainboom.

"Must be great, to know that you have something this big in common," he said to himself in a serious tone in his voice.

That Sonic Rainboom connected his friends and it bothered him to no end without knowing why. He could only laugh in desperation.

"Why am I even surprised?" In an almost happy voice. "I mean, it's always like that. I am only the third wheel. The one pony that always is just there without being part of anything..." he said while his voice becomes more and sadder.

He then thought about the Elements of Harmony and how he was the only one who kind of stumbled into this. He didn't even know his element and what he is supposed to present.

Then there was the Sonic Rainboom which gave all of his friends their Cutie Mark. Except him. He never saw that Sonic Rainboom.
What if he saw it too? He thought.
Would he have a Cutie Mark by then?
Would he know what Element he was?
Of course, there was no way for him to find out which only made him more and more frustrated.

"It's strange. I'm not even sad or jealous about their Cutie Mark connection. I could care less..." he mumbled.
"I don't even care about my own Cutie Mark or about my friends Cutie Marks...
Even though, it proves that I don't belong to them...” he said while looking at the sky.

Then the feeling from before got stronger again but this time, he couldn't hold it back anymore. No matter how much he tried. In fact, the more he tried, the worst it got. Until he could not hold it back at all.

"Then why..." he said, while tears were running down his cheeks. "Why am I so sad?" he asked while sobbing uncontrollably.

It was strange. He was alone before he met Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. He was used to be alone. It was nothing new to him. Things like that shouldn't bother him that much, he thought. Yet still, whenever he thought about not seeing the Sonic Rainboom, he felt more and more terrible.

Eventually, he calmed down a little and swept away his tears.

"I hope nopony saw me like that," he said while looking around in embarrassment.

"Star Twinkle!" Shouted Twilight in concern accompanied by his other friends except for the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

He then quickly made sure that they wouldn't realize that he was crying and swept away any remaining tears in his eyes.

"Hey!" he greeted them with a fake smile on his face.

"Don't "hey" us Star Twinkle," Rainbow Dash exclaimed who seemed a little upset about Star Twinkle's behavior just like the others.

"Why did you just leave without saying anything, darling?" Asked Rarity concerned.

Star Twinkle didn't want to explain. If he stayed, then he would have probably started crying in front of everypony and that was something he absolutely didn't want.

"I'm alright, see?” He said while forcing a smile.

They didn't believe him. He could tell that by the look on their faces, especially Pinkie's.

“Did we say something wrong?” Fluttershy asked.

“We know that you prefer to be alone sometimes but the least you can do is telling us before vanishing,” Applejack demanded.

Star Twinkle had a hard time answering those questions and stood there silently, looking down, somehow wishing that they would go away.

“Don't you think that it's awesome how all of us are connected by my awesome-”

Suddenly it hit Twilight and she stopped Rainbow Dash before she could finish her sentence. The others quickly caught up on it too after realizing how Star Twinkle was avoiding any eye contact with them.

“Is that what is bothering you? That we all saw that rainbow and got our Cutie Mark at the same time and you didn't?” Twilight asked.

“Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for you but just hearing this story just confirms that I don't belong-”

“But you do!” Twilight shouted in Star Twinkles face before he could finish.

Star Twinkle got scared from Twilight's sudden outburst, whose mind was still a little far away.

“Of course you belong to us! You are my friend as much as Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie.
And a Cutie Mark or a Sonic Rainboom won't change that!” Twilight once again shouted in his face.

“Yeah, it sure blows that you didn't see my Sonic Rainboom back then but you already saw it a while ago so don't worry,” Rainbow Dash said.

“I guess we got a little carried away back then,” Applejack said.

“Yes! I don't care if you don't have a Cutie Mark or not!” Pinkie Pie said.

“We were friends before we knew about the Rainboom so nothing has changed between us,” Fluttershy assured.

“I know that... I know all that...” Star Twinkle replied quietly.

Of course, they wouldn't see a problem. He knew that much about them already.

“Let's go back to Sugarcube Corner” Twilight suggested.

“Sorry but... I would like to be alone for a while,” he said while still trying to avoid eye contact as much as possible.

He didn't wait for an answer and just walked away, not noticing that they were looking at him in concern.

But for some reason, he wished that they would have said something. Or that he would have said something.

Talking with them was a waste of time and he knew that he was too stubborn to listen to them. He just wanted to go home and think.

And that's exactly what he did...

25. A New Life

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Life has changed a lot recently. At least that's what Star Twinkle is thinking every day. It all happened so quick and sudden. He was just living his normal boring life and didn't expect much more. And that was perfectly fine for him. But in only one day, everything changed.

It all started at the Summer Sun Celebration. A normal day for Star Twinkle. He was going to work at the Iron Hammer, went home, waited till the celebration started, go to the celebration, wait till Princess Celestia raises the sun, go to sleep, done.

But then the mare in the moon returned, Nightmare Moon, who planned to cover all of Equestria in an eternal night. Somepony would have to take care of her. Star Twinkle had nothing to do with it. But then he saw how a group of ponies followed the purple Unicorn that he saw before. She knew about Nightmare Moon so maybe she knew how to stop her. They decided to work together to stop Nightmare Moon.

Again. It had nothing to do with Star Twinkle.

They talked about the Elements of Harmony, which sounded familiar to him. But him knowing about those elements or not wouldn't have changed a thing. Yet he still followed them into the Everfree Forest. A forest of which he knew, was dangerous.

There was no reason for him to go there. But he did. Why?

The group of ponies found the Elements of Harmony but they didn't work and Nightmare Moon defeated them.

She won.

If the elements were not enough to defeat them, then there was nothing else that could stop her. But that didn't stop Star Twinkle to play the hero and go between The six ponies and Nightmare Moon. He was clearly not right in his mind when he did that. He was about to be defeated just like the other six ponies. But he was saved from a bright light that engulfed him. A new Element of Harmony appeared. An Element that is completely unknown even to Princess Celestia.

Honesty, generosity, loyalty, kindness, laughter, magic and...

All this questions and thoughts are wandering in his head in a daily basis.

Star Twinkle was on his way to Twilight's library, in hope to find some answers in one of her books. But he was surprised by what he saw after entering the library.

Princess Celestia was standing in the middle of the room, talking with Twilight.

"Oh! Um...your majesty!" Star Twinkle exclaimed before bowing before Princess Celestia.

But the princess replied with a giggle and walked up to Star Twinkle, telling him that there is no reason for formality.
"I was just checking on my most favorite student and her friendship lessons," Princess Celestia assured.

“Wait, this is perfect! Now I can ask the Princess in person about the elements!
…
Wait. What am I talking about? I can't just talk to the princess! She's probably way too busy to talk with somepony like me...”

The Princess already attempted to leave the library so it was now or never!

“Good day,” she said before walking past Star Twinkle.

At first, Twilight hesitated to approach Star Twinkle because of his behavior from the day before but she decided that it would be better to talk instead of ignoring him.
“Is there some kind of book you need, Star Twinkle?” She asked not noticing at first, that he is not looking at her.

His head was turned around to the princess, who was exiting the library, spreading her wings in order to fly away. "Princess Celestia!" Star Twinkle exclaimed.

"Yes?" Princess Celestia replied while turning around surprised.

Star Twinkle was nervous to say more but since he came this far, he might as well go through it all the way. It was his only chance to get some answers after all.
"There is something I need to talk with you. In private...," Star Twinkle asked hesitated.

Princess Celestia saw that Star Twinkle's facial expression was more serious than ever. Even Twilight noticed the seriousness of Star Twinkle. It was practically filling the whole library.

"Very well," Princess Celestia replied calmly.

Star Twinkle then followed the princess in hope to get some answers. Twilight just watched how they both left the library. For some reason, Twilight got worried and felt left out but she knew that it was important for Star Twinkle so she didn't say anything and got back to her work in the library.

The princess and Star Twinkle both walked away from Ponyville. If they stayed in Ponyville, then everypony would have interrupted them after seeing Princess Celestia. That's why they had to go somewhere where nopony could bother them. Star Twinkle didn't mind the long walk as long as all his question would be answered.

While following the princess, Star Twinkle kept his head down, thinking about what he is going to ask Princess Celestia. She knew more about the Elements than any other pony. In order to think straight again, he needed to know something and she was the only one who could help him.

"Is this okay?" Princess Celestia said stopping in the middle of an empty grass field outside of Ponyville.

"Yeah..." Star Twinkle replied quietly.

There was an unpleasant silence in the air. Nothing bad could happen just from a conversation with the princess, thought Star Twinkle. But still, he feared he wouldn't like the answers that he was about to get.

"You know what I want to ask, right?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I have a guess, yes. It's about the Elements of Harmony, right?" Princess Celestia asked.

"Yes. I was thinking a lot about this and I don't even know why... I have the feeling that if I find out more about the elements, then maybe all these thoughts will go away...So...What element am I supposed to represent?
And why was I chosen by it? I never asked for all this, after all!" Star Twinkle exclaimed.

"What would change if you knew the answers?" Princess Celestia asked back.

"So you do know something?" Star Twinkle replied surprised.

It was obvious that Princess Celestia knew something. He knew that since the first time they met after Nightmare Moon's defeat.

"I'm afraid I don't know much more than you..." she replied while avoiding eye contact with Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle couldn't believe it. First, he thought that he was misunderstanding something. But no. He was completely sure what happened now. Since he knew that behavior from himself. Princess Celestia was either lying or Something was bothering her and she couldn't bring herself to tell him.

Wasn't she supposed to be the beloved ruler of Equestria? Yet she just now lied directly to his face. At least that's what Star Twinkle was guessing. Even now she is still avoiding eye contact. What could be so bad about his element that she had resort to lying?

Star Twinkle became more and more desperate but he wanted some answers. "Please, tell me. Something, anything!" Star Twinkle begged.

Again there was a silence between them but this time, it was longer. The princess was looking at Star Twinkle worried while he was looking in her eyes in the hope she would answer faster.

Eventually, Princess Celestia took a deep breath and looked at the sky while repeating something very familiar.

“There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, and Loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery,”

This sounded familiar to Star Twinkle, grabbing his attention again. It was from way back, at the Summer Sun Celebration, right after Nightmare Moon returned. It was the story that Twilight read to her friends before they attempted to stop Nightmare Moon.
"That's...the story from that book!" Star Twinkle realized.

“After I banished Nightmare Moon, my sister, the elements lost their power and turned to stone...”

Yes. Star Twinkle heard about that from Twilight. When she and the others found them for the first time, they were only normal stones.

"But when the bearers of the Elements of Harmony appeared, their power returned..." Princess Celestia explained further until she was interrupted by Star Twinkle.

"But the book only said something about six elements. Where does my element come into play?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"The sixth element was a mystery because unlike the other elements, this one completely vanished, leaving only five elements behind," Princess Celestia continued to explain.

She was avoiding Star Twinkles question but he didn't interrupt her and instead listened. Maybe she was going somewhere with this explanation.

"You see...the sixth element was special. It can only appear if the other elements are activated. And if the other elements lose their powers, then the sixth element will vanish since it draws its strength from the other elements. Only after finding the other five Elements, the sixth one appeared, making the Elements of Harmony complete,”

“Yes, I get it! There are six Elements. Five are known and one is a mystery but what about the seventh one?”
Star Twinkle's patience was slowly running out and Princess Celestia wasn't helping him much. He knew most of those things before so there was no reason repeating all that. And more importantly, something didn't make sense in her story.

“If what you say is true, then why didn't the elements work when Twilight and the others found them? They only seemed to work after my Element appeared,” Star Twinkle asked.

The Princess looked more and more bothered. As if she wanted to give him an answer but nothing what she said would satisfy Star Twinkle.

"I'm afraid, this is all I know..." she said, ending her explanation.

"What? But what about my element?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

“I told you everything I know about the elements just now,” Princess Celestia assured. "I don't know where your element comes from and I don't know why it did choose you," Princess Celestia assured.

“Great...” said Star Twinkle frustrated looking down on the ground.

Translation: This was all a big waste of time. Of course, his questions wouldn't get answered because that would mean that he would get what he wanted.

"But I know one thing," Princess Celestia added.

This grabbed Star Twinkles attention again. Is Star Twinkle finally getting an answer? He was glad if there was going to be anything at all, that she would tell him.

"I know that it did choose you and that it brought you to your new friends," Princess Celestia said happily.

“Huh?” Star Twinkle said confused not knowing what exactly Princess Celestia meant.

“If I am not mistaken, your life was a lot more lonely before you got your element, right?”

“Well, yeah but...”

“My most faithful student was a lot like you before,” Princess Celestia said proudly because she knew how Twilight's life has changed too. “Always busy with her studies, never thinking about making friends. She always thought that making friends was a waste of time,”

Star Twinkle doesn't know how Twilight's life looked before. It did surprise him to hear that. She certainly doesn't look like a pony who doesn't know a thing about friendship.

But he was different. He had all the time he wanted. He didn't know the reason why he was alone. Maybe because other ponies thought he was cold or because they thought he liked being alone. He couldn't even blame anypony except himself because this reasons might as well be true.

Star Twinkle was in his usual mindset again but Princess Celestia didn't seem to notice and continued.

“And just like you, her life has changed since she met her new friends. And one of them is you...” she said with a warming smile that a mother would give her child.

Yes. He was part of this ponies too but he still feels like, he's the only one who doesn't belong to them.
His unknown element and the lack of his Cutie Mark were prove enough for him.

“You know about Twilight's friendship reports, do you?” Princess Celestia asked.

“You mean those letter she writes to you?” Star Twinkle asked, thankfully driving him out from his previous thoughts.

“Yes. Just yesterday, she sent me another one, regarding her connection with her friends and that Sonic Rainboom,” she said.

And hearing this made him sad again. He didn't talk with anypony since then. But he wished he did. But what should he have talked about with them? He didn't even know why he was upset in the first place.

“Have you read one of her reports?” The princess asked.

“No,” Star Twinkle replied.

Princess Celestia's horn then began to glow and a closed scroll appeared in front of Star Twinkle's face, startling him a little.

“This is the report, that she sent me yesterday. You might want to take a look,”

She was clearly asking him but coming from the mouth of the princess it more felt like an order and refusing would not be an option so he nodded and let the princess know that she should open the scroll.

Star Twinkle then began to read the content out loud.

“Dear Princess Celestia

Today I learned something amazing, Everypony everywhere has a special magical connection with her friends, maybe even before she's met them. If you're feeling lonely and you're still searching for your true friends, just look up in the sky. Who knows? Maybe you and your future best friends are all looking at the same rainbow,”

After reading the letter, Star Twinkle didn't know how to respond. This letter was clearly referring to Twilight's connection with her friends but once again, he didn't saw himself fitting in this picture.
“This was only one lesson, that Twilight learned from her time in Ponyville, together with her friends,” Princess Celestia proudly said.

“Well, I'm glad that she is learning so much here,” he said with a frown.

“May I ask you why you insist on knowing about your element?” Princess Celestia asked.

“I don't know...” he replied.

“Have you ever considered that you want to know your element because you don't want to be left out?”

"Wasn't that obvious?" Thought Star Twinkle. He always feels left out. That's why he want's to know all those answers. That's why he spends most of his time thinking about the events that happen lastly.

The frustration in Star Twinkle's head grew bigger and bigger until it finally got out.

“Of course I don't want to be left out!
I'm left out as much as a pony could be!
They all have a Cutie Mark.
They all know their elements.
They all have their Connection.
They are all-”

“Friends...” said Princess Celestia.

Star Twinkle stopped after the Princess said this word. He realized that it was the same word that he wanted to say in this exact moment. It shocked him to hear those words before he could even say them. “You want to belong to them...” said Princess Celestia gently.

Those words pierced his mind, removing any thought he had before, leaving him shocked with no thought in his mind left at this very moment.

“You want all this because you want to fit in this group of ponies. So that you can be the pony they want,” she said.

“The pony they want? But I can't -”

“Yes, you can't. You can't be the pony everypony expects you to be. And nopony expects that from you,”

Star Twinkle looked down on the ground but he listened carefully to the princesses words.

“It is true. You don't have a Cutie Mark. You don't know what element you are. And you don't have that Sonic Rainboom connection. I asked you what would change if you knew your element before. No Cutie Mark or Element will change your friendship with your friends. You lack all of those things but you still have friends who accept you, the way you are and for that, you should be happy,” the princess said with a bright smile on her face.

Being himself didn't help him this far in his life to get accepted by other ponies. But now...Did he have to worry about that now? He got friends now. But all he does now is thinking back to the days where he was alone.

“I know friendship is something you're not accustomed to yet and you might think of it as a little complicated and unused but would it hurt to try accepting friendship in your heart? What's the worst that could happen?” Princess Celestia asked.

That was a good question. After all what he did so far and the way he behaves most of the time, he was surprised that they still call him a friend. It may be the least he could do after six ponies were ready to accept him and give him a chance. Maybe if he could stop for one day being so stubborn, then maybe he could see something that he is missing this whole time.

“I guess you're right...” Star Twinkle said in concern.

But the princess replied with a giggle.

“There you are Star Twinkle!” Exclaimed Twilight who approached Star Twinkle and the princess.

“Ah, Twilight my most faithful student,” Princess Celestia said after seeing her beloved student.

Twilight was surprised to still see the princess in Ponyville and of course bowed to as soon as she saw her.

“I didn't know you were still here,”

“I was about to leave right now actually,” Princess Celestia assured.

“Did you wanted something from me?” Asked Star Twinkle.

“Yes! We still haven't agreed where and when we should meet tomorrow,”

“Tomorrow?” Star Twinkle wondered, thinking what could be tomorrow.

“You know, the Grand Galloping Gala,” Twilight said.

In all this time Star Twinkle completely forgot about that. In fact, he wasn't even sure when the Gala was held. Thankfully he already had the white suit, that Rarity made for him, way back.

“Yes, I'm expecting all of you tomorrow in the castle,” Princess Celestia said before she spread her wings and flew away in direction of Canterlot.

The Grand Galloping Gala...Maybe this was exactly the occasion that Star Twinkle needed to spend with his friends in order to understand friendship better. But that reminded him of something from yesterday.

“Uh, Twilight?” Star Twinkle said grabbing Twilight's attention

“What is it?” She asked

“I just...wanted to say that I'm sorry, for not telling you all that was wrong with me yesterday...”

It took Star Twinkle some willpower to say this words but for him it was important. He wanted somepony to hear these words to make him feel better.

Twilight didn't seem to have harsh feelings for him and accepted his apology right away.

“Don't worry about it,” she assured.

They then both walked back to Ponyville. Star Twinkle began to tell Twilight as best as he could why he was so sad about yesterday and Twilight listened carefully.

He turned around for a moment and took a look at Canterlot which was visible from Ponyville in the distance. The Gala was the only thing in his head right now. Spending time with his friends at the Gala was maybe exactly what he needed right now.

“Oh! Look!” Twilight exclaimed pointing at something in the distance.

It was a rainbow.
It was near Canterlot and barely visible but both ponies could clearly see it.

“If you're feeling lonely and you're still searching for your true friends, just look up in the sky. Who knows? Maybe you and your future best friends are all looking at the same rainbow,”

Maybe the words in Twilight's letter were true. For once, Star Twinkle at least wished they were true and he looked at the rainbow with a bright smile, hoping that things may change from now on.

Meanwhile, at a little further away from Ponyville another pony looked up to the sky and watched at the rainbow in the distance. His head was covered by a gray hood but the lower half of his face was revealing that he was making a sad or rather serious face.

He didn't spend much time looking at the rainbow and turned around slowly.
He didn't want to look at it and walked away from the rainbow.

Almost as if he was not ready to look at it yet...

26. The Worst Night Ever

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"Today is the day!" Star Twinkle said determent.

There were only a few hours left until the highly anticipated Grand Galloping Gala would start.

He thought a lot about the princesses words from yesterday and decided to put away his usual behavior for this night. He just wants to have fun with his friends and forget everything else. At least for one day.

He walked his body in front of his mirror on the ground floor and stared at his own reflection. After taking a deep breath his face became more determent before he tried to motivate himself. "Alright, Star Twinkle!
Today you have to focus! No complaining and no avoiding other ponies. You will spend a good time at the gala! You got that?" He said to his own reflection, waiting for an answer to come out.

He then took his white suit out of his closet, that he got from Rarity. He didn't touch the suit since then. Even now he was carefully moving it out of the closet, as if it was made out of paper, carefully watching that nothing would get this white suit dirty.

After putting it on, he took a last look at himself in the mirror and left his house. But he got startled by a voice as soon as he left his house.

"Looking good!"

Star Twinkle jumped after hearing a voice right next to him after he opened the door. It was Steel Hammer, who stood next to the door, looking at Star Twinkle with a mischievous smile.

"Who are you trying to impress?" Steel Hammer asked with a smile on his face.

"What are you talking about? I got this suit from Rarity, for the gala," Star Twinkle explained.

"Hey, I'm just kidding. You look good is what I meant to say. After all, it's really rare to see you in formal attire,"

"Yeah, don't get used to it," Star Twinkle replied, looking away in a little embarrassment.

"The others are probably waiting. You better get going,"

"Yes," Star Twinkle replied before walking off.

"Oh! Star Twinkle!"

"Yes?" Star Twinkle replied after turning around to look at Steel Hammer.

"Have fun," Steel Hammer said in a caring voice.

Star Twinkle took a moment to answer but eventually replied with a smile on his face. "Thanks,"

He then walked away to meet the rest of his friends. But Steel Hammer just realized something, that confused him at first.

"Wait... that wasn't a fake smile...” Steel Hammer realized.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle was on his way to Carousel Boutique. When entering the Boutique nopony could be found in the main room. But he could hear Spike nearby and followed his voice. Spike was standing in front of a door, bashing against it and begging to come in.

“Come on, you guys. Let me in!”

“What are you doing?” Asked Star Twinkle.

The little dragon then turned around in surprise and greeted Star Twinkle. Apparently, the others won't let him in because they are getting dressed. Star Twinkle found that a little weird, considering that they don't usually wear clothes. Shortly after the door was opened by Rarity.

“I'm sorry, Spike. Some of us do have standards,” she said.

Rarity seemed surprised and even embarrassed to see Star Twinkle behind the door. She was either not expecting him which was unlikely because they were supposed to meet here or she felt a little uncomfortable.

“I can wait outside if you want,” Star Twinkle suggested.

“Ah don't worry. There is no reason to be shy,” Applejack assured.

“That's not what I meant by-” he said before he got interrupted by Twilight.

“Star Twinkle! You look good,” Twilight complimented on Star Twinkle's suit.

“Give us just a moment, darling. Things like that need proper preparations,” Rarity said.

“Yeah about preparations...One of the ponies had to decline to pull the carriage,” said Spike much to the shock of everypony.

Star Twinkle had a hard time understanding what this was all about but he figured that it had to do something with the Grand Galloping Gala.

“Great! Now, where do we get another stallion this late?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

After a few seconds, all eyes were focused on Star Twinkle. He didn't know why but he suddenly had a very bad feeling. "What?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Later at night...

Then, before he knew it, he was pulling a red carriage, that strangely looked like a giant apple with his friends inside behind him along with another stallion. Star Twinkle didn't know him. He was an Earth-Pony with a yellow coat and a light brown mane.

The carriage was not hard to pull, especially with another stallion pulling it but it still was a little annoying.
His mind was quickly focused on more important things. This Gala is hopefully the first step for him to be more accepting of friendship and how this night would go for him. Spike, who was sitting on the carriage noticed that Star Twinkle was getting more and more nervous the closer they got to the Gala.

"You look nervous," Spike said after inspecting Star Twinkle, who was breathing a little more frequent than usual.

"I am..." he replied nervously.

"Come on, it won't be that bad. It's only the most important in all of Equestria, where only the noblest and elegant ponies will attend to,” Spike assured.

“That didn't help at all...” thought Star Twinkle.

“I don't know about you but I already planned out a lot of activities for tonight. I've gotta show Rarity the crown jewels, and Applejack the Princess's golden apple tree. And Pinkie, we gotta go to my favorite donut shop,”

Star Twinkle wouldn't mind that. He wasn't in Canterlot for quite some time. If it was daytime, he could visit his parents for example. But he came to Canterlot because he wanted to spend time with his friends at the Gala. This visit would have to wait for now.

“Sounds fun,” Star Twinkle said.

“Then let's get moving! Hyah!” Spike said before whipping Star Twinkle and the other stallion with his carriage whip.

“Ouch! Hey!” Star Twinkle exclaimed, giving him an angry stare along with the other stallion beside him.

“Hehe....sorry,” Spike apologized.

Eventually, they arrived at Gala a few minutes later. There were a giant castle and beautiful fireworks. It was bright and shiny it almost felt intimidating.

"Oh, boy..." said Star Twinkle nervously.

But there was nothing to worry about. As much as he disliked big events like this, he at least wasn't alone.

Spike opened the carriage and the girls stepped out, wearing their dresses, that Rarity made for them, while she was wearing the dress that her friends made for her. Spike quickly complimented them on their dresses.
He probably didn't have a chance to take a look at them before. Star Twinkle knew the dresses, though. After all, there were quite some complications when they were made back then.

Everypony took a good a look the castle with highly expecting eyes. They could not believe that they were finally attending the Gala.
“I can't believe we're finally here. With all that we've imagined, the reality of this night is sure to make this... The Best Night Ever!” Twilight happily exclaimed followed by the happy cheers of her friends, who were as excited as she was.

Seeing their excitement calmed Star Twinkle down a bit. But after setting hoof inside of the palace, everypony quickly vanished, leaving Star Twinkle and Spike alone.

"What? Hey! Where did you all-"

But then he remembered. It all came back to him in an instant.
Twilight wanted to spend time with Celestia.
Applejack wanted to earn money for the farm.
Rainbow Dash wanted to meet the Wonderbolts.
Rarity wanted to meet Celestia's nephew, Prince Blueblood.
Fluttershy wanted to spend time with the animals in the royal garden.
And Pinkie Pie wanted to party.

They had plans for this night for a long time now, unlike him.
Of course, they had no time for him, he thought, making him look down on the ground in sadness.

"No! No! No! That is not true! You just keep telling yourself that, Star Twinkle! They planned this night for so long and not letting them enjoy themselves would not be really friend-like," Star Twinkle mumbled almost forcing these thoughts in his brain.

"Alright, Star Twinkle, you can do it! Make some new friends! They don't have to be perfect. You're not perfect! They just need to be willing to at least spend some time with you!"

But then he realized that Spike was offering to spend time with him. He completely forgot about Spike.
At least one of his friends was still there to accompany him. That at least was reassuring.

“Looks like it's just us boys now, Star Twinkle,” Spike said.

“Yeah, any plans on how to spend the evening?” Star Twinkle asked.

“First we need something to drink! I'll be right back!” Spike said before running into the mass of ponies in front of them.

“Hey, wait!” Star Twinkle exclaimed but the little dragon was already out of reach.

He didn't come back for a while and Star Twinkle was just standing near the entrance like a package that was not delivered.

Once again he was alone. What was he suppose to do now? His friends were all gone just when he wanted to spend time with them for once.

He was then playing with the thought to find some other ponies that he could befriend. Instead of spending time with his friends, he should try to find some new ones. While this thought was making him feel uneasy, it also would help him to understand friendship a little better. After all, that is exactly what he planned.

Star Twinkle then walked away from his spot and searched for somepony to talk to. It was just then that he realized how big this event really is. But he also felt a little out of place. There was clearly a big difference between the usual Pinkie Pie Ponyville party and this Canterlot high-class event.

Eventually, he found somepony who was all on her own. A unicorn mare with a yellow coat and a dark blue mane, who looked like she was waiting for somepony. Star Twinkle didn't really care who it was so he approached her to start a conversation.

“Um...good evening, mind if I-”

“Oh! Perfect! I was waiting a while now for you!” She said before Star Twinkle could finish his sentence.

“Really?” He replied confused.

“Yes! Here,” she said trying to give him a glass that she was holding.

“Okay. What am I suppose to do with that?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“I don't know. Bring it back to the kitchen? I'm no waiter myself, how should I know?” She replied.

“Wait, I'm not a-”

“Oh! Girls there you!” She said before walking off to another crowd of ponies, leaving Star Twinkle confused and annoyed.

It was one of these moments where Star Twinkle would mumble to himself in annoyance but he tried to stay calm. "Things like that happen. Don't worry. Just try another pony. It will work eventually."
Those were only a few words that circled through his mind in order to make him stay calm.

He quickly found another pony standing all by himself. It was a unicorn stallion with a white coat and a black mane.

“Hey there!” Star Twinkle said with a forced smile, trying to hide his desperation.

The unicorn turned around and looked at Star Twinkle, almost inspecting or analyzing him. Then he turned his head in arrogance and walked off displeased.

“What am I not fancy enough for you?” He thought annoyed.

This night was getting worse every moment. There has to be some pony who would like to at least speak to him.

While being caught in his own thoughts again, somepony actually did say something to him.
"Good evening, sir!" Said a unicorn stallion with a dark blue coat, a light blue mane, and a mustache.

While still being annoyed, Star Twinkle realized that somepony was actually offering his company. This was his chance to make at least some progress tonight.

"Yes, good evening to you too!" Star Twinkle replied happily, finally finding somepony who at least seemed like he wanted to talk.

"You look like somepony with a little more style and glamor," the unicorn said.

"I do?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

“Why, yes. This suit practically speaks for itself,”

“Thank you, Rarity,” Star Twinkle thought.

He talked with the unicorn for a few minutes or rather Star Twinkle listened most of the time to what he had to say. He was talking about all kinds of stuff. Some kind of business that he is running in Canterlot. All the ponies that he met along his career, which didn't ring a bell at all for Star Twinkle. All the others events he attended to.

Star Twinkle was setting the bar really low but he had not much in common with this pony at all. But he kept talking. Star Twinkle didn't say a single word after greeting him. It was really awkward.

“Is he not aware that I'm not interested at all in this kind of stories?”

“...So my brother had this incredible idea, which I eventually would have come up with too...”

"Okay, I am lost. I have no idea what he is talking about. Come on! You can't just stand there, nodding the whole time, like an idiot. Just focus and try to add something to this conversation. If you listen carefully, then you will probably find something to say,"

But that was harder than he thought. It became harder to focus on him.

"- But after speaking with the princess herself about this matter, I am sure things will go along smoothly.
Of course, being a successful business pony like me the princess lost no time and-”

"The princess? What did he talk about with the princess? Should I ask her about this guy? But I can't do that while in the middle of a conversation,”

"As my ancestors used to say: Hay can't decide who eats them but you can decide which hay you eat. Of course, being the most successful member in my family things-"

"His mustache looks funny...” Star Twinkle thought looking at his mustache in a hypnotizing way.

"But enough of me. Tell me more about your business,“ the unicorn asked, putting Star Twinkle out of his trance.

"Business?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Oh? No business? Maybe a far relative of the princess? Or the son of another famous celebrity?" He asked.

"How did he come to that conclusion?"

"Well, the Grand Galloping Gala is only for the most elegant and successful ponies after all! Just the thought that some simple commoners may wander around in the castle give me the creeps," he said, shuttering for a moment.

“Commoners?” Star Twinkle asked.

"You know. Those ponies who grow up in those less sophisticated backwater places who spend their time working as farmers, or dare I say it, Carpenter!" he explained, shuddering before saying the last one.

Star Twinkle can't say that he wasn't offended by the last sentence. He almost wanted to tell him that this backwater pony got a ticket from the princess herself, just to shut him up. But he came to the conclusion that he didn't want to befriend this guy for obvious reasons.

So it was obvious what he should do. The thing he could do best. The thing he does almost every day. Talk his way out and avoiding the conversation.

"Wait! You hear that? I think my agent is calling me! Sounds important! I'll better go!" He said walking away.

Of course, there was nopony calling him but he had to get out somehow. There was no way that he could befriend somepony who thought like this.

“Well, what do you know. Finding friends is hard. What a surprise,” he said sarcastically.

This was not how he expected this night to go at all. It just wanted him to spend time with his friends even more.

"I wonder how the others are doing..." he mumbled.

There would be no harm checking up on them, he thought. They are probably done with all their goals and were bored now.

He was walking near the entrance and found Twilight, who stood right next to the princess.

"Star Twinkle!" Said Twilight who stood next to the princess, shaking hoofs with everypony who walked up to the princess.

"Hey, Twilight..." he replied.

He noticed how Twilight was shaking everyponies hoof who walked up to her.
He decided to get closer and asked her, whispering in her ear.

"Why are you greeting the guests too?"

"What do you mean? I'm spending a great time with Princess Celestia just like I wanted," Twilight explained with a smile while continuing to shake everyponies hoof.

But on a closer look, the princess was also greeting the guests right next to Twilight. In all the time where Star Twinkle was there, she didn't even look at Twilight.

"Uh huh" Star Twinkle replied with a doubtful look.

“Are you having fun too?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, sure. Having a lot of fun here,”

Of course, that was a lie. He just didn't want to ruin Twilight's fun, even though he couldn't understand how she was having fun like this.

“Alright. See you later then,” Twilight said.

He found Applejack outside who tried to sell her food in order to get some money for the apple family.
She would have some time talking with him, he thought.

"Howdy, Sugarcube!" She greeted. "Having fun?"

"The most..." he replied, making it sound like a little too convincing so that Applejack couldn't tell.
"What about you?" He asked.

"Err...of course! Making a lot of bits for the family as you can see," Applejack said proudly.

Star Twinkle then took a look at a box next to Applejack with only around three bits inside, presumably the money that she earned so far.

"Three bits?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Well, they are all probably not hungry right now. I'm sure the business will run in a few minutes...he he," Applejack replied almost embarrassed.

Speaking of hungry, Star Twinkle hasn't eaten for hours now and took the chance to buy something.

"Can you give me some apple fritters?"

"Sure do!" She exclaimed, handing him over the apple fritters from one of the shelves.

Star Twinkle spent some minutes near Applejack eating his fritters and noticed Rarity, who was in company with another stallion.

It took Star Twinkle a few seconds until he remembered that it was Prince Blueblood. The pony Rarity wanted to meet at the gala.

"Well at least somepony got what she wanted," Star Twinkle said.

The two unicorns were approaching the two earth ponies and Rarity ordered two apple fritters. Applejack seemed happy about that and quickly put two out of her shelf's. Rarity then was hinting at Prince Blueblood so that would pay for them, who in response hinted back at her. This was going on for a while until Rarity gave up.

“I'm going to have to pay, aren't I?” Rarity figured.

But Applejack said that it was okay and that she got Rarity covered.

“Thank you, Applejack. At least somepony here has good manners,” Rarity replied.

Prince Blueblood then took a bite off of one of the apple fritters only to spit it out again.

“Oh! Fritters! Dumplings! Caramel apples! My royal lips have touched common carnival fare! I'm going to the buffet for some... hors d'oeuvres,” Prince Blueblood said, before walking off followed by Rarity.

Star Twinkle saw a little resemblance to the other pony he met before in terms of his character. Just imagining that Rarity wants to spend time with this pony was too much for Star Twinkle. Of course, Applejack was not too fond that he spoke of her food like like that.
In fact, it was angering her.

"I think they taste good," said Star Twinkle, trying to calm down Applejack who didn't seem to happy after Prince Blue blood's words.

“Well, no wonder nopony wants my food. They're fillin' up on those fancy-schmancy vittles. Well, my down-home apples are plenty good enough for this crowd. I'll just dress 'em up a bit and prove it to 'em,” she said before leaving the scene.

This was a sign for Star Twinkle to find some of his other friends to hang out with. After getting inside, he found Rainbow Dash, who stood a few hooves away from the Wonderbolts.

"Hey Rainbow Dash," Star Twinkle greeted in a slightly bored tone in his voice.

Rainbow Dash seemed a little happy to see Star Twinkle. He was surprised by that. He thought that she would not even pay attention to him when she had the chance to hang out with her lifetime heroes. Still, she quickly ran towards him before she greeted him.

"Star Twinkle! Perfect! Do you mind to assist me in something?" Rainbow Dash asked excitedly.

It was either helping her with something or being on his own again so he agreed to help.

"Alright, this will work for sure!" Whispered Rainbow Dash before putting on a mischievous smile.

"What will work?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

But the moment he said that Rainbow Dash kicked him in the air from behind. Star Twinkle panicked in the air but Rainbow Dash caught him again before he touched the ground and stood there as if she just saved the day.

After catching Star Twinkle, Rainbow Dash focused her sight on the Wonderbolts again who seemed to not have noticed all that. She then dropped him on the ground and walked off.

“What was that all about?”

Star Twinkle was still confused what that was going to accomplish but Rainbow Dash was already gone again.
He decided to just leave without asking about the matter. Of course, it was unnecessary annoying so he left before Rainbow Dash came back with another crazy idea.

“Pinkie Pie is always in for a party so she will probably have some time to spend,” Star Twinkle thought.

He then found Pinkie Pie in another hall singing a cheerful song in the middle of the hall. Something about a pony pokey? It was almost too cheerful for him. She probably was having the fun of her life. So Star Twinkle left the hall again in order to not ruin her fun right now

"Maybe Fluttershy wants to spend some time. She probably won't mind when I join her and her new animal friends. Right?" Star Twinkle asked himself while also trying to be optimistic.

He quickly found Fluttershy in the garden but he was a little confused why she was in front of some kind of animal trap. He quickly figured that she must have found it and now she is trying to disarm it or something so that no animal can be caught in it.

"I was not planning to spend the night with some animals...Knowing Fluttershy, she probably won't bother when I accompany her. And even if she was, she would never say it. I don't like being so pushy but it's either that or nothing..." he figured.

As expected Fluttershy was in the garden. But things looked a little strange. There was some weird contraption in front of her.

“I'll catch you yet, my pretties. Oh yes. As soon as one of you little birds or monkeys or bears touches this net... you'll be MINE! MINE!!!" She said laughing maniacally like she never did before.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle was shocked to see this, standing there with an open mouth.

"Aaand nothing it is," he said nervously while slowly backing away from Fluttershy.

"Now what?" He said frustrated.

Star Twinkle already knew that the Grand Galloping Gala would only be a regular party for him since he didn't have a goal, unlike his friends. But that night was no fun at all. It was mostly a waste of time. He just left without saying a word and wanted this night to be over.

He and his friends wanted to meet in a Donut Shop in Canterlot after the Gala was over. There was no surprise that he was the only pony who was already there.

"The others are probably having a lot of fun right now," Star Twinkle mumbled to himself.

He sat in one of the tables and got bored of waiting after just a few minutes. Since it was really quite, he closed his eyes out of boredom. He fell asleep and had a weird dream again. It was the first time after a long time since he had one of his dreams again. As usual, there were no pictures and only voices that Star Twinkle couldn't associate.

Don't try to do everything on your own.

Let me help you.

There is no reason for you to do it on your own.

Am I not your friend?

The words were getting quieter and quieter until he couldn't hear them anymore. Eventually, he woke up again, confused about where he was before he remembered again. But unlike before he was not alone anymore. His friends were at the same table as him now. They also looked a little dirty and tired.

"Slept like a baby colt," Applejack teasingly said.

“Sorry, I must have lost you after getting us some drinks,” Spike said.

“You're all here? Does that mean the Gala is over?” Star Twinkle asked.

There was a short silence on the table until everypony was bursting out in laughter. Star Twinkle wondered what was so funny all of the sudden.

“Not directly,” Rainbow Dash said.

“In fact,” Fluttershy added.

“It was the worst night ever!” Everypony said at the same time.

“You all sound overly happy, saying that,” Star Twinkle said confused.

Eventually, everypony explained the situation to Star Twinkle. Everything went completely wrong and the only thing they could do now was to just laugh it off. Star Twinkle should have tried that too. It would at least help him to cheer up.

“I just hope Princess Celestia isn't upset with us for ruining the Gala,” Twilight said.

“That was the best Grand Galloping Gala ever!” Said Princess Celestia, who stood in the entrance.

“Pardon me, Princess, but tonight was just awful,” Twilight said.

“Oh, Twilight. The Grand Galloping Gala is always awful,”

“It is?”

“That is why I was thrilled you were all attending. I was hoping you could liven things up a bit. And while the evening may not have gone as you planned, I'm sure you'll agree that in the end, it didn't turn out so bad for this group of friends,”

If everypony was behaving like Prince Blueblood and that other ponies that Star Twinkle met at the Gala, then that was actually really easy to believe.

“You're right, Princess. Friends have a way of making even the worst of times into something pretty great,”

“Yeah! Hanging out with friends!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Talking!” Fluttershy added.

“Laughing!” Pinkie Pie added.

“You mean doing exactly what I wanted to do the whole time?” Spike said.

“And exactly what I wanted too,” Thought Star Twinkle.

“Yes, Spike. You were right,” Said Twilight.

“As horrible as our night was...” Applejack said.

“...being together here has made it all better,” Rarity said.

”In fact, it's made it...” Pinkie Pie said.

“...the best night ever!” They all said while laughing.

Was it? He could see how the Princess was looking at him with a smile but he didn't know how to respond to that. If he could spend time with his friends, then this night would have turned a lot better. But it didn't come to that.

They all didn't spend too much time in the Donuts shop and left early. It was already pretty late.

Back home Star Twinkle lied on his bed and went to sleep. He was not really tired but it was late and all he could do was lie down on his bed to think.

“Friends make everything better? They make even the worst times great?”

He looked out of the window into the dark streets of Ponyville.

“Does that mean that my friends can make me happy?
…
I want that...
I want to be happy!
And I want to understand friendship!
…
Alright...
No more complaining.
Starting tomorrow, I will be a friend that can make my friends happy too!”

After those words, Star Twinkle closed his eyes and slept through the night.
Because hopefully the days from now on, will be a little more cheerful.

Now, it was time for him to try to understand friendship.

Because this is what he wants.

Right?

Season 2 Intro - A Storm is coming

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It was a stormy day...

The wind was blowing harder than usual at that day so Star Twinkle decided to stay home. He could see how some ponies outside had problems to even walk straight. Going out right now would be a pretty bad idea.

“Why is it so windy today?” He wondered.

Soon his face looked up at the sky, watching the clouds that were blown away by the wind. It was almost hypnotizing.

“It's almost...dangerous...” he mumbled.

Meanwhile in the south of Equestria...

The far south of Equestria was labeled as the mysterious south. It was called like that because it was an still unknown place. Living conditions were not as easy as in other places of Equestria.

The forbidden jungle for example. A deep jungle filled with dangerous creatures.

Then there was the Arimaspi territory. A place even more unknown to pony kind. Also labeled as dangerous.

Another place was the badlands. A rather unfruitful place but not impossible to live in. Buffalo's set up their camp in this place from time to time but ponies usually avoid this place.

Five Pegasi were flying through the clouds over the badlands. One of them was in front, most likely leading the other ponies. It was a Pegasus with a light green coat and a blue light blue and yellow mane, shaped like a wind turbine and light blue eyes. His Cutie Mark was two wings with a whirlwind inside of it.

The other four ponies followed him without saying a word. He was slowly flying down beneath a cliff. After getting closer, a fortress-like structure was visible in the middle of four walls. There was a gate on the front side of the wall but the Pegasi all landed inside of the four walls instead.

There were several other ponies inside, marching through the place, maintaining the wall and working on other constructions.

“Dismissed!” Said the green Pegasus in a serious voice.

The other ponies then walked off and separated, leaving him alone. He was approaching the fortress at the end of the other side of the wall slowly while looking around and inspecting everypony around him as if he was checking up on them.

After walking through the entrance of the fort he walked up a staircase. It was a long way to the top but he took his time. He was walking slowly almost as if he didn't want to reach the top. But that gave him time to think.

“We will always stick together!” Said a voice in his head

“Yes!
Times may change but we will overcome everything together!” Another voice said in his head.

These thoughts seem to cheer the Pegasus up a little but then he realized that he was at the end of the staircase. There was only one way on this floor, that leads to a great hall.

There was barely any light. The only light source came from the glass window on the other side, from which you could see the place inside of the walls. The Pegasus looked down and watched everypony from there with a sad expression.

Eventually, he turned around after hearing some steps from behind.

“You're back...” said a pony who was not clearly visible because of the darkness in the room.
The only thing that was clearly visible was his blue eyes. The shadow also indicated that he was a unicorn since a horn was visible. His voice sounded displeased and a little annoyed but the Pegasus kept his calm and collected nature and looked directly at him.

“Yes, I just arrived,” he replied.

The was a strange feeling that surrounded both ponies. It was awkward but also threatening at the same time. The Pegasus knew that an uncomfortable conversation was coming up.

"What did you found out?" The unicorn asked.

The Pegasus then took a deep breath before delivering his report.

"It's just like the rumors said. Nightmare Moon returned in a little town named Ponyville and attempted to create her everlasting night. She was then shortly defeated by seven ponies who were chosen by the Elements of Harmony and returned to her former self, Princess Luna," he explained in a stoic way of talking.

The other pony calmly listened to his words and became more interested after the words "Element of Harmony" fell.

“Seven?” The unicorn asked.

“Yes. Why?” The Pegasus asked confused.

But the unicorn assured that it was not important. Still, he was clearly confused by the number.
"So they did return..." he mumbled to himself. "Where are they now?" He asked.

"In a chamber inside of Princess Celestia's castle in Canterlot," the Pegasus explained. "It seems that only she can open it, though," he added.

Hearing that angered the Unicorn. He tried to calm down a little but he couldn't hide his anger very well.

"That is a problem," he said in frustration.

The Pegasus noticed his anger but his face remained calm and collected throughout the whole conversation.

"I suppose there is no way then for us to attack Canterlot and get them by force right?" The Unicorn asked.

The facial expression of the Pegasus slightly changed after hearing that. He looked a little concerned while still remaining a serious face.

"Even if we had a way to open that chamber, there is also the royal guard. Without due respect but I will not send my troops to a hopeless mission like that," the Pegasus calmly explained.

Once again the Unicorn became angry but this time, it was focused on the Pegasus.

"Your troops?" he asked the Pegasus.

The Pegasus quickly realized and his expression turned from calm to slightly annoyed but not to the point where the Unicorn would realize.

"I mean...your troops," he corrected. "What I'm trying to say is, that our group is way too small to deal with that kind of situations," the Pegasus explained. "Also, what is so important about those Elements?" he asked.

There was a lot of tension in the air already but it became thicker and thicker the longer the conversation went. Still, the Unicorn was replying calmly.

"A pawn doesn't have to concern himself with the duties of a king," the Unicorn replied.

While there was an intimidating tone in his voice, the Pegasus wasn't afraid and kept his calm nature.

"A king?" the Pegasus asked to which the Unicorn replied only with a sinister smile.

But the Pegasus was once again not afraid and decided to rub off his smile.

"Isn't a king suppose to take care of his subjects? Taking care of a little group like this doesn't qualify you as a king. How do you expect to control something bigger like..." but he then was interrupted by the Unicorn, whose horn began to glow in a dark blue light triggered by his anger.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" the Unicorn screamed in anger while his horn glowed more and more in a dark blue color, revealing his dark purple coat and his dark blue mane, which had yellow stripes in it.

The Unicorns anger only raised the tension in the room more and more. But the Pegasus continued to keep his calm and only gave the Unicorn a serious face. According to his reaction, the Pegasus expected this reaction from the unicorn.

Eventually, the unicorn calmed down and tried to let the conversation continue.

“I want you to get me those elements as soon as possible!” The unicorn asked.

“And how am I supposed to do that?” The Pegasus replied.

“I don't care how you do it!” The unicorn angrily replied.

The unicorn then walked past the Pegasus to take a look outside from the window to overlook the place in front of the fortress.

“If that is all, then I'm leaving,” the Pegasus said, not even bothering to look at the unicorn.

But the unicorn turned around and wanted to say one last thing before the Pegasus left.

“Cyclone!” The unicorn said getting back the Pegasus's attention, who stopped but didn't bother to look at the unicorn. “Don't forget your place here. Things have changed. You should get used to that if you don't want to get in trouble,” the unicorn said almost threatening. “Also, don't mess up,” he added.

Cyclone didn't say anything for a few seconds. He was thinking about not giving him an answer at first.
But he decided to give an answer, ignoring any consequences that might result from that.

“Don't worry. The Storm Wings always succeed with their tasks...We know how to deal with problems...”

He then turned around and gave the unicorn one last threatening look before saying his last words and exiting the hall.

“Every...problem,” he said looking deeply into the eyes of the unicorn on the other side of the hall, before leaving.

Surprisingly the unicorn didn't show any signs of anger and stayed in front of the window mumbling some last words to himself.

“I'd like to see you try...”

Meanwhile, the wind continued to blow through Equestria, reaching a pony with a gray hood.
The wind was strong enough to blow away his hood, revealing a unicorn with a dark orange coat and even darker orange-reddish mane and purple eyes.
Surprised by this strong gust, he looked up in the sky worried.

“Looks like a storm is coming up,” he said before he pulled his hood back on and went on his way again.

27. The Lord of Chaos - Part 1

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"Alright!" Star Twinkle exclaimed determent.

The Grand Galloping Gala was only a few days ago and Star Twinkle already did some progress in terms of friendship, just like he planned to. He was actively searching for the company and even took part in conversations more often. This may seem to be little progress and it probably was but for him, it was almost groundbreaking.

Every day would be another step in order to improve his knowledge about friendship. And today was no different. After all, it was a beautiful day outside.

The sun was shining, even though there were some clouds in the air. Pink clouds, with brown rain coming out of them.
“Wait, what?” Star Twinkle said confused after taking a good look outside.

He walked outside to take a better look at the situation. The brown rain that was purring out of the pink clouds, was in fact, chocolate milk. But not only that. Animals like squirrels or rabbits turned into something different right in front of him. Their legs were much longer as they should be and he could swear that he saw some dancing buffaloes too.

Something was definitely going on. But since Star Twinkle didn't know what to make out of that, he looked for his friends, in hope that they knew something.

He figured that he should check Twilight's library first because Twilight had a much bigger source of knowledge because of her books. Also, he could swear that it looked like magic when some of the animals changed right in front of him.

Just when he was about to enter the library, Twilight rushed out of the door, followed by Spike. She levitated a book in front of her in which she was turning the pages with a worried look on her face.

“Twilight?” Star Twinkle said as he approached both of them.

She greeted him after noticing him but still kept her eyes on the book.

“Do you know what is happening here?” Star Twinkle asked.

“I'm not sure,” she replied.
“But I do know that all these things are caused by magic,” she added.

“Twilight is trying to find a fail-safe so that everything returns to normal,” Spike explained.

That would explain why she was so focused on that book. Star Twinkle was wondering who would cast magic that turns rain into chocolate milk. It didn't seem to make much sense to him. But if Twilight finds the fail-safe spell, then everything should be normal again in a few moments.

Most of the pink clouds were flying over Sweet Apple Acres so it would be best if the spell was used there.
As expected, the situation was no better there. All the corn turned into popcorn and the apples grew in size dramatically. It was a total mess.

Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were all there as well, probably trying to fix the problem themselves. At least Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy were. Rarity was mostly trying to stay clean in all this mess and Pinkie Pie was just drinking the chocolate milk that poured down from the clouds.

Thankfully Twilight got ready and prepared herself to cast her new found spell.
“Don't worry, everyone, I've learned a new spell that'll fix everything,” she then shot out a beam from her horn, which hit every animal, cloud, popcorn, and apple in sight. But to the shock of Twilight, her magic didn't work. “My fail-safe spell...failed. What do we do?” She asked confused.

“Give up?” Spike replied confused.

But everypony still believed that Twilight would come up with something in order to fix all this.

“What now?” Star Twinkle asked

“Now it's time for plan B,” Twilight replied determent.

She then quickly came up with a plan to get rid of the problem, telling her friends what they should do.

“Rainbow, can you corral all those clouds in one corner of the sky?” She said to Rainbow Dash, who then circled around the cotton candy clouds to corner them all in one space.

“Applejack, I need you to bring those high-strung storm clouds down to Earth,” she said to Applejack, who then pulled down the clouds with a rope, placing them on the ground and tying them up to a fence.

Moments later Twilight whispered something in Fluttershy's ear, most likely giving her a task too.

“Oh dear. I hope none of the animals see these delicious chocolate-filled cotton candy clouds. I'd hate to have to share them,” Fluttershy said purposely so that every animal in reach could hear it.

Strangely enough Pinkie Pie was the first to take a bite of the cloud until she was pushed away by all the animals who quickly gathered around the cotton candy cloud.

That seemed to defuse the situation for now but it is still unknown why it happened in the first place or who was responsible for that. But everypony was relieved now and they took their time to think what was happening here.

“You see, Spike? You should never give up. There's nothing we can't overcome if we all work together,” Twilight said with confidence.

Star Twinkle agreed on that. Her spell might not have worked but after working together with her friends even strange problems like that are not impossible to solve.

Moments later Spike was burping out a letter that came from the princess. Twilight quickly read it and seemed shocked.

“Come on. Princess Celestia wants to see us all in Canterlot immediately!” She said after she finished reading the letter.

They didn't waste any more time and went to Canterlot as fast as possible. When they arrived in the castle the Princess was already waiting on top of the main stairs, waiting for the seven ponies to arrive.

When they arrived, Twilight wasted no time to ask the Princess about the situation Ponyville was in now but Princess Celestia interrupted her and wanted everypony to follow her to the main hall of Canterlot Castle.

Everypony followed the princess as she explained the situation.

“I've called you here for a matter of great importance. It seems an old foe of mine, someone I thought I had defeated long ago, has returned. His name... is Discord,” the Princess explained before pointing to a glass window that showed a strange creature pulling the strings of an Earth Pony, a Unicorn, and a Pegasus.

“Discord is the mischievous spirit of disharmony. Before my sister and I stood up to him, he ruled Equestria in an eternal state of unrest and unhappiness. Luna and I saw how miserable life was for Earth ponies, Pegasi, and unicorns alike, so after discovering the Elements of Harmony, we combined our powers and rose up against him, turning him to stone,” she explained pointing at a different glass window that showed Princess Celestia and Princess Luna turning Discord into stone with the Elements of Harmony.

Apparently, the two princesses are no longer connected to the Elements which caused Discord to break out of his stone prison, which is why she wanted the seven ponies to wield the Elements of Harmony again to stop Discord.

Of course, the pressure was very high and Twilight asked why they had to be the ones to deal with Discord.
As a reply to that, the princess pointed at another window showing all seven of them wielding the Elements of Harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon.

“You seven showed the full potential of the Elements by harnessing the magic of your friendship to beat a mighty foe. Although Luna and I once wielded the Elements, it is you who now control their power, and it is you who must defeat Discord!” The princess said confident, counting on the seven ponies.

“So I have to wield the Element, which is still unknown to me to defeat an enemy that took two Alicorn princesses to defeat. Yeah, that's no pressure at all...” Star Twinkle thought concerned.

Twilight assured that the princess could count on the seven ponies, even though Pinkie Pie was against stopping cotton candy clouds where Chocolate rain was coming out. But eventually, Twilight convinced her too.

The princess was glad to hear that and opened the door, which leads to Canterlot Tower by putting her with magic filled horn inside of a hole that was in the middle of the door. Soon the door opened and revealed a blue box that contained the Elements of Harmony.

“Have no fear, ponies. I have total confidence that you will be able to defeat Discord with these!” The princess said, levitating the box in front of the seven ponies, giving them their Elements.

But to the shock of everypony, all seven Elements of Harmony were gone. Even Princess Celestia seemed surprised and didn't know what was going on, dropping the box on the floor out of shock.

“The Elements! They're gone!” Twilight exclaimed in shock.

“That chamber is protected by a powerful spell that only I can break! This doesn't make sense!” Princess Celestia said, walking in circles out of confusion.

But then suddenly a mischievous laughter could be heard in the room.

“Make sense? Oh, what fun is there in making sense?” The voice said amusingly.

Princess Celestia quickly recognized the voice as Discord, who probably was responsible for the vanishing of the elements.

“Discord... Show yourself!” Princess Celestia demanded.

But Discord didn't seem intimidated in the slightest and just chuckled in response.

“Did you miss me, Celestia? I missed you. It's quite lonely being encased in stone, but you wouldn't know that, would you, because I don't turn ponies into stone,” Discord said slightly annoyed.

The voice was coming from one of the windows, where the picture of Discord was moving on its own.

Princess Celestia was clearly not happy to see Discord again and demanded that he should tell her what he has done with the Elements of Harmony. As expected Discord did hide the Elements so that they can't be used against him, which was actually a smart move from someone who spent his time so far turning clouds into cotton candy, thought Star Twinkle.

“You'll never get away with this, Discord!” Princess Celestia said angrily.

Oh, I'd forgotten how grim you can be, Celestia. It's really quite boring,” Discord replied.

Rainbow Dash seemed to be offended that Discord was talking like that to the princess.

“Hey! Nopony insults the Princess!” She said before dashing right into the window, which seemed to not do anything to Discord.

“Oh, you must be Rainbow Dash, famed for her loyalty, the Element of Harmony you represent,” Discord said after Rainbow Dash's failed attack.

“That's right! I'll always be loyal to the Princess!” She replied proudly.

“We'll see about that,” Discord simply replied.

“Wait he knows about the Elements...” Star Twinkle realized.

“I can't believe we're wasting our time talking to a tacky window,” Rarity said amusingly.

“The beautiful Rarity, representing the element of generosity, if I'm not mistaken?” Discord said switching from one window to another.

“Of course, he does. He was defeated by them...” Star Twinkle thought.

“So you know who we are, big deal,” Applejack said, clearly not impressed by Discord.

“Oh, I know much more than that, honest Applejack,” Discord replied.

“You seem to know our strengths too,” Twilight figured.

“Yes, Twilight Sparkle, and yours is the most powerful and elusive element, magic. Fluttershy's is kindness and Pinkie Pie's is a personal favorite of mine – laughter,” Discord explained.

“What about my Element?” Thought Star Twinkle nervously, hoping that Discord would also tell him his element.

Discord was doing some weird stuff in the windows, making Pinkie Pie laugh but Star Twinkle was more focused on Discords words and just hoped that he would somehow reveal Star Twinkle's element.

"And let's not forget Star Twinkle,” Discord said to which Star Twinkle reacted rather shocked, even though he was wishing to hear something like that.

“Yes? What Element am I representing?” he thought as he waited for an answer.

“The Element of- oops! Sorry, we don't know that yet. Aha ha ha" Discord said amusingly.

"Yeah, very funny..." Star Twinkle said annoyed.

Eventually, Princess Celestia put an end to that conversation that would lead to nowhere.

“Stop stalling, Discord! What have you done with the Elements of Harmony?” She asked once again.

“Oh, so boring, Celestia. Really? Fine, I'll tell you, but I'll only tell you my way,” Discord replied bored before he revealed where the elements would be.

“To retrieve your missing Elements, just make sense of this change of events. Twists and turns are my master plan. Then find the Elements back where you began,” he explained in a riddle, before he left, leaving everypony in confusion.

Of course, Star Twinkle's mind was again focused on his element, rather than anything else. It was probably stupid to think that Discord would tell him anything. But soon he would face bigger problems than that if he didn't focus on the Elements for now.

“Twists and turns... twists and turns... twists and turns! That's it! I bet Discord hid the Elements in the palace labyrinth!” Twilight figured.

While Star Twinkle didn't know how that place is supposed to be the place where they began, it was better than nothing.

“Good luck, my little ponies. The fate of Equestria is in your hooves,” Princess Celestia said before the seven ponies left to defeat Discord.

“Thanks, Princess. We won't let you down,” Twilight assured.

They all prepared themselves mentally to confront Discord. Especially Fluttershy, who seemed to be afraid of Discord needed some comfort. Star Twinkle took this chance and looked at the windows in the castle and all the pictures on them.

There was a picture of him, his friends and Nightmare Moon. Then there was a picture of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, defeating Discord. Also, there was a picture of Discord and the three pony races. All these pictures were explained by Princess Celestia.

All the pictures that involved the Elements of Harmony only showed six Elements.

“So the Princess was not lying when she said that she didn't know anything...” thought Star Twinkle, making him feel almost bad for accusing her back then.

His eyes were then wandering to another window that caught his attention. It had a multicolored background like the other pictures but there was no image on it. From the center of the picture spread six different colors to the corners of the window. Red, orange, yellow, light blue, dark blue and purple. No ponies or other creatures. Nothing.

“What is this picture about?” He asked.

Princess Celestia noticed Star Twinkles curiosity and answered him.

“Nothing. It's empty...” she replied.

“Oh,” Star Twinkle replied quietly, hoping that she would give him a better answer.

Despite her answer, Star Twinkle stared at the window. He wasn't even blinking or moving at all. He was hypnotized by it and didn't know why.

“Why do I get such a familiar feeling from this window? But it's empty...So why...”

“...inkle...Star Twinkle!”

“Huh?” Star Twinkle replied after hearing Twilight saying his name.

“Is something the matter?” Fluttershy asked.

“We were about to leave now Sugarcube, so you better don't fall behind,” Applejack said.

“Sorry. I'm coming...” Star Twinkle replied before he followed the others outside.

They soon found themselves in front of a labyrinth near the castle in which the Elements of Harmony were hidden according to Twilight's theory.

“W-We have to go in there?” Fluttershy asked nervously, clearly afraid to enter the labyrinth.

But Rainbow Dash was not intimidated at all since she figured that she could just fly over the labyrinth and get the Elements.

Rainbow Dash then attempted to fly over the labyrinth but came down crashing after her wings mysteriously disappeared. Shortly after Fluttershy's wings disappeared too, along with Twilight's and Rarity's horn.
Needless to say, they were shocked. Star Twinkle didn't feel different at all and Applejack and Pinkie Pie seemed as usual too.

Then a mysterious creature appeared in front of everypony who strongly resembled the figure that they saw in the window in Princess Celestia's castle.

It was obvious that this creature was Discord. It was the first time where Star Twinkle could take a good look at this creature. He looked like a combination of all sorts of creatures. He had the head of a pony, with a deer antler on the right and a goat horn on the left side, a left goat leg, a right leg of a lizard, a right arm of a lion, a left claw of an eagle, a right bat wing, a left Pegasus wing and a snake-like body.

Discord has clearly removed the wings and horns from the ponies so that they would have a harder time finding the elements. Of course, it was clear from the point when he appeared and laughed about the seven ponies situation.

“You–You should see the looks on your faces. Priceless!” Discord said.

“Give us our wings and horns back!” Twilight demanded.

You'll get them back in good time. I simply took them to ensure there's no cheating. You see, this is the first rule of our game: no flying, and no magic,” He explained, teleporting from one place to another.

“The first rule?” Rainbow Dash asked.

"The second rule is everypony has to play or the game is over, and I win. Good luck, everypony! "He said before vanishing again.

"Never fear, girls. We have each other!" Twilight said confidently.

"Yeah! Like Twilight said, there's nothing we can't overcome if we all stick together!" Rainbow Dash added.

It was just like before with the cotton candy clouds. They may have little chance when they are alone but if they stick together, then maybe even an enemy like Discord doesn't stand a chance. Everypony then stood in front of the entrance of the labyrinth and prepared to enter it.

"All right, let's do this!" Twilight said determent.

"Together!" everypony exclaimed.

But after setting hoof into the labyrinth, walls came out of the ground separating everypony from each other.
Panics quickly spread until Twilight calmed everypony down.

"Stay calm, girls! Everypony head to the middle as fast as you can, and we'll regroup there!" She shouted.

Star Twinkle did what she said and ran forward, to where the center was. Meeting up as soon as possible was the best they could do right now, especially when dealing with an opponent like Discord. Reaching the middle shouldn't be much of a problem, thought Star Twinkle. And there were six other ponies in this maze so meeting up with at least one of them should be easy.

He proceeded to run around the maze as fast as he could while still making sure that he was going the right way.

"It should be right around the corner. I sure hope I'm not the first one to arrive there,"

He then ran around the corner only to stop abruptly.

"Wait!...This is where I started, isn't it?!" He shouted surprised.

He could see the gate from the entrance. He was definitely back at the beginning. Even though he was sure that he was walking in the right direction.

"Ugh! Well, looks like I'm gonna be last now..." he mumbled annoyed.

Suddenly a white star flew past Star Twinkle, gaining his attention.

"What the?" He said surprised.

He followed the star since it was the only thing accompanying him in this maze for quite a while.
He followed it around every corner until it stopped in the middle of a dead end.

"Gee, thanks for nothing,"

"You're welcome," the star replied.

Star Twinkle didn't expect an answer and got startled as a result. The star turned around and Discord's face could be seen inside of it.

Star Twinkle quickly backed off. He had to get out of there somehow. It took The Elements of Harmony and Princess Celestia and Princess Luna to defeat him. Star Twinkle wouldn't even remotely stand a chance against this guy.

"What's wrong, Star Twinkle? Not happy to get some company in this lonely maze?" Discord asked while still being inside of the star, circling around Star Twinkle.

"Not from you!" Star Twinkle replied, trying not to sound too intimidated.

"Oh? I don't think you mean that...You would have said that to anypony, you would have met, right?" Discord wondered.

"What? No!" Star Twinkle replied.

"Are you sure? I thought you like being alone...After all, it's much easier to just mind your own business and not bother with the problems of others,"

Discord was trying to manipulate Star Twinkle. That much he figured out. But the worst thing was, he knew that it worked.

"I mean, what could they possibly like about you? A pony without destiny, who just got into this group by dumb luck. A pony who doesn't even know the meaning of friendship,"

"No..." Star Twinkle replied with little confidence.

"You are smart, aren't you? You already know that you don't belong in this group of ponies. You're meant to be alone..."

"...yes...maybe you're right..."

"You want to be alone...That is your destiny..."

"...yes...it's my...destiny..."

Slowly, Star Twinkle's body lost color, starting from his hoofs to his head.

"I'm alone..."

His color slowly turned from light green to a pale grayish green. His eyes were losing any emotion and his head was hanging down, fully accepting the change.

"I'm alone...I always was...And I always will be..." he said as the color in his coat was slowly vanishing.

But then...

A small light made out of rainbow colors swooped over his body, giving him back his emotions in his eyes.
Seconds later the gray color vanished again, turning his coat back to its usual light green color.

Surprised by what exactly happened right now, Star Twinkle looked around confused. He couldn't remember what happened after he was talking with Discord. It was as if he jumped from one moment to another, without remembering anything in between.

But he had no time to think since Discord was appearing in front of him, playing with the star, where he was in before, in his claw.

"Well, that was unusual," said Discord surprised yet really calm.

"Discord!"

Star Twinkle just realized again what situation he was in and was back on his guard. But Discord quickly teleported next to him, pointing with his claw on Star Twinkle's forehead. The color of Star Twinkle's coat started to change again but, this time, Star Twinkle noticed, making him panic. But he couldn't move, let alone defend himself, probably because of Discord's magic.

Discord seemed to put a little more effort in his magic but this time, the gray color was not even reaching Star Twinkle's front legs. Again a rainbow colored light was blinking for a moment, removing all the gray color instantly.

Discord seemed as surprised as Star Twinkle.

"Well, somepony is not playing fair!" Discord said mildly annoyed.

Star Twinkle was far away from understanding what was happening right now and Discord's words were not making it any better.

"What are you talking about?" Asked Star Twinkle.

"Can you please explain one thing to me?" Discord asked.

Discord, if even for a second, seemed worried and serious for the first time.

"Why is it, that I can sense every Element of Harmony inside of you?"

"What?" Star Twinkle asked.

"You know! Those stupid necklaces you're looking for? There are bits of every element inside of you. Well, except for the new one..." said Discord who seemed rather annoyed right now.

"I have every element inside of me? What do you mean with that?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"It seems to prevent me from making you all gloomy and depressed like the others,"

"The others? What do you mean! What have you done with them?" Star Twinkle exclaimed worriedly.

"Well, you will have enough time to find out! See you around!" Said Discord before opening one of the walls of the labyrinth as if it was a door and entering it.

"Wait!" Star Twinkle shouted.

Star Twinkle followed him around the corner, where Discord should have come out but he was nowhere to be found.

It bothered Star Twinkle that Discord left without fully answering Star Twinkles questions.

Once again he was alone, wandering the labyrinth but now his head was filled with questions, making the time in the labyrinth at least go by fast.

"What did he mean? I have every Element of Harmony inside of me? All except the new one? But I am the new one, right? So the Element of Harmony that I was chosen from is the only one that isn't inside of me?" He mumbled to himself.

He suddenly stopped and took a deep breath before he lost his patience to think clearly.

"Argh! That doesn't even make sense!" He exclaimed frustrated.

"Star Twinkle?" Said Twilight from afar.

It sounded like they were on the other side of the wall.

"Twilight? Where are you?" Star Twinkle shouted.

"We are definitely not over here!" Applejack's voice said from afar.

"And even if we were, we are not having fun right now!" Pinkie Pie said.

"Great! It's the most boring pony of them all..." Fluttershy said.

"Girls!" Twilight exclaimed annoyed.

Instead of hearing relieved voices, Star Twinkle was confused to hear reactions like that.

"...okay..." Star Twinkle said puzzled.

They all sounded a little different. They sounded like they had a really tough time in this labyrinth. Maybe they were all stressed?

When he walked around the corner, he finally met up with his friends. The only one who was missing was Rainbow Dash. Twilight was inspecting Star Twinkle for a moment but then let out a sigh of relief.

"At least you look normal," Twilight said in relief.

"Normal?" Star Twinkle asked.

But after taking a look at everypony else, Star Twinkle understood. The others looked and behaved a little different than usual.

Applejack was avoiding eye contact and said mostly the opposite from what was actually happen or what she did. Pinkie Pie didn't smile once until now and kept a look at anypony with sharp eyes. Fluttershy was teasing and pushing the others whenever she had the chance. And Rarity was carrying a giant boulder on her back and stayed away from everypony who even looked at it. On top of that, they all had a gray coat and mane color.

"What happened to them?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I don't know but I'm sure Discord is behind this!" Twilight replied.

This was most likely the case. Discord already confronted Star Twinkle so he would probably do the same with the others.

Whatever it was, the highest priority right now was to find the Elements of Harmony. Twilight and the others didn't seem to find them too so they couldn't leave the labyrinth too. Also, they had to find Rainbow Dash first so they walked around the labyrinth for a little longer. But even walking a straight part, provided to be difficult at the moment.

Everypony except Star Twinkle and Twilight were constantly arguing with each other. Star Twinkle noticed how that boulder, that Rarity carried was way too heavy for her. “Say, why is she carrying this thing anyway?”

“She thinks it's a diamond...” Twilight said, who seemed to get annoyed by the situation more and more.

“Did you tell her that it's not?” Star Twinkle asked.

But Twilight only replied with a mean glance. She was clearly too annoyed by her other friends at the moment to answer such stupid questions.

“I think I talk with the others for a moment,” Star Twinkle replied trying to give Twilight a little space.

First, he approached Applejack. “So Applejack, do you have any idea where we can find the elements?” He asked Applejack.

“Of course I do,” she replied bluntly.

“Wait, really? Where?” He asked surprised.

“Well, uh...I'm not gonna tell you!” She added.

He then noticed how Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were arguing in the back and tried to focus on them.

“What is going on here?” He asked.

“I was just telling Pinkie Pie how lame she is. Almost as lame as you, Star Twinkle,” Fluttershy explained.

“If that was supposed to be a joke, then it was not funny,” Star Twinkle replied.

“Funny!? Funny!? Nothing here is fun at all!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed angrily.

“I'm having a lot of fun right now,” Fluttershy said, making Pinkie Pie angrier.

“No! No fun allowed!” Pinkie Pie said.

“What is happening here?” Star Twinkle wondered.

He then noticed how Rarity had trouble carrying her giant boulder so he went to her side and offered to carry it for her.

“How about I carry this...thing for you?” Star Twinkle asked.

“Oh, darling that would be wonderful,” Rarity happily responded.

“Well, at least she didn't completely lose it,” thought Star Twinkle.

Rarity then placed the boulder on Star Twinkle's back, who had problems lifting this thing himself.

“But don't get the wrong idea! You better watch out! I know where you live,” Rarity threatened.

“or maybe not...” thought Star Twinkle who was taking some distance from Rarity.

Star Twinkle was slowly following his friends until Applejack pointed out something.

“Well, looky there. Rainbow Dash is flying away. She's abandonin' us,” Applejack said, looking up and pointing to the sky.

“Now I know that's a lie,” Twilight said confidently until she looked up at the sky herself.

“How can it be?“ Twilight said after letting out a surprised gasp.

Star Twinkle also looked up at the sky and was surprised himself. It was true. Rainbow Dash was flying away from the labyrinth. Why she had her wings again was another thing but Star Twinkle was more confused about why she was flying away. She was practically leaving her friends behind.

Suddenly the ground began to shake and the labyrinth was vanishing inside of the ground, leaving only a field of dirt. Of course, this was Discords doing, who appeared in front of everypony.

“Well, well, well. Somepony broke the "no wings; no magic" rule,” he said, before giving Fluttershy her wings and Twilight and Rarity her horns back.

“Game's over my little ponies. You didn't find your precious elements. Looks like we might be due for a big old storm of chaos!” Discord said, before laughing maniacally as the six ponies felt more than helpless in this kind of situation.

“With my friends like that and our elements gone, how are we suppose to stop this guy?” Thought Star Twinkle frustrated as he watched how Discord just now defeated the Elements of Harmony.

To be continued...

28. The Lord of Chaos - Part 2

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Only the laughter from the spirit of chaos could be heard in the in the now empty place where the labyrinth was standing before. And the only thing that could be seen were six ponies from who four of them didn't even realize the situation there were in.

“Oh, you ponies are just the most fun I've had in eons,” Discord said amused, still laughing at the misery of the six ponies, much to Pinkie Pie's dislike.

“Well, quit it! You'd better not think before you laugh at the Pinki...ie Pie!” Pinkie Pie replied, struggling with her last words.

And once again Fluttershy took the opportunity to provoke Pinkie Pie more. “Oh, yeah? Well ha, ha,” Fluttershy said.

“Quit it!” Pinkie Pie replied.

“No. Ha, ha” Fluttershy said again, further provoking Pinkie Pie.

“Quit it!” Pinkie Pie replied again, holding her ears with her hooves.

This was going on for a good while and Star Twinkle only watched how his friends behaved in a situation like that. Applejack and Rarity weren't any better, even going so far to fight each other because of that stupid boulder.

Twilight tried her best to talk with them but nopony listened to her. Star Twinkle didn't even bother and wondered if he would have turned out like this too.
Discord was obviously responsible for that. He tried the same thing with Star Twinkle too but for some reason, it didn't work. Eventually, Twilight turned her frustration towards Discord. “Stop it, Discord. You're not playing fair,” She said.

“I'm not playing fair? Perhaps we haven't met. I'm Discord, spirit of chaos and disharmony. Hello?” Discord replied boldly.

“How are we supposed to find the Elements of Harmony when you took away the labyrinth before we could get to the end,” Twilight asked frustrated.

To that, Discord reacted rather surprised and Star Twinkle had a feeling why. Discord began to laugh and explained the situation further.

“You thought the Elements were in the labyrinth?” Discord said amused before he teleported himself, Star Twinkle and Twilight into Canterlot Castle again.
But in fact, he teleported them back in time, where they could see their previous selves again. It was that moment where Discord first confronted them.

“Twists and turns are my master plan. Then find the Elements back where you began,” said the Discord from the flashback.

All three of them then teleported back to the remains of the labyrinth.

“I never said they were in the labyrinth,” Discord said.

Twilight was confused because she felt tricked by Discord and was at a loss for words and Star Twinkle just tried to think about the answer. If they find the Elements, everything should return to normal. At least Star Twinkle kept saying that to himself to calm himself down.

“Keep trying, you two. Maybe the magic of friendship can help you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some chaos to wreak,” Discord said mockingly before he vanished again.

But not before, he summoned some cotton candy clouds to rain down some chocolate milk on Star Twinkle and Twilight to make their situation even more miserable.

“Think Twilight, think! Find the Elements back where you began. Back where you began,” Twilight kept repeating to herself in hope to find an answer.

“Do you know what he means by that Star Twinkle?” Twilight asked.

Star Twinkle was thinking about the riddle since Discord vanished. Twist and turns are probably referred to what Discord did with his friends. And back where they began had multiple answers to Star Twinkle. It could either be the castle of the two sisters where they first found the Elements or it could be the library of Ponyville where they first heard about the elements. That reminded him of Twilight's book about the Elements.

“Maybe we find a clue in one of your books in Ponyville,” Star Twinkle suggested.

“That's it! Star Twinkle you're a genius!” Twilight said proudly.

The six ponies then traveled back to Ponyville in hope to find the Elements there. But when they arrived, Ponyville drastically changed. There were cotton candy clouds all over the place and buildings were levitating above the ground.

“Come on, girls. I'm certain this is what Discord's riddle really meant. If we get back to the library, I have a book that I just know can give us a clue,” said Twilight confident.

But then suddenly a group of animals ran over Twilight. Star Twinkle identified them as bunnies but they looked really strange. Their legs were much taller than before. Star Twinkle helped up Twilight who laid on the ground with some bruises from that mini stampede.

“Are you alright?” Star Twinkle asked while offering his hoof to pick her up again.

“Yes, I'm okay,” she replied as she got up again.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy seemed to enjoy Twilight's misery. “Good boy, Angel. Mama's so proud,” she said happily.

Moments later, it became dark, which was unusual for this time. Star Twinkle couldn't see a thing and had a hard time walking forward because the ground felt slippery. The next thing he knew was that he was run over by something from behind followed by some groans and moans from his friends. They probably slipped and crashed into each other.

“I meant to do that,” Applejack said after slipping next to Star Twinkle and Twilight.

Seconds later the sun was rising again. It was now that Twilight realized that the dirt roads of Ponyville have turned into soap. Star Twinkle was confused by Discord's methods to take over Equestria, even though they seem to work.

Discord appeared again in front of the six ponies and introduced them to his new and improved Ponyville, naming it the Chaos Capital of the World. And just as quick as he appeared, he vanished again.

“Ponyville, the Chaos Capital of the World? Not if we have anything to say about it,” Twilight said determent.

“Right. Things may not look good right now but if we get the Elements, then everything will return to normal,” Star Twinkle said also determent.

Discord was powerful but so was Nightmare Moon and they defeated her too. It was not like Star Twinkle to stay positive like that but the last thing he wanted right now was to see Equestria being taken over by Discord. Not after he wanted to learn so much about friendship.

It didn't take long until they reached Twilight's library. Despite Ponyville being changed that much, the library seemed untouched. They stood in front of the library and Star Twinkle and Twilight waited until everypony else entered it. “Okay, we're here. Everyone please, please, please just go inside, please?” Twilight said frustrated.

“I absolutely refuse,” said Applejack before entering the library.

“With pleasure,” said Fluttershy, stomping on some flowers near the entrance, before entering the library.

“I hate libraries!” said Pinkie Pie angrily before entering the library.

Star Twinkle noticed how every one of them lost more color in their coats and manes.

“I hope that doesn't mean that their condition gets worse,” Star Twinkle thought.

Twilight let out a sigh because of everyponies behavior, which was understandable because of everyponies behavior. Rarity was still outside, trying to push her “diamond” into the library.

“Pleeeease, we gotta hurry!” Twilight begged.

“Forget it Twilight. I know what you're up to. The second I go in, you'll have your little minion Spike come and take Tom!” Rarity replied.

“Tom?” Star Twinkle and Twilight replied confused.

Since Rarity refused to go inside without her “diamond”, Star Twinkle decided to carry the boulder inside. He carried it inside of the library and dropped it on the ground so that he can focus on helping Twilight.

“Careful! You'll ruin his beautiful finish,” She said bothered.

“His what?” Star Twinkle asked.

“Twilight! Star Twinkle! What's going on? Why does everybody look so...gray?” Spike asked, who approached the two ponies confused.

But Twilight had no time or nerves to explain the situation right now.

“No time explain. We've got to find the reference guide to the Elements of Harmony before somepony does something she'll regret!” Twilight said glaring at everypony.

“I sure hope that there is something that will help us for once,” Star Twinkle said annoyed.

“Hey Star Twinkle, what's soaking wet and clueless?” Fluttershy asked.

Fluttershy took a bucket in her hooves and waited for a response.

“I don't know what-” but before ending his sentence Fluttershy showered him in water.

“You're face!” She exclaimed before slamming the bucket over his head.

“This is really starting to get on my nerves...I hope we find the Elements soon...” Star Twinkle thought annoyed.

Thankfully, Spike knew where the book was and went over to a bookshelf. But the moment he found it Fluttershy snatched the book out of Spikes claws.

“Fluttershy, you'd better give me that book!” Twilight demanded.

Fluttershy then threw the book to Applejack, who then threw it to Pinkie Pie, who threw it back to Fluttershy and so on.

“Star Twinkle! We have to get that book!” Twilight exclaimed.

“On it!” Star Twinkle replied.

Both of them tried their best to get back the book. Eventually, Spike managed to stop the keep away and the book landed on the ground. But before Star Twinkle or Twilight could get a hold of it, Rarity ran towards it and grabbed it with her magic.

“Hey, do you even know what you just stole?” Twilight exclaimed.

“No, but if you want, I want it!” Rarity said happily.

Now Star Twinkle and Twilight had to get the book again. Everypony was working together to get the book away from Star Twinkle and Twilight. The two ponies tried their best to get the book back but it was still four against two. Eventually, Star Twinkle stopped and tried to find another solution.

“I think we need to calm down and try to approach the situation a little different.” Star Twinkle suggested.

But Twilight didn't listen and was too caught up in getting the book back.

“GIVE ME THAT BOOK!” Twilight screamed. “Where is she? Where's Rarity?” She asked.

“Beats me,” Applejack replied.

Twilight then lost her patience and jumped into Applejack and Pinkie Pie, fighting over the book.

“That's not what I meant at all!” said Star Twinkle who rushed into the fight too.

He actually managed to retrieve the book again, much to Twilight's relief.

“Good job, Start Twinkle. Now hold them off so that I can get some more information,” Twilight said before she opened the book.

But she stopped after letting out a gasp. Star Twinkle turned around and looked why Twilight was so surprised all of the sudden. The Elements of Harmony were actually inside of the book.

“The Elements! They were here all along!” Twilight exclaimed.

“This is great! Now you guys can defeat Discord and put everything back to normal!” Spike said.

“Exactly!” Star Twinkle exclaimed.

But everypony else didn't seem to share their excitement and just sat in the corner of the room with no interest at all.

“You don't even care, do you?” Twilight asked.

“No!” The four ponies replied in disinterest.

Twilight got more and more upset to see her friends like this and Star Twinkle felt like he should say something to cheer her up.

“Twilight...”

“I never thought it would happen. My friends...” she said upset. But her face quickly changed from sad to angry and annoyed. “...have turned into complete JERKS!” she said annoyed.

She then forcibly put the necklaces on everypony, even Star Twinkle. After putting on her crown she attempted to walk out so that she and her friends could defeat Discord.

“Wait, Twilight we are still missing somepony!” Star Twinkle pointed out.

“What do you mean? We've got the liar, the grump, the hoarder, and the brute. That just about covers it,” She said pointing at, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy.

“And...what about Rainbow Dash?” Spike pointed out.

Twilight realized that too but came up with a quick solution because she clearly didn't have enough patience left.

“Congratulations, Spike, you're the new Rainbow Dash. Now let's go,” said Twilight in all seriousness, before putting Rainbow Dash's Element on Spike.

Needless to say, Spike wasn't too excited to be put into that role and Star Twinkle wasn't sure if the Elements work that way. He wanted to tell Twilight what he thought but again, she was too caught up to listen to him.

Everypony was already outside and Star Twinkle followed them. To his shock, a familiar face was already waiting outside, Discord.

“Well, well, well, I see you found the Elements of Harmony. How terrifying!” Discord said sarcastically.

“Discord! We've figured out your lame riddle. You're in for it now!” Said Twilight determent.

But Discord didn't seem to be intimidated in the slightest and just played along and admitted that he was defeated. He just waited for the six ponies and the baby dragon to fire their Elements at him. Star Twinkle could see that Discord was playing along but he was also hoping that this constellation actually worked.
Who knows when they got another chance?

After every pony and dragon were in position, a bright light once again engulfed the ponies just like back then against Nightmare Moon.

Discord actually looked worried for a second. However, the light quickly vanished again and the ponies fell all down on the ground.
It didn't work.

Twilight was confused by this outcome but it was obvious to Star Twinkle. It was either the transformation of his friends who made the Elements not work or the fact that they were still missing Rainbow Dash. Either way, the only thing that was certain right now is that Discord was not defeated, who happily clapped because of everyponies failed attempt to defeat him.

“Bravo, ponies, bravo!” He said accompanied by some random noises every time he clapped. “Harmony in Equestria is officially dead. Discord rules, Celestia drools,” he said, angering Twilight in the process.

Discord vanished and left the Element bearers in their misery.

"What now?" Asked Star Twinkle.

But he didn't get an answer and turned to Twilight, who didn't look too happy at all.

“It's your fault it didn't work,” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“Who are you talking to?” Star Twinkle asked.

“Any of you! ALL OF YOU! I'm outta here!” She replied angrily as she hopped away.

“What is happening here?” Star Twinkle thought.

“I better go, too. I've got new better friends waiting for me at the farm,” Applejack said before she left as well.

“Is this really happening?”

Rarity left without saying anything while pushing her boulder in direction of her home.

“Yeah, I'm sick of you losers,” Fluttershy said before she flew away too.

“No...Me and Twilight are still left. I'm sure if we try hard enough, we will find a way to return everything to normal,” thought Star Twinkle, still trying to find a way to stay positive.

But he had the feeling that it would become harder and harder for Twilight and him to find a solution. While looking down on the ground in depression, he suddenly got startled by Twilight's voice.
“FINE! Leave! See if I care! I don't need you guys either! With friends like you, who needs...enemies...?” She said depressed.

Star Twinkle knew that Twilight was at her limit too but he never expected her to say something like this.

“What are you-”

But he stopped in the middle of the sentence after he realized what is happening to her. It was the same with him before. Her body started to turn gray, starting from her hooves. He quickly walked up to her before she was turning completely gray.

"Twilight? Not you too! Come on! You can't give up now! What about our friends?" Star Twinkle asked frustrated.

"What's the point..." Twilight replied quietly before her body turned gray completely.

“Hey, snap out of it! We have to return everything to normal!” Star Twinkle exclaimed desperately.

“Please, leave me alone...” she replied before she walked away from Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle could feel how tears were starting to come out of his eyes but he tried to hold them back as best as he could, even though he didn't care if somepony would see him like this.

"What is happening here? This morning we were all still friends...but now..."

"Um, Star Twinkle?" Spike asked concerned, who was still outside but Star Twinkle just let his head sink in sadness and didn't pay attention to him.

"Just when I wished for nothing but to be with my friends... Now it's all gone...I'm alone again...with no friends...again...
...
I don't want that! I don't want to loose my friends!”

Just the mere thought of losing his friends filled Star Twinkle with sadness. He didn't care if he let down the princess. He didn't care what happened to Ponyville or to Equestria. At this moment everything else didn't matter for him. All that he wanted now, is to turn his friends back to normal. And for that, he only knew one more solution...

"Spike. Go back to the library and send a letter to Princess Celestia," Star Twinkle said determent.

"The princess?" Spike asked confused.

"Inform her about everything that happened. Maybe she knows a solution to all this...”

"And what are you going to do?" Spike asked confused.

"I'll go and find Discord!" Star Twinkle replied determent.

It was crazy but Star Twinkle didn't know what else he could do. Discord was responsible for his friend's behavior so the only thing Star Twinkle could do to turn them back is to confront Discord.

It was not hard to find him. He sat on a hill in the middle of Ponyville, sitting on a throne and having the fun of his life.
"Discord!" Star Twinkle screamed at the draconequus.

Discord noticed the green earth pony and greeted him, knowing that he had nothing to fear from him.

"Why hello there, Star Twinkle. Having fun in your new home?"

"Turn my friends back to normal!" Star Twinkle angrily exclaimed

"Oh! That sounded like an order! But wait! Oh, yes, that's right! I'm Discord. And I don't take orders from nopony," Discord replied in his usual silly way.

"Turn them back!" Star Twinkle said once more.

Even though Star Twinkle was more than serious right now, Discord knew that he had no reason to be intimidated.

"Well, let's say that I won't. What are you gonna do about it?" Discord replied.

Star Twinkle then prepared himself to charge at Discord, who again didn't feel intimidated in the slightest. "You're kidding. You're kidding, right?" Discord said annoyed.

Star Twinkle then ran towards the throne of the draconequus, who didn't make the slightest effort to dodge. Instead, Discord teleported a giant pudding in front of him, causing Star Twinkle to run right into it and trapping him inside.

"Please, Star Twinkle, you're only embarrassing yourself," Discord said taking a bite out of the pudding before removing it again, making Star Twinkle fall on the ground. "I know that you hate nothing more than being left out and being the kindhearted person I am, I even would do you the favor, by turning you gray too.
But since you are protected by the elements, I'm afraid that's not possible so why not stay here and have some fun as well?" Discord suggested.

That reminded Star Twinkle. He still didn't understand what Discord meant back then. There would be no better time to ask him so he minds as well, asked him now. "Yeah, about that. I still don't know what you meant with that..." Star Twinkle said while getting back on his hooves again.

"You said that I have pieces of every element inside of me, except my own. But that doesn't make sense! How can I not have my own element inside of me?" Star Twinkle asked confused

Discord was wondering himself what Star Twinkle meant even though, he tried his best to answer him.

"When did I ever said that?" Discord replied almost jokingly.

"Back in the labyrinth of course!"

"You ponies really are slow when it comes to understanding simple words right?" Discord said annoyed. "My exact words were if I recall: You have pieces of every Element of Harmony inside of you, except the new one," Discord explained.

"Yes and that is my element," Star Twinkle replied.

"It's not really nice to put yourself in the spotlight like that, you know. No. Your element is nothing new. It's that Element of Magic that I meant," Discord explained, confusing Star Twinkle even more.

"What? Twilight"s Element?" Star Twinkle wondered.

Star Twinkle was confused before but now it got even worse. In fact, it made even less sense. If his element was around before, then why does nopony know what it is? Wasn't Twilight's element suppose to be the sixth element? While still in deep thoughts Star Twinkle noticed that he was levitating above the ground.
There were several balloons strapped around him causing him to fly up in the air.

"We should continue our conversation some day, Star Twinkle," Discord said as he waved goodbye.

"Hey! I'm not done asking you-"

But Star Twinkle stopped in the middle of the sentence after realizing in what situation he was in right now.

"I'm really high up here..." he said before he looked down, watching Discord getting smaller and smaller.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Star Twinkle screamed in fear waving around his legs in frustration.

After a few minutes, he eventually stopped screaming and just covered his eyes in fear as he flew over Ponyville.

"Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down," Star Twinkle kept repeating to himself while covering his eyes.
"Maybe I'm not so high up anymore...Maybe I'm really close to the ground now..." he said, before taking a peek at the ground, only to realize that he was still very high up in the air.
"Ahhhhhhhhh!" He screamed, covering his eyes again in fear.
"How long am I suppose to stay here?" he said to himself.

"Star Twinkle!"

But then he heard a familiar voice, that got closer and closer. It was Rainbow Dash, who was accompanied by Fluttershy. He wished countless times that somepony would save him but he was even happier to see two of his friends again.
"Rainbow Dash! Fluttershy! Are you back to normal again?

"You bet!" Rainbow Dash replied.

They both grabbed Star Twinkle and dragged him down to the ground again. To Star Twinkles relief, the rest of his friends were waiting on the ground.
He could not be happier to see them.

Twilight popped all the balloons that were strapped around Star Twinkle, with her magic, letting him return to solid ground again.

"You are all back to normal again?" Star Twinkle asked surprised.

"Twilight helped us to remember all our good times as friends. After that we all came back to our senses," Applejack said.

"But weren't you changed too?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"I was. But then the princess send all my friendship reports back to me. They helped me to remember our friendship again,"

"Yeah! Discord may have turned us all upside down but true friends never forget each other," Pinkie Pie added.

"Speaking of Discord. Let's show him what happens if he messes with us!" Rainbow Dash said determent.

"Alright follow me! I know where he is!" Star Twinkle said leading the way to Discord.

He was still sitting on his throne and laughed. And again Star Twinkle approached him but this time, he was not alone.

“Chaos is a wonderful, wonderful thing,” Discord said, filling a glass in his claw with chocolate milk that poured down from a cotton candy cloud that he summoned next to him.

“Not as wonderful as friendship,” Twilight said determent with all her friends behind her.

“Oh, this again?” Discord said almost annoyed, before he drank his chocolate milk, or rather the glass from the chocolate milk, throwing away the remains, which exploded in the background.

“That's right. You couldn't break apart our friendship for long,” Applejack said.

But Discord didn't seem impressed and pulled her next to him along with the others, except Star Twinkle and Twilight.

“Will you ever learn?” Discord said exhausted.

He then prepared a spell in his claw and tried to corrupt the five ponies again. Thankfully, Twilight teleported herself in front of Discord and created a shield around herself and her friends, preventing Discord to cast a spell on them. They then landed next to Star Twinkle, who was relieved that Twilight saved his friends in time.

“I'll tell you what we've learned, Discord: We've learned that friendship isn't always easy, but there's no doubt it's worth fighting for!” Twilight said with confidence.

Star Twinkle couldn't agree more. No matter how hard it may be, fighting for your friendship is something he was prepared to do as well. Even though he was alone, just believing in getting his friends back, gave him the strength to fight. No matter how hopeless it may be.

He couldn't do a thing...But now he is not alone anymore...They can defeat him now.

Surprisingly, Discord was still not intimidated and even provoked the seven ponies to attack him so that he can go back to his chaos business.

“Ugh, gag. Fine, go ahead, try and use your Elements. Friend me. Just make it quick. I'm missing some excellent chaos,” Discord replied annoyed before he sat down on his throne again.

Of course, the seven ponies were confused to hear that but it gave them a free shot and they didn't plan to let that one go to waste.

Once again they stood in position and activated the Elements of Harmony. A bright light engulfed everypony and the Elements reacted. It was working this time.

A rainbow came flying out of the seven ponies and hit Discord directly. Before he knew what happened, he was already turned back to a stone statue. And with him gone, Ponyville turned back to its normal self again.

Everypony was relieved that everything worked out in the end and hugged each other out of happiness. It still felt a little strange to him but he didn't care at this moment. The only thing that bothered him now, was that Discord gave him, even more, questions.

Twilight's Element was the unknown seventh Element? But if that is true, then why does nopony know about Star Twinkle's Element? It confused him but he swore that he would not let himself be bothered about that anymore and tried to forget it. At least for now...

Later that day, Princess Celestia wanted to hold a ceremony for Star Twinkle and his friends in Canterlot castle. The seven ponies were honored by Princess Celestia herself in front of hundreds or maybe thousand of ponies. Never would Star Twinkle imagine that something like that would happen to him. He was not accustomed to that at all but it felt a little good to see so many ponies cheering for him and his friends.

“We are gathering here today to once again honor the heroism of these seven friends who stood up to the villain Discord and saved Equestria from eternal chaos,” said Princess Celestia in honor of the seven ponies

She then revealed a glass window, showing all seven ponies defeating Discord. From there on out only cheers could be heard in the hall.

“Our friendship was strong enough to even overcome the Lord of Chaos...I guess, friendship can really overcome anything,” thought Star Twinkle happily, before he joined his friends in the ceremony, which was pretty much like a really big party.

And like every other party, he preferred to spend his time with his friends. Forgetting the trouble they had to go through earlier this day.

Meanwhile far away from Ponyville...

Three Pegasus where flying up in the sky. One of them was in the lead, followed by two others. The two ponies behind him had both a gray coat and yellow eyes but one of them had a dark blue mane and the other had a dark green mane. The one with the dark blue mane had a cloud as a Cutie Mark and the one with the dark green mane had a feather as Cutie Mark.

But the one who stood out the most was the Pegasus in front. He had a dark yellow coat, a light blue mane, as well as light blue eyes and a wing with tornadoes coming out of it, and most noticeable, wings who seemed to be made out of metal.

“How long until we get to Ponyville?” Asked the one with the dark blue mane

“It will take us a few days, I guess?” The metal winged pony replied.

The other two ponies replied with a huge sigh out of exhaustion, angering the Pegasus in front.

“Would you get yourself together?” He exclaimed annoyed.

“And why do we have to go there?” Asked the one with the dark green mane.

“To get something called: The Elements of Harmony,” The Pegasus in front replied.

“And what are those?” The Pegasus with the dark blue mane asked.

The metal winged Pegasus seemed a little annoyed but kept flying forward while answering their questions.

“I don't know. And I don't care. All I know is that Cyclone wants us to get them. And that is exactly what we are doing. It's as easy as that,” The Pegasus with the metal wings explained.

The other two Pegasus didn't say anything after that and just had worried looks on their faces.

“And we won't let anypony stand in the way of the Storm Wings!” The metal winged Pegasus said determent as he continued to fly in direction of Ponyville...

29. Friendship Lessons

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Another day in Ponyville began.

Since the defeat of Discord, Star Twinkle didn't take his friends for granted anymore. The whole thing showed him that his friends could be taken away at any time. But he didn't want to think about that.

His friends want to spend time with him because they can and not because they are afraid to lose that any second. He decided to make up the best of his current situation. After all, he had to catch up a lot of time. But he was also aware that he didn't quite understand everything about friendship. And the only way to understand it is to spend time with his friends.

Star Twinkle preferred to call this:
The circle of friendship. By spending time with his friends, he will understand friendship a little better. And by understanding friendship better, he becomes a better friend for everypony.

As usual, whenever he is thinking about stuff, he realized that he is maybe overthinking everything a little too much.

"I think, I am putting way too many thoughts into this...I am probably the only pony in the world, who takes friendship this serious..." he thought.

He then heard how somepony was knocking on the door repeatedly. It almost sounded nervous. As if it was some kind of emergency. Realizing that this could maybe possible, Star Twinkle rushed to the door and opened it.

After opening the door, he saw Twilight, who had a joyful smile on her face, like she didn't saw Star Twinkle for several years. Star Twinkle couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable.

"Hey, Star Twinkle!" Twilight greeted with a joyful smile.

"Um...yes?" Star Twinkle replied, wondering about Twilight's visit.

"I was just in the neighborhood and wondered if you might need help with something?" Twilight asked digging in the ground with her front hoof.

"Help with what?" Star Twinkle asked back.

"Oh, I don't know...nothing special...maybe something like a friendship problem?" Twilight asked shyly.

Star Twinkle noticed how Twilight seemed a little pushy. He had no problems in terms of friendship right now. Although that could be considered as a problem too? But even if he had, chances that he would flat out tell them to somepony were very slim.

"What is this all about, Twilight?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Eventually, Twilight behaved like her usual self and explained the situation to Star Twinkle.

"I'm sorry..." Twilight apologized. It's just that I'm behind writing the princess a letter about friendship,"

"So? That doesn't sound too bad," Star Twinkle said boldly.

Twilight reacted in shock after Star Twinkles response.

"What?" Twilight replied shocked. "Doesn't sound too bad?" She said getting close up to Star Twinkles face. "Of course, it's bad! I've sent a letter to the princess every week and I still need to send her a letter by the end of today!"

Star Twinkle had problems understanding her troubles. If what she said is true and she had sent a letter every week since she was sent to Ponyville, then it will probably be no problem if she misses out one week. Learning something about friendship every week seemed almost impossible from Star Twinkle's point of view and the princess is probably not expecting her to learn something new every week too.

"I'm sure she will understand if you miss out once," Star Twinkle said.

"I'm afraid I'm not taking that chance," Twilight replied. "Now if you excuse me, I have to find a friendship problem," she said before she turned around and walked off.

Star Twinkle kinda admired her determination but at the same time, he thought that it was a little too rushed. Off course, he was not the right one to judge her. After all, he was the one who wanted to find out something about friendship. He should be the one who should put more effort in this matter. After thinking about the situation a little more, an idea was growing inside of his head.

"If I help her solve a friendship problem, then maybe I can benefit from that too..." Star Twinkle thought.

It was the perfect opportunity to learn something about friendship. If Twilight was so determent to find a problem, then she eventually would find one. And if Star Twinkle was right by her side, then he would learn something too.

"Alright, let's do this!" He thought determent.

"Wait, Twilight!" He exclaimed, causing Twilight to turn around again surprised. How about I help you find a problem to solve?" Star Twinkle offered.

Twilight seemed happy to hear that and grinned excitedly. She accepted Star Twinkles help and they both left for a walk through Ponyville.

"So, who have you visited already? So that I know where we can start?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight reacted a little embarrassed at this question.

"Actually, you're the first one. I thought that from all ponies, you would be the most likely one to have a problem..." Twilight said embarrassed.

"Ouch..." thought Star Twinkle offended, though he couldn't exactly blame her since it was pretty much true.

They then walked around Ponyville to find somepony who needs help. While it did seem a little desperate to look for somepony to help, Star Twinkle followed Twilight without mentioning anymore that the situation was not that bad.

"So, what exactly is a friendship problem?" Star Twinkle asked.

"What I learned in my time in Ponyville is, that anything can be considered a friendship problem, even the smallest things," Twilight explained.

While Star Twinkle listened to Twilight's explanation something sounded very similar to him.

"Isn't that exactly what you are going through right-"

But his words were interrupted by a scream that came out of Carousel Boutique. It was undoubtedly Rarity. Of course, Twilight recognized Rarity's voice too and became strangely excited. The closer they got to the boutique the louder her screams became. She must be in some great trouble if it causes her to scream at the top of her lungs like that.

Twilight kicked the door open and entered the boutique along with Star Twinkle.

"Don't worry Rarity, I'm here," Twilight said after entering the boutique.

"...and me too," Star Twinkle added, who appeared right behind Twilight.

Rarity laid on the ground, crying out of frustration.

"WHYYY?! Why? Why?
And of all things that could happen, this is
THE.
WORST.
POSSIBLE.
THING!"

"Wow. She really seems to be in great trouble," Star Twinkle said.

"Yes! I know!" Twilight said excitedly.

"Shouldn't you be a little more concerned abou-"

But again, before Star Twinkle could share his thoughts, Twilight rushed to Rarity's site in order to help her and of course, Star Twinkle followed. They asked her what happened to make her cry like that.

"I've lost my diamond-encrusted purple ribbon! I have searched high, and I have searched low. Low and high! High and low! But I can't find it anywhere! Anywhe-e-e-e-ere! How can I possibly finish my latest creation if I can't find it?!" Rarity explained before she used her magic to pull a couch right next to her, where she was laying down while crying.

Twilight already said that even little problems could be considered a friendship problem but Star Twinkle had a hard time believing that this was such a great problem. Rarity does have a boutique to run and it will probably hinder her to continue her work if something is missing but it still didn't seem that bad.

Despite that, Star Twinkle started to look for the ribbon. Twilight made sure to assure Rarity that she will find it too. Star Twinkles eyes then noticed how a ribbon, that fit Rarity's description was laying on the ground right next to him.

"You mean this ribbon?" Star Twinkle said, pointing at the ribbon at the ground.

Rarity quickly recognized that ribbon and her sadness turned into happiness in almost an instant.

"Yes! That's the one! Isn't it always just the last place you look? Thank you, darling," she said relieved.

"No problem, I guess..." Star Twinkle replied, who didn't feel like he had done anything to help.

He then returned to Twilight, who didn't seem to be too happy with the outcome of this situation.

Twilight asked Rarity if there was anything else what she needed and Rarity actually had something else in mind. Twilight was excited to hear that and offered her help straight away.

"I think I left my measuring tape under the fabric over there. Could you get that for me?" Rarity asked.

Twilight was expecting something more...important, judging from the frown that she was making. She did levitate the measuring tape right next to Rarity on the ground and left. Star Twinkle followed her outside and noticed how Twilight was a little upset.

"So, what kind of lesson are we suppose to learn from this?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight took a moment to think about an answer but it was difficult to come up with one.

"I guess, you could say...that...a friend...should always offer his help...even if it's not that difficult to solve?" Twilight replied, doubting her own words.

"So you want to write to Princess Celestia how you gave Rarity her measuring tape?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight sighed."Of course not," she said depressed.

It really did seem to bother Twilight. She always takes her studies seriously and her friendship lessons were no different but that it would bother her that much was still surprising. But Twilight managed to pull herself together and tried to motivate herself again.

"No need to panic. Rarity is just one pony. I'm sure one of my other friends will need me," she said in confidence.

They decided to go to Sweet Apple Acres. Maybe Applejack needed some help on the farm.

But before they even arrived at the farm a piece of wood came flying towards the two ponies, barely missing them.

They looked in direction of the farm and noticed how Rainbow Dash destroyed a barn while Applejack was hiding from the destruction.

"Now this looks like a real friendship problem, don't you think?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah...I guess..." Star Twinkle replied confused.

"Rainbow Dash must have gotten in a fight with Applejack. She must hate her guts...wonderful," Twilight said happily.

"Wonderful?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I'll go and talk with Rainbow Dash, you'll talk with Applejack," Twilight ordered.

While Twilight stopped Rainbow Dash from destroying the barn any further, Star Twinkle approached Applejack in order to find out why they were fighting.

"Um...Applejack?"

"Howdy, Star Twinkle. How are you doing?" Applejack joyfully replied.

Considering the situation, Applejack was surprisingly relaxed.

"So...um...why is Rainbow Dash destroying your barn?" Star Twinkle asked directly.

"Because I told her to," Applejack replied.

"Oh...wait what?" Star Twinkle wondered.

"I need to build a new barn but first the old one needs to go down," Applejack replied.

"So you're not in a fight with Rainbow Dash?"

"Nope," Applejack replied.

That whole situation was just a misunderstanding. Star Twinkle was relieved to hear that. He didn't want to see how his friends fight. He had enough of that when they confronted Discord a short while ago.

"You heard that, Twilight?" Star Twinkle shouted.

Judging from Twilight's frustrated reaction, she did. She let out a frustrated sigh and Star Twinkle felt like it was directed to him.

Moments later, Applejack asked Rainbow Dash to continue her “work” and advised the two ponies to take cover. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash flew high up in the air and the two ponies panicked and hid themselves from the incoming impact. When Rainbow Dash dived down again, the entire barn was destroyed in an instant, leaving only behind a rainbow-colored explosion.

Star Twinkle and Twilight were buried by dirt and rubble, caused by the explosion but they both managed to get it off of them.

“Who would have thought that learning something about friendship is that difficult and dangerous?” Star Twinkle thought.

Once again, they were back to square one. No pony who needed help and no problem to solve.

While Star Twinkle wasn't bothered by it that much, Twilight seemed to be more and more frustrated.

"Hey, don't worry," Star Twinkle said, trying to comfort Twilight. "We still have plenty of time to find somepony with a problem," he added.

But Twilight's sad expression didn't change so Star Twinkle tried again to cheer her up.

"Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash are usually very independent and know how to deal with their problems. So we just have to find somepony who has to deal with problems on a more frequent basis," Star Twinkle suggested. It kinda felt like he was describing himself, though.

It suddenly clicked in Twilight's head and her frown turned into a bright smile.

"Of course!" She exclaimed before she ran off.

She was running towards Fluttershy's cottage. It suddenly made sense to Star Twinkle too. Fluttershy always has problems to speak up for herself or fears to overcome. It was more likely that they would find a problem with her.

Star Twinkle took a peek inside of Fluttershy's cottage through the window but she didn't seem to be home. She was probably outside, taking care of some of her animal friends.

They found Fluttershy behind her house. As it turns out, she actually was having a problem. A bear was standing in front of her and growled at her. But instead of running away, Fluttershy ran under the legs past the bear and kicked it. She then slammed the bear to the ground and jumped on his back, causing the bear to scream in pain.

Star Twinkle and Twilight looked in shock, how the fragile and kind pony fought against the bear. It was already hard to believe that she was winning but why she, of all ponies, was doing it was beyond them. After all, Fluttershy loves animals.
So why would she hurt one?

The fight came to an end after Fluttershy knocked out the bear by twisting his neck, which sent down fear though Star Twinkle's spine.

“Note to myself: Never get in a fight with Fluttershy...” Star Twinkle thought worried.

Shocked by what the two ponies just witnessed, they both left.

They both found themselves on a bench, where they rested for a moment. Twilight's state was getting worse every second and she was acting really strange, to the point where Star Twinkle got scared a little. He also just remembered that he, Twilight and his friends were all appointed for a picnic later this day.

"With the picnic coming up shortly there is not much time left. I'm sure she is aware of that too," Star Twinkle thought before looking at Twilight.

"It'll be all over soon. My time here in Ponyville. My advanced studies," Twilight said depressed.

"Yep, she is...I just hope she is getting a hold of herself soon..." Star Twinkle thought worried.

But Twilight's mood seemed to change in an instant as she continued to talk with herself.

"No no. You're a good student. But what if I can't? You can! You just have to keep it together! Keep it together!" Twilight shouted at her own reflection in a puddle of water.

"...this is getting really scary..." Star Twinkle thought with a very worried look on his face.

He then noticed how Spike was approaching the two ponies with a box in his claw.

"Hi, Star Twinkle" Spike greeted.

"Hey, Spike," Star Twinkle replied.

Spike quickly noticed Twilight's strange behavior, who still kept talking to her own reflection.

"Is she talking to...herself?" Spike asked.

"Yeah..." Star Twinkle replied.

"Anyway, I'm just here to bring you some homemade sweets for the picnic," Spike said, giving Star Twinkle the box he was carrying.

"Thanks. I sure hope that a picnic with her friends will calm her down a li-"

"The picnic!" Twilight suddenly exclaimed while sticking her head between the two of them, scaring them in the process.

She then grabbed the box with her magic and ran off again.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but let out a frustrated sigh. He was at his limit. Running after a clearly stressed Twilight all this time was beginning to get on his nerves.

"I don't know what she is up to but I better follow her..." Star Twinkle said annoyed.

Spike waved Star Twinkle goodbye, who followed Twilight.

He could tell that she was running to the place where the picnic was. The rest of their friends were already there, setting up the picnic. Twilight stopped in front of Rainbow Dash, who laid on the ground wearing sunglasses. Rainbow Dash got up after noticing Twilight, who greeted her with a wide creepy smile.

"Hey, girls," Star Twinkle greeted in a surprisingly normal tone in his voice, despite Twilight standing next to him with a wide creepy grin.

Needless to say, everypony noticed how Twilight was looking a little stressed.

"You alright, hun?" Applejack asked worriedly.

"No!" Twilight shouted as a reply, startling everypony. "I am not alright..." Twilight admitted.

Twilight informed them about the situation. About how she was late to send Princess Celestia the letter and how her whole future depends on it.

Just like Star Twinkle, nopony saw a problem there, much to the shock of Twilight.

"Oh, thank goodness. I thought something really awful had happened," Fluttershy said relieved.

"Something awful has happened! If I don't turn in the letter on time, I'll be tardy! TARDY!" Twilight exclaimed very frustratedly.

"No offense, sugarcube, but it looks like somepony's gettin' themselves all worked up over nothing," Applejack said, trying to calm Twilight down.

But Twilight refused that and tried to let everypony see how important it actually was.

"This is not nothing. This is everything. I need you guys to help me find somepony with a problem I can fix before sundown! My whole life depends on it!" Twilight exclaimed, staring at Pinkie Pie frustrated, who just laughed at Twilight's behavior.

"Oh, Twilight, you're such a crack-up!" Pinkie Pie said amused.

Twilight couldn't take it anymore and teleported herself away from the place. It was a little relieving that Star Twinkle wasn't the only one who thought that Twilight was overexaggerating a little too much.

"I never seen Twilight this upset before," Fluttershy said.

" What a drama queen," Rarity said. Relatively speaking..." She added after noticing that everypony stared at her.

"Tell me about it..." Star Twinkle said. She is just over exaggerating things. I'm sure there will be no problem at all if she missed out one letter," Star Twinkle added.

"Yeah! Especially, since everypony knows how dependable she is," Pinkie Pie added.

"Once she realizes how minor her problem is, she'll probably come back to spend some time with us," Applejack assured.

"If you don't mind, I would like to rest for a while. It was a little too stressful for me today," Star Twinkle said.

They understood and Star Twinkle took a nap for a while. But his nap was interrupted by some noises, that caught his attention.

"Do you hear that? He asked.

Applejack was next to him when he woke up and focused on the noises too. They came from a bunch of ponies not far away. They all fought over for something that looked like an old doll. Star Twinkle recognized some of the ponies who ran after the doll, like the mayor, Big MacIntosh and the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

He wondered why they were fighting over a doll. For some reason every time he laid eyes on it, something felt weird.

“Why are they all chasing this doll?” He wondered. “And why do I begin to really like its mane all of the sudden?”

Star Twinkle's vision became a little blurry after looking at the doll for a few seconds but he snapped out after Twilight covered his eyes all of the sudden.

“Don't look at it!” She exclaimed, still covering Star Twinkle's eyes.

“Don't look at what?” Rarity asked before Twilight covered her eyes as well.

“My Smarty Pants doll! I enchanted her and now everypony is fighting over her!” Twilight explained stressed.

Of course, everypony didn't understand why she would do something like that. Star Twinkle knew that she was pretty desperate but he never imagined her to do something like that.

"Why would you enchant your doll?" Fluttershy asked confused.

"I had to do something! I had nothing to report to Princess Celestia! I thought if I couldn't find a problem, I'd make a problem! The day is almost over!" Twilight replied

“And what are we suppose to do now? There are like twenty ponies, fighting over that doll!” Star Twinkle exclaimed.

But Twilight was more worried about how the sun was going down in the distance. Eventually, the commotion was stopped after a familiar voice was heard.

“Twilight Sparkle!” The Voice exclaimed angrily.

It was Princess Celestia, who was engulfed in a bright light. She didn't seem happy at all.

The princess was using her magic to remove the spell, that was on the doll, causing everypony to come to their senses again.

After they realized what they were fighting over, most of the ponies left the scene in embarrassment, except Big McIntosh, who grabbed the doll when nopony was looking.

Still, Princess Celestia was not happy at all. It was almost, frightening to see the usually calm and soft ruler of Equestria like this.

“Meet me at the library,” she said to Twilight in a very serious tone in her voice.

The princess then left and left a bunch of confused ponies and a sad Twilight behind.

“Goodbye, girls...Star Twinkle. If you care to visit I'll be in magic kindergarten, back in Canterlot,” Twilight said depressed before she walked away with a sad face.

Everypony was shocked to hear those words. Star Twinkle was sure that Twilight was over exaggerating a little but judging from Princess Celestia's behavior, maybe it was true...

Suddenly, Star Twinkle felt really bad and responsible for this whole situation. Maybe he should have taken Twilight's problem a little more serious. But what could he do now?

Everypony else seemed to realize it too now.

“Magic kindergarten?” Fluttershy said.

“Canterlot?” Rainbow Dash said.

“We're never gonna see Twilight again!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed shocked.

“Uh, what are we gonna do, y'all?” Applejack asked.

“Of all the worst things that could happen, this is...
THE.
WORST.
POSSIBLE.
THING!” Rarity said again shocked. She realized how everypony was looking at her weird. “What? I really mean it this time!” She added.

“This is all my fault! I should have taken her problem more serious...Maybe then it wouldn't have come to this...” Star Twinkle said depressed.

“No, it was not only you, Star Twinkle,” Applejack assured.

“Yes, we all should have paid attention to Twilight's problem,” Fluttershy added.

While those words calmed him down a bit, it still didn't change that the Princess was angry at her. Star Twinkle refused to her to take away Twilight.

“Then let's go and talk to the princess! Maybe she changes her mind if we talk to her!” Star Twinkle suggested.

Everypony agreed with that idea and followed Star Twinkle to the library.

When they arrived at the library, Princess Celestia was still there. Everypony took the opportunity to explain the situation to the princess.

“I'm listening,” the Princess said, waiting for everyponies explanation.

They then each took a moment to defend Twilight.

“Please, your Highness. We all saw that Twilight was upset,” Fluttershy said.

“But we thought that the thing she was worrying about wasn't worth worrying about,” said Rainbow Dash.

“So when she ran off all worked up, not a single one of us tried to stop her,” Applejack said.

“As Twilight's good friends, we should have taken her feelings seriously and been there for her!” Rarity said.

“Please don't take her away from us just because we were too insensitive to help her,” Fluttershy said.

“Yes. If there is somepony, that you should punish, then it's us...” Star Twinkle said.

The princess carefully listened to the words of her subjects and took them all to heart. She noticed their regret and decided to not punish Twilight after she realized how sad Twilight's friends were.

“Very well. I'll forget Twilight's "punishment" on one condition,”

Everypony agreed to that without hesitation, not even awaiting the condition.

“From this day forth, I would like you all to report to me your findings on the magic of friendship when, and only when, you happen to discover them,” the princess said in her usually gentle voice.

These words were a big relieve to hear from the princess.

The princess left for the balcony and prepared to leave again but Twilight stopped her and asked how she knew about the whole incident with the doll. Apparently, Spike has written a letter to the princess because he got worried. Princess Celestia then left, saying that she was expecting a letter. Everypony knew what they had to do now. They all sat down and wrote the letter together

Applejack started.
“Dear Princess Celestia,
We're writin' to you because today we all learned a little somethin' about friendship,”

Followed by Fluttershy
“We learned that you should take your friends' worries seriously,”

Rainbow Dash followed.
“Even if you don't think that she has anything to worry about,”

Rarity continued.
“And that you shouldn't let your worries turn a small problem...”

Followed by Pinkie Pie.
“...into an enormously huge entire-town-in-total-chaos Princess-has-to-come-and-
save-the-day problem,”

And Star Twinkle finished it.
“And before it ends out like that you, as a true friend, should try to help your friend out, before she tries to do something...extreme.
Signed, your loyal subjects,”

Spike finished writing the letter but tried to add some message from him into it.

“P.S. Obviously Spike did not have to learn a lesson because he is the best, most awesome friend a pony could ask for. Unlike everypony else, he took things seriously, and-”

But he stopped after everypony else was looking at him and removed it right away, making everypony laugh at that.

Star Twinkle was happy that everything turned out alright and let out a relieved sigh. He wanted to learn something about friendship and at the end of the day, it was exactly what he wanted.

From now on every time, when he discovered something new about friendship, he can write it to the princess. He didn't know how to feel about that but eventually, his time will come. As long as he is together with his friends...

30. Nightmare Night

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It was that time of the year again. The time where you could dress up in a costume and go from door to door to collect candies or play various games in town. A day dedicated to the Legend of Nightmare Moon.

Nightmare Night.

Star Twinkle had his own experiences with this celebration. It was a day like any other for him. The only difference was that it was a lot noisier at night. Like most celebrations and holidays, Star Twinkle was alone at that moment and didn't know how to spent his time. At Nightmare Night, Star Twinkle would usually dress up in something, where nopony would recognize him. It made it easier for him to take part in the celebration while still avoiding social contact with any pony.

But that is not what he wanted this time. He prepared himself to go outside and have some fun with his newfound friends.

"Well, this is it...Nightmare Night..." Star Twinkle said with concern.

His plan was to go outside and spend some time with his friends. He wanted to see another site of Nightmare Night.

After putting on his costume, he was ready to go. Star Twinkle was wearing a costume that looked like a robot. His costume consisted of a gray armor with two wings on his back and a helmet, all made out of wood and painted by himself. It was not the best costume but for him, it was perfectly fine. He was ready to leave now but somepony knocked on his door. It was three fillies who were dressed as a princess, an astronaut and a ladybug, accompanied by Granny Smith.

"Nightmare Night! What a fright! Give us something good to bite!" The three fillies sang cheerfully in front of Star Twinkle.

Even though he was planning to go outside most of the day, he prepared some candies, in case something like that would happen. He put some candies inside of everyponies bags but got startled after one pony jumped out of the crowd of fillies.
It was a little colt dressed as a pirate, who seemed overly excited and thus tripped in front of Star Twinkle.

"Pipsqueak the pirate, at your service. It's my very first Nightmare Night," the little pony introduced himself.

"Careful little guy. I got enough candies for everypony," Star Twinkle assured, before putting some candies in his bag too.
"In a way, it is also my first Nightmare Night,"

"How come?" The little pony asked.

Star Twinkle didn't feel like, telling the whole story since he didn't want to bother this child with his previous problems. "It's a long story," he simply replied

Suddenly another pony dropped out of the crowd demanding some candies. "Candy! squawk !" Pinkie Pie said, imitating a chicken.

She was wearing a chicken costume and behaved like a chicken. If it was any other pony, Star Twinkle would have asked why a full-grown pony was still going from house to house to collect candies but since it was Pinkie Pie...

"You know, I should be surprised...but I'm not..." said Star Twinkle before putting some candies in her bag as well.

Pinkie Pie showed him a happy smile and left along with the other children.

"See I told you, Star Twinkle wasn't a gloomy, mean and unfriendly pony," Pinkie Pie said when she left with the four ponies and granny smith.

Star Twinkle, of course, heard all that and felt offended. Though he couldn't deny it. Those ponies probably heard all kind of rumors about him in the past.

When they left, Twilight and Spike approached Star Twinkle. "Good evening, Star Twinkle," Twilight greeted before she was presenting her costume, waiting for Star Twinkle to know what it is supposed to be.

Spike's costume was easy to identify, he was wearing a full-grown dragon costume. But he had no clue about Twilight's costume. She was wearing a blue cape and a blue hat with stars and moons on it and bells that hung from her hat and a long beard.

"You're Trixie, right?" Star Twinkle guessed.

Judging from Twilight's reaction, that doesn't seem to be the case. "I'm Starswirl the Bearded!"

That didn't ring a bell at all for Star Twinkle. "Oh! Yeah! That one. Right..."

"You don't know who that is, right?" Twilight asked.

"Nope," he replied boldly.

Twilight seemed disappointed to hear that and decided to enlighten Star Twinkle a little as they went to the town's plaza.

"Starswirl is only one of the most important wizards that ever lived. He invented over two hundred spells! One of them being the amniomorphic spell!" Twilight proudly explained.

It was like Twilight was speaking in another language. He was no unicorn and therefore couldn't use or understand magic very well. Star Twinkle didn't even want to ask what this "amniomorphic spell" was, in fear that Twilight would explain it to him, confusing him even more.

"...He even has a shelf in the Canterlot library of magic named after him," Twilight added.

"Okay! I get it! He is pretty important!" Star Twinkle said slightly annoyed.

Twilight then stopped her long explanation about Starswirl and focused on the decoration and the celebration around her.
They arrived at the town's plaza where everything was decorated in Nightmare Night style. Scary decoration, games, and ponies dressed as almost anything what you could imagine.

"Should we get something to eat?" Twilight asked but Spike spent most of his time eating candies and was most likely not hungry at all.

Pinkie Pie who was still accompanying the four fillies approached Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike, sharing her stories on how her Nightmare Night went, so far.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was sitting on a storm cloud above Pinkie's head. She was wearing some kind of dark suit. It reminded Star Twinkle to the suits that the Wonderbolts wore. Rainbow Dash kicked the storm cloud, to release a thunder, frightening Pinkie Pie, and the fillies, who ran away in fear. Rainbow Dash was laughing but Twilight instantly scolded her for pulling off a prank like that. Spike seemed to have suffered the most of this prank and was choking a little on his candies from the shock. But Rainbow Dash didn't show any regret and left to prank some other group of ponies.

Nightmare Night was a strange feast for Star Twinkle. It was all about scary things, costumes, and candies. Star Twinkle only liked all those things to a certain degree but not to the point where it annoys him. If it wasn't for his friends, then he would probably complain about everything.

Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike went to Applejack, who wore a scarecrow costume. She was taking care of the apple bobbing and some other games in the town's plaza.

"Happy Nightmare Night, Applejack!" Twilight greeted.

"Howdy, Spike, Twilight, Star Twinkle. Nice costumes," Applejack replied. "With that beard, I reckon you're some sorta country music singer," Applejack complemented on Twilight's costume.

Needless to say, Twilight was annoyed that Applejack didn't recognize her costume as well.

Applejack offered the three to try some apple bobbing but their attention was quickly grabbed by the mayor, who was speaking to the town folks near the town hall.

“Thank you, everypony, and welcome to the Nightmare Night festival!” Said the mayor who was wearing a clown's costume along with a colorful Afro-like wig. “Now, all the little ponies who have been out collecting sweets should follow our friend Zecora to hear the legend of...Nightmare Moon!“

Suddenly a green smoke appeared next to the mayor on the stage, where Zecora appeared. She was wearing a black cape and had a different mane-style then usual with plastic spiders in it. Zecora was inviting everypony who was interested to hear the story of Nightmare Moon to follow her to the outskirts of Ponyville. Star Twinkle, Twilight, Spike, some other fillies and Pinkie Pie decided to follow her and listened to the story she was about to tell. They stopped in front of a statue of Nightmare Moon.

“Listen close, my little dears, I'll tell you where you got fears of Nightmare Night, so dark and scary, of Nightmare Moon, who makes you wary,”

She then used some kind of dust that transformed into an image of Nightmare Moon, diving down to everypony and scaring them. She was really good in scaring them, even Star Twinkle got goosebumps from Zecoras story.

“Every year, we put on a disguise, to save ourselves from her searching eyes. But Nightmare Moon wants just one thing: to gobble up ponies in one quick swing! Hungrily, she soars the sky. If she sees nopony, she passes by. So if she comes and all is clear, Equestria is safe for another year!”

Pipsqueak, who accompanied the group approached Zecora and asked why they still need to give candies to Nightmare Moon.

“A perfect question, my little friend. For Nightmare Moon you must not offend. Fill her up her belly with a treat or two, so she won't return to come eat you!” Zecora said, once again blowing some of her dust in the air, which made another ghost-like picture of Nightmare Moon appear, which once again jumped into the crowd of ponies.

The fillies and Pinkie Pie were screaming in fear and Pinkie Pie quickly suggested to drop their candies in front of the statue in order to satisfy Nightmare Moon.

It was interesting for Star Twinkle to hear the full story of Nightmare Moon. He never knew the whole story of Nightmare Night because he never participated in it like this before.

Suddenly a strong gust was blowing through. The crowd of ponies looked up to the sky and noticed how the clouds were moving on its own and blackened the sky. Then a chariot, pulled by two Pegasus with bat wings on their backs dived down from the sky. There was somepony sitting in the chariot, covered with a black hood, who jumped out after the chariot got close enough to the ground. When the pony landed, it removed its hood and revealed herself as Princess Luna.

She slowly walked up to the citizens, who cowered in fear just by looking at Princess Luna but she returned a smug smile.

"CITIZENS OF PONYVILLE!" She shouted in a really loud echoing and hurtful to the ears voice that literally blew everypony in its path away.

"WE HAVE GRACED YOUR TINY VILLAGE WITH OUR PRESENCE SO THAT YOU MIGHT BEHOLD THE REAL PRINCESS OF THE NIGHT! A CREATURE OF NIGHTMARES NO LONGER, BUT INSTEAD A PONY WHO DESIRES YOUR LOVE AND ADMIRATION!
TOGETHER WE SHALL CHANGE THIS DREADFUL CELEBRATION INTO A BRIGHT AND GLORIOUS FEAST!"

Her words were not threatening at all but everypony slowly backed away in fear. And Pinkie Pie didn't make the whole situation better. “Did you hear that, everypony? Nightmare Moon says she's gonna feast on us all!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed before she screamed and ran away with the crowd of fillies accompanying her.

But Princess Luna was confused to get that kind of reaction after her speech.

“What? No, children, no! You no longer have reason to fear us! Screams of delight are what your princess desires, not screams of terror!” She said while stomping her hoof on the ground, scaring a pony in front of her in the process.

She then approached the mayor. “Madame Mayor, thy princess of the Night hath arrived,” she said demanding the mayor to shake her hooves but the mayor was too scared to even stand up. She then tried the same with some mares right next to her but always got the same reaction. Eventually, Princess Luna gave up and got a little angry by everyponies behavior. “Very well, then. Be that way. We won't even bother with the traditional royal farewell,” she said annoyed before she left the plaza.

Twilight felt a little sorry for Princess Luna and attempted to go after her but Spike stopped her.

“You can't talk to her! She's Nightmare Moon!” He said pulling on Twilight's cape to stop her.

“No, she's not. I saw the Elements of Harmony change her back to good. But it seems like she's having some trouble adjusting after being gone for a thousand years,” Twilight replied

"I'll go and talk to the princess. Are you coming too?" Twilight asked Star Twinkle.

It was not like Star Twinkle had anything better to do so he minds as well go with Twilight.

"Sure, why no-"

“Actually!”

But they were interrupted by somepony who overheard the conversation. Steel Hammer was suddenly approaching from the back and interrupted Star Twinkle. He was dressed as a knight, wearing a shining gray armor and helmet.

"I need to borrow my employee for something if you don't mind. We have to do some work back in the Iron Hammer,”

“We do?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“No problem, I understand,” Twilight responded.

Star Twinkle then followed Steel Hammer to the Iron Hammer. He was not looking forward working on Nightmare Night. Especially since he attempted to take part in the festivities.

“Yesterday you said: that you would close the Iron Hammer because of Nightmare Night,” Star Twinkle questioned.

"I did. I did some changes to the Iron Hammer, specifically for this day," Steel Hammer replied.

“Changes?” Star Twinkle asked.

When they arrived at the Iron Hammer, the anvil-like building was decorated with bright lights and decorations like bats or paper ghosts. The Hammer on top of the building was changed into a broomstick.

“Well, what do you say?” Steel Hammer said proudly.

"What is all this?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Just for today, I transformed the Iron Hammer into a playground, fitting for Nightmare Night! I figured, that we should take advantage of all the scary atmosphere in Ponyville. This will surely boost the business and drive away any competition!" Steel Hammer explained.

"What competition? We are the only workshop in Ponyville!" Star Twinkle replied annoyed.

"Of course, we are! And we will prove it to everypony!" Steel Hammer said confidently.

Steel Hammer's words didn't make much sense but Star Twinkle didn't feel like telling him that. He had no idea what to think about that.

“And what is this work, you were talking about?” Star Twinkle asked.

“I'm glad you asked!” Steel Hammer replied with a smug smile on his face.

Star Twinkle noticed that smile and instantly got a bad feeling. Whenever Steel Hammer smiles like that, it meant that something really annoying or stupid is coming up. And in most cases, Star Twinkle was the one who had to do those annoying or stupid things.

...and he was right...

Steel Hammer tried his best to get as many ponies as possible to gather around the Iron Hammer. Star Twinkle was convinced to stick his head through a hole in a wall so that other ponies could throw pies on his face. Needless to say, Star Twinkle was not looking forward to this. “I'm pretty sure, when I started working for him, this is not what I agreed to...”

“So, who wants to try his luck?” Steel Hammer shouted.

Eventually, some ponies showed up and tried to throw pies in Star Twinkle's face. Nopony hit him directly, whether it was on purpose or not, Star Twinkle was happy about that. It was mostly fillies, who threw the pies after all.

He could see how most of their parents were giggling at Star Twinkle but except that, it wasn't as bad as he thought.

That was until Pinkie Pie showed up, who looked very determent.

“Personally, I don't like this waste of delicious pies...” she said in an unusually serious and calm tone. “...But this looks like so much fun!” She said in her usual silly way.

She suddenly had a whole tower of pies in her hooves and prepared to throw every single one of them in Star Twinkles face.

“Oh...no...” Star Twinkle thought before he closed his eyes to prepare for the worst.

A little while later...

After a good while of pie-throwing, Steel Hammer decided to close the game, much to Star Twinkle's relief.

Pinkie Pie spent almost the whole time throwing pies into Star Twinkles face. Maybe it was because of the numbers of pies but for some reason, he felt like the last minutes never happened. As if got hit so many times that it may cause him to get knocked out by pies. Star Twinkle didn't know if he should be happy, annoyed or sad about that.

“Good job, Star Twinkle!” Steel Hammer congratulated.

“Yeah, whatever. I'm done, right? I need to wash off the remains of all those pies. They were apple by the way,” Star Twinkle said annoyed while whipping of some remains from his mane.

This caught Steel Hammers attention, who looked at Star Twinkle again with a smug smile on his face.

“Wash of? I think I have something in mind that could help you with that,” Steel Hammer said almost maniacally.

And once again, Star Twinkle had a really bad feeling about that.

Before he knew it, Star Twinkle was sitting on a bench over a little waterhole. Ponies had to throw balls at a sign next to him and whenever they hit, Star Twinkle would fall down into the water.

Again, most of the ponies who threw the balls were fillies and they didn't even come close to hitting Star Twinkle, making this game not as bad as he thought.

Until suddenly a little colt showed up in the middle of the crowd. The other fillies next to him looked at him amazed but Star Twinkle didn't know why. He had a light brown coat color and a blonde mane.

The little pony took one of the balls in one of his hooves and looked determent at the sign. It was at this moment where Star Twinkle realized something about him.

He had a baseball as a Cutie Mark. That could only mean that his special talent was playing baseball. After realizing that, Star Twinkle knew what was going to happen next.

The colt was throwing the ball with deadly precision and hit the sign right in the center, causing Star Twinkle to fall straight into the water. He could hear how the other fillies were cheering for the colt beneath the water.

Fortunately, Steel Hammer also closed this game and Star Twinkle was finally free to go.

He decided to go back to the town's plaza where he split with Twilight and Spike before. But they were gone.

“Oh yeah! She wanted to talk with Luna, didn't she? I wonder how that turned out...” Star Twinkle wondered.

He then heard her voice behind him.

"Star Twinkle, I'd like to introduce you to somepony," Twilight said, making him turn around.

He was then greeted by a very loud "CHARMED!" That Princess Luna shouted into his face, causing him to crawl on the ground in fear.

Twilight just looked down at him in disappointment and smiled at Princess Luna embarrassed.

"Ahem..." She said before moving her head down to meet eye to eye with Star Twinkle.

"I was thinking about, introducing the Princess to you, since she has some problems to fit in," Twilight explained.

"You don't say..." Star Twinkle replied boldly.

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight said almost disappointed. "The princess is trying really hard to get accepted by everypony,"

"Well, her entrance from before didn't help her much..." Star Twinkle countered.

"I thought from all ponies that you would understand how she must feel..." Twilight said.

Star Twinkle didn't know how to reply to that. In fact, if it wasn't for Nightmare Moon, Star Twinkle would still be alone. He at least had to try to help her. He pretty much owns that to Princess Luna.

"Well I guess playing some games should be fun," Star Twinkle suggested.

But Princess Luna showed signs of confusion on her face.

"Fun? What is this "fun" thou speakest of?”

The two ponies then pointed at some to a bowl filled with plastic spiders. Princess Luna didn't quite understand.

“Pray tell, what purpose do these serve?” She asked.

A pony in a bumblebee costume, who cowered in fear next to Princess Luna explained that she should try to land one of the spiders to a net, not far away.

The princess still seemed confused but she gave it a try. Though she missed at first, she tried again and hit the spider in the middle of the net. There was a sudden burst of excitement in her eyes.

“Ha! Your princess enjoys this "fun"! In what other ways may we experience it?” She asked.

They then suggested that Princess Luna should try the pumpkin launching game. The Princess put a pumpkin in a catapult and fired it. The pumpkin hit on of the targets a few meters away. Again, Princess Luna seemed to enjoy this.

“ Ha ha! The fun has been doubled!” She exclaimed happily.

This time, everypony around her cheered for the princess. It seems like Princess Luna was finally accepted by the villagers.
But there were many more games to choose from.

“Why don't you try bobbin' for apples? We got the best apples in Equestria here, princess,” Applejack suggested, who saw the whole thing and tried to help out too.

“I ask that thou call us... me... Luna, fair Applejack,” The princess then turned to the villagers next to her. “Hear me, villagers! All of you! Call me Luna!”

Just by having some fun, Princess Luna managed to convince the town folks to accept her. Moments like this remembered Star Twinkle if he would have gotten any friends just by having fun. But that was not important right now. Right now he was happy for Luna.

“Seems like everything worked out just fine,” Twilight said relieved.

“Looks like it,” Star Twinkle replied

Twilight then noticed how something was stuck inside of Star Twinkles costume and pulled it out with her magic.

“Is that pie?” She wondered.

“Yeah, it's a long story...” Star Twinkle replied, not really feeling like explaining anything.

The princess was following Applejack to the apple bobbing game. Suddenly, Luna charged to the tub with the apples and pulled out Pipsqueak, who fell down into the tub.

Pinkie Pie could be heard in the distance, who mistook that as an attempt from Luna to gobble the little pony up. Pipsqueak, who didn't exactly knew what was happening, ran away in fear, believing in Pinkie Pie's words. This offended the princess. After all, she just saved the little pony and didn't try anything like that.

“'Tis a lie! Thy backside is whole and ungobbled, thou ungrateful whelp!” She exclaimed angrily.

But that didn't make the situation any better because everypony backed away in fear again. Luna noticed that and tried to calm the villagers down.

“Fair villagers, please do not back away. Let us join together in... fun!”

She then threw one of the plastic spiders to the villagers but that didn't seem to work. Slowly anger and desperation were building up inside of her and she decided to use more serious methods.

“Not enough fun for you? What say you to this!?”

She then used her magic to turn the plastic spider into an actual spider, which only scared the villagers even more. After turning all the spiders in the bowl into real spiders, panic spread really quick. Ponies were running away in fear, crashing into each other or the decorations.

Princess Luna did her best to stop them but she was either ignored or the ponies were too scared to listen. Eventually, Princess Luna put a hold on the commotion by letting out a loud scream.

“BE STILL!” she shouted, which echoed through the whole town. It actually worked and everypony stood still or cowered in fear again.

“Princess, remember! Watch the screaming!” Twilight advised.

“NO, TWILIGHT SPARKLE! We must use the traditional royal Canterlot voice for what we are about to say,” Princess Luna replied with glowing in her eyes.

She then flew up above the ground and spoke to the villagers one more time.

“SINCE YOU CHOOSE TO FEAR YOUR PRINCESS RATHER THAN LOVE HER, AND DISHONOR HER WITH THIS INSULTING CELEBRATION, WE DECREE THAT NIGHTMARE NIGHT SHALL BE CANCELED! FOREVER!”

She then left to the outskirts of Ponyville, leaving a sad bunch of ponies.

“What should we do now?” Applejack asked.

“You mean, what can we do now?” Star Twinkle replied.

“What do you mean, Star Twinkle? We can't just give up yet!” Twilight said.

Star Twinkle understood that but he also felt like Luna was right.

“You know...I can kinda understand her... I mean...She just came back after thousand years just to find out that there is a celebration with the sole purpose to fear her. Maybe it's better if this whole Nightmare Night thing is canceled.
Then in a few years, nopony will even remember that Nightmare Moon ever existed!” Star Twinkle explained.

Twilight knew where Star Twinkle was going with that but she refused to give up on Luna. But she had the feeling that there was one more chance to make Luna rethink everything.

“You'll talk to her,” she said with a serious tone in her voice.

“What?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

“I believe...no...I know that you can convince her return,”

“Why?”

“I think you know why...” she said hesitantly.

Star Twinkle did know...He was alone and had not believed in friendship many times before. But he had friends, who believed in him and made him return to them every time. There was a lot of pressure on Star Twinkle. He didn't like that.
But he knew that he would go to Luna, no matter what. Because Twilight is believing in him right now.

“Alright...I'll try...” He said before he walked to where Princess Luna was flying to.

He found the Princess next to a statue of Nightmare Moon outside of Ponyville. She was clearly upset and looked at the statue in despise as if she cursed the day when she became Nightmare Moon.

"What should I say to her? I had problems too when I first came in contact with my friends but her situation was completely different! She has to suffer from the reputation that she built as Nightmare Moon
…wait..."

While Star Twinkle thought about what he should say, the princess turned around and noticed his approaching. This caught Star Twinkle off guard and let him forgot every word that he prepared in his head.

"Uh...Good evening?" Star Twinkle greeted.

But the princess only looked back at him with a sad expression on her face.

"Come on, don't just stand there, Star Twinkle! Say something to make her feel better!"

"Nightmare Moon, huh? Am I glad that she is defeated," He said before he realized that Princess Luna was Nightmare Moon.

"Uh...I mean...”

"It's okay..." Princess Luna said, interrupting Star Twinkle. "I'm glad that she is gone too... Nightmare Moon...I...was filled with hate and jealousy for my sister, who everypony looked up too. It is only fitting that our subjects see us as a scary monster, who doesn't deserve any love or admiration..." she said, lowering her head in sadness.

"Must be hard to have a holiday that constantly reminds you to that...” Star Twinkle said absent-mindedly.

Princess Luna looked back at Star Twinkle confused. She was not sure if that was supposed to cheer her up or make her even sadder. Star Twinkle noticed that Princess Luna reacted rather depressed to that statement and panicked.

“Argh! I mean...uh...I didn't want to say it like that...it's just...”

“How am I supposed to cheer her up again? I don't know how to do that! I'll only make things worse,”

”Why did you even come here Star Twinkle?”

That was an easy question. It's because Twilight convinced him to. But he couldn't just say that.

“I was supposed to cheer you up again but it didn't seem to work, right?” He asked frustrated.

Princess Luna facial expression remained unchanged as if she didn't listen to Star Twinkle. She probably wants to be alone and Star Twinkle wasn't doing her a favor at all.

“There was something that I realized before I talked to her. What was it again?” He wondered.

His eyes then observed the Nightmare Moon statue in front of him.

“Wait, that was it!”

"You are not Nightmare Moon!” Star Twinkle exclaimed.

Princess Luna was surprised by Star Twinkles sudden outburst.

“I know...I was Nightmare Moon and that will never change...” she replied with her head still focused on the ground.

“No! What I mean is: You are Princess Luna. And if Nightmare Moon gives everypony a reason to be scared, then it's up to Luna to give them a reason to love her," he explained.

Those words seem to have sunken into the princess's heart.

“Right now, the statue in front of us and you are two different ponies. And if you still believe that you are responsible for their fear, then it's up to you to change that! If you give up now, then you mind as well can call yourself Nightmare Moon again,”

Princess Luna's eyes widened after hearing that. She seemed to have a little fear in her eyes but also determination. Her sadness was washed away and she began to smile again.

“Thank you, dear Star Twinkle!” She said smiling at the green pony.

"Was that really coming from me? Since when can I be so wise?" Star Twinkle wondered.

"My sister told me about you..."

"What?" Star Twinkle asked.

"She told me that you are a complicated pony. And that you have your own way of thinking about things,” she explained.

“Thank you...I guess?” He replied confused, not sure if that was supposed to be a compliment.

"You remind me to somepony I knew long ago. You should know him, Twilight is dressed like him," Luna hinted.

"Oh, that bearded guy?"

Princess Luna chuckled a little after hearing that.

"When it comes to learning new spells, nopony could beat Starswirl but friendship was something that was a little more complex for him. He always put too many thoughts into it and was unsure of how to understand it properly. But he was a good friend nonetheless," the princess explained.

“So...does that mean, that you come back to Ponyville?”

“Yes, dear Star Twinkle...We will no longer let Nightmare Moon control our life!” She said determent. “But we still don't know what to do...” she added.

Twilight showed up at that moment and decided to check up on the two ponies. She noticed how Princess Luna's mood changed and was relieved.

“I'll take it that everything went well?” Twilight asked happily.

Princess Luna approached Twilight and asked if she had an idea on how to convince the villagers to like her again.

They came up with a plan to talk with Pinkie Pie since she was the one who always seemed to make the situation to the worst because of her fear of Princess Luna. They lured her into a dark alley with some candies and Twilight jumped at her, covering her mouth so that she won't scream.

“No! No shrieking. No screaming or squealing either. Okay? There's something I want you to see. And I promise that it's safe, but you really, really, really can't shriek. Do you promise not to shriek?” Twilight assured.

Pinkie Pie nodded in response and Twilight removed her hooves from her mouth. Princess Luna then emerged from the shadows and Pinkie Pie was about to scream again.

“Pinkie Pie, you remember Princess Luna, right?” Twilight said introducing the princess.

“Ah. The ringleader of the frightened children. Hast thou come to make peace?” Princess Luna said offering her hoof in order to make peace.

Just when things seemed to work out somehow, a thunder appeared behind Princess Luna, caused by Rainbow Dash, scaring Pinkie Pie who ran away in fear.

But Twilight was prepared for that situation and told Star Twinkle to wait outside of the alley. He stopped Pinkie Pie in her tracks and pinned her down on the ground.

“Calm down Pinkie Pie! She is not Nightmare Moon anymore. We changed her back with the Elements of Harmony, remember?” Star Twinkle said trying to calm down Pinkie Pie.

She made a surprised face and simply replied:

“Well, duh.”

That response confused everypony.

“I know that. Sheesh. I'm almost as big as her, how's she gonna gobble me up?” She said calmly.

“If you know that, then why are you running away every time you see her?” Star Twinkle asked.

“Sometimes it's just really fun to be scared!” Pinkie Pie said.

Star Twinkle couldn't get behind that logic, just like everything else Pinkie Pie is saying but Twilight seemed to get an idea from that.

Although she didn't explain her plan, Star Twinkle and Princess Luna followed her to the statue of Nightmare Moon once again.

Twilight seemed to have informed Princess Luna of her plan too. Star Twinkle and Twilight waited behind the statue until a group of little ponies appeared in front of the statue. It was the same group that was with Pinkie Pie before.

Pipsqueak placed some candies in front of the statue with a sad face.

“Goodbye, Nightmare Night. Forever,” he said.

Then suddenly a strong gust was blowing through. It was caused by Princess Luna who replaced the statue and looked just like Nightmare Moon.

"CITIZENS OF PONYVILLE! YOU WERE WISE TO BRING THIS CANDY TO ME. I AM PLEASED WITH YOUR OFFERING. SO PLEASED THAT I MAY JUST EAT IT...INSTEAD OF EATING YOU!

Everypony screamed because of Princess Luna's appearance and ran away in fear. Star Twinkle did not understand how that would help Luna to get on better terms with the villagers. So did Luna after she transformed back to her normal self.

From that point on, it was a fun night for everypony.

Princess Luna was having fun and everypony slowly accepted her not only as their princess but rather as a friend. But Twilight was confident that her plan will work.

Eventually, Pipsqueak came back and talked with Princess Luna.

“Um... Princess Luna. I know there's not gonna be any more Nightmare Night, but do you suppose maybe you could come back next year and scare us again anyway?” Pipsqueak shyly asked.

“Child. Art thou saying that thou... likes me to scare you?” Princess Luna asked confused.

“It's really fun! Scary, but fun!” He replied.

“It... is?” Luna asked confused.

“Yeah! Nightmare Night is my favorite night of the year,”

“Well then. We shall have to bring NIGHTMARE NIGHT BACK!” She exclaimed, pushing Pipsqueak away with her voice.

Pipsqueak was glad to hear that and happily informed his friends, who waited for a few meters away, still hiding from Princess Luna. But after hearing the good news, they cheered in happiness.

“See? They really do like you, princess,” Twilight said.

“Can it be true? OH, MOST WONDERFUL OF-” She said in her loud voice before she switched to a more quiet voice. “I mean... Oh, most wonderful of nights,”

From that point on, the night was a little more quiet in terms of screams regarding Luna. She was playing games and scared ponies for fun without them running away in fear. It didn't take long until the villagers accepted her again. Star Twinkle was just happy that everything went well for Princess Luna.

“I knew that you could convince her to rethink everything,” Twilight said.

“I just said that she had to take things in her own hooves if she wants to earn the love of the villagers,”

“Well, whatever you said, it did help in the end. Hey, do you want to hear the letter that I prepared for Princess Celestia?”

“Sure,”

She then took a moment and read out the letter.

“Dear Princess Celestia,
When you first sent me to Ponyville, I didn't know anything about friendship. I met somepony tonight who was having the same problem -- your sister, Princess Luna! She taught me that one of the best things you can do with friendship is to give it to others, and help them find it themselves! And I'm happy to report that all of Ponyville has learned that even if somepony seems a little intimidating, even scary when you offer them your friendship, you'll discover a whole new pony underneath. And even if my Star Swirl the Bearded costume didn't go over, this still turned out to be the best Nightmare Night ever! “

That almost sounded like, what Star Twinkle was experiencing. Did they saw a new pony underneath him too? He didn't feel like he had changed that much. But maybe his friends saw that differently?

“What do you think?” Twilight asked.

“It's good,” he replied.

Twilight seemed happy to hear that and smiled.

“Should we get something to eat?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah,” he replied.

Star Twinkle then followed Twilight through the plaza. It was quite the night and he didn't eat anything for a while.

They both walked side by side and tried to find someplace where they could eat something.

Outside of Ponyville...

Two Pegasi were sitting in front of a campfire.
Both seemed to wait for something to happen.

"Hey boss, look how many candies I got," a gray Pegasus with a green mane said, presenting a yellow Pegasus with a blue mane and metallic wings on it's back, a bag full of candies.

"What? Where did you get those from?" The metal winged pony replied surprised.

"From Ponyville..." the gray pony replied.

"Are you...you can't just visit the town!" The metal winged pony replied angrily.

The other Pegasus jumped by the metal winged ponies reaction and quickly put the bag with candies behind him out of fear.
Shortly after, the metal winged Pegasus sat down and calmed himself down again.

"I hope that we can get a signal soon. I'm tired of waiting here..." he said annoyed.

"Yeah...me too," the gray pony added.

"You have no right to say that! You wandered off to Ponyville, even though we are supposed to stay away from it for now!" The metal winged pony screamed.

“Sorry, boss,” the gray pony apologized.

“I mean, take Cloudwatcher for example, he is...” He looked around confused. “Wait where is he?”

The frustration was growing bigger any second inside of the metal winged pony, who just listened while rubbing his hoofs against his forehead.

"Boss, look how many candies I got!" Another gray pony with a dark blue mane said, carrying a bag full of candies as well.

"What? You were also in Ponyville?" The metal winged pony exclaimed.

"Yeah, it's so much fun! There are games and ponies in costumes and candies..." But he was interrupted by the other gray pony.

"You better don't talk to the boss, right now. He is really angry at us..." the gray pony with the green mane advised.

"Does that mean, he doesn't want any candy?" the gray pony with the blue mane asked.

The metal winged pony didn't say anything and only glared at them.

"...no..." he said before he took out some candies of the gray ponies bag. "I really hope that we can get some action soon..." he said while putting some candies into his mouth. "...Mhh...at least it's good..."

31. Forcing a Cutie Mark

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There was silence in the room.
Only Star Twinkles breath could be heard.
His eyes were peeled.
His mouth was dry.
His mind was focused.

"Could you please throw the ball already?" Scootaloo exclaimed annoyed.

It was only him and his ball.
Only him and the lane.
It was like, he prepared his whole life for this one moment.

“You think he dozed off?” Sweetie Belle wondered.

“I don't know,” Apple Bloom replied, shrugging her shoulders.

“I don't think that you can doze off while standing,” Scootaloo said annoyed.

With his concentration at the top nothing could stop him from...

“Star Twinkle, could you please finally throw the ball?!” Scootaloo exclaimed impatiently.

This finally snapped Star Twinkle out of his concentration who tried his best to focus on the pins.

“Alright, alright!” He replied annoyed.

He then threw the ball down the lane. The ball was going straight but tended to go a little to the left. It managed to hit the last pin on the left. His score was one pin. Star Twinkle didn't like the result but of course, something like that would happen after he snapped out of his concentration. He blamed Scootaloo for that.

“Good job, Star Twinkle! Your score is one! That puts you in the lead!” Apple Bloom said proudly.

“Pfft! Yeah. With one pin...” Scootaloo said unimpressed.

This provokes Star Twinkle a little and causing him to look at Scootaloo annoyed.

“I'd like to see you do better,” Star Twinkle challenged.

Scootaloo quickly accepted the challenge and placed her bowling ball in front of her and kicked it with her back legs. This caused the ball to fly all over the place, almost hitting some other ponies around them. Scootaloo put on a grin out of shame and returned to Star Twinkle, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom.

“Yeah, that's what I figured would happen...” Star Twinkle thought.

Now it was Apple Bloom's turn. At first, she was not sure how to throw the ball and tried to approach it from different angles. She then opened her mouth and put the ball inside of it. She managed to throw the ball like that, much to Star Twinkle's surprise.

While the ball was still rolling on the lane, everyponies attention was suddenly focused on another lane, where another filly managed to pull off a strike.

“Cool! A bowling Cutie Mark!” One ponies said impressed.

Apple Bloom thought that she was meant by that and quickly took a look on her flank, only to realize that it was still empty.
After she got confused why there was no Cutie Mark, she quickly realized that everypony was cheering for another pony.
This pony had a bowling ball and a pin as a Cutie Mark.

“But what about my ball?” Apple Bloom asked confused, only to realize that her ball was still rolling and barely touched the front pin.

Apple Bloom was sad to see that and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo only watched concerned after Apple Bloom's reaction.

“That's zero points...” Star Twinkle said boldly.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo only returned angry looks after Star Twinkle's unnecessary statement.

“What?” He asked confused, not being aware that he said anything wrong.

After this failed attempt to get a Cutie Mark in bowling, the four ponies left and tried to cheer Apple Bloom up who still seemed a little sad.

“That bowling sure was fun, even if all I got was gutter balls,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Yeah, at least you were able to keep your ball in your lane. I don't think Mr. Kingpin is ever gonna let me play again! Hey, maybe I could get my cutie mark in demolition!” Scootaloo said jokingly, causing her and Sweetie Belle to laugh.

“That actually doesn't sound too unlikely...” Star Twinkle thought.

But Apple Bloom didn't seem to be in the mood to laugh right now. Star Twinkle noticed that and felt like he should say something. “What's wrong? Don't be sad. I mean you always fail to get a Cutie Mark, you should be used to it by now, right?”

Apple Bloom replied with an angry expression on her face directed at Star Twinkle and just walked off.

“That went a lot better in my head...” Star Twinkle said.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo approached Star Twinkle and gave him almost the same face.

“Great job! You actually managed to make her feel worse!” Scootaloo exclaimed.

“Wait, where is she going?” Sweetie Belle said, pointing at Apple Bloom who entered the entrance of the Everfree Forest.

“Hey! Don't go in there!” Star Twinkle exclaimed but Apple Bloom didn't hear him.

“Isn't that the Everfree Forest?” Scootaloo asked concerned.

“Yes. That is a way you two stay here. It's way too dangerous in there,” Star Twinkle said trying to push them away from the forest.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo only exchanged looks at each other in confusion.

“So does that mean, that you will go inside to get her out?” Scootaloo asked confused.

This thought only crossed Star Twinkle's mind just now. If a filly enters the forest, then it's up to him to go inside to get her out. This thought scared him a little. Granted, he already visited this forest numerous time but that still doesn't change that it can be dangerous at times. Star Twinkle just noticed how the two ponies were looking at him confused, still expecting an answer from him.

“Yes! Right! I will do that! No problem at all,” he said before he entered the forest.

After entering the forest, Star Twinkle began to look for Apple Bloom, while still trying not to cause too many attention. Fortunately, his search was over after only a few minutes. He found Apple Bloom lying on the ground. She looked like she was in pain, causing Star Twinkle to get really concerned and nervous.

“Apple Bloom!” He exclaimed before he ran to her in concern. “What's wrong? Are you hurt?” He asked in a panic.

Apple Bloom only nodded in response, worrying Star Twinkle even more. He quickly checked her for any bruises but didn't found anything. The fact that Apple Bloom could be injured was already worrying him but he also thought about what Applejack would do if she found out.

“Alright! Where does it hurt? The Legs? Your hooves? Your head?”

Apple Bloom pointed to her mouth as the response. It was just then that Star Twinkle realized that she was covering her mouth with her hooves all this time.

“Your mouth? Okay, open up. I'm sure it's not that bad,” he said trying to calm Apple Bloom and himself down.

She then opened her mouth and revealed a broken front teeth. Star Twinkle shrugged in shock after seeing that. He then took a closer look at the teeth but didn't know what he should do about it. Thankfully Apple Bloom didn't seem to be in any pain. That at least calmed Star Twinkle down. He then heard a familiar voice coming closer to him from the back.

“I thought I heard a noise from this place. And I found out that indeed it is a familiar face,”

It was Zecora, much to Star Twinkle's relief.

“Zecora! Am I glad to see you. pple Bloom has hurt herself!” Star Twinkle explained in panic.

Despite, Star Twinkle who still had problems to not worry about Apple Bloom, Zecora kept her calm and collected nature and took a look at Apple Bloom.

“What has happened to you, youth? Ah, you've gone and chipped your tooth. Come with me, I have just the trick that will fix you up quite quick,”

They then walked over to Zecora's hut. Zecora was brewing something in her cauldron in order to fix Apple Bloom's tooth.

Meanwhile, Apple Bloom explained the whole situation to Zecora.

“I've tried everything, Zecora, and still no cutie mark! Well, I'm gonna be as old as Granny Smith and still have a blank flank!” Apple Bloom said frustrated while lisping which is caused by the hole in her tooth.

“Your frustration is well understood, but one must be patient for all things good,” Zecora replied while searching for some ingredients.

“Ugh, I've heard that from every pony I know! And now from every zebra I know!” Apple Bloom replied.

“Have you ever considered that they say it because it's true!” Star Twinkle said a little annoyed.

“I'm just too impatient to be patient. I just want my cutie mark and I want it now!” Apple Bloom said close up to Zecora who was preparing to put something in her cauldron but Apple Bloom's sudden outburst caused her to drop the bottle she was holding into the cauldron.

That caused a little explosion, which most likely shouldn't happen and Zecora looked at Apple Bloom scolding who in response backed away from Zecora.

“For your Cutie Mark, you will have to wait. We must fix that tooth before it's too late,”

She put some of the liquid from the cauldron into a small bowl, ready for Apple Bloom to drink.

“Now drink down every little drop, and this mixture will mend that chip on top!” Zecora explained.

Apple Bloom did as she was told and to Star Twinkle's surprise, her tooth got fixed.

“Oh my star apples, you did it, Zecora!” Apple Bloom happily exclaimed.

“Yes, thank you Zecora. You're a real live saver,” Star Twinkle said relieved.

Zecora nodded happily as response and was glad that she could help. Meanwhile, Apple Bloom was distracted by all the tonics that were scattered in Zecora's hut.

“Golly, you have tonics that heal all sorts of ailments. Bad bones, bad back, bad breath...” And not only stuff that fixes the bad, but stuff that brings the good! Good health, good hair... good heavens!” She said, inspecting all the different bottles.

Suddenly, Apple Bloom's expression changed. She had a smug smile on her face and turned to Zecora again.

“I bet you can mix up a brew to fix... anything,” she said, hinting at her blank flank.

But Zecora quickly caught up on what Apple Bloom meant.

“There are many mixtures in this room, but none for what you want, dear Apple Bloom. A magic potion does not hold the key. For a cutie mark, time is the only remedy,” Zecora explained.

Apple Bloom was not happy to hear that but she also gave up asking about a Cutie Mark.

With Zecora's work done, she returned to her ingredients and prepared to brew something else. Apple Bloom asked what she was doing.

“I am brewing up another mix for a rooster and his chicks. It seems the rooster has lost his crow, making mornings very slow,” Zecora explained.

Apple Bloom recognized one of the ingredients that Zecora was collecting. It was a purple flower. Star Twinkle also recognized it. He saw this flower blooming in Ponyville before.

“It is one we call 'Heart's Desire'. A dash will ignite the rooster's fire. With Heart's Desire, his talent comes into view, and he'll give a mighty cock-a-doodle-doo!” Zecora explained.

Apple Bloom got interested in this tonic and was playing with a thought in her mind. Star Twinkle figured where this was going and kept a close look on Apple Bloom.

Suddenly, Zecora realized that she was missing an ingredient and went out to get it. Apple Bloom didn't seem to care much about that and still focused on the brew. After Zecora left, Apple Bloom had a huge grin on her face.

“Do you think, what I am thinking?” Apple Bloom asked Star Twinkle excited.

“I'm afraid so. And no,” he quickly replied.

“Come on, Star Twinkle! What if this brew can give me what my heart' is desiring the most? A Cutie Mark?” Apple Bloom said almost begging.

“You heard Zecora. A Cutie Mark comes with time and not with some kind of potion or tonic,” Star Twinkle replied, repeating Zecora's words.

Apple Bloom didn't seem to be happy to hear that. She attempted to leave Zecora's hut.
“I'll guess you can't help it then. Let me just take a look at some other tonics, in case I need something else,” Apple Bloom said walking over to a shelf with some more bottles.

For some reason, Star Twinkle had a bad feeling about her behavior but as long as he was standing near the cauldron, Apple Bloom couldn't do anything.

At least that's what he thought...

Before he knew it, Apple Bloom threw some of the bottles to Star Twinkle, making him catch them all before they could drop to the ground. He found himself holding multiple bottles in each hoof, balancing them in quite an impressive way, without dropping them.

Apple Bloom was then tiptoeing around Star Twinkle and tried to take a sip from Zecora's brew.

“Apple Bloom!” Star Twinkle exclaimed.

Star Twinkle couldn't move and stop Apple Bloom. It was already too late anyway. Apple Bloom was putting in some more of the Heart's desire flower inside of the cauldron. She filled another bowl with this brew and drank it all at once.

But nothing seemed to happen. She looked at her flank but there was no Cutie Mark, making her frown.

“Was too good to be true...” she said sadly.

She then left Zecora's hut with a sad expression on her face, ignoring Star Twinkle who still balanced multiple bottles on his body.

“Hey, aren't you forgetting somepony?” Star Twinkle exclaimed.

But it was too late. Apple Bloom already left and Star Twinkle was just standing in the middle of the room helplessly.

After some careful moving, he somehow managed to drop the bottles without breaking a single one and placed them on the shelf again.

“Zecora said this brew was for some rooster that lost his crow...I guess It will only give Apple Bloom a stronger voice then...” Star Twinkle mumbled in order to convince himself, that this potion is safe.

He couldn't help but look at the cauldron with a worried look on his face.

"A potion that could grant you a Cutie Mark, huh?" Star Twinkle wondered. “That does sound too good to be true...”

On the next day...

When Star Twinkle woke up, he was awake in an instant. The sun was just getting up and only a few ponies were outside.

He got out of his bed and walked to the bathroom to get himself ready. While brushing his teeth, Star Twinkle noticed something in the mirror. Behind him was a shelf, where all his stuff was standing on. Toothpaste, shampoo, soap and so on.
He approached the shelf and had a worried expression on his face.

"It looks a little messy..." he mumbled in a still half-asleep tone.

He then moved everything on the shelf in no specific order. He didn't know why he did it but after moving everything a little, he left the bathroom.

Once again, he noticed something in his living room.

"Is it just me or is everything messy in here?" He wondered.

He took a broom out of a closet and began to clean up.

"I don't really feel like cleaning right now but for some reason, I have the urge to do so..." he wondered again.

After he cleaned the whole room, he put away the broom and began to get hungry.

"I should eat something now..." he said while he moved up to his bed again. "...then why am I going upstairs again?"

His kitchen was on the ground floor so he should have stayed there but he was going upstairs again. Instead, he was making his bed, which was strange since he never makes his bed.

"Alright...this is getting weird now..."

After his bed was finished, he returned downstairs.

"Okay...I really want to have breakfast right now..." He mumbled to himself.

But his hooves were moving to the closet instead of his kitchen.

"No! Breakfast! I need to go to the kitchen!" He exclaimed, in hope that it would help.

But no matter how hard he tried, his hooves were moving to the closet.
He once again pulled out the broom and continued to clean his house.

"I don't want to clean right now but I can't stop!"

He then proceeded to clean the floor, creating a lot of dust in the process. It was at this moment when he noticed that something new appeared on his flank.

A broom Cutie Mark.

"A Cutie Mark? Why do I ha-” but after thinking about it, he remembered again.

The brew from Zecora. That she was brewing for a rooster. The brew from which Apple Bloom took a bowl from. The brew from which Star Twinkle was taking a sip from when nopony was looking.

“Does that mean that Zecora's potion worked?" He wondered.

He didn't know what to make out of that. He never liked to clean to this extent. In fact, he didn't like it at all. Having a Cutie Mark that makes him clean all day was not something that he would like. Then again, he never had a Cutie Mark before so he thought that it may work like that. That thought kinda frightened him.

Him cleaning the floor was going on for a good while until Star Twinkle suddenly dropped to the ground from either exhaustion or the fact that everything in his house was completely clean.

"Ugh...hungry...is it over?" He said exhausted.

He threw the broom out of his window, in hope that it would prevent him from cleaning again. While he should rather inspect his newly acquired Cutie Mark, his stomach was telling him to get something to eat first.
He went to the kitchen as fast as he could and tried to make something to eat.

There was an apple pie in his fridge, that he saved for some special occasions but right now, it didn't matter what it was as long as it was edible. When he opened the fridge doors his eyes began to sparkle by the sight of the pie. He tried to grab the pie with his mouth but suddenly stopped. It was the same feeling like before with the broom.

"No! No! Noooo!" He exclaimed frustrated while his head was slowly moving away from the fridge.

He still tried to grab the pie with his mouth but it was no use. His eyes began to get watery out of frustration.

He was too hungry to even complain about this situation and just went along with whatever was happening right now. He went to one of his kitchen closets, which was filled with some ingredients like sugar, flour, or salt, the usual stuff. He took out some ingredients and put them on his table. In all his frustration he didn't notice that he had another Cutie Mark all of the sudden.

It was a whisk.

"Two Cutie Marks? How is that even possible?” Star Twinkle exclaimed confused.

He then put the ingredients in a bowl and mixed everything together.

"On second thought, a cooking or baking Cutie Mark might not be that bad," Star Twinkle thought optimistic.

He didn't exactly know what he was doing but it seemed to work. The stuff that he was mixing together actually looked edible. He guessed that it was supposed to be a cake. Since he was hungry already, this Cutie Mark did come in handy.

He put the cake in the oven and decided to wait. Or at least, that's what he planned. He continued to make more cakes and other sweets with the remaining ingredients.

"I don't want to make more sweets!" He exclaimed frustrated.

While making more sweets, the cake in the oven began to burn. Star Twinkle noticed that but he couldn't stop making more sweets. A fire was breaking out in the kitchen.

"Help! Fire! Help!" He screamed.

Moments later he noticed how another Cutie Mark appeared on his flank.

It was a firefighter helmet.

"Wow, that's convenient!" He exclaimed, still shocked by the whole situation.

He was running outside of the kitchen and grabbed a fire extinguisher from the living room. After running inside again, he pointed at the oven, ready to extinguish the flames.

"Here goes nothing!" He said before firing at the oven.

The extinguisher was harder to control than expected and Star Twinkle ruined his whole kitchen in the process.

Eventually, the fire was fully extinguished. But not in a very professional way. Needless to say, the kitchen looked like a total mess.

Star Twinkle could only sigh in frustration.

"Well, can't get worse than that..." he said in order to calm himself down.

But then a little light appeared on his flank. He figured that another Cutie Mark would appear and waited until it was clearly visible to find out what it is.

His facial expression quickly turned from annoyed to shocked by what he just saw.

"Oh, Nonononononono!" He exclaimed in fear.

A little time later in Ponyville...

“I can't believe I'm doing that! There is no way that I would ever do that! Can somepony help me?!” Star Twinkle screamed from on top of the Ponyville town hall.

He was beneath a hang glider and tried to jump down any second to fly over the town. Some ponies looked up to him, thinking that this was some kind of act. He constantly looked down in fear and was surprised that his hooves weren't shaking at all. Probably because his body wasn't acting on its own.

Star Twinkle then took some steps forward and jumped off the building.

He let out a really loud scream while flying above the town.

“Somepony get me down from here!” He screamed while flying.

Suddenly another hang glider was flying past him. While still in shock, Star Twinkle recognized that Apple Bloom was in it.

“Star Twinkle?!” Twilight shouted from beneath him accompanied by Applejack and Spike.

“Twilight! Applejack! Get me down from here!” Star Twinkle plead.

Applejack then took out a lasso and wrapped it around Star Twinkle's glider and pulled him down to the ground. Or rather dropped him on the ground. His landing was not very free of pain but at least he was down on the ground again.

“Thank you...” Star Twinkle said.

Moments later, another Cutie Mark appeared on his body.

It was a football this time.

Before he knew it, he balanced a football on his head

“Wait, you also have the Cutie Pox, Star Twinkle?” Twilight asked confused.

“The what?” Star Twinkle asked confused while playing around with his football.

“It's a disease that causes Cutie Marks to appear over all of your body and forces you to perform every talent it represents,” Twilight explained.

“Yes! I figured that much! But how do get rid of that?” Star Twinkle exclaimed annoyed.

The two mares then looked at each other in concern before giving Star Twinkle an answer.

“We are working on that right now...” Applejack replied with an awkward smile.

Star Twinkle noticed that Apple Bloom was also behaving really weird and figured that it also was because of the brew from Zecora. Of course, the strange behavior from Star Twinkle and Apple Bloom was not unnoticed by the townsfolk.

“They are cursed!” A light pink pony with a yellow mane said.

“Hexed!” Said a yellow pony with a dark pink mane.

“Enchanted!” Said a light purple pony with a green mane.

But Spike tried to calm everypony down explained the situation.

“No, they are not. They just have some weird mysterious disease with no known cure called cutie pox,” he explained calmly.

But that didn't seem to work at all since everypony panicked and ran inside of their houses. Most likely to not get infected by the disease.

Star Twinkle did like it when it was a little quieter in town but now it was more like a ghost town. Luckily Zecora walked up to the three ponies. Since she was the one who brewed the potion, she most likely knew a cure for it too. At least that's what Star Twinkle hoped.

“I thought I had removed their fear the last time that I visited here. But doors are barred and shutters shut. Guess I should've stayed inside my hut,” Zecora said a little offended.

Zecora! Apple Bloom and Star Twinkle have the cutie pox! We were just on our way to see if you had a cure!” Twilight said.

“But magically you're here! Was your zebra sense a-tingling'?” Applejack said jokingly despite the current situation.

“My 'zebra sense' did not bring me round, it was a special flower that I needed found. I thought I picked enough to fix all the potions I had to mix, but after my visit from Star Twinkle and Apple Bloom, some had mysteriously left my room. What do you two say? Did this flower just walk away?”

Apple Bloom was fully aware that Zecora knew what she did but she couldn't admit it. Zecora then turned to Star Twinkle to get some answers.

“What about you, Star Twinkle my dear? Do you know the reason for the flower to suddenly disappear?”

He had to admit that he was a little ashamed to take a sip from the brew without asking but he also didn't want to sell out Apple Bloom.

“How about you cure us first? I think we can explain everything after all this chaos is done,” Star Twinkle said to avoid the consequences.

Zecora didn't like to hear this answer and gave Star Twinkle a judging look.

“A cutie pox cure I have forsooth, for healing power is in the Seeds of Truth,” Zecora explained after pulling out three seeds from her saddlebag.

“Well, well then give 'em to them! Quick!” Applejack demanded stressed.

“These seeds must be planted in the ground. With the truth, they'll grow, and the cure is found,”

“Come again?” Applejack asked confused.

“So somepony has to say the truth and those seeds grow and give us the cure?” Star Twinkle figured and judging from
Zecora's nodding, he seemed to be right.

“Well then let's get to it!” Applejack said planting the seed quickly into the ground. Alright, they're planted, now somepony tell the truth!”

“No problem!” Star Twinkle said right away. “I once borrowed a book from your library Twilight and didn't return it till now...” Star Twinkle admitted.

“Oh, don't worry about that,” Twilight replied.

But the seed was not growing, causing everypony to look at Star Twinkle.

“Alright, the reason because I can't return it is because it's completely destroyed,” Star Twinkle added.

“What?” Twilight responded shocked.

“I'm sorry. Looking back it was really a stupid idea to read it in Sugarcube Corner when it's Cake-rain Sunday,” he explained.

But there was still no progress to be found in the seed.
Star Twinkle knew where this was going and figured that he should tell the truth about what happened yesterday.

“Alright, alright! The reason why the flower disappeared in your hut is because...”

But before he could finish another Cutie Mark appeared on his body. It was a black eagle.

“Apple Bloom nahm die Blume, mixte sie in den Kessel und trinkte einen Schluck von dem Gebräu. Ausserdem, habe ich auch einen Schluck davon genommen... Das war falsch. Tut mir leid...” Star Twinkle apologized.

Zecora, Twilight, and Applejack only looked at Star Twinkle flustered. It obviously was because they couldn't understand a single word from Star Twinkle

“Was ist?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“Um...did you get that?”Twilight asked.

“Nope,” Applejack replied. “But whatever he said, it didn't seem to work. The seeds didn't grow one bit,”

This caused Star Twinkle to look at the seeds annoyed.

“Was? Ich hab doch die Wahrheit gesagt! Warum tut sich nichts,” he said annoyed before he realized, that he was speaking in a completely different language. “Du willst mir doch nicht sagen das dieses Pflanze nicht in der Lage ist verschiedene Sprachen zu verstehen?!” He added, sounding even more annoyed and frustrated than before.

“Wah, I can't stand it anymore! It's me! I admit it!” Apple Bloom exclaimed frustrated. “I didn't earn my cutie mark! They're all fake! I figured the Heart's Desire would help me get what I wanted most! So when Zecora left her hut, I mixed up a special potion and put the rest of the Heart's Desire in it!”

After those words, the seeds were finally growing and two flowers spread from the ground.
Apple Bloom and Star Twinkle quickly ate them up and the Cutie Marks on their bodies vanished.

“Am I glad that this is over...” Star Twinkle said relieved.

“Tell me about it...” Apple Bloom replied.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo then rushed to Star Twinkle and Apple Bloom in concern and asked if they were alright again.

“I'm great, and I've never been happier to be a blank flank. But I'm awful sorry I lied, 'specially to you gals. I was so desperate for my cutie mark, I just got carried away. And I'm really sorry I snuck those flowers from you, Zecora, and you too Star Twinkle for kinda dragging you into all this,”

“No. I feel responsible too. I should have known better,” he replied.

“Why, I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted me to come by again,” Apple Bloom said to Zecora with a frown.

But Zecora didn't seem to hold any bad feelings towards Apple Bloom easily forgave her.

“Now, Apple Bloom, do not be silly. You are always welcome, my little filly. With each mistake you learn something new, growing up into a better you,”

“Apple Bloom, would you mind writing to Princess Celestia and telling her what you've learned?” Twilight suggested.

“I'd be happy to, Twilight!“ Apple Bloom replied before she dictated her letter.

Dear Princess Celestia,
Waiting for what your heart desires can be really hard. So, you may try to take a shortcut. But this dishonesty never works, because you didn't earn what your heart desired. The only cure is being honest with yourself and others. And that's something every heart desires.

Spike then sent the letter to the princess right away.

“I sure am proud of you, sis. Seems like you finally learned the importance of patience,” Applejack said proudly.

“Yup! All good things come to those who wait,” Apple Bloom said.

“Aw, Isn't that nice to hear,” Twilight said after those mature words of Apple Bloom.

“Wait for it...” Star Twinkle said, knowing what would happen next.

“Well! I've waited long enough,” Apple Bloom said after a few seconds.

“Actually, that was way too long,” Scootaloo added.

“What?!” Applejack said confused.

The Crusaders then left and planned on how to get their Cutie Marks again. Star Twinkle could swear that he heard something about potion brewing but he didn't care anymore for today.

“Yep, I figured that much...” said Star Twinkle unsurprisingly.

“Someday they will learn...” Twilight said confidently.

“Well, all this Cutie Pox chaos sure made me hungry. So let's grab something to eat,” Applejack suggested.

This was like music to Star Twinkle's ears. After all, he didn't eat anything today and was starving.

“I like this idea! Let's go!” He said almost commanding.

“Yes, before you decide to hang glide some more,” Twilight said jokingly.

“Can we please not talk about that anymore?” Star Twinkle replied slightly annoyed before the walked off to the nearest restaurant.

This whole day proved to Star Twinkle, that he can indeed wait for his Cutie Mark.
Eventually, his Cutie Mark will show up some day.

Right?

Author's Notes:

That chapter was actually really fun to write.
Actually, every chapter where Star Twinkle is being miserable is fun to write ^^.

The next chapter is going to be a little different and something that will be a standard format for this story.
I hope you look forward to that as much as I look forward to writing this.

If you liked this chapter then please show some kind of thanks in form of a review or a follow or whatever you have in mind.

See you in the next chapter ^^.

Bonus:

Translation of Star Twinkle's words(It was german by the way ^^.)

Apple Bloom nahm die Blume, mixte sie in den Kessel und trinkte einen Schluck von dem Gebräu.
=
Apple Bloom took the flower, mixed it in the cauldron and drank from the brew

Ausserdem, habe ich auch einen Schluck davon genommen = I also took a sip from it
Das war falsch = That was wrong
Tut mir leid... = I'm sorry

Was ist? = What is it?

Was? = What?
Ich hab doch die Wahrheit gesagt! = I did say the truth!
Warum tut sich nichts? = Why is nothing happening?

Du willst mir doch nicht sagen das dieses Pflanze nicht in der Lage ist andere Sprachen zu verstehen?!
=
Are you telling me that this plant is incapable of understanding other languages?

32. Into the Storm

View Online

Outside of Ponyville, three Pegasus were overlooking the town.

A gray Pegasus with a green mane and a feather as a Cutie Mark. A gray Pegasus with a blue mane and a cloud as a Cutie Mark. And a yellow Pegasus with a wing, where two wind gusts came out of as Cutie Mark and wings made out of steel.

The Pegasus with the steel wings walked up and down impatiently, causing the other two to look at him worried.

“I AM SO SICK OF WAITING!” The pony with the steel wings shouted in frustration. “I mean, how long does it take, to get a messenger over here to tell us that we can start our mission!?” He further exclaimed.

The other two ponies continued to just watch.

“Um...Cloud Head, do you think we should say something?” The Pegasus with the green mane asked.

“Featherbrain, I think this is the last thing he wants right now...” Cloud Head replied.

Featherbrain looked back at the steel winged pony and couldn't help but to feel concerned. Cloud Head noticed that and decided to say something before Featherbrain would say something stupid.

“Maybe you should calm down a little, Tornado Wing, boss, sir?”

“What did you just call me!?” The steel winged Pegasus said in an instant after hearing Cloud Head's words.

Cloud Head quickly noticed that he was saying something wrong and prepared himself for the worst.

“It's Steel Wing! Steel Wing! How often do I have to remind you until it gets stuck in your little Featherbrains!?” Steel Wing said angrily towards Cloud Head.

“Yes?” Featherbrain replied, who felt like Steel Wing was addressing him.

This snapped Steel Wing out of his anger like it always does when he was speaking to his two comrades.

“What? No, what I meant...Ugh!” Steel Wing replied trying to explain but he stopped since he thought it was a lost cause.

“We are hiding outside of this town for months now!” Steel Wing exclaimed annoyed.

“Actually, it was only ten day, thus far...” Cloud Head corrected.

But Steel Wing didn't feel like arguing about that right now and continued.

“Cyclone sent us here so that we can get our hooves on this “Elements of Harmony” but only after we get a signal on what exactly we have to do! Also, aren't the elements suppose to be in Canterlot, protected by Princess Celestia herself? How are we suppose to get them anyway?”

Suddenly, Featherbrain noticed that he should tell Steel Wing something important.

“The elements are in Ponyville, right now...” he said with not a single care in his voice.

This got Steel Wing's attention. He slowly moved his head towards Featherbrain confused, with widened eyes.

“What?” he asked confused.

“Yeah, in the library,” Featherbrain added.

“How do you know that?” Steel Wing
asked slightly annoyed.

“Well, yesterday when I went to Ponyville, I decided to ask around in town since you always feel so depressed about this matter...”

“You went to Ponyville again!? And you asked about the Elements!? Are you crazy? Do you want us to blow our cover!?” Steel Wing shouted at Featherbrains face.

“But they were so friendly. There was this pink pony who told me about the Elements of Harmony. She was really friendly and Pinkie Promised me that she wouldn't tell anypony about us,” Featherbrain explained nervously, while Steel Wing was still up close to his face.

“Pinkie promised!?” Steel Wing said confused.

Eventually, Steel Wing calmed down in order to think straight again.

"So the elements are now in the library of Ponyville?" He said calmly while looking over to Ponyville.

“Yes. What are we gonna do now boss?” Cloud Head asked, waiting for a response from Steel Wing. But he kept staring at the town with narrowed eyes, thinking about his next step.

Meanwhile in the Golden Oak Library...

Star Twinkle decided to replace a book that he borrowed from Twilight. The one that he told her about a day before. He figured that he should at least replace it if can't give it back.

Star Twinkle knocked at Twilight's door and moments later he was greeted by her after she opened the door.

“Hey, Star Twinkle. What brings you here?” She asked.

He then pointed at the book and explained the situation. She also offered him to come in and at least have something to drink or eat. Star Twinkle accepted her offer and went inside the library. Spike was nowhere to be found. Made sense to him, since it was still a little early so he was probably still asleep.

“You know, I was a little mad after I heard what happened to the book but you shouldn't have to go to the trouble to replace it,” Twilight assured smiling.

“No. Don't worry,” Star Twinkle replied.

He had to. It would only bother himself, knowing that he broke something from a friend. Even if it was just a book.

Twilight then inspected the book to find out which one it was again.

“Star Ponies, huh? Oh, yeah, I remember now! I must say you have a really good taste in books, Star Twinkle. I put this one back into its place before making some tea for us, okay?” Twilight said.

“Yeah, no problem...” Star Twinkle replied.

Twilight then placed the book back to its original spot. Star Twinkle looked around the library. He felt like, the order of the books was changing, every time he visited the place. It was a mystery how Twilight can keep an overview of all of them.

Star Twinkle then noticed something new in the library. A table with a familiar blue case.

“Wait...are those...the Elements of Harmony?” He asked, walking up to them.

Twilight also approached the case after she put the book back.

"Yes. Discord managed to steal them, even though they were protected by a spell from the princess. So Princess Celestia suggested that I should take care of the Elements of Harmony for a while," Twilight explained proudly.

"If somepony stronger then Discord should appear again then I guess it doesn't matter where they are. Yeah, it's probably better if we have them right away," Star Twinkle said with little worry.

Star Twinkle took the opportunity to open the case took a look at his element. Hoping to find out something by just looking at the white star on his necklace. He also looked at Twilight's element and thought about what Discord said.

Out of nowhere appeared an element that not even Discord knew. And this element was the element of magic and not Star Twinkle's element. Wasn't that prophecy book talking about Twilight's element when it talked about the sixth element? He wanted to find an answer but he can't turn to anypony else if he wants to find out about that matter. The two princesses who wielded the elements didn't know anything. Discord was probably the only one who knew something but he was gone now. Star Twinkle didn't want to think about that anymore. Everything worked out fine in the end after all.

"Are you sure that it is safe to place them in the open like that?" Star Twinkle asked worriedly.

But Twilight smiled in response and assured that they will be safe which Star Twinkle found hard to believe.

"I actually was about to put a protection spell on them before you arrived,” Twilight assured calmly.

“Then you should probably go back to that as soon as possible,” Star Twinkle advised.

Twilight chuckled in a response of Star Twinkle's worry.

“Don't worry, Star Twinkle. It will be fine. I mean it's not like somepony will suddenly jump through the window and steal them," Twilight jokingly said.

But irony strikes and suddenly three ponies jumped through the windows, leaving Star Twinkle and Twilight in shock and surprise.

They were all Pegasus. Two gray ones and a yellow one. One of the ponies turned to Twilight. He had a yellow coat, a light blue mane, a wing with wind gusts coming out of it as a Cutie Mark and most noticeable two wings made out of steel. Something that Star Twinkle and Twilight never saw before.

"We are here for the Elements of Harmony!" He said with a mischievous smile. "The name is Steel Wing...and nothing else!" The steel winged Pegasus demanded.

Meanwhile, the other two Pegasus took the chance to steal the Elements while Star Twinkle and Twilight were distracted by Steel Wing.

"We got them Tornado Wing boss, sir," Featherbrain said holding the blue box of the elements in his hooves.

Suddenly Steel Wing's mood changed and he got angry at that pony.

"Seriously! How often do I have to tell you that my name is Steel Wing?!" He screamed at the pony who got startled by Steel Wing's loud voice.

"Sorry boss..." Featherbrain apologized.

"That's what you get by calling him Tornado Wing," Cloud Head said. "I think he doesn't like to be called like this," he then whispered in Featherbrain's ear.

Steel Wing, of course, overheard all of this and got only more frustrated.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle and Twilight just watched the three of them and got confused by the weird behavior of the three ponies. But since they had the elements right now, they should keep their focus on that.

"I'll try to get them. Make sure that they don't leave," Twilight said before charging into the two ponies, who then attempted to leave through the front door. But Star Twinkle did as Twilight said and stood between them and the door, ready to attack.

The two Pegasus looked confused and didn't know what to do until Steel Wing spoke up.

"Give me the elements!" He said while waving with his hoof.

They then threw the elements across the room and into Steel Wing's hoofs, who caught them. He put them in a saddlebag that he was wearing and smiled in confidence.

"All right! See ya!" Said Steel Wing before flying out of the window again.

"No! We have to follow him!" Twilight exclaimed.

The other two Pegasus also left through the window while Star Twinkle was focusing on Steel Wing.

Star Twinkle and Twilight followed Steel Wing, who didn't get far away.

The two Pegasus quickly rejoined with Steel Wing, who flew in a rather slow pace above Ponyville.

“We did it!” Featherbrain said in joy.

“But boss. Is it really a good idea to act against our orders?” Cloud Head asked worriedly.

“Hey, if we present the elements to Cyclone, then I'm sure everything will be alright!” Steel Wing assured.

Star Twinkle and Twilight followed the three Pegasus on their hooves. Luckily, they both came along Pinkie Pie. Twilight told her that the elements have been stolen by a Pegasus with steel wings and that she should tell the others to help them. Pinkie Pie was not asking questions and quickly got on her way.

While still flying away from Star Twinkle and Twilight, Steel Wing was flying past Rainbow Dash, who took a nap in a cloud but quickly woke up after noticing Steel Wing.

"Wow look at those awesome wings! They would probably look good on me too," she said admiring Steel Wing's wings.

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie jumped out from under Rainbow Dash's cloud.

"Rainbow Dash! A Pegasus with steel wings stole the Elements of Harmony!" She said before vanishing again.

Rainbow Dash quickly knew what to do and followed Steel Wing.

Meanwhile, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie have joined up with Star Twinkle and Twilight while Rainbow Dash followed them from the sky.

The three Pegasus noticed their followers and got worried a little.

"They are getting closer!" Said Cloud Head worried.

"And there are more now!" Featherbrain added.

But Steel Wing was not worried at all and continued to fly in his normal speed.

"There is nothing to be worried about. My brother wouldn't send me here if he didn't believe that I can bring back those elements," Steel Wing said confidently.

Rainbow Dash got closer to the three Pegasus and prepared herself to get the elements back.

"Those wings may look cool but you're not really fast. Getting the elements back will be a piece of cake," said Rainbow Dash in confidence before charging into Steel Wing.

Steel Wing noticed Rainbow Dash's attack and turned around, facing her with a wide smile. Just before Rainbow Dash hit him, Steel Wing slapped Rainbow Dash with one of his wings causing her to get knocked down to the ground.

Everypony let out a huge gasp and quickly rushed to her side to make sure that Rainbow Dash was okay.

"Are you all right, Rainbow?" Asked Applejack worried.

"Did somepony remember the number of this wing?" Said Rainbow Dash, clearly being knocked out by Steel Wing.

The three Pegasus stopped in midair in order to warn the rest of the six ponies.

"There's plenty where that came from," Steel Wing said overly confident.

"Yeah, that's what you get when you mess with the boss," Featherbrain cheered.

"We'll see about that!" said Applejack before pulling out a lasso in an attempt to capture Steel Wing.

She threw the lasso at Steel Wing and actually managed to capture him, binding the rope around his body. All she had to do now is pull him down so that everypony could get to him and the elements. But Applejack seemed to have trouble pulling him down. Steel Wing was heavily resisting and Applejack could not move him one inch.

"This fellow sure is hard to pull," Applejack said trembling.

Steel Wing then flew a little higher, lifting Applejack over the ground. He then swung Applejack around who couldn't hold herself any longer and let go of the rope. Rainbow Dash tried to get back on her hoofs again but Applejack crashed right into her knocking her out once more.

"Ha ha ha! Nice try. Somepony else who wants to try their luck?" Asked Steel Wing provocatively.

Star Twinkle was shocked how easily Steel Wing took out Rainbow Dash and Applejack. At first, he thought that he could be of some help but after seeing that, he felt more and more helpless.

He then noticed how Twilight got angry, probably because of Steel Wing's provocations. Even Steel Wing got startled a little after Twilight's horn began to glow.

"Yes! We still have Twilight and her magic!" Star Twinkle thought. “He can be as strong as he wants but he is no Unicorn, and therefore can not block Twilight's magic,” Star Twinkle thought confidently, fully believing in Twilight's magic.

Twilight then shot a beam out of her horn, right at Steel Wing, who had a shocked expression on his face.

But that expression quickly vanished and Steel Wing slapped his wing just like before with Rainbow Dash before the magic beam could hit him. This caused the magic beam to fly right back at Twilight and the others.

"Look out!" Twilight screamed, causing everypony to run away from the beam of magic that was flying directly towards them.

The impact caused a little explosion but thankfully nopony got caught in it. Shocked after what happened right now, everypony slowly got up on their hooves again.

"Did you see that? He threw back Twilight's magic," Fluttershy said.

Steel Wing could only laugh again because of everyponies failed attempt to stop him.

"My wings are made from a special metal that proved to reflect magic! It's like a mirror made out of steel. You can forget your little magic!” He exclaimed while smiling provocatively.

"You'll show him, boss!" Cloud Head cheered.

"Nopony can stop the boss!" Featherbrain added.

It got annoying to hear those words but that didn't change the fact that they outmatched three of the seven ponies without any troubles.

"It seems like we underestimated them," said Star Twinkle.

"Who are these ruffians anyway?" asked Rarity confused.

"Yeah. And what do they want with the elements?" Applejack added.

"We don't know," Star Twinkle replied.

"Have you tried asking them?" Fluttershy innocently suggested.

Star Twinkle only shook his head because of Fluttershy's naivety.

"Hey! Who are you? And what do you want with the elements?" Pinkie Pie screamed at the three Pegasus.

She also put one of her hooves on her eyes while looking at Featherbrain. He did the same, which caused Cloud Head to look at him in confusion.

"I am Steel Wing. From the Storm Wings!" Steel Wing proudly replied.

"Storm Wings?" Twilight mumbled to herself.

“You heard about them?” Star Twinkle asked.

“I've heard that name before but I can't remember exactly,” she replied putting a hoof on her chin.

“Well, it's not really important right now,” Applejack cut off.

“Yes, what matters is that we have to get the Elements back!” Twilight said determent.

Steel Wing overheard that but was not impressed at all.

“Yeah, good luck with that!” He said unimpressed.

Still, Star Twinkle wanted to know why they want the Elements at all. Since they seem to be rather talkative about this matter, he figured he should ask.

“Why are you stealing the Elements of Harmony anyway?” He asked Steel Wing.

Steel Wing looked away for a moment in order to find an answer but he found out that he didn't have one.

“Beats me...” he replied boldly.

Of course, that only confused the seven ponies more. It was not a really good answer, given that Steel Wing would go to the extreme to just burst into the library to steal them. But Steel Wing explained a little further.

“You know, I am not that smart and I don't like scratching my head in order to come up with an answer. All I know is that my brother wants those things and that is why I will bring them to him,” he explained before he flew off again, followed by his two comrades.

Star Twinkle and his friends were just watching how the three Pegasus flew off into the distance.

“Get back here!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed waving her hoof angrily.

“Wait, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight said, stopping Rainbow Dash, who attempted to fly after the Storm Wings. “We need to come up with a plan in order to stop them!”

“Twilight is right! You saw what happened if we go in unprepared,” Star Twinkle added.

Steel Wing, Cloud Head, and Featherbrain continued to fly over Ponyville in a really slow pace. They were sure that they got rid of their followers and that they could leave without any further interruptions.

But then suddenly, Rainbow Dash Flew right at Steel Wing. He noticed that and turned around so that he could hit her with his wing again. Instead of flying directly at him, Rainbow Dash flew over him and blocked the three Pegasus's path in front of them.

The three Pegasus got confused by this action. Maybe she was trying to get the Elements back and as soon as she noticed that Steel Wing was prepared, she gave up.

“You may be strong but I bet you're not as fast as I am,” Rainbow Dash said boastfully.

While Steel Wing was not even bothering about that insult, Cloud Head felt offended and tried to defend his boss.

“You take that back! The boss may be slower than a flying turtle but he is probably one-hundred times stronger than you,” Cloud Head said.

Steel Wing didn't know if he should be more angry or thankful by those words from Cloud Head but he decided to not say anything and just sighed from the inside.

“Out of the way,” he said to Rainbow Dash in an annoyed tone.

“I bet I even can beat you on the ground by just walking slowly,” Rainbow Dash boasted.

Steel Wing didn't feel the need to bother with Rainbow Dash. He was wondering why she was so confident after Steel Wing knocked her out a few minutes ago.

“Want to make yourself useful for once?” Steel Wing said to Featherbrain and Cloud Head. “Go get her!” He commanded.

The two Pegasus did what Steel Wing commanded and rushed towards Rainbow Dash but she easily dived down and dodged, causing them both to crash into each other. This lead Steel Wing to sigh really hard in frustration, while Rainbow Dash just laughed.

Little did Steel Wing know, that Fluttershy was sneaking up on him from behind in an attempt to snatch the case with the elements away from him.

“See? That's how fast I am,” Rainbow Dash said proudly.

“Yes. Very nice, You're easily the second fastest flyer I know,” Steel Wing said without any care in his life.

“Second?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed confused with widened eyes.

After that, Steel Wing noticed Fluttershy behind her, who reached out her hooves to his saddlebag in fear and with closed eyes. When she opened her eyes, she only saw a threatening look on Steel Wing's face and gasped in shock. Steel Wing then readied his wing and tried to knock her away but thankfully Rainbow Dash grabbed Fluttershy and dragged her away from Steel Wing.

Meanwhile, Featherbrain and Cloud Head rejoined Steel Wing. Steel Wing ordered them to take care of the two Pegasus.
Cloud Head approached Rainbow Dash but Featherbrain was stopping in midair after getting closer to Fluttershy.

“What's wrong, Feather? Get her!” Steel Wing commanded.

“But...but...she's...so...beautiful,” Featherbrain said who was hypnotized by Fluttershy's sight.

“Oh, my. Thanks...I guess...” Fluttershy replied not sure what to make out of this.

This once again led Steel Wing to sigh heavily in frustration.

Then out of nowhere, Star Twinkle jumped from the roof of a house and right into Steel Wing. But Steel Wing was aware of that and dodged to the side, causing Star Twinkle to fall to the ground. Thankfully Twilight caught him with her magic before he would fall to the ground.

“Thank you...” Star Twinkle said still shocked by this action.

Meanwhile, Steel Wing continued to provoke the ponies.

“You really think that I will fall for such tricks? You can't sneak up or jump on me without me realizing,”

“That's right,” a voice behind him said.

At first, he didn't think much about it, since he believed that it was either Featherbrain or Cloud Head but the voice sounded a little too high and girlish. When he turned his head to make sure, he realized how Pinkie Pie was sitting on his back.

“How did you do that!?” He said almost shocked before he tried to shake her off.

Pinkie Pie seemed to have fun with that and only shouted in joy.

“Pinkie Pie. The elements!” Twilight shouted in order to remind Pinkie Pie to the seriousness of the situation.

“Oh yeah!” She replied, before trying to grab the case.

“Oh no, you won't,” Steel Wing said, finally managing to throw of Pinkie Pie from his back.

Pinkie Pie was also caught by Twilight in midair before she touched the ground still cheering in joy.

“That was close,” Cloud Head said.

“No, it wasn't,” Steel Wing quickly replied annoyed.

But the attacks didn't stop there. A lasso, thrown by Applejack who was standing on another roof, was flying towards Steel Wing but he dodged it this time.

“Hah! You missed,” Steel Wing said boastfully.

“Uh...boss?” Cloud Head said after Steel Wing's words.

Steel Wing turned to Cloud Head only to find out that he was caught in the lasso. Applejack then pulled the lasso and caused Cloud Head to fly right towards Steel Wing, who seemed too surprised to get any chance to dodge.

But then Featherbrain flew in front of Steel Wing and blocked Cloud Heads path.

“I'll save you, boss!” He shouted moments before he collided with Cloud Head and preventing Steel Wing to get hit.

They both fell to the ground with some bruises both seemed still fit enough to get back on their hooves.

“Good job!” Steel Wing complimented. “At least you did something today,” he added.

Twilight then prepared another spell to hit Steel Wing with. He noticed it again and covered himself with one of his wings,
Twilight then stopped her spell since she knew what the result would be. Featherbrain and Cloud Head both slowly got up again and followed Steel Wing who still tried to get away from his followers.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle and his friends were out of options. All these attempts of getting the elements back didn't work at all. This caused the seven ponies to frown.

“What are we gonna do now?” Fluttershy asked.

“I don't know...” Twilight replied.

“This Steel Wing is really a tough cookie. He is so heavy that I can't even move him one inch!,” Applejack said frustrated.

“Yeah, and he is really strong too! Believe me, I know,” Rainbow Dash said, rubbing her cheeks.

“And on top of that, my magic won't work against him...” Twilight said, making a frown.

“He seems very experienced to this kind of situations. He doesn't let his guard down at all,” Star Twinkle thought.

“But we can't just let them leave with the elements, can we?” Rarity asked.

“Of course, not! The princess left me with the elements and I can't just tell her that three ponies stole them from me,” Twilight exclaimed frustrated.

The mood was down in this group. But it wasn't the first time, where they came close to losing. Somehow everything worked out in the end. Because they worked together.

That reminded Star Twinkle to something.

“Not you...us,” Star Twinkle corrected.

Twilight, as well as the others, didn't quite knew what Star Twinkle meant with that and looked at him confused.

“We are the bearers of the elements of Harmony. And if they manage to steal them, then it's not because of you but because of us,” Star Twinkle explained. "Maybe that's what we are doing wrong. Instead of getting the elements on our own, we should focus on getting them together,” Star Twinkle suggested.

This made the others feel a little better. Their frowns turned into determent smiles. They were not ready to lose.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get those elements back!” Rainbow Dash said determent to which everypony replied with loud cheers.

“Okay listen, I have a plan,” Star Twinkle said getting the attention of everypony.
“I think it will work but...I don't like it...” he said confusing everypony before he shared his plan.

Meanwhile, Steel Wing, Featherbrain, and Cloud Head were almost out of town, still flying at a really slow pace. Steel Wing looked back and wondered if their followers gave up but still kept his guard up.

“I think we are almost out of Ponyville,” Cloud Head said.

“Hey, boss why don't you give us the elements? We are faster than you. I think we could get the elements to the headquarter much faster than you,” Featherbrain explained.

“After your performance today, I don't think so, Flying faster with those wings is impossible for me. You should know that!
But they make me unstoppable so at least that's good,” Steel Wing said with a frown. “This way, I can at least help my brother to-”

But he stopped in the middle of his sentence after he noticed Fluttershy in front of him, making him stop in midair in caution.

“Um...h-h-hello...my name...i-i-is Featherbr-” Featherbrain tried to say after seeing Fluttershy but Steel Wing interrupted him.

“You still won't give up, huh?” He asked.

Fluttershy looked hesitant but also determent.

“Um...would you mind giving those elements back?” Fluttershy asked innocently.

Featherbrain looked at Steel Wing with hopeful eyes but of course, Steel Wing will not give her the elements back.
Steel Wing knew that something was going on and looked around him in caution.

“You look like you're alone so I guess there is nopony sneaking up on me from behind, right?” He said before he turned around to make sure.

But there was nothing behind him. Still, Steel Wing had a very bad feeling and kept his guard up. His eyes scanned through the roofs of the houses in Ponyville. That is when he noticed some figures behind some chimneys on Ponyvilles roofs.

“I knew it!” He yelled.

Applejack and Rarity revealed themselves with Applejack having a rope in her mouth.
She threw it in direction of Steel Wing but he dodged, as well as Featherbrain and Cloud Head.

“You missed! Again!” Steel Wing boasted.

But to his surprise, Fluttershy caught the rope and cycled around Steel Wing before she threw it to Pinkie Pie, who was waiting on another roof on a house from the other side of the roof along with Twilight.

Applejack and Rarity, as well as Pinkie Pie and Twilight then pulled the ropes and managed to capture Steel Wing inside of it.
After tightening the rope, Steel Wing had troubles to move. But his wings were still free causing him to still stay in the midair.

“A little help, please?” Steel Wing demanded.

They then attempted to help but Cloud head was shot down by a magic beam that Twilight shot at him before grabbing the rope with her magic again. Then Fluttershy approached Featherbrain.

“Um...would you please...not help him?” She asked innocently.

“Yes! Of course!” He replied nervously with a weird grin on his face.

Steel Wing, of course, was not happy to hear that and got angry.

“Featherbrain, I swear if I get out of here then I will-” But he stopped after he noticed a shadow above him.

He looked up and noticed a figure jumping at him from above. It was Star Twinkle falling down from the sky screaming.

“Since when can this one fly?” Steel Wing exclaimed shocked.

Star Twinkle managed to land on Steel Wing. Steel Wing heavily resisted but couldn't do much since his movements were limited due to the ropes.

“Get off from me!” Steel Wing demanded, trying to shake of Star Twinkle, which made him feel really sick cause of all the shaking and being in the air.

Star Twinkle managed to stay on Steel Wings back and slowly opened the saddlebag to get the elements out. Steel Wing resisted even further but it was already too late. Star Twinkle had the case with the elements already in his hooves and threw them to Fluttershy who was still next to Steel Wing.

The rest of his friends cheered after finally getting the elements back and jumped off the roofs. Steel Wing managed to shake Star Twinkle off, leading him to fall to the ground but luckily got caught from Twilight's magic.

“Good job, Star Twinkle!” Twilight complimented, walking up to Star Twinkle.

“Yes, darling. I can't believe that you let yourself dropped from this high from Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said.

“It is definitely not one of my most favorite plans...” Star Twinkle said while still being in a little shock from the drop.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy brought the case with the elements back to Twilight. She opened the case and checked if the elements were still inside. All seven of them were still inside, causing Twilight to sigh in relief.

But there was no time to relax since Steel Wing was free again. Luckily everypony was prepared for that.

Steel Wing wasted no time and tried to free himself from the ropes. Featherbrain, who was next to him had a shocked expression on his face.

“Um...Tornado...boss,”

“I told you to call me, Steel Wing!” Steel Wing replied angrily, while still fiddling with the rope.

Cloud Head managed to get up again and levitated next to the two Pegasus.

“No, I think what he meant is that!” He said pointing at a little tornado that approached the three. They all had a shocked expression on their faces.

“Rainbow Dash made it!” Twilight exclaimed.

Rainbow Dash circled around the tornado and controlled in a way so that it would capture all three Pegasus.

Before they knew what happened, they got caught in the tornado, which was heading in the direction outside of Ponyville, dragging them outside.

They all joined together and cheered happily. Star Twinkle and his friends could hear some angry screams from Steel Wing but they were too excited to mind that. Right now, they were just relieved that they got the Elements of Harmony back.

“I can't believe you let me carry you this high up in the air so that I can drop you, Star Twinkle!” Rainbow Dash said, complementing Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle's plan was to limit Steel Wings movements so that Rainbow Dash could drop him on him, getting the elements back.
Steel Wing couldn't dodge if he was trapped by everyponies ropes and didn't expect anypony from above him.
In the meantime, Rainbow Dash would have prepared a tornado strong enough to carry the three Pegasus out of Ponyville.

This plan was a little crazy and could have easily gone wrong but Star Twinkle knew that he could depend on everypony and that if they work together, that they could succeed.

While cheering for their victory, Twilight couldn't help but worry a little about this “Storm Wings”. She wasted no time and brought the elements back to the library, putting the protection spell on them. That way, they could react faster if somepony tries to take them away again.

“This spell will not only protect the elements but also warn me as soon as somepony lays a hoof on them,” Twilight explained.

“Shouldn't we tell the princess what happened here?” Star Twinkle asked concerned.

“No. The princess entrusted me with the elements! I can't let her know that the first day the elements got to Ponyville, some ponies almost stole them away from us,” Twilight said in her usual nervous tone, whenever it comes to Princess Celestia.

Star Twinkle just hoped that those Storm Wings wouldn't come back so fast. If it was only those three, then they probably could handle them again but there was a chance that there would be more of them. And that thought worried him. It was up to Star Twinkle and his friends to protect the elements. They were the spirits of the elements. No matter what the Storm Wings wanted the elements for, they can't have the elements. And they will not get the elements.

Meanwhile, outside of Ponyville...

Steel Wing, Featherbrain and Cloud Head were still trying to free Steel Wing from the ropes, which were only more tied up after that tornado.

“Hurry up a little. As soon as I am free, we will go right back to get those elements!” Steel Wing said.

While fiddling with the ropes, Featherbrain couldn't help but chuckle a little.

“Why are you laughing in a situation like that?” Cloud head asked.

“Don't you think that it is funny that Tornado Wing got defeated by a tornado?” Featherbrain explained while still chuckling.

Of course, Steel Wing was not too happy to hear this and quickly got up to Featherbrains face.

“Do you still think that it is funny when I-”

But Cloud Head cut Steel Wing off after noticing that a Pegasus was approaching them. It was a dark yellow one with a dark red mane and a letter Cutie Mark.

Steel Wing quickly recognized this Pegasus as one of the Storm Wings messenger ponies. The messenger pony landed next to Steel Wing.

“Tornado Wing, sir. A message from the headquarter!” The messenger pony said saluting to Steel Wing.

“It's Steel Wing!” Steel Wing shouted at the messenger, making him startle in fear.

The messenger quickly apologized and Steel Wing told him to not waste any time since he knew what the message would be.

“We already made our moves ourselves since you took so long. You can go again,” Steel Wing told the messenger.

“Um...actually, I am here to inform you about a change of order,” the messenger pony added.

Steel Wing was surprised and then listened to the message.

“You are ordered to go back to the headquarter as soon as possible,” the messenger informed.

“What?” Steel Wing exclaimed. “Cyclone Wing sent us here to get the elements! There is no way that he would call us back again! Besides, we already had the elements in our hooves, so why should we go back now?” Steel Wing protested.

The messenger clearly knew that Steel Wing would react like that and looked at him in fear but sadly for him, he was about to give him even more bad messages.

“Um...to be exact...the order came from the leader....” the messenger said hesitantly.

This caused Steel Wings blood to boil in anger. Featherbrain and Cloud Head knew exactly that this was not going to end well and backed away in fear. Steel Wing clenched his teeth and tried his best to keep his anger inside of himself.

“The leader...huh!? He said angrily but calmly at the same time much to the surprise of everypony.

Though he didn't like this order, Steel Wing couldn't do much about it.

“What now boss?” Cloud Head asked.

Steel Wing looked back at him with a calm expression on his face.

“You heard the order...” he said hesitantly with a frown. “I hate to go back after we came this close but... If we disobey orders, Cyclone would only get in trouble...” Steel Wing explained.

Steel Wing took one last moment to look back at Ponyville before he ordered everypony to follow him.

“Let's go back to the headquarter!” Steel Wing ordered, spreading his wings and flying off to the sky.

Everypony saluted and followed Steel Wing. They flew away from Ponyville.

“You think that one pony got a special somepony?” Featherbrain asked Cloud Head.

“They were our enemies,” Cloud Head pointed out.

Featherbrain didn't seem to find a problem in that and just shrugged as a response. Normally Steel Wing would get annoyed by the two but his mind was somewhere else at the moment.

“Cyclone...Brother...I let you down...I swear that I will do my best...to return the Storm Wings to what they used to be...” Steel Wing thought to focus his mind in direction of the future, that may be ahead of the Storm Wings.

33. The Perfect Pet

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Star Twinkle moved his head closer to a goldfish bowl on the second floor, where his pet goldfish Comet was inside.

“Alright! Are you ready Comet?!” Star Twinkle said

Comet didn't move and only blinked once. Star Twinkle then feed Comet with some fish fodder. Comet didn't move in response or even looked at the fodder that fell down past him.

“Okay! Don't eat too much or you'll get overweight,”

He put away the fodder and walked to his door in order to go outside for a while.

“I'm leaving now. And behave while I am gone, okay?”

Comet didn't move as a reply.

“Yup! See you too!” Star Twinkle said closing the door after waving to Comet.

He didn't know what the day had to offer but if he met one of his friend's something was sure to happen.

“I wonder what the others are up to,” he thought. “I think I go visit somepony!”

He then visited various places like Sugarcube Corner or Rarity's boutique in order to find somepony to spend time with. But nopony seemed to be home.

He went to the Golden Oak Library to look if Twilight was home. After knocking on the door a few times, Spike opened the door and greeted Star Twinkle. “Hey, Star Twinkle!” Spike said greeting Star Twinkle.

“Hey, Spike,” Star Twinkle greeted back. “Is Twilight home?”

“No. Don't you know? She is going to this Pony Pet Playdate,” Spike explained.

“Pony Pet Playdate?” Star Twinkle asked lowering his eyebrows in confusion.

“Yeah, she went to the park with Owlicious to meet everypony. They meet there every week,”

For something that they seem to do every week, Star Twinkle first heard about it right now.

“Didn't they tell you about that,” Spike asked puzzled.

“No,” Star Twinkle replied a little offended.

He felt a little left out to hear that. Maybe it was some kind of girls day? But it is called Pony Pet Playdate so it had something to do with pets? But Star Twinkle had a pet! So why wasn't he invited? Maybe this was all some kind of misunderstanding.

“Can you tell me where exactly they are?” Star Twinkle asked.

Spike told him where they went and Star Twinkle decided to visit his friends on this, Pony Pet Playdate. He went to the place that Spike described and found his friends, hanging around with their pets. Everypony except Rainbow Dash, who he found napping on a nearby tree. Under the tree were Winona, Gummy, Owlicious, and Angel. Those were all the pets of his friends. Opalescence was also there but she was climbing the tree, hissing at the other animals, causing Rainbow Dash to wake up.

Everypony walked up to the tree and fetched their animal companion. Rarity apologized if the animals caused Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash any trouble.

“What are you all doing out here?” Rainbow Dash asked.

She didn't seem to know either, why the others gathered here but Star Twinkle slowly got an idea. It was rare to see everypony with their pets in the same place at the same time. But before he could end his thought, Applejack did the explaining.

“Why, we always round up our critters for a regular ol' Pony Pet Playdate in this park,”

Rainbow Dash didn't know about this either from the looks of it. This worried Fluttershy. She thought that Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash knew about this. Pinkie Pie then explained the situation.

“We were totally gonna invite you, then Twilight remembered that you don't even have a pet, and Rarity remembered that you really like to take naps in the afternoon, so Applejack figured you wouldn't be missing out on anything anyway, and Fluttershy and I nodded our heads in agreement like this,” She explained making herself and Fluttershy nod.

“Oh, please don't be mad at us,” Fluttershy said apologizing.

That confused Star Twinkle. Did he never tell anypony about Comet? Everything was indicating that they didn't know. That would at least explain why he was never told about this weekly meeting.

Rainbow Dash felt a little left out and felt upset but that quickly changed after she looked at Star Twinkle in a rather relieved way.

“Oh, We're not mad. You all are right. Not much point of a Pony Pet Playdate for us if we're ponies without a pet, right Star Twinkle?” Rainbow Dash said kinda relieved since she expected Star Twinkle to not have a pet either.

Star Twinkle overheard that and felt that he should do some explaining.

"I have a pet..." he corrected bluntly.

The others all let out a surprised gasp and looked at Star Twinkle shocked.

“What?” Everypony replied in sync.

“Since when?” Rainbow Dash asked slightly bothered.

“Did I never tell you about Comet?” Star Twinkle replied, looking at everypony confused.

Judging from everyone's reaction that didn't seem to be the case. Fluttershy quickly walked up to Star Twinkle in excitement.

“Why did you never tell me? Where is he? What is he? Oh, you have to show him to me!”

It was really weird seeing Fluttershy this excited for Star Twinkle.

“Um...if you don't mind that is...” she shyly said backing away a little again.

Now that he thinks about, he really didn't tell anypony about Comet. This subject never seems to come up.

Pinkie Pie also walked up to Star Twinkle in excitement and had an idea. "Then how about we visit Star Twinkle's pet instead?" Pinkie Pie suggested.

Everypony liked that idea and gathered their pets to visit Star Twinkle's home in order to meet Comet. But Rainbow Dash had other plans.

“Now wait a minute!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Since everypony of you got a pet, it would only be fitting if I got one for me as well!”

This caused Fluttershy to grin heavily in excitement. Of course, if Rainbow Dash wanted a pet, then Fluttershy would be the best pony to go to first. Rainbow Dash had practically no choice but to get dragged by Fluttershy to her cottage, where she could pick a pet.

Meanwhile, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie, along with all their pets, followed Star Twinkle back to his home. They all were visiting Star Twinkle before, making it only more confusing why they didn't know about him. But just like Star Twinkle, Comet also liked to be in the background. That must have been the reason.

He opened the door of his house and walked up to his bedroom, where Comet was.

"Well, here he is. Meet Comet!" Star Twinkle said presenting everypony to an orange-colored goldfish inside of a fishbowl.

The girls let out some impressed expressions after seeing the small goldfish for the first time.

"That's why you can't take him outside. He's a fish," Twilight said.

"Guess it wouldn't matter much if he was inside or outside while in this bowl," Applejack pointed out.

Star Twinkle then introduced Comet to everypony and their pets. Pinkie Pie put her face close to the fishbowl, carefully inspecting Comet along with Opalescence who hissed at Comet but being the brave fish, he is, he didn't show any fear.

"He doesn't seem to be moving," Applejack said.

"Yes, is he okay darling?" Rarity added worriedly.

Star Twinkle wondered what they meant with that and inspected Comet himself. "What do you mean? I never saw him this excited before," Star Twinkle said happily.

The other three ponies once again looked at Comet with more inspecting eyes but couldn't see any difference.

Comet wasn't moving an inch but Star Twinkle kept staring at Comet as if he was the most entertaining pet ever.

"Oh! Does he know some tricks?" Pinkie Pie asked excited while bouncing up and down.

Star Twinkle was waiting for this question. Of course, Comet knew a lot of tricks, ranging from underwater loopings, stunt jumps or spirals. But Star Twinkle decided to show them a trick, that Comet mastered a long time ago. This one will surely show them how awesome of a pet he is.

"Alright, get ready!" Star Twinkle said excited, grabbing the attention of everypony again.

It worked. Everypony seemed excited for whatever was coming up. Star Twinkle looked determent into Comet's bowl and gave a signal. "Comet......play dead!"

Nothing happened inside if the bowl. Comet was still not moving an inch but Star Twinkle smiled proudly as if the trick was a success.

Pinkie Pie let out a huge gasp. "It's like he really is...dead..." Pinkie Pie said worriedly.

"Don't worry, he's fine," Star Twinkle assured.

Meanwhile, the other three ponies looked at each other confused. They didn't quite know how to reply to this "performance".

"Okay, stop scaring them anymore, Comet, " Star Twinkle said.

Rarity poked Applejack's side, prompting her to say something since she clearly was at the loss of words.

"Well, he does seem to be...unique..." Applejack said trying her best to describe Comet.

"Yes! Just like you!" Twilight added.

"Exactly!" Rarity joined.

Star Twinkle felt flattered after hearing these words. But he was not expecting anything else. He already knew how awesome Comet was.

“I hope Rainbow Dash will also find a pet like Comet,” Star Twinkle thought to wonder with which animal Rainbow Dash will end up.

Later that day...

From what Star Twinkle gathered, Rainbow Dash was holding some kind of competition to find out which pet was most suiting for her. Star Twinkle wanted to find out what this was all about and decided to check out this competition.

The competition was held next to the Town hall of Ponyville. A duck, a hawk, a flamingo, a toucan, a butterfly, a bat, and much more flying animals have assembled in front of Rainbow Dash. Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were watching nearby and Star Twinkle decided to join them. Before he met up with them, he couldn't help but overhear Rainbow Dash's words.

“So! You all think you've got what it takes to be my pet, do ya? Well, we'll just see about that! If any of you don't think you can handle it, bow out now before you humiliate yourself in front of your peers. This competition isn't for the weak. You'd better be prepared to step up your game! There's only room on Team Dash for one of you, and my future pet needs to be able to take it to the extreme! Any questions?” Rainbow Dash shouted to the animals.

Star Twinkle raised an eyebrow after hearing those almost intimidating words from Rainbow Dash. When he arrived near the town hall building, his friends seem to have the same reaction.

“Does she understand what a pet really needs?” Applejack said.

“She does seem to take it a little too serious...” Star Twinkle added.

Fluttershy pushed a turtle next to Rainbow Dash, helping it to enter the competition as well. Rainbow Dash wasn't exactly happy to see that.

“Seriously, Fluttershy! The turtle? What did you bring that thing here for?

“Technically he's a tortoise, and he's always dreamed of being some ponies pet. He just wants a chance to compete, he won't get in the way. You won't even know he's here,”

Rainbow Dash instantly refused after just looking at the tortoise but Fluttershy managed to convince her to at least let him try.

“Alright, now these games will determine which one of you has the most important qualities I'm looking for in a pet. Speed. Agility. Guts. Style. Coolness. Awesomeness. And radicalness,” Rainbow Dash said, explaining what she was expecting from her future pet.

She planned some tests in order to find out which pet is most suited for her. Star Twinkle didn't exactly see the reason for that. Rainbow Dash should not judge the animals by their skills. But since one of them will be Rainbow Dash's pet. He guessed that other rules would apply.

Speed

The first test was a good old race. Every animal placed themselves on the starting line and waited for Rainbow Dash to start the race. It was a somehow close race with the falcon being first. Unsurprisingly the tortoise was last, barely moving from the starting line. After Rainbow Dash saw that she approached the tortoise.

“That's just sad,” she said to the tortoise disappointed.

Agility

This test involved some kind of obstacle parkour. The animals had to fly through multiple obstacles in order to prove their agility. This time a hummingbird was standing out of the crowd.

“Yeah, baby, now that's what I call agility!“ Rainbow Dash said impressed.

She then offered a high five to the hummingbird but the bird fell down a little since he had to hold himself up in the air with his wings.

“I'm gonna shave a point off your score for that,” Rainbow Dash said, scribbling down something on her clipboard.

Again, Rainbow Dash looked over to the tortoise. Since the little guy couldn't fly, he could not show off any of is...skills in terms of agility.

“Wanna know the opposite of agility? That,” Rainbow Dash said, flying past the tortoise.

Guts

Nopony was really sure how the next test was supposed to be until Rainbow Dash brought a cat cage with opalescence inside.

“Okay! Which of you has the guts to try and get Opal's favorite toy away from her?” She said before placing a toy mouse in front of the cage.

Opalescence walked outside the cage and hissed angrily sending shivers down the spines of every animal except the butterfly. The butterfly approached Opalescence and hypnotized her with her colorful wings, giving it the time to snatch the toy away and bringing it to Rainbow Dash.

“Now that takes guts!” Rainbow Dash said impressed.

Style

The next test was basically a photo shooting in Rainbow Dash style. Every animal was supposed to shoot a stylish picture with Rainbow Dash. Rarity, of course, helped out a little.

“Any pet of mine's gotta look good, 'cause you gotta make me look good!” Rainbow Dash said before taking the last picture with the tortoise.

But right before the picture was shot, the tortoise drew in his head, leading to a really lousy photo. It was not clear which animal won this competition but it was obvious that it wasn't the tortoise...again.

Coolness

Star Twinkle was not sure what this test was supposed to prove. Every animal had to let out a shout that sounded cool.
In the end, an eagle seemed to win this competition. The longer the competition was, the more Star Twinkle was wondering.

There were so many animals to choose from. But Rainbow Dash was taking it a little too serious. Judging them all by their abilities or appearances seemed...wrong.

Awesomeness/ Radicalness

Every animal had to perform something awesome on stage in front of Rainbow Dash. This ranged from dancing, knitting, magic tricks Rainbow Dash was not impressed by most performances. This time the bat won by playing a familiar theme song on some wine glasses, before shattering them with a screech from his voice.

“Whoa! That was truly awesome!” She said impressed. “But I'm afraid this is the radicalness competition, so I'm gonna have to take some points off,” she added.

And again the tortoise tried his best too. He attempted to walk through some home-made and dangerous looking obstacle course. There was a jumping board, a pool, a guillotine, a looping, and a burning ring. Luckily he didn't come very far because he tripped after a few meters, saving him from going through this monstrosity of an obstacle course.

Rainbow Dash walked up to the tortoise and tried to talk some sense into it.

“Listen, turtle...”

“Tortoise,” Fluttershy corrected who appeared behind the curtain of the stage.

“Whatever! You've had your fun, but I think you and I both know who made the cut and who didn't,” Rainbow Dash hinted waiting for a response from the tortoise.

But there wasn't a response.

“You didn't. I mean... 'A' for effort and everything, you gave it your best shot, maybe I've got a gold star sticker around here somewhere you can have, but, seriously, go home. You're starting to creep me out,”

Rainbow Dash then turned to the other pets to announce the last competition.

“You're all outstanding competitors, but there can only be one of you who's number one. So the final tie-breaking contest is going to be... pause for dramatic effect... a race against... me! Through Ghastly Gorge!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed excitedly.

Ghastly Gorge was a long canyon near Ponyville if Star Twinkle correctly recalled.

“Do you really think that this is a good idea? Isn't Ghastly Gorge supposed to be really dangerous?” Star Twinkle asked.

Nah, Ghastly Gorge isn't scary. It's fun. I've flown through it a million times myself, so obviously I'll be at the front of the pack,” Rainbow Dash assured.

Of course, it wasn't dangerous for her if she flew through it so many times. This competition became more and more ridiculous.

Rainbow Dash turned to the pets again and explained the rules.

“Whichever of you make it across the finish line with me will have proven you can keep up with me and will have earned the honor and glory of getting to be my pet!”

Rainbow Dash wanted everypony to wait at the finish line at the end of the canyon. Made sense since it would take the other a little more time to get to the finish line at the same time like Rainbow Dash.

The race should have started a few minutes ago and everypony had just to wait until Rainbow Dash and her new pet would arrive.

“I wonder which pet will arrive first!” Pinkie Pie said excited bouncing up and down.

“My bet is on the Falcon!” Applejack said.

“I think every one of them deserves it,” Fluttershy said.

Hearing that made Star Twinkle look a little depressed. He had the feeling that this competition wasn't necessary. Picking a pet like that felt wrong...

“This is stupid...” Star Twinkle said, thinking that nopony would hear it.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.

“You shouldn't judge your pet by factors like coolness or style. A pet is more than that. It's like a companion. A friend,
I think Rainbow Dash is taking this a little too serious,” Star Twinkle explained with a frown on his face.

“I think you take it a little serious too,” Twilight said with teasing eyes.

“What?”

“I have the feeling that you want Rainbow Dash to end up with a pet that not Rainbow Dash deserves but a pet that deserves to be Rainbow Dash's pet,” Twilight explained.

“I do?” He replied confused.

“I could tell that you have a really strong bond with your pet. You want Rainbow Dash to feel like that too,”

“I do?” He replied once more.

Was that the reason? He wants Rainbow Dash to be happy? Since when does he think like that?

“Maybe...” he said avoiding eye contact out of embarrassment.

Twilight smiled to see this response from Star Twinkle. She turned her head in direction of the canyon and noticed the first animals approach the finish line. “Look! The first ones getting closer,” Twilight said pointing at the canyon.

Out of curiosity, Star Twinkle turned to the direction of the canyon to find out which animal was winning.

First, the Falcon arrived, followed by the eagle, the bat, and the owl. But where was Rainbow Dash? Shouldn't she be in first place?

Everypony else quickly came to the same conclusion. Twilight took out some binoculars to look out for Rainbow Dash.

“Something's not right here,” Twilight said, looking through the binoculars.

“Where's Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy said taking the binoculars away from Twilight.

“Great galloping galoshes! There's been an avalanche in there!” Applejack said, taking a look through the binoculars herself.

“Well, she was the one who said that the canyon wasn't dangerous...” Star Twinkle said which was probably not the right moment to say right now.

Concern was starting to grow in the group until Pinkie Pie spotted something in the distance.

It was the tortoise, carrying Rainbow Dash on it's back.

Being glad that Rainbow Dash was okay, everypony cheered for the tortoise till it arrived at the finish line. But since he was a tortoise, it took quite some time.

“Maybe we'd better go meet him halfway,” Fluttershy suggested.

Twilight then levitated the finish line closer to the tortoise and Rainbow Dash, making them both cross the finish line at the same time.

“Oh, thank goodness you're not hurt, Rainbow!” Twilight said relieved.

“Just my pride,” Rainbow Dash replied rubbing off the dust on her coat.

Rainbow Dash swallowed her pride and thanked the little tortoise for saving her.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy presented Rainbow Dash's new pet. It was the falcon who was the first animal to cross the finish line.

But instead of excitement or happiness, Rainbow Dash showed signs of regret and sadness

“What's the matter?” Spike asked confused.

“You got your perfect pet right?” Pinkie Pie added.

“The best of the best like you wanted, remember? It can fly and it's not a squirrel! Should we sing about it again?” Fluttershy suggested.

The Falcon landed on Rainbow Dash's front leg and presented himself with pride.

“A falcon sure looks good on ya, Rainbow,” Applejack complimented.

Before Rainbow Dash knew what was going on Rarity, took a picture of her and the Falcon, causing the tortoise to hide inside in his shell again in fear. But Rainbow Dash managed to calm him down again.

She seemed confused about what to do at the moment. Her confusion eventually, led her to look at Star Twinkle. Star Twinkle hinted at the tortoise and Rainbow Dash understood what she should do.

The falcon sure does looks cool... He's absolutely everything I wanted in a pet. But I said whoever crosses the finish line with me gets to be my pet. And the only racer who crossed the finish line with me was the one who stopped to save me when I needed help. The tortoise!” Rainbow Dash explained, causing to falcon to feel upset but still admitting defeat and congratulating the tortoise.

The tortoise was happy and slowly build up a smile on his face, much to the amusement to everypony.

Rainbow Dash learned a valuable lesson and wanted Spike to take a letter for the princess.
He took out a scroll and Rainbow Dash dictated her lesson.

I used to think that the most important traits to look for in a pet, or any best friend, were all physical competitive abilities. But now I can see how short-sighted and shallow that was. Today I learned what the most important quality really is. A certain kind of spirit. A stick-to-it-ive-ness. A never give up, can-do attitude that's the mark of a real winner. And this tortoise has it.

“You just can't stop that little guy. He's like a... like a... Tank!” She said naming the little guy.

But despite all that one important question was still in the room.

“I am really happy for you Rainbow Dash but aren't we forgetting something?” Star Twinkle said lowering the mood a little.

“He's right. You didn't want a pet that couldn't fly because it would keep you grounded and hold you back, remember?” Fluttershy added.

However, Rainbow Dash had an idea...

After the race, everypony decided to continue their Pony Pet Playdate. Star Twinkle even decided to bring Comet with him.

“C'mon, Tank! We're gonna be late for our very first Pony Pet Playdate!” Rainbow Dash said excitedly.

A few meters away, Tank was strapped to some kind of flying device, making it possible for him to fly along Rainbow Dash.

Everypony was playing with their pets but Star Twinkle and Comet were relaxing in a quiet corner.

“Well, looks like we have now a special day in the week to spend time together. Right Comet?”

Comet didn't answer nor did he moved.

“It is kinda funny how Rainbow Dash, the fastest flyer in Equestria ended up with a turtle. But then again we are pretty different too, right?”

Comet didn't answer nor did he moved.

“I must admit, I never expected to see a flying turtle...” he said lowering his eyebrows.

Meanwhile, far away from Ponyville a certain Steel winged pony sneezed and rubbed his nostril for unknown reasons...

34. Ponyville's Hero

View Online

Scootaloo was holding a Rainbow Dash Club meeting in the Cutie Mark Crusader Clubhouse. There were Rainbow Dash posters all over the clubhouse and other stuff colored in rainbow colors. And of course, Star Twinkle was there too.
Needless to say, Star Twinkle felt incredibly out of place, not to mention that every pony in the clubhouse were fillies or colts. Some of them wore rainbow-colored wigs or hats in Rainbow Dash fashion. Star Twinkle only recognized Scootaloo and Snips and Snails from all these ponies.

After every member finally arrived in the clubhouse Scootaloo decided to start the meeting.

“Before we begin our schedule, are there any questions that need to be answered before we start?” Scootaloo asked her fellow fan members.

Star Twinkle raised his hoof in the middle of the crowd with an annoyed look on his face.

“Yes. What am I doing here? And why do I have to wear this thing?” He asked pointing at a rainbow-colored wig that he was wearing on his head.

Scootaloo raised her eyebrows out of annoyance.

“Of course you have to! Every member of the Rainbow Dash Fan Club has to wear at least one Rainbow Dash accessory!”
Scootaloo demanded.

“But I am not even a member of this Fan Club! You said there was an important meeting in the clubhouse, dragged me here and put his wig on my head!” Star Twinkle exclaimed annoyed again pointing at his wig again.

“Well, since you are hanging around with Rainbow Dash the most from everypony in here, you will serve as our source of information!” Scootaloo explained.

“What information?” Star Twinkle asked.

“You know, favorite color, favorite food,” Snips explained.

“How am I suppose to know those things?” Star Twinkle questioned.

But Scootlaoo was confident that he would find out eventually and continued the meeting. The meeting was over after only one hour but for Star Twinkle, it felt like an eternity.

But unfortunately, Star Twinkle had to do some “Research” for Scootaloo and her Fan Club. This research involved gathering information

Luckily, Rainbow Dash was flying in the clouds over Ponyville

“Well, might as well get this over with...” he mumbled to himself as he walked up closer to Rainbow Dash.

He shouted her name, making her come down to the ground. For some reason, she looked really happy to see him and smiled with a wide grin.

“Hey, Star Twinkle. Whatever brings you here?” She asked with her huge grin on her face.

“What is up with her?” Star Twinkle wondered.

“Maybe some question that you need to ask me?”

Maybe Rainbow Dash was eavesdropping on her own Fan Club? That sounded a little weird. But then again it was Rainbow Dash...

Suddenly a scream of a filly could be heard that grabbed both of their attention. Rainbow Dash quickly flew in the direction of the scream followed by Star Twinkle. It came from inside of a well.

Rainbow Dash dived down into the well and Star Twinkle took a look inside of it but since it was too deep and dark, he couldn't see much.

Some ponies witnessed that and walked over to Star Twinkle to find out what was going on. Moments later, Rainbow Dash Flew out of the well with a filly on her back, placing her back on safe ground again. Rainbow Dash was surprised by the crowd of ponies that surrounded her.

“Wow. What's with this crowd? Uh, thanks, everypony. It was really no big deal,” Rainbow Dash said surprisingly modest.

The filly expressed her thanks but Rainbow Dash left. Star Twinkle could swear that she was blushing a little before she left.
He would have thought that she would brag more about it. Guess you find out new things every day.

Later that day...

Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were hanging around and talking about Rainbow Dash's rescue from before.

“-And then Rainbow Dash dived down into the well and rescued that cute little filly!” Pinkie Pie excitedly explained while bouncing up and down.

“Yes, Pinkie Pie. I know. I was there,” Star Twinkle replied narrowing his eyes in annoyance.

While spending some time together another scream caught Star Twinkle's attention. It came from a baby carriage that rolled down a hill in direction of a cliff. Everypony gasped in shock. Luckily Rainbow Dash was nearby and saved the carriage before it fell down the cliff.

The shocked gasps of everypony turned into happy cheers directed to Rainbow Dash.

"Oh, no! There’s something wrong with the baby!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed shocked.

The crowd gasped after hearing those words and wondered what Rainbow Dash meant with that.

"She’s not cheering for everypony’s favorite hero, Rainbow Dash!" She said lifting the little baby filly in the air calming the crowd down again.

Rainbow Dash gave the baby back to her mother or rather tossed it back to her mother. Some photographers quickly took some pictures from Rainbow Dash, who made sure to strike some poses for them. "There just aren’t enough words in the dictionary to describe Rainbow Dash’s awesomeness!" Scootaloo said in admiration.

"I can think of a few new words," said Twilight who overheard Scootaloo's words.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was enjoying the attention and cheers that she received from everypony. This became not unnoticed by her friends, who watched the scenario.

"And I bet “modest” is not one of ’em," Applejack added.

"Well, we are talking about Rainbow Dash..." Star Twinkle added.

Whether she was modest about it or not, Rainbow Dash did save that baby filly so a little bragging should be okay.

Later that day again...

Today proved to be very productive in terms of accidents. And every time one occurred, Rainbow Dash was there to save the day. But the more accidents she prevented, the more her ego grew.

Her Rainbow Dash fan club even convinced her to give a little interview in Sugarcube Corner. Her friends were worried that all this was going to Rainbow Dash's head and watched the interview. Star Twinkle on the other hoof, didn't care much.
As long as Rainbow Dash prevents everypony from getting hurt, nothing should happen.

“And then I zoomed into the well. I knew it would be dark and dangerous, but I didn't let that stop me. Danger's my middle name. Rainbow 'Danger' Dash. Thinking back on it, I acted pretty awesomely heroic that day,” Rainbow Dash said while proudly wearing her sunglasses and making sure that Spike wrote down everything.

Then again...

“Awesomely heroic that day and awesomely arrogant ever since,” Applejack added who overheard the interview.

Rainbow Dash then walked over to Applejack and let everypony take some pictures with her and Applejack. The Latter trying to get out of this “photo session”.

Star Twinkle began to see the problem too. If the attention, that she is receiving gets more important to her then saving everypony...

Meanwhile, Spike wrote down every word that Rainbow Dash was saying. He was picked by Rainbow Dash to write her autobiography.

“Spike here writes down everything I say. This way, I can stay focused on performing those acts of bravery that nopony else has the guts to perform. Yep, it takes guts. But it also takes brains. And sometimes a big lunch and a nap. Being a hero is surely not for everypony, but I'm up to the challenge,” Rainbow Dash explained while continuing to take photos with her fans.

It was kinda exhausting listening to Rainbow Dash like that. And judging from the annoyed faces of his friends not only Star Twinkle seemed to feel that way.

On the next day...

Star Twinkle walked around Ponyville after he finished his work in the Iron Hammer. He came across Rainbow Dash.
She was giving some autographs for her fans in the middle of the road.

Meanwhile, a hot air balloon was falling down from the sky, with a pony screaming in fear inside not too far away. Rainbow Dash seemed to notice but continued to calmly sign photos for her fans.

Star Twinkle noticed and walked up to Rainbow Dash to remind her that there was an emergency right behind her.

“Rainbow Dash! Don't you think you should go and save this pony?” Star Twinkle said worriedly.

“Yeah, yeah. I've got a good ten seconds to spare,” Rainbow Dash casually replied.

Thankfully, Rainbow Dash decided to fly up in the sky to save the pony. But it more looked like as if she was performing for her fans and tried to look cool instead of actually trying to save the pony.

“You got to be-” Star Twinkle said before he noticed a shadow on the ground.

Suddenly, another pony appeared on the roof of a house next to Star Twinkle. The pony was wearing a purple costume and had its face covered in a dark blue mask and a purple and dark blue hat. On it's back was a dark blue cape and on the neck was a light blue “M”. Star Twinkle's worried look turned into a relieved smile.

“Hey! Who is that?!” He said in an overly acting voice to make sure that everypony around him noticed the pony on the roof.

The mysterious pony jumped from roof to roof until it's reached the balloon. The pony managed to get the pony out safely and Rainbow Dash crashed into the balloon afterward out of confusion.

The mysterious pony left without a word after saving the pony out of the hot air balloon.

“Holy turnips, that pony came outta nowhere!” The save pony said.

“I've never seen such bravery in all my life!” Another pony added.

The mayor then spoke to the town folks to inform them that Ponyville has a new hero and named her “The Mysterious Mare Do Well”.

While everypony was cheering for their new hero, Rainbow Dash was not happy at all.

“Mare Do Well, huh? Well, that mare would do well to stay outta my way! Ponyville's only got room for one hero, and that hero is me!” She said determent before she stumbled ungracefully into the ground.

The accidents didn't seem to stop for today. While walking down the street of Ponyville, Star Twinkle saw a bus with screaming ponies on board, rolling down a hill and approaching a cliff.

Rainbow Dash was thankful, around and effortlessly approached the bus. But again, making sure to look good for her fans was more important to her than saving the ponies.

“Never fear, your friendly neighborhood Rainbow– “ was she about to say but she was interrupted by a pony inside of the bus, who reminded her that he and the other passengers were in danger and that she should make haste.

Rainbow Dash seemed annoyed that her catchphrase was interrupted but she pulled herself together stopped the bus.
Or rather, tried to stop the bus. She flew in front of it and tried to stop it but that proved to be harder than she thought.
As a result, she was run over, letting the bus continue to roll down the hill.

But thankfully, the Mysterious Mare Do Well appeared and stopped the bus with her hooves before it could fall down the cliff.

The Mysterious Mare Do Well left before anypony could thank her again but cheers could be heard from everypony that witnessed the rescue. Except for Rainbow Dash of course, who couldn't believe that The Mysterious Mare Do Well was stronger than her.

Later...

It was really strange...Either Star Twinkle was not aware till now or there were always so many accidents in Ponyville.
While delivering some materials to a construction place in Ponyville, a building suddenly collapsed, putting every worker in huge danger. Luckily, Star Twinkle was outside of the workplace and out of danger by getting hit by anything that felt down from the sky.

Rainbow Dash was around and tried to save somepony but The Mysterious Mare Do Well was already there saving everypony. Eventually, Rainbow Dash managed to save somepony too but the workers were most grateful for Mare Do Well.

“I'm starting to think that living in Ponyville, maybe a little dangerous...” Star Twinkle said, looking around himself to avoid any danger around him.

Later that day once more...

Not only the accidents increased but also the jobs that Star Twinkle was assigned to for today. He was ordered to do some repairs at the local dam. Apparently, there was a little crack in the dam that needed to be fixed.

The crack was in the middle of the dam which could not be reached by him.

“How am I suppose to get down there? I think I need a rope or something...” he said on top of the dam.

He looked down and became a little dizzy by the height he was in.

“I am really high up here...” he said worried, backing off a little.

Again, Rainbow Dash was close by and put a hoof right on the crack.
Star Twinkle wondered what that was about and looked at her in confusion.

“Rainbow Dash? What are you doing there?” Star Twinkle shouted down to Rainbow Dash.

“Hey, Star Twinkle! Just saving the town from getting over flooded,” she said proudly of herself.

“I don't think it's a good idea to touch that crack, Rainbow Dash,” Star Twinkle advised.

“Don't worry I got everything under con-”

But just like Star Twinkle thought, touching the crack was a really bad idea. The dam broke and was about to flood Ponyville, dragging Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash along. Both of them were flooded by the water but were saved by a tree trunk that caught them. When they both looked up, they realized that it was Mare Do Well who saved them.

“You?!” Rainbow Dash said surprised after seeing the masked mare.

“Thanks...” Star Twinkle said relieved after calming down a little.

“Yeah, yeah, I suppose you want me to thank– “ Rainbow Dash was about to say but she stopped after Mare Do Well took off her hat to reveal a unicorn horn.

She then fixed the dam with her magic piece by piece, returning it to its original state. While watching Mare Do Well levitating the pieces back to the dam with her magic, Rainbow Dash became more and more annoyed.

“You gotta be kidding me... “ Rainbow Dash said annoyed.

Like usual, Mare Do Well disappeared after saving the day, causing Rainbow Dash to get frustrated by all the cheers that the masked mare received instead of Rainbow Dash.

“Lemme get this straight. She's strong, she's agile, and she's magic? Ughhh! How do I compete with that?” Rainbow Dash said frustrated.

She laid on the ground in frustration trying to figure out who she can even compete with Mare Do Well.

“Wait a minute. I do have a leg up on her. And that leg is... wings!”

Rainbow Dash then flew up in the air in rapid speed to show off her flying skills, even though nopony was really watching her.

“Hah! Take that, Mare Do Well!” She said in her usual boasting manner.

But suddenly, Mare Do Well flew right past Rainbow Dash. As it turns out, she also has wings.

Not sure how to deal with that, Rainbow Dash left angrily.

Star Twinkle was about to leave to but was stopped by somepony. It was no other than Mare Do Well. But Star Twinkle didn't seem surprised and casually walked up to the masked mare.

“Are you sure that you want to keep this up? Rainbow Dash seems to get more and more fired up instead of stopping with her bragging,”

Mare Do Well then took off her mask and revealed herself as Twilight who had a concerned look on her face.

“Give it a little more time...I'm sure she will realize that being a hero is not about trying to impress everypony or bragging about it,”

Another Mare Do Well approached the two ponies and revealed herself as Fluttershy. She was the one who flew past Rainbow Dash.

“How was I?” Fluttershy asked sheepishly.

“Very good, Fluttershy,” Twilight replied.

Twilight then walked over to Star Twinkle with a teasing smile on her face.

“Next time, it's you who will act as Mare Do Well,”

Star Twinkle was not happy to hear that. Not only because he didn't want to be dressed as a mare but also because that meant that he had to put himself in danger.

“Great...” he said sarcastically.

On the next day...

In honor of Ponyville's hero, a parade was held for Mare Do Well to thank her for all the ponies that she saved. Many ponies who witnessed her heroic feats attended the parade. Rainbow Dash was also there but her reasons were unknown.

“Welcome to Ponyville's first, but surely not last, thank you parade, in honor of our city's greatest hero, the mysterious Mare Do Well!” The mayor said introducing the mysterious mare to the citizens of Ponyville.

Everypony cheered for their new favorite hero. Except for Rainbow Dash who had to do her best to not snap in front of everypony. But she couldn't ignore all those cheers anymore and quickly rushed to Mare Do Well in the attempt to unmask her.

But the mare quickly escaped into the town, trying to shake off Rainbow Dash and preventing herself from getting unmasked.

Rainbow Dash followed her and tried to cut her off multiple times but Mare Do Well seemed to be in multiple places at once.
Every time when she thought she caught her another Mare Do Well appeared behind her. This only frustrated Rainbow Dash more and more.

Eventually, Rainbow managed to get a hold of one of them.

“I got you now! Alright, Miss Mysterious! Mystery... solved!” She said unmasking Mare Do Well.

To her surprise, behind the mask was no other than Pinkie Pie who smiled at her awkwardly. But it was not only Pinkie Pie.
Soon Twilight and Applejack appeared and revealed themselves as the Mysterious Mare Do Well too.

“Twilight?! Applejack?! There were three of you?!“ Rainbow Dash asked confused.

“Yup, we all played Mare Do Well at different times,” Twilight replied.

It was Applejack who stopped the carriage bus,
Pinkie Pie saved the construction workers with her Pinkie Sense,
Twilight was the one who fixed the dam,
and Fluttershy was the one who flew by Rainbow Dash after that.
“Oh and Star Twinkle was the one at the parade,” Twilight explained.

“I made the costumes. Fabulous if I do say so myself!” Rarity said proudly.

Rainbow Dash didn't understand asked them if they didn't want her to be a hero. But the others didn't have anything against that. They just wanted to teach her that a real hero doesn't brag.

“Uh, I guess I did start to brag a little,” Rainbow Dash admitted.

“A little?!” Everypony else exclaimed confused, causing Rainbow Dash to fall over on her back surprised.

“Okay, a lot,” Rainbow Dash corrected.

Twilight explained that celebrating your accomplishments is natural but rubbing them into everyponies face isn't.
Or that you can still be good at something and that you should act with grace and humility while doing so.

“Ohhhh. That makes loads more sense,” Rainbow Dash figured. “Yeah. You're right. And I guess I should've also acted with grace and humility when others outshine me. Like Mare Do Well,” Rainbow Dash admitted.

The others were happy to hear that and Twilight suggested that Rainbow Dash should write to Princess Celestia what she has learned. Rainbow Dash did as Twilight suggested and left to get some sleep from this whole hero thing.

“I'm glad that she learned her lesson,” Fluttershy said relieved.

“Yup, better sooner than later,” Applejack added.

Meanwhile, Twilight was wondering where Star Twinkle was. She didn't saw him since he attended the parade. But as soon as she started to get a little worried, Star Twinkle caught up to the others.

“There you are!” he said while walking up to his friends.

“Star Twinkle, where have you been?” Twilight said.

“Yes! Rainbow Dash finally understood that being a hero was not about bragging or showing off,” Pinkie Pie said happily.

“Oh! Is that why you lured her away from the parade?” Star Twinkle asked.

The others looked at each other confused.

“I thought I was messing up everything,” Star Twinkle said, confusing everypony else in the process.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked, lowering her eyebrows out of confusion.

“I couldn't found the costume that Rarity gave me this morning so I tried to find you all at the parade to ask one of you to take my place. But when I arrived at the parade, somepony was already in the Mare Do Well costume,” Star Twinkle explained. “So who of you was it? Applejack? Twilight? Pinkie Pie?” Star Twinkle asked out of curiosity.

The others were sure that Star Twinkle was the one in the costume back at the parade and started to wonder what exactly happened.

“Um...we all thought it was you on the stage,” Rarity said puzzled.

“Nope, that wasn't me,” Star Twinkle replied.

“But if it wasn't you or neither of us...then who...” Twilight said rubbing her chin in confusion.

Star Twinkle was as confused as anypony else and tried to come up with a solution. While thinking about it himself he noticed some movements on the roof behind the girls. When he looked up he saw no other, then the Mysterious Mare Do Well. He rubbed his eyes to make sure that what he was seeing was real.

“But...how...why...huh?” was all that Star Twinkle could say at the moment.

But as soon as he tried to point at the roof, Mare Do Well jumped off from the other side. Star Twinkle's behavior caught the attention of his friends who wondered why he was looking so shocked.

“Is something wrong, Star Twinkle?” Twilight asked confused.

But Star Twinkle didn't know if they would even believe him. So he decided to not tell them and confusing them anymore.

“It's nothing...” he said trying to sound calm.

Whatever it meant, what he just saw, it was more important that Rainbow Dash learned her lesson.

...Right?

35. Generous Greedy Dragon

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Today was Spike's birthday and Star Twinkle was on his way to the Golden Oak Library to attend his birthday party.

He carried a bunch of presents on his back. In one of them were some gems that he dug out outside of Ponyville. It took him one day to find only a bag full of gems. But it worried him since he thought it wasn't enough.

He had no idea what he should do if Spike didn't like his present.

Trying to find a present for Twilight's birthday a little while ago, wasn't easy either. He knew that she likes books but what kind of books?

He once asked her in a really subtle way in hope that she wouldn't find out. But he had the feeling that she was looking through him and hinted at a specific book.

When he was about to buy the book, that Twilight hinted at, he realized that there were several volumes of this book. Of course, Twilight didn't tell him which volume she had in mind so he decided to buy every single one. All seven volumes...

Star Twinkle didn't even know what the book was about but Twilight seemed to like it. She even seemed to be happy after hearing the story about how he bought the books. She said it was really thoughtful of him.

Going by that logic, Star Twinkle could give Spike a gem to his birthday. Would that be too obvious? And what kind of gem is it supposed to be? Since Spike eats those things. Are there different flavors? Star Twinkle came to the conclusion that birthdays are way too complicated for him.

Because of that, he found some more presents to give him. Ranging from completely random to decently handy ones.

With his presents on his back, he finally arrived at the Golden Oak Library. He was relieved when he saw how the rest of the girls were about to enter the library. That way, he wouldn't have the feeling that he was too early or too late.

“Howdy there, Star Twinkle!” Applejack greeted.

“Are you planning to move into the library or why do you have so many boxes on your back?” Rainbow Dash wondered.

It may look a little strange, seeing Star Twinkle carrying a tower of presents on his back. For a moment, he was wondering how he could balance them all on his back at all.

“Didn't know what you should get for the little dragon?” Applejack asked teasingly.

“How could you tell?” Star Twinkle said sarcastically.

“Star Twinkle, darling, you worry too much about those things,” Rarity said, lifting some presents of off his back with her magic. “A present is more important if it comes from the bottom of your heart. Take this ruby for example,” she said presenting Star Twinkle a red heart-shaped ruby, that she was wearing around her neck. “It was a present from my little Spikey-wikey,”

“Spikey-wikey?” Star Twinkle said confused.

“He was saving this ruby for himself for a long time but he decided to give it to me. It was one of the most kindest and generous things I've ever experienced,”

Her face was filled with pure happiness after retelling this story. In fact, Star Twinkle never saw Rarity this happy before.

They eventually, decided to enter the library together. As they entered the library, everypony gave Spike his presents and wished him a happy birthday. But Spike looked at his presents with a confused look on his face and wasn't sure how to react.

“Don't you know you get presents on your birthday?” Rainbow Dash asked confused.

“Well, actually, this is my first birthday in Ponyville... I usually just get one present... from Twilight. A book,” he replied with a rather bored or annoyed look on his face.

Little did he know, that Twilight was walking up to him from behind with a book strapped in a ribbon. She must have overheard what Spike was saying and then backed away with an embarrassed expression.

“Speaking of presents, this is from my new line of taffeta capes,” Rarity levitated a pink cape over the heads of everypony.
“I'm going to make one for each of you! Oh and Star Twinkle, yours will not be pink of course,” she added with a little giggle.

Star Twinkle didn't saw himself wearing one of those in the future but it was still nice from Rarity.

“I've been inspired by the generosity of my little Spikey-wikey, who gave me this beautiful fire ruby, one of the kindest acts I've ever experienced,” she said presenting her ruby once again.

Spike was staring at the ruby with hypnotized eyes as if he wanted to eat it right away but after Rarity was snuggling him, he quickly forgot about it.

Spike opened his presents one by one and hugged everypony out of gratitude. And since Star Twinkle got him so many presents, Spike hugged him multiple times. Star Twinkle was feeling a little embarrassed after he did that a few times and told him that he didn't have to thank him so many times.

“I know I keep thanking you guys, but I'm just so grateful. I wish this party could last forever,”

“Duh! The party can't last forever 'cause you have to go to Sugarcube Corner, 'cause the Cakes said they have a special surprise for you, 'cause it's your birthday!“ Pinkie Pie said trying to raise Spikes mood even higher. “No way!” Spike exclaimed surprised.

He then rushed outside of the library. He was probably going to Sugarcube Corner in order to get his surprise.

“I said the party couldn't last forever, but it doesn't need to end right now!” Pinkie Pie said but Spike was already outside and slammed the door behind him.

Everypony laughed because of Spike's excited behavior.

“Spike is sure having a fun time on his birthday party,” Applejack said.

“It is his first party with all of his friends after all. Normally, it was just me and him back in Canterlot,” Twilight explained.

Star Twinkle could relate to that. It was only him and his parents whenever he was celebrating his birthday. And after they went back to Canterlot, whenever it was his birthday, his parents would come to Ponyville and celebrate with a quite party inside his house.

“I wonder how my birthday would look like now...It's still much time until my birthday...I guess I will find out eventually,” Star Twinkle thought.

Twilight walked up to Star Twinkle to made sure if he was enjoying the party.

“Are you having fun, Star Twinkle?” Twilight asked.

“What? Oh. Does that matter? It's Spike's party after all,” Star Twinkle replied.

As usual, Twilight found it hard to read Star Twinkle and got confused by his response.

“But that doesn't mean that you can't have fun too, a party is only fun when you have your friends around you after all,” Twilight explained.

"That's right!" Pinkie Pie added.

“Yeah...I guess your right...” he replied half-hearty.

“That would probably explain why I don't remember my parties being that "fun"...”

The party went on for a good amount of time but since Spike was not there, everypony was a little confused on what to do now.

“Soooo do you think Spike will return anytime soon?” Rainbow Dash asked a little worried.

Twilight was worried too for a while.

“I'll go and pick him up again. You all better go home. I don't know how long it will take to come back,” Twilight asked of her friends.

Everypony did as Twilight said and left the library. There was no point in continuing the party if Spike was not there anymore.

While walking in direction of his home, Star Twinkle waved goodbye every single one of his friends until it was only him and Rarity left. Which was strange since Carousel Boutique was in the other direction of Star Twinkle's house.

Still, Rarity was following Star Twinkle with an absent look on her face. She was mostly looking at the ruby on her neck and seemed to have spaced out for quite a while.

When Star Twinkle arrived at his home and preparing himself to enter, Rarity was still accompanying him.

“Um...Rarity?” Star Twinkle said, trying to snap Rarity out of her daydream but she didn't show any reaction. “Rarity!” He said once more but this time a little louder.

“Huh? What? What is it?” She replied in a panic.

“You do realize that you were walking past your home, right?”

But judging from her confused expression, she didn't.

“I did? Oh. I must have been spaced out while looking at this ruby all this time,” she replied while continuing to look at the ruby again with hypnotized eyes.

“You really like this gem, don't you?”

She managed to look away from the ruby again.

“Don't get me wrong. This ruby is without a doubt one of the most beautiful gems I ever laid eyes on but whenever I look at it all I can think of is how beautiful of a gift it was from Spike to give it to me,” Rarity explained with a really warm smile on her face.

Before she knew it, she was again looking at the ruby with dreamy eyes.

Star Twinkle understood that this gift meant much to her but he couldn't help to think that it was a little creepy, the way that Rarity was staring at the gem.

"Alright! I'm going home now. So I'm afraid that you have to go back home," Star Twinkle hinted at Rarity.

"Mhm," Rarity replied while looking at her ruby again.

Star Twinkle entered his home and walked up the stairs to enter his bedroom. He opened the window next to his bed to get some fresh air inside. When he looked out for a while, he noticed how Rarity was still standing in front of his door, spaced out.

"Rarity!" He shouted in order to get her attention.

"What!? Who!? Where!?" She said, reacting in shock again.

"Go home!" Star Twinkle added after Rarity noticed him.

She was blushing a little in embarrassment but finally walked home now and waved Star Twinkle goodbye.

"Yeah...creepy..."

On the next day...

Star Twinkle worked at the Iron Hammer together with Steel Hammer.

They were doing some repairs on a newly built house in Ponyville. Steel Hammer hammered some nails into a board that Star Twinkle kept giving him.

"Board," Steel Hammer said while focusing his eyes in front of a wall.

Star Twinkle turned around and took one board from a pile of boards into his mouth and gave it to Steel Hammer.

Steel Hammer then put a nail inside of the board and hammered the nail into it with his hoof, making it stuck on the wall.

"Board," Steel Hammer said once more, still focusing his eyes on the wall.

Star Twinkle turned around again and prepared another board. But to his surprise, all the boards were gone now.

"What the?" He said confused, looking around to look for the missing boards.

"Board," Steel Hammer said once more, who still waited for Star Twinkle to give him another board.

"They are gone! I don't understand, they were here a second ago!" Star Twinkle said confused.

"And where are they supposed to go? Boards don't just walk away like that," Steel Hammer replied.

Star Twinkle could only scratch his head in confusion.

Steel Hammer sent Star Twinkle back to the Iron Hammer to get some more boards. This annoyed Star Twinkle because it meant for him to do some additional work.

He arrived at the Iron Hammer and went to the spot where the boards are usually at but most of them were gone too. And not only that. Materials, decorations, and tools were missing in the Iron Hammer too.

There was a thief in the Iron Hammer. Star Twinkle informed Steel Hammer about the missing things in the Iron Hammer.

Since they couldn't properly finish their work, Star Twinkle, and Steel Hammer both called it a day and finished work early.

There was no way that Star Twinkle would complain about that. But it gave him a bit more unplanned free time.

"Maybe Twilight has some time to spare?"

He went to the Golden Oak Library. There were some unusual sounds coming out of the library. But against his better judgment, he knocked on the door.

"Twilight? Is everything okay in there?"

But there was no response from her. Suddenly, the ground started to shake. The noises from inside the library became louder and worried Star Twinkle a little.

"I'm coming in!" He said before he kicked the door open with his back legs. The door was slammed open by Star Twinkle and he rushed inside the library out of concern for Twilight.

Twilight was standing in front of another room with her mouth open. Star Twinkle walked up to her and got surprised by what he saw in the next room. There was a big strangely formed hole in the wall.

"What happened? What caused this giant hole?"

"It was Spike!" Twilight exclaimed. He has grown in size overnight!"

Star Twinkle didn't quite understand "Twilight, I know that Spike has grown a year older since yesterday but-"

"No! It's not because of his birthday! It's because he keeps collecting things! The more collects, the more he grows and the greedier he becomes!" Twilight explained.

"I don't quite understand what you mean," Star Twinkle replied.

"Yesterday after he left for Sugarcube Corner, he became more greedy and demanded gifts from everypony. And the more a dragon collects, the bigger he becomes in size, It's in their nature!"

"So we just have to prevent him from collecting more stuff?"

Twilight was reacting a little surprised to hear Star Twinkle say that so casually.

“It's really harder than it sounds...just look at all this stuff!” She replied, pointing at the ceiling of the library.

It was just now that Star Twinkle realized how filled the library was. There were all kinds of random stuff scattered around in the room. He even spotted some familiar things in the bunch.

“Hey! Are those the boards that were missing from the Iron Hammer?” He said while walking up to a pile of boards. “And there are some of the tools too!”

But then something caught his attention and caused him to be a little shocked.

“Comet?” He said after he spotted a fishbowl with his goldfish inside buried under some random stuff.

He quickly rushed to his beloved goldfish and freed him from the things that were above him.

“Star Twinkle, we can't waste any more time! We need to stop Spike now before he grows even more in size and becomes a danger for Ponyville!” Twilight exclaimed to remind Star Twinkle about the situation.

Star Twinkle carefully placed Comet on the ground and looked back at Twilight determent. They both ran outside the library and tried to find Spike. But before that, they both stopped at Sweet Apple Acres to get some support from Applejack.

When they arrived, they found Applejack standing in front of some of her apple trees which were completely robbed of their apples and leaves. Needless to say, Applejack was puzzled by that sight.

“Now who in Ponyville would steal my apples? For that matter, who would steal my leaves? ”

Twilight then rushed in front of Applejack to inform her that Spike was running wild in Ponyville. But Applejack found that hard to believe and began to laugh. Looking back at it, Star Twinkle would probably not believe it too when he would hear that. However, Applejack was quickly convinced after she saw a purple-double-as-big-as-her-dragon walk past her with a bunch of leaves and apples in his claws.

“Get my rope,” Applejack said almost angrily, either by Spike stealing her apples or by the fact that she was proven wrong.

Star Twinkle and Applejack then followed Spike with a rope inside of their mouths in an attempt to caught Spike in it.

Spike stood still for a moment to pick up an apple from the ground and the two earth ponies decided to charge into him to capture him but they both missed him and tied themselves to a tree next to Spike.

“That could have gone a little better...” Star Twinkle said after their poor attempt to capture Spike.

Spike noticed how the two ponies were tied up next to him and growled at the two of them before he left to find something else to gather.

“That was supposed to be Spike?” Applejack asked confused.

“I guess...” Star Twinkle replied.

Twilight walked up to the two of them and used her magic to free them from their unfortunate situation.

Rainbow Dash was nearby and noticed how Star Twinkle and Applejack were tied up against a tree. At first, they thought she was gonna help them but Rainbow Dash rather laughed about their misery.

“Don't tell me! You-you tied yourselves up?” Rainbow Dash asked while laughing about them.

Star Twinkle could reply to that but he wasn't in the mood to get into a little argument with Rainbow Dash.

Her laughter was interrupted by a scream. They all recognized that it came from Fluttershy and made haste to her cottage.

When they arrived at her cottage, they found her and a bunch of squirrels hanging from a branch on top of a giant tree in front of her cottage.

Apparently, Spike came through, stole Fluttershy's chicken coops and filled it with all the stuff that he stole this far.

Before the group could explain everything to Fluttershy, another scream caught their attention. This time it was Pinkie Pie.
The group went to Sugarcube Corner, where the scream was coming from. Spike was there, this time, as well as Pinkie Pie who angrily threw cakes at him in order to stop him. This strategy didn't seem to work since Spike only grabbed the cakes and put them inside of the chicken coops that he stole before.

“Pinkie Pie! Stop giving him a cake!” Twilight said.

Pinkie Pie pretty much gave Spike all the cakes that she was throwing at him and since Twilight knew what would happen if he gathers more, throwing the cakes at him was not a good idea.

“He'll only grow bigger if you give him more stuff!” Star Twinkle exclaimed in hope that Pinkie Pie would stop.

But before she could react to that, Spike grabbed some more cakes from a shelf on which Pinkie Pie was standing on.

“How dare you take the cake!” Pinkie Pie shouted angrily.

However, they had much bigger problems now. Spike got another boost in size after he grabbed the last cakes. He grew so big that his head was going through the roof of Sugarcube Corner.

Spike was continuing his search for more stuff to gather and left Sugarcube Corner again.

“What are we gonna do now? He is ten times the size of us now!” Star Twinkle exclaimed frustrated.

“And he's completely out of control! Who knows where he'll go next!” Twilight said worriedly.

Spike continued to rampage through Ponyville and gathered more stuff. This caused him to grow even bigger. He was now the size of a full grown dragon. He reminded Star Twinkle to that other dragon that he and his friends meet not too long ago.

The sirens in Ponyville were already starting to warn everypony who was not aware of Spike this far. While collecting more and more stuff, Spike had trouble holding all his things in his claws. He then grabbed the Ponyville water tank to put his stuff inside, causing a little flooding in the town. But that only seemed like a minor concern with this dragon running wild.

There was nothing that anypony could do against Spike. He was a full-grown dragon now. As if that wasn't bad enough, Rarity got also captured by Spike. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy started an attempt to stop Spike but that wasn't working at all.

Rainbow Dash was threatening him but Fluttershy was asking him politely to stop. This plan was doomed to fail. Needless to say, it did fail.

Spike waved around with his tail to get rid of the two Pegasus, much to Rarity's dislike since she was wrapped in his tail.
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were caught into Rarity's cape that was hanging from her dress and fell down to the ground.

“Girls!” Rarity said worriedly. “My cape!” She then added after noticing that her dress was ruined.

Star Twinkle could only watch how Spike rampaged through Ponyville. He was way too big now. Star Twinkle already gave up.

“This is hopeless! How do we stop him!” Star Twinkle said frustrated.

“We can't give up Star Twinkle. We just have to figure out something!” Twilight said, trying to calm Star Twinkle down.

“But what? There is no way that we can stop him now!” He replied even more frustrated.

“Maybe not us! But maybe them!” Rainbow Dash said excitedly. She pointed at the sky. “Look! The Wonderbolts!”

There were three members of the Wonderbolts flying towards Spike. They actually managed to hold him off for a while and managed to at least damage his spiky scales a little.

Spike was climbing the local Ponyville mountain and put his stuff inside a hole in it. The Wonderbolts still attacked him but Spike managed to capture them inside of the water tank and smashed it against the mountain so that they could not escape.

“Yep. It's all over...” Star Twinkle said.

Twilight didn't like, how Star Twinkle was giving up so easily but couldn't find any words to calm him down.

Meanwhile, Spike roared in his victory over the Wonderbolts and Rarity got angrier by Spike's behavior and lectured him.

“Oh, be quiet.” She said causing Spike to actually stay quiet in surprise. “You've got nothing to be proud of. You steal everyone's things, terrorize the town, and use me as a weapon against my own friends! Which, as horrible as it is, I can almost understand because you're a dragon and all. But this!” She removed the rest of her dress, that got damaged before.
“This is a crime against fashion!”

Spike was not listening to Rarity and made some gestures to make that clear. But after Rarity removed her dress, Spike noticed the red gemstone, that he gave Rarity before.

Rarity noticed and quickly came to the conclusion that he was after her gemstone as well and covered it with her hooves.

“Oh no. You are not getting this gemstone! This was given to me by my dear friend Spikey-wikey, the kindest, sweetest, most generous dragon ever. And it is too precious to me to give to a greedy old beast like you!” She said highly praising Spike's generosity again.

Spike was acting a little calmer now. His eyes widened and for some reason, he was touching his cheek.

“Oh, what now? I suppose you'll be eating me or something?” Rarity said in a rather annoyed tone, despite the situation she was in.

Suddenly, Spike's size shrunk down to his normal baby-dragon size, leaving him and Rarity in the air.

“Spike?! You're the rampaging dragon?!” Rarity said surprised before they both fell down from the air.

They both screamed while falling down at a dangerous speed.

“If they fall from that height then...” Star Twinkle said worriedly.

“Somepony do something!” Pinkie Pie screamed in panic.

“On it!” Rainbow Dash replied.

She snatched Fluttershy to her side and they both flew to Rarity and Spike in order to save them. They both grabbed a torn piece from Rarity's cape that was swimming in a river from Ponyville in order to catch both Rarity and Spike.

Spike took the opportunity to tell Rarity something if they didn't make it.

“I've always sort of had a crush-”

But Rarity covered his mouth with her hooves and just smiled with tears in her eyes. She probably knew what he was about to say. Spike returned a happy smile and didn't care what happened to him anymore.

Luckily Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy caught Rarity and Spike in time. They all landed next to Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack and Pinkie Pie.

“We did it! I can't believe we did it!” Fluttershy exclaimed excited after she helped to rescue Rarity and Spike.

“All in a day's work,” Rainbow Dash said proudly.

Star Twinkle couldn't quite believe how everything turned out well but he was glad that it did. While everypony was celebrating their success, Spike took a look around Ponyville. He was well aware of what he did and of course, felt bad.

Rarity noticed that and walked up to him.

“Spike, I just have to tell you how absolutely proud I am of you,”

“Proud of me?” Spike replied confused.

“Yes. It was you who stopped... w-well, you, from destroying Ponyville. You are my hero, Spikey-wikey!” She then kissed Spike on the check.

Star Twinkle looked over to both of them silently.

“Huh...” Star Twinkle replied by this sight.

“So, it's all over, huh?” Twilight said teasingly, walking up to Star Twinkle.

“I don't get it,” Star Twinkle replied confused.

“What do you mean?” Twilight replied.

“Why did he turn back again? I thought we had to prevent him from gathering more stuff,”

“Rarity must have remembered Spike of his kindness and generosity. This caused him to snap out again and become his old self again,”

Star Twinkle still looked at Twilight with doubting eyes and didn't understand.

“I guess if you have friends that remind you who you are, you don't have to worry about getting lost,” Twilight explained further

“Remind your friends who they are?”

“Star Twinkle!” A voice shouted from afar.

It was Steel Hammer who walked up to the group of ponies.

“Get your tools we have much work to do!”

“Work? What work?”

“What work? Just take a look around!”

It was just then that Star Twinkle realized that half of the town was destroyed...and that he was a carpenter pony.

“A lot of work?” Star Twinkle asked

“A lot of work...” Steel Hammer replied.

“This is gonna be a loooong day...”

36. A Hearth's Warming Play

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Hearth's Warming Eve. The day before Hearth's Warming. Like every year, a pageant was held in Canterlot to reenact the tale of the founding of Equestria. This normally wouldn't be much of an interest for Star Twinkle's but this time it was different.

He and his friends were chosen by Princess Celestia to play the actors. Performing in a front of so many ponies is not something that he was looking forward to that. But he couldn't just say no. The Princess asked him after all...

Eventually, his thoughts were interrupted by Twilight's excitement. “We're getting closer!” Twilight said excitedly as she looked out of the window of the train, followed by Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

“I'm so excited, I-I feel like shouting!” Fluttershy said followed by a very soft shout.

Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie also looked out of the windows to take a look at Canterlot in the distance.

Star Twinkle, remained inside of the train. Canterlot was nothing new for him. His thoughts laid somewhere else. “I wonder if they watch the play too...” he mumbled to himself.

“What was that, Star Twinkle?” Twilight asked, who overheard Star Twinkle's words.

“Nothing...” Star Twinkle replied absently.

When the train arrived the group took their time to admire the sight of a snow-filled Canterlot. Star Twinkle didn't found it too exciting but he didn't want to ruin the mood and remained silent.

“Should I visit them while I'm here? But I'm not on a vacation...there is probably no time anyway...” he thought.

They all walked their way to a theater and went backstage to put on their costumes for the play.

"I can't believe that Princess Celestia chose us to put on the most important play of the season! Do you guys know what an honor this is? For all of us?" Twilight said in excitement.

This only put unnecessary pressure on Star Twinkle. What if they failed? It is the most important play of the season so if they mess up, everything would end in chaos. As if standing on stage wasn't already bad enough.

“Oh, I wish she hadn't honored me quite so much... I can't go onstage! I don't want everypony looking at me!” Said Fluttershy nervously as expected.

It was like Fluttershy speaking out Star Twinkle's thoughts. Fluttershy then hid her head inside of a box full of decorations, while shaking in fear. But Rarity tried her best to cheer up Fluttershy. “Fluttershy, darling, there's nothing to feel nervous about,”

“No?” Fluttershy replied.

“Of course not. All across Equestria, ponies are preparing their own pageants for Hearth's Warming Eve in their own towns. It's tradition,” Rarity explained while she prepared Fluttershy for the play.

“So you're saying they'll be too busy to come to our play?” Fluttershy said a little relieved.

“Well, no. We're in the Canterlot pageant, the biggest, most important production in all of Equestria. A lot of ponies will come to watch us,”

“A lot?” Fluttershy replied worriedly.

“Hundreds,” Rarity corrected.

“Hundreds?” Fluttershy said shaking.

“Maybe even thousands!” Rarity said in excitement.

Fluttershy yelped in shock and returned to stick her head inside of her box again.

“Well, she tried...I think...” Star Twinkle thought while he was preparing his costume.

Suddenly, a strong wind was blowing through the room, caused by an open window. Afraid that her hair would get ruined again, Rarity commanded Applejack to close the window. Applejack was not too enthusiastic to hear that but eventually, walked towards the window with an annoyed expression on her face. She stopped after she noticed how Rainbow Dash was cheering for herself in front of a mirror.

“It's a reenactment of the founding of Equestria. It's not the 'Rainbow Dash Show,” Applejack reminded Rainbow Dash.

“Well, it should be the 'Rainbow Dash Show'! I'm the star!” She replied.

“Actually, Star Twinkle is the star!” Pinkie Pie corrected.

This caused Star Twinkle to show some concerned looks on his face.

“Yes but...I really don't know how I should feel about playing...”that” role...”

“Are you kidding? You have probably the best role of all!” Rainbow Dash said.

“It also fits you perfectly!” Pinkie Pie added.

“I don't know...” Star Twinkle said concerned.

Meanwhile, Twilight tried to pull Fluttershy's head out of the box with little success.

“Fluttershy, you've got to come out of there!” She said trying to forcefully pull her out of the box.

Pinkie Pie joined her and pulled Twilight's head, causing Twilight to shout angrily at her in response.

“The Hearth's Warming Eve pageant is about harmony and friendship,” Applejack explained to Rainbow Dash who glared back at Applejack angrily.

“Friendship and harmony, huh?” Star Twinkle thought.

If they continue to act like that on stage, then Star Twinkle's fear of ruining the play might actually come true.

“Shut the window!” Everypony shouted except Star Twinkle who was already closing the window.

“Can we go now...” he said annoyed prompting everypony to go on stage now.

Like a wake-up call, everypony left to the stage without a word. The play was about to begin...

It was the most popular play in Equestria. It was about the founding of Equestria. Star Twinkle saw it a few times as a little colt and actually remembered a few lines even before he was given the script. He knew about the characters and what the play was all about. It was quite an interesting story for him. What worried him the most was the role, that he was stuck with.

The curtain opened and Spike, who served as the narrator, began to tell the story.

"Once upon a time, long before the peaceful rule of Celestia, and before ponies discovered our beautiful land of Equestria, ponies did not know harmony. It was a strange and dark time. A time when ponies were torn apart... by hatred!“

The last sentence caused the audience to gasp in surprise.

"I know. Can you believe it?" Spike said, breaking out of character for a moment to talk to the audience.

"During this frightful age, each of the three tribes: the Pegasi, the unicorns, and the Earth ponies cared not for what befell the other tribes, but only for their own welfare.

In those troubled times, as now, the Pegasi were the stewards of the weather. But they demanded something in return.

Food that could only be grown by the Earth ponies,”

The unicorns demanded the same, in return for magically bringing forth day and night. And so, mistrust between the tribes festered, until one fateful day, it came to a boil. And what prompted the ponies to clash? 'Twas a mysterious blizzard that overtook the land, and toppled the tribes' precarious peace.

The normally industrious Earth ponies were unable to farm their land.

The Earth ponies were freezing. The home of the Pegasi fared no better. The Pegasi were hungry. And the unicorns were freezing and hungry. Even the unicorns' magic was powerless against the storm. Each tribe blamed the others for their suffering, and the angrier everypony grew, the worse the blizzard became. And so it was decided that a grand summit would be held to figure out a way to cope with the blizzard,”

This was the scene in which the main roles appeared for the first time. And also the scene where Star Twinkle had to play his first part.

“Alright, let's do this...” he mumbled worriedly.

Spike continued the story.

“Each tribe sent their leaders,” Daughter of the unicorn king, Princess Platinum,”who was played by Rarity.

“Ruler of the Pegasi, Commander Hurricane,” who was played by Rainbow Dash.

“And lastly...

...leader of the Earth ponies, Chancellor Puddinghead,” who was played by Pinkie Pie.

They all began to sit down on at the table and removed their headgears.

“Perhaps the three tribes could finally settle their differences and agree on a way to get through this disaster,”

“All I wanna know is why the Earth ponies are hogging all the food!” Commander Hurricane said angrily, supported by other Pegasi who watched over the meeting above her.

“Us?! We're not hogging all the food, you are! Oh, wait. You're right. It's us. Well, it's only 'cause you mean old Pegasusususes are making it snow like crazy!” Chancellor Puddinghead replied angrily, blaming the Pegasus.

“For the hundredth time, it's not us! We're not making it snow! It must be the unicorns! They're doing it with their freaky magic!” Commander Hurricane then said pointing at Princess Platinum.

“How dare you! Unlike you Pegasi ruffians, we unicorns would never stoop to such a thing! H-m-ph!” Princess Platinum replied who was supported by her fellow unicorns who raised their heads arrogance.

“Well, if you non-Earths aren't gonna stop using your weirdo powers to freeze us all, then I'm just plum out of ideas,” Chancellor Puddinghead said.

“What a shocker. An Earth pony with no ideas,” Commander Hurricane said making Chancellor Puddinghead's fellow Earth-Pony companions only angrier.

“Commander Hurricane, please cease with the insults!” Princess Platinum scolded.

“You're not the boss of me, your royal snootiness!” Commander Hurricane returned, flying towards Princess Platinum in an almost threatening manner.

“Enough!”

“But then a voice sounded through the hall, causing the three leaders to stop their arguing for a minute.

The voice came from another pony. A Unicorn to be exact. It was the pony who suggested to start this meeting in the first place.

A pony from unknown origins, who should be known as the messenger between the three groups,

The Unicorn, Starwhite,” who was played by Star Twinkle.

“This meeting was supposed to end this unnecessary fighting! Instead of blaming each other, we should all find a way to work together,” Starwhite remembered the leaders of the three tribes.

“Great! Another snooty unicorn...” Commander Hurricane said.

“Why should we even listen to another one of those creepy Unicorns?” Chancellor Puddinghead added.

“I will not even begin to trust a Unicorn who isn't even acknowledging their heritage,” Princess Platinum added. “If you excuse me now, I'll leave!” she said, putting on her crown reversed on her head.

“Well, I'm leaving first!” Commander Hurricane said.

“No, I'm first!” Chancellor Puddinghead exclaimed.

They then ran towards the door, each one of them trying to be the first one to exit the building.

“And the blizzard raged on,

Starwhite's goal, noble it may be, was completely ignored by the three leaders. But they were right! Why should they trust another pony, that claimed to be neutral?

The summit of the tribes did not turn out as well as hoped, and the three leaders returned home to lick their wounds, and basically complain,”

The Pegasi

“Atten-tion!” Commander Hurricane exclaimed to her most trusted subordinate, Private Pansy who was played by Fluttershy.

“Oh! Commander Hurricane, sir! How did it go, sir?” Private Pansy replied.

“Horribly! Those other tribe leaders are so disrespectful! Don't they realize that we are a mighty tribe of warriors, and should not be crossed? We have got to break ranks with those weak foals!”

The Unicorns

Princess Platinum entered a building, shivering on the way in.

“Clover the Clever! I need you!” she said, causing her adviser Clover the Clever to appear, played by Twilight.

“Yes, your Majesty. Did the other pony tribes see reason as I predicted?” She asked curiously.

“Those other tribes are impossible! I, for one, can no longer bear to be anywhere near those lowly creatures. The unicorns are noble and majestic. We will no longer consort with the likes of them!”

The Earth-Ponies

Chancellor Puddinghead dropped from the chimney surprising her secretary, Smart Cookie who was played by Applejack.

“Wouldn't it have been easier to use the door, Chancellor?” Smart Cookie asked.

“Maybe for you, Smart Cookie. But I am a chancellor. I was elected because I know how to think outside the box. Which means...” She put her head inside of the chimney. “I can also think inside the chimney. Can you think inside a chimney?“ Chancellor Puddinghead asked.

But Smart Cookie didn't answer to Chancellor Puddinghead nonsense and only made an annoyed face.

“However, the three leaders of the pony tribes were left to think about a solution on their own.

Eventually, every one of them came up with the same solution. They had to find a new land. A land with no snow and more fruitful ground to grow food.

Starwhite contacted the three leaders once more and suggested the perfect place to live for all of them.

While the leaders did not trust him, they were thinking about the well being of their tribes and agreed to go to the place Starwhite suggested.

What was unknown to all of them, was that Starwhite contacted the other tribes too. But that was all part of his plan.

He figured that if they saw a new land untouched by the freezing cold, then they maybe forget their differences and stopped blaming each other.

But unfortunately, as soon as they arrived, their hate grew again and they did what they could do best:
Arguing.”

“I planted my flag first!” Commander Hurricane said.

“Did not!” Princess Platinum protested.

“Did too!” Commander Hurricane replied.

“I planted mine earlier than first,” Chancellor Puddinghead then added.

“All of you riffraff are trespassing in Unicornia!” Princess Platinum exclaimed.

“Pegasopolis!” Commander Hurricane exclaimed.

“Earth!” Chancellor Puddinghead exclaimed.

“Pegasopolis!”

“Unicornia!”

“I say we fight for the land. May the best pony win!” Commander Hurricane suggested, flying up towards Princess Platinum.

Starwhite overlooked how his plan was failing to band the three tribes together and interrupted their fight.

“No! No more fighting! Don't you realize that your fighting caused this situation in the first place? If we start working together now, then we all won't have any problems with the cold or food anymore!”

The others noticed Starwhite and could only return mistrust against him, not even listen to his ideas.

“You! Unicorn! You said that you found a place for us Pegasi to live!” Commander Hurricane said angrily, flying towards Starwhite this time.

“No! He said he had found the perfect place for us Earth-Ponies!” Chancellor Puddinghead said angrily.

“What I said is that I found the perfect place for all of us to live!” Starwhite corrected.

However, his words didn't seem to reach the leaders and he was once again not trusted by them.

“Not if you mean with “all of us” those unmannerly ponies too. Clover the Clever? Throw him into the dungeon for tricking us into all of this!” Princess Platinum said levitating Clover the Clever in front of Starwhite.

“What dungeon? And besides, I think he is actually trying to help us all. Look, perhaps if we all calmed down... “Clover the Clever suggested.

“I agree. Let's all calm down,” Smart Cookie agreed

“I vote for calm,” Private Pansy also agreed.

The three subordinates were actually trying to listen to Starwhite's idea, unlike their leaders who continued to blame each other and argue.

It was then that they noticed how the snow was dropping from the sky. Just like in their homelands...

“And so the paradise that the ponies had found was soon lost, buried beneath a thick blanket of snow and hard feelings. Instead of beautiful, it was blizzardy. Instead of wonderful, it was wintry! Instead of spectacular, it was snow-tacular! Instead of-”

“We get it! Move on!” A pony in the audience screamed at Spike's unnecessary long description of the situation.

Spike reacted with an almost apologizing embarrassed face and cleared his throat before he continued the story.

“Everypony was forced to seek shelter. They searched high and low, but the only shelter for miles was a cold and desolate cave. And, of course, the three tribes had to share it, and nopony was too happy about that.”

Starwhite took a look outside and watched how the snow was covering all of the lands that once was destined to be the new home for every pony. However, Starwhite didn't give up so easily and took the opportunity, that all ponies were together and encouraged the others once more to lay down their differences.

“The snow is covering this land too! Don't you think this is a sign? It's the same as with your homes! Since the snow is following us, we might as well work together to live under these circumstances,” Starwhite advised.

But once again, his words were not taken seriously.

“Alright, “We” will work together to live here!” Commander Hurricane replied. “Private? Outline our territory for everypony to see,” Commander Hurricane commanded.

Private Pansy did as Commander Hurricane said. With the help of Commander Hurricane, Private Pansy drew a line on the ground to mark her territory.

“See this line? No unicorns or Earth ponies are allowed to cross it! This is the sovereign territory of Pegasopolis!” Commander Hurricane explained.

Soon the other two leaders commanded their subordinates to do the same and of course, they had to obey, whether they wanted or not.

Things escalated once more after Private Pansy drew a line around a rock instead of including it into the ”Pegasopolis” territory. Princess Platinum noticed and claimed the rock to be on the Unicornia side of the cave. Chancellor Puddinghead, clearly not caring about the lines on the ground just walked over the rock and claimed it as her own.

Soon they all fought over a little rock. This made Starwhite sigh in frustration. He just wanted everypony to work together in harmony. But that seemed like an impossible thing to do.

While still fighting and arguing, Clover the Clever pointed out that the entrance was closed because of the cold.

“Look, everypony! The entrance!” She said pointing at the entrance.

Now the only exit of the cave was blocked and there was no way out.

“Great. Now there's no way out! We're trapped!” Commander Hurricane said angered.

“You two deserve this horrible fate. You've done nothing but argue and fight with each other!” Princess Platinum said, blaming the others for this situation.

“You've been fighting too, your Highness,” Commander Hurricane replied.

“Yeah! Worse! I haven't been fighting nearly as much as you!” Chancellor Puddinghead added.

Little did they know, that ice was starting to freeze the three leaders of the tribes.

“Earth ponies are numbskulls!” Commander Hurricane said before she was completely frozen

“Pegasi are brutes!” Princess Platinum said before she was completely frozen

“Unicorns are snobs!” Chancellor Puddinghead said before she was completely frozen.

Shocked by what just happened, the rest of the ponies backed away to the center of the cave. The ice was slowly covering the whole cave, forcing the four ponies to hug each other in fear to avoid the cold.

Then Private Pansy noticed something above their heads. Strange horse-like creatures with glowing blue eyes that seemed to be made out of the wind.

“They must be... Windigos!” Clover the Clever realized.

“Windigos?” Smart Cookie and Private Pansy wondered.

“My mentor Star Swirl the Bearded taught me about them. They're winter spirits that feed off fighting and hatred. The more hate the spirit feels, the colder things become!” Clover the Clever explained.

“Yes...they are responsible for the snow and the cold in your lands and now they are about to do the same here...” Starwhite explained.

“Then... this is our fault. We three tribes... we brought this blizzard to our home by fightin' and not trustin' each other. Now it's destroyin' this land, too,” Smart Cookie figured.

“And now our bodies will become as cold as our hearts... all because we were foolish enough to hate,” Clover the Clever said.

Starwhite felt responsible for this situation and showed signs of regret in his face.

“I only wanted everypony to live in harmony, instead of fighting against each other. But all this hate seemed to be a lot harder to fight against...”

The three ponies also showed signs of regret.

“Well, I don't hate you... I actually hate Commander Hurricane a lot more than I hate you guys,” Private Pansy said, making the other ponies giggle in response.

“Well, I don't hate you guys either,” Smart Cookie assured.

“Nor do I,” Clover the Clever said.

Hearing this made Starwhite feel a lot better but it was too late now. The Windigos were starting to freeze the remaining ponies as well. But they didn't care, they were laughing and didn't even notice. The Windigos noticed that and started to quicken the freezing process.

“No matter what our differences, we're all ponies,” Smart Cookie said before she and the others were all frozen as well.

Hearing this made Starwhite feel warm inside. He wanted to see how ponies work together and even if it was too late, he was happy to find out that it was possible.

The cold was completely covering Starwhite's body until it reached his horn.

A bright light covered him and levitated him above the ground. The Windigos were pushed back by the light coming out of Starwhite's horn and vanished. A bright fire appeared above their heads and protected them from the cold.

The three other ponies stood there in shock and watched Starwhite. But something was different about him. He looked different...

They just now noticed that he grew two wings on his back. He was now a Unicorn with wings. Something that they had never seen before.

When he landed back on the ground they quickly rushed to his side and asked what exactly happened. But Starwhite didn't know either and was as confused as they were.

“You have wings?” Private Pansy wondered.

“How is that possible?” Smart Cookie asked.

“I don't know but what I do know is, that whatever happened wasn't just because of me. As soon as I watched you laughing and not hating each other, I could feel this beautiful feeling,”

“It came from all the four of us, joined together, in friendship,” Clover the Clever figured.

“All through the night, the three ponies kept the fire of friendship alive by telling stories to one another and by singing songs, which of course became the winter carols that we all still sing today. Eventually, the warmth of the fire and singing and laughing reached the leaders, and their bodies began to thaw. And it even began to melt their hearts.

They thanked Starwhite for being the first one to open their eyes and rescuing them in the cave but he left a short while after. Rumors say that he was only there to lead everyponies way and then vanished again.

Whether he was there or not, the three leaders agreed to share the beautiful land, and live in harmony ever afterward. And together, they named their new land...

“Equestria!” every pony said, causing the audience to cheer.

And thus the play was over and the actors bowed before their audience, who cheered for the spectacular play that they just saw. Star Twinkle was relieved that it was finally over but he also had to admit that it was quite fun. Still, his eyes wandered over the audience in hope to find two ponies.

“Looks like they are not here...well, whatever it was still fun...” he thought relieved.

They went back to behind the stage to take off their costumes and end the day.

“We should be so honored that Princess Celestia chose us! She must really think we exemplify what good friends are!“ Twilight said happily.

Star Twinkle, quietly took off his costume and thought about the play. Twilight noticed and walked up to Star Twinkle.

"Are you still thinking about your role?"

"Yup..." he replied. "Wouldn't you too if you had to play a pony that may or may not have existed in the first place?"

"Well, Starwhite was a name given to a pony that might appear back at the founding of Equestria. He was the first known Alicorn in Equestria. It is true that it's unknown if he ever existed at all but he symbolized the first pony who embodies all of the pony races. It's symbolic for all the three races working together," Twilight explained.

"If you say so..." he replied.

Once again a strong wind blew through the room, caused by an open window again.

“Applejack, I thought you closed all the windows,” Rarity said to Applejack.

“Don't blame me. Rainbow Dash should've flown up there and shut it. After all, she's got wings,” Applejack replied.

“Why do I always have to do all the high up chores? Why can't Twilight use her magic for a change!” Rainbow dash replied annoyed.

Soon all of them began to argue again just like they did the day before.

“I have a really strange deja vu right now...” Star Twinkle mumbled to himself.

In the middle of their argument, a strange noise could be heard from outside.
Maybe it was caused by the wind but it frightened everypony for a moment.

“Y'know what? I got it,” Rainbow Dash said, quickly closing the window.

Meanwhile, two ponies walked outside of the theater after they watched the Hearths warming play.

Both of them were Pegasi. One of them was a mare with a white coat, a light blue mane, light blue eyes, and a Cutie Mark made out of three swirls. The other one was a stallion with a light blue coat, a yellow mane, light blue eyes and a wing with a whirlwind in front of it.

The mare seemed a little angry at the stallion but he didn't seem to care much about it.

"I can't believe that we got the chance to attend the most popular play in all of Equestria and all you do is sleep through half of it!" The mare exclaimed annoyed.

The light blue Pegasus rubbed his eyes while listening to the scolding mare.

"Well, it was really dark in the room and we were really far away from the stage so I couldn't hear the performers really well soo..." The blue Pegasus said in excuse.

"It was really interesting! The story! The characters!” She admired. “Didn't it even got your attention that one of the founders had the same name as you?"

"Who?" He replied obliviously.

"The one with the same name as you!" She replied angrily.

The blue Pegasus only replied with an embarrassed smile, causing the mare to sigh in frustration.

"Who knows when we get more free time again? I mean, we got pretty lucky that we had no mission today,"

This reminded the blue Pegasus. "Oh, by the way...we got a mission..." he said with no care in the world.

"What? Since when?" The mare replied shocked.

"Since this morning..."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was about to tell you but you were so excited about the play and I didn't want to ruin your mood..."

"What were you thinking? We can't just delay a mission like that! We'll get in trouble!"

The mare was breathing heavily but tried to calm down.

"I just hope that it wasn't something important..." the mare mumbled in order to calm herself down.

"It came from Cyclone..." the stallion, added.

This shocked the mare even more. Getting a mission from Cyclone Wing meant that it had to be very important.

"What are we waiting for? We need to go! Where do we have to go?" The mare asked in a panic.

"Ponyville..." he replied casually.

"Good! That's not too far away. And what do we have to do there!?"

"We have to get some harmonic elements or something..." the stallion replied bored.

"Then let's go!" The mare said before she prepared herself to lift off into the sky but the blue Pegasus walked away slowly in the opposite direction where the mare was facing to.

"Where are you going?" She asked confused.

"To the hotel..."

"But what about our mission?"

"We can still do that tomorrow...It's already dark...I'm too sleepy now..." he said, yawning in the process.

"But you slept through the whole play!" The mare exclaimed.

But the blue Pegasus walked away casually with no care in the world. This is when the mare decided to give up. The was no point getting stressed out anymore. They were already one day late for the mission. Still, she was fearing the worst.

"Cyclone is gonna be really mad..."

37. In front of the Storm

View Online

A few days ago...

The three Pegasi, Steel Wing, Featherbrain and Cloud Head were flying over the badlands in the south of Equestria and almost reached their destination: The Headquarter of the Storm Wings.

On their way back from Ponyville, Steel Wing mostly remained silent which worried his two companions, who both flew behind him.

"The boss sure is mad..." Featherbrain asked.

"Isn't he always kinda mad?" Cloud Head replied.

Steel Wing showed no reaction, even though he heard them and focused on his landing after he got close enough to the fortress of the Storm Wings.

Steel Wing, Featherbrain, and Cloud Watcher landed in the middle of the fortress and were greeted by several other ponies.
While Featherbrain and Cloud Watcher were both surrounded by everypony, Steel Wing walked away angrily. All he wanted now was to talk with his leader.

He walked up the stairs of the fortress that lead to the upper floor of the fortress. When he arrived at the top floor, nopony was in sight so Steel Wing decided to raise some attention. "Mystic!" He shouted across the fortress on top of his lungs.
"Where are you!?"

Steel Wing knew that he was heard and waited surprisingly patient.

Eventually, a figure stepped out of a barely lit room and revealed himself in front of Steel Wing.

"Do you always have to be so loud? Honestly, every time I hear your voice, I have the feeling that my ears are flying off," Mystic said, clearly annoyed by Steel Wings entrance.

Mystic was a Unicorn with a dark purple coat, a dark blue mane with yellow stripes, dark blue eyes and a cloud of mist as a Cutie Mark.

"What is going on here?" Said Cyclone Wing who walked up the stairs and approached the two ponies.

"Cyclone, would you be so kind to tell your brother that he should be a little quieter?" Mystic demanded.

Cyclone Wing was sure that it was Steel Wing's voice that he heard but he was still confused to see his brother.

"Tornado? What are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to wait near Ponyville until further instructions?" Asked Cyclone Wing, surprised why his brother was back so early.

"I was but he called me back!" Steel Wing exclaimed angrily while pointing at Mystic.

Cyclone seemed confused to hear that and turned to Mystic.

"Why is that?" He asked with a slightly annoyed look on his face.

Mystic, however, remained calm, despite Steel Wing's behavior against him.

"I just tried to minimize the mistakes," Mystic explained.

Steel Wing was about to shout at Mystic again but Cyclone Wing raised his hoof in front of him to stop him.

"We can't allow giving orders that one of us isn't aware of.
This will only cause more confusion in this group," Cyclone Wing explained.

"We also can't allow him to mess up and let everypony know what we were after," Mystic explained.

Steel Wing got angry again because of Mystics blaming words towards him and didn't let himself be stopped this time.

"Mess up?
I already had them in my hooves!" He exclaimed.

But instead getting a response from Mystic, Cyclone Wing answered to that.

"What do you mean?
I haven't even sent a messenger to let you start the mission," Cyclone Wing pointed out.

This caught Steel Wing off guard.
He widened his eyes and tried to explain.

"Well,err..." Steel Wing could only reply from Cyclone Wing's words.

"So in other words, you were ignoring orders?" Mystic said.
"So that means they already know that what we are after..." Mystic said displeased.

Steel Wing didn't know how to reply and sunk his head in shame.

"Wait, if you already had the elements, does that mean that they are in Ponyville?" Cyclone Wing asked.

"Yeah!
They are displaying them in the library or something," Steel Wing replied.

Mystic rubbed his chin with his hoof.
He was not expecting to get this information.

"Cyclone!" He said, turning his head towards Cyclone Wing.

"I know.
I will give orders to retrieve them as soon as possible..." Cyclone Wing replied almost on command.

Mystic left the hall and went into the main room again, leaving the two ponies behind.
While Mystic got slowly out of sight, Steel Wing could only glare at him angrily.

"Calm down Tornado..." Cyclone Wing said, noticing the glare Steel Wing gave to Mystic.

"I can't stand this guy..." Steel Wing said, barely opening his mouth.

"You'll only get yourself in trouble like this..." Cyclone Wing advised.

"I still can't believe that you made him the leader!
It's just wrong..." Steel Wing said, lowering his head in frustration.

"I had to...
It was for you..."

"I know but...
I just wish that everything returns to the way it used to be..."

"Me too, Tornado...me too..."

In the present...

Two pegasi walked around in Ponyville.
A mare with a white coat, a light blue mane, light blue eyes and three swirls as a Cutie Mark.
And a stallion with a light blue fur, a yellow mane and a wing with a whirlwind in front of it as a Cutie Mark.
The stallion was also wearing a saddlebag.

"I don't feel right, walking through this town so casually..." The mare said while looking around in paranoia.

"They don't know that we are members of the Storm Wings so there should be no problem..." The stallion assured.

"So...I assume that you have a plan?"

"I do," the stallion replied calmly.

Meanwhile, at the Golden Oak library...

It was unclear why Star Twinkle was invited to the library but Twilight said it was rather important so there was no way that he was declining her invitation.

He knocked on the door of the Golden Oak library and Twilight opened it a few seconds later.

"There you are, Star Twinkle," Twilight welcomed him before she invited him inside.

"So what was so important that you had to tell me?" He asked.

"I just finished my research and figured that you should be the first one to tell,” Twilight replied.

“Research?
Of what?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

“About the Storm Wing's” Twilight answered.

This caught Star Twinkle's attention.
It was only a few day ago until they were attacked by this steel winged pony and his two companions.
They almost managed to steal the Elements of Harmony.
Not only that but it took all seven of Star Twinkle and his friends to stop the one with the steel wings.
To think that there are more of this ponies was frightening, to say the least.

“I'm listening...” Star Twinkle said awaiting the results of Twilight's research.

“I knew, I heard the name before when they introduced themselves back then...
It was a while ago before I came to Ponyville.
The Princess spoke of them...”

“The Princess?” Star Twinkle replied almost shocked.

“The Storm Wing's is a group consisting of mostly Pegasus, who travel through Equestria in order to help ponies in need and protecting them from dangers.
They are like mercenaries that you can ask to do all kind things, that most ponies think of as too dangerous or risky.
I heard the Princess once praising the name of the Storm Wing's a long time ago,” Twilight explained in detail.

“Hold on a second.
If they are such “saints”, then why do they want to steal the Element's of Harmony?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“I was not finished,” Twilight replied, continuing her explanation.
“They may have earned themselves a good name but things seemed to have changed lately.
As for now, they are known for attacking innocent and stealing from the defenseless.
Princess Celestia became aware of that and sent the Royal guards all over Equestria in order to find their headquarter.
But they were nowhere to be found...”

“Why the sudden change?”

“I don't know...
But one thing is for sure!
We probably haven't seen the last of them!”

“Yeah, that reminds me...” Star Twinkle said glancing over behind Twilight.
“Shouldn't the Element's of Harmony be sent back to Canterlot, when there is a group who is after them out there?” Star Twinkle wondered after noticing the Elements of Harmony behind Twilight.

“I know it's dangerous but like I said before, it's better if we keep them close when something happens again...”

“I just hope we won't regret that...” Star Twinkle said worriedly.

Twilight then tried to raise the mood again and invited Star Twinkle to eat something with him in a nearby restaurant.
Since Star Twinkle didn't eat anything, he agreed and followed Twilight outside of the library.
But when they walked out of the library two Pegasus stood in front of them.

"Is this the library?" The blue Pegasus stallion asked.

Star Twinkle and Twilight didn't recognize the two ponies.
They must be new in Ponyville, is what they thought.

"Yes.
This is the library of Ponyville.
My name is Twilight Sparkle.
Do you need a book?" Twilight asked offering her help to the two Pegasus.

"No,” the stallion replied instantly.
My name is Hurricane Wing and this is Breeze Flyer.
We are from the Storm Wings.
And we are here to take the Elements of Harmony from you," Hurricane Wing said care-freely with a smile on his face.

Needless to say, both Star Twinkle and Twilight were shockingly surprised to hear that.
The mare next to him was only shaking her head frustrated.

"You know, when you said that you have a plan, I didn't think that you would mean that..."

"Wait, they are from the Storm Wings!?" Star Twinkle thought shocked.
"Why would they so casually introduce themselves like that?"

Rainbow Dash flew past the group of ponies and wondered who the new faces were so she landed next to the two Pegasus.

"Hey, Star Twinkle. Hey, Twilight.
Who are your new friends?" Rainbow Dash asked innocently.

"They are not friends!
They are members of the Storm Wings!" Twilight alerted.

Rainbow Dash quickly widened her eyes and jumped next to Star Twinkle and Twilight to ready her hooves.

"You here to steal the elements too?
Then come and get some!" Rainbow Dash prompted.

This caused Star Twinkle and Twilight to go in a more defensive stance as well.

The mare also took a more defensive stance and prepared herself for battle.

"Hold on, Breeze," Hurricane Wing said, causing Breeze Flyer to turn around confused.
"Can't we make some kind of deal?" Hurricane Wing in the middle of this tension.

"Hurricane, what are you talking about?"
"We can't just expect them to give us the elements by asking nicely!" Breeze Flyer asked confused.

"Why not?
It's not like we can get them with a fight either..." he replied.

"We won't know if we don't try," Breeze Flyer insisted.

"We won't...
Tornado wasn't able to get the elements and you know how tough he is..."

This caused Breeze Flyer to drop her defensive stance in order to talk with Hurricane Wing.

"Well...yeah but how else are we supposed to get them?" She asked frustrated.

Hurricane Wing closed his eyes in order to think for a minute.
When he opened them again an idea struck his mind.

"We could flip a coin..."

"I don't think they will agree to that either!" Breeze Flyer exclaimed angrily.

Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash watched the little argument that the two ponies in front of them had while they waited to defend themselves from any incoming attack.

"Sooo, they don't seem to be much of a threat," Rainbow Dash pointed out.

"Yeah..." Star Twinkle added.

"Maybe but they are still members of the Storm Wings so be careful, they are dangerous,” Twilight advised.

Hurricane Wing turned to the three ponies.

"Do you know a way how we can get the elements from you?" Hurricane asked the three ponies.

"You gotta be kidding me..." Star Twinkle thought.

"How about a race?
No, wait...they will never agree to that because they would have no chance to win..." Hurricane mumbled to himself.

Rainbow Dash overheard that and replied.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa.
What was that?" Rainbow Dash asked offended.
"That almost sounded like you think you are faster than anypony else,"

"Yes..." Hurricane Wing replied.

"Well, hate to break it to you but the fastest pony in Equestria is right in front of you," Rainbow Dash said in her usual boasting tone.

"How can I stand in front of myself?" Hurricane Wing wondered.

Rainbow Dash got angered by those words.
Strangely enough Hurricane Wing didn't seem to provoke her in purpose.

"So a race it is?
With the elements as price?
Deal?" Hurricane Wing suggested.

"Deal!" Rainbow Dash replied angrily.

"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight exclaimed before she used her magic to pull Rainbow Dash's tail.
"What are you doing?
You can't just bet the Elements of Harmony!" Twilight scolded.

"Relax, Twilight.
Were are talking about a race.
There is no way that anypony can beat me when it comes to speed," Rainbow Dash assured.

Twilight knew that this was true but still didn't like to bet the elements.

"Star Twinkle, say something too," Twilight plead in frustration.

However, Star Twinkle was rubbing his chin and seemed to be in deep thoughts.
He turned to the Storm Wings with a determent look on his face.

"Hey!
What do we get if we win?" Star Twinkle asked the two Pegasus.

This especially caught Breeze Flyer on surprise since she never thought that Star Twinkle and the others would agree to something like that.

"Uh...I don't know...
What do you want?" Hurricane Wing asked.

"If we win, then you will tell us where your headquarter is!
Deal?" Star Twinkle demanded.

"Deal..." Hurricane Wing replied quickly.

"Hurricane!" exclaimed Breeze Flyer in shock.

Twilight didn't want to hear that at all and turned to Star Twinkle in disappointment.

"Star Twinkle, you can't be serious!" She said frustrated.

"No, listen to me Twilight.
I know it's crazy but this is probably our only chance to find the headquarter of the Storm Wings!"

"Do you have any idea what happens if Princess Celestia finds out that we bet on the Element's of Harmony?"

"Um hello?
Awesome pony right here?" Rainbow Dash said presenting herself in front of them.

"Rainbow Dash is the fastest flyer in Equestria.
She is the only pony who ever pulled off a Sonic Rainboom.
I think our chances are pretty good," Star Twinkle assured.

"I don't know..." Twilight replied doubtfully.

"Alright!
It's settled then!" Rainbow Dash said excitedly.

She then spits in her hoof and offered it to Hurricane Wing.
But he only looked at her hoof confused.

"I'm not shaking that hoof..." he simply replied.

Later that day...

The race about started a little outside of Ponyville.
A starting line was build for this event which served as a finish line as well.
Star Twinkle, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Hurricane Wing and Breeze Flyer were accompanied by Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Fluttershy who were briefly informed by the others.

"So let me get this straight..." Applejack began.
"Those two Pegasus over there are from those Storm Wings?
And they wanted to have a race with Rainbow Dash?
And the prize of that race are the Elements of Harmony?"

Star Twinkle only nodded as a response.

"Um...are you sure it's such a good idea on betting the Elements of Harmony?" Rarity asked concerned.

"Thank you!" Twilight exclaimed from a few meters away.

Star Twinkle could feel Twilight's unease and approached her in order to calm her down a bit.

"I'm guessing you still a little worried?" Star Twinkle asked, awaiting an obvious answer.

"Well, if you think using the Element's of Harmony as some kind of trophy for a group that previously tried to steal them after the Princess told me to keep them safe, is a reason to be worried, then yes I am worried!” Twilight replied in great frustration.

Star Twinkle didn't even attempt to say something else after being rolled over by Twilight like that and figured that the best thing right now, is to be quiet.

"I bet the Storm Wings don't have to deal with that kind of problems..." Star Twinkle thought.

Little did he knew...

"Hurricane, are you crazy?" Breeze Flyer said frustrated.
"Do you realize that it's all over for the Storm Wings if you tell them about our headquarter!?
They will tell Princess Celestia!
And then she will send her royal guards after us!
And then-"

"Breeze, calm down...
Are you forgetting something?
Even if they know, there is no way that they will get to us..." Hurricane Wing assured calmly.

Breezy Flyer knew what he was talking about but still couldn't believe that he was taking everything so easy.
Twilight soon called both of them over to get ready for the race.

"Alright, let me explain the rules,"

Both Hurricane Wing and Rainbow Dash walked over to Twilight and listened.
But both of them didn't seem to pay much attention.
Rainbow Dash was too full of herself to listen and Hurricane Wing was just staring absentminded in the distance.

"Both of you will fly to Canterlot and back here.
The first one who arrives back here wins.
I wrote a letter to the princess and asked her to prepare two ribbons in front of the gates of Canterlot.
Each of you will take one ribbon and return with it.
This way, we can make sure that none of you cheat,"

"Hah!
You don't need to cheat when you're awesome," Rainbow Dash said confidently.

“Can we start now?” Hurricane Wing asked slightly annoyed.

They then both walked over to the start line and prepared themselves to lift off.
Twilight was about to give the signal and both Pegasus.

“Alright, ready..."

Both of them readied themselves to lift off.
Rainbow Dash had a determent look on her face but Hurricane's face was unchanged.

"Set!"

They both were ready to lift off now.
Everypony was anticipating the start of the race and watched the two Pegasus to see who of them would get a head start.

“Go!”

As expected both of them lifted off in extreme speed.
Everypony looked up to the sky and watched the two ponies getting farther and farther away in direction of Canterlot.

“Oh, no...” Star Twinkle feared after what he is seeing right now.

Rainbow Dash looked behind her while flying towards the direction of Canterlot to check how far she was in front.

"Where is he?" She wondered after noticing that Hurricane Wing was gone.

But to her surprise Hurricane Wing was flying right next to her, causing her to drop her jaw.

"Hey! You're not bad! He said before he flew off and let Rainbow Dash behind her.

“I...what?!” She replied before she accelerated to catch up with Hurricane again.

Star Twinkle feared the worst and figured that he should say something to calm Twilight down, who was already stressed out before the race.
But Twilight was actually passing out just from the thought that Hurricane Wing could actually win.

“Rainbow Dash...it's up to you now...” He thought, putting his remaining hopes in Rainbow Dash.

It was really close between those two ponies.
They both flew at extremely high speed.
Hurricane Wing was slightly in front but Rainbow Dash was right behind him.

The race was going like this the whole time, Hurricane Wing was first and Rainbow Dash second.
Hurricane Wing was not getting any farther away but Rainbow Dash also didn't get any closer.
Worried by this, Hurricane Wing looked behind himself.

"I can't even slow down a little..." Hurricane Wing said in concern.

Canterlot was slowly getting closer for both of them.
The gate in front of the city was getting closer as well.
To both ponies surprise, Princess Celestia along with some of her Royal Guards were standing in front of the gate with two ribbons next to them on a podium.
One of them was green and the other red.

"There they are!" Princess Celestia said excitedly.

Hurricane Wing landed in front of one of the podiums and put on the green ribbon.

"Your majesty," He said respectfully while bowing before her and flying off again.

This little gesture caused the princess to chuckle.
Only a second later, Rainbow Dash landed in front of the other podium and grabbed her ribbon before she flew off again.

"Incredible!
To think that there was some pony who could keep up with Rainbow Dash," Princess Celestia said admirably.

The race continued and Canterlot got quickly out of sight again.
Hurricane was still in front with Rainbow Dash right behind him.
He got a little more worried by the fact that she could catch up any minute.
While looking at her, he noticed how she was still holding her ribbon in her hoof.
She probably tried to save time by not putting it on.

"I don't like doing that but I can't allow losing here...
For my brother..." his expression became more determent.

He slowed down a little and allowed Rainbow Dash to catch up with him.
Rainbow Dash was looking at Hurricane Wing mistrustfully as he kept getting closer to her.

"Sorry..." Hurricane Wing said.

"For what?" Rainbow Dash wondered.

Hurricane Wing then snatched Rainbow Dash's ribbon away from her hooves and dived down to the ground.

"Hey!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed before she followed Hurricane Wing.

They were both flying over a forest now.
For Hurricane Wing, the perfect opportunity.
He dived down into the forest and dropped the ribbon while Rainbow Dash wasn't looking.

Hurricane stopped in order for Rainbow Dash to notice that her ribbon was gone.

"Hey!
You're cheating!" Rainbow Dash said angrily.

"Not really...
The only rule was to fly to Canterlot and return with a ribbon," Hurricane Wing corrected.

"I knew that you Storm Wings can't be trusted!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed angrily.

Hurricane Wing looked at Rainbow Dash with an unusually serious look on his face.

"Think of us what you want..."

He then flew off, leaving Rainbow Dash angered by his foul play.
Still, Rainbow Dash looked for the ribbon and let Hurricane Wing fly away.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Wing was back on his way to Ponyville.
And without Rainbow Dash behind him, he could take his time.

"Looks like I win..."

He focused his eyes back in direction of Ponyville.
It was still out of sight but he should reach the town in only a few minutes.

But suddenly, something was wrong.

Hurricane Wing's sight became blurry.
He was flapping his wings a little more uncontrollably.

"Oh no...not now..." He said, being fully aware of what was happening right now.

He started to breathe heavily and had troubles flying straight.
He became slower and soon he only saw blurry images in front of him.
He reached into his saddlebag and tried to pull something out but his strength was leaving him and he dropped down from the sky.

He fell down to the forest.
His fall was softened by the trees but he still landed harshly on the ground.

He laid on the ground in pain.
But not because of his landing.
With his remaining strength, he tried to grab something from his bag but was unable to find anything, causing him to give up.

"I believe...
This is...
What you call...
Karma?" He said while breathing heavily.

Meanwhile, in Ponyville...

Everypony was still waiting on the starting line.
Twilight was clearly the most stressed one of the bunch after seeing Hurricane's speed, followed by Breeze Flyer who had a worried expression on her face.

Eventually, somepony was getting closer to them.

"Look!
Somepony is coming!" Pinkie Pie said, pointing at a pony that was approaching the group at rapid speed.

"Who is it?" Fluttershy asked.

"I can see blue fur!" Pinkie Pie said excitedly.

"They both have blue fur..." Star Twinkle corrected.

They all waited until the pony got closer.
It became slowly clear who it was.

"Rainbow Dash!" The girls exclaimed happily, followed by some cheers.

"What?" Breeze Flyer said shocked.

Despite, Rainbow Dash winning the race, she didn't seem to be too happy and landed in front of everypony with an angry expression on her face.

"Where is this cheater?" She asked.

Confused about what Rainbow Dash was talking about, everypony looked at each other.

"Is something wrong?" Twilight asked.

"I demand another race!
I was about to win this race but then he cheated!
Come on, another race!" She exclaimed angrily.

"What do you mean?
You did win," Star Twinkle said.

"I do?" Rainbow Dash said confused.
"I mean...yes, of course, I do!
Told you that there is no pony in Equestria that can beat me," Rainbow Dash boasted.

"That sounded a little different a second ago..." Star Twinkle thought after witnessing Rainbow Dash's sudden mood change.

However, not everypony was happy about Rainbow Dash's victory.
Breeze Flyer walked up to the group angrily and wanted to find out where Hurricane Wing was at.

"I don't know...
I was right behi-...err I mean HE was right behind me the whole time..." Rainbow Dash said, for some reason avoiding eye contact.

"There is no way that he is that far behind!
So where is he!" She said almost threatening.

But she backed off again after everypony stood there to back up Rainbow Dash.
Breeze Flyer was starting to worry and one dangerous thought crossed her mind.

"Wait!
What if he..." She said worriedly.

She then turned around and quickly flew off in direction of Canterlot.

"I'll take it that they don't take losses very well?" Applejack wondered.

But Star Twinkle reminded everypony why they held the race in the first place.

"We need to follow her!
With both of them gone, we can't find out where their headquarter is!"

The girls quickly remembered that their price was the location of the Storm Wings headquarter if they manage to win.
With this thought in mind, they followed the mare in the direction of Canterlot.

Their chase went on fluidly until they reached a forest.
Rainbow Dash had no problem following her in the sky but the rest had to fiddle their way around the trees and bushes.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle tripped over something.
This caused him to lay on the ground for a while in pain.
He noticed that it was a bottle, that caused him to trip.

Before he knew it, he lost track of the others and found himself alone.

"Great..." he said in annoyance.

He inspected the bottle a little to find out its consistency.
He opened it and sniffed it.

"Smells bitter...
Medicine?" He wondered.

He kept the bottle and attempted to run after the girls again but something caught his attention.
A green torn ribbon was hanging on a tree branch above him.

He noticed that it was the same kind of ribbon that Rainbow was wearing.
The one that they had to fetch from Canterlot.

"Why is it hanging here?" He wondered.

Star Twinkle didn't want to be left behind by his friends any further but felt like something was wrong.

His curiosity got the better of him and he decided to look around a little.
He found Hurricane Wing a little further away from the ribbon and the bottle.

Hurricane Wing laid on the ground, his eyes closed and with a painful expression on his face.
Star Twinkle figured that he must have hurt himself and quickly rushed to his side.

"Hey!
What's wrong?
Are you hurt?" Star Twinkle asked in a panic.

However, Hurricane could not answer properly.
He could barely breathe and probably didn't even noticed Star Twinkle due to his pain.

"Can you speak?
I'm not a doctor, you need to tell me what's wrong!" Star Twinkle exclaimed panickily.

Hurricane Wing then noticed how Star Twinkle was next to him and spoke some words.

"Me...di...cine...” he managed to say.

"Medicine?" Star Twinkle said.

That's when he remembered the bottle, that he picked up previously.

"You mean this?" Star Twinkle presented the bottle that he found.

Hurricane Wing only nodded as a response.
Star Twinkle opened the bottle once more and lead it to Hurricane Wing's mouth, who then drank from it.

Hurricane Wing's condition got quickly better after drinking the "medicine".
He breathed a lot slower now and didn't seem to be in pain anymore.

Star Twinkle let out a relieved sigh and calmed down as well.

"What was that?" He wondered.

He walked out of the forest with Hurricane Wing on his back who was no unconscious.
While carrying, Star Twinkle wondered why he was helping his enemy at all.
They wanted to steal the Elements of Harmony.
He couldn't just leave him like that.
Right?

"Hurricane!" A voice from above yelled.

It was Breeze Flyer who quickly approached Star Twinkle angrily and demanded that he should drop Hurricane Wing.

Star Twinkle did as he was told and backed away a little.
She was inspecting him out of concern and noticed how he was looking a little ill.

“What did you do?!” She asked in a threatening voice, glaring at Star Twinkle angrily.

Star Twinkle got startled a little and backed away further.
He was about to explain the situation but Breeze Flyer noticed the bottle of medicine in one of Star Twinkle's hooves and got confused.

“Why are you holding this?” She asked confused.

Star Twinkle realized that she was in a better mood now and told her what happened a few minutes ago.
Breeze Flyer believed him.
The symptoms that Star Twinkle witnessed sounded familiar to her.

“So does that mean, that you saved him?” She asked in a little softer voice.

“I don't know.
What exactly happened to him?”

Since Star Twinkle already saw Hurricane's “condition”, Breeze Flyer figured that there was no point in hiding anything anymore.

“You may won't believe it after seeing him fly like that but...
Hurricane has a really weak body...
Sometimes he needs to take this potion to ease his...pain...” She explained while looking over to Hurricane Wing worriedly.
“I don't know what would have happened to him if you didn't come along...
so...
Thank you” she said lowering her head out of gratefulness.

Star Twinkle was wondering if one of them would have done the same if he was in this situation but he didn't have any time to think about that a few minutes ago.
He had the chance to do something and that's exactly what he did.

“Listen...I want to thank you but...I can't tell you where our headquarter is...
The Storm Wings are my family and I well not sell them out...” She said almost in regret for not giving Star Twinkle anything in return for his help.

It's not like Star Twinkle wanted some kind of reward but if the Storm Wings keep “attacking” him and his friends then times could get really busy.

“Can I at least ask you why you are stealing the Element's of Harmony?”

She seemed to hesitate for a while but in the end, she could not give an answer to that either since she didn't know it.

“Hey, if you guys keep coming after us, then we will keep defending ourselves!
You do realize that what are you doing is wrong, right?” Star Twinkle said a little angry out of worry for him and his friends.

“Yes, I know...” Breeze Flyer replied almost instantly.

Star Twinkle was surprised that she was actually admitting that.
For a bunch of “bad guys” how he prefers to call them, he had trouble to actually dislike them so far.
She seemed to be fully aware of her actions and even regrets it.
Looking back at it, Hurricane Wing also didn't seem like a bad pony.

This eventually, reminded Star Twinkle about what Twilight said before.

“A friend of me told me about your group.
She told me that you once protected other ponies.
So why are you doing this right now?”

Once again, Breeze Flyer hesitated.
But she was giving Star Twinkle an answer this time.

“It's because of our new leader,” she replied, causing her to sharpen her eyes out of anger.
“Let me give you a warning...
Our leader will not like it when we return empty-hooved.
And that means that he will send more of us to you soon.
Believe it or not but Tornado- Err I mean Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing are the third highest members of the Storm Wings,”

Star Twinkle felt strangely intimidated by this.
Steel Wing was incredibly strong.
Hurricane Wing was extremely fast.
And there were two other ponies who were probably more dangerous than those two?
Knowing that there were, even more, stronger ponies coming after him and his friends was certainly upsetting his mood.

“The highest member is, of course, our leader.
The only pony beside him, who is of even higher rank as Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing is most likely coming after you next.
And...you want to avoid that...” Breeze Flyer warned.

It was awfully helpful from Breeze Flyer to warn Star Twinkle like that.
Maybe it was some kind of trap?
There was a possibility.

“This all kinda sounds like, you want to help me,” Star Twinkle said in mistrust.

“I would do anything to protect the Storm Wing's but...
Not the way they are now...” Breeze Flyer explained with a frown on her face.
“You were helping Hurricane Wing so maybe you can help the Storm Wings too.
At least that's what I believe...”

She then put Hurricane Wing on her back and was about to leave.
Star Twinkle had no reason to stop her.
If they are coming to him and his friends, then there was no reason to ask about their headquarter.
Still, putting so much faith into Star Twinkle to help the Storm Wing's was a little too much.

Breeze Flyer walked away into the forest with Hurricane Wing on her back and Star Twinkle walked in the opposite direction.

After a few minutes of walking, he met up with his friends again.
They apparently lost sight of Breeze Flyer after they went to look for Star Twinkle.
They all walked over to him in order to find out if he was okay.
But they also wondered where Breeze Flyer went.

“Have you seen one of the Storm Wings?” Twilight asked.

“Yes.
There is no reason to follow them anymore,” he replied, causing everypony to lower their eyebrows in confusion.
“Let's go home.
I tell you everything on the way back,”

He said that it is okay and informed them about the discussion that he had with Breeze Flyer as they walked back to Ponyville.
And that they have to be careful.
Because soon they probably had to face much worse...

Meanwhile, not too far away...

Breeze Flyer walked slowly through the forest with Hurricane Wing on his back who slowly began to wake up.
Breeze Flyer noticed and stopped for a minute.

“You're awake?” She asked softly.

“Where are we?
I feel weird...” He replied still feeling a little drained from before.

“We are going home...
Back to the headquarter...” Breeze Flyer said softly.

“But what about the elements?
We need to go back and-”

“No...” Breeze Flyer interrupted.
“You are in no condition to continue the mission...”

Hurricane Wing felt sad hearing that and dropped his head.
He was well aware what happened to him.
Of how Star Twinkle helped him.

“We will go back and explain everything to Cyclone Wing.
He will understand...”

“I'm not worried about him...” Hurricane Wing replied concerned.

“Yes...I know...” Breeze Flyer said before she frowned.

They continued their long way back to the headquarter to report that their mission failed.
It was not clear what will happen after their return.
But...
It probably didn't even compare to what Star Twinkle and the others would face in the future...

38. Get Applejack back!

View Online

Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were ordered to repair the town hall...again...

It was probably the third time this month.
Not because the two carpenter ponies did a terrible job but because the town hall was long beyond any repair.

Still, they did their best to repair the building the best they could.

Rainbow Dash offered her help as well and even brought a friend along who was helping too.
But that turned out to be a really bad idea.

Star Twinkle was busy, hammering in some nails until he had to dodge a thunder that almost hit him.
After getting startled by that, he gave a glare to the mare who caused it.

It came from the mare with the gray coat, the blonde mane, some bubbles as a Cutie Mark and most noticeable, her yellow crossed eyes.
Rainbow Dash already scolded the mare and asked her to be more careful.

"Careful, Derpy! Don't want to do any more damage than you've already done,"

"I just don't know what went wrong," Derpy replied bouncing up and down on her cloud until she got shocked by lightning, which came out of the cloud.

However, Rainbow Dash seemed to be familiar with her behavior since she wasn't showing any surprise.

"Yeah. It's a mystery," Rainbow Dash said slightly annoyed before she hammered a nail in the wall to pin down a flag.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer almost finished their work on the building.

"Nice work, you guys," said Derpy before she accidentally hit one of the supporting pillars on the upper level of the building, causing it to fall down to the ground.
Rainbow Dash tried to catch it but the pillar was too heavy and she crashed through the wooden floor along with the pillar.

"Hey!
I just fixed that!" Steel Hammer exclaimed annoyed, turning to Derpy, who replied with an awkward smile.

Derpy put her head through the hole in the floor to look if Rainbow Dash was alright followed by Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer who walked up to the hole.

Rainbow Dash quickly flew into Derpy's face.
"No! Nothing!" Rainbow Dash said annoyed and frustrated.
"In the name of Celestia, just sit there and do nothing!"

Derpy did as she was told and sat down on the floor.
This caused the wooden floor to splinter and break.
Derpy fell down through herself-created hole but tried to hold on Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash, causing them both to fall down too.

Steel Hammer was just watching the whole scenario unfold and shook his head.

"Should have considered working in demolition..." He mumbled to himself.

His attention was then focused at some loud cheers that came from a few meters away.
A crowd was cheering and stomping for Applejack, who was looking a little embarrassed.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle, Rainbow Dash and Derpy crawled out of the hole to listen to the Mayor.

"Everypony, can I get your attention? Attention please!" The Mayor said, trying to get the attention of the crowd.
"We are all here to send Applejack to compete in this year's Equestria Rodeo competition in Canterlot,"

The crowd continued to cheer for Applejack.
Every year Applejack was sent off to attend the Rodeo competition in Canterlot.
And every time she would come back with a bunch of blue ribbons and a lot of price money.
Usually, Applejack would give away her price money for the town and this time wasn't any different.
Applejack offered to give her price money to repair the town hall.

The crowd was still cheering for Applejack.
Pinkie Pie, who was in the middle of the crowd was asking for a speech.

“Oh, shucks. I'm not much for speeches,” Applejack replied a little modest.

“Alright then, no speech!” Pinkie Pie said vanishing in an instant.

“Buuut” Applejack added, causing Pinkie Pie to appear again.

“This here is the nicest send off anypony could ask for. Y'all have been cheering me on in every rodeo since I was a little pony. So it seems only fittin' to use my winnings to fix up town hall. I promise to make Ponyville proud,” Applejack assured, leading the crowd to cheer once more.

A few minutes later, Applejack was about to board the train.
Her friends and family were also there to wish her good luck.

“I want you to show all them highfalutin rodeo ponies what a real rodeo pony's like!” Granny Smith said.

“You betcha, Granny Smith,” Applejack replied confidently.

“And bring back all that money!” The Mayor said, having the current state of the town hall in mind.

“You betcha, Mayor,” Applejack replied again, attempting to go inside the train but Pinkie Pie was in front of her to say her goodbye as well.

“And have fun. And don't be nervous. Or if you are, use that nervous energy to do even better than you already would! And eat peanuts and popcorn and taffy and taffy gives lots of nervous energy!” She said pulling out a bag of taffies and munching on them.

“I think what she tried to say is...good luck?” Star Twinkle said with a confused look on his face.

“Just do your best, Applejack,” Twilight added.

But Applejack assured everypony that she would do better than best.
After that, the train conductor was asking everypony to come aboard before the train was about to leave.
Applejack was then walking aboard the train.

The train was starting to move and Applejack waved everypony goodbye from her window.

“Seeya in a week!” Rainbow Dash said from the station.

“With lots of new blue ribbons!” Apple Bloom added.

“And lots of money!” The Mayor added.

“Darn tootin'! See y'all in a week, with a big bag full of blue ribbons!” Applejack replied before she was out of sight for everypony.

“We should be glad that Applejack is doing that for the town,” Fluttershy said.

That was true, thought Star Twinkle.
Not everypony would give away so much money.

“Oh! I have a great idea!
Why not throw a party for Applejack, when she comes back?” Pinkie Pie suggested.

Everypony quickly agreed to that.
Throwing a party after she was gone for one week and spending her money for the town's hall is the least they could do.

One week later...

To welcome Applejack back, the surprise party was held in a barn in Sweet Apple Acres.
Every one of Applejack's friends and her family was helping out to fill the barn with decoration.

Star Twinkle wasn't feeling too comfortable.
There were not only his friends and the apple family but also a whole bunch of other ponies, that he didn't know.
It would be those kinds of party where he would just feel very uncomfortable at.
But he tried his best to not show how he felt, in order to not set the mood down.

“Oh, I hope Applejack is surprised by this surprise party!” Fluttershy said while putting on some decoration as well.

“Well, that is the point,” Rainbow Dash corrected.

“I know, but I hope she isn't so surprised she's startled, because while being surprised can be nice, being startled can be... very startling,” Fluttershy said.

Ironically, Pinkie Pie appeared in front of Fluttershy, shouting “surprise” in her face and causing her to get startled.
“Oh, Pinkie, you startled me,” she said while laying on the ground after the shock.

“Sorry! I was just practicing my "surprise!" for when we surprise Applejack with this super cool party for becoming rodeo champeen of Equestria!” Pinkie Pie said, helping Fluttershy up only to startle her again a few seconds later.

Twilight, who was looking outside the barn, advised Pinkie Pie to be quiet since she thought that Applejack was coming.

Everypony was hiding somewhere inside of the barn, ready to yell surprise as soon as Applejack enters the barn.
The door opened and everypony yelled "surprise" as soon as they saw Applejack.

However, instead of Applejack, the mail delivery pony was standing in front of them.

"Wow, this is the best surprise ever! How did you know it was my birthday?" He said in surprise.

Needless to say, it was not the pony everypony was expecting.
Twilight didn't bother talking with the post pony and grabbed the letter he was holding and closed the door behind her.
But Pinkie Pie did open the door again to leave him a slice of cake for his birthday.

Now, everypony was just curious what was written in the letter.
Twilight said that it was from Applejack and quickly read what was inside.

"Family and friends, not coming back to Ponyville," Twilight read out loud causing everypony to gasp in shock.
"...Don't worry, will send money soon. That's all there is," Twilight continued.

This caused everypony in the room to gasp in shock.

"Applejack's... not comin' back?" Apple bloom asked with a sad expression on her face.

There were all kinds of theories in the room regarding what might cause Applejack to not return to Ponyville.
Star Twinkle was thinking about what might hinder Applejack to return.
She either couldn't return for whatever reason or she didn't return because something more important came on.
Whatever it was, he and his friends quickly decided to search for Applejack in order to help her.

"Don't worry. We'll search all of Equestria if we have to. We'll bring her back," Twilight assured confident.

Applejack's family was glad to hear that and put all their hopes in the six ponies
Star Twinkle, Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie then left Ponyville and went to Canterlot.
Naturally, the rodeo was the first place where they were looking for Applejack.
It took some time but they eventually found out that Applejack wasn't in Canterlot anymore.
Instead, she was going to a place called Dodge Junction which was not too far away from Canterlot.
Apparently, Applejack was seen there after rodeo ended.

After the train arrived, Twilight suggested to split up to find her but Pinkie Pie was running off since she needed to use the bathroom.

“Let's meet in an hour at this place again.
Hopefully, we find Applejack before that...” Twilight said with a little fading confidence.

“I found her!” Pinkie Pie suddenly, exclaimed happily while bouncing up and down.

First, Star Twinkle wondered what happened to Pinkie Pie's need to use the bathroom but then he realized the what Pinkie Pie meant by “I found her!”.

Pinkie Pie walked everypony around the corner and pointed at Applejack, who was only a few meters away.

Everypony gathered around Applejack, who seemed surprised to see her friends.

"Oh, Applejack, thank heavens!" Rarity said relieved

"We're so glad you're safe!" Fluttershy added.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie continued to bounce up and down, yelling "I found her" until she realized again that she needed to use the toilet, making her rush to the
toilet again.

"Uh, hey, everypony. What's up?" Applejack greeted as if nothing was wrong at all.

"Why didn't you come back to Ponyville?!" Rainbow Dash asked, wasting no time to address the elephant in the room.

"Yes, why are you here?" Rarity asked.

"Are you okay?" Fluttershy asked.

"Do you have any snacks?" Pinkie Pie asked out of context after exiting the toilet.

"Tell us what happened, Applejack!" Twilight demanded.

But then a pony with a yellow coat, a red mane and a cherry as a Cutie Mark appeared in front of the group.

"Applejack? Are these some of your Ponyville friends?" She asked.

The pony introduced herself as Cherry Jubilee, the boss of Cherry Hill Ranch.
She was highly praising Applejack's performance at the rodeo. Saying that she never saw anypony win this many ribbons before.
She also offered Applejack a job after seeing her at the rodeo.
Apparently, Applejack was looking for a "change of scenery".

Cherry Jubilee left the seven ponies again but not without leaving some confusion.

"Change of scenery? What's that supposed to mean?" Rainbow Dash asked confused.

"S'no big deal, guys. I thought cherries would be a nice change from apples, so I took the job and came here. That's it. End of story," Applejack replied.

This was very unlikely for Applejack.
Her family was probably the most important thing in her life and so was Sweet Apple Acres.
Saying that she wants to try something different, was weird coming from Applejack.

Of course, everypony wanted to find out more and refused to leave without Applejack but she didn't want to talk about it and left, saying that everything was okay.

"I don't care what she says. Applejack's not telling us something," Twilight said.

That one was obvious.
Applejack wasn't exactly happy about seeing her friends.
Something was bothering her.

"Twilight's right. We gotta get her to spill the beans," Rainbow Dash added.

The six ponies had to come up with a plan to convince Applejack to tell them what exactly was going on.

Cherry Jubilee told them that Applejack was working for her now.
That gave everypony an idea what to do next.

Later that day...

Applejack was about to start her work for Cherry Jubilee.
She had to work in a small barn, walking inside of a wheel.
Since Applejack was used to work, she didn't seem to mind.

“You ready to put your back into it, Applejack?” Cherry Jubilee asked.

“Sure am, Miss Jubilee,” Applejack replied happily and ready to work.

“Terr-ific,” Cherry Jubilee replied happily.
“Come on in!” She then shouted towards the barn entrance.

Applejack was not sure what that was about but quickly understood after looking towards the barn entrance, only to find out that all her friends entered the barn, wearing the same chef's hats as she does.

“What are you all doing here?” Applejack asked confused.

“We're your cherry sorters,” Twilight replied as she and the others placed themselves in front of a production line.

Applejack was clearly not happy seeing her friends.
She probably knew that this was all a cover for asking her why she wasn't returning to Ponyville.

Cherry Jubilee quickly explained what they had to do.

“Red cherries go in one bin, and yellow cherries go in the other. Simple as cherry pie. Uh,
just one teensy thing to remember: have fun!” She said leaving the group of ponies with their work.

“Working and having fun are two things that I can't imagine to be together but whatever,” Star Twinkle thought.

Applejack only gave the six ponies a mistrustful glance.
Star Twinkle was also wondering if this plan will work since Applejack doesn't seem to be interested in talking with her friends at all.

“What are you six up to?” Applejack asked, only proving that she knows what they were up too.

“Well, uh, you made working on a cherry orchard sound... so delightful,” Rarity replied.

“Uh-huh. Well, just remember: No talking about Ponyville,”

“Fine! Why don't you quit talking and get walking?” Rainbow Dash said, who seemed to be a little annoyed by Applejack's behavior.

Applejack then slowly started to move inside of the wheel.
This caused the production line to move.
Very slowly, red and yellow cherries started to move towards the six ponies.
Star Twinkle, Twilight and Rarity were pushing the red cherries into one box and Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie did the same with the yellow cherries.

“Well, that doesn't look too hard.
I guess I let the girls do the talking, while I just focus on this,” Star Twinkle thought concentrating on his work.

Eventually, while working with the cherries, the girls started to ask questions to Applejack in order to get some answers from her.

“So, AJ, how was Canterlot?” Twilight asked.

Applejack was glaring at Twilight for a moment but Twilight was pointing out that she was talking about Canterlot and not Ponyville.

“Canterlot was fine,” Applejack replied.

“Was the rodeo fun?” Twilight asked.

“Yes,” Applejack replied.

While answering, Twilight approached Applejack much to her surprise.

“Did you meet some nice ponies there?” She asked.

“Some,” Applejack replied.

Soon Rainbow Dash also left the group to ask Applejack some questions.

“Really? Did you see Wild Bull Hickok? What about Calamity Mane?”

Star Twinkle had no idea who those two were but the more important question in his head was, how these questions were supposed to get some answers from Applejack.

“And how did you meet Miss Jubilee?” Rarity asked, also leaving the group of ponies to ask Applejack some questions.

Only Star Twinkle, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were left to take care of the cherries.
Which would not be a problem if Applejack wasn't walking faster and faster, causing more cherries to come out than the three ponies could handle.
Star Twinkle and Fluttershy tried to get the attention from the others but they didn't seem to notice due to their questioning.

“Did you tell her why you weren't going back?” Rainbow Dash asked further.

“No, 'cuz it was none of her business!” Applejack replied.

Applejack seemed to get more and angrier by all this questioning and didn't realize that she was running too fast for Star Twinkle, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie to keep up.

“Is it because I made it rain on you that one time?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Is it because you were insulted when I gave you that book on organized orchards?” Twilight asked.

“Is it because you were insulted when I insulted your hair?” Rarity asked.

Eventually, Applejack snapped from all these questions.

“No, no, NO! I'm not telling you why, so just-”

“STOP!” Star Twinkle and Fluttershy shouted, finally making Applejack stop running but unfortunately for her, all the cherries came flying towards her, covering her in cherry juice.

The six ponies could only gasp in shock after these unfortunate events.
Applejack then decided to leave without a word.
Star Twinkle couldn't blame her but he still couldn't understand why she refused to answer anything.

Star Twinkle and the others had to clean up the whole place before Cherry Jubilee returned.
Strangely this was more work than their actual work.

“Well, that didn't work really well...” Star Twinkle said while removing some cherries from the ground.
“How about we leave her alone?
Whatever her problem is, she will probably take care of it and return,” Star Twinkle suggested.

This caught the attention of the others, who of course, didn't share Star Twinkle's opinion.

“If she has a problem, then it's only natural that we as her friends should help her,” Twilight explained, putting a hoof on Star Twinkle's shoulder.

“Yes. Whatever her problem is, we need to support her as best as we can,” Rarity added, putting a hoof on his other shoulder.

“But if she doesn't want help?
Maybe she got caught up in something that we can't help her with?” Star Twinkle asked.

“If she decides to be stubborn like that, then there is no way to find out!” Rainbow Dash said, slightly annoyed.

Whatever he was saying, the others just don't think like him, making him feel out of place.
It's like they are forcing Applejack to let them help her.
Why couldn't he think like that?

While cleaning up the place Cherry Jubilee entered the room with a shocked expression on her face.
It took a while until everything was explained by Twilight and the others but Miss Jubilee stated that she needed somepony to help bucking some cherries to make up for the mess that Star Twinkle and the others created.

Eventually, Star Twinkle was picked to do this so he went outside only to see Applejack doing some cherry-bucking.

“Hey, Applejack,” Star Twinkle greeted.

But instead of getting greeted back, Applejack only returned an angry glare at him.
Needless to say, Star Twinkle was surprised to get this reaction just after saying “hey”.

“I will not answer you any questions.
Are we clear?” Applejack said almost threatening.

Star Twinkle could say that he didn't ask her any question so far to defend himself but after everything that happened so far, this might not be the best idea right now.
But on the other hoof, it couldn't get much worse.

"Wow...you really don't want to tell us huh?" He returned, making Applejack not react and return to her cherry tree.
"I mean did you really think you can start working here and nopony asks questions?
The others are just trying to help you,"

“I don't need help,” Applejack replied angrily and annoyed, probably being sick from all this questioning.

Star Twinkle didn't understand.
Without even realizing it, his thoughts became a mess.

“Why is she so stubborn?
And why am I even trying to talk with her?
Is it because of the others?
If she wants to deal with her problem on her own...
But the others still want to help her!
Why can't I think like that?
But why should I help her if she doesn't even want-” But before he could end his thought, he remembered something.

Back then, when it was Applebuck Season.
It was exactly like that.
Back then she also refused any help.
At that time, Twilight almost forced Star Twinkle to help Applejack.
But he didn't want to help because she wasn't asking.
But in reality, he was probably thinking that she was dealing with her problem on her own.
She didn't want help.

“I don't want help...”

For some reason those words made Star Twinkle feel sad but he didn't know why.
It was hard seeing a friend trying to deal with everything on their own.

Star Twinkle's mind was set.
His thoughtful and sad expression turned into a determent one.

“Just tell me, Applejack,” he said with a rare seriousness in his voice.

Applejack stopped bucking for a second to look at Star Twinkle annoyed.

“I don't want to see you deal with whatever the problem is alone.
I want to help too.
At least tell just me what the problem is so that I can understand,”

Applejack noticed how serious it was for Star Twinkle.
She did show some hesitation at first and didn't bother answering but somehow she wanted to tell somepony.
She moved closer to Star Twinkle and looked if nopony else was around.

“You promise not to tell anypony?” She asked quietly.

"Cross my legs and hope to dry, stick a cupcake in my nose," he said making the usual Pinkie Promise gesture.

She once again looked around if nopony was around and spit out the secret.

“I didn't win in the rodeo...” she whispered.

Not seeing the problem, Star Twinkle's eyebrows lowered in confusion.
It also didn't make sense judging from Cherry Jubilees statement.

“But Miss Jubilee said that you won a lot of ribbons,” Star Twinkle asked.

“Yes, I did win a lot of ribbons but I never made first place,”

“Aaaand the problem is?” Star Twinkle asked boldly.

Applejack returned a shocked expression which slowly turned to a mix of frustration and anger.

“The problem is that I didn't win any money to bring home to Ponyville.
That's why I'm working here!” Applejack replied, still making sure that she was whispering.

“Yeah, I get that you didn't win the money but who cares?
I'm sure nopony minds that you-”

“What are you talking about?”

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie appeared between them, causing both earth ponies to get startled.
Applejack's main concern, of course, was if Pinkie Pie overheard anything that they both talked about.
But Pinkie Pie didn't seem to have heard anything.

“What are you doing here Pinkie Pie?” Applejack asked after recovering from the shock.

“I just wanted to ask you if you need any help,” she replied.

“You promise not to ask me any questions?” Applejack asked to make sure that her secret would be saved but Pinkie Pie promised that she wouldn't ask any questions.

Star Twinkle was then dragged by Rainbow Dash behind a tree.
It looked like she was hiding from Applejack

“It looked like you were talking about something.
Did you manage to get some answers?” Twilight asked in hope that Star Twinkle would give them some answers.

Star Twinkle did promise to not tell anypony so there was no way that he could tell Twilight.

“No...” he said while avoiding eye-contact with Twilight, which only made him look more suspicious.

"By the way, why are we hiding?" Star Twinkle asked, quickly changing the subject.

Rainbow Dash then approached Star Twinkle.

"We have a plan to make Applejack talk!" Rainbow Dash said confidently.

Star Twinkle didn't quite understand.
When he looked over to Applejack and Pinkie Pie, he could only see Pinkie Pie saying some random stuff.
something about cherrychanga or chimicherrychanga, while Applejack slowly seemed to lose her mind.

"Oh..." Star Twinkle said after realizing what his friends tried to do.

"No! Make it stop, make it stop!" Applejack screamed in frustration.

Rainbow Dash then covered Pinkie Pie's mouth, saying that the only way to stop Pinkie Pie's talking was, to tell the truth.
At first, Applejack refused but after Rainbow Dash removed her hoof and releasing Pinkie Pie again, she finally gave up.

"Alright, alright! I'll tell everypony what's goin' on! Just please stop talkin'! But... can it wait 'til tomorrow at breakfast? I'm plum tuckered out," she asked of her friends.

This smelled fishy.
Even Rainbow Dash didn't trust Applejack's words right away.
But Pinkie Pie wanted her to Pinkie Promise so that they can be absolutely sure.
Applejack agreed to that and made the classic Pinkie Promise gesture.

"I will tell you the whole truth at breakfast. Pinkie promise,"

This proved enough for Star Twinkle.
There is no way that Applejack would break a Pinkie Promise.
Still, giving in like that so sudden was surprising him.

Star Twinkle told everypony that he was into Applejack's secret but they didn't seem to mind since Applejack was about to tell everypony the truth on the next day.

Everypony was spending the night in Cherry Jubilees barn.
Applejack was not talking to anypony after they returned.
Star Twinkle was wondering how she wanted to tell everypony the truth.
He couldn't shake off the feeling that something was wrong.

While dozing off to sleep, as usual, Star Twinkle thought about the events of the day.
He still wondered why this matter was bothering him so much.
He did decide to be more open when it comes to friendship matters but it was not like he was forcing himself.
It was more like, hurting him, for not being able to do anything.

With this thought in his mind, he eventually fell asleep.
Once again his dreams were accompanied by some voices.

“I don't need help....

I can do this on my own...

I don't want you to get involved with this...

Yes, that's exactly why...

Because were friends...”

On the next day...

Despite his weird dreams, Star Twinkle slept tight in his bed for the night without interruptions.
He remembered his dream very clearly.
He also remembered that he had this dream before.
It was somehow connected with Applejack's behavior from yesterday.
It made Star Twinkle feel sad for some reason.

He woke up a little while before breakfast, much to his dislike.
Since he was the only stallion, he had a whole room for himself.
He looked out of the window from his bed and tried to figure out how late it was.
It was already day but he attempted to get some more sleep.

But while looking outside of the window, he noticed something in the distance.
Applejack was running away in the distance with her stuff on her back.

"Where is she going?" Star Twinkle wondered.

He followed her to find out what was going on.
Applejack ran to the train station, always making sure that nopony was following her.
Star Twinkle did his best to remain hidden and followed her all the way.
It was then, that he realized what she was trying to do.
She was trying to leave town so that she wouldn't have to explain everything to the others.

"Applejack!" Star Twinkle exclaimed.

Applejack got startled for a second but calmed down after noticing that it was Star Twinkle.

"Sheesh, it's only you..." she said relieved.

"What do you mean it's only me?
Where are you going?" Star Twinkle asked even though he already knew the answer.

"Out of town..." Applejack replied almost casually.

It was Applejack but he didn't quite expect to hear an honest answer like that.
He was giving her a scolding expression and Applejack knew that Star Twinkle wanted an explanation.
After a little hesitation, Applejack gave in and gave a proper answer.

"I can't do it, Star Twinkle...
Everypony was expecting so much from me and I let them all down..."

"What are you talking about?
You didn't let anypony down!
Nopony will blame you for not winning the prize money!" Star Twinkle replied, knowing that what he was saying is true fro once.

"And what am I supposed to do?" Applejack asked.

"Just tell them!
I mean they are all reasonable.
I'm sure they will understand," Star Twinkle assured.

Suddenly, a loud voice of echoed through the town screaming:
"Applejack!" causing both Star Twinkle and Applejack to shrug in surprise.

It came from Pinkie Pie who, along with Twilight, Fluttershy, Rarity and Rainbow Dash running towards the two earth ponies with a really angry look on her face.

"YOU PINKIE PROMISED!" She screamed once more in anger, sending shivers down the two ponies.

"Or maybe not..." Star Twinkle thought.

"RUN!" Star Twinkle screamed in fear.

Star Twinkle and Applejack were both running away from their friends not only to avoid a really angry Pinkie Pie but also to not tell them about Applejack's secret.

"Over there!" Applejack said, pointing at a stagecoach with four ponies in front.

Star Twinkle and Applejack jumped on the coach in order to get away from everypony.
The four ponies didn't seem to mind and pulled the coach without questioning anything.
But their friends were following the two earth ponies on another cart, pulled by Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

"Wait. What are we doing?" Star Twinkle thought.

"Why am I even running away?
Applejack, let's just tell them right now!" Star Twinkle exclaimed in the middle of all this mess.

"Do you really want to talk with them now?!" Applejack replied while focusing her eyes on the road.

Star Twinkle didn't know what she meant with that but then looked back to the cart that was following them.
The first thing he saw was a really angry Pinkie Pie, who seemed very determent to get to the two of them for leaving.

"Good point..." he said.

The cart got closer to Star Twinkle's and Applejack's coach.
Rainbow Dash rammed the coach in order to make it stop.

“Pull over!” Rainbow Dash said in an attempt to stop them.

“Hey! Cut that out!” Applejack said angrily but Rainbow Dash didn't stop and continued to ram them.
“We'll pay you double to outrun them,” Applejack offered to the four ponies who pulled the coach.
It seemed to work since they gained some speed.

“Hey! What do you mean we?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

Things started to look good for Star Twinkle and Applejack for a moment until Twilight also made an offer.

“We'll pay you triple to slow down!” Twilight offered to the four stallions, who then actually did slow down.

“We'll pay you quadruple to leave them in the dust!” Applejack offered once more, making the others fall back a little.

"Just so you know, I don't earn THAT much money as a carpenter pony..." Star Twinkle annoyed.

But the little head start only lasted for a short while.
The cart slowly caught up again and was right behind the coach.
Not only that but Pinkie Pie managed to hop on board to confront Applejack about the Pinkie Promise.

"Applejack, you broke your Pinkie promise! Apologize!" Pinkie Pie said angrily.

But Applejack assured that she wasn't breaking her Pinkie Promise, confusing Pinkie Pie for a moment.

“If y'all reckon back, I told you that I would tell you everything at breakfast. But I didn't come for breakfast. I couldn't come to that breakfast, not if it meant telling y'all what happened.
I'm sorry, Pinkie, but I can't tell y'all the truth. I just can't!” She explained, leaving everypony with a confused and worried expression on their face.

Pinkie Pie still seemed a little upset but she did forgive Applejack and jumped back into her own cart.

“Well, I heard a "sorry" in there, so that'll have to do for now. I'll get a real apology later. Rarity, catch me,” she said before she jumped back in her cart.

Star Twinkle was not sure what happened but after Pinkie Pie jumped back to her cart, she and Rarity fell out of their cart and landed in the dirt.

The chase was going on for a good while now and Star Twinkle wondered if that was all worth it.
Suddenly, some noises caught his attention.
In the distance, he saw a railway crossing, which was slowly closing and a train that was driving towards it.
When he then looked at Applejack's determent expression on her face, he knew that THIS was definitely not worth it

Even the four stallions gave Applejack some worried looks after they figured out what she was about to do.
Star Twinkle's face was colored in fear while watching the train coming closer.
He covered his eyes and just hoped for the best.

He could hear some cracking noises after a while, most likely caused by breaking the stopping lines.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw how they were on the other side of the rails with the train driving through the crossing.

Even thought they were in so much danger, Applejack seemed to have tons of fun and was just relieved to have shaken off the others.

“Lady, you're trouble,” the four coach ponies said in unison before they left.

"Ha, try and catch me now," Applejack said in victory.

The train was still driving through, making it impossible to cross the rails at the moment.

"You do know that this can't go on forever, right?" Star Twinkle said, reminding Applejack that someday they will have to tell their friends the truth.

"Don't worry.
I just need a little more time to figure something out," Applejack replied confidently.

Star Twinkle was about to try to convince her to tell everypony the truth again.
Not only because it was wrong to run away all the time but also so that he didn't have to get dragged along with it.
But then, the cart was flying over the train with the help of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

"Well, I guess you are out of time now..." Star Twinkle said after realizing that it was over for them.

Applejack still tried to run away but Rainbow Dash quickly caught up with her and knocked her to the ground.
While being knocked down, her bag opened by accident causing a bunch of ribbons to fall out of it.

Applejack covered her eyes in shame as soon as everypony noticed.

"Fine. Now you know," Applejack said.

Twilight, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash didn't quite get what Applejack meant.
They noticed the ribbons on the ground but didn't know what to make out of it.

"Know what?" Twilight asked confused.

“Well, just look!” She said pointing at all the ribbons on the ground.

There were several ribbons and medals on the ground.
But the three ponies still didn't know what upset Applejack.

“I am. You won an amazing number of ribbons, just like Miss Jubilee said!” Twilight said happily, not expecting anything less from Applejack.

“Don't you get it? There's every color of ribbon down there. Every color... but... blue. I came in fourth, third, even second, but I didn't win one first prize, and I certainly didn't win any prize money,”

“But the telegram said you were gonna send money,” Rainbow Dash pointed out.

"That's why she came here.
To earn some money.
She didn't want to come home after everypony was expecting her to win," Star Twinkle explained.

"Exactly...I just didn't have the nerve to come home empty-hooved. I couldn't come home a failure,"

That was not what Star Twinkle was about to say but he had the feeling that everypony knew that Applejack was just blaming herself.

"Applejack, you're not a failure," Twilight said comforting Applejack.

"And we're your friends! We don't care if you came in fiftieth place! You're still number one in our books," Rainbow Dash added.

Applejack wasn't facing, Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy but Star Twinkle saw how Applejack's eyes were tearing up a bit in happiness, which she quickly tried to hide again.

“So... you're not upset or disappointed?”

To that, they were only shaking their heads happily.

"Told you..." Star Twinkle said with a smug smile on his face, causing Applejack to reply with a relieved smile.

But there was still something that bothered Applejack.

“But what about the mayor? I don't think I can face her and tell her I didn't get that money to fix the broken roof,” she pointed out worriedly.

"I'm sure if Steel Hammer and I put some more time into it, the town hall will be as good as new," Star Twinkle assured confidently.

“Yes, Applejack, we can always find a way to fix that hole in the roof. But if you don't come back, we'll never be able to fix the hole in our hearts,” Fluttershy said, inviting Applejack in a little group hug with her and Twilight.

Rainbow Dash was flying above the four and tried to hold back her tears but quickly acted all, though, stating that they got her acting all sappy now.

After everything was settled again, the five ponies took the train and returned to Ponyville again.
There was still some time until they arrived and Applejack took the time to prepare a letter for the princess.

"Twilight, I think I have a letter to write to the princess,"

"Really? Let me hear!" Twilight replied excitedly.

Everypony then listened to Applejack as she quoted the words that she wanted to write the letter.

"Dear Princess Celestia,
It's a tad easier to be proud when you come in first than it is when you finish further back.
But there's no reason to hide when you don't do as well as you'd hoped.
You can't run away from your problems.
Better to run to your friends and family,"

After a while, the group arrived back at Ponyville, where Applejack was greeted by her friends and family.
They didn't care about the money or how well she did in the rodeo.
All they wanted now was Applejack returning to Ponyville.

But still...
Even thought they were all happy, something did seem to miss.
Star Twinkle was thinking carefully until he finally realized.

"Wait!" Star Twinkle exclaimed in realization.
"We forgot Rarity and Pinkie Pie!"

Meanwhile, near Dodge Town...

Pinkie Pie and Rarity arrived at Dodge Junction, still covered in mud and dirt.
Rarity was not looking too happy because she had to endure Pinkie Pie's blabbing on the whole way back to town.

They both waited at the train station until the train to Ponyville arrived.

“Wasn't this trip exciting?
Or the chase?
I hope Twilight and the other caught up with Star Twinkle and Applejack!
I hope I don't need to use the toilet again while riding the train-”

Pinkie Pie continued to say everything that crossed her mind and Rarity only stood there with an annoyed look on her face.

Finally, the train arrived and they both could go home again.

They waited till everypony left the train before entering it.
A pony in a gray hood left the train and looked over to the two mares.

“Isn't that Pinkie Pie and Rarity?
What are they doing here?” He wondered.

They both boarded the train and didn't notice him, looking over to them.
He watched as the train left the station and went on his way again.

“Well, time to look if I can find something here...” he said as he began to wander through Dodge Junction.

Author's Notes:

Last Chapter in the year of 2016!
Time to recap!

Date: 23.12.2016

38 Chapters written + 1 intro

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Fimfiction
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That is awesome!
It's not Fallout Equestria stats or something but hey, being an Amateur writer, I expected like ten people to read this story.

So I would like to thank everyone who took a liking to my story so far.
Were are not even halfway trough the story so make sure that you'll keep track.
I would like to say that it will only get better from this point on but saying that after 38+ chapters is a little wrong...but it's true!

Anyway...

I wish everyone a very minty Christmas and a happy new year!

And as usual, please leave some kind of feedback for this story to help me get better.

See you in the next chapter ^^.

39. Quality vs Quantity

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It was still morning in Ponyville and Star Twinkle was fully asleep at that time.
However, somepony was knocking on his door, causing him to awake.
Being grumpy as always when he is thrown out of his bed, Star Twinkle was walking towards his door in order to open it.
The knocking continued, starting to annoy Star Twinkle a little,

"Alright, alright, I'm coming!" He said half-asleep, walking to his door.

When he opened the door, Rainbow Dash was standing in front of him with an overly excited expression on her face.

"Come on, Star Twinkle!
Cider season's about to start!" She said excitedly.

But Star Twinkle didn't show the same excitement than her.
Right now, all he wanted was to continue his nap.

"So?" Star Twinkle replied with his eyes half-open.

This caused Rainbow Dash to gasp in shock.

"What do you mean, “so”?
We have to go to Sweet Apple Acres to get our cider before Pinkie Pie grabs most of them!
This year I'm gonna get there before sunrise, so I can drink all the cider I want and laugh when she doesn't get any!
It's the perfect plan. Y'know, I might even buy some cider and hold onto it for a while, drinking it drop by drop in front of her–" She said in a more malicious tone.
"So are you coming or not?" Rainbow Dash asked waiting for Star Twinkle's answer.

But he just stood there and smashed the door shut in front of her after a while, leaving her confused outside.
He wasted no time, sliding inside of his bed again and covering himself with his bed sheets.
But he noticed some weight above him and opened his eyes, only to see Rainbow Dash above her.

"Aren't you excited for Cider Season at all?" She asked lowering her head to be on eye to eye with Star Twinkle.

"Not really...
I don't understand why you get so excited by some cider," he said covering his head with his bed sheet.

"Some cider?
You are talking about it like it is any normal cider!
As if you never tasted it at all!"

"Yeah...
That is the case," Star Twinkle mumbled.

This caused Rainbow Dash to widen her eyes in shock.

"What!?" Rainbow dash exclaimed shocked, making Star Twinkle jump.
"You never tasted Apple cider!?"

"No, I haven't.
Now can you please go and lea-"

But he was suddenly lifted by Rainbow Dash above her head.
Something that Star Twinkle didn't approve at all.

"We have to change that!
I can't let one soul miss out of the most fantastic drink that was ever made in Equestria!" She said full of determination.

She then flew in the direction to Sweet Apple Acres with Star Twinkle on her back.
Flying with this speed this early in the morning while still being half-asleep was definitely not something that Star Twinkle wanted right now.
But the farther they got away from his house, the more he gave in.

At Sweet Apple Acres...

When they arrived at Sweet Apple Acres both of them were surprised by how many ponies were already there.
However, Rainbow Dash was more shocked than surprised.
In front of the line were multiple tents.
All these tents meant that somepony was inside of them and that meant that there were many ponies in front of them.
All this excitement quickly vanished from Rainbow Dash as she realized that she was too late.

As expected, Pinkie Pie stepped out of the first tent with her mane all messed up indicating that she spent the whole night inside of the tent.

"Who are all these ponies?!" Rainbow Dash asked Pinkie Pie worriedly.

"Isn't this great?” She exclaimed, mysteriously changing her mane back to her usual self.
“I couldn't sleep last night 'cause I was so excited about cider season,
and I had this brilliant idea to come down here and camp out, so I told a few others about it,
and they all thought it was a great idea too, and now it's just a big old cider party!" Pinkie Pie explained, causing Rainbow Dash to growl angrily.

"Oh, gosh, that's a lot of ponies. Hope they don't run out before you get any," Pinkie Pie added, making Rainbow Dash growl once more.

Star Twinkle felt out of place.
He was dragged by Rainbow Dash to get a taste of this cider.
But from the looks of it, even if he wanted some, it seemed like they would run out of cider before he even gets a chance to taste some.
He rather wanted to go back in his bed right now.

"Seriously, who spends the whole night in a tent just to get some cider?" Star Twinkle said annoyed.

Suddenly, the tent behind Pinkie Pie's tent zipped open, followed by a shocked scream from inside.

"What do you mean with, just to get some cider?"

It was Steel Hammer, who also seemed to spend the night inside of a tent.
Needless to say, Star Twinkle shook his head after seeing Steel Hammer, walking outside of the tent.

"You are talking about it like it is any normal cider!
As if you never tasted it at all!" Steel Hammer said, using the exact same words, Rainbow Dash said before.

"He hasn't!" Rainbow Dash informed Steel Hammer who could only reply with a huge gasp.

“We have to change that!” He exclaimed determent.

“You know, if you want that cider so badly, you should probably get in line now, Rainbow Dash...” Star Twinkle said, somehow changing the subject away from him.

“Oh! Right!” She replied dashing to the end of the line in hope to get some cider.

Star Twinkle assured Steel Hammer that he shouldn't worry about him and went off in direction home.

Every other pony behind Pinkie Pie and Steel Hammer were also coming out of their tents.
There were probably hundreds of them waiting to get some cider.
It was ridiculous, thought Star Twinkle.

When he walked back he noticed how even Twilight, Spike, and Rarity were in line for the cider.
They greeted him on his way back.

“Are you waiting for some cider too?” Twilight asked.

“No. I was just heading back home,” Star Twinkle replied disinterestedly.

“I heard the cider from Sweet Apple Acres is the best in all of Equestria so I just had to come here after Pinkie Pie informed me abut it,” Twilight explained.

“Oh, it is, darling!” Rarity informed.
“Just wait until you tasted it,”

They were clearly more interested in the cider than Star Twinkle.
He couldn't understand why they spent so much time, waiting for some drink.
After they drink it, the taste will be gone.
That means that they waited all night for just a minute.
Star Twinkle's mind couldn't even begin to understand this logic.

Suddenly Applejack said something through a megaphone to all the ponies in line.

“Attention, everypony! Cider season is now officially open!”

And just after that, the apples began to give out the cider to everypony.
The line began to move after a while and as expected Pinkie Pie walked back satisfied after getting like ten or twenty cups of cider.

“I really hope they don't run out of cider until we get some,” Spike said worriedly.

“There you are!” Said Steel Hammer approaching Star Twinkle with a cup of cider in one of his hooves.

“What is it?” Star Twinkle asked.

But Steel Hammer only offered his cup to Star Twinkle with a smile on his face.
Apparently, he bought one for Star Twinkle so that he could taste one.

“I told you I'm not interested in that cider.
If you really like this cider that much then you should drink it yourself...” Star Twinkle advised, refusing Steel Hammer's cup.

“You will stop saying this nonsense if you just tasted one!
So here you go!” Steel Hammer said, almost forcing Star Twinkle to take it.

Star Twinkle knew that a discussion like that would lead to nowhere with Steel Hammer so he just accepted it.
But as soon as he took the cup, he immediately noticed that it was much lighter than he expected.
When he looked into the jar he found out that it was empty.

“Um...Steel Hammer...” Star Twinkle said, showing Steel Hammer the empty cup.

“Oops...looks like I drank it on the way back...” he replied followed by an embarrassed laugh.

Star Twinkle could only give him a strange look as if he was expecting some explanation.

“I'm sorry Star Twinkle!
But the cider just tasted so good!
I just took a sip from that cup in hope that you wouldn't notice a difference but then I took another and another and another...” Steel Hammer explained in a rush until Star Twinkle stopped him.

“Yes, yes I get it!
Don't worry about it!” Star Twinkle replied, not wanting to hear some unnecessary excuses from Steel Hammer.

The line was still moving at a really fast pace, considering that there were so many ponies waiting.
Star Twinkle waited nearby for some reason.
He wanted to leave but he thought that it wouldn't be right until all of his friends got their share of the cider.
He had the feeling that this is what friends do but if it was true was another question.

He saw how Fluttershy managed to get one jar but Rainbow Dash, who was right behind her had a mixed expression of sadness and anger on her face.

He couldn't make out what that was about at first but he quickly figured what happened and Applejack's words after that only confirmed it.

“Sorry, everypony! That's it for today!”

And as expected not everypony was happy after hearing that.
Especially Rainbow Dash, who was probably the most excited one in the line.
She blamed Applejack and her family for not making enough cider and many ponies agreed with her.

Of course, Applejack assured that the Apple family cider is made with much love and care and that only the best apples will be used for the recipe, which in turn takes more time.

But that didn't help to cheer up the angry crowd of ponies who waited for their cider.
All Applejack could do now was telling everypony that they should come back tomorrow.

Rainbow Dash's anger could be felt from a mile away.
She was slowly walking towards Star Twinkle, who watched the whole scene.

“Okay...as a friend, I should say something to cheer her up...to make her feel better,” Star Twinkle thought as he prepared to choose some encouraging words.

But as soon as he opened his mouth, Pinkie Pie walked between them.

“She's right, y'know! You can't rush perfection! And this year's batch was perfection!” Pinkie Pie said, only igniting Rainbow Dash's anger even more.

“Uh...Pinkie Pie...” Star Twinkle said, trying to stop Pinkie Pie for saying something really stupid in a situation like that.

“I'll never forget the cider I just drank! It was a moment in time that will never exist again,” she said making a really satisfied face.

“Yep! Surely a piece of equestrian heaven!” Steel Hammer added, who just had to join in, with the same expression on his face.

Star Twinkle felt that he should get out of there until Rainbow Dash decided to let out her anger at somepony and knowing his luck, Star Twinkle would probably get caught up in that somehow.

But before it could come to this, a far away honk noise caught everyponies attention.
When everypony decided to check from where it was coming from, some strange mechanical vehicle came closer to the crowd of ponies.

“What in Equestria is that?” Applejack wondered, like everypony else.

Even thought it came close enough to inspect it, nopony could make out what exactly it was supposed to be.
The vehicle had two wooden wheels, a podium on the front side, some kind of funnel, a barrel and much more strange stuff on it.

Whatever it was everypony quickly walked up to the vehicle after it stopped next to the stall, where the Apple's sold their cider.
Two unicorns stepped out of it, both of them having a yellow coat, a red mane with white stripes, green eyes and a blue and white striped shirts, as well as a straw hat.
The only difference between them was their Cutie Marks and one of them having a mustache.
The one with the mustache had an apple, with a piece cut out of it and the other had a piece of an apple as Cutie Marks.

Judging from their appearance they were clearly related, probably even twins.
Whatever they were, the wasted no time to enlighten everypony.
The one without a mustache started to sing to the crowd while introducing himself and his brother.

“Well, lookie what we got here, brother of mine, it's the same in every town
Ponies with thirsty throats, dry tongues, and not a drop of cider to be found
Maybe they're not aware that there's really no need for this teary despair,”

His brother quickly joined in.

“That the key that they need to solve this sad cider shortage, you and I will share,”

Then they both sang along.

“Well you've got opportunity
In this very community,”

“He's Flim,” the one with the mustache introduced his brother.

“He's Flam,” the other one introduced.

And again they sang in unison.

“We're the world famous Flim Flam Brothers
Traveling salesponies nonpareil,”

Everypony seemed to quickly get into the song and bumped up and down in excitement.
Star Twinkle, would lie if said that the song wasn't catchy but he felt that this was the perfect opportunity to leave the scene.
After all, he was not interested in any cider, no matter which pony made it.

But when he decided to sneak away, Steel Hammer popped up in front of him, inviting him into the song, which was still sung in the background.

“Did you hear that, Star Twinkle?
They're going to use that machine to create more cider for us!” Steel Hammer said excitedly.

“That's wonderful.
Can I leave now?” Star Twinkle asked out of frustration.

“Leave?
Weren't you listening?
They're gonna make enough cider for everypony!” Steel Hammer exclaimed.

This got Star Twinkle thinking.
He started to listen to the song more closely.
There were some things that he noticed after listening closely.
Some things that he didn't like after he analyzed them.

“If they really want to make enough cider for everypony, then they would need enough apples...
Like the ones from Sweet Apple Acres?
But what happens to the Apple family if that happens?
Don't they need the money earned from the cider to make a living?
And more importantly...
Why did they appear right now?
It's as if they knew that the Apple family would run out of cider...”

“I think I know what's going on here...”

Strangely, everypony didn't seem to notice anything and were way too excited about more cider.
After the song was over, Apple Bloom quickly agreed that they should use the so-called “Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000” to make more cider for everypony.
However, being the traditional ponies, Applejack, Big McIntosh and Granny Smith were not sure if it was okay to make apple-cider like that.

Flim and Flam responded to that by offering their machine as long as the Apple family offers their apples, with the profits split into seventy-five and twenty-five, obviously giving the brothers the bigger share.

“Cider sales keep our business afloat through the winter. We'd lose Sweet Apple Acres if we agreed to this,” Applejack pointed out, making it obvious that she and her family refuse the brothers offer.

But after hearing that, the brothers were not happy at all and decided that if the Apple's didn't want to cooperate, then they simply have to compete with them.
Applejack called a bluff but the brothers were absolutely serious and assured to make enough cider for everypony while driving Sweet Apple Acres out of business.

It's just like Star Twinkle imagined.
They were both classic business ponies, who prioritized their income, rather than satisfying their costumers.

After making this threat, the Flim Flam brothers left along with their machine to give the Apple family more time to think about their offer.

Since everypony was already upset that there was no more cider, as well as Rainbow Dash, who had no problems showing her frustration, they all left Sweet Apple Acres.

While Star Twinkle was glad to go home, he couldn't help but to worry about Applejack and her family.
Selling cider is one thing but ruining the life of the Apple family is another.
Because it worried him that much, he decided to go to Sweet Apple Acres again on the next day.

On the next day...

When Star Twinkle arrived at Sweet Apple Acres, there was again really long line of ponies waiting to get their hooves on the Apple Family cider.
Twilight, Spike, and Applejack were standing in nearby the stall where the cider was given out.
They all had worried expressions on their faces.
Probably because of the Flim Flam brothers, from yesterday.

After joining their conversation for a while, Apple Bloom announced that there was no more cider left again, much to everyponies dislike, especially Rainbow Dash who could be heard from afar complaining.

And again, almost on cue, the Flim Flam brothers appeared with their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000

“What seems to be the problem here?” Flim asked.

“Oh my, oh my, out of cider again?” Flam said, of course in a mocking tone in is voice.

Flim then quickly rushed to his machine and pulled out a barrel, which was filled with apple cider and offered it to the still thirsty crowd.
Coincidentally, Rainbow Dash was offered one cup.

But Applejack quickly figured what was happening and pulled out a rope to snatch the barrel away from the two business-ponies, accidentally knocking over Rainbow Dash's cup, who was so desperate to get some cider, that she began to chew down the dirt, where the cider spilled over.

“Is this some kind of cruel joke?” She said with teary eyes.

Applejack couldn't allow them to sell the cider because it was made out from the apples of Sweet Apple Acres.
Naturally, they can't just sell cider made out of Sweet Apple Acres apples.

“Don't worry, everypony, there are plenty of apples in Equestria. We'll find some others and make more cider than all of Ponyville can drink!” Flim announced to the crowd of ponies.

But Apple Bloom couldn't take those two anymore and announced that she and her family could make more cider than they could ever imagine.
This caused the crowd to gasp in excitement until Granny Smith pointed out that it wasn't about the speed but more about the quality, which again, turned the mood in the crowd down.

“Who cares how good the cider is if I never get to drink any?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed angrily.

“Wasn't that incredible taste, that this cider was supposedly had the reason why everypony is standing in this line?” Star Twinkle wondered.
For him, it felt like that everypony is losing sight of what's important right now.

“Ponyville is Sweet Apple Cider country!” Apple Bloom said.

“Our cider speaks for itself!” Applejack added.

The Apple's were trying to remind everypony about the facts but instead, it only gave Flim and Flam an idea.

“Let's put it to the test!” Flim suggested.

“With our machine, we can make enough cider in one hour to satisfy this entire town!” Flam added.

“We'll do it in 45 minutes!” Apple Bloom replied, who was falling for their bait.

The crowd easily got excited after hearing that, much like Star Twinkle predicted.

“Hold on, Apple Bloom!” Star Twinkle said as he couldn't watch any longer how she was digging her own grave.
“Don't you see what they are trying to do?
They want you to get down on their game.
You can't let them do that!” Star Twinkle explained.

“He's right!” Granny Smith said.
“We don't need to make more cider than they do,”

Thankfully, Granny Smith was not falling for their little game and kept her collected nature.

Until...

“What's the matter, Granny Smith? Chicken?” Flim said, easily grabbing Granny Smith's attention.

“What did you call me, sonny?” She replied turning from Apple Bloom to Flim

“If you're so confident in your cider, then what's the problem?” Flim said, only luring Granny Smith deeper into his trap.

“No, please not...” Star Twinkle thought worriedly.

“Tomorrow mornin', right here!” Granny Smith shouted at Flim's face.

But Flam pointed out that they don't have any apples to compete, to which Granny Smith offered the south field of Sweet Apple Acres for them.

“Excellent; we have a bet. Whoever produces the most barrels in one hour wins the exclusive right to sell cider in Ponyville,” Flim explained confidently.

It was exactly how Star Twinkle thought.
They were just waiting for an opportunity like that.
But now it was too late, Granny Smith was far to fired up to take back the bet.
This was no longer a competition but rather a gamble if the Apple's could keep their farm or not.

However, the result would have to wait till tomorrow...

On the next day...

Star Twinkle went to Sweet Apple Acres at the time where the competition was held.
The whole Apple family was warming up for the upcoming competition.

The only thing Star Twinkle could do was providing some mental support.
But Star Twinkle didn't seem to be the only one who had this idea.
Twilight was talking to Applejack, having a concerned look on her face.

“Applejack? Are you sure this is such a good idea?” She asked concerned.

But before Applejack could answer, Star Twinkle joined the conversation.

“Yeah, I have to agree with Twilight...You'll loose much more than just this competition,” he advised.

However, Applejack was confident in her and her families abilities.

“You don't have to prove that your cider is better!” Star Twinkle said.

“Star Twinkle, I know that you put your full trust as a fan of our cider but after coming so far, we just can't go back,” Applejack said determent.

“Actually, I never once tast-”

But the voice of the mayor interrupted the conversation.
She was signaling that the competition is about to start and Applejack went off to her family to face off against the Flim Flam brothers.

Star Twinkle and Twilight wished Applejack good luck, which she probably needed right now and walked back into the crowd to watch the competition.

The mayor once more reminded everypony about the rules of the competition.

“The teams have one hour to produce as much cider as they can, after which the barrels will be counted and the winner will be named the sole cider provider for all of Ponyville!”
“Are both teams ready?” The Mayor asked.

The Apple family was determent and didn't show any hesitance.
The Flim Flam brothers, however, were relaxed and full of themselves to win this with the help of their machine.
Both teams were ready and the Mayor could start the competition.

“Then let's... go!”

The Apple family quickly rushed to their side to start working on the cider.
Applejack, as expected, started to kick the trees in order to let the apples fall down, which were then caught by Apple Bloom.
Apple Bloom gave the apples to Granny Smith, who was quality checking every single apple, before putting it into a little machine.
This machine was connected to a treadmill on which Big McIntosh was running on.
The machine was creating the cider out of the apples that Granny Smith put inside.

With this method they managed to fill a barrel almost no time, lifting up the motivation of the Apple family until they took a look at Flim and Flam's side for a moment, only to realize that they effortlessly filled six barrels at the same time.

“They already have six?
And they didn't even break a sweat,” Star Twinkle realized after taking a look at the brother's side as well.

In this moment, the Apple family realized that they outmatched in terms of creating more cider than the Flim Flam brothers.
But of course, they would never admit that and went on.
Even though they did their best to improve their speed, it was sadly not enough to keep up with the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.

“This is just dreadful. Even at top speed, the Apples are only making one barrel to the twins' three!” Rarity said, which probably was clear to everypony at this point.

Twilight looked over to the brothers and prompted everypony to follow her to the mayor.
Star Twinkle did not know what she was planning but he followed her as well.

“Um, Miss Mayor! Are honorary family members allowed to help in the
competition?” She asked,

“Honorary Family member?
Does she mean us?” Star Twinkle wondered.

The Mayor thought about it for a minute but decided to ask the Flim Flam brothers.
Luckily, they were so full of themselves that they agreed to it.

“Are you kidding?” Flim said.

“We don't care if the whole kingdom of Canterlot helps. It's a lost cause,” Flam added.

The mayor also asked Applejack if she was okay with it.

“I think I'd love to have the rest of my family helpin' out,” she replied happily.

Twilight lost no time and gave everypony a fitting task to help the Apple's.

Fluttershy should help Applejack by shaking some apples from the trees.
Pinkie Pie was ordered to help Apple Bloom with the apple catching
Rarity's eye for detail will be perfect to help Granny Smith's quality control.
Rainbow Dash will help Big McIntosh on the treadmill.
And Star Twinkle will help by preparing the barrels.

“Aright, everypony, let's save Sweet Apple Acres!” Twilight said pumping up everypony in the process.

“All right!” Everypony replied in unison.

“For the cider!” Steel Hammer screamed, suddenly standing next to the six ponies and eager to help out too.

He was also armed with some tools and some other stuff in his hooves.
He began to build another treadmill right next to Big McIntosh in a few seconds and began to ran on it, causing more cider to come out of the machine.

Star Twinkle quickly replaced the barrels who were filled and prepared another on in its place.

With everypony helping out like that, the cider making went on even faster than before, hopefully being able to keep up with the brothers.

“Based on these figures, we're making five barrels for every three of theirs!” Twilight calculated, which lead the crowd of ponies who watched the competition to cheer.

However, the Flim Flam brothers did notice that too and began to increase their speed as well.
They began to focus more magic into their machine, forcing it to not only suck in apples but the whole tree as well.

Star Twinkle noticed that but he had no time to focus on that and kept going with his task.

Rainbow Dash noticed the sudden increase of cider production on the brother's side and suggested to skip the quality control in order to keep up with the brothers.
But Granny Smith insisted on continuing like before.

When Rainbow Dash wanted Applejack to help her to convince Granny Smith, Applejack backed up Granny Smith by saying that there would be no point to winning if they cheat.

Star Twinkle was not really agreeing with that since the task was to create the most cider but he couldn't get a free second while working on the barrels and concentrated on doing his work.

All they could do was to work even harder and hope that they somehow manage to fill more barrels than the twins.

Eventually, the one hour passed and the Mayor stopped the competition.
This caused everypony on the apple side to drop down to the ground in exhaustion.

The Mayor then counted every single barrel on both sides and everypony had to wait until the winner was declared.

The result was...

“Flim and Flam win!” The Mayor announced., much to the shock of everypony.

Applejack couldn't believe it.
After all their hard work, the Flim Flam brothers still managed to win by a long shot.
And of course, they didn't hold back boasting about it.

“Daww, too bad, Apples,” Flim said.

“Guess you'll just have to find a new line of work that doesn't match your names quite so... perfectly,” Flam said.

“Now should we tear down all these tacky old buildings and put up new ones, brother?” Flim suggested, pointing at the barns of Sweet Apple Acres.

“I don't see why not, brother. After all, this isn't Sweet Apple Acres anymore. How about 'Flim Flam Fields'?” Flam suggested.

Eventually, Rainbow Dash couldn't take it anymore and charged right at the two brothers but was stopped by Applejack in time, claiming that a deal is a deal.

“Congratulations to y'all. The cider business in Ponyville... is yours. C'mon, Apples. Let's go pack up our things,” Applejack said with a sad tone in her voice as she attempted to leave the farm with her family.

Everypony was cheering one moment ago but now everypony stood there in sadness and teary eyes.
And for what?
For cider...

“Cider...
All that for some cider...” Star Twinkle mumbled to himself.

“Come on, Star Twinkle...let's help Applejack and her family,” Twilight suggested.

“Help Applejack?
Are they really going to leave?
Just because they lost this stupid competition?” Star Twinkle thought to himself.

“...stupid...” he mumbled.

“Star Twinkle?” Twilight aid, wondering if he was listening at all.

“This is stupid!” He exclaimed angrily.
“All that for just some stupid cider?”

Applejack figured that Star Twinkle was not taking their loss to well and attempted to cheer him up.

“Hold on now, don't worry too much abou-”

“No!
Am I the only pony who realizes how stupid all of this is?” He exclaimed in anger.

He then walked up to one of the barrels of the brother's side.

“I mean, is it really that important which cider is better?
It's just some plain old cider!” He said angrily tapping on one of the barrels, which then opened up on accident, startling Star Twinkle in the process.

On closer inspection of the cider, he realized that it didn't even look tasty at all.
There were stones and branches inside of it.
It looked unfinished and disgusting.

“This is what you bet your farm on?” Star Twinkle asked, now more confused than ever.

“Hold on a minute!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed flying towards the barrels.

She kicked over some more barrels and revealed the cider inside of it.
Most of the barrels had unfinished rock and branched filled cider inside of it.

Sweat was beginning to build on the Flim Flam brothers faces as they realized how everypony was staring at them angrily.

Of course, they tried to haggle their way out of it, offering one cups at ridiculously low prices but nopony was willing to pay one cent for even a barrel.

“It looks like we've encountered a slight... problem here in Ponyville,” Flam said nervously

“Nopony wants our product,” Flim said nervously.
“Next town?” Flim suggested.

“Next town,” Flam agreed.

And thus, the Flim Flam brothers left Ponyville along with their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.

Applejack couldn't believe that they were gone and widened her eyes.
With the two brothers gone, Sweet Apple Acres was still in business.

Everypony was relieved to not only keep their high-quality cider but also the Apple family in Sweet Apple Acres.

“Well, looks like your love for a good cider helped us all!” Pinkie Pie said to Star Twinkle.

“My what?
I didn't even say anything like...ugh...whatever...” Star Twinkle replied, giving up to talk with Pinkie Pie.

Things calmed down after a while and the Apple family decided to continue their apple-cider business right away.
Thanks to that silly competition they had more than enough cider for all of Ponyville.

“So basically, everypony is waiting in line for more cider...again...” Star Twinkle mumbled to himself.

“You really don't like this apple cider?” Twilight asked.

“No...
I didn't say anything like that.
I can't say anything like that since I never tasted it...” Star Twinkle admitted.

“Well, now is your chance,” Twilight suggested as she levitated one cup to Star Twinkle.

He was actually really thirsty after working so hard in the competition so he gladly accepted every kind of drink that was presented to him at this point.
He took his cup and drank everything at once.

Suddenly, his eyes widened.

His mind went blank.
It was an explosion of taste.
A rainbow of flavor.
As if everything that tasted good in this world was put into his mouth at once.
Nothing even compared.
The moment of this taste went away too far.
Not enough to satisfy his need for more cider.

“Star Twinkle?” Twilight asked.

“Huh?” Star Twinkle replied as he snapped out of wherever he was at that moment.

“And?
How was it?” She asked curiously.

“How it tasted? He asked confused as if he didn't know where he was right now.
Um...
It was...okay...” he replied while avoiding eye contact.

Obviously, he could not say the truth after making such deal out of it before.
It would be too embarrassing for him.

“You sure about that?
You looked a lot like Pinkie Pie after finishing your drink,” Twilight said teasingly.

“No, I didn't!” Star Twinkle protested.
“Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get in line for more cider!
Because...I'm still thirsty!” He added, somehow trying to hide that he liked it.

He then walked away to the end of the line but he could clearly hear the girls laughing at him.
But that didn't matter to him.

“Just let them laugh...” He mumbled to himself annoyed.
“But I think I need to go home...to get more bits...” He said as he walked in direction of the line that stood in front of the stall, where the apple-cider was sold at.

40. Becoming an Egghead

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Everything was black and quiet.
Only the sound of statics and some voices in the distance could be heard.
Those were the only things that Star Twinkle was aware of now.

Eventually, he opened his eyes and saw some blurry images in front of him.
He quickly realized by the colors and the voices that it was his friends, who were looking down at him with concerned looks on their faces.

“Hey!
He is finally awake!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed happily.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Rarity added relieved.

The blurriness went away and he managed to recognize every one of his friends.
In that moment, he also realized that he was not in his own bed.
He was confused.
So he asked some obvious questions.

"What happened?
Where am I?"

"In a hospital bed," Twilight answered.

“Hospital?” He replied almost in disbelieve.

“Yes.
After the crash, we brought you and Rainbow Dash here as soon as possible,” Fluttershy explained.

“Rainbow Dash?” Star Twinkle replied, not sure what she had to do with anything.

Everypony then moved their heads to the left.
Star Twinkle turned his head to his right.
Rainbow Dash was inside of a hospital bed too.
She had a bandage around one of her wings.
For some reason, she was waving at him awkwardly as soon as he looked over to her.

“Don't you remember what happened?” Twilight asked, coming closer to his bed out of worry.

“Don't you remember the crash?” Applejack asked.

“Crash?” He replied confused.

They all looked at each other because they didn't know how to explain the situation.
Since Star Twinkle was sick of being completely lost, he tried to remember what happened before he woke up in this hospital bed.
Though it was a little hard at first, his memories slowly came back to him until it was fully clear what happened.

Earlier this morning...

"And another day begins..." Star Twinkle said grumpily after waking up in his bed, because of the beams of light that shined through his window.

Star Twinkle had no plans on what to do today.
And whenever he didn't know what to do, he usually let his friends do the thinking.
So he went outside to look for any of his friends.
One of them, most likely, will know how to spend the day.
And fortunately, some of them seem to be already waiting in front of his house.
Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were standing there, looking up to the sky with some worried looks on their faces.

“What are they looking at?” He wondered as he watched how they focused their eyes on the sky.

Suddenly, Twilight's eyes widened in shock as soon as she noticed Star Twinkle.

"Star Twinkle, watch out!" she screamed at him, causing him to stop walking towards them.

"Watch out for wha-"

Back in the hospital...

But then, suddenly, everything went black.
That was the last thing he remembered.

The awkwardness in Rainbow Dash's face.
The fact that she was in the hospital too.
The reason why nopony flat out explained what happened.
It was all clear now.
Star Twinkle knew exactly what happened.
And before he knew it, this knowledge made him angry.

"You!" He exclaimed angrily while pointing at Rainbow Dash who got startled by Star Twinkle's sudden reaction.
“It was you wasn't- OUCH!”

Before he could finish his sentence some sharp pain was going through his head, making him instantly grab his head with his front hooves.
It was now that he realized that he had a bandage wrapped around his head.

“Easy, Star Twinkle!
The doctor said that you need rest for a few days.
So you should relax,” Twilight advised out of concern of Star Twinkle's health.

Star Twinkle did lean back in his bed again due to the pain but couldn't help to look at Rainbow Dash with an ice cold glare on his face.
Rainbow Dash noticed and could only laugh awkwardly as if she was apologizing to him.

Of course, the others noticed the tension in the room and tried their best to change the subject.
Twilight looked behind her for a moment and noticed how one of the nurses was pushing a bookshelf along the hallway.
She quickly grabbed one of the books out with her magic and levitated in front of Star Twinkle.

“Rainbow Dash was complaining that it would be a little boring to sit in your beds the whole day so how about a good book, Star Twinkle?” She suggested, levitating the book closer and closer to Star Twinkle's face.

But Star Twinkle didn't even blink and continued to focus his glare towards Rainbow Dash.
Twilight figured that he was a ticking time bomb right now and gave up concentrating on him for a while and instead offered the book to Rainbow Dash.
When Twilight poked Rainbow Dash with the book to get her attention, she only gave it a confused look.

“What's this? 'Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone',” she read out loud from the title of the book.

"This is the first story in the series.
I own all of them," Twilight said with a proud grin on her face.

Star Twinkle knew this book too.
It was an adventure novel, starring a brave Pegasus pony named Daring Do.
He knew that there were more adventures of this story but he never read past the first volume for some reason.

"No thanks. I so don't read," Rainbow Dash said refusing to read the book and throwing it away.
I'm a world-class athlete,” she added.

“A world-class athlete who crashed and broke her wing...” Star Twinkle added with a really mean tone of his voice.

Rainbow Dash returned his words with a glare on her own, to which Star Twinkle replied with just turning around in his bed.
He knew that he was behaving a little childish due to blaming Rainbow Dash for putting him into the hospital so he decided to calm down a little and hoped that the days in this hospital would pass quickly.

Rainbow Dash also decided to calm down and ignored Star Twinkle's words.
After all, they were just supposed to provoke her.

“What I tried to say was:
Reading's for eggheads like you, Twilight.
"No offense, but I am not reading. It's undeniably, unquestionably, uncool," she explained to everypony.

Everypony except, Star Twinkle was laughing about Rainbow Dash after this statement.
He would probably laugh too if he wasn't hospitalized right now.

"Is she serious? Who doesn't like to read a bang-up tale from time to time?" Applejack said amused.

"Why, a good book is almost as magnificent as silk pajamas on a Sunday morning!" Rarity added.

“Reading is for everypony, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight said, levitating the book back into Rainbow Dash's bed.

“Yeah! I love reading, and my head isn't even close to the shape of an egg! It's more the shape of an apple, or maybe an orange, but a big orange! More like a grapefruit really...” Pinkie Pie added, easily confusing herself by her own words.

They all tried to convince Rainbow Dash that reading is something for everypony.
Star Twinkle himself was not reading on a daily basis but he does like to read too from time to time.
But he was not feeling like talking to Rainbow Dash so he kept quiet.

Eventually, a nurse entered the room and told everypony to leave so that Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash could rest for the rest of the day.

Everypony left the room as they were told and closed the door, leaving only Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash in the room.
Of course, there was a huge awkwardness in the room and neither of them knew how to break that.
Star Twinkle was still blaming Rainbow Dash for the accident and Rainbow Dash was still annoyed by Star Twinkle's childish behavior.

But Star Twinkle knew what he should do to avoid that.

"Well, time to sleep," Star Twinkle said, covering himself in his bed cover.

Rainbow Dash only looked at him, without him realizing with a puzzled reaction on her face.

“It's in the middle of the day...” she said, reminding Star Twinkle that it was way too early to go to sleep.

Star Twinkle, however, didn't move an inch and replied annoyed.

“So?
I'm stuck in a bed so I mind as well sleep...” he replied, still with a bothered tone in his voice.

Rainbow Dash let out a sigh.
She was clearly not interested in going to sleep in the middle of the day.
But right now, Star Twinkle didn't care about that.

Time went on a little but Star Twinkle found it hard to get some sleep, mainly because of Rainbow Dash.
There were all kinds of things going on, that kept him from sleeping.
Rainbow Dash did all kinds of things to keep herself busy, like throwing a ball against the wall, turning the lights on and off and so on.

But the ultimate straw was her, hitting her head repeatedly against her bed.
Eventually, Star Twinkle couldn't take it anymore.

"Rainbow Dash!" Star Twinkle exclaimed annoyed turning to Rainbow Dash, who turned her head to Star Twinkle in response.
“Please?” He said, hinting that he was trying to sleep.

"I don't understand how you can sleep through the whole day," Rainbow Dash replied.

"What do you mean?
I see you napping on some clouds almost every day!" Star Twinkle replied annoyed.

“That is completely different!” She replied, annoyed by Star Twinkle's behavior.

“So the first time, when she has no option but to sleep, she doesn't...
I don't get this mare...” Star Twinkle thought.

He then noticed how the Daring Do book was still next to her, untouched by her hooves.

"Just read the book, Rainbow Dash," Star Twinkle advised but at the same time, he wanted her to be quiet.

"Ugh, not this again..." she replied as soon as Star Twinkle brought up the book again.
“I don't read, Star Twinkle!”

"Rainbow Dash, I also seldom read a book but I can assure you that this book is not bad so just give it a try.
The least it can do is killing five minutes of your time...”

She was getting, what Star Twinkle tried to say.
Even though she was not looking forward to it.
But eventually, she gave the book a try and opened it.
She began to read out the first lines of the book with a bored tone in her voice.

"As Daring Do trekked through the tropical jungle, the wet heat sapped her energy and slowed her every step.
If only she could escape this oppressive atmosphere and fly up into the cool blue sky.
But her crash landing in the jungle had injured her wing and she was grounded for a few days.
Few days... it might as well be a few months, or a few years!" She read making her think about her current situation as well.
"Huh. I'm right there with you, sister," she said looking at her own wings.

Star Twinkle was turning around to the other side with his back turned to Rainbow Dash in order to finally get some sleep.
Rainbow Dash continued to read the story, whispering the words rather, than reading them out loud.
Star Twinkle could still hear her but she was quiet enough so that he could doze off for a while.

Before he knew it, some more time has passed.
Sleeping most of the day was the only thing Star Twinkle could do but he had to admit that he couldn't do it all day.
He was awake now and couldn't just doze off like that again.
Then he remembered that Rainbow Dash probably gave up on reading her book.
Maybe he could read for a while to skip some time.
He already read that book but at this moment, he didn't care.

But when he turned around to face Rainbow Dash, he got surprised by what he saw.
Rainbow Dash was still reading the book.
And reading was still an understatement.
Her eyes were focused on the pages, as she whispered the words that she read.
She didn't even notice that Star Twinkle was watching her.

“Wow, you're still reading?” Star Twinkle said impressed after all those things Rainbow Dash said before.

But suddenly, Rainbow Dash snapped out of her trance-like state and poorly attempted to hide the book under her bed cover, before she smiled at Star Twinkle awkwardly.

“Hey! What's up Star Twinkle?
You're not sleeping anymore?” She said desperately trying to change the subject as fast as possible.

“What was that about?” Star Twinkle wondered.

He didn't want her to stop reading.
She maybe got surprised by Star Twinkle's word all of the sudden, while focusing on reading but he wouldn't mind if she continued.

“And why was she hiding that book, just now?”

However, Rainbow Dash sat there, still awkwardly smiling at him.
To say the least, it was really suspicious.
Everypony could have seen that.

“Don't mind me and continue.
I didn't want to interrupt you,” Star Twinkle assured.

“What do you mean?
You weren't interrupting anything!
I was just...err...”

“I saw you reading that book...” Star Twinkle said, making Rainbow Dash stagger a little.

“No, I wasn't!” She protested, crossing her front legs stubbornly.

“You sure?”

“Yeah!”

After thinking about what Rainbow Dash's opinion was before reading the book, it was only fitting that she would say something like that.
However, Star Twinkle wanted to test something.

“Then, would you mind giving me the book?” Star Twinkle asked.

“What?” Rainbow Dash replied as her eyes widened in shock.

“You said you weren't reading the book just now so it's okay if I read it for the rest of the day right?”

Rainbow Dash was hesitating to give an answer.
She looked very desperate after his words.
Of course, Star Twinkle knew exactly why she acted that way.
He felt like a puppeteer.
And right now, he pulled the strings on one of his puppets.

“Well?” Star Twinkle said, still waiting for the book.

Eventually, she took out the book from under her bed cover and attempted to give it to Star Twinkle with heavy hesitation.
Star Twinkle watched as the book got closer to him with an analyzing look on his face.
But as soon as he tried to grab it, Rainbow Dash pulled it away and pushed it against her chest.

“No!
You can't read it right now!” She exclaimed, even more nervous as before in frustration.

“Because you want to read it?”

“Yes!” She exclaimed but as soon as she said it, her eyes widened as she realized what she just said.

There was no way that she could up with an excuse now.
She flat out admitted that she wanted to read it just now.
Even Rainbow Dash realized that there was no escaping anymore.

“You know, you don't have to hide it from me...”

“I'm not hiding anything!” Rainbow Dash protested angrily.

“Come on.
Do you really think, that I care if you like to read that book or not?” Star Twinkle replied annoyed.

Rainbow Dash looked away in annoyance but also with some slight signs of sadness.
First, Star Twinkle thought that he imagined it but then he remembered his choice of words.

“I didn't want to say it like that!
Now it sounded like I don't care at all about her...
And I probably sounded like a total jerk too...” Star Twinkle thought while wishing to take those words back.

All he wanted to say is that he doesn't mind, if Rainbow Dash likes to read books.
But of course, he had problems to put that in exact words.
As soon as he realized that Rainbow was trying to hide, that she liked that book, he planned to get it out of her but that was all ruined.

“Come on.
Think...” Star Twinkle thought, desperately as he tried to find a solution for this.

“How about I tell you a secret about me too?
You know...so that we could be even...
That way you can make sure that I won't tell anypony,” Star Twinkle suggested in order to defuse the situation.

Rainbow Dash seemed hesitant at first but she was also curious.
It's not every day that somepony offers to tell a secret to you, after all, so she decided to give in.

“Sure...” she replied still confused because she doesn't know what exactly to think about that.

“Great!” Star Twinkle replied unnecessarily happy because he now can make it up to her.

Now he just had to find a secret that he was willing to tell her.
But after some thinking, he realized that it had to be something that was not easy to say for him.
He eventually knew something that he would like to share with her.

“I know!” He said, causing Rainbow Dash to draw her attention towards Star Twinkle.
“But promise me that you won't tell anypony!
Especially not Steel Hammer!” Star Twinkle said, making sure that nothing that he would say left this room.

Rainbow Dash didn't show signs to do so and nodded in response.
She was rather curious what he was about to say if he wanted to make sure that nopony else should hear it.

“Okay...
It's about my work in the Iron Hammer...
Sometimes, in the middle of the day, Steel Hammer has to leave the workshop for a while.
To do some errands or customer conversations or...I'm not even sure what he does...but the point is, he leaves the Iron Hammer and lets me take care of the shop in the meantime,”

Rainbow Dash was closely listening and moved her head as close as possible to him.
It must have been something really embarrassing if he didn't want anypony to find out.
She had to admit, that she was quite curious now.
Meanwhile, Star Twinkle continued to reveal his secret.

“Whenever he does that, I...
Close the shop...” he admitted hesitant, followed by a paranoid look on his face as if he felt somepony would have heard it.

“What?” Rainbow Dash replied confused, lowering her eyebrows.

“Well, you know...
By now I know how long he is away and can predict when to reopen the shop again so that he would notice...
I mostly take a nap inside in the meantime...
I even have an alarm clock hidden inside of the shop so that I can wake up in time,” Star Twinkle admitted, after getting a little more comfortable, revealing his secret.

However, Rainbow Dash was not showing the reaction, that Star Twinkle anticipated.
In fact, she looked a little disappointed.

“That's your big secret?” She replied after Star Twinkle was done.

“Yes, why?” Star Twinkle replied, oblivious.

“I don't think its that great of a secret!” She replied in disappointment.

“What do you mean?
It's not supposed to be “great”!
It's supposed to be something that I don't want anypony to know!” Star Twinkle exclaimed, defending himself.

“So you don't want anypony to know that you sleep on your job?” Rainbow Dash figured.

“I don't need to hear that from you...” Star Twinkle replied, obviously referring to Rainbow Dash's naps during work.
“Working in the Iron Hammer IS hard work!”

“So is cleaning the skies!” Rainbow Dash replied, angrily.

“Yes, but unlike you, I am not an ultra fast pony or a great athlete.
I'm just some ordinary and weak pony, who is good in something!” Star Twinkle replied.

Rainbow Dash's anger vanished a little after hearing that.
Him talking down on himself was something that she didn't want him to say.

“Don't say stuff like that...” She replied a little hurt.
“The only reason why you think you're weak is because you keep telling it to yourself!”

Whenever Star Twinkle described himself like that, every time his friends disagree with him and every time he doesn't know how to react to that.
Just like now...

“You promise to not tell anypony?” Rainbow Dash said to break the silence.

She looked like, she was really ashamed of it but she also couldn't hide it anymore.
It surprised Star Twinkle that Rainbow Dash seemed to admit it now but at the same time he was glad that this conversation was getting to somewhere at least.

He still thought that it was stupid from her to think that her friends would think otherwise about her if they know but it did seem important for her so Star Twinkle promised to not tell anypony.

“Close my eyes, don't know why, stick a piece of cake in my eye,” Star Twinkle pinkie Promised, to which Rainbow Dash replied with a light smile on her face.

Before he knew it, Rainbow Dash reopened her book and continued to read it as if Star Twinkle wasn't in the room at all.
Despite that little argument before, everything worked out fine.

“Oh...and...sorry...” she said quietly almost not loud enough for Star Twinkle to hear.

“For what?”

“You know...for crashing into you and putting you into the hospital...” she said in an embarrassed voice, avoiding as much eye contact as possible.

Star Twinkle could tell that it took her much courage to say that.
Suddenly, all the anger that he still felt against Rainbow Dash vanished.
Maybe in his mind, he knew that an apology was the only thing that was missing the whole time but his anger was just clouding his senses.
Whatever it was, it now made him feel bad to act like that.

“I'm sorry too...
You know...for blaming you and acting so harsh before...”

Rainbow Dash could also see that Star Twinkle was having a hard time admitting his mistake.
But instead of answering, she just smiled and waved her hoof in an almost relaxed or chilling manner, as if she wanted to say ”don't worry about it”.

Star Twinkle knew what she was “saying” and replied with a relieved smile on his face.

Rainbow Dash then returned to her book while having a smile on her face.
Probably because she was happy to read again.
Or maybe because the argument between her and Star Twinkle was now over.

With all this out of the way, Star Twinkle still had some problems skipping the time inside of the hospital.
It was nice that Rainbow Dash had something to do now but Star Twinkle was bored right now.

But before he could even think about how to get rid of his boredom, a knocking on the door could be heard, instantly getting Rainbow Dash's attention, who, just like before made sure to hide the book under her bed cover.

Shortly after, Twilight and Fluttershy entered the room, happily greeting the two hospitalized ponies.
Even though Rainbow Dash tried to hide how nervous she was right now, it was painfully obvious.
Twilight and Fluttershy offered to play a board game with her since she complained about how boring it would get in the hospital.

It was a game where you had to guess the positions of each players clouds and other flying objects.
The first one who finds every single one of them wins.

And of course, Rainbow Dash let Twilight be the one who starts guessing.
Rainbow Dash just pretended that her clouds got hit by every single guess and lost in the very first turn.

Twilight, of course, sensed something fishy about it but Rainbow Dash was trying to cover it up as good as possible.
She really wanted them to go so that she could continue to read her book and was ready to anything to accomplish that.

“Well, maybe Star Twinkle wants to play?” Fluttershy suggested.

But since Star Twinkle knew that Rainbow Dash wanted to read her book, he had to come up with an excuse.
But he didn't have one ready.
Except for one.

“Hey, Star Twinkle do you-”

But Twilight stopped in the middle of the sentence after she saw how Star Twinkle was covering himself in his bed cover, trying to convince him that he was asleep.

“Weird,” Twilight wondered.
“Wasn't he awake just now?”

This was also the perfect opportunity for Rainbow Dash.

“What are you talking about?
He was asleep the whole time!” She said, supporting Star Twinkle's excuse.
“I think I also take a little nap.
Thanks for coming!” She said before she turned out the light and pretended to fall asleep in front of them.

Twilight and Fluttershy were not sure if Rainbow Dash was asleep or not but they decided to not bother her and Star Twinkle so they left the room again.

After Twilight and Fluttershy left, the two hospitalized ponies got up again and were relieved that their little “performance” was actually believed by them.

“Clever...” Star Twinkle commented on Rainbow Dash's act.

“Better than just falling asleep out of nowhere,”

“True...” Star Twinkle admitted after putting up such a poorly excuse.

Once again, after everypony left, Rainbow Dash pulled out her book and continued reading.

"Daring Do stood at the entrance to the central temple chamber..." she whispered excitingly, reading out loud the words in the book.

And once again, Star Twinkle didn't know what to do...
Star Twinkle wished that Twilight would have given him something to read too.
He could talk with Rainbow Dash but he didn't want to interrupt her.
For somepony who was so against reading, she sure was drawn into this book.
It almost scared Star Twinkle...

Star Twinkle could only watch how the time was moving on the clock in their room.
Until...

“Hello!” The shrill voice of Pinkie Pie said.

Rainbow Dash, who got startled by Pinkie Pie's voice, was instantly hiding her book again, to not let anypony know about her obsession with this book.

Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rarity entered the room, this time.
Star Twinkle was actually happy to see them.
Now he had somepony to talk to for a while.

“How are our two patients doing today?” Rarity asked, to check up on both of their conditions.

Applejack quickly went to the window, claiming that there must be not enough air in the room since Rainbow Dash was sweating a lot.
When Star Twinkle checked up on her, he realized it too.
She must have been nervous that the others might find out about the book.
She probably will try to find out how to get rid of them as well.

“Okay, now, dinner time for Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash,” said a nurse, bringing in two plates with food.

At least, Star Twinkle thought it was food.
He could barely identify what was on his plate...
All the rumors about food in a hospital proved to be right as soon as he saw his plate.
The strange thing is, that he was hungry before but that seemed to vanish, right now.

“Oh, just in time. I am sooo hungry,” Rainbow Dash said almost excited.

She probably was hinting at that her friends should leave so that she could eat but they insisted on staying and didn't mind if she was eating.

“Is she really going to eat this stuff?” Star Twinkle thought confused.
“Maybe it just looks bad?” He wondered, raising an eyebrow while inspecting his food once more.

He decided to let Rainbow Dash taste it first.
Maybe if it tasted good, he would also give it a try.

Rainbow Dash seemed to make sure that she was watched by everypony and started eating in the most disgusting and gross way that nopony has ever seen before.
Needless to say, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rarity were so grossed out that they decided to leave.
Star Twinkle would like to leave too, after seeing that.

As soon as they left, Rainbow Dash spits out her food again, most likely due to the bad taste.
This proved enough that Star Twinkle should leave the food on the plate.

“Again...clever...” Star Twinkle admitted, almost complimenting on Rainbow Dash's efforts to get back to her book.

“Heh...I know,” Rainbow Dash replied, taking the compliment.

She wasted no time to get back to her book, dozing off in the world of reading again.

Star Twinkle somehow managed to skip some time until it got dark and decided that it was the perfect time to go to sleep.
Rainbow Dash, however, was still reading having a lantern right next to her due to the darkness.
She was reading quietly so it didn't bother Star Twinkle and he decided to go to sleep.
Maybe if he wakes up tomorrow, the doctors will say that he can leave...

On the next morning...

Despite, sleeping a little on the day before, Star Twinkle slept through the whole night without interruption.
His head also seemed to get better.
There was no more pain in his head.
Actually, after thinking about it, there was not much pain, to begin with in the first place.
This gave Star Twinkle some hope to leave the hospital soon.

“Good morning, Star Twinkle, Rainbow Dash,” said an unfamiliar voice.

It came from a unicorn with a light amber colored coat and a brown mane, wearing a doctor white coat and some glasses as well as an electrocardiograph monitor as a Cutie Mark.

“We didn't have a chance to meet yet, haven't we?
I am doctor Horse,” he introduced himself.

Star Twinkle figured that he must be the one who was responsible for him and Rainbow Dash.
He wanted to introduce himself too but that would be pointless.
The doctor probably knew everything about Star Twinkle anyway.
It felt kinda weird for him.

“I am happy to announce that one of you can go home now,” he said wasting no time bringing some good news.

“Please me, please me, please me, please me!” Star Twinkle was praying inside of his head.

“Rainbow Dash!” Doctor Horse announced.

“Of course...” Star Twinkle thought annoyed.

At least one of them could leave the hospital.
Star Twinkle wondered if Rainbow Dash was happy to hear that and turned around to look at her bed but when he looked at her he noticed that she was already up, covering herself under her bed covers with the same lantern beside her than last night.

“Wait...was she up all night, reading that book?” Star Twinkle wondered since everything was pointing at it.

Doctor Horse went to her bed and made sure that she received the good news as well.
As soon as she noticed that Somepony was addressing her, she came up from under her bed cover in surprise.
She even got more surprised after realizing herself that she was up all night.

“Well, I'll be quick. Congratulations, Rainbow Dash, we're checking you out of the hospital,” Doctor Horse said, delivering the good news to Rainbow Dash as well.

But instead of excitement, pure fear was seen in Rainbow Dash's face.

“What? Later today?” She said biting her hoof nervously.

“No. Right now!” Doctor Horse replied, causing Rainbow Dash to become more frustrated.

Before she knew it, she was practically thrown out of the hospital.
Almost as if everypony wanted them out as fast as possible.

“That could have been me...” Star Twinkle said disappointed.

Rainbow Dash seemed to be sad to leave Star Twinkle.
She even reached out one hoof in his direction with a sad expression on her face.

“Wow...did not thought she would have taken it so hard...” Star Twinkle said, surprised to her reaction.

When he turned his head to his right, he noticed how the Daring Do book was still hidden under the bed cover.
Since Rainbow Dash was not going to read that, Star Twinkle would either give it back to one of the nurses or read it himself.

The rest of the day was extremely boring for Star Twinkle.
He had nopony to talk to for a while.
His friends did show up scattered through the day but were only allowed to stay for around an hour.
There was also a new roommate that replaced Rainbow Dash but Star Twinkle didn't know him and he didn't look too good either so Star Twinkle didn't talk much with him.

But the good news was that he could leave the hospital on the next day.
Awaiting this day to come even faster, Star Twinkle decided to go to sleep, early so that he could get out of the hospital fast.

However, since he was sleeping a lot lastly, he couldn't manage to fall asleep fast and laid there in the dark with open eyes.
Maybe it was because of the excitement to leave the hospital on the next day, that kept him awake.
Whatever it was, it bothered and annoyed him.

Suddenly, while practically waiting to fall asleep, he noticed how somepony was breaking into his room, dressed in a black leather suit.
Star Twinkle thought it was a burglar and pretended to be asleep, to not get into trouble.
But after getting a closer look on the pony, he recognized who it was in an instant.

“Rainbow Dash?” He whispered to her, getting her attention as she crawled on the ground in an attempt to not get caught.

However, she didn't reply and just moved her hoof in front of her mouth, trying to signal that Star Twinkle should be quiet.
Star Twinkle did not understand what this was all about until he noticed that she was going to the bed, where she was in before.
When she noticed that it was occupied, she quickly looked under it and found what she was looking for.
The Daring Do book.

“Gimme a break!” Star Twinkle thought, after realizing that she just broke into a hospital for a book.

Instead of grabbing the book and reading it somewhere else, she decided to read it under the bed, which was not a good idea at all since Star Twinkle's roommate woke up, screaming for help, thinking that Rainbow Dash was a burglar.

“Help! Burglar, burglar! Someone's trying to steal my slippers!” He screamed, alerting the nurses and doctors in the hospital.

Rainbow Dash then ran away but not without being followed by some nurses and doctors, who's attention she captured.
Star Twinkle was playing with the thought of not doing anything but he eventually decided to follow Rainbow Dash and the hospital staff.

Rainbow Dash was surrounded but she was a Pegasus so she just flew over her everypony in order to escape but since her wing was not fully recovered yet, she crashed down on the floor and lost the book.

She then ran away with four ponies chasing her and Star Twinkle right behind them.
Even some dogs seemed to follow her, though Star Twinkle could only hear some barking and didn't see any dog.
Star Twinkle did not know exactly why he followed her too but he was worried that Rainbow Dash could get into some trouble.

They chased her throughout all of Ponyville, ranging from Sugarcube Corner, trough Carousel Boutique and finally ended in front of the Golden Oak Library.
Rainbow Dash found herself surrounded by the hospital staff and her friends, who woke up due to the noises from the chase.

When Star Twinkle approached the ponies, two of the ponies walked past him, one of them being a guard from the hospital and one of them being a patient, who was barking constantly, which Star Twinkle thought was a little weird.

The closer Star Twinkle got to the group of ponies, the more he could hear how they were asking Rainbow Dash about what was going on.
As expected it was a little hard for Rainbow Dash to admit, that she was doing it for a book.
Luckily, Star Twinkle knew what to do in this situation to protect Rainbow Dash's secret.

“There you are, Rainbow Dash!” Star Twinkle said, instantly getting the attention of everypony.
“I know that you wanted to visit me as soon as you got out but couldn't you wait for tomorrow morning?” Star Twinkle said, trying to somehow save Rainbow Dash and keeping her secret safe.

But unfortunately, nopony seemed to believe him right away.
Especially not Twilight...

“She wanted to visit you in this kind of get up?” Twilight asked, referring to Rainbow Dash's leather suit.

In this instant, Star Twinkle's excuse was busted and he didn't know how to respond.
Rainbow Dash knew what Star Twinkle was planning and appreciated, how he was defending her secret but she also knew that it would only be a matter of time until everypony found out.

“It's okay, Star Twinkle...” she said, getting Star Twinkle out of this situation.

“What's going on, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked Rainbow Dash.

“The truth is...
I'm an egghead,” she admitted.
“See, I was trying to get back into the hospital to finish the last chapter of—“

“—'Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Statue'!” Twilight said, finishing Rainbow Dash's sentence.
“Wow, I knew the book was good, but I didn't know it could drive a pony to petty theft!”

“Good? Try awesomely amazing. That book is undeniably, unquestionably, un-put-down-able! But then I had to put it down; I was sent home before I could finish it,” Rainbow Dash said a little ashamed, by her actions because of that.

Rainbow Dash expected laughter coming towards her from all sides but instead, everypony was just relieved that she was only trying to get back the book instead of stealing something.

It was just like everypony said before, reading is not only for smart ponies like Twilight.
Reading is for everypony.
Some more, some less but there was nothing to be ashamed of at all.
Rainbow Dash learned this lesson too and realized that she was in the wrong.

In the end, everypony was happy that Rainbow Dash came to that conclusion and went home again.
Or in Star Twinkle's case back to the hospital.
Doctor Horse was about to accompany him back but they were stopped by Rainbow Dash.

“I just wanted to say, thank you, trying to keep my secret...
I didn't think that you would try to cover it up for me until the very end,” Rainbow Dash said, gratefully but also a little embarrassed in front of Star Twinkle.

“I just figured that I had too.
It's what friends do for each other, right?”

Rainbow Dash nodded relieved and was grateful that Star Twinkle thought that way.

“Well, if you excuse me, I have a book to finish!” She said as she walked off in direction of her home.

“And we have to go back to the hospital!” Doctor Horse said, trying to mimic the enthusiasm that Rainbow Dash had before she left.

“Right...” Star Twinkle thought as he realized that he still had to spent one night in the hospital.

At least it's only one night...

41. Center of the Storm - Part 1

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There was a slow breeze in the air...
Quiet and soft but also threatening.
Like a predator who was hiding just waiting to get his chance to jump on his prey with full force.

Ponyville...
That was the prey for another member of the Storm Wings...
Cyclone Wing...

He stood on a cliff and looked over Ponyville in the distance.
The wind was blowing through his windmill shaped mane.
His eyes full of determination.
He was also wearing a saddlebag at which he looked at for a moment before he returned his head back to Ponyville.

"I just have to finish this mission..." he said starring down to the little town of Ponyville.
"Then...everything will be over...
And we will be free again..."

There was nothing that could stop him now.
He had to bring the Elements of Harmony to his leader.
There was just too much for him at stake.
Too much to go back now...

He closed his eyes and mentally prepared himself letting the wind blow through his mane.

“Just one more mission...
I will not fail here...” He thought before his mind wandered off to another place in the past...

A little while ago at the Storm Wing Headquarter...

Breeze Flyer was just informing Cyclone Wing about her and Hurricane Wing's failed attempt to get the Elements of Harmony from Ponyville.
Needless to say, Breeze Flyer was not feeling well telling it to Cyclone Wing.

"I'm sorry, Cyclone...we failed..." she said lowering her head in front of Cyclone Wing.

But Cyclone Wing didn't show any anger or disappointment.
Instead, he was waiting for more information.

"It was, Hurricane...he...he was..."

"I understand," Cyclone Wing interrupted, knowing exactly what happened.
"Go.
I will inform Mystic..."

Hearing that instantly made Breeze Flyer raise her head in surprise.

"No!
Me and Hurricane Wing discussed it and we-"

"NO!” He said, stopping Breeze Flyer's sentence.
"I will take full responsibility for your mission.
You can go now," Cyclone Wing said turning around and walking to the end of the room.

Breeze Flyer left the hall with a frown on her face and a lowered head.
When she walked outside she noticed how Hurricane Wing was eavesdropping on both of them.
Breeze Flyer thought that he was still weak from their mission and didn't expect him at all.
He was also frowning and began to walk away with Breeze Flyer following him.

Meanwhile, Cyclone Wing informed Mystic about another failed mission, regarding the elements of Harmony.
Mystic, as expected was not happy to hear this and looked at Cyclone Wing with a mean glare on his face.

"So you are telling me that you sent another one of your brothers and you still failed?"

"Yes..." Cyclone Wing said without any emotions or even making eye contact with Mystic.

But as usual, Mystic didn't care and continued.

"When I said that I wanted the Elements of Harmony,
I meant that I want them as soon as possible and not after a dozen failed attempts!" Mystic exclaimed angrily.

As always when they talk, the tension was at the highest point.
And as always Cyclone Wing didn't bother to reply to most of Mystic's answers and just kept quiet.

"Are your brothers not important to you?" Mystic asked threatening.

This, however, caused Cyclone Wing to get a little angered.
He clenched his teeth, knowing that those words were just said to provoke him.

However, despite two failed attempts to retrieve the Elements of Harmony, Mystic was a lot calmer then Cyclone Wing expected.
But little did he know where the conversation was heading to.

"What is the thing you wish the most?" Mystic asked out of the blue.

Cyclone Wing knew exactly the answer to that question.
He wishes that the Storm Wings will be freed from Mystic so that things can return the way they used to be.
But for obvious reasons, he couldn't say that out loud.

"Don't bother...
I know your answer..." Mystic said.
"And I can give it to you..." he added.

Cyclone Wing didn't understand and looked back at Mystic confused.

"Yes...
Bring me the Elements of Harmony and I will leave you and your Storm Wings.
After all, why do I need you and your little group if I can have the most powerful magic in all of Equestria?" He explained, smiling in the process.

Cyclone Wing's eyes widened out of surprise.
Was he just messing around with him?
He knew Mystic far too good to believe what he was saying was true.
But what if it was true?

“If I had the chance to choose between this group and the Element, then my choice would be easy.
The same applies to you, right?” Mystic asked, only further provoking Cyclone Wing.

Of course, the choice between those two things would be obvious for Cyclone Wing.
If he could choose, then he would choose the Storm Wings any day.
No.
Even if there was something else in all of Equestria, he would still choose the Storm Wings.
However, Cyclone Wing didn't know where Mystic was going with all of this until Mystic continued further.

Mystic walked up to Cyclone Wing, not even respecting Cyclone Wing's private space at all with a sinister smile on his face.

“You hate me, don't you?” He asked Cyclone Wing from an eye to an eye.

Gladly, would Cyclone Wing answer this question...
Nothing more would satisfy him to say those words into Mystic's face.
But there was no reason for that.
Mystic should know that Cyclone Wing felt that way against him.

“You hate me because I order you and your brothers around...
You hate me because I commanded the Storm Wings to attack other villages...
You hate me because I took this group away from you...”

It was like, he was speaking out Cyclone Wing's thoughts.
But even with Cyclone Wing acting all servile, Mystic should know all this long ago.
Cyclone Wing did not pretend to like Mystic at all and showed that to him on every occasion.
So why was he bringing that up all of the sudden?

“Let me tell you something,” Mystic said staring with his dark blue eyes into Cyclone Wing's light blue eyes.
“I am not really fond of you either...
In fact, I hate this whole group!” He added, filled with a little more anger in his voice.

Why was Mystic bringing this up all of the sudden?
Why was he provoking Cyclone Wing like that, now?
Was it because they failed to retrieve the Elements of Harmony?
Cyclone Wing didn't know why Mystic was talking so directly like that but despite all those words, he just returned Mystic's glare with one of his own without saying anything.

“Do you know what I hate the most in this group?” Mystic asked, with his eyes still focused on Cyclone Wing's eyes, who didn't want to hear the answer to that question at all.
“Not you...
Not your failed attempts to get me the Element's of Harmony, twice!
No...
Your brother, Tornado Wing!
Even though I am the leader and I am the one who is in charge here
That stupid steel winged pony still thinks he can do whatever he wants and-”

Suddenly, Cyclone Wing grabbed Mystic's throat with his hoof and looked at him angrily, clenching his teeth.
Mystic was surprised to get such a reaction from Cyclone Wing but still managed to prepare a spell, ready to fire at Cyclone Wing as soon as he would do something stupid.
They both stared at each other's eyes.
With Cyclone Wing's hoof on Mystic's throat and Mystic's horn glowing in a purple light just waiting to release a spell at Cyclone Wing.
Surprisingly, Mystic kept his calm in his current situation.

“Do you know why I'm telling you all this?” Mystic asked, still with his horn glowing and ready to attack.
“Because I am the leader now.
And I know that you won't do anything stupid.
You can glare and threaten me as much as you want but in the end, you can't do anything against me and you know that,” he said followed by another sinister smile.

As much as those words angered Cyclone Wing, he knew that it was true.
His glare slowly faded away and was replaced by an expression of insecurity.

“Now get your hooves away from me,” Mystic said, pointing with his head at Cyclone Wing's hoof.

Cyclone Wing completely forgot about that and removed it slowly.
It was not like, he was actually stroking him in the first place.
It was just supposed to be a warning for Mystic.
Cyclone Wing was just not expecting Mystic to even talk like that and didn't pay much attention to his actions.

"I'm going..." Cyclone Wing said before he turned around and left the room with a weird feeling surrounding him.

Mystic only threw a glare at Cyclone Wing as he watched how he was leaving the room.
Cyclone Wing could feel Mystic's eyes piercing through him.
If he had eyes on his back, he would instantly glare back at him.
But at that very moment, he had other thoughts in his mind.
He thought about if the things that Mystic said were true.

Would he really throw away his current position for the elements?
Why would he?
He has Cyclone Wing right where he wants him.
Why sacrificing all that?

But thinking about that would be a waste of time.
He could only wish that Mystic was telling the truth.
He could only wish that soon everything will be over.

Back in the present...

“Just one more mission...
Then everything will be over...” He thought while mentally preparing himself as the wind was blowing through his mane once more.

Then, the wind stopped.
It was quiet.
But only for a while.

Once again, the wind started to blow but this time stronger and more intense.
So strong that it almost pushed Cyclone Wing of the cliff.

Then in an instant, he opened his eyes again, spread his wings and flew off to Ponyville with a determined look on his face.

Nothing mattered now.
He only had his mission in clear sight.
And he will do anything to accomplish it.

He overlooked the town while flying over it to find the place he was searching for.
According to his brother, Tornado Wing, the Elements were in a library, inside of a tree-house.
He made sure to look at every building, every tree and everything that looked similar to not miss his goal.

Moments later, he found something that seemed to fit the description.
A giant tree with windows on it and a door in front of it.
Definitely, the place that Tornado Wing was describing to him.

Cyclone Wing was flying to the tree house and looked through the window near the front door.
Nopony seemed to be inside so Cyclone Wing took his chance and broke inside without anypony noticing.

According to Tornado Wing, the Elements were in a blue box, so Cyclone Wing looked all over the place for something like that.
But after looking around for a while, he couldn't find anything.
His usually calm demeanor was slowly crumbling after thinking about what finding the elements would mean for the Storm Wings.
There was no way that he could fail at this moment.

However, while still searching for the elements, a voice from upstairs could be heard.

"Back so soon, Twilight?" Spike said as he walked downstairs, not realizing the uninvited guest.
"I thought you would be away for most of the-" Spike stopped after he noticed Cyclone Wing.

The green Pegasus gave the little dragon a glare and jumped at him.
Spike tried to get away but due to the size difference, Cyclone Wing had no trouble, pinning the little dragon to the ground.
Spike was struck by fear after this attack and tried to get away but Cyclone Wing was too strong.

Cyclone Wing didn't know who he was dealing with but Spike was the only one who he could ask right now so he tried his luck by asking Spike about the elements.

"Where are the Elements of Harmony?" He asked almost threatening.

Spike was struck by fear but quickly put one and one together and realized who he was dealing with.

"Wait, are you from those Storm Wings?" Spike asked nervously.

Cyclone Wing put more pressure on the little dragon and asked again.

"Where are the Element's of Harmony?" Cyclone Wing said even more threatening than before.

Cyclone Wing had clearly no patience and time to deal with Spike right now and simply wanted some answers.

"They are not here anymore!" Spike said in fear.
"Twilight and the others were just leaving with them a few minutes ago," he replied quickly in fear that Cyclone Wing would hurt him.

"To where?" Cyclone Wing asked.

"Canterlot,"

This caused Cyclone Wing to widen his eyes.
Was he already too late?
If they bring the Elements of Harmony back to Canterlot, then things could get complicated for the Storm Wings.
Cyclone Wing had to prevent this at all cost.

He released Spike and left the library again.
In order for them to quickly get to Canterlot, they had to take the train so Cyclone Wing flew to the train station of Ponyville.

When he arrived at the station, a train was already waiting with a bunch of ponies boarding it.

"Those are..."

He quickly remembered the description from Tornado Wing of the seven ponies that stopped him and the description of those ponies fit right into it.
They must have the Elements of Harmony with them.
And the only thing he had to do, was to get his hooves on them.

Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were about to board the Friendship Express in order to go to Canterlot.
Twilight wanted to give Princess Celestia back the Elements of Harmony because of the recent events.
And the others all took the chance and to accompany her to spent some time after that in Canterlot.
However, Star Twinkle was more than happy that the Elements would be back with Princess Celestia again.

"We should have done that way sooner..." Star Twinkle said in concern.

“Yes! You're right! It's been so long since we all went to Canterlot together!” Pinkie Pie added excitedly.

“Not that!” Star Twinkle exclaimed.
“I mean bringing back the elements to Princess Celestia so that we don't have to worry about those Storm Wing guys!” He corrected.

"You are being too cautious, darling.
We are already on our way to Canterlot," Rarity assured, trying to calm Star Twinkle down.

But it didn't work.
Star Twinkle was still looking around in paranoia.

Meanwhile, the girls slowly entered the train with not a worry at all on their faces.

“It sure is windy today...” he mumbled to himself before entering the train as the last one.

They all went to their seats and talked about what they planned to do once they arrived in Canterlot.
Thankfully, Twilight was always putting her priorities high when it came to Princess Celestia.
The first thing she wanted to do after arriving in Canterlot was to bring the Elements to the princess.

Star Twinkle focused his eyes on the saddlebag that Twilight was carrying.
Inside of it was the box with the Elements of Harmony.
She only had to bring them to Princess Celestia and Star Twinkle's worries could go away.
He was looking forward to that.

After a few minutes of waiting, the train finally began to move and Star Twinkle felt like a huge burden was lifted off from him.
Still, he was nervous, like always when it came to going to Canterlot.

The door at the end of the cart opened and a Pegasus with a light green coat and a light blue and yellow colored mane, which was shaped like a propeller entered the room.
He was also wearing a blue steward hat and vest.
He was bringing in a cart, which was loaded with sweets and offered some of them to anypony.
Pinkie Pie, of course, was the first one to jump right on it.

“Do you have some sweet chocolate cakes?" Pinkie Pie asked excitedly.

"I'm not sure, let me take a look..." the steward said trying to grab out something of the cart.

Star Twinkle wasn't interested in eating anything and looked away again with a bored expression on his face.
He looked out of the window and watched the scenery.

"We are going back to Canterlot, huh?
Maybe I should visit them this time?
I am visiting Canterlot a lot more often now but every time, something else is coming up...
I'm sure the others wouldn't mind but...
Maybe I'm just looking for excuses..." Star Twinkle thought while watching the scenery that the train was passing by.

But he snapped out of his thoughts and got startled after he heard a loud noise.
When he turned around again, he saw how the cart got knocked over with most of the sweets laying on the ground.

The green Pegasus pony was panicking and had a shocked expression on his face.

"Oh no! I'm terribly sorry!" He said in a panic.
“I can't believe this is happening again!
My boss said that he was going to fire me if something happened again!
I will lose my job if he finds out!” He exclaimed in panic widening his eyes out of worry and breathing heavily.

The girls and Star Twinkle, of course, noticed how shocked the steward was after this accident and couldn't help but to offer their help.

“Don't you worry.
Your boss doesn't have to know,” Applejack assured.

“Yes, we won't tell anypony, right?” Rarity added, to which everypony nodded in unison.

The Pegasus seemed relieved and calmed down a little.

“You would do that?” He asked, not believing in his luck right now.

“Let us help you, clean up this mess,” Twilight said before she used her magic to clean up the sweets from the ground.

Everypony then helped, by cleaning up the train as best as they could.
Of course, Star Twinkle was not too excited to work in his free time but he also didn't want the poor Pegasus to loose his job.

However, he could help too, he thought while looking at the Pegasus who was just smiling in embarrassment.
That is when Star Twinkle noticed his Cutie Mark for the first time.
After that, it was no wonder.

“Well, his Cutie Mark is definitely not indicating that he is a good steward...” He mumbled while helping to clean the ground.
“A Tornado with a wing on it's left and right side, huh?” He wondered, thinking what kind of special talent it was supposed to represent.

But then it struck him.
His eyes widened.

“A Tornado...with two wings...just like....” he thought to himself.

Pictures of two other Cutie Marks were flashing through his head
A wing with two tornadoes coming out in front of it...
A wing with a gust of wind coming out behind it...
It was just like....

"No...is he?"

He looked back at the Pegasus once more but he wasn't standing in the same place anymore.
Star Twinkle looked around, confusing the girls in the process, who thought that he was just trying to avoid work.

“Is something wrong, Star Twinkle?” Twilight asked after she noticed the worried look on Star Twinkles face.

Star Twinkle then remembered the goal of the Storm Wings, which instantly caused him to look over to Twilight's seat.
He could see how one green hoof was reaching out for the saddlebag, where the Elements of Harmony were inside.

"Watch out!
He's from the Storm Wings!" Star Twinkle screamed in panic, pointing at the green Pegasus, who soon realized that he was found out.

The expression on the Pegasus quickly changed after Star Twinkle revealed him.
Instead of panic, a pure determination was on his face.

The same expression was on the girl's faces as well.
Applejack quickly jumped over to him in order to stop him but he threw his hat and vest right at her face, making her stumble to the ground.

He then jumped out of the window and flew away with the elements in his hooves.

"We have to go after him!" Twilight exclaimed.

Everypony jumped out of the train and followed the Pegasus.
Rainbow Dash quickly caught up with him.
He didn't seem to be as fast as Hurricane Wing but still faster as Steel Wing.

The Pegasus opened the saddlebag and made sure that a blue box was inside of it, which he opened as well to make sure that the elements are inside.

“Alright...this should be enough...” he mumbled to himself.

Being aware that he was being followed, he landed on the ground, not attempting to escape anymore.
He turned around and faced the group who slowly caught up to him.

"Why is he stopping?" Star Twinkle wondered.

The Pegasus kept an eye out for any incoming attacks but he stood there passively like he was offering a peace-offer.

Everypony was now standing a few meters away from him with their defense up.

"Are you a member of the Storm Wings?" Twilight asked.

"Yes," he replied.
His voice being completely different than before when he was putting on his act.
"My name is Cyclone Wing.
Second in command of the Storm Wings," Cyclone Wing introduced himself.

But nopony except Star Twinkle was impressed by his introduction.
He remembered what Breeze Flyer was talking about.
Back then, she said that there was another pony coming after the elements and that they want to avoid that at all cost.
But so far, he didn't seem too intimidating.

"It doesn't matter who you are!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
"Give the elements back!
You should know what happens if you try to steal them from us!" She continued determinedly.

However, Cyclone Wing was not intimidated and looked at them calmly.
So did Star Twinkle.
Something was wrong, he thought.

"I have a bad feeling..." Star Twinkle mumbled.

"Don't worry. We got him outnumbered," Rainbow Dash assured.

"That's just it," Star Twinkle replied, causing to draw some confused looks on him.
"The others had at least somepony else that accompanied them but he is all by himself and he doesn't even attempt to flee," Star Twinkle explained.

Meanwhile, Cyclone Wing was inspecting Star Twinkle and remembered Breeze Flyer's description.

"Green coat, star-shaped mane...
Are you the one who saved Hurricane Wing?" Cyclone Wing asked.

Star Twinkle was caught off guard after hearing this question.
If by saving him, he meant, giving Hurricane Wing his medicine, then he would be the one who saved him.

"If so then, thank you..." Cyclone Wing said bowing his head before Star Twinkle.
"I really don't know what I would have done if something happened to my brothers.
For that, I thank you..."

Star Twinkle didn't know how to react to that and got confused.
He could only raise an eyebrow out of confusion.

"However..." he continued.
"I will still take the Elements of Harmony for the Storm Wings,"

Cyclone Wing then took out a box from his saddlebag and placed it on the ground.
It was a white box which was only a little bigger than the box of the Elements of Harmony.
He then put the box with the Elements of Harmony inside of the box he just took out and closed it.

"Well, at least he is taking good care of the elements," Fluttershy said somehow trying to see something good in Cyclone Wing.

Cyclone Wing then stepped away from the box.
Twilight noticed that this was the perfect chance to get the elements back.

"Rainbow Dash!" She exclaimed.

"On it!" Rainbow Dash replied on command.

Rainbow Dash flew towards the Elements of Harmony in an attempt to get them back.
But suddenly, a bright light emerged from the box causing Rainbow Dash to stop.
A beam of light shot out from the box into the sky and flew in a direction behind Cyclone Wing.

"What just happened?" Star Twinkle said in surprise.

Rainbow Dash while still confused took her chance and grabbed the box and brought it back to Twilight.
She quickly checked if the elements were inside but to her surprise, the box with the elements was gone.

"Where are the Elements of Harmony?" Twilight asked looking at Cyclone Wing.

"They are with us now," Cyclone Wing replied.
“There are two of these boxes, who are both connected to each other.
If you put something in one of it, it will appear in the other one after some time.
And you can take a good guess of where the other box is right now,” Cyclone Wing explained to the group.

"Why are you doing all this?
Why are you stealing the Elements of Harmony?" Star Twinkle asked angrily.

"To return the Storm Wings to their former self!" He replied before he spread his wings.
“I'll warn you.
Don't follow me.
Because you will not be able to get your Elements back!” Cyclone Wing threatened before he flew off.

The group noticed that Cyclone Wing was flying in the direction of the beam of light.
Star Twinkle smelled that this was a trap, set up by Cyclone Wing.
But it was either following him, risking to be ambushed or losing the Elements of Harmony.

The next step was clear.
The Elements of Harmony were way to important for Equestria to be stolen by the Storm Wings.
They had no chance but to follow Cyclone Wing.

They all ran after him while discussing what was going to happen next.

“How about I just get this Storm Wing Pegasus and teach him a lesson!” Rainbow Dash suggested, readying her hooves in the process.

“No, Rainbow Dash!
He clearly knows where the Elements are heading to.
We need to follow him in order to get them back,” Twilight suggested.

“But there is also a possibility that he is leading us into a trap,” Star Twinkle pointed out.

“Don't worry, Sugarcube.
If we work together, like always, there is nopony that we can't beat!“ Applejack said, lighten up the mood again.

“Yeah!
After all, we managed to defeat two of those Storm Wings before,” Rainbow Dash added.

“But weren't you losing when you raced against that Hurricane Wing?” Pinkie Pie pointed out.

“The point is...
There is nopony in Equestria that stands a chance against us if we work together,” Rainbow Dash explained.

“Yes.
I mean it's not like we are fighting Discord who can take away our wings or magic,” Fluttershy pointed out.

“Exactly.
They are just a bunch of ruffians who haven't learned their lesson yet,” Rarity added.

The girls did a really good job to lighten up the mood.
Star Twinkle was worried for a second but felt a little better after these words.
And it was true.
They managed to defeat Nightmare Moon and Discord by working together.
Steel Wing was hard to deal with at first but after they teamed up, they managed to defeat him as well, even without the Elements.

“You're right!” Star Twinkle replied after those encouraging words.
“We will get them back!” He said fully confident.

The girls were glad to hear that and kept on following Cyclone Wing to wherever he was heading to.
Their chase continued for a good while until they found themselves nearby a place called Foal Mountains.
It was a place full of mountains, as the name suggested but there was also a large forest and a good amount of cliff sides and craters.

Cyclone Wing did notice, how he was being followed but didn't mind it much and calmly continued his flight until he was looking around the area with scanning eyes.

“It should be around here...” he mumbled as his speed slowly decreased.

He then landed on a cliff which was in front of a crater.

“He is landing!” Star Twinkle exclaimed after noticing that Cyclone Wing is not flying away from them anymore.

Cyclone Wing turned around to face everypony once more and looked at them with a calm expression on his face.

“If he is stopping, does that mean that the Elements are somewhere nearby?” Twilight wondered.

“If that's the case, then let's look around!” Applejack suggested.

However, Cyclone Wing overheard this conversation and decided to put an end to their attempts to get the Elements back.

“You followed me this far...
Even though I warned you...
I suggest that you turn around immediately,” Cyclone Wing advised once more.

But everypony was determined to stay, now that they come this far.
And they made sure that Cyclone Wing would understand that too.

“If we get the Elements back from you, then we just have to bring them back to Canterlot.
There you will not be able to get them anymore!” Star Twinkle said.

“Your right...” Cyclone Wing replied.
This is the last attempt for the Storm Wings to get hold of the Elements of Harmony.
I am well aware of that...
That is why I made sure that you won't get them back,”

“Well, guess what?
Your plan failed!” Rainbow Dash pointed out.
We know that the elements are here right now!" Rainbow Dash said amused.

However, Cyclone Wing didn't show any signs of defeat.
Star Twinkle couldn't help but look around.
They were far away from Ponyville or Canterlot.
It was almost unknown territory for them.

"Why do I have such a bad feeling?" Star Twinkle said worriedly as he looked around him to find anything suspicious.

Some of the girls noticed Star Twinkle's concern and attempted to cheer him up again.

“Remember what we all said,” Applejack said, putting a hoof on his shoulder.

“There is nothing that we can't accomplish if we all work together!” Twilight continued.

Star Twinkle nodded in response with a smile on his face.
Whatever might happen from now on, they will not fail.
They came this far and they will succeed till it's all over.

“Working together, huh?” Cyclone Wing said, overhearing their conversation.
“That's right...” He said, lowering his head with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“You can only get this far on your own...
But if you work together, then nothing is impossible...”

The group was surprised to hear that kind of words from Cyclone Wing.
It was not like he tried to provoke them or something.
He was saying those things because he seemed to believe in them too.

He raised his head again and looked at everypony with the most determined face that he has shown this far.
It was sending shivers down on Star Twinkle's body.
But that was nothing compared to what Cyclone Wing said after that.

“...And that is exactly what we are doing right now!”

Suddenly, a loud noise startled everypony except Cyclone Wing.
The noise became louder and louder.
No pony could clearly recognize what kind of sound it was.
But it sound kind of mechanical.
What followed was an earthquake, that caused everypony to lose their balance.

"I told you before...
I made sure that you won't get your Elements back..."

When everypony looked at Cyclone Wing, they noticed how something was arising from behind him.
Something really big was slowly levitating from below the crater.
On first glance, it looked like some sort of castle, or a fortress, which was lifted by a giant balloon and some engines from below.

"Let me introduce you to the headquarter of the Storm Wings...
The Storm Fortress!" Cyclone Wing proudly introduced to the seven ponies.

"The Element's of Harmony are in there?!" Star Twinkle thought while looking at this giant flying fortress in front of him.

But it was not only the size of the fortress but rather what was on board on it.
There were probably hundred of ponies on it, looking at the seven ponies and ready to attack on Cyclone Wing's command.

"In order to get your elements back...
You will have to face the whole force of the Storm Wings!" Cyclone Wing threatened, the fortress behind him only supporting his words.
“Now let me ask you one last time...
Do you leave?
Or do you fight?”

The group was prepared to deal with anything.
But after seeing this giant ship arise in front of them...
It left the group with anything but determination.

“How are we supposed to get the Elements back from this?” Star Twinkle thought in a panic as he watched how it was seven ponies against a hundred of them.

“So what's it going to be?” Cyclone Wing asked once more to the group, awaiting their next step.

But no answer came right away.
Because they had to careful which answer they would give.
Regardless what they would choose...
The future of Equestria would lay in their next action...

To be continued...

42. Center of the Storm - Part 2

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The seven ponies followed Cyclone Wing because they thought that they know how to deal with him.
But after looking at an airship with the size of an entire fortress all their spirit was broken quickly.
Cyclone Wing who appeared as one pony in front of Star Twinkle and his friends not only managed to steal the Elements of Harmony but also prepared the rest of the Storm Wings to guard them.

Star Twinkle slowly understood why Breeze Flyer was warning him from Cyclone Wing.
But instead of attacking him and his friends, Cyclone Wing awaited the answer of the seven ponies.

"So what's it going to be?
Do you leave or do you want to fight the full force of the Storm Wings?" Cyclone Wing asked once more.

Needless to say, everypony stood still and watched how the eyes of what looked like maybe a hundred other ponies stared down at them, ready to attack at Cyclone Wing's command.

“There is no way that we can take on all of them...” Star Twinkle thought, not even attempting to hide his fear.
“What if they are all as strong as this Steel Wing guy?”

Coincidentally, a familiar voice snapped Star Twinkle out of his thoughts.

"Come on please say that you fight!" The voice shouted from the direction of the airship.
Everypony looked up to the Storm Fortress and saw how one pony was standing on top of the wall next to some big mechanical device.

"Wait...that voice," mumbled Star Twinkle who recognized the voice immediately.

It was Steel Wing who was impatiently jumping around next to something that looked like a cannon.
He probably couldn't wait to use it and tried to provoke the group to attack the Storm Wings so that he could test it.

"Just a minute Tornado," Cyclone Wing shouted back.

The group just remembered how much trouble they had with Steel Wing alone.
But now there were, even more, ponies to deal with.
Seeing him again certainly didn't help the group.

"If that Steel Wing fellow is here, then the other one can't be far away too," Applejack figured.

Cyclone Wing then focused on the seven ponies again, trying to convince them to leave.

"That's right.
And not only that, every single member of the Storm Wings is inside of that airship.
Ready to attack at my signal.
You are not as foolish to think that you can take us all on, right?
You may have defeated far more powerful foes and saved Equestria with the Elements of Harmony but right now you are just seven ponies who are outnumbered by us," Cyclone Wing explained, trying to lower the spirit of the group even further.

The sad thing was, that it was true.
Nightmare Moon and Discord were both stronger opponents to deal with and could only be defeated by the Elements of Harmony.
They would have never even stood a chance against them on their own.
This was already proven after they faced off against Steel Wing.

Star Twinkle thought back on these “heroic events” and was slowly agreeing with Cyclone Wing.
When he met the girls for the first time, they were almost defeated by Nightmare Moon.
Discord also managed to almost defeating him and his friends.
Star Twinkle came to the conclusion that everything worked out because they were lucky and the fact that they had the Elements of Harmony.

But now luck seemed to have left them.
Just like the Elements of Harmony...

Star Twinkle found himself losing more and more reason to fight and gave up from the inside.

"Listen...I don't want to hurt any more than possible.
Just leave and everything will end without a fight," Cyclone Wing assured.

Despite having the upper hoof, Cyclone Wing always seems to look for a peaceful solution.
He just wants to end this as quick as possible without necessary fighting.

"We can't just abandon the Elements of Harmony.
Equestria needs them if another thread like Nightmare Moon or Discord appears," Twilight explained, trying to reason with Cyclone Wing.

"Yeah like some evil insect queen," Pinkie Pie added.

"I don't care what happens to Equestria as long as my brothers and the Storm Wings are safe..." Cyclone Wing replied coldly.

"How can you say that?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah, you are talking about your home too!" Applejack added.

"My home?" Cyclone Wing asked confused.

Something in his voice changed.
He was still calm but there were pieces of sadness and bitterness inside of it.

"I am home...
The Storm Wings...
This airship...
My brothers...
They are my home!
And I will do everything to make sure that nopony will take it away from me!
And for that...I need the Elements of Harmony..." Cyclone Wing said with pure determination in his voice.

This little speech was definitely leaving some impression on the group.
Of course, it wasn't a good one.
It only gave them more reason to get the Elements back.

“Remember what I said about this group earlier?” Rarity said.
“That they are some kind of ruffians?
I'll take it back...
They are crazy ruffians!” She said, making sure to highlight the word crazy.

“Don't worry, we may be outnumbered but we can't let them take the elements, no matter what!” Twilight said, keeping the spirit up in the group.

Star Twinkle heard her words but couldn't convince himself to believe in them.
He was just standing in the background and didn't say anything.
However, Twilight made sure that the Storm Wings would understand how serious the group was to get their elements back.

“The future of Equestria once more depends on us!
We can't let you have the Elements of Harmony.
Even if it means fighting you all!”

Cyclone Wing seemed impressed by Twilight's determination but he also didn't want to loose.
He looked up to Steel Wing with a serious look on his face.
The moment when Steel Wing crossed eyes with him, he nodded in approval.

“Alright!” Steel Wing shouted before he started the device next to him.

Even from down where the seven ponies stood, the device could be heard.
Some kind of sucking device came out of it which slowly sucked in some air from above.
Moments later the sucking device was pointing at the group.
Cyclone Wing, who exactly knew what was going to happen next, flew away in direction of the Fortress while the seven ponies prepared themselves for whatever was happening next.

“Remember how you blew me out of Ponyville with a tornado?
Now it's payback time!” Steel Wing said with excitement, laughing maniacally in the process.

A huge blast of air came out of the device, directly heading to Star Twinkle and the others.
It was like a tornado that was shot right at them.
The seven ponies tried to keep on the ground but were effortlessly blown away from the tornado.
It carried them far away from the fortress and out of the sight of the Storm Wings, who were cheering over their victory.

"Yeah!
Take that!
Not so fun being blown away by a tornado now is it?!" Steel Wing yelled after them.

"I don't think they can hear you anymore," said Hurricane Wing who walked up behind Steel Wing.

Featherbrain and Cloud Head were also cheering because of their victory.

“That was awesome boss!” Featherbrain cheered.

“Yeah!
It's not every day where you can see Tornado, firing a tornado at other ponies,” Cloud Head added almost proud of this discovery.

“It's Steel Wing!” Steel Wing as always corrected, causing Featherbrain and Cloud Head to get startled.

Cyclone Wing landed next to the four ponies on the wall, surprisingly not affected by the Storm Wings victory.

“Good job, Tornado,” Cyclone Wing complimented, to which Steel Wing didn't react at all with anger, unlike with Cloud Head.

“Still, I wished that they could have lasted a little longer...” Steel Wing said in an upset and unsatisfied tone in his voice, playing with the switches on the device next to him.

“I'm sure you will get plenty more time to use this.
I don't think that they will give up that easy...” Cyclone Wing said while he looked over to the direction where the seven ponies were blown off too.

“There was a light heading towards us, a while ago...” Hurricane Wing said.
“Were those the Elements of Harmony?” He asked.

Cyclone Wing nodded in response.
This relieved most of the ponies.
After all, the Elements of Harmony caused all of them quite some trouble.
However, for Cyclone Wing it was not over yet.

“Where is Mystic?” He asked, causing the excitement in the group to drop by just mentioning his name.

They informed him that he was not in the Fortress right now which caused Cyclone Wing to clench his teeth in annoyance.
It was Mystic who wanted the Elements so badly and Cyclone Wing just wanted to give them to him so that he could keep his end of the bargain.
Even if Mystic wasn't around, he still managed to bother Cyclone Wing somehow.

Cyclone Wing left the four ponies to watch out for Star Twinkle and the others and went inside of the Fortress in the middle to retrieve the Elements of Harmony.
He just wanted everything to be over as fast as possible.

Meanwhile...

Star Twinkle and the others laid on the ground with dizzy heads, caused by the tornado that buffeted them.
They were blown so far away that they couldn't even see the Storm Fortress anymore.
Slowly, every one of them got up again, while still having some problems to stand straight.
Most of them...

“That was fun!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, bouncing all over the place as if she wasn't affected by this attack at all.

No one of them expected it to be easy to get back the Elements but that attack was just unnecessary.
They didn't even manage to get remotely close to the Elements of Harmony.
Which raised a question in the group...

“So, how do we get on that airship?” Rainbow Dash asked, crossing her front legs and awaiting an answer.
“I mean, I could just fly inside of it, grab the Elements and leave,” she suggested with a boasting tone in her voice.

“Oh, please,” Rarity interrupted.
“I can't imagine you to fly up there and not getting caught...” she added.

Rainbow Dash was making an offended and annoyed face but from the inside, she knew that some of Rarity's words were true and didn't reply as a result.

“If anypony has one bright idea, now is the time...” Applejack added, prompting that somepony should come up with something.

Star Twinkle, however, couldn't believe that they still wanted to go into that giant ship with hundred of ponies on board ready to attack them.

While they all discussed what to do next, Star Twinkle kept quiet in the background.
Since Twilight noticed his behavior since they first saw the Storm Fortress and decided to finally confront Star Twinkle about it.

When Star Twinkle noticed how Twilight came closer, looking at him worriedly, he could just return a worried look himself.

“Let me guess...” Twilight started, putting one of her hooves under her chin.
“You think we don't stand a chance, right?” She said in a surprisingly amused tone.

Star Twinkle didn't know why Twilight was taking it so lightly and returned a surprised expression to her.
Then he looked at the ground, embarrassed that he was like an open book for her.

“I guess I'm really bad, hiding my fears, huh?” He replied, also slightly amused.

“You are,” she replied with a teasing look on her face.
“I know things don't look very good right now but we can't give up.
This is not the first time that we have the odds against us remember?”

Of course, Star Twinkle remembers.
But it didn't make the situation any better.

“Are they all expecting that things go fluid if they just try?
Why can't I think like that?” Star Twinkle thought, trying to force positive thoughts in his mind.

Twilight then came closer without Star Twinkle noticing at first.
She made sure nopony was listening and whispered some words in Star Twinkle's ears.

“To be honest...
I'm afraid too...” Twilight admitted.

Star Twinkle completely forgot his fear for a moment due to Twilight's words.
She wasn't making the slightest impression to be afraid.
Did she just want to try making Star Twinkle feel better?

“There is little chances to succeed...
And I'm afraid to let everypony down...
But we at least need to try...” Twilight continued, actually making Star Twinkle slowly feel better.
“You could have run back then when we fought Nightmare Moon...
You could have given up fighting against Discord...
But you didn't...
And you won't give up now,
I know that much!” She said with a bright smile forming on her face.

“They are all afraid too...
Afraid to let Equestria down...
But they don't show it...
I thought I was the only one...”

Realizing that Star Twinkle was not the only one who was afraid in this situation made him feel much better.

“Yes.
I won't!” Star Twinkle replied smiling back at Twilight who returned a smile as well.

The two ponies were then walking up to the rest to come up with a plan to get on board of the Storm Fortress.
As it turns out, nopony seemed to have found a solution yet.

“I know!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed while raising her hoof in the air.
“How about we build a giant wooden pony and offer them to the Storm Wings?
Then if they take it into their fortress, we will all jump out of the statue and surprise them!” Pinkie Pie explained before she smiled happily after coming up with such an idea.

“I don't think we have enough time to build something like that,” Rarity pointed out.

“Any other ideas maybe?” Applejack asked.

“I do...” said a voice that didn't belong to any of the seven ponies who were present.

After everypony turned their heads to the direction where the voice came from, they got surprised after realizing from who it came from.
A Pegasus mare with a white coat, a light blue mane, light blue eyes and three swirls as a Cutie Mark.
It was Breeze Flyer, who stood very passively a few meters away from the group.

“I can bring you into the Storm Fortress,” she said to the surprise of everypony.

Needless to say, the group quickly got suspicious of her words.
Rainbow Dash being the first who mistrusted her.

“And why should we trust you?
You are a member of them too!”

She was not wrong.
This could be another trap.
But why would the Storm Wings try to go after the bearers of the Elements of Harmony?
It didn't make much sense.
Everypony knew that they were running out of options.
This was maybe the last chance to get the Elements back.
Star Twinkle remembered back when she was speaking to him after he saved Hurricane Wing from his illness.
She didn't seem like somepony who would lie to him at that moment.
And right now, she wasn't making that impression either.

“I trust her,” Star Twinkle said, drawing the faces of everypony directly at him.

“Yes, me too,” Twilight added.
“They already have the Elements of Harmony.
What worse could happen?” She pointed out.

“Getting captured?” Fluttershy added nervously.

“The Storm Wings would never do something like that!” Breeze Flyer protested.
“I know it's hard to believe but our group wasn't always like that!
Cyclone Wing is just stealing the Elements because it was ordered by our leader...” she seemed to struggle saying those last words.

“But what if we manage to get the Elements back?
Wouldn't you guys come to steal them again in the future?” Star Twinkle asked.

“That is why you have to talk to Cyclone Wing.
It all started once Cyclone Wing lost his position as leader.
He is doing everything, what our leader ordering to do!
He is the one who ruins the Storm Wings!” Breeze Flyer said in a much more bitter and darker tone.
There must be something that he can use against Cyclone Wing.
But Cyclone Wing won't tell us...
He probably doesn't want to bother us with his problem...
All of us want to get rid of our leader but Cyclone Wing does everything to avoid that...
And since everypony trusts him...everypony accepts it...even if it means doing all those things, like stealing the Elements of Harmony...”

Things were much more complicated than everypony thought.
A member of the Storm Wings just asked a group of ponies to get rid of their own leader.
And Cyclone Wing is the only one who is against it for some reason.
But at the same time, he is also the only one who could make it happen...

After, putting so many thoughts into all this, Star Twinkle was not sure if the Storm Wings were that much of a criminal group, he once thought they were.

“Please, you have to talk with him and make him realize that ” Breeze Flyer exclaimed, bowing down in front of everypony and trying to hide her desperate face.

If this was all an act, then it was pretty convincing.
She looked really desperate and almost began tearing up.
Just listening to her was hard for everypony.
Fluttershy and Pinkie almost teared up themselves listening to her.

Everypony agreed to help Breeze Flyer with her request almost instantly.
If what she was saying is the truth, then there was only one enemy to go up against.
The leader of the Storm Wings.

No time was wasted to put Breeze Flyer's plan in motion.
According to her, the Storm Fortress will fly along the Filly Mountains, hidden behind the mountains.
The Storm Wings were still criminals in the eyes of everypony else so they couldn't just fly around in open spaces.

However, the plan of Breeze Flyer was not really the safest.
She suggested climbing one of the mountains to jump on the Storm Fortress, while it was flying nearby.

The fortress is surrounded by a wall but there is a small space between the wall and the end of the ground that was still part of the airship.
By jumping on that ground they could enter the wall trough a secret passage that would lead directly to the fortress in the middle.
The fortress was the most likely place, where the elements would be kept.

While inside of the wall, nopony would notice the group entering the fortress.
They could talk to Cyclone Wing without any other member, disrupting them on the way.

The group did as they were told and climbed one of the mountains, which already took its time itself but according to Breeze Flyer, the Storm Fortress couldn't progress too fast either because of the mountains around it.

When they arrived at a good place to jump off from, they just had to wait for the Storm Fortress to fly by.
However, the longer they waited, the more Star Twinkle didn't like the idea.

“I really don't know how to feel about this idea...” he said nervously.
“I mean this is the second time where part of a plan involved me, jumping down from somewhere!” He said, referring to the plan to stop Steel Wing a little while ago.

But as soon as he got that out, the Storm Fortress closed.
There were some ponies on watch on top of the wall, most likely looking out for Star Twinkle and the others.

“I will go and distract them while you jump on,
Don't forget the location of the secret entrance,” Breeze Flyer said before she flew off to the few ponies on top of the wall, who kept their eyes on Breeze Flyer, probably asking where she was coming from.

The Airship was getting closer and closer, making the airship look even bigger than it was before.

It was just like Breeze Flyer said.
The wall wasn't at the limit of the ship.
There was a small space left on the edges to safely walk on, even if it was very small.

“Alright everypony!
Prepare to jump!” Twilight shouted due to the engines of the Storm Fortress being louder than her normal speaking voice.

Rainbow Dash then coughed and briefly pointed at her wings, showing that she doesn't need to jump.

“Or fly...” Twilight corrected shortly after.
“Well, here goes nothing!”

Shortly after everypony jumped on the airship, trying to keep their balance as they walked over to the spot where Breeze Flyer told them, where the secret passage was.
Everypony followed Twilight until she stopped at a certain point.

“It should be around...here!” She poked against some part of the wall, which shortly opened up an entrance nearby.

Everypony quickly proceeded to walk inside of the wall with the entrance closing behind them.
Inside of the wall, it was really dark and quiet but luckily Twilight used her horn to cast a spell that brightened their path.
There was only one way to follow which most likely would lead them to the fortress in the middle, leaving them only one way to go.

“I wonder how long it took them to build all this...” Fluttershy wondered.

“They could have at least do some decorating inside here while building.
There is obviously too much...gray...” Rarity pointed out bothered, having even problems looking at the walls.

“I doubt that they build all this,” Twilight corrected.
“The Storm Wings are not around for that long...
They more look like ruins that were around for more than hundred of years,” Twilight analyzed.

“Yeah...almost like the castle of the two sisters...” Star Twinkle added.

“Except that these ruins are flying!” Pinkie Pie added happily.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle stopped moving without anypony noticing at first.

“Wait...” Star Twinkle thought.

“So does that mean that this thing was flying a hundred years ago too?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“We are on a ship...” Star Twinkle continued to think.

“I don't know...
I don't think airships were that common back then...” Twilight replied unsurely.

“A flying ship...”

“Whatever it is or was, they can't just move in in a ruin that is that old, can they?” Applejack asked.

“Flying as in...”

“I don't think we should worry about things like that.
We are here to get the Elements of Harmony back.
We should focus our thoughts on that!” Twilight said, remembering everypony on their current task.

“...The air!”

“Right, Star Twinkle?” Twilight asked turning her head around thinking that Star Twinkle was right behind her only to realize that he was standing a little further away from the group, not moving at all and looking into the distance.

They all gave each other confused looks until they decided to walk back a little, making sure that Star Twinkle was alright.
He wasn't reacting to any question that they asked him and only stood there while opening and closing his mouth rapidly.

“Why is he shaking?” Twilight wondered when she closely inspected Star Twinkle.

“More importantly, what is he saying?” Rarity added after noticing that he was saying something really quietly.

“Hold on!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing near Star Twinkle and moving her ears near his mouth.

She then nodded a few times accompanied by some “uh huh's” and “mhm” and then turned around to the girls to say what he was mumbling.

“All he keeps saying is:
We're flying! We're flying! We're flying! We're flying! We're flying! We're flying!” Imitating the shocked expression on Star Twinkle's face while saying that as well.

“ugh...Star Twinkle...” Twilight said, followed by a sigh since this was not the right moment for Star Twinkle's fear of flying.

Applejack and Rainbow Dashed decided to push Star Twinkle since he was unable to walk any further.
They couldn't waste any more time to get the Elements of Harmony back and had to make haste.
Thankfully, Star Twinkle snapped out of it and began to respond to the others.
He was still shaking but he kept moving on with the others.
There was no way for him to get out of this situation anyway.
He just had to endure his for a moment.

The path, they were following ended after a few more minutes.
They could only walk left after that, which meant that they were already at one corner of the wall.
Since they all entered from the left side of the wall, that meant that there was only half of the way left for them until they arrived at the backside of the wall where the Fortress was at.

They all walked around the corner, Star Twinkle being the one who was behind all of them, due being still afraid of being on a flying ship.
When he was about to go around the corner as well, he noticed how the girls were still standing there.
He was wondering what that was all about until a voice answered his question.

“I knew that you wouldn't give up that easily,” said the voice, which he instantly recognized as Cyclone Wing's.

Star Twinkle decided to hide around the corner, without Cyclone Wing noticing him.
He didn't know why he did that.
Maybe he thought that he wouldn't be much of a help in his current state or that he would only get in the way like this.
Whatever the reason was, he agreed that this move was very cowardly and kinda regret it.
Still, he listened to the conversation from around the corner.

“Didn't I told you that we would make sure, that the Elements would stay with us?” Cyclone Wing said before he stepped to his left pushing a button on the wall.

It was exactly like before when Twilight opened the secret passage.
The wall on the left of the group raised and revealed an open place, which was the center inside of the wall.
Some pegasi were watching in surprise how a group of six ponies stared at them in confusion.
Then all of the sudden the wall to the right of everypony opened up revealing a fan that was spinning rapidly, in an attempt to blow everypony out in the center.
It was just like that cannon that Steel Wing fired only a little weaker.
The poor attempts to not getting blown out were in vain and Star Twinkle watched how his friends got separated from him.
The wall closed again and Twilight and the others were trapped outside with several Storm Wing members starring at them.

After getting blown out from the fan, the group got back on their hooves again.
They could only watch how the wall closed behind them and how their cover was revealed after they were spotted by the Storm Wings.

“Lookie what we got here!
Cyclone was right, you did try to sneak into our fortress!” Said Steel Wing who was on top of the wall where he was before, amused by the group's failed attempt.
“That's just lucky for me!” He added before he prepared the cannon that he used before to get rid of the seven ponies.

“I don't think it's a good idea to use that inside here, Tornado.
You could hit some us in the process,” Hurricane Wing advised in concern, though his expression was looking not too concerned at all.

Steel Wing understood and formed an upset expression on his face, not being able to use his cannon once more.

“Fine!
Then go and get them, guys!” Steel Wing ordered to the members of the Storm Wings who then prepared themselves to attack the group of ponies.

There were dozens of ponies, mostly consisting of pegasi slowly walking up to Twilight and the rest of the girls, ready to attack them.
However, Breeze Flyer, who was standing next to Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing looked at Twilight and her friends with a shocked expression.

Some of the girls instantly, suspected that she was tricking all of them but they didn't have time to worry about that right now.

“All this sneaking in and we still ended up trapped by those guys!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed annoyed.

“Don't worry, girls!
Star Twinkle is still inside.
There is still hope!” Twilight assured and trying to boost the morale again.

The Storm Wings knew that they outnumbered Twilight and her friends but still proceeded with caution as they slowly approached the group.

“Hey isn't one of them missing?” Steel Wing wondered as he scanned through the group of ponies.

“Weren't there always six of them?” Breeze Flyer responded, trying to confuse Steel Wing so that he won't send some ponies to look for Star Twinkle.

“I dunno...maybe?” He replied confused.

Breeze Flyer was releasing a relieved sigh, realizing that she just prevented the situation from getting any worse.
However, Hurricane Wing was looking over to her, without her realizing.
His eyes were narrowed as if he caught up of what she was planning behind everyponies back.

Meanwhile at Star Twinkle's situation...

Separated from his friends, Star Twinkle was all on his own against Cyclone Wing.
But the good thing was that Cyclone Wing didn't notice him.

“Now there is only one left...”

Or at least that's what Star Twinkle thought...
Surprised by Cyclone Wing's words, Star Twinkle walked around the corner since there was no reason to hide anymore.
He soon found himself standing in front of Cyclone Wing who didn't make any move and just stared at Star Twinkle.

“How could this happen?
Now I'm all on my own!” Thought Star Twinkle after realizing what just happened.
“I should have been blown out too...
But I decided to hide like a coward...
Even after I decided to not give up in front of everypony...”

Star Twinkle instantly regret his action and now he will be punished for it by dealing with Cyclone Wing on his own.
So he decided to stand still not even bothering to resist, whatever Cyclone Wing was about to do with him.

But instead of walking towards Star Twinkle, Cyclone Wing turned around and slowly moved away from him.
Of course, Star Twinkle didn't understand what this was about.

“Why are you walking away?
Aren't you trying to stop me?” Star Twinkle asked surprised by Cyclone Wing's action.

Cyclone Wing didn't turn around and continued to walk away from Star Twinkle.

“There is no reason for that...
I can't see any sign of resistance in your face,”

Even though Star Twinkle wasn't aware of it, he knew what Cyclone Wing meant.
It was probably all written on his face that he was afraid to deal with this situation.
But despite all his hesitation, Star Twinkle couldn't just stand there, doing nothing.

“Wait!” Star Twinkle yelled across the hallway.

Cyclone Wing stopped but didn't turn around.
This action alone made Star Twinkle already regret his words.
But Star Twinkle false bravery prevented him from taking back his words now.

“I have to get the Element's of Harmony back!” He exclaimed, letting Cyclone Wing know that he was serious now.

“Then you have to go past me...” Cyclone Wing threatened while still not facing Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle clenched his teeth in determination and actually charged at Cyclone Wing who didn't seem to notice due him still being turned around.
However, once Star Twinkle was about to ram Cyclone Wing, he spread his wings and flew up some meters, avoiding Star Twinkle's charge.

Moments later Cyclone Wing landed back on the ground now facing Star Twinkle.
He could see how Star Twinkle's expression changed a little but he still didn't want to fight.

“I am still thankful that you helped Hurricane Wing.
But don't think that you will get some special treatment because of that...
I will complete my mission...” Cyclone Wing said determent once again warning Star Twinkle to not do anything stupid.

“If your brothers and the Storm Wings are that important to you then why do you insist on following your leaders order?”

“How do you know about that?” Cyclone Wing replied, his usual calm voice changing into a more bitter one this time.

“I know what the Storm Wings used to be like!
But they changed once you got a new leader, right?”

“So what?
I'm doing what my leader is ordering me.
That is how it normally goes in a group!” Cyclone Wing corrected who was starting to get a little annoyed by Star Twinkle's words.

“Even if most members of this group are against that?”

“How do you know all this!?” Cyclone Wing said, his expression changing to a more angry one this time.

Star Twinkle figured that his words weren't doing a good job in getting more information from Cyclone Wing.
It was going a lot better in his head.
There were still the Elements of Harmony left to retrieve.
So he decided to focus on that first.

Once again, Star Twinkle charged at Cyclone Wing out of the blue but Cyclone Wing was again, prepared and levitated upwards again.
However, this time Star Twinkle was jumping before Cyclone Wing was even up in the air.
Cyclone Wing didn't expect that move from Star Twinkle and couldn't stop in time and was rammed by him in midair, causing him to fall back a few meters and making him land where Star Twinkle was a few minutes ago.

Despite this attack, Cyclone Wing got up again real fast this time determent to fight back.
He expected one more attack from Star Twinkle but instead of coming right after him, Star twinkle inspected the wall on his left.

“Where is it?” Star Twinkle said touching the walls hasty one after another.

It was now that Cyclone Wing realized what he was planning to do.
But it was too late.
Star Twinkle found one of the buttons that Cyclone Wing pressed to get rid of the girls before.

Once again a fan opened up in the wall, coincidentally where Cyclone Wing was standing at right now.
This time it was Cyclone Wing who was blown away from the fan.
But since the wall wasn't open anymore, Cyclone Wing was just pushed against the wall and unable to move for a short time.

Time that Star Twinkle used to run away in direction of the fortress that he and his friends were heading to originally.
Unable to move, Cyclone Wing could only watch how Star Twinkle was running away from him.
But he knew that it was only a matter of time until the fan stopped and freed him.
And it was only a matter of time until he caught up with Star Twinkle.

Meanwhile outside with Twilight and the others...

The fight outside has already begun and despite being outnumbered, Twilight and her friends were not doing a bad job fighting off their opponents.
Twilight used her magic to fight off most of them and Applejack, Rainbow Dash and even Rarity were resorting to good old hoof fighting.
Pinkie Pie was mostly playing around and Fluttershy took every opportunity to get out of harm's way.

Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing were impressed to see them holding off most of their members.
Steel Wing even seemed to enjoy this fight a little until he realized that they were losing.

“I think I'm going to join them soon before I get bored,” he said to Hurricane Wing, Breeze Flyer, Cloud Watcher and Featherbrain who were watching as well.

Breeze Flyer realized how the situation was slowly getting out of control and decided to do something about it.
Without a word, she flew off into the fight, heading right at Twilight who didn't notice Breeze Flyer at first and got pinned down on the ground.
Twilight was already preparing a spell in her horn but she noticed the worried expression on Breeze Flyer's face and hold it back.

“What happened?” She asked, making sure to take advantage of the confusion in this fight to not get caught talking with Twilight.

“Cyclone Wing was waiting for us,
Star Twinkle is still inside the wall,” Twilight explained.

Breeze Flyer couldn't afford to talk much longer and tried to keep the conversation short in order to not get caught.

“I'll try to find a way to get you inside somehow, just hold on some longer,” she said before she pretended to get hit by Twilight's magic and flew off to Steel Wing and the others again.

Steel Wing was surprised to see her act that way since he didn't saw any magic coming out of Twilight's horn but Breeze Flyer acted like it was some kind of invisible beam of magic.
Since Steel Wing didn't know the first thing about magic, he believed it without questioning and left it at that.

Once again, Hurricane Wing starred at Breeze Flyer with a suspicious look on his face.

“So that's how it is...” he mumbled to himself before he spread his wings and attempted to fly off.

“Whoa, whoa!
Where are you going to?” Steel Wing asked in surprise and almost shocked.

“Joining the fight...” Hurricane Wing replied casually.

“You sure?
I mean...you know that we don't have any left, right?” Steel Wing asked, showing signs of concern for the first time.

“I know...
Don't worry.
I won't be gone for long...” Hurricane Wing assured before he flew off into the fight.

He too was flying right at Twilight but instead of pinning her down like Breeze Flyer, he grabbed her in midair and flew off with her in his hooves.

Rainbow Dash noticed how Twilight was pretty much captured and tried to follow them but was blocked by a few members of Storm Wings in her way and couldn't get past them right away.

Meanwhile, Twilight tried to free herself from Hurricane Wing who carried her in the air and away from the battlefield.

“Let me go!” She exclaimed but once she looked down and realized how high she was in the air, she corrected herself.
“Or fly closer to the ground and then let me go!”

“You are trying to help us, right?” Hurricane Wing asked calmly, making Twilight stop struggling in an instant.
“I can't bring you to the fortress right away, that would cause too many suspicions but I can show you a secret passage that leads to the inside of the wall...
That's how you got in, right?” He said, looking at Twilight with a smile on his face.

Twilight was surprised that Hurricane Wing was helping her all of the sudden but she was also worried about Star Twinkle and the Elements of Harmony and let herself get carried to the same secret passage where Breeze Flyer was leading them too.

“Why are you helping us?
We would go up against your brother,” Twilight said, not understanding why Hurricane Wing helped her too.

“No, you would go up against Mystic...” Hurricane Wing replied.

“Mystic?” Twilight replied confused.

“That's the name of our leader...” Hurricane Wing replied.
“You guys saved Equestria before so maybe you can save our group too.
At least I think that you can,” Hurricane Wing explained with a smile on his face before he flew off again.
But he stopped one moment and flew right back to Twilight after he remembered something.
“Oh yeah!
If you see that green pony again, then say him thank you from me.
For saving me back then,”

“Will do!” Twilight replied before she pushed the button that opened the secret passage again.

She then ran inside and hurried to Star Twinkle's help, hoping that she can still save him and the Elements of Harmony.

Meanwhile, at Star Twinkle's location...

Star Twinkle still continued to run away from Cyclone Wing.
He was running as fast as he could and hoped that Cyclone Wing wasn't coming closer to him.
But unfortunately, Cyclone Wing slowly caught up with him, making Star Twinkle accelerate even more.

Cyclone Wing was slowly closing the gap between them.
Star Twinkle would have probably one more minute left until Cyclone Wing caught up with him.
After some more running, finally, a corner was in sight, meaning that it wasn't too far away from the fortress in the middle anymore.

Star Twinkle ran around the corner and got surprised how there was no more long hallway but instead several small halls that he passed through in seconds.
But now he realized the real problem.

“Where are the Elements of Harmony?” He thought in panic.

It was just now that he realized that he had no idea where to look at.
There were way too many rooms and multiple floors as well.
How was he supposed to know where the elements were at?
The only indication that he had was that Cyclone Wing was still following him.
And that could only mean that Star Twinkle was still on his way to them.

While running through the halls, Star Twinkle noticed something in the distance in front of him coming closer and closer.
Somepony stood in the middle of the way and shot a magic beam right at Star Twinkle, causing him to dodge out of the way but stumbling while doing so.
Even Cyclone Wing had to dodge that shot since it was flying directly at him as well.
But instead of Star Twinkle, he was not sure if that was on purpose or an accident.

They both had to stop in their tracks and we approached by a Unicorn with a dark purple coat, a dark blue mane with a “W” shape and yellow stripes, dark blue eyes and a cloud of mist as a Cutie Mark.

"And here I thought you had everything under control," said the unicorn in disappointment.

"I have everything under control, Mystic," replied Cyclone Wing annoyed by just hearing Mystics voice.

“Really?
You seem to have problems with only one pony while outside almost all of the Storm Wings try to fight off six ponies,” Mystic corrected.

Somehow, Star Twinkle was relieved to hear that his friends were doing alright but now he had to face two opponents at once.
And only Cyclone Wing was already hard enough.

“Get me the Elements of Harmony, Cyclone Wing.
I will deal with this nuisance,” Mystic said, moving his head away from Cyclone Wing to Star Twinkle with a smug smile on his face.

Cyclone Wing didn't like it but did what he was told and flew past Star Twinkle.
Star Twinkle tried to stop Cyclone Wing, however, Mystic was drawing Star Twinkle's attention to him by blocking his path.

“I don't like being ignored, you know...” Mystic said almost amused.
“I assume that you and your friends were the ones who disrupted my plans before.
How about I'll pay you back for that?” Mystic said in a threatening tone in his voice before he prepared a spell in his horn, smiling sinisterly in the process.

Whoever that pony in front of Star Twinkle was, he was definitely not like Cyclone Wing.
He wanted to fight and even seemed to enjoy it judging from the sadistic expression on his face.
Something was telling Star Twinkle that things would only get worse from now on.

To be continued...

43. Center of the Storm - Part 3

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With his friends separated from him, Star Twinkle's chances for success to retrieve the Elements of Harmony and facing off against Cyclone Wing on his own were already slim enough.
But now before him stands the leader of the Storm Wings, Mystic.

Star Twinkle had enough problems with Cyclone Wing and now he was replaced for a unicorn who compared to Cyclone Wing wasn't even remotely looking like a pony who wanted to avoid a fight at all cost, judging from the sinister smile on Mystic's face.

"Are you the leader of the Storm Wings?" Star Twinkle asked, making sure who he is dealing with.

"Yes.
And the name is Mystic," Mystic introduced himself.
"Let me guess...
You are part of the group who kept stopping Tornado and Hurricane from getting the Elements, right?” Mystic figured.

"The elements that you forced them to steal!" Star Twinkle exclaimed pointing at Mystic angrily.

"Me?
Forcing them?
You must be mistaken.
They help me on their own accord," Mystic corrected.

“I really have my doubts that this is true...” Star Twinkle mumbled but still making sure that Mystic heard him.

Despite, knowing that Star Twinkle's chance for a victory is slim, he had to go past Mystic if he wanted to catch up with Cyclone Wing.
If he comes back and gives Mystic the Elements, things will go even more downhill.

Star Twinkle managed to outsmart Cyclone Wing before so with a little luck he maybe can get past Mystic too.
But Star Twinkle didn't know what to do and prepared himself to charge at Mystic with full force.

“If getting the Elements back by defeating you, then I have no choice!” Star Twinkle exclaimed in a poorly attempt to sound brave, before charging at Mystic.

"You're kidding...
You're kidding, right?" Mystic replied, watching Star Twinkle running closer and closer to him.

But Mystic just smiled and used his magic to levitate Star Twinkle and separating him from ground.
Star Twinkle was waving his legs around in order to free himself but it was no use.
He was caught in Mystic's magic and there was no way to get out.

Mystic then threw Star Twinkle away and against a wall to his left, causing Star Twinkle to groan in pain and dropping him on the ground.

Star Twinkle wasn't hurt too bad and slowly got up on his hooves again while watching how the dark purple unicorn slowly walked up to him.

“I will get the Elements of Harmony in my hooves, this time.
Even if means that I have to stop every single one of you myself.
Starting with you...” Mystic said smiling with his horn glowing in a dark blue aura.

It was just like how Star Twinkle excepted it to go.
Sadly, he didn't know what to do against his opponent on his own.
It was only Star Twinkle and Mystic...
With Star Twinkle literately against the wall...

Meanwhile, outside with Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie...

Surprisingly, even with Twilight gone, the group still managed to hold their ground against the Storm Wings.
However, concern was building up in the group.

“How could you let Twilight get captured by this Hurricane Wing fellow?” Applejack yelled at Rainbow Dash angrily.

“Hey, I had to deal with like ten of those guys while following him!
I lost sight of Twilight after that!” Rainbow Dash replied angrily.

“Um...girls...I don't think this is the best time to argue...if you ask me...” Fluttershy said, trying to avoid the girls from fighting against each other instead of the Storm Wings.

“She is right!” Rarity added.
“Twilight will be fine on her own just like Star Twinkle,”

“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie said.
“I mean, they both had to deal with only one pony each!
While we are fighting against, one, two, three, four...” Pinkie Pie kept counting.

But Rarity continued...

“The point is...we should focus on our problem first, before worrying about them,”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash both understood what Rarity was getting at and agreed to stop arguing and concentrated at their opponents again.

The Storm Wings were still surrounding the five ponies but they seem more passive than before.
Probably because they know that they can't just beat those ponies by outnumbering them.
So they decided to watch them calmly before attacking once more.

However, there was one pony who wasn't calm at all, right now.

“Alright!
That's enough!” Steel Wing exclaimed readying the cannon and aiming at the five ponies much to the shock of Breeze Flyer who quickly walked up to him.

“What are you doing?
Do you plan to destroy the whole Fortress?” Breeze Flyer exclaimed angrily.

“I'll just blast them off again,” Steel Wing assured, still aiming at the five ponies.

“Did you even listen to what I just said?” Breeze Flyer yelled, trying to get Steel Wing's attention.

“Yeah, yeah, we can repair some broken walls again.
We are losing way to much time, dealing with these ponies like this,” Steel Wing replied, somehow trying to convince Breeze Flyer that what he was about to do wasn't crazy at all.

But since Breeze Flyer secretly wanted to help her opponents, pretty much everything that Steel Wing did would cause her to get nervous.

The five ponies didn't seem to notice what was about to come at them right now and concentrated back on their fight.
Meanwhile, Steel Wing carefully aimed the cannon at them and was ready to fire.
But before he fired he made sure to come up with something cool to say.

“Now it's time to rock you...
Like a...”

“Hurricane!” Breeze Flyer screamed in the middle of Steel Wing's one-liner.

“No, I was actually about to say Tornado...” Steel Wing replied with a slight amount of disappointment in his voice, due Breeze Flyer interrupting him.

“No!
Over there!
Carefully!
Hurricane Wing is in your aim of fire!” Breeze Flyer warned.

Moments later, Steel Wing noticed Hurricane Wing too and widened his eyes while switching his head back and forth between the cannon and Hurricane Wing nervously.
Hurricane Wing didn't seem to have noticed how he was in the line of fire and calmly kept on flying towards Steel Wing and the others.

Steel Wing had already started the cannon a little while ago, meaning that it would only take a few more seconds until it fired.
He nervously fiddled around with some buttons in order t stop the cannon from firing but it didn't work.
After running out of options, Steel Wing slammed his hooves on the back of the cannon in frustration, causing it to point straight up.

A heavy tornado was fired up to the sky with Steel Wing right next to it, covering his head so that he wouldn't get blown away.
Everypony was confused what this was all about and focused their sight in direction of Steel Wing.

Despite all this mess, Hurricane Wing slowly approached Steel Wing with not a bother at all in his face.

“Why did you shoot up to the sky?” Hurricane Wing asked while Steel Wing was just getting up on his hooves again from the shock.

“I tried to not hit you!” Steel Wing replied angrily, giving Hurricane Wing a mean glare.

“Ooooh....Good job, Tornado!” Hurricane Wing replied relieved, giving Steel Wing a smile.

But Cloud Head and Featherbrain both interrupted the two in their conversation.

“Um, boss...
We got a problem...” Cloud Head said nervously while looking up with his head.

“Yeah, I know, I missed...” Steel Wing replied.
“At least I didn't break any of the walls, right?”

“No...not the walls...” Cloud Head replied.

“Boss, how much do you know about patching balloons?” Featherbrain added with his head also looking up to the sky.

When Steel Wing was wondering why everypony was looking up to the sky, he also took a look only to realize that there was a giant hole in the balloon that kept the Storm Fortress in the air.

“Well, that may not be good...” Steel Wing said after realizing what he has done.

Meanwhile, at Star Twinkle and Mystic's location...

Mystic was still toying around with Star Twinkle and threw him around the room with his magic.
There was not much that Star Twinkle could do to defend himself from Mystic's magic.
All he could do was dodging some of Mystic's shots but as soon as he got closer, Mystic's magic was trapping him and levitated him across the room.

Star Twinkle was not sure how much he could take any more and Mystic seemed like he was enjoying every minute of it.

“You know, for beating Tornado and Hurricane Wing, I expected more of a challenge from one of you...
It only proves that you can't count on any of those Storm Wings...” Mystic said while casually walking up to Star Twinkle who was on the ground due of his exhaustion and the damage he took from “fighting” Mystic.

Mystic levitated Star Twinkle in front of him.
Star Twinkle didn't even bother to resist since he knows that he can't win against his opponent and prepared himself for the worst.

Suddenly, everything was shaking, causing Mystic to loose his balance.
Star Twinkle wasn't affected by the shaking since he was being levitated by Mystic but he noticed it too.

“What was that just now?” Mystic wondered.

“Did something happen out there?
Are the others alright?” Star Twinkle thought in concern, looking around the room in hope to get some answers.

The shaking was intensifying and both ponies slowly levitated above the air until they were almost at the ceiling of the room.

“Are we falling?” Star Twinkle screamed across the room in the panic.

They were both in the air for several seconds, caused by the drop of the Storm Fortress.
The Fortress eventually stopped falling and both ponies were flying towards the ground at full speed.
Star Twinkle expected a really painful drop on the ground and closed his eyes in fear.
But after several seconds with no impact, Star Twinkle opened his eyes again and found out that he was flying several hoofs above the ground, engulfed by a light purple almost pinkish aura.

Star Twinkle instantly recognized that it was magic and judging from the color he also knew from who it came from.

His guess was right after he saw a light purple unicorn standing in front of him, with her horn glowing and a relieved look on her face.

“Twilight!” Star Twinkle exclaimed in relief.

She then released her spell and dropped Star Twinkle carefully on the ground again.
Twilight noticed the exhaustion on Star Twinkle's face and a few bruises that he got from his confrontation with Mystic.

"The Storm Fortress seemed to have crashed on the ground.
Are you alright?” Twilight asked in concern.

“Well, I felt better,” Star Twinkle replied, not even bothering to act tough right now.
“But if we are on the ground again, then I guess things are kinda better now,” he added joking about his fear of flying and being relieved to be on solid ground again.

After making sure that Star Twinkle was alright, Twilight asked what was bothering her after meeting up with him again.

“Where is Cyclone Wing?”

That's when Star Twinkle remembered again that they don't have time to relax yet.

“That's right!
Cyclone Wing is on his way to retrieve the Elements of Harmony for-”

“Me!” Mystic's voice said, completing Star Twinkle's sentence.

Mystic was slowly levitating to the ground with a dark blue aura of magic around him.
He must also have softened his fall by levitating himself at the right time.

Twilight's head quickly turned towards Mystic with an angry look on her face.
It's almost as if she knew that Mystic was up to no good already.

"Who is that?" She asked.

"His name is Mystic.
He is the leader of the Storm Wings.
Cyclone Wing went to retrieve the Elements of Harmony and he prevented me from going after him," Star Twinkle wrapped up in order to inform Twilight.

While not questioning anything that Star Twinkle said, Twilight believed him and focused on Mystic who was now on solid ground as well.

"Another nuisance, I see..." he said unusually calm.
But this quickly changed after he gave both of them an evil glare.

Mystic prepared another spell, this time aiming it on Twilight.
He already knew that Star Twinkle wasn't a threat to him and focused on his new opponent.
Twilight also prepared a spell and waited for Mystic's attack.

With Mystic shooting first they both ended up firing at each other while Star Twinkle jumped to the side to avoid getting hit.
The light purple and dark blue beams clashed and caused the little magic explosion, that caused a shock wave in the room.

Judging from Mystic's confused expression, he didn't expect Twilight to be able to block his magic.
Twilight, however, remained calm and collected and waited for any movement from Mystic.

"I'll take care of him, Star Twinkle.
You go and get the elements back," Twilight ordered.

Of course, Star Twinkle instantly agreed to this plan.
After all, he couldn't do much against Mystic without magic and Twilight seemed to be evenly matched with him.

Star Twinkle attempted to leave but Mystic was firing another blast at him.
Luckily, Twilight teleported herself between the two and shot another beam to stop Mystic's attack.
This once again caused a small explosion and stopped Mystic's beam.

The dark purple unicorn slowly got angrier after witnessing how easily Twilight managed to stop him and decided to focus on her instead of Star Twinkle.

"Fine.
Then I'll deal with you first!" He said preparing his magic.

"Just you try!" Twilight replied determent to win this fight.

Star Twinkle didn't like to leave Twilight with Mystic alone but he would only stay in the way right now.
Though knowing that didn't make him feel better either.
Now he had to focus on Cyclone Wing and getting back the Elements of Harmony.

Meanwhile, outside...

Everypony was laying on the ground, caused by the drop of the Storm Fortress.
The balloon of the fortress was hanging down on the side above everyponies head, covering almost half of the main place inside of the wall of the fortress.

Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were all unharmed by the fall.
Rainbow Dash managed to carry Applejack and Rarity in time, Fluttershy was flying, and Pinkie Pie used her tail as a helicopter to keep herself in the air.

But some of the Storm Wings members were not so lucky.
Some of them were knocked out or hurt too much to fight against the five ponies.
Not many members were left now and things started to look better again for the group.

“Looks like this fight is over,” Applejack said.

“Too bad...I was just getting started to kick everyponies behind!” Rainbow Dash said moving her front hooves in a boxing manner.

“So am I!” Steel Wing's voice yelled before he landed in front of the five ponies, startling Rainbow Dash for a second.

Steel Wing's landing was followed by Hurricane Wing and Featherbrain landing next to him on his left side and Breeze Flyer and Cloud Head landing next to him on his right side.

“You think you can just sink our fortress and walk away like this?” Steel Wing said in a threatening tone in his voice.

“Do you really say sink when it comes to an airship?” Featherbrain pointed out.

“Also, wasn't it you who sunk it in the first place?” Cloud Head added.

Of course, Steel Wing wasn't too happy to hear these words at the moment.

“On which side are you on?” He exclaimed.
“This is the moment where we are supposed to stand our ground against our enemies!
Five of the highest ranking members of the Storm Wings against five intruders who oppose us!”

Though Steel Wing tried his best to pump everypony up, none of them were remotely enthusiastic as he was.

“Wuhu!
Now we only have five of them left!” Pinkie Pie said happily.

“Yes but...they are the strongest one of them,” Fluttershy pointed out.

“This would be a real good time for Star Twinkle and Twilight to return,” Rarity said.

“No big deal,” Rainbow Dash assured.
“We just have to show the rest of them, who is the boss!”

Unlike before, it was a fair fight now.
Five against five.
But considering that they had more than enough problems with Steel Wing before, this would not become easy at all.

Meanwhile, at Twilight's and Mystic's location...

The battle was raging on in the halls of the Storm Fortress.
Sounds of magic beams and teleportations could be heard throughout the whole fortress.

Twilight mostly used her teleportation spell to avoid Mystic's attacks.
Mystic on the other hoof ducked or jumped away.
All while firing magic beams at each other constantly.

"You are starting to get on my nerves!" He screamed followed by a magic beam coming out of his horn.

Twilight dodged out of the way and focused on Mystic's movements again.
Even if she wouldn't admit it in this moment, she was having problems keeping up with Mystic who was definitely on par with her, if not a little stronger.

"I wasted enough time with you!
Time to end this!" He exclaimed annoyed before he concentrated his magic once again.

This time he focused a little longer.
Twilight noticed that he was not firing another beam at her and carefully watched him in order to find out what he was about to do.
But while watching him she didn't right away notice something else.
Slowly, the hall was filling itself with a deep mist.
Mystic's figure was vanishing behind the mist and Twilight lost him.
She could barely see her hooves in a thick mist like that.

"How do you like my mist spell?
It's quite "mystic" don't you think?" Mystic said.

Twilight could only roll her eyes after this sentence but quickly concentrated again on finding Mystic.
But it was no use.
She could hear him a second ago but he was probably somewhere else again.

Suddenly, a beam of magic shot out from inside the mist directly hitting Twilight.
She was groaning in pain after getting hit and fell down to the ground.
While she tried to get up on her hooves again, Mystic's laughter could be heard.
She looked around, in order to find her opponent but still couldn't see him.

Twilight took a deep breath and concentrated for a moment.
Her horn began to glow shortly after and released a very bright light around her.
This light soon caused the mist to disappear around her, leaving Mystic in shock that his spell was stopped.
He only stood in shock in the middle of the room while Twilight spotted him, followed by a magic beam directed at him.
Mystic was blown against the wall and landed on the ground, groaning in pain.

"...How?
How is your magic stronger than mine?" Mystic wondered as he tried to get up on his hooves again.

However, Twilight stood right in front of him to make sure that he wasn't doing anything stupid.
When he looked up to her and watched her determined expression, anger was growing inside of him.

Mystic was cornered by Twilight and it was unlikely that this battle was about to end shortly.
That's why Mystic had to find another solution.
After inspecting his surroundings for a moment, he quickly knew what to do and his clenched teeth turned into a sinister grin.

"You wanna know something about this fortress?" He asked with an evil smile on his face.

Twilight raised her eyebrows in mistrust and didn't answer.

"It has all kind of secret passages, only known to the Storm Wings!" He exclaimed before he used his mist spell once more, blinding Twilight for a while.

He performed his spell quicker than before which caused only a little space to be covered in mist unlike before but it was enough to hide from Twilight's eyes for a moment.

At first, she was confused what was going on but she then used her magic to blow away the mist again.
But it was too late...
Mystic was gone.
Wondering how that happened, Twilight looked around to find some secret passage that Mystic was hinting at before.
But she didn't found anything.
She then realized that he was most likely on his way to stop Star Twinkle.

Realizing that, Twilight ran trough the fortress and tried to find Star Twinkle so that she could deal with Mystic.

Meanwhile, in another hall of the Storm Fortress...

Cyclone Wing was surprised and shocked at the same time after he looked out of the window from which he could see the entire place inside of the walls of the Storm Fortress.
The balloon, most of the Storm Wings laying on the ground defeated, and the five ponies that still tried to get back their elements fighting against Steel Wing and the others.
He was looking at all of that while having a sad expression on his face.

He had the box with the Elements of Harmony in one of his hooves and should go back to Mystic but right now he was lost in thoughts, thinking about better times.
Times were he and the rest of the Storm Wing's we helping other ponies instead of attacking villages and robbing them.
Keeping Equestria in harmony instead of risking putting it in danger.

He knew that what he was doing was wrong but he also knew that he didn't have a choice at this moment.

“Cyclone Wing!” Star Twinkle shouted across the room, causing Cyclone Wing to get startled and bringing him back to the real world.

When Cyclone Wing turned around, he was surprised to see Star Twinkle in front of him.
He was sure that Mystic would have taken care of him.

“How did you manage to catch up?
What happened to Mystic?” He asked.

“A good friend is taking care of him as we speak so I don't have much time...” Star Twinkle replied, trying to handle the situation as fast as possible since Twilight was probably still fighting.
“I don't care if you don't listen to me but I have to get the Elements back, that's the least I can do now!”

Cyclone Wing looked out of the window once again, his eyes wandering to the five ponies who were fighting against the rest of the Storm Wings.

“You and your friends really won't give up...” Cyclone Wing figured.

“Of course not!
We can't let you have the Elements of Harmony.
Believe me, if I could back to my old days where I wasn't involved in those elements or saving Equestria, then I would probably go back.
But as things are right now, I just can't do nothing...
Everypony puts everything on the line to get these elements back...
I can't just sit in the corner and do nothing while they believe in me doing something!
I will get the elements back no matter how hard it may be.
That's the least I can do...” Star Twinkle explained out of desperation while slowly walking up to Cyclone Wing with a determined look on his face.

However, Cyclone Wing was not fazed by Star Twinkle's speech and only returned another determined expression.

“Then I will do everything to prevent that,” Cyclone Wing replied.

“Twilight seemed to have a good chance, defeating Mystic!
If we team up with her, we could get rid of him right now!”

“If that's the case, then I would team up with Mystic...” Cyclone Wing replied.

“Why?
I know that you want to get rid of him!
Breeze Flyer told me that you are the only one on Mystic's side.
Why is that?
If the Storm Wings are really that important to you then you should listen to them!”

Star Twinkle was becoming desperate because of his lack of understanding of Cyclone Wing's reasoning.
He didn't even answer and kept staring at Star Twinkle like he wasn't worth explaining anything.

“Try to make me understand...
It's the least that you can do for me after I saved your brother...”

Star Twinkle hated to play that card but he was running out of time and options and just had to force it out of Cyclone Wing somehow.
It even seemed to work.
There was a reaction from Cyclone Wing after those words.
His determined expression turned into a sad one with his head looking down on the ground.

“That's right...
You probably already saw it...” Cyclone Wing said quietly.
“Hurricane's condition...”

Star Twinkle had a guess what Cyclone Wing meant with “condition” and kept on listening to finally understand Cyclone Wing's reason.

“I will tell you...
Then you can decide if what I am doing is wrong or not...”

Meanwhile, outside again...

Though there were only ten ponies left to fight, the battle seemed to be more intense than ever.
Even though half of them didn't do any fighting at all.
Hurricane Wing was staying in the background most of the time since he was ordered by Steel Wing to stay back from any danger.
And Breeze Flyer tried to not fight any pony either because she was secretly supporting the group.
That only left Steel Wing, Featherbrain and Cloud Head to do the fighting.
And without Twilight and Star Twinkle, the fight seemed even harder than it was back then in Ponyville.

Pinkie Pie managed to hold of Cloud Head by just pretending that this was all a game and goofing around and Featherbrain made the mistake to go after Fluttershy and was just standing a few steps away, looking at her with mesmerized eyes.
Much to Steel Wing's dislike.

“Featherbrain why are you just standing there!?” Steel Wing exclaimed angrily.
“I swear if I see you standing there for another five minutes then...then...I will...”

Out of nowhere, Steel Wing had problems completing his sentence and began to breathe heavily.
He then fell down on one of his knees while there was pain painted on his face.
Rainbow Dash saw an opportunity to attack Steel Wing at this very moment and prompted everypony to charge at him now.

“That's our chance!” She exclaimed, flying directly towards Steel Wing who had problems standing on his hooves.

But Rainbow Dash was stopped by Hurricane Wing, who jumped in incredible speed right in front of Steel Wing in order to protect him.
When Rainbow Dash wanted him to move aside, Hurricane Wing just stared back at her with an almost terrifying expression on his face which actually made Rainbow Dash back off in shock after seeing Hurricane Wing like that for the first time.

After making sure that Rainbow Dash was stopping her attack, Hurricane Wing turned around worriedly and looked after his brother, kneeling on the ground.

“Tornado!
What's wrong?
Is it your wing?”

“I'm fine!” he replied almost annoyed by Hurricane's concern.

“Boss!” Featherbrain and Cloud Head said in unison, also rushing to his side.

Of course, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were confused why Steel Wing was hurt so bad even though he wasn't receiving much damage from anypony.

“You think he is alright?” Fluttershy asked in concern.

“Fluttershy, they are our enemies!” Rainbow Dash replied.

“I know but...” Fluttershy replied almost apologizing, turning her head away in shame.

“It's his wing...” Breeze Flyer informed, walking up to the group slowly.

The group looked at each other confused but Breeze Flyer was about to explain the situation.

Meanwhile, at Star Twinkle's and Cyclone Wing's location...

“I guess we both are not too different...
We are both stuck in a very uncomfortable situation...” Cyclone Wing said.

Star Twinkle calmly listened to Cyclone Wing's explanation in hope to understand the situation.

“I can't turn against Mystic because I am depending on him,” he said with his expression changing from sad to a more desperate one.
“That medicine that you gave Hurricane Wing, back then...
Mystic is the only one who knows where to get it from,”

Star Twinkle then quickly figured where this was going to but Breeze Flyer didn't mention anything about that which kept him confused.

“Hurricane Wing always had a weak body, to begin with, but in the recent years, his condition weakened.
And Tornado lost his right wing in an accident several years ago.
Back then he was unable to fly anymore and felt useless as a member of the Storm Wings...
Then one day, Mystic appeared and offered to help my brothers...
He knew a way to replace Tornado's wing...
However, flying with a metallic wing was much more painful than expected...
So Mystic offered something else...
A medicine that could temporary remove the pain that both of them
The medicine that Mystic brought to us can remove the pain that both of them have to endure...
But only for a few days...
After that, they will need to take another bottle...”

After that explanation Cyclone Wing slowly looked over to Star Twinkle still with a desperate look on his face.

“Do you see what I am getting at?
I can't dispose of Mystic because I need him to save my brothers...
And if that means to turn the Storm Wing's into a group of criminals, then so be it...” he added his expression becoming more determined again.

“Does anypony else know about that?
Breeze Flyer was thinking that Mystic had something to force you protecting him but she didn't know what.
Why didn't you tell anypony?
I'm sure they could help you out somehow,

“No!” Cyclone Wing quickly replied.
“It was me who accepted Mystic's help.
It was my fault that he became the leader in the first place.
So it's my responsibility!
I can't let anypony get involved with that!” Cyclone Wing protested.

“It's my responsibility
I don't want you to get involved with that! ”

Those words echoed in Star Twinkle's head for a while, causing him to hold his head in confusion with one of his hooves.

“What's wrong all of the sudden?
I feel weird...
Why does that feel so familiar?” Star Twinkle thought in confusion.

Cyclone Wing didn't know what to think about that and only stared at Star Twinkle in confusion.
Until his expression changed to a more surprised one.
Star Twinkle wondered where this expression was coming from but couldn't concentrate enough to even look straight.

Suddenly, a magic beam was shot at Star Twinkle, knocking him against a wall and right past Cyclone Wing's right who followed Star Twinkle's flight against the wall.
When he turned his head around again, Mystic was walking up to him with his horn still glowing.

“I see you got the Elements in your hooves, Cyclone wing.
I'll gladly take care of them,” Mystic said approaching Cyclone Wing slowly.

“No, don't do it!” Star Twinkle exclaimed after getting back on his hooves again.
“You can't let him force you to take away the Storm Wing's AND the Elements of Harmony!”

This little outburst from Star Twinkle grabbed Mystic's attention who then focused on Star Twinkle and walked up on him, annoyed by his interference.
He quickly pushed Star Twinkle against the wall with his magic and moved his head closer to Star Twinkle's

“Now listen to me!
This doesn't concern you in the slightest!
So why don't you keep your mouth shut?” Mystic threatened.

“You do realize that Cyclone Wing Wing is only doing all this to protect his brothers, right?” Star Twinkle replied with his face pushed against the wall.

“This is a matter between the Storm Wings!
And you are no part of it!”

While this was going on, Cyclone Wing stood back and lowered his head while being in deep thoughts.
Mystic noticed and remembered him to something that he said earlier.

“Don't forget what I told you before.
Give me the elements and I will leave you and your Storm Wings alone,” he said, to make sure that Cyclone Wing would remember the deal that they made before Cyclone Wing set off to get the elements.

“Do you really think that he will do that after forcing you through all this?” Star Twinkle said, trying to convince Cyclone Wing from doing something horrible.

Mystic naturally, didn't approve and used more force to shut Star Twinkle up but the earth pony wouldn't let himself be shut up so easily and continued.

“How long do you want this to keep going?
He will not stop after that!
He will hurt you and your brothers even more!
He will force the Storm Wings to do more bad things!
Is that really what you and your brothers want?” Star Twinkle exclaimed, still trying to reach Cyclone Wing.

Cyclone Wing seemed troubled.
He knew that what he was doing was wrong but he had no choice to obey.
However, his thoughts changed a little after Star Twinkle's words.

“What my brothers and I want?” He mumbled to himself.

Mystic became angrier, the more Star Twinkle spoke and couldn't stand him interfering in all of this.

“I told you before that this is a matter between the members of the Storm Wings!
Stop keep interfering!” He said angrily while pushing Star Twinkle against the wall even harder.

“Cyclone Wing, please!” Star Twinkle shouted in desperation.

Cyclone Wing closed his eyes and took a deep breath while looking at the ground.
Shortly after he raised his head again, making up his mind and opening them again to share his decision.

“No, Star Twinkle.
He's right.
This matter only concerns the members of the Storm Wings,” Cyclone Wing said making Mystic release a smile at Star Twinkle as if he wanted to say “told you”.

Cyclone Wing walked over to a table at the other side of the room much to Star Twinkle's and Mystic's confusion.
At first, Mystic thought that Cyclone Wing would place them on the table in order to help Mystic finishing off Star Twinkle but he shortly after he widened his eyes in shock after seeing what was placed on the table.

A black box.
Star Twinkle recognized that box after taking a closer look at it.
It looked exactly like the box that Cyclone Wing used to steal the elements.
Except that this one was black and not white.

Mystic knew what was about to happen and released Star Twinkle in order to walk up to Cyclone Wing.
But Cyclone Wing only looked deep into Mystic's eyes and hold the Elements above the black box.

“...And you, Mystic are not part of them,” Cyclone Wing said before he dropped the box with the elements inside the black box and closing it.

“No!” Mystic yelled desperately.

But it was too late and just like before with the white box, the black box was releasing a bright light, that blended everypony in the room and shot out a beam that traveled away.

These events caused Star Twinkle to laugh in relief, knowing that the Elements of Harmony were no longer in reach of Mystic.

Meanwhile, outside...

Breeze Flyer was done informing everypony about Steel Wing's and Hurricane Wing's condition.
Feeling kinda bad about the two, they didn't want to fight anymore since that would put them in much more danger.
However, with the Elements still on the Storm Wing's side it was hard to stop now.

“Listen, we all feel mighty sorry about those two but we can't just let you steal the Element's of Harmony!” Applejack protested.

“Yes!” Rarity added.
“We would love to stop this unnecessary fighting as much as you would but not without the Elements on our side!” She said, supporting Applejack's words.

Breeze Flyer felt herself in a similar position like them.
She was trying to get desperate in order to find a solution for all this and tried to think.

But then everyponies focus was directed to the sky after a bright light emerged from the inside of the Storm Fortress.
Everypony instantly recognized what this light meant after seeing it for the second time now.

“Are those...” Fluttershy mumbled.

“The Elements of Harmony!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed cheerfully.

Steel Wing, Hurricane Wing, Cloud Head and Featherbrain also knew what this light meant for them.

“Does that mean...” Featherbrain said.

“Cyclone Wing lost?” Cloud Head added.

Steel Wing could only form a mix of confusion and shock on his face after seeing the light travel.
For some reason it was heading towards Pinkie Pie, causing everypony close to her to move away from Pinkie Pie who bounced up and down in excitement when the light touched her.

“Hihi, that tickles!” She said while the light was engulfing her.

Nopony knew why the light was coming down to Pinkie Pie until it stopped after a while and Pinkie Pie pulled something out of her mane.
It was the white box that Cyclone Wing used previously to steal the Elements of Harmony.
Needless to say, seeing that box sure surprised everypony.

“Were you carrying that box with you the whole time?” Rarity asked while she rubbed her chin in confusion.

“Uh huh!” Pinkie Pie replied.

“Why?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Why not?” Pinkie Pie replied, balancing the box on her nose.

Like usual Pinkie Pie's action wasn't making to much sense to everypony around her but since her randomness actually paid off to get the Elements back it didn't matter.

At the same time, the Storm Wing's were worried about this events.
If the elements were sent back to this box, then that meant that Cyclone Wing lost.
This raised concern in Steel Wing's mind as he realized that Cyclone Wing might be in danger.

“We have to get into the fortress!” Steel Wing exclaimed

“But boss, you are still in pain!” Cloud Head said worriedly, watching how Steel Wing was slowly getting back on his hooves.

“And what about the elements?
If we leave, then they will get away with them,” Featherbrain added.

“I don't care about my condition or the elements!
If Cyclone Wing is in danger right now, then nothing else matters right now!” Steel Wing exclaimed angrily, spreading his wings in an attempt to fly.

Though his face was still colored in pain, he bit his teeth together and flew off into the air slowly, followed by Hurricane Wing, Featherbrain and Cloud Head.
They couldn't leave him alone like this after all.

Breeze Flyer saw them fly away and decided to follow them too, leaving only Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie on the ground who all thought about what to do next.

Meanwhile, at Star Twinkle's, Cyclone Wing's and Mystic's location...

Mystic was just looking at Cyclone Wing in anger and walked up to him, leaving Star Twinkle on the ground behind him.
Cyclone Wing, who no longer felt like supporting Mystic at all, replied with a serious look on his face.
Mystic knew that he couldn't trust Cyclone Wing forever and suspected him to betray him at some point but because it was now, the point where Mystic had already won, the unicorn became angrier than ever before.

“Do you realize what you've just done?
If you think that you have won just now, then think again!” Mystic said with a bitter tone in his voice.
“Not only did you just betray me...no...
You just sealed the fate of your brothers!”

Cyclone Wing didn't answer to that because he was well aware of that.
He knew that he just made it harder for his brothers but letting Mystic control his, his brothers and the Storm Wing's life couldn't go on forever.
The Storm Wing's did make it trough worse in the past and they will find another cure for Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing.

With Mystic focusing on Cyclone Wing, Star Twinkle saw his chance to attack Mystic from behind.
But as soon as Star Twinkle charged at him, Mystic turned around and attempted to fire a magic beam at him.
Luckily, Cyclone Wing jumped at Mystic and tried to pin him down but Mystic released a magic field around him to push Cyclone Wing and Star Twinkle who was also at a good reach for Mystic away from him.

Star Twinkle was pushed back to the wall and Cyclone Wing fell down on the ground.
Mystic then stood above Cyclone Wing with his horn glowing and a face filled with disappointments.

“I knew, that I couldn't trust you and your stupid group.
Keep in mind that this right now is not my fault...
It is all yours!” Mystic said before he moved his head closer to Cyclone Wing's, preparing a spell to fire at him.

Star Twinkle saw, what was about to happen and tried to get up again but the pain and exhaustion from all up to this point were starting to take over his body, preventing him from doing anything.

“Come on, move!
I can't afford stagger right now!” Star Twinkle thought to push himself to the limits.

But it was no good.
He couldn't pull himself together in time and could watch what was about to happen.

Suddenly, Mystic stopped after seeing a shadow on the left to him on the ground.
It was a silhouette of a Pegasus.
When he realized that it was a shadow, created by the sunlight from his right, he slowly moved his head to the right, where the big window was, from which you could see the main place inside of the wall.

The sound of shattering glass could be heard seconds later in the room and before he even knew what happened, Mystic found himself pinned to the ground by Steel Wing who charged at Mystic with full force and pushed him off from Cyclone Wing.

"Don't you DARE hurt my brother!" Steel Wing shouted at Mystic's face, causing the unicorn to form an expression of fear on his face after being aggressively pinned to the ground by a really angry and strong Pegasus

However, after that outburst, Steel Wing's face showed signs of pain and weakened his grip on Mystic for a second.
The pinned down unicorn saw his chance and tried to shot Steel Wing but Steel Wing noticed and covered himself with one of his wings.
This caused the magic of Mystic to fly back at him instantly and pushed both of them away.

Cyclone Wing noticed the pain in Steel Wing's face and quickly rushed to his brother to take care of him.
When Star Twinkle looked at both of them he noticed that Mystic was taking his chance to run away, outside of the room.
Star Twinkle alerted the two Pegasus that Mystic was about to get away but before he could reach the end of the room, a light purple magic beam was fired at him from outside the room.
Mystic dodged that shot barely but got stunned for a second due to the shock.

When Star Twinkle, looked towards the entrance of the room he saw how Twilight entered the room with a serious look on her face.

“Found you!” She said almost proudly after entering the room.

Star Twinkle was releasing an unbelievable long sigh in relief after seeing Twilight in one piece.
She slowly walked up to a very desperate Mystic who was starting to run out of options.
He then attempted to run towards the broken window from where Steel Wing burst trough to escape.

“Twilight!
We got the elements back!
But we still have to capture Mystic!” Star Twinkle exclaimed towards Twilight to keep her up to date.

“On it!” She replied running after Mystic.

But the chase didn't go on for a while because Mystic stopped as soon as he reached the window.
When he looked out, he saw Hurricane Wing, Breeze Flyer, Featherbrain and Cloud Head who all looked at him with serious expressions on their faces.

Soon Mystic found himself surrounded from everywhere.
Four ponies in front of him, four behind him, one of them being as strong as he is, in terms of magic.
There was no way where he could escape to.

"Give up, Mystic," Cyclone Wing said, offering Mystic to surrender peacefully.

If there was something that Mystic hated the most, then it was somepony looking down on him.
And right now, everypony was doing that.
They knew that they outnumbered him and that he didn't have any way to run now.

However, Mystic was not even close to give up now.

"You think that I will let myself getting captured by a bunch of ponies like you!?" He said angrily starting to let his horn glow intensely.

Mystic then released a thick mist around him that quickly filled the room and hid from everyponies eyes.
Cyclone Wing charged into the mist but stopped after realizing that Mystic was no longer at the same spot.
Everypony was on guard for an incoming attack.
Star Twinkle noticed how a shadowy figure was running past him.
It was most likely Mystic, who tried to escape.

Meanwhile Twilight used another spell to remove the mist around everypony.
But Mystic was gone.
The four ponies outside didn't know what was going on inside of the room but they also didn't saw Mystic and got confused.

“He's gone...” Star Twinkle said after realizing that Mystic was nowhere to be found.

“Hopefully for good!” Steel Wing exclaimed satisfied, before groaning in pain again.

Cyclone Wing was fully aware what was happening now.
He saw Steel Wing many times like this after all.

“Tornado...I'm sorry...I lied to you all...” Cyclone Wing said.

Steel Wing, however, didn't know what to say to that and raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“Now that Mystic is gone...I won't be able to get you any more medicine...”

Hurricane Wing overheard that and landed next to his two brothers.

“Don't worry about that.
We have prepared for that long ago...”

“Prepared?” Cyclone Wing asked confused.
“Does that mean you knew?
You knew that Mystic was providing those potions?”

They both nodded at the same time with smiles on their faces.

“Why else would protect a guy like this if it wasn't for us?” Hurricane Wing said.

“Yeah, I may not be the smartest wing in the bunch but even I knew that you were doing all this for us!” Steel Wing added while grinning.

“Then why didn't you tell me?” Cyclone Wing replied confused.

“The real question is:
Why didn't you tell us?” Steel Wing replied.

“We are brothers after all.
We would have found a solution if we would have worked together,” Hurricane Wing added.

“Yeah!
And not only us!” Steel Wing said, turning his head to Breeze Flyer, Featherbrain and Cloud Head.
“All of the Storm Wings!”

After those words, the three ponies joined the three brothers.

“I'm sorry...
I put you through all that for nothing...” Cyclone Wing apologized.

“Don't worry, we forgive you,” Featherbrain said accepting Cyclone Wing's apology.

“You don't even know what this is all about, right?” Cloud Head said.

“No.
But I'll forgive him anyway,” Featherbrain added.

This caused the six ponies to laugh for a moment, bringing finally back some happiness into the group that was lost long ago.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle watched the six ponies laughing and couldn't help to smile as well.
That was until a hoof reached out to him from the side.

“You look like a mess...
Let me help you up,” Twilight said in a carrying voice, offering Star Twinkle a hoof to get up.

Star Twinkle accepted without a word and let himself getting lifted back on his hooves by Twilight.

“I knew that you could do it,” she said smiling at Star Twinkle.

“I didn't do much to get the elements back, really...”

“Not that...that,” she replied pointing at the six ponies.

Though it was probably a moment of happiness right now, there was still something left.
With Mystic gone, there would be no way that Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing could get their medicine.

“Twilight, how much do you know about potions?” Star Twinkle asked, causing Twilight to raise her eyebrows in confusion.

After the battle was over, the Storm Wing's stopped fighting against the seven ponies and focused on getting the Storm Fortress back in the air.
But Cyclone Wing, Steel Wing, and Hurricane Wing were invited to Ponyville.
To the Everfree Forest to be exact.
Twilight asked Zecora if she knew any potion that could replace Mystic's potion.
If there was anypony who would know anything about potions, then it would probably be Zecora.

Accompanied by the three Storm Wing's members Star Twinkle and Twilight visited Zecora's hut while Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie went to Canterlot to bring the Elements of Harmony to the princess and explaining everything that happened.

After explaining everything to Zecora as well, the zebra got confused to hear from a potion like that, which could remove several kinds of pain in an instant.

“I have many potions lying around.
Maybe you should look yourself if your potion can be found,” the zebra explained, offering them to look around if they could find a potion that could help them.

“Wait a moment!” Steel Wing said after he found a bottle with a similar colored potion like the one he used to drink.
“Do you mind if I...”

Zecora gave them a confused look and rubbed her chin but nodded to allow Steel Wing to take a sip.

The Pegasus didn't waste any time and tasted it.
Only after a few seconds, the pain on his face vanished and he stated that this was, in fact, the potion that Mystic was providing.

“That's great!
Zecora do you mind brewing more of these?” Twilight asked in joy to the zebra but Zecora was still confused by the outcome of this potion.

“What is wrong, Zecora?” Star Twinkle asked.

“This potion is not supposed to make your pain go away,
but simply refreshes you magic after a hard day,” Zecora replied.

“A potion that refreshes magic?” Star Twinkle asked.

“But we are Pegasus!” Steel Wing replied, pointing at the obvious that Pegasus do not possess magic to be refilled.

“The source that will be refilled may not be your own,
It might be something placed upon you, that you do not have known,”

Twilight then walked up to Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing and inspected them with her magic.
After some time, she realized that there was, in fact, a magic source coming from them.

“Could it be a seal?” Twilight guessed.

“A seal?” Star Twinkle asked.
Twilight further continued to “scan” the two Pegasus while answering Star Twinkle.

“Yes, I'm sure of it...
I can feel magic coming from their bodies...
It must be placed on them some time ago...”

“A seal?
Mystic put a seal on my brothers?” Cyclone Wing said.

Star Twinkle then slowly put the pieces together and figured what exactly happened.

“If that potion refreshes magic...
Does that mean that Mystic wanted you to drink that so that the seal could be intact?”

“But that doesn't explain, why we would feel so much pain...
If the seal would run out eventually, then the pain should have gotten away, right?” Hurricane Wing asked.

“No,” Twilight replied after she finished analyzing the two Pegasus.
“Mystic must have placed those seals in order to cause you pain...
The weaker the seal gets the more pain it causes and if you take one of those potions, then it would just refill and start the loop over again,” Twilight explained in great detail.

Cyclone Wing then stomped with his front hooves on the ground in anger, causing the bottles in Zecora's hut to shake for a moment.

“Does that mean that I was causing my brothers this pain all this time?” He exclaimed in anger and frustration.

“Hey, you didn't know...” Hurricane Wing said, trying to make Cyclone Wing feel better.

Despite all this frustration in the room, there was something positive that Star Twinkle could see.

“If it is a seal, then it means it is magic, right?” He said looking over to Twilight.
“You can find a way to remove it right?” He asked.

“I'm not sure...” she replied quietly and insecure while looking down at the ground.

“But I do!” Star Twinkle replied, causing Twilight to look back up again.
“I believe in you!” He said in full confidence.

Those words seem to have given Twilight the strength to believe in herself too.
She assured that it might take some while but she will study without a break and try to find a solution to remove the seals from Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing.

A few days later...

Twilight locked herself inside of her library until she would come out with a solution.
Star Twinkle tried to visit her, even though he knew he would probably bother her in a moment like that.
But he couldn't help but visit her in order to make sure that she is still okay.
Coincidentally the door of the library was slammed open by her before Star Twinkle could even knock on it.

He saw how a really stressed Twilight was standing in front of him with a serious look on her face.
She also noticed Star Twinkle who looked at her with a worried expression on his face.
Then there was a moment of silence for a few seconds.
But shortly after that Twilight smiled in confidence and Star Twinkle knew exactly what that meant.

They didn't loose any time, gathered the rest of the girls and went back to the Storm Fortress.
It was still in the same place than before and easy to find for the group.
After offering their help, they were welcomed by Storm Wings with open hooves.

Cyclone Wing was helping out to repair the balloon which was damaged in the fight and instantly spotted the group of ponies who walked around inside of the walls of the Fortress, causing him to walk up to them.

“It's you,” he greeted the group of ponies.
“Does that mean...” Cyclone Wing was eager to ask but stopped in the middle of the sentence.

They all replied with confident smiles and Cyclone Wing told them to follow him to the inside of the fortress.
Since the pain increased more and more, Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing were not allowed to help to repair the Storm Fortress and were resting since the last days.

The group walked up to the entrance of the fortress and walked up some stairs to reach a big room with some beds in it.
Probably the place where the three were sleeping.

Both Pegasus were inside their beds but quickly got out after seeing the group of ponies entering the room.
Despite having those seals on them, both of them looked fairly okay for now.
Even Steel Wing wasn't making any painful expressions unlike a few days ago.

“It's you guys again...” Steel Wing said.

“Hi there, Tornado Wing,” Pinkie Pie greeted back in name of the group.

“It's Steel Wing!” Steel Wing shouted back angrily before the pain in his wing was taking over again and kept him quiet.

The group reacted with concern, even Pinkie Pie who suddenly felt bad for calling him Tornado, whether it was on purpose or not.
Twilight wasted no time to lighten up the mood by telling them that she might found a way to remove the seals that Mystic put on Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing.

“I really hope you're not just trying to get our hopes up,” Steel Wing replied, showing some disbelieve in Twilight's words until Hurricane Wing walked up to him from behind and put a hoof on Steel Wing's shoulder.

“It doesn't hurt to try, right?
...except if it continues to hurt...” He said, not making it clear that he was joking at the end.

Twilight then stepped out of the group and walked up to the two Pegasus.
But not before looking back to her friends in concern, especially Star Twinkle.
But he only nodded as he wanted to say that everything will be okay and Twilight responded with a warm smile.

Being totally lost when it comes to magic, Star Twinkle didn't quite understand what exactly Twilight was doing.
She was standing between the two of them with closed eyes and her horn was glowing in a bright light that was circling around the two of them.

This was going on for a few minutes.
Twilight seemed highly concentrated during the whole process while Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing were just standing there patiently, avoiding anything that might ruin Twilight's spell.

Star Twinkle noticed how Cyclone Wing was watching the spell being unfold with his eyes focused on his brothers the whole time.
He was probably the most nervous one in the room right now.

Eventually, in the middle of the spell, both Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing both collapsed to the ground, which sent shivers down on everypony in the room.
Of course, Cyclone Wing quickly rushed to his two brothers out of concern and tried to make sure that they were okay.

Twilight seemed to be done with her spell too, opened her eyes again and took a deep breath.
The rest of the group also walked up to the Twilight and the three Pegasus.

Cyclone Wing knew that Steel Wing was strong enough so he first walked up to Hurricane Wing and put one hoof on his shoulder.

“Are you alright?” He asked out of concern and a little fear.

He then noticed that Steel Wing was getting up again next to him, with a little dizzy look on his face.
Moments later, Hurricane Wing also moved and tried to get up on his hooves again.
They both seemed confused from what happened and kept inspecting their own bodies in surprise.

“I can't believe it!” Steel Wing said in shock.
“I feel great!” Steel Wing exclaimed happily.

Cyclone Wing stood there with an open mouth and couldn't believe what Steel Wing was saying.
Moments later, Hurricane Wing stood on his hooves too without Cyclone Wing, who was standing right next to him noticing at first.

“What about you, Hurricane?” Cyclone Wing asked.

Hurricane Wing didn't answer and only nodded followed by a smile.
Cyclone Wing knew that Hurricane Wing was not good at showing emotions like Steel Wing but he also knew that he was okay as well.

Cyclone Wing then rushed to Twilight and hugged her out of happiness and with tears of joy in his eyes and thanking her, making her blush in embarrassment.

“It was nothing...” she said embarrassed.

Meanwhile, Steel Wing was jumping up and down in excitement, feeling no pain whatsoever, causing everypony to smile in relief.
Even Star Twinkle who already knew that Twilight would succeed.

The group spent the rest of the day, helping to repair the balloon of the Storm Fortress.
At the end of the day, the fortress was ready to lift off again.
Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were about to return to Ponyville but not without the Storm Wings being there to say goodbye in front of their airship.

Cyclone Wing, Steel Wing, Hurricane Wing, Breeze Flyer, Featherbrain and Cloud Head wanted to say goodbye in person and once again thanked all of them for helping the Storm Wings.

“What will you do now?” Twilight asked.

“We are still considered criminals in Equestria because of what we did in the last years...
We need to go and try to make up for everything...
Which may take a while...” Cyclone Wing explained.

“We told the Princess about everything that happened and it looks like she is willing to talk with you all.
She may forgive you for what you did in Equestria,” Twilight assured.

“Listen!” Steel Wing said, joining the conversation.
“First we have to forgive ourselves if we want somepony else to forgive us!”

“Aren't we going to every village that we attacked in order to let them forgive us?
What you are saying doesn't even make sense...” Breeze Flyer said, questioning Steel Wing's logic.

“I was trying to sound wise for once, okay?” Steel Wing replied annoyed.

Cyclone Wing then gave a proper answer to Twilight's question.

“We will accept, Princess Celestia's offer when we're ready...
Until then...it's a goodbye,” he said with a smile on his face.

The Six Pegasi then spread their wings and flew to their Storm Fortress which was already beginning to fly again.
Star Twinkle and the others waved them all goodbye and watched how the Fortress was slowly flying away from them.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but smile while waving goodbye to the Pegasi and smiling.
In the process, he could only think about one last thing...

“Even though, they were our enemies...
Even back then...when we were fighting...
I always seem to know it...
These ponies...
I kinda like them...”

44. Coupling is Bad...

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“How did I end up in all of this?” Thought Star Twinkle annoyed as he smiled at Cheerilee who sat with him on a picnic blanket that was decorated with sweets and flowers.
Not to mention the gramophone that was playing romantic music next to them.

Star Twinkle's eyes wandered behind Cheerilee where three familiar fillies were watching the two from inside of a bush.
All of them having wide eyes and big grins on their faces.

“Oh, yeah...that's why...” he thought as he remembered how it all came to this situation.

Earlier that day...

Star Twinkle was well aware that being a Cutie Mark Crusader meant that he was supposed to spend more time with Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, than a pony his age should be.
But every now and then he was invited to help them with some things that had nothing to do with him.
But he was at least thankful, whenever it was something that didn't involve him to join in some crusading.

He was told that they were making a card for their teacher and wanted Star Twinkle's opinion.
He had no idea what he had to do with their class projects, thought it was still better than going on another Cutie Mark hunt.
However, when he arrived at the clubhouse, he was surprised to see a heart shaped card that filled almost the entire room of the clubhouse, decorated with glitter and ribbons.

“Well, what do you think?” Apple Bloom asked, joined by Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo who all waited for Star Twinkle's response.

But before he answered, he first had to make sure to not get blinded by covering his eyes due too much expose of glitter and pink.

“It's lovely. And so...big...” he replied, trying to say something good about this “card”.

“This will surely be the best card in our Hearts and Hooves party at school,” Scootaloo said in excitement which quickly

“Hearts and Hooves day, huh...” Star Twinkle mumbled.

Hearts and Hooves day was a celebration that always went past Star Twinkle since it was a more popular thing for everypony that got a very special somepony, a pony that you care about more than anything else.
But there was nopony like that for Star Twinkle.
And how was there supposed to be one?
He never had a friend before he met Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.
Finding a friend was already impossible to think of for him before that, let alone finding his love.
And since friendship was already more complicated than he thought, he figured that love would be something that he would never understand.

“Now we only need somepony to carry it for us...” Sweetie Belle said, rubbing her chin and looking up in thoughts.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo then joined in and mimicked Sweetie Belle until all of them at the same time looked over to Star Twinkle.

“I know exactly where this is going to...” Star Twinkle worried.

“Well, I hope Miss Cheerilee likes your card!
Now if you excuse me, I have to go and do...something,” he said in a desperate attempt to get out of this situation.

But of course, the three fillies somehow managed to convince Star Twinkle and he ended up carrying the giant card to their school while they all walked in front of him, thinking about how Cheerilee will react to their card.
That was until Scootaloo formed a concerned look on her face and turned to the other two fillies.

“Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to let Star Twinkle carry the card...” she said, looking around as if she was looking for something.

“What do you mean?” Sweetie Belle replied, not getting at what Scootaloo meant.

“What if Star Twinkle's very special somepony comes around and sees him with this big card on his back?” Scootaloo explained.

“And thinks that Star Twinkle is giving this card to Miss Cheerilee?” Apple Bloom answered.

“This could lead to a really big misunderstanding!” Sweetie Belle figured with widened eyes.

Star Twinkle overheard that and thought it was cute that they worried about him but he then assured them that this could not happen.

“Don't worry, I don't have a very special somepony so it's okay,” he assured.

This caused all the three fillies to release a shocked gasp.
Oblivious to what could cause that, Star Twinkle stopped in his track and asked why they reacted that way.

“You don't have a very special somepony?” Apple Bloom asked.

“That is NOT okay!” Sweetie Belle protested.

“Everypony needs a very special somepony!” Scootaloo exclaimed with really determent expression on her face which was directed at Star Twinkle.

What was he supposed to say to that?
It didn't even make sense.
His friends don't seem to have somepony like that.
Star Twinkle was not sure why they were so upset up this matter in the first place.
Normally them acting like this would not bother him too much but the next sentence that came out of Apple Bloom's mouth kept him from ignoring them.

“We need to find you a very special somepony!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo quickly agreeing on that.

“No no no no, that will not be necessary!” Star Twinkle hastily replied.
“I am perfectly fine with not having somepony like that. Really!” He added, trying to stop them from doing something like that.

However, the girls pierced him with disbelieving glares and then looked at each other like they were planning something.
But Star Twinkle kept thinking that it was just his imagination.

They all replied with some “Uh huh's” and kept whispering something to each other.
But again, Star Twinkle kept telling himself that it was just his imagination.

A few minutes later, they finally arrived at their school and Star Twinkle brought the card inside of the classroom.
Of course, him showing up in the room was drawing some attention to him.
Either that or the giant card that he was carrying.

Miss Cheerilee was the first one to greet the group while Star Twinkle attempted to place the card on the ground but was then told that he should lift it up so that Miss Cheerilee could look at it.

“Good day Star Twinkle, helping out the Cutie Mark Crusaders as usual I see?” She asked jokingly.

Star Twinkle thought about correcting her and saying that he was also a member of them and that they pretty much forced him to carry this thing but he figured that it would only make it more embarrassing than it already was.
So he decided to give a short and neutral answer.

“Eeyup,”

Cheerilee giggled in response so he probably gave a good answer for once.
The Crusaders then waited for Cheerilee's to give her opinion on this “card”.

“It's lovely. And so...” she put a hoof on her chin and thought a moment before giving an answer.
“Big!”

“Nice save...” Star Twinkle thought.

Star Twinkle was then asked to put the card to somewhere else in the room while the Cutie Mark Crusaders talked with Cheerilee.
They explained that they made this to assure that Miss Cheerilee knows how much they care about her and that she should have the best Hearts and Hooves Day ever.

“Thank you so much, girls. I love it. I really do,” she replied, obviously touched by this gesture.

“I'm sure it's nothing compared to the gifts you've gotten from your... very special somepony,” Sweetie Belle said teasingly, walking up to Miss Cheerilee, causing her to back away nervously.

“Oh, I don't have a very special somepony at the moment,” Cheerilee replied as she walked away to take care of the decoration.

This caused the three fillies to look in shock, like before when they asked Star Twinkle.
They were wondering how such an amazing pony would not have a very special somepony.
Cheerilee wasn't looking forward to explaining the details but she put on a smile and assured them that she already has so many good friends and students who care about her and that she will have a really nice Hearts and Hooves Day.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle returned to the three, still feeling out of place in the classroom with all those fillies.

“Okay, I brought your card in the classroom and from the looks of it, your party is going to start soon sooooo...
Can I go now?” Star Twinkle plead.

“Hey, Star Twinkle, did you knew that Miss Cheerilee doesn't have a special somepony?” Sweetie Belle asked curiously awaiting Star Twinkle's answer.

“No...” he replied in disinterested.

“Miss Cheerilee is really nice!” Scootaloo added in the same excitement as Sweetie Belle.

“Yes, I know.
I've met her...”

“Don't you think it's bad that somepony so nice doesn't have a special somepony?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Maybe?” He replied, starting to get a little bothered by the three.

But after a while, Sweetie Belle gasped in excitement, followed by a massive grin, causing to some confusion to the three ponies.

“Uh, you all right?” Apple Bloom asked in confusion.

“I've just come up with the best idea ever,” she exclaimed happily.

“Please tell me that it isn't involving me anymore...” Star Twinkle said with little enthusiasm.

Sweetie Belle looked at Star Twinkle and narrowed her eyes.
She then walked behind him and slowly pushed him in direction of the door.
Apparently, he was not involved in the plan or wasn't allowed to even hear what it was about but he still took his chance and left without complaining if it meant that he could leave now.

However, after only a few hours, he was once again asked by the Cutie Mark Crusaders to do something for them.
Only this time it seemed to be something work related.
They told him that there was a gazebo that desperately needed some repair.
Being a carpenter pony, he'll eventually be sent to repair it some day but before he could even ask the three about more details, they vanished again in an extreme speed.

“Well, it's not like I had anything to do now so why not...” he said before he grabbed some of his equipment from inside of his house and went to the place, that the three fillies told him about.

When he arrived at the place, he quickly saw the gazebo that the three meant and walked up to it with a tool box in his mouth.
Strangely enough, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were also standing nearby, looking at Star Twinkle with wide grins on their faces.

Miss Cheerilee was also walking to the gazebo and approached the three fillies.
He figured that she maybe was having a picnic with the girls, judging from the blanket, the sweets and all the other stuff that was under the gazebo.
Which made him think...
If somepony would hold a picnic while he was working at the gazebo, things could become a little difficult.

“Hey, Star Twinkle!” All three of them in unison greeted.

They then turned around after Miss Cheerilee got close enough to them.

“Hi, Miss Cheerilee,” they greeted their teacher.

“So you three said you needed help identifying a tree you found here near the gazebo?” Cheerilee asked while looking around to find the tree.

The three Crusaders then quickly pointed to what was clearly an apple tree without breaking their smiles once.

“That's an apple tree,” Miss Cheerilee replied in a serious tone, clearly not amused what seemed to be a joke by the three fillies.

Star Twinkle didn't know much about trees but that was really not necessary when it comes to identifying an apple tree.
Apple Bloom, from all ponies, should be able to know how one looks like since she grew up in an orchard and sees those probably every day.

Worrying about, whatever that was supposed to be was pointless so Star Twinkle placed his tool box on the ground and attempted to start his work.
But as soon as he looked up to find out with what kind of damage he had to deal with, he figured that there was nothing wrong with the gazebo and looked at it confused.

“Oh, sorry, Star Twinkle. We went and fixed up the gazebo all on our own. See?” Apple Bloom explained.

“If you wanted to repair it then why were you even asking me to-” he said annoyed but he was then interrupted by Scootaloo.

“As long as you're here, why not have a bite to eat from this romantic-looking picnic?” She said hinting at the obvious picnic under the gazebo.
“Oh gosh, seems like there's only room for two,” she added.

“I guess we'll just be goin' then,” Apple Bloom said before she and the others quickly ran away or rather escaped judging from their speed and left the two earth ponies on their own but not without turning on the gramophone which played some romantic music.

The two earth ponies were, of course, feeling awkward to be left alone like that all of the sudden and without any reason.
They both rarely looked at each other and tried to find something to talk about.

“Beautiful day we're having,” Cheerilee said.

“Yeah, I guess...” Star Twinkle replied.

“Any big plans for tonight?” Cheerilee asked.

“...No...” Star Twinkle replied.

Each time when they said something they briefly looked at each other but after that, they kept their eyes away from each other.

“Why did they just left?
I don't know what I should talk about with Cheerilee!
And she probably doesn't know either!
But I can't just walk away, right?” Star Twinkle thought, being well aware that this was just an awkward situation.

For a moment, Star Twinkle saw something moving in the distance behind Cheerilee which caught his attention.
After concentrating on it a little more, he figured that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were hiding inside of a bush and kept watching the two of them.

Then it struck Star Twinkle.
The Picnic, the romantic music, him and Cheerilee alone and the fact that it is Hearts and Hooves Day...

“Is this supposed to be a date?”
“Are they trying to make me fall in love with Cheerilee?” He wondered in shock.

He then turned his eyes to Cheerilee again without her noticing since she was avoiding eye contact due to the awkwardness of this situation.

“Well, she is kinda nice, I guess...” he thought after inspecting her how she was awkwardly standing in front of him.
“But even if this crazy plan would work, would I really be very special somepony potential?
And what should I reply to this?
What do you do if somepony says something like that to you?
How could those three put me in this situation!?”

Soon Star Twinkle became nervous.
Whenever he doesn't talk with somepony, he digs himself further and further into deep thoughts and while doing that, he always imagines the worst.

“Well, it was nice talking with you but I think I have to go now,” Cheerilee said while Star Twinkle wasn't well aware of her words at first and answered rather hastily.

“I'M NOT READY YET!” He shouted out in shock before he realized that Cheerilee was saying something completely different what he thought.
“I-I mean...yes, I have to go too,” he then corrected, praying that Cheerilee wouldn't think about his previous words.

She gave him a confused expression but then smiled and waved him goodbye awkwardly which led Star Twinkle to wave back at her awkwardly too as she walked off slowly.

“I think I just remembered why nopony would ask me to be her very special somepony...
Because I'm way too awkward...” he figured while smiling awkwardly in his realization.

After Cheerilee walked out of his sight there was only one more thing to take care of.
His head quickly turned in the direction of the moving bush in the distance, causing the bush to stop moving in an instant.

Inside, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had a very bad feeling.

“You think he knows what we were trying to do?” Apple Bloom asked Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.

Suddenly, two hooves came through the leaves and created an opening from which Star Twinkle was looking inside.

“I think he does,” Scootaloo replied after seeing Star Twinkle look at them angrily

The three Crusaders came walking out of the bush so that the conversation could be held outside.
While walking out they all had their heads looking at the ground in shame before they then stood side by side waiting for some scolding with awkward smiles on their faces.

“So...how did your picnic with Miss Cheerilee went?” Sweetie Belle asked, trying to play innocent.

“You should know.
You watched every second of it,” Star Twinkle replied annoyed.
“Did you really think that I didn't realize what you were trying to do?
Setting up a romantic picnic to make me and Miss Cheerilee fall in love?” He didn't like to scold them but for once he had to be the grown-up that he actually is.

“We just thought that both of you would be happier if you both had a very special somepony...” Scootaloo replied ashamed as she and the other two clearly showed signs of regret.

It was good that they all regret what they did because that would make it easier for Star Twinkle to talk with them.

“Listen, I'm, probably the last pony that should teach you something about love but even I know that it is not that easy.
It's not like you could cast a spell on somepony that makes you fall in love with somepony else.
It's a little more complicated like that,” he explained.

The three fillies nodded in unison and that is all that Star Twinkle wanted to see, giving them a smile.
The three noticed and were wondering about that.

“Are you not angry with us?” Scootaloo asked confused.

“No...I guess not...It's not like something bad happened, right?
Just don't get me involved with something like this again,” He replied while he was rubbing his neck.

Of course, he couldn't be too mad at them since the only thing what they did was just putting him in an awkward situation.
But that situation was over and so was his anger towards them that he had before.

The three fillies smiled back at him and were happy to not hear him scolding them for what they did and laughed happily.
The three ponies walked off and Star Twinkle also was on his way home.

The rest of the day was really quiet, despite some couples spending time with each other in the town.
But other than that, it still seemed like a normal day.
Although there was one strange thing that he saw...
And that was Big McIntosh hopping past him and repeating the word “diamond” over and over again.

“He seemed happy...” Star Twinkle said, watching this.

Whatever that was about, he didn't put too much thought into it and continued his walk through Ponyville.
The only thing that Star Twinkle was hoping for is that Cheerilee didn't saw through Apple Bloom's, Sweetie Belle's and Scootaloo's plan and would bring that up in the future because then things could become awkward again.

But things usually didn't go the way he wanted and a few moments later, he saw Cheerilee running right at him.
As soon as he saw Cheerilee running in his direction, he feared the worst.

“Cheerilee?
Why is she running so fast at me with those determined eyes?
Is that a delayed reaction to my charm?” He wondered in shock.

The closer she got, the more nervous he became.
It was like a hungry predator that saw some delicious prey.
And that's exactly how he felt like right now.

He stood still and hoped that she would slow down before she runs him over but he noticed that she was running past him repeating the word “dress” over and over again.
At first, he was relieved that she wasn't coming after him but it was obvious there was something off about her.

Moments later, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo came running to Star Twinkle from the same direction.

“Have you seen Miss Cheerilee?” Scootaloo asked.

“Yes, she just ran past me and judging from her saying dress over and over again, I think she might be heading for Carousel Boutique?” he guessed.

“We need you to keep Big McIntosh away from her for one full hour!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed frustrated.

“Why?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

They were about to answer but hesitated for a moment.

“I bet Apple Bloom can explain that much better than we!” Scootaloo said.

“Yes! You should definitely ask Apple Bloom about what is going on,” Sweetie Belle added.

The two fillies told him that Apple Bloom was waiting in a jewelry shop together with Big McIntosh.
They both then ran off to the direction where Miss Cheerilee was heading to.
Wondering what this was all about, Star Twinkle was heading to the jewelry shop in order to find out what exactly was wrong.

When he arrived, he saw Big McIntosh looking at some diamonds with a really excited expression on his face.
Apple Bloom noticed how Star Twinkle was entering the shop and rushed to him relieved.

“Am I glad to see you!
You need to help me keeping away my brother from Miss Cheerilee for an hour!” She said in frustration.

“Yes, I know! But why?
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo said that you can explain something to me,”

“They did?” She replied confused.

She seemed to be hesitating to tell him but she was also seemed desperate and needed some help so she quickly explained the situation.

“Do you remember when you told us that it isn't so easy to make two ponies fall in love?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“We kinda ignored your advice after finding out that there is a potion that makes other ponies fall in love,” she replied, followed by an embarrassed smile.

“Wait...you made a potion that makes Big McIntosh and Miss Cheerilee fall in love?” Star Twinkle asked.

“Actually we made a love poison to make them fall in love...
The only way to make the poison stop working is to prevent them from looking each others in the eyes for one hour,” she explained.

That is the exact opposite thing that he wanted to hear after advising them to do NOT something like that.

"Why Big Mac?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Well, you said that you didn't want to get involved with this again..." Apple Bloom replied.

Star Twinkle was slamming his hoof against his face in frustration, seeing that this was the only thing they did seem to remember.
But scolding Apple Bloom right now, would not help in any way now so he focused on the problem with his hoof holding his head in annoyance.

“How many more minutes do you need?” He asked to make sure that both ponies could be cured.

Apple Bloom then looked out of the window to check the time on a clock tower not far away.

“We still need twenty-five minutes,”

“That should be doable,” Star Twinkle said optimistic.

They then turned around to look at where Big McIntosh was standing a minute ago only to find out that he was gone.
Apple Bloom quickly asked the shop owner to where her brother vanished to.

“He made his purchase and departed out the back. Said something about needing to see his... shmoopy-shmoo,” the shop owner replied.

Despite being confused by this choice of words, Star Twinkle and Apple Bloom also left the shop and saw Big McIntosh hoping happily through Ponyville.

“We have to slow him down!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“Got it!” Star Twinkle replied before he grabbed Big McIntosh's tail with his mouth. Unfortunately, it wasn't slowing the big stallion down at all and Big McIntosh's hoping lifted Star Twinkle and slammed him into the ground multiple times while he was holding his tail.

Star Twinkle got up again and tried to stop him from the front this time.
He kept using his back hooves to push him away but again Big McIntosh wasn't affected by it in the slightest and Star Twinkle landed with his face into the ground again.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot...Big Mac is strong...” Star Twinkle said while getting back on his hooves again.

Apple Bloom also tried to stop the stallion with a rope in her mouth that she put on her brother.
The other end of the rope was on a cart filled with anvils which were pulled by two bulls.
That surely would stop Big McIntosh, thought Star Twinkle but again the stallion was not affected by this and kept on hopping.

The two ponies ran out of ideas to stop the stallion but Star Twinkle had one more left to try.
Star Twinkle grabbed the end of the rope hanging from Big McIntosh and tied it around a house that they were walking by.

It actually seemed to work this time.
Big McIntosh was struggling to move one for a moment.
But seconds later, he managed to pull the entire house behind him to Star Twinkle's and Apple Bloom's surprise.
The pony that lived inside opened the window to find out what was going on and got quickly surprised after seeing a stallion dragging her entire house behind him.

“Sorry!” Star Twinkle said in frustration to the mare in the house as he followed Big McIntosh.

Things got worse upon realizing that they were getting closer to Carousel Boutique.
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were standing in front of the entrance, covered in mud and waved at the three ponies that approached the Boutique.
They wanted the two to let go of Big McIntosh for some reason and Star Twinkle saw why upon inspecting the ground in front of them.

Star Twinkle grabbed Apple Bloom and jumped out of Big McIntosh's way and watched how he was suddenly vanishing inside of a hole which was most likely dug up from Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.

Big McIntosh was now trapped in a hole with a feather bed under him.
And from the looks of it, he couldn't get out.
There was also only one more minute left until the poison would wear off so it was safe to say that things turned out well.
That was until Big McIntosh was screaming out for Cheerilee.

“Shmoopy-doo!” He screamed in desperation.

“You know, I am kinda angry at you, knowing that this could have been me instead,” Star Twinkle said annoyed to the three fillies.

But then the four ponies got distracted by Miss Cheerilee's voice from inside of the boutique.

“Sweetums?!” She replied from inside.

There were noises coming from inside of the boutique indicating that many things got broken.
Seconds later the door was shaking which was probably Cheerilee trying to break trough the door.
The mare broke down the door, wore a wedding veil on her head and looked around in order to find Big McIntosh.

Since the stallion was screaming for her the entire time, she quickly found him behind the four ponies that tried to hide his eyes from her.

She then charged towards the hole in order to meet her beloved one and was about to run over the Crusaders.
There were shivers running down on Star Twinkle's back seeing how the mare charged right at him but there were only seconds left for the spell to be broken and every second would count.

“This is gonna hurt...” he mumbled to himself in concern.

Star Twinkle jumped a few steps in front of the three fillies in order to stop the mare with a determined look on his face.

“You shall not pa-” but he was interrupted by the crash that resulted from Cheerilee running into him, throwing him into the air.

As he landed on the ground again, he only heard more crashing noises which probably came from Cheerilee running into the three fillies and landing into the hole where Big McIntosh was in.

When he got up again, he saw three fillies that laid on the ground and Cheerilee out of his sight.
He then looked at the clock on a nearby clock tower to check the time.
The minute was over but the question is if the hour was over...

The four ponies had no choice but to check for themselves and looked into the hole.

“Oh, please be normal, please be normal,” Apple Bloom prayed as she and the others were walking up to the hole.

The two earth ponies gave the four ponies a surprised look as they looked down on the hole.

“Am I wearing a wedding veil?” Cheerilee wondered.
“Eeyup.” Big McIntosh replied.

“Are you sitting on a feather bed in a hole in the ground?” Cheerilee asked.

“Eeyup.” Big McIntosh replied once more.

“Can you explain why I look like I'm getting married at the bottom of a pit?” Miss Cheerilee asked the four ponies.

Sweetie Belle then took it upon herself to explain the whole situation.

“We may have given you the teeny-tiniest bit of love potion... that may have turned out to actually be a love poison, and you may have gone just a teeny-tiniest bit nutty,”

“Judging from all the bruises that I got, “teenie-tiny” is a bit of an understatement...” Star Twinkle thought to himself.

“But we only did it because we thought you and Big Mac would be really happy if you could be each others very special someponies on Hearts and Hooves Day,” Apple Bloom added.

“Our hearts and hooves were in the right place,” Scootaloo added, trying to play it down a little.

Cheerilee and Big McIntosh understood what they were getting at but they still needed to make it clear for the three fillies.

“We appreciate that you care about us and want us to be happy but–“ Cheerilee said before she was interrupted by Apple Bloom.

“But no matter how good our intentions might have been, we shoulda never meddled in your relationship,”

“Nopony can force two ponies to be together,” Scootaloo added.

“It's up to everypony to choose that very special somepony for themselves,” Sweetie Belle added further.

“Star Twinkle told us that it wasn't that easy and that we shouldn't have done so but we still ignored it, instead of listening to him,” Apple Bloom then said, causing everypony to look at Star Twinkle who was feeling happy that they may have learned their lesson this time.

“I think you still own some ponies an apology,” he said, hinting at the two earth ponies inside of the hole.

They then turned to Miss Cheerilee and Big McIntosh and apologized to them with ashamed looks on their faces.

They both accepted their apology but, of course, didn't want them to get out of this without some punishment.

“And you can think about how sorry you are while you're doing all of Big Mac's chores at Sweet Apple Acres. Does that seem like a fair punishment to you?” She said turning to Big McIntosh.

“Eeyup.” the stallion replied satisfied.

A little later...

The three fillies were already on their way to Sweet Apple Acres to do Big McIntosh's shores while the stallion followed them.
Before saying her goodbyes as well, Miss Cheerilee stayed with Star Twinkle to ask him something.

“This picnic that they set up before...
Was that also to try bringing us together?” Miss Cheerilee asked confused.

“Yeah...crazy, huh?
I really don't know how they got the idea that I would be perfect to be any ponies very special somepony,” he replied jokingly but with truth in it.

Cheerilee also seemed to find it ridiculous since she giggled in response.

“I don't know...I heard some gossip that told me otherwise...” she teasingly said before she walked off and waved goodbye to Star Twinkle.

Without fully listening to what she just said, Star Twinkle waved her goodbye as well with a smile on his face.
But then he realized what she just said and the only reaction that he could come up with was a confused look on his face and a single word that came out of his mouth.

“What?”

45. Monster Fluttershy

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Sometimes in a week, a market would open up in Ponyville, where you could find relatively fresh food for a reasonable price.
From time to time, Star Twinkle would go there too, in order to restock his supplies.
Equipped with a bag and a list of some fruits and vegetables written on it, he was halfway done finding everything on the list.

While wandering trough the market, trying to find what he needed, he saw Rarity and Pinkie Pie walking up to him.

“Hello there, Star Twinkle,” Rarity greeted.

“Looking for some veggies?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Yup. It seems the only thing left on my list are carrots.
I swear, Comet eats those like crazy...” he said while he scanned through his list.

Rarity and Pinkie Pie looked at each other with puzzled eyes.

“Wait...you mean, your fish?” Rarity asked because she found it strange how a fish would eat carrots.

“Yeah...” he replied, not seeing anything wrong about it.

The two mares only shrugged their shoulder in confusion while they looked at each other and left it at that.
Star Twinkle was still checking his list, but then Pinkie Pie grabbed his attention.

”Hey, look! It's Fluttershy!” Pinkie Pie said, pointing her hoof at where Fluttershy was at, causing both Star Twinkle and Rarity to turn their heads to where Pinkie Pie was pointing at with her hoof.

Fluttershy was trying to buy something from a merchant.
But every single time when it was her turn, somepony else was jumping in front of her.
Despite being the shy and restrained pony she always was, she at least attempted to talk with the ponies in front of them only to be pushed away again.

She was probably doing her best but it was not good enough and Fluttershy gave up after multiple failed attempts to get the thing she wanted and walked away sadly.

Of course, the three ponies watched everything and Rarity could only shake her head in disapproval.

”Would you look at that?
Those ponies just took advantage of Fluttershy's timid nature!” Rarity said, offended by the way how one of her friends was treated like.

“Maybe she wants to avoid any trouble?” Star Twinkle pointed out.

“Like me...”

“-Or maybe she doesn't want to start an awkward conversation,” he added.

“Like me...”

But then Star Twinkle realized something and narrowed his eyes.

“Wait...Am I a pushover too!?”

However, Star Twinkle had to worry about this another time since Rarity was still upset about Fluttershy.

”Nonsense!
She just needs to learn how it's done!” She said before she walked over to Fluttershy who was still upset for not getting the thing she wanted.

As Fluttershy walked past the three ponies, Rarity instantly told her that she doesn't deserve to be treated like that.
But as expected, Fluttershy was trying to make sure that she wasn't bothered by it.
Unfortunately, she was not good at hiding that.
Pinkie Pie pointed out that Fluttershy was a pony with a problem.
However, Fluttershy didn't even seem to be aware of that.

“What problem?” Fluttershy asked obliviously.

“Star Twinkle,” Rarity said, to which Star Twinkle knew exactly what to do.

He turned Fluttershy around so that she would face another merchant before he quickly rushed in front of her.

“Oh, go right ahead, Star Twinkle. You first,” she then said as a reaction to Star Twinkle's played rude behavior.

“Right there! That's the problem,” Pinkie Pie pointed out.

“You've got to stop being such a doormat,” Rarity explained.

“A doormat?” Fluttershy asked confused.

“A pushover, darling,” Rarity explained further.
“You've got to stand up for yourself, promise us,” she demanded from Fluttershy.

Fluttershy said that she promised, even though it didn't sound too convincing.
However, her attention was quickly caught by the last asparagus that one merchant was offering.
But once again, another pony quickly grabbed the asparagus in one quick swoop, leaving Fluttershy sad in the background.

“Oh, that's okay, I don't mind,” Fluttershy said, almost as if she was about to cry a little.

Star Twinkle's reaction to that was a quick hoof to his face, followed by a frustrated sigh.
Rarity then took it upon herself to teach Fluttershy how it's done.

She walked up to the stallion, who was making a really nerdy impression on Star Twinkle.
He had a rather slender body, was wearing some pretty big glasses, a squared bow tie and had some pimples on his face.
It was easy for Rarity to use her charms and some flattery to convince the stallion to give her the asparagus in exchange for one bit.

Judging from the stallions reaction, he seemed pretty embarrassed to get this kind of attention from Rarity, who was walking back happily with some asparagus levitating over her head.

“See, that's not so hard, is it?” Rarity said happily after she walked up to Fluttershy.

“Um... I guess not,” Fluttershy replied unsurely.

“Using your charms or flattering somepony when it is needed, is just enough to get things the way they are supposed to go,” Rarity advised.

Star Twinkle didn't know if he liked that advice and could only roll his eyes.

Rarity looked over to Star Twinkle and started to grin a little.
She then walked behind Star Twinkle and put her hooves on his shoulders from behind, much to his confusion.

“Here.
Try it Star Twinkle,” she then said casually, levitating the asparagus in one of Star Twinkle's hoofs.

“What!?” Star Twinkle exclaimed shocked before he widened his eyes in shock after hearing what Rarity suggested.

Fluttershy also seemed uncomfortable to hear that and twitched for a moment, before she looked at the ground embarrassed.
Star Twinkle took advantage of Fluttershy not looking at the moment and whispered some words to Rarity.

“Rarity, what are you doing?” He said with his teeth not separating.

“Come on, Star Twinkle.
She needs some practice,” Rarity replied with a playful smile on her face.
“You don't want her to be a push over anymore too, right?” She added.

“But...”

“Okay!” Fluttershy then replied after putting some more thoughts about Rarity's idea.

“What?
She actually agreed to that?” Star Twinkle thought in shock

Fluttershy took a deep breath and slowly walked up to Star Twinkle.
Star Twinkle also took a deep breath and gulped for what was about to happen.
She then looked up to face Star Twinkle from an eye to an eye.

“Um...Excuse me...Um...I really need that asparagus and I'm sure a...Um...stallion that...” but then she stopped out of embarrassment and looked away.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle also had a hard time focusing as his mind was going totally crazy.

“Why am I so nervous?
This is just practice, right?
She is just practicing to flatter or charm me.
Come to think of it...
That would be the first time that a mare would do that to me...”

Pinkie Pie, who was watching from a few meters away, was giggling at the whole situation and Rarity was still holding Star Twinkle's shoulders from behind and complimented Fluttershy's efforts.
However, she noticed how Star Twinkle was very, very far away and snapped him out of his thoughts after shaking his shoulder for a while.

He did snap out of that again and focused on what Fluttershy was about to say.

“Go on, darling.
You are doing really good,” Rarity complimented.

Fluttershy, despite being a little embarrassed, then continued and again looked into Star Twinkle's eyes.

“I'm sure a stallion as handsome as you, could spare some asparagus?” She said in the sweetest little voice that Star Twinkle ever heard.

He was about to blush a little and noticed how Fluttershy was embarrassed to say that, making her look even sweeter.
But before he could say something stupid or unnecessary to make the situation worse, he quickly holds out his hoof with the asparagus, as if he was holding a cross in front of a vampire in front of him.

Fluttershy smiled awkwardly and took the asparagus and put it into her saddlebag happily.
Rarity was also letting go of Star Twinkle's shoulder and smiled happily as well after seeing how Fluttershy was taking her advice seriously this time.
And Star Twinkle was just happy that this situation was over and calmed down again

“Alright then! What else is on your list?” Rarity asked as she levitated Fluttershy's list out of her saddlebag.

“Let's see... “ Fluttershy scanned her eyes through the list to remind herself again of what she was still missing.
“I also need tomatoes,” she then said.

So the group went to a merchant with tomatoes.
Star Twinkle, however, just wanted to take care of his own stuff, instead of following Fluttershy but of course, he couldn't just go away without a good reason, he thought.

Thankfully, this time, everything went without any problems.
Fluttershy was able to get some tomatoes, paid for them by placing one bit one the counter and left happily.
Until the merchant was stopping her.

“That'll be two bits. Not one,” the merchant pony corrected.

Fluttershy turned around confused and claimed that it was only one bit last week but the merchant managed to convince her easily to pay her another bit.
Star Twinkle could really understand why Fluttershy would not want to argue about that issue.
Sometimes, avoiding an argument was the best way to win it.
But that didn't mean that Star Twinkle was a pushover...
At least that was what Star Twinkle was kept telling himself...

Of course, Pinkie Pie couldn't just stand there and watch how Fluttershy was getting ripped off on the spot.
She began to haggle with the merchant in a cartoonish way and tried to trick her to accept one bit.

“One bit,” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“Two bits!” The merchant demanded.

This was going one until Pinkie Pie switched from one bit to two, in order to trick the merchant to say one bit.

To everyponies surprise, it actually did work and the merchant accepted the offer before she realized that she was tricked.
However, the sale was over and the merchant admitted her defeat and remained silent while Pinkie Pie and Rarity giggled in their victory.

“See? Asserting yourself can be fun!” Pinkie Pie said.

“I guess you're right!” Fluttershy replied, slowly gaining more confidence after the two mares shared their “tricks”.

Rarity suggested that she should give it a try on the next merchant.
Star Twinkle could only shake his head because he knew that Fluttershy would probably have a hard time making that true.

Suddenly, without a warning, Fluttershy rushed to a merchant that had one single cherry left, looking at it with wide eyes.

“I need that cherry,” she said determined to herself.

First, Star Twinkle thought that nothing could go wrong with this trade and was relieved but as soon as Fluttershy explained how important that cherry is for her, the situation changed and Star Twinkle knew exactly where this was going to.

“Boy, am I glad you have one cherry left. You see, I'm making this special meal for my bunny Angel. He's a very picky eater, and the recipe calls for a cherry on top,” she explained relieved, thinking that there was nothing that could stop her now.

She happily placed one bit on the table and waited until the merchant was giving her the cherry.
The merchant wanted to confirm how bad she needed that cherry and asked her how desperate she needed it.

“Don't do it, Fluttershy,” thought Star Twinkle as he was praying that she wouldn't reply the way that he was expecting to.

“Oh, yes, I'm desperate for it!” Fluttershy then replied to the merchant.

Star Twinkle then slammed one of his hoofs against his face after hearing Fluttershy's answer because he knew exactly what was going to happen next.

“Then it'll be ten bits!” The merchant said, quickly taking advantage of Fluttershy's desperation.

Shocked to hear that, Fluttershy turned her head to her friends puzzled.
Rarity and Pinkie Pie gave some signals, indicating that she should do something.

First, she tried Rarity's flatter tactic...

“Oh, hey, mister handsome, I know you wanna do the right thing because you're handsome and strong, and big, handsome, strong guys are always nice to everypony, right?“

However, the merchant was clearly not falling for that and still demanded ten bits.

Fluttershy again turned her head to her friends who again gave her supporting signals.
She then attempted to haggle with the merchant, like Pinkie Pie did before.

“Ten bits for one cherry's outrageous! I insist on paying you... eleven bits!“ Fluttershy insisted.

And again, Star Twinkle slammed his hoof against his face as he watched how this scene unfolded.
Fluttershy had clearly no idea how to haggle and randomly went up and down with her offers, confusing the merchant in the process.

Fluttershy's offer eventually ended with twelve bits which the merchant happily accepted but Pinkie Pie and Rarity dragged her away and suggested to walk away before she would lose so much money because of one cherry.
However, Fluttershy insisted on buying that cherry, saying that she needed that cherry no matter what.
And of course, the merchant heard that and raised his offer once more.

“In that case, twenty bits!” He said much to the shock of Fluttershy, who said that she didn't have that much money with her.

Moments later, another pony walked by the merchant and offered two bits for the cherry to which the merchant quickly agreed to much to Fluttershy's surprise.

“Tough break, kid. Next time, don't be such a doormat,” the merchant advised.

Hearing that made Fluttershy almost tear up.
Star Twinkle, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were watching how Fluttershy was slowly walking away from the market place and felt bad for her.

“I think this pony needs more than just some little advise...” Rarity said.

“But what else can she do?” Pinkie Pie asked.

As Star Twinkle watched how Fluttershy walked away, he couldn't help but feel bad for her and tried to think about something that could help.
But his thoughts were interrupted by a poke on his behind by something.
When he turned around to check, a goat with a black coat and a red tie was looking at him with some posters in its mouth that it presented to Star Twinkle.

“The incredible Iron Will turns doormats into dynamos?” He read out aloud from the poster.
“Assertiveness seminar today...
...and if you are not satisfied, you'll pay not one bit...
Wait a minute!” He quickly grabbed one of the posters and ran towards Fluttershy.

“Now it's my turn to give some advice!
And it probably will be much better than Rarity and Pinkie Pie's one!” He thought to himself, actually trying to be helpful for once.

Fluttershy looked at the poster and read it to herself but also returned some concerned looks to Star Twinkle.
The stallion also returned some confused looks to Fluttershy.
There he was, trying to help but she looked at him in concern.
Not a really good feeling for Star Twinkle.
However, he insisted that she should give it a try in order to not be a doormat anymore.

“Well, if you think that this could help me then I'll suppose I could try it...” Fluttershy replied, making Star Twinkle grin in return as he felt some accomplishment.

There was a seminar held today, in the center of the hedge maze center in Canterlot.
It supposedly could help Fluttershy to be more assertive.
He would hear the results on the next day when he met Fluttershy again.

At the end of the day, Star Twinkle was kinda happy to help Fluttershy in some way.
It actually felt good to help somepony for once.
This was still something that he had to get used to.
If it worked, however, was another thing.

The next day...

Star Twinkle, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were supposed to meet up in Sugarcube Corner to discuss the results of the seminar.
Everypony except Fluttershy was already present.
Pinkie Pie had to work and sold some sweets with some help of Star Twinkle and Rarity.
There was a big line of ponies which was probably because there was some kind of special sales today.
Star Twinkle didn't know the exact details but he figured that there would be more customers at that day, which is why he decided to help a little too.

He and Rarity were helping out in the kitchen a little, while Pinkie Pie was serving the customers.

After a while, Fluttershy entered the shop as well and stood at the end of the line.
She probably wanted something to eat while she was there.
However, another mare poked her on the back and sneaked up in front of her while she was checking behind her.
Star Twinkle saw that and expected Fluttershy's usual respond but got surprised by what he saw.

“What do you think you're doing?! Didn't you see me?” Fluttershy said in a much more assertive way than usual.

“Uh, I guess maybe,” the mare responded with a bother in her life.

“'Maybe'? "Maybes are for babies!" Fluttershy said to herself determined.

She then turned the mare around so that she would face Fluttershy and looked her deep into her eyes before she advised the mare to go back in line where she belonged.
And the mare actually did as she was told, and so did every other pony in front of Fluttershy after she gave them a mean look as well.

Seeing Fluttershy like that sure surprised the three ponies in a good way.
Finally, she wasn't pushed around by anypony and stood up for herself.
It was almost scary to look at.

“Looks like that seminar worked like a charm!” Rarity said relieved.

“And who do you have to thank for that?
Yep!
Me!
I'm helpful if I want to!” Star Twinkle thought arrogantly, with a wide grin on his face.

“Heyyy, look at you!” Pinkie Pie said from across the room.

“Oh, your attitude is so feisty, it's fabulous,” Rarity complimented on Fluttershy's assertiveness.

“Well, I guess it's all because of that monster's workshop that I recommended to you, right?” Star Twinkle pointed out, remembering everypony who to thank for.

“Iron Will's not a monster. He's a Minotaur,” Fluttershy corrected.
“And a true inspiration. His techniques really work,” she added.

“Well, they've certainly made a difference in the way you carry yourself. You truly are a whole new Fluttershy,” Rarity complimented further.

“Yes, I am. And new Fluttershy feels pretty stoked about new Fluttershy,” the newly confident and assertive mare said.

“Well, old Pinkie Pie feels really proud of new Fluttershy. Proud as pink punch. Want some?” Pinkie Pie offered, placing a bowl of punch on the counter, followed by her laughing at her little word play.

For some reason, Fluttershy wasn't feeling like laughing.
In fact, she looked a little angry and thought that Pinkie Pie's laugh was directed at her.

“You laugh at me, I wrath at you!” She said before she knocked the punch over Pinkie Pie.

Star Twinkle and Rarity couldn't believe what Fluttershy just did and stood there with wide eyes while Fluttershy walked away with a satisfied grin on her face.
Star Twinkle was pretty sure that this was partly his fault but instead of admitting his mistake, he tried to play it off and calmed Rarity and Pinkie Pie down.

“I'm sure she just didn't get the joke,” he said with an awkward grin on his face.
“I'll go outside and check on her!” He added as he walked outside with some concerns in his mind.

“Don't worry, Star Twinkle!
This was probably just some misunderstanding...
She couldn't turn out like this just because of some seminar that you introduced her to...
Being more assertive can't hurt anypony else THAT much, can it?
You did the perfectly right thing to help out a friend!” He kept thinking to himself, calming down a little.

However, When he stepped outside and saw how Fluttershy was literally beating up somepony and throwing him outside of a taxi, his calmness was gone in an instant.

“Nopony pushes new Fluttershy around!” Fluttershy said in an angry tone as she waved her hoof angrily.
“NOPONY!“ She screamed loudly, even scaring the pony who was pulling the taxi.

The taxi, with Fluttershy inside, left and Star Twinkle stood in the entrance of Sugarcube Corner in shock and with an open mouth.

“Oh no!
I created a monster!” He exclaimed after fully realizing what he has done to Fluttershy.

Later that day, Star Twinkle, Rarity and Pinkie Pie decided to pay Fluttershy a visit.
Star Twinkle told the two mares what happened outside of the shop and after what she did before inside, they easily believed him and wanted to speak with Fluttershy.

The two mares noticed that Star Twinkle was feeling responsible for Fluttershy's behavior, even though he was trying his best to hide it.

“Don't worry your head too much, darling.
It was not your fault that Fluttershy turned out like this,” Rarity assured, making Star Twinkle actually feel a little better.

“Yes!
How would have thought that you telling Fluttershy to go to that workshop would turn her into a super duper meanie!” Pinkie Pie added, making Star Twinkle feel bad again in an instant.

“Thanks, Pinkie Pie...” Star Twinkle replied.

Rarity gave Pinkie Pie a scolding glare and Pinkie Pie returned an apologizing smile after she realized that her comment was uncalled for.
Rarity again attempted to cheer up Star Twinkle.

“I'm sure Fluttershy is behaving like good old Fluttershy again when we visit her,”

But quite the opposite was the case...
Another pony was asking Fluttershy where to get to the Ponyville tower.
Judging from his get up and the camera that he was wearing around his neck, he was probably a tourist.
When Fluttershy attempted to answer, the letter that she was holding in her mouth was falling down into a puddle beneath her, drowning them I the process.

This made Fluttershy angry and she growled at the poor pony.

“You make me lose, I blow my fuse!” She said before she grabbed the camera around the ponies neck and threw him around in the air, making him land into a haystack and his camera, conveniently into the bell on top of the Ponyville Tower.

Of course, after witnessing that, Rarity and Pinkie Pie had to say something, considering Fluttershy's behavior.

“Fluttershy! What are you doing?! That's no way to behave!” Rarity scolded.

“Didn't you see what he did to new Fluttershy? And he thought new Fluttershy was a pushover!” Fluttershy protested.

“No, sweetie, he didn't. We saw the whole thing. We think that you've taken your assertiveness training a little too far,” Rarity advised.

Star Twinkle was not sure if terrorizing other ponies like that could be considered taking it a “little” too far but he certainly agreed with Rarity.

Fluttershy was not aware that her friends just wanted to help her and claimed that they just wanted Fluttershy to be a doormat so that they could push her around again.
Of course, that was not true.
Star Twinkle, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were just worried that her behavior could hurt somepony or worse.

“What happened to nice Fluttershy? We want that Fluttershy back,” Rarity demanded in concern.

“No, you want wimp Fluttershy. You want pushover Fluttershy. You want do-anything-to-her-and-she-won't-complain Fluttershy!” New Fluttershy replied.

“Nyaaaaah! Too many Fluttershy's to keep track of! Make it stop!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she was clearly too confused by Fluttershy's constant mentioning of “New Fluttershy” or “Old Fluttershy”.

“Things getting too complicated for your simple little brain, Pinkie Pie?” Fluttershy then insulted, taking things a little too far now.

“Now, stop right there! Let's not let things descend into petty insults!“ Rarity advised, trying to defuse the situation.

But Fluttershy wasn't stopping anytime soon...

“Why not? I thought 'petty' was what you're all about, Rarity. With your 'petty' concerns about fashion,” she said, now attacking Rarity with some insults.

“Hey, leave her alone! Fashion is her passion!” Pinkie Pie said, defending Rarity in the process.

“Oh, and what are you passionate about? Birthday cake? Party hats?” Fluttershy asked now picking on Pinkie Pie again.

Star Twinkle didn't like where this was going and tried to calm Fluttershy down a little.
But when he tried to open his mouth, to say something, Fluttershy was already bombarding them with insults, burying them like a fierce avalanche.

“I can't believe that the two most frivolous ponies in Ponyville are trying to tell new Fluttershy how to live her life when they are throwing their own lives away on pointless pursuits that nopony else gives a flying feather about!”

Those words were digging deep into the two mares.
Tears were dropping down from their eyes, making Star Twinkle instantly feel bad just by looking at them.

They both ran away before Star Twinkle could even say something to cheer them up again.
He could only stand there reaching out his hoof as if he wanted to reach out to his friends.
But they were too far away to even hear him now, making him feel even more helpless.

“This is all my fault!
If I wouldn't have told Fluttershy about this workshop, then none of this would have happened!” Star Twinkle blamed on himself.

He lowered his head and could hear that Fluttershy wasn't even caring about what just happened.
Realizing that made Star Twinkle boil from the inside.
In his mind, he knew that screaming at her wouldn't help but after witnessing what just happened, it was just too much to hold back for him now.

“Fluttershy!” Star Twinkle exclaimed angrily as he turned his head around to face Fluttershy again.
“That was going too far!
They just wanted to help and you just said those terrible things for no reason!”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes.
It was like, she didn't even take Star Twinkle's anger seriously.

“From all the ponies in Equestria, you should be the last one to advise somepony in terms of friendship!
If it wasn't for us, then you would still be all alone,”

Star Twinkle knew that this was true but he also knew that Fluttershy was saying all of that because she was influenced by this workshop and that's why he couldn't let up now.

“Yes.
But if you continue like that, then it's you who will end up all alone!” He exclaimed, making Fluttershy think for a moment.
“And you don't want that, right?” He asked her.

Fluttershy then looked down to a puddle seeing her reflection and thinking about what she just did until it struck her.

“Oh no!
I am a monster!” She exclaimed shocked, before she ran away as well, leaving Star Twinkle on his own.

Star Twinkle stood in the middle of the road for a while.
Once again, feeling helpless.
He blamed himself for what happened to her and looked down in depression.

He snapped out of his thoughts after Rarity and Pinkie Pie walked up to him from behind.
Much to his surprise.

“Where's Fluttershy?” Pinkie Pie asked while looking around to spot Fluttershy.

“I think she ran home,” Star Twinkle replied.
“Why did you return?
Aren't you sad about what Fluttershy said to you?” He asked confused.

“Of course, we are, but we also couldn't let Fluttershy continue to act like that anymore,” Rarity replied concerned.

“Wait...You still want to help her, even after all the things she said to you?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“Of course!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed determined.
“She may be Nasty Fluttershy now but she is also still Friend Fluttershy for us!” Pinkie Pie replied.

Star Twinkle thought about that for a moment.
Was he thinking the same too?
A few minutes ago, he was screaming at her for acting like this.
Was he doing that because he was concerned too?
Because he wanted her to act normal again?

This is when Star Twinkle agreed with Rarity and Pinkie Pie's opinion.
Just because she said some mean things to him doesn't mean that she isn't his friend anymore, right?
He had to talk with her too.
Especially since he feels responsible for her behavior.

“Yeah, you're right!
We should go and talk to her, once more!” Star Twinkle suggested, leading the way to Fluttershy's cottage.

The two mares happily agreed and followed the stallion right to Fluttershy's cottage.

However, they were surprised to see the cottage in a rather unusual state.
The door and the windows were barricaded with wooden planks, clearly trying to prevent somepony from entering her cottage in any possible way.

Despite that rather uninviting look, the three walked up to Fluttershy's door in order to talk with her.

“Fluttershy, are you in there?” Rarity asked as she knocked on Fluttershy's door.

“It's Star Twinkle, Rarity and Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie Pie added.

“Go away! Go away before nasty Fluttershy strikes again!” Fluttershy replied from inside of her cottage.

Fluttershy was clearly regretting everything she said before and was ashamed to face her friends after that.
Only more reason for her friends to talk with her.

“Fluttershy, we are not sad or angry about the things you said before so come out and talk with us!” Star Twinkle said, trying to comfort Fluttershy somehow.

“Yes, Sweetie, we don't blame you. You just received some bad advice from that Iron Will character,” Rarity added.

“Yeah! He's the one that made you act super-duper nasty,” Pinkie Pie added, causing Star Twinkle and Rarity to poke her in the sides angrily, causing Pinkie Pie to correct her words a little.
“What I mean is, there are other ways to assert yourself besides yelling at everypony,”

“Yes! You can stand up for yourself without being unpleasant about it,” Rarity advised.

There was a short silence before Fluttershy answered.

“I-I'm not sure I can. I'm too far gone. Whenever I try to assert myself, I become a monster,”

She was taking this all way more to heart than her friends thought, at first.
All the more reason again to help her, thought Star Twinkle.

“Oh, sweetie, you're not a monster,” Rarity assured.

“No, but he is,” Pinkie Pie said pointing at the bridge that led to Fluttershy's cottage.

There the group saw a creature standing on top of a goat.
This creature had goat legs, a head like a bull, a bull tail, a really muscular upper body and a black tie around its neck.

“Iron Will's my name, training ponies is my game,” the creature introduced himself while giving a thumbs up and smiling into the distance as if he was speaking to an audience.

The three ponies quickly figured that he must be that Iron Will, who was responsible for Fluttershy's behavior.

There was a short awkward pause between the four because Iron Will was still smiling and looking at the distance but Rarity tried to talk with him.

“What a darling little catchphrase,” she complimented.

“Your friend Fluttershy loved Iron Will's catchphrases. Word on the street is that she doesn't take no guff from nopony!” He said as he grabbed all three of them in his big arms.
“So, Iron Will is here to collect Iron Will's fee,” he said as he walked up to Fluttershy's cottage.

Star Twinkle, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie agreed that Fluttershy was in no shape to deal with Iron Will right now and decided to buy some time so that they could talk with Fluttershy a little more.

First Rarity tried her flattery tactic on Iron Will.
She walked up beside him and tried some compliments.

“I'm sure a big, brave, powerful, and rich monster– I mean, Minotaur like you doesn't need that money right away. You can afford to come back later,”

But Iron Will didn't fall for it and said that Fluttershy's payment was already overdue and that he had to collect it now.
He then grabbed Rarity by her horn, who was trying to block his way and threw her into a nearby bush under Fluttershy's cottage.

Although Rarity wasn't hurt, Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie both looked after her but she wanted both of them to do something about Iron Will.
While not being sure what they could do against him, the still both tried to block Iron Will's path while he was already starting to tear off some of the planks that were blocking Fluttershy's door.

Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie both stood in front of Fluttershy's door but Iron Will just grab the two earth ponies in his arms and lifted them out of the way.

“We're not even sure Fluttershy is home right now. Uh, she might be off frolicking with some woodland creatures. Why don't you give us some time to track her down for ya?” Pinkie Pie asked of Iron Will.

Iron Will actually considered thinking about that and to everyponies surprise, he agreed.
He dropped Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie, pointing out that he still had some grocery shopping to do.
So to everyponies relief, he walked away and said that he would come back in the afternoon.

“That was close...” Star Twinkle thought.

But his relief quickly vanished after he saw Pinkie Pie walking up to Iron Will, instead of just letting him go.

“But that's only half a day. We need one full day at least,” Pinkie Pie demanded.

“Pinkie, what are you doing?” Star Twinkle thought out of concern, trying to stop Pinkie Pie before she would do something stupid.

Unfortunately, Iron Will heard Pinkie's demand but claimed that he only half a day.
Pinkie Pie tried to haggle a little with him, just like before with that one merchant.
This haggles, however, was interrupted by Fluttershy, who was sneezing from the inside of her cottage, getting Iron Will's attention.

Once again, he approached Fluttershy's cottage in order to collect his money.
Pinkie Pie stepped in front of Iron Will to stop him but just like before with Rarity, Iron Will just grabbed her and threw her away in a puddle of mud.

Now it was only Star Twinkle left to stop Iron Will.
Just realizing that made him already nervous but he had to do something.
Right?
Before Iron Will could reach the door, Star Twinkle blocked his way but as soon as he stood in front of that big Minotaur, he only stared up at his face in fear and insecurity.

“It seems like Iron Will hasn't made himself clear yet...” he said, still wondering why somepony was still standing in his way.

“Um...” Star Twinkle could only reply, feeling quite threatened by Iron Will.

“No!
You don't understand!
It's my fault that Fluttershy turned out like this so I have to do something!” Star Twinkle exclaimed.

"If somepony tries to block..." Iron Will said.

"Aaand this is gonna hurt..." Star Twinkle thought in fear.

“Wait!” Fluttershy yelled from the inside of her cottage, interrupting the conversation.

Fluttershy stepped out of her cottage and indicated that Star Twinkle should step away.
But Iron Will took it upon himself and pushed Star Twinkle out of the picture to finally deal with Fluttershy.

“You were nothing but a doormat, and Iron Will turned you into a lean, mean, assertive machine!” He said accompanied by some flashy poses.
“Now, pay Iron Will what you owe Iron Will!” He demanded.

Star Twinkle, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were all together again and desperately waited for Fluttershy's response and hoped that she wouldn't say something bad.
Fluttershy gave her next words some thoughts until she finally responded.

“Um, no,” she said in a calm tone.

Naturally, that was not the answer that Iron Will wanted to hear at all so he wanted to clarify what she just said.
But Fluttershy repeated her previous answer, making Iron Will go furious.
He looked like he was getting ready to hurt Fluttershy pretty bad, causing her friends to grow more concerned.

However, Fluttershy remained calm and walked away slowly while explaining something that left Iron Will confused.

“As I recall, during your workshop you promised one hundred percent satisfaction guaranteed, or you pay nothing.
Well, I'm not satisfied,“

“What do you mean you're not satisfied?! Everypony has always been satisfied!” Iron Will replied confused.

“Well, I guess I'm the first then. But since I'm not satisfied, I refuse to pay. It's as simple as that,”

Star Twinkle remembered reading something like that on the flyer that he gave Fluttershy but was that really the right time to bring that up when a big Minotaur stands before you?
Needless to say, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were both shocked to see little Fluttershy go up against Iron Will so easily.

Iron Will was discussing something in secret with his two goat assistants.
From the looks of it, he actually gave Fluttershy's words some thoughts.
After he was done, he approached Fluttershy but this time he was a little more passively than before.

“Are you... sure you're not just a little bit satisfied? B-because maybe... we could cut a deal. I-I mean we're both reasonable creatures, aren't we?” Iron Will offered.

“I'm sorry, but no means no,” Fluttershy repeated once more, leaving Iron Will stunned again.

“No means no, huh? Nopony's ever said that to me before,” Iron Will replied.
“Huh... I gotta remember that one. That's a good catchphrase for my next workshop,” he added as he gave up to reason with Fluttershy, leaving with his two goat assistants.

It was surprising how Iron Will's mood changed after Fluttershy's words.
He wasn't threatening her anymore and instead tried to reason with her but Fluttershy wouldn't let him.
If he wanted to, he could use force to get his money easily.
He must have been surprised that somepony was actually standing up to him like that.

Whatever the reason was, Star Twinkle, Rarity and Pinkie Pie walked up to Fluttershy and complimented her for confronting Iron Will.

“You were amazing, Fluttershy! You totally stood up to that monster!” Pinkie Pie said happily.

“In fact, you didn't change at all! You were the same old Fluttershy that we've always loved!” Rarity added.

“Don't worry, old Fluttershy's back for good. I'm sorry I took the whole assertiveness thing too far,” Fluttershy apologized.

“It's no your fault, Fluttershy...” Star Twinkle corrected.
“In fact...it's my...
If I wouldn't have advised you to go to this workshop, then...”

But Fluttershy put one of her hooves on his shoulder and stopped him while she shook her head in assurance.

“No, it's not...you only wanted to help me, right?” Fluttershy replied, smiling at Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle could not believe how well she was taking all this.
He couldn't deny that he wanted to help her but it obviously backfired.

“Friends?” Fluttershy offered which also served as an apology for what she said before.

Her friends already forgave her for that long ago, making it easy for them to respond to that.
Of course, they accepted and hugged her with Rarity and Pinkie Pie having teary eyes.
Star Twinkle was a little out of reach and didn't hug her but he also accepted her apology.

At the end of the day, Star Twinkle was not sure if this experience was teaching him not meddling with other ponies problems or Fluttershy trying to be more assertive without being mean.

Like most things that happened recently, he gave it all a thought before he went to sleep and then decided to not worry about it too much.

46. A Waste of Time

View Online

Another morning in Ponyville...
The sun was still rising in the horizon and Star Twinkle just woke up.
He raised his head out from beneath of his bed sheets and looked out of the window next to him.
Seeing how early it still was, he decided to extend his nap a little longer and covered his head with his bed sheets again.

While under his bed sheets, he noticed some noises starting to get louder and louder.
He sat up on his bed and looked around, only to find out that there was literally a storm inside of his room.

“What's happening here!?” He exclaimed confused, covering his head with his bed sheets out of fear.

Eventually, the storm got smaller and turned into some kind of light explosion.
After that, everything seemed to have calmed down.
But something was still in the room...

A pony, having a light green coat and dark green star shaped mane.
A pony that looked exactly like...Star Twinkle!

“Where am I?” The pony said confused while checking his surroundings.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle was shocked to see himself in front of...himself.
The pony in the quickly noticed where he was and turned his head towards Star Twinkle who was looking at him in disbelieve.

“Who are you?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“Oh no...
Is that what happened?” The pony replied, not even listening to Star Twinkle.

“Hey!” Star Twinkle said to get the attention of his visitor.

“Me?
I mean, yes!
I AM you!
I think that scroll from Canterlot sent me back as well...” the pony replied in a slightly annoyed tone, still trying to figure out things.

“Sent back?
From where?
Why are there even two me in the first place!?” Star Twinkle asked after he realized what crazy thing was actually happening right now.

The pony changed his expression from mildly annoyed to concerned.
He walked up to Star Twinkle who was widening his eyes in confusion.

“You may not believe me but...
I am from the future!”

“You are from the future!?” Star Twinkle asked in disbelieve.

“Yes. Twilight sent me back from next Tuesday with some kind of scroll in Canterlot,” the pony explained in a desperate voice.

The pony was trying to make it sound like something really big and kinda threatening in order to impress Star Twinkle.
However, Star Twinkle was not too impressed and mostly wondered why he was here and how he ended up looking like that.
If it was true that Twilight sent him back then it probably involved some kind of magic which was something that Star Twinkle would not understand anyway.
Star Twinkle found it hard to believe but seeing himself in front of...himself was enough reason to at least listen to what he had to say.

But he also couldn't help but wonder how he ended up like this.
After taking a closer look at his future self, he noticed just how messed up he looked.
Some rings under his eyes, a paper cut on his cheek and his mane was really messy as well...
He was probably really stressed or didn't sleep for a while.
Star Twinkle knew himself better than anypony else and was sure that something bad must have happened in the future for him to end up like that.
This kinda scared him to some extent.
What could possibly be so bad to make him end up like that?

“What happened?
You...I mean, I look like I haven't slept for days...” Star Twinkle asked.

“Yeah...it was a rough week...” the pony replied almost exhausted.

Star Twinkle still couldn't believe that he was casually talking to himself from the future.
This was certainly not something that everypony could say for themselves.
It was also very hard to believe.

“I can't believe that I am talking to myself...
Talk about scientifically possible.
I wonder what Twilight will say after I tell her that...”

Suddenly, the other Star Twinkle approached Star Twinkle even further after hearing those words.

“No!
Not Twilight!
She is the reason how I ended up like this!” Star Twinkle's future self-explained desperately.

“Wait...does that mean that she is responsible for something that happened to me in the future?” Star Twinkle asked.

“Yes!” The other Star Twinkle replied before he realized that he had to correct himself.
“I mean no!
Just stay away from Twilight, this week!” He insisted.

“Why?
What happens in the future?
Is there some kind of post-apocalyptic war or something that she is responsible for?” Star Twinkle asked in order to find out what happened in the future.

“No it's just-” Suddenly in the middle of the sentence, another storm was surrounding the Star Twinkle from the future, making it hard for Star Twinkle to understand anything he said.

“Stay...away...from...and...Twilight!” were the last words that Star Twinkle could hear before the pony vanished again.

There was only silence left in the room and Star Twinkle who stood there in confusion.

“Comet...
you saw that too, right?” Star Twinkle asked his goldfish, questioning his own sanity.

There was no reaction from Comet.

“I'm not crazy, right?” Star Twinkle asked.

Comet didn't reply.

“I thought so!
Something very terrible must have happened in this one week!
He said that Twilight was sending him back in the past so maybe I should ask her what to think about it.
But he said that I should stay away from Twilight...
Why?”

While asking himself this, multiple ideas of what could happen popped into his head.
He spent half the day walking up and down, imagining many scenarios that might have to happen in the future.

“Maybe Twilight was using a spell that horribly backfired?
But shouldn't I stop her then?
Maybe she becomes evil and did it on purpose?
But why should I stay away from her then?
To save me?
…that actually sounds like something that I would do...”

His thoughts were interrupted after he heard somepony knocking on the door.
While still thinking about it, Star Twinkle walked up to his door and opened it.

“Hey, Star Twinkle,” said Twilight after Star Twinkle opened the door for her.

“Oh, hey, Twilight...” Star Twinkle greeted absent-minded before he realized.
“Twilight!” He then screamed before slamming the door shut again.

That reaction left Twilight quiet puzzled outside.
Of course, the one thing that he had to avoid happened.
That is when he realized that getting out of Twilight's way was probably impossible.
One or two days were possible but there was no way that he could avoid her for one full week.
Knowing Twilight, she probably would worry if he didn't talk to her for that long.
Still, Star Twinkle was pressing his body against the door as if he feared that Twilight would break it open.

“Is something wrong, Star Twinkle?” Twilight asked from the other side of the door confused.

“Uh...no...I was just surprised to see you!” Star Twinkle replied.

“Okay...” Twilight replied in disbelieve.
“Are you gonna open the door then again?”

“No...” Star Twinkle quickly replied, trying to find some kind of excuse.
“Is there something you need?” He said in order to change the subject.

While still being very confused, Twilight talked from the other site of the door.
Apparently, she was visited by her future self as well.
But unlike his future self, Twilight from the future was giving out some more details.
Apparently, there was some danger coming up until next Tuesday.

Now, this could be the perfect opportunity for Star Twinkle to bring up that he was visited too but he kept his mouth shut.
It actually raised, even more, questions.
If Future Twilight was warning Twilight about this week then why would Star Twinkle's future self warn him?
All that didn't change the fact that Twilight was waiting on the other site of the door waiting for an explanation.
She was waiting for Star Twinkle to help her preventing from something terrible to happen.
So Star Twinkle had to come up with something.

“Sorry, Twilight but I have to...feed Comet...”

“Equestria is in potential danger and you are going to feed your fish!?” She replied confused, making a valid point to the situation.

“I'll come and help you later!
If I finished feeding him...
But unfortunately, he is a slow eater...”

He could feel that Twilight wasn't buying this excuse, even if he didn't saw her reaction.
But Twilight did accept his excuse and walked away from his house, giving Star Twinkle more time to find a better solution.

Some time has passed and Star Twinkle took a walk outside.
There must be something in different in Ponyville in order to make this week go terrible in some way.
He just had to find it and keep Twilight from it.
Whatever it might be.

“What am I even looking out for?
My future self looked really tired...
Something must have kept him awake this whole week...
Something big and dangerous that kept him from going to sleep or...”

But Star Twinkle's thoughts were interrupted after he saw a shadow appearing below him.
It was really big and was produced by something behind him.
When he turned his head around he instantly noticed what it was.
A giant black dog-like creature with three heads and three spiked collars around his necks was standing right behind him and looked at him like he was some delicious meal.

“- Or THAT!” He exclaimed in shock.

After the giant dog growled, everypony in town screamed in terror after seeing this creature in the middle of the road.
Star Twinkle was also running and tried to get away from this thing but unfortunately, it followed him.
That is until it caught sight of some shop where Star Twinkle was running past by.
It was chowing on some roof which had giant fruits as decoration on it.
The creature must have mistaken it for real fruits and tried to eat them, forgetting all about Star Twinkle.

The Earth Pony quickly realized his chance and was hiding from the creature to save himself.

”What is that thing!?” He wondered as he inspected the creature while still remaining hidden.

“That's Cerberus!” Twilight explained as she walked up to Star Twinkle.

“Cerberus?” Star Twinkle replied.

“He's supposed to be guarding the gates of Tartarus. But if he's here, then all the ancient evil creatures that have been imprisoned there could escape and destroy Equestria!”

“Destroy Equestria?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

“Yeah! Isn't it great?” Twilight replied surprisingly excited.

“I think your definition of “great” is a little different than mine...” he replied, confused by Twilight's choice of words.

But Twilight didn't bother to reply and confidently walked up to the creature in an attempt to fight it with her magic.

However, Fluttershy was one step ahead to deal with Cerberus.
She was petting it like any normal dog, despite the huge difference in size.
It was quite impressive to look at.
A small Pegasus pony that rubbed the belly of a creature who was ten times her size.
Even Twilight seemed surprised that Fluttershy was able to tame it that easily.

While Star Twinkle was looking at this and approached Twilight, Pinkie Pie was running past him, screaming her lungs out in terror, startling Star Twinkle in the process.

Cerberus was not exactly rampaging anymore but he still had to go back to the gates of Tartarus.
And Twilight seemed to know how to accomplish that.

“Pinkie?” Twilight asked, getting Pinkie Pie to stop running and calming her down surprisingly fast.

“Yes, Twilight?” Pinkie Pie replied.

“Do you have a ball I can borrow?” Twilight asked.

“I have balls stashed all over Ponyville,” she said before she reached her hoof inside of a nearby tree and grabbing out a small yellow and blue ball.
“In case of ball emergency,”

“Of course you do...” Star Twinkle said, not even bothering Pinkie Pie's logic.

Twilight then grabbed Cerberus attention with the ball and lured him out of Ponyville, probably bringing him back to Tartarus and avoiding any danger that might have occurred.

Some days later...

“So you are telling me that you got visited by yourself from the future...” Steel Hammer asked as he walked through Ponyville along with Star Twinkle.

“Yeah, but everything seems to be alright again.
Twilight is bringing back Cerberus to Tartarus and whatever danger he would have caused was prevented,” Star Twinkle explained happily.

“Now, I don't know much about this Tartarus or time traveling and all that but there doesn't seem to be any danger in Ponyville so that's good I guess...” Steel Hammer replied thoughtfully.

Meanwhile, a Pegasus mare with a gray coat and yellow mane was flying above the two Earth Ponies, carrying a mail bag.
But little did she know that some letters were falling out of her back without her noticing.
One letter, in particular, was falling down towards Star Twinkle.

“In fact, it looks like a really beautiful day today,” Steel Hammer added.

“I guess,” Star Twinkle replied as he looked up to the sky.

While looking up to the sky, Star Twinkle noticed a letter falling towards him.
It was flying towards his face but barely managed to dodge it by moving his head a little.
Or so he thought.

“Ugh...this mail pony lost one of her letters again...” Steel Hammer said annoyed as he picked up the letter from the ground.

When Steel Hammer looked to Star Twinkle to show him the letter, he instantly noticed something different on Star Twinkle's face.

“Uh...looks like that letter gave you a little paper cut,” Steel Hammer said as he pointed towards Star Twinkle's face.

“Paper cut?” Star Twinkle asked obliviously while touching his face in order to find it.

It was then when he realized something that shocked him.
In fact, he screamed in terror.
Steel Hammer, of course, jumped after this sudden reaction.

“Does it hurt that much?” Steel Hammer exclaimed in surprise.

“My future self also had a paper on its cheek just like me!”

“So?” Steel Hammer replied.

“Don't you get it!
If I still got this cut, then it means that nothing changed!
There is still something that is going to happen!” Star Twinkle realized in shock.

But if Cerberus wasn't the danger than what else?
Maybe it was because he didn't listen to his future self and didn't keep away from Twilight.
Whatever the reason, something was still going to happen.

“But what do I have to look out for?
What is going to happen!?
If there was just a way to look into the future!” Star Twinkle repeated while walking up and down in frustration.

This caused Steel Hammer to think as well.
Eventually, he got an idea how to help Star Twinkle.

“I think Madame Pinkie can help you with that,” Steel Hammer suggested.

“Madame Pinkie?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

Before he knew it, Steel Hammer convinced him to ask this Madame Pinkie.
But Star Twinkle could only guess who it was and had a doubtful expression on his face before he even met her.

They both walked up to a purple tent with a cauldron in front of it.
This tent was strangely close to Sugar Cube Corner and only confirmed Star Twinkle's guess.

Still, Steel Hammer presented the tent like it will actually help Star Twinkle and prompted him to enter it.
While walking inside, both Earth Ponies could already hear a very familiar voice that tried to scare them with some mystical words.

“Come... Enter the chamber of Madame Pinkie Pie... For the answers you seek, let us consult the mystical orb of fate's destiny...”

Of course, it was Pinkie Pie.
She was sitting there dressed like a fortune teller, wearing a purple scarf and turban with some kind of “Mystical Orb” in front of her.
Just the thought that Pinkie Pie would see into Star Twinkle's future was just unbelievable for him.

“Since when can you see in the future?” Star Twinkle asked in a really unmotivated voice.

“Since like a few days,” she replied proudly followed by a big grin.

“It' can't hurt to try it, right?” Steel Hammer pointed out.

Star Twinkle didn't even bother to reply and mind as well, sat down to let Pinkie Pie look into his future.

“Alright, Pinkie Pie...what do you see in your “Magical Orb”,”

“Mystical,” Steel Hammer corrected.

“...Mystical Orb...” Star Twinkle corrected as well.

Pinkie Pie wasted no time and was looking into her orb while waving her hooves around it.
If it was any other pony, he might have believed something, despite not believing in future telling but the fact that Pinkie Pie would be the one was just crazy.
But Star Twinkle remained silent and let Pinkie Pie do her thing until she finally spoke up.

“Yes!
Yes!
I can see it!
Your future!
There will be...
…
Gray...”

“Gray?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

“Yes!
There will be much gray!
Like smoke!”

“You mean like, the smoke that is inside of your orb?”

“...Yeah probably,” she replied unsurely.

Without giving much more thought into it, the two Earth Ponies left the tent and Star Twinkle continued to worry about what was going to happen.

“Well, that was a waste of time...” Star Twinkle mumbled to himself.

“Maybe Twilight knows something?
Maybe she has a spell to make you look into the future?” Steel Hammer suggested.

“No!” Star Twinkle replied instantly.
“I have to stay away from Twilight!”

“Why?” Steel Hammer asked.

“I have no idea!
My future self told me to stay away from Twilight, this week!” Star Twinkle replied frustrated.
“Wait a minute...
You!” Star Twinkle said pointing at Steel Hammer.

“What?” Steel Hammer asked.

“You are not me!” Star Twinkle exclaimed happily.

“Yeah...I could have told you that too...”

“No, don't you understand!?
You can go and see Twilight find out what might happen in the future!
Twilight was visited by Future Twilight, who probably knew more about what happened so you have to go and talk with her in order to find out what is going on!” Star Twinkle explained overly paranoid.

Steel Hammer began to notice that Star Twinkle was slowly driving into madness over this future time traveling but he decided to do what he said and visited Twilight in the Golden Oak Library.
He knocked on the door and waited until Twilight opened the door for him.
But he got surprised by how Twilight looked after he opened the door.
Twilight's mane looked very different and stood up.
She was also wearing an eye patch and had a scar on her cheek similar to Star Twinkle's paper cut.

“Holy hammer, what happened to you?” Steel Hammer asked shocked

“Don't have time, Mr. Steel Hammer.
Have to stop time,” Twilight said before she walked past the Earth Pony.

“Stop time?” He asked.

Spike and Pinkie Pie also walked out of the library and followed Twilight.

“She has this crazy idea to go to Canterlot in order to stop time with the help of a scroll from Starswirl the bearded that is in the Canterlot archives,” Spike explained while carrying a bucket of ice cream around.

“Yeah, we're going there this night!” Pinkie Pie said excitedly as she followed Twilight.

They both followed her and left Steel Hammer before he could even start a conversation with them.

“Canterlot?” Steel Hammer wondered.

“That's right!” Star Twinkle exclaimed after jumping out of the treetop of the library, startling Steel Hammer in the process.
“I totally forgot about that!
My future self was sent back in time by Twilight from Canterlot!
This is where something must have happened that ruined the future!” Star Twinkle figured.
“We have to go to Canterlot!”

“We?
Why do I have to go too?” Steel Hammer asked.

But starting to have a normal discussion with Star Twinkle was pointless right now.
Star Twinkle was determined to follow Twilight and the others and was beyond listening to Steel Hammer now.
It was decided that both of them went to Canterlot this night.

Later that night...

Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer both went to Canterlot and were on their way to the Canterlot archives.
It's a giant library with lots of books and scrolls that is open for mostly everypony.
Since Star Twinkle knew the princess to some extent, he was probably allowed to enter the library at any time which meant that there was probably no problem for him to enter it.

They both came across a guard that was paroling around the area and asked him how to get to the archives.

“Excuse me, do you know where we can find the Canterlot Archives,” Steel Hammer asked.

The guard gave the two a suspicious look and inspected both of them carefully before he answered very cheerfully.

“Sure!” He then replied as he directed them the way to the archives.

Moment's later, they found themselves in front of the archives and thanked the guard for leading them to it.
But when they entered the library, to their surprise, Twilight, Spike and Pinkie Pie were already there, all of them wearing black leather suits.

“There you are!” Star Twinkle said at the group.

“Star Twinkle?
What are you doing here?” Twilight asked confused.

“That's a good question...
Why are we here?
Didn't you say that you had to avoid Twilight until next Tuesday?” Steel Hammer pointed out and reminding Star Twinkle about his future selves warning.

“Oh no!
I forgot!” He exclaimed shocked.

This caused the group to react rather confused.

“Why do you need to avoid Twilight?” Spike asked.

“Because Star Twinkle from the future tried to warn me from something that involved staying away from Twilight,” Star Twinkle explained frustrated.

This caught especially Twilight's attention, causing her to walk up to Star Twinkle curiously.

“Future Star Twinkle?
Does that mean that you got visited by somepony from the future too?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, and he told me that you were the reason that he ended up like that!”

“What!?” Twilight replied confused.
“I tried all week to prevent something horrible to happen until this Tuesday!” She explained.

“Which should be right now,” Steel Hammer said, pointing at a window showing everypony that a new day has already begun and that it is Tuesday right now.

Both Star Twinkle and Twilight instantly freaked out and cowered on the ground to save themselves from whatever was about to happen.

Star Twinkle slowly opened his eyes to check if anything happened yet.
But to his surprise, nothing happened, at all.

“...Is the disaster here yet?” Star Twinkle asked out of fear.

The two looked out of the window to look out for any kind of disaster but there was nothing.
It was actually a really beautiful day outside.

“Nothing happened...” Star Twinkle figured.

“Does that mean that I was worried about absolutely nothing?” Twilight asked.

“If future Twilight and Star Twinkle weren't warning you about a disaster, then what were they trying to tell you?” Spike asked confused while still eating his ice.

The two ponies were wondering about that as well and looked at each other before they inspected themselves as well.
They then laughed because of the way they acted before.
Both worried their heads about nothing and ended up like this because of that.
Star Twinkle's mane was ruined because of all the worries he had before and Twilight didn't look better at all wearing this black suit.

“And it's all because I couldn't stop worrying and let the future handle itself! Well, not anymore. From now on, I'm gonna solve problems as they come, and stop worrying about every little thing!” Twilight said to which Star Twinkle couldn't agree more.

They decided to go home again but Pinkie Pie still caught their attention with a scroll that she found in the last second.
Apparently, it was a scroll that would let them travel back in time for a few minutes, giving Twilight an idea.

“Now I can go back and tell past Twilight that she doesn't need to go berserk with worry about a disaster that's never gonna come!”

“Yeah...
Wait...
That reminds me of something...” Star Twinkle said before he rubbed his chin in order to think.

But before he remembered, Twilight was already casting the spell.
However, Star Twinkle remembered and tried to grab Twilight in order to stop her but this eventually caught him into her spell as well, leaving only Pinkie Pie, Steel Hammer and Spike in the room.

“Wow!” Steel Hammer said after watching the two ponies disappeared in front of him.

“I hope Twilight tells her about her cool birthday present,” Pinkie Pie said.

“What?” Steel Hammer replied.

Only a few seconds later, both Star Twinkle and Twilight returned again, both looking really annoyed.

“I can't believe I just did that!” Twilight exclaimed frustrated.

“So that is how it happened...” Star Twinkle figured.

“Remember last week when future Twilight came to warn me about something? That was me trying to warn myself not to worry so much! Now I'm gonna spend the next week freaking out about a disaster that doesn't even exist!” Twilight said frustrated by the outcome of all of this.

It was then when Star Twinkle also realized what Future Star Twinkle was about to say.

“Now I get it...
Future Star Twinkle wanted me to avoid Twilight so that I wouldn't have to worry about anything in this week...
He tried to warn me not to do anything so that I wouldn't end up like that...
I can't believe it...”

“Ah, don't worry about it. It's past Twilight's problem now,” Pinkie Pie said in order to cheer Twilight up again, making her actually laugh because she was right.

“Can we go home now?” Steel Hammer suggested.
“I think I heard enough about future this and future that in one week...”

They were all about to leave but noticed that Spike was laying on the ground with a stomach ache.
Apparently, he was eating ice cream for the last days because Twilight was too worried about the future and didn't stop him.

“I thought the stomach ache would be future Spike's problem... but now I am future Spike...” he said as he laid on the ground with pain in his stomach.

“Alright, Future Spike,” Star Twinkle said as he grabbed Spike and put him on his back.
“Let's go home so that Future Star Twinkle can get some sleep,” he added causing everypony to laugh while they left the archive together, not worrying about the future anymore.

47. Great and Powerful Downfall

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In the little town of Appleloosa...

It was beginning to get dark in Equestria and most ponies already went home.
But some ponies were still outside, waiting for some kind of show to start soon.

"Did you hear the news?" One stallion said to his companion next to him in excitement.

"Yes!
There is some magician in town, who performs some magic tricks later this day," the other stallion replied.

"I heard it is some great and powerful Unicorn.
We have to see that!" The other pony replied before they both excitingly went to the town square.

Both of them increased their walking speed a little, worried that the show would start before they would arrive near the town center.

One pony was standing next to them as they talked about the show and couldn't help but to overhear their conversation, getting a little curious in the process.

"A powerful Unicorn?” The pony mumbled to himself.

It was a pony wearing a gray hood which was covering most of his body and his face.
He followed the two ponies with his eyes and began to play with the thought to walk after them.
His curiosity eventually got the better of him and he followed the two ponies, leading him to the town's square.

“I doubt that it is the Unicorn that I am looking for but it can't hurt to take a look,” he thought to himself as he approached a crowd of ponies standing in the middle of the road.

When he arrived, there was already a crowd of ponies waiting in front of a wagon, awaiting whatever was about to happen.
The hooded pony tried to not stand out too much, which was easy since there were so many ponies.

Eventually, the show started.
Colorful lights came out of the wagon and a female voice announced the beginning of the show.

"Come one, come all! Come and witness the amazing magic of the Great and Powerful Trixie!"

A unicorn with a blue coat, a silver-blueish colored mane and a blue wizard cape and hat revealed herself in front of everypony with a confident smile on her face.
The crowd let out impressed "Uhh!'s" and "Ahh's" as they watched the colorful entrance of the Great and Powerful Trixie.

"Watch in awe as the Great and Powerful Trixie performs the most spectacular feats of magic ever witnessed by pony eyes!” She said, accompanied by flashy lights and fireworks that came out of her wagon, underlining her words even more.

The crowd seemed impressed by the great and powerful Trixie's entrance and gasped in excitement.

“Heh, somepony sure has some lively confidence,” the hooded pony said to himself amused.
“...but she is not the pony I was looking for...
Was to be expected...
But while I'm here, I still could watch some of her magic as well,” he added almost excited as he focused his eyes on Trixie.

However, before the show could truly begin, somepony in the crowd interrupted Trixie before she even could perform a single trick.

"Hey, I know you!" A pony shouted from the crowd.

It was a stallion with a yellow coat and an orange mane, wearing a leather vest and stetson on his head and an apple as a Cutie Mark.

Trixie wasn't bothered.
In fact, she was expecting to hear something like that.

"Naturally.
Everypony knows about the awesome magic of the great and powerful Trixie," Trixie replied not showing any surprise.

"Yes!
My cousin from Ponyville told me about you!" The stallion added.

For some reason, that, however, made Trixie widen her eyes in shock.

"Ponyville?" The hooded pony mumbled to himself confused.

In an attempt to remain professional, Trixie tried to change the subject by claiming that her journeys might have brought her to a place like that.
However, the stallion continued his explanation.

"Showed up bragging to have vanquished an Ursa Mayor but ran away when an actual one showed up like a coward!" He further explained.

The anger in Trixie was rising really fast because of the interruptions.
The stallion further explained what supposedly happened in Ponyville and kept the eyes of the crowd away from Trixie.
Soon the whole crowd was now talking loud enough so that Trixie couldn't even get them to listen to her.
Words like: “maybe she isn't that powerful” or “she didn't look that great, to begin with...” started to appear more often in the crowd, causing the great and powerful Trixie to get a little angry.

“So what?
I told a little story that might happen a little different from what actually happened...
But only to let everypony know how much superior Trixie is in compassion to everypony else!”

Most of the ponies raised their eyebrows after that statement.
They quickly felt insulted by those words and even showed signs of anger.

“Better in what?” Some pony in the crowd asked.

“In everything of course!” The great Trixie replied in confidence.

The crowd began to get more and more annoyed by Trixie's “performance”.

“What are you talking about?
There is nopony who is better than everypony else in everything!” Another angry pony in the crowd exclaimed.

“Well, if you are so sure about that then how about you try to challenge the great Trixie?” Trixie suggested with her eyes sparkling in confidence and a mischievous smile on her face.

However, instead of biting into Trixie's obvious provocation, slowly everypony walked away annoyed by her.
Trixie noticed how the crowd was getting smaller by the second and she was now showing some worries.
But the crowd left the place almost empty.
Being the proud pony she is, she quickly disguised her worries in some more fake confidence.

"Since you refuse to pay attention, the great and powerful Trixie will not bother to entertain you with her magnificent magic!" She angrily exclaimed before she lowered her head in frustration and a little sadness.

The place was empty...
Trixie's audience was gone and the show couldn't even start.
Trixie began to feel sad and stood there in sadness...
Until one pony coughed up to get her attention again.

It was then when Trixie realized that there was still one pony left in the audience, looking at her.
At least that's what she thought because his face was mostly covered by a gray hood.

“I would like to see your show...” the hooded pony said putting his hoof in front of his mouth and coughing a little more so that Trixie would her him.
“I'm really interested in magic,” he added further forming a wide grin, that could be seen even though most of his face was covered by his hood.

Trixie's reaction was mostly surprised but it slowly turned into anger.
The hooded pony was not sure why that was the case and could only return a confused expression.
Eventually, Trixie almost exploded in anger and shouted at him.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn't need any pity from anypony!”

She then turned around with her head raised in the air and proudly walked away as if everything was fine again, leaving the hooded pony all alone.

“But I wasn't...” he tried to say after her but he knew that she couldn't hear him.

Trixie was behind her wagon and put away most of her stuff that she was about to use for her performance.
She was most likely trying to leave town as soon as possible so that she wouldn't have t spent any more time with those ponies.

"Everywhere Trixie goes it's the same.
Thanks to Twilight Sparkle, nopony in Equestria takes Trixie serious anymore!” She said as she continued to put stuff away in a nearby chest.

It was then, when she almost lowered herself into the chest in sadness, not showing any happiness anymore and releasing a huge sigh.

“Twilight?” A familiar voice said behind her.

Trixie jumped after hearing that voice and almost fell inside of her chest out of surprise that somepony was behind her.
It was the hooded pony that was standing in the crowd before.
She hectically turned around to face the pony from which the voice came from and tried to act as her usual proud self without him noticing.

The hooded pony either didn't notice or simply didn't care and showed little reaction to Trixie's nervous reaction.

“What do you want!?” She exclaimed at him, making him stagger a little just by hearing her voice screaming at him.

“I'm sorry!
I didn't mean to scare you,” he quickly apologized nervously.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is never scared of anything!” She replied insulted.

The hooded pony was about to refer to that Ursa Mayor story where she supposedly ran away but he quickly figured that that would not make the situation any better.
Instead, he wondered about what she said before.

“What did you mean with it was all Twilight's fault?” He then asked.

“What?
Are you a friend of Twilight!?” Trixie asked annoyed.

“Well...
I don't know...
Not exactly...” he replied slightly unsure himself.

Just hearing that made Trixie almost explode again.
She didn't know why she bothered but she felt like she needed to get some anger out by talking about Twilight and how angry it made her just thinking about her.

“If it wasn't for her and her friends in Ponyville, Trixie wouldn't be a laughing stock in all of Equestria!” She explained.

“What did she do?” The hooded pony asked.

To that Trixie had to think about for a moment.
She was too proud to tell him that she lied about that Ursa Mayor story, even though he most likely knew about it from before.
She was also well aware that she was doing that to get everyponies attention.
But there was no way that she could bring herself to tell him that.

"If you talk to the great Trixie, the least you could do is show her your face," Trixie demanded while also attempting to change the subject.

The hooded pony was surprised to hear that at first but he realized that most of his face was still hidden under his hood.

"Yeah. You're right.
Sorry, I haven't talked to anypony for a long time so I kinda forgot," he said before lifting his hood.

He revealed his dark orange coat, his dark red mane that stood right up, his purple eyes and a horn.

"My name is Summershine.
Nice to meet you," he introduced himself with a bright smile on his face.

Trixie was surprised to see such an expression from this pony that was mostly covered by a gray hood.
However, Summershine didn't mind her surprise and kept on smiling like that without saying anything for a while.

“Why are you keep smiling like that?
It's kinda creepy...” Trixie said as she raised an eyebrow.

“Really?” He replied confused.
“A friend once told me that the best way to cheer somepony up, is to smile at them so that they could smile back,” he added cheerfully.

“Trixie doesn't need to be cheered up!” She replied annoyed.

Summershine was completely oblivious that Trixie was not in the mood to talk.
But that was to be expected.
Summershine didn't talk to anypony for a while and had to get used to conversations again.
But that didn't stop him from saying more unfitting stuff.

“You sure?
You looked pretty upset back there...” he added.

Trixie started to get sick talking with Summershine and started to growl in anger, trying to make him understand that she wasn't interested in talking with him.

“Are you angry?” Summershine asked, still oblivious to Trixie's anger.

“Yes!
Trixie is angry!” She shouted back at him.

“Well, then you are not sad anymore, right?” Summershine replied, still smiling widely.

For a moment, Trixie was at a loss for words.
She might be even angrier than before but her sadness was gone.
If that was good or bad, however, was not sure.

After realizing that, Trixie decided to calm down.
Fortunately for her, Summershine wasn't saying anything till that and stood there.
If this was all intended for him was still debatable...

There was an awkward silence between the two of them.
Trixie continued to put away her stuff and behind her stood Summershine who looked at her with his wide smile which slowly started to creep out Trixie.

“Is there something you want?” Trixie asked in relatively normal tone, despite how the conversation went so far.

“You're a performer, right?” Summershine asked, kinda avoiding Trixie's question.

“How could you tell?” She replied sarcastically since it was pretty obvious.

“I'm guessing your show didn't go so well in Ponyville,” he figured, making Trixie narrow her eyes in anger once more.
But she calmed down again quickly and didn't bother anymore.

“I was just telling the residents of Ponyville a little story and they all took it a little too serious.
And now thanks to them everypony makes fun of me!" She said in an angry tone in her voice.

“I can't imagine that, to be honest.
The citizens of Ponyville were all really friendly when I used to live there.
Maybe your Ursa Mayor story confused them a little.
I mean if you told them that you vanquished an Ursa Minor, in order to impress them, then that might would have worked,” he said amused, laughing a little just by the thought that somepony was able to go up an Ursa Mayor.

“Thanks for the advice...” Trixie replied not amused by Summershine's words.

"Still, It's sad to hear...
Can't believe everypony there was so mean to you," Summershine replied while making a light frown.

But Trixie calmed down after thinking about this words and smiled a little as she thought back how Star Twinkle repaired her wagon after the Ursa Minor that rampaged in Ponyville destroyed it.
It made her feel happy again.

"Well, not every pony...” she replied a little happily.
There was one pony who treated Trixie good," she replied with a little smile.

"Oh, that's good to hear," Summershine replied relieved.

"Someday Trixie will repay Star Twinkle's kindness...” She whispered to herself happily.

"Star Twinkle?" Summershine said in surprise, overhearing Trixie's words, even though she thought that he didn't hear her.

But Summershine's attention was now fully pulled.
Trixie was surprised by his reaction and was wondering what caused it

“How is he?
I haven't seen him for a while,” he asked right away after his name felt.

Trixie stopped a moment from putting away her stuff and turned around out of curiosity.

"You know him?" Trixie asked.

"Know him?" Summershine replied confused.
"We are best friends!" he added while putting on a wide grin.

But he realized how Trixie was staring at him because of his joyful reaction.

"He he...sorry.
I just got carried away a little," Summershine apologized.

But Trixie didn't seem to bother.
In fact, she looked more interested than ever.

"I was actually hoping that you could tell me something about him.
I don't know much about him in the first place," Trixie explained.

Now that they had some common ground, Trixie felt a little more assertive to speak with Summershine.

"Well, where do I start?” Summershine replied, thinking a moment before he would go into more detail.
“First of all, he is really friendly and cheerful.
But you should have already figured that out," Summershine explained.

Trixie was looking at him confused.
Those were not the exact words with whom she would describe him.
But she continued to listen.

"Sometimes he can be a little troublesome, maybe even clingy.
But only because he likes company.
If there is one thing he hates the most, then it's being alone," he further explained.

Trixie was starting to have doubts if Summershine was telling the truth.
She didn't exactly know Star Twinkle but what she remembered so far, is that Star Twinkle acted a little more distant or almost disinterested towards her.
He can be kind and helpful if he wanted to, judging from him repairing her wagon but her memory of him was a little bit off from what Summershine explained so far.

"We are talking about the same pony right?" Trixie asked confused.

"Light green coat, dark green star- shaped mane, lives in a small wooden house?" Summershine replied.

This description on the other hoof, was on point, making Trixie realize that she might don't know anything about Star Twinkle at all.

“If you are his best friend then you should visit him yourself if you want to know how he is right now...” Trixie asked.

Summershine's facial expression then changed to a more serious face.
In fact, it was the first time that he looked serious.
He was hesitating at first but he then answered Trixie's question.

"I can't go back yet..." he said in a serious tone.

"Why not?" Asked Trixie curiously.

Again, Summershine took a moment to answer.

"I...have to take care of some things..." Summershine replied while looking at the ground sadly.
I'm also looking for somepony..." he explained.

"Who?" Trixie asked out of curiosity.

Summershine looked at her as if he wanted to find out if it's safe to tell her.
But he came to the conclusion that it would be a bad idea to tell her.

"A Unicorn...
Sorry...It's probably better if you don't know...
It's something personal..." he explained while looking away from her.

Trixie noticed Summershine's sudden mood change.
He was completely different now.
It was almost shocking how this cheerful pony was now looking so depressed.
So Trixie decided to change the subject.

“I think I am almost done packing...
Looks like I can leave this town already...” she said, reminding herself that the ponies in this town are not to found of her.

Summershine advised that she shouldn't leave at night since it could be dangerous for only one pony.
While Trixie didn't like to hear that, she sorta understood what he meant and agreed to stay until the next day.

“I still need some rocks...” she said as she looked at the wheels from her wagon.
“You!
Go and find some rocks for Trixie's wagon!” She ordered Summershine.

“Oh!
You mean so that your wagon would not roll away?” He quickly figured.

Trixie then spotted a rock nearby and pointed into its direction, ordering him to get it for her.
Summershine didn't mind and walked up to it, preparing his horn to levitate it to Trixie's wagon.

A blue light was coming from his horn which slowly engulfed the rock as well.
But Summershine seemed to have some trouble to lift it up from the ground.
Trixie watched how much Summershine struggled to move a tiny rock like that.
It was about half the size of Summershine's head, yet he still had problems lifting it up in the air.

“Wow.
This is difficult...” he thought as he closed his eyes in concentration.

Trixie was slowly walking up to him when she figured that it was hopeless for him.
However, Summershine didn't give up.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Once again, his horn was glowing in a blue light which surrounded the rock as well.
His hood was beginning to shake due to the amount of magic he was using, causing the ground to shake a little, much to Trixie's surprise.

Suddenly, the rock was flying above the ground.
However, it was a little long and bigger than expected.
Some parts of the rock were buried in the ground.
In fact, that “rock” was only the tip of a boulder, that Summershine pulled out of the ground.
This boulder was easily twice as big as Trixie's wagon.
Summershine then easily lifted the boulder in front of Trixie's wagon, preventing it from rolling away in the middle of the night, causing the ground to shake when he landed it in front of it.

“That should prevent your wagon to move an inch,” Summershine said again with a happy smile on his face.

But Trixie just stood there with an open mouth after witnessing how Summershine ripped out a boulder this size out of the ground.
This presentation almost reminded her of what she saw from Twilight back then.
She then figured that this would mean that he was better in magic than her as well, making her feel a little weak.

“All set!
Now you can sleep safely,” Summershine said happily.

“Thanks...” Trixie replied still slightly shocked by Summershine's magic abilities.

“Well, I think I will be off now,” Summershine said with a happy smile on his face.

“You're leaving?” Trixie asked.
“Wait...didn't YOU tell me that it's dangerous to wander around at night?”

“I told you, I still have things to take care of.
The faster, the better...” he replied as he walked off to the outside of the town.
“Also, good luck with your show in the next town.
I hope it goes well, next time,” he added.

“Why would you care?” Trixie replied annoyed.

“Well...that's what friends do, right?” He replied while looking back at her smiling before he continued his way out of town.

Trixie didn't reply and only stared at Summershine as he walked outside of town in the middle of the night, mumbling one last word to herself in surprise with widened eyes.

“Friends?”

Some time later outside of town...

Summershine was walking through an empty field and kept looking up to the sky, to watch the beautiful lights of the stars above him.
Wandering through the night sure was a beautiful sight.

“I almost forgot how fun it can be to talk with somepony...
I think I spent way too much time alone...
But at least I made a new friend,” he said happily.
"And Star Twinkle knows her too..."
he mumbled to himself as he looked up to the sky.

When he looked down again, somepony was walking towards him.
A pony with a dark purple coat, a dark blue mane with yellow stripes, dark blue eyes and a cloud of mist as a Cutie Mark.

It was Mystic.

Summershine got a bad feeling about Mystic after inspecting him closely.
He could see that he was angrily mumbling something to himself.

"I can't believe that...
This...Storm Wings!" Mystic mumbled quietly to himself.
“I could have archived so much after getting my hooves on the Elements of Harmony!
If those seven ponies didn't show up then-"

But Mystic stopped talking after he noticed how Summershine was staring at him and glared back.
Summershine avoided eye contact after that and covered his face with his hood again.

“Somepony looks angry...
Yet...the look on his face reminds me to...” Summershine figured.

They both walked past each other slowly, not looking at each other at all.
However, when they both were a few steps away from each other, Mystic stopped all of the sudden.

"Hey!" Mystic exclaimed.

Summershine stopped too but didn't turn around and instead waited for what Mystic had to say.

"Just now...
What was that look just now?" Mystic said turning his head to look at the hooded pony that walked past him.

But Summershine didn't turn around.
He was carefully thinking what he was about to say in order to not let the situation escalate.

"I'm sorry...
I didn't mean too,
Your face just reminded me to somepony I know.
That is all.
I didn't mean to stare or anything.
That was wrong," Summershine replied.

He felt like he said too much.
Mystic didn't show much reaction from those words and didn't reply.

"I apologize..." Summershine added before hew continued to walk off.

Mystic continued to look at Summershine.
He began to clench his teeth.
And his face slowly turned into an angry glare.

"I know what you thought..." Mystic thought angrily.
"You looked down to me!
You were pitying me!"

Summershine was still walking casually away and didn't seem to notice the anger that was directed towards him while in secret, Mystic focused some magic in his horn.

"What do you know about me!?
Yet you still gave me that look as if you were better than me...
You think I am miserable...
...
How dare you!"

His horn started to glow more intensively until the whole area around him began to glow in a dark blue light.

"How-"

"-DARE YOU!" He screamed before he shot a magic beam at Summershine.

Even though he was turned around, Summershine noticed that he was shot at and used his magic to teleport himself out of the way.
Mystic, still angered, lost him for a second but noticed how Summershine was standing a few steps away from him on the right.

Summershine glared at Mystic who glared back, clenching his teeth in the process.

"Still looking down on me?" Mystic thought.

The orange unicorn didn't move a muscle and waited for Mystic's next move.
His face was even showing regrets as if he didn't want to fight Mystic.
Instead, he was hoping that this encounter could end peacefully.

But that was unlikely.
Mystic didn't care about anything else now.
He focused some more magic in his horn and prepared to shot at Summershine again.

“First that Unicorn back then in the storm fortress and now him?
No!
My magic is stronger!
I won't let anypony humiliate me anymore!”

Another beam of magic was flying towards Summershine.
But this time Summershine was prepared.
His horn began to glow as well.
Summershine used his magic to create some kind of shield in front of him.

Mystic was shocked that his beam was blocked so easily.
In order to counter that shield Mystic put more magic in his attack.

However, Summershine calmly stood there and blocked it with his shield.
After seeing how Mystic was not stopping, Summershine made his horn glow more intensely.

Moments later, Summershine's shield began to glow for a while.
After the glowing was over, Mystic's beam came right back to him, knocking the purple Unicorn away a few meters.

Mystic laid on the ground because of the impact but got up relatively quick.
After standing on his hooves again, Mystic instantly focused some magic in his horn, ready to hit Summershine with it.
But to his surprise, he was gone.

He turned around and looked all over the place but didn't see anypony.
When he realized that Summershine was gone, Mystic let out an angry scream.

Summershine watched from above a cliff, relatively far away, how Mystic was raging and screaming in anger and looked at him with sadness in his eyes.

“He reminds me of him...
Let's just hope that doesn't end up like he does...” He thought out of worry, playing with the thought to somehow stop Mystic from whatever he doing right now.

“After all...
There are already enough dangers to take care of...” He said as he walked away from Mystic and continued to wander through Equestria to complete his goal...

48. How to be a Dragon

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“C'mon, Fluttershy, it'll be fun!” Twilight assured.

“There's nothing fun about dragons! Scary, yes! Fun, no! ” Fluttershy replied scared while Rainbow Dash forcefully tried to get her out of her house.

“But Fluttershy, the great dragon migration happens only once in a generation! Do you really wanna pass up a chance like that?” Twilight asked trying to convince Fluttershy.

Trying to convince Fluttershy was sometimes a little harder than one would expect.
She never wants to bother anypony by refusing or saying no, but right now, she did everything she could to stay away from any dragon.

“Star Twinkle, could you please try to say something too?” Rainbow Dash asked of him while she still tried to get Fluttershy out of the house.

Of course, Star Twinkle used all his charm and convincing skills to somehow calm down Fluttershy.

“Is it too much to ask that you could join us?” He said in an obviously annoyed tone.

Twilight poked him in the sides to let Star Twinkle know that what he said just now was not wisely chosen.

“I mean, YEAH!
It'll be totally fun and not dangerous at all!” Star Twinkle corrected with his most fake happy face that he could produce right now, making Twilight roll her eyes.

However, Star Twinkle couldn't care less.
All they wanted was for Fluttershy to not miss out on this dragon migration.
Star Twinkle wasn't interested in that as well and only agreed to join in because he was asked to.
But seeing how this whole scene could have played out in his house just proved that he made a much less annoying choice.

The struggle continued in the doorway where Rainbow Dash almost managed to get Fluttershy out.
It was obvious that Rainbow Dash was at the end of her patience so she decided to pull out a photo to remember her that Fluttershy still owned her something.

“Look, Fluttershy, I watched that boring butterfly migration with you, so now it's your turn to watch the dragon migration with me! You owe me!” Rainbow Dash insisted.

However, Fluttershy seemed to be at her limit too and made really angry faced to show it.

“Star Twinkle, could you help Rainbow Dash a little?” Twilight asked of him.

“She clearly doesn't want to so why should we even bother trying to convince her?
It feels wrong...” Star Twinkle thought to himself.

“Star Twinkle!” Twilight repeated, this time a little louder to get Star Twinkle's attention.

“Alright, alright!” Star Twinkle replied before he walked behind Fluttershy in order to push her out of the house.

Strangely enough, both Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash were not strong enough to overpower Fluttershy, no matter how hard they tried.

“Come on Fluttershy!” Star Twinkle said in a heavy voice while still trying to push Fluttershy.

“I... said... no!” Fluttershy exclaimed before she accidentally knocked out both Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash to the ground in her angry rage and escaped through the window to get away from the three ponies.

The two ponies laid on the ground, both feeling a little dizzy by this sudden outburst of Fluttershy.

“Are you two alright?” Twilight said in concern as she walked up to them.

“Okay, I guess I'll let you off the hook this time,” Rainbow Dash replied in her dizziness.

She probably tried to let it look like as if she was letting Fluttershy escape, even though it was clear that Fluttershy overpowered both of them easily, whether it was actually strength or just the fact that it happened so sudden.

Star Twinkle managed to get up again but he was heavily annoyed by how this situation played out and would have preferred if he wouldn't have been involved in it.

“I have the feeling, she really doesn't want to see those dragons, Twilight...” Star Twinkle said.

But Twilight was aware of that too after this presentation of heavy resistance from Fluttershy and decided to gave up as well.

Eventually, the three ponies decided to leave and met up with the rest of their friends who were digging up a little trench not too far away from Fluttershy's house.

This dragon migration was only happening once in a generation so everypony made sure that everything was perfect.

The dragons were supposed to fly over Ponyville which was the perfect opportunity to watch them from inside a small trench on the ground.

After the digging was completed, everypony waited inside of the ground, wearing camouflage colored clothes and headpieces.
Star Twinkle didn't know if it was necessary to wear this stuff but he also didn't bother too much to ask.

“It's so sad that Fluttershy would miss out something special and rare like this,” Twilight said as she kept an eye out for any dragon in sight.

“Yeah,” Star Twinkle replied in disinterest.

It was not like he desperately wanted to see those dragons in the first place.
It was more because all his other friends decided to come and watch.
He felt like he had to come as well, as a friend.

But that didn't change the fact that he was a little bored.
The group was way too early.
Not a single dragon flew past them so far.

“I'm just glad that you decided to come, Star Twinkle,” Twilight said in relief as she smiled at him.

Star Twinkle didn't felt like it was something special but Twilight might have seen this a little different and appreciated that he would accompany her and her friends.

While they were already in a conversation, Star Twinkle took the chance to ask away why they needed to be this early.

“This way, we can watch every moment of the migration without bringing any unwanted attention to ourselves!” She almost whispered back at him.

However, this quietness was broken after Rarity colorfully showed up, accompanied by a red carpet and confetti flying in the air to underline her appearance.

Unlike the others, Rarity wore colorful purple and yellow dress with camouflage patterns on it and made sure that everypony would recognize it.

“What do you think? Am I the toast of the trench or what?” She said while she presented her dress in front of everypony.

“You'll be toast alright when the dragons see you parading around in that getup,” Applejack replied, referring on how this dress will draw the attention of every dragon in sight.

Twilight quickly removed the confetti and the red carpet with her magic and asked of Rarity to lower her voice a little so that they all could down the trench and hide in case if one dragon decided to show up.

Pinkie Pie was the first one who finally spotted a dragon over their heads and alerted the group quickly.

“Ahoy, maties! Dragons ho!”

Everypony quickly grabbed their binoculars to take a closer look at those dragons.
There were probably hundreds of them flying over the heads of the group.

Even though Star Twinkle did not want to come at first, he had to admit that it was impressive to see so many grown up dragons up that close without being a danger to them for once.

While everypony watched the dragons fly by impressed, Rainbow Dash tried to play cool.

“Pfft, pretty lame move. Is that all they've got?”

That was until two dragons got into a little fight, causing one of them to breathe fire dangerously close to the trench where the group was hiding in.

“Duck!” Star Twinkle exclaimed in panic, warning everypony to take cover for the incoming blast.

“A duck?
Where?” Pinkie Pie asked excited, as she looked out of the trench before Star Twinkle moved her her head inside of the trench again before she would get hit by the fire breath.

Thankfully, nopony was hurt.
Except for Rainbow Dash, who didn't take cover and got some of her face slightly burned.

“What do ya think of that 'move', Rainbow Dash? Still think they're lame?” Applejack said amusingly, referring to Rainbow Dash's previous complaint.

“Uh, not so much. The word 'fierce' comes to mind,” she replied slightly nervous after this presentation.

“And 'formidable',” Rarity added admirably.

“And 'super-duper scary'!” Pinkie Pie added while cowering on the ground in fear.

As far as Star Twinkle's knowledge goes, dragons are indeed very dangerous.
But they don't seem to be on bad terms with ponies or other creatures.
They are probably well aware that they are a force to be reckoned with but they seem to distance themselves from other races and take care of their own.

All this knowledge was kinda hard to believe in...
Especially since one particularly baby dragon was inside of the trench with the group, wearing a pink apron and serving everypony sweets.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but smile a little after seeing Spike right after seeing the group of dangerous and grown up dragons.
It didn't get better after Spike's next words.

“Yeah. Us dragons are definitely a force to be reckoned with,” he said before he gave Pinkie Pie a cupcake to calm her down again.

Apparently, Star Twinkle wasn't the only one to found it amusing to compare Spike with the dragons above their heads.

“Yeah, right, Spike. That's one of the scariest aprons I've ever seen!” Rainbow Dash said before she burst out in laughter on the ground along with Applejack and Pinkie Pie.

This, of course, caused Spike to defend himself.

“What's wrong with wearing an apron? You won't be laughing when you spill blueberries all over your scales...
Feathers.
That's one tough stain!”

“One tough stain against one lame dragon,” Rainbow Dash replied, still laughing on the ground.

Spike was not happy to hear that.
In fact, he looked a little angry.
Rarity noticed and defended Spike from Rainbow Dash's words.

“You leave him alone, Rainbow Dash! Spike's style is unique. He doesn't have to look like other dragons,”

“Or act like them,” Twilight added.

“My little Spikey-wikey is perfect the way he is,” Rarity said while rubbing his scales.

Even though Rarity tried to make him feel better, Spike was feeling more insecure by the minute.

“I don't act like other dragons?” He asked worriedly.

“Oh, not even close!” Pinkie Pie quickly replied.

“But why would you want to, Spike?” Applejack added.

“Yes. You've got something those dreadfully fierce dragons can only dream of,” Rarity assured confidently.

Spike was eager to hear what that was.
But once again, Rarity's words were a little “misplaced”.

“The cutest widdle chubby cheeks!” She said while she was rubbing his cheeks.

Just hearing that, made Star Twinkle instantly realize what was going to happen next.
He was by far not the definition of manliness but as the only stallion in the group, he knew that being cute is the last thing that you want to hear from a mare.
Especially, if your race is known for being fierce and dangerous.

“Cute?! Dragons aren't supposed to be cute! Right?” Spike asked in a nervous tone that Star Twinkle expected while blushing intensely which was not unnoticed by Rarity.

“Oh, sweetie, you are turning the most delightful shade of red. It is most becoming,” she said.

Of course, that didn't make thing better at all and Spike walked off angrily.

“Oh, isn't he adorable when he waddles off in anger? “ Rarity added as she watched Spike walk off in the distance, almost making Star Twinkle exclaiming that her words didn't make things any better.

In fact, Spike heard those words and screamed in anger as he walked away from the ponies.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but feel a little bad for Spike.
He tried to imagine what he would have done in this situation.
But maybe he already was in this situation...
One stallion in a group of mares...
He would definitely not be happy to hear from them that he was cute.
…
Probably...

The dragon migration continued and the group finished watching the dragons fly by until there was no dragon left.
For Star Twinkle, the perfect reason to leave and go home.

The next morning...

What the girls said to Spike yesterday somehow bothered Star Twinkle.
Maybe Spike had to spend time with somepony who didn't think of him as cute.
Luckily, Spike was walking towards him.
For some reason, he carried a sack tied to the end of a stick with him.

“Morning Spike...” Star Twinkle greeted.
“Uh...wanna do something or spend some time?”

“No time,” Spike replied with a determined look on his face.
“Joining the dragon migration to find out who I really am,” he added as he walked past Star Twinkle.

“Oh, alright,” Star Twinkle replied.

“Looks like he feels better now...
I guess I was worried for nothing...
Joining the dragon migration, huh?” Star Twinkle wondered as he continued his walk.

But he stopped for a moment to fully realize what Spike just said.

“Wait! What?” Star Twinkle said in shock as he turned around his head to Spike.

Before he had the chance to ask Spike, Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Rarity walked up to Star Twinkle.
They seemed to be aware of what Spike was up to.
Apparently, Spike was thinking a lot about being a dragon last night, causing him to worry how he should behave or what it meant to be a dragon.
To find that out, he had to spend some time with real dragons.

“And you are just okay with that?” Star Twinkle asked.
“You know Spike.
What if he gets hurt or something?”

“Yes, that is why we follow him.
To make sure that he is okay,” Twilight assured.

“Yes!
We can't let those big scary dragons hurt our little Spikey Wikey!” Rarity said worriedly.

“If you wouldn't have overly comforted him yesterday, then this whole situation probably wouldn't have happened...” Star Twinkle thought, partly blaming Rarity and the other girls.

“How are we supposed to follow him?
I don't think that we can approach all those dragons unnoticed, being ponies and all that...”

“Don't worry, Star Twinkle.
We have already a plan,” Twilight assured.

“Thank goodness that I have your measurements, Star Twinkle,” Rarity pointed out.

“My measurements?
For what?” Star Twinkle wondered.

Later...

Spike was actually traveling a really long way.
And of course, Star Twinkle, Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Rarity followed him all the way.
Ranging, from forests, mountains, and swamps, the journey was a lot harder and longer than Star Twinkle was willing to offer but he continued nonetheless.
Twilight knew the exact route of the dragon migration and where they would stop eventually and that was exactly where Spike stopped, in order to confront other dragons.

They all arrived at a big volcano.
There were hundred of dragons flying around it and waiting for the migration to continue.
Spike was walking up to it and entered it from the center, trying to find some dragons to hang out with.

It was then when he noticed how big and scary the grown up dragons actually were and began to have doubts if it was a good idea to follow them.
But Spike spotted some dragons that came closer to his age and decided to walk up to them instead.

With Spike closing up to them, the four ponies decided to get closer as well and stood in front of the volcano, looking over to the dragons.
However, they changed their appearance in order to not stand out as much.
Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Rarity were hiding in a costume, made by Rarity.
It was supposed to represent a long green dragon.
There were jewels on its back, that are supposed to be scales, two horns coming out of its head and two holes on its front, where the girls could look through and Twilight would look outside from it from its mouth.

“Star Twinkle, come up here too!” Rarity said, awaiting that he would arrive on the top of the volcano as well.

“Let me just say...
That I think that this is a really stupid plan...” Star Twinkle said annoyed as he walked up to the top as well.

Like the girls, Star Twinkle also wore a disguise to get closer to Spike without anyone noticing.
He was wearing a slightly better-looking costume, also made by Rarity.
He also looked like a green dragon, with jewels on his back, accompanied by two wings and two horns coming out from his head.
His costume looked a little better but he was unsure if it would actually work.

“Star Twinkle is right!
We'll never pass for real dragons!” Rainbow Dash agreed.

“Oh, pish-posh! Those costumes are fabulous, two of my finer creations,” Rarity protested.

“Can somepony explain why I have to be the one who has to walk around as a dragon?
They never believe that I'm one of them!”

“We only had enough time to create two costumes and because you helped me out in my boutique a few times, I already had all the measurements for your costume ready,” Rarity explained.
“Also most of those dragons are male and sound scary and mean so you would fit perfectly,” Rarity added.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Star Twinkle replied slightly offended.

Twilight quickly put a stop to the conversation and remembered them why they came all this way.
Looking over Spike was top priority right now so they all walked down the crater of the volcano.

Star Twinkle got more nervous, the closer he got to those dragons.
They actually managed to blend in without any of the dragons looking through their disguise.
It was actually the first time that he got so close to a dragon, not counting Spike.
He wondered what they would do to him if they find out that he was a pony.
Just the thought of that scared him.

Meanwhile, Spike was introducing himself to some dragons who looked more like if they were in their teenage years.
They were taller than Spike but significantly smaller than the grown up dragons and didn't look too dangerous for Spike to hang out with.
However, they were a little mean and constantly made fun of Spike.
Whether it was his size, his lack of wings or his behavior.

One of them, a dragon with red scales and orange fins was getting curious and wondered why he never saw him before.
And of course, Spike replied...

“Oh, well, y'see, I live in Ponyville and–“

“Hahaha! Ponyville? That explains it! I knew there was something vaguely pony-ish about you! If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were part pony!” The red dragon replied, finding another reason to make fun of Spike.

“Who, me? I'm not part pony! I'm all dragon, see?” Spike protested before he roared at them which unfortunately didn't sound too intimidating, causing the dragons to laugh once more.

“Or maybe you're a pony in a dragon costume,” the red dragon amusingly said before he burst out into laughter again.

The irony was striking in this moment.

“A pony in a dragon costume...!” Another dragon with dark purple scales and blonde hair said while putting his arms around Star Twinkle and the girl's costume, not realizing that there were actually ponies in dragon costumes around.

“...Yeah... hilarious,” Twilight replied in a deep voice, nervously.

“That would be totally crazy...” Star Twinkle added.

Meanwhile, the dragons continued laughing about little Spike which caused, mainly Rarity to get a little annoyed.

“How dare they make fun of little Spikey Wikey!” She said angered.

“Rarity, you have to be a little quieter!” Rainbow Dash advised.

“But we can't let them keep treating him like that!” Rarity protested angrily.

Twilight was thinking for a moment and came up with an idea.

“Star Twinkle, go and help him, please,” Twilight asked from Star Twinkle.

“Me?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

Star Twinkle didn't know if that was a good idea but things didn't look good as they were now.
He knew that Twilight and the rest of the girls would keep asking him so he might as well just do something now before things would get annoying.
But that didn't change the fact that he was having a really bad feeling.

Star Twinkle walked up to the group, in hope that no one would look through his disguise and tried to support Spike a little.
For that, he coughed up a moment to get their attention and changed his voice a little, even though they didn't know him in the first place.

“I'm sure there is some way for him to prove himself as a dragon!”

The dragon with the red scales looked doubtful at Star Twinkle, making him a little nervous if his disguise already failed.

“And...you are?”

“Oh, my name is Sta-”

“Wait!
My name!
Star Twinkle is not a dragon name, is it?” He thought as he realized that he didn't think his plan through enough.

“Sta...what?” The dragon asked still awaiting Star Twinkle's answer.

“Come on think!”

“Sta...Stan!
My name is Stan!
And I come from really far away because I really wanted to join the dragon migration!”

They all looked at him with judging eyes, clearly noticing that something was suspicious with Star Twinkle.

However, the group of dragons didn't care much about him and wanted some more convincing from Spike and decided to held some typical contests to let him prove himself as a real dragon.

They started with a belching contest.
Every dragon was taking a deep breath and spat fire in front of each other and trying to impress everyone with the size of their breath.
Star Twinkle didn't know what was considered a good belch but every one of them seemed to do decently.
It was up to Spike to leave an impression.

But Star Twinkle figured that it wouldn't go too well since he saw Spike breathing fire before.
He also forgot that every time when he did a letter from Princess Celestia was showing up.

And that is exactly what happened...

The moment when the letter appeared, the red dragon picked it up and attempted to read it.
Once again giving him and the other dragons another reason to make fun of him.

“Ha! Get this, guys! Spike's pen-pals with a namby-pamby pony princess!”

And of course, the other dragons laughed.
After that, the dragon threw the letter into the lava and Star Twinkle could just feel Twilight's blood boil from inside of her costume.
She was probably thinking that this letter was something important or that they should not disrespect the princess like that.

The contest continued with tail-wrestling.
It was much like hoof-wrestling just with...tails.

But the competition didn't look too balanced.
Spike was the smallest dragon of them all and naturally, his tail was the smallest as well, making his chance of winning really slim.

However, help was nearby in the form of Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Rarity.

“I challenge Spike to a tail wrestle!” Twilight said in a deep voice.

Just like with Star Twinkle, the dragons instantly realized that they were not...normal.

“Who's this weirdo?
You know this guy, Stan?” The red dragon asked.

But Star Twinkle was not getting used to react to that name and didn't answer at first until he noticed how he was being looked at.

“Oh!
Yeah!
I mean, no!
Must be from another country,” Star Twinkle replied nervously.

“I think he's Crackle's cousin,” another dragon then said, pointing at a dragon that almost exactly looked like the costume that Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Rarity were wearing.

“You gotta be kidding...” Star Twinkle thought.

Meanwhile, the tail-wrestle between Spike and Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Rarity began.
It was obvious that they would let him win in order to make him look really strong.
But Spike seemed to have some difficulty in lifting the fabric made tail.
Luckily, the girls made it somehow look like they were beaten and fell to the ground, letting everyone believe that Spike actually won.

“Spike's the winner!” The red dragon said as he lifted Spike above the ground, causing everyone to cheer for him.
“Nice going, little Spike! Maybe you are a dragon after all!”

“Yeah! Maybe I am!” Spike replied, starting to build some confidence.

The contest continued further with the red dragon dragging Spike up on a tower made out of gems.
Star Twinkle was not sure what this was about and waited.
But moments later, Spike was thrown off from the tower and the red dragon began to scream.

“King of the hoard!”

Every dragon was now climbing the tower and attempted to throw each other off.
Star Twinkle figured that this was supposed to be some game.
The last one on top would most likely be the winner so it was obvious that Star Twinkle had to help Spike getting on top.
But for that, he had to push of the other dragons first.

Star Twinkle climbed up the tower and slowly got to the top while keeping an eye out for Spike who was close behind him.
However, another dragon was climbing up to him and attempted to push him away.
Thankfully, the girls were around and knocked him away so that Spike could continue.

Star Twinkle arrived at the top where the red dragon was waiting for him after he pushed away another dragon.
He growled at Star Twinkle and strongly intimidated him before he attempted to grab Star Twinkle who defended himself with his hooves.
The dragon was way stronger and Star Twinkle had problems keeping his balance.
There was no way that he could overpower him.

But he didn't need to do that.

Spike finally reached the top and slightly pushed Star Twinkle from behind, causing him to lose his balance and falling off in front, taking the dragon with him down on the tower.
This left only Spike on top of the tower so he attempted to say “King of the horde” to declare his victory but he slipped and fell down the tower as well which counted as another fail.

However, the decision, if he was a real dragon, would come in the last contest.
Lava Cannonball.

Whoever, made the biggest splash by jumping into a pool of lava would win.
One after another jumped into the pool until only Star Twinkle and Spike were left.
There was no way for Star Twinkle to jump into that because unlike dragons, ponies were not fire proof.

“What's wrong, Spike? You afraid the lava will hurt your soft pony hide?” The red dragon asked, prompting Spike to finally jump down.
“You too, Stan!
Or are afraid too?”

Star Twinkle got nervous after hearing that.
There were still some full grown dragons on top, watching him with judging eyes so he had no choice.
Celestia knows what they would do if they found out that he was a pony.

“Just a minute!
I think I misplaced my swimming trunks!” Star Twinkle replied nervously before he moved out of their sight.

Spike wondered about Star Twinkle's behavior, due not knowing that it is one of his friends.
Star Twinkle walked up to the girls and asked what he should do now.

“What do I do now?” He asked stressed.
I can't swim in lava!”

“I think I have a spell that should protect you from the lava but it only stays for a little while,”

“Wait...you really want me to jump into a pool of lava!?” He asked even more stressed, closing up his face towards Twilight.

“Hey!
You guys still up there!?” The dragons shouted up to Star Twinkle and Spike.

While Star Twinkle was distracted by those words, Twilight already put the spell on him.
He could feel that there was some kind of aura around him.
Twilight assured that this spell would protect him but it didn't make him feel better at all.

He gulped nervously as he walked up to the cliff from where he had to jump into the pool of lava and looked down where the dragons still waited for him.
Star Twinkle began to sweat just by the thought of what he was about to do.

“Okay...
You can do this...
Twilight's spell will protect me...” he thought as he looked down to the pool nervously.
“Was it always that high up?” He wondered before his vision became a little blurry and his legs began to shake due to his fear of heights.

His body became stiff and he was unable to move anymore.
Spike watched him and wondered why this “dragon” acted so weird.
Before he knew what happened, Star Twinkle tripped forward and fell down right into the pool of lava head first, like a rock.

Shocked that he was swimming in lava, he quickly raised to the surface and hectically waved his legs around until he noticed that he was perfectly fine.

“It's like swimming in water...
I guess Twilight's spell is working...” Star Twinkle figured regaining his calm again.

He noticed how he was still stared at by the other dragons.
They probably wondered why he was stressing out before.
Star Twinkle returned an awkward smile and tried the subject.

“Hey!
I think Spike is about to jump!” He said, pointing up to the cliff.

It worked and the group quickly concentrated their eyes on Spike again.
The little dragon still looked a little frightened but he eventually took all his courage together and jumped down as well.
It didn't look too stylish or professional but at least he jumped.
The landing was by far even more painful than Star Twinkle's.
Spike landed belly first with a painful belly flop and then sunk down into the lava.

Star Twinkle figured that this wasn't enough to convince those dragons and feared that Spike failed to leave a decent impression.
But he was surprised that Spike was praised by the dragons for this belly flop that probably no pony would ever survive.

“I think little Spike has more than enough proven that he is a tough little dragon!” Star Twinkle said, trying to lift things into the right direction.

“Stan is right!
Come on, guys!
We have to declare Spike to a full fledged dragon!” The red dragon suggested, causing the others to cheer in excitement.

They all left the pool and went to somewhere else of the volcano to do some kind of ritual.
Star Twinkle was more than relieved that everything went well for Spike and let out a huge sigh.
The girls walked up to them and shared his relief and also showed their impression because of Star Twinkle's jump into the lava pool.

He blushed a little.
Not because he felt good to hear that compliment but because he couldn't tell them that he accidentally fell down.
He got so embarrassed that he could feel how his head was getting hot.
And his legs...
And his whole body...

“Wow, I'm really impressed how long the spell is lasting!
I thought it would have worn off by now!” Twilight said.

That instantly reminded Star Twinkle that he was still sitting in a pool of lava and that it was getting dangerously hot.
Panic was quickly spreading in his head and he jumped out of the pool with some light burnings on his behind.
Manly screams could be heard.

Later, Spike was going through some kind of ritual.
The dragons were not making fun of him anymore and took this ritual actually a little serious.
The red dragon took it upon himself to dub Spike a rookie dragon and they started a party to celebrate.

Star Twinkle did stay away from almost everyone.
Not only because it was a party, but also to not raise any suspicion.
But he did stay with the girls to have somepony to talk with without blowing his cover.

“You think Spike feels better now?
I mean after being accepted by those dragons?” Star Twinkle said while still rubbing his behind because from before.

“I hope so!” Rarity replied.
“I'm just happy when Spike decides to come home again,” she added in relief.

Star Twinkle was hoping that this will come soon too because he was not ready to jump in another lava pool anytime soon.

The party soon came to an end and every one of them laid on the ground exhausted.

“Man, was that a great party,” Spike said happily and exhausted.

“Great? Huh, maybe by Ponyville standards. Stick with us, Spike. We still got plenty to teach you about being a dragon,” the red dragon replied.

“I'm not going anywhere. The way I feel right now, I could hang out with you guys forever,” Spike then replied.

This sentence shocked the four ponies.
They could tell that Spike was having a good time but hearing him abandon his friends came out of nowhere.

The girls quickly felt responsible for not stopping him before, unlike Star Twinkle who thought that it was kinda their fault, to begin with but he couldn't say that in a moment like this.
Right now, they somehow had to prevent Spike from going with those dragons and remind him of his friends.

But before they could talk to him, the dragons took him with them and flew away to a nearby forest.

Rainbow Dash attempted to fly after them but was restrained from Rarity's costume, unable to lift over the ground so they had no choice but to follow them on their hooves.
But that more challenging than they thought.

The dragons were flying for a long time and the four ponies lost them after a while, making their frustration grow rapidly.
It also wasn't helping that it got dark, making it even harder to track them.

Luckily, some bright light emerged from far away in the forest, making it possible that this where Spike was.
Twilight pointed out that it must have been the light from a phoenix.
This only raised the question what they were planning with Spike.

They followed the light and eventually, found Spike and the three dragons that took him but what they saw wasn't what they exactly expected.
Spike hold an egg above his head as if he wanted to smash it to the ground while the other dragons stood there excited while repeatedly demanding him to smash it on the ground.

The girls were shocked by this sight and quickly ran towards him, in order to stop him.
However, Star Twinkle stopped them.

“Wait!” Star Twinkle said putting his hoof in front of the girls to stop them.

“What do you mean, wait?
Don't you see what they make him do!?” Rainbow Dash replied.

“We need to stop him before he does something horrible!” Rarity added worriedly.

Star Twinkle didn't know why he was acting like that all of the sudden but he felt like sharing his thoughts on this whole scene and what he thought about it.

“I hate to say it but...
Should we really interfere?”

“What do you mean?
We can't let Spike smash this egg!” Rainbow Dash replied, slowly starting to get angry by Star Twinkle's behavior.

“Spike came here to find out what it means to be a dragon so is it really up to us to decide?”

Twilight seemed to have given Star Twinkle's words some thoughts.
She decided to give her opinion as well.

“I think Star Twinkle is right...
If Spike wants to stay with them and live as a dragon, then we don't have the right to stop him...” she said, thought everypony knew that it was hard for her to say.

Rainbow Dash and Rarity looked at each other worriedly because they knew that she was right and lowered their heads in sadness.
Rarity was even close to tearing up a little.

Star Twinkle hoped that this was the right choice and that he wouldn't regret it.
It was coming from his personal point of view.
It is what he wanted to do if he was in this situation and he certainly didn't want anypony to decide about his life.
At least, that's what he kept telling himself.

But now everything was already set and the four ponies could only watch what was about to happen next.

“Smash it! Smash it! Smash it! Smash it! Smash it!” Could be heard by the dragons, putting more and more pressure Spike.

Spike did struggle to do it and sweat was coming down from his head.
He most likely was aware that what he was about to do was not right and had some inner conflicts with himself.

“Come on, Spike...
You know what's the right thing...right?” Star Twinkle thought worriedly, awaiting what he would do next.

The dragons also waited for Spike's answer excitedly but Spike began to tear up and grabbed the egg tight to himself, making the decision that Star Twinkle and his friends waited for.

“No! It's just a defenseless egg like I was! And I'm not gonna let you hurt it!”

Needless to say, the dragons were everything but happy to hear this response and got angry really quick.

“No one says no to me,” the red dragon replied before he attempted to slowly get closer to Spike in an attempt to get the egg.

Spike slowly backed away in fear but kept the egg close to himself to protect it.
A few steps later, he stopped after walking into something.
He turned around and fund out that it was the girls in their dragon costume along with Star Twinkle standing next to them.

They then all took off their costumes and revealed themselves to be ponies in front of the three dragons and Spike, all of them raising their hooves in an attempt to fight them.

“Nopony's gonna lay a claw on him!” Rainbow Dash said determinedly.

“That's right!” Twilight added with the same determination.

Even Rarity seemed to be ready for battle.

“Fighting's not really my thing, I'm more into fashion, but I'll rip you to pieces if you touch one scale on his cute little head!“ She exclaimed angrily as she waved her hooves in front of her as if she wanted to hoof-fight them one by one.

However, those dragons didn't seem to be too impressed to be threatened by one baby dragon and four ponies.
In fact, they burst out in laughter.

“Ooh, scary, hehe! Spike, are these namby-pamby ponies your friends?” The dragon with the red scales asked while still whipping away some tears in his eyes due to his laughter.

“Yes, they are. And they're better friends than you could ever be. Now, if you don't back off, you'll see what us ponies do when confronted by a huge group of jerky dragons,” Spike said as he confidently walked up to the red dragons face.

“Oh, yeah? What's that?” The dragon replied, not showing any signs of impression.

“Run away?” Star Twinkle guessed.

“Run away!” Spike screamed before he ran past the four ponies in order to escape from the dragons.

“Well, that's an idea I can get fully get behind with!” Star Twinkle said before he followed Spike, leaving the girls behind.

But a few moments later, the girls were behind him as well followed by the three dragons, flying behind them.

The group barely outran the dragons but they came dangerously close and almost caught up with them.

“Twilight, It might be a good idea to get us out with some little teleport spell!” Star Twinkle exclaimed nervously while running away.

“I'm trying!” Twilight replied as she concentrated her magic.

The dragons were now dangerously close to the group but Twilight had her spell almost ready.
A purple light could be seen for a second and before Star Twinkle knew what was going on he suddenly found himself outside of the forest with his friends and far away from the dragons.

“Phew, that was a close one. Thanks, you guys,” Spike thanked relived.

“Of course. What are friends for?” Twilight replied happily.

“You're more than friends,” Spike said beginning to tear up in joy.
“You're my family,”

After these words, everypony hugged the little dragon and was happy that he made the right choice.
Star Twinkle would lie if he would say that this moment wasn't heartwarming for him.
He was relieved that Spike decided to stay with his friends.
He was also glad that his previous choice to not interfere didn't fire back.
Back then he was sure that it was the right thing but the question was if he would have accepted Spike's decision as well.
Thankfully, he didn't have to worry about that.

They all returned to Ponyville as fast as possible and Spike decided to take care of the egg until it hatched so that he could return it to its parents after a while.
Of course, Twilight would help him with that, meaning that Star Twinkle didn't have anything to do with that anymore.

The day when he finally returned to Ponyville, Star Twinkle's first reaction was to lay down on his bed.

“Would I have accepted it if Spike decided to stay with the dragons?” He wondered.
“Losing a friend like that must be hard...
Yet...
I already feel like I know how it must feel like...
Why?
I never had any friend before...”

He turned around on his bed and faced the ceiling while still thinking about all that.
But he was way too exhausted to go into any more detail of that and closed his eyes to take a nap.

“I can't believe I jumped into a pool of lava...” he mumbled to himself before he was drifting away into sleep.

49. Gabby Gums

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It was another simple working day in the Iron Hammer...
Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer stored away their tools and were about to end their work.

“Another day, well spent!” Steel Hammer said overly enthusiastic, making it almost look like as if he just started his day.

Star Twinkle, on the other hoof, was glad that his work was finally done and that he could go home to relax.
But when he saw how three familiar fillies walked up to him and Steel Hammer, he instantly feared the worst.

“Oh, no!
It's Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo!
Please, tell me that they don't want me to join on another hunt for a Cutie Mark.
I rather want to go home now!”

He quickly tried to come up with some excuse but before he knew it, the Crusaders already stood right in front of him with excited faces.
They were all wearing reporter hats and had notebooks in their hooves.
Star Twinkle was thinking what this get-up was supposed to mean and how it would affect him, though it was painfully obvious for somepony who wasn't completely stressed out right now.

“Well, hello there, Cutie Mark Crusaders,” Steel Hammer greeted cheerfully.

“What are you up to, this time?” Star Twinkle added a little annoyed as he walked up to the three fillies, knowing that they somehow would get him into some annoying trouble with their search for a Cutie Mark.

“We are researching some stories for our school paper,” Apple Bloom replied while waving with her notebook in one of her hooves.

“Oh,” Star Twinkle reacted surprised.
“That actually doesn't sound dangerous or crazy, unlike most stuff that you attempt,”

“It's just that we have to hurry!” Scootaloo said.

“Yeah, it might be our last chance to get our Cutie Marks!” Sweetie Belle added, frustrated.

“Last chance?
What are they even talking about?” Star Twinkle thought confused.

“Star Twinkle, can you believe that Featherweight got his Cutie Mark before us?” Apple Bloom said also frustrated.

“No, I can't...
Mainly because I have no idea who that is...” Star Twinkle replied in disinterest.

They may take this whole “getting a Cutie Mark” as serious as always, but at least they chose something normal and not dangerous where Star Twinkle had to worry about them.
He bit into the sour apple and asked if he could help them in any way but thankfully they declined.
They were working for the school so there was no way that he could help anyway.
Star Twinkle would lie if he would say that he wasn't relieved to hear that.

They walked off again in search of a story and left the two ponies with their work.

“They sure have lots of fun,” Steel Hammer said as he waved the three fillies goodbye.

“Yeah...” Star Twinkle replied bored.

“I'm sure you have a lot of fun with those three,”

“Fun” is not the word how Star Twinkle would describe all the annoying things that they made him do in order to get a Cutie Mark.

Of course, Star Twinkle figured that he was harsher to them than they deserve.
He only spent time with them like this, once or twice in a week so it could be worse.

“Don't you think it's a little weird that a full grown stallion hangs around with three fillies to find his special talent?” Star Twinkle asked with narrowed eyes.

“You are never too old to have fun!
Besides, it's nice to see how you decide to find your special talent,” Steel Hammer said with a proud smile on his face.

“Oh...yeah...” Star Twinkle replied hesitantly.

This might wouldn't have been the best time to tell him that he was pretty much dragged into all of this by those three.
But Star Twinkle was not bothering about that anymore.

He was a member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders...
And he was a full grown stallion while they were all little fillies...
Those were the facts.

It was not like he was made fun of because of that.
Not anymore...
Everypony in Ponyville, by now knows the Cutie Mark Crusaders and naturally, about Star Twinkle.
He was probably the only pony left who thought that it was weird.

A little while later in the Cutie Mark Crusaders Clubhouse...

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo actually managed to write a decent article for their school and decided to show one issue to Star Twinkle in order to get some more feedback.

“Snips and Snails Bubblegum fails?” Star Twinkle read out loud confused.

“Well, what do you say?” Sweetie Belle asked while she, Apple Bloom and Scootlaoo waited excited for an answer.

“It's funny, I guess...” Star Twinkle replied while still scanning through a newspaper that the three gave him to read.
“You said you wrote that?
But it says it was from somepony named Gabby Gums,” he pointed out.

“That's us!” Apple Bloom replied.

“Pretty cool name, huh?” Scootaloo said proudly, raising her head in the air.

“But you have to promise us to keep it a secret, okay?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“I won't tell anypony...” he replied almost absent-minded.

“Pinkie Promise?” All three of them said unison with puppy eyes.

Star Twinkle sighed.
There would be nothing for him to gain by telling anypony about that anyway.
Although, he didn't understand why they would keep their identity a secret in the first place.
But on the other hoof, he didn't understand much about this stuff either so he Pinkie Promised.

“I won't lie,
or else I fly,
stick a piece of paper in my eye,” he said while making the traditional Pinkie Promise gestures.

They explained that this paper was a huge success at their school and of course, they wanted the opinion of one of their fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders member as well.
Star Twinkle admitted that their story was actually the only one that kept him interested a little.
It was also good to hear that they were successful with their writing.

“Do you have any idea about your next story?” Star Twinkle asked in order to make them know that he is interested in their new “Hobby”.

But instead of showing enthusiasm and answering Star Twinkle's question, they hesitated and looked at each other puzzled.

“We are working on that!” Sweetie Belle replied, in an attempt to end this conversation.

“Yes!
We get you the next issue when it's ready!” Scootaloo added, quickly picking up what Sweetie Belle tried to do.

“That is why we need to go and write the next one!” Apple Bloom added, as well.

They seemed to be really eager to end this conversation as quick as possible.
They all smiled at Star Twinkle, making it really obvious to him that something was wrong.
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo kept on smiling but Apple Bloom seemed like she was waiting for a reaction after her words before from her two friends

“Like, right now!” She said to them annoyed.

They quickly realized that Apple Bloom wanted them to go with her and write the next article.
After that, they quickly left the clubhouse and left Star Twinkle confused.

“Wouldn't it be better to write the article...here?” He wondered after watching them literally run away from him and the clubhouse.

He didn't bother to question they action anymore further since they actually already wrote a successful article.
As long as they didn't bother him too much with that, he was completely fine.
Maybe they actually get their Cutie Mark from this, which would be more than enough reason to be happy for them.
He just hoped that if they failed, that they wouldn't be too upset.

But, to his surprise, only a few days later, the name Gabby Gums was known in all of Ponyville.
Instead of only writing for their school, the newspaper expanded throughout the whole town for everypony to read.

Of course, Star Twinkle read some of those articles as well.
One morning, shortly after he woke up, he opened his door to pick up the newest newspaper that lied in front of his door entrance.
He took it inside, closed his door and began to read the first page.
And as expected, it was an article from Gabby Gums.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie's Secrets Revealed?” He read out loud surprised.
“How do they know anything about her?
I don't think she ever visited this place again after her last visit...” He wondered while thinking how the Cutie Mark Crusaders came up with this story.

He flipped the page and tried to find another article to read.

“Celestia Just Like Us?” He read out loud while looking at a picture of Princess Celestia eating a slice of cake.

Once again, he flipped the page over and read out another headline.

“Mayor Not Naturally Gray?
These articles are really going into some privacy...
What are those three doing?” Star Twinkle said in concern, hoping that Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo wouldn't get into troubles with their articles.

A few more days later...

Star Twinkle kept an eye on the articles in the last few days and noticed how they became more and more mean towards everypony.
Every ponies most important or embarrassing secrets got revealed through the paper.
He didn't found any article about himself so far, and other ponies secrets didn't interest him so he didn't think about it too much but he got concerned that Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo got a little to carried away.

He decided to ignore the newspaper and kept on going without worrying about it too much.
That way, he wouldn't be embarrassed if somepony read an article about him.
It was not like other ponies were just walking up to him and confront him with one of his embarrassing secrets.
At least, that's what he kept telling himself.

Later, on the same day, Star Twinkle was on his way to Sugarcube Corner.
His friends decided to invite him to this place.
Apparently, the girls wanted to talk with him about something.

On his way, he couldn't help but see other ponies staring at him and giggling behind his back.
Star Twinkle mostly tries to avoid eye contact with everypony while walking down the road but he could clearly tell that they were laughing at him.

While continuing his walk, he stopped near a window for a moment to check if there was something in his face or his mane, only to find out that everything seemed normal.
However, that didn't answer the question why everypony was laughing at him.

He quickly increased his walking speed to avoid any more contact with other ponies and wanted to be inside of Sugarcube Corner as soon as possible.

After finally arriving, he became a little calmer again and opened the door relieved.
When he entered, his friends waited in the room, filled with newspaper and some bad mood on everyponies face.

“What's going on here?” He asked right away.

Applejack wasted no time and showed Star Twinkle a picture of her in the newspaper.

“That's what is going on!” She said enraged.

“Applejack Asleep on the Job!” Is what the headline said with a picture of Applejack taking a nap under one of her apple trees.
“Or how about this one?!” She said as she flipped the page, revealing the next headline.
“Big McIntosh – What's He Hiding?” The headline said, with a picture of Big McIntosh on it and some kind of doll that looked strangely familiar to Star Twinkle.

“Let me guess...Gabby Gums?” Star Twinkle figured.

Apparently, not only Applejack but every other pony also made an appearance in the newspaper and was featured in an article by Gabby Gums.
But not in a good way.
The articles were not exactly covering the truth and only served to make everypony look bad.
And his friends were not safe either.
The articles they were featured in, were all spreading lies and weren't true at all.

From Twilight being a snob that thinks that Ponyville is just a low-class place to Pinkie Pie being an out of control Party Animal, the last one making Pinkie Pie bursting out in tears and admitting her problem.

Rarity seemed to be the only one who wasn't bothered by all of this, even going so far of defending Gabby Gums and claiming that it was only harmless gossip.
It made Star Twinkle think if Rarity was aware of Gabby Gums being partly her sister.

In truth, he was just not interested in all of that because it didn't concern him.
However, he did struggle to not tell who Gabby Gums was.
Not only would it bring the three ponies into trouble, but it also would make him break his promise.

He did expect that something like that would happen eventually.
It was just too good that the Cutie Mark Crusaders had success with their articles without causing any problems.

With the group being in a bad mood, Star Twinkle figured that he had to tell the Cutie Mark Crusaders how their articles affect everypony.
But before he could even think about his next action, Rainbow Dash entered the room with a giant pile of newspapers on her back.

“Well, my life is officially over. Gabby Gums has made it to Cloudsdale,” she said frustrated as she dropped the pile of paper on the ground.

Twilight grabbed one of the newspapers and read one of the headlines out loud.

“"Rainbow Dash: Speed Demon or Super Softie?"” She read pointing at a picture with Rainbow Dash on it, where she was about to get a hooficure.

“I grabbed as many copies as I could, but it was too late! I'm a laughing stock!”

“I don't think there is anything wrong with getting a hooficure,” Star Twinkle said in an attempt to calm Rainbow Dash down.

“I didn't have a hooficure, I just-” but she paused in the middle of the sentence after looking at Star Twinkle for a second.

She then was about to laugh but tried her best to keep it in as much as possible.

“What?” Star Twinkle asked because of Rainbow Dash's obvious reaction.

“Nothing!” She replied, her hooves covering her mouth in order to not laugh.

Eventually, she couldn't help it and fell to the ground and laughed like she never did before.
The other girls could only give each other concerned looks because of that.
For a pony who claimed that her future was over, a minute ago, she sure was having fun all of the sudden.
Much to Star Twinkle's dislike who couldn't take it anymore.

“Alright, that's it!
I've been laughed at by almost everypony today!
What is so funny?”

The girls seemed to have the answer, they were obviously struggling to tell him and avoided eye contact.
Eventually, Rarity stepped forward and explained.

“It might be because of this, darling,” Rarity said before she gave Star Twinkle another newspaper.

He grabbed it and began reading the headline of the page that Rarity showed him.

“Star Twinkle and a whole new world?” He read out to himself before his eyes widened in shock after inspecting the picture below.

It was a picture of him inside of Canterlot Boutique, wearing a colorful dress made by Rarity.
He remembered that moment.
Rarity needed to take some measurements of a new dress but the girls were all busy and couldn't help her at that time, so Star Twinkle had to be the one to help her out.
Of all the times you could have taken a picture, this was probably the worst.
Not only that but just the thought that the Cutie Mark Crusaders would have done that to HIM, the pony who was defending their secret, made him really angry.

Twilight picked up on Star Twinkle's reaction and tried to convince Rarity how Gabby Gums is slowly ruining everyponies private life.

Still, Rarity claimed that her friends don't have any sense of humor and that they shouldn't take it too seriously and flipped through some pages of her paper.

“So she tweaks a few ponies every now and then, maybe they deser–“ She suddenly gasped in shock after she saw a picture of her in one of Gabby Gums articles lying on a sofa in an overly dramatic pose.

“I'll destroy her!” She said angrily after finally admitting Gabby Gums true nature.
“"The Drama-Queen Diaries"... She's reprinted my diary! How could Gabby Gums possibly get access to my private diary?!” She asked in shock and confusion.

Of course, Star Twinkle knew how that was possible...
It became harder every second to not spill out the beans in front of everypony.
However, Twilight had the idea to ask Sweetie Belle since she was on the newspaper staff.

“If they would found out themselves, then I wouldn't break my promise, right?” Star Twinkle kept telling himself, hoping that they would put the pieces together.

“My sister would never associate with anyone as beastly as Gabby Gums! I resent you even suggesting such a thing, Twilight!” Rarity replied, defending her little sister.

It was understandable that Rarity would deny that Sweetie Belle would be part of Gabby Gums in any way.
He could almost not believe it himself, either.

“And in order to prove that, I will go and do some...research...” Rarity added before she left Sugarcube Corner with an angry expression on her face.

The rest of the group left one by one shortly after.
It left a bad taste in Star Twinkle's mouth to know the identity of Gabby Gums, but not being able to tell anypony.
He was in a really difficult situation, right now.
He didn't want anypony to feel bad appearing in the articles, but he also didn't want to sell out Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo.
He was just hoping that everything would calm down eventually.

It somehow did...

Some days later, everypony knew that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were Gabby Gums.
He figured that Rarity somehow found out about it from Sweetie Belle and told everypony about it.
This could actually be the best thing that could happen to him right now.
Now he didn't have to worry about telling his friends about them anymore.
Also, the articles seemed to stop so everything should be fine again.

Still, with all the ponies out there laughing at him, it was no longer safe for him to go out for a few days so Star Twinkle decided to stay home, whenever he had the chance.
It might be boring but at least nopony was laughing about him.

One day, after everypony knew about Gabby Gums identity somepony knocked on Star Twinkle's door.
He figured that it was only a matter of time until somepony was visiting him.
Whether it was his friends who were worried or somepony else who would just knock on his door to make fun of him.
There was only one way to find out.

He opened the door and saw three little fillies standing in front of him.
All of them with their head lowered in sadness.

“Hi, Star Twinkle,” Sweetie Belle said accompanied, with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, all of them frowning and looking at the ground with sad faces.

“Well, this certainly is awkward,” Star Twinkle thought while giving the girls an angry expression and waiting for whatever they had to say to him and already planning to close the door immediately after.

“You probably read the article that we wrote about you, right?” Scootaloo started.

“Uh huh...” Star Twinkle replied, not changing his expression one bit.

“We know that you are angry with us but...
We just came to apologize,” Apple Bloom added.

“You are the last one in Ponyville who we haven't apologized to yet...and we know that you won't forgive us like everypony else...
But we still wanted to apologize...” Sweetie Belle added further, making the three of them lower their heads even further in sadness.

Star Twinkle had to think about her words a little.
He still was angry but he also felt sorry.
He didn't want to though.
It was the perfect reason to be angry right now.
However, what Sweetie Belle said before made him think.

“Everypony else?
Everypony in town is angry with them?” Star Twinkle wondered, changing his expression from angry to a thoughtful one in an instant.

“Sorry to bother you...
We know that you don't want to talk with us so we are just gonna leave again...” Apple Bloom said before she walked off with the others.

All three of them were clearly regretting their actions and felt bad about it.
The articles they have written were not fun but hurtful.
It was only naturally that everypony would be mad at them.

“Yes...
I am mad...
And I don't want to talk with you...
Like everypony else...
Everypony would be mad if somepony would reveal their secrets or if somepony would write an article with lies about them...” he thought while looking at the three ponies walking away from him.

He was well aware that they were feeling bad but he was also angry about the article and that they hurt his friends.
However, he knew that he couldn't just stand there...
He let out a huge sigh before he realized what he was about to do next.

“Unfortunately...I'm way too far away from being Everypony,” he thought in frustration.

“If everypony is angry with you...” Star Twinkle started, getting the attention from the three ponies.
“...Then we better come up with a plan to make up for that again,”

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo looked at each other confused and were surprised by how calmly Star Twinkle was talking with them.

“We?” Scootaloo asked confused.

“Aren't you angry with us?” Apple Bloom asked, addressing the obvious.

“Well, I would be a terrible member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders if I didn't help you right now...” He replied, somehow trying to make it sound a little more distant and forced as if he was still trying to come off as angry.

But before he knew it, the three ponies rushed to him and jumped at him, throwing the Earth Pony on the ground and hugging him in the process.
A reaction that made Star Twinkle feel a little uncomfortable.

“Alright!
That's enough!” He said while they still happily hugged him.

However, they didn't let go.
They were probably too relieved that there was actually somepony who was not angry with them that they couldn't believe it themselves.
And after a while, Star Twinkle wasn't bothered anymore and let them.

Later in the Cutie Mark Crusader Clubhouse...

The three fillies explained the situation to Star Twinkle in the Clubhouse.
Apparently, they did try to stop writing more articles, but there was still one more thing that was in their way.

“So if you don't continue to write more articles, Diamond Tiara will publish some embarrassing pictures of you three?”

“Yeah...” All three of them replied in unison.

“What should we do, Star Twinkle?” Scootaloo asked frustrated, causing Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle to look up to him as well.

It was actually a similar situation that he was in before.
They could either, continue and hurt every other pony or...

“Do you regret what you did to everypony?” He asked, avoiding their question.

They all nodded and looked at him desperately and in regret.
This reaction was all he needed.

“Then you probably already know what you should do...” he said in a surprisingly serious tone.

They looked at each other for a moment and seemed to have figured out what he was getting at and he could tell that they didn't like it.
But they have not supposed to anyway.
Star Twinkle couldn't believe that he would give an advice like that.
He was asking something of them that would probably too much to handle for him if he was in their situation.
But it had to be done if they wanted everypony to forgive them.

On the next day...

The Cutie Mark Crusaders did give Diamond Tiara an article to publish but instead of their regular gossip articles, it was an open apology to the citizens of Ponyville where they openly revealed their identity, even though almost everypony was aware of that already.

They made sure to deliver the paper to everypony by themselves with Star Twinkle accompanying them to make sure that every pony would at least listen to them.

Of course, everypony hesitated to even look at the paper but as soon as they saw the sad faces of the three fillies and Star Twinkle's serious look on his, they realized that they were sincerely sorry and gave them the chance to explain.

From this point on it was basically walking from door to door and apologizing to everypony in town.
It was annoying for Star Twinkle and he didn't know exactly why he was accompanying them but felt like as if those three needed some support so he might as well went with them.

It ended up being a really long day but after they were done, nopony in Ponyville was angry with them anymore which was a great accomplishment.
The pictures of the Cutie Mark Crusaders were released eventually, but they didn't care anymore and were glad that nopony was mad about them anymore.
And Star Twinkle was happy for them too, mainly because there was no more danger for more embarrassing articles about him.
With that thought in his mind, he went to the Iron Hammer on the next day.

“I'm so glad that everything returned to normal again...
I wasn't laughed at on my way to work so far so I guess everypony already forgot it...
So it would be best if I never mention everything about that dress or that article anymore...”

He entered the workshop and quickly saw Steel Hammer, trying to hang something on the wall.
At first, he wanted to greet him but he tried to figure out what he was doing and kept quiet for a moment.
But the moment he figured it out, his eyes opened wide and his face was in shock.
Steel Hammer was hanging a picture of Star Twinkle wearing a dress on the wall.
The same picture that was in the article.

“Steel Hammer!” Star Twinkle shouted in anger at his boss, causing Steel Hammer to turn around in surprise.

“Hi there, Star Twinkle,” he replied in a casual manner.

“Why are you hanging this picture on the wall!?”

“I always wanted to hang a picture of my employee on the wall,” Steel Hammer replied.

“I don't mind that but why did it have to be that one!?”

“It's the only one I have so far...
You don't like it?” Steel Hammer asked, clearly oblivious to Star Twinkle's embarrassment.

“No!
Get it off!” Star Twinkle quickly replied angrily.

“How about just for today?” Steel Hammer offered.

Star Twinkle couldn't believe that they would have that conversation.
He knew how stubborn Steel Hammer could be and put a hoof on his face in annoyance.

“Fine!
But get it off at the end of the day!” Star Twinkle demanded in annoyance.

Steel Hammer smiled happily and agreed to Star Twinkle's demand who only returned an angry glare to him.

They then both stood there for a moment, staring at the picture as if it was hypnotizing them.

“The dress looks good on you,” Steel Hammer complimented.

Star Twinkle didn't know what to think about that and was not interested in an annoying argument and gave a quick answer.

“It was strangely comfortable...”

50. The Great Cake-Mystery

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“Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness. You've really outdone yourselves, Mr. and Mrs. Cake,” said Pinkie Pie impressed as she watched over a four-layered yellow and pink colored cake made out of marzipan that Mr. and Mrs. Cake made for the yearly national dessert competition in Canterlot.

They both felt flattered and took the opportunity to thank Pinkie Pie for offering to transport it all the way to Canterlot.

“Absolutely! It is my honor and I will make sure that nothing happens to that delicious and perfect cake of yours!” She said while saluting determined.
“Right Star Twinkle?” She added, looking at Star Twinkle who was carrying the big thing on his back while looking like he was about to collapse because of its weight.

“Yeah, it's beautiful.
Can we go now?!
This thing is kinda heavy!” He complained, prompting Pinkie Pie to make haste.

Pinkie Pie understood and opened the front door of Sugarcube Corner so that Star Twinkle could carry the cake to the train station.

When Star Twinkle was asked to carry a cake for Pinkie Pie, this was not exactly what he was imagining, mainly because he didn't think it to be this big.

“This way, Star Twinkle.
Just all the way to this direction,” Pinkie Pie directed.

“I know where the train station is, Pinkie,” Star Twinkle replied a little annoyed while still focusing his eyes in front of him.

Mr. and Mrs. Cake were right behind those two, both really nervous and afraid that something would happen to their cake.
Star Twinkle didn't even want to know what they would do if something would happen to the cake.
This put unnecessary pressure on him which eventually caused him to lose some balance, making the cake shake a little.
Luckily, he was able to balance it again in time.

But that didn't stop the Cake's to scream in fear or in Mr. Cakes case, to fall unconscious.
Pinkie Pie also realized that it was a little dangerous to carry this thing all the way to the station.
It was still a long way after all.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were flying close by and Pinkie Pie took the opportunity to ask them for help, just to make sure.
They tied the plate of the cake up to a rope so that the two Pegasus could balance it while Star Twinkle was carrying it.
This made it a little easier to carry the cake for Star Twinkle but his strength was slowly dropping down a little, making Rainbow Dash's and Fluttershy's job a little more important now.

After a few meter, Star Twinkle lost his balance again and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy both had to keep the cake in place again before it would fall to the ground.
The crisis was prevented again but the Cake's were still nervous or in Mr. Cakes case, again, made him fell unconscious...again.

“I think we need more safety measurements, Pinkie,” Star Twinkle suggested, figuring that it was only a matter of time until something would go wrong.

Pinkie Pie looked around to find a better solution and luckily, found Twilight nearby reading a book.

“Twilight, can I see you a second?” She asked to which Twilight gladly agreed to help out a little.

Twilight put a spell around the cake to prevent it from any incoming damage.
It also felt like as if it became lighter for Star Twinkle to carry.
From now on it actually felt like as if they could make it without damaging the cake.
However, the Cake's still kept a close eye on their cake and were still nervous.
Pinkie Pie noticed and called Applejack and Rarity over to help to keep the cake safe as well.

They both carried a trampoline behind Star Twinkle, in case that it would fall down, even though it wasn't in danger anymore.
Still, the cakes were still worried that something would happen, especially Mr. Cake who began to hyperventilate.

After a really slow and careful walk, due to so many safety measurements, they finally arrived at the train station.
Star Twinkle was more than relieved that he arrived and almost immediately wanted to drop the cake somewhere inside of the train.

“See, Mr. and Mrs. Cake? I got it here without a hitch!” She proudly announced.
“Now all we have to do is get it... in?” She added confused while looking at the door and realizing that the cake was way too big to fit through the door.

“Now what?” Star Twinkle asked still carrying the cake on his back and almost begging to drop it somewhere.

Everypony began to think how to solve this little problem, much to Star Twinkle's dislike who had to stand there with this giant cake on his back struggling to keep himself on his hooves.
Despite, trying to stand still, Star Twinkle managed to come up with an idea.

“Twilight, can't you just teleport that thing inside of the train?!” He Suggested while breathing heavily.

Twilight quickly realized that this would be the best thing to do and gave it a try.
She suggested everypony to stand back a little and prepared to teleport the cake inside.
Needless to say, the Cake's were worried like crazy that something would go wrong but they didn't know what to do either and watched.
Twilight was about to cast the spell and Star Twinkle was more than relieved that this cake would vanish from his back.

“Only some more seconds and I can relax again...” he thought awaiting Twilight to cast the spell.

She fired a shot at the cake and Star Twinkle could only see a flash of light for a second.
To his surprise the environment he was in changed as well.
He was now inside of the train while the cake was still on his back.

“Oh come on!” He exclaimed annoyed, bothered that he still wasn't freed from this cake.

“There you are!” Twilight said while she ran inside of the train as well.

She was followed by everypony else, who all wanted to make sure that the cake was alright.
Mr. and Mrs. quickly walked inside and inspected Star Twinkle and the cake to make sure that it was unharmed.
They both sighed in relief and calmed down as soon as they saw the cake unharmed.

“See?
Told you that nothing would happen to the cake,” Pinkie Pie said proudly, even though it was mostly everypony else who protected the cake to all the way to the station.

“We never doubted you Pinkie Pie,” Mrs. Cake replied in a really unconvincing tone.

“Can I PLEASE put this thing down now?!” He exclaimed annoyed, begging to get rid of this cake again.

Finally, the cake was placed on a table inside of the train and Star Twinkle was freed from carrying it.
After seeing how much trouble they had so far, Pinkie Pie suggested that the others should come with her to this National Dessert Competition.
Star Twinkle didn't plan to do anything after this exhausting adventure and a trip to Canterlot would mean that he could relax a little on the way so he might as well accompanied them.

Pinkie Pie was confident that the so-called “Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness” would surely win the competition and looked at it with hypnotized eyes, practically admiring it.

“All that rich creamy goodness of the marzipan, combined with the tart tanginess of the mascarpone, blended perfectly with the smooth, silky sweetness of the meringue. That's why I call the Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness the "MMMM"”

Star Twinkle had to admit that hearing her explanation made him a little hungry and judging from looking at the girls licking their lips they did as well.

“It's the most delicious delectable delightful de-lovely cake in Equestria, and it's sure to win first prize,” she added fully confident.

However, she was interrupted by someone who entered the door and overheard her statement.
It was a griffon with gray feathers and a black long mustache, wearing a red scarf and a chef's hat.

“Zis is not so, for I, Gustave le Grand, do challenge your crude cake to a duel of delectable delicacies against my exceptionally Exquisite Éclairs!” He then proudly presented a plate with eclairs in front of everypony before he proudly put them on another table next to the cake.
“They will undoubtedly strike down all ze competition, winning first prize and crowning me le champion,”

“Not a chance, le Grand,” A familiar voice said from outside of the train.

It was Donut Joe, the owner of a Donut shop in Canterlot who also entered the train pulling a little wagon behind him filled with donuts that were arranged like a little town.
Apparently, Donut Joe had to pick up his final ingredient to complete his contest entry.

“I present to you, Donutopia!” He proudly presented in front to everypony.

He then poured some sprinkles down on his little city, making it almost look like as if it would snow.
“And with these super-sprinkles, my donuts are going to dunk all the other lousy desserts, steal first prize, and make my donut shop famous forever!” He said before he laughed almost maniacally.

But there seemed to be yet another competitor entering the train.
This time it was a big chocolate moose.
At least that's what everyone thought before an elderly lady revealed herself behind it, looking down on Donut Joe's work.
She was a mule wearing an aquamarine colored pearl necklace and an earring with the same color.

“Your dippy donuts could never out-rival me.
“I am Mulia Mild. Behold, my Chocolate Mousse Moose. It will trample all your treats, be given first prize, and make me the greatest chef in Equestria,” she declared confidently.

Naturally, Gustave le Grand, Donut Joe, and Pinkie Pie didn't like to hear that and claimed that their treats were going to win in the competition instead.

“Wow...I didn't know that desserts are that serious of a business...” Star Twinkle thought after watching those four getting really competitive about their sweets.

Their conversation was eventually interrupted by the train whistle, indicating that the train was about to leave Ponyville.
However, the four competitors kept a close look on each other, switching their eyes back and forth to show that neither of them is attempting to show any signs of worry.
The rest of the group could just look at those four silently.
They were just spectators after all and didn't know how to respond to this.
Eventually, Twilight walked up to the four and tried to melt the ice a little.

“Well, it sure looks like we're in for a delicious competition tomorrow. Maybe we should all settle in for a good night's sleep,” she said in good spirit that wasn't fitting the situation now at all.

Everyone except Pinkie Pie left and locked themselves into their cabins in a grumpy manner, not even responding to Twilight.
They clearly were not interested in talking with each other wanted to remain enemies until they would arrive at Canterlot.

Twilight's idea of going to sleep didn't sound too bad for everypony else and they decided to go to their cabins but Pinkie Pie blocked their path and demanded that they should stay and guard the MMMM.

“I know for super sure that "MMMM" is the best dessert in all of Equestria, and I know that they know it too.
One of them is going to sabotage the Cakes' cake tonight! You have to help me stand guard!” She explained in her paranoia.

It was unlike her to think of the others doing something like that.
The rest of the group assured Pinkie Pie that nothing would happen to the cake and that she was simply overreacting but Pinkie Pie wouldn't believe them and still wanted everypony to help her protecting the cake.

Because Pinkie Pie wouldn't listen, the group slowly walked past her and ignored her worries, leaving Star Twinkle as the last one to walk by her.
Pinkie Pie was giving him some puppy eyes, at least that's what he was imagining and made it a little harder for him to walk past her.
He was trying to get some sleep and wanted to hit his cabin as well since he was still exhausted by this whole cake-carrying from before.
On top of that, he also thought that Pinkie Pie was overreacting and didn't want to have anything to do with all that.
But Pinkie Pie was so stressed out because of her worry that it almost made him believe that somepony would sabotage that cake too.

“Fine...I'll stay here too...” he said really annoyed to which Pinkie Pie instantly jumped at him happily and hugging him in the process, much to his surprise and dislike.
“Alright, alright, the cake, remember?” He reminded her while he tried to push her away.

Pinkie Pie ran up to the cake and kept her eyes open cautiously blocking the path to it.
The moment Star Twinkle saw this, he realized that it will be a huge waste of time.
He kept asking himself why somepony would try to sabotage the cake after claiming that their sweets were better.
If the others thought that their sweets were better wouldn't it be better to “defeat” the MMMM in the competition rather than before that?
But maybe Star Twinkle was thinking too much about this...
In the end, he regretted to stay with Pinkie Pie instead of going to bed like the others did.

The two Earth-Ponies waited until it got dark, with Pinkie Pie not moving a muscle and her eyes focused on the cake.
Star Twinkle was falling asleep most of the time because it got too boring for him but Pinkie Pie often woke him up again so that he could help her protecting the cake.
Eventually, even Pinkie Pie had troubles to stay awake all the time since she was struggling to keep her eyes open.
Star Twinkle noticed and tried once more to convince her to go to bed as well.

“Nopony showed up, Pinkie Pie...
I think it's safe to say that the cake will be safe for the rest of the trip.
We should go to sleep...”

Pinkie Pie turned her head away from the cake and looked at Star Twinkle with a serious face.
“It will be safe once we arrive at Canterlot.
I can sleep after that!” She replied while moving her head to the cake again.

“Great...and what about me?” Star Twinkle thought in frustration while rolling his eyes.

Pinkie Pie's eyes were wandering down a little to the ground, not because of sadness but rather happiness.
A smile formed on her face before she spoke up again.

“...Thank you for staying...” She mumbled a little just barely so that Star Twinkle could hear her.

Star Twinkle got caught off-guard by those words and struggled to reply at first.
Mainly because how sincere it sounded, coming from Pinkie Pie.
Pinkie Pie was never a pony who had problems showing her emotions and would let everypony know that too.
But this time it sounded like it was actually hard for her to say for a moment.
Eventually, Star Twinkle realized that he didn't reply for a while now and snapped out of it.

“Oh...um...sure, no problem...” he replied, still being a little confused by the way Pinkie Pie said it.

“You know...I think I have to apologize to you...” She added, this time looking at Star Twinkle directly.

“For what?” He replied, narrowing his eyes out of confusion.

“Well, back then I thought that you were a bit of a meanie, you know?
So I figured that I should try to lighten you up a little...”

“Okay...” Star Twinkle replied not getting what Pinkie Pie was trying to say.

“I know!
It was until much later that I figured out that...” she stopped in the middle of the sentence.

“What?” Star Twinkle asked.

“You know...that you are...”

“That I am what?” He thought, starting to get a little curious now.

But their conversation was suddenly interrupted by someone quickly running past between them.
It was too dark for them to find out who it was but they saw the shadowy figure running away.
They both ran after the figure and chased him or her across all the wagons until they arrived at the very last one.
But to their surprise, nopony was there anymore which should be impossible because they followed the criminal throughout all the wagons.

Puzzled about what just happened, they returned to the room with the cake only to find out that there was somepony else behind the door on the other site of the room.
Again, both of them followed that figure as well.
This time the chase went through all the wagons that would lead to the front of the train.
But when they arrived at the front train, the only pony they could see was the conductor who was shoving coal into the engine so they returned without bothering him.

Both of them returned puzzled to the cake again.
Thankfully, it didn't seem to be harmed, much to their relief.

“See?
I told you they would try to go after the MMMM,” Pinkie Pie said in a really stressed manner.

“Alright, I believe you, Pinkie,” Star Twinkle replied, realizing that Pinkie Pie's worries were not just her overreacting.
“How about that?
If we sit down and keep our eyes on the cake, then nopony should be able to touch it, right?” Star Twinkle suggested in order to keep the cake safe.

They both focused their sight on the MMMM while also making sure that nopony was entering the room.
It was tough for both of them to keep their eyes open anymore.
Thought there was one thought that was circling around Star Twinkle's mind that kept him awake.

“Soo...what did you wanted to say before?” Star Twinkle asked, taking the opportunity that they were still alone.

However, Pinkie Pie only replied with a confused “Huh?” to that question.
Star Twinkle was not sure if she didn't remember or if she was avoiding the question so he poked in a little further.

“Before the first intruder came in.
You said that you had to apologize and that you figured out something about me...”

“Oh! Yeah! I remember!” She replied but she then focused her eyes back on the cake again not giving a response.

“Well! What was it?!” Star Twinkle exclaimed, annoyed by Pinkie Pie's obliviousness.

“Oh? You wanted to know?” She asked surprised.

“Of course I wanted to-” But before he could finish, it suddenly became dark in the wagon, making it impossible to see anything in the room.

Panic was spreading really quick and hoof steps could be heard all over the wagon, as well as other undefined noises indicating that somepony was storming through the room.
Despite being confused, Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie tried their best to protect the cake the best they could.
The intruder also seemed to have some problems seeing anything in the room since it could be heard that he or she was running into the wall.

The curtains were opening again after a while and the two Earth Ponies found themselves in the room confused.
However, there was no one else with them so Pinkie Pie checked the nearby wagons while Star Twinkle looked after the cake.
Pinkie Pie couldn't find anyone but thankfully, the cake seemed unharmed.

“That's it!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.
“From now on, we need to make perfectly sure that nopony touches the MMMM!
You go outside and block anypony from entering the room!” She said pointing at the door before she focused her eyes on the cake once more.

Star Twinkle thought that this was the best solution for now since the baker's only way to get to the room was to get trough the door that he was waiting in front of.
There was nopony in the hallway.
They all seem to be asleep.
Even if it was one of the bakers, they would probably make sure to not let everypony know that they were awake to not draw suspicions towards them.
But it was not like the cake was harmed so they would be little point thinking about that.

Star Twinkle was sitting down in front of the door and kept his eyes open guarding the door like it was the cake itself.
Still, it was hard for him to keep his eyes open.
It was late at night after all and the harder he tried to keep his eyes open, the harder it became to stay awake but eventually, he was too tired to stay awake the whole time and drifted off to sleep.

On the next morning...

“Star Twinkle?” A female voice said from, what Star Twinkle thought was from really far away.

He slowly opened his eyes and saw a blurry purple unicorn in front of him which he quickly identified as Twilight.

“Why are you sleeping on the ground?” She asked confused.

Star Twinkle rubbed his eyes and looked around confused.
He was clearly not fully awake and didn't know how to respond at first or why he was sleeping on the ground himself.
When he finally realized that he was sleeping on his job to protect the cake, he quickly became nervous but then remembered that Pinkie Pie was still looking after it which calmed him down again.

But then suddenly, a loud scream could be heard from the other room which both of them identified as Pinkie Pie.
They both rushed into the room and found Pinkie Pie who was still screaming on top of her lungs.

“What's wrong?” Star Twinkle asked confused but Pinkie Pie was so much into screaming that she probably didn't even hear him unlike every other one in the next wagon who walked into the room confused about all the screaming.
The obvious question, that was asked first, was why Pinkie Pie was screaming.
Pinkie Pie stopped screaming and informed everypony about the situation.

“It's the Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness, it's been mutilated!” She explained while pointing at the cake.

This caused Star Twinkle to look over to the cake that he and Pinkie Pie tried to protect last night.
There was indeed a huge piece missing on one side of it, as if somepony took a big bite out of it, causing everypony to react in shock after seeing the cake in this state

Naturally, Pinkie Pie was mad about this sabotage and demanded to find out who did that to the MMMM.
Twilight, who drew some knowledge from mystery novels, advised that the only way to find out the culprit is to investigate.

“Exactly.
And as chief detective, that's exactly what I'm gonna do,” Pinkie Pie said determined before she placed a gray detective hat on her head and a pipe in her mouth, from which nopony exactly knew where she got it from.
But what confused everypony, even more, was that Pinkie Pie was attempting to take care of the investigations.
Pretty much everyone agreed that Pinkie Pie was not exactly the best choice when it comes to stuff like that.

“You are investigating?” Applejack flat out asked, pretty much speaking out what everyone else in the room was thinking.

“Yes! And Star Twinkle shall be my lowly assistant who asks silly questions with obvious answers,” she replied while she put a black billycock hat on his head, much to his surprise.

“What?! Why me?” He asked.

“Because you were the only one, besides me who was in here!
You can't possibly be it,” She vaguely explained.

Star Twinkle was relieved that she wasn't suspecting him and unless he or Pinkie weren't taking a bite of the cake while being asleep, he was pretty sure that it wasn't either of them.
This would mean that could only be the rest of his friends or the three bakers.
Regardless if he was decided to be Pinkie Pie's assistant or not, Star Twinkle began to investigate as well.

“I guess we should look for clues then, right?” Star Twinkle asked Pinkie Pie.

“Perfect silly question, my dear Star Twinkle. Because the obvious answer is...
No! 'Cause I know who did it,” Pinkie Pie confidently replied while blowing her pipe, causing bubbles to come out of it.

The group reacted shock by how far Pinkie Pie seemed to figure out the answer except for Star Twinkle and Twilight, who rolled her eyes and knew that this could be impossible.

“How? You started your investigations literally a minute ago!” Star Twinkle replied, questioning Pinkie Pie's ways of handling the situation.

“How could I possibly not know? Clearly, this dastardly deed was done by the baker, who knew their dessert could not measure up to the mastery of the Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness. I guess you feared your éclairs lacked flair, Gustave!” She said while flat out accusing the griffon.

“Alright...and how did he do it?” Star Twinkle asked as he played along.

“First he tried to snatch the cake away in front of our eyes, then after realizing that that wouldn't work, he tied us both to the train tracks so that we could be hit by the train, then he took a giant saw to slice the cake-”

“Hold on!” Star Twinkle exclaimed in the middle of Pinkie Pie's story.
“There are so many things wrong with what you just said...
I think I would remember if something like that happened!
Also, the cake hasn't been sliced.
Look, there are teeth marks on it so it has been bitten,” Star Twinkle explained, clearly taking the case a little more serious than Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie Pie realized that she was wrong and stopped accusing Gustave.

“You're might be right, my silly assistant.
Which could only mean that the MMMM was clearly destroyed by...
Donut Joe!” She replied, wasting no time to suspect another baker.

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes and hated to ask but did it anyway.

“And how do you come to that conclusion?”

“It has to be Joe or as he's known the spy world, Mane. Con Mane.
First, he took us both out with some sleep gas, then he bypassed the laser security system around the cake and sliced the cake into pieces, then-”

“No, he didn't!” Star Twinkle protested, once again interrupting Pinkie Pie's story.
“There is no laser system around the cake!
And again, the cake has been bitten not sliced!” He reminded Pinkie Pie pointing at the cake again.

“Huh...Maybe you're right,” she replied, starting to make Star Twinkle feel a little annoyed.
“We should take a closer look at everything to get to the answer...” she suggested.

“Yes! Let's do that. Because that is what an investigation is...” Star Twinkle replied annoyed.

But instead of looking at the cake, for instance, she looked at the chocolate moose from Mulia Mild.

“Now that I'm taking a closer look at these desserts, I see that one simply cannot look me in the eye,” she said to herself.
“And the mule behind the moose panicked when she saw the mastery of the "MMMM"

Star Twinkle had a feeling where this was going to could feel how he was slowly losing his patience with Pinkie Pie's way of investigating.

“It was Mulia Mild!” She said while accusing the elderly mule.
“First, she jumped over the train wagons, then she took us both out with a frying pan, then she took out a sword and sliced the cake int-”

“For the last time Pinkie Pie, nopony sliced the cake!” Star Twinkle interrupted once more, this time a little angrier.
“Also, I don't think that Mulia is in any shape to perform some ridiculous stunts that you just explained,”

After those words, Pinkie Pie took a closer look at the mule herself and agreed with Star Twinkle.

“But I was so sure that it was one of the other bitter bakers that destroyed the "MMMM". That way, their delicious dessert would reign supreme. I mean, just look at Joe's Donutopia.
It's a spectacular city of donutty delight, topped temptingly in sprinklicious sprinkles.
And Gustave's éclairs look incredibly edible, with glistening glaziness.
But then there's Mulia Mild's Mousse Moose. Why, this mouth-wateringly marvelous mousse moose tempts the taste buds with its silky, smooth, yummy-nummy, chocolateyness,”

Just the explanation of the desserts made Star Twinkle hungry, as well as all the others inside of the room.
He almost had to hold back in taking a bite off from any of those himself.

“So why did this criminal devour the Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness while leaving this trio of tasty treats untouched?” Pinkie Pie wondered.

“That is what we are trying to find out.
Your reason to suspect the other bakers is reasonable but we need to prove it.
And if we all stay calm, then we will find the answer,” Star Twinkle assured while putting a hoof on Pinkie Pie's shoulder to cheer her up a little.

However, only seconds later, the train became dark again which was caused by a tunnel that the train was driving through.
Despite being dark only for a few seconds there was some panic because it happened so sudden.

After the light returned, however, there was one surprise that shocked the group.
All the other desserts were now destroyed too.
There were only little eclairs and donuts left and the only thing left from the chocolate moose was its head.

“Now, THIS might complicate things...” Star Twinkle said, figuring that now everyone could be suspected, due there being all sweets destroyed now.

The bakers all walked over to the leftovers of their works and tried to fix it but there was nothing that could be fixed anymore.
Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie was wondering more and more who could have been the culprit.

“This mystery gets more mysterious every minute,” she said while blowing into her pipe again.

“Maybe you should stop the wild accusations and get to the truth now, Pinkie,” Twilight suggested followed by another suggestion.
“How about, you let Star Twinkle lead the investigation for a while?”

Strangely enough, everyone else agreed and wanted Star Twinkle to give it a shot as well, much to his surprise.
He felt flattered that everypony was putting their trust into him but he didn't know if he was capable of solving the mystery himself.
But he also was sick of how Pinkie Pie was blindly accusing randomly everyone and wanted to get to the truth himself.

At first, Pinkie Pie hesitated but she realized that Star Twinkle was probably a little better at solving mysteries than her and switched hats with him to make him the detective now.
She also offered him her pipe which was even harder for her to give away.
“Um...you can keep that...” he said seeing how fun it was for her to blow into it.

Everyone else left the room and returned to their cabins so that the two Earth Ponies could focus on the investigation.

“Alright, Pinkie, we were the only ones who were here at the scene of the crime so we should try to remember what happened last night...
What was the first thing that happened last night? ”

Pinkie Pie put a hoof on her chin to think and quickly gave an answer.
“We saw a silhouette in the moonlight!”

“Exactly,” he replied, remembering that as well the instant Pinkie Pie brought it up.

They went to the caboose, where they followed the silhouette into last night.
Star Twinkle remembered the chase.
The silhouette went past both of them and ran all the way through the last wagon and vanished when they arrived.
Star Twinkle walked through the wagon and opened the door which led to the outside.
This was exactly where they lost the silhouette.
He began to think while Pinkie Pie stood there in the middle of the wagon confused by what Star Twinkle was doing.

“How did the culprit escape?
There was no other way to run...
I could swear that I still saw him before we entered the last wagon...
We should have found him outside but no one was there...”

He walked outside and looked up to find the solution.
Then suddenly an idea popped up in his head.

“...unless if you fly!
Was the culprit flying away and entered the train from somewhere else again?
Or maybe...”

He walked inside again, where Pinkie Pie seemed a little bored just staying in the middle of the room.
She probably expected this to be more fun.
However, Star Twinkle was still focused and looked around in the room in order to find something.
His search was successful after he looked down on the ground.
It was an evidence that would lead to the culprit.
He picked it up and put it into a saddlebag that he was wearing for the investigation.

“What did you find?” Pinkie Pie asked curiously trying to peek into Star Twinkle's saddlebag.

“A clue that brings us to the culprit,” he replied with confidence.

“Good! Now we finally can solve this mystery!” Pinkie Pie said excitedly.

But Star Twinkle advised that it was not enough to go by one clue alone so he suggested to re-track more steps from last night which would lead them to the engine room where they followed the culprit too.
Star Twinkle was wondering if they were dealing with one or multiple culprits by now.
The one who Star Twinkle would have suspected so far would definitely be capable of reaching the engine room fast enough.

“We followed somepony else in the dessert car and chased them up to the engine. But there was only conductor shoveling coal,” Pinkie Pie recalled.

“That's right...” Star Twinkle agreed.

The conductor was there with them, right now.
Star Twinkle was wondering if he could be involved with all of this or if he even knew about the cake at all.

“Again...someone vanished right in front of us...
But this time there is nowhere where you could fly out of...
How did he get away this time?”

Pinkie Pie seemed to be upset to not play the role of the detective anymore so Star Twinkle tried to involve her into the investigations.

“Pinkie, would you help me in the investigation by asking the conductor if he saw somepony last night in the engine room,” he asked of her, causing her to smile in excitement before she traded their hats again.
She went to the conductor to ask him if he saw something suspicious.
After all, if somepony would have been here, the conductor should have seen something.
But to Star Twinkle's surprise, Pinkie Pie told him that he saw nopony entering the room.
And he was supposedly in the room all night except when he was making a little toilet break.
This gave Star Twinkle another clue.

He walked up to the conductor and asked when he was taking these breaks and if there was somepony replacing him due to that times.
But there was nopony like this.
He also explained that he would leave his stuff behind every time he left, to prevent the train from getting dirty.

“Star Twinkle?” Pinkie Pie asked in the middle of the conversation between him and the conductor.

“What is it?
I'm trying to solve this case right now,” he replied rather annoyed.

Pinkie Pie became a little upset and apologized.
She only wanted to return Star Twinkle's hat since he was the detective again.
It might not have been on purpose but those words gave Star Twinkle an idea.
He asked for the conductor's hat to take a look at it for a minute and after taking a peek at it, he immediately found another clue.

“Good job, Pinkie Pie!” He said, confusing Pinkie Pie who was not sure why she was thanked for.

He put the second clue into his saddlebag and they both returned to the room with the cake where the next intruder was “attacking” the cake.
Pinkie Pie mentioned that the curtains closed on their own remembering Star Twinkle what happened last night.
The problem in this scenario was, how the curtains got closed in the first place.
They all shut down at the same time which was impossible since they were all separated from each other.

“How do you close all the curtains at the same time?” Star Twinkle wondered.
“One pony couldn't have done this...unless...”

Star Twinkle tried to remember what happened while it was dark in the room.
Both of them couldn't see anything which only made it harder to figure what happened.
When the curtains were up again, Pinkie Pie checked the nearby wagons and Star Twinkle looked after the cake.

“Didn't you see anything after checking the wagons?” Star Twinkle asked as he was in a pinch of what could have happened.

“No, he was gone! The only strange thing I saw was that the portrait by the door was all crooked,” so I fixed it.

“The portrait?” Star Twinkle wondered.

He wanted to know which portrait Pinkie Pie meant so she leads him to it.
It was hanging next to the door that leads to the cabins.
It was a picture of a stallion wearing some rather old clothes.
However, something stuck out of the picture and didn't fit so Star Twinkle took a closer look at it.
It was undoubtedly another clue so he put it into his saddlebag as well.

“Up until now, we were together in this room but then we separated.
What did you do after I went outside?”

“I was here guarding the cake the rest of the night. I mean...until I slept by the cake the rest of the night,” she said clearly feeling a little embarrassed to admit that.

“And then you noticed how half the cake was gone?”

“Yup,”

Star Twinkle took another look at the cake and inspected it a little further this time.
It was already clear that it was bitten but the bite marks were far too big for one pony.
Which could only mean one thing?

“So it's exactly how I thought...
Pinkie, get the others back here.
I think I know what happened,” He ordered Pinkie Pie, being confident that he could solve the case.

Pinkie Pie did as she was ordered and brought everyone back into the room.
They were wondering if the investigations were over and if the culprit was found to which Star Twinkle replied with a “yes” confidently.
He explained how he and Pinkie Pie found several clues that lead them to the culprit and were about to present the first one.

“Now let me present you...the first clue!” He said rather dramatically before he showed everyone the first clue and leaving everyone stunned.
A blue feather.

“A-ha! A blue feather! I knew it was you...“Pinkie Pie said determined as she pointed her head to...
“Gustave le Grand!”

Star Twinkle released an annoyed groan and slapped his forehead out of frustration because of Pinkie Pie's constant random accusations.

“No, Pinkie, it's Rainbow Dash!
The one with BLUE feathers!” Star Twinkle corrected pointing directly at the Pegasus annoyed.

Of course, Rainbow Dash quickly denied that she did anything like that but Star Twinkle was sure of it.
She was probably flying away when they were about to catch her last night, which would explain how she got away.

“So Rainbow Dash did it! Case solved!” Pinkie Pie announced, however, Star Twinkle was not done.

“Not exactly, she was most likely one of the culprits but not the only one because the next clue that I found in the conductor's hat, was this!” He said before he presented everyone a pink hair in his hoof.

“So it was you!” Pinkie said towards Rainbow Dash.
“That pink hair came from your rainbow-colored mane!”

“I don't have pink in my mane, Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash replied annoyed.

“Pinkie...” Star Twinkle said, stopping Pinkie Pie from her wild accusations once more.
There are only two ponies on this train who have pink hair and that is you and...Fluttershy!” He said while pointing at her.

“So you're saying it was me?” Pinkie Pie asked obliviously.

Star Twinkle could feel slowly how his anger was rising towards Pinkie Pie but he tried his best to calm down again before he would do something that he would regret.

Fluttershy instantly became nervous after Star Twinkle found out about her.
She clearly wasn't good at hiding that secret very well and began to shake out of fear.
Pinkie Pie was about to go after Fluttershy but Star Twinkle again stopped her and pointed out that there was another clue.

“Last night, the curtains mysteriously closed, leaving us in the dark and somepony was taking advantage of that and went after the cake.
However, while trying to escape, the culprit ran into the portrait next to the door and left a little something,” he explained before he showed everyone an eyelash.

“The curtains were closed all at once, meaning that it could have only be done with magic.
Twilight does have both of her eyelashes but what about Rarity?
I can't really tell because her mane looks a little different today,”

Rarity did seem a little different for everyone after Star Twinkle was pointing it out.
Her mane seemed to be arranged as if nopony was should see her right eye.
She, of course, claimed that it was a coincidence that she was wearing her mane like this today.
Since Star Twinkle didn't want to forcefully put away her mane, he asked Twilight to take care of it with her magic.
She lifted Rarity's mane a little and just as expected, there were no eyelashes on her right eye.

Eventually, she couldn't take the pressure and admitted her crime...and that she wore fake eyelashes.
She was joined by Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash as well, who felt guilty and apologized to Pinkie Pie.
Apparently, they couldn't resist the cake after Pinkie Pie described it in such great detail.
Pinkie Pie forgave them without hesitation and was happy that the case was finally closed.
But Twilight reminded everyone that it wasn't and that they still didn't know who destroyed the other baker's goods.

Realizing that, Star Twinkle was preparing himself to find more clues but Pinkie Pie stopped him and wanted to give it a shot herself.

“Star Twinkle. You know what we have to do?” She ironically asked to Star Twinkle.

“Yes...Do you?” He replied bluntly.

She then walked through the room and quickly scanned everything and everyone in the room.
Star Twinkle watched and didn't interrupt her in hope that she would actually accomplish something this time.
When she was done, she joined Star Twinkle again and claimed that she knew the answer.

“It was none other than... the bakers!” She said confidently.

“You have any prove this time?” Star Twinkle asked.

Pinkie Pie then walked over to each one of them.
Apparently, they all had the evidence still on them.
Gustave had mousse from Mulia's moose in his mustache,
Donut Joe had eclair in his hair from Gustave's eclairs,
and Mulia had sprinkles from Donut Joe's Donuttopia in her wrinkles.

As it turns out, they all couldn't resist tasting the other baked goods after Pinkie Pie described them so tastefully, much like how the others did.
They all apologized to each other but no one held a grudge and was finally happy that the mystery solved, at least until Star Twinkle pointed out another problem.

“We might have solved the mystery but now no one has any dessert left to participate in the contest,”

However, Pinkie Pie had an idea to solve that problem and considering that it involved sweets, Star Twinkle was positive that it would work out better than her detective skills.

Later at the contest, the whole group arrived with one single dessert, that would combine all the goods from the baker's in one.
It was a huge cake decorated with donuts, eclairs, and a chocolate moose head.
Those sweets combined quickly convinced the judges to give it the first price and managed to satisfy every one of the bakers.

The rest of the contest was relatively quiet and Star Twinkle decided to spend most of his time alone in peace.
That was until Pinkie Pie walked up to him and tried to keep him some company.

“Hey, don't you want to eat something?
This place is full of desserts after all,”

“I did eat something,
I'm just not a bottomless whole like you, if it comes to those things,” he jokingly replied.

“Hehe, guess you're right,” Pinkie Pie replied amused.

Star Twinkle, like always didn't seem to know what to talk about with Pinkie Pie.
Sometimes, she was just too random for him, making it hard to read what she might be thinking.
This was something that he couldn't handle really well.
However, he did remember that he was getting angry multiple times on the train because of her behavior.
Knowing that made him a little upset, sitting right next to her.

“By the way...Sorry for getting angry at you most of the time...
I just wanted to solve the case,” he said while rubbing his neck a little embarrassed.

“It's okay!
I guess I'm not that good when it comes to mystery solving then you,” she admitted.
“Don't worry, I know you are not like that,”

“You said something similar last night...”

“Oh, yeah!” Pinkie remembered.

Again, Pinkie Pie seemed oblivious that Star Twinkle wanted to know what she meant.
But this time he didn't want to get angry and asked calmly.

“You apologized to me and told me that you wanted to lighten me up but then you found out something...
What did you found out?” He asked, this time a little more directly.

Like last time, Pinkie Pie seemed to hesitate to give an answer but Star Twinkle didn't put any more pressure on her and waited until she finally spoke up.

“At first I thought you were a meanie who doesn't want to hang out with us so I wanted to light you up,” she said before taking a minute to continue.
“But then...” she added, this time a little more serious.

“But then what?” Star Twinkle wondered.

There was so much suspense right now, even though Star Twinkle didn't even know why.
Maybe he knew the answer and wasn't aware?
Or maybe he didn't even want to know it?
But for some reason, he wanted to hear what Pinkie Pie meant.

She finally looked at him.
She formed a smile, much to Star Twinkle's confusion and spoke up rather excited.

“But then I realized that you are a really really nice pony!” She replied happily with a huge smile on her face.
“So there was no reason for me to trying to change you because you are fine the way you are!”

“The way I am?
She gave up trying to change me because she thought I was nice?
But I did need to be changed...
I didn't care to spend time with my friends that much...
And I feel like I still have problems with that now...”

Their conversation was abruptly stopped by Twilight who wanted them to come to the train station in order to leave Canterlot again.
Pinkie Pie rushed towards Twilight and waved at Star Twinkle to join her.
Though he was still a little bothered, he did got the answer to his question so he didn't worry about it anymore and joined the two mares.

The way how some of his friends see him always confused him.
Are they naive?
Or do they want him to be like that?
If he would describe himself, then “nice” would definitely not be the first word.
Should he bother about that?
They didn't seem to be bothered thinking about him like that.

The three arrived at the station and looked over Canterlot for a while.
They just went here for the competition so there would be no point in staying any longer.
That's what Star Twinkle kept saying to himself.

“Maybe next time...
Next time...I'll visit them...” He mumbled to himself before he entered the train and was back on his way to Ponyville.

Along with his friends...

51. Trouble in Canterlot - Part 1

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It was another beautiful day in Ponyville. Almost too beautiful for some ponies. That is why Star Twinkle's friends decided to spend the day outside with a picnic. He was invited as well and accepted the offer because it would mean for him that he could relax outside while also spending time with his friends. However, his definition of spending time was a little different than one might expect because Star Twinkle, while still present, did sit near the girls while taking a nap under a tree. But his friends didn't mind and continued their picnic on their own way, talking and eating little snacks while doing so.

In fact, they took the opportunity that Star Twinkle was sleeping right now.

“Sleeping like a little colt,” Applejack said as she looked over to him amused.

“Yes. Not the slightest sign of his usual...behavior,” Rarity tried to say in a way that wouldn't make it sound rude.

“I think he usually is really nice,” Fluttershy responded, not wanting to say anything bad about Star Twinkle behind his back.

“Yeah, except when he is not complaining or grumpy...” Rainbow Dash directly pointed out.

“Should we wake him up for some cake?” Pinkie Pie suggested lifting up a cake in front of everypony.

“I think he would like to continue his nap, Pinkie,” Twilight replied, knowing that this was what Star Twinkle wanted right now.

Pinkie Pie was okay with that and claimed that then there was more for her before she swallowed the cake in her hoof in one big swoop, causing everypony to laugh. Star Twinkle wasn't aware that he was talked about but their laughter woke him and he stretched his legs a little while attempting to go back to sleep again.

While enjoying their little tea party, the girls noticed how Spike came running towards them in a hasty manner. In fact, he looked a little worried as if he had something important to tell them. He stopped in front of Twilight and wanted one moment to catch his breath. After that, he spits out a scroll in front of her hooves. She levitated it above the ground and read out what it had to say.

“Dear Twilight, I am sure you are as excited as I am about the upcoming wedding in Canterlot,”

She stopped for a moment in the middle of the letter to try and remember what wedding the princess wrote about but neither her or her friends knew something about it. Star Twinkle also overheard Twilight's words and began to think but he didn't know anything either so out of curiosity he peeled his ears to listen what the rest of the letter said.

Twilight then continued, “I will be presiding over the ceremony, but would very much like you and your friends to help with the preparations for this wonderful occasion,”

Apparently, everypony was given a task to fulfill in order to prepare for the wedding.
Fluttershy was assigned to provide the music with her bird choir,
Pinkie Pie was supposed to handle the reception with Applejack in charge of the catering of it,
Rainbow Dash should do a Sonic Rainboom at the end of the wedding,
and Rarity was assigned to design the dresses for the bride and the bridesmaids.

Naturally, every single one of them was excited that the princess was putting them in charge of some important task with the exception of Star Twinkle who yet had to find out what the princess had in mind for him.

“Let me guess...I am supposed to do the decoration or build the altar or something, right?” He thought annoyed, not feeling all too excited to work at all.

“And as for you, Twilight, you will be playing the most important role of all: Making sure that everything goes as planned,” Twilight continued who was wondering why Star Twinkle wasn't assigned to something yet but she kept on reading until she came across his name in the letter.
“I'm afraid that I don't have a task in mind for Star Twinkle...” she read stopping midway confused.

Star Twinkle didn't know if he should feel offended that he was the only one left out but o the other hoof, he was happy that he didn't have to do anything and sighed in relief.

“But still, I would like to invite you to Canterlot as well. I've been told that in every visit to Canterlot, you were busy in some sort of way and didn't have enough time. So I would like to give you the time so that you can finally visit your parents,”

“What!?” He exclaimed shocked, making everypony notice that he was awake now, turning their heads towards him surprised.

“See you all very soon. Yours, Princess Celestia,” Twilight continued finishing the letter. However, she turned the letter around to find some kind of indication who was supposed to get married. To that, Spike explained that there was another letter that he was supposed to give her first which he quickly gave to her as well. She continued by reading this letter as well.

“Princess Celestia cordially invites you to the wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and...” she paused before she read out the other name and gasped in surprise “My brother?!“

“Brother?” Star Twinkle wondered, hearing the first time about Twilight having a brother.

Applejack congratulated Twilight for the wedding, however she didn't seem to happy. She didn't know that her brother was getting married until now and it bothered her that it was told to her by a letter instead of her brother. Not only that, but it frustrated her that he would marry somepony that she didn't even know. This Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.

Personally, Star Twinkle didn't understand her frustration. Her brother was obviously not living with her anymore and probably had his own life to deal with, making it hard to involve Twilight into it. But then again, Star Twinkle was in no position to say that. He wasn't in contact with his parents as well and didn't tell them about what happened recently. They probably were mad at him too.

While still being mad, Twilight also looked a little upset. Out of worry, Fluttershy asked if Twilight was alright and Twilight replied that she and her brother were really close and that it saddened that she was told about the wedding like this.

“Sorry, it's just that Shining Armor and I have always been so close. He's my B.B.B.F.F!“

This term confused everypony so Twilight explained. Apparently, B.B.B.F.F stood for “Big Brother Best Friend Forever”. He was the only friend that Twilight had back then as a filly. So it must be hard for her that her only friend from back then didn't seem to care about her anymore.

Sometimes Star Twinkle forgets that Twilight wasn't interested in friendship before she met the others. It raised the question if he would have reacted the same way if it was him in this situation. But he wasn't. Right now he had other worries. Like dealing with his parents. However, he could tell that Twilight became sad about just thinking her brother. After leaving her home in Canterlot she didn't really realize that she was missing him so much up until now.

Star Twinkle was thinking about some encourages words but Applejack was faster and comforted her, saying that she believed that her brother sounded like a good guy.

“Shining Armor is pretty special. I mean, they don't let just anypony be captain of the Royal Guard,” Twilight replied, much to the surprise of Rarity who couldn't believe that they were not only helping out for a wedding for a princess but also a captain of the Royal Guard. Needless to say, the others were pretty excited too and couldn't wait to head to Canterlot.

Star Twinkle was also surprised. Twilight's mentor is Princess Celestia herself and her brother is one of her Royal Guards. Not everypony could say that from themselves. That he ever would be a friend with somepony like that was kind of unbelievable for him.

“But looks like not only Twilight can meet up with her family soon,” Applejack said in her excitement, making Star Twinkle remember what was about to happen sooner or later.

“Yeah! Now that you were in invited to Canterlot without doing something, like working on a Hearts Warming Eve play or visiting a dessert competition, you have all day to visit your parents!” Pinkie Pie added, showing clearly more excitement than Star Twinkle himself.

“Yeah...great isn't it?” He replied awkwardly.

It became not unnoticed how uncomfortable he was right now, even though he tried to avoid that at all costs. His friends wondered why he wasn't happy at all and became a little worried.

“Are you not happy to see your parents?” Fluttershy asked concerned.

Twilight, who most likely understood him best right now also wondered why he reacted like that.

“You haven't seen them for a while now, right? ” She asked.

“Yeah...” he replied a little frustrated.

Applejack came to a quick conclusion.

“Don't tell me you are in a fight with your parents?!” She almost said in shock.

This caused the group to look at each other worriedly as they all came to the same conclusion but Star Twinkle stopped them before the situation would get out if hoof.

“No, no, nothing like that!” He quickly responded to calm them all down.

When they asked him why he was so upset, Star Twinkle hesitated for a moment. It wasn't like him to talk about personal stuff like this. He never thought that it was this big of a deal to discuss it with his friends so he avoided everything that would lead up to this topic in the past. But now he was cornered and pretty much didn't have any choice but to tell them.

“It's nothing special, really. It's just...” He paused for a moment, thinking that his explanation wouldn't make much sense for the girls because he thought it was silly but he eventually continued.
“I haven't seen them after the Nightmare Moon and Element's of Harmony incident, Discord or the Storm Wings. So much stuff has happened recently...I just don't know how I should tell my parents all about this or how they would react...”

As expected. They didn't know what problem he saw in this and tried to convince him that it wasn't that bad as he might think but from his perspective, he thought that they were only being nice. Rarity was the first one who tried to comfort him.

“Why are so concerned about that? What do you think is the worst that could happen” Rarity asked.

“I don't know...maybe it's the same reason why Twilight is worried about her brother,” Star Twinkle replied to which Twilight quickly realized what he was getting at.

“You're afraid that they think that you don't care about them anymore?” She said.

“Maybe...I never really was on bad terms with my parents when they raised me here in Ponyville but after they decided to move to Canterlot, I refused to come with them. Since then, things became a little more complicated, I think...” Star Twinkle explained to his friends.

“Maybe they were mad because you didn't go with them?” Pinkie Pie said boldly, causing Rarity to poke her sides because of her direct answer.

“If you don't mind me asking, why did you refuse to go with them?” Twilight asked out of curiosity in order to get to the bottom of the problem.

“That's because...” He instantly stopped in the middle of the sentence after realizing something.
“...because...”

The others looked at him in anticipation until he answered but Star Twinkle seemed to struggle, much to his own confusion. Before he knew it, he tried to come up with an answer in his mind.

“...wait...what was the reason? Right! I don't remember! Now that I think about it, I didn't bother too much to try to remember. But it wasn't that long ago. I should be able to remember. What was it?”

The others still waited for an answer from Star Twinkle but they became a little worried by his behavior. His face looked like he was trying way too hard to remember. He put one of his hooves on his head and tried more and more to come up with an answer which only worried his friends even more.

“Star Twinkle?” Twilight said out of worry seeing him struggle like this.

“What was the reason? I feel like it was something very important! What was it? I clearly remember how they told me that they wanted to leave Ponyville but when I try to remember my answer...there is nothing!
…
Why does my head hurt so much thinking about it?”

“Star Twinkle!” Twilight then exclaimed out of concern.

“Huh?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

He realized how everypony was staring at him. They probably waited for his answer and wondered why he didn't reply until Twilight woke him up from inside of his thoughts. He felt really awkward right now and tried to change the subject as quick as possible.

“We should probably go to the train station before the next train departs!” He said hastily pointing at the direction where the train station was at, luckily Pinkie Pie was falling for it and prompted everypony to hurry to the train station. Either that or she did it because she knew that Star Twinkle was feeling uncomfortable and just saved him. He took the opportunity and went to the train station as well but he knew that not everypony was forgetting this, especially Twilight who threw an analyzing expression towards him.

Later...

The seven ponies were inside of the train and on their way to Canterlot to get to their assigned tasks as soon as possible or on Star Twinkle's case, visiting his parents.
Star Twinkle was looking out of the window the whole time, distancing himself from the others, who had their own concerns right now. Twilight, who noticed his upset expression sat next to him in order to say some confirming words.

“You are really that worried about what your parents are going to say?”

“Yeah...” he replied not even looking at her.

“You know...we are in a very similar situation right now. When I read that Shining Armor was getting married, I thought that I was no longer important to him like before...
You fear that your parents would think about you the same way...”

“I don't know...
I mean, how do you tell your parents something like that after such a long time?
It's not like I can just say:
Hey, by the way, I fought against a mare who wanted to bring eternal darkness over Equestria,
I was chosen by one of the Elements of Harmony, the most powerful magic in Equestria,
then I helped to stop the god of Chaos, Discord who once ruled over Equestria,
and after that, I prevented a group of Pegasi who wanted to steal the Elements of Harmony for their crazy power hungry Unicorn leader,”

“Not per letter...that's for sure...” Twilight replied, still showing some anger towards her brother for not telling her about the wedding.

This reaction was prove enough for him. He could tell that Twilight was also upset because of her own family. If he would come through the door with all these big changes, chances were that they would be mad too. At least that's what he feared the most. They would probably think that they were no longer important anymore to him and feel bad which potentially would hurt his relationship with them. He was no longer lonely anymore but that didn't mean that he doesn't want to be in contact with his parents anymore. It just frustrated him.

The train was finally getting closer to Canterlot and it was unavoidable anymore for him to leave now. However, something was strange. As they entered the town, the train passed through some kind of barrier on the way. While nopony was bothered by that, they still wondered what that was about.

When they all walked outside of the train, the group was practically greeted by a huge amount of Royal Guards, who kept a close eye on every one of them.

“Whoa, what's with all the guards?” Rainbow Dash wondered as she spotted the guards.

“I'm sure they're just taking the necessary precautions. Royal weddings do bring out the strangest ponies,” Rarity replied as she walked out.

Moments later, Pinkie Pie walked out and sneezed confetti which only confirmed Rarity's statement.

They all decided to go to work as soon as possible to get everything done for the wedding. Twilight instantly went with an angry expression on her face, through the guards to confront her brother Shining Armor. Star Twinkle was the only one left in the station and let out a big sigh before he also went on his way to his parent's house.

He took it really slow and walked towards the direction of his parent's house while still thinking about what to say and trying to predict what they might say. They only knew him as a lonely pony who wasn't interested in friendship but they soon will know him as one of the ponies who saved Equestria. Any normal pony would probably brag about all that stuff.

“Argh! This is so frustrating!” Star Twinkle exclaimed grabbing his head with one of his hooves and closing his eyes to think.
“I am probably worried about nothing, right? They probably don't even care, right?”

Suddenly, somepony walked right into him, causing him to fall over to the ground. Before Star Twinkle knew what happened, he rubbed his head because of that painful impact and tried to get on his hooves again. He noticed how he was either walking into somepony or that somepony walked into him. The other pony still laid on the ground with his face down. It seemed to be a stallion with a light brown coat and a dark brown mane. He also noticed a light bulb Cutie Mark on the ponies flank.

“Are you okay? I'm sorry, I didn't look where I was walking to...” Star Twinkle apologized.

He was not sure if it was his own or the other ponies fault that caused this but he didn't want to cause an argument right now. The stallion looked up and opened his eyes, revealing his bright orange eyes. After looking at Star Twinkle his facial expression quickly changed from surprised to angry and he jumped on his hooves and put his face closer to Star Twinkle.

“You should be! I was in the middle of a thought! But now it's gone!” The pony said in a really stressed manner, speaking out this words so fast as if he didn't have time to talk with Star Twinkle.

The thing that Star Twinkle wanted to avoid the most happened. He still had to go to his parents and didn't have time to argue with some random pony. There was no reason for this pony to get so angry all of the sudden. Star Twinkle looked at him and didn't find bruises or anything similar for what he could get angry about. However, he did notice that he was wearing a necklace around his neck with a hoof on it and wondered what that was about.

“I'm sorry I-” Star Twinkle tried to apologize but the pony quickly interrupted him.

“Oh wait! There it is again! All good!” He then said, instantly turning from angry to happy while also grinning widely.

This sudden mood change left Star Twinkle surprised.“...Okay...” he replied confused, not sure how to react to this ponies behavior.

“But what am I doing? I have no time to talk with you! I have to prepare myself for the attack!” The pony said, turning away from Star Twinkle.

“Attack? What attack?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“On Canterlot of course! We're being attacked soon! Look at the signs! The wedding, the shield, the guards! ” The pony explained stressful while doing some random gestures along with it.

“Don't worry. Just because they placed some guards in Canterlot because of the wedding, doesn't mean that we are getting attacked,” Star Twinkle assured.

However, the pony didn't seem to listen to him at all. In fact, he was mumbling some stuff to himself instead of paying attention to Star Twinkle.

“Hey? Were you listening? We won't get attacked so don't worry...” Star Twinkle assured once more, seeing how this pony stressed himself out more and more.

Star Twinkle tried to grab this ponies shoulder with one of his hooves but the moment when he touched him, the pony turned his head to him and shouted:

“ISN'T IT OBVIOUS?!” He said out in panic, causing some ponies near those two to stare at Star Twinkle and crazy pony in front of him which made Star Twinkle feel a little awkward.

“What?” Star Twinkle replied, feeling a little uncomfortable because of the other ponies stares towards him.

“But what am I doing? You have to prepare yourself, Tinker! You have to defend yourself! There is no way that they will steal my precious inventions!” The Earth Pony said before he ran off into the streets again.

Star Twinkle was not sure what to make out of this encounter. This pony was needlessly stressed out for nothing and he had no idea to react to this madness of a pony. But he didn't bother care anymore about it and just let him walk away.

“This pony...is crazy...” he said to himself before he was on his way to his parents again.

A few minutes later...

Star Twinkle found himself in front of a door. The door that leads to his parent's house. It was now that he realized how nervous he was again. He began to sweat and was even too afraid to knock on the door.

“Come on! Just get it over with...It won't be that bad...You are just visiting your parents after a long time...”

He eventually, took a deep breath and closed his eyes while he knocked on the door several times. Probably way too many times. But now it was too late. He played with the thought of running away before the door opened but he feared that it could open any second.

After a few seconds, a pony of a tall and slender figure opened the door with a glare on his face directed towards Star Twinkle. It was his father. He was an Earth Pony with a bright yellow coat, a light green mane and a sun in front of a cloud as Cutie Mark, Star Twinkle could feel that he wasn't expecting to see his son at the door, making the green pony a little nervous.

“Hi, dad...” Star Twinkle greeted his father with an awkward smile on his face.

“Son...” His father replied calmly, with his light green eyes still focused on his son without blinking or turning away once.

There was an awkward silence, much how Star Twinkle expected it to be. It was to be expected after such a long time. But he also expected how the greeting would go from now and prepared himself. Eventually, the big slender pony broke the silence and his facial expression slowly began to change until he shouted at Star Twinkle.

“Son!” The tall slender pony then exclaimed with a wide grin on his face before he rushed to Star Twinkle and lifted him above the ground as if it was nothing, hugging him in the process.

“Yes, I'm happy to see you too dad...” Star Twinkle said while pleading that he would let him go before he suffocated.

“Honey! Look who came to visit!” He shouted towards inside of the house.

Moments later, another pony showed up in the doorway. An Earth-Pony mare with a light blue coat, a dark blue mane, and three raindrops as a Cutie Mark stepped forward with a surprised look on her face, hesitating to say anything at first.

“Starfall?” The mare said in surprise, widening her eyes.

“Hey, mom,” Star Twinkle greeted towards his mother.

Star Twinkle felt a little uncomfortable hearing his full name after such a long time. It was only one more sign how awkward things could get from now.

“Look! It's our son!” Star Twinkle's father exclaimed happily to his wife pointing at Star Twinkle.

“Yes, honey...I know how our son looks like,” she replied in a mildly annoyed tone in her voice.
She turned around and walked inside again but not before looking back at Star Twinkle. “Well, don't stand there in the doorway...Come inside...” Star Twinkle's mother said in order to invite him inside of the house.

Star Twinkle nodded nervously as he remembered that it was practically his home too and that there was no reason for him to stay outside. He looked around and inspected everything to see if anything changed since the last time he was there. Everything felt so clean and quiet. There was nothing special to look at except some old pictures of him and his parents, some flowers, a long mirror on the wall, a chimney and much more. For anypony else, it might look special but for him, it was pretty boring and normal looking. It looked exactly how he remembered it. Before his parents left Ponyville, they would spend time in Canterlot occasionally and every time they did, they would spend time in this house so for him it felt like a second home, making him feel a little nostalgic.

His parents both walked into the living room, which was just at the end of the floor from the entrance. There were two couches with a table between it. Star Twinkle sat down on one of the couches while his father sat on the other one while leaving moderately big space for his wife to sit down.

“Tea?” His mother offered, levitating a tea can over her head that she brought from the kitchen.

“What!? Oh! Yes, please...” He replied nervously.

“I'll take some too! But with much sugar!” Star Twinkle's father demanded with a smile on his face.

“I know, I know,” his wife replied as she returned the tea can to the kitchen.

His mother then purred down some tea into a cup

“So, how is Steel Hammer doing? Still running the Iron Hammer?”

His father's name was Sunny Twinkle. He used to work in the Iron Hammer along with Steel Hammer but that was before Star Twinkle was born. After he got married, he was taking care of the household and gave up his job there. Sunny Twinkle was unlike the rest of the family very cheerful and easygoing. Star Twinkle nodded and informed his father that the Iron Hammer was doing fine just like Steel Hammer. Now that he meet Pinkie Pie, he realized how much his dad reminded him of her. His father could also be pretty random and behaves mostly a little childish. He also tends to get overly emotional at times often even annoying Star Twinkle's mother. Star Twinkle always wondered how his mother fell for him to put it mildly.

“I assume that you also still work in there?” Star Twinkle's mother asked as she sat down next to her husband.

Star Twinkle's mother's name was Rainfall Twinkle. She is a business pony in Canterlot. Star Twinkle never actually knew what exactly she was doing. When he was younger, he didn't saw much of her work and probably didn't understood it anyway. In Ponyville she was able to attend her work at home and she often had to travel to Canterlot which made it hard to find out what exactly she was doing and after they returned to Canterlot...he didn't care anymore. At first glance, she seems a little strict or even cold but Star Twinkle would lie if he would say that she wasn't a good mother to him. She clearly was the one who left the most influence on Star Twinkle's character.

“It has been quite some time since you visited us...did you run into some problems?” His mother asked with some concern on her face.

“No, no, no, nothing like that, I just came because I wanted to talk about some stuff since I will spend some time here,” Star Twinkle replied.

“Why is that?”

“Oh! He probably is working here for a few days and has time to visit his dear old parents,” Sunny Twinkle guessed.

“Actually no...I was invited here by the princess and-”

“THE PRINCESS!?” They both exclaimed in shock while spitting out their tea in the process.

“Oh yeah! I forgot! Getting an invitation from the princess is actually a big deal! Why did I just say it out like that!?”

“How did you became so lucky to get invited by Princess Celestia!?” His mother asked with wide eyes.

“Actually, my friends were invited here and-”

“YOU HAVE FRIENDS!?” Both of them exclaimed shocked.

Star Twinkle, jumped after this sudden reaction and almost fell from his chair because he didn't expect a reaction like that again.

It was a disaster. If they would react to that like this, then there was no telling how they would react to him saving Equestria a few times. It was so awkward. Of course, he would get a reaction like that. He should have seen it coming. Visiting his parents was a really bad idea. He can't just visit them after such a long time and expect a normal, casual conversation with them. Writing a letter to them sounded a lot better now.

His parents sat down normally again, trying to calm themselves down. They were clearly embarrassed to react like that and knew that Star Twinkle must have felt uncomfortable now. But he couldn't even blame them for that. It was a lot of important information at once.

“I mean...that's good! Really good! You should introduce them to us sometime!” Sunny Twinkle said while he rubbed his neck embarrassed.

Star Twinkle knew that the subject would lean towards that. For them, Star Twinkle was just some lonely pony who had troubles to find friends. Of course, they wanted him to find some over the years and all of the sudden he walks into their house and tells them exactly that. Maybe they were that shocked because he told them about the princess before. Whatever it was, the conversation went a lot more awkward from that point on.

“I can tell you some stuff about them...If you want...” Star Twinkle suggested.

His parents then looked at each other confused but they eventually took up that offer and were ready to listen to their son.

“That would be lovely...” His mother replied as she and her husband smiled warmly awaiting what Star Twinkle was about to say.

“Well, with whom should I start with...”

Later that evening...

He spent hours talking about his friends and what he did all this time with them in Ponyville. They listened to everything and asked questions, as expected, to find out more and more. However, he made sure that he didn't mention anything about Nightmare Moon, The Elements of Harmony, Discord or the Storm Wings. He felt bad for keeping that a secret from them but he thought it would be the best like that. They probably already thought that they were no longer important enough for Star Twinkle because he didn't tell them all the recent changes before. They probably felt exactly like Twilight right now after hearing that her brother got married before even telling it to her personally.

He was offered to stay for the night at his parent's house but he felt like he should look after his friends before that. Even if it was at that late hour. He had no idea how the wedding preparations went so far but he was sure that his friends would have taken care of everything by now and didn't worried too much. However, that changed after he saw Twilight walking towards him with her head lowered in sadness. It instantly captured his attention and he quickly walked up to her to find out what was wrong.

“Twilight? What's wrong? You look really down right now,”

She raised her head after Star Twinkle spoke to her, only realizing just now that somepony was talking to her.

“Star Twinkle? I completely forgot! How did you visit with you parents went?” She quickly asked, making it feel really out of context for Star Twinkle since he was more worried about her right now.

“Don't worry about that! What about you? You look really sad...”

“Yes...I guess I am...” she replied not even bother to hide her sadness in front of Star Twinkle.

“Is it still because of your brother?” Star Twinkle guessed.

“No...that is no longer an issue. Now it's Cadence...” Twilight said with some bitterness in her voice and an angry glare towards from where she was coming from.

“Cadence?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“Yes! Princess Mi Amore Cadenza is no other than my old beloved foal-sitter!”

“...and...that is bad?”

“At first I really liked the idea that Shining Armor would marry her but as it turns out, she is horrible!” Twilight exclaimed without realizing or not caring how loud her voice became out of anger.
“The others did all their best and helped out for the wedding but Cadance was so mean to all of them and they don't even realize what a horrible pony she really is because she decided to make them her new bridesmaids after her old ones “mysteriously” disappeared. And now everypony thinks I am overly possessive about my brother and won't believe me!” Twilight explained in one big rush, making her fall down on her front knees out of frustration and turning around from Star Twinkle to hide her frustration.

And here Star Twinkle thought that he had problems right now. Twilight was completely done and totally beside herself. It made Star Twinkle almost sad himself to see her like that. Of course, he felt like saying something but he didn't know what. He didn't even met this Princess Mi Amore Cadenza or knew anything about her to judge if Twilight was right or wrong. He was about to touch her shoulder but Twilight raised her head before that and broke her silence.

“You...” Twilight said quietly turning her head around to look at Star Twinkle with eyes that were about to tear up at any second.
“You believe me...right?” She said with a voice that could have crumbled just by saying those words.

He was not sure of that himself. There was no reason for Twilight to lie, he thought. But even if she was overprotective about her brother, it was not up to him if those two would end up marrying each other. But Twilight was probably not expecting that. Right now, she only wanted somepony to believe her. Make her feel that she was not alone. If she was Star Twinkle, then being alone would not be the problem but Twilight was not like him. She wanted somepony to be on her side to make her feel that she is right. And as a pony who still tries to learn what it means to be a friend, Star Twinkle felt like supporting her. Because that is what friends do, he thought.

“I don't know this Cadance or what she has done or even what she is after...but...
If you tell me that something is wrong with her, then I believe you!” Star Twinkle replied determined.

Twilight managed to form a light smile and rubbed her eyes a little, even though there were no tears in them. Star Twinkle offered one hoof to get her up and she accepted and let herself getting lifted up again.

“But...if she really is that mean and you shouldn't marry her, then what about the wedding tomorrow?” Star Twinkle asked, pointing out the obvious problem.

“I will think about something...I have to! Until then I just have to endure her...”

“Well, It's pretty late now anyway. You should get some sleep until that. I will go back to my parent's house and spent my night there so I guess we see each other tomorrow morning,”

“Okay. I'll see you tomorrow,” Twilight replied, her mood seeming to be a lot better now.

She seemed to return to from where she was coming from and Star Twinkle did so too. He could have visited the others to see how they were doing but it was probably a little complicated right now so he went back to his parent's house.

When he entered the door he was greeted by his father who was surprised that his son got back so early. Star Twinkle assured that everything was taken care of and of course, his father believed him.

"That's good! Better go to sleep early if you want to spend the day with them tomorrow," his father said.

"Will do..."

Star Twinkle walked to where his room was. His mother waited in front of it as well and greeted him. He then walked into his room and took a look inside and was positively surprised.

“It looks exactly like I remember it...” Star Twinkle said impressed as he scanned his eyes trough the room.

There was not much in this room and it more looked like a room for a little foal. There were hoof-drawn pictures hanging on the wall, a bed in the corner of the room with some toys under it, some books on a shelf and more. Not much has changed since Star Twinkle eventually moved to Canterlot again but it looked exactly like he remembered it from his visits as a foal, back when he and his parents lived in Ponyville. It made him feel quite nostalgic.

“It's late. You're probably tired, right?” Star Twinkle's mother guessed. “But if you need something, me and your dad are still up for a while...”

“Actually, there is something I want to ask you if you don't mind...” Star Twinkle said, causing his mother to react rather surprised.

“Of course, what is it?”

“Let's see...” Star Twinkle said putting a hoof on his chin in order to think. “I got this friend who was is in some kind of trouble. This friend seems to have found out something about somepony and can't convince everypony else to believe her. Which side should I take? If she is wrong and everypony has a good reason to not believe her then would it be bad if I don't believe her as well?”

His mother took a moment to think but eventually came up with a confident answer. “What do you think is right?”

“Hey, that's not fair! I wanted a clear answer!” Star Twinkle replied rather frustrated.

However, his mother still believed in her own words and explained. “Sometimes, believing in what you think is right is just the best decision...Not everything seems how it looks like at first. So the only way to find out an answer is to come up with your own,”

“And let's say...if I don't come up with one?” Star Twinkle replied in order to trick his mother to give a better advice.

“You will find the right answer, if this friend is important to you, Starfall,” his mother assured before she walked away, leaving Star Twinkle without an answer that he wanted to hear.

However, he took the advice from before and headed straight to his bed in order to get some sleep. It was too late to worry about Twilight right now anyway, he thought. She did say before that she would figure out something and Star Twinkle just had to believe in that.

He had a strange dream that night. It was a scene that he remembered all too well. It was the day when his parents were about to move to Canterlot. They walked up to him and tried to convince him to come with him but Star Twinkle refused and wanted to stay. He remembered everything like it was yesterday, every word they said at that day, except his answer...

“Are you sure that you don't want to come with us?” His mother asked to confirm her son's choice.

“Living in Canterlot can be fun too!” His father added excitedly, trying to convince Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle looked down to the ground for a moment but he quickly raised it again with a bright smile on his face and looked at his parents face happily.

“I'm completely sure. I want to stay here in Ponyville. This is my home. I can't leave ---.
This is where ---” some of his words were missing. The part where he would explain his reasons to his parents.

The next morning...

The dream ended abruptly and before he knew it, Star Twinkle was awake again. The day of the wedding has now arrived and he still hasn't even met Twilight's brother or this Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Everypony probably was done with the preparations and wondered where Star Twinkle was so he made haste to at least show up at the wedding in time.

When he was leaving his room, his parents seemed to be still asleep, which was good. He didn't want to lie to them or explain that he was about to head to the wedding of a princess. The more he thought about not telling his parents, the more he felt bad about it. It felt like doing something terrible. However, right now he had other worries so he left the house without bothering them and went to Princess Celestia's castle.

Luckily, he knew where the wedding was going to start so it didn't take too long till he got there. He stopped in front of a great closed door that would lead to the hall where the wedding was held. There was a pony standing in front of the door who turned around once she noticed Star Twinkle.

She was a mare with a pink coat and a multicolored mane consisting of white, pink and purple stripes, purple eyes and light blue crystal heart as a Cutie Mark. Star Twinkle also instantly recognized that the mare in front of him had a horn, as well as two wings on her back. She also wore similar garments as Princess Celestia and Luna. He put the pieces together and figured that this would mean that it was Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.

“Who are you?” She said a little annoyed after Star Twinkle walked up to her.

Star Twinkle got nervous at first, talking with a princess but he was in hurry and just talked away anyway.

“Sorry I'm just here for the wedding...could it be that you -”

But then suddenly, the door opened and revealed Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Princess Celestia and some stallion that he didn't know.

“-Then, of course, Cadance will enter and-” Princess Celestia said but she stopped as soon as she saw Star Twinkle.

They all looked at him confused and Star Twinkle felt kinda embarrassed, even though he didn't exactly know what he did to deserve those looks.

“What is going on here?” He asked obliviously.

“We are practicing for the wedding ceremony,” Pinkie Pie replied in her usual excitement.

Star Twinkle quickly understood and apologized for the interruption but nopony seemed to be mad at him except Cadance who was giving him a little glare.

“Don't worry about it, we still have plenty of time until the wedding starts,” Princess Celestia assured, making Star Twinkle feel a little better.
“You can come and join us here, we were about to get to the last part,”

“Right!” Star Twinkle said before he ran to his friends in order to no longer interrupt them.

He looked at the Unicorn stallion on his right. He had a white coat, a mane consisting of various blue colors and light blue eyes and dark blue shield with a light purple star inside of it as Cutie Mark. The star inside of the shield looked exactly like the one that Twilight had as a Cutie Mark. It was obvious who he was when Princess Cadance was waiting outside. He must have been Shining Armor, Twilight's brother.

The stallion realized that he was looked at and took the opportunity to introduce himself. “We haven't met before, have we? My name is Shining Armor,” he said politely.

“You are Twilight's brother, right?” Star Twinkle guessed.

“I am. By the way, have you seen her anywhere? She is supposed to be here too,” Shining Armor asked a little worried.

The others were confident that she would show up on time and Star Twinkle agreed too. However, her reasons might not be the ones that everypony was expecting.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but think about what Twilight said about Cadance. His first impression of Shining Armor didn't seem too bad but he didn't have much time to talk with Cadance so far. She did glare at him before but that could have been because Star Twinkle interrupted them before. He can't let that be the only reason to mistrust her. But on the other hoof, he was kind of hoping that what Twilight said was true so that he could believe her. Because right now, there was no evidence that everything she said was true.

“Let's try this again, shall we?” Princess Celestia suggested in order to keep the practice for the wedding running again.

Two Royal Guards, next to the door, opened the giant door with their magic and revealed Princess Cadance who slowly walked into the hall. Shining Armor was clearly excited seeing his future bride walking up to him. Everypony else also seemed happy with the exception of Star Twinkle who just overlooked the whole scene skeptically.

“I'll say a few words, and then we'll begin with the vows. Shining Armor, you'll get the ring from your best mare,”

Then, almost on cue, Twilight appeared at the door.
“Stop this! I'm not gonna stand next to her! And neither should you!” She exclaimed.

Of course, those words were not exactly what everypony wanted to hear right now. Shining Armor even seemed a little embarrassed about the way her sister behaved.
“I'm sorry, I... I don't know why she's acting like this,” he said to Princess Cadance, who clearly wasn't happy about this at all.

“Maybe we should just ignore her,” she suggested throwing a glare towards Twilight.

Fluttershy and Applejack tried to calm her down and maybe talk some sense into her but Twilight didn't even think about listening to them and walked straight up to Cadance and Shining Armor, claiming that she had something important to say.

“Twilight, what are you doing?” Star Twinkle worried. “Is this your plan? If she is doing what I am thinking than things could not work out well,”

Twilight straight out pointed at Cadance and said: ”She's evil!” Obviously, not to the liking of her brother. But she didn't stop there. She continued and teleported herself next to Cadance almost harassing her and making her walk back in shock.
“She's been horrible to my friends, she's obviously done something to her bridesmaids, and if that wasn't enough, I saw her put a spell on my brother that made his eyes go all crazy!”

Princess Cadance didn't know how to respond to this. She was practically pinned down by Twilight's words. Twilight, however, did not seem to stop and smiled at her confidently. Moments later, Princess Cadance began to tear up and started to cry.

“Why are you doing this to me?!” She said with tears running out of her eyes before she ran away and out of the hall.

“Because you're evil! And if I don't stop you, you're gonna ruin my brother's life!” Twilight said after her, showing no remorse at all.

There was silence in the hall. Nopony knew what to say after that. Everypony looked shocked and couldn't believe that Twilight would talk to Cadance like that. Star Twinkle feared the worst because what Twilight did didn't prove anything. Cadance may or may not be mean but scaring her off like that was not the right decision at this moment. It instead, made everything even worse.

When Twilight walked back into the hall with a confident smile on her face, her brother stood immediately in front of her with a really angry look on his face as he confronted his sister in front of everypony.

“You want to know why my eyes went all “crazy”? It's Because ever since I started having to perform my protection spell around Canterlot, I've been getting terrible migraines. Cadance hasn't been casting spells on me. She's been using her magic to heal me! And she decided to replace her bridesmaids because she found out the only reason they wanted to be in the wedding was so that they could meet Canterlot royalty! And if she hasn't been on her best behavior with your friends, it's because with me being so busy, she's had to make all the decisions about the wedding!“

And now everything went worse after Shining Armor explained everything. Another thing that Star Twinkle feared. Twilight's accusations were all wrong and had some reasoning behind it. This made it really hard to take Twilight's side at this point.

Twilight tried to apologize but Shining Armor was too angry to let her and continued with his speech.

“She's been completely stressed out because it's really important to her that our big day be perfect! Something that obviously wasn't important to you! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and comfort my bride,” he said before he was about to leave the throne room. “And you can forget about being my best mare. In fact, if I were you, I wouldn't show up to the wedding at all,” he said before he left the hall so that he could go after Cadance.

Shining Armors speech was, of course, leaving a big impact on the group as well. If they haven't believed Twilight before, now they have all the more reason. Applejack was the first to step forward, suggesting that they should go and look after the princess. As they all walked past her, nopony even bothered to look at her, even her always so kind teacher looked at her disappointed as she walked past her student.

This only left Star Twinkle and Twilight in the hall. Twilight was about to tear up and looked at Star Twinkle. But she was too ashamed and sad to look at him for long and turned her head away from him. The green Earth-Pony didn't know how to react to this. He could leave like the others did or he could stay and try to comfort Twilight but he had the feeling that neither of those things would make the situation better. He eventually, walked up to her a little and tried to say something.

“Um...” Was all that Star Twinkle could say at this moment but Twilight looked away ashamed.

“Please...Just go...” She said, heartbroken as she walked away from him in direction of the stairs where her friends stood before.

He didn't want to leave but he also didn't know what to do so he quietly walked away from the hall also with a sad expression on is face.

He eventually, joined the others as they were on their way to find Princess Cadance. They advised him to leave Twilight alone. At first, glance that seemed like a mean thing to say but after what she has caused right now, this was probably the right thing to do.

"How would have thought that Twilight would go this far?" Fluttershy said confused.

“Yes...She was probably just overprotective about her brother,” Rarity added.

Star Twinkle did not bother to listen to their words. He was thinking about the situation himself as he walked along with them.

“This...is the right thing to do now...right?
She was wrong...It was just a misunderstanding...right?
I need to walk away now...she did something wrong so I have all the reason to be disappointed...”

“I hope the princess is not to upset to attend the wedding herself,” Applejack said worriedly.

“We just have to make sure that she is in good spirit again!” Pinkie Pie said in a unfitting upbeat manner.

“If this is the right thing to do...then why does it feel so wrong?
I want to move away but my body is struggling with every step I make...
Why is that?”

“I hope my Sonic Rainboom at the end of the wedding can cheer her up again...“ Rainbow Dash said also worried about the princess.

As the girls walked away, the didn't seem to notice that Star Twinkle was no longer following them.
He stood in the middle of the hallway and looked at the ground while in deep thoughts and with a determined expression on his face.

“This is wrong...
I can't walk away...
I don't know what I should...I don't know what I should say...but...
I have to do something!” He thought before he ran back to the big hall where Twilight was in.
“I may not have an answer right now but I will find one!
Because she is an important friend to me!”

Instead of his usual behavior, which is based off from mostly logical thinking, right now only emotions caused him to do this. There was a risk that he could make the situation even worse but he didn't care about that. All he cared about was to support Twilight. Because she needs him at this very moment. Walking away was not an option right now.

He ran towards the giant door and opened it preparing himself to face Twilight. But to his surprise, Twilight wasn't there anymore. It felt weird for him since she was there only a few minutes ago. However, there was Princess Mi Amore Cadenza standing where Twilight was before. This might have been even better since he could try to talk with her in order to make her feel better again.

"Um, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza?" Star Twinkle asked as he walked up to her.

“What do you want?” She replied rather annoyed which made sense after what happened a few minutes ago.

Star Twinkle forgot his worries for a second and tried his best to stand up for Twilight in order to make her not feeling angry anymore.
"I know, you may still be upset about what Twilight said but you'll have to understand! She was probably only worrying about her brother. I'm sure that she is sorry by now so please, can you forgive her?" Star Twinkle said in an almost begging tone in his voice.

But the Princess was barely showing any emotions after Star Twinkle's plea. And neither was she showing any interest to it.

“Where is Twilight by the way? She was here a minut-"

"I don't know where she is..." Princess Mi Amore Cadenza said, cutting off Star Twinkle's words as she walked past him.

She didn't even seem to care about Twilight at all for somepony who was her old foal-sitter. However, Star Twinkle didn't give up. He followed the princess and walked beside her. She looked over at him for a moment with a bothered look on her face. She clearly didn't want to talk with him.

"Hey, I'm sure she will come right back and apologize to you and then you can both be friends again. Just like back then when you were her...Foal-sitter,"

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza looked over to Star Twinkle still bothered and tried her best to ignore him.

"You know how she can be...She was always doing stuff like that back then. But it was still fun!"

"What?" She replied confused.

"You remember me, right? It's me Star Twinkle! I always came over to play back then! I know, I know I changed a little over the years, I didn't realize that it was you either, a while ago..."

The princess didn't give any answer and seemed more and more annoyed by Star Twinkle's questions.

“If you think back at those times with us two, then you probably forgive her, right?”

“Alright, alright, I will talk with her when I see her again...because of the “good” times we three had before,”

This caused Star Twinkle to stop with widened eyes."She IS an imposter!" Star Twinkle thought in shock. "She just said us three! But I never met her before in my life!"

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza stopped as well and looked back at Star Twinkle confused.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

Star Twinkle tried not to let her notice but he just realized that this statement meant nothing. It was only a little evidence and was probably not enough. Eventually, the same thing that Twilight did before would happen which raised the question what happened to her in the first place. He had to find her or find out where she was. She was the only one who would support him. And the imposter had most likely something to do with Twilight's disappearance.

"Nothing! I just remembered that I still have to do something for the wedding preparations," he replied slightly panicked before he walked away from Cadance.

After exiting the room, he closed the door behind him and ran across the hall in order to find somepony.

"I have to find somepony and tell them that Twilight was right!" He said while running and looking back occasionally to make sure that Cadance wasn't behind him.
“But who? My friends? Princess Celestia? Or..."

But then Star Twinkle accidentally bumped into somepony while he was looking back. He quickly recognized the white stallion with the blue mane that he bumped into.

"Shining Armor!" Star Twinkle exclaimed in panic.

He stood up again and explained everything as fast as he could. He probably hurt himself a little after bumping into Shining Armor but that didn't concern him right now. Chances were slim that Shining Armor would believe him instead of his little sister but it was the only thing that Star Twinkle could do right now.

"I know you don't want to hear this right now but you have to listen to me! Twilight was probably right! That Cadence is an imposter! And I'm sure that she did something to Twilight! You have to believe me she-"

But Star Twinkle stopped in the middle of the sentence after he looked up to Shining Armor. Something was different. It looked like, he wasn't listening at all. As if he was absent. This was definitely not normal.

"Shining Armor?" Star Twinkle said in concern.

He then heard steps coming from behind him. Star Twinkle knew who was coming closer to him but he still turned around to make sure. It was Princess Mi Amore Cadence or whoever it really was.
This time she was looking at him a little more sinister and Star Twinkle could feel that the worst was yet to come.

"I knew that you were asking far too many questions," she said with a smile building up in her face.

"What did you do with Twilight?" He asked out of fear.

"The same thing that I am about to do with you now,"

Suddenly, green flames surrounded Star Twinkle. He panicked and didn't know what was going on.
All he could see was, green flames and a sinister smile from Cadence, who's eyes have changed to the same color as the green flames.

Then everything went black.
and quiet...

It felt weird. But he couldn't quite put it because he couldn't see. Everything was dark for a while and he felt like he was falling unconscious for a while.

Eventually, his vision adapted to the darkness and he could see something. It was only now that he noticed, that he was hanging upside down from the ceiling, wrapped up into some kind of cocoon.
He was in some kind of cave, which was filled with crystals. But it was not important where he was right now. It didn't change anything. He couldn't get out of the cocoon from himself, no matter how hard he tried.

"Is anypony there!?" Star Twinkle shouted in hope somepony would answer.

But there was no answer...There was only his echo this cave.

"Heeeelp!" He shouted but once again no answer.

He was alone. Nopony probably even knows that he was gone. And even if they noticed, there was no way that they would know where he was. He and Twilight were the only ones who knew about the impostor so if more time is wasted, then Canterlot could be in danger. Along with his friends and...his parents...

They both needed to do something in order to help them all.

But first...
Somepony had to help them...

To be continued...

52. Trouble in Canterlot - Part 2

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“Heeeeelp!” Star Twinkle screamed through the cave in hope that somepony would hear him. But the only thing that could be heard was his voice echoing through this mysterious cave. He couldn't tell where exactly he was right now and even if he knew, he was still trapped in a big cocoon, several hoofs above the ground.

He could barely move while being wrapped into this cocoon, making an escape almost impossible. Still, he tried to do his best to free himself no matter how pointless it was. Especially, after imagining what Cadance could have done with Twilight. Star Twinkle blamed himself for not staying with her. If he wouldn't have walked away, then he maybe could have prevented everything. Or at least be with her instead of no knowing where she was or what happened to her. Just the thought of her being hurt because of him made him angry, causing him to struggle even more inside of the cocoon.

However, it was no use. He couldn't get out of it on his own and had to wait until somepony would find him. This is not what he wanted right now because he could only think and worry about Twilight, making him more and more frustrated. He thought about the last moments before he confronted Cadance and It only made him feel bad the more he thought about it.

“I said that I believed her...
But what did I do?
I walked away...
What kind of a friend does that?” He said to himself while he looked around in his cocoon, seeing only undefined Images outside. He could swear that he saw something move while outside of the cocoon which made him regain his hope to get out of this situation.

“Hello?” A voice said from outside before Star Twinkle could even scream for help. It sounded like a female voice but he couldn't identify it from inside the cocoon.

“Yes? Is somepony there?” Star Twinkle asked confused, not knowing if the pony from the outside could hear him at all.

“Wait, I'll try to get you out of there!” The voice said.

He couldn't see who it was. He could hear noises from behind, making him suggest that this pony was trying to open the cocoon. But he couldn't move his head due to being wrapped inside of the cocoon and didn't know exactly what happened to him. But whoever it was, if he or she was trying to help him then there was nothing more to discuss. He was just glad that somepony found him right now. There was nothing that Star Twinkle could do anyway. Except waiting for something to happen.

Eventually, the cocoon was lowered and fell down to the ground, causing Star Twinkle to be covered in the remains of the cocoon while his head was spinning because of the abrupt landing. However, he was free now and turned around to his savior.

“Thanks...I don't know if I would have gotten out of it on my own...um,” he said before he turned his head to the pony to find out who saved him.

But when he realized who it was, he no longer was in the mood to thank his savior. It turned out to be Princess Cadance. Star Twinkle instantly backed away from her and gave her a glare, much to her surprise.

“You again! What did you do with Twilight?” Star Twinkle exclaimed angrily at the mare.

“Twilight?” Princess Cadance asked confused.

“You did something to her before you captured me, right? Where is she? What did you do to her!?” He said even angrier than before, not knowing what Cadance did to Twilight.

“No! I'm the real Cadance,” she replied little startled by Star Twinkle's tone. “The Cadance that captured you is an impostor!”

Star Twinkle didn't believe her. She probably tried to confuse him. Although, he wasn't sure what she would gain from that because she already managed to capture him. It didn't make much sense but he was way too concerned about Twilight to think straight at this moment.

“Too bad! I don't believe you! And now you tell me what you did with-”

Suddenly, there was an explosion at the wall behind Star Twinkle, causing him to jump a little. When he turned around to check what caused it, he saw Twilight with an angry expression on her face and her horn ready to shoot out a spell. But the moment she saw Star Twinkle her expression changed to a surprised look.

“Star Twinkle?” Twilight said confused.

She probably didn't expect him to be in this place too. However, before she could explain anything, she saw Cadance behind Star Twinkle and instantly charged at her with an angry look on her face, pinning her down on the ground.

“No! Wait! Please! Don't hurt me!” Cadance begged while she was pinned down by Twilight but after she opened her eyes to take a look at her attacker, her fear vanished.
“Twilight, it's me!”

Twilight seemed surprised by Cadance's reaction and raised her eyebrows in confusion.

“She claims that the Cadance who brought us down here was an impostor and that she is the real one,” Star Twinkle explained, clearing up the situation.

“Likely story!” Twilight exclaimed, not believing in this story just like Star Twinkle did.

Cadance took the opportunity to free herself from Twilight. Star Twinkle and Twilight prepared themselves for whatever she has planned. But instead of going after the two, for example, she was doing some kind of dance in front of the two.

“Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake. Clap your hooves... “ she said while she hopped on the spot followed by covering her eyes and clapping into Twilight's hooves.

“…and do a little shake,” Twilight joined in as Cadance clapped into her hoof.

Twilight seemed confused at first but her expression became happier in an instant and she hugged Cadance as a reply. Needless to say, Star Twinkle was really confused by what just happened in front of him.

“Care to explain what just happened?” Star Twinkle asked confused, still staying away from Cadance in caution.

Twilight noticed Star Twinkle's confusion and explained. It was some kind of special dance that the two of them had when Cadance was still foal-sitting Twilight. Apparently, that enough proved for Twilight that this Cadance was the real one. Since Star Twinkle had no way of telling, he had to believe Twilight.

While they still hugged each other after all this time, a voice laughed from all over the cave and interrupted their moment. It sounded a lot like Cadance which meant that the Cadance in front of the two ponies was definitely the real one.

Knowing that the impostor was still out there worried the three ponies and they quickly decided to find and exit out of this place. Twilight explained that they were in the mines somewhere beneath Canterlot. At least that's what the fake Cadance said to her. There was no other choice but to find an exit so that they could stop the wedding in time.

While they looked around to find a clue where the exit might be, Star Twinkle took the opportunity to talk with Twilight who was inspecting the walls I front of her. She noticed how Star Twinkle walked up closer to her with a concerned look on his face, making her turn to him.

“I'm sorry...” he said without hesitation, getting his apology out as fast as possible. “...You know...because of before...” he added rubbing his neck and looking away in embarrassment.

Twilight seemed to notice Star Twinkle's regret but she had other things to worry about to fully accept it right now, making It kinda look like as if she didn't care about his apology. Star Twinkle noticed and figured that she would react like that and felt bad for that but he also knew that Canterlot was in possible danger now and focused on finding an exit as well.

“How...did you end up here anyway?” Twilight asked before Star Twinkle could walk away to focus on finding an exit.

“Me? I was captured by Cadance's impostor after I got concerned about-”

However, he was interrupted by Cadance who seemed to have found a pathway that would lead to a possible exit out of this cave. They followed the way which was surprisingly longer than expected and could possibly even lead to an exit so they quickly followed the long path. The length of this path gave Star Twinkle the opportunity to ask the question that bothered him for a while now.

“So...who is this impostor anyway?” Star Twinkle wanted to know as he walked beside the two mares.

“A Changeling” Cadance replied.

“Changeling?” Star Twinkle asked confused. The term seemed to ring a bell but he couldn't put it right away until Twilight explained further.

“Changelings are creatures who can transform into other ponies. They do that in order to feed off from their love. The impostor is taking advantage of the wedding and Shining Armor's love for Cadance. She is probably feeding off from him at this very moment!”

This caused Cadance to get a little more worried. She began to sprint a little faster in order to find an exit out of this cave. She must have been concerned about Shining Armor and wanted to save him from the Changeling. Star Twinkle and Twilight didn't want to loose her and increased their speed as well. They had no idea what dangers lie in this cave and couldn't afford to let anypony walk in it alone. However, Cadance seemed almost desperate to find the exit to rescue her future husband.
Star Twinkle was quite impressed how much strength she got from her love for Shining Armor.

After running for a really long while now, they discovered how light was coming from the ceiling, meaning that it would lead outside. The three ponies ran towards it in hope to finally get out of the cave. However, their path was blocked by three mares, wearing some fancy wedding attire. Cadance informed Star Twinkle and Twilight that they were the previous bride-maidens. The three mares didn't look too friendly. In fact their eyes were glowing in a bright green color which reminded Star Twinkle to the eyes of the fake Cadance. Whatever was up with them, they were in the way so Star Twinkle tried to come up with a plan.

“Okay, you go and I will distract them!” Star Twinkle said determined as he prepared himself to charge at the three but Cadance put a hoof on his shoulder and showed a confident smile.

She then walked up a little to the three mares and got out her bouquet that she was supposed to throw at the wedding. Instead, she threw it away, causing the bridesmaids to follow it and ignoring the three ponies.

“Or you could do that...” Star Twinkle admitted, realizing that Cadance's plan worked as well.

She returned a confident smile before she looked at the exit in determination. There was probably not much time left for them to stop the wedding but the three ponies were not about to give up now and followed the path.

They were in luck. As they followed the path, they eventually ended outside of the cave and saw some sunlight again. But they couldn't lose any more time and quickly rushed to the hall where the wedding was taking place. There were a lot of ponies waiting inside of the palace. Luckily, some of the guards recognized Cadance and wondered why she wasn't in the wedding hall already. This made sure that the three wouldn't run into any trouble on the way. They ran towards the door which would lead to the wedding hall with Twilight leading the way.

When she opened the door the hall was filled with dozens of ponies, including Shining Armor, Cadance's impostor, Princess Celestia and the rest of Star Twinkle and Twilight's friends. The princess was about to say the last words to finish the ceremony until Twilight interrupted her. This, of course, caused some gasps to fill the hall and some embarrassed looks from her friends. Except for Star Twinkle of course, how stood right beside Twilight this time.

“Why does she have to ruin my special day?“ The impostor Cadance said while sobbing a little in order to get the crowd on her site but to her surprise somepony she didn't expect showed up.

“Because it's not your special day! It's mine!” Princess Cadance said as she stepped into the hall, once again, filling it with gasps from everypony. ”She's a changeling. She takes the form of somepony you love and gains power by feeding off your love for them,” she explained, causing the impostor to realize that hiding was no use anymore.

The impostor surrounded herself in some light green flames. This made her body change into something entirely different. Her body still resembled a pony but her coat turned black and her legs were filled with holes, as well as her horn. Her mane turned to a green blueish color and her wings became more insect like. In fact, she strongly resembled a big insect.

Despite being exposed by Cadance, the Changeling didn't seem to lose her confidence.
“Right you are, Princess. I, Chrysalis, the queen of the changelings, will find food for my subjects. Equestria has more love than any place I've ever encountered. My fellow changelings will be able to devour so much of it that we will gain more power than we have ever dreamed of!” She declared.

“They'll never get the chance! Shining Armor's protection spell will keep them from ever even reaching us!” Cadance returned.

That reminded Star Twinkle about the giant shield around Canterlot. Shining Armor must have been the one who created it to protect Canterlot during the wedding. However, Queen Chrysalis seemed to have taken control over him which would explain why he was acting so absent-minded before.

Out of concern, Cadance ran towards him but Queen Chrysalis stood beside the two. She explained that since she was taking Cadance's place, she was feeding off from Shining Armors love, growing stronger from it and weakening his spell that he put around Canterlot.

“Soon, my changeling army will break through. First, we take Canterlot. And then, all of Equestria!” The Changeling Queen declared with a smile on her face as if she had already won.

“No. You want,” Princess Celestia said, making the smile on Queen Chrysalis vanish in concern as she realized that Princess Celestia watched the whole scene, waiting for a moment to step in.
“You may have made it impossible for Shining Armor to perform his spell, but now that you have so foolishly revealed your true self, I can protect my subjects from you!” She said as she stepped forward to confront the Queen herself.

Princess Celestia flew up and prepared to shoot a beam of magic out of her horn directly at Queen Chrysalis. The Changeling Queen returned a beam of magic herself, making their magic collide. Princess Celestia seemed to have the upper hoof in this battle. She remained calmly while Queen Chrysalis seemed to struggle to keep up with her. However, the Changeling Queen did overpower the princess without realizing it at first. Surprised by this, Princess Celestia was no longer able to keep up and was beaten by Chrysalis and fell to the ground.

Of course, everypony in the hall was shocked to see their beloved princess fall in front of them. Especially Twilight who quickly rushed to Princess Celestia. But For some reason, Star Twinkle had mixed feelings about this scene.

As he watched seeing Princess Celestia in the ground and Queen Chrysalis in front of her, some other picture was flashing before his eyes. It seemed to be some kind of memory that he remembered in this very instant.

He saw himself standing in front of Princess Celestia who was laying on the ground and possibly hurt. She opened her eyes to look at Star Twinkle and seemed heavily surprised.

“It's you?” Celestia said as she looked at the Star Twinkle that stood in front of her.

“I can't let you interfere...anymore...” he replied calmly.

Surprisingly, as quick as this scene flashed before him, it vanished again. Star Twinkle had no idea why this images would flash through his mind in this very moment. It may have been caused by the shock to watch Celestia get hurt but it was enough to confuse him for a moment.

“This looks...familiar?” He wondered, not sure what he should make out of this picture.

“Star Twinkle!” Twilight said, making him snap out of his thought again.
“We need to go! The princess ordered us to get the Elements of Harmony to stop Queen Chrysalis!”

Some time must have been passed while he was seeing this images. Princess Celestia was still laying on the ground while the Changeling Queen laughed in her victory. It was now that Star Twinkle realized how serious the situation actually was. Finding the Elements and using them to defeat the Queen was the best that they could do right now so Star Twinkle didn't ask any questions and followed Twilight who was also calling the rest of their friends to accompany them.

Queen Chrysalis didn't seem to be aware of what the group has planned and remained inside of the hall.

The group exited the castle and made their way to the royal tower where the Elements were kept inside. Star Twinkle looked up and saw a bunch of creatures over the shield of Shining Armor who tried to break it in order to get in. Eventually, they succeeded and the barrier broke over the heads of the citizens of Canterlot. Moments later an army of changelings came crashing down towards the group starting their attack on Canterlot.

“There are so many! Wait!” He saw how a group of them was flying dangerously close to where his parents were living.
“Mom, dad!” He said before he followed this group in order to get there.

“Star Twinkle, where are you going?! The tower is this way!” Twilight corrected, wondering why he was walking away from them.

“This is where my parents live! I have to make sure that they are safe!” He replied in a panic.

“But if we don't hurry, then the Changelings will overrun the whole town,” Fluttershy said.

“I know but...” was all that Star Twinkle could reply since he was aware of the situation.

Twilight did not like the idea to endanger the city any longer but she could also see the concern of Star Twinkle.
“Alright. But we have to move quick,” She said as she asked Star Twinkle to lead the way.

“Thank you!” He replied before he ran towards the direction of his parent's house.

Changelings came swarming all over Canterlot and ponies on the streets were all cornered and attacked by them. They looked similar to ponies but more insect-like, just like their queen. They most likely had also the ability to turn into other ponies as well. But Star Twinkle didn't care about any of that right now because he was way too concerned about his parents.

The group was only one corner away from Star Twinkle's parent's house and as they got closer, the more worried he became that the Changelings might have attacked them. However, when they were about to walk around the corner, they saw a bunch of Changelings being knocked back. The group was wondering what could have caused it and walked around the corner where they instantly saw Star Twinkle's parents, fending of the Changelings.

Star Twinkle's mother used a broom and waved it back and forth to get the Changelings away from the house, while his father was using a floor lamp to do the same. They actually did a good job to get Changelings away from them.

“Hah, take that you mean...bug...pony things!” Sunny Twinkle exclaimed as he waved his lamp almost randomly around, scaring off most of the Changelings in the area.

“I think they are called Changelings, honey,” Rainfall Twinkle corrected.

“Yeah, what she said!”

Thought they didn't have much trouble, Star Twinkle was oblivious to it and asked if they were alright.

“Mom? Dad? Are you okay?” He asked worriedly.

They both noticed their son and waved at him as if there was nothing wrong in this very situation.
“Well, there are those Changelings who bother us a little but other than that...” Rainfall Twinkle explained as she cleared some dust off from the ground with her broom.

“I think your worries were a little unfounded darling,” Rarity said.

“Yeah, they seem to have lots of fun!” Pinkie Pie added though Star Twinkle wouldn't exactly call it “having fun”.

His parents wondered who the group of ponies behind Star Twinkle were

“I hate to say it now but we don't have much time Star Twinkle, we need to get the Elements of Harmony to stop the Changelings!” Twilight reminded.

This caused Star Twinkle's parents to get a little confused.

“Elements?” Sunny Twinkle wondered.

“Stop the Changelings?” Rainfall Twinkle added confused.

There was no point to keep anything a secret anymore so Star Twinkle decided to spill the beans.
“I think I have to explain some things that happened to me recently, that you don't know about...”
He took a huge breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again he walked up to his parents and in one big rush, explained everything at once.
“I was chosen by one of the Elements of Harmony, the most powerful magic in Equestria and helped to fight off a mare that was trapped on the moon for one thousand years and tried to bring an eternal night in Equestria. Then I helped to stop the god of Chaos, Discord who once ruled over Equestria. After that, me and my friends stopped a group of Pegasi who wanted to steal the Elements of Harmony for their crazy power hungry Unicorn leader. And now we have to get to the royal tower to get the Elements of Harmony to stop the Changelings and their Queen, who disguised herself as Princess Mi Amore Cadenza in order to take over all of Equestria,”

Needless to say, there was a huge shock in both of his parent's faces after this wrap-up. Star Twinkle could only smile awkwardly. His mom and dad both looked at each other confused until they both eventually broke the silence.

“I'm proud of you son,” Sunny Twinkle casually replied with a satisfied smile on his face.

“Wait, what was that about saving Equestria?” Rainfall Twinkle.

“Yeah, I know...” Star Twinkle replied with a frown. “Those are some pretty big news. I understand if you think less about me now...”

His parents again looked at each other confused.
“Why in the world would we think that?” Rainfall Twinkle replied confused.

“Because I haven't told you about all of that. I mean, any normal son would tell his parent's important stuff like that. I didn't know how you would react to all that, especially since we don't see each other that much anymore. I didn't want you to think that you were not important to me anymore because I didn't tell you about all that...” he explained with a sad frown on his face as he looked down to the ground in regret.

Again, his parents looked at each other, not being able to see the problem here. His mother walked up to him and put a hoof on his shoulder to comfort her son.

“Starfall. It's only natural that you can't tell us everything,”

“Starfall?” Rainbow Dash wondered which was kinda out of place right now and caused Rarity to poke her in the sides so that she wouldn't ruin this, in her opinion, beautiful moment.

“But...” Star Twinkle only replied.

His father cleared his throat before he eventually walked up to his son too with an unexpected serious expression, instead of his usual silly one.

“We sometimes miss it to spend time with you but also have to that you are a full grown stallion who lives his own life now,” Sunny Twinkle assured, making Star Twinkle feel kinda surprised seeing his father speaking so normal for the first time.
“So you do have saved Equestria a few times and you didn't tell us that. Who cares! Nothing of that changes that you are our son...”

“And that we love you very much,” Rainfall Twinkle continued.

“What she said,” Sunny Twinkle added with a bright smile on his face.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but let some tears slip. All this time he felt bad for not talking with them but in the end, they weren't even sad or mad or anything that he expected. They accepted him as their son and not because of what he did or didn't do. When he thought about he did realize that it was also the other way around. He loved his parents no matter what happened or how many friends he made recently.

Rainfall Twinkle walked up closer to her son and gave him a hug to which Sunny Twinkle happily joined in lifting the both of them over the ground. However, while they were enjoying the moment Applejack coughed up a little, reminding Star Twinkle of what is actually happening right now.

“I'll hate to be the one to interrupt this moment of yours but we kind have to save Canterlot now,” she said while she rubbed her neck, feeling bad to interrupt them.

“Right!” Star Twinkle replied before he jumped out of the hug in panic. “You think you'll be safe while we clean this mess?” He asked his parents.

“You'll bet!” Sunny Twinkle replied confidently.

“Go and defeat those Changelings for us!” Rainfall Twinkle said in a cheering tone.

Star Twinkle nodded in confidence before he signaled his friends to go ahead with him following close by. He looked back for a moment to see his parents waving at him with smiles on their faces. He had to be brave for once, now that they believe in him and smiled happily as he ran beside his friends.

“Your parents are pretty cool, Star Twinkle!” Rainbow Dash said while she flew beside him.

“They are the best!” Star Twinkle replied as he focused his eyes in front of him with a smile on his face.

It didn't take long until they were close to the tower. The group stopped after a while, much to Star Twinkle's confusion who was behind all of them. As it turns out, there were a lot of Changelings in front of the tower, preventing the group to advance any further. The group was clearly outnumbered but there was no turning back now. They needed to get the Elements of Harmony as soon as possible.

“Looks like we're gonna have to do this the hard way,” Rainbow Dash said, not losing her confidence in the slightest.

When she was approaching one of them, however, she was surprised to see herself in front of her. She was confused for a moment and was knocked over by her opponent because of it and wondered what exactly happened.

It was to be expected. The Changelings were all transforming into Star Twinkle and his friends. All of them changed into every one of them, leaving no Changeling left untransformed. Twilight reminded everypony that they had to get the Elements and advised to not let them be distracted.
Star Twinkle was far away from being distracted at this very moment. If they loose, then not only Canterlot will fall but also all of Equestria. This included the safety of his parents as well. Thinking about them and knowing that they were believing in him gave him the courage to go on without regret.

The two groups charged at each other until the whole place was covered in dust due to the intensity of this battle.
It sure was confusing to see himself and his friends multiple times and even beating each other up. Star Twinkle was afraid to hit one of his friends on accident so he figured that he should only go after himself. That way he would only fight against a Changeling because he was the original one.

He couldn't afford to hold back or worry about anything right now so proceeded to kick every Star Twinkle that he could see and was actually doing a good job at it. He was not sure if he and his friends were winning this fight or not but if he was dealing with every Star Twinkle one by one, then things should get easier after a while.

Slowly, the number of ponies decreased and a number of beaten Changelings raised. Every time when one of them was beaten, they would turn back to their original form.
Before they knew it, there were only seven ponies remaining. Star Twinkle approached the girls but they seemed to be a little cautious and stood there as if they were about to attack him, causing him to back off in shock.

“No! It's me! Star Twinkle! You know, the lazy and grumpy one!” He said, trying to convince his friends.

They seemed to believe him since there was no other Star Twinkle standing right now. They wasted no more time and entered the tower with the Elements inside of it to get rid of the Changelings. However, when they entered the door they were greeted by another swarm of Changelings who blocked their way to the Elements of Harmony. There was no way for the group to get past them. They were still exhausted from the previous battle and the number of Changelings seemed to be even bigger than the group before. The courage of the group went down and they decided to back away but unfortunately, behind them stood another swarm of Changelings who were ready to attack as well.

“Now what do we do?” Star Twinkle said in concern while he and his friends slowly backed into a corner because of the Changelings who slowly cornered them robbing group of any hope to win this battle.

Back in the Wedding hall...

Queen Chrysalis was overlooking what took place in Canterlot while her Changelings were capturing and attacking ponies all over the city. She placed some Changeling guards in the wedding hall who kept a close eye to Cadance, Shining Armor, Spike and Princess Celestia. The latter of them being imprisoned into a cocoon so that she would posses no danger for Queen Chrysalis.
Cadance was also trapped on the spot by some kind green slime that was most likely created by Chrysalis or the Changelings.

“You won't get away with this!” Cadance said to Queen Chrysalis who did not seem to be worried at all. ”Twilight and her friends will–“

But as soon as she wanted to finish her sentence, the door of the hall opened up and revealed Star Twinkle and his friends who were dragged inside of the hall by the Changelings.

“You were saying?” Queen Chrysalis replied amused, especially after Cadance's previous words.

The group was placed in the middle of the hall while some of the Changelings stood guard around them to make sure that the group wouldn't do anything suspicious. The situation was hopeless. The group wasn't able to retrieve the Elements of Harmony nor where they able to do anything in their current situation. Meanwhile, all of Canterlot was overrun by the Changelings.

“It's funny, really. Twilight here was suspicious of my behavior all along. Too bad the rest of you were too caught up in your wedding planning to realize those suspicions were correct!” Queen Chrysalis said while she toyed with Twilight in her victory before she went to the balcony to watch over her swarm in Canterlot.

This caused most of her friends to apologize to her on the spot because they knew that if they would have listened to her then this whole situation could have been avoided. Twilight was not mad at all. There was no point to be in this moment.

Star Twinkle didn't want to give up for once, but it was hard to come up with an idea on the spot while he was looked at by a bunch of Changelings.

“We won't be able to do anything with those guards watching our every move...
Come on...there has to be something that we can do...
But what?” He thought in his frustration.

While thinking, he looked over to Queen Chrysalis. He could swear that he saw something move in the distance, far away in the clouds.

Queen Chrysalis also realized some movements in the distance. There was a huge shadow behind the clouds that became bigger every second. She moved her head closer and focused her eyes in order to find out what it was.

Eventually, she could make out a shape.
It was a fortress that was lifted by a giant balloon.

“Wait...is that?” Star Twinkle said as soon as he figured out what it was.

It was the Storm Fortress. The flying base of the Storm Wings.
Queen Chrysalis was not sure what to think of it, seeing a giant flying fortress approaching Canterlot.

Three Pegasi stood over the front gate of the fortress and overlooked the scene that occurred in Canterlot. It was the three most important members of them, Cyclone Wing, Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing.

“Sure is a long time since we were here...” Cyclone Wing said while keeping a serious face.

“You think we are too late? Hurricane Wing asked in a monotone voice.

“Not if we can do something about it!” Steel Wing said excitedly as he jumped down to Canterlot as if he wanted nopony else to beat up the Changelings. He landed on the ground and quickly proceeded to go after every Changeling that he could see.

“Was waiting for a signal really too much for him?” Cyclone Wing said.

“Well, you know how is ever since then...” Hurricane Wing reminded.

“Should we go too?” Breeze Flyer asked who walked up to the two Pegasi along with Cloud Head and Featherbrain who looked a little more worried by the sight of the Changelings.

Cyclone Wing nodded and raised one hoof to give a command to the rest of the Storm Wings. Only seconds later, the sky was filled with Pegasi who all dived down to the town in order to protect the town from the Changelings.

From this point on the battle was a little evener. There were still more Changelings then Pegasi but the Storm Wings put up a really good fight. One of them was easily taking on five of them and Steel Wing was easily fighting of ten.

Worried by his sight Queen Chrysalis became angry and ordered the remaining Changelings inside of the hall to take care of the new enemies.

“That's what I call, perfect timing!” He thought before he nodded to Twilight, who nodded back and quietly sneaked away from the group in order to free Cadance.

“Quick! Go to him while you still have the chance!” She said to Cadance using her magic to remove the green stuff that trapped Cadance.

She wasted no time and went to Shining Armor. Realizing that he wasn't responding to her at all, tears began to fill in her eyes. She hugged him and performed some kind of spell, which created a little heart above her head that touched Shining Armor. After that, he came back to his senses again and was confused what exactly was happening right now.

“Wha– where... huh? Is...is the wedding over?” He asked as he looked around confused.

However, this was noticed by Queen Chrysalis who appeared in front of the two, claiming that even after Shining Armor was back, there was no hope left for them anymore.

Shining Armor did try to perform his shield spell to get rid of Chrysalis and her Changeling Swarm but it didn't work and nothing happened as a result because Queen Chrysalis already absorbed most of his magic.

“No! My power is useless now. I don't have the strength to repel them,” he said in frustration.

“My love will give you strength,” Cadance said before she hugged Shining Armor once more.

But Queen Chrysalis was unimpressed by those words and didn't took them seriously at all and returned to the balcony to watch over her swarm again.

Cadance and Shining Armor both joined their horns together and combined their magic. There was a bright light coming from them, making them even levitate above the ground. It was beautiful to look at.

Queen Chrysalis noticed the light and feared that something would happen against her favor. And just as she expected, it did. The light became much stronger and the protection spell was coming from them and pushed away Queen Chrysalis. Outside of the hall, the Changeling Swarm was also repelled, leaving only the citizens and the Storm Wings inside of Canterlot.

It was incredible. In only a few seconds, all of Canterlot was safe again. The Changelings, Queen Chrysalis, all of them were gone and the group could take a breath again.

Twilight quickly ran towards Princess Celestia who still seemed a little injured from her fight against Chrysalis.

Meanwhile, Some of the members of the Storm Wings came flying through the windows to make sure that everything was alright in the wedding hall. Star Twinkle recognized the members that walked towards him. They were Cyclone Wing, Steel Wing, and Hurricane Wing.

“Things seemed to have settled down outside. What about here?” Cyclone Wing asked.

“All good. You sure came at the perfect time,” Star Twinkle complimented.
“How did you even know that Canterlot was being attacked?”

“Well, the Princesses contacted us to stay close by because of the wedding,” Cyclone Wing explained.

“Congrats by the way,” Hurricane Wing said rather out of place.

“After we saw this huge swarm of Changelings appear, we came rushing to Canterlot to save the day!” Steel Wing said proudly.

“Yes. And now we are leaving...” Cyclone Wing said, much to the surprise to his brothers.

“We are not staying for the wedding?” Steel Wing asked confused but also a little disappointing.

“I think you would be more than welcome after what you did just now...” Star Twinkle pointed out.

“Even if that was true, we will leave now. There is still much to make up for all the ponies we hurt and attacked in the past. The princesses asked for our help and we acted. It's as simple as that,” Cyclone Wing explained with a stern look on his face.

“You shouldn't be too hard to yourself...” Star Twinkle said in hope that there wouldn't take their action too much to heart anymore, especially since it was their previous leader, Mystic's fault for all of that.

While still being a little disappointed to not join the wedding his two brothers fully stood behind Cyclone Wing's decision and left the hall. Only a few minutes later the Storm Fortress was flying away from Canterlot again but not without some ponies in Canterlot cheering for the Storm Wings.
Featherbrain and Cloud Head quickly felt flattered and waved and childishly cheered back at the crowd. They were soon accompanied by Breeze Flyer, Steel Wing, and Hurricane Wing. Cyclone Wing was stunned by the sight that ponies were actually cheering for the Storm Wings again and couldn't help but to feel happy. He decided to wave at the crowd and smiled while doing it until he and the Storm Fortress were out of sight again.

Later that day...

The wedding might have been interrupted but that wouldn't stop Twilight and her friends to do anything to make it still happen. It took half the day to get everything ready but with the help and approval of Cadance, all of them were able to successfully put together the wedding. From the food, the decoration or the dresses, Cadance seemed a lot more open than Chrysalis was back then. She quickly befriended everyone of them and had a lot of fun spending time with them, much how Twilight expected it. Star Twinkle didn't spend much time with her since he didn't have to prepare anything for the wedding but he did get a chance to talk with her a little and also got along well with her.

Later when the wedding was about to start, Star Twinkle and his friends, as well as Shining Armor, were waiting for Cadance to enter the hall. After thinking about it, this was the first wedding that Star Twinkle ever attended, making him a little nervous of how he should behave but he figured that he should just stay with his friends while the wedding proceeded.

Eventually, the birds started singing the wedding choir and door of the hall opened, revealing Cadance who walked up to Shining Armor while wearing a beautiful dress. Shining Armor was stunned to see his future wife and Twilight was clearly happy as well. The rest of Star Twinkle's friends seemed to be emotionally touched too. But Star Twinkle was just watching with a happy smile on his face. He was more happy that after all what happened these two still managed to come together.

When Cadance arrived next to Shining Armor, Princess Celestia officially started to pronounce the two to mare and colt.

“Mares and gentlecolts, we are gathered here today to celebrate the union of the real Princess Mi Amore Cadenza– “

“Princess Cadance is fine,” Cadance corrected, feeling a little uncomfortable to be addressed like this.

Princess Celestia nodded in acceptance and continued. ”The union of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor. The strength of their commitment is clear. The power of their love, undeniable,”

She then asked for the rings which Spike had ready in his claws. Princess Celestia used her magic and put a ring on both Cadance's and Shining Armors horns and finally pronounced them mare and colt.

The two of them walked over to the balcony and greeted the ponies of Canterlot who cheered loudly for the two. Princess Celestia took the chance to talk with Twilight in this happy moment.

“This is your victory as much as theirs. You persisted in the face of doubt, and your actions led to your being able to bring the real Princess Cadance back to us. Learning to trust your instincts is a valuable lesson to learn,” she said to her beloved student with a warm smile on her face.

Star Twinkle listened too and took this message to his heart as well. His instincts told him to go back to Twilight when she was left by everypony else. He might wouldn't have made much of a difference if he was with Twilight and Cadance or not but he was happy that he was going back to her.

Cadance and Shining Armor kissed each other and Princesses Celestia reminded Rainbow Dash that she was going to do a Sonic Rainboom right now so Rainbow Dash quickly went to the sky to perform it, making this wedding complete.

Later that night...

There was a huge party going on that night with a lot of music and dancing. So as usual, Star Twinkle kept it pretty quiet but not without having a little fun himself. He was drinking something and talked with his friends and was just calmly enjoying the party. To his surprise, two ponies came walking towards as he spent time with his friends.

“Mom? Dad?” He said surprised as he spotted his parent walking towards them. “What are you doing here?” He asked confused.

“We got invited! By the Princess!” Sunny Twinkle exclaimed in an excited tone.

“Imagine the reaction of your father when we were visited by a Royal Guard who invited us to this wedding,” Rainfall Twinkle said amused.

Star Twinkle was actually happy to see his parents. Now would probably a better time to talk with them now instead of when they were surrounded by Changelings who try to destroy the town around them.

“That's great, maybe I can even manage to introduce you two to the princess,” Star Twinkle suggested. Rainfall Twinkle quickly changed the subject before her husband would get a heart attack because of Star Twinkle's offer.

“I believe we weren't properly introduced to your friends yet,” she said hinting at the group of ponies behind her son who watched the conversation so far. Star Twinkle's friends were clearly eager to meet his parents as well and smiled at the two politely.

“Yeah. Of course,” he said before he introduced everyone of his friends and giving some information about each of them. The first impression on each side seemed really positive. They all got along really well which mad Star Twinkle happy. It was good that every worry that he had about his parents was for no reason.
He was happy. His Parents were. And the relationship between them grew stronger. So in the end, this visit was much to Star Twinkle's liking.

Some time has passed and Shining Armor and Cadance were about to leave the scene inside of a carriage to mark the end of this wedding. Twilight was with them and said her last words to her brother and Cadance.

“Twilight! None of this would've been possible without you, little sis. Love ya, Twily,” Shining Armor thanked his little sister.

“Love you too, B.B.B.F.F. And I am very happy for both of you,” Twilight replied with a heart warming smile.

“I hope that someday, you will be lucky to find somepony that makes you just as happy. Maybe I can take care of your wedding, then,” Shining Armor said with a smile as if he couldn't wait for that day, making Twilight feel a little weird.

Cadance overheard the conversation and couldn't help to join it. “Maybe that day will come sooner than you expect,” she said, leaving Twilight and Shining Armor a little puzzled. “What about that Star Twinkle? He seems nice,”

Twilight couldn't help but blush. Not because of embarrassment but rather because of the thought alone.
“Star Twinkle and I are just friends, Cadance,” she replied casually making her feel silly just thinking about this idea.

“You are?” Cadance replied surprised. “I was sure that there was more, judging from what happened in the cave,”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.

“I don't know. When he found me, still believing I was Queen Chrysalis, he seemed furious and really desperate just by the thought that I did something horrible to you,” Cadance explained.

“Wait...He was?” Twilight replied almost stunned just imagining Star Twinkle to act like that for her. Her face turned towards Star Twinkle who was still spending time with his parents and the rest of his friends, not noticing how he was looked at by Twilight with wide eyes. She slowly formed a smile on her face and couldn't help to fell warm from the inside. However, it felt kinda new and she didn't exactly know what to make out of it.

The carriage with Cadance and Shining Armor inside shortly left and Star Twinkle and his friends waved them goodbye.

“Now this was a great wedding,” Twilight said in relief.

“Love sure is an amazing thing,” Star Twinkle said almost out of the blue.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.

“I mean, we were supposed to use the Elements of Harmony to save Everypony...but in the end, love was all that was needed to save the day. It's quite fascinating,” Star Twinkle explained as he looked at the carriage leaving in the distance.

Once again, Twilight looked at Star Twinkle with wide eyes and him not noticing before she eventually replied. “It sure is,”

Star Twinkle's parents watched how his son was next to his friends in happiness. They both were happy as well to see how their son changed from the last time they saw him.

“Our son sure has grown up...” Rainfall Twinkle said with a tear falling out of her eyes out of joy.

“He sure has. I mean, one day he was all lonely and sad and in the next, he is surrounded by friends and happy,” Sunny Twinkle said.

“I guess staying in Ponyville was actually a good thing for him,” Rainfall Twinkle figured.

“Oh, that reminds me! We really should have asked him again why he did want to stay in the first place. You know, since we kinda forgot the reason,” Sunny Twinkle said as the term Ponyville was mentioned.

“I think we should let him have some fun, right now,” Rainfall Twinkle replied, seeing that it would be a bad timing to bring that up, right now.

“Yes. Your right,” Sunny Twinkle admitted as he watches his son happily with his friends.

Star Twinkle and his friends were about to leave too since it was already late and the party was over.

“Sooooo should we call you Starfall from now on?” Rainbow Dash asked jokingly as she poked Star Twinkle in the sides.

“Star Twinkle is just fine,” he replied, even though he didn't have anything against his full name at all. The name Star Twinkle was just more common for him.

“Your parents seem really super duper fun!” Pinkie Pie said while she bounced beside him. “You should be really lucky,”

“Yes...I am,” Star Twinkle replied sincerely as he and his friends walked away from the party.

Somewhere in Canterlot at the same time...

In the middle of the night, a door was slammed loudly open, revealing an Earth-Pony stallion with a light brown coat and a dark brown mane, jumping out of his house and wearing some strange device on his left hoof that looked like some kind of piece of armor.

“Okay! I'm ready! Now where are the attackers!?” The stallion exclaimed confidently, waiting for something to happen. But there was nothing. Much to the stallions confusion.
“Wait...why is it dark already? And why does the town look so demolished?”

A member of the Royal guard noticed how loud this stallion was and advised him to be a little quieter since some ponies are trying to sleep.

“But I can't be quiet!” He replied in the exact loud tone than before. “Canterlot is about to be attacked! I need to protect myself!”

The member of the Royal Guard raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “I don't think the Changelings are gonna attack this time anytime soon again. Not after they got pushed out like that,” the Royal Guard said calmly, despite dealing with a really strange pony.

“Are you telling me that there already was an attack?” The stallion replied confused and with widened eyes as if he just heard the most shocking news ever.

The Royal Guard member only nodded and then left again, clearly feeling a little weird to talk with this pony.

The stallion dropped down on his front legs and seemed shocked hearing this news. “After all the time I spent to build this, there is no chance for me to test it?” He said while he looked at the device on his left hoof.
He spent some more seconds on the ground looking depressed or even sad with a dead silence around him.

“Well, whatever!” He then said with no care in the world inside of his voice as if everything was alright again.
“There is always a next time to try out your inventions, Tinker!
Sooner or later you will have the chance to stand in the spotlight!” He said in confidence as he walked back inside of his house again, again with no care in the world.

Somewhere else in Equestria at the same time...

One pony was traveling through the night, exhausted by how much way he has traveled so far.
It was Mystic, the previous leader of the Storm Wings who was defeated by Star Twinkle and his friends not too long ago. He was walking through a forest and slowly made his way through the bushes, shooting at them with his magic so that they wouldn't get in his way.

Eventually, he stopped after he saw his destination.

“I never thought that I would come back here...” he said to himself as he looked at an old castle in the middle of the woods.

He seemed to struggle to walk towards it but he knew that he eventually had to and made a serious face while thinking about some things.

“If it means to get my revenge...then coming back here is all worth it...
To get my revenge against all those ponies...
Those ponies who leaned the Storm Wings up against me...
This hooded pony that humiliated me...
...and...
Princess Celestia!” He said to himself, remembering himself of his own goals before he eventually walked up to the castle in silent determination.

Author's Notes:

And...now were are done with Season 2!
What a fun ride, am I right?
Now before you wait for Season 3, there is actually another short story that I plan to share with you guys which will also be connected to this story.
I'll advise you to read this story before you continue with Season 3, though it will not be necessary to read it in order to understand what is coming up next.
I'll hope you can wait a little while until this story continues but I'll assure you that it will faster than you might think.

As always, I thank everyone for reading the story and I would be really thankful if you would leave a review or a like if you are reading on FIMfiction to let me know that you enjoyed this story.

And of course, -I'll hope to see you again in the next chapter or from now on, in another story.

Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

Season 3 Intro - Darkness in the Moonlight

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Somewhere in Equestria...

In the middle of the night...One Unicorn walked through a thick forest in order to return to a familiar place.
Mystic...
After the events with the Storm Wings and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, Mystic was continuously on his way through Equestria. It took him some time but eventually, he arrived at a castle that stood in the middle of a forest.

The Unicorn walked up to the castle in front of him slowly. He seemed to hesitate for a while. He was clearly not looking forward to entering the castle for some reason. However, the previous events did leave him no choice but to return to this place so he pulled himself together and entered the castle.

He slowly opened the big door with the help of his magic and entered a giant hall. It was really dark inside and only the light of the moon that shined through the big windows made it possible to see anything inside there. It was also really quiet, making it feel like as if the castle was abandoned. However, Mystic knew that this wasn't the case.

He carefully walked forward, getting closer and closer to the middle of the hall. Mystic could hear some noised echoing through the hall. There were flapping noises. There was something flying through the hall and most likely hiding behind some pillars in the room, trying to not get noticed by the Unicorn. The noises made Mystic feel a little uneasy but he kept his guard up. Soon, the noises changed into steps, indicating that something landed somewhere in the room.

Mystic was not turning around or made the cause of these noises know that he noticed them and pretended to not hear anything. But the steps were coming closer so Mystic prepared a spell and readied himself for whatever was sneaking up on him. When they became dangerously close to him, he quickly turned around and pointed his horn in front of him, ready to fire a spell at the figure that revealed itself.

"What's up?!" Said a cheerful voice right into Mystic's face.

It was a Pegasus stallion with a black coat, no mane, a short spiky light green tail, light blue eyes and a yellow headband around his head. He also had a Cutie Mark that consisted of a silhouette of a pony. The Pegasus had a wide grin on his face, despite Mystic pointing with his horn towards him.

"Ugh...It's just you..." Mystic replied annoyed as he canceled his spell after recognizing the pony in front of him.

"Mystic!" The Pegasus exclaimed before he jumped at Mystic, giving him a big hug. "I missed you so much!" He said as he lifted Mystic over the ground happily while hugging him.

But Mystic was not fond of that at all and tried to push the Pegasus away from him. “Okay, okay, let me go!” He said annoyed as he forcefully tried to push the Pegasus away but as soon as he found out that he wasn't strong enough he resorted to using his magic to levitate him away and dropping him on the ground a few meters away. The Pegasus didn't seem to bother by this rough welcome though and quickly got up again.

"I'm just so happy that you are back again! I knew that you would come back one day!” He said once again very cheerfully.

Despite being greeted like this, Mystic didn't seem to return the happiness that this Pegasus showed towards him.

“Where are the others?” Mystic asked straight away to get down to his business again.

“In the throne room,” the Pegasus replied, pointing towards the end of the room which would lead to the throne room eventually.

Of course, Mystic knew where the throne room was. He was in this castle before after all.

Both of them made their way through the room, walking side by side. Mystic was kept staring at by the Pegasus who was smiling at him the whole time while walking beside him. Mystic felt a little annoyed by that but he ignored him.

“So what have you been doing all this time?” The Pegasus asked, breaking the silence between the two.

“Stuff...” Mystic replied, clearly having no interest to explain anything to him.

"Is it true that you became the leader of those Steel Wings?" The Pegasus asked, making Mystic release an annoyed grunt not only by hearing the name Steel Wing but also because he was surprised how he knew about this.

“It's Storm Wings,” Mystic corrected. “...and how do you know about this?”

“We all figured that the time where you left and the time where the Storm Wings got a new leader was that you had something to do with it,” the Pegasus explained.

“I see...For a moment I thought you guys were spying on me...” Mystic replied.

“Oh, come on...why would we ever do that?” The Pegasus replied, finding it silly even to think about that.

Mystic didn't reply and continued his walk towards the throne room in silence while the Pegasus kept talking about some random stuff. Eventually, they both entered the throne room. At the end of the room was, of course, a throne. Behind it was a window from where you could see the moon and in front of it were some stairs and In front of those stairs were two other ponies.

One of them was an Earth-Pony mare. She had a blonde coat, a light red mane which was tied to a ponytail, a similar looking tail, and light pink eyes. She had a brown sack as a Cutie Mark.

The other pony was a younger Earth-Pony stallion. He had a pear green coat color, a dark green messy mane, a long tail and yellow eyes. His Cutie Mark was a wooden heart with vines surrounding it.

The mare was the first one to greet the two. However, her attention seemed to drift mainly towards Mystic because she seemed surprised to see him.

“I never thought that you would return one day...” The mare said almost in disgust.

“Me neither...” Mystic replied in a similar way.

The young stallion focused his attention towards Mystic as well and raised his head in attention. A few seconds later, he began running up to Mystic as if he wanted to attack him. Mystic knew exactly what was coming and just let it happen. The stallion jumped at Mystic and threw him down to the ground, making him stand above the Unicorn. The stallion then began to sniff Mystic and raised his head in surprise.

“You...Mystic...” He said slowly. “Mystic...friend...” He said before he stepped off from Mystic, allowing him to stand up again.

“Yes, Wildheart...it's me...” Mystic replied showing a little more tolerant reaction than with the Pegasus before.

The Pegasus behind Mystic was joining the reunion. “Hey Rosa, aren't you happy that Mystic has returned too?” He asked in excitement.

“I wouldn't exactly call it happy...” Rosa replied bothered. ”Not after he left like this...” She added as she looked away from the group.

The Pegasus noticed that Rosa seemed a little angry and felt a little hurt by this, unlike Mystic who didn't seem to bother at all. He decided to turn to Wildheart to get his opinion. “What about you, Wildheart? Are you mad at him too?” The Pegasus asked hoping that Wildheart wouldn't be angry too.

Wildheart did not seem to be angry or upset at all and shook his head. “No. Rosa said...Mystic...friend. Friends...return...always...” he replied.

Rosa's face turned a little red after Wildheart's explanation. “I just said that to cheer up Wildheart!” She exclaimed embarrassed. “He was really upset after you left, you know,” she added, looking away from the group again in annoyance.

Again, Mystic was not caring about any of that. “There is still one missing...” Mystic figured as he looked around the room. “Where is our mister knight?” He asked a little impatient.

“Should be here too...” the Pegasus stallion quickly responded.

All of them waited in the throne room until the last pony arrived. There was some awkward silence in the room which was probably caused by Mystic's appearance. Wildheart was silent most of the time and Rosa didn't seem to want to talk with Mystic. The Pegasus stallion, however, was talking away like everything was normal.

"Have you heard what happened in Canterlot?" The Pegasus asked in order to keep the conversation going.

Of course, Mystic didn't know what happened in Equestria because he was wondering all this time to get to this castle. He made him notice that he didn't know ask what he meant.

"It happened earlier this day...” Rosa joined in. ”...A bunch of changelings attacked the palace during the wedding of the captain of the Royal Guard and Princess Mi Amore whatever..." she informed while still showing some grudge towards Mystic.

“Changelings, huh?” Mystic replied in disinterest. “If it happened just earlier this day, then how come you already know about it?” He pointed out.

“Years of experience...” Rosa replied with a confident smile on her face.

“Right...” Mystic answered unimpressed. “And what about you?” He turned to the black stallion.

“What about me?” The Pegasus replied confused.

“Well, you know...” Mystic started but he stopped after he heard some hoof steps coming closer from the other side of the room.

A big stallion entered the room. It was a Unicorn Wearing an armor that greatly resembled the ones of the Royal Guard but instead of yellow, his armor was dark blue, the helmet looked different and covered almost his entire face and had no plume on top of it and the crest on his chest was no light blue star but a black circle with a sickle moon inside of it. Under his armor, a light blue coat could be seen and his eyes were dark purple and focused instantly on the new visitor.

“Mystic...” The stallion said in a calm voice after noticing him. “So you've returned...” he added.

“Is that a problem?” Mystic replied provocatively, causing Rosa to look at him in disapproval because of his behavior.

But the stallion was not feeling attacked or anything and kept his calm expression.
“Not at all. In fact, your timing couldn't have been better...” he mentioned as he walked down the stairs in front of the throne to get closer to the rest of the group. “We need all the strength that we can get for what we are about to do next,”

“So you just let him be one of us again?” Rosa said in disapproval of the stallions easy forgiveness that he showed towards Mystic.

The stallion looked over to Rosa. “This castle and I will always welcome the ones who are just like me. The ones who have no other place to go,” he said as he looked over to Wildheart who nodded with a smile on his face in approval. “-Or the ones who can't return to to their home,” he said while he looked over to the Pegasus stallion who looked away with a frown on his face. “It doesn't matter why Mystic left or what he did. I will always welcome him back and consider him a member of us,” he said as he looked back at Rosa who lowered her head to the ground in deep thoughts. “And deep down, I know that you feel like this too,” he finished as he looked at Mystic who avoided eye contact with the stallion because he knew that what he said was kinda true.

The mood in the room was affected by this stallions words and nopony said anything for a while until the stallion spoke up again. “Whether you agree with me or not, Mystic, I know that you will help us if your opinion on Princess Celestia hasn't changed since the last time,”

As soon as the name Princess Celestia fell, Mystic's attention was fully grabbed and he looked over to the stallion. “I'm listening,” he said out of curiosity.

The stallion was glad that Mystic was ready to listen or even cooperate and continued. “You see, things are starting to turn into our favor...
You might have heard of it...Nightmare Moon returned a while ago but was defeated by the Element's of Harmony and turned back to Princess Luna, who is now ruling over Equestria along with her sister,”

“I heard of it...” Mystic replied being fully on the same page but pretending that he didn't know too much about it.

“With Princess Luna's return we now have two Alicorns in Equestria who can be of use of our plan,” the stallion explained.

“What about that Mi Amore Cadenza princess?” Rosa joined in. “Isn't she an Alicorn too?”

The stallion thought about it for a moment, “No. It has to be the two sisters...that's what was told to me...”

“By who?” Mystic questioned.

“By the voice in his head,” The Pegasus stallion explained.
Needless to say, Mystic was confused to get such an answer and gave the Pegasus a confused look.
“After you left, he started to hear some voice that told him to wait for the return from the Mare on the Moon and BOOM, it happened and Nightmare Moon returned! Crazy, huh?” The Pegasus explained overly excited.

“And who is that voice exactly?” Mystic asked in disbelieve.

“I'm not sure...but it wasn't the first time that this voice spoke to me. The first time was back then...before I met you all,” he explained while making the impression to feel a little uncomfortable to explain that.

Mystic had a hard time believing this stuff but he played along to find out the exact motives of the Unicorn stallion.
“And what did this voice tell you to do?”

The stallion kept quiet for a while and closed his eyes. He didn't know if anypony in this room believed him but he went so far to explain everything and might as well continued. He opened his eyes again quoted the words that were told to him.
“Capture the two Alicorn sisters and revive me!” He said with a very serious tone in his voice.

Those words made the eyes of everypony except Wildheart widen in shock. Just the idea of going after the princess was crazy, is what everypony thought at this moment. But in Mystic's case, it was rather excitement than fear or hesitation. The realization that he could finally get to Celestia in order to get his revenge was all that motivated him and he was ready to do everything for that.

The Unicorn stallion in the blue armor looked out of the window behind the throne and stared at the moon while being in deep thoughts.

“Soon, you will rule over Equestria and create a better world...
A world where I can be with her again...” He thought while his eyes were focused on the moon.

There was no telling if their plan would succeed or not but one thing was for sure...
Equestria would soon be in danger once more...

53. The lost Empire - Part 1

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Author's Notes:

We officially arrived at Season 3!
I hope you are all ready for it!
Because I sure am!
This season will be a little more story-driven than the second one, despite being shorter.

Also, if you haven't already, please make sure to read "My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of the Storm Wings" since it is supposed to be read between Season 2 and 3.

Please consider leaving a review under this chapter to let me know what you think about it.
I am always happy to see your opinion on this story.
Also, let me know what you think about the Season 3 cover that I made for this story(Which will soon be uploaded on my Deviantart page as well)

See you all in the next chapter ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer took a little walk through Ponyville. Both of them were talking about some casual stuff until Steel Hammer asked a certain question that caused Star Twinkle to narrow his eyes.
“So Star Twinkle...any new adventures to tell me about?”

“What do you mean?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“Well, since you started to spend time with your new friends, you seem to run into one crazy adventure after another on a daily basis. I mean what about that wedding?” Steel Hammer asked.

This was not untrue. Star Twinkle actually figured that out a long time ago and remembered how much it bothered him back then. By now he pretty much accepted these changes but there were still moments where he wished that things could go back to his “normal and boring” life.

“I wouldn't call them all crazy. And it's not every day,” Star Twinkle corrected. “I mean today looks pretty normal doesn't it?”

But as soon as he spoke out those words, something that resembled a small earthquake, made the two ponies stagger a little. The next thing that got both of their attention was seeing the Golden Oak Library literally jump into the air for a few seconds, before it landed down on the ground again, causing another small Earthquake.

The two Earth Ponies had no idea what that was about but as soon as things settled down, Steel Hammer smiled in a pretty “I told you” way at Star Twinkle.

“Okay, I'll admit...that was pretty weird...” Star Twinkle said before he walked straight to the library. “I'll better check out what this was all about,” he added, leaving Steel Hammer behind who continued to smile.

“Don't forget to tell me about your adventure when you are back!” Steel Hammer shouted after Star Twinkle while waving him goodbye with a smile on his face. Star Twinkle didn't even bother to reply to that and continued his way towards the library.

He opened the door and entered the library. To his surprise, all of his friends were standing near the entrance as well. They noticed how Star Twinkle was entering the room and greeted him but all Star Twinkle wanted to know now was what just happened.
“So I was just walking around Ponyville and noticed how this library was jumping straight into the air...mind to explain what that was all about?” He asked a little casually despite the situation.

The instant where he looked around the room, he saw how Twilight was throwing some random stuff across the room in order to find something. She seemed really stressed and ran across the room in a panic, making Star Twinkle wonder what caused this behavior.

Eventually, someone stepped up. “It's just Twilight going all nuts because of some kind of test,” Spike explained as he walked over to the group, clearly annoyed by Twilight's behavior.

“What kind of test?” Star Twinkle asked.

“We don't know,” Applejack informed.

“That's what Twilight is going all fuzzy about,” Pinkie Pie added.

Star Twinkle still didn't understand. When it comes to something like this Twilight was usually very confident, even if it was unclear what it was about. But things became more clear after Fluttershy mentioned one more detail.

“Well, it is the princess who is asking for the test...”

“Oh, I see...” Star Twinkle replied, fully understanding the situation now.

“What do you mean with that?” Twilight asked confused after she suddenly appeared next to Star Twinkle.

But before Star Twinkle could reply, Rarity took it upon her to explain. “Don't be offended now but, every time when it comes to Princess Celestia you kinda...”

“Go crazy?” Rainbow Dash guessed.

“I was actually about to say overreact...” Rarity corrected, making her version sound a little friendlier.

It was obvious that Twilight didn't like to hear that. “That's not true!” She protested.

To that, Star Twinkle felt the need to join in as well. “Actually...” He started, causing Twilight to turn her attention towards him now. “Yeah, I have to agree to that. I mean the last time you thought she would send you back to Magic Kindergarten because you forgot to write a letter,” Star Twinkle reminded her, to which the others agreed to as well.

“But this is totally different!” Twilight exclaimed a little angrily. “I am Princess Celestia's student! If I fail this test then I not only prove that I am a bad student but I also bring shame about Princess Celestia!” She explained in her frustration, making it sound like as if there was more at stake as there actually was.

There was no point on talking with Twilight like this. As usual, she told herself that it was much worse than it actually was. The only thing that everypony could do right now was to give her some moral support so the group decided to accompany Twilight to Canterlot.

At the train station in Canterlot...

Despite the Changeling attack which took place a little while ago, Canterlot looked already fine again. The damage that was done was already repaired and there were no more attacks after Shining Armor's and Princess Cadance's wedding, making it safe to walk through Canterlot again.

The group took the train as usual and arrived at the train station of Canterlot. With quills and paper inside of her saddlebag, Twilight rushed towards the castle as soon as the train doors opened. The group didn't even have a chance to say anything, let alone wishing her good luck. She obviously wanted to be on time for the test. Star Twinkle and the others just exited the train a saw Twilight running off to the distance.

“That was to be expected...” Star Twinkle thought as he watched Twilight running towards the castle.

"Look! She is so excited for the test that she is running towards the castle!" Pinkie Pie said, completely missing how Twilight really felt about this test.

"I'm sure she will be fine, right?" Fluttershy asked a little hesitantly.

"Of course, she will..." Star Twinkle replied annoyed. "She always worries too much and in the end, everything turns out fine," he said, judging from previous situations.

The others could not accompany her while she was doing this test, making them wonder how to spend time in the meantime. In the end, they all decided to meet at the train station again, once Twilight's test was over.
Star Twinkle and Spike both waited in front of the castle until Twilight would come out.

“So...what kind of test do you think Princess Celestia got for Twilight?” Spike asked out of worry.

“I dunno...probably something about magic or friendship...or how friendship is magic...” Star Twinkle could only guess.

Somehow, those words didn't make Spike feel much better. “But...You also think that she will pass, right?” Spike asked, trying to get a better answer out of Star Twinkle.

“How should I know?” Star Twinkle thought. He tried to believe in Twilight but he also had to keep realistic. He had no idea how a test of Princess Celestia would look like, to begin with. Star Twinkle noticed how he was stared at from Spike because he didn't give an answer. “I'm sure she will be okay...” he finally replied in order to calm Spike down.

It wasn't much longer until Twilight finally stepped out of the door again. Spike instantly rushed towards her and asked her how her test went.

“That was fast! Let me guess, you got a perfect score?” He asked, making it look like as if he was never worried, to begin with.

However, Twilight didn't reply and only had a frown on her face, making both of them worry.

“How did it go?” Star Twinkle asked, now feeling a little worried too.

“Looks like I wasn't prepared for this kind of test...” She replied while not removing her frown on her face.

“What do you mean?” Star Twinkle asked.

“Princess Celestia wants me to protect the Crystal Empire,” Twilight replied while keeping her head down.

Both Star Twinkle and Spike didn't know what to think about that term and looked at each other confused. With something like “empire” in the name, you would think that it was something big that you should now about but both of them never heard of it.

Twilight explained that the Crystal Empire was gone for a thousand years which caused it to be forgotten by even those who knew about it. The reason why it was gone was that it was cursed by a Unicorn named King Sombra. King Sombra enslaved the ponies of the Crystal Empire and took over it so Princess Celestia and Princess Luna put an end to his reign and banished him. That is when he put the curse on the Crystal Empire, making it vanish.

Now with the return of the Crystal Empire, Princess Celestia sent out Cadance and Shinning Armor to protect the ponies there. Twilight, as well as her friends, were supposed to aid them as well.

“Wow...” Star Twinkle replied after listening to Twilight's explanation of her task. “She wants you to save an entire empire?” Star Twinkle said in disbelieve.

Spike then poked him in the sides and pointed at Twilight who had her head lowered towards the ground, referring that this was the last thing she wanted to hear and that she was most likely aware of that herself.

“I mean, don't worry! It'll be fine!” He then corrected very forcefully.

But Twilight was well aware of how impossible this test seemed and wouldn't have reacted otherwise, even if Star Twinkle meant those words. "It's okay, Star Twinkle...I know that what Princess Celestia asked of me is impossible. I mean how am I supposed to save an entire empire?" She said in a very frustrated tone in her voice.

While Star Twinkle didn't know what the princess was planning herself, he did believe that she wasn't asking Twilight to do it without a good reason. “I don't think that Princess Celestia would send you to the Crystal Empire if she wasn't sure that you could do it,” Star Twinkle said while in his head he tried to believe that this had to be the reason.

“But what if I fail?” Twilight replied with her eyes almost beginning to tear up because of the fear to let Princess Celestia down.

“Don't worry! You are not going alone after all. I mean, we defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord, saving all of Equestria in the process,” he reminded which gave him some motivation as well. “Protecting an empire should be no problem by now,” he added with confidence.

Star Twinkle's confidence seemed to have rubbed off on Twilight who now felt a little better.
“You know what? You are right!” She replied finally removing her frown. “Princess Celestia believed that I won't fail either and I will not let her down!” Twilight said with her confidence rising again.

It was good for Star Twinkle to see Twilight happy again. However, this test began to worry him now. He did believe in his own words from before about saving Equestria and that an empire shouldn't be considered to be much harder to save. If Princess Celestia believed that Twilight and her friends should be enough then all he could do is to accept that. It was not up for him to decide.

The three returned to the train station of Canterlot, where the rest of their friends already waited for them. Not knowing about the current situation, they quickly asked how Twilight's test went.

“Twilight! Did you pass?” Applejack quickly asked after she hugged Twilight in comfort.

“Are we gonna celebrate your awesomeness with Princess Celestia?” Pinkie Pie asked before she fired her party cannon, causing confetti to fly out of it. But the confetti flew right back after Twilight said that this had to wait.

Twilight then announced that they will all go to the Crystal Empire. Naturally, they were all confused to hear that so she explained everything to them as well. They all understood and were ready to help her with her task of course.

The Crystal Empire was located in the north of Equestria. The best way to get to it was to take the train again. The more the train got to the north, less grass could be seen from outside of the window. Instead, there was just snow. There were worlds apart from how much snow it was compared to what Star Twinkle saw before. The only thing that could be seen after exiting the train was the color white. And as if that wasn't bad enough, a heavy snowstorm was raging, making it hard to see anything.

The group slowly walked outside of the train. Some of them were having a hard time getting used to the snowstorm and protected their faces in order to see something. Needless to say, it was also very cold which might have been also a reason why it made them feel a little uncomfortable.

“Ha! And you all made fun of me for packing so many scarves,” Rarity said as she walked outside of the train, wearing one of her scarves with a smile on her face. For some reason, she had those with her even when they went to Canterlot.

Shortly after, Spike came out of the train with a pile of bags on his back which was all of Rarity's stuff. “I didn't say a word,” he said, obeying Rarity as usual.

Shortly after the group's arrival, Shining Armor was walking up to them, wearing a mask and a scarf that would protect his eyes from the storm. “Twilight! You made it!” He shouted to get the attention of everypony and hugging his little sister. “We'd better get moving. There are things out here we really don't want to run into after dark,” he advised, starting to worry everypony.

The group looked at each other out of worry. “What kind of things?” Fluttershy asked out of fear.

“Let's just say the Empire... isn't the only thing that's returned,” Shining Armor informed with a paranoid facial expression.

They all began to follow Shining Armor, who was leading them towards the Crystal Empire. To imagine that there would be something in this vast snowfield was beyond Star Twinkle's imagination.

“Something keeps trying to get in! We think it's the unicorn king who originally cursed the place,” Shining Armor explained.

Of course, things couldn't be easy for once, Star Twinkle thought. Protecting the Empire was probably hard enough but additionally dealing with a pony that took Princess Celestia and Princess Luna to defeat was just unnecessary. All the more reason to reach the empire before it could come to that.

“But Princess Celestia said I was being sent here to find a way to protect the Empire! If King Sombra can't get in, then it must already be protected,” Twilight pointed out.

But before Shining Armor could reply, a loud howl could be heard in the distance, sending shivers down on the group.

“Th-That's one of the things, isn't it?” Fluttershy said, being the first one to show fear in the group.

Shining Armor quickly advised that they should head for the Crystal Empire as fast as they could before they could get in some serious danger. However, there was already something appearing right behind the group. A big black shadow emerged from the ground and tried to get the group. In the middle of this shadow, two light green eyes could be seen, with some purple shadows on the sides of it.

The group's first idea was to run away from this giant shadow. Fortunately, they were able to outrun it but it was still right behind them. While running away, everypony could see a light blue barrier in the distance which was most likely the Crystal Empire. They all quickly went through it and were now outside of this snowfield and found themselves on a plain grass field.

All of them were pretty exhausted and had to catch their breaths for a second. Thankfully, the shadow of King Sombra didn't seem to get into this barrier.

Star Twinkle took a look around and noticed that somepony was missing from the group. “Where is Shining Armor?” Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight noticed just now that her brother was not with her had a concerned look on her face. But before she could even grow worried, Shining Armor came jumping through the barrier as well. He must have bought the others some time in order to escape and faced King Sombra.

“Oh, no! Shining Armor, your horn!” Twilight said as she quickly rushed to her brother's side.

Shining Armor didn't seem hurt at first but there were some black crystals scattered around his horn that prevented him from using his magic. He didn't seem to be bothered by it, however, especially since there was an important business to take care of.

Everypony was ready to move on again and took a moment to take a first look at the Crystal Empire. The first thing that everypony noticed was the big light blue castle in the middle. Then there were those houses which were all shaped like crystals that came out of the ground.

“Well, now it's obvious why it's called Crystal Empire,” Star Twinkle said as he inspected his surroundings.

While Star Twinkle was looking at all this a little more unimpressed, Rarity was stunned. “It's gorgeous! Absolutely gorgeous! There are no words!” She said in admiration.

“Focus, Rarity,” Applejack said. “We're here to help Twilight, not admire the scenery,” she reminded, making Rarity snap out a little.

“Eh, I don't see what the big deal is. Just looks like another old castle to me,” Rainbow Dash said who was seemed to be the least impressed by all this.

“Another old...! Have you lost your mind? Look at the magni–“ Rarity replied, not being able to comprehend what Rainbow Dash just said.

But when everypony saw how stressed Rarity was about it, they laughed, making her realize that it was just a joke from Rainbow Dash. Rarity took it with good humor and followed the group inside of the castle which was located in the very middle of the town.

From the inside, the castle looked almost exactly like the castle in Canterlot only shinier due to the crystals. In the main hall of the castle, there was a throne where Princess Cadance was sitting on. For some reason, she was looking a little exhausted. But once she saw Twilight approaching her, she seemed fine.

Both of them walked up to each other in excitement and performed their little dance again. Star Twinkle didn't exactly know what this was about back then and that didn't change now.
“Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake!” They both said in unison while they did their little ritual.

“That is adorable...” Star Twinkle thought, admitting that seeing two full grown mares do something like this was kinda cute.

They both laughed after this but Princess Cadance's face was colored in pain once more. “One of these days we need to get together when the fate of Equestria isn't hanging in the balance,” she said almost jokingly.

“Are you okay?” Twilight asked immediately out of worry after realizing how much in pain Cadance was.

Shining Armor walked up to Cadance. “Cadance has been able to use her magic to spread love and light. That seems to be what is protecting it. But she hasn't slept, barely eats. I want to help her, but my protection spell has been countered by King Sombra,” Shining Armor explained while he hinted at his now useless horn.

Star Twinkle did just now realize that Princess Cadance's horn was constantly glowing, indicating that she was keeping up that blue barrier around the Crystal Empire the whole time.

“It's alright Shining Armor, I'm fine,” Princess Cadance assured, although it was hard to believe judging from her facial expression.

But Shining Armor had to point out the fact, that Princess Cadance was not alright and explained that time was getting short now. ”She can't go on like this forever, and if her magic were to fade... Well, you saw what's out there waiting for that to happen,”

“That's why we're here,” Twilight said, confidently.

Twilight was quickly backed up by her friends, who were ready to help as well. May it be because of Princess Celestia's test or not, Star Twinkle also felt obligated to help those two out. It was not like he could leave now anyway with this Unicorn King out there.

Shining Armor explained that he and Cadance didn't have much chance to gather any information from the Crystal Ponies. According to them, they should at least be somepony who could help them with their task.

“A research paper!” Twilight suddenly exclaimed, confusing her brother in the process. “That must be part of my test – to gather information from the Crystal Ponies and deliver it to you! This is gonna be great! I love research papers!” Twilight cheerfully explained, still seeing all of this as part of her test, rather than a dangerous situation that had to be taken care of.

“Yeah, who doesn't?” Rainbow Dash sarcastically added, which could have been come from Star Twinkle as well.

Twilight assured her brother that she would take of the situation and that he wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. Star Twinkle didn't know where Twilight got this sudden confidence from. He didn't know if she was trying to be strong in front of everypony or if she actually felt confident to do this "saving the empire" task. Whatever it was, it felt refreshing.

Twilight's first suggestion was to gather information from the Crystal Ponies to find out if there was a way to protect the empire without Princess Cadance having to perform her spell. For that, the group split up and talked to everypony they could find.

Star Twinkle spoke with several ponies but the result was always the same. Every pony he asked, had problems to remember anything before the empire was cursed. Also, every time when Star Twinkle brought King Sombra up, their faces were colored in pain, as if it hurt to even think about him.

Once he realized that talking with anypony was useless, Star Twinkle regrouped with his friends to see if they found out anything. Some of them were already waiting beneath the place under the castle.

“I got nothing so far,” Rainbow Dash said in defeat as she landed in front of everypony.

For some reason, Rarity seemed to have spaced out a little and snapped out in surprise it after Rainbow Dash's words “Oh, me neither,” she said almost non-caring.

Fluttershy walked up to the group with a cautious expression on her face. She stood next to Star Twinkle and pulled down a zipper from her head to her hooves and revealed herself to be Pinkie Pie. “My cover has been blown. I repeat, my cover has been blown!” She said in a serious tone right into Star Twinkle's face, who could only stand there in confusion.

“How did you even...” was the only thing he could say after witnessing whatever just happened.

“Ooookay,” Twilight said, grabbing the attention of her friends again.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy was approaching the group and stepped over the “costume” that Pinkie Pie was wearing before. Needless to say, she didn't know what to think of that and got confused.

It looks like nopony was able to get some information out of theses ponies. They all realized that everypony seemed to suffer some kind of amnesia that might be connected to the curse that King Sombra put on the empire. However, Applejack brought up a library that some of the ponies mentioned. This instantly got Twilight's attention. “A library? Well, why didn't you say so?!” She said in excitement.

“Uh... thought I just did,” Applejack replied, being slightly confused by Twilight's reaction.

Since it was the only clue, Everypony made their way to the library. Twilight was obviously the most excited one in the group. It was actually understandable for once. The library had probably knowledge about things that were long forgotten since it was over thousand years old.

They quickly found the library and soon as Twilight entered it, she was blown away by how big it was compared to her own library in Ponyville. “I just... I don't even know what to... There are no words,” she said impressed as she looked over the giant hall which was filled with probably hundreds of bookshelves.

An elderly librarian mare was walking up to the group as soon as she noticed them. “May I help you?” She asked, offering her help.

Twilight walked up to her. “Yes. We're looking for a book,” she asked

The obvious answer of the librarian was: ”We have plenty of those,”

“You do. You really do,” Twilight replied while she was spinning around, overlooking the library again in awe.

Since this conversation went nowhere, Star Twinkle decided to take care of the talking. “We need a history book or a book that can tell us how the Empire protected itself before,” Star Twinkle asked.

The librarian took a moment to think and rubbed her chin while in deep thoughts. “History, history... Ah, yes,” she said happily, indicating that she might remember.

However, instead of continuing, the mare kept smiling at the group, making this conversation feel a little awkward.

Eventually, Star Twinkle broke the awkward silence. “Aaaand...Where can we find it?”

This seemed to confuse the librarian. ”I... I can't seem to remember. I'm not sure I actually work here,” she then replied really confused, causing Rainbow Dash groan in annoyance, which could also have been Star Twinkle at this very moment.

This left the seven ponies no other choice but to look for the book themselves. Considering that this was a really huge library, it was really not easy to find one specific book. Everypony was looking separately for the book to speed up the search.

Star Twinkle was not looking forward to this but he did look at every book as well. Eventually, he was bombarded by some books that came down flying towards him. The reason they fell down was because Rainbow Dash was passing them with a ladder that she was standing on. Star Twinkle wasn't hit by any of the books but he got rather annoyed by this little action.

“Careful!” He shouted at her while waving his hoof angrily.

Suddenly, another book fell down and this time, he was hit by it. “Ouch!” He said before he rubbed his head because of this. He looked over to the book that fell down and now laid next to him. The fall caused the book to be open, making it unknown what the title might be.

“Wouldn't it be funny if this was the book that we were looking for?” Star Twinkle amusingly said to himself while he approached the book. Of course, since Rainbow Dash dropped it, the book was most likely not worth checking but the words that he managed to read on one of the sites kept him a little interested.

“The four knights of the Princess?” He instantly saw as his eyes wandered across the page that was wide open in front of him. “A book about Princess Celestia's Royal Guards?” He guessed.

Even though he had to keep looking for a book about the Crystal Empire, his curiosity was grabbed. He never heard that Princess Celestia had four knights at her side beside the Royal Guards so he picked up the book and read out some words.

“The four knights of the princess.
Once, there were four knights who served under the princess who ruled over Equestria...
Those knights who possessed the power of the three races were said to serve Equestria from the very beginning it was founded...
Their strength was only surpassed by their loyalty and devotion that they showed towards their princess and her subjects...
Their names were...”

“Huh?” Star Twinkle stopped after he realized something off. “Their names are missing?”

For some reason the names of the four Knights were blanked out, making Star Twinkle wonder.
“If somepony didn't want anypony to know about those knights then why didn't they just removed the whole site instead of removing their names? How is that even possible?” He wondered, trying to figure out an answer.
“Furthermore, it is said they served under the princess but...the Crystal Empire was gone because Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stopped King Sombra. So that means it was before Princess Luna turned into Nightmare Moon and Princess Celestia ruled over Equestria alone...
So are those knights referred to as Princess Luna's knights? The book doesn't give any information about this...”
Star Twinkle began to get really into this story and started to come up with some theories, but Twilight had found a book and reminded him to the task that he was there for. He blamed himself for getting distracted and ignored the book to get back to saving the Crystal Empire.

Star Twinkle and the rest of his friends walked up to Twilight, who was reading through the book to check if there was something that can protect the Crystal Empire. After she went through the book in some incredible speed, she explained its content to her friends.

“According to this book, there is something called A Crystal Faire. It was established by their first queen and became their most important tradition. The Faire was held every year to renew the spirit of love and unity in the empire so they could protect it from harm,” she explained.

“And what exactly is that Crystal Faire?” Applejack asked, speaking out what everypony was basically thinking at the moment.

From what Twilight explained in great detail, this Crystal Faire sounded like some kind of feast. It would feature a jousting tournament, sweets made out of crystal berries, a petting zoo, a crystal flugelhorn and many other things.

“So if we do all those things, then all those ponies love will return, then Crystal Empire will be safe again?” Star Twinkle asked after listening to Twilight's explanation.

“It should be,” Twilight replied. “It's the only chance we have right now!” She added confidently.

Everypony agreed that it was better than doing nothing so they quickly got to work in order to set this Crystal Faire together.

Later...

It took some time and work to get everything ready but only a little time later, the Crystal Empire was decorated colorfully and featured almost everything from the book. Twilight overlooked everything before they opened The Crystal Faire for everypony.
“It looks amazing! I don't know how I could've done this without you! One last check to make sure everything is in place, and then the festivities can begin!” She said as she was excited for everything to turn for the better from now on.

“What's this thing for?” Applejack pointed out as she was poking some kind of heart that laid on a crystal, placed directly under the castle.

“The last page of the book mentioned a Crystal Heart as the faire's centerpiece, so I used my magic to cut one out of a crystal block,” Twilight explained.

“Are we all ready then?” Star Twinkle asked, after being relieved that the work was over for now.

“Yes, let's get to the castle and announce the Crystal Faire to everypony,” Twilight replied, again very confidently.

Twilight, Shining Armor, and Cadance were walking towards the balcony of the castle with Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie being next to them while blowing a flugelhorn each in order to grab the attention of the crystal ponies. When they both blew into their horns, a rather painfully loud sounding tone came out of the horn which made Star Twinkle's head hurt a little.

After that, Twilight attempted to announce the start of the Crystal Faire but Pinkie Pie blew into her horn again out of fun, startling Twilight a little. Star Twinkle then took her horn away to let her know that she should stop, making her grin a little embarrassed.

After that little interruption, Twilight then began to announce the Crystal Faire. “Ahem. Hear ye, hear ye! Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor do cordially invite you to attend the Crystal Faire!” She shouted across the Crystal Empire.

The Crystal Ponies attention was quickly grabbed by this and they seemed excited about it. In fact, there was a change happening to them. Their coats and manes became shinier as if there were made out of crystals itself. Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Pinkie Pie looked down from the balcony and noticed the change as well, making it seem like as if their plan worked. The rest of their friends also did a good job of taking care of everypony but the three ponies saw how Rainbow Dash was trying a little too hard to make the Crystal Ponies happy.

“I think, I will go down and try to hold her back a little,” Star Twinkle suggested.

“Good idea,” Twilight replied.

Star Twinkle made his way through the castle and walked up to Rainbow Dash so that she would not scare off the ponies, instead of making them feel comfortable. When he came across Rainbow Dash, he noticed how she looked almost proud to have shoved all the information and things into everypony.

“You know, you don't have to rub all those things into everyponies face. I mean, they'll eventually remember everything about this Crystal Faire anyway,” Star Twinkle explained.

“I know, I just wanted to make sure that they do it fast!” She replied, making Star Twinkle not even feel surprised.

Two ponies were walking past Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash, and the two couldn't help but overhear the conversation that they had on their way.
“Seeing all of this, I feel like I'm starting to remember. Remember things from before the king,” one of them said.

“Me too,” the other one replied.

They both gasped and turned into shiny like most of the other ponies tight now.
“The Crystal Heart!” They both said in unison.

“Do you think they really have it?” One of them asked excitedly.

“Of course we have it!” Rainbow Dash immediately answered, making Star Twinkle's little scolding from before looking like it didn't even affect her. “Can't have a Crystal Faire without the Crystal Heart, right?” She added.

“Of course you can't,” Another pony joined in which turned out to be the librarian from before.
“The whole purpose of the Crystal Faire is to lift the spirits of the Crystal Ponies, so the light within them can power the Crystal Heart so that the Empire can be protected!” Her appearance turned to a crystallized form as well. ”I do work at the library!” She added happily.

This little information confused Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash since Twilight didn't mention anything like that.
“What was that about powering the heart?” Star Twinkle asked a little nervously.

“I just can't believe you found it. King Sombra said he'd hidden it away where we would never see it again! I only hope it will still be as powerful after all these years...!” She said excitedly before she left to attend the Crystal Faire as well.

The Crystal Heart that the librarian talked about, definitely sounded a lot more different than the hear that Twilight made. From what they gathered is that it wasn't the Crystal Faire but rather the Crystal Heart that would ultimately protect the empire from danger. However, there was only that fake Crystal Heart that Twilight made out of crystals which most likely didn't possess any power at all.

Realizing that, Star Twinkle looked over to Rainbow Dash.
“I go and tell, Twilight, you need to make sure that nopony finds out about the Crystal Heart!” Star Twinkle said in a serious tone in his voice.

In any other situation, Rainbow Dash would feel annoyed to be ordered around like this by Star Twinkle but since she noticed the serious expression of Star Twinkle and being aware of the situation as well, she saluted and quickly got to work. She flew up in the air, grabbed a flag from the castle and covered the Crystal Heart with it. Meanwhile, Star Twinkle made his way to Twilight again who was inside of the castle with Shining Armor and Cadance.

“Hey, Star Twinkle! Is everything going well down there?” She asked, well spirited and clearly not aware of the situation.

“We need the Crystal Heart!” Star Twinkle almost shouted at her in a panic.

Twilight was not sure why Star Twinkle was behaving like that and narrowed her eyebrows in confusion. “What do you mean? I made one, remember?” She replied.

“No! We need the real one! The Crystal Heart is the reason why the Empire could protect itself but King Sombra has hidden it!” Star Twinkle explained while panicking a little.

Star Twinkle's sudden behavior, caused Twilight to take a look at the book again. “I didn't know it was an actual relic! The book didn't mention anything about the Crystal Ponies powering the Heart!” She said before she arrived at the last page where she found a ripped out site of the book.
“There was a page missing... How did I not notice?!” She said in shock after this realization.

Shining Armor and Cadance were both standing next to them and overheard the conversation and got worried themselves.

“It's alright, Twilight,” Cadance assured. However, seconds later she was falling unconscious into Shining Armor's legs who was shocked by it and looked over to Twilight in frustration.

“Twily...” He said, not knowing what to do at this point.

Princess Cadance was too weak to keep her spell up any longer and the barrier around the Crystal Empire broke down. This was exactly what King Sombra was waiting for. There was a growl in the distance, which most likely came from him. The moment when the barrier vanished the dark cloud around the empire came closer and was about to engulf every bit of it. And with no barrier or the Crystal Heart to protect it, there was little to nothing left what the group could do.

“What do we do now?” Star Twinkle asked in a panic towards Twilight, however, she didn't answer and looked in fear and worry towards the dark cloud that was approaching the empire.

Star Twinkle turned his head towards the cloud as well and could only imagine what would happen next to the Crystal Empire.

To be continued...

54. The lost Empire - Part 2

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The dark cloud around the Crystal Empire was getting closer and closer...
And within it, was the evil Unicorn King who wanted to engulf it in darkness along with the Crystal Empire.

“What do we do now?” Star Twinkle asked in a panic as he watched how the massive black cloud of darkness approached the Empire.

Watching the cloud coming closer sent a shiver down on Star Twinkle's back. The thing he wanted to do more than anything now, was to run. But there was nowhere to run to and Cadance was too weak to cast her spell to protect everypony. There was nothing that could be done now. Star Twinkle cursed himself to not being able to do anything in this situation when his mind wasn't clouded by fear at the moment.

Shining Armor looked over the incoming threat as well, but instead of showing fear or losing his calm, like Star Twinkle, he looked over to Princess Cadance who laid on the ground due to the exhaustion to keep the protection spell around the Crystal Empire up. He helped her up again, causing her to regain some strength. Cadance pulled herself together and activated her protection spell again. The barrier around the Empire rose up again and managed to keep the darkness out. However, the barrier was much smaller now and barely covered the empire, meaning that once it breaks again, there will not be enough time to protect the Empire anymore.

Star Twinkle was relieved but he was also aware that it would only delay the inevitable. Cadance already broke down once so there was probably not much time left to begin with. Star Twinkle slowly felt like that this was a hopeless cause. The barrier would break down, the Empire would fall and who knows what would happen to him and his friends.

However, Shining Armor managed to get Star Twinkle out of his thoughts. “I have to find the Crystal Heart!” He said determined, causing Star Twinkle to look at him confused because of what he witnessed just now.

“What is he talking about? Can't he see how hopeless this all is? Why is he still so determined?” Star Twinkle asked himself after he heard Shining Armors words and looked at the determination in his eyes.

“No,” Twilight interrupted, causing her brother to make a confused face. “You stay here with Cadance. She needs you, Shining Armor. I'll retrieve the Heart,” Twilight suggested before she attempted to leave.

“She too? Didn't they both saw what just happened? Cadance already collapsed once! We will never find the heart in time!” Star Twinkle thought, once again trying to be realistic.

Twilight stopped for a moment after she realized that Star Twinkle wasn't following her and quickly turned toward him.
“I know what you are thinking right now,” she started, grabbing Star Twinkle's attention, who believed that this wasn't true.
“Remember what you said before about my test?”

Star Twinkle was not sure what she meant at first and because of his nervous thoughts right now, he was not able to remember. But Twilight formed a smile and reminded him.
“If Princess Celestia wouldn't believe that I was able to protect this empire, then she wouldn't have sent me to here,”

Now that heard those words again, Star Twinkle did remember saying them to Twilight, though he didn't like that she was using them against him. That wouldn't be the first time though.

Twilight's optimism seemed unchanged. “I believe that we all can save this empire as well!” She said in confidence. “Come on, we have to get to work!” She said before she ran towards the inside of the castle, expecting that Star Twinkle would follow her this time.

However, Star Twinkle hesitated at first and lowered his head in disappointment.
“She knows how difficult all of this is...and yet she still continues...
Because the Princess believed in her?
No...
Because I believed in her?”

Star Twinkle turned his around and looked over to Shining Armor who was holding Cadance in his legs.

“Those two...
They didn't give up as well...
Shining Armor didn't give up and wanted to retrieve the Crystal Heart...
And despite being so exhausted, Cadance still keeps up her spell...”

His thought was then turning towards his friends.

“And the others...they wouldn't stop now as well...
And what did I do? I just stood there, paralyzed by fear and gave up the moment things looked bad...”

He started to get angry at himself and his reaction from before. It's not like he knew what to do against previous threats either. Things somehow worked out because he and his friends didn't give up.

“I can't cast a protection spell or fight King Sombra...but what I can do is help everypony who refuses to let this kingdom fall! That's the least I can do!” He said determined before he finally started to follow Twilight.

Twilight was running down the stairs to get outside and turned her head around after realizing how Star Twinkle was now right behind her. She then looked forward again with a smile on her face before she focused on her test again.

“I've been trying to figure out how I'm meant to pass Celestia's test. Retrieving the Crystal Heart must be it,” Twilight figured. “But still...we also have to keep the Faire going,” she added, much to Star Twinkle's confusion.

“Don't you think keeping this Unicorn king out is a little more important right now?” Star Twinkle pointed out, not understanding why Twilight was asking for that.

“The whole purpose of the Crystal Faire is to lift the spirits of the Crystal Ponies, so they can activate the Crystal Heart,” she started to explain.

Star Twinkle slowly began to understand. “So you think if everypony finds out about King Sombra then their “spirit” won't be able to power the Crystal Heart?” He guessed.

“Exactly,” Twilight responded.

They both exited the castle and found themselves in front of the place where the fake Crystal Heart was positioned in the middle, covered by a flag. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were both making sure that nopony would get too close to it and kept everypony busy.

“Applejack, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight exclaimed, getting both of their attention.

Twilight then explained the situation to them as well. While she was looking for the Crystal Heart, they should focus on the Crystal Faire. They quickly understood and did as Twilight said. Rainbow Dash was flying to the others to inform them as well while Applejack kept the fake Chrystal Heart hidden from everypony. This only left Star Twinkle and Twilight to find the Crystal Heart.

“Alright, everything is taken care of. Now let's find this Crystal Heart!” Star Twinkle suggested.

“No, you will help the others with the Faire. I have to find the Crystal Heart!” Twilight then explained which left Star Twinkle a little confused.

“I think we have enough ponies to deal with the Faire. If we both look for the Crystal Heart, then we should find it faster,” Star Twinkle pointed out.

“No, this is my test. So it's up to me to find the Crystal Heart,” Twilight demanded, determined to do this on her own.

“Twilight, I think saving this empire is a little more important than your test right now!” Star Twinkle said, reminding her that there is much more at stake.

“Princess Celestia sent me to save this empire so it has to be me who finds the Crystal Heart. It's as easy as that,” Twilight insisted, not letting her being talked out of this.
“I can't waste any more time, I need to go!” She then said before she ran off to who knows where.

She didn't even give Star Twinkle a chance to reply to this which made him feel a little angry because of her stubbornness.
“Is she serious? In times like this, she worries about her test more than the safety of the empire?” He said to himself in disbelieve.

He couldn't just stand there without doing nothing so he decided to follow Twilight against her will. Especially, since she wasn't looking like as if she knew exactly where to start with her search. She stopped in the middle of the road and rubbed her chin to think for a second before she noticed how Spike walked up to her. “Twilight, wait! I'm coming with you!” He most likely was informed by Rainbow Dash what Twilight was up to and wanted to help as well.

“You can't. I have to retrieve the Crystal Heart by myself,” Twilight replied, again insisting to not accept any help.

“How about that,” Star Twinkle started, making Twilight notice him behind her. “Let us just accompany you at least. We won't touch the Crystal Heart at all and let you save the empire but at least let us help you find it,” he explained, trying to get Twilight to let her help a little.

Twilight didn't seem to be too happy about that suggestion but surprisingly enough she agreed. “Alright. But do not lift a hoof,” she said, still not fully ready to accept help.

“Or a claw, Spike,” Spike added before he crossed his arms,” he was then levitated on Twilight's back by her magic before she ran towards the castle again with Star Twinkle following her again. “Where are we going exactly?” He asked.

“I think I might know where King Sombra hid the Crystal Heart,” Twilight replied. “The king would've been counting on the fact that nopony would dare come looking for it here. They'd have been too afraid to even try,” she explained.

That made sense to Star Twinkle. Since King Sombra took over the empire, he most likely was staying in the castle, keeping a close eye on the Crystal Heart. Even if somepony knew where it was, they had to deal with King Sombra to get to it which was something that was probably impossible.

The three made it inside of the castle and looked for any clue where the Crystal Heart might have been. While doing so, Twilight made sure that both Star Twinkle and Spike wouldn't do anything to help her. This started to bother Star Twinkle. Not only did he thought that saving the empire had more priority but they were also running out of time. Given that Twilight is usually aware of what is important, it was almost shocking to him that her fear of letting Princess Celestia down would endanger a whole empire.

While continuing their search, Twilight came across the throne room and stopped in front of it to take a look at the throne. Not sure what this was all about, Star Twinkle just stood next to her, wondering what she was looking at. He was then startled by Twilight who suddenly spoke up again.

“Of course!” She said happily as if she figured out where the Crystal Heart was.

Spike, who was left behind a little stumbled into Twilight and fell down to the ground with his arms still crossed. “What? Did you find it?” He asked, which is exactly what Star Twinkle would have asked a second later.

“No. Because this isn't King Sombra's castle,” Twilight replied which confused both Star Twinkle and Spike.

“Well, isn't this where he lived when he was in power?” Spike wondered.

“It is. But it didn't look like this,” Twilight replied, which didn't explain much to the two.

There was probably an explanation because Twilight wouldn't say something like that without a reason. Star Twinkle figured that she was about to either explain or show where the Crystal Heart was right now.

However, the next thing that Star Twinkle saw was not what he expected at all. Twilight began to concentrate and focused some magic in her horn. But instead of the purple aura that usually covered her horn, there was now a black aura followed by something that looked like purple bubbles. She also had those purple auras coming out of the sides of her eyes. This all strongly reminded Star Twinkle to King Sombra, making him feel kinda nervous. Whatever she was doing, it did look pretty exhausting. Twilight was sweating and groaning heavily, indicating that this kind of magic was really hard to perform.

She eventually managed to shot out a magic beam directly at a crystal which was on top of the throne. After it was hit, a shadow emerged from it and spread towards the area in front of the throne. The shadow revealed a staircase beneath the ground which would lead a good way down.

“Whoa. When did you learn to do that?” Spike asked impressed.

“That was a little trick Celestia taught me,” Twilight replied proudly as if she was happy to pull it off herself.

“Aaand what exactly was that?” Star Twinkle asked while still feeling a little uncomfortable after seeing that.

“Princess Celestia describes this kind of magic as dark magic. It's magic that draws power from negative feelings like hate or fear,” Twilight explained. For some reason, Star Twinkle didn't feel any better after that explanation. It was still really hard to watch her using magic like that. “King Sombra used this magic so it's kind of obvious that he would use it to hide the Crystal Heart,” she further explained.

“Uh uh,” Star Twinkle only replied a little cautious. He had to admit that this might have made sense. Twilight seemed unaffected by this so called dark magic that she just used so Star Twinkle began to forget what he just saw and concentrated on his task again.

However, when he tried to go down the staircase, that just appeared, Twilight blocked him by putting a hoof in front of him. “You two stay here,” she said, remembering Star Twinkle that she wanted to retrieve the Crystal Heart herself. Remembering that, Star Twinkle rolled his eyes and stepped away to let Twilight walk down the staircase who lit her horn with some magical light to let her see something while walking down.

Since he wasn't allowed to follow her, Star Twinkle took the opportunity to take a look outside. What he saw there send fear down on his back. The magic barrier around the empire was flickering, indicating that Princess Cadance's spell was getting weaker.

“We're running out of time. You better hurry Twilight...” Star Twinkle mumbled to himself as he looked over the Empire in concern.

Star Twinkle then joined Spike who was waiting on top of the staircase and looked down to the almost endless depths in which it would lead into. They both waited a little while also speaking to Twilight from time to time to make sure if she was alright. But Twilight stopped responding which worried the two of them.

“She hasn't answered for a while now...” Spike said in concern.

“Yeah...” Star Twinkle replied, getting a little worried himself.

“You think she is alright?” Spike asked while he was peeking over the edge to look down on the staircase.

Of course, Star Twinkle couldn't give a clear answer to that. He did wish that she was okay and strongly tried to believe that but if she was entering the place where the Crystal Heart was hidden, then chances were pretty high that there could be some obstacles to prevent her from getting to it. With this in mind, Star Twinkle began to walk down the stairs as well. “Only one way to find out,” he said as he left Spike behind.

“But Twilight said-” Spike tried to say but he was interrupted by Star Twinkle.

“I don't care!” Star Twinkle exclaimed a little angrily while continuing his way downstairs, leaving Spike a little confused.

It took Star Twinkle quite some time until he reached the bottom of it. This made him guess that Twilight might not have responded because she was simply too far away but that was very unlikely. When he was almost on the bottom, he could see Twilight, making him feel a little better.
“Twilight?” Star Twinkle said after getting a little closer to her. However, she was standing there motionless and almost in trance, staring at something that looked like a door.

Star Twinkle walked up to her and tried to figure out what she was staring at. “What are you looking at? It's just some ordinary do-” But he couldn't finish his sentence and felt some kind of flash appear.

...

There was some kind of light that blinded Star Twinkle for a second, causing him to close his eyes. When he opened them again, he was no longer in the staircase but instead on the streets of Ponyville.

“What? Why am I...how?” He wondered as he checked his surroundings. It made no sense how he was suddenly in the middle of the road of Ponyville.

He saw Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie not too far away but they didn't seem to notice him so he walked up to them in order to find out what was going on. “What are we all doing here?” Was the first thing he asked out of his confusion.

They turned around after Star Twinkle spoke up but for some reason, they didn't look too happy and gave him a glare.

“Oh, it's him...” Applejack said almost hostile towards Star Twinkle.

“You have some nerves, trying to talk with us after what you've done!” Rainbow Dash said while she crossed her front legs while flying.

Star Twinkle didn't know why he deserved this hostility that was clearly thrown at him. “What do you mean? What did I do?” He asked confused but also a little nervous. “The last thing I remember is that I was following Twilight who was looking for the Crystal Heart,” he added.

Fluttershy then suddenly started to cry, leading Rarity to comfort her a little and throwing a glare towards Star Twinkle as well. Needless to say, Star Twinkle got confused why she was crying now. “Why is she crying? What happened? Did we managed to save the Crystal Empire?” He began asking out of his confusion.

“No, we didn't! And it's all your fault!” Rarity exclaimed angrily which was probably caused by Fluttershy crying next to her.

“What?” Star Twinkle replied confused. “Why? What did I do?” He asked.

“If it wasn't for you, mister, the Empire could have been saved!” Pinkie Pie replied unlikely angrily.

“What is she talking about? The last thing I remember was looking at this strange door under the castle...wait,”
“Where is Twilight? The last thing I remember was that I was helping her to look for the Crystal Heart,” Star Twinkle explained nervously.

Applejack then walked up to Star Twinkle with a depressed look on her face. “Twilight, as well as Shining Armor, Princess Cadance and the rest of the empire, were all swallowed by the darkness,” she explained, making Star Twinkle's heart skip a beat for a moment. However, she was not finished. “She managed to save us all in time...” she added a little hesitantly.

“What?” Star Twinkle replied quietly with his mouth feeling to get dry because of the shock.

“Yeah! And you were supposed to look after her!” Rainbow Dash then busted out in anger. “But what did you do!? You were the first one to run away after King Sombra was entering the Empire!” She added, now fully snapping at Star Twinkle.

“I did?” Star Twinkle said with fear in his eyes. “I ran away?” He said in disbelieve.

Affected by Rainbow Dash's outburst, the rest of the girls were snapping at Star Twinkle as well and bombarded him with hurtful words.

“It's all your fault!” Applejack exclaimed.

“You coward!” Pinkie Pie said angrily.

“To think that we once called you a friend!” Rarity said almost disgusted.

“You better not show your face in Ponyville ever again!” Rainbow Dash said angrily.

“Just get out of our life!” Fluttershy said in disappointment and sadness.

All those words hammered down on Star Twinkle and made him feel worse by the second. The worst thing is, that he can't even remember anything after meeting Twilight on the bottom of the staircase in the castle.

His friends didn't stop insulting or blaming him for what he apparently did. But the worst thing was that Twilight was not around. He began to think what might have happened to her after King Sombra's attack.
“King Sombra won? Is the Empire gone? What happened to Twilight? Was it really all my fault?” He began to blame himself as well and cowered on the ground burying his face under his hooves out of frustration. He could hear his friends words and just wished that they would stop. Tears were starting to form in his eyes and he closed his eyes, wishing that all that was just a bad nightmare.

Suddenly, some noise made Star Twinkle open his eyes again. He only saw a glimpse of what happened but from the looks of it, there was some kind of magic beam fired at his friends, making them disappear in an instant.

Needless to say, seeing that shocked Star Twinkle and he jumped back a few feet out of shock. “What!?” He said in a panic while he hectically moved his head around and ducking for a moment out of fear that he was about to get hit by whatever that was as well. But there was nothing after that. With fear in his mind, he turned his head around to find out what the cause of this was. This is when he noticed somepony behind him.

He saw himself facing into the other direction, making Star Twinkle only see the back of himself or at least somepony who looked exactly like him.

“Is that me?” It reminded him of the scene he saw at the wedding of Shining Armor and Cadance. There he was seeing himself standing in front of a defeated Princess Celestia. This scene right now was giving him the exact same uncomfortable feeling.

Finally, the pony began to speak. But the words he said only confused him and for some reason send shivers down his back.

“You are me...
And I am you...”

After these words were said, a fire was spreading around Star Twinkle, trapping him in a ring of flames. Star Twinkle quickly panicked but managed to keep his focus on the other pony. The pony slowly turned around and was about to look directly at Star Twinkle but just before his eyes were turning towards Star Twinkle, a voice echoed through his mind.

“Star Twinkle!” The voice said which strongly sounded like Twilight.

...

In an instant, almost abruptly, Star Twinkle found himself back at the bottom of the staircase again with Twilight and Spike next to him.

“Are you alright?” Twilight asked in concern.

“What?” Star Twinkle replied as he inspected his surroundings to make sure where exactly he was right now. He realized that he was in fact, back in the Crystal Empire and not in Ponyville anymore. “But I was in Ponyville just now,” he said still confused about what just happened.

Twilight took it upon herself to explain. She pointed on top of the door which Star Twinkle remembered looking at. ”King Sombra's dark magic. A doorway that leads to your worst fear,”

“My worst fear?” Star Twinkle replied a little muzzled.

“When I looked at this door, I was back in Canterlot. Princess Celestia told me that I failed my test and that I was no longer be able to be her student anymore,” Twilight explained.

“So what I saw was just an illusion?” Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight nodded. “Yes. Don't worry about it anymore,” Twilight assured. “If you don't mind me asking, what did you saw?”

Star Twinkle felt a little embarrassed. He didn't feel like telling her how he was responsible for hurting her. Maybe he was also trying to not show how sad it made him and therefore avoided telling her about it. But that meant that he had to come up with something else.
“I was falling!” He suddenly burst out in a panic.

“Falling?” Twilight asked confused.

“Yeah! You know, through the air! My fear of flying and height!” He Star Twinkle explained further.

While Twilight noticed how weirdly Star Twinkle explained that, she also understood and believed him. “Figures,” she just replied with a little smile on her face.

Star Twinkle was just happy that she bought that lie and let out a small sigh of relief. However, he couldn't just forget what he just saw. "I get what the first thing in this illusion meant...I'm afraid of letting the empire down and losing my friends, right?" He started to think.
"But...why did I saw myself? My greatest fear is...myself?" He wondered, trying to make sense out of what he saw inside of this door.

“Um, guys...” Spike then suddenly spoke up. “Don't we have to find a Crystal Heart?” He pointed out, reminding the two ponies about their current task.

Twilight used her magic on the door, just like before with the throne, causing it to open. When the door opened, the three of them were greeted by another staircase but this time it was going up. Twilight was definitely not looking forward to climbing those. The staircase was pretty much as long as the one before, meaning that it would take a long time until she would reach the top.

“Alright, we wait here. Go and get this Crystal Heart,” Star Twinkle said.

But Twilight hesitated for a moment. She lowered her head in concern and looked over to Star Twinkle and Spike who were both waiting for her to continue. “Maybe you two should come with me, this time?” She asked a little hesitantly.

Judging from what happened a few minutes ago, she was either afraid to continue alone or she maybe understood that Star Twinkle and Spike wanted to help too. Whatever it was, both of them smiled at each other and followed her without a question. Star Twinkle, for example, was just happy that he was allowed to help.

However, a little later he regretted to follow her because there were a lot of stairs to climb. It didn't even feel like as if they way halfway through and Star Twinkle was already exhausted. Twilight and Spike didn't look better as well. Twilight was in front of Star Twinkle and Spike but only because she was eager to finish her test.

“What if this is just more of his magic? He makes a door that leads to your worst nightmare. Why not a staircase that goes on forever?” Spike pointed out. It actually was not unlikely that this would be the case, thought Star Twinkle.

Apparently, Twilight thought so too and came up with an idea. “Hold on to me,” Twilight said, however, before Star Twinkle and Spike could even answer, they were both levitated near her by her magic. She then used another spell which engulfed herself and Spike, who was riding on her back, and Star Twinkle in some kind of light. The next thing, Star Twinkle knew was that he was sliding down the stairs. Twilight must have manipulated gravity or something, thought Star Twinkle.

This sudden change made Star Twinkle panic while Twilight seemed pretty excited.

“I actually studied gravity spells, thinking it might be on my test! Turns out I was prepared for this!” She shouted in her excitement while sliding down the stairs.

“I'm glad that one of us is having fun!” Star Twinkle shouted in a panic.

After some more sliding and screaming, the three of them were about to reach the end. Twilight used that gravitation spell from before once more in time and they found themselves on top of the castle. There they instantly found what they were looking for, the Crystal Heart. It was placed in the middle of the area, floating above the ground over some kind of symbol.

“Finally! Now you just have to bring this thing to Cadance,” Star Twinkle said, trying to make a little more haste since time was getting short.

Twilight slowly walked up towards the Crystal Heart, with her eyes focused on it in excitement. But when she was stepping on the symbol on the ground, some kind of defense mechanism seemed to have been activated. Moments later, some black crystals came shooting out from the ground and surrounded Twilight.

“Twilight!” Star Twinkle said in shock as he tried to walk up to Twilight. But as soon as he got closer to the crystal prison that trapped Twilight, more black crystals emerged from the ground, preventing him from getting closer.

“I'm alright!” Twilight then said from inside the crystal prison. “Where is the Crystal Heart?” She asked out of worry.

“Over here!” Spike then said pointing towards the Crystal Heart which laid close by him.

Twilight must have pushed it out before it got trapped as well.

“It's alright!” Star Twinkle assured. “What about you? Can you get out of there?” He asked.

Star Twinkle then saw how Twilight teleported herself out of the trap only to vanish again. She explained that the magic of King Sombra was preventing her from leaving.

With Twilight being unable to leave her prison there was now no way for her to get the Crystal Heart to the Faire. Star Twinkle was fully aware of that fact and had to convince Twilight that he or Spike had to carry the Heart now. But before he could say anything, Twilight spoke up.

“King Sombra is already attacking the Empire. He could reach the Crystal Ponies at any moment... reach Princess Cadance, my brother, my friends. There may not be enough time for me to find a way to escape,” she fully accepted before she decided to ignore her test. “One of you has to bring the Crystal Heart to the Faire,” she said, making Star Twinkle kind of proud that she was willing to fail her test in order to save everypony.

But there was no time for Star Twinkle to be proud of her now. Time was getting short and the shield around the empire was looking more and more unstable by the second. But despite that, Star Twinkle managed to come up with a plan.
“Twilight, can you teleport one of us below the castle along with the Crystal Heart?” He suggested, in order get the Heart to its original place as fast as possible.

“No, I can't! I tried to focus my magic on the heart but I think King Sombra's magic in here protects the Crystal Heart from any magic,” Twilight explained frustrated.

“You got to be kidding me,” Star Twinkle responded in annoyance. As if things weren't against their favor already.

Star Twinkle looked over the Crystal Empire again and got startled after he saw how the shield was now completely gone. In the distance he could hear a howl, causing him to look over to the direction where it was coming from. Far away in the distance, he could see the black shadow from before, King Sombra. He saw how the Evil Unicorn King was entering the Crystal Empire and how he began to turn it into darkness already.

After seeing how King Sombra entered the empire, Star Twinkle got scared again. “Are we already too late? Even if we start bringing down the heart right now, by the time we get down there, King Sombra would already overrun the entire empire. There is not enough time...” Star Twinkle thought in a panic, letting himself getting overrun by fear again.
“But if that happens...then everypony will be swallowed by darkness...”

He remembered what he saw after looking at that one door at the bottom of the stairs. What he saw there was supposed to be his greatest fear, according to Twilight. But if things continued like this, then his greatest fear was about to become reality. And that scared Star Twinkle even more.

“I don't want things to end like this...
But can I even change anything?
Or...
Am I too afraid to try?
But what if I fail?
It wouldn't make any difference!”

Star Twinkle was arguing with himself in hope that this would somehow help him to get the right answer. He moved his head towards Spike, who was scarred as well. Then he moved his head to Twilight, who could be seen trying to get out of her crystal prison.

“But...
What if I succeed?
What if I CAN make a difference?
All this time I was annoyed by Twilight for focusing on her test more than saving the empire...
Ironically, right now, I want to run away more than anything.
If I was trapped instead of Twilight, then she would not hesitate to try...
But it's me who is free...
And all I can do is...”

“Spike!” Star Twinkle said out of nowhere, startling the little dragon. “You take the Crystal Heart and carry it to the Faire!” He ordered, to which Spike reacted a little surprised because of how serious Star Twinkle seemed.
“Twilight!” Star Twinkle said, getting Twilight's attention. “Can you teleport me under the castle?” He asked in a serious manner.

“I should be but what are you trying to do?” Twilight asked confused.

“You are not trying to run away, are you?” Spike asked in a panic, clearly influenced by his fear.

Twilight quickly gave the little dragon a disapproval look but Star Twinkle didn't care about anything of that.
“Then quick, teleport me out of here!” Star Twinkle demanded very hastily.

“Not until you tell me what you are up to!” Twilight replied while narrowing her eyes as she looked at Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle formed a regretting face before he answered. “Something really stupid...” he replied while he avoided eye contact with Twilight. “I'm not a student of Princess Celestia. I'm not bound to any kind of test and I don't feel the need to fulfill any ponies expectations. No matter how much I think about it, my mind tells me to do only one thing...” Star Twinkle explained.

“And you think that's the right thing to do?” Twilight asked worriedly.

“It is...” Star Twinkle replied with a serious tone in his voice.

Twilight was having a hard time to not worry about Star Twinkle's words and rather would have liked to have a longer conversation but she was aware that time was getting short so all she could do is trust Star Twinkle now.
“All right, but whatever you are up to, please be careful...” she said before she started to concentrate some magic in her horn.

Star Twinkle prepared himself for the teleportation spell and closed his eyes. Only seconds later, he found himself under the castle, right next to the fake Crystal Heart. He looked over into the distance and saw King Sombra approaching the castle. The shadow started to vanish and instead revealed the Unicorn king in his true form. He had a dark gray coat, a black mane, red eyes, a curved sharp red horn and sharp teeth. He also wore a silver armor which had a red cape attached to it. King Sombra was riding a crystal that grew out of the ground and got quickly closer to the castle.

“Here he comes,” Star Twinkle said in fear because he turned to the fake Crystal Heart and grabbing it before he walked towards King Sombra with the heart in his hoof.
“I could run now...but if I would do that, how could I ever face anypony?
They all work so hard to save this empire without a guaranty for succeeding and all I can do is think is to run away...
But if I would do that, then what I saw inside of that door could become reality...
I don't want that! I have to try buying some time for everyone! Even if it's not much! Even if it is just one second!” Star Twinkle thought, full of determination as he walked towards the evil Unicorn King.

Meanwhile, the rest of his friends tried to calm down the Crystal Ponies from inside the balcony of the castle since everypony by now was aware that King Sombra was inside the empire. However, they had a hard time to get most ponies to even listen to them and felt like that they only had to depend on Twilight finding the Crystal Heart. But while they tried t speak with the ponies, they noticed how Star Twinkle was running towards King Sombra.

“Is that Star Twinkle?” Rarity exclaimed as she pointed towards him, making the other aware of him too.

“What is he trying to do?” Rainbow Dash wondered.

“And what is he planning to do with that fake Crystal Heart?” Applejack wondered as she spotted the heart in Star Twinkle's hoof.

Star Twinkle stopped in his track before he got too close to King Sombra and took some deep breaths before he shouted at the Unicorn.
“Sombra! Look what I got!” He said as he presented the fake Crystal Heart above his head.

King Sombra noticed the Earth Pony and looked towards him. As soon as he saw what Star Twinkle had in his hooves, his eyes widened and he clenched his teeth. Seconds later, he charged towards Star Twinkle while riding his crystal on the ground.

“It worked!” Star Twinkle grinned for a moment before he turned around again and walking away from the castle with the fake Crystal Heart in his hoof. “He actually believes this is the real one! Now I just have to keep him busy for as long as possible!”

Star Twinkle never ran as fast in his life before. He didn't care what would happen if King Sombra would catch up to him. Right now, he was almost happy that his plan worked and that he was able to buy some time.

To make sure that King Sombra was still following him, Star Twinkle took a look behind him. But to his surprise, nopony was behind him. “What!? Where is he?” He wondered.

Suddenly, the ground began to shake in front of him, causing him to lose his balance and stumble, dropping the fake Crystal Heart in the process. When he got up again, he quickly looked for the heart and tried to pick it up again but to his shock, there was somepony standing right in front of it.

It was King Sombra who looked at the heart with an angry look on his face after he noticed that this wasn't the real Crystal Heart. Realizing that he was tricked by Star Twinkle, the Evil Unicorn King glared over to the Earth-Pony, sending down shivers on Star Twinkle's back. King Sombra then focused some magic in his horn and his eyes began to turn green while releasing this strange purple mist again.

Star Twinkle was breathing heavily by this sight and tripped over, landing on his back. He tried to crawl away but seeing this intimidating pony in front of him paralyzed him and made him unable to move.

“I'm scared!” Star Twinkle was the first thing Star Twinkle was thinking after looking at King Sombra, who was clearly not amused by this trick that Star Twinkle tried to pull off.
“I need to run!” Star Twinkle thought with his knees beginning to shake now.
King Sombra was about to fire at Star Twinkle and clenched his teeth in anger before he finally shot straight at Star Twinkle.
“Someone help me!” Were the last thoughts that Star Twinkle was thinking before he closed his eyes in fear and covering his eyes with his hooves, trying to protect himself from the incoming impact.

It was quiet.
It felt as time was not moving at this moment.
But there were some familiar words that Star Twinkle heard.

“You are me...
And I am you...”

There was no pain.
There was no impact.
Nothing seemed to have happened.
But something should have happened.
Star Twinkle wondered if King Sombra missed and if he got lucky to escape him for a few more seconds.
He slowly opened his eyes, despite being afraid of what he would see next.

White colors...
He was seeing white colors in front of him after he lowered his hoof which was still in front of his face. Behind this white colors stood King Sombra who widened his eyes in surprise but also in anger.

After he focused his thoughts again, Star Twinkle finally realized what was going on.

“A shield?” He said quietly as he noticed that he was just protected by some kind of spell that somepony was casting to protect him. The question was who it was. Star Twinkle looked around but couldn't see anypony in sight and wondered who was responsible for that. He looked in every direction, his left, his right, behind him, up, and even down. When he looked down he instantly saw how something was off. He saw his shadow on the ground but it looked slightly off. There was something on his head that stuck out. Naturally, Star Twinkle moved his hoof towards his head to find out what it was.
“What!?” He said shocked after he realized what it was. He never touched one before but the shape and the position of it made it obvious what exactly it was.

A horn.

There was a horn coming out of Star Twinkle's head, surrounded by a white aura which had the same color as the shield around him, meaning that right now, he was the one casting this shield spell.

Of course, there were a million questions in Star Twinkle's head right now but those went away after the shield disappeared again, leaving Star Twinkle vulnerable again. King Sombra wasted no time and prepared another spell to shot at Star Twinkle.

Right now, Star Twinkle was actually too confused to be scared and managed to avoid the beam of magic that King Sombra fired at him by jumping to the side and falling to the ground.
“Alright! I have a horn! This just happened! So please do something!” Star Twinkle said in a panic while he poked his horn in order to make it work.

King Sombra, again, fired another spell in his anger. Star Twinkle noticed the incoming danger and closed his eyes in fear but luckily his horn began to glow and he teleported out of the way in time and appeared behind King Sombra, who was starting to lose his patience. Star Twinkle only just now realized what happened and released a sigh in relief.

King Sombra was about to shot at Star Twinkle again but his attention was grabbed by something else. Star Twinkle wondered what it might have been and turned around. He saw Spike walking down the castle on some black crystals with the Crystal Heart in his claws.

Spike must have been on his way to bring the Crystal Heart down to the Faire. But the problem was, King Sombra noticed him so he instantly created another crystal under his hoof and charged in direction of the castle.

Star Twinkle couldn't let him go after getting so far so he followed the Unicorn King. Unfortunately, Star Twinkle was only able to keep up with him but didn't manage to get ahead of him. He concentrated a little in order to fire a magic beam, which was a lot harder than he imagined.
“Come on, work! I don't know where you came from but you have to work now!” He said in frustration as he practically begged for his horn to work. Moments later, it actually did fire a beam towards King Sombra, making him stagger a little and giving Star Twinkle the chance to get ahead of him.

The Unicorn King was starting to get annoyed by Star Twinkle and fired another beam of magic towards him. Luckily, they were missing him and made him keep his little lead. However, King Sombra was getting sick of this interference and focused a little more magic than usual and prepared to take Star Twinkle out this time.

Star Twinkle didn't notice anything of that and only concentrated on Spike, who slowly made his way down the castle. But for him, it was hard to move down since the crystals he was walking on were keep growing and made it hard for him to move. Eventually, they made Spike stumble and he fell down with the Crystal Heart in his claws.

“Spikey-Whikey!” Rarity said in shock after watching Spike fall down the castle.

“Spike!” Star Twinkle exclaimed in shock as well when he saw him falling down.

Moments later, Star Twinkle heard some noises behind him and turned his head around to find out that a magic beam was fired towards him. However, it came so sudden that Star Twinkle had no chance of avoiding it in time. Luckily, the beam didn't hit him directly but instead the ground right in front of him, causing the area to be filled with smoke because of the impact of the spell, making Star Twinkle vanish inside of it.

Confident that King Sombra finally managed to get rid of Star Twinkle, he released a grin before he then focused on Spike again.

Meanwhile, something was moving inside of the smoke cloud. In fact, something came shooting right out of it. It was Star Twinkle who had his eyes closed out of fear. He opened them again after he realized that he was unharmed. But the strange thing was that he wasn't feeling like as if he was moving his legs. And he also was a little more above the ground. He looked behind himself and noticed what was going on now.

He had wings...

“I'm flying? I'm flying!” He said in his surprise after this realization until he put some more thoughts into it.
“Wait a minute...
I'm flying? I'm flying!” He repeated in shock because of his fear of flying as he put his hooves on his head out of frustration. “Huh?” He said after another realization. His horn was gone now, confusing him even more. But right he couldn't worry about that because Spike was still falling down the castle and Star Twinkle had now the right “things” to save him in time.

Star Twinkle managed to catch Spike in midair who was mighty surprised to see him up in the air.
“Whoa! Star Twinkle, since when can you fly?” Was obviously the first question the little dragon asked in his confusion.

“I have no idea!” Star Twinkle replied while avoiding to look down to the ground.

King Sombra, again, did not approve of Star Twinkle's interference and fired multiple shots at him. Despite flying for the first time, Star Twinkle managed to dodged every beam while Spike clung into him to not fall off.

“We need to get under the castle!” Spike said in a panic.

“I'm trying!” Star Twinkle replied in a panic as well.

He was flying towards the center under the castle where the fake heart was before but then suddenly, his wings disappeared in midair and caused him to fall towards the ground which caused him and Spike to abruptly land on the ground.

King Sombra was not far away and stood next to the two as they laid on the ground, still trying to get up. The Unicorn King focused his eyes on the crystal Heart and was about to walk up to it but he got confused once it was levitated above the ground.

Star Twinkle looked over to the heart as well and realized that it was Princess Cadance who was levitating the heart and looked over to King Sombra.
“The Crystal Heart has returned. Use the light and love within you to ensure that King Sombra does not,” she said before she placed the Crystal Heart to its rightful place under the castle.

The Crystal ponies then gathered around the castle and bowed down which caused the streets of the empire to be filled with a bright light. The light soon returned to the heart which caused a powerful light to be released throughout the whole empire. As soon as the light passed Star Twinkle, his coat and his mane changed to a Crystal Pony similar appearance. He quickly figured that the same was happening with everypony else. The light also removed the dark crystals that were created by King Sombra. And of course, King Sombra was affected by it too. First some cracks appeared all over his body but eventually, he screamed in anger and the light caused him to burst into pieces, meaning that he was finally defeated and that the empire was safe.

Another light emerged from the Crystal Heart and shot out towards the sky, removing every little bit of darkness that surrounded the empire.

After all that happened, Star Twinkle dropped to the ground out of exhaustion and was just relieved that everything was over. Spike, who was standing right next to him, got worried and walked over to him. “Are you alright?” He asked in concern.

“I'm fine...just a little tired...” he replied in his exhaustion.

He wasn't clearly aware of his surroundings yet but he soon heard cheers from all over the empire.
“Everypony is cheering? Figures, they must be happy that they are safe now...” he thought before he looked around the area.

But what he saw was quite surprising. Everypony was looking towards him and Spike while cheering loudly. No matter where he looked at, everypony was smiling at him and continue to scream cheers towards him.

“Are they cheering for us? For me?” He thought in surprise.

“Star Twinkle!” A voice shrieked at him before he was approached by his friends, who were crystallized as well. “That was amazing!” Pinkie Pie shrieked once more jumping into the air in her excitement.

Rarity quickly rushed to Spike and hugged him out of worry while the others walked up to Star Twinkle.

“Are you alright?” Fluttershy asked in concern.

“Did I imagine things or were you flying just now?” Rainbow Dash asked puzzled.

It was only a matter of time until somepony would ask questions but unfortunately, Star Twinkle didn't have any answers for that. “I can honestly say, that I have no idea what just happened...” He could only reply to Rainbow Dash's question.

A little later...

The Crystal Empire was safe and the Crystal Ponies were crystallized again. The Crystal Heart was in its original place and protected the empire and King Sombra was gone as well. So the job of Star Twinkle and his friends was done and they could return home to let Princess Cadance and Shining Armor take care of the situation.

The group was exiting the Crystal Empire with Princess Cadance and Shining Armor accompanying them. With the Empire returning to its former glory, Princess Cadance and Shining Armor returned to it as soon as possible to take care of the Crystal Ponies for a while.

This gave Twilight the chance to speak with Star Twinkle about the recent events and more importantly, her test. “Good job, Star Twinkle,” Twilight congratulated. “You really did it, even after things became more stressful at the end. I mean, some of the girls even thought they saw you flying,” she said amused followed by some giggles.

“Yeah...crazy, am I right?” Star Twinkle replied, not bothering to tell her that that actually happened.

“I just wish, I could have been as successful as you were...” she added, lowering her head towards the ground.

“You mean your test?” Star Twinkle guessed, to which Twilight nodded in response.
“I'm sure she will let you redo the test if you explain things to her,” Star Twinkle assured in order to cheer Twilight up again.

“I'm afraid, I won't get another chance..” Twilight responded with a frown on her face.

Star Twinkle didn't know what to say to that since he wasn't sure how Princess Celestia would respond to what happened here. All he could do was to wait until they would return to Canterlot.

Later in Canterlot...

The group waited in front of the castle while Twilight was inside, to speak with Princess Celestia about her test. Everypony was nervous about if Twilight passed or not, especially Spike.

“Keep it together, buddy... Gotta stay strong... for Twilight...” He kept saying to himself while walking up and down nervously.

Naturally, Star Twinkle wondered about the result as well. Twilight was sent to the empire in order to save it. The empire was saved and that is what was important. But the question was if Princess Celestia was seeing that too.

Eventually, after some waiting, Twilight stepped out of the door and formed a smile on her face.
“I passed!” She said with a smile on her face, causing all her friends to cheer in happiness and relief.

Everypony quickly walked up to her and the girls hugged her out of relief and happiness.

“Yeah, I knew everything was going to be fine,” Spike said which was obviously a lie.

Apparently, Princess Celestia was proud of Twilight that she was ignoring her test for the sake of saving the empire and said that Twilight fully deserved to pass the test.

Star Twinkle would lie if he said that he wasn't relieved as well. After all, everything else was turning out good too.
“Congratulation,” Star Twinkle said to which Twilight reacted with a bright smile on her face.

Later in Ponyville...

After everything was done, Star Twinkle just wanted to return home. He needed a break after everything that happened today. And now that he was alone, he finally had time to figure out what happened to him in the Crystal Empire. But no matter how long he thought about it, there was no explanation that he could find.

“A horn...and two wings....why did I had a horn at one time and two wings at another? What happened to me?” He mumbled to himself confused.

He lifted one of his hooves and kept staring at it for a while.

“You are me...and I am you?” He repeated to himself, remembering the words that he heard before all that.
“I am me...right?” He said quietly.

“There you are!” Steel Hammer said, causing Star Twinkle to snap out of his thoughts. He came walking towards Star Twinkle with a smug smile on his face. “You are back! So what was it this time? What kind of adventure happened to you today?” He asked eager to find out what happened.

Star Twinkle remembered the conversation that he had earlier this day and actually wasted no time to explain everything.
“Well, I sorta saved an entire empire which was gone for a thousand years and helped to defeat some evil Unicorn king,” he casually explained, making Steel Wing form a confused look on his face.

“Well, you have to tell me more about that!” Steel Hammer said before he put one hoof on Star Twinkle's shoulder.

Since Steel Hammer, wouldn't give up until he would hear the whole story, Star Twinkle started to tell everything from the very beginning as they walked through Ponyville. Even if it would mean that he would return to his home a little later.

55. Too much Fun!

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“A horn...two wings...
I'm an Earth Pony, right? Why would I have a horn or wings?
What does all that mean?
Why does something like that happen to me?
And why was I so scared when I saw myself in this illusion, back then in the Crystal Empire?”

Those questions bothered Star Twinkle since the events in the Crystal Empire. As if he didn't have enough questions, when it came to his element, now there was something else that bothered him.

“Star Twinkle?” Steel Hammer asked, finally getting him out of his deep thoughts.

“Huh?” Star Twinkle replied absent minded as he looked at Steel Hammer.

“Are you alright?” Steel Hammer asked out of his worry while he walked up to Star Twinkle.

“What? Yeah, of course, I am alright,” Star Twinkle replied, trying to hide his worries as much as possible.

“Well, you are hammering one single nail into a board for the last five minutes...” Steel Hammer said while he pointed at the board that Star Twinkle was working on, making Star Twinkle realize that as well and make a flustered face.

Star Twinkle found himself daydreaming a lot in the last days. It was also not the first time since somepony grabbed his attention while he was in deep thoughts. But it's not like he could just forget what happened a few days ago.
Since he didn't want Steel Hammer to worry anymore, he just focused on his work again. That was until somepony interrupted and startled him.

“Hi!” Pinkie Pie shrieked as she greeted Star Twinkle. ”What are you doing? Something fun?” She asked curiously.

“I wouldn't consider working to be fun...” Star Twinkle replied.

“Oh! Too bad! See you then!” She instantly replied before she vanished again in rapid speed, leaving the two Earth-Pony confused.

“What was that just now?” Steel Hammer asked puzzled.

“Well, it's Pinkie Pie so as usual, I have no idea...” Star Twinkle said as he is now used to her random behavior.

While he didn't know what exactly this was about, this sudden encounter with Pinkie Pie did distract Star Twinkle from his previous thoughts a little. Though her sudden appearance and disappearance were kinda weird...

Later...

Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer continued their work in the Iron Hammer. Star Twinkle was on his way inside of the workshop with a cart full of wood and steel inside of it and attempted to go inside.
But suddenly, a pink flash ran past him and caused him to fall to the ground scattering all the wood and metal on the ground, much to Steel Hammer's dislike who dropped his jaw as he realized that they have to clean up this mess later.

After Star Twinkle got up again, surprisingly not being hurt by all of this, he looked past him to find out what just ran past him. It was Pinkie Pie again, who wore a watch around her neck which she checked after stopping in her track.

“Pinkie!” Star Twinkle exclaimed a little annoyed, causing her to look at him in surprise. “What are you doing?”

“Just timing myself galloping back and forth between the swimming hole and Sweet Apple Acres,” she replied as she bounced towards Star Twinkle.

“Why?” Star Twinkle asked.

“I was invited to spend time with Rainbow Dash, but I also was asked by Applejack to help to raise a barn this afternoon. So now I'm trying to cut some time so that I can go to Sweet Apple Acres to help with the barn raising after Rainbow Dash dived off the swing and before she lands in the water again! I only have to cut my time by twenty minutes,“ she explained excitedly but the last sentence made it clear that she seemed a little desperate.

Steel Hammer overheard the conversation between the two Earth-Ponies and felt to add something.
“Well, I'm not some fancy mathematician but I'm pretty sure that's impossible,” Steel Hammer said while he collected the scattered materials on the ground.

“I know!” Pinkie Pie cried out in frustration while she laid her hooves on Star Twinkle's shoulders. “But what am I supposed to do!? I don't want to miss out the fun of any of those!” She said in frustration as she shook Star Twinkle back in forth.

After Pinkie Pie was done with her lamenting, Star Twinkle couldn't help but smirk a little, even though he knows that it wasn't very nice. Pinkie Pie noticed and widened her eyes in confusion.
“What's so funny?” She asked confused. “There is nothing funny about missing out fun!” She exclaimed as she hectically waved her legs around flustered.

“Sorry, I just find it funny that you, for once can't make the impossible possible,”

“And what is that suppose to mean,” she replied as she put her hooves on her flanks in an almost serious manner.

“You know, you have this Pinkie Sense which kinda lets you predict the future. Not to mention all this other random features that nopony possess. So I wouldn't be surprised if you were able to be at multiple places at the same time. But I guess that's even impossible for you...” Star Twinkle explained while he kept a small smile on his face because of Pinkie Pie's frustration.

Pinkie Pie had an almost thinking stare on her face. This looked very unusual to Star Twinkle. She then suddenly, smiled widely. “That's it!” She said excitedly. “Star Twinkle, you're a genius!” She exclaimed happily while she pressed Star Twinkle's cheek together.

“I am?” He replied confused before Pinkie Pie released him again and left and ran away to who knows where.

Star Twinkle was confused and watched the pink pony running off into the distance while he wondered what exactly she was planning. But since it didn't have anything to do with him in the first place, he decided to not worry about it anymore and continued his work. Or to be more precise: cleaning up the mess that Pinkie Pie caused.

Later...

It was closing time in the Iron Hammer and Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer prepared everything to close the workshop. Star Twinkle put away some tools into a nearby cart, one by one until he realized how a familiar pony bounced its way towards him. Of course, it was Pinkie Pie. Knowing her for a while now, Star Twinkle figured that she would go the extreme to wait for Star Twinkle until he finished his work so that she could spend time with him. At least that's what he gathered from her because all she said was: Fun! Over and over again.

“Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!” Star Twinkle heard while he saw Pinkie Pie bouncing past him.

“Hi, Pinkie Pie,” Star Twinkle casually greeted while he continued his work.

“Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!” He heard once again as Pinkie Pie was bouncing past him again.

“Pinkie, I am preparing to finish off work so please wait a little,” he said while still continuing his work.

“Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!” He heard once more while Pinkie Pie bounced past him.

“Yes, Pinkie Pie, I know you don't want to miss out fun and all but...” he replied while he continued his work.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle realized that he greeted Pinkie Pie probably a little too often and looked back to the direction where he Pinkie Pie went. It was then that he noticed that there was not one but at least five Pinkie Pie's.

“What in the name of Celestia!?” Star Twinkle said in confusion after seeing multiple Pinkie Pie's going crazy all over the Iron Hammer.

When Steel Hammer walked out of the workshop, with a hammer in his mouth, he instantly dropped it because his jaw dropped in confusion. The two Earth-Ponies tried their best to stop this pink madness but they had a hard time even getting their attention. The word “Fun” could be heard the entire time and it drove Star Twinkle almost crazy. He always thought that Pinkie Pie, at times could be a little hard to endure but this was just too much.

“Make them stop!” He shouted annoyed while he covered his ears.

Meanwhile, Steel Hammer tried his best to prevent the pink ponies from causing more havoc on his workshop.
“If they stay here any longer, then the Iron Hammer will be totally destroyed!” Steel Hammer exclaimed in his frustration. “I don't even get it! What's so fun about this place?” He wondered.

After those words, an idea popped up in Star Twinkle's head.“That's it!” He said. “Though I don't know if that will work,” he added with hesitation while rubbing his chin.

“Just DO it!” Steel Hammer exclaimed frustrated, prompting Star Twinkle to at least try.

Star Twinkle realized that it was worth a shot since things couldn't possibly get any worse and climbed on a table in front of the workshop before he tried to get the attention of the Pinkie Pie's.

“Hey! I think heard something fun coming from this direction!” He shouted while he pointed into some random direction away from the Iron Hammer.

“Fun?” Every single one of the Pinkie Pie's said at the same time as they looked at Star Twinkle, making him feel a little intimidated.

But to his surprise, all of the Pinkie Pie's bounced into the direction of where Star Twinkle pointed at and left the Iron Hammer in one piece.

“I can't believe that worked...” he mumbled to himself before he jumped down from the table. “I'm gonna find out where all those Pinkie Pie's are coming from!” He informed Steel Hammer as he rushed towards some place where he would find out what happened.

“You'll do that!” Steel Hammer saluted happily but he soon realized something which made him form a worried facial expression. “Wait! Does that mean that I have to clean all this on my own!?” He exclaimed towards Star Twinkle after realizing how messed up the whole place looked after the Pinkie Pie's rampaged through it.

Star Twinkle ran towards the Golden Oak Library. If he knew one thing, then it was that not even Pinkie Pie could duplicate herself out of nowhere. But he had a guess what might have created them.
Magic.
For that, he was instantly looking for Twilight. She might know how those Pinkie Pie's came into existence or maybe she was even responsible for it. It was the best thing he could do right now.

But soon he found out that he wasn't the only one who came to this conclusion because there was a massive crowd in front of the Golden Oak Library demanding some answers from Twilight as well.
Star Twinkle quickly found his friends among the crowd who seemed to be either upset or angry.
It was obvious that those Pinkie Pie's were not just rampaging in the Iron Hammer, judging by the words of everypony. Apparently, they also raged through Carousel Boutique and Sweet Apple Acres.

Twilight was inside so instead of waiting outside with the angry crowd, Star Twinkle decided to get inside so that he would find out more from Twilight herself. Once he entered the library, he saw how Twilight and Spike were going through multiple books, most likely trying to find an answer.

Spike looked over to Star Twinkle while he handed down some books to Twilight. “Star Twinkle! Let me guess, A bunch of Pinkie Pie's?” He asked, even though he knew exactly that this was most likely the case.

“Any idea where they came from?” Star Twinkle asked, quickly getting to the point.

“I have a slight guess...” Twilight said while she scanned through her books. “But for that, I have to remember the name of that legend she mentioned,”

Star Twinkle had no idea what Twilight was talking about but he did remember how Pinkie Pie was thanking him for giving her some kind of idea what she was about to do about her “missing out of fun” problem.

After hearing what Twilight was looking for, Star Twinkle tried to find a book as well. He scanned through the bookshelves one by one until he found some kind of button on the wall which was shaped like a hoof. Wondering why there was something like this inside of one of the shelves, he decided to press it. It then revealed a book behind a fake wall which Star Twinkle took out for Twilight to check.

She quickly looked through the book and as it turns out, it was the right one. “Aha, here it is! "The legend of the Mirror Pond. After saying some words at the pool, you are able to fully duplicate yourself," she explained before she read further for a solution. "... It describes a spell I can use to send them back where they came from!” Twilight said happily.

“Alright, then let's go,” Star Twinkle said so that this mess could be cleaned up as fast as possible.

“But there's a catch,” Twilight suddenly pointed out as she continued looking through the book.
“If I can't figure out which one's the real Pinkie, I might send her back by mistake!” She said in shock of this realization.

“That might be a problem,” Star Twinkle replied with a worried expression on his face.
“But it should be alright as long as we find the real Pinkie Pie, right?” He said, trying to find something positive about this situation.

“Shouldn't be that hard,” Spike said optimistic before he opened the door.

Twilight didn't reply to this. Maybe she didn't know the answer herself. They both walked out of the library and Twilight turned to the crowd of ponies who still stood in front of the library.
“Does anypony here know how we can tell the real Pinkie Pie from all the rest of them?” Twilight asked the crowd to which they all replied with confusion.

“Twilight! I have to talk to you, I need your help!” One of the Pinkie Pie's said as she stepped out of the crowd.

“Excuse me, whoever you are, but I'm not talking to any of you Pinkies unless you're the real Pinkie,” Twilight replied as she focused on her current task.

“Oh, but, but I am the real Pinkie!” She quickly replied.

Of course, she would say that, thought Star Twinkle. They all would. In fact, after one of them assured that she was the real one, every other Pinkie Pie did the same. So of course, it was impossible to tell which one was the real one based on their words alone.

“How in tarnation are we supposed to tell which is the real Pinkie?” Applejack asked Twilight in order for her to come up with an idea.

“I have no idea,” Twilight replied confused.

With so many Pinkie Pie's running around in Ponyville and all of them saying “Fun” over and over again, It was impossible to find out which one of them was the real one. But Star Twinkle and Twilight had to hurry if they didn't want the town to be totally destroyed.

“Ugh, this is hopeless!” Twilight released in her frustration as she thought about a way to solve this problem.

“And it also starts to get really annoying...” Star Twinkle said who started to get annoyed by the constant “Fun!” Shouting of the Pinkie Pie's.

“Maybe that one's the real Pinkie,” Spike casually said as he pointed to an overly depressed Pinkie Pie who was sitting on a table with her head on it in depression.

“Please. The real Pinkie Pie never sat that long in one place her whole life!” Twilight pointed out which made a good amount of sense. Even in the most serious situations, Pinkie Pie was always acting like herself despite being exposed to great danger or conflicts.

“I'm gonna go ask,” Spike said as he walked over to this Pinkie Pie.

“Of course she's gonna say she's the real Pinkie! They all do! You're wasting your time,” Twilight said after him but the little dragon was already on his way and didn't hear her.

Star Twinkle began to think about this spell that Twilight wanted to use against the Pinkie Pie's and had to admit that it worried him.
“Is there no other reason to deal with all these Pinkie Pie's?” He asked which confused Twilight a little, especially since Star Twinkle said that they were annoying a minute ago.
“I mean, you said that if we have to find the real Pinkie in order to not send her back to the pond...
I would feel horrible, knowing that we send the wrong one away...” He added with a frown on his face. However, his worry was quickly overshadowed by Twilight's worry on her face which Star Twinkle quickly realized, causing him to nervously diffuse this situation.
“I mean, not that I would blame you if you would send the wrong one away or...” He said hastily in order to not put any more pressure on Twilight.

“If we don't do anything about this Pinkie Pie's then there will soon be nothing left of Ponyville. So I'm afraid that I have to take this risk...” Twilight replied while she looked down on the ground. “That is why we have to make sure to find the real one fast!” She added but this time with determination in her eyes.

Of course, Star Twinkle was very well aware of that but it didn't give him an answer for the situation.
“But how?” Star Twinkle asked.

Meanwhile, Spike returned after asking the Pinkie on the table if she was the real one. It was no surprise that he couldn't make it if she was the one, making him a little sad. “I miss the real Pinkie,” he said before his head dropped down in frustration.

Suddenly, the Pinkie Pie on the table spoke up to the three and came up with something that sounded like a decent plan.
“Hey. Hey! What if you gave them a test? Pick something really hard for a Pinkie to do, something not fun at all! Any Pinkie that can't do it goes back into the pond. But whoever wants to stay the most, that must be the real Pinkie!” She explained.

The three didn't bother to pay too much attention to her words but it still stuck in their heads.

“That Pinkie Pie makes a really good point,” Star Twinkle admitted.

After giving some more thoughts about it Twilight agreed with that idea as well. “It's worth a shot!” She replied as if it actually could work.

It was not like as if they had any other idea anyway. The plan was to gather all the Pinkie Pie's up into the Town Hall and give them a test that was everything but fun. Applejack and her family helped to gather them all up while Star Twinkle and the rest of his friends prepared everything.

Soon, Applejack arrived with every Pinkie Pie and brought them inside so that the test could start.
Twilight took it upon herself to explain everything.

“Welcome, Pinkies, welcome. Please have a seat and make yourselves comfortable,” she started but nopony listened to her as expected. All the Pinkie Pie's were hopping around and said “Fun!” Over and over again.
“Okay, I suppose you can't be comfortable staying in one place, but have a seat anyway,” she continued but the Pinkie's once again paid no attention to Twilight.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle was blocking his ears because of all the “Fun!” screaming inside of the room. It was obvious that it was getting on his nerves really quick, causing him to clench his teeth in annoyance. Eventually, he couldn't take it anymore.
“Be quiet!” He screamed throughout the room, causing all the Pinkie Pie's to finally pay attention.
“Sit down!” He then said angrily to which the Pinkie Pie's instantly sat down with their heads focused on him.

“Thank you, Star Twinkle,” Twilight said, while she slowly pushed Star Twinkle out of the picture before he would do something that he would regret.
“Now, I suppose you're all wondering why I've gathered you all here today,”
Fun was obviously the first thing that one of the Pinkie's guess, but of course, the complete opposite was the case.
“Actually, it's the complete opposite,” Twilight replied.
“Pinkies, you've been brought here to take a test,” she then informed, causing all of the Pinkie Pie's to get nervous.
“Don't worry, it's a simple test, about as simple as they come, and whoever passes gets to stay,” Twilight assured which actually sounded not too assuring if you knew how it would end for all of them except one.

Twilight then gave a signal to her friends to open up a curtain behind her to reveal the test. A wall was revealed in front of everypony with fresh painted blue paint on it.

“The test... will be watching paint dry!” Twilight said in excitement, which was the complete opposite reaction of how the Pinkie Pie's reacted.

Just the thought of doing that for five minutes was impossible for Star Twinkle and he was used to doing boring stuff before he met his friends. But given that Pinkie Pie is the one who had to take the test, it was probably even worse for her.

“On your mark, get set, go!” Twilight announced as she started the test.

All the Pinkie Pie's immediately focused on the wall and from then it was only a matter of time until they would think that it was too boring and started to focus on anything else.

“Ooh, this is so exciting!” Spike said in excitement with popcorn in his claws.

“Is it?” Star Twinkle thought confused as he looked over to the little dragon in disbelieve. He probably never saw paint drying before.

A little later...

“Okay, maybe not that exciting,” Spike said after he finally realized that he was wrong.

“Yes, who would have thought that watching paint dry was boring...” Star Twinkle said sarcastically in an annoyed tone after Spike's realization.

“How long is this suppose to go? I mean how long has it been since we started?” Spike asked while he ate his last pieces of Popcorn.

Star Twinkle looked over to a clock that hung on the wall in order to answer Spike's question before he turned to him again. ”Two minutes...” He said a little bored to which Spike replied with a really long groan of frustration.

It was incredibly boring to wait for the Pinkie's to finally get distracted. All he and his friends could do was wait silently in the corner. The only other thing that they could do was joining them to watch the paint dry but that would have been even more boring.

Eventually, some things started to happen which finally speed up things a little. One of the Pinkie's looked away to the window and saw a bird flying by which instantly grabbed her attention.

“Oh, hey, look a birdie!” She said excitedly.

This caused Twilight to instantly focus her spell on this Pinkie, which made her blow up like a balloon before she was flying away, probably returning to the Mirror Pool.

Of course, the first thing that came to Star Twinkle's mind was that this hopefully wasn't the real Pinkie Pie. Even this solution wasn't all waterproof when it came to determining the real one after all. If The real Pinkie Pie wasn't careful enough, then Twilight would send her away without realizing. This suddenly made the whole process look kind of dangerous. But they came this far so there was no turning back now.

The Pinkie's started to get distracted by the littlest things, bouncing to the ceiling or watching one of the Pinkie's doing some random stuff. And every time one of the pinkie ponies looked away from the wall, Twilight readied her spell and sent them back to the mirror pool.

Star Twinkle was happy that there were less Pinkie Pie's left now and thought that it wouldn't take too long from now. But still, it was a little boring to just wait so he scattered his eyes through the whole room out of boredom. When his eyes looked out of the window, he saw something that caused him to get a little puzzled.

“Is that...a frog crossed with an orange?” Star Twinkle wondered confused as he looked out of the window after seeing an orange with frog legs outside. This grabbed the attention of some of the Pinkie's who instantly looked out of the window as well.

“Cool!” One of them said.

“Where?” Another one added.

Needless to say, both of them were shot at by Twilight's magic and sent back to the Mirror Pool as well.

More and more Pinkie Pie's were sent away after a bunch of random stuff that distracted them from looking at the wall. The strange thing was the things got weirder and almost creepy as time went on.

“Look what I can do with my hooves!” Before she blew into one of her hooves to make some kind of fingers pop out in her other hoof.

Star Twinkle made a puzzled face after that, admitting that it was a little crazy, even for Pinkie Pie. However, it was nothing compared what he saw another Pinkie Pie doing later.

“Betcha can't make a face crazier than...this!” Another one did a few seconds later before she literally remodeled her entire face to make her look like some kind of abstract or rather creepier version of herself.

Star Twinkle was shivering after he saw this looked in shock. Thankfully, Twilight send this Pinkie Pie away immediately, making Star Twinkle feel a little relieved. Things started to get a little too weird in his opinion and that's saying a lot when it comes to Pinkie Pie.

Eventually, only two Pinkie Pie's remained to stare at the wall so it was not long until the real one was left. Hopefully...
They both continued to not get distracted by anything and focused on the wall. This continued for a good amount of time until Rainbow Dash reached her limit.
“Ugh, I can't take it anymore!” She said bored before she speed up things. “Somepony's making balloon animals!” She said to which one of the Pinkie Pie's reacted after a while.

“What? Where?” She said before Twilight sent her away with her spell.

This only left one single Pinkie Pie who kept staring at the wall. She probably didn't even realized that she was the only one left. However, even if this was the last one, it didn't entirely prove if it was just luck or not so Star Twinkle tried to make sure and walked up to her.

“I heard they are giving away free cupcakes in Sugarcube Corner!” He said directly to her.

But Pinkie Pie didn't even attempted to look away and kept her eyes looked at the wall. The rest of Star Twinkle's friends also walked up to her and were confident that this was the real one so Twilight ended the test with a good feeling in her mind.

“Pinkie, you can look away now,” Twilight said, causing Pinkie Pie to nervously reply.

“I passed?” She replied while she covered her eyes out of fear that Twilight might shot her magic at her.

“You passed. You're the only Pinkie who kept staring at the wall,” Twilight replied.

“I had to. I just had to. I couldn't leave my friends, I just couldn't. But I guess sometimes I will have to choose between them,” she said in relief after everything was finally over and Pinkie Pie learned her lesson.

Everypony could finally go home and was relieved that there was only one pink pony who was left in Ponyville. And that was enough after all. Twilight took care to seal the cave with the Mirror Pool inside of it so that nopony would come across of it ever again.

Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie were walking in the same direction when they went home with Pinkie Pie bouncing next to Star Twinkle happily. She almost acted like all the other Pinkie Pie's, making her look like the rest of them.

“You better be the real one,” Star Twinkle said almost amused as he inspected Pinkie Pie's behavior.

“I am! I'm sure of that!” She replied confidently.”Though it would be weird if I wasn't...” She added a little worried.

“It would, huh...” Star Twinkle replied which instantly made him relate to himself in his current situation.

“At first it was fun to spend time with all of my friends at the same time but once I realized that my friends are more important, I just had to make sure that I can stay with them so that we could have a lot more fun in the future!” Pinkie Pie explained happily with a happy grin on her face.

“Makes sense...” Star Twinkle replied returning a small smile himself.

“With all these other Pinkie Pie's running around, it actually made me feel like as if I wasn't the real one! That made me feel horrible!” Pinkie Pie further explained.

It made sense. She was probably the one Pinkie Pie he met before. The one who was all depressed and came up with this test in the first place.

Still, there was one question that he wanted an answer to... “So, how can you be sure that you are the real one, now?” Star Twinkle asked.

“That's easy!” She replied happily. “My friends were more important to me than having fun! But it wasn't for the other Pinkie's,” she explained.

It actually made some sense, despite coming from Pinkie Pie. The sole reason for creating the other Pinkie Pie's was to have fun with her friends but the other Pinkie Pie's didn't think like that. They prioritized fun over their friends. This explanation actually confirmed that this Pinkie Pie in front of him is the real one since Pinkie Pie would never let her friends down.

Realizing how Pinkie Pie was giving him an answer to this, he figured that he should ask her something else.
“I know, this sounds a little weird but...” Star Twinkle hesitated once he realized that from all ponies, he was about to ask Pinkie Pie this one question.
“You think that I am me too, right?” He asked while looking at her with a worried expression on his face.

Pinkie Pie put a hoof on her chin but then quickly gave a positive response. “Yep! You are you! I'm sure of it!” She replied with a smile on her face that didn't show any doubt at all.

“How can you be so sure?” Star Twinkle asked, not being so easily satisfied with Pinkie Pie's answer.

“Well, You are the only Star Twinkle I know! I mean, there are not a bunch of you walking around too, right?” She returned.

“I suppose not...” Star Twinkle replied. However, this answer was not really what made Star Twinkle feel better.

The day ended with Star Twinkle returning home. He laid on his bed and thought about the events that happened recently. Something that he didn't do for a long time now.

“You are me...and I am you...” He repeated to himself. It was the words that he heard in his head while confronting King Sombra and the words that he said in this one strange illusion under the Crystal Empire Castle. Those words stuck in his head and didn't leave him in peace and he didn't know why.

“I am me...and nopony else...” He said before he was eventually, overthrown by his tiredness and fell asleep without worrying about it anymore.

56. One Bad Hammer

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While still asleep in his bed, a loud and fast knocking could be heard on Star Twinkle's door, forcing him to get up and interrupt his sleep.
“I'm coming...I'm coming...” He said annoyed while he rubbed one of his eyes.

He opened the door with his eyes only half open and saw his boss Steel Hammer in front of him who looked like as if he was either in a pretty big hurry or being chased by something. Calling him being stressed out would be a big understatement.

“Star Twinkle! You have to help me!” He said putting his face close to Star Twinkle.

“Can I help you a little later? It's still early in the morning...” Star Twinkle replied half-asleep, pointing out that it is even earlier than when he had to go to work.

“No! Later is too late! She is arriving in a few hours!” He exclaimed stressed.

“Who?” Star Twinkle asked.

“My sister!” Steel Hammer replied.

Star Twinkle's eyes immediately popped open after that. He didn't say a single word and quickly shut the door in front of Steel Hammer, causing the stressed out Earth-Pony to knock like crazy on his door again. “Hey! Don't do this to me! I need your help!” He pleads as he knocked rapidly on the door.

“Oh, no! I don't want to get caught up in the trouble between you and your sister!” Star Twinkle replied while he put his body against the door out of fear that Steel Hammer would actually smash it open.

“But if you are around then she probably won't be so annoying!! You know how she can be!” Steel Hammer said before he stopped the knocking.

“Exactly, now you know why I am not looking forward to it!” Star Twinkle exclaimed from the other side of the door.

There was a silence after those words. Star Twinkle wondered if Steel Hammer left but he didn't open the door to check, in case that this was a trap. But it wasn't since Steel Hammer spoke up again.
“You know...” Steel Hammer started while sounding a little more sinister this time. “I can always cut short your salary...”

The door was instantly slammed open by Star Twinkle who looked at his boss before the door even opened all the way up. “You wouldn't!” He said with a stressed expression on his face now.

“I don't have to. I just need you to support me...” Steel Hammer said with a grin on his face which wasn't a sinister one this time. That was probably due to the fact that he knew that he had Star Twinkle now.

It was not like Star Twinkle was depending on money too much. He always had enough savings when it mattered but it was just a low blow from Steel Hammer's site. Star Twinkle knew that Steel Hammer's sister never stayed too long whenever she came to visit so he might as well just endure her visit. Still, he did regret to actually helping Steel Hammer in this matter.

Later...

“I can't believe this,” Star Twinkle thought as he looked into the distance annoyed by what Steel Hammer forced him to do.

Both Earth-Ponies waited at the train station for Steel Hammer's sister to arrive. Steel Hammer kept a close look on the train rails while Star Twinkle could only let out some frustrated gasps every now and then as he waited for Steel Hammer's sister to arrive. He was not really looking forward to this meeting. He only met Steel Hammer's sister on one or two occasions but that was enough to get a picture of her. Ironically, her “character” wasn't even directed towards Star Twinkle but because of how he was forced to be around Steel Hammer, he was afraid that he would get involved in something really bad.

Eventually, Star Twinkle's worries vanished once he heard some familiar voices calling his name.
He instantly recognized the voices and turned around to find out that the Cutie Mark Crusaders, as well as Applejack, came walking towards him.

“What are you all doing here?” Star Twinkle asked.

“My cousin Babs Seed is coming over for a visit!” Apple Bloom excitingly shared.

“And she wants to join the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” Sweetie Belle added with the same excitement.

“She does?” Star Twinkle wondered. “So I assume that she doesn't have a Cutie Mark as well?”

“No,” Apple Bloom returned. “Actually, she doesn't know that she wants to join us yet,” Apple Bloom further explained, confusing Star Twinkle in the process.

“But if you don't have a Cutie Mark, then there is no way that you shouldn't join the Crusaders!” Scootaloo explained optimistically.

“Yeah. I mean, you practically begged when you wanted to join us...” Sweetie Belle added to the bunch towards Star Twinkle.

“What?” Star Twinkle replied confused by this statement. “That's not true! You did-” But his answer was denied by the three fillies, who jumped around in excitement not listening to Star Twinkle anymore who then gave up to remind them about the actual facts.

Applejack did notice how Star Twinkle was having a hard time dealing with the three fillies and approached him in order to “normally” talk with him since she was a little annoyed by the Cutie Mark Crusaders constant jumping around.
“So what drives you here to the train station? Waiting for somepony as well?” Applejack asked.

“We are waiting for my sister...” Steel Hammer replied with his eyes focused on the train rails. Strangely enough, it didn't even look like as if he was paying attention to anything around him.

“Oh! I never knew that you had a sister!” Applejack replied surprised.

“She lives in Manehattan...has a jewelry shop there...very successful...but she decided to visit Ponyville for a week...” Steel Hammer explained, his eyes still focused on the train rails.

“That's great! You must be pretty excited for her visit,” Applejack said with a healthy smile on her face.

Steel Hammer only glanced his eyes over to Applejack for a few seconds in silence before he returned his eyes back to the train rails. Confused by this action, Applejack felt like finding out what caused Steel Hammer's behavior.
“What's wrong with him,” she whispered towards Star Twinkle while making sure that Steel Hammer wouldn't hear her.

“It's a little complicated...” Star Twinkle briefly explained.

“Why? Are they in a fight or what?” Applejack asked directly.

Steel Hammer turned his head towards the two Earth-Ponies and jumped in front of them with a serious expression on his face.
“Oh, Noooo...she is only the evilest pony in all of Equestria!” He said overly dramatic but yet very serious.

“You know it's not nice to say something like that about your own sister,” Applejack replied a little offended. Of course, Applejack would react a little offended by those words since family was something really important to her.
"How would she react if she knew that you talk about her like that?”

“She probably wouldn't care too much because she is busy making my life a living nightmare!” Steel Hammer explained before he focused his eyes on the train rails again only to realize that there was finally a train coming towards them. “There she comes...” he said overly dramatic while he narrowed his eyes.

The train of Manehattan came to a hold at the station. Not many ponies came out of it and Steel Hammer patiently waited until the right pony walked outside. The Cutie Mark Crusaders on the other hoof, couldn't wait until Babs Seed would come out. Apple Bloom even went so far to look inside of the train to find out where she was. However, Applejack reminded her that she didn't meet her before, making it a little harder to find her.

“Ah, that's her!” Applejack said as she pointed to a filly coming out of one of the doors of the train.

An Earth-Pony filly with a dark orange coat, a pink-reddish mane, light green eyes and as expected, no Cutie Mark stepped out of the door with a nervous expression on her face. She was soon surrounded by the three Cutie Mark Crusaders

Apple Bloom greeted her in a very not personal-space-caring way.“Babs! Babs! It's me, your cousin, Apple Bloom! And this is Sweetie Belle, and this is Scootaloo, and we are so, so, so glad you're here!” She said while they all had their faces close to hers, making her probably even more nervous as she already was. Babs Seed couldn't even get an answer out and was almost filly-napped by the excited three Crusaders.

“Didn't even let her pick up her bag,” Applejack pointed out while she picked up the bag from Babs Seed.

“At least they are happy for a family visit...” Star Twinkle said after this scene before he turned his face towards Steel Hammer who focused on the train, still waiting for his sister.

This again, confused Applejack who was not sure why Steel Hammer was acting like this. She figured that he was not in good terms with his sister and attempted to walk up to him, trying to change that. But she was interrupted by a female voice that came from behind her.

“Helloooo, Steely!” An Earth-Pony mare said in a cheerful and exciting tone in her voice as she waved towards the group of ponies who waited for her.

An Earth-Pony mare with a yellow coat, a silver mane, light blue eyes and a sparkling golden hammer as a Cutie Mark waited at the train door as she continued to wave at the group with a friendly smile on her face.

However, Steel Hammer didn't return the same friendly smile that his sister gave him. “Hey, Goldy...” He replied with a pretty forced smile on his face.

Applejack, however, showed a little more hospitality towards Steel Hammer's sister. “You must be Steel Hammer's sister. The name is Applejack,” Applejack instantly greeted, causing Steel Hammer's sister to turn towards her.

“Nice to meet you, my name is Gold Hammer but you can just call me Goldy,” Goldy returned happily.

Goldy then turned her head towards her brother. “Steely, be a dear and take my bag,” Goldy said before she threw the bag on Steel Hammer without even waiting for a response, causing him to struggle a little because of his surprise.

Without exchanging some words with her brother, she walked away with Applejack. They were talking and laughing along on their way. They seem to get along really well and completely forgot about the two Earth-Ponies who were waiting for Goldy in the first place.

“This is gonna be a really long week...” Steel Hammer said in annoyance as he slowly followed his sister with her bags on his back while Star Twinkle followed behind.

It was a little complicated when it came to Steel Hammer's sister. For some reason she was completely different around Steel Hammer, making it obvious why he wanted some support from anypony. What Star Twinkle feared the most was that this behavior of her would be rubbing of towards him. That would be too annoying for him. But since he agreed to help, he just had to pray that it wouldn't come to this.

Later...

Applejack already left the three Earth-Ponies while they were on their way to the Iron Hammer or rather, Steel Hammer's home that was inside of it. Steel Hammer went upstairs to place the bags of Goldy which only left Star Twinkle and her in the room downstairs.

“We haven't got the time to talk with each other that much, right, Star Twinkle?” Goldy said in an attempt to start a conversation with Star Twinkle.

“Yeah,” Star Twinkle briefly replied.

“You still work here with my brother, is that correct?” She asked as she looked around in the Iron Hammer. “Must be a really good job, considering that you work with my brother,” she added with a sneaky smile on her face.

Star Twinkle honestly never get what was up between those two. Steel Hammer seemed highly annoyed by his sister while she was talking down to him and treating him as such. She obviously thought that she was better than him and made sure that her brother was aware of that. Of course, that didn't give Star Twinkle the answer of what happened between the two.

Steel Hammer returned from bringing Goldy's bags upstairs and instantly focused his eyes on his sister. He cleared his throat for a second and then pointed at her before he set some rules for her to stay in Ponyville.
“Alright, listen, Goldy! Before you get yourself too comfortable, let me remind you that you are a guest and as such, you have to-”

“Let's go to Carousel Boutique!” Goldy then interrupted cheerfully, leaving Steel Hammer with an open mouth in the middle of his sentence. “Applejack told me about her friend Rarity and how she is the best dress-designer in all of Equestria!” She said before she turned to Star Twinkle. “You need to show me where I can find this Boutique!” She added before she dragged Star Twinkle behind her in order to find Rarity and her Boutique.

Since Star Twinkle was practically forced to tag along, he did follow Goldy outside. He could swear that he heard an angry scream from the inside of the Iron Hammer before he left though, making him feel a little bad. Especially, since Steel Hammer wanted him to be with him most of the time. However, Steel Hammer did trot behind the two as well slowly.

While Goldy cheerfully hummed on her way to Carousel Boutique, Star Twinkle slowed down without her noticing to walk next to Steel Hammer.
“So...I think this is the right time to ask...” Star Twinkle began, grabbing Steel Hammer's attention.
“What exactly happened to you two? You both act so weirdly around each other...”

“If by weird you mean, mean...” Steel Hammer replied while he focused on his sister in front of him.

Steel Hammer didn't look like as if he was interested in talking about his sister so Star Twinkle thought it would be best to return to this subject once Steel Hammer's mood changed to the better.

They arrived at Carousel Boutique and Goldy practically stormed into the building after spotting some of the dresses inside. It was like watching a filly who stumbled in a toy store. Rarity was not far away and noticed the excited customer in her store. “May I help you?” She asked friendly but also a little puzzled by Goldy's overly high excitement.

Goldy stopped turning around to look at all the dresses in the room for a moment. “Those dresses all look so magnificent!” She replied in a singing voice which naturally, made Rarity feel really proud. “We don't have those beautiful dresses in back in Manehattan!”

Before they knew it, Goldy and Rarity began chatting like two friends who didn't see each other for years. It was almost astonishing how well they got along. But again, she did get along with Applejack as well. Not to mention that she was friendly towards Star Twinkle too. This all made Star Twinkle even more curious why Steel Hammer was the only pony who she treated differently. At first, Star Twinkle guessed that sibling just treat each other differently. He couldn't compare it to personal experiences since he didn't have any siblings.

The days passed quickly even though Star Twinkle was forced to spend most of his time with Steel Hammer and Goldy. For some reason, Steel Hammer was always on guard. As if he was prepared for something bad to happen at any time. But there was nothing like that. Star Twinkle would lie if he said that everything was okay between those two but he did notice the tension between them. As usual, Goldy would always talk down to her brother and made him do some stuff on her behalf. Whether it was carrying her stuff that she bought in Ponyville or making some other errands.
Thinking back about all this, those things weren't all too bad, making it even more confusing for Star Twinkle. It's not like she was using him as a personal slave or anything. Those were just things that even Star Twinkle would have no problem with. It didn't make sense to him.

However, there was one other thing that kept him busy over the last days and that was the preparation for the Summer Harvest Parade. Both Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer took part in this parade as well and planned to build a float for it.
In the Iron Hammer, Steel Hammer shared his idea with Star Twinkle about the design of the float.

“A giant pumpkin?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“A giant pumpkin!” Steel Hammer replied while he lifted up a drawing of a pumpkin shaped parade float. “With the Summer Harvest Parade just around the corner, we can make sure to promote the Iron Hammer and increase our business-Success!” Steel Hammer said confidently.

“You really have a one-tracked mind, do you?” Star Twinkle replied.

“Well, if an opportunity presents itself, you just have to grab it!” Steel Hammer returned, not letting Star Twinkle ruin is confidence.

“Alright, but what about your sister? Do you even have time to get this done while spending time with her?” Star Twinkle asked.

As expected, Steel Hammer's mood instantly changed once his sister was mentioned. “The parade was planned long ago! I won't let my sister ruin anything!” He replied trying to change the subject to the parade again.

“What does he mean by ruin!?” Star Twinkle thought. “I don't think she would do something like that. What is it with him and his sister that makes him dislike her that much? I don't get it!”

It started to bother Star Twinkle that Steel Hammer was almost fixated to not care about his sister.

“Steel Hammer...we need to talk,” Star Twinkle began in a rather serious tone, grabbing Steel Hammer's attention. He was most likely aware that there was something coming out of Star twinkle's mouth that he wouldn't like.
“Steel Hammer...don't you think you are overreacting a little too much?” Star Twinkle finally said after getting a picture about Goldy over the last days. “I mean, she does act a little strange around you but I don't think that she is a bad pony. Don't you think that you should start to not get bothered by her behavior that she shows towards you? I mean, you make it sound worse than it actually is,” Star Twinkle explained, though he had the feeling that he got carried away a little too much.

Steel Hammer took a moment to take all those words in. Star Twinkle could feel how he was not liking to hear this words. He did regret saying them too. After all, it was not his problem. Maybe his friend's actions rubbed off him and he felt like helping for once.

Finally, Steel Hammer replied with a depressed tone in his voice which Star Twinkle never heard from him before.
“She looks down on me...” he said quietly, almost as if he didn't want Star Twinkle to hear those words.

“What?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

“Whenever she looks at me, her eyes are filled with despise and anger...This is not how you should look at your own brother...” he explained further while trying to keep his face away from Star Twinkle.

“You do realize that you look at her like that too, right?” Star Twinkle replied, even though he wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say now.

“Of course!” Steel Hammer replied much to Star Twinkle's surprise. “I have to! I won't let her think that she is superior or that I am weak!”

To think that Steel Hammer would be upset about something like this was very unexpected for Star Twinkle. After all, Steel Hammer was not really known for getting emotional about things like that. However, it did explain his behavior towards his sister a little. But the real question now was, how this problem could be solved.

At the Summer Harvest Parade...

Star Twinkle was on his way to the parade. There was still some time left but Steel Hammer wanted him to be early. On his way, Goldy was coming towards him and greeted him cheerfully like she did with everypony else besides her brother.

"Are you on your to the parade as well?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I sure am!" She replied excitedly with a bright smile on her face.

Again, Goldy was really friendly towards Star Twinkle and a completely different pony when she wasn't talking to her brother. Star Twinkle couldn't get a straight answer from Steel Hammer so his next best solution was to talk with Goldy.
"I know it's a little off-topic but...what is it between you and your brother?" Star Twinkle asked out of the blue.

Goldy widened her eyes in surprise. She was not expecting a question like this to pop out of nowhere. She turned her head around to hide her facial expression from Star Twinkle but quickly gave an answer. "You worry too much, Star Twinkle," she said with a smile on her face which was most likely fake. "I think I go ahead, see you later," she said before she walked away from Star Twinkle to completely avoid the subject.

This situation frustrated Star Twinkle a little. Neither Steel Hammer or Goldy want to talk about this matter, even though something was definitely wrong.

Later...

The last days were a little busy with Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer being busy working on the float but their work did pay off. The float didn't look half bad and Steel Hammer was more than proud of it.

“Are we all ready?” Star Twinkle asked to make sure that they are all prepared for the parade.

“All set! Now we just have to get in and wait for the parade to start and-” but he shrugged in surprise after he heard a shrill voice in the distance.

“Steely!” Goldy exclaimed cheerfully as she walked towards the parade float of Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer. “Why didn't you tell me that you would partake in the Summer Harvest Parade?” She added with a worried facial expression which Star Twinkle couldn't tell apart from a fake one.

“Because I made sure to not tell you...” Steel Hammer mumbled quietly which Goldy didn't hear thankfully.
“I would gladly invite you to take part in the parade with us but sadly we only have enough space for the two of us so I'm afraid that you can't join, sorry,” Steel Hammer explained

Then, an idea suddenly hit Star Twinkle. “How about you take my place?”

“Huh?” Both Steel Hammer and Goldy replied heavily confused but Steel Hammer seemed to be the one who was more shocked by this.

“You mean, I should ride in the float with Steel Hammer?” Goldy said puzzled.

“You mean, she should ride in the float with me?” Steel Hammer added in the same shocking way than his sister.

Steel Hammer quickly dragged Star Twinkle along with him a few steps away from Goldy with an angry look on his face. “Star Twinkle, what are you doing?” Steel Hammer asked, clearly angrily but also very restrained.

Star Twinkle did not have a good answer for that himself. “This could be the perfect opportunity for you and your sister to get along,”

“Since when are you so meddlesome in that kind of things?” Steel Hammer said annoyed and frustrated.

“Recently...I guess...” Star Twinkle replied quite nervously and unsure. “I mean...maybe she would like it and you two would both get along better after this,”

Before Steel Hammer could reply to this, Goldy once again interrupted.
“Come on!” She said cheerfully as she waved at her brother while already sitting in the float.
“We don't want to get late for the parade!”

Steel Hammer took one small glance towards Star Twinkle, who could only smile nervously. He didn't say a word and slowly walked up to the float to join his sister.

“I really hope this works,” he said while he smiled to the two with a nervous grin on his face.

The two of them sat next to each other inside of the pumpkin float in an awkward silence. None of them even attempted to start a conversation and waited for the parade to start to get this all over with.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle joined his friends who also waited for the parade. Twilight was the first one to ask why Star Twinkle wasn't with Steel Hammer in the float. Star Twinkle didn't feel like explaining that in great detail and just said that Steel Hammer's sister was taking his place.

“That's really nice of you to let his sister ride in the float,” Twilight said happily.

“We'll see about that...” Star Twinkle replied, still not being sure if his so called plan would work to improve the relationship between those.

The parade did start a few minutes later and some of the floats began to move. Steel Hammer and Goldy's float was a little further right in front of some golden apple. Star Twinkle remembered that the Cutie Mark Crusaders worked on this one. But the pony who was inside of this apple was Babs Seed, Apple Bloom's cousin.

“Looks like the three let her ride on the float,” Star Twinkle figured as he watched the float driving past him.

Meanwhile, Steel Hammer was driving the pumpkin float and waved to everypony on the way while Goldy stood next to him, both of them smiling to the citizens of Ponyville. Steel Hammer saw some of his friends who cheered for him and his float which made Goldy a little mad for some reason.
“You sure are popular in Ponyville...“ she said in her usual down-looking tone.

“I am a well-known carpenter in this town after all,” he proudly rubbed into Goldy's face.

“Good for you...” she replied in disinterest.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle and his friends watched the floats driving by them but Star Twinkle's attention was grabbed by a familiar voice.
“Star Twinkle!” Apple Bloom exclaimed in a panic as she and the rest of the Crusaders ran towards him. “You need to help us!”

“What's wrong?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

“The float! The one where Babs is in! It's booby trapped by us!” Scootaloo explained.

“What!? Why did you booby trap your own float?” Star Twinkle questioned.

“Because we knew that Babs Seed would steal the float! So we decided to get some revenge against her for bullying us all week!” Apple Bloom explained.

“But now we found out that she just does that because she is getting bullied at home and that is why she is tagging along with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon and bullies us!” Sweetie Belle further explained.

“What?” Star Twinkle asked because he still didn't fully understood the situation but from what he gathered is that they had to stop the float before somepony would get hurt. He saw how the pumpkin float was driving past him and decided to ask Steel Hammer for help “Let's go!” He said as he ran towards the pumpkin float.
“Steel Hammer!” Star Twinkle screamed to get his attention.

Steel Hammer opened the door of the float after hearing Star Twinkle outside screaming his name. After he was informed of the situation, he quickly took action and picked up more speed to catch up with the apple float where Babs Seed was in until he drove right next to her.

“Little Lady, would you mind to pull over for a minute?” Steel Hammer asked politely in order to not let the little filly break out in panic.

“Who are you?” Babs Seed asked confused.

“Steel Hammer, owner of the Iron Hammer, here in Ponyville. Tell your friends about it,” he replied, getting some promotion out of the way as well.

Naturally, Babs Seed did not understand what to make out of this and got confused. Suddenly, Babs Seed's float began to shake uncontrollably and began knocking the pumpkin float away a little, causing Steel Hammer and Goldy to be thrown around inside.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders saw that and decided to jump in action themselves. Star Twinkle followed right behind and jumped into the apple float to save Babs Seed.

Meanwhile, Steel Hammer found himself burying down Goldy below him who was definitely not happy about it. She quickly pushed her brother away from her and decided to take things in her own hooves. She opened up the top of the pumpkin from the inside and climbed on top of it. She then jumped over to the apple and climbed inside of it.

Star Twinkle and the Cutie Mark Crusaders watched the whole scene while they tried to get the float to stop and had to admit that this was kind of awesome. Goldy didn't know what to do either but she pushed the fillies outside of the float to get them to safety, leaving only herself and Star Twinkle inside of the float.

“We need to get out too!” Star Twinkle advised in his panic.

“Wait, maybe we can stop it!” She said almost calm despite this situation.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle was shocked to hear this right now. Suddenly, Steel Hammer came jumping into the float as well and tried to help out in some way.
“What are you still doing inside of here? You need to get out!” Steel Hammer said.

“I can still save this float. It would be a shame if a beautiful float like this would get damaged!” Goldy insisted while she tried to fiddle with the wheel of the float.

“You can't be serious!” Steel Hammer returned annoyed.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle looked outside to see how they slowly approached a cliff that leads down to a river.
"Um, you two we don't have time to argue! We-"

“Stay out of this!” Both of them said in unison angrily before they kicked Star Twinkle out of the float and right into the road.

Only seconds later, he saw how the apple float was driving down the bank and straight into the river. Star Twinkle could only imagine what happened to the two and quickly ran towards the river as well. To his surprise, the two Earth-Ponies already walked out of the water, their coats and manes soaking wet and their faces colored in annoyance and anger.

“Great job, sis,” was the first thing that Steel Hammer said which instantly drove Goldy mad.

“Me!? How was that my fault?! I tried to save this magnificent apple float!” She returned, hurt by Steel Hammer's first words.

“A float is not more important than your safety!” Steel Hammer replied angrily.

“Oh!? Since when am I important to you in the first place!?”

“Well, I know that this is something you don't understand anymore since you are too busy looking down on me!”

They both were going right at it with their insults and both didn't even think about stopping. Star Twinkle stood right next to them and felt like diffusing the situation a little.
“Um...you two...”

“Shut it!” Both of them exclaimed angrily to him like before.

“Yes...” Star Twinkle nervously replied before he stepped away a little to let them talk.

Instead of listening to Star Twinkle, they kept arguing with each other.

“Ever since I left Manehattan, you completely changed and pushed me around while looking at me with those eyes. As if you despite me or as if I did something to you!” Steel Hammer said in his anger, finally relieved to get out those words against his sister.

“Sorry if I am not thankful that you don't want me in your life anymore!” Goldy burst out in frustration. “That's why you left after all, didn't you?” She added while she turned around to hide her face from her brother.

Steel Hammer might not see the face of her sister but Star Twinkle saw it. She was about to cry. Her lips were shaking and she tried her hardest to not let tears run out of her eyes.

“Why do you think that?” Steel Hammer said in a caring voice as he approached his sister.

“Do you even know how I felt? I know I was busy with my jewelry shop and that I didn't have much time to come home or spend time with you. Can you imagine when mom and dad suddenly told me how you left the city and went off to start your own shop somewhere else?” She explained while she turned her head towards Steel Hammer again.

Steel Hammer had trouble to answer to that at first but he then admitted something.
“I didn't know you were sad about me leaving...after all...it was you who motivated me to leave...”

“What do you mean?” Goldy replied confused.

“I was kinda sad that you didn't have much time left to spend with me, mom and dad. I always thought your shop was more important for you than your own family. Mom and dad understood that you were busy but I was a little...” Steel Hammer suddenly stopped in the middle of the sentence.

“Wait...” Goldy started as she might have figured out the problem. “Are you saying that I...hurt your feelings?”

“What!? No!?” Steel Hammer denied, trying to keep up his non-existing macho attitude.
However, once he realized how Goldy was looking at him with a worried face, he did give in.
“Well...maybe a little...” he admitted quietly. “What I am trying to say is, after I saw how successful you were in Manehattan, I figured that I should start something on my own so that you would notice me again...”

This explanation kept Goldy's full attention since she didn't say anything throughout Steel Hammer's speech.

“Unfortunately, I was not as good when it came to setting up something in Manehatten because...well, it's Manehattan! I am not as smart or talented when it came to starting a shop on my own...but then I heard about Ponyville. A quiet little town. No full streets or ponies who were always in a hurry for nothing. I thought that I could start there since this town was more likely my pace. A place where I could start small and slow. But as you might have guessed, I grew a little fond of this little place and decided to stay here. I made some good friends here and I didn't want to abandon them, but I guess in exchange, I kinda abandoned my family...” Steel Hammer openly explained while he looked down to the ground in regret.

Goldy also showed the same expression after that speech of Steel Hammer, clearly being affected by this. “Great...now I feel even worse, knowing that I made you hate me for nothing...” she said as her frown became bigger and bigger until it was so big that she was embarrassed to face Steel Hammer who was standing there with a frown on his face.

“Oh, Goldy, don't be ridiculous...” Steel Hammer instantly corrected. “I may not have been on good terms with you because of all the things you did to me...but...” he stopped. “Never did I ever hated you for that! You are my sister for crying out loud! There is no way that I could ever hate you, no matter what!” Steel Hammer said with a smile on his face.

Tears started to pour down on Goldy's cheeks and a smile formed on her face as soon as Steel Hammer offered his hoof to get her up again. But her face was still filled with regret because of the behavior she showed towards her brother.
“I guess, once I realized that you like it here, I became a little angry,” she admitted as she avoided eye contact out of embarrassment. “I should have supported you instead of being angry at you...”

“I think I should have explained things in the first place instead of just thinking that you intended to hurt me on purpose,” Steel Hammer admitted while he rubbed his neck in embarrassment.

After some more apologies from both of them, Star Twinkle could finally watch how the two hugged each other happily and walked up to the two.
“So...everything fine again?” Star Twinkle asked to make sure about what he saw in front of him.

“Everything fine,” Steel Hammer replied with a bright smile on his face which Goldy also had on her face.

At the Cutie Mark Crusaders Club House...

“We, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, elect Babs Seed to join us as a sister, friend, confidaynte, alley, boss-om buddy, gal pal, compader, chum of chums...” Sweetie Belle read out loud while Babs Seed was standing in front of the three Crusaders and besides Star Twinkle who decided to let her join the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“Aren't you a little old?” Babs Seed asked being confused that Star Twinkle was a member as well.

“Yeah, I get that a lot...” Star Twinkle replied almost annoyed but he kept himself together since Babs Seed didn't deserve to be talked to like that.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle continued to read out from her paper to keep the joining ceremony going.
“Homegirl... Amiga..." Blah blah blah blah blah. Oh, yes, here. "...and fellow Cutie Mark Crusader! You are solemnly sworn in, here this day, in witness of your fellow sisters, friends, confidantes... boss-om buddies... compadres..."

“Alright, we get it!” Star Twinkle interrupted being a little annoyed by this. “We also don't have any more time left until the train fro Manehattan comes,” he added, reminding them to how less time was left until Babs Seed would leave again.

After the ceremony, the five Crusaders went to the train station to say they're good bye to Babs Seed. Steel Hammer and Goldy were also there. Coincidentally, Goldy left at the same time too, giving Star Twinkle the chance to see her off as well.

“Have a good trip!” Steel Hammer said while he hugged his sister one last time.

“Thanks,” she returned with a smile on her face.

"And don't forget to tell everypony back home about the Iron Hammer!" Steel Hammer added with a smile.

Goldy replied with a giggle and a bright smile herself before she stepped into the train. The train shortly left and Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer waved Goldy good bye. It was the complete opposite how they greeted her when she arrived in Ponyville.

While still waving towards the train, Steel Hammer had a smile on his face. “Next time, I am going to visit her!” Steel Hammer said happily as he still waved towards the train. “That would be a nice surprise, wouldn't it?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Star Twinkle replied with a smile on his face as well.

To think that a little misunderstanding led to all this.
But after talking about it everything was good again.
Just like that.
Maybe that is all that is needed.
Or before you know it, somepony dislikes or even hates you for something that you are not even aware of.
Who knows how their relationship would have ended if no one of them would have told each other how they felt...
Maybe the situation would have gotten worse over time until eventually, they would have never talked to each other again. That would probably be the saddest way to part with a family member.

This whole situation remembered Star Twinkle to his own family. It was basically the same. Star Twinkle thought his parents hated him for staying in Ponyville but in reality, it was nothing like that. His parents always loved him, no matter what and it was only after talking with them that he understood that.
That could have also been the reason why Star Twinkle felt the need to fix this situation. Because it was relatable.

“I should visit my parents again, some day...” he said with a grin on his face after imagining his next visit to his parent's house.

57. Great and Powerful Revenge

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“So this is Ponyville?” A female voice said belonging to a pony who watched over the little town.
“She should arrive here very soon...Then the fun part can soon begin,” the pony said as she waited excited for the arrival of somepony.

In front of Fluttershy's cottage...

Fluttershy gathered a bunch critters in order for Twilight to practice a spell that she wants to perform for Princess Celestia and some foreign ponies that were invited as well. Apparently, Twilight was assigned for the entertainment. Being Twilight, of course, she wanted to be prepared.
Star Twinkle and Spike were there as well, mostly to make sure that the critters were alright in case something went wrong.

“Don't be scared, little friends. Twilight is wonderful with magic,” Fluttershy said to her little critter friends even though they did not look scared at all. Fluttershy then turned to Twilight. “Anything happens to them, Twilight, so help me...” she said almost threatening out of fear that her friends could be in danger to Twilight who was a little surprised to see the usually so quiet and friendly Pegasus like this.

“Reminder...never mess with Fluttershy's animals...” Star Twinkle thought after he saw how Fluttershy could be when it came to her animal friends.

Spike quickly went between the two mares and tried to convince Fluttershy about Twilight's magical skills and that there was nothing to worry about. “Aww, don't worry, Fluttershy, Twilight's magic has gotten a lot better since she accidentally crushed me and Applejack with a giant snowball,”

Twilight could only smile embarrassed after that was brought up again.
“Not helping, Spike...” Star Twinkle said towards Spike's uncalled statement.

Whether it was Spike's words or not, Fluttershy was not fully convinced. “Of course she's good with magic. Twilight's great with magic. I guess I just don't want my little friends to be scared. Oh, oh, look how scared they are!” She said pointing at her little critter friends who were not scared at all and even looked a little excited.

Twilight assured that nothing would happen to her friends and finally started her spell. She began to levitate the animals above the ground and attempted to move them in a certain way. All this time, Fluttershy watched in shock out of fear that something bad would happen, causing Star Twinkle to comfort her here and then. Twilight managed to do her trick and made every single one of the critters land safely to the ground again.

Twilight was sweating heavily after that performance. Star Twinkle didn't even realize that this was that hard but judging from Twilight's exhaustion, it probably was a lot harder than it looked. “That's all for now, little ones. Maybe we can practice again later if Fluttershy says it's alright,” she said after she swept away her sweat from her forehead. Fluttershy was covering her eyes in shock and probably didn't even hear her friends laughing and cheering in excitement around her. They were clearly enjoying this and Fluttershy was just too scared to realize.

Spike was the first one to compliment Twilight on her performance. “Your magic has really improved since we came to Ponyville, Twilight. Princess Celestia's going to love it,” he assured.

“Thanks, Spike. I have to be at my best when she arrives with the delegates from Saddle Arabia. I can't believe she's trusting me with the entertainment,” Twilight said with still a little disbelieve in her voice.

“Are we done here now?” Star Twinkle asked as he wanted to confirm that he is no longer needed right now. “I could take something to eat right no-” But Star Twinkle was then suddenly tackled by Rainbow Dash to the ground who seemed to be in a big rush.

“There you are Twilight! You need to come!” Rainbow Dash said stressed as she was looking at Twilight after she was standing right above Star Twinkle after her tackle.

“Why did you tackle me down if you wanted something from Twilight?” Star Twinkle exclaimed annoyed questioning Rainbow Dash's logic.

“I just didn't want to hurt her. That is all,” Rainbow Dash assured a little casually.

“So it's okay to hurt me inst-” Star Twinkle began until Rainbow Dash focused on Twilight again.

“There is no time!” Rainbow Dash quickly interrupted. “Twilight, quick! It's an emergency!”

Nopony questioned what exactly was the problem since Rainbow Dash seemed really serious. Then again, Rainbow Dash had the tendency to overreact to minor things that other ponies would not even worry about.

The group followed Rainbow Dash until they arrived at a big crowd that formed in the middle of the road in Ponyville. The first thing that they saw was Rarity being carried on Applejack's back. Rarity seemed really upset about what she was wearing at the moment.
“How dare she put me into something as brown and disgusting and brown!” Rarity said before she fainted on Applejack's back.

“What's going on here?” Twilight asked after witnessing the commotion around her.

The answer quickly revealed itself in the form of a pony who was wearing a black hood.
“Well, well, well. If it isn't... Twilight Sparkle,” the female voice beneath the black hood joined in after noticing Twilight.

“That voice...” Star Twinkle thought as he instantly remembered who this voice belonged to.

The pony lifted her hood and revealed her horn, a light blue coat, a pale blue mane and her red eyes. She also wore a triangle-shaped necklace with a pony on top of it which strongly resembled an Alicorn since it had a horn and wings at the same time.

Everypony gasped after realizing who it was, remembering the last encounter with her in Ponyville.
Twilight quickly gave the unicorn a glare as she too realized who it was. “Trixie!” She said with an angry look on her face.

“What's she doing here?” Spike added, clearly disliking Trixie's visit as well.

Star Twinkle didn't remember seeing her in this black hood before. The last time, she came to Ponyville, she was wearing her wizard hat and cape and traveled with her wagon but nothing of that was in sight, indicating that she probably didn't visit Ponyville for another performance. Trixie's eyes were focused on Twilight with confidence and arrogance in them
Rainbow Dash figured that Trixie was behind Rarity's state and quickly tried to get her back for it, however, Trixie only smiled and shot a red magic beam at the Pegasus. After that, one of Rainbow Dash's wings became significantly larger than the other, making it hard for her to fly.

Just like the last visit, the two colts Snips and Snails were not too far away and were the only ones who enjoyed the show.

“Good spell, oh Great and Powerful Trixie!” Snails complimented.

However, Trixie was not interested in any compliments and shot at the two colts as well with her magic. Both of the Colts horns were now stuck together, leading into a really weird picture to look at. They both ran around in confusion in hope that this would change them back but it was no use.

Seeing how Trixie was practically picking on everypony, Twilight became angry. “Stop picking on my friends, Trixie!” Twilight demanded angrily.

But the Unicorns confidence remained unchanged. “You and I have some unfinished business. My magic's gotten better since I was here last. And I'm going to prove it! Me and you, a magic duel. Winner stays, loser leaves Ponyville forever!” Trixie demanded herself.

Twilight quickly refused since this was some really unfair demand from Trixie. It was obvious that Trixie's magic has improved a lot since her last visit but the question was if it was even better than Twilight's now. Whether it was or not, agreeing to this “Magic Duel” and losing would mean that Twilight had to leave Ponyville and that was too much of a risk to take in.

Surprisingly, Trixie took this answer really well. “Hm. Your choice,” she said before she focused her magic again. She scanned her eyes through the crowd to find a fitting target for another spell until she stopped after seeing Star Twinkle who widened his eyes in fear.
“No, no! Not me!” Star Twinkle thought in shock before he covered his face with his hooves.

However, Trixie's arrogant and confident expression changed once she recognized the pony that she was looking at and widened her eyes in surprise. She quickly shook her head for a second before she looked around the crowd again and then changed her target. She shot a magic beam towards Spike who started to change shape into a ball. She began playing with him like he was some kind of bouncy ball and threw him into a basket.

Needless to say, Twilight was not all too happy to see Spike treated like this. “Trixie, put him down. Why are you doing this?” She asked which was a legitimate question at this point.

“Why? Because you humiliated me!” Trixie replied angrily before she used her magic to create some kind of screen which displayed the events that Trixie went through after her last visit. “After you showed me up with that Ursa Minor, I became a laughing stock! Everywhere I went I was laughed at and ostracized. I even had to take a job on a rock farm just to earn a living! A rock farm!” She explained angrily with fitting pictures of her being laughed at and working on a rock farm.

“Hey!” Pinkie Pie interrupted offended. “You're lucky a rock farm would take the likes of you!” She said, most likely referring to her growing up on a rock farm.

Trixie didn't spare any words for Pinkie Pie and instead created a small floating arrow that literally dragged off Pinkie Pie's mouth and put it down in a trash can, making Pinkie Pie lose her mouth.

While that was really strange to look at for Star Twinkle, he was more focusing on Trixie's story. Not everything was entirely how he remembered things. It was not really Twilight's fault how Trixie got treated after she lied about that Ursa Major story but she was probably looking for somepony to blame after all that and so Twilight got stuck being the target of Trixie's revenge.

Star Twinkle played with the idea to informing Trixie about that but after seeing how everypony else ended up so far, he kept his mouth shut.

Trixie continued to play around with her magic. This time, she lifted up Twilight's library and turned it around in midair, causing most of the books inside to fall out. Trixie said that she will continue to cast spells until Twilight would finally agree to the duel.

Twilight looked around what Trixie has done to her friends and grew worried and even responsible for their current state. Trixie was basically pulling the strings right now. If Twilight refuses, then the spells would continue. And Trixie was probably not gonna leave anytime soon or stop on her own. She was taking advantage of Twilight's worry of her friends and was determined to get her revenge.
There was only one thing to do.
“Alright, Trixie. Let's duel!” Twilight finally agreed.

“Excellent,” Trixie happily replied before she returned everything to its normal state. Except for Pinkie Pie who was still missing her mouth. Trixie probably wanted her to shut up which in some way was a little understandable for Star Twinkle, even though he didn't like to admit it.

“If I lose, I won't set hoof in Ponyville again. But if you lose, you're the one banished from this one-horse town!” Trixie said, reminding Twilight about the conditions of this duel once more.

Since this was a duel, Twilight's friends had no choice but to watch and hope for the best.
Star Twinkle didn't like that Twilight's stay in Ponyville was depending on this duel but now it was too late. “Come on, Twilight...you can do it...you have to!” Star Twinkle thought in worry as he watched both Unicorns starring at each other, ready to start any second now.

Trixie seemed full of confidence while Twilight sweated under pressure of losing the duel. This stand off kept going for a while until Trixie finally fired the first shot.
”Draw!” Trixie said as she began to shot a magic beam towards Twilight's direction. But instead of hitting her it did hit a wagon which began flying towards a crowd of ponies. The ponies tried to run away but one pony stumbled and almost got hit by the wagon if it wasn't for Twilight catching the wagon in time and placing it safely on the ground again.

Twilight was relieved that nopony was hurt but before she could relax, Trixie already prepared her next attack. She threw a bunch of pies towards Twilight but Twilight got an idea to counter that. She used her magic to teleport a Parasprite in front of her which caught all of the pies in one go. But since it was a Parasprite, every time when they ate, they would duplicate to which Twilight quickly got rid of it again before things would get out of hoof.

Again, before Twilight could relax, another spell was literally dropped on her. A mass of snow, levitated by Trixie was dropped on Twilight and buried her under it. Twilight used her magic to quickly melt away the snow and this time decided to attack Trixie in return. She shot a magic beam right into Trixie's face, causing a mustache to grow and leaving Trixie a little puzzled.

“Number twenty-five, huh?” Star Twinkle thought, hoping that Twilight would come back into the game now.

While being annoyed a little, Trixie quickly summoned a scissor to get rid of the mustache before she turned her attention to somepony else. “Snips, Snails, step forward!” She said, probably utilizing the Colts for her next spell.

They both stepped up but got a little intimidated after what Trixie did with them before.
W-W-What is it, oh Great and P-P-Powerful Trixie?” Snips said nervously as he and Snails literally bowed down in front of Trixie.

Trixie didn't waste any time and shot her spell towards the two, levitating them above the ground and engulfing them in a bright light. When they both landed on the ground again, they no longer looked like before. Snips turned into a baby and Snips grew into an elderly stallion. Everypony was shocked to see this. Star Twinkle didn't even know that something like that was possible with magic.

“An age spell? But... how could you do an age spell? That's only for the highest level unicorns!” Twilight said after witnessing this spell. Somehow Star Twinkle had the feeling that Twilight was more surprised than anypony else. She obviously knew how hard this spell was and made it even sound like as if she was not sure to pull it off herself.

Of course, this was much to Trixie's liking. “Well, Twilight? Give up?” She replied confidently as she waited for a comeback from Twilight.

All Twilight could do was to try to turn the two back to their normal age and reverse Trixie's spell. For that, she levitated the two above the ground and focused her magic, though it looked like as if she had much more trouble with it than Trixie.

“Come on, Twilight, you can do it!” Spike said, believing in Twilight's magic.

The aura around Snips and Snails became more and more unstable as time went by and eventually, it disappeared. Twilight was not able to turn the two back and dropped them to the ground out of exhaustion while she herself also collapsed to the ground.

“Oh no!” Star Twinkle thought worriedly after seeing this. Twilight lost and he knew exactly what would happen next which caused him to grew a little anxious as he looked over to Trixie who was laughing at her victory.

“Trixie is the highest level unicorn!” She said before she laughed once again. She calmed her happiness down a little and then proceeded to do what everypony was fearing. “And now it's time for you to leave Ponyville! FOREVER!” She exclaimed with her eyes once again glowing in a bright red light.

This behavior sent down some shivers on Star Twinkle's back but before he could even think straight, he saw his friends standing in front of Twilight to protect her.

“That's enough Trixie!” Applejack exclaimed.

“You proved your point, but you can't possibly expect Twilight to leave Ponyville!” Rarity added.

All of them stood in front of Twilight in order to protect her but Star Twinkle hesitated for unknown reasons. He may know that there was nothing that he could do. After all, what Trixie was capable of now was way too much for everypony to handle if Twilight couldn't even keep up with her.

Despite Twilight's friends standing between her, Trixie was not worried at all. “You fools!” She returned before she surrounded Twilight in her magic aura “She's already gone!” She said before she literally threw Twilight out of Ponyville.

Her friends quickly walked towards Twilight who landed near the entrance of the Everfree Forest. However, before they could catch up to her, something really big was coming down from the sky.
It was a giant glass bowl which was big enough to surround all of Ponyville, separated Twilight from the town and her friends.

Twilight walked up to the bowl and looked at her friends who were at the other side of it.
“It's okay, guys. I'll figure something out,” she said while she put one of her hooves on the bowl. “Just take care of each other. And keep an eye on Trixie. There's something strange about her,” she added before she ran away from the town in order to find a solution.

“Twilight?” Spike said worried as he saw Twilight running away from them.

Rarity quickly comforted the little dragon. “Don't worry Spike, I'm sure Twilight finds a way to solve all this,” she said as she put a hoof on Spike's shoulder.

“And I hope you are right about this...” Star Twinkle thought before he looked over to Trixie and began thinking about what Twilight said before. “Something really seems different about Trixie since the last time,” He began thinking trying to figure out an answer himself. “Twilight keeps practicing her magic so she was definitely not unprepared. Did Trixie really train her magic to this extent? Her magic was not even comparable with Twilight's before...” He continued to think.

However, Trixie noticed the looks that Star Twinkle gave towards her and smiled smugly before she walked up to him with her eyes glowing in a red light again.

“She is coming towards us!” Fluttershy said afraid.

“I think we have to worry about ourselves now, with Trixie still being in here with us!” Rainbow Dash pointed out.

Trixie slowly walked towards the group who prepared themselves for whatever was coming now.

“You!” She said pointing at all of them. “There need to be some changes in this town and you all will help me with that!” She demanded with an arrogant smile on her face.

“Excuse me?” Rainbow Dash said offended. “Why would we ever do something like that?” She added while crossing her forelegs in midair out of protest.

“What makes you think that you even have a choice?” Trixie replied before she shot a magic beam right at Rainbow Dash, making her wing grow big just like before.

“Okay, okay!” Rainbow Dash quickly replied, making Trixie turning her back to normal again.

She then gave everypony a task to fulfill, ranging from decorating Ponyville to her liking or making a throne for her. Star Twinkle was the last one left who wasn't given a job yet, making him kinda nervous what she had in store for him.
“Now you!” She said with an evil smile on her face and her eyes glowing in a red light.
Those words send shivers down on Star Twinkle's back out of fear what Trixie wanted him to do and the fact that he couldn't fight back because of her strong magic.

However, to his surprise, Trixie's facial expression completely changed from evil and arrogant to happy and even cheerful. The red light in her eyes also vanished and they turned back to their usual purple color.
“Star Twinkle!” She said almost as if she just now realized who she was talking to.

“Huh?” Star Twinkle replied by Trixie's sudden mood change.

“It's nice to see you again! The great Trixie didn't have the time to talk with you so far so follow Trixie,” she said in a cheerful manner and not at all threatening.

Star Twinkle didn't know what this meant but he was somehow glad that she wasn't forcing him to do anything, though that was exactly what worried him.
“Now if you have any changes in mind then don't mind telling Trixie so that she can arrange everything,” Trixie offered.

“No, no, I'm fine, I guess,” Star Twinkle replied confused.

“Alright then,” she replied happily while walking around in Ponyville with Star Twinkle next to her.

Star Twinkle further analyzed Trixie's behavior. “What is up with her all of the sudden? It's like she is a completely different pony now...” Star Twinkle wondered.

“Hold on there!” All of the sudden, a female voice exclaimed.
It came from the Mayor of Ponyville who was most likely not happy about the state of her town.
“You'll undo all this mess that you caused in my town this instant!” She demanded to which Star Twinkle tried to signal that she should stop.

“Or else what?” Trixie replied before her eyes turned red again. She then shot a red magic beam towards the mayor, creating a cage around her and trapping her inside.
“Thought so,” Trixie added slightly annoyed by this interruption before she returned her sight towards Star Twinkle again with her eyes returning to her purple color again.
“Do you know any place to get something to eat? The Great and Powerful Trixie demands some treats!” She said with a smile on her face.

“Sure...” Star Twinkle said hesitantly before he leads the way to the nearest restaurant he knew.

A little later...

Star Twinkle and Trixie sat on a restaurant table both of them having multiple plates in front of them that a waiter served them on demand of Trixie. Trixie was only taking a bite of all of the things in front of her since she seemed really picky. She once again noticed Star Twinkle looking at her. “What's wrong? Eat up,” she said.

“Yes!” Star Twinkle replied a little nervously before he took a cupcake in his hoof and began eating it. He was not sure if Trixie was ordering him or not but since she could turn him into something else anytime, he did what she said.

This sudden mood shifts of Trixie did confuse Star Twinkle. Whenever she was not talking to him she always would return to her arrogant self but whenever she talked with him she seemed a lot more friendly. At least the best she could do. But putting that aside, Star Twinkle still had to figure out a solution for the current problem and how Trixie managed to get this strong with her magic.

While putting his thoughts together, this time he noticed how Trixie was staring at him a little sheepishly. But a soon as his eyes met hers she looked away embarrassed and pretended as if she was eating.

“What was that just now?” Star Twinkle wondered.

“So...” Trixie started, probably in an attempt to change the subject. “Don't you think that Trixie is just the greatest and most magnificent Unicorn you ever saw?” She said out all of the sudden, though Star Twinkle had to admit that this was more like her.

“Sure...I guess...?” Star Twinkle replied, trying not to say something that might upset her and cause her to let it out on him.

Trixie giggled after that response and raised her head in confidence while smiling. While looking at her raising her chest in confidence, Star Twinkle could get a closer look at the necklace that she was wearing. For some reason, it looked weird for him.

“Alright then, you, clean that up!” She said at the waiter while she threw the plates on the table right at the poor guy. Who did his best to catch them all.

For that one moment, Star Twinkle could swear that the necklace was glowing while she was using her magic to throw the plates.
“Isn't only the horn of a Unicorn supposed to glow when magic is used?” Star Twinkle wondered.
It's not like he was an expert in magic, but judging from all the magic that he witnessed so far, only the horn is supposed to glow when it's used. So the question was, why the necklace was glowing as well.

Trixie wanted to return to the town hall to observe if Star Twinkle's friends were doing all their jobs that Trixie gave them. When they arrived, there were Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy who were hanging up some flags for Trixie or Applejack stomping some apples for her. Needless to say, they were used like slaves and had to do everything that she wanted.

Once, Trixie was occupied with ordering somepony else around, Star Twinkle's friends approached him out of worry.

“Are you alright? She didn't do anything bad to you, right?” Applejack asked out of worry.

“I'm fine...actually it was quite the opposite...” Star Twinkle replied without going to much into detail. ”What about you guys?”

“Trixie's cruel magic is ruining Ponyville. Somepony has to help us!” Rarity said frustrated.

“But who?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Twilight was thrown out of Ponyville and we can't contact the Princess since she is not in Canterlot!” She pointed out a little angrily because of Trixie's actions.

“And it's not like as if we know how to stop Trixie anyway,” Spike added a little more frustrated.

“Actually...” Star Twinkle began. “I might have a clue why Trixie's magic is so powerful now...” He pointed out, grabbing the attention of everypony. “See this necklace? I have the feeling that this is the reason,” he explained while he pointed towards Trixie, making everypony noticing the necklace as well.

“And what kind of necklace is that?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Besides an obvious crime against fashion,” Rarity needlessly added.

“Maybe we find a clue in one of Twilight's books?” Fluttershy pointed out which was actually a really good idea.

“Great idea!” Star Twinkle said. “Then let's go to-” But he was suddenly surrounded by a red aura which dragged him towards Trixie.

“Stop wasting your time with those lowly ponies,” Trixie said as she let Star Twinkle slowly land in front of her. “There are still more preparations that need to be done and I want you by my side the whole time,” she added with a playful grin on her face.

Star Twinkle followed Trixie outside and looked back at his friends who grew a little confused by all this. However, he made sure to signal that they should go without him to the library and figure out something about this necklace.

A little later outside...

Trixie made sure that the town was decorated and changed to her liking and all the time, Star Twinkle had to be next to her. It was kind of frustrating. She wasn't really harming him or doing anything to him but he didn't feel too good staying by her side while she was doing all those bad things to everypony. Especially, Snips and Snails, who were forced to pull a cart with Trixie and Star Twinkle on it. He had to admit, even though they were constantly admiring her before, now he felt a little bad for them.

“You know, it's not really necessary to let those two pull us, right?” Star Twinkle said, trying to put the two Colts out of their misery.

“Nonsense! Trixie deserves to travel with style,” she replied with her head raised into the air.

This gesture once again grabbed his attention towards the necklace she was wearing. It was still unclear if it really was the reason for her powerful magic but just in case if the others wouldn't find an answer, Star Twinkle had to poke around to get some answers himself. “Now how do I ask her about this thing without letting her know what I am after?” Star Twinkle thought to try to figure out a subtle way to ask about it.
“This necklace looks...um...really good on you,” he said in hope that this wouldn't give his attention away.

To this, Trixie widely opened her eyes in shock before she looked at Star Twinkle in surprise, making him instantly nervous.
“Oh no! Did I mess up!?” He thought in a panic while he disguised it under a fake smile.

“Thank you...” she replied quietly before she looked away in embarrassment.

Star Twinkle looked away as well and swept away some sweat on his forehead. “Well, that didn't go anywhere. I have to poke around a little more...”

“Must have cost a fortune,” he said in an attempt to stay on this subject.

“It did...” She replied, still looking away in embarrassment.

There was a silence after that. Star Twinkle figured that this was not going anywhere. In this silence, a crazy idea crossed his mind which could easily backfire but right now, there was not much else he could do.
“I just have to take this necklace off of her,” he thought as he looked at it.

The timing was perfect. She was looking away now. And as an Earth-Pony, his physical strength was definitely higher than hers. If he were quick enough, he could pull it off without her using a single spell. However, if that thing wasn't the cause for her magical strength, then he would be in deep trouble if he failed to get it off. There was only one chance.

He kept his eyes on Trixie to make sure that she wasn't looking right now and slowly got closer to her with his hoof reaching out to the necklace. Sweat began to drop down on his head and he became more and more nervous the closer he got. Surprisingly, Trixie did not notice anything and kept looking the other way.
“Almost...” Star Twinkle thought as he prepared himself to quickly pull off the necklace in one quick swoop.

Suddenly, the necklace and Trixie's horn began to glow, making her look in front of her in surprise and Star Twinkle jump back in fear. “Did she notice!?” He thought in a panic, not being able to hide it under a fake smile this time.

“Somepony set off the magic force field!” She said angrily.

“Magic Force Field?” Star Twinkle wondered.

“Yes! If somepony tries to leave, my force field will instantly inform me about it,” she explained determined to find out who it was.

She used her magic to summon a whip and whipped Snips and Snails to get her to the location where the cause was coming from. Star Twinkle kept his mouth shut since he didn't want to cause any more suspicion and waited how events would play out.

Star Twinkle and Trixie were pulled towards where Trixie felt the interruption in her force field. When they arrived, there was only a small group of beavers who wanted to get outside with a log right next to them.

“Stop! You there! What are you doing?!” Trixie asked as she demanded an answer from the beavers but due to the language barrier, she was unable to understand.

“I think they want to get outside?” Star Twinkle guessed.

The beavers seemed a little annoyed by the barrier and were not really “asking” nicely but Trixie only rolled her eyes and lifted the barrier up a few meters for them to leave.

“At least she is not terrorizing the animals here...” Star Twinkle thought as he looked back to the beavers while he and Trixie left the scene again.
That is when he realized how the Beavers pulled somepony out of the log.
“Fluttershy?” Star Twinkle thought in shock. “I see...they must have found a solution...” Star Twinkle figured.

Fluttershy was most likely going to find Twilight to inform her about something that could save everypony. Whatever their plan was, Star Twinkle only had to wait.

A little later again...

Snips and Snails proceeded to pull Star Twinkle and Trixie around Ponyville and unlike before, there was no more other chance for Star Twinkle to get the necklace away from Trixie. But maybe there was no more reason for that if his friends were up to something themselves. Star Twinkle did his best to not do anything that could interrupt their plan in any way, leading to little to no conversation between him and Trixie until she finally started to talk again.
“Oh! That reminds me!” She said suddenly, grabbing Star Twinkle's attention.
“I met a friend of you while I was traveling,” she then rubbed her chin to think for a second.
“I think it was in Appleloosa,”

“A friend?” Star Twinkle wondered. “I barely know anypony outside of Ponyville,”

“You mean Braeburn?” Star Twinkle guessed, even though he barely spoke with him, he was the only pony that popped into his head right away. ”That's probably the only pony I know from this place,” he informed.

“No, not one of those rude ponies who lived there!” She said in disgust, hinting that she probably wasn't too successful there after what happened in Ponyville. “He was a traveler, like me. A unicorn,” she further explained.

“A traveling Unicorn?” Star Twinkle wondered yet again, having no idea who it could be.

“Oh, don't joke around now, I'm sure you know who I mean,” Trixie teased. “Does it ring once I told you that it was your best friend?”

“My best friend? Who could that be? Do I even have somepony to call that?” Star Twinkle wondered as he got more and more confused about what Trixie told him.

“That's right it was-” Trixie suddenly stopped while she looked behind Star Twinkle in shock
“You!” she said angrily, causing Star Twinkle to turn around confused.

Once he turned his head, he saw Twilight accompanied by Zecora outside of the force field. Trixie took it upon herself to confront Twilight again. ”What's the matter, Twilight Sparkle? Not enjoying your exile?” She asked while Star Twinkle followed her slowly.

“I know about the Alicorn Amulet. I know you cheated,” Twilight replied.

“Cheated? Moi?” Trixie innocently replied.

“Alicorn Amulet...so it really was the reason why she became so strong,” Star Twinkle thought as he watched what Twilight was about to do with that information.

“Yeah. And I thought you might wanna see what a real magical amulet looks like. Zecora gave it to me. It's from beyond the Everfree Forest, and it's way more powerful than your measly little Alicorn Amulet!” Twilight said confidently as she presented a green amulet around her neck.

However, Trixie didn't seem impressed at all. “Nothing's more powerful than the Alicorn Amulet! And nopony's more powerful than the Great and Powerful Trixie!” She boasted out in confidence.

“Care to put your amulet where your mouth is? How about another duel?” Twilight offered.

But Trixie refused since she already won against her. Twilight didn't seem to care much and attempted to leave again.
“That's up to you! But I guess you'll never see the totally awesome magic from beyond the Everfree Forest. Come on, Zecora,” Twilight said as she confidently walked away again.

“She seems really confident. Is that amulet really stronger than the Alicorn Amulet?” Star Twinkle wondered judging from Twilight's confidence. “She probably got it from Zecora so it must be...”

“Wait!” Trixie then suddenly exclaimed. She then removed the force field around Ponyville and teleported next to Twilight. “Okay, okay, you're on! A second duel,” she said, agreeing to the duel at last.

In front of the town hall...

The second duel was about to begin and Twilight and Trixie looking at each other confidently to win this duel. Like before, Trixie began. She ordered Snips and Snails to step up again and shot her magic at them, turning them both into babies. She was using the age spell with who she won the previous duel.
“An oldie, but a goodie, ha. Now, let's see what your little charm can do,” she provoked while still being confident that her amulet was stronger.

“No problem,” Twilight replied with confidence. “Applejack, Rarity? Could you help me, please?”

She seems to want Applejack and Rarity to assist her with one of her spells so they both stepped up with a strange feeling in mind. Both of them stepped in front of a statue of Trixie and waited for whatever, she was planning with them.

Twilight then fired her magic at the two and after the magic dust cleared itself, a filly Applejack and Rarity stood there, looking at each other confused.

After seeing that, Trixie's jaw dropped in shock but shortly after tried to hide her surprise.
“So you can do an age spell, big deal,” she added arrogantly.

Twilight didn't answer and instead fired another shot at the two fillies, turning them back to normal again. She fired once more and only Rarity turned into a filly standing on top of Applejack. Once she fired again, Rarity turned back to normal and Applejack turned into an older mare. When she fired one more time, both of them returned to normal.

Not even Trixie could hide her surprise now. “That's... That's impossible!” She said in disbelieve.

But Twilight was not finished yet. “That's nothing!” She said before she turned towards Rainbow Dash who got a weird feeling about what was coming. Without sparing a word, Twilight shot her magic at Rainbow Dash who was covering her face with her wing. After the magic dust cleared, another Rainbow Dash popped out behind her, leaving the Pegasus stunned.

But Rainbow Dash was not the only one who was confused. Trixie was speechless as well, not to mention Star Twinkle. “Seems like this Everefree Forest Amulet really is more powerful,” Star Twinkle realized.

“Ever see one pony play ten instruments?” Twilight then announced before she turned to Pinkie Pie, firing a magic beam at her and making indeed ten instruments appear.

“Wait...that's no magic...that's just Pinkie Pie,” Star Twinkle figured. "Why would she claim that this was a spell if it is obviously Pinkie Pie's doing?” He wondered.

“Ooh, one more. I can turn a mare into a stallion,” Twilight claimed as she turned towards Applejack before she fired her magic at her to indeed turn her into a stallion and shortly after turning her back again and leaving her a little dizzy.

“Well, Trixie, looks like my amulet is more powerful than yours,” she said before she proudly presented her amulet before her.

Trixie clearly was angry and growled at Twilight after being humiliated again and Star Twinkle was wondering what would happen next.

While waiting for something to happen, Pinkie Pie continued to play her ten instruments. While playing them, however, she stumbled about one of her instruments that accidentally dropped to the ground. This caused the drum on her back to roll over behind the statue of Trixie, where Applejack and Rarity stood in front of. To everyponies surprise, a pony seemed to got hit from the drum and stumbled in front of the statue. It was a filly that looked exactly like the one that Rarity looked like when she was turned into a filly. The filly only smiled embarrassed and vanished behind the statue again.

“What?” Star Twinkle and Trixie said in unison.

Trixie then walked up to the statue and tried to look for something but Applejack and Rarity blocked her path. Needless to say, Trixie used her magic to easily pull them away to the site before she looked behind the statue. There she found four ponies, it was, in fact, all the ponies that showed up after Twilight fired her magic shots at Applejack and Rarity.“What is going on here?” She asked after seeing those ponies.

After taking a look at the statue, she quickly turned her head towards the Rainbow Dash clone and teleported herself in front of it with an angry look on her face. For some reason, the Rainbow Dash clone whimpered a little after Trixie got closer to her which was a very unlikely Rainbow Dash move.

Then it struck Star Twinkle. “Wait...is that?” He thought but Trixie seemed to be ahead of him. She summoned some more dark clouds above the town and let rain pour down on it. This revealed Twilight's plan. Color was starting to come off from the four ponies behind the statue, revealing Big MacIntosh, Granny Smith, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. Color was also coming off from the Rainbow Dash clone and started to reveal Fluttershy.

“That's how they did it!” Star Twinkle figured but at the same time, he grew worried after realizing that the plan that the others had in mind failed and that Trixie got really angry.

“You tricked me!” Trixie shouted with her eyes glowing in a very bright red color again.

“We had to!” Twilight returned. “The Alicorn Amulet is dangerous! Whoever wears it will get corrupted by its power! And it can only be taken off by the one who wears it!” She explained.

“Well, that's too bad because I will never take this amulet off!” Trixie replied.
“You almost made a fool out of me again! But I will make sure that you will never stand in my way again!” She threatened as she focused her magic in her horn.

To that, Star Twinkle's friends prepared to defend themselves for Trixie's incoming attack. Star Twinkle was still standing near Trixie and feared that things could go really bad real quick and had to do something to prevent this. Trixie walked up to the group without even blinking, despite the rain pouring down on her and an angry expression on her face.

However, her glare was interrupted by Star Twinkle who jumped between Trixie and his friends, causing her to glare at him too. “You are standing in my way too?” She said angrily with her eyes glowing red again.

“Star Twinkle get out of the way or you'll get hit by her!” Twilight said out of worry.

Star Twinkle didn't reply for a moment and didn't look at anypony. Trixie prepared herself to shoot at him now as well.

Star Twinkle turned his head around to face his friends and looked at them with a serious expression on his face. “Don't hurt her!” Star Twinkle said almost angrily.

This caused Trixie to widen her eyes in shock and canceling her spell. But not only she was shocked to hear something like this.
“What!? Didn't you hear what she just said!?” Rainbow Dash said angrily.

“Didn't you just hear what Twilight said?” Star Twinkle replied in the same tone like Rainbow Dash. “She said that the Alicorn Amulet corrupts its wearer!”

While this fact was true, right now it didn't look like as if there was anything else to do but Star Twinkle tried to be persistence. He turned his head around to Trixie who looked at him a little worried.
“You don't want to do all this, right Trixie?” He said calmly with a worried expression on his face as well.

She looked at the ground to her side and avoided eye contact.

Star Twinkle continued. “I know you hold a grudge against Twilight and you want to prove that but at the same time, you make the life of everypony here miserable. You don't want to do that, right?”

“You...want me to stop all this?” She asked regretfully as she looked into his eyes.

“Yes, but the real question is...do you want to continue all this?” He asked back, leading Trixie to put some thoughts into her actions.

Trixie looked at Star Twinkle with a worried look on her face and realized how he was a little sad inside and dropped her head to the ground. She then grabbed the Alicorn Amulet and took it off, placing it on the ground before she grabbed her head in a little headache. Rainbow Dash wasted no time and quickly grabbed the Amulet, giving it to Zecora who put it away in a little box. “This going back into hiding!”

Star Twinkle's friends walked up to Star Twinkle after his success and Twilight was the first one to congratulate him. “You did it Star Twinkle,” she said happily.

“No...not me,” Star Twinkle corrected. “You did the right thing, Trixie,” he said before turned towards Trixie but to his surprise, Trixie was nowhere to be found. She must have left while Star Twinkle turned to his friends.
“She is gone...”

Later that night...

Trixie didn't show herself for the rest of the day. Star Twinkle and his friends were a little busy removing all the stuff that she was “decorating” Ponyville with so that Princess Celestia when she would arrive, wouldn't notice what happened there.

As planned, Twilight performed the spell that she practiced earlier this day in front of the visitors of Saddle Arabia and Princess Celestia. They looked a bit different than the ponies in Equestria but still a little similar. But Star Twinkle had some thought's in his mind that kept him from fully enjoying the show. He wondered if Trixie would show up again but that didn't seem to happen.

After the show and Twilight's magic performance, the group meets up again to celebrate a little. It was some sort of party after all.

“Say Star Twinkle,” Twilight began. “Why did you defend Trixie all of the sudden? It came off a little sudden if you ask me,” she added.

“It was not her fault...I have the feeling that she is a good pony. That is all...” he replied briefly.
“That was the reason why I acted like that, right?”

The conversation between the two, however, was interrupted by Zecora, who had a worried expression on her face.
“I have bad news for you two,
and hope that you might have a clue,”

“About what?” Twilight asked confused.

Zecora showed them the box where the Alicorn Amulet was inside and opened it in front of the two.
“I looked everywhere,
But to my surprise, it was no longer there,”

“The Alicorn Amulet is gone?” Star Twinkle said in shock.

“How could this be?” Twilight asked in shock. “Do you think Trixie has it?” She said, quickly suspecting her of course.

“I don't know...” Star Twinkle replied.

The three agreed that this should be a secret between them since it would only worry everypony else at this point. Still, it bothered them that the Amulet suddenly vanished without them noticing. But with Trixie and the Amulet gone, there was no hint where it could have been now.
All that they could hope, that it wouldn't cause them any more trouble...

A little while earlier...

Trixie walked away from Ponyville with her head lowered towards the ground and with sadness in her eyes. She was already far away from the town and played with the thought of going back to apologize but the fear of not being forgiving was just too great.
“Looks like the great and powerful Trixie messed things up again...” she said before she let out a huge sigh out of frustration. “I just wanted to prove that I am still great and powerful but as it turns out, I'm more like mad and evil...” she said as her eyes started to get a little teary.

Her sadness, however, was interrupted by something. Clapping noises to be exact. They came from a pony sitting on a nearby rock who seemed to clap her hooves as a reaction to Trixie's misery accompanied by a smug smile.
“What a wonderful performance, oh great and powerful one,” a mare said while she continued to clap at Trixie. ”Though I wished that it would have lasted a little longer,” she added in disappointment.

The mare was a Unicorn with a white coat, a long white almost silver colored mane, light green eyes and a Cutie Mark that looked like a white heart with an aura behind it.

Trixie became angry by those words that were thrown at her and narrowed her eyebrows. ”The Great and Powerful Trixie does not deserve to be laughed at by the likes of you so leave her alone!” She returned in her usual boastful manner as if she was never sad, to begin with.

“That's a little rude, considering that I helped you with your little revenge,” the mare replied unimpressed as she walked up to Trixie slowly. “Don't let your frustration out on me just because you became weak after that one pony sweet talked you,” she said casually and without any fear how Trixie would reply.
“You had the Alicorn Amulet but you just had to throw it away, I mean how stupid can you be?” She added, further provoking Trixie who grew angrier.

“Silence! What do you know about the Alicorn Amulet!?” Trixie exclaimed angrily.

The mare turned her head slowly towards Trixie with a creepy smile on her face.
“A lot more than anypony else,” she said before she concentrated her magic a little.
All of the sudden, a necklace appeared in the hoof of the mare which looked all too familiar to Trixie.

“What!?” Trixie exclaimed in shock. “The Alicorn Amulet? Where did you get that? It was taken away from me!”

“A girl never keeps her jewelry away for too long...I just let you borrow it for a while...” the mare explained.

“Borrow? What do you mean? I bought this amulet from a merchant!” Trixie replied.

“Of course, you did, silly! I was the one who gave it to him. I sold it to see if somepony was foolish enough to buy it and cause some trouble in Equestria. You just happened to be the one who stumbled across it,” she explained with a smile on her face.

“But why would you go through the trouble to do all this?” Trixie asked confused.

“Because...” The mare walked a little away from Trixie and turned away. She then put on the Alicorn Amulet around her neck. “ I was bored,” she said with a playful smile and the Amulet now being around her neck. There was a red light right in her eyes for only a second, before it turned into a bright green light.
The mare then surrounded herself in an aura of magic. It was a very slim aura but it was enough to make her levitate above the ground which left Trixie with an open mouth out of shock.

“Maybe we will meet again sometime. Although, you better wish that this won't happen,” she said with a smug smile on her face before she started to fly away with the help of the magic aura around her. “See you!” She said as she waved Trixie good bye while flying away from her.

Trixie didn't know who that was or why she was in possession of the Alicorn Amulet but for some reason, she had the feeling that this pony would be a much greater threat than she was.

The mare was flying in the sky with her sight straight in front of her.
“It was fun while it lasted...” she said quietly.

“But I have to admit...this Twilight Sparkle sure emits some powerful magic...
Maybe I will have some time playing with her in the future...” the mare said excitedly as she continued her flight through the night sky.

58. Outcasts - Part 1

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Somewhere between Canterlot and the Crystal Empire...

Two Pegasus members of the Royal Guards patrolled the area north of Canterlot, flying over the sky to keep an eye open for everything suspicious. Though one of them had a hard time focusing on his task due to being a little bored and letting out a tired yawn.

“Would you please focus a little more?” The other Pegasus said a little more serious, indicating that he either was a rank above the other one or just a little more sincere about his job.

“Sorry, I just can't help it...paroling in this area is just so boring...” the other more carefree one of them replied while having a hard time keeping his eyes open. “I mean, we are between Canterlot and the Crystal Empire so that means that guards from the empire are most likely patrolling in this area as well, making it kinda pointless to...”

“Speaking of which...” the other Pegasus interrupted after he spotted two other ponies on the ground, wearing the Crystal Empire armor version of the Royal Guards. The two ponies noticed the two Pegasus in the air and prompted them to land nearby.

The two Pegasus guards did so and decided to trade information about their patrol.
“Nothing unusual,” the more serious Pegasus guard said while saluting.

“Nothing unusual here as well,” one of the Crystal Guards replied with the same gesture.

“Of course, nothing unusual,” the other more laid back of the Royal Guards almost burst out. “Nothing ever happens here since the Empire returned,”

“Will you stop complaining?” The other Pegasus Guard scolded.

“Well, what he says is true,” one of the Crystal Guards admitted. “With two Princesses in charge, not to mention Shining Armor working on both sides, this area has become much more secure...”

“See?” The laid back one of the Pegasus said to his partner smugly, causing him to only look at him angrier.

One of the Crystal Guards couldn't help but laugh at how the two Pegasus talked to each other. He turned to his partner, who seemed to be looking at something in the distance, causing him to find out what he was looking at. He then saw a pony in a blue armor walking in the distance who didn't seem to notice the four ponies.
“Another patrol?” He wondered, which instantly got the attention of the two Pegasus.

“What? As far as I know, we two are the only ones assigned to this area,” the more serious one of the two informed.

The Crystal Guards turned their heads towards the two Pegasus. “So are we. So who is that? Must be one of your guys because I don't recall anypony of us having a dark blue armor...”

“A dark blue armor, huh...” the serious one of the two Pegasus mumbled to himself while in deep thoughts. Then it suddenly struck him and his expression turned to a rather shocked one. “It must be...” he then said, worrying the other three ponies who noticed his sudden change.

“You know who that is?” One of the Crystal Guards asked.

“I'm afraid so,” the Pegasus returned. “You two need to tell Shining Armor immediately about this while we inform Princess Celestia!” He ordered even though it was most likely that the two Crystal Guard had the same rank as him, giving him no reason to order them around.
But the two Crystal Ponies realized how serious it must have been and didn't ask any question about it anymore. They both returned to the Empire while the two Pegasus made their way back to Canterlot.

The more laid back Pegasus was heavily confused by his partner's sudden worried behavior and felt the need to ask what it was all about. "What's the matter? Who was that? And why is it necessary to inform Princess Celestia about it?” He asked a little worried.

“Didn't you recognize him too?” The other Pegasus replied shocked after this realization.
“It's him! The infamous traitor of the Royal Guards!”

“Him?” The other Pegasus replied surprised after he knew who his partner was talking about.
“Are you sure!?”

“Yes, only he was wearing this dark blue armor, back then. It is him!” The Pegasus replied with a worried look on his face while he flew straight in the direction of Canterlot with his partner next to him.

But little did they know that the pony in the blue armor was looking at them from the distance, forming a smile as if he wanted to be seen by those two.

Ponyville...

Another normal day in Ponyville. Star Twinkle spent some time with his friends outside of a restaurant, talking about stuff that happened recently.

“You three were camping?” Star Twinkle asked Applejack who was sitting next to him on a table outside of a restaurant.

“Yes, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, me and my sister and her friends,” Applejack informed. “Should we have invited you as well?” She asked as if she was worried that Star Twinkle felt left out.

“No, don't worry about. I rather sleep in my own bed than outside,” he assured.

“Well, I would have gladly joined!” Spike joined in a little offended. “Spending some time with Rarity inside of the moonlight and...” but he stopped as soon as he gazed at Rarity who was sitting a few seats away from him, not hearing what he was talking about.

She sipped on her tea and then noticed how the little dragon was staring at her with stunned eyes, as usual. “Is something the matter, Spike?” She asked.

“No! Nothing!” He replied, once again, hiding his feelings to which the rest of the group began laughing much to Rarity's confusion.

Spike quickly joined in the laughter but he stopped a little abruptly, once he burped out a letter that came from the Princess. As usual, Twilight read it silently while still laughing a little. However, her smile vanished and a worried expression formed on her face, making her friends worry a little.

“What does it say?” Star Twinkle asked while Twilight quietly read the letter.

She folded the letter and turned her head towards her friends with a serious expression on her face. “We need to go to Canterlot!”

To that, the group looked at each other worried. “All of us?” Spike asked.

“No, you Spike stay here,” Twilight replied.

“Phew...I mean...that's too bad...” he said a little embarrassed. He probably knew that it was a more serious visit and was relieved that he wouldn't have to be involved with it. Something that Star Twinkle could understand all too well.

“Also...” Twilight continued with some hesitation. “We need to take the Elements of Harmony with us...”

Just hearing that, grew Star Twinkle worried. The fact that they had to bring the Elements with them meant that something really bad was happening or about to happen. Like King Sombra or Queen Chrysalis bad. But he couldn't just say that he can't come or that he was busy when that was the case. So he had no choice but to go with Canterlot with his friends.

Canterlot Castle...

The seven ponies arrived at Canterlot castle and walked inside of the Throne room, where the Princess was already waiting for them. Whatever the reason, she was looking rather worried herself.

“Princess Celestia, we came as soon as we could and we brought the Elements of Harmony with us just like you told me. What is going on?” Twilight asked as soon as she walked up to the Princess.

“I'm glad that you could all make it so quick,” Princess Celestia said relieved. “I'm afraid I need you to take care of something...” she started.

However, before the Princess could continue, a pony opened the door of the throne room and ran towards the group. Everypony soon realized who it was.

“Shining Armor?” Twilight said in surprise as she saw her brother approaching the group.

“Your majesty!” Shining Armor said without even looking at the group due being a little stressed out, “Is it true that the Captain has been found?” He asked while he stopped in front of the Princess to which she nodded in reply.

“What are you doing here, Shining Armor?” Twilight asked, trying to get her brothers attention once more. This time, he seemed to listen to her and got a little confused why his little sister was there. “Aren't you suppose to be in the Crystal Empire with Cadance?”

“Don't worry. With the protection spell and the Crystal Guards, there is no way that she is danger" He assured. "What are you doing here?” He asked confused once he was aware that his sister and her friends were all in the room as well.

“We actually don't know yet,” she replied while she figured that she should let the Princess talk again.

“Shining Armor, I will listen to what you have to say but let me please explain the situation to the others,” Princess Celestia suggested.

Shining Armor silently nodded and let the Princess continue. He was most likely already aware of why she summoned Twilight and the others to her.

“I have to ask all of you to take care of somepony,” she explained with a serious yet worried expression on her face.
For some reason, Shining Armor seemed like having a hard time to listen to the story that Princess Celestia was about to tell but he didn't interrupt her and was silent.
“His name is Fade Sol,” Princess Celestia continued.

“Fade Sol?” Twilight asked confused. “I think I heard that name before...” she added while she rubbed her chin in order to remember.

“You probably heard that name from me years ago,” Shining Armor joined in.

“Yes! Now I remember!” Twilight replied as she remembered. “Back when you were a recruit of the Royal Guards! Wasn't he a member too?” She asked almost proud of herself to remember.

Shining Armor nodded but he still seemed a little uneasy to talk about all this. However, he kept explaining things. “He was...in fact,” he confirmed before he stopped out of hesitance.
“He was the former Captain of the Royal Guards...” he continued, this time with a more serious expression on his face.

“The former captain of the Royal Guards?” Star Twinkle asked.

“Yes,” Princess Celestia confirmed. “And I need you all to find him,” she added.

“Why is that? I mean, if he was a member of the Royal Guards, then he is a good guy right?” Rainbow Dash pointed out.

“Oh! I get it!” Pinkie Pie then said excitedly. “So you want us to bring him back to throw a super duper party for him, right?” Pinkie Pie guess, which Star Twinkle felt was pretty unlikely since both the Princess and Shining Armor didn't look too happy while they talked about this Fade guy.

“Actually, it's quite the opposite...” Princess Celestia replied. “I'm afraid, Fade could be a potential threat for Equestria if he isn't stopped soon,” she further explained.

Shining Armor took it upon himself to explain the situation a little further. “I don't know the exact details but...from what I've heard, on his last mission, he attacked some of his own members...” he explained with some struggle in his voice.

Princess Celestia took over since Shining Armor had some struggle to continue. “As if attacking them wasn't enough, what worries me the way he did it...” she paused as she turned to her faithful student with a concerned look in her eyes.
“Dark Magic...”

Those words made half of the group widen their eyes because the first thing that they connected with this term was King Sombra. Especially Star Twinkle knew how dangerous this pony was when he confronted him back in the Crystal Empire.

“He most likely got corrupted by this magic, just like King Sombra, making him a very dangerous threat to everypony in Equestria,” Princess Celestia explained further, even though Shining Armor was next to her staring down on the ground with a worried expression on his face.

But despite that worry, Shining Armor was willing to give more information about this Fade.
“He was put in the jail of Canterlot but he managed to break out. Some members of the Royal Guards tried to get him back peacefully but he attacked them as well and escaped. That was the last time anypony heard of him...”

“Until now...” Princess Celestia joined in. “Somepony spotted him not too far away,”

Since the explanation about Fade was done, Shining Armor returned to his previous request.
“Princess Celestia, please let me join Twilight and her friends on this mission,” Shining Armor requested. “I was a good friend to Fade so maybe he listens to me and we can avoid a fight. And if does come to a fight, then I'll promise to not let my past with him get in my way,” Shining Armor assured with a serious expression on his face.

It was probably the first time for Star Twinkle to see Shining Armor speaking like this. It felt almost strange to see him like this. But again, it was to be expected from the Captain of the Royal Guards.
He probably didn't get this title for nothing.

Princess Celestia saw how serious it was for him and agreed. “I will make sure that you keep your promise since I will accompany you as well,”

Hearing those words shocked the group. “You are coming with us too, Princess Celestia?” Twilight asked in shock and surprise.

“He served under me so it is my responsibility to confront him as well,” she explained.

“Aww Yeah! With us, the Captain of the Royal Guards, and the Princess, there is no need for us to even use the Elements of Harmony,” Rainbow Dash said in a boost of confidence.

It did seem a little too much to send this “force” against this Fade guy but at the same time, it also meant that this mission should be over quick. If things got too hard, there were still the Elements of Harmony, making this mission almost impossible to fail if it came to a fight. However, Shining Armor and Princess Celestia didn't look too happy about those facts and remained rather serious.

Inside of the Friendship express...

“This is quite exciting!” Princess Celestia said as she looked out of the window of the train. “I don't think I ever traveled with the Friendship express before, I should do this more often,” she said in her excitement.

Star Twinkle had to admit that it was quite silly to see Princess Celestia this excited by a simple train ride. She most likely was traveling by flying with her wings or per carriage most of the time. But since most ponies of the group were unable to fly, Princess Celestia had no choice but to travel the “usual” way, quite to her subjects amusement.

While the girls were mostly enjoying the trip, Shining Armor was staring out of the window while being in deep thoughts. He didn't talk with anypony since the train departed and was probably worried about the encounter with Fade.

Since Star Twinkle wasn't talking with anypony either, he thought it was a good idea to speak with Shining Armor.
“You look even more nervous than before your own wedding,” Star Twinkle said jokingly as he walked up to the worried stallion.

“Is it that obvious?” He replied with an uneasy smile on his face.

“This Fade guy...”Star Twinkle started. “What kind of pony is he? I mean, you seem to know a lot about him,” he asked out of curiousness while he sat down next to Shining Armor.

It was obvious that Shining Armor had a hard time speaking about Fade but he did talk away eventually.
“Back when I was a recruit, Fade served as some kind of mentor for me. He taught me a lot of what it meant to be a Royal Guard,” Shining Armor explained, causing him actually to form a smile after remembering his days from back then.

“Was there never an indication that he would...um...you know,” Star Twinkle poked, knowing that he should probably not go too far when it comes about bad-mouthing Fade, especially since he found out how close he and Shining Armor were.

“No...he always was really invested when it came to his work, he was a great leader and friend. He always put the safety and well being of everypony above his own. He was the definition of what a member of the Royal Guard should be. Sure he could be a little strict at times but...attacking his own soldiers? I can't believe that this is true...there must be a reason...” Shining Armor explained. He was clearly not fully ready to believe that one of his friends was now an enemy.

“If you really believe that he is good,” Twilight then joined in as she listened to the two stallions little conversation. “...then it's up to you, as his friend, to make him remember all those things,”

“And if he doesn't listen right away,” Rainbow Dash joined in as well. “Then we just smack some senses into him with the Elements of Harmony!”
To that, Applejack, poked her in the sides, indicating that it was a little out of place to say that.
“What? It did help with Princess Luna,” she pointed out.

Star Twinkle had to admit that the Elements of Harmony were a good back up plan, in case Fade wouldn't listen but it was still a little too extreme to assume that they had to use them against him.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but notice that the Princess was looking rather worried whenever the Elements of Harmony were brought up like this. But he couldn't quite figure out why and even thought that he was imagining things. Things were probably a little more complicated than he thought.

Somewhere between Canterlot and the Crystal Empire...

The group arrived at the spot where Fade was last seen by some patrolling ponies of the Royal Guards. It was a huge grass field with some hills here and there. The only place where you could hide is on top of the hills. So they all walked up to some of them to look for Fade. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were looking from above the sky to find him while Star Twinkle, the rest of the girls, Princess Celestia and Shining Armor were looking around in the field.

The longer they were looking, the more stressed did Shining Armor look like. Star Twinkle figured that he wasn't scared of Fade so the only thing he could think of was that he wasn't looking forward to confronting him at all. Of course, Star Twinkle was also nervous but the fact that there were so many ponies with him, let alone the Elements of Harmony, which they all were wearing at the moment, gave him some confidence. But Shining Armor wasn't worried about failing or winning. He was most likely concerned about what he should say to his old friends or what he should do if things could get out of hoof. And that was something that Star Twinkle didn't know how to reply to.
All he could hope was that Shining Armor would not make a mistake.

While the group continued to look around, Fluttershy flew down to them, trying to say something.
“Um...that pony that we are looking for...um...I think...actually, I'm not sure...but there was somepony who resembled...um...” It almost drove Star Twinkle crazy to hear Fluttershy trying to say something until Rainbow Dash landed down next to the mare.

“I found him!” She screamed as if she wanted to be the first one to find Fade, causing Fluttershy to jump a little due to her surprise.

Rainbow Dash, lead the way to the area where she found Fade and the group was keeping their eyes open to spot him as well.

“There he is!” Shining Armor exclaimed as he pointed towards a hill in front of him. A pony stood on it and looked towards the group. It was a Unicorn stallion with a light blue coat, wearing a dark blue armor which strongly resembled the Royal Guards Armor. It perfectly fit the description the Royal Guards Patrol gave them.

Instead of starting a fight or even talking to the group, Fade instantly jumped out of sight of everypony and vanished behind the hill. He probably saw how many ponies went after him and figured that he was outnumbered so he decided to escape. However, with Rainbow Dash on the group's side, it was very unlikely for him to escape. Rainbow Dash flew straight towards him and quickly caught up to him, blocking his path before he could even get too far away. It only took a few seconds for the rest of the group caught up as well, surrounding him before he could escape again.

“That was a lot easier than I thought,” Star Twinkle thought in surprise but also relieved.

“Captain Fade!” Shining Armor exclaimed before he walked up a little towards him. Twilight put a hoof on her brother's shoulder and advised him to be careful but Shining Armor was confident to do this wouldn't get careless now. Fade returned the look that Shining Armor gave him and silently waited for what Shining Armor had to say.
"It's me, Shining Armor. You remember me, right?" He asked to which Fade didn't reply.
“There is no point in fighting. It's nine against one and we have the Elements of Harmony on our side. But there is no need for us to use them if you come with us peacefully," he said, trying to avoid a conflict at all cost.
"I know what you did back then, is inexcusable but...Please don't fight against us,” Shining Armor plead.
“Deep down, I know that you don't want to do this, right?”

There was a silence. Fade didn't take his eyes away from Shining Armor one bit and didn't say anything. A little while later he looked around himself as if he wanted to escape, however, he was surrounded by everypony and couldn't do much in this situation. But despite that, he focused some magic in his horn as if he wanted to attack now, there was some green magic coming from his body which resembled King Sombra's magic a little, indicating that he was about to use Dark Magic.

Princess Celestia was the first one to get worried and advised the bearer of the Elements of Harmony to get ready. “Quick! We must stop him before he uses his Dark Magic!”

“No! Wait!” Shining Armor begged but the chance of getting attacked from Dark Magic was too great now. If Fade was really that dangerous, then there was probably no other chance. It was either now or never. There was probably another chance to talk with Fade after he was captured or even reformed by the Elements of Harmony.

“Ready?” Twilight announced.

“Ready!” The rest of the Elements replied.

Soon, a bright light started to engulf the seven ponies, ready to fire the Elements of Harmony. But before they were completely ready, Fade suddenly jumped in surprise and made a really nervous face.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! You really do plan to use those on me!?” Fade said in an unexpected frustrated voice.

Confused by this sudden behavior, the group decided to stop the Elements of Harmony for a moment and calmed down, in order to listen to Fade.

“Hey! I didn't even do anything yet! You guys are really mean!” He said in an almost childish behavior, which the group didn't expect from this so called Captain of the Royal Guard.

Shining Armor and Princess Celestia, who both knew Fade were also caught off guard by Fade's reaction and narrowed their eyes in confusion.

“Well, I think this is as far as I go. No point in keeping this form up anymore...” Fade said in a rather annoyed tone in his voice before something quite unexpected happened.

Suddenly, a green flame began to build up from Fade's hooves and made its way towards his head. It was now that everypony realized that he wasn't using Dark Magic before since this process looked awfully familiar for everypony. His light blue coat turned black and his mane disappeared. He also grew two insect wings on his back and his eyes turned light blue.
The group gasped at the new form of Fade and widened their eyes after realizing what creature stood before them.

“A Changeling?” Star Twinkle said in surprise.

“What's up?” The Changeling said cheerfully and with a smile on his face, once his transformation was over, leaving them all stunned in the process.

“Fade was a changeling all along?” Fluttershy guessed in her surprise.

“What a twist!” Pinkie Pie added surprised.

“Oh, no no no no,” the Changeling replied before he pulled out a yellow headband that he strapped around his head. “I'm not Fade, my name is Tagma. Nice to meet you all!” He said as he waved towards everypony in front of him.

“What is going on here? Why was a Changeling taking the form of Fade?” Shining Armor asked as he demanded some answers.

“Actually, I am a friend of Fade,” Tagma said proudly with a smile on his face.

“What is the meaning of this? Fade is friends with a Changeling?” Twilight asked in surprise.

“But if this wasn't the real Fade, then where is the real one?” Applejack asked, bringing up the most important question right now.

“Well, I don't think you will like the answer to that,” Tagma said while he nervously rubbed the back of his head. ”You see...I am just here to distract you while the real Fade is...um...” he added further almost innocently.

“Where? Where is the real Fade?” Shining Armor demanded a little rougher as he walked up to Tagma.

Tagma didn't seem to be afraid of Shining Armor and calmly responded. “He is...”

Meanwhile in Canterlot...

Princess Luna looked out of the window in worry of her sister and the others. Normally, she was sleeping at this time in order to prepare herself for her nightly duties but because of her sister leaving Canterlot, she was now in charge of the town and had to watch over everypony.

Suddenly, noises from outside the throne room could be heard which startled the Alicorn Princess, who was still in deep thoughts. The noises sounded like as if somepony was fighting outside of the room, causing Princess Luna walk towards the giant door that leads outside of the room. However, the noises seized, causing her to stop and ready herself for whatever was coming through the door now.

The door slowly opened and revealed three ponies, entering the room. One of them was a Unicorn stallion, with a dark purple coat, a dark blue W-shaped mane, dark blue eyes and a cloud of mist as a Cutie Mark. Another one was an Earth Pony mare with a blonde coat, a light red mane which was tied to a ponytail, a similar looking tail, and light pink eyes. She had a brown sack as a Cutie Mark. The last one in the middle was a Unicorn stallion wearing a dark blue armor. He had a light blue coat and dark purple eyes.

“Princess Luna...” The pony in the dark blue armor said almost regretful as he walked up to the Princess of the Night, accompanied by his two companions.

“Who goes there!? And how did you manage to get into Canterlot unnoticed?” Princess Luna exclaimed in a warning that the three ponies should not get close to her.

“You already know who I am...Princess Celestia must have told you before she left...” The Unicorn said. “As for how we got in...that was because of her,” he added while he pointed at the mare next to him.

“Oh, you flatter me,” the mare returned embarrassed. “There is no place a thief can't get in unnoticed,” she added modestly.

Princess Luna then had a good guess who she was facing right now. “Fade, was it?” She then guessed. “But weren't you supposed to be north from here?” She asked confused.

Fade smiled. “Yes, that was only possible because of another good friend of mine,” he informed before he took another step closer to her.

“Now before you think of doing anything, I'll inform you that I won't let Canterlot fall in your hooves!” Princess Luna said angrily as she prepared her magic and fired at Fade.

However, her magic beam was stopped by another beam that hit it in its track. It came from the other Unicorn who stood there with a serious expression on his face. “Can we speed up things a little? Celestia isn't here after all so all this is a waste of time,” he said annoyed.

“Not entirely...” Fade said as he walked closer to Princess Luna. “Princess, I am afraid you have to come with us,” he offered, though it didn't sound like as if he was really asking.

“And what if we refuse?” Princess Luna replied unshaken by Fade's words.

Fade's body then suddenly, engulfed itself in a dark aura, leading the mare next to him to step away from a little while the other unicorn stood there unimpressed.
“You can't.” He said before his dark aura got closer to Princess Luna, making her courage vanish a little by the sight of this ponies magic. She could feel the strength coming from him and knew that she couldn't win this upcoming battle.

Later...

“Princess Luna!” Twilight exclaimed as she opened the door of the throne room, however, there was no sight of the Princess of the Night.

“So what this Changeling said was true...” Shining Armor said worriedly.

“Of course it was!” Tagma said as he was dragged behind by Applejack who tied him up with one of her ropes. “First, you tried to use the Elements of Harmony against me, then you accuse me of being a liar? You guys really are mean!” Tagma exclaimed annoyed while he heavily shook back and forth, much to Applejack's annoyance.

Of course, the disappearance of Princess Luna was also heavily struck Princess Celestia, who was probably the most worried about her right now. “Sister...” she said with a frown on her face.

“Hey, look!” Twilight said who was looking around any kind of hint where Princess Luna could be right now. “I found some kind of letter,” she opened up the letter and began to read out of it loud.

“If you want to see your Princess again, then come to the forgotten castle. And don't forget Tagma and the Element's of Harmony,” she read to which Princess Celestia began to get even more worried.

“The forgotten castle? Is this where he was hiding all along?” She wondered.

“What is this forgotten castle?” Star Twinkle asked.

Princess Celestia began to explain. “A very old castle. The forgotten castle. Since I can remember, I don't think I've ever seen it being used by anypony...”

“But how is that possible? If you never remembered anypony to live there then that would mean...”

“Yes, this castle is older than me...and since neither I or my sister know how it was built or for whom it was built in the first place, we started to call it the forgotten castle,” Princess Celestia further explained.

“And this is where Fade and Princess Luna are at?” Shining Armor asked.

“Yup, it is,” Tagma confirmed while he nodded happily.

Star Twinkle was starting to get a little annoyed by this Changelings behavior but Rainbow Dash took over and said what he had in mind as well. “If you knew where they brought Princess Luna to then why didn't you tell us sooner?” She exclaimed angrily at him.

Unimpressed by those words, Tagma replied. “Because I was supposed to trick you, duh!” He replied childishly.

Trying to not get too distracted by this conversation, Star Twinkle began to wonder about a few things.
“Is he after the Elements of Harmony? Maybe he wants them in exchange for Princess Luna?” He wondered, making the others think about this as well.

“Whatever the reason is,” Princess Celestia interrupted unusual angry.”I will not let him get away for hurting my sister!”

Princess Celestia was obviously angered. Something that nopony has seen before. She was determined to get her sister back.
“Shining Armor!” She said turning to Shining Armor before she spoke out an important order.
“I want you to know that I won't forgive Fade if he hurts my sister so be prepared for an upcoming fight!” She said, making sure that Shining Armor would not hesitate in a crucial time.

“Yes, your majesty!” He replied although it was not clear if he was fully ready to keep his word.

“Then it's settled!” Twilight then joined in order to boost the morale a little for the whole group.
“Let's go to the forgotten castle!”

Meanwhile, at the Forgotten Castle...

Fade and his two companions arrived at the throne room of the forgotten Castle and placed an unconscious Princess Luna on the floor. Fade took a few steps back and closed his eyes before he focused some magic in his horn, ready to start something.
“Let's start with the first half of the ritual,” he said before his eyes released some dark mist, indicating that he was using Dark Magic.
Soon, Princess Luna was engulfed in some kind of dark sphere that levitated her above the ground.
“Now we just need some time and the Princess of the day,”

His two companions were looking at what Fade was doing and had a bad feeling. The mare was more shocked while the stallion was looking more disinterested. They both didn't know exactly what Fade was up to but they didn't care wouldn't even think about stopping him.

“...And then we can finally we can create a new world...” Fade continued with a sinister smile on his face as he looked over to Princess Luna
“For the true ruler of Equestria...”

To be continued...

Author's Notes:

Make way for another custom story Arc! (Have I mentioned that those will be a thing?)
I mean, those are always well received...right?
And before you ask, no I will not try to attempt writing Luna's way of speaking.
Cause tiz hard XP.

Anyway, if you liked this chapter then please leave a review to let me know.
If you didn't like this chapter then please leave a review and let me know what to improve.
And since it has been asked a few times now, no I don't need ideas because story-wise everything is already up to at least Season 6 in my head. I just need the time to write it down.
If I wanted to, I could give you spoilers of things that would happen in like the next fifty chapters.
But I don't.

With that said, I hope you are ready for the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

59. Outcasts - Part 2

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After Princess Luna was captured by Fade, the group consisting of Star Twinkle, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Shining Armor and Princess Celestia, as well as Tagma who was dragged along with them, had no choice but to go to the Forgotten Castle in order to get her back.

There was no doubt that this would be just a trap that was set up by Fade, just like before with Tagma changing into Fade to confuse the group and distracting them so that Fade could take care of Princess Luna. But since this was the only option to save Princess Luna, the group had no choice but to go to this Forgotten Castle.

Princess Celestia was leading the way to the castle. She well remembered the exact location where it was but she didn't saw it herself for a long time. The fact that she didn't know where this castle came from or who it belonged to was reason enough to make it a little too uncomfortable for her to visit.

The group wandered through a forest, in which the castle was inside of. Naturally, because of that location, not everypony was happy.

“Who builds a castle in the middle of a forest?” Rarity exclaimed annoyed after she angrily fought her way through the bushes. She then noticed how Princess Celestia gave her a surprised look and soon remembered that the Castle of the Two Sisters were inside of the Everfree Forest.
“Oh, I forgot...” Rarity said embarrassed as she returned an embarrassed smile to the Princess.

“The forest most likely grew after the castle was built,” Twilight pointed out as she took a look around her surroundings. “Just like the castle of the two sisters,”

The group was worried that they could be attacked any minute while wandering through the forest but it was actually really quiet. Except for one thing. Tagma, who was pulled by a rope that Applejack was holding, dragging him along with her.

“...And over there I found a rare bug! And over there I found a rare flower!” Tagma said as he pointed at multiple directions while talking with Fluttershy next to him.

“What kind of bugs and flowers were they?” Fluttershy asked curiously.

“Uh...” Tagma began to think. “I don't know...” He added.

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she dashed over to the two. “Stop talking with our prisoner!” She scolded, causing Fluttershy to grew a little concerned.

“Oh...but he is so nice and also very polite,” Fluttershy said actually protecting Tagma.

“No, he is not! He works with Fade! You know, the one who captured Luna!” Rainbow Dash reminded, making Fluttershy be aware of the situation once more. Rainbow Dash then turned towards Tagma with an angry face. “And You, Changeling, start to behave like a prisoner for once!”

“Why are you calling me Changeling all this time? I told you my name is Tagma already,” Tagma replied a little offended. “Maybe you'll remember if I turn into a pony again,” he said before he changed into a Pegasus Pony with a black coat, no mane, light blue eyes and a silhouette of a pony as a Cutie Mark. “Is this better?” He asked almost proudly of his transformation.

However, Rainbow Dash seemed a little confused. Applejack noticed the commotion behind her and turned around to see Tagma in his transformed state and got also a little confused. “You kinda forgot to give yourself a mane...” Applejack pointed out as she noticed the absence of a mane on Tagma's head.

“Is it really that important?” Tagma replied surprisingly frustrated for some reason.

Star Twinkle watched the whole thing and only rolled his eyes. “What is it with this Changeling? I never saw a Changeling behave like that. Then again, I never met any other Changeling, to begin with...” He thought after witnessing Tagma's behavior for a while now.

But the little interactions between the group were interrupted by Princess Celestia. “We're here...” Princess Celestia said as she stopped on her way, making the rest of the group stop as well.

Everypony took a close look at a big castle covered in vines, mud, and dirt. Just looking at the castle made it obvious that it was really, really old, just like Princess Celestia said.

“This is the Forgotten Castle,” Princess Celestia announced as she looked over the castle herself with worry on her face.

“Looks like somepony “forgot” to clean this castle for a long time...” Rarity said in disgust, referring to the poor state of the castle.

Shining Armor looked at the castle and turned his head towards Tagma with a hesitant look on his face. “So, the real Fade is in there?” He asked Tagma who only nodded in return.

The castle did share some similarities with the Castle of the Two Sisters when it comes to the state it was in. It looked like as if it could fall apart any second. But the group couldn't worry about that and had to go inside to rescue Princess Luna as soon as possible. Princess Celestia herself was leading the group and opened the giant doors of the castle which lead to a giant hall. Due to being inside of a thick forest, there was barely any light that managed to came through the windows, making it really dark inside of the hall.

The group looked around the hall and kept their eyes peeled for anything suspicious. Twilight used her magic to lighten up the place a little, allowing everypony to finally see something inside of the castle. But there was nothing much to see. There were only some pillars in the middle of the room who lead to another room across the hall.

“Where is Fade?” Shining Armor asked Tagma.

“Probably in the throne room. It's just ahead,” Tagma informed casually without feeling the need to lie at this point or in his current situation.

Princess Celestia instantly walked ahead. She was definitely determined to find her sister and wouldn't let any more time pass. She opened the door and expected to see Fade right away, waiting for her but she formed a surprised expression on her face and stopped moving.

“Is somepony there?” Twilight asked, who wasn't able to spot anypony right away due to the darkness inside of the room.

“Is it Fade?” Pinkie Pie asked curiously, who also didn't recognize the pony in the middle of the room right away.

The pony eventually began to speak, making Star Twinkle and Twilight instantly recognize the pony in front of them.
“Celestia...” the pony said with a bitter tone in his voice.

“You are...” Twilight said as soon as she spotted the Unicorn stallion, with a dark purple coat, a dark blue W-shaped mane with yellow stripes, dark blue eyes and a cloud of mist as a Cutie Mark.

“Mystic...?” Star Twinkle finished with confusion in his voice. “What are you doing here?” He asked right away.

Of course, everypony else got a little confused by who that pony in front of them was. Star Twinkle and Twilight were the only ones who met him after all so Twilight took it upon herself to explain.
“He was the one who used the Storm Wing's to steal the Elements of Harmony. The previous leader of the Storm Wings, Mystic. Before we could capture him, he managed to escape in the last second," Twilight briefly explained as she kept her guard up, knowing that Mystic's magic was really strong.

“Are you working with Fade now?” Star Twinkle asked away.

However, Mystic didn't even seem to focus on anypony else than Princess Celestia. He kept staring at her with an angry expression on his face and didn't even realized that he was being asked a question. However, someone managed to get his attention.

“Mystic! What's up?” Tagma said as he tried to wave towards the Unicorn the best he could, despite being tied up with a rope.

The way how cheerfully Tagma greeted him, made Mystic roll his eyes. “I know that you were supposed to be captured but could you at least try to be a little concerned?” Mystic asked, questioning Tagma's behavior in his current situation.

“Enough!” Princess Celestia burst out a little angrily, startling the group a little. “I demand that you release my sister this instant!” She said angrily, worried about Princess Luna.

However, Mystic wasn't intimidated at all and only gave Princess Celestia a bitter expression, before he replied.
“It's not that fun having your sister being taken away from you, isn't it?” Mystic said with a very angry tone in his voice.

The tension in the room was quickly rising and there was no telling if somepony would start an attack any second but thankfully, another voice joined the conversation, making Mystic calm down a little.
“Easy, Mystic, there is no reason to loose your calm now,”

The Pony who this voice belonged to, stepped out of the shadows and confronted the group of ponies as well and walked next to Mystic. There was no doubt about it. It was the same pony that Tagma turned into. A Unicorn with a light blue coat, wearing a dark blue armor that strongly resembled the ones of the Royal Guards and dark purple eyes.

Shining Armor, of course, instantly recognized the pony by his voice alone and began to get nervous after seeing the pony now in front of him.
“Fade...” he said a little nervously as he looked at Fade, who was returning a serious yet calm look.

“You are...Shining Armor,” Fade said after he recognized the pony in front of him. However, he didn't bother to pay much attention towards him and quickly looked over to Princess Celestia.
“I see you brought the Element's of Harmony with you, just like I told you. Now would be a good time to give them to us,” he demanded surprisingly calm and casually.

“Yeah, right,” Rainbow Dash replied. “Why would we ever do that?” She asked, obviously speaking for the whole group, who weren't agreeing to give him the Element's as well.

“Have you already forgotten?” He replied while he turned his head to hint at something behind him.

Behind him were some stairs that would lead to a throne on top of it. The thing that he was pointing at, however, was floating above the throne. It was only then, that everypony realized how a dark orb was flying above the throne. Inside of it was Princess Luna who seemed unconscious or asleep.

“Luna!” Princess Celestia said in her concern after seeing the state that her sister was in. She also realized that she was surrounded by dark magic, making her instantly think about Fade before she turned towards him. “What have you done to her!?” Princess Celestia said angrily while she looked at Fade.

“Nothing...yet,” he replied calmly. “I am just making sure that she won't go anywhere,”

Princess Celestia only got angrier by this words and clenched her teeth as she was helplessly looking at her sister being trapped in this dark magic orb.

“Don't worry, Princess,” Fade began with a light smile on his face. “You will soon join her,”

Almost on cue, the door shut behind the group, startling all of them for a moment. Then suddenly, some roars and growls could be heard across the room, getting closer by the second.

“What was that!?” Fluttershy asked shocked, being the first one to get scared by the sudden change of atmosphere and hid behind Applejack.

Then, another pony came walking out of the shadows next to Fade and Mystic. This time it was a younger looking stallion with a pear green coat color, a dark green messy mane, a long tail and yellow eyes. His Cutie Mark was a wooden heart with vines surrounding it.

“Wildheart...done...” the colt said towards Fade, who only nodded with a slight smile on his face as if he wanted to say “good job”.

“Another one?” Star Twinkle thought in surprise.

The group could literally feel the change of atmosphere around them and the fact that Fade was surrounded by more and more ponies who worked for him, made the situation more complex by the minute. There was also a chance that there were more ponies around that might pop out at any second.
Realizing that, Twilight was thinking about what to do and the only solution she could think of was to use the Elements of Harmony.
“I don't know what else we should do. We need to use the Elements!” She suggested in a panic, fearing that things could get worse any minute.

“Yes!” Princess Celestia joined in. “Remember, Fade also possesses dark magic!” She reminded. “We have to prevent him to use any of that!” She advised while she stood ready as well.

With Mystic at Fade's side, things got more and more against the favor of Star Twinkle and his friends so they had to make sure to diffuse the situation before anything would go even more downhill. Using the Element's of Harmony was necessary. Even Shining Armor should understand that now.

The group began to activate the Element's of Harmony and engulfed themselves in a bright light, making Fade, Mystic, and Wildheart grow a little concerned. However, they didn't move and seemed to wait for something.

Suddenly, a pony came jumping down from the ceiling and landed right between the group. Most of them were caught off guard by this pony's sudden appearance and didn't have time to react to it. The pony quickly jumped towards Twilight and jumped over her, removing her crown in the process and landing in front of Fade, Mystic, and Wildheart.

It was then, that the group first noticed that this pony was an Earth-Pony mare. She had a blonde coat, a light red mane which was tied to a ponytail, a similar looking tail, and light pink eyes. She had a brown sack as a Cutie Mark.

“Hey give me back my crown!” Twilight demanded angrily.

“Make me!” The mare responded teasingly as she placed the crown on her own head before she turned around to the three stallions behind her. “How do I look?” She asked.

“Rosa...Pretty...” Wildheart replied though it sounded very casually the way he said it.

“Aww...Thank you Wildheart,” Rosa replied embarrassed by Wildheart's compliment.

Twilight, was getting annoyed how she was ignored by Rosa and readied her magic in order to get the crown back by force, however, the growls around the group became louder now and for the first time, the group finally realized what was causing them. A bunch of wild animals was coming closer to the group, consisting of bears, wolves and other creatures that one would deem dangerous.

“Animals? Are they planning to attack us?” Star Twinkle said in surprise.

“Fluttershy, talk to them!” Rainbow Dash demanded, referring to her special talent with animals.

However, Fluttershy already tried to talk with some of them and wasn't able to convince them to stop.
“They won't listen to me. They say they only listen to somepony named “Wildheart”,” she explained while also being a little surprised by this.

“But don't you have a special talent with animals?” Pinkie Pie pointed out, which Fluttershy was clearly well aware of.

“Well, too bad...” Rosa interfered. “Wildheart has a special talent with animals as well,” she explained smugly.

Wildheart overheard that and explained. “Animals...friends...friends...help us...”

The animals were coming closer to the group but didn't make any signs of attacking them. Instead, they just made sure that nopony would do something rash.

“As expected...” Fade then started after looking at the situation in which the group was in right now.
“Looks like you can't use your elements when one of them is separated from the rest,”

It was just like last time, with Discord. If one bearer or one element, in this case, was missing, the Elements could not be used, much to the group's demise.

“Again, give us the Elements of Harmony. They are of no use for you anymore,” Fade once again suggested.

“What are you planning to do with the Elements of Harmony?” Princess Celestia asked.

“Nothing...just making sure that you won't use them against us,” Fade explained. “What we are really after is you, your majesty,” he added in a rather mocking tone in his voice. “We need you to complete a ritual for us. The other piece is Princess Luna but as you can see,” he said while he pointed towards Princess Luna. “We already took care of that,”

Getting reminded how Princess Luna was still trapped in some kind of dark orb, made Princess Celestia furious.
“We won't give you the Elements of Harmony...
And neither will I let you hurt my sister!” She exclaimed as she spread her wings and flew up towards the ceiling, out of reach of all the animals in the room.

This sudden action did surprise, everypony since it was unusual for Celestia to act like that but since her sister was in possible danger, she seemed to slowly forget to keep her calm and just wanted to make Fade pay for it.

But Fade kept his calm and carefully watched what Princess Celestia was up to, to prepare himself for that.

Princess Celestia channeled some magic in her horn and pointed towards Fade, This was enough for Mystic to step in as well. He used his magic to create a mist spell that covered the four ponies in a thick mist, making it impossible to see them.

“It's that spell again,” Star Twinkle said worried, remembering this spell all too well from his last encounter with Mystic.

The mist also began to cover Princess Celestia, who still prepared herself to fire her magic but since she lost track of Fade, she held it back in case she would see him again. Unfortunately, she was not prepared for what was about to come next. She couldn't see anything inside of this mist but strangely enough, she was able to notice something dark driving closer to her.

Star Twinkle and the others could just watch how Fade and his group, as well as Princess Celestia, were all covered by the mist and worried about what was going on in there. But their questions were answered as soon as they heard a scream from the inside.

They all instantly recognized who it belonged to.
“Princess Celestia!” Twilight exclaimed in concern.

Only seconds later, the mist vanished and revealed Princess Celestia being covered in a dark magic orb, just like Princess Luna.

“Your Majesty!” Shining Armor said in shock as he saw Princess Celestia in this state.

Soon, the mist cleared and also revealed Fade and his group.
“Looks like we have made it now. Would the rest of you now cooperate with us without causing us any more trouble?” Fade once again offered calmly.

It was weird for the group. Fade, while still being an enemy, was just waiting for the group to do as he demanded. But every time where this was not the case, the situation would get worse. From taking one of the Elements away, surrounding the group with animals, or taking care of Princess Celestia, Fade and his group had set up everything so that Star Twinkle and his friends could no longer do anything. It was painful to admit but Fade had them right where he wanted them now.

“Fade! Stop all this! You were once the Captain of the Royal Guards! How could you just do something like this!?” Shining Armor said as he began to get angrier by Fade's actions.

“Exactly,” Fade returned. “I was the Captain of the Royal Guards. But now you are. So come and try to stop me, Shining Armor,” Fade offered.

Shining Armor was afraid to answer. Maybe it was because Fade literally offered him to attack him. But Shining Armor knew that he didn't stand a chance against him. He also couldn't believe that a former friend of his was doing all this and hesitated.

Twilight noticed the worry on her brother's face and took over by talking to Fade herself.
“What are you planning to do with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna!?” Twilight asked angrily.

Fade took a moment before he answered but didn't bother to explain everything in great detail so he gave a brief answer.
“I will create a new world,” he said with very serious and determined expression on his face.

Needless to say, the group didn't know at all what he meant with that and tried to poke in a little more. However, Fade asked Rosa to take the rest of the Elements from the group while Wildheart made sure that his animal friends would watch over them.
Of course, the group was not too fond to give them the Elements but as soon as Fade concentrated some of his magic to torture the Princesses, causing them to scream in pain, the group finally agreed to cooperate.

Robbed by their Elements of Harmony and constantly surrounded by wild dangerous animals, the group was put into a cell down in the dungeon of the castle while being accompanied by Wildheart and his animal friends, keeping a close watch on them.

There was not even a chance to escape with magic since every Unicorn in the group got some device put on their horns to prevent them from using magic. Shining Armor explained that those were used by the Royal Guards to prevent prisoners from escaping when they happen to be Unicorns. Ironically, they were used for the exact same reason now.

Wildheart closed the cell door and locked it with a key that he took with him as he attempted to walk away from the group. The animals were following Wildheart as he attempted to leave the group alone.

“Wait!” Star Twinkle said, getting Wildheart's attention again.
There was still something that bothered him. Something that Fade mentioned earlier.
“Wildheart, was it? What does Fade mean by creating a new world?” He asked which also caused the rest of the group to pay attention to Wildheart's answer.

Wildheart turned around and looked at Star Twinkle and the rest of the group and started to explain.
“Fade...makes new world...For Wildheart...for Friends...” he replied quietly.

“But he is doing something that hurts the Princesses! He is doing something evil!” Twilight exclaimed, getting Wildheart's attention.

“No...” Wildheart replied with a serious expression on his face. World...evil...World makes friends sad...makes friends be alone. Fade...doing good...” He replied.

“This world is not evil!” Rainbow Dash returned.

“Yeah! Actually, this world is pretty fun!” Pinkie Pie joined in. “I mean, we have Cupcakes, Parties, colorful balloons, and...” Pinkie Pie continued.

“No!” Wildheart interrupted a little offended.
“World is bad...world is evil...world makes friends sad...hurts them...hurts Wildheart..."
He then began to smile a little. “But new world...good...this world...bad...need new world...
Fade...makes new world for us...”

This Wildheart pony was clearly supporting Fade and his mission. Maybe it was because he was a little young but he definitely didn't see the evil part in Fade's plan to use the Princesses and hurting them in the process.
At least that's what the group thought first.

“Wildheart...Sorry...” The little colt apologized as it was obvious that he was regretting everything he did to the group.
“You no bad ponies...Wildheart knows...so Wildheart sorry...
But Wildheart...don't like being sad...don't like seeing friends sad...
So Wildheart...help Fade...”

After saying those words, Wildheart walked away from the group with his animal friends following them.

Now it was only the group left in this dark dungeon cell. There was not even a way to make some light since, Twilight, Shining Armor, and Rarity had those devices on their horns to preventing them from using any magic.

Despite the age of this castle, the prison bars were still pretty solid and impossible for Applejack or Rainbow Dash to break. There was no escaping for anyone of them, making the group feel a little helpless. Except for maybe one or two of them.

“I'll understand that you two had to wear one but why me!?” Rarity said angrily. “It's not like I can use powerful magic! Also, the design of those things is just horrid!” She said in disgust as she fiddled around with this thing on her horn.

“They most likely wanted to make sure that nopony was able to use magic, in order to escape,” Twilight replied, even though that was the least of problems now.
“I just hope that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are alright...” she added in concern as she thought about the two.

“I can't believe that Fade would do something like that...” Shining Armor said with a frown on his face. “All I could do was standing there, watching...” he blamed himself.

Star Twinkle saw how Shining Armor was sitting in the corner blaming himself for not doing anything. It was something that he could understand all to well from personal experience. That feeling of being helpless and not being strong enough to do something. He wished that he could say something to Shining Armor to help him but that was harder than he thought.

“Those bars won't budge one bit!” Applejack said frustrated as she kept kicking the bars in order to get out.
“Can't you somehow open up those strange things on your horns to help us?” She then suggested.

“No, they are locked, just like the cell doors. We need a key to get them open,” Twilight explained.

“Well, if you didn't have a horn, to begin with, then there would be no need to open them up,” Pinkie Pie joined in.

“That's not helping, Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash added after she decided to take a little break from kicking the bars.

“I'm just saying,” Pinkie Pie replied as she shrugged her shoulders.
“I mean, they wouldn't have to put those things on your horn if you magically grew one later on,” she explained further casually, despite the situation she was in.

After Pinkie Pie's pretty casual statement, everypony except her, and Twilight turned their heads towards Star Twinkle, who was standing there thinking about a way out as well until he noticed all the stares thrown at him.
“What?” He said confused.

Rainbow Dash quickly went towards Star Twinkle with an idea in her head. “You! Turn into a Unicorn and get us out of here! Just like back then in the Crystal Empire!” She suggested out of frustration.

“What!? But I don't even know how I did it!” Star Twinkle replied.

Twilight walked up to Star Twinkle in slight disbelieve. She was the only one of the group who didn't saw Star Twinkle when he confronted King Sombra and believed that when her friends told her about it, that it was just the imagination caused by the stress back then. Naturally, she wanted to confirm if it was true from Star Twinkle himself. “So back then you really grew a horn and a pair of wings?”

“Yeah...” Star Twinkle replied a little uncomfortable. “But I don't know how I did that!” He repeated.

“If I could teach you a teleportation spell, then you could get out and look for the key to free us all...” Twilight said while she rubbed her chin.

“What!?” Star Twinkle replied confused. “Didn't you hear!? I said I don't know how I did it! And what makes you think that I even can pull off a teleportation spell?” He added, this time more frustrated just because of Twilight believing that he could easily turn into a Unicorn again.

“So you are saying that you don't want to try?” Twilight replied as she looked at Star Twinkle with a determined expression on her face.

“I...” Star Twinkle could only return before he was at a loss for words. Of course, he didn't want to abandon the Princesses but what she was expecting from him was just too much. It was something that he couldn't even begin to explain. But despite that, Twilight decided to put all her hopes into Star Twinkle.
Since he knew how this conversation would go, he decided to give in and try it.
“Okay...I'll try but I can't promise anything...” he said as he tried to concentrate.
“Now I just need to know how to do that...”

Meanwhile, in the throne room...

Fade and his little group looked over to the two Princesses as they levitated above the throne, trapped in this two flying orbs of dark magic.

“Soon...soon we can create a new world...” Fade said as his eyes were focused on the two orbs above the throne.

Meanwhile, Mystic was standing next to him tapping his hooves on the ground inpatient before he walked up to Fade.
“Hey! Fade!” He said with an unexpected angry tone in his voice.
“Let me talk to Princess Celestia, now that those bothersome ponies are gone!” He demanded.

“Wait until the ritual is gone...” Fade said as he kept looking at the two princesses.

“I've waited for far too long! I want to talk with her now!” Mystic demanded once more, this time even going so far but to go up closer to Fade's face.

“Our plan has priority. Once it's done, I will no longer interfere with your actions...” Fade assured as he kept his eyes on the princesses.

Mystic didn't like hearing those words and didn't look like as if he calmed down by them either. He clenched his teeth and began growling at Fade but kept himself from attacking him or anything like that.

“Come on, Mystic,” Rosa said in an attempt to calm Mystic down. “I'm sure it won't be too long until the ritual is finished so just be patient,”

“Yeah!” Tagma said cheerfully as always. “We can spend some time talking about some stuff or playing something until it's done,” he suggested.

However, Mystic didn't reply and walked away. “I'm going for a walk...You better be done when I'm back...” he said before he walked into another hallway of the castle, leaving the four ponies alone in the throne room.

Rosa could only let out a frustrated sigh after this.
“Why does he always have to be like this?” She said as she rubbed her neck.

“Mystic...mad...us?” Wildheart asked with a frown on his face.

“Oh, don't worry Wildheart!” Tagma joined in. “If he would really be mad at us, then he would attack us and not walk away like that,” Tagma assured, however, it didn't sound all too convincing by that choice of words.

“Don't worry about him,” Fade said.
“Soon, he will get what he wants as well.
He is like us after all. Rejected by this world. Hurt by this world. An Outcast, just like us. He lost too much to let this plan fail now,”

For the first time, he turned around to face the others now.

“He lost something just like us. Or was hurt by this world just because of the way he was. We all did...”

He turned towards Tagma. “Whether it was being used...”
He turned towards Rosa. “Or being alone...”
He turned towards Wildheart. “Or being treated unfairly... ”

“Or...” he said as he looked over to where Mystic was walking off to.
“Losing somepony who was most important to you...”

Meanwhile, in the prison cell...

Star Twinkle had still his eyes closed and tried to concentrate on growing a horn on his head. But things seemed to get a little hard with some ponies talking in the background.

“You think he did it?” Pinkie Pie whispered.

“I don't know...” Fluttershy whispered back.

“He didn't grow a horn yet...” Rarity added.

“So you think he can't do it?” Rainbow Dash said bluntly.

“Girls!” Star Twinkle exclaimed annoyed. “I can't really concentrate if you are all talking like that!” He said, causing the girls to be quiet again.
“Yeah...as if that is the reason...” Star Twinkle thought.
“Come on...how did I do that back then? I remember it happening as soon as King Sombra attacked me. That's when I grew a horn...
But how did I do that?
Think, Star Twinkle! Was there something else?”

He tried to remember back what happened on that day that might have caused him to change like that. One thing he remembered particularly stood out.
“I am you...and you are me...
I remember hearing those words right before I changed...
Is that important?
Is it?”

Star Twinkle became more and more frustrated by the fact that it didn't work and tried to imagine himself in the same mindset as before in the Crystal Empire.

The fear of getting attacked by King Sombra...
The way he felt helpless...
But right now he only felt like doing something to help Princess Celestia and Luna...
His mind was filled with frustration and the need to do something.

Eventually, all that was enough to let him be surrounded by some kind of light for a second.

“What happened? Did I do it?” Star Twinkle said confused.

“Almost...” Twilight replied as she pointed towards him, causing him to look on his back.

“Oh, come on!” He said frustrated as he saw a pair of wings on his back.

He tried again and this time there was only some determination needed to get him to the result he wanted.
Another short light literally popped up and he had now a horn on his head, just like he wanted.
Star Twinkle moved his hoof up to his head and was able to feel something pointy on it, confirming that he was a Unicorn now, or at least an Earth-Pony with a horn.

“Amazing...” Twilight said in awe. If the situation was a little different, then she would probably ask a million questions about how he felt at this moment or something but there were still two Princesses to be saved.
“Alright, now the teleportation spell! Try to imagine yourself on the other side of the wall while concentrating some magic...” She explained.

“Yeah...how do you do that in the first place!?” Star Twinkle replied because of how easy Twilight expected him to pull that off.

“Come over here...” Twilight said, causing Star Twinkle to walk closer to her. Twilight moved her horn towards Star Twinkle's horn and closed her eyes.
“I can't use any magic because of that device but maybe you can feel the flow of magic inside of me, to get yourself accustomed to it,”

“Uh...sure...” Star Twinkle replied a little embarrassed because of the fact how close their faces were right now.

Twilight used to focus some of her magic but before there could be any magic released, the device on her head stopped it from coming out. Strangely enough, maybe because of Star Twinkle's horn, he could still feel something flowing inside of him as well.

“This is how magic feels like?” Star Twinkle thought.
“I had no time to focus on it back then in the Crystal Empire but now...
It feels...warm...and kinda tingly...”

“Just imagine yourself on the other side of this bars,” Twilight said while her eyes were closed.

While Star Twinkle, had still this feeling of magic inside of him, he figured he should use it at this moment and did as Twilight said. He tried to imagine himself on the other side of the bars while focusing on the magic that he could feel in this moment and before he knew it he disappeared and popped up somewhere else.

When he appeared again, he could feel something feel off.
“Did I do it?” He asked out of his confusion.

“Almost...” Rarity said as she pointed towards him.

Star Twinkle then found out that his head was stuck between two bars while his body was on the other side of the cell door. ”Oh, come on!” He said in his frustration.

“Hold still!” Rainbow Dash said before she walked over to him.

“Why?” Star Twinkle asked before he realized what Rainbow Dash was about to do.

She kicked his head, causing him to actually get through the bars completely, though he felt really dizzy because of the not too gently kick of Rainbow Dash. Star Twinkle slowly caught up with a small headache. When he grabbed his head out of this slight pain, he noticed how his horn was gone again. After being able to see straight again, he quickly looked all around the room to find some kind of key but he couldn't find any.
“There is no key in this room,” he informed his friends.

“Then maybe it's in another room. You have to keep looking for it!” Twilight suggested.

"Okay, I'll be right back!" Star Twinkle assured before he left the room.

Since there was no other thing to do in this situation, Star Twinkle had no choice but to run around the castle to find this key. He came across multiple rooms and surprisingly was not caught by any animals of Wildheart or any other of Fade's companions.

“Alright, I just have to find one small key in this giant castle...no problem!” Star Twinkle mumbled as he looked over into the next room he came across. Much to his surprise, he did spot a key attached to a chain right on a table at the end of the room.

“Is this the key?” Star Twinkle wondered.
“Only one way to find out!” He said determined before he ran towards the table with the key on it, ready to grab it and return to his friends.

But just before he was able to grab it, a beam of magic was shot in front of him, making Star Twinkle jump back in surprise to dodge out of the way. He laid on his behind due to the shock of this attack and turned his head to the left to find out from where it came from.

“I don't know how you escaped but...” The pony said as he walked out of the shadows to confront Star Twinkle with his horn still glowing in a dark blue aura, indicating that he was responsible for the attack. “...But it doesn't matter because now I can get my revenge on you for ruining my plans with the Storm Wings,” the Unicorn said as an evil smile started to form on his face.

“Mystic!” Star Twinkle said in shock after he saw the previous leader of the Storm Wings walking up to him.

“Since you are trying to get this key, I assume that your friends are still inside of their cell,” he assumed as he put the key around his neck while smiling sinisterly.

Now Star Twinkle had a problem. Not only was he spotted by Mystic but he also had the key. All ways now lead towards defeating Mystic, causing Star Twinkle to get worried.
“There is no way that I can get this key to my friends if he is the one standing in my way. The last time I fought this guy, I stood no chance,” Star Twinkle thought as he tried to find a way to handle this situation.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Try and grab this key,” Mystic offered, though Star Twinkle knew exactly that he was just playing around and waited for him to do something reckless so that Mystic could attack Star Twinkle.
“Or could it be that you planning how to escape from me? You do remember how our last fight went, right?” Mystic pointed out as he tried to mentally break Star Twinkle.

“Could I even run away now? Would he let me? Would I be quick enough to escape? There is no way that I can beat him anyway! There is no...”

While Star Twinkle was literally listening to his own thoughts, he could feel how sadness was rising inside of him. It felt like time was stopping for a moment while he looked at the key around Mystic's neck.

“Running...That's all I can think of now...” He thought as his head dropped to the ground accompanied by a frown on his face.
“My friends all believed in me...They put all their fate in me...
And I am letting them down again...”

It's not even the chance of winning against Mystic that made Star Twinkle sad. Or fact that he would let his friends down because he was too weak against Mystic.
It was because Star Twinkle gave up without trying that made him sad.

“Every single time...
Twilight didn't even consider that I would fail...
She believed in me no matter how slim the chance of success was...
She saw the only option that could save the Princesses and she tried to do everything to make it a success...
Right now...the only option I have...
Is to get this key from Mystic...
To beat Mystic...”

Star Twinkle raised his head again and looked directly into Mystic's eyes, who couldn't help but get a little surprised by this sudden change of expression that now was in Star Twinkle's face.
Soon, Mystic's expression changed to one of shock after he saw how magic was surrounding Star Twinkle's head and formed a horn on his forehead.

“I may lose...
I may not be strong enough to beat Mystic...
But...
I will not lose-”
Star Twinkle focused some magic in his horn and pointed it towards Mystic, who was still standing there in shock, unable to even react to this situation.
“- Without Trying!” He exclaimed before he shot a magic beam towards Mystic, directly hitting him and throwing him against the wall, causing him to drop to the ground face down.

Star Twinkle was amazed by himself and what he just did and breathed heavily by his own outburst.
“I did it!” He said in relief and a confident smile on his face.

Now all he had to do was to get the key from Mystic's body. However...

“I see you learned a new trick...” Mystic said, causing Star Twinkle to get startled a little before he turned towards the Unicorn who was slowly getting up on his hooves again. Mystic raised his head and looked straight at Star Twinkle with a smile on his face.
“But that won't be enough to stop me. I'll admit, I never saw an Earth Pony turn into a Unicorn but don't think that you can just beat me by using magic on your own. Because my magic-” Mystic started before he focused some magic on his own before he fired straight at Star Twinkle, who barely managed to dodge to the site. “-Is on a whole other level,” he finished with a confident smile on his face.

Star Twinkle prepared himself to face Mystic and stood ready for an incoming attack. Mystic on the other hoof stood there calmly and confident but also with an annoyed look on his face.

"You could have just try to run, you know? But instead, you try to fight me over this key. You are free so you could have fleed from this castle without anypony noticing. No one of us would have cared you were gone..." Mystic asked in an unusually serious and not mocking tone.

It was funny for Star Twinkle to ask that, making him smile for a second. "I actually thought about doing that...but then I would have let all my friends down, who believed in me," Star Twinkle replied with a smile on his face.

"Your friends, huh?" Mystic questioned quietly as he looked at Star Twinkle with an unmoved expression on his face. "So, what?" He then added confused, making Star Twinkle raise an eyebrow confused. "Then let them down. You would still be safe and didn't have to deal with me or anypony else," he said in a dead serious almost monotone tone in his voice. "And what is all that talk about them believing in you? They obviously ran out of options what to do and sent you because they didn't know any better. If they are your so called friends, then they surely know that you couldn't do anything to save them," he continued further to maybe lower Star Twinkle's confidence.

But despite all those words, Star Twinkle didn't seem to be affected at all. "You're wrong! They believe that I can get them out and put their trust into me! The least I can do is to try my best to save them!" Star Twinkle returned a very determined.

But just like Star Twinkle not being affected by Mystic's words, Mystic also didn't seem to be affected either.
"Friends are not worth putting yourself in danger like that.
Friendship is just a waste of time.
Not only does it give you nothing but trouble but in the end, it only hurts you.
Friends are not there to believe in you.
They just hold you back or plan to use you when they have the chance..."

Hearing those words made Star Twinkle fill his thoughts with worry as he listened how serious Mystic was while saying them. Not only that, but they also reminded him of himself.
"Those words...
I thought like that too when I was all alone..." he realized as his eyes were now full of concern and even a little sympathy for Mystic.
"He probably thinks he is all alone and is telling himself all that...
Is that what Wildheart meant with his friends being sad and alone?" Star Twinkle wondered.

Mystic's horn suddenly began to glow and Star Twinkle widened his eyes in surprise after realizing that Mystic planned an incoming attack.
"I'm done talking with you. Let's get this over with,"

The battle resumed and Star Twinkle did his best to dodge every single shot that Mystic threw at him while returning a few shots himself. But it was clear that Mystic had the upper hoof in this fight. Star Twinkle tried to find an opening to get Mystic but that was easier said than done. Star Twinkle was running all over the room while Mystic mostly stood in one place, firing at him.

Eventually, Mystic grew a little tired and tried something else. “How about I'll try something different?” He said before he used his magic to create a mist around him, just like he did before against Celestia.

The mist quickly surrounded the whole area and made it impossible to see anything for him. He tried to focus on any hint how to find Mystic inside of the mist.
“Keep your calm...” Star Twinkle thought to not lose his focus.
“As soon as I see an attack I just have to fire to where it came from...”

Just when he could finish that thought, as he predicted one shot came flying towards him. Surprised by this himself, Star Twinkle managed to dodge this one and instantly fired in the same direction.
“Did I hit him?” Star Twinkle wondered.

“You missed...” Mystic said quietly as he appeared right behind Star Twinkle before he fired a magic beam at the back of Star Twinkle who just now realized the pony behind him.

Star Twinkle dropped to the ground, face down and tried to get up but was quickly pushed down to the ground again by Mystic who used his two front legs to stand above Star Twinkle, pinning him down on the ground.

Mystic was clearly enjoying how the fight was going to into his favor and began laughing a little.
“I told you. There was no way for you to keep up with me. Looks like your friends won't get out of their cell anytime soon...” He said further poking into Star Twinkle's loss. “And after dealing with you, I can also get my revenge on Celestia as well...”

Star Twinkle tried to get up but that shot from before was also having some effect on his stamina. Despite being in this situation, some thought came up in his mind which bothered him.
“Why are you doing all this?” Star Twinkle asked as his face was still on the ground. “Why do you support Fade? Do you hate this world as well?”

Mystic was clearly caught off guard by this question and seemed to hesitate from answering.

“Wildheart said that he didn't want to see his friends be sad or alone...Do you feel that way too?”
But as soon as he asked those questions, his head was pushed to the ground by Mystic.

“Do you really think that I will answer you any of those questions?” Mystic returned annoyed.

But Star Twinkle wouldn't let this topic die off that easily. “What do you expect this new world, that Fade is trying to create to be like?”

Again, Mystic didn't answer right away but this question was a lot easier for him to answer.
“It's not this “new world” that interests me...“ He started as he looked up to the ceiling while being in some deep thoughts.
“In order to create a new world...you first have to get rid of the current one...
I could care less about what this new world is supposed to be like, as long as Fade is destroying this one first...”

Hearing those words worried Star Twinkle and made him realize how serious Mystic was. Just like back then with the Storm Wings, Mystic did not seem to care one bit about what happened to anypony else besides him. For a moment, Star Twinkle thought that Mystic was suffering from something in some way but hearing that made it clear for Star Twinkle that he had to be stopped.

“I don't know what happened to you to make you think like that but...” Star Twinkle started.

“But what?” Mystic asked, hinting at the current situation that Star Twinkle is right now.

“I will not stand here and let you all continue with that as long as I have the chance!” Star Twinkle said determined as he tried to get up from the ground.

“Heh,” Mystic replied mockingly. “How about trying to stand up first?”

Star Twinkle was not able to get Mystic away from his back but he didn't give up and tried his best to do everything in his might to not let his opportunity to save his friends slip away now. But Mystic was not even trying really hard to pin Star Twinkle down and still managed to keep him on the ground.
“Even if you managed to get up, there is no way that you could beat me and save your friends,” Mystic said, enjoying Star Twinkle's attempts to get up.

“I don't care!” Star Twinkle replied angrily, causing Mystic to actually be worried for a moment.
“If I would stop now, then I could might as well, gave up on this world as well!”
Star Twinkle's horn disappeared and moments later was replaced by two wings on his back, spreading them and making Mystic lose his balance and stepping away from Star Twinkle.

“Wings too?” Mystic wondered before he realized how Star Twinkle was right in front of him with an angry expression on his face. Only seconds later, Star Twinkle charged right at Mystic and threw him across the room. But not while also ripping off the key from the chain around Mystic's neck.

Star Twinkle now had the key in his mouth and realized that he only had to return to his friends to free them. Unfortunately, Mystic got up way too quick to give him a chance to escape. Star Twinkle again switched from his wings to his horn and prepared himself for the Mystic's next move.

“You!” Mystic said angrily, his body starting to shake out of anger and with his teeth clenching together.

“Now I made him angry...” Star Twinkle thought worried as he waited for Mystic's next move and keeping his magic ready.

“I had just about enough of you interfering with my goals!”
Mystic then suddenly raised his head, revealing his very angry face and shot a magic beam towards him. Star Twinkle fired a beam towards Mystic as well making the beams of Star Twinkle and Mystic both met each other, however, before there could even be a clash between the two, Mystic's beam completely annihilated Star Twinkle's without even getting slowed down, only showing the big difference in the two ponies magic abilities. Star Twinkle couldn't dodge in time and was buffeted by Mystic's attack and fell to the ground. He tried to get back on his hooves again and looked towards Mystic but Star Twinkle's eyes became heavy and he couldn't help but to faint, dropping his head to the ground with his eyes closed.

Satisfied by this sight, Mystic's anger vanished and he began to grin. He walked up to the unconscious Earth Pony and smiled at his own victory.
“I told you, didn't I? But you wouldn't listen,” he started to focus some magic inside of his horn and pointed towards Star Twinkle, ready to shoot anytime.
“And now, you'll pay the price!”

Suddenly, a magic beam was fired towards Mystic, forcing him to jump back in order to dodge.
“Who is there!?” He exclaimed angrily from this attack. Some hoof steps came closer and Mystic finally saw who was responsible for this attack. “Who are you-” He began before he realized who it was. “It's you!”

Meanwhile with Twilight and the others...

“He is taking a long time...” Applejack said concerned.

“You think he is okay? Maybe Fade caught him,” Fluttershy said in her concern.

“No!” Twilight said. “I'm sure he is fine! We just need to wait,” she said, even though it looked like as if she had a hard time believing it herself.

Granted that finding one key in this giant castle was really hard, it was the only option to free Twilight and the others, as well as opening the devices on her, Rarity and Shining Armor's horn. However, just sitting around and waiting made especially Rainbow Dash to feel a little to helpless now. Pinkie Pie on the other hoof was really bored and tried to skip the time with some games.

“Mhh, I spot something really shiny, and silver that could fit into this hole,” she described as she pointed towards the keyhole in the cell door.

“A key?” Fluttershy guessed.

“Bingo!” Pinkie Pie cheered.

“A key!?” Twilight said surprised as she tried to find out what Pinkie Pie was spotting.

To everyponies surprise, there was actually a key that laid on the ground not too far away from the cell door. Actually, it was painfully close to reach.

“Was that key always laying on there on the ground?” Applejack asked confused.

Meanwhile, at Star Twinkle and Mystic's location...

“You!” Mystic said angrily as he looked at the pony who interfered. “What are you doing here!?”

The pony that protected Star Twinkle looked at unconscious Earth-Pony, who laid on the ground but he turned his head towards Mystic. His purple eyes filled with anger and determination, hidden under a gray hood. “Protecting my friend!” Summershine said as he looked at Mystic, ready to fight.

Instead of getting intimidated by those words, Mystic started to laugh a little out of happiness. “Actually, this is perfect!” He said as his face was filled with joy. “Now everypony I want revenge against is actually inside of this castle!” He said happily as he prepared himself to fight Summershine. “You may have managed to hit me the last time we've met, but I will not get careless again!” He said before he fired a shot against a Summershine with his magic.

But Summershine quickly set up a shield in front of him, causing Mystic to stop his magic because he knew that he wanted to throw his spell back at him again, just like last time. Realizing how Summershine would probably do this every time when Mystic attacked, he quickly had to come up with something else.
“Well, then let's see how you deal with this!” He said before he used his mist spell once again.

The mist filled the whole room and made it hard to see anything for Summershine. Despite that, the hooded pony kept calm and waited for Mystic's next move.
As soon as Mystic realized how Summershine was waiting for him, he decided to do him a favor and fired a magic beam towards him from behind. But before the beam could connect, Summershine teleported away and made Mystic lose sight of him.

But Mystic was confident in his mist spell. He was controlling it and could feel any kind of magic being used inside of it. So there was no way that he could have been surprised by a sneak attack which made him feel a little more confident.

But what happened next caught him by surprise. Some Red or Orange looking light came flying towards Mystic. For a moment, he thought it was Summershine's magic but the mist didn't give him any sign that it was magic or at least ordinary magic. “What is that?” Mystic said before he realized what exactly was coming towards him.
However, the realization was enough to caught Mystic by surprise and knocked him out of the mist and right into the wall.

When the mist cleared, Summershine was revealed again, looking at Mystic laying on the ground. Summershine was not sure if he managed to defeat Mystic so he walked over to him to check but to his surprise, Mystic managed to get up again.

“You all think you can humiliate me, over and over again!?” Mystic said with a very bitter tone in his voice. “You all think you are better than me!? Me?" He shouted out in anger. "I will show you all what happens if you mess with me!” He shouted out before he channeled magic in his horn.

Shortly after, a giant magic beam, unlike any other beam that Mystic fired previously, came flying towards Summershine. But despite the size of this thing, Summershine kept his calm and teleported away in time to not get caught by it, causing the beam to hit the wall and creating a hole inside of it.
When Summershine appeared again, he could only look at the hole in the wall, that Mystic created and became a little worried.
“Incredible, what power...” he mumbled in some admiration by Mystic's power.

When the hooded pony turned his head again, Mystic was nowhere to be found anymore. He must have realized that he couldn't beat Summershine and left. Whatever the reason was, Summershine no longer had to fight and focused on somepony else.

He slowly walked up to Star Twinkle and looked at him with a serious but yer worried expression on his face. He moved one of his hooves towards Star Twinkle but stopped once he heard some voices coming closer.

“Star Twinkle!” Twilight exclaimed through the hall with multiple hoof steps accompanying her.

Summershine once again, looked at Star Twinkle as if he was thinking about what to do next.

“Star Twinkle!” A bunch of voices said from outside of the room.

“I sure hope that loud noise from before wasn't a bad sign,” Applejack's said concerned, referring to Mystic's blast from before.

The group eventually, arrived at the same room where Star Twinkle was in and instantly spotted him.

“Star Twinkle!” Twilight exclaimed out of worry after she saw him on the ground, unconscious.

They all quickly rushed to his side and tried to wake him up again. Star Twinkle was slowly opening his eyes and felt how multiple ponies surrounded him, looking at him in the process.
“What happened?” He said disorientated as he looked around the room before he remembered what happened before he fainted. “Mystic!” He exclaimed before he looked around the room to find the Unicorn. However, he was nowhere to be found, making him wonder why.

“Thank goodness you are okay,” Fluttershy said relieved, throwing Star Twinkle out of his thoughts.

“How did you all escape?” Star Twinkle asked in confusion.

“We found the key next to the cell doors and managed to open up the door and the devices on everyponies horn,” Rarity explained as she presented her now free horn.

“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie added cheerfully. “I can't believe you didn't see it when you left,”

Star Twinkle could swear that he looked all around the room before he left in order to find the key but there wasn't any. His first thought was that somepony else left it there later on but why would anypony do that? They were in enemy territory after all.
There was no point worrying about that now after he saw how his friends were all free.

Of course, Star Twinkle explained how he was attacked by Mystic but the obvious question was why he was no longer there. Star Twinkle was unconscious so there was a perfect opportunity for Mystic. Yet, Star Twinkle was still unharmed, not counting the damage he took from the fight.

“We can worry about that later!” Twilight then pointed out. “Right now, we have to get to Fade and save the Princesses!”

“But how!?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Yeah, they took away our Elements and still have Princess Celestia and Luna as hostages. How are we suppose to do anything against them?” Applejack pointed out, making a valid point.

“We just have to try!” Star Twinkle said unexpected, causing his friends to look at him in surprise.
“I know the odds are against us but...” he stopped for a moment as if he wanted to make sure that the right words would come out of his mouth.
“Fade is trying to take this world away from us...I still don't know what exactly that means but...
Just the thought of that worries me and wants me to do something!” He explained while his words sounded a little uncertain.

However, it was enough to boost the morale of the group.
“He is right!” Shining Armor said as he stepped forwards with a completely different expression that he had previously.
“I have grieved enough in the background, watching Fade do as he pleases!
This time I will not just stand there and let him hurt the Princesses, that I swore to protect!”

“Shining Armor?” Twilight said in awe as she saw her big brother giving this little speech to everypony, further boosting their morale.

Star Twinkle joined in again and wanted to say one last thing before they would go to Fade, once more. “We might lose or won't be able to make it in time but if we don't do anything, then we lose either way...
I don't want to lose without trying!” He said determined, getting the others spirits high up as well.

“Then what are we waiting for!?” Rainbow Dash asked confidently. “Let's kick some behinds!”

“Yeah!” Everypony said in unison as they marched towards the direction of the throne room to settle things with Fade, once and for all.

Meanwhile, in the throne room...

A very frustrated Mystic ran towards the throne room where Fade and the others were still waiting for the ritual to finish. When he entered the room, he was instantly greeted with some worried expressions by his companions.
“Fade! We got some problems!” Mystic said hectically as he ran towards Fade who was still focusing on the ritual. Fade turned around to face Mystic with an unchanged serious expression on his face, waiting for Mystic to continue. “One of the prisoners broke out and there is also another intruder in the castle,”

“I can tell...” Fade said unimpressed.

Mystic then noticed that Fade wasn't looking at him but rather behind him, causing him to turn around, only to notice Summershine right behind him, making him jump back and right next to Fade.

“Who are you?” Fade asked as he looked at Summershine, who in return didn't reply and looked over to the two Princesses who were trapped inside of those two magical orbs.

“Be careful, Fade! I'll hate to admit it but his magic is pretty strong,” Mystic admitted, forgetting his pride for a moment to warn Fade who was now standing next to Mystic.

Summershine walked up to the group slowly and didn't even look directly into the eyes of everypony. It was either bravery or stupidity, that's what Fade figured as he saw the hooded pony walking up to the five ponies. “What do you think you are doing?” He asked almost as if he tried to warn Summershine.

“I...” Summershine started before he looked at everypony in the room who was now standing against him. It was five against one but Summershine didn't look worried in the slightest and focused his sight on Fade to give him a determined answer.

“I will free the Princesses,”

To be continued...

60. Outcasts - Part 3

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It was a stare off between Summershine and the five ponies who called themselves the Outcasts. One against five. One hooded Pony against the previous Captain of the Royal Guards, the previous leader of the Storm Wings, a carefree Changeling, a swift thief, and a little innocent stallion.

“I will free the Princesses,” Summershine said determined while he looked straight into Fade's eyes.

“Do you?” Fade bluntly replied. “I think you are overestimating yourself a little if you think that you can take all of us on,” Fade pointed out, reminding Summershine that it is still five against one.

“Careful, Fade,” Mystic added concerned. “This one is not to be underestimated,” Mystic remembered again.

Fade had to admit, that he grew a little more cautious after hearing Mystic saying that. Normally, Mystic would never admit something like that, meaning that the situation was not to be taken lightly now.
“Rosa, Tagma,” Fade said, causing the two of them to join the two Unicorns.

“Understood, there is no way that he will get past us!” Rosa said determined as she stood ready for battle.

“Oh! I got an idea!” Tagma said out of the blue before he transformed into Summershine as well.
“If I transform myself into him, then he wouldn't know who to attack,” he explained as he laughed a little proudly to come up with this plan.

“Yes, he would!” Rosa exclaimed annoyed. “He is the real one! So of course, he would know that he just had to attack another one who looks like him!” She added as she pointed out the flaw in Tagma's plan.

The Changeling quickly turned back to his Pegasus form and made a puzzled face. “Oh, yeah!” He said before he giggled in embarrassment. “Sorry, forgot that,” he added as he rubbed his neck embarrassed.

Suddenly, just like before, growls and roars could be heard from the corners of the room. It was Wildheart's animal friends, that quickly walked closer towards the hooded Pony. Wildheart must have set up his friends so that they would surround any attackers, in a case for a situation like this.

“Well, looks like we don't even have to do anything,” Rosa said smugly as she loosened up again.

“Good job, Wildheart!” Tagma praised, causing Wildheart to only nod as a reply.

Summershine, however, did not seem to realize that he was surrounded by those animals since he looked up to the Princesses, who were trapped in those dark orbs. He made a worried face after watching the two being trapped in dark magic, sitting inside those orbs almost lifeless.

“Don't worry, your majesties...” he said before his eyes turned towards his enemies again, forming a determined expression on his face.
“I will get you out of there!”

The animals seemed to feel the change inside of Summershine and instinctively charged towards him as if they could feel that Summershine was about to attack.

Summershine didn't move a muscle or neither did he show any worry, despite being attacked by multiple wild animals at once. There was no way that he could dodge out of the way because there were just too many animals. This fearless expression almost worried his opponent who were just waiting for Summershine to be attacked and defeated by the animals.

But they were surprised by what they saw next...

The animals backed up after Summershine made his move, without moving from his spot. His opponents were shocked and surprised by what they saw happening in front of them.
A wall of fire was surrounding Summershine, protecting himself from the animals, who didn't dare to come any closer to him.

“Fire?” Fade said confused.

“I didn't know you could create fire out of nothing with magic!” Tagma said in awe of Summershine's “magic”

“That's because you can't...at least not like that!” Mystic informed bitterly.

The animals were too afraid of the fire and actually ran away from fear and leaving Summershine in peace. After that, Summershine charged straight towards the group to which Tagma and Rosa quickly charged towards him as well. Suddenly, Summershine covered himself in aura made out of fire, startling Tagma and Rosa who kept running towards Summershine.

“Get away from him!” Fade then screamed to the two.

They both realized as well, that they couldn't get close to him like that and dodged to the side, barely getting out of the way of the literal burning pony in front of them. Fade and Mystic both placed themselves in front of the throne and stood ready to defend it at all costs. They focused their magic and were ready to fire at any moment, shooting Summershine before he would get too close to them to get burned by his fire.

Fade and Mystic shot towards Summershine but the hooded pony teleported away in time, disappearing out of the sight of the two Unicorns. It took them only a second to realize that Summershine now stood right between the two, causing both of them to get caught off guard. Summershine then released a spell around him that caused the two Unicorns to be pushed away. It hardly did any damage to either of them and only pushed them away but now Summershine was directly in front of the two orbs that trapped Princess Celestia and Luna.

Fade and Mystic got up again and felt a little dizzy after the attack, preventing them to stop Summershine in time.

“Oh no! He is trying to get them out!” Tagma said in a panic as he looked over to the throne.

“Now what!?” Mystic asked Fade as he looked over to what Summershine was about to do next.

However, Fade only smirked and watched how Summershine tried to free the Princesses. As soon as Summershine tried to use magic against the two orbs, some magic came out of them and attacked Summershine, pushing him away from the throne a little.

“It's no use,” Fade said as he walked up towards Summershine. “The orbs in which those two are trapped in were created by Dark Magic. Ordinary magic will not be enough to free them,” he informed.

Summershine did give Fade an angered look after realizing how his attack from before was for nothing but he also kept looking at his option at this point. He eventually decided to use some more magic against the two orbs. Fade saw it as a frustrated act from Summershine's side and kept explaining the situation.
“Dark Magic is far more powerful than any other magic and can not be easily stopped like that. The only thing that could have might stop it were the Elements of Harmony, but I made sure that those were out of our way,” he said as he pointed at the Elements, who were not too far away in the same room, inside of a locked chest.

However, Summershine didn't seem to listen to Fade and continued to use magic against the two orbs, despite being attacked by their magic.

Fade could only shake his head, not because he mocked Summershine but rather because he felt like Summershine was simply wasting his time. It was not even needed to step in and stop the hooded pony because he was already attacked by the two orbs. It was only a matter of time until he would give in. “It's no use,” he said one more time.

But Summershine continued and didn't listen to Fade. Eventually, he dropped to his knees out of exhaustion and pain but not without keeping his magic going.

Mystic watched Summershine, still going at it and couldn't help but to get confused by it. “Why is he keep going?” He wondered as he watched Summershine and his attempt to free the Princesses.

Summershine seemed to feel more and more pain and exhaustion as time went on but he didn't stop. Then as he kept going, some kind of light started to surround Summershine. Fade and the rest of the group got confused by yet another surprise that Summershine was showing them. The light that surrounded Summershine, began to travel to his horn and was now surrounding the magic beam that he shot towards the dark orbs. The magic around the dark orb's began to literally crack, much to Fade's surprise. Before he knew it, he saw how Summershine managed to break out the two Princesses with the help of this strange light.

Summershine was showing some exhaustion after this action and turned around to face Fade and his group while Princess Celestia and Luna began to land on the ground, still unconscious.

“How? He managed to break my Dark Magic?” Fade said confused as he looked at Summershine, trying to figure out how in the world he managed to break his Dark Magic. “Who is he?” He wondered as he looked over to Summershine, preparing to pay him back for ruining his plan.

But before he could get his payback, Fade heard some hoof steps coming closer to the throne room.
Soon, the rest of the group began to hear some familiar voices drawing closer and closer. While this was definitely something that the group didn't look forward to dealing with, Fade only focused on Summershine so far.

The hooded pony heard the voices as well and began to smile, much to Fade's surprise. Summershine looked over to the princesses one more time and then turned around from the group. Needless to say, Fade realized that Summershine was about to leave. “Hey! You think you can just leave after messing everything up for us?” Fade said angrily.

Summershine turned around to Fade and gave him only some last advice before he was about to leave.
“I don't know what exactly happened to you...
But don't let yourself be consumed by hate...
Before you know it, there is no turning back...” He finished as he looked over o Mystic as well who only returned a glance.

Summershine then teleported away from the group and left them confused.

“Who was that?” Rosa asked.

“Forget him! We have bigger problems now!” Mystic reminded, hinting at the voices that echoed through the halls that came closer and closer to the throne room.

“Fade...what do?” Wildheart asked.

However, Fade didn't reply and seemed to be in deep thoughts what to do next. It was until he came up with a new attempt to trap the Princesses.
“You take care of Shining Armor and the others. I will resume the ritual,” Fade ordered as he walked up to the two Princesses.

“I thought, doing that ritual uses up too much magic,” Mystic pointed out. "You said that it's dangerous to use too much Dark Magic carelessly like that...”

Rosa, Tagma, and Wildheart seemed to be aware of that as well and grew concerned about it but they didn't stop Fade and got ready to do as he said and waited.

“Also...” Fade said, causing the group to look at him again. “If things get too dangerous...then escape, as soon as you have the chance,” he advised before he walked towards the Princesses again. However, the four seemed still confident to continue and wouldn't leave now even after Fade offered it to them.

Only a few moments later, the group was greeted by the ponies who entered the throne room, consisting of Star Twinkle, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Shining Armor who all stood ready to confront Fade and his group, putting an end to his plan.

However, Star Twinkle and the others were surprised to see the Princesses out of the two orbs and free. “The Princesses are free? How did that happen?” Star Twinkle wondered.

“Don't worry about that,” Mystic interrupted as he stepped up to the group.

“Yeah, you have to deal with us after all,” Rosa joined in, stepping up as well.

Mystic, Tagma, Rosa, and Wildheart were forming a wall in front of Fade and the two Princesses and prevented the group from getting past them while Fade seemed to use some more Dark Magic in order to trap the Princesses again.

“We have to stop him before he traps Princess Celestia and Luna again!” Applejack said.

Both groups charged at each other and soon there was a huge crowd of ponies fighting against each other. Applejack and Rainbow Dash took care of Rosa and Wildheart, while Twilight quickly focused on Mystic. The rest was either more passive or helped the others in any other way.

Meanwhile, Fade already started to cast his two orbs to trap the Princesses again. Shining Armor was determined to not let anything like that happen. “I'll take care of Fade!” He said as he charged towards him.

Mystic noticed that and tried to stop him. “Oh no, you don't!” He said as he fired his magic towards Shining Armor. However, Twilight teleported in front of her brother and used a shield spell to protect him, much to his dislike. “You again?” He said as he clenched his teeth in anger, remembering the last encounter with Twilight.

Shining Armor fired his magic towards Fade as he charged towards him, forcing Fade to shield himself and stopping his progress to trap the Princesses. He managed to trap them once more, but the orbs they were in looked a little more unstable than before, though it was enough to keep them inside. “It seems like I have to deal with you first,” Fade said displeased as he turned around to face Shining Armor.

“This doesn't have to end like this!” Shining Armor exclaimed, looking at what his friend has become now. “Stop this now, Fade!” He once again pleads.

Fade was not been affected by Shining Armor's words and replied unimpressed. “Stay out of my way, Shining Armor,”

“No, I won't!” Shining Armor replied, determined to not back away this time. “I don't know why you insisting of creating this new world but hurting the Princesses like that is unforgivable!” He said, speaking as a true Captain of the Royal Guards.

“Sacrifices have to be made, in order to create a new world...” Fade replied, still unshaken by Shining Armor's words.

“And what do you expect this world to look like?” Shining Armor questioned. “What does this new world that you are trying to create, give you that it's worth to take away our current one?”

To that, Fade, for the first time began to put more emotions into his answer. He narrowed his eyes in anger, probably because he was sick of all those questions and didn't want to talk about this subject anymore. Still, he gave Shining Armor the answer that he was asking for. “It will give me back what was most important to me...” Fade replied a little angered losing his calm within this conversation. He took a deep breath in order to collect himself again. “I can bring them back, in this new world. There I can live happily with them...” he finished while he formed a smile on his face filled with happiness just thinking about that.

Shining Armor suddenly realized something, making him stagger for a second. “You mean...”

Meanwhile, the battle between the rest of the group was in full motion. Twilight was doing a good job holding Mystic off while the rest kept Tagma, Rosa and Wildheart busy which was actually pretty easy since, Tagma was really passive and Wildheart was too young to fight the group, leaving only Rosa, who could barely keep up with ponies like Star Twinkle, Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

“We'll get you now!” Applejack said, being fully aware that the situation was under her and her friends control now.

“Yeah! Give up now! There is no way that you can win!” Rainbow Dash said confidently that the fight was already over. “You never stood a chance against us anyway,”

“Except when you had all those animals on your side,” Pinkie Pie added, making Rainbow Dash roll her eyes in annoyance of that needless addition.

Star Twinkle was not sure if he was of much help and rather kept his eyes on either Mystic or Fade. Those two, however, were already occupied by Twilight and Shining Armor. At the same time, the Princesses have already trapped again but Star Twinkle knew that it was a little more chaotic this time around. Realizing that Applejack and Rainbow Dash were more than enough to hold Rosa, Tagma and Wildheart off, Star Twinkle had an idea in mind to save the Princesses.
“You think you can hold them off a bit?” Star Twinkle asked.

Suddenly, Rarity showed up in the background. “Of course we can!” She exclaimed, answering in place of Applejack and Rainbow Dash who did most of the fighting. But the two mares gave him a heads up as well and hinted that they would help Star Twinkle with this plan.

Star Twinkle then charged towards the Princesses which meant that he had to go past Mystic and Fade before that.
“Right now, I have the chance to free the Princesses while everypony else is being stopped by my friends. I have to use this chance now!” He thought to himself as he charged towards Princess Celestia and Luna.

As planned, Applejack and Rainbow Dash now also with a little help of Pinkie Pie and Rarity, Tagma, Rosa and Wildheart were not able to stop Star Twinkle.

His action, however, was not unnoticed by Mystic who instantly tried to fire a magic beam towards him but fortunately Twilight shot at him, making him jump away and unable to concentrate on Star Twinkle.

With four ponies out of his way, there was only Fade left on his way who was busy taking care of Shining Armor.

Shining Armor noticed Star Twinkle charging towards the Princesses. “Star Twinkle?” Shining Armor said confused by Star Twinkle's sudden action. He picked up on Star Twinkle's plan and tried to support him the best he could.

Fade, however, did not bother to stop Star Twinkle, knowing that a normal Earth-Pony would not be able to free the two Princesses.

Star Twinkle stopped in front of them and transformed into his Unicorn form in order to fire his magic against the Dark Orbs, hoping that this would be enough to free Princess Celestia and Luna.

Needless to say, Fade was heavily surprised to see the Earth-Pony grow a horn on his head. “What!? Why has he a horn all of the sudden?” He wondered before he calmed down again and realized that it was still not enough to stop his plan. “Doesn't matter. There is still no way for him to break through my Dark Magic,” he said to himself confidently before he turned towards Shining Armor again.

Shining Armor, however, grinned back at those words. “Don't be too sure, Fade,” he said confidently, causing Fade to raise an eyebrow out of confusion. “You may be surprised by what this pony is capable of,” he added, fully trusting Star Twinkle to save the Princesses.

Star Twinkle wasted no longer any time and focused his magic to fire a shot at the two Dark Orbs. As expected, it was a lot harder to free them than he thought. Not only that, but he also got attacked by Dark Magic that came from the orbs, making Star Twinkle drop on his knees while he continued to use his magic against the two orbs.
“This is really painful!” Star Twinkle thought feeling nothing but pain in his body.

“That hooded pony from before might have been able to break through my magic for some reason, but this one is not nearly as strong as him. Neither does he possess this strange magic that the hooded pony used,” Fade said to himself.

The battle between Shining Armor and Fade was at a stop for now. Both of them waited for Star Twinkle to either succeed or fail in his attempt to save the Princesses. Twilight and Mystic stopped their battle as well, to see how things would play out. And even the rest of the ponies inside of the throne room watched Star Twinkle patiently to see what would happen next.

It was no longer a regular battle. It was more a mental battle at this point. If Star Twinkle would succeed, then the motivation of Fade's group would shrink, knowing that Fade probably couldn't trap the Princesses again because it would use too much magic. And if Star Twinkle would fail, then his friends would have to continue the battle while also having a close eye on him because he was in danger at that moment.

“As long as he doesn't use that strange magic that your hooded friend used, there is no way that he can break through,” Mystic said towards Twilight, making her wonder a little after hearing the term “hooded friend”.

“Come on! You can do it, Star Twinkle!” Rainbow Dash cheered.

“Hey, what do we do if he breaks those orbs too?” Tagma asked Rosa a little nervous.

“I don't think Fade will be able to trap the Princesses one more time,” Rosa replied a little worriedly.

Twilight watched Star Twinkle as well and prayed that he would be okay. “Star Twinkle...”

Star Twinkle could literally feel how his friends put their trust into him. And he was not ready to let them all down. He tried to ignore all the pain inside of him and continued to focus his magic towards the orbs. All this time, his thoughts made him keep going.
“Those ponies...
They try so hard to either destroy this world or create a new one where they all could be happy...
I don't want that!
I don't want to give up on this world!
Maybe I would have agreed with them a little while ago, where I didn't care about anything in this world, except myself.
But...
I'm here now. Not because I abandoned this world. But because I put my trust into it. Just like the trust that they put into me.
But Fade and his group...I don't know what happened to all of them but...I want them to see how important this world is to me. And that it's not too late for them to believe in it as well!”

Every pair of eyes was still focused on Star Twinkle and how the situation would end.
“It's no use...” Fade said quietly while he watched Star Twinkle's attempt of stopping him. But his serious and confident expression changed, once he saw a difference in Star Twinkle, making his eyes widen in surprise.

A bright light emerged from inside of Star Twinkle and formed five balls of light that circled around him. Star Twinkle had his eyes closed out of concentration and didn't seem to notice what happened but he kept going on ignoring everything around him that could happen. The five balls vanished inside of his horn, making the light wander towards the Dark Orbs. After the light around Star Twinkle's magic touched the Dark Orbs, the two orbs began to crack.

“No...” Fade said quietly in shock, realizing what would happen next after he saw the exact same thing with Summershine as well.

The Dark Orbs shattered and Princess Celestia and Luna slowly dropped to the ground in front of Star Twinkle, making him only just now realize what happened.
“I did it...” he said almost in disbelieve seeing the two Princesses out of the orbs in front of him.

But not only, Star Twinkle looked in disbelieve. The rest of Fade's group looked at what just happened and were shocked as well. Rosa even dropped on her knees, indicating that she was giving up now, causing Wildheart to put one hoof on her shoulder to comfort her while frowning at her sight. Tagma, while being sad as well, didn't seem to look too upset and kept quiet in his sadness.

Mystic on the other hoof looked more angered than upset as if he blamed Fade for this outcome. “Who are you ponies?” He asked Twilight, causing her to focus on him instead of Star Twinkle. “Him and this hooded pony...they are not ordinary ponies...” He said as his eyes focused on Star Twinkle while Twilight was thinking about what exactly he meant with that.

Star Twinkle was breathing heavily in exhaustion and didn't really realized at first how Fade was slowly walking towards him. Star Twinkle readied himself for an attack but then noticed how shattered Fade's expression was, making him stop focusing his magic. Fade didn't even look at Star Twinkle and only focused his eyes on the Princesses as if he tried to do something to them.

“Is he about to...” Star Twinkle wondered as he began to walk towards the Princesses to use a teleportation spell on them. “He is trying his ritual again...I have to teleport the Princesses away from here!” He thought as he focused his magic on them. “Come on! Imagine yourself way from here!” He thought, remembering Twilight's instructions on how to use this spell again. He was not sure if he was even able to teleport other ponies away but he had to try anyway in order to save the Princesses.

Star Twinkle could see how Fade began focusing some magic in his horn, ready to summon the Dark Orbs again but Star Twinkle was way too exhausted to do another spell and felt how he was at his limit. “I don't have any magic left... can't do it...”

Suddenly a hoof was placed on his shoulder, making Star Twinkle sent chills down on his back, knowing that Fade was this close now. However, when he turned his head, he realized how he was greeted by a gentle smile from Twilight. “Good job, Star Twinkle,” she said before she took over and teleported herself, Star Twinkle and the two Princesses away and in front of the entrance of the throne room, behind the rest of her friends.

Mystic was caught by surprise that Twilight teleported away from him while he focused his sight on Star Twinkle, angering him even more until Tagma appeared next to him. “What now? Are we keep going on? I don't think we can win since they all trying to stop us at the last second,” Tagma pointed.

As much as Mystic hated to admit it, Tagma was right on this one. He looked towards Fade, who kept walking towards the throne slowly as if he didn't realize that the Princesses were already gone. “Did he gave up as well?” Mystic said annoyed, judging from Fade's behavior.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle and Twilight were joined by the rest of their friends as well as Shining Armor. “Are they alright?” Fluttershy asked out of worry for the two Princesses.

“They are still unconscious but I think they are unharmed,” Twilight assured, making the rest of the group feel a little better.

Still, the danger was not completely avoided since Fade and his group was still up, though it was now unsure what was going to happen next. Fade was the one who was in a more leader-like position of this group so with him being shattered like that, the rest was hesitating to do anything for now.

After Fade, walked up the stairs in front of the throne, he stopped in his way and stood there silently. There was a silence. And Fade was the quietest one in the room. He didn't even move an inch and seemed almost lifeless.

“What's up with him? He somehow feels a little different,” Star Twinkle wondered as he watched Fade, not even turning around to anyone, despite the fact that his ritual was ruined. It was almost scary to look at him, not saying anything at all.
“I have a really bad feeling...” Star Twinkle thought as he practically felt like as if something really bad was about to happen.

Finally, Fade slowly turned around his head while talking to anypony else. “I see it now...” he said as he continued to turn his head around.
“Him and this other pony...The kind of power that is inside of them...
As long as they have this power, there is only one thing left for me to do...” he continued until he finally turned around completely focusing his eyes directly at Star Twinkle with a cold and serious expression on his face, that send down shivers on Star Twinkle's back.
“I must eliminate you,” he said in a threatening and bitter tone in his voice.

Suddenly, Fade surrounded himself in a dark black aura that slowly became bigger by the second. Of course, everypony in the room instantly noticed what that was and got a really bad feeling about what was happening next.

“Dark Magic...” Star Twinkle said nervously.

“Here he comes!” Twilight announced, prompting everypony to be on their guard for an incoming attack.

The aura around Fade became thicker and eventually, became more solid before it came flying towards everypony in form of a mass of darkness.

Despite, it being targeted mainly towards Star Twinkle, the darkness was also coming towards Fade's group, who were closer to his attack, forcing them to dodge out of the way. Rosa grabbed Wildheart and jumped out of the way while Mystic and Tagma jumped out of the way.

Twilight and Shining Armor both created a shield spell in front of everypony else to protect them from Fade's magic. It was barely enough to protect them but only because Fade was further away now and his magic was most likely getting weaker the further the distance was it traveled. If he would have used that spell a little closer, then there was no telling if that shield would have stayed up.
However, exactly that was happening now. Fade came closer to the group and prepared another spell to fire at everypony.

Rosa was making sure that Wildheart was okay and placed him in the corner on the other side of the room. “You stay here! I think things are getting a little too dangerous here,”

“Fade...attacked...friends?” Wildheart asked with a frown on his face.

Rosa couldn't give an answer to that because she was not sure how things were about to continue from this point on.

Meanwhile, Mystic and Tagma got back up as well, confused by Fade's sudden attack,
“Is he going crazy now?” Mystic said angrily as he looked at Fade. “We better stay out of his range of fire,” he advised as he turned towards Tagma.

“Yeah, about that...I'm out...” Tagma said casually with a nervous smile on his face.

Mystic was not happy to hear that but he didn't seem to be angry at Tagma and didn't even blamed him for trying to leave. Mystic didn't answer and just looked at him as if he wanted to say that he understood. Tagma took advantage of the confusion in the room and then attempted to fly out of the window of the castle. However, Rainbow Dash noticed how he tried to escape and followed him in order to stop the Changeling but she was stopped by a magic beam that was fired at her. After she dodged it and looked at where it came from, she saw Mystic looking at her with a serious expression on his face.

Rosa looked how Tagma escaped as well and could only shake her head in disappointment. “He really left...can't really blame him. If I had wings, then I would probably get out of here as well,” she admitted while she tried to protect Wildheart at the same time.

Despite the number of enemies, that wanted to continue the fight, getting smaller and smaller, the main threats were still around. However, Fade seemed to be the only one who was now actively fighting at this moment.

Fade attacked one more time again and fired his dark Magic towards the group, forcing Twilight and Shining Armor to raise a shield again, that barely protected them from Fade's magic again, making the group feel a little helpless at the moment.
“We can't just stand here and let him attack us all the time. We need to attack back!” Shining Armor suggested.

“But his Dark Magic is far too strong!” Twilight pointed out. “If we just had the Elements of Harmony on our side...”

“There are over there!” Star Twinkle said as he pointed towards a chest on the other side of the room. But the group looked at him in disbelieve and wondered how he knew that.
“I don't know why but...I feel like something is telling me that they are over there...” he explained even though he was really unsure of it himself.

“I say after freeing the Princesses, on his own, we should trust him on that too,” Rarity pointed out.

The others soon agreed to that and decided to give Star Twinkle's instincts a try.

“We still have to get there though,” Applejack pointed out, reminding everypony of the situation they were in now.

But luckily, Shining Armor came up with an idea how to deal with the situation. “He can't focus his magic at all of us so if we split up then one of us should be able to reach that chest,” he suggested.

Seeing how Fade already focused his magic again, they quickly agreed to the plan and scattered all over the room to confuse Fade. All this time, Star Twinkle was wishing that his next attack would not get too close to him. Unfortunately, Fade's eyes seemed to be glued to Star Twinkle with an angry expression on his face. It was not until long, till Fade shot his next attack towards him in form of a massive ball of darkness that he threw towards Star Twinkle. Luckily, Rainbow Dash picked him up in time and pushed out of the way. The ball of darkness exploded in a big explosion that managed to throw both of the ponies across of the room because of the impact, even though they were relatively far away from the impact.

“Are you alright?” Rainbow Dash asked worried about Star Twinkle.

“I'm fine...” he replied while he looked back at Fade who still focused his eyes on him. “He is after me?” He guessed from Fade's serious expression towards him.

Fade channeled his magic again, causing Star Twinkle to be ready to dodge again, however, Rainbow Dash saw it as an opportunity to attack Fade in this moment. She flew right at him but as soon as she was close enough, Fade's eyes switched towards her for a second. Immediately after that, Fade released some kind of dark wave around him that pushed Rainbow Dash back and threw her across the room, making her drop to the ground.

“Rainbow Dash!” Star Twinkle shouted in worry as he saw how she laid on the ground unconscious.
However, Star Twinkle was in really great danger himself since Fade didn't even seem to care about the mare and quickly locked his eyes on Star Twinkle again. Realizing that Fade was after Star Twinkle, he came up with another plan. “You guys! Go after the Elements while I keep him busy!” He shouted towards his friends.

Surprisingly, Fade didn't even seem to hear Star Twinkle, despite him shouting it across the whole room. Fade seemed to be way too focused on Star Twinkle to even pick up on it.

Star Twinkle's friends, however, did pick up on it and planned to get this plan moving. In order to dodge Fade's attacks a little better, Star Twinkle switched to his Pegasus form. “I think I'm getting used to this transformation thing,” he thought. “Now I just have to keep him busy while the others try to get the Elements of Harmony,”

Star Twinkle's plan did seem to work. Fade was focusing on him at all costs and fully ignored everypony else. It was still hard to dodge every single attack of Fade though.

Meanwhile, Twilight and the rest of the group approached the chest on the other side of the room and tried to open it. However, there was a lock on it that prevented them from opening it.

“Does anypony have the key for this chest?” Pinkie Pie asked as she fiddled around with the lock a little.

Unfortunately, the key, that they found in the prison, didn't seem to fit into this lock. Twilight already stood ready to try her magic to open it by force, since she was worried that Star Twinkle was in danger right now. But before she could aim at the chest, Rosa stepped in front of her, blocking the chest and preventing Twilight to use her magic. “Get away from the elements!” She said angrily. “I won't let you hurt Fade with them!”

“Girl, didn't you just saw how he attacked you?” Applejack pointed out.

“So what? If you use the elements against him, you will hurt him even more!” Rosa returned angrily.

“It has to be done...” a familiar voice then said from behind Twilight and her friends.

“Your Majesties!” Shining Armor then said after he noticed the two Princesses walking up to the group while struggling to stand on their hooves due to their pain.

Twilight instantly noticed the condition of the two and walked up to the two. But Princess Celestia nodded while smiling to assure that she will be alright and continued. “I'm afraid, Fade is completely consumed by darkness...”

“You're just saying that so that you can have a reason to fight him!” Rosa replied, however, she was quickly joined by Wildheart who looked at her concerned.

“No...Rosa...Princess right...” he said as he looked over to Fade, causing Rosa to look at him as well. “Fade...like animal...wants to fight...wants to hurt...no more...Fade...now...monster...”

Rosa was shocked to hear those words from Wildheart but she knew that some of them were true, though she didn't fully accept them herself. But the cold and merciless expression on his face was nothing what she ever saw on him before. It frightened her.

Twilight realized how Rosa was lost in thoughts and tried to force some action out of her. “As we speak...Star Twinkle is in great danger...He fights because he wants to protect this world. I don't know what happened to each of you but as much as you wanted to give up on this world, I'm sure there are ponies out there who will not give up on you...” She explained with a heavy tone of her voice. “At least, I am not,” she then added with a smile on her face that made Rosa widen her eyes in surprise.

One more time Rosa looked at both, Fade and Star Twinkle, seeing the difference between them and what they were fighting for. Despite, counting Fade as one of her only friends, she saw how what he did was wrong and that he no longer was himself. Then there was also the fact that Twilight and her friends offered them their friendship if they would help them. She still hesitated but she began to trust Twilight and her friends.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle did his absolute best to not get hit by Fade and his Dark Magic which became harder by the second due to his growing exhaustion. It eventually became so big that he could barely move. Fade on the other hoof didn't seem to be exhausted at all and kept attacking.
“I don't think I can keep this up any longer...” Star Twinkle worried as he felt how his body became heavier.

“Star Twinkle, over here!” Twilight shouted across the room, grabbing Star Twinkle's attention.

Star Twinkle heard Twilight and tried to focus his sight on her, despite his exhaustion. “That is...” he said as he realized that Twilight levitated his Element of Harmony above her head and that everypony was waiting for him, even Rainbow Dash, who was unconscious a minute ago was standing again and wore her Element, despite still feeling a little dizzy.

Twilight then threw it towards Star Twinkle who managed to caught it with his hooves and quickly equipped it around his neck. However, another attack from Fade already came flying towards the Earth-Pony, causing him to be struck by fear and paralyzing him.

Luckily, the Elements of Harmony activated in time. Despite not being close to his friends, a bright light emerged from Star Twinkle, which was also around his friends. A rainbow began to form around him and his friends. Both rainbows shot out to the ceiling and combined each other to one big one before it rains down towards Fade who was screaming in fear as he was hit by it.

It was almost like back then against Nightmare Moon. The Elements soon settled down again and left only a silence in the room. The group was not yet, aware what happened to Fade because a cloud of dust was around him, making it impossible to see what happened to him.

“Did we do it?” Fluttershy asked a little nervously.

“Fade...” Rosa said quietly as she dropped down a key to the ground, which was used to unlock the chest where the Elements of Harmony were in.

Star Twinkle was just relieved that he was saved in time and let out a big sigh. However, his eyes wandered around the cloud of dust in front of him. He could swear that he still heard something inside of it. At first, he thought that he was imagining things but after taking a closer look after the dust settled down a bit, he realized what was going on.
It was Fade.
He was still standing there after the dust cleared, though he looked really exhausted or hurt, judging from the heavy breaths that he released.

Fade looked towards Star Twinkle again and slowly walked up to him with a desperate expression on his face. Shocked of how Fade managed to withstood the Elements of Harmony, Star Twinkle couldn't move and slowly walked back until his exhaustion made him fall over on his behind. Before he knew it, Fade stood directly in front of him and reached his hoof out to Star Twinkle. While still in shock by this situation, Star Twinkle did notice something happening to Fade's body.
It was similar to what happened to Discord. Fade's body began to turn into stone, beginning from his legs and making its way towards his upper body until he was no longer able to move.

Before his head was completely turned to stone, he barely managed to let out some last words, that Star Twinkle managed to pick up, despite the shock.
“No...I can't stop now...
They are waiting for me...
Don't worry my dear...Daddy will help you...to wake up again...
In this new world...” he said desperately before his head was completely turned to stone as well.

There was no more movement from Fade and he stood still as a stone statue, that reached out its hoof. Once again, Star Twinkle let out some heavy breaths after realizing that it was finally over now. The rest of his friends could also only release some relieved sighs and were happy that everything was over now. All except Rosa and Wildheart.

“Fade...gone...?” Wildheart asked, not realizing what exactly happened.

“I guess so...” Rosa replied because she wasn't too sure of it herself.

“Don't worry...” Princess Celestia then said as she and the rest of the group walked up to the two ponies. “He is turned to stone but I'm sure that we can bring him back with the Elements of Harmony,” she assured as she looked over to the stone statue. “But...for now, we might want him to stay like this...” she added with a concerned look on her face.

Star Twinkle also walked up to the group and couldn't help but to think about Fade's last words. “Who is waiting for him?” He mumbled to himself confused and in deep thoughts.

His friends walked up to him as well to ask him if he was okay. However, the group was heavily startled after Shining Armor suddenly jumped in front of Princess Celestia with a shield spell activating in front of him. Shortly after the shield was hit by a beam of magic that came from the other side of the room. Everypony turned towards the source of this beam and were heavily surprised to still see somepony opposing them.

“Oh no! I completely forgot about him!” Star Twinkle said in surprise after he saw Mystic, in a battle stance not too far away from the group.

Before anypony was able to speak up, Rosa was the first one to try and speak some sense into the Unicorn. “Mystic! What are you doing? It's over! Fade's plan failed!”

“Yes! He failed. But that doesn't mean that I have to surrender to those ponies! Right now, almost everypony who I want my revenge on is in the same room! Do you really think that I will let this chance slip away!?” He explained more confident than ever, despite being outnumbered.

“Fool!” Princess Luna said unimpressed after Mystic's threat. “Doesn't he realize that we have the Elements of Harmony on our side and that he is all on his own?” She added, not understanding how Mystic would even think that he stood a chance now.

While nopony in the room seemed unimpressed by Mystic, Star Twinkle couldn't help but figure out how he could keep going just driven by revenge alone. It was the same with Fade. It was almost impressive how far they were ready to go. At the same time, he didn't realize that it was the same for him a few minutes ago.

“Maybe we should give him a taste of the Elements as well!” Rainbow Dash said almost out of place as she readied her Element of Harmony.

“No!” Rosa stopped as she jumped in front of the group before she looked at Mystic. “Stop this, Mystic! You will end up just like Fade if you continue like this, don't you realize that!?”

“I will not fail! Not until I get my revenge!” Mystic said determined as he channeled magic inside o f his horn, ready to attack the group anytime.

The group stood ready to defend themselves and even considered of using the Elements of Harmony as last resort while Rosa and Wildheart just wished that Mystic would stop.

Suddenly, steps could be heard from far away. Multiple to be exact. This caused Mystic to get a little distracted from the group and made him look behind himself to check what was getting closer to the throne room.

Soon, the throne room was overrun by Royal Guards who surrounded Mystic, causing him to stop his attack because of his confusion. Needless to say, Star Twinkle and his friends were also heavily confused by the sudden appearance of the Royal Guards. But soon they realized that there weren't only Celestia's Royal Guards but also Crystal Guards among them.

“I hope we are not too late...” A female voice then said, who then revealed herself as Princess Cadance who walked into the throne room as well.

The sight of the Princess of the Crystal Empire did give the group some more confidence and made feel like as if they now had won. But Mystic didn't look like as if he was giving up now. That was until Rosa walked up to him and tried to stop him once more and gave him a concerned look. Mystic looked over to Star Twinkle and his friends and finally realized that he couldn't win anymore and dropped his head in anger. “Fine...” he said annoyed while he stopped his magic and gave up in front of everypony.

A little later in Canterlot...

After the battle was over, everypony returned to Canterlot, including the rest of Fade's group as prisoners. The timing of Princess Cadence was definitely perfect. If she wouldn't have appeared then Mystic could have at least caused the group some unnecessary trouble. Apparently, Princess Cadance was aware of how the Princesses were no longer in the castle and most likely found out about the note that Fade left, once he captured Princess Luna and informed her guards to go to the Forgotten Castle.

Fade's statue was placed next to Discord's outside of Canterlot Castle. Of course, just like with Discord, Fade was heavily guarded by the Royal Guard. Mystic refused to behave properly and was put into the dungeon beneath Canterlot Castle and Tagma's whereabouts were still unknown.

However, Rosa and Wildheart were allowed to walk around without being tied up or anything like that since they were no longer resisting. This gave everypony time to ask them some questions. However, they could not give too many answers since Fade was not filling them in with all details of his plan. All they knew was that he wanted to create a new world. They happily agreed to that plan since they shared his view of this world as well and were ready to do things that would end up hurting other ponies. Though in the end, they did regret their actions after seeing what Fade was ready to do with the Princesses. However, both Princess Celestia and Luna were ready to forgive them, much to their surprise.

“Princesses...nice...” Wildheart said surprised after they both were forgiven for their actions.

“And after all what we have done to you...” Rosa added with a frown on her face.

But Star Twinkle and his friends were not holding a grudge towards them and saw how serious Rosa and Wildheart were, making it easy to forgive them.

“Don't worry about it,” Princess Celestia assured with a smile on her face. “Fade has been stopped and the greatest danger with him too. But seeing how you regret your actions, makes me feel that we can free Fade one day,” she said relieved as she smiled to the two ponies.

Hearing Fade's name made Star Twinkle think about him again and made him speak out some words that he was actually trying to keep in as much as possible but for some reason, he couldn't.
“Fade wasn't evil...right?” Star Twinkle asked, getting the attention of Princess Celestia, as well as every other pony in the room.
“I mean...he was consumed by Dark Magic. That's what corrupted him, right?” He further asked.

Princess Celestia seemed a little more serious now and explained some things. “I don't want t lie to you. Dark Magic is very powerful. It's also hard to control. Once you get too close to this magic, it is hard to return to your old self. I said that we could free him from his stone prison again but...the chance that he will return to his old self is really slim...” she said with a frown on her face, making Rosa and Wildheart feel like as if their hopes of seeing Fade again were shattered.
“It is not impossible but...so far I only know about two other ponies that got so close to the darkness and were not able to return. One of them was King Sombra and the other one...” she suddenly paused after she began to struggle to get the next words out of her mouth. “What I am trying to say is that it would make no sense to turn him back now. But maybe time will change that...”

The mood in the group was down again and nopony wanted to say something except Star Twinkle who was still bothered by a few things in his mind.

“Who was he waiting for?” He asked with a depressed tone in his voice. “Before he turned to stone, he said that he couldn't stop because someone was waiting for him and that he wanted to wake someone up,”

Those words made Princess Celestia frown as well after she got a realization. “So it was for her...” she quietly mumbled, causing Star Twinkle to raise his head towards her confused. “I think I need to show you something. Follow me,” the Princess said as she leads the way outside of the room, making everypony follow her.

The whole group followed Princess Celestia into a room filled with beautiful flowers and other fancy decorations. At the end of the room, next to a window, there was a bed with a Unicorn filly on it, sleeping tightly, covered under her bed covers. The mare had a light orange coat and a yellow mane. She didn't seem to notice how a bunch of ponies entered the room and was still sound asleep. But Star Twinkle and the others felt a little weird and tried to be as quiet as possible.

Princess Celestia however, was talking normally, as if there was no sleeping pony in the room whatsoever. “This is Solar Smile, Fade's daughter,”

As soon as the word daughter fell, everypony gasped in shock, ignoring the sleeping pony in the room as well by accident.

“You don't have to lower your voices...I'm afraid, Solar will not wake up anytime soon...” she then said, causing everypony to get confused by those words.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked confused, speaking out what everypony else wondered.

“Solar Smile suffers from a very rare illness that is simply known as eternal slumber...” Princess Celestia explained.

Though nopony seemed to know what to do with this term, Twilight was able to pick up on it.
“I read about that,” she said as she rubbed her chin before she explained further. “If I recall, it's an illness that has no known cure so far...” she said before she frowned after realizing what she just said.

“Yes,” Princess Celestia joined in. “It happened shortly before Fade got corrupted by Dark Magic. It was most likely the trigger that caused him to end up getting consumed by it. Fade's wife passed away a long time ago and his daughter was everything he had. Losing his daughter like that, probably broke him completely. After hearing that Fade gave up on this world, I began to think that he gave up on his daughter as well. But it looks like as if he tried to create this new world in order to somehow see his family again. A world in which both of them were well again...” The Princess explained further, making everypony now feel bad for Fade.

Everyone except, Star Twinkle who only clenched his teeth in frustration after hearing that explanation.

“In the end, he gave up on this world in hope to find something in this new world,” Twilight said quietly.

“Yes but that didn't give him a reason to take this world away from anypony else,” Princess Luna added. “He may have tried to get his family back but he also tried to escape reality and forced everypony to accept this new world”

“It's not fair...” Star Twinkle thought to himself.

“But why do I feel bad now?” Fluttershy asked confused.

“Yes, suddenly doesn't seem like so evil anymore,” Rarity added.

“But he tried to hurt the Princesses!” Rainbow Dash remembered. “If that is not evil, then I don't know what!”

While his friends were talking about this matter, Star Twinkle kept quiet. Twilight kept looking at him and saw how Star Twinkle was clenching his teeth either out of anger or frustration. “Star Twinkle...” Twilight said as she put her hoof on his shoulder to comfort him.

However, it was tossed away from him as he suddenly shouted. “It's not fair!” Star Twinkle suddenly burst out angrily, causing the group to react in surprise by his sudden outburst.
“All Fade wanted was to see his family again! He wasn't evil! He didn't want to destroy this world! He only did it because he didn't know any other way to see his family again and was prepared to sacrifice everything for that! So why did he had to end up like this!?” He exclaimed frustrated as he looked at Princess Celestia's face, in hope that she would give him an answer.

The Princess widened her eyes but soon answered Star Twinkle. “It is true that Fade did all that for his family but imagine how your life would be after he would have succeeded. It could have been even worse than his,”

Suddenly, Star Twinkle imagined how he would feel if he lost all his friends. It was a feeling that was hurting his heart just thinking about it. Her words were painfully true but Star Twinkle didn't want to accept them. He felt that Fade didn't deserve to go down this road just because he wanted to see his daughter one more time.

“Fade was consumed by darkness and dived way too deep into it to realize his actions. There was no telling if those actions were still driven by the thought of getting his daughter back, meaning that his good intention got lost within the darkness...“ Princess Celestia painfully explained further with a serious expression on her face.

Hearing how Princess Celestia rained down those words upon Star Twinkle, made him feel more and more depressed and helpless. The rest of the group also didn't understand why she was so direct, despite knowing that Star Twinkle was already depressed.

“However,” Princess Celestia started with a smile on her face. “If Solar Smile wakes up some day, then we can bring back Fade. Once he sees his daughter again, the darkness inside of him might vanish,”

Princess Luna walked up to her sister also with a happy smile on her face. This picture instantly reminded Star Twinkle about the whole Nightmare Moon mess. After Princess Celestia offered her sister her friendship, Princess Luna realized her mistake and was ready to start from new again.

Princess Luna then turned towards Rosa and Wildheart. “I assume you haven't given up on Fade as well?” She asked.

“Fade...friend...friends help...friends” Wildheart said, not showing any signs of giving up on Fade.

“Yes!” Rosa joined in. “I don't know much about this eternal slumber thing but...I'm sure that there is a way to wake Fade's daughter up! And if you allow it, then we would gladly go on a search to find a way to cure it!” Rosa said confidently as she was backed up by Wildheart who showed the same confidence as well.

“That's really big...” Princess Celestia said, questioning the determination of the two. “Are you sure you are up to it?”

“We are!” Rosa said confidently. “Fade doesn't have to do all on his own. We can help him too! We won't let him sink into the darkness!”

Hearing those words made everypony in the room believe that they could actually do it. Even Star Twinkle could feel how Rosa's words affected him and raised his mood as well.

“But...” Wildheart interrupted all of the sudden. “Mystic...”

Hearing this name made Rosa worry a little. “Yes, what about him? I can't imagine him to behave in front of you, your majesty,” she said.

“Why is he so angry with the Princess in the first place?” Applejack asked confused.

“We don't know...” Rosa replied. “He never told us much about his past to begin with. I think Fade was the only one who knew a few things but...” she obviously stopped once she thought about Fade's current state again.

“Mystic...need to cool off,” Wildheart added.

“Yes, he probably doesn't want to see any of us right now,” Rosa admitted with a frown on her face.

However, Princess Celestia assured the two ponies about that situation as well. “Do not worry, we will take care and keep an eye on him,” Princess Celestia assured.

With all things being discussed and hopefully settled with, Rosa and Wildheart already left and said that they would travel through Equestria to find a cure for Fade's daughter. It was astonishing that even those two were ready to go so far when it comes to either archiving a goal or helping a friend. That is something that all members of the Outcasts seem to have in common. For Star Twinkle, it was quite impressive.

Star Twinkle and his friends were done talking with the Princesses as well and decided to go home as well. All seven of them walked out of the castle and decided to visit the statue of Fade one last time before they went back to Ponyville. The statue seemed lifeless but everypony knew that some day he might be turned back and maybe then he would change.

All seven ponies looked at the statue and had probably multiple thoughts in their mind. Star Twinkle looked at it too but Twilight grabbed his attention. “You really looked sad...” Twilight said out of the blue. “You want to help Fade too?” She said as she turned her head towards him with a caring face.

“Is that weird?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

To that Twilight gently smiled back before she returned her face towards the statue again. “No. It's not,” she said happily, leaving the group in silence again.

Shining Armor could only look at his old friend with a frown on his face but also with determination in his eyes. “Some day...” he said quietly before he and the seven ponies walked away in order to return home.

Meanwhile, Rosa and Wildheart were outside of Canterlot and began to start their quest for a cure. Instead of being worried or sad, they were actually excited to see their friend again, not letting the fact that there was no known cure ruin their mood.

Rosa looked at Wildheart, who was also more than ready for the journey. “Despite our actions, we were given another chance...so why shouldn't Fade be allowed one as well?” She asked as she looked at a vast field in front of her.

Wildheart took a moment before he answered and eventually surprised Rosa with his next words. “We will help Fade...and...make him our friend again...” he said, building almost a complete sentence for the first time.

Rosa smiled at the little stallion and petted his head happily. “Yes. Yes, we will,”

In the dungeon of Canterlot...

Princess Celestia walked through the dark hallways with an uncomfortable feeling on her mind. She stopped in front of a cell where a Royal Guard was keeping guard.

“Could you leave us alone for a moment?” Princess Celestia asked, making the guard walk away silently.

Princess Celestia approached the front of the cell and looked into it. At the end of the cell, there was Mystic who laid on a bed, facing the other way. He was obviously not looking forward to seeing the princess and didn't even bother to turn around. To prevent Mystic from being a danger to her, he got one of those things around his horn that blocked his magic which was worn by the Unicorns back in the Forgotten Castle as well.

The silence in the room continued until Mystic finally broke it and spoke up. “Is there something you want from me? Your majesty?” He said in disgust and with bitterness in his voice.

Princess Celestia returned this bitterness with a serious tone in her voice. “It is obvious that you hold some kind of grudge against me but please help me to understand where it comes from,”

“Hmpf,” Mystic only returned, still not bothering to face the princess.

“You supported Fade and his plans, right? You wanted to find something in this new world that he wanted to create. I also hear that it was important for you to destroy this world. Is there Something that you can't get in this world anymore, just like how it was with Fade? What was it? And what can I do to make you rethink your desire of revenge that you aim towards me and this world?” Princess Celestia kept asking which eventually, grabbed Mystic's attention.

Mystic looked at Princess Celestia with an angry expression on his face, his blue eyes piercing her mind until he finally answered to her question.
“My sister, that you took away from me,” he said angrily and bitter, causing Princess Celestia to react in shock, however, Mystic continued. “As for stopping me from wishing destruction upon this world or stopping my revenge...
I will only stop until...
I make you lose everything that you hold dear...
Your sister.
Your student.
Your friends.
Equestria.
Everything!” His voice got louder and louder after every word he said.
“And not only that!
Everypony in Equestria shall experience what I felt!
By losing everything they hold dear!”

Suddenly, Princess Celestia got angry as well and clenched her teeth after hearing those statements.
“I cannot let you do this! I planned to listen to you and give you another chance but...
If you plan to hurt the ponies in Equestria, you are simply a danger!
I think the best would be if you stay in this cell until you plan to change your current mindset,”

Mystic then smiled in confidence and gave Princess a sinister smile. “I rather rot in this cell before I decide to stop my revenge. Everypony will experience how true sadness feels like. I will make sure of that,” he said while smiling right into Princess Celestia's face before he returned to his bed and laid down on his bed, turning away from the princess again.

The end of this conversation certainly didn't satisfy Princess Celestia. She figured that talking with Mystic was no use and decided to leave him.

Mystic decided to get some sleep after this pointless conversation and some hours passed since it was already dark outside now. His sleep, however, his sleep was interrupted by a Royal Guard member who tried to get his attention by knocking against the bars of the cell. Of course, Mystic was not too happy about that.
“Will you be quiet? I try to sleep here!” He said as he turned his head around to face the pony angrily.

But the Royal Guard tried to indicate that Mystic should be quiet, much to his confusion. Only moments later the Guard smiled and was covered in a green light that transformed him into an all too familiar Changeling.
“What's up?”

“Tagma?” Mystic said in confusion.

“Hold on a minute, I just need to find the right key,” Tagma said as he pulled out a bunch of keys and tried to distinguish the right one.

“You are in Canterlot! There could be guards coming any second! You should get out of here before you get in trouble,” Mystic advised.

However, Tagma didn't stop to look for the right key to open the cell. “I will get out of here but not until you are free,”

“Why?” Mystic asked confused, not being able to realize Tagma's intentions.

“Because we are friends,” Tagma said with a happy smile on his face.

After those words, Mystic's eyes widened in shock. He closed his eyes and began to take a heavy breath. “Friends...” he mumbled to himself quietly before he turned towards Tagma again.
“Tagma...Leave...” he then said in a serious tone, causing Tagma to stop looking for the key for a second.

“I told you before, I am not leaving until you are free. I may have left when you were all still fighting but there is no way that I will leave a friend for good,” he added, again smiling at Mystic.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Mystic immediately returned again in a very serious tone in his voice.
He then walked away from the cell door and turned his back to Tagma. He turned his head around to face Tagma one last time and looked into the Changeling's eyes saying his last words.
“There is no way that a pony and a Changeling can be friends,” he said before he laid down on his bed again. “Leave me alone...”

Tagma felt upset to hear those words, especially since Mystic was never looking at Tagma as a Changeling but rather as a companion. Hearing those words left Tagma in shock and knowing Mystic for a while, he had the feeling that he wasn't lying or saying those words just casually.

Whatever the reason was, Tagma turned around as well and walked away with a frown on his face.
“That's not true...” Tagma said quietly to himself as he grabbed his headband around his head and tried to hold down some tears.

Once again, Mystic was alone again and laid on his bed with a frown on his face as well.
“I can't afford to let friendship get in my way...” he said quietly, covered by the darkness of the cell before he eventually fell asleep.

61. Wonderbolt recruits

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Star Twinkle and his friends decided to spend some time on a picnic while waiting for a specific letter to arrive. Apparently, Rainbow Dash signed up at the Wonderbolts Academy. This academy serves as some kind of test ground to determine if you have the potential to become a Wonderbolt some day. Of course, Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to sign up for this.

The letter if she got accepted into the academy or not was supposed to arrive anytime soon, which is why everypony decided to quietly wait for nearby Rainbow Dash's mailbox to find out what the answer of the Wonderbolts was. Except for one pink pony who just couldn't sit still.
“Ooooh, I wish the mail-pony would just come already! I can't wait another minute to find out if Rainbow Dash got in or not!” Pinkie Pie said as she nervously bounced around everypony before she jumped over to Star Twinkle. “Aren't you worried about the answer as well!?” She asked as she grabbed Star Twinkle's head in a panic.

Star Twinkle pushed her away from his face to get some more space again. “How about you just sit down and wait like everypony else?” He advised as he made a slightly annoyed face.

“He's right, Pinkie Pie,” Twilight agreed. I mean, you're more nervous than Rainbow Dash,” she pointed out, which was true. But after taking a better look at Rainbow Dash, it was kind of obvious that she either wasn't nervous at all or just good at hiding it.

“I'm not nervous at all,” Rainbow Dash confirmed. “When I get into the Wonderbolt Academy...” she started before she was interrupted by Pinkie Pie.

“IF you get in! If you get in! Don't jinx it!” Pinkie Pie said nervously.

But again, Rainbow Dash showed confidence. “I'm telling you, it's in the bag,”

“She is the best flyer in Ponyville, after all,” Applejack pointed out.

To that, Rainbow Dash felt almost offended and decided to correct Applejack a little. ”In Ponyville? I'm probably the best flyer in all of Equestria,” she said as she proceeded to show off her flying skills by manipulating some clouds above the group. ”I wouldn't be surprised if they just went ahead and made me a Wonderbolt on the first day,” she added confidently while flying backward, right into somepony by accident.

It was in fact, the long awaited mail pony. “Got a letter here for Rainbow Dash,” the pony said as he presented Rainbow Dash a letter.

No time was wasted and Rainbow Dash quickly read the what was written inside quietly only to show a rather disappointing expression. “I... didn't get in,” she said puzzled.

Needless to say, everypony was shocked by this. Everypony was sure that the Wonderbolts would accept her, especially, since she proved herself in front of them multiple times now.

“Gotcha!” Rainbow Dash then said, revealing that she was just joking. “Ha, you guys are so gullible. Like I wasn't gonna get in!” She said once again confidently as she showed everypony the letter.

But before she got the chance to show it to everypony, Pinkie Pie tackled her down in her excitement and hugged her out of relieving. In fact, she hugged her so hard, that she almost broke Rainbow Dash's back in the process.

“Pinkie Pie? I kinda need to get going,” Rainbow Dash said, making Pinkie Pie finally release the mare. ”The sooner I get there, the sooner I get to show 'em my stuff! See you guys in a week!” She said before she already left to get to the academy.

Despite probably not hearing it, everypony said their good lucks and waved Rainbow Dash off, leaving the six ponies in the middle of the picnic.

“You think she will be alright?” Fluttershy asked a little worried.

“Of course, darling,” Rarity added confidently. “Like she said herself, she is one of the best flyers in Equestria,”

“Exactly,” Twilight joined in. “Becoming a Wonderbolt is her dream so she will make sure to give it her best!” She added confidently or rather pumped as if she strongly believed it.

There was not much that Star Twinkle could add to this. The Wonderbolts witnessed already what she was capable of so all she needed to do was to impress them again. Showing any worry at this point was unneeded. “I'm just glad that Pinkie Pie can now sit still and-” however, Star Twinkle stopped after he saw how she put out a megaphone, making him fear the worst.

“DON'T FORGET TO WRITE!!!” Pinkie Pie screamed through her megaphone, which almost destroyed everyponies eardrums. She then turned around to face the others. “Do you think she heard me?” She had the nerve to ask.

“I think about everyone in Equestria heard you!” Star Twinkle said annoyed while he still kept his hooves on his ears.

Everypony in the group strongly believed that Pinkie Pie's worry was for nothing. The Wonderbolts knew who she was but that doesn't mean that they have to treat her differently from anypony else. Still, despite Rainbow Dash's constant bragging about her abilities, there was no denying that she was a good flyer, maybe even one of the best in all of Equestria. Knowing all that, Star Twinkle and his friends were positive that she might return as a full fledged Wonderbolt.

A little later at the Wonderbolt Academy...

There was a really tall plateau that reached far up to the clouds. This is where the Wonderbolts Academy was at. A really long runway in the middle of it and multiple ponies practicing or training while being watched by official Wonderbolts members.

Seeing all this made Rainbow Dash's excitement grew even further. “Oh, yeah! This is gonna be sweet!” She said before she landed to the spot where some other ponies were waiting. They were most likely recruits as well.

Rainbow Dash was focused on doing her best and was confident that she would ace everything that the Wonderbolts could throw at her. It didn't take too long until Spitfire, the captain of the Wonderbolts, to arrive near the recruits. Being trained by the captain herself only made Rainbow Dash happier and more excited, however, as a soon to be professional Wonderbolt, she could afford to show that and instantly stood in attention when Spitfire walked up to the group.

“Well, lookie what we got here. Bet y'all think you're Wonderbolt material, don't ya?” She said as she walked up to the recruits unimpressed be the sight.

“Yes, ma'am!” All of the recruits replied.

“Think you got what it takes to be an elite flyer?” Spitfire asked.

“Yes, ma'am!” All recruits replied once more.

“Well then. Let me be the first to tell you...You don't! If you had what it took to be an elite flyer, you'd already be a Wonderbolt!” Spitfire explained harshly.
“Still think you're something special?” She said as she turned towards one of the recruits.

Spitfire's words seemed to have left an impact on most of the recruits. Their confidence was slowly crumbling after the captain of the Wonderbolts was slowly pressuring each one of them.

“You look like you're the worst flyer in the whole academy! You'll probably quit after the first day!” Spitfire said towards Rainbow Dash.

“No, ma'am! I'd never quit, ma'am!” Rainbow Dash replied confidently.

Hearing Rainbow Dash not being intimidated by those words seemed to impress Spitfire. It was obvious that becoming a Wonderbolt was not easy and Spitfire wanted to make sure that every recruit was aware of that. She wanted to make sure that everypony was up for the task and if somepony would hesitate, then it was clear that they would not good Wonderbolt material. Luckily, Rainbow Dash was far from being intimidated and would let some harsh words get the better of her.

Spitfire walked past Rainbow Dash and talked to the next recruits who stood left of her. Rainbow Dash did pay attention of how Spitfire talked to each one of them, secretly hoping that they would back down which in turn would raise her chances to get noticed by the Wonderbolts. But to her surprise, quite the opposite was the case.

“And what about you? You think you are something special with those fancy metallic wings?” Spitfire asked towards another recruit.

Those words caused Rainbow Dash to lose her cool for a second and made her snap out of her straight pose. “Metallic wings?” Rainbow Dash wondered as she looked over to her left to just notice now who was standing a few steps next to her.

“I bet you won't even be able to fly up two meters in the air with those!” Spitfire added towards the pony she was talking to.

“Is that a challenge!?” The recruit replied offended, getting closer to Spitfire's face, making her return a rather surprised expression.

“Tornado!” Another pony scolded next to him. “Stop acting so childish!”

“Those are!” Rainbow Dash said in surprise after she took a closer look at the recruits to her left.

Right now, Spitfire stood in front of a Pegasus with a yellow coat, a spiky light blue mane, and wings that were made out of steel. Next to this pony were two other Pegasi. One of them had a light blue coat and a yellow spiky mane, and the other one had a light green coat and a blue and yellow propeller like mane.

“The Storm Wings!?” Rainbow Dash said in her surprise, causing Spitfire to look back at her, making Rainbow Dash return to her straight pose.

Still, she kept her eyes on the three Pegasi to her left. It was Steel Wing, Hurricane Wing and Cyclone Wing, the leaders of the Storm Wings. Not only was it weird for Rainbow Dash that they were enemies not too long ago but it also confused her why they would be at the Wonderbolt Academy.

Spitfire then focused her attention towards Cyclone Wing. “Did I allow you to speak up?” She said towards Cyclone Wing.

“Hey! Don't you dare talk to the leader of the Storm Wings like that!” Steel Wing interrupted angrily.

However, unlike his brother, Cyclone Wing kept his eyes forward. “No ma'am you didn't, I just wanted to apologize for my brother's disrespectful behavior and I am fully prepared to be punished for my rude actions!” He said as he kept looking straight.

“Cyclone?” Tornado Wing said surprised because he expected him to behave so servile towards Spitfire, despite being the leader of the Storm Wings.

“Is that so? Then how about you give me five hundred laps. Right now!” Spitfire said, fully taking Cyclone Wing's offer.

Cyclone Wing saluted and was immediately on his way to start his laps without showing any worry or regret. Seeing Cyclone Wing flying away like that made Steel Wing feel responsible. He put himself together and spoke up to Spitfire. “Ma'am! May I request seven hundred laps to make up for my rude behavior!?” He said in the same way how Cyclone Wong talked before.

At first, Spitfire was confused but she eventually agreed and let Steel Wing do those laps, causing him to quickly catch up to his brother. Spitfire seemed to be relieved that she was finished with those two for now and turned to Hurricane Wing.

“Can I do five hundred laps as well?” Hurricane Wing asked as he raised his hoof before Spitfire could even try to intimidate him.

“Why?” Spitfire asked confused.

“For fun,” Hurricane Wing replied boldly.

Spitfire did not seem to have a complicated bunch like this to deal with and it was obvious that she was concentrating to not lose her mind. She was a professional after all, she must have dealt with ponies like that earlier.

She again turned to the last recruit which was a Pegasus mare with a light turquoise coat, an amber colored mane and gold stripes, gold colored eyes and a Cutie Mark that consisted of a white lightning bolt and two orange and one yellow star below it.

“What about you? Bet you couldn't fly past the first flagpole without getting winded,” Spitfire asked, returning to her intimidating technique.

The mare, however, didn't seem to be intimidated at the slightest. In fact, she replied quite arrogantly. “Try me, ma'am,”

“What's that?” Spitfire asked surprised.

“Let me show you what I've got, ma'am,” the mare insisted.

Spitfire seemed to done with the recruits and picked up on the mare's offer. ”Well, since you are all so desperate to show your skills, now's your chance. Give me five hundred laps! All of you!” She demanded a little annoyed, causing everypony except Rainbow Dash and the mare with the turquoise coat who was dashing to the sky to start their laps.

Spitfire waited for the recruits to finish their laps. Rainbow Dash and the other eager mare from before were the two who were almost finished with their laps, followed by the Storm Wings who were flying slower but also had only a couple of laps left. Everypony else seemed to greatly struggle with keeping up and were far away from finishing.

“Lap four-hundred and ninety-nine!” Spitfire shouted when Rainbow Dash and the other mare flew through the finish line.

“One more lap to go!” Rainbow Dash said confidently.

“You're on!” The other mare challenged.

Both of them seemed to be evenly matched with their speed. And they both attempted to finish the last lap in style by flying as fast as they could. Only two trails were visible, one rainbow colored one, obviously coming from Rainbow Dash and a turquoise colored one with a lightning bolt inside of it, coming from the other mare.

“Not bad... for a couple of newbies,” Spitfire complimented once the two finished their lap.

This gave the two mares some time to finally introduce themselves to each other. “Name's Lightning Dust,” the other mare introduced herself.

“Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow Dash returned.

“Wanna grab some grub in the mess hall?” Lightning Dust suggested.

“Definitely,” Rainbow Dash returned.

Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust were getting along really well since they both seem to be very similar. They both liked a challenge, they both like to show what they can do and they both very really good Flyers. They decided to take a break in the mess hall and sat down on one of the tables while eating something.

“I have to admit, you are pretty good,” Lightning Dust complimented.

“You haven't even seen half of it,” Rainbow Dash replied boastfully.

They both continued to talk and eat for a while until Rainbow Dash noticed how the door of the hall opened and revealed Cyclone Wing, Hurricane Wing, and Steel Wing. The latter one being very tired and supported by Cyclone Wing. The three walked over to another table to rest as well and grabbed something to eat.

“I'll be right back,” Rainbow Dash said before she stood up from her seat and walked over to the three stallions. Lightning Dust didn't seem to mind.

“I am so hungry...” Steel Wing said exhausted. “...and tired...”

“That's what you get by trying to do seven hundred laps,” Cyclone Wing pointed out.

“You are lucky that I am too tired to argue...” Steel Wing returned tired.

As Rainbow Dash walked up to the three, Cyclone Wing was the first one to notice her. “What are you guys doing at the Wonderbolts Academy?” She asked before every one of the three turned their heads to their visitor.

“Who are you again?” Steel Wing asked obliviously.

“Why do you want to be Wonderbolts? You already have a group to take care of!” She almost said annoyed just by the fact that those three were about to become Wonderbolts.

“You seem mad about that...” Hurricane Wing said bluntly.

“Of course I am!” Rainbow Dash returned angrily as she stomped her hoofs on the table. “The Wonderbolts are the best flyers in Equestria and they don't deserve to have guys like you to join them!” She added as she glared at the three.

“What did you just say!?” Steel Wing replied angrily as he stomped on the table as well and glared at Rainbow Dash.

Cyclone Wing stepped between them and stopped his brother from doing something stupid but at the same time, he looked over to Rainbow Dash to make her calm down too. “It's like you said, the Wonderbolts are the best Flyers in Equestria. They are known to have the full trust from Princess Celestia. Their teamwork is also well known. We hope to learn some things from them to improve ourselves,” Cyclone Wing explained.

“You mean, stealing some of their techniques?” Rainbow Dash replied, not fully believing what Cyclone Wing said.

“I don't expect you understand or trust me but let me tell you that we are not here to pick up a fight,” Cyclone Wing said.

“Yeah, you better not be,” Rainbow Dash returned before she walked back to her table.

It was difficult for Rainbow Dash to trust those guys. They may have helped to fight off the Changelings in Canterlot but she still couldn't fully forgive their actions from before that. Of course, Mystic was the one who was responsible for most of the things that they did but Rainbow Dash was never a really a pony who trusted everypony right away, to begin with. But she was not at the Academy because she had to worry about them. She was there because she wanted to be a Wonderbolt and there was nopony who was about to stop her.

On the next day...

The training continued and every one of the recruits stood ready while wearing a Wonderbolt uniform. Spitfire stood in front of some big thing that was covered by a blanket and explained the next training session.
“The Wonderbolts are the fastest, best precision flyers in the world. But spin-outs can still happen. And when they do, a Wonderbolt must be able to recover quickly,” she then gave a signal to one of her assistants, who removed the blanket and revealed a weird machine under it.
“This... is the Dizzitron. It's gonna make you very – I repeat –very dizzy. Your task is to try and recover and fly straight again, as soon as possible. Once you have recovered you must come in for a smooth landing. Now, who's first?” She asked, causing both Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust to raise their hooves. “Alright, Rainbow Dash. Let's see what you got,” she said as she picked Rainbow Dash to be the first one to try out the Dizzytron.

Rainbow Dash strapped herself in the middle of the machine and readied herself for the machine to start. Spitfire asked if she was ready and Rainbow Dash replied confidently. “Yes, ma'am!” She said before she put down her goggles.

The machine began to spin and for a few seconds until Spitfire gave a signal to release Rainbow Dash, throwing her a few meters away while she was still spinning in midair. It was not until a few seconds later till Rainbow Dash got her balance back and dashed towards Spitfire again.

“Six seconds? That's an academy record,” Spitfire said impressed as she checked the time.

Rainbow Dash placed herself among the recruits again and gained some compliments for her performance which she modestly accepted.

“Okay, Lightning Dust. You're up,” Spitfire said.

Lightning Dust confidently strapped herself to the machine but she had one request. “Ma'am, can you put the Dizzitron at maximum speed? I wanna push my limits,” she said as she put down her goggles.

Spitfire was asking if she was sure but Lightning Dust was determined and insisted for this change. “Okay. You asked for it,” Spitfire said as she gave one of her assistants a signal to change the level of the Dizzitron

Once again, the Dizzitron spun around and released Lightning Dust shortly after. Similar to Rainbow Dash, Lightning Dust managed to regain control of herself in a short amount of time without a problem after spinning around for a few seconds before she landed near Spitfire. It was impressive despite the Dizzytron being turned to full capacity.

“Six point five seconds. Not bad,” Spitfire said impressed.

Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust celebrated by hoof bumping in victory but they were interrupted by Spitfire who wanted to continue. “Next! You, Cyclone Wing!” Spitfire said as she pointed towards the light green Pegasus.

Cyclone Wing stepped forward and strapped himself to the machine while pulling down his goggles before he gave a signal to start the machine. Rainbow Dash had to admit that she was curious to see how Cyclone Wing would do.

Cyclone Wing closed his eyes, took a deep breath and began to concentrate. The Dizzytron began to spin and after a few seconds, it released Cyclone Wing and threw him away. To everyponies surprise, Cyclone Wing was able to regain his balance much quicker than Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust by spreading his wings in a certain pattern, however, he was not nearly as fast as the two mares, making his landing slower.

“Seven point three seconds. Not bad as well,” Spitfire said after checking Cyclone Wing's time.

Despite not being as fast as Rainbow Dash or Lightning Dust, Cyclone Wing did earn some admiration from the other recruits as well.

“I didn't think that this guy would be good as well,” Lightning Dust shared as she looked at his walking up to the recruits again.

“Are you kidding?” Steel Wing joined in. “Stuff like that is a piece of cake!” He added while he waited for his turn in excitement.

The Storm Wings were no strangers when it came to fighting. What Cyclone Wing did back there was most likely a technique to regain balance in the middle of a fight, meaning that it was not the first time that he was in a situation like this.

“Next one! Hurricane Wing!” Spitfire said as she prompted the blue Pegasus to strap himself in the Dizzytron.

“I wonder if this guy's brothers are good flyers as well...” Lightning Dust said, waiting for the results of Cyclone Wing's brothers.

But Rainbow Dash knew it better. In fact, Hurricane Wing was one of the fastest flyers that Rainbow Dash ever had to face. Back then, when they raced for the Elements of Harmony, Hurricane Wing managed to keep up with her. She was actually kind of worried how Hurricane Wing's result would end up.

Hurricane Wing gave a signal that he was ready and closed his eyes as well, indicating that he was concentrating just like Cyclone Wing before. The machine started and Hurricane Wing kept his eyes closed, however, something seemed a little off and for some reason, Cyclone Wing slapped his forehead out of frustration. “You got to be kidding me...” he said after he realized what was going on.

“What's the matter? He seems fine,” Rainbow Dash said, not understanding what Cyclone Wing was worried about.

“Yes. Too fine...look,” he said as he pointed towards his little brother.

Rainbow Dash then focused on Hurricane Wing and noticed it as well and couldn't believe it. “Is he...” she wondered before she saw him being thrown away after Spitfire gave the signal to release him.

After being released, Hurricane Wing didn't seem to make any attempt to regain his balance and flew in a straight line away from the group, his eyes still closed.

Spitfire could only look confused by what happened in front of her. Hurricane Wing fell asleep after being strapped to the Dizzytron and fell meters away before he eventually landed headfirst into a cloud, his head buried under it.

Cyclone Wing could only release a frustrated sigh. “I'll go and get him,” he said before he walked up to his brother.

“Whoa, the Dizzytron was so lame for him that he fell asleep?” Lightning Dust could only assume after seeing what happened right now.

Rainbow Dash on the other hoof could just think how strange these three were.

“That just happened,” Spitfire said before she announced the next recruit to step up. “Tornado Wing, you're up!”

“That's Steel Wing!” Steel Wing replied angrily before he strapped himself to the machine.

Steel Wing gave the signal to start the machine and soon it began spinning. Unlike his big brothers, Steel Wing didn't close his eyes due to the fact that he was too excited. The machine began to spin but for some reason, it spun much slower than with any of the others. Spitfire was wondering why that was the case and Steel Wing found himself getting a little bored by this slow movement.

“What's wrong with the machine?” Spitfire asked.

“I don't know,” the assistant who was using the levers replied. “It normally does that when there is too much weight on it,” he added.

Steel Wing instantly picked up on that. “Hey! Did you just call me fat?” He said angrily and a little offended.

“How much do these stupid wings of yours weight?” Spitfire asked.

“They are not stupid!” Steel Wing replied angrily. “And, I have no idea!”

Eventually, Spitfire decided to skip Steel Wing, making him return to the recruits with a bored expression on his face.

Rainbow Dash remembered that not even Applejack was able to move Steel Wing back then in Ponyville. Either because he was too strong or too heavy. She also remembered all too well being knocked out by one of his wings. All those memories returning to her made all the more difficult to fully trust those three so she continued to keep a close eye on them.

All other recruits were done with the Dizzytron after a while but nopony even came close to six or seven seconds which made Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust feel even more confident to become a Wonderbolt in record time.

Spitfire announced that for the rest of the time in the camp, every pony will be working in pairs. A list will be put up by Spitfire tomorrow morning to let every pony know who will be the lead pony and who will be the wing pony of every pair. Of course, Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust were curious who would become their wing pony.

On the next morning in the mess hall...

There were already some ponies in front of the list that Spitfire put up to find out how the pairs ended up. Rainbow Dash walked up towards the list as well and approached some of the recruits who walked towards her. “So, which one of you lucky gals gets to be my wing pony?” She asked confidently.

However, she was greeted by some giggles and was advised to take a look at the list before saying stuff like that. Wondering what that was about, she did take a look at the list herself. To her shock, she found out that she was assigned to be a wing pony.

“They made us a team! Isn't that awesome?” Lightning Dust said excitedly as she approached Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash did not even realize that she was put on the same team as Lightning Dust since she was more shocked by the fact that she was a wing pony. Needless to say, she was a little upset and didn't reply to Lightning Dust.

“What?” Cyclone Wing said surprised as he took a glance at the list for the first time, causing Rainbow Dash to turn around and finding a very surprised Cyclone Wing in front of the list.

“Looks like they made us a team,” Steel Wing said happily. “And looks like, I am the lead pony,” he added before he walked outside excited.

“Yeah...looks like it...” Cyclone Wing replied hesitantly.

Lightning Dust already left the hall and Rainbow Dash couldn't hold her frustration in any longer. “I'm gonna talk with Spitfire to rethink her decision,” she said before she attempted to leave.

“And what would that archive?” Cyclone Wing said after overhearing Rainbow Dash's words.

“Well, that I become the lead pony of course!” Rainbow Dash replied annoyed.

“Spitfire is in charge of us. Her decision must have a reason behind it. Questioning it would only prove that you are clearly not fit to become a Wonderbolt,” Cyclone Wing explained bluntly.

Those words dug deep into Rainbow Dash and made her angry. “Of course a leader like you would say something like that!” She exclaimed annoyed by Cyclone Wing's words. “Becoming a Wonderbolt is my dream!” She exclaimed before she calmed down again and decided to choose her next words. ”And there is no way that something insignificant like becoming a wing pony would keep me from that!” She said before she walked away from him and outside of the hall, forgetting the idea to talk with Spitfire.

Cyclone Wing was left in silence and only could lower his head after those words. “Your dream, huh?” He mumbled to himself quietly.

Later outside...

The recruits stood at attention in front of the big runway waiting for Spitfire to arrive. Despite being upset before, Rainbow Dash looked ready to do her best again. So did Cyclone Wing and Steel Wing who were assigned as a team. While waiting for Spitfire, Cyclone Wing took a look around to find out who Hurricane Wing was assigned with. Seeing how Hurricane Wing had a gold medal on his uniform, it meant that he was assigned to be a lead pony. Next to him was a really bulky looking Pegasus who was his wing pony.

“So both of them became lead ponies?” Cyclone Wing said before he let out a frustrated sigh. However, he kept himself together as soon as he saw Spitfire walking up to the recruits and announced what was up next.

“Today you will all be participating in a flag hunt. We'll divide you into two teams, red... and blue. Whoever finds the most flags of the opposing team's color wins. Lead ponies and wing ponies must fly together. If any pair splits apart, they will be immediately disqualified. Do you understand?” Spitfire explained as she walked past the recruits and placed herself on the finish line.

“Yes, ma'am!” Every recruit replied in unison.

“Then let's go!” Spitfire said before she blew her whistle.

After that everypony flew up into the air and began looking for a flag that matched their opponent's color. For Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust that meant that they had to look for red flags since they were on the blue team. Hurricane Wing and his partner were on the blue team as well and Cyclone Wing and Steel Wing were in the red team, meaning that they had to find blue flags.

Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust were pretty confident to win this, looked all over the place while flying in high-speed. They quickly spotted one of the flags hidden under a cliff and they both dashed down towards it to get it.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Wing and his bulky partner slowly flew in a pretty casual way around the sky to find a flag. “You found a flag yet?” Hurricane Wing asked.

“Yeah!” The bulky pony replied before he pointed at a flag on top of a cloud high above them.

“Got it,” Hurricane Wing replied casually before he flew at it at an incredible speed towards it and returning to his partner with the flag in his hoof. “Got one,” he added with a smile on his face.

“Yeah!” His partner replied while flexing his muscles.

Meanwhile, Steel Wing and Cyclone Wing were busy looking for some blue flags. Of course, because of Steel Wing's competitive nature, the yellow Pegasus wanted to make sure to win and made sure that his wing pony would know that too.

“Alright, I don't want any mistakes from my wing pony! You better not fail!” He said to his brother who only looked over to Steel Wing with an annoyed look on his face, causing Steel Wing to return an embarrassed face. “Sorry, always wanted to say something like that,”

Despite, Steel Wing's behavior, Cyclone Wing focused on his task and tried to find a flag. It took him not long until he found one hidden inside of a mountain side. “There is one!” He said as he pointed towards the flag.

“I'll go and get it!” Steel Wing said as he dashed towards the mountain side.

Cyclone Wing tried to give some advice on how to get the flag out of there but Steel Wing didn't listen and proceeded to fly towards the flag as fast as he could. Before he reached the flag, he readied one of his wings and slapped the rocks in front of him away to reach the flag. After that, Steel Wing presented the flag in front of Cyclone Wing proudly and with a big grin on his face.

“Or you could do that...” Cyclone Wing corrected after witnessing Steel Wing's destructive behavior.

“Come on! Let's get this flag to Spitfire!” He said as he flew towards Spitfire with the flag in his hoof.

When the two of them approached Spitfire they were surprised to already see Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust with one red blue in their possession. “Lightning Dust and Rainbow Dash found the first flag!” Spitfire announced.

Lightning Dust already flew away again and left Rainbow Dash behind. For some reason, Rainbow Dash was grabbing her wing in pain. For Cyclone Wing it was obvious that she was hurt. He saw how his brother was behaving like this multiple times when he was in pain with his metallic wings.
However, once Spitfire glanced over to Rainbow Dash, she did pull herself together and continued and followed Lightning Dust.

“They also already have a flag, we need to keep moving!” Steel Wing said, wanting his big brother to pick up the pace.

“Yes,” Cyclone Wing said a little absent minded with his thoughts focused on Rainbow Dash.

In the end, the blue team managed to win this flag hunt thanks to Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust, ending the training for today.

On the next day...

The recruits stood ready for the next task in front of the runway and as always, Spitfire explained what was going to happen next. “Today we'll be doing our famous air obstacle course,” she announced.

There were multiple things that were supposed to hinder the recruits from finishing the course, ranging from thunder clouds or machines that blew out heavy winds. Everything was supposed to test the skills of the recruits as best as possible.

“The object of this exercise is to work on your precision flying under extreme circumstances. And don't worry about winning. It's not a race,” she said, however, Lightning dust winked over to Rainbow Dash as a sign that she wasn't taking this advice too seriously. “Now everypony, get on your marks!” Spitfire said prompting everypony to get ready.

Everypony had to line up and flew in a straight line behind each other. Hurricane Wing and his partner were the first followed by Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust and then Cyclone Wing and Steel Wing and the rest of the recruits.

Nopony seemed to have any trouble to get through the obstacles and proceeded as safely as possible with Hurricane Wing and his partner taking the lead and Lightning Dust and Rainbow Dash behind them. Despite not having any troubles, Lightning Dust seemed to be bothered by how slow the two ponies in front of her were. “Ugh! Can't they go any faster? It's no good, I can't get around them!” She complained.

“Doesn't matter! We can still fly completely in sync and blow Spitfire's mind with our moves!” Rainbow Dash said, reminding her partner that winning is not important now.

“I guess...” Lightning Dust replied, even though she didn't sound too happy about it.

They then proceed to show off some of their flying skills by doing some loops, hoping that Spitfire would notice their skills.

The recruits continued their fly and the obstacle course was leading them into a big storm cloud where heavy rain and lightning was coming down. Despite that, Hurricane Wing and his partner continued pretty casually. “Slow and steady. Just make sure that we made through here,” Hurricane Wing advised to his bulky partner.

Still, Lightning Dust seemed to get more and more impatient about how slow those two were flying while keeping her and Rainbow Dash's speed down as well. But soon there was an opportunity for them to catch up to them and the next obstacle which consisted of some pressured air coming out from some machines on the side of the track that they had to avoid.

“Now's our chance to pass these slowpokes!” Lightning Dust said towards Rainbow Dash before she charged towards Hurricane Wing and his partner, knocking them away from the course rather recklessly and making them fall towards the other recruits and throwing them away from the course.

Of course, this action was not unnoticed by Cyclone Wing and Steel Wing who quickly rushed to Hurricane Wing and his partner to save them. Cyclone Wing caught Hurricane Wing while Steel Wing got his bulky partner, surprisingly he was able to lift him back to the course with just his hooves.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust flew through the obstacle like it was nothing and with full speed before they landed in front of Spitfire.
“Not bad! And in record time, too! Definitely made the right decision making you two a team,” she complimented before she took a look at the rest of the recruits who were trapped in some clouds because of Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust.
“The others seem to have had a little trouble with the precision part of the exercise. I'd better go help sort them out. Why don't you two go hit the mess hall early?” Spitfire said, obviously not aware of what exactly happened up there.

Lightning Dust picked up on that offer and attempted to walk inside of the mess hall but she was quickly interrupted by a very angry stallion that landed in front of her. “What was that just now!?” Steel Wing exclaimed right at her face. “How could you attack my brother like that!?”

“Well, maybe if he was a little faster, then he may have could avoid me in time, instead of holding back everyone!” Lightning Dust replied not seeing the problem at all or being intimidated by Steel Wing.

“What was that!?” Steel Wing replied angrily.

“Tornado!” Cyclone Wing interrupted as he walked up to the two. “Forget what just happened,”

“What!?” Steel Wing replied shocked. “Did you not see what they did to Hurricane!?”

“He is okay so don't worry about it. Behavior like that is obviously encouraged here so we don't have a right to interfere with Spitfire's decision to let it slide,” Cyclone Wing explained.

While he said those words, his eyes leaned towards Rainbow Dash, who actually felt a little bad for what she did before. Cyclone Wing then left with Steel Wing following him slowly, even though he didn't like to leave just like that.

“Whatever,” Lightning Dust replied before she walked inside the mess hall.

Rainbow Dash was not fully agreeing with Lightning Dust's behavior. According to her, only the best could become Wonderbolts so Lightning Dust had to make sure that Spitfire would recognize how good she and Rainbow Dash were. Even if it meant to get the competition out of the way.

On the next day...

The next training session involved kicking some clouds. Every pair had to remove as many clouds as possible. Of course, Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust were the ones who had the most clouds removed so far. But still, Lightning Dust felt the need to make sure that they would win.
“I have an idea about how we can literally blow away our competition,”

“But we're already way ahead,” Rainbow Dash reminded.

“Are you in or not?” Lightning Dust asked, ignoring Rainbow Dash's words.

Despite showing some hesitance at first, she did agree to follow Lightning Dust's lead and did as she was told. Both of the flew around fast enough to create a big twister. However, Lightning Dust lost control over the twister and was blown away by it. It took not long enough until Rainbow Dash was blown away as well, making the twister swirl around uncontrollably.

At the same time, somewhere in the distance, a balloon was raised from below the clouds. Inside of it was Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy who decided to visit Rainbow Dash. Because of that, every one of them was excited except Star Twinkle who laid down and had his head covered under his hooves because of the flight.

“Why did I decide to come with you?” Star Twinkle said while his body was shaking because of his fear of flying.

“Because you missed Rainbow Dash so much that you couldn't wait to see her after such a long time!” Pinkie Pie said, clearly being more excited about the visit then Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle could point out that it was Pinkie Pie who was going crazy all these days because Rainbow Dash didn't write a letter back but he was way too scared to say anything right now.

Twilight was the one who decided to calm him down a little. “Don't worry, Star Twinkle. There is nothing to be afraid of. I used my walking on clouds spell so there is no way that you can fall down from the clouds. And besides that, there is nothing dangerous around here,” Twilight assured confidently but those words were not nearly enough to make Star Twinkle feel safe again, let alone what Applejack said next.

“It's a twister!” She exclaimed in shock, pointing at the twister that Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust created.

“Did she just said twister!?” Star Twinkle exclaimed while still covering his eyes in fear on the ground.

It didn't take long until the balloon was caught in the twister, making it spin around uncontrollably until the ropes eventually snapped, making Star Twinkle and his friends fall down from the sky.

Rainbow Dash witnessed what was happening to her friends and screamed in terror before she decided to fly over to them in order to save them. However, she was just one pony and couldn't save all of them so even if she made it, she couldn't save every single one of them. She had to decide quickly who to save first but it was impossible due to her panicking like that.

Fortunately, she was not the only one who was flying towards the group. Cyclone Wing, Steel Wing, and Hurricane Wing, as well as his wing pony, were on their way to save everypony as well. All of them went to somepony to save. Rainbow Dash caught Pinkie Pie, Hurricane Wing caught Fluttershy, his wing pony caught Applejack, Cyclone Wing caught Rarity, and Steel Wing actually managed to caught Star Twinkle and Twilight on his back while keeping up in the air.

Star Twinkle and his friends were placed on solid ground after this little adventure, which Star Twinkle literally kissed out of relief.

“Are you guys okay?” Rainbow Dash asked out of worry before she asked them what they were doing there at the first place but before they could answer Lightning Dust stepped out of the group in excitement.

“That... was...awesome!” She said excitedly.

“Awesome?” Rainbow Dash replied confused. “My friends could have been smashed to pieces!” She returned.

“Yeah, but they weren't, right? Can't say the same for the clouds. We totally wiped them out with that tornado. The other cadets will have to be up there for days to bust as many as we did,” she said proudly of what she just archived before she reached out her hoof for Rainbow Dash to hoof bump it.

“A hoof bump? Seriously? You made me clip my wing. You sent half of our class into serious tailspins on the obstacle course. You unleashed a tornado that nearly demolished my friends!” Rainbow Dash finally snapped after all that happened.

“Yeah, and?” Lightning Dust replied unable to see the problem that Rainbow Dash was pointing at.

“And I get that you want to be the best. So do I! But you're going about it in the wrong way,” Rainbow Dash explained, probably speaking from personal experience.

“The Wonderbolts don't seem to think so. After all, Spitfire did make me the leader and you the wing pony,” Lightning Dust pointed out confidently.

After those words, Rainbow Dash just walked away, making it obvious that she was too angry to discuss any further with Lightning Dust and just wanted to be alone for a while. Needless to say, her friends were confused by what this was all about and stood there confused.

“You think we should go after her?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“I don't think she wants to talk with anypony while being in this mood,” Steel Wing replied.

“Maybe not...” Star Twinkle said before he realized the two familiar ponies next to him all of the sudden. “Wait! What are you guys doing here!?” He asked confused with his friends joining in in confusion.

“Well...” Hurricane Wing started before he began to explain.

Meanwhile...

Rainbow Dash sat on one lonely cloud in order to think for a while. It was hard for her to accept what Lightning Dust was about to do in order to become a Wonderbolt. And it was even harder for her to accept that she had to do the same if she wanted to be a Wonderbolt. It was her dream after all. But if it meant doing stuff like Lightning Dust, then she began to regret becoming one at all.

While being in deep thoughts like that, she did not realize at first how Cyclone Wing stood behind her silently. “What do you want?” Rainbow Dash said annoyed, thinking about dealing with Cyclone Wing now as well.

“I came to apologize to you,” Cyclone Wing said practically out of nowhere.

Needless to say, Rainbow Dash was confused by this sudden apology. “For what?”

Cyclone Wing then walked closer and stood next to her, seeing how she was interested in talking now. “I didn't take your dream serious. You clearly hold it very dear to become a Wonderbolt but you also don't want to do a thing that seems to be rewarded here,” he said, hinting at how Rainbow Dash was struggling with Lightning Dust's methods.

“You noticed?” Rainbow Dash replied surprised by how Cyclone Wing was aware of her struggle. “I just don't get how she can do all those things in order to become a Wonderbolt? It's crazy!” She added confused.

“You tend to do some really stupid things when you try to reach an important goal...” Cyclone Wing said, now speaking from personal experience. “But you have to ask yourself, if that goal, that you are trying to reach, is worth doing those stupid things...or if there is something even more important than it out there...”

"Something more important, huh..." Rainbow Dash mumbled to herself quietly," Rainbow Dash took those words to heart and began turning around slowly walking away from Cyclone Wing. “Thanks...” Rainbow Dash said almost relieved. “I think you made me realize what I have to do,” she said happily.

“Glad to hear that,” Cyclone Wing said with a slight smile on his face.

She continued to walk away but before she left, there was one more thing she wanted to say “Oh, and Cyclone!” She said as she turned around with a smile on her face. “I'm sorry too. You know, for being a little rude to you all before,” she apologized. “Also, don't be too hard to yourself. You are a great leader,”

Those words surprised Cyclone Wing. He didn't expect that Rainbow Dash saw through what he was thinking about while speaking to Rainbow Dash. After that conversation, Rainbow Dash flew away and left Cyclone Wing to his own.

A little later near the runway again...

“You did what?!” Applejack asked shocked.

“I quit,” Rainbow Dash said. “I just went to Spitfire and told her myself,”

“Are you sure?” Star Twinkle asked.

“I am,” Rainbow Dash said determinedly. “There's a big difference between pushing yourself as hard as you can and just being reckless. And if being reckless is what gets rewarded around here, if that's what it means to be a Wonderbolt, then I don't want any part of it,” she explained.

“But being a Wonderbolt was your dream!” Rarity pointed out.

“Not anymore,” Rainbow Dash said, this time with a little more regret in her voice.

“I'm sorry, Rainbow Dash. I know how much this meant to you,” Twilight said as she put a hoof on Rainbow Dash.

The group was about to leave but Spitfire was approaching them and stopped them from leaving. ”Rainbow Dash! How dare you storm out of my office without giving me a chance to respond!” She said almost angrily towards Rainbow Dash. “The Wonderbolts are looking for the best flyers in Equestria, but you were right. Being the best should never come at the expense of our fellow ponies. It's not just about pushing ourselves. It's about pushing ourselves in the right direction. You've shown that you're capable of doing just that,” Spitfire admitted, whether it was her realization that she made a mistake herself or the realization that Rainbow Dash was right. “You're no wing pony, Rainbow Dash,” she said as she removed the silver wing pony sign from Rainbow Dash's chest while also forcing Lightning Dust to remove her sign from her chest and putting it on Rainbow Dash. ”You're a leader,”

“OhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygosh!” Was the only thing that she could say at this moment.

However, it was interrupted by Spitfire who reminded her that she was still a recruit at the academy. “Now get out there and give me twenty!” She shouted right into Rainbow Dash's face which didn't seem to mind her at all.

“Yes, ma'am!” Rainbow Dash replied before she rejoined with the other recruits, leading them to their next task.

While watching them flying away from the group, Star Twinkle and his friends were relieved that Rainbow Dash didn't have to give up her dream. Spitfire, on the other hoof, looked over to three other ponies who still stood on the ground. “What are you three looking at? Go up and join them will you?”

“Yeah, about that...” Steel Wing started while he rubbed the back of his neck with his hoof.

“We quit,” Hurricane Wing added, much to Spitfire's confusion.

“You what?” Spitfire returned confused which was the same reaction that almost everypony else had who overheard the conversation.

Cyclone Wing was the next one to step up and give some clearance. “I think we learned enough about the Wonderbolts and what it meant to be one...” He said as he looked over to Rainbow Dash who now was leading the rest of the recruits because of her decision to put her comrades about her dreams. “And I found out that they are not so different from us...” he added with a smile on his face.

“Which again means that we are wasting our time here,” Steel Wing added bluntly which was most likely not how Cyclone Wing would have put it, even though it was kinda true.

Spitfire didn't seem like as if she liked to hear that decision. “So...you are just leaving like that and throwing away your chance to become Wonderbolts?” She asked.

To that, all three of the Pegasus's returned a smile before they would already fly away to the air. “Why would we become Wonderbolts if we are already part of the best group of Equestria?” Steel Wing said smugly as he flew above the ground next to his brothers.

“Still,” Cyclone Wing started. “Thanks for taking up the time to train us. I hope we see each other again some time,” he added before he flew away from everypony with his brothers following him behind.

Seeing the three Pegasi fly away made Star Twinkle regret to not talk with them too much. After all, they were no longer enemies and didn't seem to be in a rush. But for some reason, he felt like that it was better like this. Maybe there would be another chance for him to talk with them. Whatever the reason was, the only important thing that was in his mind was only one thing.

“Alright! Rainbow Dash is fine and everypony was saved! Can we please go down to solid ground again!?”

62. Return of Chaos

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Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were assigned to help to build a barn in Sweet Apple Acres. However, things got a little complicated because the orchard was being flooded by water. Applejack accompanied the two ponies to the source and found out that a beaver was building his dam right in front of the orchard. The three Earth Ponies tried to talk with the beaver but because of the obvious language barrier they had to bring Fluttershy to do some translation and after some negotiations, there seemed to be some progress.

The beaver seemed to be complaining about something but nopony except Fluttershy understood him. “What's he goin' on about now?” Applejack asked confused.

“Good news. Mr. Beaverton Beaverteeth has agreed to take his dam apart and move it,” Fluttershy explained.

“Well, it's about time. My apple trees are so waterlogged, I can practically hear 'em gargle!” Applejack said, obviously pointing out the fact that all her trees are drowned in water.

But then Mr. Beaverton Beaverteeth turned around and crossed his arms, clearly angered and still complained about something which Fluttershy translated again. “But he says first Steel Hammer has to apologize for calling him "a nuisance",” Fluttershy said.

“Never!” Steel Hammer said angrily determined.

“Steel Hammer!” Star Twinkle exclaimed angrily, reminding him that he doesn't want to stand there with a beaver arguing the whole day. “We still have to continue our work here!”

Steel Hammer was acting a little stubborn but after thinking about it a little, he finally gave in. “Alright, alright, I apologize,” he said heavily forced.

After that, the beaver was sticking his tongue out, causing Steel Hammer to get angry again. If it wasn't for Star Twinkle holding him back, Celestia knows what he would have done to the little critter.

Moments later, the beaver removed one tiny twig, causing the whole dam to fall apart surprisingly quick and releasing the orchard of its flooded state.

Applejack, who was annoyed by the situation as well, turned to Fluttershy to express her thanks. “Thanks, Fluttershy. Don't know what I would've done without you,” Applejack expressed being relieved that this was finally over.

“Glad I could help,” Fluttershy returned.

For Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer this finally meant that they could return to their work of building a barn but before they could go back to work, Rainbow Dash came by. “Hey, slackers! Double time it on over to Ponyville, would ya?! We're all waiting on you!”

Apparently, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Spike, as well as Princess Celestia, were waiting in Ponyville for Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Fluttershy. Star Twinkle did remember that Princess Celestia was visiting Ponyville today but she didn't explain for what reason she would come over so Star Twinkle thought that it was something minor. But it looks like as if he and his friends needed to be present for something. Star Twinkle just hoped that it was not something dangerous like dealing with some Changeling Queen, an Evil Unicorn King, a dark magic using Unicorn or the Lord of Chaos.

But, things usually don't tend to go the way how Star Twinkle wished.

“Is that...Discord!?” Star Twinkle said in shock after he saw the stone statue of the Draconequus Discord, the Lord of Chaos who was defeated by him and his friends before with the help of the Elements of Harmony.

“What is this all about?” Applejack said, asking the most obvious question that everypony asked themselves right now.

“Princess Celestia wants us to reform Discord so that his magic can be used for the good,” Twilight explained.

“This will never work! This is a disaster! How will we ever control him?! We're doomed!” Spike said in a panic, literally speaking out what Star Twinkle was thinking in his mind.

“Yes! What he said!” Star Twinkle agreed as he pointed toward the little dragon. “Didn't you said that he once ruled over all of Equestria? How are we suppose to reform someone like that!?” He further pointed to get across that this was a really stupid idea.

But Princess Celestia didn't show any worry at all. “Need I remind you that you are the ponies who turned him back into stone like this in the first place?” She reminded.

Twilight, who didn't think that this was a good idea either, started to give Princess Celestia's idea a shot. “I suppose we can just use the Elements of Harmony against him again if it gets out of hoof,”

It was true that they still had the Elements of Harmony on their side if Discord would try anything stupid. But they had those against the battle against Fade too and still ended up in a bad position. Thinking back about that, reminded Star Twinkle to something. “You know, shouldn't we start with Fade? Discord is much more powerful, right? So shouldn't we start a little smaller? To make sure that we are up to the task?” Star Twinkle pointed out, which got some of his friends to agree with what he said.

But Princess Celestia shook her head in disagreement. “I know you still feel a little responsible for what happened to Fade but...” she stopped all of the sudden, which made it look like as if she was searching for an excuse. “It is true that Discord's magic is more powerful. But when it comes to dark magic, there is still much to be known of. I myself only met three ponies who were able to use dark magic, two of them who you have all met as well. You saw how strong his magic was, right?”

Remembering back, the Elements of Harmony seemed to not work probably against Fade. He was turned to stone, just like Discord but his dark magic seemed to be so powerful that it even resisted the Elements of Harmony for a while. He was able to move a little longer even after being exposed to them. Discord, however, did turn to stone immediately after he got hit by their magic. This fact may worry Princess Celestia that dealing with Fade might be a bigger risk.

Princess Celestia admitted that she was asking for something really risky but she also said that she trusted every one of the group to handle the situation well. For some reason, she believed that Fluttershy was the best candidate to reform Discord. Of course, being Fluttershy, she was a little worried to disappoint the Princess but she couldn't just say that she didn't want to and in the end agreed to do her best.

Princess Celestia had to return to some of her businesses to Canterlot and what was left was a group of ponies who were about to release the Lord of Chaos from his prison. Needless to say, nopony was really looking forward to this. Star Twinkle was definitely one of those who had some really big doubts.

“I am not the only one who thinks that this is a stupid idea, right?” Star Twinkle asked towards his friends.

Of course, Twilight was the first one to defend the Princess in that matter. “You heard Princess Celestia. She believed that we can do it,” she reminded once again.

“Yeah! And she also thought it was the best idea to let Fluttershy handle it!” Rainbow Dash said a little too direct in a doubting tone in her voice.

“Yeah...” Fluttershy added hesitantly, however it was unclear if it was because of Rainbow Dash's statement or Princess Celestia putting pressure on her like that.

Princess Celestia left the Elements of Harmony with the group so that they could put them on anytime they wanted to free Discord. There was no point of not getting this over with as fast as possible so everypony put on their respective element and stood ready to free Discord.

“Are you all ready?” Twilight asked one last time before it started.

Everypony nodded confidently and got ready to let the magic of the Elements of Harmony do their work. They all concentrated and closed their eyes until they were all engulfed by the magic of the elements. The magic traveled towards Discord and began to make his stone prison slowly crumble away. Only after a few seconds, Discord was free again, making the first step complete.

Discord began stretching after being freed from his stone prison. Of course, instead of being thankful, he actually had the nerve to complain. ”Well, it's about time somepony got me out of that prison block. What a relief!” He said followed by him snapping one of his fingers and releasing some of his magic as well, causing a nearby squirrel to turn into a more muscular and creepy looking one.

“Well, that didn't take long...” Star Twinkle thought after seeing Discord seeing out of control already.

“What do you think you're doing?!” Twilight exclaimed angrily at Discord.

However, Discord did not seem intimidated by Twilight. “Why, stretching, of course. When you're a creature of chaos, stone bodysuits aren't your typical go-to fashion choice,” he said, followed by him snapping his fingers once more, this time to cause a nearby bunny to transform to a more creepier looking one that let out a scary screech.

“Hey! Make that bunny cute again! Now!” Pinkie Pie demanded.

But again, Discord did not listen and “Oh...He's adorable the way he is,” he said as he tried to pet his little creation. However, not surprisingly, the bunny tried to bite Discord, much to his dislike, causing him to stick his tongue out. “You know what else is adorable?” He then started. “You ponies truly believe that you can reform me and that you're putting your faith in this one here to make it happen. Makes me wanna pinch your little horsey cheeks...” he said as he literally pinched Fluttershy's cheek.

“How'd you know about that?!” Twilight asked.

“Being turned to stone doesn't keep me from hearing every word Celestia says. Although I admit it makes rolling my eyes a challenge,” he explained while pulling his eyes out and literally rolling them on the floor.

"Well, unless you want us to turn you back to stone, you'll zap those animals back the way they were, pronto!" Twilight demanded as well.

"Oh, you wouldn't dare turn me back to stone and risk disappointing your precious princess," Discord pointed out which was not too far away from the truth.

“You think you can treat poor defenseless animals like that and get away with it?!” Fluttershy finally stepped up angrily.

“You go, Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash cheered on.

“You'd best watch your step, buster, or I'll give you...the Stare!” She threatened.

“The Stare? Oh no, please, not that! Anything but your disapproving eyeballs!” Discord replied sarcastically and a little amused, causing Fluttershy to actually stare at him angrily.”Oh no! No no no, stop! No, no!” He said as put on a really obvious act. “I can't! Stop! I can't take it anymore! I'll do whatever you say! Because...” However, he did start laughing after a while amused by Fluttershy's attempt.

Still, once Twilight reminded Discord that they had the Elements of Harmony equipped and that they could convince Princess Celestia that they could have a good reason to turn him back to stone, even the lord of Chaos had to admit that he wasn't in a perfect position right now. With that realization, he did return the two little critters to their previous state with a snap of his fingers.

“Well, it looks like I know where I'll be crashing while I'm being "reformed"...” He said as he pulled Fluttershy towards him. “With you, Fluttershy,” he said amused, making her realize just now how much in trouble she might be.

Even though Fluttershy supposed to reform Discord, there was no way that her friends could leave her alone with him so they followed the two as they went to Fluttershy's house. Fluttershy actually went to the trouble to make her home more comfortable for Discord.

And of course, Discord was fully taking advantage of Fluttershy's hospitality and made himself comfortable, much to Fluttershy's little pet bunny, Angel, dislike. But Discord didn't seem to be bothered by him and relaxed on Fluttershy's couch. “Oh, I'm sorry about Angel. Are you alright?” Fluttershy even apologized.

“Oh, yes. Thank you, Fluttershy, for your concern. If only your pony friends could be as considerate...” he rubbed in, hinting at Star Twinkle and the rest of his friends as they stood close by watching this scene occurring.

Even if Fluttershy was trying to show her friendly side towards Discord, the rest of her friends quickly saw through the act that he was putting on.

“Don't listen to him, Fluttershy! He's just trying to drive a wedge between us like he always does,” Rainbow Dash said angrily, referring to the time where Discord corrupted everypony.

“Now why in the world would I ever try to do a thing like that?” Discord replied in a fake oblivious voice.

“So we can't unite and use the Elements of Harmony against you, that's why!” Rainbow Dash returned angrily.

“I never thought of that...” Discord said, again in a really fake oblivious voice.

Discord already proved to be really hard to deal with. Imagining him being reformed by Fluttershy was something that Star Twinkle couldn't even begin to think that it would work and judging from the expressions on his friends faces, neither were they.

“I can't watch...” Applejack said as she pulled her hat down to cover her eyes.

Twilight, however, walked up to Fluttershy once more to ask her if she was certain about all this. To her surprise, Fluttershy seemed confident about reforming Discord. “I know it's not gonna be easy, but Princess Celestia's counting on me. And... I think I actually know what to do,”

“You do?” Twilight replied surprised.

Fluttershy explained that befriending and being kind to Discord would be the best solution to reform him. But while Fluttershy explained, Star Twinkle could help but to look at what happened behind her back. Discord was being really rude towards Angel Bunny and kept annoying him in any way possible, making Star Twinkle not feel too convinced about Fluttershy's optimism.

“And you really think that'll work?” Twilight asked, making Star Twinkle focus on the conversation between the two mares again.

“I think it's worth a try,” Fluttershy replied confidently.

“Okay, but if you need us, all you need to do is whisper "help", and we'll be back here with our elements,” Twilight assured before she glanced over to Discord. “So watch that goat-legged step of yours, pal!”

“Wh-what?!” Discord replied shocked before he changed himself into a light blue suit to make it look like as if he already was reformed. “ Look at me! I'm practically reformed already,”

This last sentence caused Fluttershy to grin at the group in uncertainty before she closed the door. The group had no choice but to believe in Fluttershy's idea of befriending Discord.

“She's really alright with him staying there?” Rarity asked, being concerned about Fluttershy.

“Well, to be fair, Fluttershy once managed to talk down a dragon...” Star Twinkle pointed out, even though it may not be even remotely comparable with what she was tasked now.

“Personally, I think we should come up with a backup plan, in case this whole "befriending" business doesn't work out,” Rainbow Dash then suggested, which definitely wasn't something that anypony would disagree on.

“Rainbow Dash is right,” Rarity added. “This is Discord we are talking about, girls. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have another trick up our sleeves,”

Twilight already seemed to have something in mind and assured everypony that she would come up with some kind of spell that could become helpful. She returned to her library to find some kind of reforming spell, in case Fluttershy's plan would fail.

There was nothing else what Star Twinkle could do so he was about to go home again and put his trust in Fluttershy. Hopefully, on the next day, he would find Discord actually reformed. However, before he arrived home, he met Steel Hammer and talked a little with him. Of course, the subject quickly turned towards Discord, once Star Twinkle mentioned him.

“Oh yeah, I can vaguely remember what happened back then when this Lord of Chaos fellow appeared in Ponyville,” Steel Hammer said as he rubbed his chin in order to remember what happened. Granted there was a lot of confusion in Ponyville at that time so Star Twinkle couldn't blame Steel Hammer to not remember. Steel Hammer's attention then turned towards Star Twinkle's necklace. “Is that why you are wearing this thing?” He then asked curiously.

“It's not a thing. It's one of the Elements of Harmony. You know, the most powerful Magic in all of Equestria,” Star Twinkle explained.

“Oh, yeah! I remember you telling me about this when this whole eternal night thing was over,” Steel Hammer recalled. “There were six of them, right?” He then added.

“Seven,” Star Twinkle corrected.

“Seven?” Steel Hammer replied a little more surprised as Star Twinkle expected.

Star Twinkle didn't really understand why Steel Hammer was so confused by this. He noticed how Steel Hammer was trying to collect the pieces inside of his mind as if he tried to come up with an answer. However, Star Twinkle was confused by the next question that he was asked. “Are you sure?” He then asked in a way more concerned voice as if he was really worried about this question.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle wasn't sure what this concern was causing but he tried to explain things the best he could. “Well, there were originally six of them. Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, Kindness, Laughter, and Magic. But for some reason, this one appeared out of nowhere so now there are seven,” he explained as he pointed to his necklace.

“Alright...” Steel Hammer replied, even though he didn't sound too convinced. “And what does your element represent?” Steel Hammer asked.

Star Twinkle did not expect to hear this question pop up all of the sudden. “Yeah, about that...” he replied a little bothered.

However, before Star Twinkle could answer, Steel Hammer remembered that he actually had something to do and left Star Twinkle on his own again. Star Twinkle decided to continue his walk towards his home slowly but Steel Hammer's last question still kept him bothered. There were originally six Elements of Harmony but Star Twinkle was chosen by a seventh one that nopony knows about, not even Princess Celestia. He had no idea what his element represents and for a while, he had nothing in his mind, except thinking about what it could be. He didn't want to worry about it anymore but now with Steel Hammer asking that last question, he couldn't help but think about it again.

Furthermore, with Discord's return, there was still another question that he remembered. Back when Discord corrupted everypony in the maze of Canterlot, he tried to corrupt Star Twinkle as well. But for some reason, it didn't work. Discord then mentioned something that confused Star Twinkle even further.
“I have every Element of Harmony inside of me. All except the new one. That is what he said back then...” Star Twinkle remembered as he slowly continued his walk home, looking at the ground. “First, I thought that he meant my element, which wouldn't even make any sense...but when I confronted him, shortly before we defeated him, he said that with “new one” he meant the element of magic,” he further remembered.

Star Twinkle began to stop on his track and stood still. He began to think about all those things that he swore to not bother about anymore. But with the return of Discord, he probably didn't even have to anymore. If Fluttershy actually managed to reform Discord, then he could probably explain what he meant back then. But if she couldn't do it and he and his friends had to turn him back to stone again, then there was also no chance of getting an answer.

Realizing that this might be his only chance to get some answer, he decided to return to Fluttershy's cottage in order to talk with Discord, even if it would be pointless talking with the Lord of Chaos. Upon arrival, there was clearly something wrong with Fluttershy's cottage. “That doesn't look good...” Star Twinkle said as he looked up and saw Fluttershy's cottage spinning several feet above the ground.

“Star Twinkle!” Twilight said, making Star Twinkle turn around and noticing Twilight and Spike approaching Fluttershy's cottage as well. “What is happening here? Is Fluttershy alright?” She asked in a panic as she looked at the cottage above her as well.

“I don't know, I just arrived here as well,” Star Twinkle replied.

“Fluttershy! Fluttershy, can you hear me?” Twilight shouted towards Fluttershy's cottage to make sure if she was alright.

Shortly after, Fluttershy came flying out of the cottage with Angel Bunny in her hooves who seemed to be really dizzy coming out of this spinning cottage and walking away.

Twilight quickly approached Fluttershy and asked her if she was alright. “Fluttershy, what's going on? Are you okay?!”

“We're fine. Everything's going great,” Fluttershy assured.

“Is this part of your plan too?” Star Twinkle asked as he pointed towards the flying spinning cottage of Fluttershy.

“We've come to get you away from Discord! He's just terrible and, from the looks of it, completely out of control!” Twilight advised.

Even though Star Twinkle didn't exactly come to get Fluttershy away from Discord, he had to admit that Discord was probably a little much to handle for her. Surprisingly, Fluttershy gave replied rather calmly. “Oh, but you're wrong! We're making great progress!”

“Seriously?!” Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike said in unison.

“I'm earning his trust by giving him a little space to be himself,” Fluttershy explained.

“Hate to break it to ya, but he used that "space to be himself" to tear out all the reforming spells from the library!” Spike then explained.

“That does explain the paper eating...” Fluttershy mumbled to herself.

“He ate them?!” Twilight said in shock after realizing what happened to her beloved books.

It was obvious that Discord was trying to prevent any means of getting reformed. Princess Celestia protected the Elements of Harmony with a spell so that Discord could not hide them anymore. So he made sure to remove any spell from Twilight's books. Despite acting so silly, he was still powerful and smart enough to not get reformed that easily.

“But we aren't gonna need a spell. He's already really considering being reformed! He said so,” Fluttershy assured.

“And...you believed him?” Star Twinkle replied, not even believing any second that Discord was telling the truth.

“If I'm going to be his friend, I have to start by giving him the benefit of the doubt! Tell you what. Bring all the ponies over for a dinner party this evening, and I'll bet his manners will have really improved by then. I'll even get him to put the cottage back on the ground first,” Fluttershy suggested.

Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike looked at each other and had their doubts that this will work but it's not like as if they had any other choice at this moment so they did agree to come to this dinner party to see if Discord really has changed that much.

Later that day...

Star Twinkle and his friends were on their way to Fluttershy's cottage to attend this dinner party with her and Discord. Needless to say, nopony was looking forward to the Discord part of the party and came equipped with the Elements of Harmony to be sure that nothing bad would happen.

“So...can somepony please explain again why we are having dinner with Discord?” Star Twinkle asked, clearly not looking forward to this.

“This evening is sure to be a disaster. Glad I didn't bother wearing my fanciest outfit,” Rarity added even though she was wearing something at all and stood out with her dress more than anypony else.

“Fluttershy thinks this is the way to reform Discord and asked us to give it a chance,” Twilight explained to her friends.

Everypony just secretly hoped that Fluttershy was right about Discord and that he really changed but deep down everypony knew that this was really unlikely. When they arrived at Fluttershy's cottage, Discord was already waiting for them and greeted everypony by making his tongue transform into a red carpet that leads to Fluttershy's cottage. “We're so delighted that you've come. Please, do come in,” he said as he waited at the door for everypony to enter.

To everyponies surprise, the inside of the cottage actually looked pretty well decorated, despite having this little Discord touch, which made it look similar to what Ponyville looked like when he tried to take of Equestria, back then.

“May I take your... hats,?” Discord offered as he attempted to take of Twilight's crown from her head.

Of course, Twilight quickly realized what he was trying to do and moved away. ”Hang on to your elements. It's gonna be a bumpy night,” she advised.

Keeping an eye on Discord was a must before they even entered the cottage. Everypony too a seat on the table in Fluttershy's living room for the dinner party to start. Fluttershy took upon herself to begin. “As you all know, Princess Celestia hoped we'd help Discord use his magic for good instead of evil so let's all have a good time at this dinner party,” she said in order to begin the dinner party.

This was a signal for Pinkie Pie to dig right into her food, causing her face to get all messy in the process. “Pinkie Pie, care for some gravy?” Fluttershy offered, seeing how Pinkie Pie enjoyed her food.

“You bet,” Pinkie Pie replied.

“Allow me,” Discord then said before he made the gravy boat on the table come to life which then walked over to Pinkie Pie and poured down some gravy on her meal, causing her to pet the thing like a pet dog.

“That's one creepy little gravy boat if you ask me,” Rainbow Dash stated after watching this scene occur in front of her.

Fluttershy didn't seem to like Rainbow Dash's words. “Oh, come on now, Dashie. You're not even giving this a chance,”

Only moments later, the gravy boat poured some gravy on Rainbow Dash, causing her to get up from her seat. Discord quickly apologized while also giggling at the same time.

“He did that on purpose!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed angrily before she flew up above the table, pointing at Discord.

But Discord played innocent. “Oh, well, I don't know about that. Mistakes happen. Oh, look, everypony, dancing candles!” He said, quickly trying to change the subject, making a few candles dancing on the table.

Rainbow Dash seemed to become angrier by Discord's behavior and blew the lights out of from the candles. “I'm not falling for that! Discord's just trying to distract us from–“ but she stopped in the middle of the sentence when she noticed how the candles began to levitate above her before they began to poke her, making her crawl down on her knees. “Hey! Knock it off! I suppose that's another mistake?” She asked annoyed as she tried to protect herself from the candles.

“No, I think you just made them mad,” Discord replied casually, making it look like as if he didn't have anything to do with it.

“There's something fishy going on,” Twilight pointed out towards the soup tureen before it plashed some of the soup towards Twilight causing her to fall backward from her seat.

This caused Fluttershy to ask Discord if he was responsible for this. ”Well, it's hardly my fault if the soup tureen finds the term "something fishy" to be offensive,” he replied, once again playing innocent.

The soup tureen and the candles continued to create havoc on the table and attacked everypony on the table. Despite all this happening right in front of him, Star Twinkle continued to calmly take a sip from his glass of water. In front of him.
“As if this dinner party could have turned out any other way...” Star Twinkle thought as he avoided everything that came flying towards him at the same time. “I doubt that Discord would tell me anything about my element if I just walk up to him and ask him,” he figured just before he ducked to avoid the soup tureen spilling some soup on him in the process.

Rainbow Dash managed to trap the candles and once again accused Discord of controlling everything that happened on the table. “Fluttershy! Can't you see what he's doing? He's playing innocent with you so you'll never agree to use the Elements of Harmony against him!” She said, which was pretty obvious from the very start. “You see what I'm saying, right, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy looked down for a second to think but soon raised it up again in realization. “You know what I see? I see that Discord's far from perfect, but I also see none of you giving him a chance!” She said a little offended by the behavior of her friends.

This caused everypony except Star Twinkle to complain because Fluttershy was being so considerate towards Discord. Star Twinkle knew Fluttershy for a while now and figured that she was probably too naive to see through Discord's act. “This is all a waste of time,” Star Twinkle thought. “There is no way that the Lord of Chaos would help Equestria with his magic. We should turn him to stone again. But how am I suppose to get may answers from him then?” Star Twinkle struggled.

“What's gotten into you?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed once more. “Why do you keep cutting him so much slack?”

“Because that's what friends do,” Fluttershy replied as she began putting her front leg around Discord.

Discord didn't seem to know how to react to this gesture and looked puzzled. “We're friends?” Discord asked a little confused.

“Why, of course! I can't remember my house ever being this lively before you came along,” Fluttershy explained almost relieved.

Again, Discord seemed confused and was not sure how to react at first. “Oh... Well, I've... never really had a friend before,” Discord admitted with his eyes tearing up a little.

For the first time, Discord surprisingly looked genuinely touched by Fluttershy's words. Of course, it wasn't surprising that he never had a friend before, not the way how he behaves but seeing the Lord of Chaos be happy called a friend was sure something nopony in the group expected.

“Well, now you do!” Fluttershy assured happily, causing Discord to make a happy face as well.

The rest of the group were now surprised as well and looked over to the two in surprise to see the Lord of Chaos being affected by Fluttershy's words.

However, this beautiful moment was interrupted by Angel Bunny who climbed through the window and walked to the dinner table with a panicking expression on his face. “Now is not a good time, Angel. We're having a dinner party,” Fluttershy said, unaware of Angel's expression.

“Hold up! I-I think he's tryin' to tell us somethin'!” Applejack said after noticing Angel's strange behavior as well.

First, Angel spilled some water on himself and swam on the ground, then he picked up an apple.
“Apple!” Everypony said in unison. Then Angel pointed towards Applejack. “Applejack!” Everypony then guessed but judging from his disappointing expression, that wasn't it either. He then dragged a bowl with apple juice inside of it in plain sight and threw the apple inside of it.

“Oh, oh, oh! Sweet Apple Acres?” Rarity then guessed which judging from Angel's expression seemed to be right.

“Flooding at Sweet Apple Acres!” Rainbow Dash then figured. “And we all know who's behind that now, don't we?!” She said, instantly accusing Discord.

“Who, me?” Discord replied innocently, making a halo appearing above his head.

The group wasted no time and went straight to Sweet Apple Acres to see what was up there. It was just like Rainbow Dash guessed. There really was a flooding at Sweet Apple Acres just like before but to a much bigger extent. Almost only the tips of the apple trees were visible because of the water. “I've never seen the floodin' this bad! They've built dams 'round here before, but never like this! What's goin' on?” Applejack wondered.

“Well, having cranes and construction sites, all of the sudden might be one reason...” Star Twinkle said as he pointed towards the cranes and the construction site that were controlled by some of the beavers.

Fluttershy tried to talk with her little critter friends but from the looks of it didn't work and she returned to her friends where she was approached by Rainbow Dash again. “You see Discord's behind all this, right?” Rainbow Dash said annoyed, again trying to convince Fluttershy that her so-called friend was just playing her.

“Oh, of course, I do!” Fluttershy replied annoyed as well. “Do you all think I'm a silly, gullible fool?”

To that, everypony talked over each other.
“Only in the sense of being silly and gullible...” Rarity said.
“Um, well...” Pinkie Pie said.
“Uh...uh, no, not exactly,” Applejack said.

“Maybe a little...” Star Twinkle said boldly after everypony was already finished, causing him to get poked in the sides by Rarity for that unnecessary statement.

“I've just been trying to gain his friendship any way I can, so he'd come to trust and listen to me!” Fluttershy explained.

And speaking of the Lord of Chaos, Discord could be seen water skiing in the distance, inviting Fluttershy to join her as well. “Time to see if it worked,” Fluttershy said as she waited for Discord to come closer

“Fluttershy, oh, there you are. A sight for sore eyes,” Discord said as he walked up to Fluttershy.

“As you can see, there's a big mess down here at Sweet Apple Acres,” Fluttershy pointed out as she literally pointed towards the flooded Sweet Apple Acres.

“Oh, yes. Awful business, that. Mm,” Discord replied not seeming to care one bit about what Fluttershy said while using a towel to scrub himself dry.

“It is awful. This is Applejack's home, and it's being destroyed by innocent creatures who would never be acting this way if it weren't for your reckless behavior. You need to fix this,” Fluttershy demanded.

“Oh, yes, very well, I will fix it. I only ask one thing in return,” Discord returned.

Hearing this already gave everypony a bad feeling. Star Twinkle even had a guess where Discord was going with that. Fluttershy asked what this condition was and just as expected, it was as Star Twinkle thought. “I ask that you never use your Element of Harmony against me. As a sign of our friendship,” Discord demanded.

For a moment, Fluttershy looked over to her friends for advice and of course, everypony shook their head in disagreement. However, Fluttershy did accept the terms, much to everyponies dislike. “I will never use my Element of Harmony against you,” Fluttershy said as she removed her necklace and threw over to Spike.

“Excellent!” Discord cheerfully said before he snapped with his finger and released a spell that engulfed the whole orchard in a bright light for a second. After the light faded away, the water was now turned to ice, much to the shock of everypony. ”There, much better! I do prefer ice skating to water skiing! Don't you?” Discord had the nerve to say before he jumped on the ice happily.

“Discord! That's not fixing it!” Fluttershy exclaimed as she angrily walked up to Discord to confront him.

“What's wrong, pal?” Discord asked, oblivious to what Fluttershy was so upset about.

“Don't call me your pal!” Fluttershy replied angrily.

“Oh, pfft, come skating with me, and we'll let bygones be bygones,” Discord said as he offered Fluttershy some skates to ice skate along with him.

Seeing how Discord was not listening at all to Fluttershy, Spike went over to her and offered her the Element of Harmony that she took of. “Here you go, Fluttershy! Game on!”

“He fixes this or he goes back to being stone! Princess Celestia will understand!” Twilight explained which really now was the only thing that was left to do.

However, despite hesitating at first, Fluttershy was not agreeing to that. “I made a promise not to use my element against him, and I'm going to keep it,” she replied before she grabbed the ice skates from Discord and walked away, much to everyponies dislike.

“Now, what do we do?” Star Twinkle asked which nopony had an answer for. Without the Elements of Harmony were the only thing that could stop Discord and now that he convinced Fluttershy not to use hers, there was probably no other way to stop him now.

And of course, Discord was the only one happy about that. ”Hahah! You see? She wants to have fun with me because we're friends. She can't use the elements against me because we're friends. I'm free forever!” Discord stated laughing happily about his newfound freedom.

But Fluttershy seemed not happy at all and began to growl in anger after hearing how Discord was saying all this stuff. Eventually, she couldn't take it anymore and threw away the ice skates in her anger. ”Not. Your. Friend!” She exclaimed before she walked away from Discord angrily.

Despite that outburst, Discord didn't seem to care one bit. “Who cares? Who needs friends when you can do whatever you want, whenever you want,”

Now there was a problem. With Discord on the loose again, it wouldn't take long until he would try to do something evil again so the group had to come up with a new plan. But for some reason, Star Twinkle could not think about that right now and had other stuff in his mind. His eyes narrowed in anger and he suddenly began walking towards Discord. “What are you doing!?” Star Twinkle asked in anger.

“Oh! Star Twinkle. Do you want to join me?” Discord said before he snapped his finger and summoned some ice skates on Star Twinkle's hooves, making him slip and fall to the ground. Star Twinkle couldn't get up again because he constantly slipped and eventually resorted to using his transformation to grew two wings on his back and lifted himself up on the same height as Discord's eyes. “Oh! What a nice little trick you got there,” Discord mockingly complimented after inspecting this new ability of Star Twinkle.

“Did you realize what you just did!?” Star Twinkle asked angrily towards Discord.

“Of course, I won back my freedom,” Discord replied casually. “And unlike you little ponies, I, Discord, do not need a bunch of ponies or some necklaces to be all powerful so there is no need to be friends with anyone,”

“What good is your power and freedom if you don't have anyone to share it with?” Star Twinkle replied. “You were imprisoned alone all this time and had the chance to change that! But what did you do? You choose to be free, yes, but in my eyes, you just changed your prison!” Star Twinkle continued in his anger. “Not only that but...you just rejected the only pony who accepted you the way you are...how could you...” Star Twinkle mumbled quietly as he lowered his head in sadness.
“You just lost the only friend you ever had,”

Those words seem to struck Discord. He looked over to the ice skates that Fluttershy threw away and began to tear up after the realization of what he just did. “Well played, you two. Well played,” Discord then said before he walked over to one of the apple trees and sat down on it while finally releasing a spell to fix everything in the orchard. The ice vanished and the beavers returned to their normal state again. Everypony cheered after everything went back to normal and walked towards Star Twinkle and Fluttershy who were the main reason for fixing everything. They were soon accompanied by Discord who teleported himself in front of everypony.

“I liked it better my way, but... I guess when you're friends, you can't always have things exactly your way all the time, eh?” Discord said with some regret in his voice. But Fluttershy was the first one to fly up to him assuring him that she would forgive him.

Later...

Princess Celestia visited Ponyville once more to see how Discord's reforming went. Much to her surprise, Discord was the first one to bow in front her with Star Twinkle and the others not too far behind. ”Princess, I'm ready to use my magic for good instead of evil,” he said as he bowed before the princess. “Most of the time,” he added under his breath.

“Congratulations on your success, ponies. I definitely sense a big change in Discord,” Princess Celestia said proudly. However, she did want Twilight to take care of the Elements of Harmony just in case.

“You were right when you said Fluttershy would be the one to find the way to reform Discord. By treating Discord as a friend, she got him to realize that friendship was actually important to him. And something that, once he had, he didn't want to lose,” Twilight explained to the Princess.

Star Twinkle overheard those words and could only think about what he said in front of Discord. The little outburst he had before was probably because Star Twinkle felt exactly like that. Losing his friends, who accepted him the way he is something that he would definitely not want. Deep down, Discord didn't want that as well which is why he choose friendship above power or freedom.

“Go on. Say it...” Fluttershy said as she poked Discord to get out some words.

Discord groaned for a moment but eventually said what Fluttershy wanted him to say. “Alright... Friendship is magic,” he said quickly which were some awfully familiar words for some reason.

Later that night at Star Twinkle's house...

Eventually, Princess Celestia returned to Canterlot with Discord to talk over about some stuff that he could take care of in the future. This again, meant that Star Twinkle had no time to talk about this question that he had in mind. “There are pieces of every Element of Harmony inside of me...” Star Twinkle mumbled quietly to himself as he laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling. “Every element except the new one...magic...”

Those were the exact words that Discord said to Star Twinkle back when he was trying to take over Equestria a while back.

Star Twinkle never thought that he would worry about the Elements of Harmony again. He tried his best to forget about them and just accept the fact that he was chosen by one unknown Element. But back then, all he was thinking about was why he was chosen or why he was involved into all of this.
But now there is no point in thinking about that. He was chosen and thanks to that, he was able to meet his friends. There were times where he wished to return to his old life but the longer he spends time with his friends, the more he wanted to forget thinking like this.

Eventually, he came to one conclusion. “No more questions...” he mumbled to himself again. “I'm here...I'm Star Twinkle, chosen by an Element of Harmony and friend of Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy...”

Worrying about the Elements of Harmony was no point anymore. It was just like with Discord. It was either the Elements of Harmony or his friends. If he had to choose one of them, then it was definitely his friends.
“My life has changed to the better so there is no reason to ask questions anymore. I'm not alone. All I have to know about the Elements of Harmony is that that I am one of six...” But Star Twinkle stopped once he realized he said something wrong. “I mean seven Elements of Harmony...” he corrected. “Thanks, Steel Hammer, for confusing me,” he said before he decided to go to sleep.

63. A harsh welcome

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Star Twinkle and his friends were about to head to the Crystal Empire for a specific task that Princess Cadence asked of them. And since all of them were away, someone had to take care of their pets. Thankfully, Spike offered to take care of every single one of them so Star Twinkle and his friends dropped off their pets at the Golden Oak Library where Spike would take care of them while they were away. Before Twilight went outside, she talked one last time to Spike. “You absolutely sure you can do this?” Twilight asked before she walked outside of her library.

“Of course. Wouldn't have agreed to it if I couldn't. Piece of cake. Speaking of cake, I got a little something I need to attend to,” Spike replied as he pulled out a cookbook and a chef hat, indicating that he was about to cook or bake something. It must have something to do with the gems that he was gathering from everypony in order to pay him for this taking care of all the pets thing.

“Yeah, like keeping an eye on a house full of critters,” Twilight replied, remembering the little dragon of his task.

Spike seemed to get what Twilight was getting at. “Uh, yeah, uh, that was totally what I was talking about. Relax. Go to your welcoming thing in the Crystal Empire. Spike's got it all under control,” he said before he closed the door so that Twilight could leave.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle waited a few steps away until Twilight was done. She did seem to worry about Spike taking care of the pets but since everypony was already a little late, they could not waste much time. “I'm sure Spike can handle it so don't worry,” Star Twinkle said in order to remove Twilight's worries. It did seem to work and Twilight concentrated to go to the train station without worrying about Spike anymore. However, when Star Twinkle looked back at the library, he noticed how there was a lot of ruckus inside of it. Twilight didn't seem to hear it though so he just pretended he didn't hear or see anything and followed her before she decided to check on it.

Everypony was now at the train station, each of them wearing saddlebags on their backs for the trip. “Oh, this is gonna be a real treat. Princess Cadance said she'd never seen the Crystal Ponies so excited,” Applejack said being a little excited herself.

“Duh! Of course they're excited,” Rainbow Dash said. “They're up for the Equestria Games. It's only the biggest sporting event in all of Equestria,” she explained, though one could have figured that out themselves judging from the name “Equestria Games”.

“Didn't Cloudsdale host the Equestria Games one year?” Rarity asked.

“No. Cloudsdale should have hosted the games one year but in the end, they decided to hold them in Fillydelphia instead,” Rainbow Dash explained while having a really depressed expression on her face just thinking about that. “These Crystal Ponies lost a thousand years to an evil king's curse. They've had enough bad news. No way we're letting them experience the pain of losing out on these games,” she then added determined.

“That's surprisingly considerate of you...” Star Twinkle pointed out.

“What do you mean “surprisingly”?” Rainbow Dash replied offended.

But Twilight joined in before things could turn into a different direction. “Princess Cadance is counting on us to do our part to convince the Games Inspector to choose the Crystal Empire. And we are not gonna let her down. Are we?”

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie slid in the middle of the group. “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” She screamed on top of her lungs, much to everyponies surprise. She eventually, noticed how everypony looked at her and explained. “What? I was just answering Twilight's question,” she said casually.

“We should enter the train...” Star Twinkle suggested, causing everypony to nod in agreement before they all went inside of the train.

As usual, the train ride to the Crystal Empire would take quite some time so the group decided to skip the time by practicing a little something that they prepared for the inspector.

“Four, three, two, one! The Crystal Empire, that's the one!” Everypony cheered in unison.

Everypony seemed satisfied with this performance but Twilight still had some concerns. “One more time from the top,” she said, causing the rest of her friends to groan annoyed and exhausted.

“Oh, please! I think that was perfect,” Rarity said.

“We've run this, like, twelve times already. I think we've got it,” Applejack added.

But Twilight still insisted that everything should be perfect. “Cadance said the Games Inspector really puts folks through the wringer on her visits. There's no margin for error here. And this time we need to practice the steps,” she insisted.

“On a train car?” Applejack said confused.

Rainbow Dash eventually, got everypony to do as Twilight said since it was most important to her that everything was perfect as well. The seven ponies then practiced their little performance for the inspector. The first step was building a pyramid. Three ponies were on the ground and lifted two ponies on their backs, which then again, would lift two ponies on their backs. It was basically the Earth Ponies on the ground, the Unicorns in the middle and the Pegasus on top, meaning that Star Twinkle was on the ground between Applejack and Pinkie Pie while Twilight and Rarity were on top of him who again had Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy on top of them. And of course, while building this pyramid, the group was cheering some words again. ”Two, four, six, eight-” They began to cheer before their performance was abruptly stopped by the brakes of the train who was coming to a hold, making the group's pyramid collapse.

“Crystal Empire! Watch your step leaving the train!” The train conductor announced as he opened the door only to find a bunch of ponies either lying on the ground or with their faces against the wall due to that abrupt hold.

“Probably should've watched our step while we were still on it, too,” Applejack said annoyed as she lifted Pinkie up from her back.

“Yes...it was a rather uncomfortable stop,” Rarity said as she sat on the ground with her head still spinning a little. When Rarity tried to get up, she noticed how the ground was a little soft.

“Do you mind getting off of me?” Star Twinkle said who laid on the ground with Rarity sitting on him.

“Oh!” Rarity said embarrassed as she got up from Star Twinkle as quickly as possible. “I'm so sorry darling,” she apologized with an embarrassed grin on her face.

But Star Twinkle didn't seem to mind and got up again. After everyponies head stopped spinning, they decided to get out of the train and meet up with Princess Cadance.

On their way through the Crystal Empire, they quickly noticed how much more shiny it was then usual. The crystals literally blinded them. Every Crystal Pony made sure that everything was cleaned or organized. With everypony occupied like that, there was no wonder why Star Twinkle and his friends were asked to handle the welcome committee routine.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but notice that while everypony was cleaning the empire, they did seem excited in doing so. “Looks like everypony here wants to make sure that the Equestria Games are held here,”

“Of course, they do!” Rainbow Dash suddenly exclaimed next to Star Twinkle and making him jump in the process. “I remember how I felt like that back then,” she said, referring to the time where the Equestria Games were announced in Clouds Dale before she grabbed into one filly on the way and lifting her up. “But not as much as I remember the crushing wave of disappointment that came when things didn't work out,” she continued which made the filly almost tear up in sadness. “That right there. That is the face I do not want to see,”

Eventually, the group had to take Rainbow Dash away from the filly before she would cause a mass panic without realizing it. It didn't take long until the group found themselves at where they agreed to meet Princess Cadance at. They arrived at the spa of the Crystal Empire where Princess Cadance was already getting ready for the inspector as well. But as soon as she spotted the group of friends entering the spa, she quickly walked up to Twilight, causing both of them to do their little dance again.

“Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake!” They both said as they did their welcoming dance.

“That is adorable...” Star Twinkle thought as he watched those two grown mares do something cute like that.

Meanwhile, Rarity already admired how the spa looked from the inside and as usual, when it came to the Crystal Empire she couldn't help but look at everything in awe. Princess Cadence noticed Rarity's admiration and offered everypony to try out the spa as much as they want, much to Rarity's desire. The Princess suggested to try out a crystal mud bath for example. She pointed towards a pool filled with some kind of green substance inside of it which is supposed to relax and rejuvenate you. Pinkie Pie quickly took the offer and jumped into the pool by swinging right into it with the help of a rope that for some reason hung from the ceiling.

Thankfully, since the mud was a little sticky and solid, there was no mess caused by Pinkie Pie. Still, Twilight couldn't help but scold her for that. “Pinkie Pie! Honestly!”

Princess Cadance walked up to her and reached her hoof to her chest before stretching it away again while breathing in and out slowly. This seemed to be some kind of gesture to help her relax. Twilight imitated this and seemed to have cooled off by it.

Again, Princess Cadance offered everypony to relax while they were there. “Go ahead, have a good time while I get my ceremonial headdress done,”

“Ceremonial... headdress?” Rarity immediately asked curiously.

Princess Cadance explained. “When meeting with important guests, it was tradition for rulers of the Crystal Empire to weave crystals into their manes in a very specific way. The Games Inspector is known for doing her homework. She'll certainly be expecting my look to reflect the importance of her visit,”

Star Twinkle didn't even know much about this Equestria Games, to begin with, but this whole “making a good impression” thing for the inspector was taken very serious by everypony so it was obvious that it was very important.

“With all those ponies doing the work outside and Princess Cadance wearing this special headdress, there is actually not too much to worry about anymore...” Star Twinkle thought in relief.

But everyponies attention was quickly drawn towards the entrance of the spa, where one pony literally slammed the door open in panic. The mare who entered the spa quickly bowed down to Princess Cadance and explained why she was in such a panic. “Princess, if I may have a word... I-I have two pieces of news for you. First, your mane stylist has the flu and won't be able to make it for fear of you catching it, too,”

Princess Cadance was obviously not taking this message to well and seemed a little worried. “Oh. Well... I hope she's better soon. Do any of the other stylists here know how to do the traditional royal ceremonial headdress?” She then asked to the rest of the crystal ponies who were inside of the spa. However, when nopony seemed to be stepping up, Princess Cadance's concern grew further, causing her to breathe in and out again accompanied by the same gesture as before. “Just a... small detail,” she said to herself as if she tried to calm herself down.

But Rainbow Dash seemed to think otherwise. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You're trying to land the Equestria Games here. There is no such thing as a small detail!”

“I suppose... I could give it a shot,” Rarity offered, seeing how this was quite some problem.

If there was one pony to get this fashion problem fixed, then it was surely Rarity. Princess Cadance thankfully accepted the offer. “Thank you so much, Rarity. Fortunately, I have all the precise instructions right here,” she said as she unfolded a scroll in front of everypony out of a chest which turned out to be a several hoof long list filled with the instruction that made even Twilight's lists look pathetic.

But despite the length of the instructions, Rarity was confident to that she could do it and saw it as an opportunity to work on the hair of royalty. “Besides, the Games Inspector isn't expected for several hours. I'll have plenty of time to figure out exactly how to... do... this...” Rarity assured as she looked at the list with some concern in her voice.

Princess Cadance talked on more time to the messenger and asked for the second bit of news that she was talking about, causing the crystal pony to continue her message. “Yes, quite. The Games Inspector, Ms. Harshwhinny, will be arriving on the... next train,”

This news shocked the group. As if that headdress problem wasn't bad enough, now they were also pressured by time. “But that's only fifteen minutes from now!” Star Twinkle pointed out in a panic. But his panic seemed to vanish once he took a look at Twilight who was breathing in and out slowly, once again, accompanied by putting her hoof against her chest before stretching it away from her body. Despite this rather complicated situation, she was calm and tried to think about what to do next. She asked if Rarity would be done in time so that she could bring Princess Cadance to the castle to which Rarity assured that she would be.

This only left Star Twinkle and the rest to keep the inspector busy for a while until Rarity was done with the headdress. “Okay, we'll be fine. Everypony, just be on the lookout for the pony with the flower print luggage,” Twilight said as she leads everypony to the train station. “We bring the Games Inspector back to the castle, put on our big welcome committee how-do-you-do and then...”

“Put the pudding out to thaw before you eat it or you'll crack a tooth?” Pinkie Pie asked, which rather confused everypony.

“We need to remember that the Games Inspector arriving early is probably part of a plan to psych us out,” Rainbow Dash pointed out.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.

“You said it yourself. She's got a rep for trying to catch hosts off-guard, just to see if we can handle the kind of massive pressure that comes with hosting the Equestria Games,” Rainbow Dash explained which actually made some kind of sense.

“She has a good point,” Star Twinkle agreed. “If she thinks that we can't even handle this situation, then there is no way that she will let the Crystal Empire host the games,”

“Exactly! Which is why we always have to be one step ahead and don't fall for any of her mind games. Anything she throws at us, we just need to remember she's testing us and roll with it,”

After arriving at the train station, the group quickly found a mare that fit Twilight's description. It was a yellow Earth Pony mare with a light green mane, light green eyes and a brown chicken as a Cutie Mark. She was also wearing a pink top. But noticeable was, of course, the bag that she was carrying, a bag with a flower prints one it just like Twilight said, making her the inspector that they were waiting for. As soon as the group found out that this was the pony that they were looking for, Rainbow Dash quickly greeted her and got the mare's attention.

“Yes, what is it?” The mare replied rather annoyed or even displeased after seeing the group walking up to them.

“Oh, no!” Fluttershy replied as if she thought that they already did something wrong to upset her.

Twilight calmed Fluttershy down and walked up to the mare welcome her as well. “Well, I know you're not expecting us, but we're here to personally welcome you to the Crystal Empire,”

“The whole lot of you came to do that?” The mare replied, probably not expecting that many ponies. It must be a little intimidating to have six ponies in front of you to greet you. But despite the surprise that the mare showed before, it quickly turned into an excited smile. “Well, darn-tootin', ain't that the cat's meow! Y'all didn't need to do that. Why I hardly expected anything like this,” she said in an accent that nopony seemed to have expected, while she shook everyponies hoofs one after another.

“Whew! The Princess wouldn't have had it any other way,” Applejack replied relieved.

“The Princess? Princess Cadance?” The mare replied almost stunned. “Well, tie me up and throw me down! This just keeps gettin' better and better!” She said as she jumped on her bag and spun around in excitement.

“Wow...I guess Rainbow Dash was right with her assumption. This inspector is definitely acting a little strange. I guess that is also supposed to catch us off guard and to see how we handle things,” Star Twinkle figured as he closely watched the behavior of this inspector.

The first stop was supposed to be at the castle, where the first surprise would wait for the inspector. As soon as she heard that that would only be the beginning of the welcome, she excitedly bounced towards it in Pinkie Pie style.

“She is really good with this whole faking out thing,” Star Twinkle said as he walked next to Twilight.

“She is,” Twilight agreed. “But we just gotta roll with it until the Princess gets there and we'll be just fine,” she explained as she walked right behind Pinkie Pie and the inspector who already walked off a little.

The group made it to the castle and the inspector was more than stunned once she walked inside and took a look around the inside of it. She watched in awe after noticing how everything inside was so shiny and clean. However, for some reason, once she looked up to the very high ceiling, she began to shake a little. But that only lasted for a second.

Fluttershy couldn't help but express how nice that inspector was but Rainbow Dash once again reminded her that this was only an act to confuse them so that they would get careless, which intimidated Fluttershy again.

Twilight was the one who took the lead when it came to talking with the inspector and offered her a seat for the upcoming welcome. But again, the inspector tried one of her fake outs again.
“Mind if I take a quick run outside first? It was an awfully long train ride and my legs could use a stretch,” she said as she literally stretched her legs a little.

But Twilight managed to convince her to sit down, explaining that the welcome was just about to start. The inspector took a seat on a nearby bench. Rainbow Dash saw that as a success and shared a hoof bump with Fluttershy. It was probably just a test to see if the group could handle a complex situation. A test that they passed from the looks of it.

Twilight took it upon herself to continue the welcome. “We'd like to thank you for this opportunity to introduce you to this wonderful kingdom! And since we're not even from here ourselves, who better than us to let you know just how welcoming this place can be!”

This was the signal for everypony to start their performance that they tried to practice back in the train. They all formed a pyramid. Pinkie Pie, Star Twinkle, and Applejack were at the bottom. Twilight was in the middle and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy was at the top. They soon began dancing around or in case of the Pegasus flying around all over the place. That performance was accompanied with a little cheerful song that they all sing in unison.

“Two, four, six, eight!
Name a place that's really great!
One, two, three, four!
Keeps you coming back for more!
Two, seven, nine, three!
The place that we all wanna be!
Four, three, two, one!
The Crystal Empire, that's the one!”

It all ended with the group forming the pyramid again and Pinkie Pie pulling out her party cannon out of nowhere and firing it across the room, sending the ponies flying across the room because of the knockback and covering the inspector in confetti.

The inspector was highly impressed by this performance and cheered and whistled after Star Twinkle and his friends were done but the group was still laying on the ground due to their exhaustion and missed it at first. That was until the inspector came rushing to their side with nothing but joy and happiness in her face. “Ooh, I tell ya! I have traveled far and wide, but I have never, ever been welcomed anyplace in the fashion that y'all have done here today,”

“That's fantastic! Princess Cadance would be so glad to hear that!” Twilight replied relieved.

“Honestly, I'm surprised she knows anything about me at all!” The inspector replied modestly.

“Of course she does! She's been looking forward to your visit for weeks!”

“Where the heck is she anyway? Wasn't she supposed to be here by now?” Applejack asked, seeming a little worried about her whereabouts.

“Yeah, she should already be here, shouldn't she?” Star Twinkle whispered back before he noticed how the inspector was gone.

They found the inspector outside on the balcony, grasping for some air. She seemed to want to stretch her legs, for now, meaning that she was still trying to test everypony. But Rainbow Dash saw through it and offered a tour to the castle. But Twilight seemed to be against that idea.
“Dash! We've hardly ever even been here before!” She pointed out stressed.

But Rainbow Dash was confident “It's just another test! We gotta roll with it, remember?” She reminded.

Like before, Twilight breathed in and out again, accompanied by stretching her hoof away.
“Fine. You all start giving her the tour, and I'll go see what's keeping Cadance,” she said before she left and entrusted everypony with the tour of the castle.

With the inspector being entrusted with Star Twinkle and the rest, they soon started the tour around the castle. Soon, they realized that what Twilight said was true. They knew nothing about this castle and had no idea what to say about it. And for some reason, the group decided to let Pinkie Pie do the explaining of the tour.
“So, you see this here?” She said as she stood in the middle of a big room of the Crystal Castle. “ This, um, this is, um... a big, round room. It's known for its roundness and bigness. And did I mention that it's round?” Pinkie Pie explained, clearly having not a single idea what to say about the room.

“Really smooth, Pinkie Pie...” Star Twinkle though, as he kept looking around in hope that Twilight would return with Princess Cadance.

However, just like before, once the inspector looked up to the ceiling, she began shaking in fear. “I think they call it a rotunda? A small, confining, rotunda...” she pointed out as her legs began to shake intensely.

“Whatever. Round is round, am I right?” Pinkie Pie replied.

Star Twinkle walked up to the pink mare and decided to give her some advice. “Just go easy, Pinkie Pie. Let's just make sure that she is happy and not bored or else we ruin everything,”

The inspector seemed unaware of the conversation of the two ponies and shared her opinion on the room as well. “You know... I love this sort of architecture. I-I-I detect a neo-Gothic inspiration in the design, yes?”

Pinkie Pie looked over to Star Twinkle, in hope that he understood what she just said but he only shrugged his shoulders. “...sure...” he said with a forced grin on his face, agreeing to her words.

Fortunately, Twilight stepped into the room, giving the ponies some hope that it was finally over with the welcome. But Princess Cadance was nowhere to be seen which quickly robbed them of their hope again. “There's a bit of a problem with her headdress. How's it going here?” Twilight asked.

Star Twinkle pointed behind him with his where Twilight could only see Pinkie Pie making some weird faces, in order to keep the inspector busy. “Can't you see?” Star Twinkle added with an exhausted expression on his face.

“I, uh, hate to be a bother, but the legs are cramping up on me with all this standing around...” The inspector interrupted still seeming to get this whole “handling with complex situations” thing going.

But Twilight figured that she was getting bored and said that Princess Cadance needed some more time to get ready. Again, Twilight did her little breath in and out thing in order to relax and came up with another solution. “I'll see if Shining Armor can come help. Can't one of you other ponies take over in the meantime?” She said before she left again.

Rainbow Dash saw this as an opportunity to take over. “Wanna stretch your legs, huh? Well, whatever you need, I'm sure we can provide. Let's just make our way to the castle's gymnasium. Our tour will now be headed...” She said before she looked over the hall and finding several identically looking doors in front of her. “...this way,” she said as she randomly pointed at one of them and leading the inspector through the castle.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but to question Rainbow Dash's action and walked beside her. “Are you sure that this castle has a gymnasium?”

“If it means keeping that pony busy, then yes,” Rainbow Dash whispered back.

It was actually not important which room they showed to the inspector, as long as it means buying some more time. And if that meant showing her every single room of the castle, then so be it.
And it almost felt that way. They were all walking through room after room after room. A gymnasium, however, was nowhere to be found, much to the inspectors dislike, who seemed to get more and more stressed the longer the welcome became.

Star Twinkle, again noticed how the mare was looking at the ceiling from time to time. And every time she did, her legs began to shake. Witnessing this several times, quickly made him realize something. He walked next to Rainbow Dash and shared his little discovery. “Hey, Rainbow Dash. Don't you think that she is acting weird sometimes?” He asked, which caused her to look back at him with her eyelids half open. “I mean, not like usual,” he corrected. “I mean like in, being afraid or something.” But Rainbow Dash didn't seem to see the problem and shrugged her shoulders. “Wait, let me show you...” Star Twinkle said before he walked up to the inspector. “Excuse me but do you see that up there?” He said as he pointed up to the ceiling.

“You mean up there?” The mare replied as she looked up to the ceiling as well with her eyes widening in the process. “That big, long and high ceiling?” She added while her legs began to shake again in fear. “Ahh! I can't take it anymore! I need to get outside!” She suddenly burst out in a panic as she ran away to the through the next door.

Of course, the group panicked as well and followed the mare before something bad would happen to her. This all led to a really long chase that took place all over the castle, leading some of the ponies to get lost or losing sight of the inspector. Rainbow Dash partly blamed Star Twinkle for this but he didn't have any time to worry about that and concentrated on finding the inspector. Eventually, he spotted her in the distance and saw how she found a door to the outside, which led to some kind of stadium, where multiple Crystal Ponies were running around through some kind of obstacle course.

Needless to say, the inspector was really relieved to be finally back outside and smelled the fresh air again. “I'm outside!” She said in excitement as she proceeded to accidentally join the obstacle race, knocking everypony who crossed her path away.

To everyponies surprise, Twilight and Shining Armor were in the middle of the race track watching how this scene occurred in front of them. Star Twinkle and the others went to their side and tried to explain things but with the inspector creating such a havoc, that was a little difficult and Shining Armor just wanted that this pony would stop rampaging through the stadium. “Make her stop!” Shining Armor exclaimed.

“Wait, that's the Games Inspector! Let her do her thing,” Rainbow Dash explained.

Shining Armor understood, but at the same time, he didn't understand why the inspector was running through the race track, knocking away everything in her way. Even the obstacles that the ponies were supposed to jump over. “Why would she do that?” Shining Armor questioned which was actually a legitimate question.

“I have no idea, but that's why she's who's in charge of choosing who gets the Games, and we're not,” Rainbow Dash explained which made it actually not sound too convincing after putting it like that.

The inspector continued her rampage and knocked one obstacle away after another. This caused one of the flower pots that were placed on the obstacles to land right on her head, making it stuck inside of it. ”Oh! Oh, get me outside for a run!” She exclaimed in a panic before she randomly ran across the field again.

Shining Armor tried to warn her that she was running towards a door but the inspector crashed right through it, making Shining Armor lower his jaw in shock.

“She has some really weird methods,” Star Twinkle assured, trying to explain it to Shining Armor.

Of course, the group couldn't just let the inspector run around blindly through the Crystal Empire so they choose to follow her and prevent any more damage. However, nopony except Rainbow Dash was remotely fast enough to even catch up to her. Star Twinkle and his friends could only see from a distance how Rainbow Dash was trying to get the flower pot off from the crazy mares head. She actually managed to pull it off and released the inspector from her confused rampage. Surprisingly, the mare didn't seem to be in a bad mood at all, despite all this. ”Oh, that felt good! Nothing like a great run to shake the cobwebs off these old bones,” she excitedly shared with everypony, who just arrived at the scene themselves. “These wide open spaces y'all got here remind me of home. This is great!”

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash crawled back to the mare in exhaustion. “So you're...enjoying your visit?” She asked, accompanied by heavy pants from her side.

“Oh, good golly, yes. I just love to travel and see new places. Such a beautiful spot you got here, too!” The inspector shared again after taking a look at the big field in front of her.

Being the Prince of the Crystal Empire, Shining Armor felt flattered “Why... thank you so much! I'm Shining Armor,” he introduced himself to the mare to which she seemed heavily excited.

“My, oh, my... I never met a Prince before...” The inspector replied a little embarrassed.

Shining Armor chuckled “I'm surprised. I'd think in your line of work you'd meet princes all the time,”

“Hardly. Just an ordinary wild mustang from Mustangia here to enjoy a little vay-cay. Never
thought I'd also be meeting royalty to boot,” she explained, much to the confusion of everypony else.

But to make sure, Twilight did ask a very important question, that on hindsight, they should have probably asked before. “You... are Ms. Harshwhinny, the Equestria Games Inspector, aren't you?”

But the mare only moved her head in confusion and gave an answer that the group did not want to hear at all. “Inspector what-now?”

Needless to say, Rainbow Dash quickly shared her frustration. “We got the wrong pony?!” She exclaimed in annoyance, causing Twilight to hyperventilate in a panic.

“Don't worry, don't worry,” Star Twinkle assured after seeing Twilight in this state. “Maybe Ms. Harshwhinny is still at the train station!”

Everypony didn't waste any time and quickly ran back to the station, in order to find the real inspector. But they were not in luck. They looked out for a pony with a flower print luggage but there was none, meaning that Ms. Harshwhinny must have been inside the empire somewhere so the next best thing was to split up in six sectors so that they could find her in time. However, Pinkie Pie pointed something.
“Well... except for the spa. What's the point of checking there? That's where Cadance is. If Ms. Harshwhinny is there, well, then, game over, right?” She said casually as she ate a cinnamon bun that she got from the station.

With that fear in mind, plans changed and the group went to the spa instead. They all peeked through the window and looked out for a flower print luggage. Star Twinkle was the first one to spot somepony like that. “I think that's her!” He said as he pointed to a mare with a dark orange coat, a light gold mane, and a gold trophy as a Cutie Mark. She was laying on one of the spa tables and had two pickles on her eyes which were most likely part of the treatment that she was going under. She was also wearing a dark purple suit and a light purple scarf around her neck.

Only a few steps away, they saw how Rarity way taking care of Princess Cadence. “We're in luck! I don't think either of them knows yet that the other one's here!” Rainbow Dash said relieved.

“I don't think “luck” is appropriate, after everything that happened today!” Star Twinkle replied, showing how the previous hours took their toll on him.

The group decided to walk inside slowly and quietly, but the bell at the door and Rarity's greeting, once she saw her friends, made that impossible. “Wonderful news, look! Princess Cadance, better than new!” She said happily while Princess Cadance revealed her royal headdress in front of everypony.

“Princess Cadance?” A pony said as she jumped up from her bed, making her pickles on her eyes fly away and revealing her light blue eyes.

“Oh, boy...” Star Twinkle said, realizing that things could get a little bad now.

“So, this is where you've been! I will have you know this is by far the worst welcome I've had in all my years!” The pony who highly seemed to be the real Ms. Harshwhinny, said in dislike as she walked up to the princess.

Needless to say, Princess Cadance was surprised to hear that, especially after thinking that everything went well so far. “I-I can't believe it... What was wrong with your welcome?”

“There wasn't one!” Ms. Harshwhinny said in a somewhat understandable angry tone in her voice.

Princess Cadance turned to Twilight and the others and demanded an explanation to which everypony slowly walked up to her in order to apologize if it hadn't been for Rainbow Dash who decided to explain things. “Princess, we gave our welcome to the wrong pony, left the right one waiting at the station, and completely ruined everything,” she explained with a few words. Everypony lowered their heads after those words, knowing that they messed up big time which was not unnoticed by Princess Cadance. But Rainbow Dash was not done and continued with her explanation. “When I was a little filly, I wanted so badly for Cloudsdale to win the Equestria Games. But it didn't happen. So I thought I could make up for that disappointment by helping the Crystal Empire win the chance to host the Games. But it looks like I ruined your chances instead,” she explained further while she lowered her head in sadness, trying to take the full blame for everything that happened.

Star Twinkle, despite not liking it, walked up beside Rainbow Dash and decided to not let her take the blame all to herself and stepped up. “No,” Star Twinkle said as he placed himself right next to Rainbow Dash, making her raise her head and looking at Star Twinkle confused. “It was not only Rainbow Dash's fault. Nopony of us were aware that we got the wrong pony,” he said in order to take some of the blame upon himself.

“Exactly,” Twilight joined in, placing herself next to Rainbow Dash as well. “I know it won't make things better but you should know that we all were responsible for what happened...”

After Twilight lowered her head in forgiveness, the rest of the group walked up to Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash as well and stood ready for every punishment that Princess Cadance had in mind.

“Not so fast!” The false inspector from before interrupted after looking at the sight in front of her.

Shortly after, Ms. Harshwhinny took a step in front of her and shared what she had discussed with the false inspector. “I just finished hearing about how this pony was just treated to the warmest, finest, most fabulous reception she ever had,”

“Darn tootin'!” The other mare joined in.

“Courtesy of these fine ponies right here. Which, in my expert opinion, amounts to the first ever unvarnished, unrehearsed, and unbiased appraisal of a potential host of the Equestria Games. Which can only mean one thing...”

“You mean?” Princess Cadance started with a surprised look on her face.

“Yes,” Ms. Harshwhinny confirmed. “The next host of the Equestria Games will be...the Crystal Empire!”

After hearing those words, Rainbow Dash couldn't help but to jump into the air and do some loops because of her excitement. “We did it!” She cheered happily while she began to hug every single pony in the room, one after another.

“I'll go on ahead and share the good news with the ponies of the Crystal Empire,” Princess Cadance said as she ran off to the castle to spread the news.

Princess Cadance went to the balcony of the Crystal Castle and with a microphone in front of her, she announced that the Equestria Games were held in the Crystal Empire. She also took the opportunity to congratulate everypony in the kingdom for their hard work. After the news hit the crowd, the Crystal Heart, in the middle of the empire, released a bright light up into the air, like it did back then when King Sombra was defeated. It was a sign that everypony was happy about the news.

With all those things done, there was no more reason to stay at the Crystal Empire so the group returned to the train station to go back to Ponyville. The group was already in the line that leads to their train and waited patiently.

“You know, it feels good to help others get something you always wanted but never had. Almost as good as getting it yourself. Almost,” Rainbow Dash expressed relieved after thinking back what happened today. “Also,” she began before she turned towards her friends. “Thank you for supporting me back then. You know, when I tried to take the blame all to myself,” she thanked as she rubbed her neck in some little embarrassment.

Star Twinkle could swear that she was mainly looking at him so he turned his head around in embarrassment. However, when he did, he noticed something strange running up in his direction. It was Angel Bunny, Fluttershy's pet rabbit. While he came running towards the group, a gem was flying towards a cart of luggage, knocking it over in the process as soon as it hit it.

“Oh, my goodness,” Fluttershy said in surprise since she stood right next to it.

“Did you just see-” Star Twinkle started before the train conductor announced that the train was about to leave soon, making Fluttershy run towards the door, in fear of getting left behind. But Star Twinkle took it a little slower and tried to take a look to his right before he entered the door of the train. That is when he saw someone who he didn't expect to be there at all, entering one of the latter train wagons.

Despite, what he saw outside, he didn't mention anything to the girls and just convinced himself that he was imagining things. The group went to one of the latter wagons since the seats in the first ones were already occupied and sat down. As soon as Star Twinkle sat down, Pinkie Pie offered him a cinnamon bun before she sat down on another seat close by. It was until now, that Star Twinkle realized that he didn't eat anything for a while and that he was actually starving now. Star Twinkle was just taking a bite from the cinnamon bun and without even being able to taste the flavor, Pinkie Pie came dashing to his side. “They taste good, right?” She almost screamed into his ear, causing him to drop the cinnamon bun to the ground due to the shock. Pinkie Pie didn't seem to notice what she had caused and quickly returned to her seat while Star Twinkle only threw some annoying glances to her. But since he was starving at the moment, he didn't really care if his sweet dropped to the ground and decided to pick it up again.

To his surprise, the cinnamon bun was lifted to him, by a yellow hoof under his seat. “Thanks,” Star Twinkle said as he took the cinnamon bun out of the hoof, before taking another bite of it but as soon as he took the bite, his widened in surprise, after realizing what just happened. He began to take a look under his seat and the first thing he saw was Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo, accompanied by most of the pets that Spike was supposedly taking care of. The three fillies only grinned and put a hoof in front of their mouths, wanting Star Twinkle to be quiet. Star Twinkle looked around under the seats and found Spike right under Applejack's seat with the rest of the animals next to him. He also put a claw in front of his mouth to ask of Star Twinkle to be quiet. “Spike?” Star Twinkle said confused, without realizing that he was saying that out loud.

“Yeah, Spike had to miss out on all this. He woulda' had fun here,” Rainbow Dash said, once Spike's name fell.

“What!? Spike? No! There is no Spike here!” Star Twinkle said in a panic, thinking that he just revealed that the little dragon was right under their noses.

Of course, this drew some confused looks towards him but the girls didn't seem to catch up to it.
“I'm sure he's having a great time watching all the critters back at home,” Twilight mentioned.

“Yes! Back at home! That's where he is! Right now!” Star Twinkle said in panic again, causing the girls to look at him once more.

Luckily, none of the girls seemed to pay too much attention to the nonsense that Star Twinkle was randomly saying out. It could be just Star Twinkle's imagination, but he could swear how he could hear Spike, slapping his claw against his forehead because of Star Twinkle's stupid outbursts.

“Think he's still got a handle on things?” Applejack asked towards Twilight.

Twilight did her breath in and out gesture one more time. “If he's staying calm and collected, I bet he's doing a terrific job as a leader,” she assured confidently and ironically.

“I hope you're right...” Star Twinkle replied while his thoughts were at the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Spike who were right under everyponies noses.

Later in Ponyville...

Like a miracle, Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, as well as all the pets, were not noticed by anypony through the whole trip back to Ponyville. The group walked out of the train and it already departed shortly after. After it was gone, Spike, the Cutie Mark Crusaders and the pets of everypony were already standing on the other side of the rails. They were all heavily breathing as if they were in a rush only a few seconds ago. Star Twinkle figured that it was because they all jumped out of the train in a rush.

Everypony quickly walked up to their pets. So did Star Twinkle who was walking up to the fishbowl where his pet goldfish Comet was inside, making sure that he was alright. But from the looks of it, he was. Once Star Twinkle realized that Spike was standing there on his own, he decided to ask away the obvious question. “Sooo...” Star Twinkle began, making Spike turn around to him nervously. “Mind explaining why you were in the Crystal Empire?”

Spike did hesitate at first to answer that question but since Star Twinkle knew about him being around in the Crystal Empire. “Long story short, I was terrible, handling all those animals at once and only cared about all the gems that you guys gave me. But now I realized that that was wrong and that I properly should have taken care of them,” the little dragon briefly summarized.

It didn't straight answer the question why he was at the Crystal Empire or why the Cutie Mark Crusaders were with him but he noticed that Spike was having a hard time and that he must have learned his lesson in the process. The pets all seemed alright and that is what mattered the most right now. Star Twinkle looked over to his pet goldfish once more.

Comet didn't move one bit and just blinked once without changing his facial expression.

“Well, Comet looks happy so I guess that is the only thing that matters,” Star Twinkle said with a smile on his face.

Spike noticed the expression on Star Twinkle and looked at him surprised. “You mean, you are not gonna tell anypony?”

Star Twinkle nodded. This caused Spike to hug him in gratefulness, making Star Twinkle feel a little embarrassed. But he did pet Spike's head in return.

“What is going on here?” Twilight asked, seeing how the two were having their moment right now.

“Nothing!” Star Twinkle and Spike replied in unison to not cause any more suspicion about what happened today before eventually heading home like the others and ending this very tiresome but also kind of fun day.

Author's Notes:

The Season Finale is coming up soon so make sure that you are ready for it.
Also!

After Season three ends, there will be two new stories up so make sure that you check out my profile on Fanfiction.Net or “My stories” on Fimfiction.com. The best thing, of course, would be if you follow me so that you instantly get an E-mail when a new story or chapter is coming out.

With all that said, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you will return for the next one. Please leave also a review or a like (on Fimfiction.com) to let me know what you thought about this chapter or the whole story in general.

Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

64. A true, true Friend

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Star Twinkle was up surprisingly early. Thankfully, he had slept peacefully through the night or else he would be way grumpier at the moment. He got up from his bed and stretched a little before he opened the window next to his bed to get some fresh air. Once it opened, he closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, taking in the air in from outside. It was surprisingly loud outside. And windy. And cold. Realizing that, he decided to open his eyes to find out why the weather felt so weird.

The moment he opened his eyes, he realized what was going on outside. But after a closer inspection, he figured that he had no idea what was going on outside. There was a small twister in the air, snow dropping from one cloud, rain coming out of another one, there were even lighting bolt coming out of some of them. And that all happened at the same time.

“Okay...I'm not a weather pony...but I know that that is not supposed to happen,” he said to himself after seeing this happening in front of his house.

Going outside while the weather was raging like this was probably not the best idea that Star Twinkle had but it was the only way to find out what exactly was going on. Once he walked outside, he notices how the clouds were arranged in patterns which of course, seemed strange as well which is saying something despite the weather being already weird.

The best thing he could think of was to ask Rainbow Dash since she was responsible for the weather but he couldn't find her. However, he did find Rarity who seemed focused on the clouds above her head as well. She was most likely wondering what was going on too but Star Twinkle tried to ask her if she knew anything anyway.

Rarity turned around after she noticed Star Twinkle approaching her. Her face was filled with stress and her horn glowed in a blue light, indicating that she was using magic at the moment. “Hello there, Star Twinkle,” she greeted with a rather depressed tone in her voice. Of course, Star Twinkle asked the obvious question if Rarity knew what was going on with the weather and why Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be found to take care of it. But Rarity didn't quite understand. “What do you mean? Why would Rainbow Dash take care of the weather? It's my job after all,”

“Your job?” Star Twinkle replied confused. “And what about your boutique?”

“My boutique? Don't you mean Applejack's Boutique?” Rarity replied confused.

“Applejack's Boutique?” Star Twinkle replied. Just the words Applejack and Boutique being used in the same sentence confused him.

Rarity seemed to focus on the clouds again after she was done talking with Star Twinkle. Her horn continued to glow all the time. This is when Star Twinkle noticed how the clouds were moving while being surrounded in the same blue aura that surrounded her Rarity's horn. She was indeed controlling the clouds and took care of the weather. However, there was one more strange thing that stood out after Star Twinkle inspected Rarity further. Instead of the three diamonds that were normally on her flank, there was a cloud with a rainbow colored bolt coming out of it. It was Rainbow Dash's Cutie Mark. “Is that why she is taking the care of the weather?” Star Twinkle thought.

Of course, Star Twinkle wanted to ask Rarity a lot more questions but once he realized how stressed out she was, he decided to give her a break. There was one more thing that confused him and that was the fact that Rarity mentioned “Applejack's Boutique”. Seeing how Rarity took care of the clouds, he had a strange thought popping up in his mind so he decided if that thought was true.

He arrived at Carousel Boutique. Once he entered it, his assumption seemed to be true. In the middle of the room was Applejack who was stitching dresses. Or at least she tried to. There were already some dresses on display all over the Boutique. All of them looked horrible and not at all what used to be hanging inside there. Judging from how Applejack was already working on another dress, which didn't look any better than any of the displayed once's, he quickly figured that Applejack created them all.

Applejack noticed how Star Twinkle entered the Boutique. “Hey there, Star Twinkle,” Applejack greeted in almost the same way how he was greeted by Rarity before.

“What are you doing here? And why do you work in the Boutique?” Star Twinkle instantly questioned.

Applejack seemed to have a hard time talking with Star Twinkle while working on the dress at the same time. Normally, back on the Sweet Apple Acres, she was bucking apples like it was nothing while having a conversation with somepony. But now she needed all the concentration she had to focus on her dress. “Because it is my destiny, of course,” she replied while she lowered her head in frustration.

“No, it's not! Your destiny is to work on Sweet Apple Acres!” Star Twinkle replied.

“You seem to mix me up with Pinkie Pie, there,” Applejack replied, this time a little more annoyed. “See this?” She said as she pointed towards her flank, revealing three diamonds on it which exactly looked like Rarity's Cutie Mark. “This here is the proof that my destiny is to work here! So if you don't mind, I have some more dresses to make!” She said annoyed before she focused on the dress in front of her again.

It was beyond strange, hearing Applejack say that she had to finish a dress and that was saying a lot considering that she also had Rarity's Cutie Mark. Star Twinkle left the Boutique and was wondering about one more thing. “What did she mean with mixing her up with Pinkie Pie?” Star Twinkle wondered. However, he had a really weird assumption again and decided to find out if it was true.

Star Twinkle went to Sweet Apple Acres. To the Orchard to be exact. He expected Pinkie Pie to be where Applejack was supposed to be. And only after a few minutes, that is exactly what he saw. There was Pinkie Pie who tried to buck apple trees like Applejack. When it came to Pinkie Pie, Star Twinkle actually expected her to do rather good, given that Pinkie Pie was always doing impossible and unexplained stuff. But to his surprise, he found her having problems even hitting the trees properly. Her mane was also straight down, which Star Twinkle knew was a sign that she was not happy.

Despite all that, Star Twinkle approached her, even if he was sure that she wouldn't have all the answers to his questions. As soon as Pinkie Pie noticed Star Twinkle, she stopped her work for a second to greet him. “Hello...err...I mean, howdy, Star Twinkle...” she said in an even more depressed tone in her voice than Rarity or Applejack before.

“What are you doing here Pinkie Pie?” Star Twinkle asked right away to hear her story.

“Working on the farm...duh...” she replied before she placed herself in front of a tree again, trying to kick it. However, there were no apples that came falling down of it. Probably because she didn't kick it with enough force.

Normally, Pinkie Pie showed much more enthusiasm with whatever what she was doing but this time, there was not even a sign of joy or happiness in her face. “You don't really look happy...” Star Twinkle felt the need to say.

“I know...but it is my destiny. See?” She replied as she showed her flank to Star Twinkle. It was just like he expected. Instead of her three balloon Cutie Mark, there were three apples. Applejack's Cutie Mark. Another pony who's Cutie Mark changed for some reason. “Personally I would like to make other ponies laugh, just like Fluttershy...” Pinkie Pie said before she kicked the apple tree in front of her.

“Then why don't you do that?” Star Twinkle asked.

However, while Pinkie Pie turned her head around to give an answer, one apple dropped from the tree and hit her right on the head, causing her to fall down on the ground, with her head spinning.

Since Pinkie Pie was not in the condition to talk, for now, Star Twinkle did walk away and went to his next destination. Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie Pie said something about Fluttershy making other ponies laugh. Again, something that he couldn't quite imagine because of Fluttershy's shy nature. But of course, what Pinkie Pie said was true. Fluttershy stood in the middle of the room and tried to entertain a bunch of ponies. But as expected, Fluttershy had a hard time entertaining her crowd. She tried multiple things like blowing up some balloons or putting on some funny masks but because of her rather upset expression, it was hard to laugh or let alone grin at this performance.

It didn't take long until the crowd left Fluttershy alone. Only Star Twinkle remained so he figured now was a good time to talk with Fluttershy. First, he took a closer look at Fluttershy to make some things clear. There were three balloons on her flank. Pinkie Pie's Cutie Mark. Fluttershy noticed Star Twinkle and greeted him in the same depressed manner that he was used to by the others. “Hello, Star Twinkle,”

“Let me guess...you are trying to make ponies laugh because your Cutie Mark is telling you to?” Star Twinkle guessed.

“Of course!” Fluttershy replied a little determined before she lowered her head with a frown again. “Making ponies laugh is my destiny after all...”

“And what about, taking care of animals?” Star Twinkle asked.

Fluttershy raised her head up again with a smile on her face.“Oh, that would be wonderful! I think...But...” she lowered her head once again. “That is not my destiny, it's Rainbow Dash's...”

“Of course it is...” Star Twinkle thought before he decided to leave Fluttershy alone again.

He figured that Rainbow Dash would be where Fluttershy was supposed to be so he walked to Fluttershy's cottage. He could already hear a lot of commotion coming from inside. He already had an idea what exactly was going on in there. Once he opened the door to the cottage, he saw how a bunch of critters inside were rampaging everywhere. Rainbow Dash was also inside and tried her best to control them but it was impossible. She kept flying against walls while trying to grab some of the pets and put them in cages or something.

Rainbow Dash noticed how Star Twinkle entered the room and greeted him. “Hi, Star Twinkle,” she said in the usual depressed tone that Star Twinkle was greeted by all the others so far.

“Let me guess...” Star Twinkle started. “It is your destiny to take care of the animals?” He guessed, based of from his previous experience.

“Yes, it is...” Rainbow Dash replied heavily exhausted. “Because that's what my Cutie Mark is telling me...” she said as she pointed towards her flank which showed three pink butterflies. Fluttershy's Cutie Mark. “Now if you don't mind, I have to take care of these animals!” She said as she focused her attention towards the critters again.

Star Twinkle figured by now that asking Rainbow Dash would not get him too far so he decided to leave the cottage. Of course, he wondered what exactly was going on and why everypony had their Cutie Marks switched but all of his friends seemed to think that everything was normal. It was like as if they didn't realize how what they were doing, right now wasn't what they were originally supposed to do.

The only one of his friends who he hasn't visited so far was Twilight. “Maybe she got her Cutie Mark switched with somepony else too?” He started to wonder as he walked away from the cottage. However, his question would be answered soon because Twilight and Spike already came running towards Star Twinkle while he was on his way to her.

“Star Twinkle!” Twilight said with some worries in her voice. She stopped in front of him. Since she seemed to be running for a while, she first took some deep breaths before she began talking to him. “Quick! Tell me all about yourself! What you work as! What your destiny is!” She asked in a stressed manner.

“I work as a Carpenter in the Iron Hammer,” He replied calmly, despite how stressed Twilight was asking her question. “As for my destiny...” he added before he pointed to his empty flank, showing Twilight that he didn't found his yet.

Twilight seemed heavily relieved by that. “Thank goodness that you are still the same,” she said, putting one of her hoof against her chest in relief.

Star Twinkle took the opportunity to take a look at Twilight. She still had her normal Cutie Mark. Also, judging from her previous statement, Twilight seemed to have met the others. “What is going on here? Do you know what happened to the Cutie Mark of the others?”

“That is what we are trying to find out,” Spike replied.

“Actually,” Twilight interrupted. “I may have an idea what happened. It's probably better if I show you...” she replied before she leads the way, asking Star Twinkle and Spike to follow her.

She and Spike returned to the Golden Oak Library with Star Twinkle and Spike following her close behind. Once Twilight stepped into the library, Spike and Star Twinkle waited for her to explain the situation. “Here. Take a look at that,” Twilight said as she pointed to a showcase which looked all too familiar to Star Twinkle. “The Elements of Harmony?” He wondered as he took a closer look at the six necklaces and Twilight's crown. It took him some time but eventually, he noticed how something was a little off. The colors of the necklaces were switched, except the element that belonged to him. “The colors changed?”

“When did that happen?” Spike asked, which was pretty much what Star Twinkle was about to question next.

Twilight began to explain. “Last night when you were taking one of your seven-hour bubble baths, I got a special delivery from the princess. It contained a book from Starswirl the Beaded. On the last page of it, there was a spell that he couldn't finish so the Princess gave it to me, in hope that I could finish it,” she explained as she levitated a book towards Star Twinkle for him to take a look inside of it.

“From one to another, another to one. A mark of one's destiny singled out alone, fulfilled,” Star Twinkle read, trying to figure out what it meant but he had not a single clue what it even remotely meant.

“I tried to cast the spell that was written inside of it, but nothing happened. But now I know that something did happen! The spell changed the Elements of Harmony!” Twilight explained stressed.

“You mean, that is why the Cutie Marks of everypony changed?” Star Twinkle guessed as he put away the book again.

“So just cast a counter-spell to switch them back,” Spike suggested, causing Twilight to take the book again for a second to look for one.

While Twilight was busy finding that counter-spell, Star Twinkle looked over to the showcase. He saw how the colors of the necklaces of the others changed. Each of them had a different color than before. He came up with the answer that Twilight's element didn't change because she was the one casting the spell or because her Element was different and more powerful than the others. But there was still one thing that kinda bothered him. “Why didn't my element change?” He wondered as he looked at the necklace with the white star on it that belonged to him. “Is it because I don't have a Cutie Mark? Or because I have this unknown one? What is going on? And why do I feel so sad about it? I should be happy about that. But for some reason, I feel...left out...”

“There is no counter-spell!” Twilight said in shock, making Star Twinkle snap out of his thoughts and remembering of the situation again.

“Why don't you just use that memory spell you used to fix everypony when Discord was here?” Spike suggested further.

“It's not their memories, Spike. It's their true selves that have been altered!” Twilight replied frustrated.

“Zecora's cure for the cutie pox?” Spike desperately suggested further to help in any way possible to which Twilight didn't even bother to answer and lowered her head in frustration.

Star Twinkle had a hard time understanding what Twilight was so upset about and spoke out without thinking. “So what?” Star Twinkle asked boldly, causing Twilight to look back at him. “So their Cutie Marks have changed. But that doesn't mean that they can't just go back to their daily lives,”

“It's not that easy, Star Twinkle. Their Cutie Marks have changed. They represent their destiny!” Twilight returned.

“So it's their destiny to be upset for the rest of their lives?” Star Twinkle replied confused. “If I had a Cutie Mark that would tell me that my destiny would be flying, then I would still not fly. It's as easy as that, isn't it?”

“I wish it was...” Twilight said as she started to walk upstairs. “All I know is that their lives have changed...and that it is all my fault...” she added before she walked to her room with a frown on her face, closing the door right behind her.

Star Twinkle and Spike were left downstairs, standing there and confused what to do next. The upset and depressed mood that Twilight was in right now definitely affected the two as well. Spike was eventually the one who broke the depressing silence. “What do we do now?” He asked Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle didn't answer and just walked upstairs with a determined look on his face. He didn't plan to let this end just like this. Once he reached Twilight's room, there was only a closed door in front of him. To it surprise, it the door was locked. Twilight was probably too upset to talk with anypony for a while. But Star Twinkle still decided to talk with her through the door. “So that's it? You just gonna stay in there and do nothing?” He said disappointedly.

It took a little while until Twilight responded. She might don't know why Star Twinkle was talking to her like this or maybe she was too upset to reply but eventually, she replied quietly. “Then what am I supposed to do!?”

“I have no idea!” Star Twinkle replied almost casually.

Star Twinkle could swear that he could hear Twilight growling a little angrily but she didn't burst out in anger. Instead, she was quickly getting upset again. “The spell from Starswirl the bearded was not finished and I tried it without thinking about any consequences. Now it is impossible to return things to normal,” she said from the other side of the door.

“Impossible, huh?” Star Twinkle said quietly to himself. He closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated. Then he transformed into his Unicorn form and grew a horn on his head. He concentrated some magic and his horn began to glow with a white aura. Shortly after he disappeared and appeared right in front of Twilight who he saw sitting on her bead with eyes that were about to tear up if it hadn't been for Star Twinkle appearing right in front of her. He opened his eyes again and began to smile confidently. “I am an Earth Pony that can grow a horn or two wings. Changing a few marks on the flanks of five mares doesn't seem so unlikely for me,” he said as he formed a big grin on his face.

Twilight looked at Star Twinkle with widened eyes, seeing him speak confidently like this. It was true that some even more impossible things happened recently. All of them being far away from possible at first. This was just another obstacle that they had to overcome. Realizing that, Twilight formed a light smile again. “Thank you, Star Twinkle,” she said as she quickly rubbed her eyes dry again.

Spike also walked upstairs and was happy to see Twilight in a better mood again. Still, the three had to figure out how to solve the current problem. For that, they stayed calm and rethink everything slowly. “So let's just think about everything for a second,” Star Twinkle started as he rubbed his neck in order to recall everything they know so far. “The five Elements of Harmony changed and because of that everyponies destiny did as well. They also seem to be unaware that what they are doing now is not what they are supposed to do. They seem to think that everything is normal but deep down they are not happy and still wish to do something else. And they think that their friends are doing what they are supposed to as well,” Star Twinkle listed down slowly to get everypony on the same page.

Twilight seemed to put more thought into those words and eventually came to a conclusion. “That's it!” She said in a moment of realization. For some reason, Twilight started to be surrounded by a bright light making Star Twinkle and Spike look at her confused. “I've got it! I know what to do!”

“What was that just now?” Star Twinkle thought after the light vanished from her again. He could swear that it looked a little similar to that one light that surrounded Star Twinkle whenever he transformed.

Spike seemed to be surprised by this light as well but he also wanted to know what Twilight meant with her last words. “You do?” He asked surprised by Twilight's sudden mood change.

“Deep down they are still the same ponies. It's only their destiny that changed. Everything else is still the same. They are still friends! It's not their destiny that we have to remind them to but rather what they mean to each other. That way they will find the part of themselves that has been lost,” Twilight explained. Still, she looked over to Star Twinkle and Spike to get some kind of reply as if she wanted to know if what she was saying was right.

“It's worth a shot, right?” Star Twinkle replied.

They agreed with Twilight's idea and left the library. Twilight also made sure to get the Elements of Harmony ready. She put the elements of her five friends in the blue box that they were in before and put the crown on her head. She also levitated the necklace of Star Twinkle's element around his neck. With all those things set, they went to the first pony. Fluttershy.

Fortunately, they met her in the middle of the street, right in front of hot air balloon. Needless to say, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike were confused by this sight and quickly approached her.

“Fluttershy!” Twilight said as she walked to the depressed Pegasus. “Where are you going?”

“I'm moving back to Cloudsdale. I don't know what's wrong, but I can't seem to make anypony laugh,” Fluttershy replied as she pulled a whoopee cushion and deflated it right in front of Star Twinkle's face, much to his annoyance.

“Before you go, I was wondering if you might be willing to help Rainbow Dash. She's really struggling with her animals,” Twilight requested which of course was part of her plan.

“But... I don't really know anything about animals...” Fluttershy replied as she fiddled with her hooves around nervously.

“You don't need to,” Star Twinkle said. “Neither do we. But she needs our help so we need to help her, right?”

Fluttershy seemed to think about this for a moment. While she still looked a little unsure, she was aware of what Star Twinkle was trying to get at. “Right. I'll do anything I can to help her!” She said determined, much to everyone's relief.

The group went to Fluttershy's, or rather, Rainbow Dash's cottage at the moment and prepared themselves to help out in any way they could.

“The last time I was here, she was having a really hard time dealing with those animals,” Star Twinkle pointed out. “So I hope that things didn't get much worse,” he added before he opened the door to the cottage.

The moment where Star Twinkle opened the door, however, there was already worse things happening what they could have ever imagined. Rainbow Dash was tied down and trapped inside of a cauldron. Celestia knows where it came from or how she ended up in it but right now it was only important to help her. And Fluttershy needed to be the one to do it. But Fluttershy wanted Twilight to use some kind of spell to fix all this. “No. Fluttershy, you're the only one who can help! Rainbow Dash needs you!” Twilight said as she asked for Fluttershy to take action.

Despite not being too confident about that, Fluttershy walked up to the critters to convince them to stop. “Um... Hello? Little... woodland creatures? I know that you're all very upset and feel like giving Rainbow Dash a hard time, but we'd all really appreciate it if you'd calm down and, um, maybe... rest for a bit?” She said quietly which seemed to actually get the attention from the animals. While she got their attention, she quickly looked for a way to distract them from Rainbow Dash and put out some food that she presented in front of the critters. “Look! Here's some nice, juicy leaves for you to munch on. And some crunchy, munchy acorns too. Wouldn't you like to take a break and have a little snack?” She said as she placed some food on the ground for every critter.
Satisfied by this sight, Fluttershy couldn't help but be happy. “Aww, look at that. I guess you were all just cranky because you were hungry. Oh, you are very welcome, little friends,”

Realizing how happy Fluttershy was to see this, she couldn't help but think that this is what she was meant to do. For some reason, she was engulfed in a pink colored light. Twilight saw this as a good sign to get Fluttershy's element ready. “Goodness, it's like I can understand them! I... I feel strange, like... like this is what I'm meant to do, like this is who I am! My destiny!” Fluttershy said excitedly. Twilight quickly levitated her element around Fluttershy's neck, causing her to widen her eyes for a moment before she landed on the ground.

Nopony exactly knew what happened at that moment but they noticed how something changed at her flank. “Look! Her Cutie Mark is back again!” Twilight pointed out happily.

“Does that mean, that it worked?” Star Twinkle asked who was still not perfectly sure what happened just now. But in order to confirm, he walked up to Fluttershy. “Quick. Fluttershy, what is your special talent?”

Fluttershy was heavily confused as well and seemed to hesitate for a moment to answer that question, mainly because she was confused why Star Twinkle would ask it, despite already knowing it. “Well, taking care of animals of course. I thought you already knew that...”

This was proof enough that Twilight's plan worked. “It worked! It worked! Oh, I'm so happy you're back to normal!” Twilight said in joy as she bounced around Fluttershy before hugging her in relief, causing Fluttershy to return the embrace.

“Glad to have you back,” Star Twinkle said relieved, walking up to the two mares as well with a smile on his face. “Now we need to help our other friends as well!” He added determined, ready to go to the next pony to remind them of their destiny.

“Um, hello?” Rainbow Dash then said from inside of the cauldron that she was still trapped in. “Could you guys please start by helping this friend?” She said, hinting at that she wanted to be free again.

“Oh...right,” Star Twinkle replied embarrassed, forgetting about Rainbow Dash for a second.

After freeing Rainbow Dash, the group walked outside to take care of the next friend that they would come along. This happened to be Rarity who was still creating havoc in Ponyville by making the weather go out of control. Just like before, the group wanted Rainbow Dash to take care of the situation. And just like Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash claimed that she didn't know anything about controlling the weather but after seeing how much trouble Rarity had, she gave it a try. Only after the first cloud that she kicked, she seemed to like it and continued in her usual fast pace. It took her only ten seconds flat to take care of all the storm clouds that were about Ponyville.

Twilight readied Rainbow Dash's Element of Harmony and put it around the Pegasus neck after she was done clearing the skies. Rainbow Dash's eyes widened for a second and she landed on the ground with her head spinning a little. “Uh, what just happened?” She said after she got back on her hooves again. Just like with Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash's original Cutie Mark returned again, meaning that everything went well.

Star Twinkle and Twilight looked at each other in success after realizing that their plan worked and that their friends would soon return to normal again. They would have gladly explained everything to Rainbow Dash and Rarity but there was no time so they just dragged them along to Carousel Boutique to take care of the next friend.

Inside of the Boutique, Applejack was still working on some dresses or rather attempting to work on them. She stood in front of a knitting machine and tried to work with it but she had no idea how exactly to use it and the dress that she was working with, began to get ruined.

Meanwhile, Rarity walked up to her to take a look at everything and how she was supposed to help her. It didn't take long until she used her magic to levitate the dress away from Applejack to take over. She began preparing the fabrics and put everything in its rightful place again before she attended to make a dress herself. The end result was a beautiful purple dress that she levitated proudly above her head. Twilight wasted no more time and took Rarity's element and put it around her neck. Her eyes widened and she also got her original Cutie Mark back, meaning that everything worked again.

“Oh my, what a terrible dream I had,” Rarity said as she realized what just happened. “Or, maybe I'm still having it,” she added, once she took a look at one of the dressed that Applejack made, causing the Earth pony mare to smile in embarrassment.

There was again, no time to explain so they took Applejack long with them to Sweet Apple Acres to help Pinkie Pie out. When they arrived there, they quickly realized what bad state the orchard was. The ground was dry, the trees had leafs already falling off and so on. Pinkie Pie was working on a barn, trying to repair a broken water chute, which caused her to get covered in water while working on it.

The group walked over to Pinkie Pie, causing her to get confused by the sight of her friends. Applejack took it upon herself to fix the water chute and after realizing how much trouble Pinkie Pie had, she decided to help out in the orchard. Like she did multiple times before, Applejack began kicking the trees to make apples fall down or planting seeds all over Sweet Apple Acres. It didn't take long to make Sweet Apple Acres look a lot more lively again.

After Applejack seemed happy again to see the orchard like this, Twilight levitated her element around Applejack's neck, causing her to go through the same process that everypony else went so far. The Earth Pony mare seemed happy to be herself again and expressed her joy. “Yee-haw! Now that's more like it!”

After fixing everything in Sweet Apple Acres again, there was only one more pony to take care of. The group went back to Ponyville with Pinkie Pie in their company. They showed her how angry and depressed everypony was without her making everypony smile. Twilight took the last element and put it around Pinkie Pie and Applejack pushed her towards a crowd of angry ponies, causing Pinkie Pie's mane to return to her normal style again after she widened her eyes for a second and remembering her destiny. Only seeing the cheerful and happy expression on Pinkie Pie's face was almost enough to make everypony smile and cheer for Pinkie Pie's return.

With Pinkie Pie being in the center again, the town folks already partied all over Ponyville. They seemed to be happy to see everypony with their original destiny. On hindsight, it was true that each of them was doing important work in Ponyville and now that they have returned to them everything would soon return to be normal.

After everypony settled down again, Twilight used her magic to get the girls and Star Twinkle close to her to join into a really big group hug. Normally Star Twinkle was not into that kind of things but at this very moment, he didn't mind and just let it happen.

For a while at least...

He was not directly fleeing from the group hug but he soon found that it was going on for too long, for his taste. His friends knew Star Twinkle well enough to understand it and didn't seem to mind. He took a few steps back, trying to get some space again. While he stood there a few hooves away, he couldn't help but have a continues to smile on his face. He felt happiness in this moment. Happiness that his friends were back to normal. Happiness that things returned to normal before all what he had now vanished without him being able to do something. He was thinking about that. The thought of losing his friends scared him but once he saw how the six mares in front of him hugging each other, those fears disappeared.

But instead, they were replaced with something else. Confusion. A familiar feeling that he couldn't explain. Those feelings eventually took form. The form of some images that appeared before his eyes. Instead of seeing his friends in front of him, there were now six other ponies, hugging each other. He didn't know any of them. They were all kind of different ponies, Two Earth Ponies, two Pegasus, and two Unicorns. He didn't know what to make out of this image and grabbed his head out of confusion. But before he could find out any meaning of this, the images vanished again and he saw his friends in front of him again.

“Wait a second, that's it! I understand now! I know how to fix the spell!” Twilight said in cheer out of nowhere as she walked out of the group hug as well.

“But we already fixed,” Star Twinkle said confused about Twilight's words.

“No, I mean Starswirl's unfinished spell!” Twilight added. “The one masterpiece that he could finish!”

Of course, the others had no idea what Twilight was talking about. But instead of explaining the details, Twilight walked confidently back to the library. Once inside, she grabbed the book that she got from Princess Celestia the day before. She also grabbed a quill to write down the solution that was required to finish the spell. “From all of us together, together we're friends. With the marks of our destinies made one, there is magic without end!” She said as she wrote down those words on the last page on Starswirl's masterpiece.

Her friends didn't really know what this was all about but they were happy for her. Figuring out how to make her friends return to normal was already a good enough accomplishment but Twilight seemed also be proud to find out the solution for the spell and for that Star Twinkle felt that he should congratulate her for. “Congratulation, Twilight,” he said as he smiled at her.

Twilight returned that smile with a smile of her own. “Couldn't have done it without you all,” she replied as she looked over all of her friends happily.

But suddenly, the Cutie Mark on Twilight's crown began to shine in a bright light and a wave of magic was released from it, knocking the others away from her. Only seconds later all of the necklaces began to shot out a big beam of magic towards Twilight that surrounded her in a sphere of light.

Star Twinkle widened his eyes and looked at what happened at this moment but he didn't know what to do and stood there helplessly. He could barely see Twilight in this light. But what he could saw, was how she looked afraid of what was happening to her. Seeing this, caused Star Twinkle to reach out his hoof, making him wish that he could somehow reach Twilight like this. But it was no use. The light that surrounded Twilight spread out across the whole room and blinded everypony in it. As soon as the light vanished, Star Twinkle opened his eyes and tried to focus on what happened. He looked in front of him, only to find a black burned spot right where Twilight stood only seconds before. As soon as everypony else noticed it, they all released shocked screams. All except Star Twinkle who was just looking in front of him with widened eyes.

“Twilight?” Star Twinkle said quietly in shock after seeing how Twilight vanished in front of him.

“What happened?” Fluttershy asked shocked.

“Oh no! We pulverized Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said in shock, her jaw being dropped all the way due to the shock.

“No, we didn't!” Applejack corrected. But one second later, she seemed not too confident about her answer herself. “Or did we?” She added confused into the round.

There was no way that anypony could figure out what just happened. One moment Twilight stood in front of everypony, the next one she was gone and from what it looks like, it was kinda everyponies fault.

“She couldn't just vanish like that, right?” Rainbow Dash pointed out. “She must be around here somewhere!”

“Yes!” Applejack agreed. After making us all snap out of it again, finding her is the least we can do now!” She said which was quickly accompanied by everyponies determined cheers before they left the library. Everypony, except Star Twinkle who was standing there with wide eyes.

Rarity noticed Star Twinkle's behavior and was confused why he was acting like that. “Star Twinkle!” Rarity exclaimed angrily, remembering him of the current situation.

This sudden outburst of Rarity caused Star Twinkle to snap out of it. “Yes! I'm coming!” He replied before he walked outside as well.

The group decided to split up in order to find Twilight. She had to be somewhere in Ponyville. At least, that's what everypony hoped. Star Twinkle was randomly roaming around Ponyville. Never was he in such a hurry before. He looked at everypony just to make sure that he somehow he hoped that she would just stand somewhere as if everything was okay. “Where is she?” He thought in a panic as he walked from one house and one pony to another. The only emotion that he could feel at this moment was just sadness. For some reason, he felt some familiarity about this situation. Not knowing where that came from made him only panic even more. “She is here somewhere! She has to be!” He kept repeating in his head as he ran around in Ponyville. “I...I don't want to lose one of my friends!”

However, time passed and he didn't know where to find Twilight. The whole day went past faster than anypony expected. It was already getting dark when Star Twinkle returned to the Golden Oak Library in hope that Twilight may be waiting there already. But once he stepped inside the library, there was nopony. It was empty. This emptiness made Star Twinkle feel even more depressed. He couldn't stand it so he walked outside again.

Soon, the rest of his friends walked up to him with similar expressions on their faces. They obviously didn't find Twilight either.

“Did somepony of you found her?” Fluttershy still asked in her frustration.

“No...” Rainbow Dash replied depressed.

The rest only shook their heads and kept quiet. By far the quietest was Star Twinkle who drowned in his own thoughts again. “So is this how losing a friend feels like? I was always afraid that something like that happened one day but...Why do I feel like as if it didn't happen for the first time?” Star Twinkle thought as he began looking up to the sky with a frown on his face. “I don't...want to lose a friend...” he said as tears started to form in his eyes.

The others noticed and tried to comfort Star Twinkle. However, a loud explosion sounding like noise behind all of them startled them and made them turn around to find out what it was. Up in the air was Twilight's Cutie Mark. Of course, only seeing that was enough to make them all stand there in confusion. Slowly, the Cutie Mark landed on the ground and released a bright like. It was just like when Twilight vanished before.

There were confusion, fear, and uncertainty inside of the group, seeing this light but eventually, that would change once the light vanished and revealed Twilight in the middle of it who was kneeling on the ground, facing everypony.

“Twilight? Is that you?” Applejack asked as she wanted to confirm that she didn't just saw things.

Clearly, she was the only one who was not so confused that she couldn't say anything like Star Twinkle for example.

However, Twilight didn't answer and just stood up from her kneeling position. The next thing that happened shocked everypony. But this time it was in a good way. The moment she stood up, two wings spread from her back. Needless to say, seeing that made everypony gasp in awe. There was no denying it. No matter what way you were looking at it. Twilight looked just like a princess. A pony with a horn and two wings on her back. An Alicorn.

Of course, there were multiple questions in everyponies head but Twilight didn't seem to have them and looked just as confused as everypony else.

Figuring that he couldn't just stand there not saying anything, Star Twinkle rubbed his eyes dry again and walked up to Twilight. “What happened after you completed the spell?”

“I'm not exactly sure...” Twilight began as she tried to puzzle her thoughts again. “I'm not exactly sure where I was but Princess Celestia was right with me,” she briefly explained.

“Speaking of princesses,” Fluttershy joined in. “You look just like a princess yourself,”

“That's because she is a princess,” Princess Celestia said who was landing near everypony.

Hearing these words from the princess only confused the group, even more, especially Twilight. “A... A princess?” She replied in a mix of denial and confusion.

Princess Celestia understood the confusion of her student and began to explain. ”Since you've come to Ponyville, you've displayed the charity, compassion, devotion, integrity, optimism, and of course, the leadership of a true princess,” she explained as she looked over to everypony else.

“But... does this mean I won't be your student anymore?” Twilight asked, prioritizing this matter first of course.

“Not in the same way as before. I'll still be here to help and guide you, but we're all your students now, too. You are an inspiration to us all, Twilight,” Princess Celestia said as she bowed down to her precious student.

Twilight's friends began bowing to Twilight as well. Star Twinkle hesitated for a moment because he felt it was weird but he couldn't deny that a princess was now standing in front of him. And the thought that this princess was Twilight, made him feel happiness so he smiled and bowed down as well.

Seeing her friends like this definitely confused Twilight and made her feel weird. But of course, that wasn't the thing that worried her the most now. “But... what do I do now? Is there a book about being a princess I should read?”

Princess Celestia only giggled by the awkward reaction of her student. “There will be time for all of that later. We need to get your coronation ready for tomorrow to make it official.

“Tomorrow!?” Twilight replied confused. “Can't we do it the day after!?”

“Is there a problem with tomorrow?” Princess Celestia wondered, not seeing the problem.

The others seemed to know what Twilight meant and looked at each other. All except Star Twinkle who had no idea what was going on. Twilight walked up to Princess Celestia and wanted her to lower her head so that she could whisper something into her ear. After Twilight was done, Princess Celestia raised her head and understood. “I see. Then I guess we can wait one more day. I'll expect you in Canterlot after tomorrow,” she added before she spread her wings to return to Canterlot again.

This left the seven ponies and Spike again in the middle of Ponyville. Pinkie Pie was already excited to throw a party for Twilight but since there was a coronation coming up, there was no reason for that. And apparently, tomorrow was something up too.

While the situation calmed down a little, Star Twinkle took the opportunity to talk with Twilight one more time. “So...err...I'm glad that you were okay all this time,” he said in an attempt to start a conversation.

“Yeah, well, considering those two new wings on my back,” Twilight replied as she looked over to her wings.

“You'll get used to it,” Star Twinkle added jokingly, referring to when he was transforming into his Pegasus form. He thought this was a little cheesy but Twilight did giggle and found it funny.

Twilight began to yawn after her little giggle. “If you don't mind, I am a little sleepy after a day like this. Can we talk about everything tomorrow? We'll have plenty of time tomorrow after all,” she suggested.

“We do?” Star Twinkle asked confused.

“You'll bet!” Pinkie Pie interrupted happily.

Star Twinkle still had no idea what they were all talking about but he didn't ask any questions since he himself was pretty tired as well after looking half of the day for Twilight so he made sure to talk with everypony one last time before he would return home.

Meanwhile, as the group said their farewells to each other, they didn't seem to notice that they were being watched by someone. A shadowy figure stood on the roof of a building, looking at the group of ponies, focusing his or her eyes on one specific pony in the group. No words were spoken by this figure. After the group separated, this figure jumped off from the building and vanished in the streets of Ponyville, planning his or her next move.

Unaware of whatever was coming to them, everypony went to sleep and waited for the next day to start...

Author's Notes:

Were you mad when Twilight turned into an Alicorn? I heard many people didn't take it too well.
I was kinda spoiled way before I reached the Season 3 Finale so I didn't really felt anything after it happened. But I also didn't really mind it.

Also, this is not the last chapter of Season 3!
Just wanted you to know that ^^.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and express it by liking this story or leaving some kind of review to let me know.
Hope to see you in the next chapter ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

65. Destiny

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It was surprising how Star Twinkle could even sleep after the events from one day before. His friends having their destinies turned around, looking for Twilight for half of the day, and lastly, Twilight turning into an Alicorn Princess. Of course, Star Twinkle was not directly affected by all those things but it still involved him in one way or another.

Eventually, waking up with those thoughts made him go out of his bed. He sat up on his bed and turned to the side. “Morning Comet,” he said as he greeted his pet goldfish.

Comet didn't move and only blinked slowly. He was greeting Star Twinkle right back.

Twilight became a princess. Those were the only thoughts that he had in mind as he went through his morning routines. However, it wasn't even true yet. The coronation for Twilight was supposed to be today but for some reason, she wanted to make sure that it was postponed by one day. Star Twinkle figured that she was doing that so that she could mentally prepare herself or that she wanted to have one last normal day before attending some Princess duties, whatever those would be.

He was wondering if he should be nervous or happy for her. For some reason, it was important for him to figure out how he felt about it. A little while ago, when he just met his friends, he wouldn't even consider it his problem and continue his day like it was nothing. It would definitely spare him a headache that he had at this very moment. But now Twilight, as well as his other friends became much more important to him. He wanted them to be happy. He wanted to be happy for them. And most importantly, he wanted to feel like as if he was part of them. Seeing Twilight vanish for half of the day without knowing what happened to her, left him in sadness. It was proof that he no longer could just mind his own business without caring about his friends.

“Was I always so deep?” Star Twinkle wondered as he sat on the table in his kitchen, taking a bite off from a piece of bread. “I need to take things a little easier. I don't want to worry about all this stuff. I just want to be happy that my life changed for the better. That's not too much to ask for, right?” He thought, literally arguing with himself in his mind.

Suddenly, some noise made him snap out again. Somepony knocked on the door. He stuffed the rest of his piece of bread inside of his mouth and swallowed it after chewing a few times before he went to the door to open it. He had no idea who it could be. It was strange enough that someone was visiting him this early in the morning.

Star Twinkle opened the door and was quickly greeted by a familiar pony. “Morning, Star Twinkle!” A brown coated and silver-maned stallion greeted.

“Morning, Steel Hammer,” Star Twinkle greeted back. “I don't think you visited me this early before. Is there something you want?”

“I just thought it would be a good idea if we could go for a walk,” Steel Hammer suggested.

“This early in the morning?” Star Twinkle questioned a little bothered.

“You have anything else to do?” Steel Hammer replied.

“Well, he got me there...” Star Twinkle thought, finding himself not seeing a way out of this now.
“Alright, alright...” Star Twinkle agreed before he walked outside and closed the door behind him. “So where are we going?”

“We'll figure that out on the way,” Steel Hammer replied before he leads the way towards the town.

The two Earth Ponies walked aimlessly around the streets of Ponyville. There was not much talking. In fact, there was none at all. Star Twinkle only followed Steel Hammer to wherever he was going to.

Eventually, Star Twinkle began to get a little confused. ”Why isn't he saying anything? Should I say anything? He was the one who wanted to go for a walk, after all...” Star Twinkle thought, wondering about the strange walk that he and Steel Hammer were on for a while now.

While trotting behind, Star Twinkle tried to focus on Steel Hammer most of the time but he still tried to look out for his friends, in case they were close by but there were nowhere to be found. It was weird, to say the least. But it was not like as if he could talk or spent time with them anyway, with Steel Hammer wanting to take a walk with him.

Just when Star Twinkle was about to tell Steel Hammer that this all was a waste of time, the brown coated Earth Pony stopped all of the sudden. “Well, that should be long enough. Let's go back,” he said as he turned around again.

“What!?” Star Twinkle replied confused. “We were just walking around in Ponyville! You didn't even say anything! And what do you mean with long enough?” He started to complain.

But Steel Hammer didn't seem to mind about Star Twinkle and walked past him in direction of Star Twinkle's house again. “Don't worry too much about it,” he assured before he leads the way again.

Steel Hammer's actions made no sense to Star Twinkle but he decided to follow him anyway. If there was nothing else that Steel Hammer wanted from Star Twinkle then going back home was the best decision to make to end this time-wasting walk.

The two Earth Ponies slowly walked back to Star Twinkle's wooden house. On the way back, Star Twinkle could swear that Steel Hammer had a smile on his face but he told himself that it was just his imagination.

They eventually, stood in front of Star Twinkle's house. Steel Hammer took a step back and waited for Star Twinkle to open the door, all while having a smile on his face. This only confirmed that Star Twinkle wasn't seeing thing back then. ”Why are you smiling like that?” Star Twinkle asked, thinking that Steel Hammer's behavior was a little suspicious.

“No reason,” Steel Hammer replied, not stopping his smile for a second. “Is standing behind you, waiting that you open the door really that strange?” Steel Hammer asked.

Star Twinkle could have replied to that but he decided to keep quiet. Instead, he opened the door and tried to think about how he could get him away from this huge waste of time. After the door opened, there were streamers and confetti flying past his face, making him jump in surprise. What followed was a really loud surprise that came from multiple ponies who were inside of his house.
Of course, there was nothing but surprise and questions in his mind after this shock. Why were there so many ponies in his house, for example?

After he took a deep breath from that surprise, he finally realized who was all inside there. His friends, Twilight, Spike, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. Then there were also Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. His parents were also there. All of them having a bright smile on their faces.

“What is going on?” Was the first thing that Star Twinkle asked after seeing this picture.

“Didn't you hear?” Steel Hammer replied, putting a hoof around Star Twinkle's shoulder. “It's a surprise. And judging from the look on your face, it was a pretty good one as well,” he added mighty satisfied by how well the surprise worked.

“Of course!” Pinkie Pie added as she appeared next to Star Twinkle out of the blue. “A surprise wouldn't be a surprise if it wouldn't surprise anypony,”

“A surprise for what?” Star Twinkle wondered.

“For your birthday of course,” Twilight said as she stepped out of the crowd.

“Birthday? Who's birthday is it?” Star Twinkle wondered as he tried to think about who Twilight was talking about. Over the time, he learned the birthdays of everypony who was inside of the room for a while now but he was sure that none of them had their birthday today. Even if it was, it still confused him why anyone of them would come over to his house for that. After realizing that and remembering what day it was, it finally struck him. “It's my birthday!?” He said heavily confused.

“Surprise!” Pinkie Pie said once more cheerfully, firing a party cracker right next to his face once more.

After that realization, the party could finally start. There was a lot of decoration in Pinkie Pie style, colorful balloons, streamers or confetti was scattered all over Star Twinkle's rooms. In the living room, there was a table with a big cake on it, Star Twinkle's birthday cake. It was astonishing how everypony was putting this together in such a short amount of time. Star Twinkle wouldn't even be surprised if Pinkie Pie would have put this together on her own.

Whoever it was, they also seemed to have considered that Star Twinkle is not the biggest party animal and made sure that not too much ponies were invited so that it wouldn't be too crowded. Instead, it was rather quiet, not including the three Cutie Mark Crusaders playing around in Star Twinkle's house. The rest of the ponies took a piece of cake and talked with each other.

“Hope you are enjoying your party so far, Star Twinkle,” Applejack asked, standing next to Star Twinkle while taking a bite of a slice of cake.

“I Can't believe that you forgot that today was your birthday,” Rainbow Dash added amused.

“Oh, please,” Rarity interrupted. “With all those things happening recently, it's hard to keep track of everything,” she added, defending Star Twinkle with those words. However, the way she said it made it almost sound like as if Star Twinkle was stupid. But since he did forget his own birthday, there was no way that he could say anything to prove otherwise.

Star Twinkle's father seemed to take it with humor. “It did make for a better surprise though,” he pointed out with a victorious smile on his face.

Star Twinkle had to admit that this was true. If he knew, he probably could have guessed why everypony was behaving a little strange the day before. That would have meant that he had to act surprise, making it a little awkward.

Soon, Star Twinkle's friends insisted that he should open his presents. Even though all of the presents were lettered with the names of everypony, Star Twinkle found out which one belonged to everypony as soon as he opened them. Rainbow Dash gave him the second issue of the Daring Do series, Rarity made him a very nice suit, Fluttershy gave him a self-painted picture from her animal friends, and so on.

Twilight was the last one who gave him her present. “Here you go, Star Twinkle,” she said as she levitated her present towards him. It was a book. No surprise there. “Basic spells and magic tricks. I was reading this book back when I started studying under Princess Celestia,” she proudly said as she presented him the book.

Since Star Twinkle was able to transform into this Unicorn form, it would actually not too bad to learn one or two things about magic. “Thanks,” Star Twinkle said after receiving the book.

He thought that this was the last present, however, his parents pointed out that there was still one more left. “I almost forgot! We meant to give you one more present,” Star Twinkle's mother said as she revealed one more box. “In a way, this one is from all of us,”

Star Twinkle took the present and was about to open it. His friends couldn't wait but to wait in excitement until he opened the box. Needless, to say it was kinda weird being watched like that but he figured that they all wanted to see how he would react to their present.

It was a very light present. Nothing big was inside of it for sure. Star Twinkle managed to open it. There was not much inside besides something very small on the bottom of it. “A picture...” Star Twinkle said once he figured out the content of this present. Inside was a picture that showed Star Twinkle and everypony else in the room. “This picture was taken back then at the wedding from Shining Armor and Princess Cadance,” he figured, causing a reaction from his friends as well. It took him a second until he realized that under this picture was another one. And another one. And another one. A bunch of pictures were inside of this present all of them were pictures of his friends. One of them was a picture with Twilight and Spike, standing in the middle of the library with big smiles on their faces. Another one had Rarity and her sister Rarity on it, inside of Carousel Boutique. Then there was a picture of Applejack, Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh and Granny Smith who were posing in front of their barn in Sewwt Apple Acres. It was all pictures like that.

Twilight walked up to Star Twinkle to explain. “We all know how you were all alone a while ago and we noticed how you didn't have any pictures of any of your friends. So we decided to make this,”

Applejack joined in. “You know, to remember you that you that things are better now,”

“Sometimes, you looked a little sad,” Fluttershy mentioned.

Pinkie Pie stepped up as well. “But you became a lot happier once you started to spend time with us,” Pinkie Pie added. “Believe me, I know,”

Rainbow Dash soon joined in as well. “And because nopony likes to be gloom all this time, we thought that we should remember you that we...uh...” she said before she began to hesitate a little.

“That you got us now,” Rarity added.

"Now you have a whole bunch of pictures that will always remember you to that," Applejack said happily.

Star Twinkle looked at his friends with as he holds some of the pictures in his hoof. “Yeah...”

Star Twinkle's parents seemed to be touched by this present as well. “That's a very nice present, don't you think?” His mother asked.

“Yes! Do you like it?” Pinkie Pie asked excitedly.

Star Twinkle looked at the pictures for a second before he gave an answer. “Yeah...I like it...” he said, his eyes still glued to the pictures. “I really like it...” he added, still looking at the pictures in his hoof.
However, after looking for them for a while, the pictures in his hoof began to shake a little. “I really like it...” he added with some shaking in his voice.
Needless to say, everypony in the room was confused by the tone in Star Twinkle's voice. That was until they realized what was going on. Drops of tears began to drop down on one the pictures. Star Twinkle's lips began to tremble while tears were coming down from his cheeks. “I...I...” he stuttered in front of everypony. His whole body was shaking, touched by this present and the realization that he was surrounded by all his friends and family, the ponies that cared for him.

Star Twinkle rubbed his eyes to remove the tear but they kept coming uncontrollably. Some of Star Twinkle's friends started to have watery eyes as well after seeing Star Twinkle touched like this. Of course, his father was the one who broke the most to see his son happy like this and dropped on the shoulder of his wife for comfort.

Once, the green coated Earth Pony realized that he was just standing there crying in front of everypony, he was a little embarrassed but also happy. Eventually, he figured that he should explain what was going through his head. “A little while ago...I was all alone. I told myself that it was better like this. That I don't need friends. But once I experienced Friendship...Once I met you all...I realized that you became much more important than I ever thought you would be. Sometimes I wished that I could go back to my previous life, especially whenever things became too complicated for me. Friendship is not always easy and sometimes it's even hard to understand. I know that now. But even if it is complicated. Even if I don't know much about it so far,” he began looking at his friends with a happy smile on his face which his friends returned to him as well. “But having you all now...is something that I am happy for now. And it is something that I would never trade for anything in this world. So...” he started before he rubbed his eyes clean again. “Thanks for being my friends,” he said smiling brightly like he never did before.

Needless to say, his friends began smiling as well and were happy to hear Star Twinkle say that. But the group suddenly stopped smiling and looked at Star Twinkle confused. Star Twinkle didn't know what this was all about and got confused as well but he soon figured out the reason behind it. A bright light began to swirl around Star Twinkle. He looked around himself in confusion but he had no idea what was happening. Soon, his body started to levitate above the ground. “What is this feeling?” He thought. “It feels...good...” He accepted the light around him and closed his eyes for whatever was about to happen next.

Before he knew it, the light was gone again and he landed on the ground again with his head spinning a little, causing him to grab it with one of his hooves. Once he had a clear mind again, he noticed how his friends looked at him in awe with open mouths.

“Wow!” Fluttershy said in awe.

“Awesome!” Rainbow Dash added in excitement.

“What?” Star Twinkle asked back in confusion.

But nopony wanted to answer right away. It was not until the three fillies in the room jumped up and down in excitement while laughing happily.

“You did it!” Apple Bloom said.

“Way to go, Star Twinkle!” Sweetie Belle added.

“That's our Cutie Mark Crusader Honorary Member!” Scootaloo added.

Star Twinkle was not sure what all this surprise was about until one thought crossed his mind. “Wait...could it be...” Star Twinkle began to realize, his eyes widening in the process. Of course, to make sure, he had to turn his head around. His eyes scanned through his flank and that's where he was greeted by something that was not there before. “No way!” He said in surprise but also with some disbelieve in his voice.

What he saw was a white star on his flank. A Cutie Mark. His Cutie Mark. A Cutie Mark appeared on his flank. Those were the thoughts that repeatedly wandered through his mind over and over again. Eventually, he could no longer resist and jumped on the spot in excitement. “A Cutie Mark! A Cutie Mark! I got a Cutie Mark!” He repeated over and over as he bounced up and down in excitement. His friends didn't know quite how to react to this but they also didn't want to ruin the moment and smiled at him, being happy for him as well. “A white star! A white star!” He said before his head stopped moving due to the realization that he had no idea what it could mean. “What does it mean?” He asked in a cheerful but yet confused voice.

Twilight seemed to have a good idea what it could be and stepped up. “It's easy. Just think back what happened before you got it,” she explained. That is exactly what Star Twinkle did but he still seemed to struggle to come up with an answer so Twilight continued. “You said it yourself. You had doubts that this is the life that you wanted to live. But now you accepted it and didn't want to lose it. You accepted friendship. You accepted us as the most important thing in your life,”

“My friends...the most important thing in my life? So my destiny is...” Star Twinkle started to figure out.

“Yes,” Twilight nodded. “Friendship,”

“Friendship, huh?” Star Twinkle wondered. “But...there are still many things that I don't understand about it in the first place...”

“Well, Starfall,” Star Twinkle's mother joined in. “Since your destiny is friendship, you don't have to figure things out on your own,” she explained, putting a hoof on Star Twinkle's shoulder to comfort him.

“Exactly!” Pinkie Pie added happily.

Rarity joined in as well. “Just because it is your destiny, doesn't mean that you can't ask us for help if you have any more questions,”

Seeing all his friends caring about Star Twinkle this much made him actually forget his worries and caused him to smile in return. He couldn't care less about his destiny now. Not as long as he had friends who were willing to support him in any way possible. “Thank you...” he said with a warm smile on his face.

On the next day...

The coronation for Twilight was held in Canterlot Castle. There were a lot of ponies in the main hall of the castle, gathering there to wait for Princess Celestia to start with her speech. Next to her were Princess Luna and Princess Cadance. A little further away were Star Twinkle and his friends. As Twilight's closest friends, they had the honor to stood up there with the princesses. Everypony was wearing beautiful attire fitting for this special occasion. Star Twinkle was actually wearing the suit that he got from Rarity for his birthday.

Eventually, Princess Celestia began her speech and everypony in the hall listened carefully. “We are gathered here today in celebration of a momentous occasion. My most faithful student, Twilight Sparkle, has done many extraordinary things since she's lived in Ponyville. She even helped reunite me with my sister, Princess Luna,” she said before she looked over to her sister before continuing again. “But today, Twilight Sparkle did something extraordinary. She created new magic, proving without a doubt that she is ready to be crowned Equestria's newest princess. Fillies and gentlecolts, may I present for the very first time, Princess Twilight Sparkle!”

After those words were spoken, the door to the main hall opened and revealed Twilight who was walking into the room slightly nervous but also happy. She was also wearing a beautiful pink and yellow dress, which was designed by none other than Rarity of course. She was also accompanied by a bunch of ponies and Royal Guards who were singing in a choir in her honor. They were also carrying flags that showed Twilight's, Cutie Mark. As Twilight walked up to the rest of the Princesses, she proudly spread her wings to everypony, showing them that she was an Alicorn like Princess Celestia as well. Once she reached the three Princesses, Princess Celestia gave her a crown that slightly resembled her Element of Harmony crown. In fact, it also had the Element of Harmony inside of it.

Once everypony saw Twilight wearing her crown, they began to bow in her presence. After that, Twilight walked outside to the balcony to greet everypony outside of the castle, accompanied by the other princesses and her friends close by. The crowd under the balcony was cheering after seeing their new princess for the very first time. Still, Twilight seemed nervous to see so many ponies cheering for her. Star Twinkle could only imagine how nervous he would be if he was in her situation. He probably would just freeze on the spot.

Princess Celestia walked up to her and reminded Twilight that she should say some words to them. While still being a little nervous, Twilight cleared her throat and focused on the words that she was about to say. “A little while ago, my teacher and mentor Princess Celestia sent me to live in Ponyville. She sent me to study friendship, which is something I didn't really care much about,” she said before she looked over to her friends behind her with a smile on her face. “But now, on a day like today, I can honestly say I wouldn't be standing here if it weren't for the friendships I've made with all of you. Each one of you taught me something about friendship, and for that, I will always be grateful. Today, I consider myself the luckiest pony in Equestria. Thank you, friends. Thank you, everypony!”

The crowd began to cheer once more after hearing those words and Twilight began to walk back inside where Shining Armor and Princess Cadance were greeting Twilight. “Twilight! I'm so proud of you!” Shining Armor said once he spotted his little sister.

Twilight couldn't help but notice something strange about her brother. “Are you crying?" She asked surprised.

“Of course not. It's... it's liquid pride. Totally different thing,” he corrected before he rubbed his eyes clean again.

The two laughed it off and began hugging each other. Soon every one of Twilight's friends walked up to her and congratulated her to come this far.

“Way to go, Princess!” Applejack said.

“Best coronation day ever!” Pinkie Pie said in her usual excitement.

Eventually, it all ended in a big group hug with her and her friends. Star Twinkle still had to get used to that but in times like that, not even he would matter so he joined in as well.

Later that night at Canterlot Castle...

After all the formal stuff was done, the rest of the day was just one giant party at Canterlot in Twilight's honor. It was like the Grand Galloping Gala. There were many guests from higher positions from all over Equestria who joined the party. Needless To say, Star Twinkle felt a little off at this party. Twilight was surrounded by many ponies who traveled from far away and wanted to speak with her. Star Twinkle's friends were all over the place as well, making Star Twinkle stand somewhere in the corner alone. However, he didn't seem to mind. Just now he was happy for Twilight and that was all that mattered at the moment.

“Still not used to partying, right?” A pony said as he walked up to Star Twinkle, getting his attention. It was his Father Sunny Twinkle who was accompanied by his wive Rainfall Twinkle. “It's just like when you were little. Always sitting in the corner and waiting for the party to be over,”

“There are things that never change, I guess,” Rainfall Twinkle added. “But you don't look sad about it,” she figures after taking a closer look at her son.

“I'm not,” Star Twinkle assured. “It's just that this place is a little too...”

“Crowded?” Both of his parents said in unison.

Star Twinkle had to admit that this would be a little scary if it wasn't his parents who were doing it. “Everypony wants to meet Twilight so she barely has time to talk with her friends,” Star Twinkle explained.

“Like you?” Rainfall Twinkle guessed.

“Is it wrong to think like that?” Star Twinkle replied confused.

“Not at all!” Sunny Twinkle said. “It's just weird to hear you saying that. I guess that we finally have to admit that our little son has grown up,” he added with tears starting to form in his eyes. He then jumped towards his son and hugged him while crying loudly. “They just grow up so fast!” He almost screamed across the whole room.

Needless to say, multiple eyes were looking at the two, making Star Twinkle feel a little embarrassed. “Dad...” Star Twinkle said as he tried to push his father away.

But Rainfall took care of it and pulled her crying husband away from her son. “He is just happy,” she explained while she patted her husband on his back while hugging him in the process.

“I know, I know...” Star Twinkle replied as he stepped away a few steps in hope to not get caught by some surprise hug from his father again. “I think I go outside for a while...to get some fresh air,” he added before he walked outside of the hall.

His parents understood and let him walk away. “You do that,” Rainfall Twinkle replied as she watched her son walk away.

“I'm so happy!” Sunny Twinkle cried out in happy but also sad tone in his voice.

“I know, I know...me too,” Rainfall Twinkle said as she patted her husbands head while he was still crying his heart out on his wife's shoulder.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle walked outside and went to the garden to get some fresh air. That and trying to flee from his overly happy father for a moment. The quiet night and the bushes and statues were the only things around him now, giving him time to relax for a moment. He sat down on the ground and took a deep breath, being a little relieved to get away from this party. No matter how much he loved his friends, there was still no changing that he felt uncomfortable at crowded places like this. He just had to get away, even if it was only for a few minutes.

“I haven't seen any of my friends for a while now. Did they already go home?” Star Twinkle wondered. “Maybe I should go too soon...”

“Trying to get some fresh air?” A mare said from behind, causing Star Twinkle to turn his head around. It was Twilight who walked up to him. “Being surrounded by so many ponies for a while, I kinda start to understand why you wanted to get away from that,” she said before she sat down next to Star Twinkle. “Unless...you were trying to get away from me,”

“Of course, not,” Star Twinkle replied casually after such a ridiculous question. “It was just a little too...”

“Crowded?” Twilight guessed.

“You all need to stop that...” Star Twinkle replied after getting a slight feel of a Deja Vu.

For a moment, there was silence. They both took the time to look at the moon in the sky and enjoyed this quiet night. The sound of the bushes around them being shaken by the wind was sometimes the only thing that they could hear. It was not an awkward silence but rather relaxing.

“So...” Star Twinkle began, causing Twilight to look over to him. “A Princess, huh?”

Twilight seemed to have mixed feelings once this word was mentioned. “I know...crazy isn't it? I mean, one day you live your normal life and then in the next something big like this happens. You know what I mean?”

“I have a good idea how it must feel...” Star Twinkle replied, referring to all the changes that happened to him, like being chosen by the Elements of Harmony, his strange transformations or getting his Cutie Mark only one day ago.

Twilight was just now realizing that Star Twinkle knew all too well. “Of course. How could I forgot...” she practically apologized.

Star Twinkle didn't bother to reply to that since he didn't feel mad or anything similar. “You earned it. You have come a long way and did some great things. Some of them including saving Equestria. Becoming a Princess is something that you very well deserve,” Star Twinkle explained, telling her exactly what he was thinking, instead of just trying to comfort her.

Twilight did seem to be more relaxed after this answer, however, there were still some things that she was worried about. “I'm a little scared. I mean, I know nothing about being a princess. What does a Princess do? And what does everypony expect from me now?” She began to say, becoming a little more panicked after listing up all of this things.

But Star Twinkle didn't react with panic and remained calm, being pretty confident that the next words that he was about to say were enough to calm her down again. “You don't have to find those answers on your own. You still have friends who can help you,” Star Twinkle explained. Those words actually seemed to calm down Twilight a little. “Believe me. My destiny is friendship, even though I don't know much about it,” he added with a confident smile on his face.

Twilight liked to hear that and smiled in return. “Come to think of it...you were always there whenever I was either in trouble or when I needed it the most,”

“And that is not gonna change, even though you are a princess now, right?” Star Twinkle said.

“No,” Twilight said with a light chuckle.

There was not too much to add to this. Of course, Star Twinkle would help her whenever there was trouble or problems to face off. It was always like that and it will always be like that. And that would also be the other way around. The only thing that would probably change is that the upcoming problems would become more royalty related. At least that's what Star Twinkle thought.

“By the way, should I call you Princess Twilight from now on?” Star Twinkle asked.

“No, please no,” Twilight replied.

“You're sure?” Star Twinkle asked again.

“I can order you to not call me that if I wanted to,” Twilight said jokingly with a smug smile on her face. Star Twinkle didn't know what to say to that because he couldn't quite figure if this was a joke or not. However, Twilight giggled and made it obvious that she was joking. Only one moment later, she began to sound a little more serious again and stared at the moon again. “Can you promise me something?” She asked.

“Sure,” Star Twinkle replied.

Twilight hesitated for a moment. She looked at the moon and let the wind blow through her mane before she said anything. “Promise me that nothing will change between us, even if I am a Princess now. Promise me that you won't treat me any different than before, okay?”

It was not necessary for Star Twinkle to think about this too long so he quickly agreed to those things. “Yeah. I promise,”

“Pinkie Promise?” Twilight said as she looked over to Star Twinkle again.

Star Twinkle let out a little chuckle before he began to do the usual Pinkie Promise gesture. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” he Pinkie promised.

After those words were spoken, Star Twinkle and Twilight looked at each other with smiles on their faces. Twilight knew that once Star Twinkle promised it, that there was no way that he would break it. So much did she know about him.

Eventually, the two looked up to the moon again and stared at it for a moment. Twilight got up after a while and attempted to return to the castle. “I better go back before they decide to send some ponies to look for their newest princess,” she jokingly said. “You're coming too?” She asked.

“Give me just a minute. I want to think about some things before I return,” Star Twinkle replied.

“Alright,” Twilight replied before she walked away from the garden and went back to the castle.

Star Twinkle looked up to the moon again and closed his eyes. Many thoughts were wandering through his mind. All the events that happened recently. Twilight was worrying about how things would change once she would become a princess but Star Twinkle was sure that there was nothing that they could not overcome when they worked together. No matter if it was Nightmare Moon, the Lord of Chaos, The Storm Wings, Queen Chrysalis, King Sombra or the Outcasts. In fact, things started to look up better than before. There were always things that were hard to overcome but if everypony worked together, then nothing could stop them. No matter what or however it was. Star Twinkle just had to remember that. It was as easy as that.

Twilight became a Princess and Star Twinkle got his Cutie Mark. Those were some positive changes. Twilight got rewarded for her efforts and Star Twinkle finally accepted his life, the way it is now. There was no looking back. No worrying about how things could play out if Star Twinkle lived his old life. Everything was fine.

“I know for absolute certain,” Star Twinkle began to say to himself. “That everything from now on will be fine,” he said before he opened his eyes again and smiled while saying those words.

While thinking about all those things, one noise made him snap out of his thoughts. The noise of hoof steps coming closer to him from behind. “Twilight?” He guessed as he realized that he said that he would come too after a while. Realizing that he may take a little too long, he stood up and was about to turn around. “Sorry. I must have been spaced out for a moment. I didn't mean to make you wait for-” But he stopped in the middle of the sentence after he turned around to face Twilight.

He realized that the pony approaching him wasn't Twilight. It wasn't Twilight at all. “Who are you?” He asked nervously after seeing the pony in front of him.

There was pony standing in front of him, wearing a pitch black armor and a helmet that completely covered the whole body of this pony. There was no indication if this pony was a mare or a stallion based on the build. The armor of this pony had wings on the back and a horn on the helmet, making it even unclear what race this pony was. The pony didn't say anything and just stood there silently, looking at Star Twinkle. Not even for a second did Star Twinkle thought that this pony was good news for him. The silence, the stare that this pony probably gave him beneath that helmet, and the pitch black color of the armor was enough to make him feel uncomfortable. The fact that he also didn't know what gender or race this pony was gave him, even more, reasons to be nervous. This pony was the unknown so naturally, he did fear it.
“Who are you!?” Star Twinkle asked once more, this time a little more angrily because of the threatening silence that he was treated with before.

Suddenly, without any warning, the armored pony began to charged towards Star Twinkle at full speed. Star Twinkle realized that this pony was not intending to give him one big surprise hug and stood ready to defend himself. Transforming into his Unicorn form was the first thing Star Twinkle did once he saw the pony charging right at him. Unfortunately, he couldn't prepare a spell in time. Star Twinkle's and the armored pony's horn clashed against each other. With both of them channeling some magic inside of them, it resulted into a little blast that released their magic.

While their horns clashed, something seemed a little off with Star Twinkle. Out of nowhere, it felt like as if time stopped for a moment. Star Twinkle began to saw pictures in his head. It was almost like two days ago after his friends regained their Cutie Marks again. In fact, some of the pictures he saw, were the same that he saw back then.

All those pictures he saw flashed before his eyes in an instant.
Six ponies...the same he saw two days ago...
Fire...
Ponyville...
Rainbow Colors...
The Silhouette of an Alicorn...
Star Twinkle when he was a little colt...with an Orange coated Unicorn colt next to him, both of them laughing happily...

Those pictures flashed through his mind for maybe a second but somehow, he managed to see all of them and even remembered them clearly. Soon, he found himself face to face against the armored pony again, their horns still crossed. Star Twinkle jumped back to get some space again. But he couldn't ignore what he saw. “What was that just now!? Why am I seeing this pictures!?” Star Twinkle wondered as he grabbed his head with one of his hooves.

But there was no time to think. The pony in the black armor began charging towards him once more. Star Twinkle pulled himself together and prepared a spell to shoot at the pony. Now that he knew that this pony was a Unicorn, he had no choice but to be even more careful.

The armored pony jumped to the side and dodged and continued to charge right at Star Twinkle. Whoever this pony was, he or she was definitely aiming to get into close combat, rather than using magic. As an Earth Pony, it would be better for Star Twinkle to aim for that as well, however, he wanted to play safe and tried to use magic instead. In the worst case, Star Twinkle's transformation would run out eventually, giving him no choice but to use his hooves to fight.

The black-armored pony did charge at Star Twinkle once more, this pony seemed to prefer a close combat as well. However, Star Twinkle's strategy was already set and he continued to fire magic shots at the pony. There was a chance that Star Twinkle would see some more strange pictures once he came in contact with this pony again so he tried his best to avoid letting the pony too close.

Not a single shot hit its mark and the armored pony got closer and closer. Soon the armored pony reached his or hers hoof out in order to hit Star Twinkle but luckily it missed. Star Twinkle backed away and tried to hit the pony with his magic. This repeated for a while. The Armored Pony attempted to get closer and Star Twinkle dodged and tried to use his magic. Soon, the thing that Star Twinkle expected the most happened. His Unicorn Form ran out. He no longer was able to use his magic, meaning that he had to resort to close combat as well. Realizing that going up a pony who was wearing an armor made him worry for a second but knowing that he was an Earth-Pony, who posses a more physical strength then Unicorns, gave him some confidence.

But then things started to get a little more complex. The Armored Pony stopped the assault on Star Twinkle began to focus magic in his or her horn. The pony was about to use magic now and slowly walked up to Star Twinkle. As a Unicorn, the Armored Pony was obviously more dangerous when using magic so Star Twinkle had to be even more cautious.

“Star Twinkle!” Suddenly, a female voice shouted from afar.

“I think the noises came from over here!” Another unknown male voice said from afar as well.

Somepony was getting closer. This was perfect for Star Twinkle, especially since he exactly knew who the first voice belonged to. Soon, he would get help against this threat that appeared out of nowhere. The Armored Pony also heard the voices but didn't seem to mind. The magic in his or her horn vanished again and the pony charged one more time right at Star Twinkle. The Earth Pony stood ready to defend himself for whatever was coming but to his surprise, the Armored Pony jumped and right over Star Twinkle. When the pony was still in the air, Star Twinkle looked right into the face of the pony. He couldn't see the eyes under the helmet but he knew that the pony was looking right back at him once his or her head turned to Star Twinkle. The Pony landed on his hooves behind Star Twinkle and ran away into some bushes.

First, Star Twinkle attempted to follow this pony but then he realized that he was exhausted from the battle and needed some rest. He was also approached by some ponies who noticed the commotion that he and the Armored Pony caused. One of the ponies that approached Star Twinkle was Twilight. She was accompanied by two members of the Royal Guard.
“Are you alright?” Twilight asked in her worry. “We heard some noises from over here. What happened?”

Of course, Star Twinkle couldn't quite explain the situation himself. He had no idea who that pony was or what he or she wanted. With this little information, he and Twilight returned to Princess Celestia and talked to her inside of the throne room. “A pony in a black armor?” Princess Celestia asked. She tried to think about this but it was obvious that she didn't know anything just judging from her expression. “And you said it was a Unicorn?” She asked further to get some more information out of Star Twinkle.

“Yes, but that is all I know...” Star Twinkle replied, saddened that he couldn't give any more information. “The body of this pony was completely covered in armor. I don't even know if it was a Stallion or a mare because the pony didn't say a single word,” he explained further.

Princess Luna, who was next to her sister, thought about this matter too. “Maybe he or she tried to attack Twilight?” She began to guess, causing Twilight to get a little nervous at this statement. “The coronation was widely announced in Equestria. It is no surprise that some more shady figures would be drawn out of the shadows. Remember what happened back then at Shining Armor's and Cadence's wedding,”

While Princess Luna pointed out a valid point, Twilight didn't seem too convinced. “But why would anypony go after Star Twinkle then?” She pointed out.

That was also the one thing that didn't make sense to Star Twinkle. Why would he be attacked if the original target was Twilight? This pony must have known that Star Twinkle was there as well.

Princess Celestia, while still being in deep thoughts suddenly widened her eyes in realization. “Could it be...?” She quietly mumbled to herself. Of course, everypony, looked at her because of those words and asked if she had an idea but Princess Celestia shook her head and denied knowing anything. This especially, got Star Twinkle's attention since he had the feeling that she was clearly hiding something. However, what she said next was what made him a little nervous. “I don't know who this pony was but...I don't think that he or she was after Twilight. Be careful Star Twinkle because I have the feeling that the pony was after you,” she explained, making Star Twinkle widen his eyes in confusion.

Not only did he wondered why somepony would be after him. But it was also for absolute certain, that not everything from now on, will be certainly fine...

In a little town in Equestria, one day later...

“Equestria's newest princess has been crowned! Read it here first!” A pony shouted across the streets, waving a newspaper in front of him.

The news about Twilight becoming a princess quickly spread all over Equestria. From Manehattan to Las Pegasus, every city or town would soon know about the newest princess in Equestria.

Only a few meters away from the newspaper pony, a pony in a gray hood walked away with a newspaper being levitated in front of him. It was Summershine, who was reading out the headline of the paper while he walked through the streets of the town. After reading most of the contents of it he began to grin out of happiness. “Twilight Sparkle, huh?” The orange coated Unicorn said to himself. “Who would have expected that she would become a princess?" He said a little surprised. Also, from what I have heard, Star Twinkle saved the Crystal Empire,” he said as he looked at the sky almost depressed. Soon his smile turned into a frown once he realized something. “They all came so far...” he said before his face became more determined. “I have to make some progress as well...I have to find him! I have to deal with everything in order to make Equestria save for them!” He said before he threw the newspaper in a nearby trash can as he walked away, probably aiming to go out of the town.

Once Summershine was out of view, another Unicorn levitated the newspaper out of the trashcan and read the head line as well. “Well, would you look at this? This little mare from Ponyville actually became a princess!” the white-coated and white-maned mare with the light green eyes said amused. “I knew she had strong magic and at all but come on, a princess?” She said in disbelieve after saying those words out loud. But soon, she smiled again and even began to giggle a little after she realized something. ”Actually...this is pretty interesting. Hopefully, I come across her some time. It would be interesting who would win a duel of magic,” she said in a creepy and sinister tone in her voice before she attempted to leave the town as well.
“Who would win? The Princess...” she started before she touched the amulet on her neck. The Alicorn Amulet. “Or the Witch?” She said with an excited smile on her face.

In another town at the same time...

Just like in pretty much every other town, there was also one pony who screamed around the streets and spread the news about Twilight becoming a princess. Newspapers were handed down to everypony who walked across him.
“Here you go!” He said once a Unicorn stallion walked past him, offering him one paper for free.

The Unicorn stallion took the paper without any questions and began to read the content. “The newest princess of Equestria...Twilight Sparkle,” the pony read out loud. There seemed to be some kind of disbelieve in this ponies voice as if he wasn't satisfied to read this but he did continue regardless. “The former student of Princess Celestia was not too fond of friendship and therefore was sent to the little town of Ponyville to study it. Now she was crowned a princess after her many achievements which included many occasions where she saved Equestria from danger. There are also rumors that she was chosen by one of seven ancient magic relics called the Elements of Harmony. As the newest princess in Equestria she...” however the pony threw the paper away in the middle of the sentence, getting bored by the content that he was reading.

The Unicorn had a red coat and a white mane with red stripes in it and red eyes. On his flank, there was a Cutie Mark with an open book on it.

The pony continued to walk around the town while thinking about the news of this new princess. “Ponyville, huh? This little town seems to be full of gifted or special ponies...” The pony mumbled to himself quietly. “And what is this talking about seven Elements? Why not six?” He started to wonder as he rubbed his chin confused. “Does that mean that she has connections to him and the previous ones...” he guessed as he began to think about some stuff.

However, the pony began to smile and didn't worry about the matter anymore. “If I am lucky, she will be of some use for me. But even if she doesn't, I made sure that everything will go according to my plan sooner or later. I'll just have to wait for the right moment before I take care of things. After all, I have my pawn already placed where I wanted him to be...” he continued with a sinister smile.

The pony walked away from the town and kept his smile up. There was no telling what he had planned or what he was talking about now but whatever it was, it would definitely cause trouble in the future. With one last sentence, he left the town and went on his way again.
“Isn't that right, Star Twinkle?”

Author's Notes:

Alright!
Season 3 is over!
Now I want your attention!
If you are interested in this story and want to miss any little thing of it, then make sure to follow me. If you do, you won't miss the next two stories that I will put up in the next weeks.

One of them will be the “The Legend of Friendship” version of Equestria Girls.
The other one tells the story of the Outcasts (You know, Fade, Mystic, Tagma, Rosa, and Wildheart)

I would really appreciate if you check out those stories as well.

With all that said, I hope you enjoyed the story so far and leave some kind of review to let me know. I'll see you in the next chapter ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

Season 4 Intro - Who am I?

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Author's Notes:

With the last chapter of "Outcasts" right around the corner, I figured that I should start to release the Season 4 Intro...sneakpeak...teaser...preview...whatever.

Season 4 will most likely continue in one or two weeks from now on which I hope you are a little excited for. Writing a whole custom story was really fun too but returning to the main story again is something I actually missed doing and since it is the story with the most views, likes, reviews etc, I have the feeling, people will be happy too. I just hope that I won't disappoint you ^^.

Now with this all said, here is the usual:
Leave a review, a like or a like and let me know what you thought about this chapter.

Also, now for something different, and yeah I know, it is probably not appropriate to write this on this site but I just recently created a Let's play / Gaming channel on Youtube and I would really appreciate it if you could drop by or even consider to subscribe to me. I am not doing too good on the views or subscribers so far so you can see how desperate I am to write this under one of my Fanfictions. Like I said, it would really mean a lot to me.

Here is the Channel link:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Z22S7njLl31KUqlmIBOpQ

Now with THAT out of the way, I hope that I will see you all in the next chapter of this story.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

You are me...and I am you...

Hearing those words caused Star Twinkle to abruptly wake up from his sleep. This happened a lot recently. Strange words and pictures, dreams that didn't make sense to him, him waking up in the middle of the night because of it. It was a total mess.

"Might as well get up now, huh?" Star Twinkle mumbled as he began to sit up on his bed. "Morning, Comet," he said greeting his pet Goldfish.

Comet didn't move in response.

While not getting out of his bed, Star Twinkle stretched his legs a little. Of course, he was not too thrilled of getting up so early and was usually grumpy because of it. He decided to open the window next to him and inhaled some of the fresh air from outside. He looked over the streets of Ponyville. There was nopony in sight. Made sense to Star Twinkle since nopony in their right minds would get up this early in the morning. Except, that didn't seem to be the case completely.

"Huh?" Star Twinkle said confused, once he saw Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie gathering in the middle of the street, talking to each other. "What are they all doing there this early?" He wondered.

Before he knew it, he was walking straight towards them. He didn't even remember getting ready for leaving the house or neither did he seem to be aware of it. But that didn't matter. Right now, he was just wondering what his friends were up to.

As soon as he was close enough, Star Twinkle greeted the group. "Hey, girls, what are you all doing here this early?" He asked. But there was no response. In fact, it didn't even look like as if they heard him since they continued talking to each other. "Girls?" Star Twinkle said, trying to grab their attention once again but there was still no response. Their mouths were moving and it seemed like as if they were talking and laughing at each other but Star Twinkle couldn't hear them. "Oh no!" Star Twinkle said as he had some kind of idea what was going on. "Did I walk into Poison Joke and got deaf again!?" He figured although he can't remember setting hoof into the Everfree forest recently.

But after thinking about it, even if he would have gone deaf, then there was no reason for the girls to not hear him. That wouldn't make any sense. They were probably pulling a prank at him which made him laugh it off for a moment. "Okay, girls, you got me, good one," he said but again, no response from them. Star Twinkle walked up to the girls and grabbed Fluttershy's shoulder who happened to stand the closest to him. "Hey, Fluttershy what-" but Star Twinkle stopped once his hoof practically went through Fluttershy's body.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle jumped back in shock after this. He stood there with an open mouth and with widened eyes until the girls turned around and walked away from him, causing him to jump once more in response. The girls walked away without ever noticing him in the first place. Star Twinkle reached out his hoof. "Wait!" He said while he tried to walk up to them. But there was one problem. He couldn't move. It was like his hooves were glued to the ground, making it unable for him to move. "What is going on here!?" He exclaimed in his frustration.

Soon the girls were too far away to hear Star Twinkle anymore. Then something even weirder happened to them. After Star Twinkle focused his eyes on the girls after they got almost out of his sight, he could swear that they turned into six different ponies for a brief moment. However, once he got a slight view on who those ponies were, an immediate pain went through Star Twinkle's head, causing him to drop down to his knees and grabbing his head. "Why does my head hurt so much all of the sudden!?" He said as he dropped his head down on the ground unable to ignore this stinging pain. "Argh! Why does my head hurt so much!?" Star Twinkle complained as he crawled on the ground in the middle of the street of Ponyville.

Despite being in all this pain, Star Twinkle could clearly hear a voice. It was a little distorted and he couldn't make out who it belonged to if it even was the voice of someone he knows but he was able to hear what it was saying. It just confused him where it was coming from because, after thinking about it, the six girls were the only ponies that he saw all day so far, making it even more confusing.

"Star Twinkle!" The voice screamed.

Star Twinkle, however, was in so much pain that he couldn't even open his eyes to look for the one who was calling his name. Fortunately, the pain went away after a while and Star Twinkle could catch his breath for a moment. Once he opened his eyes, however, there was something else that caused him to panic.

"What in the..." he could only say after he realized that he was no longer in Ponyville. Instead, he was in the Castle of the Two Sisters. In the room where the girls found the Elements of Harmony to be exact. He didn't even begin to question what was going on since it happened so fast and without him even realizing how he got there in the first place. Still, he tried to confirm some things that caught his attention.

In front of him was some strange pedestal with a bunch of stone orbs on it. Something looked really familiar about this. Star Twinkle had some kind of a guess that he didn't believe was true but as soon as he looked out of one of the windows, his guess proved to be right. It was dark outside and up in the sky he could see the moon, and inside of the moon was...

"The Mare in the Moon..." Star Twinkle said quietly before he looked over to the pedestal with the stone orbs. "Those are the Elements of Harmony..."

The first time, he saw the Elements of Harmony was when Twilight and the others already activated their powers. Of course, his friends told him that before he came to their help, they were turned to stone after Princess Celestia used them to banish her sister to the moon. It was not until Twilight discovered that she and her friends were the spirits of the Elements that made them return back to their original form.

With all those information, Star Twinkle could only come to one conclusion. "Is this...the past?" He wondered, expecting someone to answer his question.

Suddenly, a light began to come from the Elements of Harmony, causing Star Twinkle to back away in shock. He didn't do anything so naturally, he was confused why all of the sudden something like this happened. Soon, five of the six orbs turned into gems. The bigger one in the middle had a six-pointed star-shaped one coming out of it which looked exactly like the one that was in Twilight's crown. The others, however, didn't look like the Cutie Marks of his friends. They almost looked like regular gems. "That's how they used to look like..." Star Twinkle figured, judging from what he knew how they looked like from Twilight. "So this is the past...?" He said as he saw the elements slowly flying past him to the middle of the room.

Following the Elements of Harmony with his eyes, Star Twinkle almost didn't notice that they were flying towards a group of ponies who stood in the middle of the room. "Huh?" He simply said once he recognized the six ponies in front of him.

Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. They all stood there waiting for the Elements to reach them. Each of the gems flew to one of the mares, circling around them. "Girls?" Star Twinkle said, still being confused about literally everything that happened in this last minutes. He walked towards them in order to get some answers. "Hey, do you girls know what is going on here?" He asked confused, slowly walking up to the six mares.

Strangely enough, they all had their eyes closed and didn't react to Star Twinkle's question just like before. This slowly began to irritate him. "Talk to me!" He then said in a mix of anger and frustration.

Then, almost on cue, Twilight opened her eyes. They were glowing, much to Star Twinkle's surprise who stopped walking towards the girls as soon as he saw that. The Elements began to quickly circle around the girls, levitating them over the ground and engulfing them in a bright light. Star Twinkle had no idea what this all meant and stepped back. If he didn't know it any better, then he would guess that they were activating the Elements of Harmony. Star Twinkle looked behind him, above him, to his left, and to his right in order to find out against who they were using them on.

But soon, he was convinced who this attack was directed at, making him back away even further until his back was against the stone pedestal. Moments later, the light that engulfed the girls, shot out a rainbow which came diving down directly towards Star Twinkle. "Noooo!" He screamed in fear before the rainbow hit the ground. The rainbow circled around him and he could feel how it was draining his energy or even hurting him. Eventually, he couldn't stand it anymore so he dropped down to his knees, covering his head as if he was ducking for safety.

"What is happening here!?
Is this the past or not!?
Why are they using the Elements against me!?"

All those questions repeatedly circled around in Star Twinkle's head while all this was happening. The mere thought of his friends attacking him was scaring him too much. He just wanted this to be some kind of bad dream. He wanted to go home. He wanted to forget this.

Then...it became quiet.

Star Twinkle still kept his eyes closed, he didn't know what would happen if he opened them again. He didn't want to know. But soon, he got curious. It was warm. He felt warm as if he was kneeling in front of a campfire or a chimney. Warmth like this couldn't possibly bad, is what he was telling himself. So he decided to open his eyes again. But immediately, he regretted doing that. He was no longer in the Castle of the Two Sister. He was back in Ponyville again. And after seeing what was happening, he realized why he was feeling so warm.

There was fire...

Ponyville was on fire...

The building was burning, Ponies were running away in a panic to escape the flames or trying to put them out. Star Twinkle was paralyzed by all this. Why was he in Ponyville again? Why was the town on fire? All these things happening this quickly caused him to simply stand there in shock, helplessly.

After looking around a little more, he just realized two ponies laying in front of him, unconscious. For some weird reason, he could only barely see them, as if they were blurred out, even though they were right in front of him. His head began to hurt again, making him grab his forehead and closing his eyes due to the pain. It didn't last longer than a few seconds though, much to his liking. He opened his eyes again. Something was different. Some kind of red magic aura began flowing to him.

There was another surprise once he touched his forehead. There was a horn, and magic was flowing into it. As if it was absorbing something. And this something laid in front of him. He absorbed something from the unconscious pony in front of him. While still not being able to see who it was or what kind of pony or even the color of its coat was, one thing was for certain...this Pony was in pain. And he was the one inflicting it on it.

Star Twinkle could only widen his eyes after this realization and wanted to move away from the poor Pony but just like before, he couldn't move. He felt helpless and weak. "Wha...what am I doing? Why...am I doing this?" He said in a trembling and helpless voice, wishing whatever he was doing right now would just stop.

Then suddenly, the voice from before returned.
"Star Twinkle!" It said, causing Star Twinkle to snap out a little. The voice came from behind him so he turned around and saw somepony running towards him. But as soon as he was in sight, the pain in Star Twinkle's head returned like a flash shooting through his brain, causing him to drop down on his knees once more.

"Argh! Stop it! I got enough of all this!" Star Twinkle exclaimed in his pain.

Then suddenly, everything was black. Star Twinkle could see nothing. He couldn't say anything. He couldn't move, he couldn't think. But he could still hear something. That something was some familiar words.

"You are me...and I am you..."

Immediately after, in the middle of this black nothingness, two red eyes opened up, staring right at Star Twinkle. This sudden thing caused Star Twinkle to sit up from his bed. He breathed heavily and looked all around himself to see where he was now. He was relieved to find out that he was in his bed this time. It was all a dream. A horrible dream. It was still a little dark outside. The day was probably about to begin soon. Star Twinkle quickly remembered something in his dream and took a look outside. He looked at the moon. "No Mare in the Moon..." he said once he found out that he was not dreaming anymore.

He laid down on his bed again, feeling exhausted about all this. "It's okay..." he said to himself. "It was just a dream...nothing more..." he said in order to calm himself down. "I am Star Twinkle. Chosen by an unknown Elements of Harmony. I can transform into a Unicorn and a Pegasus, to mention only a few things. That's just the way it is. I'm done thinking about all those weird things happening to me. I'll just have to accept all this while I continue my life...right?"

While saying all this stuff to himself, Star Twinkle grew more and more confused. There will be more things happening to him that he won't be able to figure out right away. He simply can't return to his normal boring life anymore. He now had friends that would support him in any situation. He was chosen by an Unknown Element of Harmony. He could grow wings and a horn. He couldn't explain those things and always looked for an answer but it would never come so he was going crazy about it for nothing. Eventually, this got very tiresome for him so why should he continue thinking about all this? This is what kept him going. The question was now...if that was actually the right thing to do...

Meanwhile, somewhere in Equestria...

"You are me...and I am you..."

After hearing those words, Summershine opened up his eyes. He was sleeping in the grass, right next to a boulder in the middle of a huge grass-field. He got up on his hooves and yawned in the process. "I'm hearing those words again..." he said before he looked up to the sky, watching the stars. His expression was anything but cheerful, in fact, he had a really bad feeling. He put his gray hood over his head and was on his way again. There was no time for him to waste. "I thought that I had more time left...but judging from all those dreams...He will return soon..." he said in a serious tone before he focused his eyes straight forward again. "I have to take of everything before that or else...I have to deal with him...again,"

Summershine continued his travel with a really bad feeling in his mind. Things were about to get difficult very soon. And his only wish was to take care of everything before that. Or else...Equestria would be in danger once again...

66. Connection - Part 1

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Author's Notes:

Season 4 is here!
Now, what is to be expected in this season?
Let's see...

An OC who is added to the main story of Friendship is Magic?
More questions and fewer answers about said OC?
More OC's and custom stories which are probably less rememberable than the official episode chapters?
...
Sometimes I am really surprised how there are people still sticking around here...

Anyway! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you are excited for what I have planned for this season.
Not to unnecessary hype you or anything but...
Starting from this season, the Custom Story Arcs will be a little more important to the grand picture of the overall story. It will also become a little more complicated to follow so you better pay attention to...everything ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a like or a review to let me know what you thought about this chapter. I would also appreciate it if you follow me so that you can be up to date of every other story that I write (which are all connected to this one).

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Some time has passed since Twilight Sparkle was turned into an Alicorn and crowned as the newest princess of Equestria. But despite that change, ironically, nothing really changed. She was still living in the Golden Oak Library instead of moving into some kind of castle and continued to spend time with her friends. Everyone was happy that it turned out like this and Princess Celestia was not burdening her former student with any additional responsibilities after becoming a princess. At least not yet. But there was still something that Princess Celestia asked her to do. And for that, she had to practice her flying. Her friends decided to meet up in Canterlot to give her as much support as possible.

Some of them more than others.

"Aaaaalright! Are you ready to practice!?" Rainbow Dash shouted highly determined to teach the two ponies in front of her how to fly.

One of them was Twilight. "Yes!" She responded, saluting determined in the process and ready to start.

And the other one was Star Twinkle. "Why am I here?" He asked with a really annoyed tone in his voice, clearly not showing the same enthusiasm as Twilight.

Rainbow Dash quickly responded. "Twilight just recently got some pretty nifty wings on her own and thanks to your weird ability to transform you can fly too! I don't have to remind you that you have been pretty lazy in your flying practice lately, right?" She scolded like a mother to a colt that forgot to do his homework.

But Star Twinkle was not affected by this at all. "Have you ever considered that I don't really look forward to flying? I am feeling pretty safe down here on the ground..." he explained.

That bothered attitude was not rubbing off to Twilight, though. "I would really like to learn how to fly. I'm still not gotten used to those too much," she said as she spread her wings proudly.

To that, Star Twinkle wished her all the luck and bailed out of the lesson to watch with the rest of his friends. Soon, the two mares flapped their wings and went up into the air. One of them being slightly less professional in the process. Both of them were in the air and faced each other. Rainbow Dash seemed to gave Twilight some advise but Star Twinkle and the others couldn't hear what she was saying.

Star Twinkle, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie couldn't help but wonder what was about to happen next. "You think she will be alright with this flying thing?" Rarity asked as she continued watching the two.

"That depends..." Star Twinkle replied, keeping his eyes on Twilight and Rainbow Dash as well.

Fluttershy seemed confused and looked towards Star Twinkle. "On what?"

"On what kind of advise Rainbow Dash gives her and how Twilight executes it..." he simply replied.

Of course, since Star Twinkle gained this ability to grow wings or a horn, Rainbow Dash took it upon herself to teach him how to fly. But since Star Twinkle had a little phobia of flying, this was not something he was looking forward to. As a result, he was not really good at executing Rainbow Dash's lessons or advises. But since Twilight showed more motivation on the matter and obviously was much more into studying so she might be a little faster to catch up on Rainbow Dash's lessons.
That was until everypony saw Twilight aggressively flapping her wings and crashing into a nearby tree followed by a rather ungraceful landing.

Star Twinkle shook his head. "I guess she gave her the "You gotta really flap 'em hard" advise..." he figured.

Fluttershy walked up to Twilight. "Let's make sure she is alright..." she said a little worried.

The group followed her and Applejack was the first one to help her up again. "Lookin' good up there, Princess Twilight," she said with a smile on her face just to cheer Twilight up after this obviously failed attempt to fly.

But Twilight didn't even got into that and addressed something else. "Applejack, you know you don't have to call me that,"

"Why do you protest so?" Rarity questioned. "You've already given up wearing your crown all the time. The least you can do is embrace your new title,"

"If other ponies want to address me that way, I suppose it's fine, but... not my friends. It just doesn't feel right," she explained.

She then looked over to Star Twinkle who nodded in response. "Twilight is still Twilight," he said. "Even after becoming a princess, there is nothing that changed between us, right?" He added, causing his friends to agree on those words.

Hearing that put a smile on Twilight. She was happy that Star Twinkle remembered the promise that she asked of him after her coronation. That he would not treat her differently after she became a princess and that nothing would change between them. However, Twilight still had to think about why she had to do those flying lessons. "The Summer Sun Celebration is only two days away, and I'm never gonna be ready to perform my part," she said with a slight frown on her face.

The longest day of the year, the Summer Sun Celebration. Normally, only Princess Celestia would raise the sun as a part of the celebration but with Princess's Luna return and Twilight becoming a princess as well, they were now part of it too. Twilight was making sure that she was prepared by practicing her flying abilities and not letting Princess Celestia down.

With that in mind, Rainbow Dash decided to continue Twilight's training. "Not if you spend all your time down here, you won't! Now get up there and show everypony the big finish!" She said to which Twilight determinedly jumped into the air again.

She actually did pretty well this time. She was flying at a really good speed while still maintaining control. She got really excited and happy to not crash into something this time and the others were cheering for her success. But unfortunately, it didn't last too long and Twilight crashed through a bunch of clouds before losing control doing some accidental loops. It all ended with her face in the ground once again.

"See? That's why I don't do flying" Star Twinkle said after this performance.

The group rushed towards Twilight one more time to make sure if she was alright. Twilight's face was literally stuck in the ground with mud all over her head. Her friends felt a little bad for her and got all kind of worried expressions on their faces, trying to figure out what to say. Everyone except, Pinkie Pie. "Wow! That was a big finish!" She said, clearly not being able to read the mood at all.

Star Twinkle then helped Twilight up by offering a hoof to her. "Maybe that's enough practice for today?" He advised after Twilight got up on her hoof again.

"Maybe..." she then said with an embarrassed smile on her face.

The group was about to leave Canterlot because they were charged with some task to prepare Ponyville for the Summer Sun Celebration. For Star Twinkle it meant a lot of work so naturally, he was not too excited but it had to be done so he just dealt with it.

But before the group left, they all decided to go to Canterlot Castle one more time. Everypony noticed how Twilight was taking her task really serious, causing her to get some second thoughts, especially after looking at the newest glass window picture in the castle. It showed Twilight in her new Alicorn form with her crown on her head. Of course, her coronation was something and there was no way that this moment was not kept forever in Canterlot Castle for everypony to see.

"You look amazing, darling. They've really captured your regality," Rarity complimented after looking at the picture herself.

"I suppose," Twilight replied.

"Oh, don't be so modest. It's everypony's dream to someday wear a crown and have their coronation ceremony preserved in stained glass for all to see," Rarity replied, undoubtedly speaking from a personal view.

"I don't know if it's everypony's dream." Rainbow Dash doubted.

"Yes...especially if you are a stallion..." Star Twinkle added.

"Most of my dreams are about frosting!" Pinkie Pie added in, literally having water coming out of her mouth just because of the thought of that.

As much as everypony still wanted to stay, they had to go in order to get their train back to Ponyville and finish the work that they had to do.

"Don't know about y'all, but I've still got bushels to do to get ready," Applejack shared. "The official celebration may be here in Canterlot, but hoo-wee, has the Mayor put us in charge of one heck of a party back home." Hearing that made Twilight frown which instantly caught Applejack's attention. "Aw, don't look like that, Sugarcube. You get to be right there with the other Princesses when Celestia raises the sun,"

"And I'm honored. Really, I am," Twilight replied still with a frown on her face. "It's just that the Summer Sun Celebration is what first brought us all together. It just doesn't feel right not getting to spend such a special day with my Ponyville friends,"

Star Twinkle could all to well understand where this was coming from. It was the Summer Sun Celebration that completely changed his life as well. Before he met his friends at this day, he was all alone and didn't know what to do with his life, spending most of his time secluded in his house, avoiding as much social contact as possible. At first, he felt like as if he was dragged out of this life and even wanted to go back to it. But now...he wouldn't want anything to take this away from him.

It seemed like as if Twilight and Star Twinkle weren't the only ones who felt like this. "It doesn't feel right to us either, darling," Rarity said to comfort Twilight. "If the Mayor wasn't so desperate for our assistance, we'd most certainly stay here in Canterlot. And of course, we do understand that your royal duties must come first,"

They couldn't just say that she shouldn't stay or that she should forget about her duties. That was not something she could just do. Neither did she wanted to let Princess Celestia down. It was moments like this where Star Twinkle was glad that he wasn't crowned an Alicorn Prince or something. It sounded like it only meant more work.

Everypony was pretty understanding about the situation, though. Applejack once more made sure to cheer Twilight up. "The Summer Sun Celebration may have brought us together, but it's something much bigger that'll always keep us connected," she said before she pointed to another familiar glass window. "Exhibit A: The seven of us are united by the Elements of Harmony. No amount of royal duties is gonna change that,"

Everypony agreed to that. The Summer Sun Celebration may be the day where they met but the Elements of Harmony were something that kept them all together. Star Twinkle wouldn't have followed the girls into the Everfree Forest if something in his head wouldn't have told him that the term "Elements of Harmony" sounded familiar. Remembering that, made him realize that he didn't found out why that was the case. But now, something like that is not bothering anymore. No more worrying about why he was chosen by an Element of Harmony or what his element represents. Thinking about this stuff would only exhaust him. Right now, he was happy about his situation and having found friends like this. If anything, he should be thankful for the elements to give him this kind of life.

The group decided to leave the castle to return to Ponyville. As Star Twinkle was following his friends, however, one thing caught his attention. One specific window that Star Twinkle was wondering what it was about for a while. "It's this picture again..." Star Twinkle thought as his eyes were glued to the picture. He remembered seeing it for the first time right after Discord returned and tried to take over Equestria.

The picture had no pony or any other creature on it. From the center of the picture, six different colors spread to the corners of the window. Red, orange, yellow, light blue, dark blue and purple. When he asked Princess Celestia about what it was about she simply replied that it was empty. He should have asked further to get some more information but he had the feeling that Princess Celestia wouldn't know anything. Or...that she wouldn't have told him for some reason. Still, this window gave him some familiar feeling. For a moment, he began to think about it but then he decided to leave it. There was no point in it anymore. No more worrying about things that he didn't understand, for his mental sake. He just walked away and followed his friends outside.

Later, at the train station in Canterlot...

Everypony was saying their goodbye's to Twilight and Spike. Pinkie Pie was the one who made sure that Twilight would be missed every single minute. "We're gonna write you and give you so many details, it'll be like you're in Ponyville with us! Right?" She said before she turned towards the rest of her friends.

This was their clue to do a Pinkie Promise. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,"every one of them said, accompanied by the usual gesture.

Shortly after, the train conductor gave the signal for everypony to get inside the train that headed for Ponyville. Everypony hugged Twilight one last time and then went off. After it was Star Twinkle's turn to hug her, he gave her some last words on the way after realizing that she was not taking all this too well. "You'll be alright so don't look so upset. You still have Spike, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna around you. I mean, we see each other again, aren't we?"

As soon as he said that, something like a flash seemed to went through his brain, causing him to shrug for a moment, something that Twilight didn't seem to notice in her current state. Twilight then formed a smile after Star Twinkle's attempt to cheer her up. "You're right...thanks," she replied.

After that, everypony went inside of the train and waved Twilight and Spike goodbye. The train began to head towards Ponyville with Star Twinkle, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie inside of it. No one of them felt too sad about leaving the two and told themselves that Twilight would be too busy taking care for the preparations of the Summer Sun Celebration to even feel sad not spending time with her friends.

Still, Fluttershy brought up the important question. "Do you think Twilight will be fine?"

"Of course, darling," Rarity replied optimistically.

Rainbow Dash could only agree to that. "As soon as the Summer Sun Celebration is over, we will be right back in Canterlot to visit her!"

Everypony agreed to that and focused now on what they had to do once they arrived back in Ponyville. Everyone, except Star Twinkle, who was looking out of the window most of the time, being in deep thoughts about something for a while. It seemed like as if no matter how hard he tried not to think about certain stuff, the more it bothered him. This time it was what he said before leaving Twilight.

"...We see each other again...right?" He mumbled to himself while he scratched his mane for a moment to think but only to find out that he was at a loss. But for some reason, he was sure about one thing. "Did I...say something like that before?"

The rest of the train ride was relatively normal and before they knew it, the group arrived back in Ponyville and helped to set up everything for the Summer Sun Celebration. For Star Twinkle that meant returning to the Iron Hammer and helping to decorate everything and making sure that everything inside the town hall was fully prepared and repaired.

At the end of the day, Steel Hammer went over everything himself while Star Twinkle was waiting to go home once he would say that everything was done now. Eventually, Steel Hammer said the words that Star Twinkle was waiting for. "We're all done here! The town hall looks fine, everything outside is decorated well, and hopefully there is no ancient pony trying to cover Equestria in an eternal night again," he said, clearly referring to Nightmare Moon.

"Yes...that would be nice..." Star Twinkle agreed on. "Then I guess, I can go home now, right?" He said almost a little impatiently.

Steel Hammer chuckled a little after that. "Even after all this time, your work motivation hasn't changed much, huh?" He jokingly said with a grin on his face.

Star Twinkle looked back at Steel Hammer with a bothered expression on his face. "I'm doing my work, am I?"

Steel Hammer shrugged his shoulders. "Well, can't argue with that," he said before he waved Star Twinkle goodbye. However, as soon as Star Twinkle was about to leave, Steel Hammer remembered something that he wanted to ask. "Are you okay with Princess Twilight being away for the Summer Sun Celebration?"

Star Twinkle seemed a little confused. "Why wouldn't I be?" He asked.

"Well, I'm just saying since you clearly changed in that department," Steel Hammer replied back.

Star Twinkle knew what Steel Hammer was getting at but he didn't worry too much. "I spent most of my life alone. I think I can survive a few days without one of my friends. It's not like I never see her..." But in mid-sentence, Star Twinkle stopped once he remembered that sudden flash that he had in his brain when he said it to Twilight.

This sudden silence confused Steel Hammer. "Something wrong?" He asked confused.

Star Twinkle shook his head. "No, it's nothing. I'm going home now, bye!" He said before he walked out of the town hall and went home.

He was a little exhausted because of the work that he was doing in Ponyville so the first thing he did after getting home, was to lay down on his bed and call it a day. How knew what kind of work would pop up on the next day. If that was the case, then he should probably get some sleep before it came to this. And after only a few minutes on his bed, he already fell asleep.

He didn't dream about something in particular this night, but there was one sentence that popped up and caused him to eventually wake up again.

"We gonna see each other again...right?"

Those words sounded like as if they came from Star Twinkle himself. He did feel like as if he said them once before but he couldn't quite put where or when that was the case. Before he knew it, he was already up again in a gloomy mood. He probably wished to sleep a little longer but he still decided to get up for now and looked out of the window just next to him.

"Looks like it is already morning," he said once he saw the sun up in the sky. "...or...maybe it's still night..." he said once he saw the moon up in the sky. Star Twinkle rubbed his eyes. He was clearly not fully awake and must have imagined things but once he took a closer look, he realized that he was not seeing things. "Wait, what!?" He said in shock once looked at the sky again. The sun and the moon were both up in the sky at the same time.

Needless to say, this was not normal. Either Princess Celestia and Luna were pulling some kind of prank on all of Equestria, which was highly unlikely, or someone else was behind this. Staying home would not give Star Twinkle his answer so he decided to go outside. As soon as he stepped outside though, he realized that not only the sky changed. All over Ponyville, there were strange black vines coming out of the ground. After taking a look at the sky again, Star Twinkle noticed that there were also black clouds with thorns coming out of them. Rainbow Dash could be seen flying all over Ponyville to take care of them.

"What is going on here!?" Star Twinkle shouted towards Rainbow Dash once she was close enough.

She stopped for a moment and noticed Star Twinkle on the ground. "I don't know! But we need to do something about it! Go to the town hall, I told everypony to meet up there!" She briefly explained before she took care of the clouds again. Rainbow Dash didn't seem to know anything about the situation either so Star Twinkle just did what she told him to do and went to the town hall.

Once he arrived at the town hall, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie already gathered in front of the building and were soon joined by Rainbow Dash as well.

Rarity was the first one who asked what was one everyponies mind. "Something very strange is going on, and I for one would appreciate an explanation!" She demanded.

"All I know is the sky's split in two, and these clouds moving in sure aren't from around here," Rainbow Dash replied which was basically what Star Twinkle figured out so far as well.

"Neither are all these crazy plants!" Applejack said as she literally tried to pull out one of the vines from the ground with little success. "They're comin' from the Everfree Forest! And try as we might, us Earth ponies can't do anythin' to get rid of 'em!" She complained before she turned towards Star Twinkle and Rarity. "Don't suppose you know any magic that might stop 'em from spreadin'?"

"Alas, this whole raging forest situation seems to have left my horn on the fritz!" Rarity replied. She tried to use her horn but nothing happened, proving that she was not able to do any magic.

Star Twinkle didn't try to transform into a Unicorn yet but he figured that his magic would not work either if he could even transform at all. "Even if we could do magic, We are not Twilight. We don't know a variety of spells that could save the day!" Star Twinkle explained.

"Than what is the next best thing we can do if Twilight isn't around?" Rainbow Dash asked.

This put the group to a stop to think for a minute. The vines were spreading really quick and threatened to cover all of Equestria if this would keep on. They had to find a solution really quick.
Twilight was still in Canterlot, maybe she was already aware of the situation too, but the group had to find something that would help them without her help now.

Pinkie Pie was doing her best to come up with a solution. "If we don't have Twilight to help us, then we just have to think like Twilight. What would she do in a situation like this?" She wondered as she tipped her chin.

This gave Star Twinkle an idea. "Look into some books?" He suggested.

"Yes, darling!" Rarity replied. "I bet one of Twilight's books has an answer to all of this,"

"It's better than doing nothing, let's go!" Applejack agreed before she leads the way to Twilight's library with the other following her right behind.

The group went through every book they could find. Twilight would surely have a breakdown after she saw in what state her friends left the library but that was of minor concern now. Unfortunately, none of them had an idea what those vines even remotely meant or how they appeared in Equestria, making it a little difficult to come up with a solution.

Star Twinkle finished another book and began to think that this was rather hopeless. "Any solution yet?" He asked in hope that somepony else would have found something.

But none of his friends were close to an answer either. "Just keep looking," Applejack advised. "There has to be something in those books!"

Rainbow Dash agreed to that but she was slowly starting that none of the books had the answer. "Instead of looking into those books, maybe we should try to do something else! I mean, it's not like an idea will come crashing into this room or anything!" But just as she said that Twilight literally teleported into the room and crashed in a pile of books, much to the surprise of everypony. "...or maybe it does?" Rainbow Dash corrected before she and the others went to Twilight.

Spike came inside the library through the front door shortly after and began to kiss the ground. "Sweet ground! Sweet, sweet, wonderful ground!" He said overly happily.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Okay, I get it! I need to work on my flying!" She said annoyed.

The group quickly cut to the point and explained the situation to Twilight. They told her about the vines, the clouds and that the Everfree Forest was out of control. She obviously was already aware of the whole night-and-day thing. As soon as one of them brought up that Princess Celestia may have sent her to Ponyville to take of everything, however, Twilight had to bring some bad news.

"You see, Princess Celestia is, well... she and Princess Luna are both..." she began to struggle and could bring herself to explain.

But Spike couldn't take it and spat it out in a panic "Gone missing!"

This caused the group to gasp in shock. With Princess Celestia and Luna both gone, something or someone very powerful must have behind all of this. Luckily though, Twilight came up with something that the others didn't even think about in their panic. "I don't know who has taken them, but I've got a hunch we're going to need the Elements of Harmony to get them back," she said before she gave everypony his and her respective element who, ironically was placed in the same room for everypony to see.

It was just like Applejack said before, the seven of them are connected through the Elements of Harmony. And once again, the group had to band together in order to save Equestria. Normally, Star Twinkle would complain at this moment but he also wanted all of this to get over with as soon as possible.

Applejack practically spoke out what Star Twinkle was thinking. "Now we just gotta figure out who to aim these bad boys at so we can get Celestia and Luna back and keep the rest of Equestria from becoming plant food! Any ideas?"

From the looks of it, Twilight already had a slight assumption of what was going on. She looked out of the window of her library. "Half day, half night... strange weather patterns... out of control plants. I think I'm starting to get a pretty good idea of who we're up against,"

"You do?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight looked back at Star Twinkle. "Remember the last time where there were weird clouds and some weird behavior in the day and night circle?"

Star Twinkle began to think. Suddenly, it actually looked kinda obvious and he felt stupid to not realize it sooner. "You mean?"

"Yes! Let's go!" Twilight said before she leads the way outside with the others following her.

The plan, for now, was to use the Elements of Harmony to summon the culprit right in front of them. The seven ponies formed a circle and activated the Elements of Harmony, engulfing themselves in a rainbow-colored circle of light and levitating above the ground. Shortly after, in the middle of the circle, something was summoned right in front of them.

It was none other than the Lord of Chaos himself, Discord who was happily humming a familiar song in a bathtub, not realizing that he was summoned yet. He quickly wrapped a towel around his body once he noticed that he was summoned to Ponyville but he didn't seem to be embarrassed and just acted as if nothing was wrong. "Now, Twilight, you know Princess Celestia said that you were to give me a heads up before you summon me with that little spell she gave you. In case you haven't noticed, I was in the middle of a particularly invigorating shower," He said as he rubbed his backside right in front of the mare. Twilight didn't have any time to deal with this and quickly demanded that Discord should release Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, and stop the Everfree Forest from invading. To that, Discord only chuckled. "Why, whatever are you talking about?" He asked in a non-caring voice.

"Don't you play dumb with us, Discord! We know you're the one behind all of this!" Applejack said angrily.

By now, Discord was looking around Ponyville and felt happy about all those changes."Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love what you've done with the place, but I couldn't possibly take responsibility. I'm reformed, don't you remember?"

Of course, he was playing this card to defend himself but unsurprisingly nopony believed him. He was the only one who had enough power to change all of Ponyville like that while also taking care of the two Princesses. On top of that, reformed or not, his behavior didn't change one bit, making it really hard to believe that he was innocent.

Discord realized that he was looked at with distrustful eyes. "Come on, I'm innocent. Would I lie to you?" He asked with a smile on his face.

"Yes!" Everypony except Fluttershy replied angrily in unison.

"Well then, it seems we've reached an impasse," Discord replied. "I'm telling the truth, but you think I'm lying. What do friends like us do in a situation like this, Princess Twilight?" He said as he played around with Twilight's crown. "Congrats, by the way, on the promotion. You totally deserve it," he added which sounded highly sarcastic.

Everypony had enough of this joke-star not helping them out at all and decided to turn him back to stone but Fluttershy, as Discord's only friend defended him before it came to that. "Hey! We can't do that! What if he really is telling the truth?"

It was unclear if she really believed him or if she just wanted to protect him because they were friends. Surprisingly, Star Twinkle was siding with Fluttershy on this one. "And if he is lying and does know where the princesses are, then we will never find out where they are if we turn him back to stone..." he said as he was rubbing his chin.

Twilight sighed in frustration and walked up to Discord. "If you're not the one responsible, then help us figure out who is!" She demanded.

But of course, Discord was now playing the sulky act. "I suppose I could, but after all the hoof pointing and besmirching of my good name, I just don't know if I'm up to it,"

"Of course..." Star Twinkle thought as he was shaking his head in frustration.

He then noticed how somepony was walking towards them, dragging a wagon behind her loaded with a whole bunch of stuff. "Wait...is that?" Star Twinkle said as he got everypony to look over to where he was pointing at.

"Zecora!" Twilight then said happily as she walked towards the zebra with her friends following her.

The others helped to place her stuff on the ground before it fell down and made sure that she was okay. She seemed to be pretty exhausted, carrying all this stuff with her.

"From my home, I have had to flee! The forest has grown too wild, even for me!" She explained.
Star Twinkle almost forgot that Zecora lives in the Everfree Forest. With all those vines getting out of control, it was bound to happen that she had to get out of there before it became too dangerous.
Everypony quickly asked if Zecora knew what was going on since the vines came from the Everfree Forest and if there was anyone who would know about this forest then it was her.
"I'm afraid it is a mystery to me as well, but I may have something that, if combined with a spell... "
she said before she went over to her wagon and pulled out a little potion that she placed on the ground.
"I do not dare to use it myself, the results would be tragic. It only responds to Alicorn magic.
Princess Twilight, you can turn the potion from purple to white. After a sip, you may see why the sky is day and night,"

Since this was the only option they had, Twilight gave it a shot. Twilight focused some of her magic and shot it towards the potion. For a moment, it looked like as if she was using dark magic, but it could also be that she couldn't quite control her magic because of the state that Ponyville was in. Whatever it was, her magic worked and the potion turned from purple to white. Twilight then took a little sip of it and waited for something to happen.

"Doesn't seem to be worki-" she said before her eyes glowed in a white light, causing her friends to jump because of how sudden it happened.

After that, there was a short silence. It was little weird. Twilight just stood there motionless and everypony wondered what was going on.

"Uh...What just happened?" Applejack asked confused into the round.

"Right now, Twilight is seeing pictures of the past, it will help us to find out what to do at last," Zecora replied.

"So we just gonna wait until she is back?" Star Twinkle asked.

Zecora only nodded in response. It was a little weird for everyone to look at Twilight standing there motionless with her eyes shining in this bright light. The group had no choice but to wait until Twilight would snap out of it and hopefully come up with something that would help them.

Discord was then chuckling all of the sudden. "I really hope that whatever she will see is going to help us all to save Equestria," he said in his usual sarcastic tone.

Looking at Discord like this, made Star Twinkle realize something. He was right there, and all Star Twinkle could do was to wait for Twilight anyway so this could be finally his chance to get some answers about something that was bothering him for a while now. He didn't like to talk to Discord but it was now or never so he might as well get it over with. He also didn't really want to get an answer because he swore to not bother himself with things in the past anymore but in order to put his mind at rest, he just had to know something that Discord mentioned a while ago.

"Discord?" Star Twinkle said as he approached the Lord of Chaos who was busy knitting some of the vines in Ponyville into a sock. "Can I ask you something?"

Discord looked back at him while rolling his eyes in the process. "Let me guess...it's about your Element of Harmony, right? You know, the thing that you always seem to think about?"

"Well...um...yes..." Star Twinkle replied.

Discord began to laugh. "You really are easy to read. How about you just stop worrying about those things? I mean, it's not like everything revolves around you and your precious element, right?"

It was almost scary how right Discord was with this. Maybe Star Twinkle could sleep easier if he simply didn't worry about it at all. But after, realizing that it was because of the Elements of Harmony that he met his friends, he simply tried to understand why he was the only one whose element was still unknown. If his element would have been replaced by any of the other ones then it would have been nothing to worry about. But that wasn't the case, making all to frustrating for him.

"I just want you to answer me one thing, okay?" Star Twinkle asked. "It's about-"

But suddenly, in his field of view, Star Twinkle saw some movements coming from Twilight who was shaking her head. She then realized that everypony stared at her. "Why are you all looking at me like that?" She asked confused.

"Well...you were just standing there..." Applejack replied.

"We were really worried about you," Fluttershy added.

Star Twinkle then asked the obvious question. "Did you find something out about Princess Celestia and Luna? About where we can find them?"

"I saw something from a long time ago. But it didn't explain what's happening now," Twilight replied a little confused.

Zecora then walked up to Twilight, giving her the potion one more time. "Perhaps farther back still are the answers you seek. Another sip of the potion will give you a peek,"

Twilight wanted to find the answer too so she took one more sip of the potion. And just like last time, her eyes glowed with a white light and she stood there motionless again, meaning that her friends had to wait once more.

This time, Star Twinkle didn't waste any time and went to Discord again. "Discord!" He said grabbing his attention one more time.

Discord rolled his eyes. "Again?" He replied annoyed.

"Discord..." Fluttershy then said as she overheard his behavior. "Star Twinkle is your friend too. You should at least try to talk with him,"

"Alright, alright. But I am not doing this for you..." Discord said a little annoyed before he peeled his ears for whatever Star Twinkle was about to ask. "So, what is it?" He asked though it sounded a lot like as if he was annoyed to put up with this.

Star Twinkle ignored the lack of motivation that Discord showed and cut right to the point. "Remember when you met all of us in the labyrinth in Canterlot? Where you corrupted my friends?"

Discord started to chuckle. "Oh yes! Those were the good old times," he said as he began to laugh happily. "Glad that you brought that up. Maybe this whole talking with you thing is not as bad as I thought,"

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes and continued to ignore how less Discord was taking all of this seriously. "Anyway...you tried to do the same to me but it didn't work. You said it was because I had all of the Elements of Harmony inside of me, all except the new one. And once I said that this was impossible since I am the newest element, you said that you were talking about Twilight's element,"

"Yeah? So?" Discord replied in his non-caring attitude.

"Well, I want to know what that means!" Star Twinkle replied. "How can I have all of the elements inside of me? How can I not have the new element inside of me? How is Twilight's element the newest one if mine was the last one that appeared? That all makes no sense at all!" Star Twinkle exclaimed a little annoyed because of his own confusion.

Discord, however, was not feeling in the mood to give the pony a direct answer. "How about you look into that little head of yours and find out yourself?" He said as he poked Star Twinkle's forehead. "I mean, who knows more about himself than you? Why do you expect me to know something that you don't?"

Star Twinkle couldn't argue with that. That was literally what he expected but the way how Discord put it made him realize that this was a stupid idea, to begin with. The only real important question was why Star Twinkle couldn't come up with an answer himself.

Maybe it was because Discord was enjoying Star Twinkle's confusion or maybe he actually felt bad for him but the Lord of Chaos was generous enough to say one more thing. "Let me at least tell you one more thing that I know," he said, making Star Twinkle peel his ears. "The legend says that there were six Elements of Harmony. Then you suddenly come around and a seventh one appears. Why is that?" He teased, making Star Twinkle use his brain again.

"I don't know..." Star Twinkle replied, not even bothering to answer since he was thinking about this way too often in the past.

But Discord didn't stop. "Maybe one Element is not supposed to be there in the first place?" He then said with a smile on his face.

Star Twinkle didn't like the sound of that one bit. "You mean...my Element is not supposed to-"

Then again, Twilight snapped out of her trance-like state. This time she had a more determined look on her face. The others asked if she found something out this time and to their surprise, she did.

"We need to find...the Tree of Harmony!"

To be continued...

67. Connection - Part 2

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With Twilight coming back from her trance-like state, the group was relieved that she was still okay.
But the words that she said right after were more than confusing.

"We need to find...the Tree of Harmony!" She said determinedly.

"The tree of what now?" Rainbow Dash asked confused.

Twilight briefly explained what she gathered. "I still don't know what's happened to Princess Luna and Princess Celestia, but I think I know why the Everfree Forest is acting this way. Something's happened to the Tree of Harmony," she said.

"And...what is this Tree of Harmony?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight explained further. "It's where Princess Celestia and Princess Luna found the Elements. I think it's in danger."
Despite not fully knowing the whole story, Applejack walked towards Twilight with the determination to find and save this tree. Twilight had some kind of idea where it was and of course, it was the most dangerous place that they could think of, right now. "I think it's in... there," Twilight said as she pointed towards the Everfree Forest.

Whatever this Tree of Harmony was or how it was connected to everything that happened to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, the group had to stop it, even if it meant to go into the Everfree Forest. The whole group stood in front of the entrance of the Everfree Forest with a familiar feeling in their mind.

"Seems like only yesterday we were heading into these woods to find the Elements of Harmony," Rarity said, referring to the last Summer Sun Celebration.

"Seems like only yesterday I was foolish enough to think I should go after them on my own," Twilight said as she was leading the way.

"Seems like only yesterday I was all alone..." Star Twinkle thought, putting a frown on his face for a second.

"I don't know what we're going to face in there. But whatever it is, I know we need to face it together," Twilight said determined, which was followed by her friends cheering in agreement.

The group wandered through the forest for a little while without getting in any trouble so far. This moment of safety gave Star Twinkle the opportunity to think about what Discord said before. About how his Element of Harmony is not supposed to be there. This caused him to look down on his necklace. He didn't want to worry about it but Discord's words were now stuck in his head. He instantly regretted to ask Discord instead of just dealing with his current situation and accepting it. He just had to ask away and make himself feel bothered again.

Twilight noticed how Star Twinkle was caught in his thought and got a little worried. "Is something the matter?" She asked.

Star Twinkle didn't want to bother her with his thoughts and quickly changed the subject. "I'm a little worried about Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,"

Luckily, Twilight didn't seem to suspect anything. "Yeah, me too," she replied with a worried expression on her face. "But I am certain that this "Tree of Harmony" will help us finding them," she said as she continued to lead the way into the forest. This made Star Twinkle wonder why exactly Twilight knew about this Tree of Harmony and what she saw. As soon as he asked what she saw, Twilight explained. "First, I saw how Princess Luna turned into Nightmare Moon, one thousand years ago. I saw how Princess Celestia used the Elements of Harmony to send her to the moon. After that, I came back to you all," she explained.

"Okay..." Star Twinkle replied, not sure what to make out of this. "And then you took another sip and saw something else, right?" He guessed.

Twilight nodded. "The second time, I saw Princess Celestia and Luna when they went up against Discord after he took over Equestria. They used the Elements of Harmony to turn him to stone. After that, I saw where they got the Elements of Harmony from," she then looked up to her crown. "The crystals inside of my crown and your necklaces were inside of this tree. Princess Celestia explained that the tree possesses a powerful magic that controls and contains the growth of the Everfree Forest. I'm sure if we make sure that the tree is alright, everything will stop again,"

"I hope so..." Star Twinkle replied with still some doubts in his mind. Knowing how Twilight came to the conclusion of how to stop the vines, the clouds and the whole day and night thing were good but with Discord's words still stuck in his head, only one thing kept up his attention. He had to make sure about one thing and Twilight could help him to confirm this so. So he just asked away.
"You said that you saw how the Elements of Harmony were used to defeat Nightmare Moon and Discord, right?" He asked, causing Twilight to nod in response, even though she was not completely sure where Star Twinkle was going with that. "How many Elements were there, each time?" He finally asked.

Twilight seemed a little confused but she answered truthfully. "There were six, each time," she simply replied.

This only confirmed what Star Twinkle was fearing. "I...see..." he replied with a slight frown on his face. Of course, there were only six elements, that's what the book about the Elements of Harmony said. There were six Elements of Harmony, Honesty, Generosity, Loyalty, Kindness, Laughter and another Element which remained a mystery.

Even though this was probably not the best time to think about it, Star Twinkle did try to make sense about this by recollecting everything he knew this far.
"Honesty, Generosity, Loyalty, Kindness, and Laughter...those elements were represented by Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie. This much I know. Discord didn't say anything about their elements but he said that I have every single element except the new one inside of me. That means I have at least those five elements inside of me?" He puzzled together. He just put aside how that was even possible and lined up some more information. "Discord said, the new one was the Element of Magic...Twilight's element. So I don't have the Element of Magic inside of me? And what does he mean with that my element is not supposed to exist?"

As Star Twinkle continued to walk right next to Twilight, she began to look over to him. He was not sure for how long she was staring at him but he just pretended that he didn't see that and kept his head forward.

But Twilight was not just pretending she didn't realize that. "I know that look on your face..." She said worriedly. "What is on your mind?"

One of the disadvantages of having close friends like that was that it became really difficult hiding something from them. Still, Star Twinkle didn't want to bother her any further and just changed the subject again. "Let's better hurry. The princesses might be in danger..." he said as he walked a little faster, leaving Twilight behind a little.

"Alright..." Twilight quietly said. She knew that Star Twinkle was not telling her what was really on his mind.

The group continued their way through the Everfree Forest. They soon came across a swamp which was a little hard for every non-flying pony to cross. Luckily, there were some stones where they could jump across. Twilight was the first one to jump on them. She began to shake a little and was about to fall in the swamp. But before it came to that, the stones where Twilight was standing on began to lift her up. Those were no stones. She was standing on the tail of one of the inhabitants of the forest who quickly threw her off and towards the group.

"A Cragadile!" Rarity said in shock of this creature. "Run for your lives!" She added, causing the group to run and accidentally split up in the process.

Star Twinkle was able to get out of the way and so did his other friends. All except one. Twilight was on her own with Spike beside her and the Cragadile, unfortunately, went after her, causing her to back down against a tree. She tried to use her wings to fly away but in her panic, she was not able to flap them properly and was stuck on the ground.

With Twilight separated from the others, Star Twinkle had to act quickly to help her. He grabbed one of the vines that conveniently laid on the ground next to him and threw it like a lasso, at the tail of the Cragadile. Still, he alone was not strong enough to pull it away from Twilight. Luckily, the rest of his friends saw what he was up to and soon joined him. With their combined strength, the group managed to stop the Cragadile to reach Twilight. Applejack took the opportunity and grabbed another vine and formed a lasso. This time it was used to close its mouth. Shortly after, Twilight helped out with her magic and used some more vines to tie up the Cragadile's legs to some trees, keeping it in place and unable to hurt anypony.

The group was safe again and relieved that this was over. Star Twinkle walked up to Twilight. "Are you alright?" He asked in his concern.

"I'm fine," Twilight replied. "I just can't seem to get these new wings to do what I want them to do when I want them to do it," she added while she looked over to her wings, blaming them for getting her in this situation.

"Aw, you'll figure it out eventually," Rainbow Dash assured.

Star Twinkle couldn't agree more with that. If even he was able to get used to flying, then Twilight would have no problem at all, sooner or later. Still, she was not too excited to hear this. ""Eventually" isn't soon enough," she said, clearly referring to how Princess Celestia and Luna were probably in danger right now.

The group continued their way through the forest again. As they followed Twilight, Star Twinkle couldn't help but notice how some of the girls got worried the further they walked into the forest. It was until Applejack spoke up that he realized why that was the case.

"You have been having an awful lot of trouble with those things. And, well, who knows what else is gonna to come after us? You know, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea for Twilight to go back to Ponyville and let us look for the Tree of Harmony without her," she said, making sure to say the last sentence as fast as possible.

"What? Why?" Twilight replied confused and a little angry at the same time.

"For starters, you just about got eaten by a Cragadilly," Applejack pointed out.

"We all did. He wasn't after just me," Twilight said, again a little angrily.

"Sure, but... well, the rest of us aren't princesses," Applejack said.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Twilight asked.

The situation began to get a little more uncomfortable but Applejack explained further. "Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are gone. If something happened to you, I-I just don't think Equestria can risk losing another princess,"

"Applejack does make a valid point," Rarity agreed. "Even if we manage to save the Tree of Harmony, it won't necessarily mean Princess Celestia and Princess Luna will return. Equestria will need somepony to lead in their absence,"

Twilight felt more and more offended by this. "But the Tree of Harmony! I'm the only one who has seen it and knows what it looks like," she pointed out.

Rainbow Dash answered that question. "Huge tree, cutie marks on the trunk, probably being attacked by something hideously awful? Yeah, I'm pretty sure we'll know it when we see it," she boldly explained.

Twilight was at the loss of words for a moment. "What is wrong with you all?" She said, being hurt to hear those words by her friends. She then looked over to Star Twinkle for a last attempt to talk everypony out of this idea. "Star Twinkle, say something! Tell them that what they are saying is wrong!"

Star Twinkle looked over to Twilight. Just when she expected him to say something to support her, his face began to show that what he was about to say wasn't easy for him. "Actually...I think I have to side with the others on this one."

"What?" Twilight replied shocked.

Star Twinkle explained. "It's like Rarity said. We might find the Tree of Harmony but there is no guarantee that we will find the Princesses as well. And if something happened to you then Equestria would be short of one more Princess. Just imagine what happens if other ponies will know about that," he explained.

Tears began to come out of Twilight's eyes. She was sad and disappointed by how her friends thought about this situation. "All of you feel this way? Feel like I shouldn't be here?"

There was a short silence after those words were said. Everypony knew that this was not easy, especially for Twilight.

"It is probably for the best," Fluttershy then said.

Star Twinkle tried to make Twilight understand. "We are just worried about you, Twilight, please try to understand..."

But Twilight didn't reply. She just walked past the group with a frown on her face and her head looking down in sadness. But as she stood right next to him, she whispered some last words to him. "You promised..." she simply said before she walked past him and the rest of her friends, leaving the forest for good.

It took some time until Star Twinkle realized what she meant with that but as soon as he figured it out, he felt bad. It was the promise that he gave her at her coronation. He promised that he would not treat her any different even after becoming a princess. But even after realizing that, he still didn't regret his decision. He wanted her and Equestria to be safe and that just happened to be the best thing to do now. Whether it was the best or not, now it was done and Twilight left the group so the only thing left to do was going further into the forest.

"Let's go..." Star Twinkle said, leading the way into the forest.

A little later...

The mood of the group was really low after Twilight left. Everypony still stood by this decision but at the same time, they felt bad for Twilight and how they had to leave her out of this.

Fluttershy was the first one to actually question their decision. "We...did the right thing, right?" She asked a little nervously.

"Of course, it was!" Rainbow Dash replied.

"Yes, Fluttershy," Rarity said. "I'm sure Twilight understands what we needed to do after we deal with this tree."

"I hope you are right..." Star Twinkle said with some regret in his voice.

The group continued their way through the forest.

There was no sign of this Tree of Harmony that Twilight spoke of. There were black vines as much as the eye could see but there was no tree. Wandering through the forest without any sign of it slowly got to some of the ponies.

"Anypony else starting to think this is a lost cause?" Rainbow Dash said, tired of walking through the forest without finding any clue of the Tree of Harmony so far. "We're almost at Celestia and Luna's old castle. Maybe whatever Twilight saw when she took that crazy potion wasn't real. Maybe there is no Tree of Harmony. Maybe–"

"Maybe it's right down there," Applejack interrupted as she pointed towards a gorge with a cave in one of the sides of it. The vines seemed to come out of this particular cave.

"A cave with dozens of vines coming out of it?" Star Twinkle said. "Yeah...definitely suspicious,"

"How are we supposed to get to it?" Rarity asked.

But before anypony could come up with an idea, some painful noises came from Pinkie Pie. The group wondered what that was about and turned around to see what that was about. As it turns out, Pinkie Pie accidentally found a way down to the gorge by falling down some stairs that conveniently led to the bottom of it. Being Pinkie Pie, of course, this little fall didn't seem to hurt her one bit. "Take the stairs, silly!" She said casually as if the last five seconds didn't even happen.

The six ponies went down the stairs and walked towards the cave. After entering it, the first thing they saw was actually something that resembled a tree. It was covered in vines and in the middle of it, there was something that resembled Twilight's Cutie Mark. There were also branches with some holes in them. This must have been where the Elements of Harmony were inside.

"I guess this is it..." Star Twinkle figured.

"I think it's dying!" Fluttershy said after she took a closer look at the tree herself. The vines, that surrounded the tree were probably absorbing or sealing away the magic inside of it, meaning that they had to remove them somehow.

And that is exactly what they did.

Applejack was the first one. She tried to pull the vines out of the tree but it was useless and it almost looked like as if the vines slapped her away after her unsuccessful attempt. After that, Rainbow Dash attempted to give it a try. She resorted to brute force and charged at the tree at full speed but before she even got remotely close, she has whipped away from the vines as well.

"Valiant efforts on both your parts, but the tree remains in jeopardy," Rarity said after watching both Applejack's and Rainbow Dash's failed attempts.

"And I suppose you've got a better idea?" Applejack asked as Fluttershy helped her up on her hooves again. Rarity didn't reply since she indeed had no plan herself. "That's what I thought," Applejack said, once she was aware of that.

"I know who would know what to do," Fluttershy pointed out before she lowered her head with a frown on her face. "But we sent her home."

"Yeah! Good job Applejack!" Rainbow Dash said, fully blaming Applejack for this situation.

"Me?" Applejack replied offended.

"It was your idea!" Rainbow Dash said as she walked up closer to Applejack, looking directly into her eyes angrily.

"We all agreed it was the best thing, Rainbow Dash! We were tryin' to protect her," Applejack returned with an angry expression on her face as well.

While, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy felt like not interrupting this fight, Star Twinkle was rather annoyed by this. "Hey! Girls! We don't have time for this right now!" He exclaimed.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash looked back at Star Twinkle, the latter of them getting closer to him now. "Hey! You agreed with this decision too, Star Twinkle!" She pointed out as she poked his chest.

"Yes! But I wish I wouldn't have!" He exclaimed, causing Rainbow Dash to back away a little in confusion. After that sentence, Star Twinkle took a huge breath to calm himself down again before he explained what was on his mind. "Listen...we were wrong. We shouldn't have sent Twilight away. We all wanted to protect her but...if we would have stayed together then we could have protected her as well. I mean...now she is all alone. She might be as helpless as we are now..." he explained as he looked down to the ground, frustrated. This frustration quickly jumped over to the others as well. They knew that they messed up and that they are in need of help. Help from Twilight. Star Twinkle began to walk towards the stairs. "I'm gonna get Twilight," he said as he walked past the girls before he turned his head back to them. "You are welcome to join me," he added with a smile on his face.

The girls smiled as and walked towards the stairs as well, ready to bring Twilight with them this time. However, before they could climb them up, just like before, some painful noises caught their attention coming from the top of the stairs. It was Spike, who came falling down the stairs. Star Twinkle managed to catch him on his back before the little dragon would have dropped on the ground. The girls rushed towards Star Twinkle and tried to make sure if Spike was okay and why he followed them.

Spike only managed to say a few words before he fell unconscious due to his exhaustion but those words were enough to get all of them worried.

"Twilight! Trouble! Help!"

There was no time to think. All of them just nodded and lowered their eyebrows in determination. "Let's go!" Star Twinkle said, leading the way.

The six ponies ran as fast as they could through the forest, keeping their eyes out for Twilight. It was not until long till they found her. She was laying on the ground surrounded by some plants that sprayed some kind of gas at her. From the looks of it, she was not hurt but she wasn't moving. The plants realized that as well and took the opportunity to attack her. Luckily, Applejack used one vine as a lasso to tie up the plants.

"Listen here, you rabid rhododendrons! You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!" Applejack said determinedly.

This was enough to courage the others to step in as well. The first thing they did was keeping the plants away from Twilight who laid on the ground defenselessly.

"Go and protect Twilight!" Applejack said towards Star Twinkle. "We take care of those things!" She added before she went to another plant.

Star Twinkle ran towards Twilight and made sure to protect her from anything that was about to attack her. The girls did a good job keeping them away from the two and Star Twinkle kept his eyes open too. Eventually, one plant decided to attack him in order to get to Twilight.

"Please, let this work now!" Star Twinkle thought before he stood ready for the attack. The plant charged right at him and Star Twinkle responded by transforming into a Unicorn and quickly shooting at the plant and knocking it out. Star Twinkle immediately transformed back and realized that he got exhausted by just that. Those vines seemed to have weakened his magic in some way just like how they weakened Rarity's magic.

Luckily, the girls took care of every single plant by tying them all together. The girls then met up with Star Twinkle who was next to Twilight. "Is she alright?" Fluttershy asked in her worry.

Star Twinkle wanted to respond but Twilight seemed to wake up again. She opened her eyes and seemed to be relieved to see her friends next to her. Star Twinkle helped her back on her hooves.
"You came back looking for us? Even after what we've done?" Star Twinkle said though he would have rather said: What he had done.

Twilight showed some regrets. "I came here because I was angry and I felt like as if you didn't need me as a friend since I became a princess..."

Those words struck everypony deep in their heart. Especially, Star Twinkle who quickly wanted to talk her out of this nonsense. "Don't be ridiculous, Twilight. Of course, you are still our friend! You being a princess is something that comes after that," he explained before he rubbed his neck in his realization. "I guess, that's something that I should have figured out sooner...I'm sorry," he added, indirectly apologizing for breaking his promise before. Twilight was happy to hear that and smiled.

"Yes, especially since we're simply lost without you," Rarity admitted.

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash added. "Equestria may need its princess..."

"... But we need our friend," Fluttershy finished.

The group began to hug Twilight and forgot that there was still something to take care of. Luckily Pinkie Pie reminded everypony. "And now, let's save the tree!" She said excitedly.

After that, the group went back to the Tree of Harmony again. Now with Twilight on their side.
Since nopony knew what to do with it or how to save it, they asked Twilight if she had an idea.
First, she was flying towards it, to the area where her Cutie Mark was on to be exact. As soon as she got too close, however, she was attacked by some vines. She was grabbed by them for a second but she managed to free herself. After that, she landed next to the others and shared an idea.

"I know how we can save the tree. We have to give it the Elements of Harmony," she simply said with a serious expression on her face.

Needless to say, the others were heavily surprised by this idea.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, heh. How are we supposed to protect Equestria?" Rainbow Dash questioned.

"How are we meant to rein Discord in if we can't use the Elements to turn him back to stone?" Rarity added confused.

Applejack walked towards. "Twilight... The Elements of Harmony... They're what keep us connected no matter what,"

Twilight understood what her friends were worried about but she was also certain about her decision. "You're right about one thing, Applejack. The Elements of Harmony did bring us together. But it isn't the Elements that will keep us connected. It's our friendship. And it's more important and more powerful than any magic. My new role in Equestria may mean I have to take on new responsibilities, and our friendships may be tested, but it will never, ever be broken,"

While Star Twinkle didn't know how to respond to this decision, he was also sure about one thing. He walked up to Twilight and asked one more question. "You think giving up our elements will save the tree?" To that, Twilight only nodded. Star Twinkle only nodded in response to that as well. "Then that's settled," he replied, fully believing in Twilight.

"There's no time to lose. Everypony ready?" Twilight asked.

"Ready!" Everypony replied in unison.

Twilight then removed the gems inside of the necklaces of the others, as well as the one inside of her crown. She levitated them above her head and prepared herself to give them back to the tree. While she did that, Star Twinkle looked over the tree. Something was off. He didn't think about it before and neither did he realize it until now. "Wait...there are only six branches...and we have six elements..." he wondered.

His thoughts were interrupted, however, after he saw how the vines of the tree attacked Twilight. They were about to grab the elements but Twilight managed to keep them away from them even after they grabbed her too. The vines slowly engulfed Twilight but she managed to let the elements fly towards the tree so that they could return to their original place. Soon five Elements were back in their place and only Twilight's and Star Twinkle's were left. Twilight's element was flying towards the center area of the tree and was inserted of it shortly after. Now only Star Twinkle's element was flying around the tree. However, Twilight was completely caught by the vines and was not able to hold it up with her magic any longer. Nopony seemed to notice that because they were looking at Twilight so it was up to Star Twinkle to grab his element. He transformed into a Unicorn and caught his element. He then looked at the tree with his element levitating over his head but he had no idea where to put it. "There is no place left! Where does my element belong to? Where?"

But then suddenly, a bright light came from the Tree of Harmony. A light that was strong enough to remove all the vines surrounding it. The tree of Harmony was active again, without the need of Star Twinkle's element. "What?" He wondered as he looked up to the tree. In his surprise, he didn't even hear the noises coming from his star-shaped Element of Harmony gem that he kept levitating in front of him. As soon as he heard the noises coming from it he was surprised again by what he saw on his element.

Cracks.

"What?" He repeated after this sight. Cracks were starting to cover his entire element. More and more were soon completely covering it until...

...it shattered right in front of him.

There was surprise and even shock on Star Twinkle's face. He just watched how his Elements of Harmony was shattered before his own eyes. Nopony seemed to even notice that, except him. They were all distracted by the light that came from the Tree of Harmony. Whatever just happened, Star Twinkle was the only one who witnessed it.

The light eventually dimmed down a little and there were only two piles of vines left in front of the tree. Soon, those two piles vanished as well and revealed both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.
Star Twinkle, who was still standing right next to the tree was walking towards Twilight and the others who stood a little further away from it, smiling after seeing both princesses safe. Twilight was the first one to walk straight to them, hugging both of them.

"We know how difficult it must have been for you to give up the Elements. It took great courage to relinquish them." Princess Celestia said, seemingly aware of what happened while they were trapped in the vines.

Of course, Star Twinkle was happy that they were safe but at the same time, he was asking himself if the two princesses knew what happened to his element. But then again, now was probably not the best time to ask that. Star Twinkle just ignored it and walked up to the three but something seemed to be different with Twilight. She suddenly walked away from the princesses and approached the Tree of Harmony. Star Twinkle noticed that the center area of the tree, the one with Twilight's element inside, began to glow again. This glow revealed two more symbols under it, one was a sun and the other the moon. A rainbow colored light went through those two symbols and shortly after, a plant began to grow out in front of the tree. It was about the size of Twilight, who was walking up to it, in order to inspect it.

But as soon as Twilight touched it, the plant opened her leaves and revealed a box. The box had six locks for six keys on the side. "What's inside it? How am I supposed to open it?" Twilight asked towards Princess Celestia and Luna.

Both of them were not sure about it either. They noticed the locks as well and figured that one would need six keys.

But Princess Celestia was not too worried. "do not know where they are. But I do know that it is a mystery you will not be solving alone," she said. She was obviously hinting at the rest of her friends.

Princess Celestia even looked over to Star Twinkle who tried his hardest to not look worried at all. Helping Twilight to retrieve those keys was out of question for him. But one thing puzzled him. One thing that was probably not considered big or even important but he couldn't help but think about it.

"Why are there only six locks?"

A little later, outside of the Everfree Forest...

With all the vines gone, the group had a pretty safe trip through the Everfree Forest. They made it out without any harm. Strangely enough, once they got outside, things became weird again.

The group was welcomed by confetti and banners with their faces on it. Discord was celebrating their return. "Bravo, bravo! How ever did you save the day this time?" He asked, though as usual, it was a little unclear if he was being sarcastic about the situation or not. "Let me guess...blast the beastie with your magic necklaces, I presume? Where are those little trinkets of yours? You know, the ones you use to send me back to my extremely uncomfortable stone prison?" He asked once he noticed that nopony was wearing the Elements of Harmony anymore.

Applejack didn't like to answer to that, "Gone," she simply said followed by a heavy sigh.

"Gone?" Discord replied positively surprised before he started to realize that he no longer could be imprisoned in stone.

Luckily, Fluttershy was there to remind him how to not try anything. "But our friendship remains. And if you want to remain, friends, you'll stop thinking whatever it is you're thinking and help us clean up," she demanded which literally made Discord feel smaller then ever.

"Fine. But I don't do windows," he replied, giving himself a maid uniform, ready to clean Ponyville.

"One thing I don't get. Why did all this happen now?" Applejack asked which was actually a pretty good question. A question that Star Twinkle would have asked long ago if he wouldn't be so into his thoughts.

"I have no idea," Discord replied. "Those seeds I planted should have sprouted up ages ago," he added casually, fully revealing that this whole mess was his fault.

"What did you say?!" Twilight asked angrily.

Discord seemed to enjoy Twilight's reaction and explained. "Well, obviously things didn't go according to my original plan. My plunderseeds should have stolen the magic from the Tree of Harmony and captured Princess Celestia and Princess Luna thousands of moons ago. Alas, it seems the tree had enough magic to keep the seeds from growing up big and strong. Until now, that is,"

"You realize this is information we could have used hours ago?!" Twilight replied angrily.

But Discord was pretending that this was all so that Twilight would learn a lesson about being a princess. Something told the others that the reason for Twilight coming back. In any case, the danger was dealt with and nopony got hurt so that was reassuring enough to be happy now.

Star Twinkle was really the only one who was overthinking things again. Instead of being happy like everypony else, he just thought about his element again. He hated that. He didn't want to worry about stuff like that anymore. His element of Harmony shattered...that happened...he had to accept that. He couldn't change that, making thinking about it pointless. He just dealt with it. That is all he could do, like always.

Canterlot, at the night of the Summer Sun Celebration...

Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Twilight prepared everything for the main event of the day. Many ponies waited in front of the castle, including Star Twinkle and his friends who were waiting for Twilight's big part.

Princess Celestia walked in the middle of the stage and began to speak to her subjects "Citizens of Equestria, it is no longer with a heavy heart but with great joy that I raise the summer sun. For this celebration now represents not the defeat of Nightmare Moon, but the return of my sister, Princess Luna," she said as she turned to her sister.

Ponies cheered and both princesses started their parts. Princess Luna flew up into the sky and lowered the moon. At the same time, Princess Celestia flew up into the air and rose the sun. Both, the sun and moon were now next to each other.

"This is where Twilight's part starts," Rarity whispered.

Twilight then flew up into the air as well but unlike the other princesses who were flying upwards, Twilight flew diagonally between them at full speed. As she flew past them, a giant magic star, in form of her Cutie Mark appeared and covered all of Canterlot. She succeeded at her task, just like her friends predicted.

The partying in Canterlot however was not over, much to Star Twinkle's dislike. Everypony had to stay up really late until the princesses were starting the next day, making him really sleepy at the end of the day. His friends were not staying too long either and went back to Ponyville with him.

Star Twinkle did not do much once was home again, in fact, he quickly went to bed after staying up for that long. It didn't take long until he fell asleep. Once he did, however, he had the same dream he had before.

He woke up in Ponyville and walked out of his house, meeting his friends who were not able to hear or see him at all in the middle of Ponyville. He heard a voice in his head that called out his name, making his head start to hurt. He was then inside of the Castle of the two sisters and was attacked by his friends who used the Elements of Harmony against him. After that, he once again woke up in Ponyville which was set on fire. There were those two ponies in front of him, unconscious with some red magic aura coming out of them and flowing right into him. He heard someone calling his name again, causing his head to hurt again.

In the end, he was awoken by the same words again, that he kept hearing in his dreams.

"You are me...and I am you..."

Star Twinkle woke up in shock and started to breathe heavily. He fully remembered this dream this time. He sat up on his bed and wondered if he was still dreaming. He looked at his hooves and wondered what all of this meant and why he had this dream again.

"This is so annoying," he said as he laid down again. He carefully remembered everything that happened to him recently. Everything that still bothered him.

"Why does all this stuff happen to me? Why me?" He said as he kept staring at the ceiling.
"I am chosen by an unknown Element of Harmony...
I have every other Element of Harmony inside of me...
I can grow a horn or wings...
I was attacked by a pony in a black armor after Twilight was crowned a princess...
My element was shattered...
I keep having those weird dreams..."

After he listed up everything, he started to stare at the ceiling again. He thought about all the questions over and over again. Soon, he narrowed his eyebrows and clenched his teeth. He began punching his bed. "I hate this..." he simply said before he punched his bed even faster and more intense. "I hate this!" He exclaimed angrily before he sat up again and continued to punch his bed. "Why does all this stuff happen to me!? Why!? Why!?" He said before he grabbed his head in frustration, shaking it wildly like a maniac. "Can someone please give some answers!?" But of course, no one answered.

Star Twinkle slowly calmed down again after this outburst and sat there in silence until he finally had an idea. "I think I know where I can get some answers..." he said quietly and determined.

Later, in front of the Golden Oak Library...

"Zecora's potion?" Twilight asked confused.

"Yes. You still have it, do you? Can I take a sip of it?" He asked a little impatiently.

Twilight realized that Star Twinkle was a little stressed over something. "What do you need it for?"

"This potion lets you see stuff that happened in the past, right? I need to confirm something and for that, I need this potion," he briefly explained.

"Alright, I'll get it for you," she said before she went inside and got the potion. She levitated it over to Star Twinkle and let him take a sip. They both waited for a moment until something happened but there was nothing. Nothing happened.

Star Twinkle grew a little impatient and wondered why he couldn't see anything happening. "It didn't take that long until you saw something, right?"

"No," Twilight replied as she inspected the potion. "Maybe it only works for me because it was created by my magic?" She guessed, even though she was not sure herself.

Star Twinkle sighed heavily. "Great..." he said annoyed before he looked down at the ground.

Even though Twilight had no idea what this was all about, she still wanted to help Star Twinkle. She put a hoof on his shoulder and smiled. "How about I drink it to get some answers for you?" She offered.

"You think that will work?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight explained. "Well, I focused my thoughts on Princess Celestia and Luna while I was drinking it so maybe if I think about you, I will see pictures of your past as well?" She guessed.

There was not much that Star Twinkle could say about this. It was better than nothing so he just agreed to that idea. Shortly after, Twilight drank a bit of the potion and waited. It took a while but eventually, her eyes began to glow in this white light again. This must have meant that right now, she was seeing things of the past.

"Now, I just wait...I guess..." Star Twinkle said as he began to wait for Twilight to "come back".

It would be almost scary to see Twilight standing in front of him motionless if he wouldn't have seen it before. There was only one time where Twilight's face changed during all of that. Her face became a little confused and even shocked. Needless to say, it confused Star Twinkle a little and he was wondering what this was about. But he was soon about to get his answer. Twilight was snapping out of her little trance and backed away a little. She seemed to be a little stressed about what she just saw and looked at the ground, exhausted and even a little shocked.

This sudden behavior confused Star Twinkle. She was not even acting like that after seeing the past events of Princess Celestia and Luna. He had to admit that he was a little worried. He reached out his hoof to Twilight. "Are you alright?" He asked worriedly.

But as soon as Twilight noticed how Star Twinkle's hoof was about to touch her, she slapped it away in a reflex. This sudden action caused Star Twinkle to only open his mouth in confusion. The expression on Twilight's face sent shivers down his back. She looked like as if she was afraid...of him. Star Twinkle tried to approach her once more but she stepped away in fear once more.

"I think...you should leave for now...Star Twinkle," Twilight said before she went inside of her library, closing the door quickly after.

There were no words that could describe how Star Twinkle felt being looked at by Twilight like that. He just stood there in front of the door, more confused than ever before. All he wanted were some answers but now he wished he would never have asked for any of this.

"...Twilight?"

Author's Notes:

Just when you thought that you get some answers, this story keeps giving you more than you can process, right?

What do you think did Twilight see? And why this sudden reaction towards Star Twinkle?
And why did his Element just shattered? What is even going on in this story?
I would really like to hear your theories.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

68. Looking for answers...

View Online

Inside the Friendship Express...

It was barely an hour ago when Star Twinkle visited Twilight in his search for some answers. Seeing Twilight react so terrified, only further pocked his curiosity. There was something that he didn't know...something that was hidden from him.

Twilight's scared expression was burned into Star Twinkle's mind. "Why was she so scared...what did she see after she drank that potion?" He asked himself over and over again.

The train was heading to Canterlot. There were as hoof full of other ponies inside the train with Star Twinkle but his head was leaned towards a window where he was looking outside with his mind being far, far away to even realize or even get bothered by that. Canterlot could be seen in the distance. As soon as Star Twinkle saw it, his eye began to narrow. "Things already turned out bad...mind as well go all the way now..." he said determined to still get more answers to his questions.

Discord wouldn't give him a straight explanation, nightmares would continue to haunt Star Twinkle's dreams, and now Twilight would refuse to explain what she saw in her vision after drinking Zecora's potion. With all those things happening to him, it was impossible to just ignore them, even if that is exactly what he wanted to do originally. He already took a dive into the truth and he was not about to stop now.

And there was one pony in Equestria he knew who could give him some answers...probably...

Inside of Canterlot Castle...

Princess Celestia sat on her throne in Canterlot Castle and looked over some letters. She seemed to be done with whatever she was doing and put them away again, shortly after. She then moved her eyes all across throne room to see if somepony was looking. After making sure that nopony was around right now, Princess Celestia used her magic and levitated a plate with a slice of strawberry cake from behind her throne in front of her. She licked her lips and levitated a fork with a little piece of cake on it towards her mouth but as soon as she saw how the big door of the throne room opened, she quickly put the cake behind her throne again and smiled awkwardly to not raise any suspicion.

"Your majesty!" One member of the Royal Guard announced, grabbing the princess's full attention. "A visitor," he simply said before he stepped away, revealing Star Twinkle who was slowly walking into the throne room.

Princess Celestia smiled warmly. "Star Twinkle! What a surprise," she said before she raised from her throne and walked towards the stallion. "What is the reason for your visit?"

Star Twinkle had to remember that it was still Princess Celestia who was standing in front of him so he could not just blandly ask if he can talk with her. He figured that the ruler of Equestria was probably pretty busy right now and didn't have any time to deal with Star Twinkle's problem. But Star Twinkle didn't come all the way to Canterlot to just leave without even asking so he just got to the point very quickly. "Princess Celestia...can I talk with you about something?" He asked without even attempting to waste any time.

Princess Celestia's smile got a little smaller. "About your element?"

Star Twinkle's eye twitched. He was starting to wonder if he was easier to read then he would like to. "Yeah..." he simply replied.

Princess Celestia continued. "About how your Element shattered?" She then said out of the blue with her smile slowly vanishing and turning her expression to a more serious one.

"So you know!?" Star Twinkle replied in surprise looking directly into the eyes of the princess. Before he knew it, he just bombarded the princess with one question after another. "Do you know why it happened? Why was there no seventh Element when you fought against Discord and Nightmare Moon!? Is my Element not supposed to exist, like Discord said?"

But even though Star Twinkle dropped one question after another, Princess Celestia didn't seem to be to overwhelmed and calmly replied. "Star Twinkle...can I ask you a question?"

"Of course..." Star Twinkle said.

"Do you believe it's the Elements of Harmony that connects you with your friends?" Princess Celestia asked.

Star Twinkle felt like as if this was a trick question. Twilight already answered this question before she wanted everypony to give up their elements. He knew what the answer was "No. The Elements of Harmony is what brought us together but it's our friendship that connects us." Princess Celestia was happy to hear Star Twinkle say that and smiled in response. "But. This is not about me and my friends. This is solely about me," Star Twinkle bluntly replied. "I don't mean to be rude but...Discord clearly knew something that I didn't and I suspect you to know something as well," Star Twinkle began to get a lot more serious and looked at the princess as if he completely forgot who he was talking to.

Those words seemed to affect Princess Celestia. The usually calm and collected princess let out a sigh as a sign to give up. "I think it's time that I show you something..." she then said before she used her magic to make a scroll appear in front of her.

This looked really familiar to Star Twinkle. Back then, before his first Grand Galloping Gala, Star Twinkle talked with the princess about his Element of Harmony and how hard it was for him to accept how his boring life changed that much. At that time, Princess Celestia showed him one of the letters that Twilight used to send to her and it showed how Star Twinkle was one of the friends who helped her to realize how important friendship was. He figured that she was trying to do something similar this time.

However, Star Twinkle was heavily surprised after hearing how serious Princess Celestia was. "When I found you, this scroll was right next to you," she simply said as she levitated the scroll in front of Star Twinkle.

"Found me?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Princess Celestia offered Star Twinkle to open the scroll which he immediately did. He took a look inside and began to read out loud.

"Whoever reads this, please make sure that Princess Celestia is informed about this...

This pony in front of you, his name is Star Twinkle.

I have a request...

Make sure that his safety is assured. At least for a while...
Sooner or later he will be targeted because of his connection with the Elements of Harmony.
This has to be prevented at all costs.
I cannot go into much detail about this...neither can I tell you who I am.
I know that you don't have a reason to trust me but all I want is this ponies and Equestria's safety.

All I ask for...is some time...
Until I made sure to deal with everything..."

After reading through the letter multiple times, Star Twinkle narrowed his eyes in confusion. "I don't get it. Who wrote this letter? And what does the writer mean with me being targeted?" But as soon as he asked that question, it struck him. "That pony in the black armor!?" He said in his realization, referring to the pony that attacked him after Twilight's coronation in Canterlot.

Princess Celestia nodded. "Maybe. Of course, with little information like this, it is not clear who this armored pony was or why it attacked you but it might be someone who the writer of this letter spoke of. Someone who was after you in order to get to the Elements of Harmony," she could only guess.

"But why?" Star Twinkle asked. "What connection do I have with the Elements of Harmony?"

"This...I don't know," Princess Celestia said before she got up from her throne and walked across the room. "But I choose to believe what was written in this letter," she said as she stopped at one of the windows to look up to the sky. "The seal that kept my sister inside of the moon was about to break. Nightmare Moon would return and try to cover Equestria in her Eternal Night. Of course, that had to be prevented at all costs..." She said before she turned around to Star Twinkle again. "My precious student Twilight Sparkle knew about this too and sent me a letter to warn me about it," the princess began to smile. "That was shortly before I sent her to Ponyville,"

"What?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Princess Celestia continued. "I sent her to Ponyville to make friends but I also believed that Twilight would find a way to the Elements of Harmony. And since you were connected to them, chances were pretty high that she would meet you so that you could help her to stop my sister," she explained.

"Wait..." Star Twinkle said before he took his sweet time to think about all those things that he just gathered from Princess Celestia. "So besides making new friends, you sent Twilight to Ponyville because you knew that my connection to the Elements of Harmony would help to save Equestria?"

The princess walked up to Star Twinkle and put a hoof on his shoulder after realizing how hard it was for him to comprehend all this. "Listen, Star Twinkle. I'm sorry that I can't give you any more answers. I can imagine how hard it must be for you to have all those questions unanswered but know that whatever you are, were or will become, your friends will always be on your side, no matter what," she said with a warm smile on her face.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but think about Twilight and how she looked at him after she drank Zecora's potion. Maybe she saw something that he was unaware of...something that he wanted to know...something related to him that was connected to this letter. But if what Princess Celestia said was true, then there was no more point to continue talking with her.

Star Twinkle decided to leave the throne room. As soon as he was outside, the doors were closed behind him and he let out a big sigh. "I guess I got here for nothing..." he said with a frown on his face.

In his frustration, he didn't even realize how Princess Luna was standing next to the door, causing him to jump as soon as she raised her voice. "Is something the matter Starfall Twinkle?" Princess Luna asked as she noticed how upset Star Twinkle was after exiting the throne room.

The green pony didn't even try to hide his frustration. "It's nothing, Princess Luna..." he simply said before he walked past her.

However, Princess Luna was not about to give up so easily and followed Star Twinkle. "I really don't mean to be pushy, especially since you already asked my sister for advice but as Princess of the Night, it is also my responsibility to help out, if I can,"

Princess Luna couldn't help him out much since she was trapped inside of the moon for thousand years, Star Twinkle was aware of that. But then suddenly, Star Twinkle stopped in his track. He remembered that there was something else that bothered him. Something that he completely forgot to mention to Princess Celestia. "Maybe you can help me out with something," he said as he turned around to the princess. "There is this nightmare that I have from time to time,"

"I see..." Princess Luna replied. She seemed glad to help with something that was basically her daily bread. "Follow me..." she then said, much to Star Twinkle's surprise.

"What? Don't you want to know what my dream is about in order to help me?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Of course," Princess Luna replied. "That is why I will take a direct look at your dream...in a way,"

Star Twinkle reacted with surprise. "You can do something like that?" He asked.

Princess Luna nodded with a smile on her face. She seemed very confident as well. That was enough for Star Twinkle to believe in her. By now, he appreciated every help that he could find in order to get some answers. Maybe he would even end up to actually get some this time...

A Little Later in a room in Canterlot Castle...

Princess Luna explained that in order to help Star Twinkle figuring out what exactly his dream was about, he first needed to go to sleep. Princess Luna would then enter Star Twinkle's dreams. She explained that dreams are often connected to memories or one's subconscious and those could be accessed to by her.

It sounded promising enough so Star Twinkle gave it a try. All he had to do was to go to sleep. Princess Luna made sure to find a room for this. She picked a room that was decorated with lavender, apparently, that would make it easier for one to fall asleep. Star Twinkle could feel it working after he laid in a bed in the middle of the room. He closed his eyes and just waited to drift off into the dreamland.

But there was a problem...

"This...is not gonna work..." he said before he opened his eyes again. He looked over to his right. Princess Luna was standing next to the bed and kept looking at Star Twinkle. Needless to say, it made Star Twinkle feel a little weird. "Princess Luna could you please not look at me like that?" He said with some embarrassment in his voice.

Princess Luna reacted confused. "But how else do I know, when you are asleep if I don't keep watch you?" She said, clearly not seeing the problem.

Star Twinkle sat up."But I can't sleep if somepony is standing right next to me and keeps watching me!"

Princess Luna rubbed her chin. "Would it be better for you if we leave the room, then?"

"Yes!" Star Twinkle immediately replied.

Princess Luna then did what Star Twinkle demanded and left the room to check up on him later. This made it certainly easier for Star Twinkle to concentrate on sleeping but he still was nervous because he knew what would happen next. He was sure that he could still not fall asleep. But just when that thought crossed his mind, he began to get really sleepy.

Eventually, he finally fell asleep...

Star Twinkle opened his eyes. Around him was nothing but water. After taking a closer look at his surroundings, he realized that he was in a giant fishbowl. Either that or he shrunk in size and was suddenly able to breathe underwater. Star Twinkle didn't mind that. He jumped up and found himself floating in the water, swimming around in circles. He started to have fun doing this without really realizing it.

But then a voice talked to him. "Starfall," it said, catching Star Twinkle's full attention. It was Princess Luna who was landing on the ground next to him, surrounding herself in a magic orb which she removed once her hooves touched the ground.

"Princess Luna? What are you doing here?" Star Twinkle asked. Princess Luna then used some kind of spell that made Star Twinkle realize again what was going on. "Oh yeah, I'm in a dream!" Star Twinkle then said as he remembered what he and Princess Luna were about to do. "Wait! I heard that once you realize you are in a dream, that you wake up!" He said in a panic, trying to find a way to not realize that he was in a dream to prevent that, which was obviously impossible.

"Do not worry, Starfall Twinkle. I can control many things in a dream once I am inside of it. Just do as I say and you'll be fine," she assured. She then used her magic to summon a door right next to the two. "Follow me," she said just before the door opened.

Star Twinkle walked towards the door but he stopped for a moment after seeing something weird that caught his attention. It was his pet Goldfish Comet who was a hundred times bigger than Star Twinkle and Princess Luna. He was levitating in midair just above the fishbowl, motionless and kept staring into the distance.

"This dream sure is strange..." was the only thing that Star Twinkle could say in this situation.

"Dreams tend to be that..." Princess Luna added, unfazed by this picture. She must have seen a lot more strange things in the dreams of other ponies. "Let's go," she then said, once more asking Star Twinkle to follow her.

They both went through the door and closed it behind them. On the other side if the door was what looked like some kind of long hallway which had hundreds or maybe thousands of doors on both walls.

Princess Luna explained the meaning about this hallway. "All these doors lead to the dream realm. Each door belongs to someone else. All I need now is some help from you," she said before she turned to Star Twinkle. "Try to remember that nightmare that you had. Try to remember as much of it as you can. If you do that, a door appears and we can access your memories," she explained.

"Okay..." Star Twinkle replied before he closed his eyes to think of all the events that he saw in his dream.

How he woke up in his bed...
Him seeing his friends in Ponyville...
How they were not aware of his presence and walked away from him...
And how he suddenly found himself in the Castle of the Two Sisters...
With his friends attacking him the Elements of Harmony...
And that time where he was in Ponyville with everything burning around him...

"There!" Princess Luna then exclaimed, causing Star Twinkle to abruptly snap out of his thoughts. It was just like Princess Luna said, a door appeared in front of the two. "Behind this door, you will find the memories that are connected to your dream. They will show you what caused those nightmares of yours," she turned her head towards Star Twinkle. "But keep in mind...whatever you see behind this door may not give you straight answer...it will merely hint what could cause them..."

Star Twinkle gulped. He kept in mind what Princess Luna said to him and slowly approached the door. His hoof reached out to the doorknob and he slowly turned it around to open the door. He only opened it up a little and took a huge breath to prepare himself for what he was about to see. After collecting his thoughts, he then finally fully opened up the door. A bright light emerged from inside of it, causing Star Twinkle to cover his eyes. Still, he walked forward to enter the room with Princess Luna right behind him who seemed unfazed by the light that came from inside the room. After a few seconds the light finally dimmed down and Star Twinkle fully opened his eyes to take a look in front of him. "What?" He said in complete confusion.

Princess Luna shared this confusion. "I have never seen this happen before..." she said, clearly not able to understand what was happening.

There was nothing...
Absolutely nothing...
Only white...

The only thing that could be seen was the color white. Star Twinkle looked all around himself. Up, right, left, down, everywhere he looked at was just the color white. It was like as if he put his face close to a blank piece of paper. There was nothing.

"What's the meaning of this!?" Star Twinkle asked confused, turning towards Princess Luna like a little colt who just saw something behind its comprehension for the first time.

But Princess Luna was just as confused as he was. "I'm not sure. I never saw an empty memory room before. Every dream is in some way connected to at least one memory,"

Star Twinkle began to lose his patience and walked up to the princess. "So what!? This dream of mine just came out of nowhere!? It means nothing!? And this whole room which is supposed to be my memory is empty because I don't have a memory!?"

"Calm yourself, Starfall..." Princess Luna said.

But that only made Star Twinkle feel more frustrated. He dropped to his knees and felt like as if he was about to start crying out of pure confusion. "Discord said that my Element of Harmony was not supposed to exist. It shattered in front of me. As if it was never there, to begin with. Then what about me? I feel like as if I am the one who is not supposed to exist..."

Princess Luna was about to put her hoof on Star Twinkle and say some comforting words but she suddenly stopped and widened her eyes. "Look!" She simply said before she pointed in front of her.

Star Twinkle turned around. His eyes widened as well as he realized that something was in the room this time. It was a pony. A pony stood a few meters away from the two, directly facing both of them. It was a unicorn stallion with a dark orange coat, a dark red mane, and dark blue eyes. Star Twinkle got up on his hooves again and stared at the pony, who stared right back at him with a smile on his face.

"Who...are you?" Star Twinkle asked as he began to walk up to the pony.

But as soon as he got a little closer to him, the pony vanished like dust in the wind until he was completely gone. Star Twinkle wanted to reach out his hoof but in the end, he decided not to and just stood there with his eyes motionless staring into the distance. Eventually, he began to frown before he let out a sigh. "Great...another question added to the list..." he said with a mix of frustration and sarcasm in his voice.

Later in Ponyville...

After this trip in his memories, Star Twinkle decided to head back to Ponyville. In the end, he only got a few very vague answers and even more questions. He could only laugh at how this all turned out. Of course, he would not get any answers. Of course, he would be even more confused in the end. It was just pure frustration that he went through.

He decided to go straight home. Although, he didn't really pay attention where exactly he was walking to since he had his head down all this time. Suddenly, he began to laugh. "I guess I am cursed to walk around confused for the rest of my life, huh?" He could only say jokingly. He then stopped had a sudden outburst. "Is getting some answers really that much to ask for!?" He exclaimed.

Once he calmed down again, he noticed how Twilight was standing a few meters in front of him, looking at him confused. Maybe she wanted to say something to him before his little outburst but right now the situation was far too uncomfortable for her to say anything. Star Twinkle couldn't blame her, he was standing there in the middle of the road as if he completely forgot how to speak.

"I...I think this is a bad time so I just gonna leave..." she said hastily before she turned around to go away again.

"Wait!" Star Twinkle quickly exclaimed with a frustrated tone in his voice. Twilight actually stopped and turned around with a nervous expression on her face, waiting for what Star Twinkle had to say next. "Please don't walk away...and...please...don't look at me like that..." he begged.

Hearing those words made Twilight feel a little bad. She was not aware that her reaction after drinking Zecora's potion was leaving such an impression on Star Twinkle. "I'm sorry..." she simply replied with a frown on her face.

Star Twinkle was frowning as well. "I don't know what you saw...and I think I don't want to know if it made you feel afraid of me. But...with all those other things happening...I don't know how much I can take...if I lose a friend..." he said in his pure frustration.

"Star Twinkle?" Twilight asked confused.

The stallion didn't realize her response and continued. "My Element of Harmony, me being able to turn into a Pegasus or a Unicorn, this pony in the black armor that attacked me, my element shattering in front of me, those weird dreams" he just continued without pause, grabbing his head with one of his hooves. "At first, it was really uncomfortable for me that my life changed this much and I just wanted to return to my boring old life. But then I realized how happy I was...so I accepted everything the way it was and didn't look back. But as soon as I thought that everything was perfect, new things started to happen...and I was back where I was before. I feel like no matter what I do, I' just not able to be happy and I don't even know what to think anymore!" He exclaimed in frustration.

Twilight was walking towards Star Twinkle with a sad expression on her face as if she felt responsible for this situation. "I...I didn't realize that all this was bothering you this much..."

"It does..." Star Twinkle replied, not even trying to hide anything at this point. "I tried to ignore it but I just can't and it's starting to drive me crazy..."

Twilight took a huge breath and then hugged Star Twinkle, who was not ready for this at all and just stood there paralyzed. "Listen..." she started to whisper. "I may have overreacted a little...I'm sorry for that..." she apologized before she released Star Twinkle from her hug again. "It doesn't matter what I saw or what it made me think of you. All I have to know is that you are you. A good friend that I should trust." She then began to rub her neck. "After you broke your promise, I was really sad and even disappointed in you...but then I did the same to you by not talking to you about what I saw...that was not right..."

Star Twinkle appreciated that Twilight said that and smiled a little which caused her to smile back at him. "Thanks," Star Twinkle said. Twilight then offered to tell Star Twinkle what she saw in her vision but he instantly rejected that offer. "Please don't..." he said, much to her surprise. "What you said...I want to believe in that. That I am me. Right now. I don't need to know anything else, right?"

Twilight seemed to hesitate for a moment but she did agree with what he said. "Right..." she simply said. "A lot of things happened recently...maybe we all just need a break,"

"Yeah," Star Twinkle replied. "I think I will go home and just...take a good rest,"

"Yes," Twilight replied. "And Star Twinkle," she said before she put a hoof on the stallion's shoulder. "Don't forget that we are all with you. You may think that you have to deal with everything on your own but your friends will always be with you. No matter what happens,"

Star Twinkle began to smile. It was not a fake smile but a truthful one. He appreciated hearing Twilight say that and actually took it seriously this time. "Thanks," he simply said as he grabbed Twilight's hoof with a smile on his face. Twilight smiled back and then turned around to walk home. Star Twinkle watched how she was walking away. He took a huge breath and calmed himself again. "She is right...she is right...I am me...Star Twinkle..." he kept telling himself. He knew that it was only a matter of time until even more questions would pop, causing him to end up being frustrated again. Trying to find the answers was not helping so there was literally no point for Star Twinkle to go on with this either. He learned this lesson a while ago but every time something new would happen, he just forget about this and wanted answers again. There was no guarantee that it would happen again so Star Twinkle walked home with the thought in his mind that he just had to wait until that would happen.

As Star Twinkle was front of his home, in front of his door to be exact. He opened his door but stopped for a moment to look back. He took a good look at Ponyville. He couldn't help but think about how it was burning in this one dream. He was once again determined to put all those things aside to live his life without any worry.

"Whatever is out there...whatever will happen...I will deal with it..." He thought with his eyes narrowed in determination. "But now...I will enjoy my life without worrying about that..."

After those words, Star Twinkle walked inside and closed the door behind him.

But little did he know that he was being watched...

Somepony was watching how Star Twinkle went inside his house. That somepony was standing on top of a building that was just across Star Twinkle's house. That pony was wearing a pitch black armor that covered it's entire body, fully hiding the ponies coat and mane. On the ponies helmet was a horn and on the sides of the armor, were wings, which were covered with black plates as well, making it unclear what race the pony beneath this armor was. But one thing was obvious. It was the same pony who attacked Star Twinkle after Twilight's coronation.

The pony stared at Star Twinkle's house for a few moments without saying anything. Soon, the pony away and jumped off from the roof of the house it was standing on, spreading its wings and flying into the distance...

Ponyville...?

Twilight found herself in the middle of the road in Ponyville. The mare looked around to find out why that was the case. "I'm still in Ponyville? Did the potion not work?" She wondered.

It was only moments after Twilight drank Zecora's potion because of Star Twinkle who wanted some answers regarding his past. The problem was, she had no idea what she was supposed to be looking out for. Star Twinkle didn't give her too much information and neither did she had any idea why he was suddenly asking for something like that. She was the one who offered her help though and she didn't want disappoint him so the mare walked around in Ponyville to look for him. If the potion worked correctly like the last two times, then her being in Ponyville meant that the pony she was thinking about was not too far away.

Soon, she got an answer in the form of screams that could be heard not too far away. Even though she knew that what she was seeing were events of the past that she couldn't change anyway, Twilight tried to rush towards where the screams came from. However, she stopped because one pony ran in front of her, causing her to stop for a moment. It was a Unicorn stallion with a dark orange coat, a dark red mane, dark blue eyes and a bright orange flash of light as a Cutie Mark. He stopped once he walked past one building and looked around the corner to his left. "Star Twinkle!" He then shouted before he ran around the corner and out of Twilight.

Of course, Twilight quickly followed him once she heard that name. She ran as fast as she could to make sure that she wouldn't miss him and was soon around the corner as well but she was not prepared for what she was about to see.

Fire...

Ponyville was on fire. Ponies were suddenly screaming and running past Twilight who had no idea what was going on. She certainly did not expect Ponyville being on fire. Her mouth was open in shock after seeing this image. The area in front of her was filled with flames the most. That is when she realized that the pony from before was standing a few steps away in front of her. And a few steps in front of him stood Star Twinkle, who's back was turned towards the two of them. And in front of him, were two unconscious ponies on the ground.

"Star Twinkle?" She said, even though she knew that he couldn't hear her.

The longer she looked at him, however, the more she felt like as if something was different. This became even more clear once she took a closer look at him. Star Twinkle had a horn which he used to absorb something from the two ponies in front of him with the help of magic. On top of that, he also had wings. "No way..." Twilight said in her surprise "Star Twinkle is an Alicorn!?"

"Star Twinkle!" The pony in front of Twilight shouted once more, causing Twilight to snap out of her confusion.

This time, Star Twinkle heard the pony and stopped with whatever he was doing to those two poor ponies. He slowly turned his head around and faced the two ponies. This is when Twilight felt shivers running down her spine. There was a malicious grin right under Star Twinkle's red eyes. Twilight never saw an expression like that on his face. As if that wasn't enough, Star Twinkle raised his horn into the air which was shortly followed by a trail of fire coming from his left and right that soon wandered towards the orange coated stallion and Twilight, trapping both of them in a big ring of flames. Twilight panicked a little because she was not sure if those flames could actually hurt her. The flames then began to raise up into the air and trapped Twilight and the Unicorn completely in a cage of fire. The Unicorn seemed surprised as well but as soon as Star Twinkle slowly walked up to him with this sinister grin on his face, the Unicorn's face became more determined and even angry.

Twilight felt like as of she doesn't belong in this situation, which was ironic because she wasn't there to begin with, given that this was the past.
But what kind of messed up past was this?
Star Twinkle, one of her closest friends was setting Ponyville on fire with a smile on his face?
And on top of that, he was an Alicorn?
Twilight didn't know how to deal with that. She wanted to deny seeing those things. But this was the past. This happened and there was no denying in that.
But if that all happened then what was the meaning of that?
Why was Star Twinkle behaving like that?
And why is he no longer an Alicorn?
Why is he so different now?

It didn't take long until Twilight would return to the present with Star Twinkle standing confused in front of her. Of course, she was confused and even scared of Star Twinkle after seeing those things. She didn't know what to think of it and went inside her library, leaving Star Twinkle outside. Later that day she would have eventually settled things again but that feeling of Star Twinkle not being the pony she believes he was, wouldn't leave her. She decided to put her trust in Star Twinkle, especially since she heard how he felt about all those things that happened to him recently but that haunting vision wouldn't leave her mind that easily. One of the most haunting things was definitely those words that Star Twinkle said right before Twilight would return to the present. They were what scared her the most and completely changed the way how she looked at him. Hearing them from him, out of all ponies, put fear in her mind.

And those words were:

"This will be the end...of your Equestria!"

Author's Notes:

I guess that is enough story progression for a while. Let's return to the Slice of life parts, which are safe and totally not dark or confusing.

Still, I would like to hear your opinion on some things...

What did you think happened in Star Twinkle's past?
What do you think he is, was or will become?
Who is the pony in the black armor?
Who wrote the letter?
Or any other question that might pop up in your head ^^.

Of course, I will not tell you if you are right or wrong but I would like to hear what your theories are or where you think this story is heading to with all those things.

Please consider leaving a like or a review to let me know what you thought about this chapter. I would also appreciate it if you follow me so that you can be up to date of every other story that I write (which are all connected to this one).

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

69. Symphony of the Night

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Both Star Twinkle and his boss, Steel Hammer, took a rather unusual trip this afternoon. They decided to to go to the Everfree Forest. Steel Hammer led the way through the forest with Star Twinkle following right behind them. This trip through the forest took a long while, mainly because Steel Hammer didn't really know where he was walking to. Of course, Star Twinkle was against going through the Everfree forest because it could be really dangerous but it seemed like whatever Steel Hammer wanted to do in there was really important. Also, since Steel Hammer would have annoyed him with this over and over again, Star Twinkle decided to just get it over with.

As they walked through the forest for a while now, Star Twinkle became a little impatient. "Why exactly are we walking through the Everfree Forest at this time? It can be dangerous here..." he pointed out.

But Steel Hammer wasn't afraid in the slightest. "So what? If it comes to the future of the Iron Hammer, nothing is too dangerous!"

Star Twinkle kinda figured that he was dragged along because of some kind of business thing and rolled his eyes. "And what does the future of the Iron Hammer have to do with us visiting the Everfree Forest?"

Steel Hammer turned around for a moment. "Didn't I tell you?" He asked confused.

"No!" Star Twinkle replied. "After work, you just said: I need you to go to the Everfree Forest with me!"

"Oh..." Steel Hammer replied. "Well, you are about to see anyway so just wait," he said before he continued his way through the forest again.

Star Twinkle let out a sigh in his frustration and just kept following his boss. After fighting their way through some more bushes, Steel Hammer finally stopped after finding what he was looking for. "Here we are!" He exclaimed happily.

"Where?" Star Twinkle asked after he fought his way through some bushes thanks to Steel Hammer leading the way. He looked at what Steel Hammer was standing in front of.

Steel Hammer turned towards Star Twinkle and presented him something very familiar. "This...is the Castle of the Two Sisters!" Steel Hammer said as he literally presented the castle in front of Star Twinkle.

The green coated stallion was completely unimpressed. "I know..." he just replied.

Steel Hammer didn't seem to notice and simply continued. "It was this place where Princess Celestia and Luna used to live in a thousand years ago," he further explained.

"I know..." Star Twinkle repeated.

Steel Hammer felt a little challenged to tell Star Twinkle something that he didn't know. "Did you also know that once the Elements of Harmony were-"

"Yes! I know!" Star Twinkle interrupted annoyed. "I have been here before! And because of all this Element of Harmony thing, I looked up some things about this place as well. I probably know more about this place then you!"

"Alright!" Steel Hammer replied, trying to calm Star Twinkle down again. "How about we get inside to start our work?" He said before he walked across the bridge that would lead to the castle.

Star Twinkle groaned in his annoyance, mainly because he still didn't know what this was all about, and followed right behind. Still, he expected an explanation from Steel Hammer as soon as they would enter the castle. It was a little weird to return to this place after such a long time, especially since he had those weird dreams recently, where this castle appeared in as well. The thought that Steel Hammer would bring him some answers to his questions actually made Star Twinkle chuckle a little. Of course, there must have been another reason.

They opened the doors of the castle and slowly entered it. Steel Hammer instantly looked all around the entrance hall as if he was looking for something. This only further confused Star Twinkle. "Do you mind telling now why we are here?" He asked.

Steel Hammer turned around and began to laugh almost maniacally, causing Star Twinkle to get a little scared so he backed away a little.

"I had a brilliant idea how to boost our business!" He said.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle was no longer surprised and rolled his eyes because he didn't saw through the obvious reasoning why Steel Hammer would come to this place. It was not the first time that Steel Hammer had a "brilliant idea" and every time it would end up with Star Twinkle doing some hard work or something weird. Just remembering how he had to attend some weird activities on Nightmare Night gave him a good clue how things would end for him. "And...what is this brilliant idea?" Star Twinkle asked in really obvious annoyed tone.

"I decided to came here in order to find some inspiration!" Steel Hammer replied.

"For what?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Steel Hammer answered with a question. "Where do rich ponies live?" Steel Hammer asked, expecting Star Twinkle to answer but after he didn't, the brown coated stallion continued. "Castles! Ponies with lots of money don't live in small wooden houses! They live in really big and fancy castles! After I realized that, it struck me!" He explained before he dramatically paused and to reveal his idea. "Wooden castles!"

Star Twinkle had a hard time to understand. "Wooden...castles?" He replied confused, not really sure what to make out of this.

"Yes!" Steel Hammer replied. "We go in there, we look at the structure and the style and we learn how to apply it to woodwork so that we can be hired to build wooden castles!" He explained highly enthusiastic.

"That sounds like hard work..." Star Twinkle said with a rather bothered expression on his face. "Besides, I don't think anypony would be too excited about wooden castles. I mean, usually, a castle is made out of rocks..." he pointed out.

Steel Hammer was unimpressed by those facts and countered. "I heard the Crystal Empire had a castle made out of Crystals," Steel Hammer simply replied.

"I..." Star Twinkle replied before he tried to find more words. "I don't know how to reply to that..." he said as he practically gave up on talking Steel Hammer out of this idea.

"Listen..." Steel Hammer started before he put his front legs around Star Twinkle's shoulder. "Ponies with a lot of money tend to spend it for things that we could never imagine. I heard that just recently this Blueblood prince fella bought a diamond covered collar for his pet dog!"

"What's so weird about that?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"He doesn't have a dog!" Steel Hammer exclaimed. "My point is, they have so much money and they don't know what to spend it on so they just go and buy the craziest things just because they are fancy! If we promote the Iron Hammer as a workshop that started to build wooden castles, one crazy prince or princess would like to have one because it's a castle, you know, the houses of royalty! We can demand all kind of prices and our workshop would instantly become the most successful shop in all of Equestria! It's a perfect plan!" Steel Hammer explained further and further almost getting caught in his own words out of pure enthusiasm.

He almost chocked Star Twinkle without realizing it, causing the green coated stallion to free himself from this rather harsh hug. "Alright, alright!" He said before he freed himself from his boss. "So what now? What are we supposed to do in this castle?" He asked, simply tagging along with this idea to get it over with. He knew that this would not work but Steel Hammer was way too caught up in all of this that he probably wouldn't even listen to Star Twinkle.

"Well, since we have no idea how to build a castle, I figured that we look around to so that we could get an idea how it looks from the inside," Steel Hammer explained before he set out and walked towards one corner of the entrance hall. "I look over here and you over there," he said as he pointed towards another corner of the room.

Star Twinkle did as he was told and just walked to another corner to literally look at the wall. "This is just stupid..." he thought before he began to take a look around the castle.

While Steel Hammer was dragging him around because of this weird idea, Star Twinkle actually appreciated having another look at the castle after a long while. The first time he was here was because he followed his friends who set out to find the Elements of Harmony. He had no time to look at the castle back then so it was nice looking at this ancient structure for the first time. It was actually quite similar to Canterlot Castle. The entrance was a long hallway with stairs on the sides and the end of it up in the ceiling, there were banners hanging down with pictures of Princess Celestia and Luna on them. It was quite a sight for Star Twinkle.

Steel Hammer, however, didn't pay too much attention to the decoration and rather inspected some of the bricks on the wall. He soon noticed that one of them stood out a little more than the others. "Is this intended?" He wondered before he fiddled around with that one brick. Before he knew it, the wall in front of him began to shake. The wall then turned around and caused Steel Hammer to land on the other side of the wall.

Star Twinkle was unaware of all of this and continued to look at the bricks in front of him, pretending that he was inspecting them, which was pretty easy because he didn't know what exactly he was supposed to look out for. "Are we done checking out this castle?" He then asked with a clearly bothered tone in his voice. "We may don't want to spend too much time in this castle since it is about to get dark," he pointed out before he turned around to where Steel Hammer was, only to find out that he was nowhere to be found.

"Steel Hammer?" Star Twinkle asked in his confusion. "Where did you go?"

Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, Steel Hammer sat on the ground confused about what just happened. "A trap door?" Steel Hammer wondered before he rubbed his chin and proceeded to take a closer look at the wall in front of him. "Wonder if some costumer would be interested in some of those..." He then looked over to his right and realized that he must have been in some hidden hallway. He could have easily get back to the other side of the wall but he decided to follow the path further to find more.

Star Twinkle was walking around in the entrance hall to look for Steel Hammer but he couldn't find him. He figured that his boss decided to wander off to somewhere without telling him. Realizing that, Star Twinkle got a little annoyed. "I knew this was a stupid idea," he said with his eyes narrowed in annoyance as he continued to walk through a random hallway. "This castle is so big...we can't afford to separate in a place like this," he complained.

Star Twinkle walked past a bunch of portraits with some random ponies on them that Star Twinkle didn't even remotely know. The clothes they were wearing looked like something that ponies would be over thousands of years ago which of course made sense since this castle is that old. He only took a brief look at one of them and felt a little uncomfortable. "Ugh...never liked that kind of pictures. Always feels like as if their eyes follow you around..." he said as he slowly walked past them without paying much more attention to them.

It began to get dark outside, causing the castle to get much darker on the inside. It made it look a lot creepier than it already was. Star Twinkle was not too happy about that. "Where are you, Steel Hammer?" He said as he continued to walk through the hallway while keeping his ears open in caution. "Why did he even brought me to this place if she just decided to take off on his own?" He complained, his tone getting a little more annoyed. "I swear, as soon as I find him, I will-"

Then suddenly, there was a clicking noise under Star Twinkle. The next thing he knew was that he was falling through the ground and landing on some kind of slide. He shrieked out of his surprise and how fast he was sliding on this thing, not to mention that he had no idea where he was going because it was so dark. Eventually, the slide ended and he found himself in another hallway with his face on the ground. He got up on his hooves again with his head still shaking from this ride. For him, that was enough action for a day. Once the world stopped spinning, Star Twinkle looked around to find out where he was. It was a hallway with a bunch of armors lined up on the walls.

He started to get a little nervous looking at those things. "As if this place wasn't creepy and ominous enough..." he said in his discomfort. He walked through the room and couldn't help to stare at some of those things. They were just like the portraits from the last room, he had the feeling as if they were watching them. He did pull himself together though and took a closer look at them, even going so far as moving his head right in front of one of them. "Seeing all those armors kinda reminds me of that one pony that attacked me back then," he mumbled to himself, referring to the pony in the black armor from after Twilight's coronation.

After remembering this incident, Star Twinkle got a little carried away and tried to play the brave one. "You gonna attack me too?" He asked towards the lifeless armor in front of him. This castle must have taken it's toll on Star Twinkle sanity if he was starting to talk to a set of armor now. "No? Don't think that I am afraid of some kind armor or anypony who wears one!" He said as he poked the chest plate of the armor in front of him. He actually waited a little while for a response, his eyes focused on the not moving armor in front of him. But of course, there came no answer. "Thought so," he then said as he turned around again to leave this room.

But just as he about leave the room, he heard something from far away, causing him to jump in fear for a moment. "What was that!?" He asked in shock, his eyes widened and his teeth clenched in fear. If he wouldn't know any better then he could swear that it was music but he didn't have time to figure that out because there were more noises from behind him. Behind him were the all those pony armors, which alone made him nervous enough to turn around. He then screamed on top of his lungs after he saw how all the armors were starting to move upwards with the help of some pedestal beneath them. Star Twinkle's brain didn't even have the time to process what was happening right now and decided to quickly tell him that he should get out of there...fast.

After he ran out of this hallway, and up some stairs, he found himself back in the entrance room where he was at the very beginning. He was a little out of breath after climbing all those stairs like a professional marathon runner in only a few seconds. "What just happened? Why were they moving all of the sudden?" He asked himself in shock. "This all wouldn't happen if Steel Hammer didn't drag me into this place!" He complained again in an angry tone in his voice.

"You called?" A voice then suddenly asked from behind Star Twinkle which caused him to jump several hoofs into the air in his surprise.

After Star Twinkle landed back on the ground, he turned around and saw how Steel Hammer was standing there with a grin on his face. "Where have you been!?" He asked annoyed grabbing both of Steel Hammer's shoulders in the process.

"Sorry," Steel Hammer apologized with a grin on his face. "I guess I got a little sidetracked by this secret passage that I stumbled across,"

"Secret passage?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Yeah!" Steel Hammer replied. "They seem to be all over the place. Installing those things might be a little difficult..." he explained.

Star Twinkle was not really sure what Steel Hammer was talking about but he knew that there were strange things happening in this castle judging from this slide and the moving armors so he decided to talk Steel Hammer out of this idea to walk around in this castle. "Yeah! Difficult! Maybe we should scrap this idea! Or at least do it another day since it proved to be much more time consuming than we actually thought," Star Twinkle said.

Steel Hammer rubbed his chin and looked up at the ceiling, thinking about this for a moment. "I guess, you are right...I think we need a whole day to take a good look at the whole castle," he figured.

"Exactly!" Star Twinkle replied with a fake excited expression. Hearing that made him actually pretty happy. He led the way to the entrance of the castle with Steel Hammer following right behind him. Star Twinkle took the opportunity to already come up with a plan to talk his way out the next time Steel Hammer wanted to take him to this castle again.

Steel Hammer was following Star Twinkle a few hooves away while still taking a look at his surroundings and the structure of this castle. Star Twinkle was so concentrated in leaving this place and coming up with an excuse for the next time, that he completely missed how he was stepping on some kind of button on the ground. Soon, Steel Hammer heard a clicking noise beneath him and looked down but before he realized what happened, he fell through the ground and landed on a slide that would lead him away from Star Twinkle.

The green coated stallion was completely unaware of what just happened and continued to lead the way so that he could leave this castle as soon as possible. All while making sure to let Steel Hammer know that this was maybe not the best idea. "Now that we know how much work building a castle out of wood, I think we can safely say that this might not be the best idea, right?" He asked awaiting an answer from Steel Hammer behind him. However, once no answer came from the stallion, Star Twinkle had a slight assumption what just happened. "You...just vanished again...right?" He asked before he slowly turned his body around to confirm his thought.

Steel Hammer was gone...

"Argh! For Celestia's sake!" Star Twinkle exclaimed frustrated.

A little later...

Star Twinkle had no other choice but to look for Steel Hammer again. He was actually thinking about leaving the castle without him but then he would feel bad because he didn't know if he was okay or not which was yet another reason for Star Twinkle to be trapped in this castle. Of course, after realizing that, he was not too happy. "Wooden Castles..." Star Twinkle mumbled annoyed. "Couldn't he come up with something easier? Like wooden statues? Or something else...something smaller..." he complained.

But as soon as he was finished complaining, something caught his attention again. Star Twinkle, out of reflex, transformed into his Unicorn form ready to shot at anything that was moving. But there was nothing so he transformed back and calmed down again. "I'm sure that was just the wind..." he said to himself in order to calm down but after a few seconds, there were more noises coming from far away. It sounded like as if something broke or shattered. As a result, Star Twinkle got a little nervous. "I'm sure that was just the wind as well..." he said to calm himself down once more.

Then suddenly, music started to play very loudly followed by a scream relatively close to him, causing Star Twinkle to jump again in fear. Star Twinkle's legs began to shake and he turned his head towards the direction from where the scream was coming from. "...and I am pretty sure that this was just...the wind..." but before he could finish his sentence, something came charging at him. Star Twinkle only saw shadows and was not entirely sure what it was but it came charging right at him so he prepared himself to shot a before it would reach him. However, before he fired, something was flying above his head at high speed. He couldn't quite figure out what it was but it caused a distraction. Whatever it was, it crashed against the walls like crazy and caused a banner to land right on Star Twinkle's head. He tried to remove it but the thing that came charging at him seemed to ran directly at him and made him spin around, making him dizzy and unable to figure out where he was.

Soon after, something ran into a pillar nearby Star Twinkle, causing it to collapse which scared Star Twinkle. What followed after was a loud shriek that he would even scare him further. "What is going on!?" He screamed in a panic.

There were noises coming from everywhere. Screams, noises of things getting shattered or destroyed, it was a mess. And the worst of all, Star Twinkle couldn't see a thing or move properly because of the banner that was on top of him. "I just want to go home!" He then screamed in fear, frustration, panic, and a lot more emotions that pilled up inside of him.

"Alright, everypony, stop!" A voice then screamed through the hall, causing the whole room to be silent again.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle was frozen in place. In a way, it calmed him down but he also didn't like to not being able to move so he decided to transform to a Unicorn to use his magic to lift up the banner that was on top of him. He notices a light purple aura that surrounded him. It was magic and soon he realized who it belonged to as soon as he looked up and saw how Twilight and Spike were standing on top of the stairs.

"Twilight?" Star Twinkle asked with another voice mixing with his own the moment he said that. He looked over to his left and noticed that he was not alone. "Applejack?" He then asked in surprise after spotting the mare next to him.

"Must...save...Angel!" Another voice then said right in front of Star Twinkle. It was Fluttershy who seemed to try lifting up some debris for some reason. "I don't have time for this! I need to save Angel!" She then said before she looked up to where Twilight was standing at only to realize that Angel was standing right next to her. "Oh," she then said in her realization, blushing a little.

"Fluttershy? What are you doing here?" Rainbow Dash then asked, who was levitating above everyponies heads.

"She's with me..." Rarity then answered, who was sitting a little further away from the group with a banner on her head that must have fallen on her.

After everything went quiet again, Star Twinkle suggested that Twilight should release her magic again since he didn't like being frozen like that. Twilight did as he suggested and the group was freed, giving them all some time to explain the situation to each other.

Twilight was the one who seemed the most confused so she started. "Have you all spent the whole night running around, scaring each other?" She asked.

"Well, that depends," Applejack replied with some caution in her voice.

"On what?" Twilight replied.

"On whether or not you're the Pony of Shadows," Rainbow Dash asked almost as if she was accusing Twilight of something.

"What's... the Pony of Shadows?" Spike then asked, practically taking the words out of Star Twinkle's mouth.

"Oh, that's just an old ponies' tale," Twilight replied amused. "It said that after Luna turned into Nightmare Moon and was banished by Princess Celestia, that some of her magic was still left inside of this castle and took the form of some kind of "Pony of Shadows" that would haunt this place to this day," Twilight explained.

But right after she was done explaining that, music started to play very loudly, causing everypony to quickly get closer to each other out of shock. "Then who's playing...that?" Spike asked while shaking heavily in fear.

Then it finally struck Star Twinkle. He took a closer look at the group and realized that there was somepony missing. Somepony he knew was inside of this castle with them. "Steel Hammer!" He then said a little angry just at the thought that he could be the one scaring him all this time. "Let's go!" He then said. "I have a slight feeling of who is playing this music,"

The group then walked closer and closer to where the music was coming from until it led them to a room with a big organ. And of course, somepony was right in front of it, wearing a black hood and playing it.

"The Pony of Shadows!" Twilight then whispered.

"No, it's not..." Star Twinkle then said annoyed before he walked away from the group to confront the pony. "Very funny, Steel Hammer but you can stop now. Do you know how scared we all got because of you?" He scolded Steel Hammer before he stood there waiting for Steel Hammer to stop fooling around with everypony.

Little did he know, that Steel Hammer was just walking past the girls, much to their shock, and approaching Star Twinkle who kept waiting for the Pony of Shadows to reveal itself in front of everypony.

"Hey, Star Twinkle. What are you doing?" Steel Hammer asked oblivious to the whole situation.

"Trying to make you stop playing this organ and reveal yourself as the Pony of Shadows," Star Twinkle replied with his eyes focused in front of him.

"Oh...cool," Steel Hammer replied before he decided to watch Star Twinkle continue.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle widened his eyes and turned around. "Steel Hammer!?" He then said in pure shock, moving his head back and forth him and the Pony of Shadows repeatedly. Shortly after, he dashed behind Steel Hammer's back to hide, his body shaking in the process. "But...aren't you supposed to be over there, playing the organ?" He then asked in fear.

Steel Hammer had a confused look on his face. "I don't even know how to play the organ. Besides, I am standing right here so..."

Now with Steel Hammer out of the picture of being the Pony of Shadows, everypony began to get nervous again. The one who was the least scared, was Twilight so she took it upon herself to approach the pony. The Pony of Shadows didn't seem to notice Twilight and continued playing the organ. Once Twilight was close enough, she used her magic to take off the ponies hood to reveal it to the whole group.

Once the hood was removed, a female Earth Pony with a pink coat and a pink mane...
The mare turned her head around and greeted everyone. "Hey, you guys! Did you know I can totally play the organ? Because I didn't!"

"Pinkie?!" Then everypony replied in surprise, suspecting the pink party pony to be the last pony who was scaring them the whole time.

"You're the Pony of Shadows?" Rainbow Dash asked in sheer confusion.

"The pony of what?" Pinkie Pie replied as she continued to play some tunes on the organ with a single care in the world.

Star Twinkle let out a sigh in his frustration. Of course, there was some kind of logical explanation. He just didn't imagine it to be involved with Pinkie Pie. According to Applejack, Pinkie Pie was allowed to ring the school bell for a whole week but Pinkie Pie seemed to get a little carried away with that so she was asked to stop it and came here for a so-called "finish ringing the school bell" party! She then explained in her non-sense-making-words that she didn't have everything for that kind of party which would then led her to the Everfree Forest to get some missing ingredients where she saw Fluttershy and Rarity entering the castle.

"Luckily, I followed them inside so I could help you all with your party!" She then said.

"What party is that?" Rarity asked confused.

"Uh, the "everypony come to the scary old castle and hide from each other while I play the organ" party? Duh!" Pinkie Pie replied as she continued to play the organ.

This was simply too much for Star Twinkle to process with his brain. "Can we go home now?" He said heavily annoyed by all this randomness that would lead him to get stuck in this castle.

A little later...

With all of his friends around him, Star Twinkle eventually decided to stay a little longer inside the castle. It gave everypony some time to explain why they were all in this place at the same time.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack held a "Most Daring Pony" competition to see who could stay the longest in this castle without getting scared, especially after finding out about this old "Pony of Shadows" tale. Rarity came to this castle to gather some decorations of this place to use it as an inspiration for her boutique while Fluttershy happened to tag along to help her. And Twilight and Spike were here because Twilight didn't find any book that could tell her something about this strange chest that came out of the Tree of Harmony.

Knowing that there was not some kind of Pony of Shadows inside of this castle and that all of their friends were in here, made it much easier to stay in this place without getting afraid. Star Twinkle was also relieved to hear that Steel Hammer scrapped the idea of building wooden castles since it seemed a little too complicated to pull off, meaning that the whole trip to this castle was not completely for nothing.

"I can't believe that I got scared by an old and abandoned castle...my imagination must have run a little too wild," Star Twinkle said as he scratched his head.

"I think we all did," Applejack said with all of the other girls agreeing to that as well.

"I always let my imagination run away from me! Then it comes back... with cake!" Pinkie Pie said, of course making little sense.

"Whoa!" Steel Hammer expressed after those words. "You need to teach my imagination to do that!" He said, making as much sense as Pinkie Pie herself.

Twilight then shared what she learned out of this experience. "Well, it's good to know that whenever your imagination is getting away from you, a good friend can help you rein it in. And even though I didn't find anything out about the mysterious chest, I'm glad I was here to help all of you,"

"You certainly did that, Twilight," Rarity replied.

"Yeah! Why weren't you scared?" Rainbow Dash then pointed out.

Twilight explained. "Reading Celestia's diary made it hard to be afraid because I knew what it was like when she and Luna lived here. Knowing something about the past made it easier to deal with my problems in the present, even the scary ones." Hearing that certainly made it pretty understandable to not get afraid of this place for the others, so they agreed with Twilight's words.

Then suddenly, an idea struck Twilight. "Why don't we keep a journal, just like the royal pony sisters?"

"All of us?" Fluttershy asked.

"Sure!" Twilight replied. "That way we can learn from each other! And maybe someday, other ponies will read it and learn something, too!"

It seemed like a pretty good idea. Star Twinkle had to admit that he wouldn't come up with something like that on his own because it sounded a little too bothersome but with all those things happening to him, he figured that he needed something where he could document some things to keep his mind a little more sorted.

"I know what my first entry will be!" Applejack said. "Dear Diary, I'm glad Granny Smith's legend wasn't true."

"Me too!" Rainbow Dash agreed.

"Me three!" Pinkie Pie joined in rather excited. "Because that means you two are still tied for Most Daring Pony!" She then said, causing the two mares to probably start another competition pretty soon.

"Heh, Shadow Ponies... How ridiculous is that?" Spike said, clearly trying to hide that he was scared as well, even though the others wouldn't think less of it knowing that since they were scared as well.

Later...

The group separated again after leaving the Everfree Forest, leaving only Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer, who was going home. Star Twinkle waved Steel Hammer goodbye as soon as he was walking up to the Iron Hammer, ready to call it a day.

"What a strange tale," Steel Hammer mumbled to himself. "Pony of Shadows, eh?" He said as he looked up at the night sky above him. Then suddenly, something crossed his mind. Something that he didn't think about while the others were talking about this legend. "This kinda reminds me of that one rumor that I once heard. What was it about again?" He wondered as he scratched his head on his way home. He tried to remember what one traveler pony told him a while ago. Of course, Steel Hammer didn't believe this pony and thought it was supposed to be some kind of story that a crazy pony could come up with but now after hearing this Pony of Shadow Legend, it was actually worth thinking about it a little further.

"Oh, yeah!" Steel Hammer then said raising his hoof in excitement. "Ponies covered in dark auras and with white soulless eyes!" He then stopped and tried to find more information in his head only to find out that there were none. "Come to think of it...that's it..." he figured. "But if an old and popular tale like the Shadow Pony is not true, then something ridiculous like that can't be either..." he then said before he continued to enter the Iron Hammer and to go to sleep after a day like that.

Author's Notes:

Aren't you glad that the Pony of Shadows is just a legend? Good thing that isn't real...right?

Anyway!
We are entering the Slice of Life potions of this Season!
I hope you have patience because it will take a while till the "story" of this story continues again. But if you read past almost 400,000 thousand words up to this point then you probably have inhuman patience. Which I really appreciate by the way ^^.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

70. Don't you Dare!

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Star Twinkle walked through the road of Ponyville. He was on his way to the Golden Oak Library. Apparently, there was a party held in there. He had no idea what kind of party it was but he made sure to show up either way and wished that it wasn't a big one.

He stopped in front of the Golden Oak Library. "Well, here I am," he said after he opened the door to Twilight's library and attending the party.

As soon as the door opened, however, the stallion was greeted with a rain of confetti that was blown right at him and a pink party pony welcomed him. "You're here! Glad you could make it!" She said excitedly before she wrapped a party hat around Star Twinkle's head. "Are you ready to party!?" She asked.

"I don't know!" Star Twinkle replied, clearly feeling a little uncomfortable being attacked by Pinkie Pie like that. "What kind of party is this? You really need to be a little more specific with your invitations," he said as he pulled out a letter at the same time. "I mean, "Party at Twilight's place...please come, there will be cake" doesn't really tell me what kind of party this is supposed to be..."

Pinkie Pie laughed. "Aww, you are always overthinking things a little too much," she said amused while petting Star Twinkle on the head, much to his dislike. "It's a party to celebrate National Random Holiday Party Day!" She explained.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle was even more confused now. He looked over at the others only to see them raising their shoulders in confusion but still with smiles on their faces. They had no idea what exactly she was talking about and just went on with the party so Star Twinkle did the same. "Where is the cake?" He simply said as he walked past Pinkie Pie, putting a smile on her face.

Star Twinkle had difficulties to understand what exactly this party was about and just ended up with a slice of cake next to him. Luckily, there were only his friends at this party, making him actually enjoy it a little bit. Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy were dancing in the middle of the room while Twilight and Rarity were enjoying the cake and the punch. He decided to join the latter.

Once he approached them, the mares immediately greeted him. "I'm surprised that you actually showed up," Twilight said. "You know, partying not being your thing and all that,"

"Me too..." Star Twinkle simply replied.

"It only proves that you open up more and more to everypony," Rarity then added while taking a sip from her punch. "A very good change if you ask me," she said smiling at Star Twinkle happily.

"Why did the subject have to be shifted to me?" Star Twinkle thought while he was munching on his cake. "Common, there has to be something else to focus on...wait a minute!"

"Where is Rainbow Dash?" Star Twinkle asked.

Applejack stopped dancing. "I tried to invite her but she was so caught up with reading that last Daring Do book for the twelfth time," she explained.

Fluttershy joined the conversation as well. "She is very excited for the new book to come out in the next three months and twenty-six days,"

"That's oddly specific..." Star Twinkle replied to which Fluttershy only smiled.

"And wrong," Twilight added. "The release of the book has been pushed another two months,"

Fluttershy seemed a little shocked to hear that. "Oh dear...I don't think I can take...uh...I mean Rainbow Dash can wait any more time to wait for it," she said while making an embarrassed face.

Star Twinkle didn't seem to be worried about that. "Well, if she was prepared to wait four months, then I'm sure she can take it well after hearing that the book got pushed another two months,"

The group then got startled a little after they heard a party horn being blown at the front door by Pinkie Pie, greeting Rainbow Dash who had a really shocked expression on her face. "Two more months!?" She then said frustrated after hearing the bad news. "I've been waiting so long already! I don't think I can take another two months! I'll never make it!" She then said while shaking and sweating heavily.

"Or maybe not..." Star Twinkle corrected after witnessing the state of the mare himself.

Rainbow Dash then dropped to the ground in her frustration, causing Star Twinkle, Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy to walk up to her out of worry. "Did they give a reason?" She then asked as soon as she noticed the group coming closer to her.

"The publisher just said author A.K. Yearling won't be able to finish the book for another two months," Twilight explained.

Rainbow Dash didn't seem to be too happy to hear that. Everypony knew by now how big of a fan Rainbow Dash was of the Daring Do books and since Rainbow Dash was never known to be very patient, nopony was really surprised to see her being upset about that.

Once she calmed down a little, she confronted Twilight. "How could you possibly know that before me? I'm the series' biggest fan!" She claimed.

"I'm just as big a fan as you!" Twilight replied. "In fact, I'm the one who first introduced you to the books, remember?" She pointed out, referring back to when Rainbow Dash was still a little ashamed of being an egghead for liking the series.

"Oh. Right," Rainbow Dash replied after remembering that fact as well.

"A.K. Yearling just might be my favorite author. I know everything about her," Twilight claimed which didn't strike anypony by surprise given how serious Twilight was taking some of her hobbies. "Where she grew up, where she studied literature, where she wrote the first Daring Do book..." she listed up, making it kinda look like as if she was showing off her knowledge about the writer of the book.

While Star Twinkle felt like as if Twilight was showing off a little to much and feared that Rainbow Dash wouldn't like hearing that because of her competitive nature, she instead got interested after a while. "Where she lives?" She then asked out of the blue.

Twilight seemed confused about this question. "Uh... no, though I could probably find out somehow. Why?"

Rainbow Dash explained "Don't you get it? The new book is obviously delayed because she needs help dealing with whatever everyday nonsense is distracting her from spending her every living breathing second writing! So I– I mean, fans like me can get to read the new book ASAP!"

"Or..." Star Twinkle then interrupted, seeing right where this was going a mile away and trying to stop it until it was too late. "Maybe she is just having trouble to come up with new content? I mean, writing is probably not always easy and sometimes you are just at a loss. Just be patient and wait for the next entry and I am sure that in the end, it will pay off," Star Twinkle explained before he unconsciously winked as if he was giving a signal or something.

"What was that?" Pinkie Pie then asked after this random gesture.

"I...don't know," he replied after realizing that he wasn't so sure about that himself.

But Rainbow Dash ignored those words and turned towards Twilight again continuing with her own theory. "Think about it! We could help her with her laundry, buy her groceries, cooking her meals, whatever! Now, who wouldn't appreciate that?"

"Me?" Star Twinkle said since he would be the one who would end up doing this work. But again, it struck on deaf ears.

"Hmm, I don't know..." Twilight replied, clearly not liking this idea herself. "What she probably wants most of all is respect for her privacy," she pointed out.

"She can always just say no," Rainbow Dash replied to that which unfortunately was something that the group didn't know what to say against that, much to Star Twinkle's dislike.

Twilight looked over to Star Twinkle who was painfully obviously not liking the idea to wander around Equestria to convince a writer to finish a book. It sounded like a lot of work and he didn't like the idea but in the end, he just gave in and agreed with the idea as well.

"I suppose you're right..." Twilight answered.

This caused Rainbow Dash to change her mood in a second. "Of course I am," she said before she dashed out of the door and ready to find A.K. Yearling in order to convince her to finish the next book. But after realizing that she didn't know the address yet, she came back a little embarrassed. "So... how's about getting that address?"

Later...

Before they knew it, the group was on their way to A.K. Yearling's house which just happened to be inside of a forest not too close to Ponyville, making this actually quite a long trip.
It was just like Star Twinkle expected: Really bothersome...

"You see what I mean? Why would she live in this remote part of Equestria except to keep folks from intruding on her privacy?" Twilight pointed out.

By this point, Star Twinkle didn't really care why this A.K. Yearling was living in this place and rather complained about it. "She could have just lived in a normal house in some town or city and never leave it if she wanted to be alone...that's what I did after all..." he explained, which actually got some chuckles out of some of the girls.

Rainbow Dash already went ahead and kept her eyes open to find the house of A.K. Yearling but she shortly returned and said that she spotted it, causing the group to follow shortly behind. What they found was an open space with a small house on it. It must have been A.K. Yearling's house. But something was different. There was stuff scattered all outside of the house and the door was loose. Someone definitely broke into it.

Worried what might have happened to A.K. Yearling, the group approached the door to enter the house and take a closer look inside of it. It looked even worse on the inside. Pictures on the walls were broken, cupboards were thrown over, and books were scattered all over the place.

"Hoo-wee, somepony really trashed this place," Applejack expressed.

"Or maybe A.K. Yearling's just a terrible, horrible, unbelievable slob!" Pinkie Pie figured.

"Well, writing can be really stressful at times..." Star Twinkle said before he winked for a second again.

Pinkie Pie noticed that once again. "What is with you and winking recently?" She asked confused.

"I...I don't know!" Star Twinkle replied confused himself.

"Oh no! What if something terrible happened to her?" Twilight said in worry.

"I know!" Rainbow Dash said in her worry as well. "There might be no more books!" She then added, much to the disappointment to everypony. She quickly realized that she should be more worried about A.K. Yearling well being instead of how much her book was finished. "Uh... But, of course, I'd be worried about her, too. Heh," she then corrected, even though her intentions were obvious.

Shortly after, a mare entered the room and was surprised to see so many ponies in her house. "What are you all doing here?" She asked confused.

The mare had raspberry red eyes, a light gold coat color, and her mane was black and hidden under a grey cloche. She was also wearing a purple shawl and heavy red-framed spectacles. This pony seemed a little upset about the number of ponies that were inside of the house, not to mention what state it was in. This could only mean that she was living in this house.

"A... K-K... Yearling...?" Rainbow Dash asked nervously before she let out a small squee after she realized that the writer of her favorite book was standing right in front of her.

But A.K. Yearling quickly suspected that the group was responsible for the mess in her house. Of course, everypony tried to convince her that this wasn't true but the author didn't seem to care and looked all over the place to find something. Finding something in this mess was not easy but she managed to find what she was looking for. It was a book with a golden hoof symbol on it. It looked pretty important to her. She then moved around some circle-shaped locks on the side of the book, followed by her pressing the hoof symbol in the middle of the book and turning it around. The book then opened and revealed a big golden ring that was hidden inside of it.

The mare sighed. "It's safe," she said in relief before she hid the ring under her clothes.

Of course, everypony wondered what that was all about but all Rainbow Dash could think of was continuing her original plan. "Great! Maybe now would be a good time for me to ask her how we can help move the new book along a little faster. Chop chop!" She said, completely unaware of how annoyed A.K. Yearling reacted to that and didn't even bother to pay attention to that.

"Rainbow Dash, a minute please!" Twilight said before she used her magic to drag Rainbow Dash out of the house with her magic. She figured that Rainbow Dash was taking it a little too far with her approach and scolded for not taking A.K. Yearling privacy in consideration. "A.K. Yearling has made it pretty clear that she wants to be left alone. We need to respect her wishes!"

Pinkie Pie then jumped next to the two mares. "You should tell that to those guys," she said while she pointed to the roof of the house.

Everypony looked up to the roof as well. There were three ponies entering the house from a window. Judging from how they took that "entrance" rather than going through the front door, it was obvious that they weren't just gonna visit A.K. Yearling for a friendly chat. In fact, they could be the ones who ravaged the house in the first place.

The group decided to take a look inside of the house by peeking through a window. The three ponies approached the author from behind but she noticed the danger coming up to her and turned around. Everypony feared that A.K. Yearling was about to be attacked by the three and prepared themselves to go inside to help her but then, A.K. Yearling threw away her cloche, her shawl, and her spectacles and revealed some more clothes beneath them.

The group was shocked by what they saw. It was like as if she became a completely different pony. She revealed herself as a Pegasus and her mane was not dark gray but consisted of multiple shades of gray. She was now wearing a dark olivine vest and a tan pith helmet with a dark olive band. She also had a compass rose as a Cutie Mark. Star Twinkle was not sure at first but he was pretty sure that he knew who that was.

Eventually, Rainbow Dash and Twilight confirmed Star Twinkle's thoughts. "A.K. Yearling is Daring Do!?" They both said shocked.

"What. You didn't know that?" Star Twinkle said sarcastically.

Before the group could even comprehend this realization, a fight broke out inside of the house. Daring Do still had the golden ring that she earlier hid under her clothes and those three ponies desperately tried to get their hoofs on it. But just like the stories in the books, Daring Do managed to cleverly outsmart her attackers and keep the ring to herself.

"Amazing!" Applejack said, watching this fight.

"Incredible!" Rarity added.

"So much action!" Pinkie Pie expressed fully enjoying the fight as if it was a movie.

"Shouldn't we...help her...or something?" Star Twinkle suggested, feeling a little weird watching all this unfold in front of them.

"Are you kidding? It's Daring Do!" Rainbow Dash replied. "There is no way that she is gonna lose to a bunch of guys-" However, once Rainbow Dash that Daring Do was once more surrounded by those three ponies, she began to get worried and screamed out. "Daring Do!"

Daring Do heard that scream and got distracted by it for a moment. The three ponies noticed that little moment of unawareness and attacked the mare while her guard was down and managed to let her drop the ring, causing it to land near the front door where another pony was standing at. The pony picked up the ring. "Many thanks, Daring Do," he said.

It was an Earth Pony with a brown almost grayish coat color, a black mane with some light gray stripes, and grayish green eyes. His Cutie Mark was was a golden skull with a red jewel in one eye. He was also wearing a beige vest and a red scarf with white dots around his neck. He thanked Daring Do for finding this, what he called "treasure" for him, after their search for it was unsuccessful, indicating that he and the other three ponies were the ones who created the mess inside of the house.

"Give it back, Caballeron!" Daring Do said, trying to walk up to this pony but she tripped because she got hurt by the previous battle.

"That's Doctor Caballeron to you," the stallion corrected.

While all this was going on, Rainbow Dash and Twilight almost narrated everything for those who were not that informed about what was going on. Rainbow Dash put one of her front legs around Star Twinkle's shoulder. "He's from book four: Daring Do and the Razor of Dreams. He wanted to partner with Daring Do on her adventures," Rainbow Dash informed, with a huge grin on her face.

Twilight then moved her head towards Star Twinkle to feed him even more information that he didn't really ask for. "I know, but she refused! I can't believe it! The real Daring Do and the real Caballeron!" She said while looking at this in pure excitement.

Star Twinkle would never think that he would be the one who wanted to jump into action instead of Twilight and especially Rainbow Dash. Then again, he was not sure what exactly he was dealing with so he ended up watching all of this with them, waiting how things would evolve.

Meanwhile, inside of the house again, the conversation between Daring Do and Doctor Caballeron continued...

"So let me guess: Ahuizotl has put you up to this? You're stealing the ring to give to him so his hold on the Fortress of Talacon will be good for eight centuries as foretold by prophecy!" Daring Do suspect.

"Close, but... no," Doctor Caballeron replied. "I'm going to sell this to him, make a bundle, and retire from archaeology in splendor,"

Daring Do tried to attack Doctor Caballeron but was held back by his henchponies "Caballeron, you fool! You're dooming the valley to eight centuries of unrelenting heat!"

But Doctor Caballeron ignored her and ordered his henchponies to leave with him. They dropped Daring Do on the ground and all left the house. Daring Do tried to go after them but she still looked a little hurt and wasn't able to even stand up properly.

The group kept watching this and Star Twinkle just kept wondering how long it would take the mares around him till they realized that they were not watching a show or a movie. He actually counted down and called when somepony would say something.

It was Fluttershy who finally spoke up. "Uh... should we go in and help her, maybe?" She suggested, causing everypony else to snap out of just watching the scene and taking action.

By the time, where everypony went inside of the house, Daring Do already attend to her wounds by strapping a bandage over her right front leg. As a true Daring Do fan, Rainbow Dash immediately walked up to her idol and offered her help but Daring Do quickly slapped Rainbow Dash's hoof away. "I got this," she said annoyed as she continued to take care of her wound, much to Rainbow Dash's surprise.

Fluttershy walked up to Daring Do as well. "Um, she was just trying to help, Ms. Do," she said, trying to clear up any misunderstanding that might have occurred with Rainbow Dash's approach.

But Daring Do made her message clear. "Daring Do doesn't need help. She handles her business herself," she said before she limped out of the house and following this Doctor Caballeron guy. Her wings were not hurt so she easily flew up in the air and started her chase.

The group walked out of the house as well. "We've gotta go help!" Rainbow Dash quickly suggested.

"You heard her! She says she works alone!" Twilight reminded.

"How can we just stand by and do nothing? You know what's at stake here! Ahuizotl has sought control of the Tenochtitlan Basin since book three!" Rainbow Dash replied.

"True, but in book four, she defeated Ahuizotl and secured control of the Amulet of Atonement, dispelling the dark magic of the Ketztwctl Empress, and thus protecting the basin with the Radiant Shield of Razdon!" Twilight countered.

"But the Radiant Shield of Razdon is vulnerable to the dark enchantment of the Rings of Scorchero!" Rainbow Dash explained.

"But are you forgetting that the Rings were scattered to the four corners of Tenochtitlan, thus rendering the dark enchantment powerless?" Twilight asked.

In the meantime, the rest of the group just stood there in silence, watching the two discussing all this stuff in front of them. Star Twinkle slowly moved his head towards his friends to whisper something to them. "I'm not the only one who has no idea what they are talking about, right?" He asked. His response came in the form of his friends shaking their heads and raising their shoulders in confusion. "Okay..." Star Twinkle simply said before he listened further to the two mares. He only read the first volume of the Daring Do books so he at least had some knowledge but even he felt like listening to two ponies speaking in an entirely different language.

"Only if you assume that the Rings have yet to be retrieved, and the ring Caballeron just stole isn't the last to completely restore the dark tower and its cruel hold on Tenochtitlan! Did you ever think of that?!" Rainbow Dash said, finishing the almost endless feeling discussion of the two.

Shortly after, there was a small silence until Star Twinkle decided to speak up and to confirm what is supposed to happen next. "So...this Caballeron guy having this ring is bad...I assume?" he asked confused from what he gathered of the discussion of the two.

"You bet it is!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "We gotta help Daring Do retrieve the ring for safekeeping before it's too late!" She suggested.

Star Twinkle finally had to put in his opinion into the mix of all this. "I kinda with Twilight on this one," he said as he walked out of the group. "I mean, if A.K. Yearling is Daring Do, then that means that those adventures in her books must be based on her own adventures and judging from those, she always seemed to deal with them on her own so-"

"She left..." Twilight said in the middle of Star Twinkle's sentence.

Star Twinkle looked to his left and just now noticed that Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be found. She must have left while he was trying his best to talk her out of this idea of helping Daring Do, much to his dislike. He let out an annoyed sigh. "Did she at least left with a plan?" He asked but all Twilight did was shaking her head. "I thought so..."

"Somepony needs to go after her to keep her from doing anything stupid!" Applejack suggested.

"Agreed..." Star Twinkle said. After the way she was acting so far in the presence of her idol, it was only natural to keep her in check before she would end up ruining everything for Daring Do. Strangely enough, however, he didn't saw anypony volunteer to take up this task so he looked over at the girls only to notice that they were all looking at him. Star Twinkle quickly identified what those looks meant and didn't like it. "Me!?" He asked confused.

"Well, you can fly after her," Twilight pointed out, hinting at Star Twinkle's transformation.

"Just like you!" Star Twinkle replied annoyed. "And Fluttershy too!"

Fluttershy backed up a little. "I'm not very good at convincing others...especially Rainbow Dash..."

Twilight approached Star Twinkle. "She generally doesn't tend to listen to me either, especially since she wants to prove that she Daring Do's number one fan. She can be very stubborn so she needs somepony who can deal with that," she explained.

"And that one is me?" Star Twinkle replied, still not really buying the reasoning that Twilight wanted to get across. Star Twinkle didn't really got a response and only saw his friends looking at him with high expectations. Seeing that only put more pressure on him so he decided to give in and decided to transform into his Pegasus Form before he let out an annoyed groan. "I knew this trip was a bad idea..." he just said before he was on his way to where Rainbow Dash was flying to.

As Star Twinkle was flying through the air, he couldn't help but mumble some complaints on his way to Rainbow Dash and Daring Do, to let off some steam. "What makes them believe that I can talk Rainbow Dash out of this all? Everypony else could have done this better than me...but here I am, trying to be the one who takes charge of this situation. Can't I just sit on the sidelines for a chance?"

It took some time for Star Twinkle to actually catch up Rainbow Dash. She was flying at a really high speed after all. But since Daring Do is most likely not as fast as her, she couldn't have been too far away from Rainbow Dash.

After some more time, he actually managed to find Rainbow Dash. She was slowly walking through the forest as if she was looking for something and Star Twinkle knew exactly who it was. This meant that he had still time to deal with her before she had the time to mess up Daring Do's plan. He landed a few steps away from her, turned back to his normal form and tried to convince her to somehow return to the others and to let Daring Do take care of the situation. "Hey Rainbow Dash, how about we-" but as soon as she turned around to find out who was approaching her, somepony tackled him to the ground. "What the-" he tried to say but this somepony put her hat on Star Twinkle's face to prevent him from seeing anything and confused him even more.

"Wait!" Rainbow Dash then shouted, causing the fight to stop.

The attacker then lifted up the hat from Star Twinkle's face and revealed herself to be Daring Do. "Oh, it's you guys..." she said before she walked away from Star Twinkle again, leaving him on the ground.

Star Twinkle got back on his hooves again and groaned annoyed. "I didn't even do anything yet..." he mumbled annoyed, feeling that this task, was only about to start.

Rainbow Dash, then walked over to Star Twinkle. "What are you doing here?" She asked.

"Stopping you from doing anything stupid, to put it in Applejack's words..." Star Twinkle replied annoyed, still wishing somepony else would have taken this task.

Rainbow Dash chuckled slightly. "No need for that. All I am here for is to help Daring Do...and showing her how tough, brave and cool I am," she explained confidently.

"Uh-huh..." Star Twinkle replied, not caring about that one bit. "That's exactly what I am trying to prevent..."

"Yeah, you're right! I should go and impress her with my awesomeness! Let's go!" She replied, completely ignoring Star Twinkle's words like she did before and secretly following Daring Do.

"That is not even close to what I..." Star Twinkle said but of course, Rainbow Dash wouldn't listen to him and kept following Daring Do so Star Twinkle had no choice but to follow right behind as well. "Yep, pretty much went the way I expected it to go..." he said with an annoyed tone in his voice.

Rainbow Dash was hiding in some bushes and waited for an opportunity to impress her idol. She advised that Star Twinkle should keep his head down so that he wouldn't ruin her moment to impress Daring Do. As soon as Daring Do walked up closer to the bush, where the two were hiding in, Rainbow Dash jumped out of the bush. However, instead of saying something that Star Twinkle would consider "awesome" or "cool", Rainbow Dash got maybe a little nervous in front of her hero.

"I am suuuuuch a huge fan," she said in admiration before she laughed nervously.

Naturally, Daring Do wasn't impressed by this and just continued to ignore her number one fan admiring her. After, Rainbow Dash's unsuccessful attempt to impress Daring Do, Star Twinkle popped out of the bush as well. "Good job. You totally convinced her," he said sarcastically, but again, he was ignored and Rainbow Dash kept following Daring Do.

This time she was a little more direct and approached Daring Do, face to face. "Wait, wait, wait! Let me help you! I promise I could be a huge, huge help if you just give me a chance," she offered while still trying to act calm and cool in front of her.

But Daring Do narrow her eyes. She was really starting to get annoyed by Rainbow Dash's constant approaches. "I. Work. Alone," she simply said before she walked past Rainbow Dash.

But Rainbow Dash wouldn't just give up and actually crawled on her knees after her idol, practically begging to assist her. "But why won't you let me team up with you just this once?!" She asked her.

Daring Do explained. "My work always involves secrets. And since you never know who you can trust, it's best never to trust anypony,"

"But just because you can't trust some, doesn't mean nopony can be trusted!" Rainbow Dash replied.

Daring Do started to get sick to even talk to Rainbow Dash. "Look, I don't have time to argue-"

"Neither do I. Let's go!" Rainbow Dash interrupted before she flew up in the air to look for Doctor Caballeron on her own, expecting Daring Do to follow her. But instead, Daring Do complained about her under her breath which was actually pretty understandable at this point for Star Twinkle.

Daring Do then looked over to Star Twinkle. The stallion actually got startled because the way she looked at him, made him feel as if she was throwing daggers at him. "Don't worry! I'm not here to get in your way," he said nervously to prevent her from attacking him or something. "I'm just here to take her away from you so that you can go back on your job," he assured.

"Well, you are not doing so well, so far," she said before she got on her way again.

"Yeah...I know..." Star Twinkle admitted before he followed Daring Do. If he wanted to get to Rainbow Dash, he simply had to follow Daring Do for obvious reasons.

A little later...

It took until it got dark but the three actually managed to catch up to Doctor Caballeron and his henchponies. They set up a camp to rest and most likely prepare themselves to return to the marketplace in town. At least, that's what Rainbow Dash figured.

The three ponies made sure to stay out of sight and Daring Do actually came up with a plan to deal with the situation herself. She dug up some mud from the ground and covered half of her face with it. After that, she smashed her hat a little. Rainbow Dash quickly realized what was going on and got excited. "Oh, Look!" She said to Star Twinkle. "She is gonna ambush them like in book four at the Horavian caves! Or maybe, she is doing that neat trick from book three, where she swooped in and knock three guys down with one swing! Or maybe-" But before Rainbow Dash could finish her sentence, Daring Do threw a very annoyed expression towards her. "Okay. I'll be quiet now," she then said before she backed away a little.

Daring Do then put on her smashed hat and put some leaves on her mud-covered face to make it look like a beard and pulled out a little sack with bits inside of it. Shortly after, she walked up to Doctor Caballeron. Even Star Twinkle figured out what exactly she was planning to do now. She tried to buy that ring herself while in disguise. That way she could get it back without those guys even figuring it out. That would actually result in a peaceful result to get this ring back, something that Star Twinkle really would like to.

It actually looked as if it was working. Doctor Caballeron wasn't suspecting a thing and offered his hoof to seal the deal but then a loud roar could be heard from nearby. The ground was shaking and something pushed the trees away until a strange creature revealed itself. "Caballeron!" It said angrily before it demanded the ring from Doctor Caballeron.

It was some kind of big dog-like creature with dark blue fur and a light blue colored belly, hands and face. It also had an elongated dog-like head, with eyes positioned over its nose at the end of its snout, dog-like hind limbs and ape-like forelimbs, and a long monkey-like tail with a hand on its end.

After taking a closer look at this creature, Star Twinkle actually realized who it was, based on his memory of the first book that he actually read. "It's that one guy...Daring Do's enemy...uh...what was his name again?"

"Ahuizotl! What kind of fan doesn't remember Daring Do's archenemy!?" Rainbow Dash then scolded before she went back to watching every second of what was happening to Daring Do.

Ahuizotl then demanded the ring from Doctor Caballeron but he was way to scared of this Ahuizotl guy and just ran away, dropping the ring on the ground, leaving only Ahuizotl and the still-disguised Daring Do on the spot, the latter one quickly grabbing the ring and throwing off her disguise in front of Ahuizotl, who was not too happy to see her and was about to attack her. However, Daring Do made sure that the ring was out of reach at all costs.

"The ring, Daring Do! Give it to me!" Ahuizotl demanded once more.

But Daring Do was not scared at all "Now, Ahuizotl, you know I love you, but I can't give you the ring 'til I've properly proposed," she replied, teasingly, playing around with the ring a little.

"Interesting, because my friends here have a proposal of their own," Ahuizotl replied unimpressed before he snapped his fingers to call some reinforcements.

This reinforcement came in the form of a tiger, a black panther, a jaguar, a lynx and...a small house cat, all of them growling angrily at Daring Do, especially the house cat. But the adventurer was not scared at all and waited until the first cat would make a move. Eventually, the black panther charged right at her, only to get slammed in the face by the mare, knocking it to the ground immediately and leaving the other cats surprised but also enraged. What followed was Daring Do taking care of all the cats on her own and clearly proving that she had the situation under control.

This was the perfect opportunity for Star Twinkle to convince Rainbow Dash to not worry about her hero and making her leave with him. "As you can plainly see, Daring Do can clearly take care of herself on her own. So there is no need to get worried about-" But he stopped in mid-sentence after he looked to his right inside of the bush, to where Rainbow Dash was before only to find out that she was no longer there and instead running towards the fight scene, picking up Daring Do's hat, that she dropped in mid-battle. Star Twinkle felt like he was watching over a hyperactive foal and sighed in annoyance. "Can't she just sit still somewhere so that I can keep my eye on here!?" He complained as he slowly sneaked up to the battle himself.

In the meantime, Daring Do was still fighting off the cats without a sweat but Rainbow Dash insisted to do something and picked up her hat. "Daring Do! I've got your hat! You want me to toss it? Daring Do! Daring Do!" She said repeatedly to get Daring Do's attention but as usual, the adventurer did her best to ignore her. Unfortunately, the same didn't go for Ahuizotl who took the opportunity to grab Rainbow Dash with his tail.

That was Star Twinkle's signal to jump into action. "Hey!" He shouted to grab Ahuizotl's attention before he charged right at him so that he could free Rainbow Dash. However, Ahuizotl didn't waste any time and jumped right in front of Star Twinkle and prepared to attack him. Star Twinkle didn't expect that his distraction would work this good and got startled after this big creature landed right in front of him, and roared at his face aggressively. "Um...If you don't mind, can you release this mare so that we can leave?" He asked in his fear. But naturally, it didn't work and Ahuizotl simply used his fist to give Star Twinkle a good smack on the head that knocked him out cold.

Later...

After a while, Star Twinkle slowly regained consciousness and found himself in a strange room. To his left were spiky pillars and beneath him was water. However, the worst part was that he was hanging on a wall. His hooves were all in chains and he couldn't move one bit. If he would be fully conscious, then he would probably freak out and panic but he was still a little dizzy from that punch before.

"So you are finally awake?" A familiar voice then said from his left, making him turn his head towards Daring Do who was chained to the wall like him as well.

"What happened? Why are hanging on the wall?" He immediately asked.

"Well..." Daring Do began, clearly not being happy about this situation as well, judging from the bitter tone in her voice. "Long story short, Ahuizotl has captured us both so that we wouldn't get in his way, and is now preparing everything to doom us all for eight hundred years,"

"Oh..." Star Twinkle simply replied, obviously not bothering too much to show any concern about all of this.

Then suddenly, Ahuizotl showed himself in a little hallway next to the two ponies with the golden ring in his possession. "How's it hanging, Daring Do, and company?" He asked smugly.

"Surrender now, Ahuizotl, or I'll be forced to take you down!" She said as she tried to fight her way out of the chains that were holding her to the wall.

"Really!?" Star Twinkle said as he couldn't believe that she was still thinking that she could deal with the situation on her own.

Ahuizotl didn't seem to think much of this threat either and laughed. "Oh, Daring Do, I will so miss your amusing laughter-jokes. Now, I must leave to commence the ring-placing ceremony to unleash eight hundred years of unrelenting, sweltering heat!" He said victories before he left the scene. But not before he pulled down a letter to cause some water to flow into the room and causing the water beneath the two to raise. It was at this moment, where Star Twinkle realized that the water was filled with hungry piranhas, putting both of them on a timer to get out of this situation fast.

But Daring Do didn't want to end as fish fodder so she began to struggle in order to free herself. "You know, if you two wouldn't have interrupted, then I would have gotten the rings by now!" She complained while she managed to free one of her hooves.

"Hey! I totally agree with that!" Star Twinkle replied as he tried to free himself as well, however, he was not as strong as Daring Do so it was a little harder for him. "If you haven't noticed it yet, Rainbow Dash just tried to help you!"

"Well her "help" made you end up in this situation as well!" Daring Do replied as she managed to free another one of her hooves.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle admitted. "She better get here fast to save us both in time,"

Daring Do still continued to free herself. There were only her two front hooves left. "You really shouldn't depend on others that much when you are in a situation like this," she said before she managed to get another hoof free, making her hang from the wall with only one hoof now.

"Maybe you should learn to accept some help for once," Star Twinkle replied annoyed. As he watched Daring Do freeing herself, however, he noticed how the hooves that she managed to free were still connected to the bricks that were inside of the wall, causing her legs to drag her down to the ground because of their weight. "Wait, what exactly are you planning to do!? If you free your last hoof then you will be dragged down to the water!" He pointed out.

"Quiet! I can do this!" Daring Do replied angrily.

However, seeing the mare being pulled down by the weight already made him seriously doubt that this was true. He released an annoyed sigh. "Why am I surrounded by stubborn ponies like this?" He thought annoyed.

Shortly after, Daring Do managed to free her last hoof. It was just as Star Twinkle expected. She couldn't fly with those bricks on her legs and slowly dropped down to the water no matter how hard she was flapping her wings. Sweat began to run down her body but she kept flapping so that she could free herself and Star Twinkle in time. However, much to her surprise, she was frozen in midair, engulfed by a white aura. She looked up and realized that it was magic, magic that Star Twinkle was casting. Of course, she was confused by how Star Twinkle managed to cast magic in the first place but right now since he was an Earth Pony a few seconds ago but she was also relieved that she wouldn't land in the water. Star Twinkle managed to actually levitate Daring Do to safety but now he had to take care of himself.

"Alright, all I have to do now, is teleporting myself to over there, should be easy," he said confidently. However, Star Twinkle's head started to hurt all of a sudden. It must have been Ahuizotl's smack on the head that still affected him. Whatever the reason was, the worst thing about it was, that it caused Star Twinkle to transform back, much to his dislike. "That is not good..." he said once he realized not only that but the water that was dangerously close to his hooves now as well. He clenched his teeth in fear and closed his eyes, preparing himself for the worst.

Daring Do was still removing the bricks on her chains so that she could save Star Twinkle in time. "Don't worry! I'll get you-"

"Out of there!" Another voice then finished.

It was Rainbow Dash, who came flying to Star Twinkle's rescue. But instead of trying to get him off from the wall, the mare looked all over the place for some reason. At first Star Twinkle wanted to scream at her so that she would help him but then Rainbow Dash found a lever on the other side of the room. She pulled it down and the water was flushing out of the room, together with all the piranhas inside. "Ancient traps like that always have a lever that turns them off. Learned that from the books," she explained boasting with her book knowledge again.

Daring Do watched that scene occurring as well and got a little annoyed. "I was just about to save him myself, y'know,"

"Of course," Rainbow Dash replied, not taking those words to serious. "I just came here because I thought you might need this," she then said before she dropped Daring Do's hat on the ground.

For the first time now Daring Do looked a little surprised or even impressed but she was hiding it under her usual attitude "Have I mentioned yet that I work alone?" She said before she put on her hat again.

"Have I mentioned yet that you're lucky I don't?" Rainbow Dash countered with a smirk on her face.

Daring Do actually smiled after that. It looked as if Daring Do was taking a liking to Rainbow Dash at this point. She must have appreciated Rainbow Dash's efforts or how she handled the situation with Star Twinkle. She didn't seem to be annoyed at all. However, the same things couldn't be said about somepony else...

"Glad that you finally get along now but...could you please get me out of here now!?" Star Twinkle exclaimed while still hanging on the wall-shaking heavily to break free from his chains.

After the two mares freed Star Twinkle, there was only one thing to take care of: retrieving the ring back from Ahuizotl to prevent eight hundred years of extreme heat. Daring Do expect it to be already too late to prevent it at that point but Rainbow Dash assured that things have been taking care of. Of course, Daring Do didn't quite understand at first but as soon as the three peeked out of a hallway and took a look at what seems to be the main hall of the fortress they were in.

"I see..." Star Twinkle figured as soon as he looked over the scene that occurred in front of him.
The rest of his friends were taking care of Ahuizotl and his henchponies and tried their best to keep the ring away from them. They were doing a pretty good job at it as well. "So...if we take away the ring from this Ahuizotl guy then...we win, right?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Not exactly," Daring Do replied before she hinted at some kind of altar with a stone pillar on it that had multiple golden rings placed around it. "If we remove the giant ring at the bottom, the whole fortress will collapse!" She explained.

Suddenly, the ground began to shake after a familiar face jumped in front of the three ponies. "Daring Do!" Ahuizotl screamed angrily as soon as he spotted how his enemy escaped his trap.

Daring Do narrowed her eyes and approached Ahuizotl, eager to deal with him herself but Star Twinkle jumped in front of her, much to her confusion. "You take care of the rings, I'll take care of him," he said before he transformed into a Unicorn, ready to face Ahuizotl this time.

Still, Daring Do doubted that Star Twinkle could take on Ahuizotl judging from how he was knocked out by him before. It was not until Rainbow Dash backed Star Twinkle up until Daring Do agreed with this plan. "If he says he takes of him, then he will. Trust him," she simply said as she put a hoof on her hero's shoulder with a confident grin on her face.

It was surprising how Daring Do reacted so confused about that, especially since she earlier stated that it's better to not trust anypony but eventually, she put her trust in Star Twinkle as well and decided to go to the pillar with Rainbow Dash.

Of course, Ahuizotl wanted to prevent that but Star Twinkle blocked his path and readied his magic to confront him and buying some time for the two mares to remove the rings. Ahuizotl took a swing at Star Twinkle as he did before, but this time, Star Twinkle jumped out of the way in time. His response came in form of a magic beam heading right towards Ahuizotl, unfortunately, he ducked under it and dodged. Being attacked like that, made Ahuizotl really angry so he charged right at Star Twinkle, something that the stallion actually anticipated. Instead of charging at Ahuizotl, Star Twinkle ran to the side and made him follow him to further distract him from Rainbow Dash and Daring Do.

The chase went on for a little while and eventually, the fortress started to shake under Star Twinkle's hooves, making him trip in surprise. He looked over to the stone pillar and saw how all the rings were removed now, meaning that the two Pegasus succeeded.

"Ponies! Run! This place is goin' down!" Rainbow Dash shouted, warning everypony to get out of this fortress. Star Twinkle did his best to do that now but everywhere where he went, the was rubble falling down in front of him, making it a little harder to make his way out of this crumbling fortress in time. "Over here!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed who was flying towards him, accompanied by Daring Do, both of them lifting up Star Twinkle by his legs and flying him out of the fortress in time.

As Star Twinkle was lifted out of the fortress, he saw how the rest of his friends were running out of the fortress in time too. They were happy to see that Star Twinkle, Rainbow Dash and Daring Do made it out too and waved happily at them.

But there was still one who was not happy with this outcome at all. "Daring Do!" Ahuizotl screamed as fought his way out of the rubble above him. "I will have my revenge!" He screamed as he waved his fist angrily, seeing his enemy fly away and beating him once again.

Rainbow Dash and Daring Do, dropped Star Twinkle back on the ground after they made it far enough away from Ahuizotl. The stubborn adventurer seemed to have not regretted working together with Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash to get out of all this safely. "I have to admit, you two were a great help. I could not have done this without you,"

Daring Do then reached out her hoof for them to shake it. Star Twinkle did exactly that with a smile on his face but Rainbow Dash went straight for a hug, which Daring Do actually didn't resisted because she felt like Rainbow Dash well deserved it.

"And now I've got a book to finish!" She said excitedly before she flew away but not without winking at the two of them one last time.

The two waved her goodbye and watched her flying into the sunset. As soon as Daring Do seemed far away enough, Rainbow Dash suddenly jumped up and down in excitement. "OhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygosh," she said like a little filly in a candy store. "I just had the coolest adventure with the coolest pony ever!" She exclaimed before she calmed down again. "But I came this close to blowing it because I got so wrapped up in how awesome she was, I almost forgot how awesome I was. Good thing I didn't, 'cause it gave me a chance to show her how important it is to put your trust in somepony else," she said while realizing that this actually sounded really good. "Wait. How about I write that in the book? You know, our journal," she said, referring to the journal that Twilight wanted to start writing with her friends.

"Sounds good," Star Twinkle agreed. "Now let's go to the others. They are probably waiting for us," he said before he led the way to where the others were waiting for them.

"Yeah, and let's tell them all about the awesome adventure that we had with Daring Do!" She suggested as she followed Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle didn't see any reason in that since they were literally part of this adventure too but Star Twinkle didn't question that and just let her have that moment. "Sure, I let you do the talking..." he said as he and Rainbow Dash approached their friends to finally go home happily.

Some time later...

Hiding his face under a gray hood, Summershine walked through the streets of an unknown town. He slowly walked past a window of a bookstore. He noticed how a certain book was presented in front of any other book. For a short moment, the pony was taking a glance at that one book. He recognized that book as a new volume of the famous Daring Do adventure series. It read "Daring Do and the Ring of Destiny". After he read that title he returned to look in front of him and continued his way through the town and leaving the window behind him.

It took him some time to realize it but he could swear that he saw something off about the cover and quickly returned to the window again, this time putting his face very close to it. He took a very close look at the cover again and confirmed that he wasn't seeing things. On the cover was, as expected Daring Do, the hero of the story but next to her were two other ponies. One of them was Rainbow Dash which he recognized after a while. However, the other pony confused him the most. It was Star Twinkle.

It took a few seconds but after staring at the book for a while, there was only one thing he could say in his confusion of how he would have ended up on the cover of this book.

"...What?"

Author's Notes:

Took a little while until I got this chapter done, am I right?

I initially, planned Star Twinkle to hang around with the others instead of with Rainbow Dash and Daring Do, but as you can see, I changed my mind.

I'm actually quite satisfied with this chapter and that is saying something because I usually think my chapters feel rushed.

PS. JRPG FAN, I hope you don't mind me using your idea for the title ^^.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

71. Bearer of the Flag

View Online

In the school of Ponyville, Miss Cheerilee was just about to announce some great news to her class. Three guests were about to visit her class to give some of her students a chance of a lifetime. The fillies and colts in the classroom wondered what this was all about and waited for their teacher to introduce the first guest.

"Everypony, welcome the head of the Equestria Games, Miss. Harshwhinny!"

Seconds later, Miss Harshwhinny, the pony who once was responsible for choosing the location where the Equestria games would be held, entered the room. Though she was looking forward sharing what she was about to say, the mare kept a serious or even displeased face which was either intentional or because she just had trouble showing her expressions.

"Thank you. Now, I'm sure you all know about the Equestria Games, where ponies from all over the land compete for glory in various athletic pursuits. Well, now you littlest ones will have the chance to compete for a weighty responsibility of your very own," she explained while keeping a stoic face at all times. The fillies and colts in the room had a hard time getting excited over this and almost felt intimidated by Miss Harshwhinny, but once the second guest entered the room, things completely changed.

"Oh, come on! Tell 'em the fun part!" A distant voice exclaimed, interrupting Miss Harshwhinny's speech. It came from Rainbow Dash who flew into the room and landed in front of the class posing and showing off as one would expect from her, leaving the class stunned. "That's right! All you gotta do is show Miss. Harshwhinny the coolest, most spectacular, most rocking routine and you're going to the Games!" She explained exited, which completely contrasted with Miss Harshwhinny's explanation before.

Of course, Miss Harshwhinny rolled her eyes because of this "childish" behavior and only shook her head in response, even though it actually worked in getting the fillies and colts exited.

Once the class got a little quieter, another voice could be heard from outside of the classroom. "Does that mean, I can come out now too?" The male voice then asked before it revealed itself as Star Twinkle who entered the room as well.

Cheerilee rasped and tried to stay professional. "Of course. Our other two guests are Rainbow Dash and Star Twinkle," she said, officially introducing the two ponies as well. "They will be your coaches and help you with your routines and in the end, decide which of you will be the winners,"

"Exactly!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "And do you know why I qualify as the perfect coach?" She asked, even though she didn't wait at all for a response. "Well, guess who carried the Cloudsdale flag in the Games when she was a little filly? Me! I'll never forget it –- I burst into the stadium, spreading my wings, the flag flapping in the breeze. I did tricks with that flag the likes of which nopony saw before and nopony's seen since!" She explained excitedly while she was literally waving around a little flag.

However, her over-enthusiasm was not unnoticed by Miss Harshwhinny, who was quickly dragging her back to the ground. "Yes, miss Dash and if you want to keep your job as coach of these ponies, you must maintain a professional attitude and keep your emotions in check!" She scolded, making Rainbow Dash actually feel a little intimidated. The mare then looked over to Star Twinkle, who felt intimidated as well and feared that everything he was doing would lead her to scold him now. "Mister Twinkle, if you would be so kind to explain to the class the rules in a more professional manner?" She said as she glances over to Rainbow Dash again, who only smiled nervously in return.

"Right..." Star Twinkle replied nervously, making sure to not say anything to make the mare scold him now. He walked over to the school board which thankfully had some prepared drawings on them to make the explanation easier for him. "It basically goes like this: You will all form teams. Each team will create their own flag carrying routine. Me and Rainbow Dash will watch your routines and share our opinion on it, as well telling you if there is something to improve. And in three days, all competing teams will be accompanied by us so that you can show your routine to Miss Harshwhinny and the other judges of the Equestria Games. The winning team will then perform their routine in the opening ceremony of the Equestria Games,"

As soon as Star Twinkle was finished, he looked over to Miss Harshwhinny to find out if she was okay with how he explained everything but he couldn't quite find out if that was the case since she always looked a little displeased. She was not scolding him, so that was a good sign for him.

Of course, Rainbow Dash wanted to empress the head of the Equestria Games as well and tried to show off her "professionalism". "Ahem. Yes. Quite, quite correct," she said in an actual more collected way. However, it didn't last too long. "In the meantime, get ready to train, and train hard, because I know this opening ceremony is the single most important thing that will ever happen in your young lives! But, I know you're up for the challenge. And so am I!" She said overly excited again before she noticed the glare that Miss Harshwhinny threw at her once more. "Ahem... Meet me after school tomorrow at 1500 hours. Sharp. And show me your flag carrying skills. I am outta here. Professionally," she said once she slowly walked out of the room, keeping an eye on Miss Harshwhinny if she was looking at her "professionalism".

But both, Star Twinkle and Miss Harshwhinny rolled their eyes, seeing how hard Rainbow Dash tried to behave like that. It only made it worse after seeing how hard it was for her to not get excited over all this.

Miss Harshwhinny only let out a slight groan and added one more thing that she wanted to share with the class. "Ponies, the most important thing is this: Your routine needs to show what your town means to you. So, do Ponyville proud. Work hard, be bold, wow me. That is all!"

After that, the two Earth Ponies left the room as well. Outside, it was painfully visible how Miss Harshwhinny felt about Rainbow Dash. She shook her head and let out another groan. "I simply don't understand who put her in charge to be a coach..."

"Well, she did carry the flag once so if there is anypony who knows something about all this, then it would be her," Star Twinkle pointed out, not necessarily trying to defend Rainbow Dash but simply stating a fact.

Miss Harshwhinny quickly turned around and faced Star Twinkle, throwing a glare right at him. "Carrying the flag in at the Equestria Games is an honor! It is supposed to represent your home for all Equestria to see! Do you really want Ponyville to be laughed at?"

"No..." Star Twinkle replied, even though what he actually wanted to say was: "I don't care about that". But in order to not get on Miss Harshwhinny's bad side as well, he kept those words inside.

"Then do me a favor and keep Miss Dash's outbursts in check," she said before she walked away.

"Right..." Star Twinkle simply replied, already getting a bad feeling that this will not be easy. It was the Adventure with Daring Do all over again.

The school ring was ringing a few seconds later. Fillies and colts came running out of the school, some of them were probably on their way to form teams or to create a routine for the Equestria Games. Among them were Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle who were running towards Star Twinkle.

"Hey, Star Twinkle!" Sweetie Belle greeted.

"I hope you are prepared for the most awesome and stunning flag carry routine that you have ever seen!" Scootaloo said excitedly.

Star Twinkle actually had never seen any routine in his life before so that would not be too hard. "I already knew that you three would try to compete as well," he said happily. He actually wouldn't mind if it would end up that those three would end up winning. "You already got an idea?"

To that, the three fillies widened their eyes. "Not exactly," Scootaloo replied, embarrassed, rubbing her hoof in the dirt.

Apple Bloom then walked up a little closer to the stallion. "I was about to ask you something. How did you manage to become our coach?" She asked.

"Yeah, I mean, out of all ponies," Sweetie Belle added.

"Gee, thanks..." Star Twinkle thought after those kind and trusting words.

"Didn't you know!?" Rainbow Dash asked as she practically busted into the conversation from out of nowhere, making Star Twinkle jump a little. "The Equestria Games are held in the Crystal Empire, which just happened to be the place that Star Twinkle helped to save from an evil Unicorn King," she casually explained.

The three fillies reacted in awe and looked at Star Twinkle. "Why did you never tell us about that?" Apple Bloom asked confused.

Star Twinkle scratched his chin. "Because the Crystal Ponies are already treating me like some kind of hero. It's kinda embarrassing," he explained while in his mind, he was also adding the word "annoying". "I don't want the ponies who live in this town to treat me like that as well. The Crystal Ponies said that I would be the perfect candidate to choose which ponies would be good enough to carry the flag of this town...so I simply agreed," he explained.

The three fillies didn't quite understand what problem Star Twinkle saw in this matter. That was of course because they were simply not him and didn't know that he tried to avoid trouble like this.

Thankfully, the subject changed again after Apple Bloom spoke up. "Anyway, we have to go. We need to start creating a routine!"

"Yeah," Scootaloo added. "See you two tomorrow with our awesome routine!" She said before she walked away with her two friends following her right behind.

Rainbow Dash seemed excited to see what the three had planned and couldn't help but to grin widely. "If those three make something remotely as awesome like me, then I can't wait to see it tomorrow!" She said as she swirled around in the air.

Star Twinkle smirked "Don't forget, professionalism," he reminded her.

As soon as Rainbow Dash heard that, she slowly landed on the ground again with a nervous grin on her face. "Right...hehe," she then coughed into her hoof and played it calm before she walked away from the scene. "See you tomorrow!"

Star Twinkle waved back at her and walked away from the school as well. By now, Star Twinkle was wondering how tomorrow many ponies would show up for the competition. The Equestria Games were quite a big thing but he himself was never that interested in them. However, since he was now indirectly part of them, that has clearly changed. Miss Harshwhinny wanted the best team to win and so does Star Twinkle. It is a big event after all. With that in mind, he went home and focused on the next day.

On the next day...

As planned, Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash were waiting in front of a stage not too far away from the school. Miss Cheerilee arrived at the scene shortly after and brought every filly and colt, who were interested in the competition with her after school was over. There were quite a bunch, much to Star Twinkle's surprise.

Before they knew it, the first ponies walked on the stage and showed off their routines. Some teams had really creative ones, some of them were just very good and some of them were of course, bad. There was everything, from group juggling, dancing, singing, magic tricks, it was like a talent show. And again, there were some extremely weird and even dangerous routines. One of the teams wanted to do something with a burning ring of fire. Strangely enough, Rainbow Dash got really excited about this one but Star Twinkle had to stop it because it was obviously too dangerous.

Eventually, the act that Star Twinkle was most excited about was the one from the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Star Twinkle took a look at his list and looked up who was up next. As soon as Rainbow Dash asked, he replied "Next are, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo,"

Rainbow Dash nodded. "Alright, Cutie Mark Crusaders, show us what you got, and make it good!"

"Don't worry, we will!" Scootaloo replied, sticking her head out from behind the curtain of the stage.

"Now, this is just a little something we threw together. It's not perfect yet, not even close," Sweetie Belle added.

After hearing that, Star Twinkle couldn't help but gulp a little, which was not unnoticed by Rainbow Dash. "What's wrong?" She asked confused.

"Oh, nothing," Star Twinkle replied before he eventually, elaborated a little further. "I just hope that their performance doesn't end up like their last one..." he said, referring to their accidental "comedy performance" from the last talent show, that Star Twinkle was unfortunate enough to witness. Given how this was all set up, it felt like a Deja Vu for him.

It didn't take long until the performance started. The red curtain of the stage opened up and revealed a set that was supposed to represent Ponyville. On the left were mountains on the right was Sweet Apple Acres and hanging from the ceiling were some clouds.

Scootaloo then began to narrate their act. "Since the dawn of recorded time, in one town of amazing amazingness, three types of ponies coexist!"

Apple Bloom then walked into the scene from the left side, wearing two green ribbons on her front legs. "We are Earth ponies!" She said.

Sweetie Belle then jumped into the scene from the right, wearing a purple ribbon around her horn. "We are unicorns!" She said.

And finally, Scootaloo revealed herself from behind one of the clouds, wearing two blue ribbons around her wings. "We are Pegasi!" She said.

After that, a picture of Ponyville was coming down and covered the whole scene while Scootaloo continued her narration. "And the town where friendship reigns is our home. Now, welcome to the stadium, the flag of the place we love best..."

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom then raised a hula hoop. The lights were focusing right on it and a few seconds later, Scootaloo came jumping right through it, riding on her scooter and having the flag placed on the end of it. She made a quick turn and drove right back to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle after she jumped off from her scooter. She lifted both of them up in the air and all of them cheered "Ponyville forever!" While at the same time some fireworks went off and the scooter was rolling right behind them with the flag flapping.

Both Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash were silent with their mouths wide open. Rainbow Dash because she was simply impressed and Star Twinkle because he seriously didn't expect this performance to be this good, judging from their last performance back then.

The three fillies ran up to the two coaches and were eager to know what they thought about it. "It's kind of a work in progress. So? What did you think?" Scootaloo asked.

The three fillies looked at the two ponies and were eager to hear their opinion. Star Twinkle was about to say what he thought about their performance but he noticed how Rainbow Dash still hasn't closed her mouth because of how clearly impressed she was so he kept quiet and let her have the first words.

"That was...ama-" she said before she stopped in mid-sentence and looked at the three fillies. Star Twinkle was confused why she suddenly stopped but he had the slight assumption that she once more tried to look a little more professional.

Once she turned around to think about what to say, things became a little awkward. "She does realize that they are standing right in front of them, doesn't she?" Star Twinkle thought

She then turned around with a serious expression on her face and of course, tried to be "professional ". At first, it actually sounded like as if she was calm and collected but as usual, it didn't last for long. "Wait. You whipped that act together just yesterday?!" She said impressed before she noticed how she was about to outburst again, making her stop once more to collect herself. "Overall, it was... kinda, sorta...overall, it was okay," she explained, even though it was painfully visible that she enjoyed this routine more than anypony else. "Keep working hard. Who knows? You might have a shot. Gotta go!" She then said quickly before left the four ponies to deal with some other fillies and colts, avoiding this weird conversation completely.

"Very smooth, Rainbow Dash..." Star Twinkle thought sarcastically.

Of course, the three fillies were more than confused about how Rainbow Dash reacted to their performance. However, there was still Star Twinkle who hasn't stated his opinion.

"Did you like it?" Apple Bloom asked.

Star Twinkle smiled. "Yeah, it was good," he replied, putting a smile on the three fillies faces. "And if that was still a work in progress, then I'm sure that you will have a good chance to win this thing," he explained.

"Really?" All three of them asked.

Star Twinkle nodded. The three were happy to hear that their work paid off and began to laugh while jumping up and down on the spot. "Well. Then be prepared for an even more awesome performance by the end of this competition," Scootaloo said, determined to bring this victory home for the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

The three of them left the scene and Star Twinkle's and Rainbow Dash's work was done after this. However, this was only the first day...

On the next day...

Again, Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash waited in front of the same stage then the day before, watching the performances of every team that wanted to show their routine for the Equestria Games judges. Some of the routines, that they saw a day ago, improved a lot. It's almost as if the fillies and colts actually listened to what Star Twinkle said. Knowing that, made him actually a little happy.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders were the next ones to come out. As expected, Rainbow Dash couldn't wait for the three to show how their routine has improved. She had a huge grin on her face and was shaking just at the thought of what the three would show her.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but tease Rainbow Dash a little. "Professional," he simply said jokingly with a smile on his face.

Rainbow Dash put a serious expression on her face again once she realized that she was looked at. "I know, I know," she said, trying to play it cool. She coughed in her hoof and called out to Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle. "Okay, Cutie Mark Crusaders, this is your final run before you show it at the stadium tomorrow. I know you're gonna absolutely, positively...have a lot of fun, hehe..." She said, cleverly hiding her excitement.

Star Twinkle only shook his head and smiled to that. He then focused back on the upcoming performance, that was about to begin. "We're ready when you are!" He said before he waited for the three to start.

Shortly after, the curtain opened up and the stage set showed Ponyville again. A mountain on the left side, Sweet Apple Acres on the right side and some clouds hanging from the ceiling. Apple Bloom walked in from the left side, Sweetie Belle walked in from the right side and Scootaloo was sitting on a cloud. It was just like last time, except that this time it felt a little more uncoordinated. As soon as the three were in the picture, Scootaloo narrated the scene again. "Ponyville! Home of the, um..." she seemed to have actually forgotten her text.

"Friendship!" Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle finished.

"Ah, friendship, right!" Scootaloo corrected. "There are four-- no, three kinds of ponies,"

In the meantime, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle both walked to the right. Judging from how Sweetie Belle advised Apple Bloom to go the other way, this was not planned. As if that wasn't enough to make the routine look bad, the two both looked like as if they haven't slept properly. The were constantly yawning and their eyes were half open most of the time.

Still, they continued and went on with their routine just like yesterday. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle raised a hula hoop and as expected, Scootaloo came jumping right through it. Or at least, she tried to. All she did was knocking it to the ground. And instead of using her scooter to jump through it, she tried to fly, which wasn't something she wasn't very good at.

Needless to say, the whole performance was a complete disaster and really hard to watch. Something that Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash both agreed on. As soon as the three asked how the two liked their performance, Rainbow Dash replied as honest as she could. "That was... y'know... good and all... I just thought... maybe possibly you might wanna go back to, say, the first version of the act, which was, I dunno, what's the word, better?" She said, trying to not hurt the feelings of the three fillies.

"Yeah, I have to agree with Rainbow Dash," Star Twinkle added, being just as confused about the change of their routine.

"Don't mess with success, right?" Rainbow Dash said, which Star Twinkle couldn't agree more to. "Now I need to... go coach these other ponies! And don't forget, we've got to catch the early train for the Crystal Empire. See you in the morning!" She added before she attended to some other young ponies to help them out with their routines.

The three fillies were not happy to hear what Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash had to say about their performance, especially, Scootaloo. "What are we gonna do?! We're competing tomorrow, and I still can't fly!" She said frustrated.

"Fly?" Star Twinkle said confused.

The stallion didn't mean to eavesdrop but after listening to the three arguing a little, he figured out that Scootaloo seemed to be the one who insisted to change the routine, much to Apple Bloom' and Sweetie Belle's dislike who had to suffer from this by putting some extra training into this. That at least explained why they were all so tired.

Eventually, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle both left Scootaloo to probably get some rest from all the training they went through. Scootaloo kept flapping her wings in order to fly but she couldn't keep herself above the ground for too long and collapsed to the ground.

"How about you take a break? It actually looked like you three are pretty tired," Star Twinkle advised out of his worry for Scootaloo's well being.

"I can't take a break!" Scootaloo replied as she continued to flap her wings. "Not until I am able to fly!"

Again, Scootaloo mentioned flying. "Why is that so important for you all of the sudden?" Star Twinkle asked.

Scootaloo finally took a little break to explain. "Well, I can't represent Ponyville with the others if I can't fly!"

"Why not?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Scootaloo seemed a little angry now. "A Pegasus that can't fly can't represent a town where every pony race lives together! Pegasi are not supposed to be struck on the ground!"

Star Twinkle was still not completely understanding what that had to do with carrying the flag for Ponyville. But he tried to cheer her up with, what he thought, would probably work. "Earth Ponies are not supposed to be able to do magic..." he simply said, causing Scootaloo to make a confused face. Shortly after, Star Twinkle transformed into his Unicorn form and used his magic to levitate some rocks nearby while smiling at the filly.

"When did you learn to do that!?" She asked surprised and in awe.

Star Twinkle then transformed back. "That's not important. What I am trying to say is: You are you. Flying doesn't define a Pegasus. You should think about what defines you," he advised.

Scootaloo seemed to take those words to heart at first but she then was bothered by another question. "Can you transform into a Pegasus and fly too?" She then asked.

"Yeah...why?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

Scootaloo then sighed and got depressed. "Great...even an Earth Pony has better chances to fly than me..." she said before she walked away with a frown on her face, completely ignoring Star Twinkle's message.

Star Twinkle tried to call out to her but Scootaloo didn't pay attention to him and walked away to look for another spot to improve her flying skills. Star Twinkle just hoped that she wouldn't overdo it so that she could get up early in the morning to get the early train to the Crystal Empire.

On the next morning...

Star Twinkle was about to wake up. Today was the day when he, Rainbow Dash and every other pony who wanted to compete for the flag carrying job were about to travel to the Crystal Empire. Star Twinkle got out of his bed and yawned loudly while stretching his legs. He looked at the clock that was hanging across the room and checked the time to see how much time was left before he had to leave for the train.

The answer was not to his liking...

"What!?" Star Twinkle said in shock once he realized that there was no time left at all. There was barely any time left. The train was probably already gone. The stallion quickly jumped out of his bed to get ready. "Why didn't you wake me, Comet!?" He exclaimed towards his Gold Fish as he dashed out of the room to get downstairs.

Comet didn't move in response and only blinked once.

There was no time to get properly ready so Star Twinkle had to do everything in mere seconds. No time for eating breakfast or brushing his teeth. He just had to make sure to not breathe at any pony directly. After a few minutes, Star Twinkle was already on his way to the train station, running as fast as he could. "Maybe the train came a little late too! Maybe there is some hope that I won't be late!" He said to himself just to stay positive. However, in his mind, he knew that he was lying to himself.

While he was running through Ponyville and had his mind focused on the train station, he still managed to catch somepony greeting him on his way. "Hey, Star Twinkle," a heavily depressed Scootaloo greeted as Star Twinkle ran past her in is hurry.

"Hey, Scootaloo," Star Twinkle greeted back casually as he ran past the filly. But as soon as he realized who he just greeted, he immediately stopped in his track and turned around. "Scootaloo!?" He then said confused before he walked up to the depressed filly, causing her to stop as well. "What are you doing here? Don't tell me you missed the train, like me?"

"Not exactly..." the filly replied, avoiding eye contact with Star Twinkle at all costs. "I decided to not go..."

"What!?" Star Twinkle replied shocked. "But I don't understand. I thought you, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were so excited to win this competition,"

Scootaloo looked at the stallion. It was now that Star Twinkle actually realized how sad the expression on her face was. "I trained all day, yesterday and I still can't fly! I'm the weak link in our team! Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle are probably better off without me!"

"That's nonsense!" Star Twinkle replied. "They would never think of you like that!"

After those words were said, Scootaloo turned around and walked away. "Sure didn't sound like that..." she simply said with a frown on her face.

Star Twinkle didn't reply to that. Her words were indicating that her friends were actually saying stuff like that but Star Twinkle was sure that this was not the case. But with him not knowing the full story, that was not something that he could be one-hundred percent sure. Still, there had to be something that he should do now. But yesterday she didn't listen to him so what was he supposed to say now?

Fortunately, the one pony who would be able to convince her was running right towards him.

"Wait!" Rainbow Dash screamed as she walked towards Star Twinkle and Scootaloo who turned around as soon as she heard Rainbow Dash's voice. Right behind her were also Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. The three stopped in front of Star Twinkle and were about to ask why he didn't show up in the train station but as soon as they saw Scootaloo not too far away from him, they focused on her instead. As Rainbow Dash walked past Star Twinkle, the stallion only nodded, putting his trust in her to take care of the situation. Rainbow Dash nodded back and was not about to leave without the filly and walked up to her. "Scootaloo!" She said, getting the fillies attention.

Scootaloo turned around and was confused why she and her two friends showed up here in the first place. She quickly noticed how Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were walking up to her as well and got angry. "Why are you all here? You're supposed to be on the train!"

Apple Bloom walked towards Scootaloo. "We're not going," she replied.

"Not without you, Scootaloo," Sweetie Belle added.

Rainbow Dash asked why Scootaloo even refused to come with them to which the filly explained the same thing that she said to Star Twinkle. "Flying's what Pegasus ponies are supposed to do! You flew when you carried the flag in the games!"

"But that was me!" Rainbow Dash replied. "You're you! And it just doesn't matter if you can fly or not. Your routine was amazing 'cause it represented exactly what makes Ponyville special. You do still know what that is, right?" Rainbow Dash explained.

Star Twinkle experienced a strange feeling of a Deja vu. "Isn't that what I said yesterday?" He thought, feeling a little hurt to see that the same words seemed to work now that they were spoken by Rainbow Dash.

Eventually, somepony had to answer to Rainbow Dash's question. "Friendship," Sweetie Belle said.

"Three kinds of ponies livin' together as friends. Just like us," Apple Bloom added.

Scootaloo seemed to be convinced by those words but there was still one thing that bugged her. Something that actually drove her to tears. "But Rainbow Dash... what if... what if my wings never grow? What if I never fly?" She asked with tears coming down her cheeks.

"Listen, Scootaloo," Rainbow Dash said as she hugged the little filly. "Maybe you'll fly someday, or maybe you won't. You're all kinds of awesome anyway," she said happily, finding the right words to finally convince Scootaloo to change her mind and go to the Crystal Empire to not only compete but also to win it.

Star Twinkle smiled towards Rainbow Dash as if he wanted to say "good job" to which Rainbow Dash smiled back. "Still..." Star Twinkle then said, reminding them of the bad news that they probably forgot at this moment. "We still have to get there in time so how are we gonna do it?"

Scootaloo rubbed her chin and got quick solution for that. "I'll grab my scooter and some skiers! I can probably carry you two behind me!" She explained. However, there was still one more problem, that caused her to look at one pony who she probably couldn't carry behind her. "But what about Star Twinkle?"

"Leave that to me!" Rainbow Dash replied, determined, putting a hoof on her chest.

Star Twinkle was surprised. "You have an idea?"

"Yes! But you won't like it," she explained.

Of course, Star Twinkle didn't know where this was going to but he had no choice but to believe in Rainbow Dash. Waiting for the next train would mean that he wouldn't be able to make it in time so agreed with what Rainbow Dash came up.

But after a few minutes...

He wished he didn't...

"Yeah! You were right! I don't like this idea!" He screamed as he was carried by Rainbow Dash who grabbed Star Twinkle with her two front hooves while flying at high speed through the air.

"Don't shake so much or you'll fall!" Rainbow Dash screamed back.

It was a miracle that Rainbow Dash was even able to carry Star Twinkle like that. He almost expected to slip through Rainbow Dash's hooves any second, making him even more nervous. "No! Please, no falling!"

Rainbow Dash giggled a little after something crossed her mind. "Well, then at least, the name Starfall would make sense," she explained before she began to laugh.

"That one was terrible!" Star Twinkle simply screamed back while he wished that this "trip" would be over really soon.

Later in the Crystal Empire...

By some sort of miracle, everypony managed to get to the Crystal Empire stadium in time. The Cutie Mark Crusaders performed their first routine in front of a fully packed stadium and actually ended up to be chosen to carry the flag of Ponyville. Not that Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash expected anything else after seeing their performance back then in Ponyville a few days ago.

After everything was done, Rainbow Dash congratulated the three for their victory...professionally.
"Ahem. Look. What you three did was... acceptable," she said, still trying to not let her emotions run wild.

"Acceptable? Acceptable?!" Miss Harshwhinny asked almost shocked after hearing that. "Why, it was totally stupendously the single most amazing thing I've ever seen!" She explained followed by her laughing and actually showing some positive emotions.

Star Twinkle hinted at the mare and gave Rainbow Dash a turn to take care of that. "Contain your excitement, Miss Harshwhinny. Remember – professionalism,"

Miss Harshwhinny didn't know how to react to that and got a little embarrassed, causing everypony to laugh happily. However, there was still one more thing. Scootaloo then looked at her flank expecting something to appear on it. "You know what this means, right?" She asked, grabbing the attention of her two friends. "We are totally gonna get cutie marks in flag-carrying!"

"Yeah!" Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle replied excitedly.

Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash only shook their heads to that. At some point, Star Twinkle wondered if this was why they wanted to carry the flag in the first place.

"Some things never change..." Rainbow Dash said.

"Tell me about it..." Star Twinkle agreed on. He then walked up to the mare and put a hoof on her, smiling widely. "By the way, good job handling things "professionally" back then," he said, referring to her taking care of Scootaloo.

Rainbow Dash smiled back and raised her head proudly. "It was no big deal," she replied modestly.

After that, the five left the stadium. Since it was still early, there was enough time to spend some time in the Crystal Empire. The three fillies wanted to explore but Star Twinkle was hungry so he decided to grab something to eat since he didn't have a chance to eat breakfast. Eventually, all of them decided to do that and looked for any kind of shop that would offer something to eat.

...

Only a few minutes later after Star Twinkle and the others walked away from the stadium, another stallion walked out of it. "Finally! It's over!" He said annoyed.

The stallion was an Earth Pony with a light brown coat, a dark brown mane, orange colored eyes and a light bulb as a Cutie Mark. He also wore a necklace in the shape of a hoof around his neck.

"I mean, just because they asked me to do this job for the Equestria Games, doesn't mean that I actually have to be interested in them! This was such a waste of time! I could have spent my time with so much more important things!" He complained, speaking out those words in a really stressed and almost paranoid manner. "I mean, it's just the most important sports event of Equestria! Nothing more!" He continued before he calmed down in an instant and changing his mood completely. "Well, whatever. Nothing to be bothered about, Tinker" he simply said as he was shaking his shoulders in a non-caring manner.

He then walked away from the stadium and came across the main plaza of the empire. He mostly kept his eyes in front of himself but as soon as he came across a pony who was placing some tools on the ground and near a big pedestal, he got interested. "Uh! Somepony is building something!" Tinker said excitedly as he quickly approached the pony.

The Chrystal Pony who was continuing to place its tools on the ground but was a little surprised to see Tinker standing right in front of him with a big smile on his face. "Uh...may I help you?" The pony asked nervously and confused by this sudden approach.

"Isn't it obvious!?" Tinker replied. "I noticed how you were preparing to build something here and I don't know what it could be. So tell me!" He demanded.

The Chrystal Pony felt a little intimidated since Tinker was standing way to close to him either without realizing or don't caring about it. After taking a step back, the pony explained. "This is where the statues of the two heroes of the Crystal Empire will be built on. The Great and Honorable Spike the Brave and Glorious and The Great and Honorable Starfall Twinkle the Courageous and Selfless,"

Tinker seemed to know that already and reacted rather unimpressed. "Oh yeah! That incident where King Sombra was about to take over the Crystal Empire and tried to enslave everypony to take over Equestria," he said as he tipped his chin a few times. "Was that really such a big deal?" He then asked, much to the surprise of the Crystal Pony.

"Of course it was!" The Crystal Pony replied. "Spike the Brave and Glorious was the one who retrieved the Crystal Heart and Starfall the Courageous and Selfless faced off against King Sombra himself!" He explained, excited to even speak about that. "I was right there! Starfall is an Earth Pony but he was able to transform into a Unicorn and a Pegasus to fight against the evil King!"

"Aha! So it was true that he was able to transform! I knew it! So they are still around!" Tinker exclaimed excitedly.

"What do you mean?" The Chrystal Pony asked confused.

"Isn't it obvious!?" Tinker replied before he walked away from the Crystal Pony, leaving it confused.

Tinker followed the road further in direction of the train station. Still, he constantly rubbed his chin and was in deep thoughts about something. "What was it again? Come on Tinker! It's not that hard!" Shortly after, he stopped and suddenly exclaimed "I got it!" causing everypony to look at him. Most of them probably thought he was crazy but he didn't seem to care and just kept talking to himself. "The four knights of the Princess! They were able to transform! But that was way back so there can't be a connection that would lead Star Twinkle to learn that. The only other thing that is clearly connected was that incident a few years ago in Ponyville. So could it be..."

Tinker then stopped and got serious for a moment, standing in the middle of the road. But that didn't last long and he quickly returned to his usual mood. "Whatever! I don't have time to think about unimportant stuff, that could decide the fate of Equestria! I have to go back to Canterlot and attend to my experiments!" He said excitedly.

But before he completely crossed off the thought about Star Twinkle and those four knights, one more thing was stuck in his mind that he simply couldn't ignore. "Speaking of my experiments...this pony...Star Twinkle. His abilities make him quite useful,"

Tinker then formed a sinister grin on his face as he walked towards the train station to leave the Crystal Empire. He almost shivered in excitement just thinking about his next words, that would most likely make feel anypony who would hear then run shivers down their spines.

"I hope that will have the chance to add him to my collection for my experiments..."

Author's Notes:

I hope you remembered the things that I brought up again at the end. Some of them appeared way earlier in the story. They might be important to the overall story. Or maybe not XP
...
No. Seriously, they are.

Other then that, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and that you consider leaving some kind of feedback ^^. I would also appreciate it if you follow me so that you can be up to date of every other story that I write (which are all connected to this one).

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

72. Go Go Power Ponies!

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It was only recently when Star Twinkle and his friends visited the Castle of the two Sisters because of different reasons. After their visit, they came to the conclusion that it was neither haunted nor inhabited by a so-called "Pony of Shadows". Knowing that they all decided to give the castle an overall makeover so that it would not rot.

Twilight originally came up with the idea and asked her friends to join in to help. Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were there as well. Because of their job, it only felt natural to ask them for help. Luckily for Star Twinkle, the work was done while on his usual work time, meaning that he didn't have to do work on top of doing more work afterward. It was more like going to work with his friends around him. This made it actually a little bit more fun.

Twilight did her best to assigning everypony to do some work while also helping here and there. Applejack fixed the decoration on the walls, Rarity fixed the banners and the pictures of the castle, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy took care of the higher places of the castle, and Pinkie Pie cleaned the whole place.

Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were responsible to repair some broken walls in the castle. A lot of them had holes to fill or bricks to replace. The two Earth Ponies were busy replacing some of the bricks and did their best to make it look as good as new again.

As usual, Star Twinkle was not too excited to do this. "Say...why exactly are we repairing an old castle where nopony lives anymore?" He asked as he was attending the wall in front of him, his eyes practically revealing how bored he was.

"You are always looking for reasons to avoid a little bit of hard work, huh?" Steel Hammer said as he shook his head just by the thought that they were both doing the same job in the same workshop.

"Yeah...that's the plan..." Star Twinkle thought. He could obviously not say that out loud or else his boss would scold him, something that he rather wanted to avoid.

In the middle of their work, Spike occasionally wandered from one pony to another to offer his help but nopony seemed to be in need of that. Eventually, he came across the two Earth Ponies. Star Twinkle noticed the little dragon approaching him and stopped for a moment to see what he wanted.

"Do you two need any help?" Spike asked immediately with wide eyes, like a little colt who was just about to get a present at Hearts Warming Eve.

"We're all good, Spike, don't worry," Steel Hammer replied as he was attending the wall in front of him, not even bothering to look at Spike.

Spike reacted with a frown. It could have been because of how Steel Hammer replied to his question but Star Twinkle had a feeling that this was not the reason. "What's the matter, Spike?" He asked in order to find out why he was so depressed all of the sudden.

Spike let out a sigh. "It's just..." He looked over at the other as they were doing their work in the castle. "Everypony is doing something and they don't need my help at all...Twilight even wanted me to sit somewhere quiet to finish my comic..."

Star Twinkle had trouble to understand the problem and tilted his head to the side. "So...nopony needs your help and you are free to just relax and read a Comic Book?" Star Twinkle asked to which Spike nodded. Star Twinkle then narrowed his eyes in confusion. "I'm not seeing the problem here..."

Steel Hammer only shook his head for a moment, behind Star Twinkle's back and then returned to his work again. Spike's mood didn't seem to be affected by Star Twinkle's words and he continued to frown.

He couldn't just leave the little dragon like that so he tried to change the subject in order to cheer him up. Star Twinkle then noticed the backpack that Spike was wearing and saw a comic book sticking out of it. "What comic are you reading?" He asked, hoping that talking about it would make him forget his worry.

Spike forgot his worries as soon as Star Twinkle mentioned the comic book and excitedly pulled it out. "The Power Ponies!" Spike exclaimed happily.

Star Twinkle heard the name before. It was a popular comic book series featuring ponies with superpowers. Spike actually went to the trouble to explain almost every single detail that happened in the comic so far. Something about a villain called "The Maniac" and some kind of doomsday device. He also complained how there was this guy called Hum Drum who always messes up things and is just there for comic relief. All those information went way above Star Twinkle's head but at least Spike was so caught up in explaining the comic that he forgot not being able to help anypony in the castle.

"Well, don't you want to know what happens next?" Star Twinkle asked.

Spike looked at his comic and figured that if nopony wanted his help, he might as well finish his comic now. "Guess you're right..." he said, still with a slight hint of disappointment in his voice before he left the room to find a quiet place.

Star Twinkle smiled a little. "Maybe the reading the comic would make him think about something else," he thought. It was at least better than feeling left out here, something that Star Twinkle actually understood.

After realizing that he should get to his work before Steel Hammer would scold him again, Star Twinkle turned around to focus on his wall. "Sorry, but I just couldn't leave the little guy like this," he apologized. "He seemed to enjoy this comic quite a lot, don't you think Steel Hammer?" He asked.

But Steel Hammer was nowhere to be found, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. His working place looked like as if it was abandoned. He was clearly not done with his work, which was pretty unusual for Steel Hammer. Star Twinkle had no idea how exactly he should react to that but he continued his own work again. His boss would probably turn up any second again.

In the library of the castle...

Spike did what Star Twinkle and Twilight suggested and actually went to the library to finish his comic-book. It's not like he was needed elsewhere anyway. "Let's see..." he said as he opened up the book at the page where he last left off. "Mane-iac breaks into the museum... Okay, here we go. ...Ugh, what a surprise! Hum Drum is in the way again while the Power Ponies do all the work! I guess I know what that feels like..." he said, feeling really himself in a similar situation like that character in the comic-book.

"Don't be so hard to yourself," Steel Hammer said as he walked into the room, much to Spike's surprise.

"Steel Hammer? What are you doing here?" Spike asked confused.

Steel Hammer walked up to the little dragon. "I just wanted to check out how the Power Ponies will save the day," he said as he sat right next to him.

Spike raised his eyebrows in confusion. "You are interested in the Power Ponies?" He asked almost in disbelieve.

"Interested?" Steel Hammer replied. "As a colt, I was a huge fan of their adventures!" He claimed proudly. "But enough of that, we are wasting important reading time!"

"But aren't you supposed to help to fix the castle?" Spike asked.

"I'm sure, Star Twinkle will take care of my part," Steel Hammer replied, even though Spike was highly doubting that. The stallion glanced over the book and read through the page that Spike was on right now. "Hey, looks like the Maniac is about to win! What will happen next? Come on, turn the page!"

"On it!" Spike replied. He actually felt a little happy to see someone being interested in this story as well. He flipped the page and looked at it to see what was about to happen but much to his confusion, there was only a blank page left. "What!? How is this the end?" He asked confused, making sure that there was no page in between this one and further inspecting the page. But the only thing that he could find was something written on the bottom of the last page. "I can't quite read what is written here..." Spike said as he focused on the words, however, he was unable to read them.

"I'll get a magnifying glass!" Steel Hammer said determinedly. "We can't leave this adventure unsolved like this!" He added before he went to the other side of the room to find a magnifying glass in order to read the words written on the last page.

...

In the meantime, Star Twinkle's favorite time was about to begin. The break. Still, with Steel Hammer being away for quite a while, he couldn't help but get a little worried that he was left with all of his boss's work. But not only Steel Hammer was gone for a while, Spike was nowhere to be found as well, causing the girls to look for both of them inside of the castle.

"Spike! Steel Hammer! Where are ya?" Applejack shouted through the hallways.

"We're breaking for tea and biscuits!" Rarity added, hoping that that would lead them out of wherever they were hiding.

"Spike is probably reading his comic book somewhere but where is Steel Hammer?" Star Twinkle asked as he helped the girls to find the two. "I sure hope we find them," he said worriedly. "Or else...I am left with all the work on the walls..." he thought.

"Yes," Twilight agreed on. "I hope they are not in trouble or something,"

"Oh! Yeah! That too!" Star Twinkle said nervously with a grin on his face.

...

Back into the room, where Spike and Steel Hammer were in, Spike was about to find out what was written on the last page of the comic-book. "I think I can read it now!" Spike said while he was holding the magnifying glass in front of his eyes.

"Then let's hear!" Steel Hammer said excitedly. He had to admit that he got quite curious about what was written there himself.

They both got so caught up in reading this little text that they didn't even realize that their friends were about to walk into the room, finding them. Spike concentrated further with the magnifying glass in front of him and read the text written in the comic-book out loud.
"You can return to the place you started when the Mane-iac is... defeated. Take a closer look to join the adventure in this book?" He said confused, looking to Steel Hammer for advice.

But the stallion only shrugged his shoulders in confusion. "Maybe it's important for the next issue?" He guessed though it was highly unlikely that this was the case.

Then suddenly, a bright light came out of the little book that was sucking both Spike and Steel Hammer in it. Luckily, Star Twinkle and the girls were close by and noticed the light coming from the room and quickly investigated. As soon as they saw the two trying to not getting sucked into the comic, they all jumped to the two's rescue one by one. Unfortunately, they couldn't prevent them from being sucked into the comic and even ended up getting sucked into it as well. This only left the comic book inside of the room. They all vanished to the other side...of the comic-book...

Somewhere else...

It was quiet. Whatever happened after Star Twinkle and his friends tried to help Spike and Steel Hammer was over now. Star Twinkle was not hurt so he managed to get up pretty easily. He was no longer in the castle but instead on top of some building. He was clearly no longer in the Everfree Forest or even Ponyville, that's for sure. It was a city, filled with big skyscrapers, nothing he had ever seen before. "What is this place?" He wondered as he kept looking around.

"It's Maretropolis!" A voice said from behind Star Twinkle. He quickly identified it as Steel Hammer's voice, however, it sounded a little muffled.

"Maretropolis?" Star Twinkle asked while he turned around to face Steel Hammer. The green Earth Pony got a little confused to not see a brown coated and silver-maned pony in front of him but instead a pony dressed in some kind of orange armor suit that covered all of his body. There were also some green hammer symbols scattered on his armor, one of them being directly on his chest.

"What are you wearing?" Is the only thing that Star Twinkle could ask after seeing Steel Hammer in this get up. But he was about to get even more confused once he saw the rest of hit Friends standing nearby, all of them wearing a completely different attire.

"Somepony wanna tell me what the hay is goin' on?" Applejack then asked confused, practically speaking for everypony else.

"Holy new personas, ponies!" Spike then said in shock, standing next to Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer, wearing a black mask, blue boots, blue gloves, a blue belt and a red cape. "You're the...Power Ponies!" He said in shock once he looked over to everypony.

"Awesome!" Steel Hammer exclaimed excitedly.

It was only just now that Star Twinkle realized that he was wearing something else as well. "Wait a minute! You mean like those ponies from your comic?" He asked confused

"Yep! We all look exactly like them!" Steel Hammer replied, somehow not being fazed by all this at all. "Let me give you a little run down,"

Steel Hammer then pointed over to everypony and explained who they were.

Twilight, who was wearing a cherry red colored and light blue suit, a cherry red colored mask with yellow goggles and white boots with her star Cutie Mark on it. According to Steel Hammer, she was "The Masked Matter-Horn".

Next was Pinkie Pie, who was wearing white bodysuit with some light purple lines on it, which covered all of her body except her face. She was "Fili-Second"

Rainbow Dash was wearing a night blue suit, white boots with yellow lightning bolts on it and a lightning bolt shaped necklace. Steel Hammer called her "Zapp".

Rarity wore a dark blue suit and a blue mask. There were light blue and pink diamonds scattered all over her clothes and her mane, and one big pink one on the yellow necklace around her chest. Her name was "Radiance".

Steel Hammer then pointed to Applejack. She was wearing a red suit, a black mask that only showed her eyes and mouth and black boots with yellow apples on them. She was also wearing a black saddlebag that had a golden lasso and golden horseshoes inside of it. "Mistress Mare-velous" was her name.

The last of the girls was Fluttershy. She was wearing a turquoise colored suit with yellow butterflies on her legs, a purple scarf with a pink flower on it, and a purple mask. Her name was "Saddle Rager,"

Steel Hammer then introduced himself and showed off his orange armor that had green hammer symbols all over his body. "I myself am...Metal Hoof!" He proudly said as he was posing and showing off the armor that he was wearing in front of everyone.

Star Twinkle didn't really pay attention to what he was wearing up until now but he was also wearing similar clothes like the rest. His suit was yellow and he had a big white star on his chest with a green "U" inside of it. He was also wearing green boots and had a long green cape on his back.

"And...who am I?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Steel Hammer explained. "You are...Ultra Pony!"

Needless to say, this was all a little to much to take in. According to Steel Hammer and Spike, they were inside of a comic book and took the place of the Power Ponies. Some ponies in the group had a hard time believing that but they didn't have another explanation for their new get up so what they were saying might as well be true. But before the group had any moment to even comprehend all this, an explosion went off in front of their building, down on the street.

A giant smoke cloud came out of a hole from the building across the street and a mare came walking out of it. Or rather, she used her extremely long green mane which could move on its own to pull her out of the bank. "Power Ponies! How kind of you to join us!" She said excited followed by an insane and maniacally sounding laugh.

She had a grayish blue-violet colored coat, a malachite green colored mane, and emerald green eyes with red pupils. She was also wearing a purple suit with black boots. She also carried some kind of orb with her.

As soon as this pony referred to the group as "Power Ponies" it was pretty much confirmed that what Spike and Steel Hammer told them was actually true.

"So lemme guess...That's the Mane-iac?" Star Twinkle figured based on how obviously insane and evil she was already acting.

"Yes! And you have to stop her!" Spike replied. "My comic book! It said the way to get back to where we started was to defeat the Mane-iac! Your arch-nemesis!" He explained.

Since defeating the Maniac seemed to be the only way to get out of this comic the group pretty much had no choice to stop her, especially after the Mane-iac decided to throw some stuff right at the group, causing them to dodge out of the way. However, Pinkie Pie didn't seem to have moved in time and actually got hit by it.

Surprisingly, Pinkie Pie didn't seem to be there anymore. "Pinkie! Where'd she go?!" Rainbow Dash asked confused, causing her and the others to look around in order to find her only to find out that a pink flash accompanied by a shrieking voice yelling "Wheeee" was running all over the city.

"Wait...is that Pinkie Pie!?" Star Twinkle asked confused, following the pink flash all over the city with his eyes.

"She could be miles away from here by now!" Spike explained. "Pinkie is Fili-Second, the fastest pony in all of Maretropolis!"

Pinkie Pie may be gone for now but there was still a hoof-full of ponies left to deal with the Mane-iac so Applejack took it upon herself to stop the villain. She pulled out her golden lasso and swung it right at the Mane-iac in order to capture her. But the Mane-iac dodged to the side in time, causing Applejack to hit the street lamp next to her. Applejack tried to let go of it but surprisingly, she was practically drawn to the lamp and managed to strap herself right on it, much to the Mane-iac's enjoyment who just continued to laugh maniacally.

"Well, that didn't work..." Star Twinkle thought. It was kinda weird how Applejack messed up that much, considering how good she usually was with a lasso.

Spike turned towards Twilight and asked her to step in now. "Twilight! Freeze her mane!" He asked of her.

"Do what?" Twilight replied confused.

"You're the Masked Matter-Horn! You can shoot all kinds of crazy power beams from your horn!" Spike explained, prompting her to take action to save the day.

Twilight concentrated her magic. She didn't seem to be able to use her usual magic spells and had to do what Spike was asking of her but all she managed to do was shooting an embarrassing small spark out of her horn. Definitely not what she was supposed to do.

The Mane-iac's reaction was...rather unimpressed. "You know, I'm beginning to enjoy this," she said, followed by her usual maniacally laughter.

Shortly after, a fire hydrant came flying towards the group, causing them to dodge out of the way again. "Would somepony tell her to stop throwing stuff at us!?" Star Twinkle exclaimed.

Spike then widened his eyes. "That's it! Star Twinkle charge right at her!"

"Well, it had to be my turn someday..." Star Twinkle mumbled. "What is my superpower?" He asked.

"You're Ultra Pony! You can fly, you have super-pony strength, speed, and durability!"

"I have?" Star Twinkle asked confused, not really feeling that different. "That actually sounds pretty powerful..."

"Come on, Star Twinkle! Just go down there and attack her!" Spike said to finally deal with the Mane-iac.

Being on top of a building didn't really help Star Twinkle out much because of his fear of height. Spike said he could fly which didn't help out much either since he was afraid of flying too. Quite a bothersome situation he was in now. Still, Star Twinkle tried to ignore that and just jumped towards the Mane-iac with his eyes closed, hoping that he would hit her.

Shortly after Star Twinkle jumped, the next thing he knew was that he crashed into something and that he was suddenly inside of a building. His head started to spin a little and he didn't seem to be in any condition to fight due to being a little disorientated about what just happened and just slowly walked out of the building. He found himself next to Applejack and The Mane-iac who didn't seem to be to impressed by his performance.

By now, Spike just slapped his forehead and was heavily disappointed by how his friends were dealing with the whole situation. Steel Hammer was the next one to show off his superpowers. "Let me show you all how a real superhero takes care of things!" He said confidently and determined. There was fire coming out of his legs that made the stallion fly up into the air. Steel Hammer then pointed his front hoof towards the Mane-iac.

"What's he doing?" Star Twinkle wondered, wondering what his boss was about to do now.

As if Steel Hammer heard the question, he immediately explained his own superpowers. "Metal Hoof doesn't have any superpowers but his armor is filled with all kind of cool gadgets! Like rocket launchers or energy beams!" He said, probably having a big grin under his helmet at this point. Having Steel Hammer in charge of destructive weapons like that was not exactly what Star Twinkle thought would be a good combination, however, Steel Hammer knew a lot about this comic and the Power Ponies so maybe he would actually be capable to do something helpful now.

The leg pieces of his armor began to change and it looked like some kind of laser cannon. He pointed towards the Mane-iac and started his assault. "EAT DIRT, criminal scum! Ahahahahaha," He shouted followed by a maniac laugh.

The Mane-iac saw how those lasers were about to hit her and she dodged, seeing that Steel Hammer might cause her some problems. "Yes! It's working!" Star Twinkle said after seeing the Mane-iac actually being in some trouble now. However, he quickly took those words back once he was almost hit by one of those beams himself. After looking up to the stallion once more, Star Twinkle noticed that Steel Hammer was too excited about his newfound powers to aim properly. He was just shooting randomly at the Mane-iac. "Nope, it's not working..." Star Twinkle corrected after he saw this. Only a few moments later, Steel Hammer hit the building that Star Twinkle was standing in front of, causing some debris to fall directly at the green stallion. "Nope...not working at all!" He said before he was buried under the rubble.

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight yelled in her concern before she was about to fly towards him if Spike wouldn't have stopped her.

"He's fine! Ultra Pony won't be defeated by something like that," he explained. Twilight still seemed worried but she trusted Spike's words who was still focusing on stopping the Mane-iac again. "Dash! Quick! You're Zapp, and your superpower is controlling the mighty forces of nature! Unholster the lightning bolt!"

Rainbow Dash seemed confused but she gave it a try and flew up in the air, pointing her lightning bolt necklace towards the sky. Moments later, lightning bolts appeared in the sky and a tornado started to form in front of her. The tornado headed right at the rest of the group who was still on top of the buildings and tried to hold on to something.

"Lightning, not a tornado!" Spike yelled at Rainbow Dash. Again, things were not going according to plan. The group was then sucked into the tornado and were even more helpless than before.

Pinkie Pie eventually, decided to come back to the group as well, only to be caught by the tornado as well. Rainbow Dash and Steel Hammer who were still in the air were shortly sucked into it too, leaving only Applejack and the Mane-iac outside. The latter one making herself comfortable to enjoy this show in front of her.

Despite swirling around inside of the tornado, Spike continued to explain the girl's superpowers in order to take care of the situation. "Fluttershy! You're Saddle Rager! Lose your temper, and you'll turn into a huge, super-strong monster!"

"Oh, gosh! That wouldn't... be very... polite!" Fluttershy replied confused.

Again, Spike slapped his forehead in frustration before he turned towards Rarity. "Rarity! Use your jewelry to create attack constructs!"

"What's an attack construct?!" Rarity replied confused.

"Just think of something, anything, and your bracelet makes it appear!" Spike explained.
Rarity then took a glance at her diamond-shaped bracelet and focused. Something then did appear in front of her, however, it was just a bunch of tea cups that flew right at Spike and shattered. "Something useful!" He exclaimed frustrated.

The tornado continued to rage through the street without nearly stopping the Mane-iac and with the group being inside of it. Spike was the only one who managed to fall out of the tornado and landed next to the Mane-iac. His head was still spinning but he clearly saw how the Electro-Orb, that the Mane-iac was carrying was right in front of him. The Mane-iac was too busy to look at the tornado in front of her and didn't even notice him so he decided to take the orb without her noticing. It actually worked and Spike was able to snitch it away from her unnoticed but as soon as he tried to sneak away, he slipped on his cape and dropped it, causing the Mane-iac to pick it up again.

"Why, thank you, Hum Drum!" The Mane-iac said, followed by her usual evil laughter. She then left the group in their misery and was probably on her way to continue her evil plans.

It was only now that Spike actually noticed that he was also wearing a superhero attire. Unfortunately, it wasn't one he was too impressed with. "I'm Hum Drum...?!" He realized in shock. But he had no time to worry about this right now since there was still a tornado raging through the streets that had to be stopped. Applejack was the only one who was up now so it was up to her to take care of it. "Applejack! You gotta help stop the tornado from destroying the city!"

Applejack still tried to break free from her own lasso, that tied her up on the street lantern. "But every time I move, this darn lasso gets tighter!"

"You're psychically connected to it! Will it to where you want it to go, and it'll obey you!" Spike explained.

Applejack then closed her eyes and concentrated. The lasso opened up and she was finally released again. She then swung the lasso around and threw it right at the tornado to make it stop spinning. It actually worked and shortly after, everypony was with their hooves on the street again. It finally gave them time to discuss what exactly was happening right now and how to deal with the situation.

"Wait!" Twilight then said after realizing that somepony was missing. She turned her head to where Star Twinkle was buried under and was about to walk up to him.

However, the rubble began to move and Star Twinkle emerged from under it shortly after. "Wow! That was...not as painful as I thought it was..." he said in surprise after realizing that he only felt some very slight pain from something that should have crushed him. It was obviously his superpowers that caused that.

He shortly joined the group again and tried to find out what was going on. Spike explained once more, that they were trapped inside of his comic-book and the only way to get out of there was to defeat the Mane-iac and stop her from using her so-called doomsday device.

Despite, messing up on a big scale so far, most of the ponies were confident to take care of this. Everyone except Spike who was sulking a little. Rarity walked up to the little dragon and inspected his outfit as well. "What are your super powers Spikey-boo? Your character is wearing a cape too!"

"I don't have any...I'm Hum Drum..." he replied with a frown on his face. "He's pretty much useless..." he added.

"Good thing you're not really Hum Drum, then," Twilight said, in order to cheer up the little dragon.

"Yeah, good thing..." Spike replied though it was obvious that it didn't help much to hear those words.

The group then asked where the Mane-iac went to so that they could stop him and go back to Ponyville. Spike explained that she must be in her top-secret headquarters by now. The Orb that the Mane-iac was carrying around is used to power up her doomsday device so they had to hurry.

"Alright! Lead the way, Spike!" Applejack said.

"Then leave the rest to us!" Rainbow Dash added.

Spike only sighed after Rainbow Dash's words and led the way to the Mane-iac's hideout.

Later...

With Spike leading the way, the group eventually arrived at the hideout. Or rather...the shampoo factory which was supposed to be the Mane-iac's hideout. "Comic-book logic, huh?" Star Twinkle thought with his eyes narrowed.

Twilight advised that this time, they should come up with a plan but Rainbow Dash insisted to provoke the Mane-iac by shooting lightning at the building, accompanied by Steel Hammer who was randomly shooting at the building with his laser cannons.

"So much for "element of surprise"," Twilight expressed after seeing the two ruin the plan that she had prepared for the situation.

Of course, those attacks were no unheard and a gate opened up in front of the group. A bunch of henchponies showed themselves all of them with stylish mane styles and ready to take care of the Power Ponies. But little did they know that the eight super-ponies were ready for them now. Like in true superhero fashion they all posed next to each other and to make themselves look more amazing.

"Time to Power Pony up!" Applejack then said, pretty much making their appearance complete.

"Ooh! Nice catchphrase!" Pinkie Pie complimented.

The group then split up and dealt with those henchponies with their superpowers. This time they all seemed to get their powers down and managed to take care of everypony that came towards them.

Twilight used her freeze ray to freeze rays to freeze ponies in her track, Applejack used her lasso and her golden horseshoes, Rainbow Dash struck lighting down on her enemies, Pinkie Pie used her speed to outmaneuver everypony, Rarity summoned several things with her bracelet to defeat the henchponies and Steel Hammer actually aimed before he shot at somepony.

Fluttershy was the only one who stood back in the rear and was hiding from everypony since she wasn't angry enough to use her own powers. Spike also stood a little further away since he didn't have any powers to deal with the Mane-iac's goons.

Star Twinkle was also not fighting yet which eventually made him end up being surrounded by a whole lot of henchponies. "Okay...easy. The last time I tried to charge at somepony, I landed face first into a wall..." he whispered to himself, trying to come up with some strategy. But he didn't get any time to think since all of the ponies around him began to charge at him. "Here we go!" He then said before he swung his hooves at his attackers. The next thing he knew was seeing the pony in front of him flying away from the impact of Star Twinkle's punch. The green coated stallions jaw dropped after he realized how strong he was and he had to admit that this was pretty awesome. He continued to deal with everypony coming closer to him and managed to fight them off like it was absolutely nothing. "Hehe! I have the power!" He then screamed in his excitement through the street after he knocked out the last pony that attacked him.

The others were done fighting as well and decided to regroup again in front of the shampoo factory.
"Nice work, Power Ponies! Now let's take care of the Mane-iac and get ourselves home!" Twilight said, boosting the morale of the group further.

"Yeah!" Steel Hammer exclaimed excited. "She doesn't stand a chance against us now!" He said, readying his laser cannons.

"I don't think so!" Speaking of the mare, the Mane-iac showed up in front of the Power Ponies to deal with them herself, using her mane to lift her up over the ground. "I have a city to destroy, and I'm not about to let the Power Ponies stop me! Not this time!" She said, with her eyes rolling in pure insanity.

"Just watch us!" Rainbow Dash returned, being completely unimpressed by the Mane-iac's words and instantly charged right at the villain.

But the Mane-iac came prepared and pulled out a big spray can, something that Spike quickly recognized. "The Hairspray Ray of Doom! It stops you in your tracks and renders your powers useless!" He exclaimed.

But for Rainbow Dash, it was too late. The Mane-iac used the Hairspray Ray of Doom and Rainbow Dash got caught into it directly. She dropped to the ground and was unable to move at all. After seeing Rainbow Dash unable to do anything, the rest of the group decided to charge right at the villain. On hindsight, this was actually a pretty stupid idea because it ended with all of them being sprayed at too. They must have gotten a little carried away with their powers and felt a little too confident.

The group was unable to move and the henchponies dragged them inside of the shampoo factory.
"Don't worry," Twilight then said. "Fluttershy is still out of there, I'm sure if she get's angry enough she-"

"-got captured..." Star Twinkle finished as soon as he saw Fluttershy being dragged by a pony towards the group.

"Oh..." Twilight replied as soon as she saw Fluttershy as well. "Wait...where is Spike!?" She then asked.

The Mane-iac laughed. "You mean Hum Drum? Why in all of Maretropolis would I use the Hairspray Ray of Doom on him? Rather pointless, don't you think?" She explained. Hearing those word would probably make Spike feel even more helpless then he already thought he was.

It's not like they had time to worry about him though. Right now they were the ones who were trapped and about to lose to the Mane-iac...

A little Later...

The eight ponies were put inside of a cage that was hanging from the ceiling while still being unable to move. To make sure that it would stay that way, they were sprayed at by the Mane-iac's Hairspray Ray of Doom occasionally since it actually didn't take too long for it to wear off. In the meantime, the Mane-iac, in good old villain fashion, explained her plan to the Power Ponies.

"Congratulations, Power Ponies! You shall live just long enough to see me fire the instrument of your destruction!" She then walked up and removed a sheet that covered her Doomsday machine...which looked like a hairdryer.

"Comic-book logic, I guess..." Star Twinkle thought after seeing this thing next to the villain.

"Once the Electro-Orb has powered it up completely, this cannon will amplify the power of my mane one million times, expelling an energy blast that will cause everypony in Maretropolis's mane to grow wild!" She explained while laughing like crazy again. "You will be my weapon's first victims, and there is nopony who can save you from this fate!"

But Fluttershy disagreed with those last words. "Ahem. I don't mean to interrupt, but aren't you forgetting about somepony?" She said.

"Yeah!" Steel Hammer agreed. "Hum Drum is still out there and he will find a way to save us!"

"Hum Drum?" The Mane-iac replied. "Little guy? No superpowers whatsoever? He's utterly useless!" She said laughing about the thought that Spike could do something to stop her. "Puh-lease. Everypony knows you just keep him around because you feel sowwy for him,"

Again the group disagreed. Especially Twilight. "Maybe in your world. But in our world, Spike— uh, Hum Drum always comes through when we need him! Always!"

There was nothing more to add from anypony. The rest agreed that Spike was not able to use magic, that he wasn't as fast as Rainbow Dash, as strong as Applejack or being able to transform like Star Twinkle. But whenever they really needed him, Spike would not disappoint them. Just like back then in the Crystal Empire or some other occasions. And this time was no different. They just had to trust him.

But of course, the Mane-iac wasn't believing a word that Twilight said. "I see dementia must be a side-effect of prolonged exposure to the Hairspray Ray of Doom,"

The Mane-iac then went on with some kind of speech how she finally managed to defeat her arch-nemesis and how she would soon be in control of Maretropolis. All while not being aware that her plans were about be ruined by one little dragon that was sneaking around the factory. As soon as Star Twinkle spotted him, he smiled towards Twilight, knowing that they soon would be free.

Spike managed to set up the big sheet that was on the doomsday machine before and placed it so that it would trap most of the henchponies if it was moved in the right angle. Luckily, Spike managed to get exactly that to work. He was able to strap the sheet to a giant box and threw it off of a railing to trap most of the goons in one swoop.

Next, he had to deal with the pony who kept spraying the group with the Hairspray Ray of Doom so he swung via crane over to the pony and kicked him away, knocking off the spray can as well and freezing some more henchponies in the process.

"Way to go, Spike!" Twilight said happily, seeing how Spike took care of the whole situation at once.

Without being exposed to the giant spray can anymore, the group could already feel how their movements were no longer frozen again. As soon as Rarity could move one of her legs again, she summoned a chisel to remove the bars of the cages and freed everypony. The Power Ponies were heading out and took care of the rest of the goons.

The rest went as expected. Freeze Rays, tornadoes, horseshoes, energy blasts and much more were flying all over the place like the one battle in front of the factory. The only one who wasn't part of the battle was Fluttershy who actually tried to leave the factory.

"Fluttershy, where are you going?" Spike asked once he spotted the mare trying to leave.

"You seem to have everything under control," she returned which was actually not too far off from the truth.

The Mane-iac overheard the little conversation between the two and decided to take the chance to test her little Doomsday Machine on Fluttershy. But luckily, a little firefly was flying right in front of the machine and managed to block her sight. Because of that, the Mane-iac slapped away the little bug with her mane, knocking it against the wall next to Fluttershy.

Something that she soon would regret doing...

"Oh, goodness! Are you okay?" Fluttershy said once she saw the little firefly hurt on the ground. She then turned towards the Mane-iac with an angry expression on her face. "Are you kidding me? I mean, I know you're evil and everything, but you hurt a teensy, little, harmless firefly?! Really?!" Well, you're just a great, big, meanie!" She continued, much to the Mane-iacs surprise who noticed how Fluttershy's voice kept getting deeper "There! I said it! What makes you think you're so special?! Like the rules of common courtesy don't apply to you?!" Her voice kept getting even deeper and as if that wasn't scary enough, the little and slender mare suddenly grew bigger and more muscular, causing her suit to get ripped apart and shortly being almost the same size of an Ursa Major. "WHY DON'T YOU PICK ON SOMEPONY YOUR OWN SIZE!?" She said before she let out a ground shaking roar that sent shivers down on everyponies spine.

"Well. She is angry now," Steel Hammer pointed out after seeing Fluttershy like this.

The Mane-iac didn't like the sight of this monster of a pony in front of her and pressed some buttons on her Doomsday Device and shot right at Fluttershy but the mare only let out another roar that completely reflected the beam right back at her, knocking the villain of the ground.

Fluttershy then jumped up to the machine and literally ripped it apart, smashing it with only her hooves and biting out pieces of it. It took her some time to notice how everypony was staring at her but when she did she quickly got embarrassed.

The focus was then back to the Mane-iac who was now suffering from the effects of her own Doomsday Device that made her mane go even more crazier. "My mane! My maaaaaane!" She just screamed before she got completely tied up by her own mane and continued laughing insanely while jumping up and down on the ground.

Star Twinkle had mixed feelings seeing that in front of him. "You know...I am starting to think that she is a little crazy..." he expressed.

With the Mane-iac defeated there was only one thing left to do for the group.

"Do you wanna say it?" Steel Hammer said as he walked up to Spike.

The little dragon nodded since he knew exactly what the stallion meant and struck a pose with his pony friends behind him. "Once again, the day is saved by—"

But before Spike could finish his sentence, the same light that brought the group into this world appeared next to them and sucked them into it, probably sending them back to Ponyville.

Back in the Castle of the Two Sister...

As expected, the group found themselves back into the castle after their victory over the Mane-iac.
The group was glad being back in the real world again but at the same time, they seemed to have fun having superpowers for a short amount of time.

"Did you see how I was raining down a storm of justice at the end there?!" Rainbow Dash asked.

"You catch how I was wieldin' that lasso?" Applejack asked.

"Cupcakes?" Pinkie Pie asked having a plate of cupcakes in her hooves. Of course, the group was wondering where she got those all of the sudden to which Pinkie Pie explained: "We had a good half second before we got sucked back out of the comic, and the Maretropolis bakery was only sixty-five blocks away!"

Spike seemed to be the only one who was exhausted after this whole adventure. "I'm just glad to be back," he shared with the group.

"We wouldn't have made it without you, Spike," Twilight said, speaking basically for the rest of the group. "And I hope you realize that just because we don't always need your help, it doesn't mean that we don't think you're helpful," she explained.

"And that you don't have to have superpowers to be a super friend," Spike said, proving that he learned something from this whole trip into the comic-book.

"You're darn right!" Steel Hammer added. "I wish the comics that I read back then were as eventful as this one,"

"Yeah, that brings up one more question," Star Twinkle then said after he realized something. "Where ever did you get a comic-book that could literally send us into it?"

Spike then explained. "This one I got in Canterlot at the House of Enchanted Comics." Hearing that made everyone except Steel Hammer roll their eyes. "Well, I didn't know it meant they were literally enchanted! I thought it just meant, like, the comics they sold there had really enchanting storylines!" He explained, trying to not get on the bad side of everypony now.

Steel Hammer then walked up to the little dragon and whispered something to him. "Soooo...where exactly can one find this comic shop?" He asked, trying to not let anypony hear that.

But that didn't work...

"You are coming with me..." Star Twinkle said, dragging his boss behind him so that he wouldn't do something stupid.

"Come on!" Steel Hammer plead as he continued to get dragged by Star Twinkle who clearly thought that an adventure like that was enough.

Author's Notes:

Now to clear one thing in advance:
I have almost no knowledge about superhero's, Marvel, DC or comics in general. Now if this was a Power Ranger based episode like the title of the episode would have suggested, then I would have had a field trip!

Can you guess which heroes Star TWinkle and Steel Hammer represented? It was kinda obvious.

At first, I wanted to make Star Twinkle into Ironman (Metal Hoof) but after deciding to mix Steel Hammer into the chapter it shifted to him. I then wanted to make Star Twinkle into Captain America and call him something like Commander Equestria or something. But with Maretropolis being a fictional city, I was not sure if it was in Equestria or if it even existed in this world.
Am I thinking too much about this?

Anyway...

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

73. Flutter like a Bat!

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A bell was ringing through the streets of Ponyville. Normally, that is something that Star Twinkle would not bother with but in this case, he simply had to investigate. Star Twinkle remembered how Applejack once told him that whenever she would ring that bell, then it would be in some kind of emergency. Whatever the reason might be, Star Twinkle decided to check it out to see what happened. To his surprise, the rest of his friends were on their way to the orchard as well, all of them wondering what all of this was about.

"What's going on?" Rainbow Dash asked as she was diving down next to Star Twinkle who was still running towards the orchard.

"I dunno," Star Twinkle replied.

"Today is Apple Bucking Day," Twilight pointed out as she ran right beside Star Twinkle. "Since Applejack is not working out in the field, I guess something must have happened to prevent her from doing just that," she figured.

The rest of Star Twinkle's friends joined the three as well and they soon arrived in front of Applejack's barn where they could already hear the mare's voice. "Attention! This is a Sweet Apple Acres code red! I need all hooves – and claws – on deck!" She screamed over the sound of her ringing the bell.

She finally stopped ringing the barn bell as soon as Star Twinkle, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Spike arrived right in front of her. Applejack seemed unusual paranoid and stressed, there was definitely something bothering her.

"What happened?" Star Twinkle asked out of worry for Applejack.

"Well, just look at it!" She replied while pointing towards the orchard.

It was really messy all over the place. Foul and dry apples were scattered all over the orchard. On top of that, there were almost no apples hanging from the trees anymore. On first sight, it looked like as if Applejack's harvest was not as good as it usually was but the group then quickly noticed something else hanging in the trees.

"Are those...bats?" Star Twinkle asked as soon as he spotted a few of those creatures hiding inside of the trees, sucking the juice out of some of the remaining apples in them.

"Not normal bats!" Applejack corrected. "Vampire Fruit Bats! And they are attackin' Sweet Apple Acres!" She exclaimed frustrated and angrily.

"But I thought the fruit bats usually stayed put in the west orchard," Twilight pointed out, clearly knowing more about all of this than Star Twinkle.

"The fruit bats do, but these aren't just your everyday ordinary fruit bats. They're Vampire fruit bats! I'll be darned if they think they're gonna sink their fangs into my blue ribbon apple," she said as she walked up to something big and round standing next to her, hidden under a sheet. She revealed a gigantic apple hanging...or rather standing next to an apple tree. It was twice the size of Applejack herself and pulled the branch where it was hanging from almost down to the ground.
Needless to say, the group was heavily surprised to see something like that and watched in awe.

"That's a huge apple!" Pinkie Pie expressed, stating the obvious.

Applejack explained. "This here's our entry into the Appleloosa State Fair's produce competition," she while she proudly looked at her masterpiece. "You know how much TLC goes into getting an apple to grow like this?"

"I imagine a lot," Star Twinkle replied, not even having a single clue how Applejack even managed to get it to grow this big.

Rarity walked up to the apple as well and looked at her reflection which was mirrored on the apple due to it being really shiny. "Applejack! When you go big, you really go big!" She said impressed before she lost herself in her reflection and adjusted her mane.

Applejack was well aware of her success with this apple and wasn't even thinking about letting it get ruined by some bats. Considering how big she managed to grow this thing, it would really be a shame if something would happen to it, that is something the group all agreed to. This is where the problem with the Vampire Bats came in. Applejack claimed that they were after her giant apple.

Fluttershy flew up next to Applejack after hearing that and assured her that it wouldn't come to this. "Oh, I'm sure if we just let them know how special that particular apple is to you, they'll leave it alone," she explained optimistically.

But Applejack had problems believing that. "Yeah, right. Be my guest," she said, allowing Fluttershy to actually speak to some of those bats to take care of the situation peacefully.

Fluttershy smiled and was glad that Applejack was open to her solution and went over to one of the apple trees to confront the Vampire Bats. She was the only one able to talk with animals so the rest was just waiting for her to deal with them.

"You'll think they will listen to her?" Applejack asked into the round.

Star Twinkle kept watching how Fluttershy was talking to one of them and expected her to be successful. "I'll saw her talking down a Dragon, a Minotaur, and a Draconequus. I think she can handle a few bats,"

Applejack kept watching Fluttershy and hoped that what Star Twinkle was saying was true but as soon they saw how the Vampire Bats spit some apple seeds at the mare they were convinced that it didn't go quite as well. Applejack simply rolled her eyes and was not really surprised by this outcome. Fluttershy came walking back and Applejack put on a fake smile. "Well? What'd he say?" She asked overly sarcastic awaiting Fluttershy's answer.

"Um... yes," Fluttershy then replied with a smile on her face.

"Huh?!" Applejack replied confused.

"But... it could've been a no," Fluttershy then corrected, causing Applejack to groan in response. "This is the first Vampire Fruit Bat I've ever met and, well, it might take some time for me to really understand their language," she explained further which would explain why the bats replied the way they did.

"Uh-huh. And in the meantime, this pest and his vermin friends are gonna go after my prized apple and, while they're at it, every other apple in the orchard! These vampire bats are nothin' but a bunch of monsters!" Applejack said, clearly not taking it too well that those bats were flying around in her orchard.

"Monsters?!" Fluttershy replied, shocked by Applejack's choice of words. "Oh, that's a bit harsh, don't you think?"

"Didn't they just spit seeds at you?" Star Twinkle pointed out.

Fluttershy had to think for second how to reply but then decided to smile nervously. Applejack, however, didn't feel like smiling and made her point clear. "They don't care about what happens to my orchard, they don't hesitate to eat my apples, and I am pretty sure that they already targeted my masterpiece of an apple as well!" Applejack said, hammering down her hoof at the ground angrily.

"Now wait just a minute, there's also another side to this," Fluttershy responded, trying to side with the bats again. "These bats are mamas and papas too and they care for their young just like us ponies," she pointed out.

"Oh, give me a break," Applejack replied annoyed. "You're being too kind! Do mamas and papas treat an orchard like a restaurant?" Applejack replied.

This went back and forth multiple times. Both of them made valid points and tried to convince the other to side with them, unfortunately with not much success. However, there was one fact that could not be ignored. Those bats already destroyed some of Applejack harvest and they would probably continue. Applejack had all rights to worry about her orchard.

"I'm sorry, Fluttershy, but I believe Applejack has made the better argument," Rarity agreed. "These vampire fruit bats sound downright dreadful," she expressed while shrugging her body in disgust.

Applejack suggested that they should all round them up so that they would not destroy the rest of her orchard. Everyone agreed with that idea, except for Fluttershy who was not liking the idea to treat the bats like that. "Um, excuse me, but, um, what if instead of rounding them up, we... let them have part of the orchard?" She suggested. She was obviously still trying to find a more peaceful solution to all of this.

But Applejack was not so easy to convince after losing some of her harvest already. "Have you lost your pest-lovin' mind?!" She replied offended.

"They're only here because they're hungry!" Fluttershy pointed out. "If we build a sanctuary for them, they could have their own apples to enjoy! After a while, they could even help the rest of your orchard! The vampire bats don't eat the seeds of the apples, and when they spit them out, they grow into even more productive apple trees!" She explained.

"Listen, Fluttershy," Applejack replied, trying to finally make her point in all of this. "That sounds real nice 'n' all, but every second we spend buildin' this so-called 'sanctuary' is a second they'll spend destroyin' orchards! You don't know what it was like the last time there was an infestation, but Granny Smith has told me enough stories about it that just the thought of it gives me nightmares! We lost a huge section of orchard that year. They had to ration out apples all winter!" She explained. It was no wonder that Applejack wanted to deal with the situation as fast as possible after growing up with a story like that as a background.

But after listening to the story, Rainbow Dash a whole lot of other concerns. "What about the cider? There was still cider, right?" She asked in worry.

Applejack looked straight at the mare with a serious expression on her face. "Not...a...drop," she simply said.

"No cider?! No cider?! We need to round up these monsters, and we need to do it now!" Rainbow Dash quickly advised, having her mind in a whole different place right now. Hearing that, made Star Twinkle feel relieved that Steel Hammer wasn't present because he would probably go to even more drastic methods to secure his cider.

"If Granny Smith wasn't with Apple Bloom an' Big Mac checkin' out our produce competition in Appleloosa, she'd be here tellin' us to do just that!" Applejack pointed out.

It made actually sense hearing that. If Granny Smith would have done it the same way and if the bats were unable to be convinced to stop eating the apples then there was no point in wasting more time and risking more of the orchard getting destroyed. Even if it meant for Fluttershy to be the only one being left out in all of this.

Twilight noticed that Fluttershy was still against that idea, which is why Twilight tried to comfort her. "I'm sorry, Fluttershy, but I think Applejack is right. I just wish there was another way we could convince them not to eat them in the first place," she said before she looked up while thinking about something. Suddenly, her eyes widened and she showed a happy and relieved expression. "Maybe there is...!" She then said, hinting at that she came up with another idea.

But in order to figure out if her idea would work, she needed to confirm one more thing. And for that, she had to return to her library...

Later in the Golden Oak Library...

"So, there's good news and bad news," Twilight said after she was done flipping some pages in her books and finally coming up with a solution. "The good news is that I found a spell that can get the vampire fruit bats to stop wanting to suck the juice from the apples," she explained.

This sounded strangely familiar to Star Twinkle and got him worried. "Wait...you mean that spell that you used on those Parasprites things that totally backfired and caused them to eat literally everything else!?" He pointed out with a nervous expression on his face.

Twilight replied with a nervous grin after she remembered this incident herself. "I think I can tweak around a little to prevent that from happening again," she said, still with a nervous grin on her face, making that statement a little bit more unbelievable.

"Note to myself...keep a broom ready..." Star Twinkle thought, remembering all too well how he had to fight off some Parasprites that attacked his house back then.

After that cleared, Twilight still had to share the bad news that she mentioned earlier. "But in order for the spell to work, I need the bats' full and complete attention," she said before she looked straight at Fluttershy.

Fluttershy then gasped as soon as she knew what Twilight demanded of her. "Oh no," she said worriedly.

"Fluttershy, I need you to do your Stare on the bats," Twilight asked of her.

But Fluttershy hesitated and didn't seem to like the idea of using her stare. Star Twinkle didn't remember seeing that Stare very often but from what he knows, it usually involves Fluttershy literally staring down an animal until it does what she demands. It was kinda like the ultimate way to tame an animal. This would explain why Fluttershy was not too fond of using it since she preferred to not force but rather use her kindness to get her animals to agree with her. She stated that it was something that she didn't take lightly and that she made a vow not to use it except in dire circumstances.

"This circumstance is plenty dire to me!" Applejack said, feeling a little offended that Fluttershy would rather risk losing her orchard and side with the bats then stopping them.

"Me too!" Rainbow Dash said. "Think of the cider! Won't somepony please think of the cider?!" She exclaimed in frustration as she dropped to her knees.

"I'm sorry," Fluttershy apologized. "I just don't like the idea of taking away the thing that really makes the vampire fruit bats vampire fruit bats! It just feels wrong!"

Twilight understood the conflict that Fluttershy must have gone through now but she was still worried about Ponyville and remembered her that if Fluttershy didn't step in, Ponyville would lose every single apple. This only put more pressure on the mare.

Even Star Twinkle tried to convince Fluttershy by now. "I'm sure they will find some other fruits to eat. Somewhere else, where they won't eat stuff away from anypony,"

Fluttershy started to get behind what her friends asked of her. It was either letting Applejack's orchard get destroyed or making the Vampire Fruit Bats lose their appetite. Eventually, Fluttershy gave in and decided to help out, mainly because she didn't want to disappoint her friends.

"Okay, I'll do it," Fluttershy said.

"Good choice," Rarity said. "I knew you wouldn't side with those icky bats!" She added while she was shaking her body just thinking about those creatures.

"They're not icky," Fluttershy said. She seemed to think that it was rude of Rarity referring to them like that, especially since they would soon lose their interest in apples which was already not okay for her.

Fluttershy was now on their side and was willing to use her Stare at them but Star Twinkle was still worried about getting this plan done at all. "If we want to use Fluttershy's Stare on all of the bats, then we first have to gather all of them in one place," he pointed out. "How do we do that?" He asked, trying to be one who wanted to make sure that the plan would succeed.

But Applejack already seemed to have something in mind and looked at Star Twinkle. "Don't worry! I think I know how to make that happen," she said confidently while smiling at the stallion.

"How?" Star Twinkle asked confused. He didn't realize that Applejack already included him in her plan. After hearing what it was all about, he wanted to talk his way out of it but unfortunately, it was already too late...

Later in Sweet Apple Acres...

"Why do I even ask..." Star Twinkle mumbled annoyed.

"Oh, come on, Star Twinkle!" Pinkie Pie said excitedly. "I bet it'll be fun!" She said as she jumped up and down as usual.

Of course, Pinkie Pie would think of this task, that they both were assigned to, as fun. Both of them had a hat filled with apples on their head. They were supposed to lure the Vampire Fruit Bats to a certain tree so that Fluttershy could use her Stare at all of them at once. Star Twinkle didn't like playing the bait for those things but there was no way that he could bail out now so he just tried to get over with it as fast as possible.

The two Earth Ponies walked up to a tree where most of the bats gathered and tried their best to get their attention. Star Twinkle waved over to the bats and actually managed to get them to look at him.

"Okay, let's just hope that they will follow me..." he thought, hoping that the plan would work how he expected it to go.

However, as soon as the bats spotted the apples on Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie's heads, the bats began to hiss aggressively and spread their wings all at once. They were all flying up into the air and got ready to dive down on the two. Star Twinkle's reaction was a loud scream of terror. He quickly ran away from this hungry swarm of bats that was about to attack him and charged to the spot where he was supposed to lure them into all while bats were right behind him.

Pinkie Pie was running next to Star Twinkle and was completely unshaken by all of this. In fact, she was laughing and even seemed to enjoy all of this. "See? I told you it would be fun!" She said happily at the stallion who was just running away in fear.

"I think your definition of fun is maybe a little bit different than mine!" Star Twinkle exclaimed back at the mare as he focused to run towards the tree where they were supposed to lure the bats to.

It didn't take long until the two would arrive. Both of them placed their apple-hats right next to a tree and the bats quickly went to it, eating the apples that the two left behind for them.

In the meantime, the rest of the girls rounded up the very last of the bats and placed them on the tree as well while also making sure that they would not leave it until Twilight and Fluttershy were done with them.

"Good work, everypony! I think we got 'em all!" Applejack said happily after seeing how the plan worked flawlessly so far. The next step was Fluttershy using her Stare at them to keep them focused.

Fluttershy still didn't like the idea of using her Stare at them but with friends, mainly, Applejack and Rainbow Dash putting more and more pressure on her, she soon found herself to not have any choice now so she went up to the bats and started.

"I really, really, really hate to do this to you... I just hope you can forgive me..." she apologized before she then closed her eyes. When she opened them again her eyes were widened and she stared right at the bats. At first, the bats were hissing at her but then they found themselves in some kind of trance which was caused by Fluttershy's Stare.

As soon as every bat was staring at Fluttershy, Twilight followed up with her spell. Her horn began to glow in a purple light and she closed her eyes to concentrate on her spell. The bats were soon covered in this purple aura as well but they didn't seem to mind or even notice it due to them being still in trance by Fluttershy's Stare. Twilight stopped her spell after a few seconds and had a smile on her face, indicating that the spell must have been a success. "You can stop staring, Fluttershy," she then said after she noticed that Fluttershy was still concentrating on using her Stare.

Fluttershy stopped her Stare shortly after. Judging from the sweat that was coming down from her head, she was probably at her limit of using it and was glad that it was over. Still, her expression showed that she regretted doing that.

"Did it work?" Spike asked, which was undoubtedly the most important question now.

"Only one way to find out for sure," Applejack said giving a signal to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash put Twilight's spell to the test and presented a fresh apple in front of one of the bats to see their reaction. Instead of sticking its teeth right into it, like usual, it only sniffed at it for a second before it completely rejected it and flew away in disinterest.

"Ye-he-heah, whoo!" Rainbow Dash expressed in joy after seeing that the spell was a full success.

"My crop is saved! Yee-haw!" Applejack added in joy herself. If there was anypony who would be happy with this outcome, then it would be her after all. "I wanna thank you for your help. I couldn't have done it without you," she said in her gratitude.

The Vampire Fruit Bats were no longer an issue so Applejack could return to buck some apples tomorrow, meaning that Star Twinkle's work was done and that he no longer had to worry about it anymore. He decided to leave the orchard but while he was on his way home, he noticed Fluttershy walking next to him with her head still down because of what she had to do to the Vampire Fruit Bats. As soon as she let out a huge sigh, Star Twinkle could no longer ignore her so he tried to talk to her a little.

"Are you still worried about the bats?" Star Twinkle asked.

Fluttershy seemed to be thrown out of her thoughts as soon as she heard Star Twinkle's question. She looked towards the stallion and tried to hide her worries a little but Star Twinkle could still see that she was definitely feeling bad about all this. "Um...it's just...I wished that we could have done something else than forcing them to no longer eat apples," she explained before she looked back at the ground again. "It didn't feel right doing that,"

"So you would have rather let them eat all the apples away from the orchard and risk that we will all run out of food?" Star Twinkle then boldly asked.

Fluttershy widened her eyes in shock because of how Star Twinkle was not holding back his thought about this. "No! That's not what I meant!" Fluttershy protested nervously, hiding her face from the stallion. "I just..." she then said but she could think about a way to finish her sentence and looked away.

Surprisingly, Star Twinkle smile a little at this response. "Don't worry. I get it," he then said warmly, causing the mare to look back at the stallion surprised. "I mean...I don't really get it because I agreed to deal with those bats but I know that you just wanted to look for a solution that would make everyone happy. That's just who you are," Star Twinkle said before he looked deep inside of himself and realized that there was quite a big contrast between the two of them. "I was just looking for an easy solution and didn't even thought about the feelings of those bats," he then admitted before he let out a brief laugh which was directed at himself. "Compared to you, I am just selfish..."

Fluttershy didn't say anything at first to that but shortly after, she narrowed her eyes at Star Twinkle and was throwing an almost angry look at him. "You are not selfish!" She then said with a much louder tone in her voice than usual. Star Twinkle was heavily surprised by this little outburst of her and didn't know what to reply to that. He was just standing there with his mouth open in surprise as if he was stuck in time. Fluttershy continued to give Star Twinkle a little glare but as soon as she noticed how Star Twinkle was looking at her, she quickly hid her face under her mane and acted as her usual self. "Um...I mean...let's go home now. I'm a little tired of using my Stare...bye," she quickly said before she walked away from the stallion who was still standing still on the spot in his surprise.

"...Yeah! See you," he replied as he watched the mare walking away from him shyly.

Fluttershy's reaction was not really surprising after Star Twinkle thought about it. He said himself that she was somepony who was considering others feeling above her own so it would only make sense that she didn't like seeing Star Twinkle sad and looking down on himself. He had to admit, seeing her concerned about him, made him a little happy and caused him to smile. "She really is a nice pony," he said to himself before he was returning home with a smile on his face.

On the next day...

After taking care of the Vampire Fruit Bats the day before, one would think that Applejack would have no problems at all with her apple bucking today. However, just like yesterday, the bell of her barn was ringing loudly once more and Star Twinkle and his friends checked out what was going on in the orchard again.

As soon as they arrived, they noticed how the whole orchard was again covered with dry and sucked out apples. Something was still terrorizing the orchard and kept Applejack from doing her work.

"The spell didn't work!" Twilight said surprised after she saw the state that the orchard was in.

"You're darn tootin' the spell didn't work!" Applejack said, clearly not being happy about this at all since she lost some more harvest now. "I think we're gonna have to take more extreme measures!" She then suggested, going back to her original plan from the day before.

"I hear ya, Applejack! C'mon, everypony! Let's track down those vampire bats!" Rainbow Dash agreed before she led the way to where the Vampire Fruit Bats were at now.

They quickly found a whole bunch of them in one part of the orchard, sitting in some trees. However, instead of seeing a picture of bats sucking the juice out of some apples, all they found were some bats sitting on apples and not even remotely thinking about eating them. Of course, the group was confused to see that so Rainbow Dash once again, offered one of the bats an apple. But just like yesterday, it was rejected and slapped out of her hoof. After seeing that everyone came to the conclusion that those bats were not the ones who sucked the apples dry.

Twilight quickly turned towards the one pony who knew most about animals. "Fluttershy, you're our animal expert. Do you know of any other creature that might be capable of this?"

But Fluttershy was at a loss too. "I'm sorry. I don't," she replied. It didn't look like as if she was lying to protect the bats or anything, especially since it was pretty much proven that they weren't the culprits.

So in order to find out who it really was, the group had to see it for themselves. For that, they had to resort to doing something that Star Twinkle was not really looking forward to.

And that was keeping an eye out on the Orchard at night...

Later that night...

Since Applejack was awake from morning till evening, the only time for the culprits to attack the orchard was at night when she was asleep. The group went to the orchard, equipped with flashlights and decided to keep an eye out for anything that could be the reason behind the sucked dry apples.

Of course, not everyone was too hyped for this. Star Twinkle let out a yawn and wanted to go to sleep at times like this, instead of spending the night to walk around a dark orchard. It was actually pretty dark and all the empty apple trees gave the whole farm a pretty scary look.

But Star Twinkle was way too tired to even get scared by this. "Hopefully we find this culprit soon enough. I really prefer to be home at this time..."

Fluttershy, in a way, agreed with Star Twinkle, though it was for different reasons. "Maybe we should just call this off," she said worriedly. Fluttershy was definitely scared to walk around in the dark and wanted to go home as soon as possible.

"Oh, Fluttershy, it'll be okay," Rarity assured. "Don't forget, darling, we're all in this together,"

"That's right," Twilight added. "Nopony leaves this orchard until we've solved this mystery."
The rest of the group agreed with that and finally started to head deeper into the orchard to spot anything suspicious.

"Alright, now everypony split up. We'll each patrol our own row of the orchard. Whoever or whatever's destroyin' my apples has gotta be here somewhere," Applejack suggested, much to Fluttershy's dislike.

"Split up!?" Fluttershy asked in shock. She was clearly afraid to wander around in the farm on her own.

"We do have a better chance to catch the culprit if we split up," Twilight mentioned. "Don't worry, Fluttershy. Just pull out your flashlight and send a signal in the air and we will come right to you," she assured.

"Um...okay..." Fluttershy replied. She still didn't like this plan but with everyone being so focused on finding the culprit, they didn't seem to notice how scared she was and just continued to do their own thing.

Just like Applejack said, the group split up and decided to spread through the orchard. Star Twinkle didn't really like the idea to be on his own either but he liked the "finding the culprit faster" part of the plan so he just went along as well, despite feeling a little scared in this dark orchard. He had his flashlight ready at all times to signal his friends as soon as he spotted something but that didn't change the fact that it was still very dark to see something. It was then when Star Twinkle realized what to do about that.

He transformed into a Unicorn and tried to use his horn to create some light around him. He didn't want to use his flashlight because every flashlight had the Cutie Mark of the owner inside of them, meaning that if he would use it, everyone else would see a light with a star inside of it and mistake it for Star Twinkle actually finding something.

"Come on," he said as he tried to use a flashlight spell with his horn. "I saw Twilight doing that so many time. It shouldn't be that hard," he mumbled as he continued to try using his horn to create light. It actually worked after a while and Star Twinkle managed to create a light in front of him to make him able to see something. He got pretty excited since he got it to work and swung his head around to enlighten his way but as soon as he saw a face in front of him, he fell back and dropped to the ground in his surprise while also shrieking a little.

"Oh! I'm sorry!" Fluttershy apologized, revealing herself as the one who Star Twinkle shined at with his flashlight.

"Fluttershy! What are you doing here!? We're supposed to be splitting up!" Star Twinkle said with some fear and surprise still being in his voice.

Fluttershy felt bad for scaring Star Twinkle but she still replied to his question. "I know but...I'm too scared to go off on my own so I thought I could stay with you," she explained as she slowly walked up closer to the stallion.

Star Twinkle couldn't really blame her for that. He didn't feel too safe as well just thinking about that something in this dark orchard was lingering around them while they were speaking. In fact, having somepony close was probably not too bad, even if it was Fluttershy, who was even more scared then him.

"Alright. You can come with me. Let's try to find the culprit fast so that we can soon get out of this place," Star Twinkle said before he led the way.

"Yes! I would prefer fast," Fluttershy replied before she followed Star Twinkle close behind.

The search went on for a while but no one seemed to have found anything because there was no light to be seen anywhere except the light that Star Twinkle shined over the place. He kept making sure if Fluttershy was behind him as he continued on his way through the orchard. Fluttershy kept looking around to see if there wasn't anything approaching them. She really didn't like being at this place.

"Don't worry, Fluttershy. I'm sure whatever is responsible for all this is not dangerous for us," Star Twinkle said in order to cheer the mare and himself up. Fluttershy chuckled after he said that, a reaction that he certainly didn't expect. "What?" He asked because of her response.

"Told you," she simply said before she began to smile and looked away happily.

"Told you?" Star Twinkle thought confused. "What does she mean with that? Told me what?"

As he was trying to figure out what exactly Fluttershy meant, Star Twinkle's hoof was hitting something on the ground, something that rolled away from him because he accidentally kicked it. He used his horn to look what it was and quickly found out that it was an apple, a normal and not sucked dry one in fact, untouched by whatever was eating the apples. Right next to it were some more, also completely untouched.

An idea quickly popped into Star Twinkle's head. He picked one of the apples up and explained to Fluttershy what he tried to do. "There are some apples over there. We can use those to lure the culprit out. If we just hide somewhere while watching over them then we surely find the culprit sooner or later. Don't you think?" Star Twinkle explained before he turned around to see Fluttershy agreeing with his plan. However, as soon as he turned around, a really long tongue snatched the apple that he was holding out of his hoof. What followed was a big shadow flying right past him and going after the apples on the ground, causing him to stumble to the ground in surprise. He saw something eating the apples, it must have been the one who sucked out all the other apples dry.

"Fluttershy! I found the culprit!" He said, worrying about Fluttershy a little who vanished in the middle of all this. "It's..." he said before he used his horn-light to see what the culprit exactly was. But as soon as the light was shining on it, the creature turned around and hissed at him. As if that wasn't bad enough, the culprit turned out to be none other then Fluttershy herself.

"Fluttershy!?" Star Twinkle said confused as soon as he saw the yellow coated Pegasus mare sucking the juice out of the apples on the ground. He didn't have enough time to take a closer look at her because she quickly escaped to a tree to hang herself on it, just like a bat but he still noticed that she looked a little different. Her wings, ears, and teeth resembled those of a bat and her eyes were red instead of green. He could also swear that her Cutie Mark changed from three butterflies to three bats.

This was certainly too much for Star Twinkle to handle so he decided to use his flashlight to signal his friends. It didn't take long until everyone came rushing to him after seeing a star signal in the air.

"Star Twinkle, you found something?" Twilight asked to which Star Twinkle simply pointed towards a branch of a tree from where Fluttershy was hanging upside down from.

"Is that Fluttershy?" Applejack asked as soon as she spotted her.

Fluttershy then sucked a nearby apple hanging from the tree towards her mouth to suck it dry and threw it away afterward. There was no more explanation needed after everyone saw this happening in front of them.

"That's not Fluttershy... That's Flutterbat!" Rarity said after she saw that "creature in front of her,"

Rainbow Dash flew up to the Fluttershy and tried to talk with her. It was worth a try, it's not like anyone had a better idea how to deal with this situation anyway. "Fluttershy! It's me, Rainbow Dash! Why don't you cut the bat act and come on down?!" She said to Fluttershy, trying to talk her out of all of this. Unfortunately, Fluttershy didn't listen and flapped her wings to knock Rainbow Dash away. The mare landed near her friends. For a second it almost looked like as if Fluttershy was actually intimating her a little. "Maybe we should just let her come down when she's ready," she said which only proved it.

"Duck!" Star Twinkle then suddenly exclaimed. Fluttershy was diving down right at them, causing everyone to jump flat on the ground to duck under her.

"Flutterbat on the loose! Run for your lives!" Pinkie Pie screamed before she tried to dig underground to escape the bat turned Pegasus mare.

"Pinkie Pie, calm down! See?" Twilight said before she pointed to the tree where Fluttershy was hanging upside down from. "She's back on her... branch," she added, feeling weird to say it like that.

"She's just biding her time! Waiting for the right moment to pounce!" Pinkie Pie returned scared.

"Pinkie Pie, bats don't eat ponies. Not even vampire bats," Applejack pointed out before her expression got a little more unsure. "Right?" She then asked into the round confused.

"I don't know!" Star Twinkle replied confused himself.

"But maybe vampire ponies eat other ponies! I'm not taking any chances!" Pinkie Pie said scared before she turned her own mane into a drill and dug an escape tunnel so that she could escape Fluttershy.

A legitimate question would be how Pinkie Pie was able to use her mane like a drill but Rarity did everyone a favor and asked the important question. "How did this happen? That's what I don't understand,"

Twilight actually seemed to have a good idea of what could be the cause. "I think this was actually our fault." she said, causing her friends to react in surprise.

"And how'd you figure that?" Applejack asked.

Twilight explained. "Remember when Fluttershy used her Stare at the Vampire Fruit Bats? The spell I used was supposed to remove the Vampire Fruit Bats desire to be Vampire Fruits Bats so that they would stop eating the apples. But I think, while Fluttershy was staring at them, that very desire must have transferred over to Fluttershy, instead of removing it completely. This caused her to transform into this bat pony-like creature,"

The group began to understand the explanation of Twilight but Star Twinkle only had one thing he wanted to correct. "Sooo...it's your fault..." he then boldly pointed out. Just like last time, the spell that was supposed to fix everything backfired in some kind of way and made things worse. That is what Star Twinkle was pretty much saying to Twilight.

The Unicorn rasped a little and quickly tried to change the subject. "Anyway... C'mon! We'll reverse the spell and make it right!"

Pinkie Pie then dug out from under the ground in the middle of everyone. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's save Fluttershy before that thing eats us all!"

But catching Fluttershy was a little harder then everyone expected. Fluttershy kept charging right at them and as soon as they got too close to her she flew away. There was no way that they could hold her in one spot, or let alone capture her so that Twilight could reverse the spell. And in the meantime, Fluttershy kept sucking out every remaining apple that she could find. It was starting to get a little hopeless.

After one more unsuccessful attempt to catch her, Rainbow Dash pointed out the obvious. "If she keeps this up, your whole crop will be gone in no time!" She said towards Applejack.

"That's the least of my worries," Applejack replied as she watched Fluttershy flying off into the distance. "I just want my friend back,"

Twilight once again, mentioned that as long as Fluttershy wasn't close enough, she couldn't reverse the spell. All they needed to do was keeping Fluttershy in one spot for long enough just like with the Vampire Fruit Bats before. Star Twinkle was aware of this all and actually came up with some kind of plan.

"I think I know what we need to do," he said, raising the hopes up in the group. "But I think you won't like it, Applejack..." he added which left the mare confused until Star Twinkle further explained what he came up with.

A little later...

It took a little while to prepare everything but eventually, the group came back to the orchard after gathering some things to get Star Twinkle's plan to work. One of them was Applejack giant apple that she wanted to show in the Appleloosa State Fair.

"Are you all ready?" Twilight asked Star Twinkle, Spike, Pinkie Pie and Rarity who were hiding either behind the apple or somewhere else out of sight, all of them giving a signal that they were ready for the plan.

Applejack then prepared to cut open her apple so that it could lure Fluttershy towards them. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings to let the scent of the apple reach the whole orchard. Twilight stood ready to use her spell as soon as Fluttershy approached them and the rest was hiding.

It didn't take long until a loud hissing could be heard from afar, as expected, Fluttershy came charging right at the big apple. This meant that the group had to go to the next step of their plan. As soon as Fluttershy was close enough to almost stuck her teeth into the apple, Applejack kicked right out of the way and revealed Star Twinkle who was holding a mirror in front of himself, making Fluttershy look at herself. She seemed confused to see herself and tried to escape but luckily, Spike, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were surrounding her while holding up mirrors in front of them as well.

Soon, Fluttershy found herself staring at her own reflection which was exactly what the group intended. "Yes! Keep looking, Fluttershy!" Star Twinkle said as he held his mirror in front of him.

This was now the perfect opportunity for Twilight to use her spell. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Soon a purple aura was surrounding her horn, and later, Fluttershy. The spell was swirling around Fluttershy who kept staring at her own reflection and turned her back to her original self and landed on the ground.

After this was over, Fluttershy opened her eyes again. "Oh... where am I?" She asked confused. She probably had no idea what happened all this time.

"Well..." Star Twinkle started before he fully explained the situation to her.

On the next day...

After what happened yesterday, Applejack decided to go with Fluttershy's previous idea and gave the Vampire Fruit Bats part of the orchard to live in. Twilight also reversed the spell on the bats so that they could still eat apples, much to Fluttershy's liking who was now happy that everyone was happy, not to mention that future apple trees would become even better and stronger than before because of the Fruit Bat's spat out seeds.

At the end f the day, the group met up in Fluttershy's cottage one last time to let Spike write everything inside of their journal. Everything from Twilight using her spell, Fluttershy turning into a bat and building a sanctuary.

"Be sure to put in there that I came to see that my short-term solution was a little short-sighted." Applejack added, making sure that Spike would not forget to mention her mistake.

"And that you shouldn't let anypony pressure you into doing something that you don't think is right. Sometimes you have to tell even your closest friends 'no'," Fluttershy then finished.

"Got it!" Spike said as he finished the last sentence and closed the journal again.

With everyone learning an important lesson like that, they all could go home now, knowing that the orchard and the bats were save. Star Twinkle was the last one to leave the cottage. and was stopped by Fluttershy who still wanted to talk about something with Star Twinkle. She looked a little hesitant to talk at first. Star Twinkle could only faintly make out what she was saying.

"Thank you..." She said quietly.

"For what?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Um...I heard that you were the one who came up with a plan to turn me back into a pony so thought I should thank you for that..." she said a little embarrassed, hiding her face under her mane.

"Well...what was I supposed to do? I mean, we couldn't just leave you like that, right?" Star Twinkle replied.

Fluttershy giggled. "Told you..." She said once again, just like yesterday when they were in the orchard.

Star Twinkle quickly confronted Fluttershy about that. "You said that before. What do you mean with that? What did you tell me before?" He asked, eager to find out what this all meant.

Fluttershy widened her eyes. She must have thought that he knew what she was talking about. But since this was not the case, she decided to explain. "I mean, I told you that you are not selfish," she explained.

Now it was Star Twinkle's turn to widen his eyes in surprise. For some reason, he felt embarrassed to hear that and rubbed his neck. "Was that selfless? Isn't that what everyone else in this situation would have done? That doesn't make me any more special doesn't it?" Star Twinkle thought before he looked over to the mare who was only throwing a smile towards him that made him feel even more embarrassed.

"I need to go!" He then said before he turned around to walk out of Fluttershy's cottage. Fluttershy waved him goodbye and Star Twinkle did the same once he got too far away from the cottage. Still, this was weird. Fluttershy always seemed really friendly towards him whenever they talked with each other. That was especially weird since Star Twinkle felt like he was the complete opposite of her. Star Twinkle is usually grumpy and selfish but still, Fluttershy acted towards him as if he was the nicest pony in Equestria. Realizing that, Star Twinkle could only say one thing.

"She really is a nice pony..."

Author's Notes:

I have no idea what to write in this author's notes...
I'm so bad...
Just imagine some kind of wise and enlightened message right here.

That is all. See you next week. Or in a few days. Depending how long it takes me to get out the next chapter.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter and that you consider leaving some kind of feedback ^^. I would also appreciate it if you follow me so that you can be up to date of every other story that I write (which are all connected to this one).

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

74. Big trouble in the big town

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Star Twinkle was on his way to the train station with a suitcase in his mouth. The next week would be pretty busy since he was about to travel to the famous metropolis of Equestria, Manehattan. The reason for that was because Rarity would enter a competition which was taken place in a so-called Fashion Week.

Star Twinkle himself didn't know much about this city, other then it is filled with really high buildings and streets filled with ponies and all sorts of shopping districts. He figured that it was a much more lively place then Ponyville. Rarity was the one who was most excited about this trip which gave Star Twinkle a fairly good idea about this city but he had to admit that he was still kinda curious about it.

The rest of Star Twinkle's friends were already waiting at the train station, every one of them carrying a bag with them. Rarity was the first to greet Star Twinkle due to her being in a really good mood because of the upcoming trip. "Star Twinkle, darling, you're finally here!" She said happily.

As soon as he saw how Rarity was only taking one bag with her, he had to admit that he didn't expect that. "That's some unusual light luggage, Rarity. I expected you to bring a whole bunch of stuff with you,"

"What are you talking about?" Rarity replied confused. "The rest of my stuff is over there," she said before she pointed towards Spike. The poor dragon had to take care of around twenty more bags all on his own. He waved towards the stallion casually as soon as he noticed him and quickly went back to pile one bag after another on his back.

"Well, should have figured that..." Star Twinkle thought not being surprised by this.

Rarity then walked up to the stallion while putting a hoof on his shoulder. "Let me again thank you for being my assistant while I attend the fashion week,"

"Yeah, no problem..." Star Twinkle replied. "But I still don't know how I ended up as your assistant in all of this, in the first place..."

"Well, you did help me out my boutique more than the others so I just figured that you would be perfect for it," Rarity explained.

While this was certainly true, it was only because Star Twinkle was the only male of her close pony friends. This gave Rarity a lot more opportunities to take measurements for her male clients who didn't want any dresses.

"I guess..." Star Twinkle replied after he thought about it a little.

"Besides, Setting up all the stuff backstage could be quite stressful and I need somepony to take care of that while I make sure that my dresses are perfect," Rarity then casually added with a smile on her face.

"Gee...thank you..." Star Twinkle replied grumpily while narrowing his eyes in annoyance. It was times like this where he figured that his friends had a completely different view of him. Either that or they just liked to tease him.

Thankfully, he didn't have to help her the whole week since this Fashion Week only went on for a few days. There would be still enough time for him and his friends to relax. He just had to bite his teeth together and help her get through this. It was important for him to actually put effort into all of this since it was a big chance for Rarity so there was no way that he could just abandon her at the last minute, especially since she was looking forward to it so much.

"I can't tell you how happy I am that I can spend a whole week with my friends in the fabulous city of Manehattan!" Rarity expressed joyfully.

"Of course we'd all come along to support you during Fashion Week, Rarity!" Twilight said happily.

"Not that you'll need it. We're sure you'll win," Fluttershy added.

Everyone believed the same. Rarity would easily win the competitor that was held during this week. Rarity made sure to give her very best to create some stunning designs to impress everypony in Manehattan. This would give her and her Boutique a huge boost in popularity.

But despite it being this important, Rarity could help but to get excited about the whole trip. "I can't begin to tell you how excited I am that you'll all be there with me!" She repeated, letting out an excited squee. "However... Perhaps I can show you..." she then said before she pulled out a bunch of tickets in front of everyone.

"What's that?" Twilight asked.

"Ooh, ooh, ooh, I know! A paper fan!" Pinkie Pie guessed.

"No, it's—" Rarity tried to explain but she was interrupted by Pinkie Pie who tried to keep guessing.

"A magic trick! You know, where I pick a card and remember what it is and then you put it back in the deck so you can't look at it and—"

Rarity just straight out ignored Pinkie Pie and explained what was up with those tickets. "These are tickets to the hottest musical on Bridleway!" She simply explained.

This vague explanation was enough for Twilight to put together what musical it was. "You couldn't mean Hinny of the Hills... because that show's been sold out for months! Or could you?!"

But, it was exactly that musical. Star Twinkle never heard of it before but according to everyone, it is supposed to be the most famous musical in all of Equestria. This alone made the girls jump up and down in excitement. They even got so excited that they didn't realize that the train was about to leave without them if they would continue like that.

So it was up to Star Twinkle to bring them all back to reality. "We should probably go into the train if we don't want to be late..." he said with a complete absence of excitement in his voice.

Rarity rasped and was the first one to calm down again. "He's right! Let's go and take Manehattan!" She said before she leads the way inside of the train with the girls following her right behind.

Star Twinkle was about to enter the train as well but he then suddenly heard something crashing behind him. When he turned around, he noticed how some of the bags that Spike was carrying fell to the ground. The poor guy had to lift all of Rarity's bags on his back.

He smiled a little embarrassed as soon as he saw how Star Twinkle was looking at him. "Hehe...uh...a little help?" He asked with a grin on his face to hide his exhaustion.

"Coming..." Star Twinkle said as he walked over to the dragon to help him out with some of the bags so that they could finally board the train to go to Manehattan.

Later...

The train didn't take too long until it arrived at an island on the eastern coast of Equestria where Manehattan was on. A bridge was the only way to reach this island if you weren't a Pegasus. The train needed to travel across it to reach the island as well. You could already see the big city by looking out of the windows of the train. The first thing that usually jumped into the eye of everyone was the giant mare statue in front of the city which was located on a little island next to the city, one of the many tourist attractions of this city. Of course, the group decided to stop by some of those tourist attractions soon or later while spending the week in Manehattan.

Once the group walked out of the train station, they were all greeted by buildings that were so high that you couldn't even see their roofs. There were taxis, modern street lamps, and whole shopping districts as far as the eye could see. Compared to this city, Ponyville and even Canterlot looked like as if you would compare a plank of wood to a solid and shiny plate of metal, to put in Star Twinkle's words. The streets were also a lot more lively, something that Star Twinkle instantly noticed.

Rarity was leading the way. She seemed to know a lot about this city and didn't hesitate to give everypony some information here and now. She said that she booked a hotel not too far from the station for the group to stay in so they focused on going to that place first.

However, all the shops or buildings kept grabbing the group's attention. "Hey, look!" That's the theatre where Hinny of the Hills is playin'!" Applejack said as she pointed towards a certain building on the other side of the street. Over the entrance of the building, there was a picture of a singing mare. It showed the date for the next screening for Hinny of the Hills.

"Look at that line..." Star Twinkle said as soon as he saw a line of ponies standing in front of the building. There were probably over a hundred ponies standing in the line of this theater, all of them wanting a ticket for this musical. Suddenly, Star Twinkle realized how popular this musical must have been and how lucky he was that Rarity managed to get a ticket for him.

"Wow, Rarity! How'd you manage to get us seats for tomorrow night?" Twilight asked, finding it impressive how Rarity managed to get them into this popular musical.

"Oh, I gave some designs to the costume designer, so he pulled a few strings," she explained casually, making it sound like as if it wasn't anything special. This only made the group feel even more grateful for Rarity being so generous to them.

The group soon arrived at the Manefair Hotel where they were greeted by a bellhop colt who offered to take all the bags that Star Twinkle and Spike had to carry all this time.

"Thank you very much, here," she said as she pulled out a fairly big gem to pay the colt for his work.

Needless to say, the colt was highly surprised. "Oh-ho-ho! I'll get your change!"

"Do keep it all. I insist!" Rarity then replied, not allowing the colt to deny her generosity.

Star Twinkle was the first one to point out her very generous act. "Somepony doesn't seem to care about spending money," he boldly said, surprised by Rarity's behavior.

Rarity smiled and explained. "That is what makes Manehattan so splendid and amazing. You do something nice for somepony, and then you never know when they'll do something nice for you!"

"So then you can do something nice for us!" Applejack pointed out.

"Like get us in to see Hinny of the Hills!" Fluttershy added.

"Which is only the best musical in all of Equestria!" Rainbow Dash said, causing the group to react in surprise by Rainbow Dash's excitement.

"It must be good if Rainbow Dash is impressed. Normally she doesn't even like musicals," Applejack said, surprised by Rainbow Dash's words as well.

Now Star Twinkle was really looking forward to seeing this musical if it even got Rainbow Dash excited. But it still had to wait for later since there was still a lot more of this city to discover. The group made sure to stop by every tourist attraction that they could find to get the most out of their trip. Star Twinkle had to admit that the city was quite fascinating, mainly because it was so much different than Canterlot, Ponyville, or any other town he knew so far. But of course, there was one thing that would make the trip even better for him.

"Too many ponies..." Star Twinkle mumbled to himself grumpily. There was no denying that the streets were filled with a lot of ponies, which caused the town to feel a little crowded.

Rarity chuckled after overhearing those words and turned towards Star Twinkle with a smile on his face. "I knew you would say that, Darling. I'm sure you will get into the spirit of this town sooner or later and enjoy your stay like everyone else,"

"I think you should say that to those ponies as well," Twilight said before she pointed towards a line of taxi carts in front of them.

There seemed to be some kind of traffic jam on the street. One of the taxi carts had a broken wheel and was unable to move, causing the taxi's behind it to get stuck. This again caused some of the ponies behind the first cart to get a little angry. Watching that could make one feel really bad for the taxi-driver of the first cart who couldn't really do anything.

"Looks like the only problem here is a broken wheel," Twilight figured after she inspected the cart a little further before she turned towards Star Twinkle. "Think you can do something about that?" She then asked the carpenter pony.

Star Twinkle looked over to the wheel for a second and quickly realized that it wasn't anything that he couldn't repair in a few seconds. "Sure, but I need some tools to-" he said before he was interrupted by Pinkie Pie.

"Here you go!" She said before she got a whole toolbox out of nowhere. "I always pack in stuff like that, in case something needs to be fixed," she explained casually. It only made Star Twinkle wonder what else she must have packed in her luggage but he decided to ignore that and quickly focused on repairing the wheel. Applejack lifted the taxi cart for a moment and Star Twinkle repaired the wheel within a few seconds, making the cart able to move again and change the mood of the taxi-driver, as well as his passenger and every other taxi behind them from angry or frustrated to happy and relieved. The traffic went on again and the group continued their way through the city.

Rarity couldn't help but walk up to Star Twinkle while smiling and staring at him, making him feel a little uncomfortable. "What?" He then asked as soon as he couldn't take it being stared at like this by this mare.

"Come on," she then said as she poked the stallion in his sides. "Admit it, wasn't it fun helping somepony out like that?"

"I wouldn't really call it fun...but it felt kinda good helping out somepony in need," Star Twinkle admitted.

After spending a little time more in the city and visiting various shops and attractions, the group had to take a little break and focus on Rarity getting to her appointment on time. Just thinking about her dresses soon being displayed in Manehattan was enough to get her excited.

"Is there still anything left to do we can help you with?" Twilight asked to make sure that Rarity was well prepared.

Rarity thought about it for a moment. "Hm, nothing I can think of. The dresses are all completely finished and all there's left for me to do but check-in at the runway with my dresses by two this afternoon," she said

"Oh, that's funny," Pinkie Pie said. "Because that clock over there makes it seem like that's only ten minutes from now!" She said as she pointed towards a clock on a building showing indeed, that there were only ten minutes left.

Of course, Rarity panicked because of this. "But the runway ballroom is all the way across town! If I don't get there, I'm disqualified!"

Almost on cue, the rain started to come down now. It's like the sky wanted to make the situation feel even more dramatic than it actually was. But not getting wet was one of the least things that Rarity had to worry about now. The group had to act quickly. They all tried to get a taxi for her so that she would still make it in time but every taxi seemed to be taken due to the rain, making the situation even more hopeless.

But thankfully, there was one taxi-driver who offered his cart just for the group. It was the driver of the one taxi that Star Twinkle repaired earlier. "New wheel works like a charm! So now which of you nice folks are hoppin' in?" The stallion said who was still thankful for his repaired cart.

Star Twinkle was starting to take serious what Rarity said earlier, about doing nice things to other ponies while getting their generosity back some time later.

"Fashion runway plaza in seven minutes. Can you make it?" Rarity said in a panic as she jumped into the cart. And just like that, the stallion quickly was on his way to get Rarity to her appointment.

The taxi was quickly out of sight and judging from how fast the stallion was running, it actually had a good chance to make it in time. "Whew, that was close," Spike expressed as he swiped the sweat off of his forehead in relief. "Still, does anypony else got a sneaking suspicion we're forgetting something?" He then pointed out.

After the group thought about it, they quickly came to the same suspicion and soon found out what it was.

"The dresses!" Everypony said at the same time in shock.

They all forget the most important thing. Of course, Rarity needed her dresses to participate in Fashion Week. Right now she was heading to the ballroom without a single dress to show. Rarity doesn't seem to have realized it herself yet but as soon as she would, she would probably completely freak out and miss her chance to win the Fashion Week competition. That was something that had to be prevented at all costs.

They all quickly rushed back to the hotel and grabbed the dresses from Rarity and put them on a clothing rack so that it could be easily transported. After they were done with that, Twilight turned towards Star Twinkle who was supposed to be with Rarity at this moment as well.
"I'm gonna teleport you to the ballroom, are you ready?" She then asked before she used her magic to start the spell.

"Wait a moment!" Star Twinkle quickly replied. "Do you even know where it is?" He asked in a panic before he ended up landing somewhere he didn't want to.

But before he had a chance to talk Twilight out of that, he quickly found himself covered in light by Twilight's spell and shortly after in completely different places. However, just as he expected, this place was not where he was supposed to be. Not at all...

"Twilight!" Star Twinkle screamed in frustration after he found himself on top of the mare statue of Manehattan with a bunch of dresses next to him. Twilight must have made a mistake while being under stress of getting Star Twinkle to Rarity. Out of all times where she had to make a mistake it, of course, had to be now.

He was really high up in the air and just wanted down from this place. So he had to think quickly. "Well, after making it to here, I guess it won't make any difference now..." he figured before he transformed into a Unicorn to use his own teleportation spell to bring himself to Rarity. "Here goes nothing!" He said before he used his magic to teleport himself and the dresses to another place.

But of course, it wasn't the ballroom again. This time he ended up right in front of the train station. "Come on!" He said in frustration. This actually went on for quite a while with Star Twinkle spending a few minutes teleporting all over the town. Buildings, shops, tourist attractions, he could safely say that he saw almost every corner of Manehattan in just a short period of time.

As he continued to teleport all over the place, he quickly came to the conclusion that he would either be too late once he found Rarity or maybe even not able to find her at all. Still, he gave the spell a shot again and landed somewhere else, once more.

"I'm dooooomed!" He could hear Rarity scream right in front of him who was crawling on the ground in pure frustration. "Huh?" She then said once she noticed Star Twinkle standing right in front of him.

As it turns out, Star Twinkle finally managed to "find" Rarity with his teleportation spell. He was in what looked like the entrance hall of the ballroom and not judging from how defeated Rarity already looked, he was not a second too late.

"Yes! Finally!" Star Twinkle said exhausted after what felt like hundreds of failed attempts to make it to Rarity. "Good job...horn..." he then said shortly before his transformation ended unwillingly. "Here are your dresses...Rarity..." Star Twinkle mumbled before the room began to spin for him.

Before he knew it, Star Twinkle collapsed and fell unconscious in front of the mare. He could swear that he saw her running towards him out of worry before everything went black but there was nothing that he could do. He felt too weak to hold his eyes open and couldn't prevent losing conciseness.

Later...

When Star Twinkle woke up again, he was no longer in the entrance hall but instead in a small backstage room. Rarity was working on her dresses already but as soon as she saw Star Twinkle sitting up again, she quickly forgot about them and rushed towards the stallion.

"Star Twinkle, Darling! Are you alright?" She said heavily worried after she saw how Star Twinkle was waking up again.

"What happened? The last thing I remembered was me teleporting all over Manhattan and then finally appearing in front of you..." he said as his head was still spinning a little from all this.

"Don't overdo it," Rarity advised as she quickly put Star Twinkle's shoulders down on the bench where he just noticed he was resting on. "I was a little late but I was still allowed to enter the competition thanks to you," she briefly explained. "I got everything under control here. You can just rest for the rest of the day," she said before she turned towards her dresses again.

It's not like Star Twinkle didn't like to hear that but he still felt as if he had to help her. He was her assistant in all of this after all. However, he was not sure if he actually could help her. The moment where his transformation wore off earlier, he just felt really weak and exhausted. And so far, that didn't change much. He still felt weak. He figured that it must have been because he used too much magic. Whatever the reason was, he just wished that it would get better soon.

Star Twinkle grabbed his head with one of his hooves once Rarity wasn't looking. He didn't want her to get needlessly worried about his condition and let that influence her work. "I feel like as if I just completed ten Running of the Leaves marathons in a row. I never thought using so much magic would leave me so exhausted..." he thought.

"I got really worried..." Rarity then suddenly said without turning around towards Star Twinkle and still working on her dresses.

"Huh!?" Star Twinkle replied confused before he let go of his head again to pretend that he was completely fine again.

Rarity then turned around and stopped working. She had a very concerned expression on her face and walked up to the stallion. "I feel really bad. First, I forget to get to this place in time, then I forget my own dresses before I left and now you got hurt because you wanted to help me..."

"I didn't get hurt, Rarity," Star Twinkle assured which was, however, only partially true. "I'm your assistant in all of this. It's also my responsibility to think about those things," he explained in order to let Rarity's worry vanish.

It actually seemed to work and Rarity formed a warm smile on her face."You're a dear, Star Twinkle,"

Seeing Rarity smile like this almost made it worthwhile to have gone through all of this. However, things got a little awkward after Rarity kept staring at the stallion with this smile. It was almost as if she was daydreaming. Star Twinkle coughed into his hoof and looked around in the room as if he wanted to get her out of this "daydreaming" state. It seemed to work and Rarity eyes widened for a second. "I should go back to work!" She then said almost in a panic. Shortly after she accidentally hit her head against the clothes rack and almost knocked the whole thing over. Once she secured that her dresses were still okay, she quickly turned her head around and giggled it off. "Hehe...almost forgot...that this was standing here...hehe..." she said embarrassed followed by some short nervous laughs. The only word with what Star Twinkle could describe this scene was "awkward".

Rarity returned to her work and Star Twinkle continued to rest. According to Rarity, the competition will be held tomorrow but everypony who entered it had to first show it to somepony called Prim Hemline who served as one of the judges. Rarity still had a lot of time until it was her town, however. She is supposed to show her line last because she was the last one to arrive.

While Rarity kept working on her dresses, Star Twinkle actually realized that this was the first time that he saw Rarity's dresses. They were all dark purple and had fancy symbols all over them. The fabric that Rarity used was practically shimmering. Even somepony who had no idea about fashion would probably call this amazing.

In fact, that's exactly what happened.

"My, your collection is gorgeous!" A female Earth Pony mare said after she entered the room.

The mare had a very pale orchid colored coat, a grayish violet mane, grayish-brown eyes, and three buttons as a Cutie Mark. She was also wearing a two-toned blue crossed scarf and a light yellow headband around her mane. Rarity introduced this mare as "Suri Polomare". She and Rarity both met each other in Ponyville before in some kind of knitting competition. The mare greeted Star Twinkle and he introduced himself as well, however, Suri Polomare seemed more interested to talk with Rarity. Star Twinkle had no problem with that. They were both talking about fashion and fabric so he felt a little lost in all of this anyway.

"Oh now, I'm sure your collection is equally lovely, if not more so!" Rarity modesty replied after taking the complement of Suri Polomare.

As a fellow Fashion Designer, Suri Polomare was widely fascinated by Rarity's design and kept inspecting it carefully. She almost seemed to be a little obsessed with it, in fact.

"It's alright, but nothing like this! Take my culottes, for example – they are simply crying out for just the right accent," she explained which almost felt like listening to a different language to Star Twinkle. "Actually..." Suri Polomare then said as she kept feeling the Rarity's dresses. "Just a touch of this fabric could be perfect with it. Hey, would you mind terribly if I took a swatch?" She then asked.

"Oh, not at all! Here, I have loads extra," Rarity then replied before she gave Suri a whole bunch of fabric to Suri Polomare.

"You're sure?" Suri Polomare replied, surprised by Rarity's generosity.

"Positive!" Rarity simply replied as she returned to her dresses again.

As soon as Rarity turned around, Star Twinkle saw how Suri Polomare rushed out of the room in a big hurry. Of course, Rarity was also confused once she realized how Suri was gone all of a sudden but she decided to not worry too much about it. Star Twinkle on the other hoof had a slight assumption of what was going on and quickly confronted with it.

"Isn't she also going to compete against you? Should you really give her your fabric like that?" He asked.

"It'll be fine, Star Twinkle," Rarity replied without a worry in her mind. "Remember what I said about this town earlier? You do something good and you'll never know when somepony will do something good to you in return," she explained.

"Yeah...sure..." Star Twinkle replied with some concern in his voice. He didn't really believe in those words since Rarity was saying them for the first time but who was he to say her what to do with her own fabric? Still, he couldn't shake off the feeling that this generous act was a really bad idea...

Later...

"Hello! I'm here half an hour early for my run-through appointment, just the way Prim likes!" Rarity said towards the receptionist to get ready to show off her fabric in front of Prim Hemline.

The receptionist said that Rarity had to get in line so that she could soon start showing off her dresses. They were the last in line so it would, of course, take a little while until it was their turn so all they could do was wait to wait. Still, Rarity couldn't help but take a little peek at what the other contestants came up with so she convinced Star Twinkle to go with him.

They could hear Suri Polomare's voice from afar and wondered what she came up with. They were also both wondering what she used Rarity's fabrics on. However, what they saw was not exactly what they expected...

Suri Polomare was proudly standing in front of her own fashion line, or rather...Rarity's fashion line. The sneaky fashion designer straight out copied Rarity's complete line. I almost looked identical. And since it was originally Rarity's design, it of course was well received by Prim Hemline. "Oh, bravo! I've never seen anything like it!" She said in awe after taking a look at the dresses.

Suri Polomare was done showing off "her" dresses and was about to leave the stage again with a victorious smile on her face. That is when Rarity furiously confronted the mare about this thievery.

"You stole my fabric!" Is all she needed to say.

However, Suri didn't felt intimidated by Rarity and laughed arrogantly. "I didn't steal it, okay? You gave it to me, 'member?" She had the nerve to reply.

"I gave you the fabric for accents! Not for your whole line!" Rarity replied angrily. "And how could you possibly make all of those outfits out of it so fast?!"

"Fast? Hah!" Suri Polomare replied before she pointed to her assistant who was about to push her clothes rack out of the room. "Coco Pommel here took practically forever. Nearly got me completely disqualified,"

Coco Pommel was Suri's assistant. The Earth Pony mare had a light amberish gray coat, a pale, light grayish cyan-colored mane with some hints of light opalish gray colors in it, light cyan colored eyes and a feathered hat as a Cutie Mark. She was also wearing a white-bordered lavender sailor collar with a scarlet tie and a tri-shade hair clip in the back of her mane.

Unlike Suri Polomare, Coco Pommel didn't show any hostility towards Rarity and instead seemed like as if she was feeling a little bad while still trying to be on Suri Polomare's side.

"Well, I wanted to make sure you'd win, so I took the extra time to-" the mare tried to explain but was quickly cut off in mid-sentence by Suri.

"Quiet! I pay an assistant to sew and get coffee, not talk. 'Kay?" She said, talking to her own assistant with even less respect than she did with Rarity.

While Star Twinkle felt bad for the mare being pushed around by Suri like that, he had to focus on cheering Rarity up again who was taking the situation a lot worse. In fact, she started to panic and almost tried to leave the room without even showing off her own dresses."How could this happen? What are we gonna do now!?" She said as she walked up and down in a panic.

"Don't worry!" Star Twinkle said as he tried to think of a solution to fix all this. Strangely enough, he came up with the most obvious one first. "We just go and explain everything to Prim. That should take care of things!"

After calming down a little, Rarity figured that this would be the best solution as well. "Yes! Of course! Let's do that and set things right again!" She said highly motivated

Later in front of the group's hotel room...

"I can't believe they didn't believe you just because you showed up later earlier..." Star Twinkle said as he accompanied Rarity back to the hotel room where hopefully the rest of their friends would wait for them. "Not to mention that Suri actually went so far as to steal your whole design,"

"I know..." Rarity said while being dangerously close to breaking out in tears. "They even accused me of stealing her design!" She added.

Of course, it looked like that because Rarity was the one who showed her designs last. She actually tried to not let the whole Suri thing bother while presenting her line but with everypony accusing her of stealing ideas from Suri, this was just too much to handle for the mare which eventually broke her down.

As they approached the door to their hotel room, they could already hear laughter from inside. The rest of their friends must have had a really fun day. Rarity stepped a little further away from the door once she heard that. "Wait! I think I need a minute! Go inside while I prepare myself to not let them see me the way I am now!" She demanded as she mentally prepared herself next to the door, breathing in and out the whole time.

Star Twinkle understood and walked inside. Maybe he could prepare his friends in some kind of way for Rarity. But with all of his friends laughing happily like that, that was probably not as easy as he thought.

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight said as soon as she saw the stallion enter the room. "Did you make it in time to help Rarity!?" She immediately asked out of worry to see if everything went as planned.

"What? Oh, yeah!" Star Twinkle replied after remembering that minor problem. "We made it in time and Rarity wasn't disqualified," he briefly explained.

The group responded in relief after hearing that. "Thank goodness," Fluttershy said. "We were feeling a little bad for having so much fun this afternoon without knowing if everything went well with you,"

Star Twinkle could only smile nervously after hearing that. "Well, about that..." he started before he attempted to explain the situation. However, almost immediately after, Rarity then dragged herself into the room with tears building in her eyes and her mane was a complete mess due to the whole stress that she went through in the last hour. She actually looked way worse then she did before. "I thought she prepared herself!?" Star Twinkle thought in shock after seeing the mare in an even worse state than before.

Of course, even a blind pony would have noticed that Rarity was about to cry now so they asked what was going on. But Rarity straight jumped into her bed and cried into her pillow. Now the group really wanted to know what happened but since Rarity clearly didn't seem to be in the state to explain things, Star Twinkle took it upon himself to do the explaining.

"Well, you see-"

"Suri stole my line!" Rarity interrupted, causing the group to look at her and waiting for her to continue from here on out. But instead, she went back to dig her face into her pillow.

After waiting for a while, Star Twinkle figured again that Rarity wasn't in the state to explain the situation so he decided to continue. "It all started after Rarity-"

Again, Rarity interrupted and did the explaining, despite still being really depressed and sad. "I let one of the other contestants use some of my one-of-a-kind fabric and then she turned it into a wardrobe just like mine, only now it looks like I'm the one copying her!" She quickly explained while almost hyperventilating throughout the whole explanation.

The group didn't need much more explanation and straight out offered to help Rarity with whatever she needed to do in order to still win the competition tomorrow. "Come on, Rarity, buck up! All we need is some fabric and you'll be back in business!" Applejack said, causing the rest of the group to totally agree with that.

Rarity was happy to hear that from her friends but just like Applejack said, she still needed some new fabric. Luckily, Rarity was blessed with an eye for fashion. She simply looked around in the hotel room. The curtains, the carpet, and even the bedsheets had the potential to be used as fabric for a new line of dresses.

"Perhaps I still have a chance after all!" She said after literally came up with a new idea for some dresses from the get-go.

The group was happy to hear that and we're more than willing to offer their help to Rarity. But...they would soon regret that...

A little later...

Offering their help was all good but instead of "helping" the group pretty much spend the whole evening working on this new fashion line that Rarity came up with. The inside of the hotel room transformed into a sewing factory with Rarity in charge of everything and her friends working on her dresses.

"I'm pretty sure that I didn't sign up for this when I said that I wanted to help Rarity..." Star Twinkle thought as he was sewing together some fabrics, the way Rarity explained it to him.

Rarity was working as well while also looking over everyponies work at the same time, however, she was much more serious then she was ever before and didn't even allow anypony to take a short break. She was much more focused on winning this competition instead of making sure that her friends were okay. Quite the opposite was the case in fact.

"Twilight! Sew these pieces together according to that pattern there!" Rarity demanded from Twilight who was already looking a little too exhausted from working on her task given by Rarity.

"You said if we skipped dinner at the Far-Afield Tavern, you'd order a meal for us while we keep working," Twilight then pointed out.

"Don't fret. It'll be here in an hour. That's not going to be a problem, is it?" Rarity then replied.

There was a short silence in the room after that which was soon broken by Rainbow Dash. "Well, we're supposed to be watching Hinny of the Hills by then..." she pointed out.

It was unclear if Rarity was aware of that or not but instead of showing compassion towards her friends, Rarity got angry. "Oh! I see! I go out of my way to get you tickets for a show, and this is how you repay me? By abandoning me in my hour of need?"

It was completely unlike her to act like that. Unlike earlier this day, Rarity didn't even seem to be thinking about the well being of her friends. It was true that she was generous enough to invite her and the rest of her friends to the musical but now she was pretty much using that to make her friends feel guilty about it.

Things didn't get any better once Rarity further screamed at the group. "Fine! Go and see Hinny of the Hills tonight! And then tomorrow morning when you come to see my fashion show without any fashion to show, you can have more entertainment!" She said angrily at her friends.

"Rarity, calm down. What's gotten into you?" Twilight replied to this, saying what literally everypony else thought at this very moment.

"What's gotten into you?!" Rarity yelled back. "Oh, go ahead! See your little show! Congratu-pony-lations, fillies! Sounds like you've all figured out already it's everypony for herself in this town!" She said as she ran out of the room out of anger, leaving her friends inside of the room.

Everypony sighed at the same time after this outburst. Especially, Star Twinkle, who was having not a really good time for the whole day now. First, he teleported all over the place, then he collapsed, and now he had to work on dresses. That was way too much for him to handle and he just wished that the day would be finally over.

Still, he continued his work and just thought about getting it done as fast as possible. But Twilight became a little worried and walked up to him. "Are you alright?" She asked while Star Twinkle continued his work.

"What do you mean?" He asked obliviously.

"Don't get me wrong, Star Twinkle but...you look a little more exhausted than the rest of us," she pointed out.

"Now that she mentioned it, I still feel a little exhausted," Star Twinkle figured. "Is it still because of earlier? The teleportation thing? How am I still exhausted from that?" He wondered. He didn't tell anypony that he collapsed earlier and Rarity probably didn't even have time to tell anypony about it as well. In order to not worry Twilight, he just played tough and told her that he was. completely fine.

But it didn't work...

Twilight quickly saw through Star Twinkle's lie and glared at him as if she wanted to pressure an explanation out of him. This went on for a really uncomfortable amount of time until Star Twinkle couldn't take it anymore and just gave up to not let this drag on any longer.

"Maybe I'm a little exhausted because of some events earlier this day..." he vaguely explained, looking away from Twilight out of discomfort.

Instead of getting mad at him for lying, Twilight smiled and didn't want to hear any more information. "Then take a break, Star Twinkle. I'm sure that we can manage to get the dresses done while you rest for a while. Besides, you have to get up early tomorrow so that you can still help Rarity in the fashion show,"

Just like before with Rarity, Star Twinkle didn't feel too good leaving the others with all this work alone. But he had the feeling that if he continued, things could actually get a lot worse so he decided to take Twilight's offer so that he could rest. He placed himself on a bed in the room and closed his eyes for a moment. If he was about to rest, then he might as well take a little nap to skip time.
"Just for a moment...five minutes or so..." he said quietly before he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

On the next morning...

Star Twinkle might have made a mistake by closing his eyes. When he opened them again, he immediately saw the rest of his friends putting on some last pieces on a dress. Next to this dress, were, even more, dresses lined up. Before he closed his eyes, there was not a single one done. "How long have I been asleep? Did they let me sleep through the rest of the day!?" He wondered, feeling a little embarrassed to leave all his friends with this work.

He quickly got up from his bed and tried to help out his friends but as soon a she got on his hooves, Rarity came running right into his face. "Star Twinkle! We're about to leave!" She said in a similar stressed manner than she did yesterday.

"What!?" Star Twinkle replied confused, trying to find out what exactly was going on now.

"There. That's the last of them," Twilight then said after she and her friends completed the last dress for Rarity.

Rarity then pulled Star Twinkle's leg and dragged him with her. "Hear that!? That means we can finally go!" She said as she dragged the stallion out of the room while she used her magic to drag the clothes rack behind her as well. "We still have some more time left but it can't hurt to get to the ballroom even earlier than earlier!" She pointed out, which didn't make much sense since her line would be shown last again.

"Rarity, you could have at least say thank you to us for making those dresses for you!" Star Twinkle said after her while he ran right behind her, now carrying the dresses with him.

"Saying thank you would only take up too much time!" She simply replied as she led the way through the hotel.

Star Twinkle could definitely tell that Rarity was still under stress because of what happened with Suri Polomare but he soon thought that she took things a little too far. Regardless of that, it was only today left for her fashion show so he decided to just accept a little more craziness for today and didn't say much more.

Later at the fashion show...

It was about to be Rarity's turn in the fashion show. As expected, Suri Polomare's copied fashion line was a really big hit with the crowd and the judges. What made it even worse was that Rarity actually had to watch how Suri was earning all those cheers while earning not a single credit for it. She was simply furious.

"Here she comes," Rarity said once Suri was done with her show and walked backstage.

But of course, she couldn't help herself to say some words to Rarity in her usual arrogant tone.
"Well look who's here. Here to show off your copycat collection, mm? Well, good luck," she simply said before she left while being followed by her assistant who almost looked as if she wanted to apologize for the words of her boss.

"Just ignore her..." Star Twinkle said, starting to get annoyed by this mare more and more now.

"Oh, I am trying," Rarity replied before her eyes were focused on the stage again. Prim Hemline, one of the judges, was now starting to introduce Rarity's fashion line. "It's about to start!" She said worriedly while jumping up and down on the spot.

Soon, the curtain opened up and finally revealed Rarity's fashion line. It looked rather...interesting. The clothes were made out of many different things that you could find in any ordinary hotel room. No matter how Star Twinkle looked at those clothes, he couldn't bring himself to think that this was "good" fashion. The models were wearing lampshades on their heads, or soap necklaces. It looked ridiculous.

But of course, everypony liked it. Those fashion designer, the critics or judges were completely fascinated by this "fashion".

"Oh! They're liking it!" Rarity said. Even Rarity herself seemed surprised to see so much positive feedback for her work.

"Apparently," Star Twinkle said, even though he himself had no idea why. For him, Rarity's design looked rather...odd. This only proved that he would not survive one day in the world of fashion.

In the meantime, Rarity continued to watch how everypony reacted to her design only to see almost the whole hall being fascinated with her work. "I think I may have just won this thing! Oh, I can't wait to celebrate with...with..." she stopped in mid-sentence and looked at the seats that were reserved for her friends only to find out that they were completely empty. "My friends...where are they? Why didn't they came to watch me win?" She asked Star Twinkle confused.

"Can you really blame them?" Star Twinkle boldly replied, causing the mare to look at him confused. "You were so fixated to win this whole thing that you didn't even give them a break. I bet they overslept and couldn't make it in time. If they even wanted to come, after all, that is..."

Those words may have sounded a little harsh but it was exactly the right thing that Rarity needed to hear in order to finally understand her mistake.

"My friends...what have I done?" Rarity said with a crushed expression on her face.

Star Twinkle felt almost bad seeing Rarity like that but he couldn't find the right words to comfort her right now. He was pretty sure that her friends would not hold a grudge against her for all this but still, he felt sadness watching the mare like this.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle could hear a voice in his head.

I don't expect anything in return...if I can make my friends happy with a simple act of generosity then that is completely fine with me...

He grabbed his head in with one of his hooves out of confusion. "What was that? Who was speaking to me right now?" He wondered as he tried to find out what this was all about.

Then one more thing happened. A purple light began to glow in his eyes without him realizing it. Something similar happened to Rarity but instead of a purple light, there was a rainbow-colored light in her eyes.

"I have to go," Rarity then said out of the blue before she rushed across the stage to leave the room, much to Star Twinkle's surprise who didn't know what happened all of the sudden to her.

"Come back at once!" Prim Hemline said in shock and confusion after she saw Rarity running out to the stage, knocking out another competitor out of the way in the process. "This is unheard of!" She said after witnessing this happening in front of her.

Star Twinkle followed her right behind and apologized for all this in front of the audience. "Sorry, she really needs to be somewhere right now," he said in a rush while he made sure to follow Rarity out of the building.

Star Twinkle followed the mare outside and ran after her so that he could find out what she was doing right now. "Rarity! Why are you running away!? You were about to win the whole thing!" He screamed after her.

"I need to apologize to my friends!" She replied back. "I have to say sorry to them! They were so kind as to help me but I treated them like dirt! I have to go back to the hotel!"

Rarity was now focused to return to the hotel so that she could fix everything. She wouldn't even listen to what Star Twinkle had to say. Not that he didn't agree with what she was about to do but he just wished that she would sometimes take things a little slow so that he could keep up with her.

It didn't take long until the two arrived back at the hotel. The Bellhop of the hotel greeted the two of them but Rarity didn't have any time to talk with him and just wanted to find her friends.

"Your friends?" The Bellhop replied after he overheard Rarity's crisis. "I saw them headed out this morning," he then explained.

"Wait, you mean?" Star Twinkle replied confused as he imagined the worst.

"Oh, no! Back to Ponyville, I imagine," Rarity figured. "Oh, they worked so hard on my behalf! And I repaid them with unkindness. What have I done?!" She said before she sat down on the ground in her frustration.

"I'm sorry, Rarity," Star Twinkle expressed, feeling now even worse to see Rarity like this.

Star Twinkle offered his hoof in order to help Rarity up again which she gladly accepted. However, she hesitated and decided to get up on her own. "No. I am sorry..." she then apologized. "I also was mean towards you..."

"Don't worry about it..." Star Twinkle replied with a smile on his face. Seeing Star Twinkle not getting mad helped a little but Rarity was still frowning so the stallion decided to make her go back to the ballroom so that they could explain everything. Rarity was causing quite a ruckus after all.

"Actually, I think it would be better to return to Ponyville..." Rarity replied with a frown on her face. "But could you do me a favor and go to Prim and apologize to her for leaving all of the sudden?"

"Sure," Star Twinkle replied. Rarity planned to go to the train station. Maybe the others were still there waiting for the train. Star Twinkle was having some doubts about that but he didn't want to crush Rarity's last hopes so he just decided to do her the favor to return to Prim.

Star Twinkle did as Rarity said and quickly returned back to the ballroom so that he could find Prim. "Oh, great..." Star Twinkle said quietly as soon as he saw the last pony that he wanted to see right now.

"Well, isn't that Rarity's little assistant?" She simply said in her usual arrogant tone.

Star Twinkle didn't have any time to talk with her and just went straight to the point. "Where is Prim?"

"Uh-uh-uh, you'd best steer clear of Prim for a while. She's pretty furious," she explained before she turned towards her assistant. "Isn't that right?"

"Um... yes," Coco Pommel replied a little hesitantly.

Star Twinkle tried his best to ignore the words of this mare but he felt like as if it became even harder with every word that came out of her mouth. "I bet, Rarity was so embarrassed about her own designs that she couldn't even stay to admit her defeat. Am I right?" She further provoked.

But Star Twinkle kept his coolness and didn't want to go down on her level. "I think that would be the last of her worries, right now,"

"Oh please," Suri replied. "What could be more important to her than having her dresses being displayed all over Manehattan?" She asked, being completely oblivious to the answer.

Star Twinkle figured that Suri would not understand it but he still tried his best to explain the situation to Suri, even if she didn't deserve to know it.

"You know...earlier this morning, that is exactly what she wanted more than anything else. She even resorted to using her own friends to help her making new dresses because you stole her designs. But then she realized what she did and felt bad. Right now she is looking for her friends to apologize o them, even if it means to lose this competition. That's what is more important to her now,"

As expected, Suri Polomare didn't take those words seriously one bit. "You still don't get it, do you? In this town, it's everypony for themselves. But as expected, small-town ponies like you would never understand that. Isn't that right, Coco?" However, instead of agreeing with her boss, Coco looked over to Star Twinkle for a moment. The usually shy and reserved expression changed into a more determined one and she quickly turned around and entered the room where the fashion show was held before. "Hey, where are you going!?" Suri yelled after her before she followed her in a rush.

If what Suri said before was actually true, then there was no reason for Star Twinkle to stay at this place anymore so he decided to leave and was on his way to the train station as well. Instead of running, however, he slowly walked. He was not in a rush anyway. It gave him also some more time to think about the recent events. The only thing that really bothered him was that he wished that things ended a little more different. But there was changing that anymore so he was just looking forward to getting home to Ponyville and hoped that everypony would forget what was happening in this town.

"Wait!" Then all of a sudden a voice screamed after him. It was Coco Pommel who came rushing towards Star Twinkle. Surprisingly, she was not in the company with her pleasantly and friendly boss. "You are returning to Rarity aren't you? Then here, take this!" She said before she pulled out something from the saddlebag that she was wearing. It was a small golden trophy.

Star Twinkle took the trophy in his hoof and inspected it a little. "Wait...Rarity's name is on this. Is this the trophy for the first place?" He asked out of confusion.

"It sure is. Suri lied when she said that Rarity lost and...so did I..." she explained with a frown on her face. "I felt so bad that Suri stole Rarity's idea and that I helped to cover up for her. I also believed that it was everypony for themselves in town so I put up with everything that Suri demanded from me because I alone wouldn't get far in this town. But after I heard what happened to Rarity, I realized that I could do much better than working with Suri in this town," she explained with a smile on her face.

It was really nice of Coco, to tell the truth. It was also good to hear that she decided to not work for Suri anymore. It was funny. First Star Twinkle tried to forget everything that happened in this town but now he couldn't wait to tell Rarity that she actually won the competition.

And it actually wouldn't take long until he could actually do that. "Star Twinkle!" Twilight screamed from afar, accompanied by Rarity and the rest of his friends, all of them having happy smiles on their faces.

As expected, the group wasn't angry at Rarity for what she had done yesterday. The reason why they were not watching the fashion show was that they actually overslept, just like Star Twinkle said. They then went looking for Rarity and found her near the train station where they then settled things with each other. Star Twinkle also wasted no time and explained a few things. Of course, Rarity was shocked after she found out that she actually won the competition and couldn't believe it at first.

Because of how everything went so well for Rarity, she decided to thank everyone for forgiving her.
"How about we all go to an exclusive performance of Hinny of the Hills?"

"Um, how?" Applejack asked confused. "The tickets were for yesterday, remember?"

"I'm sure I can get him to agree to show it to us once I offer to do some work for him...or rather..."
Rarity then looked over to Coco Pommel. "You are without a job now, aren't you? How about I talk to the costume designer who gave me the tickets? I'm sure if you offer to help out with some future work, he will gladly give you a new job,"

"If you could do that, that would be wonderful!" Coco Pommel expressed happily. "Oh! Almost forgot!" She then said before she pulled out a little present from her saddlebag. "I wanted to give you this, as compensation for Suri stealing your idea,"

Rarity happily accepted and opened the little box on the spot. "Oh!" She said impressed before she used her magic to lift out a spool of rainbow-colored thread. "Thank you. I'm sure this will come in handy soon," she said thanking Coco Pommel for her gift.

"Then that is settled! Now let's all go to the theater!" Rarity said as she began to lead the way through the city again.

"Aw Yeah!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed overly excited. After she realized that she was stared at, however, she decided to play it cool. "I mean...yeah...let's go," she said disinterested, causing her friends to laugh in response.

In the end, this whole trip was a lot better than Star Twinkle originally expected. Everything went well for almost everyone and Rarity managed to win the competition to boost her popularity in Manehattan. Still, after some stressful days like this, Star Twinkle rather preferred to stay in Ponyville where it was a lot more quieter.

He also had to admit that Hinny on the Hill was a lot better then he expected...

75. Lying Rainbow

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With the Equestria Games, the biggest sports event in all of Equestria not too far away anymore, it was now time to determine which teams would attend the games. For that, some of the teams first had to qualify. This qualification took place in a place called "Rainbow Falls".

Rainbow Dash and her team, who were presenting Ponyville in the Equestria Games, were heading to Rainbow Falls as well. It is located in the far northeast of Equestria, and really close to the Crystal Empire so it took quite a while to reach this place by train but in order to support Rainbow Dash and her team, Star Twinkle and the rest of his friends all accompanied them as well.

As far as Star Twinkle knew, the rest of Rainbow Dash's team consisted of Fluttershy and some really big and tough looking and muscular Pegasus stallion called Bulk Biceps. For some reason, Star Twinkle was not sure why this was the team that was supposed to be representing Ponyville. Rainbow Dash made perfect sense, but Fluttershy didn't. Of course, she was capable if needed but being in the official team of Ponyville? Saying that she was the perfect candidate would be kind of a stretch but then he remembered that with Rainbow Dash in the team any team could have potential to win.

But Star Twinkle didn't want to come to any rash conclusions so he decided to check out the third member of the team. He didn't even know this Bulk Biceps and since he was bound to spend time with him on this "trip" too, he figured that he should introduce himself to him. But as usual, Star Twinkle had a hard time with the whole "meeting new ponies" thing and got a little nervous.

Star Twinkle found the stallion sitting next to Fluttershy...or rather...sitting on Fluttershy. She somehow didn't seem to mind it though. This guy was almost three times the size of the mare and took up over half of a seat that was meant for two ponies to sit on due to his muscle mass. He had a white coat, a short blonde mane, and red eyes. His Cutie Mark was a Dumb-Bell which combined with the huge muscle mass of this pony was indicating that he probably did a lot of work out. This pony also had considerably tiny wings which didn't look like as if they were even able to take this guy up in the air. He also had a small earring in his right ear.

Fluttershy managed to free herself a little and was now sitting right next to this guy, making this situation a little more normal and approachable for Star Twinkle. "Hey," Star Twinkle greeted in order to start a conversation. "You are part of the Ponyville team, right?"

"YEAH!!" The stallion replied. "We're gonna WIN for Ponyville!" He screamed across the whole train.

Star Twinkle didn't know what to reply to that but he kept smiling nervously and tried to keep the conversation going. "I assume you are very a good..." he stopped in mid-sentence once he looked at this Pony's almost embarrassingly small wings. "...flyer?"

For some reason, Bulk didn't get offended or anything after Star Twinkle pointed that out and instead raised his chin proudly as if he just heard a big compliment. Star Twinkle decided to leave it like that. Bulk Biceps seemed nice despite his intimidating size so Star Twinkle didn't have to worry too much about getting along with him and joined up with Twilight and Rainbow Dash.

Twilight couldn't help but compliment Rainbow Dash for being part of the team that didn't have the best flyers. She was obviously coming to the same conclusion like Star Twinkle when it came to the Ponyville team.

Rainbow Dash, of course, accepted that compliment and actually managed to show modesty while also bragging about her skills at the same time. "Nothing nice about it. I know that I can pick up the slack for anypony. With me on the team, we'll qualify. I'm sure of it," she said confidently.

There was no denying that Rainbow Dash couldn't make up for some weaknesses but with ponies like Fluttershy and a pony who's wings need to carry a large mass of muscle like Bulk Bicep's she really needed to make up for much. Star Twinkle was just happy that he was left out of being a member of the actual team, it sounded like a lot of work and pressure which he really didn't need. Instead, he was just there to support them in the from the background, just the way he liked it. But not only he was there for support, all of his friends tried to support the three flyers in their own way.

Rarity was providing the uniforms for Ponyville's team, Applejack made sure that everypony had enough to eat, and Pinkie Pie and Twilight were there to cheer. It was all small things but hopefully, it will be enough to help Ponyville to qualify for the upcoming Equestria Games.

The train didn't take much longer until it finally arrived at its destination. "Well, guess we know why this place is called Rainbow Falls," Star Twinkle said after he looked out of the window. What he saw was an Equestrian village near the mountains with waterfalls coming out of the clouds, only that instead of water, there were rainbows coming out of them, hence the name, Rainbow Falls. However, they were not about to spend much time there and instead had to go to the nearby training ground where the Equestria Games tryouts were held.

At the training grounds...

As soon as Rainbow Dash was showing up on the training ground, some ponies actually recognized her as one of the best flyers of Equestria. Of course, Rainbow Dash highly enjoyed that and got only further pumped to give her best in those tryouts. But...Rainbow Dash was not the only one who was recognized in the mass. "Oh, the Wonderbolts!" One pony suddenly said as soon as three members of the Wonderbolts were arriving in the training ground as well.

The Wonderbolts were the best flyers in Equestria so of course, it was fitting for them to attend the games as well. They were the ones who represented their hometown Cloudsdale which might have been the real reason why Rainbow Dash was not in the Cloudsdale team herself.

Their team consisted of their leader Spitfire, Soarin, and Fleetfoot who were all wearing their usual blue Wonderbolt uniforms. As soon as the three Wonderbolts spotted Rainbow Dash, they couldn't help but get excited about some competition. However, they still showed pride and confidence and walked away as quickly as they appeared in front of her. This was enough for Rainbow Dash to get excited as well. "The Wonderbolts know a winner when they see one, and we'll be winners just as soon as we practice!" She then turned towards her fellow teammates. "Right, team?"

"Right," Fluttershy replied.

"Yeah!" Bulk Biceps replied.

"Wooohooo!" Pinkie Pie replied excited while blowing some confetti in the air. She probably wanted to say that she was also ready which should be obvious since she was already dressed in a yellow cheerleader outfit. Rainbow Dash didn't exactly know what to think about that and turned towards Star Twinkle and Twilight. She was probably expecting some response from them as well.

"And, um, I'm with her! Hooray!" Twilight then said with a nervous smile on her face to let Rainbow Dash know that she believed in Rainbow Dash's team.

"Yeah! Team Ponyville, go!" Star Twinkle added, having a nervous smile on his face as well.

But Rainbow Dash rather listened to her own intuition and fully believed that her team was fully capable to qualify for the Equestria Games. But despite believing in that, Rainbow Dash still took a look at all the teams that were already practicing a little in the air. There were quite a lot of teams attending for the qualification, there was even a group of griffons. The Wonderbolts seemed to have their own cheerleader squad as well which was not really surprising because they were undoubtedly the most famous group of ponies in this place. But aside from them Rainbow Dash quickly figured that anyone else was most likely average when it came to flying skills so she couldn't help but smile confidently. With less competition, it was more likely for her and her team to qualify for the games.

But she soon found out that there was still more competition coming up at this very moment...

"You're finally here!" A familiar male voice said from behind the mare.

Rainbow Dash instantly recognized that voice turned around. "You!?" Rainbow Dash said in surprise after she saw three stallions walking up to her.

The male voice from before was none other than Cyclone Wing, the leader of the Storm Wings. He was accompanied by his two brothers, Hurricane Wing and Steel Wing as usual. Of course, seeing the three leaders of the Storm Wings here in Rainbow Falls was more than surprising for the group. The Storm Wings were considered freelancers that traveled all over Equestria to help other ponies. One would think that they were now busy enough to make up for all the stuff that happened after Mystic took over their group.

But since they were here, the obvious question was asked by Star Twinkle. "Are you trying to qualify for the Equestria Games too?"

Steel Wing seemed offended because of that last sentence and quickly did the explaining. "We are not "trying" to qualify, we are winning the whole thing!" He said proudly and confidently while raising his chest into the air.

"I don't really think you can "win" a qualification..." Hurricane Wing casually pointed out, much to his brothers dislike who glared at his in disappointment because he expected to get some back up instead.

Star Twinkle ignored the little quarrel between the two of them and walked up to Cyclone Wing to get some answers. Since every team that tried to qualify for the Equestria Games was representing some place, he was curious of which place wanted them to be represented by the Storm Wings considering that there was a time where they were known as criminals.

Cyclone Wing gave a quick answer. "We are representing Canterlot..."

"What!?" Everypony exclaimed confused. It was kind of a big surprise hearing that those three were about to represent the capital of Equestria and Cyclone Wing couldn't really blame them all for this kind of reaction.

"It was the idea of Princess Celestia," Cyclone Wing said, leaving the group only further in confusion. "She said that there were not enough Pegasus in Canterlot that qualify as good flyers so she asked us to take part in the Equestria Games instead,"

Twilight seemed to be the only one who figured out why it came to this. "I guess it's Princess Celestia's way to put her trust into you guys,"

Cyclone Wing didn't know how to answer to that and looked away flustered. "...I guess..." he simply replied. It seemed like as if he was almost embarrassed to hear that.

"Whatever the reason might be, you stand no chance against us!" Steel Wing said while he presented himself and his brothers in front of the group.
"We got the speed," he said while pointing towards Hurricane Wing.
"We got the intelligence," he said while pointing towards Cyclone Wing.
"And we got the strength!" He said while he posed in front of his two brothers.

Cyclone Wing smiled after this flashy introduction. "Don't take him to serious. We are all here to qualify after all," he said. As usual, Steel Wing's rash and provocative manner were strongly contrasted by Cyclone Wing's calmness. However, all of the sudden, the smile he had on his face changed into a rather serious expression. "But since Princess Celestia chose us to represent her home...we will make sure to not let her down!" Cyclone Wing added which almost sounded like a declaration of war that was directed towards Rainbow Dash and her group.

"Hah! I love it when he is determined like that!" Steel Wing said towards Hurricane Wing with a smile on his face after seeing how Cyclone Wing was fully on board on the whole winning thing. After everything was said by them, the three Pegasus left again to attend their own training for the games.

This introduction left quite an impact on the group but Rainbow Dash was still determined to win and not affected by the Storm Wing's own determination. "They still don't stand a chance against us!" Rainbow Dash said confidently, not being intimidated by the Storm Wings one bit.

"Well, I don't know," Star Twinkle said worriedly, grabbing Rainbow Dash's attention. "They are a pretty good team. Back then when they were our enemies, it took seven of us to take down Steel Wing alone. And since they are brothers, they probably know each other inside out..."

If it wouldn't have been for Twilight poking Star Twinkle in the sides, he would have probably continued to praise their skills even further without realizing that it put unnecessary pressure on Rainbow Dash. "We should start our training right now!" She then said after getting a little pumped up from those three stallions. Having them compete here might have actually fueled her need to give it her best now.

Later...

After picking a fitting area, Team Ponyville was ready to train now. Rainbow Dash was the one who took charge of training Fluttershy and Bulk. She was without a doubt, the best flyer in the team so it was only fitting for her to be in charge of the training. Rainbow Dash and her team were only attending the aerial relay event at the Equestria Games and she wanted to make sure to win.

"We need to be one of the first four teams to cross the finish line! Bulk Biceps, you're the first flyer, so let me see you flap it!" She said as he demanded to see how Bulk was doing with his wings.

As expected, having such small wings and such a large body was a bad combination. Bulk barely managed to lift himself over the ground despite flexing all of his muscles to the extreme. Star Twinkle couldn't help but to look at Rainbow Dash and wondered if her being in the team would be enough to make this team one of the first four teams to win the race at the end of the qualification.

There were still two more days left of practice so maybe Rainbow Dash's team will actually get better after that. But considering that it was a race, speed was something that you really needed in order to win. Then again, once Star Twinkle looked over to where the Storm Wings were practicing, he saw Steel Wing flying not too much faster either because of his heavy metallic wings.

"You need to flap them harder boss!" A familiar voice shouted towards Steel Wing.

"We'll never gonna go to the Equestria Games if you fly as slow as that, Tornado Wing!" Another familiar voice shouted.

It was the two gray coated ponies, Featherbrain and Cloud Head, the two ponies who always accompanied Steel Wing. And just like always, the two quickly got on his nerves. "It's Steel Wing!" Steel Wing angrily replied. "And if you think I am slow, then maybe you should come up here!" He shouted back. However, Steel Wing should have looked in front of him because he knocked his head against a pole which caused him to drop to the ground with a huge headache.

Cyclone Wing watched the whole thing and gave a simple advise. "You shouldn't get distracted like that, Tornado..."

Steel Wing didn't like hearing those words and just gave Featherbrain and Cloud Head a glare instead of replying to his big brother. Seeing this scene not too far away, actually gave Star Twinkle some hope that their team is not too bad. However, once he saw the huge mass of muscles, that was Bulk Biceps, dropping to the ground, that quickly changed. Strangely enough, there was a muffin next to the pony.

"Sorry!" Applejack apologized. Apparently, she shot the muffin up in the air because she saw some ponies doing that for the Wonderbolts. Bulk was supposed to eat it in mid-air but instead got knocked out of the air of it. "...It looks like they got better aim," she added.

"Or...maybe they told the Wonderbolts about this so that they could expect a muffin flying at them..." Star Twinkle said, advising Applejack to tell somepony else about her plans next time.

Applejack admitted that this was true and then continued to practice shooting some muffins up in the air. In the meantime, Rainbow Dash decided to ignore this little mishap and continued her training routine as soon as Bulk was back in the air again. She pulled out a hoof-shaped baton and gave it to the stallion to get straight to the next step of her program.

"Okay, the passing of the baton needs to be seamless. You shouldn't miss a wing beat or drop a hair in altitude!" Rainbow Dash said with a serious tone in her voice before she gave Bulk the baton. "And whatever you do, don't let go of it!"

As in any baton style race, the baton needed to be passed to the next pony in line who can then continue the race. The only problem was...the next pony was Fluttershy.

The mare slowly flew up to Bulk and took her sweet time to take the baton from the stallion. "Are you really, really, really sure you're ready? I mean, I don't want to take it if you're not super sure," she actually asked. For Star Twinkle it was really bad to look at. This didn't remotely look like a race. Bulk actually replied that he was ready and then finally passed the baton to Fluttershy, only so that she could clumsily drop it after a few seconds.

Star Twinkle could only slap his forehead after that performance. "So much for the Equestria Games..." he said after pretty much giving up that Team Ponyville will make it to the games.

"That's not nice to say, Star Twinkle," Twilight said after overhearing Star Twinkle's words. "I'm sure they will get better after those two days,"

"Did you watch the same thing that I did?" Star Twinkle replied. He didn't even try to let Twilight's optimism affect him.

Rainbow Dash seemed to feel the same way. She overheard the conversation of those two ponies and admitted that things weren't looking too great. "No, I think Star Twinkle is right..." she said with some depression in her voice. "Compared to the Wonderbolts perfect performance, our group is not nearly good enough!"

"Oh, come on, Rainbow Dash," Twilight replied. "You can't possibly expect your group to be on the same level then them,"

After seeing Rainbow Dash being a little upset about her team's performance, Star Twinkle felt like at least saying some words to make her feel better. "Twilight's right. Besides, the Wonderbolts probably make mistakes from time to time as well,"

Of course, Rainbow Dash highly disagreed. "Are you kidding me? The Wonderbolts never make mistakes! Not in million years!"

But then suddenly, exactly that happened...

The three ponies heard a scream coming from Soarin. The next thing they saw was him falling out of the sky with no sign of him recovering in mid-air. The fact, that he was screaming for help was also an obvious indication that he was in danger. As soon as Rainbow Dash was aware of what happened, she quickly went to the stallion's help and luckily managed to catch him right before he hit the ground. Team Ponyville, Cloudsdale, and Canterlot quickly rushed to the two in order to make sure that Soarin was okay only to find out that his wings seemed to be damaged.

"How did that happen?" Star Twinkle asked out of curiosity.

Soarin explained that he was flying as usual without any problem until he got distracted by something. As soon as Star Twinkle asked what he was distracted, Soarin embarrassingly looked over to two of his cheerleaders and looked away while blushing a little in embarrassment. Star Twinkle got a little confused by this behavior but his wing was already damaged so there was no point in thinking about how he got injured. The main problem was now that Team Cloudsdale was short on one member unless Soarin's wing was healed up after two days. But right now, things didn't look too good and Soarin was carried away to get his wing fixed.

"Should have had wings like mine..." Steel Wing commented after he saw the Pegasus getting carried away. Those unconsidered words caused Cyclone Wing to glare a little at his little brother. "Sorry..." Steel Wing then apologized.

Hurricane Wing, on the other hoof, felt a little bad for the Wonderbolts. "I hope he gets better soon...must be bad to drop out of the qualification because one of your teammates got hurt..." he expressed.

"Yeah, but look at the bright side! That just means that there is less competition now!" Steel Wing pointed out, which again was probably not the best thing to say now.

The Wonderbolts were obviously the ones who should be the most worried now. Rainbow Dash was talking with Spitfire and Fleetfoot while everyone else was still worried about Soarin. She really liked to win but probably not at the cost of one of her competitors getting hurt. She probably was really looking forward to competing against the Wonderbolts and felt bad for them.

Star Twinkle wanted to talk with the Wonderbolts as well, to make sure how they were doing in this situation but they left as soon as they saw Star Twinkle walking up to them. For some reason, it looked like as if they didn't want him to hear what the three were talking about but Star Twinkle thought that was just in his imagination.

"How are they doing?" Star Twinkle asked Rainbow Dash.

Instead of giving a straight answer, Rainbow Dash jumped as soon as he heard Star Twinkle's voice and turned around in a panic. "What!? What do you mean!? The Wonderbolts!? Why would they not be okay with one member missing!?" She all asked in a panic.

"I...what?" Star Twinkle could only reply in confusion. Rainbow Dash must have been really worried about the situation that the Wonderbolts were in right now, or else she wouldn't be in such a paranoid state.

"You! Star Twinkle! Make sure that Fluttershy and Bulk stick to their training!" She then said before she walked off to the opposite direction, leaving Star Twinkle.

"What!?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "What about you!? Where are you going!?" He asked, feeling that it was a little sudden for Rainbow Dash to lift the responsibility to train with the others on Star Twinkle like that. Rainbow Dash didn't seem like she wanted to fully explain what she was going to do while Star Twinkle took over and just left, leaving Star Twinkle to help with the training, much to his dislike. "Well...I guess if it is only once, then it's probably not too bad..." he told himself, in order to stay positive. It was not like he had to completely take over from now on after all.

But...things went a little different than he originally planned.

On the next day...

Tomorrow would be the day were the qualification trials would be held. The improvement that Team Ponyville made the day before was not really really big. That was mainly because Star Twinkle was in charge of the training most of the time because Rainbow Dash was absent for the majority of the training. She only showed up from time to time and when she did, she would usually leave a short time later. Not that she really needed any training but the group would certainly make more progress if Rainbow Dash would coach them, instead of Pony that could only be up in the air for a short while and was afraid of flying.

"Okay, one more time!" Star Twinkle said as he was carefully hovering in the air in his Pegasus form, watching Bulk Biceps in his training routine. He was about to pass the baton to Fluttershy but first, he had to fly through a ring which served as one of the obstacles that you had to fly through. Flying through the ring actually was pretty hard form the stallion because of his huge size, he barely fit through it and actually got stuck. Star Twinkle couldn't watch this.

Luckily, Fluttershy came flying towards the stallion and attempted to take the baton from Bulk. "I'm ready to take the baton now...if you want me to..." she asked hesitantly, like usual.

Bulk managed to get one of his legs through the ring and hold the baton out for Fluttershy to take it now. Fluttershy stretched out her hoof and was about to grab it but as soon as she touched it, the ring, where Bulk was stuck in, was swinging back and threw both him and Fluttershy far away into the distance, making this another failed attempt.

Star Twinkle sighed loudly. "This is not going well so far..." he said to himself as he started to land on the ground again, exiting his Pegasus form as soon as his hooves touched the ground. Even though Fluttershy and Bulk were doing all the training, for some reason, Star Twinkle felt pretty exhausted as soon as he landed back on the ground again. He was breathing heavily just by being up in the air and coaching Fluttershy and Bulk.

"Are you alright?" Twilight asked before she walked up to Star Twinkle.

She seemed to have noticed Star Twinkle's condition and got a little worried so Star Twinkle bit his teeth and pretended to be just a little exhausted. "I may need a little break. I'm sure Rainbow Dash will come any minute to take care of the training again,"

"I doubt that..." Twilight replied while she looked away into the distance. "Haven't you noticed that Rainbow Dash is a little too often absent from helping our team?"

"Of course, I have..." Star Twinkle replied annoyed. It was exactly that what forced him to take over her place as the coach so of course, he noticed. "Whenever I ask her where she is disappearing to, she just changes the subject or leaves again..." Star Twinkle explained.

Twilight kept looking away into the distance while talking with Star Twinkle, which he thought was really odd so he asked what that was about. Twilight didn't explain it but she asked Star Twinkle to follow her. Fluttershy and Bulk where nowhere to be found so he figured that he could follow Twilight for a few minutes.

She was leading the stallion a little further away from Ponyville's training ground and led him directly to the Cloudsdale training area. "There, look," Twilight then said, while pointing up into the air.

Star Twinkle looked up. He saw the Wonderbolts flying through the air, wearing silver uniforms and goggles. Uniforms that, he would guess were for the Equestria Games. They were probably practicing for the Equestria Games. He didn't quite understand why Twilight brought him there, however. "I don't get it. What am I supposed to see here? They are practicing in case Soarin's wing is healed again, right?" He asked confused.

"Look closer," Twilight simply said as she kept watching the Wonderbolts.

Star Twinkle, again, looked up into the air and after a while, he noticed somepony else practicing with Spitfire and Fleetfoot. But it wasn't Soarin who they were flying with. "Wait...is that..." Star Twinkle said as soon as he identified the third member wearing the silver uniform of Cloudsdale's team.

"Yes," Twilight said. "This is where she was going to the whole time..." Twilight explained.

Star Twinkle couldn't quite believe that and wanted to hear an explanation from Rainbow Dash herself. And from the looks of it, he was about to have a chance for that. Rainbow Dash was either taking a break from her "training" or she was about to return to her original group. Whatever the reason was, she was about to leave this training area.

Of course, as soon as she saw Star Twinkle and Twilight glaring at her, she panicked and tried to come up with an excuse. But that was impossible after they both saw her practicing with the Wonderbolts and actually wearing their uniforms at this very moment. There was no way she could talk her way out of this now.

"Uh...I can explain..." she said nervously.

"I'm listening," Star Twinkle replied in an annoyed tone, having his ears peeled to find out the reason why Rainbow Dash was flying with the Wonderbolts.

Rainbow Dash knew that lying would not be a good idea right now so she just told them the truth. "Well...the Wonderbolts offered me to join them in their training. So I just thought that I could train with them while I train with you guys..."

"Yes," Twilight explained. "Except, that you are barely around without team and let Star Twinkle do all the work," she pointed out. She seemed to be concerned for Star Twinkle after she saw him exhausted before.

"But it's so much more fun working out with the winners than... um... the non-winners," Rainbow Dash replied, feeling a little bad after saying the last sentence, even though it was true. "Besides, Ponyville will still qualify," she then added confidently.

To a certain point, Star Twinkle actually understood the position that Rainbow Dash was in. It was a rare chance for her to train with her personal heroes and as long as she would still help Team Ponyville to qualify. It was only Star Twinkle having to replace her as a coach most of the time, that bothered him.

In the middle of the conversation, Spitfire and Fleetfoot walked up to the three. "Rainbow Dash, you got a minute?" Spitfire asked.

Rainbow Dash walked up to the mares and listened to what they had to say to her while Star Twinkle and Twilight waited for a few hooves away. Twilight looked at Star Twinkle and was still concerned. "I know what you are thinking..." she simply said, much to the stallion's confusion. "She has a chance to fly with her idols, and as long as she helps Ponyville to qualify, it's okay." Shivers were running down Star Twinkle's back because of how Twilight pretty much repeated what he thought a few seconds ago. "But remember, our team needs a little more help then theirs,"

Star Twinkle understood what Twilight was saying but he still had to point out something else. "Sure but...you have to keep in mind that the Wonderbolts might not even have the chance to qualify for the Equestria Games. She must feel bad for that too." Twilight still stood by her previous opinion but she was getting what Star Twinkle tried to say. If Star Twinkle kept training with Fluttershy and Bulk, then they still could improve a little and Rainbow Dash could help them in the race tomorrow. "As long as Rainbow Dash is ready tomorrow, things could still turn out well..." Star Twinkle explained.

The conversation between Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolts seemed to be over and Rainbow Dash returned to the two ponies. For some reason, she had a really joyful reaction on her face and couldn't help but to jump up and down in excitement.

"You won't believe it!" She said excited, giving the two not even time to reply. "Soarin's wing is probably not healing in time so the Wonderbolts want me to join their team permanently! It's like a dream come true!"

Of course, the two ponies didn't share the same excitement then Rainbow Dash after hearing those "good news". "Aren't you forgetting something?" Star Twinkle said.

"Yes. What about our team?" Twilight said. "If you fly for Cloudsdale, Pinkie Pie won't have anypony to cheer for. Rarity's uniforms will never be seen. And Applejack will have slaved over those apple brown Bettys for nothing,"

Rainbow Dash only seemed to have realized that problem just now and began to panic once more. "Oh, but I really wanna fly with the best team! What should I do?" She then asked, fully knowing that she now had to choose between two teams.

Star Twinkle would have straight out told her that she should rather stay with Team Ponyville but Twilight interrupted him. "I think this is a decision you have to make on your own," she then asked Star Twinkle to follow him back to their own training area, in hope that Rainbow Dash would make the right choice by tomorrow.

Of course, as soon as Star Twinkle and Twilight were far away enough from the mare, he quickly asked what that was about. "Shouldn't it be better if we tell her that Team Ponyville needs her more then they do? You know, cause we're her friends?" He asked boldly, expecting Twilight to have a good reason to not help Rainbow Dash finding an answer.

But Twilight was staying with her decision. "It's no longer spending time with either her friends or her idols. Now it's time for her to chose who she wants to help to get to the Equestria Games. Whoever she doesn't choose stays behind. The only one who can make that choice now is her..."

"And what if she doesn't choose us? Like you said before, our friends work will all be for nothing," Star Twinkle pointed out.

Twilight didn't look like as if she was too happy but she still thought it was the best thing to do, right now. "Let's just hope that she will make the right choice..." she simply said before she walked back to the Ponyville training ground.

Star Twinkle looked back at Rainbow Dash who was now trying to think really hard what to do in her current situation. "I hope she does..." he then said before he returned to his training ground as well.

On the next day...

It was still early in the morning. The training already started as soon as Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps showed up. Of course, Star Twinkle was eager to know what Rainbow Dash decided to do from now on but the problem was, she didn't show up. Yesterday she was at least showing up in the morning before she vanished to train with the Wonderbolts but today, there was no sight of her.

Twilight was also waiting for her and wanted to know what choice she made and kept close to Star Twinkle, Fluttershy, and Bulk. She also had no idea where the mare was. "She's not here yet?" She asked Star Twinkle, wondering where the usual pretty earlier Rainbow Dash was.

"No. You have any idea what's up with that?" He asked back, only to see Twilight shrugging her shoulders in confusion.

But then, almost on cue, Rainbow Dash voice could be heard in the distance, slowly getting closer to the group. "Woe is me! Oooh!" She groaned as if she was in deep pain. As soon as everypony spotted her, they realized why she was groaning like that. She was sitting in a wheelchair and slowly approached the group with a painful expression on her face. Everypony quickly rushed to her to find out what happened. She had bandages all over her body, her hooves, her wings, her neck and her head.

"What happened?" Fluttershy obviously asked after seeing Rainbow Dash like that.

Rainbow Dash just replied that she hurt her hoof while she continued to groan in pain. The Wonderbolts, as well as the Storm Wings, who were all close by, wondered how she managed to hurt all of her hooves at once.

"I, uh, tripped on a-a foam hoof and landed on a...pokey stick coming out of the ground..." Rainbow Dash explained.

Needless to say, getting all your hooves hurt in such a way was a little weird, if not even very unlikely. Only an idiot would believe something like that.

"If I get my hooves on that pokey, it'll be in big trouble!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed angrily. She didn't even seem to question how Rainbow could have gotten hurt by something like that.

The most important question, of course, was now, if Rainbow Dash was able to fly like that. By now Rainbow Dash seemed to over-exaggerated things a little bit too much. "I'll be lucky if I ever fly again!" She said, followed by a sigh. "I just need a little rest,"

Fluttershy offered to take the mare away to a doctor, or at least someone who had medical knowledge. The Wonderbolts decided to leave the scene as soon as they were done watching that. They didn't seem to be too happy to see another one of their members not being able to fly in time.

Star Twinkle looked over to Twilight, who he could swear had the same facial expression that he must have had after seeing Rainbow Dash. They were both coming to the same conclusion that she was just pretending to be hurt so that she didn't have to choose any team and not letting down anyone.

For a second they were feeling a little bad for suspecting that however, especially if it turns out that Rainbow Dash was actually hurt. But as it turns out, not only Star Twinkle and Twilight were coming to the same conclusion.

"Sooo...why is Rainbow Dash pretending that she is hurt?" Cyclone Wing just casually threw out after everypony was gone except Star Twinkle.

"So you noticed too?" Star Twinkle replied.

"Yep, totally faking it," Steel Wing agreed while Hurricane Wing nodded in agreement as well.

"Thanks to what Mystic did to my brothers, I am pretty sure that I can distinguish real pain from fake one," Cyclone Wing explained. "Besides, Rainbow Dash is a really bad liar," he casually added.

Star Twinkle did notice too that Rainbow Dash seemed to over exaggerate a little. She normally isn't anypony who would openly show her pain and would rather toughen up in front of everypony. She was putting on quite a show for everyone. For Star Twinkle, that was enough prove to visit Rainbow Dash in order to find out what she was thinking of just doing something like this.

Later in the medic station...

As expected, the medic pony that took a look at Rainbow Dash, had no idea what was wrong with her. But still, nopony except, Star Twinkle and Twilight seemed to suspect Rainbow Dash to just play the hurt one. Everyone else didn't have a reason to disbelieve her because they didn't know about the whole secretly training with the Wonderbolts thing. In fact, they were heavily worried about her and tried to make her feel better in any way, like Applejack, who kept feeding her with her homemade muffins. But Rainbow Dash continued with her obvious act and kept pretending to be really weak.

Eventually, Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps both took a break from their training to visit Rainbow Dash. "We just wanted to let you know that we're so sorry you're hurt, but you shouldn't worry a bit about not being able to be in the tryouts. We'll be alright," Fluttershy assured. Star Twinkle didn't even think about it but with Rainbow Dash not being in any of the teams that Ponyville was now missing another member and couldn't take part in the trials later that day. But apparently, they have taken care of that.

Fluttershy called in the replacement for Rainbow Dash. A mare with a light gray coat, a blonde mane, yellow eyes, and a bunch of bubbles as a Cutie Mark. Her eyes were also crossed. Star Twinkle didn't want to be rude but it was actually that, which made him recognize the mare again. He didn't know who she was or what her name was but he remembered encountering her sometimes before. But whether he knew her or not was important. The important thing was if she was a good enough flyer to help Ponyville qualify for the Equestria Games.

"We're so, so sorry that you can't compete," Fluttershy said in her concern for Rainbow Dash. "We all know how much you love to fly. And we promise that if we qualify and make it to the Equestria Games and all win gold medals, you can have ours because we know how much a gold medal means to you,"

Rainbow Dash seemed to not expect those words and widened her eyes. "Thanks..." she simply replied. She clearly felt bad for letting down her friends.

In order to let Rainbow Dash rest for a while, the group decided to leave her and went outside. Star Twinkle and Twilight were the last ones to leave the room and decided to let her know that they were aware of her little act.

"You know, choosing not to choose isn't really a decision," Twilight simply said with a disappointing expression on her face before she followed her friends outside.

There was nothing much that Star Twinkle want to add to Twilight's words so he just decided to leave without a word. However, Rainbow Dash seemed to still want to talk about something. "Wait!" She said, causing Star Twinkle to stop leaving the room. He turned around and walked back towards Rainbow Dash, wondering what she wanted from him. She didn't hesitate and just went straight out with what she wanted to say. "Star Twinkle...do you think...I'm doing the wrong thing too?" She asked unusual nervous as if she was really scared by the stallion's response.

"Well, I don't really think its good...but honestly, I don't know what I would do in your situation either..." Star Twinkle replied.

Rainbow Dash had a pretty neutral reaction to that response. She didn't seem sad or happy but she was fully aware of how her decision to leave both teams hanging was not the right right choice. "Flying with the Wonderbolts means that I will be able to win in the Equestria Games! But If I do that, then my friends won't make it to the games and it's all my fault! What should I do!?" She asked Star Twinkle in her own frustration.

But Star Twinkle was not sure. He was not Rainbow Dash so he could not just make a decision and expect her to be happy about it. It was as frustrating for him as it was for her. "This all wouldn't be a problem if Soarin didn't hurt his wing, in the first place..." Star Twinkle expressed while indirectly blaming somepony else for this problem.

"Sorry..." A male voice then said behind the curtain who revealed himself as Soarin.

"Oh! Eh...What I meant to say is...I hope you your wing will heal up soon!" Star Twinkle said, in hope that Soarin didn't fully hear him.

But Soarin didn't seem to be mad or offended. "Don't worry about my wing. I'm just keeping it warm in case my team wants me back," he said which highly confused both Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash.

"What do you mean, 'wants you back'?" Rainbow Dash asked confused. "Spitfire and Fleetfoot told me that you were still too injured to fly!"

Soarin seemed as confused as she was. "And they told me that they were worried I wouldn't be one hundred percent by the tryouts, so they were going with somepony else!" He explained.

"That somepony else was me!" Rainbow Dash realized in shock.

This sounded very familiar to Star Twinkle. "It looks like the Wonderbolts were pretty focused on winning as well...even if it meant throwing out one of their own teammates..."

Hearing that seemed to have an effect on Rainbow Dash. Seeing Soarin depressed laying on his bed, waiting for the rest of his teammates to come back...he was clearly not enjoying his current situation. It was like as if Rainbow Dash was looking at her friends, who she left behind. "So, I guess we're all out of luck. Cloudsdale won't qualify without three fliers, and Ponyville won't qualify without you. Too bad..." He said before he turned around in his bed.

Rainbow Dash carefully thought about what to do. Star Twinkle could feel how an answer was about to come out from her so he patiently waited. However, all of the sudden, Star Twinkle could hear a voice inside of his head.

I wanted to stay with my friends...I wanted to spend time with them right here, right now...

Star Twinkle looked all around him to find out where that voice was coming from. He remembered that something like that happened before, back then in Manehattan not too long ago. "What was that voice? Why am I hearing random voices in my head!?" He wondered.

Then, a dark blue light was glowing in his eyes for a second without him noticing it and after that, Rainbow Dash had a rainbow-colored light in her eyes.

Rainbow Dash then suddenly jumped out of her bed and went to Soarin. "Come on! We need to return to our teams!" She simply said, much to everyponies surprise.

"Wait, does that mean?" Star Twinkle asked, having a slight clue what she was about to do.

Rainbow Dash only nodded with a determined expression on her face and led everypony outside.

Back on the training grounds...

Team Ponyville was either taking a really depressing break or they did give up on making it through the qualification because they were all sitting on the ground with their heads lowered to the ground. Rainbow Dash's replacement didn't seem to be a lot of help to carry the team to the Equestria Games.

But hopefully, that was supposed to change...

Rainbow Dash was walking past her friends for now. She first wanted to talk with Spitfire and Fleetfoot who were really surprised to see Rainbow Dash up again. Star Twinkle and Soarin followed close behind as well and waited for Rainbow Dash to explain things. She quickly took off all her bandages and shocked everyone around her even further. She then revealed the truth to everypony.

"I...faked my injury so that I wouldn't have to choose between flying for Ponyville or Cloudsdale. I wanted to fly with you both, and the decision was too hard!" She explained while at the same time feeling bad about letting her friends hanging like that. "I know now who I should've been loyal to. Ponyville," she said as she turned to her friends who happily took her back into their team "Because it's not just where I live, but it's where my friends are. The ponies who really care about me, whether I can help them win a race or not,"

Despite those heartwarming words, Spitfire was not sure how to feel about that. "Are you sure that's the right decision?" She asked confused.

"Well, do you think you did the right decision?" Star Twinkle then said, obviously hinting at the Wonderbolts leaving Soarin who was now visibly showing that he was a little angry.

After Rainbow Dash then confronted the two Wonderbolts about this, they felt like as if they were the ones who made a mistake. She convinced the two to apologize to Soarin and offered to take him back into their team. Soarin didn't show any grudge against his teammates and was actually pretty happy that he was back in Team Cloudsdale now so he flew up in the air in excitement.

Rainbow Dash shared Soarin's excitement as well. "Come on, Ponyville relay team! We've got a race to get ready for!" She said which was a sign that the rest of the day would be spent to train for the qualification and hopefully bring the team to the Equestria Games. The group were happy to hear that and did as she said and went back to train for the rest of the day.

Later that day, at the qualification...

"Cloudsdale qualifies!" One of the Judges said after Fleetfoot flew through the finish line. Cloudsdale managed to qualify with ease, as expected from the best flyers of Equestria.

Team Ponyville was starting only seconds after Cloudsdale qualified. Bulk Biceps was already flying through some of the rings. This time, he made it through every single one without much time loss. Fluttershy also seemed to have a good grip on the baton this time and didn't drop it. And of course, things started to look even better as soon as Rainbow Dash got the baton in her hooves. She was flying fast enough to make up more than enough time for the rest of the team. And before everyone knew it, Rainbow Dash was also flying through the finish line.

Rainbow Dash arrived next to the judge and was eager to know her time and if she qualified her team for the Equestria Games.

After a short silence, the judge spoke up and announced the result. "Ponyville qualifies!"

Cheers could be heard from Star Twinkle and his friends. Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps quickly flew up to Rainbow Dash and were cheering with and for her after their victory. The cheering on the ground was equally big. "Equestria Games, here we come!" Twilight cheered.

Star Twinkle was a little too focused on Team Ponyville so he didn't even realize how Twilight changed but as soon as he saw her dressed in a cheerleader uniform and a rainbow-colored wig, he couldn't help but think that she was a going a little too far with her cheering.

But he soon noticed that she didn't seem to be the only one...

"Go, Storm Wings!" He heard a mare screaming through the whole training ground. It was Breeze Flyer, another member of the Storm Wings, who was doing her best to cheer on the Storm Wings, who at this moment we're trying to qualify.

Steel Wing seemed to have given Cyclone Wing the baton already and the leader of the Storm Wings did his best to get it to Hurricane Wing as fast as possible. As soon as the baton was given to Hurricane Wing, he quickly accelerated through the air at the same speed as Rainbow Dash or Spitfire. It didn't take long until Hurricane Wing made it through the goal.

"Canterlot qualifies!" The judge then said, confirming that the Storm Wings also made it to the Equestria Games.

Now that the qualifications were over, the next step would be making a good figure at the Equestria Games. And considering that there were teams like the Wonderbolts and the Storm Wings competing with them, this would actually be pretty hard...

Later...

After the qualification was over, the judges made sure to give every pony, who passed the qualification, a badge, as well as making a photo of the whole group. In Team Ponyville's case, it meant that everypony of Rainbow Dash's friends would be in that photo.

"Now we have to make sure to take home as many gold medals as possible!" Rainbow Dash said, which caused her friends to cheer in excitement. It was good seeing her determined while being part of a team that consisted of her friends and the ponies who were part of her home.

The Wonderbolts didn't say much before they left, maybe out of respect for Rainbow Dash and her team, however, Spitfire gave the mare one last thing. It was a golden Wonderbolts pin. Spitfire must have given her that because she wanted to thank her for the lesson that she told her and her fellow teammates.

The Storm Wings were not too good when it came to saying their farewells but they were excited to race against Team Ponyville and the Wonderbolts so they spared a few words.

"Glad that you all made it to the games as well!" Cyclone Wing congratulated.

"Congratulation to you too!" Rainbow Dash replied happily.

"Oh, please!" Steel Wing replied offended. "There was never any doubt that we would make it!"

"Yeah, of course..." Rainbow Dash said jokingly under her breath.

And just like that, the Storm Wings left again. It was certainly a short conversation but nopony didn't mind. In fact, everypony was curious how they will manage against everypony in the Equestria Games.

"Mh...never thought that I would get excited about a sporting event..." Star Twinkle thought with a smile on his face.

The Equestria Games were bound to get really interesting. But there was still quite a while left until they were held so there was no point to get nervous right now. Because right now, it was time to go home to the place that they would soon represent in the Equestria Games...

Author's Notes:

Yep, sadly no Pinke Apple Pie...
This actually makes me sad because it has my favorite song in the whole show in it...

Anyway!

I hope you are all excited for the Equestria Games!
Did you like Bulk's role in the show?
Were you excited for Derpy's return in the show?
I joined the fandom a little too late to get excited about her appearance so I was like
"cool..."

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

76. Chaos in the house

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Star Twinkle figured that he was spending a lot of time near train stations recently. Whether it was because he needed to go to Manehattan or Rainbow Falls, for some reason, trains were not very far. This time, he didn't need to take the train though, this time he just needed to say farewell to Fluttershy, who was spending the day out of town. Apparently, the "Equestrian Society for the Preservation of Rare Creatures" gave her permission to observe some creatures called the "Breezies". According to Fluttershy, they were the rarest, tiniest and most adorable creatures in all of Equestria so as an Animal lover, she just had to take this chance to see them herself.

And her friends were all at the train station to see her off.

Rarity gave her some additional clothing, in case that it would get cold and Applejack packed her a basket of apples in case that she would get hungry. Fluttershy herself was already wearing safari-like clothes and had her saddlebag packed with all kind of things. She was probably all too familiar with how to observe animals on her own.

The train was already in the station and about to leave so Fluttershy quickly got on it. "Have a great time!" Twilight said.

"Oh, I will," Fluttershy said excitedly. "And I hope you have fun with Cadance," she wished back.

Shortly after, the train was leaving and Fluttershy was on her way. However, that was only the first reason why everypony gathered at the station. Cadance, princess of the Crystal Empire, wife of Twilight's brother Shining Armor and Twilight's old foal-sitter, was about to visit Ponyville. Or, to be precise, Twilight. As the ruler of the Crystal Empire, Princess Cadance had a lot of things to take care of and naturally, not much free time to spare. But today, she had time to spend and she used it to see Twilight who was quite nervous about her visit.

"What could you be nervous about, Twilight? Cadance just loves you to pieces!" Applejack said, which couldn't be further from the truth.

"I know, but I really want her visit to go without a hitch!" Twilight explained.

"Oh, why wouldn't it?" Pinkie Pie asked confused.

"Well, the last three times we've seen each other haven't exactly been worry-free," Twilight replied.
Of course, the last three times they've met always had something to do with saving Equestria so there was probably little time to refresh their old friendship. "Cadance and I haven't really had a chance to just enjoy being friends again. Which is why it is so important that this visit be about the two of us having some real quality time together," Twilight further explained.

"I'm guessin' you've got a plan that'll keep it that way," Applejack said.

And as expected, that was exactly the case. "The timing couldn't be more perfect. Today, right here in Ponyville, the Star Swirl the Bearded Traveling Museum!" She said while she pointed at a poster that was on the train station building, showing a picture of, who else, Starswirl the Bearded. "Cadance and I can spend the whole day looking at Star Swirl the Bearded artifacts!" She said excitedly.

"Sounds like a perfect drama-free way to spend the day with Cadance," Rarity said.

"Unless Cadance isn't a fan of Star Swirl the Bearded..." Star Twinkle pointed out.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Twilight assured. "The only drama that will occur is the one of being surrounded by the bells from his cloak they've chosen to put on display. Spoiler alert: it's this one!" She said while she pointed again at the poster in front of her.

Twilight was clearly showing some excitement and couldn't wait to spend time with Cadance at this traveling museum. But the same couldn't be said about every other pony. Rainbow Dash for example who visibly showed her disinterest by gagging a little."Uh, sorry. Something in my throat... like a big ball of 'lame'!" For Rainbow Dash, it didn't really sound like a very entertaining day but that didn't really matter.

"Well, I think it sounds delightful," Rarity said, fully supporting Twilight's idea.

"Yup. Definitely sounds like you two will have some real quality time together," Applejack agreed on.

"Yeah, and don't worry, none of us will interrupt you and Cadance so you can have your quiet time with her," Star Twinkle assured. He expected his friends to think the same way and judging from how they all nodded in agreement, it looks like they were.

"Exactly. Just quiet time," Twilight said happily. She could clearly not wait until Cadance's train would arrive at the station.

And there was not much time left for her to wait...

A train that looked highly different from the Friendship-Express was about to enter the train station. The front train was practically screaming "Crystal Empire" with that amount of crystals that it was covered with so it must have been Cadance's train, much to Twilight's delight. However, the screeching that came from the train after it was stopping near the station was something that everypony gladly could have

"Well, I heard that royals always announce their visits but..." Star Twinkle thought while he blocked his ears from the painful noises that the train made while it was driving on the tracks.

Shortly after, the Princess of the Crystal Empire stepped out of the train, accompanied by two guards, one of them being a Crystal Pony and another one being a Pegasus Pony that looked strangely familiar to Star Twinkle, though he couldn't really put why.

Twilight was about to greet her old friend but Princess Cadance bowed down before she could even say something. "Your Highness," she greeted formally while she closed her eyes and bowed down in front of Twilight.

Twilight was surprised to see Cadance like that but after she remembered that both of them were princesses, she replied with a bow as well. "Your Highness,"

Princess Cadance knew everypony in the group all too well, but it was just a fact that she was still a princess, the princess of a whole kingdom to be exact. It was only natural for everypony else to slowly bow down as well. Twilight was a princess as well so greeting each other like this was probably to be expected by everypony else.

Princess Cadance just now realized that Twilight was bowing to her as well and smiled before she explained that she was just joking. "We're sisters-in-law, Twilight. We don't have to be so formal," she said, causing Twilight to smile back at her.

The two guards that accompanied Princess Cadance both went inside of the train and drove back to the Crystal Empire. It looks like as if Princess Cadance also wanted to make sure that she and her sister-in-law would have their private time.

"Knowing you, you've made some plans," Princess Cadance guessed.

"Boy, have I," Twilight replied before she attempted to explain everything but she couldn't help but look over to her friends with a concerned look on her face. She probably felt a little bad for leaving them so that she could spend time with Princess Cadance. "Hang on just one second," she said before she walked over to her friends one more time. "You guys-" She started, however, Rarity exactly knew what she was about to say and interrupted her.

"Now, now, don't you worry about a thing! We will make sure that nothing – but nothing – interferes with your visit," Rarity assured with a smile on her face.

"Go on, have a hootenanny with your kinfolk," Applejack added.

Twilight couldn't help but feel happy to hear this. "You really are the best friends a pony could ever have," she said touched after realizing that her friends were all so understanding of the situation. She hugged every single one of her friends in a big group hug.

"Now don't let any time go to waste and go to Cadance, she's probably waiting for you," Star Twinkle said with a smile on his face.

"Yes, your right," Twilight said before she happily went back to Princess Cadance to spend the day with her.

The two mares walked off into the distance, talking and laughing on their way to this traveling museum. "And there they go," Star Twinkle said as he watched the two mares walking away from the station. "Must be nice to finally spend some time with somepony that you can't see every day,"

"You bet!" Pinkie Pie said as she popped out of nowhere next to Star Twinkle, causing him to flinch. "Well, I for one am gonna make sure that nothing spoils their day!" She said determined to make those words come true.

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash agreed. "Imagine if out of all the days, today something happens to ruin their day..."

"Yes, like that thing that is quickly flying towards our direction!" Pinkie Pie said casually, causing everypony to look into the distance where they saw something flying towards the train station at rapid speed.

"What is that thing?" Applejack wondered as she tried to find out what came flying towards them.

As soon as Rarity noticed that it came dangerously close to them, she advised everypony to take cover. "Whatever it is...duuuck!!!" She screamed, causing everypony to duck.

Except for Pinkie Pie, who misinterpreted Rarity's words a little. "That doesn't look anything like a duck!" She said confused. Eventually, Star Twinkle dragged her down to the ground so that she wouldn't get hit. And it was good that he did that because this thing was flying right past them and would hit them all if they didn't drop to the ground in time. Whatever that thing was, it crashed into a nearby tree and seemed to have stopped moving now.

After everything was safe again, the five ponies got up again and walked towards the tree to get some answers. "What is that?" Rainbow Dash asked confused.

Surprisingly, that thing replied in an all too familiar voice. "No, not a "what", but a "who", dear,"

Everypony quickly recognized that voice. "Oh no..." Star Twinkle quietly expressed after he realized who this voice belonged to.

Shortly after, a sneeze could be heard from inside the tree and after that, the leaves of the tree were all burned away by blue flames, leaving only the tree trunk and the branches, as well as the one who the voice from before belonged to.

It was none other than Discord who was now sitting in the tree, much to everyponies shock. But the Draconequus looked a little more different than usual. Not only did he seem to be in a really miserable state but his body was also completely blue for some reason.

"What in tarnation are you doin' here? And why the jumpin' June bugs are you blue?" Applejack asked.

"More like a shade of cerulean, to be precise," Rarity corrected which Applejack couldn't care less right now.

"Whatever color you are is the color of trouble!" Rainbow Dash said, speaking out what everypony else was thinking right now.

But Discord seemed to be thinking a little different. "Oh, Rainbow Dash, I've changed, surely you remember? I was reformed by lovely little- " But in the middle of the sentence, Discord sneezed once again. "F-F-Fluttershy-"

"What are you, sick or somethin'?" Applejack guessed after the constant sneezing that came from Discord.

"Well, of course, I'm sick. The blue skin? These sneezes? Could somebody find me a fainting couch?" Discord demanded.

Knowing, Rarity, she must have one of those so everypony looked at her, expecting her to magically summon one for Discord. But of course, that was not the case and Rarity was confused why every pair of eyes were suddenly on her.

Pinkie Pie then decide to provide a couch, made out of some luggage for Discord to lay on. That seemed to be enough since Discord did make himself comfortable right away. "How charming, thank you, I can't stop sneezing and wheezing. In short... I need help," he basically pleads.

Rainbow Dash pointed out the obvious thing. "If you're so 'sick', why have you come here instead of, y'know, staying home in bed and getting over your weird illness?" She said. She was clearly not looking forward to helping Discord.

After a good and hard sneeze Discord explained. "Because this condition has left me helpless, simply helpless! Why, I can barely lift a spoon,"

"But...you were somehow able to come all the way here from...wherever you live," Star Twinkle pointed out while also realizing that he didn't even remotely know where Discord was living.

"I didn't expect any of you to understand the situation I'm in now!" He said while crossing his arms. "I came to find the one pony who truly understands me and could nurse me back to health. Where is that dear, sweet Fluttershy? I need attention! I need some care! I need-"

Rainbow Dash put her hoof on Discords mouth to stop his whining for a second. "You need to chill. Fluttershy's out," she explained.

Discord didn't seem all too surprised to hear that. "Oh, of course, her trip to see the Breezies. Ah, yes, I had forgotten that was today,"

"How do you know about her trip?" Applejack asked with a judging look on her face.

"Well, she told me about it in her last letter," Discord replied casually before he summoned a luggage and pulled out a letter from it.

There seemed to be some confusion in the group after hearing that piece of information. "You and Fluttershy write each other letters?" Pinkie Pie asked confused after she scanned her eyes through the letter that Discord was holding in front of her.

"Well, of course we do! We're friends!" Discord replied as if it was the proudest thing ever. "It's just such a shame that today of all days is when I really need her. Oh, well, I know what to do,"

"Good thinking," Rainbow Dash said before she pushed Discord right back at the train station, prompting him to leave again. "Head on home, put your feet up. I'm sure eventually you'll have the strength to make yourself soup or something..." She said.

But as expected, Discord wouldn't let himself get rid off that easily and quickly appeared next to the rest of the group again. "Oh, no-no-no-no-no-no! I mean, while she's gone, you ponies can take care of me! Isn't that what friends are for, taking care of each other?" He said while he grabbed everypony in a big group hug, much to the dislike of everypony because the word "friend" is very vaguely used in context with Discord. "Let the healing begin!" He said before he waited for one brave soul to volunteer.

"That sounds like a lot of trouble..." Star Twinkle thought annoyed.

Discord was waiting for one of his "good friends" to finally step up but not surprisingly, nopony felt like doing that. In fact, Rainbow Dash quickly freed herself from Discord's hug and flew away at an incredible speed. She basically tailed out of the whole thing. It was times like this where Star Twinkle wished that he could run as fast as Rainbow Dash could fly.

"Well, that's some way to treat a suffering friend," Discord replied to Rainbow Dash's escape.

However, unlike Rainbow Dash, somepony actually did volunteer to help Discord getting recovered again. It was Pinkie Pie, who seemed actually a little excited to spend time with Discord. "Don't you worry, Discord! I'll give you cuddles, and read you stories, and tell you all about me!" She said before she actually started to explain on which day of the week she was born.

Discord quickly stopped the mare's words. For once, Star Twinkle could actually understand that Discord was probably not looking forward to dealing a whole day with this hyperactive mare. "Oh, you're so sweet to offer, but Rarity and Applejack already volunteered to be my own personal nursemaids," he said followed by a chuckle.

"We did?" Applejack and Rarity exclaimed confused, clearly not being aware of the whole "volunteered" part.

Discord apologized to Pinkie Pie because she clearly was looking forward to it and hoped that she wouldn't mind. She quickly wanted to make him know that she did mind but as soon as she was trying to object, Discord simply pulled out a red balloon and let it fly away from him. This seemed to be enough to get Pinkie Pie's attention and she just hoped after it in excitement.

Now Discord was waiting for Applejack and Rarity to start the healing the process. Of course, that did not happen right away. In fact, Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Rarity were highly cautious about Discord and decided to discuss what to do next.

"That joker's up to something..." Applejack whispered to the two.

"Obviously," Star Twinkle whispered back to which Rarity also nodded in agreement.

Applejack looked over to Discord to see him laying in a hospital bed to basically show everypony in what bad state he was in. But Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Rarity were all highly suspicious of him. "Whatever it is, we're gonna keep it as far away from Twilight and Princess Cadance as possible," Applejack said.

"You're right," Rarity agreed. "We promised we wouldn't let anything ruin their visit... although I do so wish that "anything" had turned out to be something else!" Rarity said.

"Or someone else..." Star Twinkle added annoyed.

But before they could continue with a plan or something, Discord appeared behind them. "Did I hear you two talking about Princess Cadance's visit with Princess Twilight?" He said after clearly eavesdropping on the three. "Fluttershy had mentioned that those two were getting together today. How wonderful for them both. It is so rare that those two get to see one another. I don't know about you, but I sometimes wonder how close they could actually be. All those years apart before being reunited?"

The three ponies didn't exactly know where Discord was going with that but it was obvious to them that it would not be good.

"They're plenty close," Applejack simply replied.

Discord, however, continued. "And if they're not, this rare opportunity to focus on their friendship will certainly bring them closer. Unless..."

And there was what everypony feared. "Don't even think about it! They mustn't be disturbed!" Rarity said in an attempt to talk Discord out of whatever he has planned.

"Disturb them? I wouldn't dream of it," Discord replied offended. "Not when I have two such dear friends of my own who have already offered to take care of me. And at such peril! This flu of mine is highly contagious," he said before he "accidentally" sneezed right on Applejack and Rarity who then turned blue themselves and started to sneeze too.

"Hey! What did you do!?" Star Twinkle exclaimed. "You did that on purpose!"

"It was clearly an accident, Star Twinkle," Discord said not seeing himself responsible for that "accident" at all. "But, oh dear, it looks like I've gotten both of them sick too. Whomever shall I turn to now in my time of need?" He said with a wide grin on his face.

Of course, his eyes were wandering towards Star Twinkle who widened his eyes as soon as he noticed that he was looked at by the sly Draconequus. "Oh no, forget it!" Star Twinkle simply said, trying to tail out of this situation as well.

Discord teleported right next to Star Twinkle who quickly jumped to the side to avoid getting sick as well. "But you are the only one here who can still heal me again. Surely, you won't let a good friend hanging?"

"No, I said forget it! Do you really think I don't see that you are up to something?" Star Twinkle said while visibly showing Discord that he won't fall for anything that Discord planned to do with him.

"Such accusations!" Discord replied offended. "But! As a good friend, I respect your decision," he said, much to the surprise of Star Twinkle. "I guess, I have to go and find a real friend who can heal me again...do you mind telling me where I can find Twilight?" He then asked while he looked around himself.

Star Twinkle quickly widened his eyes. Out of all days, for this guy to appear, this one was the worst possible ever. He looked over to Applejack and Rarity who making a lot of gestures to let Star Twinkle know that this had to be prevented at all costs. Discord would completely ruin Twilight's and Cadance's day just by being present. Star Twinkle did swear to not let her special day with her sister-in-law get ruined and here he was with Discord making it almost impossible.

There was only one thing to do...

Star Twinkle gave his answer but not before letting out a huge sigh. "Alright, alright...I'll help you to get better," he said while clenching his teeth together.

Discord was beaming with joy and quickly hugged the Earth Pony. "Oh, I knew you had a soft spot for me after all! I'm sure this nursing process will bring us both togh-" but Discord could finish his sentence, a sneeze slipped out of him once more but luckily, Star Twinkle managed to get out of the way in time again. "My apology," Discord added with a grin on his face.

"Use a tissue..." Star Twinkle said before he led the way to his house so that he could get this annoying task over with as quickly as possible.

Later, in front of Star Twinkle's house...

Star Twinkle opened the door to his house with Discord standing right behind him. "Here we are..." Star Twinkle said highly depressed. He was not expecting the Lord of Chaos to ever set hoof into his house. So for him, it felt kinda weird.

Discord, on the other hoof, was looking around in the living room and seemed unimpressed. "This is your home?" Discord asked confused, much to Star Twinkle's confusion who didn't know what Discord meant with that. "Ugh...way to much wood..." Discord expressed in disgust. It was true that Star Twinkle's home was not really the most inviting looking one with all this brown wood everywhere. There was also not much decoration or many pieces of furniture but for Star Twinkle, it was more than enough to live with. But it didn't look too inviting for Discord. "How about we give this room a little more touch? How fond are you with lava pits?" He said before he was about to snap his finger to make something appear, as usual.

"No! Don't change anything in here!" Star Twinkle exclaimed, trying to stop Discord to do something similar to what he did with Fluttershy's house once. "Besides, Didn't you say that you were weak because of your illness?"

Discord widened his eyes for a moment. He then immediately seemed to feel weak again. "You're right," he said while he put his palm on his forehead.

Star Twinkle and Discord then went upstairs so that the Draconequus could rest in Star Twinkle's bed. "I would offer you to get comfortable but..." he looked over to Discord, who was already laying in Star Twinkle's bed, with his head on his pillow and covered in his bed sheets. "- But it looks like you already did..."

"I certainly did," Discord said, smiling widely at Star Twinkle and making himself even more comfortable in his own bed. "This bed is really comfortable. No wonder why you prefer to stay home, instead of spending time outside with your friends,"

Star Twinkle ignored this obvious provocation at his cost and went on with the "nursing part". "Anything else that you need," Star Twinkle asked, in hope that it wouldn't be something annoying.

Discord tipped his chin for a second. "I'd like something to read," he only said.

"Sure," Star Twinkle said in an annoyed tone. He went to his bookshelf downstairs to get Discord something to read. He was glad that Discord actually demanded something normal. He had no idea what book he should give him but as soon as he would stand in front of his bookshelf, he probably would find something.

That is...if the bookshelf was there...

"What the?" Star Twinkle said confused once he figured that his bookshelf was gone. He walked up to the empty space, where the shelf usually was standing at in hope that his eyes or his mind were playing a prank on him. He didn't really pay attention to it but he could swear that it was still there when he and Discord were entering his house.

So with no book in his hooves and confusion in his head, he went back upstairs to tell Discord that his bookshelf magically disappeared. But as soon as he was upstairs again, he felt really dumb and for forgetting that the Lord of Chaos was inside of his house. Discord was laying there in the bed with Star Twinkle's bookshelf right next to him. He was also already reading through one of the books.

As soon as Discord noticed that Star Twinkle was standing in front of him he waved over to him with a happy smile on his face. But Star Twinkle didn't feel like smiling back to him and just gave him a mean glare. "Well, look, I guess you found my bookshelf on your own..." he said highly sarcastically to let Discord know that he was slowly getting on Star Twinkle's nerves. "Just do me a favor and don't eat the pages, okay?"

"I would never do something like that to any of my good friends," Discord said with some amusement in his voice. For some reason, every time when Discord called him "friend" Star Twinkle only felt more annoyed. Discord was flipping through some of the books and constantly had a confused expression on his face."Just where did you find some of those books?" He then began to read out some of the titles of the books that he was holding in his claw. "I mean, The many Tales of Star Swirl the bearded, Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone, Pranksters 101, The Beautiful nature of Equestria, Monstrous Manual, The How to make quick Bits Business Guide...this is quite some random collection of books, don't you think?"

"So?" Star Twinkle asked. He didn't really understand why Discord was pointing that out, of all the things.

"I was just wondering. I thought your life was pretty boring before you met Twilight and the rest of your friends. But it seems that you have quite a lot of different things that you are interested in. I mean, why else would you have those books, right?" Discord asked though it did sound like as if he was teasing Star Twinkle a little with those words.

"Are we seriously gonna stand here and discuss my taste in books?" Star Twinkle replied annoyed. "I have books about different things, so what?" He asked, in order to find out why Discord seemed to be so interested to talk with Star Twinkle about something so minor like that.

"My bad," Discord apologized, even though it didn't sound all too sincere. "Allow me just one more question..." he said, much to Star Twinkle's annoyance. He then pulled out the six books which title he read out before and showed them in front of Star Twinkle. "I got rather interested in some of those books so do you mind telling me where you got each and every single one of those from?" He asked with a grin on his face.

"Sure," Star Twinkle replied to get this over with. He looked at the titles of each book. He recognized every single one of them and tried to tell Discord where he got them from. "The many Tales of Star Swirl the bearded, I got from-" But in the middle of the sentence, it suddenly felt like as if a flash was running through Star Twinkle's head, causing him to grab his head in confusion.
"What the..." he thought with his eyes widened in confusion.

"Well?" Discord asked curiously, still with a grin on his face.

Star Twinkle decided to skip this book. There was no reason that he had to go into too much detail for Discord after all. "Forget it, um...here...Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone...I got this book from..."

Then again, a flash run through his mind. It was like as if the answer just vanished out of his mind. One moment it was there...and one moment gone...

Again, Star Twinkle skipped this book. "Pranksters 101, that one I got from..."

And there it was again. As soon as he wanted to open his mouth, it was like as if something prevented him from recalling the information.

"What is going on?" Star Twinkle wondered. "I even know some of the contents of the books because I read them all but I can't seem to remember where I got them from. I know its something minor but...I know where I got them from! I know that I know!" Star Twinkle seemed to panic a little by this but he tried to calm down so that Discord wouldn't notice. He would probably have a field day seeing Star Twinkle stressed like this.

"I think that's enough," Discord then said out of the blue.

"Huh?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "Enough?" He wondered.

"Um...I mean...I am thirsty!" Discord corrected. It seemed like he didn't seem to intended to say those previous words. "Could I get a glass of water?" He then asked with puppy eyes. "I can even sing you a song about how much I want it if that's what you like," he offered.

But Star Twinkle refused. "Please, don't. I'll get you your water..." he said while he walked downstairs to the kitchen to get it. Halfway on his way down, he expected that his whole kitchen was gone now and that it was now upstairs just for Discord to get a laugh again. However, Star Twinkle was widely surprised to see his bookshelf being in its old place again. The whole thing about his books still bothered him a little but he tried to ignore it. He splashed some water on his face from the kitchen sink to get his head clear again from all this. There was a possibility that Discord was messing with Star Twinkle's head so he decided to watch Discord a little more carefully once he got upstairs again.

Back in the patient's room, Star Twinkle gave Discord a glass of fresh water. Discord directed the glass to his mouth but then he "accidentally" dropped. "Oops," he said, even though Star Twinkle knew that this was on purpose. Discord laughed for a moment and decided to play it all off. "Say, your parents live in Canterlot, right?" He asked. Of course, Star Twinkle was confused how Discord knew about that. "Fluttershy told me," he explained as soon as he saw the confused look on Star Twinkle's face.

"Fluttershy talks to you about me?" Star Twinkle asked while he tilted his head to the side.

"Argh, don't get the wrong idea. She talks about all of her friends," Discord said in a little offended tone for some reason. "What I meant to ask you was...why are you not living with them in Canterlot? You grew up here in Ponyville with them and then they decided to move to Canterlot...but you didn't go with them..."

"Yes..." Star Twinkle replied. He didn't like that Discord knew so much about him. He actually blamed Fluttershy for telling the Lord of Chaos about all those things.

Again, just like before, Discord asked a question and grinned while doing so. "Why? I thought your life was pretty boring...you had no friends...you didn't leave your house that often and from what I've heard that you even regretted to leave your parents behind. So what could be the reason for you to stay here?"

"I..." Star Twinkle started to reply before he realized that he didn't know the answer to that as well. "...I don't know..." Star Twinkle replied while looking away from Discord.

"You don't? Come on. Try to think. I mean, that's quite a decision that you had to make and you simply don't remember it?" Discord further poked.

Star Twinkle hated that Discord was right and he hated that he couldn't remember the reason no matter how much he thought about it. "Like Discord said, I didn't have any friends, no hobbies, and I spent most of my days alone at home. My parents were the only ones who were by my side so why would I want to be separated from them? I knew I was a lot different before I met Twilight and the others but did I really want to be all alone? I didn't even want my parents by my side?" Star Twinkle questioned himself.

The more Star Twinkle thought about that, the more his head began to hurt and the more that happened, Discord seemed to enjoy this. Star Twinkle got a little frustrated that Discord seemed to ask all the questions that he didn't seem to have an answer to. Star Twinkle knew that Discord was doing that on purpose and tried his best to not feed Discord's enjoyment by showing how frustrated he was.

"How about we focus on you getting better again, instead of asking me one question after another? You are sick after all, right?" Star Twinkle asked. This seemed to have caught Discord a little off guard. He also looked like as if he was sad to have this conversation end before he could get even more enjoyment out of this.

Star Twinkle left the room and decided to make Discord a soup, in hope that it would make him shut up for a few minutes. But as soon as he arrived back upstairs, Discord only sniffed at it for a moment, before he straight out slapped it out of Star Twinkle's hooves. "I'm not really in the mood for soup," he had the nerves to say.

Star Twinkle's left eyes began to twitch after hearing that. "It doesn't matter if you are in the mood or not, if you want to get better, there is nothing better to eat than a warm soup," he explained.

"Normally, I would agree with you on that but my illness cannot be healed by something like that," Discord said.

"Wait!" Star Twinkle exclaimed. "Does that mean you know how to cure your illness?" He asked with some slight anger in his voice.

"I simply didn't want your effort to heal me up again go to waste," Discord replied. But Star Twinkle highly doubted that and prompted Discord to tell him how to cure this illness of him. Discord explained everything by drawing a cloud in the air to show him a picture of a flower. "On a hill at the very edge of Equestria, there grows an exquisite magic flower. Pick the flower as it drops its petals at sunset. Then you can make a magical soothing elixir to cure the blue flu." He then summoned a map of Equestria with a certain placed marked on it. "This is the place where you can find it," he then said while he pointed at the marked spot with his claw.

"And I suppose you didn't go and pick this flower because you were too weak?" Star Twinkle asked annoyed.

"Precisely," Discord simply replied. "But that's what friends like you are here for, right?" He added with a smile on his face.

Star Twinkle's eyes popped out in confusion. "You want me to go there!? Do you know how much time it will take to get to this place!?"

Discord seemed disappointed and even sad to hear this. "Yes, you're right," he said while he threw the map away. "You already did enough so I guess, I should go and ask somepony else for help...like Twilight," he said with a sinister grin on his face.

Star Twinkle let out a big sigh. Of course, Discord would play this card again because he knew that it would work. If it was any other day, then Star Twinkle would have given up and let just Twilight take care of it but since it was a very special day for her, he just had to take care of this situation.

Or at least, he felt like he had to...

Later...

Things ended up with Star Twinkle transforming into a Pegasus and flying to where he would find the flower. All while having to carry Discord behind him who was sitting on some kind of throne, which Star Twinkle felt like was a little unnecessary. "Come on, Star Twinkle, the sun is almost down," Discord had the nerve to complain, even though Star Twinkle was the only one in a position for that.

"We may could have been faster if I didn't have to drag this thing of yours behind me!" Star Twinkle replied annoyed while he kept flying through the air.

But Discord disagreed. "Actually, if you wouldn't have gone on a break, here and there, then we could have reached that place faster. You should be grateful that I offered you how to get to this place in the first place. We sure are lucky that you acquired that mysterious ability to transform," he said in a really sneaky tone.

Star Twinkle felt like the more he talked with this Draconequus, the more he regretted doing all of this. The breaks that he had to take were because he couldn't maintain his Pegasus Form for very long, but of course, he didn't expect Discord to understand that. He was actually more surprised that he was still doing all of this, despite being heavily exhausted by this trip.

Fortunately, Star Twinkle finally arrived at the spot where they could find the flower that would cure Discord's illness. He landed on the ground and saw a huge hill in front of him. Discord told him that the flower would be right on top of the hill so Star Twinkle didn't waste any time and walked towards it while Discord was waiting on his throne.

Star Twinkle already canceled his Pegasus transformation and didn't felt as exhausted as when he was dragging Discord behind him but he was still breathing heavily. He already saw the flower in the distance, which was strange but as it turns out, it was a lot bigger then he imagined. The flower was as big as a tower and the petals were bigger than Star Twinkle himself. Discord said that the whole flower had to be picked and made into an elixir to cure his illness.

"Yeah...pick the flower...how do I do that!?" Star Twinkle exclaimed in frustration. There was no way that he could pick a flower this big. He had to be an Ursa Minor to be able to pick the giant flower out of the ground. Even lifting up the petals looked like a lot of work. But despite that, Star Twinkle figured that using magic would be the only way to go. He somehow had to pull out the flower by using his magic in his Unicorn Form. "Alright...here we go..." Star Twinkle said before he concentrated to transform into his Unicorn Form. A horn appeared on his head and he slowly walked up to the flower.

"...!"

But then, all of the sudden, his horn disappeared again and Star Twinkle dropped to his knees out of exhaustion. He started to pant heavily and things started to get blurry. "Again..." Star Twinkle said.

This was not the first time where Star Twinkle got out of breath all of the sudden. Back then in Manehattan and in Rainbow Falls the same thing happened. Now after thinking back to those moments, Star Twinkle figured that he always would get exhausted after he spends a lot of time in any of his transformations. The timing was perfect this time, as soon as he tried to transform again, the exhaustion kicked in. This led him to the conclusion that using his transformations a little too often or over a longer period of time was taking a toll on him. But whether it was a bad idea to transform now or not, right now, he was stuck in front of this giant flower and if Discord wasn't kind enough to bring him back to Ponyville, then he would be stuck in this place for a while. Knowing Discord, he would probably not tell anypony where Star Twinkle went to so there was also not a chance for any of his friends to show up now.

Realizing all this stuff at once, didn't make Star Twinkle exactly happy. He was about to say that things couldn't get any worse now but life was always a step ahead when it came to making things for Star Twinkle harder. This time it came in form of a huge worm-like creature that came popping out of the ground in front of Star Twinkle. "You've got to be kidding me..." Star Twinkle expressed in his frustration. He had no idea what this thing was, but he knew that it wasn't friendly, judging by how this thing looked at the stallion. As soon as it opened its mouth and revealed some black tentacles that tried to reach out to him, he knew that he had to get out of there.

Luckily, Star Twinkle was still a little too far away from this giant worm. In fact, he seemed to have shaken it off after running away for a while. It was nowhere to be seen and Star Twinkle was relieved that he made it out of there safe and sound. However, once he thought he could take a break for a moment, the ground began to shake. "Oh no!" He said in shock after he remembered how thing originally came out of the ground. He tried to run away but the ground opened up right beneath him and the giant worm came popping out of it again. Star Twinkle was not able to get away from that and got thrown into the air. He landed face first on the ground and fell a little dizzy but once he looked at the worm again, he instantly recognized the black tentacles from before that now came right at him again. He tried his best to get out of the way but he wasn't fast enough and got caught by them. As soon as they got a good grip on him, Star Twinkle was unable to move, no matter how much he struggled. The giant worm slowly drew Star Twinkle closer to its mouth so that he could eat him alive.

Star Twinkle tried to transform into a Unicorn so that he could teleport out of this situation but it didn't work in his current state. "Isn't there anything I can do!?" He thought in a panic while he still tried to free himself from this thing's grip. "Someone help me!" He screamed in fear. But the question was, who would come and help him. Discord was too far away and probably didn't care what happened to him and no one else knew about him being in this place. It was hopeless. "Someone..." Star Twinkle began to stop struggling since it was only a waste of energy. The creature was opening its mouth widely and was just about to swallow the stallion whole. Star Twinkle accepted that this would be his end and didn't resist anymore.

Instead, his mind wandered completely off. "I wonder what the others are doing right now?" He thought. "Twilight is probably having a lot of fun with Cadance...and the others...well, I don't know. To think that I got into this mess just by letting Twilight have some private time with Cadence. I don't think I would have done anything like that back then..." Star Twinkle couldn't help but let out a laugh after thinking about that. "Back then huh? I don't even seem to know who I was back then...now that I think about it, there are a lot of holes in my memories...but strangely enough, I seem to remember everything clearly after I met Twilight and the others...I wonder why it is like that..."

Star Twinkle closed his eyes and tried one more time to focus on some things that bothered him. Strangely enough, he was brought back to one of Discord's questions. The question why he didn't want to leave Ponyville. He had no reason to stay in this town yet he still decided to stay there after his parents moved to Canterlot. "What was the reason? That is really the only thing I want to know before..." he said before he focused on this memory specifically.

His parents...he could see them as they were leaving...
They were going on board of the Friendship express...
They were on their way to Canterlot...
It was the day where they moved to Canterlot without him...
They waved back at him and Star Twinkle waved back with a smile on his face...
His parents entered the train and Star Twinkle was left behind...
Star Twinkle smiled and shortly after turned around...
There were a bunch of ponies standing in front of him...
He couldn't identify who those ponies were because all he could see were blurred silhouettes...
But for some reason...as soon as he remembered those silhouettes...
He felt happy...
Very happy...

All of the sudden, a rush of energy seemed to have shot trough Star Twinkle's body. Almost effortlessly, he managed to transform into his Unicorn Form. He concentrated on fighting back now. He was not really focusing on what to do now but he at least wanted to do something. A teleport, a magic beam, a shield, he didn't care. Eventually, a very bright light blinded the stallion. He didn't know what it was but it felt like as if he fell unconscious after whatever happened just now.

...

When he woke up, not much time seemed to have past by. He wondered what happened and tried to get back on his hooves only to find out that he was too weak to stand up. Of course, he also wondered what happened to that big worm monster and looked around. He almost immediately found it right in front of him, unconscious...no...knocked out. "What happened?" He wondered.

"Star Twinkle!" An all to familiar female voice shouted. Star Twinkle smiled once he realized who it was but before he could answer, exhaustion took over and he passed out again. But not without him seeing the blurry image of a purple coated pony running towards him...

Later...

Star Twinkle seemed to regain consciousness again. There was some chatter that could be heard nearby. He found himself in some kind of room and he was laying on a couch. He knew that room. As soon as everything wasn't blurry anymore, he recognized this place as Fluttershy's cottage which was filled with all of his friends.

"I think he is awake again!" Fluttershy said who was standing next to the stallion with a now relieved expression on her face.

Everypony came rushing towards the stallion who was slowly sitting up again and felt a little overwhelmed by the number of ponies that approached him all of the sudden. "What happened?" Was the first thing he asked.

"Oh, thank goodness that you are alright," Rarity expressed in her relief.

"You're back in Ponyville again," Twilight explained who also seemed to be relieved after seeing Star Twinkle waking up again. "Applejack and Rarity told me that you had to deal with Discord so me and Cadance decided to check up on you because we both had a very bad feeling about this," she said while she looked over to Princess Cadance, who Star Twinkle only just now realized was present as well.

"And for the right reasons, it seems," Princess Cadance added. "We found a map in your house with a marked location on it,"

Hearing that, made Applejack almost furious towards a certain someone. "I can't believe that you made Star Twinkle go to such a far away and dangerous place for no reason!"

Star Twinkle looked over to where Applejack's anger was directed towards to and he found out that it was Discord, who seemed to be all better judging from how his usual body color had returned to him.

"No reason!?" Discord replied offended. "I may have faked my sickness but I assure you that it was for a good reason!" Discord said to which everypony was patiently waiting for a good explanation. "I simply tried to deepen the friendship between me and Star Twinkle! I mean he was ready to go all the way to the end of Equestria to heal me up again and if that isn't a true sign of friendship then what else could be?"

"Aw, gimme a break," Applejack replied, not even buying a single word that came out of Discord's mouth. "You wanted to disrupt Twilight's and Cadance's visit all along!"

"Yes! And Star Twinkle decided to do all that because he wanted to prevent just that!" Rarity added.

"Well, those are some really heavy accusations! I assure you that everything that you just accused me of is totally..." but as soon as Fluttershy glared over to Discord with an expression that could stare down a dragon, Discord thought carefully about what he was saying next. "...true," he then admitted after being intimidated by Fluttershy.

"I think we should let Star Twinkle rest a little while," Fluttershy then suggested to which everyone seemed to agree.

Star Twinkle had to admit that he still hasn't recovered yet and having all those ponies and Discord surrounding him in this state was a little overwhelming. Only Twilight decided to walk up to the stallion.

"Is it true?" She asked. "You really dealt with Discord just that I can spend time with Cadance?" To that question nodded in response, putting a worried expression on her face. "That was really stupid, you know?"

"Yeah, probably..." Star Twinkle agreed.

Twilight then began to smile a little after Star Twinkle's answer. "But...it was also really nice of you...thanks..." she then said happily.

Seeing Twilight being happy like that almost made that one trip worth it. Princess Cadance also seemed thankful for what Star Twinkle was ready to do for them. "Next time, please talk with us instead before doing something dangerous like that. If Discord wouldn't have taken care of that Tatzelwurm, then things could have ended really bad for you,"

Star Twinkle looked over to the Draconequus and saw him looking away as soon as they made eye contact. "So that light, that I saw before was his magic, huh..." Star Twinkle thought. For one moment he actually thought that he was the one who dealt with it but it would only make sense that a monster like that would have been no problem for the Lord of Chaos. And after that, Twilight and Cadence found Star Twinkle unconscious and brought him back to Ponyville. It all made sense now.

Fluttershy offered Star Twinkle to spend the night in her cottage but he claimed that he was already fine again and just wanted to go home so after a little rest, he left the cottage to return home. Of course, his friends all stayed as long as he was resting there as well and Twilight even made sure that the stallion would safely return home. As soon as they were standing in front of his home, Star Twinkle felt kinda bad for one thing.

"I made you spend the rest of the day, looking after me and making sure that I was alright...I guess, I totally ruined your day with Cadance after all..." he said with a frown on his face.

But Twilight disagreed and shook her head slowly. "Don't be ridiculous, Star Twinkle. There will be plenty more opportunities for me to spend time with Cadance. We may have spent only a little time on the traveling museum but it was more than enough," she assured with an honest smile on her face. Star Twinkle didn't know if she was saying all that to not make him feel bad or if she was sincere but it still made him happy to hear that. "That reminds me," she then said in a more excited tone. "I originally planned to go with Cadance on another Starswirl the Bearded traveling museum on another day but it turns out that she is quite busy on that day. So I was thinking if you won't accompany me? I know you're not as big as a fan of all that stuff but I thought it could be fun!"

Star Twinkle had to admit that he was not really interested in Starswirl the Bearded but the thought of spending some time with Twilight was actually not too bad. "Yes, sure," he replied with a smile on his face.

Twilight seemed very excited to hear that and grinned widely. "Great!" She simply replied happily.

After that was settled, Twilight decided to leave Star Twinkle alone again so that he could still rest some more. It was only now that, Star Twinkle openly showed that he was still a little exhausted by everything that happened today. Luckily, there was no one nearby that he could worry now.

At least, he thought that this was the case...

"Looks like everything went really well in the end," Discord said who was hanging right under Star Twinkle's window and smiled smugly at the stallion.

Of course, Star Twinkle was not too excited to see Discord so soon again. "So you faked your illness just so that you can mess with me?" He asked, quickly getting to the point.

Discord explained. "Well, its just much more fun to tease ponies who are easy to read like you...besides, like I said, everything went well at the end," he added. Discord was clearly not feeling responsible for anything that could have happened to Star Twinkle.

Still, even if Discord was acting like that, Star Twinkle had to say one thing to the Draconequus. "Thank you...for back then I mean," he said, causing Discord to react a little surprised. "You saved me from this monster, didn't you? Thanks for that," he repeated.

"Oh, that," Discord said before he crossed his arms and acted all offended but he was clearly not sure how to deal with the situation. "don't mention it, it was a pleasure," he simply replied. "Now if you excuse me, I am going home now," he added.

Maybe it was Star Twinkle's imagination but he could swear that he just saw some of Discord's soft side. The Draconequus left again and Star Twinkle entered his home to finally go to sleep now. It was already dark after all.

Discord noticed the pony going inside and looked at the door of Star Twinkle's house before he turned around again and scratched his head. "This pony...he wasn't even aware of what he was doing back then...to think that he would even possess something like that..." he said unusually serious. "I knew he was something special since the first time, I met him. Something seems to prevent him from remembering some stuff...not that I care about it at all...but still, I hope things don't turn out in a bad way...or else...even I will have some problems..." he said worried before he snipped his claws and vanished in thin air.

Author's Notes:

Another Chapter done! And this time it was a little more custom content than I originally planned. But that's always good, right?...right?

Anyway, I am excited to say that this story has now over 50. 000 views on Fimfiction and, hopefully after this chapter, on Fanfiction.net as well. That's a lot of views for a story that basically tells the story about a Friendship is Magic with a few more ponies added to the bunch.

I really hope that every new chapter, that I release, is still up to everyone's expectations. I am certainly happy to have a bunch of people tuning in only hours after I release a new chapter ^^.

With that said, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and that you consider leaving some kind of feedback ^^. I would also appreciate it if you follow me so that you can be up to date of every other story that I write (which are all connected to this one).

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

77. A Super Weird Party Pony

View Online

Unlike any other day, today Ponyville was a lot more decorated and filled with balloons, streamers and colorful banners. If you live long enough in this town, you'll know that there was only one pony responsible for that. It was Pinkie Pie, who was preparing everything for Rainbow Dash's birthday party. But of course, the rest of her friends helped out as much as possible as well.

Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and even Rainbow Dash herself were helping to decorate the town hall for the upcoming party later this day by placing decorations and balloons all over the place.

But with much decorations, came much work so naturally, Star Twinkle began to complain after a while. "Don't you think those are enough balloons?" Star Twinkle asked after he strapped another balloon on an empty spot in front of the town hall.

"That's up to Pinkie Pie," Twilight replied as she helped to put up some decorations as well.

Star Twinkle was not really excited to hear that because if he continued until Pinkie Pie was satisfied, then he would have to spend a whole lot of more time with decorating until all of Equestria was filled with balloons.

Applejack overheard this conversation and came up with another solution. "Well, since she is not here, why don't you ask our birthday pony instead?" She suggested.

Applejack, of course, referred to Rainbow Dash who heard Applejack's suggestion and quickly looked over the decoration for a moment to give her opinion. "We are talking about my birthday party so there is no way that I will accept anything less than totally awesome!" She explained dead seriously.

"Which means..." Star Twinkle started with a bad feeling in his mind.

"Yep! More balloons!" She said with a grin on her face. Of course, when it came to her, she only wanted the best of the best, or in this case, as much as possible, much to Star Twinkle's dislike who groaned frustrated and prepared another balloon.

"Where is our party planner pony now anyway?" Star Twinkle asked before he blew some air inside of a balloon that he was holding.

Twilight explained. "She's buying some more materials for the party. Like paint, banners, streamers..."

"Wait!" Star Twinkle interrupted. "She is buying even more decorations for us to place!?" He asked, getting already stressed just by the thought about spending more time decorating the town.

Rainbow Dash on the other hoof got even more excited after hearing this. "Aw, yeah! This party is gonna be so awesome!" She said in her excitement which completely contrasted Star Twinkle's reaction.

A little while later, Pinkie Pie approached the group. But she was not alone. There was a whole bunch of ponies behind her singing and dancing in excitement, much to the confusion of everypony.

"Why are so many ponies following her?" Fluttershy asked confused.

"Must have started a song while she was out shopping..." Star Twinkle figured which is a completely normal thing when it came to Pinkie Pie.

The whole crowd was singing and from the sound of it, it was all about how excited they were about any of Pinkie Pie's parties.

"Every single day there's something new we can plan for
Every single day there's something wonderful to try
But nothing makes us happy like a day that we can say
"Today there'll be a party planned by Pinkie Pie!""

They all sang with Pinkie Pie walking in front of the crowd with a bag full of decoration, banners, and paint. Like magic, Pinkie Pie was a lot faster when it came to decorating. She put everything that she bought instantly in place, whether it was a banner, streamers or balloons. While everypony was impressed by that, Star Twinkle was only glad that she didn't bring more work with her and could relax now for a while.

Pinkie Pie noticed how the crowd had stopped singing behind her and thanked everypony for joining in her song. She then focused on her more important task again. "Ooh, I am so, so, SO excited because today I'm planning the birthday bash of...Rainbow Dash!" She said excited by just the thought of it. "Rainbow Dash!" She then exclaimed all of the sudden, causing Rainbow Dash to react a little surprised.

"Yes, Pinkie?" Rainbow Dash replied.

"You realize that, by enlisting me as your party planner, I guarantee that this is going to be the funnest, most fantabulous, superbial party in Ponyville?" She asked Rainbow Dash while getting dangerously close to her face.

"Uh...yeah? I guess," Rainbow Dash replied, clearly feeling a little uncomfortable to have Pinkie Pie's face this close.

"No guesses!" Pinkie Pie replied. "Parties are no picnic! Parties. Are. Serious! And you have my certified Pinkie Party Promise that you will have the best birthday party ever!" She said in a serious tone while she sealed the deal by smashing a cupcake in her eye, all while having a dead-serious expression on her face.

"...Okay," Rainbow Dash replied after those almost intimidating sounding words.

Knowing Rainbow Dash, she would probably like to have the most awesome party ever, but Pinkie Pie seemed to take this whole thing a little more serious than usual so maybe she was aiming for exactly that as well. Still, seeing her getting this serious about a party was still strange to look at since she was usually the complete opposite.

As soon as Rainbow Dash gave her okay, however, Pinkie Pie returned to the state that everypony knew from her. "Great!" She replied while she hopped on the spot excitedly. "Now, who's ready to join this super duper party pony to plan this super duper pa-rty?"

"I am," a stallion then replied where Pinkie Pie expected cheers out of pure excitement from everypony as a response instead.

There was a stallion leaning against a building right next to the group. His coat was orange and his mane and tail were dark brown and his Cutie Mark consisted of a grilled cheese sandwich which was shaped like an accordion. He also wore a hat, a poncho and had a rubber chicken riding on his back. Whoever it was, he was definitely trying to come off as serious as possible but Star Twinkle had problems taking this guy seriously with this party horn in his mouth, that he constantly blew into.

"Who are you, stranger?" Pinkie Pie asked curiously and intimidated at all.

The stranger introduced himself. "Name's Cheese Sandwich. I plan parties," he said in a serious tone again.

"What an amazing coincidence! I'm Pinkie Pie, and I'm planning a party!" She replied happily.

"Oh, it's no coincidence, my little pony," Cheese Sandwich replied. "My cheesy sense was a-tingling, telling me a party was in the works," he explained.

"A cheesy sense? Ah! Double amazing! I have a Pinkie Sense!" Pinkie Pie replied.

"Yes. I sensed you did. And I happen to be the premiere party planner in all of Equestria. If there's a party in need, there I'll be. Be it wingding, hoedown, hootenanny, or shindig, I'm your pony," he explained while he raised his head to reveal his dark green eyes. He also showed a lot more seriousness about this matter just like Pinkie Pie a little while ago.

"Why does everypony take parties so serious out of the sudden?" Star Twinkle wondered. "Or were they always like that and I didn't notice?" It would make sense since Star Twinkle was never a fan of parties in the first place so maybe he was unaware of the whole serious part of it.

While Star Twinkle tried to find the answer to that, Pinkie Pie came up with a really good idea "A pair of party pony planners in Ponyville?! What can be more perfect?!" She said excitedly.

It was true that having two ponies who know a thing about parties would lead to an even better party so Rainbow Dash fully agreed with the idea of letting both Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich take care of it. "I'll tell you what, making this party epic! 'Cause this isn't just any birthday. It's also the anniversary of when I moved to Ponyville!" She explained.

"Good heavens, Rainbow Dash," Rarity said after finding out that. "It's your "birth-iversary"!"

"Exactly! So what do you say, party planners?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Oh, I think we can do it!" Pinkie Pie replied excitedly.

But Cheese Sandwich still seemed very serious about all this. "Oh, I don't think so," he replied which was strange because he earlier explained how he would always be there if there was a party in need. But as soon as everypony got confused by this, Cheese Sandwich threw away his clothes and revealed a yellow shirt under his poncho and his fluffy dark brown mane. "I know so!" He then said in a very excited voice which totally contrasted his previous character from before.

"So...you're in?" Star Twinkle asked to confirm what Cheese Sandwich tried to say.

"Of course!" Cheese Sandwich replied excitedly. "If I say that this party is gonna be great, then it will be great! After all, I am a certificated party planner!" He claimed in a very proud tone. "In fact, I always knew that being a super-duper party pony is my destiny!"

"Me too!" Pinkie Pie added happily.

"When I was but a little colt, I just wanted to play!" Cheese Sandwich explained.

"Like me!" Pinkie Pie added again.

"But everypony told me, "Cheese, that fun just wastes the day"," he further explained.

"As if!" Pinkie Pie added again.

"But when I threw a party and I busted out some moves, the ponies finally saw the light and got into the groove!"

"You know it!"

"From that day on, I became the one and only super-duper party pony in all of Equestria!" Cheese Sandwich claimed proudly again.

"Uh, and me right?" Pinkie Pie asked a little confused.

This went on for a while now. Cheese Sandwich explained how his parties usually looked like and how everypony would have so much fun with them. From giant party bombs, pinatas filled with cake, or whole fruit punch lakes, Cheese Sandwich would always make sure that they would be big and different each and every time.

The interest of the group was quickly grabbed by how Cheese Sandwich described his parties. "You're really a certified party pony?" Fluttershy asked out of curiosity.

"That's right! That's my guarantee!" Cheese Sandwich replied confidently.

"Then what are we waiting for!?" Rainbow Dash asked after she got excited herself to hear all this talk about parties. "C'mon, everypony! Let's party down with Cheese!" She said, causing everypony around to join Cheese Sandwich in his preparations for Rainbow Dash's party.

Everypony was quick to join in except for Star Twinkle who looked at all this rather neutral or even disinterested. "There they all go..." he said after he saw a crowd of ponies walking away with Cheese Sandwich. "I guess with so many ponies helping out to prepare the party, I can relax a little more now," he added, seeing at least one positive thing in this whole situation.

Star Twinkle was about to walk after the group of ponies but he noticed how Pinkie Pie was still staying behind. Out of all ponies, she should be the most excited one when it came to preparing a party for Rainbow Dash so he was wondering why she was still there. As if that wasn't strange enough, the look on her face was anything but excited. In fact, she was frowning and looked rather depressed.

"You look unusually upset, Pinkie," Star Twinkle said boldly to the mare.

Pinkie Pie quickly wiped her depressed expression away and smiled again. "No, I'm not. What makes you think that I'm upset!? Come on, let's go and follow the others!" She said before she walked away and in the direction where the others went to.

Star Twinkle realized that she was hiding something but he decided to do what she said and followed the others. It didn't take long until they both caught up with everypony. As expected, they were still all excited about what Cheese Sandwich had planned for the party. They didn't hold back with showering him with compliments either.

"You sure did come on the right day," Applejack said.

"Your party sounds simply divine," Rarity expressed.

"We're so lucky to have you here," Twilight said.

But Cheese Sandwich was still modest and said that he was still doing his job. But Rainbow Dash could not stop getting excited about her upcoming birthday party. It even caused her to say something that visibly hit Pinkie Pie deep down.

"I mean, Pinkie Pie's parties are fun and sweet and all, but now this party's gonna be epic!" She expressed excitedly. But Rainbow Dash noticed that Pinkie Pie was nearby when she said that and quickly apologized saying that. "Uh, heh, no offense, Pinkie,"

"Uh, n-none taken," Pinkie Pie replied before she put on a fake smile.

Just now, Star Twinkle noticed that she was really not happy about this whole situation for some reason. Everypony was so excited about Cheese Sandwich and his plans for the upcoming party that they didn't seem to notice it. Pinkie Pie then decided to not follow the group any longer, which caused Star Twinkle to now get a little worried. There was a party in the making, a party for one of her best friends to be exact, and Pinkie Pie walked away from it. There was definitely something going on with her.

Star Twinkle followed her all the way to Sugarcube Corner. Maybe he was just imagining things and Pinkie Pie just went home to get some sweets for the party. There were more then enough ponies helping out Cheese Sandwich now anyway so he decided to check up on Pinkie Pie only to find her sitting in front of Sugarcube Corner with a huge frown on her face. Apparently, he wasn't imagining things.

"Are you alright, Pinkie Pie?" Star Twinkle asked out of worry, seeing the pink party pony in that state.

Just like before, as soon as Pinkie Pie heard Star Twinkle's voice, she got up on her hooves again. She grabbed a watering can that she found on the ground and began watering...the ground. "Hey, Star Twinkle. What can I do for you? Shouldn't you help out Cheese Sandwich and the others with the party?" She asked with a fake smile on her face. She was not really good when it came to hiding her sadness.

"I was actually about to ask you the same thing..." Star Twinkle replied. "I mean, there is a party in the making, and you are not part of it. And just now it looked like as if you were really sad about something,"

Pinkie Pie chuckled, which again was really faked. "Dummy. I am not, sad, why would I be?" She then said before she put on a wide grin. Star Twinkle kept eye contact with Pinkie Pie who still kept up her grin but the longer this went on, the harder it was for her to keep that grin up. Star Twinkle would not stop looking at her until she would spit out with the truth even if it meant to be in an awkward situation like this. Fortunately, Pinkie Pie couldn't keep her grin up any longer and she frowned again. "...Maybe a little bit..." she then admitted.

"Why?" Star Twinkle asked. "I mean, earlier today, you couldn't wait for Rainbow Dash's party," he pointed out.

"Yeah, that was before Cheese Sandwich showed up," Pinkie Pie replied while saying the name with some grudge in her voice. "Didn't you see how excited everypony was? They all want him to take care of the party!"

"So what?" Star Twinkle asked confused. "That doesn't mean that you can't help out with the party too,"

But Pinkie Pie seemed to take all this a little more personal than Star Twinkle originally expected. "But we are talking about Rainbow Dash's party! She is one of my best friends and she deserves to have the best party ever! You heard her! She said that the party would be better if Cheese Sandwich would take care of it! Didn't you!?" She explained with a stressed tone in her voice.

But Star Twinkle kept calm and looked at the situation more logical. "If you think that Rainbow Dash only deserves the best party ever and that only Cheese Sandwich can manage that, then why do you feel so sad about that? I mean, in the end, Rainbow Dash will be happy that way, right?"

"Yes, but..." Pinkie Pie replied before she calmed down again just to express another frown again. "All my life, all I've ever wanted was to make my friends smile...and now that this was taken away from me, I'm starting to wonder if it isn't what I'm supposed to do. If Cheese Sandwich is the super duperiest partying-est pony of them all, then he should take care of everything,"

Star Twinkle walked up closer to the mare since he really started to get worried about her now. He put a hoof around her shoulders and smiled. "Come on, Pinkie Pie, you don't really think that, right? I'll admit that I don't share the same excitement when it comes to parties but everypony else appreciates it. So saying that it is not what you are supposed to do is just nonsense. I mean, what about your family? Didn't you say that you were really happy once you threw a party for them for the first time?"

Those words seemed to have some kind of effect on Pinkie Pie. It's like she remembered the very scene of her first party right in her head. "They were really happy..." she said with a genuine smile on her face this time.

Even though Pinkie Pie was happy again, Star Twinkle felt like as if he should remind her about something. "I'm not trying to be mean or anything but this isn't just about you or Cheese Sandwich," he said, causing Pinkie Pie to give him a confused look. "This party is for Rainbow Dash. And as her friend, shouldn't you try your best to make sure that she will get the very best party?"

After putting some thoughts about it, Pinkie Pie's expression went from sad to determined. "You're right!" She said highly motivated now. "Rainbow Dash does deserve to get the best party! I can't just sit around here and be sad! I have to go back!"

"That's more like it!" Star Twinkle said before he followed Pinkie Pie, who was now on her way to where the others were so that she could help them with the preparations for Rainbow Dash's party. Star Twinkle felt actually really good to have taken care of this situation before it became worse. With a good feeling in his mind, he and Pinkie Pie walked away from Sugarcube Corner.

Later...

The preparations for Rainbow Dash's party were already in full process when Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie arrived at the scene. As expected, the party was heavily Rainbow Dash themed. There were balloons, banners, lights and even ice sculptures in the form of Rainbow Dash's Cutie Mark. The birthday pony was really excited for the party already and kept inspecting everything that Cheese Sandwich had prepared for her.

Pinkie Pie had to admit that she was impressed that this stallion managed to put all this up on his own but she kept cool and walked up to Cheese Sandwich, who was still earning compliments from all sides.

"Star Twinkle, Pinkie Pie!" Twilight then said as soon as she noticed the two Earth Ponies walking up to them. "We were wondering where you two were,"

Star Twinkle took Twilight with her so that Pinkie Pie wouldn't hear what they were talking about. He then explained the situation by whispering it to Twilight. "As it turns out, Pinkie Pie was a little sad that everypony was so happy about Cheese Sandwich taking care of Rainbow Dash's party. So sad that she even questioned if throwing parties were her real destiny..."

Twilight widened her eyes and looked over at Pinkie Pie. "Oh goodness..." she then said in concern.

But Star Twinkle, almost proudly, raised his chest and smiled. "Don't worry, you won't believe it but I actually took care of it before things could get any worse,"

Twilight seemed relieved to hear that. Star Twinkle told her to just watch how Pinkie Pie would go up to Cheese Sandwich to join him preparing Rainbow Dash's party.

"Cheese Sandwich," Pinkie Pie said, causing the stallion to stop in his track. Everypony heard Pinkie Pie and from the sound of how loud she was talking, it was probably exactly what she wanted. Maybe Pinkie Pie tried to show everypony how she was above how everypony wanted Cheese Sandwich instead of her or maybe she wanted to give him some tips on how to improve the party even further.

But, instead...she put on a determined and almost angry expression...

"I challenge you... to a Goof Off!" She then said, which caused everyone who was close by, to gasp in shock.

"A what now?" Star Twinkle then asked confused so that somepony would explain it to him, but all he got were confused looks and shaking heads.

However, Cheese Sandwich seemed to be aware of what this "Goof Off" is and returned a determined expression to Pinkie Pie. "This Cheese has stood alone a long time, Pinkie Pie. You think you can out-goof me?" He returned in the serious tone that he had way before.

"Oh, I don't think so. I know so!" Pinkie Pie threw back. "And the stakes are high, Cheese Sandwich. Whoever wins will be dubbed the ultimate super duper party pony and headline the Rainbow Dash birth-iversary bash!" She exclaimed with a dead serious tone in her voice, again, making sure that everypony else would hear it. "While the loser...doesn't!" She then added before she looked directly at Cheese Sandwich. "So, are you in, Cheese? Or are you... boneless?"

"Nopony calls me boneless," Cheese Sandwich replied. "Right, Boneless?" He asked his rubber chicken that was sitting on his back as usual.

"Then the Goof Off is on for high noon!" Pinkie Pie demanded.

"Um, Pinkie? It's already 3 o'clock," Twilight then corrected as she pointed towards a nearby clock tower.

"Oh," Pinkie Pie replied in surprise. "Oh, well then. Make it 3:10 to goof off!" She said before she glared at Cheese Sandwich one last time who replied in the same manner. The two ponies then walked away from each other to prepare themselves for this Goof Off. Of course, Star Twinkle and Twilight both watched all this, the latter one looking over to the stallion who claimed to have taken care of the situation, with a confused look on her face.

"Excuse me one moment..." Star Twinkle said before he walked over to Pinkie Pie.

"Hey, Star Twinkle!" She said in a cheerful mood after she saw the stallion walking up to her.

"What are you doing, Pinkie Pie?" He immediately asked confused. "I thought you wanted to team up with Cheese Sandwich to make sure that Rainbow Dash gets the best party ever!"

"Yes! I do want to ensure that Rainbow Dash gets the most awesome, fun and epic party ever! And for that, I have to be the one who runs it! You know, as one of her best friends!" She explained switching from joyful to determined in mere seconds.

"I think you misinterpreted my words from before a little..." Star Twinkle said with some frustration in his voice.

But Pinkie Pie was far away from listening to Star Twinkle now and put her hooves on his mouth. "I would love to talk with you some longer, but I have to prepare myself for a Goof Off! Excuse me!" She said before she walked away from Star Twinkle.

That one moment when Star Twinkle thought he could avoid some more complications between Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich made him actually a little happy but now things seemed to be quite out of hoof. In fact, the battle between Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich seemed to be more in focus then Rainbow Dash's birthday party. Since the Goof Off would be held in a few minutes, Star Twinkle might as well wait for it to start since his previous attempt to handle things clearly didn't work and actually caused this in the first place.

Ten minutes later...

A big crowd actually assembled in only a few minutes. Star Twinkle was not sure why though. "Why are there so many ponies here?" He wondered. "They all can't possibly know what this Goof Off is, right? Am I the only one who doesn't?"

"I heard there was a Goof Off..." Steel Hammer then said, much to the surprise of Star Twinkle who jumped as soon as he heard his boss's voice next to him.

"Steel Hammer!? You know what a Goof Off is?" Star Twinkle then asked confused.

"Nope..." Steel Hammer replied casually as he focused his eyes in front of himself to see what was about to happen.

Star Twinkle didn't know how to feel about all this and hoped that after seeing the two contestants that he would get some answers. However, as soon as he saw both Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich walking up to each other from the distance, more questions piled up in his head.

"What am I even watching here..." Star Twinkle thought as he watched the two weirdest ponies he ever met, walking up to each other.

One of them was a stallion wearing a fish hat, squeaky elephant head shaped sandals and socks and another one was a mare, wearing colorful sheriff boots, a big round hat with an arrow stuck into it and a party horn in her mouth. But despite wearing those ridiculous get-ups, both of those ponies looked dead-serious. It was a little hard to get serious about all this for everypony else, though, mainly because nopony really knew what this so-called "Goof off" was in the first place.

Thankfully, Twilight was prepared and stepped up in front of the two party-ponies. She pulled out a book in front of everypony and explained everything. "All right, everypony. According to my official goof off rulebook...the two competitors have free range to goof about. Be it by singing, dancing, playing, prancing, joking, or performing to make the judge chortle, chuckle, giggle, guffaw, hoot and holler, whoop it up, and party down,"

Hearing what this Goof Off was all about was pretty informative for everyone, however, what Star Twinkle was asking himself was where Twilight found an official Goof Off rulebook. It only confirmed that not only those two party ponies seem to take partying a lot more serious. After realizing that, Star Twinkle figured that this was probably the last place where he should be in all of Equestria.

Twilight further explained that since this Goof Off was held because of Rainbow Dash's party, that she will be the judge to decide who would win at the end. Rainbow Dash didn't seem too excited to be put in this situation. "Heh. Big tense competition on my birth-iversary. What could be better?" She said with a nervous smile on her face. She didn't look all too happy how this whole situation turned out. Maybe she didn't like it how instead of her, Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich were now in the spotlight or maybe she expected something entirely different from her birthday party. Whatever it was, she didn't look too excited.

With all the rules set, the Goof Off could finally start. "Cheese Sandwich, Pinkie Pie, are you ready?" Twilight asked before it could officially start.

"I was born ready!" Pinkie Pie replied confidently while glaring over to Cheese Sandwich.

"I was ready before I was born!" Cheese Sandwich replied while he returned a glare himself.

"Then... Let the goofing begin!" Twilight said before she returned to the crowd to watch just like everypony else.

As soon as she was close enough to Star Twinkle, he tried to summarize everything. "So...we are basically watching Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich doing weird things?" He boldly said after Twilight's explanation from before.

"Pretty much," Twilight replied.

"Shhh, I think they are about to start now." Rarity said, causing everypony to focus on everything in front of them now.

The two ponies walked up to each other while Rainbow Dash stood in the middle and prepared herself for whatever what was about to happen now. With two unpredictable goofy ponies like Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich, there was no telling what they were about to do.

Cheese Sandwich started by dancing and playing the accordion to get Rainbow Dash's attention but Pinkie Pie quickly countered by showing her ability to multitask. She juggled with some cupcakes which she threw in Rainbow Dash's mouth while dancing on a ball and singing at the same time.

"It's your birthday party, a very special day
I've got a song, it won't take long, I just wanted to say
Happy, happy, happy, happy
Happy, happy, happy, happy
Happy, happy, happy, happy birthday to you!"

But Cheese Sandwich was not impressed and already prepared something else. He continued to play the accordion and danced on a cheese wheel, the size of a whole building, that came rolling towards the two. Needless to say, Rainbow Dash was impressed.

"If you wanna be the life of the party
But you're feeling just a little uptight
Call the doctor, beg and plead
"Doctor, tell me what I need"
Try to put a little cheese in your knees!"

He sang and danced while he literally put two pieces of cheese on his hooves and took a bite out of each of them. Rainbow Dash seemed to enjoy everything so far and watched the two ponies doing all of this just for her. But before she could get even more excited, a hook was pulling her up into the air. It was Pinkie Pie who used a fishing rod to pull Rainbow Dash up to her. She was standing inside a basket that was kept in the air by a bunch of balloons and prepared a little something to get Rainbow Dash's attention again. This time, she pulled out some balloons and shaped them in all kinds of forms.

"Bubbles and balloons, bubbles and balloons
What's a birthday party without bubbles and balloons?
Star-shaped or trapezoid, look what I can do
Only Pinkie Pie can make a bubble shaped like you!"

She sang before she literally blew a bubble in form of Rainbow Dash.

There was so much going on at once, nopony could possibly keep track of all of this. To think that this was all caused because two ponies wanted to throw a party was unbelievable for Star Twinkle. The mere thought that things would get crazier by the minute was just too much for him to handle.

"This is so weird..." Star Twinkle could only say after he watched all of this.

"Yes, but you have to admit, it's pretty fun!" Steel Hammer said with a smile on his face while he moved his body to the songs of the two ponies.

It was Cheese Sandwich's turn again. He put Rainbow Dash on a parade float made out of cheese and gave her a cheese crown and a cheese scepter before he began to sing a very familiar song.

"'Cause I like to make you smile, smile, smile
Yes I do
It fills my heart with sunshine all the while
Yes it does
'Cause all I really need's a smile, smile, smile
From these happy friends of mine"

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie popped out of the ground next to Cheese Sandwich. "That's my song!" She said angrily.

"What do you mean? I have no idea what you're talking about," Cheese Sandwich replied with an innocent smile on his face.

Further angered by this, Pinkie Pie decided to pack out the big cannons...literally.

"Roll out the party cannon
When you hear the party cannon song
Ka-BOOM!"

She sang while she pulled out her party cannon to shoot confetti into Cheese Sandwich's face.
But Cheese Sandwich was not impressed and pulled out is own party cannon which came in form of a giant tank.

"Why should you compromise? Try this one on for size
'Cause nothing quite says cheer like the ringing in your ear
Of the cheese supreme cannonball surprise!"

He sang while he stood on top of his party tank and shot confetti right into Pinkie Pie's face. Rainbow Dash also got hit by the blast of this shot and dropped off from the parade float. Pinkie Pie, however, didn't notice that and continued with the Goof Off. She brought a giant cake shaped pinata that hung in the air by a crane. Pinkie Pie began to dance on top of it while bringing the pinata closer to Rainbow Dash.

"¡Dale, dale, dale
No pierdas el tino!
Porque si lo pierdes
¡Pierdes el camino!"

She sang while she danced on top of the pinata. But while she was dancing on top of this giant thing, the hook that was holding the pinata in the air came loose and caused the whole thing to drop down...right on Rainbow Dash.

"Oh, boy..." Star Twinkle said as he watched this.

Shortly after, he was also buried by something that came out of the air. It was Pinkie Pie who fell from the pinata and landed right on top of Star Twinkle. She apologized that she fell on him and they both got up quickly since they didn't get hurt too bad by this.

"You think Rainbow Dash will choose me as a winner soon?" She then asked excitedly.

Pinkie Pie didn't seem to realize that Rainbow Dash was buried under her giant pinata so Star Twinkle decided to help a little. "I think she has bigger problems now..." he said as he pointed towards Rainbow Dash who was now trying to crawl out under the pinata. As expected, Rainbow Dash was also not having too much fun with this whole competition. "Now, I am not an expert when it comes to parties but...Rainbow Dash definitely doesn't look like as if she is having fun right now,"

It took a moment, but eventually, Pinkie Pie also noticed that. She began to gasp at this realization.
"Rainbow's not having the best party ever! I... I broke the Pinkie Party Promise!" She said in shock.

Then all of the sudden, Star Twinkle could hear a voice in his head again...

Hearing my friends laugh is the best thing ever...and there is nothing in this world that I wanted to exchange for that...

His eyes began to glow in a yellow light for a second and he grabbed his head out of confusion. "There is a voice in my head...again..." he thought after figuring that this was the third time now.

Shortly after, Pinkie Pie's eyes were glowing in the colors of a rainbow. "Stop! The Goof Off is off!" She then shouted all of the sudden. Of course, everypony was confused what this was all about but before anypony could come up with an explanation, Pinkie Pie accepted defeat. "I forfeit. Which means... Cheese Sandwich wins," she simply said, much to Cheese Sandwich's surprise who couldn't believe it at first. Pinkie Pie looked over to the stallion with a defeated look on her face. "You get to headline Rainbow Dash's party...and...I... I don't," she said while trying to hold back her tears as best as she could.

Pinkie Pie then walked away from the crowd with tears running down her face. This was a sign for Rainbow Dash to step in. "Pinkie, wait!" She said as she flew after the mare, seeing how this all affected her more than she originally expected. "I'm sorry I got all swept away by Cheese Sandwich," she said, followed by her friends apologizing to her as well.

"No. I'm sorry I let my pride get in the way of you having the best birth-iversary ever," Pinkie Pie apologized as well. "Cheese Sandwich really is a super duper party planner, and he'll be a terrific headliner. I should've been a big enough pony to admit that and let you have your day,"

And now Rainbow Dash said what really had to be said and what Star Twinkle was unable to say before. "But don't you get it? You're both super duper party ponies. Sure, Cheese Sandwich is a great guest party pony, but you're Ponyville's permanent party pony. Nopony could ever take your place, and we could never have a party without you," she explained as she hugged her friend in the process and feeling no grudge at all for all this.

Star Twinkle still seemed to be a little inexperienced when it came to telling somepony an important message like this so it was no wonder that he failed to cheer up Pinkie Pie properly before but he was happy to see how Pinkie Pie finally understood.

"Rainbow Dash is right," Cheese Sandwich then said as he walked up to the group to apologize as well. "I never meant to take your place in Ponyville. I just wanted to show you what a great party pony I am, Pinkie,"

Pinkie Pie got a little confused by those words. "Why me?" She asked.

Cheese Sandwich explained. "Well...I fear I told a little fib about my pony past. I wasn't quite the super party pony like I claimed. In fact, I was so shy, nopony knew my name. I left my hometown one day and traveled to Ponyville one afternoon by chance. There, I found the biggest ever celebration party dance. Everything was perfect, cheer was filling up the place and everypony had a smile upon their face. And on that day, I vowed that day to change my life. A super duper party pony -- that's what I became!"

While this little backstory of Cheese Sandwich was quite touching, there was still a question that bothered Star Twinkle. "But...what does that have to do with Pinkie Pie?" He then asked.

Cheese Sandwich smiled. "Well, believe it or not, but...the pony that threw that one party that changed my life, was none other than Pinkie Pie!" He said happily.

"Me? Really!?" Pinkie Pie asked confused, causing Cheese Sandwich to nod in agreement. "So I was the pony that threw the awesomely spectacular party that inspired you to become an awesome spectacular party thrower?" She asked further out of curiosity.

"Swear on Camembert!" Cheese Sandwich replied happily.

As those two were now finally getting along with each other, Rainbow Dash reminded the two that there was still a party to be thrown so both Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich decided to finally get into the party preparations for Rainbow Dash's party so they went away to get everything ready for later.

Of course, that also meant for Star Twinkle and his friends to help out a little as well. "Come on, Steel Hammer, you can help too if you are already here..." Star Twinkle said but as soon as he looked over to his boss, he noticed how he had tears in his eyes.

"This was such a heartwarming story!" He said while tears came running down his face.

Star Twinkle decided to cheer his boss up again while he was on his way to help out Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich. There was a lot of work coming up judging from how big of a party planner both of those ponies were after all...

Later that evening...

As expected, the party was a huge success. There was everything, a giant stage with singer and dancers, a pool, sweets, games, even Star Twinkle found some things that made him enjoy this party. But of course, something like that was to be expected after two expert party-ponies teamed up.

Pinkie Pie was singing on the stage right now, having the fun of her life. And judging from the cheers that she got from everypony, they seemed to have a lot of fun as well. Still, Star Twinkle decided to stay a little in the background to enjoy this party in his own way.

"Hey!" Cheese Sandwich then said as he approached Star Twinkle from afar. "Having fun on this party?" He asked.

Star Twinkle couldn't just say that he wasn't a big fan of parties, especially since he was actually enjoying himself. "Yes, thanks to you and Pinkie Pie," he simply said.

"Glad to hear that," Cheese Sandwich replied with a smile on his face. "Oh! Before I forget, can you do me a favor and give her this from me?" He then asked before he pulled out a box that he opened in front of Star Twinkle to reveal the rubber chicken that he was always carrying on his back.

"Why don't you go and give it to her later?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Before Star Twinkle knew, Cheese Sandwich already pulled out another chicken out of nowhere and put it on his back again. "I would love to but I'm afraid that it is time to move along again," he explained before he slowly walked away from Star Twinkle.

"So that's it? You visit a town, throw a party and then leave?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Cheese Sandwich turned around for a moment. "I also write song parodies from time to time," he explained with a grin on his face. "Ever heard of Melons to the Core, What my Cheese Sense is telling me or Cats?" He asked excitedly, hoping that Star Twinkle would.

"Uh..." Star Twinkle simply replied. He didn't mean to offend Cheese Sandwich by telling him that he never heard of those songs, even though they sounded kinda familiar.

But Cheese Sandwich didn't seem to mind and shrugged his shoulders and turned around again. "Well then Boneless number two...looks like our work is now done..." he said in his serious tone before he walked away from Ponyville.

Star Twinkle can't really say that he understood this pony very well but he was definitely okay and had his heart in the right place. But what he definitely was...was weird...

Author's Notes:

Let me just say that I love Weird Al Yankovic. Eat it is probably my favorite song of him XD.

Change of Subject...

We are reaching the halfway point of Season 4 and if you follow this story for a while now or if you paid attention to the other seasons of this story, then you probably have a slight guess what that means.

See you in the next chapter ^^.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

78. Ghosts, Wizards & Witches - Part 1

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In a small town in Equestria...

If there was one pony that could be described with the word mysterious, then it would be the Unicorn in the gray hood who kept traveling through Equestria...Summershine.

Traveling from one town to another, this pony didn't stop to gather any information that could help him to find a certain pony. At least that's what he told the Great and Powerful Trixie who he met a little while ago in another town. Who this pony was or why Summershine set out to find this pony was still unknown, just like the reason why he knows Star Twinkle and why he claims to be his best friend even though Star Twinkle said that he never had a friend before in his life before he met Twilight and the others. He had a chance to meet Star Twinkle back then when he helped to fight against Fade and the rest of the Outcasts but he decided to leave without them knowing that he was even there.

The reason for his actions, as well as his motives, were a complete mystery and no one can probably tell what he was about to do next.

But right now...It was fairly obvious what he was after, judging from how he was walking through the middle streets of a small town with sweat coming down from his face and his tongue sticking out of his mouth.

"Water...Food..." he said while he walked like as if he was about to collapse any second. He slowly dragged his body behind him. "Why is it so hot now out of all days? I didn't even notice how I was out of food...and why did I have to lose my water bottle in a moment like this?" The stallion complained.

Of course, this behavior was not unnoticed by everypony around him but all they did was looking at him as if he was some kind of weirdo. Before he knew it, Summershine dropped face-first to the ground and prepared himself to dehydrate and starve at the spot. It was moments like this where he regret having to wander through Equestria without having any bits with him. He could have easily stolen something in this town but of course, he was not like that, something that he also started to regret right now.

After "resting" a little bit on the ground he eventually, decided to get up again, even though it was really exhausting to just do that. There were still things for him to do after all.

"Maybe I find a river if I leave town or something like that..." he said to himself to keep a positive attitude and ignore the situation that he was in now.

After getting up on his hooves again, however, Summershine noticed how there was a water bottle and some apples lying on the ground right next to his hooves. First, he thought he was starting to hallucinate but he was actually able to levitate the bottle off from the ground with his magic so it was most definitely real. Before he could ask himself where all this stuff came from, the answer came from somepony he just now noticed was standing next to him. "You look as if you could use some water," the Earth Pony stallion said with a grin on his face.

It was as if Princess Celestia heard Summershine's prayers and send somepony to save him in his time in need. Summershine started to have tears running down his face out of pure joy. "Thank you!" He said in a shaking voice before he opened the bottle to take a sip of this water.

The Earth Pony stallion began to laugh after seeing how Summershine almost drank the whole bottle in one go. "You are traveling through Equestria, right?" He asked with an amused look on his face.

Summershine stopped drinking for a moment. "How do you know?" He asked before he quickly returned to drink some water again and took a bite from one of the apples.

"I saw you before, In the last town that I visited. If I remember correctly, you were in a similar state back there as well," he said amused.

Summershine's eye twitched. "Wow...I'm really bad at this whole traveling thing..." he thought after pretty much getting confirmation that he should prepare himself a little more before leaves this town.

"I'm a traveling sales-pony so I'm always visiting other towns and cities. I know how hard it can be to be alone most of the time so I just felt like helping you out in your time in need," the stallion explained, still with this amused look on his face. "But please make sure to prepare yourself before you go out traveling around Equestria," he advised.

Summershine chuckled. "Yeah. I'll do that," he said while feeling a little embarrassed about the whole situation now.

The stallion sat right next to Summershine while he watched him eating the last apples and drinking the last drops from the water bottle. "Do you mind me asking why you are wandering from one town to another?" The stallion asked out of curiosity.

"I'm looking for somepony," Summershine briefly replied.

"A friend?" The stallion asked further. Summershine didn't answer and avoided eye contact after this question. The stallion noticed that and quickly backed off with the questions. "Hey, don't worry, you don't have to tell me! I was just curious,"

"No. Don't worry about it," Summershine assured before he got back on his hooves again, "Thanks for the water," he said before he bowed in gratitude in front of the stallion. "I need to be on my way again," he said before turned around and walked away again.

The stallion got back on his hooves as well. "I hope you find the pony that you are looking for!" He said as he said his farewell to Summershine.

"Yes...me too..." Summershine mumbled under his breath as he walked on the road of the town.

Summershine didn't feel like getting anypony involved with his search. Whenever he asked for information about the pony he was looking for, he would always keep it a secret who exactly this pony was. This might could have been a reason why he couldn't find the pony so far but he still wanted to keep it that way. He felt as if it was his problem so the only one who could deal with it was him.

"Now...where to go next? I didn't find out anything here. What's the closest town from here?" He mumbled to himself.

As he was almost out of town, he accidentally overheard a conversation that two stallions had nearby.

"Hey, did you hear? They spotted this ghost again!" An Earth Pony stallion mentioned.

"Oh, don't start with that again! Will you stop trying to convince me that you actually saw a ghost?" A Unicorn stallion replied who seemed to be heavily annoyed by his friend's words.

Summershine chuckled a little after hearing those two talking about ghosts. He was sure that they didn't exist and the simple thought that somepony saw one only amused him so he decided to continue on his way. But the next sentences quickly got his attention again and he stopped in his track.

"But I'm telling you! There is this Unicorn that keeps walking inside of this cave outside of town! But in the cave, there is only a dead-end! So where did it go? Through the wall of course!" The Earth Pony stallion said in a stressed tone.

"Yes but last time, you said that the Unicorn is supposed to have a red coat! And as far as I know, a ghost is supposed to be see-through or maybe white," The Unicorn replied annoyed. "You know...if they exist!"

"Well, his mane was white..." The Earth Pony stallion said in his defense.

"That's not the point! The point is...uh..." The Unicorn said before he stopped in mid-sentence as soon as he noticed how Summershine was standing in front of both of them all of the sudden. They both didn't know him so of course, his sudden appearance confused them. "Can we help you?" The Unicorn then asked out of confusion.

Summershine quickly cut to the point. "This Unicorn that you mentioned...where can I find it?" He asked in a serious tone.

"You are seriously believing what my friend is saying?" The Unicorn asked.

"See! I told you ghosts are real!" The Earth Pony stallion exclaimed.

Whatever the reason for Summershine was, the Unicorn quickly saw an opportunity. "What's that information worth for you?" He asked with a smug smile on his face.

But Summershine didn't have time for this and used his magic to drag the Unicorn close to his face while staring right into his eyes. "Where. Can I. Find. That. Unicorn?" Summershine asked in a very serious tone to indicate that he was not playing around when it came to that information.

Of course, the Unicorn couldn't free himself from Summershine's grip and looked over to his friend who was standing there and watched in shock. "Go! Tell him!" He said to him so that he could be freed again.

Even though the Earth Pony stallion first warned Summershine about the ghost, Summershine demanded to know where he could find this ghost once more and after getting an answer for that, the stallion quickly set out and left the town to get where this cave was...

"It better be him...It has to be him..." he said as he left the town with a determined expression on his face.

In the meantime...

The Star Swirl the Bearded Traveling Museum...

It was dedicated to the most important conjurer of the pre-classical era, Star Swirl the Bearded. Visiting a museum like that is without a doubt something that no fan of this pony would like to miss.

Only a little while ago, the museum was at Ponyville and Twilight was visiting it along with her sister in law, Princess Cadance who had the rare chance to visit Twilight. They originally planned to visit another traveling museum but as expected, Princess Cadance was too busy to attend this visit so Twilight asked Star Twinkle to join her instead. Knowing her, Star Twinkle figured that she already had so many things planned for her and Cadance to do on this trip and in order for her plans to not get ruined, Star Twinkle decided to join this trip. Either that or nopony else had the time or was interested in this museum.

The two of them were already arriving at the museum. This time, it was held in the small town of Appleloosa. Star Twinkle just remembered it like it was yesterday when he and his friends were helping out the ponies and the buffalo to get along in these parts of Equestria. There were actually a few buffalo wandering around the town, talking or working with ponies without a single sign of them being enemies before. This only meant that things were still looking good between the two races.

"Looks like as if everyone gets along," Twilight said as if she had read Star Twinkle's mind just now.

"Yep. I wonder if we run into Applejack's cousin Braeburn so that he can tell us how things are going..." Star Twinkle said as he walked beside Twilight.

"Maybe," Twilight replied.

Of course, they did not come here to deal with another problem that might or might not be present now. It didn't take long until they both arrived a the spot where the museum was held at. There were tents, shops and all kinds of banners scattered all over the place and many ponies were gathering there, some of them wearing a costume of Star Swirl the Bearded.

The exact same costume that Twilight was wearing right now...

"Now I see why you wanted to wear this costume again...you totally blend into this crowd!" Star Twinkle said as he looked around the place.

Twilight raised her head and smiled widely. "Not such a weird costume anymore, right?" She said, probably referring to how her costume was not even recognized the last time Star Twinkle saw her in it.

"I guess..." Star Twinkle said. It felt kinda weird. For some reason now, it felt as if he was not fitting in this place with all those bearded, hat and cape-wearing ponies. In fact, he was probably the one who stood out the most. Something that he would like to avoid actually. But he tried to not worry about it and just went along with what Twilight had planned.

"So, you said you have plans for this day?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Right!" Twilight replied before she used her magic to summon a scroll in front of her from which she read out loud shortly after. What followed was a detailed plan on where to go first or what tent to visit first. Of course, it all had to be in a specific order or else everything would be ruined. As Twilight ran down her list, it was always something like "The magical artifact that Star Swirl used for...". Star Twinkle was highly confused by just listening at all this and didn't even understand most of it but he kept nodding and smiling since Twilight seemed to have so much fun talking about all this stuff. Also, even if he would have asked any questions, he doubted that he would understand the answer.

"Everything clear?" Twilight then asked after she was finally done with what felt like an eternity long explanation.

"I wish..." Star Twinkle replied. He could honestly say that he had not a single clue about anything at this very moment.

Even though Star Twinkle tried his best to not show it, Twilight noticed that he must feel a little out of place and maybe even bothered by all this. "This is probably all really boring for you..." Twilight said with a frown on her face while she put away the scroll.

"No, no!" Star Twinkle said, trying to convince Twilight that it wasn't so bad for him. "I mean...yes this is probably not the first place where I wanted to be but...I'm here because I'm your friend and because I want you to have a good time so that's enough for me," he explained. He was surprised to hear something selfless like this coming out of his own mouth but it seemed to make Twilight feel happy again.

"Thank you, Star Twinkle. I knew that I could count on you," she said happily.

Sometimes friends need to do things for another friend just so that they can be happy. Sometimes they even need to do things that they normally wouldn't do, like this trip for example. Star Twinkle learned this lesson very early after he met Twilight and the others. Going on parties, helping out in Carousel Boutique, spending time with the Cutie Mark Crusaders so that they could find their Cutie Marks, traveling to all kinds of places for multiple reasons...all those things that Star Twinkle would have never done if he was still alone. There were times where he was sick of all these changes. There were times where he wished to return to his more predictable life. But he also liked spending time with all his new friends even if it meant to do all these new things.

And now he reached the point of saying that he liked this change in his life. Maybe while he will accompany Twilight, he will complain every now and then, like he usually does, but at the end of the day, he could look back and say that this day was fun because he could spend it with Twilight who was definitely having fun on this trip.

He wished that he had said all of this out loud. Twilight would have been really happy to hear that, he was sure of that. But there was still a museum to visit so they started to look at everything that they could find. "How about you lead the way?" Star Twinkle said. "You're the expert after all," he added, while cleverly hiding his unawareness of where to go.

He had no idea if it worked but Twilight agreed and led the way. "Right! Let's go!" She then said before she walked to the first tent with Star Twinkle right behind her.

A little later...

The two ponies walked around the museum for around an hour, looking at every piece that was presented for the visitors and inspecting every artifact. As a big fan of Star Swirl, Twilight had, of course, a story ready for every single object that she gladly shared with Star Twinkle. Some of them actually sounded pretty entertaining. But that was to be expected by one of the most popular ponies in Equestrian history. The stories definitely lived up to his name.

But after spending a while walking around town, the two decided to take a short break so that they could sit down and relax for a moment. It almost seemed as if Twilight was even more exhausted by all this because she was explaining so much to Star Twinkle. The stallion noticed that as well. "I guess, that's the curse that you get for having too much knowledge," he jokingly said.

Twilight chuckled embarrassed and rubbed her neck. "Maybe I got carried a little away by explaining a few things," she said while she stuck out her tongue in embarrassment.

"Let me guess...you got all this information from your books, right?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight nodded and explained. "Yep. I started to read books about Star Swirl all then way back when I was a student under Princess Celestia. I was interested in magic, as you already know, and the stories about his tales helped me to understand magic even better. Not to mention that they were also very interesting," she said as she literally remembered back the times when she was little. "I remembered Princess Celestia speaking about him from time to time. She met him in person, after all, one thousand years ago," she said as she looked up to the sky in nostalgia.

"So he is like an idol for you?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Well...out of my three favorite unicorns in history, he would be my favorite," Twilight replied with a smile on her face.

"Three? So there are more ponies like Star Swirl?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight explained. "The thing is, while I was a student under Princess Celestia, I obviously needed to know as much as possible when it came to magic. Princess Celestia ended up telling me stories about Unicorns who were pretty gifted in magic as well. Three of them became my favorites and Star Swirl is one of them,"

Now, Star Twinkle had to admit that he got a little curious. "And who are the other two?" He asked.

Twilight almost looked as if she wanted Star Twinkle to say this and got excited that she could explain some more and started with another pony that she admired. "The second Unicorn is none other than, Sun Swirl!" She said as if she expected Star Twinkle to jump in excitement.

But of course, he didn't. But after he heard the name, there was one thing that he noticed. "Sun Swirl? You mean like in Star Swirl?" He guessed.

"Yep," Twilight replied as if she was proud of Star Twinkle to notice. "It may be a coincidence because it has not been proved but some ponies assume that Sun Swirl is a far decedent of Star Swirl. He lived around a few hundred years ago and was said to be one of the most gifted ponies when it came to magic. It is said that his magic was so effective that his horn didn't even glow whenever he used a spell,"

Star Twinkle just assumed that the last information was a really impressive feat. Either that, or it was somepony who just pretended to use magic if his horn wasn't glowing. Twilight clearly enjoyed sharing all this information with him so he asked her to continue. "And the last one?"

Twilight seemed to hesitate to talk about the last one. "The last one is a little embarrassing to tell you..." she said with an embarrassed smile on her face.

"Why is that?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Because it's a fictional Unicorn," she briefly replied.

"Fictional?" Star Twinkle asked.

Despite her being a little embarrassed to tell the story, Twilight explained. "You know those kinds of stories that adults tell you just to scare you? If you don't behave or do something bad?" She asked to which Star Twinkle nodded in response. "Well, back then, when I went to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, ponies who didn't behave would have to listen to a certain story about a certain Unicorn," she said in an overly dramatic tone as if she tried to build suspense. "The Witch of Equestria!"

"The...Witch of Equestria?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Again, Twilight tried to build suspense and told the story in an overly dramatic voice. "It is said that if you don't behave and do bad things or don't listen to your parents, then the Witch of Equestria will come! She will come and take you away and raise you as her own child. And you don't want to be the child of the Evil Witch! Because when she is done with raising you...then she will use a spell to make you vanish and looks for another bad pony to raise as her own!" She said with a flashlight under her face to increase the dramatic effect.

But Star Twinkle was not affected by this "scary mood" one bit. "They tell you stories like that as a filly?" He then asked, feeling it rather extreme to tell a filly such a scary story.

Twilight seemed a little sad that her dramatic setup didn't work but she explained further. "Princess Celestia did. It is really hard to get into her school and if she felt like as if somepony was misbehaving then she would tell this story. You won't believe it but Princess Celestia can be a very strict teacher," she explained almost proudly as one of her students.

"Obviously, if she tells young fillies stories like that..." Star Twinkle thought. "But I still don't get why you are so interested in this Witch of Equestria..." he then asked.

"I think what fascinated me was that Princess Celestia claimed that even if fillies were taken away by the Witch, that not even she could do anything to save them," Twilight explained.

"Of course she would say that or else they would not have taken this story seriously..." Star Twinkle figured.

Twilight laughed a little after she heard this. "And I happen to be one of them. Just hearing Princess Celestia talking about what this witch was capable of was enough to get my attention. I mean, can you imagine how shocked I was as a filly to hear that there was a pony out there that was more powerful then Princess Celestia? Unfortunately, I could never find any information about this pony which only proves that it was only made up by Princess Celestia in order to scare us," she said in disappointment.

For a made-up story, it was rather scary. At least that's what Star Twinkle thought about it. Still, if it was only more reason for Twilight to improve her magic back in the day, then it certainly helped to hear it as a filly.

After they finished talking a bit more about this story, Star Twinkle's belly was growling a little which caused his to grin in embarrassment since it was loud enough so that literally everyone who was close enough could hear it. "Looks like I'm a little hungry..." he said.

Twilight chuckled. "I think there was a tent with some sweets that we walked past before," Twilight said which Star Twinkle remembered as well. "Let's go back and grab something to eat," she then suggested, much to Star Twinkle's relief who could use something to bite on. "We still have some time to spare after all," she assured.

They both walked back a little and were close to where the food tent was, that Twilight mentioned but on their way, they noticed how a bunch of ponies was running past them in excitement. Curious about why that was the case, Twilight asked one of the ponies that were walking past them.

"Didn't you hear!?" The pony that Twilight asked replied. "They decided to show the presentation of Star Swirl now!"

"What!?" Twilight exclaimed confused. "I thought that it was supposed to be in an hour!" She asked. She must have known what this pony was talking about, judging from her reaction. According to Twilight, it was a presentation that would cover some facts and stories and showcase some of the objects that he used in his adventures. Twilight also said that she was really looking forward to it and didn't want to miss it. She looked over to Star Twinkle and remembered that they were on the way to the completely other direction, which would mean that they would only lose more time if they continued. She was also aware that she couldn't just drag Star Twinkle with her, making him starve while he was watching this, at least one-hour long presentation.

Star Twinkle noticed how Twilight was slowly freaking out about all this. Not only did this change ruin her perfectly planned trip but she also didn't know if she should think about her friend or this presentation. She knew that a friend was way more important of course, but she was also really excited about this presentation and didn't want to miss it.

"Just go," Star Twinkle said out of the blue, much to Twilight's confusion. "You really want to see this presentation don't you?"

"I do...but I can't just leave you because of that..." she said, feeling bad that Star Twinkle even suggested something like that.

Star Twinkle smiled after hearing that. He really felt happy that Twilight was thinking about him first. "Twilight, don't worry about me. I'll go and grab something to eat and join you as soon as possible. Unlike this museum, you can see me every day so don't let this opportunity slip away," he said.

"Are you sure?" Twilight asked. Star Twinkle nodded with a smile on his face, feeling not left alone at all as Twilight thought. Soon, Twilight also formed a smile on her face and hugged Star Twinkle. "You're the best friend a pony can ever have, Star Twinkle," she said before she turned around to join the herd of ponies who were running to where the presentation was held.

Star Twinkle completely understood how important this all was for Twilight so he was not holding a grudge against her for wanting to see this presentation. After all, he said before that he was there so that Twilight could have some fun and it was not as if he was missing anything since he would join Twilight after he got something to eat.

After a short while, Star Twinkle arrived at the tent that Twilight was talking about and scanned his eyes through what was there to offer. He quickly fell in love with a caramel apple sitting a little further in the back. Judging from some of the posters above the tent, they seem to be very popular at this museum so Star Twinkle thought about getting one. However, he decided to buy two, one for him and one for Twilight. "She probably is hungry too..." Star Twinkle figured.

Star Twinkle threw some bits on the table and the sales pony gave him the two apples. "You're lucky, those are the last two," he explained before he gave them to Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle took both of them, one of them, he immediately stuck his teeth into out of hunger. "Thanks," he said before he left again. The apple was really sweet and, not to mention tasty. "Let's just hope Twilight likes this one as well..." he said, hoping that Twilight would appreciate it.

Then suddenly, a voice could be heard behind him. "What do you mean, there are no left!?" A female voice said in frustration.

Star Twinkle, turned around and wondered what this was about and turned around to see a mare, wearing a Star Swirl the Bearded costume and talking to the sale pony. "I'm sorry, miss but I just sold the last of them. Can I give you something else maybe?" The sales pony asked.

The mare was dropping her head on the table in frustration and sadness. "I was looking forward to one of those sweet caramel apples..." she said with a frown on her face and a shaking voice that sounded as if she was about to cry now. She then turned around and walked away in the opposite direction with her head looking at the ground while she was leaving.

Star Twinkle felt like that her reaction was a little too over-exaggerated at first but then he remembered Twilight a little while ago and he almost understood it. He looked at the one untouched caramel apple and then over to the mare. "Well, I didn't really say that I would bring something for Twilight so..." he said to himself so that he could find a reason to do something unusual nice. He walked over to the depressed mare and held the caramel apple right in front of her, causing her to stop and turn to the pony who was presenting it to her. "Here," Star Twinkle simply said.

Under her Star Swirl costume, which consisted of the hat, the cape, and the long beard, the mare had a white coat, a long white and almost silver colored mane and light green eyes who kept looking back and forth between the caramel apple and Star Twinkle. The mare didn't seem to understand what was happening now. "A caramel apple?" She asked confused as if she demanded an explanation.

"You wanted one didn't you?" Star Twinkle asked.

"But where did you get that from? I thought there were none left," the mare asked confused.

"Yeah because I bought the last two. This one was originally for a friend but you can have it," Star Twinkle said.

The mare reacted in surprise after hearing that. "But if it is for someone else, then I can't take it!" She said even though she still fixated her eyes on this apple, that Star Twinkle was holding in his hoof.

Star Twinkle wished that this mare would just take the caramel apple so that this awkward situation could end. "Do you want it now or not?" He said, giving her one last chance to decide now so that he could either give it to her or leave.

The mare felt a little pressured now but she gave a quick answer. "Yes!" She said before she revealed herself as a Unicorn and used her magic to levitate the apple towards her. Realizing that she may act a little too rash, she felt embarrassed. "Thanks..." she said in her embarrassment.

"No problem..." Star Twinkle simply said before he turned around again and walked away after this was dealt with.

"Wait!" The mare then said, causing Star Twinkle to stop and turn around again. "What do you want for this in return?" She asked.

"In return?" Star Twinkle asked confused. "I don't want anything in return for it," he replied.

"But...why would you give me this then? You don't simply give somepony something without expecting to get something back!" The mare said in an almost offended tone in her voice.

"I didn't give you this because I expected you to give me something in return," Star Twinkle explained after he saw how the mare did not seem to understand what he did. "I just saw that you really wanted this so I gave it to you. Is that so weird?" He asked after he literally asked himself this question as well. "See it as a present," he added.

"A present?" The mare asked confused. "For me?" She said as she looked at the caramel apple floating in front of her.

"Yeah. You never got a present before?" Star Twinkle asked after he saw the obvious confusion in the mare's face.

"No..." she replied. "Why would anyone give me a present after all..." she said while she was deeply in thought for some reason.

Something about the mare's expression seemed familiar to Star Twinkle. He saw it somewhere before. This sadness, this almost accepting sadness in her eyes. He knew that expression all too well but in order to make sure, he poked around a little and asked a very subtle question. "I'm sure your friends gave you a present before, right?"

The reaction that he got was pretty much what he expected. The mare looked away and had a hard time answering that question. "No. I don't have any friends after all," she simply replied.

It was just like Star Twinkle thought. That expression on her face was loneliness, something that Star Twinkle knew all too well. Whenever he looked in the mirror, he would tell himself that everything was alright, the way it is. But from the inside, he knew that he was lying to himself. This mare had the same exact expression on her face. She was in that accepting state where she probably thought that it was better that way or that friends were not that important. Of course, there was a chance that Star Twinkle was just stretching things and imagined all of this but he couldn't help but feel bad for her.

The mare noticed the look that Star Twinkle was giving her and put on a forced smile. "Don't look at me like that!" She said in embarrassment. "It's not like I need friends or anything. It's totally fine like this!" Star Twinkle knew that this was a lie. He just knew. But before he could think of anything to say to the mare, she quickly widened her eyes. "I know! I buy you something to eat as well!" She then suggested out of the blue. But Star Twinkle showed her his own caramel apple and signaled to her that he already was eating something. "Oh...yeah..." the mare replied after she realized that as well. "Darn..." She added as she was scratching her head in frustration now. She was taking this all really seriously. A little too serious for Star Twinkle's taste.

In fact, Star Twinkle felt like that this whole "returning the favor" thing dragged out for way too long now and aimed to talk the mare out of this idea now for good. "I know you just want to be nice or maybe you don't want to own anything to me but listen to me if I say that I don't really want anything in return. As far as I am concerned, we are even," he said which he claimed to be his last words about this matter.

Even if the mare didn't like it, this time, she seemed to understand. "...alright...if you say so..." she replied in an almost defeated tone.

Star Twinkle smiled and then walked away from her. He still had to meet up with Twilight after all. The mare also turned around and walked in the opposite direction. The expression on her face was a confused one but as soon as she took a bite off from the caramel apple, it was changed to a happy one. "Sweet!" She said in joy after tasting the caramel on the apple.

It was now that Star Twinkle figured that he didn't exactly know where this presentation, that Twilight spoke of, was so he spent a good time looking for her while walking across this museum. He didn't even realize before that the museum was all over the town. "Maybe the presentation is outside of town?" Star Twinkle guessed after he didn't know where else to look at. It also didn't make things easier that Twilight was wearing the exact same costume that almost everypony else was wearing in this town.

Another reason was that he maybe wasn't focusing enough to look for her because he couldn't help but to think about this one mare from before. He started to think that she was walking over this place with nopony else to accompany her and that she was bored to the core. Then Star Twinkle thought that he maybe wasn't reading the signals that she gave him properly. "Maybe she just wanted to return the favor so that she could spend time with me?" He began to think. Maybe that mare wanted to find friends and had problems with it, unlike Star Twinkle who didn't bother with it at all. He did notice that she didn't look too happy, everything she said and what she did was also indicating that she wanted to not be alone in this town.

"Should I have stayed with her? Should I have asked her to join me and Twilight? What would Twilight have done in this situation?" Star Twinkle asked himself. It really started to bother him so he decided to go back to now find this mare and ask her to join him and Twilight. Since she was wearing a Star Swirl costume, she was probably a big fan of him as well so Twilight would actually have somepony to talk to. Maybe they even would end up as friends, something that the mare would probably appreciate.

He was asking around town to where he could find the mare, something that he completely missed doing before with Twilight because he was still bothered a little. Star Twinkle's clues led him to the edge of the town where he managed to find the mare as she was about to leave the town now. Of course, she would leave the town early since she was probably bored to walk around the museum with nopony else, especially, after one pony who bothered to talk with her left as well. She was already far away from any building and slowly walked away but Star Twinkle luckily caught up to her.

"Wait!" Star Twinkle shouted.

This shout, caused the mare to jump a little before she turned around in surprise to see Star Twinkle approaching her. "You again?" She asked in her surprise.

Star Twinkle stopped in front of her. He didn't really know how he should explain why it was so important for him to change the mare's mind so he quickly cut to the point. "You want to accompany me and my friend while we visit this museum?"

"Huh?" The mare replied out of pure confusion.

"Well, you see..." Star Twinkle said as he scratched his chin. "I mean, you're here on your own right? Why not come with us? It could be fun!" He explained.

The mare only looked at Star Twinkle confused and shortly after gave a quick answer. "No," she said before she turned around and walked away.

Star Twinkle didn't know how to react to that. He already knew that this situation was pretty weird but seeing how there was a pony that could end up like him, completely alone and locked inside her home only made him more determined to prevent that. Even if that meant to say some things that she didn't want to hear.

"You said you didn't have any friends before..." He said, causing the mare to stop in her track. "It makes you sad, right?"

The mare turned her head towards Star Twinkle. "So what if am?" She replied with a sad tone in her voice. "What does that have to do with you?" She then asked.

"Well...I was alone too so I know how that must feel..." Star Twinkle explained as he spoke out of his heart without realizing it. "I always thought friends were nothing special and that I don't need any...but that was a lie that I told myself..."

The mare turned around with her eyebrows lowered in sadness. She noticed the honesty in Star Twinkle's voice. She decided to listen to what he had to say and didn't interrupted him.

"But then I found some ponies who accepted me and gave me friendship. And I was happy. I was really happy. So if I see you with this sad expression on your face when all I want to do is offering some happiness as well," Star Twinkle said with a smile on his face. "This probably is really weird for you to hear all those personal things from a stranger," he admitted while he rubbed his neck in embarrassment with a smile on his face. "My name is Star Twinkle," he then said, properly introducing himself to the mare now.

The mare actually smiled back and introduced herself as well. "I'm Graceful Palladium Magie,"

"Wow, that's a mouthful," Star Twinkle said.

"Just call me Grace then," the mare said with a smile on her face.

Star Twinkle then offered his hoof so that they could go back to Appleloosa and enjoy the museum again. From the looks of it, she finally seemed to warm up to him. He was glad that by simply offering his friendship, Grace seemed to give it a chance, instead of denying it. Still, Grace seemed still hesitant about all this and the simple act of touching Star Twinkle was hard for her but she soon started to move her hoof towards Star Twinkle's so that they could go.

A strong wind was then blowing from the right for a very short moment, barely strong enough to move the manes of the two ponies and of course, the hat and the beard from Grace who didn't seem to be bothered by it though.

...

That's when Star Twinkle saw it. something familiar that Star Twinkle didn't see in a while now. It was hidden under Grace's beard so he couldn't see it before. There was only a second but he was sure of what he saw. And it began to send shivers down on Star Twinkle's back.

Grace noticed how uncomfortable Star Twinkle felt out of a sudden. "Is something wrong?" She asked confused.

Star Twinkle didn't think about it and just straight out said what he just saw, out loud. Something that he shouldn't have done...

"...The Alicorn Amulet?..."

As soon as those words were spoken, Grace's eyes widened in shock. Her horn began to glow in a bright green light and released a magic shock wave just a second before their hooves touched. Star Twinkle was blown away from this shock wave and landed on his back a few meters away from Grace, who was now standing there with her head staring at the ground. "You know about the Alicorn Amulet?" She then asked in a very serious and angered tone that completely contrasted her previous way of speaking.

Star Twinkle stood back up on his hooves again and asked the only question that he had in his mind right now. "Where did you get that?" He asked confused.

Grace then took off her costume and threw it away, and revealed her white coat and her long white mane, as well as her Cutie Mark which consisted of a white heart with a magic aura behind it. "Too bad for you then...if you know about the Alicorn Amulet..." she said while she slowly moved her head up to look at Star Twinkle. As soon as her eyes met his, Star Twinkle began to get nervous. Her expression was now completely different. Her eyes were not filled with sadness anymore. Now there was only excitement. But not in a good way. It was like a wild animal that looked at its prey. Grace had a wide and sinister grin on her face that sent shivers down on Star Twinkle's spine. Shortly after her eyes began to glow in a green light again and she used her magic to cover herself with a thin layer of magic that made her levitate a little above the ground. "...then I have to make sure to take care of you..." she said followed by a maniac laugh which only further scared Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle had no idea what was going on. Grace's character was completely different now. She was no longer the same pony that she was a few minutes ago. But the reason for that could be the influence of the Alicorn Amulet. He remembered all too well what Trixie was able to do while she was wearing that thing so Star Twinkle feared that whatever was about happen now, would not end well for him...

Meanwhile...

Summershine finally arrived at the place of which that two ponies spoke of. A cave that was quite far away from the town he was in before. He entered the cave and used his magic to lighten up the place a little so that he was able to see anything in there. As expected, he shortly arrived at a dead end with nowhere else to go. So far, one thing that those two ponies told him was true. Now there was only this ghost left.

"Hm...I wonder..." Summershine said as he scanned his eyes through the place, especially at the wall in front of him. While still using his magic to lighten the place, he noticed how his horn reacted to something. There were certain spots where he could feel some magic on the wall. "That's how it is," he figured before he stepped back a little from the wall.

What followed was Summershine concentrating on a certain spell. He closed his eyes and shot his magic at the wall in front of him. Shortly after, the whole wall was glowing for a while before it then completely vanished and revealed a passage. "A fake wall spell, huh? Now things are a little more suspicious..." he said before he continued further into the cave.

It was still very dark and most of all...quiet. He continued to walk further and further inside until he would reach an end at some point. But soon, he was greeted by somepony who was slowly walking towards him.

"Who is there?" A male voice asked.

As soon as Summershine heard that voice, he stopped in his track and his eyes widened up in surprise. "That voice..." he thought after he clearly recognized it. However, he had to make sure and waited until he had a clear sight of that pony that was walking towards him.

Soon, the pony walked closer to Summershine and revealed himself from inside the shadows so that Summershine could clearly see him now. It was a Unicorn stallion with a red coat, a white mane that had red stripes in it, and red eyes. The Cutie Mark on his flank was an open book. The pony looked at Summershine and waited for an explanation but Summershine was struck by shock after his realization.

"It is him!" He thought in shock before his expression turned into a more determined one. "I finally found him!...now I can finally put an end to this...to him..." he thought in determination as he prepared something under his cape.

Without the other stallion noticing it, Summershine was hiding a device under his cape. It was the same device that the Outcasts used. A weird device that you put on someone's horn to suppress their magic.

"If I get him with that...then I can finally put an end to all this..." Summershine thought before he prepared for his next action.

Whatever he was about to do next, he was determined to succeed. But the question was...what exactly was he about to do...and for what reason?

To be continued...

Author's Notes:

I hope you didn't get too attached to Grace as a character unless you liked that transformation of her at the end...

And what are Summershine and that other pony up to?

And do you think that Twilight has fun with the presentation right now?

Well, let's wait for the next chapter to get some answers...

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

79. Ghosts, Wizards & Witches - Part 2

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In a dark cave in Equestria...

"Who is there?" A red-coated Unicorn stallion asked confused after he noticed how Summershine walked through his cave.

It was a Unicorn stallion with a red coat, a white mane that had red stripes in it, and red eyes and a Cutie Mark on his flank was an open book. It was the Pony that Summershine looked all over in Equestria and now he was only steps away to reach his goal so he slowly walked up to the stallion.

Summershine still had his mane covered under his hood but he quickly removed it and smiled at the stallion in front of him. "Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you or anything! I'm just here because I heard the story of a ghost roaming around in this cave so I decided to check it out!" He quickly explained.

The Unicorn looked back in confusion. "A ghost?" He asked with a hint of disbelieve.

Summershine slowly walked up to the Unicorn. "Yeah! Some ponies were scared and they sent me to investigate. They thought a ghost was wandering around in this cave. But it was just you, right?" He said while still smiling widely.

The Unicorn stallion laughed a little. "I'm afraid, I am the only one who lives in this cave," he replied amused.

"I thought so," Summershine replied with a grin on his face while he still walked up to the Unicorn very cautiously. "Just a little closer..." he thought as he prepared his anti-magic device to put it on the horn of the stallion. So far, he didn't seem to suspect anything though. "Do you mind coming with me and explaining things to the town folks?" He then suggested in an attempt for the stallion to come closer to him.

The stallion didn't answer immediately and just looked back at Summershine. This caused Summershine to get a little nervous. He thought that he was acting a little too suspicious and that the stallion in front of me had seen through his plan. However, the red-coated stallion smiled, much to Summershine's relief. "Sure. I don't want anypony to think of me as a ghost after all," he said before he walked up to Summershine.

"This is perfect!" Summershine thought. "I'll just make him walk past me...and as soon as his back is turned to me...I'll get him!" Summershine thought while he prepared the anti-magic device under his coat.

The closer the stallion walked up to Summershine, the more nervous he got. The mere thought that he could succeed with his plan put a lot of suspense in Summershine's mind. He was only seconds away to reach his goal.

"But...I still have one question though..." The stallion asked as he walked up to Summershine.

"Yes?" Summershine replied as he readied his anti-magic device to put it on the stallion's horn any second now once he got a little closer.

But the stallion stopped and asked the question that he mentioned before...

"What are you trying to do with that...Summershine?" He asked in a more confident and serious tone that was a lot more different from the way he talked before.

Summershine's eyes opened wide in shock and confusion. There was no time to think so he pulled out the anti-magic device and attempted to put it on the stallion's horn. However, as soon as the stallion got a good view of it, he shot a magic beam towards it and destroyed it, leaving only pieces of this device on the ground.

Seeing how Summershine's plan failed seemed to amuse the red-coated stallion who was now smiling victoriously. "Nice attempt. I'll give you that," he said amused.

Summershine could only look at the remaining pieces on the ground in worry. But despite that his plan failed, there seemed to be something that concerned him even more. And that was the fact that the pony in front of him called him Summershine. He knew his name. This shocked Summershine a little and the pony in front of him realized that and only got more amused because of it.

There was only one question left to ask for Summershine so he wasted no time and asked it. "You...remember me?" He asked confused and almost in shock.

The Unicorn stallion laughed after he heard that. "Of course, I remember you, Summershine. I mean, what kind of question is that?" He said in a very sarcastic tone. "Why? Am I not supposed to remember you?"

Summershine seemed surprised to hear this. In fact, he couldn't even believe hearing this and demanded an explanation. "But how is that possible?" He asked confused.

The Unicorn stallion gladly explained with a smug smile on his face. "That little "Memory erase" spell that you used, almost got me as well, to be honest. I have to admit, that I got a little lucky to not get affected by it. That would have been the best thing for you to happen, right?" He said, obviously teasing Summershine right now.

Despite still being a little confused, Summershine quickly got determined again. "If you remember, then there is only more reason for me to take care of you, Arcana!" He exclaimed before he stood ready to attack the pony in front of him now.

Shortly after, Summershine aimed his horn at Arcana to fire a magic beam at him. But as soon as he shot, Arcana teleported away and appeared a few meters to the left. All while having a confident smile on his face.

Needless to say, Summershine only got more angered by this. "You...why are you hiding in this cave?" Summershine asked while he glared at the Unicorn in front of him. "I know that you didn't give up on the Elements of Harmony!"

"You mean the two remaining halves that remain inside you and Star Twinkle?" And again, Summershine seemed shocked about what this Unicorn knew and widened his eyes, much to the Unicorn's amusement. "Yes...I even know about that," he said with a grin on his face.

The more words he heard coming out of Arcana's mouth, the more Summershine was convinced that a pony like him can't be allowed to roam freely in Equestria. "I know that you have planned something...or maybe you already did something? It doesn't matter. Because I will not stop until Star Twinkle and my friends are safe!" He said determinedly.

But Arcana was not the least bit scared or intimidated and shrugged his shoulders. "Well...so far...you haven't been the best when it comes to that," he teased while keeping up his smug grin. "Star Twinkle doesn't remember a thing and your friends...well," he began to chuckle after just mentioning that. "If you ask me, as the Element of Friendship, you did a really bad job so far," he said in an amused tone.

"And I intend to change that!" Summershine said while he stood ready to go up against Arcana now with an angry expression on his face.

But again, Arcana was not impressed at all. "Come on, Summershine. Don't you remember how our first fight went? Do you really think you stand a chance against me?"

But Summershine ignored those words and only concentrated on his magic to go up against Arcana. He believed that he was the last obstacle that he has to overcome in order to bring peace to Equestria. "In order to protect Star Twinkle and everyone else in Equestria...defeating you will make all that possible!" He shouted at Arcana, determined.

"To protect Star Twinkle, huh?" Arcana asked confused. "Are you really sure that he really wants that? If you ask me, he probably doesn't want your help even if he remembered you," he said with a smug smile on his face.

"What do you know what my best friend!?" Summershine threw back in anger.

Arcana just chuckled at this response. "Well, things are not always the way they seem..."

Summershine decided that he listened enough to Arcana and just straight out charged at him while focusing some magic inside of his horn. Arcana did the same and charged at his opponent as well. Shortly after, both of their horns clashed and a magic explosion went off inside the dark cave, covering it in light for a brief moment. Both of them were really powerful which only meant that the battle that was about to start would be a big one. And the outcome would change the way of Equestria's future...

Meanwhile, in Appleloosa...

Without still getting what happened just now, Star Twinkle still stood there and watched how Grace was engulfing herself in a magic aura. Her expression was still filled with excitement. The excitement for a battle. Star Twinkle reacted in shock after he saw that sudden change in Grace.

"What happened to her? It's almost as if she is a completely different pony now," Star Twinkle thought after he kept watching the mare in front of him and wondered what could be the reason for that change. But then, as soon as he further inspected her, it almost seemed obvious. "Of course, the Alicorn Amulet!" He figured. "It was just like with Trixie before, when she was wearing that thing in Ponyville. If I remember correctly, then the Alicorn Amulet corrupts its wearer. That's what must have happened to her. But...the only one who can remove that amulet is the one who wears it, right?"

Of course, the question of how Grace got the Alicorn Amulet in the first place, popped up in Star Twinkle's head as well. The last time he saw it was when Zecora took it. But he also remembered that it then suddenly vanished. But right now, that was the least of Star Twinkle's problems.

Back then Trixie got really powerful by wearing that thing, multiple times stronger than Twilight at least. It also took quite some work to make Trixie remove her amulet. Star Twinkle was thinking about how to make Grace remove her own amulet but he couldn't come up with an idea. In return for losing control of themselves, one would gain amazing powers from the Alicorn Amulet. But of course, Grace would not just remove that amulet on her own free will with that much power flowing through her now.

After a while, the magic around Grace began to vanish and things settled down again. At least from the looks of it. Star Twinkle saw how much magic was surrounding her seconds ago so he knew that she was probably storing it inside of her now, ready to unleash it again, like a ticking time bomb that could detonate every moment. But despite all that, Grace stretched herself in midair while she still kept levitating above the ground with the help of her magic. "Looks like I can let loose for a moment," she said with a sinister grin on her face before she looked directly at Star Twinkle.

Now that things have settled off again, it was probably the best opportunity to talk with her again. "Grace! That amulet, where did you get it from? It was supposed to be stored away in the Everfree Forest!" He asked in concern for the mare.

Grace gave a quick answer. "The way you say it, makes it almost sound like as if I stole it or something," she replied while she shrugged her shoulders. "I was the one who "borrowed" it to that one mare and after she failed to entertain me enough, I decided to take it back again. It's as simple as that..." she said while not showing any signs of regrets for what almost happened to Ponyville back then.

"That one mare? You mean Trixie?" Star Twinkle replied in surprise. He quickly suspected her to be responsible for what happened to Trixie but then he thought about how Grace acted a little while ago and it didn't seem to fit. The question raised if she was just acting innocent before and that this was her true nature all along. But then he remembered that she was still under the influence of the Alicorn Amulet so Star Twinkle, once again, talked to the mare. "Listen, you have to take off this amulet! It's dangerous! It will corrupt you!" He exclaimed in concern.

But Grace laughed and didn't take Star Twinkle's words seriously at all. "Dangerous? Corrupt me?" She asked followed by some more amused laughter. "Maybe if a weak and pathetic Unicorn like Trixie wears it..." she added while she swept some tears from her eyes because of her laughter. She then began to take a closer look at Star Twinkle. "Say...yes! I thought you looked familiar! You were one of the ponies who managed to stop her back then," she said with some enjoyment in her voice. A sinister-looking grin formed on her face again and she slowly flew towards Star Twinkle. "Care to try your luck on me?" She then asked with that evil grin on her face.

There was no way that this pony would listen to Star Twinkle so he had no choice but to transform in order to protect himself. He chose the Unicorn form so that he could try to attack back if needed, even if he didn't like to do that. It did seem to surprise Grace that Star Twinkle was able to transform but she decided to not mind it for long. While Star Twinkle kept an eye on Grace, in his mind, he tried to come up with a solution on how to deal with this situation. "I already saw what Trixie was capable of with that amulet. Twilight couldn't defeat her so I won't even stand a chance..." Star Twinkle then looked over to the houses of Appleloosa which was not too far away. Both of them were just a little outside of town, far enough so that nopony would notice them from inside the town. This meant that Star Twinkle couldn't scream for help to get out of this either.

Grace then noticed how Star Twinkle kept looking at the direction of the town so she decided to take advantage of that. "The music is over here!" She said before she flew at high speed towards Star Twinkle who jumped as soon as he noticed the mare flying towards him.

"Here she comes!" He thought in a panic. There was no time to think so Star Twinkle quickly focused some of his magic and fired towards the mare. He expected her to at least move a little and dodged out of the way but to his surprise, she didn't budge one bit and kept flying towards him while still keeping up a confident smile. As soon as she came in contact with Star Twinkle's attack, it seemed to have been blocked by the magic aura that surrounded her. "What!?" Star Twinkle said in shock after he saw that. Out of fear, Star Twinkle closed his eyes and prepared himself for Grace's attack.

...

But nothing happened...

Star Twinkle kept his eyes shut and was too scared to open them again. Of course, he wondered why nothing happened but the fear inside of him was stronger so he didn't even think about opening them again. But then he suddenly felt something on his head. Eventually, he did open one of his eyes again to see what happened. What he saw surprised him.

There was Grace, levitating right in front of him and playing with the spiky ends of Star Twinkle's mane with a playful smile on her face. She chuckled playfully. "Your mane looks funny," she then said playfully, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. At first, he thought that she broke out of the control of the amulet and that this all was over. But then Grace's eyes met with Star Twinkle's and he saw that sinister smile again. Without putting any thought into it, Star Twinkle shot at Grace while she seemed to be distracted. But the instance where Star Twinkle's horn began to glow, she noticed and reported away before she got hit.

"Where is she!?" Star Twinkle wondered after she disappeared in front of him. But he quickly found out where she was as soon as he could feel some weight on his back. Grace laid with her back on Star Twinkle's back as if he was some kind of sofa or a bench.

Grace chuckles after she remembered that one attack from Star Twinkle before. "Nice job, I almost felt that," she said amused. “But again, what do you expect from an Earth Pony who turned into a Unicorn. Just because you can use magic now, doesn't mean that you actually are good with it." Her head then moved back and laid down on Star Twinkle's back of his head as if it was some kind of pillow and the mare looked up at the sky. "Must be pretty handy to be able to grow a horn...Can you grow wings as well? Not that I need wings to fly but just imagine how beautiful I would look with two wings on my back,” the mare fantasized while she still laid on Star Twinkle's back.

Having enough of being treated as some kind of sofa, Star Twinkle switched from his Unicorn form to his Pegasus form and replaced his horn with two wings on his back before he flapped them in an attempt to shake the mare of off his back. However, the mare was already long gone again.

"Where is she now!?" Star Twinkle thought in confusion. But then suddenly, his body was frozen. "I can't move!?" He thought after this surprise. There was magic surrounding his body.

Grace then appeared right in front of Star Twinkle and moved her head closer to his and looked deeply at his face. She formed a smile but this time it looked more honest and not evil or sinister at all. Still, the words that came out of her mouth left Star Twinkle confused again.

"You know, now that I have a closer look at you...you are kinda cute," she said with a smile on her face.

Star Twinkle didn't know how to feel about that since he still couldn't move. He would actually feel embarrassed to hear those words but right now but coming from a mare that was wearing the Alicorn Amulet and who froze him in place, those words only sounded scary right now.

"What a shame..." Grace said before she focused some magic on her horn, ready to shoot at Star Twinkle.

Again, Star Twinkle closed his eyes. It was actually the only thing that he could do in this situation. He couldn't transform or scream for help or anything else so he prepared himself for the worst.

But just like before, luck seemed to be on his side. As soon as Grace was about to fire at Star Twinkle, a magic beam came between them which caused Grace to jump back in order to dodge, releasing Star Twinkle in the process.

Star Twinkle dropped on the ground and wondered what happened just now. Soon, he realized that it was Twilight who saved him. "Are you alright?" She asked after she positioned herself in front of Star Twinkle so that she would stand between him and Grace.

"Twilight?" Star Twinkle said as soon as he saw Twilight in front of him. He wasn't hurt so getting up was not a problem for him. "I'm fine, thanks," he said after he got up and stood right next to Twilight while keeping an eye on Grace at the same time.

Grace calmly watched the two but she didn't seem to be to intimidated to have two ponies standing in front of her now. "Twilight? Like in Princess Twilight Sparkle?" She then asked before she formed a smile yet again. "You are also the Element of Magic if I'm not mistaken...now this could be interesting!" She said excitedly.

Twilight didn't seem to bother about her and wondered why she attacked Star Twinkle. But then she noticed what she was wearing. "Who is that? And why is she wearing the Alicorn Amulet?" She asked confused.

But Star Twinkle thought that it was more important to focus on her getting the amulet off of Grace. "Don't worry about that. First, we need to take the amulet off of her!"

"Right..." Twilight replied after realizing that they don't have much time to lose. "I'll take care of it!" She then said confidently.

"You do?" Star Twinkle replied in confusion.

Twilight explained. "After the incident with Trixie, I did some research. I found a spell that could remove the magic lock of the amulet," she explained. Star Twinkle was more than happy to hear this. This actually meant that they still had a chance to get out of this situation in one piece. "But, the thing is...I need to be a little closer to her in order for it to work," she further explained with some less confidence than before.

"That's still better than nothing..." Star Twinkle expressed, trying to think positive for once.

Having Grace come closer to them might not be that much of a problem at all, judging from how she was "fighting" so far. In fact, Grace already charged at them again at full speed and before they knew it, she was flying right past the two of them, causing Twilight's costume to flap like crazy. She eventually decided to take it off so that it wouldn't get in the way and so she could focus a little better on Grace. She was actually surprised to see the mare flying this fast just by moving herself with her own magic. According to Twilight, this was not something that could be pulled of that easily.

Twilight decided to follow the mare up in the sky so that she could get closer to her. Grace noticed that she was being approached and stopped so that she could start the fight with Twilight. She shot a magic beam at Twilight but she managed to dodge out of the way while still flying towards her. Grace fired multiple shots at Twilight but each time the Alicorn Princess managed to dodge out of the way. For some reason, this seemed to amuse Grace. "Aren't you gonna attack me?" She then asked after she noticed how Twilight only pressed forward without an attempt to really fight back.

But as soon as Grace got disappointed by her opponent's passiveness, Twilight focused magic on her horn and seemed to be now countering Grace's attacks. But Twilight kept charging towards her, confusing Grace for a moment. Twilight then shot a spell towards the mare and it seemed to be aimed towards the Alicorn Amulet. But as soon as Grace noticed that, she quickly glared at Twilight before she teleported away, canceling Twilight's spell in the process.

"Almost!" Twilight said after she failed.

Grace appeared back on the ground and kept watching Twilight who was still up in the air. "So that's what you are aiming for, huh?" Grace said in an unusually serious tone. As soon as Twilight spotted Grace again, she quickly flew towards her to probably use that one spell from before. Grace was preparing herself to counter that attempt this time and stood ready.

But then, Star Twinkle came from behind and grabbed the mare, holding her in place. Grace struggled to get free but Star Twinkle was physically stronger than her and managed to hold her down. "Now Twilight!" He exclaimed.

"On it!" Twilight replied while she accelerated towards the two and already started her spell that would remove the lock on the Alicorn Amulet.

The spell was already flying towards Grace's amulet and covered it in a magic aura. Twilight was also a little closer to the two of them. She seemed to be close enough for her spell to work this time. Things somehow seemed to work out now.

The spell actually caused Grace to scream in pain, making Star Twinkle feel bad for her, especially since he knew how Grace was before she got under the influence of the Alicorn Amulet. Twilight actually noticed how he must have felt but she assured him that the pain would end as soon as the amulet was removed which actually made Star Twinkle feel a little better.

However, hearing Grace scream in pain made him not feel too good. "It hurts!" She screamed. "Why are you doing this to me!?" She said in pain.

But Twilight continued so that this would end as soon as possible. "Only a little more!" She said while she kept the spell up at all times. It actually looked as if it was really hard to pull off so Twilight got exhausted really quick.

Star Twinkle just hoped that it would end as soon so that he didn't have to hurt Grace anymore. Just when he thought that he made her his friend and helped her to get a little happier, she was affected by the Alicorn Amulet. She probably couldn't reach through the corruption and didn't want to hurt anypony, judging from the way she was acting before. Being under the control of this amulet must feel like a nightmare for her which was all the more reason why they had to take it off of her.

Grace's screams began to get shorter and instead she seemed to show a grudge against the two ponies who tried to take of her amulet."How could I be defeated by ponies like you!?" She said as she tried to fight off the spell with physical strength alone. Of course, it wasn't enough. Those actions must all be because of the corruption of the amulet.

Eventually, Grace stopped moving and dropped her head. Twilight's spell must have worked. Star Twinkle let out a relieved sigh but still grabbed hold of her just to make sure. So did Twilight who kept using the spell on Grace.

...

"Just kidding..."

Grace then suddenly, rose her head and grinned, much to the shock of Star Twinkle and Twilight. The mare used her magic and teleported away from them, only to appear a few meters behind them where she laughed amused after the two pony's attempt to stop her. "Did you really think that a lousy spell like that will work against me?" She said while she put her hooves behind her head and laid there in midair. Star Twinkle and Twilight both stood ready again but with Grace being able to break even free from Twilight's spell, Star Twinkle's confidence slowly dropped.

Still, Twilight decided to attack the mare again and shot her magic at her. This time, Grace didn't dodge and let herself get hit. Just like before with Star Twinkle, the attack hit her but the magical aura around Grace protected her from taking any damage again. "Getting desperate now are we?" Grace said after Twilight's attack. "I have to admit, that I expected a little bit more from a princess. So much for the Element of Magic too..." she added in disappointment while she shrugged her shoulders.

Twilight didn't know how to respond to that. She was other things in her mind actually. "Just who is that pony!?" Twilight then asked confused. "And how is she so powerful?" She asked.

"Well, she is wearing the Alicorn Amulet so she is bound to be strong..." Star Twinkle replied though he was surprised that Twilight seemed to have forgotten that fact.

"No, that's just the problem!" Twilight then replied with a serious tone in her voice while she kept looking at Grace. "There is a completely different feeling about her. It's not the same that I felt with Trixie, back then,"

"What do you mean?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Twilight explained further. "I'm not sure but..." She struggled at first to continue. It was almost as if she felt intimidated by Grace's strength. "I think so far...she didn't even use any power from the Alicorn Amulet..."

As soon as Star Twinkle heard that, he began to panic a little. "Are you kidding me? You mean all this time, she blocked all our attacks and broke free of your spell without using the strength from the amulet!?" He exclaimed to which Twilight only nodded in response.

Grace overheard that and felt like confirming Twilight's thought. "Well, you don't lift a book with a crane if you can just pick it up yourself, right?" She said amused with a grin on her face. "Though I expected to go out a little bit more for a princess...but it looks like I don't even have to do that..."

That basically translated to Star Twinkle that she had still strength to spare, something that he really didn't like to hear at all. If not even Twilight was able to scratch her, then who else was left to help them now. The situation was completely hopeless. Even if Star Twinkle and Twilight somehow managed to find a way to fight her now, she could still access the power of the Alicorn Amulet to power herself up even further. Just the thought of that sent shivers down on Star Twinkle's back.

But despite, the situation the two ponies were in, Twilight decided to ask again who this pony was and how Star Twinkle knew her. It was maybe an attempt to get some more information so that she could figure out a way to deal with Grace. Star Twinkle had no reason to hide anything so he decided to answer, although he had to think about what Grace's full name was again for a second.

"Her full name is Graceful Palladium Magie. I met her while I was at the Star Swirl Museum inside of Appleloosa. Back there she was acting completely different and..." But Star Twinkle stopped in the middle of the sentence as soon as he saw Twilight's shocked expression.

"Magie?" She said while she widened her eyes while she looked at Grace in a completely different light now. "It's her..." she said now in fear. "She is the Witch of Equestria..." she added in disbelieve and with every hope left in her body now.

That name instantly rang a bell in Star Twinkle's head. "What? Do you mean that pony from Celestia's story? I thought she wasn't real," he asked confused.

Of course, Twilight wanted to confirm her guess and just straight out asked Grace. "You are the Witch of Equestria, aren't you?"

Grace smiled in response and shrugged her shoulders. "What if I am?" She simply replied. "You shouldn't worry about such trivial things while being in a situation like...this!" After that sentence Grace focused even more magic around her body and inside of her horn, making the air around her shaking by her magic.

Star Twinkle and Twilight quickly realized that she was using a lot more magic and that things would get even worse now. "Here she comes!" Twilight said in a panic, trying to warn Star Twinkle from whatever was about to happen now.

Grace focused a whole lot of magic in her horn and was about to fire right at Star Twinkle first. Her eyes were glued on him and her expression looked a lot more serious now. However, instead of firing at him, she remained motionless and even seemed to hesitate. It almost looked like as if looking at Star Twinkle and thinking about how things were about to go from now on, made her regret what she was trying to do now. For a moment, it even looked like as if she was sad just thinking about it.

This went on until Grace decided to dim down her magic again. "I guess, I let you off the hook," she then said casually, much to Star Twinkle's and Twilight's confusion.

"What!?" Star Twinkle could only reply at this moment.

Grace then levitated herself further above the ground and attempted to just leave the two. But Twilight screamed after her in order for her to stay. "Wait! Stay right here!" She said, determined to finish this right now.

Grace actually did stop in midair. "What?" She replied before she slowly turned her head around to face Twilight who actually got a little uneasy after she saw an excited expression on Grace's face. "You want me to finish you two off now?" She asked, in hope that Twilight would actually say yes. But after thinking about the situation a little further again, Twilight figured that this was probably the best outcome for them so she didn't reply and just lowered her head. "I thought so..." Grace replied after seeing Twilight's response. "Do me a favor and get a little stronger, okay? That way our next fight will be a little bit more...entertaining," she replied with a smile on her face. Her eyes then wandered over to Star Twinkle who was, in all honesty, pretty relieved that Grace decided to leave now. "You..." she started which made Star Twinkle jump a little in response. "I really hope that I get to see you again too," she added before she winked at Star Twinkle which made him actually send some shivers down on his back.

Shortly after, Grace flew away at high speed and left the two ponies who then dropped to the ground defeated but also relieved that everything was over now.

Twilight was the one who seemed the most confused about all of this. "I can't believe that we met the Witch of Equestria...let alone that we managed to get out of a battle with her in one piece..."

"Yeah...about that..." Star Twinkle said. "I thought that whole story about this witch was just a made-up story from Princess Celestia..."

"That's what I thought too..." Twilight replied with some worry in her eyes. "I think we should go to Canterlot and ask the princess herself..." she then suggested.

Star Twinkle thought that this would be the best thing to do now as well and got up on his hooves again. "So much for our visit to this museum, huh?" He said jokingly, despite the situation they were in before.

Twilight just laughed it off, however. "Well, I did meet one of my favorite unicorns in history so I guess this visit was somehow special..."

The two then decided to quickly go and take the train to Canterlot now. Princess Celestia should be immediately informed about this matter after all. They also wanted to know more about this Witch of Equestria from her in person. If there was somepony who knew something about Grace, then it would be Princess Celestia. Whatever they would hear from her though, the thought that someone this powerful was out there was just worrying them...

In the meantime...

Inside of the dark cave that Summershine visited, a very intense battle was taking place. Summershine and Arcana were throwing back magic beams at each other left and right but they didn't manage to get a hit on each other. Arcana seemed to be amused throughout the whole battle and clearly had some energy to spare and therefore didn't take the fight seriously at all since he believed to have the upper hoof so far.

"You seem to have gotten a little better, Summershine," Arcana complimented though it could also be words to simply mock the Unicorn in front of him. "But you won't be able to defeat me on your own," he added confidently.

Summershine knew that this encounter would not be an easy one but he also thought that he was now prepared and able to take Arcana on. But so far the battle was much more even then he originally expected. Fortunately, Summershine also had some ace in his sleeve left...

"I came here to defeat and ensure the safety of Equestria...and that is exactly what I am about to do!" Summershine said before there was a flash of magic around him for a second, causing Arcana to notice something different about him. What followed was an aura of fire, surrounding the hooded Pony. Arcana didn't know what was happening for a moment and before he could figure out something, there was already a ball of fire coming towards him. Arcana managed to teleport away in time, causing the ball of fire to explode on impact and setting the ground on fire and lighting up the cave a little.

Shortly after, Arcana appeared again and turned towards the flames. "Fire?" He wondered while Summershine appeared right behind him firing another ball of fire that he fired towards the Unicorn. But Arcana noticed Summershine and teleported away in time again. And again, Arcana appeared a few meters away from Summershine. Just by looking at Summershine's angry expression, Arcana noticed how he was slowly getting frustrated but he also figured that the fight would not be easy anymore. Arcana saw how Summershine already prepared another attack for him. What confused him was that this fire, that Summershine was using didn't seem to be magic because Summershine's horn wasn't glowing at all. Arcana then decided to attack with a magic beam but Summershine raised a wall of fire in front of him that protected him from the attack. "Now this could be a little more troublesome..." Arcana said with actually a little bit of concern in his voice.

Summershine seemed like as if he intended to end this battle. He was confident that Arcana would no longer be able to keep up with him now. "I bet you didn't see this coming, huh?" Summershine asked. Now he was the one who was teasing his opponent confidently. But his opponent didn't seem all to intimidated. In fact, he was breaking out laughing, much to Summershine's confusion. "What's so funny!?" Summershine asked angrily.

Arcana stopped laughing and looked directly at the Pony in front of him. "I'm just laughing at your poor attempts to stop me," he explained.

"You still think that I am no match for you!?" Summershine asked with his teeth clenched in anger.

Arcana smiled and just shook his head. "Summershine...You never stood a chance, to begin with..." he said before he looked over at the remaining pieces of the anti-magic device that Summershine tried to put on him earlier. "Even if you managed to get that thing on me," he started before he looked back to Summershine. "Even if you, for some reason manage to defeat me and drag me in front of Princess Celestia herself so that she can put me in some kind of prison...even then, you would not be able to stop me," he explained with a wide grin and an expression that was just pure confidence.

Summershine didn't take those words seriously and just concentrated on his fire magic. "I told you before, that I came here to stop you!" He returned with his eyes focused on Arcana.

Arcana returned a smile and raised his head in confidence. "And I told you, that things are not always the way they seem..."

Summershine wondered what that had to do with anything but he decided to not listen to Arcana anymore. However, the slight feeling that something was wrong made his cautiousness go up a little. And it was a good thing it did because shortly after, he noticed something or somepony sneaking up on him from behind. The figure behind him shot a magic beam at Summershine but luckily for him, he noticed it soon enough and teleported away in time.

When Summershine appeared again a few meters away, the pony behind him was now standing next to Arcana but he couldn't see who it was because the pony was still standing in the shadows. "Who is there!?" He immediately asked, prompting the pony to step out of the shadows so that he could see who it was.

But even after the pony stepped out of the shadows, Summershine could still not tell who this pony was. After taking a few steps forward, the pony revealed itself as a pony who was wearing a pitch-black armor. Naturally, Summershine had no idea who the pony under the armor was but so so far it didn't matter anymore. "Even if there are two of you, I am strong enough now to take you both on!" He exclaimed confidently while he created a ring of fire around him which seemed to resonate with the anger inside of him and grew bigger and bigger.

The pony in the black armor took a step back out of cautiousness but Arcana remained motionless and still had a smile on his face. "And yet again...you are wrong in thinking...that were are just two..."

After hearing those words, Summershine got confused for a second but he still focused his vision on the two ponies in front of him. That was until he heard a few more steps coming from behind him. Even if there were more enemies to deal with, Summershine was prepared for that and stood ready for a fight. He turned around and looked at what Summershine might have prepared for him and with how many enemies he had to deal with. He was determined to fight anyone who was standing in his way now.

...

But as soon as he saw who he was about to face, Summershine's eyes were filled with a mix of confusion, shock, and even sadness. The flames around him got smaller and smaller until they eventually were completely gone. His eyes were glued to the sight of the five ponies in front of him and he didn't know how to react or what to say.

Of course, Arcana was the only one who was amused by this reaction. "Well, Summershine...are you ready to take them on too?" He teased on behalf of Summershine's reaction.

Instead of getting angry or anything, Summershine just turned his head slowly towards Arcana with a shocked and confused expression on his face. "Those are not...what have you done Arcana!?" He asked confused, demanding a clear explanation from Arcana.

"Not what you've expected, I assume..." Arcana replied smugly. "And after all that talk of saving them...I thought you would be happy to see them again...And here you are looking as if you actually saw a ghost. I mean, that's what you originally came here for right?" It was obvious that Arcana was only messing with Summershine's mind with all those words but Summershine couldn't care less about that and just looked back at the ponies behind him.

After he took a good amount of time looking at the five ponies, he could only say one thing. "No. They are not real! I know! So what is the meaning of this, Arcana!?" He asked angrily.

Arcana quickly replied. "I think we talked enough...how about we continue this fight now?" He said before he gave a signal to the ponies behind Summershine to which they quickly reacted by slowly walking towards Summershine.

But instead of getting in a defensive position or anything, Summershine actually took a few steps back in fear. Arcana could only smile seeing this reaction from Summershine. This went on for a good while until the Pony in the black armor decided to step up and attack Summershine by charging right at him while his back was turned.

Summershine had his eyes focused on the ponies in front of him and didn't notice his attacker from behind. There was no way that he could dodge the next attack since his mind was really far away now. "I did all this to protect them and not to fight them!" He thought in confusion. "What is going on here!?" He wondered.

There was never a better chance to attack Summershine. The Pony in the black armor was now dangerously close to him and was about to ram him from behind and Summershine still didn't notice anything.

...

"No!" Summershine thought before he teleported away from the spot, much to the Armored Ponies confusion who thought that Summershine didn't notice anything of its attack.

Summershine then appeared in front of the entrance and ran away, leaving everypony inside of the cave without a fight. Of course, the Armored Pony wouldn't let up so fast and followed him but after taking a few steps, Arcana stopped him. "Wait! Don't follow him!" He exclaimed, causing the pony to stop and turn around again. There was probably a confused look beneath that helmet of the pony of why Arcana would let him go. But Arcana explained. "It's probably better for him to leave...I'm afraid that we wouldn't have stood a chance against him if he decided to fight against us..." he said with a visibly concerned look on his face.

The Pony in the black armor seemed to understand or at least took the words seriously because they came out of Arcana's mouth and loosened up again. Arcana suspected the pony beneath the armor to get excited to fight against Summershine but he put a hoof on its shoulder while grinning sinisterly. "Don't you worry, you will get your chance. But remember, our plan was to start with the other half first..." he said before he walked away a little. "You've met him, right? At the coronation? First, we take his half, then we can move over to Summershine...and after that..." he stopped before he looked up with a smile on his face. "...we finally have them...the Elements of Harmony..."

Whatever this group of ponies has planned for the future, it was obvious that it wasn't pretty for the future of Equestria. And with only Summershine knowing about their presence, there were only limited options to stop them.

But someone had to do it...

Later inside of Canterlot Castle...

Princess Celestia was already informed about the incident that took place in Appleloosa and judging from the concerned look on her face, she didn't really seem to know how to reply to Star Twinkle and Twilight who have just told her about all this.

"The Witch of Equestria...so she is back..." the princess said as she walked up and down in the room confused.

Princess Luna, who was also present in the throne room and listened to Star Twinkle's and Twilight's story already seemed to have an idea. "If you ask me, sister, we should waste no time and send the Royal Guards to look for her and..."

"No!" Princess Celestia then interrupted, much to her younger sister's surprise. "If it is really her then going after her would be the worst thing to do!" She explained.

"What do you mean?" Princess Luna explained. "If she really is supposed to be this dangerous, then we can't let her roam free in Equestria!" She objected.

Princess Celestia grabbed her forehead and showed a frustrated look on her face and was about to explain but Star Twinkle, who stood right next to the two princesses, along with Twilight, raised his hoof and interrupted. "Um...I know we don't have much saying into this but can you please explain some things about this Witch of Equestria so that we can help in any way?"

"And can you also tell us why you said that it was just a made-up story?" Twilight added.

Princess Luna also wanted to know more about this matter so Princess Celestia calmed down again and tried to explain everything she knew. "Where do I begin with..." she started while she closed her eyes to recall her memories of the witch. "The last time I heard the name "Witch of Equestria" was around one hundred years ago...Back then, she directly opposed me and sought me out so that she could fight me...but I don't remember her having the Alicorn Amulet at that time. After the battle was over, she vanished and I never saw her again so I thought that she was gone for good...until now..."

Something about this story bothered Star Twinkle so he straight out asked. "One hundred years ago!?" He asked in surprise. "But she barely looked older than me!" He pointed out.

"I wouldn't be surprised if she figured out a spell that would keep her younger or maybe extend her life," Princess Celestia replied before she moved her head towards Twilight. "As for, why I said that I made her up...well...It's because I didn't want anypony in Equestria to be living in fear of such a pony..."

"Then why did you tell anypony this story in the first place..." Star Twinkle said with an expression on his face as if he wanted to say that Princess Celestia didn't really think this out too much.

But Princess Celestia's answer quite surprised him. "I told this story so that I could remember her myself..."

Star Twinkle had no idea what that was supposed to mean and from Twilight's question, she didn't seem to understand too. "What do you mean by that?" She asked.

Princess Celestia explained. "I once heard a rumor about a certain spell...a memory erase spell..." she said.

"A memory erase spell?" Twilight replied confused.

"Yes," Princess Luna added. "I remember that there used to be a spell like that. It was said that it was used to remove the memory of someone and replace them with memories where this someone never existed...at least that's what I heard..." she explained.

"I never heard of a spell-like that before..." Twilight said.

"Of course not..." Princess Celestia replied. "This spell vanished over one thousand years ago..." she explained.

Star Twinkle tried to confirm what he understood by this spell. "So there is a spell that makes you basically forget that somepony ever existed?" He asked, causing the two Royal Princesses to nod in response. "Sounds scary..." he added with a concerned look on his face. "So you thought that Grace was casting a spell-like that on herself and that's why you kept telling that story? So that you wouldn't forget her?" He guessed.

"No, she couldn't," Princess Luna answered. "There was said to be one condition for this spell to work. The pony who was removed from the memory can no longer exist..." she explained.

Princess Celestia further explained. "This spell was invented so that the ponies of Equestria would no longer live in fear of certain dangers to return. For example, none of us could be removed from everyponies memories since we are all here and well but someone like King Sombra or Fade, who no longer are present, could be forgotten by everypony once someone decided to use that spell to remove them from everyponies memory,"

"But..." Twilight interrupted. "If those ponies would return...then nopony would remember them again as soon as they showed up?" She asked. "That doesn't sound like a very handy spell..." she figured.

Princess Celestia agreed. "The inventor of this spell must have thought that as well and decided to remove everything that was associated with it...but maybe there was once a danger that was so big that it was necessary for everypony to forget about it...and that's why this spell came to life," Princess Celestia could only guess before she remembered the actual problem that they were facing right now. "I guess if there was a pony who I thought was capable of knowing that spell, then it was the Witch of Equestria..." she said as she raised her head.

"So what do we do about her then?" Princess Luna asked again.

Princess Celestia gave a quick answer this time. "As much as I hate saying it but...we do not want to engage the witch in battle..." she said causing her sister to give her some disagreeing looks. "The witch was always unpredictable but she didn't resort in violence against the ponies of Equestria as far as I know." To an extent, Star Twinkle had to agree to that. Grace seemed passive and harmless before she attacked Star Twinkle. "But we should have an eye on her regardless. Still, do not attack her!"

"Understood..." Princess Luna replied before she left so that she could give some orders to the Royal Guards.

Princess Celestia walked up to Star Twinkle and Twilight and assured them both that she would take care of everything from now on. Twilight did seem as if she wanted to help as well but Princess Celestia claimed that she would have everything under control so the two ponies decided to leave.

That things would go so serious was definitely not to Star Twinkle's liking, especially since he often thought back about how Grace acted towards him at first and how she switched from that to a battle-hungry and scary mare.

"Don't worry Star Twinkle!" Twilight said as she noticed the concern in Star Twinkle. "We will find her and stop her before she does anything terrible!" She added determinedly.

"Oh! Yes!" Star Twinkle replied even though that was the least of his concern now.

Twilight then led the way. "Let's go home now, it was quite a day after all..." she then suggested.

"Yeah..." Star Twinkle replied before he followed Twilight so that they could both return to Ponyville.

There was nothing that they could do to help anyway so they might as well return home and focus on their lives again. Still...Star Twinkle couldn't help but think about Grace and how she was probably targeted by the Royal Guards now...

But there was probably no reason to worry about that too now...

Author's Notes:

Well, I just threw a bunch of stuff at you all ^^.

And with stuff, I mean Oc's. Keep the theories coming!

Who is Summershine?
Who is Arcana?
Who is the pony in the black armor?
Who are the five ponies that Summershine saw?
Who is Grace?
And what are all their roles in this story?

Hearing your thoughts about that would really interest me, just like your opinion on this chapter or the whole story.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

80. The Music in you

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Tomorrow night, Ponyville was holding a fundraiser for the local Pet Center. The goal of this was to collect some money and to find a home for some pets so it was highly important to make this event a success. Star Twinkle and his friends were all helping with the preparations for that, except for Fluttershy who they were about to pick up right now. Knowing the animal-loving mare, she was probably aware of this event long before anypony else and was willing to help out too.

As Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Pinkie Pie got closer to Fluttershy's cottage they all began to hear something.

"Hey! Do you hear that?" Twilight said, causing everypony who was not aware of it to peel his or her ears now too.

When Star Twinkle focused on it as well, he quickly figured out what it was. "Somepony is singing?" He said after he could clearly hear the sound of a singing mare in the distance.

The singing came from the other side of Fluttershy's cottage and the group was curious enough to check up on it. What they all saw was unsurprising, Fluttershy who was accompanied by some of her animal friends. They were practically praising and adoring Fluttershy because as it turns out, she was the one who was singing.

No one would probably say that it was obvious that the singing, that came from Fluttershy's cottage came from Fluttershy but they soon realized that no one of them ever heard her singing on her own so they were all listening and watching Fluttershy while she sang a beautiful song and took care of her animals at the same time. They all agreed that Fluttershy had a truly beautiful singing voice so they didn't interrupt her and kept listening.

After Fluttershy was done with her singing and taking care of her animals, she thanked her animal friends for cheering for so loudly. "Thank you so much. You're too kind," she said happily while blushing and smiling at their cheers.

But soon she would get even more praise and compliments because her friends were now approaching her, all of them having their mouths open in awe. However, as soon as Fluttershy spotted her friends, standing not too far away from her, her expression completely changed. She still seemed to blush but not in a grateful way but rather in an embarrassed one.

"Oh... You... um... you didn't hear me... um...singing?" She then asked nervously and embarrassed while she practically hid her face from everypony.

"Uh, yeah, we did!" Rainbow Dash replied.

"We totally heard you singing in the most beautiful voice ever!" Pinkie Pie added. She seemed to enjoy her song the most out of the group and wasn't hiding it at all.

"I've never heard you sing a solo like that before!" Twilight complimented.

"It was like a little slice of heaven," Applejack added.

The compliments just kept coming but the more praise Fluttershy received, the more she seemed to get nervous and embarrassed. Star Twinkle noticed that behavior but he couldn't quite figure out why she was acting that way. She didn't seem to have any problem singing in front of her animal friends before so it made no sense for him why she was now acting nervously.

But despite her being nervous or not, Rarity brought up something else that began to cross her mind. "Fluttershy, I cannot believe your spectacular voice isn't part of the Pony Tones quartet!" She said before she pulled out a promotional poster with those Pony Tones on it.

She was referring to a vocal quintet that she was part of. The Pony Tones were a singing ensemble in Ponyville, Rarity happened to be part of them, as well as Big McIntosh. They are probably the most famous music group in Ponyville and were known after performing in a lot of social events and charities that took place in this town. They were also performing tomorrow at the fundraiser.

Fluttershy tried to give an answer to Rarity's question but she already seemed to have planned something. "This simply must be rectified. You must share that stunning voice at the event!" She demanded in her excitement.

"Yeah! It'll be so amazing!" Pinkie Pie said. "You'll be there on stage, basking in the hooflights! The center of attention! A shining star! Everypony staring at you, judging you, jealously noting how they could be way better than you!" She started to explain without noticing how Fluttershy seemed to get more and more uncomfortable. "Why wasn't it them? Why wasn't it them? And then, when you choke, they'll turn on you, becoming a seething, angry mob, and you'll be horribly humiliated, never able to show your face in Ponyville again!" She further explained, causing Fluttershy to actually tear up by just the thought of it.

But as soon as Rarity realized that Pinkie Pie made Fluttershy feel really bad, she used her poster and smacked the mare lightly on the head. "Pinkie Pie! Don't be ridiculous!" She scolded.

"Aw, but I'm so good at it!" Pinkie Pie replied.

Rarity then went on with her plans and further tried to make Fluttershy follow her. "Come, Fluttershy, you will join the group, making the Pony Tones quartet the Pony Tones quintet!" She said, expecting Fluttershy to be right behind her.

Star Twinkle further noticed the discomfort that Fluttershy showed and decided to step in now. Knowing Fluttershy, she would probably not speak up and let herself get dragged around like this. That's what usually would happen with Star Twinkle in similar situations. But to his surprise, Fluttershy was actually speaking up for herself.

"No," she simply said.

"Pardon me?" Rarity replied confused, turning around to the mare behind her.

Fluttershy explained. "I love the Pony Tones, I'm one of their biggest fans, but I do not want to perform with them," she said.

Twilight Sparkle was wondering why that was the case. "Why not, Fluttershy?" She asked.

"Well, you see... I... I have... um... I... I have..." she started but she seemed to be embarrassed to say what the reason was. That was until Rainbow Dash prompted her to spit it out. "I have... stage fright," she then said.

Pinkie Pie gasped in reply before she was jumping into a bush behind her to hide. "Is it contagious?!" She asked confused. Of course, the pony who loved to be loud and entertaining had no idea what stage fright could be.

"It means that she is simply scared to perform in front of everypony..." Star Twinkle explained. He was probably the only one besides Fluttershy who could actually relate to that kind of fear with his dislike of crowds.

"I'm very thankful the Pony Tones are singing at the Pet Center fundraiser, and I'm really looking forward to the performance, but I'll be watching safely from the audience," Fluttershy explained.

After hearing that, Rarity realized that she couldn't force her friend to join the Pony Tones and gave up on trying to convince her. Still, she had to let out at least one sigh. "Well... I think it's a terrible waste of exquisite talent, but I understand that you're not comfortable," she said.

"Thank you," Fluttershy replied relieved. Shortly after, her pet bunny Angel jumped up and down, trying to tell Fluttershy something. "Oh! Angel's right. We'd better get going. There's a lot of work to do before tomorrow's event," Fluttershy said, basically translating what Angel was trying to tell her.

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash replied. "That's why we came here for in the first place," she added.

"Then let's go!" Twilight said before she led the group of ponies to where the event tomorrow would take place.

A little later...

Everypony was given a task to take care of so that everything would be done by tomorrow. Star Twinkle and his boss, Steel Hammer were helping out as well but the later seemed to be too excited to lift a hoof and waited for the Pony Tones to begin their little practice again.

"I think they are about to start!" Steel Hammer said excitedly with a huge smile on his face.

Star Twinkle could only look at the stallion in confusion. "Why are you looking forward to their practice this much?" He asked.

"Shh! They are starting!" Steel Hammer replied as he looked over to the stage where the Pony Tones were at. Rarity and Big McIntosh, as well as another mare and a stallion then started to sing.

Star Twinkle knew that Rarity was good at singing and obviously the rest was too but he still was positively surprised to see Big McIntosh singing like this. He actually did most of the singing while the others mostly provided some melody with their own singing. It was a really good song and some ponies were actually watching and listening to the Pony Tones, cheering them loudly on after they were done with their practice.

One of the ponies who cheered for them was Steel Hammer. "Woohoo! Go Pony Tones!" He said while he clapped his hooves.

"He really seems to like singing..." Star Twinkle thought before he continued to get back to his work. From the looks of it, there was not much left and the two could go home a little early.

On the next day...

Early in the morning, Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were already at the place where the fundraiser would take place tonight. The worst thing that could happen was that something was missing at the last second so they made sure to check up on everything before the event started.

Rarity was arriving at the scene as well. "You two are very early," she said at the sight of the two stallions. The rest of the Pony Tones were already with her as well with the exception of Big McIntosh. "You haven't seen Big McIntosh by any chance, have you?" She then asked.

But the two stallions just raised their shoulders in confusion. Rarity said that it was very unlikely for Big McIntosh to be late so she got a little worried. Luckily, Applejack arrived at the scene shortly after. If there was anypony who knew where her brother was at the moment, then it would be her.

"There you all are!" She said with a concerned look on her face.

"Applejack?" Rarity asked. "Could you please tell us where your brother is? He is awfully late for practice,"

"Yeah, about that..." Applejack replied before she took off her hat so that she could explain. "I'm afraid, Big Mac won't be able to show up today..."

"What!?" Rarity replied in shock. "But what about tonight? The Fundraiser? What happened?" She asked.

Applejack then further explained. "Well, you see...he lost his voice yesterday and granny decided to make him a special soup that was supposed to cure his voice again. But then Apple Bloom heard about it and she made some soup on her own. I told granny that letting Big Mac eat that one was a bad idea but she actually agreed and now...he can't even stand up for longer than a minute...without running to the bathroom..." she said before she walked away again, most likely to take care of her brother for a while.

"That must have been one heck of a soup..." Star Twinkle said almost in awe after hearing this story.

Needless to say, Rarity was not too happy about that news. "Of all the things that could happen..." she said while she shook her head. "Whatever happened that he lost his voice in the first place?" She then asked.

"Yeah," Steel Hammer added. "I mean, yesterday, at the Turkey call competition, he seemed perfectly fine..." he casually said.

Of course, Rarity overheard that loud and clear but she still couldn't believe it. "A turkey call!?" She exclaimed in frustration. "He lost his voice doing a turkey call!?" She asked once more, causing Steel Hammer to nod in response to confirm the whole thing. "Now what do we do!?" She asked, awaiting somepony to come up with a fast solution for their problem.

Suddenly, Steel Hammer lifted his chest and smiled widely, something that Star Twinkle noticed but he didn't know why until Steel Hammer spoke up to everypony to share an idea. "Well, from the looks of it, you seem to be one member short in your singing group and luckily for you, I happen to be a really good singer myself!" He proudly said while putting on the biggest smile ever.

"Since when?" Star Twinkle boldly threw into the group. "You never ever mentioned something about that," he said almost in disbelieve.

But Rarity did believe Steel Hammer and quickly approached him. "Let me hear!" She quickly demanded so that she could have an idea of how good Steel Hammer was.

Steel Hammer then cleared his throat and prepared himself to start. He paused a little for a more dramatic effect before he then eventually started to repeat the song that the Pony Tones sang a day ago.

It was certainly a little different though...

"WHEN YOU FIND YOU'VE GOT THE MUSIC! GOT THE MUSIC IN YOU! FIND YOU GOT THE MUSIC! GOT THE MUSIC IN YOU!" He screamed on top of his lungs, forcing everypony to cover their ears.

Star Twinkle quickly put a hoof in the stallion's mouth to make him stop. "I think we get somepony else!" He said.

The next idea that came out of Rarity's mouth, however, actually made Star Twinkle consider having Steel Hammer do the replacement again. "What about you, Star Twinkle?" She asked. She clearly was out of options.

"No!" Star Twinkle replied. "I don't wanna sing in front of a crowd!" He replied almost in a panic. "Besides, can't you just sing as three members?" He suggested. But Rarity explained that it would mean to rearrange the whole song, something that they simply didn't have time for.

Of course, Star Twinkle wouldn't call himself an expert singer but he at least had some skills, especially after he started to spend time with his friends. But replacing Big McIntosh, who was a surprisingly good singer, and standing in front of everypony in a rather important event.

"Whatever shall we do now!?" Rarity then said dramatically before she covered her eyes in frustration.

"Um..." Fluttershy then said who seemed to overheard the whole situation. "I don't know what to do either but if there is anything that I can do to help at the fundraiser then I am willing to help!" She said determinedly.

"That's nice of you to say Fluttershy, dear," Rarity said after Fluttershy offered her help. "But I'm afraid there is nothing that you can do for us..." she added after she was reminded to the current situation.

"Yeah, unless you know a way to make Steel Hammer's voice sound better that is..." Star Twinkle said, much to Steel Hammer's dislike who felt offended by this statement and sulked in response.

But those words that were not to be meant seriously, actually made another idea pop up in Rarity's mind. And this time, it seemed as if it was a good one, judging from her happy expression. "That's it! Fluttershy!" She said while she looked over to the mare who didn't know what this was all about yet. "Remember back then!? When we all stepped into Poison Joke and got cursed?"

"Well, it was not really a curse..." Star Twinkle corrected.

"No!" Rarity exclaimed while she walked up to the stallion. "Don't you remember how Fluttershy sounded like while being under the effect of the Poison Joke?" She asked.

Star Twinkle gave a quick answer. "No..." he said, causing Rarity and Fluttershy to react a little surprised until he further explained and reminded them to something. "I was deaf at that moment! In fact, until you all mentioned it after everything was done again, I thought Fluttershy was the only one who wasn't affected by those plants..."

Fluttershy seemed to be a little embarrassed just thinking about this, Star Twinkle could clearly see that by looking at her face. Rarity explained why that was the case. "When Fluttershy stepped into the Poison Joke, her voice became really low and made her sound like..." she then stopped in mid-sentence because she could see the discomfort in Fluttershy's face.

But despite that discomfort, Fluttershy ended the sentence. "Flutterguy..." she said embarrassed.

Steel Hammer couldn't help but smile after hearing that. "That's a funny name," he said while he chuckled a little until everypony made sure that he would stop after they threw some glares at the stallion. "Sorry..." he then added.

However, Star Twinkle was still not sure why Rarity brought this up. If her plan was to make Fluttershy sing instead of Big McIntosh, then that would be out of option as well because Fluttershy already stated that she didn't want to sing in front of everypony since she has stage fright.

But Rarity was not quite done with explaining her idea. "I know you are afraid to sing in front of everypony so listen to what I have in mind..." she said before she openly shared her idea to everypony.

Nopony wanted to cancel the fundraiser and Fluttershy wanted to do everything to help her animal friends so she decided to go along with Rarity's plan. Now the last thing to do was hoping that it would actually work.

And for that, they had to wait a few hours...

Later that night...

The fundraiser has already started and seemed to be a great success. Many ponies already adopted some animals and gave them a new home. One could think that there was no reason for the Pony Tones to sing. However, in order to make the fundraiser an even bigger success, Fluttershy and the Pony Tones still wanted to go on with Rarity's plan.

Star Twinkle already waited in front of the stage for a while now. Soon, the whole spot in front of the stage was filled with ponies, all of them expecting a really good and smooth performance from the Pony Tones.

Still, Star Twinkle had some worries about Rarity's plan. "I hope this goes well..." Star Twinkle said while he waited for the show to start.

"What do you mean?" Twilight said as she approached Star Twinkle from behind with the rest of her friends. "It already looks like as if the fundraiser is going well," Twilight said, interpreting the stallion's words a little different.

"Um, yeah!" Star Twinkle replied nervously. "But it could always go a little better!" He added, trying to not let his friends know what was really going on.

Everypony reacted a little confused, especially Applejack who was walking up to Star Twinkle. "So I assume you found a replacement for my brother? After all, it looks like the stage is about to start. Who is it?" She asked.

Star Twinkle was about to answer but Rarity stepped up from behind the curtain and was about to start the show any second now. "Good evening, citizens of Ponyville! I want to thank you all for coming out tonight and generously supporting the Ponyville Pet Center! Thanks to your kindness, pets are finding loving homes, and we're sure to meet our fundraising goal!"

Since the show was about to start soon, Twilight began to wonder where Fluttershy was. She claimed to be a big fan of the Pony Tones so her not being present seemed weird.

Applejack came to a quick conclusion. "Probably hidin'. You know how much that pony hates the spotlight," she figured.

"Yeah, most likely," Star Twinkle added nervously while being fully aware of where the mare was at this very moment.

In the meantime, Rarity continued and explained that the Pony Tones were missing one member and had to replace it with somepony else. Many ponies were a little disappointed but they were also curious about who it was. "So, with no further ado, please welcome the Pony Tones and Steel Hammer!"

What followed was the rest of the Pony Tones stepping up in front of everypony. One of them being Steel Hammer who was also wearing the same get-up as the rest of them. The stallion stood there and grinned widely after hearing the cheer of everypony.

Of course, Star Twinkle's friends quickly looked at him as if they demanded an explanation. They all wondered why Star Twinkle never mentioned that his boss was a good singer. One of the reasons was of course because he wasn't a good singer. "I think it's about to start now!" He quickly said so that they all focused their eyes on the stage again.

The moment of truth was now here. Rarity blew into a pitch pipe and Steel Hammer took a deep breath to start singing.

"Bum, bum, bum-ba-da, ba-da
Bum, bum, bum-ba-da ah"

In true Acapella fashion, the other singers quickly joined in an provided the background melody.

"Oh, ah-ah-ah-ah
Oh, ah-ah-ah-ah"

Everything seemed to go well but Star Twinkle would only be happy once it was all over without anypony noticing something weird.

"Trot outside and you see the sunshine
Something's in the air today
Sky is clear and you're feelin' so fine
Everything's gonna be a-okay"

But to Star Twinkle's surprise, everything went smoothly and nopony suspected a thing. The song ended and the Pony Tones bowed down before the cheering crowd.

"Make sure to visit the Iron Hammer!" Steel Hammer had the nerve to say while he received all those cheers to get some advertisement out of the way. It was most likely not even heard by anypony because the cheers were too loud.

Shortly after, the four ponies walked off the stage and Star Twinkle's friends were approaching them. Star Twinkle, however, sneaked towards the other side of the stage and made sure that nopony was around. He then moved his head towards the curtain and whispered some words. "Alright...it's safe..." he said while he kept looking around himself.

After that, Fluttershy stepped out and made sure that nopony was with Star Twinkle. "You think I did well?" She asked in a really deep voice, that caught Star Twinkle a little by surprise, even though he already heard Fluttershy speaking like that earlier this day.

The plan was a huge success. The group went to the Everfree Forest and looked for some Poison Joke so that Fluttershy could be affected by that "curse" again. Her voice became really deep and was perfect to replace Big MacIntosh's part of the song. But Fluttershy was too afraid to stay on stage to sing in front of everypony and Steel Hammer was perfectly fine with that. So the plan was to make Steel Hammer move his lips while Fluttershy was singing from behind the stage and it seemed to have worked perfectly.

The two ponies tried to sneak away from the scene without anypony noticing it. Star Twinkle once again looked all around him to make sure that nopony was there. "All save," he said once the coast was clear.

Fluttershy then walked out of behind the stage but as soon as she was outside for only a second, a pink party pony jumped right in front of her from practically out of nowhere. "Fluttershy, you were on the wrong side of the curtain! You totally missed the show!" She said excitedly, not questioning one second why she was behind the curtain in the first place.

The others were walking up to her and Star Twinkle as well. Of course, Fluttershy couldn't answer because of her deep voice, that would instantly cause some suspicion in the group. Star Twinkle had no time to come up with an excuse but luckily Rarity came to the rescue and saved the day. "Just like a true professional, Fluttershy was backstage making sure everything ran smoothly!" She explained which seemed to be a good enough reason for everypony to believe it. Then, without anypony else noticing it, Rarity whispered some grateful words to Fluttershy who seemed to be happy to hear them. "And it was perfect," she said with a smile on her face.

"Well!" Steel Hammer then said, probably to get the attention away from Fluttershy. "From the looks of it, the fundraiser was a huge success, wouldn't you say?" It seemed to work. Everypony was then reminded about how they didn't expect Steel Hammer to sing like this, a compliment that he took of course.

But there was no time for him to react to that praise since there was somepony walking towards them to congratulate them. "That was fantastic, Pony Tones!" Said a white-coated Pegasus stallion with a black mane, a black beard and green eyes. He was also wearing a black shirt and black glasses.

He was accompanied by a little Pegasus filly with a light yellow coat and an amber-colored mane who was also wearing black glasses and a tiara. "My new puppy and I thought it was super-duper crazy good!" The little filly said while not staying still for even a second and flying around the place in pure excitement, much to the discomfort of the little puppy that she was holding in her hooves and whose head was spinning right now.

"Why, thank you!" Rarity replied happily.

Steel Hammer couldn't help but take the compliment as well. "We were pretty awesome," he said with a confident smile on his face as if he was the one who did the most work.

However, the two ponies did not just come to compliment the Pony Tones and actually had a little favor to ask for them. "We were wondering if you would consider performing at my daughter Zipporwhill's cute-ceañera," the Pegasus stallion asked.

"Will you? Will you?" Zipporwhill asked excited to hear an answer.

Rarity didn't see a reason why she would decline so the answer was obvious. "We'd love to! When is it? Next week? Next month?" She asked.

"Tomorrow!" The two ponies then replied, much to the shock of Rarity and Fluttershy.

Of course, that was not possible. "Oh, gracious, I'm terribly sorry, but that's much too last minute," Rarity explained. Big MacIntosh was not healed and from the looks of it, he probably wouldn't get better by tomorrow so there was no way that they could do that.

The two ponies seemed disappointed, especially the little filly who was so looking forward to the Pony Tones to appear on her cute-ceañera and both walked away with frowns on their faces.

After seeing that, Fluttershy couldn't help but get Rarity and Steel Hammer closer to her so that she could discuss something with them in private. "Oh, Rarity, we can't disappoint that sweet little filly," she then said in her really deep male-sounding voice.

Steel Hammer had some mixed feeling about that idea."Wait...you want us to do this game again? Me standing in front of a crowd and you singing from behind?" To that Fluttershy only nodded with a smile on her face. "So in other words...I get to receive all the cheers while you stay in the back and do all the singing?" He asked, causing Fluttershy to reply with a nod once more. "I'm in!" Steel Hammer then said with a happy expression on his face.

But Star Twinkle, who overheard all this had to be the little voice of reason. "But do you think you can pull something like that off again? I mean, we got pretty lucky just now. What if something goes wrong tomorrow?"

"I have to agree with Star Twinkle," Rarity said after giving the idea a thought. "Are you two really sure you're up for it?"

Steel Hammer and Fluttershy then looked at each other as if they wanted to confirm to agree on this idea. Shortly after, they both smiled and nodded and then looked back at Star Twinkle and Rarity. From the looks of it, they both were confident to pull this all off again. If they repeat what they did today then everything should be fine again, at least that's what Star Twinkle thought. There was no way that he could talk the two ponies out of this idea anyway so he had to just believe in them.

After all...it was just another day...

Several days later...

For quite some time, Star Twinkle found himself doing most of the work in the Iron Hammer. The reason for that was simple. Steel Hammer didn't show up most of the time, and when he did, he only stayed for a few hours before eventually leaving again because he had to show up somewhere with the Pony Tones. As it turns out, he and Fluttershy didn't want to disappoint anypony who asked for Pony Tones to sing for them. This caused him to get involved with one performance after another. And because of Steel Hammer's constant absence, Star Twinkle was left with the majority of the work in the Iron Hammer.

Today, Star Twinkle had to deliver some wooden planks to Sweet Apple Acres. There were some repairs that needed to be done and the apple family needed some resources for that. Star Twinkle arrived at the barn where he had to deliver the planks to and dropped them all on the ground so that he could leave again. When he was about to leave, however, right in front of him appeared Big McIntosh. This was surprising because from what he heard, he was still supposed to stay in bed because of this weird illness that he got from Apple Bloom's self-made soup.

"Big Mac? You're out of the bed again?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Eeyup," the stallion replied.

"Does that mean you are all better again?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Eeyup," the stallion replied while nodding in response.

"So you can sing for the Pony Tones again?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Eeyup," the stallion replied.

"Great!" Star Twinkle replied with a rush of excitement flowing through him. "Would you kindly follow me then?" He said, asking the stallion to follow him.

With Big McIntosh all well again, Steel Hammer could finally stop "singing" for the Pony Tones and return to the Iron Hammer so that Star Twinkle didn't have to do all the work. That reason alone gave Star Twinkle the motivation to make Big McIntosh return so he wasted no time to get to the school of Ponyville because that is where the Pony Tones should be now.

When the two stallions arrived at the school, the singing seemed to be already over and Fluttershy, Rarity and Steel Hammer already attempted to leave again.

"Star Twinkle?" Rarity said as soon as she saw the stallion walking up to her and Fluttershy. "Did you come to see the Pony Tones? I'm afraid the show is already over,"

"And we were good as usual!" Steel Hammer added while he raised his hoof to give Fluttershy a hoof bump, something that she shyly returned with a smile on her face.

"Good to hear!" Star Twinkle replied happily. "I also have good news!" He said before he practically dragged Big McIntosh in front of the three. "Big McIntosh is all better now and can sing for the Pony Tones again! So you two won't have to anymore!"

Of course, Star Twinkle was excited to share that news but Steel Hammer and Fluttershy didn't seem to happy about it. "You mean, that was our last performance?" Steel Hammer said a little depressed.

"You heard that Fluttershy?" Rarity asked. "Now you can bathe in the poison joke antidote and sound like your lovely self again,"

But Fluttershy didn't seem too happy about all this and frowned. "It's just... I didn't know that last performance was my last performance..." she said in her really deep voice before she walked away with a frown on her face who was followed by Steel Hammer who just silently followed her.

"And now...I feel bad..." Star Twinkle thought after seeing the two walking away like that.

Rarity also noticed how sad the two were about that and couldn't help but to offer them one more performance. But of course, that was not only up to her so she walked over to Big McIntosh. "Would it be okay if Fluttershy and Steel Hammer would perform instead of you one last time?" She asked.

The two ponies overheard that question and looked over to Big McIntosh with the best puppy eyes that they could make at the moment. Big McIntosh gave that suggestion a thought and quickly gave an answer while smiling. "Eeyup,"

The ponies were really happy to hear this and Fluttershy quickly rushed to the stallion to hug him. Steel Hammer also expressed his gratitude. "Thanks, big boy! Remind me to give you a discount whenever you need something from the Iron Hammer!"

Later that day...

Fortunately, the next performance they had to give was at Sugarcube Corner at the same day so Star Twinkle didn't have to put up another day doing all the work in the Iron Hammer. He actually was watching the performance with the rest of his friends, who all still didn't know about Fluttershy doing all the singing.

He was still worried that somepony would find out but judging from how they managed to keep this a secret from everypony for so long now, they probably are used to doing this and were better than ever on keeping it a secret.

When Star Twinkle watched the performance however for a little while, he could feel something was a little off. As usual, Steel Hammer was just moving his lips and pretended to sing while Fluttershy was behind the curtain and did all the singing. This is where things looked a little off. Steel Hammer's lips didn't quite match the singing. Nopony seemed to notice it other than him which was understandable because no one knew that Steel Hammer wasn't really singing so they had no reason to inspect his lips like that but for Star Twinkle it was quite obvious.

"Hey, find it, oh why, you can find it
In your heart, yeah, find the music, yeah
It's in you right now! Oh, yeah!
You can find the music!"

Fluttershy sang from behind the curtain which not only sounded like a completely different song but it also sounded as if Fluttershy was getting a little to carried away. She probably didn't even notice it herself.

"I need to go to the bathroom..." Star Twinkle said as an excuse to his friends before he walked away so that he could meet Fluttershy behind the curtain to give her some kind of signal to take it a little bit easier since Steel Hammer could barely keep up with her singing.

When he arrived behind the curtain, it was pretty surprising what he saw. There was Fluttershy flying moving and dancing as if she was having the time of her life, playing with the curtain and dragging and pulling it in the process.

"Fluttershy," Star Twinkle whispered since he could obviously not talk over her to interrupt her singing. But no matter what he tried to do to get her attention she just continued to sing and dance wildly without care.

Eventually, her body hit the curtain one more time and caused it to fall over right on top of the Pony Tones, leaving Fluttershy in plain sight who still continued to sing with all eyes focused on her. It didn't take long however until she noticed the audience. Everypony was watching her silently and with heavily surprised looks on their faces. Of course, Fluttershy was shocked and widened her eyes before she curled up into a ball in midair and dropped to the ground out of embarrassment.

She expected laughter and hooves pointing at her and to be honest, Star Twinkle expected that as well after she was singing in that kind of voice. But, to both of their surprises, nopony was laughing and instead cheered for the mare. However, it was like as if Fluttershy didn't even hear those cheers and replaced them with laughter inside of her head. She was panicking and had tears in her eyes. She could clearly not deal with this kind of situation. What followed was her running away and crying to get out of this situation.

Star Twinkle quickly met up with his friends who were a little confused about what they just saw and of course, asked for an explanation. Star Twinkle had no choice but to get the truth out now...

Later that night...

"I see..." Twilight responded after she now had a clear sight about what happened.

The group was on their way to Fluttershy's cottage to comfort her a little after this experience. The group understood that Fluttershy was afraid to stand on the stage and why she would feel uncomfortable with it but they also didn't know why she reacted like that despite receiving so many cheers from everypony. Any other pony would feel good about this but then again, they were talking about the shyest pony in Ponyville...

Steel Hammer, who was also on his way to the mare decided to stay positive. "I bet if we talk to her then she will probably realize that it wasn't too bad..." he said with an optimism in his voice that quickly jumped over to the others as well.

When the group entered her cottage, they could see how Fluttershy just came out of the bath. She must have bathed in this antidote bath that cures the effect of the Poison Joke, something that she probably was happy about.

Fluttershy still seemed uncomfortable after seeing her friends. After what has happened the group had to be really considered. All they had to do was talk to her and make her realize that it wasn't as bad as she thought. Careful words had to be chosen for that.

But then Pinkie Pie spoke up...

"That was totally unbelievable!" She said as she walked up to the mare, ignoring her private space. "I mean, the curtain came up and there you were, singing in front of everypony! And you know, I don't think anypony was jealous, 'cause there certainly wasn't an angry mob! But it must have been horrible standing there on stage, all eyes glued directly on you! It's like you were living your own personal worst nightmare!" She said without even stopping to catch a breath, making everypony in the room feel sad for Fluttershy who was practically remembered to the trauma that she was living just earlier and broke out in tears again. And just like earlier, the mare ran away crying, causing everypony to look at Pinkie Pie in disappointment and blaming her for that. However, Pinkie Pie didn't seem to realize what she just did and just shrugged her shoulders confused.

The group went outside and actually managed to lose Fluttershy already. You would think that a pony who was running around the town, crying her heart out was easy to find but the group still lost track of her. The only thing that they could do was splitting up in order to find her again and praying that Pinkie Pie wouldn't be the first one to find her.

Steel Hammer was looking for her as well but had no idea where to look for her. That was until he could hear some sobbing in a corner in an alley. When he investigated, there was Fluttershy sitting in the corner, crying. Of course, the stallion couldn't just ignore that and quietly sat next to her while also making sure that she wouldn't feel bothered by it and run away again.

"It was that bad for you, was it?" He asked with a concerned look on his face.

Fluttershy quickly replied. "It was horrible!" She said with tears running down her cheeks. "Everypony was looking at me! I'll never be going to sing in front of everypony again!"

Steel Hammer didn't like to hear that. "Now, don't say ridiculous things like that. You enjoy singing, do you? That's why you keep wanted to sing for the Pony Tones, right?"

Fluttershy seemed to be surprised by hearing that and wiped some of her tears away. "You mean, you knew I really wanted to perform?" She asked.

"Sure! You had the same expression as me when I was actively singing!" Steel Hammer replied with a grin on his face. Of course, Fluttershy remembered Steel Hammer's "singing" and didn't know if it was as relatable as Steel Hammer intended it to be. Steel Hammer noticed the confusion on Fluttershy and grinned even wider. "Hey...listen to this..." he then said before he took a deep breath.

Fluttershy realized that he was about to start singing so she prepared herself to cover her ears. But then she heard him singing...as in real singing...

"Everypony's sayin' you should learn to express your voice
But if talk doesn't seem like it's the answer
Luckily you have a choice

When you find you've got the music
Got the music in you
Find you've got the music
Got the music in you"

After hearing that Fluttershy sat there with a wide-open mouth in her surprise. It was completely different from the last time the stallion was singing. It was fluid and actually pretty good sounding. Fluttershy would even go as far and say that it was better than her and Big McIntosh's singing. She just couldn't help but compliment the stallion on his singing. "That was really good!" She said impressed to which Steel Hammer reacted with a smile in response. But then something suddenly struck Fluttershy and she got confused. "But wait! If you were a good singer all this time then why did you not replace Big McIntosh? And why did you pretend like you couldn't sing?" She asked in her confusion.

"Well...I played with the thought of taking Big Mac's role but I hoped that you in some way would get involved with this. I didn't imagine it to end up with me standing in front of the curtain and you behind it though..." Steel Hammer explained as he rubbed his neck. "And I was right. You did get involved and had fun doing it, right? So why stop doing it? I know it is hard for you to perform in front of a crowd but please, Fluttershy, do not stop singing, especially since you are really good at it..." Fluttershy seemed to give this suggestion a thought but she still had some doubts and didn't know if she was able to do it. Lastly, Steel Hammer asked her one more thing to convince her to try singing again. "Now tell me...what was so bad about singing in front of everypony? The happy faces in the audience? The cheers? The amount of applause that you received? Was that all so bad?"

This is where Fluttershy realized that it wasn't as bad as she expected. In fact, her fear might have played a trick on her and made her see things that weren't really there. Ponies were cheering and applauding her. And that is something that she certainly liked.

"Thank you, Steel Hammer," Fluttershy then said with a smile on her face before she hugged the stallion out of gratitude.

"You're welcome," Steel Hammer replied with a grin on his face.

The two decided to look for the others after that conversation. Fluttershy was no longer crying and told everypony that she was okay again. For some reason, Steel Hammer asked of her to keep this whole "being good at singing" a secret from everypony. He said that he was not important right now and that they all should focus on helping Fluttershy in one thing. Something that they did right on the next day.

The next day, near Fluttershy's cottage...

The Pony Tones decided to give one more performance, this time it was only for Star Twinkle, the rest of his friends and Fluttershy's animal friends. As usual, the singing was really good not only because Big McIntosh was back at full health but also because of one little addition. One shy mare was with the Pony Tones on stage and actually took the lead part of the song without any fear or hesitation.

"There's music in the treetops
And there's music in the vale
And all around the music fills the sky
There's music by the river
And there's music in the grass
And the music makes your heart soar in reply"

Seeing Fluttershy sing alongside the Pony Tones was quite refreshing. Everypony cheered and enjoyed the show, throwing applause at the mare who now finally decided to come out of her shell a little.

Steel Hammer was also present and cheered loudly for the mare. Star Twinkle thought it was a little weird seeing this stallion getting excited by music this much. However, Star Twinkle had the feeling that yesterday, he was the one who encouraged the mare to sing now. He had no idea what exactly he told her and Steel Hammer for some reason didn't explain it but then again, it didn't really matter. It was the outcome that counted after all.

The song was over before they knew it and the Pony Tones, especially Fluttershy were bombarded with applause and cheers.

"You did it, Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash said.

"See? That wasn't so bad," Applejack said.

"And you didn't look completely petrified by the fact that we're all staring at you at all!" Pinkie Pie added, being dangerously close to making Fluttershy feel uncomfortable again.

But luckily, Twilight stepped in and used her magic to drag the mare away from Fluttershy a little. "How do you feel?" She then asked, making sure that there was not too much pressure on Fluttershy.

"Surprisingly... okay!" Fluttershy replied in her own surprise.

"Fantastic!" Rarity said. -because the Pony Tones have been booked for the Apple Family Zap Apple Jam Extraordinaire!" She then shared, hoping that Fluttershy could be part of the Pony Tones by then.

But Fluttershy declined. "Oh, no... I couldn't do that!" She said before she vanished behind the curtain. Of course, everypony was surprised to hear that and wanted an explanation, especially since Fluttershy was doing so well earlier. Fluttershy stuck her head out from behind the curtain again and explained. "I'll get there someday. But for now... baby steps, everypony. Baby steps,"

Steel Hammer was the first one to agree with that. "Sounds fine with me!" He said with a smile on his face.

A little later, the group was about to leave again. Fluttershy, however, wanted to talk with Steel Hammer about one more thing so she asked of him to talk with her for a moment. "I just wanted to thank you again for yesterday. You thought me a very valuable lesson,"

"Let's hear," Steel Hammer replied.

Fluttershy then said what she was probably about to write into the journal that she and her friends decided to write. "Sometimes, being afraid can stop you from doing something that you love, but hiding behind these fears means you're only hiding from your true self. It's much better to face those fears so you can shine and be the best pony you can possibly be," she said with a small on her face. Steel Hammer smiled back and was happy that he could help in any way possible. "Still, I am a little curious of how you became such a good singer," Fluttershy then asked.

This question caught Steel Hammer a little off guard but he decided to explain it a little briefly. "Let's just say that I was in a little singing group myself back in the day..."

Steel Hammer decided to leave it at that and Fluttershy respected that and didn't ask any more questions. The stallion reminded her to keep it a secret again and then left alongside Star Twinkle who was already waiting for him.

"What were you two talking about?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Music?" Steel Hammer replied casually.

Star Twinkle still had a hard time suddenly accepting this hobby that Steel Hammer seemed to have for a long time now. "Honestly, you need to explain to me how you got into music...not to be rude or anything but...I never suspected you to be interested in music. Though your singing still needs a little work if you ask me..." he then bluntly said.

But Steel Hammer didn't seem to be offended at all by those words. "Yeah, maybe," he said with a smile on his face.

And after that, the two returned home...

Author's Notes:

Well, it took a little longer this time but I finally got the chapter done. I'll try not to make this a habit ^^.

But I can assure you that if there is a delay, then it will not be longer than two weeks, except if I am writing another story (which usually takes place between the seasons). So in a way, I am always continuing the story in some kind of form and if you want to stay up to date with everything involving this story, then I highly suggest that you follow ME because that way you can be up to date whenever I release a new story.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

81. Ponyville celebrities

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Twilight Time...

That is what Twilight uses to call one day of the week where she would spend time with Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo in order to teach them different new things. As usual, the three fillies were searching for a special talent so that they could finally get their Cutie Marks. But one day they figured that they might need a little bit of help. They asked Twilight for that and before anypony knew, Twilight Time was born.

Twilight Time would usually take place in the Golden Oak Library once in a week and today was one of those days. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo all were busy learning new things while Twilight did her best to look over them and giving them advice. And the three were already at it with their new skills.

"Uh, Sweetie Belle, maybe we should run through the steps another few times before you try it on your own," Twilight advised before Sweetie Belle was about to see how much she improved recently.

"Nope. Ready to give it a shot!" The filly replied, confidently.

"Okay then!" Twilight said, trying to not get in the way of the Sweetie Belle's enthusiasm.

Only a few moments later, the tip of Sweetie Belle's horn faintly began to glow in a light green color. She concentrated magic towards a broom that was leaned against the wall next to the entrance door. Sweetie Belle tried to lift the broom above the ground using only magic. She managed to form a light green aura around it and it began to shake a little. But to get to that point alone, Sweetie Belle had to give it her all.

"Can't... seem... to...!" She said while she focused on moving the broom. She clearly had a hard time pulling this off, straining and sweating heavily in the process. Eventually, this all came to an end once a click could be heard coming from Sweetie Belle's neck. "Ugh! Think I threw my neck out..." Sweetie Belle said with some slight pain coming from her neck.

Her friends, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo quickly walked towards the filly to cheer her up again. "Aw, you're okay," Scootaloo said.

"A little more magic practice and liftin' brooms'll be a cinch!" Apple Bloom added, trying to cheer the filly up again.

But Sweetie Belle was not too convinced about that. "I doubt it. That thing weighs a ton," she said almost out of respect for this broom.

Then, almost on cue, Spike entered the Library, saying that he was looking for his broom. He quickly spotted it right before his feet and picked it up happily and juggled it around in the air like it was nothing. Seeing that was like hammering down a nail on a coffin for Sweetie Belle and didn't help to make her feel confident.

"You call that difficult?" Star Twinkle asked who just now spoke up after watching all of that. "Look what I have to lift off the ground..." he said while he pointed towards a small bookshelf that he was supposed to lift with his magic. For him lifting that and lifting a broom was worlds apart and he wanted to make sure everyone knew it. But the three fillies were not paying attention too much and returned to their own tasks again.

Scootaloo, for example, was busy putting a unicycle together with some parts that she took apart from one before. She seemed to struggle for a moment and wanted some help from Twilight. However, Twilight reminded the filly what she was really here for. "Scootaloo, I already told you I won't show you how, but I'll help you find the instructions so you can figure it out yourself,"

Needless to say, Scootaloo was not too excited to hear this. "Ugh, I hate research!" She said before she went to the bookshelf that Twilight pointed her towards to so that she could figure it out herself, just like Twilight said.

Apple Bloom was the next one to try out something. But before she started, she couldn't help but express her gratitude to Twilight. "Thanks so much for helpin' us all learn these new skills, Twilight," she said as she walked towards her working place.

"Always glad to pass on my love of learning for learning's sake," Twilight happily replied.

Apple Bloom then arrived at a little brewing station. The little mare attempted to learn how to create potions like Zecora. She must have taken a liking to this after she spent some time with the zebra every now and then. Right now, she tried to create a potion that would help plants to grow faster. She seemed to be already done and only needed to pull a little lever to let a little bit of the potion drop on a plant pot beneath it.

"Did you follow the magic plant-growing formula I gave you?" Twilight asked one last time before Apple Bloom attempted to start.

"Well... uh... more or less," Apple Bloom replied being not really sure herself.

"Well, let's try it out on this apple seedling and see how we do," Twilight suggested.

Apple Bloom was a little nervous and had her doubts that it would work but she eventually decided to give it a try anyway. "Oh... I hope this works," she prayed before she pushed down the little lever, causing the brewing station to shake a little.

Everypony had a bad feeling that not everything was going the way it was supposed to be. Even Twilight had her doubts that it would succeed and prepared herself for the worst. But to everyponies surprise, there was no explosion or anything too bad and there was just a little drop coming out of the station that landed directly on the plant pot, causing a little smoke cloud to appear.

After the smoke disappeared everypony kept their eyes on the seedling in the pot. Again, much to everyponies surprise, the seedling began to move. But...it looked a little bit unhealthy, judging from how heavily it was coughing. This caused everypony to giggle, even Twilight who tried her best to hold it in but eventually couldn't resist either.

The seedling just kept continuing coughing, much to Apple Bloom's dislike who already felt defeated without seeing that. "Layin' it on a little thick there, aren't we, pal?" She said towards the seedling who shortly after, finally stopped coughing.

Needless to say, the potion wasn't much of a success and Apple Bloom figured that she either did something wrong or that she still had something to learn about potion brewing so she went back and looked into the manual that Twilight gave her, even if she wasn't looking forward to doing more research.

Star Twinkle, again, watched the whole thing. He knew the Cutie Mark Crusaders and he figured that they would soon try something else to find their Cutie Marks which is why they weren't looking forward to doing research in the first place. But maybe he was wrong and they were actually interested in this stuff but had problems learning and thought that it was boring. He couldn't blame them, he wasn't much of fan when it came to learning too. Of course, with Twilight being in the same room, pretty much every one paled in comparison when it came to the eager to study.

Twilight noticed how Star Twinkle was not practicing his magic right now so she reminded him why he was here again. "Aren't you supposed to practice as well?" Twilight said towards the stallion like a teacher who just spotted a lazy student.

Star Twinkle quickly felt pointed out and then got back to his task. "Alright, alright," he said before he walked to the bookshelf before Twilight would scold him or something. He placed himself in front of the bookshelf that he was supposed to lift with his magic, took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. Once he opened them again, a horn appeared on his head and he was ready to give this a shot. But...he had a strange feeling behind him that kept him from continuing. In fact, he felt as if he was watched by somepony. When he turned around his head, he instantly noticed how the Cutie Mark Crusaders kept staring at him with wide-open eyes of excitement. "What?" He asked after he was unable to ignore the eyes of those fillies looking at him.

"That's so cool!" Scootaloo said in awe to which the other two girls quickly agreed to.

"Didn't you see me transform before? You are still not bored with it?" Star Twinkle asked surprised.

"Are you kidding us?" Apple Bloom replied. "I wish I could transform into a Unicorn or a Pegasus any time I wanted too!" She expressed almost jealously.

"Does it have a name?" Sweetie Belle then asked.

"A name?" Star Twinkle asked confused, not understanding what Sweetie Belle meant.

Sweetie Belle explained. "Like, if you turn into a Unicorn, you could say, Horn Mode activated!" She said while she struck a dramatic pose.

"Or..." Scootaloo said, getting into all of this as well. "When you grow wings you could scream, Pegasus Form Ready!" She said while also striking a pose.

Of course, Star Twinkle would never say something like that because it was way too childish. He couldn't even imagine what those fillies would do if they had the ability to transform like that. The stallion didn't try to think about those words too much but eventually, Apple Bloom asked a question that actually got his attention again.

"Can you transform into an Alicorn too?" The filly asked, excitedly awaiting an answer from Star Twinkle. "You can make a horn and two wings appear, right? Can you make all of that appear at the same time?" She asked further.

This question got Star Twinkle thinking. Growing a horn and a pair of wings separately was no problem anymore so theoretically making both of them appear at the same time should be possible. At least that's what Star Twinkle thought. Again, Twilight noticed how some ponies were slacking off and asked them to go back to their tasks.

Once the three fillies walked away from Star Twinkle, he said his thanks to Twilight to get those curious fillies and their questions away from him. After accepting his thanks, however, Twilight formed a little concerned look on her face. "You don't consider what Apple Bloom asked, do you?" She then asked while she decided to take the stallion to the other corner of the room so that the fillies wouldn't hear what they were talking about. "You told me that after your more recent transformations, you get too exhausted. Back then in Manehattan, Rarity told me that you even felt unconscious after you teleported through the whole city. And then there was that incident with the Tatzelwurm where we found you unconscious as well. If Discord wouldn't have stopped that thing then who knows what would have happened..."

Star Twinkle was well aware of all those things already. He figured that the longer he was staying in any of those transformations, the more exhausted he would end up being at the end. This was actually one of the reasons why Star Twinkle wanted to improve his magic. If he could only stay in this transformed state for a short time without being exhausted, then he had to make the best of it.

The second reason for Star Twinkle to improve his magic was because of his encounter with the Witch of Equestria, Grace. Star Twinkle and Twilight stood no chance against her, so if they would meet her again things would end badly if their magic didn't improve up until this point. Twilight was always learning new spells and practiced her magic so there was no problem with that but Star Twinkle on the other hoof had still much to learn. He had to make sure that he was well prepared for the next encounter.

Twilight, again, advised Star Twinkle to reconsider trying to transform into an Alicorn. "If you get exhausted by transforming already, then who knows what happens if you transform into an Alicorn? I don't even want to imagine..." she said in worry.

But Star Twinkle smiled after hearing those words. "Hey, don't worry about it. Why would I need to transform into an Alicorn anyway? If I need to fly, I grow a pair of wings and if I need magic, I'll grow a horn, no reason for me to do both at the same time, right?" He said, causing Twilight to form a relieved smile again.

And just like that, Twilight left Star Twinkle so that he could finally practice his magic. Nothing more happened after that. Star Twinkle mostly practiced his levitation spell and tried to figure out how long he could stay in his Unicorn Form before he would feel exhausted. He found out that, while using magic, his limit to stay in this form was only a few minutes...which was not much. Still, practicing a little bit was better than nothing.

After "Twilight Time" was over and Star Twinkle was on his way home, there was still one question that bothered him. "Can I transform into an Alicorn?" Star Twinkle wondered.

He guessed that it was in the realm of possibility to do that but then again, neither him, Twilight or anypony else knew anything about this transformation so maybe it wasn't possible. And if it was, then he should probably not attempt it if he gets exhausted by just transforming into a Unicorn or a Pegasus. As he said before to Twilight, there was no real reason for him to transform into an Alicorn anyway. So with that in mind, Star Twinkle decided to not bother with it and just focus on practicing his magic for now.

One week later...

Just like the week before, Star Twinkle and the Cutie Mark Crusaders decided to visit the Golden Oak Library for some more "Twilight Time". Star Twinkle was already inside of the library and did some practicing while Twilight looked over it and gave him advice.

"You are getting better each time," Twilight said after she watched the progress that Star Twinkle had made.

"Well, that's the least after coming here every week for practice," Star Twinkle replied. "Thanks by the way...for looking after my progress," he added, thanking Twilight for the time that she invested for him.

"You're welcome," she happily replied with a smile on her face. "I'm just glad that I can help in any way possible." Shortly after knocking could be heard from the door, grabbing Twilight's attention. "Looks like the girls are here, I'll get the door," Twilight said before she walked to the door to welcome the three fillies. "Hey there, guys! Come on in!" She said once she saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders standing in front of her.

"Princess Twilight!" Then suddenly a pair of voices said in a squealing tone.

Hearing this grabbed Star Twinkle's attention so he walked to the door and tried to find out what was going on. He then saw two fillies who excitedly jumped up and down in front of Twilight. Star Twinkle knew those ponies. They were Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, two classmates of Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. He could swear that those two were not exactly friends of the Cutie Mark Crusaders so he wondered why they showed up here as well in the company of the three fillies.

"Oh, it's really her!" Diamond Tiara said excitedly.

"Oh, my gosh, I don't believe it!" Silver Spoon said in the same kind of manner.

Star Twinkle walked towards the door and stood next to Twilight, the later one looking confused at the stallion who didn't know what was going on as well. "Uh, you brought guests. Great!" She said confused but she didn't seem to mind too much either and welcomed the two in her library.

"Princess Twilight, it is such a thrill and honor to be here! You have no idea," Diamond Tiara said happily before her eyes wandered towards Twilight in awe. "Oh, my gosh, who dyes your tail?" She then asked.

"I so have to get that done," Silver Spoon said after she took a glance over that tail herself.

"Actually, it's not dyed. I've always–" Twilight tried to explain but the two mares just couldn't be stopped in their excitement and began to admire almost everything about Twilight.

"Are those books in there?" Diamond Tiara said after she looked inside the library. "What a bold design choice!" She added before she walked inside, followed by her friend.

"You should so do that, Di!" Silver Spoon suggested while she followed Diamond Tiara inside.

The two ponies were kind of confused by those visitors so Twilight walked up to the Cutie Mark Crusaders to get one message across. "Listen, I'm all for helping as many ponies as I can, but maybe we should keep these weekly visits just between us, hm?" She said, causing the three to nod in reply as a sign that they understood. Whatever their reason was for bringing those two, Twilight wasn't mad or anything and just went along with it for now. "Okay, which one of you wants to practice first?" She asked the three fillies.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders were a little confused hearing that, if not even shocked. "Shouldn't they go first?" Sweetie Belle asked confused.

"No, silly!" Twilight replied with a smile. "I set up Twilight Time especially for you. Apple Bloom, go ahead. Let's see how your plant potions are coming," she said. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon overheard that and had a pair of smug smiles on their faces. They expected Apple Bloom to fail miserably so that they could make fun and laugh at her.

And of course, she did...just like the rest of her friends after that. Star Twinkle figured that it was a lack of research that caused the three to constantly fail with their activities. The stallion found himself watching the three fillies without making any progress himself. Granted, he had already practiced his magic before the five fillies arrived and was about to take a break but he figured that if he slacked off, Twilight would approach him again. Luckily, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were next to him not learning anything themselves. In fact, after getting tired watching the Cutie Mark Crusaders they focused their attention on Star Twinkle. But unlike the Crusaders, those two only had judging expressions on their faces.

"What?" Star Twinkle finally asked after he felt a little awkward receiving those stares.

Diamond Tiara wasted no time addressing what she was thinking. "Who are you anyway? And how did you manage to get Princess Twilight spending time with you?" Diamond Tiara asked bluntly.

"You know...I already knew her before she became a princess..." Star Twinkle replied a little annoyed. Of course, he didn't mean to sound like as if he was bragging or anything but the way Diamond Tiara asked him actually got to him a little.

The little filly, however, didn't seem to be too impressed. In fact, she just remembered seeing him before. "Wait...aren't you that one pony who is still hanging around with the Cutie Mark Crusaders?" She asked.

"Yeah!" Silver Spoon added. "The one who with no Cutie Mark!" She said, causing the two fillies to chuckle beneath their breaths.

"Now those are the charming ponies that I remember..." Star Twinkle thought after seeing the usual behavior of those two.

Star Twinkle almost wanted to turn around and show the two his Cutie Mark but he didn't want to go down to this kind of behavior and just ignored the two by going back to his practice. This time, Twilight asked of him to levitate multiple things at once. She already explained how to do it earlier and placed a few books on the ground in one corner of the room. All Star Twinkle had to do was remembering what she said. But first, he had to transform in order to use magic of course. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and shortly after, a horn appeared on his head and he was ready to go. That is if he didn't suddenly felt like as if he was watched by somepony. The stallion turned around his head and saw something similar then like one week before. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon stood there and looked at Star Twinkle with their jaws dropped.

"What?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Did you...just turn into a Unicorn?" Diamond Tiara asked confused.

"How did you do that?" Silver Spoon asked.

Star Twinkle was actually rather surprised that they were reacting like that. They were still young so it probably made sense that they got surprised by things that they didn't know about even if they believed that they were Superior then anypony else.

"It's a long story..." Star Twinkle replied, not trying to get into any detail.

"Actually it's not..." said Spike who nopony was aware until now that he was even in the same room. "He learned that after helping me fighting against an evil Unicorn king who tried to take over the Crystal Empire," the little dragon casually said while he was cleaning some bookshelves.

"Yeah...right..." Diamond Tiara said, not believing what Spike said one bit.

"No, it's true," Twilight then said after overhearing that conversation. "He bravely defended the Crystal Ponies and the Empire and is now considered a hero. He is probably as popular as Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor over there," she explained proudly.

While it felt good that Twilight was talking about Star Twinkle like that, at the same time he felt a little awkward, especially after Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were now looking at him in a completely different light.

"Oh my, I had no idea that I was talking to a celebrity!" Diamond Tiara said in a more amazed tone this time. "Of course, I should have known that Princess Twilight would only hang around with the most important ponies and not some normal folks who have some kind of boring job or something,"

"Yeah, like a carpenter Pony," Silver Spoon said followed by some chuckles by her and Diamond Tiara.

"That hurt..." Star Twinkle thought after the last sentence.

Twilight Time went on normally after that. The only exception was that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon kept their eyes on almost every little thing that Twilight and Star Twinkle did. They noticed how the two ponies talked casually with each other and were fascinated by it for some reason. As soon as Star Twinkle was transforming the two fillies kept watching him while he practiced his magic, making him feel a little uncomfortable. But before everypony knew, Twilight Time was over and everyone went home again.

A few days later...

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo asked of Star Twinkle and Twilight to meet them in a local restaurant so that they could invite the two ponies. Star Twinkle just came back from work so of course, he was hungry and happy that the three fillies were inviting him. But apparently, Twilight was even more excited to grab something to eat. The stallion instantly noticed that after he saw how Twilight was stuffing one hayburger after another inside of her as if there was no tomorrow.

Star Twinkle was almost shocked watching this picture and stopped eating for a second. "Relax...nopony is gonna eat something away from you..." Star Twinkle said after he watched Twilight stuffing more and more food inside of her, seemingly unaware that some ponies in the restaurant were already looking at her.

But the mare didn't seem to mind and happily munched away. "Sorry, I didn't realize how hungry I was!" She said with her mouth still full. "I'm so glad you asked us to join you here today...I'm so honored!" She said before she cleaned her messy face with another hay burger before she ate it away in one fast bite.

"You are?" Sweetie Belle asked confused.

"Me too," Star Twinkle said. "It was really nice of you to invite us," he added happily before he took a bite from his own hay burger.

"We thought that this was the least we can do to say thank you for teaching us all this new stuff," Apple Bloom explained.

"Oh don't mention it," Twilight replied happily. "I wouldn't even have considered this if Star Twinkle didn't come to me for his magic practice one day," she added, grabbing Star Twinkle's attention.

"Oh yeah, that's how it all started, right?" Star Twinkle replied. "One day, I told the three how I was practicing my magic and they asked if you could help them improving some of their skills as well," the stallion remembered.

"Exactly," Twilight replied with a nod. "When you first asked me to help you develop new skills, I thought, 'Working with young students so devoted to the joy of learning purely for its own sake? What could be better?' You all remind me of myself when I was your age!" Twilight said touched.

The three fillies seemed to receive those words with mixed feelings. For a moment it even looked as if they were nervous. "Yes, well... we feel the same way," Sweetie Belle said.

"That's why we invited you here," Apple Bloom added.

"All because of our love of learning!" Scootaloo added.

While they said those nice words, Star Twinkle couldn't help but see how they were a little nervous about something. He mostly figured that out after they had those huge nervous grins on their faces. But then again, maybe he was imagining things. However, once Scootaloo began to randomly strike some poses with a smile on her face, he knew that something was wrong.

"What are you doing?" Star Twinkle asked after he saw the filly doing stuff like that out of the blue.

"Um...I'm just stretching a little!" She said nervously while she continued with her posing.

The stallion found that this was more then weird and tried to figure out what it meant but then he noticed how there were some flashes behind him as if somepony was taking pictures with a camera over and over again.

It didn't take long until Twilight also noticed that which is why she turned her head around. "What in the world is going on out–" she said before she stopped in mid-sentence after seeing a bunch of young ponies outside of the window looking at her and Star Twinkle before they ducked to not get spotted by the mare which was obviously too late, however.

The two ponies then got up from their seats and walked outside to investigate. Once they stepped out of the restaurant, there were maybe twenty fillies and colts standing in front of them, looking at them with wide-open eyes.

Star Twinkle smiled and slowly moved his head towards Twilight. "What's the meaning of this?" He whispered to her.

"I don't know..." She whispered back at him with her teeth closed as she grinned at the crowd of ponies in front of her. There was only one way to find out what this was all about so Twilight quickly asked the ponies directly. "Can we... help you?" She asked.

But as soon as she opened her mouth the ponies all broke out in excited screaming and walked towards the two, surrounding them completely.

"Get my picture with her!" Diamond Tiara while she placed herself in front of Twilight.

Star Twinkle figured that they were probably more interested in Twilight so he already planned to sneak away but with so many ponies focusing their eyes on him, it was a little hard to do exactly that. In fact, their eyes were glued on him as much as they were on Twilight.

"Can I have an autograph?" Then one filly asked towards Twilight.

"Me too!" Another filly asked before multiple more ponies then joined in and demanded Twilight's autograph as well.

Of course, Twilight was really confused about that. "You seriously all want my autograph?" She asked before she looked over to Star Twinkle who could only reply with a confused shrug. "Okay, if that's what you want," she replied before she began signing some papers for the excited ponies in front of her.

Again, there was an opportunity for Star Twinkle to leave. The fillies and colts were obviously interested in Twilight so he mind as well could sneak away before he ended up in something weird. But as soon as he tried to walk away, there were a bunch of ponies standing in front of him as well.

"Did you really save a whole empire!?" One filly asked with wide-open eyes.

"Can you really turn into a Unicorn!?" One colt asked excitedly.

"Or a Pegasus!?" Another colt asked.

"Is that what it is all about?" Star Twinkle wondered. What followed were some demands of him to transform. Of course, Star Twinkle thought that once he would do that, the ponies would eventually leave him alone again so he did what they asked for and quickly grew a pair of wings. "Pegasus Mode Ready!" Star Twinkle said while he struck a silly pose in front of everypony.

Twilight couldn't help but chuckle after that sentence. "What was that?" She asked amused while she continued to give more autographs.

"Nothing!" Star Twinkle quickly replied embarrassed. Strangely enough, the ponies in front of him looked at him as if they just saw the most amazing thing in their lives. He couldn't blame them really, this transformation seemed to be a thing that nopony else knew anything about in Equestria so for a bunch of fillies and colts it must have been something even more amazing.

"Wow, to think I've been to the Hay Burger so many times, never knowing it's a regular hangout for ponies like you!" Pipsqueak asked who Star Twinkle remembered from way back at Nightmare Night.

"Well, actually we only came here because we were invited by them," Twilight explained while she pointed at Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo who just walked outside of the restaurant and probably wondered what this was all about as well.

The little colt couldn't believe what he just heard and seemed very surprised. "You mean, you decide where it's cool to go based on where they go?" He then asked in awe much to the three fillies' surprise.

After Twilight was done giving autographs, she decided that it would be a good idea to go now. "Thanks, guys, this was fun!" Twilight then said before she spread her wings and flew away from the crowd.

This was the perfect opportunity for Star Twinkle to bail out as well. "Yeah, I need to go too," Star Twinkle quickly joined in as he followed Twilight. Fortunately, he was already in his Pegasus form so he had no problems catching up with her. "What was that?" Star Twinkle then asked towards the mare confused. "They were all really excited to see you..."

Twilight smiled back at the stallion. "You mean us," she corrected. "Seems like the news of me being a princess and you being a hero of the Crystal Empire must have just gotten to the little ponies," she guessed.

"But that was all a little while ago already..." Star Twinkle said, thinking that it was a little weird why they were just now approaching them. Unless they were watching the two for a long time now. Just the thought of that made Star Twinkle feel weird. "No thanks...I already think that the attention that I get from the Crystal Ponies is too much. I could really live without that happening in Ponyville too..." He expressed with some worry.

Twilight only chuckled, much to Star Twinkle's dislike. "I'm sure that this was just one thing only," she said with a smile on her face.

"I hope you're right..." Star Twinkle said with some concern in his voice while he followed flying beside Twilight.

He definitely knew that he wouldn't like something like that to happen again because it looked like a lot of trouble...

A few days later...

Once again, it was time for Twilight Time. Star Twinkle, as usual, practiced his magic while Twilight kept an eye on his progress. This time he practiced his teleport spell. He was supposed to teleport from the second floor to the first one along with Twilight. They both closed their eyes and focused their magic and soon disappeared from the second floor. Twilight popped up in the middle of the room on the first floor and looked around confused.

"Star Twinkle?" She asked after she figured that Star Twinkle was nowhere to be found.

"Over here!" Star Twinkle replied. Twilight then found the poor stallion walking out of the bathroom, with his body soaked wet. "I think my aim is still a little off..." he figured before he took a towel to dry himself again.

Twilight giggled after seeing the stallion in this poor state. "At least you made it to the first floor, like intended," she then said amused, trying to cheer Star Twinkle up a little. "You do practice your magic in your free time do you?" She then asked.

"I do, really," Star Twinkle replied after his mane and his coat were dry again. "But the little progress I make seems a little too small...it's a little sad that this is still the best that I can accomplish..." he said with a little frown on his face.

"Oh, Star Twinkle, don't worry about it too much. Little progress is still some progress!" Twilight said as she put her hoof on the stallion's shoulder to cheer him up again. "Don't forget that you are an Earth Pony. It's already impressing that you can transform into a Unicorn, let alone doing magic at this level. That's something that some Unicorns don't even accomplish,"

Star Twinkle had to admit that those words managed to cheer him up a little. "Thanks, Twilight," he replied with a smile on his face.

"You're welcome," Twilight replied with a smile herself. Shortly after, a knocking could be heard from the door. "That must be the girls," Twilight said before she walked towards the door. As soon as she opened it, however, she was greeted by far more ponies then she expected.

Star Twinkle could see the surprise on Twilight's face and walked up to the door as well to see what she was so surprised about. "I guess, the three brought some more guests again?" He asked before he walked to the door and found out that he was not too far off with his guess. There were maybe over thirty little ponies standing in front of the library

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo, who stood right in the middle of this crowd were probably the reason for that and tried to explain everything.

"Twilight, we can explain," Sweetie Belle said nervously.

"We know you said we should just keep Twilight Time to us!" Apple Bloom added.

"We didn't mean for so many other ponies to be here! Honest!" Scootaloo apologized.

While Star Twinkle thought that this was a little heavy, Twilight didn't seem to bother. "Oh, don't be silly. I only meant that for your benefit so you could get the most out of our time together. But if you want to share your time with others, that's fine," she assured happily, much to the surprise of the three fillies.

"So you're not mad?" Scootaloo asked confused.

"Of course not!" Twilight replied. "Come on in, everypony!" She said, asking the ponies to all come inside the library.

Star Twinkle just watched the crowd of ponies walk inside and didn't know how to feel about it. He actually liked that little group that he was part of to practice but now he had to share that all with so many ponies, some of them who already asked Star Twinkle a ton of questions and kept him from his magic lessons.

Twilight, as usual, didn't want anything to go out of control so she decided to split everypony into groups based on what they wanted to learn and everypony followed what she said. That was probably because she was a princess and everypony just loved being around her.

"Thanks to all of you for taking time out to come to learn new things," Twilight said, causing everypony to immediately cheer as soon as Twilight opened her mouth.

"Thank you, princess!" Diamond Tiara cheered back.

"We love you, princess!" Silver Spoon added.

They were not the only ones who thanked Twilight, basically, everypony in the room thanked Twilight for spending time with them. "If you want to thank anypony, thank the Cutie Mark Crusaders for so generously sharing this time," she then said pointing towards Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo who seemed a little nervous to be put in the center of attention.

"It was nothing, really. We just felt it was the right thing to do," Sweetie Belle replied with a nervous grin on her face.

Twilight was then turning her attention towards Pipsqueak who approached the mare in his quest for knowledge. "And what would you like to learn, little one?" She asked.

"I want to learn how to become a Cutie Mark Crusader!" He replied.

"And why do you want to become a Cutie Mark Crusader so badly, hm?" Twilight asked curiously of the little colt's answer.

However, the answer that she got confused her but at the same also gave shined some light on the whole situation. "Because then I could get all my classmates to do me favors and stuff because I'm friends with famous ponies!"

"Aaand now it makes sense..." Star Twinkle thought after he looked after the situation a little closer. Now it was no surprise that so many ponies suddenly were interested in him and Twilight.

Twilight quickly gave the three ponies a suspicious look who was now more nervous than ever. She then walked over to them to get an explanation. "Is this true?" She asked in a more serious tone now.

Sweetie Belle then took it upon herself to explain. "We wanted our time together just as a way to be with you and learn new things. Really and truly!" She said in all honesty.

Twilight Sparkle only knew one answer to give to that. "Prove it," she said while she raised her head, much to the three fillies confusion who was even more nervous now. "If it's true, then I'm sure you've all been practicing your skills over the past week. Show me how much better you got," she demanded.

"Oh! This is gonna be amazing!" Diamond Tiara said before she began to laugh amused, completely unaware of how Star Twinkle was looking at her in disappointment.

"Uh, well, uh... we... can't," Apple Bloom replied.

"Yes! We kinda rushed over and forgot to bring our stuff," Scootaloo added.

"Hm, I see," Twilight replied disappointed before she walked away from the three.

But Sweetie Belle felt a little bad so she decided to take things in her hooves. "No, wait!" She said before she grabbed her two friends and put herself and them in the spotlight. "Hey, everypony, you're in luck! You came to learn, but instead, you're getting a show! Get ready, 'cause we, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, are about to lay on you the amazing skills we learned in Twilight Time!"

But everypony in the room was confused and waited for what was about to happen next while the Cutie Mark Crusaders prepared some things that they wanted to work with...by improvising.

Since Scootaloo didn't have her unicycle parts, she instead had to take apart one of the other ponies scooters from outside, much to Pipsqueak dislike who was that unlucky pony. Apple Bloom then grabbed an apple from the kitchen in order to use a potion on it since there was no apple seed to be found.

By now, Star Twinkle walked over to Twilight and asked her a question. "You didn't teach them to do things with this stuff, right?" He asked in some worry.

"Nope..." Twilight replied, patiently awaiting how this would all end.

Sweetie Belle ended the explanation by telling everypony that she was about to levitate a broom in front of her and after that, the "show" began. Everypony waited for the Cutie Mark Crusaders to show off their skills. Scootaloo already took apart the scooter piece by piece and attempted to put it together again. Apple Bloom was busy brewing her potion and Sweetie Belle concentrated her magic and tried to lift the broom in front of her.

Scootaloo actually managed to put the scooter together again and happily drove around the room with it...before it fell into all its pieces shortly after...
Sweetie Belle couldn't manage to lift the broom and it quickly dropped to the ground again...
And Apple Bloom's potion...kinda worked...the apple that she used the potion on quickly grew in size...and it didn't stop doing so for quite a while until it eventually grew as big as the whole room itself.

Star Twinkle didn't like where this was going and advised everypony to take cover. "Duck!" he exclaimed in a panic.

What followed was an explosion that now covered everypony in the room with apple pieces and juice, leaving the whole library in a complete mess.

"That didn't turn out quite how I had hoped," Sweetie Belle said while she rubbed off some apple pieces from her face.

Star Twinkle and Twilight cleaned their face again and figured that this was enough for today. "Looks like Twilight Time is over," Twilight said.

Diamond Tiara felt that she actually had to add something to this situation. "And look who's not the princess's entourage anymore," she said causing some "Oooh's" to fill the room by the other ponies.

"Guess they didn't come here to learn after all," Silver Spoon then added to the three ponies misery.

But Star Twinkle felt as if that was enough of their commentaries so he decided to make them go quiet. "Just like you all," he simply said.

Those words seemed to be enough to make the two, as well as everypony else, leave the library in disappointment. This only left Star Twinkle, Twilight, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo.

"Well, this is gonna take some time to clean..." Star Twinkle said in an attempt to remove the awkwardness of this situation.

But of course, things had to be addressed and Sweetie Belle was the one who took that part. "We're really sorry, Twilight. We made a huge mistake," she apologized.

Apple Bloom also joined in. "And we really and truly did enjoy learning new skills with you," she said with regret in her voice.

"Guess we'll have to just keep on doing it without you now," Scootaloo said as she finished putting the scooter together, this time without it falling apart. "Thanks, Twilight," she said before she walked away.

In the meantime, Apple Bloom quickly brewed one more potion and used it one another seed, making a little flower growing out of the pot, "Thanks..." she then said in regret.

Unfortunately, the little flower wasn't strong enough to stand up which is why Sweetie Belle used her magic to remove the flower head and levitated it to Twilight and stuck it into her mane. "Thanks..." Sweetie Belle said in regret.

The three then walked away ashamed of what they had done. But Star Twinkle and Twilight both saw that the Cutie Mark Crusaders regretted what they had done and couldn't be too mad at them. They obviously did prove that they practiced their skills so what they said must have been true.

"I think they learned their lesson," Star Twinkle said towards Twilight who had to agree and nodded with a smile on her face.

"Sweetie Belle?" Twilight then said, causing the three fillies to turn around again. "Remember a moment ago when you asked me to give you a chance?"

"So you forgive us?" Scootaloo asked surprised.

"Yes," Twilight replied. "But only if you learned something out of this," she added.

"And if you stop using our names to get an advantage from others," Star Twinkle added further.

"We promise!" They then said in unison.

After that, Twilight had one more idea. "I guess you should write this all down in our journal then,"

She, of course, referred to the journal that she and her friends were writing for a while now. The Cutie Mark Crusaders heard about that as well and were happy that Twilight trusted them to write something inside of it.

The three did as she said and actually spent the rest of the day to do some more practice after it was just the five of them again.

Star Twinkle was happy that things didn't escalate further and returned home after Twilight Time was over. He didn't know why but the question that Apple Bloom asked a little while ago suddenly popped up in his mind again.

"Can I transform into an Alicorn?" He asked himself while he laid on his back and looked at the ceiling. Being the pony who could not just continue while a question bothered him like that, the stallion got up from his bed and just gave it a try. He did remember how Twilight was told to not try it but he just had to know if it was possible.

He closed his eyes and concentrated as hard as he could...

...

But nothing happened...

"Well, there is the answer to that..." Star Twinkle simply said before he laid down on his bed again. "Was to be expected of course. I mean what am I? A prince? Of course, it wouldn't work..." he said before he scratched that question off of his mind and continued with his day normally.

82. A Breeze in the Wind

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Sometimes it really feels like there is always some kind of event happening in the little town of Ponyville. Ironically, Star Twinkle believed this town was pretty boring and quiet, a few years ago, but that was maybe because he wasn't involved with anything or anypony, so of course, nothing would happen to him or his surroundings. But this all changed after he befriended Twilight and the others. And this time, Fluttershy set up something in Ponyville and as one of her friends, Star Twinkle was involved in what she had planned as well.

Fluttershy rounded all of her friends up in order to prepare them for what was about to happen in Ponyville soon. "Okay, everypony. As you know, the adorable fairy creatures known as Breezies are about to come through Ponyville and we need to help them in any way possible. That includes providing the breeze for them so that they can safely travel through Ponyville and return home," she explained while she walked up and down with her friends standing in a straight line and listening to her.

Star Twinkle remembered that Fluttershy was just recently on a trip observing those creatures. But unlike her, he didn't know anything about them so he just went ahead and asked what bothered him. "Why exactly do we need to make a breeze for them? Can't they fly on their own?"

Fluttershy was quick to explain. "Well, you see, it's the breeze that activates the Breezies' magic, and that magic protects the pollen they're carrying from being destroyed. And they only have two days to get that pollen back before the portal to their home closes. That's why it's ever-so-important that we help them make their way through Ponyville safely," she explained, clearly knowing everything that needed to be known.

Star Twinkle was not really looking forward to all this, unlike some other ponies who visibly showed their excitement. "Yes! Ooh, it's so exciting!" Pinkie Pie said in a highly pitched voice. "I can't wait for Rainbow Dash to make the breeze for them so I can see how cute they are up close!"

"I've never done it before, not that I won't be totally awesome at it, because I totally will!" Rainbow Dash bragged, as usual.

Fluttershy agreed and was happy that the two were looking forward to it. "And that breeze is very important, but so is cheering on those teeny-tiny little things, so they have the confidence to ride that breeze to their native land. Did I mention how tiny they are? I was thinking we could do a special Breezie cheer!"

"I love cheers!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed highly excited.

However, Fluttershy had to stop Pinkie Pie's excitement for a second. "But these cheers should be quiet cheers. We don't want to startle them. They need to be able to concentrate. Why don't we try it?" She suggested before she went ahead and started. "You can do it, Breezies," she said, waiting for her friends to return a cheer.

But what she didn't exactly get what she expected. "You can do it, Breezies!" Her six friends shouted back at her, much to her surprise. Apparently, this was too loud and Fluttershy advised that everypony should tone it down a little. "You can do it, Breezies!" They once more said a little quieter but still too loud according to Fluttershy. So they gave it another try. "You can do it, Breezies!" They now said in an almost normal tone. Still...that didn't seem to be enough again. The group almost felt weird cheering even quieter but Fluttershy was the expert here so they just had to do as she said and gave it another try. "You can do it, Breezies!" They now practically whispered in her ear.

"Perfect!" She then exclaimed much to the shock of everypony. The mare noticed that she wasn't any better for a second and calmed herself down again. "Oh, um, I mean... yay," she cheered quietly, embarrassed after the loud cheer from before.

What Star Twinkle basically got from all of this, is that those Breezies were pretty weak and helpless which is why they needed all the help from everypony. The stallion was just glad that he didn't have to be one of the Pegasus who would provide the breeze for those creatures. If it is really that important then it would certainly be better if more experienced flyers would do this job. According to Fluttershy that was already taken care of. In fact, she was the one who overlooked all of the preparations for the visit of the Breezies so hopefully, everything would end up well.

Later that day...

Fluttershy made sure that as many ponies as possible would be gathered in the town square so that everypony had the chance to see the Breezies with their own eyes. Some Pegasus Ponies already practiced for the arrival of the Breezies with Rainbow Dash being the one who would take charge and directed the Pegasus who would provide the breeze. Unfortunately, there were not enough talented flyers who could fit the job with the breeze and in the end, there were only three ponies, including Rainbow Dash.

But Fluttershy said that she prepared for that and told Star Twinkle to wait for some more helpers that would shortly arrive. So that is exactly what he did.

"Who am I supposed to wait here for?" Star Twinkle wondered as he waited with a bored expression on his face.

But he would not need to wait any longer because one male and one female Pegasus were approaching the stallion. "Hey there!" The mare with the white coat and the light blue mane greeted with a grin on her face.

"Yo!" The stallion with the light blue coat and the yellow mane said almost disinterested while raising his hoof in the process.

It was two familiar faces, Hurricane Wing and Breeze Flyer, members of the Storm Wings. Of course, Star Twinkle asked the most obvious question first. "What are you two doing here?" He asked, completely forgetting that they could be the ones that Fluttershy asked to help out.

Hurricane Wing pointed towards Fluttershy and answered Star Twinkle's question. "She asked us..." He simply said.

Fluttershy while taking care of some more preparations, overheard those words and explained. "Well, you see...I contacted the Storm Wings in hope that they could provide some help for this important task," she said, seeming really grateful for their help.

"We were sent here and ready to help in any way possible," Breeze Flyer said ready to get to work as soon as possible.

"Sent here?" Hurricane Wing said confused. "Cyclone Wing said that you practically begged to come to Ponyville in order to see those Breezies..." the stallion casually pointed out.

Breeze Flyer got a little embarrassed because Hurricane Wing exposed her like that but she quickly went over it and then showed her true intentions. "Can you really blame me!? We are talking about the Breezies! The most adorable little creatures ever!" She then said with a huge smile on her face, barely able to contain her excitement.

"Right?" Fluttershy replied after seeing another pony as excited about the Breezies as herself. "I don't want to brag or anything but if you want to know more about them, then feel free to ask me," she said while she raised her chest proudly.

"Would you!?" Breeze Flyer replied excitedly. "I would love to!" She said while she rushed to Fluttershy's side and almost walked her away from the scene so that they could talk in private about the Breezies.

The two stallions reacted a little surprised by this, especially Hurricane Wing. "Um...aren't we here to help?" He said, trying to remind his partner as to why they were here again but Breeze Flyer was already too caught up with talking about the Breezies with Fluttershy. Despite, her leaving the scene, however, Hurricane Wing just shrugs his shoulders and didn't seem to mind it. "I guess, it's okay if she returns for the breeze..." he figured.

"We still have some time," Star Twinkle said while he walked up to the Pegasus. "Here, I bring you to Rainbow Dash," he offered so that Hurricane Wing could join the Pegasus that was taking care of the breeze already.

Hurricane Wing followed Star Twinkle through the road of Ponyville. The Pegasus stallion seemed to inspect the ponies around them, as well as their behavior. Seeing them all excited and happy to see the Breezies made him kinda happy as well. "Are the ponies in Ponyville always that happy?" He then asked with a confused yet happy smile on his face.

"I guess..." Star Twinkle replied, even though he didn't seem to have noticed it that much. This may be because Star Twinkle lives in this place and didn't think that it was unusual or something. "It's the first time that you visited Ponyville, right? I meanwhile not trying to steal the Elements of Harmony or something..." he jokingly added without considering how Hurricane Wing would react to those words.

Luckily, the Pegasus didn't seem too bothered. "No...I was here before, long before Mystic took over the Storm Wings actually. Me, my brothers, Breeze Flyer, Cloud Head, and Featherbrain were here on a mission to catch an apple thief who stole apples from the orchard. It was one of our first missions back then..." he explained.

"Really?" Star Twinkle replied, fascinated to hear this fact. But the stallion couldn't remember that the Storm Wings were ever in Ponyville. It could be possible that he was visiting his parents in Canterlot at that time.

Hurricane Wing didn't notice how Star Twinkle was thinking about that and continued. "Now that I think back, everypony was really nice to us after we took care of the thief and offered us a bunch of new tasks to do. I think Ponyville was the first place where the name of the Storm Wings was beginning to spread," he then figured with a little smile on his face.

"Glad to hear that," Star Twinkle responded with a smile on his face as well.

Hurricane Wing then looked over to Star Twinkle with a bold expression on his face. "But then Mystic showed up and we became criminals..." he casually said as if it was something trivial.

Star Twinkle didn't really know how to react to this and formed a confused expression on his face. "You know...after telling me all this stuff how everything went well for you...you didn't really have to ruin it by adding that last bit..." he said.

But Hurricane Wing only shook his head and grinned. "Don't worry, it's in the past, that means it's over," he then said with a hint of happiness in his voice. "If we always think about the past, then you realize how much worse things happened in your life. So just tell yourself that the past is over. That way you have much less to get frustrated about," he explained while still keeping his grin up.

"The past is over, huh?" Star Twinkle thought. It's like Hurricane Wing was directly talking to him and wanted him to take this advice. Ironically, Star Twinkle liked that way of thinking. Star Twinkle knew that his memories were a little messy and that there were things that he liked to change in the past. The best solution would really be to forget about it and to go on with your life. Star Twinkle wished that he could live that way.

The two stallions arrived at where Rainbow Dash was and Hurricane Wing quickly joined the ponies who would provide the breeze for the Breezies. It was no surprise, that he was easily able to fit in, he was as good of a flyer then Rainbow Dash, after all. His brothers even went so far and called him the best flyer in Equestria. Rainbow Dash would probably not like, hearing that right now but fortunately, Hurricane Wing didn't seem like somepony who would brag with his skills.

What mattered was that everything would go well in the end...

Later...

Everypony waited near the town's square now. Hurricane Wing and Breeze Flyer both joined the group of ponies who would take care of the breeze and Rainbow Dash kept her eyes open at the distance to look for the Breezies. Eventually, the Pegasus mare did spot something in the distance and quickly went to Twilight to whisper to her that their guests were about to arrive.

Twilight was in charge of telling everypony so she smiled after realizing that the moment finally arrived. "Everypony, it's time. Please welcome... the Breezies!" She whispered to the residents of Ponyville who then looked over to the distance.

There was a swarm of little creatures approaching the town. They were really tiny creatures that almost resembled ponies. Their bodies were a little bit more slender and had butterfly-like see-through wings and antennae on their heads. They also had different colored bodies and hair, like ponies.

Fluttershy previously said that everypony should be really quiet while watching them fly over Ponyville so that they wouldn't accidentally scare them. It was also forbidden to make sudden movements that could interrupt with the breeze. Despite all those things that had to be looked out for, it was actually worth watching those rare creatures travel through Ponyville since everypony highly enjoyed watching the Breezies.

"They're as cute as Apple Bloom on the day she was born," Applejack whispered.

"And would you look at those adorable little packs they carry their pollen in?" Rarity pointed out.

"So... cute! Can't... take... it!" Pinkie Pie said, trying to hold her breath before she would explode by the sight of those cute creatures.

"Just let them fly by...then you can scream as much as possible..." Star Twinkle advised so that Pinkie Pie would not ruin everything with one little outburst.

By far, the most excited pony would be Breeze Flyer who couldn't stop smiling by the sight of the Breezies. Hurricane Wing only looked at her and shook his head confused because he couldn't see why she was going crazy over those creatures like that.

For Star Twinkle it was a little boring to just watch those creatures flying past, even if they were pretty to look at. So pretty apparently, that Spike really wanted to see them up close so he decided to climb a nearby tree to get a better view. But things just needed to go wrong in some way.

"Oh, no!" Spike said after he realized how something went wrong.

Due to the shaking on the tree, one single leaf was falling from the branches and unfortunately crossed the path of the Breezies. Since this leaf was as big as one of those creatures, it was enough to cause a little group to be separated by the rest and let them fly uncontrollably, creating a panic between them and everypony who watched this.

Rainbow Dash quickly noticed that something was wrong and asked to slow down the breeze so that the separated group could catch up with the rest again but the Pegasi couldn't take care of both groups at once. Rainbow Dash's next idea was to speed up the breeze but that would mean that the first group would be too fast which would further separate the two groups.

With nopony having an idea to help in any way, they all stood there and had to watch how all this was happening in front of them. Finally, Fluttershy stepped in and decided to help the poor group that was separated. One of the Breezies was trying to calm the rest of the Breezies, or at least it sounded like that, nopony could really understand a word because it was speaking in a completely different language.

However, Fluttershy did. "He's right! You must all gather as close as you possibly can!" She said after hearing the words of this one Breezie. The remaining Breezies did as she said and all clung to the mare's body and she slowly sunk down to the ground with the little creatures on her body.

Having watched all of that, the crowd of ponies quickly cheered for the mare after her heroic action. So did her friends who were all walking up to Fluttershy to express their amazement.

"That was amazing!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

One of the Breezies then approached Fluttershy. It was one wearing a black jacket, a light cerulean body-color, pink hair, and moderate rose eyes. "Mugudi saikendus?" He asked in a language that nopony except Fluttershy seemed to understand.

"Oh, I understand the language of all kinds of creatures!" Fluttershy replied.

But the little Breezie didn't seem too impressed. "You must be so proud," he said in a sarcastic tone.

Fluttershy was surprised to hear one of the Breezies speaking her language. "And you speak my language too?" She asked confused.

"I can," the Breezie replied. "This lot can only understand you. Clearly, they're not the brightest bunch around," he added boldly, much to the dislike of the rest of the Breezies who got angry by those words.

Fluttershy was quickly approached by her friends and told her how heroic it was from her to step in to save the Breezies. But then Spike showed up and addressed the elephant in the room. "Okay, okay, okay! I know what you're all thinking! Why don't you just say it?! I'm sorry! This is all my fault! I'm so, so sorry!" He apologized, with tears running down his cheeks and preparing himself to get shouted at from all sites.

But nopony was mad at all since it was obviously an accident. "Oh, Spike, it's okay! It could have happened to anyone of us," Fluttershy said to cheer him up again.

It made the little dragon feel a little better but as soon as the Breezies made sure to let him know how angry they still were, he took some steps back and figured that he might get away from them. "I'm... just... gonna stay over here," he said after he heard the shouting of the little creatures that were directed towards him.

Star Twinkle then decided to get everypony on track again. "Now after this has been taken care of, what do we do now?" He asked.

"Yeah, Fluttershy," Rainbow Dash said. "You want us to get the breeze going again so these little guys can get a move on?" She asked, preparing to give the Pegasi a signal at any moment.

However, the Breezies quickly clung against Fluttershy as if they wanted to protest against that idea. They might still be a little scared and didn't want to get right back to the breeze for some reason.

"Maybe we should wait just a moment or so. They've been through so much..." Fluttershy then said after she figured that the little creatures were still a little scared.

"Well, they do have two days left until they can get home right?" Star Twinkle pointed out.

"Right," Rainbow Dash replied. "Just gimme the word when you think they're ready, Fluttershy,"

Fluttershy, with the Breezies behind her, then walked away. Shortly behind her and the little group of creatures, that one Breezie from before however, didn't seem to be happy at all and quietly complained about this situation without anypony noticing it.

With Fluttershy taking care of the Breezies, the others had no choice but to wait until they were ready again...

One hour later...

Star Twinkle, along with Twilight, Applejack and Breeze Flyer were all walking in direction of Fluttershy's cottage so that they could check up on her and the Breezies to see if they were ready to go now. Breeze Flyer seemed to be highly excited to go to Fluttershy just by the thought of seeing the Breezies up close.

"Shouldn't you wait with the other Pegasi in case that the breeze will be continued?" Star Twinkle asked towards the mare.

"It's not every day that you see the Breezies! You can't expect me to just walk away before taking a look at those adorable creatures!" She said with a grin on her face, just by the thought about that.

For Star Twinkle, that was just too much excitement. If this pony would be visiting Ponyville to steal the Elements of Harmony again, then he would know that he couldn't take her seriously anymore.

The three shortly arrived and entered the cottage. "Hey there! Can we come in?" Applejack asked once she opened the door.

Inside, they quickly found Fluttershy in the middle of the room flying to one Breezie to another, who seemed to made this place their second home already, judging how they occupied the sleeping places of the other animals that would normally be in them.

"Oh, of course!" Fluttershy replied as soon as she noticed her visitors. As soon as Applejack was taking a few steps inside, however, Fluttershy stopped her. "But watch your step!" She advised, much to the mare's confusion until she noticed how she almost stepped on one of the little creatures.

"Oop, sorry about that, little one," Applejack apologized after scaring that little Breezie half to death.

"Almost forgot how tiny those creatures are..." Star Twinkle said.

"I know, right!?" Breeze Flyer said while trying to not explode in pure excitement.

"We just wanted to see if you thought the Breezies were ready to give it another try," Twilight asked, getting to the point pretty fast.

"Has it been an hour already? Oh, my goodness!" Fluttershy said disappointedly. "Time flies when you're making sure little creatures don't feel that you're abandoning them to the cruel world," she said while she looked over to the Breezies in concern.

However, Twilight didn't seem to understand Fluttershy's concern. "But they're not going to a cruel world, right? They're going home," Twilight then pointed out.

"Oh, yes, that's right!" Fluttershy replied after realizing that as well. But the Breezies quickly flew right over to her and protested again. Seeing the Breezies getting upset like that, Fluttershy reconsidered her decision. "On second thought, I don't think they're quite ready," she then said.

This caused the one Breezie with the black jacket to get a little angry. Everypony was bombarded with words that nopony except Fluttershy understood who had a rather shocked expression on her face. So Applejack asked what the little guy was so angry about. "Uh... what did he say?" She asked.

"I'd... rather not say," Fluttershy replied with a blush on her face, indicating that whatever that Breezie said wasn't pretty.

"Okay..." Applejack replied. "Well, I'm sure you know what you're doin'. No one knows rare magical creatures like you do," Applejack said.

Twilight agreed. "We'll just wait for your word," she said before she and the others left again.

"Thank you. I'll be in touch very soon," Fluttershy replied.

The group then left again and walked outside. It was exactly as Applejack said, nopony knew magical creatures as good as Fluttershy so they all just had to believe in her decisions even if it meant taking up some more time.

"Breeze Flyer, would you go and tell Hurricane Wing that he and the others had to wait some more time?" He asked towards the mare. However, instead of getting a reply, there was only silence. In fact, Breeze Flyer was nowhere to be found, much to the stallion's confusion. He took a quick look inside of Fluttershy's cottage through a window and found the mare laughing and playing with some of the Breezies. For Star Twinkle it was a really weird picture to look at. "Or...I can just tell Hurricane Wing..." he said to himself, much to the amusement to Twilight and Applejack who giggled a little after seeing this.

Back in town again...

After seeing that the Breezies still needed some time to get ready, Star Twinkle returned to Hurricane Wing who waited inside of town. The Pegasus stallion patiently waited in the middle of the road with the rest of the Pegasus close to him. He slowly walked up to Star Twinkle in order to find out what is going to happen next.

"So?" Hurricane Wing asked ready to give the other ponies a signal to start any second.

"It looks like they still need some time, sorry..." Star Twinkle explained while he rubbed his neck.

"Alright," he replied before he gave a signal to the others so that they could be on standby again. "I guess Breeze Flyer decided to stay with them as well?" He then guessed.

"Yeah...she seems to be kinda crazy about those creatures..." Star Twinkle figured.

Hurricane Wing then sat down on the ground. "I guess, all we can do is wait then..." he said, seeming to not be bothered by waiting some more.

But Star Twinkle had to mention one crucial fact that should not be forgotten. "Still, if they take too long, the portal to their home will close and they can't return home. So we need to get them to move on soon," he explained. "I can't imagine how it must feel to not return home..." he then added just after thinking about it.

"Yeah...probably," Hurricane Wing simply replied. However, the way he said it sounded a little weird. He was always talking in a really emotionless and non-caring tone but this time it sounded a little different.

And Star Twinkle picked up on that. "Probably?" He asked. "What? Don't you think that's bad? Not being able to go home?"

Hurricane Wing shrugged his shoulders. "Well, to be honest, I can't really put myself into that perspective since I don't know what it feels like to have a home?" He explained.

"What do you mean? Everyone has a home, right?" Star Twinkle asked, pocking a little further into this matter now.

"Probably," Hurricane Wing replied. "But as far as I can tell, it was always me and my two brothers. No home, no family, nothing...the only thing we had was each other," he explained with a little frown on his face after remembering all this. "We lived on the streets since we were little and had to steal food every single day in order to survive..." he further explained.

Star Twinkle had to admit that he was shocked to hear this. "I'm sorry...I didn't know..." he said after Hurricane Wing was honest enough to share this information with him.

But the Pegasus stallion didn't seem to be too upset and smiled again. "Don't worry, don't you remember what I said before? The past is over. So it's alright," he replied happily, much to Star Twinkle's confusion who was a little shocked by how fast the stallion managed to put a smile on his face again.

Star Twinkle was actually a little impressed by that. "To be able to smile after talking about something like that...I don't think I could do that," he said in some little admiration towards Hurricane Wing.

"I think I got that from Cyclone," Hurricane Wing replied. "He was always the one who was looking straight at the future and had this dream to help everypony who might have been in a similar situation as us. As you can probably tell, that worked out perfectly. We came across Cloud Head, Featherbrain and Breeze Flyer and formed the Storm Wings," he explained with a smile on his face. "But of course, bad things happened...My sickness got worse, Tornado lost his wing, and Mystic appeared and took over everything that we had worked so hard for...but if sit here and just remember those things and think to myself "this was bad" or "those were some bad times" then I will never be happy. So...I try to look at the future, just like my brother," he explained further, this time, having a wide smile on his face that actually showed more emotion then Star Twinkle had ever seen on his face.

Star Twinkle felt a little bad about what he thought when it came to the Storm Wings before. He always thought that Hurricane Wing and his brothers tried to redeem themselves for everything that they did while being under Mystic's control. But things seemed to be much deeper. Star Twinkle never considered that they were living a life like that before and how strong they must have been to keep going after all those hardships. The only thing that Star Twinkle now felt towards them...was respect.

The conversation of the two ponies was shortly after interrupted by Breeze Flyer, who came running towards the two rather hastily. In fact, she seemed to be in a panic and had problems being calm. "Hurricane! We have a problem!" She exclaimed stressfully.

"What happened?" The stallion replied calmly.

Breeze Flyer explained. "One of the Breezies ran away!" She simply said in a panic.

There were no more words that needed to be said after this. Everypony by now figured that a Breezie out there on its own was in great danger. After all, a leaf was enough to put a whole group in danger and without the breeze supporting them who knows what could happen. They had to act quickly now.

The three ponies decided to split up so that they could spot the Breezie easier. Unfortunately, it was beginning to get a little windy so the runaway Breezie must have some really big problems at the very moment so Star Twinkle had to make haste. He was left checking a nearby forest and made sure to turn around every single rock he came across, all while trying to look at the ground so that he wouldn't accidentally step on the little creature.

But luck was on his side and he managed to find one Breezie who seemed to be in a bit of trouble. The little guy was clinging at the end of a tree branch while a swarm of bees came dangerously close to attacking him. Star Twinkle had to act quickly and transformed into his Pegasus Form, flying up the tree. "Hey over here!" He said, trying to get the attention of the bees. Unfortunately, they just looked over to him for a second before they focused on the Breezie again with their stingers pointing directly at him. After seeing how it didn't help to get the bees attention like that, Star Twinkle came up with something else. "Hey!" He said, grabbing the attention of the bees once more. This time, it worked because Star Twinkle was dangerously close to their beehive. "I just realized that I am about to do something really bad..." he said before he gave the hive a tiny push. This was enough to anger the bees and making them go after him now.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle quickly flew away from this angry swarm. It was now, that he realized that he didn't think this plan out to the end. Those bees were pretty fast and it was only a matter of time until they caught up to him. As Star Twinkle ran away, he luckily came across a little pond. He figured that this would be his big escape so he held his breath and quickly jumped into the pond. The bees didn't jump in of course, but they waited above the water until Star Twinkle would come out. This was bad, mainly because Star Twinkle couldn't hold his breath forever.

There was one more option, however...

Star Twinkle switched to his Unicorn Form and used a teleport spell to get out of this situation. He vanished with a flash and quickly appeared near the tree where the Breezie was at. The pony offered his help to the Breezie who gladly accepted after such a close call. "Menkyulen. Thank you! Thank you for rescuing me!" The Breezie replied in gratitude.

"No problem..." Star Twinkle replied while he wrung out his mane. "But shouldn't all of you be with Fluttershy? Why were you out here?" Star Twinkle asked.

The Breezie seemed to be a little angry after Star Twinkle brought up Fluttershy's name. "Because that pony refuses to let us go! We should have left a long time ago but every other Breezie is just too stupid to realize that! They don't listen to me!" He exclaimed angrily.

"Well, that doesn't surprise me if you refer to them as idiots..." Star Twinkle replied boldly.

Their conversation then quickly came to a hold as soon as both of them noticed how the same swarm of bees from before returned and were ready to attack again. They both prepared themselves to run away but then Fluttershy appeared right in front of them, causing the bees to stop in their tracks.

"Um...excuse me...can you please not attack my friends?" She asked of the bees, which was hitting them on deaf ears, just like with Star Twinkle before and made them fly past the mare. But Fluttershy wouldn't give up so easily. "I don't know what those two have done to make you angry but I'm sure they didn't do it on purpose," she said, but again the bees ignored the mare and flew around her, charging right at Star Twinkle and Seabreeze. After that, Fluttershy gave up playing nicely and then tried to talk with them differently. "Excuse me!" She said in an angry tone. "I know you are angry but you should really know better! Star Twinkle wouldn't hurt a fly on purpose and Seabreeze is just one little Breezie, and they are my friends so if you don't stop attacking them, then you have to deal with me!" She said angrily while she kept eye contact with the bees, intimidating them in the process.

This little outburst of Fluttershy made the bees return to their beehive, although it was not clear if it was because they realized that they overreacted or because they were scared of Fluttershy...

The mare then turned towards the Breezie and expressed her worry. "Seabreeze! Thank goodness you are alright!" She said in relief before she turned towards Star Twinkle. "Did you find him, Star Twinkle?" She asked.

"Yeah, but it was pretty close as you might saw...thanks by the way," Star Twinkle replied in gratitude.

"That is why you should not leave on your own," Fluttershy advised. "You could have got seriously hurt. Ponyville is a very dangerous place for little creatures like you," she explained in concern.

"Yeah, I know!" Seabreeze replied. "That is one reason why I have been trying to get us to go from the beginning!" She explained, finally opening Fluttershy's eyes now.

"Oh, my goodness," Fluttershy said in her realization. "I was just trying not to hurt any creature's feelings, but my displays of kindness may have cost you everything..." she said in regret feeling bad for the Breezies now. "Time is running out, and you may never make it home!"

"That is exactly what I have been telling all of them! But they do not listen to me! Nobreezie ever listens to me!" Seabreeze replied frustrated before he turned around in sadness.

"Have you tried to be a little nicer to them?" Star Twinkle then said bluntly.

"Yes, Seabreeze," Fluttershy agreed. "I understand your feelings are hurt, but it's hard for them to hear you when you're shouting and being mean. The message doesn't get across," she explained, trying to make Seabreeze understand.

"But being too nice also doesn't seem to be the right thing to do now..." Star Twinkle pointed out, judging from how the events unfolded so far. Fluttershy seemed to have admitted that too and actually felt a little bad now. "It's just like with those bees. You tried being nice to them and it didn't work, but they had to go and didn't listen to you until you stopped being nice," Star Twinkle further pointed out.

Right now, Fluttershy realized the problem completely. She looked over to Seabreeze and had a face filled with regret.

As Star Twinkle watched the mare looking at Seabreeze, suddenly, a voice popped up in his head.

"Sometimes being too kind is probably a bad thing...if you end up hurting your friends..."

Then, Star Twinkle's eyes began to shine in a light blue colored light for a brief moment. Fluttershy then had a rainbow-colored light in her eyes. Star Twinkle did not see that for the first time, in fact, it happened a few times now and every time it did, he could hear a voice in his voice and his head started to hurt. He started to wonder what this all meant but he had no time for that because Fluttershy asked him and Seabreeze to follow her to her cottage so that she could gather the Breezies in order for them to return home now.

The mare stood in front of the Breezies and informed them about what almost happened to Seabreeze. "I know more than ever that you must leave before it's too late! You would never survive in Ponyville," she explained. But the Breezies were protesting and still didn't want to leave. Still, Fluttershy was not giving in this time and stayed strong. "I can't help you anymore. In fact, I wasn't helping you at all by being nice. Oh... But the truth of the matter is that I must be firm! You must go, now!" She said while she opened the door and pointed outside.

Although the Breezies still didn't want to leave, they kinda seemed to have realized the seriousness of the situation and slowly flew outside together. Seabreeze seemed to finally be happy about this outcome and looked at the mare in gratitude. Fluttershy still stood by her decision and thought that it was the right thing to do but as soon as she closed the door behind them, she broke out in tears.

Star Twinkle felt as if he should say something to cheer her up so that is exactly what he did. "It's better like this," he said.

"I know but..." she said while still sobbing uncontrollably, causing Star Twinkle to put a hoof on her shoulder to comfort her. Before he knew it though, the mare jumped into his chest and cried. Star Twinkle felt a little weird about that and didn't know how exactly he should respond to that but he decided to not say anything and patted the mare's head instead.

It must have been really hard for Fluttershy to make that decision but unfortunately, it was not yet over. The Breezies still had to go home so Star Twinkle and Fluttershy went outside as well and joined Rainbow Dash and the others who were still waiting for the Breezies to be on their way again. However, instead of greeting them with smiles, they all had a worried expression on their faces.

"What's wrong?" Star Twinkle asked once he saw the expressions on their faces.

"We still have a little problem," Hurricane Wing said with a serious expression on his face.

Breeze Flyer explained. "We can't seem to find the right balance for the breeze. It's either too strong so that it will tear that Breezies apart, or too weak so that they won't arrive home in time,"

That was indeed a problem since time was already short enough. They couldn't waste their time on another problem that just showed up. But luckily Fluttershy seemed to at least see the reason for the problem. "Maybe it's because there are too few of them. When they started their journey, there was more of them to face the breeze together," she figured.

This somehow got Twilight's attention. "So what you are saying is, that we need more Breezies, right?" She asked, causing Fluttershy to nod in response. Apparently, that was enough information that Twilight needed. She looked over to the Breezies and shared an idea. "I've been studying an old spell book from the Castle of the Two Sisters. There's a spell that I think could help us! This is probably gonna feel a little funny at first, but you're gonna have to trust me," she said while she looked over to everypony.

There were not many options left so everypony pretty much had to trust Twilight on this one. She started her spell and fired magic beams towards everypony. Nopony felt different at first but as soon as Twilight fired at the Breezies as well, something seemed to happen to every one of them. They were transforming. They all had little antennas on their heads, butterfly-shaped wings on their backs and began to shrink.

They transformed into Breezies.

"Ah! I see!" Hurricane Wing said casually in a really high-pitched voice as if nothing was unusual about all of this.

Everyone else seemed to enjoy this transformation, especially Breeze Flyer who couldn't stop laughing in excitement after she transformed into a Breezie herself.

But there was not enough time to get excited so Fluttershy advised everyone to follow her. "Maifo flai batendud!" She said, much to the confusion of everyone cause they had no idea what she was saying. "Um, I mean, let's go!" She then said, asking everyone to follow her.

From there on out it was a really long trip through Equestria. Nothing went wrong luckily and they were even good in time so there was a good chance that they could make it to the home of the Breezies before the portal closed. Seabreeze used this time to apologize to the other Breezies for his behavior. No Breezie seemed to be too mad and quickly forgive him, probably because they realized that they were wrong too by trying to stay in Fluttershy's cottage.

When they finally arrived at the portal, it was almost completely closed but that didn't stop everyone to fly inside of it for a moment since they were all curious about how the world of the Breezies looked like.

"Holy mini-sized paradise!" Rainbow Dash said after she laid eyes on this place.

"It's so cute!" Breeze Flyer added excitedly.

The whole place looked almost like a little paradise. There were little buildings, a waterfall, mushrooms and all kinds of different looking plants, it was really pretty to look at.

"This is simply beautiful! So much inspiration. Where's my sketchpad when I need it?" Rarity said once she looked around the place.

Of course, as soon as the last Breezies arrived back home, they returned to their friends and families who were all happy to see them safe and sound. Fluttershy was really happy to see how every single one of them was happy to be home again. But...they couldn't stay forever and had to go outside before the portal closed and would trap them inside.

Still, Fluttershy went to the Breezies to say her goodbyes. Seabreeze gave Fluttershy one last gift, however, before she would leave. It was a flower. "To remember us by," he said before he stuck it into Fluttershy's mane.

"Thank you!" Fluttershy said before she hugged Seabreeze as thanks. "I'll miss you. I'll miss all of you!" She said before she went outside to join the rest of her friends who already waited for her.

Shortly after, Twilight turned everyone back to their original selves again, much to the dislike of some of them. "Oh...I was really getting used to it..." Breeze Flyer said with a little frown on her face.

"You want to stay in the world of Breezies? Maybe the portal is still open," he suggested to which Breeze Flyer responded with an embarrassed expression on her face because of course, she would not do that.

With all those things settled, everypony could finally go home again. Fluttershy shared her experience with the Breezies and what she had learned after all of this. "Kindness can take many forms, and sometimes being too kind can actually keep a friend from doing what they need to do. Pushing them away may seem cruel, but it's sometimes the kindest thing you can do," she said in front of everypony, who all happily listened to that newfound lesson.

With that coming to a close, Hurricane Wing and Breeze Flyer said their farewells, the latter one seeming to have really enjoyed this "mission" that they were sent to. Of course, Hurricane Wing noticed that and still didn't know why she was so fascinated by those creatures but he also didn't want to ruin her excitement so he just smiled while she was talking about the events that happened today...

83. Foalsitter Star Twinkle

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Unlike almost any other day, there was nothing unusual planned for today. No special event was happening today and Star Twinkle wasn't invited by anypony to spent time with them. It was a pretty normal day. So Star Twinkle spend the day quietly at home. Right now, he was playing a little party of chess.

"It's your turn..." Star Twinkle said as he waited for his opponent to make his turn. And his opponent happened to be his pet goldfish, Comet who would usually think very carefully about his next move. "Don't worry, take your time," Star Twinkle said as he waited patiently and focused his sight on the chessboard. But his focus was shaken after he heard some knocks on the front door, causing him to look at the door in surprise. "Wonder who that is..." he said before he looked back at the chessboard for a moment only to realize that he was now in checkmate and that Comet won. But Star Twinkle didn't seem too surprised. "I just can't ever beat you, I suppose..." he said after he lost and he stood up to get the door to see who was visiting him.

Once he opened the door, Applejack stood in front of him. "Hey, Star Twinkle," she greeted with a smile on her face.

"Yes?" Star Twinkle asked, wondering what the reason was for the mare's visit. He could swear that this was the very first time that Applejack actually paid him a visit at home. Normally she would be busy working on the farm at this time so there must be some reason for her visit.

"Busy today?" She asked.

"Not really," Star Twinkle replied while shrugging his shoulders.

Applejack seemed kinda relieved to hear that, judging from the sudden grin on her face. "I was hoping that you would say that!" She said happily. "Because...I really need to ask you for a favor..." she then said a little hesitantly.

Star Twinkle was preparing himself for a quiet day but with Applejack standing right in front of him, he couldn't just ignore her and her favor. It was rare that Applejack was asking Star Twinkle to do something for her. Normally she would be the one doing favors for others. After listening to some of her explanation, however, he quickly realized that she was asking him for help because she was literally not able to do it herself, due to her being away from Ponyville for a while.

She explained what exactly he wanted him to do, and it actually didn't sound too bad, in fact, it sounded like a rather simple task so Star Twinkle was actually kinda looking forward to it.

That is...until he arrived at Applejack's home...

Later, in the Apple family household...

It was a little awkward...

There was Star Twinkle standing in the middle of the room and Apple Bloom stared directly at him with a glare on her face which made the stallion feel a little uncomfortable.

The little filly then looked over to her big sister with the same glare on her face. "You asked Star Twinkle to foalsit me?" She asked almost insulted.

"Now, now, Apple Bloom," Applejack replied trying to get on her little sister's good side again. "I just asked Star Twinkle to keep an eye out on you while me, Big Mac and Granny are away," she explained.

"But that is what foalsitting is!" Apple Bloom replied frustrated. This was awkward as well, for Star Twinkle. He didn't like being in the middle of this while the two were arguing like that. Although, there wasn't much arguing going on because Applejack was the one who was pretty much in command of the situation. It was like the mare was just expecting her little sister to accept everything that she had planned. In fact, it was just left like that, Applejack walked away from her sister and expected Star Twinkle to take over from here on out.

"Here, take this," Applejack said before she gave Star Twinkle a list.

"What is that?" Star Twinkle asked confused before he opened up the scroll only to see the end of it rolling across half the room, much to his surprise.

Applejack explained. "Just a few things that I want you to take care of so that Apple Bloom will be safe and sound," the mare explained proudly while Apple Bloom had a confused look on her face.

Star Twinkle quickly glanced over some points of the list. "Make sure that Apple Bloom eats enough, but not too much! Make sure that everything she eats is not too hot, it would be best if you taste the food before you give it to her..." But only after reading that, Star Twinkle figured that Applejack was maybe going a little too far with her concern.

"Also, make sure to help her with the chores, alright?" Applejack then added before Star Twinkle could even get to the list.

Apple Bloom finally spoke up again after she overheard that. "But Applejack, I thought you were trusting me with all the chores today!" She said, feeling completely left out by now.

Applejack didn't seem to notice the reaction of her little sister and just petted her head. "I know, I just want Star Twinkle to help you out a little, that is all," she said with a smile on her face.

But Apple Bloom got even more frustrated after that. "I can do the chores on my own! I'm not a baby after all!" She exclaimed, trying to get the message across the point by stomping on the ground with her hoof.

Shortly after, Granny Smith's voice could be heard from outside the house. It seemed to be time to leave for the rest of the family. "I would really like to stay longer but we have to go and deliver those pies now," Applejack said before she walked towards the door but not without turning towards Star Twinkle for one moment. "Star Twinkle, I'll trust you to take care of Apple Bloom so that she won't hurt herself, right?" She asked.

"Hey!" Apple Bloom said offended in an angry tone.

Applejack then left and joined Big McIntosh and Granny Smith who were both still waiting outside with two carts filled with apple pies. Big McIntosh had one of the carts behind him and Granny Smith was sitting inside a taxi cart while Applejack walked up to the one cart that was still empty and joined her family so that they could finally be on their way.

From what Star Twinkle understood, Applejack and Big McIntosh were each supposed to deliver a cart of apple pies to different towns, and Granny Smith would be away visiting another family member. This only left Apple Bloom to be home alone but since Applejack was too worried about her little sister, she asked Star Twinkle to look over her, much to Apple Bloom's disappointment. Star Twinkle couldn't help but get dragged into a little family feud.

The two ponies waited until Applejack, Big McIntosh and Granny Smith were all out of sight. Apple Bloom then quickly glared at Star Twinkle and made sure that he would know how she felt about all this. "This is the moment where I would have danced and laughed in excitement after realizing that my family was trusting me so much that they let me stay home alone..." she said before she went inside her home again with an angered expression on her face.

Even though Star Twinkle only wanted to help to do this favor for Applejack, he felt like his mere presence was upsetting Apple Bloom, something that he really didn't want to cause. The stallion walked inside the house again and saw how Apple Bloom took a look at the list that Applejack left behind. As soon as Star Twinkle was standing at the door, however, the filly threw a glare at him again, much to Star Twinkle's discomfort.

"Hey, don't look at me like that, okay? This was your sister's idea," Star Twinkle said after he started to feel bad for her now.

Apple Bloom groaned in frustration. "Yeah, I know..." she said before she sighed with a frown on her face. "It's just...I really thought that by now, they would start to trust me of taking care of everything myself...but now I am stuck with you as my foalsitter...nothing personal by the way..."

"I know," Star Twinkle replied. The stallion could only imagine how Apple Bloom must have felt right now. She was part of the apple family, a really hard working and independent family, sooner or later she would have to prove that she was able to take care of things on her own. But knowing her, the filly couldn't wait but to prove that now, it was like with her hunt for a Cutie Mark, it was something she probably couldn't wait for.

Apple Bloom took a look at Applejack's notes and could only shake her head. "I mean, listen to that," she said before she read out loud. "There's some soup for you in the 'frigerator. Be sure not to heat it up too much. If it's hot, blow on it to cool it off. And take little sips — if you gulp, you could get hiccups," she read out loud, causing Star Twinkle to lower his eyebrows confused.

"I'll have to admit, that Applejack might have gone a little overboard about all that but that's just because she is a little worried about you. It's the first time that you stay home alone, after all, right?" Star Twinkle replied, trying to cheer the filly up.

But it didn't work. "Yeah...maybe," Apple Bloom replied with a frown on her face.

Star Twinkle felt more and more bad about the situation. He didn't want to disappoint Applejack and had to keep an eye on Apple Bloom but at the same time, he didn't want to ruin Apple Bloom's day. There was one fact that gave the stallion an idea, and that fact was, that Applejack was not there and Star Twinkle was the one who was supposed to take care of Apple Bloom, meaning that he was in charge of making all the decisions. Apple Bloom told Star Twinkle that they should take care of the chores now, and that gave Star Twinkle an idea.

"Alright, think you can handle them on your own?" He asked, much to Apple Bloom's confusion.

"But my sister said that you have to help me with them," she said.

"Yeah, but your sister is not here," Star Twinkle replied with a grin on his face. "You wanted to do them alone originally, right? Here is the idea..." Star Twinkle started before he shared what he had in mind. "I let you do all the chores, and all I do is watching you, that way, I can tell Applejack later that you took care of everything yourself and that you didn't need my help at all. And maybe then she will realize that she was too concerned about you," he explained.

Although Apple Bloom really liked the idea, she still had some doubts. "But what if Applejack doesn't believe you?" She asked.

"Doesn't hurt to try, doesn't it?" Star Twinkle replied while shrugging his shoulders.

Finally, Apple Bloom smiled again. "Right!" She said before she went to the stallion to give him a big hug, much to his surprise. He was just glad that he didn't have to look at Apple Bloom having a frown the whole day.

Apple Bloom got really excited to get to those chores now and Star Twinkle did his best to not interrupt so that she can do them all herself. In a way, Star Twinkle actually benefited from this situation. He didn't have to work and could just relax while Apple Bloom did everything on her own. It was perfect and Star Twinkle actually was proud of himself the way he how he dealt with the situation. And as long as Apple Bloom didn't do anything wrong, everything would turn out well in the end.

A little later...

"Number one seventy-two: Make sure to pump the bellows to keep the stove warm," Star Twinkle read out loud from Applejack's list.

"Got it!" Apple Bloom replied before she hopped on said bellows a few times, heating up the stove.

"Check," Star Twinkle said before he literally checked this task off from the list and went to the next one. "Make sure the hats and bows closet is fully stocked," he read out loud, not sure what this was about.

But of course, Apple Bloom knew exactly what to do and walked to the main hallway of the house with Star Twinkle following her close by. She then opened a door in this hallway and revealed a closet that was completely filled with stetsons hats and bows, that both Applejack and Apple Bloom were wearing, along with some different looking hats and bows in the mix.

"So that is how Applejack managed to get a new hat, one day after I burned it..." Star Twinkle said in his realization.

Apple Bloom looked at the stallion confused. "Burned? How did you manage to do that?" She asked.

"Long story..." Star Twinkle quickly replied without getting into any details. "Anyway, check! That was the last thing that was left to do. We are done!" He said before he closed the list again.

"Alright!" Apple Bloom exclaimed excitedly before formed a confused expression. "Now what?" She then asked.

"I don't know," Star Twinkle replied. "What do you want to do?" He asked.

Apple Bloom still didn't seem to get it. "But you are my foalsitter so don't I have to listen to you or something?"

Star Twinkle was happy that Apple Bloom was willing to behave like that but he didn't intend to ruin her day or anything so he continued his plan further. "You did all the chores on your own and proved that you can take care of yourself. Also, this is your house, so you can do whatever you want," he explained.

There was a beaming smile forming on Apple Bloom's face after those words were spoken. The words that she probably waited to hear for so long. "You mean...If I wanna listen to music, I can!?" She asked, causing Star Twinkle to nod. "If I wanna read a book, I can!?" She asked, causing Star Twinkle to nod again. The filly then jumped up on the table in the middle of the room. "Or, if I wanna just stand here in the kitchen talkin' to myself, I can!?" She asked once more, causing Star Twinkle to nod again.

But in the middle of that, the door was suddenly slammed open. "Apple Bloom!" Applejack said who turns out to be the mare that opened the door.

This sudden entrance caused Apple Bloom to fall down the table, she was standing on, knocking over everything that was on it in the process.

"Applejack?" Star Twinkle asked confused after seeing Applejack back again already. He figured that there was no way that she already delivered the pies since it wasn't even an hour since she left.

But Applejack explained herself shortly after. "I came back to check on you, and I'm so glad I did! I never thought about how dangerous things are around here!" She said after she took a look at everything that was knocked down from the table, including some broken glass or food.

"Were are actually doing pretty well, Applejack," Star Twinkle informed.

"Yeah, what he says," Apple Bloom added as she got up again.

"You are now!" Applejack said before she rushed over to her sister to hug her. "Because I'm here and I'm stayin'! No way am I leavin' my little baby sister home alone all by herself!"

"Um...you do realize that I am still here, right?" Star Twinkle said, in order to remember Applejack why he was supposed to stay here.

"Besides, I'm not a baby!" Apple Bloom added. "I can take care of myself! Just ask Star Twinkle!" She said to which Star Twinkle proudly nodded.

"Seriously, Applejack, I don't even think there was any reason for me to stay here. She did everything that she was supposed to do on her own," Star Twinkle explained.

But Applejack didn't seem to listen to that one bit, for some reason. "Star Twinkle, you're just saying that so that you could talk your way out of working," she then boldly said at his face.

"Yeah, normally..." Star Twinkle admitted, even though this time this was not the case. "And what about those pies you're supposed to deliver?" Star Twinkle then asked.

"Pies? Ha! Family's way more important than pies!" Applejack replied almost offended.

"But I'm fine!" Apple Bloom said after feeling a little offended being called a baby by her sister. "I don't need you lookin' after me. I'm perfectly capable of stayin' home alone. Really! Just look!" She said before she grabbed the list and read out some random task to prove Applejack how capable she was. "There's some soup for you in the 'frigerator," she read out loud. The filly then went to the refrigerator in order to grab a soup that was inside. However, Applejack was not even paying attention and just cleaned the room with a broom. But since Apple Bloom was doing that so that she could prove to her sister how capable she was, she needed to get her big sister's attention. "Watch me!" She said as she was moving her hoof inside the refrigerator.

However, in the most unlucky moment ever, the filly managed to knock the soup over because she was paying too much attention to Applejack and covered herself in the soup. And of course, Applejack saw that and quickly rushed towards her little sister. "Oh, no! This is worse than I thought!" She said in concern before she hugged her little sister in order to protect her. "Well, don't worry, Apple Bloom, I'm here now and I'm not leavin' you home alone ever again. I'm stickin' right by your side, always!"

Now it was Apple Bloom who had a worried expression on her face. The little filly accepted Star Twinkle as her foalsitter and didn't try to bother About it anymore but now this happened. She certainly didn't expect her day to be like this and just wished that her sister would believe in her. In the end, doing all the tasks on her own didn't help either because Applejack wouldn't even listen to Star Twinkle.

And if that wasn't bad enough, Applejack wanted to do some changes around the farm with the help of Star Twinkle...changes that were probably not to Apple Bloom's liking.

A little later...

"Do you really think that this is necessary?" Star Twinkle asked after he was done with the changes on the farm, that Applejack wanted him to do.

"Yep! Everything to keep my little sister safe!" Applejack replied.

And speaking of which, Apple Bloom appeared next to the two ponies outside so that she could prove to Applejack that she didn't need her to look over her all the time."Look!" She said before she grabbed a rake and tried to work with it. However, this rake was included in one of the changes that Star Twinkle and Applejack did around the farm and Apple Bloom quickly noticed that. "Huh? Hey! Who put pillows on this rake?" She asked after she saw that ridiculous change.

Applejack took full credit for that and chuckles. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe someone who really loves her little sister and doesn't want her to get an owie?" She said with a smile on her face before she rubbed Apple Bloom's cheeks and put a safety helm on her head.

Apple Bloom began to growl because of how Applejack was treating her but she didn't give up and tried to do something else to convince her over concerned sister. This time she walked up to a tree. "Hey, Applejack! Watch me buck these apples on my own without anythin' bad happenin' to me!" She said before she kicked the tree in front of her, waiting for some apples to fall down. But nothing fell down except some leaves, much to the filly's surprise. The reason for that was because there were safety nets under every single tree that would prevent apples to fall to the ground. Again, Apple Bloom growled at the sight of that.

This continued for a while...

Apple Bloom continuously attempted to prove how capable she was to work at the farm, but every time she tried to do something, she stumbled across the changes that Star Twinkle and Applejack did around the farm. Star Twinkle didn't like to put Apple Bloom in this situation but he was kinda trapped in Applejack's crazy imagination that the filly would hurt herself. It's also not as if she would listen to him in her concern.

Apple Bloom didn't even see the worst thing yet. As soon as she entered her house again, she noticed how every sharp or pointy edge of every object in the house was covered in bubble wrap to prevent Apple Bloom from taking any kind of damage. "Oh, for the love of...! She've gone and baby-proofed everythin'!" She said after she saw how much her home has changed thanks to the concern of her big sister. Star Twinkle was actually putting some bubble wrap around some more objects, the moment Apple Bloom was inside. Of course, the filly quickly confronted him about this issue. "What are you doing Star Twinkle!? Don't tell me you think I can't take care of myself too!" She asked, having enough to deal with Applejack alone.

"Sorry, but whenever I'll try to talk with Applejack, I somehow end up doing something like this. She won't listen to me," the stallion explained as he continued his work around the house.

"So you think she is going overboard as well?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Yeah, of course, I do! I mean, look at that!" He said while he showed Apple Bloom a lamp that he had worked on. "She asked me to cover the lamps with something so that you wouldn't go blind! That's just crazy!" He admitted.

Apple Bloom was having enough of this and asked Star Twinkle to come with him. They both went to her room and discussed what to do next. Apple Bloom was clearly having enough of all this and Star Twinkle had to agree that Applejack was going overboard as well, so they had to come up with a plan to make the mare realize that.

But as soon as they were in Apple Bloom's room, Applejack quickly opened the door. "Hey, Apple Bloom! You need anything? A snack? A hoof massage? Maybe a snack and a hoof massage?" She offered.

Star Twinkle gladly took that offer. "Well, actually I am kinda hungry so-"

"No thank you!" Apple Bloom interrupted before she forcefully closed the door again with Applejack being on the other side.

"Okay, well you can count on me bein' close by if'n you need anythin'!" Applejack said from the other side of the door.

Apple Bloom then walked up to Star Twinkle and whispered so that her sister wouldn't notice anything if she happened to enter the room again. "Star Twinkle, you need to help me! I can't stand having Applejack constantly hovering over me!"

"Yeah, I have to admit that she is going a little too far," Star Twinkle whispered back. "I already tried talking with her about that but she doesn't listen to me because she is too concerned about you,"

The filly then clenched her teeth in anger. "Great..." she said angrily before she walked past Star Twinkle and laid on her bed in frustration.

It was clearly visible for Star Twinkle that Apple Bloom was not happy about this situation at all. He honestly wanted to help her but he didn't know-how. "This all wouldn't have happened if Applejack just continued her pie delivery..." Star Twinkle said while he still tried to come up with something.

But there was no more reason for that because there was an idea popping up in Apple Bloom's head. "That's it!" She said before she jumped out of the bed and looked out of the window. She spotted the cart of pies that was standing outside, the one that Applejack was supposed to deliver. "The pies! I'll sneak out and deliver them!" She suggested.

"Deliver them?" Star Twinkle asked. "But aren't they supposed to be delivered to some hard-to-reach-town?"

"Yes, that's just it!" Apple Bloom replied. "And if I can do it alone, that'll show Applejack I don't need somepony watchin' over me!" She explained.

"I don't know..." Star Twinkle said, not thinking that this would be a really good idea.

"Come on, Star Twinkle!" Apple Bloom almost begged. "You saw how Applejack was treating me! She still thinks I'm a little baby and that I can't survive without her watching me every minute!"

"I know, I know!" Star Twinkle said, trying to calm the filly down again. "But in case you forgot, Applejack is checking up on you constantly, so if you're out delivering the pies, Applejack will know!" He pointed out.

Apple Bloom rubbed her cheek and began to think before she then came up to a conclusion. "I think I know how to take care of that," she then said with a grin on her face.

Eventually, Star Twinkle just gave in and agreed with Apple Bloom's plan to deliver the pies. He was also eager to hear what she had in mind to take care of the problem that Applejack would always come to check on her.

But as he listened to Apple Bloom's plan...he wished he never agreed to this plan...

A little later...

Apple Bloom was gone for a few minutes now, to deliver Applejack's pies and trying to prove that she is old enough to take care of herself. In order to do that, however, Star Twinkle had to make sure that Applejack was not noticing how her sister was gone. For that, he had to make her believe that Apple Bloom was still home.

"So this is what I am right now?" Star Twinkle thought after he looked at his current situation and wondered why he ever agreed to it.

In order to make Applejack believe that Apple Bloom was still home, they just had to make sure to let her believe that Apple Bloom was still inside her room. But since Apple Bloom was going on her way to deliver the pies, of course, there was no way that she was doing that.

That's where Star Twinkle came in...

The full-grown stallion laid in Apple Bloom's bed with one of her bows on his head and covered his body under the sheets. He was supposed to convince Applejack that he was Apple Bloom. There were many things that Star Twinkle was thinking about while he looked at the ceiling with the bedsheets covering his body. Like, why he agreed to that idea in the first place, or if he was more embarrassed or mad about his current situation, and, of course, if this plan will actually work. The latter question would soon be answered with another visit from Applejack.

"Everythin' okay in there, sugarcube?" Applejack asked from the other side of the door.

Star Twinkle jumped and quickly pulled the bed sheets above his head, letting only the bow on his head sticking out. Shortly after Applejack entered the room and checked up on her sister. Star Twinkle's heart was racing more and more the closer the mare got to him. All he could do was to stay still and pray to Celestia that Applejack wouldn't suspect anything.

Applejack was now standing next to the bed but she didn't lift the bed sheet so she couldn't see Star Twinkle beneath it. "I guess you must've been so tuckered out, you sent Star Twinkle home and went to bed. Then again, you are a delicate flower," she said before she walked away towards the door again. "Sleep tight, Apple Bloom. I'll check on you again in a bit,"

Shortly after, Star Twinkle could hear the door closing so Applejack must have left the room again. Star Twinkle released a huge sigh and couldn't believe that it worked. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite relax yet because a minute later, the door opened again...

"Just checkin' in on you again!" Applejack said before she closed the door again a few seconds later.

...

"Need anythin' now?"

...

"How 'bout now?"

...

"Need another blanket?"

...

"Did I hear a cough?"

...

"Want a glass of water?"

This went on for like an hour now. Applejack kept checking on Star Twinkle over and over again and each time Star Twinkle feared that Applejack would see through all of this.

"How often is she gonna check up on me?" Star Twinkle wondered. Applejack's concern for the well-being of her sister was starting to get out of hoof. If the stallion wasn't supposed to pretend to be Apple Bloom right now, he would certainly ask Applejack to stop it.

And of course, a minute later, Applejack checked up on Star Twinkle again. The mare must have felt a little exhausted because she started yawning as soon as she entered the room. "Just... checkin' in on you again," she said as she walked up to the stallion. "Look at you, dozin' so peaceful-like. Here I am, checkin' up on you every five seconds, and you're totally fine. Maybe you don't need me frettin' over you all the time," she said.

"Finally!" Star Twinkle thought before he realized that this wouldn't change anything at his current situation because Apple Bloom was still out there and he was still in here, pretending to be her. Maybe if Applejack would go to sleep herself Star Twinkle would have some time finding the filly so that she could return.

But as Star Twinkle was looking ahead of what to do next, Applejack began to question some things that he really didn't want to hear now. "Now that I look at it...you certainly look more grown-up..." she said after she realized that the pony under the bedsheets was a lot bigger then she remembered. "A lot more...grown up..." she added even more cautiously. "Wait a minute!"

Then, before he knew it, Applejack lifted the bed sheets and revealed Star Twinkle who was curled down on the bed and had an embarrassing expression on his face. Of course, Applejack had no idea how to respond to this and stood there with her mouth open.

"Star Twinkle?" Applejack asked confused.

"Uh...No..." Star Twinkle cleverly replied with an awkward expression on his face.

But Applejack didn't even question why Star Twinkle was in her little sister's bed or why he was wearing one of her bows because she got quickly worried about Apple Bloom. "Where's Apple Bloom? She's not here! She could be anywhere! She could be lost, cold, hungry, itchy, stuffed up, needin' to go to the bathroom!" She said in a panic while she rushed through the room and looked everywhere to find her sister.

"Don't worry, I know where she is right now," Star Twinkle said in order to calm the stressed out mare down again. "She's making your pie delivery,"

But instead of calming down, Applejack got even more concerned and rushed towards Star Twinkle. "What?! No! Didn't she hear how difficult and dangerous it was?! I may never see my little sister again!" She said with a shocked expression on her face.

"Calm down Applejack!" Star Twinkle said after getting a little tired of Applejack's worry over nothing. "She is just delivering some pies,"

Applejack actually calmed down a little and carefully thought about the situation. "Yeah, you're right...everything will be alright...she did bring flameproof boots, did she?" She then asked, much to Star Twinkle's confusion.

"What?" Star Twinkle asked confused, not seeing a reason for her to bring something like that.

Applejack got quickly nervous again. "Okay, how about a lion tamer's chair?" She then asked.

"Huh?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

"A snake charmin' flute?! A hunk of ricotta?!" Applejack further asked, confusing Star Twinkle even more.

"Why would she need stuff like that in order to deliver some pies!?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I think the better question would be, why did you let her go?" Applejack asked in an angry tone towards the stallion. "Why did you thought it was a good idea to let her go in the first place!?"

Star Twinkle didn't know how to reply to that. He could understand that Applejack was angry at him and there was no way that he could come up with a good explanation in the first place. He could just straight out say that this was partly Applejack's fault for pressuring Apple Bloom in this situation but this would change the fact that Apple Bloom was still out there and in potential danger.

Applejack was aware of that as well and focused on Apple Bloom instead of getting angry at Star Twinkle. "Okay, maybe there's still time to catch her before she gets there. When did she leave?" She asked in a little panic.

"Around an hour ago..." Star Twinkle replied with a concerned look on his face.

Of course, Applejack got even more worried after hearing that. "Oh no! then we don't have time to lose! Let's go!" She said before she rushed outside the room

"R-right!" Star Twinkle replied before he followed the mare in a rush.

Before the two ponies left, however, they needed to pick up the things that Applejack mentioned before, which included, fireproof boots, a lion tamer's chair, a charming flute and a hunk of ricotta. Of course, Star Twinkle was not really sure why those things were needed in the first place so he asked Applejack about them.

"I'll explain everything on the way! We can't lose any more time!" She said before she picked up all the stuff and gave some of it to Star Twinkle to carry. The stallion agreed that they had to move quickly so he just took some of the stuff and followed Applejack who was running outside already. The goal was to catch up with Apple Bloom and protect her from the dangers that would await her on this pie delivery.

Hopefully, they would not be too late...

Later...

With Star Twinkle being up to date with the situation now, he could completely understand why Applejack was worried this time. Not only was the place where Apple Bloom went filled dangerous but it was also filled with dangerous creatures. The place where they ended up was like a burning forest, literally. There was fire coming out of the ground, which is why the two ponies needed to wear their fireproof boots. However, that was the least of their worries now.

"You got everything down what I told you?" Applejack asked as she led the way through the forest.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle replied.

Thankfully, Applejack had the route completely down in her mind, making it pretty easy to predict where Apple Bloom could have gone to. This was good because the two of them quickly found the filly after they entered this burning forest.

"There she is!" Star Twinkle exclaimed after he spotted the filly. And not a second too late either because she was already attacked by something. It was a strange beast that looked like a mix of multiple animals. It was walking on all fours and had a Saber-tooth tiger head and front legs, a goat's head and hind legs, and a snake's head for a tail. Applejack already informed Star Twinkle about this creature and he knew what to do once he spotted one. "So that's a Chimera?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yes, you know what to do right? Let's do this!" Applejack said before she grabbed a flute and played a tune on it.

This caused the snake part of the Chimera to quickly fall asleep before it even knew what happened. The other two heads, however, were still awake so they quickly focused their attention towards Applejack and charged right at her.

This is exactly what the two wanted though.

Star Twinkle positioned himself between the Chimera and Applejack and pulled out the lion tamer's chair and put it right inside the saber-tooth's mouth, stopping it in its track. But unfortunately, the chair got destroyed pretty fast and only angered the beast so Star Twinkle ran away and hoped that Applejack would know what to do now.

"Howdy!" She said causing the Chimera to charge at her once more.

Applejack made the beast follow her and jumped over some tree branches. The Chimera jumped over it as well and accidentally got its tail stuck between the branches. But the beast didn't notice anything and kept charging at Applejack who was now standing in front of another tree. The Chimera quickly jumped at the mare and tried to strike its teeth into her but Applejack jumped to the side just a second ago and caused the Saber-tooth head to get stuck into the tree now.

With this, the Chimera was now unable to move, even though the goat head was still eager to attack the two Earth Ponies. In response to that, Applejack pulled out some ricotta and threw it right at the goat head who quickly ate it and smiled after having a taste. "Mm, ricotta!" The goat head said while it munched away happily and completely forgot the situation that the rest of her body was in.

After dealing with the Chimera, the two ponies walked up to Apple Bloom in order to make sure that she was safe. Of course, Applejack was the first one to went up to her sister and inspected every inch of her body to see if she had a scratch. "Are you okay?" She asked shortly after.

"Thanks to you two," Apple Bloom replied.

"It was really close, though..." Star Twinkle said as he kept his eyes open to any danger that could be around him. However, he was completely unaware of the danger right next to him.

"Yeah, it was! And this all wouldn't have happened if you let her go to a place like this!" Applejack said angrily towards the stallion after she remembered how it even came to this situation.

Even though Star Twinkle had no idea that this place was so dangerous, he couldn't deny that it was partly his fault so he apologized. "Sorry..."

But Apple Bloom quickly defended the stallion. "Don't be mad at him. It was my idea!"

This caused Applejack to now get angry at her sister. "Well, that only proves that you need your big sister lookin' after you if you come up with crazy ideas like that!" She said, scolding her sister. "I'm just glad this wasn't a whole lot worse. I mean, sure we lost the cart and all the pies, but at least you're—"

"Um...Applejack," Star Twinkle interrupted as he pointed towards Apple Bloom, who was pulling the cart out of a bush without Applejack noticing it as she scolded her sister.

Applejack was highly surprised to see that. "Huh, the cart! And all the pies! You actually got them all the way up here? In the dark? Through the Flame Geyser Swamp? Past that monster? ...By yourself?" She asked surprised.

"Well... yeah," Apple Bloom replied as if she was confused by how she managed to do it herself.

"Huh, wow," Applejack said dumbfounded by how Apple Bloom managed to do that. Suddenly, she was no longer mad but instead proud of her little sister. "That's mighty impressive! Anypony who can do that on her own, well, she don't need somepony like me babyin' her," she admitted, much to the delight of Apple Bloom who was just happy to hear those words from her sister.

The little filly then hugged her sister, who happily returned a hug herself and was just happy that her sister was safe.

"Um...girls..." Star Twinkle said, hating to interrupt this moment. "Shouldn't we get out of here? And, I don't know...talk in a more safe place?" He advised after taking a look at the place they were in.

Figuring that a forest with flames coming out of the ground wasn't the best place to talk, the two ponies agreed and decided to continue the pie delivery. It wasn't really far away anyway and they were further away from Ponyville then they were to the town where the pies were supposed to be delivered so they might as well continued on their way. But this time...together...

Later...

The three Earth Ponies arrived at the destined town and successfully delivered the pies, much to the town locals delight who were all highly enjoying the pies.

Happy to see this, Applejack made sure to let everypony know who to thank for those pies. "Just remember, you fellas wouldn't be enjoyin' these pies if it weren't for my sister," she said proudly.

"And my sister!" Apple Bloom added, wanting Applejack to get some praise as well.

However, instead of getting into a good mood, that was created now, Applejack still was a little mad at her sister. "But this doesn't change the fact that tryin' to make this delivery on your own was a plumb crazy thing to do!" She scolded.

"I know..." Apple Bloom said with a frown on her face.

But despite seeing how sad Apple Bloom was, Applejack continued. "I bet Granny Smith grounds you for a month for sneakin' out! And if Big Mac, Granny Smith 'n I ever have to be away for the day again..." she said, causing Apple Bloom to already get sad since she knew where this was going to go.

"Oh, boy..." Star Twinkle said once he had a guess what Applejack would say next as well.

But to the surprise of both of them, Applejack's sentence ended differently...

"I would totally trust you to stay home and take care of things on your own," she said, putting a smile on her little sister's face. "I guess I did get a little carried away watchin' over you, and if you hadn't snuck out as you did, maybe I wouldn't have figured that out," she admitted.

"Yes!" Apple Bloom exclaimed cheerfully. "Now that is the kind of 'looking after me' that I can definitely appreciate!" She said before she hugged her big sister in response. "So... we're good?" She asked.

"Little sister, we're always good," Applejack replied who had already forgiven her little sister.

But while they were hugging, Apple Bloom whispered some words into her sister's ear. "And what about him?" She asked, referring to Star Twinkle, who was standing a little further away because he didn't know if Applejack was still mad at him for putting her sister in this dangerous situation.

Applejack quickly got the hint and walked up to Star Twinkle. She removed her hat and decided to apologize. "Maybe I was a little too harsh with you, Star Twinkle," she said sincerely and with some regret in her voice. "I know you would never purposely put my sister in danger or anything, and in the end, it actually helped me to realize that I was the one who was in the wrong...think you can forgive me?"

But Star Twinkle was never mad at Applejack, to begin with, so there was no reason for that apology. "Don't worry about it, I'm just glad that nothing bad happened," he replied.

"Yeah...me too," she agreed before she looked over to Apple Bloom who seemed to have fun with the rest of the townsfolk in the meantime.

When Applejack asked Star Twinkle to foalsit her sister, he would never imagine this day to end like this. Whether it was exhausting or not, in the end, he was just glad that both Applejack and Apple Bloom got closer by this experience, and was worth something as well.

84. Sister Pie

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If there is one thing that Star Twinkle really liked, then it was getting a good portion of sleep. So of course, not getting enough of sleep can make him really grumpy.

Like today...

Star Twinkle, as well as the rest of his friends, were supposed to meet Pinkie Pie early in the morning in front of Sugarcube Corner. By the time where Star Twinkle arrived, he actually didn't really care anymore what Pinkie Pie wanted from them and just wished that whatever she wanted, wouldn't take too much time so that he could go home and get some sleep back.

The rest of his friends were not too excited about getting up this early either. Rainbow Dash, pretty much spoke out what everyone else was thinking at the very moment.

"I don't see what's so important we had to meet her here this early. Celestia hasn't even raised the sun yet!" Rainbow Dash complained while she pointed towards the horizon.

"Agreed..." Star Twinkle said, followed by a yawn. "I would have preferred if she could have met us a few hours later..." he added while he rubbed his eyes a little.

"Come to think of it, did somepony even saw her yesterday?" Applejack asked.

She was referring to how Pinkie Pie was probably home all day yesterday which could be the reason why nopony saw her since then. After realizing that, Twilight got a little worried and decided to knock on the door of Sugarcube Corner. "I hope everything's okay," she said with some concern while knocking on the door.

Immediately after, there were some loud noises coming from inside, as if something really big just fell over or something. This only caused the group to get even more worried but fortunately, Pinkie Pie then opened the door, wearing a chef's hat and some safety glasses. "Thank goodness you're all here!" She said, not even going into detail what that noise just now was. "There's no time to lose!" She then said before she dragged everypony inside without warning, much to the confusion of everypony.

When the group walked inside, or rather, was dragged inside, there were colorful little rocks scattered all over the ground. Not to mention that there were also huge piles of those rocks everywhere. To put it simply, the place was a huge mess that was most likely caused by Pinkie Pie.

"What is all this?" Twilight asked after she looked around the place.

Pinkie Pie quickly explained. "My sister Maud's gonna be here soon, and I need your help taste-testing my rock candy recipes!" She said.

Star Twinkle picked one of those rocks up and inspected it further. "Those are candies?" He asked before he tasted one of them. They were indeed candies. They were a little hard to chew but they were also sweet and tasty. This meant that Pinkie Pie must have spent the whole day yesterday to make candies, judging by how many candies were inside of the room.

But the number of candies was exactly what got some worried. "Uh, we're happy to help you, Pinkie Pie, but this seems like an awful lot of candy," Applejack said.

"Even for you," Rarity agreed.

After taking a look at all the candy in the room, Pinkie Pie quickly came to that conclusion as well. "I may have gone a teensy bit overboard," she said before she grinned in embarrassment.

But despite the amount of candy in the room, the others decided to help the mare out. Star Twinkle was actually looking forward to it. "We just have to eat candies? That doesn't sound too bad, right?" He asked towards the rest of his friends.

The others thought about it for a moment but they quickly came to the conclusion to help Pinkie Pie out with this and agreed to taste test the candies that Pinkie Pie made. Eating some candies shouldn't be much of a problem, is what everyone thought, so they quickly went to work and taste some of the candies that were already there while Pinkie Pie was already making some new ones.

Later...

"This was not a good idea..." Star Twinkle said in regret as he laid on the ground with a hurting stomach.

But just when he thought he was done, Pinkie Pie came with another cart full of rock candies. "Everypony ready for more?" She asked.

But all she got as a response were groans from the rest of her friends who were all laying down on the ground because of the number of candies that they consumed.

"Ugh. My teeth hurt," Rainbow Dash said. She was the one who ate the most of the candies so far.

Because those candy rocks were pretty hard, eating a lot of them was actually pretty painful, that is something everypony could agree on.

"I think we've had plenty," Applejack said. "And shouldn't you be on your way to pick up Maud from the train station?" She pointed out.

But Pinkie Pie didn't seem to be worried. "Oh, but you've only tried half of the flavors, and we have to choose the perfect ones before she gets here so I have time to make more!" She said before she proceeded to eat all the rock candies on her own which made caused the others to hurt their teeth just watching that.

Eventually, Twilight decided to be the voice of reason. "Maud is your sister. I'm sure she'll love your rock candy. And I'm pretty sure you've made enough. She's only staying for the week," she said in order to calm Pinkie Pie down a bit.

"Aw, it's not just for Maud, silly," Pinkie Pie replied. "I'm making candy for all of us!"

A big groan that came from everypony quickly filled the room after hearing that. "I'll pass..." Star Twinkle said as he raised his hoof into the air while still laying on the ground with a hurting stomach and teeth.

However, Pinkie Pie was quite serious about all this. "It's part of a very important, super-duper special tradition that only the closest and bestest of friends can share. We're going to make rock candy necklaces together!" She said before she squealed in excitement. She then pulled out a necklace that was made out of rock candies and shared her story about this tradition. "It all started when Maud and I were fillies on the rock farm. She taught me the Pie family rock candy recipe! It adds a secret ingredient..." she said before she whispered the secret ingredient. "It's rocks!" She then spoke in her normal voice again. "And she showed me how to string the pieces to make them into a necklace! And once we were done, we'd trade! Maud and I have been trading necklaces back and forth since I moved to Ponyville. They're a sign that we'll always be best friends!" She said before she grinned widely.

Hearing this story was actually warming the hearts of the group, even while their teeth hurt...

Of course, Applejack, who was very proud of her family and their traditions was happy to hear a story like that. "Aw, what a great tradition," she said with a smile on her face.

But then Rainbow Dash pointed out what must have slipped over everyponies minds in the middle of this heartwarming story. "Hold on...The secret ingredient is rocks?" She asked confused.

After getting a taste of so much rock candies, Star Twinkle figured as much, just by how hard they were. "That would explain a lot..." he said while he poked his teeth out of fear that he might have broken some of his teeth after munching those "candies".

Pinkie Pie gave an explanation for that. "Yeah. But these are a special kind of rock that Maud discovered,"

"Oh, what kind of a rock are they?" Fluttershy asked out of curiosity.

Pinkie Pie quickly approached the mare and moved her head towards her. "Can't tell ya that, silly! It's a secret!" She whispered once more.

"They better not be real rocks..." Star Twinkle thought. He just figured that this was the case just because she and her sister both grew up on a rock farm.

"Now that Maud is heading out to get her rocktorate in rock science, this may be our last chance to trade them for a really long time," Pinkie Pie said with some worry on her face, however, the mere thought about sharing this tradition with her friends made her beam again. "I can't wait for you all to meet her. I just know that my best Ponyville friends and my best sister friend are gonna become bestest friends! We can make bestest-est friend rock candy necklaces together!" She said in her excitement before she walked up to the group to invite them all in a big group hug. "She expresses herself through fashion just like Rarity, and she's really smart and loves reading just like Twilight! And she's honest, and loves forest things, and is good at games, and is really good at building... Well, oh, she's awesome!" The pink party pony exclaimed, praising her sister higher and higher in hope that the others would get excited about Maud's visit as well.

But being almost strangled by Pinkie Pie in this big group hug made it a little hard to get excited.

"Need...air!" Star Twinkle said as he gasped for air.

"She sounds amazing, but won't she start worrying if you aren't at the train station when she gets here?" Rarity pointed out.

"She sure will," Pinkie Pie replied happily until she finally noticed that she might be a little late by now. After she realized that, she released a shocked gasp. "I gotta get out of here!" She said before she rushed out of the door to pick up her sister.

"Talk about getting your priorities right..." Star Twinkle mumbled.

"I'm sure she was just excited," Twilight figured.

"Obviously," Applejack added.

While some of the ponies in the group were already trying to recover from eating all those candies, however, Rarity was already coming up with a little something. "We should do something special for Pinkie Pie's sister! To tell her how excited we are to meet her!"

"Yes," Fluttershy agreed. "Pinkie Pie looked as if she wanted us to get along with her too. We should make sure that Maud feels welcome here," she suggested.

Everypony quickly agreed to this idea. It would be the first time for them to meet Pinkie Pie's sister and they wanted to make sure that the first impression would be good. Not only Maud but also Pinkie Pie would really appreciate that. There was some time left to prepare something so the group decided to go where they originally wanted to meet Pinkie Pie and her sister and set something up before they would arrive.

Later...

In order to welcome Pinkie Pie's sister, the group decided to throw a picnic. That way, Maud would get the know every one of Pinkie Pie's friends. Everypony, except Star Twinkle, even brought their pets with them. That was because Maud was bringing her pet along as well, that way, her pet could also make friends with the group's pets. The group just finished preparing setting everything up on the picnic blanket. All that was left was to wait for Pinkie Pie and her sister.

"I sure hope Maud has an appetite," Fluttershy said after she overlooked all the food on that was laid down on the picnic blanket.

Applejack, however, was positive and hinted to the basket of muffins, that she brought for the picnic. "Never met a pony or critter who didn't love Granny Smith's apple spiced muffins!" She said proudly.

In the meantime, Rarity had something completely different to worry about. "Oh, it's no use! I simply cannot find anything suitable to wear!" She said depressed before she sat down next to the others. Ironically, she was wearing something for the occasion.

"I doubt she'll notice what anypony's wearing, so what's the big deal?" Rainbow Dash said.

But Star Twinkle had to disagree. "I think Maud will notice that!" He thought after he kept his eyes on the giant hat that Rarity chose to wear for today. It was a giant hat covered with some kind of rocks. According to Pinkie Pie, Maud shared a fascination with rocks which was probably the reason why she decided to wear something like that but Star Twinkle couldn't take that hat seriously and looked at it as if he wanted to figure out how this was classified as fashion.

Rarity explained that she wanted to show how much of a fashion expert she was but since that hat was big enough to make her lose her balance, she feared that she wouldn't make the best impression on her.

"I think we're all a little nervous about Maud's visit," Twilight said. "She's Pinkie Pie's sister, and it's obvious Pinkie really wants us to hit it off. Being able to make those rock candy necklaces together is really important to her. I'm sure everything will be fine,"

Twilight was definitely having the right idea about the situation. Becoming friends with Maud was important for Pinkie Pie so of course, everypony took this meeting seriously, and Pinkie Pie wanted to share the tradition that she had with her sister with her friends, something that they were really happy about.

Star Twinkle was actually very calm about all this. He figured that it shouldn't be too hard to impress or befriend Pinkie Pie's sister. He and the others were friends with Pinkie Pie, so that was something that every one of them had in common and according to Pinkie Pie, her sister shared some interests with them so there was nothing really to worry about.

After some more waiting, Pinkie Pie finally arrived at the scene. "We're heeeere!" She exclaimed as she bounced towards the group. But for some reason, she was alone with no sister next to her, much to the confusion of everypony.

Twilight walked up to the mare. "Where's Maud?" She asked confused.

"She's coming!" Pinkie Pie replied joyfully as she looked back towards the hill where she was coming from.

The group looked at the hill but there was nopony coming, causing the group to get quite confused.

"You sure?" Rainbow Dash asked after not seeing anypony in the distance.

"She's not quite as fast as me," Pinkie Pie replied as if it was totally normal. "I asked Gummy to stay with her in case she got lost!" She added before she looked over at the hill again.

The group continued to look at the hill and after focusing their eyes, they could finally see somepony walking towards them...slowly...very slowly...

"Somepony sure takes her time..." Star Twinkle said as he waited like the rest.

"Is she even moving?" Rainbow Dash asked confused, which was actually a pretty valid question because of how slow the mare was walking towards them.

After what felt like half of an eternity, Maud finally arrived in front of the group. She had a gray coat, a short straight violet mane and tail, on which gummy was sticking his mouth into, and light turquoise eyes with violet eyeshadows. She was also wearing a blue-grayish frock. Unlike her sister, however, who was beaming as soon as Maud stood in front of her friends, Maud had a rather serious, if not an emotionless expression on her face. She also didn't greet the group and instead focused her attention on a little rock that laid in front of her. After sniffing it for a second, she spoke her first words to the group.

"Sedimentary," she said in an emotionless tone. The group had no idea what she meant with that and only threw confused faces at her so the mare explained further. "This is a sedimentary rock," she said while she picked up the rock from the ground.

After that, there was just an awkward silence. The first meeting with Pinkie Pie's sister was definitely a lot more different then what everyone expected, mainly because Maud was a lot more different than her little sister.

However, Twilight was not giving up like that and tried to break the ice between them and Maud and walked up to her. "That's... really fascinating, isn't it, girls?" She said, referring to the little conversation that they had so far. "We're just so thrilled you could come for a visit before your big trip. Pinkie Pie has told us so much about you. I'm Twilight, and this is Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Star Twinkle," she said while she pointed to all of her friends.

"We're ever so glad to meet you," Fluttershy said.

"We're just gonna have the best time!" Applejack said, ignoring the first impression of Maud and being positive that it could only get better from now on.

But despite the enthusiasm, that Applejack showed, Maud's expression didn't change one bit and the awkward silence returned.

This time, Rarity gave it a shot to soften the mare up to the group. "Pinkie Pie tells me you share my love for fashion," she said, in an attempt to get into something like a conversation.

Luckily, this time Maud seemed to jump into this boat "I'm really into expressing myself through my wardrobe," she replied in a deadpan tone.

"And what is the delightful frock you're wearing now saying?" Rarity asked, referring to the dress that Maud was wearing.

"It doesn't talk. It's a dress," Maud replied. She must have completely missed what Rarity meant.

Rarity was caught off guard by this kind of response and didn't know how to answer and just backed away again. It was as if somepony just found out that their favorite comic book character doesn't really exist.

Shortly after...there was awkward silence again...

But yet again, nopony wanted to give up on warming up Maud to the group and this time it was Applejack, who was introducing everyponies pets to Maud. "So this here's Winona. That's Owlowiscious, Tank, Opal, and Angel," she said while she pointed to every respective animal. "Pinkie Pie told us you have a pet, too," she added, hoping that Maud's pet would help them to get into a conversation.

"He's in my pocket," Maud replied.

Fluttershy was the first one to get excited about hearing that. "Oh, you have a pocket pet? Like a tiny mouse? Or a baby bird? Or a trained butterfly?" She asked in an excited tone, waiting for Maud to finally show her pet.

What Maud said, however, was not what the excited mare expected. "It's a rock," Maud said before she threw a little rock to the ground, introducing her pet to the group. "His name is Boulder,"

And another awkward silence followed...

About now, everypony figured that getting to know Maud or rather, getting along with her could actually be a little bit harder than they expected.

"And here I was thinking that I was the king of making a situation awkward..." Star Twinkle thought after the first minutes of getting to know Pinkie Pie's sister. His first guess was that she was probably a little shy or that she didn't know how to react to meeting six new ponies. His second guess was...that Maud was just weird.

Pinkie Pie seemed to be the only one who didn't realize the awkwardness of this situation and believed in what she thought since the very beginning. "This is going to be the best, most awesome, funnest week ever! I can't wait for us all to become bestest friends!" She expressed happily, completely oblivious to how it was a really long way until that.

A little later...

The group eventually decided to start the picnic and ate some snacks. There was not much talking going on, as expected, mainly because there was not much common ground to cover yet. The only thing they could do was eating something to skip the time.

"Maud? Would you like to try one of Granny Smith's famous apple spiced muffins?" Applejack said, offering one of her muffins to the mare. Maud sniffed one of the muffins first before she took a bite, however, soon everypony realized that one of Rarity's rocks that were on her hat must have fallen into the basket earlier. "Oh, uh, heh, that's not–" Applejack tried to warn but Maud Pie just took that stone in her mouth and began eating it.

Just listening to her munching on that rock was really painful but Maud didn't even seem to mind and ate it as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "It's crunchy," she said with a full mouth.

Pinkie Pie took one of the actual muffins and ate it. "Maud's right! They are crunchy! Yum!" She said, completely oblivious of how Maud was eating an actual rock. She was really the only one who didn't realize how awkward the situation was for everypony.

Eventually, Rainbow Dash couldn't stand the awkwardness so she came up with something to make the situation a little better. "So, uh, Pinkie Pie tells us you like games," she said, hoping that this conversation would go somewhere.

"Boulder and I sometimes play a game called 'Camouflage'. It's kind of like hide and seek but way more intense," Maud explained.

Not really sure how a hide and seek game could be in any way "intense" Rainbow Dash had her doubts about this "Awesome?" She replied confused.

Even though Star Twinkle would regret it, he still asked. "So...how does it go?" He asked a little hesitantly.

A little later...

The group decided to give this "Camouflage" game a chance. In a way, it was a lot more intense but not in a fun way. The rules were simple, Maud's pet rock, Boulder was hiding between a bunch of other rocks and the one who would find him first, would win the game. Despite not really having fun with this "game", the group decided to just play along.

"Any luck?" Twilight asked while she literally turned every rock around to look for Maud's rock. Of course, nopony was remotely close to finding Boulder, though.

"I truly wish I'd spent more time with Boulder, because I'm having a very hard time remembering what he looks like," Fluttershy said as she continued to look for the little rock.

"It's like looking for a pebble in a haystack," Applejack added.

"More like in a pile of pebbles," Rarity added further but in a more frustrated tone.

Star Twinkle didn't really need an exciting or intense game to have fun but even he was getting bored by a game like this. "Can't we just call it quit?" He asked after he looked under another rock next to his feet.

"It'll hurt Maud's feelings if we all stop playing," Twilight replied but Star Twinkle had a really hard time believing that because when it came to showing feelings, Maud was not really the best example so far. "Besides, look how much fun Pinkie Pie's having," she added before she pointed towards the pink mare who showed Maud every single rock that she found, asking if one of them was Boulder, even if they were not even remotely as small as him. "Just a little longer, okay?" Twilight demanded, much to the frustration of her friends.

Luckily, the game was over once Maud spoke up. "Found him," she said, with not a single emotion in her voice while she held the rock in her hoof.

"Oh! Where was he?" Pinkie Pie asked excitedly.

"He was hiding in my pocket," she then replied.

Needless to say, nopony was too excited to hear this after spending such a long time looking for Boulder, especially Rainbow Dash who was loudly complaining about this. Eventually, Pinkie Pie and Maud both left the group since it was already a little late.

"We better get going. I want Maud to taste the rock candy we're gonna use for our best friends necklaces! Aw, yeah!" She said excitedly before she walked away with Maud following her close behind.

With the two mares leaving the scene, the group could finally speak openly about Pinkie Pie's sister.

"She sure is... different from what I expected," Applejack said, which was a pretty tamed statement compared to what some of the others were thinking.

Like Star Twinkle for example, who didn't care to be blunt at all. "If by different you mean, I agree..."

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight said with a disappointing tone in her voice. "That's not a really nice thing to say!" She scolded.

But Rainbow Dash agreed with Star Twinkle. "We spent all day digging in the dirt, and he was in her pocket the whole time!" She expressed frustrated.

"That only proves that Boulder is really good at this game..." Star Twinkle replied casually.

"He's a rock!" Rainbow Dash said angrily.

"On the bright side, Boulder seemed really sweet," Fluttershy said, trying to see something positive about this all.

"He's a rock!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed even angrier.

Twilight was probably the only one who kept a leveled head at this moment. "I'm sure Maud was just nervous about meeting all of us. I mean, it must be awfully intimidating to meet all of us at once, especially since we're already such good friends," she said. To a degree, it made sense that Maud was probably acting a little different, maybe she was a completely different pony once they get to know her. This gave Twilight another idea of how to deal with all of this. "Maybe if we spend some time with her one-on-one to try to get to know her better, I'm sure we'll be making those best friend rock candy necklaces in no time,"

The group thought this was a good idea. It was worth a shot at least. The plan was to let Maud spend some time with each one of Pinkie Pie's friends in order to get to know her.

And this meant...that Star Twinkle had to have his turn eventually...

A little later...

Star Twinkle, Pinkie Pie, and Maud were all just arriving at Star Twinkle's home. He did his best trying to come up with something to do and since he was not the first one who was spending time with Maud, he luckily had some time to prepare something. He asked his boss, Steel Hammer to get some wood from his workplace so that he and Maud could spend some time crafting something with it. Pinkie Pie did say that Maud was really good at that after all.

"You will love this, Star Twinkle! Maud is really good when it comes to crafting!" Pinkie Pie said cheerfully.

Star Twinkle did provide some tools for Maud to work with and waited for her to start but all she did was looking at the tools, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. "I guess you need to prepare yourself a little so I just go ahead and start while-"

"I'm done," Maud then interrupted which could obviously not be true since there was a whole bunch of wood laying in front of her just a second ago. There was no way that she could have build something in this much time. But...once Star Twinkle looked over to Maud again, there was really standing something next to her. It was a big edgy object. Star Twinkle had a guess what it was and Maud actually confirmed it. "It's a rock," she said.

"How did you build that this fast?" Star Twinkle asked confused, not being able to comprehend how she managed to build something in mere seconds.

But Pinkie Pie replied for her instead. "I told you she was good!" She simply said before she came up with something new to do after this was done now. "Maud, you haven't met Star Twinkle's pet yet!" She said before she led the way upstairs.

With nothing else to do, Star Twinkle went along and walked upstairs to introduce his goldfish to Maud. The three ponies stood in front of the fishbowl on the upper floor, Maud especially stared right into the fishbowl where Comet was swimming motionlessly.

After looking at the fish for like a minute of silence, Maud finally spoke up about what was going on in her mind. "Your fish is cool," she then said out of nowhere, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. She then picked out Boulder from her pocket. "Mind if I let Boulder play with him?" She then asked.

"Yeah...sure..." Star Twinkle replied a little hesitantly.

Maud then dropped Boulder right into the fishbowl, causing him to sink to the ground of the bowl. Star Twinkle and Maud then stared right into the bowl to see the two pets interact with each other.

The two pets weren't moving at all...not one bit...

"Looks like they are having fun..." Maud said in her usual emotionless tone.

"...Yes..." Star Twinkle said slowly as he didn't break a single eye contact with what was going on inside the fishbowl.

Later...

The group decided to meet up in front of Sugarcube Corner once again after they were done spending time with Pinkie Pie's sister. All of them wanted to share their experience with Maud. Unsurprisingly, they all came to the same conclusion really quickly.

"Yeah, I figured..." Star Twinkle said after he listened to how the time that everypony spent with Maud went with everypony else.

"Yeah..." Twilight replied with a frown.

Everypony tried to get along with Maud but with her being so much more different, making it a little hard to befriend her.

And that was exactly the problem...

Pinkie Pie wanted to share her tradition of making best friend rock candy necklaces but the thing was that nopony really felt as if they actually made friends with Maud so doing this tradition felt a little wrong.

Everypony had an uncomfortable expression on their faces. The problem here was that they somehow had to tell Pinkie Pie about their time with Maud and how the result was at the end. Knowing Pinkie Pie, she probably didn't even realize how everypony felt about her sister which made it only harder for the group to tell her how less they have in common with Maud.

But they soon had to tell her because Pinkie Pie was just greeting the group. "Great, you're all here! Maud is out looking for rocks, so this is the perfect time for us to set up everything we'll need to make our best friend rock candy necklaces!" She said excitedly but all she got in response was some concerned looks and awkward mumbling, much to her confusion. "What's wrong?" Pinkie Pie then asked after that unexpected reaction.

Of course, nopony wanted to be the one to deliver the message. Everypony waited until somepony would step up but since nopony did, Applejack literally pushed Twilight into the spotlight so that she would explain everything.

Twilight was surprised of course, and eventually, she did the talking. "Well, I'm not sure it's the best time to make best friend rock candy necklaces," she said.

"Why not?" Pinkie Pie replied confused.

Twilight had a hard time following up so Rarity took over this time. "Well, darling, you see..." she said before she realized that she couldn't bring herself to say it either.

The Fluttershy took over her part. "You're ever so thoughtful to share your special bonding ritual with us, but, uh..." she then stopped as well after realizing that she was not able to say the truth herself.

"But what?" Pinkie Pie said, not expecting any bad news at all at this moment.

Eventually, Applejack decided to spit it out since nopony seemed to be able to. "The truth is, we've all been tryin' real hard to get closer to Maud, but, well... maybe some ponies just don't click the way others do," she said causing everypony to mutter in agreement. "We just wouldn't feel right makin' somethin' that means we're best friends if, well, we aren't,"

As soon as Pinkie Pie heard that, her mane deflated and she began to frown. It was about the reaction that everypony expected but it still hurt to see the mare upset like that. "Oh. Okay," she said with a sad tone in her voice. "If anypony needs me, I'll be in here trying to figure out what to do with two hundred pounds of rock candy," she said before she walked inside again.

As soon as the door closed, everypony immediately felt bad and frowned as well.

"And now...I feel bad..." Star Twinkle said, speaking out what everypony was thinking at this very moment.

Later...

The group went to the Golden Oak Library and further discussed what just happened. Needless to say, they all felt bad and tried to come up with an idea to deal with the situation. But the damage was already done and it couldn't be reversed. And that is why it made everypony feel bad.

"I feel awful! Just awful..." Rarity said.

"Maybe we should have just pretended we were friends with Maud," Fluttershy suggested.

But Twilight disagreed with that. "If we didn't tell Pinkie Pie that we hadn't all become the best of friends, I think Maud would have," she pointed out.

"Would she?" Star Twinkle asked. "I actually have no idea if she liked spending time with me or not," he said after thinking back to how Maud was acting towards him, only to find out that he had no idea what was going on in her head.

"Who really knows?" Rainbow Dash said, who was laying on a bookshelf while playing with a rock in her hoof. "That pony is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an igneous," she added casually.

"Don't you mean "inside an enigma"?" Rarity asked confused by Rainbow Dash's choice of words.

"Nope. I mean igneous. It's a kind of rock. Ask me how I know that," she explained, obviously referring to her time with Maud.

Shortly after, somepony was knocking on the door. Twilight used her magic to open the door and was surprised to see Pinkie Pie entering the room in her usual cheerful manner.

"I've come up with just the thing to bring everypony closer together!" She simply said in excitement before she wanted everypony to follow her.

Of course, the group was confused about how Pinkie Pie managed to cheer herself again like that. They also wanted to know what exactly she meant by bringing everypony closer together so they followed her in order to find out.

They followed the mare all the way until they reached a nearby grass field. Maud was already waiting there as well. Once they all arrived, they immediately saw some kind of big weird construct. At first, it looked like a bunch of random stuff put together...but that's because it was. It looked like some kind of obstacle course filled with a bunch of stuff. There was one area filled with applesauce, one filled with books, one area had a table with animals sitting next to it and so on.

After taking a look at all of this, Star Twinkle felt as if he should ask the question that everypony had in mind. "What is that?"

Pinkie Pie was quick to explain. "I call it "Pinkie-Rainbow-Rari-Twi-Apple-Flutter-Star-Maud Fun Time"!" She explained without really explaining what this thing was, causing everypony to still be confused. Pinkie Pie then continued. "It combines everypony's interests into one giant activity that we can all enjoy together and that will totally bring all of my bestest friends together as bestestest friends! Watch this!" She said before she walked towards the structure to explain every single part of it to everypony. "An Applesauce tunnel for Applejack, pretty shiny stuff for Rarity, reading material for Twilight, critter time for Fluttershy, Cupcakes for yours truly, a wood course for Star Twinkle and it's a race for Rainbow Dash!" She briefly explained while she went through all the respective parts of the race.

While this was all good, there was still one thing that bothered everypony. And that was the thing at the very end of the course. "Pinkie Pie, what is that?!" Twilight asked with some concern in her voice.

At the very end of this obstacle course, there was a big pile of rocks clumsily piled on top of each other, which looked as if it was about to collapse any second now. Because of that, the group felt that it was a little dangerous for Pinkie Pie to stand close to it but the mare still decided to not only explain what it was but also showed what to do with it. "It's A rock slide, of course! For Maud! First you climb, then you slide!" She said before she started to climb the thing. Needless to say, the group had a really bad feeling about this and it was quickly justified after Pinkie Pie managed to get one of her hooves stuck between the rocks, causing her to try freeing herself and making the "Rock Slide" shake even more now.

Soon, the whole thing began to shake. Pinkie Pie was not able to free herself and it was only a matter of time until something bad would happen. It was only now that everypony noticed that really big rock was on top of the rock slide and due to the shaking of the whole thing, it started to slide down, directly towards Pinkie Pie who was not yet aware of this.

"Oh, goodness!" Fluttershy said in shock.

"Watch out!" Applejack warned.

Pinkie Pie then realized the big rock that was sliding down towards her and began to shriek in fear. "Help!" She screamed for help.

Somepony had to act quick and since everypony seemed to be too scared for Pinkie Pie, Star Twinkle decided to jump into action. "Listen, we have to-"

But as soon as he opened his mouth and was ready to move, Maud was already running towards her sister to help her. She dashed through the whole obstacle course within seconds and shortly arrived next to Pinkie Pie. There was no way that she could free her sister in time however so she decided to deal with the big rock that was about to fall on her sister by literally punching into bits and pieces in midair with just her bare hooves.

The group was shocked to see how Maud managed to easily save her sister like that and just stood there with open mouths, especially Rainbow Dash, who could not comprehend what just happened in front of her. "What– how–what?!" Were the only words that she managed to get out in her confusion.

After finally freeing Pinkie Pie again, Maud hugged her sister once she was saved again. "Pinkie Pie, what were you thinking?" She then said in her usual emotionless tone, however this time, there was actually a slight hint of concern in it as well.

"I guess I wasn't," Pinkie Pie replied, feeling bad to have worried everypony.

The two then walked towards the others and Maud decided to share what she thought about all this.
"I know how important it is to you that your friends become my friends, but I just don't think it's going to happen. I think it would be best if I just go back to the rock farm and spend the rest of the week there," she explained before she walked past the group, who by now felt really bad. "It was nice to meet you all. Makes me happy knowing Pinkie Pie has such good friends," she said before she walked away to most likely get to the train station in order to leave Ponyville.

Pinkie Pie, of course, was the one who was crushed the most about this. "But... we never even got to make our rock candy necklaces..." she said heartbroken. She had to make a choice now and of course, she decided to stay with her sister for the rest of the week, something that nopony really blamed her for, she could see her friends any other day anyway.

With the two mares leaving again, the group had the opportunity to talk about what just transpired before them.

"I can't believe Maud cut her trip short," Twilight said.

"I can't believe we nearly lost Pinkie Pie to that ridiculous obstacle course," Rarity expressed.

"I can't believe we were all this stupid!" Star Twinkle then said in his realization.

The group then looked confused at him because of those sudden words. "What do you mean, Star Twinkle?" Twilight asked.

"We should have agreed to make those necklaces from the very beginning! Then all of that wouldn't have happened!" The stallion explained.

Applejack then walked up to the stallion. "I thought we all agree that it was a bad idea to make those things if we are not even friends with Maud," she pointed out.

"Yeah, what good is making a best friend necklace if we don't even have anything in common with that mare?" Rainbow Dash added.

"That's the point!" Star Twinkle continued while he was still on a run with his train of thoughts. "Listen, if you think about it, we all don't have much in common," he said, causing the rest of the girls to throw some confused looks at each other. "I'm not into sports, I don't like to study, I'm not that good when it comes to animals, I don't know much about dresses, or apples, and I sure don't like partying, but here I am, being friends with all of you!" Even though he explained all of that, the girls only began to understand what he was trying to say after the next sentence. "Maud probably tried to get along with all of us as well, despite not sharing all of our interests because she loves Pinkie Pie! Just like us!"

"That's it!" Twilight then exclaimed happily. "That is something that we have in common with Maud! And it might be enough to share a very important super-duper special tradition that only the closest and bestest of friends can share!" She explained. "Let's go! I think I have an idea!" She then said before she asked everypony to follow her.

The group finally understood and were now ready to give this all another shot. Pinkie Pie and Maud might have left already but there was still time to get something very special done. They had to make haste however if they wanted to surprise the two mares before it was too late.

Later...

Pinkie Pie and Maud were both just arriving at their home. During the whole trip, Pinkie Pie was feeling really bad, not only because it didn't work out with her sister and her friends but also because she felt like as if she was burdening her sister a little too much. But the sad expression that she had on her face quickly turned into a more confused one, once she saw everypony waiting at her rock farm. Her friends were all standing next to two big sacks filled with rock candy. Somehow, they managed to arrive at Pinkie Pie's rock farm before Pinkie Pie and Maud. It was probably because Pinkie Pie was staying with Maud the whole time and since she was taking things a little slower, it took both of them a little bit more of time.

"What are you doing here?" Pinkie Pie asked confused.

Twilight did the explaining. "Pinkie Pie, we're so sorry we hurt your feelings by not bonding with Maud right away. And Maud, we're sorry that you felt the only way to spare Pinkie Pie's feelings was to leave Ponyville early. Pinkie Pie's happiness means as much to us as it does to you, and we're sorry we couldn't see it sooner. The thing that makes us click and creates a special bond between us is how much we all love Pinkie Pie!"

"Aw, shucks!" Pinkie Pie replied embarrassed after hearing those words.

"Even if it is the only thing that we have in common, it should be enough, right?" Star Twinkle said towards Maud to hear her response.

Maud Pie's answer was short and direct. "Sure," she simply said with her usual emotionless tone.

The group had to admit that they expected a little more excitement from Maud, much to the confusion of Pinkie Pie. "Are you kidding me?" She said once they told her that "I've never seen her more excited in my entire life!" She said, even though Maud had the same expression on her face that she had throughout all the time she had spent with everypony so far.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't show my enthusiasm for things quite in the same way my sister does," Maud explained, which was mirrored by how Pinkie Pie was acting at the very moment by jumping all over the place happily after everything turned out well.

"Noooo..." Star Twinkle said in a highly sarcastic tone as if he wanted to say, "you don't say".

With that problem solved, the rest of the weekend was spent making rock candy necklaces. It was actually pretty fun for everypony and it felt good that they all did it without pretending to be friends with Maud or anything. As it turns out, Maud never said anything about not liking Pinkie Pie's friends. Apparently, she enjoyed her time in Ponyville, even if that was really hard to believe judging from the way she acted in front of everypony. But the group quickly learned to accept that this is just who Maud Pie is.

Later...

When the group was about to leave for Ponyville again, they decided to say their goodbyes to Maud. But not without continuing her and Pinkie Pie's and Maud's tradition. They all presented her the necklaces that they made for her. Everypony had a completely different necklace that represented them, Rainbow Dash, for example, made a big lightning bolt and Star Twinkle's necklace consisted of a bunch of small stars.

"Thank you," Maud replied after everypony put their necklaces around her neck, she said in her usual tone but Star Twinkle could swear that there was a slight hint of happiness in her voice.

"Try not to eat all the candy before you leave!" Pinkie Pie said before she gave Maud the necklace that she made for her.

Maud then gave Pinkie Pie the necklace that she made for her as well. After that exchange, Maud then pulled out a little box out of her saddlebag. Once she opened it, there was a whole bunch of necklaces inside. She put the one that she just got, right on top of them.

"Are those all the necklaces Pinkie Pie sent you?" Twilight asked after she saw this. Maud nodded in reply. "You haven't eaten any of them?" Twilight asked surprised.

Maud explained. "I don't really like candy," she said before she looked over to Pinkie Pie who was already eating away the necklace that she got from Maud. "But I do love Pinkie Pie," she said, again with a slight hint of happiness in her voice.

Star Twinkle simply shrugged his shoulders in response. "I guess that is all that matters, right? I don't really like partying or rocks, for example. No offense," he then said towards Maud.

But she didn't seem to mind. "None taken,"

"Yeah, I mean, you probably don't like working with wood or something, right?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I do," Maud then replied, much to Star Twinkle's surprise. "It's almost as good as rocks...almost,"

Star Twinkle didn't know exactly what to reply to that but it was time to go anyway so it didn't really matter.

The group boarded the train again and returned to Ponyville, all while learning a valuable lesson. Sometimes it only takes one common friend to make friends with somepony else. They may not become the closest friends after this weekend but having a good friend like Pinkie Pie, or in Maud's case, a sister was something that connected them all and maybe that was just enough to call each other "Friends".

85. The Miracle Curative Tonic

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Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were just about to end their work on the Iron Hammer. As usual, Star Twinkle was glad that another day of work was over and was about to leave but Steel Hammer was generous enough to give the stallion something to drink before he left.

Of course, Star Twinkle accepted since he was quite exhausted. "Thanks," Star Twinkle said after he took a bottle of water from Steel Hammer.

"No problem! Drink all up, I have my own refreshment right here!" He said before pulled out a little bottle. "Now is just the right time to test out that tonic!" He said before she drank from the little bottle that he was holding.

"Tonic? What tonic?" Star Twinkle asked confused, wondering what the stallion was talking about.

After taking a few sips from this so-called tonic, Steel Hammer looked up and seemed to wait for something. He then rushed at Star Twinkle without warning and showed him the top of his head. "Anything different?" Steel Hammer then asked curiously.

"What? Am I supposed to see something?" Star Twinkle asked after he was done looking at Steel Hammer's mane.

The stallion seemed disappointed and looked at the tonic. "Maybe I have to drink a little more of it in order for it to work?" He wondered. "I was sure that my mane would grow as soon as I would drink one bottle,"

Star Twinkle's curiosity was now peaked and he asked Steel Hammer to show this bottle to him for a second. He inspected it a little and was shocked by the name of this tonic as soon as he laid eyes on it. "The Flim Flam Miracle Curative Tonic?" Star Twinkle read out loud in shock. "You mean like in Flim and Flam?" He then asked Steel Hammer confused.

The stallion nodded happily in response. "This tonic will cure everything! Pretty neat, huh?" He said with a wide smile on his face.

Still, that didn't answer one question. "If it is supposed to cure stuff, then why are you drinking it to make your mane grow?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Oh, Star Twinkle," Steel Hammer replied while he shook his head. "This tonic can do much more than just cure you. It can, make you younger again, grow hair, make your better, and even make you grow taller!" The stallion explained highly excited, praising the tonic more and more.

But Star Twinkle had a hard time believing that. It sounded almost too good to be true. Now if someone like Zecora would come around and offered a potion like that, then Star Twinkle would maybe believe it. But the problem was, it was the Flim Flam Brothers who sold this. "You do remember that those two ponies tried to take over Sweet Apple Acres not too long ago, right? How can you even trust them?" He said, making Steel Hammer remember that just now.

"But...their song was pretty catchy..." was the only thing that he could say at this very moment.

Star Twinkle groaned as soon as he heard that. "Show me where they sell this so-called tonic," he said before he walked away to see for himself what this was all about. Steel Hammer did show him where to find the two salesponies and Star Twinkle was immediately on his way to them to see himself what this was all about.

A little later...

It didn't take long until Star Twinkle arrived at the place where the tonic was sold. In the middle of a nearby forest, there was a circus tent where the Flim Flam Brothers were located at. As soon as the stallion entered the tent, he quickly saw a big crowd in front of him who were all watching the two brothers dancing and singing. They most likely did that to promote their tonic for some ponies who visited them for the first time, just like Star Twinkle.

He decided to listen to their singing so that he could hear himself what this tonic could supposedly do.

"It cures the reins, the spurs, and the Clydesdale fur blight," Flim sang

"Hooferia and horsentery cured in just a night," Flam sang.

"You've got swollen hooves and hindquarters or terrible bridle-bit cleft,"

"Saunter sitz and gallop plop will give your tail some heft,"

"Mane loss, hay fever, or terrible tonsillitis,"

"You heard it here, folks -- this is the only place in all of Equestria you'll find it!"

As soon as their singing was over, the whole crowd was cheering for the two stallions and the two ponies quickly took this opportunity to sell some of their tonics. Star Twinkle couldn't believe how many ponies would fall for that. This tonic was obviously fake, especially since it was the Flim Flam brothers who sold it. But still, everypony was believing it and the two brothers made a ton of money by tricking them all.

Of course, Star Twinkle wanted to do something but his word was against the two brothers and almost everypony inside this tent. Besides, he didn't have actual proof that this tonic was fake so he couldn't just speak out like this. It was pretty hard for the stallion to figure out what to do in this situation and tried to think but one mare interrupted his thoughts.

"Please, don't tell me that you are here to buy some of those darn tonics?"

Star Twinkle turned around and saw that it was Applejack, who was giving him a disappointing look. She probably thought that he was here to buy one tonic as well so Star Twinkle quickly explained. "No, I just came here to see what this is all about after Steel Hammer told me about this mysterious tonic that supposedly can cure everything,"

Applejack seemed surprised to hear this. "So you don't believe in this tonic either?" She asked, to which Star Twinkle nodded in response. They both then walked outside because things were getting a little too loud inside the tent. As soon as they stepped outside, Applejack released a relieved sigh. "And here I thought, I was the only one. Granny Smith bought some bottles and now she is jumping around like a young filly! She even overcame her fear of swimming after such a long time!"

"But that's not because of the tonic...or is it?" Star Twinkle asked confused after he heard this story.

"I'll doubt it!" Applejack replied without a doubt in her mind. "Not if it is those ponies who sell them!" She said while she pointed towards the two brothers, who didn't seem to notice how the two Earth Ponies talked about them. "There is no way that Granny's sudden change has something to do with the tonic that those two are selling! And if Granny hurts herself because she believes their lies then I have to do something to prevent that from happening," she said determined to expose the two brother's lies to everypony.

"But how?" Star Twinkle replied. "We can't exactly prove if that tonic is or isn't working so what shall we do?" He asked, getting back to the same problem that he was facing a few minutes ago.

Applejack was rubbing her chin and began to think but she shortly had a very confused expression on her face, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. "Wait a minute..." she then said quietly.

Star Twinkle had no idea what this was about and turned around. There was a stallion walking out of the tent. He had a Light turquoise gray coat, a cobalt bluish-gray mane, and pale light blue eyes. He was also wearing a hat, a pair of glasses and blue dungarees. His Cutie Mark consisted of two silver bits. For some reason, Applejack kept staring at him for some unknown reason. "What's wrong?" Star Twinkle asked, not knowing where Applejack's sudden confusion came from.

Applejack then widened her eyes in her realization. "It's him!" She simply said.

"Who?"`Star Twinkle asked while he kept looking at the stallion, trying to find out what got Applejack so confused all of the sudden.

Applejack then finally explained. "It's the same pony than before! He came walking into the tent with a pair of crutches the last time but after he tasted one of the Flim Flam Brothers tonic he was fine again,"

"But if he was cured then why did he visit them again?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Applejack then stepped up closer to the stallion with a serious expression on her face. "That's what I like to know," she said determined to get some answers.

The stallion didn't notice the two ponies so far but as soon as he did, mainly because of Applejack, he began to shiver and got really nervous. Applejack didn't even say a word yet and the stallion immediately ran away towards the other side of the tent.

"Hey, wait!" Star Twinkle exclaimed, now that he was completely sure that there was something fishy going on here.

The two Earth Ponies followed the stallion all around the tent and luckily the chase was really short because the stallion decided to escape into, what looked like to be the backstage area of the Flim Flam Brothers. The stallion quickly found out that there was nowhere to run to and he found himself cornered.

This was the perfect opportunity for the two ponies to ask some questions. "Now hold it right there, Mister...?" Applejack started before she realized that she didn't know the stallion's name.

The stallion was really nervous but he still managed to introduce himself. "Shill. Silver Shill. Ooh, what do you two want?" He said while he was shaking heavily out of fear that the two Earth Ponies in front of him would do something to him.

Star Twinkle realized how nervous the stallion was and tried to calm him down. Not only because he didn't want to scare him but also to make him a little easier to interrogate. "Don't worry, we don't want to hurt you or anything, we just want to ask you some questions," Star Twinkle said as calm as possible. He had no idea if it managed to calm the stallion down though.

Regardless of how nervous the stallion was, Applejack still went on ahead and asked her questions. "Our Granny took some tonic and we want to know how it works," she said, causing the stallion to shake again. "Granny couldn't swim before, and now she can. Just like you couldn't walk and now you can. But what are you doin' back here? I mean, if the tonic cured you and all..."

While Applejack asked her questions, Star Twinkle took a look around. All the things that were lying around in this place started to confuse him. There were a pair of crutches, multiple wigs, multiple pairs of glasses, some random clothes. He started to wonder what this all had to do with the tonic that the Flim Flam Brothers were selling.

But then it suddenly struck him. "He is part of the act!" He then said, much to Applejack's confusion at first. "He is dressing up for the Flim Flam Brothers and pretends to be some random pony! You know, to make everypony believe that the tonic is working!" He explained.

Applejack quickly turned towards the Silver Shill again. "Is that true!?" She asked, demanding an explanation from the stallion.

Silver Shill seemed to get more and more nervous the more questions he was asked. Eventually, he couldn't take it anymore and fiddled around with some kind of machine that stood right behind him, causing it to create some smoke. This allowed the stallion to cause enough confusion to escape again.

Luckily, Star Twinkle managed to still see where the stallion was escaping to. "Over there!" He said, causing Applejack to regain sight of the stallion as well.

This time, the Silver Shill decided to run inside the tent from the front entrance. Star Twinkle and Applejack followed him inside. There was a bunch of ponies walking out so the Flim Flam Brothers must have been done with their little show. The two Earth Ponies entered the tent and quickly saw Silver Shill who was now hiding behind the two sales-ponies

"Well, if it isn't our most favorite Apple!" Flim said as soon as he saw Applejack entering the tent.

"And...whatever that pony's name was..." Flam felt like adding into this.

"Star Twinkle..." Star Twinkle said after he heard that lack of respect from the brother.

But the brothers just shrugged their shoulders. "What brings you to our humble abode?" Flam then asked.

Applejack decided to get straight to the point since the two didn't seem to have changed one bit after their last visit in Ponyville. "You two charlatans sold my Granny a bottle of tonic, and now she's off actin' like a filly again," she said.

The two brothers only exchanged a brief look at each other. "What's so bad about that?" Flim replied without a sign of regret on his face.

Applejack then continued. "If she keeps gallavantin' around like a yearlin', she's apt to drop from exhaustion or worse! What's more, I know for a fact that your friend here is dressin' up as a different pony every time so he can pretend to be cured!" She pointed out, which caused the stallion to slowly sneak away while this conversation was going on. It was not like he was needed anymore anyway.

But Flim and Flam were not intimidated one bit by Applejack's words and kept smiling throughout the whole conversation.

"Well, well, well, that's quite an accusation," Flam replied with a sneaky smile on his face.

"But let's say that it's true..." Flim added.

"Hypothetically..."

"Theoretically..."

"As I understand, your Granny was a famous aquapony," Flam then brought up.

"The star of the show, once upon a time," Flim added.

"But hasn't set so much as a hoof in the water since,"

Star Twinkle seemed to be the only one who didn't know about that and looked at Applejack confused but he still wanted to know what they were getting at so he didn't interrupt them and listened.

"Until today, that's right," Applejack admitted, even if she didn't like it.

That's exactly the response that the two ponies wanted to hear, judging from the smiles that they were throwing at each other. "Well, then even if our tonic were nothing more than a mixture of apple juice and beet leaves..." Flim said.

"Hypothetically..." Flam added.

"Theoretically..." Flim added.

They actually were so sure of themselves that they actually made one of those "tonics" right in front of the two Earth Ponies, as if they wanted to pour salt into the injury. All they did to create this tonic was squeezing an apple and a beet leaf, which was enough proof for them to say that this tonic was fake.

"The fact is that Granny is happier now than before she tried it," Flam said with a smug smile on his face.

Applejack carefully thought about their words and had to admit that what they were saying was true, even if she didn't want to admit it. Star Twinkle, however, didn't like where this conversation was heading to and tried to stop all this.

"This is not only about Granny Smith. You are tricking all kinds of ponies like that!" He pointed out.

But the two brothers didn't seem to mind this fact and ignored what Star Twinkle said unless it would help them in any kind of way. They also focused a lot more on Applejack instead.

"He is right, you know, there are much more ponies who are much happier now!" Flim said.

"But the question is...do you really want to be the pony who takes all that happiness away?" Flam added while he held a bottle of their precious tonic right in front of her eyes.

"I..." Applejack was only able to say after she put more thought into those words. She then looked over to Star Twinkle, who was just waiting for her to finally get serious again. The mare looked back and forth to the brothers and Star Twinkle. She clearly had difficulties deciding what would be best for everypony. After taking a deep breath, however, her mind was all cleared up and she gave her answer. "Honestly, Star Twinkle... as long as it works, I... don't suppose it really matters," Applejack then said with some concern on her face.

"What!?" Star Twinkle exclaimed after hearing the complete opposite of what he expected her to say. Star Twinkle wanted, of course, an answer but Applejack simply walked away from the scene and didn't mind him at all, much to the stallion's shock.

"That's the spirit!" Flim said in success.

"Come back anytime!" Flam said as he waved at Star Twinkle with a sneaky smile on his face as if he wanted to laugh at the stallion's attempt to stop them.

Star Twinkle would have loved to give the stallion a piece of his mind after seeing that but first, he had to follow Applejack to find out what she was thinking by deciding to let them further sell their tonic.

A few meters away from the tent, Applejack stopped and waited for Star Twinkle. She was probably well aware that he was about to say some things to her and just prepared herself for that.

"What was that about, Applejack?" Star Twinkle immediately asked as soon as Applejack gave him a chance to talk with him.

"Well, you heard it yourself, I think it's okay for them to sell their little wonder tonic," she said while she looked down at the ground, which only proved that she didn't really believe herself what she was saying right now.

"But it isn't a real tonic!" Star Twinkle replied frustrated. "Those two ponies are just telling everypony things that they want to hear! Besides, what if Granny Smith hurts herself? Isn't that why you got worried in the first place?" He pointed out in his confusion.

"I know what I said!" Applejack replied in her frustration as if she wanted to tell Star Twinkle to tone it down a little. "The thing is just...what those two said was true! They maybe sell a tonic that doesn't even work but it took away granny's fear of water and made her feel young again! And I do not intend to make her sad again!" She said in a very serious tone, showing how stubborn she could be at times.

Without any further words, Applejack just left Star Twinkle on the spot. She just refused to listen to what Star Twinkle had to say so he decided to not say anything. He didn't want things to turn out like this but if Applejack simply refused to change her decision to expose those sales-ponies then there was nothing more what he could do.

On the next day...

Star Twinkle went to the tent of the Flim Flam Brothers again. He looked over how everypony was still buying their tonics and just couldn't believe how they both were successful with all this. All Star Twinkle could do was watching this.

"I don't believe this..." Star Twinkle said as he slowly walked up to the tent to see the two brothers selling their tonic to every pony that was foolish enough to fall for this little scam. Star Twinkle's eyes even widened further after he saw somepony familiar walking away from the crowd now. "You got to be kidding me..." he said as he watched his boss, Steel Hammer walking past him.

"This should be enough to get me a nice mane!" He said as he walked away with a few bottles on his back and with a wide smile on his face, not noticing how he walked past Star Twinkle in his excitement.

"Oh, boy..." Star Twinkle said as he watched that.

Once he was close enough, he could even hear how the Flim Flam Brothers were promoting their fake tonic.

"Welcome, friends, and step right up! The next show starts in five minutes!" Flam announced.

"But why not buy your tonic now and avoid the rush?" Flim advised, which of course, caused everypony to start walking towards them to buy their tonics. However, their little promotion was interrupted by some eager customer.

"We'll take the whole case!" Granny Smith said before she threw a whole sack of bits right at the two brothers' hooves.

Granny Smith was accompanied by the rest of her family, including Applejack who could only put on a nervous smile as soon as she made eye contact with Star Twinkle who just looked at her confused.

Of course, everypony was surprised to hear, that Granny Smith was willing to pay so much money for this tonic. "Are you saying this stuff actually works?" One mare immediately asked.

"It seems to work for Granny," Applejack flat out lied in the mare's face.

That was exactly what the two Flim Flam Brothers wanted to hear in order to make their tonic even more successful. "You heard it here first, folks! Flim Flam Miracle Curative Tonic is Granny Smith-tested and Applejack-approved!" Flim announced.

But this was enough for Star Twinkle. Those two were eager to make even more money out of this situation and if he didn't stop them now, then who knows much worse the situation will become.

Star Twinkle jumped on the table of the Flim Flam Brothers raised his voice. "Don't believe them! This tonic is fake!" He said out loud to the crowd of ponies in front of him, who were now looking at the stallion confused. "Those two just want to earn money by selling you some tonic that doesn't cure anything! They are tricking you!"

Hearing Star Twinkle say those words, actually made the Flim Flam Brothers a little nervous, in fact, they began to sweat a little and feared that they were ruined now. Star Twinkle actually looked back at the two and gave them a victorious smile. Of course, it was accompanied by some inner laughter in his mind as well.

But...that smile wouldn't last for long after he heard what the crowd had to say about his words.

"Liar!" One stallion said from inside the crowd.

"Huh?" Star Twinkle replied confused after he looked back at the crowd to see nothing but angry faces in front of him.

"Yeah! Applejack said it works!" Another stallion said.

"And Applejack never lies!" A mare added angrily.

"If Applejack says it works, that's good enough for me!" Another mare added.

"But..." Star Twinkle said before he was booed by nearly everypony in the crowd.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle was now the bad one. Nopony even remotely believed what he was saying. Needless to say, the Flim Flam Brothers were relieved of how things turned out and were now the ones who smiled victoriously.

All that was left to do for Star Twinkle was leaving the scene while everypony talked about him. "Well, now I remember why I don't like crowds..." Star Twinkle mumbled under his breath as he walked away slowly.

Applejack felt really bad about that but she felt as if she talked with Star Twinkle, things would only get worse.

"What is the matter with him?" Granny Smith asked towards Applejack confused.

"...I don't know..." Applejack simply replied as she watched Star Twinkle walking away from the scene.

On the next day...

Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were both visiting something called "The Ponyville Swim Meet" which was a swimming competition from what Star Twinkle could gather. They were only there because Steel Hammer mentioned that he wanted to go there. He also said that Granny Smith and Apple Bloom were entering it, which was the main reason why Star Twinkle wanted to come with Steel Hammer. He also brought up that Granny Smith was once a famous Aqua Pony, something that Flim and Flam mentioned before. Because Granny Smith was most likely drinking the tonic even now, Star Twinkle got worried that she would hurt herself, which is why he decided to come and watch the show to keep a close eye on everything.

That is if he wasn't distracted by some minor things...

"For the last time, Steel Hammer...no, I don't see any progress," Star Twinkle said to his boss, who was showing him his mane once more in hope that something changed.

"That's strange...I drank like a dozen bottles and there is still no mane growing on my head..." the stallion wondered as he inspected one of the bottles further.

"Well...since you already drink so many bottles...maybe this so-called "Magical Curative Tonic" isn't as curative as they say?" Star Twinkle said, hoping that it would at least make Steel Hammer realize that this tonic was fake.

"Nonsense!" Steel Hammer replied. "It only means that I haven't taken enough of it!" He added determined before he raised his hoof the get the attention of somepony. "Hey! One more Curative Tonic please!" He shouted.

Star Twinkle was not sure who this shout was directed at until he saw Silver Shill, who was walking around selling more of the Flim Flam Tonic. "Coming right up!" He said before he walked up the visitor seats, where Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were located at. "Here you go!" He said before he gave Steel Hammer a bottle in exchange for one bit.

As soon as Silver Shill noticed that Star Twinkle was sitting next to him, he got a little nervous again, mainly because Star Twinkle only gave the stallion a mean glare.

"What are you doing here?" Star Twinkle asked while not breaking his glare one bit.

Silver Shill then explained. "Oh, things are going so well, Flim and Flam gave me a promotion! Just made my first bit as a salespony," he said while he represented the bit that he got from Steel Hammer. "No more costumes for this pony," he said proudly, while he ironically wore a black and white striped shirt right now. "This is more of a uniform," he said after he noticed how Star Twinkle was looking at his getup.

"Going well?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yeah, look!" Silver Shill replied before he pointed towards Flim and Flam who continued to sell their tonics at the very moment, only a few meters away on the other side of the pool.

"Flim Flam's Magical Curative Tonic!" Flam said.

"Get your Applejack-approved tonic! Granny Smith drinks it – why shouldn't you?" Flim added.

Star Twinkle could only groan in frustration after he saw how shamelessly those two continued to trick everypony. They probably showed up at this event because Applejack and Granny Smith were not too far away either, which only benefited them. Applejack, of course, didn't like that her name was used for something like that and could only smile nervously after her name fell.

He then turned towards Silver Shill one more time. "But don't tell me that you also don't realize that what you are doing is wrong," he asked in order to find out if he was a ruthless as the two brothers as well.

"Actually, I used to wonder if I was doing the right thing. You know, pretending to be cured, basically lying to folks about this tonic. But thanks to Applejack, I realized that sometimes honesty isn't the best policy," he explained with a smile on his face before he walked away from the two ponies, ready to sell more tonics.

Star Twinkle could only release a frustrated sigh after he heard that. Applejack's name and her reputation, to be honest, were apparently enough to change one ponies life, which in this case was a really bad thing.

"Hey! I think they are starting now!" Steel Hammer said, not noticing the frustration that Star Twinkle felt at this very moment.

Both Apple Bloom and Granny Smith were now jumping into the pool and showed their routine for this contest. Up until now, Star Twinkle didn't really pay attention to any contestants but he figured that nopony seemed to blow away the crowd so far. But Star Twinkle had no idea what would define a good swimming routine. Granny Smith was a good swimmer back in the day so whatever she was going to do was probably good so he just waited for the performance.

Apple Bloom both entered the pool and began. First, they dived down and raised their legs elegantly into the air. They were slowly spinning, diving and made all kinds of figures in the water, all of them were really pretty to look at. Granny Smith clearly knew what she was doing and she must have taught some of her tricks to Apple Bloom. But the thing that calmed down Star Twinkle the most, is that nothing went wrong at all.

Applejack, who watched the competition from the sidelines, was really impressed by this performance but also relieved that nothing went wrong. Soon the whole audience was cheering for the two ponies. Shortly after, the judges gave the two ponies the trophy and made them the winners of this competition.

"That was quite good, don't you think?" Star Twinkle asked Steel Hammer, who was still looking at his mane to see if something had changed after he drank that one bottle from before. "Did you even pay attention to the performance?" Star Twinkle asked.

"No time! Need more tonic. Where is that one pony?" Steel Hammer said before he left his seat to look for Silver Shill again, in order to get more tonic.

Star Twinkle could only shake his head because of this behavior. He started to shake once the thought crossed his mind that there were probably more ponies acting like him because of this stupid tonic.

"So you came too," then a female voice said, that came next to Star Twinkle. It was Applejack, who had a pretty uncomfortable look on her face as soon as Star Twinkle looked back at her. "Looks like Granny Smith didn't overdo it and actually won the competition," she said while avoiding eye contact with Star Twinkle and playing around with her hat.

"Yeah, looks like it," Star Twinkle replied.

The mare then sat down next to him. "And she still thinks that it is because of that darn tonic that those two sell to her,"

"Looks like it," Star Twinkle replied.

Applejack was aware that Star Twinkle kept his answers short and got even more uncomfortable. Eventually, she felt really bad and just got straight to what she had in mind. "I know you think that I am a horrible pony because I lied to everypony but all I thought about was to keep granny happy!" She almost burst out in her frustration.

Star Twinkle didn't expect her to say that and got a little confused but he still had an idea from where she was coming from. "I know that Applejack," he replied but before he could say anything else, Applejack continued.

"Still, even with everything going well, I have the feeling that I am hurting her and everypony else more and more without them realizing it. And it makes me feel miserable!"

Star Twinkle knew that Applejack didn't like to lie to everypony but he had no idea that it was making her feel this bad. Then again, it was Applejack, the most honest pony in Ponyville. This must have been especially hard for her.

But even if it was hard for her, there was only one piece of advice that Star Twinkle could give her. "You know what to do about that, right? Tell everypony the truth," he simply said.

"Even if it means to take away everyponies happiness?" Applejack asked.

"You get blamed either way if somepony finds out that the tonic is fake," Star Twinkle replied bluntly.

"I guess you're right..." Applejack replied as she looked down at the ground.

"Oh, and don't worry..." Star Twinkle said, causing Applejack to look back at him confused. "I don't think you're a pony terrible at all, Applejack," he added with a grin on his face.

Applejack finally began to smile again and even chuckled for a moment. "You sure know what to say to make somepony feel better again," she said before she hugged Star Twinkle. "Alright! Now I will go down and expose their little tonic before Granny Smith hurts herself!" She said determined as she looked over to the Flim Flam Brothers, ready to end their business.

However, that had to wait because Star Twinkle just noticed something bad. "I think you need to hurry up for that!" He said before he pointed up into the air towards the very big springboard.

Granny Smith was just now climbing up the springboard, probably so that she could jump down from it. Of course, that was a pretty bad idea and Star Twinkle and Applejack quickly ran towards the springboard as well.

Apple Bloom was nearby so she probably knew what was going. "What in blazes does she think she's doin'?!" Applejack asked her sister.

Apple Bloom quickly explained. "Granny's gonna break the Equestria high divin' record!" She said excited, without realizing in what danger Granny Smith was just now.

"The what!?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Apple Bloom explained again. "After realizing that she could anything after drinking Flim and Flam's tonic, she decided to attempt to do this! She is gonna jump from all the way up there into this," she said while she pointed into a very tiny pool of water, that was barely big enough to fit even Apple Bloom inside.

Needless to say, Applejack broke out in a panic as she saw, not to mention after she looked up and saw Granny Smith preparing herself to jump any second now.

"Star Twinkle! Get up there and stop her! I'll go and climb this thing!" She said in a panic before she ran towards the springboard as well.

"R-Right!" Star Twinkle replied before he transformed into a Pegasus to fly up the springboard, in order to stop Granny Smith from jumping. And thankfully he was not a second too late because Granny Smith was just about to jump if Star Twinkle didn't suddenly appear in front of her. "Uh...how about you don't jump down here?" Star Twinkle said, in an attempt to stop her.

"Would you kindly step aside? I'm trying to set a record here!" Granny Smith said a little angrily. "Besides...since when can you fly?" She added confused about Star Twinkle's transformation.

"There is no way that you can do a jump like that because of some tonic!" Star Twinkle said.

"Nonsense," Granny Smith replied before she pulled out mentioned tonic and drank the whole bottle in one sweep. "Here you go!" She then said before she threw the bottle at Star Twinkle, which caused him to catch the bottle while losing his balance a little. Then before he knew it, Granny Smith jumped right past him without a care in her life.

"No!" Star Twinkle said in shock after he saw the old mare falling down towards the ground. But luckily, a rope flew right past him and towards the mare. It was Applejack, who tried to catch Granny Smith before she would hit the ground.

Thank goodness she did that...

Applejack managed to get a hold of Granny Smith's leg and prevented her to land face-first into the pool. Star Twinkle and Applejack both released a relieved sigh after that situation was taken care of. However, everypony else was surprised about why the two went so far to stop her, especially Granny Smith.

"Now what in tarnation did you do that for?!" Granny Smith asked bothered before she freed herself from the rope again and walked safely on the ground.

"That was the most fool-pony thing I've ever seen anypony do in all my life!" Applejack replied with a serious tone in her mind before she climbed down the springboard again.

Star Twinkle also dived down from the air and had to agree with Applejack. "She is right, you could have seriously hurt yourself!" He said before he ended his transformation again.

But Granny Smith didn't think so. "Oh, quit your fussin'! I had enough tonic to do a dive ten times as high!" She claimed confidently.

"Twenty times, by my count," Flim had the nerve to add.

"Thirty, with a favorable breeze," Flam added.

But Star Twinkle heard enough of those two and briefly gave them a piece of his mind. "Aaaah, shut up!" He simply said which seemed to be enough to make them go quiet for good.

Applejack shortly joined the ponies on the ground and also shared what she had in mind but all she saw was Granny Smith, drinking more of this tonic. Applejack was happy to see this because every time she would drink more of that tonic, she would further blame herself for getting Granny Smith in this situation in the first place. This had to stop, this much Applejack knew.

As soon as Star Twinkle could see the regret in Applejack's face, all of a sudden, a voice was talking to him just like multiple times before.

"Things can be a little bit easier if you just bend the truth a little...but I rather want to live a harder life then being dishonest to my friends..."

Then, Star Twinkle's eyes began to shine in a red-colored light for a brief moment. Shortly after, Applejack's eyes were shining in a rainbow-colored light.

After that, Applejack could no continue this lie and just flat out told everypony the truth. "I hate to disappoint everypony, but there's no way Granny could have made that dive because this tonic is a fake!" Applejack said, much to the surprise of everypony.

Of course, everypony was shocked to hear that, especially since Applejack approved the tonic, to begin with.

"But you gave it your stamp of approval!" One pony immediately pointed out.

"Are you saying you lied?" Another pony asked confused.

As if there wasn't enough confusion or shock in the crowd, as soon as Applejack gave her answer, the crowd was shocked once more.

"...I am," Applejack simply said with some regret in her voice.

Soon the whole crowd was looking at her with judging eyes and whispered words to each other. It was kind like back then when Star Twinkle was saying that the tonic was fake. He could see that Applejack was feeling bad about all that so he decided to take her side before she ended up getting booed like he was before.

"But she didn't mean to!" Star Twinkle said once he saw everypony blaming Applejack for all this. "She knew that hiding the truth was wrong but she also saw how much happier all of you were so she couldn't bring herself to say the truth!" He said, which caused Applejack to smile at him in gratitude.

Applejack removed her hat and apologized as well. "I just hope with time, I can win back everypony's trust," she also said with some heavy regrets in her voice.

With this being said, there was still one thing that bothered some of the ponies and Apple Bloom decided to be the one to point that out. "But if the tonic is a fake, then how come Granny can swim again, and what about all that aquabatics stuff we just did?" She asked confused.

But Applejack already knew the answer to that and explained. "I reckon sometimes you can forget what you're capable of, and it just takes a little extra confidence to remember that it was inside of you all along," she said with a happy smile on her face towards Granny Smith. However, that smile quickly vanished as soon as she looked over to the Flim Flam Brothers with a glare on her face. "But tellin' ponies your tonic can do things it can't is just wrong!" She said towards the two sales-ponies.

But of course, the two ponies didn't seem to learn anything...

"But you just said it boosts confidence!" Flim said, quickly taking the opportunity to use Applejack's words against her.

"And that's not all it does," Flam added before he was about to list up some more things if somepony wouldn't have interrupted him in the middle of his sentence.

"Yes, it is!" Silver Shill said, who was watching how everything transpired in front of him. "In fact, it's not a tonic at all! I know, 'cause I helped make it!" He said, which caused the Flim Flam Brothers to get nervous now. "Watching Applejack save Granny and then admit to lying, well, that made me realize I was making ponies believe in a thing that just wasn't so!" He explained.

"Believin' in somethin' can help you do amazin' things," Applejack admitted. "But if that belief is based on a lie, eventually it's gonna lead to real trouble," she added, hinting at the Flim Flam Brothers of course.

Silver Shill walked up to Applejack so that he could further thank her for opening his eyes. He was clearly regretting what he did to everypony as much as she did. "Thank you, Applejack," he said in gratitude before he pulled out a bit from his pockets. "I got this through dishonest means. That was a mistake I won't be making again! I'd like you to have it, as a reminder of how you helped me finally see the truth," he said before he gave Applejack that one bit that he had previously earned.

"I don't know..." Applejack said with second thoughts. She clearly didn't want to accept money that previously belonged to somepony else.

"Oh, don't worry," Silver Shill then said. "I'll track down the pony I sold that worthless tonic to and give him another bit to replace this one! Honest," he assured.

And that wouldn't take long because the mentioned pony already showed up on the spot. "That would be me," Steel Hammer said with a serious tone in his voice, that made Silver Shill a little nervous. However, Steel Hammer wasn't angry at him at all but instead, he was actually a little sad. "So this tonic won't make my mane grow one bit?" He then asked while he held one of the bottles in his hoof.

"I'm afraid, no," Star Twinkle said. Steel Hammer lowered his head in disappointment after he heard that so Star Twinkle put a hoof on the stallion's shoulder to cheer him up again.

In the meantime, Applejack apologized to Granny Smith as well, for lying to her. "I'm sorry, Granny. I hope this doesn't mean you'll stop swimmin',"

"Why in tarnation would I do that?" Granny Smith replied much to the surprise of some. "I just can't believe those two sales ponies had me believin' I could near fly!" She said as if she was confused about how she could believe those two ponies in the first place.

But as soon as the two were mentioned, everypony quickly realized one thing.

"Wait! Where did they go!?" Star Twinkle said as soon as he realized that Flim and Flam had already escaped from the scene.

Of course, it was bad that they were gone now, especially, after they took so much money from everypony but then again, some were probably happy that they were gone for good now. In the end, everypony agreed to not bother with those two anymore.

Later...

Everything somehow ended well without anypony getting hurt in the process and everypony quickly decided to forget that those two sales-ponies showed up and tricked everypony. There was not much reason for Star Twinkle to do that, however, since he never fell for their tonic in the first place but still, he was also relieved and decided to call it a day and go home.

"Wait, Star Twinkle!" Applejack then said as she ran towards Star Twinkle. Judging from how fast she was running towards him, what she was about to say was rather important.

"Yes?" Star Twinkle asked while Applejack was catching her breath for a moment.

"I'll never said thank you for saving Granny Smith up there on the springboard," she said.

"That's what you came here for?" Star Twinkle asked confused. "Besides, I wasn't much of a help anyway. Granny Smith still jumped past me," he pointed out.

"Well, I don't think so!" Applejack replied. "Things would have gone really bad if I caught granny a second too late,"

"I suppose," Star Twinkle simply replied.

But Applejack wanted to hear a different answer and just chuckled in response. "You really don't like to be the hero of the day, huh?" She said jokingly, causing Star Twinkle to lower his eyebrows in confusion. Applejack then put a hoof on his shoulder and smiled warmly at him. "Because for me, you are," she said happily.

Star Twinkle felt a little embarrassed after he saw Applejack acting like that. "T-thank you," he replied while he looked away in embarrassment.

Applejack then moved away again. "I'll better get home now. I still need to write down what I learned today in our little journal," she said. Star Twinkle was curious about that and asked if he could hear it so Applejack told him happily. "I learned that bein' honest sure gets hard when it seems like the truth might hurt somepony you care about. But I think believin' a lie can end up hurtin' even more. Maybe some ponies don't care about that – but I sure ain't one of them,"

"Sounds good to me," Star Twinkle replied happily.

The two then said their goodbyes to each other walked home again. Star Twinkle felt a little weird to be called a hero. He actually thought about those words of Applejack and couldn't help but to feel a little embarrassed. But he then decided to let it go. Tomorrow would be another day where he was just one normal pony again.

And that is the way, that he liked better...

Later that night...

It was one of those nights where Star Twinkle laid on his bed to look a the ceiling of his room. There was one thing that bothered him, one thing that bothered him for a while now.

"Those voices..." Star Twinkle said as he kept his eyes on the ceiling. "I heard a voice again, today..." He was, of course, referring to the voice that he heard before Applejack told everybody the truth. This was not the first time it happened, in fact, there were four more times where he remembered how that happened.

It happened when Rarity realized how bad she was treating her friends, back in Manehattan...

Or in Rainbow Falls when Rainbow Dash realized that she was letting her friends hanging...

Then there was that time when Pinkie Pie realized that she was making Rainbow Dash sad because of her competition with Cheese Sandwich...

Or right before Fluttershy realized that she was hurting the Breezies by showing them too much kindness...

And today, it was right before Applejack realized that she was hurting everypony by not telling them the truth...

Star Twinkle didn't know what that was all about but he saw one connection. It was all right before everypony realized a mistake they made. But why that would make Star Twinkle hear voices in his head was still beyond him.

Eventually, after trying to come up with an answer, the stallion figured that he can't find any so he just tried to ignore it. There was no point in thinking about things that he wouldn't understand anyway.

But that doesn't mean that he was happy to not know the answer...

86. Let's trade!

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Once again, Star Twinkle and his friends, which included Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Spike and Steel Hammer, were on their way to Rainbow Falls. But this time it wasn't because they wanted to qualify for the upcoming Equestria Games. Today, they wanted to attend the so-called "Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange".

The Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange was a meet up of various ponies who would bring things with them that they wanted to trade away. Since there were so many different ponies meeting at that place, the variety of items that you could find there was enormousness, which is why the group decided to bring various things to trade with them so that they could exchange them for something else that they may want.

But of course, that was not the only reason why they visited that event. At the exchange, at least one princess has to be present, and since Twilight was now a princess as well, it was her turn now.

When the group left the train, all they had to do was to walk through a short cave to reach the Exchange spot and although everypony was a little excited about this, Pinkie Pie was clearly the most excited.

"Yes! Best day ever!" She squealed across the cave in her excitement. "We're all going to the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange! And not just going – we're accompanying a princess on an official royal duty!" She added, referring to Twilight's role in all of this.

But Twilight smiled and stayed modest. "Please, it's not that big of a deal. There always has to be a princess at the Exchange. Last year was Princess Cadance, this year it's me. It's just a formality. I'm sure none of the other ponies will even notice I'm here," she said calmly while she walked towards the exit of the cave.

But...as soon as the group was outside of the cave, with Twilight being in front of everypony, confetti began to rain from the sky and loud cheering could be heard. It all came from a big crowd of ponies who were already waiting for Twilight to arrive at the Traders Exchange, much to her surprise.

"Could be wrong, but I think they might've noticed," Applejack whispered to Twilight who could only laugh nervously after a welcome like this.

What followed was a whole bunch of ponies who walked up to Twilight in admiration. Some of them even asked for an autograph. Of course, Twilight felt a little awkward about all this and shortly explained that she had still somewhere to be so she was quickly left alone again.

It was times like this, where Star Twinkle was happy to not be royalty because then he would be the center of attention like this as well. He had enough from the attention that he already received from the ponies in the Crystal Empire. Luckily, he was ignored by those ponies, even if some of them kept close to Twilight and therefore, indirectly, to her friends.

After it was only the original group of ponies, and one dragon, left again, they all decided to finally enter the Exchange. There were, as expected, many ponies who either set up a tent or a little shop to showcase all the stuff that they wanted to trade. The group took the chance to check out what was already offered by some of the ponies nearby. There were a lot of things offered by all kinds of ponies, some things more valuable than the other. But it didn't really matter how valuable something was as long as somepony was willing to trade it for something else.

The girls were already looking around for that very special item that they wanted to trade. Fluttershy, for example, already looked at a little statue of a bunny. "Oh, my goodness!" She said as soon as she further inspected the little statue.

"You said it," Rarity said, who was busy trying on some fancy hats already. "The Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange is simply divine. You can get anything you want here!" She added before she actually went ahead and exchanged one of her hats for the one that she was trying on.

"If'n you got the goods to trade for it," Applejack pointed out.

"Exactly!" Steel Hammer said as he caught up with the group again after he walked off to somewhere with nopony actually noticing it. "That is why you bring as much stuff as possible so that you can ensure to get everything you want in this place!" He then pulled out a little wrench. "Like this!"

"A wrench? You trade something for a wrench?" Star Twinkle asked, fully knowing that Steel Hammer probably had enough of those back in Ponyville, in his workshop.

"What? This one just called out to me!" He said before he opened his saddlebag to put away the wrench. "Let me put it right here, next to that...wrench..." he said confused as he pulled out a wrench that looked exactly like the one he just traded. "Darn..." he said after his mistake.

Luckily, Star Twinkle brought his own stuff to trade and he intended to not exchange it for some random stuff, but rather stuff that he could use. He still had no idea what that would be yet though, unlike everybody else who seemed to have a goal in mind here.

Spike, for example, had a comic book with him and planned to trade it for another one. For that, he had made sure that the comic book was well protected inside of a plastic bag. "You sure you want to trade that Power Pony comic away?" Steel Hammer asked, as a concerned comic book fan himself but Spike only nodded and was eager to do exactly that. "Just make sure that it isn't damaged though or else, it will lose a lot of value," he advised.

"I know, I know!" Spike replied. "One ding, nick or dent, and this Power Ponies comic book wouldn't be in perfect mint condition anymore. And if you want to trade for a mint comic, you gotta have a mint comic," he explained as he held it close in his claws and not letting his eyes wander off from it.

As they were all discussing where to go next, a crowd of ponies already gathered around them again. Of course, the reason for their visit was Twilight again, who in response ran away and hid her face.

"Very professional..." Star Twinkle said as he watched the princess running away from the crowd.

"I guess a pony who's here on official princess business has to expect a little fussin'," Applejack figured.

"Poor Twilight," Star Twinkle said. Just imagining being her at this moment was a real nightmare for Star Twinkle.

But unlike him, Twilight didn't let herself be bothered by this and quickly went back to her calm and modest nature. "But all I'm supposed to do is settle disagreements over whether a trade is fair or not. And since the rule is that a trade is fair as long as both ponies get what they want, there's never been a disagreement. So there's really no reason for anypony to treat me as anything special," she explained.

But Star Twinkle figured that there had to be at least one case before where this happened, meaning that her presence here must have a reason. But before Star Twinkle could put more thought into this, Rainbow Dash came back from her little scouting of what some ponies had to offer in this exchange.

She seemed rather happy about something and quickly shared what she found out. "There's a pony here who's got a signed first edition of Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Statue, and I'm gonna get it! I've been able to get first editions of all of the Daring Do books, except this one! Nopony's ever put together a whole set, and I'm gonna be the first! If it hasn't been traded yet... It's the only one in all of Equestria!" She said in her excitement.

It was to be expected that Rainbow Dash was getting highly excited whenever it came to anything Daring Do related and from the looks of it, coming here already paid out for her.

"Oh no! I'd really hate to see you disappointed," Fluttershy said after she saw how important this was for Rainbow Dash. She then pulled out a little flute with a bear head at the end of it. "I did want to trade this bear call I've got for a bird whistle, but getting that book seems so important to you, so if you need me to help you first..." she offered to which Rainbow Dash quickly accepted.

"Normally I'd say I don't need any help, but you're right. This is really important. I've gotta get that book!" Rainbow Dash said, determined to get this first edition book. She quickly grabbed hold of Fluttershy and they both left to look for that Daring Do book.

Seeing Rainbow Dash that determined, caused Applejack to get into the trading as well so she took out her saddlebag from the cart that she was carrying behind her before. "Well, I'm off to take a gander at some of the vintage stalls," she said before she went off to look for some trades.

Rarity was, for some reason, excited to hear this. "Did you say vintage?" She said before she grabbed her saddlebag as well and quickly followed Applejack. "Hold on! I'm coming with you!"

For Star Twinkle, it was a little surprising to see Rarity excited about this. Normally, she would go crazy about modern and new stuff and not the old one. There had to be a good reason that was somehow related to fashion so of course, Star Twinkle didn't know about it.

Spike also left with his Comic Book, in order to trade it away. This only left Star Twinkle, Twilight, Pinkie Pie and Steel Hammer. But instead of walking away as well, Twilight was actually placing some books on a table. Pinkie Pie quickly picked up on this and asked Twilight why she did that instead of sitting in some kind of royal box seat somewhere.

"I may be the princess on duty, but I don't think that means I have to sit up there all alone doing nothing," she explained while she continued to place her books to offer them for a trade. "Ever since I became a princess, Celestia's been sending me more books to read than ever. The library's overflowing, so I figured while we're here, I might as well trade away some books I don't need anymore,"

She basically went into this with the same mentally as Star Twinkle. She just wanted to part with stuff that was no longer needed and might as well get something in return for it. It actually didn't take long until a little pony walked up to Twilight with a first offer.

But Twilight hesitated about that offer at first. "You want me to trade all my books for a broken pen?" She asked towards the little pony who replied with a nod while holding that pen in its mouth. Twilight didn't really want a broken pen and at first thought about not agreeing with this deal but she remembered that she didn't come here to get new stuff but to get rid of her old books. Eventually, she agreed to the deal so that she could give away her books. "Alright, fine. You got yourself a–"

But as soon as she was about to agree to that deal, Pinkie Pie interrupted. "Stop! What are you doing?!" She asked in shock and confusion which Twilight didn't really know where it came from.

"I was trying to get rid of all the books I don't need anymore," Twilight replied.

"For that?" Pinkie Pie asked while she pointed to the broken pen that the little pony was still holding. "Do you reaaaaally want that?" She then asked.

"Well, not really," Twilight openly admitted. "But I'm running out of library space, so–" she tried to explain before she was interrupted by Pinkie Pie again.

"Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh!" She repeated in relief. "I can't believe that almost happened! But luckily, it didn't happen, thanks to me," she said proudly as if what she just did was preventing something terrible.

"What are you talking about?" Twilight asked confused, still not getting what Pinkie Pie was getting so shocked about.

Pinkie Pie then explained her reasoning. "According to the rules of the Exchange, a trade is only fair if both ponies end up with something they want. You can't break the rules! Did anypony see you do it? I don't think anypony saw!" She asked. It was as if Twilight was about to do a terrible crime if Pinkie Pie wasn't around. It was ridiculous. The mare then walked towards the little filly who was, like everypony else, a little confused about Pinkie Pie's behavior. "But you're not gonna say anything, are you?!" She said in an almost threatening tone to the poor filly. "Haha, I'm just kidding!" She then said in her usual cheerful tone. "Or am I?!" She then said, switching back to a more threatening tone again which scared the little filly again. "Sometimes I can't even tell!" She then said again in a more cheerful tone. Seeing Pinkie Pie shift from scary to happy, however, was too much for the little filly so she ran away to get out of there.

Twilight didn't exactly like how Pinkie Pie reacted to this whole situation and wanted to prevent further damage. "Y'know, if you want to go check out the rest of the Exchange and trade whatever you brought..." she said in an obvious attempt to get rid of Pinkie Pie before she would do something to further get in Twilight's way to get rid of her books.

But it didn't work. "Nope, I just came to pony-watch! I'm not going anywhere. I won't let you make a mistake like that again!" She said, determined to stay at Twilight's side the whole time, much to Twilight's dislike who was groaning in frustration just thinking about that.

Star Twinkle felt a little bad for Twilight, but again, he was happy that he was not in her skin right now and just moved away before Pinkie Pie decided to take care of his trading actions. He was quickly followed by Steel Hammer who seemed rather excited just now. "Well, looks like it's just us now!" Steel Hammer said as he put his leg around Star Twinkle. "How about we take a look around here?"

"Sure..." Star Twinkle replied. This was the reason why he came here in the first place. He looked at the saddlebag that he was carrying around. "I'm not sure what I want to trade but I brought a lot of things so I should be able to get something,"

"Let's change that then, shall we?" Steel Hammer suggested as he leads the way with Star Twinkle following close behind.

A little later...

The two stallions were rather aimlessly wandering through the area and without looking out for something special. However, that didn't stop Steel Hammer to trade literally everything for anything.

"Look! Look!" He said after he came back from another trade. This time, he had a rather strange device with him, which looked like some kind of cooking tool.

Star Twinkle tried his best to figure out what that thing was but he had no idea. "What is that?" He finally asked after giving up.

Steel Hammer explained. "It's a bread machine!" He said before he opened it up. "See? Those are triangles!" He said after pointing towards the form inside of the machine. "I can now make triangle-shaped bread!" He said excitedly as if this was literally the best trade that he ever made.

"Uh...nice?" Star Twinkle replied confused. He didn't quite know if should ask why Steel Hammer wanted to have triangle-shaped bread since he looked so happy right now.

Steel Hammer then put away the machine in his saddlebag. "Did you trade anything yet?" He asked.

"No," Star Twinkle replied almost frustrated. "I just don't know what I want out of all those things..." he added while he scanned his eyes through the tents of everypony. "If I want to make a trade, then it at least should be something worthwhile,"

"That is exactly the problem!" Steel Hammer then said.

"What?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

Steel Hammer then explained further. "Don't think about what you could get. You don't need that stuff anymore so it doesn't matter what you trade it for. You have the chance to actually get something for that stuff so just take that chance!" Steel Hammer advised, further trying to get Star Twinkle into a trading mood.

Star Twinkle actually thought about those words for a moment. "You know what, you're right! I should-"

But as soon as Steel Hammer spotted something in the distance, he got distracted and switched his attention towards it instead. "Oh! A teacup!" He simply said before he walked away to trade something for it.

Star Twinkle just continued without Steel Hammer and decided to get on his way to trade some of his stuff away. He didn't really like to trade away all his stuff for one object like Twilight because he thought that this would be a huge waste but then he remembered what Steel Hammer said.

"Maybe he is right...Maybe I should just pick something and decide to trade. All the stuff that I have with me is something that I no longer need or decided to part with after all. It doesn't matter what I come home with! The next pony I'll see, I will trade something with it!" He said, determined to make those words true. But then his belly began to grumble because of a lack of food inside of it. "...Right after I get something to eat!" He added before he looked for a tent with somepony to who was offering some food.

It didn't take long until he came across a tent where a pony sold some delicious looking bread that looked like as if it came right out of the oven. Star Twinkle wasn't really picky at the moment and seeing those freshly made bread didn't make his decision really hard to get one of those now.

The mare put one fresh bread on the counter and Star Twinkle got really hungry as soon as he saw it. "Here you go!" The mare said with a smile on her face. Star Twinkle pulled out a bit in order to pay but the mare quickly picked up on that and refused. "Sorry, I came here to trade," she said to hint at Star Twinkle that he should offer her something in return for that bread.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot," Star Twinkle replied after he remembered where he was here. The stallion opened his saddlebag and took a look inside of it. "Let's see..." he said while he looked inside to figure out what could be a good trade. "How about this?" He then said before he presented a light green scarf.

"Not interested..." the mare instantly replied.

Star Twinkle was disappointed to hear this but he quickly grabbed something else to offer. "This?" He asked once he showed the mare a piggy bank.

"Nope," the mare replied in disinterest.

Star Twinkle released a slight sigh but he once again looked into his saddlebag and grabbed something else out of it. "And this?" He asked while he pulled out a wooden toy sword that he made a long time ago.

"Uh uh," the mare replied, not accepting this offer as well.

By now, Star Twinkle lowered his eyebrows in frustration. "Then what do you want?" He straight out asked so that he could avoid all this to finally get the bread that was still right in front of him.

The mare tipped her chin a few times and looked up to think. She then had a smile on her face after she got something that she wanted in mind. "I would like to have a red and white colored umbrella," she simply said.

"A red and white-colored umbrella?" Star Twinkle asked in a rather bothered tone. "Does it have to be this combination? Because I think I have one with another color packed in here somewhere..." he explained before he looked inside his saddlebag to find it again.

But he was quickly interrupted by the mare. "I'm afraid, that won't do it! I want a red and white colored one," she demanded.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle didn't like to hear this and almost groaned loudly in his frustration but he managed to keep that inside. "You know, if you want somepony to take your bread, then you should consider being a little more flexible, don't you think?" The stallion said, in an attempt to take care of this situation without much more work.

The mare, once more, tapped her chin to think. "Nah..." she then replied, much to Star Twinkle's dislike.

The stallion just decided to leave without a word and with an empty stomach. The stubbornness of this mare was something that he really didn't want to deal with right now, even if it meant that he had to go on without that delicious bread.

"Steel Hammer should have talked to her instead, then she would at least consider taking something that I offered her..." he complained, in order to let off some steam. "As if I walk through the whole trade exchange to find one specific thing to get another specific thing. I mean, who would be that desperate and..."

But irony came right in form of Rainbow Dash, who flew right up to the stallion with a desperate look on her face. "Star Twinkle! I need a crystal chalice to trade for a chicken to trade for a lamp to trade for an Orthros!" She said, much to Star Twinkle's confusion who couldn't even keep up at first what this was all about. "Do you have any of those?" She asked.

"What? No! And what is an Orthros?" Star Twinkle asked in his confusion.

"It's an adorable two-headed dog," Fluttershy explained who was slowly approaching the two ponies now.

"A two-headed dog? Why do you want something like that?" Star Twinkle asked towards Rainbow Dash confused.

The mare quickly explained. "Because the pony, who is trading the Daring Do book, wants one! But the pony who had an Orthros wants a lamp and the pony with the lamps wants a chicken statue and the pony with the chicken statue wants a crystal chalice!" She quickly listed up, which was still going a little too fast for Star Twinkle's taste. "So do you have any of those things?" She asked once more, only this time she grabbed the stallion by his cheeks out of her frustration.

"No, I don't!" Star Twinkle replied before he freed himself from the crazy mare.

Rainbow Dash didn't even waste one more second and just vanished again, probably to look for any of those items now. Fluttershy didn't seem too bothered by this and followed Rainbow Dash to help her get that book. "It's been a busy day so far," she said before she was gone as well.

"Clearly..." Star Twinkle said to himself after that encounter. Of course, Rainbow Dash would turn the world around when it came to something that she really wanted but for Star Twinkle it just sounded like a huge bother.

But the stallion didn't want to give up this easily and looked further for another tent that would have something to eat on it. He finally came across another pony who was offering some delicious looking pies. Star Twinkle didn't know what flavor those were and he didn't care much either because it was edible, which was enough reason for him to get one of those.

But again, things didn't look too good. Star Twinkle showed all of his stuff to the stallion that sold the pies so that he would pick something to trade so that Star Twinkle wouldn't have to show everything separately. However, the offer that the stallion made to him, surprised him.

"I'll give you one for half of your stuff,"

"What? Half of my stuff for one pie?" Star Twinkle replied almost offended.

"You want this pie don't you?" The stallion asked, making it look as if Star Twinkle was the one who was making the wrong decision now.

"I'm not giving you half of my stuff for one pie!" Star Twinkle simply said, which only caused the stallion in front of him to shrug his shoulders in response. After that Star Twinkle just left and gave up on this more than unfair trade. It reminded him of the trade that Twilight was about to accept before Pinkie Pie stopped her. "Half of my stuff for one pie, that's ridiculous who would agree to something like that?" He complained.

But, once again, life was proving him wrong again. "Star Twinkle!" Two female voices then said angrily, which revealed to be Rarity and Applejack who both looked a little mad. The stallion was not sure why they were acting like this and just hoped that whatever bothered them wasn't directed towards him.

"Star Twinkle, tell Rarity what good of a friend I am and make her accept the gift that I want to trade my stuff for!" Applejack said.

"What?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

"No!" Rarity protested. "Star Twinkle, go ahead and say that Applejack should accept the generous gift that I am offering her by trading all our stuff for!" She said.

"Huh?" Star Twinkle replied in his confusion.

The two mares then stared at each other angrily. They both explained the situation to him. Applejack wanted a pie tin and Rarity wanted a brooch but the problem was that they had to trade all their combined stuff for one of those. This already sounded like a pretty stupid deal for Star Twinkle and seeing those two argue about something like this was upsetting him a little. It just proved how this whole trade exchange was getting into everyponies head.

Instead of hearing what Star Twinkle had to say to all this, the mares continued to argue.

"Well, since we can't both get what we want, I will be the better friend. You take our trade goods and get what you want," Rarity insisted.

"I'm an amazin' friend! So even though it's for somethin' that don't seem valuable at all, you take our stash," Applejack insisted in return.

"How dare you let me get what I want. What kind of friend do you think I am? You are going to get what you want!" Rarity replied offended.

"No, you are!" Applejack replied angrily.

"No, you are!" Rarity replied angrily.

They both stared each other down and continued to be stubborn but since they couldn't come to a conclusion on their own, they turned their heads towards Star Twinkle to ask him again.

"Huh?" Both Rarity and Applejack said as soon as they turned their heads around to see how Star Twinkle was nowhere to be found anymore, much to the two mare's dislike.

Star Twinkle was already far away from the two mares at this point. He couldn't deal with a problem that didn't even make remotely any sense to him. Not only did they both wanted to give up all their stuff for one thing but they also wanted to trade it for something that the other wanted while refusing to trade it for something that they wanted. The more time he was spending in this exchange, the more the thought that it was driving everypony crazy. And he didn't want to spend his time with crazy.

By now, Star Twinkle wondered where Steel Hammer was during all this time so he decided to look for him. He quickly found him in front of another trade tent. As soon as Star Twinkle was walking closer towards the stallion, Steel Hammer turned around with and revealed a whole bread in his mouth that he was munching on now.

"You got to be kidding me..." Star Twinkle mumbled to himself out of hunger after seeing Steel Hammer munching on a bread that almost looked exactly like the one that he almost traded for.

Steel Hammer took a little break from eating. "Hey, there! Look what I got," he said before he showed Star Twinkle a little snow globe with a little house inside of it that was covered by snow. "Pretty neat huh? Only had to trade half of my stuff for that," he said with a victorious smile on his face as if he just made a deal of a lifetime.

Seeing Steel Hammer waving a snow globe that he got from giving away half of his stuff made Star Twinkle actually wonder how the Iron Hammer was still in business but he had other concerns at the very moment. "And where did you got that bread from?" He asked out of his desperation to get something to eat.

Steel Hammer explained. "This? I got that one from a mare, who was trading a whole bunch of them, wanted to have a red and white colored umbrella for it," he said, not noticing how Star Twinkle didn't want to hear this at all now.

"Lucky you..." Star Twinkle said with a deadpan expression on his face.

"Want one too?" Steel Hammer then said, much to Star Twinkle's confusion who had his eyes wide open now. "I had two of those umbrellas so I decided to get two pieces of bread," he explained casually, not realizing how much Star Twinkle wanted one now.

"You're a lifesaver!" Star Twinkle said in gratitude before he took the bread to finally get something to eat.

Steel Hammer took the opportunity to ask Star Twinkle about his trading progress, only to find out that there was none. This bothered Steel Hammer a little. "Did you even try to trade something?" He asked to which Star Twinkle only shrugged his shoulders in response. "Come on, Star Twinkle!" He added in disappointment.

"I'm trying, okay? I just happened to meet the wrong ponies so far...besides, I'm starting to think that everypony is going crazy," Star Twinkle said, judging from everything that he witnessed this far.

But Steel Hammer thought Star Twinkle just overreacted. "You are imagining things," he said with a smile on his face.

Shortly after, their conversation was brought to hold after they saw a crowd of ponies walking past them in excitement. Steel Hammer stopped one of those ponies and asked what this was all about.

"Princess Twilight is trading the books that made her into a princess! I have to get one of those!" The pony explained before leaving the two stallions alone again.

The two stallions looked at each other confused and had a really weird feeling about all this. They chose to return to Twilight to see what was going on at Twilight's location but Star Twinkle had a really good idea what could have led to this and after walking back to Twilight, it proved to be right.

"Only one pony at a time!" Pinkie Pie said in front of a massive crowd of pony that assembled in front of Twilight's stand. The pink party pony was equipped with a fake mustache and a bow tie and practically took over Twilight's trade spot. "These books made Twilight the princess she is. Before that, she was nothing – a big, fat zero!" She explained.

"Hey!" Twilight said offended by that sentence.

Pinkie Pie continued to advertise the books, however, "Then she read these books, and voila! Princess! So who wants to start the bidding?"

The crowd quickly started to say their offers after Pinkie Pie's words but Twilight dragged her away from the spot for a second in order to talk with her and hopefully stop all this before it would get more out of hoof-like this.

"Pinkie, I appreciate your help and all, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this. Nopony should trade for my books just because I'm a princess. I'm not better than anypony else!" She said, saying the last sentence loud enough so that the crowd could hear it as well.

Everypony seemed to be affected by these words a little, even Pinkie Pie who assured that she understood what Twilight was saying. "I know you're not better than everypony! Just leave this to me!" She said before she turned towards the crowd again and pushed Twilight out of the spotlight. "Did I mention that Princess Twilight got these books from Princess Celestia?" She then said, completely misunderstanding what Twilight actually wanted at this very moment.

Hearing that only further pumped the crowd up more to get some of Twilight's books after hearing that they were previously Celestia's. Owning a book that two princesses owned before was definitely enough to get even the last pony interested in them.

"Who's got something valuable enough to trade for Princess Twilight's princess books that she got from Princess Celestia? Did I say "princess"?" Pinkie Pie said to get the crowd even more interested in Twilight's books.

Star Twinkle and even Steel Hammer felt as if Pinkie Pie was taking this a little too far. Twilight was calling the two over to her, she definitely wanted their help at this very moment. It was also obvious that she felt very uncomfortable that Pinkie Pie was using her name as a princess to trade away her books.

"And what are we supposed to do?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Just talk with her or something! I already tried and it didn't work!" She said frustrated.

Star Twinkle was not sure if he could convince Pinkie Pie to stop all this though because the mare was really caught up in all this trading. In fact, she was declining every single offer because she felt as if those things that other ponies offered here weren't worth any of Twilight's books.

"Oh, come on! These are the books the princess would sit up with all night, with nothing to read by but the light of her own horn! These are the books that made Twilight the princess she is! So who's got what it takes to trade for them?" The mare said after refusing two more offers from the crowd.

Pinkie Pie expected more offers to come in her direction, especially after she made sure to let everypony know about how those books belonged to Princess Twilight and Princess Celestia. It was starting to sound ridiculous. She made those books sound like as if nothing was as valuable as them, making it hard for anypony to think about something that they could offer.

Eventually, that was exactly what made Pinkie Pie's efforts crumble...

"Well, when you put it like that..." one pony in the crowd said before he left the scene after he figured that there was no chance for him to trade anything for Twilight's books. Shortly after, he was followed by more and more ponies who all came to the same conclusion and left.

Pinkie Pie quickly realized that the crowd was getting smaller and smaller and started to realize that her plan to trade Twilight's books away failed. "Wait, stop, come back! Uh, these books aren't that great..." she said followed by a nervous giggle but unfortunately for her, it was already too late and everypony was gone.

This only left, Pinkie Pie, Twilight, Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer on the scene, the latter three being a little relieved of how this situation ended.

"Good job, Star Twinkle!" Steel Hammer said, even though Star Twinkle didn't even talk with the mare at all.

Star Twinkle could answer that but he remained quiet since he was also glad how everything ended to his and Twilight's favor. Pinkie Pie, however, was not happy at all and felt as if she let Twilight down and just let her head sink accompanied by a frown on her face.

"I just wanted everypony to know how amazing your books are," she said, apologizing to Twilight how everything turned out in the end.

Twilight's answer then surprised Pinkie Pie. "Oh, yes, they are," she said before she looked over to her books.

Star Twinkle too, was surprised by that. "Didn't you want to get rid of them though?" He asked confused.

Twilight started to explain. "None of those ponies had anything valuable enough to trade for my books. Not because these books belong to a princess, but because they helped make me who I am. Just like Pinkie Pie said," she then showed off some of her books and shared a story about each of them and how they remembered her about important events of the past. "And this one reminds me of the day I got it – which was the day I met you," she said towards Pinkie Pie while she presented one more of her books. "I may not ever need to read these again, but that doesn't mean they don't have value. I realize that now, thanks to you, Pinkie," she said with a smile on her face.

Pinkie Pie simply took it the way it was now and smiled as well. "I told you I'd take care of everything!"

Star Twinkle took the situation as it was as well. Twilight maybe came here for nothing if she didn't want to trade away her books anymore but at least she wasn't involved in any unfair trade and gained almost nothing of it. On top of that, she didn't even have to take care of an unfair trade that took place somewhere in this exchange.

But as soon as Star Twinkle thought that, life proved him wrong one more again...

Rainbow Dash came flying towards Twilight and knocked her to the ground in her unknown frustration, much to everyponies confusion. "Twilight! I need you to say a trade wasn't fair! Fast!" Rainbow Dash begged for some reason...

"Wow...today, the irony is really proving me wrong," Star Twinkle thought as if there was some hidden force that wanted to joke around with him somewhere out there.

"What happened?" Twilight asked confused.

Rainbow Dash struggled a little to explain the situation. "Well...you see...I managed to get my hooves on the Daring Do book that I wanted in exchange for an Orthros...but..."

"What is an Orthros?" Steel Hammer asked confused in the middle of Rainbow Dash's explanation.

But Star Twinkle told him that he would explain this later and that he should listen to Rainbow Dash for now because what she was about to tell them really seemed to be important.

"You see..." Rainbow Dash continued a little hesitantly. "The Orthros was a little to difficult to deal with...so the mare with the book wanted something else..."

"And that was?" Twilight asked.

After a long pause, Rainbow Dash explained what that other thing was...

"Fluttershy..."

"What!?" Star Twinkle and Twilight replied in shock.

"Yes, I know that was wrong! Which is why I need you to help me Twilight!" Rainbow Dash begged once more.

Star Twinkle quickly pointed out the obvious question. "Can you even do that? I mean trading somepony else away?" He asked, trying to open up some options.

Rainbow Dash, explained, that Fluttershy was only supposed to stay with the other pony until the Orthros was fully trained. Apparently, that takes a long time, meaning that Fluttershy would have to leave Ponyville for quite a while.

After listening to those details, Twilight gave her first opinion on this matter. "The only rule in this trading exchange is that both ponies had to agree to the trade, this makes things a little hard...I need to hear the other pony's story in order to get an answer," she explained before she asked everypony to follow her so that she could officially decide what to do.

A little later...

To make Twilight's decision official, she had to sit on a little throne, in front of everypony to announce what she had come up with. The mare, who was trading away the book confirmed that Rainbow Dash agreed to the trade and things ended up as Twilight feared.

"I've heard what you both have to say, and I'm sorry Rainbow Dash, but my hooves are tied. You said it was a fair trade," Twilight said.

She didn't like to come to this conclusion but there were no rules broken in this trade so there was not really anything that Twilight could do, even if she was a princess.

Rainbow Dash Didn't like to hear this at all, not to mention, Fluttershy who was standing next to the mare that she was supposed to spend time with. Star Twinkle blamed Rainbow Dash for this outcome and couldn't help but to look at her in disappointment. Something that the mare quickly noticed.

Then suddenly, the mare said what she thought about all of this. "Yeah, I said it, but I was wrong! I did want that book, a lot. I said I wanted it more than anything in all of Equestria," she said before she looked over to her friend Fluttershy, who didn't have a single hint of dislike towards Rainbow Dash even after all this. "But there's nothing that's worth as much to me as a friend. I might have forgotten that for a little bit, but it's true. Which means there's no way this trade can be fair!" She demanded.

"Oh, come on, that's..." the mare who traded the book for Fluttershy said before she broke out in tears. "The sweetest thing I've ever heard. Okay, the trade's off!" She then said, calling off the trade and "returning" Fluttershy again who was quickly hugged by Rainbow Dash and even the Orthros who also returned to her as well.

The crowd cheered after seeing things turning out well again and Twilight only had to end the exchange because it was actually about to be over now, meaning that the group had to return to the train station soon. They all agreed to meet there in an hour, which gave them all the time to do some more trading but they all agreed to not trade any pony away this time.

Later inside of the train...

The group went inside the train one by one. Star Twinkle, Steel Hammer, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Spike were already sitting on their seats, Applejack and Rarity, however, came in last and decided to sit next to each other, despite showing some awkwardness towards each other. They were probably arguing with each other still. Star Twinkle was about to go over to them to see if he could talk to them, after all, he was the only one who witnessed how they were in a little fight before.

But then Rarity levitated a little rusty pie tin over to Applejack, who was highly surprised by this gesture. "I know it's not the pie tin you were after, but I hope you like it. It's the rustiest piece of junk I could get," she said.

Applejack was happy to see how Rarity was doing that for her so she decided to give her something as well. "Well, I took my half of our stash and got you this!" She said before she pulled out a little brooch in front of Rarity. "Applejack: And I know you're gonna love it, 'cause you already have a bunch of ones that look exactly the same sittin' in the drawer doin' nothin'," she said jokingly, which caused Rarity to hug the mare in return for this gift.

Star Twinkle still decided to walk over to those two after he figured that things must have returned to normal now. "I guess, you both a fine again?" He asked.

"You bet!" Rarity replied happily

"Also..." Applejack added. "That should settle it once and for all which of us is the better friend," she said as if she wanted to start things all over again.

Rainbow Dash overheard all of this and decided to put her opinion into all of this. "Oh, come on! You both gave up what you wanted to get something for each other! That's the coolest thing a friend can do. Trust me, I know," she said before she grinned over to Fluttershy, obviously referring to what happened earlier today.

Again, Fluttershy didn't seem to show any grudge against Rainbow Dash and what she almost did to her, in fact, she seemed really happy that everything turned out well, just like everypony else.

"That reminds me..." Star Twinkle said after he realized that something was still a little off. "What happened to your two-headed dog?"

Rainbow Dash gave a quick answer and pointed towards Fluttershy "I traded it for something way better,"

Moments later, Fluttershy blew into a little bird whistle, causing some birds to appear that landed on her hoof. She seemed to enjoy that whistle that Rainbow Dash got her.

Things seemed to have settled down on all ends so Star Twinkle sat down on his seat with Steel Hammer next to him who gave Star Twinkle a weird look. So of course, Star Twinkle had to ask what was wrong with him.

Steel Hammer quickly got to the point. "Knowing you, you probably didn't trade anything till the bitter end, huh?" He said with some disappointment in his voice.

But to Steel Hammer's surprise, Star Twinkle smiled happily. "I wouldn't say that," he simply said before he showed Steel Hammer what he managed to trade.

"Oh, nice!" Steel Hammer said impressed after taking a look at the object in Star Twinkle's hoof.

Later, inside Star Twinkle's house...

"Aaand...done! I hope you like it!" Star Twinkle said excitedly.

The thing that he managed to trade was a new fishbowl for Comet, which was slightly bigger than the one before.

Comet didn't move an inch inside the water...

"Ha! I knew you would like it!" Star Twinkle said happily after seeing how happy Comet was by this new fishbowl. "And I only had to trade everything that I brought for it!" He said with a grin on his face.

Comet didn't react in response...

Star Twinkle then turned off the lights and went to sleep with the thought that Comet was enjoying his new fishbowl. And that made trading all his stuff away totally worthwhile.

Author's Notes:

This time it took two weeks again to which I apologize. It was a pretty busy week all around. Luckily, I got this chapter out now and I hope you enjoyed it because I think it was a little rushed after looking through it again. I really would like to not do that for the last chapters of Season 4 because they are supposed to be the highlight of this season and I want to make sure that it will leave some kind of impact to you all.

With that said, I still hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you will tune in the next chapter.

Also please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

With that said...
See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

87. Ponyville's new look

View Online

It was early in the morning. Star Twinkle was just on his way to work. As usual, he was still a little grumpy because he couldn't sleep too well last night, like almost every other night. That didn't stop Star Twinkle to still attend work though. He might be lazy or grumpy, but he was also dependable when it came to showing up to his work. If it wasn't for that, he would have surely be fired a long time ago by Steel Hammer.

"I hope the day goes by fast so that I can take a nap soon..." Star Twinkle mumbled to himself before his eyes began to slowly close on his way to work because of the lack of sleep.

But his eyes shot open again after he heard the loud voice of his boss coming closer to him. "Star Twinkle!" Steel Hammer screamed in frustration through the streets of Ponyville as he ran towards Star Twinkle. He stopped right in front of the stallion and took a short breath before he explained what flustered him so much. "Something really weird happened to the Iron Hammer!" He simply said as if he expected Star Twinkle to solve the problem by just saying that.

Star Twinkle was already on his way to the Iron Hammer and, of course, he had to look at the Iron Hammer eventually so he followed Steel Hammer back to his workshop to see what was going on.

While walking towards the Iron Hammer, Steel Hammer couldn't help but express his worries. "Now, I don't know how to deal with a problem like this and I sure hope that this will not be the end of my workshop!" The stallion explained heavily worried.

"Come on," Star Twinkle replied. "I think you are overreacting a little," he said after seeing how Steel Hammer was getting more and more worried about his workshop.

Steel Hammer didn't reply and just glared at Star Twinkle before he then pointed forward with his hoof without a word. Star Twinkle looked in front of him, at the Iron Hammer. As soon as he saw the state of the workshop, he took everything he said about Steel Hammer's paranoia back.

"Okay...that is a little weird," Star Twinkle had to admit after taking a close look at the Iron Hammer at this very moment.

The anvil-shaped workshop, which was previously gray was now golden with little diamond pieces scattered all over it. It was also very shiny and looking at it for too long quickly blinded Star Twinkle, causing him to cover his eyes.

"It's the same from the inside! I can't see where I'm going or let alone work in there because I can't open my eyes for too long until I get blinded by everything!" He explained bothered.

"Yeah, I think I can see your problem now..." Star Twinkle admitted. "But I don't think I can do anything about it," he added.

Steel Hammer sighed. "Yeah, I know...I think I go over to Twilight. She usually has a spell or two ready for situations like this..." he said before he turned around from the sight of his workshop.

"Wait? Does that mean...no work today?" Star Twinkle asked with a hopeful expression on his face.

Steel Hammer turned around for a moment to give an answer. "Didn't you hear what I said? We can't work with all this stuff shining like that. Go home, I'll talk with you once this has been taken care of," he explained before he walked away to meet Twilight about this matter.

A wide smile formed on Star Twinkle's face after he heard those words. Hearing that he didn't have to work for today was probably the best thing that could happen now. His grumpiness also vanished and he happily walked back home again, looking forward to taking a good nap and get some sleep back.

His happiness, however, quickly transformed into confusion once he arrived back home again. "I could swear that this is the place where my house used to be..." Star Twinkle said as he kept inspecting his surroundings to make sure that he was in the right place. But once he figured that he was at the right place, he returned a confused look in front of him.

That confused look was caused by the sight right in front of him. Star Twinkle's home was a small wooden house, brown, simple, almost boring looking. So naturally, he was very confused once he saw how his house was now big golden, almost intimidating looking castle. It was similar to what happened to the Iron Hammer. It was really weird how only his house seemed to have changed though. Every other house was unchanged and this one castle really stood out.

"What happened here?" He wondered. "I wasn't even away for an hour so. How did that happen?" He asked himself confused.

Still, without worrying about that, or rather accepting it, for now, Star Twinkle decided to walk inside this castle. It even looked like a castle from the inside. It was as if the whole building was screaming "Royalty". There were many rooms and corridors to go through but Star Twinkle just took the stairs and went to what he presumed was his bedroom.

"Oh dear, Celestia..." Star Twinkle said as soon as he looked at the big room in front of him.

There was a giant bed which was probably three times the size of his original bed at the end of the room. All over the room, there were banners, on the ceiling was a fancy chandelier, a red carpet that was at the entrance of the room and many more things that Star Twinkle would have never willingly put in his room. This looked like a room that was made for the most royal and richest pony that ever lived in Equestria.

Upon looking through the room, he also found his goldfish Comet right next to his bed inside of a giant fish tank with him swimming motionlessly in the middle and with a crown on him. He seemed to be rather happy.

Still, no matter how impressive all of this was, for Star Twinkle it was a little too much, especially the size of this new castle. He couldn't just accept that his house looked like that now. He had to find out what caused this change and had to undo it again...or make someone undo it.

And he knew a pony who was most likely able to do exactly that...

Later...

"Your house as well!?" Twilight replied shocked as soon as Star Twinkle came to her to explain the situation.

"What do you mean?" Star Twinkle asked after hearing this shocking reaction from Twilight. However, he did know that the Iron Hammer changed as well and thought that those two changes were connected in some way.

Twilight quickly explained the situation while also flipping through some of her books. "There were numerous reports all over Ponyville that things suddenly changed out of nowhere, right in front of everyponies eyes. I'm trying to find a spell to change things back since there is obviously a spell at work here and a powerful one as well," she said with some worry in her eyes.

Star Twinkle hadn't even considered that there was a spell at work but after thinking about it, it was actually rather obvious. It would certainly explain why the Iron Hammer and his house changed so quickly.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Star Twinkle offered after he saw how Twilight was clearly having a hard time dealing with all this on her own.

Twilight did consider to accept Star Twinkle's help and rubbed her chin. "I don't think you can help me much with the spell but what you can do is trying to find out what or who is causing those things," she suggested.

"How am I supposed to do that?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Shouldn't be too hard," Twilight replied almost casually. "Just keep an eye out of everything that seems unusual or suspicious," she said before she grabbed one book and walked towards the door. "I have to go and fix some of the stuff in Ponyville. I will take care of your house as well. What does it look like now?" She asked out of curiosity.

"A giant golden castle..." Star Twinkle casually replied.

Twilight couldn't help but smile at the delivery of that response. "You sure you want me to change it back?" She jokingly asked.

"Yes, please," Star Twinkle replied. "It's a little too big for me..." he added.

Twilight laughed for a moment before she walked outside to take care of the spell and left Star Twinkle in front of the library. The only thing the stallion could do now was to do what Twilight asked of him, walking through Ponyville to find out who was responsible for the changes that happen in the town.

It didn't take long until Star Twinkle saw some more changes in Ponyville. It was shocking how obvious the changes were once Star Twinkle was aware that something or someone was casting a spell around town. Some buildings were now golden and decorated with either diamonds, crystals or some other valuable material. But just seeing all those new buildings didn't help him too much, so he decided to ask around how exactly it came to this.

Star Twinkle stumbled across Applejack and Granny Smith, who were selling some apples on the road of Ponyville. The apples were carried by a fancy looking golden cart, which obviously was not a cart that the Apple family would use. Star Twinkle quickly came to the conclusion that their cart was also changed, just like the buildings that he came across. When he asked the two what exactly happened, they said that their cart just changed right in front of their eyes.

"Just like that?" Star Twinkle asked after listening to the words of Applejack and Granny Smith.

"Yup, just like that," Applejack replied.

"One moment it was our simple old wooden cart, and another moment, it changed into this monstrosity! The wheels on this thing don't even work!" Granny Smith expressed in her frustration.

"And you don't know how it happened? Or who or what might have done that?" Star Twinkle asked, in order to get more clues.

They both shook their heads in response and couldn't give any more information to the stallion so Star Twinkle had to look somewhere else to figure out what happened. One thought specifically crossed his mind while he walked away.

"I wonder if the others spotted something strange..." he said, referring to the rest of his friends. It was at least worth a shot to ask them. Every one of them should have at least noticed something off in Ponyville.

Later in front of Fluttershy's cottage...

"No, I don't know what exactly happened..." Fluttershy replied after Star Twinkle asked her some questions.

"I see..." Star Twinkle replied as he looked over at what looked like a birdhouse, only that it more looked like a mansion.

"I was just feeding him, when all of a sudden, his little birdhouse changed into this. It looks really nice but it doesn't really fit as a birdhouse. Especially with all those staircases and shoe closets inside..." she explained with some worry in her voice.

Star Twinkle noticed how the bird inside was having trouble flying around inside of this huge house. He could only sympathize with this small creature since he was in a similar situation as him.

In the end, visiting Fluttershy didn't help much so Star Twinkle paid another one of his friends a visit...

Later at a birthday party...

"So I had prepared everything for the most exciting and funniest birthday party ever!" Pinkie Pie started to explain before she listed up some things. "I had a clown, all kinds of sweet snacks, games, and band. But as soon as I went away to get the cake everything turned into this!" She said before she pointed at the current state of the party.

Instead of everything that Pinkie Pie had set up, there were butlers, no games, a band of ponies that played some more sophisticated songs, and snacks that looked like stuff that some higher-up ponies would eat. Now, this all looked like a party for some rich or royal pony but the problem was that it was for a young pony, and the visitors were all ponies at the same age, making this a pretty weird party for everypony. It's as if somepony threw a birthday party for Star Twinkle and decided to invite a hundred random ponies that he didn't know in his house. It would be the complete opposite of what he would prefer.

"So you don't know what happened here?" Star Twinkle then asked.

"Uh uh," Pinkie Pie replied while she was shaking her head. "But I do know that butlers don't do really good as clowns," she said while she pointed towards one butler who tried to entertain some fillies and colts by playing with his bow-tie while having the most deadpan expression on his face.

"Right..." Star Twinkle commented on this scene before he left this "party" again.

Again, he didn't get any information about anything so all he could do was to continue asking around until someone could give him something to work with...

Later in front of Carousel Boutique...

Star Twinkle knocked on the door of Carousel Boutique multiple times but Rarity didn't open. She must have been not home right now. He stood in front of the building and waited a few minutes but nopony opened so he walked away without asking her about anything.

"So much for that..." Star Twinkle said as he walked away from the boutique. "Well, she probably was about to tell me the same thing that everypony else told me..."

Upon further inspection, Star Twinkle noticed that Carousel Boutique remained unchanged. There was nothing out of the ordinary on it so whoever did the spell didn't seem to have either come across this building or didn't think it was worth changing. That was actually to be expected. Maybe the one who was casting the spell already thought that Carousel Boutique was fancy enough and didn't need to be changed.

"At least somepony was spared by this spell. But then again, Rarity would probably like it if her Boutique would have changed into something even fancier..." Star Twinkle figured. If there was one pony who would have liked changes like that all around Ponyville, then it would be her.

With nothing left to do there, Star Twinkle left again and looked for Rainbow Dash who was the only one of his friends that he didn't talk to yet. She was usually flying somewhere over Ponyville but Star Twinkle didn't spot her yet. But of course, as soon as she was the only one left to look for, he managed to finally find her. She was on the ground though, and her appearance was also a little different. She was wearing a cherry red-colored dress and tried her very best to somehow get it off.

As soon as Rainbow Dash noticed Star Twinkle looking at her with a weird look on his face, she looked back in embarrassment. But it quickly turned into an angry look. "Instead of looking at me, could you please help me here!?" She then asked angrily.

"R-right!" Star Twinkle replied nervously so that he won't get on the mare's bad side and helped her out. After some fiddling around, the two managed to get this dress off pretty quick and Rainbow Dash threw it away. "You know...you shouldn't wear dresses if you don't know how to take them off again," Star Twinkle added after he was done helping the mare.

Rainbow Dash didn't like to hear this comment at all. "Yeah, as if I would wear something like that! It just appeared out of thin air!" She said angrily before she then looked at Star Twinkle with a confused look on her face. "By the way, what happened to your mane?" She asked.

Star Twinkle was confused about why this question popped out of nowhere. "My mane? What do you mean-" he replied as he looked up to see how there was actually something weird about his mane. For one, it was white and not dark green, it also was a lot more curly instead of spiky. "What the- When did that happen!?" He asked confused.

Rainbow Dash quickly picked up on that. "See? That's how I reacted once I had this stupid dress on me. It just happened out of nowhere! Now if you excuse me, I will no go home before something like that happens to my mane!" She said before she flew away up to the sky to tail out.

This encounter didn't help Star Twinkle out at all, just like every other meeting with his friends. This caused Star Twinkle to think that his attempts to find the cause of this spell were in complete vain and that he will never find any clues. The only thing he knew, so far, was that everything happened out of nowhere. Nopony knew why everything happened, how, or who did it. Star Twinkle didn't even have proof that someone was doing all that stuff. It might as well be that someone cursed all of Ponyville and that those things happened randomly, without anyone being responsible for them.

Star Twinkle decided to walk back to the Golden Oak Library to see Twilight again. He was hoping that she was home again so that he could tell her that he didn't find out anything. He also could suggest that she should be the one who should take care of the situation because he was clearly not a great help in all of this.

When Star Twinkle arrived at the library, however, Twilight didn't seem to be home yet. She was probably taking care of all the changes around Ponyville and was quite busy. This was not to Star Twinkle's liking because he didn't know if he should continue gathering clues or if he should just go home and let the situation take care of itself. He figured that somepony would come up with a solution eventually.

"I mean, it's not like anypony is in any great danger, right?" He said to himself in order to see something positive about this whole situation. But secretly, he also wished that the Iron Hammer was still in its current state so that he didn't have to go back to work anytime soon. It's not like he didn't try to find a solution anyway so he might as well get something out of it.

However, while Star Twinkle was on his way home and had his thoughts in a very nice place, he was interrupted by something that dragged him right out of it. It was Twilight's pet owl Owlowiscious.

"Owlowiscious?" Star Twinkle said as soon as the owl was flying in front of him.

Owlowiscious was waving his wings around in front of the stallion as if something was bothering him. Star Twinkle tried to let the owl know that he is too busy now, which of course, wasn't true since he just wanted to go home. However, Owlowiscious was persistent and landed on the stallion's head and continued to get his attention. It really started to annoy Star Twinkle, causing him to wave around his hooves to get him away from his head. However, he stopped as soon as he realized something. "Wait! Do you know what is causing all those spells!?" He asked, in hope that the owl really had some helpful information for him.

Owlowiscious only who'd back and flew away. He asked Star Twinkle to follow him and the stallion was right behind him. This could be his very first clue to get somewhere after all.

Star Twinkle followed Owlowiscious until he stopped around a corner and landed on the ground. The stallion looked around himself and couldn't find anything so he was wondering if Owlowiscious was just playing around with him but the owl put one of his wings in front of himself as if he wanted Star Twinkle to be quiet and pointed around the corner of a building. Star Twinkle looked around the corner and wondered what he was about to see. But all he could see was Rarity and Spike, who were standing in the middle of the road talking to each other.

"I don't get it, Owlowiscious. Is there something that I should see?" Star Twinkle asked confused but Owlowiscious just moved his wing in front of his beak again and wanted the stallion to stay put. Star Twinkle was still confused but he did as he was told and just waited, even though he didn't like to eavesdrop on Rarity and Spike at all.

The two didn't seem to realize that Star Twinkle and Owlowiscious were nearby and continued their conversation.

"I am simply buzzing with ideas. Simply buzzing!" Rarity exclaimed happily and excitedly.

"That's great!" Spike replied. "But, uh, you've been at this for a while now. How 'bout you take a break? Give that brilliant mind of yours a rest?" He then suggested with some concern on his face.

But Rarity didn't think so. "Don't be silly! I'm not going to stop now!" She said happily. "Why, I won't stop until every inch of Ponyville has benefited from my creative vision!" She explained, causing Star Twinkle to look in confusion because he didn't know what exactly she meant with that. But he soon learned the truth after Rarity set her eyes on Spike again. "Starting with you, Spike!" She then said before she shot a green magic beam on him.

"Huh!?" Star Twinkle said confused once he saw what happened only a few meters away from him.

Once the magic was gone again, Spike stood there with a completely new get-up. A get up that was created by Rarity. The "clothes" that Spike was wearing right now were made out of crystals. They also looked highly uncomfortable, in fact, it also looked rather stiff and Spike wasn't able to move. Star Twinkle was not sure if Spike liked his new clothes but Rarity seemed to be happy.

"You look fabulous!" She said happily.

"All because of you, heh..." Spike replied a little nervously while he tried to move, only to find out that he was unable to.

"Anything for my favorite dragon and most supportive friend," she said with a warm smile before it changed to a more determined one shortly after. "Come, there's so much more to do!" She then said before she walked away in excitement, knocking Spike over on accident and making it unable for him to get up again.

That was the piece of information that Star Twinkle needed. However, after realizing what Rarity just did, Star Twinkle actually got a little confused. "That just now was really weird..." he said towards Owlowiscious, who didn't seem surprised at all about what just happened. "But I don't get it...I don't think Rarity's magic was green before...not to mention that she could just do something like that..."

There were still too many questions unanswered and asking Rarity seemed a little...dangerous, judging from how she dealt with Spike just now without hesitation. Luckily, there was still someone else who Star Twinkle could ask so he decided to go to him instead.

"Spike, are you alright?" Star Twinkle asked as he helped up the dragon to get on his feet again.

"Yeah! Sure! Why would I not be alright!?" The little dragon replied a little nervously. "Nice mane by the way," he said, probably in an attempt to change the subject for some reason.

Star Twinkle ignored the last sentence because he was a little confused after receiving this reply. "Well, you looked like you couldn't move very well..." he pointed out.

"Who needs to move if you look as good as I am right now? Do you like my new look? I picked it myself," Spike explained.

"Yourself?" Star Twinkle replied, even though he just witnessed something completely else. "But didn't Rarity just put this on you?" He asked confused.

Spike's eyes widened after he heard that. "You saw it!?" He said in a panic. By now, Owlowiscious also joined the two and Spike quickly glared at the owl. "It was you, wasn't it!? You told Star Twinkle about this!" He said, blaming instantly Owlowiscious.

"Who," Owlowiscious only replied.

"Star Twinkle!" Spike replied.

"Who," Owlowiscious replied once more.

"Star Twinkle!!!" Spike yelled at the owl.

"Enough of that!" Star Twinkle exclaimed. "Spike, what is going on here? Why is Rarity acting like that? She said something about there being more to do! What did she mean with that? Is she the reason why everything in Ponyville is changing?"

Having Star Twinkle asking Spike all those questions put a lot of pressure on him, making Spike feel really nervous. The dragon closed his eyes and gave his answer. "I can't tell you!" He simply said.

"What?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "What do you mean you can't tell me? I just saw her doing that to you. Is she the one doing all those changes in Ponyville?" He asked once more, in hope that Spike would spit it out.

"I can't tell you anything about that! I promised it to Rarity!" He replied begging Star Twinkle to stop asking more questions.

The stallion didn't want to give up on his questions that early but he was interrupted by Twilight, who came flying towards him. "Star Twinkle!" She said before she landed right in front of him. It looked as if she wanted to speak with Star Twinkle but as soon as she saw Spike in his new "clothes" she got really worried. "Oh no! Not you too!" She said in concern.

But Spike reacted in the same manner as he did with Star Twinkle. "What? You mean this?" He asked, referring to his clothes. "Do you like my new look?"

"Oh...your new look?" Twilight replied confused. "I'm sorry, I thought this weird spell that was going around Ponyville affected you as well. Which reminds me," she then said before she looked over to Star Twinkle. "What happened to your mane?" She asked, referring to Star Twinkle's white mane color.

But Star Twinkle tried to change the subject. "Is there something you wanted from us?" He boldly said, trying to get back to the more important matter.

"Right...did you find out anything, Star Twinkle?" She asked, waiting for some information that Star Twinkle gathered.

Star Twinkle wanted to explain what he saw immediately but then he saw how Spike was getting really upset behind Twilight's back and he hesitated, much to Twilight's confusion who had no idea where this hesitation came from. Spike already accepted how the promise that he made to Rarity would be breaking.

"I don't..." Star Twinkle then replied, much to Spike's surprise.

"I see..." Twilight replied with concern.

Star Twinkle gave Spike a short look and the dragon quickly realized that if it wasn't for Star Twinkle, then his promise would have been broken.

Twilight wanted to explain what she had to do so far but there was no time for that since Mayor Mare already came running towards her with another problem. "Princess Twilight, the gazebo has been turned into solid crystal, and two ponies are now trapped inside its walls!" She informed.

Twilight wasted no time and spread her wings to get going but not before she turned towards Star Twinkle one last time. "I'm afraid I don't have any time to help you find any clues so I'll leave that to you, Star Twinkle!" She said before she flew away to deal with the problem that the mayor mentioned.

Once Star Twinkle, Spike and Owlowiscious were left alone again, Star Twinkle looked over to Spike and told him what he had in mind right now. "Promise or not, Spike, Things are getting out of hoof so we need to stop whatever happened to Rarity," he advised.

Owlowiscious seemed to agree on that as well and Spike finally admitted that it was also the right thing to do. "You're right," he said after he let out a sigh. "I have to tell her that what she is doing is wrong,"

"Good," Star Twinkle said after finally hearing those words.

"And once I do, I can forget Rarity thinking of me as her most supportive friend... I can forget Rarity thinking of me as a friend at all..." Spike mumbled under his breath quietly enough so that Star Twinkle couldn't hear him. "But first we need to find her!" He pointed out.

"Yeah...I don't think that will be too hard..." Star Twinkle said while he pointed in front of him to another road. This road was no longer a dirt road but rather a road made out of gold which caused everypony to get blinded as soon as they looked down. It was clearly Rarity's hoof writing.

"Right..." Spike replied as soon as he saw how Rarity caused more trouble for the ponies in Ponyville.

The three then followed the trail that Rarity left in the hope to stop her. This is the best thing that they could do right now. But...they still had to find out how to do that...

Later, a little outside of Ponyville...

Star Twinkle, Spike and Owlowiscious followed the trail that Rarity left behind. It was not hard to lose track of her fancy trails and the three quickly found her as she was walking outside of Ponyville. She may have left the town because she thought she was done there and now wanted to attend the outside of Ponyville.

"There she is!" Star Twinkle said once he spotted Rarity in the distance who was busy changing every single tree around her to her liking. If there was any doubt inside of Star Twinkle's mind, then it would have been completely gone after he saw how Rarity was using her magic now. He was about to walk over to her but Spike grabbed his tail and stopped him, much to the stallion's confusion. "What is it?" He asked.

Spike then explained. "Rarity can't know that you know about her doing all this stuff!" He said while he blocked Star Twinkle's path.

"Why not?" Star Twinkle asked confused. "I know you promised her but we need to stop her before she hurts someone. I thought you made up your mind!" He said.

"I know...but I can't do it! It's a promise between the three of us!" He said frustrated.

"Three?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Yes," Spike replied. "Her, me and the book," he explained, which caused Owlowiscious to only shake his head.

"Book? What book?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Spike then pointed towards Rarity. It was just now that Star Twinkle realized that she was wearing a saddlebag. Inside of this saddlebag, there was a book sticking out of it. "I think this book is the cause of Rarity's strange behavior. If we can take it away from her, then maybe she will return to normal," he figured.

"What kind of book is that?" Star Twinkle asked after he wondered how a book could have caused all of this.

Spike explained. "It's called Inspiration Manifestation! I found it in the Castle of the Two Sisters! It's a book that gives you the power to make all your ideas come true!"

Star Twinkle wasn't an expert when it came to magic but he knew that a spell like that sounded way too good to not have any side effect. "And you didn't think that picking up a book from an old castle could backfire in some kind of way?" He almost scolded.

But Spike shrugged his shoulders. "If it was a dangerous book, then they should put it away a little better, instead of hiding it behind a secret switch, a locked up gate and a collapsing stairway," he casually said, not realizing how those were some pretty obvious signs that he should have not taken that book from the castle.

But Since the damage was already done, Star Twinkle ignored Spike's mistake and got back to the main problem. "So we just have to take away that book and everything will be fine?" He asked.

"I think..." Spike replied, not being all too sure about that himself. "But let me take care of it! That way she won't know that I told you," he suggested with a determined look on his face.

Star Twinkle had some doubts about this plan. "Are you sure?" Star Twinkle asked out of worry.

But Spike was determined to do this. He had to admit that this was mostly his fault so he had to do his own share to take care of the situation. Star Twinkle just had to believe that whatever Spike was planning would work. The stallion was getting closer to Rarity as well but he was hiding behind one of the trees so that Rarity wouldn't notice him.

The little dragon slowly walked up to Rarity without her noticing anything since she was still busy changing all the trees around her. For Star Twinkle it was pretty obvious what the little dragon tried. He just straight out attempted to take away the book from her saddlebag. It was a pretty bold thing to do but once the book was no longer in Rarity's possession, she would return to normal and she wouldn't be a danger anymore. Rarity didn't seem to notice Spike at all and continued to giggle at the changes that she was doing to the trees.

Spike slowly moved his claws to her saddlebag and was really close to getting the book out of it.

But...

"What do you think you're doing?!" Rarity angrily exclaimed once she noticed the little dragon behind her, causing Spike to jump at that sudden outburst.

"Oh no..." Star Twinkle said after he saw how things started to go downhill this early.

Spike had to be smart to give the right response now, or else, Star Twinkle had to step in to somehow get the book from Rarity.

"Uh, me? I was just, uh..." Spike said before he tried to come up with an excuse. "...basking in your creative radiance," he said nervously. He probably thought that this excuse was not good enough.

But to his surprise, it was...

"Oh, Spike, you do say the nicest things," Rarity replied while she smiled warmly at him after a sudden mood change from before. She then turned around again so that she could continue with her work. "Now, where was I? Oh yes! Gold-plated rooftops for everypony!"

Spike looked over to Star Twinkle since he didn't know what to do next. He was probably waiting for the stallion to come up with a solution. Star Twinkle noticed that and began to think. Once he looked around a little, his eyes wandered towards Owlowiscious. This was enough to give him an idea.

"Think you can distract her a little?" He asked him, which caused the owl to simply wink back.

Owlowiscious then flew towards the mare. He was flying right in front of her face, causing her to get distracted from her "work" and Spike. This was the chance that Spike was waiting for. He approached her saddlebag again and before he knew it, he was holding the book in his claws and walked away. In the meantime, Rarity managed to get Owlowiscious off of her.

"Spike!" She then said excited, causing the little dragon to get nervous again because she was about to notice that he was holding her book in his claws.

"Oh no..." Star Twinkle said again.

Spike had to think quickly what to do now. Rarity didn't seem to have noticed how her book was gone yet. All he had to do was to get rid of the book now. And the only he knew how to do that...was to eat it.

"Uff," Star Twinkle could only say after he saw how Spike was putting the book in his mouth in one bite and swallowed it whole in one really painful looking gulp.

The dragon then turned around to face Rarity with sweat coming down his head, not because he was nervous about Rarity finding out that he stole her book but rather because swallowing that book was really painful.

Fortunately, Rarity didn't seem to be aware of all of this at all. "I have just had the most marvelous idea!" She shared excitedly.

"Of course you have. You're Rarity," Spike replied after a deep gasp.

Rarity explained. "My work here in Ponyville is nearly complete. Don't you think it's time the rest of Equestria benefited from my creative vision?" She asked.

"Absolutely!" Spike agreed.

"Ooh, I'm thinking we go by chariot! Or, as everyone will soon be calling them, "Rariot"!" Rarity said, followed by a little giggle.

Spike simply agreed with everything that she said since he seemed to be relieved that everything was back to normal again. "Oh, yeah, we should definitely go by–" he said before he let out a shocked gasp after he saw a magic zap that created a chariot right in front of him. "How... how did you... do that?" He asked, referring to how Rarity was still able to do this kind of magic even without her book.

"Why, whatever do you mean?" Rarity asked confused. She was not aware that her book was gone after all.

"The book! It's– I mean– you don't– it's gone! The book is gone!" Spike just straight out told her

"Gone?" Rarity replied. "Why it's right there," she said before she pointed to her saddlebag only to find out that it is gone now. "I need my book, Spike! What have you done with my book?!" She said in a sudden mood change before she growled at the dragon angrily.

Out of fear, Spike tried to convince Rarity that he had nothing to do with it. "Why would I do anything with your book? We're friends!" He said in a panic. "It... it was probably the owl!" He added, straight out trying to blame Owlowiscious for all this.

Rarity was glaring at the owl and it was unknown what she was about to do to him but she calmed down very quickly after she came to a realization. "But, wait... I don't seem to need it anymore, do I?" She said happily. Soon her eyes and her horn were covered in a green light, which most likely was caused by the book. "Yes... yes...! I can feel its magic flowing within me now! I'm so excited! I'm so excited!" She exclaimed happily but also maniacally.

Star Twinkle was still hiding behind a tree and could only watch how Rarity was slowly losing her mind. "She is totally crazy!" He simply said after watching her like that.

"Oh, the places we'll go, Spike! Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Canterlot! And there you'll be by my side, just as you've always been here in Ponyville, your constant praise and adoration driving me to even greater heights until there isn't an inch of Equestria that hasn't been utterly transformed by my creative genius!" She said in her excitement.

Spike didn't seem to be in any state to do anything right now which meant that only he is left to stop Rarity now before something really bad would happen sooner or later. Just the thought that every other town would be in the same state as Ponyville gave Star Twinkle enough reason to finally step into action. "Okay, that's enough!" Star Twinkle said before he stepped out in the open to reveal himself in front of the two.

Rarity seemed surprised that Star Twinkle appeared and glared at him with an expression that he never saw on her face before. It actually sent some shivers down on his back. "What are you doing here!" She asked angrily.

Star Twinkle quickly replied. "Rarity, I know that you are the one who did all those things in Ponyville. You really need to stop it now!" He said, in an attempt to calm Rarity down again.

But instead of listening to Star Twinkle, Rarity instantly looked over to Spike after she realized that Star Twinkle knew about what she did in Ponyville. "Spike!" she exclaimed angrily before she turned towards the little dragon. "You told him! You promised me to keep this a secret!"

"No!" Spike replied in a mix of fear and confusion. "I didn't tell him, I swear!" He said, trying to calm Rarity down again.

"Liar!" Rarity exclaimed angrily while she clenched her teeth and walked slowly towards the little dragon.

Rarity's eyes began to glow in a light green light and her expression made shills run down on Star Twinkle's spine as soon as he saw her like that. Naturally, Spike was really scared, scared enough to not being able to move in this situation.

Star Twinkle had no idea what Rarity was about to do to the little dragon but he did know that Rarity was not herself in this very moment because she would never behave like that towards Spike and despite being a little scared of her now himself, Star Twinkle had to jump in order to save Spike.

"He is telling the truth, Rarity!" Star Twinkle said, causing Rarity to stop and turn her head around to face now Star Twinkle. She didn't reply and most likely waited for Star Twinkle to continue, so that is exactly what he did. "As soon as I found out that it was you, Spike insisted that I should not confront you because of his promise," the stallion explained

Rarity could believe those words and give up on focusing her anger towards Spike. "I see..." Rarity replied before she walked towards Star Twinkle now, directing her anger at him now. "That means that I should only deal with you if you attempt to take away my new powers!" She said while her eyes glowed in a light green light again.

This time, Star Twinkle could clearly see how Rarity was affected by something. He never saw this kind of scary expression on the mare's face. He also noticed the green light in her eyes again and was afraid of what would happen to him now. He could deal with a different colored mane but whatever was coming towards him now would probably be a little bit worse so he slowly walked back in fear and tried to think about what to do in a situation like that.

But help was already on its way...

"No!" Spike said in a serious tone before he walked in front of Rarity to stop her.

"What did you say?" Rarity said in a mix of anger and confusion as soon as she realized how the little dragon was opposing him.

"I said 'no'," Spike repeated with again, a serious tone in his voice. He took a deep breath and looked over to Star Twinkle after he realized that he finally had to step up, especially if he didn't want Star Twinkle to get hurt. Spike then finally spoke out what had bothered him the whole time. "You've been changing things, but you haven't been making them better. I should have told you the truth at the very beginning, but I didn't because I was trying to be a supportive friend," he said before let out a frustrated sigh. "But instead, I let you become something awful," he added, blaming himself for the whole outcome of this situation.

Star Twinkle feared the worst, like Rarity going after Spike now or something but strangely enough, Rarity had now a confused look on her face. "Awful?" She simply said confused after hearing the words of the little dragon.

Rarity closed her eyes and opened them shortly after again. Once they were open, they were now covered in a light green light and her body was levitating above the ground. Star Twinkle stepped in front of Spike in order to protect him from what maybe happens now. To his surprise though, the green light literally flew out of her eyes and her body landed on the ground shortly after.

Rarity grabbed her head after that was over. "Ugh... what happened?" She asked. Judging from the expression on her face, her head must have hurt really bad after this whole experience.

Spike, who was the whole time, worried sick about Rarity, quickly asked if she was alright again. "Rarity! You're okay?"

"I... I think so..." Rarity replied, even though she was not sure herself. Her attention was then quickly directed towards Ponyville, which was still a mess and covered in golden colors. "Though by the looks of it, something quite terrifying has happened to Ponyville," she expressed. It was weird that she was the one saying that, especially since she was the one who was responsible for it.

"You happened," Spike then said.

"Me?" Rarity replied confused.

Star Twinkle walked up to the mare since it seemed to be safe to approach her now. "Does that mean, you don't remember anything that happened?" He asked.

Rarity tried her best to remember happened but due to her headache, she was unable to recall anything. "No..." she then replied after she was fairly certain that she couldn't remember.

Star Twinkle and Spike had no reason to not believe her. She looked as if she had a massive headache after all of this so they both believed her words. But that still didn't explain why she was returned to normal all of the sudden.

"I guess the spell was somehow broken," Star Twinkle figured. "But how?" He then asked Spike in hope that he would know the answer.

Fortunately, Spike did seem to know the answer. "The last part of the spell!" He said after it suddenly struck him. But that was too little information for Star Twinkle to make him understand what that meant so Spike explained everything. "The words that Rarity read out from that book were: "Only when true words are spoken will you finally be set free". That must have caused the spell to break!" He said in his realization.

Star Twinkle got a little bothered after he heard that explanation. "And you couldn't remember those words a little sooner?" He said, partly blaming Spike for this whole mess.

Spike grinned a little nervously but he then walked over to Rarity to explain everything to her as well. "The spell took over you, and you wanted to change everything in Equestria. I was afraid to tell you how I really felt about it, but then I... I told you the truth," he explained.

The little dragon expected Rarity to be upset with him but to his surprise, Rarity smiled and put her hoof around him. "Dearest Spike, you should never be afraid to tell me the truth. We're friends, remember?" She said before she hugged Spike.

Star Twinkle expressed his opinion on this situation as well. "I'm just glad that things returned to normal," he said in relief.

As soon as Star Twinkle spoke up, however, Rarity finally realized a difference about him. "Good gracious, Star Twinkle. What happened to your mane!?" She said in shock after finally noticing the white mane that was on the stallion's head.

Star Twinkle only had one thing to say to this. "You happened..."

Hearing that made Rarity smile in embarrassment since she didn't remember doing anything like that of course. Of course, Star Twinkle was not mad at her or anything. He was just glad, like everyone else.

On top of that, Spike learned that being honest with your friends when they are doing something wrong is really important because it lets them know that you care about them. The next time something like that would happen, he would be ready for it...hopefully.

Later...

At the end of the day, once Star Twinkle returned home, he was greeted by the usual sight of his old wooden house. Twilight managed to return everything to normal again with the help of Princess Cadance and Princess Luna who she asked for help, including Star Twinkle's mane. She was a little mad at Spike for just taking a book from The Castle of the Two Sisters without permission though.

But that was all not important anymore for Star Twinkle so he just laid on his bed to some sleep after an exhausting day like this. After all, tomorrow would be quite a busy day as well and just the thought about it made him feel a little nervous.

Before he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, he mumbled the name of the event one last time to himself.

"The Equestria Games..."

Author's Notes:

Alright!
This was the last Slice of Life chapter that literally doesn't add much to the overall story.
For those of you who don't know, I try to make Slice of Life chapters a little less important when it comes to continuing the overall plot of this story, with some exceptions here and there. When it comes to continuing the story, I usually use the two-parters at the beginning or the end of a Season or Custom chapters.

The next chapter will be a mix of Slice of Life and Custom Chapter and the rest of Season 4 will be the Season Finale so I hope you will like it all!

And remember! After Season 4 ends, there will be two new stories that are supposed to be read after Season 4. Make sure to read them as well if you don't want to be affected by the break of this story.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

88. The Games

View Online

The day was finally here...
The day that many have waited for so long...
The biggest sports event in all of Equestria...
The Equestria Games!

It's like it was yesterday when Star Twinkle and his friends were in Rainbow Falls to train for this very event and qualified Ponyville for the games. Not only took it some very hard work to get to this point, but some ponies also couldn't wait to finally participate in the Equestria Games.

Of course, one of those ponies was Rainbow Dash. While the group was riding the train to the Crystal Empire, almost everypony who participates in the games was already warming up to be in top form and high spirits. Something that Rainbow Dash really liked to see.

"Listen up, gang! We're almost there, so I've got a few things to say," the mare said, getting everyponies attention in the process. "First off, who here besides me thinks this is the best Equestria Games delegation in Ponyville history?" She asked highly excited, which earned her some cheers from everypony else in the train. Rainbow Dash was waiting for this day for a very long time so of course, she wanted everypony to feel as excited as she was to make this day even better.

Star Twinkle was listening to what she had to say as well. He actually was a little excited too. It really helped that he wasn't part of any team. There was no pressure on him at all. He could just sit back, do some cheering for his friends, and let everypony else do the important stuff. It's just the way he liked the best.

Twilight, who was sitting next to the stallion, listened to Rainbow Dash too. She was really happy for her to be part of the Equestria Games. "She really is excited about the games, isn't she?" She asked towards Star Twinkle.

"She sure is," Star Twinkle replied. "She was waiting for this day to come for a really long time after all," he added.

The two continued to listen to Rainbow Dash, who was still making sure to get everypony else excited in the train. "And no matter what your sport is, we gotta give it our best, because we've all got a genuine shot at Ponyville gold!" She said, causing her to receive a lot of cheers once more. "...With the possible exception of Bulk Biceps, Fluttershy, and me. I mean, we're good and all, but we're up against the Wonderbolts and the Storm Wings in the aerial relay, so gold's kind of a stretch. Let's not kid ourselves," she said, being surprisingly modest about her chances to win.

"That's a surprise," Star Twinkle said after that sudden behavior of the mare.

Hearing that, made Scootaloo walk up to her to cheer her up again. "Don't feel bad, Rainbow Dash! We have absolutely no shot at getting gold either!" She said, referring to herself, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, who were on their way to the Equestria Games as well, to carry the flag of Ponyville.

But Rainbow Dash was well aware of their part in the Equestria Games and found Scootaloo's words a little confusion. "Uh, that's because you're carrying the flag for Ponyville in the opening ceremony. There are no winners," she pointed out.

"Winners or not, we still have the chance to be awesome!" Scootaloo said happily, to which her two friends agreed instantly.

"That's the spirit!" Rainbow Dash said happily while she rubbed Scootaloo's mane. "You hear that, everypony? Winners or not, we all still have the chance to be awesome!" She threw into the room, causing everypony to cheer once more. "But, uh, let's still try to win lots and lots of stuff too, 'kay?" She added briefly, showing her competitive side that Star Twinkle knew all too well.

"There we go," Star Twinkle said once he saw the behavior that he was used to.

The train shortly arrived at the station of the Crystal Empire. Everypony who was going to participate in the Equestria Games was already on their way to the stadium once they were setting hoof outside of the train.

Twilight, who just exited the train, was wondering why Star Twinkle was not outside of the train yet. He was the last one who didn't leave the train and the mare started to get worried. "What is taking you so long, Star Twinkle?" She asked.

"Coming!" Was the only reply that could be heard from inside the train. Star Twinkle first peeked his head outside of the train and looked around, before he then walked out, wearing a trench coat, a fedora, and big sunglasses.

Needless to say, Twilight was highly confused to see Star Twinkle in this getup."Why are you wearing all this stuff?" She asked.

Star Twinkle lowered his sunglasses and explained. "We are in the Crystal Empire. I have to dress up like that so that nopony would recognize me,"

Twilight chuckled a little. "Well, you did help to save the empire, along with Spike and Cadance and defended it against King Sombra. The ponies here see you as a hero. You should be happy," she said.

"I know!" Star Twinkle replied, being of course, fully aware of that. "Every time, when I come here, I find myself being looked at from everywhere! It feels weird..."

Twilight walked up to the stallion and played a little with Star Twinkle's hat. "And...this isn't weird at all?" She asked, referring to Star Twinkle's outfit.

"It at least keeps me hidden from everypony," Star Twinkle replied. He knew that he looked ridiculous but as long as it would work, he was willing to pay the price. Twilight only shook her head and decided to just go along with it, without asking any questions.

Almost as on cue, two guards came walking towards the two. "Princess Twilight!" one of them said before he bowed down to her, causing Twilight to bow in response as well. They both then shifted their attention towards Star Twinkle and both bowed down to him, much to his surprise and discomfort. "You honor us with your visit, Great and Honorable Starfall Twinkle the Courageous and Selfless," one of them then said.

"What? I mean, how did you know...ugh...whatever..." he replied confused before he took off his clothes again.

One of the guards walked over to the luggage that was still sitting in front of the train. This confused Star Twinkle since he believed that Spike was taking care of those things but the other guard quickly explained. "We will take care of those," he said. "Princess Cadance is waiting for you two,"

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot," Twilight said after the guard's words made her remember. "Spike was already picked up and carried to the castle. We are supposed to go there as well,"

"We are?" Star Twinkle asked confused, the confusion is on why he was invited. The guards were already taking the luggage to the stadium, where the Equestria Games would be held so Star Twinkle figured he should just go to this invitation. It's not like the games were about to start this early, there was still a lot of time to spare. "Then let's go," Star Twinkle said so that Twilight could lead the way to the castle.

"Alright," she said happily.

Later at the Crystal Empire Castle...

The two ponies arrived at the Crystal Empire and as expected, when Twilight entered it, every guard was bowing down as soon as she walked past them. What was really weird for Star Twinkle, however, was that they also seemed to bow down to him. Twilight seemed to gotten used to all of this but Star Twinkle felt really weird and almost embarrassed.

"Every single guard is looking at me..." the stallion thought while he wished that he could vanish in thin air right now.

Twilight could see the embarrassment in Star Twinkle's face and chuckled just by the sight of it. She probably could relate to that since she had to get used to getting more attention as a princess.

Luckily, Princess Cadance was waiting in a room with no guards, making it a little bit easier for Star Twinkle to have a conversation. Princess Cadance seemed happy to see both Twilight and Star Twinkle. "Twilight!" She said as soon as she saw her sister in law.

What followed was their usual greeting. "Sunshine Sunshine Ladybugs awake, Clap your hooves and do a little shake!" They both said while they did their usual little dance.

As usual, like every other time when he saw that, there was only one thing that Star Twinkle could think. "That is adorable..." he thought while he maintained a serious expression on his face.

After that was done, Princess Cadance returned to a more dignified manner again. "I'm so glad that you could make it here," she said before she shifted her eyes towards Star Twinkle. "Are you enjoying your stay as Hero of the Crystal Empire?" She asked with a casual smile on her face. Princess Cadance probably expected the stallion to appreciate all this attention, which is why she got confused to see an uncomfortable expression on the stallion. Twilight decided to fill her in how he felt about all this and the princess quickly understood. "Oh," was all that Princess Cadance could say at first. "I was sure that you would enjoy all this as much as our other hero,"

"Other hero?" Star Twinkle replied while he tilted his head in confusion.

It was only then that Star Twinkle noticed how Spike was sitting on a royal sofa while a mare was feeding him with gems. "More of the green ones, please? I like the green ones," he said which caused the mare to get a little nervous until she picked one green gem out of a pile next to her.

Star Twinkle quickly realized now why the luggage was still at the train station. It appeared that Spike was staying at the castle already because Princess Cadance wanted to express her gratitude to him to save the empire. And knowing Spike, he probably enjoyed every second of it.

"He is certainly enjoying himself..." Star Twinkle said.

"You should too," Princess Cadance pointed out.

"She's right, Star Twinkle," Twilight added. "You two got the Crystal Heart to Princess Cadance in time to save this entire empire from destruction!"

"Exactly," Princess Cadance added. "You two are known throughout my empire as "Great and Honorable Spike the Brave and Glorious and Great and Honorable Starfall Twinkle the Courageous and Selfless," she explained proudly.

While Spike was giggling in excitement after hearing that, Star Twinkle was looking rather confused or even shocked.

"Isn't that awesome?" Spike said excitedly. "We're big shots here!" He then walked to a balcony while he grabbed Star Twinkle's leg to show him something. "See that? That's us!" He said before he pointed down to the main plaza.

"You gotta be..." Star Twinkle just said as soon as he saw what the dragon was pointing to.

Right in the middle of the main plaza of the Crystal Empire, there was a statue of both Star Twinkle and Spike. It showed Spike riding on Star Twinkle and holding the crystal heart in his claws. By now, Star Twinkle figured that even if he tried to hide from the Crystal Ponies, if a statue of him was in plain sight like that, then it would be nearly impossible for him to do that.

"Pretty neat, huh?" Spike said while he looked at the statue with hypnotizing eyes.

"Sure..." Star Twinkle replied a little bothered.

"And that is not even all!" Princess Cadance added cheerfully, much to Star Twinkle's shock.

"There is more!?" Star Twinkle said, who was already overwhelmed by all this in the first place.

Princess Cadance explained. "Since you are both so well known in the empire, I thought you both could do us the honor of lighting the torch at the opening ceremony," she said before she looked over to Spike. "You'd be the very first dragon in the history of the Equestria Games to do so," she added, probably so that the offer would sound even better.

"Of course I'll do it!" Spike quickly replied. "And -- bonus -- I can do it with my fire breath!" He said before he demonstrated it in front of everypony.

Princess Cadance tipped her chin for a second. "But wait...if Spike lights the torch with his fire breath, then what is Star Twinkle supposed to do?" She wondered.

This was enough to let Star Twinkle come up with an excuse to get out of this situation. "Oh! What do you know...looks like Spike is more than enough to do it then!" He said nervously with a fake grin on his face.

Princess Cadance looked a little confused to hear those words, causing Star Twinkle to get even more nervous. She looked as if she would come up with a solution for that any second now. Fortunately, Twilight saved the day for him before it could come to that.

"I think, what Star Twinkle wanted to say is, that he wanted to let Spike do it instead," Twilight explained. "Remember, he is not called selfless without a reason," she added before she secretly winked at the stallion, which caused him to understand that she said that in order for him to get out of this.

Princess Cadance seemed to understand and nodded in response. "As long as you are okay with that," she asked towards Star Twinkle.

"Yeah! Sure!" The stallion replied almost instantly. This was a solution that he could live with after all.

The Equestria Games would begin in a little while so the three left the castle shortly after to get to the stadium of the Crystal Empire, the place where the games were held at. While they walked over to the stadium, however, Star Twinkle had to say one thing.

"Thank you," he simply said after Twilight stepped in to convince Princess Cadance.

It didn't take more words to make Twilight understand what he was thanking her for. "You're welcome. I know that you would feel uncomfortable doing something like that unlike someone else," she said while she looked back to point at Spike who was already doing some poses on how to light the torch. He clearly couldn't wait to do this, much to Star Twinkle's and Twilight's amusement.

Later in the Crystal Empire stadium...

The Equestria Games were about to begin and Star Twinkle was already on his way to find his seat...or rather, trying to find his seat. There were thousands of ponies inside the stadium, every single one highly excited for the Equestria Games to start. Trying to spot a free seat would be impossible.

But luckily, that was already taken care of by his friends. "Over here, Star Twinkle!" Pinkie Pie screamed while she waved towards the stallion to show him where his friends were. The stallion quickly went towards where Pinkie Pie was at. There was a free seat next to Pinkie Pie, who was sitting next to Rarity and Applejack.

"Where have you been?" Applejack asked. "They are about to start the games,"

"Sorry, I just kinda got lost after using the bathroom," Star Twinkle explained. "It didn't help that there are so many ponies here either..." he added before he sat down next to Pinkie Pie. "Where is Twilight? Shouldn't she be here already?" He asked as soon as he noticed that she was nowhere to be found.

Pinkie Pie quickly pointed upwards behind her. "She's over there with all the other princesses!" She explained.

Star Twinkle looked at the direction where Pinkie Pie was pointing at and he immediately saw Twilight sitting next to Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadance, all of them sitting on fancy seats that would fit their royal position. After thinking about it, it actually made sense that Twilight was up there and not with her friends. She was looking around as if she didn't belong up there though. Maybe she didn't have much of a choice, is what Star Twinkle figured.

There were only minutes left until the opening ceremony would start and the four ponies were waiting excitedly to see their friends and family down there, presenting themselves in front of everypony.

"I can't wait to see my little sister and her friends carry the flag of Ponyville into the stadium!" Applejack said, referring to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who would enter the stadium first.

"Don't forget Spike!" Rarity pointed out. "He has the rare honor to light up the torch!" She added with an excited grin on her face.

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie said. "I can't believe you didn't want to that, Star Twinkle!"

"What? You mean going down there so that everypony would look at me while I light the torch?" He asked in a sarcastic tone.

"Shh! I think they are going to start!" Rarity pointed out, causing everypony to focus their attention towards the middle of the stage.

Shining Armor was the one who introduced the audience to all the competitors. One team after another stepped into the stadium after Shining Armor introduced them. The Wonderbolts, who were representing Cloudsdale, was only one of them. There was also a team that consisted purely of griffons, who were representing their home. "And now...representing the capital of Equestria, Team Canterlot!"

"That means..." Star Twinkle thought after he remembered again who was representing Canterlot.

Shortly after, the Storm Wings entered the stadium with Cyclone Wing, Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing leading their team. Rainbow Dash was pretty confident to win at the Equestria Games but with competition like the Wonderbolts or the Storm Wings, this was probably a little bit harder than she originally thought.

But there was no time to worry about that, especially since Shining Armor was now introducing the next team. "Now, please welcome the delegation from Ponyville!"

Shortly after, the Cutie Mark Crusaders did their little routine that they practiced a little while ago and team Ponyville entered the stadium with Rainbow Dash being in the lead.

However, Rarity was a little more excited about something else. "Oh! Oh! That's my sister!" She said towards the crowd while she jumped up and down excitedly. She probably didn't even notice how everypony else looked at her confused.

It seems like there was no team left to enter the stadium, which means that the only thing left was to light up the torch to finally start the Equestria Games. Star Twinkle was directing his view towards the torch for that. He quickly spotted Ms. Harshwhinny who was followed by Spike. However, Spike took his sweet time to walk towards the torch. In fact, he wasn't moving at all and just stood there. If it wasn't for the two guards that pushed him towards the torch, he would probably still stand over there.

Star Twinkle didn't seem to be the only one who noticed all that. "What is going on down there?" Applejack wondered after she looked down there as well.

It could be only Star Twinkle but if he was in this situation, then he would get really nervous. He figured that this is what was going on down there. "Don't lose your cool now, Spike..." he though in concern of the little dragon.

Eventually, after some delay, Spike was climbing up the ladder that was leading to the torch and finally decided to lit the torch. Or at least, he tried to. It took Spike quite some time to light it and soon some ponies in the audience realized now as well that things were not going according to plan. Spike did try his best from the looks of it but for some reason, he couldn't breathe fire at all.

"Oh no, poor little Spike!" Rarity expressed in concern before she covered her eyes.

"Yes, he better start to light the torch, or else, everypony in this stadium will begin to look at him, laughing at his misery, and stop looking at him as a hero that saved them but instead as a dragon that ruined the Equestria Games!" Pinkie Pie said in a panic.

"Yes, Pinkie! We are aware of that, thank you!" Star Twinkle said after he felt that those words were a little unnecessary at this very moment.

"No problem!" She replied back happily.

Then suddenly, the torch was finally lit and Spike managed to get his job done. Even he seemed to be surprised to see that. The awkward silence in the audience quickly transformed into cheers of relief. Shining Armor also did his best to not let that drag down the Equestria Games. "Let the games begin!" He announced to get the crowd cheered up again.

Star Twinkle and his friends couldn't help to release some relieved gasps after this situation was over. "That was needlessly dramatic..." Star Twinkle said.

"Yeah, but it worked out in the end," Rarity added in relief as well.

Spike may have dodged a lot of embarrassment in the very last second. It wouldn't be the best thing if the dragon that saved the Crystal Empire would embarrass himself in front of the very same ponies, not to mention, the rest of Equestria. One could only hope that this little delay would be forgotten by everypony really quickly.

Later, outside of the stadium...

After the first few games, there was a little break in between so that the audience could take a little break as well. Star Twinkle, Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Rarity took that opportunity to meet up with Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

"Oh! There are our little superstars!" Rarity exclaimed as soon as the Cutie Mark Crusaders ran out of the stadium. She quickly went up to her sister of course. "You were fabulous!" She said, being proud of Sweetie Belle and hugging her.

"Made me sit up proud like a cornstalk in August!" Applejack said towards her little sister while she hugged her as well.

"Ya done good, squirt!" Rainbow Dash said towards Scootaloo while she rubbed her mane proudly.

"You three really were wonderful," Twilight said as she landed next to her friends. "But does anypony know what was going on with Spike?" She asked confused. She clearly noticed that something was going on with him as well.

"He sure seemed to be having a tough time of it out there," Applejack pointed out.

"I guess, he got a little nervous?" Star Twinkle figured.

"He put things right in time, though," Rarity added, trying to see the positive thing about the situation.

Twilight, however, had to disagree. "Actually, it was me. I didn't want him to be embarrassed, so I cast a secret spell to light it for him," she admitted.

This caught the group a little by surprise. "Oh, dear. Have you told him?" Rarity asked.

"No, but he might have figured it out on his own," Twilight replied in concern.

"You gotta tell him, just in case," Applejack advised.

"I know. I'm just afraid of how he'll take it. I know what pride he takes in a job well done," Twilight said, fearing how the little dragon would react to her honesty.

"Psst, here he comes now!" Rainbow Dash said as soon as she noticed the dragon walking up to them. "Act casual!" She advised before she put on some sunglasses, clearly not acting casual at all.

Twilight instantly noticed how Spike was feeling a little down, judging from how he was walking towards them with a lowered head. "Spike! Is everything okay?" She asked in worry.

"I guess. I don't know. The weirdest thing happened down there," Spike replied in his confusion. It was the perfect opportunity for Twilight to explain things right now but Spike didn't notice her words and continued. "I mean, there I was, trying to light the torch, with all of Equestria watching, and feeling like the hugest failure ever, and then the thing just lit! It was amazing!" He explained while his mood shifted from sad to happy in an instant.

"Oh, phew!" Twilight replied. "I was afraid you'd be upset," she added after realizing that Spike wouldn't get sad after realizing that Twilight helped her out.

"Upset? Are you kidding? Why would I be upset to discover I can light fire... with my mind?" He replied while he grabbed his head with his claws as if he was about to do just that.

Of course, the group reacted in confusion to hear him coming up with a conclusion like that but before they could question him about that, they were interrupted by two crystal ponies.

"Look, look, it's the Great and Honorable Spike the Brave and Glorious and the Great and Honorable Starfall Twinkle the Courageous and Selfless!" One of them said as soon as they spotted the two.

"Can we get your autographs?" The other pony asked before they took out two pictures of Star Twinkle and Spike.

Rainbow Dash poked Star Twinkle in the side and grinned. "Looks like somepony has to attend to their fans," she said jokingly.

"Hehe...yeah," Star Twinkle replied nervously before he walked up to the two ponies to sign his picture along with Spike. It felt really weird to sign autographs for somepony. It's deferentially something that the stallion had to get used to while he stayed at the Crystal Empire.

It also didn't make it easier when the two ponies stood there and complimented them further. "How you two saved our Empire was really amazing!" One of them said.

"Aw. You know what else is amazing?" Spike asked after he was done signing the pictures. "Watch this!" He said before he held the two pictures in front of him while heavily focusing his eyes on them.

Nothing happened and it only resulted in awkward silence. "What are you doing?" Star Twinkle eventually asked confused.

"I'm trying to set those pictures on fire with my mind," he explained while he kept his eyes focused on the pictures. However, as expected, nothing happened because this whole "Setting things on fire with your mind" thing was just made up by Spike without realizing it.

Star Twinkle looked back to Twilight as if he wanted to tell her that she needed to confess before things would get even weirder.

"Spike, may I have a word with you a moment?" She whispered to him.

Star Twinkle gave the two ponies their pictures back and walked away with Twilight and Spike.

"Hey, Twi, what is it?" Spike asked. "Hold on, hold on, give me a second... If I can set fire to stuff with my mind, mind-reading must be just around the corner! And I predict that you are about to ask me... to set fire to something with my mind!"

It seemed to get worse by any passing moment so Twilight just went ahead and told the truth. "No, because you can't!" She said.

But as expected, Spike held into the illusion that it was all him. "Oh, really? So how do you explain what happened down there in front of thousands and thousands of–" he said confidently before Twilight interrupted him in mid-sentence.

"I did it, Spike. I cast a spell to do it for you," she just straight out said into his face. This caused Spike to be quiet again. Needless to say, he was shocked to hear this but it needed to be said before he would get into problems. "I'm sorry, Spike. I just couldn't stand to see you stuck like that! You understand, don't you?"

Maybe Spike did understand that but he definitely didn't look happy to get that news and had tears running down on his cheeks. "I... I... I need to be alone right now," He said as he walked away from the group with his head lowered in sadness.

Twilight attempted to walk after him but from the looks of it, it didn't look like anything that she could say would help right now.

"Just give him some time," Star Twinkle said as he put his hoof on the mare's shoulder. "I'm sure he'll understand what you did for him,"

"Maybe...I still feel a little bad though," Twilight said as she watched the dragon walking away with his head looking down at the ground.

Spike seemed to walk towards the stadium. From the same direction, three ponies walked past him, the three brothers of the Storm Wings. They noticed how the dragon was upset but they decided to leave him alone since they didn't know what was bothering him.

"Wasn't that your little dragon friend?" Steel Wing asked towards Star Twinkle and his friends. "What is up with him?"

"It's kind of a long story," Star Twinkle said, even though that was not the case. He just figured that they should leave him alone for his own sake.

To change the mood a little bit, Rainbow Dash flew towards the three so that the subject could be changed. "Canterlot is doing pretty good! I hope you guys won't slack off in the Aerial Relay! I mean, you have to go up against us after all!" She boasted confidently.

"What did you say!?" Steel Wing asked. "It almost sounded like as if you thought that you could beat us!" He said, showing his own confidence in front of everypony.

"Exactly," Cyclone Wing added while he walked up to the group, much to Steel Wing's surprise who expected his brother to scold him for being so provocative. "We will win those games in Princess Celestia's name!" He said with a dead-serious expression on his face.

Hurricane Wing smiled after those almost threatening words of his brother. "Don't take this too personal. Cyclone just wants to make sure to not let Princess Celestia down. She was the one who wanted us to represent Canterlot after all," he explained.

Even with a reason like that, Star Twinkle had a hard time not taking Cyclone Wing serious. "He could at least say it a little less serious...it almost sounded like as if he was waging a personal war against us..." Star Twinkle thought.

The group exchanged some less threatening words. Eventually, the three stallions walked away again but then somepony came walking towards the group of ponies. It was Ms. Harshwhinny who seemed rather bothered by something. "Princess Twilight, we have a slight problem," she started as she walked up to Twilight.

"What's the matter?" Twilight asked back.

Ms. Harshwhinny explained. "We have some problems with the Anti-Magic System,"

"Anti-Magic System?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yes, you see...in order to prevent cheating, there is a machine inside of the stadium that seals Unicorn magic. We don't want anypony to ruin the games by using magic in a sports event after all," Ms. Harshwhinny explained.

"Yeah! Right! We don't want that!" Twilight replied a little nervously, especially after she was the one who did use some magic before to help out Spike.

"Exactly," Ms. Harshwhinny replied. "We originally planned to set everything up before the games started but we ran into some problems...and the pony who made this thing isn't anywhere to be found to help us out,"

"And you want us to find him?" Twilight suggested, causing Ms. Harshwhinny to nod in reply. She was thinking about what to do. There would probably some problems if she wasn't back in time since she was a princess but she also didn't want any of her friends to miss the games if they happened to be late.

"I'll do it," Star Twinkle then said out of the blue, much to Twilight's surprise.

"Are you sure?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah, I don't want any of you to miss the games," he said, which was ironically what Twilight didn't want as well.

Before Twilight could discuss this with the stallion, Ms. Harshwhinny quickly took his offer since there was not much time left until the next event started. "Great, Mr. Twinkle, we are counting on you," she said.

"Who exactly am I looking for?" Star Twinkle asked in order to make the search easier.

Ms. Harshwhinny then described the pony. "His name is Tinker. He is wearing a necklace with a hoof on it. He is also...well...a little different..."

"That is...a pretty vague description..." Star Twinkle asked a little bothered.

"Trust me, he is the first pony that will stick out of the crowd once you come across him," Ms. Harshwhinny simply explained.

Ms. Harshwhinny was not known to make light of a situation so she was probably giving a good description of this pony. Star Twinkle had no choice but to go with that. "Tinker, hoof necklace, weird...got it!" He said while he was on his way to look for this pony.

As soon as the stallion was on his way, however, Cyclone Wing walked up to him. "Star Twinkle," he said, trying to get Star Twinkle's attention. The stallion walked up to him and had a serious expression on his face. The fact, that Cyclone Wing's expression was even more serious than usual, actually got Star Twinkle a little worried. He instantly knew that what Cyclone Wing was about to say was probably really important.

"What is it?" Star Twinkle replied.

Cyclone Wing made sure that no one else was listening and quickly went out with what he wanted to say. "I overheard your conversation and...I can't help but ask you one thing. That pony that you are supposed to find, his name is Tinker, right?"

"Yes," Star Twinkle replied. "They told me that he is wearing a necklace with a hoof on it and that he is...different..." he further informed.

Cyclone Wing quickly formed a wary expression on his face. "If it is the same pony that I know, then keep one thing in mind..." he said before he moved his head closer to Star Twinkle. "Be careful around him."

Hearing those words made Star Twinkle a little nervous. "Why should I be careful?" He asked confused.

Cyclone Wing then started to explain. "You probably know by now that Tornado lost one of his wings," Cyclone Wing said before he turned around to look at his little brother. "Tinker was the one who replaced it with this metallic wing. He also was the one who covered the other wing in metal because of Tornado's wish,"

"But...isn't that good?" Star Twinkle asked confused, not being able to see the problem here. "I mean, he was the one who gave your brother his wing back so shouldn't you be happy about that?"

"I should, yes..." Cyclone Wing replied before he looked back at Star Twinkle. "But I don't trust Tinker...because there was somepony else who was with him when I first met him..."

"Who?" Star Twinkle asked out of curiosity.

Cyclone Wing gave a quick answer. "Mystic,"

Suddenly, Star Twinkle could understand why Cyclone Wing was worried. "I see..." he simply said while he started to get worried now as well.

"Yes," Cyclone Wing said. "Mystic somehow knew about Tornado's lost wing and he offered to replace it by letting Tinker take care of it. I don't have to remind you that Mystic is a pony that you can't trust, right? He was the one who secretly put a magic seal on my brothers to make them go through constant pain and wanted me to give him control over the Storm Wings in return for the medicine. I don't have any proof that Tinker had anything to do with all of this since I never heard of him after that but still..." Cyclone Wing explained. Just remembering all this stuff must have been hard for the stallion since he clenched his teeth in the middle of this story.

But Star Twinkle assured him that he would keep his guard up. "I'll be careful, don't worry, Cyclone Wing," he said with a smile on his face.

"I know you will, I trust you..." Cyclone Wing replied with a smile on his face as well.

After that conversation, Star Twinkle was quickly on his way to find this pony. All he had to do was to bring him back to the stadium so that he could fix the Anti-magic system. But the last words of Cyclone Wing worried Star Twinkle a little. He remembered Mystic all too well and his view about this world so he figured that this Tinker would be similar to him. That was something that he wasn't looking forward to at all...

A little later...

Star Twinkle's search has only just begun but he still wanted to find Tinker as fast as possible so that he could return to the stadium. He didn't want to miss, Team Ponyville's Aerial Relay since his friends were part of this team. Right now, he was on the main plaza of the Empire.

"Now where do I start looking? Why did I even volunteer to do this?" He asked himself. He had to be honest that missing the games was not the worst thing in his life. The others were looking forward to the Equestria Games far more than him so he was okay with that but he also realized that the Crystal Empire was really big and finding one pony would probably impossible before the next event started.

Star Twinkle couldn't help to worry about all this until he heard a familiar voice right in front of him. "The Great and Honorable Starfall Twinkle the Courageous and Selfless..." a pony read out who was standing in front of the statue of Star Twinkle and Spike that was placed in the middle of the main plaza.

"Wait...I know that voice..." Star Twinkle said after he faintly remembered hearing this voice before, way back.

The stallion that stood in front of the statue turned around and was now facing Star Twinkle. It was an Earth Pony with a light brown coat, a dark brown mane, orange-colored eyes and a light bulb as a Cutie Mark. He was also wearing the necklace with the hoof on it, making him the pony that Star Twinkle had to look for.

"I know you!" Star Twinkle said as soon as he recognized this pony as the same one that he encountered back then before Queen Chrysalis attacked Canterlot. He remembered how this pony strangely knew about the attack before it actually happened. But before he could ask about that, the stallion replied to Star Twinkle.

"Isn't it obvious!? We met already after all!" He replied.

"Yeah..." Star Twinkle replied before he quickly cut to the point. "You are Tinker, right? I was asked to look for you so that you could return to the stadium,"

But Tinker replied with a bothered expression on his face. "Why would I do that?" He asked confused.

Star Twinkle quickly explained the situation. "Well...you are the one who built the Anti-Magic system in the stadium, right? It doesn't seem work and the ponies in the stadium need your help,"

After hearing that, the stallion had a shocked expression on his face. "Doesn't work? Did you just say that one of my inventions doesn't work!?" He said offended and with an angry expression on his face. "I have to let you know that everything that I build works perfectly!" He claimed while he stomped his hoof on the ground angrily.

Star Twinkle had no time to argue with this pony and just wished that he would come with him. "Whatever the reason is, you need to come with me, they really need your help," he almost begged.

Tinker rubbed his chin for a second. "Alright!" He then instantly replied, which heavily surprised Star Twinkle at first. "But! Only if you transform for me!" He added.

"Transform for you?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Tinker turned around to face the statue of Star Twinkle behind him. "You and The Great and Honorable Spike saved the Crystal Empire...and you fought against King Sombra!" He then said while he pointed towards the stallion. "You did so by transforming! I want to see that with my own eyes!" He said with a determined look on his face.

It was a weird request but if that made him return to the stadium, then Star Twinkle was willing to do that. "Alright," he said before he started to concentrate.

Shortly after, a horn appeared on Star Twinkle's head. It instantly made Tinker's eyes widen and he rushed towards the stallion. "There it is! A horn! A real horn out of nowhere!" he said while he fiddled around with it for a few seconds, much to Star Twinkle's discomfort. Tinker's attention then shifted towards Star Twinkle's back. "No wings?" He then asked.

"No, I can either make a horn or two wings appear but not at the same time," Star Twinkle explained.

Tinker didn't seem to be too convinced to hear this. "That doesn't seem right..." he mumbled after he inspected Star Twinkle's body further. After he finally stopped, there was one more thing that bothered him. "Can I ask one more favor of you?"

"What?" Star Twinkle replied even though he didn't like hearing that.

With a wide grin on his face, Tinker went on ahead and asked his question. "Can I cut parts of it off?" He asked excitedly.

Star Twinkle instantly transformed back after hearing that and had a shocked expression on his face. "What? No!"

"Why not?" Tinker asked in an upset tone. "Surely it will grow back the next time you transform!" He pointed out.

"I...don't know if it works like that..." Star Twinkle replied.

"Exactly!" Tinker exclaimed. "That is why we need to do this! To get the answer to that question! If I could do that, I would do it in an instant!"

"Whatever!" Star Twinkle said, trying to change the subject. "I transformed, now you come with me, right?"

Tinker didn't seem to happy but he felt responsible to keep his word. "I suppose..." he said while he shrugged his shoulders.

The two then walked in direction of the stadium. Star Twinkle was quite relieved that this search didn't take as long as he expected. He also quickly realized that Ms. Harshwhinny's explanation was pretty accurate. He was...different. Talking to him was weird as well for some reason. It's like this pony was living in his own world. Star Twinkle wondered if he would get along with Pinkie Pie.

But right now, the only thing that he could think about, was why this stallion kept looking at him as if he tried to analyze him. "What?" Star Twinkle finally asked after he started to get bothered by the look that Tinker gave him.

"Nothing..." Tinker replied while he kept his eyes focused on Star Twinkle. "I just thought that it was a really weird coincidence that you can transform just like Starwhite,"

"Huh?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

"You know! Starwhite! The role that you played in Canterlot at Hearth's Warming Eve!" Tinker replied.

"Oh, yeah! My role in the play!" Star Twinkle remembered. "You saw it?"

"I did!" Tinker replied. "I just thought that it was interesting that you, who played the messenger of the three pony tribes, Starwhite, are also able to transform..."

"Yeah, right...Starwhite was a Unicorn that transformed into an Alicorn. He was known as the first Alicorn ever,"

"Alicorn?" Tinker replied confused.

"Yeah... you know, like Princess Celestia," Star Twinkle pointed out. "But I heard that his existence is not really proven in the history of Equestria," he further explained.

"Mhh..." Tinker replied while he rubbed his chin and went into deep thoughts. "No...he didn't transform into an Alicorn..." he simply said.

Star Twinkle got confused hearing that, especially since Tinker seemed to be rather serious in this very moment. "How do you know?" He asked.

"Isn't it obvious!?" He exclaimed, causing Star Twinkle to jump on the spot. "The transformation came from sort of connection! The connection being the Four Knight's of the Princess!"

Star Twinkle remembered hearing that term before. "Wait...I think I heard that somewhere before," he said while he tried to remember it. "I think I read a book here in the Crystal Empire that mentioned them,"

"Right!" Tinker said. "The Knight's of the Princess were able to transform as well and use magic that is now long forgotten! Starwhite must have been connected to those ponies since he was able to do the same. And then...there is you!" He said while he walked dangerously close to Star Twinkle and looked straight into his face. "How do you know to use an ancient transformation like this? What is your connection with them!?"

Star Twinkle felt a little intimidated to get bombarded by so many things at once. "I don't know...I barely know anything about it, to be honest," he replied almost frustrated.

Tinker didn't say anything and turned around again before he mumbled some more words. "There are really strange things happening recently...as if there is some kind of force driving it...This could be really interesting, depending on what I choose to do from now on...I definitely want to be part of this change..." he said with an excited grin on his face.

"Uh..." Star Twinkle said, causing Tinker to look back at him in fascination. For some reason, it sent shivers down on his back.

"Your transformation is only one thing that I need to know more about..." Tinker said excitedly. "Even if it is, for some reason, incomplete..." he mumbled while he turned his head around yet again. "That transformation of the four knights...
Terra Unisus..."

Star Twinkle had no idea what this stallion was mumbling about but he clearly had no time for it and reminded him that they still needed to hurry. "Can we please return to the stadium? I'm not sure when the next event is about to begin..." he said, hoping that Tinker would make hast from this point on.

"Yeah, sure!" Tinker replied in a sudden happier mood change.

The two then started to walk over to the stadium so that Tinker could get to the machine and enable the Anti-magic System. Tinker took care of the machine and claimed that it would work now, which meant that Star Twinkle could finally return to his friends.

A little later...

Star Twinkle was just running up the stairs to reach the audience seats. Once he had a good look on of the stadium, he saw how the Aerial Relay already started. In fact, they seemed to be in the final stretch of the race. Rainbow Dash and Spitfire were in the lead and Hurricane Wing just switched in for his brother Cyclone Wing, making him leave a little bit behind. Hurricane Wing tried to catch up with the two mares but there was no way that he could with the two mare's being in the lead that far.

Eventually, it was only a race between Rainbow Dash and Spitfire. One of them, however, was slightly faster and managed to get through the finish line by an inch. It was Spitfire, meaning that Cloudsdale was winning Gold and Ponyville Silver.

"Almost..." Star Twinkle said as he saw that. He really would have liked it if Team Ponyville managed to get gold in this race but judging from how the two mare's hoof bumped each other, Rainbow Dash was showing fair sports and wasn't mad about losing to Spitfire.

Star Twinkle figured that he shouldn't stand in front of the stairs and tried to look for his friends, who should be sitting nearby somewhere. However, as soon as he noticed Spike down there next to Shining Armor.

"And now... um... the Cloudsdale anthem, as sung by... Spike!" Shining Armor announced, causing the crowd to cheer in excitement.

"What?" Star Twinkle said as soon as he heard that.

The stallion had no idea why Spike was down there until he remembered how upset he was before for not being able to light the torch. This must have been his way to deal with the situation. Maybe he wanted to show all of Equestria that he could be better than this. Star Twinkle just hoped that he would not get nervous again. He was actually surprised that the little dragon volunteered to sing the Cloudsdale anthem. Star Twinkle himself, never even heard it before.

...And from the sounds of it...Spike didn't either...

"Oh, we're the Wonderbolts and we're super fast
And we're from Cloudsdale which-is-a-part-of-Equestria" The little dragon began to sing nervously. Sadly, that was only the beginning of something much worse to come.

"That we like best and we're proud and we're fast and we like it because it really has nice trees
Yeah, we love the town because it's so cool and, and we like to fly really fast and everything like that
I kinda wish this was over 'cause it is... n't... yet... over... now.
Oh, we're the Wonderbolts and we're super fast and we're cloud– from Cloudsdale
We like it there 'cause it's really nice and the trees are cool and I hope it is over now
And... it keeps going on, la la la
And we really love the town
So I wish that this... song... was over now.
Over... now.
Over... now..."

After a very long and awkward song from Spike, the whole stadium was filled with shocked silence. Star Twinkle actually never expected that this place could be quiet like that. You could practically hear a needle drop and everypony would be able to hear it. The Wonderbolts, who were born in Cloudsdale, were probably shocked the most, as well as every other pony who lives there.

However, there was one pony who was not able to read the mood and applauded Spike for his singing. And that pony was, of course, Pinkie Pie. "Nailed it!" She said throughout the whole stadium.

Needless to say, Spike left the scene in embarrassment and the crowd started to mumble confused words to each other. They were probably really confused to see what just happened in front of them.

Star Twinkle was feeling no different and had an embarrassed expression on his face. "What just happened?" Was all he could say.

Later that night...

The Equestria Games started to come to an end. There was only one more event that was left and it was called Ice Archery. The group wanted to concentrate on this event but all they could think of was what Spike did before, making it pretty hard to enjoy the games.

Star Twinkle just walked up to the rest of his friends with a worried expression on his face. Rarity quickly picked up on that. "How did it go?" She asked.

"Not good...he wouldn't open the door again...I think Twilight is with him now, though," Star Twinkle replied. He was, of course, referring to Spike. He tried talking with him over the course of the day but he always refused to talk with anyone. Or maybe he was just not in the current state to talk with anypony.

Rarity didn't seem to like hearing that and frowned a little to which Applejack tried to comfort the mare. "Aw, don't worry, Rarity...Spike will be fine again," she said as she put her hoof around Rarity.

"I'm actually more worried about what everypony else is thinking about poor little Spike after his last attempt to impress them..." Rarity expressed.

"Well...he is still considered a hero of the Crystal Empire..." Star Twinkle pointed out. "I don't think a little...slip up like this will influence much of his reputation..." he explained, even though he had some small doubts after he said those words.

The group really felt a little down, even after Star Twinkle said those words so Pinkie Pie felt responsible to cheer up everypony again. "Hey, did you know that Ponyville has thirty-seven medals and Cloudsdale thirty-six? It looks like we'll be medal champs of the Games!" She said, trying to change the subject for the better.

Rainbow Dash noticed Pinkie Pie's attempt to cheer everypony up and decided to follow up. "But Cloudsdale has two ice archery finalists down there now and we have none! If they both place, Cloudsdale wins the medal count!" She pointed out.

"So you're saying that it all comes down to this one event?!" Pinkie Pie replied with some worry in her voice.

Suddenly, the main concern was now how Cloudsdale was doing in this event, instead of how Spike was feeling. It was probably better like that. It actually made everypony think about something else. Of course, everypony still felt bad about the little dragon but there was not much left to do for him, especially since the games were almost over. Star Twinkle also believed that if there was one pony left to cheer him up, then it was Twilight so he just believed that she could cheer him up again.

Putting the Spike matter aside, the group tried to focus on the current event. There were a bunch of ponies who used bows and arrows to shoot at some targets as one would expect from an archery event, however, according to Rainbow Dash, those arrows were special. Each time they would hit, the area around them would freeze a little bit and the pony who managed to encase the whole target first would win the competition.

It was actually rather tense to watch this, knowing that the end result would determine which team had the most medals at the end of the day. But as soon as they all got caught into all of this, some fan next to the group cheered loudly for one of the competitors. "Go get them, Hurricane!"

Star Twinkle actually jumped as soon as those words were practically shouted into his ears. It was Steel Wing who was the one who sat next to him. As soon as the ringing sound in Star Twinkle's ear was gone, he asked what Steel Wing and Cyclone Wing were doing next to him.

"We are cheering for our brother of course!" Steel Wing explained. "Look!" He said before he pointed down there to the field. Hurricane Wing was one of the archers who competed down there as well.

"Well, Canterlot did well in those games, but there is no way that you'll beat us or Cloudsdale in terms of medal count with only one of you down there," Rainbow Dash said proudly with a wide grin on her face.

"Shh!" Steel Wing replied while he looked over to his right, where his big brother was sitting at.

It was only now, that Star Twinkle and the others noticed how Cyclone Wing was sitting there with a defeated look on his face. "We let the princess down..." he repeated over and over again.

"Somepony surely takes those games seriously..." Star Twinkle thought with a small smile on his face.

The event down on the field continued. It was starting to look as if it was about to end anytime soon since most of the targets were almost completely filled with ice. This actually put some pressure on some of the competitors. One of them was actually pressured enough that he dropped his bow and managed to accidentally shoot an arrow in the air and hitting a cloud that was over the stadium. At first, it looked as if nothing happened but shortly after, the cloud was starting to freeze and came down falling to the ground.

"Oh no!" Rarity exclaimed in shock after she saw how this cloud came falling towards everypony.

"This is bad!" Star Twinkle added in fear.

But Rainbow Dash quickly stepped up. "Steer it towards the field, away from the crowds!"

"She is right! We have to do something!" Cyclone Wing agreed, who seemed to have put himself together in this very moment.

"Right!" Steel Wing said before he flew towards the frozen cloud with Cyclone Wing and Rainbow Dash doing the same shortly after.

Star Twinkle figured that he should assist them as well and decided to transform to fly up there. But strangely enough...he couldn't. "What? Why can't I..." he said before he remembered one crucial thing. "The Anti-Magic System!" He then remembered. Of course, Tinker's invention was still active and prevented the use of magic. As it turns out, it also blocked Star Twinkle's transformation.

This was especially bad because it looked like as if all the Pegasus, that tried to stop the cloud weren't enough to stop it from falling. Shining Armor seemed to order the Anti-Magic System to be turned off but there didn't seem to be enough time to do that. Things looked really bad.

Star Twinkle looked all over the place to see if he could come up with a solution for this. He soon spotted Twilight and Spike down on the field, the latter one walking straight towards the frozen cloud. "All of you, move!" He shouted as he continued to walk towards the cloud.

Since all of the Pegasus couldn't stop the cloud from falling anyway, they decided to move away to see what Spike was about to do. The little dragon jumped on the backs of the ponies and made a huge jump towards the cloud and released a huge fire breath towards it. Shortly after, the huge cloud was covered in a green flame and started to melt. Soon, the frozen cloud was completely melted and the only thing that was left was some rain that was caused by it.

"That was awesome!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed after she witnessed that.

The little dragon was quickly approached by his friends who all expressed their praise for him saving the day in this dire situation. Even the princesses came to thank him. Princess Cadance especially was grateful that Spike saved the empire yet again. "I just wanted to thank you personally for saving those ponies and the Games, O Great and Honorable Spike the Brave and Glorious. You must be very proud.

But Spike gave a surprising answer. "I guess," he simply replied.

"You guess?!" Everypony else who was present instantly replied confused.

Spike explained what was bothering him. "I just saw what needed to be done and reacted. Just so happens I can breathe fire and... if any of you could do that, you'd have done the same," he said. He clearly still seemed to be down after all the events that happened earlier this day.

"Forgive me for bein' blunt, Spike, but you're not makin' a lick of sense," Applejack commented.

"Well, it's just how I feel," Spike expressed with a frown on his face.

"Wait a second," Twilight then said as soon as she seemed to have figured out what was bothering Spike. "You keep saying you let everypony down, but we all keep saying you didn't. You know who's disappointed in you, Spike? You. And only you can make it right with you again. What would that take, Spike?" She asked in concern of the little dragon.

"Meh, I don't know. Can you turn back time? 'Cause I'd sure like a do-over on that opening ceremony," he asked.

"Well there is that one scroll from Starswirl-" Star Twinkle pointed out before he was poked in the sides by Twilight, who thought that bringing that up wasn't the best idea now.

Princess Cadance, however, seemed to already have something in mind. "We can't turn back time, but, would you do me the great honor of lighting fireworks in my place at the closing ceremonies tonight?" She suggested.

Twilight thought that this was a great idea. "Come on, Spike. You saved the Crystal Empire twice! I think you can light some fireworks,"

With that said, Spike agreed to give it a shot. All there was left to do was to continue the games so that they could be closed by him. And there was not much time left until that was the case.

A little later...

After everypony was awarded their medals, all that was left was ending the games with a huge firework. Star Twinkle and his friends were waiting for exactly that while also celebrating the success of their own achievements.

"We did it! Ponyville won the medal count, and only by one medal!" Pinkie Pie said excitedly.

"Hmm, wonder which medal that was?" Rainbow Dash added before she raised her chest to show off her own medal to everypony.

Shortly after, the Fireworks were about to start and Spike walked up to the field to try closing the games without embarrassing himself this time. Luckily, Spike managed to light the fireworks without a problem though and the sky was quickly filled with beautiful colors.

"Looks like he did it," Star Twinkle said after seeing Spike doing everything right.

"He sure did," Twilight added. "He also shared with me what he learned after everything that happened today,"

"Lemme hear," Star Twinkle said, being curious about what that could be.

Twilight then repeated what Spike told her. "No matter how many times others tell you you're great, all the praise in the world means nothing if you don't feel it inside. Sometimes to feel good about yourself, you gotta let go of the past. That way, when the time comes to let your greatness fly, you'll be able to light up the whole sky,"

For some reason, Star Twinkle felt like that this lesson was directed towards him, which caused him to widen his eyes while thinking about those words.

"Is something the matter?" Twilight asked as soon as she saw that reaction of Star Twinkle.

"No, it's nothing...don't worry about it..." Star Twinkle replied while he looked up at the sky and continued to watch the fireworks.

Twilight decided to leave it at that and joined in to watch the fireworks as well. They were pretty nice to look at after all...

At the same time, outside of the stadium...

As soon as the fireworks began to start inside the stadium, Tinker, who was walking away from it looked back to the stadium. "Looks like those boring games are finally over," he said before he didn't spare any more second looking at the fireworks. "At first, I thought coming here was a big waste of time but getting the chance to meet Star Twinkle again really made up for it," he said with a smile on his face. "I really wished that his Terra Unisus transformation would be complete because right now, it isn't even worth it. He probably isn't even able to use Terra Unisus Magic, like the Knight's of the Princess," he mumbled to himself.

Some ponies around the empire noticed the fireworks as well and figured that they should remove some decorations since the Equestria Games were over now. "Can you remove those?" One stallion said to a Unicorn who then proceeded to use it's magic to remove some ribbons that were hanging on one of the street lights.

Unknown to all of this, Tinker walked past them while being in deep thoughts. He also didn't seem to notice that the hoof on his necklace was glowing in a yellow light all of the sudden.

The Unicorn proceeded to remove the ribbon from the street lights and levitated it in front of him, but to his surprise, the light around the ribbon and around his horn vanished and the ribbon dropped to the ground. "Huh?" He said, while he knocked on is horn in confusion.

The lights, which were all kept shining because of magic, also seemed to go out as soon as Tinker walked past them. They did light up once he was too far away from them but the ponies who were removing the decorations surely were surprised what exactly was going on right now.

Tinker's necklace stopped glowing again and he didn't seem to be aware or either didn't care about all those things happening around him. He was clearly too deep in his thoughts after all.

"Then again..." he started, once he finished another one of his thoughts. "There was this one incident in Ponyville...that fire...a pony that set the town on fire...I am pretty sure it was the result of Terra Unisus Magic as well..." he mumbled to himself. He quickly figured that there was some kind of connection to this event and Star Twinkle and he wanted to find the answer to that. "But!" He then randomly exclaimed. "I don't have time to think about that! There are so many other things to worry about just now!" He said with an excited expression on his face. "One thing after another...I have to continue my research after, once I get back home after all!" He added before he ran towards the train station to get home again to get back to his research.

Whatever that research was...

Author's Notes:

Alright! This time I am satisfied with the length of a chapter!
I did an attempt to explain one or two things in this chapter and I hope I succeeded with it.

I hope you are all excited for the next chapters since they will be the Season Finale of Season 4!
Like this chapter, there will be some custom stuff in it. Can you guess what will happen?
One OC will have a bigger role in the next chapters. Can you guess who?
Or maybe it will be someone completely new?

Let me know what you think so far, I really enjoy reading your theories ^^.

Also, keep in mind that after Season 4 ends, there will be two stories coming up that are meant to be read after this season.

The first one will be "Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship" which will focus on the second Equestria Girls movie.

The second one is called "The Legend of Friendship - Harmony" which takes place in Ponyville and serves as some kind of backstory to this story.

Make sure to not miss the second one if you want to keep track of some things that will happen in this story ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

89. A Friend from the Past - Part 1

View Online

It was a beautiful sunny day in Ponyville...
The wind was softly blowing through the streets...
It was perfect to take a walk around the town...

So that is exactly what Star Twinkle did. When a day is this nice, then even he thought that it would be a good idea to walk around town instead of staying home. At least that's what he told himself, actually he didn't remember why he was walking through town on his own. But despite that, he looked around and watched how everypony was enjoying this day.

But he then suddenly stopped in his way after he hit his front hoof against something. He was too busy looking around himself that he didn't even notice anything and looked down to check what he stumbled across but he was shocked and confused as soon as he saw what it was.

It was an unconscious pony...

He hit his hoof against a Pegasus stallion that was laying down in front of him. Next to this pony, there was another pony, a Pegasus mare, laying on the ground as well. The next thing that happened, was a flash running through Star Twinkle's brain, causing him to grab his head and closing his eyes due to the pain that was rushing through his head. The pain didn't last too long though and Star Twinkle opened his eyes again. But as soon as he did...the whole town was on fire.

The houses were burning and ponies were running away in fear. There was also something going on with the two ponies in front of him. It was like as if magic was being sucked out of them, right into Star Twinkle, who noticed that he had a horn on his forehead.

Star Twinkle wanted, whatever was happening now, to stop but his attention was caught by someone shouting his name.

"Star Twinkle!" A male voice shouted towards him.

Star Twinkle wanted to see who it was but as soon as his head turned towards that pony, all he could see was a white light, that kept him from identifying this pony. Soon, this white light was everywhere, blinding Star Twinkle and making it unable to see anything now.

After all that, multiple scenes played inside Star Twinkle's head, they were passing so so quickly however that he didn't have time to think about them. All he could do was watch them playing in front of his eyes.

...

"Are you sure that you don't want to live in Canterlot with us?" Star Twinkle's mother, Rainfall Twinkle asked.

"Yeah, we may not be able to see each other that often if you decide to stay here," Star Twinkle's father Sunny Twinkle added.

But Star Twinkle shook his head in response. "I'm sure. I can't leave Ponyville. This is where my-"

...

"We are seeing each other again, right?" Star Twinkle asked towards a group of ponies.

"Of course, what kind of question is that?" One of the ponies replied confused.

...

A rainbow came shooting right towards Star Twinkle, causing him to duck in fear to get hit by it. In midst of this attack, however, there were a few words that he could hear.

"You are me...and I am you..." a male voice said towards him.

...

"Run!...stay away from me!" Star Twinkle shouted towards two Pegasus ponies in front of him, in the middle of the road of Ponyville.

The two ponies didn't know how to react and were just confused by the stallion's behavior. Before they knew it, Star Twinkle grabbed his head and dropped to his knees, causing the two to get worried. Eventually, Star Twinkle raised his head again and looked at them, his eyes turning from a light green color to a red color.

...

"Star Twinkle!" A stallion shouted towards Star Twinkle, who was standing in the middle of the road of Ponyville, his back turned towards the stallion and surrounded by flames, with two ponies standing in front of him.

As soon as Star Twinkle heard his the voice of that stallion, he slowly turned around. The stallion who shouted his name reacted in confusion once he saw, a horn, and two wings on Star Twinkle, not to mention the wide grin on his face.

"Only four left..." he simply replied in excitement.

...

The next thing Star Twinkle saw was the brown ceiling of his bedroom. It seems like as if everything that he just saw was just a bad dream. Normally, he would feel really bad after having a dream like that but he sadly had to admit that he actually got used to it after it happened so often now.

"Star Twinkle!!!" The shriek voice of Pinkie Pie screamed at the stallion's house, causing him to open the window next to his bed to see what was going out there. As soon as Star Twinkle opened the window and looked out of it, he saw Pinkie Pie standing a few meters away from his house. "Are you not done yet!?" She asked as she jumped up and down on the spot in excitement. "Did you forget? We are supposed to meet the others at the train station!"

Star Twinkle widened his eyes in shock, not because he forgot, but because he was now aware of how much time was left for that meeting. "Sorry! I'm coming!" He then shouted back before he closed the window and got himself ready to leave. Everything had to be done quickly, there was no time for breakfast and he had to take a shower really quick. Only minutes after Pinkie Pie talked with him, he was already standing in front of his mirror in the living room, cleaning himself dry with a towel. While he was rubbing himself clean, however, he couldn't help but think about that dream that he had. He looked deep into the eyes of his reflection, he slapped his cheeks a couple times to wake himself up and to calm himself down again.

"Easy...You had a bad dream...get over it! That just happens..." he said to make himself feel more comfortable again.

The stallion didn't waste any more time and went outside to meet Pinkie Pie, who was already waiting for him in front of his door. He put on a fake smile to not worry her. Unfortunately, Pinkie Pie surprisingly saw through this smile pretty fast and lowered her eyebrows in concern.

"What's the matter? Had a bad dream?" She guessed.

It was almost shocking how Pinkie Pie quickly hit the nail on the point. Star Twinkle almost didn't know how to respond to this but in the end, he decided to just tell the truth instead of hiding anything.

"Actually, yes...but don't worry, I'm okay now," Star Twinkle explained, trying not to worry the mare any further.

Star Twinkle was not sure if Pinkie Pie bought those words but she put a smile on her face. "Okay! If you say so!" She said happily before she led the way to the train station with Star Twinkle following close by. The rest of his friends were probably waiting there already.

The reason why they were about to meet there was because Twilight was supposed to travel to the Crystal Empire. Princess Celestia asked of her to join welcoming some kind of royals that were visiting the empire and since every other princess was there, Twilight was supposed to be there as well. Star Twinkle and the rest of his friends wanted to accompany Twilight to provide some mental support. Therefore, it was pretty important for Star Twinkle to show up because he didn't want to let her down.

Later, in the Crystal Empire...

Star Twinkle and his friends arrived at the Crystal Empire and were already on their way to the Crystal Castle. The group was highly excited that they could visit the empire once more, especially Spike. "Seems like only yesterday I was saving this place from being totally destroyed. Hey, you guys remember that?" He asked towards the group as he led the way.

"Yes...we were there..." Star Twinkle replied a little annoyed. "...And it was only a few days ago..." he pointed out.

"And you only mentioned it about fifteen times on the train here," Rainbow Dash further pointed out with an annoyed tone in her voice.

Hearing that from Rainbow Dash was a little weird. Rarity actually picked up on that. "Yes, and we never hear a peep out of you about your exploits," she said with a very sarcastic tone in her voice.

Rainbow Dash quickly understood what Rarity tried to say and grinned back a little embarrassed. "Heh, point taken," she then replied.

Little conversations like that really helped Twilight to loosen up a little for the upcoming task that she was ordered for but still, she was probably the one who was the least excited for this whole visit. "I'm glad you all wanted to come, but I don't think it's gonna be that exciting. I pretty much just have to smile and wave as the dignitaries arrive," Twilight explained.

But Rarity still saw the positive thing about this. "Yes, but you get to smile and wave like a princess," she pointed out.

Applejack, just like the others, however, didn't seem to understand the difference. "How exactly is that different than smilin' and wavin' like not a princess?" She asked confused.

Twilight frowned and walked away from the group. "It isn't," she said in a sad tone.

The group quickly picked up on how Twilight was feeling at this moment. Normally, Twilight was really excited whenever Princess Celestia asked her of something but this time, this wasn't the case for some reason. As soon as somepony straight out asked her what was wrong, Twilight shared with the group what was bothering her.

"I've just been feeling a little unsure about things lately. It doesn't seem that my new role as a princess equates to all that much," she said.

"Well, it's not too long ago since you became one..." Star Twinkle pointed out.

"That's just silly," Applejack quickly responded. "You've got a really important role in Equestria,"

Fluttershy agreed. "Princess Celestia wouldn't have asked you to come today if she didn't think so,"

Those words quickly put a smile on Twilight. "I guess you're right," she replied. Twilight must be really glad to have her friends with her by now. It at least seemed like as if her worries vanished for now.

Soon, the group wasted no more time and went to the Crystal Castle. Twilight was waiting on a balcony until those royal visitors arrived and her friends were standing not too far away. No one except Twilight, of course, knew what she had to do so all they could do was waiting until something happened.

Eventually, music started to play from beneath the castle at the main plaza. "The Duke and Duchess of Maretonia!" A pony announced from below the balcony shortly after.

Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadance all stood ready to welcome the two visitors and led them to the castle. In the meantime, Twilight lowered a banner from the balcony and...smiled and waved at the royal visitors.

Needless to say, the group was a little shocked how accurate Twilight was before. "Wow...she wasn't kidding when she said that she only came here to smile and wave," Star Twinkle whispered to his friends so that Twilight wouldn't hear it.

"Yes," Rarity replied. "Still, let us show some excitement about that before she feels bad or something," she suggested, causing the rest of her friends to agree to that idea.

With the exception of one, who wasn't aware of this talk. "That was it? Princess Celestia had you come all the way to the Crystal Empire just to do that?" Spike straight out said, ruining the situation for everyone now and causing Star Twinkle to slap his own forehead because of Spike's bluntness. Needless to say, Twilight immediately frowned since she was fully aware of that as well. "I mean, whoa, really regal and important!" Spike then corrected after he noticed how upset the mare was, however, the damage was already done. Twilight just walked past the group with a sad expression on her face. As soon as she was gone, the group was starting to actually get a little worried about Twilight.

"Goodness..." Rarity said. "She really thinks she is not doing anything important..."

"Well, she kinda is not doing anything important compared to the other princesses," Rainbow Dash bluntly said.

Applejack seemed a little angry to hear Rainbow Dash saying that so openly but she also had to admit that she was kinda right. "Still, there has to be something that we can do to cheer her up," she said out of worry for her friend.

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. "If there was only one pony who always felt kinda left out and can relate to that kind of problem. That pony would probably the best to comfort her right now," she said while she genuinely tried to come up with someone.

But shortly after she said that every pair of eyes was suddenly focused on Star Twinkle. He tried his best to make it look like as if he didn't notice but that didn't last for long and he quickly gave up. "I'll go and talk with her..." he then said as he walked away from the group in an attempt to cheer Twilight up again.

After walking around the castle for quite a while, Star Twinkle found Twilight walking back and forth in the entrance hall. "There you are," Star Twinkle said as soon as he walked up to the frustrated mare.

Twilight noticed Star Twinkle but all she could do was to release a depressed sigh. "Hey, Star Twinkle..." she said in a heavily depressed tone. "I know, I should have not walked away like that but I thought that I could still do something while I'm here...but...apparently not..."

"You are really bothered by that, huh?" Star Twinkle said. "You should be glad that Princess Celestia isn't pilling up any work on you. I would be," he said with a smile on his face but as soon as he noticed that he wouldn't get a smile back from Twilight, he rubbed his neck in embarrassment. "But I guess that doesn't apply to you,"

Twilight then decided to explain why exactly she was feeling down like that. "It's just...Princess Luna raises the moon, Princess Celestia raises the sun, Princess Cadance protects the Crystal Empire, and all I seem to do is... smile and wave..."

For Star Twinkle, it sounded perfect. Being a royal that has no big responsibilities would be great. Sadly, Twilight wouldn't be happy about that. She is one of four princesses and if every other princess has duties like that, one would probably feel a little useless. It felt kinda similar to how Star Twinkle felt about the Elements of Harmony.

Despite trying his best to cheer Twilight up, it didn't seem to work all too well. In fact, the conversation changed to a completely other matter as soon as Twilight said those next words. "I think...I have to apologize to you, Star Twinkle..."

"Why?" Star Twinkle asked confused. This apology kinda came out of nowhere for him.

Twilight quickly explained herself. "Remember when you always doubted yourself? And how you always questioned why you were chosen by the Elements of Harmony?" Twilight asked.

It was funny how Twilight was talking like as if Star Twinkle used to ask himself those questions, even though he was still asking those questions now. "Yeah..." He simply replied without going into detail about that.

Twilight continued. "I always said that you shouldn't worry about it and that you should be happy about how things turned out better for you. But now I realize that this is a lot harder then I imagined. When I became a princess, I was asking myself what that really meant or why I became one in the first place. I figured that this is how you must have felt all this time so...I'm apologizing for taking this problem lightly..." she explained while she genuinely felt bad about it now.

But Star Twinkle felt like as if this apology came way too sudden. "Hey, don't worry about it!" Star Twinkle said before Twilight would start to feel even worse now. "You know, this isn't about me now, right? I came here to cheer you up after all," he explained.

"Yeah, I know..." Twilight replied in a sad tone. "Sorry but I think, I'll go and ask Princess Celestia if there is something else that I can do..." she said before she left the main hall and left Star Twinkle in the middle of the room. The stallion felt like as if he should say something to her but at the same time, he had the feeling that she should be alone for a while. It's exactly like what the others said, if there was one pony who always told himself that he didn't belong, then it was him. And sometimes, he just wanted to be alone to think about stuff. But the thing is, he didn't know if Twilight was the same in that matter.

On the next day...

After getting his day at work done, Star Twinkle was on his way back home. After his visit to the Crystal Empire yesterday, he didn't have any other chance to talk with Twilight, which made him worry a little throughout the whole day because he had no idea if she felt better now or if she was still upset about her role as a princess.

"Star Twinkle!" Pinkie Pie said in a shrieking voice as she rushed dangerously close towards the stallion.

"Yes?" Star Twinkle replied nervously after he noticed how close her smiling face was to his in this very moment.

Pinkie Pie wasted no time and got straight to the point. "Twilight wants to see us all immediately!" She just said while jumping up and down on the spot in excitement.

"For what?" Star Twinkle obviously asked because of the lack of information that was in Pinkie Pie's words.

Pinkie Pie looked up in order to think but quickly gave an answer. "I don't know!" She then replied confused. "But she said it was really important!" She added with a grin on her face. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and tell the others!" She said before she vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Of course, Star Twinkle had no idea what this was all about but if Pinkie Pie said that it was important then the stallion had probably no choice but to meet up with the others. So without thinking about it too much, Star Twinkle went on ahead to meet Twilight in front of the library.

A little later...

It didn't take long until everyone arrived in front of the library. No one really knew what was so important that they all had to come as quickly as possible but knowing Twilight, she probably didn't just ask them all to come for nothing.

As soon as Twilight noticed how everyone was here, she decided to explain the situation. "I'm glad you all came. And even though the situation will be taken care of, I think you should all know what's going on," she started with a serious expression on her face.

"What situation?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yes, what is all of this about, Twilight?" Applejack asked confused, taking the words out of everyone's mouth.

Twilight took a deep breath. She looked like as if whatever she was about to tell them was really important. Shortly after, she explained what this was all about. "Princess Celestia sensed the return of someone who once threatened Equestria...Lord Tirek." As soon as this sentence was said, everyone quickly realized how serious the situation was. Someone really dangerous was about to take over Equestria, just like Nightmare Moon, Discord or King Sombra before and it was up to the group to take care of it. Still, Twilight first continued with her explanation of who this Tirek guy was.

"Princess Celestia told me that Tirek and his brother Scorpan came here from a distant land, intent on stealing Equestrian magic. But Scorpan soon came to appreciate the ways of Equestria, even befriending a young unicorn wizard. Scorpan tried to convince his brother to abandon their plans but when Tirek refused, Scorpan sided with the Ponies of Equestria and helped them to stop his brother. Scorpan returned to his own land, and Tirek was sent to Tartarus for his crimes. But it appears he has found a way to escape. Apparently, he escaped when Cerberus left his post at the gates,"

But Star Twinkle quickly noticed something strange about that explanation. "But didn't Cerberus leave his post a long time ago? Why did this Tirek guy appear just now?" He asked.

But Twilight knew the answer to that. "His time in Tartarus left him very weak. He has just now gained enough strength to use his dark powers. And now he started to steal the magic from other ponies,"

By now, Rainbow Dash got a little bored by this long explanation and decided to speak up. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. There is someone evil who is about to take over all of Equestria and Princess Celestia wants us to kick his behind!" She said determined to get on this job right away.

"Yes!" Applejack said with the same determination as Rainbow Dash. "Just point us in the direction of where this Tirek is and we get at it right away!"

Even though Star Twinkle wasn't looking forward to it, the rest of the group got highly excited to take care of all this, however, Twilight didn't share the same excitement as they did and actually interrupted them in the middle of their cheers. "No!" She said, which caused the group to stop in confusion. "Princess Celestia already has someone who will take care of Tirek," she explained. As soon as everypony asked who that was, Twilight quickly replied and the answer shocked everyone. "Discord..."

A huge gasp could be heard from most of the group, created by shock, confusion and even some disbelieve. "...As in Discord Discord?" Applejack asked confused.

Hearing that message was clearly a big shock for everypony and Star Twinkle just went out and said what he thought about it. "That's a stupid plan," he bluntly said, not even thinking to hold back his words.

But Fluttershy seemed to think else. "I don't think it's that big of a surprise. He can be very helpful,"

"Yeah, but only if he wants to..." Star Twinkle thought. Fluttershy's words were clearly not enough to convince him or anypony else. In fact, they all looked at her in huge disbelieve, much to her surprise.

But since Princess Celestia came up with this idea herself, there was not much to say. It was practically an order. The group decided to listen to Twilight why exactly Discord was the one they were sending to deal with this Tirek. "He can sense when there's a magical imbalance. The next time Tirek steals magic, Discord will be able to track him down!" She explained.

"So what are you supposed to do in the meantime?" Rainbow Dash asked. She was probably looking forward to dealing with this Tirek guy herself.

So was Twilight, judging from the sad expression on her face. "Nothing," she said after a heavy sigh. "Unless of course one of you needs me to smile and wave," she said before she walked away slowly. "I'm going to the Castle of the Two Sisters. I'm not really needed anywhere else. Might as well catch up on some of my reading," she said before she walked into the direction of the Everfree Forest.

Leaving Twilight alone while she was in this mood was probably not a good idea so her friends decided to accompany her. Maybe they would be able to cheer her up this way. Twilight also admitted that she could use some company right now and was happy that her friends decided to join her.

Later, inside the Everfree Forest...

Before the group walked to the castle, they decided to visit another place. The place where the Tree of Harmony was in to be exact. They remembered back how all of Equestria was almost covered with black vines because of this tree. It took the group to give up their Elements of Harmony to stop those vines from growing and letting the tree return to its normal form again.

"I still can't believe we had to give back the Elements," Rainbow Dash said a little bothered after she remembered those events as well.

"I can't believe that my element was the only one that shattered..." Star Twinkle thought. It was really weird that every element seemed to have fit somewhere inside of the tree with the exception of his element. To top it off, his element just shattered into pieces right in front of him.

"It had to be done or the Tree of Harmony wouldn't have survived," Rarity explained.

"But Twilight was right," Fluttershy pointed out. "Even without the Elements, our friendship is as strong as ever,"

Star Twinkle really wanted to believe in those words. But thinking back, it was actually because of the Elements of Harmony that he met his friends. How was he not suppose to connect the elements to his friendship with them? Again, he was the only one who thought about that, as usual. It made him feel bad again. He felt left out, something that he didn't want to. He just wanted to fit in but every time when he wanted to accept things the way they were now something happened that would make him feel the opposite. It was like a bad running gag that kept following him.

The stallion made sure that nopony would notice how he was feeling now and luckily no one seemed to notice since they were worried about something else.

"I just hope another 'friend' of ours never makes us sorry we had to give them up," Applejack said, obviously referring to Discord and how little you could actually trust this Draconequus.

"Oh, you're talking about me, I presume?" The voice of the very same Draconequus asked in amusement as he was landing next to the group with the help of an umbrella.

Needless to say, the group was a little surprised to see Discord here. "Aren't you supposed to find this Tirek guy?" Star Twinkle pointed out since it was actually a pretty big deal for him to stop Tirek instead of being here now.

"Yeah, what are you even doing here, Discord?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Discord explained. "Oh, just a bit of light reading before I head off on my extremely important mission," he said while he pulled out the journal that the group was writing in for a while now.

"Yes...it is important!" Star Twinkle said, while indirectly asking Discord to leave again.

Discord seemed to notice how Star Twinkle wanted him to go away again but he just laughed in amusement. "You're always just a bag of fun aren't you?" He said jokingly. "Seems I possess a magic that gives me quite an important role in Equestria. Maybe they should make me an Alicorn princess," he said while he literally put some fake wings, a horn and a crown on his head while blowing some kisses.

It was like as if you could always count on Discord to make the situation worse. He seemed to know how Twilight was feeling down about her role as a princess and decided to further poke into this wound. And of course, he was the only who thought that this was a laughing matter.

"In your dreams!" Rainbow Dash said before she knocked the crown off from Discord's head.

"Oh, I never dream of such things," he said before he made his horn and wings vanish again. "Ask Princess Luna,"

Again, Applejack pointed out that this is not the right place for Discord to be in. "Don't you have a creepy magic-stealing' villain to track down?"

"Yes, yes, yes, of course," Discord replied while he grabbed everyone in a big group hug and teleported them in front of the Tree of Harmony. "It's just that I couldn't help but notice that Twilight hasn't yet opened this little chest of hers," he said as he referred to the chest that appeared in front of the Tree of Harmony after the elements returned to it. "I-I-It got me thinking, what if what's locked inside is something that could help her prove her royal worth? I only bring it up because she said that she's been feeling like her role as a princess doesn't equate to much,"

While everyone was pretty interested in what was inside of the chest, some of them were more interested in how Discord knew about how Twilight was feeling right now.

"Wait a minute! How do you know how she was feeling?!" Pinkie Pie asked angrily towards Discord.

Discord reacted in surprise. "Oh, my. Is eavesdropping not the way you're supposed to find out what your best pals are up to? Woe is me. Will I ever learn the intricate nuances of being a good friend?" He said melodramatically to make the group feel sorry for him. But as soon as he noticed that it didn't even remotely work, he cleared his throat and took his leave. "Well, in any case, I suppose now is as good a time as any for me to make my exit," he said before he stopped for a moment because he remembered something else that he wanted to say."Oopsie-doopsie, I almost left with the little journal you've all been keeping. What a fascinating read. Haven't you all just learned so much? I've bookmarked a few of the more interesting passages. You really should take a look!" He advised before he returned the book to Twilight and whispered some words towards Fluttershy. "We're still on for tea later, aren't we, Fluttershy?" He asked in excitement.

"I wouldn't miss it," Fluttershy replied happily.

Hearing that made Discord smile. "Well, I'll bring the cucumber sandwiches...!" He said before he made a door appear in midair and walked through it to finally leave the group so that he could take care of Tirek.

"Sometimes I think the 'reformed' Discord is more obnoxious than the 'before-he-was-reformed' Discord," Applejack pointed out.

"I think that's because he is..." Star Twinkle replied with an annoyed look on his face.

"Indeed," Rarity agreed.

But as usual, Fluttershy was the only one who saw the good in the Lord of Chaos and pointed something rather important out. "But he could be right, couldn't he? What if there is something important in that chest?"

Twilight tapped her chin and began to think. "There's only one way to find out," she said.

Star Twinkle had a really good guess what exactly she meant with that and he had to admit that he wasn't really looking forward to it. But he noticed how Twilight was no longer thinking about her role as a princess. She clearly focused on the chest now and forgot about that so the best thing the group could do now, was to continue to find out how to open this chest even if it meant to do some annoying and exhausting stuff.

Later, in the library of the Castle of the two Sisters...

The group flipped through multiple books inside of the castle library. It was just like Star Twinkle imagined. It was incredibly boring and exhausting, not to mention that no one seemed to have found anything even though a lot of time has passed already.

Still, Twilight decided to check if somepony found any clue but all she got were various 'no's. After hearing that, she quickly returned to her own books. "There must be something in this library that can help me figure out how to open it. The answer's in one of these books. I just know it," she said while she flipped through multiple books.

Star Twinkle decided to take a little break and closed the book that he was checking now. He also decided to point something out that had bothered him about this whole search. "I don't know if we will actually find something here..." he said, with some exhaustion speaking out of his voice.

"What do you mean?" Twilight asked confused.

Star Twinkle continued. "I mean...this castle existed for like thousand years, right? But this chest appeared just now a while ago. So...aren't the chances of finding a book that can tell us something about a chest, that just appeared, really low?" He pointed out. Twilight seemed to understand what Star Twinkle was getting at but she didn't want to give up entirely.

Rainbow Dash also didn't like to hear that and got a little annoyed after already wasting some time. "But if there are only books that are a thousand years old, then how are we supposed to find any clue!?" She asked annoyed.

Star Twinkle was quick to answer to that. "Well...there is one book that could help us..." he said before he hinted at the book that he meant. It was the journal in which the group was writing in all the lessons that they learned recently. Twilight didn't really know if it would help but she decided to take a look inside anyway.

"How is our journal gonna help us find an answer?" Applejack wondered.

"Well, call me crazy but..." Star Twinkle started before he explained his reasoning. "Discord said that he marked some pages in it so maybe one or two of them will give us an answer. I'm sure that he clearly knows something about the chest," he explained.

But as expected, his explanation didn't help to convince them too much. "Since you already admitted it, yes you're crazy," Rainbow Dash simply said with a mean look on her face, she probably thought that this was some bad joke.

"I think I found something!" Twilight then said out of nowhere. She seemed to have scanned through the pages the whole time and actually came to a conclusion. "There is actually something interesting about the sections that Discord bookmarked," she said which confirmed Star Twinkle's assumption. He couldn't help but smile at Rainbow Dash, who was just crossing her legs in defeat while she was flying in the air.

Twilight's attention switched towards Applejack. "Applejack, do you remember when you had to tell everypony that the tonic Granny bought from the Flim Flam brothers didn't really work?"

Applejack didn't know what this had to do with the chest but she still answered. "How could I forget? It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I knew I had to be honest. I just knew it," she said after she carefully thought back about that moment.

Star Twinkle could understand how Applejack must have felt right now since he was right there when it happened. Still, she asked what that had to do with the chest since she didn't see the connection at all.

To that, Twilight went out with what she had discovered while reading through the journal. "I've found that each of you has had to face a situation where living up to the Element of Harmony you represent wasn't easy. Fluttershy, it was when you realized that the way to show kindness to the Breezies was by forcing them to leave your home. Rarity, even after Suri took advantage of your generosity at Fashion Week in Manehattan, you didn't let it cause you to abandon your generous spirit. Rainbow Dash, you had the chance to fly with the Wonderbolts at the Equestria Games, but instead, you chose to compete with your friends. Pinkie Pie, you realized that seeing your friend laugh was more important than proving you were a better party planner than Cheese Sandwich,"

The group quickly saw the connection in all of those situations. However, Star Twinkle realized something completely else and wondered if that was connected as well. "Weren't those all the moments in which I began to hear those voices in my head?" He thought before he returned to listen what Twilight was about to say why those events were important for the chest.

"All of you had tough choices to make. But when you made the right one and embraced your element, it helped somepony else make the right choice too. Each of you received something from the pony whose life you helped to change. I know it sounds crazy, but maybe there's something special about those objects that could lead us to the location of the keys. The chest is connected to the Tree of Harmony, the Tree is connected to the Elements, and the Elements are connected to all of us. There must be a connection! I hate to admit it, but maybe Discord was trying to be a good friend after all," Twilight explained.

While listening to all of that explanation, Star Twinkle couldn't help but be curious if those voices in his head were also connected. For him, that seemed to be much more important than that chest.

Twilight asked her friends to gather those objects but Star Twinkle didn't have something like that so he just went to the Tree of Harmony before everypony would arrive there. It gave him time to actually take a good look at the Tree of Harmony. He also remembered back to what happened to his own element and how it shattered as soon as the elements returned to the tree. He was still confused because that happened.

"If Twilight's guess is right then we should be able to get five keys, right? That means there is still one left..." he figured after remembering that the chest has six locks for six keys. So even if Twilight's theory was right, either Star Twinkle or Twilight had to find another object to find the last key. But then again, Star Twinkle should worry about that if Twilight's guess was actually right.

And it was not long until he and the rest of his friends would find that out because the others now arrived with the objects that they got from the ponies that they helped out. It was kinda weird for Star Twinkle because he instantly recognized all the objects that the girls brought.

Rarity brought a spool of rainbow-colored thread that she got from Coco Pommel,
Rainbow Dash brought a golden Wonderbolt pin which she got from Spitfire,
Pinkie Pie brought the rubber chicken that she got from Cheese Sandwich,
Fluttershy brought the flower that she got from Seabreeze,
and Applejack brought the bit that Silver Shill gave her.

They all brought those things closer to Twilight so that she could see a connection between them but she struggled to see one. "I don't see anything on them that would give us a clue as to where the keys might be. They're just... ordinary, everyday objects," she figured.

In the meantime, Pinkie Pie tried to find the solution in her own way. "Come on, Boneless! Give us that key!" She said while she swung the rubber chicken around.

Star Twinkle could only roll his eyes after seeing Pinkie Pie acting like that. "I don't think that is going to do anything..." he commented.

Shortly after, Pinkie Pie accidentally threw the rubber chicken away, right into Star Twinkle's direction, who had to duck to not get hit by it. The rubber chicken actually hit the chest and instead of bouncing back or anything, something weird happened. The rubber chicken was quickly engulfed in a bright light and turned into a golden key, much to the surprise of everyone.

"...Or maybe it does..." Star Twinkle could only say after he saw that happening in front of him.

The rest of the girls then placed all their objects on top of the chest and hoped that something would happen. It didn't take long until those objects turned into golden keys as well and flew right into one of the locks each. The part at the end of every key closely resembled the Cutie Mark of each of the girls, Applejack's key, for example, resembled an apple.

Soon, however, the thing that Star Twinkle expected happened and one key was missing, something that Twilight quickly pointed out as well. "There's still one key missing. That means either my key is missing or..." she said before she looked towards Star Twinkle.

But Star Twinkle had a strong assumption that it was her key that was missing. His Element, shattered, his element was the only one that was still unknown, he figured that there was no way that he would be the one who would find the last key. But instead of saying all of that out loud, Star Twinkle just kept it inside. The others quickly came to the conclusion that the last key will appear eventually so they just had to wait a little longer. Star Twinkle figured that this would be the case as well.

As soon as Spike wanted to cheer the two of them up as well, he suddenly burped up a letter. Twilight quickly opened it and took a look inside of it. "What's it say?" Spike asked.

After taking a look at the content, Twilight got a little stressed out. "That I'm needed in Canterlot at once!" She simply said with some panic in her voice.

The group got quickly worried about that. "What happened?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I don't know..." Twilight replied. "It just said that I have to meet with Princess Celestia,"

"Then you better go and don't let the princess waiting," Applejack suggested.

"Applejack is right," Fluttershy added. "We are short on one key anyway. Let's come back here another time, once we find the last one," she then suggested.

Everyone else quickly agreed with that idea so that Twilight could go to Canterlot now. "You're right," Twilight replied before she spread her wings and prepared herself to leave. "Let's continue some other day," she said before she flew away into the distance and in direction of Canterlot.

Star Twinkle and the rest of his friends waved her goodbye. They also decided to go home now since spending half the day, looking through some books was actually pretty exhausting for some of them.

"Not gonna lie, looking through all those books made me really sleepy," Rainbow Dash said while she stretched her legs in midair. "I'm gonna go and take a good long nap,"

"Agreed!" Spike said before he yawned, after realizing how he was a little sleepy as well.

"It is about to get dark anyway," Fluttershy pointed out.

"Then let's all go home, then!" Applejack suggested before she led the way outside of the Everfree Forest.

However, one pony didn't decide to follow them. Star Twinkle stayed on the spot and had his eyes glued at the chest. He couldn't help but ask himself some questions about it and the keys that are connected to it.

"Are you coming, Star Twinkle?" Pinkie Pie asked while she appeared out of nowhere right next to him, causing him to jump.

"Um...no...I think I will spend some more time in the library..." he explained, much to the others confusion.

They didn't know why he wanted to do that, after all, they already got an answer on how to find the keys for the chest. "Well, count me out then!" Rainbow Dash expressed. "I've seen enough books for today!"

"Don't worry," Star Twinkle replied. "I'll just flip through some pages and then I will go home as well," he assured with a smile on his face.

Even though they didn't seem to understand what exactly Star Twinkle was up to, they decided to leave him at that.

Still, Fluttershy advised him to be careful. "But don't stay here for too long, okay? The forest can be quite dangerous at night," she said out of worry for the stallion.

Star Twinkle took the advice and assured that he would be careful and with that, the girls and Spike left the forest while Star Twinkle made his way back at the castle so that he could find the answer about multiple questions in his head...

Later, inside the castle of the two Sisters...

It was already dark outside and the lights of some candles where the only thing that provided some lights inside the castle library. But Star Twinkle wasn't bothered by the lack of light and just continued to look through the books. The answers that he was looking for were way too important for him to be bothered by something like that.

"Nothing either..." Star Twinkle said after he was done with another book before he threw it away in a corner. He then laid down on the ground after starting to get a little frustrated. What he was looking for was some kind of hint that there was a seventh Element of Harmony. He needed an answer once and for all, there were just too many things that were hinting that there never was supposed to be a seventh Element of Harmony after all.

The chest in front of the Tree of Harmony had six locks for six keys...
There were six open spaces inside the Tree of Harmony in which every Elements of Harmony except Star Twinkle's fitted in...
Princess Celestia didn't know anything about Star Twinkle's element...
And even the Elements of Harmony guide didn't know anything about a seventh element...

Star Twinkle was getting really frustrated about how more and more questions piled up in his head. It's like life itself knew that he was getting frustrated whenever he didn't know the answer to something and just decided to give him more questions on purpose.

If someone would have a look inside of his head and saw all those questions that he kept asking himself then they would surely get annoyed by how often he would ask them, instead of just ignoring them. But that was just impossible for him, and the more he wished he was able to do that, the more he realized that fact.

The stallion just looked at the ceiling with a blank expression on his face. "I'm tired..." he just said as soon as he figured that he was spending quite some time in this library without finding anything useful. Before he knew it, his eyes slowly shut down after reading so many books. "I'll just close them for a while..." he said to himself.

But it was too late. As soon as he closed them, he was already gone and fast asleep. And as usual, he was haunted by some nightmares. But this time they seemed to be a lot tamer. In fact, there was only one sentence that Star Twinkle heard, no pictures, just one sentence...

"I leave them with you..."

On the next day...

Star Twinkle opened his eyes again and noticed that he wasn't waking up inside his bedroom. After rubbing his eyes a little, he figured that he was still inside the Castle of the Two Sisters and that it was already day. He must have slept through the whole night.

The stallion got up on his hooves and stretched himself a little. He quickly noticed how his back felt terrible. "Yep! Sleeping on the ground...not a good idea..." he said as he continued to stretch his body.

He also noticed that the library was quite a mess, though he was not sure if that was caused by him or his friends a while ago. Still, he decided to put away some books to their original place. He actually remembered a good bunch of them and where he got them from, which helped him putting them away again. However, as soon as he was looking for the last spot to put one of his books away, his eyes came across a book that had a rather interesting title on it.

"Wait a minute..." Star Twinkle said as soon as he read the title. Without bothering to put away the other book, Star Twinkle quickly took a look at this book and read out its title. "Early Equestrian History..."

Star Twinkle decided to open the book and took a look at the first page.

"Let's see..." Star Twinkle said as he began reading through the table of contents on the first page. There are things like "The time before Equestria" or "The founding of Equestria" listed. As soon as he read "The founding of Equestria" there was something that he remembered from a few days back. "This one pony that I met in the Crystal Empire...Tinker...he mentioned Starwhite...the pony that I played in the Hearts Warming Play in Canterlot and how he was also able to transform, just like me..."

As soon as he remembered that, Star Twinkle went on ahead to the right site and started to read the part that he was looking for. "Starwhite..." he read out. It was the headline of a longer story that had information about the pony that he played in the Hearts Warming Eve Play. He started to read out a few sentences to find out more about this pony.

"If someone would ask you the question...who were the Founders of Equestria...normally, you would name six names...
Princess Platinum...
Clover the Clever...
Commander Hurricane...
Private Pansy...
Chancellor Puddinghead...
and Smart Cookie...
Those are the names of the leaders of the three ponies tribes and their advisor or second in command.

But there was another pony that appeared in the crucial moments of Equestria's founding, and that pony was the Unicorn Starwhite, a pony that would soon be known to be the first Alicorn in Equestria. However, his sudden appearance and disappearance made it hard to prove that he actually existed in the first place...

...

The three leaders of the Pony tribes, Princess Platinum, Commander Hurricane, and Canceler Puddinghead were known to be on very bad terms with each other which eventually resulted in them to fight time and time again.

It was eventually, Starwhite who asked them to meet on an untouched land to end their fight. Unfortunately, the three pony leaders didn't stop and began to fight over this land which soon resulted the Windigos to appear, ancient creatures who fed off from the hate and fighting of others and create snowstorms. The fighting between the three pony tribe leaders eventually caused them to get frozen and it was only a matter of time until Starwhite, Clover the Clever, Private Pansy, and Smart Cookie would end in the same way.

But instead of the three leaders, those ponies had no reason to fight and the warm friendship that they built soon caused Starwhite to transform from a Unicorn to the first known Alicorn in Equestria. Shortly after, the Fire of Friendship was born and banished the Windigos for good and Equestria was born.

...

After Star Twinkle was done reading that story, he felt weirdly connected to this Starwhite. Obviously, the name was really similar but the fact that this pony's existence was heavily doubted made him very relatable to him. When it comes to Star Twinkle's Element of Harmony, then he sometimes wonders as well if he was supposed to exist at all...

Star Twinkle returned to the first page and looked over it until he found another term that peeked his interest. "The four Knight's of the Princess..." he read out loud before he opened the fitting site of it.

He remembered that term all to clear. The first time he heard it was inside another book from the library of the Crystal Empire. But back then, there was only a single page with information about this so he hoped to find more information this time. At first glance, it actually looked like as if there was more on this site so he started to read the words out loud...

...

"The Knight's of the Princess is the name of four ponies who served the Ruler of Equestria..."

Strangely enough, space where it should say "Princess Celestia" was missing but Star Twinkle could figure as much on his own.

"Not much is known about each individual of them. Legends say, that they protected and tried to maintain a balance of the newfound Equestria. What was widely known, however, is that each of them possessed high abilities that even go beyond magic, like controlling natural forces. Creating tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves or firestorms are only a few things that they were capable of. Another thing they had in common, was that they all possessed the unique ability to transform into..."

Star Twinkle then stopped in mid-sentence as soon as he finished reading the last word and he got a little confused by it. "Alicorns?" He read out loud confused before he continued to read further.

"None of the four knights were Alicorns but each of them could transform into one. Unicorns growing wings, Pegasi growing a horn, and Earth Ponies growing both of them at the same time. An ability like that was never heard of ever again other than in stories about the four knights. Eventually, a name was given to this transformation.
Terra Unisus...
Terra as in Earth and Unisus, the combination of the words Unicorn and Pegasus.
An Earth Pony Unicorn Pegasus...
Because of their ability to transform into Alicorns, they were all too fitting to not only represent the different pony races but they were also accepted by them...
However, the four knights suddenly vanished from Equestria and what happened to them remained unknown, and with that, not much could be figured out about their unique abilities and where they got them from..."

...

Star Twinkle made sure to read everything and he came to the realization that nowhere in this whole text, their names were mentioned. It was just like in that one book in the Crystal Empire.

"Terra Unisus..." Star Twinkle said to himself. "They could transform into Alicorns...just like Starwhite...just like me? But I can't transform into an Alicorn so what is up with that?" He wondered.

In the end, that book didn't give him too many answers but he was still happy that he found it. Maybe the information inside that book would end up being useful some day. But that someday was not now, and now...Star Twinkle just wanted to go home so he decided to walk towards the entrance of the castle. However, as soon as he was almost out, a magical explosion set off right in front of him, something that he never had seen before. He covered his eyes because of the smoke that was created because of it and as soon as the smoke cleared, he could see somepony standing right in the middle of the cloud.

"Wait...Twilight!?" Star Twinkle said, once he saw Twilight standing in front of him surrounded by a weird magical aura, that looked a lot more different than her usual magic aura. It also looked like as if there were magic sparks coming out of here from time to time.

"Finally! It worked!" Twilight said for some reason. She quickly noticed how Star Twinkle was standing next to him and she walked towards the stallion, who was still a little confused by how Twilight looked like as if she was about to explode because of the magic that surrounded her, she was also twitching from time to time, making it really obvious that there was something different about her.

"Are you okay? You look...kinda different...I think..." Star Twinkle said, even though he wasn't completely sure if he was imagining things or not.

But for some reason, Twilight didn't feel like as if she wanted to explain that right away. "Forget that! We got a huge problem!" Was the only thing she said. Star Twinkle was not sure what this was about but judging from the panic on Twilight's face, he knew that he wouldn't like what she was about to say to him...

At the same time in Appleloosa...

"Fresh cider! Come and get some fresh apple cider!" A sales pony shouted through the streets as he tried to sell his apple cider to the ponies on the streets.

Many ponies gathered in front of the ponies stand and bought one cup after another, much to the delight of the sales pony, who happily collected one bit after another. The crowd got smaller and smaller, however, and one certain pony put a bunch of bits on the stand. "How many cups do I get for those?" The next customer asked.

"Whoa! Somepony sure is thirsty!" The sales pony said after he saw the number of bits dropped in front of him.

The pony who was buying the cider quickly lifted the gray hood that he was wearing and revealed his orange coat, his dark red mane, and his purple eyes. "You have no idea..." Summershine said while his tongue was sticking out, probably from some dehydration.

The sales pony quickly prepared a few cups for the Unicorn stallion and he quickly downed one cup after another. "I assume you didn't have anything to drink for quite some time?" The sales pony asked.

"Nope!" Summershine said before he quickly drank another cup as if he feared that it was about to run away from him. Once he finally was done drinking, there was a satisfied smile on his face. "That was good! Thanks!"

"Hey, no proble-" The sales pony was about to say but some screams that came from the other side of the town interrupted him in the middle of his sentence.

The two stallions saw how a bunch of ponies ran towards them and got confused what exactly caused all this. "What is going on here?" Summershine wondered before he walked towards the direction from which most of the ponies came from. Summershine quickly heard laughter coming from the center of the town and he noticed how ponies were dragged away by magic towards the laughter.

There was someone using magic and pulling them towards himself. Summershine had no idea what that creature was. It had four gray coated legs like the ones of a pony but the place where its head was supposed to be, there was a black torso with red arms and a head on top. It almost looked like as if it was a mix of two creatures. This creature also wore a golden triangle shaped necklace and had big gray horns and a nose ring.

Summershine had no idea who that was, but he was clearly the one who was using magic to draw multiple ponies towards him. As soon as one of them got close enough, this creature opened his mouth and absorbed magic right out of this pony. The rest of the ponies who were drawn towards him quickly got afraid because they knew that this was exactly what would happen to them in a few seconds. It also made it worse that this creature was laughing at their despair.

"Yes! I slowly feel how all of my magic slowly returns to me!" He said while he continued to laugh.

But his laughter stopped as soon as a magic beam was fired towards him, causing him to duck under it and losing his focus on the spell that kept the ponies drawn towards him.

Shortly after, Summershine placed himself between the ponies and this creature. "Run!" He said towards the ponies who didn't hesitate to run away into safety. Summershine's eyes quickly turned towards that creature in front of him, who only looked mildly annoyed because of Summershine's interference. "I don't know who you are but I will not let you hurt any more ponies!" He said with an angry look on his face.

But those words of Summershine were not taken seriously at all. "Ha! Yes, you clearly don't know who I am or else you would not dare to say those words! I am Lord Tirek!" The creature introduced itself. "And I don't have the patience to waste my time with little ponies like you!" Tirek said before he used the same spell like before to draw Summershine towards him.

Summershine saw how Tirek was opening his mouth and he knew that he was about to get his magic sucked away, like the one pony from before so he quickly acted and used a teleport spell to get out in time, much to Tirek's surprise.

Summershine appeared behind Tirek and quickly fired a magic beam towards him but Tirek noticed that and quickly turned around. He held his hands up and caught the beam. Shortly after that, he concentrated magic between his horns and a shot a beam towards Summershine.

The stallion managed to dodge out of the way and quickly responded with another shot. This time Tirek ripped a piece of the ground right out of the ground and used it as a shield before he quickly threw that piece of the ground towards Summershine.

Again, Summershine managed to dodge to the side and dropped to the ground but as soon as he got up on his hooves again, Tirek was preparing another attack. He concentrated again some magic between his horns and shortly after, a ball of magic came flying towards the stallion. Once more, Summershine managed to dodge the attack, however, the magic ball caused quite an explosion that caused Summershine to fall to the ground right towards Tirek. Who didn't waste any time and rushed towards the stallion and pinned him down with his two arms, making it unable for Summershine to get out in time.

As expected, Tirek attempted to absorb Summershine's magic again. The stallion couldn't teleport away again since he was way to close to lose his magic now. He fought pretty hard but Tirek seemed to be too strong when it came to magic strength...

...

That is why Summershine couldn't afford to just use magic...

Flames emerged from Summershine and circled around him, creating a vortex of fire that surrounded him. Out of fear of getting burned, Tirek quickly backed away from the pony and kept his distance while watching what was happening in front of him.

"How...interesting..." he commented warily.

In the meantime, Summershine got up on his hooves again and was determined to continue the fight again. He glared at Tirek with a serious expression on his face and stood ready to attack.

However, Tirek was the one who attacked first. He used the same attack as before and shot a magic ball towards Summershine. Instead of dodging again, however, Summershine lifted his front leg and pointed towards Tirek. Shortly after, a beam of fire shot towards Tirek and the fire beam clashed with Tirek's ball, quickly erasing it in its way. Surprised by that outcome, Tirek jumped down to the ground to avoid that attack but before he got up on his hooves again, Summershine was up in the air and shot multiple fireballs towards him, like meteors that came out of the sky.

Tirek got quickly away from all those attacks by simply running away from those attacks but soon a wall of fire blocked his path and kept him from running away any further. He was cornered now. Summershine slowly walked up to Tirek with flames surrounding him. Tirek could only clench his teeth in his frustration and after the realization that he was not strong enough to fight back now.

Summershine prepared a final attack but suddenly, rain came falling down of the sky, or more precisely, out of a cloud that was hovering right over Summershine, much to his confusion. That rain was pouring so strongly that it managed to put out the flames that surrounded Summershine. Soon the rain puddle that was built right under the stallion raised up and trapped him in a ball of water, making him unable to create any flames.

"Oh ho ho ho! I'm sorry, did I just rain on your parade?" Discord said as he appeared right in front of Summershine who was busy enough to get some air in his little water prison.

Tirek, who thought that this was a way too close call, simply walked over to Summershine while he was still trapped in that water bubble and took this moment to absorb his magic. Summershine couldn't do anything to stop that now and his magic was quickly gone. As soon as that was taken care of, Discord quickly made the water bubble disappear and the stallion dropped to the ground helplessly.

"Aren't you glad that I stepped in? It almost looked like as if you were losing there," discord said amused after he obviously watched how Tirek was having trouble.

But Tirek didn't seem to have much tolerance for jokes like that. "We already wasted enough time, let us go to the next town," he said before he led the way out of the town.

Discord was about to follow Tirek but he stopped and looked at Summershine for a brief moment. He rubbed his chin for a second and for once, was a little serious. "Odd...I have the feeling as if something about you is strangely familiar to..."

"Discord!" Tirek said angrily after he noticed how Discord was not keeping up with him.

Out of fear of angering Tirek even more, Discord decided to walk away now, leaving Summershine on the ground without sparing any more words.

The stallion tried his best to get back up on his hooves again but it was impossible. He was too weak and couldn't move. All the magic in his body was gone and he was completely helpless. But despite having almost no energy left, there were still some words that he managed to say before he eventually fell unconscious.

"It's up to you now...Star Twinkle..."

Author's Notes:

The Season 4 Finale started, and as you can see, there are some custom stories inside of it. Hopefully, they are to your liking because I certainly had fun writing them.
There was a lot more...I guess...World Building in this one?
That's good...right?

Let me also remind you that one upcoming Story will cover more backstory of this story. It will be called The Legend of Friendship - Harmony, and I highly suggest you read it if you are genuinely interested in this story.

Other then that, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you look forward to reading the next part.

Let me know what you think so far, I really enjoy reading your reviews.

Also, keep in mind that after Season 4 ends, there will be two stories coming up that are meant to be read after this season.

The first one will be "Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship" which will focus on the second Equestria Girls movie.

The second one is called "The Legend of Friendship - Harmony" which takes place in Ponyville and serves as some kind of backstory to this story.

Make sure to not miss the second one if you want to keep track of some things that will happen in this story ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

90. A Friend from the Past - Part 2

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Appleloosa...

It was only a few minutes later after Lord Tirek was done stealing the magic of the ponies of Appleloosa. Discord, the Lord of Chaos and the one who was supposed to be the one to stop Tirek, decided to betray the ponies of Equestria and actually teamed up with him. Together they set out to steal the magic of everypony in Equestria and eventually rule over it.

All of Equestria would probably end up in a similar state in which Appleloosa was in right now. Ponies laid on the ground unconscious and weakened after their magic was stolen by Tirek. Even Summershine, who fought bravely against him, laid there unconscious in the middle of the road.

There was an almost threatening silence in this town. The only thing that could be heard was the wind that occasionally blew through the streets. It could be heard clearly because there was no other sound in the whole town.

...

Surprisingly, in the middle of this silence, Summershine began to twitch on the ground for a second. Shortly after, he slowly got up on his hooves and grabbed his head, he had a terrible headache and took a few breaths to collect himself again. He then looked around to see where he was or to find out what happened. After that, he was looking at his hoof as if he wanted to confirm something.

He didn't say a single word but he slowly formed a smile on his face before he covered his face with his gray hood again. He walked forward and started to head out of town all while having a sinister smile on his face that could even be seen after he put on his hood along with his eyes...which no longer had their usual purple color but instead...were now red...

In the Castle of the Two Sisters...

"He did what!?" Star Twinkle exclaimed in shock after Twilight explained the whole situation to him.

Twilight nodded with a heavily bothered expression on her face. "Yes...Discord sided with Lord Tirek...and right now they are stealing magic from all the ponies in Equestria..." she explained further.

Star Twinkle clenched his teeth as soon as he heard that. "I knew we couldn't trust this guy! The first chance he gets to drive Equestria in chaos again, he forgets all about being our..."friend"," he said angrily, while he had a hard time calling Discord a friend in the first place. "What now?" He asked after he realized that things would only get much harder from this point on for everyone.

"Well..." Twilight started before she continued to explain the situation further. "Princess Celestia realized that it would only be a matter of time until Tirek would get powerful enough. Once he would be done stealing the magic of everypony else, his next goal should be going after the princesses and their Alicorn Magic so..." she explained before she stopped in mid-sentence for some reason.

"So?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"So..." Twilight replied before she stopped again. Star Twinkle could feel how she was probably asked to help them in some kind of way and that it pressured her. But she finally went out with it and explained what Princess Celestia and the other princesses had done. "Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Cadance gave up their magic and entrusted it to me," she said while a magic aura showed up around her as if she wanted to show Star Twinkle the result of that action.

"What!?" Star Twinkle asked in a shock. "You have all the magic of the princesses inside of you?" He asked in order for Twilight to confirm this.

Twilight nodded in response. "Yes and I want you to keep it a secret from the others," she then said, much to Star Twinkle's confusion, who had no idea what that would accomplish. "I was actually told to not tell anypony about this so that nopony else would be put in danger but...I just had to tell this to somepony,"

"So it's okay to put me in danger, huh?" Star Twinkle thought while not being really sure how to feel about that. "But wait..." Star Twinkle said after he realized something else. "...with Discord on his side, I think it will only be a matter of time until Tirek will find you," Star Twinkle pointed out.

"I know..." Twilight replied. "That is why I need to learn to properly control all this new magic. As you might notice, I have some slight problems to maintain all this magic inside my body,"

"Yes...I noticed..." Star Twinkle said before he pointed upwards. Unbeknownst to Twilight, there were a bunch of candle holders levitating right above her head. Twilight reacted in surprise and focused, the candle holders then slowly levitated safely back on the ground. Having so much magic inside of you seemed to be much harder to control then any of those two expected if even Twilight couldn't keep in check of her own magic. "Alright then...just tell me how I can help and-"

"No," Twilight quickly interrupted. "I have to do this on my own,"

"What!? Why?" Star Twinkle asked. "I know that I'm not that good when it comes to magic but there has to be something that I can do!"

"No, Star Twinkle!" Twilight repeated, this time a little more annoyed. "The princesses entrusted me with their magic and believed that I could stop Tirek. I know that it will be hard but I am a princess too! I need to prove that I am worthy to be called one! It is up to me now to defeat Tirek!"

"What is she talking about!?" Star Twinkle thought, even though he wished that he would have said it out loud instead. He wanted to talk some more with Twilight but she decided to fly away without a word. While doing that, she created a shockwave that threw Star Twinkle off from his hooves. It was most likely caused because of the magic inside of her that was running wild without her noticing it. When Star Twinkle got back up on his hooves, he looked up at the ceiling and saw a hole in it. It was probably created by Twilight without her noticing it.

The stallion couldn't deny that Twilight must have been really powerful right now but still, deciding to do all this on her own made Star Twinkle's concern grow a little. He couldn't help but think that her plan wasn't the best thing that could be done now.

Later...

Star Twinkle left the Castle of the Two Sisters and walked through the roads of Ponyville. Twilight didn't want any help so there was nothing for him left to do except waiting for her to take care of the situation.

But that didn't mean that he couldn't complain about it. "Why does she have to be so stubborn every time when Equestria's safety is at stakes? It's exactly like back then when we first visited the Crystal Empire..." he mumbled to himself. He was sure that there could be something else to do in this situation. "But then again...if Tirek is absorbing all the magic in Equestria, who knows how strong he will be? And if he teamed up with Discord then he will only be more dangerous to deal with,"

Star Twinkle soon figured out that there was probably nothing that he could do to help. He certainly wasn't as strong as Discord, no one really was. And Tirek, after stealing the magic of the ponies from Equestria, was most likely really strong as well. "Am I just supposed to wait here until things are taking care of? It almost seems like I have no choice," Star Twinkle concluded. He was actually a little relieved that he didn't have to put himself in danger but he also didn't want Twilight to take care of everything and possibly putting herself in danger.

"Hey, Star Twinkle!" Pinkie Pie said, who was waiting with her friends in the middle of the road.

As soon as they noticed Star Twinkle, they walked up to him. This immediately made Star Twinkle nervous because he had to keep himself from telling them about Discord's betrayal. They would probably not be too surprised about with the exception of Fluttershy who would be heartbroken. Unfortunately, they just happen to ask him the question that he didn't want to hear.

"Have you seen Twilight?" Fluttershy asked.

"She was away for a long time after being called to Canterlot after all," Rarity added.

"Yeah, um..." Star Twinkle replied before he struggled to continue due to him trying to find a way to tell them that he didn't speak with Twilight yet.

Luckily, something happened that quickly took the attention away from him. It was Twilight, who was flying past the group in high speed, much to everyponies confusion who just stood there with their mouths open after they saw how Twilight was flying so fast that she made the clouds around her vanish due to the shockwave that she created by simply flying past them.

"Did you all just see that!?" Applejack asked in her confusion.

"Was that Twilight?" Rainbow Dash added, who was heavily confused as well.

The group then followed Twilight and Star Twinkle was right behind them. He figured that it would be best to pretend he didn't know what was going on with Twilight unless she would give it away herself.

Soon, Twilight landed, or rather crashed into the ground, sliding on it for a few seconds due to the speed that she was flying with. Twilight herself seemed rather shocked how fast she was flying and how she managed to land without getting herself hurt too much.

As soon as her friends walked up to her, however, they started to get worried. "Oh, my goodness, are you all right?" Fluttershy asked concerned.

"Jumpin' junebugs, Twilight! When did you learn to fly that fast?" Applejack immediately asked.

Twilight was still shaking from time to time. There was no way that she had her magic under control. Something that hopefully no one would notice at this very moment. "I must have caught a particularly strong breeze..." Twilight explained before she accidentally teleported herself from one spot to another. "...or something," she added.

Even though her behavior was more than weird and suspicious, no one seemed to bring it up, much to Twilight's relief.

"Must have been "or something", because there wasn't any breeze up there," Rainbow Dash pointed out. It almost sounded as if she felt challenged after seeing Twilight flying this fast.

As expected, Twilight played dumb after all those questions were asked to her. "I don't know what happened, but I don't really have time to figure it out right now," she said.

The group noticed how Twilight must have still been a little worried about Tirek and they offered to cheer her up while Discord takes care of him. "Another visit to the Castle of the Two Sisters, I presume?" Rarity guessed. "We'd be more than happy to accompany you!" She suggested to which the rest of her friends were quickly agreeing to this idea.

But Twilight quickly refused. "Not today!" She said accompanied by some electric crackles that came out of her. "Tirek may still be a threat. I need you all to stay here and encourage everypony to remain inside," Twilight suggested.

"Yes, that makes sense..." Applejack replied. "After all, who knows how long our "friend" will take to deal with Tirek," she added with a lot of mistrust in her voice.

As soon as Fluttershy overheard that, she went on ahead and defended Discord. "I'm sure Discord will catch Tirek and this will all be over soon," she said with a positive attitude on her face.

But those words were not enough to change any one's mind, especially not Star Twinkle's since he already knew that one could definitely not trust Discord. He wanted to tell everypony the truth really badly but Twilight was looking at him from time to time as if she wanted him to remember the promise that he made to her. He had no choice but to keep quiet about all this.

"It still won't hurt to warn everypony," Star Twinkle then said.

The group agreed to that and split up. Star Twinkle and Twilight were the last ones left and Twilight took this opportunity to talk with the stallion again. "I know that you think that what I'm doing is not the best idea but just give me a little more time," she said in hope that Star Twinkle wouldn't be mad at him.

Star Twinkle had mixed feelings about those words and chose not to get too much into detail about what he thought. "You go and try to control your magic, We will take care here," he said before he walked away from her.

Twilight did as Star Twinkle said and flew away to somewhere where she wouldn't be bothered and could train her magic. If her plan was supposed to work, then they had no choice but to do what they could do now. And in Star Twinkle's case, that was warning everypony in town.

Later, in front of the Iron Hammer...

"So you want me to stay inside because this Tirek is stealing all the magic from the ponies of Equestria? And that he is about to come here next?" Steel Hammer asked in order to confirm the information that he got from Star Twinkle.

"I don't know if he comes here next but he is still on the loose and there is could be a chance that he will come here eventually," Star Twinkle explained. "Don't worry, we are working on a solution already, in order to prevent that though," he added in order to calm Steel Hammer down.

But Steel Hammer's response confused Star Twinkle. "I'm not worried," he said casually.

"Really?" Star Twinkle replied with a confused expression on his face.

"Yeah," Steel Hammer said almost instantly. "You just said it, right? That things are being taken care of and all. I bet that includes you, your friends and Princess Twilight," he guessed.

"Yeah...kinda..." Star Twinkle said, even though now it was only Twilight left to deal with Tirek since the other princesses gave their magic to her and Discord betrayed them. Star Twinkle, of course, didn't inform Steel Hammer about that but he was still curious about why Steel Hammer was so calm.

Steel Hammer smile and then explained. "Then there is no reason to get worried. I mean, you and your friends always take care of things when Equestria is in danger. Those vines that appeared out of the ground, those ponies who captured the princesses, the wedding in Canterlot, the Storm Wings, Discord, Nightmare Moon, and even that one thing before that..." Steel Hammer listed before he then stopped while having a confused look on his face.

"Before that?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Steel Hammer seemed to be confused and scratched his head. "I...seem to have problems remembering the last one...but anyway, what I'm trying to say is, whenever there is something wrong in Equestria, the day will be saved because you and your friends worked together!" He said while he continued to smile confidently. "I actually feel quite safe with you around," he added while he formed a grin on his face.

Star Twinkle was glad that Steel Hammer was thinking like that but he was not getting influenced by it, no matter how much he wanted to, especially since he knew more details about the whole situation. "I don't do anything special...I'm sure that my friends would have found a way to save the day without me as well," Star Twinkle said.

"Don't play yourself down like that!" Steel Hammer said almost offended to hear Star Twinkle talking like that. "Believe me, I know how you can be. You are lazy, grumpy, and you always doubt yourself. And yes, you can transform but your magic is not as strong as Princess Twilight's and you are not nearly as fast of a flyer then Rainbow Dash. Also, I'm pretty sure Applejack is physically stronger than you," he said, causing Star Twinkle to feel a little confused. He didn't quite know if all those things were meant to cheer him up because they certainly didn't but he still continued to listen and luckily, Steel Hammer decided to get to the point. "What I'm trying to say is, you don't have to be strong. All you need to do is doing the things that you can do to help. Maybe they are just little and at first, insignificant things for you but even those things can help and make a big impact on the overall picture,"

Star Twinkle started to see what Steel Hammer wanted to say and he had to admit that he actually was quite impressed to hear those words from him. "Wow..." he just said impressed. "Those words...actually made me feel a little better," he admitted.

Steel Hammer raised his chest proudly. "I do have my moments from time to time,"

With all that said, Steel Hammer went inside of his workshop and stayed there until things would be taken care of. Star Twinkle decided to meet up with his friends again after being done telling some ponies to get inside their houses. As he was back on his way to meet his friends, Star Twinkle was beginning to think about the words of Steel Hammer. "Doing the things that I can do, huh?" He mumbled to himself. "But Twilight just won't allow me to help her...so how can I help her then?" He wondered.

But then suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted as soon as he heard screams coming from not too far away. He recognized those screams, it was his friends. The stallion quickly hurried towards those screams and what he saw surprised him. His friends were inside a cage and in front of this cage were Discord and some other creature. As soon as he saw that, Star Twinkle hid behind the wall of a building, it looked like no one realized he was there yet.

Star Twinkle's eyes were focused on the creature next to Discord. It was a rather large creature who was almost twice as big as Discord. This creature had a black coated lower body that resembled the one of a pony. But at the spot where the head of a pony was supposed to be, there was a red-skinned torso coming out of it with the creature's head on top of it and two muscular arms on the sides. It almost looked like a mix of two different creatures. On top of this creatures head, there was also a pair of horns coming out of it. At first sight, this creature looked rather terrifying and dangerous.

"You've gathered up all of them?" The creature then asked towards Discord.

Discord took a closer look at the cage and quickly noticed something missing. "No. It looks as if Star Twinkle is missing," he then said.

As soon as his name fell, Star Twinkle got nervous and made sure that his head didn't stick out too much so that he wouldn't get caught.

"Star Twinkle?" The creature responded.

"Yes," Discord replied. "Earth Pony, light green coat, dark green star-shaped mane, terrible sense of humor...but don't worry Tirek! I'm sure having most of her friends should be enough!"

As soon the name Tirek fell, Star Twinkle immediately got scared. Of course, the creature next to Discord was Tirek, the one who was stealing the magic of everypony in Equestria. This was bad because Twilight probably didn't spend enough time to train her magic properly. It was way too early for that. At least that's what Star Twinkle thought.

While Star Twinkle was still thinking about what to do, Tirek continued his work and lifted the cage up. He then opened his mouth and inhaled, and in the process sucked the magic right out of everyone inside of it. As soon as that was over, he dropped the cage down on the ground again and Star Twinkle's friends were lying inside of it, weakened and unable to even get up on their hooves.

Seeing that only made it worse for Star Twinkle. Tirek absorbed their magic just like that, there was no telling how powerful he was now and on top of that, Discord was standing next to him and he was no pushover as well. He was thinking about jumping in there to do something but with enemies like that, there was no way that he could do something now. All he could do in this situation was to watch.

"You really think she'd do anything for them?" Tirek asked Discord.

"If Twilight has magic to give, it will be yours," Discord replied. By now it was obvious that they must have known what the princesses did to Twilight. They were after the Alicorn Magic that was now inside Twilight. "Soon there won't be a Pegasus, Earth pony or unicorn who will be able to stand up against us," Discord added while he was already ahead to imagine himself on top of Equestria.

But Tirek seemed to have other plans. "Us? Who said anything about us?" He replied.

Discord was surprised to hear that. "You did," he said.

To that, Tirek explained. "You've helped me grow strong, you've provided the means by which I can obtain Princess Twilight's magic, and now you are no longer of any use to me," he said before he did the same thing to Discord that he did to Star Twinkle's friends, he opened his mouth and sucked out all the magic of Discord, growing even bigger and presumably more powerful after taking away the magic of the Lord of Chaos.

Discord, soon dropped on the ground and was weakened just like the others. He took a hold of a triangle-shaped golden necklace around his neck, which Star Twinkle only noticed he was wearing just now. "But you said this was a sign of your gratitude and loyalty. A gift from someone close to you," he said, which was probably hinting at how he got the necklace.

"My brother who betrayed me," Tirek responded. "It is as worthless as he is," he added before he walked away from the scene to probably look for Twilight now.

Star Twinkle could only watch those events unfolding right in front of him and began to shake. "No..." was the only thing he could say. "What am I doing!? What can I do!?" He said in a panic. He felt helpless. Tirek was about to go to Twilight to take away her magic as well and all Star Twinkle could do was to let it happen. Tirek was even stronger than Discord and if Star Twinkle decided to take on him, then there wouldn't even be a fight. Nothing he could do now would change a thing.

...

As soon as those words resonated inside Star Twinkle's head, he remembered the words that he heard from Steel Hammer. He quickly took inspiration from them. "Even small and insignificant things can make a change. I have to do what I can do..." he said to himself before he grabbed more confidence from those words alone. "There is something I can do!" He then said before he walked away to put the plan he had in motion.

Later...

A little further away from Ponyville, Tirek was walking around a plain grass field. He seemed to have gathered enough magic to make out where Twilight was right now and wasted no time to look for her. As soon as would reach her, however, things would probably end badly for Twilight since Tirek gathered a whole lot of magic to probably even overpower her. That is something that had to be prevented at all costs, this much did Star Twinkle know. That is why he decided to do the one thing that he could do now.

"Tirek!" Star Twinkle screamed, causing Tirek to stop on his way to turn around and see who was saying his name.

Star Twinkle was standing in the middle of the field and looked straight at Tirek with a serious expression on his face. But no matter how serious the stallion was looking at him, Tirek only gave him a confused look. "Light green coat and a dark green star-shaped mane," he mumbled to himself. "You are the last one of Princess Twilight's friends..." he quickly figured.

"Yes! And I know what you did to my other friends!" Star Twinkle said.

Tirek only laughed after hearing that. "And still you stand right in front of me? Pretty reckless of you," he said amused. "Unless...you came to tell me where to find Princess Twilight?"

Star Twinkle kept a straight face and quickly replied. "Yes!" He said before he pointed towards the right, which was away from Ponyville. "She said she was going to another town that is in this direction," he straight out lied directly in Tirek's face.

But Tirek saw quickly through that since he knew that Twilight was in the exact opposite direction, thanks to his magic. "You are lying," he simply said with a serious expression on his face.

Star Twinkle widened his eyes and began to sweat. All he wanted to do was buying some time for Twilight to control her magic but that plan failed quicker than he expected. He couldn't help but laugh in his frustration. "Well...so much for that..."

Then, in an instant, Star Twinkle transformed into his Unicorn form and shot a magic blast right at Tirek. Even though Tirek was a little surprised to see an Earth Pony transforming into a Unicorn, he still easily managed to catch the magic beam with his hand and literally crushed it. The stallion continued to shoot multiple beams at Tirek but each of them was stopped with ease. Tirek actually seemed rather amused to see the stallion struggle at this very moment.

Star Twinkle was shocked. Of course, he knew that he was no match for Tirek but this wasn't even a match. This was as far away from a match than it could possibly be. Without wasting any more energy, Star Twinkle decided to transform back again and gave up. There was nothing that he could do anymore but still, he managed to buy some time for Twilight, even if it was only a few seconds. He could easily smile while Tirek was walking towards him to suck out his magic as well.

"I did what I could...now it's up to you Twilight..." Star Twinkle said while he closed his eyes to prepare himself to get his magic taken away from him.

But then...

A magical explosion set off from not too far away, causing both Star Twinkle and Tirek to look towards it. There was something flying towards them at high speed, leaving a purple trail behind it. The trail almost hit Tirek, who managed to duck under it in time, even though he was widely surprised at what it was. Soon that something landed right in front of Star Twinkle, causing another small magic explosion. Star Twinkle recognized how something similar happened before and he then realized what it was.

Soon, both Star Twinkle and Tirek could what was in front of them. It was the only one who could stop Tirek now...the only one who could save Equestria...Twilight.

Star Twinkle could not even put in words how relieved he was to see Twilight now. However, as much as he wanted to tell her how the situation had changed a little, Tirek didn't waste any time to say what he was here for.

"You have something that belongs to me, Princess Twilight. And You're going to give me what I want!" He said before he opened his mouth in an attempt to steal Twilight's magic.

Of course, Star Twinkle immediately knew that this was going to happen. "Watch out! He is trying to steal your magic!" He quickly said.

Twilight instantly reacted to that and used her magic to teleport Star Twinkle and her away from there. Star Twinkle first had to process what happened since it was all happening so quickly but he soon realized that he was on the balcony of the Golden Oak Library along with Twilight. Star Twinkle quickly got up on his hooves tried to explain how Tirek had now Discord's magic inside of him but Twilight looked through the telescope that was next to her.

Shortly after, she screamed. "Watch out!" She simply said.

"For wha-" Star Twinkle replied before he saw a big ball of magic flying right towards him and Twilight.

Star Twinkle was a little overwhelmed about what to do in this situation but luckily Twilight was the one who knew what to do. She used a spell to teleport out of there however, it was really close. In fact, Star Twinkle was only a few meters away from getting caught into the explosion that was caused by Tirek's attack. All he knew was that he was falling on the ground with Twilight and Owlowiscious being not too far away from him. She must have managed to get a hold of Owlowiscious while also teleporting herself and Star Twinkle out of there and get into safety.

Bad sadly, the same thing couldn't be said about the Golden Oak Library. All that was left was half of the treehouse in which Twilight lived. It was completely destroyed, books laid on the ground burning just like the library itself. It was beyond rescuing now.

Twilight released Owlowiscious and looked at the library in shock. She got really sad after taking a look at it. Star Twinkle put a hoof on the mare to comfort her but she quickly turned around and looked at Tirek who was slowly walking towards her.

"I need to take him away from Ponyville or else there will be nothing left of it," she said as she walked forward.

Star Twinkle was about to offer his help but he only looked at her with a frown. "I suppose you don't want my help, huh?" He said before he scratched the back of his neck. "I mean...it's not like I would be much of a help but..."

But Twilight interrupted her in the middle of his sentence. "I was wrong..." she said, much to the surprise of Star Twinkle. "I appreciate how you offer your help, I really do. But I'm afraid, right now, I am the only one who can stop Tirek," she explained as she turned around to the stallion with a smile on her face.

There was really no point in arguing with her. He knew that he would only be in the way and that he couldn't help her now. Her words didn't make it easier for him to accept it but he eventually decided to leave everything up to her. "Just promise me to be careful," he said with a slight smile of trust on his face.

Twilight returned a smile and then focused her sight back on Tirek. "Don't worry, I don't intend to lose!" She said while she spread her wings and put on a determined expression on her face.

Tirek noticed the determination on Twilight's face and stood ready to see what she was about to do. Twilight teleported away from the spot and appeared a few meters away in the air, right in front of Tirek. She then fired a magic beam right at him. The beam was huge, Star Twinkle's jaw dropped as soon as he saw the amount of magic that she was firing at Tirek. All Tirek could do was to use his arms to protect himself. However, Twilight concentrated even more magic and the beam grew even bigger, pushing away Tirek in the process and changing the landscape until it all ended in a big explosion.

Star Twinkle couldn't believe what he was seeing in front of him. He dropped down on his knees with a mix of amazement and shock. "Amazing!" Was all he could say.

Unfortunately, the battle was not over yet. Tirek managed to teleport himself away before the magic explosion set off and appeared as if this attack didn't do anything to him. Even despite being attacked by something like that, he put on a smile. "Now I see what your fellow princesses have done," he said with some excitement for the upcoming battle.

Twilight prepared her next attack and flew towards Tirek. This time, however, Tirek attacked as well and shot a magic beam at Twilight. Luckily, she managed to put on a shield in the meantime and teleported away and right in front of Tirek, shooting another beam right in his face. But Tirek managed to catch the beam with his hand and pulled it away from him.

Shortly after, a magic aura surrounded Twilight. It was Tirek's magic this time. He lifted Twilight up in the air and swung her right towards the nearest mountain. Twilight screamed on her way to the mountain but luckily she managed to raise another shield around her that prevented her from taking much damage.

It looked as if Twilight could catch a short breath but in the distance, there was already Tirek jumping right towards her. He jumped at her with so much force, that they both came out of the other side of the mountain. Twilight didn't seem to be hurt due to the shield around her and quickly countered by teleporting herself above Tirek and shooting another beam at him, making him crash on the ground. To make sure that he wouldn't get up so quickly again, Twilight followed with another magic beam, making Tirek actually groan.

Twilight landed on the ground and appeared right next to Twilight however, without a scratch. Twilight realized by now that this battle could take a little longer than she originally expected and prepared herself to continue.

During all this time, Star Twinkle watched the two fighting. He was at the loss of words and still sat on the ground unable to do anything but watching them. "This battle is just crazy!" He said. "And all I can do is sit here and wait for Twilight to defeat Tirek. There is no way that I can even remotely do something to help there!" It was really frustrating to just sit there and watch without any way to help but looking at how the battle went so far, it actually looked as if Twilight had a good chance of winning. Knowing that, Star Twinkle started to put all his trust in Twilight. "She will win!" He said in order to convince himself. "She will defeat Tirek and save all of Equestria...I just know it!" Star Twinkle said before he continued to watch the battle unfold in front of him, hoping that Twilight will be victorious.

...

While the battle continued, Star Twinkle was completely unaware of how some hoof steps were coming close to him. That was to be expected by all the explosions that set off in the distance. Eventually, Star Twinkle noticed how someone was walking up to him from behind and he turned around. He was a little confused after he noticed somepony whose body was covered by a gray hood.

The pony stopped walking towards him and just stood there, looking at Star Twinkle under the gray hood. There was an awkward silence between the two of them which was only interrupted by the explosions that came from the battle not too far away.

Despite not knowing why this pony appeared in front of him, Star Twinkle advised the pony to be careful. "You should go inside somewhere!" He advised. "There is a battle going on here and there is no telling if it is safe here or not,"

But the pony under the hood didn't seem to be bothered and only looked over to the battle before he finally spoke his first words.

"Judging from strong Princess Twilight is now, Princess Celestia seemed to have given her the magic of all the princesses in order to fight off Tirek," he said with a pretty calm voice, despite the situation that was going on not too far away. "It's really sad to see all the magic of Equestria being used for destruction like that," he added as he shook his head in disappointment.

Star Twinkle had no idea what this was all about but he got a little offended that this pony was talking about the situation like that. "Princess Twilight is trying to protect the ponies of Equestria! If Tirek manages to get a hold of her magic, then it will all be over!"

The hooded pony focused his sight on Star Twinkle again. "It doesn't matter who wins. All their strength combined is nothing compared to the power of the Elements of Harmony. I need to make sure that I will get a hold of them. Right now there are only Princess Twilight and Tirek who could be in my way but once I get the Elements of Harmony in my possession, I can make sure to secure Equestria's future!" The pony then lifted his hood and revealed his face to Star Twinkle. "That is why I need you, Star Twinkle!" He said with a sinister smile on his face.

The pony under the gray hood was a Unicorn stallion with a dark orange coat, a combed up red mane, and red eyes.

Those words about the Elements of Harmony confused Star Twinkle a little. On top of that, the expression on the stallion's face was telling him that he wasn't here to just talk peacefully with him. "Who are you?" Star Twinkle eventually asked, however, he could swear that he saw that pony before. "Wait...you are..." he said after he remembered that time where Princess Luna was in his dreams. The door that was leading to his memories in his dreams was empty but the only thing that was inside of it was this very pony that stood in front of him now. Still, that didn't explain who that pony was and what he wanted from Star Twinkle.

But the pony in front of him wasn't done talking to him. "Now don't make this to difficult and just give me the other half of the Elements of Harmony!" He said as he walked towards Star Twinkle.

By now, Star Twinkle was taking a few steps back. He knew that this pony was bad news for some reason and he didn't trust him one second. "I don't know what you are talking about...but if it is the Elements of Harmony that you are looking for, then I'm afraid, you're too late," he said in order to get out of this without the means of a fight. The pony in front of Star Twinkle was a little confused after hearing that so Star Twinkle decided to get a little more into detail. "Me and my friends have given up the Elements of Harmony! My element even shattered right in front of me!"

The hooded pony was silent for a moment. He was clearly not too happy to hear this but he also realized that Star Twinkle didn't exactly know what was going on. "If that is so, then why can I still sense the elements inside of you?" He asked.

"Inside of me?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

The hooded pony began to smile. "Don't think I didn't know what your friends did back then. That little attempt to keep the elements save...that little attempt to make you the new sixth element..." he continued, confusing Star Twinkle more and more. "That attempt to make you the new Element of Friendship,"

As soon as that last sentence was said, Star Twinkle got more confused than ever before. "The Element of Friendship?" He asked in confusion.

"Yes," the hooded pony replied. "But in the end, all they did was to split the Elements of Harmony in half. I still have the other one and I need your half back again!" He said in a little more aggressive tone now.

"Wait! I don't understand! Who are they!? And what do you know what I don't!?" Star Twinkle asked in an attempt to get some answers.

But the stallion was done talking with him. "I wasted enough time! Give me the elements now!" He said as he started to focus some magic in his horn, creating a red aura that surrounded it.

Star Twinkle knew that he wouldn't get any answers now and decided to stand ready to battle. For that, he transformed into his Unicorn form. Seeing that seemed to have caught the pony in the gray hood off guard. He widened his eyes as soon as he saw Star Twinkle transforming like that.

"Terra Unisus!?" The pony said confused. "When did you learn to do that!?" He asked.

In the middle of this confusion, Star Twinkle decided to fire a magic beam at the pony. The attack was quickly blocked by a shield spell that the pony raised in front of him. Star Twinkle was shocked that his attack was blocked but he still continued to fire at the stallion. While having a shield in front of him, the stallion walked slowly towards Star Twinkle.

Star Twinkle, while firing at the pony looked at Twilight and her own battle. He figured that it would be the best to ask her for help but at the same time, he couldn't afford to bother her now. His interfering could possibly make her lose the battle. Right now, Star Twinkle had to deal with that pony in front of him on his own. Or at least, buy some time until somepony would help him.

Star Twinkle decided to go with the second option and transformed into his Pegasus form. This once more confused the pony in the gray hood. After spreading his wings, Star Twinkle flew up in the air and left the area. All the hooded pony could do was looking after him as Star Twinkle flew over the roofs of Ponyville.

"...He must have learned to do that back then...but...this transformation..." the pony mumbled to himself after he came to a realization. "It's not complete..."

In the meantime, Star Twinkle was flying away from that pony. He decided to flew over the houses in order to shake that pony off. He had no time to deal with him and it also looked as if Star Twinkle wasn't really a match for him. All he could do was to buy some time until Twilight was finished with Tirek, she would be more than capable to deal with him.

"Who was that?" Star Twinkle asked himself. "He seemed to know who I was. And I have the feeling that I should know who that was as well..." he said as he remembered back how he saw that pony behind the door that Princess Luna showed him, the door that was supposed to lead to his memory. He was the only thing behind that door. "What does all that mean?" Star Twinkle wondered as he thought about all those things.

Then suddenly, a magic beam was shot at the stallion from behind. Luckily, it missed Star Twinkle but it still managed to get him quite startled and he looked back to see what it was, even though he had a pretty good guess what or who it was. But what he saw quite shocked him. The pony was right behind him...in the air. "He can fly!?" Star Twinkle said in shock after he saw the pony behind him flapping a pair of wings under the gray hood while also charging another magic beam in his horn. "And he can use magic at the same time!? But that means-" But before Star Twinkle could finish this sentence, the pony fired another beam at him and Star Twinkle had to dodge.

Star Twinkle decided to dive down to the streets while flying only a few hooves above the ground. Multiple shots were fired at Star Twinkle, all of them missed their mark so far. The green pony did his best to fly between the buildings and inside the alleys to make it harder for the pony to hit him.

But Star Twinkle made a mistake and ended up in a dead-end. He tried to fly upwards but a beam of magic was shot at him and he fell to the ground in pain. The pony in the gray hood was right behind him and slowly walked up to the stallion. Star Twinkle was about to give up now, that pony didn't look as if he was giving up any time soon so a fight was meaningless.

"What does he want from me? He said he wants half of the Elements of Harmony?" Star Twinkle thought after he saw the pony walking up to him with a serious expression on his face. He was about to give up but then he heard explosions in the far distance that seemed to have woken him up again. "That's right...Twilight is fighting right now...she is fighting to protect all of Equestria..." he thought as he started to get up on his hooves again. He remembered once more the words that Steel Hammer said to him and they gave him a lot more confidence and courage. "I don't know who that pony is...but I have the feeling that I can't let him win this...I have to do what I can do!" He thought while he transformed back to his Unicorn form, readying his magic. "No matter how small the impact will be!"

What followed was a magic beam that was shot straight at the hooded pony. Star Twinkle decided to put all his remaining strength into this one blast, in hope that it would do something against the stallion in front of him. That was all he could do now, that was his last attempt to fight back, his last attack.

...

And it didn't do a thing...

The hooded pony raised his hoof in front of him and a blast of fire came shooting out in front of him. The fire blast instantly overpowered the beam that Star Twinkle shot at him and Star Twinkle was knocked back by the flames right towards the wall behind him before he then dropped on the ground.

After that was done, the stallion walked up towards Star Twinkle until he was standing right in front of him. "Looks like you can't use Terra Unisus Magic...not that I expected that...after all your transformation is, for some reason, incomplete,"

Star Twinkle couldn't care less what that pony was talking about now. He was in too much pain to even raise his head properly. All he could see was that pony standing right in front of him. But the question was...what would come next.

"Let's get this over with..." the pony in the gray hood said before he concentrated his magic.

Star Twinkle quickly found himself unable to move. In fact, he felt even weaker now. Magic started to flow right out of Star Twinkle and right towards the pony in front of him. No matter how much he struggled through, Star Twinkle wasn't able to get out of this spell. "Somepony...help me!" He thought. "Any...one..." But there was no way that he could be saved now in time. Unless there was a miracle that would save him now.

Then almost on cue, as if his thought were heard, a huge explosion set off in the distance, big enough that it could even be seen from the very alley that the two stallions were in now. The pony in the gray hood looked back in surprise and saw a bright light that was getting brighter by the second. But that wasn't the case. What really happened was, that it was getting closer.

Like a giant shockwave, the light came flying right towards the two ponies. The spell that trapped Star Twinkle was canceled and the pony in the gray hood started to scream in panic while grabbing hold of his head.

It could be just Star Twinkle's imagination, especially after he was trapped in a spell a few seconds ago but for some reason, he felt refreshed. He quickly got up on his hooves and wondered what just happened but at the same time, he was also confused about what was happening to the pony in front of him.

The stallion continued to scream in pain but he also seemed as if he wanted to fight it. "No! I won't let you!" He screamed. Shortly after, he seemed to have calmed down again. He looked at Star Twinkle with a stressed-out expression on his face. For some reason, the red eyes that he had a minute ago were now purple.

As soon as those eyes were looking at him, Star Twinkle noticed a difference, aside from the eye color. The expression in those eyes was more...worried and pure...

Star Twinkle quickly found himself in some kind of trance. "Wait..." he said as his mind seemed to drift off to somewhere. He began to see pictures in his head, familiar pictures...pictures that he saw in his dreams before...but this time...they seemed different...

...

"Are you sure that you don't want to live in Canterlot with us?" Star Twinkle's mother, Rainfall Twinkle asked.

"Yeah, we may not be able to see each other that often if you decide to stay here," Star Twinkle's father Sunny Twinkle added.

But Star Twinkle shook his head in response. "I'm sure. I can't leave Ponyville. This is where my friends are after all," he said with a smile on his face.

...

"We are seeing each other again, right?" Star Twinkle asked towards a group of ponies.

"Of course, what kind of question is that?" The pony with the orange coat and the red mane replied back.

...

A rainbow came shooting right towards Star Twinkle, causing him to duck in fear to get hit by it. In the midst of this attack, however, there were a few words that he could hear.

"You are me...and I am you..." a male voice said towards him. "By giving up my body...I shall continue to live inside yours!"

...

"Run!...stay away from me!" Star Twinkle shouted towards two Pegasus ponies in front of him, in the middle of the road of Ponyville.

"What's wrong with you, Star Twinkle!?" A Pegasus mare asked in worry.

...

"Only four left..." he simply replied in excitement.

The Pony who was standing in front of him was the same one that was wearing the gray hood.

...

"Hey, Summershine?" Star Twinkle asked the pony with the orange coat, the red mane, and the blue eyes.

"Yeah?" Summershine replied.

"Let's never fight over something again, okay?" Star Twinkle asked.

Summershine smiled in response. "Yes, sounds like a good idea," he agreed. "Best friends shouldn't fight like that after all,"

"Exactly!" Star Twinkle said with a smile on his face as well.

...

After those pictures were gone, Star Twinkle found himself in the alley again, along with the pony in front of him. He only looked at him confused before he finally said something again. "Summershine..." Star Twinkle said, causing the pony in front of him to look directly at him with a confused expression on his face. "You are...Summershine...right?" Star Twinkle asked.

After a few seconds of staring at Star Twinkle, the pony in the gray hood turned around and ran away. Star Twinkle didn't know how to react to that but he raised his hoof towards him as if he didn't want him to run away.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle felt only one emotion at this very moment...sadness...

"Wait..." Star Twinkle said as if he was about to cry any second now. The further away the pony got, the sadder Star Twinkle became until it eventually turned into frustration and soon...determination. "Wait!" Star Twinkle exclaimed before he decided to run right this pony. He still had not too much of a clue who that pony was and why seeing him running away made him sad, but he wanted answers. So he decided to chase that pony. Something just told him that he had to do that...

To be continued...

Author's Notes:

One more chapter left of Season 4!
Can you puzzle together some things in this part?
If not then there is a whole new story waiting for you to explain some things in the future.
It will be called The Legend of Friendship - Harmony, and I highly suggest you read it if you are genuinely interested in this story.

Other then that, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you look forward to reading the next part.

Let me know what you think so far, I really enjoy reading your reviews.

Also, keep in mind that after Season 4 ends, there will be two stories coming up that are meant to be read after this season.

The first one will be "Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship" which will focus on the second Equestria Girls movie.

The second one is called "The Legend of Friendship - Harmony" which takes place in Ponyville and serves as some kind of backstory to this story.

Make sure to not miss the second one if you want to keep track of some things that will happen in this story ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

91. A Friend from the Past - Part 3

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Lord Tirek...

After absorbing almost all the magic from the ponies of Equestria, Lord Tirek became probably the most powerful being that ever threatened this world. He was once trapped in Tartarus but he escaped after Cerberus left his post. Even though that was a long time ago, he only started to move now because he was weakened. He needed to steal magic from others to strengthen himself before he would attempt to show himself in the open.

But Princess Celestia was well aware of his plan and she decided to ask Discord, the Lord of Chaos, to take care of him. Not only was he powerful enough to deal with him but he could also tell whenever there was a unbalance in magic, making him the perfect candidate to track Tirek down. However, this plan quickly backfired once Discord teamed up with Lord Tirek. Now those two dangerous villains traveled through Equestria and managed to get a hold of almost all the magic in Equestria.

And once Lord Tirek was strong enough to overpower Discord, he stole his magic as well. All that was left for him was to steal the magic of the Alicorn Princesses...

Princess Twilight Sparkle...

Once Princess Celestia heard of the return of Lord Tirek, and how immensely powerful he became after stealing the magic of most ponies in Equestria, she realized that it would only be a matter of time until he would go after Alicorn Magic. Princess Luna, Princess Cadence and she came to the conclusion that it would be best to hide this magic from Tirek, or rather entrust it to somepony. This Somepony was Twilight Sparkle.

The Princesses decided to give Twilight their magic so that she would hide it from Tirek and later use it to defeat him. However, having so much magic inside of her made it quite difficult to completely control it and even Twilight needed some time to get used to it. In order to not endanger her friends, she was also asked by Princess Celestia to keep this to herself, meaning that she was left alone to deal with all of this herself.

Eventually, though, she ran out of time and Lord Tirek arrived in Ponyville to go and get the Alicorn Magic inside of Twilight. After Lord Tirek started his attack, Twilight had no choice but to fight back. Her magic was certainly powerful enough to counter Lord Tirek's immense strength. In fact, she was now the only one to stop him...

Nearby Ponyville...

The battle outside of Ponyville continued...

The landscape was beginning to change because of the battle between Twilight and Lord Tirek. The amount of magic that they were throwing around was just too much. Earthquakes, explosions and much more were created by this battle. Luckily all of this was too far away from Ponyville and nopony was put in danger. With that in mind, Twilight had no reason to hold back her attacks.

Twilight shot multiple beams at Lord Tirek, each of them was blocked by him until he decided to attack back. Accompanied by a growl, Lord Tirek smashed his fists on the ground, which created an earthquake, causing rocks to come out of the ground that was blocking the path of Twilight, who was flying straight at Tirek. But those rocks were quickly destroyed by one aimed shot each, causing no problem for her. After her sight was clear again, she began to charge one beam of magic to fire at Lord Tirek. Realizing what Twilight was up to, Tirek did the same. He charged a magic beam for a few seconds before he fired it straight at Twilight. Twilight quickly fired her own beam of magic and soon both beams clashed, causing a magical explosion that was big enough to destroy a small town.

After those two beams clashed, there was a short silence. Twilight and Tirek were both buried under some dirt and rubble but they quickly got back on their hooves and glared at each other.

That was until Lord Tirek stated the obvious. "It appears we are at an impasse," he admitted as soon as he was tired of fighting any longer. The battle was going on for a while after all and there was no clear winner in sight. However, instead of giving up or something, Tirek began to smile and snapped his fingers. "How about a trade, Princess Twilight?" He said before he showed her a bunch of bubbles in which, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Spike, and Discord were in. Twilight gasped in shock as soon as she saw her friends trapped by Tirek. "Their release for all the Alicorn magic in Equestria," Tirek offered with a smile on his face after he played his final ace.

Of course, Twilight's friends protested and told her that she shouldn't take this offer. If Twilight would give Tirek her magic, then he would end up being unstoppable. Twilight knew this all too well but she highly tended to agree to that offer that Tirek made to her. At least then she was sure that her friends would be safe.

"What's it going to be, Princess?" Lord Tirek asked, to further pressure Twilight.

All of her friends knew that Twilight was considering this offer and they all tried their best to let her know that their safety is not as important as Equestria.

"Don't do it, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash said from inside her bubble.

"We aren't worth it!" Fluttershy agreed.

Discord was the only one who wasn't trying to stop her and even disagreed with Fluttershy's last words. "Oh, but you are, Fluttershy. You're the pony that taught me that friendship is magic. I had magic and friendship, and now I don't have either," he said in an unusual upset and ashamed tone before he covered his eyes in shame. He was actually regretting what he did to his friends, from the looks of it.

"Enough!" Tirek exclaimed as he stomped on the ground in anger. "I want an answer, and I want it now!" He demanded, clearly losing his patience at this moment.

Despite Tirek pressuring her, Twilight did look up to her friends and took her time to carefully come up with a decision. Then, for a brief moment, the colors of the rainbow could be seen in Twilight's eyes. What followed, was Twilight's answer that shocked everyone, except Tirek.

"I will give you my magic, in exchange for my friends,"

Hearing those words made all of her friends gasp in shock. The same, however, couldn't be said about Lord Tirek who was more than happy to hear that. "As you wish," he said before he let the bubbles levitate towards the ground and released Twilight's friends.

However, Tirek did not release Discord, much to Twilight's dislike. "All of my friends," she then demanded.

Tirek was surprised to hear those words coming out of Twilight's mouth. "After the way he has betrayed you, you still call him a 'friend'?" He asked.

"Release him!" Twilight demanded once more.

Tirek didn't understand the reasoning about Twilight's action but he also didn't care enough to be bothered about it either. "If that's what you want," he said before he released the Lord of Chaos as well.

The bubble around Discord popped and he landed on the ground next to the rest of Twilight's friends. "Thank you, Twilight," he expressed on his gratitude before he turned his head towards Fluttershy. "I'm sorry," he said in shame.

"I know," Fluttershy replied before she turned her head away with tears coming out of her eyes.

With all of Twilight's friends released, Tirek had kept his word. But that only meant that Twilight had to do the same now. "Your turn," he said before he opened his mouth to steal Twilight's magic now.

Twilight didn't resist and let her magic getting sucked out by Tirek. She screamed in pain as the magic in her was leaving her body before she eventually fell on the ground weakened. And of course, after getting the very last bit of magic from Twilight, Tirek got even more powerful and now grew as big as a mountain due to the amount of magic inside of him.

Lord Tirek didn't seem to bother with everyone else and just enjoyed how powerful he became now so the group decided to go to Twilight to see if she was alright. Twilight managed to get back up on her hooves, although she did seem to have a hard time standing.

"Twilight, what were you thinking?!" Spike said in his reaction to Twilight's decision.

Discord also walked up to Twilight and thanked her for letting Tirek release him. It was also now that he apologized openly to everyone. "Tirek tricked me into believing that he could offer me something more valuable than friendship. But there is nothing worth more. I see that now," he realized as he held the medallion that Tirek gave him a while ago in his paw. "He lied when he said that this medallion was given as a sign of gratitude and loyalty. But when I say that it is a sign of our true friendship, I am telling the truth," he said as he took the medallion and put it around Twilight's neck.

As soon as Twilight had that medallion around her neck, her eyes widened and she felt how some of her magic returned in her body.

The rest of her friends realized that as well and soon Applejack came to a shocking conclusion. "You think that might be the last one we need?" She asked, referring to the last objects that would turn into the last key that was needed to open the chest in front of the Tree of Harmony.

There was not really anything else what they could do so they just decided to give it a try and went to the Tree of Harmony. Fortunately, Tirek was too busy to play around with his newfound power that he didn't realize how the group was heading to the Tree of Harmony to hopefully stop him.

The chest already had five keys inside of it and only Star Twinkle's or Twilight's key was missing. Twilight couldn't help but get a little worried about Star Twinkle and where he was the whole time but she also realized that there was no time to lose now and that every second counted.

Twilight took the medallion that she got from Discord and held it towards the last keyhole that wasn't occupied by a key. Shortly after, the medallion spun around in front of the chest and transformed into the last golden key and inserted itself in the last keyhole.

The very definition of hope could be seen in the faces of Twilight and her friends as soon as that happened. However, Lord Tirek was still out there and he was just randomly destroying the area around him, probably to find Twilight and the others to deal with them for good.

Noticing that their time was running short, Twilight prompted everypony to make haste. "Together! I think we have to do this together!" She said to her friends, after which every single one of them stood in front of their key, ready to turn it around.

As soon as they turned around their keys, the chest responded and released a bright light. Soon, The Elements of Harmony, which were now inside the Tree of Harmony, began to glow as well. The light began to travel to Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie and surrounded all of them. They all could feel a familiar and warm presence around them.

Soon every single one of them got confused once they saw a bunch of ponies right behind them. They were a little transparent, like ghosts or spirits but they were still clearly visible for everypony.

The girls all looked behind them and took a closer look at those ponies...

Behind Applejack stood an Earth Pony mare with a red coat, a yellow mane, and purple eyes...

Behind Rainbow Dash stood a Pegasus stallion with a dark blue coat, a white-light grayish and dark blue mane and yellow eyes...

Rarity had a Unicorn mare behind her with a purple coat, a dark purple mane, and light blue eyes, who was also wearing a black pair of glasses...

Right behind Fluttershy was a Pegasus mare with a light blue coat, a white and light blue mane, and orange eyes...

And behind Pinkie Pie stood an Earth Pony stallion with a yellow coat, an orange mane, and red eyes...

Seeing all those ponies behind her friends, made Twilight look behind her as well. When she did, she saw a Unicorn stallion with a dark orange coat, a red mane, and blue eyes

All those ponies didn't say a thing, much to everyponies confusion. All they did was smiling at them. For some reason, everyone had a really familiar feeling after seeing those ponies but no one could quite figure out why.

Before they all could come up with something though, the ponies vanished again, and everypony was surrounded by a bright light that shot out to the sky. The group vanished on the spot and seemed to have been absorbed by the chest.

Shortly after a sphere of magic shot out into the sky above the Tree of Harmony. Lord Tirek noticed this as well and wondered what this was all about. He covered his eyes because of that blinding light coming from this sphere of magic. Soon he saw Twilight and her friends inside of it, all of them having a big change of appearance inside this magic sphere.

All the girls went through a drastic change. All their manes were bigger, wider and more colorful, having the colors of a rainbow inside of them. Also, in Twilight's, Rainbow Dash's and Fluttershy's case, their wings seemed bigger and more colorful as well. It was like they became one with the Elements of Harmony.

Needless to say, Lord Tirek was not too excited to see this happening in front of him so he decided to stop the girls. He fired a beam of magic at them but he was surprised to see that it didn't do anything at all. "How is this possible?! You have no magic!" Tirek said confused after his failed attack at them.

"You're wrong, Tirek!" Twilight replied confidently. "I may have given you my Alicorn magic, but I carry within me the most powerful magic of all!" She said before she and her friends started their counterattack.

Multiple shots came out of the sphere that surrounded the girls, all of them directly hitting Lord Tirek. He couldn't defend himself and before he even knew what was going on, all the magic that he had stolen, quickly vanished in his body again, making him shrink and return to his original and weakened form. Shortly after, a portal opened behind him, on the other side was an all too familiar place to him...Tartarus. Lord Tirek released a scream once he realized that he was beaten and only seconds later, he vanished behind the portal and was imprisoned in Tartarus again.

After this villain was taking care of, the sphere around the girls released a giant shockwave that was sent through all of Equestria. It returned the magic of everyone who was attacked by Lord Tirek and returned them all to normal.

In the meantime, the girls were landing near the Tree of Harmony again. Their transformation was already wearing off again but there was still something happening to the tree. The light that surrounded the girls vanished and returned to the tree again. Shortly after, a rainbow came out above the chest, causing it to fly towards Ponyville. The girls followed this rainbow to see what was happening there. What they saw there heavily surprised them.

In the middle of the town, there was a huge castle coming out of the ground, towering over all the other buildings in Ponyville. The castle had a quite unique look. It looked like the Tree of Harmony but with a castle on top of it but the whole thing itself looked as if it was a castle.

"Sweet Celestia! Are you all seeing what I'm seeing?" Rarity said confused, taking the words out of everyponies mouth.

But as they looked at that castle, something caught Twilight's attention. She turned around and saw one of the ponies from before when they opened the chest. It was the Unicorn stallion with the orange coat, the red mane and the blue eyes, or at least a spirit or ghost of this pony again.

"You have to help him..." he then said before he ran away.

The group was not sure what to think about this but as soon as Twilight was looking around her, she noticed that Star Twinkle was nowhere to be found. "Does he mean..." Twilight mumbled to herself before she convinced her friends to follow this pony.

She had the feeling that he was leading them to somewhere really important. Since this pony gave her and her friends a rather familiar feeling, they decided to follow him to see if the pony that they were supposed to help the one who they thought it was.

In the meantime...

Outside of Ponyville, the chase between Star Twinkle and the pony wearing the gray hood was still ongoing.

"You! Wait!" Star Twinkle screamed after the pony in order for him to stop.

But the pony didn't listen and continued running. Star Twinkle wasn't even sure why exactly he was following him. All he knew was that the pony's name was Summershine. He just knew. Something deep down in his mind was telling him that. And something else was telling him that he couldn't let him run away.

All Star Twinkle could see now was that pony running away from him. Everything else around him was gone. As if that wasn't enough Star Twinkle could hear voices in his head again. It was the same voices and the same words that he heard before on multiple occasions.

"I don't expect anything in return...if I can make my friends happy with a simple act of generosity then that is completely fine with me..."

"I wanted to stay with my friends...I wanted to spend time with them right here, right now..."

"Hearing my friends laugh is the best thing ever...and there is nothing in this world that I wanted to exchange for that..."

"Sometimes being too kind is probably a bad thing...if you end up hurting your friends..."

"Things can be a little bit easier if you just bend the truth a little...but I rather want to live a harder life then being dishonest to my friends..."

For some reason, those words only motivated him further to get to Summershine. Eventually, Star Twinkle managed to catch up to Summershine and jumped right at him, making them both fall to the ground. Star Twinkle tried his best to hold him down on the ground, especially since Summershine tried his best to shake him off.

"No! Let me go! I can't let you get close to me!" Summershine said in an almost begging tone as he tried to shake of Star Twinkle.

"What!? Why!? What are you talking about!? I just want to ask you some questions!" Star Twinkle replied as he tried his best to hold down the stallion on the ground.

After some more struggling, Summershine decided to stop resisting and looked with his purple eyes at Star Twinkle but he slowly closed his eyes after a while and looked away as if he was ashamed to talk to Star Twinkle.

But soon that shameful expression turned into one filled with pain again. Star Twinkle didn't know what was going on but he wanted to help for some reason. Then suddenly, the eyes of Summershine popped open and they had the same red color that they had a while ago. What followed was a magic shockwave coming from the pony, that knocked Star Twinkle away from him.

Star Twinkle didn't get hurt by that but he did get startled by that sudden attack and decided to quickly get up again. So did Summershine. This time he had a really angry and determined expression on his face.

"I am not risking to let this chance slip by now!" Summershine said before he charged a beam of magic in his horn.

Instead of running away, Summershine was on the attack again and Star Twinkle wasn't really prepared to protect himself. He wasn't transformed and that sudden change from Summershine's behavior again caught him off guard. Before he could even process what was happening, a magic beam came flying right towards him. Star Twinkle knew that it wouldn't help but he held his front leg in front of him to protect him.

But...just like before with Tirek, Twilight appeared right in time to protect him. She used a shield spell to protect him in the very last second before she turned her looks at Summershine while having a mean expression on her face, which soon turned into a more confused one as soon as she realized how this stallion looked like.

Star Twinkle was confused by the sudden appearance of her since she was fighting against Lord Tirek a while ago. As soon as Star Twinkle asked her what happened to Tirek, the rest of his friends appeared next to him as well.

"That has been taken care of!" Rainbow Dash said victoriously and with a smile on her face.

"Yes!" Pinkie Pie added excitedly. "You should have seen how we looked like when we defeated Tirek! It was amazing!" She exclaimed happily.

Star Twinkle didn't feel as if this was the right time to talk about that since there was another threat right in front of them. Applejack was also hinting at that. "I hate to spoil our victory but can somepony explain to me why the pony that we followed here is suddenly attacking Star Twinkle?" She asked confused as she pointed towards Summershine.

As soon as he was pointed at, Summershine began to have an even more serious expression on his face. He did not seem to like the support that Star Twinkle had now. He began to remove the hood that he was wearing and threw it away, revealing his Cutie Mark for the first time. His Cutie Mark consisted of five little symbols that looked like far away gray lights, or rather five shines that could be seen from far away.

"It seems as if I was destined to fight against the Elements of Harmony again," he said before the Unicorn took a deep breath and focused. "I already got one half the last time...and now I will get the second!" He said angrily before his body was surrounded by light for a second. Shortly after, something happened to his body. His Cutie Mark seemed to change. Behind the five shine symbols appeared a flame. Then on his back, two wings appeared.

"He grew wings!?" Star Twinkle said in shock as soon as he saw that. It was exactly like his own transformation. He grew wings out of nowhere.

"He's an Alicorn?" Fluttershy asked confused.

At the moment, he was. Star Twinkle was an Earth Pony that could only grow wings or a horn at once but Summershine was a Unicorn that grew wings and became an Alicorn. It was most definitely the same transformation that Star Twinkle was able to do.

"Here he comes!" Twilight said as soon as she saw Summershine making a move now. Without any more words wasted, Summershine flew only centimeters above the ground and waved his front leg in front of him. Shortly after, a wave of fire came right flying toward the seven ponies. "Stay behind me!" Twilight said before she used another shield spell to protect everypony, except Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, who instead avoided the attack by flying up in the air. The rest, however, stood right behind Twilight so that the shield would protect them. As soon as the wave of flames clashed with her shield, however, Twilight seemed to struggle to hold it up. She actually expected this shield to protect her and the others a little better but only after a few seconds, the shield was destroyed and the five remaining ponies on the ground had to jump away to not get caught by the flames.

Still, the fire was starting to spread everywhere and Summershine stood there, watching how everyone managed to avoid his attack in the last second and he prepared his next attack. But as he was preparing himself to attack, Rainbow Dash came charging out of the sky directly at him. Summershine only moved his eyes towards her and shortly after, he was covering his whole body in flames to protect himself. Realizing that she couldn't charge at him now, Rainbow Dash hit the brakes in midair and Summershine moved his hoof in her direction, shooting a blast of fire at her. Rainbow Dash had way too much speed to dodge out of the way in time but luckily, Fluttershy came jumping from the side and dragged her away from the attack.

Summershine removed the flames around his body again and focused his sight in front of him. Little did he know that Twilight came right at him with a magic blast fired at the stallion. Summershine responded by creating a pillar of flames in front of him that completely blocked Twilight's attack. Twilight was shocked how her attack was blocked that easily but she quickly responded by teleporting a few meters to Summershine's left and firing another beam at him but Summershine moved his leg towards her and fired a fire blast at this magic beam. Twilight's attack didn't stand much of a chance and Twilight had to dodge out of the way to escape the attack.

She jumped away and ducked on the ground but got quickly back up on her hooves. Still, she was confused about how her attacks were having no effect. "My attacks only seem to have little effects against those fire attacks," she said.

"Of course," Summershine replied. "Terra Unisus Magic is superior to regular magic. Your magic will have no effect, no matter how strong it is," he informed before he raised his leg towards Twilight to start another attack.

Twilight was ready to dodge any second but somepony was already stopping Summershine's attack by trapping him with a lasso. It was Applejack was trapping him. "If magic doesn't work then we just do it the old fashion way!" She said as she tightened her grip with her lasso. But Summershine wasn't impressed and simply lighted his body on fire again to burn the lasso, much to Applejack's shock. "Oh...kinda forgot about that..." Applejack said embarrassed before she had to jump to the side to dodge another one of Summershine's fire blasts.

By now Summershine lost his patience and walked up to Twilight while having a flame in one of his hooves. He seemed to have set his sight to Twilight now. But once he was getting closer to her, a magic beam was shot at him from behind. Summershine managed to duck under it in the last moment and looked at the pony who was shooting at him. He was positively surprised once he knew who it was. "There you are, Star Twinkle," he said before he turned around to get to the stallion.

Star Twinkle stood ready to fight him and so did Twilight who was starting to attack now. Unfortunately, Summershine had enough of those interruptions and created a wall of fire behind him. After that, he proceeded to create even more flames around him. The flames formed a circle of fire that only had Star Twinkle and him inside of it. However, Star Twinkle didn't let himself get intimidated by this and fired one magic beam after another at Summershine. Unfortunately, no attack seemed to work because Summershine created a wall of fire each time a shot was fired at him.

"Nothing of this is working!" Star Twinkle thought in his frustration. Not even Twilight could do anything against this guy so his chances to win in a battle against him were very slim. The stallion looked up at the sky and saw how high the flames were going up. There was still a little gab that he could escape through so Star Twinkle changed from his Unicorn Form to his Pegasus Form to fly upwards and escape this fire prison.

But Summershine was spreading his wings and flew right after him. It didn't take long until Summershine managed to catch up to him. He used a spell to keep Star Twinkle in place in midair and prevented him from escaping. Star Twinkle couldn't do anything to escape and just struggled in mid-air as Summershine was slowly flying towards him while flames were surrounding the two ponies.

"Now let's get this finally over with," Summershine said before he attempted to do the same thing that he tried before. He concentrated magic in his horn and prepared himself to absorb what looked like Star Twinkle's magic.

Star Twinkle didn't know what to do, let alone what was going on. He thought that Summershine was a friend of him, judging from the pictures that he saw in his head but all he could see now was this very pony trying to take away Star Twinkle's magic. It didn't make sense for him and he quickly found himself lost about what to do.

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight then said from above him. She, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were right above the two and tried to enter this giant fire prison. They were all worried to see Star Twinkle unable to move in midair because of Summershine's magic and tried to come at his aid. However, once Summershine was aware of this interruption, he closed the little gap above them to trap both of them in this fire prison for good.

But to his surprise, Twilight appeared right in front of him via a teleport spell and was ready to attack but Summershine was still keeping his guard up and flew to the side to dodge, all while keeping Star Twinkle in the same place. Twilight flew accidentally past the stallion and Summershine used that opportunity to launch an attack at the mare by shooting a fire blast at her, causing her to fall to the ground in pain.

"Twilight!" Star Twinkle exclaimed as soon as he saw how Twilight was dropping on the ground below him.

Summershine then returned his focus towards Star Twinkle again. "This could have all been prevented if you just cooperated with me," he pointed out in order to calm Star Twinkle down again.

But instead, of calming down, Star Twinkle only got angry at Summershine and clenched his teeth. He didn't even notice how Summershine already started to absorb his magic. But he didn't care about that. All he had in his mind was confusion, anger, and frustration. All directed towards Summershine.

Shortly after, Summershine's attempt to absorb Star Twinkle's magic, was for some reason interrupted. He looked at Star Twinkle and figured that it was his doing but he had no idea how he did it.

Star Twinkle himself didn't seem to notice that he just broke free of Summershine's spell and just proceeded to glare at the stallion. "I don't really know what's going on...but I know that you're after me," he said while a white light surrounded Star Twinkle's body. "So don't go and hurt my friends instead!" Star Twinkle exclaimed before he released a shockwave to throw away Summershine, making him fall to the ground.

After Summershine was pushed to the ground by that shockwave, he instantly got up and looked up to see Star Twinkle being surrounded by a white light. "What!?" Summershine said in shock after he looked at the stallion, who continued to glare at him in anger. "Wait...that is-" but before Summershine could complete his sentence, Star Twinkle came charging down towards him.

Summershine responded immediately by flying upwards to the stallion. The two ponies were charging right at each other, they decided to end this battle in one last clash. But Summershine had other plans. He focused all of his magic in his hoof and shot a fire blast towards Star Twinkle, who was, unfortunately, still charging right at him.

Star Twinkle didn't plan to dodge this attack. For some reason, he felt as if he could do anything now. He looked straight at the fire blast that came towards him but for some reason, he knew that he could deal with it. All Star Twinkle did was lifting his right hoof towards him which was surrounded by a blinding light. As the fire blast came closer, Star Twinkle punched right towards it.

Once he hit the blast, flames began to spread all around the area because of the impact. Summershine thought that Star Twinkle went crazy and formed a confused expression on his face. There was no way that Star Twinkle could block this attack after all. But soon Summershine realized that he did exactly that. The flames were blown away and Star Twinkle was right in the center of where the fire blast was. Summershine had a shocked expression on his face, he couldn't believe what just happened.

This was the perfect chance for Star Twinkle to put an end to this fight. His right hoof was still engulfed in light and he continued to charge right at Summershine. The stallion couldn't move in shock and just flew there on the spot helplessly.

Then, Star Twinkle took a really wide swing and punched Summershine right across the face. Judging from Summershine's pain-filled expression, it must have been a really strong punch. The stallion was crashing towards the ground and Star Twinkle was the only one left to stay in the air.

Summershine was knocked out. He was done. That one punch was enough to take of him for good. Coincidentally, the flames around Star Twinkle were slowly vanishing as well. As soon as the flames were completely gone, the rest of Star Twinkle's friends were approaching the stallion, who was just now making sure that Twilight was okay from the last attack.

Twilight seemed to have been unconscious during the last attack but she woke up as soon as Star Twinkle was shaking her a little. "What happened?" She asked as soon as she was awake again.

"Twilight!" Rarity said in concern while she and the others walked up to her now.

"What were you thinking by teleporting in those flames like that!" Rainbow Dash scolded, which was weird since she was usually the one who did the most reckless stuff.

Twilight's response was simple. "I just had to help Star Twinkle, I couldn't leave him to deal with this pony on his own,"

As soon as Summershine was mentioned, Star Twinkle looked towards the stallion, who was still laying there on the ground. He decided to walk up to him t see if he was really knocked out. But much to his shock, Summershine slowly opened his eyes and looked at Star Twinkle. This caused Star Twinkle to keep his guard up again for an incoming attack. However, the stallion's eyes closed as soon as he said only one thing.

"Star...Twinkle..."

Those words gave Star Twinkle a completely different feeling about Summershine. He stood there confused and had no idea what to think about it. But he figured that there was only one thing to do now, even if his friends wouldn't like what he had planned.

Later...

Everything was black...A headache is all that could be felt right now. There were voices in the distance. They got louder every second and soon those voices were accompanied by images. A bunch of ponies could be seen.

"Looks like he is up now," a familiar female voice said.

It came from Rarity who was getting everyponies attention towards Summershine who was now sitting inside a hospital bed and looked around himself confused.

"Where am-" he said before suddenly a cage appeared right around him, that completely trapped him now, much to his confusion.

"Discord!" Fluttershy scolded as soon as that happened.

"What?" Discord replied while he laid there on another bed while he was grinding his claws with a file. "You told me to keep an eye on him if before he could do something dangerous,"

"Yes! If he does something dangerous!" Twilight pointed out bothered.

Discord shook his head and simply snapped his claws to remove the cage again. "Well, suit yourself,"

Summershine was not really sure how to deal with this whole situation and just looked around himself to see all those ponies keeping a close look at him. "What's going on here? Why am I here?" He asked confused. "You clearly don't seem to trust me, judging from all the looks that you are giving me," he said, even if saying it made him feel a little bad.

Rainbow Dash explained. "Yeah, you're right! We haven't forgotten what you tried to do a few minutes ago!" She pointed out.

Applejack continued. "In fact, Star Twinkle was the one who demanded that we should put you in here,"

As soon as Summershine heard that name, his eye widened. It was now that he noticed how Star Twinkle was staying a little further in the back with a glare on his face that was directed towards Summershine. Shortly after, Star Twinkle walked closer to the hospital bed and got straight to the point. "You're gonna explain some things to me," he simply said with a rough tone in his voice. "I have some questions for you,"

After a short pause, Summershine replied. "Go ahead," he said in an almost monotone voice.

That is all that Star Twinkle would accept as an answer. He quickly asked his first question. "Your name is Summershine, right?"

"Yes," Summershine replied.

"And...we know each other...right?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yes," Summershine replied once more.

Hearing those short answers were a little too less for Star Twinkle but it was better than nothing so he continued. "We are friends...right?"

"Yes," Summershine replied in the same monotone voice again.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle clenched his teeth in annoyance. "But that doesn't even make sense!" He exclaimed. "If we are friends then why did you attack me!?"

Summershine moved his head away in shame. "I'm sorry..." is all he could say.

Star Twinkle was clearly not up for more conversations after hearing that and looked away in anger. Seeing that reaction, gave Twilight finally the opportunity to ask a few questions. "We saw you after we opened the chest next to the Tree of Harmony," she started, causing Summershine to move his head towards her now. "There were also a bunch of other ponies that we saw. Why is that? Why did we see them after opening the chest?"

"I'm not sure..." Summershine replied in all honesty.

Twilight simply continued with her questions. "Since they appeared in front of the Tree of Harmony...all I can think of is that you are connected to the elements as well in some way,"

Suddenly, Discord threw in a few words as well. "He is," he casually threw in, causing everypony to look at him confused. Discord then further explained. "Star Twinkle has pieces of every Element of Harmony inside of him and so does Summershine. There has to be a connection," he figured.

As soon as Star Twinkle heard that, he suddenly felt part of the conversation again. "Wait! Does that mean you know something!?" He asked.

But Discord wasn't too sure himself. "Well, it's more like having some bits and pieces of knowledge in my head, my memory is a little fuzzy because of this memory erase spell," he explained.

Twilight quickly recalled hearing that before. "Princess Celestia mentioned that spell before. It's when you remove a certain someone from the memories of everypony," as soon as she recalled this information, she quickly turned towards Summershine again. "Do you know anything about that?"

Summershine gave a quick answer. "Yes...I was the one who used it to remove myself and my friends from everyone's memory..."

"Why?" Twilight asked.

"It was the only thing I could do at that time," Summershine replied.

"That time?" Twilight replied.

But Summershine didn't want to give any more answers and stayed silent. But as soon as Star Twinkle was hearing that, only one thing came immediately into his mind. "That fire..." he said, causing Summershine to widen his eyes in surprise. "There was a fire in Ponyville...right?" He asked confused.

As soon as that was brought up, Applejack tipped her chin. "Yeah, I remember that there was a fire back in the day,"

Rarity remembered as well. "Yes, but nopony knew how it started, right?" She pointed out.

Twilight quickly turned her attention towards Summershine again. "Do you mean that?"

Summershine didn't like to give more information but he still replied. "Yes...but I can't tell you more...it's something that I have to deal with on my own..."

By now, Star Twinkle had enough of those short answers and walked up to Summershine even closer. "Listen, I don't know what happened but I would like to know! As far as I know, I am also involved in all of this because of those weird dreams that I have!" Star Twinkle exclaimed angrily.

Twilight got a little worried about how Star Twinkle was slowly losing his temper. "Calm down, Star Twinkle!" She said in order to calm him down.

"No!" Star Twinkle exclaimed unintentionally angry. "I have a right to know! I'm sick of walking around without knowing what is really going on!" He expressed as his eyes were focused on Summershine who was starting to feel a little bad by now. "At least tell me one thing! Discord said you and I have both pieces of the Elements of Harmony inside of us. Do you know anything about them? Do you know why I was chosen by them?" He asked in his frustration and in the hope to get an answer.

Summershine looked with his blue eyes right back at Star Twinkle's eyes. "You were not chosen by them..." he simply said.

"Huh?" Star Twinkle replied before he lowered his head in frustration. Of course, he wouldn't get an answer that he would understand right away.

However, Summershine was not done. He began to smile, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. "I entrusted them with you...because I know that they would be safe with you," he said happily. For some weird reason, Star Twinkle was a little happy to hear that, deep inside but he had no idea why. Then suddenly, Summershine grabbed his head and had a little pain-filled expression on his face. "Sorry but...I think I need some sleep...my head doesn't feel too good... it's like as if somepony gave me a really hard smack across the face..." he said, which was weird since that was exactly what happened to him. But strangely, Summershine didn't seem to remember that.

The stallion then laid down on his bed and closed his eyes and before he knew it, he was already drifting off to sleep.

"He is already asleep?" Fluttershy asked confused.

"Oh! You want me to wake him up?" Discord said as he prepared a bunch of musical instruments to play them all at once. "Certainly, you have some questions left to ask him right?" He asked towards Star Twinkle.

"No..." Star Twinkle replied surprisingly before he decided to walk out of the room with his friends following him close by. The last words from Summershine were still bothering him. "I was entrusted The Elements of Harmony...by him?"

Later, outside...

"Yes...that really is a castle..." Star Twinkle said as soon as he laid eyes on the castle that his friends showed him.

It was the castle that was created after Lord Tirek's defeat. The castle that looked like half Tree of Harmony and half castle. All of Star Twinkle's friends stood there as well and wondered what the appearance of this castle meant for them or why it appeared in the first place.

"But... whose is it?" Twilight asked confused into the round, to which she only received shrugging shoulders.

"I believe it is yours, Princess Twilight," Princess Celestia then said, who was landing next to Twilight and her friends along with Princess Luna, Princess Cadance, Spike and Discord.

The whole group decided to go inside to take a closer look at the castle. From the inside, it almost looked quite similar to the castle of the Crystal Empire which made sense since it was created by a crystal tree. As they all walked through the halls of this castle, Princess Celestia was sure that Twilight now knows what her role as a princess of Equestria was or what she was meant to do.

After all what happened. Twilight was actually more than sure about the answer. "As princess, I believe I have the power to spread the magic of friendship across Equestria. That is the role I am meant to have in our world! The role I choose to have!" She said before she looked over to her friends. "But I didn't defeat Tirek on my own. It took all of us to unlock the chest!"

But as usual, Star Twinkle felt left out. "Yeah...all except me..." he thought after realizing that he wasn't part in the victory against Tirek at all.

But Star Twinkle didn't say a thing and let Princess Celestia continue. "Then it is unlikely you are meant to take on this task alone," she said before the door to what looked like the throne room opened. There a huge room with seven seats in the middle of the room could be seen. All of them having the Cutie Marks of Twilight and her friends on them, all Cutie Marks except Star Twinkle's

"You are now Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship," Princess Celestia announced. "But what is the princess of friendship without her friends?" She added, which caused everyone to walk up towards Twilight. Every one except Discord who was hiding in a corner and was still feeling bad about what he did to everyone. But no one really held a grudge at him, especially since Discord really seemed to regret what he was doing, so Twilight quickly used her magic to invite him to a big group hug, something that he really appreciated right now.

Though there were a lot of things that were circling around in Star Twinkle's mind, he decided to say some cheerful words in the name of everyone else. "Tirek is defeated, we opened the chest, Twilight knows what she is supposed to do now...I would say that everything turned out well, right?" He said with a fake smile on his face.

His friends agreed and cheered once they heard him say that, however, the princesses were the only ones who still had some worried expression on their faces. "I'm afraid not everything turned out too well..." Princess Celestia said in a worried tone.

"What do you mean?" Twilight replied confused before she walked up to the princesses.

Princess Cadance started to explain. "It seemed to have happened after Tirek was done stealing the magic in Canterlot,"

Princess Celestia then decided to went straight out with the problem. "Mystic and Fade are gone..." she said with a serious expression on her face.

The group reacted in shock after hearing that. Some time has passed after hearing those names the last time but they all knew them all too well. Mystic was the pony who took over the Storm Wings to use them and making them steal the Elements of Harmony. And Fade was the leader of a group of ponies who called themselves the Outcasts. They were the one who captured the Princesses in order to create a so-called new world. Those two ponies were both really big threats to Equestria and hearing that they were gone instantly gave everypony a bad feeling.

"You might remember that Mystic was imprisoned in the dungeon of Canterlot after the Outcasts were defeated. It seems that Mystic has taken advantage of the state that Canterlot was in after Tirek's attack and broke out of his cell,"

"And as if that wasn't bad enough," Princess Celestia interrupted. "He took Fade with him. Although he was still turned to stone after you used the Elements of Harmony against him, having him not under our watchful eyes, still bothers me..."

Hearing that news right at the end, certainly dropped the mood a little. Fade and his Dark Magic was something that to be wary of and Mystic was also pretty crafty and powerful when it came to magic. It was still unclear if Fade was still turned to stone or not but it is like Princess Celestia said, having him not in clear sight at all times was really a bad thing.

Princess Celestia and the other princesses assured everyone to look for those two but it would still be hard to find them. Right now, all that Star Twinkle and his friends could do, was to look out and be wary at all times.

But as if those news weren't bad enough, one more thing came right up.

"Princess Twilight!" A stallion exclaimed as he ran inside the castle. It was actually one of the doctors of the Ponyville hospital. "I have bad news!" He said before he went on with his explanation.

Later inside the Ponyville hospital...

"He's gone..." Star Twinkle said after he saw the bed where Summershine was inside only around an hour ago.

"I can't believe he ran away..." Twilight said.

"Yeah," Pinkie Pie added. "I mean, he wasn't that bad of a guy after all," she pointed out.

"Yes, he was very friendly," Fluttershy agreed on.

But Rainbow Dash remembered the two of them of something. "You do realize that he attacked us before, right?" She pointed out.

Despite the others having mixed feelings about all this, Star Twinkle was the one who was affected by the most of Summershine's escape. Twilight realized that and put a hoof on his shoulders to comfort him. "Star Twinkle I-"

"No..." Star Twinkle replied in a calm voice. "It's okay. I may not completely know who he is or why he is doing what he is doing now but..." he turned his head around to look at Twilight with a determined expression on his face. "I know that we will meet again...and when that time comes...I will get more answers...I just know..."

With those last words, Star Twinkle decided to be a little more patient. He had the feeling that it would not be long until he would meet Summershine again. And hopefully then...he would get his answers.

About him...
About Summershine...
And about the Elements of Harmony...

Meanwhile outside of Ponyville...

Summershine was not too far away from Ponyville. It was still in clear sight for him. He looked back one last time with a frown on his face. This time he was not wearing his gray hood as if he no longer cared about other ponies recognizing him.

"I took way too long already...I even brought Star Twinkle and the others in danger..." he said in shame while he held his head for a minute. "I was afraid back then...when I faced Arcana...but now...I'm prepared! I will find you again...and then...I will set things right!" He said determined before he walked away from Ponyville to continue his travels.

What he was after or what he tried to do was still a mystery but no one really had to know what he was after because it was obviously too important for him to even return to his friend.

One could only hope that this quest would not hurt him anymore and that it would soon end...

Author's Notes:

And Season 4 is done! This means there is going to be a little break on this story. But that doesn't mean that you have to wait for this story to continue! A week later after this part will be released, there will already be a new story coming up which is called "Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship".

As the name suggests it will be Legend of Friendship version of the second Equestria Girl Movie. Expect it to be as long as the last Equestria Girls story.

And after that story is done, there will be another story coming called "The Legend of Friendship - Harmony".

This story will explain a lot of things that happened in this Season finale and it also will shine some light on the backstory on the overall story of "The Legend of Friendship"
Don't miss it!

Please let me know what you thought about this chapter or the overall story. I would really like to hear your thoughts about some things.

Also if you have any questions, then don't hesitate to ask. I'll definitely answer you unless you are a guest review on Fanfiction.net because I can't answer directly to those. And no, I will not tell you what will happen next ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony (Coming soon...)

Season 5 Intro - Free again

View Online

Canterlot...

Ponies were unconscious on the ground, the Royal Guard was defeated and even Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadance were all banished to Tartarus. This was all done by Tirek, an evil creature who wanted to steal all the magic from Equestria. He was at first weak but with the help of Discord, the Lord of Chaos, who was supposedly reformed and intended to deal with him before he grew too strong, he managed to steal the magic from almost every pony in Equestria. This allowed him to grow far stronger than anyone else and made him almost invincible.

Princess Celestia however, knew what to do. She knew that Tirek was after the magic of the three Alicorn Princesses and came up with a plan. The three Princesses had to give up their magic so that Tirek would no longer be able to steal it. They entrusted their magic to Princess Twilight Sparkle to keep it save. She was the element of Magic so she would be the only one who could control all of this magic and maybe even stand a chance against Tirek if she learned how to use it.

Tirek was not aware of the existence from another princess but Discord recently informed him about it. Only moments before, the two went to Ponyville, Twilight's home, to go after her Alicorn Magic, ready to take it away from her. They left Canterlot in this sad state. There was nopony who could even attempt to stop Tirek and Discord. There was almost nopony left to even stand.

Almost nopony...

Inside of the Canterlot Dungeons, one pony was completely unaware of everything that happened. He was locked away, cut off from the outside world, left into a prison cell so that he could no longer harm Equestria in any way.

"Hey!" Could be heard echoing through the empty hallways of the dungeon. "Is anyone there!?" The pony shouted through the hallway again.

Normally, ponies from the Royal Guard were constantly patroling around the hallways, even if there was only one pony locked away at this moment. But no one was there anymore, which was the reason why this one pony got more and more aggressive and annoyed.

That one pony was holding his cell bars and tried to look around the hallway to see if there was anypony who could talk to him. "Hello~!?" He shouted once more only to get his own echo back, followed by silence again. "Argh, forget it!" He then said before he gave up to waste his energy.

The pony inside the cell was a Unicorn stallion with a dark-purple colored coat, a dark blue W-shaped mane, with yellow stripes on it, dark blue eyes and a dark blue mist cloud as a Cutie Mark. He also had a device on his head that prevented him from using his magic. It was the former leader of the Storm Wings and a member of the Outcasts: Mystic.

After the plan of Fade, another member of the Outcasts, failed, he was imprisoned because unlike the rest of the members, he did not regret any of the things he did. His hate for Princess Celestia made him dangerous, and when it comes to magic, he was pretty strong as well. If would have set free, then Equestria would be a much more dangerous place.

The Unicorn was walking around his small cell until he got tired and just laid down on his bed, looking out of the small window that was a few meters above him.

"It's been a while since I saw a Royal Guard wandering around here," he said in a bothered tone. "Usually, I can hear them out there from this window but it's so quiet. First, one after another left those hallways, then everything outside became quiet, and now there is nothing. I usually have some of them checking up on me at this time of day. What is going on!? Did those Changelings attack again!? No. I would be able to hear all those Changeling if they attacked this place, right?"

It was confusing Mystic but at the same time, he didn't care too much what happened. If there was anything that was out there attacking Canterlot, then it was not his problem. If Princess Celestia would suffer from this, then even better. The stallion decided to close his eyes and take a nap, nothing else he could do anyway.

But then his ears perked up. Steps. At first, he didn't know what it was because he didn't hear any for a while now but it was definitely steps, and they came slowly closer to him. Mystic moved his head to the right. It wasn't long until he saw someone walking closer to him, emerging from the shadows of the dark hallways.

Mystic narrowed his eyes to get a better look at who was walking closer. "Oh, you got to be kidding me," he said annoyed once he realized who it was.

The figure revealed itself to be a Unicorn stallion wearing a gray hood. The coat of the pony was orange colored and while his face was mostly hidden under the hood, Mystic could see a dark orange mane and red eyes beneath it. It was Summershine, a pony that Mystic happened to come across before twice. Once after Mystic had escaped from the Storm Wings and when he was with the Outcasts, right before their defeat. Both of those times Summershine humiliated him.

Needless to say, seeing this pony again ignited some anger in Mystic. "Great. As if things couldn't get any worse," he said annoyed. "I'll admit that I wanted someone to get here and tell me why everyone is gone but you were literally the last one I wanted to see," he said, not even slightly hiding his anger towards Summershine.

But the hooded pony didn't respond. Instead, he used his magic to levitate something in front of his face. Mystic gave the pony a confused look after seeing what it was. Keys. Summershine used those keys to unlock Mystic's cell and opened it, freeing the purple pony.

Mystic, again. looked confused but also wary at the stallion. "What's the meaning of this?" He said with a serious expression on his face. He wasn't even thinking about letting his guard down now.

For the first time now, Summershine spoke. "I'm letting you out," he said casually.

This short answer only annoyed Mystic more. "And why would you do that?" He asked. "Last time I checked, we both didn't seem to be on the same side. You ruined Fade's plan in the last second to save your precious princesses. And now you just show up and free me? After all that?"

Summershine didn't reply again and just levitated the keys close to Mystic's head, to the device on his horn to be precise. He quickly unlocked it and the device fell to the ground. Mystic was now able to use his magic again. The stallion immediately focused his magic and was ready to shoot at Summershine, who was just standing firm and not intimidated at all.

Summershine removed his hood from his head. "Is that the right way to treat someone who just freed you?" He said with a serious look on his face.

Seeing how he didn't get a reaction out of the hooded pony, Mystic withdraw his magic again. He then began to chuckle. "Well, you should have guessed that freeing me was a bad idea,"

Now it was Summershine who chuckled. "Maybe. But I could use some help, so I am willing to take that risk," he replied.

"Help?" Mystic asked confused, his eyebrows lowered in confusion. "You need my help?" He said in disbelieve.

Summershine turned around. "I don't have much time. I need to be somewhere else right now. I know you don't trust me but I need your help..." he said before he turned his head around to look at Mystic. "...to take revenge on Celestia," he added before he looked straight ahead again and walked away.

Mystic did have a hard time understanding why Summershine was doing and saying all of those things, given how he acted in their previous encounters but those last words were just enough to get his attention. In his mind, Mystic knew that Summershine was stronger than him and that he would have probably dealt with him if he wanted something and that is exactly what made him angry. But right now, he decided to follow the hooded pony to see what his intentions were.

...

The two ponies were walking through Canterlot Castle. To Mystic's surprise, there was nopony to be found in the castle, not a single soul. Summershine didn't seem to be surprised by that but Mystic couldn't help but feel a little uneasy about this.

The hooded pony approached a large door that was wide open. "Wait!" Mystic said. "Isn't that leading to the throne room?" Summershine ignored the stallion and just walked past it to head for the castle entrance. Mystic was following him cautiously. To the surprise of Mystic, Princess Celestia was nowhere to be found. He was sure that she would be in there. "Where is Celestia?" He said while he looked inside the throne room.

"I'm not sure," Summershine replied. "I guess Tirek dealt with her," he threw out as a guess.

"Who?" Mystic asked confused.

Summershine stopped and pointed at a window in the throne room. Mystic looked to where the pony was pointing at and saw a picture on the window. It showed both Tirek and Discord who crossed swords, or in Discord's case, baguettes, victoriously. The purple coated stallion was not sure what to make out of this picture. Luckily, Summershine explained things.

"Tirek, if I recall correctly, once tried to steal Equestrian magic but was stopped by Celestia and Luna. He seemed to have made a return and teamed up with Discord, the Lord of Chaos. I don't know what he did with Celestia but assuming that his goal is unchanged, he was probably after her and the magic of the other princesses. I don't know what he did to them but none of them are here." Summershine looked over to the throne where Princess Celestia would usually sit on. "I could hear how Tirek and Discord were planning to go to Ponyville so I assume that they are not done. And given how Princess Twilight is living in Ponyville, they seem to still don't have her magic,"

Hearing this long train of thought rather annoyed Mystic. "Somepony made his homework, I see," he said mockingly. "So basically, Canterlot is under attack?" He added.

Summershine led the way outside. "Not anymore," he said before he opened the entrance door of the castle and showed Mystic what it looked like outside.

For a moment, the scene that Mystic saw left him speechless. Royal Guards everywhere, defeated, laying on the ground unconscious. It was a strange sight but despite that, Summershine continued his walk as if nothing was wrong with Mystic following behind.

"I heard the rest of Equestria looks just like this," Summershine said, pretty much taking the words out of Mystic's mouth. "Tirek stole the magic from almost everyone in Equestria. You were lucky to be locked up safely," he commented.

"I guess," Mystic replied as he kept looking at the Royal Guards who he walked past. He couldn't help but to look at Summershine and keeping his eyes on him. "You still haven't told me what you need my help for," he said sternly. "Where are we even going?" He then asked impatiently.

Summershine remained calm and answered. "We still need someone else," he said.

A little later...

The two ponies found themselves in the Canterlot garden, next to the castle. Mystic still didn't know what Summershine wanted from him, mainly because he was not very talkative to begin with. It began to frustrate Mystic and he started to lose his patience as well.

Fortunately for him, Summershine came to a hold. "Here we are," he said as he stood in front of something inside the garden.

"And what is here?" Mystic asked annoyed before he realized what Summershine was standing in front of. "That is..." he then said in a surprised voice. It was a statue. A statue that highly resembled somepony that Mystic knows. A Unicorn stallion wearing an armor.

Fade...

The former Captain of the Royal Guard, a member of the Outcasts just like Mystic, and the one who was responsible for kidnapping Princess Celestia and Princess Luna not too long ago. Mystic remembered how Fade was turned to stone by the bearers of the Elements of Harmony and ended up in this state. Mystic was not aware that Fade was in Canterlot just like him all this time.

Summershine turned towards Mystic with a serious expression on his face. "Leave Canterlot. It doesn't matter where you go as long as you stay low. You will take him with you," he ordered.

"Excuse me?" Mystic said bothered. "I never said I agreed to help you," he pointed out.

The hooded pony was now beginning to lose his patience but he still managed to remain calm and collected. "You want to take revenge against Celestia too, don't you?" He asked.

"Yes," Mystic replied. "I want to take revenge against Celestia too but that doesn't mean that I will let you order me around. Let alone that I will work with you in the first place," he added.

Summershine smiled in response. "Funny, you talk like as if you are above me. If I remember correctly you lost twice already, against ponies that you thought were just weak,"

"What was that?" Mystic said, his teeth starting to show in his anger. He was about to show Summershine what he thought about him right about now.

But Summershine continued. "What if I told you that this doesn't have to repeat itself again?" Mystic's anger got smaller and was replaced by curiosity. He decided to listen. "Your eyes remind me of my own. Celestia took everything away from me and I will make her pay for that! And I will do anything to archive this. Even if that means teaming up with someone that I don't trust at all," he said boldly at Mystic's face. "I know that you are strong but you proved to be not strong enough to archive your goal. I if you want to take revenge on Celestia I'll advice that you swallow your stupid pride to try everything on your own and make sure that you can actually make your wish reality,"

No matter how much he didn't like hearing it, Mystic did fail with his plans twice. He lost his position as Leader of the Storm Wings and even with the help of the Outcasts, he wasn't able to get revenge against Princess Celestia. He didn't know who this pony in front of him really was and it made him really suspicious but he decided to give in. He could benefit from helping this pony and if he would get closer to archiving revenge then all the better.

"Fine," Mystic replied.

Summershine smiled in response. "Good, then there is one thing left for me to do to you," he said before his horn started to glow in a red light.

Mystic instantly backed away cautiously. "What are you trying to do!?" He asked angrily.

"It's necessary that I use a certain spell on you, in case things go wrong in Ponyville for me. After I did that, you need to leave Canterlot and stay hidden, take the knight with you. If you do that, I promise to make you stronger. I will contact you again. One way or another," Summershine replied casually.

By now Mystic was getting wearier again. This pony that he spent time talking to was a lot more different than what the pony he remembered meeting before. It was suspicious. Too suspicious. "You are not the same pony I met before, are you?" He then asked with a serious expression on his face.

Summershine kept looking at Mystic with a serious expression on his face as well. "No, I'm not,"

"Then who are you?" Mystic asked. "If you really want me to help you, then the least you can do is tell me who you really are,"

There was a short silence. Summershine didn't want to answer that question but Mystic was a hard pony to convince so he found himself having no choice. In the end, he did answer him.

The stallion let out a sigh. "Fine," Summershine replied before he answered and then used the spell on Mystic.

"My name is...

...

Ashgray..."

Author's Notes:

We are entering Season 5!
This Season will be interesting since the plot will get a lot thicker. I hope you look forward to it!

Also, if you haven't read the story "The Legend of Friendship - Harmony", then you might be confused who this Ashgray fellow is. Because you should know if you want to continue, just saying ^^.

Anyway, I hope no one is taking it too hard that I let you all wait for so long but I seriously wanted to write those other two stories in the meantime. I hope you understand.

But now the story continues so let's forget that, shall we?

Please let me know what you thought about this chapter or the overall story. I would really like to hear your thoughts about some things.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

92. Our Town - Part 1

View Online

Ponyville...

Considering what happened recently, the little town quickly returned to its normal and peaceful state. Only a few days have passed after Tirek's attack on Equestria but it didn't take long until all ponies recovered from his attempt to steal their magic. Some damage needed to be fixed, some things had to be repaired but it was nothing that the ponies of Equestria couldn't handle.

The ponies in Ponyville, however, had to deal with a completely different thing. A giant crystal castle was standing right in the middle of the town among them where the Golden Oak Library used to be. Tirek destroyed it while he came to look for Twilight's magic but the Tree of Harmony, which was used to defeat him in the end, transformed into this new castle. It was really standing out between all the regular looking houses next to it. Still, they had a princess, who lived among them. It only fits that she would reside in a castle just like all other princesses in Equestria so it made sense.

But that doesn't mean that there were some complications that came along with this castle...

Star Twinkle was walking around in the castle, looking left and right as he made his way through the hallways. The stallion opened a door and looked inside the room. "Nope..." he said before he closed the door again and walked to the next door in his way. He opened it. "Nope..." he said before closing the door again. The stallion let out a sigh. "Looks like I'm gonna be late for the meeting,"

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight then shouted from afar, causing the stallion to shift his attention towards her. "There you are," she said.

"Sorry," Star Twinkle apologized. "I was on my way but I...got a little lost in this castle,"

Twilight chuckled before she looked up. "Yeah, I know. This castle is pretty big after all," she admitted as she looked at the huge walls all around her. "Let's go, the others are waiting," she said before she led the way.

"Right," Star Twinkle replied relieved before he followed Twilight so that he could finally meet up with the rest of his friends. But after a few steps, Twilight stopped and looked around confused. "What's wrong?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I...err..." Twilight started while she moved her head back and forth from one door to another. "I kinda...forgot where I came from..." she admitted nervously.

"What do you mean you forgot!?" Star Twinkle asked frustrated.

Twilight smiled nervously and released an awkward chuckle. "Well, as you said...this castle is pretty...big..."

The awkwardness could be felt between them after they found themselves in this situation. "Great..." Star Twinkle replied with an annoyed expression on his face.

Meanwhile...

In the room where Star Twinkle and Twilight were supposed to be right now, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Spike already waited for them. Some of them were getting a little bored in the process.

"You think they will arrive anytime soon?" Rainbow Dash said annoyed.

"Maybe Star Twinkle doesn't want to come?" Applejack guessed.

Fluttershy disagreed. "Why wouldn't he want to come?" She asked confused.

"Well," Rarity began. "Didn't you notice how upset he looked once he saw that there was no seat for him? He probably feels left out," she said with a concerned look on her face just thinking about it.

"No kidding," Rainbow Dash agreed. "I mean, even Spike has a seat," she pointed out.

Needless to say, Spike got a little bothered by that statement. "Hey!" He just replied annoyed.

With everyone feeling a little concerned about Star Twinkle, Pinkie Pie was the only one who was her usual bubbly self. "I know I would feel left out!" She said casually while she bounced around the room. "I mean, he wasn't there when we defeated Tirek, then his friend Summershine showed up and left again before Star Twinkle could ask him some more questions...oh! And then there was the time when his Element of Harmony shattered back then when we first came across the Tree of Harmony! And now he doesn't have one of those fancy seats like us! If that isn't a reason to feel left out then I don't know what is!"

Having said all of that, Pinkie Pie got some glares from her friends.

Pinkie Pie knew what they were trying to tell her. "Okay, got it! Don't bring all of this up to make him feel upset!" She said accompanied by a salute.

Then suddenly, a flash of light appeared in the middle of the room and Star Twinkle and Twilight appeared. "Ha! You see?" Twilight said victoriously. "I knew we would appear here eventually,"

"Yeah, after teleporting all over the place," Star Twinkle said annoyed. "I don't know about you but I still prefer walking instead of teleporting..." he added while he held his head for a moment.

With all the friends finally being present, the meeting could finally start. Everypony approached the center of the room where the seven seats were at. All of the seats were forming a circle with the exception of one smaller one that was right next to Twilight's. It could be easily distinguished which seat belonged to whom because they had each of the girl's Cutie Marks on them. The smaller one belonged to Spike since there was no Cutie Mark on it. Given the size and that it was right next to Twilight's seat. Star Twinkle couldn't help but feel left out because he is the only one in the room who didn't get a seat but he tried his best to focus on what Twilight said.

"Let's go through this one more time," the Alicorn announced.

Rainbow Dash sighed. "We've been over it like a million times, Twilight! We found all six keys, defeated Tirek, and got this sweet castle! End of story!" She pointed out before she sat down on her seat.

"Yes, but why?" Twilight asked. As expected, she wanted to know the reason why the Tree of Harmony transformed into this castle.

"I dunno, sugarcube." Applejack replied. "Maybe it's just your new house and there ain't nothin' more to it than that," she guessed before she also sat down on her seat.

"I must say, speaking strictly on aesthetics, there really doesn't need to be more to it. It's all simply divine!" Rarity said before she also sat down in her seat. Of course, she was all positive about a castle like this, no matter where it came from.

"I agree with Twilight," Fluttershy said. "And Rarity. And Applejack. And Rainbow Dash. And Pinkie Pie, and Spike, and Star Twinkle," she added, trying not to get on anyone's bad side. She was also sitting down in her seat.

Pinkie Pie and Spike didn't comment on this issue and also sat down in their respective seats, leaving only Star Twinkle without a seat. "I...just go and sit here...on the ground...because no seat and all," he mumbled to himself, making sure that nopony would hear him at this moment.

As usual, Twilight wanted answers. Star Twinkle was wondering about this castle as well but she was straight out bothered because of it appearing out of nowhere. "As princess, I've been chosen to spread the magic of friendship across Equestria. So why would the Tree of Harmony want us to sit in a castle in Ponyville? It doesn't make any sense," she said before she eventually sat down on her seat as well.

Then something happened...

The seats, where the girls were sitting in, began to glow and shot out some magic beams towards the center, catching everypony by surprise. When the beams met at the center, something started to appear. A big round table made out of crystal, showing some kind of holographic map of Equestria.

Needless to say, they were all quite surprised.

"That is new," Spike said in awe. "I like it!"

"Well, now I want to know what is going on with this castle too," Star Twinkle commented after seeing what just happened in front of him.

Spike was walking on the table and took a good look at all the locations on the map. "This is incredible! It's got all of Equestria!" He said fascinated.

Pinkie Pie quickly found the rock farm where she used to grow up. "Hi, Mom and Dad!" She said happily before she saw how Spike was stomping on the farm while wandering around the map, leaving her with a sad face.

But things didn't seem to be done yet. The Cutie Marks of the girls were starting to glow and started to appear on the table as well. The started to gather at one spot, Ponyville, and the flew over to another spot on the map. Star Twinkle looked at his flank in the hope that the same thing would happen to him but there was nothing. He even tipped on his flank as if he wanted to make it work but nothing happened and the stallion frowned.

Fluttershy quickly noticed something off about the map. "But if this is Ponyville, why are our cutie marks over there?"

"I don't know," Twilight replied confused. "But it seems like the map wants us to find out. The Tree, the chest, this castle, and now the map. How can we not follow it?" She demanded.

Rainbow Dash took a good look at the place and then got really excited. "Y'know what? There's a ton of room for dangerous adventure along that route. Count me in!"

"Aw, shoot, I reckon you're right," Applejack figured.

Pinkie Pie didn't need too much convincing. "Well, I was planning on organizing my baking sheets, but okay!"

Rarity just let out a sigh before she agreed too. "Very well,"

But Fluttershy was another story, she didn't say anything on her own and Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie needed to look at her as if they expected her to come along. "Um, maybe I'll just stay here with Spike," she said. Of course, she was too afraid to go to some unknown place in the middle of Equestria.

"Awesome!" Spike said after he heard that. "Me and Big Mac have a huge weekend ahead of us talkin' hoofball, and... and trading hoofball cards, and arguing about hoofball stats..."

Fluttershy instantly regretted her words. "O-o-on second thought, m-m-maybe I'd better go with them. In case they need me," she then corrected, agreeing to go as well now.

Being happy to hear that, Twilight was ready to go with her friends to this unknown place. "Looks like it's time for a road trip," she announced before she led the way outside of the room with everypony following her.

Except for one pony...

"You girls have fun then," Star Twinkle said with a slight frown on his face.

Twilight turned around in surprise "What? You're not coming with us?" She asked confused.

Star Twinkle pointed towards the spot where the girls were heading to. "My Cutie Mark is not on there so why would I? Looks like the map thinks it would be best that I stay here," he figured.

It was true that Star Twinkle's Cutie Mark wasn't on the map, and normally the stallion would be happy that he isn't forced to go somewhere dangerous but after his Element of Harmony shattered, and the girls managed to defeat Tirek and create this castle with the help from the Tree of Harmony, he slowly felt like he didn't belong in this group, something that he didn't feel like for a while now. He told himself over and over again that he didn't want to think like this again but looking back at all those things made it really hard not to.

The girls looked at each other. They could tell that Star Twinkle was not too happy about this. Pinkie Pie tried to see the positive thing about that. "Well, just think about how many cupcakes you can eat while we are gone!" She suggested while bouncing up and down on the spot.

But that didn't help Star Twinkle to cheer up. Eventually, Twilight just walked up to him and grabbed his shoulder. "I'm sure it can't hurt if you still come with us," she said in a caring voice.

"But..." Star Twinkle said, appreciating the thought. "The map didn't-"

"We still don't know anything about this map," Applejack interrupted.

"Exactly!" Rarity agreed. "We just happen to travel to this location,"

"Yep!" Pinkie Pie said happily after she caught on to what her friends were doing. "And even if it did, I'm sure the map will understand if we want to bring a friend along,"

Star Twinkle smiled. He knew they were saying all of this just to find a reason to take him along. And the stallion was happy about that. "Thanks," Star Twinkle replied in his gratitude.

Spike was probably the only one who was a little upset about this outcome. "Well, suit yourself. Guess, Big Mac's Hock Fetlock rookie card is gonna find it's way into these little claws after I sweet-talked him a bit,"

As much fun as that sounded, Star Twinkle was still happier to be able to go with his friends. He started to convince himself that, if his Cutie Mark isn't on the map, then he had no reason to listen to it anyway. The map didn't show his Cutie Mark on this random spot in Equestria but he didn't plan to be the only one to be left out. No matter how many things would happen, that told him that he didn't belong, like a shattered Element of Harmony, a magic chest that didn't need a key from him, or a map that didn't show his Cutie Mark, the stallion planned on staying with his friends, no matter what.

Later...

Going by the Friendship Express was the fastest way to reach the spot that was marked on the map. There was also some walking after that but in the end, it didn't take too long until the group reached their destination.

And what a destination it was. A small little town, in the middle of a pale looking wasteland, hidden behind some mountains.

"That's it! That's the place on the map!" Twilight confirmed after she spotted the little town a little further away from the foot of the mountain.

"Right," Rarity said while she swept off some dust from her mane. "Let's get down there and find the spa," she added before she walked forward only to be stopped by Twilight who teleported herself right in front of her.

"Wait. We don't know why the map sent us here. We shouldn't just walk right in. It could be dangerous," she advised cautiously.

"Yes!" Rainbow Dash said excitedly with a grin on her face. She desperately wanted something to happen after all.

Star Twinkle was not looking forward to the "dangerous" part for this trip so he agreed with Twilight to proceed with caution.

It was eventually Pinkie Pie who took it upon herself to lead the group towards the town. "Stay behind me, everypony! I'm on it!" She said before she slid down the cliff and dashed from one boulder to another, hiding behind them, in her usual silly fashion. She even went so far hiding beneath one boulder.

The rest of the group slowly followed the mare until they eventually came really close to the town and could take a good look at it. Houses, all lined up in two straight lines, all of them looked the same, beige-colored walls and light brown roofs and one house at the very end at the end of the road. The citizens of the town looked normal and not dangerous at all.

"Um...what exactly are we hiding from?" Star Twinkle then asked after he took a good look at the town, causing some of the girls to shake their shoulders confused.

"This is where the map sent us? It looks like the most boring place in Equestria," Rainbow Dash complained.

"It's just an ordinary village full of ordinary pony folk," Applejack pointed out.

"It could certainly use a few more architectural flourishes. Or any architectural flourishes," Rarity said. She obviously was referring to the lack of color in this town.

Fluttershy seemed to be the only one who liked this place. "I think it's lovely," she shared with the group.

"Well, lovely is not what I would describe this place," Star Twinkle said. "But I mean, the ponies in this town look happy, right?" He said after he realized that every single pony in this town had a big grin on its face.

But out of all the ponies in Equestria, Pinkie Pie was the one who was not happy about that. "I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. I know smiles. And those smiles? They're just not right," she said with a serious expression on her face.

"Forget the smiles," Twilight then said. "Look at the cutie marks,"

It was only now that Star Twinkle noticed that every pony had the same exact Cutie Mark on their flanks. A gray equal sign. Star Twinkle had to admit that he didn't notice that at first but once he did, he began to get cautious, just like the rest of his friends.

"Okay, that's weird," Rainbow Dash had to admit.

The group was hiding behind the boulder again to discuss the situation. Twilight was asking the most important question right away. "An entire village with the same cutie mark? How can that be?"

Star Twinkle threw out the first thing that came to his mind. "Maybe they all have the same special talent?"

That answer was greeted with doubtful faces. "And what special talent would that be?" Applejack asked, trying to bite into this idea for a single second.

"Solving mathematics?" Star Twinkle guessed. He had to admit that he wasn't believing this explanation as well. It was just the best he could come up with at the moment.

In the meantime, Rainbow Dash was piecing together her own explanation for all of this. "I bet there's some sort of horrific monster behind it,"

"What makes you say that?" Twilight asked.

"'Cause fighting a horrific monster would be super-awesome!" Rainbow Dash replied, getting excited just by the thought of that.

"I reckon we just ought to head into town and talk to some locals, find out what's goin' on," Applejack then suggested.

"Great idea, AJ. Let's go!" Rainbow Dash said. She still was convinced that her theory was right and got really excited because of that.

It was really the only thing that the group could do. So far, no matter how weird all the ponies looked with their equal sign Cutie Marks, they didn't look dangerous or evil. Talking with them would be the only option.

The group walked inside the town with only Pinkie Pie staying behind a little bit. "Those smiles are bad news," she said with a serious expression on her face before she walked behind her friends.

As the group walked inside the town, every pair of eyes was focused on them instantly.

"Welcome!" One pony greeted.

Which was followed by another one...and another one...and another one...and another one...Literally, every single one of them was greeting the group with a welcome.

"This is starting to creep me out..." Star Twinkle thought while he looked back at the ponies who all greeted him. Once he turned his head forwards again, another pony stood right in front of him, making the stallion jump. "Ah!"

"Welcome!" The pony greeted him.

"Yes! Thank you!" Star Twinkle replied nervously before he walked past it. The green pony could still feel the eyes of the pony staring at him.

Unlike him, or the rest of his friends however, Fluttershy seemed to be the only one who enjoyed all of this. "This must be the most pleasant place in Equestria!" She said before she was greeted by another pony, causing her to giggle in response.

"Ugh. Thanks a lot, map," Rainbow Dash said annoyed. No matter how weird those ponies might act, there was no sign of something evil or dangerous, which is exactly what the mare was looking forward to.

As the group walked through town, two ponies decided to "officially" welcome them. One of them was a Unicorn with a light cyanish gray colored coat, a grayish azure-colored mane, and light cobalt blue colored eyes. The other one was an Earth Pony with a white coat, a white mane, and also light cobalt blue eyes. And of course, both of them had the same Cutie Mark like the rest of the town, a gray equal sign.

"Welcome!" The Unicorn greeted of course before he took a closer look at Twilight. "Pardon my forwardness, but are you an Alicorn?" He asked curiously.

Twilight found herself grinning nervously. She maybe didn't know how to react to the behavior of everypony in this town, something that everypony could understand.

Applejack was then the one to explain. "That there's the Princess of Friendship!" She simply said.

"Well, you've certainly come to the right place for friendship," the Unicorn replied while keeping his smile up at all costs.

"What brings you to town?" The white-coated Earth Pony then asked.

Twilight gave a quick and honest answer "We're not entirely sure,"

The Earth Pony didn't seem to mind this answer. "I see. Well, all are welcome here in our little village. My name is Double Diamond, and this is Party Favor," he said while he pointed to the Unicorn next to him.

Applejack took it upon herself to introduce herself and the rest of the group. "Howdy, Double Diamond. I'm Applejack, and this here's Star Twinkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle,"

Double Diamond walked closer to the group, to the flanks of everypony to be exact. "And you all have your own unique cutie marks," he said in awe, causing some of the girls to hide their flanks under their tails because of Double Diamond's lack of respect for personal space.

"Anyway," Star Twinkle said before he took a step back from the two ponies. "You obviously all seem happy around here but..." he started with some hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Is there maybe some kind of trouble around here?"

Double Diamond seemed surprised to hear that, even though he still had a wide grin on his face. "Trouble? Why, I don't think we've ever had trouble in our little village," he replied.

"It's true. You'll see," Party Favor agreed on.

By now Star Twinkle just had to ask the obvious question. "Any particular reason why you all keep smiling like-"

But Applejack poked the stallion in the sides before he could finish that sentence. She probably thought that this question was a little rude but Star Twinkle could tell that she was also interested to know the answer.

Double Diamond ignored Star Twinkle's question and advised that the group should speak to their founder, Starlight Glimmer. Rainbow Dash instantly figured that this was the name of the evildoer that they had to fight, or at least she kept telling herself that so that this trip would not be a waste of time for her.

Again, everypony had their guard up, except Fluttershy, who was still enjoying her stay in this town. "I wish everypony in Equestria was as friendly as these ponies are," she shared.

"Yeah...friendly..." Star Twinkle thought before he looked back to see a bunch of ponies walking behind him with their grins and eyes glued at him. "Do they have to follow us while looking like that!? It really creeps me out!" the stallion thought before he focused his sight in front of him again.

"I've got my eye on them," Pinkie Pie said with a serious expression on her face. "Something's rotten in... whatever the name of this village is that we're in right now!"

"It's Our Town," Double Diamond said after overhearing Pinkie Pie's words.

"Thank you!" The mare replied happily for a second before her face got serious again in an instant.

As the group was following the two ponies, Twilight was keep looking at the flanks of them. "How can it be that two ponies have the exact same Cutie Mark? Let alone a whole town?" She asked herself.

"Maybe they really do all have the same special talent?" Star Twinkle guessed again.

"The whole town?" Twilight replied while she gave the stallion a look of disbelieve.

"Good point," Star Twinkle admitted.

The two stallions stopped in front of the house at the end of the road, the one that was in the middle. Of course, the one house at the very end would belong to the founder of this town. The stallions both knocked on the door a few times.

"Starlight, we have some new visitors," Double Diamond said before he entered the house together with Party Favor, followed by the rest of the group.

The group entered the house. From the inside, the house looked...normal, almost plain, exactly like how the rest of the town looked like. The ponies here don't seem to be much for decoration or colors in general.

Once inside, everyone waited for this Starlight Glimmer to show up. They could already hear hoof-steps from behind a door at the end of the room. Again, Rainbow Dash figured that danger was about to head straight towards them.

"Be ready to fight. We don't know what's gonna come through that door," she whispered to the others.

But Rainbow Dash's expectations were crushed once a Unicorn mare opened the door with a happy smile on her face. "Welcome! I'm so pleased to have you here," the mare said in a cheerful manner.

The Unicorn mare had a light pink colored coat, a dark purple and light purple colored mane with aquamarine colored streaks in it, and moderate blue eyes. On her flank was the same Cutie Mark that everypony else had in this town.

"You are Starlight Glimmer?" Star Twinkle asked.

The mare nodded. "Yes, I am!" She replied proudly. "Founder and Leader of Our Town!"

Needless to say, Rainbow Dash was not too happy after figuring out who this mare was. Starlight Glimmer didn't look dangerous at all, in fact, she looked like the friendliest pony that they've met so far, which completely eliminated any sign of there being something dangerous in this town.

Double Diamond introduced everypony to the mare. "This is Applejack, Star Twinkle, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle,"

Starlight Glimmer walked over to Twilight who was smiling and felt like she was on display for being an Alicorn, something that the pink pony instantly noticed. "Forgive my bluntness, but I'm assuming it's Princess Twilight Sparkle? We don't get many Alicorns around here," she said excited.

"Yes, but "Twilight" is fine," Twilight replied a little awkwardly.

"So! How did you hear of our little village?" Starlight asked.

"It's kind of a long story," Twilight said. "Let's just say we found it on a map," she briefly explained.

"Technically, it's a Tree-chest-castle-map!" Pinkie Pie threw in happily for a second before she had a serious expression on her face again.

Starlight Glimmer didn't bother to ask for details. It would have made things needlessly complicated if she did anyway. "Well, however you found us, we're happy to have you! We're happy to have anypony who wants to experience true friendship for the first time,"

"Say what?" Applejack replied confused and with a doubting expression on her face.

"True friendship?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Oh, indeed," Starlight replied. "That's what's so unique about our village, you see. Around here, we don't flaunt our special talents because we don't have any special talents to flaunt," she explained.

"Is that why you all have those cutie marks?" Twilight asked.

"How did you even end up having all the same Cutie Mark?" Star Twinkle added.

Starlight Glimmer looked over to the stallion before she answered. "Perhaps it would be easier to understand if I gave you a tour of the village!" She said, completely ignoring Star Twinkle's question.

The mare then walked outside with everypony following her. "Heads high ponies! We got visitors! Let us all show them our beautiful town!" She shouted happily across the village.

Like on command, everypony stepped outside their houses and lined up on the road. Every single pony had a big smile on their face as Starlight walked past the line of ponies.

"Everypony here!?" Starlight asked.

"No one left behind!" Another pony replied while giving a salute.

Starlight nodded happily. "As usual,"

Star Twinkle and his friends walked up to Starlight Glimmer. It was astonishing how she and everypony else were so well coordinated. Everypony walked outside without hesitation and all of them kept smiling. If somepony asked Star Twinkle to come out of his house out of nowhere, he surely would have been bothered at least a little.

But things didn't stop there.

"What is our destiny?" Starlight asked.

"To emulate!" Everypony replied in unison.

"What are we?"

"The same!"

"What is the only thing that separates us?"

"Our name!"

It was almost scary how everypony had the same opinion and gave the same answers, almost like they all shared the same mind.

Starlight Glimmer turned towards the seven ponies. "Now, I know what you are all thinking. Why would we all want to be the same?" She asked.

"Yeah, that pretty much was my question," Star Twinkle replied.

"Yes," Twilight agreed. "I mean, being different is...well..."

"Normal?" Starlight Glimmer asked before she just raised her head proudly and explained. "Well. Being the same is much better! No one in this town is looking down on anypony. Nopony is better or worse at anything. This means there is no competition, and everypony wins! Being different means that you will always see things differently than somepony else but since we are all the same, we never argue and always see eye-to-eye. And knowing that puts a smile on each and every single one of us!"

Those words of her were only supported by all the smiles that were on the faces of everypony. Strangely enough, the way how Starlight explained things, it didn't sound too bad, at least for Star Twinkle. He got his Cutie Mark not too long ago and having one still didn't make him feel any different. Given how he likes his life normal and plan, maybe he would not feel too bad in this town.

"Now, what do you say?" Starlight asked. "It's not too late for you all to experience true friendship as well! All you have to do is to give up your Cutie Marks," the mare offered cheerfully with a whole town of smiling ponies behind her. It felt a little bit intimidating.

But Rainbow Dash was not aware of that and just laughed at Starlight Glimmer's offer. "You're kidding, right? Give up our cutie marks? No way!" She replied amused.

"Rainbow Dash, don't be so rude," Fluttershy scolded. "I don't think we should judge them. They all seem perfectly happy with their choice," she figured.

But Pinkie Pie disagreed. "Don't believe their smiles, Fluttershy," she advised something that she should probably think and not speak out, given how the whole town was standing in front of her.

Twilight then answered on behalf of everypony else. "I'm sorry, I guess we're just a little confused by all of this," she said.

Starlight Glimmer was accepting this answer. "We have no judgments here in our village. Each of us was confused once as well, blinded by the false promise of our cutie marks and seeing them as something unnecessary," she explained.

"Somehow I can relate to that," Star Twinkle thought.

Twilight looked around town. All she could see were happy faces. No problem to deal with, no danger to protect those ponies from, nothing. "When we were sent to this village, we assumed it was to help in some way. But, well, it doesn't seem like you need any help," she figured.

Hearing that however, gave Starlight Glimmer a guess. "Have you considered perhaps that you might have been sent here so we could help you? After all, nopony has ever come to our village and wanted to leave. Why should you be any different? But that is entirely your choice." For some reason, the way how Starlight Glimmer said that it kinda sounded like as if it wasn't up to their choice but maybe Star Twinkle was just imagining this. " Please enjoy our little corner of Equestria. We're all quite fond of it. No doubt you will be as well. Double Diamond, please help our guests with whatever they might need,"

"Of course," the stallion replied happily.

And with that, the group found itself in a town, sent by a map form a magic table, in a magic castle, without any clue what to do here.

Later...

The group was sitting at a table in front of a little restaurant. If they were still trying to figure out what to do, then they may as well grab something to eat. On their way there, they were still greeted by everypony who walked past them, even though, all ponies in town already met them from that performance before.

As they waited for somepony to come out of the restaurant to take their order, Star Twinkle asked the most obvious question. "So, what do we do now?" He was greeted with puzzled looks on his friend's faces.

"I don't know," Twilight replied. "This place is just so strange. A cutie mark is a representation of a pony's unique talents and skills. How is it possible that they decided to get rid of them. And how?" She threw into the group, trying to find the answer.

In the meantime, Rarity was asking herself some different questions. "The only thing I want to know is how they are all fine with this blandness in this town." She was referring to how there was no decoration or any other sign of fashion to be found in all of this town. "It's like those ponies never heard of the word "color" at all,"

Fluttershy was a little disappointed to hear her friends talk like this. "Really, girls! They may do things a bit differently than we're used to, but that's no reason to be rude," she said.

Rainbow Dash had a quick answer ready. "No, the reason to be rude is that they all keep staring at us!" She said before she pointed at literally everypony in town who was looking at them.

Double Diamond was also close by and waved over to the group with a smile on his face, waiting for the group to ask him if they needed something.

"Fluttershy's right," Twilight whispered after feeling a little bit more cautious now. "If we're going to get to the bottom of why the map sent us here, we'll need the help of these ponies,"

"Maybe they don't need help," Star Twinkle said. He got a confused reaction from Twilight so he decided to explain. "I mean they look happy with their decision,"

Pinkie Pie instantly had to disagree. "Don't get fooled by them. Their smiles are-"

"Yes, I know!" Star Twinkle interrupted after getting a little annoyed from Pinkie Pie constantly pointing the obvious out. "What I'm trying to say is that we can't help them if they all think that they are already happy. This map should have given us a list to help us out or something," the stallion said bothered.

"Star Twinkle is right!" Applejack agreed. "We basically ran off to the end of Equestria before we even knew what that map was!" She said annoyed.

"If we were at the end of Equestria, we'd be sitting on a big 'A'!" Pinkie Pie said. She figured that this would be the best opportunity to tell a joke. "Get it?" She added with a smile on her face.

"Oh, please, Miss Pie!" Rarity said annoyed. "This is hardly the time for jokes! We've come all this way and for what?"

"Maybe you're right," Twilight said frustrated. "But we're here now, and it sure feels like something's wrong,"

"That and two bits'll get you a cup of cider," Applejack added.

While the group was talking, they did not notice the mare behind them who wanted to take their order. "Is this a bad time?" The mare asked. She was a Unicorn with a light pink grayish coat, a dark
purple grayish mane and light purple colored eyes.

Since the group was not making the best impression right now, Fluttershy advised everypony to behave. "We shouldn't be bickering like this in front of our new friends. Really, Applejack, you're almost as bad as Rainbow Dash!"

"Don't drag me into this!" Rainbow Dash said annoyed.

The mare was having a good idea of what was happening in front of her. "Is your friendship ending?" She asked casually which caused everypony to get a little surprised for a moment.

"Are you crazy?!" Pinkie Pie replied. "We'd never let a disagreement get in the way of food!" She explained.

The mare didn't seem to fully understand but kept up her smile as best as she could. "O-kay, well, my name is Sugar Belle. What can I bring you? We have: muffins..."

The group expected her to continued but she didn't. "And?" Star Twinkle then asked after the pause got longer and longer.

Sugar Belle looked a little embarrassed for a moment before she focused on smiling again. "That's it," she then continued.

Now the situation became awkward.

"Then I guess we'll take seven muffins!" Twilight said.

"Make that thirteen!" Pinkie Pie shouted after Sugar Belle, who was already walking away to prepare the food. Twilight just looked at the pink pony after she corrected that order. "What? I'm hungry!" She added.

Once Sugar Belle was gone, Twilight focused again. "Come on, you all. We've got to stick together. It doesn't matter what happened before, we're here now," she said.

Everypony admitted that what Twilight said was true. Fighting right now would only make this trip harder on them. "I guess you're right," Applejack said. "And the sooner we figure out why, the sooner we can go home,"

"Yeah..." Star Twinkle added. "If we all put our heads together, then we will find out what to do, as usual,"

In the meantime, Sugar Belle already returned with a plate of muffins that she placed on the table. As one would expect, even the muffins looked plain and colorless, which didn't make them look too appetizing.

Sugar Belle couldn't help but ask what this was all about what the group was talking about a minute ago. "Forgive me for overhearing, but just a moment ago you were disagreeing, and now it sounds like you're... agreeing," she said, causing the group to reply with confused looks as if they didn't know what she tried to ask. "Well, you had such differing opinions – and cutie marks yet you look like you're friends."

To an extent, Star Twinkle could understand what the mare tried to ask. Maybe judging from their little argument before, they looked like they weren't exactly friends but stuff like that happens all the time. The mare just didn't seem to understand that. Twilight even explained that a simple agreement would not be enough to break their friendship.

"I'm sorry, I'm just having a hard time understanding," Sugar Belle admitted. "Different talents lead to different opinions, which lead to bitterness and misery. So... why aren't you bitter and miserable?" She straight out asked.

By now Star Twinkle was lowering his eyebrows in confusion. "Who told you all of that?" He asked confused.

"Well," Sugar Belle started before she got interrupted by Pinkie Pie. The pink mare took the opportunity to taste one of the muffins only to spit it out immediately. They seemed to taste exactly like how they looked like, even if Pinkie Pie tried to smile to not hurt Sugar Belle's feelings. "It's all right. I know I'm not a very good baker. At least, I know I'm not any better than anypony else in the village," she said. Double Diamond seemed to have picked up the last sentence and looked over to the group, causing the Sugar Belle to get a little nervous. "Well, I... hope you enjoy our little village!" She then said nervously before she walked inside the restaurant again but not without quickly telling the group something. "Come inside before you go! Meet me downstairs!" She said hastily before she rushed inside. Needless to say, that behavior got the group a little confused.

"Okay, that was weird too," Rainbow Dash said.

Twilight Sparkle then whispered something to the others while keeping a close look on Double Diamond who was reading a newspaper just at the other side of the street, "Let's all sit here and eat these muffins and act normal. I think we're being watched," she said while she placed a muffin in front of her.

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes. "Whatever gave you that idea?" He said sarcastically while he turned his head around to see literally every pony in town looking at them.

"No, not like that!" Twilight corrected. "I mean somepony here doesn't want us talking to Sugar Belle," she added while hinting at Double Diamond who was enjoying a muffin himself.

Considering how Sugar Belle was keeping a smile up at all times, just like the rest of the town, she did seem as if she wanted to tell the group something that Double Diamond wasn't supposed to hear. It was definitely worth checking out what it was if they wanted to get anywhere in this place.

It didn't take long until Applejack had something in mind already. "I got an idea. But you gotta eat all of them muffins, Pinkie,"

Pinkie Pie's eyes popped open in shock. "Me?! Why me?!"

Star Twinkle looked at her confused. "Come on, Pinkie, they can't be that bad. Don't you eat rocks when you are with your family? We really need to get some more information if we want to get anywhere," he explained.

"And that filly in there might be our best chance at findin' out what the hay is goin' on round here," Applejack added.

Pinkie Pie looked at the plate of muffins in front of her. There were still twelve left and the mare was not looking as if she was looking forward to eating just one of them. But in the end, she got pressured to do it and ate one after another. Just watching her eat them was turning Star Twinkle's stomach around. They really must taste really bad if not even Pinkie Pie liked them.

After a little while, Pinkie Pie did manage to stuff down every single muffin. Her head was turning green because of the bad taste and she looked like she was about to spit them out any second but they were all gone.

Now was the time for the others to take action. "I can't believe you ate all our muffins, Pinkie Pie!" Applejack said loud and clear so that Double Diamond would not miss it. "We'd best go inside and get some more!"

The group then went inside to meet Sugar Belle. Hopefully Double Diamond would not suspect anything. Sugar Belle awaited them inside and told them to follow her down to the basement. The group followed close behind with Pinkie Pie crawling behind them and not feeling too well.

"I've accidentally eaten cardboard tastier than that..." She said with a sick expression on her face.

The seven ponies found themselves in a barely lit basement. "Thank you for coming!" Sugar Belle said happily.

"Why did you want us to come down here?" Twilight asked confused.

"So nopony could see what's about to happen," Sugar Belle said.

Hearing this sent shivers down the backs of the group. It was now that they realized that there were more ponies down there with them. They found themselves surrounded by Party Flavor and another Pegasus mare with a grayish azure-colored coat, a bluish-gray colored mane, and cerulean colored eyes. The three ponies were walking dangerously close to the seven ponies.

It was obvious that they trapped them so Twilight readied her magic to defend herself and her friends but before she could do anything, Party Favor was right in front of her face.

"Are you really the Princess of Friendship?" He asked.

"Do you know Princess Celestia?" The Pegasus mare asked.

Sugar Belle then grabbed Pinkie Pie's flank. "I love your cutie mark!"

"How can you be friends with different cutie marks? Don't you end up hating each other?" The Pegasus mare asked confused.

"Oh, look at this one!" Sugar Belle said after grabbing Fluttershy's flank this time. "This one's great too!"

The three ponies showed more excitement and emotion than all of the town combined so far. It was almost scary and too sudden. This caused Star Twinkle to stop them from talking so much for a moment.

"Okay! What is going on here!?" He exclaimed, causing the three ponies to stop for a moment.

The Pegasus mare explained. "I'm sorry, we just got too excited to see ponies with Cutie Marks after such a long time. I'm Night Glider, by the way," she then introduced herself.

"Yes," Sugar Belle said before she looked over to her own flank. "I'd love to have my special talent back even just for a day! Make something besides those disgusting muffins..."

"So what's stopping you?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Go get your cutie marks back,"

The three ponies were shocked to hear this. "Daydreaming is one thing, but you mean actually having it put back on? That seems extreme," Party Flavor said hesitantly.

"I'm not sure Starlight would like that," Sugar Belle added worriedly. "She wants us all to be happy in our sameness."

Star Twinkle was about to say that Starlight Glimmer was a little bit harsh if she demanded something like that but Twilight was asking a more important question.

"How do you take somepony's cutie mark anyway?"

Night Glider explained. "The cutie unmarking is a beautiful experience! Starlight uses the Staff of Sameness to magically take them away and replace them with these," she said while she and the other two ponies showed off their equal sign Cutie Marks.

"But nopony should keep you from your cutie mark," Twilight said. "It represents such an essential part of who you are,"

"Oh, we're not kept from them," Night Glider replied. "They're in the vault up in the caves. We can visit them any time we like to remind us of the heartache of a life with special talents."

It didn't take long until Twilight saw an opportunity in this. She looked over to her friends who all nodded in agreement before she looked back at the three ponies in front of her.

"Can we visit this cave?"

Later...

Starlight Glimmer agreed on showing the seven ponies this Cutie Mark Vault. She was leading the way to the cave outside of town. It was quite a march and Starlight took her time to explain some things about her town.

"I'm delighted you're interested in our cutie mark vault. We hope someday every pony in Equestria will make a pilgrimage here to our little village to have theirs removed too, and our message of perfectly equal friendship can finally spread across the land,"

The group did their best to not show the mare their true intentions by visiting the vault. Twilight made sure to talk with her friends in a quiet tone. "This must be the reason we're here."

"Pilgrimaging?" Pinkie Pie asked confused.

"No, helping those ponies get their cutie marks back," Twilight said.

"Oh, are you sure, Twilight?" Fluttershy asked. "Maybe they miss them a little, but even they didn't seem all that unhappy,"

"Then why did they want to meet us in secret? And why did they ask us not to tell Starlight who told us about the vault?" Twilight asked.

"Obviously, Starlight Glimmer doesn't want to give them back their Cutie Marks," Star Twinkle pointed out. "She seems to be in control about everything in town after all," he added.

"Just through here!" Starlight Glimmer said before she stopped in front of a cave and walked inside of it. The group followed her inside and was shocked by what they saw. "Behold! Our cutie mark vault!" Starlight Glimmer announced proudly. There was a giant wall that had images of many Cutie Marks on it. They probably all belonged to the ponies living in the village. Somehow it was just wrong looking at that thing. To imagine that the special talents and destinies of all the ponies in town were on this wall was just something really unbelievable.

Starlight Glimmer walked up in front of the wall and picked up a staff that stuck out from the ground. "And here is the Staff of Sameness. It was one of the great Mage Meadowbrook's nine enchanted items. We are incredibly fortunate to have it here. This is the tool that allows us to free ourselves from our marks!" She said proudly before she turned towards the seven ponies, this time with a more devious looking expression on her face. "I'm curious – how did the subject of the vault come up?" She then asked.

"Oh, some ponies were telling us how much they missed their cutie marks, and—" Pinkie Pie then spat out without thinking, causing everypony to shut her up but unfortunately, it was too late and the damage was already done.

Starlight Glimmer gasped in shock. "Were they? Well, it seems you inspire all sorts of free-thinking, don't you?" She then said angrily while she walked up to the seven ponies with her staff floating next to her.

Rarity laughed nervously. "Well, w-we certainly didn't intend to cause any disruptions to your charming little—" she said trying to diffuse the situation as good as she could but Starlight Glimmer was ignoring that completely.

"Good. Let's just make sure of that, shall we?" Starlight Glimmer said confidentially.

It was then that ponies came walking out of the shadows and approached the group. They were surrounded, and unlike Sugar Belle, Party Favor, and Night Glider, those ponies did not intend to have a friendly talk with them.

"It's a trap!" Twilight exclaimed in shock before she took action and teleported herself up into the air and charged her magic.

However, Starlight Glimmer managed to hit Twilight with a magic beam from her staff and trapped her in place. Twilight groaned in pain, slowly her Cutie Mark was literally ripped off from her flank like a sticker that somepony removed from her body.

Star Twinkle realized that he was paralyzed in shock but quickly got a grip again and charged at Starlight in order to prevent even more damage. But Twilight already dropped down on the ground and Starlight aimed at Star Twinkle, freezing him in place and removing his white star from his flank and letting him drop on his face weakened.

The mare just laughed at the desperate attempt of Star Twinkle and walked past him to aim at the rest of the group, removing their Cutie Marks as well.

Once all the Cutie Marks were removed, they were all placed inside the wall as well. Starlight Glimmer was victorious and the seven ponies failed to help anyone.

"I don't blame you for what you tried to do here today. You've spent your whole lives thinking those marks are a good thing," she said towards Twilight who was getting up on her hooves again and looked at Starlight angrily. "Well, now you can spend the rest of your lives here with us! And we'll teach you just how much better life can be without your cutie marks!"

The town ponies walked up closer to the group, completely surrounding them. The girls tried to fight back but they all felt heavily weakened and could barely stand straight, let alone defend themselves.

Twilight didn't see Star Twinkle among them but she quickly noticed him behind Starlight, something that wasn't unnoticed by the pink pony.

Star Twinkle got up on his hooves again...barely. He was panting heavily and had a pain-filled expression on his face. The stallion looked over to his friends, who were all weakened by getting their Cutie Marks removed by Starlight Glimmer and replaced by gray equal signs.

Starlight was walking up confidentially to the stallion but then her eyes widened and she took a few steps back again. "What!?" She said in shock.

The stallion was not sure why she reacted like that. He was unaware of one change on his body. He had no equal sign on his flank after his Cutie Mark was removed. He had a different Cutie Mark on his flank.

Six little white stars...

It didn't take long until Star Twinkle got desperate and started to turn into a Unicorn to defend himself and his friends, ready to fight anyone who would come in his path even if he could not take everyone at the same time in this cave.

Seeing the stallion turn into a Unicorn all of the sudden only got Starlight more worried so she waited what Star Twinkle would do next.

But then, things got worse for the stallion...

As soon as he transformed, the transformation went away immediately and he froze due to the lack of strength. Star Twinkle felt even weaker and could barely see anything. His legs started to shake and he collapsed to the ground. "What is happening!? I feel so weak! So...very...weak..."

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight screamed in shock after seeing the stallion in this state.

Starlight Glimmer had a worried expression on her face and stopped pointing her staff at the stallion. She didn't know what was happening now but it was obvious that Star Twinkle was in no condition to go on.

Star Twinkle could see Starlight Glimmer walking up to him but as soon as she was right in front of him, his vision became blurry, and eventually, he could only see black and passed out...

To be continued...

Author's Notes:

Season 5 officially started. Yay! And the main character are all defeated...yay?

I hope I didn't let you all wait too long and that some of you all are still around. I am happy to be back in this story and would like to have you all back as well ^^.

Anyway, the next chapter should hopefully not take too long but I can't promise anything because every time I did, I mostly can't keep them, which is kinda bad...

Still, the story continues and I will not stop so you don't have to worry about that ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

93. Our Town - Part 2

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In a small room in Our Town...

Star Twinkle slowly opened his eyes and found himself in an unknown room. He didn't even know what happened or why he was in this room to begin with. His mind was a huge blur at the moment. "What happened?" He asked confused while he grabbed his head in pain.

He could feel something tight around his neck. He quickly found out that it was a collar with a chain strapped to the wall. "What!?" Star Twinkle could only say once he figured out that he was held as a prisoner.

"Oh! You're awake!" A female voice then said.

The voice belonged to Starlight Glimmer, the very pony who took away the Cutie Marks of him and his friends. Suddenly, his memories formed inside his head again. He remembered what happened. The Cutie Mark Vault, the whole town setting up a trap, Starlight Glimmer taking away everyponies Cutie Marks, it all came back to him.

"You!" Star Twinkle exclaimed angrily while he got up on his hooves only to drop down on his knees again. He panted heavily in exhaustion. "Why do I feel so weak!? I fell like I just ran through half of Equestria, twice!"

"You should probably rest a little bit more," Starlight Glimmer said once she saw Star Twinkle in this state. "Your friends would be really upset if something happens to you," she said in a pretty uncaring tone.

"My friends!" Star Twinkle said in shock. "Where are they!? What did you do with them!?" He asked angrily.

Despite Star Twinkle getting angry at the mare, Starlight Glimmer did not feel threatened at all. "I didn't hurt them if that is what you're asking. No, actually, its quite the opposite. They are about to change for the better and I just...give them a little push in the right direction," she explained.

"By stealing their Cutie Marks against their own will!?" Star Twinkle shot back to the mare angrily.

Starlight Glimmer sighed. "I know ponies like you would never understand. Living with your Cutie Marks has completely blinded you," she said arrogantly. "Speaking of Cutie Marks," she started while the mare walked closer to the stallion with a curious expression on her face. "You are not exactly what I would call normal. Why is it that you still have a Cutie Mark?"

Star Twinkle didn't understand the question. He saw how his friends had equal signs on their flanks before he passed and assumed that the same happened to him but once he looked at his flank, he saw that this was not the case. Six white stars. That is what was on his flank right now. Instead of a big white star, there were six smaller ones, one in the middle and five around them.

"Normally, whenever I take a Cutie Mark away from somepony, they are replaced with those," she explained while she pointed at her flank, at her equal sign Cutie Mark to be exact. "But yours was replaced. That never happened before. It's quite bizarre. Not to mention that weird transformation that you did, which is why I had to take some precautions," she said, hinting at the chain around Star Twinkle's neck.

The green pony was listening but he still kept looking at his flank. He was confused and didn't know what the meaning of this was. For some reason though, this Cutie Mark looked familiar. He saw it before, he was sure of that. But once he tried to remember, his head started to hurt and he clenched his teeth.

Starlight Glimmer noticed and had a slightly worried expression on her face. "You know, I planned on removing this Cutie Mark as well but since you collapsed after I removed your first one, and did this weird transformation, something that I would like to know more of later as well, I figured I shouldn't. I didn't want to put you through any more pain after all," she explained.

For obvious reasons, Star Twinkle looked over to the mare with a look of disbelieve on his face. "How nice of you," he said sarcastically.

The mare got offended by those words a little but decided to ignore them. "Despite what you think, I do care about the ponies who will soon join our little community. I'm not a monster, you know,"

"I would like to get a second opinion on that," Star Twinkle shot back.

Again, Starlight Glimmer ignored those words and walked away towards a door at the end of the room. "I deal with you once I am done with your friends. Right now, they are about to see the light as well and it will not take long until you will see it too," she said confidently before she left the room.

Once, the mare was gone, Star Twinkle immediately tried to break himself free from the chain. But it didn't work, mainly because he felt really weak and exhausted. It must have been because his Cutie Mark got removed. Thinking about that only caused him to look at his flank again.

The stallion only sighed. "Of course something "special" happened to me," he said annoyed. He was referring to how he was the only one who's Cutie Mark was not replaced with an equal sign. He remembered back to before he came to this town how he was not having his own seat in Twilight's castle. Or that one time where his Element of Harmony shattered when he and his friends gave the Tree of Harmony the elements back. Or that time where he was confronted by Discord and wasn't corrupted.

It was beginning to feel a little bit like a running gag. It was like the whole world wanted to convince the stallion that he wasn't like his friends. And of course, after remembering all of those things, all the stallion wanted to know is trying to find the answers. But unfortunately, he had no time for that. He needed to get out of this room and see if his friends were okay. After figuring that he was too weak to break the chain around his neck he quickly concluded that he should transform and use magic to simply teleport out of there. He got second thoughts though once he remembered how he passed out after Starlight Glimmer stole his Cutie Mark.

But the concern for his friends is what caused him to try anyway. He could not just sit here and wait while his friends were in danger. But still, even after he decided to do something, he felt too weak to transform. No matter how much energy he used, which was very limited, to begin with, he could not access this transformation.

"You got to be kidding me!" Star Twinkle said annoyed after he gave up. He was panting heavily in exhaustion. Just the thought that his friends were in this condition as well was getting the stallion worried. "Is there nothing I can do!?" He said in frustration.

He looked around in the room. The was a lock around Star Twinkle's neck so that meant that there was a key somewhere around. The chain that was connected to the wall was not too long and Starlight Glimmer seemed to have made sure that every object in the room was too far away from the stallion. There was nothing that he could do right now.

The stallion decided to lay down and look at the ceiling. He accepted that he could just wait. And once there was nothing to do for him, his mind wandered around the events that happened a few hours ago. His friends lost their Cutie Marks and were probably trapped somewhere in this town so that they could be brainwashed to join or something like that.

It didn't take long until Star Twinkle looked at his flank. He could see six small white stars instead of one big white star. The longer he stared at it, the more it looked familiar. But why was that? He had no idea, and thinking about it gave him a headache, literally.

He decided to take a nap. The ground was not comfortable but he was also really weak and tired so he couldn't care less right now. The thought that his friends could be in danger right now is what made falling asleep a little bit harder for him but eventually, his exhaustion won the battle and he drifted off.

One night later...

"Good evening!" Was the first thing that Star Twinkle could hear in the morning. Starlight Glimmer was the one who woke him up.

Star Twinkle rubbed his eyes in confusion. "Evening?" He asked confused.

"Yes," Starlight replied. "You really have a deep sleep, I must admit. I guess that this whole "Cutie Mark removal" was even more exhausting to you than I originally thought,"

The stallion looked out of the window of this room and realized that it must be true. It was dark outside. It wasn't before so he might have only slept a few hours until it became dark and Starlight was just messing around with him but he had no idea what that she would get from that. But despite him sleeping for so long, the exhaustion did not go away, at least not too much.

Starlight Glimmer approached Star Twinkle with a smile on her face which really started to worry him. "I hope you slept well," she had the nerve to ask.

"No," Star Twinkle replied with a bad mood. He was a pony who highly appreciated a good rest and sleeping on the ground was not to his liking at all.

But the mare's smile didn't vanish. It almost seemed as if she was in a really good mood. "Maybe it will cheer you up to know that one of your friends has already joined our little community!"

"What!?" Star Twinkle said in shock. "Who!?"

"Fluttershy," Starlight Glimmer said with a smile on her face. Seeing the shocked expression on the stallion's face was probably the major reason why she was so happy at the moment. "And it only took one night for her to realize that this is the better decision."

Star Twinkle clenched his teeth. "Of course, Fluttershy would be the one to fall first..." the stallion thought. "Did the others try to stop her? It's Fluttershy after all. Was she really able to get her will through?" The more Star Twinkle thought about it, the more he realized that something was fishy. Fluttershy was probably manipulated, and knowing how she was someone who could barely resist when somepony tried to talk her into something supported this his theory. There was also a possibility that she genuinely joined this town. She liked this town since the very beginning after all. However, after what happened to her and her friends, she should see that this is not okay.

While Star Twinkle was thinking about all this to find an answer, Starlight continued to show how happy she was by this outcome.

"No matter how much time it takes for you all to see the light, sooner or later you will all see how much better everything is without a Cutie Mark," she said confidently followed by a little chuckle after she imagined all of this in her head.

But once Star Twinkle asked a certain question, the face of the mare looked a little bit more serious again. "Why exactly are you doing all of this!?" Star Twinkle asked after he heard what already happened to one of his friends. "What do you get out of this!?"

Starlight Glimmer had a quick answer ready. "The happiness and joy of my fellow ponies," she said humbly.

"But what if they aren't happy?" Star Twinkle said. What came to his mind was Party Favor, Sugar Belle and Night Glider, who all wanted to have their Cutie Marks back and who envied Star Twinkle and his friends for their Cutie Marks. "What if they aren't happy and they just believe you because they trust you?"

"They are happy," Starlight Glimmer replied confidently. "And they are right to trust me, I am the founder of this town after all,"

"But I thought everypony in this town is equal," Star Twinkle said after he spotted a little mistake in all of this. "So what exactly gives you the right to decided everyponies happiness!?" The stallion said. He found himself really involved in all of this by now. He was also angry at the mare for manipulating one of his friends so there was some anger in this voice as well.

This anger, however, was also affecting Starlight Glimmer, who was starting to get sick of how this pony was talking to her. The mare walked closer to Star Twinkle until she was only inches away from the stallion's face, giving him a glare that was countered by his own. "Do you really think a pony who lived his whole life with a Cutie Mark has any right to know how it would be like to live without one?" She said angrily while she locked eyes with the stallion.

The tension was really high between the two of them. They both would like to smack some senses into each other but in the middle of their glaring contest, knocking could be heard from downstairs.

"I need to get that," Starlight Glimmer said in a bitter tone before she walked out of the room slowly while keeping a close look on Star Twinkle as she closed the door behind her. The stallion could hear how she locked the door form the other side. She must have been really cautious of him by now.

One locked door was not what Star Twinkle was worried about, however. He was more concerned about his friends. If what Starlight Glimmer said was true, then his friends would really end up being under her control if time goes on. Star Twinkle had to do something and quick.

But the things that he could do were limited, or rather, not present at all so all he could do was waiting for an opportunity to escape. But with him chained to the wall and Starlight Glimmer hovering around him most of the time, he probably only had one chance. Star Twinkle needed to think quick to find a solution. There had to be something that he could do. He was going so far to wish for something that would point him in the right direction.

And then, almost as if someone heard his wish, somepony called his name.

"Star Twinkle?" A female voice whispered.

The stallion instantly recognized that voice. "Fluttershy?" He asked in a loud tone, something that he didn't plan on doing considering that Starlight Glimmer could hear him.

He only heard Fluttershy's voice but he couldn't see her right away but eventually, she showed herself. She was on the other side of the window. She carefully opened it and sneaked inside the room with her head low before she suddenly hugged the stallion. "Thank goodness you are alright!" She said in relief. "We were all so worried about you!"

It took Star Twinkle by surprise that the mare approached him like this but in hindsight it made sense. He collapsed once his Cutie Mark got removed and he tried to transform so his friends were probably really concerned. It was good to see the mare in one piece as well but he still remembered what Starlight Glimmer said.

"I heard you joined this town, is that true?" The stallion asked.

Fluttershy released the stallion from her hug and explained. "Oh, no! This was all a plan from the other! I had to trick everypony and let them think that I joined them so that I could find our Cutie Marks," she said.

Star Twinkle let out a relieved sigh. He felt bad to think that Fluttershy would just abandon his friends. "But wait, why are you here then? Aren't our Cutie Marks in this cave?" He asked confused.

"Yes, that's what I thought too," Fluttershy replied. "But I just saw how Double Diamond brought our Cutie Marks in here, in this house," she explained.

"I see," Star Twinkle said. "That must have been the one who knocked on the door just a few minutes ago," he figured while he rubbed his chin. "Why would she want our Cutie Marks specifically that close though?" He then asked.

But Fluttershy knew the answer. "Starlight Glimmer thinks that Twilight's Cutie Mark is very valuable because it belonged to a princess. She also thinks that yours is special. After all, another Cutie Marks appeared on your flank after it got removed," she pointed out while she looked at the stallion's flank confused. Star Twinkle would like to explain that if he could but that was not possible. It wasn't as if the two had any time to talk about this anyway.

There was also some more information that she shared with Star Twinkle. Once he listened to it, his eyes widened in surprise. "Are you sure?" He asked, causing Fluttershy to nod in response. This information gave Star Twinkle an idea of how to get out of this situation. "If what you say is true, then we can all turn things around in our favor,"

Star Twinkle shared his plan with Fluttershy and the mare agreed that it could work if everything went well. Fluttershy had to stay in a room in Starlight Glimmer's house on the second floor just like Star Twinkle. That was probably so that the Unicorn could keep a close eye on her. That means that Fluttershy could not spend too much time in this room now and had to return soon.

But Star Twinkle explained the whole plan already and made sure to be ready to play his part. Everything was already set and all he had to do was wait for the next day...

The next morning...

"Good morning!" Starlight Glimmer greeted in a singing voice. Her enthusiasm, however, was greeted with a glare from Star Twinkle. "Let me guess, you still don't want to join our community?" She asked with a smile on her face. The stallion didn't reply and Starlight Glimmer just turned around and walked towards the door to leave the room. "Well, I suppose I will check up on your friends. Maybe one of them decided to join us just like Fluttershy," she said confidently before she closed the door and locked it behind her.

As soon as the mare was gone, Star Twinkle began to smile. "I have a good guess that this will not be the case," he said before he revealed a key that he was hiding under his body. It was the key to the collar around his neck. There was a keyhole on it and the key fitted perfectly into it, causing him to remove the chain and free himself again. "The first part of the plan was a success!" He said cheerfully before he walked up to the door at the end of the room. The key also fitted right inside the keyhole of the door and Star Twinkle was able to leave now.

"Now for part two of my plan,"

Meanwhile...

All of the citizens gathered in front of a certain house in town. Starlight Glimmer joined them soon and everypony quickly got excited. "I've got a good feeling about today!" She said happily before she opened the door of the house and let out the ponies who were inside.

It was Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie, who stepped out of the house. All of them looking a little bit more colorless and with equal signs on their flanks. This is where they had been after the incident at the Cutie Mark Vault. Starlight Glimmer locked them up until they would admit that life without a Cutie Mark is a better decision.

"So, do any of you have anything you'd like to say?" Starlight Glimmer asked with high expectations but all she got was silence and glares from the girls. "Aw, pity," the mare said with a frown on her face. "Well, let's try this again tomorrow, shall we? No new friends today, I'm afraid!" She said before she was about to lock the door again.

But Fluttershy was interrupting her."Wait! I'd like to lock them in," she said.

It was an attempt to get Starlight to trust her and it worked like a charm. "Marvelous, Fluttershy! That's the spirit! Party Favor, will you join us, please?"

Immediately, Party Flavor came running out of the house and dropped to his knees. He was kept in this house because he admitted telling Twilight and the others about the Cutie Mark Vault in order to save Night Glider and Sugar Belle. But judging how the stallion dropped on his knees he highly regretted this. "I'm sorry, Starlight! I'm sorry, everypony! I've seen the error of my ways! I never want to look at my cutie mark again!"

Hearing that, really made Starlight Glimmer happy, as well as the rest of the town who all cheered in response. "It seems there's a cause for celebration after all!" The Unicorn mare announced.

"They tried to break me!" Party Favor said. "They wouldn't stop talking about how different they are, and that somehow makes their friendship stronger!"

"Such backward thinking," Starlight Glimmer said in disgust.

"But I didn't listen! I knew what they were up to, and I didn't listen!" Party Favor said proudly, which made Twilight and her friends just shake their heads since they actually tried to help him.

"Well done, Party Favor! We welcome you back with open hooves!" Starlight Glimmer said happily.

In the meantime, Fluttershy walked up to Starlight and the rest of the town. "Um, Starlight? I think we might have one more friend joining us today," she said much to everyponies surprise.

The one she was talking about was Twilight. As soon as the town realized that, they could only gasp in surprise. Of course, hearing that the Princess of Friendship was about to join their little town got them all really excited.

Starlight Glimmer, however, was a little suspicious. "Is this true?" She asked.

Twilight walked slowly up to Starlight. "I-I think so. But I just want to be sure. If I agree to leave my cutie mark in the vault, I'll really be happier?" She asked in conformation.

"Just look around!" Starlight said as she pointed at everypony behind her. "Equality has given us more happiness than you've ever known!"

"And you wouldn't let me just live here in the village with my old cutie mark?" Twilight asked.

"Out of the question," Starlight Glimmer quickly replied. "A pony with a different cutie mark in our midst would destroy our entire philosophy. We are all equal here!" She said proudly which earned her the agreement of everypony in town.

This exactly what the group wanted to hear. Starlight saw how Twilight formed a victorious smile on her face and got even more suspicious now. But it seemed to be too late, the plan that Star Twinkle came up with, was about to be executed.

"Then how do you explain this?!" Fluttershy said as she was flying up in the air. She took the opportunity to grab a bucket filled with water and splashed it right at Starlight. The information that she gave Star Twinkle was that Starlight Glimmer's "Cutie Mark" was just painted on and water should be able to wash it away and expose her.

Unfortunately, Starlight Glimmer managed to jump to the side and barely dodged the water, leaving Fluttershy in shock.

"I knew you couldn't be trusted!" Starlight Glimmer said angrily towards the mare. What she didn't notice however was how some water drops managed to get on her flank, washing away the equal sign a bit. Party Favor noticed that as well and used a towel to dry Starlight Glimmer up again, much to her shock. "No! Get away!" She said once she realized what was happening.

But it was too late. A Cutie Mark was clearly visible on her flank now, a purple and white star with two two-toned blue glimmering streams instead of an equal sign. The mare desperately tried to hide her Cutie Mark with her tail but the damage was already done and every villager looked at her in shock. "Wha... What are you looking at?! They're the problem, not me!" She said, trying to get out of this situation again.

"How could you?" Party Favor asked in shock before tears of disappointment started to fill his eyes.

"You said cutie marks were evil! You said special talents led to pain and heartache!" Double Diamond said.

"They do! Don't you see?! Look at them!" Starlight replied, again, trying to put the blame at Twilight and the others.

But it was too late. It was exactly like Star Twinkle expected. If the rest of the town would know how Starlight Glimmer still had her Cutie Mark, then their opinions on her would shift and they would finally realize what she was doing to them.

"Then why?" Sugar Belle asked confused. "Why did you take ours and not give up your own?"

"I..." Starlight Glimmer was trying to talk her way out of this situation but she quickly realized that she was in a bad situation and that the villagers wouldn't believe her if she tried to lie now. So she decided to show her true nature. "I had to, you fools! How could I collect your cutie marks without my magic?!"

"But the staff has all the magic we need!" Night Glider pointed out.

"The staff is a piece of wood I found in the desert!" Starlight Glimmer said right into the mare's face angrily. "It's my magic that makes all this possible! You'd all still be living your miserable lives thinking you're better than everypony else if it weren't for my magical abilities! I brought you friendship! I brought you equality! I created harmony!" She said in an angry tone, making no effort to even show any sign of sympathy now.

Needless to say, the villagers got angry at her. "You lied to us!" Double Diamond said, saying it as it really was, and the village couldn't agree more to it.

"So what? E-Everything else I said is true! The only way to be happy is if we're all equal!" Starlight Glimmer said with confidence now. She still believed that what she was doing was the right thing after all.

But the village disagreed. "Except for you," Party Favor said bluntly.

By now Starlight Glimmer had enough and was about to blow a fuse. She charged her magic and aimed at the stallion but luckily Twilight was interrupting her. This caused Starlight to focus on her instead. She and her friends were the ones who ruined all of this after all.

Twilight didn't notice that anger however and tried to talk some sense into Starlight. "Everypony has unique talents and gifts, and when we share them with each other, that's how rea—"

"QUIET!" Starlight Glimmer screamed out in anger, causing Twilight to stop in surprise. It didn't look like at all as if Starlight wanted to listen to any of her friendship speeches.

But whether she wanted to listen to Twilight or not, the whole village was now against her while she was on her own. No one would support her after all the things she did, especially since she didn't see anything wrong with it.

Sugar Belle took it upon herself to speak for the whole village. "You can't have a cutie mark, Starlight! Either we're all equal, or none of us are!" She said with everypony backing her up on that.

Starlight truly believed that equality was the right thing and she could still win everypony back if she would hold true to her own rules. If she really believed that equality would bring happiness then there would be no problem for her to remove her Cutie Marks as well. But that didn't happen. Starlight Glimmer backed away from the town's ponies but soon found herself surrounded by everypony.

She found no other option but to flee. She used her magic to create a little shockwave around her that pushed everypony away. Once she got some room again, she decided to run towards her house to escape from everypony.

It didn't really matter anyone that she ran away. Now there was no one stopping them to go to the Cutie Mark Vault to get their Cutie Marks back. The whole town was about to head over there, as well as Twilight and her friends but they stopped once Fluttershy informed them about one thing.

"Our cutie marks aren't in the vault! They're in there with her!"

"That's where Star Twinkle is too, right?" Twilight asked.

"Yes," Fluttershy replied. "He said he would look for our Cutie Marks and return them to us while we take care of Starlight,"

"Then where is he?" Rainbow Dash asked. "If he is still in there then..."

The girls got a really bad feeling and decided to make haste. Twilight led the way to Starlight's house to make sure that he was safe. She actually figured that she probably knew why he was taking so long and got really worried about him.

A little earlier...

"Where are they!?" Star Twinkle said nervously while he looked all around Starlight Glimmer's house. He was looking for a while now and wasn't able to find the Cutie Marks, even though he looked as fast as he could.

Or at least, he thought he was fast...

Every minute that he looked around in the house, caused him to get weaker and weaker. Simply walking around in the house caused him to pant heavily as if he just ran a whole marathon.

"Just what is going on here!? Why do I feel so weak!? Fluttershy didn't seem nearly as weak to me, and she is very fragile! So why am I so exhausted!?"

The stallion would love to know the answers to all of those questions but he had to focus on his task now. If Fluttershy managed to succeed with his plan then Starlight was probably exposed right now and the village would hopefully band together to stop her. He had to get his friend's Cutie Marks back while they were still somewhere around here.

Then a little wink of luck caused Star Twinkle to finally find the Cutie Marks inside a chest. They were all separately put inside some glass jars. It was a little weird seeing them like this, especially the one that was usually on his flank. He looked at his flank and saw the six stars and looked back at the Cutie Mark in the glass jar.

Again, questions were piling up in his head but he had to make haste and get out of this place. He needed to know what was happening out there.

"Stop right there!" Starlight Glimmer said angrily.

Star Twinkle turned around and saw the mare behind him, pointing her horn at him, ready to shot some magic.

"She is already here!? Did I take really so long!?" Star Twinkle thought in shock.

He was too late. If Starlight Glimmer was here, then that either meant something went wrong or he was simply taking too long. Starlight Glimmer actually answered that question right away.

"I may have lost this village but I will not lose those Cutie Marks!" She said determinedly. The stallion slowly turned around and faced the mare. He could see that she was angry now and he replied with a calm expression on his face. "I assume that your village didn't like how you still were in possession of your Cutie Mark,"

"Of course, they didn't!" She returned angrily. "How could they!? They all cling way too much to their Cutie Mark-filled-lives! They could never understand how much they get hurt by them! Ponies with different talents and different destinies are bound to look down and hurt you! Only if you are equal, you will be able to understand another. True happiness can only come from equality!"

Star Twinkle could hear the frustration in her voice. He wanted to help her. She was so fixated of Cutie Marks being something bad that she completely misses how important it is for somepony, how being different, is what makes it possible to find happiness.

"You know..." Star Twinkle started with an emphasizing tone in his voice. "If I would have come to this village some time ago, I might have agreed with what you say." Starlight got a little surprised to hear that and she allowed the stallion to continue. "I just got my Cutie Mark a while ago and to be honest, having one doesn't make me feel much different than before. And back when I didn't have one, I didn't understand how others were so proud of a simple thing that was on their flanks." The stallion then took a deep breath before he continued. He remembered back the time that he spent in Ponyville with his friends and it made him happy. Still, he formed a serious expression. "But Cutie Marks were important to others and I had no right to look down on them for thinking that they were important. Just like how you don't have the right to take everyponies Cutie Marks away! If you think living without a Cutie Mark is better, then you can do that, but don't force your opinion on others!"

Starlight Glimmer started to growl in anger. Hearing somepony talking down her whole philosophy was really angering her. Star Twinkle figured that talking to her was a waste of time. She did not listen. She had no intention of listening and Star Twinkle figured that nothing he would say is affecting her at all so he needed to do something to get out of this situation.

He came up with a plan that just might work. All he had to do was teleport himself out of this house with the Cutie Marks. It would only take a second. His plan was a success and that meant that his friends were free. They must have been outside somewhere. Even if he passed out right after transforming into a Unicorn and teleporting himself out, he could at least buy some time and get the Cutie Marks in reach of his friends. He had to trust them to take care of Starlight. It was the only thing he could do now.

Just when he had the plan ready, the stallion transformed into a Unicorn, which again surprised Starlight enough that she forgot to attack. "Now I just..." Star Twinkle thought while he managed to get the jars covered in his magic aura. He now just needed to use a teleport spell. He didn't need to teleport too far, just a few meters, outside of this wall. "Come on...come on..." Star Twinkle thought while his breathing became more and more unstable. Everything became a blur. He could barely see anything. He knew how to use a teleport spell, he wasn't good at it but he could use it fairly well. He just needed to teleport away a little. "Just a little..."

POFF!

Star Twinkle's horn disappeared again. The stallion blacked out and collapsed to the ground before he could do anything.

Starlight Glimmer didn't know what happened just now and she actually couldn't care less now because she could hear how Twilight and her friends were at the front door. She acted quickly and revealed a secret staircase under her bed. She levitated the jars with the Element's of Harmony along with her and used her magic to make a rope appear. She used that rope to tie up Star Twinkle and levitated him with her as well.

"I don't know what the deal is with you and why you are so special but you probably could get me out of here if things get worse," she said before she walked down the staircase and exited her house.

The staircase ended up leading her outside of town. The mare knew where she should go in order to escape everypony. Equipped with a cart, that was hidden inside that exit she carried the jars with the Cutie Marks and Star Twinkle along a mountain path. Her goal was clear, she just needed to reach the caves in the mountains, there was a whole network of the cave up there. Nopony would be able to find her there.

Unfortunately for her, she could see how Cutie Marks was flying up at the sky and returned to their rightful owners. That meant that she had not much time left to escape since everypony would come after her.

And just after she was thinking that some familiar ponies were on her tail already. It was Double Diamond, Party Favor, Night Glider, and Sugar Belle, all of them having a lot more color in their manes and coats now and all of them equipped with their Cutie Marks. The four of them were followed by Twilight and her friends, who could not move faster because they were still left weakened with their removed Cutie Marks.

As the four town ponies got closer, however, Starlight Glimmer decided to fight them off. "Are you all so willing to give up everything because of these strangers?!" She said before she shot at a little hill, causing the snow to fall down on Night Glider, stopping her in her chase.

"We gave up everything for you because we thought you were our friend!" Sugar Belle said in disappointment while she continued the chase. She used some of the snow next to her and formed a pie out of it and threw it at Starlight. "My newest recipe – snow pie!"

The pie was about to hit the mare but she used her magic to catch the pie and threw it right back at Sugar Belle, knocking her off from her hooves. The mare then crossed a little bridge and destroyed it behind her, making it harder for her chasers to catch up to her.

But Party Favor was prepared for that. His special talent involved balloons and he was good at making stuff out of them. He quickly used some balloons to make a new bridge so that everypony could cross it.

Starlight Glimmer got a little frustrated with how everypony caught up to her but she wasn't giving up anytime soon. She was about to reach the caves after all. However, Double Diamond came skiing towards her and blocked her path by letting some snow drop in front of her. Party Flavor and Sugar Belle were also approaching the mare from behind. Still, Starlight Glimmer didn't stop and used her magic to push them away with a shockwave, causing all of the ponies to fall to the side, off from the mountain path. Night Glider was the only one who was able to fly and she managed to save herself and Sugar Belle by carrying her with her hooves. Party Flavor saved himself and Double Diamond by blowing up a huge balloon that would carry them slowly to the ground.

There was no time for Starlight Glimmer to even process what she did to her previous friends, all she thought about was getting away from those ponies, it didn't matter where to, as long as she was able to flee for good. She would think about what to do with the Cutie Marks and Star Twinkle after that.

And she was about to succeed...

"I'm almost there!" She said as she approached the entrance of the cave with a victorious smile on her face. Once she would get inside that cave, nopony would be able to find her anymore. She won.

But then...

Starlight Glimmer's eyes widened as she continued to approach the entrance of the cave. "Who are you!?" Starlight Glimmer said annoyed.

Somepony blocked her path and stood directly in front of the cave, somepony she didn't know. There was no possibility for her to even know who it was, in fact. It was a pony wearing black armor. The same pony that once appeared before Star Twinkle after Twilight's coronation. The same pony that attacked him.

"Move!" Starlight Glimmer demanded angrily but the pony in front of her didn't budge. Starlight, however, had no plans to stop now. If this pony wanted to get run over so badly, then there was no way that she would stop now. She clenched her teeth and even accelerated to scare the pony away.

But that didn't happen. The armored pony shot a magic beam towards the mare, to the left wheel of her cart to be exact. It caused the cart to get damaged and it began to start shaking as she pulled it behind her. Soon, Starlight lost control and she crashed into a nearby mountain wall next to the cave entrance.

The mare didn't get hurt too much but she realized how the jars got broken in this crash. The Cutie Marks of Twilight and her friends got released and flew back to their original owners. Starlight Glimmer could only watch her plans crumble away in front of her. And it was all because of that pony in the black armor. The armored pony did not seem to care about what she was doing now and instead looked at Star Twinkle silently. It was almost as if the eyes of the pony were focused on him for some strange reason.

Starlight was about to repay this pony for what it had done just now but she soon heard the voices of the ones who chased her and turned around for a moment. In this very short moment, the armored pony ran away without a word, much to Starlight's frustration who was boiling in anger right about now.

The mare had to let out some anger on somepony, and her "friends" were just the right ones now. They didn't even know what happened but they saw Starlight aiming at them and got scared. Then, Starlight fired a magic shot at the four ponies. But luckily, they were saved by Twilight, who put up a shield in front of them. The Alicorn Princess had her Cutie Mark and her special talent back and easily managed to block Starlight's attack, leaving her in complete shock.

Starlight Glimmer stopped attacking since she figured she wasn't going too far with it. "Wh– I studied that spell for years! How can you—"

"I studied magic for years too!" Twilight replied. "But what I didn't know then was that studying could only take me so far. Each of my friends has taught me something different about myself! It was their unique gifts and passions and personalities that helped bring out the magic inside of me! I never would have learned that I represent the element of magic without them! And I certainly wouldn't be here to stop you now!" She said with her friends standing next to her.

But Starlight Glimmer was unimpressed by the princess's words. "Spare me your sentimental nonsense! Does every single one of you have a stupid speech like this ready!?" She said annoyed, clearly referring to Star Twinkle from before. "I gave these ponies real friendships they never could've had otherwise!"

"How do you know that?!" Double Diamond said while he, Night Glider, Sugar Belle, and Party Favor walked up to the ponies as well. "You never even gave us a chance!"

Starlight realized that she was outmatched now. Twilight alone was enough to take care of her when it came to magical power now and Starlight knew that as well. But despite that, she started charging some of her magic and was about to attack. A bright light appeared around her, blinding everypony and giving her enough chance to run inside the cave to escape.

"She's getting away!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

"We'll never find her in there!" Double Diamond added.

But Twilight didn't plan on following her and advised the others to stay outside as well "We just have to hope that when she's had a chance to think it over, she realizes that you all have taught her something,"

"It's you who have taught us something," Party Favor said. "We all came to this village because we were searching for something missing from our lives. We thought Starlight had given it to us, but now... now it seems it was in front of us all along. It's us!" He shared happily.

"Does that mean you'll stay in the village?" Twilight asked.

"It's our home. I'm not going anywhere," Night Glider said.

"This is a chance for all of us to get to know each other again for the very first time!" Double Diamond said as he looked over to his friends.

"And I finally have a chance to bake something besides terrible muffins!" Sugar Belle said excitedly before everypony started laughing cheerfully.

It was ironic that Starlight Glimmer tried to show everypony in town true friendship even though those ponies already seemed to be good friends. They worked together to stop Starlight and were highly successful with it. All they could hope is that Starlight Glimmer would understand her mistakes.

As the group was laughing, however, Applejack was looking really scared about something. While the group faced of against starlight Glimmer, the mare decided to take care of Star Twinkle, who was still tied up and unconscious. After Starlight Glimmer's cart crashed, Star Twinkle fell out of it but luckily, he wasn't hurt at first sight but now Applejack noticed something wrong about him and walked up to the others.

"I don't know what is happening to him but I think it is serious!" She said nervously.

The group quickly got worried and rushed to his side. What they saw shocked them. Star Twinkle was still unconscious but his body was looking really weird. It glowed weakly and occasionally you could see through his body.

"What is happening to him!? Why can we see through him!?" Rainbow Dash asked in concern.

"Is he hurt!? Did Starlight do something to him!?" Fluttershy asked as tears started to form in her eyes.

Twilight, while also getting really concerned about her friend was carefully inspecting him and noticed how something was still off. "He still has that one Cutie Mark," she figured as she pointed towards his flank which still showed six white stars. "Didn't he get his original Cutie Mark back!?"

Pinkie Pie stormed over to the crashed cart and hastily looked all over until she returned with something. "Here, his Cutie Mark is still in here!" She said as she showed the jar with his Cutie Mark inside of it.

"Then let's return it to him!" Rarity said in concern.

Twilight used her magic to levitate the jar next to Star Twinkle and opened it. The Cutie Mark flew right towards Star Twinkle's flank, replacing the six stars with one big one again. The group waited and hoped everything would return to normal again.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle's eyes popped open and he sat up. "What happened!?" He said in shock, much to everyponies surprise. He looked at his hooves and figured that he was feeling okay again, better than ever in fact. He was relieved but then he looked over to his friends who all looked at him funny. "Why do you all look so concerned?" He asked confused. "What happened?"

Twilight let out a sigh and got relieved as well. "How do you feel?" She then asked.

"Good," Star Twinkle replied, much to his own confusion. He realized that his Cutie Mark was back again and that Starlight Glimmer was taken care of. "I feel great, to be honest," he added.

"Are you sure?" Pinkie Pie asked casually. "You looked pretty-" but then Twilight poked her in the sides. She most likely didn't want Star Twinkle to get worried about another thing.

Luckily, something happened that would distract them from all of this. The Cutie Marks from the six mares started to glow.

"I'll never get used to that," Applejack said with slight discomfort in her voice.

"I think it's divine," Rarity said happily.

"Does that mean that the map is calling us somewhere else?" Fluttershy asked, which was a pretty good question right now.

"I have a feeling it means our work here is done," Twilight figured.

Of course, that only raised one question for Star Twinkle. "Does that mean we can go home?"

But Party Favor didn't want that to happen. "You can't just leave yet! We have to celebrate all of this!"

"Yeah!" Night Glider added. "Now that everypony got their Cutie Marks back, I bet everyone wants to let off some steam!"

"And I have to make you some proper sweets!" Sugar Belle added happily.

The seven ponies looked at each other with smiles on their faces. "I guess we can stay a little longer before we return," Twilight suggested. The group quickly agreed on that, even Star Twinkle. He was just happy that everything was resolved and that the hard part of their trip was over.

As the ponies walked back towards town, Applejack looked over to Twilight and realized something.

"Looks like you were right, Twilight. The map did have a reason for sendin' us here. We brought real friendship to these here ponies. Guess that's why you're the Princess of Friendship,"

"But the map didn't send me. It sent us," Twilight corrected. "You're a part of me, all of you. And there's no doubt you're a part of my mission to spread friendship too," she explained.

While Star Twinkle was still feeling left out in this situation, he did want to help Twilight and their friends spreading friendship across Equestria, even if the map didn't order him to this place. He figured that there would still be things coming towards him that he would not understand, as usual, just like this different Cutie Mark on his flank but he wanted to help his friends and is he had to endure some confusion on the way, then that is just how it is. He just had to accept that he was somehow different, whether he wanted or not.

The group walked back to town and the four town ponies already got everypony excited about the party that would come up soon. But unbeknownst to them is that somepony was watching them return to town.

The pony in the black armor...

Later...

After the trip to Our Town, the pony in the black armor waited in a forest and waited for something, or rather someone. The armored pony shifted its head around to the left and quickly saw someone walking approaching it.

It was a Unicorn stallion with a red coat and a white coat that had red stripes in it. He had also red eyes and an open book as a Cutie Mark. It was Arcana, the pony that Summershine met a while ago on his travels, the pony that he was looking for all this time.

"You're back," the pony said with a bitter tone in his voice. "I hope you had a good reason to vanish like this,"

The pony in the black armor was explaining everything to Arcana and soon the Unicorn calmed down again. "I see. Danger does seem to be really close to Star Twinkle as of recently. That may be because he hangs around with those other ponies constantly," he said while he tipped his chin. "If something happens to him, however, it could really ruin everything that I set up,"

The armored pony only listened and didn't say a word.

Arcana looked over to the pony. "It was good that you kept a close look at him. He needs to be well until...we take care of him," he then looked over to the pony in the armor with a smile on his face. "Or rather, until you take care of him,"

The stallion walked away from the pony. "As if that wasn't enough, that annoyance called Summershine is also out there. I think we actually have to do something about him before we advance. And if that isn't working, then we just have to execute our plan when the time is right,"

Again, the pony in the black armor only listened and didn't say a word. Arcana was used to the pony not saying much towards him. He was okay with it though.

"That means that we soon have to go to Ponyville. I bet you are excited to see your hometown again after such a long time,"

The pony didn't respond but Arcana could feel that there was a concerned look beneath that helmet.

And with those last words, the two ponies walked into the unknown, most likely preparing their next move that would endanger Equestria in some way.

Author's Notes:

Things got a little bit serious in this chapter but everything went well. Still, things could end up really bad in the future from the looks of it. Maybe? Of course, two characters seem to stir up some danger so let's just hope that our main characters are up to it.

By the way, after rewatching the episode, I noticed that Rainbow Dash was saying an awful lot stuff like "She's getting away!". I just thought that was kind of weird.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

94. A Castle in Ponyville

View Online

Another workday at the Iron Hammer...

Star Twinkle was about to leave the workshop to end his day at work. He stretched his legs a little before he was about to head home. "I'm going home now, Steel Hammer!" He announced to his boss.

"Alright! Take care Star Twinkle!" The brown coated Earth Pony replied.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle said.

"And you too, Twilight!" Steel Hammer added casually.

It was then that the purple Alicorn princess stepped out of the workshop as well. For some unknown reason, Twilight really wanted to help the two stallions out in the Iron Hammer. Her mane was dirty and messy from all the work she had done today. Unlike Star Twinkle, however, who was glad to end his day now, Twilight looked a little surprised.

"Are you sure everything is done!? There still has to be something that I can do!" She said as she looked around the place hastily.

But Steel Hammer only shook his head. "I am sure. You are done for today," he assured.

But somehow, Twilight did not seem to like the sound of that. She kept looking back at the workshop with a worried expression on her face. "I think I can still clean up the workshop a little bit! Also, judging from what has to be done for the rest of this week, I can make sure that everything is already done in a few hours with the help of my magic!"

"Are you planning to take away my job?" Star Twinkle asked a little offended. He had to admit that he is not that kind of pony who loved his job but he was not planning on quitting it either. If Twilight would take away his work for the rest of the week, then he would surely have no reason to even come to work.

"I for one love having somepony help us out!" Steel Hammer said happily. "But I'm closing the workshop now! The work is done, and I also want to go home now," he then said a little bit more seriously.

But Twilight didn't seem to care about all of this too much since she already was continuing her work. "Don't worry! It won't take long, I promise!" She said before she rushed inside the workshop again.

The two stallions could already hear sounds from her magic, doing all kinds of work in there. Star Twinkle only looked at Steel Hammer with a non-bothered expression on his face. "I'm still going home now..." he just said.

"Yeah...me too..." Steel Hammer replied.

The two stallions just walked off, hoping that Twilight would not get too overboard. She would not listen to them anyway so the best they could do was to leave and hope that the Iron Hammer would still look the same when they return...

On the next day...

Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie all met at Twilight's castle to have a little pancake breakfast. They all enjoyed their pile of pancakes placed in front of them. They all seemed to enjoy it, with the exception of Twilight who was just sitting in front of her pile, and barely awake. The group, however, didn't notice that at first and kept enjoying their pancakes.

"Mm, these are delicious, Pinkie Pie!" Applejack complimented after taking another big bite from her pile.

Pinkie Pie, who also enjoyed her food judging from how her face was covered in cream, was thankful for those words. "Thanks!" She said after she liked her face clean again. "Twilight spent all night helping me pick the flavor! I kept thinking we'd found the right one, but she insisted I make even more to try. And more. And more and more and more and more!" She said while she kept stacking up more and more pancakes on her plate. "It was like she never wanted to—"

"Leave?" Fluttershy added in mid-sentence. She seemed to know exactly what Pinkie Pie was talking about.

"Exactly!" Pinkie Pie agreed.

Star Twinkle took another bite from one of his pancakes. "That explains why there are so many of them," he said while he looked over to a huge pile of Pancakes in the middle of the table. It was actually kind of intimidating to look at. "Please don't tell me that we have to eat all of them..."

In the meantime, Pinkie Pie continued. "Eventually we ran out of time so we just went with every-berry-any-chip-surprise!" She said before she whispered something to Rarity in secret, even though she was speaking loud enough so that everypony in the room could hear her. "The surprise is I lost a measuring spoon in the batter," the mare said before she spoke normally again. "Somepony's gonna get a very special pancake!" Hearing that, made Rarity check her pile to look out for said measuring spoon, hoping that she would not find it.

This all sounded really familiar to Rainbow Dash. "Up all night, huh? Is that why she's so, uh... out of it?" She said as she pointed towards Twilight. The mare was sitting at the table as well, and saying "sitting" was kind of a stretch. Twilight was barely awake while sitting in front of her pancake plate, snoring loudly and being completely oblivious that everypony was looking at her at this very moment.

Star Twinkle just shook his head. "Well, that's what she gets after spending the whole night working in the Iron Hammer," he casually mentioned.

Applejack quickly picked up on that. "Sounds exactly like what happened the other day at Sweet Apple Acres. The girl stuck around 'til near midnight. Dug up fifty tree-plantin' holes when all I needed was ten,"

Rarity also had her own story to share. "She spent an entire afternoon rearranging a single gem drawer at the boutique. An entire afternoon!" She said as if she couldn't believe it herself even though she was clearly there.

"You think that's weird?" Rainbow Dash said before she shared her story. "She raced me, like, a hundred times the other day. And lost every time! She just kept goin'! Best out of ten, best out of twenty, best out of a hundred! I mean, I know hanging out with me is awesome, but it was like she'd rather keep losing than—"

"Leave?" Fluttershy interrupted once more.

"Yeah. Who does that?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Star Twinkle looked over to Twilight. She was still really messy as if she hadn't any time cleaning herself up for a long time. It was really weird that she was in a state like this, considering how well organized she usually is.

"Maybe she really wants to spend time with us?" The stallion guessed.

"Or maybe..." Applejack threw in. "She is avoiding telling us something," she guessed.

"Applejack is right!" Rarity agreed. "As soon as she wakes up, we are gonna find out what it is!" She said, earning her the agreement of everyone else in the room.

Pinkie Pie was about to add something to this as well but then began to choke a little bit. She then spat out the measuring spoon right into Fluttershy's face, who just got a little surprised in response.

"I win!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed victoriously.

"Huh?!" Twilight said in shock after awaking from Pinkie Pie's voice. "I'm pancake! I mean, awake..." She said embarrassed while a pancake gracefully stuck on her horn.

Needless to say, seeing the mare like this really worried everypony and Applejack decided to go straight to the point.

"Uh, Twilight? Is there somethin' you wanna tell us?" She asked.

Rarity was already walking up to the poor mare and removed the pancake from her horn. "You know how much we appreciate all you do for us, and we simply adore having you around... but... we worry you might be... ahem... avoiding something else?"

Twilight felt a little uncomfortable. "Oh, has it been that obvious?" Twilight asked concerned and a little ashamed. The girls avoided eye contact. Of course, it was obvious but they didn't want to make her feel even more uncomfortable now.

Except for Star Twinkle...

"Yes," he said boldly, causing him to get some glares thrown at him, much to his confusion. "What!? It was!" He said in his defense.

Eventually, Twilight decided to speak up to it. She knew that her friends had a right to know what was bothering her so that they wouldn't worry themselves too much.

The mare still struggled to explain it though. "I've been... the thing is... I know it's silly, but I... I've been avoiding... this place,"

Hearing that really shocked Rarity. "Why in Equestria would you want to avoid such a gorgeous castle?" She asked confused.

"Yeah, this place has everything!" Pinkie Pie said before she walked around the castle a bit, pointing out said everything. "Big tall ceilings that make you feel tiny! Shiny new floors that are cold to the touch! Brrr! And it even has loooong empty hallways!" She screamed through the castle, causing an echo to hall through the whole castle, making it feel really empty and lifeless.

Needless to say, hearing herself say all this made the mare realize what was wrong. "Okay, I get it," Pinkie Pie added in a serious manner.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle said. "It must take a lot of getting used to," he figured. He didn't have many visits to this castle so far but each time he had to be here, he always got lost and felt really uncomfortable as well. It didn't take long for him to understand how Twilight must feel living in this big castle.

Twilight continued. "The castle is amazing. But it just...It doesn't feel like home," she said with a frown on her face while she planted her face down on the table.

Instead, of frowning along with her though, Rarity chuckled and only saw a small problem in all of this. "Oh, is that all? Why, you simply need to decorate, darling. Make this space your own!" She suggested.

"It's just so daunting!" Twilight replied frustrated. "Look how big it is! I-I don't even know where to start!"

But Rarity knew the answer to that question as well. "You can start by letting us do it for you. We will make this the castle of your dreams while you go to the Ponyville spa for some much-needed rest and relaxation," she explained while she looked at the mare in concern.

"Rarity is right," Star Twinkle said. "You technically just moved into this castle. It is only natural that you don't feel comfortable living here. But it's not too late to decorate the place a little bit more to your liking," he explained.

Twilight started to really appreciate that everypony wanted to help her and looked at the situation logically. "Ooh, I guess I do need a little help. And so does my castle. And I just know you'll do a great job because nopony knows me better than you," she said, fully believing that her friends will make this castle look a lot better so that she could feel more comfortable.

"We'll make this place feel cozier than hot cider on a rainy day," Applejack announced.

Rainbow Dash shot up in excitement after hearing that. "There's gonna be cider?!" She said, clearly misunderstanding what Applejack. She quickly felt a little embarrassed after seeing how Applejack looked at her funny. "Uh, I mean, let's decorate!" She then said.

"Right!" Rarity agreed on before she then looked over to Star Twinkle. "And you will take Twilight to the spa!"

Star Twinkle felt a little pointed out and looked confused back at the mare. "Why me?" He asked.

Applejack moved closer and to the stallion and whispered something in his ear. "Somepony needs to look over Twilight. We wouldn't want her to fall asleep on the way to the spa or something," she pointed out.

"Besides," Rarity joined. "It's either that or helping us decorate the place,"

"Which is gonna be super fun!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed happily. "But will also take a lot of work!" She casually added.

It was like the word "work" is what made Star Twinkle decide his next action. "The spa it is then!" He said determined as he walked out of the room with Twilight following her closely.

As they walked out of the door of the room, they could see all of their friends standing in the middle of the room, ready to get to work immediately.

"And don't you worry one bit!" Applejack said confidently.

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash added. "By the time you are back, this place is gonna be the most awesome castle in all of Equestria!" She announced confidently as well.

Twilight smiled after hearing that. She was really happy to have friends helping her out in times like this. Star Twinkle also smiled, knowing that Twilight was happy about this. He was ready to play his part as well, which meant helping the mare to relax from all the things that she did in recent days. She may not show it openly but she definitely was exhausted, this much Star Twinkle could tell.

The two ponies were outside and on their way towards the Ponyville Spa. Ponies were looking weirdly at the two, mainly Twilight since she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open and walking in a straight line. It was at this moment that Star Twinkle understood why the girls wanted somepony to accompany Twilight. Who knows where she would have landed on her own.

Star Twinkle had no choice but to lend a hoof to the mare. He made her lean a hoof on his shoulder as they slowly walked in direction of the spa. By now Twilight felt a little embarrassed about the whole situation.

"I'm sorry for all this inconvenience," the mare apologized.

"Don't worry about it," Star Twinkle replied. "Just try and tell us next time whenever something like this happens again,"

"Yes," Twilight said sheepishly. On their way, there was a short silence between the two before Twilight would say something again. "Then again, you all are there help me so I guess I'm fine," she said happily while still being a little embarrassed to say this.

"That's what friends are for, right?" Star Twinkle said.

Twilight chuckled to herself. "A while back, I would have never imagined you to say that,"

"Thanks...I guess..." Star Twinkle replied.

"Sorry," Twilight then apologized. "This was supposed to be a compliment," she then added shyly.

"No, I get it," Star Twinkle replied. He was agreeing with the mare after all.

"But then again," Twilight then started. "Right now, you are probably thinking that bringing me to the spa is really annoying," she said with a smile on her face.

Star Twinkle felt as if he should deny that. "I wouldn't exactly say-"

"And..." Twilight continued, ignoring Star Twinkle. "You probably only agreed to this because you thought this would be easier than helping the girls with the castle,"

"No!" Star Twinkle replied in his defense. However, Twilight was looking at him with a smug smile. "Okay, yes..." the stallion then admitted.

It was horrible that Star Twinkle was thinking this way and he knew that too but Twilight didn't seem to be disappointed or mad at him for that. "You like to have us as friends but sometimes you just wish that we wouldn't cause too much trouble for you,"

Star Twinkle widened his eyes in a mix of surprise and some shame. "I'm an open book to you, huh?"

Twilight chuckled. "The fact that you still do all of this though just proves that you are a good pony. We all realized that long ago. And looks like we were right," she said smugly.

"You talk a lot for somepony who was sleeping with her face in a pile of pancakes just five minutes ago," Star Twinkle smugly replied.

The mare smiled in response. "Yeah, you're right," she said before she began to let out a healthy yawn. "Maybe I should take things a little bit easier...and get some rest...I'm really tired after all...and..."

The next thing that Star Twinkle saw was Twilight falling to the ground. She fell asleep again. Some ponies looked at the mare in shock and concern. Some of them even laughed at the poor state of the princess. Star Twinkle walked up to Twilight. He looked a little embarrassed because of all the ponies looking at her, and soon him because they all would find out that he was associated with her.

"Maybe this is gonna be harder than I expected," Star Twinkle figured as he looked at the mare who was sleeping on the ground right in front of him.

The stallion picked Twilight up and carried her on his back, slowly carrying her to the spa. He could feel how the mare was rubbing her face on his neck in her sleep, making Star Twinkle widen his eyes in embarrassment. He decided to ignore that though and just continued his walk so that the pony on his back could get a well-deserved rest.

Later at the spa...

Star Twinkle already prepared everything for Twilight's stay. He bought her a rather long, and expensive mane treatment. The spa ponies were already starting to treat her while Star Twinkle was sitting nearby patiently for her to be done.

One of the spa mares walked up to him. "Are you sure you don't want treatment as well?" She asked nicely.

"No thanks. I just keep her company," Star Twinkle replied.

"Very well," the mare said before she walked away again.

As Twilight was getting her mane done, she slowly but surely looked a little bit worried. Star Twinkle noticed that as well. "What's wrong? Do you not enjoy it?" He asked.

"I do!" Twilight replied. "It's just...I don't know it just doesn't feel right that my friends work hard while I sit here and enjoy myself,"

"Oh, I get it," Star Twinkle replied as he walked closer to the mare now. "But don't forget that the reason you are here is that your friends wanted you to relax. So you don't have to be worried about all this," he explained.

"Still..." Twilight said, not being really convinced by those words.

"Besides," Star Twinkle started. "You helped all of us in the last days so it is only fair that everypony wants to repay you for it. It's our way of saying thank you in a way,"

Twilight rubbed her chin and thought about those words and quickly understood. "Well, if you put it like this..." she started before she started to smile again. "Alright, I will not let everyponies gratitude go to waste!" She said determinedly.

The mare that was taking care of her was then about to go the next step of her treatment. "We have to put this on you for a while if you don't mind," she said while she readied a hairdryer to put on the mare.

"Not at all!" She said happily before her head was covered by the dryer.

"There we go!" Star Twinkle said happily before he walked back to his seat, waiting for Twilight to be done. He had to admit that he was pretty happy how he managed to convince Twilight to let loose. "I guess the hard part is over," he said before he relaxed as well. He thought about taking a nap while Twilight's treatment was ongoing.

However, someone rushed into the room, much to his surprise. It was Spike who was looking really nervous and in a panic. The little dragon quickly saw Star Twinkle and Twilight. "There you are!" The little dragon said in a panic as he walked towards Star Twinkle.

"Hey, Spike," Star Twinkle greeted. "What are you-"

But before the stallion could finish his sentence, Spike came running to him with a nervous expression on his face. "It's the castle! It looks horrible!" He said in his panic.

Those words left Star Twinkle a little confused. "We are kinda working on that so,"

"No!" Spike exclaimed. "I know all about what you and the others are doing!"

Again, Star Twinkle was confused. "Then what is the problem?" He asked.

Spike explained. "The problem is that the girls made a total mess of the castle! There is no way that Twilight will like it the way it is now! And the girls don't listen to me! You have to talk to them!" He pleads in his frustration.

Star Twinkle was having some doubts that the situation was this bad but seeing Spike like this was making the stallion worry a little bit. He was trying to think how badly the girls could possibly mess up the castle and nothing came to mind. But being the paranoid pony he was, Star Twinkle decided to not ignore what Spike said. Fortunately, Twilight didn't seem to have noticed that Spike was here yet since her head was covered by the dryer.

Star Twinkle still whispered the next words to Spike to make sure that she wouldn't hear. "You stay here and make sure that Twilight stays here. I'll go and check for myself," the stallion said before he left the spa and headed back to the castle, leaving Spike with Twilight now. Whatever was happening in the castle, it couldn't hurt to check it.

A little later...

Star Twinkle was walking towards the throne room of the castle. So far, the entrance hall looked normal, unchanged even. He was wondering why Spike was freaking out so much in the first place. He last saw the girls inside the throne room, the room with the huge table in the middle so he decided to check there. But he was not prepared for what he was about to see once he opened the door to the throne room.

"Sweet Celestia!" Star Twinkle said in complete shock after he laid eyes on the room.

It was a complete mess. The was hay laying around, trophies, tapestries just laying around in random places, confetti scattered around the room, and that was just to name a few. Some of the things looked normal but considering how all of this was mashed together randomly, it looked really really bad.

The girls quickly noticed how Star Twinkle was standing in the doorway with his mouth open in shock. "Star Twinkle!" Rarity said. "Are you and Twilight done already?" She asked.

"No..." Star Twinkle replied. His eyes were still glued at all the stuff in this room. "What is all of this-"

POOF!

Suddenly, confetti came flying from out of nowhere right into his face. "What was that!?" He asked after he recovered from this shock.

Pinkie Pie explained. "Those are just the confetti cannons that hid around the place," the mare said casually as if this was the most normal thing to do.

"Hid? Where!?" Star Twinkle asked.

The mare tipped her chin and began thinking. "I don't remember," she then said. Star Twinkle face-hoofed in response.

By now, the girls looked a little nervous to hear some feedback from the stallion.

"So...how do you like it so far?" Applejack asked, though looking at her nervous facial expression would indicate that she already knew the answer.

Star Twinkle didn't reply right away, mainly because he saw the worried expressions on the girls. He didn't want to hurt their feelings and made all their hard work, which probably went into all of this as hard as that was to believe. At the same time, though he wanted to help Twilight, and having her castle ruined is not gonna help at all so the only way to help now was to be truthful.

"It...really doesn't look good," he said bluntly.

The stallion prepared himself to look at some frowns and some sad faces as a response but much to his surprise, the girls all sighed in relief.

"Thank goodness somepony said something!" Fluttershy said.

"It's pretty bad, right?" Rainbow Dash agreed.

"Yeah," Applejack added as she looked around the room as well. "This place looks like a mishmash of knickknacks,"

"Hmm, I suppose it is a little cluttered," Rarity said.

It was good that the girls actually admitted to their mistake so that Star Twinkle didn't have to be the bad guy. Still, Pinkie Pie was the only one to disagree. "What are you guys talking about? I think it looks super fun!" She said cheerfully.

Then, almost on cue, another hidden confetti cannon got triggered and blew some confetti around the place, scaring some of the critters inside the room. In their confusion, the animals ran around the castle, knocking things over and destroying stuff in the process. Star Twinkle had to dodge multiple things that were flying towards him in all of this mess.

Of course, Fluttershy was the one who tried her best to get those animals under her control again, with limited success. "Oh! Oh, no! Please don't do that! If you all just take a deep breath and calm down-"

It didn't work too good and the animals continued to create havoc, messing up the place even more than it actually was before.

In this mess, Rarity almost got a heart attack once she saw how two animals were climbing on some curtains. "No! That bunting is embroidered by hoof! Don't you move one more paw!" She warned. But it was too late and the curtain ripped once the animals were sliding down, causing the mare to get really angry. "Everypony, stop!" She shouted across the room, managing to put a hold to all of this.

The animals calmed down again and noticed their mistake but sadly, the damage was already done.
"Okay, now it's a mess," Pinkie Pie realized as she took a look around the place, accompanied by another confetti cannon that exploded right after.

"What're we gonna do?!" Rainbow Dash said frustrated.

Star Twinkle began rubbing his head. "Well, it's not like as if it looks much worse than what they did with this place..." he thought before he came up with a plan to deal with this situation. "I make sure that Twilight won't come back for a while. How about sunset? Is that enough time for you all to fix this place?"

The girls agreed that this was okay so Star Twinkle trusted them to take care of everything, even if it was a pretty rough start. He walked outside of the room hoping that his trust was put in the right place.

POOF!

Another confetti cannon went off right next to his face as soon as he was outside of the room.

"And remove those cannons!" He said angrily from outside the room, which caused the girls to look at Pinkie Pie, who could only smile nervously in response.

As Star Twinkle walked in direction of the spa again, he had to think about how the girls messed all of this up in the first place. It was a huge mess, considering how they tried to make this castle more comfortable for Twilight. His guess was that decorating a castle was probably not as easy as he thought but still. For now, all he could do was to make sure that Twilight would not see the castle for a while.

Back in the spa...

Twilight's mane was about to be done any minute now. Luckily, Star Twinkle managed to be back in time for that. Spike was the first one to see the stallion back however and took the opportunity to ask him how things in the castle look like.

But Twilight noticed how Star Twinkle was back and greeted him first. "Star Twinkle, you're back! How do I look?" She said before she removed the dryer on her head and revealed her new styled up fancy mane with a smile on her face.

"Great!" Star Twinkle replied with Spike agreeing happily. The little dragon could kinda tell how Star Twinkle wasn't saying this with much confidence.

Twilight, however, did not seem to notice that because she was inspecting her mane a little. "And more importantly, how does the castle look?" She asked.

"Um...great?" Star Twinkle replied in a hesitant tone.

By now Spike was slowly walking closer to Star Twinkle. "Really?" He whispered to him while Twilight was not looking.

"No," Star Twinkle replied quietly while he was shaking his head in frustration. "The girls need more time," he added.

And of course, the one thing that both of them not wanted to hear right now was coming out of Twilight's mouth. "I can't wait to go home and see it!" She said excitedly.

"No!" Both Star Twinkle and Spike replied at the same time gracefully suspicious. "I mean...uh..." Star Twinkle said while he tried to come up with something to prolong their stay at the spa. He eventually had an idea popping up in his head. He began stretching while making a face filled with fake pain. "Oh! I suddenly feel how my bones hurt a little bit, I think I need a massage,"

"Yes!" Spike agreed. "Me too! And I'm sure you could use one as well!" He said while Star Twinkle was nodding in agreement nervously before he grabbed a little piece of paper with a list of several massages on it. "We were really hoping to get, uh... this thingy!" He said while he randomly pointed at one thing on the list.

Twilight took a look at it herself. "The 'Extra-strength-hot-stone-deep-tissue massage'?" She asked confused.

Star Twinkle kept smiling nervously but he was still confused to hear that. "The what now?" He said.

Spike also just now realized what he was getting them into and looked at what he picked. He gulped. "Yep!" He said nervously after realizing that there was no going back anymore.

Whatever that massage was, Twilight was agreeing with the idea to stay a little bit longer, which in the end, was the only thing that counted. "I think I'll just have a traditional massage, but you guys for it," she said.

Star Twinkle only looked back at Spike with an angry look on his face because of what the dragon had brought upon him. But before he could say something, one of the spa ponies walked inside the room.

"Did somepony order massages?" She asked.

CRASH!

"Yeah!"

What followed was a huge stallion bursting through the wall right into the room. It was Bulk Biceps, the white-coated really muscular Pegasus Pony that Star Twinkle had some chances to meet. He got really scared after he realized that he might be the one doing the massage for him and Spike.

Once the big Pegasus stallion locked eyes with Star Twinkle, he was shivering in fear. "Oh, no..." he said quietly in shock.

"Let's do this!" He said excitedly before he picked up Spike with his chest muscles and Star Twinkle with only one of his hooves.

"Help!" Star Twinkle screamed before he was literally pulled away from Twilight with Bulk Biceps literally walking through a wall as if it was not even there.

One of the spa ponies could only shake her head after watching this behavior from Bulk Biceps. "Oh, I hate it when he does that," she said in disapproval before she looked over to Twilight with a smile on her face again. "Come with me, princess," she then said, bringing the mare to her massage.

Later outside...

After their time in the Ponyville Spa, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike were walking through town and on their way back to the castle.

Twilight was looking as if she was reborn. "Great suggestion, you two. I feel totally relaxed," she said happily after a great time in the spa.

The same couldn't be said about Star Twinkle and Spike however who both were limping behind her with pain-filled expressions on their face. The massage that they received was definitely not something that they would like to do ever again. It was definitely true to its name as well.

"Glad that you liked it," Star Twinkle said while he slowly followed her. He could hear every single joint in his body cracking but he tried to hide it in front of Twilight. Still, he had enough strength left to complain. "I have pain in some places that I didn't even know where places!" He mumbled under his breath. Spike didn't seem to be in any better shape, he was walking around as if he was about to break into pieces any time soon.

Eventually, Twilight noticed that as well and looked really concerned. "You both look really bad. Maybe we should go back to the castle," she suggested.

As she said that, both Star Twinkle and Spike looked at the sun. It was not sunset, meaning it was too early to go back yet, meaning that they had to keep distracting Twilight some more. Knowing that though, was pretty hard on them since they were not in the best state. But that is just something that they had to put up with.

With snapping bones and joints, they walked up to the mare.

"I was hoping we could take the scenic way back," Spike suggested.

"Yes! Going on a walk surely will be really refreshing!" Star Twinkle added.

But Twilight had her doubts about that. "I don't know," she just said in response.

"Come on. Walking is good for post-massage circulation," Spike said.

"Totally!" Star Twinkle agreed while he could still feel pain all over his body.

Again, Twilight had a hard time believing that. "Really? I've never heard that theory," she pointed out.

"Well, you learn something new every day," Star Twinkle said while he dragged Twilight with him, far away from the castle. By now, Twilight was looking at the stallion with a weird look on her face. She was most likely guessing that something fishy was going on.

"You are acting really weird today, you know that?"

But Star Twinkle only grinned nervously in response. He was well aware that he was not acting normally towards her but as long as that would buy them all some time, he was fine with it if she thought that he was weird.

The three walked around Ponyville pretty much aimlessly. Twilight was not sure where they wanted to go or what they wanted to see and just followed them. She was walking behind the two of them so Star Twinkle and Spike could whisper to each other without her hearing anything.

"You think the girls are done by now?" Spike asked.

"I dunno. It looked really bad when I arrived there and even worse after," Star Twinkle honestly replied.

Needless to say, the two looked really suspicious and Twilight wondered what they were talking about. She was about to sneak up on them to make it out but then stopped once she realized that all three of them were approaching a very special place. Star Twinkle and Spike also just now noticed where they were walking to and for a moment, they forgot about all the trouble with the castle.

They were standing in front of the Golden Oak Library, or rather what was left of it. The library got destroyed while Twilight was fighting Tirek a while ago. Though she and the rest of the girls managed to defeat this villain for good, the library was still left destroyed.

Seeing their old home like this made Twilight and Spike feel quite nostalgic. "I really miss this place, Spike. We had so many wonderful memories here," Twilight said with a sad tone in her voice.

"We did, didn't we...?" Spike said sadly as well. There were even tears running down his cheeks, much to Twilight's surprise.

"Oh, Spike, I'm so sorry," the mare then apologized after she realized what was going on. "Of course losing the Golden Oak Library was hard for you too," she said before she invited the little dragon into a hug to comfort him.

Star Twinkle, while not living in this place, could understand that losing your home must have felt really bad. Maybe he should have said something at this moment but he figured that he should not interrupt them and stood there silently. Letting out some tears was probably the best thing that they could do now.

Eventually, the hug between the two came to an end and Twilight began to smile again. "I've got an idea. Why don't we have the girls add some things to make the castle feel more like your home as well?" She suggested.

"Really?" Spike asked.

"Yes, sounds like a great idea!" Star Twinkle agreed on with a smile on his face. Spike was really happy to hear this and was looking forward to this. Twilight was about to head to the castle to ask of the girls for this but it still wasn't sunset so Star Twinkle was kinda worried. He had to make sure everything was fine. "In fact, I will go to the castle and tell the girls about this! And in the meantime, you two can go and look for something that Spike would like!"

Twilight raised her eyebrows confused. "I actually thought we could go back together and-"

"No! That's a great idea!" Spike interrupted after he realized what Star Twinkle was planning. "I actually thought of something that I want!"

"Oh, okay. What is it?" Twilight then asked, not suspecting anything.

"It's a... well," Spike said after he realized he had not come up with anything and just went along with the plan. "I want a... it's... I kind of need a... a bed!" He then said.

Twilight looked a little surprised to hear that. "I thought you said you sleep like a baby in the castle," she remembered.

"Everypony knows babies are terrible sleepers. Let's go!" He then said as he grabbed the mare to follow him while Star Twinkle was heading in the other direction to take make sure the castle was ready.

"I'll see you later!" Star Twinkle waved as he watched how the two were walking away. Once they were out of sight, however, he began running towards the castle. "Please don't be a mess. Please don't be a mess. Please don't be a mess!" The stallion repeated over and over again as he ran towards the castle, hoping that the girls managed to get everything ready after their first failed attempt.

It didn't take too long until he was standing in front of the throne room door. He was pretty exhausted since he was running the whole way. He took a good long breath, but not because of his exhaustion but because he was praying that once he opened the, he would not find a huge mess again.

Eventually, he pulled himself together and opened the door quickly. He took a good look at the room. The good thing was: there was no mess, the bad thing, however, was that there was literally nothing else in the room. All the things that the girls put in the room were gone again and now there was nothing.

Star Twinkle stood there with a grin on his face since he could not compute why that was the case. "What happened!? Why is there no decoration!? Or...anything!?" He asked in a confused tone.

The girls looked at each other. They knew the answer to that after they thought about everything carefully.

"Well, you see..." Rarity started. "At first, we thought that the castle was a little cluttered," she said, something that Star Twinkle felt was a huge understatement.

Fluttershy then continued. "So we planned on taking out one thing each,"

"But then!" Pinkie interrupted. "We all thought that Twilight would not like most of the things that we put in here so we took out one more thing!" She said as she bounced up and down on the spot.

"And then another thing," Rainbow Dash added.

"And another thing," Applejack continued.

Star Twinkle could see where this was going to. "I see...but the problem now is that once Twilight comes back, it looks like you did absolutely nothing!"

The girls were already well aware of that and lowered their heads. As if this wasn't enough, Rarity took a look outside a window to see that they were running out of time as well. "I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but it's almost sunset. Star Twinkle is right. If we don't figure this out soon, it's going to look like we didn't lift a hoof to help her!"

Rainbow Dash could not believe that this was happening right now. "Why is this so hard?! We're Twilight's best friends! This should be easy for us!" She said in her frustration.

"She said it herself," Applejack said while she took off her hat in frustration. "If anypony should be able to make her feel comfortable in her new home, it's us,"

"But if we can't do it," Fluttershy added with a frown on her face. "Then Twilight will be stuck living in a castle that makes her feel... sad!" She said, the last word echoing throughout the whole castle to make the situation feel even more depressed.

A few minutes later, the six ponies found themselves walking around in circles in the room, trying to find an answer to this situation. But the time that was left only put pressure on them and as if that wasn't bad enough, Pinkie Pie decided to have a freakout.

"What do we do? What do we do?! If Twilight comes home now, she'll be like "What did you guys do?" And we'll have to be like "Nothing!" And then she'll be like "I was counting on you! Some friends you are!" And we'll be like..."

"Yes, Pinkie, we are all aware of that situation, thank you..." Star Twinkle said while he still tried to come up with a solution.

Pinkie Pie calmed down for a moment and replied. "No problem!"

"Calm down, Pinkie," Applejack said as she walked up to the mare. "We just need to figure out what we did wrong so we can make it right,"

Rarity quickly got offended by those words. "Well, I didn't do anything wrong!" She said proudly. "I did exactly what I would do if this were my home!"

"But it's not your home," Rainbow Dash pointed out. "It's Twilight's home!"

"Where she keeps all her Rainbow Dash trophies?" Rarity shot back annoyed.

"Touché," Rainbow Dash admitted.

It was then that Fluttershy realized what the problem was all along. "Maybe we're all a little guilty of making ourselves feel at home instead of Twilight," she said with a frown on her face.

Star Twinkle picked up on that. "Then all we have to do is think about what Twilight would like in her home. It can't be that impossible to figure that out," the stallion figured while he kept thinking about a solution.

Applejack fully agreed on that. "Star Twinkle is right! Come on, y'all. We just need to think about Twilight. What was it she'd loved about livin' in the Golden Oak Library?" She asked into the round.

"Oh, everything!" Fluttershy immediately answered. "The books, the smell of books, the joy she felt from organizing books..."

"Remember that time I crashed into all those books attempting my sonic rainboom after you guys just cleaned up?" Rainbow Dash said before she started laughing after remembering this moment. "That was good times,"

"Yeah, for you, maybe," Applejack replied with a glare on her face.

But Rarity kept the good memories train going. "Oh, and Applejack, remember when we were stuck having a sleepover there? That turned out to be so much fun!"

Then it was Pinkie Pie's turn. "Remember the time it got blown up to smithereens?!" She said happily until she realized what she just said and how everypony frowned after she mentioned it. "Wait, no, that was the worst," she the corrected with a frown on her face.

Star Twinkle had to remember back as well. "The Golden Oak Library is where I saw the girls for the first time, after Nightmare Moon's return," he thought. "Who would have thought that a building was connected with so many memories. Even if we would change this castle, the memories would still not come back..."

Thinking about this then gave Star Twinkle an idea that might work, or at least he hoped it would. "I think I know what we can do. I need all of your help though," he said before he determinedly walked out of the room to get to work.

The girls looked at each other confused. Of course, they wanted to know what Star Twinkle was coming up with but he walked already outside. Applejack was only shrugging her shoulders confused. "What do we have to lose?" She said to the rest of the girls before they all followed Star Twinkle to go along with his plan.

Meanwhile...

Twilight and Spike were inside a shop to buy a new bed for the little dragon. Having to deal with Spike deciding on one specific bed was starting to really annoy her.

"How's that one? Too soft? Too hard? Too lumpy?" Twilight asked.

Spike was laying on a bed in the meantime and looked out of the window for a moment to see if the sun was finally setting, which was actually about to be the case. "Just right! I'll take it!" He said. He was actually glad that he no longer had to stall Twilight.

Needless to say, Twilight was even more relieved. "Oh, thank goodness. I thought you'd never find one you liked! Let's find a salespony and get out of here," she said.

"Sounds good to me," Spike replied before he took a look outside one more time. This time he saw his friends walking around equipped with shovels. Rainbow Dash noticed Spike and gave him a sign that he needed to buy some more time for them so Spike had no choice to keep going with his stalling. "Did you hear that?" He said as he placed his ears on the bed he was sitting on. "Too squeaky! Better keep looking!" He said before he walked away to find another bed.

Of course, Twilight was not happy at all to hear this and groaned loudly in annoyance.

Meanwhile...

Star Twinkle and the girls all stood in front of the Golden Oak Library. By now, the girls already knew his plan and were fully dedicated to giving it a try.

"And you really think that this will work?" Applejack asked with some concern in her voice

"It's the best I can come up with now," Star Twinkle honestly admitted.

"I'm sure it will, darling. I can see it!" Rarity said with a positive attitude. "You, Applejack and Fluttershy stay here. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, you come with me. We're going shopping! We'll meet back at the castle,"

"Right!" Star Twinkle agreed on before he used his shovel and began digging the ground in front of the destroyed library. "We all tackled this in the wrong way. Twilight doesn't need any new things in her castle. The reason she is not happy is not because of how the castle looks but because it isn't filled with the same memories as her old home. So all we have to do is bring some memories to her new home!" The stallion explained.

The six ponies all put the plan in action and hoped that Spike would buy them all some time until they were done with the castle.

Later inside the castle...

The group of ponies were putting all their work into the castle for the past hour and were actually done by the time Twilight and Spike arrived. Spike was just nervous as closer as he got to the castle similar to how nervous Star Twinkle was before returning to the castle.

Twilight opened the door to the castle. "Hello? We're home!" She announced.

She was then greeted by all of her friends in the middle of the hallway. "Welcome home!" They all said with happy smiles on their faces.

Twilight did not expect that anything was going wrong so she just followed her friends around the castle to excitedly see what they did with it. But she quickly noticed that there was no change in the whole hallway much to her confusion. "Oh, I, uh... love what you've done with the place. You did such a good job of... preserving the integrity of the original design," she said, trying to hide her disappointment.

Spike was not too good about hiding that, however. "Aw, come on! It looks exactly the same! Do you know how hard it was to keep her from coming back here?! I never want to see another dust ruffle as long as I live!" He complained.

"Wait. Keep me from coming back here?" Twilight asked. Giving this away was not the best thing that could happen now but it didn't make any difference anyway at this point so the girls decided to be honest.

Rarity was the one who explains after laughing nervously. "It took a teensy bit longer than we thought," she explained.

"Yes," Applejack said. "But then we figured out that what really makes home feel like home isn't what it looks like. It's the memories you make when you're there,"

Star Twinkle then opened the door to the throne room. "So we decided to bring all your happy memories to this castle," he explained as he pointed at the middle of the room, at the ceiling to be exact.

There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling made out of the roots of Golden Oak Library. There were some gems hanging from the chandelier all in different colors.

Fluttershy flew up to one of the gems. "The ornaments on the chandelier are reminders of all the fun we've had together," she explained.

Pinkie Pie also got closer to one of the gems. "That one shows your party at the Golden Oak Library welcoming you to Ponyville!"

"Or the time we shared donuts after the Grand Galloping Gala!" Fluttershy said as she looked into another one of the gems.

"We were hoping that being able to look at your beautiful old memories would inspire you to make new ones," Rarity explained.

"And the best part of it is, it's made from the roots of the Golden Oak Library, so you'll never forget where you came from," Applejack added.

Twilight was looking at the chandelier in awe and didn't reply anything in a while. Of course, her friends wanted nothing more but to know what she was thinking about this.

"So...do you like it?" Star Twinkle then asked nervously.

The mare then turned around to look at them and it was then that they noticed that her eyes were filled with tears. "It's exactly what the castle needed. And I am ready to make new memories here," she said as she walked up to the group and shared a big group hug with them.

"Then let's start right now with a new memory cake!" Pinkie Pie suggested before she wheeled in a huge cake from out of nowhere. "Seven layer what's-that-flavor mystery surprise! These might be chocolate chips or they might be super-spicy black beans!" She said as she pointed at some chocolate chips on the cake.

"Let's go to the dining room," Twilight said. "It's a little sparse, but at least there's a table and chairs," she said as she led the way opening the door to the room. However, once the door was open she was really surprised by what she saw. "Whoa! What happened in here? Last I checked, this place was empty!" She said confused.

She was referring to how well decorated the room was all of a sudden. She was not the only one who was surprised though, the only exception was Rarity who immediately admitted that it was her.
"I couldn't help myself! It was just begging for the personal touch!" She said a little embarrassed.

But she wasn't the only one. Applejack was next. "Truth be told... I couldn't either. Your kitchen might have some rustic farm decor, Twilight," she said.

"And there may or may not be some Daring Do posters up in your library," Rainbow Dash admitted.

Fluttershy could not help herself either. "And some stuffed animals in your bedroom,"

POOF!

"What was that?!" Twilight asked after she saw confetti flying past her all of the sudden.

Applejack sighed. "One of Pinkie Pie's confetti cannons," she explained.

Pinkie Pie smiled. "What? It's not my fault I hid them so well!"

The group only laughed. Twilight was really happy to hear that everypony contributed something to the castle. "Did you decorate a room as well?" She then asked Star Twinkle.

But Rarity was explaining before Star Twinkle could. "Actually, it was Star Twinkle who had the brilliant idea with the chandelier,"

Twilight was looking back to Star Twinkle with a happy smile on her face, causing the stallion to get a little embarrassed. "It was just an idea that popped into my head," he said humbly as he rubbed his neck.

The mare smiled after hearing that. She knew that Star Twinkle was thinking about her when he came up with the chandelier and really appreciated it. She just decided to not ask any further since she knew that Star Twinkle would feel embarrassed. All that mattered to him now was that Twilight was happy now.

A little later...

After the group finished celebrating, they all went home. So did Star Twinkle. On his way back, however, he stopped in front of the place where the Golden Oak Library used to be. He took a moment looking at the now empty spot and remembered back what his memories of this place were.

He felt sad. Not only for Twilight. For some reason, he himself was sad about the destruction of the library. He could not put why that was the case, however. After he was done looking at the library, he turned around and walked away. But not without looking back to it for a moment.

It was then that, for a little moment, he could swear that a mare was standing at the empty spot. Of course, Star Twinkle shook this off as some kind of hallucination caused by exhaustion or something. There was no one standing there after all.

"I need some rest...must have been the massage..." he figured before he walked away and went home.

Author's Notes:

YEAH!
I mean...looks as if we arrived at the slice of Live potion of this Season. There are gonna be some custom chapters scattered around in this Season as usual but of course, you are not looking forward to that, right? Besides, there is more Slice of Life chapters than custom ones so I guess everyone wins ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

95. Winter is Coming

View Online

Just like every year, at the same time, the annual Running of Leaves Races was held in Ponyville to celebrate the jump from fall to winter. In order to make the last leave fall from the trees, many ponies took care of the race.

One of them was Star Twinkle, who took part in this race as well and was actually pretty close to win it. In the last year he actually managed to win the race but this time it looked a little bit closer. He was not in the lead but really close to the ones in front of him. Of course, winning the race was not the most important thing in all of this. The most important thing was to take care of all the leaves but if he decided to take part in this race, then he might as well get a good placement.

But in the end, it was not enough and he didn't win like last year. He managed to get seventh place though, which he thought was well enough.

"I did it!" Star Twinkle said happily but also heavily exhausted. He started to pant heavily after the race was finished.

Everypony else seemed to be happy that the race was over as well and looked back at the forest where the race took place. Star Twinkle did the same and was happy to see that all leaves were gone. Shortly after everypony left, Twilight was walking towards the stallion with a water bottle hovering above her head.

"Hey good job, Star Twinkle," Twilight said as she walked over to the stallion offering him a water bottle after this successful race.

"Thanks, Twilight," he replied before he wasted no time drinking a healthy amount of water.

"I was wondering something for a while now..." Twilight started while the stallion was still drinking. "Why is it that this race is so important to you? You looked really determined while racing. Is there a reason for that?" She asked.

Star Twinkle had to think about this question. He noticed too that the Running of the Leaves Race was causing him to get really motivated for some reason. And it wasn't like as if he was forced to participate or anything. Normally Star Twinkle would avoid anything that would cause him to sweat or workout but when it came to this race, he simply couldn't ignore it for some reason.

He could only give one answer. "I don't know..." he simply said while he shrugs his shoulders.

Twilight was not sure how to take this answer but then again, it wasn't too important to her either so she just accepted it. Her eyes wandered to the forest behind her. She began to smile after she saw how all the leaves were gone. "It looks like we are right in time to welcome winter," she said before she looked at something in the distance far in the sky. "And Cloudsdale is here as well which means that Ponyville is next up for winter,"

Star Twinkle was aware that Cloudsdale was responsible for every town to get their winter. For that, the whole town moved closer to Ponyville. They probably got most of their preparations done and were just waiting to bring winter to the little town.

"Are you excited for winter?" Twilight asked towards Star Twinkle.

"I sure am!" Twilight got as an answer. But it wasn't Star Twinkle who replied. It was Rainbow Dash who just appeared next to the stallion out of nowhere, much to his surprise. "The most exciting time of the year is right around the corner! Extreme sledding! Horse Hockey! So many things to do!" She said excitedly. "And the best thing is that I can do all those things for the very first time with the most awesome pet ever who is just as excited about all of this like I am! Right Tank!?" She asked before she turned towards her pet tortoise.

But Tank was not too excited it seemed like. The little guy was yawning loudly and could barely keep his eyes open as he was flying around with his little propeller device strapped on his shell.

Star Twinkle looked at the tortoise with a confused look on his face. "Uh...yeah," he said, trying to hide how obvious it was that Tank was not in the best condition.

Rainbow Dash was aware of how little excitement her pet was showing and actually got a little worried. "Just a quick question. Does Tank look alright to you? He is acting like this for a while now," she asked.

The two ponies took a closer look at the tortoise and saw him yawn again. "Well, he does seem to be moving a little slowly," she pointed out.

"I know, right?" Rainbow Dash agreed.

"And he looks kind of sleepy..." Twilight continued.

"Totally!" Rainbow Dash agreed once more.

"...Just like he always does," Twilight concluded.

Rainbow Dash was surprised to hear that but she had to admit that this was right. Star Twinkle, however, was giving the tortoise some looks as if he wanted to make sure to come to the same conclusion. But he realized that he didn't know much about tortoises so before he wanted to give that, he suggested something else to play it safe.

"It can't hurt to let Fluttershy check him out though,"

The mare looked at her pet with concern. She would never admit it openly but she was really worried about Tank and wanted to make sure that he was okay. If there was really something that was wrong with him than she really needed to check it out.

"I guess you're right," Rainbow Dash admitted as she looked over to her pet with concern.

"Let me come with you," Star Twinkle offered. "I was about to ask Fluttershy to lend me some fish food for Comet anyway,"

Rainbow Dash seemed relieved to have somepony accompany her and Twilight seemed happy as well that the stallion was giving her moral support like this. "I'm sure everything is fine with Tank," she assured before she left saying that she had to be somewhere else at the moment.

This only left Star Twinkle, Rainbow Dash and Tank walking over to Fluttershy's cottage, or in Tank's case, flying. Star Twinkle occasionally looked over to Tank only to find out that he was having a hard time flying straight and keeping his eyes open.

"I have a strange case of Deja Vu..." the stallion thought to himself. He obviously was referring to Twilight a while back, who was in a similar state. Seeing Rainbow Dash concerned about her pet was also really strange to him. She normally was not someone who would show weakness like this openly. The stallion felt as if he should say some things to comfort her.

"Don't worry about Tank. I'm sure there is nothing wrong with him," he said in order to comfort the mare.

But then again, it was Rainbow Dash...

"Worried!? Me? I'm not worried!" She said offended. "Tank is my pet, there is no way that he is ill or something! He's a tough guy!" She said proudly but her words were not that believable once Star Twinkle took another look at the little guy. It was then that Rainbow Dash got a little closer to the stallion as if she was embarrassed about the next thing she was about to say. "You really think he is okay?" She then asked in an unusual timid tone.

Hearing Rainbow Dash like this actually made Star Twinkle worry about her more than Tank. She really liked Tank, that much he could tell. Still, the green pony smiled confidently, hoping that Rainbow Dash would cheer up again.

"I'm sure nothing is wrong with him," he said with a smile on his face.

And with those last words, the three went to Fluttershy to get an official answer. If there someone who would know what was wrong with Tank, then it was her.

Later, inside Fluttershy's cottage...

Fluttershy wasted no time taking care of Tank. She saw that something was wrong immediately and tended to him right away. Right now, she was holding a stethoscope against his chest...or rather, his shell. It was interesting to look at how Fluttershy was attending to him. Star Twinkle never actually saw the mare taking her time to check on an animal like this, at least not from that close.

While he was waiting patiently for her results, Rainbow Dash was visibly nervous to hear an answer and too close to Fluttershy than she would actually like. Understandably, Star Twinkle would not like it either if somepony was right next to him, watching every step of him while he tried to do his work. He thought that the behavior, she was showing, was just her overreacting.

But eventually, Rainbow Dash's patience came to an end. "Well?!" She asked nervously, startling Fluttershy for a moment.

The mare timidly replied. "I suppose his heartbeat could be a teensy-weensy-eensy bit slower than usual..." she said as if she was scared by Rainbow Dash's reaction.

But Rainbow Dash's reaction was more reasonable. "Okay, so give him a vitamin or something!" She said as she was looking over to an already asleep Tank again.

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle asked the most important question in the room. "Is he even ill?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "No, not at all. That's why I don't think he needs medicine at all," she added.

Hearing that, made Rainbow Dash feel considerably better. "Maybe we're just staying up too late. Uh, too many Daring Do stories," she said as she was petting Tank with a nervous smile on his head.

But Fluttershy disagreed. "Oh, that's not it either," she said confidently.

And just like that, Rainbow Dash got nervous again. "Well, what's wrong with him then?!" She exclaimed frustrated.

"Nothing! He's perfectly fine," Fluttershy replied with a smile on her face.

But after taking a look at the tortoise again, the one who was already asleep again, Star Twinkle was now the one who wasn't convinced. "But~?" He then asked as if he wanted a more throughout explanation from the mare, which he got.

"But, he's just going to hibernate," she explained.

And now suddenly everything made sense for Star Twinkle. That was the reason why Tank couldn't stay awake. Because he was supposed to sleep right now.

"I didn't know tortoises needed to hibernate too," Star Twinkle said with still a look of disbelieve on his face.

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash added. "You do realize he's not a bear, right?"

But Fluttershy just giggled and walked over to a bookshelf to prove it. She quickly found the book she was looking for and opened it in front of the two ponies. "When the weather grows cold and less food is available, many animals hibernate to conserve energy. It's like taking a really long nap during winter, and then they wake up in spring. And see? Even tortoises do it!" She explained while she pointed at a picture of a tortoise sleeping during the winter. "When the time comes, Tank will leave and dig into the ground," she added.

Star Twinkle, again, looked at Tank. "Seeing how Tank barely could keep his eyes open, it looked as if he really needed to hibernate soon," he figured. For some reason, Rainbow Dash really didn't like the sound of that, judging from the angry expression on her face.

"But don't worry," Fluttershy said. "He'll reappear when the spring sun warms the ground back up," she assured confidently.

But Rainbow Dash wouldn't have it. "Come on! Tortoises don't hibernate! Somepony put that picture in there as a joke," she said offended.

"It's not a joke," Fluttershy replied.

"Well, then your book must be wrong!" Rainbow Dash said angrily. "Next thing you gonna tell me is that Star Twinkle's fish needs to hibernate as well!"

Star Twinkle was avoiding eye contact with Rainbow Dash after she said those words. "He doesn't but...he has his way of dealing with winter..." he explained.

In the meantime, his pet goldfish, Comet, was swimming motionless in his bowl wearing a red scarf and a wool hat to protect himself from the cold. Strangely enough, it was snowing in his bowl already...

It was obvious to Fluttershy that Rainbow Dash didn't like the idea that her pet was about to hibernate but being the animal expert she was, she needed to make sure that her friend would realize that it is important for the tortoise.

"Rainbow Dash, Tank needs to hibernate. It's healthy for him, just like sleeping is healthy for us," she said.

But Rainbow Dash just laughed and didn't bother to even accept this advice. "Whatever. Okay, thanks. Come on, Tank," she said before she took her tortoise to leave Fluttershy's cottage.

"And where are you going now?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Rainbow Dash turned around. "To get a second opinion from a real reptile expert," she replied before she was gone for good now and closed the door behind her angrily.

This left the two remaining ponies in the cottage a little bit confused. Fluttershy looked over to Star Twinkle with a worried expression on her face. "Tank really needs to hibernate. If Rainbow Dash won't let him, then it would be really bad for the little guy," she explained.

The stallion got what she was trying to say. "Alright, alright, I try to make sure that she won't do anything stupid," he said before he walked outside as well.

Later inside of Twilight's castle...

Rainbow Dash was talking to this so-called reptile expert and Star Twinkle could only shake his head annoyed once he realized who she was talking about. It was Spike...and he was really confused about her visit as well, especially after she asked him questions about hibernation.

"I told you, Rainbow Dash, I'm a dragon!" Spike said annoyed after he got questioned by the mare.

"Come on! You're practically twins!" Rainbow Dash said.

It took Spike just a look at Tank to prove her wrong. "I'm purple," he said, stating the painfully obvious.

"But if you don't have to hibernate, why should Tank?!" Rainbow Dash pointed out.

By now, Star Twinkle could not bear to watch any longer and had to say something to this discussion as well. "Because he is a dragon and Tank is a tortoise," he explained. "They don't even come from the same family so..." but then Star Twinkle stopped in mid-sentence after he realized that he was not one-hundred percent sure about what he was to say so he moved his head closer to Spike. "Dragons are no reptiles, right?" He asked casually.

"No!" Spike replied.

"So..." Star Twinkle then continued as if the last sentence didn't even take place. "Spike not needing to hibernate, doesn't change anything about Tank," he explained.

Spike was agreeing with the stallion and at the same time, he didn't understand why Rainbow Dash had such a hard time accepting this. "Look, if Fluttershy says tortoises hibernate, then I guarantee tortoises hiber—"

But before he could finish his sentence, Rainbow Dash was right in his face. "Well, what would you know?! You're a dragon!" She said before she rushed out of the room again angrily.

Star Twinkle groaned in annoyance before he followed the mare outside as well, leaving only a very confused Spike behind. Rainbow Dash was already gone while Star Twinkle was outside. She probably knew that the stallion was agreeing with Spike and didn't want to hear his opinion. Judging from how little the mare was listening to Fluttershy and Spike, Star Twinkle was not sure if he could even convince her to listen to him anyway. So he just decided to wait until she was getting friendly with the idea of letting Tank hibernate.

Later...

Preparations for winter still had to be done. The Running of the Leaves Race was not the only thing that needed to be done to prepare Ponyville for winter. Some Pegasi were moving the clouds in the right positions while some ponies were cleaning the ground and preparing the animals for the change of weather.

Star Twinkle and his friends were helping as well. Rainbow Dash took care of the clouds while the rest took care of the animals and the ground. Being separated like that gave the group a chance to talk about Rainbow Dash a little and how she was acting towards the idea of letting Tank hibernate.

"So she doesn't want Tank to hibernate?" Applejack asked as she was sweeping a bunch of leaves into a pile in front of her.

"Yes..." Star Twinkle replied while he was sweeping some leaves as well. "She definitely is against the idea," he added.

Fluttershy lowered her eyebrows. "Whether she is against it or not, it is something that Tank needs to do," she explained.

"Fluttershy is right," Twilight agreed. "I'm sure she will listen to us if we take our time explaining everything," she added. This just showed that Twilight did not have to deal with Rainbow Dash so far on this matter and had no idea how difficult she was to deal with.

But then suddenly, the group heard Rainbow Dash's voice screaming from the distance.

"If you think hiber... – you know, that napping thing – is so cute, why don't you go do it?! Somewhere far away from here?!" The mare screamed right at Pinkie Pie's face who now was just walking away before the situation would get worse.

This is exactly what Star Twinkle was thinking about. "Be my guest..." He said, referring to Twilight's idea of talking to the Pegasus mare.

Shortly after, Rainbow Dash noticed how she was looked at by her friends and looked a little confused. "What are you looking at?! Pinkie Pie and I are just having a conversation!" She shouted at her friends angrily.

Despite Star Twinkle's warnings, Twilight still attempted to talk with Rainbow Dash even though she was having second guesses about it. "Look, Rainbow Dash, we all know how upset you are about Tank hiber—"

But then Pinkie Pie was stopping the mare in mid-sentence. "Shhhh! Don't say that word! That's what started this all!" She warned in a panic.

Twilight just ignored her and continued. "We all know how upset you are about Tank. But you shouldn't take your anger out on your friends," she advised.

Rainbow Dash did not take too well of this advice. "Who said anything about anger?! I didn't say anything about anger! I'm not upset! And I am not angry! DO I LOOK ANGRY?!" She screamed at her friends while literally making the angriest face that any of them have ever seen. Star Twinkle desperately wanted to say "yes" but he was fearing that a rain of hooves would come hailing down on him if he did so he decided to be smart and stay quiet.

The mare grabbed her pet. "Come on, Tank! Let's get out of here!" She said angrily before she flew away.

This left the group rather stunned. Everypony except Star Twinkle and Fluttershy were rather surprised to see Rainbow Dash like this. Star Twinkle had an "I told you" kind of expression on his face.

"I don't know about you," Pinkie Pie hushed to her friends. "But I think she was pretty angry," she said nervously as if she was fearing that Rainbow Dash would come right back at her.

"The girl just needs some time to cool off a little bit," Applejack said.

"I hope you are right," Twilight added.

It was true that Rainbow Dash was really angry and wouldn't listen to her friends but in the end, there was nothing that she could do to stop Tank from hibernating. If Tank was really that important to her then she would most likely realize that as well. At least that's what Star Twinkle was hoping.

With Rainbow Dash refusing to listen to her friends there was also not much they could do to help so they all went back to work.

Later...

Star Twinkle was busy cleaning the ground and piling them up in one spot. He was not really seeing the point of that because eventually, everything would end up being covered by snow anyway but he just continued because he didn't want to run into any trouble.

As he was sweeping away some more leaves near a tree, he realized something strange being put inside the holes of it. Curiosity got the best of him and he decided to check it out. Something white and fluffy stuck out from the tree. He decided to poke at it for a while which ended up being a mistake because that something was popping out of the tree and made him fall to the ground.

The stallion got quickly up on his hooves again and quickly realized what that thing inside the tree was.

"A cloud?" Star Twinkle said confused. "Who put a cloud inside this tree?" He added before he pushed the cloud upwards at the sky where another Pegasus was already placing it somewhere again.

That was definitely weird for the stallion. He wondered how something like this could end up happening and he shortly got an answer to his question. A specific Pegasus mare was grabbing clouds from the sky and put them inside trees or buried then under the dirt. And the pony who was doing that was none other than Rainbow Dash.

The mare was just done hiding another cloud inside a tree and wiped her forehead. She seemed to be exhausted which indicated that she was doing that for maybe some time now. She was about to go and grab another cloud but then she saw Star Twinkle staring at her from not too far away.

"Um...hey! What's up?" She said while she leaned against the tree in an attempt to play whatever she was doing just now off.

But it didn't work. "What are you doing?" Star Twinkle asked with a look on his face that was more than suspicious of the mare's actions.

"Nothing," the mare replied casually. "What are you doing?" She asked back in a poor attempt to change the subject.

"I am helping to clean the ground so that Ponyville is ready for winter something that you are supposed to do as well," he explained. "So why are you hiding the clouds inside the trees?" He asked.

Rainbow Dash didn't answer right away. It was obvious that she was fishing for an answer right now. "I am keeping the clouds save inside those trees so...that there will be plenty of them left for winter," she explained with a very unconvincing tone in her voice.

Star Twinkle raised an eyebrow. "Those clouds are supposed to stay in the sky though. So that the snow can come out of them," he said.

The mare didn't answer and just rolled her eyes as if Star Twinkle was the one who had no idea what he was talking about. It didn't take long until the stallion looked at Tank, who was sitting next to a tree close to Rainbow Dash, barely awake as usual.

After connecting some dots inside his head, Star Twinkle had a pretty good guess what Rainbow Dash was trying to archive and called her out of it.

"You can't stop winter from happening you know?" He said bluntly.

Judging from how surprised Rainbow Dash was to hear this, the stallion seemed to hit the nail on the head. "I can still try!" She shot back angrily which was clearly enough to prove that Star Twinkle was right.

"Rainbow Dash..." Star Twinkle started, this time in a more caring and worried tone. "Tank has to-" he said before he stopped in mid-sentence after he realized how angrily she was glaring at him. She really did not like to hear the word hibernating. "He really has to do that thing. It's in his nature, you just can't stop him from doing what he is supposed to do," he explained.

Despite Star Twinkle talking to her in a pretty calm voice though, Rainbow Dash still was pretty angry. "I think I as Tank's owner know best what is good for him!" She claimed arrogantly while she put a hoof on her chest. "Do I go around and tell you how to take care of your pet!?" She then asked right into the stallion's face.

But Star Twinkle would not let himself get intimidated by the mare and formed a stern look on his face. "I can understand that you might be upset to not see Tank for a while. If Comet needed to...sleep as well then I would feel sad too but I still would let him do it because that is just how things are supposed to be," the stallion explained, trying to sound as calm and collective as he could be.

Again, Rainbow Dash returned the stallion's calmness with anger. "Easy for you to say now! Don't tell me you know you understand me! Unlike you, who always stuffs his problems inside himself, I try to eliminate them! And if that means that I have to make sure that Tank doesn't have to...well...you know, then I will do that!" She exclaimed angrily.

By now the anger that Rainbow Dash was showing the stallion was slowly rubbing off to him as well. "But what if Tank doesn't want that!? Have you ever thought about that!? You think you are helping him but all you do is thinking about yourself! Besides, as long as winter is scheduled to come, there is nothing that you can do to prevent it! Because guess what!? You can't stop winter!"

The two ponies glared at each other angrily while grinding their teeth until Rainbow Dash opened her mouth again. "We'll see about that!" She said in a serious tone.

"What?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

"You heard me!" Rainbow Dash replied. "All I have to do is stop winter and Tank won't have to do that...thing!" She added confidently. "And I know exactly how to do that!" She said before she looked up at Cloudsdale.

Star Twinkle had a really bad feeling. He realized how Rainbow Dash had her sight locked on Cloudsdale and after thinking about why that was the case. But then it struck him. The weather factory was in Cloudsdale, the place that pretty much took care of the whole winter things. Rainbow Dash must have aimed to do something in this factory to stop winter from happening.

As soon as the stallion realized that, he only had one choice. "I won't let you do that!" He said determined before he realized that Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be found anymore. "Rainbow Dash?" He asked confused before he noticed a shadow right beneath him. It came from a cloud that was just a few hooves above him with Rainbow Dash sitting on top of it. The mare pushed the cloud down and Star Twinkle was stuck inside of it. She must have manipulated the cloud a little bit because it should have not been that hard for him to get out of it.

"Sorry, Star Twinkle but I just have to do this," Rainbow Dash said before she kicked cloud away with Star Twinkle still inside of it.

"Rainbow!" Star Twinkle screamed at the mare while the cloud floated away from her. Now there was nopony who could stop her in her attempt to stop winter so she took Tank and flew right in direction of Cloudsdale to put her plan in motion.

Later...

Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie continued their work without suspecting anything yet. They still were worried about Rainbow Dash which made it hard to focus on their work, especially after her little outburst from before.

After Rarity was done sweeping up a rather big pile of leaves, she was wiping her forehead and was impressed by her own work. However, that quickly changed once a cloud was flying right through it, causing her to growl annoyed. "Why are the clouds flying this low!?" She asked frustrated.

The other girls quickly noticed that as well and had their eyes locked on this single cloud flying past them. They also thought that it was really weird until Twilight saw something stuck inside of it. "Star Twinkle!?" She asked confused.

Fluttershy was the one who managed to stop the cloud on its track and freed Star Twinkle, who fell to the ground. "Thanks..." he said relieved with his head still spinning a little.

The girls walked up to him. "That looked fun!" Pinkie Pie said cheerfully.

"How did you manage to get into this situation?" Rarity asked confused but also concerned.

But Star Twinkle had no time to waste. "Doesn't matter, we need to stop Rainbow Dash!" He said hastily.

He was greeted with confused looks by the girls. "What do you mean?" Twilight asked confused.

Star Twinkle explained. "I don't know exactly what she is trying to stop Tank from hibernating!"

Fluttershy looked worried. "Oh, dear...she is still not over it? I hope she doesn't do anything dangerous," she added worriedly.

But Rarity kept being positive. "Don't worry, Fluttershy. I mean, what is possibly the worst thing she can do? Stop winter entirely?" Rarity said jokingly.

"Yeah...about that..." Star Twinkle said.

As if on cue, a loud noise was going coming from far away up in the sky, from Cloudsdale to be exact. A lightning storm was surrounding it, something that was definitely not normal. It looked unnatural and something was wrong, that much the group of ponies had to agree on.

"What in the name of Celestia's goin' on up there?" Applejack asked.

At first, nopony had any idea what was going on but then a realization struck Rarity's mind. Rainbow Dash was not with them and he just had to think about the last sentence she said. "I was kidding just now!" The mare was saying as if those words were directed at some greater force out there that deliberately tried to prove her wrong.

By how worried Twilight looked at Cloudsdale, she must have figured the same thing that Star Twinkle was trying to tell them just now and she didn't like it one bit.

"Prepare yourselves, everypony! Winter is coming!" She announced.

And as soon as she said it, something did happen. A huge snowball was shot out from the weather-factory of Cloudsdale and it came flying dangerously close towards Star Twinkle and his friends. Realizing that, the ponies knew that they were about to get hit.

"Everypony, look out and take cover!" Twilight exclaimed.

"Take cover!? Where!?" Star Twinkle asked. But just standing around and waiting for impact was not the best thing to do either so everypony was just running away in the hope to escape the snowball. As Star Twinkle was running away, he was keeping a close look at the giant snowball, and just before the impact, he clearly saw Rainbow Dash's upper body sticking out of the snowball who was holding into Tank. That meant, that Star Twinkle's guess was right and that Rainbow Dash was actually trying to stop winter and did something in the weather factory.

There was a rush of anger and annoyance running through Star Twinkle as soon as he realized that. "Rainbow Da-"

BOOOOOOOOM!

The giant snowball hit Ponyville directly. Fortunately, there was no damage. In fact, after the snowball hit the town, it managed to cover all of it in a blanket of snow, nice and clean. The impact of the snowball also did not hurt anypony too much and left them only a little dizzy. One after another pony popped out from the snow again once things settled down.

Rarity was walking around to find the rest of her friends and she quickly found most of them coming out from the snow again. "Is everypony alright?" She asked.

Twilight looked around as well and figured that everypony was nearby with the exception of Star Twinkle who she found stuck with his head in the ground, poorly trying to free himself. She did him a favor and used her magic to pull him out.

"Thanks," Star Twinkle said relieved once he was put gently on his hooves by Twilight's magic.

The stallion was shocked and impressed at the same time once he saw all of Ponyville being covered in snow. The Pegasi probably prepared themselves for a more quiet and natural routine to bring the snow to Ponyville but it somehow worked out like this anyway, which bought up the question of what Rainbow Dash was planning in the first place. Star Twinkle was sure that he saw her inside the snowball right before it came crashing down on him after all.

It wasn't long until he saw the mare popping up from beneath the snow as well. Her head was spinning as well but she pulled herself together and immediately looked for her pet tortoise who seemed to be still buried beneath the snow. Luckily, she managed to find it quick and smiled but her smile was vanishing right away once she saw all the snow around her. Winter was already there, something that she did not want at all.

Her friends were already walking up to her to make sure she was alright.

"Rainbow Dash! Are you alright?" Twilight asked worriedly.

Rainbow Dash sighed. "No..." she said with a frown on her face. She was at the point where she just didn't care anymore and straight out admitted her plan to everypony in front of her. "I thought if I could prevent winter from happening all together then I could stop Tank from hibernating," she said before she looked around herself. "But that didn't really work..." she said with a really big frown on her face. "If you excuse me now, I'm going home..." she said before she slowly flew away with Tank in her hooves.

If it wasn't clear to anypony that Rainbow Dash was really sad, then this was enough to convince them by now. The six friends looked at each other concerned.

"She really is sad about this hibernating thing," Applejack figured.

"Yes," Twilight agreed on. "We need to talk to her about it. We can't just leave her like this," she suggested.

Her friends all came to the same decision. It was not like Rainbow Dash to be this upset about something. Seeing her acting this sad was proof enough for them to say or do something to make her feel happy again. They didn't know what to say yet, but if they don't do anything then who knows what Rainbow Dash would do next. What she needed right now were some friends who would cheer her up in this dire situation.

Later...

The six ponies went to Cloudsdale, to Rainbow Dash's house to be exact. They entered her house and it didn't take long until they found the mare laying on her bed wearing a purple bathrobe and some tortoise slippers while she was hugging her Tank who was wearing a sky-colored bathrobe and some Rainbow Dash slippers.

While the sight of this was really weird for Star Twinkle, he did not let it distract him from how sad the mare still was. The group slowly entered the room quietly, except Pinkie Pie, who just straight out walked through the wall, which was probably easy to do since it was made out of clouds.

"Knock, knock!" Pinkie Pie said happily as she walked towards the mare like the rest of her friends but she got some glares from the others, asking her to be quiet in a moment like this and smiled back sheepishly in response.

Rainbow Dash didn't seem to care though. It was like her friends weren't even there right now. She just kept hugging Tank and didn't care that she wasn't presenting herself in her usual tough and cool persona right now.

"How are you feeling, Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy asked.

Rainbow Dash didn't even bother to turn around facing her friends. "Whatever..." she just said with no signs of happiness in her voice at all.

Rarity really wanted to help the mare but had no idea how. "The poor thing looks so sad! Just what are we doing to do?" She asked into the round.

But Twilight was clueless. "I don't know what we can do,"

"Well, we have to do something," Star Twinkle said.

Applejack was the first one to give it a try. "Buck up, Sugarcube. You just ain't yourself these days," she said as she walked close to the mare's bed.

Rainbow Dash just repeated herself from before. "Whatever..." she said in the same tone as before, again, not bothering to even turn around.

The ponies looked at each other confused. It was really hard for them to come up with a solution with this but they just had to keep trying. Rarity was the next one to talk to Rainbow Dash but instead of trying to cheer her up, she decided to just say things as they were at the moment.

"Uh, how can I say this tactfully...? You've lost your sparkle, Rainbow Dash," she said something that Rainbow Dash didn't seem to care about.

Pinkie Pie followed up on that. "I hate to say this, but, well... you've become...!" She then leaned over to Rainbow Dash. "A party pooper!" She hushed as if she was scared to see Rainbow Dash's reaction after saying this.

But again, Rainbow Dash didn't care less. This time she turned towards her friends as if she thought they didn't understand her before. "Didn't you hear me? I said 'whatever'. I don't know if you're here to cheer me up or what, but I'm fine," she said before she turned away from them again.

But no matter how you look at it, Rainbow Dash was not remotely fine. "What now?" Star Twinkle asked, hoping that somepony would answer him.

Surprisingly, Fluttershy stepped up and took the matter in her own hooves. "Let me handle this," she said unusually confident, much to everyponies surprise. They all figured that Fluttershy must have a plan to deal with this situation and just let her do her thing.

Star Twinkle shook his shoulders confused. "What do we have to lose?" He said, getting the girls to agree on that.

Fluttershy then took a quick breath and "executed" her plan. "Rainbow Dash, your winter is going to be pet-less," she said sternly.

This time, Rainbow Dash reacted. She sat up and looked at Fluttershy with shock in her eyes. She didn't say anything but soon, tears started to form in her eyes and the mare broke out in tears, sobbing uncontrollably in her frustration and sadness.

Fluttershy did not seem to be surprised by this outcome at all and kept up her stern expression. The rest of her friends, however, were a little confused by Fluttershy's choice of words and what it resulted in.

"Whatever did you do that for?!" Rarity asked confused, taking the words out of the mouth from her friends.

Fluttershy explained. "Because she'll never get past this until she lets it all out," she said sternly.

And she sure was letting it all out. For a long time...with no end in sight. It was weird watching a grown mare cry her eyes out like this while just standing on the side. Soon, the group felt a little uncomfortable.

"She really is taking her time though..." Star Twinkle thought as he kept watching the mare, like the others.

Soon, Twilight was thinking that this dragged out for a little too long and decided to use her magic and dragged Applejack in front of her to make her say something to her friend. And even though Applejack felt a little annoyed by this, she did as she was told and tried to cheer Rainbow Dash up.

"Uh... it's okay," she said awkwardly. "Tank'll come back in a few months," she assured.

"Months?!" Rainbow Dash replied in shock before she continued crying even harder and rolled on her bed while hugging Tank. "I don't want him to go!" She shouted desperately.

Applejack had no idea what to do now. This was not one of those situations where she would shine normally. " Alright, alright. There, there," she said as she petted the mare in a poor attempt to comfort her before she then walked back to the others, mainly to Fluttershy who she was glaring at. "Nice going, Fluttershy. How do we get her to stop?" She hushed towards the mare.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle agreed. "I'll admit I liked it better when she was just quietly sobbing," he added.

But Fluttershy still thought that this was the best thing to do. "She's got to be about done by now. Can't be too much left in there," she said confidently. And to the surprise of everypony, the crying did stop. This was a cue for Fluttershy to step in. She was sitting next to Rainbow Dash in the hope that she was listening to her. "Feeling better?" She asked in a caring voice.

"Uh-huh," Rainbow Dash replied while she wiped away one last tear from her eyes. Now it was time to talk with Rainbow Dash. At least that was the plan. Things went wrong as soon as Rainbow Dash resumed to cry again.

Now the group was waiting for Fluttershy to save the situation once more but that didn't exactly happen. "Oh, you poor, poor thing..." she said before she joined the mare on her crying streak.

Right now, Star Twinkle just thought things got weirder, which was saying a lot. "Is this part of her plan too?" He asked confused into the round.

But after seeing how Rarity was forming some tears in her eyes now as well, he had the feeling that this was not the case. "I can't bear to see Fluttershy cry!" She said as she walked over to the two mares and joined them

As if that wasn't enough, Pinkie Pie began crying as well. "It's just heart-wrenching!" She said while she joined the three mares now too.

Now it was four ponies who cried heavily on Rainbow Dash's bed. It was a really weird scene to look at. "What is even going on now?" Star Twinkle asked while he stood there with Twilight and Applejack. He was not sure if he should tell them to stop or just watch. The situation was just too weird.

Twilight was just looking towards Applejack who was fixing her hat for a moment, which she mistook for her trying to hide her tears.

"You too?!" She asked surprised.

But Applejack gave an honest and almost cold answer. "Nope, I'm good,"

Twilight figured that somepony should say or do something so she walked up to the crying bunch in an attempt to stop them from crying. "Look, everypony, I know how hard it is to say goodbye—"

But then she was interrupted by Pinkie Pie, who was drawing her closer to her. "I'm mostly sad because you're not sad!" She said in a sobbing voice.

"What?! Me?!" Twilight replied confused. "What about Star Twinkle and Applejack?" She said while she pointed at the two ponies who kept standing a little bit further away from the crying bunch.

"Star Twinkle and Applejack are crying on the inside, Twilight!" Pinkie Pie shot back.

Applejack just nodded in response. "It's true," she said casually.

"Yeah, sure," Star Twinkle replied casually as well.

Both of them seemed unfazed by the four crying ponies in front of them. They figured that there were enough of them crying anyway. Thankfully, Rainbow Dash finally stopped for good this time.

"It's alright, Fluttershy. It's alright," Rainbow Dash said in a calm and relieved voice.

The girls backed away again and waited for what was about to happen next. They just hoped that it didn't have anything to do with Rainbow Dash starting to cry again.

"You think she's done or just getting a third wind?" Applejack whispered to her friends.

"I don't know..." Twilight replied. "Rainbow Dash? Are you okay?" She asked.

Rainbow Dash got out of her bed, she wiped away her last tears even though they kept coming back anyway. "I think so. I feel better. Really, I do. Thanks, everypony. I don't know what I'd do without you," she said before she looked back at Tank, causing her to tear up again. "Or him..." she added before she hugged Tank one more time. "Oh, Tank... I'm sure gonna miss you."

Her friends were approaching Rainbow Dash and comforted her some more before she was about to go outside with Tank to do what she should have done earlier.

Later...

Even though winter came in the form of a giant snow explosion, the ponies in Ponyville still had fun in the snow. Winter had officially begun. Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were already wearing fitting winter clothes to keep warm and spend the time together in the snow.

"Well, guess we're starting winter with a bang," Twilight said.

Applejack already pilled up some snowballs and threw them around. "The fun's come early! Yee-haw!" She said before she threw one at the girls, to Pinkie Pie to be exact, who fell on her back as soon as she saw the snowball flying right at her.

"You think we could mess up winter every year? It's way less work!" Pinkie Pie said while she was making a snow angel in the snow.

Star Twinkle chuckled. "Getting bombarded with huge snowball was actually not that bad after all," he figured with a smile on his face.

"Uh, I don't think Rainbow Dash could handle it," Twilight pointed out.

And speaking of Rainbow Dash, the mare just joined the group of ponies. Tank was inside one of her saddlebags, popping out his head. She seemed to feel a lot better now after she accepted to let Tank hibernate. "Riding that entire season from Cloudsdale to Ponyville was pretty awesome," she said with a smile on her face. Tank was still really sleepy and couldn't help yawning again but this time Rainbow Dash was not sad to see that, at least like before. "I thought you guys might like to say goodbye to Tank. He's ready to hibernate," she then announced to the group.

"Ooh, you're using the word! Oh, she's using the word!" Pinkie Pie said happily before she rushed over to Tank. "And when Tank finishes hibernating, I'm gonna throw him the biggest welcome home party ever! Or wait. Should it be a 'welcome above ground' party? Or a 'happy wake-up' party? Maybe an 'it's about time!' party!"

"And I'll design him a very special suit just for the occasion, whichever one it ends up being," Rarity said happily.

"I'm glad you're feelin' a little better, Rainbow Dash," Applejack expressed.

"Yeah, me too," Rainbow Dash agreed on.

The group then took a moment to find a good spot for Tank where he could sleep. They quickly found one beneath a tree. Rainbow Dash dug a little hole in the ground beneath the snow and put Tank inside it.

It was still obvious that Rainbow Dash was not completely liking the idea of Tank being away for a while but at least she was not stopping him from doing it. "So, you really wanna do this hibernating thing, huh?" She asked one last time, causing Tank to nod in response.

The group was all there as well saying the farewells to the little guy.

"Goodbye, Tank," said Rarity.

"Happy winter," said Fluttershy.

"See you later, little feller," said Applejack.

"Have a good sleep, Tank!" Said Pinkie Pie.

"Nice dreams little buddy," said Star Twinkle.

"Goodbye, Tank! We'll miss you!" Said Twilight.

And just like that, Tank was covering himself in snow and went to sleep. There were still some running down on Rainbow Dash's cheeks but she pulled herself together right away again. She kept telling herself that this was the right thing to do and that made her decision clear.

"Well? Ready for some winter fun?" Twilight then asked.

But Rainbow Dash needed one more moment to get ready. "Uh, I'm gonna hang here and read to him a bit. That little guy can never get to sleep without a bedtime story," she said happily while she pulled out one of her Daring Do books. "I'll be right there," she assured. The six ponies understood and left her. They knew that this was her way of dealing with the situation a little bit better. And as long as if she was letting Tank sleep everything was okay.

Star Twinkle was happy that everything was resolved in the end, even if it was a little bit difficult. Having to let a friend seemed to be much harder than he imagined, not that he knew anything about that. He decided to leave the mare as well.

"Wait! Star Twinkle!" Rainbow Dash then suddenly said much to the stallion's confusion who turned around to look at the mare.

"Yes?" He asked.

Rainbow Dash then slowly walked up to the stallion with an embarrassed expression on her face. She rubbed her neck and had a hard time looking into Star Twinkle's eyes but eventually, she managed to find her words. "Listen...about before...I'm sorry...I was pretty mean..." she apologized.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle agreed on.

"And...I maybe acted a little bit stupid," she added.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle agreed once more.

Rainbow Dash lowered her eyebrows. "You can stop me if you want," she then said a little bothered.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle replied smugly with a smile on his face.

The mare returned the smile, a happy one that is. "So we're are good?" She asked.

Star Twinkle nodded. "Yes, don't worry about it, Rainbow Dash," he said with a warm smile on his face.

Rainbow Dash was happy to hear this and grinned at the stallion. It must have been really important to hear that the stallion forgave her. She then turned around and looked to where Tank was sleeping. "I'll better go back and start reading to the little guy," she then said before she walked back.

The green stallion was about to turn around to join his friends but then he looked back at Rainbow Dash who was sitting down next to Tank. He then walked up to the mare and sat next to her with a smile on his face.

"Mind if I join you?" He asked.

The mare didn't seem to expect Star Twinkle to do this but she certainly did not refuse his company. "Not at all," she said happily before she started to read.

It was relaxing to hear Rainbow Dash read the book. She was reading it in a really caring and warm voice, which was most likely because she was reading it to Tank with all of her heart put into it. Star Twinkle remained quiet until she was done and they both joined the rest of their friends to spend the winter together.

They all had a lot of fun. It almost felt as if Rainbow Dash was having double the fun to make up Tank's absence. It was refreshing to see her get over it, making this winter even more special to everyone else.

Author's Notes:

I don't know about you but I, for once, really liked how this chapter turned out. There was a lot of custom stuff while also having a lot of stuff from the episode inside of it. I am pretty satisfied ^^.
I hope you are too, that would be wonderful!

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

96. Troublemakers

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Appleloosa...

Another rodeo was going on in the town of Appleloosa and whenever that happens, Applejack is not too far away to participate in it. This time, however, she had company. The last rodeo she took part in ended up with some complications since she didn't win any competition and was too proud to return so it was probably better to have some kind of company this time around.

This company took shape in the form of her little sister Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Star Twinkle. Originally, only Apple Bloom was supposed to accompany her but she invited her fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders to join in as well. Since Star Twinkle was part of this group as well, even though he already got his Cutie Mark, he was pretty much dragged along. He was appreciating to get invited though.

They were only there for roughly an hour but they could clearly tell that everypony in Appleloosa was pumped to take part in the rodeo. The whole town was practically taking part in it and practiced their routines. Star Twinkle and the three little fillies took a good look at everypony and watched in awe.

"Aren't you glad y'all came with me to see Applejack compete in the Appleloosa rodeo?" Apple Bloom asked excitedly.

"Totally!" Scootaloo said. "This place is a cutie mark gold mine!" She said while she pointed at every pony who practiced their rodeo routines. "There's barrel racing, roping contests, rodeo clowning, steeplechase...!"

This could have continued but Apple Bloom interrupted her friend. "If we can get into some of these events, we could all three walk off the train back in Ponyville with brand-spankin' new cutie marks!" She explained happily.

"Wouldn't a barrel look good here?" Scootaloo said while she looked at her flank.

"I want a lasso!" Apple Bloom said cheerfully.

Star Twinkle just smiled at the three fillies and how excited they were for this trip. "Always a one-tracked mind, huh?" He commented.

Scootaloo turned towards the stallion. "Unlike you, we still don't have our Cutie Marks so of course we're still gonna focus on that!" She explained.

"We also don't want to fall behind you," Sweetie Belle added.

"Right!" Apple Bloom added. "Don't worry, we will get out Cutie Marks in no time so that all of us have one!" She said cheerfully.

Again, Star Twinkle smiled. It was nice how nothing changed in the relationship between him and the three girls. He almost expected them to cast him out from the Cutie Mark Crusaders but they did not hold any grudge or felt bad or anything alike. In fact, they seemed rather happy for him and wanted to work even harder from this point on. The stallion felt bad to even consider that the girls would have done anything bad after he got his Cutie Mark.

But even though the three fillies were excited for all the opportunities in terms of Cutie Marks, Sweetie Belle took a closer look around and came to one conclusion. "I don't know... All these events look a little, well, dangerous," she said worriedly.

"No risk, no reward," Apple Bloom simply replied.

But Star Twinkle did not really want to hear something like this. He knew those three well enough by now to know that they would tend to do some really risky stuff to get their Cutie Marks. This only meant that he had to keep a close look at each of them, which again, was bothering him a little bit. He figured that this trip would be more exhausting now.

As the four were walking around in Appleloosa their attention was quickly drawn by the Sheriff Silverstar, who was giving orders to the town ponies. Judging from the serious tone in his voice, it sounded rather important so the group listened to what he was saying.

"Alright, everypony, listen up! We need a big presence at this here rodeo, so make yourself plenty seen! I want that low-down varmint to know we mean business!" He said with determination in his voice.

Again, Sweetie Belle was the one who got concerned first. "I hope nothing bad is going on," she commented.

"Don't worry," Star Twinkle said. "They wouldn't hold a rodeo if there was somepony dangerous on the run," he added. But judging from Sheriff Silverstar's words, he did not intend to stop the rodeo even if that was the case. In hindsight, that is probably a lot of reasons to be actually concerned.

But Apple Bloom was not worried at all. "A cutie mark-apalooza and a low-down varmint? This is shapin' up to be the most excitin' rodeo ever!" She said excitedly.

"Yeah, come on!" Scootaloo added while she and Apple Bloom galloped away.

Star Twinkle shook his head. "I don't think you got the right message in this speech just now!" He shouted after the two fillies frustrated about how lightly they took this situation.

This only left Star Twinkle and Sweetie Belle, who both were the only ones seeing the real problem here. It was visible to Star Twinkle that Sweetie Belle was really worried so he figured that he should say some words to cheer her up again.

"Um...don't worry! I'll protect you all!" He said in a heroic tone, which made him face-hoof from the inside since he probably looked like a complete idiot now.

But to his relief, Sweetie Belle chuckled and smiled again. "We should follow them," she said before she ran after her friends.

"Right..." Star Twinkle said slightly embarrassed before he followed right behind. He didn't know if she got happy because of his weird gesture or because she knew that he tried to cheer her up but either way, Star Twinkle was happy.

Later...

Star Twinkle, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo decided to go back to Applejack. Watching her in the rodeo was initially why they came to Appleloosa in the first place. The mare was already practicing her routine. She, along with some other ponies, gracefully and acrobatically, stacked one haystack after another on top of each other to build a huge tower out of it. Once they were done, there were hundreds of them on top of each other.

In the meantime, Braeburn, who unfortunately hurt one of his legs, was looking at this and loudly cheered for Applejack. "Woo-hoo! Yee-haw! That's my cousin! Go, Applejack, go!"

The mare wiped off some sweat from her forehead. "Whew! It's been a dog's age since I got to compete. All the rodeos 'round Ponyville are closed down for some reason," she mentioned.

"Well, I guess havin' injured kinfolk in Appleloosa sure paid off then, huh, cuz?" Braeburn said jokingly.

"Just doin' my best to fill your horseshoes, Braeburn," Applejack modestly replied.

"Keep tossin' like that and I'll be out of a job!" Braeburn replied before he invited her to a hoof bump, which she gladly took. Unfortunately, Braeburn offered his injured hoof, something that both of them did not seem to notice. "Ow, ow!" The stallion said in pain.

"Ooh, sorry," Applejack apologized. The mare then looked around a little bit and noticed how something was off. "Say, where's my sister and her friends?" She then asked confused.

"Uh-oh. Gee, uh, I got so caught up watchin' you that I—" Braeburn tried to explain but Applejack would not listen and got mad at him already.

"You said you'd keep an eye on those fillies! How am I supposed to focus on practicin' if you're not gonna—"

"There they are!" Braeburn then said as soon as he saw the three fillies and Star Twinkle walking up to the two. The three girls had a bunch of souvenirs with them already, like weird rodeo hats or caramel apples. "Heh, right where I left 'em...with Star Twinkle. I knew asking him to look after them for a while was a good idea," he explained nervously.

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes. "You mean after you lost sight of them..." he thought. In reality, Braeburn asked for Star Twinkle to look after them after they ran off so that Applejack would not get mad at him.

The last part of his plan clearly failed since Applejack was looking right through him. "Aw, don't be mad!" Braeburn said before he lifted his injured leg in front of her. "Owwwwch! My foreleg! Hurts so much...!" He said in a fake sobbing voice.

Even the three fillies could clearly see through his poor acting and giggled at him but those giggles stopped as soon as they realized that Applejack was about to give them a little talk.

"Y'all can't go runnin' off like that, y'hear? Backstage at a rodeo ain't no kind of playground!" She scolded, making the three frown a little bit.

But luckily Star Twinkle was at their side. "Don't worry Applejack, I was with them all this time," he assured as he walked closer to the mare. Applejack gave the stallion half of a glare as if she was partly blaming him for this.

Now, the girls felt bad. Apple Bloom walked forward. "Sorry, Applejack. We won't wander off again," she then apologized.

Applejack was taking this apology and then began to sigh. "The rodeo is a pretty big thing here so I guess I can't blame you all for taking a look at everything," she then said with a smile on her face.

"Speakin' of the rodeo..." Apple Bloom then said as soon as she noticed how her sister was no longer mad at them. "What would you say about me and the Crusaders maybe competin' in one teensy-weensy little event or three?" She then asked.

But before Applejack could give an answer, Braeburn interrupted them. "Look out!" He said in a panic as he pointed towards the huge haystack tower. It was shaking and about to fall, right on six ponies.

There was no time to think for anyone but Applejack instinctively went and grabbed Apple Bloom and Scootaloo while Star Twinkle was grabbing Sweetie Belle and pushed Braeburn out of the way. The tower came down with a huge crash but luckily nopony was buried beneath it, thanks to Applejack's and Star Twinkle's quick actions.

Applejack was still holding to her sister while she gasped in relief as soon as she saw how everypony was alright. "Good job, Star Twinkle!" She said after she saw how Sweetie Belle and Braeburn were alright as well.

Star Twinkle had a smile on his face as he looked over to Sweetie Belle. "Told you, I'll keep you save," he had the nerve to boast, even though Applejack was the one who saved the other half.

Applejack took a look around and saw all the haystacks scattered around. "What the hay just happened?" She asked confused.

But for Star Twinkle the answer was obvious. "I guess you didn't make sure that your tower is very stable," he figured.

The mare quickly turned towards Star Twinkle with an offended look on her face. "We practiced this routine for a long time! It should have fallen over this easily! There must have been another reason!" She said, defending herself from Star Twinkle's accusations.

Sheriff Silverstar arrived at the scene shortly after and took a good look at the ground near the tower. He quickly found something that caught his attention. "Sugar and salt licks! Well, I'll be..." he said in a serious tone.

Wondering about what the sheriff found, everypony walked up to him. "What is it, Sheriff?" Applejack asked confused.

Everypony quickly saw a hoofprint in the dirt. Somepony was next to the tower when it fell, or rather, somepony was responsible for it to fall.

"Is it him?" Braeburn asked concerned.

"Who?" Star Twinkle asked confused, feeling a little left out right now.

Sheriff Silverstar nodded and his facial expression became even more serious. "Ain't no doubt. It's Trouble Shoes," he said in a serious tone, which was made even more serious as soon as some pony nearby decided to play a western song with his harmonica, much to Sheriff Silverstar's surprise.

However, Star Twinkle still wanted to know more. "And who is that Trouble Shoes?" He asked.

The sheriff then turned towards the stallion and simply replied. "Appleloosa's Most Wanted!"

But that is all the information that Star Twinkle would get for a while. Instead of explaining the situation to him, Sheriff Silverstar decided to hold another speech in front of the town ponies to warn them all.

Later...

Only ten minutes after the haystack tower incident, Sheriff Silverstar managed to gather all the folks from Appleloosa in one spot. Star Twinkle, Applejack, Braeburn, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were there as well to listen.

Unlike Star Twinkle, however, everypony seemed to already know about Trouble Shoes.

"Is it true? Is Trouble Shoes here?"

"You ain't gonna shut down the rodeo, are ya?!"

Those were only some questions that the stallion could hear in the crowd as soon as Sheriff Silverstar was stepping in front of the crowd.

"All right now, I called for a meetin', not a mob scene," Sheriff Silverstar said, causing some of the ponies in the crowd to pack away their torches and pitchforks. "Now, as many of you know, the Equestria rodeo circuit has been plagued by the dirty dealin's of a notorious outlaw," he explained.

"He knocked barrels every which way at the Hoof City rodeo! Nearly crushed my Aunt Bae Mare!"

"That's nothin'! He sabotaged the steer pen at Pinto Creek rodeo, settin' off such a stampede they cancelled the whole dadgum thing!"

Those again were some things that the town's ponies shared with everyone.

But Sheriff Silverstar remained calm and decided to explain further. "Now, now, it's true we had an incident this mornin' at our own Appleloosa rodeo. Hay bale stack came down right near on top of three little fillies!" He said as he pointed towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders, which were held by Applejack in concern. "I examined them hoof-prints myself and, uh... it was Trouble Shoes, all right," he added, causing the crowd in front of him to gasp in shock. "I reckon I oughta cancel this rodeo like all the others done. But dag-hoof it, this has gone far enough! We'll double the patrols! This rodeo will go on! Appleloosa ain't gonna be intimidated!" He announced, causing the crowd ponies to cheer for him in agreement.

And just like that, the situation was settled and everypony left. Star Twinkle had to admit that the ponies in Appleloosa were pretty brave to continue the rodeo even though a criminal was on the loose. Maybe it was also because the rodeo was really important to everyone. Whatever the reason was, the Cutie Mark Crusaders didn't mind too much what happened to them earlier and just went back to what they wanted to ask Applejack.

"Glad that's settled. So, uh, Applejack, about me and my pals competin' in the rodeo..." she asked followed by a nervous chuckle. She knew that this was not the best moment to ask this.

"About that..." Applejack then said in a concerned voice.

Later...

Applejack could only come up with one solution for this situation, and it was something that the Cutie Mark Crusaders did not like at all.

"Don't send us home! It's not fair!" Apple Bloom protested.

But Applejack already made her decision. "Now, quit yer bellyachin'. I can't have y'all around here with some outlaw on the loose," she said while she strapped a saddlebag on her sister already.

"Come on, Star Twinkle, say something!" Scootaloo begged.

But Star Twinkle didn't really think that this was his decision alone. He also did not completely disagree with Applejack's decision. "To be fair, you three almost got crushed earlier today if Applejack and I didn't come and help you," he pointed out.

"Exactly!" Applejack agreed. "And knowing you girls, you probably run off as soon as we stop looking at you!" She scolded, judging from what happened earlier today as well. She then formed a frown on her face and sighed. "Aw, maybe I oughta call it quits and go home too," she figured.

But that was an answer that Braeburn would not accept. "No, you can't! This rodeo is important to Appleloosa! And with you in there, we got a real shot at winnin'!" He said before he grabbed her and Star Twinkle and pushed them both "Come on, now, you head on back to practice and don't worry none about these three. I won't let 'em outta my sight," he said before he slammed the door shut again.

This left the two Earth Ponies outside while Braeburn kept a close look on the three fillies while the rodeo was going on. Applejack made an attempt to open the door right away but hesitated. She quickly formed a determined expression on her face though, turned around and walked away.

"Let's go, Star Twinkle. Help me get prepared for the rodeo," she said determinedly.

"Are you sure this is the best thing to do now?" Star Twinkle asked confused. "You know that the girls will be pretty upset about this, right?"

"I know," the mare replied with a frown on her face. "But this is the best we can do. You said it yourself, if we weren't there, then my sister and her friends could have gotten seriously hurt. And with a criminal on the loose, I am not taking any chances. So to answer your question, yes, I think this is the best thing to do," she said.

Star Twinkle did not want the girls to be upset but at the same time, he didn't want them to be in danger. Applejack had to take part in the rodeo and knowing the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Star Twinkle would not be able to hold them in one place forever.

"I guess you're right," Star Twinkle admitted while he accompanied Applejack to her next practice session.

Later that day...

Just like before, Applejack and some other ponies continued to practice their, haystack tower routine. This time it actually was standing without anything falling over again. Applejack was just done placing the last haystack on the top. Star Twinkle could swear that the tower was getting a little bit higher each attempt.

"Looks good!" Star Twinkle said impressed at the huge tower in front of him.

Applejack and the other ponies were happy to hear this and all smiled modestly.

Shortly after though, a raindrop was hitting the stallion on his nose. He looked up at the sky and just now realized that the clouds looked rather gray. "I think you should call it quit for now because it looks like it is about to-"

But then water came pouring down on him, hard.

"Rain..." Star Twinkle then said annoyed while his eyes were covered by his wet mane.

Everypony quickly agreed to get inside to take cover. It was good that they were done with their tower and they were smart enough to build it in front of a barn. They quickly took shelter inside of it to escape from the rainstorm.

"Whew! Good job, y'all. I know they need lots of mud for the rodeo tomorrow, but I wish they would've warned us about this rainstorm," Applejack remarked.

"Yeah, no kidding," Star Twinkle added while he was wringing out his tail.

Shortly after, somepony else entered the barn, who was not with them a minute ago. It was Braeburn who was looking a little bit in shock.

"Braeburn?" Applejack said once she saw her cousin entering the barn. But there was something missing. "Where are the girls?" She then asked. What she got as a reply was a nervous laugh from the stallion.

"No...don't tell me..." Star Twinkle said after he figured out what might have happened.

"Yeah...um...they kinda ran away when I was not looking..." the stallion admitted nervously.

Applejack replied accordingly...

"Whaaaaaaaaaat?!" She screamed in her frustration, which echoed through the whole area.

The three ponies wasted no time to pay Sheriff Silverstar a visit and request some help to look for them. Braeburn looked all over Appleloosa but couldn't find them so Applejack came to the conclusion that Trouble Shoes was the one who took them away.

Sheriff Silverstar had his doubt though. He said that Trouble Shoes did some bad things but nothing that went this far. But Applejack didn't want to take that chance and Sheriff Silverstar didn't either so they all decided to look for the three fillies to find them. The Sheriff had a good guess where Trouble Shoes could be and led the way to go after him, hoping that the Cutie Mark Crusaders would still be safe when they get there.

Meanwhile...

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were walking through a forest not too far away from Appleloosa. Applejack's assumption that they were ponynapped by Trouble Shoes proved to be wrong. However, that didn't mean that Trouble Shoes was completely out of the picture. It was him who the three girls were looking for after all. They figured that their chances to take part in the rodeo would increase once this criminal was out of the picture and there was no more reason for anypony to be worried about.

The three fillies somehow managed to find out that Trouble Shoes was living a little bit outside of Appleloosa which led them into this forest.

But...they quickly found themselves lost...

"You sure about this, Scootaloo?" Sweetie Belle asked while she was looking around in concern.

"I thought I was, but now I'm not," Scootaloo replied worriedly.

Apple Bloom was the one who came up with this idea so of course, she completely blamed herself for this situation. "So I pretty much got us completely and totally lost. How could this get any worse?" She complained loudly.

Of course, she was asking for it...

She, along with her two friends slid down a little muddy hill by accident. Now they were wet because of the rain and covered in mud. Walking around the forest while it was raining like this was definitely not the safest way to travel, they needed shelter.

"We gotta get out of this rain. There's no tellin' how long this storm could last," Apple Bloom said.

And just as if their prayers were heard, Scootaloo managed to find exactly that. "Look!" She said, pointing at a cabin in the middle of this forest.

It was in really bad shape so Apple Bloom figured that this would be a good place to stay. "It looks abandoned. Let's go see if we can find some blankets or somethin'," she suggested before she walked towards it with her friends following closely.

The girls quickly ran inside to finally get some shelter to escape the rainstorm. Sweetie Belle made sure to close the door behind her quickly so that the thunder outside would not be nearly as loud anymore. The room they were in was really dark and they could barely see anything but at least it was dry there.

It was also awfully quiet. This Cabin looked rather abandoned so it made sense. But just when they thought they were safe and sound, they started to hear some noises. Someone was with them in the same room but they couldn't make out who it was because it was so dark. There was a figure in the corner of the room hiding in the shadows who also noticed the presence of the three girls and slowly walked up to them to reveal himself.

What the girls saw, however, shocked them. This figure had black skin, holes in its body, bug wings, and arctic blue eyes. The girls all gulped at the sight of this creature because they knew what it was after getting a closer look at it.

It was a Changeling.

"What's up?" The Changeling said.

AHHHHH!

The three girls screamed in terror. They were in Canterlot when the Changeling swarm attack the wedding of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor and knew all too well how dangerous those creatures were. They quickly ran towards the door, trying to open it hastily but Sweetie Belle must have slammed the door shut too hard once she entered and it got stuck.

The girls had no other option but to cower in fear in front of the door, holding each other and closing their eyes, hoping to not get hurt too much by this Changeling.

But strangely enough, nothing happened. The girls opened their eyes confused and quickly noticed that the Changeling didn't move an inch towards them and just had a bright smile on its face.

Needless to say, this behavior confused the three and they looked at each other. "He is not really chasing us..." Apple Bloom pointed out confused.

The Changeling tilted his head in confusion. "Why would I want to chase you?" He asked before his eyes widened in excitement. "Are we playing tag!? Why didn't you tell me?"

Being the trustful fillies they were, the three girls slowly walked up to the changeling and took a closer look at him. The smile on his face was definitely off-putting, or at least, weird to look at. This Changeling also was wearing a yellow headband around his head, something that made him look different as well. Changelings didn't really wear clothing except for pieces of armor, from what they knew so seeing him wear a bright yellow headband was also weird to look at.

"Aren't you a Changeling?" Sweetie Belle asked, just to confirm the whole situation.

"Yes. I am!" The Changeling replied with a smile on his face. "My name is Tagma, by the way," he then introduced himself.

Scootaloo, for a moment, completely forgot that she was in a potentially dangerous situation and just spoke out her mind. "I thought all Changelings are supposed to be evil," she straight out said.

"Who steal ponies love," Sweetie Belle added.

"And who want to take over Equestria," Apple Bloom added.

The Changeling gave a quick and casual answer. "Yes, all true," he said with a smile on his face. Of course, an answer like this confused them.

Sweetie Belle walked up to the Changeling slowly and inspected him a little closer. "You don't seem evil to me," she then said.

Tagma chuckled and rubbed his neck embarrassed. "Thanks. You don't seem evil to me as well," he commented back.

"So, you are not planning to hurt us or steal our love or anything like what the Changelings did in Canterlot a while back?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Nope, not really. I just was around the area when this huge rainstorm started out of nowhere so I needed to find some shelter," he explained casually. "Looks like I was not the only one," he added with a grin on his face.

Seeing how this Changeling was rather nice and not evil at all, made it rather easy for them to talk with him. They had no problems explaining why they were in this cabin. And Tagma listened closely. The three still could not believe that they were talking to a Changeling like this.

"So that's how it is," Apple Bloom said after she pretty much summed up their whole stay in Appleloosa.

"So you are trying to find this criminal and want him to get arrested so that things will be safe again and the town-folks will let you participate in the rodeo in return?" Tagma recapped.

"Yes," Sweetie Belle replied while she looked over to her two friends. "Pretty stupid idea, isn't it?" She added since she was against this idea from the very beginning.

"Yeah," Tagma replied casually, much to the surprise of the three. "But then again," he then said with a more exciting tone in his voice. "This rodeo thing sounds really fun! Can't really blame you to want to take part in it!"

"I guess Changelings don't have any rodeos, huh?" Scootaloo figured.

"No..." Tagma replied a little bit sad. "We don't really have many...fun things..."

"Is that why you are not with the rest of the Changelings?" Scootaloo asked boldly, which caused the other two fillies to poke her into the side.

"Nope, that's another reason entirely," Tagma replied.

The three fillies felt like as if they helped the Changeling to remember some bad memories and frowned out of sympathy. Sweetie Belle was then the one who tried to comfort him. "I hope, whatever happened with you and the other Changelings gets fixed someday," she said while she put a hoof on the Changeling.

"Yeah, me too," Tagma replied. He appreciated the words of the filly.

But this moment was interrupted as soon as somepony opened the door of the cabin and let the sound of the rainstorm inside. The three ponies and the Changeling looked towards the door in surprise and saw a huge figure standing in the doorway. The figure was covered in shadows, leaving the three fillies quite scared, especially since a thunder could be heard and accompanied the appearance of this huge stallion.

"AHHHHH!" The three fillies screamed in fear.

"AHHHHHH!" Screamed the big figure back in terror, while he hit his head and stumbled inside the room, only to slip over multiple objects, getting multiple things to fall down on his head and eventually, even knocking himself out by running into a lamp that was hanging from the ceiling.

This was a rather...weird situation that just happened in front of everypony. While the Cutie Mark Crusaders didn't know what to say, Tagma began to laugh. "That was awesome! Do it again!" He said, being completely oblivious about how the stallion was knocked out cold.

"That just happened," Scootaloo commented after not being completely sure about what she just witnessed.

"Should we help him?" Sweetie Belle asked confused.

"Probably," Apple Bloom figured as she walked up to the stallion. She did stop though and looked at Tagma for a moment. "You should probably turn into a pony. You can do that, right?" She then suggested.

Tagma looked confused for a moment. "Oh, yeah! Ponies are afraid of Changelings. I got it!" He said with a smile on his face before he engulfed himself in green flames and turned into a Pegasus Pony with a black coat, light blue eyes and a silhouette of a pony as a Cutie Mark. He barely looked different as a pony at least in terms of his colors, which probably made this transformation a little bit bad. On top of that, he had no mane or tail but still his yellow headband around his head.

But whether this transformation was good or bad, he was not a Changeling anymore so Apple Bloom continued to look after the big stallion in front of her who was just about to wake up.

"Hello? You alright?" She asked concerned.

"Surely," the stallion replied rather upset.

"We didn't mean no harm. We just came in to get out of the rain," Apple Bloom explained who now had Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Tagma standing behind her.

But the stallion did not seem to bother that. "Had some hot cider a-cookin' in the kitchen. Doubt it survived," he said while he looked at his kitchen area, which was left in ruins.

"Not after an entrance like this," Tagma said amused but then he got poked in the sides by Sweetie Belle who thought that this was a rather rude thing to say.

Again, the stallion did not seem to bother. "I ain't gonna rise to greet y'all. Awfully rude, I reckon, but as you can see, I'm the fresh casualty of an unusually unfortunate circumstance. My lot in life, I suppose,"

He was referring to how he was wrapped up in his own living room curtains at this very moment and was unable to get up on his own.

For some reason, Apple Bloom had a slight guess who that pony in front of her was but she asked him directly. "Are you... Trouble Shoes?"

"That's me," the stallion replied.

Without much time wasted, Apple Bloom walked closer to the stallion only to get stopped from Scootaloo. "W-what are you doing?" She asked confused.

"I'm gonna unwrap him," Apple Bloom casually replied before she walked past Scootaloo and to do exactly that.

"You can't do that! That's Trouble Shoes!" Sweetie Belle advised.

But Apple Bloom was already freeing the stallion "Aw, he doesn't seem so bad," she said confidently. "Just like another someone we just met recently," she added as she looked over to Tagma.

"Who could that be?" The Changeling in disguise said completely oblivious, causing Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo to simply shake their heads.

In the meantime, Apple Bloom managed to free the stallion and he could stand up properly on his hooves again. The Earth Pony stallion had a moderate vermilion colored coat, a dark grayish reddish-brown mane, and light green colored eyes. He was also wearing a small stetson on his head and had a light green upside-down horseshoe as a Cutie Mark. This stallion was also big, very big. He towered over the small fillies and was probably four times the size as Tagma.

"Of course guests would arrive while I ain't got no pie to offer. Scores more misfortune points for old Trouble Shoes," he said before he walked to his right, only to slip on a banana peel, which happened to be on the ground, making him slip directly into a shelve, filled with bowling balls, that came dropping down on his head. Despite that happening just now, Trouble Shoes got up again. "Typical. Bad luck never rests," he said still with a very upset tone in his voice.

"You sure that's bad luck?" Apple Bloom asked. "Seems like maybe you're just a little, um..."

"Klutzy?" Sweetie Belle finished.

"A little?" Tagma said confused. "I don't think he took a single step without breaking something so far," he added but then he got some glares from the girls and he stopped with a nervous smile on his face.

"Tell that to the flank!" Trouble Shoes said angrily before he literally held his flank up to present his Cutie Mark to everypony. "Upside-down horseshoe – bad luck. Follows me wherever I go like sour on old milk," he explained. Having said that certainly explained all the things that happened to him so far. "Y'all best vamoose before my bad luck rubs off and sticks to y'all," he said before he went to the door and asked everypony and Changeling to leave. "Get along! Skedaddle!" he said in a serious tone which was accompanied by thunder from outside.

Of course, that was not as easy as said for the three fillies. "Um, we don't really know the way back to Appleloosa..." Scootaloo said.

Trouble Shoes got quickly upset again. "But o' course I do. Wouldn't you know it? My lucky day," he said before he offered the ponies to follow him.

A little later...

Even though he was not looking forward to it, Trouble Shoes was leading the Cutie Mark Crusaders right back to Appleloosa. Fortunately, the rainstorm stopped, making the walk a lot more bearable. As they followed the huge stallion, they couldn't help but appreciate how this so-called criminal was leading them back to town.

"It's actually kind of sweet of him to help us out like this," Sweetie Belle said towards her friends.

"I know!" Scootaloo agreed. "What do we do if he takes us back to Appleloosa and the sheriff arrests him? If I get a cutie mark for that, I'll feel guilty every time I see it," she said concerned.

"Yes, that would be quite bad," Tagma added casually.

The three girls looked at the disguised Changeling. They had almost forgotten that he was with them now. "Why are you coming with us anyway?" Sweetie Belle asked confused.

"Because I want to see the rodeo," Tagma replied with an excited look on his face. "After you told me about all the things I just have to check it out myself!"

Scootaloo walked closer to the Changeling. "Yes, but if you come to Appleloosa with us, then you should stay in your disguise," she advised while keeping a close look at Trouble Shoes, making sure that he was not aware of their conversation since he didn't know about Tagma being a Changeling.

Tagma was aware that he could not drop his transformation and understood. He saluted with a grin on his face. "Robert!"

The three fillies looked at each other confused. "Don't you mean, Roger?" Apple Bloom asked.

Now Tagma looked confused. "Who is Roger?" He asked with a puzzled expression on his face.

The girls rolled their eyes and then Apple Bloom walked closer to Trouble Shoes to warn him. "Say there, Trouble Shoes, you might not want to take us all the way back to Appleloosa. The sheriff sort of has it in his mind that you're a no-good outlaw lookin' to shut down the rodeo," she informed the stallion.

But as always, Trouble Shoes did not seem to be surprised or bothered. "My kind of luck he'd think that," he said upset.

This is where Apple Bloom was wondering something. Trouble Shoes was clearly not a bad or dangerous pony from what they saw so far, which begged the question of why everypony thought he was a criminal.

"But... is it true?" She then asked.

Trouble Shoes, for the first time, looked at the ponies behind him. "Y'all like stories?"

"Sure!" Tagma replied more excited than he probably should.

Trouble Shoes sighed. "Just my luck. I was hopin' you'd say no," he said depressed before he started his little story.

"When I was a colt, I wanted to be a rodeo star somethin' fierce, but I just didn't seem to have the knack for it. So I practiced and practiced... And then, someday, finally, I wrangled up the guts to audition for rodeo school. Right in the middle of that tryout, I knew I was doin' what I was meant to. And wouldn't you know it? In a flash comes this here cutie mark," he said as he showed his flank to the four ponies once more. "You can guess what happened next..."

Judging from his little "performance" back in the cabin, the four had a pretty good guess.

"I can still remember them judges a-laughin'. Didn't even finish my routine 'cause right then I knew bad luck was my fate. That fire for rodeo never did leave me, though. Couldn't keep away from 'em. So I'd sneak down and have a look, and wouldn't you know it? Bad luck would strike again. Just my lot in life, I reckon..."

After listening to the story, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Tagma started to feel bad for Trouble Shoes. Just when he was getting his Cutie Mark, everything seemed to have gone downhill.

Tagma was looking surprisingly thoughtful for once. "That's the second time I heard somepony not being happy to have a Cutie Mark...those things sure can ruin your life," he spoke out.

The girls didn't hear those last words from the Changeling. They wouldn't like hearing them anyway because, after all, they desperately try to get their Cutie Marks almost every single day. Now their focus was on the stallion in front of them.

"Poor Trouble Shoes," Sweetie Belle said with a frown on her face. "I can't believe those mean judges would laugh at him like that," she added.

But Apple Bloom seemed to have noticed something in the story that everyone else missed. "Don't you see? They weren't laughin' at him. They were just enjoyin' the show," she pointed out.

But Scootaloo still didn't understand. "What are you saying?" She asked confused.

"Think about it," Apple Bloom replied before she began to explain. "If we saw a rodeo clown doin' what he did back in that shack, we'd think he was the greatest!"

"You're right!" Sweetie Belle realized. "He could still be in rodeos, just not the way he thought!"

"So he's been looking at his cutie mark wrong the whole time!" Scootaloo added.

Tagma was slowly affected by the good mood that started to build between the three fillies again. "So his Cutie Mark is a good thing?" He asked confused.

"Yes!" Apple Bloom replied happily before she turned towards the sad stallion to tell him about their newfound realization.

But then suddenly...

"Gotcha!" A familiar voice shouted.

The three fillies and Tagma then noticed how Trouble Shoes was tied up with a bunch of ropes by Sheriff Silverstar with some help from Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Braeburn.

Tagma's eyes widened as soon as he saw Star Twinkle and Applejack. "Oh oh..." he said in worry.

The girls quickly walked towards the group of ponies. Trouble Shoes, being the kind pony he was, did not resist and was just annoyed by his bad luck, that brought him into this situation.

"Trouble Shoes, you're under arrest for vandalizin' the property and peace of mind of the good rodeo-lovin' ponies of Equestria!" Sheriff Silverstar said sternly. "Not to mention fillynappin'! And... generalized mayhem!" He added.

Of course, the Cutie Marks Crusaders quickly wanted to resolve this misunderstanding before it would get seriously out of hoof but Applejack made sure that she would keep them away from Trouble Shoes.

"Star Twinkle, Braeburn? Get these fillies someplace safe," Applejack ordered sternly.

"Right," Star Twinkle replied while he kept his eyes glued on Trouble Shoes. The stallion was pretty tall so he figured that he should not let him out of his sight.

But Apple Bloom still wanted to explain the situation to everypony. "No! Listen! Trouble Shoes is not a bad pony!" She said.

But nopony listened closely. "Don't worry girls, you don't give to be scared anymore!" Star Twinkle said in a comforting voice.

Apple Bloom groaned frustrated. "Come on! Tagma help us! Tell them that-" but the filly stopped in mid-sentence as soon as she realized that the Black coated pony was nowhere to be found anymore. They desperately wanted to know why he left now but then they looked at how Trouble Shoes was being taken away and how nopony was listening to them. It was frustrating.

In the end, they had to wait for the next day, once everypony was calming down again...

The next morning...

"What do you mean, release Trouble Shoes?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Trouble Shoes isn't the menace everypony thinks he is!" Apple Bloom said frustrated.

The first thing the three fillies asked in the morning was to let Trouble Shoes go again. Star Twinkle and Applejack really didn't understand where all this came from without the context of the situation.

"Sakes alive, what's with you? Why in tarnation would you want me to help get him out of jail when he's the one who ran off with y'all to begin with?! Now if y'all excuse me, I'm off to win the Appleloosa rodeo hay bale monster stack," she said before she left the little house where they were staying at the moment.

By now, Apple Bloom was about to confess that this whole situation happened because of her and her friends running away from Braeburn but she also feared what the consequences would be if anypony would find out, which eventually kept her from continuing.

"Come on, girls, you should be happy!" Star Twinkle then said happily. "Now that this criminal is behind locked bars, Applejack is not keeping you from watching the rodeo anymore," he added before he followed the girls outside, expecting them to follow him since they were looking forward to this rodeo all this time.

But that didn't happen...

The girls agreed that something had to be done, and the first thing would be freeing Trouble Shoes, even if they had to be the one who did it. For that, the girls went to the jail where the stallion was held captive. He was guarded by Sheriff Silverstar but Trouble Shoe didn't really mind that and just looked out of the window of his cell.

"Well, at least I get me a view of one small corner of the rodeo," he said after sighing heavily. But of course, his luck wouldn't last too long and the bed, where he was standing on to look out of the window, broke and he fell through it, making it unable for him to reach the window anymore. "Figures," he just commented.

Sheriff Silverstar got a little annoyed by the stallion. "Aw, come on now, Trouble Shoes! I'm runnin' out of mattresses!" He said as he pointed at the pile of mattresses in front of him.

The girls looked inside the room and felt once again, really bad for Trouble Shoes. They knew that he did nothing wrong, or at least, he didn't do anything wrong on purpose so he definitely did not deserve to be put in jail like this. They had to get him out of there.

"Any plan how to get him out of there while the sheriff is inside?" Apple Bloom asked into the round.

"No," Sweetie Belle replied.

"No," Scootaloo replied.

"No" Tagma replied.

The girls widened their eyes in surprise after hearing a voice that was not supposed to be with them just now.

"Tagma!?" Apple Bloom asked confused.

The Changeling in disguised smiled. "What's up?" He greeted them.

But the three girls just glared back at him. "Don't "What's up?" us!" Scootaloo said annoyed.

"Yeah!" Sweetie Belle added angrily. "Where were you yesterday!? You could have helped us explain everything!"

Tagma rubbed his neck nervously. "Yeah but...there were some ponies back there that I had to avoid because..." but he stopped in mid-sentence. It was probably a bad idea to now bring up that he once was an enemy to Star Twinkle and Applejack, who, along with his companions, tried to bring demise over Equestria. "But let me make up to it! You want to free Trouble Shoes, right? I just got an idea of how to do that!" He said before walked around the building to enter it from the front door.

The girls didn't know what he was up to and just waited for whatever was happening now but before he could put his plan in motion, Applejack walked inside the room, causing the girls to lower their heads so that they wouldn't get caught.

"Hey, there Sheriff!" The mare greeted friendly. Sheriff Silverstar was confused to see the mare here and not in the rodeo.

"What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be at the rodeo right now!?" He asked confused.

Applejack looked confused herself but then she explained. "They postponed our routine so I thought I tell you about it. I don't need to be there for now so how about I'll take a turn to watch this criminal?" She asked.

The sheriff rubbed his chin. "I was looking forward to seeing it so...sure? Why not?" He said before he walked towards the door. "Just don't let him out of your sight!" He warned before he then left.

"Robert!...Err...I mean, Roger!" Applejack replied while saluting.

By now the girls understood what was happening and they smiled at each other before then walking inside the room as well. Applejack smiled at the three fillies before she then covered herself in green flames and turned into Tagma's pony form.

"Good job!" Apple Bloom whispered to the Changeling so that Trouble Shoes, who was busy looking at a wall with a frown on his face wouldn't hear them.

The group quickly grabbed the keys to Trouble Shoes cell and released the guy, much to his surprise.

"Trouble Shoes! Time to get you out of here and into the rodeo!" Apple Bloom announced proudly.

But the big stallion was not feeling like going anywhere. He was a wanted criminal, after all, he couldn't just walk around in Appleloosa, let alone going to the rodeo. But the girls already had a good plan prepared which they thought was gonna work perfectly.

Later...

At the rodeo, Applejack's routine was already going on for a while, in fact, it was close to coming to an end. Star Twinkle was watching it all on the sidelines. He was pretty caught up into it since it was no longer a practice but rather an actual competition now. Things seemed to go well, and the last haystacks were about to land on top of the tower. Applejack kicked the last haystack up into the air and it landed on top of the tower and even though it was shaking, it was perfectly stacked and the tower was done.

One Pegasus pony checked the height of the tower and in the end, it turned out to be a new record, making Applejack and her team the winners of this rodeo. She and her team were covered in confetti and celebrated happily. Applejack looked over to Star Twinkle victoriously which was returned by a victorious smile of his own.

The team was now accepting the trophy for winning the competition so Star Twinkle figured that he should take a look around to see if the Cutie Mark Crusaders were anywhere around. He didn't see them during the whole rodeo so far but he figured that they should be somewhere since they were really looking forward to seeing it.

The rodeo clowns were already coming out while Applejack took the trophy so Star Twinkle walked around to look for the three fillies. It didn't take long until he saw them at the other side of the fence, watching the clowns and even go so far on cheering for them heavily. They must have watched the rodeo all this time, just like he thought.

But then he saw someone familiar next to the three and he looked shocked. "Wait, isn't that?" He said confused as he looked at a black coated Pegasus stallion that was standing next to the three, cheering for the rodeo clowns as well. "Tagma!?" He said in shock before he rushed over to the four.

Star Twinkle managed to approach the ponies without them noticing him right away and as soon as they did, it was too late for the Changeling in disguise to run away in time.

"Um..." was the only thing that he managed to say at this moment. "...What's up?" He then added nervously.

"What are you doing here!?" Star Twinkle asked. He still well remembered how Tagma was part of the group that ponynapped the princesses for their evil plans and he was not about to let him go so easily. "Stay away from the girls if you know what it-"

But much to his surprise, the three fillies were rushing to the Changeling's side to defend him. "No, stop!" Apple Bloom said. "Tagma is not bad!"

Suddenly, Star Twinkle realized something. "Wait, do you know that he is a Changeling!?" He asked confused.

"Yes, we do!" Scootaloo replied.

"We don't know exactly what he did but we do know that he didn't do anything bad since we met him!" Sweetie Belle explained.

"What are you talking about!?" Star Twinkle asked. "He is a Changeling! He and his "friends" tried to-"

"That doesn't matter!" Apple Bloom interrupted, causing Star Twinkle to get quite puzzled for a moment.

Star Twinkle didn't know what to say to this. He looked over to Tagma and realized that he was looking rather nervous but he also had a rather regretful look on his face. This caused Star Twinkle to remember back the time where he and his friends encountered the Outcasts. He was aware that Tagma was not as bad as Mystic or Fade. On top of that, Rosa and Wildheart actually regretted what they did and turned a leaf because of it after their plan failed. Tagma was different, he probably was hanging around the Outcasts because they were ready to let him stay in their group, even though he was a Changeling.

Whatever Star Twinkle was thinking about the guy though, Applejack was moving closer to the group as well to show off her trophy. On a whim, Star Twinkle decided to warn them. "Applejack is coming! Quick transform into someone else!" Tagma understood and did as he was told. He turned into Star Twinkle. "Not me!" Star Twinkle said frustrated after the Changeling made this decision. Luckily he managed to transform into some random pony with a white coat, and a dark blue mane.

Applejack did not notice any of that luckily and everypony smiled at her nervously. "There y'all are! How 'bout your big sis, huh?" She then said while she proudly presented her trophy.

"Way to go," Apple Bloom said.

"Nice," Scootaloo said.

"Great," Scootaloo said.

"Good job!" Star Twinkle said.

"Congratulations!" Tagma said.

Needless to say, all of them were pretty nervous.

"Thanks," Applejack said before she looked over to Tagma with a confused look on her face. "Uh...whoever you are," she then added.

Thankfully, what was going on in the rodeo was grabbing all of their attention before everything would get complicated. One of the rodeo clowns was literally stealing the show and put on the best performance ever.

From, stumbling all over the place and knocking into things, to making everypony else get knocked away by haystacks, this one rodeo clown managed to make everypony in the audience laugh. It didn't take long until he was walking around with a barrel stuck on his head, while his pants dropped by accident, earning him once again, some more laughter.

"That's the best rodeo clown I ever seen!" Applejack said laughing.

Everypony was happy that the attention drifted towards the rodeo so that Tagma would not get caught. Still, Star Twinkle kept his eyes on him at all times since he didn't trust him yet. For some reason, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were really cheering this one clown on.

The stallion decided to remove the barrel from his head now. The water was washing away his make-up and his nose popped off as well. It was then, however, that everypony realized who that pony was and they all got shocked.

"Trouble Shoes!" The crowd said.

"What the hay?!" Applejack said confused.

Just now, Star Twinkle realized that this clown was rather big just like this criminal but he had no idea why would decide to disguise himself as a rodeo clown. He was wondering if they were any more dangerous ponies or Changelings walking around by now.

And of course, after seeing this pony in front of them, the crowd got angry and all agreed to go and get him to put him back to jail again, even going so far to bring out some torches and pitchforks. But before anyone could do anything, the Cutie Mark Crusaders stepped in front of him.

"Wait, y'all! He ain't what you think he is!" Apple Bloom said.

But Sheriff Silverstar didn't listen. "Stand aside, young'uns! This one's goin' back to jail," he said determined to make his words come true.

"But he never wanted to ruin any rodeos! Those were just bad accidents!" Sweetie Belle explained.

"Accidents?" Star Twinkle said confused.

"Sweetie Belle, what are you talkin' about?" Applejack asked.

Scootaloo was then the one who explained the situation. "Trouble Shoes has a gift for making ponies laugh! He's maybe the best rodeo clown I've ever seen!"

"That's true!" One of the rodeo judges agreed. "He is awful funny," she figured.

"He thought his cutie mark was telling him to keep away from rodeos, but deep inside he knew it's where he was meant to be. He just didn't know how to do it," Apple Bloom continued.

This got the crowd thinking. They didn't quite know what to make out of this. Now it was Trouble Shoes who decided to say something to all of this. "What she says is true. This here entertainin' y'all with my klutzin'? That's what I was supposed to be doin'. I know it now. I didn't mean no harm, honest! I just ain't never loved nothin' like I love the rodeo, so I kept on sneakin' back and makin' a big old mess of things. Turns out I was just a-lookin' at my cutie mark all wrong," he explained while he still felt bad for everything.

Sheriff Silverstar started to understand the situation but there were still some problems. "That may be so, Trouble Shoes, but you still gotta face charges for the problems you've caused!"

But Trouble Shoes was ready to take responsibility for those things. "If I done wrong, I'll see to it that I take my medicine and square my accounts," he said.

But Sheriff Silverstar was not quite done. "Truth be told, we could understand all the trouble with the rodeos, but why'd you have to run off with these here little'uns last night?" He added sternly to which Trouble Shoes reacted with a rather confused look on his face.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders were then visibly nervous, something that Star Twinkle was noticing right away. "Don't tell me..."

Later...

It was just as he expected. The girls ran away to deal with Trouble Shoes and the whole ponynapping thing was just a big misunderstanding. They eventually explained things to everypony and just like Trouble Shoes, they also had to face the consequences for their actions. They ended up having to clean the whole town and doing some other work in town for a while. This meant that they had to stay for a little while longer in Appleloosa as expected.

But that was okay, at least for Star Twinkle. It gave him some time to have a talk with a certain someone.

Star Twinkle was having a private talk with Tagma behind a barn in town. The Changeling turned back to his usual pony form and just kept looking at Star Twinkle as if he knew that there was a rather uncomfortable conversation coming up any second.

The green Earth Pony decided to not waste any time and got straight to the point. "Why are you here?" He asked with a suspicious tone in his voice. "The girls told me that you helped them with Trouble Shoes...why?"

Tagma rubbed his neck nervously. "I don't know. I was just in the area and decided to help because I thought it would be best," he honestly replied.

Star Twinkle still had a suspicious look on his face. "The best, huh? Did you also think that it was for the best to help Fade capturing the princesses?" He then asked, referring to the actions of the Outcasts.

"You are still mad about that?" Tagma replied confused. "Come on, that was ages ago," he casually added.

By now, Star Twinkle got a little bit angry. "So you don't regret your actions back then?" He asked.

The Changeling avoided eye contact with the stallion. "I didn't say that..." he said with regret in his voice. "Back then, I thought what Fade was doing was the right thing. But I guess trying to destroy Equestria was not really that nice," he figured. "I actually regretted doing all that," he added.

But Star Twinkle figured that this was a lie. "If you really regretted all that, then you should have stayed, just like Rosa and Wildheart," he pointed out.

"I...kind of didn't expect you to trust me...guess I was right," he said, judging by how Star Twinkle was not even remotely trusting the Changeling yet.

"Well," Star Twinkle started. "You Changelings don't really have a good reputation in Equestria, especially after you attacked Canterlot," he said. "Which begs the question... were you there as well?" He then asked.

"No," Tagma replied casually. "I'm not really welcome in the Changeling Kingdom anymore," he added.

"Why?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Tagma didn't really want to go much into detail but he thought that Star Twinkle would not let him go without explaining a thing to two. "Queen Chrysalis told me that I was some kind of special Changeling that can create love on his own. She locked me up so that I can create love, while she would feed off from me and gave the other Changelings love as well to make the hive stronger. If I wasn't freed from a one Changeling, then I would probably still be locked away," he explained with some nostalgia in his voice. "Fade and the others protected me when Queen Chrysalis was trying to forcefully take me back to the Kingdom so I thought that me helping them in return was just the right thing to do," he then added with a nervous smile on his face.

"Wow," Star Twinkle said a little bit stunned. He had no idea about all of this. Up until now he just thought Tagma was doing all those things because he didn't really care but listening to this story was actually making him look at Tagma a little bit differently. He felt in debt to the Outcasts after his own hive wanted to use him. Suddenly all made sense to Star Twinkle. The Changelings were not on his side, so he just needed someone else to accept him. Considering that the Outcasts were accepting despite him being a Changeling actually made it look as if they were not as bad which made sense since Rosa and Wildheart were regretting their actions in the end.

The Changeling did not really like talking about his past like this. It was opening up some wounds that he didn't want to remember. But then he smiled. Not only did bad memories came back but also good ones.

"Hey, do you know a pony named Sole Light?" He then asked out of nowhere with a smile on his face.

"No," Star Twinkle replied.

Tagma explained. "After I escaped from the Changeling Kingdom, Sole was the first pony friend that I made. He lived on a small farm all on his own and even after I tried to steal some food from it, not only did he gave me some shelter but he also accepted me for who I was, a Changeling," he said before he grabbed his yellow headband. "This headband belonged to him. He wore it around his eyes since he was blind," he said with a warm smile on his face. "But...some Changelings came and attacked his farm," he then added with his smile vanishing now. "I haven't seen him since and that headband was the only thing I found was left of him," he added while he grabbed into his headband once more. "I was all alone again. But it didn't take long until I met Mystic, Fade, Rosa, and Wildheart, who also accepted me for who I was." The Changeling looked over to Star Twinkle, who was feeling rather bad now after listening to all of this. "I just go along with whatever comes by and hope that I can call some place my home," he then said with a smile on his face again.

Now Star Twinkle felt bad. That was a lot to take in after all. The Changeling could probably relate to Trouble Shoes to some kind of extend and decided to help him. Tagma was not bad at all, he was just...lost.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know all of that," Star Twinkle said in regret. "If what you say is true, then I guess it can't help to give you another chance," he said, causing Tagma to be happy to hear those words and smile.

"However," Star Twinkle then said with a more serious tone in his voice now. "Mystic is not showing any signs of regret for his actions. He also broke out of his cell in Canterlot while taking Fade with him, who was still turned to stone," he explained.

This information caught Tagma off-guard. "They are free!? Really!?" He said in a mix of confusion and some happiness.

Judging from his reaction, Tagma was not aware of this, and therefore was not the one who freed Mystic. Those two members from the Outcasts were both very dangerous and still evil so having them both wandering around in Equestria was bad news.

"I really hope that you don't plan on siding with them if you manage to come across them," Star Twinkle warned.

"No!" Tagma replied. "I do miss the two if I am being honest now but I don't want to hurt the ponies of Equestria! I promise!" He added. It sounded like an honest answer from the Changeling so Star Twinkle decided to believe him. The next words, however, surprised Star Twinkle a little. "I will find them! And I will try to talk them out of their bad ideas!"

"What?" Star Twinkle replied with a confused look on his face.

Tagma smiled at the stallion. "They are still my friends. And even though they did some bad things in the past, I am not planning on giving up on them. They both may be a little bit stubborn but I will still try to make them see that not all of this world is bad and that it needs to be destroyed!"

Seeing the Changeling determined like this was new to Star Twinkle. It seemed to be really important to Tagma. Or maybe, Tagma wanted to talk to them before they would do something bad and everypony would go and hurt them. It was his way of protecting them.

Whatever the reason was, Star Twinkle wanted to trust Tagma. He was sure that his words were honest and not deceiving. At least he hoped that this was the case.

"You want to do this all on your own?" Star Twinkle asked.

Tagma grinned confidently. "I'm a Changeling! Ponies don't really trust me yet so all I can do is to be on my own!" He said before he opened his wings. "Now if you excuse me, there are three friends that I need to find!" He added before he flew up in the air.

"Three?" Star Twinkle asked.

Tagma grinned at the stallion. "Mystic, Fade, and Sole," he said before looked away and was ready to leave. But not before saying one last sentence to the stallion before leaving. "Thank you for listening to me," he added before he was gone.

Star Twinkle stood there now on his own. He had to admit that he still wanted to talk some more with the Changeling. At the same time though, he thought he had heard enough. Tagma maybe acts a little bit weird but he was strong from the inside. Considering how his past sounded like, he still kept up a positive attitude. It was kind of impressive.

The stallion couldn't help but smile. "I leave it to you then," he said before he also left the area to return to his friends.

97. More Friends, More Chaos

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The Grand Galloping Gala was around the corner once more...

Thinking back at the last gala, Star Twinkle had mixed feelings about it. The first gala he attended was a disaster, even though his friends all agreed that it was fun because everything went wrong. This time around, everypony tried to make this event go well, though.

Star Twinkle, as well as the rest of his friends, all got their golden tickets for the gala already. Princess Celestia generously provided all of them with a ticket right away which removed needless complications, something that Twilight well remembered and really appreciate to not go through again.

Still, there was something else that had to be taken care of...

Everypony who got a ticket for the gala was allowed to take someone else with them. It was probably Princess Celestia's way of not repeating the same mistake as last year with Twilight, where she ended up with two tickets and could not decide who to give it to. With all of Star Twinkle's friends being in possession of a ticket themselves though, he had to find somepony to give his extra ticket. Fortunately, he knew exactly who that somepony was.

"You want to take me with you to the Grand Galloping Gala?" Steel Hammer asked almost shocked after he heard Star Twinkle's plan while in the midst of his work in the Iron Hammer.

Star Twinkle casually shrugged his shoulders. "I got a ticket from Princess Celestia and I'm allowed to take one friend with me. I thought you would like to go," he assumed.

But Steel Hammer looked a little bit unsure. "I don't know..." he said hesitantly. "Aren't events like those usually for more noble and elegant ponies? I kinda don't fit into his category if you haven't noticed," he said.

"Come on, Steel Hammer," Star Twinkle said amused at the stallion's reaction. "Let's just have a good time, okay?" He suggested. Then, out of nowhere, Steel Hammer began to smile before then starting to laugh happily, much to Star Twinkle's surprise. "What?" The stallion asked confused at this random behavior.

Steel Hammer explained. "I still remember back at the Summer Sun Celebration...I was spending time with some other friends and I really wanted to invite you as well but knowing you back then, you would have probably not come. And now I think its really funny that you are the one inviting me," he said with a warm smile on his face.

Star Twinkle did not like getting reminded of how he used to be. "Yeah, please don't remind me," he just said.

Again, Steel Hammer laughed. "To answer your question, yes, I would like to go with the gala with you," he said with a grin on his face.

Star Twinkle smiled back. "Great. Thanks," he said happily.

"No, I have to thank you!" Steel Hammer replied. "I was afraid now that you have all of those new friends that there was no more room for good old Steel Hammer," he added.

"Don't be ridiculous," Star Twinkle said. He found the very thought of Steel Hammer thinking that almost offending.

The green-coated stallion was relieved that he took care of this "Take a friend with you" situation that the gala ticket put him in. Everyone he knew already had somepony to take with them already. Applejack took Apple Bloom, Rarity took Sweetie Belle, Rainbow Dash took Scootaloo, Pinkie Pie took Maud, and Fluttershy took someone that Star Twinkle was about to meet later. Twilight did not have to bring anypony with her since she was in charge of making sure that everything would go well at the gala. This pretty much only left Steel Hammer to ask, not that he was asking him just for that reason, he was actually happy that he was able to ask him and that the stallion agreed to come.

As they continued their work as usual though, things in the workshop started to get weird. Things like tools were floating across the room as they were walking around in the workshop. Of course, the two stallions were really confused about those events happening around them and soon, the one responsible for those things started to reveal himself.

Considering the chaos that was going on inside the workshop, Star Twinkle felt rather dumb to not figure it out already. It was none other than Discord, who manifested himself in front of Star Twinkle.

"Why hello there, Star Twinkle!" The Draconequus said happily.

"Discord? What are you doing here?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Star Twinkle still had his issues accepting the "reformed" Lord of Chaos as a friend. He was getting along with Fluttershy but when it came to anyone else, he was acting more difficult and disrespectful. So naturally, the stallion was not too excited to see Discord appearing at his workplace.

But the Lord of Chaos quickly explained himself. "What? Am I not allowed to visit my best and closest friend whenever I want?" He said before he summoned a little stone statuette that showed Discord and Star Twinkle dancing together happily. "I was hoping that we both could make some plans to spend some time in the future. As friends of course," he added.

Steel Hammer walked up to Discord. This was actually the first time they both met. And even though Discord was a lot to take in, based on his reality changing abilities, the stallion decided to put this aside and just accepted that Star Twinkle was just friends with creatures like him on a daily basis by now. So Steel Hammer offered his hoof. "I don't think we've met yet, I'm Steel Hammer," the stallion said in a friendly tone.

Discord did not seem to bother too much about Steel Hammer but still returned his claw. "Discord. Lord of Chaos, and close friend of Star Twinkle," the Draconequus said while he shook the stallion's hoof. As he was shaking his hoof, however, his claw hand was literally falling off, leaving Steel Hammer in shock once he realized how he was holding a separated claw in his hoof now while Discord simply regrew another one and turned towards Star Twinkle again.

"So how about it?" Discord then said with a grin on his face.

But Star Twinkle was just sighing. "What do you want?" Star Twinkle asked annoyed. He smelled from a far distance already that Discord would never visit without a reason. That he kept calling him his best friend, even though it was clearly Fluttershy who was holding this title, was only further confirming his guess.

Realizing that Discord could not fool the stallion that easily, he decided to give up his little act. He went straight to the point. "It came to my ears that you and your little friends all got a ticket from Celestia for the Grand Galloping Gala. And even though I have proven my trust to her, she didn't feel as if it was necessary to give me one of them," he said as he was crossing his arms.

"You want to go to the Grand Galloping Gala?" Star Twinkle asked surprised.

"Of course!" Discord replied offended. "Fluttershy is going there and she didn't take me as her guest! Me! Her best friend!" He pointed out angrily. Eventually, Discord realized that he was getting a little too angry over this and decided to calm down again. "I already talked with all the other girls, and they already have somepony to take with them but I figured that you would not have anypony left...so...here I am!"

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes. "Good to know that I am your last option..." he thought annoyed, considering that Discord called him his best friend only seconds ago.

In a way, Star Twinkle was actually enjoying saying those next words. "I hate to disappoint you but I already got somepony to take with me as well," he said with a serious expression on his face, which he desperately tried to not break.

"What!? Who!? Who could you possibly bring with you?" Discord asked in disbelieve.

Star Twinkle pointed towards the one pony he decided to bring with him. It was, of course, Steel Hammer, who was smiling happily at the Lord of Chaos.

"Him!?" Discord said surprised. "You rather take a boring guy like him with you instead of me!?" He asked.

"Hey!" Steel Hammer said offended after overhearing that conversation.

Star Twinkle gave a quick and bold answer. "Yes. I do," he said in a stern tone.

Discord growled angrily. It was at this moment that Star Twinkle realized that making the Lord of Chaos angry was probably not the best thing to do. Luckily, Discord just released an annoyed sigh and snapped his fingers to teleport himself away from the workshop again.

The Earth Pony got nervous there for a moment. When it came to Discord, you could never tell what he was about to do or what his motivations are. And no matter how many times Fluttershy would tell Star Twinkle to trust Discord, he still had a hard time accepting him as a true friend. Discord also did not seem to like the idea to warm up to anypony else besides Fluttershy which only made it harder.

With Discord gone, the tools all fell to the ground and the two stallions could focus on their work again. Still, Steel Hammer could not just continue without at least saying something to all of this.

"Your friend seemed interesting. Why did you never tell me that you were friends with all-powerful beings like him?" He asked completely oblivious to the potential danger that the two could end up being.

Star Twinkle only shook his head and tried to forget that the last few minutes happened. He decided to go back to work and just hoped that Discord would not show up for the rest of the day.

Later...

After work, Star Twinkle was supposed to meet up with Fluttershy. The mare wanted to introduce a new friend to him. Fluttershy met this new friend on a trip to the Breezies and just like Fluttershy, animals seemed to be really important to her. Them becoming friends was not surprising so Fluttershy figured it would be a good idea to take this mare to the Grand Galloping Gala. But before that, Fluttershy wanted to introduce her new friend to everypony and now it was Star Twinkle's turn.

The stallion did not have to wait too long. The two mares came already walking towards him after he got back from work. Fluttershy was already laughing while she walked towards Star Twinkle. This new friend of hers must have been really funny.

"Oh, my, you are funny!" Fluttershy said amused, which pretty much confirmed that.

The mare that walked next to Fluttershy was an Earth Pony with a light green coat, a light amaranth colored mane, purple eyes, and a Cutie Mark that consisted of a tree with red leaves, that was shaped like a heart.

Fluttershy wasted no time introducing her new friend to the stallion. "Star Twinkle, this is Tree Hugger. Tree Hugger, this is Star Twinkle," she greeted each other.

"Hey," Star Twinkle casually greeted.

"Radical to meet you," Tree Hugger replied in a really relaxed voice.

They both shook hooves, much to Fluttershy's delight, who was happily smiling at the sight of this. "I think you will like Star Twinkle," The Pegasus mare then said. "He likes to take things...a little bit easier as well," she then added.

Star Twinkle was not sure if that was supposed to be a compliment but after he took a look at Tree Hugger's interested expression on her face, he figured that it was and just smiled.

"I see..." Tree Hugger said, again in a really relaxed tone. "Good to know that we both live on the same wavelength. dude," she then added.

"Um...yeah...I guess..." Star Twinkle replied with an unsure look on his face.

It was a weird conversation from this point of for Star Twinkle but luckily, it wasn't too long. Tree Hugger seemed a little bit...unique...but she seemed friendly enough. Fluttershy still wanted to introduce her to the rest of her friends, which is why the two mares had to cut the conversation short.

As soon as they both were out of sight, Star Twinkle just had to put his thoughts into words about this mare. "Well, she was...interesting..." he said a little bit confused.

"I can't believe Fluttershy actually chose her instead of me!" Star Twinkle flinched as soon as he heard Discord's voice coming out of nowhere. The Draconequus was just hovering next to the stallion with a look of disapproval on his face. "I mean what does she possibly have that I don't?" He visibly complained annoyed.

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes. "I can think of a bunch of things..." he thought annoyed.

Discord glared over to Star Twinkle. "And why did she not even introduce her to me!? If she is gonna introduce somepony new to anyone first, then it should be me!" He added while he crossed his arms angrily.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle seemed to know what was going on. The way how Discord desperately wanted to go to the gala all of the sudden, the way he was mad about everyone taking someone else with them instead of him, or why Fluttershy was not introducing Tree Hugger to him. All those things started to paint a pretty clear picture.

And being the bold pony he was, Star Twinkle immediately just threw his guess into the room. "Are you by any chance...jealous?"

Discord's eyes popped wide open after hearing that. Whether it was true or not, he did not like being called that. "Jealous? Moi!?" The Draconequus replied offended. "The Lord of Chaos does not get jealous! You do well to remember that!" He added before teleported himself away.

Only to appear two seconds later at the same spot again...

"And even if I was...I would have all the right to be! This Tree Hugger just comes out of nowhere and spends all the time with dear Fluttershy that she should be spending with me!" He explained angrily with his arms crossed.

"You do realize that Fluttershy has other friends too, right?" Star Twinkle pointed out. "Just because she found a new friend doesn't mean that you are no longer important to her," he further explained.

But Discord would not listen. "Whatever! You are not making any sense right now. I'm leaving," he said before he was gone again.

Star Twinkle sighed in frustration. "I am not making sense!?" He said annoyed, especially since it was the Lord of Chaos who was saying that just now.

Of course, the stallion was not really caring too much about Discord's happiness. Discord usually pokes fun of him and takes every chance to make him feel bad, so seeing him like this did not really bother him too much. All he hoped was that Discord would not do anything stupid.

He did realize though who he was talking about...

At the Gala...

The day had come...

The Grand Galloping Gala was about to start and both Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were on their way to Canterlot Castle. Rarity, just like the last time, had generously prepared to make clothes for all of her friends, including Star Twinkle and, this time around, Steel Hammer too.

Unlike last time, a lot of time has passed and Rarity got to know Star Twinkle a lot better. This meant that she knew how the stallion liked things more simple. This was reflected in the suit that she made for him this time. A simple, dark blue suit, simple in a way of, not too shiny and outstanding. It was perfect for Star Twinkle and he really appreciated that. Steel Hammer also had a really simple suit on. It was similar to Star Twinkle's suit, with the exception of it being dark green instead of blue. They were both selling the partner look.

But despite how fitting for the occasion they may look, Steel Hammer was still nervous to even attend this place. It was the biggest royal ball in Equestria that was only attended by the most high-class ponies. Star Twinkle almost forgot all of that since it wasn't his first time attending it. The green pony was actually trying to not laugh at his boss's state.

"You know if you keep shaking a little bit harder, the whole castle will collapse on top of us," he teased.

Steel Hammer flinched for a second before he released a huge sigh. "I'm just a little nervous. That is all," he replied.

The two stallions were approaching the entrance of Canterlot Castle. Again, Steel Hammer took another huge breathe before he walked inside with Star Twinkle next to him. Star Twinkle smiled at how Steel Hammer was acting. It was quite amusing to watch. Still, Steel Hammer was nervous so he figured that he should actually try to calm him down a little.

"Don't be nervous, Steel Hammer. Just pretend that it is just another party. There is not much to be nervous about, really," he explained.

The brown Earth Pony was taking this advice at heart and managed to calm down a little. He figured that he was maybe overreacting a little bit and that it was a little bit stupid of him. But as soon as he stepped inside the castle his worries came right back again.

"Announcing Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer! Carpenters of Ponyville!"

Those words were announced by a pony standing next to the entrance, shouting those words all across the castle as soon as the two stallions stepped into it.

Steel Hammer looked over to Star Twinkle nervously, who could only grin nervously in return. Being announced like this definitely put the two into the spotlight and Steel Hammer did not want that at all now and Star Twinkle couldn't really blame him.

At the end of the room, Twilight was waving over to Star Twinkle with a smile on her face. She seemed to be happy that he arrived just now. Still, she was tasked to overlook everything at the gala and kept standing on top of the stairs.

And in the meantime, Steel Hammer was having a hard time finding his breath again. Just looking around and seeing everypony wearing all those fancy clothes made the carpenter pony feel really out of place.

"Maybe I should just leave again," he then said out of the blue, planning to turn around again.

But Star Twinkle didn't want that at all. "Calm down Steel Hammer," he said calmly.

"I can't!" Steel Hammer said nervously. "I feel like a fish on dry land! Look at everyone!" He was referring to the more snobbish and richer guests at this party. It was kind of intimidating to attend the same party as those ponies, that much Star Twinkle could understand but that was not a reason for Steel Hammer to get nervous.

"Yeah, and now look at me!" Star Twinkle said. "I'm not rich and I am here too! And I am pretty sure that there are ponies around here that aren't either. Keep that in mind. Besides, they are just normal guests attending a party, just like us," he pointed out.

Steel Hammer was getting at what Star Twinkle tried to explain. At the end of the day, everypony at this gala was just a normal guest. He kept that in mind and it eventually calmed him down a little.

"You're right! Everypony here is just a normal guest attending a party! That is all!" The stallion kept telling himself, much to Star Twinkle's delight. Suddenly, Steel Hammer felt a lot better again and felt confident to even talk with one of the guests, no matter if they were a little bit richer than him. It didn't matter at all. He was determined again.

"I'm glad that you could both make it," Princess Celestia then greeted as she walked up to the two out of nowhere.

And again, Steel Hammer's determination vanished into thin air.

"Princess Celestia!?" The stallion said in shock after he realized that the ruler of Equestria was casually talking with him in this very moment, making him shake nervously again.

Star Twinkle slapped his face in frustration. Talking with Princess Celestia, at this point, was something that wasn't that much of a deal for him anymore after all the things that happened in the past but for somepony who rarely spoke to her, it was probably a little bit more shocking. Of course, Steel Hammer had a deep respect for the Alicorn Princess as well, making this situation even more troublesome for him.

Princess Celestia did not notice how nervous Steel Hammer was though and continued to speak with the two. "I hope you two will have a wonderful time at this year's gala," she said warmly towards the two stallions.

"Yes, your majesty! Of course, your majesty!" He replied in a tense tone.

The princess chuckled and seemed to be amused about Steel Hammer's behavior. "You are Steel Hammer, right? Star Twinkle's boss?" She asked while she looked over to the green stallion. "I don't believe we had many chances to meet so far. If you don't mind, why don't we talk a little bit? " She then added.

"Are you serious!?" Steel Hammer asked in shock.

Of course, Steel Hammer was taking those words very serious, it was Princess Celestia who was asking him that after all. He never even thought about refusing Princess Celestia's offer no matter how nervous he was about this unbelievable chance to talk with the princess.

It didn't take long until the two were off to have a relaxing talk. Star Twinkle was pretty happy about this actually. He knew Princess Celestia well enough to know that she was probably seeing how nervous Steel Hammer was and she probably tried her best to make sure that he would have fun at the gala.

"I guess I have to find somepony else to spend time with now," Star Twinkle figured while he rubbed his neck.

He was still standing next to the entrance when someone else was announced by the same pony from before. The one who walked up to the stallion, however, caught him by a huge surprise.

"Oh no," was the only thing he could see after he got a glance at the next guest stepping into the castle.

Discord...

The Draconequus stepped proudly into the castle, wearing a fancy orange colored suit and top head while being followed by something really weird. At first, Star Twinkle thought it was a blob of green slime wearing a red bow tie and a light blue top hat, only to realize that this was exactly what was going on.

"Announcing the spirit of chaos, Discord, and his guest, the Smooze!"

"Good evening, everypony! What a glorious affair!" Discord said happily as soon as he stepped inside the castle.

The rest of the guests were as confused and shocked by Discord's entrance as Star Twinkle was. The green slime creature was definitely one of the reasons for that. As soon as the Smooze entered too, he was wasting no time sucking in some of the jewelry of the ponies he slid by, making the entrance of the two even more of a problem.

"He does have a yen for shiny things, the rascal," Discord said as he petted his guest but as soon as his paw was covered in slime, he regretted doing that and wiped it clean on the next pony he could find.

Which happened to be Star Twinkle...

"Hey!" The stallion said annoyed before he back off a little.

"Oh! Star Twinkle! I didn't see you over there!" Discord obviously lied right into Star Twinkle's face. "Fancy seeing you attending the gala as well," he added.

"You knew that I was coming here..." he shot back at Discord. "What are you doing here?"

Discord tipped his hat for a moment, trying to look elegant and dignified while answering this question. "I have you know that I am an officially invited guest at this event," he said while he summoned his ticket in front of Star Twinkle's face. "It just took a little longer to reach my address. Getting to the Chaos dimension doesn't seem to be such an easy task for an ordinary mail pony it seems," he figured.

Star Twinkle almost believed that this was all made up and Discord just made himself a ticket but Princess Celestia saw the Lord of Chaos entering the castle and waved over to him for a moment, with a smile on her face so what he said must be true.

"Okay then," Star Twinkle said before his sight wandered over to the Smooze. "And what about him? Can you keep your "friend" in check so that he doesn't bother anyone?" He added while he pointed towards the Smooze, who was already following everypony so that he could suck up more jewelry.

Star Twinkle saw how Twilight was glaring over to Discord. She was clearly not happy seeing him at her well-organized gala. The stallion was signaling to her that everything was alright though and that he was trying to keep things in check for her.

In the meantime, Discord felt almost offended what Star Twinkle asked of him. "Don't you worry about my little friend. The Smooze just wants to play, that is all," he explained.

"Still, make sure he doesn't bother anyone too much. Twilight probably spent a lot of time organizing all of this," Star Twinkle pointed out.

Discord laughed. He petted the stallion in his amusement. "Of course. I would never do anything like this to dear Twilight," he explained.

Of course, Star Twinkle didn't believe him at all, looking back at the past with anything that involved Discord in it. But right now, all he could do was to just wait how things would play out. He was half expecting things to go wrong actually. But it wasn't like as if he could prevent it from happening now.

Discord started to look around the room. "Tell me, have you seen Fluttershy anywhere?" He then asked.

Star Twinkle pointed to one corner of the room. "I think she was over there, along with Tree Hugger," he said.

As soon as the name Tree Hugger fell, Discord got visibly angry. "I see..." he simply said in a bitter tone before he snapped his finger and vanished in front of the stallion.

"Yeah...he is totally jealous..." Star Twinkle said before he walked away, trying to figure out what he was about to do from now on after Steel Hammer was kinda being taken away from him.

Later...

Star Twinkle's time at the gala was pretty much going the way he expected it after Steel Hammer was gone. He did spend some time with the rest of his friends though. Pretty much all of his friends from Ponyville were at the gala, making this event a lot more fun than it was the last time.

But whenever there was no one to talk with at the moment, Star Twinkle usually escaped to the buffet to grab something to eat. He grabbed one tasty thing after another and happened to catch a glimpse of Fluttershy, who seemed to have a lot of fun while being in the company of her new Friend Tree Hugger. Star Twinkle would have never guessed that this pony was much of a jokester but judging from all the laughs that came from Fluttershy, that seemed to be the case.

"She seems to have fun," Star Twinkle commented.

"Yes...a bunch of fun..."

Discord was right behind Star Twinkle, causing him to flinch in surprise. He really wished that the Draconequus would stop appearing out of nowhere without him noticing it.

But Discord could not care less about what Star Twinkle was thinking right now because his eyes were glued at Fluttershy and Tree Hugger. And he did not seem happy at all. "Just look at them...sitting there, laughing and having fun...fun that I could have with Fluttershy..." he complained annoyed.

It was as Star Twinkle suspected earlier on. Discord did not like Tree Hugger at all for spending time with Fluttershy. He was obviously jealous, and Star Twinkle had his concerns about what the Lord of Chaos would do when he was jealous, which is why he decided to put a stop to it. Or at least try to talk with him before he would do anything stupid.

"Could you give it a rest," Star Twinkle said, earning him a glare from Discord. "I know you don't like how Fluttershy is spending time with someone else but as a friend of her, you should understand that she needs somepony else to talk about stuff for different things. That's only normal. I mean, Fluttershy seems to be happy. You should be happy as well," the stallion explained.

He hoped that those words would make Discord realize that things weren't as bad as he thought and that he should focus on having fun at the gala. It didn't work though judging from the glare that Discord threw at the stallion.

"I don't like the tone in your voice," he said bitterly.

Star Twinkle felt as if he should not associate with Discord while he was like this. He could end up in trouble. Being quite right now would definitely be for the better now.

"AAAAAHHHH!"

A scream could be heard from afar, coming from an elderly stallion who was approached by the Smooze who already set sight on the jewelry that the pony was wearing. In short, somepony was in danger.

"Would you mind telling your friend to stop bothering the guests?" Star Twinkle said.

But Discord only rolled his eyes. "He just wants to play, don't worry about it," he casually explained.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

"Discord!" Star Twinkle exclaimed angrily after hearing another scream coming from more ponies now.

"Okay, okay! I'll take care of it..." he said annoyed before he teleported away to stop his friend, hopefully taking care of him.

Star Twinkle just released a sigh, knowing that Discord attending this gala was pretty bad and annoying. More annoying than he would like. Luckily, Steel Hammer came walking back to the stallion to keep him company.

"Hey there," he casually greeted.

"There you are. Are you done talking with the princess?" He asked with a hint of teasing in his voice.

"Yeah," Steel Hammer replied while he scratched his head. "It was kinda weird that the princess wanted to talk with me, out of all ponies though," he figured.

"Did you manage to figure out why she wanted to talk with you?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yes," Steel Hammer replied. "She told me that she was looking forward to meeting new ponies. She also was interested to know what your boss is like," he explained.

This answer surprised Star Twinkle. "So she wanted to talk to you because of me?" He asked confused.

"We did talk about you too, yes," Steel Hammer pointed out. "It was one of the subjects that we both knew about after all," he casually explained.

Being referred to as a "Subject" did feel a little weird but at least Steel Hammer was no longer nervous anymore and finally enjoyed the gala.

"Anyway, did I miss anything?" Steel Hammer asked.

Star Twinkle casually explained. "Just Discord showing up with a strange friend that eats jewelry and creates chaos all over the place," he said.

Steel Hammer lowered his eyebrows confused. "You just had to meet another strange new thing while I was gone, did you?" He asked teasingly.

The green Earth Pony was about to reply to that but then he heard some heavy knocking on the entrance door to the gala.

"Let me in!" Rarity screamed from the other side of the door in a panic.

Since Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were pretty close to the door, they both rushed towards it to open it. For some reason, it wouldn't open though. It didn't take them long to figure out that somepony locked the door with a key. Star Twinkle turned it around and Rarity came falling through the door, covered in green goo.

The mare was gasping for air before she pointed outside to the culprit who left her in that state. "That creature took my jewels!"

It was no surprise to see that it was the Smooze, who already was sucking up more jewels from another pony outside.

Discord was not too far off and earned himself some glares from Star Twinkle and Twilight, the later one deciding to jump in action this time by talking with the Draconequus.

"Discord! Can you keep your friend under control!?" She said angrily.

But Discord just crossed his arms annoyed. "Oh, please. I have better things to do than to watch that thing all night," he said in a bothered tone. He earned himself some confused looks after saying those words. Calling his friend a thing was certainly not really nice. Discord realized that as well since he began laughing nervously. "What I mean to say is, that thing is a dear, dear friend, and I'll make sure that the ooze, uh, that he can't help but secrete doesn't get on anypony else," he said before he vanished and appeared next to the Smooze shortly after.

He also took care of Rarity by removing the ooze on her body with a vacuum cleaner. He did remove her dress too, however, leaving her so embarrassed that she covered her body with her hooves.

Steel Hammer, being the gentlecolt he was, looked away instantly. "I didn't see anything!" He said in a panic while he kept his eyes away from the mare. Star Twinkle simply shook his head at that.

Twilight seemed pleased with the result of this situation and just turned towards the guests to calm them down again. "It's alright, everypony. Let's just get back to enjoying this magical evening!" She said.

There was no doubt in Star Twinkle's mind that this was going to be a "magical evening", not with Discord around. It was scary how Star Twinkle was not even surprised by all those things happening because he almost expected them to happen. It just proved that even a reformed Discord was a really annoying thing to deal with.

Later...

There were not many interruptions by Discord for a while now and the gala continued without any problems or anypony screaming in fear of the Smooze. Surprisingly, it was nowhere to be found for a long time now. Which was good.

Still, with things being calmer again, Twilight found some time to talk with Star Twinkle about Discord, a subject that he would like to avoid rather.

"I thought you wanted to take care of him," she said with some annoyance in her voice.

But Star Twinkle had a quick answer. "There is only so much I can do against a reality-bending being, and his strange blob friend," he replied annoyed.

Twilight seemed to understand but she still couldn't help but feel a little frustrated. She lowered her head. "I just hope that things don't go wrong any further...I wanted to make sure that everything would be perfect this time around," she said with a frown on her face.

"Well, I think we are well past a perfect evening," Star Twinkle figured. "I mean, some ponies are still missing their jewelry and there still some ooze left here and there but at least nopony got hurt...yet," he explained.

Twilight glared at the stallion. "You are not doing a good job making me feel better, you know," she commented.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle replied a little nervously.

Suddenly, the lights went out, leaving everyone in surprise. A stage appeared in the middle of the room with some signs saying "Comedy Hour" on it. Needless to say, everypony walked closer to see what this was all about but some ponies had a slight suspicion of what was going on.

"Oh!" Steel Hammer said in excitement as he walked closer to the stage. "Twilight, you organized a stand-up comedy act?" He asked obliviously.

"No..." Twilight replied annoyed while she kept her eyes on stage to see the one she suspected to come out any second now from behind the curtain.

And it was the one she expected, Discord. "Check, check, check. Is this thing on?" He said while he tipped the microphone in front of him and then started his little comedy act. "Good evening, fillies and germs! I just flew into Canterlot, and wow, are my interspecies parts tired!"

The joke fell flat. No one in the audience laughed. There was only silence. There wasn't even a cough that would end up making the silence a little bit less awkward. But despite that, Discord carried on.

"I've only got these tiny mismatched wings, and even I can fly better than Twilight Sparkle! Am I right?"

No one laughed again. Obviously, the only pony giving a reaction was Twilight since she was the target of the joke. She almost wanted to go up there and give Discord a piece of her mind but then she looked to the left and saw Princess Celestia actually giggling about that joke. Whether it was because she found that joke funny or because she was laughing at how unfunny Discord was, Twilight could not help but feel a little weird seeing that.

Discord started to laugh nervously. "Uh, well, perhaps you're into more observational humor," he said before he vanished for a moment, just to reappear inside the wall behind him with only his head sticking out from it. "Did you ever notice how you always materialize out of thin air? Why not thick air? What's the deal there?"

Again, his joke fell flat. Star Twinkle was no expert in comedy but he knew that Discord wasn't funny with his jokes. And judging from the silence in the room, he did not seem to be the only one to figure that out.

"What is he doing?!" Twilight asked confused. It was actually a pretty valid question since nopony was really sure if he was actually trying to be funny.

"I think they're... jokes?" Rainbow Dash figured.

Pinkie Pie instantly smiled after hearing that. "Maud! Jokes!" She said in excitement towards her sister, who was standing next to her with a deadpan expression on her face.

"My favorite," she commented in a deadpan tone.

"Well, he is not doing a good job on being funny," Star Twinkle said.

Despite how badly received his jokes were, Discord carried on. This time he placed a watermelon on a stool and knocked on it.

"Knock knock!" He said. But nopony said anything, causing the Draconequus to get rather frustrated by now. "You're supposed to say "Who's there?"! This is the most basic of jokes!" He explained before he just straight out smashed the watermelon with a wooden hammer in his frustration, which ended up covering the crowd in watermelon pieces.

Maud had only one thing to add to this. "You're the most basic of jokes," she said in a deadpan delivery, causing most of the ponies in the crowd to actually laugh.

"Good one, Maud!" Pinkie Pie said.

Needless to say, it was really frustrating Discord to see how everypony started laughing now, instead of when he was telling jokes on stage. In a way, Discord actually managed to lighten up the mood in the room, even if it wasn't intended by him.

As Steel Hammer was having a good laugh as well, a little colt was walking into him by accident. The little pony was backing away and looked at something on the other side of the room, something that Steel Hammer noticed as well soon.

"Um...guys...I think you should take a look at that," he said nervously.

Twilight turned around after hearing those words and she soon got a rush of panic running down her back. "What is that?!" She asked in shock, causing everypony by now to turn around as well.

What they saw shocked them. A huge wave of green ooze was coming towards them. An all too familiar-looking ooze. As soon as Star Twinkle realized what that ooze was, he rushed over to Discord on stage.

"That's the Smooze, isn't it!?" He asked angrily.

"Seems that way," Discord replied casually.

Soon, the whole room was covered in the green ooze, and ponies got stuck in it. Once their hooves touched the goo, they would get stuck and couldn't move. As if that wasn't bad enough, Twilight was not able to make it vanish with her magic since every beam she shot towards the ground would only leave a hole that instantly filled itself again.

"None of my magic works on this ooze! Can you stop it?" Twilight asked towards Princess Celestia.

However, the horn of the Alicorn Princess was covered in this goo as well, making her unable to use any magic at all. "I'm afraid not!" The princess said after her attempt to fix things.

Star Twinkle managed to stay out of the range from this goo since he was up on stage just like Discord. He had no idea what to do to help though. His focus, for now, was just shifting towards the Draconequus.

"I thought you would keep an eye on the Smooze! How did he get so big!?" He asked confused.

Discord tipped his chin. "It might be because he ate too much jewelry. He has a habit of growing in size whenever he eats some, you see," he casually replied.

Star Twinkle had a bad suspicion about what could have happened. "Where was he while you were up here failing as a comedian?" He asked.

"I put him in the treasury," Discord replied casually.

Star Twinkle slapped his own face. "And you didn't think that this was a bad idea!?" He shot back.

"To be honest, I wasn't thinking much at all,"

"Clearly..." Star Twinkle added annoyed.

As much as Star Twinkle wanted to continue arguing with Discord, there were ponies in desperate need to be saved now.

And one of them was already screaming in a panic.

"Oh, my shoes will be ruined forever!" Rarity said in shock.

"That's what you're worried about? Really?" Applejack

In the meantime, all Star Twinkle could do, was to transform into a Pegasus and fly over to Twilight, in order to ask her for some advice.

"Any ideas on how to fix this?" He asked.

Twilight gave a quick answer. "I think Discord is the only one who can stop all of this," she pointed out.

Star Twinkle didn't need to know anything more and just got to work. He was flying towards Discord, who unsurprisingly did not see anything wrong with the whole situation. He said that the Smooze was just playing around, obviously. Whether that was true or not, the Smooze was putting the ponies in the room in danger so he needed to be stopped. Star Twinkle just had to try to talk with Discord.

In the meantime, both Fluttershy and Tree Hugger managed to get stuck on the walls. "This is kind of a bummer," Tree Hugger commented slightly bothered, considering the situation she was in.

Discord continued to ignore Star Twinkle and quickly picked up on that. "Isn't it, though?" He asked Tree Hugger. "And to think, it would never have happened had I come to the Gala as somepony else's plus-one," he added while he was directing his voice towards Fluttershy, in hope that she would get the message.

"I knew it!" Star Twinkle thought. "So he is jealous!"

Fluttershy did not get it though and Tree Hugger was the one who tried to figure out what was going wrong with the Smooze. "Seems like something might have harshed his flow, you know? Like, his senses are agitated," she figured.

"You don't know anything about rare creatures. I've known Smooze Face for ages. He's not agitated. He's partying down! Whoo!" Discord explained while he was dancing in midair.

But Tree Hugger was sure about what she said and continued. "All he needs is some, like, calming auditory therapy. I know I always feel really at peace when I'm being bathed in positive vibes. Maybe he'll calm down with some sonic bliss," she said.

By now Discord got really annoyed and confused about the mare's way of speaking. "Do you even know what you just said?" He asked.

Star Twinkle had to agree with Discord for once. "Yeah, I don't really follow her either," he said with a confused look on his face.

Tree Hugger did not explain however and just started to meditate loudly.

"Ommmm. Ee-ee-ee-ee-ee! Ommmm. Ee-ee-ee-ee-ee!"

Her voice was ringing through the room. Both Star Twinkle and Discord were pretty confused about what this was going to accomplish.

"How is that gonna help anyone?" The stallion asked.

She completely ignored him though and continued. Star Twinkle figured that she had no idea what she was doing but soon, he realized that the Smooze was not moving anymore. He was calm now.

"Wait, it's actually working?" Star Twinkle said in his surprise.

The Smooze was slowly removing his ooze from everypony and returned to his regular form. It was much bigger now because he grew in size but at least he was in one place and clam.

"Let go, Smooze! Bliss out! Ommmm. Ee-ee-ee-ee-ee!" Tree Hugger said one last time before she ended her meditation.

All the guests were free again and happy that everything went well. And it was all thanks to Tree Hugger, something that everyone could agree on.

"It worked!" Sweetie Belle said.

"Way to go, Tree Hugger!" Rainbow Dash said.

Steel Hammer was slowly moving towards Star Twinkle while he still removed some remains from the Smooze on his suit. "This gala sure is a lot more different than I expected," he commented. Star Twinkle just sighed after hearing that.

In the meantime, everypony continued to express their thanks for Tree Hugger. Fluttershy was one of them. "That was the most magical thing I've ever seen done with animals!" She expressed happily, much to Discord's dislike who was grinding his teeth by now in anger.

"Oh, thanks, everypony," Tree Hugger said happily. "It makes perfect karmic sense why magic doesn't work on him. He only responds to vibrations that peace out his energy fields," she explained.

"Sure...if you say so," Star Twinkle said. He still had no idea what she was saying but she helped everypony out and that is what mattered.

But Discord was not really happy right now. In fact, he was furious. "Stop it! Stop it! That's it! I'm done with you, Tree Hugger!" He said angrily.

Tree Hugger, however, did not get intimidated by Discord's anger. "Oh, man. You're really bumming me out. Can you just, like, lower your voice a skosh?" She asked of him, driving the Lord of Chaos even more crazy.

"A skosh? A skosh?!" He said angrily.

The next thing that happened was Discord ripping a hole in the air that led into another dimension. He then used his magic to drag Tree Hugger towards him and levitated her towards the hole he just made.

Star Twinkle, who was still in his Pegasus Form, flew towards the Draconequus. "Don't you think you are overdoing things!? You need to-"

But Discord could not care less about what Star Twinkle had to say and just snapped his fingers, causing a rope to appear on Star Twinkle that was strapped to an anchor, which made the stallion crash to the ground and removing him from the picture.

In the meantime, Tree Hugger took a little peek of what was on the other side of the hole in the air. "Whoa, dude! What is that?!" She asked confused as she watched a strange sock puppet creature walking on the other side of the hole, which was also really confused at the sight of Tree Hugger.

"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you," Discord assured. "I'm simply going to send you to another dimension. I can't have you interfering in my relationship with Fluttershy anymore!" He explained casually as if it was the most normal thing to do in this situation.

"Discord, stop!" None other than Fluttershy interrupted.

"I will, just as soon as she's gone!" Discord replied before he summoned a table and some tea in midair. "Then we can have a good laugh about this whole affair over our regular Tuesday tea," he explained happily.

Star Twinkle was still trying to remove the rope around his body as all of that was happening. "Do something!" He then shouted towards his friends.

But Twilight and the rest were already ready to jump in action. "Don't worry, Fluttershy! We'll stop him!" Twilight said determined with her friends standing right behind her.

Discord was unimpressed. He summoned a glowing disco ball and threw it towards them, making it roll past the group. At first, they were confused about this action but then they realized that the Smooze was coming towards them to get that shiny ball and trapped all the ponies in his way, making them unable to do anything again.

Now Discord could continue. "I'm doing her a favor, Fluttershy! It's a lovely dimension! White sand beaches, attentive wait staff... I mean, okay, the humidity isn't great, but where isn't that the case these days?" He said, making all of this sound like a sweet vacation, something that was obviously not the case.

"I don't understand why you're doing this! We were all getting along so well!" Fluttershy said in shock.

"As well as we could, considering you've already stomped all over our friendship by inviting her to the biggest night of the year as if I didn't matter at all!" Discord shot back at the mare.

Fluttershy got really offended by hearing that. "Did you really think I'd abandon you just because I have a new friend?!"

"Yes, because that's what you did!" Discord replied angrily.

"No, she didn't!" Steel Hammer then said as he walked up to Fluttershy and Discord.

Discord had enough of the interruptions so naturally, he got really annoyed to see somepony else walking up to them. "What do you want now!?" He asked bitterly. One could tell that he was about to snap his finger to do something to the stallion.

But Steel Hammer continued to walk towards him and Fluttershy with a stern look on his face. "All she did was spending some time with another friend. She did not abandon you at all. I know if one of your friends spends some time with another friend you start to feel a little left out but that doesn't mean that you are less important to them. I mean just ask you the question of what would happen if it was the other way around," the stallion said before he stopped in front of Discord.

"The other way around?" Discord asked confused.

"Yes. What would you do if you met some new friends to discuss chaos-based magic and spent some time with them? Would that mean that you would abandon Fluttershy?" Steel Hammer asked.

Right about now, Discord was getting what Steel Hammer wanted to tell him and felt a little embarrassed about it. "No, I suppose not. It would just mean that I'd have different friends for different things..." The Draconequus looked around and figured that things got a bit out of hand now. "Oh, oh, dear, it looks like I've perhaps overreacted just a skosh," he admired embarrassed.

Fluttershy couldn't agree more. "More like a lot of skoshes!" She said angrily. "Tree Hugger, could you give us a minute?" She asked of the mare.

Discord was flying over to Fluttershy with regret on his face. "I'm just so new at this whole friendship thing. It's so much more complicated than it looks," he said with a frown on his face.

Fluttershy wanted to forgive him but there was one thing that needed to be done first. "Do you think maybe you owe somepony an apology?" She said angrily. Discord was quick to hand her over a flower but she slapped it out of his paws. "Not me!" She corrected.

"Oh! Oh," Discord replied after he realized who she meant. "Yes, right," he then said before he closed the hole to another dimension, made Tree Hugger fall softly to the ground, freed Star Twinkle from the anchor, and removed all the jewelry from the Smooze to free Twilight and her friends.

Fluttershy quickly went to her friend and hugged her after she was safe again. Discord also walked closer to Tree Hugger and sincerely apologized for everything that he did. "Er, Tree Hugger, I'm sorry that you got caught in the middle of my... er, you know... wrath," he said.

But Tree Hugger was not holding a grudge towards him despite all that. "Oh, it's all groovy," she said, causing Discord to hug her in response, something that she did not feel too well about. "Um, I need like a few minutes to clear out my chakras before I can hug you from a place of authenticity," she explained as she pushed him away slowly.

"Oh, your chakras." Discord replied before he laughed nervously. "Fair enough," he figured.

A little later...

Things surprisingly calmed down really fast after all of that. Everypony came together, in the end, to spend time with each other, even Discord. The later still feeling a little bad about the things he did.

"I owe you an apology, Smooze," Discord said towards his friend. "I spent the whole evening thinking about my own feelings and never thinking about yours," he said with a frown on his face. But the Smooze was not mad at him and kissed him in response, much to Discord's delight. "Well, friends! I think I may actually grow to like this multiple-friend thing," he expressed happily.

Maud Pie couldn't agree more. "I like it too," she said.

"Hey, it's not a party until somepony spreads magic-resistant ooze uncontrollably over the ballroom!" Pinkie Pie added excitedly.

But here, Star Twinkle had to disagree. "If you say so..." he said.

Shortly after, everypony found themselves on the dance floor. In the meantime, Twilight was apologizing to Princess Celestia about everything that happened. "I'm sorry, Princess Celestia. I thought I could give you a break tonight, but it turns out I was in over my head," she said in regret.

Princess Celestia just smiled in return. "You have nothing to apologize for. This has been the most fun Gala in years!" She just said happily.

"What?!" Twilight said in shock. "But there was ooze all over the place! And one of the guests threatened to send somepony to another dimension!" She pointed out.

"I know!" Princess Celestia replied. "Can you imagine how dull it would have been if I hadn't invited Discord?" She said before she pushed Twilight towards the dance floor as well. "Come on! Whoo! The night is still young!" Twilight did not know how to react to that but it was the princess who was saying it so she just had to accept it.

Shortly after, Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were talking in one corner of the room, watching everypony dance. They both liked to have a more relaxing party from this point on. They also wanted to talk about something, or rather, Star Twinkle wanted to ask something.

"So...what you said back then to Discord..." he started. "About being left out...is that how you feel as well?" He asked.

Steel Hammer felt a little embarrassed. "Maybe a little, back then...I told you that before...There were maybe some personal feelings mixed into my speech from before," he admitted.

Star Twinkle smiled. "But it's not like that. It's just like Discord said. We all have different friends for different things," he explained.

Steel Hammer nodded in reply. "Right! I know! I really do! And I am happy that you got more friends now!"

Now it was Star Twinkle who felt embarrassed. "Okay," he simply replied.

The brown coated stallion then moved towards the dance floor. "Come on! Let's enjoy this party some more! We can't let them all dance on their own!" He said before he rushed to the others, showing off his own dance skills as well.

Star Twinkle chuckled. "Right!" He said before he walked to the dance floor as well to enjoy the rest of this night.

Author's Notes:

Got another Discord Chapter done! Surprisingly, they are a little bit harder to pull off since there is usually not too much bonding going on between Star Twinkle and Discord. But there was some Steel Hammer! That's good, right?

Anyway, I hope enjoyed this chapter and I see you in the next one!

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

98. Griffonstone

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Twilight asked of Star Twinkle to come to the Castle, to the throne room to be exact. The stallion did as he was told and went to the castle, he was not the only one to be there though. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were waiting in the throne room as well.

"There you are, Star Twinkle!" Twilight said as soon as the stallion walked inside the room.

Pinkie Pie seemed really excited but Rainbow Dash was sitting in her seat and looked away from everyone as if she was not showing interest in whatever was going on in there.

"What is it? Why did you want me to come?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Look! Look!" Pinkie Pie said in response as she pointed towards the table in the middle of the room with the map of Equestria on it.

As Star Twinkle was inspecting the map, he quickly noticed that two Cutie Marks were hovering over a certain spot, It was just like back then when the map first appeared but instead of everyponies Cutie Mark, it only showed Pinkie Pie's and Rainbow Dash's. This meant that the map was calling them to go to the place where their Cutie Marks were hovering above. That is at least what Twilight believed, judging from their last trip to Starlight Glimmer's town.

"What is this place?" Star Twinkle asked. He was referring to the place where Pinkie Pie's and Rainbow Dash's Cutie Marks were at. The place looked like a giant tree with houses on its branches from what he could see.

Twilight went on ahead and explained things. "This is so exciting. The map is summoning you to Griffonstone, the very heart of the griffon kingdom!" She said. Somehow, she showed more enthusiasm to all of this than Rainbow Dash, even though the later one was usually the one who was happy to go on an adventure. Star Twinkle was not showing much enthusiasm as well, considering that he was thinking about something else in his head.

"My Cutie Mark isn't on it...again..." he thought, making him wonder why he was called to the castle in the first place.

But instead of getting an answer to that, Twilight was so drawn into this Griffonstone place that she just continued her explanation. "I don't know if either of you have read "Bygone Griffons of Greatness", but griffons were known to be—"

"Rude, insensitive bullies?" Rainbow Dash finished with a bothered expression on her face.

Twilight instantly picked up on what Rainbow Dash was getting at. "You mean Gilda?" She asked.

It was a long time since Star Twinkle last heard that name but he still well remembered who it belonged to. Gilda was an old friend of Rainbow Dash. both of them went to flight school and were pretty close. However, Gilda turned out to be pretty mean to anyone besides Rainbow Dash. She was looking down on them for not being as cool as her and as soon as Rainbow Dash realized how mean she was to her new friends, she realized that it was not right and they both ended their friendship.

Since it was so long ago, Star Twinkle had his troubles to still be mad at her, in fact, he was not too mad at her, to begin with. It was back when he still was still learning about friendship so he just figured that he knew too less to even have an opinion on it.

But Rainbow Dash clearly had a set opinion. "Yeah, I mean Gilda!" She said bothered. "When she came to Ponyville, she was a total jerk to all my friends, especially Pinkie Pie!" She pointed out.

Pinkie Pie had to agree on that. "She was a bit of a party pooper," she said, putting it more mildly than it actually was.

This is where Star Twinkle had to point out something. "That doesn't mean that all griffons are like her, right?" He said, expecting someone to agree with him but judging from how no response came, neither of them did meet another griffon before.

While Twilight had to agree with what Rainbow Dash said, she still insisted that they both should go. "So, maybe Gilda was a little rude. You still get to go to Griffonstone, and according to this book, it has a rich, fascinating history!" She said before she presented everypony a book from her collection.

Both Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash sighed because they saw a little bit of a story coming towards them. Twilight usually got way into her books so whenever she wanted to share knowledge, things tend to draw out a little. This was no exception.

Twilight began telling the story...

"In ancient times, griffons were known to be as greedy as dragons, always hoarding their bits and other treasures. But all that changed when King Grover found the mysterious golden Idol of Boreas. Legend says the Idol of Boreas was made from the dust of golden sunsets, blown across the mountains by the north winds. Possessing the Idol of Boreas filled the griffons' hearts with pride. It's said that that one great treasure is responsible for turning Griffonstone into the most majestic kingdom of all the land."

Once Twilight finished, Star Twinkle had to admit that her explanation of the griffon race was getting him rather interested now. "Wow...sounds impressive," he commented on Twilight's story.

"I know, right!?" Twilight replied excitedly.

Rainbow Dash, who was not showing that much interest in Twilight's story though, was a little surprised how much the Unicorn showed interest in all of this. "And why do you care so much about griffons anyway?" She asked.

Twilight explained. "It was actually Gilda's visit that made me curious. So I picked up "Bygone Griffons of Greatness", and I've been hooked ever since! And now..." Suddenly her mood swung from being happy to feeling jealous. "Now you two get to see Griffonstone with your very own eyes," she said with a frown on her face.

Star Twinkle was a little surprised to hear this. "Can't you just go with them? That's what I did the last time the map was summoning all of you," he pointed out.

And of course, Rainbow Dash was taking this opportunity to talk herself out of this trip. "Hey, you can totally take my place if you want," she said, followed by a yawn. "I still have half a nap to finish," she added while she was stretching her body a little.

"Why don't you just come with us?" Pinkie Pie suggested. "I mean, you are the Princess of Friendship," she pointed out.

But Twilight disagreed. "No, no, if the map wanted me to go to the coolest kingdom in all of Equestria and tour the palace and see the actual idol that unites an entire species, which would be super amazing, I'm sure it would've said so. You two can handle whatever the issue is just fine. I'll stay here and do important princessy things. I guess," she said, even though she was clearly not liking the idea of staying behind at all, that much everypony could see.

But with that all being decided, Star Twinkle was still not sure why he was part of this little meeting. It was now that he finally asked about that. "Now that those two are going to Griffonstone, do you mind telling me why I had to come here?" He asked as he walked up to the mare.

Twilight gave a casual answer. "Sure. You will go with them," she simply said.

"What!? Why?" Star Twinkle asked confused before he looked over to the map once more. "My Cutie Mark is not on the map...again..." he pointed out.

Twilight explained. "Yes. The last time when everyone of us was called, your Cutie Mark didn't show up on the map. That is why you have to go with them," she said.

The stallion lowered his eyebrows confused. "I...don't follow what you are trying to say," he replied.

Twilight explained further. "I'm not saying that the map made a mistake but...I found it kinda weird that the last time all of my friends except you were called. You are one of my closest friends too after all," she said.

"Maybe the map didn't want me there..." Star Twinkle said with a frown on his face.

"Nonsense!" Twilight replied sternly. "You are one of the Elements of Harmony, just like my friends and I, you are one of the ponies who made me who I am, and you are one of my friends that helped me save Equestria a bunch of times," she said while she looked over to the map one more time. "I don't know why the map is not showing your Cutie Mark. I don't know why there is no throne for you either, but I do know that your help is needed and since the map is not showing your Cutie Mark, we just have to improvise," she explained.

"By making me go on those trips, whether my Cutie Mark is on the map or not?" Star Twinkle guessed.

The mare smiled and nodded in response. "Yes. I'm sure this is the best course of action," she said.

Star Twinkle knew where Twilight was coming from with this idea but still...the map was created by the Tree of Harmony, something very powerful and important for Equestria. And here they are, ignoring its "orders" and bending them to their will. The stallion had mixed feelings about that. Was the Tree of Harmony deliberately picking on him? Or was he just the one pony of the group who was the least needed so that it wouldn't matter if he would tag along or not?

The green pony found himself in a place where he didn't want to think about it anymore. It didn't look as if he had much of a choice. Twilight would just end up talking him into this adventure anyway, even if he would disagree so he just decided to agree.

"Alright then...guess I'll go to Griffonstone too..." Star Twinkle said with a mix of enthusiasm and annoyance in his voice.

Pinkie Pie instantly jumped up in excitement and landed next to the stallion. "Great! The more the merrier!" She said as she was putting her hooves around the stallion's shoulder. "Well then, come on, Dashie! We're going to Griffonstone!" She said while she dragged Star Twinkle behind her and bounced out of the room.

Rainbow Dash sighed in response. "Fine..." she said while she was slowly hovering behind them with an annoyed look on her face.

And just like that, it was decided. Star Twinkle, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie were going to Griffonstone, home of the Griffons. They didn't know for what reason but the map sent them there, at least Rainbow Dash and Pinkie. Star Twinkle just tagged along to see if his help was needed in all of this, though he had a guess that this was not the case.

But it was decided so there is nothing that could be changed now. All they had to do was to go to Griffonstone to see what would wait for them there.

Later...

Reaching Griffonstone was quite a trip. The three ponies needed to take the train to reach it fast enough. Fortunately, or maybe, unfortunately, Twilight made sure to prepare the three for this trip by giving them some reading material. It was a book that she wrote herself that had information about what they should do in Griffonstone.

Rainbow Dash was so bothered to go to Griffonstone that she took it upon herself to read Twilight's and judging from her annoyed expression, it was quite a lot to take in.

"So...what exactly is written in there?" Star Twinkle asked.

Rainbow Dash just slapped the book shut in annoyance. "How about what is not written in here! She literally wrote every little thing that we need to look for. It's like Twilight herself in book form," she said before she styled her mane differently to make it look like Twilight's hair. "Always carry plenty of bits. The griffons are sure to help you as long as you share the wealth," she said in a tone that was supposed to sound like Twilight.

This little impression of Twilight actually got a little chuckle out of Star Twinkle which in return made Rainbow Dash chuckle too. For a moment, the mare seemed to forget her bad mood.

However, the mood changed for Star Twinkle as soon as he saw a pony with a cart full of bits walking past him, bits that were spent by Pinkie Pie. Her whole seat was filled with sweets and other food and she looked a little embarrassed as soon as she realized that she might have bought a little too much.

"Uh, can I borrow some bits?" She asked awkwardly.

Star Twinkle pointed at the bits on the cart. "Half of my bits are already on there," he said annoyed.

"Oh yeah," Pinkie Pie replied awkwardly with a smile on her face.

The stallion just sighed. He looked over to the book next to Rainbow Dash and figured that it was a good idea to read through it while he was still sitting in the train. Rainbow Dash definitely had enough of the book and didn't care about it anymore.

"Let's see..." Star Twinkle said as he flipped open the book to see what Twilight wrote.

"Upon arriving in Griffon Gorge, be sure to pause and cast your eyes northerly, up the Hyperborean Mountains, taking in the breathtaking beauty of Griffonstone. Once in Griffonstone proper, go immediately to the palace and introduce yourself to the king. "Bygone Griffons of Greatness" was written a long time ago, and it ends with the coronation of the fourteenth king of the griffons, King Guto. I have no idea who's in charge now. Tell the king you've been sent by the Princess of Friendship, and you're there to help with some sort of problem. If for some reason the king can't help, I'd try the Griffonstone library next. It's a little known secret that if you befriend a librarian, you can usually find out anything. Plus, as a bonus, there's a statue of King Grover outside! Photo op! And don't forget to sample some famous griffon scones. They're supposed to be the best."

"Yep...you can tell that Twilight wrote this..." Star Twinkle said while he shook his head after he realized how much more of the book is left for him to read. It sure beats just sitting around and wait for their arrival though so he might as well continue.

Later...

Once the train arrived, the three ponies found themselves on the foot of the mountains that would eventually lead to the town. There was still a lot to walk though. They were all equipped with saddlebags filled with rations and all things necessary to climb the mountains but Star Twinkle already got dizzy after he saw how much way was left for them to go.

"Why did I come here..." he said in regret before he followed Pinkie Pie, who was already on her way towards the mountains. Next to him was Rainbow Dash, who still was really bothered to go to Griffonstone. By now Star Twinkle figured that he should comment on that. "You know, usually I am the one who is always grumpy or annoyed on trips like this," he said jokingly. "You really don't want to go to Griffonstone, do you?"

Rainbow Dash gave an honest answer. "Not really. Not after what happened with Gilda," she said.

"But just because Gilda was mean doesn't mean every griffon is like that, right?" The stallion figured.

"We'll see about that..." Rainbow Dash said in a monotone voice before she walked a little faster to catch up with Pinkie Pie.

Star Twinkle just ignored that and tried to catch up with them as well. The only way to find out if what Rainbow Dash thought was true was to see it for himself. If they would arrive in Griffonstone anytime soon.

...

After spending quite some time wandering, the three finally arrived at the entrance of Griffonstone. Star Twinkle was just happy that they were finally there. He had to take some deep breathes before taking a look at the town first after it took so long to even get up here.

In the meantime, Pinkie Pie was entering the place as well, her face filled with excitement. "Aw, Twilight should've come along! Then she could see first-hoof that Griffonstone is..." but then she stopped and took a closer look at the town and she was left in shock. "...a total dump!" She then finished after she saw what Griffonstone looked like.

"A total dump" was quite an accurate description of this place. The place didn't look like a town but rather what was left from one. There were holes in the houses, branches and twigs were scattered all over the place instead of on the roofs. And judging from how the griffons just walked by without a care in the world on their faces, they seemed to be fine with the state their home was in.

"It's...not quite as impressive as Twilight described it, that's for sure," Star Twinkle summed up after he took in everything that he saw in front of him.

After Rainbow Dash was looking around the place, she also had to agree that Griffonstone was not in the best state. "Maybe the map should've called Rarity instead of us," she figured.

Pinkie Pie was actually wondering if this was the right town they were at. Star Twinkle had to admit that this was a valid question. This place could be another place and Griffonstone was just somewhere around the corner. This was the only explanation that the stallion could up with why the griffons decided to leave their so-called hometown in this state.

As soon as one griffon walked past the three, Pinkie Pie asked away. "Excuse me, sir? This is Griffonstone, right?" But the griffon completely ignored her and walked away. He was clearly not interested in talking with her. "Well, that wasn't very nice," Pinkie Pie summarized.

"See? These griffons are exactly like I'd thought they'd be," Rainbow Dash said annoyed.

"Maybe we came at a bad timing? Maybe there was some kind of big event and no one bothered to clean up yet?" The stallion guessed.

While Pinkie Pie liked the sound of a griffon party, she somehow doubted that this was true and luckily came up with a surprisingly good idea. "Maybe we should just find the palace so we can ask the king what's going on."

"We don't have a king, losers," a familiar voice then said.

Everyone quickly turned to the one who spoke to them. It was a griffon, no surprise there, but it was also the one griffon that they all met before. It was the one griffon that Rainbow Dash did not want to come across.

"Hello, Gilda," Rainbow Dash said with a glare on her face while she locked eyes with the griffon.

"Dash," Gilda just replied with a glare on her face as well.

"Pinkie!" Pinkie Pie said cheerfully. She did not seem to read the mood of this situation quite well.

Star Twinkle felt a little out of place to say anything. He wanted to tell both of them to calm down a bit because he feared that they would do something rash but he also knew that it would probably not be that easy considering their history. He decided to remain silent.

"What are you doing here?" Rainbow Dash eventually asked.

Gilda rolled her eyes. "Uh, I'm a griffon? What's your excuse, dweebs?" She asked in her usual arrogant tone that all of them could well remember.

"Hey! These 'dweebs' are here to help Griffonstone!" Pinkie Pie said offended.

"Help it what?" Gilda replied confused.

"Well... we're not really sure!" Pinkie Pie then figured. "But it involves a map and our cutie marks and a problem, and—"

"Bored now!" Gilda interrupted as she walked past the mare with a bored expression on her face.

Despite Gilda being pretty rude so far, Star Twinkle had to ask one thing. "You said that you don't have a king before. What did you mean by that?" He asked.

Gilda only looked at Star Twinkle confused. She did not seem to remember him. They did not have many interactions the last time they met so it only made sense. She still didn't change her behavior to him though.

"What part of "We don't have a king" do you not understand?" She just said without bothering to give more details about the matter.

"Well if you don't have a king, could you at least tell us where the Idol of Boreas is?" Pinkie Pie asked.

Gilda laughed in response. "Don't tell me you really believe in that thing," she said amused after wiping a tear from her eye.

"Why shouldn't we believe it? Isn't it part of the history of Griffonstone?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Yes, it is! And you'd better believe it!" Said a male voice from nearby.

It turned out to be an elderly griffon who was peeking out of a window from his house. The griffon was wearing a cherry-colored fez and had Violet gray feathers, dark Violet gray wings, and one black colored eye, the left one being a gray blind eye, which was probably caused by the scar that was over it on his face.

The griffon released some coughs and then ended up falling down a few meters into his house, making quite some painful noises from inside. Surprisingly, the griffon opened the door and stepped out of the house before walking towards the group.

"It was the best thing to ever happen to us griffons!" He claimed.

Gilda just shook her head. "Oh, great. Now you got Grampa Gruff started!" She said annoyed. She knew what was coming up next.

Grampa Gruff ignored her words though and walked up to the three ponies. "I'll tell you the whole tragic tale...for a couple of bits," he said while he held open his claws waiting for somepony to fill it. Since Pinkie Pie spent all of hers and half of Star Twinkle's, Rainbow Dash knew that it was her turn to pay. She just sighed and gave the griffon two bits who smiled and immediately put them under his fez before he started to tell the story.

"The first griffon king, King Grover, united our kind like we've never been united before or since! And he did it all with that incredible Idol of Boreas."

Gilda, who was standing right behind him, imitated the old griffon to make fun of him, something that Pinkie Pie found quite amusing. Grampa Griffon must have told this story dozens of times. Star Twinkle focused on the story though because he wanted to find an answer to all of this. Mainly because he wanted to get away from this place filled with rather rude griffons.

Grampa Gruff continued his story. "That idol brought pride to the heart of every griffon that saw it! From one king to the next, Griffonstone had our golden idol. We were the envy of all other species. It held us together – it gave us an identity – right up until the reign of King Guto."

"But then something happened?" Star Twinkle guessed after being quite invested in this story.

"You bet!" Grampa Gruff responded with his face right in front of Star Twinkle. "That's when Arimaspi came to steal our griffon treasure! King Guto tried to fight him off, but Arimaspi managed to get away with the idol! In an attempt to get the idol back though, it fell into the Abysmal Abyss." Suddenly the griffon sounded a lot sadder while telling the story. "They say when our treasure fell into the Abysmal Abyss, our pride went with it. King Guto was the last king of Griffonstone, and we all lived miserably ever after. The end!"

Pinkie Pie, who was very emotional by now, broke out in tears. "That was the saddest story ever!" She commented.

"Aw, well...Tough tailfeathers! No refunds!" Grampa Gruff said casually while he left the group.

Star Twinkle rubbed his chin and began to share his thoughts. "So everything went downhill for the griffons after that idol was gone. Kinda sounds like what happened in the Crystal Empire, if you ask me," he summed up.

"No wonder Twilight's book ended with the coronation of King Guto," Pinkie Pie said with a frown on her face. "Who would want to record a history that sad?"

But Gilda felt a little offended hearing this. "It's not sad! Do we look sad to you?" She asked annoyed.

"You don't really look happy either," Star Twinkle commented but as soon as Gilda was growling at his general direction he took a step back and kept quiet again.

In the meantime, Rainbow Dash was looking around the place some more to come up with a solution for all this, which she thought was the best thing to do now. "Star Twinkle, Pinkie, I think I know why the map sent us here. We need to find the Idol of Boreas and bring glory and pride back to Griffonstone!"

Star Twinkle was about to agree with that plan but seeing how Gilda was laughing at just hearing that, made him reconsider it. "Here we go – typical pony hero complex. None of us care about that dumb old idol. Don't you get it? We don't care about anything, and that's the way we like it!" She claimed.

"I think Rainbow Dash is right!" Said Pinkie Pie as she was literally popping up on Gilda's back, much to her surprise. "The map sent us here to fix some sort of problem!"

This is where Gilda lost her patience with the pink mare. "The only problem Griffonstone has is you!" She shouted while she threw the mare off from her back and flew away from the three ponies, having spent enough time with them.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Well, I don't care what she says. We're gonna find that treasure, make Griffonstone cool again, and get back to Ponyville!"

"Sounds like a plan," Star Twinkle agreed.

"Then Come on!" Rainbow Dash said before she was about to fly off only to be stopped by Pinkie Pie's words.

"Wait, Rainbow Dash. What about Twilight's advice?" She asked.

"What, taking a bunch of pictures?" Rainbow Dash replied.

"She mentioned finding answers at the library," Pinkie Pie explained.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle added. "It can't hurt to get some more information about all this," he agreed.

It was then when Rainbow Dash threw the little book, that Twilight wrote for them was thrown at the stallion's face. "Knock yourself out. But when you get bored with Twilight's tour book, I'll be at the Abysmal Abyss finding the Idol of Boreas," Rainbow Dash said confidently before she was flying off to set her plan in motion.

And just like that, Rainbow Dash was off to do her own thing, leaving Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie to do some research. Star Twinkle just sighed as he watched her leave. "Let's go and find this library," he just said as he walked away with Pinkie Pie following closely.

"I bet Gilda can help us find the library faster!" Pinkie Pie suggested casually.

"Probably," Star Twinkle replied. "But in case you missed it, Gilda does not really appreciate our company that much," he pointed out.

"Yeah, not really. But she knows more about Griffonstone than us," she pointed out.

As much as he didn't like the idea to talk with Gilda some more, Star Twinkle had to admit that Pinkie Pie was right. They needed any help that they could find to solve Griffonstone's problem and go home as early as possible.

"This all sounds so much like the situation in the Crystal Empire. The ponies all felt much better as soon as they knew that the Crystal Heart returned so if we find that idol the griffons should be happy again, right?" He asked Pinkie Pie only to see her looking at him with a warm smile. "What?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"Nothing," Pinkie Pie replied happily. "I just remembered how much grumpier you were when we left for Griffonstone. But now you care about the griffons and want to help them really badly. You always act like you don't care about anything but you are actually really nice," she explained, causing Star Twinkle to react a little embarrassed and confused.

"Um...I guess..." he said as he rubbed his neck nervously.

Pinkie Pie just hopped past the stallion with a smile on her face. "I bet Gilda is just the same. She said she didn't care about that idol and Griffonstone's happiness but she probably doesn't want to admit it," she figured.

Those words got Star Twinkle thinking. Twilight did tell them that griffons were a pride race so it would only make sense that they didn't want anypony to see how unhappy they were, especially not some ponies wandering through. If that theory of his was true was still up in the air but it got Star Twinkle determined to find the idol and help the griffons.

It didn't take too long until the two ponies found Gilda. She was pulling a cart behind her. It kinda looked like as if she was attending her job in this town. But whether she was busy or not, Pinkie Pie just hopped up to her.

"Hey, Gilda! Word on the street is that Griffonstone has an amazing library chock-full of answers!" she asked.

"Word on what street?" Gilda replied annoyed.

Pinkie Pie's type of approach was maybe a little to direct for the griffon so Star Twinkle decided to be the one to ask. "Listen, I know you don't like us but the sooner you tell us the faster we will be out of your sight," he said.

Gilda, while still not feeling too happy having the two ponies in her company, replied quickly. "The library's right there, so why don't you go inside and leave me alone?!" She shouted into the stallion's face while she pointed at the direction of the library.

Star Twinkle knew that talking with her was gonna end like this but at least they got to knew where the library was and could continue their task.

The two came across the library, or at least what was left of it. The building was almost gone, there were no walls left, and books just laid on the ground scattered around the remains of the building.

"I guess this is it?" Star Twinkle asked. He was not sure what to make out of this actually.

Pinkie Pie just gasped at the sight of this. "Maybe it's good that Twilight didn't come..." she said.

Despite the state of the library, Star Twinkle was trying to find a book that was in a readable state. But unfortunately, that was harder than he thought. He hoped that Pinkie Pie would be a little bit luckier but he soon found out that the mare was walking up to an old statue that depicted someone who might have been King Grover.

She started...talking to the statue. "It's sad what happened to your town, King, but Rainbow Dash can't be right. This can't all be because of a missing hunk of gold," she said with a frown on her face.

"You are right, Pinkie!" She then said in a more rough voice while she moved the beak of the statue up and down. "And you've got amazing hair!" She added.

"Aw, King Grover, you old charmer!" Pinkie Pie replied embarrassed.

"Pinkie!" Star Twinkle said sternly. He could not believe how she was playing around right now, instead of helping him find any clues about the idol.

"Sorry," Pinkie Pie apologized. "I just thought that it was a little weird that a piece of gold was all responsible for the state of this town," she said as she looked around the town.

Star Twinkle joined the mare at looking around the place some more. "Maybe. But if the idol is not responsible for it, then what is?" He asked.

The mare looked around the town some more. She watched how the griffons were acting towards each other. For example, she saw two of them bumping into each other. They both just glared at each other and walked away. Seeing the griffons act like that gave the mare an idea.

"I know what Griffonstone needs!" She said happily.

Gilda overheard those words. "Fewer ponies?" She said annoyed while she was setting up something on her cart, something edible from the looks of it.

Pinkie Pie explained. "A song!" She said while she popped up in front of Gilda. "I've got a super song about smiling that sure to make even the most grumpy griffon grin!"

Pinkie Pie was inhaling heavily to let out the biggest song in a while but Gilda quickly shut her up. "Can't sing here!" She said while she pointed at a sign that had a crossed off picture of a singing griffon on it.

"Wow..." Star Twinkle just commented on this. He never thought that he would see a sign with an oddly specific rule like that on it.

Needless to say, Pinkie Pie was taken back to see her attempt to help ruined like this. "But how do you break into uplifting musical numbers with no singing?" She asked frustrated.

"I assume they don't," Star Twinkle figured.

"Yeah, that's Griffonstone's biggest problem – lack of uplifting musical numbers," Gilda added sarcastically. It was clear that Gilda still didn't appreciate the company of the two ponies.

Still, Pinkie Pie was not giving up. "Well if I can't sing, how about a party? If there's one thing these griffons need, it's a good cheer! Where's your party store?" She asked.

But judging from Gilda's annoyed expression, there was no such thing.

"No party store?" Pinkie Pie said in shock. "Uh, how about cake? Nothing cheers folks up like cake! Where's a bakery?" She asked.

Again, Gilda looked just annoyed at the mare.

By now, Pinkie Pie was completely in a state of shock."No singing, no party store, no bakery?! What is this place?!" She exclaimed in her frustration.

Gilda walked up to the mare. "You're welcome to leave...AT ANY TIME!" She then yelled at the pony, sending her flying into a wall to a nearby house.

Star Twinkle began looking at the griffon with a bothered expression on his face. "You know, she is just trying to help," he said annoyed.

The griffon then turned to the stallion. "And I told you that we griffons don't need any help! Especially not from some lame ponies like you!" She replied rudely before she continued to set up her cart.

Since Star Twinkle was wondering what she was doing all this time, he decided to ask. "What are those things? Are you selling those?" He asked.

While the griffon seemed annoyed, she still decided to tell him. "Those are griffon scones, can't you tell? They are my specialty," she said proudly.

The stallion could still not tell that those were scones though. They looked really...hard...like stones. Pinkie Pie though only heard the name "scones" and quickly rushed towards the griffon.

"I'll buy one!" She said excitedly.

Gilda took one of the scones out of the shelf and offered it to the mare. "Bits first!" She said while she held her claw open.

Pinkie Pie then looked over to Star Twinkle with an embarrassed look on her face. Just now the stallion remembered how she spent all of her money on the train. "Ugh..." Star Twinkle just said before he paid for the mare and gave Gilda a bit, much to Pinkie Pie's delight.

But the happy expression on Pinkie Pie would soon vanish as soon as Gilda stuffed the scone into her mouth and the mare chewed...or rather tried to chew the scone. Star Twinkle could only look in shock at how painful it looked like to chew those things.

"Well?" Gilda said, waiting for Pinkie Pie to give her opinion on the...taste of those things.

In the meantime, Pinkie Pie still tried to eat that thing in her mouth. Judging from the pain-filled expression that Pinkie Pie made while chewing it, the taste was probably the last thing that was wrong with it. And this was coming from the mare that grew up on a rock farm and claimed to eat rocks before.

Still, Gilda was eager to find out what Pinkie Pie was thinking about her scones. "What, you like it? That's my Grampa Gruff's secret recipe," she claimed, her voice filled with pride saying that.

"Was that recipe from ancient times?" Star Twinkle thought. He just assumed that griffons back then didn't know what the term edible meant. Or they maybe had stronger jaws...

Eventually, Pinkie Pie was done...eating. She actually ended up spitting out some teeth in the process, much to Star Twinkle's surprise. "Ow! I think I broke a tooth!" She expressed.

Gilda seemed a little disappointed to hear that. "Well, whatever. No refunds," she then said in her tough manner again. "I don't even care anyway. I just want to sell enough of these so that I can leave this lousy town," she explained.

This was just screaming to Star Twinkle that Gilda was not happy in this town at all, even though she claimed before that everything was fine here. He did not say this out loud though since he knew that Gilda would just get angry at him.

Pinkie Pie though was eager to help her out. "I can help you with that!" She said with a grin on her face, a grin that looked kind odd considering that most of her teeth were broken due to the scone that she ate before. She really needed to see Zecora after this trip so that she could make a potion to heal her teeth.

But despite the generous help, that Pinkie Pie was offering, Gilda declined. "How many times do I have to tell you ponies that we griffons don't need your help!?" She said annoyed.

"You want to leave this town or not?" Star Twinkle was, once again, the one who managed to convince her. "Pinkie Pie works as a baker in Ponyville. Just let her take a look at your recipe."

The griffon did not like getting help but she also was putting priority in her end goal so she decided to give in. "Fine..."

A little later...

As expected, Pinkie Pie was inspecting the recipe a little bit. She even managed to make them edible this time and took a bite from one without breaking a tooth.

"Grampa Gruff's recipe is good, but it's missing one important ingredient," she said.

"Don't tell me. "Friendship"?" Gilda said annoyed.

"Uh, no. Baking powder," Pinkie Pie said confused after those words of Gilda. Surprisingly, Star Twinkle expected Pinkie Pie something similar. "Lucky for you, I never leave home without it! Now just pop those in the oven, and you'll have griffon scones worth their weight in gold!" She said happily as she put the newly made scones into an oven.

Still, Gilda looked at the scones in disbelieve. "And you really believe that is gonna make someone buy those things?" She asked.

Star Twinkle shrugged his shoulders. "It can't hurt to try," he figured.

First, they had to wait for the scones to be done to find out though. As they waited for that though, two griffons, right above their heads, were bumping into each other and left one griffon falling down at the ground while the other one just continued to its way.

Suddenly, Gilda quickly came to the griffon's aid. "Greta!" She said as she helped the griffon up on her feet again only to be brushed off by her immediately.

Star Twinkle was quite surprised to see this and had to smile. "So much for griffons don't need help, huh?" The stallion thought to himself amused. He didn't want to say it out loud because he knew how Gilda would react to it though.

Pinkie Pie was not too worried about that, however. "Aha! I saw that, Gilda! You may act like a gruff, grumbling griffon, but inside you're gracious and great!" She said happily.

"What are you talking about?" Gilda responded either confused or to play tough.

"You just helped your friend up when she got knocked down," Pinkie Pie pointed out.

"What, her?" Gilda said while pointing at the griffon from before. "Greta's just some griffon I know. We don't have friends here!" She added before she released a sigh and a frown was formed on her face. "I did have a friend once, but you saw how that turned out," she said with an upset tone in her voice.

This is when Pinkie Pie finally got a great insight into what to do and smiled heavily. "Oh, my gosh, I gotta go find Rainbow Dash!" She said before she ran off all of the sudden.

"What!? Hey!" Star Twinkle said confused as he watched the mare leaving him alone with Gilda. Once he realized he was alone with Gilda, he became nervous. She clearly didn't like him and he had no idea what to say or do to make this less comfortable. In the end, he decided to focus on the scones again.

There was a little bit of silence until Gilda decided to break it. "Aren't you here because you wanted to help Griffonstone? Why do you bother your time with me anyway?" She then asked confused.

"It can't hurt to start small. If we can't even help you then how are we supposed to help a whole town?" He pointed out while he kept his eyes on the scones.

Gilda did not seem to see where the stallion was coming from though. "I don't understand you ponies one bit. Why are you all so persistent on this whole "friendship" thing?" She asked.

But Star Twinkle only shrugged his shoulders. "I have no idea. Not too long ago I didn't understand much of that either and thought it was a waste of time."

Those words seemed to grab Gilda's attention. "You did? I thought that is all you ponies think about," she said a little bit arrogantly.

Star Twinkle looked over to Gilda with a deadpan expression on his face. "You used to think about it too," he said. "Or at least you used to," he said.

The griffon got caught off guard by those words and popped her eyes open in surprise. "That is none of your concern!" She said angrily.

"No, it isn't," Star Twinkle replied before he started to smile a little. "I imagine having a young Rainbow Dash as a friend can be pretty exhausting," he figured.

Gilda began to chuckle. "Yeah, no kidding," she said with a smile on her face but then she saw how smugly Star Twinkle was looking at her and she got a little embarrassed. She turned her head away from the stallion.

The stallion saw how he was getting closer to Gilda's good site so he just pushed forward some more. "How did you two end up becoming friends?" He then asked curiously.

For a moment, Gilda was looking around as if she wanted to check that no one else was listening. She then walked up closer to Star Twinkle with a serious expression on her face. "Do not tell anyone what I am telling you now!" She threatened.

"Right!" Star Twinkle replied nervously, not even thinking about doing that at all.

Gilda then told her story. "We met at the Junior Speedsters Flight Camp. On my first day there I was...a little bit nervous about what to do and some ponies made fun of me. It was then that Dash stepped in and spent time with me and we teamed up and proved them wrong," she explained. "We've been friends ever since...well...until now," she then added with a frown on her face.

"It's still not too late for that," Star Twinkle assured. It was then that Gilda, for the first time was looking at him as if she believed what he said was true. Star Twinkle was about to say some more comforting words but then he smelled the scones in the oven next to him and figured that he should take them out. He placed them on a nearby table and Gilda quickly took a bite from one of them. It was obvious that the taste changed for the better based on Gilda's surprised reaction on her face.

Of course, Star Twinkle wanted to know what the taste was like and was about to take a bite from one of the scones as well but then Pinkie Pie appeared out of nowhere with panic colored on her face. Of course, Star Twinkle and Gilda were confused about what this was all about but Pinkie quickly came to the point.

"Rainbow Dash is stuck on a ledge in the Abysmal Abyss, and I need your help to save her!" She explained in a rush.

"Got it!" Star Twinkle replied before he looked over to Gilda to await her response as well.

At first, the griffon hesitated. She wanted to play tough and say stuff like "Not my problem" but because she told Star Twinkle the story about first meeting Rainbow Dash, her memories of them being friends were really fresh. For a moment, she thought back about everything that she did with Rainbow Dash while they were still friends, and a tear even formed in one of her eyes.

Of course, the griffon didn't want anypony to see her like this and just wiped it away. Her answer came swiftly. "Fine. I'll help her. But that doesn't make me her friend," she said before she was running towards the direction of the Abysmal Abyss.

"Duly noted," Pinkie Pie replied before she looked over to Star Twinkle. "Except it does!" She then said towards the stallion with a smug smile on her face.

"I know, I know. Let's get moving now," Star Twinkle said, finding Rainbow Dash's rescue a little bit more important than Gilda showing some good in her.

Later...

Star Twinkle was not that surprised to be informed that Rainbow Dash managed to get herself in danger by doing things her own way but, of course, he went to her rescue just like Pinkie Pie and Gilda.

From what Gilda told them, there were really strong winds in the Abysmal Abyss, causing even the most experienced flyer to get some problems. Flying down there was impossible. That is why you needed to climb down there, if at all.

Gilda, since she knew this cliff better than Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie, volunteered to climb down while the two ponies stood on top of it. The griffon wrapped a rope around Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie so that they could pull her, and hopefully, Rainbow Dash up again.

Once the preparations were done, Gilda was going down the cliff. "Hang on, loser! I'm coming!" Gilda screamed down the cliff.

Rainbow Dash looked up from the little part of the platform that she was sitting on. She was positively surprised to see Gilda coming to her rescue. "What took you so long, doofus?!" She said smugly back to her griffon friend.

But even though Gilda was charging right towards the pony, the wind coming from the abyss was just too strong and she was pushed away and had to hold on to the side of the cliff.

Then suddenly, Rainbow Dash began screaming. The platform beneath her was gone now and she fell down. This left both Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie in shock, the later one already acting in response.

"Rainbow Dash! I'm coming for you!" She screamed before she jumped down the cliff, much to Star Twinkle's surprise.

"Oh, not good," the stallion said before he was dragged down the cliff as well, being unable to support the weight of both Gilda and Pinkie Pie.

Soon, the two flew past Gilda, which then was dragged down as well. Pinkie Pie did manage to catch up with Rainbow Dash and grabbed her hoof but they still were speeding down towards the bottom of the cliff.

Then, suddenly, they all came to a hold. Gilda managed to hold on into a platform and prevented the three ponies to fall down. "Hold on, you three!" She said while heavily grunting and trying to climb up the platform so that she could properly pull them all up. "Huh?"

But then she saw something on this platform. It was a giant horned skull with only one eyehole. It was from the Arimaspi who stole the Idol of Boreas long ago and fell into this cliff. Having realized that, it made Gilda look around a little bit more, and soon she found something. It was on a platform on the other side of the cliff just an arms length away. A golden idol.

"The Idol of Boreas!" Gilda said in awe once she met eyes with this beautiful object.

She immediately thought about how happy the griffons would be once it was back in their possession. She tried to reach it while she hung from her platform but she could barely reach it. On top of that, Star Twinkle, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie were still hanging into her.

"I'm slipping!" Rainbow Dash shouted, making Gilda realize that she had to pull the three up quickly.

But at the same time, Gilda was thinking about the future of Griffonstone and tried to grab the Idol of Boreas. She had to make a choice. She either saved her friend or Griffonstone.

In the meantime, Star Twinkle, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie were not aware of that at all and continued screaming, sensing that they would fall any second now.

But then, it happened...

They were pulled upwards. Gilda was standing on the platform she was hanging on earlier and pulled the three ponies up. They all could take a breath for a second after being out of danger again.

"That was way too close..." Star Twinkle said as he laid on his back.

Once Rainbow Dash was up on her hooves again, she quickly saw the Idol of Boreas as well but then the platform crumbled and the idol fell down the cliff, for good this time. The mare looked over to Gilda as if she wanted to know why she didn't grab it.

Gilda gave a quick and heartwarming answer. "You're more important to me than some dumb chunk of gold," she said before she and Rainbow Dash shared a hug.

Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie smiled at each other once they saw how things between the two were resolved again. But unfortunately, they had not enough time for that, in fact, they had no time at all.

The platform was crumbling away and the four were falling down the cliff. Gilda was not able to fly while holding all of them, especially since the winds were so strong and they all were falling down at rapid speed. On top of that, Rainbow Dash was hurt and unable to fly.

Things seemed to go slow for Star Twinkle. He was sure that this was the end and was scared. But in the midst of all this, he actually managed to take a deep breath. He closed his eyes and transformed into a Unicorn.

"Please work, please work, please work!" He thought to himself over and over again while he tried to concentrate and his horn began to glow.

Shortly after, he and his friends disappeared. The four then appeared on top of the cliff, safely. He managed to teleport himself, and his friends, since they were all strapped to him. For a moment, everypony was a little surprised. Pinkie Pie was even still screaming since she thought she was still falling down the cliff until Rainbow Dash poked her and she snapped out of it.

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie both saw Star Twinkle in his Unicorn form and soon realized what happened, causing the pink mare to hug him as thanks. This was a little too close for the stallion and he was just happy that he and his friends were saved. He transformed back before Gilda could even notice his transformation.

"Can we go back please?" Star Twinkle said exhausted, having had enough danger for one day now.

Later in Griffonstone...

The four were back in town. There was not much talking on the way back but that changed until Gilda stepped claw into Griffonstone again. She had a lot of time thinking about what happened after all.

"I'm really sorry about how I treated you three," she said in regret.

"Thanks, Gilda," Rainbow Dash replied.

"Don't worry about it," Star Twinkle said.

"Apology accepted," Pinkie Pie added.

Still, Rainbow Dash felt bad about the idol. "And I'm just sorry we didn't get your idol back. Now we'll never be able to solve Griffonstone's problem," she figured.

"That's what I was trying to tell you!" Pinkie Pie then said, much to everyone's confusion. "The map didn't send us here to find the lost Idol of Boreas. It sent us here to replace it with something better!" She said.

But Gilda had troubles believing that. "Nothing's better than gold to a griffon," she said.

"And still, you saved Rainbow Dash instead of the idol," Star Twinkle pointed out.

"Right!" Pinkie Pie agreed. "And that is what Griffonstone needs, friendship! If you can learn to care about each other again, Griffonstone could be a mightier kingdom than it ever was before! And you don't need some golden idol to do that. You just need each other," she explained.

Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash looked at each other and figured that what she said was true. "Whoa, Pinkie. That was... really sappy," Rainbow Dash still added.

"Eh, what can I say? That's how I roll," Pinkie Pie simply replied, not being bothered by those words. It was then that Pinkie Pie saw Greta, the griffon from before, walking by. She quickly saw an opportunity. "Go on, Gilda! Go make a friend!" She said while she handed her the self-made scones to offer her to Greta.

Still, Rainbow Dash had some worries about all this. "I don't know, Pinkie. You really think these griffons are up for this? We aren't exactly in Ponyville, you know," she pointed out.

But Star Twinkle was optimistic about this. "She just has to start small and get accustomed to it," he explained. He was speaking there from his own experience after all.

It didn't take long until Gilda returned and seemed rather happy. She explained what happened. "Okay, so she was really weirded out until I gave her the scone. Then she tried it and said it tasted good! That's the first nice thing anygriffon's ever said to me!" She said happily. The three ponies were happy to hear this. Things seemed to turn to the better for the griffon.

Shortly after, Rainbow Dash's and Pinkie Pie's Cutie Marks started to glow just like back then at Starlight Glimmer's village after they were done there. It was a sign that the problem was solved and that they could return to Ponyville now.

"Whoa, Pinkie. I guess that really was the problem we needed to solve," Rainbow Dash figured.

Pinkie Pie smiled in response. "Baking powder makes baked goods and friendships fluffy and delicious!" She said in a sales-pony kinda sounding tone.

"That means we can go home now, right?" Star Twinkle figured.

Rainbow Dash nodded in response "Yeah, we'd better be heading home," she agreed.

But hearing that made Gilda quite nervous once she realized what that would mean. "What? Y-Y-You want me to spread friendship here by myself?! How am I supposed to do that?! I haven't even made one single friend yet!" She expressed in a panic.

Rainbow Dash simply put a hoof on the griffon and smiled "No, you haven't. You've made three," she said happily.

Hearing that made Gilda almost tear up. To think that by the end of the day, she would end up being friends with Rainbow Dash again was enough for her to look at herself and Griffonstone differently. She was sure that her hometown would end up getting happier again.

In the meantime, Pinkie Pie had no problems showing her tears in front of everyone "Hugging! Hugging now!" She said as she asked everyone to embrace her and of course, the three did exactly that.

"But you'll come back and visit, right?" Gilda then asked.

Rainbow Dash smiled and gave a quick answer. "Just try and stop us!"

After that, the three ponies were walking away from Griffonstone while waving Gilda goodbye. Star Twinkle was really happy that everything ended up well for not only Gilda but Rainbow Dash as well, and hopefully soon, Griffonstone. It was quite some task for Gilda but they all believed that it was possible.

Pinkie Pie took one last look back at Griffonstone. "See ya later, you old charmer," she said towards King Groover's stone statue.

"What?" Star Twinkle asked confused after hearing those words out of context.

"Uh, Pinkie? Who are you talking to?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Nopony!" The mare replied embarrassed.

And like that, the three were gone again. The way to Ponyville was long but they were all excited to go back, especially after successfully solving the problem that the map asked them to solve. Star Twinkle was not sure if he was needed here since he wasn't called by the map but he just figured that he should accompany the girls on those missions. It can't hurt to do it at least.

...

As the three were walking away from Griffonstone, unbeknownst to them, they were watched by something. It was a weird little creature, round, with tiny wings and big eyes. A Parasprite. At least it looked like one, but at the same time, it didn't. It was mechanical, made out of metal and bolts.

It didn't do anything except looking at the three ponies from the distance. Then, all of a sudden it flew away while making little noises. It was as if this thing was watching them and now it was done with it.

For what reason though was unknown for now.

Author's Notes:

And that sums up the adventure in Griffonstone. I was kinda happy to see Gilda back then when I watched the episode. I don't really get the hate she received but then again, my favorite Character is the Great and Powerful Trixie ^^.

The next chapter is gonna be an OC focused one. Can you guess who will appear? Is it someone familiar at all? Is someone new gonna appear? Or more than one? You will get the answer to that soon ^^.

But just to warn you, the next chapter is gonna be a little bit more...let's say disturbing than what you might be used to in this story. Not nearly as Fallout Equestria or Smile HD disturbing but compared to what you came across this story so far.

You've been warned.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

99. Secrets of Canterlot

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Star Twinkle just came home from work a few minutes ago. He was tired and just wanted to relax for the rest of the day. He already laid in his bed, some snacks next to him, and a book ready to read.

An adventure here and there was unavoidable, that much he was getting used to but still, he needed a day to relax and recover from those things. Today was one of those days.

That's what he thought...

As soon as Star Twinkle was ready to "start" relaxing, somepony knocked on his door.

"Of course..." he just mumbled to himself before he got out of his bed to answer his door.

Seeing a certain pony standing on the other side of the door did not really surprise him. It was Twilight, who had a serious expression on her face.

"Star Twinkle, you need to come," she simply said.

"Of course..." Star Twinkle repeated with a bothered tone in his voice after he figured that the relaxed part of the day was over. "Let me guess...the map?" He asked annoyed.

But Twilight shook her head. "No...it's the princess," she explained.

Now Star Twinkle's attention was grabbed. Whenever Princess Celestia wanted something from them, it usually meant something very serious and threatening for Equestria. It was not as if the stallion could just say "no" now, not if it came from the princess. It looked like another adventure was afoot.

Later in Canterlot...

As usual, the princess was calling not only Star Twinkle and Twilight but the rest of their friends as well. They had to go to the throne room to meet the princess and have her tell them what reason she summoned them to her.

"Whatever could the princess want from us?" Rarity wondered.

But Rainbow Dash claimed to know the answer. "I bet she tells us that some big evil from the past returned and that we need to beat it up!" She said, getting excited to just think about it.

Star Twinkle figured that this would also be the case. Princess Celestia would not call for them if it wasn't important. Something dangerous must be going on that the group has to deal with. Knowing that made Star Twinkle feel rather worried.

The group entered the throne room and the princess was sitting on her throne, but as soon as the group of ponies entered, she stepped forward to them, in order to greet them.

"Princess Celestia, we are here!" Twilight announced towards the Alicorn Princess who was of course already aware of this.

Princess Celestia smiled at Twilight. "I'm glad you could all show up," she said before she decided to cut to the point quickly. "I'm sorry to trouble you with this but I have a task for all of you," she added.

Rainbow Dash got quickly excited. "You want us to beat up a bad guy? Or Rescue a whole country? How about fighting off monsters?" She asked in her excitement before Applejack looked at her as if she wanted to tell her to calm down.

But Princess Celestia paid that no mind and explained. "Something is happening in Canterlot for a while now. I...kinda feel embarrassed to not have done anything on my own so far but things...are complicated..." she said with worry colored on her face before she explained further. "Ponies are disappearing," she said.

The group felt rather surprised to hear that. "Disappearing?" Star Twinkle asked.

The princess nodded. "Ponies seemed to have disappeared for a long time now but they always showed up days later without any memories about what happened to them. That is why I ignored it for so long. But I fear that something or someone is behind all of this and I fear for the citizens of Canterlot," she explained.

Fluttershy tried to see the positive thing about this. "Maybe they just forgot their way home and were lost for a while?" She casually brought up.

Pinkie Pie joined in as well. "Or maybe someone is giving them a secret party that no one is supposed to know of!"

Star Twinkle simply shook his head. "A party that no one is aware of is not much of a party, don't you think?" He pointed out.

Of course, Princess Celestia knew it better. "That is highly unlikely. The first time it happened, I sent the Royal Guards to look for the missing ponies. They were not able to find them and then, days later, the missing ponies were back home safely with no memory of what happened to them at that time," she explained.

"But why?" Twilight asked confused. "You said the ponies didn't remember what happened to them. Is there something else? And was there something that they all had in common?"

"No," Princess Celestia replied before she tipped her chin for a moment. "As far as I know, no Earth Pony was missing so far but that is about it. Strangely enough, the ponies were not hurt or robbed of anything," she further informed. "But it happens so often that it can't be normal. It almost feels organized, which is why I believe that someone is behind all of this," she explained.

By now, this whole situation was sounding rather weird. "So there is somepony, who is ponynapping ponies...but releases them a few days after without harming them?" Applejack summarized.

"Whether that someone is hurting the ponies of Canterlot or not, there is someone out there who pony-naps them, and that is something that can not be ignored," she said sternly. "That is why I brought you all here," she said.

This all sounded pretty dangerous, depending on who that pony-napper was. Star Twinkle instantly remembered some dangerous ponies on the loose, like Mystic, or Fade. Grace, the Witch of Equestria was also a possibility given how the rumors about her indicated that she was pony-napping fillies in Equestria, according to the scary stories that one would tell to little ponies to scare them.

But with Princess Celestia giving them this task, there was not much choice for them to ignore that, especially for Twilight who was not even thinking about letting the princess down or watching more ponies getting pony-napped.

"You can count on us, Princess Celestia!" Twilight said, causing her friends to support her on those words almost instantly.

Princess Celestia was happy to hear that and smiled at her. But soon, she had a more stern expression on her face again. "As I said before, the one behind this was doing it rather organized. I expect that the culprit is striking today again. You need to be careful and keep your eyes open. Also, don't try to let this be known to the public. It would create a panic in Canterlot that I would likely avoid."

With all the information given to them, the seven ponies walked outside the throne room and were ready to tackle this task. The princess was still worried about them but she figured that if somepony would be able to complete this task, then it would be them.

Later...

The group was walking through Canterlot together, all while keeping their eyes and ears open. They looked for everything that was suspicious in the hope that they would find some clues about all this. But this is where they realized something.

"What do we do now?" Star Twinkle asked into the round, only to receive some confused looks of his friends.

It was true that they had not much to go with. They knew that there was most likely someone pony-napping ponies, and that was about it. The ponies also didn't remember what happened to them so there was nothing that could help them as well. There was not much information to go with at all.

"I don't know what to do either," Twilight said. "But I do know that the princess is believing in us to solve this problem so we have to try our best to not let her down," she further said.

Rarity decided to see the positive things about all this. "I for one welcome this as a chance to spend some time in Canterlot," she said as she had already planned to visit a few shops soon.

But Applejack reminded her why they were here. "We are not on vacation here, Rarity," she scolded. "We are here because ponies are in danger," she pointed out.

"In danger of what?" Rainbow Dash then pointed out. "All we know is that ponies disappear and reappear soon after! Without a scratch on them! Not much danger if you ask me," she said as she was crossing her forelegs in midair as if she was actually a little disappointed in all of this.

Still, Twilight was not too sure about this. "But there must be a reason for those ponies to disappear. What could the culprit want from the ponies? And is it a coincidence that no Earth Pony was targeted so far?" She started to question herself and her friends.

The group was at a loss. There was no hint to follow as far as they could tell, leaving them quite frustrated. But despite all that, Twilight was determined to find the answer.

"Let's all split up!" She then suggested. "If we all go and look in separate places then we have a bigger chance to find some clues," she figured.

But Star Twinkle was not liking this idea. "So you want us to split up so that we could potentially be pony-napped by someone in this town?" He pointed out.

"The culprit is not going after Earth Ponies so you should be fine," Pinkie Pie pointed out casually.

"We don't know that for certain!" Star Twinkle exclaimed frustrated.

To some extent, Star Twinkle was agreeing with this plan since it would, most likely, end up getting them further to solve this problem. He eventually agreed with this plan and the seven ponies split up to look around Canterlot. One of them would find a clue eventually. Time was also not on their side since there was only today was the day for somepony to get pony-napped according to Princess Celestia.

What Star Twinkle still didn't like was that they all were split up so that they were all on their own. With his luck, he would be the one to be captured. He thought about every single option that would not make him a target, what could a pony-napper do with him anyway. And maybe Pinkie Pie was right that this "Pony-napper" was just taking ponies away to give them a secret party. The ponies would not get hurt after all so maybe this was a big misunderstanding just like his recent adventure in Appleloosa with Trouble Shoes.

But once Star Twinkle was caught into this train of thought, something suspicious appeared close to him, something that was definitely out of the ordinary and worth checking out further.

A Parasprite, or at least it looked like one. It was a mechanical object flying not too far away from his sight, it was round, had wings, and big eyes and was definitely supposed to represent a Parasprite but if one would expect it closer they would definitely see that it was not.

Of course, Star Twinkle wanted to know what this thing was and if it was connected to the pony-nappings so he followed it...from far away. For the rare chance that this thing was belonging to this pony-napper then he had to be careful.

"I could tell the others that I found something..." Star Twinkle figured as he was slowly following the mechanical Parasprite. "But I can't let this thing get away!"

He would get further if he would know where this thing was going instead of telling his friends what to look out for after all.

Soon, exactly that happened. He watched the mechanical Parasprite stopping in front of a house before eventually flying inside on one of the windows on the upper floor. This was weird and not normal, something was telling Star Twinkle this. It was definitely not ordinary this much he could agree on.

"I have to tell the others," he whispered to himself from around the corner of another house from where he watched this thing.

The stallion turned around so that he could sprint to find one of his friends but he stopped immediately once he noticed how someone was standing in front of him all of the sudden.

POW!

Before he could even notice who it was, the stallion got knocked out by a magic blast and collapsed to the ground before eventually falling unconscious.

Later...

The six mares already met up again after some time has passed since they split up. They did not find anything suspicious and were at a loss.

"Find anything?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"No," Fluttershy replied. "I even asked some birds to look for something but they had no luck either..." she said with a frown on her face.

"We can't give up yet!" Twilight said with determination in her voice. "The princess is expecting us to take care of this!" She reminded everyone.

Once some time has passed between the group though, they realized that someone of them was missing.

"Where is Star Twinkle? It's really unlike him to be late," Rarity wondered.

But the group didn't know where he was of course. It didn't take long though until they all shared the same thought.

"You don't think that he got...you know?" Fluttershy asked into the round with some worry in her voice.

"Nah, Star Twinkle wouldn't let himself get caught that easily!" Rainbow Dash assured confidently. However, that confidence did not last for too long. "Right?" She then added a little nervously.

It was then Applejack who spoke for everypony. "Then we have to save him!" She said getting the support of her friends immediately.

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie then said a little bit more serious than usual before she had a confused look on her face. "But where do we start to look?" She then asked confused.

"Uh..." Applejack could only reply since she had no idea where to look.

Surprisingly, Twilight was not too worried about all this. "If Star Twinkle really was pony-napped," Twilight said before she then formed a determined expression on her face. "...Then I know where he is!" The girls seemed surprised to hear that.

"How?" Rarity asked confused, in the name of everypony else.

Twilight explained. "Since Princess Celestia was sure that today was the day where the pony-napper would strike again, I had to take some precautions. I put a spell on each of you. I can use my magic to track you down with it in case one of you would have gotten pony-napped. I just had to do it in case one of you would be the next targets," she said with some regret in her voice as if she knew that it was wrong.

"And when were you planning on telling us that!?" Applejack asked offended, understandably.

"When did you even have the chance to do that?" Rarity added.

"Does that matter now!?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

"Yes," Fluttershy agreed. "Star Twinkle might be in danger so we should be lucky for Twilight's action," the mare pointed out.

Once that was settled, Twilight used her magic to focus on her spell. Once she activated it, the rest of her friends started to glow a little bit.

"Oh! Shiny!" Pinkie Pie said excitedly at her own sight.

Shortly after, Twilight stopped her spell. "Follow me, girls!" She then said before she ran to where she suspected Star Twinkle to be at.

The girls followed the mare closely. They just had to believe in Twilight's spell to work. They didn't have to walk for long until they came across the same house that Star Twinkle came across. It looked just like any other house in Canterlot and didn't stand out much.

The girls looked through the windows, with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy taking care of the upper floor. The two Pegasi then came back with confused looks on their faces. "Nothing," Rainbow Dash said.

"Nothing here either," Applejack added. "Doesn't even look like as if somepony lives here," she figured.

But Twilight was sure that her spell was leading her to this place. "Then we have to go inside!" She said sternly.

Of course, Fluttershy was having second thought about that. "Um...is it really okay if we-"

BAM!

But Rainbow Dash knocked the door open without hesitation.

"-break in?" Fluttershy finished after she realized what had already happened.

Eventually, the worry about Star Twinkle was bigger than the fear of doing something wrong for the mare and she joined her friends to look around the house.

As far as they could tell, there was nothing suspicious inside. A normal living room, with a kitchen next to it, a bath, all clean and looking as if it was brand new. And judging from how Rarity was not freaking out about any of the decor it was not too bad looking either.

But still, all that did not help any of the girls since this was just a normal looking house from what they could tell.

Twilight focused her magic once more to check if this was the right place. She soon found out that Star Twinkle was here but not on the same floor. He was beneath them. But strangely enough, there was no staircase leading down anywhere. Twilight used her magic once more, this time focusing on it a lot more to pinpoint his exact location. Soon, she was following the "signal" to a bookshelf.

"What is it, Twilight?" Applejack asked.

But Twilight didn't answer and inspected the bookshelf a little more. After removing a few books, she found a button with a hoof on it, which was previously blocked by the books. She pressed it and the bookshelf started to shake, causing her to step away a little bit.

The bookshelf was then revealing a secret staircase that would lead down. This was all screaming suspicious and soon the girls had to agree that Star Twinkle was in potential danger now.

"Let's go!" Twilight ordered before she ran down the staircase with her friends following her.

They all started to get worried now. The staircase was going down quite a while and the more they ran down, the darker it got, making them all feel quite uneasy. It was then that lights started to appear after a while, to lighten up the place.

They then came across an entrance. They didn't even think about taking a subtle approach and Applejack and Rainbow Dash both bashed the door open. Another room awaited them after this and they found what they were looking for.

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight exclaimed.

The stallion was strapped to a table and was unconscious and next to him was someone who instantly escaped into another room as soon as the group stepped in, it must have been the one who captured Star Twinkle and all the other ponies of Canterlot. They were about to follow the culprit but Star Twinkle's safety was more important now.

The girls freed the stallion and tried to wake him. He had no scratch on him as well, which calmed some of the girls down again. It didn't take long until Star Twinkle slowly opened his eyes again.

"Wuh?" The stallion cleverly let out after waking up again.

"Thank goodness you're okay!" Fluttershy said in relief.

Star Twinkle was a little bit confused to see his friends in front of him. He also looked around to see that he was in a strange room with tools hanging on the walls and the table where he was previously strapped on. It kinda looked like what you would get if you would mix an operation room with a carpenter workshop. Everything was metallic which gave the room a really weird feeling.

Star Twinkle had a million questions right now, but the most important one was already answered by Rarity.

"Some ruffian pony-napped you and strapped you to this table!" She said with disgust in her voice.

"You were lucky that we came before this someone did something to you," Applejack added.

Still, Star Twinkle was confused. "Who pony-napped me?" He then asked confused.

"We are about to find out," Twilight said before she walked towards the door where the culprit went through before. Everypony was standing right behind her, even Star Twinkle, who felt okay again was standing right behind her. He wanted to know who was pony-napping him, and for what reason.

Twilight carefully opened the door with her magic, it was not locked barricaded from the other side strangely. The screeching of the door was echoing through the whole room before it eventually was practically slammed open as soon as the group saw what was inside of it.

The group was left stunned. They didn't know what to say. It was weird, it was confusing and almost scary. They did not know what exactly they were looking at but they were shocked nonetheless.

"What is all this?" Star Twinkle said in surprise.

But he got no answer since they had to comprehend what they saw. There were several shelves on the sides filled with jars that had either some unknown liquids or dust inside of them, there were feathers presented in glass cases and several other weird things.

Things got even worse as soon as the ponies started to inspect some of those things. The shelf with all the jars that had dust in them had a little sign in front of them that said "Horns".

"I think I'm gonna be sick!" Rarity said in disgust.

"I'm starting to think that there is no secret party going on here," Pinkie Pie figured.

"What is this place!?" Rainbow Dash added into all this. "Is this some kind of laboratory of a mad scientist!?" She said, half expecting this to be the case.

Star Twinkle was walking up to one of the shelves and was about to pick them up to inspect them further but the next words he heard stopped him in his attempt.

"Please be careful while you look at those," a male voice said casually.

Hearing that voice made the seven ponies all stand in attention to be ready for who would show himself. A shadowy figure then slowly stepped out from the dark and revealed itself to be an Earth Pony with a light brown coat, a dark brown messy mane, orange eyes, and a light bulb as a Cutie Mark. He was also wearing a necklace with a hoof-shaped gem in the middle of it.

Star Twinkle was the only one who recognized that pony immediately. He desperately tried to remember the name of this pony, which came to him pretty swiftly.

"Tinker!?" He said in surprise.

The rest of his friends quickly picked up on that. "You know this guy?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Star Twinkle explained. "I met him here in Canterlot back at the wedding of Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, before the Changeling attack. He was also the one who I had to look for to repair the Anti-Magic-Device that was used in the Equestria Games."

Having said all of that, he remembered how weird this pony was, which was probably why he was staying in his memory all this time. Still, he never expected this stallion to be a pony-napper. Tinker had a pretty neutral expression on his face. He did not seem angry or surprised to see all those ponies at his place. He did not seem too happy about it either though.

"I would like you to stay quiet and don't touch anything while I attend to my research again," he said casually.

"Research?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

"You mean this!?" Twilight added as she pointed to the shelves in this room.

Tinker just shrugged his shoulders. "Isn't it obvious?" He replied.

Applejack then stepped forward. "You are the one who pony-napped the ponies of Canterlot isn't that right!?" She asked trying to get confirmation about Tinker being the pony-napper.

Tinker gave a quick and casual answer. "Yes, I am," he said.

Now Twilight stepped forward with a serious expression on her face. "What did you do with all those ponies!?" She then asked.

The Earth Pony looked over to the shelves next to him with a proud look on his face. "I gathered research. Can't you tell by all of this?" He asked.

Rarity got visibly more sick after hearing that. "You mean those jars with are..." she said as she looked over the jars, mainly to the ones that had the "Horn" sign in front of them and the feathers.

"Yes. Samples that I got from Unicorn horns and feathers from Pegasus Ponies that would help me in my research," he casually explained.

Twilight did not like hearing that at all. "That is your explanation for pony-napping everyone?" She asked indignantly.

"You can't just pony-nap others and collect samples from them!" Star Twinkle added.

Tinker just shrugged his shoulders. "I did not remove that much. A few feathers missing from a wing will not make much of a difference, same goes for some dust that I rasped away from some horns," he said in order to defend himself.

"But that is wrong!" Twilight pointed out.

"No, it's messed up!" Rainbow Dash added angrily.

"Yes," Fluttershy added. "I know I would not let anypony do something like that to me," she said while she stood behind her friends since she was a little afraid of Tinker right about now.

The brown-coated Earth Pony rolled his eyes after hearing those comments. "That is why I made sure that the ponies I took were unconscious so that they would not have a chance to disagree," he said.

The fact that Tinker talked about something like this without a hint of regret in his voice made Star Twinkle and Twilight feel both angry and disturbed at the same time. Star Twinkle felt as if he needed to say something to the stallion in his disgust. But it was then that Twilight was taking action, much to everyone's surprise.

"In the name of Princess Celestia, you are under arrest for ponynapping and hurting the ponies of Equestria!" Twilight announced in a serious tone like Star Twinkle never heard her before. Of course, Star Twinkle agreed with Twilight's decision, a pony that was doing acts like this without showing any signs of regretting them was too dangerous to walk around freely.

But while those words from the Princess Friendship were still echoing through the room, Tinker did not feel intimidated or worried at all. "I'd rather not be arrested..." Tinker replied. "There are still some things that I need to know. So many things that I need to know more about. Things that I still need to take a closer look at," he said before he smiled at Star Twinkle. "Including you, Starfall Twinkle," he said with a creepy smile on his face.

Of course, Star Twinkle felt really uneasy hearing those words. He even began to get a little nervous. Twilight noticed how Tinker was talking towards Star Twinkle and that is where she had enough. Just minutes ago he was pony-napping Star Twinkle to do things to him she didn't want to imagine. It was then when she had enough. She aimed her horn at Tinker and was ready to fire a magic beam at the pony. Tinker did not seem worried one bit and kept looking at the mare unimpressed. Twilight clenched her teeth and shortly after, she shot at the stallion, who didn't make any signs of dodging the attack.

It was a direct hit...

Or at least that is what should have happened...

Tinker was unharmed. Before the beam made contact with him, it seemed to have vanished into thin air.

"What!?" Twilight said in shock after she noticed it that her attack didn't do anything. "I thought I was hitting him directly!" She said in disbelieve.

Star Twinkle remained silent. He saw what happened but before he could explain, Twilight shot another magic beam at the stallion. This time, she made sure to look at what happened. The beam was about to hit Tinker but in the last second, his necklace was glowing for a moment. The magic beam did not vanish but instead was being sucked in by the necklace.

"That necklace...its absorbing magic!?" Star Twinkle said in confusion after he witnessed what happened in front of him once more.

"Indeed," Tinker replied as if it was the most normal thing ever.

Twilight glared at the stallion. "What is that necklace? Where did you get that!?" She asked.

"I built it," Tinker replied proudly. "One of my many inventions that I was able to make after analyzing and experimenting on so many ponies," he said with a smile on his face which shortly after vanished again. "As an Earth Pony, I was not granted to have the ability to use magic or flying, like you Unicorns and Pegasus. Unfair, I say! I had to make up for it! Surely my great mind was not destined to do some kind of primitive job that required brute muscle strength like working as a simple farm pony!"

"Hey!" Applejack said, taking offense to those words.

But Tinker continued and ignore the mare. "I had the mind to do great things!" He said before he once more presented his necklace. "This necklace makes me immune to magic. No spell will be able to break through it. Every spell will just be absorbed and nullified if it is closing into me! And that is just the beginning! Can you imagine what else I could do as time goes on!? So many great things that I can invent if I gather more information!"

The stallion then looked over to the ponies who were all glaring at him. His eyes shifted over to Twilight once more, which sent down shivers on her back. "I am not as fortunate as some of you at all. I am not fit to ascend to an Alicorn," he said before he looked over to Star Twinkle again. "And neither am I lucky enough to get dragged into events that would let me archive the Terra Unisus Transformation like you or Summershine," he said as he kept looking at Star Twinkle as if he was envying him for a moment.

Of course, Star Twinkle quickly picked up on what Tinker said there. "Summershine? You know Summershine?" He then asked confused. It was the name of the Unicorn stallion that attacked him back when Tirek was attacking Twilight. That one pony that appeared in his memories. The pony who erased Star Twinkle's memories. The stallion stepped up for a moment. "What do you know about him? Tell me!" He begged.

It was a really bad time to ask for something like this now, especially since Tinker was not the most trustworthy and sane pony to talk now but he had to take this chance. He had the chance to find out something about Summershine. That one pony that he should know. There were only bits and pieces that he knew about Summershine. Star Twinkle knew that Summershine used a memory erase spell on him. He also knew that he entrusted the Elements of Harmony to him. But all those little information were not painting a complete picture for him since the rest of Star Twinkle's memories were a complete mess. He had to know more and Tinker could provide him with that information.

Tinker was actually willing to continue talking about all this, much to Star Twinkle's surprise.

"The Memory Erase Spell. Thanks to my necklace I was spared to get my memories changed. I can't imagine having to live with some things missing in my head," the stallion said annoyed. "But Summershine claimed to do it because he wanted to protect you and your friends...from who was inside of him," he explained.

"Inside of him?" Star Twinkle asked. "Who was inside of him?" He asked further.

Tinker replied. "Ashgray," he simply said. "The one who attacked you in Ponyville after you all took care of Tirek with the chest that was created from the Tree of Harmony," he explained.

Star Twinkle did not recall this name at all. He figured that he should but then again he was targeted by a Memory Erase Spell so that might be why he didn't remember. Ashe was thinking about this though, things sounded really suspicious for Twilight and she finally had to speak up about it.

"How do you know all of this? About Summershine, what happened in Ponyville, and the Tree of Harmony?" She asked.

It was weird that Tinker knew about all of this after Star Twinkle thought about it. This pony knew about things that he shouldn't. Was Tinker there when his memories got erased? Did he know Tinker?

But the answer then came in form of something that Star Twinkle actually did recognize. It was hovering towards Tinker from out of nowhere. It was the little mechanical Parasprite from before. It landed on Tinker's head and the stallion smiled proudly. "Isn't it obvious?" He said before he continued. "A Mechasprite," he simply said before the little thing started to use some kind of magic to project pictures in front of the stallion. It showed Twilight and the rest of the friends in front of Tinker's door, right before they came to Star Twinkle's rescue. "It records everything that it sees and can show it to me. I use it to gather information so that I don't have to leave my home and can continue to focus on my inventions," he explained.

"Wait!" Rarity then interrupted. "You are spying on other ponies!?" She then asked before she covered her body with her hooves just thinking about what this guy might have seen with these things.

"That's not really nice!" Pinkie Pie said angrily.

But Tinker could not care less, in fact, he was sighing in disappointment. "One day I just had to give up my home for the sake of science...what a shame. It will put back some of my progress but I am willing to do that if I want to get out of here," he figured.

But that was not sitting right with any of the ponies standing in front of him. "And you think that we will just let you leave?" Applejack said with her friends agreeing on her words.

"No I don't," Tinker said calmly before he turned around and headed to another door to leave this room.

"Hold it right there!" Rainbow Dash said as she was punching her front hooves together before she then rushed towards Tinker. If magic doesn't work then she had to do it the old fashioned way, is what she thought.

"Rainbow Dash, wait!" Star Twinkle warned but the mare already was charging at the Earth Pony and could not react to his words.

The reason for Star Twinkle's warning soon came in action as soon as two little towers appeared next to Tinker. Magic was coming out from the towers and created a shield in front of the pony, which caused Rainbow Dash to crash into it, knocking her back again. The shield protected Tinker from Rainbow Dash's charge.

Tinker just smiled seeing how another one of his inventions was helping him out. He then walked towards the door and closed it behind himself, leaving for good this time.

"He's getting away!" Applejack exclaimed.

"We can't let him escape!" Star Twinkle added.

In the meantime, Rainbow Dash tried to kick down the shield in front of her in order to break it but she was not successful with it. "I can't get through!" She said frustrated and angrily. Applejack soon joined her and the two both tried to kick the shield down but no matter how much they tried, the thing would not break at all.

Soon, Twilight had an idea though. "Gather next to me!" She said, causing the ponies to do as she said. Twilight then focused her magic and soon the whole group disappeared and reappeared behind the shield.

"Oh," Rainbow Dash said once she realized how easy Twilight dealt with this problem.

The group then went to the door that Tinker went through in order to chase him again. The next room was not too big and Tinker could be seen preparing something in one corner of the room, his back turned towards them.

The seven ponies figured that this was the perfect opportunity to attack him and all charged towards the stallion. However, Tinker turned around and aimed his hoof at them. Suddenly, a beam of magic was shot at the group, causing them to all move to the side in order to dodge away.

They all got confused about what happened. How did Tinker shot magic at them all of a sudden, he was an Earth Pony after all.

The answer was an object on Tinker's left hoof. It looked like some kind of armor piece but there was something else on it. The first thing that came to mind to the group was a cannon. With the help of that, Tinker was shooting magic at the seven ponies.

"You should all really consider yourself lucky. Nopony has ever seen so many of my inventions in action before. Don't you see how far I've come by gathering research and information from other ponies? All those ponies that I captured served their purpose," he said proudly.

Twilight was sick of hearing that but at the same time, she tried to talk to him one more time. "Tinker, your inventions are all great but the way you obtained them is wrong," she said in a more composed manner this time. "You are capturing other ponies, you hurt and use them for all of this. What you are doing is wrong! Don't tell me you don't realize that!"

The rest of her friends agreed with Twilight's words and they were also willing to forgive Tinker if he reconsidered his actions. They hoped that he would realize how wrong he was by using other ponies to advance his inventions. He was not stupid after all, surely he knew that running away would also not be the best action to take if he continued like this. He would be a criminal on the run and he surely knew that this was no way to live.

Then came Tinker's answer...

"I'm never wrong!" Tinker said with a bitter tone in his voice. "All I do is to help me grow more intelligent. All the information that I gather is to serve me and my inventions. "Hurting other ponies and using them," you say. Pain is not lasting forever and so is the feeling of being used. But the knowledge that I gather stays forever! I need to know everything in this world! I need to discover all the secrets out there and collect them. And if other ponies can provide them to me then I will take it from them! What is one pony after all if it means gathering more knowledge!?"

Those words echoed through the room. It left the group stunned to hear them from Tinker. Star Twinkle especially got scared by those words. He looked at the pony in front of him in shock. He could not believe that Tinker was not even seeing how wrong his actions are. He needed to be stopped, he needed to be stopped fast. He might not be as powerful as Discord or Tirek but this pony was dangerous, and the way he was thinking was even more dangerous. They could not let him escape.

But Tinker seemed to have already prepared something to make his escape. He was standing on top of some kind of platform. Next to it stood a little wooden cart with some boxes on it. Tinker smiled and waved over to the group, mainly to Star Twinkle.

"I know we will meet again someday. I hope then I will get some time to research you properly," he said with a sinister grin on his face.

ZAP!

Then suddenly, he was gone. He disappeared into thin air as if he teleported away.

The seven ponies quickly rushed towards the platform that Tinker was standing on. They knew that this was what was letting him escape just now. And that was the problem, Tinker got away...

Later...

Princess Celestia was quickly informed about the things that happened in Tinker's home. The seven ponies told her all about his inventions and how he managed to build them with the help of "samples" from the ponies that he pony-napped.

The whole town was turned upside down by the Royal Guards to look for the stallion but no one was able to find him. Considering how he was traveling with a cart, he should have not been so hard to find unless he teleported himself way further away than Canterlot.

Of course, Twilight was blaming herself for all of this but Princess Celestia often claimed that it was her own fault to not have acted earlier. Tinker was gone, that is all that they knew now and knowing that certainly made them nervous. The thought that he was spying on the ponies of Equestria and pony-napped them somewhere else now was discomforting, to say the least.

Just like Canterlot, Tinker's home was taken care of as well. Princess Celestia did not know what to do with the stuff that she found in those jars yet but everyone quickly agreed to somehow get rid of it. Having feathers and horn remains laying around was just too creepy.

Star Twinkle and his friends were also still inside and looked around to find something suspicious. It was not long until Twilight came across a big machine with some buttons on it. "I think I found something," she said as she looked over the thing in front of her.

Her friends quickly came to her side to see for themselves. Star Twinkle looked at one of the buttons and read out loud what was next to it. "Mechasprite call back command?"

"Press it! Press it!" Pinkie Pie excited while bouncing on the spot.

"Should we really activate any of the things in here? They could be dangerous," Star Twinkle pointed out.

But the group decided to press the button on the machine anyway. Twilight had a good assumption of what this machine would do. At first, they all regretted doing this because the machine started to shake a little but it calmed down soon and was then running quietly.

Nothing happened for a while but soon, A Mechasprite came flying into the room, then another, and another one, and another one. More and more Mechasprites came flying into the room and landed next to the running machine. It left the group quite stunned.

"So many of them!?" Star Twinkle said in surprise.

"Those must be a hundred at least!" Twilight figured.

Rarity began to cringe. "Just the thought that somepony was watching me the whole time!" She said in disgust as she looked around nervously.

Princess Celestia was taking a look at all of this as well. She did not like this at all. "Those things need to be destroyed or deactivated. Every single one of them. Only then will the ponies of Equestria feel safe again," she ordered.

The ponies did as Princess Celestia ordered and took care of it. Rainbow Dash was especially enjoying to smash those things into pieces. The same could not be said about Fluttershy though who was apologizing to every single one of those things before she tried to smash them, which most likely came from the design of those things. Still, they were only machines and they needed to be taken care of. There was always a possibility that Tinker would rebuild a machine like this somewhere else and called all of those things back to him.

The whole place was a mess after a while, metal and bolts were scattered all over the place which needed to be cleaned off soon. But that could still wait because there was still the last room that needed to be looked at. The room with the teleporter which Tinker used to escape. Of course, no one was able to get this thing to work. There could also be a possibility that Tinker made sure that it would no longer work just so that he could escape. He probably prepared his escape before the group even arrived at his house. He had his Mechasprites to keep an eye out after all and knew that the group would be going after him soon.

Other than the teleporter, there was not much else inside the last room. There was a bookshelf with multiple books and no secret passage behind it, a table in one corner of the room, and one more thing. The last thing was the most suspicious one. It was something big covered under a black sheet. Of course, the curiosity of everyone in the room was too big to take a look at what was under it so they decided to remove the sheet.

A big machine with a glass window in the center of it from which you could see someone sitting inside of it.

"Goodness, somepony is inside!" Fluttershy said in surprise.

Twilight was clenching her eyes for a moment and took a look at the pony inside. She was surprised to find out that this was not necessarily a pony, at least not for the most parts. It was a pony, for the most part, but it wasn't an Earth Pony, Unicorn or Pegasus. This pony had long ears, sharp teeth, and bat-like wings.

"A Batpony..." Twilight said in awe.

Star Twinkle looked over to Twilight, confusion was colored on his face. "Batpony?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight explained. "Bat ponies are a really rare species that was said to be gone long ago," she said.

"Didn't Princess Luna have two of them as her guards as well? Back at Nightmare Night?" Applejack pointed out.

"Yes," Princess Celestia said as she approached the machine as well. "It is as Twilight said, not many Batponies are left in Equestria. They vanished long ago for unknown reasons. Back when Luna was around, a thousand years ago, they were of them. Batponies prefer the night and Luna was like a symbol for them. Many of them were joining her as her Royal Guards and even stayed by her side after she became Nightmare Moon. But once I banned her into the moon, the Batponies started to vanish." Princess Celestia was visibly showing guilt once she had to remember what she did to her sister but she continued anyway. "Once Luna returned, a good few of them showed up again and joined her guards, just as you said Applejack," she explained.

Hearing this story was fascinating for the seven ponies. Still, it did not explain why there was one of those Batponies inside this machine. But soon they figured that Tinker was most likely well aware of how rare a Batpony was so he decided to keep one for his...research.

The group quickly decided to free the Batpony. It did not take long for them to find a button that would open the machine. As soon as the door opened of the machine, Star Twinkle started to feel really dizzy.

"Does anypony else feel really sleepy all of the sudden?" The stallion asked before he yawned loudly and rubbed his eyes.

"It must be coming from inside this machine," Twilight said. "I guess it is supposed to keep this Batpony asleep," she said with a frown on her face. Just another object for Tinker to research. It made her sick thinking about it.

Star Twinkle grabbed the Batpony out of the machine and laid her softly on the ground. She was still asleep and the stallion was not in a rush to wake her up anytime soon. This was the first time that Star Twinkle saw a Batpony up this close.

The Batpony was female. She had a navy blue colored coat and a white mane. On her flank was a Cutie Mark in the form of a full moon made out of a white crystal that had bat wings coming out from both sides.

"What should we do with her?" Star Twinkle said as he looked over to his friends.

"Maybe she is going to join Princess Luna's Royal Guard?" Pinkie Pie figured in an optimistic tone.

"I think we all should make sure the girl is alright before we decided," Applejack pointed out.

But Twilight had other ideas. "And we need to make sure that we get to know her really good," she said casually before her friends looked at her strange. "Come on! I have so many questions about her and Batponies in general! I can't let the opportunity to talk with one slip!"

The girls smiled at each other after hearing that. "Okay, as long as you don't experiment on her and all," Applejack said jokingly.

"I'm not!" Twilight said embarrassed, knowing that Applejack was talking about Tinker.

The group started to laugh at Twilight's reaction. Considering what the group went through a while ago, a good laugh like this is all they needed now.

While the group was laughing though, the eyes of the Batpony started to slowly open. All those noises must have woken her up. She looked up to Star Twinkle who noticed how she looked at him with tired eyes. The stallion smiled as soon as he looked into her orange eyes but she had no idea what to say or how to react.

In the meantime, the girls still laughed cheerfully. They didn't notice how the Batpony woke up just now. But that changed as soon as they heard a loud smack. They looked at Star Twinkle and found him laying on the ground, pinned down by the Batpony who was still holding one of his legs up so that he would remain on the ground, unable to free himself.

Everyone looked at the Batpony with a glare on their faces. She had Star Twinkle pinned down and was keeping a tight hold on him so that he could not move.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing!?" Applejack said sternly as she walked over to the two.

But as soon as she got closer, the Batpony only tightened her grip on the stallion. "Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow!" The stallion said in pain with his face pressed to at the ground.

Applejack then stepped back once she saw how Star Twinkle was in potential danger. The Batpony just scanned her eyes across the group. Her eyes were elliptically-shaped, unlike the ones from other ponies, a trait from a Batpony. She did not seem to be letting her guard down in front of anyone in the room. That was until she saw one certain pony in the room.

"Princess Celestia!?" She said in a surprised tone, causing the princess to walk up to the Batpony.

"There is no need to be nervous, nopony here wants to hurt you," Princess Celestia assured.

Hearing those words from Princess Celestia herself seemed to get the Batpony's attention and maybe even her trust. She looked more confused now than serious. And after some painful noises that Star Twinkle released once more, the Batpony released her grip and stepped away from him, much to the stallion's delight, who crawled away a little since he didn't want to end up like this again. The girls also sighed in relief after Star Twinkle was free again and the Batpony was hopefully willing to listen now.

"What is your name?" Princess Celestia asked as soon as the situation settled down a little.

The Batpony still kept her distance. She was still keeping her guard up but she answered the question of the princess.

"Noire...Noire Gloom..." the Batpony answered hesitantly before she looked around the place. She clearly was still confused about the whole situation. "What is this place? And who are you all?" She asked.

Twilight then stepped up and explained. "We're in Canterlot. This pony, Tinker, he most likely pony-err...Batnapped you, and kept you inside of this thing," she said as she pointed at the machine where Noire was inside a few moments ago.

Noire only lowered her eyebrows confused. "Canterlot? Tinker?" She asked confused. "So this is not the Crystal Empire?" She added.

"No, it isn't," Twilight replied. "Don't you remember anything?" She asked.

The Batpony scratched her head for a moment. "No...All I remember is that I was leaving the Crystal Empire along with-" but then she stopped and her face was filled with panic. "Lumi!" She then exclaimed. "Where is Lumi!?" She said as she looked around as if she was looking for someone.

The group got confused for a moment. "Who is Lumi?" Pinkie Pie asked.

Princess Celestia explained. "I'm afraid you are the only one we found in here," she said.

Noire did not seem to like hearing this. "What!? But...I gotta find her! King Sombra is still out there!" She exclaimed in a panic.

And once again, the group got confused. "King Sombra?" Twilight asked. "What does he have to do with all of this?"

Noire tried to calm down a bit and then explained. "The Crystal Empire returned and along with it, King Sombra! He might just be a shadow now but he is still out there trying to take over the empire! That means that Lumi is still in danger!"

Hearing Noire talk about King Sombra like this was reminding all the ponies about the event long ago when they were entering the Crystal Empire for the first time. Her explanation made it all sound all too familiar. It also sounded as if Noire was sleeping for a long time now if those are the most recent events that she remembered.

It was then that Rainbow Dash explained some things to Noire. "Yeah, about King Sombra, we totally took care of him no problem and saved the whole empire." she boasted.

"Actually it was Star Twinkle and Spike who saved the empire!" Pinkie Pie corrected casually, much to Rainbow Dash's dislike.

Noire was not believing the words of Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie but Princess Celestia confirmed it for her. "Thanks to actions of those seven ponies in front of you, and someone else who is not present yet, the Crystal Empire is now safe again and under the rule of two fair rulers," she explained.

"One of them being my big brother!" Twilight added proudly with a smile on her face.

The Batpony seemed positively surprised to hear this. "So...King Sombra is no more?" She asked, causing everypony to nod in response. It was then that Noire smiled for the first time. "That's great news!" She said happily before she remembered why she got into a panic before. "But I still need to find Lumi!"

"Who is this Lumi you keep talking about?" Star Twinkle finally asked.

Noire explained. "She is my best friend! A Crystal Pony. Her name is Luminous Purity! And I need to find her!" She said before she opened her bat wings in order to fly into the air.

But Twilight reached out her hoof. "Wait, we can help you to find her!" She offered.

But Noire only turned her head towards the group. "No thanks," she replied before she grinned at them all. "I don't really trust you all," she casually said before she flew out of the room and outside, looking for her friend.

This left the group in quite some confusion.

"Not a big fan of saying "thank you" I see," Rarity commented at this.

"Should we go after her?" Star Twinkle suggested.

But Princess Celestia shook her head in disagreement. "She looked like someone who can take care of herself," she figured.

"Ouch..." Star Twinkle thought. He figured that she was meaning how Noire was pinning him down a few minutes ago.

"We also have more pressing matters to take care of," Twilight then pointed out.

"That is right," Princess Celestia agreed. "With Tinker gone, I assume that the ponies of Canterlot are now safe again. I will still send my Royal Guards to look for him and hopefully capture him. But that is nothing you should concern you with for now," she assured.

Star Twinkle was not really convinced that Tinker would be so easy to capture though. He was living here in Canterlot all this time after all. Then again, he had to leave a lot of his stuff in order to escape so hopefully, he would not be able to do anything terrible right away.

The group had to wait until another opportunity would come up to deal with him. That is all that they could do now...

In the meantime...

On an open field somewhere in Equestria, Tinker was on free hooves. He was pulling the wooden cart behind him slowly and kept his eyes focused on the clouds in the air.

"To think that I lost my home in Canterlot..what an inconvenience..." the stallion said with little to no bother in his voice. He then looked at the cart behind him for a moment and a smile formed on his face "Though I have lost some things, it is good that my greatest invention is still with me. It would have been quite a bother to start over again. But then again, I do have to start over for the most parts," he said, again with little bother in his voice.

Suddenly, something was closing into the stallion, something that he noticed as well, and that put a smile on his face after he saw it.

It was one of his mechanical Paraspite's. He stopped for a moment and held his hoof up, causing the Mechasprite to land on it. Again, he smiled and just let the Mechasprite fly up in the air again, which then followed him.

"It would be boring if things were always easy after all," he said amused as if he could not wait for the next encounter with Star Twinkle and his friends.

And just like that, Tinker managed to escape, for now. It was still unclear what his end goal was and why he did all those things but one thing was for sure. He needed to be stopped. With him on the loose, Equestria was not safe at all.

Author's Notes:

That just happened.
Of course, Tinker was bad news if you couldn't tell from back in Season 2.

We also got a new character introduced. I initially had my doubts to introduce a Batpony into this story because it is one of those elements that are barely canon but I also like to expand on some elements of the show that were not explained further on. Like the Alicorn Amulet, which could have been popping up in the show later on but never did. And since there were Batponies in the show, I don't feel too bad adding one into this story.

Of course, I hope Noire is well-received ^^.

By the way...
Happy new year to all of you!
I hope you all had a good year of 2019 and that you are looking forward to 2020!

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

100. A day in Ponyville

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Ponyville...

A little town in Equestria that often becomes the target of adventures small and big. Whether it is a problem for only one pony or the whole town, there always seems to be something going on there. This day was no exception.

A monster was roaming free in town and it was up to seven ponies to take care of it. Those seven ponies, of course, were Star Twinkle, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie. They were running around town fighting the dreaded Bugbear, a creature that escaped from Tartarus and had to be dealt with before it could do any serious damage in Ponyville.

Considering how those seven ponies usually managed to succeed in saving the ponies around them, it was only a matter of time until they would defeat the Bugbear and seal it away in Tartarus again.

But that was not important right now...

A train arrived at the train station of Ponyville and many passengers left in order to attend a special event. There was a wedding going on later that day. The two who would get married were Cranky Doodle Donkey and Matilda, two donkeys that live in Ponyville.

Cranky Doodle Donkey moved to Ponyville not too long ago and wanted to live in peace, without anypony bothering him. Pinkie Pie, who usually befriends every new face in town, wanted to be friends with him as soon as possible but was a little to direct and annoying for the donkey and just wanted her to be out of his life. That was until it turned out that Pinkie Pie knew Matilda, the long lost love of Cranky, that he looked for ages. The mare managed to make the donkey happy again and they then became friends.

All those events pretty much led up to this day, where the two donkeys decided to marry. And of course, a lot of visitors were to be expected for this wedding. Two of them were Sunny Twinkle and Rainfall Twinkle, the parents of Star Twinkle.

The two ponies stepped out of the train as well and took a good look at the town where they used to live for a long time before moving to Canterlot. They were also invited to the wedding since they were friends with Matilda for a long time now. Hearing that she was about to get married made them really happy and of course, they both would attend the wedding as well.

"Let's go visit our son!" Sunny Twinkle suggested as soon as he stepped out of the train.

Rainfall Twinkle nodded. "Yes, let's go," she said before she took one step forward only to stop again once big monster was flying right past her and Sunny Twinkle, leaving them quite surprised.

Soon, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and lastly, Star Twinkle were running past the two Earth Ponies as well. The last one, being the only one to talk to both of them.

"Hi, mom! Hi, dad! Can't talk right now!" The stallion explained in a haste as he followed right behind his friends and the Bugbear.

And just like that, Star Twinkle, along with the rest of his friends, were off chasing the strange creature, without having a minute to spare to welcome the two ponies in town. Both Sunny Twinkle and Rainfall Twinkle just smiled at the sight of this.

"And there he goes, saving Equestria from some kind of danger again..." Sunny Twinkle said.

"Seems like it..." Rainfall Twinkle added.

They both sighed. For them, things like that were the norm now. Their son was always wrapped up in some kind of adventure with his friends. Of course, they both wanted to know what exactly was going on but they figured that they would get in their way too so there was only one thing left for them to do.

"Let's go to town!" Rainfall Twinkle suggested.

"Alrighty!" Sunny Twinkle agreed.

They decided to ignore this. They had enough trust in their son to know that the situation would be taken care of. That is all there is to know. They had to attend a wedding too, which was more important to them. With all that cleared, they just had to meet up with some ponies in town that they agreed to meet with.

Shortly after, more ponies arrived at the train station. They didn't ride the train though and came landing down from the sky.

They were all Pegasus ponies. It was the six founding members of the Storm Wings, Cyclone Wing, Hurricane Wing, Steel Wing, Featherbrain, Cloud Head, and Breeze Flyer. All of them stood ready as if they were about to tackle a really important task.

Hurricane Wing looked at the rest of Storm Wings, his look being as monotone as always. "What again is our mission today?" He then asked.

"Attending the weeding of Cranky Doodle Donkey and Matilda," Steel Wing replied in a serious manner.

There was a short silence in the group before Cloud Head eventually spoke up. "Who?" The pony then asked.

Steel Wing shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know..." he replied before he pulled out a little letter. "But this letter was arriving at the Storm Fortress. And it said that we are invited to attend a wedding in this town," he explained.

Now, Cyclone Wing, was the one who looked rather confused, which was rare since he usually has a great oversight about everything. "That doesn't really sound like a mission," he said, which was usually the reason why he would leave the Storm Fortress. His look then wandered over to Breeze Flyer who was whistling suspiciously. He now remembered that she was the one telling all of them to come to Ponyville and wanted to know why.

Before he could say anything though, Breeze Flyer explained herself. It more likely looked as if she was trying to defuse the situation a little. "I think there was a little misunderstanding. This Pegasus showed up at the fortress and gave me the invitation."

Cyclone Wing lowered his eyebrows in confusion. "And you decided that coming here was a good idea instead of trying to fix this misunderstanding?" He asked sternly. Breeze Flyer didn't know what to say to that which made Cyclone Wing's next decision much easier. "We're leaving," he said before he turned around to leave.

Breeze Flyer immediately dashed in front of the stallion. "Wait! Since we are here, why don't we take a look at the wedding? It'll be fun!" She suggested.

But Cyclone Wing was not agreeing with that. "We are wasting our time here, Breeze! We could be out there and deal with real problems or save ponies in danger! Instead, you want us to partake in a wedding?"

"Well, if you put it like that..." Breeze Flyer replied, seeing how selfish it looked at first.

But she got some support in the form of Featherbrain. "Come on, boss, maybe it will be fun! I bet there is cake!"

"You say that at every mission, Feather," Cloud Head added in a scolding tone which was oblivious to the Pegasus.

Cyclone Wing just shook his head. "Sorry but no, unless Princess Celestia herself tells me to stay, I will leave now," he said, ready to spread his wings to take off now.

But he stopped as soon as he heard a familiar voice. "The Storm Wings! Nice to see you all here."

Cyclone Wing instantly recognized that voice and turned towards it to see the exact pony he expected to see. "Princess Celestia!?" He said in surprise.

And she was not alone, her sister Princess Luna was right next to her. They both approached the six ponies and Cyclone Wing immediately bowed down in respect, something that Princess Celestia giggled at before she prompted him to raise again.

"It seems that the ponies here asked you to take care of the problems of the wedding," Princess Celestia said.

"Problems?" Steel Wing asked. "What problems?"

Princess Luna explained further. "There are some complications about the preparations of this wedding. Some work still has to be done and the invitations seemed to have gotten to the wrong ponies," she said.

"Yeah, I...heard about that..." Cyclone Wing replied as he looked over to Breeze Flyer, who could just grin nervously.

Princess Celestia however, was smiling as soon as she looked towards Cyclone Wing. "But since you are all here, I guess we don't have to worry about all of this chaos. I'm sure you can take care of all of this," she said confidently.

"Actually, we were just here by a mis-" Hurricane Wing was about to say but Cyclone Wing interrupted him in time.

"Don't worry your highness! We'll take care of things here!" He then said determinedly.

"That is good to hear," Princess Celestia replied happily. "We're are counting on you," she added, which only put more pressure on Cyclone Wing.

And like that, the two princesses walked away. The group didn't even have the time to ask why the two rulers of Equestria were in Ponyville at a time like that. But that didn't matter now. Cyclone Wing was a completely different pony than before. His face had a determined expression on his face and he was not about to let the two princesses down.

"We are splitting up!" He said. "Hurricane and Tornado, Featherbrain and Cloud Head, and me Breeze. Find out what is wrong with this wedding and make sure that everything is taken care of!"

"Roger!" They all said in unison before they all split up in two pony groups.

Breeze Flyer was actually quite happy that things turned out like this and could only smile while Cyclone Wing wasn't looking.

In the meantime, someone else arrived in town and landed on the roof of a building. It was the Batpony that Star Twinkle and his friends rescued from Tinker's secret lab, Noire Gloom.

The Batpony overlooked everything in town silently. A lot of ponies were on the move. It was obvious to her that something big was going on in town. And that something caught her attention.

"So many ponies...maybe she is here too?" She said in a serious manner.

"Who?" A voice then asked from behind the Batpony, causing her to shriek in surprise.

She turned around and saw a black coated Pegasus pony behind her. "Who are you!? Don't sneak up on me like this!" She said annoyed.

The pony introduced himself. "My name is Tagma, what's up?" He said cheerfully.

Noire could only lower her eyebrows after hearing that. "Tagma? That's a weird name for a pony," she pointed out.

Tagma laughed. "I hear that a lot," he said with a smile on his face before he moved closer to Noire, inspecting her a little bit.

"Hey, that's too close!" She said before she pushed Tagma away annoyed.

The stallion didn't seem to mind though and quickly said what he was thinking right now. "You don't look like a normal pony. Your wings and eyes look different and you have sharper teeth," he pointed out.

Noire did not feel too comfortable to be stared at like this and growled at the stallion, causing him to back away nervously. "You've never seen a Batpony before!?" She then asked annoyed.

Tagma gave a simple answer. "No," he said casually.

It was then that Noire realized how stupid of a question that was. Batpony's are not that common in Equestria anymore, even she knew that. The mare let out a sigh. "Whatever, don't bother me, I'm looking for someone," she said before she flew away over town.

"Me too!" Tagma then said happily right next to the Batpony, much to her dislike. "Let's look together!"

Noire just sighed in annoyance and continued to fly over town...with Tagma accompanying her...

Meanwhile...

Sunny Twinkle and Rainfall Twinkle were still on their way to meet some friends in town. Their way was leading them to the local Carpenter Workshop, the Iron Hammer. In front of the workshop were already two Earth Ponies waiting for them.

"Hey, there!" One of them said as he waved over to the two. It was Steel Hammer, the owner of this workshop.

Next to him stood somepony who hasn't visited Ponyville for a long time now. A mare with a yellow coat, a silver mane, light blue eyes, and a sparkling golden hammer as a Cutie Mark. It was Steel Hammer's sister, Gold Hammer.

"Nice to see you two!" Gold Hammer said before embraced Rainfall Twinkle in a warm hug.

"It's been so long, Goldy," Rainfall Twinkle replied happily.

Sunny Twinkle also looked rather happy to see the mare. "So good that you came all the way from Manehattan to attend this wedding!"

"Why of course! Matilda and I go way back! Hearing that she would get married was really good news!" She said.

"Yes, unfortunately, I'm bringing some bad news now," Steel Hammer then said in a serious tone. "I would love spending more time with all of you but I need to do some work. Apparently the town hall is still not ready and I was tasked to overlook if everything is ready. Wouldn't want anything missing on an important day like this after all," he explained.

"Oh, that's too bad," Rainfall Twinkle. She then looked over to her husband which quickly gave her an idea. "What if Sunny would help you? That would mean that you could finish work there earlier," she suggested.

Sunny Twinkle beamed after hearing that and jumped over to Steel Hammer. "That's a great idea! It would be just like the old days!" He said, referring to how he was working in the Iron Hammer with Steel Hammer when he was younger.

"And maybe you can get Star Twinkle to help you out as well?" Gold Hammer asked.

But Star Twinkle's parents just shook their heads. "No, he is busy fighting some kind of bug," Sunny Twinkle informed.

"No, I think it was a bear," Rainfall Twinkle corrected.

"Yeah, I figured something like that," Steel Hammer replied casually as if that was the most normal thing ever. "But I think with you helping me out, it should go fast enough," he figured.

That sounded like a plan for everyone. "And in the meantime, Rainy and I will go and see Matilda and make sure that she is well," she suggested.

"Roger!" Sunny Twinkle said with a salute. "Let's go Steel!" He then said before he walked in direction of the town hall to get to work as quickly as possible.

Steel Hammer nodded in response before following his friend. In the meantime, Gold Hammer and Rainfall Twinkle both went to meet Matilda.

On their way to the town hall, Steel Hammer went on and explained what needed to be done.

"From what I understand, there is a lack of chairs, and the wedding arch isn't done," he explained.

"Sounds easy enough," Sunny Twinkle replied.

"Yes, but we need to work fast to get it done. The wedding starts in a few hours, and I want to make sure that everything is done completely," he said.

But Sunny Twinkle had a good idea at this moment. "Maybe we should get some more helpers?" He suggested.

Before Steel Hammer could answer though somepony seemed to overhear their conversation and answered in his name.

"You need help with the wedding? We can help you out with that!" It was Steel Wing, who was accompanied by his brother Hurricane Wing. The two walked up to the two stallions offering them their help. "I don't know exactly what you plan on doing but I can do heavy lifting!" He informed them.

Steel Hammer and Sunny Twinkle just shook their shoulders while looking at each other. They could need every bit of help that was offered to them right now to make sure that everything would be done until the wedding starts.

"Alright, follow me!" Steel Hammer said, asking the two stallions to come with him to the town hall.

Steel Hammer looked over to his brother with a victorious grin on his face as if he just successfully completed a mission and then followed Steel Hammer to help out. They were glad that they found something to do in this town to help and not letting the princesses down. They were only steps away from completing their mission.

Meanwhile...

Both Featherbrain and Cloud Head were walking around town aimlessly. They both didn't know exactly where to go or what to do, but they had to do something to help. But finding out what that is going to be provided a challenge to them.

"So...what can we do to help this wedding go smoothly?" Featherbrain asked confused.

Cloud Head tipped his chin for a moment. "The princess said that the invitations went to the wrong ponies...that means that some guests are missing! We need to make sure that everypony is invited here! It's that easy!" He figured.

"And how do we do that?" Featherbrain asked.

"Easy!" Cloud Head replied. "We find out who was sending out the invitations and make sure to check who is missing in town!"

"That sounds difficult..." Featherbrain said, not showing much enthusiasm to all of this.

Cloud Head went up to the stallion's face. "Well, do you want to disappoint the princess!?" He asked.

"No...she is really nice after all," Featherbrain replied.

"Then that's settled! Let's go!" Cloud Head said as he went ahead.

Featherbrain followed the pony. "Right behind you!"

Right above the heads of those two, unbeknownst to them, were Noire and Tagma. The later following the Batpony against her will, making her feel rather annoyed.

"Can you please leave me alone?" She asked of the Pegasus.

"Why?" Tagma asked. "Finding your friend should be easier if we both look. That is if you tell me what your friend looks like, of course," he figured.

Noire released another sigh. She did not really appreciate the company of Tagma right now. Still, there was one thing that was still on her mind about him.

"You said you were looking for someone too before, shouldn't you be looking for this someone now?" She asked confused.

Tagma gave a simple answer. "Maybe. Can't hurt to help you looking for your friend though," he casually said.

Now Noire stopped in mid-air and turned around to face Tagma. "How did you know that I was looking for a friend?" She asked.

The stallion gave a quick answer. "You wouldn't be so serious about it, I guess," he figured.

The Batpony had no idea what to make out of this guy. She appreciated his help but at the same time, she didn't want anypony to be included in her search. But then again, she could need every little bit of help that she could find to actually find her friend.

"She's a Crystal Pony, her name is Luminous Purity," she informed Tagma.

"Uh! A Crystal Pony!" Tagma replied fascinated. "Should be easy to find in a place full of ponies," he figured.

Noire could only lower her eyebrows in confusion. "Why do you want to help me? Don't you have other things to be worried about?" She asked.

Tagma gave a quick answer. "Nope," he said before he was keeping his eyes open to find a Crystal Pony in town.

The stallion was completely oblivious of how Noire Gloom was keeping her eyes on him. "I don't believe you," she then whispered under her breath before she followed Tagma close behind.

Meanwhile...

Cranky Doodle Donkey, the soon to be groom of Matilda was rushing around town in a hurry. He seemed really nervous. Of course, he was aware of the things that went wrong with the preparations of the wedding and it started to really drag him down a little. He wanted everything to be perfect at all, if not for him, then at least for his bride.

"Can we help you?" Breeze Flyer offered, who stood not too far away from the donkey along with Cyclone Wing next to her.

The donkey turned towards the two in surprise. "Who are you two?" He asked.

Breeze Flyer explained. "We are here to help with the wedding. There are some problems aren't there?"

Cranky sighed. "I can't believe all the problems have already spread around town," he said in his frustration. "Yes, there are problems! The main problem is that today was not supposed to be the day when we were about to get married! Turns out the delivery pony sending the letters put in the wrong date! And on top of that, some of the invitations went to the wrong ponies! Who knows what weirdos are gonna show up now!?"

This little outburst definitely got the two Pegasus by surprise. They also felt a little pointed put by the whole "weirdo" thing. But from the looks of it, letting off some steam was what got the donkey in a better mood now.

"Anything else?" Cyclone Wing then asked.

Cranky continued. "I also need to choose a ring for my Matilda," he said.

Breeze Flyer was awing in happiness. "We will help you with that!" She decided.

Cyclone Wing could only look over to the mare confused. "I think making sure that the wedding goes well is more pressing-"

"Nonsense!" Breeze Flyer interrupted, much to the surprise of the stallion. "A ring is really important for a wedding! Maybe the most important thing of them all! We will help you with that!"

"Yes...of course..." Cyclone Wing agreed hesitantly.

Cranky was thinking about Breeze Flyer's offer for a moment. "Well, I don't know anything about rings so maybe I could need some advice," he figured.

"Don't worry!" Breeze Flyer replied before she pushed Cranky towards the next jewelry shop in town. "All you have to know that it is not supposed to be too expensive so that you will spend all your money but still expensive enough so that Matilda will know how much you love her!"

"That's sounds perfect for me!" Cranky replied with a smile on his face while he still was pushed by the mare.

All Cyclone Wing could do was to watch Breeze Flyer taking care of this situation. He noticed how Breeze Flyer was really getting excited about this all.

"She sure is having fun," he just commented before he followed the two slowly behind.

Meanwhile...

Rainfall Twinkle and Gold Hammer already met up with the soon to be bride of Cranky, Matilda. The donkey was in the Ponyville Spa, to get ready for the wedding and to calm down a little. With some problems that occurred in the planning of the wedding, that was a much-needed thing for her now.

Luckily, the two mares managed to help with that as well.

"Matilda, there is no need to worry about anything," Rainfall Twinkle assured.

"Yes," Gold Hammer agreed. "You're about to get married so of course, you are a little nervous but at the end of the day you will be so happy!" She added, her voice even filled with a little bit of envy.

Matilda smiled to hear those words from her dear friends. "Oh, you are right but this is an important day in my life and Cranky said he wanted to take care of everything without me worrying about anything. I'm just afraid that he might overlook something or get too overworked," she said in worry.

But Gold Hammer only shook her head confidently. "Cranky isn't the only one trying to help with the wedding preparations. My brother and Sunny are out there too, trying their best to help out," she informed the donkey.

Again, Matilda smiled in response. "I can't thank you all enough for this," she said in gratitude. "I was about to ask you something by the way," she then asked before she looked over to Rainfall Twinkle. "I never asked this before but now that I am about to get married, the questions just popped up in my head. Rainy, when did you know that Sunny was the right one for you?"

Rainfall Twinkle's eyes popped open in surprise. "Oh!...um..."

Gold Hammer just snickered after seeing Rainfall's reaction. "Go on, tell her, it is quite an interesting story," she asked of her.

The mare looked embarrassed but she eventually told the story. "Sunny was really...persistent..."

"Oh!" Matilda replied. "So you mean he was trying really hard to win you over?" she figured.

"Yeah..." Rainfall replied a little hesitantly.

"Right, right," Gold Hammer said smugly. "And you were all open for it weren't you?" She asked teasingly. She obviously knew the answer already.

Matilda seemed confused and only got more curious about all of this so Rainfall had no choice but to continue. "I kinda...brushed him off and told him to get lost...many times," she admitted with some shame in her voice.

"Why?" Matilda asked understandably.

"I-I don't know! I was young...and selfish...and..."

"And you thought Sunny was stupid..." Gold Hammer added, causing Rainfall Twinkle to get even more embarrassed now. So much that she tried to hide her face from the two.

Eventually, Rainfall Twinkle let out a sigh and continued. "All of Sunny's attempts to win me over all looked to me like someone who had no idea what even love meant. Or maybe I didn't want anypony to approach me like that. Either way, after countless attempts from Sunny to win me over, I soon realized that he was serious. He just wouldn't give up because he didn't want to spend his life without me at his side, something that he knew from the very first moment he laid eyes on me. And before I knew it, I returned the love that he gave to me."

By now, Rainfall Twinkle smiled again after remembering all of that. She never regretted marrying Sunny even once after returning his love.

"Aww..." Gold Hammer could only say after hearing this story.

"What a beautiful story!" Someone else in the room then said in a sobbing voice. "You have such a great husband!"

It was a giant purple sea serpent with orange hair and a long orange mustache. It was none other than the sea serpent that Star Twinkle met in the Everfree Forest way back when Nightmare Moon attacked, or rather, the one he ran away from while screaming in fear.

"Thanks...um..." Rainfall Twinkle replied not even questioning what a sea serpent was doing in a spa but rather what the name of him was.

The serpent then introduced himself. "Steven Magnet, honey," he replied.

Matilda quickly picked up on that name. "You're Steven Magnet? Cranky's best beast?" She asked surprised.

"Well, what'd you expect, a bugbear?" Steven replied amused. "I've known Cranky forev-er! Surely he must have told you about the time he saved me from Flash Freeze Lake? Oh, I know, I know! Typical Cranky, to leave out minor details, like the fact that I'm, y'know, a sea monster, right? I just love that old burro!" He said.

Matilda quickly apologized. "I'm sorry, Steven. I guess I assumed you were a pony. And I had no idea you had such adventures together," she added.

"Oh, honey, you don't know the half of it!" Steven Magnet said. "But let me tell you something. In all that we've been through together, the only thing he ever cared about was finding you."

"Really?" Matilda replied positively surprised.

"Well, that and a baldness cure," Steven added before chuckling for a moment.

Rainfall Twinkle and Gold Hammer both were happy that hearing those words made Matilda a lot happier and removed her worries about the wedding completely.

"See?" Gold Hammer said. "At the end of the day, you will marry Cranky and become happy so who cares about if some things go wrong with the wedding?"

Matilda quickly agreed. "You are all right!" She agreed. "All the stress I've put myself through. All the stress I've put him through. The only thing that matters is that we're together. The wedding isn't the important thing – the marriage is," she finally concluded.

Again, Rainfall Twinkle and Gold Hammer were happy that Matilda was calmed down now, thanks to Steven. But their happiness didn't last too long because of the sea serpent's next words.

He started to laugh but not in an amusing way. It was actually like as if he was laughing about Matilda for coming up to this conclusion. "Oh, goodness gracious. If you believe that, I have got a bridge to sell you! All these ponies traveling to Ponyville, putting on uncomfortable clothes, sitting through a long ceremony, you think any of them care about the marriage?" He said which caused both Rainfall Twinkle and Gold Hammer to give him some signs to stop talking. But he didn't listen and continued. "Honey, the wedding is everything," were his last words.

And just like that, Matilda was in her shocked state again. Rainfall Twinkle and Gold Hammer could only glare over to Steven Magnet who seemed rather oblivious to his mistake at first. "What? Too much drama?" He asked innocently.

Gold Hammer quickly put one of her hooves around the donkey's shoulder to comfort her. "Don't you worry, my dear. My brother and Sunny are already trying their best to help you out and I am sure they do a great job," she assured confidently, something that Rainfall Twinkle agreed on as well.

In the meantime...

"What are you doing!?" Steel Hammer screamed in anger.

His scream was directed towards Steel Wing who was just done destroying one of many chairs inside of the town hall of Ponyville.

"What?" Steel Wing replied confused. "I'm doing what you told me!" He replied angrily back.

Steel Hammer clenched his teeth as he walked up to the Pegasus. "I told you to take out the chairs because we need some space to build new ones in here!" He added.

"Yes! That's what I am doing! I'm taking out the chairs!" Steel Wing replied angrily before he continued to rip another chair apart and picked a new one up.

Steel Hammer quickly rushed towards the Pegasus and took the chair out of his hooves. "When I said "Take them out" I didn't mean like taking them out as in "for good". I literally meant taking them outside!" He explained.

"Then why didn't you say that!?" Steel Wing replied angrily, his face now is really up to Steel Hammer's face.

The Earth Pony had a quick answer for that. "I was assuming that you actually had something inside that head of yours!" He said boldly in his anger.

"What was that!?" Steel Wing replied angrily. Soon both of them were glaring and bumping their heads into each other. "Did you just call me stupid!? Yeah!?" He asked.

"Yeah!" Steel Hammer replied.

"Yeah!?" Steel Wing replied.

"Yeah!!" Steel Hammer repeated.

They both started to growl at each other. It took only a few seconds until the first chairs flew around the room because of the tension between the two.

In the meantime, Sunny Twinkle and Hurricane Wing just stood on the sidelines, looking at the two. Both did not seem to be affected by the tension of this situation. Sunny Twinkle even ended up starting some small-talk with the Pegasus next to him.

"So, how did you two met Cranky and Matilda?" Sunny Twinkle asked towards Hurricane Wing.

The Pegasus Pony lowered his eyebrows for a moment before he gave an answer. "We didn't," he replied short and honest.

"Cool!" Sunny Twinkle just replied, not even questioning the logic behind that answer.

In the meantime...

Both Featherbrain and Cloud Head were still aimlessly walking around Ponyville. Their plan to make sure that everypony was invited was not that easy because everypony seemed to be invited anyway since everyone was walking around town either getting ready for the wedding or helping out with it.

"Now what do we do?" Featherbrain asked frustrated.

"I don't know," Cloud Head replied frustrated as well. "But we can't just do nothing and return to the others. We need to contribute something to all of this," he added before he stopped in his way for a moment in order to think. His eyes then wandered over to Featherbrain who seemed rather lost as well. "Come on! Can't you think about something for once!? You have "brain" in your name after all!" He pointed out.

Featherbrain did as he was told and began thinking. It didn't take long until he had an idea. "Can't we just buy them a present? That way, they won't get mad if we didn't come up with something," he figured.

That idea was enough to give Cloud Head an idea now. "That's it! We don't need an apology present for the others but a wedding gift for the two that are getting married! Well done, Feather!" He said relieved.

"Hey, no problem," Featherbrain replied casually as if that was intended from him.

Now with a new goal in mind, the two stallions went to buy something for Cranky and Matilda. They don't know what to buy for them but they would buy something, hopefully.

Not too far off, inside of a jewelry shop, Cranky, Cyclone Wing and Breeze Flyer were all spending their time looking for a fitting ring for Matilda. The jewelry shop that they came across had a wide variety to choose from and Breeze Flyer was really having fun to just look at everything. Cyclone Wing, on the other hoof, was not too much of a help at all and felt a little out of place. The stallion had no idea about rings or jewels in general so all he could do was let Breeze Flyer take care of the situation.

"How about this one?" Cranky asked.

"No," Breeze Flyer replied.

The donkey then walked over to another ring. "And this one?" He then asked.

"Oh, no," Breeze Flyer replied again.

Of course, Cyclone Wing didn't know the reason why Breeze Flyer didn't accept those rings. They all looked really good in his opinion. "What is wrong with the ones that Cranky pointed at?" He then asked. Cranky was not really sure what was wrong with them either after he thought about it and wanted to know the mare's reasoning for her decisions.

Breeze Flyer almost felt offended hearing that question and turned towards the stallion with an annoyed look on her face. "It's not what is wrong with them but rather what isn't right with them!"

"Then...what is not right with them?" Cyclone Wing then asked.

Again, Breeze Flyer felt offended. "If you wanna marry someone then you need to choose the perfect ring! The one ring! This ring is supposed to be the ultimate proof from Cranky to Matilda! So it needs to be perfect!" She explained.

Hearing those words certainly did not make it easier for Cranky. In fact, he seemed more nervous than ever. Cyclone Wing noticed that as well and needed to act. His mission was to make sure that everything with the wedding went well, that of course, included how Cranky was feeling. And after thinking about the situation more carefully, Cyclone Wing knew what to say at this moment.

"I don't know much about rings but I am pretty sure that Matilda will like every ring that you give her. Not because of how expensive or pretty it is but because you gave it to her with love and with the thought of making her happy," the stallion explained.

"Awww..." Breeze Flyer said, her heart getting really warmed up after hearing those words.

Cranky had to admit that what the stallion was saying made sense to him too. "I guess, you are right. Maybe I was putting a little bit too much thought into all of this. I just want to let her know how much she means to me," he added in concern.

But Breeze Flyer completely agreed with Cyclone Wing on this one. "No! Cyclone is right! What matters the most is you two being happy! And a ring will not be the reason for that. It's the love between you two that is most important!"

The donkey slowly formed a smile. His nervousness completely vanished and he started to feel a lot happier now. "Yes, it is! I traveled all over Equestria to finally find her and I won't let a stupid ring or some tiny mistakes in the wedding let that get in my way of being happy with her!"

"Exactly!" Breeze Flyer agreed happily with a big grin on her face.

After Cranky found his excitement again, the two Pegasus felt as if they weren't needed anymore. For Cyclone Wing, that meant that the mission was a success, much to his liking. Before he was about to leave again though, the weird smile on Breeze Flyer's face is what caught his attention.

"What are you smiling about?" The stallion asked confused.

Breeze Flyer explained herself. "I'm just so proud of you. I actually never figured you to be so understanding when it comes to love. I guess under this serious behavior of yours is a hopeless romantic," she said.

Cyclone Wing rolled his eyes. "I just thought about the mission and what to say to get to it completed. Of course, I considered the best outcome for everyone," he explained in his usual serious manner.

Not it was Breeze Flyer who rolled her eyes in disappointment. "You just ruined it..." she said.

But Cyclone Wing just smiled in response before he left the shop with Breeze Flyer following him. They just let Cranky decided what ring to buy, it doesn't what he would choose as long as he was putting a lot of thought into it. That much they were certain about. Now the two just needed to find out what else to do in this town.

Meanwhile...

Tagma and Noire Gloom were both sitting on the roofs of Ponyville. The Pegasus stallion was trying his best to help out the Batpony to find her friend. The emphasis was on the word "trying".

"Is that her?" Tagma asked.

"No," Noire replied.

He then pointed at someone else randomly. "Is that her?" He then asked.

"No..." Noire replied. Her voice already started to sound as if she was losing her patience.

Tagma then looked over the town again. He pointed at another random pony on the street. "Is that-"

"No!" The Batpony exclaimed, causing Tagma to flinch by the volume of her voice. "I told you before, Luminous is a Crystal Pony! So why are you pointing at literally everything else!?" She asked.

The black coated stallion only grinned in embarrassment and rubbed his neck. "Heh heh...that might be a good time to ask what exactly a Crystal Pony is," he then said, much to Noire's surprise.

The Batpony was only getting more frustrated after hearing this. She shook her head and tried to calm down again. "A Crystal Pony is, as the name suggests, a pony that looks kinda like a crystal," she explained.

"Cool! Why do they look like that?" He asked in interest.

"I don't know!" Noire replied. "In case you haven't noticed, I am not a Crystal Pony so...I'm not sure why they look the way they are...but they are see-through! Kinda..."

Tagma started laughing. "You don't know much about Crystal Ponies either, it looks like," he said amused.

"I do know more than you!" She replied annoyed while Tagma kept laughing.

Eventually, Tagma stopped laughing and smiled at the Batpony. "You are funny. I like you. I think we both can become friends," he added happily.

Hearing that out of nowhere, quite surprised Noire. Her eyes popped open and she looked away from Tagma. "I'm a Batpony...you better don't want to get too close to me," she then said with a frown on her face.

Now it was Tagma who was surprised. "What do you mean?" He asked confused.

Noire Gloom then let out a sigh before she explained. "Batponies don't have the best reputation in Equestria. A lot of ponies are afraid of us because we are a little...different. We are usually more active at night, which seems to make us look a little bit scarier, for some reason. And on top of that, there are some rumors spreading around that we suck other's blood or something."

Of course, the last sentence caught Tagma's attention. "Do you?" He then asked curiously.

"No! That is something that was spread to make us Batponies look evil!" Noire replied offended. "And while some of us are a lot more...let's say more sinister than your regular pony, not all of us are like that!"

"Just like with the Changelings!" Tagma added.

"Huh?" Noire replied confused. "I guess. Maybe some Changelings are nice. I've never met one before in person," she figured.

"But you have!" Tagma then replied before he transformed into his real form again, revealing himself to be one himself. "See?" He said as he presented his true form to the Batpony.

"Wha!?" Noire replied before she fell down the roof in surprise. She managed to hold herself up on the edge of the room in time and climbed up again to take another look at Tagma to confirm that she wasn't seeing things at this moment. "You are a Changeling!?" She then asked just to make absolutely sure.

"Yup!" Tagma replied before he transformed back into his pony form. "Can't stay in this form for too long though. Ponies don't quite like Changelings too much after that one attack on Canterlot," he casually mentioned.

Noire didn't know quite how to react to this. She never saw a Changeling up this close and she certainly did not think of one to act like Tagma. The whole situation was just weird to her.

"What is a Changeling doing here in Ponyville?" Noire asked.

"Looking for a friend, just like you, you know, a Batpony," Tagma replied.

The Batpony had to admit that Tagma had a good point. Why should she question the appearance of a Changeling in Ponyville when she, as a Batpony was here as well. She still had a lot of questions but at the same time, she didn't want to ask them because she was taken too much by surprise right now.

Meanwhile...

Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing were still helping out Steel Hammer and Sunny Twinkle with the whole chair situation inside the town hall, the place where the wedding would take place in only an hour.

The two Pegasus Ponies were both carefully crafting another chair with some wood that Steel Hammer and Sunny Twinkle brought with them. Even though some chairs harmed before by Steel Wing, they quickly managed to catch up again and were close to being done with everything.

"Another one done!" Steel Wing then announced victoriously as he presented Steel Hammer another self-build chair.

The carpenter pony looked over to the chair and seemed to be happy. "Good job! Seems like you can now build two chairs while I and Sunny manage to build ten," he said in a teasing voice, accompanied by a big smug grin on his face.

Steel Wing only growled back at the stallion angrily. "Hurricane, prepare more wood!" He said towards his brother. He certainly did not want to give in to the words of Steel Hammer but being the short-tempered pony he was, he only wanted to prove to him that he is better.

"Right on!" Hurricane Wing said while saluting before he went to get some more wood to build a chair out of it.

Steel Hammer just turned around again and chuckled. He knew that he was getting under Steel Wing's fur and he liked it.

Sunny Twinkle was meanwhile taking a look at the room and figured that they were almost done with everything. "Looks good, really good," he said. He then turned towards Steel Hammer. "Hey, Steel!" He shouted at him.

Both Steel Hammer and Steel Wing turned their heads towards the Earth Pony.

"Yes?" They both said in unison. It was quite an awkward moment for everyone.

"Uh...Hammer!" Sunny then added.

"Oh," Steel Wing replied before he turned his head away again to continue his work.

Steel Hammer then walked towards the stallion, causing him to take a closer look at the room as well. There was definitely enough time to finish everything before the wedding starts.

After a bunch of extra chairs were done and the wedding arch was worked on as well, the work was soon done inside the town hall. The four ponies looked over their accomplishments, they were all proud and happy to help out at the wedding. When it came to the preparations, everything should be fine by now, at least that's what they hoped.

Sunny Twinkle couldn't help but jump up and down in his excitement. "This is gonna be a really sweet wedding!"

Steel Hammer just chuckled after seeing that. "I hope you don't break out in tears like the last wedding we attended to," the stallion teased.

"I just can't help it!" Sunny Twinkle replied in a really emotional tone. "It always reminds me of my own wedding and I just get too happy about it!" He said before he wiped away some tears from his face. He soon composed himself though. "I hope they become as happy as me and Rainfall," he added.

Again, Steel Hammer chuckled. "Well, they're starting off better than you two at least," he commented.

"It was love at first sight with me and Rainfall!" Sunny pointed out.

And once more, Steel Hammer laughed. "Yeah, for you! If I remember correctly. the mare couldn't stand you at first sight...or me...I still don't know how you managed to capture her heart back then," he added.

Sunny Twinkle smiled confidently. "That is just how powerful love is," he just said.

Steel Hammer then walked over to Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing. He instructed them to go outside and tell everypony that they can start to come in. It was only a matter of time now that the wedding would start and hopefully be a success. That was until the next problem would show up...

Meanwhile...

Cyclone Wing and Breeze Flyer were now aimlessly walking through Ponyville. Of course, there was most likely more to do in Ponyville to help with the wedding but they first needed to find them. But Cyclone Wing did not seem to be too motivated to do that, much to Breeze Flyer's confusion.

"You don't look too happy, is something wrong?" The mare asked right away.

Cyclone Wing just looked with his eyes over to Breeze Flyer before looking straight away again. "I'm just a little bored," he just replied with a frown on his face.

"Bored?" Breeze Flyer asked confused.

The stallion stopped for a moment, Breeze Flyer did the same. "Let's just say that I expected a little bit more from this mission," he said. "I know that you took advantage of the mistake from this delivery pony to come to this wedding but after Princess Celestia and Princess Luna expected us to deal with some troubles here, I just wanted to prove them that we are capable of doing just that," he explained.

"I think Princess Celestia and Princess Luna already know what the Storm Wings are capable of so don't worry yourself about this mission too much. I mean, it's not like the safety of Equestria depends on this wedding," she added.

Ironically, the bugbear from before appeared behind her and flew across the street, something that she didn't notice at all, and Cyclone Wing didn't either since he was turned around to the mare. Luckily that problem is being taken care of by some other ponies at the moment.

It was now that Cyclone Wing turned towards the mare again, his face starting to show some relief. "Yeah, you are probably right. I guess I just got a little bit too worried just now," the stallion admitted.

Breeze Flyer was happy to hear this. She smiled happily but she got pretty much interrupted by a strong gust of wind that blew through the streets of Ponyville, which caused her to get a little startled.

As the wind blew through the town, something came flying past Cyclone Wing and Breeze Flyer. It was something yellow, or rather, blonde.

"Wait, where did I see this before?" Breeze Flyer asked but Cyclone Wing was at a loss at this moment as well.

But they soon remembered once Cranky came running towards them. "No! Come back here!" He screamed in a hurry as he followed the object that was blown away by the wind. He soon noticed how Cyclone Wing and Breeze Flyer just stood there confused. He saw how the object was flying up higher in the sky, somewhere where he couldn't reach it. So of course, the first thing that came to mind was the two Pegasus.

"You two don't just stand around! I thought you are here to help! Get me back my wig!" He asked of them in a flustered tone.

"Oh! So that was your hair!" Breeze Flyer concluded.

Cranky did not seem too happy to get that kind of reaction. "Yes, it was! And I need it back! I can't attend the wedding while being bald! I make a laughing stock out of myself!" He said frustrated.

Breeze Flyer looked over to the donkey and tried to comfort him. "Don't worry, we will get your hair back, right Cyclone?" She asked.

But Cyclone Wing just sighed. He clearly was not looking forward to this. "Chasing a wig...I can't believe this..." he said while he shook his head almost embarrassed.

But then another pony joined the three. "Still helping out everyone I see," the pony said in a caring voice.

Cyclone Wing's eyes popped open as soon as he heard that familiar voice again. He turned towards it and looked rather shocked just like early before. "Princess Celestia!?" He said after he saw both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna again.

Out of reflex, the stallion bowed down again in respect, which was followed by Cranky, who didn't have a chance to meet the princesses so far. But the princesses told them that there was no need for formalities. One of them, who was bowing down, was the groom.

"We are on our way to the wedding now. It seems that things have calmed down again and everything is set," Princess Luna said.

"I assume part of that is because of you and the rest of the Storm Wings?" Princess Celestia asked curiously. Cyclone Wing hoped that this was true. That at least would make him and the Storm Wings look better in front of the princesses.

"Well, they are not done yet! My...hair is gone because of this wind and I need it back before the wedding starts!" The donkey explained while sounding a little bit embarrassed to tell this the princesses.

Princesses Celestia just giggled under her breath before she more or less tasked the Storm Wings with this. "I guess there is one more thing for you to take care of?"

Cyclone Wing immediately saluted to the princess. "Of course! We will make sure that Cranky's wig will be back on his head before the start of the wedding! You have my word!" The stallion said in a determined voice to make his words come true.

Breeze Flyer was almost impressed by this behavior especially since Cyclone Wing was pretty upset before. "So serious..." she mumbled to herself.

Now the stallion was in full-on Storm Wing Leader mode again. "Get Cranky's wig back!" Cyclone Wing screamed determinedly as he jumped into the air to chase the wig now.

"Not so loud!" Cranky said angrily before he held his head low in embarrassment.

The two Pegasus were then flying after the wig. The wind actually made the wig actually fly pretty far. It also flew all around the place, making it quite hard to track it. The chase was taking place all over Ponyville. The wig landed on multiple roofs, so it was hard to know where it was at times. The two Pegasus actually managed to almost get their hooves on it a few times, only for it to slip away in the last moment, it was almost comedic.

Breeze Flyer actually had to take a break for a moment. This was starting to get really exhausting for her. "Chasing a wig through Ponyville...I admit, this is not what I expected after I got an invitation to a wedding..." she said as she was trying to catch her breath for a moment.

"Hey, Breeze!" Featherbrain then as he approached the mare along with Cloud Head.

Breeze Flyer turned towards the two to greet them but she then got quite confused by what the two brought with them. "What is that?" She asked confused at the sight of said object.

The two stallions then presented her...a sofa. "Do you like it?" Cloud Head asked.

"It's a present for the two get married," Featherbrain explained.

Breeze Flyer just stood there with an open mouth. She didn't quite know how to react to this. "You brought a sofa as a wedding present!?" She said, in an obviously not happy tone.

"They gotta sit somewhere," Featherbrain pointed out.

"But that is not something that you gift somepony at their wedding!" Breeze Flyer said. "Get rid of it!" She then said before she went on ahead to help out Cyclone Wing again.

The two Pegasus did not seem to understand what was wrong with their present and were also not happy that Breeze Flyer didn't like it. They just lifted it up from the ground again and left.

"I told you we should have come back with the chandelier," Featherbrain said.

"Quiet..." Cloud Head just replied in an annoyed tone.

A little later...

The wedding was about to start any minute now. The guests were already starting to sit down and Matilda was waiting under the wedding arch with Rainfall Twinkle and Gold Hammer next to her. The donkey seemed rather worried because there was no sign of Cranky so far.

"Where could Cranky be?" Matilda asked worried to the two mares next to her.

"Oh, I'm sure he will show up soon," Gold Hammer assured.

"Yes, he wouldn't miss out on a day like this after all. Even if a few things didn't go as planned," Rainfall Twinkle added.

"I hope you are right..." Matilda replied with a frown on her face.

Inside the town hall, Tagma was keeping an eye open for Noire's friend, with no luck though. After he was done looking around, he figured he should return to Noire, who was waiting on top of the town hall. The Batpony was not getting her hopes up in the first place and didn't expect Tagma to return with good news.

"I'm back!" The Changeling said. "No luck though..." he added with a frown on his face.

Noire sighed in response. "Yeah, I figured. I'm starting to think that she is not here," she said before she turned towards the Changeling in his pony form only to get a little surprised by what she saw. "What is that on your head?" She then asked confused.

It was Cranky's wig that was on top of the stallion's head. Tagma proudly showed it off to the Batpony. "That thing flew on my head after I came out of the town hall," he explained. "Neat, huh?"

"I don't know, looks kinda silly. And that says a lot considering that you didn't have any hair to begin with," she said.

Tagma just shook his shoulders in disappointment. "Oh well," he then said before he threw it away again without a bother.

Meanwhile, Steel Wing and Hurricane Wing waited outside because there was nothing left for them to do, or at least Steel Hammer had nothing to do for them. They figured that with the start of the wedding, there was not much left to do anyway so they just waited for the rest of the group to show up soon.

As they waited though, something came flying past them. It was Cranky's wig. Of course, the two didn't know that it was and just paid it no attention. Shortly after, Cyclone Wing and Breeze Flyer came running towards them in a rush.

"Go get that wig!" Cyclone Wing commanded.

Steel Wing did as he was told and followed the wig. It was flying around the town hall and Steel Wing was after as fast as he could, which wasn't that fast, to begin with...still, he did his best to get it. A chance presented itself as soon as the wig was landing on a windowsill of the building.

"I got you now!" He said determined before he started charging at it.

In the last second though, the wind blew the wig away, much to Steel Wings surprise who then found himself crashing through the window a few seconds later, leaving a huge hole in the window.

Surprisingly no one seemed to have noticed the Pegasus that crashed into the room. Steel Hammer, however, happened to look over to the broken window, sending down a shock down his spine.

"GASP! Sunny, window!" Steel Hammer said, not even questioning how this hole was created but rather being more concerned to fix it before anypony would notice.

"On it!" Sunny Twinkle replied with some tools ready to get on it.

Outside, Cyclone Wing was now the one taking a few deep breaths. This whole chase was getting him pretty exhausted. "I can't believe we are bested by a stupid blonde wig!" He said annoyed, loosing his usual calm composer for a moment.

Steel Wing showed up next to Cyclone Wing and Breeze Flyer, his head still spinning a little bit from the crash earlier. "Why are we chasing a wig, to begin with?" He then asked.

"You mean this wig?" Hurricane Wing asked as he presented the wig to the group.

Of course, Cyclone Wing and Breeze Flyer were stunned to see the very wig that they chased after all this time. "How did you get that!?" Breeze Flyer asked in disbelieve.

Hurricane Wing just looked at the wig in his hoof. "I grabbed it..." he said casually in a deadpan tone.

In the meantime inside, the wedding was finally starting and Cranky was just standing in a corner hiding from the sight of everypony. He was too embarrassed to show himself without hair in front of everyone.

But then out of nowhere, a flash came flying past the donkey, which turned out to be Hurricane Wing, who flew past Cranky and placed his wig on his head. Cranky looked over to a nearby window to see the six Storm Wings member waving at him. Now with his hair in place again, the donkey managed to find his confidence again and walked up to Matilda, who eagerly waited for him.

Mayor Mare was waiting there as well. She had the honor to be the one uniting those two donkeys. And with both of them being finally present, she could finally start the wedding.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join these two in mare-trimony," she announced. "As I look around this room, I can only imagine how uncomfortable Cranky must be," she then jokingly said, which caused the ponies in the room to laugh a little.

The donkey just grumbled a little and tried to ignore that though. He knew himself how nervous he was at this very moment.

The mayor then continued. "But I also see so many ponies from all trots of life, brought together by love. Cranky searched all across this great land of ours to find Matilda, and no matter what obstacles kept them apart, love would finally bring them together, just as it has brought all of us together now."

It was like those words were directed at all the many characters that showed up in Ponyville, whether it was because they were meant to be here like Sunny Twinkle, Rainfall Twinkle, and Gold Hammer, or if they were here by mistake, as the Storm Wings or just by a chance of randomnesses like Tagma and Noire Gloom. All of them being in Ponyville to do something that lets them be part of this wedding. And all of them were watching the wedding, whether it was from inside the room, or from a window outside.

"It's remarkable to me how a story like Cranky's search for Matilda could fill this room with such a unique collection of ponies! It makes you realize that everypony is the star of their own story. And it's not just the main characters in our stories that make life so rich! It's everypony – those who play big parts and those who play small. If it weren't for everypony in this room and many more who couldn't be here today, Cranky and Matilda's lives wouldn't be as full and vibrant as they are," the mayor continued.

Sunny Twinkle and Rainfall Twinkle watched the two donkeys about to being married, and being the emotional pony he was, he started crying loudly, which caused his wife to hug him. "Every time, dear, huh?" She said as she petted the stallion's head.

"Yeah, tell me about it," another female voice said amused, which turned out to be none other than Princess Cadance who was hugging her own husband Shining Armor, who cried his eyes out as well.

Mayor Mare then came to the important part of all of this. "And so, in front of all these loved ones... Cranky, do you take this donkey to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"You bet I do!" Cranky quickly replied with no sign oh hesitation.

"And do you, Matilda, take this donkey to be your lawfully wedded husband?" Mayor Mare then asked.

Matilda started to tear up in happiness. "I do!" She then replied.

"Then I'm proud to say, I now pronounce you jack and jenny!"

And what followed was a kiss from both the donkeys and cheers from the crowd. The wedding, even with some problems on the way was a full success.

Breeze Flyer was watching this scene as well and felt her heart warming up. In the meantime, Cyclone Wing approached the mare from the side, much to her surprise. "So...do you mind telling us why you wanted us to come and watch this wedding?" He then asked.

The mare seemed surprised to hear that. "Don't tell me you didn't like watching the wedding?" The Storm Wings looked at each other, apart from Breeze Flyer, none of them seemed to be too affected by the love that was spread by the wedding. The mare just sighed and walked away from the window of the town hall. "Well, maybe sometime later," she said before she was about to leave the scene with the five stallions behind her.

Not too far away from the other side of the town hall, seven more ponies watched the wedding from outside. It was the Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. They managed to defeat the Bugbear but sadly didn't make it to the wedding in time. For some reason the door was also locked so there was no way for them to enter.

Twilight, who seemed to be really affected by the wedding broke out in tears as well from watching it "You know something? We are so lucky to live in this town. I love you all!" She said while she hugged all of her friends in happiness.

"Whoa! What is with this sentimentally all of a sudden?" Star Twinkle wondered.

"Can we please hug a little bit softer!?" Rainbow Dash then demanded. "I'm still a little bit hurt from the bugbear!" She added.

"Sorry!" Twilight apologized.

Meanwhile...

It was starting to get dark and the wedding was almost over. Some of the guests already left the town hall to go home. One of them was a Unicorn mare with a white coat, a white mane, and green eyes, wearing the Alicorn Amulet.

"How romantic. It sure paid out to come here. Thank goodness that I got that invitation for some reason," the mare said, indicating that she must have been another guest that was falsely invited to the wedding.

It was Grace or rather Graceful Palladium Magie. The Unicorn that Star Twinkle and Twilight faced a while back. The pony that was assumed to be the Witch of Equestria by Princess Celestia, and a danger to the ponies of Equestria.

Despite her being a danger like that, she still casually walked out of the town hall as if she was just a normal citizen. Maybe she wasn't scared to be recognized by anyone because her magic was strong enough to protect her from pretty much everyone.

The mare smiled after obviously having a nice day from what it seems. "Why am I just a such a fan of everything love related? Heh, why am I even wondering?" She said before she looked at her flank, which showed a white heart with a magic aura behind it.

"It's just a shame that I didn't come across that one stallion. That would have brightened up my day even more," she said, obviously referring to Star Twinkle. Grace then shook her shoulders. "Well, can't have everything, huh?" She added before she engulfed herself in magic to levitate above the ground and flew away from Ponyville.

In the meantime, on a roof from a house in Ponyville, Tagma and Noire Gloom decided to put their search to an end. Luminous Purity was nowhere to be found in this town, no matter how much Noire wanted it or how much Tagma wanted to find her for the Batpony.

"I guess I'll be on my way then to look for her myself," Noire figured.

"You are sure you don't want me to help you look for your friend?" Tagma then asked.

But the Batpony shook her head. "I'll rather look alone. Besides, don't you have someone you need to find as well? You should make sure to focus on that," she advised.

"Yeah, maybe. Sole is not gonna find himself after all," Tagma figured.

Noire began to smile at the Pony transformed Changeling. "I must admit, you are okay. You are not what I expected my first Changeling encounter to be but you are okay," she complimented.

"Hey, you are okay too!" Tagma returned. "I knew there was a nice Batpony behind this tough face."

Now Noire blushed and the conversation was too uncomfortable for her and she decided to leave. She spread her wings and flew up in the air, ready to leave Ponyville. She did turn around one more time though to say something to Tagma.

"I hope you find your friend," Noire said with a friendly tone in her voice.

Tagma grinned in response to that. "I hope you find Luminous as well!" He replied.

And like that, the two parted ways, both looking for a friend in this wide world.

The day was over and with so many different ponies or Batpony and Changelings, the day turned out to be another adventure in the little town of Ponyville. Defeating a monster, finding a friend, helping ponies out, all those things and maybe, even more, took place in just this one day. It just shows how much of an adventure one day can be in Ponyville and how many characters can take part in it.

It just makes one wonder what next adventure can happen in the world of Equestria.

Author's Notes:

And that marks the 100th chapter of this story (Not counting the Season Trailers). It did not have any of the background ponies in it like the original so I hope it was still well-received. As you can clearly tell, I decided to have my own spin on this episode by letting the focus be on more OC's of this story. Again, most people probably expected Derpy and co but since those ponies are basically not present in this story in the first place, I figured giving them their own chapter was a little bit out of place, at least when it comes to this particular story.

I hope you still enjoyed this chapter ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

101. Yaks

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Inside of Ponyville's castle, Star Twinkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie all stood patiently in line in the entrance hall waiting for some visitors to arrive. The only one who was nervously walking up and down was, of course, Twilight.

Star Twinkle could only roll his eyes at the sight of this. For some reason though, that got the attention of Twilight. "You look nervous. There's no reason to be nervous. Nothing to worry about. Everything's gonna be fine!" The mare then said being the full definition of nervous right now.

Again, Star Twinkle rolled his eyes. "Twilight can we please skip the usual "you freaking out about nothing," Part?" the stallion said in annoyance. He found himself way too often in a situation like this to not get annoyed. Twilight was simply too nervous, like every other time when she prepared something for someone, and of course, she was really bad in hiding it.

As expected, Pinkie Pie was not the least bit nervous. "Twilight, tell those butterflies in your tummy to beat it! Making new friends is always fun," she said.

"They're probably just as nervous as you are," Fluttershy added.

"You've been plannin' this shindig for weeks. You know everything about these fellers. It's gonna be dandy," Applejack further pointed out.

Twilight inhaled and exhaled slowly, she managed to calm down a little bit after hearing those words. "You're right. Remember, Equestria and Yakyakistan haven't opened their borders for hundreds of moons. In fact, Yakyakistan is so far north of the Crystal Mountains, nopony's even been there! Imagine the look on Princess Celestia's face when she finds out we made friends with a yak prince!" She said in a more nervous voice than ever. "I'm calm! I'm calm..." She then kept telling herself, which was, of course, wishful thinking.

"No, you are not..." Star Twinkle thought to himself. He just wanted this to be over quick so that he no longer had to look at the mare in this state.

It was then when Spike blew into a trumpet, next to the door to let everypony know that their visitors have arrived. Of course, Twilight was on the brink of completely losing it for a moment but she tried her best to hide it, something she wasn't really good at.

As soon as the door opened two big yaks entered the room. Yaks were big creatures with big horns and a lot of fur on their bodies. Despite their bulky appearance though, they carried a lot of pride with them. There was something regal about them. The two yaks stepped aside and revealed another yak behind them, it was Prince Rutherford, who was wearing golden ornaments around his horns, giving him an even more regal looking appearance.

It just struck Star Twinkle that he was in the presence of royalty and he could actually understand why Twilight was nervous now.

"Ponies! Greetings, ponies!" The rough voice of the prince said as soon as he stepped into the castle.

Twilight promptly teleported herself in front of the prince. "Prince Rutherford, your Majesty," she said as she bowed down in respect. "On behalf of all of us, I welcome you to Equestria," she said.

"Me honored. Yaks hope for great friendship between ponies and yaks," Prince Rutherford replied. "FRIENDS FOR A THOUSAND MOONS!" He then shouted in a loud echoing voice, which caused Twilight to rub her ears for a moment.

Now Twilight got a little nervous again. If she would mess up, then it would be her fault now since the yaks definitely seem to wish the same thing as her. This only puts more pressure on the mare.

Luckily, she prepared some things in advance with the help of her friends. "You must be hungry after a long journey," she said before she gave Star Twinkle a signal to push a table in front of the yaks. "We've prepared a banquet of traditional yak foods," she explained.

The prince hesitated at first but he eventually gave the food a try but not before making one thing clear. "If things not perfect, yaks get mad. Yaks always get mad when things not perfect!" He explained.

Twilight just gulped after hearing that. As if she didn't have enough reasons to be nervous already.

Prince Rutherford then gave the food a try. It didn't take long until he spat it out though "This no taste like yak food!" He complained. "Fake pony food make yaks mad!" The prince said in anger.

What then followed was him and his yak companions roaring through the halls of the castle before knocking over the table in front of them and stomping on it angrily. They then crashed into the walls and pretty much everything breakable in the room. Or to put it in simpler terms, the wrecked havoc in the castle.

No one really knew how to react to all of this but Star Twinkle was putting it in the best words now. "Okay...maybe, for once, you had all the rights to be nervous," the stallion admitted.

"Yeah," Pinkie Pie added with a surprised look on her face. She clearly did not expect this meeting to go this way as well. "Is it okay to be nervous now?" She then asked.

A little later...

It all happened so fast. The yaks came to visit, they tasted the food, they didn't like it, they decided to destroy the place. And of course, it was up to the group to fix the mess that those yaks left.

"Them yaks sure have a funny way of sayin' "howdy"." Applejack said while she

Rarity said, putting it mildly as well. "They're different, that's all. Very... different,"

But Star Twinkle had no problem speaking his mind. "A bunch of brutes is what they are," he said in an annoyed tone while he was busy fixing a wall of the castle.

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash agreed. "I think they broke my record for most stuff broken in under a minute. I mean, they even broke the trophy," she said while she presented said trophy in front of everypony before it completely broke in her hoof.

But Twilight remained positive. "All we have to do is show them how great it can be to have friends before Princess Celestia arrives for the friendship party tonight. Now, who read the seven-volume cross-indexed history of Yakyakistan I recommended?" She asked.

But what she got as an answer was not much to her liking. The whole group was nervously avoiding eye contact, a clear sign that no one read what Twilight told them to.

"I have read...one..." Star Twinkle then said hesitantly in the middle of that.

"One volume?" Twilight asked, seeing how that was better than nothing.

"One chapter..." Star Twinkle then added, taking all hope away from Twilight again.

Luckily, there was actually one pony who did as Twilight told her. And her name was Pinkie Pie. "I did, I did! Did you know they live so far north of the Crystal Empire that it's cold all the time? Yaks have yak fur to keep them warm," she explained as she formed some fur around her face with her mane.

"Pretty sure that's what fur's always for, Pinkie Pie," Applejack pointed out.

"I know! Yaks are so cool!" Pinkie Pie then exclaimed loudly while appearing behind Applejack, causing her to drop the hammer she was holding and making it crash into the vase below her, which Rarity was just fixing. Needless to say, Rarity was not too happy about that.

With Pinkie Pie having some knowledge about the yaks now, Twilight figured it was the best idea to let her handle the situation. "Pinkie Pie, can you show them around town? I know you have to plan the friendship party too, but it would really help make them feel welcome," she asked of the mare.

Of course, Pinkie Pie was ready to help in any way possible. "Don't worry. They'll be in good hooves with me and Star Twinkle!"

The stallion's ears peeled up in confusion. "Wait...why me!?" He asked confused, feeling a little dragged into this situation without any warning from Pinkie Pie.

The mare quickly explained. "You said you read something about the yaks so that means you basically know as much as I do! That could help us out a lot," she said.

"One chapter!" Star Twinkle exclaimed annoyed. "I read one chapter! How does that make me a good help!?" He asked frustrated.

But Twilight had to disagree. Maybe she was also getting desperate right now. "That's better than nothing! In case you haven't noticed, we are not on the best terms with the yaks right now! We need every single bit of help to make them feel better now!" The mare explained, her voice sounding more frustrated by the second.

Star Twinkle just had to help now. The situation was pretty bad after all and the stallion was pretty much pushed too much into this situation to not help now.

But in order to not put him and Pinkie Pie under too much pressure, Twilight decided that everyone should help in some kind of way. She wanted the yaks to feel like home and the group had to somehow archive that. One of them would come up with a solution eventually.

The group quickly agreed to this plan and they vowed to make the yaks their friends by the end of the day.

Later...

The first stop was Applejack's farm, one of her barns to be exact. With the help of Applejack, Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie prepared a little something to show Prince Rutherford and his two yak companions.

They build three beds made out of hay. Apparently, yaks tend to sleep on those in Yakyakistan.

Applejack proudly presented those beds to them. "We know y'all are noble warriors who avoid the so-called finer things, so me and my family would be honored if you rested here in the barn during your visit," she offered with a generous smile on her face.

"Star Twinkle, Applejack and I made hay beds like you're used to back in Yakyakistan," Pinkie Pie explained.

Just like before with the food, the yaks seemed really hesitant at first which made the three ponies feel a little bit nervous since they knew what happened before. But they then were surprised to hear Prince Rutherford's answer.

"This perfect," he said in a grumpy tone.

The three Earth Ponies sighed in relief after hearing that.

"You can snooze here all afternoon, 'cause you're gonna need a lot of energy for my party tonight!" Pinkie Pie said happily.

"Yes. I bet you all forget the bad things that happened earlier today if you sleep for a while," Star Twinkle added with a nervous smile on his face.

Once more, Applejack sighed in relief. "That wasn't so hard," she admitted happily.

But of course, things couldn't possibly go this smooth...

"Wait! This not yak hay!" Prince Rutherford pointed out.

And now it was Pinkie Pie who got a little bit nervous. "Well, we didn't have actual hay from Yakyakistan, but we tried our best to make it just like yours," she explained.

"It's the thought that counts, right?" Star Twinkle said nervously with a smile on his face.

That was not enough though. "Not perfect!" Prince Rutherford exclaimed angrily. "Yaks destroy!" He then said before they repeated what they did earlier this day. They destroyed everything, starting with the beds and continuing with the rest of the barn.

"Run!" Star Twinkle said in a panic before he, Pinkie Pie and Applejack ran outside to flee from the destruction that the yaks would cause.

They could still hear the three yaks smashing everything into pieces from outside. They had to come up with something new for the yaks. All eyes were set on Pinkie Pie, in the hope that she knew what to do. Luckily, it didn't take too long until she knew what to do next.

Later...

The next plan, to make the yaks feel like home, was to present them some creatures and animals that are living in Yakyakistan. For that, the group decided to take some of Fluttershy's critters and let them put on some yak horns, that looked like the ones that the yaks had on their heads.

Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie stood behind a curtain, along with Fluttershy who was just done preparing her animal friends.

"You sure this is gonna work?" Star Twinkle asked. He didn't even attempt to hide his worry.

Pinkie Pie gave a positive response. "Of course it does! What could possibly go wrong?" She had the nerve to ask.

"They don't like it, they get mad, they smash everything," Star Twinkle reminded her.

The mare laughed nervously. "That didn't happen for a while now," she replied.

"It happened half an hour ago..." Star Twinkle thought with an annoyed look on his face.

But despite the stallion's warning, Pinkie Pie decided to proceed. She stepped out from behind the curtain and walked over to the three yaks to start her little presentation.

"And now, for your entertainment pleasure... Presenting animals, Yakyakistan style!" She announced before the curtain opened and Fluttershy's animal friends walked up to the yaks.

Prince Rutherford and his companions silently watched until he finally spoke his mind. "Animals cute," he simply said in a serious tone.

Fluttershy was relieved to hear that. "Oh. Thank goodness," she said.

But only a few seconds later, things went wrong. One of the animals stumbled and the horns on its head fell off, much to the dislike of Prince Rutherford.

"Wait. These antlers lie! These not Yakyakistani animals!" He said angrily "Yaks smash!" He then added before he and his companions tried to stomp the animals in front of them.

Of course, Fluttershy was about to get a heart-attack by simply hearing this but she managed to grab all of her animal friends and saved them. The same could not be said about the picnic, that the three put in front of them. The yaks smashed everything, again...

Star Twinkle only watched in frustration. "This is reaching almost comedic levels now," he thought after he witnessed the yaks reacting and acting pretty stupid from his point of view.

"Pinkie?" Star Twinkle asked, looking at Pinkie Pie, in the hope to hear another idea from her.

"Well... There's still other things we can do. I think," she said. It was obvious that she was getting pretty flustered about all of this now as well.

Later...

This time, Pinkie Pie decided to show the yaks Carousel Boutique. She figured that they would probably like to see some nice fabrics. Star Twinkle figured that the mare was getting out of ideas by now but maybe it actually will work this time. He didn't know much about yaks anyway so maybe they actually would like some of this stuff.

Of course, Rarity was in her full element and proudly presented her boutique to the yaks. She levitated a fabric towards the yaks to let them inspect it closer.

"Yes! These are some of my favorite materials. Very rare, imported from the Crystal Empire to match your northern sensibilities," she said. "I hope you'll find them—" she continued before she noticed that all three of the yaks were chewing on the fabric.

Shortly after, the three then spat out the fabric again, and as expected, they didn't like it. "This no taste like yak fabric! Yaks destroy!" Prince Rutherford said angrily before the same thing started that they did before, they destroyed everything in sight, much to Rarity's dislike.

Star Twinkle looked over to the pink party mare. "Pinkie?" He simply said. His voice was beginning to sound really desperate by now.

Pinkie Pie smiled in response but she couldn't hide her frustration as well. "Everything's gonna be fine."

The stallion did not believe her, or at least he didn't believe her that she was thinking that everything was gonna be okay. But by now, Star Twinkle was desperate too. He just wished that those yaks would get happy in some way, somehow.

Later...

The next stop was on an open meadow in the middle of the town. Star Twinkle made sure to lead the yaks over there while Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash prepared something. The stallion didn't know what they were up to but he wished that whatever they came up with would help. It would certainly be the right time to do something right for once.

"Please wait here for a moment. Pinkie Pie will be right back with...something..." Star Twinkle explained to the three yaks.

Prince Rutherford did not seem to be happy at all to hear this. "Yaks don't like to wait! Yaks get angry when waiting, and then yaks-"

"Smash stuff, yes I know," Star Twinkle replied annoyed. Those yaks seemed rather simple-minded when it came to something like this, he felt.

Luckily, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash came back relatively quickly. Pinkie Pie stepped in front of Star Twinkle. "I'll take care from this point on," she said confidently towards the stallion before she directed Rainbow Dash to fly above the heads of the yaks while placing a cloud over them. "Listen up! Tell your faces to hold onto their frowns, 'cause they're about to get turned upside-down!" Pinkie Pie announced to the yaks.

"Hold your frown, face!" Prince Rutherford replied with a ready voice.

Pinkie Pie then gave a signal. "Hit it, Rainbow Dash!" She said.

Moments later, Rainbow Dash kicked the cloud and a big pile of snow came falling down right on the heads of the three yaks.

"Just like Yakyakistan snow, right?" Pinkie Pie said. "Because snow is snow, no matter where it comes from," she pointed out, being surprisingly logical in this situation.

The three yaks stood there motionless and unimpressed. Prince Rutherford just licked off some of the snow from his face. immediately after, his eyes popped open in shock. "This not yak snow!" He said angrily before he and his two companions were throwing snow around angrily.

"Seriously?! ...Seriously?" Pinkie Pie then said annoyed. Not even she could believe that this was happening right now. She was simply overwhelmed when it came to those yaks. She didn't know what to do anymore.

"Let's go and meet up with the others. I think we need to come up with something else," Star Twinkle suggested.

Things were already bad enough now so leaving the yaks alone for a moment was probably not making any difference anyway. It's not like Star Twinkle was eager to spend more time with the yaks anyway if they continued to act like this.

Later...

Inside the throne room of Twilight's castle, the group was recapping what happened between them and the yaks so far. And just like before, after the yaks arrived, everypony was putting it very mildly.

"Y'know... it's goin' okay," Applejack said.

"Satisfactory, I'd say," Rarity agreed.

"It could be better," Rainbow Dash admitted.

"It's not very good," Fluttershy whispered under her breath.

Star Twinkle was about to speak his mind in this situation, but Pinkie Pie was one step ahead for once. "It's a disaster!" She exclaimed in frustration.

That was not exactly what Twilight wanted to hear at all, judging from hear twitching ears and eyes, not to mention the nervous grin on her face. "Pinkie Pie, tonight's Yakyakistan theme party is more important than ever! You'll make them forget all about this afternoon, right?" She asked towards the pink mare, who in response formed a really weak smile on her face. "Because if it's not perfect, they're gonna smash everything! And I'm not sure how much more smashing this visit can take!"

"Seriously!" Steel Hammer said who was just entering the throne room, much to the surprise of everyone. "I was just about to come and tell you that I was pretty busy repairing a lot of stuff that, apparently, was smashed by some yaks who visited this town. Now I do like my job but I could really appreciate if those yaks could stop destroying stuff for today!" The stallion said in a rather annoyed tone.

"Maybe if the party is a success?" Star Twinkle said before looking over to Pinkie Pie.

"It definitely will!" Pinkie Pie said. Her voice did not sound very convincing though. "I think. Maybe...?" She then added quietly, making it even more obvious that she was nervous as well.

But despite all that Applejack still was pretty optimistic. "You're the best gosh-darn party planner in Equestria," she said.

"You'll show 'em a good time!" Rainbow Dash said with confidence in her voice.

"You can do it!" Fluttershy added.

"We have absolute confidence in your abilities, Pinkie Pie," Rarity added.

With all those ponies showing that much confidence, there, of course, was one who could not show the same amount of optimism. And that one was Star Twinkle.

"I think the problem is more about the yaks acting unreasonable and not us trying to put much work into things..." he thought. He felt that saying those words out loud at this moment was not the best idea.

"It's going to be the most happy-tacular party ever! I hope!" Pinkie Pie replied after all those compliments, her voice still sounding really nervous. She also smiled really awkwardly and her eyes were moving around hastily.

Rainbow Dash quickly picked up on that later. "Why are your eyes darting around like that?" She asked.

"It's what I do when I'm not nervous!" She replied before she started laughing hysterically. An obvious sign that she was almost losing it.

Twilight surprisingly did not pick up on that behavior and just thanked the mare for her help. "Pinkie Pie, I don't know what we'd do without you—"

"Me either! Gotta go!" Pinkie Pie then said before she stormed out of the room, only to come right back to grab Star Twinkle. "And you are coming with me!"

"Wha-!? Why!? Hey!" Star Twinkle replied before he was pulled out of the room, forcefully accompanying the mare.

Pinkie Pie was rushing through the town with Star Twinkle, forcefully, tagging along. Before he knew it, they were inside Pinkie Pie's room, where she closed the door immediately behind them. Once the door was closed, the mare started to hyperventilate heavily.

"Are you...alright?" Star Twinkle asked, fully knowing how stupid that question may be.

The mare grabbed Star Twinkle's cheeks. "I AM NOT!" She screamed right into the face of the stallion, causing him to fall over in shock. Once Star Twinkle got up on his hooves again, he noticed how Pinkie Pie was jumping around the room nervously until she finally decided to lay her head on the sofa, as if she was completely broken now.

"Um...calm down..." Star Twinkle said in a pretty unconvincing tone. He just had the feeling that he should say something. "I'm sure the party that you planned will be a huge success and the yaks forget all about the rest of the day, just like Twilight said," he pointed out.

Pinkie Pie then jumped up and right in front of the stallion. "No, you don't understand! I had all this amazing stuff planned for the party, but they're gonna hate it! There's no way to make Equestria feel like Yakyakistan. They're just too sensitive! Even Fluttershy made them mad! Fluttershy!"

Star Twinkle had to admit that things were looking a little bit difficult. "They sure are a tough crowd," he figured. "But when it comes to parties you know what to do...right?" He asked.

"But it won't be enough!" Pinkie Pie replied. "I need a new idea, and I need it now. How am I supposed to make this party feel like Yakyakistan?" She asked.

"They really don't seem to get happy unless they are confronted with something that is actually from Yakyakistan..." the stallion figured. Suddenly, Pinkie Pie's eyes popped open and she looked over to Star Twinkle. At first, he wondered why she was looking at him like that but then he slowly seemed to have figured out what would come next, and he didn't like it one bit. "Oh no! No no no no!"

Pinkie Pie had exactly planned what Star Twinkle feared, much to his dislike. Of course, he was kinda forced to tag along again...

Later...

Twilight herself was keeping a close look and tried her best to make the yaks feel at home. She brought them to Sugarcube Corner to offer them some Yakyakistan-style Cake, made by Ms. Cake. Naturally, Twilight was really nervous about the outcome of this and was sweating buckets just showing the yaks the building.

"And this is Sugarcube Corner. They're working hard to make your traditional Yakyakistan cake," she said, pointing at the building in front of her.

"Vanilla extract balance very tricky," Prince Rutherford just replied. His two companions just nodded in agreement to that.

That was not really what the mare wanted to hear right now. She needed some good news for once.

"Do you mind, um, waiting here for one moment?" She said before she teleported away and appeared inside Sugarcube Corner now. She needed to know how Pinkie Pie's party was doing and if it was good enough to save the situation.

"How's tonight's party coming? I'm doing what I can, but it's really up to you at this point!" She said as she was nervously walking up and down inside of Pinkie Pie's room. It didn't take long though until she realized that no one was there to listen to her. "...Pinkie? Where are you?!" She screamed in frustration.

A little later...

Wondering where the mare went to, she sent her friends to look for her while waiting inside her room. It didn't take long until her friends came back. "Did you find her?" She asked in a panic.

"Angel and I searched the forest, but..." Fluttershy said.

"Aerial recon turned up nothing either," Rainbow Dash said.

"I searched the farm inside and out. No Pinkie Pie," Applejack said. "But I did find a set of Granny Smith's dentures under the house, so... not a complete loss," she added.

"She's simply vanished!" Rarity figured.

Twilight was on the brink of completely going insane. "But the party! It's all we have left! What are we gonna do?!" She exclaimed in a panic, seeing how everything will turn out even worse than she could possibly imagine. In the middle of her frustration though, Pinkie Pie's pet alligator, Gummy, was falling from the ceiling and right on Twilight's head, much to her surprise. There was a small note stuck inside his mouth, which the mare quickly inspected.

"Don't worry. I'll be back in time for the party. Took Star Twinkle with me just in case. Love, Pinkie Pie."

Twilight was calming down a little bit more now after she realized that Pinkie Pie's absence had a reason. "If Pinkie Pie says she'll be back in time for the party, she'll be back. We have to trust her. Right?" She started laughing nervously. No reason to freak out!" She said as she was freaking out.

"Don't worry, Twilight," Fluttershy said as she put a hoof on the shoulder of the nervous mare.

"When it comes to parties, I think she knows what she's doin'," Applejack added confidently.

Twilight slowly inhaled and exhaled. It seemed to have calmed her down a little. "You're right. Let's just focus on keeping the yaks happy 'til she's back," she said with sweat dripping down her forehead.

"Piece o' cake," Rainbow Dash just replied casually.

Twilight instantly freaked out. "The cake!" She exclaimed. She just ow remembered that Prince Rutherford and his yak companions were just now waiting for the promised Yakyakistan-style cake that she promised them.

Only one floor below them, Ms. Cake already offered the prince a slice of a really tall cake, which is supposed to be the Yakyakistan cake.

"One bite, and you'll be transported right back to Yakyakistan," Ms. Cake said with a nervous laugh followed right behind.

"I hope," Steel Hammer added annoyed before he readied a hammer. He knew that they just would get mad again so he already prepared himself for that.

A second later, Twilight appeared next to the two ponies. She saw how Prince Rutherford already took a bite only to get angry after he was done eating.

"Ponies too heavy on vanilla extract!" The yak said angrily before he smashed the rest of the cake, along with the table, followed by his two companions smashing everything in sight.

Steel Hammer just sighed annoyed. "Here we go again..." he said before he walked up to the broken table to repair it right away.

Twilight only had a frustrated expression on her face. "We've never needed a party so badly. Pinkie Star Twinkle, please come back soon," she wished. The mare had no idea how much more she could take. This whole situation needed to be fixed and fast.

In the meantime...

Away from Ponyville, inside a train that was heading to the Crystal Empire, both Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie were sitting next to each other. Pinkie Pie looked out of the window while Star Twinkle looked at her with an annoyed look on his face.

"Why am I here?" He just asked himself. "This is really not a good idea..."

Pinkie Pie remained silent for the most of the trip, much to Star Twinkle's surprise but she eventually started to speak while staring out of the window.

"And so my quest begins. I know what you're thinking. "Why go to Yakyakistan alone, Pinkie Pie?" Because I'm the party planner. This burden falls on my rump and my rump alone..." she monologues in a very serious voice.

"And maybe Star Twinkle's rump!" Pinkie Pie then said in her usual cheerful voice.

"Why are you talking like this?" The stallion asked confused.

But Pinkie Pie didn't answer and continued her monologue...

"If I want a great party, I gotta climb the mountains north of the Crystal Empire, find Yakyakistan, and come back with something authentic!" She said before she turned towards Star Twinkle again. "Know what I mean?" She then asked cheerfully again.

"Why am I here, Pinkie?" Star Twinkle just replied, feeling dragged along for no reason.

Pinkie Pie snickered in response. "I thought it would be fun if we both go on a trip like this. It's not often you get to visit Yakyakistan after all!"

"And you think bring back something from Yakyakistan is gonna help us making the yaks feel at home?" Star Twinkle asked. It didn't take long though until he remembered what happened throughout the day and why it was happening. "Maybe it actually will work. We still need to get back for the party though," he pointed out.

But Pinkie Pie was really confident. "Don't you worry, we will be back for the party in no time. Unless things go wrong on the way there," she added casually.

And just like that, something did happen of course...

The train came to an abrupt hold causing Pinkie Pie to fall forward because of the quick brake and making her bump into Star Twinkle. "Oof!" He said after the mare bumping into his stomach area. "You just had to say it!" He said annoyed with some pain in his voice.

From the looks of it, the train was not gonna drive anymore and came to a hold in Dodge City. When Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie walked outside the train, Pinkie Pie was wondering why they were making hold here.

"Did we go the wrong way? Where's all the snow? Please tell me this is magical sand-colored snow," she asked before she took a bite and tasted the sand on the ground. Since it was sand, she immediately spat it out again in disgust. "Nope. Sand. Definitely sand," she found out.

Luckily, a conductor appeared next to the two to give them some insight. "Dodge City. End of the line, I'm afraid. All trains had to stop. Sheep decided to sit on the tracks," he told them.

Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie both looked ahead on the tracks, that is where they saw a bunch of sheep actually walking on the tracks, blocking it completely for the train to drive past.

Realizing that, Pinkie Pie screamed on top of her lungs. "Curse you, sheep!"

After the mare calmed down again, the two walked into Dodge Town. "Now what do we do?" He asked. They already came this far but with no train heading to Yakyakistan, they certainly ran into a problem.

Still, Pinkie Pie was not giving up hope. "I don't know..." she casually replied as she hopped away happily. "Maybe we will find some help in town?" She figured.

"If you say so..." Star Twinkle replied, lacking the same optimism that Pinkie Pie showed.

Pinkie Pie then was stopped in her track all of the sudden. The door of an outside toilet door was smashed right into her face by the pony walking outside it. It was an accident and Pinkie Pie didn't get hurt too bad, she managed to get up quickly and instead of getting mad or anything, she got surprised to see who the pony was that smacked the door into her face.

"Cherry Jubilee!" She said as soon as she recognized the mare.

The mare turned around and smiled as soon as she saw the two Earth Ponies. "Pinkie Pie, Star Twinkle?! I reckoned I eyeballed you crossin' my way right now," she said excitedly after she saw two familiar faces.

Back when Applejack was attending the rodeo in Canterlot and was too afraid to come back with not enough money, it was Cherry Jubilee who offered her a job. Star Twinkle well remembered how much trouble they ran into back then to get Applejack to return to Ponyville.

But that was long ago, and since then, everypony befriended the mare already. It was a while though since they met her again.

"How are you? You look amazing!" Pinkie Pie greeted the mare.

Star Twinkle then coughed, grabbing the attention of Pinkie Pie. He was happy to see a friend again as well but they were kind of in a hurry and he needed to remind his friend to that.

"Oh, yeah!" Pinkie Pie then said before she grabbed Cherry Jubilee's shoulders. "We need help!" she then said in a hurry, much to the mare's surprise.

"I'm dandy as a daffodil and fit as a floribunda. What can I do ya for?" Cherry Jubilee replied, offering her help to the two ponies who were desperately in need of it right now.

Pinkie Pie explained the situation. "Have you heard of Yakyakistan? Do you have any idea how we can get there?" She asked.

Luckily, Cherry Jubilee seemed to be ready to help with that. "Mark your calendars, 'cause this right here's your lucky day! I'm headin' north to the Crystal Empire myself for a delivery," she explained before she took both of the ponies to a wagon with four big stallions standing in front of it. "I ought to warn you though – me and the boys are powerful tired 'cause we was up all night countin' cherries," she added.

"Counting cherries? How many?" Pinkie Pie asked curiously.

Cherry Jubilee gave a quick answer. "Four hundred and seventeen thousand, two hundred and thirty-four."

That was a really big number. "That's a lot," Star Twinkle just said before he stepped into the wagon along with Pinkie and sat down next to some baskets filled with cherries.

And like that, Cherry Jubilee was ordering the stallions to go and the journey could continue. It might take them a little bit longer than traveling by train but at least they were making progress again.

Some time had passed since they left Dodge City and just like inside the train, Pinkie Pie remained silent for most of the time. It was Star Twinkle who then tried to start a conversation to skip the time a little bit faster.

"So...once we arrive in Yakyakistan, what should we-"

"And so my quest resumes," Pinkie Pie then said in her serious monologue voice again, ignoring Star Twinkle's attempt to speak with her.

"Uh..." Star Twinkle said but he decided to remain silent.

"As I stare across the endless desert, I tell myself I will soon triumphantly enter the homeland of our noble guests and return with a prize to make the best party they've ever seen," she said before she turned towards Star Twinkle. "Know what I mean?" She then said switching from serious to cheerful again.

"Totally," Star Twinkle replied in a deadpan tone. Since some time has passed already, the stallion wondered how much longer it would take them to reach Yakyakistan at this pace. He stood up and wanted to ask Cherry Jubilee exactly that but he then found out that she was asleep, snoring loudly in the process. It didn't take long until he also found out that the four stallions pulling the wagon were asleep as well.

"That is not good..." Star Twinkle said, getting nervous in the process only to freak out completely once he saw what was ahead of them, a ravine. "Even worse!" He exclaimed in shock.

Pinkie Pie took a look at what Star Twinkle was getting nervous about and quickly tried to make Cherry Jubilee wake up.

"Cherry? Ravine. Ravine!" She pointed out. But Cherry Jubilee was fast asleep and didn't reply. She soon resorted to pulling out an alarm clock and splashing some water into the mare's face, only for it to not work at all. "Wake up!" She then screamed into her face but there was still no response.

In the meantime, Star Twinkle tried to wake up the four stallions. "Wake up, please! How can you even run while being asleep!?" He said in a frustrated tone.

Pinkie Pie was getting more nervous as well the closer they got to the ravine. She eventually decided to take the ropes of the wagon and pulled them back to stop it.

"Stooooop!" She screamed.

She managed to actually wake the four stallions up with this move. They soon realized that there was a ravine coming up but there was not much to do. They hit the brakes but it wasn't enough to stop before they reached the edge of it. Luckily, the four ponies were pulled upwards and landed inside the back of the wagon in the nick of time before falling down.

Star Twinkle felt as if his heart stopped for a second there but he calmed down again as soon as things came to a hold.

"Huh?!" Cherry Jubilee woke up right about now. "Whoa. I was dreamin' about a ravine," she said confused.

Star Twinkle, who sat next to the mare, only pointed downwards with an annoyed look on his face.

"Ravine!" Cherry Jubilee then said in shock as soon as she looked down.

"That's what I said," Pinkie Pie said.

Star Twinkle was trying to figure out how to get out of this situation. If they made one wrong step, then the whole wagon would still fall down with them on it.

Unfortunately, things were too late already. Cracking could be heard beneath them. "Uh oh," Star Twinkle then said as soon as he noticed what would happen next. A second later, the rocks beneath them gave in and the wagons started falling down the ravine.

Meanwhile...

The desperate attempts of Twilight and her friends to make Prince Rutherford and his yak companions feel like home still continued. This time, they decided that it would be best to play some music for them. Spike offered to play some piano music while Steel Hammer was singing to them.

It seemed to work. The three yaks were sobbing while listening to the music of the two. "Music beautiful. Much soul," Prince Rutherford said in a shaking voice.

Twilight, who was sitting next to the three yaks, was whipping off some sweat from her forehead after hearing that. Finally, something was going well without any problem.

Steel Hammer and Spike were happy to hear that as well. They were done playing and singing so Spike decided it would be a good idea to share something with the yaks. "When Twilight told me to stall— I-I mean, entertain you, I thought there's no way I could—"

But then suddenly, the piano continued playing music, without Spike sitting there playing it. This, of course, confused the yaks. Prince Rutherford decided to turn the piano around and found out that it was playing on its own.

"Spike!" Twilight said in frustration making him stop, unfortunately, the damage already had been done.

"Piano play itself?! Music a lie!" Prince Rutherford said angrily.

But still, Steel Hammer took pride in his abilities. "I assure you that my singing was pretty real so-" but Prince Rutherford didn't listen and already jumped towards Steel Hammer and Spike to smash them. "AAAAH!!"

Spike managed to jump out of the way but Steel Hammer laid under the angry prince, groaning in pain.

"We demand party! Party now or yaks no friends!" Prince Rutherford said.

"No! Just a little longer!" Twilight replied. With Pinkie Pie not being around the party could not start. She needed to buy some more time.

But Prince Rutherford wouldn't have it anymore. "No more longer!" Prince Rutherford replied angrily. "We leave now! Yak go to train, return with more yaks! We declare war!" He said towards Twilight who stood there in shock. She couldn't believe what she was hearing right now. She just, in a way, was responsible for a war between ponies and yaks. Words could not describe how scared, frustrated and shocked she was now.

Twilight was seeking some help. She went to the town hall, the place where the preparations for the party would be at. When she arrived in front of the building however, she found a huge mess. Balloons, confetti, and paint were scattered all over the place.

On her way, Twilight already had her eyes open for Pinkie Pie but looking at all this pretty much confirmed that she must have not been back yet. The rest of her friends were nearby, they were the ones putting all this together apparently.

"What's this?!" She finally asked in frustration.

Applejack explained after laughing nervously "We panicked and tried to plan our own party," she said.

Rainbow Dash then came falling down from the roof of the building. She was tangled up in a bunch of ribbons and couldn't free herself. "It's sort of panic-themed," she casually said despite being in this state.

Twilight had to let her friends know how the situation with Prince Rutherford was, they were not really surprised to hear the outcome. "The yaks are going home! This is awful!" She said in frustration before she began to frown. "I wanted to surprise Princess Celestia. Now the only surprise is that I may have just started a war," she said with a sad tone in her voice.

"Well if those yaks want a war then I will give them one!" Steel Hammer then said as he approached the girls. He was wearing a self-made wooden armor that made him look as if he wanted to make his last words really come true. "Just let me at them! They pay for destroying all the stuff in Ponyville!" He said with an angry look on his face.

Of course, the girls immediately went to the stallion and held him down so that he wouldn't do something stupid. Pinkie Pie was probably the only pony who could save everyone in this situation. The others just had to believe that she would come back in time...and there was not much left of that...

In the meantime...

Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie were both in the Crystal Empire. After some weird events unfolded earlier, they somehow managed to get really close to their goal. Pinkie Pie was back to continue her monologue once more as they walked through the snow of the Crystal Empire.

"There we were, face-to-face with Falling Pony Ravine. Down, down, down! And then, suddenly... Pow! We were rescued mid-air by the Wonderbolts!"

"Yes, Pinkie...I was there..." the stallion said.

But Pinkie Pie did not listen to Star Twinkle and merely continued. "And then they gave me a ride to Manehattan, I joined a traveling band, we played some shows here and there, got popular, almost made it big until creative differences tore us apart. And that's when I knew I had to get back on with my journey to the Crystal Empire, the gateway to Yakyakistan!"

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes. "That didn't happen...I think...I'm actually not sure now that I think about, which kinda worries me..." he added as he tipped his chin for a moment.

The mare ignored those words and just continued. "And so here we are. It was a major adventure that took most of the afternoon. Know what I mean?" She then said towards Princess Cadance.

The princess of the Crystal Empire was offering to show the two how to get to Yakyakistan. She was accompanying them until they reached a path leading through a mountainside.

"This is it. The northern boundary of the Crystal Empire. Beyond lies Yakyakistan. Nopony who's attempted this climb has ever returned," she explained to the two ponies.

Star Twinkle started to shiver and it was not because of the snow that was falling down on him. "You really could have left that last part out, you know?" He said nervously.

Princess Cadance looked worried to show the two this path. "Are you sure you have to do this?" She asked in concern.

"We are," Pinkie Pie replied determinedly.

Star Twinkle looked over to the mare with a bothered expression on his face. "Do I have any choice in this?"

"Of course, you do!" Pinkie Pie replied cheerfully. "You either come with me or you go all the way back on your own, through half of Equestria," she casually explained to the stallion as she already walked up the path.

The Earth Pony stallion sighed in response. "Alright, alright I'm coming..." he said as he followed the mare slowly behind.

Princess Cadance stayed behind and only looked at the two ponies, hoping that they would be safe. "Good luck, you two."

Just like Princess Cadance, Star Twinkle hoped that this trip would not end up even more dangerous. He would like to return to Ponyville soon, not to mention that he was worried about how the situation with the yaks was there. But since the two already came this far, they might as well go all the way.

The path was not getting easier, the snow as high enough to reach the heads of the two ponies. They were literally fighting their way through thick snow. They couldn't even see where they were going too because it was too high.

"You think we are still on the right track?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I don't know, maybe we should ask someone for direction?" She suggested.

"Ask who?" Star Twinkle replied, seeing how they are the only ones in this place.

Shortly after, a roar could be heard that came from not too far away. "How about there! I bet there is someone in this dark creepy cave," she said before she happily hopped over to it to ask for direction.

"Uh, Pinkie," Star Twinkle said, trying to warn the mare. Whatever made that sound just now was not giving him a friendly impression.

But Pinkie Pie was totally oblivious to the potential danger. She saw a pair of red eyes from inside the cave and figured that she should just ask away. "Hi! My name is Pinkie Pie! We are looking for Yakyakistan. You know, faraway land, lots of yaks? Maybe you've heard of it?"

She got an answer which came in the form of another angry roar. There was a baboon-like snow creature coming out of the cave which definitely looked dangerous.

"Pinkie," Star Twinkle said in a shaky voice, as an attempt to warn the mare again.

And again, Pinkie Pie was not seeing any danger in this situation and continued trying to talk with this monster. "Whoa-ho-ho! Slow down! I can't understand a word you're saying—" she said before she was interrupted by the monster, which used its claws to cut off a piece from her mane. Now the mare seemed to be aware of the danger as well since she looked rather scared now.

"Let's run!" Star Twinkle said as he grabbed Pinkie Pie's leg and dragged her along with her. His instinct was telling him that this creature was not easy to be reasoned with.

The two were running away with the monster right behind them. This was certainly the last thing that they needed right now. Luckily, for once on this trip, luck was shining upon them. A big town could be seen in the far distance.

"There it is! Yakyakistan!" Pinkie Pie said excitedly while still being on the run.

Her guess seemed to be right since there was a young yak sitting on a sled not too far away. Star Twinkle hated to interrupt the little yak right now but that sled would certainly help them out in this situation. He decided to grab Pinkie Pie and jumped on the sled, making the three of them slide down the hill in front of them and speeding up enough to get away from the monster behind them.

It didn't take long until the three of them were in front of the huge entrance to Yakyakistan. Two giant yak statues were next to the gates and the little yak jumped off from the sled and opened the gates, inviting them to enter the town.

"I can't believe it, we actually made it," Star Twinkle said excitedly.

"Yes! We did it!" Pinkie Pie joined in happily.

The two were hugging and jumping up and down like a colt and filly who just got a bunch of presents on Heart Warming Eve. Considering how the day went so far, this was certainly a reason to be happy now.

Star Twinkle then stepped off from the sled, determined to find something to bring back to Ponyville. "All we have to do now is to go in there and-"

The stallion stopped as soon as he saw how him stepping off from the sled caused Pinkie Pie to fall back a little, and since she was just barely hanging on the edge of a hill, it caused her to slide back, with an unnatural big amount of momentum.

"Noooooooo!" Was the only thing that Star Twinkle could hear as Pinkie Pie was sliding further and further away until she was completely out of sight.

Star Twinkle didn't know what to say at this moment. It almost looked as if she had so much momentum that she would slide down the whole mountain again, if not even further.

"That...is not good..." was the only thing that Star Twinkle managed to get out in this situation.

In the meantime...

Twilight and the rest of her friends were still waiting inside Pinkie Pie's room in hope that she would return any second. But seeing how much time has passed already, Twilight only got more nervous about the party.

"How could she be so late to the party? This isn't like her. Star Twinkle is with her, isn't he? Wouldn't he try to make her come back sooner?" She questioned her friends.

"I'm sure she's trying her best," Fluttershy said.

Rainbow Dash agreed. "Pinkie Pie's tougher than she looks," she said.

Steel Hammer nodded in response as well. "They are probably on their way back already. They wouldn't leave us all hanging like this after all," he figured.

"I know you're right, but... I wish they were here," Twilight then said with a frown on her face. "I put too much pressure on Pinkie Pie. I let everypony down. And Princess Celestia will be here any minute and see that I haven't made new friends. I've made new enemies," she said with a sad tone in her voice. She clearly regretted doing all of this.

The mare was leaning on something that looked like a cupcake-shaped banister next to the stairs. Soon the clicking of gears could be heard as if she activated something on this thing. The group was a little confused about this and they certainly got more confused as soon as the ground vanished beneath them and they were sliding down to the room below.

"Ugh. Is everypony alright?" Twilight asked after a rather rough slide downwards.

It was dark, not a thing could be seen in this room. "I can't tell if my eyes are open or closed," Fluttershy said.

"I think I can see a little bit," Rainbow Dash said as she tried to make her way through the darkness.

CRASH!

"Ouch, careful!" Steel Hammer said.

"Sorry!" Rainbow Dash apologized.

Shortly after, the light turned on and the ponies were able to see again. What they saw surprised them. A room filled with all kinds of stuff that you would see at a party, ranging from disco balls, presents, balloons, streamers, confetti, there was everything that would fit in a good party.

"Ooooh..." The six ponies said in awe as soon as they laid eyes on this room.

Applejack then walked towards an open locker and saw how many documents were sticking out of them. "Look at these! Pinkie Pie's made files for everypony in town!" She said after she took a closer look at them.

"With exactly what kind of parties we like," Fluttershy added after taking a look at them herself.

"Pinkie Pie has a secret party-planning cave?! How cool is this?!" Rainbow Dash said impressed.

Fluttershy then was reading out one of the documents. "Twilight Sparkle likes vanilla ice cream, red balloons, dancing..."

"That's right!" Twilight confirmed.

"But she's afraid of quesadillas." Fluttershy continued.

This one took Twilight by surprise. "No, I'm not!" She said embarrassed. "They're just so... cheesy," she said shuddering for a moment while she said that.

"She sure takes her job as a party planner serious," Steel Hammer figured.

"Really," Applejack said while she continued to look through some more documents. "Looky here. It's notes for the party she wants to throw for her folks' fiftieth anniversary. But they ain't nearly that old! Huh. She's already plannin' their one-hundredth too. And their five-hundredth?" She said confused and impressed at the same time.

"I had no idea she worked so hard on her parties," Twilight said.

Rainbow Dash could only smile after hearing that. "She may be more organized than you, Twilight," she figured.

"Let's not get carried away," Twilight replied, getting a little defensive about that.

It was now that the group started to feel a little bad. "I just wish Pinkie Pie were here so we could tell her how much we all appreciate her hard work," Rarity said in the name of everypony else who was present.

To their surprise, Pinkie Pie was there and listened to them. She revealed herself hiding behind some balloons and cried her eyes out after hearing those nice words.

"Thank you! Thank you! I love you too! All of you!" She said with a sobbing voice.

Twilight was quickly happy to see Pinkie Pie again. "You're back!" She said before the pink mare came to her in order to give her a hug.

"I tried to go to Yakyakistan so I could bring something back for my party. But at the last second, something went wrong and a slid all the way back to Ponyville!" She explained before she started to sigh. "I worked harder on this party than any party ever. But I'm still just a big failure," she added with a frown on her face. She blamed herself completely for all of this.

But Twilight quickly disagreed. "Pinkie Pie, you're not a failure," she said.

Fluttershy agreed. "What matters is how hard you tried," she added.

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash said in agreement "Who else would've gone all across Equestria to plan one party?" She pointed out.

Pinkie Pie had to admit that this was true. "You know... the trip was really hard. But everypony I met along the way was so helpful. I just wish the yaks could see how friendly and wonderful and great Equestria really is!" She said before she then gasped after a big realization "I just got the best party idea ever!" She exclaimed happily.

But Twilight had to bring the mare the sad truth."It's too late. The yaks left on the last train," she said with a frown on her face.

"Um, no, they didn't," Pinkie Pie replied confidently. "Trust me! There are a whole lot of sheep out there!" She added, obviously referring to the problem that she ran into back when she tried to get to Yakyakistan.

Pinkie Pie then jumped on the slide and slid upwards to the floor above again, much to the surprise of everypony of how the mare was defying logic like that.

"So, um, do we walk back up the slide, or... or what?" Fluttershy asked confused but there was no answer coming from the others. They had to go and help Pinkie Pie with her party but for now, the better question was how to get out of this room again.

Later...

Prince Rutherford and his companions were already at the train station of Ponyville, screaming at the poor conductor because the trains would not drive now.

"Yaks stuck here?! Why trains not work?!" The prince screamed at the of the conductor before he growled in anger, having dealt with enough nuisances in this town already.

"I never thought I'd say this, but... thank you, sheep!" Pinkie Pie said happily as she walked up to the three yaks with the rest of her friends next to her. "And now, if it's okay with you, it's party time!"

The yaks looked confused but not mad to hear this. There was definitely time to save this day and Pinkie Pie wanted to make sure of that.

Later...again...

With Pinkie Pie throwing a successful party, the yaks finally seemed happy and didn't have a problem with anything. Other than that, it sure was impressive for Pinkie Pie to set all this up in just that short time.

Even Twilight had to point that out. "Wow, Pinkie. This came together quickly, even for you," she said.

"What can I say? I'm good at what I do," Pinkie Pie said modestly but also confidently. Still, there was one more thing that she had to get off from her heart and for that, she had to talk with the prince of the yaks himself.

"Prince Rutherford, every time we tried to make something in Equestria feel like Yakyakistan, we couldn't get it right. When I got back from my adventure, I realized something. We shouldn't try to make Equestria feel like your home. We should try to make you feel at home in Equestria. And that means showing you why we love it here, so you'll love it too," she explained.

The yak looked over at all the ponies attending the party, the ponies who were laughing and having fun with their friends. Seeing the happy faces of them caused the tough prince to tear up.

"Pink pony work hard to make yaks feel at home. Now yaks happy. No declare war," he announced.

Of course, those words heavily confused Princess Celestia who was at the party as well. She looked over to Twilight with a confused look and wondered what this talk about a war was to which Twilight could only smile awkwardly back.

Prince Rutherford then asked one more question to Pinkie Pie. "Ponies and yaks... friends?"

"For a thousand moons?" Pinkie Pie asked back.

"For a thousand moons!" Prince Rutherford announced for anypony to hear.

The place was filled with cheers. That party was exactly what everypony needed now, especially the yaks. Princess Celestia also seemed happy about Twilight's achievements and congratulated her for it.

"I am very impressed, princess," she said towards Twilight.

The mare smiled back in response "Heh. Just doing my best to spread friendship," she said, trying to hide how nervous she was before.

Princess Celestia smiled. "And you did a wonderful job of it. You and your friends," she said happily before she noticed something. "Speaking of your friends, isn't one of them missing right now?" She asked.

Twilight had to admit that she was just noticing that as well. "That's right! Pinkie Pie, where is Star Twinkle? Wasn't he with you?" She asked towards the pink mare.

"Oh yeah!" Pinkie Pie replied. "Last time I saw him he was-" then suddenly her eyes popped open in shock. "Oh uh," she then said after she realized where Star Twinkle must still be at.

Meanwhile...

After Pinkie Pie was gone, Star Twinkle thought it would be a pretty bad idea to get back to Ponyville on his own. The way back was way too long and dangerous for him alone. The next best thing for him to do was to stay in Yakyakistan for a while until he figured out what to do.

However, staying in Yakyakistan also came with a few complications...

"Pony now eat special Yakyakistan cake!" One yak said as he offered him another slice of cake.

"But I already ate two full cakes!" The stallion replied while he held his stomach in pain. "I think I had enough," he pleads.

"Nonsense!" The yak replied in a serious tone.

"Yes!" Another yak next to him said. "Yaks love visitors!"

"Yaks also love to show hospitality to ponies," Yet another yak threw in. "And if yaks get visitors who don't appreciate yak hospitality, yaks smash visitors!"

"YES!" All the yaks close to Star Twinkle said at the same time.

Star Twinkle started to sweat. He smiled nervously before he took another plate with a slice of cake in his hooves. "Then I better get back to eat this delicious cake, hehe..." he said as he forcefully took another bite from the cake.

"Somebody please come and get me out of here!" The stallion thought in frustration, hoping that this stressful visit would be over soon.

102. Old Friends?

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It was a quiet and beautiful night in Equestria. It was the end of the day and Star Twinkle was just about to go to sleep. He walked upstairs to his bedroom, turning off all the lights in his house on his way. The only light that was now shining in the room was the light that came from the moon.

The stallion sat down on his bed and stretched his legs. "Good night, Comet," he said followed by a big yawn.

His Goldfish only starred in the distance and didn't reply.

Star Twinkle was pretty happy whenever this time of the day came. The time where he could just close his eyes, relax, and not worry about a single thing.

That is what would happen if someone wasn't knocking on his door as soon as he laid down in his bed, causing him to open his eyes as soon as they were closed.

"Knocking?" Star Twinkle wondered. "Too bad, I'm already asleep..." he thought. Everyone would be asleep at this moment so of course, he just stayed in his bed and ignored the knocking.

Knock Knock!

But that didn't change the fact that he was still annoyed by this interruption. "Who could that be?" He asked himself confused. "Who would knock on my door at this hour? Maybe there is some kind of emergency? The only one I think would bother me at this hour would be..."

"Star Twinkle? Are you there?" Twilight's voice asked from outside.

The stallion formed an annoyed expression on his face and sat up again. "That is just not fair!" He complained as he got out of his bed and walked downstairs, grumbling a few words on his way to his door. Once he opened the front door, he could see Twilight and Spike, the later one having the same expression on his face as Star Twinkle, all while the Alicorn Princess smiled awkwardly.

"What do you want Twilight?" Star Twinkle asked in a rather bothered tone, which he didn't even try to hide at this point.

Twilight first looked around as if she was actually just now trying to come up with an explanation. "Oh, nothing special," she had the nerves to say. "I was just in the area and thought that you would maybe interested to visit Canterlot right now?" She asked casually.

Star Twinkle stood at the door, his face wasn't even reacting to this.

SLAM!

The stallion shut the door with one fast motion and decided to just ignore the mare, especially if it was for a simple reason like that.

"Wait! Hear me out! This is serious!" Her muffled voice said from outside, this time sounding a little bit more desperate.

Star Twinkle just rubbed his eyes and let out an annoyed sigh before he then opened the door again. "What is really the reason for your visit?" The stallion asked, hoping that Twilight would get to the point this time.

Now it was Twilight who sighed. She gave a quick explanation. "Listen, there is something that I need to fix and I might need some help with it," she said.

"Fix what?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

It was then Spike who took over. "She forgot that she had friends in Canterlot. She just now remembered them and now she feels bad about it," he explained.

But Twilight had to correct some things. "I did not forget about them! I just...didn't really...get in contact with them ever since I started to live in Ponyville..." She said. After saying those words, Star Twinkle could tell how bad the mare felt just saying that. "Some great Princess of Friendship, huh? They must think that I am the worst friend ever..."

It was then that Star Twinkle realized why Twilight was taking this so seriously. He actually found himself in a pretty similar position. This one pony that he met a while ago, Summershine, was his friend too but Star Twinkle could not remember him, at least not clearly. He would not miss his chance as well to get his friend back.

With that going through his head, the stallion just had to help Twilight. "Alright, I'll help you," he said.

Hearing those words made Twilight smile. "Thank you, Star Twinkle, I knew I could count on you," Twilight said in gratitude, making the stallion feel a little bit embarrassed now, seeing how happy the mare was for his cooperation.

"Don't mention it..." the stallion replied nervously.

"Alright then, let's go!" Twilight then said, much to Star Twinkle's surprise.

"Wait...now!?" He replied confused.

"Of course!" Twilight casually replied with a smile on her face. "I have to get to this problem as soon as possible if I want to fix this," she said determinedly

Star Twinkle was sighing in annoyance. "Twilight, it's in the middle of the night...can't this wait until tomorrow?" The stallion pleads, his eyes clearly showing how annoyed he was just now.

But every attempt to talk Twilight out of this was useless. In the end, she managed to convince Star Twinkle to get himself ready and they both flew to Canterlot.

Later...

This trip already got on Star Twinkle's nerves because he had to fly all the way to Canterlot instead of going by train. It's not like any train was available at his late of an hour anyway. Luckily, the stallion's transformation lasted this long to make this trip as long as he was flying at a slow speed and didn't exhaust himself too much.

As he was flying through the sky though, he had to admit that it was a little bit relaxing as well. It was really quiet and the night was beautiful to look at. He never had the chance of looking at Equestria like this which made it quite a unique trip. But knowing that probably a lot of work was heading his way to help Twilight out with her old friends made him feel a little bit exhausting as well.

As the stallion was looking around, taking in the nice scenery, he managed to capture, just in the corner of his eye, some kind of movement. There were not many birds or any other animals flying past them so far, so he wondered what it was. But as soon as he figured something else was flying near them and took a closer look around, only to find out that there was nothing.

Twilight noticed that behavior from the stallion. "Is something the matter?" She asked confused.

"No, it is nothing," Star Twinkle replied before he focused on flying straight again. "Must have imagined that..." he thought.

It did not take much longer until Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike reached Canterlot. They landed in a garden near the castle. As expected, no one was there at this late hour. It almost felt as if they were sneaking around the place.

"Now what?" Star Twinkle asked, waiting for Twilight to share her plan with him.

The mare gave a quick response. "The only logical place to start is at the beginning," she said.

Twilight looked at a small tower and slowly walked up to it with Star Twinkle following her. "What is that place?" He asked.

Twilight gave a quick response. "My old home," she casually said.

This struck Star Twinkle by surprise. It may have been a small tower but it looked really regal and almost too fancy, at least for his taste. Of course, it couldn't even hold a candle to her castle in Ponyville but considering how she was living inside a tree before that, this tower was still something different.

The door to the tower opened and for the first time, Star Twinkle could see the place where Twilight used to live before her time in Ponyville. It felt for him as if this was actually a pretty big moment.

As expected, there were a lot of books, this was Twilight's home after all. It actually looked as fancy from the inside as it did from outside. Her tree-house was definitely a little bit more simple, at least when it came to the decor. This place definitely looked as if it belonged to someone who had a royal family or something.

As the three walked through the building, a rush of nostalgia seemed to hit Twilight for a moment. "Oh. It's exactly how we left it!" Twilight said as she let her eyes scan the whole place.

"When were you last here?" Star Twinkle asked out of curiosity.

Twilight rubbed her leg. "That would be one day before I met you and the others," she explained with an embarrassed grin on her face.

"I see..." Star Twinkle replied.

The mare then walked up a staircase that led to a big bookshelf. In front of it was a book on a pedestal, covered in dust, which Twilight blew away. She was surprised to see what book was hidden under the dust. "Look! It's Predictions and Prophecies! And it's still open to the Elements of Harmony!" She said.

Star Twinkle walked up to the book as well and noticed a picture showing the mare in the moon. Twilight explained to him that after she read the information about Nightmare Moon and her upcoming return, she decided to tell Princess Celestia about it. But the princess didn't believe in that and sent Twilight to Ponyville to make some friends, which then ended up saving Equestria from Nightmare Moon. In a way, it looked as if Princess Celestia was aware that this was the way to handle things, which is why she sent Twilight to Ponyville in the first place. It was interesting for Star Twinkle to know that those events ended up having those two meet each other.

As Star Twinkle was walking through the place as well, the accidentally stepped into something. It was a broken wrapped package and next to it was a teddy bear which was in a pretty bad state as well.

"What is this?" Star Twinkle asked.

Spike then picked up the teddy bear and started to remember. "I was a present for Moon Dancer, one of Twilight's friends here in Canterlot. Twilight broke it by accident while I was holding it," he explained.

Twilight seemed a little surprised to hear that. "I did?" She asked confused. Realizing that only made her feel worse. She walked up to a window and looked over Canterlot for a moment. "How could I have let this happen?" She said, her voice sounding very heavy and sad.

Spike realized how down the mare was as well and tried cheering her up again. "Come on, Twilight. Princess Celestia gave you an assignment. Nopony could blame you for that," he pointed out.

But Twilight was not so easy to convince. "But look at the way I left this place. It's a total mess! Just like how I left my friendships," she said with a frown on her face.

Twilight was definitely feeling bad about all this. She was leaning her head against the window glass and looked as if she would start crying any moment out of guilt. Star Twinkle was slowly being affected by this and started feeling rather upset as well. Some things needed to be said, that much was certain for him. The stallion put one of his hooves on the mare's shoulder to comfort her a little. She turned her head around with a frown on her face and was surprised to see Star Twinkle smiling at her. "Don't you worry. I'm sure if they are your friends then they will forgive you for a little slip up like this," he said confidently.

Those words seemed to have cheered the mare up a little. She formed a weak smile and then looked outside one more time. It didn't take long until her face was not showing determination.

"I have to make it up to my friends!" She said determinedly. I've gotta make it up toooo... uh..." she then added, realizing that she didn't even remember the names of her friends. She smiled at her little dragon friend nervously in the hope he would help her out.

Luckily, Spike was the one who actually remembered them. "Oh! Uh, Minuette, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, Lyra Heartstrings, and Moon Dancer."

"Yeah. Them," Twilight said with a determined tone in her voice

"But not today..." Star Twinkle pointed out, kinda taking Twilight out of her determined state.

It was then when Twilight looked a little bit embarrassed. "I guess this really could have waited for tomorrow," she figured as she smiled nervously at Star Twinkle. "Are you gonna help with my friends?" She then asked.

"Well, I am already here, so I might as well..." Star Twinkle replied. It was not as if he had much of a choice anymore. "But I would like to get some sleep before that," he demanded.

With that said, Star Twinkle and Spike went to sleep. Star Twinkle was way too tired to be worried about sleeping on a sofa in the study room right now, the same could apply to Spike because he was just laying on top of some books. Despite his tiredness though, Star Twinkle was actually having some troubles drifting off to sleep and it was not because he was uncomfortable.

All this talk about making it up to old friends made him think about Summershine, this one pony that attacked him while Lord Tirek was on the loose. The same pony who claimed to be his friend and also used a spell to erase Star Twinkle's memory. The Earth Pony would do anything to get into a talk with Summershine again just to find out stuff about himself and his cloudy past.

But now, Twilight and her old friends were more important. She has friends here that she remembers and she wanted to make up for it. All Star Twinkle had to do was supporting her. That is exactly what he planned on doing tomorrow.

On the next morning...

Early in the morning, way before Star Twinkle even planned to let anyone know that he was awake, he could hear Twilight Rushing from one corner of the room to another. Figuring how with all those noises he would not be able to sleep anyway, he decided to get up now. Spike also decided to do the same shortly after.

Twilight, as soon as she noticed the two getting up, got quickly excited. "Star Twinkle! Spike! Come on! We've got work to do!" The mare said.

"Have you been awake all night?" Spike asked as he got up from the pile of books that served as his bed this night.

Twilight explained. "I did a little research, and I think I know where we can find Minuette! That is one of my friends, right?"

Star Twinkle could only lower his eyebrows after hearing that. "Wait...you did research on where your friends live?" He asked, finding it kinda weird how little she seemed to know about her friends if she had to research that. Unfortunately, Twilight seemed to have picked up and that and frowned, feeling bad about it now. Of course, Star Twinkle did not want that to happen. "I mean- Then we should get there as soon as possible!" He said in order to let her forget his words as fast as possible.

Now the mare was taking a deep breath. "I hope this all goes well," she said before walked outside, expecting Star Twinkle and Spike to follow her, which they did. They also hoped that things would go smoothly with her friends.

It didn't take too long until the three were in front of Minuette's house. Twilight was extremely nervous as soon as she stood in front of the door. Knowing Twilight, the inside of her head must have been a complete mess right now.

Spike quickly noticed that as well. "Uh, it's not too late to forget I opened my big mouth," he said, trying to get the mare out of this nervous state.

But Twilight declined. "No, Spike, I'm glad you opened your big mouth. These ponies have probably been suffering ever since I left. Wondering why their supposed friend would treat them so badly!" She said.

"Don't worry, Twilight, no matter how mad or upset they are, Spike and I are here to support you," he said, earning him a thumbs up from the little dragon who fully agreed with Star Twinkle's words.

Hearing that did make Twilight feel a little bit happier. She eventually managed to knock on the door to face her old friend. Star Twinkle stood right behind her, ready to get her back whenever Minuette would lash out at her.

A few seconds later, the door slowly opened. Twilight nervously called out Minuette's name but was then surprised to see the mare greeting her with a full smile.

"Twilight Sparkle!" Minuette said happily. "You old so-and-so! What are you doing here?!" She asked before her eyes shifted towards the little baby dragon. "Hey, Spike!" She greeted with the same happy manner.

Minuette was a Unicorn mare with a light blue coat, a dark blue mane with a blue-grayish stripe, sapphire blue eyes, and an hourglass as a Cutie Mark.

Everyone seemed highly surprised that Minuette was behaving completely differently from what they thought. There was no sign of sadness or bitterness towards Twilight but instead pure excitement and happiness.

"Look at these wings, huh?!" The mare said followed by a giggle as soon as she saw Twilight's wings. She then used her magic to levitate a camera from inside her house towards Star Twinkle. "Hey, grab a picture of me and the princess, will ya?! You come here too, Spike!" She asked of the little dragon, who happily joined in. Star Twinkle, while still being a little confused, just decided to go along with it. "I tried to tell my co-workers we used to be friends back when. But they've never believed me!" The mare said, followed by more giggles.

In the meantime, Star Twinkle was focusing the camera at the three. Twilight did seem a little nervous, especially since Minuette didn't seem to be mad at her in the slightest. "Wait-wait-wait! Really fluff 'em up, huh?" Minuette asked of Twilight so that she would spread her wings in front of the camera. After Minuette then struck a pose next to Twilight, Star Twinkle pressed the button on the camera and took the picture.

"Done," Star Twinkle said as he returned the camera to the mare.

"Thanks a bunch!" She replied happily before she then looked at the stallion with a confused but also curious look on her face. "Who are you by the way?" She then asked.

This gave Twilight a signal to introduce Star Twinkle to her. "I'm sorry. This is Star Twinkle, one of my friends from Ponyville. Star Twinkle, this is Minuette."

"Hi, there! Nice to meet you!" Minuette said cheerfully as she shook Star Twinkle's hoof.

"L-Likewise," the stallion replied nervously. He had to admit that he felt a little intimidated by how cheerful and happy this mare was. He did have Pinkie Pie as a comparison but when it came to meeting new ponies who acted like that, he still didn't know how to react.

After this flashy and happy reunion, Minuette could finally get to the question of why Twilight was visiting her after such a long time. "So what are you doing here? I mean, I know you're here all the time, but you never come to see me," she asked, putting Twilight in a more uncomfortable state again but that quickly changed once Minuette suggested something. "Hey! I just had the greatest idea! You wanna go see Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine?"

Twilight was really liking this idea and wanted to give it a try. "Of course! My old friends!" She said happily. She really started to look at things a lot more positive now.

"It'll be great!" Minuette said before she led the way. "Come on! Let's fly! Get it?" She added followed by a hearty laugh as she continued to walk forwards and bringing Twilight to the rest of her friends.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike were hugely surprised how things turned out like this. Minuette was clearly not mad that Twilight didn't visit them for such a long time, or at least she didn't show it.

"That was...easy..." Star Twinkle said after meeting this cheerful mare.

"This is perfect!" Twilight said happily. "I can apologize to all three of them at once!"

Star Twinkle reacted confused to hear that and lowered his eyebrows. "Minuette didn't really look as if she was waiting for an apology though..." the stallion thought.

"Let's hope they're not as traumatized as Minuette," Spike said sarcastically.

A little later...

Minuette got two more of Twilight's friends to show up at Donut Joe's Donut shop to meet up with her and talking about some things in the past. In the meantime, Star Twinkle and Spike were sitting next to the counter. Star Twinkle figured that he should let them all catch up without him bothering them and Spike was just hungry and wanted to eat something so he joined the stallion.

The other two mares were called Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts. They both seemed really nice, just like Minuette, as far as Star Twinkle could tell. Hearing some laughter and giggles coming from their table also was a really good sign.

Twinkleshine was a Unicorn mare with a light goldish gray colored coat, a pink mane, arctic blue eyes, and three light blue stars as a Cutie Mark. Lemon Hearts was a Unicorn mare as well. She had a light yellow colored coat, a cerulean colored mane, red eyes, and a Cutie Mark that consisted of three hearts, two of them being blue and one green.

"They seem to have a lot of fun," Star Twinkle thought. He was actually very happy to see that Twilight was having a really good time with her old friends. At the same time though, the stallion was feeling a little bad thinking how his meeting with one of his supposed friends was. Summershine claimed to be his friend so why did he attack him back then? That was the question that eventually caused him to frown a little bit. He actually was a little bit jealous of how Twilight's meeting was going so well, and he hated to feel like that.

"Is something wrong?" Spike then asked as soon as he noticed the upset expression on the stallion's face.

"No!" Star Twinkle replied nervously. "This donut just tasted really weird," he said with an awkward grin on his face. Shortly after, he noticed Donut Joe looking at him with a mad expression on his face, he clearly overheard that and was not too happy about it. Star Twinkle could only laugh nervously before ordering another donut to make up for this.

Meanwhile, Twilight, Minuette, Twinkleshine, and Lemon Hearts were having a great time talking about all kinds of stuff from the past.

"Twinkleshine literally spit out her oats when she heard you were the Princess of Friendship!" Minuette said amused.

"We saw you at the coronation," Twinkleshine added. "That was some shindig!"

Twilight was surprised to hear her friends mentioning that. "You did?" She asked surprised.

"Sure! We see you all the time!" Twinkleshine said.

"You remember our old friend, Lyra, right?" Minuette asked. "She lives in Ponyville too. We're always over there visiting her. Or she's coming over here! We've thought about asking you to join us from time to time, but we just sorta figured you'd moved on," added.

"Oh," Twilight then replied.

There was an awkward silence after that. Twilight was well aware that she needed to approach her friends sooner. Suddenly turning into a princess was probably leaving the impression that Twilight was just too busy but she knew that she still could afford to spend time with them. Knowing that was exactly what made this situation uncomfortable for her.

Her friends did not intend to make this situation awkward for Twilight so they tried their best to change the subject again.

Lemon Hearts cleared her throat. "So what brings you by anyway? All those times you've come back to Canterlot, you never had donuts with us before," she pointed out.

"Well, uh, you see..." There was still some awkwardness in her voice. Twilight was then reminded what the reason for her visit was and she figured that she should just get it over with right now. She was sighing for a moment before she continued. "I came to apologize," the mare then said with a heavy tone in her voice.

But her friends didn't know what she meant. "For what?" Minuette asked in the name of her two other friends. It was then where Twilight explained everything to them.

"Before I left Canterlot, I didn't really appreciate my friends. And that's because I didn't know how important friendship was. But I've learned so much since I moved to Ponyville. I learned what it means to be a good friend and that I certainly wasn't one to the three of you. So for all the pain I caused you, I am truly sorry."

Her friends looked at each other confused. That much did Twilight expect but the next reaction caught her off-guard. Their friends started laughing, much to her surprise. Star Twinkle noticed their laughter as well, the didn't bother hiding them. He did not have the feeling that they were laughing at her though.

Minuette did Twilight a favor and explained their amused reaction after she wiped off some of her tears after laughing. "Oh, come on, Twilight! Sure, it might've stung a little bit when you ran off to Ponyville without saying goodbye, but it's not like we weren't used to that from you!" She explained.

"Yeah, we didn't take it personally," Twinkleshine added.

"But it's really good to see you now," Lemon Hearts said happily before she came up with a good idea. "Hey! Anypony up for a blast from the past?" She asked before she explained further what exactly she had in mind. "Let's go to our old science lab! There are a lot of good memories there, right?"

Visiting a place where Twilight spent a lot of time when she was younger together with her friends, was probably something that she needed to do now. She liked that idea and wanted to give it a try. It would be a good opportunity to catch up on some memories. The mare was agreeing to this idea but first she told Star Twinkle and Spike about it.

"Sounds good! I'm coming!" Spike said before he stuffed one last donut in his mouth and was ready to go.

"Have fun," Star Twinkle then said casually. Needless to say, Twilight was surprised to hear that since she expected Star Twinkle to come with her as well. "I think I would not fit into all of this," he then added.

"That's not true," Twilight replied with a slight frown on her face. "Come on, Star Twinkle, just because I decide to spend some time with old friends doesn't mean that I don't have time for my new ones," she explained.

But Star Twinkle was not looking at it from this perspective at all. Instead, he wanted Twilight to be alone with her friends, at least for a while. That way she could get accustomed to them again. Star Twinkle thought that this was the best decision, it is how he wanted it to be if he was in her position.

After Twilight listened to Star Twinkle's reasoning, Twilight began to understand what Star Twinkle had in mind. She realized that he was trying to help her warm up with her friends again. Since Twilight was still feeling a little bit uncomfortable around them, spending some alone time is exactly what she needed now.

The mare started to smile. "Okay, thanks, Star Twinkle. I will not waste this opportunity," she said with a determined look on her face. The stallion nodded happily after hearing that. He knew that Twilight would usually overthink everything but eventually, she would come out with the right decision, even if it meant making some mistakes before that.

Twilight and Spike then left and they joined the rest of their friends. The three ponies seemed confused about why Star Twinkle wasn't joining them but they also accepted his decision and left. This left Star Twinkle alone at the donut shop.

"Having said all that, what am I gonna do now?" He asked himself. He was thinking more about Twilight's well being than his own so he had no idea how the rest of the time with his friends would look like. All that was important was that Twilight would end up fixing her "problems" with her friends.

Star Twinkle figured that he should leave the shop as soon as he was done with his last donut and take a long stroll around Canterlot. He could also visit his parents while he was here, it's not like he was completely out of options in this town. He was not looking forwards coming in contact with some snobby ponies on his way through Canterlot though.

"How chivalrous of you," a female voice then said in a teasing voice.

Star Twinkle clenched his teeth annoyed. Knowing how bad his luck was this voice belonged to some rich pony that just decided to get on his nervous while he was all alone, maybe it even was one of the ponies who made fun of him when he was younger, back when he had no Cutie Mark. That had to be it, that is just how the world was operating around him at times like this.

However, once Star Twinkle turned his head to the left, he no longer was annoyed but rather left in shock. The mare was sitting next to him on another chair, he knew that pony, he met her once before and that encounter was a really bad one. He was looking at her with an open mouth, not being able to say anything due to his shocked state.

"Hello, Star Twin-kle~," the mare said with a smug grin on her face.

It was a Unicorn mare with a white coat, a white mane, and green eyes. Her Cutie Mark was a white heart with a magic aura behind it. On top of that, she was wearing the Alicorn Amulet. The name of the mare was Graceful Palladium Magie. It was the mare that attacked Star Twinkle on their first meeting and which Princess Celestia presumed to be the "Witch of Equestria".

The stallion was beginning to panic. This mare was dangerous and here she was in Canterlot with a lot of ponies to endanger, not to mention that she was just sitting a meter away from Star Twinkle. He felt as if he needed to tell someone that this mare was here, like Princess Celestia herself. He had to do something. And the first thing was to get out of here.

The stallion was jumping out of his chair and ran outside with such a speed that the mare didn't even notice a thing. At least that was what Star Twinkle initially planned, instead, he was a little too eager and fell on his behind as soon as he moved, much to the amusement to the mare next to him.

Grace chuckled in response. "What was that?" She asked while she kept laughing at the clumsiness of the stallion.

Star Twinkle managed to get up on his hooves again. If he was still here and the mare didn't make any attempts to attack him, the least he could do was to get one question out. "What are you doing here?" He asked as he kept his eyes on the mare at all costs.

The mare was smiling at Star Twinkle happily. "I was looking for you," she said. This surprised Star Twinkle. He didn't expect such a bold answer from Grace. "I saw you and your little princess friend flying to Canterlot and I decided to follow you a little since I had nothing else to do," she explained.

It suddenly clicked in Star Twinkle's mind. He remembered seeing something on his way to Canterlot yesterday but he thought he just imagined it. This must have been Grace. The real question now was just why she was following them. This only made the stallion feel more nervous than before.

"Then what do you want from me? You are not planning anything evil are you?" The stallion asked, praying that this was not the case.

Grace chuckled in response. "Come on. Are you still mad because I ended up in a fight with you two? That was ages ago," she said with a smile on her face. "Why? Are you gonna protect the ponies here in Canterlot if I do?" She asked while she moved her face closer to the stallion. She grinned as if she desperately wanted to hear an answer to that question. "Do you really think you stand a chance against me?" She asked teasingly.

Star Twinkle was shaking. He knew the answer to that question. Not even Twilight stood a chance against her back then. Granted Twilight most likely improved her magic since last time but he was sure that Grace was still a lot more powerful than what she was showing so far. He had no idea what to do in this situation. There was no way that Grace would let him run away so that he could tell Princess Celestia about her, and he definitely could not fight her. Something needed to happen. He needed to get out of this situation.

The mare already moved her head back again and after a few moments later she closed her eyes and smiled at the stallion. "Let's hit the city!" She then said out of the blue.

"Huh?" Star Twinkle could only reply after hearing that.

Grace then jumped off from her chair and was walking towards the entrance, expecting Star Twinkle to follow her. "Don't tell me you are busy. I know you are not. So why not come and have some fun?"

Suddenly, her voice sounded a lot less intimidating and sinister but rather full of excitement. It was like the first time they met before she decided to go full-on evil on him and Twilight. Once Grace realized how Star Twinkle was still sitting there in confusion, she decided to help him out a little by using her magic to pull him towards her, making him land on the ground right in front of her hooves.

"Come on," she said with the same excitement as before.

Star Twinkle got up on his hooves again. "Alright..." he said hesitantly, following the mare outside. "I think if I don't go along with this, I end up in a lot of trouble with her. So what choice do I have?" He thought in his frustration.

And just like that, Star Twinkle found himself in Grace's grip, the grip of the Witch of Equestria with no chance to escape.

Later...

The two ponies ended up walking through Canterlot for a while. Grace was happily humming while walking through the town and Star Twinkle was following her slowly. Of course, he tried to make the distance between them bigger at some points but Grace always noticed in time, making him stop that. He could not escape the Witch of Equestria...Star Twinkle well remembered what Princess Celestia told him and Twilight about her. One-hundred years ago Princess Celestia fought her before the name started to vanish. According to the princess, the Witch of Equestria was too powerful to be dealt with which is why she refrained sending her Royal Guards after the mare.

And right now, that mare was only a few hooves in front of the stallion, probably planning all kinds of sinister things in her mind as she was walking through the city. The bigger question was; just what did she want from Star Twinkle. He needed help, he was basically abducted by her right now. If he would resist, then she would get mad and attack him, he also could not run away while she kept her eyes on him, and there was no way that he could ask for help too because no one would be strong enough to take care of her, not even Princess Celestia.

He had to play along, that is all he could do now...

"Let's go in there!" Grace then said as she pointed at a jewelry shop. And of course, Star Twinkle strolled right behind her.

The mare was looking around in the shop like a little filly in a toy store. Star Twinkle didn't see the appeal, must have been a girls thing, he figured. There were many necklaces on display which Grace all inspected closely. She was mesmerized by all the different colors and shapes of the diamonds and gems inside of them.

"Hey! Look at this one!" Grace said as she took a closer look at one necklace. The mare took a look at the description sign in front of the necklace. "It says the chain is made out of palladium," she explained.

Star Twinkle lowered his eyebrows in a moment of confusion. "Palladium...you mean as in..."

"Yep!" Grace finished. "Just like in my name, hehe," she said proudly before she walked up to another necklace. Again, she took a quick look at the sign in front of it. "This one says the chain is made out of platinum, that one is nice too," she said with a smile on her face.

The stallion thought it would be a good idea to play along with this. She was in a good mood so he figured showing interest in all of this would keep it up. Star Twinkle took a look on another sign, much to Grace's delight, she seemed to appreciate what the stallion was doing and began smiling.

"This necklace is made out of silver, looks pretty nice too," he said, trying to sound interested in all of this. Grace didn't even walk towards that necklace and for some reason, much to Star Twinkle's worry, she had a pretty dark expression on her face. She was not amused, even mad for a moment. "What's with her all of a sudden!?" Star Twinkle thought in a panic.

"I don't like that one..." she said in a dark tone. It was surprising for her to say that Star Twinkle was pretty sure that she didn't even take a look at it. She seemed to be rather mad about the word "silver" if anything. Her sudden mood chance was sending down some shivers on Star Twinkle's back.

But then, her face was changing from mad to happy again in just an instant. "Is the shop-keeper looking over here right now?"

Star Twinkle looked over to the shop-keeper. "No, why?" He said before he noticed that Grace was not levitating the palladium necklace in front of her face. She used her magic to straight out take the necklace out of the showcase. "What are you doing!?" Star Twinkle asked.

Grace looked over to him confused. "I wanted to take a closer look. I'm thinking of taking this with me," she casually replied.

"You can't do that! That's stealing!" The stallion said.

Grace was shrugging her shoulders. "Yeah, you're right. Here, hold this for a moment," she then said before she threw the necklace to Star Twinkle, making him catch it.

"...Wait, what?" Star Twinkle said confused about why she was giving him that necklace.

But the answer revealed itself after Grace's next action. "Hey! This guy us shoplifting!" She then screamed throughout the shop, causing everypony inside to look at Star Twinkle, who was still holding the necklace in one of his hooves.

"Wha?" Star Twinkle could only reply before he realized what was happening right now.

The shop-keeper was very angry to see that and called some personal guards, which seemed to work in this shop as well. Apparently, jewelry shops have those. Star Twinkle soon found himself being charged at by two huge stallion's who did not make the impression as if they would listen to reason anytime soon. He didn't know what to do and the first thing action that came in mind was running outside the shop with the necklace in his mouth. Definitely not the best thing that he should have done at this moment.

The chase was over pretty quick and soon Star Twinkle found himself in an alley hiding from those two guards. "I think I got away from them," he said as he was taking a closer look around town and keeping an eye out for any followers. "Why did I run away? I did nothing wrong after all! It's all because of-"

But then his words got interrupted by hysterical laughter from above. Grace was levitating herself above the ground with her magic and laughed at the stallion. "That was soooo funny!" She managed to get out between some of her laughter. "Good job getting away from them by the way," she added while she swept a tear away from her eye.

Star Twinkle got mad. He wanted to give the mare a piece of his mind but then he remembered that she could probably crush him with her magic so he decided to remain silent and just growl a little bit at her. He was prepared to just go along with all the nonsense if it meant that he would be safe.

"Here," the stallion then said as he gave the mare the necklace that was still in his possession.

"Thanks," Grace said amused before she took the necklace with her magic. Once she managed to calm down again from all the laughter, she focused her magic and made the necklace disappear.

"What did you just do?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Grace gave a short answer. "Returned it to its original place," she casually replied.

"...What!?" Star Twinkle exclaimed in frustration.

The mare began laughing again. "I just wanted to see how you would react to all of this. And it was definitely worth it!" She explained joyfully.

Star Twinkle was still mad. "Gimme a break..." He thought frustrated.

Then something caught the stallion off- guard...

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight's voice echoed through the street. The Alicorn Princess noticed Star Twinkle standing in the alley.

At first, the stallion was relieved that someone was there, possibly offering to help with this situation but then he remembered that this help would include possibly facing off against Grace. The stallion looked over to Grace in a panic but then he realized that she was gone again.

"Huh!?"

By now, Twilight was standing in front of the stallion, Spike was there as well but there was no sign of her other friends. "I was looking for you," Twilight said in a little rush.

Of course, Star Twinkle looked confused at them because of Grace's sudden disappearance. Thus was not unnoticed by Spike. "What are you doing here?" The little dragon asked the stallion was in a really empty place after all.

The Earth Pony wanted to explain the situation. He wanted to tell the two about Grace and how Canterlot was possibly in danger with her being here but Twilight was explaining her situation first, giving him no chance to say anything.

"It looks like not all of my friendship problems are solved yet," she said.

"What do you mean?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight then explained the situation to the stallion. While everything seemed to be normal again between her, Minuette, Lemon Hearts, and Twinkleshine, there seemed to be some complications between her and Moon Dancer. This is why Twilight wanted some help from Star Twinkle, in order to find out why she was not taking all this so lightly like the rest of her friends.

The next day...

Star Twinkle was tasked with the important task to follow Moon Dancer around to see what her day looks like. Twilight figured that watching her would somehow give her some insight about Moon Dancer's daily life and how she should approach, and eventually, apologize to her. Moon Dance didn't know Star Twinkle so he was the best candidate to get close to her without her suspecting anything.

Of course, the stallion was against that idea initially but he still wanted to help out so he did agree in the end. Fortunately for him, Moon Dancer didn't seem to be the kind of pony with many hobbies. The stallion was following her inside a library, sitting not too far away from her.

Moon Dancer was a Unicorn mare with a yellow-grayish coat, a red mane with purple and pink stripes in it, dark purple eyes, and a purple crescent moon with three pink stars around it as a Cutie Mark. She was also wearing big black glasses and a dark blue sweater. Star Twinkle could swear that she was looking a lot like Twilight, and given that she was spending time in this library only supported that.

Still, Star Twinkle felt a little weird following somepony around without being noticed. It was wrong. He kept telling himself that it was for the sake of Twilight and so he just tried to not stand out too much while following her. Luckily, that was something that he was pretty good at.

But there was not much to look for in the first place, Moon Dancer was sitting there and read a book, as someone would do inside a library. He was not really sure what he should watch out for or how it would help but he still did what he was asked for, even if it was pretty boring for him.

Star Twinkle was sitting at a separate table, pretending to read something himself. Moon Dancer was reading one book after another without talking with anypony else in the library.

"She really is focused on reading her books, it seems," Star Twinkle whispered under his breath.

Somepony was sitting next to him then. Star Twinkle didn't mind that at first, but that somepony was sitting awfully close to him, too close for his liking. When he turned his head around he panicked a little. It was Grace, who was smiling at the stallion with a dreamy expression on her face.

"Hey," she said softly.

"You!?" Star Twinkle said in shock as he got up from his seat.

Of course, being in a library, Star Twinkle was greeted with some annoyed "SHHHH!!" sounds from all the other ponies who tried to read in peace, Moon Dancer being one of them as well.

Grace, on the other hoof, was snickering at that reaction. "You need to be quiet. Ponies are trying to read in here," she said amused.

Star Twinkle sat down again. "What are you doing here!?" He asked nervously before he put up a book in front of his face again so that Moon Dancer would not get suspicious.

But Grace asked right back. "I think the better question is what are you doing here? That book is upside down, by the way," she pointed out. Star Twinkle decided to ignore the teasing of this mare and just kept his eyes focused on Moon Dancer again. She did not seem to get suspicious of his previous behavior. He just hoped that Grace would not drag him away again.

The white-coated mare quickly caught up how Star Twinkle's eyes kept wandering over to Moon Dancer. Her reaction seemed a little surprised. "Why do you keep staring at that mare?" She then asked curiously.

"I'm watching her," Star Twinkle simply replied. "I need to find out more about her," he added.

For some reason, Grace's eyes widened for a moment. She seemed to be at a loss of words for once. The mare looked over to Moon Dancer as well and noticed how Star Twinkle's eyes were practically glued on her. A frown started to form on her face.

"Do you prefer...mares like her?" Grace then asked with some shaking in her voice.

Star Twinkle did not seem to be aware of that reaction though and explained further. "Twilight wants me to keep a look on her. That's why I am sitting here all day keeping my eyes on her."

The frown on Grace's face instantly vanished and was replaced with a joyful smile. The mare slapped the stallion on his back. "Why didn't you say so before?" she said followed by some laughter.

"Hey! What was that for!?" Star Twinkle said annoyed after getting slapped on his back. "Also, not so loud," he added.

"Oh, don't worry," Grace replied. "No one can hear us," she casually said. Star Twinkle didn't know what she meant with that but soon he realized that no one seemed to be mad at her for being loud. It didn't take long until he noticed how there was some kind of bubble around the two. It was magic. "This spell prevents anything inside here to be heard by anyone outside. We can talk as loud as we want now," the mare explained.

The stallion quickly realized that what Grace said was true. Nopony seemed to be bothered even though Grace was talking rather loudly right now.

"Still," Grace then started. "Why does Twilight want you to keep an eye on this mare?" She asked.

Star Twinkle then explained the situation. He didn't know why he just did, to the Witch of Equestria of all ponies. It felt a little bit like as if he was talking to Discord. He didn't know how much he could read this mare. She was dangerous but not right now, powerful but still talking with him normally, she could be intimidating but also playful. Star Twinkle's main concern was why she was spending time with him out of all the ponies in Equestria.

After giving Grace a basic rundown on the situation, the mare first looked a little bit confused but what followed surprised Star Twinkle a little.

"Hahahahaha!" Grace laughed out loudly. "So you are telling me that the Princess of Friendship has problems taking care of her own friendships?" She asked before she started laughing again. "I can't believe it," she added while whipping tears away from her eyes. Of course, Star Twinkle didn't really appreciate how Grace was laughing about Twilight but he feared that if he said something then he would end up as a frog or something. "You know, if this Moon Dancer is mad at Twilight for missing out one party then why bother trying to be friends with her? Seems like huge bother for nothing," Grace figured.

Surprisingly, Star Twinkle knew what to say to this. "Twilight knows that it was partly her fault, that is why she wants to make it up to Moon Dancer. Sometimes things like that need a little bit of work," he explained.

But Grace seemed unimpressed. "If you say so," she replied while she shrugged her shoulders. "Have fun, then," she then said before she left again. She seemed bored with all this.

Star Twinkle had to admit that he was a little bit relieved that the mare left, she still made him a little bit nervous. Now he could focus on Moon Dancer again.

On the next day...

Star Twinkle told Twilight everything about Moon Dancer's daily routine while they were taking a walk around Canterlot. He still left out any of his meetings with Grace. He didn't know why though. One of the reasons could be that Grace didn't do anything yet. Yes, she did steal a necklace but she also gave it back, apparently but other than that, she did not seem to want to cause any damage. Having Twilight being concerned about both Moon Dancer and Grace at the same time was also not a good idea now, she needed to focus on one problem for now so that she would not panic.

After telling Twilight everything about Moon Dancer, it got her thinking a little. "So she spends all her day at the library reading books? And no one is talking to her at all?"

"Yes," Star Twinkle replied accompanied by a nod. "It's almost as if she was invisible," he added.

This all sounded all too familiar to Twilight. "It's exactly how I used to live before I met you and the girls. Before my life turned around for the better. She can't be happy like this," she said before she started frowning now. "And it's all my fault that it is like this," she added with a sad tone in her voice.

"Why do you say that?" Star Twinkle asked.

Twilight sighed. "Back then, before I left for Ponyville, I was supposed to attend a party for Moon Dancer...but I left and...you know the rest. Moon Dancer apparently, did not take it too lightly that I didn't show up and that is why she is like this now," she explained.

Now it made sense to Star Twinkle. Moon Dancer was not socially strong pony and that time where she wanted to throw that one party was her attempt to open up a little. But with Twilight not showing up, a pony who called herself Moon Dancer's friend, she must have felt really bad, as if her attempt was for nothing. Star Twinkle, to a point, could understand how Moon Dancer must have been mad at Twilight for that.

"I need to talk with her," Twilight then said determinedly. "I'll try to arrange a dinner with her and the rest of my friends. Maybe if she meets everyone again, she will be reminded too how much fun we all had," she figured.

"Sounds like a good idea," Star Twinkle replied, being positive about this plan.

And just like that, things were set. Twilight wanted to spend a day with all of her friends, hoping to fix everything again for good. She said she would take care of all of those things herself this time but Star Twinkle figured that he still should stay in Canterlot, just in case. He just had to find out how to spend the next day.

On the next day...

Star Twinkle was not sure how he thought his day would go today but it definitely did not include the company of one certain mare.

"How about we get some ice cream? I have a strange hunger for that right now," Grace said as she was happily walking next to Star Twinkle.

The stallion just looked over to her. It was almost a comedic situation he found himself in. Whenever he was on his own, Grace appeared to spend time with him. He really was eager to find out why. Things like "What is her true intention?" or "Why does she keep meeting up with me?" were circling around in his mind. He felt as if he was accompanied by a ticking time bomb that could blow up at any moment. He might as well spend time with Queen Chrysalis or Lord Tirek. He would really appreciate if a pony, that attacked him a while ago and was deemed to be too dangerous to deal with by Princess Celestia herself, would not be at his side constantly.

"Hey over there!" Grace then said, pointing at an ice cream shop. "Buy me some ice cream!" She said excitedly like a little filly.

"Why do I have-" Star Twinkle started before he stopped, figuring that it would be no use to complain anyway. "Fine," he then said before going and buying some ice cream. He actually was in the mood for some ice cream as well and bought one for himself as well.

After getting two corns of ice cream, the two then were aimlessly walking around Canterlot again.

"So...where is Twilight? Still trying to fix some of her friendship problems?" Grace asked while licking her ice cream.

"Yes, she is having dinner later, in hope that this would fix everything between her and Moon Dancer," Star Twinkle explained.

"Mhh...sounds like a lot of work for nothing," Grace replied.

Of course, Star Twinkle was noticing how Grace was showing a lot of dislike whenever this subject came on. He decided to be a little bolder and just ask away. "You're not really into friendship that much, are you?" He asked, feeling a little nervous about it as soon as those words left his mouth.

"Nope," Grace casually replied. "Like I said, too much bother for nothing," she added.

"That's not true," Star Twinkle said. "I used to think like that too until I realized that Friendship is really nice. Yes, sometimes it still is a bother but in the end, I am happier than I was before," Star Twinkle explained, feeling good to just say all those things confidently. He remembered how, on their first meeting, Grace told him that she didn't have any friends, which then led him to say his next words. "I'm sure you would agree too if you made the same experience," he then said.

Grace did not seem impressed and just continue to eat her ice cream. "The same experience?" She asked before she stopped and looked over to Star Twinkle, her face showing some amusement. But that amused look was received by Star Twinkle a little bit differently. He could only see a teasing smile from her. "Are you offering to be my friend now?" She asked teasingly with a devious grin on her face.

Star Twinkle gulped. "And now she is being like this again!" He thought in a panic. What was he supposed to say now? It was actually his intention to offer her his friendship but the way she put it was as if he was about to put his head inside the mouth of a lioness.

Luckily, something distracted the two of them. It was the sound of someone crying. A little filly was crying across the street over her dropped ice cream cone that laid on the ground. Star Twinkle didn't know if he should be happy or sad that a crying filly was the reason for the two to drop this subject but he still was relieved.

Grace noticed the crying filly as well, and without any words wasted, she walked up to the little filly. "What is she doing?" Star Twinkle wondered.

The little filly stopped crying for a moment and saw Grace looking down on her with a neutral look on her face, it was almost intimidating. this is when it hit Star Twinkle. The tale that Twilight told him long ago about the Witch of Equestria.

"It is said that if you don't behave and do bad things or don't listen to your parents, then the Witch of Equestria will come! She will come and take you away and raise you as her own child. And you don't want to be the child of the Evil Witch! Because when she is done with raising you...then she will use a spell to make you vanish and looks for another bad pony to raise as her own!"

The stallion panicked but as soon as he realized that the little filly was in danger, it was already too late. The horn of Grace started to glow in a green light, she was focusing her magic already to do who knows what to the poor filly.

Star Twinkle charged towards the mare in order to stop her. "Grace, no!" He exclaimed but the spell was already executed.

The filly dropped her jaw in surprise. An ice cream cone appeared, levitating right in front of Grace, and with a generous amount of ice cream on it as well. The mare levitated towards the filly.

"Here you go," Grace said with a warm smile on her face.

"For me?" The filly asked.

"Yes," Grace replied. "Be careful to not drop it again, okay?"

The filly started laughing in joy after this generous act from Grace. "Yay! Thank you!" She said in gratitude while beaming with joy now.

Grace leaned down to the filly and petted her head for a moment. "But promise me to not cry about something like that again, okay? Strong girls don't cry. You are a strong girl after all, right?" She said.

"Yes!" The filly replied happily before she walked away with her new ice cream cone. "Thank you!" She said one last time before she left.

This was certainly a weird situation for Star Twinkle. He was confused, to say the least. He expected everything but that to happen just now. Grace was friendly, generous, and...nice? Right now, it was as if he was watching a mother taking care of her child rather than a witch that is supposed to strike fear in everypony.

Grace walked over to the stallion and he almost feared that this act was just a setup for something more sinister and evil. Before he started thinking, one question came out of his mouth.

"That ice cream was not poisonous, wasn't it?"

Grace grinned back at the stallion. "Maybe," she said casually, causing Star Twinkle to start sweating for a moment, much to the amusement of the stallion. "Just kidding," she then added before she walked away. "I'm leaving now, take care," she said before she walked away from Star Twinkle.

Of course, Star Twinkle was still confused about all of this. "What just happened?" Was the last thing he said before he decided to continue his stroll around Canterlot on his own.

Later that evening...

Star Twinkle was on his way to the restaurant where Twilight was meeting up with her friends. He wanted to check how the dinner was going on so far, hoping that Moon Dancer was already friends with Twilight and the others again. To his surprise though, Moon Dancer was stomping away from the restaurant already, and she did not seem amused at all.

"That is not a good sign..." Star Twinkle thought.

It didn't take long until he also found Spike and Twilight outside as well, the later looking rather sad. Star Twinkle already put one and one together and assumed that the dinner did not go all too well.

Twilight explained that Moon Dancer was not interested in friendship at all. This left Twilight rather sad because she felt as if she was responsible for this in the first place and now it seems as if she couldn't fix her mistake at all anymore.

"If there was only a way to undo the damage... " Twilight said with a frown on her face.

Of course, Star Twinkle wanted to help badly and tried to think. There was eventually one thing that popped into his mind shortly after. "If you not showing up at her party was what made her like that, then maybe throwing one now will fix it?" He suggested.

Twilight was liking the sound of that. She feared that it would be too late now but she certainly didn't want to give up on her old friend and wanted to try it. She also knew that when it came to parties, there was one pony who could help her out a lot.

"You'll help me too, right?" Twilight asked.

"Of course!" Star Twinkle replied. As long as there was still hope to save this friendship, he was willing to help Twilight out as best as he could.

It was decided. In order to make up for the missing party back then, another party would be held. It needed to be well prepared and extra fancy. Twilight would certainly not take this party lightly. It needed to be perfect. Star Twinkle was also ready to offer all the help she needed. A friendship was a stake after all.

The next day...

The preparations for the party were all done pretty early. The reason for that was because Twilight flew over to Ponyville early in the morning and carried Pinkie Pie on her back over here to Canterlot. There couldn't be a perfect party without the help of the best party planner in Equestria after all.

Streamers, confetti, cake, games, this party had everything that would assure that the party would be a success. The guests of the party were, of course, Twilight, Spike, Star Twinkle, Minuette, Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, and Pinkie Pie. And the only one who was missing was the one pony this party was held for, Moon Dancer.

Twilight claimed that she took care of Moon Dancer's appearance herself, she even explained what she did to make that happen, which caused Star Twinkle to get a little bit worried.

"Do you really think she follows a trail of books?" He asked.

"Yes, because I would," Twilight replied.

Star Twinkle did not know what he should say to that. What would that say about Twilight then?
The stallion was looking over to a few books that were lined up in the distance, leading to this party and to his surprise, he already saw Moon Dance walking up to them, carrying a bunch of books with her magic already while picking up the remaining ones in front of her.

"I can't believe this actually worked," Star Twinkle thought.

Naturally, Moon Dancer was pretty confused about what she saw in front of her, causing her to drop all of the books that she collected on the way there. "What is this?" She asked confused.

"It's a party. For you," Twilight simply said.

"Surprise!" Pinkie Pie shouted excitedly before she put a party hat on the confused mare's head.

"Come on in!" Twilight then offered with a smile on her face.

But of course, Moon Dancer was not as happy or excited as everyone else and was quick to show it. "Thanks but no thanks. I don't do parties," she said before she threw away her party hat and decided to leave again.

She was stopped by Twilight though, who quickly teleported herself in front of Moon Dancer.
"I know. And I think it's my fault," Twilight said in regret. "Back when we were in school together, you invited me to a party. I was so focused on my studies that I didn't show up."

"Big deal!" Moon Dancer said angrily.

"It was a big deal. And now that I realize how important friendship is, I'd like to make up for my mistake with a new party. A party in honor of my friend Moon Dancer!" Twilight explained. "Please, you've got to let me make this up to you," she begged with a frown on her face as she offered her a stick to smash a nearby Piñata with it to have some fun.

Eventually, Moon Dance gave up and just took the stick and walked towards it. It was still obvious though that she did not like to stay here. "And you think this is gonna do it, huh?"

"Uh, yes?" Twilight said with an unsure tone in her voice.

"Well, sure, why wouldn't it?" Moon Dancer said as she started hitting the Piñata in front of her. " That was only the first time I put myself out there, and then you didn't even bother to show up!" She then said angrily, pointing the stick towards the mare. "Then you left town without saying goodbye even though we were supposed to be friends!"

The more she talked, the more Moon Dancer's voice started to break. It was a mix of anger, frustration, and sadness that could be heard in her voice. She was feeling horrible saying all those things and everyone could feel it.

"I was humiliated! I felt like I wasn't important! I never wanted to let myself be hurt like that again!" She then pointed towards Minuette, Lemon Hearts, and Twinkleshine. "Those three finally convinced me that I had value! That other ponies might like me and want to be my friend! And you! Didn't! Show! Up!"

Moon Dancer then ran away, crying and sobbing. This certainly let the mood of the party drop. Everyone else was beginning to get sad now as well, especially Twilight, who felt horrible for being the one who caused all of this.

Twilight sighed with a frown on her face. "Good job, Twilight..." she said with a sad tone in her voice, having given up on Moon Dancer now since it was obvious that this is something that she couldn't fix anymore. She was looking over to Star Twinkle to see what he thought about all this but to her surprise, he was gone.

...

Moon Dancer was walking away from the party, her eyes still filled with tears, which just wouldn't go away anymore. She stood still to rub her tears away for a moment but stopped as soon as she noticed how someone was walking towards her. It was Star Twinkle.

"What do you want?" Moon Dancer replied, turning herself away from the stallion to hide her tears.

"I came here to take you back to the party," Star Twinkle casually said.

"Well, I'm not going back!" Moon Dancer replied angrily.

Star Twinkle then walked closer to stand next to the mare. "You do realize that Twilight feels horrible for what she did, right? That is why she put all this work into this party, just for you."

Moon Dancer rubbed away some more tears before she answered. "Well, its too late now," she said.

But Star Twinkle disagreed. "Is it?" He said confidently.

It was then that the two turned around after realizing that Twilight, Minuette, Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine was walking towards her. Moon Dancer quickly swiped the rest of her tears away since she didn't anyone to see her like this. She quickly noticed how Twilight looked very sad as well.

The Alicorn stepped up to the two and offered her hoof to Moon Dancer. "You're right. This party can't make up for the way I hurt you. But please, don't let my mistake be the reason you can't be friends with anypony else," she said.

Minuette, as well as Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine, agreed on that. "We were your friends then and we'd be honored to be your friends now," Minuette said.

"And we can be friends too, right?" Star Twinkle said with a smile on his face, much to Moon Dancer's surprise.

On top of that, some more ponies showed themselves, who also attended the party. Moon Dancer immediately recognized all of them. "What? That's the librarian! The bookseller! My sister!" She said in surprise.

Twilight still wanted to apologize for everything she has done. She might be the Princess of Friendship now but back then, she made mistakes, and one of them was to not take her friendship's serious. She realized that the hard way now and she deeply felt sorry for it.

"I'm sorry, Moon Dancer. I've faced magical creatures, the end of Equestria, all sorts of things. But seeing how my actions affected you, that was one of the worst feelings I've ever had," she said in regret to Moon Dancer, feeling deeply sorry for all those things.

Moon Dancer started crying again but this time it wasn't because she was sad but rather happy, relieved even. "Thank you, Twilight. I never realized how much I needed to hear that," she said with a smile on her face.

Twilight then offered her hoof to the mare. While Moon Dancer was still a little hesitant to accept it, she soon found herself in a hug between her and Twilight.

Their friendship was saved. Both of them were happy to be together again and the party could finally start without any tears but instead with laughter and happy cheers.

Later that evening...

The party was about to end on a high note. Moon Dancer was happy, Twilight was happy, everyone else was happy. Twilight, Star Twinkle, Pinkie Pie and Spike were about to leave now but not without saying their goodbyes to Moon Dancer.

"I think it's time for us to go, Moon Dancer," Twilight said.

Moon Dancer smiled back at Twilight. "Thank you for helping me make some new friends. Even if they are my old friends," she said in gratitude.

"Oh. We'll come back and visit soon," Twilight assured.

"That would be great! You've still gotta teach me that Hayscartes technique!" She said smugly, poking Twilight in her sides softly.

"The what?" Star Twinkle asked as he looked over to Spike, who was simply shrugging his shoulders in response.

"Deal," Twilight simply replied to Moon Dancer's words.

But before they left, Spike still had one thing that he had to give to the mare. "Um, Moon Dancer? It got kinda banged up, but here's a little something I wanted to give you back at your first party," he said as he gifted her a present that definitely saw some better days before.

Moon Dancer opened the present and took out what was inside. Happy tears came running down her eyes as she looked at a photo showing her, and all her old friends having a good time.

And with that, the group left the party. Twilight was happy that her friendship was saved, Pinkie Pie was happy that another party was a success and Star Twinkle was happy that everything turned out well for everyone.

"I hope you don't plan on breaking that promise that you gave to Moon Dancer," Star Twinkle said, referring to her next visit. "And if you do, I'll make sure to let remember," he added.

"Yes, that would be nice," Twilight replied.

As they walked through Canterlot, Star Twinkle was taking a different part at some point. He explained that, since it was already this late, that he should go and stay here in Canterlot with his parents instead of flying over to Ponyville at this hour. The others understood that and just proceeded to return to Ponyville without him, leaving him to return to his parent's house here in Canterlot.

The streets were rather empty. Of course, no one would walk around this late anymore. But as usual, Star Twinkle was wrong and there was another pony walking around town, and it happened to be exactly the one pony that he expected now.

"Can you please stop following me?" Star Twinkle asked before he turned around and looked at the mare in front of him.

"Aw, but it's so much fun, don't you think?" Grace replied happily as she walked up to the stallion "Besides, watching you deal with all those things while I'm not around, is just so much fun to watch! I mean, I really had to try not laughing at how Moon Dancer started crying just because Twilight didn't show up at a party. Who does that!?" She said before she started laughing just by the thought of that.

"That's not funny..." Star Twinkle said but Grace did not listen since she was too busy laughing at the moment. He didn't understand how this mare could just laugh about this. Could she not understand at all how sad Moon Dancer must have felt? Was she never sad in her life before? He figured that a witch, that was around for around a hundred years and that most likely was ponynapping little ponies was unable to show sympathy. Still, Star Twinkle wanted her to stop laughing. But that didn't happen, she kept laughing, which started to really annoy Star Twinkle until it eventually turned into anger which came out in a loud moment.

"It's not funny!" He then exclaimed, much to Grace's surprise who actually stopped laughing now. And now that she was quiet again, Star Twinkle found himself in a moment where he couldn't just stop, he decided to gave her a piece of his mind.

"It doesn't matter what the reason was, Moon Dancer was really hurt and it almost caused her to never trust anypony else again! She was hurt and Twilight felt responsible for that so she made up for it! But I guess an old witch like you has no idea about any of that, right!?"

Grace was stunned for a moment, her eyes widened, her mouth open. She probably didn't expect Star Twinkle to come at her like that. What she said in response though was not exactly what Star Twinkle expected.

"O-old?" Grace said in surprise. It was shocking how Grace was more focused on Star Twinkle calling her old than anything else. It was frustrating. Before Star Twinkle could say anything though, Grace started to clench her teeth and used her magic to pull Star Twinkle directly in front of her in a really fast motion.

It was now that Star Twinkle realized that it was a pretty bad idea to make the Witch of Equestria mad and he regretted saying anything. But it was too late now, Grace was pretty angry, furious even, she started to scare the stallion.

"Now listen here," Grace started with an angry tone in her voice. "You might be cute but doesn't allow you to be rude like this and call me old! Especially since you are probably as old as me!"

"Huh?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "By I heard the Witch of Equestria was around for around one-hundred years. That's what Princess Celestia said!" He said in his defense.

"And what does that have to do-" Grace started before her eyes widened again in confusion. She then stopped her magic and let Star Twinkle down again before she started laughing once more, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. He appreciated that she was not holding him in place anymore but her sudden change in behavior was what got him confused again. But Grace explained herself. "I get it now. You really think I am the Witch of Equestria, right?"

"Well, are you not?" Star Twinkle asked confused. "Princess Celestia recognized your name and told me that you existed one-hundred years ago," he explained further.

"Yeah, but that wasn't me," Grace said amused. "I have you know that I am far away from being that old. Heck, I bet I am younger than you!" She said almost proudly. The mare then looked down on her Alicorn Amulet and grinned before she looked over to Star Twinkle again. "As for the Witch of Equestria...that would have been my mother," she then said with a sinister grin on her face, that sent shivers down on Star Twinkle's back.

This raised a bunch of questions. Did that mean that all the things that Princess Celestia told him and Twilight did not apply anymore? Does Grace not capture other ponies and raise them as her own? Does she not oppose Princess Celestia like her mother? Did that mean that Grace could be trusted?

While all those questions circled around Star Twinkle's mind, Grace started walking towards the stallion with a smile on her face.

"Next time, don't tell me what is and what isn't funny and don't pretend that you know what it feels like to be sad. You have no idea what real sadness is and how it really feels like to lose something or...someone," she said quietly with a big smile on her face while saying all those words.

Star Twinkle didn't know what to say. He was afraid to open his mouth again even though he had a bunch of questions in his mind. He had the feeling that there was a lot more that he didn't know about her in order to understand those last words.

The mare was walking past Star Twinkle. "It was really nice spending some time with you but since you will return to Ponyville soon, I just leave you alone again, I promise," she said happily before she one last time looked back to the stallion. "But I do look forward seeing you again," she said with a grin on her face before she used her magic to levitate above the ground to fly away into the night, leaving Canterlot for good.

The stallion was left in the middle of the street, confused. Those encounters with Grace were weird, scary, and almost crazy. To think that this simple trip to Canterlot turned out like this was beyond him. But if what Grace told him was true, then that was the last time he saw her for a while. It was not as if he was looking forward to meeting her again but at the same time, he was now curious. The fact that she was not the Witch of Equestria made him feel a little bit more safe, even if he had no idea by how much. It was a little bit too late for him to worry about that now so he just walked back to his parent's house to get a good portion of sleep. He needed to relax after all these recent events.

He was also hoping that his next encounter with Grace would end up like this one. A little bit weird but not dangerous...

Author's Notes:

So, as you might notice, I did skip a lot of the stuff from the episode and replaced it with some Original stuff, I hope you don't mind ^^. The reason for that was simply that Star Twinkle was not supposed to be connected with Twilight's friends in the first place. I actually planned to skip this episode entirely because of that but as you can clearly see, I did not.

I would like to know your thoughts about Grace. What you think about her character and what her role for the future might be. You definitely haven't seen the last of her ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

103. Nightmares

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It was dark...

Star Twinkle was standing there in, what seemed like, absolute nothingness. He wondered how he got there and looked all around, trying to figure out what was going on. As soon as he took a step though, the ground began to shake. "Wha-wha-what is going on!?" He said in a panic.

Then, something was appearing in front of him, something really big and familiar. It was the Storm Fortress, the airship that the Storm Wings used to fly through Equestria. It was there, right in front of him all of a sudden. He asked himself how he managed to not notice it earlier, given its size.

Three ponies came diving down from the fortress and landed in front of him. It was Cyclone Wing, Steel Wing, and Hurricane Wing, the leaders of the Storm Wings. They all had very serious and battle-ready expressions on their faces, causing Star Twinkle to get a little bit confused and even nervous. They used to be enemies but now they were redeemed but judging from how they looked at him, that did not seem to be the case.

Soon, another pony appeared behind them, which was weird because nopony was standing there before. Star Twinkle recognized that pony as well. It was Mystic, the previous leader of the Storm Wings, and he looked more sinister and evil than ever. Seeing him was certainly bad news.

"What is going on here!?" Star Twinkle asked. "Why are you with him again!?" He added, his question being directed towards the three brothers.

Mystic was anything but a friend, heck, not even an ally to the three Pegasus ponies, after all the things that he put them and the Storm Wings through. In fact, Star Twinkle was pretty sure that they all hated him. But now, they stood there, just like a while ago, when they were forced to work together. Before he Star Twinkle could figure out what was going on though, mist started to cover the four ponies, and soon, Star Twinkle as well. He covered his eyes and closed them for a moment, only to find out that here was somewhere completely else now, in a place that he knew as well.

The Forgotten Castle...

It was the same place where he fought against the Outcasts. And as soon as that crossed his mind, there they were. Mystic was standing there still but he was soon accompanied by Rosa, Tagma, and Wildheart. They also looked as if they were not here to have a friendly talk just like the Storm Wings.

And of course, Star Twinkle was pretty confused about all this. Now it was the Outcasts that were in front of him, ready to attack, from what it looks like. Why were those four together again in the first place, is what Star Twinkle was asking himself. Rosa and Wildheart were wandering around Equestria, Tagma was out there on his own, wandering around Equestria, and Mystic was now, with his escape from the Canterlot dungeons, a criminal on the loose. It was almost as if they were back to being evil again, the way they back then when Star Twinkle first met them.

Star Twinkle felt intimidated. He had no idea what was going to happen next and took a few steps back just to be safe. That is until he noticed something or somepony behind him. He turned around and saw Fade, the one behind the actions of the Outcasts. He was supposed to be a stone statue before he vanished from Canterlot during the attack from Tirek. His appearance here certainly confused Star Twinkle.

But there was no time to react...Fade glared at Star Twinkle and dark magic was surrounding him. The Earth Pony tried to escape but he soon was completely surrounded by dark magic, making it impossible for him to escape. He got scared and could only see the serious expression on Fade before he closed his eyes in fear.

...

A few seconds later, once nothing happened, Star Twinkle opened his eyes again. He quickly noticed that he wasn't inside the Forgotten Castle anymore. This time, he was in Ponyville. For some reason, Star Twinkle knew that something else was coming up again and without much delay, that thought proved to be right.

Only a few meters away, Summershine stood there with his eyes focused on Star Twinkle and his mouth forming a sinister grin. The stallion's purple eyes turned red, fire started to appear and it began forming a ring around him and Star Twinkle, trapping them both inside. It was very similar to the meeting that they had not too long ago while Twilight was fighting against Lord Tirek.

Star Twinkle knew that there was a battle coming for him and he clenched his teeth nervously. He didn't know what to do but to fight Summershine, the pony that he knew was his friend. Everything just happened to fast and he was simply overtaken by it but he had no choice. He closed his eyes and transformed, making a horn appear on his head, and was ready to fight.

...

But he was no longer in Ponyville. This time, he was in Canterlot, in the garden next to the castle. He remembered staying there for a while after Twilight's coronation ceremony. As soon as he was aware of that, he had a pretty good guess what was happening next. Another familiar pony walked up to him from behind. The term "familiar" was probably not the best word to describe it though because he didn't know who that pony was exactly. It was the pony in the black armor, that showed itself back then after Twilight's coronation. The pony that attacked him while he was alone.

Star Twinkle locked eyes with the pony and they both kept looking at each other for a while without saying a thing. It was pretty tense but also a little bit calm as if they both understood each other in some kind of way.

"I don't know who you are but..." Star Twinkle started before pausing for a moment. He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but he was sure of one thing. "I know you...right?" He asked confused.

Summershine was a pony that he was supposed to know but his memories were erased by exactly him for some reason. That meant that there was a possibility that there were more who were erased from his memories. Maybe the pony in the black armor was one of them. Maybe there was a reason for this pony to not show his or her face. He didn't know why he came to this conclusion but somehow he knew. Something was telling him that this pony was someone he should know. It had to be like this.

The pony in the black armor did not respond, nor did it show any reaction to Star Twinkle's words. The two just continued to look at each other silently for what felt like an eternity.

...

"Huh?"

He was awake. Star Twinkle laid in his bed, his eyes open, and his mouth as well due to the confusion of what happened in his dreams. He was sitting up in his bed and sighed in relief.

"Morning, Comet," he said, greeting his pet goldfish.

Comet did not reply and stared blankly in the distance...

It was another one of those nights were Star Twinkle was haunted by nightmares. He did not want to admit it but he was actually getting used to those. He got so many nightmares it was almost funny, he did not like having them but they just appeared so often that he just accepted them. They usually made little sense to him the more he tried thinking about them so he just pushed them away as soon as he woke up. That was much easier. If he would spend the rest of the day thinking about them, he would not get anything done after all.

With this mindset, Star Twinkle left his house to attend a meeting with his friends.

Later...

Today, Star Twinkle and his friends agreed to meet up at Carousel Boutique. They all brought their pets as well to take care of them. Rarity set up everything to prepare a little grooming day. It sure was handy that all of them had pets for an occasion like that. There was not much too take care of when it came to Comet since he was a fish with not too many desires but Star Twinkle still decided to join the girls.

He expected the rest of his friends to be a little bit more excited about this day but much to his surprise, all of them seemed a little bit out of it. They looked very tired as if they didn't get too much sleep last night. Funny, since Star Twinkle could not sleep well too last night.

Rarity was just now brushing her cat, Opalescence, but in the middle of it, she seemed to have dozed off for a moment and accidentally scratched her back. Of course, Opalescence did not appreciate that too much and jumped up in anger and away from her owner.

"Oh, my! Oh, I'm sorry," Rarity apologized, her voice sounding really tired. "I didn't get my normal beauty sleep last night..." she added while she rubbed her eyes for a moment.

Twilight overheard that as well. "You know...I didn't sleep well either," she said followed by a yawn.

The girls all nodded and agreed to those words. It must have been the same for them as well, just as Star Twinkle thought.

"I'm totally beat too!" Pinkie Pie then said while cartwheeling around the room, showing her how "beat" she was at this moment, which was not much different from her usual self.

Star Twinkle lowered his eyebrows. He did not get too much sleep as well but he did not feel too bad, at least not as bad as the girls. He figured that it was because he was no stranger to weird dreams or nightmares anymore. He did not get that many nightmares but because of his memories being kind of a mess, they did pop up occasionally so he was most likely hardened up to get a little sleep every now and then. His hooves did not slip up at least, which could not be said by his friends.

Another mishap was about to happen as soon as Applejack tried to brush her dog, Winona. "All right, Winona. Time for your brushin'," the mare said as she grabbed a brush from a nearby table, only to mistake it with Pinkie Pie's pet alligator, Gummy.

Out of reflex perhaps, Gummy was biting the dog's ear. Gummy does not have any teeth yet but Winona still did not appreciate this action and shook him off and right on Twilight's pet owl Owlowiscious. This caused some chaos in which Twilight got knocked away while Owlowiscious tried to shake of Gummy.

Applejack quickly admitted to her mistake. "Oops. I guess I'm too plumb tuckered out to do this right," she said embarrassed.

And she was not the only one. Everyone could barely hold their eyes open and focus on their pets. They were simply too tired to do anything right.

Fluttershy then explained why she was in this state after releasing a healthy yawn. "I even went to bed early last night... but then I had a really scary nightmare," she said.

The rest of the group was pretty quick to pick up on that. "Me too!" Everyone said in unison.

"Uh, only, you know, I didn't think mine was that scary!" Rainbow Dash then added, trying to act tough again.

Twilight was not having any trouble sharing her thoughts about her dream though. "Well, mine sure was. There was this blue smoke monster and..." but then she stopped in the middle of the sentence after she realized how everyone was looking at her with a shocked expression. "What?" She then asked confused.

"I dreamt about a blue smoke thingy too!" Fluttershy said.

"Me too!" Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity said.

Twilight then looked over to Star Twinkle, expecting him to say the same thing. The stallion quickly realized that and smiled awkwardly. "Y-yes! Me too!" He then said, straight out lying to Twilight. There was no smoke monster in his dream after all.

Of course, there was something that all of his friends experienced, all with the exception of him. As usual. Star Twinkle didn't know if he should be happy or mad to not be part of this. He did have a nightmare last night if he remembered correctly, but there was no blue thing like the girls said. Would it make a difference if he was part of this? He didn't know the answer to that but he sure wished to get an explanation of why he was left out, like so many other times when it came to things like this.

The group didn't notice how Star Twinkle was thinking about those things, much to his delight, and continued to focus on this blue-thing-dream again.

Rainbow Dash was not too concerned. "So what? Probably just a coincidence," she figured.

"That's an awfully big coincidence," Twilight threw back.

Spike was quick to point out that he didn't have this problem. "Huh. I wonder why I didn't have that nightmare. I slept great!" He said, earning him some glares from everyone after the last sentence.

"So then, what could've given us all the same nightmare?" Rarity then asked.

"I don't know, but I do know who might," Twilight said before she looked over to the little dragon. "Spike, could you send a scroll to Princess Luna?" She asked.

"Sure! All set!" Spike replied before he took out a feather and a scroll.

Twilight then started. "Dear Princess Luna, last night my friends and I all dreamt of a creature made of blue smoke. I'm sure you're very busy, but (yawn) when you have the chance, please let me know if you have any idea what it could mean. Yours, (yawn) Princess Twilight Sparkle." "You can leave out the yawns," she added.

Spike wrote down every single word, rolled the scroll shut, and then blew fire on it, sending it to the princess. Now all they could do was wait for an answer to know what to do next.

SLAM!

The door to Carousel Boutique was opened only seconds after Spike sent the letter and to everyone's surprise.

"Which of you saw the creature of blue smoke in your nightmare?!" The princess asked in a rush as she stormed inside the boutique.

"Wow," was the only thing Star Twinkle could say after seeing Princess Luna appearing in record time like this.

"That was fast," Fluttershy added.

But since Princess Luna was already here, Twilight just explained the situation to her directly. "We all saw it," she said.

"Not me!" Spike added, much to the dislike of everyone, except Star Twinkle.

In order to not get suspicious, Star Twinkle asked what was on everyone's mind. "So what exactly is this...blue-smoke thing?"

Princess Luna then explained the situation to everyone. Apparently, this blue smoke monster is called "Tantabus" and it is a creature that came from Princess Luna's nightmares. Yesterday, it escaped from her nightmare while she was seeing the six girls in her dreams, which is why it appears in their dreams now. It also has a parasitic nature and wants to infect and corrupt dreams.

Hearing news like this was certainly making the group feel a little bit nervous. Spike, however, was pointing out something else.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa. So what you're saying is... you dreamt about all of them, and not me?" He asked before he started to whimper a little bit.

Star Twinkle began to get nervous. He knew that Princess Luna's next words would be: "Everyone except Star Twinkle". If what she said was true then the girls only saw the Tantabus in their dreams because Princess Luna saw them in their dreams but Star Twinkle didn't saw it, meaning that he didn't appear in her dream. It would lead his lie to get exposed quickly and put him in a pretty awkward situation.

But that did not happen. Princess Luna didn't even look over to Star Twinkle as if she was hinting at that he wasn't in her dreams. She just ignored Spike's words, causing Star Twinkle to exhale in relief.

Rainbow Dash was the next to pick up on this matter, and she did not seem worried at all. "Uh, so Smokey gave us bad dreams. No biggie," she said casually with no worry in her voice.

Princess Luna, however, knew a lot more and was willing to share her knowledge so that everyone would understand the situation that they were in. "I saw that the Tantabus had grown more powerful, but I did not realize that power was enough to enable it to escape my dreams. If its power grows, it could very well find a way to escape into the real world. It could turn all of Equestria into a living nightmare!" She explained.

The others could practically imagine the situation that the princess explained to them and it made them all feel rather unease, even Rainbow Dash this time.

"Okay, okay, okay, I take it back! That does sound bad! Really bad!" She said nervously.

But the princess was trying her best to calm everyone down again. "Do not fear. I already have a plan to deal with this situation. All it needs is some preparation," she assured.

Princess Luna then explained to the group what needed to be done and of course, everyone was doing what she demanded. But the plan needed to be executed later this evening to work which meant that the group still had to wait a little bit, and knowing that the Tantabus was roaming free did not sound too inviting to get a nap in between, much to everyone's dislike.

Later that evening...

Everything was set for Princess Luna's plan. Everyone was supposed to be inside Twilight's castle, in her bedroom to be exact. The group was just done placing a bunch of beds inside the room, one for each of the ponies. They also started to all lay down in one of them. It was then when Star Twinkle recapped the whole plan once more.

"Okay, so the plan goes as follows," he started, in order to not have misunderstood anything so far. "We all go to sleep so that you can enter our dreams and take care of the Tantabus?"

"Precisely," Princess Luna replied.

Star Twinkle casually shrugged his shoulders. "Sounds like a pretty good plan to me," he said, being fully supportive of this plan. For once, he had to do something that he already liked doing, sleeping, but it also sounded as if there was not much else he needed to do. He was actually looking forward to all of this.

So was, Pinkie Pie, who jumped on her bed excitedly. "Ooh! It'll be like a princess sleepover!" She said.

Twilight began tucking herself into her own bed as well. "Speaking of princesses, aren't you gonna ask Celestia for her help as well?" She asked.

"There is nothing my sister can do," Princess Luna replied. "She has no power in the realm of sleep. Only I can move from dream to dream. I am afraid nopony can help me tonight," she explained.

"Even us?" Applejack asked.

"Especially you. You have all suffered so much because of me. You need only slumber while I hunt the Tantabus in your dreams," she said, determined to make those words become reality.

As a princess, she felt responsible to do that. She was also blaming herself for this whole situation, making it hard to accept help from others. But just like she said before, in the realms of dreams, she was probably the only one who had the power to do anything anyway.

But Spike still wanted to help in some way. "I know you said nopony can help, but I'm no pony! I'm gonna stay up and watch over you guys just in case!" He said.

"Aw, thank you, Spike!" Twilight replied.

The rest of the group did not seem to be against Princess Luna's plan as well. In fact, they were looking forward to it too.

"One good thing about not sleepin' well last night – shouldn't be too hard to fall asleep now," Applejack figured before she got comfortable and closed her eyes.

That was until she got interrupted by Pinkie Pie, who just appeared next inside Applejack's bed. "Are you kidding?! This is so exciting, I don't know how I'm ever going to—" The mare said excitedly before already dozing off in the middle of her sentence. Applejack was way too tired to be bothered by the mare next to her so she just decided to close her eyes as well.

Star Twinkle was already asleep while this happened. He had no trouble going to sleep now and after a few minutes, his friends were asleep as well. It was just like Applejack said, not being able to sleep earlier made it quite easy to doze off now.

Only Spike and Princess Luna stayed up, the latter one preparing everything. The princess flew up in the air and used her magic, seven magic strings came out of her horn which then was all touching the foreheads of the sleeping ponies. She connected herself with them to access their dreams now. The Tantabus was inside the dreams of those ponies, so the only way to find it was to go inside their dreams. Something like this was no problem for her, she was the Princess of the night after all.

Inside Star Twinkle's dreams...

Before Star Twinkle went to sleep, he actually didn't expect to have another nightmare this time around. The chances of having two nightmares in a row were pretty slim, he thought. The Tantabus might have invaded the dreams of the girls but not Star Twinkle's so he was safe from that too.

But strangely enough, he did have a nightmare again...he just did not realize it yet...

The stallion stood in the middle of the road of Ponyville. He didn't know how he got there or why. The town was pretty empty and he wondered why that was but he was also not bothered by it. In fact, this was a pretty recurring dream, him being alone, with nopony around him in an empty location, this is usually what his dreams would look like.

And as usual, there would be something or someone who would haunt him in those dreams, just like the day before. It didn't take long until someone else appeared in front of Star Twinkle but the way this pony appeared was a little bit weird. Some kind of portal appeared in front of him and the pony coming out of it was someone he saw in his last dream as well, the pony in the black armor.

"You again?" Star Twinkle said almost unimpressed and bored as if he expected this pony to appear again.

Remembering how his last dream went, Star Twinkle expected the armored pony to stay there silently again but much to his surprise, the pony came charging at him as soon as it came out of the portal. Star Twinkle didn't know how to react to this and had no chance to defend himself in time. He was about to get tackled, or whatever the armored pony tried to do to him.

The armored pony focused some magic in its horn and fired a beam right before it was about to come in contact with Star Twinkle. The beam, however, was missing Star Twinkle, much to the stallion's surprise. The armored pony then positioned itself behind the stallion. It was then that Star Twinkle noticed something behind him. A blue mist was right behind him and from the looks of it, the pony in the black armor was shooting at it while Star Twinkle was just piecing everything together.

"Wait...is that the Tantabus?" Star Twinkle asked after he laid eyes on this thing for the first time. It did fit the description of Princess Luna and the rest of the girls though. The question was just how it appeared in Star Twinkle's dreams now. It did not appear in his dreams before after all.

The creature was preparing another attack and this time, Star Twinkle got ready in time. He transformed into a Unicorn and was ready to defend himself. The Tantabus was coming towards him, or at least that's what he thought. The Armored Pony moved to the side and the Tantabus was following it.

"It's going after this pony?" Star Twinkle wondered while he watched the armored pony trying to get away.

The armored pony seemed to be the focus of the Tantabus, which did confuse Star Twinkle a little. This pony was part of his dream after all so why would it go after it. He assumed that since it was part of his dreams, the Tantabus saw it fit to corrupt the armored pony and making the stallion's dream worse.

Those questions needed some answers but before he could figure them out, a light showed up right above the heads of the two ponies. The light quickly revealed itself to be Princess Luna who was now there to take care of the Tantabus herself.

"I will take care of it!" The princess said with determination before she charged at the mist-creature to fight it.

But the Tantabus was ready for that. It created a wall of fire in front of it, making Princess Luna back away. Needless to say, Star Twinkle did not appreciate the fire spreading in Ponyville and how it slowly came towards him. It was not the first time he saw Ponyville burning in his dreams but that did not make the situation any better for him. He still was afraid and backed up further, causing Princess Luna to use her magic to save the stallion. She created a bubble around the stallion that levitated up into the air, keeping his save from the fire.

In the meantime, the Tantabus was taking this opportunity to escape through a portal. Princess Luna was following it right behind, leaving both Star Twinkle and the pony in the black armor behind. Star Twinkle was safe inside this bubble and the other pony was just looking up to him from below without saying anything. The Earth Pony just looked back with a confused look on his face.

"Just who is this pony? Why did it appear in my dreams?" Star Twinkle asked himself.

The two looked at each other for a while until they were interrupted by the flames. They started to rise higher and higher until they were at the same height as Star Twinkle and slowly surrounded him. There was nowhere for him to run since he was high up in the air inside a bubble. He got scared and crawled into a ball shivering at the sight of this.

"Help!" He screamed in fear, hoping that somepony would come to his aid now.

...

All of the seven ponies gasped and opened their eyes again. They were awake now after experiencing all their personal nightmares. Spike, who was skipping some time by reading a book, noticed how everyone was awake again. "What happened?" He asked confused before he rushed over to Rarity's bed. "Are you guys okay?"

Everyone looked rather uncomfortable. All of them woke up in the middle of their dream after things got too scary or extreme in their dreams. Just by looking at each other, they could see that everyone was experiencing a rather bad dream as well.

"That... that was terrible!" Fluttershy said while she tugged herself under her sheet. "I-I never want to have that nightmare again!"

"Me either!" Rainbow Dash said, while nervously rocking back and forth on the spot. Star Twinkle could only imagine how bad her dream if she was acting like this.

Spike then asked the most important question. "But Luna caught it, didn't she?"

This is when Princess Luna was descending from the above their heads, her face showing anything but a happy expression. "I am so sorry, my friends. I failed," she said in regret. "It will be back to infect your dreams the next time you sleep," she further informed the ponies, much to their dislike.

"Great..." Star Twinkle said bothered. He already was having a lot of nightmares at an annoying rate so there was definitely not a lack for more for him. He was not looking forward to this. His friends were actually a little bit more shocked than him.

"Oh, no!" Is all that Fluttershy could say after hearing Princess Luna's words.

Applejack looked bothered as well. "Yeah. I reckon I could live without seeing that thing ever again," she said.

"But you will," Princess Luna said up in her face. "Again and again, every night, until it grows powerful enough to infect the waking world!" She further informed, which was not helping anyone in the room to calm down at all. They could really go without Princess Luna making them even more nervous now. "After what I did as Nightmare Moon, the fact that I am once again responsible for harming others is more than I can bear," she said in regret and with a frown on her face.

But not one inside this room was blaming the princess for this. "It'll be okay! Everypony makes mistakes!" Pinkie Pie said, keeping up a positive attitude about this situation.

Still, Princess Luna had more bad news coming towards them. "As long as none of you dreamt about another pony, the Tantabus remains confined to your dreams. I still have a chance to catch it before it's too late," she explained.

Star Twinkle did not like hearing this. "How are we supposed to do that? That doesn't really sound like something that is in our control," he figured.

"I know, right?" Pinkie Pie agreed. "Besides, after Princess Luna left my dream, I did happen to dream that I was eating a giant ice-cream cone with all of Ponyville while taking a test we hadn't studied for," she said casually. "See, what'd I tell ya? Everypony makes mistakes!"

Princess Luna slowly formed a shocked expression on her face. Now she was the one who was getting nervous and almost scared just thinking about the future of Equestria. It also didn't help that Twilight was having the same realization and decided to share it with the group.

"But that means the Tantabus could be turning every dream in Ponyville into a nightmare!" She said.

But, as if things weren't too bad enough, there was still more bad news. "It is far worse than that," Princess Luna said. "Infecting all those dreams gives it more and more power. Soon it will be able to escape into the real world and infect Equestria with its nightmare plague!"

The seven ponies did not like the sound of that one bit and just decided to help Princess Luna with this. "Then you must let us help you stop it before that happens!" Rarity said determinedly.

"But how?" Fluttershy asked. "The Tantabus was able to escape Luna when it only had six dreams it could get to!" She pointed out.

The princess of the night was well aware of that already. "It is true. With so many dreams to hide in, I do not know how I can catch it," she said.

That is when Twilight managed to come up with an idea. "What if everypony in Ponyville were having one dream?" She asked.

Star Twinkle figured that this was a good idea as well. "Yes, that way, the Tantabus won't be able to run away anymore. Can you do something like that?" He then asked Princess Luna.

The Alicorn princess did not reply at first, in fact, she was throwing a thoughtful expression at the stallion as if she tried to figure something out. Having Princess Luna staring at him, made Star Twinkle feel a little bit uneasy.

"Just like with you and this other pony," she then said out of the blue with a serious expression on her face.

Star Twinkle did not understand. "What?" He asked confused.

The princess continued to look at him confused and a little bit unamused. "Who is this pony with the black armor?" She then asked.

Hearing that, caught the attention of everyone else in the room. "The pony in the black armor?" Twilight asked, having not heard about that matter for a while now. Of course, she remembered that pony from what Star Twinkle told her.

Princess Luna then explained what was bothering her. "While I entered your dream, I noticed something. You and this pony both shared the same dream," she said, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. "When I followed the Tantabus, it did not bring me to your dream as I expected but instead to the dream of this other pony, where you happened to be as well," she further explained.

Star Twinkle still did not understand and tried to lay it all down once more for himself. "So the Tantabus was escaping to the dream of the pony in the black armor? And I was inside that dream instead of...well, having my own?"

"As I said, you two shared the same dream but it seems like this other pony was the one the Tantabus was after," she figured.

Thinking back about it, Star Twinkle could swear that he figured that out as well. The Tantabus did go after the armored pony instead of him, that much he noticed as well. If what Princess Luna said before then the Tantabus only appears inside the dreams of those who she saw inside her dreams, and since Star Twinkle did not have a dream about the Tantabus before, he just assumed that he was not part of the princesses dream. But Princess Luna assured him that he did appear inside her dreams as well, much to his confusion.

"Just who is this pony!?" Star Twinkle wondered. "Every single time! Why are all those complicated things only applying to me!? Can't some unexplained things like this happen to someone else!?"

Star Twinkle was standing there thinking about all this while everyone was staring at him confused because he didn't say anything. He felt a little bit embarrassed but eventually, he reminded everyone about a more important matter.

"Anyway, can make everyone experience one shared dream or not?" He then asked.

Princess Luna was aware that defeating the Tantabus was more important now as well and decided to put this matter aside for now.

"I... can create shared dreams, yes, but for so many ponies at once? I have never done anything like that. The amount of power it would take..."

The princess was having her doubts about this plan. Not because she thought it wouldn't work but rather that she was able to pull it off. She doubted herself, something that the rest of the group did not. In fact, everyone was admiring how Princess Luna tried to take care of all this without any help from anyone.

"Well, it is worth a try, isn't it?" Fluttershy said, pretty much speaking out the mind of everyone else in the room. No one wanted to experience a nightmare with the Tantabus as the main actor anymore so trying out Twilight's plan is all that was left to do for them.

And Princess Luna shared that thought as well. "Of course," she replied. "I will do anything to end this, including accept your help. I cannot allow the Tantabus to escape into the real world. All of you must now go back to sleep and hope that I can create such a dream," she explained.

And so the group went back to sleep again. They were still a little bit nervous to enter their dreams again with the Tantabus waiting for them but eventually, their tiredness overwhelmed them and they fell asleep. All that needed to be done now was for Princess Luna to connect the dreams of everyone in Ponyville...

In the dreamworld...

As expected, Star Twinkle was finding himself in Ponyville. It was dark, unlike whenever Star Twinkle dreamed about this town. This meant that Princess Luna most likely succeeded with her shared-dream plan.

And what a dream it was...

There were some strange things going on in Ponyville. Ponies who grew to the size of giants, ponies with balloons for a head, best friends joined together as one, ponies rowing through the sky, definitely things that were "normal" in a dream.

Star Twinkle walked around the town. He saw a bunch of familiar faces, all of them being ponies who lived in Ponyville. He knew that this was the doing of Princess Luna to fight the Tantabus, which still didn't seem to have appeared yet.

"There you are!" Twilight then said towards the stallion. She was accompanied by the rest of their friends. "It looks like Princess Luna did it!" She said as soon as she laid eyes on her surroundings and saw all the ponies that lived in Ponyville. Of course, after she got behind the fact that everything looked rather weird.

One of those ponies was Big McIntosh, who joined the group as well. After seeing all those weird ponies, Applejack was just glad that her brother looked normal. "Big Mac! Boy, I'm glad to see somethin' familiar!" She said in relief. But then she noticed something unusual on him as well. Her brother had a horn on his forehead, making him into a Unicorn.

"Eeyup," the stallion replied proudly before he shot a giant apple out of his horn, sending it flying over the buildings of Ponyville.

"If the apple's fly this low, it usually means it's going to rain soon," said Steel Hammer as he walked up to the group of ponies. "Hey, there!" He greeted them casually.

Star Twinkle was about to say how relieved he was to see Steel Hammer but then he kept an eye out to see if there was something strange about him as well but that didn't seem to be the case.

Before the two could exchange words though, Princess Luna was finally appearing. She descended from the sky and was inside a magic sphere while also keeping some magic strings around her horn, possibly to keep the dreams of everyone together. "Ponies!" She said, her voice echoing through the whole town, making her appearance known to everyone.

"Princess Luna!" The majority of the ponies in town said as soon as they saw their princess appearing in front of them. And of course, all of them bowed down soon after.

"There is no time for bowing, my friends!" Princess Luna then said with a pressing manner in her voice. "There is something coming, something terrible!" She warned them. But then, almost on cue, the Tantabus showed itself. It was a lot bigger than before, big enough to be the size of a castle. "No, it is already here!" She then said as she pointed towards it, making all the ponies in Ponyville aware of its presence.

The Tantabus let out a big growl, sending shivers down the spines of everypony in town. The scared faces are what made Princess Luna more determined to fight it again. "I am so sorry! I brought this upon you! But I will end it now!" She said before she shot a magic beam at the creature.

The attack did push back the Tantabus for a moment but for some reason, Princess Luna could not keep it up for long. She seemed exhausted and not able to do anything for a moment. The Tantabus though was not defeated and started terrorizing Ponyville, all while Princess Luna was too weak to do anything.

Star Twinkle and the rest of the group ran up to the princess. "Princess, what's wrong?" Twilight asked.

Princess Luna grunted. "It... is taking all my strength just to hold this massive dream together! You will have to stop it! I truly wish I did not have to ask this of you!" She explained.

The Tantabus was simply too much for Princess Luna to handle alone. She saw it as her responsibility to stop this monster but there was no way for her to do that now. She needed help but fortunately, that is exactly why everyone was here.

"Then you're in luck," Twilight replied determined.

"Yeah! We're already on it!" Rainbow Dash agreed, getting really excited for some action.

But not everyone was too informed about the situation to follow what this was all about. "So...what exactly is going on here?" Steel Hammer asked. "What exactly is this thing?" He asked.

Star Twinkle explained. "Long story short, this is a dream, and we have to defeat this thing before it escapes to the real world," he summarized.

Steel Hammer did look a little bit confused. "Okay. that sounds like a pretty cool dream," he then casually replied. "Then let's go!" He said before he started following the Tantabus to fight it.

The green earth Pony was now the one who was confused. "I think...he did not understand how serious this situation is. As long as he is helping though," he figured before he joined his friends as well.

The Tantabus was already at work. It could transform anything inside this dream into a more twisted and scarier version of itself. The first thing it did was to transform the buildings. The windows became eyes and the doors became mouths, arms came out of the walls and grabbed everyone in reach.

"Please! I'll pay you anything!" Filthy Rich said in a panic, being one of those unfortunate ponies who was trapped inside the claws of one of those houses. All that he received though was an angry roar coming from the house.

Luckily, Rainbow Dash was not too far off to rescue him by kicking the house in the face and freeing Filthy Rich.

Similar things happened all over the town. Houses came to life and grabbed the ponies who lived inside of them. Twilight used her magic to fight them off and even Fluttershy was helping out a lot by transforming herself into a vampire-bat pony, just like back then, when she and her friends were dealing with the fruit bat situation on Sweet Apple Acres.

Being inside a dream sure was handy. Everyone could do whatever they wanted after all. Applejack was noticing how her brother was surrounded by flying muffins and reminded him of this fact as well.

"Big Mac! You can do anythin' in a dream, remember?" She said to him.

This is when Big McIntosh did...something...

In very flashy fashion. Big McIntosh was surrounded by light while stars were in his eyes. The light soon made some golden horseshoes appear, and some gems on his horse collar. On top of that, there was now a tiara on his head and wings started to grow on his back. He transformed into some kind of magical Alicorn Princess. He simply slapped the muffins away with his wings and flew away having the most fun of his life.

Steel Hammer just watched this happening a few meters away from him. "Cool! Now my turn!" He said excitedly.

"What, are you gonna turn into an Alicorn as well?" Star Twinkle asked amused.

"You'll see!"

The brown coated stallion then pulled a hammer out of nowhere and started to blew it like a flute. The ground then started shaking. The cause of that was the Iron Hammer, Steel Hammer's, and Star Twinkle's workshop. It started to come to life as well. But it was not the doing of the Tantabus which caused that, it was Steel Hammer. The anvil-shaped building was growing metallic legs and stood up, there were also two arms coming out of it from the sides. It looked like a giant anvil-shaped robot now.

With a huge jump, Steel Hammer was leaping towards it, there was some kind of cockpit opening up in the middle of it and the stallion sat down inside of it. "Mega-Iron-robot ready!" He said accompanied by a flashy pose before he sat down and started to ride this giant thing.

Two giant hammers then came flying down from the sky and landed next to it. The robot grabbed both of them with its hands and wielded them as weapons. "Attack!" Steel Hammer screamed, his voice echoing from inside of this robot. Star Twinkle then saw the robot charging at one of the houses from the Tantabus and attacking them.

"Okay, that was kinda cool," Star Twinkle admitted.

But no matter how good their ideas were to fight off the Tantabus, there were more and more objects that became alive. Soon Star Twinkle and his friends would not be able to keep up saving everyone while also taking care of the Tantabus. And the more dreams it ruined, the more powerful it would become. Once it would become strong enough, it will try to escape to the real world and turn it into a big nightmare.

And that is what happened next...

The Tantabus created a sword with its mist and literally sliced a hole in the dimension and tried to go through it. "It's trying to escape!" Star Twinkle screamed, in the hope, someone would hear his words in time.

Twilight was already on it. She focused her magic to shoot at it before it would escape. A magic beam was fired at it and the Tantabus backed away again while Princess Luna closed the hole again a few seconds later.

"Good job, Twilight!" Star Twinkle said happily.

"That wasn't me," Twilight then replied, wondering about who was shooting the Tantabus just now.

The horn of the pony who shot it was still glowing as it revealed itself to the group. Star Twinkle quickly panicked a little and took a few steps back. It was the pony in the black armor.

"You!?" Star Twinkle said in shock.

The armored pony did not reply and kept looking at Star Twinkle silently. That was until Princess Luna was releasing some painful straining noises. "Hurry, my friends!" She asked of them all.

Star Twinkle looked back at the pony in the black armor. There were no attempts of this pony to attack neither him or anyone else besides the Tantabus. This led Star Twinkle to ask one question.

"Are you gonna help us?"

There was no nod coming from the pony, nor was there an answer but as soon as the pony in the armor was locking its sight at the Tantabus again, he knew that it was going to help them. It was a confusing situation for sure, especially since this pony seemed to be more hostile towards Star Twinkle but right now they all needed as much help as they could get no matter from where it came from.

In fact, Fluttershy was about to get some more help. She walked up to a bunch of citizens. "Please, we need your help too!" She asked them.

"Fluttershy's right!" Twilight added as she ran over to the ponies. "We've all got to work together to stop it from escaping!"

"But how can we help?" Mr. Cake asked, who was one of the ponies in this bunch. "Nopony in Ponyville has your magic or your speed!" He said as he pointed towards Twilight and Rainbow Dash.

"That's true... in Ponyville!" Rainbow Dash replied.

"But this here isn't Ponyville! It's a dream!" Applejack added.

"Yes, you can do whatever you want," Star Twinkle further added.

Those words were only supported by Big McIntosh who happened to fly by at this moment, and Steel Hammer who was wrestling a house nearby inside of his big robot.

"And not just any! This is your dream! Anything you can do in your dreams, you can do now!" Twilight explained, encouraging the citizens of Ponyville to act now.

The first one to act was Spike. He grew in size and changed into a more muscular version of himself, wearing an outfit that would be fit to a prince or a chivalrous knight. "Well, if you're gonna dream, might as well dream big, right?" He said before he jumped on one Pegasus pony, that was the size of a building, riding her into battle against the Tantabus.

It did not take long until the rest of the ponies joined in as well and let their creativity run wild. Spike used a lance to cut through the mist creature while flying past it with the Pegasus Pony. Filthy Rich attacked as well by surfing in the air on his money while shooting coins at the creature. All the attempts of the Tantabus to leave this world were ruined. The Cutie Mark Crusaders walked by the scene as well and Scootaloo grew a gigantic pair of wings and blew the Tantabus away with a strong gust of wind. Next was Rainbow Dash, who transformed into Zap, one of the Power Ponies, and created a tornado around the Tantabus to keep it in place.

"It's working!" She said victoriously.

"But it's not enough!" Twilight exclaimed. The Tantabus simply came out of the tornado from the top and escaped this attack.

"Then do more! This is a dream, remember?" Pinkie Pie said, prompting everyone else to join in.

Soon, Twilight joined the fray by restoring her old library and shooting books from it at the Tantabus. Applejack was transforming into Mistress Mare-velous, another member of the Power Ponies, who used her magical lasso to pull the Tantabus away from another hole in the dimension again, a hole that was then fixed by Rarity who used a giant sewing needle to close it again. In the meantime, Fluttershy was riding a big monstrous rabbit, which strangely resembled Angel in a way and charged at the creature as well.

Seeing how everyone was working so hard, Star Twinkle was trying to come up with something as well. He was not too creative right now, especially since there was so much going on but he knew how he could fight, and that was by transforming, not into a Unicorn or a Pegasus but an Alicorn. He took a little page out of Big McIntosh and decided to take this chance to transform into one as well, something that was not in his power before.

"As long as I can do something, it should be alright!" He said before he flew up at the sky and started charging a magic beam. Another attack added to the bunch of this should help out plenty enough after all. "Eat this!" He said before he fired.

BLAAAAAST!

A gigantic beam of light was shot at the creature, sending it back flying quite a mile, much to the surprise of everyone. Star Twinkle had no idea what just happened, he did focus quite a lot of magic in this beam, yes, but this beam was pretty big, and it looked like there was quite some power behind it as well. It was just a little bit smaller than what Twilight shot at Lord Tirek after she got the magic power of all Alicorn Princesses.

"Wha...?" Was the only thing Star Twinkle could reply at this moment.

The Tantabus was quickly aware of the danger that Star Twinkle was now and decided to go after him instead. Being still surprised at this moment, the stallion could not react in time but luckily someone came to his aid. It was the pony in the black armor., who created a shield around itself and Star Twinkle, preventing the Tantabus from attacking them.

"T-thanks," Star Twinkle replied.

The two were flying next to each other and both started glowing. Light was surrounding them. They both focused some more magic from their horns and aimed straight ahead towards the Tantabus. The shield was removed and soon after, the two shot each a beam at the creature. Needless to say, they were both pretty big and hit hard, severally knocking the Tantabus back.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but smile after seeing how well he and this other pony managed to work together like this. They both earned several cheers from the ponies of this town, who were all happy to see the Tantabus defeated.

Princess Luna had to much trouble focusing on her magic and didn't notice all of this happening, all she could do was telling everyone how things were going on her end.

"I cannot hold this dream together much longer! Equestria will fall because of me!" She said with a straining voice, while tears started to run down her cheeks.

Shortly after, the Tantabus was acting up again. It got up again, grew in size, and was ready to fight again, causing everyone to be on guard once more.

"Am I crazy, or did it just get even bigger after Luna said that?" Spike asked.

Twilight noticed that little fact as well and came to one conclusion. "I think it's feeding off your guilt, Princess Luna!" She said.

Princess Luna noticed that as well and she did not seem happy about it. "If that is so, then perhaps that is how it grew strong enough to escape in the first place! I created the Tantabus to give myself the same nightmare every night..." she said accompanied by some panting noises. "...to punish myself for the evil I caused as Nightmare Moon!"

"But why would you do that?!" Fluttershy asked confused while she got more and more nervous after seeing the Tantabus growing even bigger now. It was around five sizes bigger than Ponyville right about now and took the form of a Pony. It also started walking through a giant hole in the sky to escape this dream.

Princess Luna continued to explain her actions. "To make sure I never forgave myself for how much Equestria suffered because of me! But it seems I have not learned my lesson, for now, I have only made you suffer more!"

"But that means you might just be the key to stopping all this!" Twilight pointed out.

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash agreed while she tried fighting off the Tantabus. "If it gets strong because you feel bad about what you did as Nightmare Moon, then you just gotta stop feeling bad for what you did!" She advised.

That was easier said than done, however. "How can I forgive myself? I am no better now than I was then. My creation is about to turn the world into a living nightmare!" She said, while more tears started to run down her face.

"Yes, but unlike Nightmare Moon, you are not trying to make this all happen!" Star Twinkle pointed out.

"Exactly!" Twilight agreed. "Look at what you're doing! Nightmare Moon would've wanted the Tantabus to turn Equestria into a nightmare! You're doing everything you can to stop it! Don't you see? That proves you're not the same pony you were then!"

Star Twinkle couldn't agree more. "You are you, and Nightmare Moon is Nightmare Moon! You might have been the same pony at one point but now you are two different ones!" He pointed out.

Twilight continued. "Everypony knows that Nightmare Moon is in the past! We all trust you, Luna! Do you trust us enough to believe we're right?"

Princess Luna stopped crying for a moment. Her sadness was no longer overwhelming her, she now felt happiness. She was happy hearing how everyone was looking at her in this way and that nopony was blaming her for all this. They might have hated or feared Nightmare Moon but they certainly did not think about Princess Luna this way. They all respected her, not because she was their princess but rather because she wanted so bad to keep everyone safe, even if it meant she had to do it alone. But that is not the case right now. Everyone was helping her out now and supported her to help to save Equestria.

Princess Luna smiled. "...I do!" She then said happily.

The situation changed. The Tantabus shrunk in size again after her doubts were removed. The creatures slowly moved closer to the princess and walked inside her magic sphere, becoming one with her again.

Another smile was formed on the face of the princess. "Thank you. Thank you all," she said happily.

Shortly after, a bright light started to engulf all of Ponyville. Everyone somehow knew what that meant. The dream was about to end and they would wake up again. Fitting since the situation was handled again.

Before the light made it impossible to see anything anymore, Star Twinkle's eyes caught a glimpse of the pony in the black armor in the last moment. This was the same pony that attacked him way back unless there were more of those ponies wearing this armor around Equestria. This pony was an enemy, is what Star Twinkle thought, maybe it still is and just wanted to keep Equestria safe from the Tantabus. No matter what its reason was, it did help out now. All of that did not matter to Star Twinkle though, all he wanted to know was one thing.

"Who are you?" He said quietly before he eventually woke up again. There was no answer coming from the armored pony, as expected.

The next day...

It was early in the morning. Aside from the adventure in the dream world with Tantabus, everyone seemed to have slept well. Star Twinkle and his friends woke up in Twilight's castle again, and as soon as the morning tiredness went away, everyone knew what happened inside their dreams.

"Luna did it!" Twilight said after gasping in surprise.

"She sure did!" Applejack said. "Only... I'm not exactly sure what she did," she added.

Twilight explained it once more. "Luna created the Tantabus to punish herself! The worse she felt, the more power it had! But once she finally forgave herself for what Nightmare Moon did..."

"Poof!" Spike finished.

"Huh," said Star Twinkle. "She was blaming herself for the things in her past and tried to atone for them like this. She just needed to accept that she was different back then," he figured. "Where is she anyway?" He then asked.

It did not take long until they found her sleeping in the middle of the room peacefully. Of course, the group did not want to wake her up and tried to be as quiet as possible.

"Huh. Wonder what she's dreaming about now," Spike said.

Shortly after, Steel Hammer entered the room, with a confused look on his face. "This is where you all are. Boy, I had a really weird dream," he said as he rubbed his neck.

Everyone giggled after hearing that. "Let's hear it. But try to be a little bit quieter. someone is sleeping right now," she added.

After that, everyone dreamed normally again. Star Twinkle's occasional nightmares did not stop though, he also asked Princess Luna about the armored pony but she could not help, she had no idea who that pony was either. It was no use, Star Twinkle could not figure out who it was so all he could do was to find out eventually. Hopefully, sometime later the answer would come.

Author's Notes:

There was a lot that I left out in this episode. I usually like to show everything as long as Star Twinkle is part of it, I could have just shown the dreams of the others but that would have all remained unchanged so there was no point in that.

It did force me to write some custom stuff into it though, as you could clearly tell. Lots of stuff with this mysterious armored pony. I will not try to hide it, you saw the thumbnail of this story already I hope (For Season 5) which includes this pony as well. You will find out the identity of it by the end of this season, this much I tell you.

That means you will have not too much time left to guess who it could be.

Who do you think is this armored pony?
Is it good or evil?
Is it someone new or someone you came across already?

I would love to hear your theories about this pony, I really do ^^.

And yes, I know the identity of it and I'm not making one up in the last second when the time comes. I plan terribly ahead. I already have key events far in the future planned out ^^.
And no, I'm not telling you.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

104. Rarity on the Case

View Online

Canterlot...

Star Twinkle was helping out Rarity in her boutique, not the one in Ponyville but her new one in Canterlot, which had the name "Canterlot Carousel". Her dream of owning a boutique in the capital of Equestria came true just a few days ago and things needed to be taken care of. This is where Star Twinkle came in. His help was hugely appreciated by Rarity, especially since this was just the start of her boutique. If there wasn't another pony working for her in this boutique then Rarity would have to come here to Canterlot, leaving her boutique in Ponyville. This meant that she would have to leave her friends as well. It could not be completely avoided for Rarity to come and check out her new boutique but she could still focus more on Carousel Boutique.

Right now, Rarity was just happy that the Star Twinkle helped her out after all those changes. "It's so nice of you to offer your help, darling," she expressed in gratitude.

"Don't worry about it," Star Twinkle replied. He did not have to do much in the first place, except helping to make sure that everything in the boutique was clean and sorted. "I was staying here in Canterlot since yesterday so I figured that I should give you a hoof. Especially after everything that happened at the opening," the stallion added, unbeknownst to him though, he was making someone else in this room feel rather bad after saying those words.

It was Sassy Saddles, the manager of Canterlot Boutique. She was a slender and tall Unicorn mare with a pale cerulean-colored coat a vermilion-colored mane with light amber-colored stripes in it, and orange eyes. She was also wearing a fancy black dress.

As soon as Star Twinkle noticed Sassy's sad expression on her face, he quickly tried to damage control. "I-I didn't mean that it was your fault or anything! You just tried to help and all-"

"It's fine, really," Sassy Saddles replied. "I learned my lesson and I try to not make it happen again," she assured.

She was referring to the day where Canterlot Boutique was just opened. To summarize it, it was a complete mess. Sassy Saddles help was well-intended but they ended up almost ruining Rarity's boutique by taking more requests than Rarity could handle or preventing her to work on dresses or lines that she wanted to show and sell. One could say that both the boutique and those two ponies had a pretty rough start but it was quickly resolved and forgotten. In the end, everything worked out and the boutique became exactly what Rarity wanted. She had a lot of fun working here now in fact. Right now, she was proudly showing her newest dresses, which she placed near the entrance.

"Oh, don't you two just love my new Femme Mystique Chic line of gowns?" She asked as she levitated three rather stylish looking outfits into the room.

Sassy Saddles immediately gasped. "Sequins and sashes, Rarity, they're exquisite! Where in Equestria did you find the inspiration?" She asked in awe.

"Oh, I modeled them after the adventures of Shadow Spade," she replied.

That quickly got Star Twinkle's attention. "The Adventures of Shadow Spades? You mean those detective novels?" He asked.

"Why, yes! I'm glad you are familiar with them," Rarity replied. "Her stories are always full of mystery and suspense and, best of all... fabulous costumes!" She said happily.

"They're perfect!" Sassy Saddles complimented. But then she got a little confused by Rarity's next actions. "What are you doing?" She asked.

Rarity was fiddling around on her dresses so that they would stand straight. She also made sure that everything was in its place with almost paranoid accuracy. "Just making some minor adjustments," she said as she blew on her dress softly. "Shadow Spade believes it all comes down to attention to detail. And so do I," she explained as she continued to find more little details to take care of. She was done eventually and once more, presented them proudly to the two ponies "There! Now it's perfect."

The three dresses were now on display in the shop and all it needed was a few customers to be impressed by them. Coincidentally the door did open only seconds after...and hard.

SLAM!

The one who walked inside was Rainbow Dash and she slammed the door open. "Hey guys, how's it—" she said, being unaware of the chaos that she created by storming into the shop.

All the careful planning that went into placing the three dresses was down the drain. They all got knocked over, along with almost everything else in the shop. Rainbow Crash was the first Star Twinkle wanted to say towards the mare hovering in the hallway but he kept it to himself in the end.

"My bad," Rainbow Dash then apologized before she helped to fix her mess again. "Sorry I messed up your dress thingy," she said as she placed the dresses to where they used to stand a minute ago.

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes. "You are lucky that this isn't a shop that sells expensive porcelain," he commented.

But apparently, he was the only one who was a little annoyed by this. "Nothing we can't fix in a stitch," Sassy Saddles assured.

Luckily, there was not too much that needed fixing so Rainbow Dash's mess was quickly taken care of. "What are you doing here anyway?" Star Twinkle then asked.

"I'm here for Princess Celestia's royal garden opening tomorrow," Rainbow Dash replied.

"Oh, yes!" Sassy Saddles said. "Rumor has it the gardens are especially lush this season. I heard that the Wonderbolts will be kicking things off with an aerial display," she explained.

"And wherever the Wonderbolts are, Rainbow Dash is not too far away," Star Twinkle added.

"Exactly," Rarity agreed. "Especially since Rainbow Dash has a chance to fly with them. So exciting!" She said excitedly, fittingly.

"Well, kind of exciting," Rainbow Dash replied surprisingly modestly. "Technically, I'm not flying. I'm just the lucky Reserve who was called in to be the backup flyer in case a Wonderbolt can't perform," she explained.

"Oh, don't be so modest," Rarity then said, encouraging Rainbow Dash's ego a little bit. "Out of all the Reserves, you were the one chosen," she pointed out.

It did not take long until Rainbow Dash was feeling excited as well. "It is pretty sweet. And I do get to stay in the castle, hang out with the Wonderbolts, and eat awesome food at the dinner tonight," she said, which eventually brought her to the reason why she was visiting the boutique. " Speaking of the dinner, you two are still coming, right?"

"Heavens, yes!" Rarity replied. "A chance to dress up, be charming, and show off my newest femme mystique couture? I wouldn't miss it for all of Equestria," she added while she took a hat from one of her designs and wore it while striking a rather fancy pose as if she wanted to show it off to everyone right now.

"Yeah, I'm coming too, it's not like I got anything else to do anyway," Star Twinkle said, not accompanied by a stylish pose.

Rainbow Dash seemed happy to hear that. "Great! See ya tonight!" She then said before she left the boutique again shortly after.

SLAM!

Once again, she slammed the door, this time by closing it. However, Sassy Saddles was prepared for that and used her magic to hold the mannequins with the dresses in place so that they would not fall over. Star Twinkle also held some of them with his hooves just to make sure. Much to their relief, nothing fell over and they could relax again.

SLAM!

As soon as they stopped holding the mannequins however, the door was slammed open yet again. Rarity immediately glared at the door let Rainbow Dash know that she did not appreciate her blasting into her boutique like that but she looked rather happy as soon as she realized that a delivery pony was standing at her door, instead.

"Ooh, the rhinestones I ordered!" She said before she hopped over to delivery pony and opened her package right away. "Oh, my," she then said in disappointment.

"What is it?" Star Twinkle asked confused once he was done helping Sassy Saddles to set up the mannequins again.

"Oh, there's been a mistake... I ordered dragon-cut stones, and these are hoof-polished," she explained before she showed the stallion a few of the stones. Star Twinkle was not sure what the difference would be in the first place but apparently, those were not the right ones.

"I'm sorry, but I've got a full load of deliveries today," the delivery pony apologized. "I'm not sure I have time to redo your order," he said.

Rarity was not too happy to hear this. At first, she just accepted that her delivery had to wait but then she decided to try something to fix all of this. For this, she removed her hat and fixed her mane for a moment, as if she wanted to look good all of a sudden. Star Twinkle was wondering what this was all about and just watched to see what she was up to.

The mare walked over to the delivery pony, her movements being a little bit more elegant and smoother than before. "Of course you don't. Your job is so difficult. Honestly, I don't know how you keep all of those orders straight," she said in a charming voice.

The delivery pony chuckled in response. "It is pretty tough, what with the boxes all being... box-shaped," he cleverly added while blushing a little bit. He was probably was a little flustered by how Rarity was talking to him now.

"Oh, y—oh yes, and I very much appreciate it," Rarity said before she put a hoof on the stallion's chest softly. "But if there was any way you could squeeze in one more little delivery, I would be eternally grateful," she said as she threw her best set of puppy eyes at the pony.

By now, Star Twinkle just shook his head. "That's what she is trying to do," he figured. He still decided to just remain silent and didn't want to get involved in all of this though.

Unaware of what Rarity was doing to him, the delivery pony just laughed nervously while also turning red like a tomato. "Well, for you, Rarity, I'll see what I can do," he then said before he walked away. Now he was most likely trying to fix Rarity's delivery by the end of the day, just like she wanted him to.

Sassy Saddles was impressed by how Rarity managed to pull this off. "Rarity, you could sweet-talk a filly out of candy!" She complimented.

Rarity chuckled. "Oh, it was nothing. Nopony minds a compliment," she said casually.

Again, Star Twinkle shook his head. "I don't know if you should be too proud manipulating a poor pony like him," he said.

Rarity caught on how Star Twinkle was not impressed by her "abilities" and felt a little challenged now. "Yes, I'm sure something like this would never work on a pony like you, right?" she said while speaking in the same way as she did with the delivery pony before.

"Yep," Star Twinkle just replied confidently.

The mare then walked over to the stallion with a smile on her face. "Of course, not. You are way too perceptive for such things after all," she further complimented.

But Star Twinkle quickly saw through what Rarity planned on doing. "I know what you are trying to do, Rarity. It doesn't work," he said.

Rarity then moved her head closer to Star Twinkle's, close enough so that he would start to get nervous. "Must be hard for a handsome stallion like you to endure all there hundreds of mares out there that are probably attracted to you," she said, this time in a softer and more charming tone.

"...T-there are not hundreds of mares attracted to me," Star Twinkle replied. This time his voice started to no longer sound as confident as before.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Rarity replied. "Just look at those muscles for example. That alone would be a reason!" She said as she was grabbing one of Star Twinkle's legs to feel them.

The stallion quickly pulled his leg away from the mare. "T-those are just muscles that I got from my job. That's nothing special!" He said nervously.

But Rarity was not stopping now, she had the stallion at her mercy and she had way too much fun seeing him embarrassed like this. "And on top of that, you helped to save Equestria on multiple occasions! Just imagine how some mares would like to have a hero like you on their side!" The mare then was using her puppy eyes on Star Twinkle, causing him to get even more nervous now. "Maybe they are closer than you think," she then added while gazing into the stallion's eyes and slowly winked at him.

Somewhere in his mind, Star Twinkle knew that Rarity was just toying around to get a reaction out of him but in his nervous state, he completely forgot about that. His head was a mess and he even forgot how to speak. Questions of what Rarity could hint at him were circling around in his head. He wished to be everywhere else in the world right now.

Fortunately, Rarity was satisfied with this reaction and stopped. "Got you," she said followed by a playful giggle before she victoriously galloped away.

All of a sudden, Star Twinkle's mind was focused again. He realized that Rarity was just playing with him, something that he should have kept in mind while she was charming him all this time. "You did not!" Star Twinkle said in a poor attempt to defend himself.

"I totally did~" Rarity cheerfully replied.

"No, you didn't!" Star Twinkle said embarrassed which only amused Rarity more. It took Star Twinkle some time until he realized that Sassy Saddles was also looking at him. Her facial expression was basically saying "She totally did."

"No, she didn't!" Star Twinkle replied as if he just read Sassy's mind, making her chuckle afterward.

Rarity explained that she still needed to find a fitting for the party tonight and asked of Star Twinkle to come back later until she was ready. Star Twinkle went along with that and just returned home for a while. There was still some time left until the party started and the two agreed to go there together.

As Star Twinkle was walking out the door, without slamming the door, of course, there was one thing he mumbled to himself before he walked home.

"She did not..."

Later that evening...

When Star Twinkle and Rarity arrived at the castle, the party had already started. Rarity seemed highly excited about it, although it was maybe not because of the party itself but rather because she had a reason to dress up with something from her new line of dresses.

"How do I look?" She asked as she stepped into the castle, wearing a white long dress.

Star Twinkle sighed. "For the tenth time, good," he replied annoyed.

Rarity smiled. "I do love a good party but it can't hurt to show off some new dresses at the same time. Who knows, maybe someone asks me to make one for them as well?" She said, getting rather excited just by the thought of that.

As expected, Rainbow Dash quickly approached the two as soon as they stepped hoof into the castle. "There you two are. I was starting to get a little bit hungry!" She added a little bit annoyed.

"You could have eaten something before we arrived," Star Twinkle pointed out.

"Nah," Rainbow Dash replied. "Eating in company is a lot more fun if you ask me. Now let's grab some grub!" She then said before she dashed over to the buffet.

Star Twinkle was about to question Rainbow Dash's logic but he was also a little bit hungry so he just decided to join her without any word.

Most of the guests of this party were members of the Wonderbolts so it was kind of weird to attend this party for Star Twinkle. It was not like Princess Celestia, who was attending the party as well, would just kick him out, especially since she knew him but it was still a little weird to be one of the few ponies not associated with the Wonderbolts. The other pony, of course, was Rarity, who did not seem to mind any of this and just grabbed a plate with her magic to grab something to eat.

However, something caught her attention, a smell, judging from how she was sniffing the air. "Mm, is that Juniper Phoenix I smell?" She asked, in hope that someone would answer her.

And someone did answer. "No, it's broccoli!" Rainbow Dash said as she stuffed her face into a plate filled with broccoli.

Of course, that is not what Rarity meant and luckily, someone else just happened to actually answer her question.

"Yeah, Juniper Phoenix is one of my favorite stallion colognes," A middle-aged stallion explained. The smell must have come from him.

"Oh, mine as well," Rarity replied. "It's very masculine and soft with the barest hint of floral notes. You should try it too, Star Twinkle," she advised.

"I don't really use cologne so-"

But he was interrupted by Rainbow Dash, who just earlier dropped her plate and looked at this stallion as if she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Star Twinkle! Rarity! Don't you know who this is?!" She asked in a hushed tone.

"A gentlepony with fabulous taste in colognes and scarves?" Rarity guessed, referring to the scarf that this stallion was wearing around his neck.

Rainbow Dash almost snapped after hearing that. "It's Wind Rider!" She exclaimed.

"Oh! So nice to meet you!" Rarity then said, introducing herself to the stallion. But judging from how Rainbow Dash slapped her own face in disbelieve she was not satisfied to hear that.

Star Twinkle then took a guess on his own. "Since this is a party for the Wonderbolts, I'm assuming that you are one as well?" He then asked.

Rainbow Dash then grabbed Star Twinkle's shoulders out of frustration. "He is the Wonderbolt! He's a living legend. He holds the Wonderbolt record in the Mustang Marathon!" She explained.

There was no denying that this Wind Rider was someone really popular and someone who Rainbow Dash deeply admired and looked up to. It was just like when she met A.K. Yearling, or rather Daring Do for the first time. There certainly a certain aura surrounding this stallion, an aura filled with confidence and experience.

Wind Rider was a Pegasus pony with a light grayish cerulean-colored coat, a dark lime greenish gray-colored mane with light gray-colored stripes in it, brilliant amber-colored eyes and a flight hat with goggles as a Cutie Mark.

The stallion smiled after hearing all the praise from Rainbow Dash. "Well, that was a long time ago. Honestly, I can't believe I still hold the record," he modestly replied.

It was then when Spitfire and Misty Fly, two members of the Wonderbolts walked up to the four. "Wind Rider, I see you met Rainbow Dash! She's one of our most promising Reserves," Spitfire said proudly. "She just might beat your record," she added as she poked the sides of the stallion.

"Really now?" Wind Rider than said with a smile on his face as he looked over to Rainbow Dash. It was almost as if he liked seeing someone challenging him.

But Rainbow Dash blushed in response. "Oh, heh, I'm nowhere near as good as you. I mean, I'm fast, but I don't have the endurance to go long distances," she said. She obviously did not want to compare her abilities with the ones of a living legend nor did she want to make herself look arrogant in front of him.

But Spitfire made it a little bit harder to keep up her modest impression. "Ah, don't be modest. A little practice and you'll be beating records in no time," she said. It almost felt as if Spitfire planned on getting a little rivalry going between the two.

Wind Rider only chuckled confidently. "Heh-heh. Well, it's nice to meet you fillies," he said before he left the group.

Rainbow Dash sighed happily. "Not as nice as it is to meet you, sir," she said before she barely could contain her laughter. "I can't believe I just met Wind Rider!" She said with a huge smile forming on her face.

"Yeah, he's coming out of retirement to take the spot of honor in the center of our aerial flower formation tomorrow," Misty Fly explained.

"Really?" Rainbow Dash said after gasping. "That's incredible!" She said impressed before she frowned after another realization. "Guess I'll just watch Wind Rider being awesome from the sidelines... practice tomorrow is gonna be so boring," she figured.

Seeing how Rainbow Dash felt a little bit upset, Star Twinkle felt as if he should cheer the mare up again. "But hey, you met a living legend, that is something, right?" He said, pointing out the positive thing about this situation.

The mare started smiling again. Maybe she realized that Star Twinkle was trying to cheer her up and appreciated what he was doing. She did not want him to know that though. "Yeah, you're right!" She then said with a grin on her face.

Of course, Rarity knew the right words to say in this situation as well. "I don't suppose I could keep you company during practice?" She asked.

Again, Rainbow Dash smiled and felt better after hearing that. "You could! They always let friends and family come watch practices!" She said before she hugged both Star Twinkle and Rarity in return.

Unfortunately, Rarity was just drinking a cup of tea and Rainbow Dash's hug caused her to spill it on her new dress.

"Oops. Heh, sorry about that. Lemme help you clean that up," Rainbow Dash offered. She then was holding up her hoof and was about to spit on it.

Rarity noticed what the mare was up to and refused her help, understandably. "Uh, no-no, it's almost impossible to get stains out of silk. But not to worry. I've come prepared!" She explained before she dragged a chest into the room. She quickly switched from a white to an orange dress and pretended as nothing happened. Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash just looked at each other puzzled after seeing this.

A little later...

After the party was done, Star Twinkle, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash walked through the hallway. Princess Celestia allowed every guest of the party to use a room in the castle to sleep in. The three were just on their way to those rooms.

"That dinner was absolutely divine," Rarity said in delight. "Thanks for inviting us!" She said to Rainbow Dash.

"Yes, thanks, Rainbow Dash," Star Twinkle said.

The three came across Spitfire who was just entering her own room. Rarity couldn't help but be a little envious. "Ooh, you're staying in the east tower? Those rooms have the best view of Canterlot!"

"How lucky are we?" Spitfire replied. "Well, we better get some shuteye before practice," she added before she shut the door behind her.

After that, the group walked to their rooms. Rainbow Dash's room was right next to Spitfire's, something that she was really happy about. Star Twinkle and Rarity had to walk to the east towers to get to their rooms though. They all were a little bit tired from the party, especially Star Twinkle who get easily tired when he participates in those. They decided to get a good amount of sleep to be up early the next day.

On the next day...

Star Twinkle, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash all met at the stadium area close to the castle where the Wonderbolts were practicing their routines. Rainbow Dash really wanted nothing more but to join the Wonderbolts up in the sky but all she could do was sitting there with her friends and watching them fly.

She was releasing a slight sigh. "Thanks for keeping me company, you two. If you weren't here, well, I don't know who I'd be talking to right now," she said gratefully.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Star Twinkle replied. "We're having fun over here too, right Rar-" but when Star Twinkle turned his head towards the mare next to him, she decided to put some sunscreen on his nose, much to his sudden surprise. "Thanks..." he said with some annoyance in his voice.

But Rarity just giggled in response and did the same with Rainbow Dash as well. The three seemed to have fun despite just sitting there and watching the Wonderbolts practice. Even if Rainbow Dash's reason to be there was just as a reserve, she was still happy. She just wished that, by any chance, one of the Wonderbolts would have a reason to not participate so that she could have taken their place.

As it happened to be, something did actually happen and Soarin was the one telling the mare that news. "Eh, you'd be talkin' to me," the stallion said as he landed right behind the three ponies. "Rainbow Dash, Spitfire's mom sent a message that she was sick. She had to leave to take care of her," he explained.

Rainbow Dash gasped in response. "Oh, no! I hope her mom's okay!" She said in worry.

"Me too," Soarin said. "In the meantime, we need you to fly in her place," he then added.

The eyes of Rainbow Dash widened. "L-Like, in the actual show?" She asked nervously.

"Unless Spitfire comes back, yes," Soarin replied.

Rainbow Dash quickly shook Soarin's hoof out of gratitude. "I won't let you down, Soarin!" She said. What followed was a huge and long squeal from the mare before she jumped up into the sky out of joy. She was celebrating her chance to join the Wonderbolts as best as she could. "This is the best thing ever! Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! I'm gonna get to fly with Wind Rider and the Wonderbolts, 'cause I'm the bestest and I'm awesome and they know it! Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh..."

It was a bit embarrassing to look at but Rainbow was happy and that is all that mattered. Soarin was about to ask Rainbow Dash if she was okay but Rarity interrupted him. "Shh! Let her have this, darling," she said before she returned to watching her friend dancing and celebrating in the sky. Star Twinkle also looked happy and smiled as he watched Rainbow Dash. She was acting a little bit silly but when it came to anything Wonderbolt related that was about to be expected.

A little later...

Of course, Rainbow Dash wasted no time to join the practice. As expected she was having little trouble keeping up with the Wonderbolts. At this very moment, she was racing along with Wind Rider at this very moment. In the middle of her practice, she couldn't help but wave at Star Twinkle and Rarity, who were sitting on the upper seats now. Until she realized that she might want to focus on her practice so that she would not let the Wonderbolts down.

"She seems to have fun," Star Twinkle said with a smile on his face.

Rarity nodded. "I say she deserves this," she said as she looked at her friend in the air.

Rainbow Dash was certainly a lot more mature than she was when Star Twinkle met her. She came a long way to be where she was now and that included proving herself to the Wonderbolts. Sometimes she even put her dream to join them aside when it came to something more important. Long story short: Rainbow Dash worked hard and took a lot of risks to get this far. Star Twinkle smiled as he watched her flying in the sky with her idols.

Unbeknownst to him though, Rarity was smiling at him. Once he noticed that, he looked back at her confused. "What?" He asked.

Rarity giggled. "You. Are. Happy. For. Her," she said in a teasing voice.

Star Twinkle looked away. He seemed to feel a little bit embarrassed. "Is there something wrong about that?" He asked.

Again, Rarity giggled. "I think it's rather cute," she said, making Star Twinkle blush a little. "I think Rainbow Dash would also be happy if she found out, don't you think?"

"Maybe," Star Twinkle replied embarrassed.

Rarity then slid closer to Star Twinkle's side, much to the stallion's discomfort right now. "I get it, don't worry," she said as she raised her hooves to flex them for a moment. "Always be tough in front of the ladies! Must never show a weakness!" She then said in a brawny voice.

Star Twinkle's eyes widened in confusion. "Is that how you see me?" He asked confused, a little offended even.

The mare next to him started laughing while trying to remain lady-like while doing so. She failed to do so though and barely could contain her laughter. "Of course not!" She said before she was wiping a tear away from her eyes. "I was just joking, darling. What I'm trying to say is that you seem to make too much of an effort to show that you don't care or that you maybe are too embarrassed to show that you care," she explained.

To an extend, Star Twinkle knew that but he still felt a little uncomfortable to show his smile on a regular basis. "I'm not embarrassed," he said, his voice still sounding really nervous which made the delivery of his sentence not really sound too believable.

Rarity smiled. "If even if you were, the others and I would not mind. I think it would make you look more charming," she said.

The stallion didn't know what to say after this. The worst thing was that Rarity kept looking at him with this teasing smile on her face. It made him feel a little bit uncomfortable. He started to think that she was enjoying how flustered he was right now. Her next sentence pretty much confirmed it though.

"Then again, it's cute watching you being flustered like this," she said casually before she focused on Rainbow Dash again.

"I knew it!" Star Twinkle thought.

A few moments later, another mare approached the two of them. "Is this seat still free?"

"Huh?" Star Twinkle replied confused before he looked to his right. He was still too focused on Rarity to gave a proper answer at first. "Yes!" He then replied. The mare then sat down next to him and looked up at the sky as if she was looking for someone.

Rarity noticed the mare as well. "Hello there! Friend or family?" She asked.

"Family. My daughter's a Wonderbolt, but I don't see her up there. Do you know Spitfire?" She asked as she still kept her eyes open for her daughter.

It didn't take long until Star Twinkle saw the resemblance. The mare was a Pegasus with a yellow coat, an orange mane with light orange stripes in them, and orange eyes. Her Cutie Mark was orange and looked like a mix of a lighting bolt and a flame. She was also wearing a purple top, a white pearl necklace, and white earrings.

Star Twinkle and Rarity looked at each other confused. "You're Spitfire's mother?" Star Twinkle then asked.

"But I thought you were sick," Rarity added.

"What?" The mare said confused.

Rarity explained the situation. "Well, Spitfire got a note from you saying you weren't feeling well, and she went home to take care of you."

"I didn't send a note," the Pegasus mare replied.

Soarin, who happened to fly by a moment ago, noticed the mare sitting next to Star Twinkle and Rarity as well and stopped his practice for a moment. "Stormy Flare? Aren't you supposed to be sick?" He asked confused. Of course, other members of the Wonderbolts recognized the mother of Spitfire and got confused too. "'Kay, what's happening?" Soarin eventually asked.

"I don't know," Stormy Flare replied confused. "But I do know I didn't send my daughter a note," she confirmed.

Rarity quickly put one and one together. "Could somepony have sent Spitfire a fake note?" She figured.

"Who would do such a thing?" Misty Fly asked.

"Somepony who wanted her out of the show, I suppose," Soarin figured.

Rainbow Dash also joined in. "Why would anypony want that?" She asked.

But Wind Rider seemed to have figured out everything and he was not happy about it. He straight out looked at Rainbow Dash. "Maybe so they could take her spot,"

With those words said, everyone seemed to have come to the same conclusion as the veteran Wonderbolt. They all figured that Rainbow Dash had a motive to get Spitfire out of the picture to take her place in the show. It was the only explanation for them.

Of course, Rainbow Dash defended herself in this matter. "Me?! I would never do that to Spitfire! Why would you think it was me?" She asked offended.

"I did see you and Spitfire leave the dinner together," Blaze, another member of the Wonderbolts said as she pocked Rainbow Dash's chest.

"We were room neighbors in the castle!" Rainbow Dash quickly replied.

But the accusations didn't stop. "And you did say you'd do anything to fly with Wind Rider," Misty Fly further pointed out.

"Yeah, but I didn't mean anything," Rainbow Dash replied nervously.

Now Soarin was also on the side of his teammates and tried to get out a confession as well. "Spitfire came by my room and told me she had to go see her mom at around midnight. Where were you then?" He asked.

Rainbow Dash explained. "I was asleep at midnight... having this totally amazing dream. There I was at the arena flying with Wind Rider and the Wonderbolts, like I've always wanted to—"

"Rainbow!" Star Twinkle then interrupted once he realized how Rainbow Dash was a little too excited to tell everyone about her dream.

The mare then snapped out of it. "Eh, never mind. Not helping," she figured.

Seeing how Rainbow Dash was having trouble defending herself from all those accusations, Star Twinkle decided to jump into this as well. "Come on you guys, I know Rainbow Dash usually acts before thinking, especially when it comes to anything Wonderbolt related but she would never do anything like this," he said defending his friends.

Soarin walked up to the stallion. He felt challenged and desperately wanted a culprit now. "Do you have any proof that she didn't do it?" He asked in a serious tone.

Star Twinkle had a quick response ready. "Do you have any proof that she did it?"

As if Soarin wanted to throwback another reply, he opened his mouth but then he realized that he actually did not have any proof but only a motive. This caused him to back away again to talk with the rest of the Wonderbolts in order to figure out what to do next.

While that was happening, Rainbow Dash stepped next to Star Twinkle. "Thanks..." she whispered as if she was a little embarrassed right now. "For defending me, I mean," she added.

"No problem," Star Twinkle replied.

The mare then hesitated at first but asked something. "You don't think I did it, right?"

The stallion then asked a bold question. "Did you do it?"

"No!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed offended.

"Okay," Star Twinkle casually replied. "Then I believe you," he added.

Rainbow Dash was surprised. Star Twinkle was a friend of hers so she expected him to be on her side but she was still happy. The mare smiled, knowing that Star Twinkle didn't even seem to suspect her one bit. It felt nice.

After the Wonderbolts were done discussing everything, Soarin walked out of the group and right towards Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash. He began to explain. "Rainbow Dash, if you can prove that somepony else is behind Spitfire's disappearance before the start of the show, then you can still fly with us...but..." Rainbow Dash gulped. "I have to warn you, if you sent that letter, the bylaws are clear. I'd have no choice but to ban you from the Wonderbolts forever. Understand?"

Rainbow Dash gulped once more. "I understand," she replied.

Soarin then told his comrades Misty Fly and Blaze to head over to Stormy Flare's house and try to find Spitfire so that she could come back in time. In the meantime, Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash sighed in relief. Now with none of the Wonderbolts pressuring them, they could finally come up with a solution.

"What are we gonna do now?" Star Twinkle ironically asked.

"I don't know!" Rainbow Dash said frustrated while she held her head. "How am I gonna prove I didn't send a letter that I didn't send?" She asked, hoping for an enlightening answer.

"With me!"

The answer came in the form of Rarity who was now wearing a red stylish coat and a black hat, one of the new outfits that she just recently created. Her appearance resembled the one of a detective, which made sense since she based that outfit off from the Shadow Spade novels.

The mare walked up to the two confidently and proud to show off her new clothes. "Detective Rarity is on the case, and we are going to get to the bottom of this faster than my costume change!" She assured determinedly.

"Yeah, what's with the getup?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"It's from her new line," Star Twinkle explained.

Again, Rarity proudly showed off her clothes in front of the two. "Obviously, I am channeling Shadow Spade through these gorgeous garments, and she would say that the best way to prove that you didn't send the letter is to find out whoever did. First stop – the scene of the crime!" She said.

Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash tagged along. The best they could do was to accompany Rarity so that they might find a clue about who was behind all of this. Of course, Star Twinkle was not sure how serious Rarity was really taking this investigation now but going with her and keeping an eye out for anything suspicious himself was the best he could do.

The scene of the crime...

The three ponies were on their way to Spitfire's room. There must have been some clues there that would give them an answer to all of this. To get to Spitfire's room, they just had to walk through the big hallway of the castle since her room was at the east tower, right next to Rainbow Dash's room. While they walked through the hallway though, Star Twinkle couldn't help but notice how Rarity was talking...to herself.

"We had a long road ahead of us, Rainbow Dash, Star Twinkle and I. Well, not too long because we didn't have much time, but the point is... I was up for the challenge," she said in a dramatic tone.

Star Twinkle was getting a strange sense of Deja Vu from this. "What is with all those ponies narrating all of a sudden?" He thought, referring back to his trip to Yakyakistan with Pinkie Pie a while ago.

It didn't take long until the three entered Spitfire's room. As soon as they entered it, Rarity continued her little monologue. "There I was, surveying the crime scene, and looking très chic while doing it," she said breaking out of "character" for a moment. The three looked around the room and looked for clues and it didn't take long until Rarity found one right next to the door. It was an envelope. "This must be the envelope for the letter Spitfire got!" She figured.

This quickly got the attention of Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash. "Is there something in there still?" Star Twinkle asked.

Rarity looked inside. There was actually something in this envelope. Hair. Rainbow colored hair. "These look like hairs from a rainbow mane!" Rarity figured.

Rainbow Dash gulped nervously. "That's not good," she said.

"Don't worry Rainbow," Star Twinkle said. "I'm sure somepony just put that in there to frame you," he added while in his head, he added the words "I hope". Rainbow Dash told him that she wasn't the culprit and he believed her. He was sure that somepony was just framing her with that, Rainbow Dash would not just cut off some of her hair and put it in the envelope like this.

As Star Twinkle was thinking that to himself, he noticed something strange about those hairpieces. "Wait...cut-off?" He thought to himself confused.

While he was looking at this hair though, Rarity walked into the next room, all while narrating of course. "Rainbow Dash was getting antsy, but I had faith I could clear her name and find the real culprit."

"You are taking this seriously, right?" Star Twinkle straight out asked. "If we don't find more clues about all of this, then Rainbow Dash will be banned from the Wonderbolts after all," he pointed out to remind the mare about the seriousness of this situation.

"Of course!" Rarity quickly replied. "As a matter of fact, I already found another clue," she added.

"Really?" Star Twinkle asked surprised.

"Yes, right here!" She said before she gave Star Twinkle the envelope from before. "Smell on it," she then said.

The stallion was rather confused by this request but he did as Rarity said. He immediately noticed that there was a familiar smell coming from it. "Wait...isn't that?"

"It is!" Rarity replied. "But I still need more clues," she added before she decided to walk outside to follow Rainbow Dash, who was already leaving the room.

And as Rarity followed the mare, she continued narrating. "In order to solve the mystery, we had to be focused. Driven. One hundred percent in the— Ooh! The damask pattern on these curtains is exquisite!" She then said after being mesmerized by the curtains of this castle, which broke her free of her monologue. "Oh, and this velvet rope-holder – oh, it's just—"

Star Twinkle looked over to see what Rarity was doing. She clearly was getting distracted by the curtains so he decided to remind her that they needed to focus on the investigation again. Seeing how the mare played with the curtain a little made his notice something on the ground nearby. It was a little bit suspicious to him. "Why is it like this?" He wondered.

"We don't have time to look at the décor!" Rainbow Dash interrupted in an annoyed tone. "They're gonna kick me out of the Wonderbolts unless we solve this thing!" She said.

"I know, Rainbow, and I'm on this case like a charm on a bracelet!" Rarity assured before she walked away from their curtain again. "Here's what I'm thinking: somepony had to bring Spitfire that letter, which means somepony must have seen them!"

As it happened to be, there were some ponies in this hallway just now, and chances were pretty high that those same ponies were here yesterday as well.

"The guards!" Star Twinkle said. "Of course, they are...well...guarding this place so they must have seen how someone was leaving that letter," he added.

The next move was clear, the guards of the castle needed to be asked to shine a light on all of this.

The interrogation...

Three guards were taken into an interrogation room, which Star Twinkle didn't even know was a thing. To make things more dramatic, Rarity decided to dim the lights inside the room. Of course, Rainbow Dash still thought that she was not taking all of this too seriously and sighed as she watched how Rarity approached the guards.

"I just have a few questions for you, and I'm sure once we get some things cleared up, we'll—"

It didn't take long until Rainbow Dash got impatient already. "Come on, Rarity, we don't have all day!" She decided to take things in her own hooves and straight out asked one of the guards a question right into his face. "Where were you on the night of last night at midnight?!"

"We were here, guarding the hallway entrance like we were supposed to," the guard replied.

"A likely story," Rainbow Dash replied.

"What is unlikely about that?" Star Twinkle asked. It was almost as if she had no idea what she was doing here.

The castle guard was assuring her that he was saying the truth though. "I'm telling you, we were there all night, and no one went in or out of that hallway," he explained.

"Except for you," one of the other guards then said after thinking about it for a moment.

"What are you tryin' to say?!" Rainbow Dash asked that one guards right into his face.

The guard explained. "Just that there are only two rooms in the northwest wing: yours and Spitfire's. So the only other pony who had access to that wing was you," he said while pointing at the mare.

Right about now, Rainbow Dash was getting nervous again. Those were two things already that were pointing in her direction on being the culprit. Star Twinkle was also having his doubts for a moment. He was putting his trust in her and believed her when she said that she didn't do it. But things got more complicated as things went on.

Still, Rarity was not giving up and decided to take charge of the interrogation. "Perhaps I should take it from here!" She said. Again, she changed into a new outfit, one of her new ones, which consisted of a cherry red-colored coat and a black veil.

"When is she changing her clothes!?" Star Twinkle wondered seeing how Rarity manages to change without anyone noticing. Those were the real questions for him.

Rarity used a strategy that Star Twinkle witnessed before, the charming technique that she used against that one mail pony. She approached and softly talked to the first guard. "You castle guards have such a difficult job. I'm guessing that at times it can be rather... boring," she whispered softly into the ear of the guard.

It seemed to have worked. The guard was certainly having an easier time to talk now. "It is. I've counted all three hundred and forty-five bolts in the ceiling tiles two hundred and ninety-three times!" He shared with the group.

That didn't really help the investigation but Rarity was not letting up and continued. "And of course being a castle guard can be thankless work. I'm not saying you did, but if you took a break, you more than deserved it," she said, again, in a pretty charming and soft voice.

"Oh, you're right. We don't get a lot of recognition for what we do," the guard admitted.

"Except for last night when somepony was nice enough to leave a cake for us," one of the other guards then added. "So we did take one little break when we ate that cake," he admitted.

This quickly gave Star Twinkle another clue. "Which gave someone enough time to sneak to the east tower!" He figured and he sincerely hoped that this someone was not Rainbow Dash. The stallion was happy that Rarity's methods worked and from the looks of it, she was not done yet. But as soon as Star Twinkle heard her questions, he didn't know what to think anymore.

"What kind of cake was it?" Rarity asked.

"Cherry with a custard filling." One of the guards answered.

"Was the frosting vanilla or chocolate?"

"Chocolate."

"Was the base of the cake decorated with buttercream rosettes?"

"It was."

And, once more, Rainbow Dash lost her temper after hearing Rarity asking all those questions. "Ugh, who cares how it was decorated?!" She exclaimed angrily.

Rarity just looked at Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow Dash was questioning my methods. But I knew what I was doing," she said in her narrating voice.

"Do you?" Rainbow Dash asked.

This got Rarity a little bit surprised. "Oh, oh, oh. Did I say that one out loud?" She asked embarrassed.

"Yes. You are saying everything out loud so far," Star Twinkle pointed out.

Rarity just chuckled this off, Rainbow Dash, however, was not at all in the mood of laughing and was about to have a mental breakdown.

"I mean, even I think I'm guilty at this point! I really did want to fly in that show!" She said as she was grabbing Rarity's leg in frustration. "What if I wrote that note when I was asleep?! Do you know what I do when I sleep?! Because I sure don't!"

"Don't worry Rainbow Dash," Star Twinkle said in order to comfort the mare. "We might have gotten another clue...right?" He said as he was looking towards Rarity in hope that she found out something from all this.

"Of course!" Rarity replied surprisingly confident. "We'll get to the bottom of this. There's only one bakery in Canterlot that makes a chocolate cherry cake with custard filling and buttercream frosting rosettes and that's...Cinnamon Chai's Tea and Cake Shop!" She explained.

Star Twinkle was actually impressed. "That is why she was asking about the frosting and all the other stuff?" Whether Rarity's questions were weird or not, they actually got the three ponies another clue.

At Cinnamon Chai's Tea and Cake Shop...

The three ponies headed to the bakery where the cake, that the three guards got from the possible culprit, was sold at. Rarity was sure that this kind of cake was only sold there and that the culprit could be figured out if they ask the owner. And that is exactly what Rarity did...after changing her clothes yet again. This time she was wearing a long white and pink dress and tied her mane into a ponytail.

"I've heard you have the best chocolate cherry custard cake with buttercream frosting rosettes in town!" She asked.

"Ah, you travel in the right circles!" The owner of the bakery replied. We have the only chocolate cherry custard cake with buttercream frosting rosettes in town!" She replied proudly.

Star Twinkle's head was spinning because of the constant repeating of the name of this cake. He already saw the name of this cake on a sign in the window of the bakery. Behind it was nothing though.

"Looks like somepony bought it already. The culprit?" Star Twinkle asked Rarity.

"Who was the lucky pony?" Rarity asked the owner.

"I can't even say!" The owner replied.

"Why not?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Was it somepony famous?" Rarity added.

The owner explained. "No... because it was hard to tell! She was wearing a trench coat, sunglasses, and a scarf around her head that covered most of her face," she said. This didn't help the three ponies out one bit but it was suspicious, it was definitely the culprit who didn't want to be recognized. They were close, they just needed some more clues.

"Anything else? Every little bit can help," Star Twinkle asked. It couldn't help to ask one more time, is what he thought.

The owner tipped her chin for a moment. "I do remember she had a really deep, raspy voice," she then added.

This is where Rainbow Dash got curious. "What do you mean, raspy?" She asked.

"Well, kinda like yours," the shop owner replied.

Rainbow Dash gulped. Yet another clue that was pointing in her direction. Star Twinkle was getting a little bit worried. Was Rainbow Dash really behind all of this and played dumb in front of him and Rarity? But then why would she help them out to find clues that would lead to her? There is no way that Rainbow Dash could have forgotten to do all of those things. Things didn't make sense.

Rarity decided to ask away a little bit further. "If there's anything else you can remember, dish."

As it happened to be, there actually was some more information. "Well, have I got a story for you! The pony who bought the cake threw a big fit when she accidentally got chocolate ganache on her scarf!" She explained.

"That's terrible!" Rarity said. "What color was the scarf?" She added casually.

"White! No, maybe more an ivory..." the owner replied.

"You don't say!" Rarity said in fascination.

This did sound familiar to Star Twinkle. He scratched his chin for a second. "An ivory-colored scarf?" He thought.

But Rainbow Dash was losing her patience again. "I can't believe you're talking fashion at a time like this!" She said in a frustrated voice.

But Rarity remained calm. "Rainbow, don't panic. I need you to trust me," she added.

"Trust you?!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "You've spent more time changing clothes than trying to help me!" She pointed out.

"To be fair," Star Twinkle interrupted. "She was changing her clothes pretty fast," he pointed out.

Rainbow Dash could only sigh in reply to that after figuring that her friends didn't seem to care about her fate. "I'm doomed," she said in a hopeless voice.

But again, Rarity remained calm. "No, you're not! Come on!" She said before she was off. "We are going back to the others," she announced confidently.

Star Twinkle and Rainbow Dash followed the mare, the later one looking rather displeased how this "investigation" went so far. This was not unnoticed by Star Twinkle. He understood that Rainbow Dash was worrying about her future with the Wonderbolts but he felt as if she should not blame Rarity for all of this.

As he walked next to Rainbow Dash, he started to whisper to her. "Hey, don't worry, Rainbow Dash, " Star Twinkle said, causing the mare to look at him in annoyance. "Rarity seems pretty confident to find the culprit. I think that is something," he said.

The Pegasus mare looked away again. "If you say so," she said annoyed.

Of course, Star Twinkle was trying his best to find out who the culprit was as well. He put everything that seemed suspicious in his head together and slowly came to a conclusion himself. He took into account who could be connected with the clues that Rarity found and who had a motive for all of this but he was still not sure a-hundred percent. He guessed that Rarity wasn't too sure as well, which is why she wanted to go back to make sure of it. He was curious to see if his guess was right.

Later...back with the Wonderbolts...

Since it started to rain, the Wonderbolts decided to go inside in one of the towers in Canterlot Castle. Misty Fly and Blaze already returned from Spitfire's house and told the rest of the Wonderbolts that there was no sign of her, much to everyone's confusion. Spitfire was nowhere to be found for some reason.

But right now, other things needed to be settled first. Rarity stepped into the room, her appearance is accompanied by the sound of thunder from outside that just happened to strike at this very moment. Rarity also changed her clothes back to her red costume and black hat from before. Of course, neither Star Twinkle or Rainbow Dash even noticed her doing that again.

"I have found the culprit!" She immediately announced once she entered the room. Most of the Wonderbolt members gulped in surprise after hearing that. They were curious to know what the mare found out and she wasted no time sharing who she suspected. "Somepony sent Spitfire away and framed Rainbow Dash for it. And that pony was none other than..." she paused for a moment to raise the tension. Star Twinkle hoped that she came to the same conclusion as him. The clues were pointing at one specific pony after analyzing them carefully after all.

After enough of a dramatic pause, Rarity revealed the culprit.

"Wind Rider!"

Lightning struck as soon as she spoke again, fittingly. All of the Wonderbolts were surprised to hear that the veteran Wonderbolt was accused of being the culprit. Wind Rider was unshaken though, and not impressed. The same thing could not be said about Rainbow Dash though, who felt attacked that Rarity would even think that Wind Rider could be the culprit.

"Rarity, I can't believe you would accuse Wind Rider of framing me! He's a living legend, for pony's sake!" Rainbow Dash said offended.

"All the evidence points to him!" Rarity replied.

"What evidence could you possibly have?" Rainbow Dash said annoyed. "All you did was ask about cake, admire décor, and change outfits a gazillion times!" She pointed out.

"Let me explain," Rarity replied but then she looked over to Star Twinkle. "Or rather, let Star Twinkle do the explaining," she said, much to the stallion's confusion.

"Me!?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yes," Rarity replied. "You did come to the same conclusion, right?" She asked.

Star Twinkle rubbed his neck nervously. "Yes but..."

Rainbow Dash couldn't believe what she was hearing right now. "You suspected Wind Rider as well!?" She asked in shock.

The stallion did feel a little bit pushed into the center, much to his dislike, especially since most of them didn't appreciate how the one he suspected was, just like Rainbow Dash said, a living legend. Still, Rarity was smiling as if she wanted to say "You can do it" right now. Eventually, Star Twinkle took a deep breath and just started to explain what he figured out.

"The first evidence we found was a chunk of rainbow-colored hair inside the letter that was sent to Spitfire," he said while Rarity had the hair ready to show everyone. "The strange thing about the hair was that the ends looked too straight, almost as if they were cut off. Not too mention that no one would just lose that much hair at once. It was clearly placed in Spitfire's room to point at Rainbow Dash," the stallion thoughtfully explained.

"Mmh," Rarity just said in agreement. She seemed to have come to the same conclusion as him.

Star Twinkle continued. "The next clue was the envelope itself. There was a strange smell coming from it. Rarity and I quickly recognized it from the day before. It was Wind Rider's cologne of choice, Juniper Griffon!"

"Phoenix," Rarity corrected.

"R-right! Juniper Phoenix!" Star Twinkle then nervously corrected. To get his footing back, the stallion continued. "The next clue was in the castle hallway, some of the damask curtains fell out of their velvet rope-holder. It most likely happened because somepony needed to hide behind them after dropping the fake letter," he explained.

The Wonderbolts, with the exception of Wind Rider, of course, started to whisper some word to each other. They maybe started to believe what Star Twinkle tried to get across. The veteran flyer was not appreciating all this hoof pointing however and spoke his mind.

"All those evidence doesn't really point towards me though. Maybe Rainbow Dash used Juniper Phoenix to make me look like the culprit. You have no proof that I cut off those hairs or moved those curtains," the stallion said in his defense.

But Star Twinkle remained calm. "I'm not done yet," he said surprisingly confident. Rarity gave Wind Rider a smug grin as if she wanted to say "You are done for!" now. She seemed to enjoy how Star Twinkle was driving this case home like this.

The Earth Pony continued. "We had a little talk with the castle guards who were guarding the east towers, the ones that had Spitfire's and Rainbow Dash's rooms in them. They were at their posts last night but they took a little bit of a break. The reason for that break was because somepony happened to give them a cake. A...uh..."

Star Twinkle struggled to remember what kind of cake it was but luckily Rarity was there to help. " A chocolate cherry custard cake with buttercream frosting rosettes," she said.

"Yes...that one," Star Twinkle said. "Only one bakery was selling those cakes and somepony happened to buy one of them and gave it to the guards as a distraction, giving Wind Rider enough time to sneak to Spitfire's room to leave the letter," he explained.

Wind Rider was still not impressed. "Again, how is that pointing in my direction?" He asked, this time with a little less patience in his voice.

Star Twinkle continued. "According to the owner of the shop, the cake was bought by a heavily disguised girl pony with a raspy voice wearing an ivory-colored scarf. A scarf where you got a chocolate stain on by accident," he pointed out. "Do you mind showing it to us for a moment?"

Now Rarity was joining in as well. "I couldn't help but notice that Wind Rider's scarf is tied in a tight Windsor knot instead of its usual loose slipknot! And why is that? Is it to hide the chocolate stain?!" She asked before she used her magic to tie open Wind Rider's scarf to reveal a huge chocolate stain on it. The Wonderbolts gasped in shock after they saw the stain, even Rainbow Dash couldn't believe it.

Still, Wind Rider defended himself from all this. "Ah, this is preposterous. Wonderbolts, you don't believe a word of this, right?" He said. His voice started to lose some of it cool since he felt pinned against the wall now.

"Just admit it," Rarity said. "You're as guilty of framing Rainbow Dash as you are of ruining that ivory scarf!" She added.

"Combined with all the evidence that we found, you are the only one who got a motive for doing all of this," Star Twinkle explained as he walked towards the stallion. "You were afraid that Rainbow Dash would break your long-distance Wonderbolt Record. That is why you needed her out of the picture!"

"Ah, fine! You caught me! I did it!" Wind Rider admitted in frustration. There was no way that he could talk himself out of this anymore. "It's just as you said, I thought if I could get Rainbow Dash kicked out of the Wonderbolts forever, my record could be preserved," he further confessed.

Rainbow Dash was shocked but also disappointed. "Really? That is so not cool. And I thought you were the coolest Wonderbolt ever. Until now," she said with a frown on her face.

"I did what I had to do to protect my record!" Wind Rider said filled with pride. "Sometimes you gotta play dirty to be the best!"

But Rainbow Dash disagreed. "That's not what being a Wonderbolt is all about," she said.

"She's right!" Soarin agreed. "Wonderbolts look out for each other! Which reminds me, where is Spitfire?"

Star Twinkle, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity were surprised to hear that. Soarin explained to them that Spitfire was not at her mother's place. This was also one of Wind Rider's doings. He admitted that he pretended to be Stormy Flare, Spitfire's mother and that he had Pegasitis which can only be cured by the ice iris, flowers that only grow in the Crystal Mountains. According to Rainbow Dash, those flowers are almost impossible to find in spring, which would explain why Spitfire was away for so long.

"The Crystal Mountains are too far for anypony to make it there and back before the royal garden opening!" Soarin said frustrated. Plans needed to change fast. "Rainbow Dash, we need you to fly in Spitfire's place!" He said.

But Rainbow Dash disagreed with this idea. "But Spitfire shouldn't have to miss this! I'm gonna get her!" She said.

"But you'll never make it in time!" Soarin replied.

But Rainbow Dash already flew out of the room. "Then there's no time to lose!" Could be heard from her as she was flying in direction of the Crystal Mountains to get Spitfire back, hopefully in time.

Shortly before the opening ceremony...

The ceremony was about to start and there was no sign of Rainbow Dash or Spitfire at all. Some of the Wonderbolts started to get worried. Star Twinkle had to admit that he was getting nervous too. Rarity was really the only one to remain calm all this time. The mare eventually noticed the concern written on Star Twinkle's face.

"Don't worry darling. Rainbow Dash will come through," she said confidently.

Star Twinkle sighed. "It's really that obvious that I'm worried, huh?" He replied. Rarity nodded. The stallion let out another sigh. "Not that I don't trust Rainbow Dash but how do you manage to believe in her so much? It didn't look as if she was trusting you with the whole investigation," he pointed out.

Rarity looked up as if she tried to think of an answer. Her reply came shortly after. "I just do," she simply replied. "As a friend, all I have to do is to believe in her. It's as simple as that," she explained.

It was a simple and short answer and Star Twinkle would like to do as Rarity said and just believe in Rainbow Dash like this but unfortunately, it wasn't so easy for him to do that. This only made him feel bad. It made him feel like a bad friend. In comparison, Rarity was a much better friend.

SLAM!

The door was smashed open, making the stallion jump for a moment. Two ponies stood in the entrance, the two ponies everypony was waiting for, Rainbow Dash and Spitfire, the later one looking pretty exhausted.

"Spitfire, you're back! I can't believe you made it!" Soarin said happily.

Spitfire took off her goggles and took some deep breathes. The two of them must have dashed back as fast as possible. "I wouldn't have if Rainbow hadn't found me so fast! Gave me enough time to fly back!" She explained. Of course, Rainbow Dash was blushing after hearing compliments from Spitfire herself. However, the Pegasus needed to talk about something with Rarity before she could join the happy return of Spitfire.

"Rare, I couldn't have done it without you. You too, Star Twinkle," she said in gratitude. "And I'm sorry I doubted you. Star Twinkle told me that I should trust you but I didn't listen," she added.

Rarity seemed positively surprised to hear that. "Did he now?" She asked while she glanced over to the stallion with a smile on her face. Star Twinkle only looked away and blushed in response.

"But why didn't you tell me what you were doing?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Rarity explained. "Well, I didn't want to get your hopes up until I was sure, and I couldn't be sure until I saw that chocolate stain," she said.

"Thank you for believing in me, even when I was doubting you," Rainbow Dash replied happily until she formed a frowned shortly after. "I'm some friend, huh?"

Rarity was quick to comfort her friend. "Actually, you're quite a good friend. You went to get Spitfire, even though it meant you couldn't fly today," she pointed out.

Rainbow Dash already that outcome but she still released a sigh. "I'll get my chance one day," she said.

But Spitfire had other plans. "Or today. How'd you like Wind Rider's spot in the show?" She suggested, much to the surprise of the veteran flyer.

"Uh, w-w-what? Y-You can't do this to me! I'm one of the greatest Wonderbolts there ever was!" He replied.

"Not anymore," the leader of the Wonderbolts said in a stern manner. Obviously, Spitfire was not about to forget all the things that Wind Rider did. "For attempting to frame Rainbow Dash, I hereby strip you of your Wonderbolts status!"

So it was said and so it was done. Spitfire removed the Wonderbolt pin on Wind Rider's jacket and the stallion walked out without a word, accepting his defeat silently. But one ponies loss was another's victory.

"So, would you like to fly with us, Rainbow Dash?" Soarin asked after one spot just opened up.

Rainbow Dash's eyes widened in excitement. "Would I?!" She then jumped up into the air and celebrated, just like she did before in the practice by dancing in the air.

But since time was getting short, the mare had to stop her victory dance. "Uh, Rainbow Dash?" Soarin said, making the mare snap out of it again. The Wonderbolts then left for the opening, now that everyone was there again. And with Rainbow Dash joining them, things were bound to be awesome.

After the opening ceremony...

Star Twinkle and Rarity were both done watching the ceremony. As expected, everything went well and the fans had a lot of fun watching the Wonderbolts perform. Rainbow Dash was invited to spend the rest of the day with the Wonderbolts and she happily accepted to join them. Star Twinkle and Rarity even insisted that she should go with them to have fun, she more than deserved it after all. This left the two ponies to go home on their own. Rarity was happy to show off her new line and Star Twinkle just wanted to go home and relax.

"I'll say everything turned out well for everyone," Rarity said.

"Yes. Well, except for Wind Rider, I guess," the stallion replied.

Rarity only rolled her eyes after hearing that name. "Please, if he is what you would call "A living legend" then I say you would be more of a legend," Rarity said with a smile on her face.

"Yeah, except I am not. I didn't do anything that would even get me close to be called a legend," Star Twinkle replied.

"Hmm," Rarity said. "You really need to learn to think a little bit more highly of yourself," she added. "You can be so much more than you give yourself credit for. Just take that investigation from before as an example. The way you explained everything in front of everyone was just divine!" She complimented.

Star Twinkle looked away in embarrassment. "You could have done that too," he returned.

Rarity then stepped in front of the stallion. "There! Again! You did good! You helped out a friend in need and you did it with flying colors! That is a fact!" She said. Rarity's voice sounded as if she wanted to hammer those words into Star Twinkle's head in the hope that he would accept them but all it did was making the stallion nervous. Unfortunately, Rarity did not stop with the praise. "I wouldn't say all those things if they weren't true, you know. It would do you good to show some confidence every now and then. Not an amount of "Rainbow Dash" confidence but rather an "I am a pony who can be pretty amazing!" amount," the mare explained.

Star Twinkle just had to put a stop to all of this. "C-can you please stop saying all of those things? Even if I do accept all those things, I feel a little bit embarrassed if you say them all into my face like this..."

The stallion didn't care that he was sounding a little pathetic just now. Rarity saying all those things of him being amazing at times may not be the greatest stretch in the world but the stallion still felt weird if one of his friends was describing him like this. He almost wished for her to call him "lazy" or "grumpy" now.

To his delight, Rarity seemed to have noticed how it was too much for the stallion. "Oh, I'm sorry, darling, I didn't mean to put you into a tough spot like this," Rarity apologized. There was a short silence between the two as they continued to be on their way to the train station but it was quickly broken by Rarity again. "Tell you what! I let you get back at me!" She then said out of the blue as she stood in front of the stallion again.

"Get back at you?" Star Twinkle asked confused. "What do you mean?"

Rarity giggled. "By complimenting me, of course! To make me feel uncomfortable. That makes us even!" she explained. Star Twinkle lowered his eyebrows in suspicion. He didn't know how to feel about this. "Come on! Come on! I'm waiting~"

But Star Twinkle realized what was going on. "Did she just trick me so that I would compliment her? How is that gonna even things out? She clearly likes getting compliments," the stallion figured.

Rarity frowned a little, it was a fake one from what Star Twinkle could tell though. "Come on, don't tell me that you have to think of something? I'm sure you find something to compliment me on," she said as she struck a pose and presented her mane to the stallion.

"Yup, she is clearly enjoying this..." Star Twinkle thought annoyed. He let out a sigh and just decided to get it over with. "Come on, just say the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about Rarity."

"I think..."

"Yes, yes!?" Rarity replied, getting pretty excited about what Star Twinkle was about to throw at her.

The stallion was expecting this kind of reaction. He wasn't sure what to say yet, he just planned to say those words and let his head to the rest, to let it just roll out of his tongue as he was speaking. The first thing that came to mind if he thought "Rarity". The first word that came to his mind when thinking about Rarity. The first thing that came to his mind as soon as he was completing his sentence.

"I think you are attractive."

...

"Huh?" Rarity replied.

...

"...wait..." Star Twinkle thought.

...

"WHAT DID I JUST SAY!?" Star Twinkle screamed from the inside, his face having no sign of him trying to hide his shock at all.

There was a silence between the two.

"I didn't mean to say THAT! That's was not a compliment, that was straight out flirting! What is wrong with me!? THAT is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about Rarity!?"

Star Twinkle clenched his teeth nervously. He tried to calm down. "I mean, it's not untrue. Rarity does put a lot of work in her appearance with all that makeup, her clothes, her mane, she even goes to the spa on a regular basis! Calling her attractive is like saying that the sky is blue. It's a fact, right!? I'm not the only one who thinks that, right!?"

The silence between the two went on. It felt like an eternity for Star Twinkle. He never felt so flustered in his whole life. Eventually, his mind started to sort itself again though and he calmed down a little.

"Relax, what am I worrying about? That is what she wanted after all. How did she take that compliment?" He just now realized that he was so busy with his own head that he didn't even pay attention to Rarity's reaction.

To his surprise, the mare was laughing nervously. Her eyes were moving from one corner to another, she started sweating and breathing nervously. "I-I-Is that s-so!?" She replied with a bright red color on her face. She was flustered, nervous, embarrassed all at the same time multiplied by four. This only made Star Twinkle feel more embarrassed.

The silence continued for a while.

Eventually, Rarity cleared her throat. "I think we are even. Shall we go now?" She said, not waiting for a response from the stallion and turning around to be on her way to the train station.

"Y-yes," Star Twinkle said as he trotted behind the mare.

Needless to say, the train ride to Ponyville was really awkward and quiet. The two barely talked to each other and if they did, then with only a few words exchanged. This awkwardness went away as time went on those words of Star Twinkle were forgotten and the talked with each other normally again. But who knows if those careless words of Star Twinkle left an impact somehow. Only time would tell that.

Author's Notes:

Another chapter done and with a lot of Star Twinkle and Rarity shipping as well. I hope you appreciate it ^^.

Alright, I know you probably sick about hearing it from literally everywhere else but I feel like I should address it here too: Corona.

I get a lot of readers from America so I hope that you all, your friends and family are well. I heard things are pretty bad over at your side and that you, and of course all other countries as well, stay strong and recover. Of course, I hope that it will go away sooner or later and that we can all return to normal days. As for right now, people just have to be patient, stay home, wash their hands, stay away from other people, and wait. At least that's what I think is the best thing to do. I know it's hard but come on, humanity survived up until this point, we can survive this as well.

For those of you who didn't know yet, I am german, and I live in Germany. Things are bad over here too but there are places where it is worse so you don't have to worry about me that much, I'm actually more concerned about you guys, to be honest.

I stay home and don't come in contact with other people. I also regularly wash my hands, even before all of this broke out since I kinda always was a little wary about gems and stuff in the first place (Not to an extreme but I like to just make sure). I'm also a little far away from being the main target of the virus, I'm not that old, I don't smoke and I don't have any illnesses beforehand so as long as I got to the doctor as early as possible, I don't think that I will die anytime soon unless the virus gets worse.

This means that this story will continue of course. Jokes on all my haters, I guess ^^. Then again, there are not that many hate comments than I expected so far but I know there are haters out there, there just has to be.

Anyway, I figured I should address this once but don't worry, I won't bring it up again since I know you don't want to hear about this stuff when you want to read this story. So unless there is something really big happening to the world from here on out, you will not see me talking about this again. The last thing I want to say is just: Stay Healthy ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

105. The Midsummer Theatre Revival

View Online

After another day of work for Star Twinkle was over, he decided to walk home. He wanted to relax and take it easy for the rest of the day. Maybe he would spend the day with his friends if the opportunity would present itself. It didn't take long until said opportunity showed up in the form of Applejack.

"Star Twinkle!" She said as she came running towards the stallion in a hurry.

"Hey, Applejack," the stallion greeted. The mare was panting heavily. She must have run a whole lot and fast from how much she was panting. "Are you in a hurry or something?" The stallion asked.

"Sure am. Look," the mare said before she showed the stallion her Cutie Mark. It was glowing just like back then when Star Twinkle's friends were summoned by the map in Twilight's castle. The map was summoning Applejack to somewhere and she was on her way to the map to find out where she had to go.

"I see..." Star Twinkle replied before he looked at his Cutie Mark for a moment. There was no glowing as expected. The stallion sighed. "Well, good luck then," Star Twinkle said with a frown on his face.

But Applejack had other plans. "I was actually on my way to fetch you so that we could get to Twilight's castle," she said.

"Ahem," Star Twinkle responded before he presented his flank to the mare. "No glowing. The map isn't summoning me," he explained.

Applejack put a hoof on the stallion's shoulder. "Come on now. I know the map is a little stingy, or maybe even a little bit broken when it comes to you and your Cutie Mark but that is only more than enough reason for you to come with us," she explained.

"How?" Star Twinkle asked back. "That doesn't make any sense!" He pointed out. Before he realized though, Applejack was pushing him towards the direction of the castle. "Hey!"

"Let's just skip your usual "I'm feeling left out" and just do something against it. Let's go to the castle," Applejack said as she kept pushing the stallion from behind.

"Okay, okay, I'll go! Stop pushing me now!" Star Twinkle replied. Applejack did as he demanded and smiled before she was walking next to him. She seemed to be happy that Star Twinkle was changing his mind. All it needed was just a little push...literally.

Star Twinkle had to admit that one sentence, that she said before, was making him think. "Doing something against getting left out, huh?" He thought. One of his most common problems was that he was feeling left out. Whether it came to the Elements of Harmony, or this Cutie Mark map, it was something that seemed to pop up a lot. And every time it happened, he was feeling bad and helpless. Maybe Applejack was right and he just needed to take things in his own hooves.

For once, Star Twinkle was getting hyped to go with Applejack. "Let's go!" He then said, to the surprise of the mare. She saw the stallion charging towards the castle at full speed and didn't know how to react to it.

She eventually smiled and grabbed her hat tight. "That's the spirit!" She said before she followed the stallion at full speed and getting even more excited about this trip than before.

Later...

The two Earth Ponies just stepped into the room with the map-table. When they arrived, Twilight and Spike were there, and on top of that, Rarity was as well. The later one also having a glowing Cutie Mark.

"Whew! Got here as fast as we could," Applejack said while panting a little bit.

"Oh! You two are summoned too?" Rarity asked.

But before anyone could even reply, the Cutie Marks of Applejack and Rarity started to glow more intensely. The two Cutie Marks started to appear up in the air and then flew towards the map, circling around a certain spot.

"Yes! Finally!" Twilight said highly excited. "We've been summoned! I wonder where the map wants us to go!?" She said. She must have not realized that her own Cutie Mark wasn't glowing.

It was Spike who then pointed out this very fact. "Uh, Twilight?"

The little dragon pointed at her flank. No glowing in sight, much to the mare's dislike. A huge groan was released as soon as she was aware of that. For some reason, Star Twinkle liked seeing someone else being upset about being left out. He made sure to not let anyone see that though.

On contrast, Rarity was more than happy right now. She took a look at where the two Cutie Marks were hovering above and got really excited.

"Where is it sending you-" Star Twinkle asked before he was cut off by Rarity immediately.

"Manehattan!" Rarity said after an excited squeal. "We've been called to Manehattan! Oh, I've simply been dying to go back for a visit! And now I return... with a purpose!" She said.

In the meantime, Star Twinkle walked over to Twilight, showing her some support. While the mare did sigh in frustration, she did focus on the map as well. "Hmmm. It looks like you've been summoned to this particular neighborhood here," she figured out.

But pointing that out only got her more excited. She was grabbing both Star Twinkle and Applejack and hugged them in her excitement. "We're off to solve a friendship problem in one of the busiest and most vibrant cities in all of Equestria! Isn't this exciting?!" She said in, squealing in excitement and grinning in an almost manic manner.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but feel nervous about this. "Yes! Sure!" He said while still being in her grasp.

Applejack though was not feeling it quite like Rarity. "Seems a hair odd, though, don't it? Map callin' me to a big city like Manehattan?" She pointed out.

While it was maybe the perfect choice for Rarity to be there, it was true that Applejack would not be the best choice for this city. As a filly, she tried living there after all and ended up being quite unhappy. Star Twinkle was about to point out that the map may not have an exact idea about its job, being still the only one of his friends to not being summoned by it yet but he didn't want to ruin the moment for Rarity.

Luckily, Twilight knew the right words to convince the mare. "You may be more of a country pony at heart, Applejack, but the map picked you two because you're the best ponies to tackle this particular mission," she explained.

"But how will we even know what our mission's supposed to be?" Applejack replied before she gazed at the map one more time and taking a look at how big Manehattan was. "That neighborhood probably has twice as many ponies as all of Ponyville," she said.

"Pff. More like three times!" Rarity added. "Why, it's not only home to the Haypacking District – it's also home to the Fashion District!" She said, her face starting to beam in excitement just thinking about it.

Star Twinkle shook his head, with a smile on his face though. "But don't forget your mission while you are shopping there," he said amused.

Rarity simply waved her hoof in response. "I'm sure there is enough time for both," she said.

Seeing how Rarity was looking forward to this trip did lighten the mood and removed all the concerns that Applejack had before. Even Star Twinkle was looking forward to going there now. But there was one pony whose mood was lowering the happier those three ponies became. Twilight was sitting in her throne and seemed to be a little envious about them going there. It was the same with Griffonstone, a place that she really wanted to visit, not to mention helping to fix a problem there.

Star Twinkle noticed the frown on Twilight's face and walked up to her. "You know, you can still come with us," he said. "I mean, I go there, even though the map didn't summon me. There is no reason for you to not come as well," he explained.

The mare did appreciate what the stallion was doing for her but she had to decline. I'll be fine," she returned softly. "I think it's much more important that you go, considering how the map seems to refuse to call you at all," she said.

Star Twinkle felt as if he was called out right now. What she said was true but hearing it only made him feel bad. It was as if he was just accompanying Applejack and Rarity because everyone felt sorry for him. He knew that his friends wouldn't think something like that but, like many times before, that didn't stop him from still thinking that.

"Shame you weren't called as well, though, darling," Rarity expressed in comfort. "You did end up quite a fan of the hustle and bustle of Manehattan on our last visit."

Twilight was getting a little nostalgic thinking back about that. "It's such an exciting city, and there's still so much I'd like to do there. So many museums and historical landmarks to visit. Not to mention all the libraries!" She said with stars showing up in her eyes and beaming just thinking about this. "But this is your mission," she then said while regaining composure again. "Don't worry about me," she said before she levitated a comic book over to her side, one that Spike was reading at this very moment. He didn't appreciate being interrupted like this and crossed his arms. "I've got plenty of... books... to keep me... busy," Twilight then said as she pretended to be interested in this comic.

Her friends saw right through her behavior of course. Twilight was really bad when it came to fooling her friends like this. Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Rarity just pretended to believe her at this moment so that Twilight would not have to worry them.

But then Rarity gasped in shock, all of a sudden, much to everyone's surprise.

"I just remembered something! The Sisterhooves Social!" She said.

"The what?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Applejack explained. "The Sisterhooves Social is held every year. It's an event where a team of two sisters can partake in various events. Apple Bloom and I take part of it for years," she said.

"Sweetie Belle and I tried it last year as well!" Rarity added. "It was so much fun!" But just remembering that only made her feel sad again.

Of course, Star Twinkle didn't have any siblings so he didn't know how it must feel to skip something where you have a chance to bond with them. Looking at the faces of his two friends, he could tell that they were looking forward to it.

"We'll have to miss it," Applejack figured. "No tellin' how long we'll be in Manehattan." Having said that, the mare still felt bad, just like Rarity. "I sure hope Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle aren't too upset," she then added with a frown on her face.

While an event like this was of course, important, being summoned by a magical map still had more priority. This left them with no choice but to go to their mission, whether they wanted to or not. Who knows what would happen if something similar as in Starlight Glimmer's village was happening somewhere else in Equestria after all.

Later...

Having just stepped out of the train station, the three ponies were instantly greeted with busy ponies, walking all around the place. It only reminded everyone who busy Manehattan was compared to Ponyville. Star Twinkle and Applejack were a little nervous seeing all this in front of them. The same could not be said about Rarity, however. The mare was beaming.

"Oh, Manehattan, what you do to me!" She said in excitement as she looked at the high buildings in front of her.

Star Twinkle expected Rarity to start singing any minute now but she refrained from doing so. His attention swiftly turned towards Applejack who was visibly shaking at this very moment. She was simply overwhelmed by this town. If there was one pony in the world who knew how the mare was feeling right now, then it was Star Twinkle. He just had to look at the street to understand. Everypony was busy, in a rush, and annoyed because of it. It was certainly not a town where he would feel well.

It didn't take long until Rarity took notice of Applejack's state. "Darling, are you all right?" She asked in worry.

Applejack composed herself a little. "Ponies move so fast here. Not at all like back home," she said nervously.

"Yeah..." Star Twinkle said. "But we were aware of what would await us, right?" The stallion was clearly nervous as well and wanted to let her know that. The mare was aware of this too and took a deep breath before she followed Star Twinkle and Rarity.

"Remember, you two, you're in the big city now. No moseying. You've gotta walk with speed and confidence!" Rarity explained before she led the way.

Even something as easy as crossing the street seemed to be something difficult for the two Earth Ponies. Applejack resorted to talking to herself in order to calm down. "Eyes peeled, ears open. Eyes peeled, ears open," she repeated to herself.

Then the street needed to be crossed. The ponies living in this town were, of course, all used to the behavior of each other. In order to get forward, they simply asserted dominance. If somepony was in the way, then just complain and get annoyed until they move aside. Rarity's advise to show confidence was taken by Star Twinkle and Applejack but considering their character, it was easier said as done for them.

"Move it!" One pony said as Applejack was in the way.

"Sorry 'bout that," the mare apologized.

"Get outta my way!" Another pony said towards Star Twinkle.

"I'm sorry," the stallion replied nervously.

"Watch it!" Two more ponies said annoyed as soon as Star Twinkle and Applejack came their way.

This time both of them just made way without replying to them. They felt almost stupid for having such a hard time crossing one street. The ponies here were not as considered as the ones in Ponyville, at least not at first sight. There were a lot of ponies here, and every single one of them was busy. The last thing they wanted were two country ponies crossing their path.

Once the two arrived next to Rarity, on the other side of the street, they were hugely relieved. "I did not expect this to be this hard..." Star Twinkle said.

"Me neither," Applejack replied. This only gave her the realization that she already was aware of before. "Butter my biscuits. I can barely cross the street in this town. How am I supposed to help solve a—"

But then she was interrupted by Rarity. "There!" She said after gasping in shock.

Rarity was pointing at something and Star Twinkle and Applejack were not sure at what or why. She pointed at a mare buying a hat from what it looked like. The mare seemed happy and was probably the last pony that they would suspect to have a problem. She was just paying for the hat, which she put on her head.

"No!" Rarity exclaimed in a panic before she rushed towards the mare.

Star Twinkle just looked over to Applejack, hoping that she knew what was happening but he quickly found out that she seemed just a lost as him.

"No," said Rarity once more, this time right next to the surprised mare while she slapped a coin out of her hoof.

"Excuse me?" The mare replied confused, an understandable reaction to this.

Rarity explained herself. "That hat clashes with your mane, not to mention it's far too large and will undoubtedly obstruct your vision," she said before the mare went to the merchant stand to find a more fitting hat for the pony. "Oh, dear, none of these will do," she figured after taking a closer look at every hat in there.

By now, Star Twinkle and Applejack arrived at the scene. "What are you doing, Rarity?" Star Twinkle asked.

Rarity turned towards the stallion. Oh, Star Twinkle! What good timing!" She said happily.

"Why?" Star Twinkle replied confused. Rarity then used her magic to open a box on the stallion's back, which he had the honor of carrying throughout this trip for her. In her excitement, the mare opened the box rather quickly bonking the stallion on the head in the process. "Ow!" He expressed annoyed.

Rarity took out another hat and put it on the mare's head. "Here. This will do splendidly," she said.

"Wait!" Star Twinkle said. "This is what I have been carrying this whole time!?" He asked.

"You can never be too prepared, darling," Rarity simply replied.

The stallion should have not been surprised in the least. It was Rarity after all. He took a closer look inside the box to find out that it was filled with clothes only. He decided to not comment on that though, Rarity was too focused on the other mare anyway.

The mare did seem to like her new hat. The new purple hat that Rarity pulled out from the box was fitting the lavender-colored coat and mane of her. "Oh, it's lovely! How much would you like for it?" She asked.

"Oh, no-no, please, please, keep it. I can always make another," Rarity humbly replied.

"Thank you!" The mare replied happily before she walked away with a nice new hat, which she didn't even have to pay for.

Rarity seemed happy as well, proud even. "And you thought we wouldn't discover our purpose here!" She said. Those words seemed to have been directed towards Applejack.

"What?" Star Twinkle said.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that wasn't it," Applejack added.

"What?" Rarity replied indignantly. "We just saved that poor pony from committing a terrible crime of fashion," she explained. She seemed to truly believe that this was their reason to be summoned here by the map.

Star Twinkle then pointed out the obvious. "That didn't really look like a friendship problem though," he said, which was only further supported by how Applejack raised her eyebrow in disbelieve.

But Rarity still insisted. "Well, she could've been meeting a friend who would've laughed at her new hat, and then their friendship could've been ruined forever! And... mmm... it's possible," she explained, even though it more looked like as if she was picking for straws now.

"Did your cutie mark glow signifyin' a job well done?" Applejack then further asked.

And like that, reality struck the mare as soon as she looked to her own flank. "No. I suppose it didn't," she admitted. "Still, a disaster was averted!" She added proudly.

"Averted?" Another stallion asked in a rather displeased tone. It was the owner of the merchant cart who was selling the hat that Rarity talked the other mare out of. Needless to say, the stallion was not happy because of this. "You just lost me a paying customer!" He exclaimed angrily.

Rarity got nervous and backed away a little. "Oh, my! Oh, I-I-I-I-I'm s-so sorry. I never meant to—" She said but the damage was already done and the angry stallion was not gonna listen to her.

"Beat it!" The stallion shouted at Rarity.

While the mare tried to calm him down with some friendly words, Applejack figured that it was a good idea to get her away from the stallion. She slowly pulled her away from him but Rarity insisted to apology.

"Uh, please accept my sincerest apologies for the misunderstanding, and might I add, what a lovely establishment you have here!"

Applejack then looked over to Star Twinkle, causing him to get a really bad feeling. "Can you pay for the hat please, Sugarcube?"

The merchant instantly looked towards Star Twinkle, waiting for his payment. "Of course..." Star Twinkle said bothered before he took care of it by paying one bit to the merchant. Given the mood he was in, the merchant didn't even thank Star Twinkle for the money.

After taking care of that one angry merchant, the three ponies could recollect themselves again. Now it was obvious to Rarity as well that the friendship problem was not dealt with.

"You two were right," she said followed by a sigh. "The search continues," she added determinedly.

"More like, the search begins," Star Twinkle figured. "Where do we even start to find out what we have to do?" He asked.

The girls didn't know how to answer that at first. Applejack could only come to one conclusion. "Guess we have to do it the old fashioned way."

And by old-Fashioned, Applejack meant going around the streets and asking ponies if they had a friendship-problem. Manehattan was a pretty big city so of course, that was a lot easier than said.

A little later...

Star Twinkle's, Applejack's, and Rarity's attempts to find somepony with a friendship-problem proved to be unsuccessful, as expected. Most ponies didn't even bother to listen and ignored the three.

"Mind your own business!" Another pony replied after Star Twinkle asked of a friendship-problem.

"Sorry," he apologized.

Of course, no one would listen to him. If somepony was bothering Star Twinkle in the middle of the street, then he would ignore them as well. Being aware of that fact did not help him though. Star Twinkle eventually decided to give up and meet his friends.

It didn't take long until he found Applejack not too far away, having to go through the same trouble. She simply tried to get everyone's attention but nopony would listen to her.

"Uh, 'scuse me, I was just wonderin'... Uh, friendship problem, anypony? See, we've been sent here to... A-A map summoned us and, uh... If you could just take a moment to..."

It was almost sad watching how desperately she tried to get the attention of anyone. Soon, even Applejack came to the conclusion that this isn't working and gave up.

"Looks like you had no luck either," Star Twinkle said as he walked up to the mare.

"Nope," Applejack replied. "Let's see if Rarity was more successful," she suggested.

The stallion shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. He then pointed at Rarity who was just on the other side of the street. Unlike, Applejack and him, she was standing there behind a little wooden counter as if she was selling something. Of course, Star Twinkle was the one who had to build it for her.

The two could already hear her from the other side of the street. "Friendship advice! Anypony looking for friendship advice!" She was shouting in the street in the hope that somepony would be interested. But just like with Star Twinkle and Applejack, the ponies around her decided to ignore her.

Star Twinkle sighed. "How about a change of plans?" He suggested.

"Sound good to me," Applejack added.

The two ponies joined Rarity, who was looking as if she started to give up now as well. "Good grief. This isn't working," she said with a frown on her face. She didn't even attempt to stay optimistic anymore.

Now Applejack was sighing. "I'm not sure what we're supposed to do. To be honest, I'm still not even sure what the map called me here for," she added frustrated.

This sentence was just begging for Star Twinkle to say something. "At least you were called" is something he wanted to tell her but that would not help the situation right now.

"Oh, try not to worry, Applejack," Rarity said confidently. "The map picked us for a reason. Although how we're supposed to uncover that reason, I haven't a clue. We can't possibly approach every single pony in town until we find out what we're meant to d—"

But the mare was interrupted by a flyer that just happened to fly right into her face in the middle of the sentence.

"Oh, wait!" Star Twinkle said before he took the piece of paper off from the mare's face.

"Thank you, darling," Rarity replied before she made sure that her mane was still in top condition after this.

Star Twinkle was about to throw the paper away again but he decided to just read it out loud while he was at it. "Please help us restore our long-lost but beloved tradition, the Midsummer Theater Revival. There's a guest performance by a local theater troupe, the Method Mares, as well as games, food, and much, much more. This event promises to bring our Bronclyn neighbors together and restore our sense of community, but there's so much to do and we need your help."

The two mares next to him listened to him as well, and Rarity quickly gasped in her realization.

"Darling, this is it!" She said before she grabbed the flyer and gave it a quick read as well.

"What is what?" The confused stallion asked.

Rarity then pointed at one spot of the paper. "There, look! The contact on the flyer is Coco Pommel!" She pointed out.

That name was ringing a bell for Star Twinkle but Applejack eventually helped him remember. "Oh, right! She's the one you got a job makin' costumes for that designer friend o' yours," she said.

"Oh, yes!" Star Twinkle then said once he fully remembered. "The one who gave you the trophy and that yarn before we left Manehattan the last time. Right?"

But unlike Star Twinkle and Applejack, Rarity seemed to be the only one who saw a huge opportunity. "Don't you see?! This must be why the map called us here!" She explained, thinking of this flyer as some kind of a sign. "Oh, and you were so worried!" She then added, completely forgetting that she was worried a second ago as well. Whether it was a sign or not, it was the only thing they had to go off from now on.

"Maybe?" Star Twinkle figured.

Applejack simply shook her shoulders. "Well, I suppose it's at least worth lookin' into... that is, if we can ever get off this street corner," she said.

It was true that the three ponies did not make too much progress to leave the street next to the train station. This might have been the reason why they were not successful in finding a problem. But now they had something that almost resembled a clue so they had no choice but to follow it. If they are lucky, Coco Pommel's problem was the reason for them being here.

Later...

When they arrived at Coco Pommel's place, it already got dark. This only proved how big Manehattan was. Coco Pommel lived in a small apartment, something that was common in this city. The three already knocked on her door, and it only took a few moments until the Light Amber gray coated Earth Pony mare opened it.

"It's you!" The mare said in a positive surprise after she saw three familiar faces.

"Hello, Miss Pommel," Rarity greeted happily. "We are here because of your flyer," she explained.

"You are!?" Coco Pommel said almost in shock as if she never suspected anyone to ever show up because of that. She immediately stepped aside and let the three in. "Make yourself comfortable, I prepare some tea and snacks," she offered.

Since they were invited, the three did take on her offer and sat down on a couch in the middle of the room. Her place was really nice looking and actually mirrored the mare's personality perfectly. From mannequin ponies, clothes scattered all over the place, and design ideas, the place almost looked like the inside of Carousel Boutique

Coco Pommel came back from her kitchen and place tea and some snacks on a table in front of the three before she then sat down a stool across them. "I can't believe you found my flyer. Quite a coincidence, don't you think?" She said.

But Rarity disagreed after taking a sip from her tea. "We were specifically summoned here to be of service, and you, my dear friend, are in need of help. It's no coincidence, darling. It's fate!" She said determinedly before taking another sip from the tea.

Star Twinkle didn't know if Rarity purposely left out the fact that he wasn't called by the map or if she actually was convinced that he was supposed to be here as well.

Applejack quickly got to the point of their visit. "This Midsummer Theater Revival – what is it, exactly?" She said before she took a bit from her little snack.

Coco Pommel pulled out a little book. Inside were some pictures. Star Twinkle quickly noticed something about them. "Is that you?" He asked pointing at a little filly which had a striking resemblance to Coco, next to some little ponies. All of them were wearing costumes.

"Yes," The mare replied. "When I was younger," she added.

Coco then showed some more pictures to the three ponies. All of them showed either her or some other ponies attending the Midsummer Theater Revival. According to her, it is an outdoor play held at the community park. It sounded a lot like a festival. Ponies would prepare food, make costumes and design set pieces for the stage, and local theater troupes would perform for them.

Applejack was happy to see how on each picture everypony seemed to have a lot of fun helping to set everything up. "Y'all do look like you're enjoyin' each others' company. Kinda reminds me of Ponyville," she said, thinking about all the events that Ponyville had.

"It sounds lovely, darling," Rarity only had to add.

But Coco Pommel was frowning. "It was, up until several moons ago," she said.

"What do you mean?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Coco Pommel then further browsed through the pages and pointed at a specif mare in one of them. " That's Charity Kindheart. She was a well-known costume designer on Bridleway. She started the Midsummer Theater Revival as a way to share her passion for theater with the neighborhood. No matter how busy she was, she always made time for the Revival," she explained. On a lot of the pictures, a young Coco Pommel could be seen with this Charity Kindheart pony. Even back then she seemed to like the mare for what she did during the Revival. One of the pictures even showed how Charity gave Coco a red brooch, which seemed to be the exact one that she is still wearing to this day.

Star Twinkle quickly put one and one together. "But she can't take care of it this time, right?" He guessed.

"No," Coco replied before she shut the book and walked over to her balcony. "She moved away to be closer to her grandfillies. And with her gone, the neighborhood lost the special tradition she had started, and worse, the sense of community it fostered," she explained as she looked down at the street.

It was almost scary how on cue, one could hear two ponies arguing right after she said that. This was something that Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Rarity already experienced only minutes after their arrival in this city.

"I...couldn't tell," Star Twinkle said in a sarcastic tone after he literally heard two ponies outside loudly arguing a second ago.

"Nopony else stepped up to take over for Charity?" Applejack asked.

"I've been trying to," Coco replied before she closed the doors to her balcony. "But I've just gotten a last-minute request to alter costumes for the cast of My Fair Filly, and I'm afraid I haven't made much progress. Oh... There's just so much to do to bring back the Midsummer Revival, and my flyers haven't attracted a single volunteer!" She said in a panic after just remembering all of this.

That was an obvious sign for the three ponies to step in. "Say no more!" Rarity said, taking the words out of Star Twinkle and Applejack. "You finish up your work, and by this time tomorrow, you'll be up to your mane in ponies who want to lend a hoof. Star Twinkle, Applejack, and I will make sure of it!" She assured.

"You will?" Coco asked with an excited grin on her face.

"You bet your boots we will!" Applejack replied confidently and ready to take action.

"Oh, I don't wear boots," Coco Pommel replied, taking Applejack out of it for a moment. "I find they chafe my calves when I walk," she added.

The three ponies were a little confused to hear her say that. Coco did not seem to understand Applejack's saying.

"It's just an expression," Applejack then said.

Coco Pommel was confused at first but then she put on a grin and blushed in embarrassment. Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Rarity just chuckled at that adorable reaction from the mare.

The three ponies were just happy to have somewhere to go from now on. Whether this was the Friendship-Problem, the map summoned them here for or not, a friend needed help, and they were all too willing to help out. Rarity also raised Coco's hoped up and they didn't want to disappoint her. Coco Pommel was letting the three stay for the night and the first thing they planned to do in the morning was to ask some ponies to help with the Midsummer Revival.

The next day...

Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Rarity had no choice but to walk around the city and just plain out ask ponies if they were ready to lend some help to set everything up for later. But given how busy everyone in this city was, this proved to be pretty difficult.

"So you see, the Method Mares are only available on this one day, and we need all the help we can get with preparation." Rarity explained to a newspaper seller on the street while he started placing some newspapers on his counter.

The stallion did not seem to bother about Rarity's offer too much though. "Yeah, not a good time right now," he said before he accepted a bitcoin from a pony buying one of his newspapers already. "Heh. What am I saying? It's never a good time!" He added.

With the help of this pony denied, they had to go somewhere else for help. Rarity once again did the talking, this time she asked a mare selling some popcorn at the entrance of a park.

"Well? What do you think?" She said after she cleared her throat.

The mare did not seem to appreciate how Rarity was bothering her while she did her work. "I got my own problems. You think I've got hours to dedicate to somepony else's?" She replied annoyed before she attended her costumers again.

With this failed attempt, the three ponies walked further inside the park and near a lake, where they found some really wealthy-looking pony, wearing a top hat and a suit. The three figured it would be worth a try to just ask this stallion for help.

"Ah, yes, Charity's Midsummer Theater Revival. Such wonderful memories," the stallion said. He seemed to like to hear how it will be held later this day.

"So you'll help us?" Applejack said, her voice finally being filled with some hope again.

But then the stallion released an amused laugh after hearing her say that. "Don't be ridiculous. I run a very important oat and hay import/export business. Why, I can't spare even a moment for such things!" He explained.

The ironic thing about his words was that he seemed to have a lot of time at hoof, judging how he laid down on a pool mat and took a nap right in front of them. It was visible on Star Twinkle's face that he was not amused. Clearly this pony had enough time to relax right now.

Of course, the search went on some longer but every single time the result was the same. Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Rarity had to return to Coco Pommel to bring her the bad news. Needless to say, the mare was not too happy about it.

"This is a nightmare," is all she could say to sum this situation up. "I finished the alterations for My Fair Filly, but I've barely started the costumes for the Revival, and the Method Mares are coming to the park tomorrow for a costume fitting and rehearsal!" She explained in frustration.

But Rarity was there. "Well, I could help you with the costumes," she offered. If it came to costumes, then she would be of great assistance after all.

"But what are we going to do about the rest?" Coco added. "The park is in desperate need of repairs, and the sets still need to be built!" She explained.

Applejack quickly picked up on that and looked over to Star Twinkle with a smile on her face. "Now this sounds like a job for us!" She said confidently, much to Coco's surprise.

"Yes," Star Twinkle added. "If there is one thing I'm good at, then it's building and repairing things," he said confidently for once.

"And I know a thing or two about buildin' and fixin' things too. Could be the reason the map called me here!" Applejack figured with a grin on her face. Now she finally had a reason to show some more motivation towards the whole thing again.

Rarity also seemed happy to see her friend motivated like this. "You see, dear? We went out looking for volunteers when all the help you need is right here," she said towards Coco Pommel, who started to feel better too after realizing how much of a help her friends were in this time of need.

"The map wouldn't have chosen just Applejack and me if it was more than we could handle," Rarity pointed out. "Everything is going to be just fine!" She claimed.

"Yes," Star Twinkle agreed. "There are two of us after all. We should be able to take care of it in time," he added.

Of course, Star Twinkle had to take a look at the place first to get a good opinion on that but as he said before, it was two of them, one of them being a someone who builds and repairs as a living and another one being the most hardworking pony in Ponyville. It will probably be a pretty hard day for the two Earth Ponies but he still was confident that they would have everything ready before the revival.

Later, at the park...

As it turns out, none of them were prepared. What they saw left them completely stunned.

"Okay...this is a little more then I expected..." Star Twinkle said in a defeated tone.

Repairs were not the only things that needed to be done at the park. Plants were growing wild and were probably not taken care of for a long time from what it looked like. The pony statues in the park had plants all over themselves, and the old stage was in desperate need of fixing. To put it short, it was all a complete mess and far too much for Star Twinkle and Applejack to take care of alone. They needed at least eight more of them to properly get everything fixed by the end of the day.

Coco Pommel was o expert at gardening or building but even she could see that this was a lot of work. "Are you sure you two can manage this by yourself?" She then asked with some worry in her voice.

Being the element of honesty, Applejack was giving her an honest answer. "Well, there's a lot to do, but Rarity's right. The map wouldn't have called us here if we weren't up for the challenge. Right, Star Twinkle?"

The stallion looked over to Coco Pommel. He certainly didn't want to disappoint her either. "Yeah! I'm sure we can get everything fixed in time," he said, his voice not sounding too confident though.

"You two go on and take care of the costumes. We'll see you at the dress rehearsal," Applejack said.

And just like that, Rarity and Coco left the two to take care of the park. The two Earth Ponies just looked over this forest that was supposed to be a park and they both realized that this would be very difficult.

"Oh boy..." Star Twinkle just said.

"I know," Applejack said. "It may look bad but the two of us will be able to get this place into a...presentable state," the mare assured, although it was pretty obvious that she was having doubts as well. "Let's get started right away!" She suggested.

If they wanted to get everything done, then starting early was the best thing to do. From pulling out some plants and mowing the grass to repairing some of the things in the park, this whole task was bound to get both of them really exhausted in a few hours. It really didn't help that this park had way too much to do and was way too big for just the two of them.

Applejack was pulling out some withered flowers while Star Twinkle was mowing the grass with a lawnmower. Both of those tasks would take quite a while given the size of this park but there was no time to complain about work, time was of the essence.

Luckily, Applejack was still in highs spirits throughout the whole thing. "Okay, I'm done pulling out those guys from the ground!" She said victoriously. Her coat and mane were a complete mess but knowing that she was done, was making her really happy about it.

Star Twinkle stopped working for a moment. "Um, Applejack?" He said as he pointed towards another field with withered plants stick out of them in a nearby area.

Needless to say, Applejack was not happy at all to see how she wasn't even remotely done with her work. She just had to continue her work, there was no time to complain now.

...

Applejack managed to get a majority of the plants out of the ground but she needed to do something else to get a little bit less frustrated by pulling out some plants. Doing all this work already took a toll on the two of them. They both were really exhausted already and looked completely tired out.

Both of them were mowing the ground now, and both of them were too tired to keep their eyes focused on everything. Applejack for exampled didn't notice how her hat got stuck on a low hanging branch as she walked past it, causing it to drop to the ground and right in the path of an unsuspecting Star Twinkle who was unable to react in time and just mowed down the poor stetson.

"Oh no! I'm sorry," Star Twinkle apologized nervously.

The mare picked up the hat, which strangely survived the lawnmower attack but got several holes in it now. "Don't worry about it, we got bigger things to worry about now," she said before she put her hat on again and continued working.

...

After getting most of the grass cut, the two Earth Ponies decided to get rid of some vines in the ground, and there were a lot, meaning that they had to spend quite some time doing that as well.

Star Twinkle was just about to pull out another vine, a very stubborn one on top of it. "Come on!" The stallion said while having still this single vine in his mouth who he desperately tried to pull out.

Eventually, he managed to get it out finally out of the ground but since he put so much force into it to pull it out, he accidentally fell backward and against a pony statue. It hurt a little bit and the stallion grabbed his head for a moment. He was about to say something to express his annoyance right about now but he was taken by surprise after hearing Applejack's voice.

"Look out!" She said in a panic.

It was only then when the stallion noticed that the statue behind him was shaking and about to bury him beneath it. Star Twinkle was unable to move out of the way fast enough but luckily Applejack was there to push him out of the way in time before the statue fell down with a huge crash.

It was quite a shock for the stallion. He had to take a few breathes to calm down again. "T-thank you, Applejack," he said in gratitude.

The mare stood up next to him and offered a hoof to help the stallion up again. "I'm just glad nothing happened to you," she replied.

As the stallion got up on his hooves again, he immediately noticed how Applejack's hat was not on her head anymore. It didn't take long until he noticed how the stetson was right under the statue now, exactly where he would be if Applejack didn't push him out of the way.

Applejack notice how the stallion looked at her hat. She only just now noticed that she was missing it in fact. She managed to get her hat back again and put it on her head and just acted as if nothing happened.

"Perhaps we should take a little bit of a break. We're working for quite some hours after all," she suggested.

"S-sure..." Star Twinkle replied. This little accident was for him a sign that he probably needed a little rest.

The two walked towards the stage to take a little break. Applejack placed her hat on a bench to whip away some sweat from her forehead but to her surprise, the bench collapsed by just the weight of her stetson.

"This place really is a mess..." Star Twinkle expressed in frustration.

"Maybe," Applejack replied. "But if we work really hard, I'm sure we can get everything done in time...I hope..." she explained. It was still obvious that the mare was having trouble being optimistic anymore.

"Yes," Star Twinkle replied. "We are working like crazy but it feels as if we almost accomplished nothing. It's a wonder if we managed to complete our work here," he figured.

Applejack noticed how Star Twinkle was breathing heavily. He was exhausted, of course, he was, even she was tired by now. And seeing how they might not end up finishing everything in time certainly made his motivation drop a little bit. He was also not enjoying working this hard at all, that much she knew already about him.

"Hey, I got an idea," Applejack then said out of the blue.

"What?" Star Twinkle replied.

"Let's give up," she simply said.

"...What!?" Star Twinkle asked in surprise. "We can't do that," he added.

Applejack just grinned back at him. "Why not?" She asked. "You said it just now. There is no way that we can do this in time, even if we try," she pointed out.

"Yes, but..." Star Twinkle replied, trying to figure out what was going on now. This was still Applejack in front of him, and Applejack would never leave things unfinished. It completely caught him off-guard that she would even suggest such a thing.

"Well?" Applejack said, further trying to get the stallion's approval.

Star Twinkle still believed that what he said before was true. They couldn't finish their work on time. He also was really tired and his body felt really heavy from all this work. But still...

"No! We still have to try! We can't just leave Coco hanging! She is trusting in us!" He said in defense, his voice sounding surprisingly serious over this matter.

But Applejack didn't say a thing. She just stood there with a smug smile on her face.

"What?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

The mare then explained why she was smiling like this. "Wouldn't have expected anything else from you," she said.

It now clicked in Star Twinkle's mind. "Did she trick me just now? Did she want me to say this?" He wondered. The stallion felt really stupid if that was the truth.

"I was just kidding," Applejack then said, confirming Star Twinkle's thoughts almost instantly. The mare quickly noticed how the stallion must have groaned in annoyance in his mind and laughed. "Sorry," she said amused.

Star Twinkle simply glared at the mare. "And what if I said that I wanted to give up?" He asked. "That would have ruined your joke," he pointed out.

"Maybe," Applejack casually replied. "But I knew you wouldn't say that," she said with confidence and no signs of doubts in her voice. "I know you always complain about working so hard but deep down, you like to help ponies in need. There was no way that you would have given up," she added.

"Was there?" Star Twinkle thought. "There was no way that I would have given up? Of course, there was. I'm lazy, I know when I should quit avoiding work and frustration. Surely I had in mind to give up at some point...right?" The more he thought about this the more he got unsure about it. Was he making this kind of impression on her? On everyone? He would not describe himself like this.

Applejack did not seem to notice how Star Twinkle was thinking about all this and walked away again. "Well, let's go back to work!" She said.

Star Twinkle's ears popped up in surprise. "What!? Already!? I thought we're on a break?" He asked.

"We were on a break," Applejack corrected. "We can't lose too much time anymore, so let's go," she explained before she went back to work.

Of course, Star Twinkle followed her without any word added from him.

Later...

After spending some more time working at the park, the two finally had some time to start working on the stage. First, they painted some parts of it. They figured that they should start with painting first so that it could dry in time.

Rarity and Coco Pommel also returned by now and they brought some fine clothes for the actors that would play later at the Revival. When they arrived, they instantly noticed how there was still a lot of work that needed to be done but they remained silent about it to not offend the two hardworking ponies.

Star Twinkle and Applejack both noticed the arrival of the two mares. "I know it looks bad, but we are movin' as fast as we can," Applejack said exhausted before she accidentally walked into a paint bucket.

But neither Rarity or Coco Pommel said anything to indicate that they were unhappy about the current state of the park. "Don't worry, we've still got plenty of time," Rarity said in high spirits. "Everything's going to be—"

"Um, excuse me?" A male voice then asked which came from a pony who was in the company of three more ponies. Judging from how they were dressed, they seemed to be the theater group. "Is this where the Midsummer Theater Revival is supposed to be, perchance?" The same pony asked.

"We're here for the dress rehearsal?" A mare from the group then asked.

"Oh, yes!" Coco Pommel replied after finally seeing how something seemed to go well. "We've just put the finishing touches on the costumes," she explained.

The theater ponies noticed how the park looked so far. Even after all the work that Star Twinkle and Applejack put into fixing it, the park was still a huge mess. They didn't seem to like performing in a place like this but they quickly changed their mind once they took a look at Rarity and Coco Pommels costumes.

"At least those look professional," one of the theater ponies said towards his other crew members.

Star Twinkle sighed. "At least Rarity's help was of success," the stallion thought. It was good to see that something went well in some kind of way.

"We'll do a dry run of the play first, and then the fitting," one of the theater mares explained before she walked up to the stage.

It took some time until it clicked in Star Twinkle's and Applejack's mind, probably because they were both exhausted, but they soon remembered that they had no time to reinforce the stage yet. But it was already too late, the mare stepped up at the stage and the whole thing started shaking. It was about to collapse.

Luckily, Applejack was there in time to push the mare out of the way, just like before when she saved Star Twinkle.

Of course, the theater ponies were not too happy that one of them was about to get crushed a minute ago. Things became awkward and the theater group was really worried that something like that would happen again. They told Coco Pommel that they needed to think about playing in the Revival, which of course was just a way of them saying that they didn't quite believe in her. After getting almost crushed, and being asked to play in a messy park like this, no one could really blame them for that.

Unfortunately, this was bad news for Coco Pommel and the others...

Later, inside Coco Pommel's apartment...

The mood of Coco Pommel dropped to the floor after all the things that happened. It certainly was not the most successful day so far. She had all the reasons to be upset now. She simply let her head hanging on her balcony and had a big frown on her face.

"I just wanted to live up to Charity's example, to bring my neighborhood together again. But the park is still a mess, we haven't even thought about what refreshments to serve during the performance, and even if we had, we don't have a stage for the Method Mares to perform on! It's hopeless... Just hopeless!"

It didn't help Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Rarity to see one of their friends in this state either. They quickly got upset as well.

"I don't understand," Rarity then whispered to her two friends. "The map summoned us here to solve a friendship problem. We've clearly found it, but why did it send the three of us? Why not Twilight? I'm sure she could have used her magic to transform this park in an instant!" She figured.

"I've been thinkin' the same thing," Applejack added. "I mean, I can at least see why you're here – Coco's your friend, and you have an eye for costumes and all – but me? I was never gonna be able to finish a project this big," she pointed out.

Star Twinkle groaned annoyed. "Applejack, I am getting a little tired of hearing that," he said boldly. "How do you think I feel about all this? At least you were called. I wasn't called by the map once. Who knows, maybe me being here interfered with your mission," he explained before now a smile formed on his face. "I mean, I am not too bad at building and repairing and it still wasn't enough to help out," he added.

Applejack looked away for a moment. She felt as if she wasn't very considerate of the stallion's feelings at all so far. "I'm sorry," she said.

Now it was Rarity's turn to feel bad. She fell over, right into Star Twinkle's hooves, who happened to catch her in time. "We'll return to Ponyville as failures! Why must this be? Why? Why?!" She said in her best drama queen voice.

But Applejack put a quick stop to this. "Now hold on there. Just because we are blaming ourselves about the whole thing doesn't mean that we have to pack up and go home," she explained.

Rarity quickly snapped out of her drama mood. "Then what are you suggesting?" She asked.

"I'm suggestin' we stop worryin' about what we can't do and start doing what we can," Applejack returned. Her eyes wandered over to Star Twinkle. She must have thought back about their little conversation from before.

"Applejack is right," Star Twinkle agreed. "Remember what you said to me before we left Ponyville? If I feel left out, then I should do something against it. I don't know if I am supposed to be here or not but since I am here, I will try everything that I can do now," he said in determination.

The two mares liked to hear Star Twinkle speaking like this. They couldn't help but smile.

"I think I've got a plan," Applejack announced as she walked up to Coco Pommel, who seemed to have overheard the mare's words and turned around. "It won't be anythin' big or fancy, but it'll be somethin'. And somethin's gotta be better than nothin', right?"

Coco Pommel had no choice but to take that. "I suppose so..." She said, still having a big frown on her face.

"That's the spirit! Sorta..." Applejack said after hearing that response.

Applejack made sure to share her plan with everyone and the group agreed to do everything she said. There was still a lot that had to be done for her plan to work but it was certainly easier than taking care of the whole park.

Now it just had to be enough to work out in the end...

Later, that evening...

It still took quite some time until everything was ready for the Revival. Applejack's plan involved building a completely new stage at one of the entrances of the park. With the stage now outside of the park, there was no more reason to take care of it anymore, and no more ponies would get scared away by the state of it.

After Star Twinkle and Applejack just hammered down the last nails on the stage the work was finally done and the play could begin.

"Alright, y'all, it's ready!" Applejack announced.

The stage was smaller but still nice to look at. The two Earth Ponies did put a lot of work and time into it after all. It was enough to put a smile at Coco Pommel's face at least.

Once Star Twinkle and Applejack left the stage, one of the theater ponies looked through the curtain. "Should we go ahead and start?" He asked.

It was a blessing that the four theater ponies still wanted to play after what happened before. When the group asked about why they still wanted to play, their response was just "The show must go on". It was admirable to hear that, and on top of that, it was a good help. Coco Pommel nodded after the question of the theater stallion, giving him a signal to start.

Star Twinkle and Applejack sat down in front of the stage to watch the play. "I guess all we can do now is wait?" The stallion asked.

"Yes," Applejack quietly replied.

And just like that, the curtain opened and the play started. The plan was to set up the stage here in plain sight so that more ponies would notice it by simply walking by. Applejack figured that it was a better idea than to invite everyone in a messy park. The four ponies had to rely on the actors now to draw a crowd in with the play.

The curtain started to open and the first scene started. Two of the actors could be seen, a stallion wearing a gray business suit and a mare who was playing the part of Charity Kindheart. The background of the stage consisted of some hoof painted backgrounds that depicted an office.

Applejack poked Star Twinkle softly. "Nice job on the backgrounds," she complimented him, causing him to grin awkwardly in response before concentrating on the play again.

"Excuse me. I'm Charity Kindheart. I'm here about the open design position. I brought some samples of my work," she said as she pointed at some drawn requisites showing a line of clothes next to her. "I'm sorry I'm late. I had the hardest time finding my way here," she said before she started tearing up. "I just moved here, and I keep getting mixed up by the street names! I had a map, but I dropped it in a puddle, which only made the street names harder to read!" She said in a dramatic tone that could easily rival Rarity in her worst moments.

"I see," the male actor on stage replied.

In the meantime, one mare walked by the stage and decided to stay after only a few words were spoken on stage. And shortly after, a little colt and his mother started to sit down not too far away from Star Twinkle and the others. Judging from how happy the little colt was, they had to thank him for them to stay.

"Excuse me, but your next appointment is here," another stallion from the theater group said.

"Alright. Send him in," the other stallion replied. "I'm sorry, but based on these samples, I just don't think this is the place for you," he explained. The actor who played Charity Kindheart gasped overly dramatically in response. "Don't get me wrong. These clothes are all exquisite and well-made, but more theatrical than avant-garde. Have you considered costume design? I have a contact on Bridleway! If you're interested, I can put you in touch with him," he further explained.

"...And scene," the male actor on stage said before the curtains closed again.

Star Twinkle, Applejack, Rarity, and Coco Pommel now had the time to look behind them to see if there were some ponies watching the play and to their surprise, a small crowd gathered behind them. The four smiled at each other and left it at that. The play was not over yet, meaning that more ponies could possibly show up. For now, they decided to keep watching the play like everypony else.

The next scene started. Charity Kindheart and another female actor playing an elderly mare showed up. The background was depicting the outdoors, with trees and birds.

"Charity, dear, is that you?" The elderly mare asked.

"Hello, Mrs. Pearblossom!" Charity replied as she walked up to her with a cart filled with clothes. Again, those were just drawn requisites. "I didn't see— oops!" She then said before she "accidentally" dropped some fabric to the ground.

"Oh, let me help you, dear. Are these the costumes you've been working on?" The elder mare asked.

"Yes, I was supposed to be finished by now, but there's just so much to do, and I still have a few last-minute alterations to make before opening night! I'm sorry I couldn't get enough tickets for everypony in the neighborhood. I hope Mr. Pearblossom wasn't too disappointed. I know Trotter on the Roof is one of his favorites," Charity explained.

"Oh, my dear filly, don't worry about that," Mrs. Pearblossom said in an understanding tone. "We're so proud of you. We shall be with you in spirit!"

"Thank you! You've all made me feel so welcome here and have become like family to me! I just wish I could share this experience with you and the others!" Charity replied in gratitude.

As Star Twinkle was focused on the play, a construction worker stallion walked over next to him. "Eh, what's goin' on?" He asked curiously.

Star Twinkle explained. "It's the Midsummer Theater Revival."

"Starring the Method Mares," Rarity added.

The construction pony sighed. "The Revival. Mhm, yeah. My pop used to bring me," he said in a nostalgic tone before he removed his hat and sat down as well.

After Star Twinkle saw the stallion sitting down, he took one more look behind him and saw a big crowd whose eyes were glued to the stage. It actually looked as if the Revival was a success. And it wasn't over yet.

Later...

The sun was already setting down by the time where the play was about to end. The last lines were spoken by the actors and a bunch of ponies watched them.

"So nice of you to put on this play for the neighborhood," Mrs. Pearblossom said in gratitude.

"I couldn't have done it without everypony's help! I know it's not Bridleway, but—" Charity replied before she was interrupted by Mrs. Pearblossom.

"Oh, pish-tosh! It's perfect, dear!"

And only a few moments later, the play ended and the actors bowed down to a rather big crowd who all cheered for this wonderful play. Star Twinkle and his friends smiled at each other because of the great success of this Revival. Of course, Coco Pommel was the happiest of them all after seeing how everyone enjoyed the play. Never would she have dreamed that it actually would end up this successfully.

"Thank you, fillies and gentlecolts," one of the stallions in the theater group said happily. "Please give a warm welcome to the one who made this entire event possible – our neighbor Coco Pommel!" He said before he called her up to the stage.

Cheers started to surround the mare. She was about to go up to the stage but the crowd literally lifted her up and carried her towards it as thanks for this wonderful play.

Once she was up at the stage, the mare cleared her throat to say some things to the crowd. "Thank you all so much for coming. The Midsummer Theater Revival was always something that meant so much to me, and it seems it means quite a lot to all of you as well. I really can't take all the credit, though. My dear friends Rarity and Applejack helped me ever so much," she said before she asked the three join her on stage to get some of the applause as well.

"Oh! Let's go!" Rarity said excitedly. What she didn't realize though was how Star Twinkle and Applejack were a little nervous to go up there and having everypony stare at them.

In the end, Rarity managed to convince them and the three were now up at the stage and next to Coco Pommel. While Rarity enjoyed the attention and bowed down gracefully, Star Twinkle and Applejack could only smile nervously.

"I'm a little nervous..." Star Twinkle whispered to Applejack.

"Just smile and wave," she said as she did exactly that with a nervous expression on her face.

The crowd was clapping and cheering for them. It felt good that all those ponies enjoyed the play and appreciated the work of the four.

"Oh, darling, please, it was just a few costumes," Rarity said in a modest tone towards Coco Pommel.

"I just helped to build the stage," added said nervously.

Despite being nervous herself, there was one thing Applejack still wanted to share with everyone. "To be honest, we had much bigger plans to start. When those fell through, we decided to simplify. This here was the result," she explained.

"Oh, don't be so modest. Coco and I were lost," Rarity responded.

"You bet your boots we were!" Coco added amused while winking at her friends.

Later...

It goes without saying that the Revival was a great success. After the play, many ponies still stayed in front of the stage talking with each other. This Revival surely brought everyone closer together. It was the complete opposite of what Star Twinkle and his friends saw when they arrived in this town.

Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Rarity were also exchanging some words with some ponies who watched the play. Eventually, a familiar pony showed up to them. It was the wealthy pony who claimed to had no time before.

His company, an Earth Pony mare, couldn't help but express her joy about the play. "We just wanted to say how much we enjoyed the Midsummer Theater Revival and how much it inspired us!"

"Oh, yeah?" Applejack asked.

The stallion seemed to agree with her. "I used to think that to help my community I had to do something big. Heh-heh. And let's face it – in this day and age, who has the time for such a commitment? But here, you did something as simple as building a stage and putting on a play and, heh, look at how it's brought everypony together," he said. All it took to come to this conclusion was to take a quick look at all the ponies around him.

The mare couldn't agree anymore. "I saw Coco's flyers for volunteers but didn't think anything I'd have time to do would be that useful. Now I wish I'd offered to help, even if it was just pulling a few weeds or planting a few flowers," she said.

This is where Applejack pointed to the park next to them. "Not sure if you noticed, but the park is far from bein' fixed up. I imagine if you look around, you'll find there's lots of little ways for you to get involved in changin' this place for the better," she advised.

The two ponies agreed to do exactly that and walked away again. They were also sure that they would not be the only ones who would do some work in this park after this event.

Then, suddenly, Applejack and Rarity's Cutie Marks began to glow. They both instantly notice and felt tingly because of it. But more than anything, they were happy now.

"Yee-hoo! We did it!" Applejack said excitedly.

"Yes, looks like it," Star Twinkle figured.

Before the stallion knew it, he was caught in a group hug between the two mares, which quickly broke once Rarity gasped in realization. "I understand now! It all makes perfect sense!" She said in enlightenment.

"What?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Rarity then took off Applejack's hat and threw it away. It was still completely ruined by her work in the park after all. As it happened, the hat seller pony from yesterday was here as well and he also happened to have the same kind of hat that Applejack usually wears. The mare bought the hat and put it on Applejack's head.

"I know why the map called you here," she said.

"You do?" Applejack replied.

Rarity explained. "If Twilight had used her magic to fix the park, it wouldn't have fixed the real problem, which is that these Manehattan ponies didn't think they had time to do something for their community! But by building that stage and making sure the play went on, you showed them that just by doing something small, you can make a big difference!"

Applejack got behind what Rarity was saying. "Well, I'll be!" She replied.

"Makes sense to me," Star Twinkle figured once more.

"Seems you have more in common with the Manehattan ponies than you thought!" Rarity added with a huge grin on her face. She probably liked how another one of her friends seemed to enjoy this town as much as she did.

Applejack laughed in response. "But all the same, I'd sure like to head back to Ponyville on the next train," she said.

"Yes, me too," Star Twinkle added. As much as he liked seeing the ponies in Manehattan growing closer together, he still wanted to head home again to get some good sleep.

"I also want to check in with Apple Bloom and find out how the Sisterhooves Social turned out," Applejack added.

"Oh, absolutely, my dear," Rarity said before her eyes widened in shock all of a sudden. "Just as soon as I stop that pony in the shop over there from purchasing that dreadfully hideous scarf!" She said, similar to what happened when they arrived in this town."Stop! You're making a terrible mistake!" She said before she ran off to focus on this matter now. Star Twinkle and Applejack just sighed and smiled at this.

But then Applejack's smile looked over to Star Twinkle and smiled at him. "Looks like your visit was not for nothing after all," she said.

"I guess that's thanks to you," Star Twinkle replied. "I think I really took your "doing something" advise to heart," he figured.

"Now, come on," Applejack replied. "I just took something out of that already was inside of you all along," she said in all modesty.

"Still, thank you," Star Twinkle said with a smile on his face.

Applejack chuckled after seeing the stallion's smile. "No problem, Sugarcube," she replied with a smile on her face as well.

The only thing that was left now to return to Ponyville. But that is only if they managed to keep Rarity from giving every single pony in Manehattan fashion advise...

Author's Notes:

Another Friendship mission is done, another mission where Star Twinkle wasn't called.
Will he ever be called by the map at some point? Who knows?
I'm not quite sure how to handle the whole Brotherhood Socials episode if I'm being honest. It is obviously skipped because Star Twinkle wasn't fitting into it and I don't know if it should be talked about in another chapter, just to acknowledge that it actually happened.
I don't know.

Also, the next chapter is gonna be a custom one, meaning that it will have Original Characters in it. Who could it be? Only one? Multiple? Or maybe none? Let me know who you think will appear in the next chapter. It's gonna be interesting, to say the least ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

106. Chase after Summershine

View Online

At the Iron Hammer...

It was just the day after Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Rarity went to Manehattan for their Friendship Mission. Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were working in front of the Iron Hammer, hammering down some needles inside some wooden boards.

While working, Steel Hammer was telling him a rather weird story. He was watching the Sisterhooves Social and since Star Twinkle was curious about the event himself he was asking the stallion to tell him some things about it. He remembered that Applejack and Rarity had planned to participate in it together with their sisters but had to skip it because they were called by the map in Twilight's castle.

But apparently, Apple Bloom did participate in the Sister Hooves Social, according to Steel Hammer at least. What his boss then told him got Star Twinkle really confused.

"Apple Bloom's long lost cousin Orchard Blossom?" Star Twinkle asked.

Steel Hammer began laughing. "Yes! It was something to look at," he added amused.

Of course, he got more details shortly after but that only made things even more confusing. Because Applejack had to leave for Manehattan, Apple Bloom's big brother Big McIntosh figured that it was a brilliant idea to dress up as a mare and take place in the event just so that his little sister would not be sad.

In a way, that was a really weird idea from the stallion, but then again, given the reason why he did it was kind of cute. Eventually, Big McIntosh was exposed and he and Apple Bloom were disqualified from the event. Steel Hammer told Star Twinkle that it was not mainly because of Big McIntosh being a stallion but rather because of his destructive behavior during the event.

"Destructive behavior?" Star Twinkle asked. He felt as if he misheard that information just now. Big McIntosh sure was big and strong but inside he was really soft and caring, so he could not imagine that he would be too aggressive in an event like this.

But Steel Hammer saw it first-hoof and could confirm that the stallion was doing everything in his power to win the event and smashing things into pieces all because he desperately wanted to win. This did not sound like Big McIntosh at all. Star Twinkle couldn't believe it.

But, by some weird coincidence, as the two were talking about the two, Big McIntosh and Apple Bloom were coming over to the Iron Hammer. "Hey, there! Star Twinkle! Mr. Steel Hammer!" The little filly said.

"Hey, you two," Star Twinkle greeted back.

"Are the wooden boards ready?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Oh, those are for you?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Eeyup," Big McIntosh replied. The stallion from the apple family was already pulling an empty cart to confirm it.

Apple Bloom and Big McIntosh loaded the wooden boards into the cart. Star Twinkle helped as well and took the opportunity to talk with Apple Bloom. He wanted to confirm things himself about what happened yesterday.

"So...um...I'm sorry that Applejack couldn't come to the Sisterhooves Social yesterday," he said.

"Yup," Apple Bloom casually replied before she continued loading in the wooden boards without a care in the world.

"I heard you were looking forward to this event..." the stallion continued.

"Yup," Apple Bloom replied in the same manner as before.

"It's just, we had this really important mission to take care of and..."

This time the filly interrupted the stallion. "It's okay, Star Twinkle. I still had fun yesterday. My brother had this really weird idea to dress up like a long lost cousin of mine to take Applejack's place," she explained, in a more casual tone than Star Twinkle expected.

"You don't say," the stallion replied, pretending as if he didn't already know that.

Apple Bloom explained further. "At first, I thought that was a stupid idea. It also didn't make things better after Big Mac decided that winning in this event was the most important thing ever, even going so far pushing others out of the way and destroying everything in his path!"

"Yes, that does sound a little extreme," Star Twinkle replied. Of course, he knew all those things already.

However, there was one more thing that he was not aware of and Apple Bloom was about to share that with him. "But it turns out that Big Mac did all of this because he just wanted me to look up at him," she said.

Star Twinkle was a little confused to hear that. "What do you mean?" He asked.

The filly continued once more. "I think with Applejack being in charge of Sweet Apple Acres and saving Equestria on occasions, he must have felt left out and came to the conclusion that I don't look up to him anymore like I used to. That is why he wanted to win so badly, to show me how great he is," Apple Bloom explained.

Of course, Star Twinkle already figured that there must have been a reason for Big McIntosh to act a little different at the Sisterhooves Social but he never knew that it would be something like that. He also never expected that Big McIntosh would feel like this in the first place.

"But everything is alright again!" The little filly assured. "Of course, I always loved my big brother but I guess I didn't let him know that for a while..." she explained. Talking about this was definitely not the easiest thing in the world for her. "Thanks to what happened yesterday though, I feel much closer to my brother than ever before! And all it took was him destroying a bunch of stuff," she added casually. "Which is why we need those wooden boards for, to fix all the stuff," she added once again as she rubbed her neck in embarrassment.

"I...see..." Star Twinkle replied.

That sure was a lot of information for him to take in. He did get his answers so he shouldn't complain about it. To hear that everything went well in the very end was making him feel better though. He was worried that Applejack, skipping the Sisterhooves Social would end up making Apple Bloom feel bad but clearly some other things happened that caused her not only to forget about Applejack not being around but also appreciating her brother as well. One could say that it was a pretty good day.

Apple Bloom and Big McIntosh left as soon as they loaded all wooden boards inside their cart and left the Iron Hammer shortly after. At some point, he was a little bit jealous to not have any siblings to share moments like those. Knowing that there is someone who looks up to you, or knowing that you have someone to look up to must be really something. Then again, there are a lot of things that he had to learn about friendship too. For now, he was just happy for both of them to have everything settled.

Later...

Star Twinkle's work was done for today and he was on his way home. Since yesterday, Applejack, Rarity and him had to spend some time in Manehattan to solve a friendship problem, there was not too much time to relax again, at least for him. Not that he had to relax from too much in the first place but he sure was hoping to take it easier today.

But that hope quickly vanished as soon as he could hear someone shouting his name in the distance.

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight's voice could be heard from afar. The Unicorn mare was running towards the stallion. For some reason, he had a really bad feeling. He feared that she would say what he expected her to say.

The mare stopped in front of the stallion and took a moment to catch her breath. "What is it?" Star Twinkle asked. Though he felt that this question was unnecessary.

Once Twilight managed to calm down again, she began to explain. "The map is calling someone," she simply said.

It was exactly like Star Twinkle predicted. He didn't know how to feel about going to another mission just one day after getting back from one. On top of that, he was most likely not even called by the map, as usual. He still took Applejack's advise from his last mission to heart, that he should do something about getting left out but now he felt as if the map was actually making fun of him.

"Has the map finally called me!?" Star Twinkle asked, just hoping for a little chance that Twilight ran all this way to bring him good news like this.

Twilight avoided eye contact. "Uh..." was the only thing she said in response.

That was not a good sign. Star Twinkle was mad at himself to even consider this to be the case and sighed in defeat. "I guess not," he said with a frown on his face.

But Twilight looked back at the stallion. "Yes, you were not called by the map," she then said bluntly. "But you need to take a look at the map. You change your mind once you see it yourself," she added.

Star Twinkle had no idea what Twilight meant with that. Why would he still be interested in not seeing his Cutie Mark on the map? Twilight did look rather serious about this so it didn't take long until Star Twinkle was just following her back to the castle.

"Guess I'm going to another mission then..." he thought to himself.

Inside the castle...

Twilight asked of the rest of the friends to come to the castle as well. All of them wondered why they were called in the first place. Of course, their first guess was, the Cutie Map called someone. But there was just one problem.

"Is your mark glowing!?" Pinkie Pie asked in excitement towards Rainbow Dash.

"No," Rainbow Dash replied.

Pinkie Pie then jumped over to Fluttershy, completely destroying her personal space. "Were you called by the map!?" She asked.

"...No..." Fluttershy replied, backing away a little bit in the process.

Pinkie Pie looked over to Star Twinkle, whose eyes were glued on the map the whole time. "Was Star Twinkle finally called by the map!?" She asked, her face beaming just to know that he could finally have a turn.

By now, Applejack decided to let Pinkie Pie figure out the answer herself. "Why don't you take a look at any of our Cutie Marks?"

And that is exactly what Pinkie Pie did. She scanned through the whole room and inspected the flanks of their friends. She came to the realization that none of them had a glowing Cutie Mark, meaning that none of them were called by the map.

Having figured that out, the mare got pretty confused. "THEN WHO WAS CALLED BY THE MAP!?" She shouted across the room in her frustration.

It was true that Twilight said that the map called someone but she did not specify who. The mare decided to explain a few things to her friends to get rid of the confusion in the room. "None of us were called," she simply said.

Of course, that sentence really confused them all, Rainbow Dash specifically was making that clear. "Then what are we all doing here!? I was in the middle of coming up with a super cool new spinning move when you told me to come to the castle!"

But Applejack lowered her eyebrows and looked at the mare. "I saw you taking a nap on my way here though," she pointed out.

"I-I was coming up with a name at that moment!" She replied with her legs crossed in midair.

Twilight was not done explaining everything however. "Even though none of us were called, the map did react all of a sudden. It is pointing at one location on the map as well. I think it is for the best if we investigate things, especially since it's sending us to somewhere...interesting..." she said.

Everyone except Star Twinkle did not check out the map so far to see what was going on. There were Cutie Marks on the map but none of them belonged to anyone in this room. There were six of them, a book, a whoopee cushion, three coins, a pink flower, a shooting star, and five distant glowing stars.

"What are all those Cutie Marks?" Rarity asked into the group.

"They look really familiar if you ask me," Pinkie Pie said, though she was not sure why. "Especially that one!" She added as she pointed towards the one with the five glowing stars.

"Summershine..." Star Twinkle then said to the surprise of everyone. He didn't say much up to this point the whole time. "That one belongs to Summershine," he further explained.

"That one pony that attacked back then?" Applejack asked.

"The one who was throwing fire around?" Rainbow Dash added. "Who was supposed to be your friend?" She said in a hard sarcastic tone.

No one knew what to think about this situation. There were a bunch of Cutie Marks that the map was calling and with the exception of Summershine, no one knew who all of them belonged to. They also had no idea where Summershine was so asking him to take care of a friendship problem was out of the question as well. They all agreed that it was pretty weird.

Still, Twilight wanted to take care of it. "Since we don't know who most of those Cutie Marks belong to, we have no choice but to get there ourselves. Who knows, maybe we will find the problem and can take care of it," she suggested. There was an agreement in the group to investigate this, everyone wanted to know what this was all about after all, and since they were the only one's who were called by the map before, they felt as if it was their duty to answer it. Twilight looked over to Star Twinkle, who was still looking at the map as if he was in trance right now. "You are coming too, right?" The mare asked.

Star Twinkle didn't think it would be possible but what Twilight said was true. What Star Twinkle saw on the map was peeking his interest, to say the least. His eyes were fixed on the map the whole time. Memories of his meeting with Summershine flashed back in his mind. He needed answers and Summershine most likely knew them. He had to find him and this map was the only thing that was pointing at something just now. He had to take this chance, maybe this was the only chance he would ever get.

The stallion didn't have to think about his answer, it came quickly and without any hesitation in his voice. "Yes," he simply answered.

It was settled, the group was heading towards where the Cutie Marks were hovering above. But the location is what exactly put off some of them. Still, they had to go there to find out more, and one of them was determined to get some answers on this trip.

Later...

The trip did not take a terribly long time. It was not the first time they had to go to the place marked on the map after all. The group had to go through a forest, pushing vines and branches out of the way for the most part.

Normally, Star Twinkle would be really annoyed by a trip like this but this time his head was at a different place. Instead of being bothered, he was nervous. The thought that maybe the map was pointing at where Summershine was right now was sitting in his mind. There was a chance that he could meet him again. But how would that meeting go? Would Summershine attack him for some unknown reasons again? Would he get all his answers? Would Summershine even give him any answer? For some reason, Star Twinkle connected all of his questions to this one stallion, who claimed to be his friend. A friend who erased his memories for some unknown reason.

It was obvious to Twilight that Star Twinkle was thinking right now but she still decided to talk with him, in the hope that he would calm down again. "I never saw you this concentrated before," she simply said.

"Huh?" Star Twinkle cleverly replied. He did not expect someone talking to him just now.

Twilight softly smiled in response but then her face was more determined again. "You think that we will meet Summershine again, right?" She asked.

Star Twinkle was surprised to hear that question. He shouldn't be though, he should have guessed that Twilight was reading him like an open book. "Yeah..." the stallion replied. "Do you have any other guess?" He asked back.

The mare gave an honest response. "I'm not sure. The map definitely summoned someone to this place and since we don't know who it was and where they are, all we can do is check things out ourselves," she explained.

Hearing this was making Star Twinkle realize something he didn't think about yet. "But can the problem be solved if even if the ponies who the map called didn't show up?" He asked.

"Like I said," Twilight almost interrupted. "All we can do is to look for ourselves."

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash said. She seemed to be rather excited about this trip. "And hopefully, our problem involves beating something dangerous up!" She said as she punched the air to prepare herself for exactly that.

Fluttershy was getting nervous as usual. "I hope we don't have to stay here for too long. I didn't really want to go back to this place," she said.

"Speaking of which," Applejack said, causing Fluttershy to shrug nervously. "We're here."

The group arrived at the place where the map pointed at. A familiar place that didn't really remind them to happy times. Standing in front of this place definitely caused all of them to keep their eyes open for anything because of what happened on their last visit.

The Forgotten Castle...

This place was definitely doing justice to its name. It looked as forgotten as always with all those vines around the castle, which looked like it could fall apart any moment. A place that not even Princess Celestia knew much about since it was older than her.

The last time they had to go here was because of Fade Sol, who captured both Princess Luna and Celestia to archive his evil plans. It was thanks to Star Twinkle and the others that stopped and sealed the Unicorn away though. The last time they saw him, was in the gardens of Canterlot, turned to stone by the Elements of Harmony but he escaped during Lord Tirek's attack. Knowing that Fade could possibly still wander around Equestria now meant that maybe he was in there again. If that was the case, then the group needed to run, Fade and his dark magic were too dangerous to engage on their own. But on the off-chance that there was someone in there that needed help with a Friendship Problem, the group was ready to check this place out.

As soon as Star Twinkle saw the place in front of him though, he started to get nervous again. What was awaiting them inside this castle? Was Summershine in there? Were the other ponies, that the map called, inside there as well? Was Fade in there? The questions in his mind just got worse and worse. It caused the stallion's heart to go absolutely crazy.

A hoof was placed on the stallion's shoulder. It was Twilight. She smiled warmly at the stallion. "Don't worry, we are here too," she just said. Hearing those words started to calm the stallion down again. His friends will help him if he needs them. If any of those things he feared were in there then it was not only him who had to deal with it. His friends were part of this as well.

Star Twinkle took one deep breath and his worries seemed to have vanished shortly after. "Right!" He replied. Twilight liked hearing that and looked determined to go inside the castle now.

Everyone slowly walked towards the entrance door of the castle. Their mission was about to start. But as soon as some noises could be heard from nearby, they all stopped.

"You hear that?" Applejack asked.

"It's coming from over there!" Rarity said as she pointed towards some bushes not too far away from the group to the right.

There were some shaking bushes as if something or someone was walking through them to get to the group. Of course, Star Twinkle was the first one to pick up on this. He walked a little bit forward to get a closer look.

There was one thing he could ask, with his hopes up at the sky right now.

"Summershine?"

Meanwhile...

Inside of the castle someone was walking through the empty hallways. The pony was a Unicorn stallion with a dark orange coat, a dark red mane, dark blue eyes, and five glowing white stars as a Cutie Mark. It was Summershine. Just as Star Twinkle expected, Summershine was here, just inside the castle not too far away from them. He was not aware of Star Twinkle and the others being outside the castle at all and just continued to walk around the castle.

The stallion took some stairs to the upper floor of the castle. A place that he didn't check yet. The last time he visited this place was when he helped Star Twinkle against the Outcast. Of course, they were not aware of his help but just being able to aid his friend in need was all that Summershine needed. This castle did peek his interest though, it looked older than the Castle of the Two sisters and Fade must have a reason to bring the Princesses here back in the day when he captured both of them.

Summershine arrived at the upper floor of the castle. No one was here as well, everything was dark and looked abandoned. He was not sure why today, out of all days, he wanted to check this place out at all. He blamed his curiosity for it. There had to be something in this castle, maybe something that would help him with his task, whatever that was, to begin with.

"Nothing..." the stallion said after taking a look around the place.

He was about to leave but there was one last thing that he managed to catch with his eyes before turning around. A strange symbol was on the ground just in front of him. Summershine walked up a little closer to it. A circle with two colors in it, the two colors both made one half of this symbol. The left side was white and the right one was black. It looked out of place in this castle for Summershine but still he tried to investigate. As soon as one of his hooves touched the symbol though, it began to glow.

"W-what!?" The stallion said in his surprise before he backed away again.

The symbol continued to glow and soon, the whole room was shining in a bright light. The light was fixed in the middle of the room and soon, something appeared in the center. A small gray Pillar, which appeared out of thin air was now standing in the middle of the room. There were seven circles lined up from bottom to top, six of them being the same symbol as the one on the ground, two half circles in different colors.

From the bottom to the top, left side first, the colors were as follow:
Yellow and Purple
Gray and Light Blue
White and Dark Blue
Light Orange and Red
Pink and White
Dark Orange and Gray

The last symbol, the one on top, was still grayed out as if it wasn't activated or something.

Needless to say, Summershine got really curious about all of this wanted to check it out. If there was ever something suspicious in this castle, then this was it. Now the stallion just had to find out what that pillar was.

The symbols did not make any sense to him. He had no idea what they mean or why one of them didn't light up. As he walked closer to the pillar though, something happened. One of the symbols started to light up, the second one from the top, the one with the dark orange and gray color. The stallion looked up and tried to make sense of this but soon, something happened on its own.

Magic came out on top of the pillar and created some images. Once the stallion could make out what was shown to him, his eyes popped open in surprise.

"Wait! That was back then!" He said in shock.

It was as if he saw a movie played out in front of him. Pictures of the past, from days that he could remember all too clearly. It showed Summershine and Star Twinkle standing in the middle of a burning Ponyville.

"Why is this thing showing me those pictures? What does it mean?" He wondered.

He waited for the other symbols to react as well but none of them would respond, only the dark orange and gray one did. The stallion wanted some answers but he didn't get any. He had to be grateful for this much.

"Guess I just have to figure this out myself..." he said, his voice sounding frustrated and happy at the same time.

The stallion was about to leave again but as he walked up to the stairs leading to the ground floor, he noticed how someone was standing right in front of it. Summershine quickly got surprised and then clenched his teeth in response.

"You!?" He said angrily. The pony standing in front of the stairs was the pony in the black armor. The same pony that he saw with Arcana not too long ago. Knowing that gave Summershine enough reason to be worried. This pony was working with Arcana and that meant that there was a chance of him being here as well, and Summershine did not look forward to this.

The pony in the black armor did not talk back and just stood ready in a fighting stance. It was not here for a friendly talk, that much was sure. Getting out of this castle was getting a lot more complicated now for Summershine but he did not let this pony stop him.

Back outside...

The group was eagerly waiting who would show itself in front of them. Just to be safe, everyone was taking a step back, everyone except Star Twinkle who was actually taking a step forward.

"Summershine?" Star Twinkle asked. His Cutie Mark was on the map in Twilight's castle, there was a possibility that it was him and it was his chance to get some answers to his questions.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, somepony walked outside the bushes and revealed itself in front of the group. The instant everyone recognized this pony, they got nervous, especially Star Twinkle, whose hope of seeing Summershine was not only crushed but replaced by shock as soon as he knew who was standing there in front of him. Now he was taking several steps back as well.

The pony that showed itself was a Unicorn stallion with a dark purple coat, a dark blue w-shaped mane that had yellow stripes in it, purple eyes, and a blue mist cloud as a Cutie Mark.

"It's been a while," the Unicorn stallion said, his voice sounding neither happy or mad about this meeting.

"Mystic?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

Twilight quickly rushed next to Star Twinkle, out of fear that Mystic would attack all of a sudden.
Needless to say, everyone was on guard, it was a long time since they saw him but what he did was still fresh in their memories.

Mystic...he took the title as leader of the Storm Wings away from Cyclone Wing by keeping his little brothers in his grip. He also was a member of the Outcasts along with Fade, and the only member that did not seem to change for the better. As if that wasn't enough, Mystic escaped from his prison cell in Canterlot during Lord Tirek's attack on Equestria, making him now a criminal on the loose.

Rarity was speaking pretty much everyone's mind. "What are you doing here?" She asked with some disgust in her voice.

"I could ask you all the same question," Mystic replied. "This is a place where I used to stay for a while because of my...alliance with Fade and the others," he said, his voice sounding a little bit nostalgic for a moment.

This caught Twilight's attention. "Speaking of Fade, you don't happen to know where he is, right? He disappeared from Canterlot the same time you did," she said. Of course, she connected the two to work together again.

But Mystic gave a quick and calm answer. "Just coincidence. Like how annoying ponies like you always seem to cross my path," he added.

But Rainbow Dash did not buy this. "And we are supposed to believe that?" She shot back.

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie agreed. "I think you are up to do something evil again!" She said, pointing at the stallion.

"I couldn't care less what you think about me," Mystic boldly returned before he started to form a sinister smile on his face. "But since you are all here, I think repaying you for some of your...interventions seems rather appropriate," he added before now he was standing there ready to fight.

Things escalated really quickly. Mystic only revealed himself a few moments ago but everyone was on the edge already. Still, Twilight was ready to fight as well. She knew about Mystic's abilities since she once fought him before in the Storm Fortress, the airship of the Storm Wings.

"Watch out everypony. This guy is strong. The last time I fought him, he was pretty tough," she warned.

Star Twinkle remembered these little battles with Mystic as well, one in the Storm Fortress and another one in the Forgotten Castle. Both of those times, Mystic was winning. He knew that Mystic was very powerful when it came to magic. The fact, that he was not alone though, gave him hope to win this time.

It was Mystic who initiated the first move. "Let's start with a classic," he said before his horn began to glow and the area was filled with mist. This was pretty much Mystic's signature spell.

But Twilight was prepared for this and used her magic to get rid of it again only a few seconds later. Mystic, however, was gone already. He was gone from the spot where he used to stand before and most likely already prepared another spell. The group quickly got aware of this the hard way. Mystic didn't bother to hide but instead was right in the middle of the group.

"Watch out!" Twilight said. But it was too late. Mystic used his magic to create a shockwave to push everyone away and since he was right in the middle of everyone, he managed to get a good hit in.

The group was scattered around the place, some of them had a hard time getting up right away but some of them were ready to strike back. Like Rainbow Dash for example, who started charging at the stallion. It was in vain though. Mystic used his magic to freeze the mare in place before she got too close to him.

Twilight saw a chance to attack now. She shot a magic beam at Mystic and he was forced to jump out of the way, releasing Rainbow Dash in the process and causing her to fall on the ground shortly afterward.

As Mystic was jumping backward, dodging the last attack, both Applejack and Fluttershy took the opportunity to make a lasso out of some of the vines from the castle. They threw it around the stallion and his legs got captured by them as soon as the two mares pulled the vines, causing him to fall over and knocking his head on the ground because of it.

Needless to say, the stallion got pretty mad about this and attacked back. He used his magic to take control of the vine and in a quick swirl, the two mares found themselves tangled up in them now while he managed to free himself.

Pinkie Pie and Rarity went over to Applejack's and Fluttershy's help but Mystic wouldn't have it that way and attacked them by shooting a magic beam at them. In the last moment, Twilight appeared right in front of her friends to raise a shield, protecting them in the process.

Mystic clenched his teeth in annoyance after seeing how the mare got in his way. In fact, he got pretty distracted by it and failed to notice how Star Twinkle already transformed into his Unicorn form and shot at him with his magic. Mystic got hit directly and flew back a few meters, landing directly in front of the entrance of the castle.

"Good job!" Rainbow Dash congratulated.

The group soon was getting up again and stood ready for Mystic, who still was slowly getting up on his hooves again. He seemed to have gotten hit pretty good and still felt that one shot from Star Twinkle.

"Give up, Mystic!" Twilight said. "You might be stronger than every one of us individually but not than all of us combined!"

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash agreed. "You spare yourself some embarrassment if you stop fighting now!"

"Um..." Fluttershy then started. "I'm sure Princess Celestia would forgive you if you try to apologize about everything you did," she added timidly.

Of course, everyone would appreciate if Mystic was stopping all of this. Unfortunately, though, he seemed to be set on exactly not doing that. Back then, after the group dealt with the Outcasts, Mystic was still not even thinking about playing nice.

"Ha!" Could be heard coming from the stallion as he got up on his hooves again.

Mystic began to laugh hysterically. He was laughing at everyone. He definitely did not take Twilight's words seriously and mocked her by reacting like this. Twilight didn't know how to react, she wasn't sure what she expected coming from Mystic.

Pinkie Pie came to one good conclusion. "I think he has gone crazy," she whispered over to her friends. Ironic how Pinkie Pie was the one saying that but everyone couldn't agree more.

Mystic smiled at the group only to look at Star Twinkle shortly after. "That transformation again," Mystic said. "I always thought it was really annoying. But when I look at you now, I can only find it funny," he added.

Star Twinkle lowered his eyebrows confused. "Why is that?" He asked.

Mystic explained. "Because it's incomplete," he said. "This transformation...Terra Unisus...could make you much more powerful if you actually could use it properly. But as of now, you can only grow a horn or wings separately instead of gaining powers from all pony races," he explained.

It was not the first time Star Twinkle heard those words. Terra Unisus, an incomplete transformation, those words were said to him before. Gaining the power of all pony races? What was this supposed to mean? But there was a more important question that circled around Star Twinkle's mind.

"How do you know so much about this transformation all of a sudden?" Star Twinkle asked.

Mystic grinned. Star Twinkle did not like that one bit and started to get nervous now. You simply don't want a pony like Mystic smiling confidently like this. He was up to something and the group knew it.

"Instead of telling you, how about I show you?" Mystic then said with a sinister smile on his face.

The stallion stood ready. Magic started to surround the stallion. He was concentrating heavily on what he was doing now. For some reason, it looked familiar to Star Twinkle. It began to hit him shortly after. He knew what Mystic was about to do but when he realized what was going on, it was already too late.

A flash of light came from Mystic, blinding the group for a second. When their eyes got a good view of Mystic again, they immediately saw the difference. It was just as Star Twinkle predicted.

Wings...

There were wings on Mystic's back now. He used the same transformation as Star Twinkle to give himself some wings. He used the Terra Unisus Transformation. He was an Alicorn right now.

"No way," Star Twinkle said in his realization.

"He turned into an Alicorn!?" Twilight said in confusion.

The rest of the group had a similar reaction to the transformation of this pony. Mystic was enjoying their expressions and laughed at them. "I did. And unlike you, I possess the complete transformation." the stallion explained before he stood ready to attack. "How about we continue this fight now?" He said.

Without a warning, the stallion used his mist spell once more. It came out a lot faster than before causing Twilight to react a little to slow but she still managed to counter it again. Mystic was probably gonna pop up between them again so everyone got closer to each other to prevent that until Twilight was getting rid of the mist.

But that didn't happen...

"What is going on?" Twilight said confused. She seemed to have already used her spell but the mist was still there. She even tried to use it once more but still, nothing happened. "My magic isn't strong enough to remove it?" She then figured.

"Of course not!" Mystic's voice said, which felt as if it came from everywhere at once because of the mist. "My magic has become much more powerful now. My full potential was released! Not even you, the Element of Magic can hope to keep up with me now! Maybe that wannabe Unicorn stallion could help you out if he could transform properly."

Those words stung. Star Twinkle was thinking about what Mystic said before. If Star Twinkle was able to use his transformation to turn into an Alicorn himself, would that mean that he would be a better help now? Is that what Mystic was hinting at? Star Twinkle tried to transform into an Alicorn before and it never turned out well for him, if it worked at all.

"Don't let him get to you!" Twilight said, causing Star Twinkle to calm down again.

"He is just trying to provoke you, darling," Rarity said.

"We can still take care of him!" Rainbow Dash added confidently.

But Mystic seemed to disagree. "I wonder about that!"

A magic beam was being shot at the group. Luckily, Twilight already had a shield up to protect everyone to block it. Still, she seemed to have trouble keeping her shield up. That one blast from Mystic seemed to have been pretty strong.

"Is he really that strong now?" Star Twinkle wondered. Twilight was the only one who could keep up with him and she was having trouble already. On top of that, no one could see anything. They needed to act fast.

"Rainbow Dash! Can't you do anything about this mist?" Star Twinkle asked.

Of course, Rainbow Dash was all too willing to help and attempted something. It was mist, meaning weather, meaning a skillful flyer like Rainbow Dash should be able to do something. And something she did. The mare used her speed to circle around the area to slowly remove the mist from this area.

They were finally able to see something again but they wish they hadn't. Mystic was standing there, behind him there were a bunch of trees floating in the air, that he had ripped out of the ground. The stallion smiled at the group as if he was looking forward to continuing this fight.

"Oh boy," Applejack said as soon as she realized what was about to happen next.

Mystic then threw one tree after another at the seven ponies, forcing them to dodge out of the way. Leaves and branches were flying all over the place while Mystic enjoyed every moment of it. Twilight managed to get up in the air, she shot a magic beam at Mystic, and the stallion countered with a shot of his own. There wasn't even an impact, Mystic's beam completely decimated Twilight's. The mare widened her eyes in shock but she still managed to teleport out of the way in time to dodge. Who knows what would have happened if she got hit by that.

In the meantime, the others prepared another attack. Since Mystic so kindly threw those trees at them, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie straight out kicked one of the smaller trees back at Mystic. They managed to give it a good kick and it flew right at the stallion.

But Mystic was not impressed, he simply shot at the tree and it got destroyed in one good shot without him needing to even move out of the way.

Star Twinkle saw one more opportunity to attack, just like before. Mystic was distracted by another attack just now and Star Twinkle was taking advantage of it. Not the most graceful way to fight but at least he got a hit in.

If he would have hit...

"I'm not falling for that again!" Mystic said before. He was keeping a good eye on Star Twinkle this whole time since he expected him to attack like this again. And as he expected further, Star Twinkle shot a magic beam at him, which Mystic simply avoided by spreading his wings and flying up at the sky. His counter was a shot right in front of Star Twinkle's hooves, causing a shockwave to make the stallion fall down to the ground.

Some of the girls came to his help immediately and Mystic planned to attack them as well but Twilight was just hovering behind Mystic to stop him. She used her magic to keep the stallion in place, something that he noticed rather quickly.

The stallion turned his head to face Twilight, his purple eyes staring right at her in excitement. Shortly after, he used his own magic to surround himself. It was as if his magic was overwriting Twilight's so that he could free himself again. The stallion turned around and grinned. Twilight found herself getting frozen by Mystic's magic and then thrown at the walls of the Forgotten Castle.

Twilight was falling down to the ground in pain, her head spinning from the impact. Star Twinkle saw this unfolding before his eyes and got angry at Mystic. He didn't think and just transformed from his Unicorn to his Pegasus form and flew right at the stallion in his anger. He figured that if magic isn't working too good, then he just had to do it the old fashioned way.

"Wait!" He could hear Rarity screaming after him as if she wanted to tell him that this was a bad idea but Star Twinkle ignored her and her warning.

Star Twinkle was charging at Mystic at an unusually fast speed. Seeing how he was hurting his friends like this was too much for him to compose himself. He had to do something. The stallion was right in front of Mystic and planned to use his front hoof to give Mystic a good smack in the face, wiping away grin of him.

Smack!

...

Star Twinkle's hoof connected but still, Mystic was flying there in the air, as if nothing happened.

"What!?" Star Twinkle said in shock after he saw how his punch had no effect at all. It was only a few seconds later when he noticed how Mystic surrounded himself in a thin layer of magic to protect himself. It was enough to shield him from Star Twinkle's punch.

And of course, Mystic was highly enjoying this. "As I said before...you are only funny to me now," he said.

Star Twinkle felt helpless. His efforts ended up being in vain and Mystic was completely overpowering him just like every time before. Mystic didn't even bother to attack back and just flew up higher in the air. "This is getting boring," he said. "You all stand no chance against me! I'm not even trying right now!" He explained followed by some laughter. He had the fun of his life right now. "I honestly feel really sad that ponies like you managed to get in my way before. But I guess seeing you all in this miserable state is all worth it!"

Now Rainbow Dash was getting offended. "I'll show you who is miserable!" She said before she charged at the stallion now.

Mystic simply used his magic to pull a brick out of the castle and threw it to the mare, causing her to get hit in the chest and falling to the ground. Luckily, Fluttershy was there to catch the mare in time before she would crash to the ground and hurt herself even more.

"Rainbow!" Star Twinkle exclaimed in worry before his eyes were focused on Mystic again, filled with anger.

"What?" Mystic asked mockingly. "You look as if you are trying to pay me back for that. Go ahead and try. You saw that ended up," he said.

It made Star Twinkle even angrier to know that Mystic was right. He couldn't do anything. He was not strong enough. Mystic was too strong and he was too weak. Now Star Twinkle got angry because of how frustrating this situation was.

"Terrible feeling isn't it?" Mystic asked. "You really want to protect something but you are simply too weak to do it. You could easily avoid that by simply not caring about anyone. That way, you won't feel helpless like that anymore," the stallion advised. His voice did not sound mockingly but rather sad at this moment but Star Twinkle was too angry right now to pay it any attention.

Mystic focused some of his magic again. He raised his hooves up in the air and a big ball of magic started to form above his head. It got bigger and bigger and he was about to launch that big ball of magic at Star Twinkle any second now. Star Twinkle didn't know how to react, he wasn't an expert in terms of magic but he knew that what was about to happen next would really hurt.

"Look out! Star Twinkle!" Twilight shouted as soon as she got up again after Mystic's hit from before. She wanted to do something but she still felt a little dizzy and couldn't act fast enough to save Star Twinkle in time.

"Oh no!" Fluttershy exclaimed in shock, wanting to help Star Twinkle as well but there was not enough time.

Mystic was ready. He had a huge victorious grin on his face. This attack was gonna leave a lot of damage to everything in its path. Star Twinkle was frozen. What was he supposed to do now? He couldn't do anything against this attack. He couldn't hurt Mystic. This was hopeless.

"Eat this!" Mystic exclaimed before he lowered his hooves to throw the magic ball over his head towards Star Twinkle. "Ugh!?"

Mystic stopped. His eyes widened in shock. He started to breathe heavily. Without him realizing it, the magic ball vanished and he slowly hovered towards the ground. He was exhausted and panted heavily. The next thing that happened, was his wings vanishing again.

Of course, Star Twinkle was really confused about what happened here. "He transformed back?" He thought.

Mystic looked at his own hoof and clenched his teeth. "You gotta be kidding me!?" He said in frustration.

Twilight, as well as the rest of the girls, started to join Star Twinkle, causing Mystic to step back now. At first, Star Twinkle was confused, like everyone else but then it hit him. He knew why this was happening. He probably was the only one who encountered this problem as well.

"You're not accustomed to it," he said towards the panting stallion in front of him.

Mystic looked at Star Twinkle. "What!?" He said angrily.

Star Twinkle explained. "Whenever I tried to transform, at first, it was really exhausting. It can be quite difficult to uphold this form. I even tried to grow both a horn and wings at the same time but just attempting that was way too exhausting. If what you said was true, and that you possess the complete transformation, then I can only imagine how hard it is to keep it up for long," he said, much to Mystic's dislike.

"Isn't that good to know," Mystic replied sarcastically. He was still out of breath and unable to fight but it didn't seem to affect his usual demeanor.

Once everyone realized how Mystic was in no state to continue fighting, the rest of the group walked closer to both Star Twinkle and Mystic who stood a few meters away from each other.

Mystic didn't like to admit it but he was not going to win this battle. He looked over to the group and began smiling "Looks like you successfully bested me again...what a bother," the stallion said annoyed. "But it doesn't matter. I keep getting more powerful. Soon I will have enough power that no one will be able to stop me! And with that much power...I will be able to destroy all of Equestria!"

He was beginning to get mad. Everyone looked at the stallion as if they didn't know what to do with him. But Mystic was not going crazy, he seemed rather sane and to top it of serious about all those things he said. Star Twinkle heard him say stuff like this before in the Forgotten Castle. It frightened him that a pony with this mindset existed but at the same time he wanted to help him get those thoughts out of his head.

"Why?" Star Twinkle asked. "Why are you so fixated on destroying Equestria?"

Mystic looked at Star Twinkle, his purple eyes looking into Star Twinkle's light green eyes for quite a while before he gave an answer. "I won't waste my time explaining my reasons to someone who couldn't even begin to understand," he said.

"You could still try," Star Twinkle shot back.

Mystic snickered a little under his breath. He was not taking Star Twinkle seriously. Still, since he was in this rather dangerous situation, he figured he should give it a try. "Alright then," the stallion paused before he would continue.

Suddenly, Mystic raised his horn into the air. He took advantage of the situation and used a spell to create some mist around the area again.

"Oh no!" Twilight said in a panic before she was at it to remove the spell with her magic again.

But it was too late...Mystic took the cover of the mist to escape. That little escape window was enough for him to get away in time.

"Where is he!?" Fluttershy asked confused.

"He must have run into the forest," Applejack guessed.

"Then let's look for him!" Rainbow Dash said.

"No," Twilight then said, much to the confusion of everyone else. "He is very crafty, I bet if we follow him into this forest he will ambush us the moment he gets a chance," she explained. "There is also a chance that he could use that transformation again..."

The later sentence made the group realize that it was smarter to stay away from Mystic for now. If he would use Terra Unisus transformation again, then things could get dangerous for them. He was dangerous and needed to be taken care of but it needs more than these seven ponies to do that. It left a bitter taste in everyone's mouth to let Mystic go but they all had to admit that Twilight made a valid point.

There was also still something left to do, most likely. The map was sending them to this place and they still didn't find their friendship problem. It was probably waiting inside the castle so the group decided to go inside for now.

Meanwhile...

Magic blasts were shot all over the dark hallways of the Forgotten Castle. An intense fight between Summershine and the pony in the black armor took place. Both of them seemed rather even when it came to strength.

"Will you let me leave!?" Summershine exclaimed as he was dodging another magic blast coming from his opponent. He didn't even know who the pony behind that armor was except someone who was teaming up with Arcana, someone he knew had no good intentions. This pony must have not been any different.

During the whole fight, the armored pony didn't say a single word to Summershine, giving him no clue about who it could be. The fact that this pony was working with Arcana though, gave him enough reason to be careful.

The pony in the black armor charged right at Summershine who was teleporting out of the way and appeared to the pony's left and shot a magic blast at it. The armored pony ducked under the shot and jumped at the Unicorn to attack him. Summershine countered by using a shield spell to protect himself. The pony clashed against it and jumped backward. He waited for Summershine to lower his shield again.

Summershine kept a close look on the pony. "Whoever that is, he or she is not that good with magic. So far I could only see it shooting magic blasts..." the stallion figured.

The pony in the armor, spread its wings, much to Summershine's confusion. Shortly after, the pony took flight and flew over his head. "It can use magic and fly?" Summershine said. "Is it an Alicorn!?" He guessed.

The Unicorn had little time to figure things out before the armored pony launched another attack. It shot at the ceiling, causing some rocks to fall down right at Summershine who had no choice but to jump out of the way. Once he got up again, he noticed that he lost sight of the armored pony.

It was pretty dark in this castle and the pitch-black armor helped Summershine's opponent to perfectly blend into it. Summershine was not taking a chance to get ambushed by this pony so he decided to light up the place using his horn.

As the place was lightened up, the armored pony was jumping at Summershine from behind. But the Unicorn was prepared. He knew that as soon as the place was no longer dark, he was gonna get attacked, which is why he planned to teleport away and then attack while the armored pony was charging him.

It worked like a charm...

Summershine teleported away, leaving a confused armored pony behind. The next attack came from behind, where Summershine was at. He placed a shot right at the pony. The pony in the black armor turned around in the very last moment to see the attack coming right at it but it was already too late. It got hit directly in the face, causing the helmet of the Armored Pony to fall on the ground, the sound of it bouncing and rolling around in the room was echoing through the whole room.

Summershine was panting, the battle came to a little halt. It gave him time to catch his breath. However, he stopped breathing for a moment. It was right after he had a clear view of the Armored Ponies' face.

"...What?...You?" Is the only thing he could say after seeing the face of the pony in front of him.

There were a million questions in Summershine's head right now. Confusion, disbelieve, shock, all those things made up the mind of the stallion right now. It didn't make things better that the pony in the armor was not saying anything, even though it's identity was now revealed to the stallion.

Summershine just now remembered how to breathe again. He was panting, not because of exhaustion but because he was confused and couldn't comprehend what he was seeing now.

"What is going on here?" He asked the pony in front of him, demanding an answer from it.

Meanwhile...

Star Twinkle and his friends were walking around the castle, trying to find out a clue about their friendship mission. But all that this visit did to them was bringing back some memories about their last time in this castle.

"So..." Applejack started. "What do you think we need to do here?" She asked.

Rarity knew the answer to that. "What I think this castle needs is a complete reorganization. This place looks absolutely terrible!" She said in disgust as she took a good look around the place. It was good that everyone was back in their high spirits again, especially after that encounter with Mystic before.

Suddenly, Star Twinkle was feeling a little tingly. And it came from his flank. He looked over to it and saw how his Cutie Mark was glowing. "What!?" He asked confused, grabbing everyone's attention in the meantime.

"Oh! You finally got a glowing Cutie Mark!" Pinkie Pie said happily before tears started running down her face. "I am so happy for you!" She added overly dramatic.

The others were happy for Star Twinkle about this as well but more than that they were confused, especially Twilight. "But why is it acting up like this? I thought a glowing Cutie Mark meant that we solved a problem," she pointed out.

"But we didn't do anything," Rainbow Dash added.

Twilight was aware of that as well, which is why this whole situation was very confusing. Before they could figure out something though, Star Twinkle's Cutie Mark was flying up at the ceiling and towards a staircase. It was just like whenever the Cutie Marks of the girls pointed at a certain spot at the map in Twilight's castle.

"It's going upstairs!" Rarity said.

"Then let's follow it!" Twilight said before she looked over to Star Twinkle.

The stallion didn't know what was happening, as usual, but his Cutie Mark was giving him a sign. No matter the reason why this was happening, Star Twinkle was determined to follow his Cutie Mark. There was a chance that it was leading him to Summershine. No, he was pretty sure that it would lead it to him.

"Let's go!" The stallion said. He actually was leading the way for once because he couldn't wait to where his Cutie Mark was leading him.

The girls followed him right behind. They couldn't afford to lose sight of Star Twinkle's Cutie Mark. It was the only lead they got after all. There is no way that this was happening spontaneously after all.

Star Twinkle was more determined than ever. "Summershine. I know you are here!" He thought, begging that it was true. If he would repeat it in his head over and over again, then hopefully it would come true.

In the meantime, Summershine was still trying to comprehend what was happening now. He stared at the now revealed face of the armored pony. He was still confused and wanted answers.

"Summershine!" Star Twinkle's voice could be heard, making its way upstairs.

"Huh!?" Summershine turned around to face the stairs. Hearing Star Twinkle's voice all of a sudden caught him completely by surprise. He almost didn't know how to react to it.

As Summershine was distracted by Star Twinkle's voice, the pony in the black armor took the opportunity to grab its helmet and put it on again. Once Summershine realized that was happening, the pony in the black armor was already making its escape and jumped out of a window. It bothered Summershine that the pony escaped, especially since he now knew who was behind that armor. The pony escaped, that much Summershine had to accept. On top of that, Star Twinkle was nearby as well. There was only one thing for him left to do...

A few seconds later, Star Twinkle appeared in the room...

Summershine was gone, there was no one left in this room, not that Star Twinkle would know that there was someone in here, to begin with. The Cutie Mark, that led him in here did not react anymore and he was left without any more clue.

The rest of his friends entered the room shortly after and quickly realized that there was no one inside this room as well. All they could see was Star Twinkle standing there with a frown on his face.

"He was here...I know it..." He could just say at this moment.

Later...

The group was confused about why they were called to this place. They didn't know what their friendship mission was and looked all over the place, even inside the forest but there was no one here anymore. When it came to Mystic, that was probably a good thing.

There were more pressing matters to take care of anyway. The group came across the same pillar as Summershine did. Twilight didn't know what to make out of that. She went so far as to ask Princess Celestia herself about what it could be. Luckily, the mare used a spell to send a letter to the princess without the help of Spike. It came in handy in situations like this.

Twilight explained everything, from their meeting with Mystic, to the Forgotten Castle, to the pillar that they found inside of it. After explaining all of those things, Twilight expected the princess to answer anytime soon but what happened instead was Princess Celestia showing up personally. She either must have been worried about them encountering Mystic again or that one pillar that they found was more important than they expected.

With the princess at the same place though, everyone felt a little bit safer now. She didn't waste much time and walked up to the pillar. "Interesting..." she just commented at first.

"Do you know what this pillar is supposed to be?" Twilight asked.

Princess Celestia's look was almost fixated on a specific spot on this pillar. The symbols on it, the second one from the top to be exact, the one with the dark orange and the gray color. "I do know that this one was grayed out the last time I checked," she pointed out.

This was grabbing Twilight's attention. "Is that so? What do those lights mean?" She asked.

"I'm not completely sure, there is something odd about it whenever I focus on this pillar though. I can show you if you are interested," she offered.

"Of course we are!" Twilight replied. "Right?" She asked her friends, all of them agreeing with her except Star Twinkle who was in his own world again.

"Huh?" The stallion asked confused. He did not pay attention since his mind wandered around again. He couldn't help but feel bad that he missed Summershine. He just knew that he was here only moments earlier and he couldn't help thinking about it. However, Star Twinkle had to admit that he was interested in this pillar as well and he wanted to know more about it so he decided to listen.

Instead of explaining it to everyone though, she decided to show them something. It sorta happened on its own, the white and dark blue colored symbol acted up and pictures started to show up above the pillar. It showed something that looked awfully familiar to Twilight.

It showed Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, or rather, Nightmare Moon. It was the fated night where they both fought against each other, the night where Princess Luna was banished to the moon. It showed bits and pieces of their fight and then it disappeared again.

"Wow!" Rainbow Dash said amazed. "That was awesome!" She added.

"Why did it show us this?" Fluttershy added.

Princess Celestia explained what she knew about all of this. "I am not completely sure what this pillar is supposed to be. It only shows me the battle that I had with my sister, whenever I try to get a reaction out of it," she said. Her eyes wandered on the symbols of this pillar again. "You see that symbol that consists of a white and dark blue color? This symbol only lightened up after my battle with Luna," she further explained.

"Why?" Star Twinkle asked on behalf of everyone else.

The princess explained further. "I have a little theory," she said. "I suspect that all of those symbols represent a battle that has taken place at some point. That light orange and red one for example. I remember it lightened up after two other powerful ponies clashes against each other a few hundred years ago," she said.

"Who?" Twilight asked out of curiosity.

Princess Celestia continued. "One of them was the famous Unicorn Sun Swirl, a decedent of Star Swirl the Bearded," she said. That name rang a bell to Star Twinkle, he remembered Twilight talking about him before at some point. "The name of the other one was...Arcana," she added. That name did not sound familiar to Star Twinkle though, neither did it to anyone else in the room. "From what I knew...both of them were friends but ended up fighting. It was Arcana who started the fight for reasons that I am not too familiar with but given how powerful he was, his victory would have meant nothing good for Equestria. This all leads me to believe that the symbols all light up whenever two ponies clash against each other and the future of Equestria is at stake. Just like it was with me and my sister."

Those were certainly some interesting news. Of course, Rainbow Dash wanted to see all those awesome battles but Princess Celestia was unable to show them to her. She could only access her own battle for some reason. There was also another thing that bothered some of the ponies.

"There is still one left," Star Twinkle pointed out. It was the still grayed out one at the top. "What happens if that one lights up as well?" He asked.

But Princess Celestia did not know the answer to that. "I am not sure. This pillar was around for a long time so it was clear that someday all of the symbols would light up at some point but I never figured out what would happen if that was the case," she said.

"Maybe something good will happen?" Fluttershy said in high spirits.

"Or maybe something really bad?" Applejack said, being on the more worrying side.

There really wasn't any point thinking about it. They would either find out sooner or later. The last symbol could light up tomorrow or one thousand years from now on. It's not like they could control it or anything. The princess was telling them all the same thing. Worrying about it would only get them frustrated and Star Twinkle, for example, had already enough things to worry about.

The group figured that there was no point in staying in this castle anymore. They didn't find their friendship mission and none of their Cutie Marks reacted in any way. Not that they were summoned here, to begin with.

Twilight, who was reading a scroll after Princess Celestia was done explaining, let out a sigh. She was sending a letter to Spike to ask if anything on the map changed and judging from her reaction, that seemed to be the case.

"It looks like, the Cutie Marks on the map vanished again," she shared with the group.

"Which means..." Applejack started.

"We wasted our time!" Rainbow Dash finished.

"I still thought it was fun!" Pinkie Pie said, bouncing up and down on the spot.

Rarity was seeing the positive thing about this. "I guess that means we can go home again?" She asked.

"Looks like it," Star Twinkle assumed.

Twilight was then walking up to the stallion in order to comfort him. "I'm sure we find another clue about Summershine again," she said.

Star Twinkle appreciated those words. "Yes...maybe..." he replied. He was not hiding his disappointment and he wanted to believe in those words too. He was not giving up. As he walked outside the castle with his friends and the princess, his mind was still fixed on only one thing.

"Summershine...I will find you!" He vowed.

And with those words on his mind, the trip back to Ponyville started. He decided to forget about Summershine for now. He needed to relax for the rest of the day. There was too much action for him in one day. Whatever happens will happen someday, just like with that pillar.

...

As the group walked away from the castle, unbeknownst to them, a hooded figure was watching them. It was not clear who it was since this figure was wearing a gray hood, covering all of its body.
Shortly after, someone else was teleporting itself right behind the hooded figure. This someone also wore a gray hood, concealing its identity.

"Yo!" The second hooded figure greeted in a friendly tone. The voice of this figure was male. The first hooded figure didn't respond and didn't even turn around the moment the other someone appeared. This seemed to have upset the second hooded figure. "Not much of words, as usual, I see," he said before he walked up to the first hooded figure.

Now both of them were watching Star Twinkle and his friends leaving the castle. The second figure seemed interested in watching them. "Even the princess is here. Sure is a great opportunity to get out hooves at the Elements of Harmony," he figured. He then looked over to the other hooded figure. "I mean, you could have easily taken care of them. Shouldn't have given you any problems after all," he pointed out.

"Not now," the first hooded figure replied, revealing itself to be male as well. "You know that," he added.

"Yeah, yeah, I know..." the second figure replied. "Wouldn't want a plan that is so long in the making to be ruined after all," he figured. "You think any of them pieced together what the pillar was about?" He then asked.

The first hooded figure shook his head. "Doesn't matter. You can't change fate that easily even if you wanted to," he explained. "Even if things get ruined, then it just means more waiting," he added.

That didn't seem to sit right with the second hooded figure though. "Hey, I know you don't have a problem waiting this long but I would like to get things rolling as soon as possible," he said. For the first time, the other figure was turning his head towards him now, causing the second figure to shrug his shoulders. "Don't worry, I'll stick with the plan," he said before sighing. "From what it looks like, I don't think I have to wait for that much longer anyway. Things are lining up pretty well recently," he said.

"Yes...they do..." the first figure said.

The second figure sighed once more before then walking away again. "Well, I'm off now, just wanted to see what you were up too. Don't stay for too long. It would be really shocking if something happened to you," he said before he walked away, only to turn around once more. "Get it?" He then said amused before he spread his wings and flew away.

The other figure followed shortly after only stopping to look back for a moment before then also spreading his wings to fly away from the castle without a word.

Author's Notes:

Alright, I threw a lot of stuff at you all at once but it is important for the long run of this story. As usual, I am really curious about some of your theories.

Your thoughts on Mystic?
What is it with this pillar?
Will something happen if the last light goes on?
How will the light turn on?
Who did Summershine see behind the mask of the armored pony?
Who were those two figures at the end?

I also put a little reference to the Brotherhooves Social into this chapter since I skipped it. I felt as if I needed to do at least that.

I had fun writing this chapter and I hope you had fun reading it. Let me know if you did ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

107. The Marks are on!

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It felt like a long time ago since Star Twinkle had to come to the Cutie Mark Crusaders Clubhouse. The main reason for that being that he got his Cutie Mark already and was no longer in need to try out multiple things to get it. At least that is what he thought was the reason. He was glad that he no longer had to accompany them on their crazy adventure but at the same time, he also missed it.

But now with him being the only member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders who actually got his Cutie Mark, he felt as if he needed to apologize or do something to make it up to them. The girls most likely planned that everyone got their Cutie Marks at the same time. Him showing up to accompany them to their quest now would certainly make them feel uncomfortable. They were probably doubting themselves and asked questions about why Star Twinkle got his Cutie Mark and they don't.

"This is...awkward..." the stallion said just thinking about this scenario.

He had a Cutie Mark, and they didn't. The three fillies were still in pursuit of their destiny or special talent and Star Twinkle had found his. Granted, they told him that he is still a Cutie Mark Crusader-Honorary member but now it felt to him as if they just allowed him to stick around because they got stuck with him. This all could have just been in Star Twinkle's head of course.

As the stallion walked closer to the treehouse, he could already hear the voices of the three fillies. He was about to enter but he instead decided to put his ears against the door to figure out what was going in there.

"Singing?" He said confused as he continued listening.

"'Cause the Cutie Mark Crusaders don't give in
We'll make our mark
One way or another
We'll make our mark
On the day that we discover
The ultimate reward of our cutie marks!"

Hearing the upbeat voices of the three fillies inside the treehouse did surprise the stallion. Then again, the three were always good at keeping their motivation sky high when it came to Cutie Marks.

"That is a good sign," Star Twinkle said to himself before he opened the door to enter the clubhouse. Obviously now was the best time to enter and talk with the girls.

As the stallion entered, he was greeted by three huge smiles. It was the kind of smile that told him that they were ready to tackle the day. "Now that the last member arrived, we can start finding our Cutie Marks!" Apple Bloom announcement, completely ruling out the possibility that this could be another day where they would fail to archive exactly that.

Scootaloo then looked over to Star Twinkle as if she tried to find something out about him. "What do you think we should do?" She then asked.

"What?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

"Yes!" Sweetie Belle agreed, even though Star Twinkle was not really sure to what. "You managed to get your Cutie Mark so you know better than any of us how to get one!" She pointed out.

"Uhh..." was the only thing Star Twinkle could reply for now.

The three fillies seemed to have come to the conclusion that Star Twinkle knew all about Cutie Marks now. That could not be further away from the truth though. Even if it was true, Cutie Marks are unique to everyone so him giving them tips would end up being in vain. Adding that up to what the three already tried so far and you'll end up with advice that will most likely disappoint them if they would fail.

But then again, he could turn this all around and avoid accompanying them on some crazy task and talk them into some easier things. Star Twinkle did not want to manipulate those three though. He just realized that he probably thought too much into all of this and that he should give some kind of answer before they realized what kind of battle he was having in his mind.

Thankfully, they were all interrupted by some words that a little colt shouted at them from outside.

"Cutie Mark Crusaders! Help!" The voice of a little colt said.

If his memory served him right, then this little pony was Pipsqueak, the little colt that moved from Trottingham to Ponyville a while ago. He remembered him back at Nightmare Night, the first one he and the little colt ever attended. It didn't take long until Star Twinkle realized how perfect Pipsqueaks timing was. "Hey! That sounds important!" He said in a slightly faked worry something that the three fillies quickly saw through.

Still, it did sound urgent, judging from how worried the little pony looked so Apple Bloom did ask. "What's wrong, Pipsqueak?"

The little colt explained. "I'm running for student pony president, I was hoping you would be my campaign managers!"

"We've never tried gettin' our cutie marks in campaign managin'!" Apple Bloom pointed out.

For Star Twinkle it was just important that this was not a dangerous or ridiculous thing. Compared to what they all tried so far, campaign managing sounded like a breeze so of course, he was on board. "What do ya say, Crusaders?" Apple Bloom then asked.

It didn't take long until everyone agreed to help Pipsqueak. "Yeah!" The other two fillies replied before they all sealed it with a hoof bump. Pipsqueak tried to join in as well but since the three hoofs bumped so high in the air, his little size came in the way. Luckily, Sweetie Belle used some of her magic to lift him up so that he could reach as well.

Star Twinkle was happy that him having a Cutie Mark was not discussed at all and quickly brushed off. He part of the group as always as if nothing happened and that is exactly how he liked it. On top of that, the three ponies were assigned to do something not dangerous so he didn't have to worry about too much. With that said though, they still needed to succeed in helping Pipsqueak.

Later...

The task for the Cutie Mark Crusaders was pretty easy. All they had to do was convincing every student to vote for Pipsqueak. They knew that Pipsqueak could be trusted with whatever he intended to do for the students so they just needed to make sure that everyone was aware of this as well.

Star Twinkle was no student at this school, however, so the things he could do were limited but Miss Cheerilee offered the stallion to count the votes later on. It was easy enough and not complicated at all so of course, he was all too willing to do it. There was still some time left and the stallion just had to wait until that though. He was standing in front of the door of the Ponyville school with Miss Cheerilee standing next to him.

"In only a few minutes the voting will start," Miss Cheerilee informed to the stallion. "Maybe you should go inside already?" She asked.

"I'll just wait a few more minutes," Star Twinkle replied. He did want to see how things turn out with the Crusaders taking care of everything.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders started their campaign. They provided a little box for Pipsqueak to stand on so that everyone would have a clear view on him and Apple Bloom already started to get things rolling.

"So, Pip, how would you help the school if you were elected student pony president?" She said loudly enough so that every student around would hear it which was of course intended.

Pipsqueak played along. "Our playground equipment took quite a beating during Twilight's battle with Tirek!" He pointed. Coincidentally, something broke on the playground right after he mentioned it. "If I'm voted in as student pony president, I'll go to the school board and right this wrong!" He assured.

That was enough for the group to cheer for the colt. Things already started to look good without the help of Cutie Mark Crusaders. But of course, there was one obstacle standing in their way and the name of the obstacle...was Diamond Tiara.

"Well, I think that's a ridiculous waste of money!" The little pony said as she showed up in front of everyone. "It's just like when Twist proposed to repair the window that Discord destroyed! She just wanted to repair it like a plain old schoolhouse window," she explained.

Hearing all those reasons of why things needed to be repaired made Star Twinkle realize just how many times dangerous things happened in this town. Those bad guys really need to stay out of this town in the future if everyone wanted it to still stand.

Diamond Tiara continued. "But you all know voting for me was the best choice because I convinced the school board to give that window visual appeal!" She said as she pointed towards the window, which turned out to be a colored window with Diamond Tiara on it, similar to the windows in Canterlot Castle.

Star Twinkle lowered his eyebrows. "So that is how that happened..." he said quietly to himself.

But Apple Bloom pointed out how Diamond Tiara managed to do that. "'Course, it doesn't hurt that her mother Spoiled Rich is president of the school board," she said boldly. It was obvious that Diamond Tiara herself was not putting any work into anything as long as she had her mother and her money to take care of things.

Diamond Tiara was fully aware of this too and so was her friend Silver Spoon who, as always, was on Diamond Tiara's side. "Exactly! Which is why when Diamond Tiara is voted student pony president, the school will be putting a statue of her in the center of our schoolyard!" She announced happily.

Instead of showing some excitement though, Diamond Tiara, for some reason clenched her teeth and looked rather angry. "Silver Spoon!" That was my big announcement for when I won!" She said. The filly clearly was not happy that her friend was revealing that surprise.

"I was only trying to help," Silver Spoon replied in her defense.

"I don't need that kind of help!" Diamond Tiara returned, her teeth still gritting in anger as she spoke those words.

But Apple Bloom knew what to say to all of this. "Haven't we all had enough of Diamond Tiara?" She said.

"Do we really need a big statue of her?" Scootaloo agreed.

"Especially where our playground equipment should be?" Sweetie Belle pointed out.

Every foal on the playground was whispering back and forth now. They knew that what the Cutie Mark Crusaders said was true. Pipsqueak was trying to make the school a better place while Diamond Tiara just thought of herself and her image.

"A vote for Pip is a vote for the playground!" Pipsqueak said.

"A vote for Diamond Tiara is a vote for more Diamond Tiara!" Diamond Tiara said.

For Star Twinkle, even if he would not be on the side of the Crusaders, the decision who to vote for was obvious but he did not need to vote, it was the students who needed to and he just hoped that they would all do the right decision.

Luckily, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were there to remind everyone of the right decision.

"It's time to make a change!" Apple Bloom said.

"Don't be afraid to do what's right!" Scootaloo added.

"He's it! Vote for Pip!" Sweetie Belle added.

The three joined in together. "A vote for Pip means having a change and fun again!" The three said in unison, lifting up the little colt in the air for everyone to see.

Everyone quickly cheered at the sight of the little pony in excitement. Everyone except Diamond Tiara of course.

"I don't believe what I am hearing!" She said in disgust. "Pipsqueak? Try "Pip's weak!" Don't you think? You better vote for me, not the weakest link!" She said in a rather serious and intimidating tone. The little pony then walked among the ponies, her facial expression showing anything but friendliness.

"Everypony has their little secrets, a vote for me will help you keep them safe," she said, which started to sound as if she tried threatening everyone now. It definitely seemed as if some of the ponies felt addressed by those words, much like how Diamond Tiara planned it.

"Come on now, ponies! Don't listen to her!" Apple Bloom said.

"You don't have to worry about any of that when you vote for Pip!" Scootaloo added.

"Yes! You don't have to live in fear when he is voted!" Sweetie Belle pointed out.

This all went back and forth for a while. The Cutie Mark Crusaders did a good job showing everyone why voting for Diamond Tiara was a bad idea. It also helped that Diamond Tiara was slowly digging her own hole with her ideas. Some ponies already turned in their votes in a nearby voting cabin. Diamond Tiara realized that they were all not voting for her so eventually, she decided to take another direction to pursue everyone for her cause.

"Stop! Everypony who hasn't voted, listen up!" She said, grabbing everyone's attention once more. "Pip makes promises he can't keep! Who says that I can't be nice?" She said before she went up to some ponies with some gifts, which included some sweets, new schoolbags, and other things. "There is a lot from where that came from and it can all be yours. And to get those things, all I want from you is just a vote," she assured with a wide grin on her face.

As Star Twinkle was watching all of this unfold, he could see how some ponies were actually considering voting for her now. "Come on now," the stallion thought, looking at the Cutie Mark Crusaders in hope that they would come up with something to preventing Diamond Tiara to get her votes. He was sure that Diamond Tiara would not keep her word and that she just said that because she wanted to get some more votes.

Silver Spoon saw how not everyone was convinced to vote for her friend yet. She decided to help out a little to keep things in Diamond Tiara's favor. "I've a tiny suggestion. You could probably win this election if you show them all you real—"

"I don't recall asking you to speak!" Diamond Tiara then interrupted annoyed in a sudden outburst that left everyone speechless.

Sweetie Belle quickly took advantage of that ill behavior. "Well, if that's how you treat your best friend, then I choose Pipsqueak!"

Most of the ponies came to the same realization that Diamond Tiara was not caring one bit about anything other than winning this. Sweetie Belle was right, if her best friend was treated like that then how would she treat everyone else? For this one short moment she was showing her true face and everyone could see it clearly.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but smile at this. He saw how everyone was whispering to each other while looking at Diamond Tiara. It was a clear sign that they all came to the conclusion to vote for Pipsqueak and Star Twinkle knew that the winner was already decided.

"Guess that takes care of that," he said under his breath.

A little later...

Inside the school, Star Twinkle just got done counting the votes and telling Miss Cheerilee the results. The mare was already outside and was now ready to tell everyone who won.

"The votes have been counted!" Miss Cheerilee announced. This prompted both Pipsqueak and Diamond Tiara to stand ready for the result. Pipsqueak was really nervous, going so far biting his own hooves while Diamond Tiara looked more confident than ever to win this vote.

Miss Cheerilee did not waste any more time and then announced the winner. "The student pony president is... Pipsqueak!"

"Huh?!" Diamond Tiara said in shock while Pipsqueak was happy and beamed in relief.

Everyone quickly cheered for their new student president. With the exception of Diamond Tiara, everyone was happy with this result, especially the Cutie Mark Crusaders. And of course, Pipsqueak was thanking the Crusaders for their help.

"I couldn't have won without the hard work of my campaign managers, the Cutie Mark Crusaders!" He said in gratitude.

And of course, as soon as Pipsqueak won, the three ponies came to one quick conclusion. "Campaign manager cutie marks!" They all said in unison as they looked back at their flanks, only to see that they still were empty. Star Twinkle could only shake his head as he watched from inside the school building. He expected this outcome of course.

"Guess you're not as good as you thought, blank flanks!" Diamond Tiara said. Even though she just lost, as soon as she saw an opportunity, she took it to be mean to someone again. "In fact, I demand a recount!" She then added.

But Miss Cheerilee assured that this was not necessary. "Trust me, Diamond Tiara. Pip won," she said.

"I'll be the judge of that, Miss Cheerilee!" Diamond Tiara said as she walked past the teacher and right towards Star Twinkle, who was sitting in the middle of the room at a table with all the votes on them.

"Oh boy..." Star Twinkle thought, not looking forward to exchanging words with this pony.

The little angry pony walked up to Star Twinkle. Judging from her annoyed facial expression, she was not looking forward to talking with Star Twinkle as well. But when it came to her victory, she was more than willing to do that.

"Recount my votes!" She demanded angrily as soon as she stood in front of the table where Star Twinkle was sitting at.

But Star Twinkle only gave the filly a deadpan expression. "I don't think this will be necessary," he said without a single care in the world.

Diamond Tiara would not accept this answer though and jumped on the table. "RE-COUNT-MY-VOTES!" She then yelled into his face, much to the stallion's annoyance.

"Okay, okay!" He replied before he took the votes placed next to him. He took a piece of paper sitting on one side, which had Diamond Tiara written on it. The stallion coughed rasped for a moment and then started recounting the votes. "One."

The little pony waited for the stallion to continue. That did not happen though, much to her dislike. "And? Continue! Count my votes!" She demanded.

"I just did. That is all of them," he explained.

"What!?" Diamond Tiara replied in shock. "That can't be right! Let me look!" She said before she took a look at the votes herself. Star Twinkle did not bother to stop her, he actually enjoyed seeing her like that a little bit after how she acted before in front of everyone. Needless to say, Diamond Tiara realized that there really was only one vote for her. "That can't be! All those stupid..." she started to say getting her anger out of all the other young ponies who did not vote for her but she then stopped once she came to another realization. "Wait a second...one vote? That can't be right!" She then said.

Now Star Twinkle sighed in annoyance. "I am not recounting your one vote again..." he said.

"No!" The filly replied with some frustration in her voice. "What I mean is, I know I voted for myself and so did..." but before she could finish her sentence, she ran out of the school to confirm her suspicion herself.

She walked up to Silver Spoon, who did not bother looking at Diamond Tiara at all. "Silver Spoon! You didn't vote for me?!" She then asked.

"No, I didn't," Silver Spoon replied.

Diamond Tiara was shocked to hear that. "But you're my best friend!" She pointed out.

For the first time now, Silver Spoon was looking at Diamond Tiara again. "Am I? 'Cause I tried to help by mentioning your 'surprise' statue, and suddenly I wasn't even allowed to speak!" The pony explained annoyed. "You could have actually won this election if you just listened to me. You wanna know how?" She said before she walked up closer to Diamond Tiara, closing her open jaw in the process. "Sorry. I'm not allowed to speak," she then whispered.

Diamond Tiara could only scream in rage before then running away from all of this. Star Twinkle had a good view of all this. It was satisfying to see Diamond Tiara getting what she deserved. That the Cutie Mark Crusaders helped Pipsqueak winning was of course, also really good.

Miss Cheerilee walked up to Star Twinkle. "I guess your work here is done," she said.

This all concluded Star Twinkle's work here at school. He saw everyone celebrating Pipsqueak's victory outside and didn't want to interrupt them so he decided to just go home. As he was about to leave the school building though, something caught his eyes just outside the window.

He saw a rather upset Diamond Tiara slowly walking away from school, something he did not expect to see at all. The little filly was letting her head hanging and her face looked as if she was about to tear up any second.

Star Twinkle felt bad but then he remembered who that pony, he was watching was. "No need to feel bad, she got what she deserved after all," he said to himself. He tried to convince himself that this was justice for her being mean to everypony. He didn't have a reason to feel bad for her. But the longer he watched the filly, the more he had trouble believing his own words. "She'll just get mad or scream at you if you try to cheer her up again," he said to himself, trying to not get involved.

It didn't work though. She was just a filly and she needed some comfort now, even if she was not appreciating it. He could not just ignore seeing her like that. Maybe he was not the best pony to talk to her right now but he still decided to walk after her. "Why do I have to be like this?" He said annoyed.

The stallion followed Diamond Tiara into town. All this time, she kept her head hanging and didn't bother to look at anyone. Star Twinkle tried to come up with some words of what to say in order to cheer her up again which was difficult to do since the pony who needed to be cheered up was Diamond Tiara who was far away from being the nicest pony in town.

Somepony actually went up to the little filly before he could though. An Earth Pony mare. "Diamond Tiara! Why are you making that face? That is not the face of a winner," she said.

Star Twinkle decided to hide around the corner of a building. "Who is that?" He wondered as he kept watching the two ponies.

The Earth Pony mare had a pink coat color, a dark purple mane, opal colored eyes, and a diamond ring as a Cutie Mark. She also wore an aquamarine blue top and a gold necklace.

Diamond Tiara answered, her voice sounding a little bit scared now. "Because... I didn't win."

"What?!" The mare replied in shock. She pointed at some ponies carrying some stuff right in front of her, one of them carrying a statue that depicted Diamond Tiara. "You mean I hefted all these party supplies to celebrate nothing?!" She asked.

Diamond Tiara could only reply one thing. "Sorry mother," she apologized.

As soon as Star Twinkle heard that, he suddenly saw a resemblance between those two. They somehow had the same air around them. Star Twinkle managed to remember Apple Bloom mentioning Diamond Tiara's mother being the president of the school board before. He then recalled her name being Spoiled Rich.

The mare did not seem to be too happy about the news of her daughter losing and she did not bother hiding it. "It's bad enough you lost to that transplant from Trottingham, but imagine if you'd lost to one of those blank flanks," she said, not being aware of that, ironically, that was the case. "As a Rich pony, you must always think of your social standing. That starts here in Ponyville and reaches all over Equestria. Don't ever forget that, Diamond Tiara. Ever!" The mare yelled in her daughter's face before she walked away, leaving a rather sad Diamond Tiara in the middle of the road.

Being yelled at like this did not help Diamond Tiara to feel better at all and only left her more upset. She walked away with a frown on her face, only it to be replaced with a surprised expression as soon as she saw Star Twinkle standing there in front of him. His face showed signs that he was feeling bad for her, something that Diamond Tiara didn't notice in her surprise.

"What do you want!?" She asked annoyed. She was clearly trying to hide how she felt at this very moment.

"Uh..." Star Twinkle replied. He didn't really know how to tackle this situation at all. Admitting that he was eavesdropping would certainly not make her happy and being nice to her all of a sudden would be really suspicious. But since Star Twinkle already got this far, might as well go all the way. "Talking about pressure, right?" He said, trying to sound casual.

Diamond Tiara widened her eyes in surprise. "You were eavesdropping!?" She asked angrily. It could not be avoided that the filly would get mad at him after he said that. She moved her head right into Star Twinkle's face. "You better not tell anypony or you'll regret it!" She threatened.

"I wasn't planning on telling anypony," Star Twinkle replied. "I just wanted to cheer you up since you looked so down," he added.

The filly's anger was just rising the more the stallion talked. "And who's fault do you think it was!? If I had won everything would be fine! But no, you and those Cutie Mark Loosers just had to show up, as always, and ruin everything!" She exclaimed right in Star Twinkle's face.

But Star Twinkle remained calm. Right now, in front of him, he did not see an angry little filly but rather a frustrated and sad one. The frown on her face before was real, this much he could tell and he wanted to do something about it so he endured

"You probably could have won the vote if you would have used some of your money to actually do some repairs at the playground instead of spending it for a statue. I'm sure everyone would have liked that," he pointed out.

"Yeah, whatever you say," Diamond Tiara said before she just walked past the stallion, ignoring his advice completely.

Star Twinkle did not want to give up though. "Maybe I can help you get on better terms with Silver Spoon again?" He offered.

Diamond Tiara stopped for a moment, a good sign. The look on her face as she turned around though was still filled with annoyance and anger but also a hint of confusion. She started to look around as if she wanted to make sure nopony else was watching or listening to them before she walked over to the stallion.

"Why would you help me? Up until now, I was nothing but mean to you and the Cutie Mark Crusaders," she pointed out.

The stallion wished he knew the answer to that. Why should he worry about the feelings of a pony that wasn't really nice to him so far? It must have been all those adventures around Equestria that caused him to act like someone who always wanted to help others. Or maybe he was always like this?

Star Twinkle simply gave the first answer that came to his mind. "I just saw you being sad so I wanted to help you," he casually explained.

"I am not sad!" Diamond Tiara replied annoyed. "Why would I? You think losing my only friend is gonna make me sad?" She added before she realized what she said and widened her eyes.

Star Twinkle had a suspicion that Diamond Tiara did not have many friends with how she acted towards everypony but knowing that Silver Spoon was her only friend definitely made it worse. The stallion quickly saw himself in Diamond Tiara. He didn't have any friends and thought that it was alright but deep down he knew it wasn't and he just told himself this over and over again so that he would feel better. Diamond Tiara, however, knew that she wanted friendship but didn't want to admit it to anypony else because she had to keep up her "High Class" character in front of everyone, something that her mother hammered into her head for probably all of her life. But that is not what the little pony wanted to be, this much Star Twinkle could tell.

"So you rather want things to stay like this?" Star Twinkle boldly said. He was hoping that Diamond Tiara would give the right answer to this question if she was being honest with herself. It was all he needed to offer his help.

After some internal struggle from Diamond Tiara, the answer did come. "No..." she then answered with a frown on her face. It did take some strength of her to say those words. "It's just so unfair!" she then said in a frustrated tone. "I'm supposed to be a diamond, something grand and special! But what do I have now!?! I'm no School President, I have no friends left, and my mother is disappointed in me too!"

Diamond Tiara didn't even try to hide her feelings anymore. She needed to get all of this out and tell someone how she felt, even if it meant telling it someone she didn't even like at all. Star Twinkle listened and didn't interrupt her at all. He took this very seriously. He felt as if he was watching his younger self if his younger self actually was honest with himself.

Of course, Diamond Tiara's life was different, and so was her problem but Star Twinkle didn't spend time with his friends without learning a few things himself. One of them is that real friends don't leave you easily. Silver Spoon was most likely no different.

"I think the first thing you should do is trying to be...well...nicer..." Star Twinkle explained. He could see how Diamond Tiara was not too excited to hear that but he needed to tell her this. "There is no point in settling things with your friend if you still treat her wrong after all. That would only result in her leaving you again," the stallion further explained.

Star Twinkle could not believe what he was saying here. It sounded almost like professional advice but that couldn't be true since it came from him. But despite that, Diamond Tiara was taking this advice seriously. "Maybe..." she said with some hesitation in her voice.

There was not too much to talk about for now. Diamond Tiara said that she needed some time to think about it. It was understandable since the change would not come easily, especially when it came to your own character. There wasn't anything else that Star Twinkle could do for the filly now so he walked away.

As he walked around the corner though, he could see three fillies standing there looking at him as if they just broke something and didn't want him to find out about it. It was Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo and they were obviously eavesdropping on him and Diamond Tiara. He couldn't even blame him for that since he did the same thing before on Diamond Tiara as well.

"I guess you heard it all?" He asked, to which the three ponies nodded in response.

"Is it weird that I feel bad for her?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"If it is, then... I'm weird, too," Scootaloo added.

"She wants to change, but she doesn't know how," Apple Bloom figured.

They surprisingly saw the problem too and tried to come up with a solution to fix it. It didn't take long until they all had a good idea of how to deal with this problem. Since the three ponies overheard everything anyway they knew what to do and if Diamond Tiara really wanted to change then everything should turn out fine in the end.

The next day...

The bells of the Ponyville school were ringing and all the students walked outside, one of them being a still very upset Diamond Tiara, who was on her way home. Star Twinkle was not too far away, hiding behind a tree. He wanted to have a closer look at how everything went with her and the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

As planned, the three fillies ran up to Diamond Tiara. "Hey, Diamond Tiara! Wait up!" Apple Bloom called after her.

The pink Earth Pony did not seem too excited that the three wanted something from her and got quickly annoyed. "What do you three want? To gloat? Rub in my defeat?" She asked.

Apple Bloom explained. "Actually, we wanted to invite you to our clubhouse to hang out," she offered.

Of course, Diamond Tiara was confused to hear this. "Really?" She asked in her confusion.

"Yeah, for real!" Scootaloo replied.

Diamond Tiara was not trusting the three, especially since partly, they were the reason for her misery. She was about to refuse their offer first but then her eyes spotted Star Twinkle in the distance, hiding behind a tree and gesturing to her to take the offer. She did not forget her little talk with him the day before and was about to take it seriously.

"Well, thanks to you all, I don't have any important class president business to attend to or anything. So I might as well," she said with some hesitation in her voice.

The girls were not sure at first if that was supposed to be a yes but they still led the way to their clubhouse and Diamond Tiara followed them. The plan was that the Cutie Mark Crusaders befriended her so that Diamond Tiara would end up changing her ways and hopefully be a happier pony in the end. If Star Twinkle learned one thing, then it was that one or two good friends could make a big difference in one's life and if Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were one thing, then it was good friends.

Later, at the Cutie Mark Crusaders clubhouse...

When Star Twinkle arrived at the clubhouse, the four ponies were already there. Diamond Tiara got a good look at the clubhouse and wasn't really impressed. Something that did get her attention was a self-made poster on the wall, that showed multiple drawings of activities, that were all crossed out. It was a list of things that the Cutie Mark Crusaders tried to archive their Cutie Marks.

Diamond Tiara quickly realized what this list was as well but still asked away. "So, do you all just sit around here plotting out different ways to try and get your cutie marks?" She asked, her voice sounding rather disinterested.

Apple Bloom gave a quick answer. "Actually, yeah."

"One day we definitely find our Cutie Marks like this!" Scootaloo added.

Star Twinkle was about to say that he was not too sure about that. Theoretically, they should stumble around their destiny if they ended up doing literally everything but judging from how many things they already tried, it looked more and more as if they were wasting their time. He could not say that though because their whole life was centered around getting their Cutie Marks and he was not about to ruin that for them.

The pink pony looked back at the list. It still seemed as if she was not taking this all seriously. "You three are..." she said in a more arrogant tone before she stopped for a moment. "...Really lucky," she then added with a more envying tone in her voice.

This caught the Cutie Mark Crusaders by surprise "We are?!" They asked in surprise.

"Yeah!" Diamond Tiara replied. "You get to explore all these options, learning who you really are before you're stuck with something you don't understand," she said as she looked up her own flank showing her tiara Cutie Mark.

Star Twinkle knew how that must have felt. His white star on his flank was no different. He was not completely sure what it was about either but he also tried to not worry too much about it, not anymore at least.

This bought up a question for Apple Bloom though. "But... you've done that, right?" She asked.

Diamond Tiara looked rather offended by this question. "Yeah, 'cause I have my cutie mark!" She said as she pointed at her flank. "And I'm not struggling at all to figure out who I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing with this mark that's already on my flank!" She explained.

Star Twinkle knew that this was not true but he didn't say anything. He also did not want to make it look as if he told someone about Diamond Tiara's problem. In a way, he did not do that actually, the three fillies just happened to overhear everything.

"Uh... are you sure about that?" Apple Bloom then asked, much to Star Twinkle's surprise. He had the bad feeling that she wanted Diamond Tiara to tell them about her problem, something that Star Twinkle didn't think was such a great idea, at least for now.

But Diamond Tiara was not about to tell them anything. "That's a weird question," she said as she looked over to Star Twinkle. She must have suspected him already to tell on them. "Did you tell them anything!?" She asked, pointing her hoof angrily at him.

"No! I didn't!" He replied, which technically, was not a lie at all.

Sweetie Belle decided it was a good idea to just went out with the truth. She probably also didn't want Star Twinkle to be blamed for all this. "He didn't tell us. We just happen to overhear your conversation yesterday," she admitted.

Whatever the reason was, Diamond Tiara still didn't look too happy about them knowing all this. "Were you trying to get your cutie mark in spying? Is that on your little chart?" She asked angrily.

"No!" Sweetie Belle replied before she went out in full on honest mode, much to Diamond Tiara's dislike. "We were just worried about you when you lost the election, and then you lost your friend, and then your mom yelled at you..."

The more Sweetie Belle talked, the more Diamond Tiara had trouble's holding back how upset she was. Star Twinkle was about to change the subject or something to stop this situation from escalating but thankfully, someone else took away this job from him.

"Help!" Pipsqueak yelled from outside the clubhouse. Everyone quickly opened the door and checked what was going on outside. They found a pretty distressed Pipsqueak in front of them. "Cutie Mark Crusaders!" He said in a panic.

"What's going on?" Star Twinkle asked.

The little colt explained the situation. "I was at the school board meeting and they didn't approve my request for the new playground equipment!"

"Why not?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"There's no money in the budget!" He replied before he pulled out his piggy bank. "So I checked my Peggy bank to see if I had enough bits, but my little Peggy wasn't nearly full enough!" He said in frustration seeing how there was not a single bit inside of it.

But the Cutie Mark Crusaders were ready to help the little guy once more. "Don't worry, Pip!" Sweetie Belle said.

"We'll meet you back at school," Scootaloo added.

"And help you find a solution!" Apple Bloom assured.

Again, the little pony was grateful for their help in his time of need. "Thanks, Cutie Mark Crusaders!" He said before he ran back to the school and wait for the Cutie Mark Crusaders to help him out.

This raised the question though. "And...what exactly did you have in mind to help him?" Star Twinkle asked into the round but this only got him puzzled expressions from the three girls.

This is when Diamond Tiara stepped up with an idea. "Oh! I already have a solution! Our new student pony president is gonna be kicked out of office, and I'll be reinstated!" She said with a smile on her face before she ran past the four ponies to head to the school.

This was bad news, not to mention that Star Twinkle expected her to not act this way after talking with her yesterday. The stallion quickly ran after her and the Cutie Mark Crusaders followed right behind.

"After them!" Apple Bloom said, running after the two ponies along with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle next to her.

Diamond Tiara was running really fast but Star Twinkle easily managed to catch up with her once she reached the town again. He needed to stop her, not only so that she would not kick Pipsqueak out as school president but because he really wanted her to understand that what she was about to do was wrong. He was running next to her, trying to stop her but before he could say anything, he tripped over a little stone on the road, making him stumble to the ground. He didn't notice it since his eyes were fixed on the little pony the whole time.

The stallion got up on his hooves again and continued his chase again. "Ow!" He then said, making a pain-filled face as soon as he started walking. "Come on!" He said annoyed. Star Twinkle must have hurt himself after tripping just now.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders were quickly at his side. They watched this happening from afar. "Are you all right!?" Apple Bloom asked in concern.

As Star Twinkle was sitting on the ground, he saw Diamond Tiara running towards the school. "Go after her! I'll be fine!" He said.

Stopping Diamond Tiara was more important now. Star Twinkle wasn't hurt that bad after all. The Crusaders did have some initial trouble leaving the stallion but they also were aware of the situation and continued following Diamond Tiara.

The stallion watched the ponies running off into the distance. He quickly found out that his hoof was sprained. This made it quite hard to run but luckily, Star Twinkle knew how to get around it. He didn't have his transformation for nothing. The stallion transformed into a Pegasus and used his wings to fly after the four fillies. Flying after them took him definitely longer since he was faster on hooves than in the air but at least he could move like this without much pain. He managed to locate the four fillies running around the town from up in the sky and quickly chased after them now.

"Stop Diamond Tiara!" Apple Bloom screamed after her.

"Yes!" Scootaloo added. "you don't have to do this!"

"We know that you are better than this!" Sweetie Belle said.

Diamond Tiara was aware of the Cutie Mark Crusaders running after her but she still focused her sight ahead. "You know nothing about me!" She said as she looked forward. "I can still win! I'm a diamond after all, and I never break! I can still become school president! I can still prove that I can succeed! " She explained.

"But in order to succeed you don't have to be mean!" Sweetie Belle pointed out.

"She's right!" Scootaloo added. "Pipsqueak wants to help everypony in school."

"You can help him instead of trying to get in his way!" Apple Bloom said.

Diamond Tiara was sick of listening to those words. "I don't have the luxury to still choose my path! I already have one and I will take care of everything and everyone that dares to walk on it!" She said, her voice starting to sound a little bit frustrated now. It was as if she had to say those words and didn't have any other option.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders were not giving up though. "You're wrong!" Apple Bloom replied.

"You can still choose another way!" Scootaloo added.

"It's not too late!" Sweetie Belle said.

The three fillies were now right next to Diamond Tiara, who started to feel really weird by now because of how the three ponies tried so hard to help her. She was in a conflict, she wanted to change but she also didn't want to disappoint her mother.

Star Twinkle was too far away from the girls to help. And it didn't look as if he could catch up to them too. This one was up to the Cutie Mark Crusaders. He had to trust them to talk some sense into Diamond Tiara. And trying to talk some sense into her is what they did.

"We know you can be somepony else," Apple Bloom said.

"You can stop right now and try another start!" Sweetie Belle said.

"You'll finally free yourself from the dark!" Scootaloo added.

"And see the light of your cutie mark!" The three said in unison.

Diamond Tiara was struggling for a moment but still, she kept on running towards the school. The words of the Cutie Mark Crusaders did not seem to reach her completely and she was still bent on kicking out Pipsqueak from being school president.

The students, as well as Miss Cheerilee, were standing in front of the school, which was perfect for Diamond Tiara to make her announcement.

"Diamond Tiara!" Apple Bloom said, trying to get to the filly one last time. "Think hard about the choice you're makin' right now!"

"You can be a better pony!" Scootaloo added

Star Twinkle just arrived at the scene as well, he was about to talk to Diamond Tiara, trying to make her choice go into the right direction but her attention quickly shifted towards the door of the school where Diamond Tiara's mother walked out, Spoiled Rich.

"Diamond Tiara!" The mare said in an unhappy tone. "I just happened to be here for the school board meeting, and this is what I see when we adjourn? My daughter associating with confused, insignificant lowlifes?" She said, leaving the Cutie Mark Crusaders quite offended. "Socializing with their kind is not how you move up in Equestria! Come, Diamond Tiara!" She then said before she walked off.

Diamond Tiara turned around, her face looking obedient to the voice of her mother. Her eyes wandered over to Star Twinkle. It was as if she wanted him to answer to her mother but that is not what was going to happen. Instead, Star Twinkle threw back a determined expression as if he wanted to tell her "You can do it".

The filly was struggling, whatever she would say now would most likely determine how her life would go from this point on, and she was well aware of this, making it even more difficult for her. But eventually, Diamond Tiara pulled together all of her courage and spoke up to Spoiled Rich.

"No, mother!" She said.

Spoiled Rich couldn't believe what she was hearing and turned around. "Excuse me?!" She said indignantly, her eyes widened in anger.

But Diamond Tiara was not done yet, she didn't even think about it. She was about to speak her mind and her mother needed to hear it. "You've spent your life acting like a high horse and raised me to follow in your hoofprints! At first, I thought this was fine, but then I finally realized I wanted something you don't have – friends!"

Everyone gasped in shock. Maybe it was the realization that Spoiled Rich had no friends or it was because Diamond Tiara admitted that she longed for friendship. Even Diamond Tiara's mother was in shock but unlike everyone else, she quickly composed herself or at least pretended she did.

"That's enough, Diamond Tiara! There is no way that you want those ponies to be your friends!" She said as she pointed towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders. "Step away from those blank flanks!" She added arrogantly.

Star Twinkle joined in now as well. "I think as her mother, you should be a little bit more supportive of Diamond Tiara," he said as he started to slowly walk up towards the mare. "I am not telling you how to raise your daughter or anything but Diamond Tiara was not really the nicest pony, something that is probably because of how you wanted her to act in front of everyone. But despite all this, those three ponies still wanted to help and even offered their friendship to Diamond Tiara so that she could be happy," the stallion explained.

Spoiled Rich was left speechless, she was thinking about what the stallion said carefully and even doubted her methods of how she raised her child, putting too much pressure on Diamond Tiara up until this point.

"Their name is also not "Blank Flanks"" Diamond Tiara further pointed out, pointing at Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. "These are the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and they are my friends!" She said with a smile on her face, causing the three ponies to react quite surprised. "You need to stop calling them such mean and hurtful names! They are working harder to get their cutie marks than anypony I've ever seen! And they will get them exactly when they discover their true talent, which I guarantee will be amazing!" She said confidently. She then pulled out a paper and gave it to her mother. "Now, will you please deliver this to father?" She asked.

Being still in a rather surprising state, Spoiled Rich was practically left with no option. "Yes, of course, dear..." she replied before she took the paper and walked away in defeat.

As Diamond Tiara proudly walked back to everyone, Star Twinkle smiled at her, causing her to smile back. "Good job," Star Twinkle said happily.

Diamond Tiara returned that happy smile. "It was nothing," she said casually. "I have to thank you, and you too, Crusaders," she said as she turned around to face the three ponies as well. "Obviously I've known since I got my cutie mark that my talent is getting other ponies to do what I want. I just asked my father if he could donate the money for the new playground equipment!" She explained. Hearing all those good news, caused every foal in front of the school to cheer happily. The only thing left to do for Diamond Tiara was to get on good terms with Pipsqueak. "I knew you were worried for a second there, weren't you?" She said, causing the little pony to flinch for a second before he realized that there was no longer a reason for that. "Ha! Well, I think it's all gonna work out just fine, Mister President!" She said before she winked at him with a smile on her face.

But now the work was just starting, and a whole playground needed to be repaired. For now, they all just had to wait for some equipment to arrive at the playground to start the repairs. The Iron Hammer was most like going to help with the repairs but since Star Twinkle's hoof still hurt, he was unable to work, at least for now. This gave him time to sit back and just watching, not that he would be bothered by that, of course.

There was still something to do, however. The stallion saw how Silver Spoon was standing there on her own, waiting for the work to start, her face still looking a little bit upset because of her little fight with Diamond Tiara. This needed to be resolved too. Star Twinkle slowly made his way to Diamond Tiara, asking her to take care of things. As he looked back and forth between her and Silver Spoon, the little pony quickly knew what needed to be done.

"You can do it," Star Twinkle said confidently towards the little filly.

Diamond Tiara took a deep breath and shortly after, she went towards her friend. Star Twinkle decided to stay back and just watched. As soon as Silver Spoon saw Diamond Tiara approaching her, she turned around. She was clearly a little bit mad by how she was treated before. Still, Diamond Tiara apologized to her, and from what Star Twinkle could tell, Silver Spoon accepted. It didn't take long until he saw the two laughing happily again, putting a smile on the stallion's face.

Star Twinkle sighed in relief. "I guess now everything is taken care of," he figured.

A little later...

The equipment, to repair the playground, shortly arrived and everyone did their best to fix everything that was broken and built some new things. Of course, Steel Hammer, who was tasked to do some work here as well, did the more difficult repairs that little ponies could not take care of. Star Twinkle, who was still hurt could just sit there and watch how the playground slowly took form and looked more presentable than ever. He had to admit that he didn't remember all too well how the playground looked when it was still new but he could definitely tell that the money, that Diamond Tiara's father provided was still well spent.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders stood right next to a resting Star Twinkle, and the stallion couldn't help but feel glad of how the playground looked now. "I guess everything done now," Star Twinkle figured as he looked around with his carpenter eyes, seeing how the slides were bigger and more colorful than ever. "And Diamond Tiara is no longer mean as well. I say that everything turned out quite well," he summed up.

"Looks like it!" Scootaloo agreed.

"And it's all thanks to Diamond Tiara changing for the better," Sweetie Belle figured.

Star Twinkle chuckled. "And it's all thanks to you three," the stallion said happily, completely ignoring the fact that he was helping out as well.

It was then that something came to mind to Apple Bloom, something that she needed to tell her friends. "I've been thinkin', Crusaders. We spend an awful lot of time fussin' and frettin' tryin' to discover our true talent. But when we take a little time off, we end up helpin' other ponies figure out their true talent!" She said.

Star Twinkle was thinking about those words carefully. The same thing was the case with Trouble Shoes not too long ago, where they figured out that his special talent of being unlucky could be used as a talent for a rodeo clown. And of course, the same thing applied to Diamond Tiara today.

"That doesn't sound too bad if you ask me," Star Twinkle figured.

"Yeah," Sweetie Belle agreed. "In fact, I think that's way more important than worrying about our cutie marks, don't you?" She added.

"Absolutely!" Scootaloo agreed. "I don't care if I ever get my cutie mark as long as I get to hang out with my best friends," she said happily as she grabbed the two fillies next to her into a group hug.

Star Twinkle never imagined hearing those words coming out of the mouth of those three ponies. He expected them to change their mind immediately, after all, every time when someone gave them some good advice when it came to Cutie Marks, like waiting for them, they quickly brushed it off and went back to their usual Cutie Mark hunting behavior. This time though, their mind was set. They believed in their words and came to the conclusion that it was more important to help others. The stallion couldn't help but be proud of them.

And to make it official, the three started a vow. "So what do you say, Crusaders? Want to just focus on helpin' others find their Cutie Marks?" Apple Bloom suggested.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were quick to agree on that. "Yeah!" They both replied before they all three sealed it with a high five.

ZAP!

Light started to travel through the bodies of the three fillies until it reached the ground and formed a circle around them. Star Twinkle took a few steps back in awe as soon as he saw this happening in front of him. "Could it be?" Was the only thing that he managed to get out as he continued watching this happening in front of him.

The three closed their eyes and the light that surrounded them started to lift them up into the air. It became brighter and brighter until it was too strong for Star Twinkle to look at anymore, forcing him to close his eyes until it went away.

The light was not unnoticed by the rest of the school ponies and they all turned their sight towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders watching in awe of what was happening to them.

Eventually, the light started to vanish and the three fillies landed on the ground again. They quickly got back on their hooves again and were just confused about what happened to them. All they could see was how everyone was looking at them gasping in awe and with smiles on their faces, much to the confusion of the three.

"What happened?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"What's goin' on?" Apple Bloom asked.

The answer they received was not what they expected. "It's your cutie marks! They're amazing!" Diamond Tiara said.

The three fillies thought they didn't hear right and this light from just now was still messing with their heads. Still, the three decided to turn towards their flanks, and what they saw was making them happier than anything else in this world.

They got their Cutie Marks...

All of them had a Cutie Mark that consisted of a shield with the colors red, pink, and purple, starting from the left. The only difference between the Cutie Marks was a unique symbol inside of them for each of the fillies. Apple Bloom's shield had a purple apple with a pink heart inside of it, Sweetie Belle's had a purple star with a pink musical note inside of it, and Scootaloo had a purple wing with a pink lightning bolt inside of it.

"We all got the same Cutie Mark!" The three said happily as they bounced up and down on the spot before they put their flanks together to celebrate. "Cutie Mark Crusaders forever!" They shouted happily into the sky.

Seeing the three ponies celebrating like this was making Star Twinkle happy as well. He felt a nice warmth inside of his body. He was happy for them, they certainly deserved their Cutie Marks after all that they went through.

"We have our Cutie Marks! We have our Cutie Marks! We have our Cutie Marks!" The three fillies repeated over and over again. It was silly to look at but given the occasion, it was definitely understandable.

"You go girls!" Steel Hammer exclaimed out of nowhere from behind the school ponies. "Such a beautiful moment!" He said before he started tearing up a little.

Steel Hammer acting up like this was a little weird, but seeing his reaction, quickly made Star Twinkle remember something. "Steel Hammer, can you get the others?" He said, referring to the sisters of the girls and the rest of their friends. They definitely wanted to hear about this as well.

The brown coated stallion did as he was said and quickly went to get the girls to bring them the good news. Star Twinkle almost wanted to tell them personally but with his hoof still hurting, that was a little bit difficult. Thankfully, Steel Hammer was already on his way, and knowing how touching he found this moment, there was no doubt that he would not run in top speed to get the girls.

"Star Twinkle!" The Crusaders then shouted towards the stallion in excitement.

"Look! We got out Cutie Marks!" Sweetie Belle said.

Star Twinkle chuckled. "I noticed," he replied amused.

"Now all Cutie Mark Crusaders have their Cutie Marks!" Scootaloo added.

That was true, Star Twinkle didn't even think about it but now he no longer had to worry about being left out as a member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. He no longer had to worry about things being awkward for him to be the only one of them to have their Cutie Marks. But thinking about himself at this moment was not right, this was a big moment for the Cutie Mark Crusaders and it needed to be celebrated properly.

Later...

Of course, as soon as Star Twinkle's friends heard about the great news, they quickly rushed to the Crusaders and Pinkie Pie already has set up everything for a cute-ceañera at Sugarcube Corner with the whole school attending it. And of course, the family of the three fillies had their little moments as well, congratulating and feeling happy for them.

Applejack, Granny Smith, and Big McIntosh all had tears in their eyes as they embraced their youngest family member in a big hug. "Oh, sugarcube, if Mom and Dad were here, they'd be so proud of ya," Applejack said to her little sister with a happy smile on her face.

"Oh... Thanks, Applejack," Apple Bloom replied.

Applejack then gave her sister a little push. "Now go on and party with your pals," she said, wanting the little filly to have as much fun as possible now.

Rainbow Dash, who was like a big sister for Scootaloo, was also congratulating her on her new Cutie Mark, making the little pony really happy. "I'm so proud of you, little buddy," she said in a caring voice, petting Scootaloo's head.

Rarity was embracing her little sister in a hug as well. "I'm so happy for you, darling," she said, with her being really close to crying.

What followed was a really big party at Sugarcube Corner with Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo being in the main focus. Star Twinkle was attending it as well, of course, he enjoyed the party despite it being a little bit crowded. He didn't want to ruin the mood of this party but there was still one question that he needed an answer for.

"So...now that you have your Cutie Marks...what are you gonna do?"

But instead of getting a confused response from them, instead, they replied with confidence and a positive outlook for the future. "Things are just starting for us now!" Scootaloo said.

"Yeah!" Apple Bloom added. "There are still ponies who we need to help finding their special talent!"

"And now that we got our Cutie Marks, we should be better than ever to help other ponies out!" Sweetie Belle pointed out.

Star Twinkle smiled happily. "I guess so," he figured.

The whole time, their main drive was to get their Cutie Marks but as it turns out, it was not necessary for them to give it their all trying to archive what they wanted. Being together is what was most important, not getting their Cutie Marks.

Star Twinkle was happy that nothing seemed to have changed for them and he smiled knowing that their future would still be filled with adventures, some of them he would probably be part of. For some reason, that is what made him the happiest.

Author's Notes:

First of all, I'd like to apologize for the huge delay. Before I knew it, weeks have passed without me working on this chapter, which I think is too long. I hope I didn't make you worry about my health or anything. There were quite some people asking me if I was alright so I'm sorry for worrying you.

Now let's say some things about this chapter. I did not want Star Twinkle to have too much of a big role in this since it was all about the Crusaders. Sure, I could have made it so that Star Twinkle would have been the one to make Diamond Tiara realize her mistakes but that would have taken away the reason why the Cutie Mark Crusaders got their Marks at all. I think I handled it well, don't you think? Let me know ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

108. Pinkie Secret

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A quiet afternoon...

The work in the Iron Hammer was done and Star Twinkle, as usual, was on his way home. A relaxing and quiet day is what the stallion had in mind. Still, he could not shake off a certain feeling. He kept checking his surroundings carefully.

"Today was really exhausting!" He suddenly shouted. "I sure look forward to going home and relax from today's work!" He added while looking around further to see if someone reacted to those words. Of course, some ponies did but no one was planning to approach or talk to him. Still, Star Twinkle continued. "There better not be someone who wants me to help them with something that includes some trouble or any other bothering things!"

Again, many ponies looked at the stallion because of his obvious weird behavior and decided to just ignore him, something that Star Twinkle would have done in their situation as well. The reason for him to act like that in the first place was that he expected something to happen that would prevent him from relaxing today. That was usually what happened.

But seeing how nothing happened just now gave the stallion hope that today was gonna be quiet, much to his liking.

The stallion sighed. "Well, looks like I actually can relax for-"

"Star Twinkle!" Pinkie Pie then exclaimed in a rush as she dashed towards the stallion

"Of course!" Star Twinkle said annoyed before he faced the mare now, who stood in front of him, eager to say something from how excited she looked at him. "What is it?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I need to tell you something," she casually said.

"Okay," Star Twinkle replied, waiting for the mare to continue. But that did not happen, instead, the mare grabbed the stallion's hoof and dragged him behind her, in Pinkie Pie style.

Star Twinkle found himself speeding through all of Ponyville at rapid speed, which felt as if the two of them broke the sound barrier. Needless to say, the stallion was not liking this at all.

Once Star Twinkle could shake off the dizziness from this insanely fast way of traveling, he saw how he was inside Pinkie Pie's room, placed on the ground by the very same.

"What did you do that for!?" Star Twinkle asked confused. "I thought you wanted to tell me something and not drag me all over the place at rapid speed!" He added annoyed.

Pinkie Pie explained her actions. "I need to tell you something!" She said before she moved her head towards the stallion. "It's a secret," she then whispered to him.

"Okay," Star Twinkle replied. It did explain her action to an extent where he was not blaming her to act this strange. "What is it?" He asked.

The mare made sure that no one was listening, which was weird since they were inside her room and the only one being here was her pet alligator Gummy, who was not very talkative to tell anyone. Star Twinkle figured that whatever she wanted to tell him must have been something really important. It made the stallion quite curious.

Finally, Pinkie Pie told him her secret. "The secret is...that I have a secret..." she whispered into his ear.

Star Twinkle was pretty confused. "What?" He replied.

Pinkie Pie sighed in relief and whipped away some sweat from her forehead. "Phew! Now I feel better that someone else knows," she said.

But Star Twinkle was still pretty confused. "What do you mean? You didn't tell me anything!" He pointed out.

"Wrong!" Pinkie Pie replied. "I told you that I have a secret!" She now pointed out.

The stallion tried to puzzle together what was happening right now. "So you dragged me all over Ponyville to tell me a secret...which turns out to be that you have secret?" He tried to confirm.

Pinkie Pie nodded in response. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep this awesome and amazing secret to anypony!? I just want to shout it out as loud as possible!" She said while shaking heavily in anxiety.

"Then tell someone," Star Twinkle casually said.

"I can't!" Pinkie Pie said, grabbing the stallion's cheeks and staring into his eyes. "I technically did not Pinkie Promise anything but I was entrusted this secret! I can't tell anypony! I have to keep it a secret so that I won't be a big surprise ruiner!"

"Then don't tell anyone..." Star Twinkle said, again very casually.

"I can't!" Pinkie Pie repeated. "This secret is just too amazing!"

"What do you want me to say then!?" Star Twinkle replied in a frustrated tone.

As usual, Pinkie Pie was not making any sense to him. She was having trouble keeping a secret and wanted to tell it someone but at the same time, she did not want to tell anyone so that the surprise would not be ruined. The fact that she could tell someone that there was a secret must have calmed her down though.

"But wait...Why did you tell me out of all ponies?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Pinkie Pie shrugged her shoulders in response. "I don't know. I just felt like it," she casually replied.

Still, Star Twinkle could not help but feeling as if he was made into a partner of crime by the mare. That was an overstatement though since he did not know what this whole secret was all about. He was not any wiser than before and Pinkie Pie was not about to tell him anything anymore.

Star Twinkle figured that the whole situation has been taken care of. "I'll go home then," he just said with some annoyance in his voice.

"Alright! See you later!" Pinkie Pie just casually said before she waved him goodbye.

The stallion stopped and turned around again. "Later?" He asked confused.

"Yes!" Pinkie Pie replied. "Twilight wanted to tell us something in the castle, remember?"

Star Twinkle actually just remembered that now. "Oh...yes...of course..." he said, trying to make it look as if he knew all along. Pinkie Pie just kept smiling at the stallion. He didn't know if she was buying it or if she just decided to not mention it. It was a little weird. "See you later..." he then said before he turned around before the situation would get more awkward for him.

Later...

Inside of Twilight's Castle, Star Twinkle, as well as the rest of his friends gathered around the big map-table to receive some news from Twilight. Apparently, there was some news that she wanted to share with everyone. The group was eager to know what that news could be and waited patiently for Twilight to share them. The only pony that acted rather weird, was Pinkie Pie. She looked really excited about that news and could barely contain her happiness for some reason.

Star Twinkle could only look at her confused before he turned towards Twilight who was about to start sharing her news.

"Great! Everypony's here. Now I don't have to wait any longer to tell you all the wonderful news!" She said with a smile on her face. "Somepony special is coming to visit Ponyville, and I need your help getting everything ready!" She explained.

Pinkie Pie got even more excited while a pretty confused Star Twinkle was staring at her confused. The others seemed happy to hear this as well, judging from their chattering. They were wondered who Twilight was talking about.

Twilight no longer made a big surprise out of this and just went out with it.

"It's..."

"Shining Armor and Princess Cadance!" Pinkie Pie screamed, interrupting her friend in the middle of the sentence, much to her and her friend's surprise.

But despite that interruption, Twilight continued. "Yes, and they're coming—"

"Tomorrow!" Pinkie Pie screamed before Twilight could finish her sentence.

Again, everyone else looked at Pinkie Pie in confusion about why she not only knew about that but also why she was so excited to scream it out like this.

Twilight continued once more. "Yes, on the—"

"Friendship Express rather than the Crystal Empire train so as not to cause too much of a scene when they skip town to come visit?" She said with a big grin on her face, once again, interrupting Twilight.

"Yes," Twilight replied. She clearly was confused about Pinkie Pie's weird behavior just like everyone else.

But Star Twinkle had a pretty good guess that this was the surprise that Pinkie Pie meant earlier, the one that she could not tell him about. She must have been really relieved that she could get that secret out, even if it meant taking the delivery away from Twilight.

Pinkie Pie was not done though. She walked up on the table and towards Twilight. "Annnnnd?" She asked. She must be waiting for some more news from Twilight which she could share with the group.

"And that's it," Twilight replied, now leaving Pinkie Pie confused.

"Oh," the pink-coated mare said in an upset tone.

Finally, Rainbow Dash asked the question that everyone wanted an answer to. "Uh, how did you know all that?"

Pinkie Pie started laughing nervously. "Uh... Pinkie Sense?" She said in an unsure tone. The mare decided to just walk back to her seat while looking at everyone nervously, her head still being at the same place and her neck stretching at the same time as she walked back.

The group decided to ignore the last thing that was, weirdly enough, more typical behavior for Pinkie Pie.

Star Twinkle coughed into his hoof in an attempt to change the subject. "You said you needed some help before?" He asked.

"I did," Twilight replied. "Follow me," she said before she led the group through the castle.

As the group followed Twilight trough the castle, Star Twinkle took the opportunity to talk with Pinkie Pie, who still was acting really weird. The stallion picked up an that and decided to talk with her without anypony noticing.

"So that was your big secret?" He asked confused. "I mean, Shining Armor and Cadance coming over sure is great news but I don't think that is any reason for you to get so nervous about ruining a surprise," he pointed out.

"That wasn't it," Pinkie Pie hastily replied.

Star Twinkle reacted in surprise. "What?" He asked.

The mare grabbed him and dragged him around a corner, out of sight of everyone, and pressed the stallion against the wall. "That wasn't the super-duper great news that I meant!" She informed.

"Okay," Star Twinkle replied while the hooves of the mare were pressing him against the wall. "So?" He added.

"So!?" Pinkie Pie replied indignantly. "That means that I still have to keep my secret until Shining Armor and Cadance spit it out! And I don't know how long I can take it!" She said nervously while bouncing up and down on the spot.

It was weird seeing the pony, that usually plans parties ahead in time freaking out like this. One would assume that she was used to that kind of pressure but apparently, she was not. She really had trouble keeping it together.

"Are you two coming?" Twilight asked, wondering why the two were so far back.

Pinkie Pie almost got a heart attack hearing Twilight's voice and jumped up at the air before she then rushed to the rest of the group, leaving Star Twinkle with a nervous smile on his face before he walked past Twilight.

Everyone eventually arrived at the room where Twilight wanted to take them. Inside it looked like little foals room. Toys, comic books, posters from several ponies, it was all there and was basically screaming that it was the room of a young colt. The group was a little confused about why there was a room like this in the castle and why Twilight wanted to show it to them but they were still fascinated.

"Sweet posters!" Rainbow Dash commented while pointing at one of the posters portraying someone that Star Twinkle didn't know. "Is that Smash Fortune?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"It sure is!" Twilight replied.

Star Twinkle started moving the little toy train in the center of the room around. "What is all this stuff?" He asked.

Twilight explained. "When Shining Armor said he wanted to come to the castle and visit, I started collecting things he liked when he was a colt as a surprise!"

"Surprise?!" Pinkie Pie then exclaimed in shock while popping out from a toy chest, wearing a helmet. As soon as she saw how everyone looked at her because of that reaction, she turned the helmet around to cover her face and laughed nervously.

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes and Twilight continued. "I've been so excited that it's been hard to keep it to myself!" She said.

"I have no idea what that's like!" Pinkie Pie mumbled to herself, earning her some glares from Star Twinkle who was gesturing to her that she needed to keep it together. She was not really doing a great job hiding how nervous she was right now.

In the meantime, the whole group was taking a good look at all the things in this room. It was fascinating to see all things that the Prince of the Crystal Empire used to spent his time with as a colt. Fluttershy was inspecting a little ant farm in the room, Rainbow Dash looked at more posters, and Spike stumbled across some comic books.

Twilight noticed the later and gave the little dragon some advice. "Be careful! They're mint-in-bag!" She warned. They must have still been very precious to Shining Armor. Spike understood and just blew off some dust from the book but unfortunately, he was spitting fire instead, burning the while comic in a second. Of course, Spike got nervous and lucky for him, nopony seemed to have noticed his mistake, and he walked away sealing the ash again while whistling nervously.

Pinkie Pie also came across something, a little plush pony. "What's this?" She asked Twilight.

"This is Brutus Force," she explained. "Shining Armor used to carry him around like his baby!"

The pink mare almost dropped the plush pony and got really nervous all of a sudden. "Yeah! Really cute!" She said, accompanied by some nervous laughter.

It was really nice of Twilight to prepare all of this for her brother, that much all of her friends agreed to. They were all sure that Shining Armor would like this surprise. Still, Twilight wanted to add some more things before her brother arrived and she asked her friends for help.

"Whatever you need, sugarcube, we'll help you get it," Applejack said in the name of everyone else, which was only supported with agreements from them.

"Thanks, everypony!" Twilight replied happily. "I just can't wait 'til they walk in and see everything!" She added.
"Totally understandable," Rainbow Dash said. "Watching somepony else be surprised with something is almost better than being the one who's getting the surprise!" She explained.

Again, Pinkie Pie felt forced to pick up on this. "But... eh... what if the surprise is something so incredibly exciting that a pony can't keep it in any longer, and she has to tell the pony standing next to her what it is or she might explode?!" She asked. It was obvious to Star Twinkle that she was referring to herself, something that the others could not know.

Fluttershy thought about it a moment and came to a quick answer. "I would say... no," she boldly said.

Rarity had to agree to this. "The pony who ruins a surprise for somepony else has to live with that guilt forever!" She said in an almost menacing tone.

Pinkie Pie only got more nervous seeing how her friends apparently took all of this very seriously. This only made it worse for her. It became too much, she couldn't stay here any longer. "Gotta bounce!" She said after some nervous laughter before she turned into a ball and literally bounced across the room before crashing through the wall and landing outside the room.

To an extent, this was pretty normal Pinkie Pie behavior. But it was not unnoticed by the others that she was acting a little bit differently towards all of them.

"So, I know the bar is set pretty high, but does anypony else think Pinkie Pie was acting weirder than usual?" Rainbow Dash flat out asked into the round.

No one replied to this but they were all agreeing to it none the less. It was pretty obvious if they knew what Star Twinkle knew at this point. But of course, he could not inform them about this. His mind was set on Pinkie Pie and what weird things she would do and say in order to keep her secret for now. The good thing was that she only had to endure one more day but seeing how she was acting so far made him quickly realize that that it will be pretty difficult for her to handle.

Later...

It didn't take long until Star Twinkle and the rest of his friends managed to find all the remaining things that Twilight wanted for her brother's surprise. And once everything was taken care of, Star Twinkle was heading home to relax, just as he planned earlier today.

The stallion just arrived at home and walked inside the door. But quickly noticed how someone was inside his living room. "Pinkie!?" He asked confused, not only by how she was suddenly inside his house, that was actually the normal part. He was bothered by how Pinkie Pie had a big delivery cart with her, which was also inside his living room now. Of course, he was wondering how she managed to bring this cart inside his house, given how it was bigger than his door and all the windows but he also had the slight feeling that trouble was ahead, trouble that he would be part of.

"I need your help!" Pinkie Pie just said, instantly confirming Star Twinkle's thought.

The stallion shook his head but he figured that there would be no point in resisting or arguing so he just gave up immediately and listened to what the mare wanted from him.

"What?" He asked, his voice not sounding excited one bit.

Pinkie Pie explained herself. "You see...I kinda Pinkie Promised to help Mr. Cake with some deliveries and I need your help with that," she said.

But Star Twinkle was a little confused hearing this. "Why? That doesn't sound too difficult, especially for you," he pointed out. Pinkie Pie managed to pull off tasks that were much more difficult than this on her own.

The mare then rubbed her neck in embarrassment. "Well, I could but...you see...delivering stuff to others pretty much involves me talking, and meeting, and facing other ponies so..."

It didn't take long until Star Twinkle put the pieces together seeing from how Pinkie Pie was acting earlier today. "Oh, I get. You want me to deliver all this stuff so that you don't accidentally spit out your secret, right?"

Pinkie Pie grabbed the stallion's cheeks. "Exactly!" She exclaimed happily. "I know you would understand! You are a very smart pony after all!" She complimented.

Star Twinkle was getting flustered a little hearing that. "Well," was the only thing he could awkwardly reply with a smile on his face.

"Then let's go!" Pinkie Pie said before she walked away from the stallion.

The stallion quickly widened his eyes. "Hey, I didn't say that..." he started but he just decided to give up. There was no point in arguing with her anyway. "Wait!" The stallion then said after he noticed how she was pulling the cart behind her. It was now that he realized that it was a little too big for it to fit through the door. "How do get this thing out of here? In fact, how did you manage to fit it in here in the first place," he asked.

The pink pony tipped her chin for a second before she began smiling again. "Don't worry! We just put a "Later" in here and it will be all good," she explained.

"...What?" Star Twinkle said, not understanding what she meant with that. But all he cared about now, was how Pinkie Pie pretty much forced him to help her out. In hindsight, it was probably a better idea to stay with Pinkie Pie so that she would not go crazy or reveal her supposedly amazing secret. Then again, being at Pinkie Pie's side while she was like this was probably gonna take some patience from the stallion.

Later...

"See? All fixed!" Pinkie Pie said.

"What?" Star Twinkle replied as he was suddenly pulling the cart behind him. For some strange reason, he had no idea how exactly that happened. He just decided to ignore it and got on with his work.

As expected, he had to deliver some packages to multiple ponies around town, all while Pinkie Pie was with him. She Pinkie Promised to deliver all those things so she could not just let the stallion do all the work on his own.

The two came across the first house to deliver their first package. A mare opened the front door and Pinkie Pie gave her the package. "Thanks, Pinkie Pie," the mare said in gratitude. "What a surprise to see you delivering my package," she added.

Pinkie Pie began to get nervous again. "Surprise!? I don't know any surprise! What makes you think that I know something that you don't!? That's ridiculous! Ha ha ha ha!"

The pink pony was stressed out for nothing, just like before with her friends. Star Twinkle could only look at the packages left on the cart. This was only the first house after all.

"This is gonna be a long day..." Star Twinkle said seeing how "well" Pinkie Pie was so far.

The two were done with this delivery and walked away to head towards the next one. In the meantime, Pinkie Pie was breathing in and out like crazy, as if this was the hardest thing she ever had to endure.

"This went really well!" Pinkie Pie said with a nervous expression on her face.

Star Twinkle thought he just misheard what she was saying. "You think!?" The stallion said. He could not disagree more with her now and to think that the rest of this delivery task is gonna be similar to this did not really fill the stallion with excitement.

"Guess we just have to-" Star Twinkle started before he was interrupted by Pinkie Pie.

"Twilight!" She exclaimed in shocked state pointing at her, walking towards them from afar.

Star Twinkle was a little confused to see Pinkie Pie react seeing Twilight but before he could ask, he was dragged away from her. Pinkie Pie somehow managed to put both of them, as well as the cart on top of the house, and out of sight of Twilight, who didn't notice the two.

"Phew!" Pinkie Pie released before she wiped away some sweat from her forehead. "That was close!" She said.

"What was?" Star Twinkle asked confused, wondering why Pinkie Pie was hiding from one of her friends like this.

Pinkie Pie released another sigh. "I have to avoid Twilight and the others as much as possible or I risk telling them my secret!"

Now Star Twinkle was the one sighing. This only made an already annoying task even more of a pain to deal with. Still, Pinkie Pie needed help with this secret and whether she was acting a little bit over the top or not, Star Twinkle was willing to help her. He felt as if he needed to.

The two then started going from one house to another, delivering multiple packages. They even had delivered some packages to their friends, which meant that they had to resort to some sneakier ways to deliver their stuff. This included dropping the packages into their windows without them noticing it or leaving them in front of their doors before vanishing.

Most of the work was actually done by Pinkie Pie, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. She just wanted him there so that could support her in keeping her secret. But her avoiding everyone, there was no need for that, Star Twinkle basically just stuck around with her. There was nothing he could complain about, except that he could have, might as well, stayed at home instead, having a more relaxing day.

They were done after already an hour and a half, despite them using some rather creative ways to bring other ponies the packages. Both of them were relieved to be done, especially Pinkie Pie. It was not because of the work itself but rather her having to avoid everyone, something that is the complete opposite of what she used to do.

Seeing how Pinkie Pie was obviously upset, Star Twinkle decided to throw in some comforting words to cheer up again.

"Be happy, now you can just go home and keep your secret a secret," he said.

Pinkie Pie sighed. "Yes...but it didn't feel good ignoring my friends like that..." she said with a frown on her face before she looked at Star Twinkle. "Maybe I can tell just one little pony the surprise?" She asked, obviously referring to Star Twinkle with this.

"If that would make you feel better," Star Twinkle replied. "I won't tell anyone," he added. The stallion was already so far into all of this, it would not make any difference if he knew her secret now.

The mare knew she could trust Star Twinkle. He would not go and tell anyone, that much she knew. It was visible to Star Twinkle that Pinkie Pie was fishing with herself to decide if she wanted to tell him or not.

And after some struggling, Pinkie Pie finally spoke again. "I can't! I can't ruin this surprise for anyone!" She said while she stuffed her own mouth with her hooves in frustration.

Star Twinkle had to admit that he was impressed. Whether Pinkie Pie was acting really over the top or not, she still was determined to keep everything a secret. Sure, she was telling Star Twinkle that there was a surprise but he would have actually expected that Pinkie Pie would break much earlier. Her mouth used to run really fast after all.

"I'm sure you can keep this up until tomorrow. Keep it up," the stallion said.

Pinkie Pie got quickly drawn out of her frustration after hearing that. "You really think I can do it?" She asked surprised.

"Sure," Star Twinkle said. "It is really important for you to not ruin the surprise, right? I confident that you can pull through if it is so important for you," he added.

A smile started forming on the mare's face, clearly a sign that she was feeling better. "Oh you big charmer," she said in embarrassment.

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes. He was just speaking his mind. The stallion knew that, when it was needed, Pinkie Pie could be trusted with big tasks. In fact, he had little proof of her letting others down.

"Just go home and relax for the rest of the day and I'm sure you can keep your surprise in," Star Twinkle said.

Pinkie Pie grinned in response. "You got it!" She said determinedly. Star Twinkle's words must have gotten her spirits up again. Leaving the mare like this was definitely making Star Twinkle happy. He could leave her alone without any regrets. But most importantly, he could relax for the rest of the day as well.

Later...

Finally home, Star Twinkle was laying down on his bed, breathing in and out heavily. First work and then walking all across Ponyville was a little bit exhausting for him and he was just happy to finally get some good rest.

"Finally...I'm all aloney on my owney," he said happily before he closed his eyes to take a little bit of a break.

But through his closed eyes, he could feel a shadow being cast on him so he opened his eyes and he could see Pinkie Pie smiling at him nervously.

"How are you doing?" She asked casually.

Star Twinkle didn't even bother asking why the mare was standing on top of him all of a sudden, inside his house. "I'm trying to sleep...why are you here?" He then asked annoyed.

"Well..." Pinkie Pie started. "I might have taken some more Pinkie Promises for today, that I just got reminded of, and I wanted to ask you if you could lend me a hoof again," she said, her face forming a nervous grin.

"No," Star Twinkle replied without care turning his head away from the mare, only for it to be turned towards the mare again from Pinkie Pie.

"But I need you!" She exclaimed in a panic. "I can't keep my secret on my own! I just get tempted to tell everyone! I need you to keep me in check!" She plead.

"Okay! Okay!" The stallion replied annoyed., pushing the mare off from him. "Just tell me what I need to do..." he added in his frustration.

And just like that, the two were off doing some more jobs that Pinkie Pie took from several ponies, much to Star Twinkle's dislike.

Later...

Star Twinkle found himself, handing Pinkie Pie some balloons so that she could make some balloon animals for the foals of the Ponyville school. It was pretty boring for Star Twinkle but at least, it was an easy enough job. He just told himself that he was helping Pinkie Pie right now and tried to ignore how she dragged him into all those things. It was nice seeing all those little ponies having fun with the balloon animals that Pinkie Pie made for them.

Three more ponies just walked up towards her, it was the Cutie Mark Crusaders who all wanted their own balloon animals.

"Ooh! I want a flamingo!" Sweetie Belle said.

"Coming right up!" Pinkie Pie said. "Balloon!" She then said while looking at Star Twinkle.

"Balloon," Star Twinkle repeated before he gave her a balloon, which Pinkie Pie quickly transformed into a flamingo, putting a smile on Sweetie Belle's face.

Next, Apple Bloom was walking up to Pinkie Pie. "I want a goldfish!" She asked of her.

"Alrighty!" Pinkie Pie replied. "Balloon!" She once more said.

"Balloon," Star Twinkle said, giving the mare another balloon to work with.

Seconds later, Pinkie Pie formed a goldfish out of the balloon and gave it to the little pony.

Then Scootaloo walked up to Pinkie Pie. "Surprise me!" She said.

Star Twinkle already gave her the next balloon and Pinkie Pie was working her magic. This time it took her little longer to create an animal. Star Twinkle was wondering why but he quickly noticed how she seemed distracted by a mare walking past them with her crying baby in her carriage.

For some reason, she was looking at that more than focusing on her balloon animal but she still subconsciously finished it. The shape it had was not looking like an animal though.

"Is that a... baby bottle?" Scootaloo asked confused.

Pinkie Pie screamed in shock as soon as she saw what she created. "No! It's a... a... puppy! Ha ha, woof woof, ha ha! Eh..." She said in order to save face.

"Are you sure? Because it looks like a—" But Scootaloo was interrupted by Pinkie Pie who just stuffed the baby bottle-shaped balloon in Scootaloo's mouth to shut her up.

"Next!" Pinkie Pie then shouted, making Scootaloo leave rather confused.

Quite some weird behavior that she was showing at this moment. "Must have gotten distracted and messed it up, I guess..." Star Twinkle figured.

Later...

After this job was done, both Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie went to help some other pony. This pony needed something to attract some customers and Pinkie Pie had just the right idea. She placed an inflatable pony figure in front of the shop from pony they were helping out.

Apparently, that was enough for the shop owner to be satisfied. "That's just what I wanted. Thanks, Pinkie!" The stallion thanked.

"You're welcome!" Pinkie Pie replied happily.

"Is there anything else you need us to do?" Star Twinkle asked.

"No, that would be all," the stallion replied until he actually remembered something else. "But now that you mention it, you two could spread the word about the big crib sale I'm having. If that is not too much trouble of course," he asked of them while pointing at a poster that showed a baby crib.

Pinkie Pie couldn't help but reading out the words written on it. "Treat your foal like... royalty?!" She said before she backed away in shock, for some unknown reason.

"Pretty good slogan, huh? I came up with it all by myself!" The shop owner proudly boasted.

"Yes, it's good," Star Twinkle replied. "Right, Pinkie?"

But all he received from the mare was a long scream of fear before she decided to run away from the two. That reaction left both of the stallion rather confused.

"Oh. I thought it was clever," the shop owner said with a slight frown on his face.

Almost on cue, the inflatable pony, that Pinkie Pie just set up deflated in front of them, forcing Star Twinkle to take care of it.

The rest of the day was pretty much done when it came to helping Pinkie Pie with her promises. Both of them were relieved that they got everything done, Star Twinkle because he could finally go home to relax, and Pinkie Pie because she could go home and avoid everyone to not risk spilling her secret. All that was left to do was to wait for Shining Armor and Cadance to arrive tomorrow and her suffering would be over.

The next day...

Star Twinkle just arrived at the castle, his friends were already there, setting everything up for Shining Armor's and Cadance's visit to the throne room. The food was placed on the big table in the middle and some decorations were placed on it as well.

As Star Twinkle was about to enter the room, he noticed how Pinkie Pie was walking up to the throne room carrying some plates with food on her head and back. She made a rather nervous impression on the stallion.

"There you are, Pinkie Pie!" Star Twinkle said, grabbing her sudden attention before he walked up to the mare, whispering some words to her. "How are you holding up? Is your surprise still safe?" He asked in curiosity.

"Yes! No problem!" Pinkie Pie replied with a smile on her face, one that Star Twinkle easily depicted as a nervous one. "Well...maybe some problems...How long do you think until Shining Armor and Cadance arrive?" She asked. Panic was plainly visible on her face.

"They should be arriving pretty soon," Star Twinkle guessed. "Don't worry, you are doing good, I'm sure you can hold out until they are here," he said in an attempt to calm her down.

It worked. Pinkie Pie took a deep breath and smiled again. "You're right! They are gonna arrive any second now! I'll be fine. I'll be totally fine!" She said in order to calm herself down.

Shortly after, the two walked inside the throne room. Twilight quickly greeted the two of them and took the food that Pinkie Pie brought. "Those look yummy, Pinkie! Let me help you!" She said before she took the food with her magic, placed it on the table and covered it with a cloche, much to Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie's confusion.

"Aren't we going to eat that soon? Why are you covering it up?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Oh, didn't anypony tell you?" Applejack said. "Shining Armor and Cadance are held up. They may not arrive 'til Saturday," she casually threw in.

"Whaaaaaaaaaat?!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed in shock before she jumped up to the tree chandelier at the ceiling. She began hyperventilating. "You mean...I have...to wait...another whole day?!" She said breathing in between every two words. "I don't know if I can!" She said in frustration.

By now, everyone besides Star Twinkle noticed that something was going on with her and Twilight decided to just flat out ask the mare. "Pinkie Pie, do you have something you need to say? You seem like you've been keeping something in."

Pinkie Pie was looking at Star Twinkle from up on the chandelier, who gave her some signals to tell her that she could pull through it. The mare was shaking her head in frustration and managed to keep quiet.

But things got worse as soon as her friends offered to listen to what Pinkie Pie had to say.

"We're here to listen," Fluttershy said.

"Well, go on then, sugarcube," Applejack said.

"We're not going to judge you, darling," Rarity said.

"You'll feel so much better once you get it off your chest!" Spike said.

More and more did her friends pressure her to talk with them, which is exactly what she did not want to do. The mare resorted into breathing into a balloon to calm herself down but everyone was encouraging her to talk, making it all the more difficult for her.

"Whatever it is, you can tell us! We're best friends!" Rainbow Dash said in an understanding voice.

Star Twinkle wanted to do something to help out but he didn't know what. Pinkie Pie was about to tell everyone her well-kept secret that she so desperately wanted to keep to herself. It was only a matter of seconds until she would break.

"Pinkie Pie!" Star Twinkle said in a rush. "I think you forgot something at home, right!?" He asked distracting everyone from the mare for a second. This was, of course, an attempt to get the mare out of this room for a moment. "How about we go and get it really quick!?" He said nervously before he opened the door.

But as soon as the door of the throne room was opened by him, there they were, Shining Armor and Cadance. Both of them stood there with their luggage smiling at the sight of seeing their friends.

"Hi, everypony," Cadance greeted everyone with a smile on her face.

"Shining Armor, Cadance! You're early!" Twilight said happily. "I thought something had come up and you weren't gonna make it until Saturday!"

"So did we," Cadance replied. "Turned out we weren't needed in Maretonia until next week. And the summit we were supposed to attend today had to be rescheduled, so... we got here even sooner than planned!" She explained.

"Surprise!" Shining Armor said with a smile on his face.

"It's wonderful to see you all again!" Cadance said.

Star Twinkle was releasing a deep sigh "Oh, believe me, we are the one's that are happy to see you, right Pinkie Pie?" He asked looking over to the mare at the chandelier only to see her dropping to the floor in relief.

While the group was talking to the two visitors from the Crystal Empire, Star Twinkle took the opportunity to take care of Pinkie Pie and helped her get up on her hooves again.

"It's going to be over soon," he whispered to her.

"Thank goodness..." the mare replied weakly.

The two then joined their friends, who all had a healthy chat with Shining Armor and Cadance. Twilight, of course, was the most excited one to see them, especially since she had something prepared for her brother.

"I'm so glad you're here! I have a big surprise for you!" Twilight said happily.

"Oh, yeah?" Shining Armor said with a smile on his face seeing how Twilight did not notice how there was a surprise coming up for them as well. The stallion then walked up towards Star Twinkle and a still really nervous Pinkie Pie. "Hey Star Twinkle, mind helping us out with the luggage?" He asked.

"Yeah, sure," Star Twinkle replied before he went and carried some of the luggage from the two on his back. As he looked back at Shining Armor and Pinkie Pie, he noticed how they were talking about something. "Oh, I get it...they are talking about the surprise," he thought. That is why Shining Armor wanted Star Twinkle to take care of the luggage so that he could be separated from Pinkie Pie.

All the ponies then walked through the hallway leading towards the room that Twilight prepared for her Shining Armor. She didn't want to waste any time to show her surprise to her brother.

Shining Armor was done talking with Pinkie Pie and joined the rest, walking past Star Twinkle who saw how Pinkie Pie was alone again. He joined her a few seconds later again.

"So...when are they gonna tell their surprise to everyone so that you can relax again?" Star Twinkle asked.

It was just now that he noticed how nervous the mare still was. "I don't know! He said he had something planned!" She said, her ears and eyes starting to twitch now.

"Planned? What?" Star Twinkle asked.

The mare then grabbed the stallion's cheeks. "I don't know! But what I do know is that I can't keep this up any longer!" She said in frustration before she started hyperventilating again.

The stallion broke out of her grasp. "Keep it together! You came this far already, you can manage a little longer!" He said, trying to encourage her.

"I don't know if I can!" Pinkie Pie said, sliding to the ground, her strength leaving her body from the looks of it. "I want to tell everyone so badly!"

"No, you can do it!I know you can! I'll help you. I'll be there with you the whole time and your secret will be safe!" The stallion said in an unusual determined tone.

"Really?" Pinkie Pie said, her eyes looking as if she was about to tear up any second ow.

"Yes, really!" The stallion said before he helped her back on her hooves again. "I don't know what this secret is but if it is really that important to you to keep it hidden, then I will help you out," Star Twinkle assured.

Pinkie Pie appreciated how Star Twinkle was supporting him in this time of need and took a deep breath to focus again. They decided to join the rest of their friends to see how Shining Armor reacted to his surprise. By now Shining Armor should already by inside the room that Twilight prepared for him.

"MY COMIIIIIIIICS!"

Shining Armor's voice suddenly echoed through the whole castle like a thunder that was hitting the ground one hoof away from Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie. He did not sound too happy, that much was clear.

As the two walked towards the room, Spike was walking away and right past them. "I just remembered I have something else to take care of," he said nervously. "Far, far away from here," he added before he ran away for some unknown reason.

Later...

Whatever Shining Armor and Cadance planned, they wanted everyone to meet them somewhere else outside of the castle. That was not good since every second that Pinkie Pie had to keep her secret in longer, was making her panic more and more, something that nopony besides Star Twinkle noticed, which was probably for the best.

"Where did Shining Armor and Cadance say they'd meet us?" Rainbow Dash asked annoyed before stomach started rumbling. "I'm starving!"

Twilight began to explain. "In the town square. I wish they'd waited to walk over with us, but they said they had something to take care of first!"

It didn't take long until they arrived at the town square, in front of a fountain. But there was no sign of either Shining Armor or Cadance.

"They are not here," Star Twinkle said.

"That's odd. Usually, they're quite punctual," Twilight pointed out.

This gave Rainbow Dash enough reason to complain a little. "Ughhh! I need a hayburger in my belly right now!" She said annoyed while smacking the pony statue of the fountain a few times.

What she didn't notice though, was that there was a letter inside the mouth of the statue, something that Twilight quickly pointed out. "What's this?" She said before she used her magic to levitate the letter towards her and giving it a read. The mare gasped as soon as she read the content of it.

"What does it say?" Rarity asked.

"A scavenger hunt!" Twilight replied. "Shining Armor used to set these up for me when I was a filly! At the end, there was always a big prize, like a new book, or several new books, or—"

"We get the picture! You like books!" Pinkie Pie then interrupted, seeing how this was just taking up more time. She grabbed the letter and read what it said.

"You've got a scroll, you're on a roll, why don't you take a peek where young ones spend their week? A piece of paper will continue this caper."

Everyone started thinking but it was Twilight who solved it first. "I've got it! "Where the young ones spend their week."

Star Twinkle got it quickly after as well. "The school?" He guessed.

"Yes!" Twilight said. "Let's go!"

A little later...

The group arrived in front of the Ponyville School building looking for the next clue. Pinkie Pie was already sniffing the ground like a dog in order to find it, which did not seem to help too much.

In the meantime, Star Twinkle tried to get to it in a more logical manner. "What did it say on the last clue again? A piece of paper will continue this caper?" He asked Twilight.

It was then when Featherweight, a little pony that attended this school showed up to sell some newspaper "Extra, extra! Get your Ponyville news! Read it in the paper! Extra, extra!" He shouted over and over again.

It then struck Twilight. "It's in the Foal Free Press!" She figured.

Twilight went on ahead and bought a paper from the little pony and scanned her eyes through it in order to find the next clue.

"Ooh, look at that dress Mayor Mare is wearing in the social report!" Rarity pointed out. "Why, it's stunning!" She complimented.

"Uh, didn't you make that, Rarity?" Applejack pointed out.

"Yes, what is your point?" Rarity asked obliviously.

"Focus, everypony!" Pinkie Pie then interrupted wanting to find the next clue already.

"You know, there's really no time limit on these scavenger hunts, Pinkie," Twilight pointed out.

"Yes but..." Star Twinkle started before he tried to find the right words that would not reveal that he wanted to indirectly help Pinkie Pie. "If we finish the hunt earlier, then you can get your surprise earlier," he pointed out.

"Exactly!" Pinkie Pie said, jumping on Star Twinkle's head. "And who knows how super amazing it will be if you finally get it!?"

With that in mind, Twilight finally found the clue and read it out loud. "Though this hall is rather small, in it you'll find files of all kinds. Take a look at the back of the birth certificate of Applejack."

Of course, as soon as Applejack heard that, her eyes popped open after realizing what would happen next. "I don't like where this is goin'," she expressed in weariness.

A little later...

The group went to the town hall, the place where the birth certificates would be at. The only problem was that nopony knew where they were at. Everyone, besides Pinkie Pie apparently.

"Go down that hall, then you take a left, then a right, then another right, then a slight left, and it's the third door from the right!" She explained in one quick rush.

"Wow, Pinkie," Fluttershy expressed in surprise. "I never knew you knew so much about town hall," she said.

Pinkie Pie turned towards her friend, her face still looking a little bit nervous. "There's a lot of things I know! That you don't know I know!" She said before she rushed forward to fetch Applejack's birth certificate.

After taking a quick look at a baby picture of Applejack, and giggling about how cute she was, Twilight found the next note on the back of it and read it out loud. "This next place is where you can buy a table or chair, or some comfy beds to rest little heads"?"

As soon as Twilight stopped reading, Pinkie Pie dashed out of the room at hyper speed to go where the clue was hinting at. "I think...Pinkie Pie figured it out already?" Star Twinkle guessed as he looked at his friend confused.

"Ugh, really? None of you?" Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she returned into this room and grabbed all her friends and pulled them towards the right destination. "It's obviously the furniture store!" She said while standing in front of said story with her friends. "Go in, go in, go in!" She prompted them.

But Twilight had second guesses. "I don't know..." she said in a hesitant tone.

"Daagh, fine!" Pinkie Pie replied before she went inside the shop at a rapid speed only to come out with a baby crib a few seconds later, pointing at a note that was hanging on it with a serious expression on her face.

"Wow, you're scary good at this, Pinkie Pie," Rainbow Dash said impressed.

"What does this note say?" Star Twinkle asked.

Pinkie Pie read it out loud. "It seems we've saved the best for last. We hope that you have had a blast. Now it's time to take a break where you can get a slice of cake!"

Everyone came to the same conclusion at the same time and shouted the answer. "Sugarcube Corner!"

Pinkie Pie scoffed. "That was an easy one," she said casually.

Later...

The group entered Sugarcube Corner, the last place where the scavenge hunt ended and the surprise would await them. As soon as everyone entered, Shining Armor and Cadance stood in the middle of the room with big grins on their faces.

"Surprise!" Shining Armor said before he walked up to his little sister and patted her on her head. "Twily, did you like the scavenger hunt?" He asked.

"It was perfect! Just like old times, except even better because this time I got to share it with my best friends!" She said happily. Her friends were happy to hear that and could only smile in return.
Still, Twilight excepted something else. "There's just one thing missing, isn't there?" She asked as she looked at her brother to see if he was carrying something with him.

"What's that?" Shining Armor asked.

"Mmmm, the book prize at the end!" Twilight said.

Her brother started laughing. "There's still a prize, but it's a little different this time," he added.

"Oh. I don't understand," Twilight replied confused. In the meantime, Pinkie Pie started giggling since she already knew what the surprise was.

Cadance decided to give Twilight a little hint. "All the places we sent you today had something in common," she explained.

Twilight started thinking back about all the places that she and her friends visited. "First we went to the schoolhouse...and then we read the Foal Free Press... after that, we found Applejack's birth certificate... And then the last clue was under a crib," she remembered back.

In the meantime, Pinkie Pie was highly excited and couldn't wait for Twilight to figure it out already.

"Hmmm... School... foal... birth certificate... and crib..." Twilight said to herself, trying to find the answer. Then it suddenly hit her and she gasped heavily. "Can it be? Are you two...?!" She started asking.

Shining Armor and Cadance smiled at each other and finally revealed their surprise. It was exactly what Twilight had guessed.

"We're having a baby!" They announced.

Pinkie Pie began shaking and finally exploded up into the air. She finally could talk about it and let it all out with the greatest joy that she could ever show.

"A baby, Twilight! It's a baby! Woo-hoo!" She shouted across the room before she went up to Star Twinkle and grabbed his cheeks like so many times before. "Shining Armor and Cadance will have a baby! Isn't that nice, Star Twinkle!?"

"It sure is!" Star Twinkle replied with his cheeks still being clenched together by Pinkie Pie.

But just now, another thing started to hit Twilight. "You mean... I'm going to be an aunt?! This is the best prize ever!" She said before she jumped towards Shining Armor and Cadance and hugged the two of them, who were laughing after seeing how happy Twilight was to hear that news. "Oh, I love you guys! And I can't wait to meet your little foal!" She said happily.

"Neither can we," Shining Armor replied happily as well.

In the meantime, Pinkie Pie was still jumping across the room beaming with joy. Star Twinkle almost wanted to stop her but she more than deserved going a little bit crazy after having such a hard time keeping her secret in.

"Looks like you did it," Star Twinkle congratulated before he offered her a hoof bump as a congratulation.

Pinkie Pie quickly noticed and jumped towards the stallion and their hooves connected.

SHATTER!

Then suddenly, Pinkie Pie's body shattered into multiple pieces and dropped to the ground, much to Star Twinkle's shock and confusion.

"Go Pinkie," Pinkie Pie still said in this weird state of hers happily.

A little later...

Of course, there was a party celebrating that good news shortly after, with cake, balloons and plenty of talk about the future and the baby that would come sooner or later. Before Star Twinkle was attending any of that though, he first had to help Pinkie assembling herself.

"Here, I found your last piece of...hair..." he said as he gave the mare literally a missing piece from Pinkie Pie's mane. He was not even sure how that worked, to begin with, but it was Pinkie Pie after all so he just had to accept that it happened.

"Thanks!" Pinkie Pie replied before she took her piece of hair and adjusted into her mane again.

Star Twinkle then joined her on her table. "Feeling better now?" He asked.

"Yup!" Pinkie Pie said happily. "All pieces are at the right place again," she casually added with a smile on her face.

"Not that," Star Twinkle replied. "I mean do you feel better now after the surprise is out?" He asked.

"Oh! Yes!" Pinkie Pie said with a grin on her face. "It sure was hard keeping that secret in," she explained.

"I noticed," Star Twinkle boldly replied.

The mare started to grin at the stallion. "Thanks for helping me out all this time. I don't know if I could have pulled through without you," she said.

Star Twinkle lowered his eyebrows. "I didn't really do that much," he admitted.

"That's not true!" Pinkie Pie quickly returned. "You believed in me! That gave so much more strength to keep the surprise to myself! You could say that Twilight hearing those amazing news is all thanks because of you!" The mare explained.

Star Twinkle thought that was a little bit of a stretch. He simply wanted to help Pinkie Pie and thought that his actions were pretty normal in this situation. He decided to leave it at that though, there were more important things to think about now after all.

Cadance joined the two Earth Ponies on their table. She still needed to thank Pinkie Pie. "You did it, Pinkie Pie! You kept it a surprise! Thank you!" She said happily. "Was it much trouble?"

Pinkie Pie smiled at the princess "Piece of cake!"

The mare then moved her head over to Star Twinkle to whisper something in his ear. "It wasn't. It totally wasn't," she said in a serious tone that indicated that she never wanted to go through this ever again.

"I know Pinkie Pie," Star Twinkle replied in the exact same tone, indicating that he also never wanted to get through this ever again.

Pinkie Pie then jumped up from her seat. "Now if you excuse me, after all this secret-keeping, I sure need a break. And there is no better way to take a break than with a party!" She said before she joined her friends.

Cadance giggled seeing how Pinkie Pie was enjoying herself again. "Did that news surprise you too Star Twinkle?" She asked the stallion.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle replied. "But to be honest...I knew it since yesterday," he casually added.

This confused Cadance. "How? Did Pinkie Pie tell you?" She asked.

"No...but...let's say she is not really subtle when it comes to those things. I figured it out by her weird behavior," he explained before he moved closer to the princess. "But don't tell Pinkie Pie," he whispered into her ears.

Cadance chuckled after hearing that. "My lips are sealed," she said accompanied by a wink.

After that, Star Twinkle watched his friends having fun and talking at this party but it wasn't much later until he decided to join them as well. There were some exciting things to talk about after all and he didn't want to miss them.

Author's Notes:

And another chapter done after a huge delay...he he he he...O_o...I hope you are not mad...

While writing this chapter, I realized how much trouble I had adding Star Twinkle in this episode and it ended up being a rather bad chapter in my opinion. I still hope you enjoyed it.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

109. Rock-Hearth Warming Eve

View Online

Inside the Friendship Express...

A really nervous Star Twinkle was sitting next to the window looking out and watching everything as it went by. He was hoping that it would calm him down but it didn't work all too well. His mind was a mess and he could not form a decent though in his head.

"Is something the matter, dear?" A female voice, coming from the pony that was sitting across him. It was his mother, Rainfall Twinkle, who seemed concerned seeing her son in this state. "You barely said anything during this trip. Are you all right?"

Star Twinkle looked at the mare. He didn't even attempt to look not worried as he looked into her eyes. "I'm just a little nervous, that is all," he said.

Right after those words were said, his father, Sunny Twinkle, who was sitting next to him, put his hooves around Star Twinkle's shoulders. "You are just excited, that is all," he said in an upbeat tone. "We are all gonna met some new ponies after all. I sure am looking forward to meeting everyone," he added as he began shaking in excitement.

Rainfall Twinkle rasped. "I think this is precisely why our son is so nervous..." she pointed out before she looked at her son. "You are worried that we won't get along with the families of your friends, right?" She guessed.

Probably the only pony in all of Equestria, that Star Twinkle could never fool, was his mother. She hit the nail right on the head. He let out a defeated sigh. "I think the best outcome would be if we three would get along with both Applejack's and Pinkie Pie's family," he said.

"Oh, don't worry," Sunny Twinkle said in a highly optimistic tone. "It's Heart's Warming Eve after all. There couldn't be any other day where three families could come together and getting to know each other better than on this day," the stallion said with a grin on his face.

Now Rainfall Twinkle began smiling after the words Heart's Warming Eve fell. "I do have to admit that I am quite curious about how the Apple or the Pie Families celebrate this holiday. You think they do it the same way we do?" She asked.

But Star Twinkle shook his head. "No, I asked both Applejack and Pinkie Pie already and from the looks of it, they do seem to celebrate it the same way actually," the stallion said before he started listing up the traditions of the two families.

"There is gonna be a flag raising, an evening dinner, Heart's Warming dolls which are hung above the fireplace, and presents on the next day," the stallion explained.

There was a short pause from Rainfall Twinkle, her face looked rather worried. "I see...I think those traditions go all the way back to the day where Heart's Warming Eve was invented..."

"Right," Star Twinkle replied. He then remembered the stories that he heard about the founding of Equestria, which was the day where Hearts Warming Eve was first brought into existence. "When the three pony tribes were still fighting with each other and the Windigos threatened to cover all of Equestria in snow. The three pony tribes worked together and the fire of friendship drove those beasts away. In order to celebrate their victory, they raised a flag and Equestria was founded," the stallion explained.

"Yes," Rainfall Twinkle replied before she continued. "If I recall correctly, then the dinner is held to remember the shared bounties of our ancestors. And the Hearth's Warming dolls over the fireplace are supposed to remind us of the warmth shared on that fateful night."

"Exactly," Star Twinkle said in response.

Again, Rainfall Twinkle remained silent for a moment and her face looked worried again as well. "Compared to the traditions of Apple and the Pie families our..."

"Yeah," Star Twinkle added before he started to look rather upset, along with his mother.

The two remembered back their own Heart's Warming Eve's. No flag-raising, no dolls, they did eat quietly together and exchanged presents too but there was not really deep meaning behind those "traditions". It was more like a formality that always happened on the same day of the year.

Star Twinkle and Rainfall Twinkle looked upset after realizing how their family had nothing special to offer to the other two families. There were no traditions that they could share, no stories to tell from past Heart Warming Eve's. They started to think about what kind of impression they would leave on them. It was rather discouraging.

Luckily, there was still one pony whose optimistic nature wasn't touched at all. "All the better for us then," Sunny Twinkle said as he looked at his wife and son with a big grin on his face. "We are celebrating Heart's Warming Eve the Pie way today, right? All we have to do is go along with everything and maybe learn from them, to form some traditions of our own," the stallion explained in an unusually calm demeanor.

Sunny Twinkle was having a very eye-opening moment for once, much to the surprise of his family. His wife couldn't help but smile at those words. "You are right. Whether we have some traditions to offer or not, we are guests today and that means that however, the Pie family spends their Heart's Warming Eve, all we have to do is accept their traditions and go along with them," the mare explained.

Star Twinkle shrugged his shoulders. "I guess you're right," he replied. All they could do was being nice and accepting guests and everything would turn out okay.

At least that is what they hoped for...

Later...

The train was just arriving at a train station at, what looked like, the middle of nowhere. The area looked like a wasteland, and every part that wasn't covered by snow was just dirt and mud. Star Twinkle knew that Pinkie Pie moved to Ponyville and that she originally was born on a rock farm but he just now realized that he actually didn't quite know what that meant.

What was a rock farm? The first thing that came to Star Twinkle's mind is that it was a farm were rocks were farmed but that couldn't possibly be right. How would that even work? He would get the answer to that eventually so there was no point in thinking about it too much now.

The three Earth Ponies walked outside the train and were quickly greeted by the Apple family and Pinkie Pie.

"You're here!" Pinkie Pie said in a cheerful tone while jumping on the spot excitedly.

The three Earth Ponies walked up to the five other Earth Ponies. Rainfall Twinkle and Sunny Twinkle greeted Granny Smith, Big McIntosh, and Apple Bloom while Star Twinkle approached Applejack and Pinkie Pie. The Apple Family were no strangers to Star Twinkle's parents, they met each other occasionally back in the day when Sunny Twinkle was still working in the Iron Hammer and had to do some work on Sweet Apple Acres.

Granny Smith certainly remembered the stallion. "If that isn't the little rascal who once tore down barn number five," the elderly mare said in a snapping tone.

Sunny Twinkle quickly formed a panicked expression on his face before laughing nervously. "Y-you have a very good memory, as always..." he said.

But Granny Smith just laughed in response, showing that she was just kidding before. She was actually pretty happy to see him and Rainfall Twinkle after such a long time. The pair also exchanged some words with Big McIntosh and Apple Bloom to get to know them better.

In the meantime, Maud Pie, Pinkie Pie's older sister arrived at the station as well, causing Pinkie Pie to greet her and giving her a hug. "I'm so excited to see you, Pinkie Pie. You too, Applejack and Star Twinkle," she said in her usual deadpan tone. "I hope you had fun sledding yesterday," she then added.

Applejack was quite confused to hear that. "How'd you know that?" She asked. Apparently, she and her family were actually sledding yesterday.

"Isn't it obvious?" Maud replied before she lifted the mare's hoof, revealing some stones on it. "There are specks of extrusive andesite on your hoof. It's a mountain rock," she explained.

Granny Smith seemed impressed. "Oh, she's good," she hushed to Rainfall Twinkle.

The group of ponies then were on their way to where Pinkie Pie's family is living. On their way, the Apple family, Star Twinkle's parents, and Maud were all talking to get to know each other a little better. Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie were happy to see this but there were still some worries that they weren't able to hide.

"What if our families don't like each other?" Applejack asked concerned.

"Glad that I'm not the only one who is worried about that," Star Twinkle threw in.

But Pinkie Pie seemed rather optimistic about all this. "We three are friends, and after tonight, our families are gonna be friends too," she said without a worry in her mind. "Do you know what that means? Number of Apples times number of Pies and Twinkles is twenty four, minus my preexisting friendships plus one for Maud and you makes five from twenty four is...nineteen new friendships!" She exclaimed happily.

Of course, Star Twinkle wanted to know where those numbers came from but it was Pinkie Pie so there was a good chance that she just made all of this up. The important thing was the truth in her words. The three of them were really different and managed to become good friends so there was hope that the same thing was the case for the rest of their families. If Star Twinkle, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie were there to steer everything in the right direction, then their families were bound to like each other by the end of the day.

Later...

As it just happened to be, this Rock Farm, where Pinkie Pie grew up on, was an actual farm with rocks that were scattered all over the place and were most likely farmed here. Star Twinkle decided to not question it any further and just followed everyone down to the house downhill, where Pinkie Pie's family was living in.

The whole farm was decorated with lights and some shiny rocks, which combined with the snow everywhere, gave it all a fitting Heart Warming feeling. This already made Star Twinkle nervous. He quickly compared all this with his own Heart's Warming celebrations. He was shocked to realize that there wasn't even decorations in the past of his Heart Warmings.

The stallion had to get those kinds of thoughts out of his mind if he wanted to enjoy his stay here. He would end up feeling miserable if he continued comparing everything that he saw here.

"This place looks amazin'!" Applejack said in awe as she looked at the well decorated and beautiful place.

"Yes! Very festival!" Sunny Twinkle said.

"The Pie's sure put a lot of work in the decoration..." Rainfall Twinkle said. She clearly thought the same thing that her son thought and felt bad.

Pinkie Pie hopped over to the house with an exciting grin on her face. She probably couldn't wait for everyone to meet the rest of her family. Star Twinkle was trying to remember if Pinkie Pie told him some things about her family. Pinkie Pie could talk a lot and without a break, so she must have told him at some point about them but the stallion couldn't remember, it didn't matter anyway since he was about to meet them now.

"Come on, everypony! Meet my super-mega-fun-derful family!" She said. Then, almost on cue, the door was opened by Maud and the rest of the Pie family walked outside.

First, there were her parents...

Her father had a moderate amber-colored coat color, a gray mane, brilliant amber-colored eyes, and a pickax as a Cutie Mark. He also wore a black fedora and a black tie.

Pinkie Pie's mother had a light cobalt bluish-gray colored coat, a grayish opal colored mane, arctic blue eyes, and three rocks as a Cutie Mark. Her mane was tied into a bun and she wore a golden pair of glasses and a black scarf.

The two ponies had a very serious expression on their face, almost as if they didn't even enjoy having visitors. This was definitely not what Star Twinkle imagined when he thought about the parents of the pink party pony from Ponyville, it couldn't be more the opposite of what he expected.

But there were still more ponies coming out of the house, two mares, Pinkie Pie's sisters.

The first mare had a bluish-gray colored coat, an opalish gray mane, and light apple green colored eyes. Her Cutie Mark was a lime with two stones beneath it.

The second mare had to be pushed out by Pinkie Pie since she seemed a little too shy to walk outside herself. This pony had a light gray colored coat, a dark cyanish gray-colored mane, and violet-colored eyes. Her Cutie Mark consisted of three purple marbles.

Shortly after, the two groups stood across each other, looking at the ponies in front of them and Pinkie Pie was highly excited about it. "Everypony, meet everypony!" She said, introducing everyone to each other.

One could instantly tell that the ponies in front of Star Twinkle were related. From the coat and mane colors to the expressions on their faces, and just the air that surrounded them, Pinkie Pie was the only one who visibly stood out with her pink coat and mane and her bubbly attitude.

Pinkie Pie's parents were the first to approach their visitors. "Surely thy name is not but Granny Smith," the father said as he approached the elderly mare before he then looked over to Star Twinkle's parents. "And I presume you are Mr. Sunny Twinkle and Mrs. Rainfall Twinkle?" He added before he bowed to the three ponies in front of him. "I am called Igneous Rock Pie, son of Feldspar Granite Pie," he then introduced himself.

Then Pinkie Pie's mother introduced herself. "Thou shalt know me as Cloudy Quartz," she said before she bowed down as well for a moment.

"May Providence favor thee well, and to thou comfort, our humble homestead bring," Igneous Rock Pie said.

Needless to say, this very well mannered way of speaking caught everyone by surprise at first. "Yes...you too," Sunny Twinkle greeted back, even though he was having some trouble keeping up with the choice of words that Pinkie Pie's parents used.

"Nice to meet you," Rainfall Twinkle said with a slightly confused smile on her face.

Still, Granny Smith was having some trouble keeping up with the Pies. "Y'all gabbin' with words real funny-like. Wh-wh-what'd you say them names were? "Iggy"?" She asked as she pointed towards Pinkie Pie's father, who could only return a confused look on his face. "And I'm just gonna call you "Big Mama Q"!" Granny Smith added before she addressed Cloudy Quartz, who also seemed a little surprised by the elderly mare's behavior.

Worlds definitely collided in this very moment, different farms, lifestyles, and characters met each other and both sides still had to get used to each other, something that would hopefully not be a problem once the day passes.

In the meantime, Pinkie Pie's sisters introduced themselves to the Apple Family siblings and Star Twinkle. If someone could call this an introduction.

"Gaze into the eyes of Limestone Pie," The oldest sister of the Pie's said with a serious and almost intimidating expression on her face. "Ma and Pa may own this rock farm, but I keep it running. Cross me and—"

"Aye aye, Captain Grumpy!" Pinkie Pie said before she pushed her sister away from everyone. She probably didn't want her sister to leave a bad impression. "No one's gonna mess with your precious mine!" Pinkie Pie then assured as she petted her older sister.

But Limestone Pie quickly stopped her sister on that. "Or Holder's Boulder!" She further demanded.

Pinkie Pie sighed in response before she walked over to an egg-shaped giant boulder that would put the size of Tom in shame. "Everypony stay away from Holder's Boulder," she then said in an annoyed tone. It felt as if she was used to doing that. "There, you happy now?" Pinkie Pie said, causing Limestone Pie to remain silent in response.

Star Twinkle didn't think he would be getting warmer with Limestone Pie, judging from that first impression. In fact, he almost feared that she would eat him alive if he would just make eye contact with the giant boulder.

Luckily, there was another sister left, which the apple family and he could still introduce them too. As soon as Pinkie Pie pulled her out of the house before, the mare was hiding behind one of the glowing stones next to the house. Once she saw Star Twinkle, Applejack and Apple Bloom approaching her though, she widened her eyes and got nervous.

Despite that, Applejack tried to introduce herself to her. "And you must be—"

But Pinkie Pie quickly took over. "This is Marble Pie, my baby sister who's only a few minutes younger than me but she'll always be a baby to me, isn't that right?" She said as she grabbed the cheeks of her sister, who could barely do anything in response. "She's so excited to meet everypony! Oh, and she wishes you all a happy Hearth's Warming!" She added.

Pinkie Pie expected some words coming from her little sister but since none came, she poked her lightly in the sides, prompting her to say something.

"Mm-hmm," was the only thing, accompanied by a nod, that Marble Pie said with a smile on her face.

This caused Applejack to hush some words to her little sister. "Guess Pinkie Pie always did the talkin' for her," she said, causing Apple Bloom to giggle in response.

Star Twinkle got some serious Fluttershy vibes from this mare. She clearly did not feel too comfortable to meet so many new ponies at once, something that the stallion could relate to. Still, out of all the sisters of the Pie family, including Pinkie Pie, she seemed the most normal so far.

"Looks like pies come in all kinds of flavors," Star Twinkle mumbled under his breath once he took another look at the family of Pinkie Pie.

Before the introductions could continue though, Pinkie Pie had an announcement to make. "Attention!" She said on top of the giant egg-shaped boulder.

Limestone Pie immediately picked up on that. "What'd I say about the boulder?!" She said asking her little sister to get off from it again.

"I'll just be a second," Pinkie Pie replied before continuing her announcement. "Everypony get settled in! There's plenty of room upstairs. And then it's time for Hearth's Warming Eve dinner!" She said excitedly before she threw some confetti into the air.

Everypony did as Pinkie Pie said and walked up to the house, ready to drop off their luggage and get settled in. Pinkie Pie jumped down from the boulder and quickly joined Star Twinkle and Applejack.

The later one being happy about how things went so far. "So far, so good, cousin!" She said towards Pinkie Pie who smiled in return.

Star Twinkle got a little confused though. "Cousin?" He asked.

"Yes! Did none of us told you that before?" Applejack asked.

"I did!" Pinkie Pie added. "But I guess that it was such good news that Star Twinkle couldn't comprehend them," she figured.

Star Twinkle did remember Pinkie Pie telling him, now that she mentioned it. Pinkie Pie once found a clue in a scroll from Twilight's library so she and the Apple Family went on a trip to find out the truth from another Apple Family member. The truth, however, remained a mystery. But from the looks of it, Applejack and the rest of her family agreed that Pinkie Pie was related to them. After thinking about it thoroughly, Star Twinkle figured that this was the reason why those two families came together to celebrate Heart's Warming Eve in the first place. The fact that Star Twinkle and his family were invited as well felt almost like an honor now. And realizing that put even more pressure on him.

Later...

On the second floor inside the Pie house, the Apple and the Twinkle Family made themselves comfortable. There were only two bunk beds, meaning that four ponies could sleep in them, which ended up being Granny Smith, Apple Bloom, Sunny Twinkle, and Rainfall Twinkle. The rest had to sleep on some mattresses on the ground. Star Twinkle would normally complain about this but he was a guest now so there was no room for that. It was the least of his worries now. He still wanted his family to get along with everyone after all, and judging from how their introductions went, he was sure that it wasn't the worst first impression that anyone left.

Apple Bloom, who didn't have to think about things like that, just jumped up and down on her bed in excitement. "Oh, I can't wait to taste their fresh sweet rolls! They're my favorite part of Hearth's Warmin' Eve dinner," she said.

"I'm more of a six-layer bean dip filly myself!" Granny Smith informed.

"I love that too!" Apple Bloom said happily. "Oh, Applejack, do you think theirs'll be even better than ours?" She then asked her big sister.

Applejack didn't seem worried one bit. She was laying in her mattress next to her little sister as if she was ready to sleep already. "Well, that's a mighty tall order, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least," she replied.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but look at his parents, who were already looking back at him. His mother seemed to have the same thoughts in her mind as he did. She walked up to him and whispered some words into his ears. "Listen Starfall, we are guests here, so whatever we get served, we have to eat plenty of it so that the Pie Family won't get offended," she explained.

Star Twinkle, while looking a little bothered, completely understood. "Yes, no problem," he assured. As it happened to be, he already planned ahead by not eating anything today. Whatever the Pie family would offer, he was planning on eating it to get on good terms with them. Rainfall Twinkle was planning on saying the same thing to her husband but Sunny Twinkle's stomach was already growling, giving them a good indication that he was about to eat everything as well.

Right on time, Pinkie Pie walked upstairs to fetch everyone for dinner. "Are you excited for dinner time? Because guess who is! Spoiler alert – it's me!" She said before she walked downstairs with everyone else following right after.

On the ground floor, the rest of the Pie family were already sitting on the dinner table. The food was already served and with it came a lot of confusion within the other two families. Rocks...inside a bowl of soup. At first, Star Twinkle thought the rock inside of the soup, was some kind of special rock that would make the soup taste better by putting it inside there but then he saw a whole lot more rocks next to it and inside the plates of the Pie family, served like any other food. Combining that with how Maud actually ate a rock in front of his eyes, on their first meeting, he came to the conclusion that this is going to be their food. And knowing that got him quite confused.

It was Applejack, however, who decided to speak up about it. "What about hot rolls and mulled cider and double-baked pot pie?" She asked. There was clearly some disappointment in her voice.

"Uh, what about six-layer bean dip?" Granny Smith further asked.

Maud Pie gave a short answer. "We have rock soup," she said in her usual deadpan voice. That much everyone could see, the thing is, no one really wanted to accept this as reality.

"Potato, po-tah-to. Double-baked pot pie, rock soup! Dinner is dinner. Am I right or am I right?" Pinkie Pie then threw in, in order to get the mood up again, that definitely has sunken as soon as the two families stepped into this room.

Applejack was still confused, disappointed, and even weirded out but she still wanted to deepen the bonds between everyone and tried to not let everypony know what she was really thinking. "Yeah, um, you know what? This is what we were expectin'! Right, everypony?" She said before she looked over to the rest of her family and Star Twinkle and his parents.

But all the mare got as a response were some noises of uncertainty. None of the Pie's suspected anything and already started eating their...food. In the meantime, Star Twinkle, his parents, and the Apple family looked at their plates filled with soup and rocks.

"Are we really supposed to eat this?" Star Twinkle thought. He quickly got his answer by looking at the Pie family biting pieces off from their rocks. He looked to his mother and expected her to push him into eating it but she had pretty much the same expression on her face than her son.

Crunch!

The two Earth Ponies then heard right next to them. Sunny Twinkle just took a good bite off from his rock and chewed on it as if it was an apple. Still, the sounds that could be heard from inside his mouth made it sound rather painful.

Once the stallion noticed the looks that the Apple Family and his own gave him, he looked confused. "I haven't eaten anything...was I not supposed to start?" He asked, oblivious to the actual problem.

Applejack looked at her own soup with a worried expression on her face. She did not want to offend anyone in Pinkie Pie's family so she just had to eat it. But then again, the soup consisted of a rock which was as far away as possible from what she expected from her Hearts Warming Eve Dinner.

In the meantime, Pinkie Pie was happily slurping down her soup but she did notice Applejack's reaction. "Is everything all right, Applejack?" She asked in concern.

Applejack, like before, tried to play it cool again. "O' course, I'm just being a rusty fiddle. Tune me up and let's get back to dinner," she said with a fake smile on her face before she then decided to slowly slurp down the soup under the watchful eyes of everyone, even going so far on swallowing the stone as well.

The expression on Applejack's face was anything but filled with satisfaction but she still tried to smile at everyone. Unfortunately, she spat out the rock again shortly after but no one from the Pie family seemed to mind that and continued eating.

With a smile on Applejack's face, Pinkie Pie quickly misunderstood and asked for more rock, something that Applejack really didn't need right now.

"I would like more rocks as well!" Sunny Twinkle asked, much to the confusion of his family who could only throw confused looks at him. "What? I haven't eaten anything yet," he repeated again.

Pinkie Pie was happy to see that two ponies already liked the food and got excited about the next upcoming tradition. "Eat up, so we can get to our Hearth's Warming dolls!" She announced.

Applejack's facial expression quickly changed into a more positive one. "Now that's somethin' I know all about!" She said happily.

Star Twinkle was actually looking forward to this as well, anything to get this dinner over as fast as possible. First though, he had to somehow get around and eat this rock sitting on his plate.

Later...

Outside, inside a crater not too far away from the house, all the families gathered to make Hearth's Warming dolls. Again, the Apple family expected something different and was confused. The members of the Pie family were all equipped with pickaxes and already worked on some rocks with them. They were familiar with their own traditions of course and left Pinkie Pie to explain what was going on.

"Who wants a Hearth's Warming doll?" She asked around.

Everyone quickly realized what was going on, and they still were confused. "Are you sayin' that rock is a Hearth's Warmin' doll?" She asked, pointing at the rock sitting in front of her.

"Don't be silly, silly!" Pinkie Pie then replied amused before she took her pickax gave her own rock a little smack, which resulted in it turning into a little figure in the shape of Pinkie Pie. "Our dolls are these little pieces!" She explained. "Isn't that right, Marble Pie?" She then asked her little sister.

But the mare was too focused on working on her own "doll" and got surprised to hear her sister's voice. A slow nod and another "Mm-hmm," was all she responded before she went back to work.

The rest of the family did the same and picking some stones and shaping them into the form of their own image, Limestone Pie even going so far and building a life-sized one. They did a good job with them, naturally, they were not doing this the first time and had some practice, not to mention that they were living on a rock farm and were used on handling their tools.

The same could not be said by the other two families though. No one really had any practice in sculpting dolls out of stones and everyone could tell just by watching them. From having trouble working with a pickax and hitting the stones without them breaking, no one really was going to do forge a masterpiece anytime soon. As if that wasn't enough, no one really seemed too excited to create dolls out of rocks, it just seemed weird.

Seeing how her family was struggling and not enjoying this tradition so far, Applejack just had to ask something. "Uh... y'all don't have traditional crocheted dolls passed down in your family?" She said. She was hoping that this way her family would still have something that they were familiar with.

But that wasn't the case. "Aww, you're just a frown factory because you got a weird rock," she said, trying to cheer her cousin up again. "I'm sure you'll do great in the flag finding mission!" She added.

But instead of feeling better, Applejack just got more confused. "The what findin' what now?" She asked.

Pinkie Pie simply smiled in response. "You'll see," she just said before she went back on creating her own doll, leaving Applejack with her own stone.

The apple farmer let out a big sigh. She did not have much fun so far on this visit and it was showing. She was about to go back on her "doll" but her eyes wandered over to Star Twinkle who didn't seem too excited as well. All he did so far was holding his pickax and staring at his rock. She figured that he was feeling the same way she did right now and decided to ask him a few things.

"Say Star Twinkle, is this what you expected this visit to be?" She asked.

Star Twinkle kept looking at his rock as he answered. "No..." he replied.

"I thought so," Applejack said in response. "I bet you also expected some hot rolls as a dinner and crocheted dolls, right"? She further asked.

For a moment, Star Twinkle's eyes wandered towards the mare before then going back to his rock again. "...suuure..." he replied. Of course, with Star Twinkle not having any comparison of his own, that was a lie. He did not expect to eat rocks or making dolls out of rocks though, this much was certain.

Applejack continued. "And I bet, your family is not having the fun of their lives too, right?"

The stallion looked over to his parents. "Well..." he started as he looked over to his mother, who was having some problems holding her pickax and hitting her rock with it. He then looked over to his father who seemed to be a little it more into it, smashing a big rock in front of him into multiple pieces, Celestia knows if he was actually trying to create something or if he was just having fun swinging his pickax around. "Depends..." Star Twinkle concluded. "Does it matter, though?"

"What do you mean with does it matter? Don't you care about enjoying Hearth's Warming Eve with your family?" Applejack asked back.

Star Twinkle thought back about his previous Hearth's Warming Eves and how they played out...normal and boring. Celebrating it in a weirder way this time would not be the end of the world for him but it was still important to Applejack apparently. This didn't change what Star Twinkle was thinking about the situation as a whole though.

"Whether we like it or not, those are the traditions of the Pie family, which means we have to go along with them," he explained. However, as he said those words it almost felt as if he wanted someone to confirm his thought since he wasn't too sure himself if this was the best thing to do.

Another sigh came out of the mare. "If you say so..." she said in disappointment before she returned to her rock to work on it.

Star Twinkle did the same. He grabbed a pickax and tried to create a doll out of it the best he could. He kept telling himself that creating something out of a rock is not that much different than creating something out of wood, something that he is much better at. He came to the quick realization that this was not the case though.

Later...

The next tradition was waiting for the three families. It was called the flag finding mission and Pinkie Pie started preparing everything by splitting the families up into groups. No one, besides the Pie family, of course, knew why but they just let her do it.

"Big Mac, Marble Pie, and Sunny Twinkle, you're team one!" She said pushing the three ponies next to each other. A rather weird combination since two of the ponies were very reserved when it came to words and another one being the complete opposite.

"Apple Bloom, Maud, and Rainfall Twinkle, you're team two!" She said pushing the three together as well.

"Ma, Pa, you're gonna be with Granny Smith. Don't think of it as team old. Think of it as team three!" She said before she pushed Granny Smith between her parents.

"And I'm with Applejack of course since we might be cousins!" She said, putting a smile on the mare, for the first time, what felt like ages.

Star Twinkle noticed how Pinkie Pie was not continuing splitting up the groups anymore which was weird since he was still left out. "What about me?" He then asked.

But Pinkie Pie did not forget about him and explained. "I just thought since you are such a lazy bum, that you might want to be the judge along with Limestone," she said.

As soon as her name was said, Limestone looked over to the stallion with a mad glare on her face. "Whatever," she said, with the happiness and excitement of a stone.

"Great..." Star Twinkle thought. "I can see us warming up to each other really soon..." He clearly was not too excited about this pair up as well.

After that was done, Applejack finally popped the question that she, her, and Star Twinkle's family asked themselves.

"So now that we're all split up, mind tellin' us what we're doin'?"

Pinkie Pie once again jumped up on the giant egg-shaped boulder. "As everypony knows—"

"Stay off Holder's Boulder!" Limestone Pie once again told her sister, seeing how she was again not listening to her.

This time, Pinkie Pie walked off from it, seeing how her sister was not amused at all. The mare then gave everyone a little history lesson. "When the three tribes united to form Equestria, the first flag was sewn by Nimble Thimble. It's tradition to raise a flag on Hearth's Warming to celebrate that famous day," she explained. Everyone present knew about that story of course. There was no sign of a flag, however, which caused some confusion for the families. Pinkie Pie was not done though. "But who gets to put the flag on Holder's Boulder?" She asked.

"You mean on the flagpole?" Applejack asked.

"No, silly," Pinkie Pie replied. "It goes on the highest point! And who's the lucky pony?" She asked further.

Applejack continued. "Traditionally, it's the youngest—"

"On your marks, get set, go!" Pinkie Pie then shouted, causing everyone to scatter and leave the area.

"Pinkie Pie, will you please tell us what's goin' on?" Applejack now asked in a more frustrated tone.

"I'll explain on the way!" Pinkie Pie assured before she pulled her cousin with her and leaving the area as well.

Star Twinkle did not know what was going on but from what he understood, he was a judge, along with Limestone Pie, so he decided to just stay with her, and hopefully get to know her a little better so that he could at least make one friend on this trip. The mare was sitting next to the boulder and sat down, waiting patiently for whatever was going to happen next. The stallion quietly sat down next to her, she didn't even bother looking at him, as if she tried to ignore the stallion. This body language made it quite hard for him to even approach her. On top of that, Star Twinkle was not the best to handle awkward situations like this.

"So...what are we, as the judges, supposed to do?" Star Twinkle asked.

"We wait," the mare replied grumpily.

"Wait for what? Where did everybody go? What is everybody doing while we wait here?" The stallion asked.

He expected Limestone Pie to shut him up or something but she was actually willing to explain everything, much to the stallion's liking. "They are looking for an obsidian stone that I was hiding somewhere on the farm, the one who finds it gets to raise the flag."

That sounded pretty complicated to Star Twinkle. Now he actually appreciated that Pinkie Pie let him literally sit this one out. "Finding one certain stone in a rock farm sounds pretty difficult," he spoke out loud without thinking.

"It's not a stone," Limestone said.

"But you just said they are looking for an obsidian stone," Star Twinkle recalled.

"Yes but they are not looking for an actual stone, they are looking for a picture of one. Looking for an actual stone would be pretty weird after all," Limestone Pie corrected.

From all the things that the Pie family was doing so far, he couldn't believe one of them saying that his idea was weird. Understanding this family is more complicated than trying to fly as an Earth Pony. Now that example might not fit Star Twinkle specifically since he could transform into a Pegasus at will but that is not what was important now.

"Hold on," Star Twinkle then said after he realized something else. "Does Applejack or anyone besides the Pie family know that?" He asked.

"They should," Limestone Pie casually replied.

"How?" Star Twinkle thought. No one knows about those traditions after all.

Star Twinkle didn't know how he would deal with all this, and luckily, he was tasked to just sit and wait. He hoped that someone would just show up and so that he would be saved from this awkward situation.

Meanwhile...

Behind the Pie house, Marble Pie and Big McIntosh were looking around to look for the obsidian rock, or for the picture of one for that matter. Both being the rather silent type, the two of them did not exchange many words and just focused on searching for the rock while occasionally saying some "Mm-hmms" and "Eeyups".

The same could not be said about Sunny Twinkle though.

"Found anything yet!?" He asked as he popped up between them as the two walked past each other. "This sure is fun! I don't even know what an obsidian stone looks like but I still have fun looking for it! What about you!?"

The stallion got some short answers...

"Mm-hmm," Marble Pie replied.

"Eeyup," Big McIntosh replied.

A shorter answer than Sunny Twinkle expected but he still took it. "Great!" He said happily before he continued looking for the stone. The fact, that Marble Pie was too shy to explain that he had to look for a paper though, meant that no matter how eager the stallion was to find the rock, he would never actually find it.

Meanwhile...

A little further away from the Pie house, Maud Pie, Apple Bloom, and Rainfall Twinkle looked for the obsidian paper. Maud did not tell the others that it was one though, given her...unique nature.

Still, both Apple Bloom and Rainfall Twinkle did their best trying to find something. "What does the rock look like?" Apple Bloom then asked.

Maud Pie, being the expert of all kinds of rocks, gave a quick answer. "It looks like something that formed when volcanic lava cooled quickly." She explained.

"Then...it would be black, right?" Rainfall Twinkle asked.

"Yes," Maud replied before she stopped her search for a moment. "Are you interested in rocks too?" She then asked, with a very slight hint of interest in her normally deadpan voice.

Rainfall Twinkle saw an opportunity to bond just now, and she definitely did not want to let it slip away. The problem was, she was not interested in rocks, at least not to the same extent as the Pie family. But there were still options.

"I do have a nice collection of jewelry. I especially like amber stones, the color reminds me of my husband," she explained.

There was a silence between the two. Rainfall Twinkle was hoping that those words were somehow getting on good terms with Maud. The fact that Maud was staring at her so intensely got her really nervous though. She couldn't even begin to guess what the mare was thinking with that expression on her face.

"Amber stones are cool," Maud simply replied. It was a beginning, that much could be said and Rainfall Twinkle was glad about it. "Have you ever wished you could turn into a rock?" Until Maud dropped that sentence and left the mare without a response. There wasn't even remotely anything that she could think of to say to this.

"I had a dream once I was an apple," Apple Bloom then threw in after overhearing this "conversation".

After a short pause, Maud replied. "We seem to have a lot in common," she commented.

If it wasn't for Maud's deadpan way of speaking, Rainfall Twinkle and Apple Bloom could swear that she was happy for a moment, which in turn, made them happy. Whether the traditions of the Pie family were something that they needed to get used to or not, there was at least hope of becoming friends with them. Knowing that, made Rainfall Twinkle and Apple Bloom really happy.

A little later...

The waiting, in front of Holder's Boulder continued and so did the silence between Star Twinkle and Limestone Pie. There was no telling if the mare wanted to be friends with him or anyone else from his or the Apple family, especially given her serious and unamused nature but Star Twinkle didn't want to give up. His goal was that he and his family would get along with the Apple and the Pie family, and he was determined to make this happen, even if he was the one who had to take the initiative.

"So...this boulder..." He said, trying to start something that barely resembled a conversation. "It''s pretty important, I assume?" He asked.

Limestone seemed almost offended to hear this question, much to Star Twinkle's concern. "You bet it is!" She said standing up for the first time in a while again. "It belongs to our family for ages now," she added.

"Really?" The stallion asked confused. It looked like a normal boulder to him, if one would ignore the egg-shape and the size of it. He had to admit that he got a little bit curious now. "Why?" He simply asked.

Limestone Pie seemed annoyed but she also looked at him as if she was about to drop a story on him and only a few seconds later, that is exactly what happened.

"It belonged to our great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Holder Cobblestone. He found that boulder in a dragon's nest, older than time itself! He decided to build this very farm around it," she explained before she looked over to Holder's Boulder for a moment. "It's just a normal ordinary rock but our ancestors and our family believe that it was always bringing us luck. That's why it is so important to us!"

Star Twinkle didn't know what he expected when he asked about that rock but that was certainly not it. That was actually a pretty good story. "Wow..." was the only thing he could say in response after hearing this story.

Slowly, he tried to think that this boulder was the reason why this was a rock farm, or why everything else was so rock-based here. He had no confirmation if that was true but he still felt bad. All those weird traditions were not just random things but had most likely their own stories behind them just like the stories that he heard about Hearth's Warming Eve. He still was not happy to eat rocks as a dinner but he started to respect their traditions a little bit now.

"We're here!" The voice of Pinkie Pie shouted as she arrived with Applejack first, equipped with a picture of an obsidian rock.

"Good job Pinkie Pie!" Limestone Pie congratulated.

"Uh...that means that you are the one who raises the flag, right?" Star Twinkle asked after recalling how the tradition worked again.

"You bet I do!" Pinkie Pie said happily. "Now let's get everyone back so that we can start hiding the presents!" She added before she rushed away to find the rest and tell them that the search was over.

For a moment, Star Twinkle got confused after hearing the last words of Pinkie Pie just now. "Hiding the presents?" He asked confused.

Applejack was nice enough to explain to the stallion that the Pie family was hiding their presents and everyone had to look for them. She also told him that because of this tradition, most of the time, they would end up getting no presents at Hearth's Warming Eve. It was yet another weird tradition that he had to deal with on this trip. The stallion just decided to roll with it, and he knew that his parents would be behind it as well. He was really hoping that there was a good story behind this as well in order for him to get used to it.

Later...

The day was over and it was already dark outside. Star Twinkle, his parents, and the Apple family went upstairs to go to sleep. Space was a little bit limited with two families sharing one room but it somehow worked. With two bunk beds across each other, Granny Smith and Apple Bloom were on one side, while Sunny Twinkle and Rainfall Twinkle were on the other side. This gave both families an opportunity to talk a little bit in private for a moment before going to sleep.

Rainfall Twinkle was looking at her son, keeping a close eye on him, something that Star Twinkle started to notice after a few seconds.

"Is something the matter?" He asked once he noticed the looks his mother gave him.

"Oh, I just wanted to make sure that you are alright, dear. I mean..." she started, trying to find the right words for what she was about to say. "I bet this is not how you expected today's Hearth's Warming Eve to go, right?" She asked with a nervous grin on her face.

The short answer to this question would be "no" but the stallion still wanted to share his thought about all this. "To be honest, I don't know what I expected when we arrived here but eating rocks was definitely not on my list," he explained.

"They were pretty good though!" Sunny Twinkle said, his head popping down from the upper bed where he was already laying in.

Star Twinkle continued. "I'm fine," he assured with a smile on his face. "I spent enough time with Pinkie Pie to get...sorta used to her and her weirdness. This day is almost feeling normal in comparison...weird but normal," he said.

Rainfall Twinkle was happy to hear this and smiled at her son before putting her hooves on his shoulder softly. "That is good to hear, Starfall. I'm glad that you are so understanding to all of this," she said in a caring voice.

With those words said, Star Twinkle went over to the other side of the room where Big McIntosh and Applejack were already putting down their mattresses on the ground. Star Twinkle was readying his own mattress as well but Applejack was quick to approach him as soon as he got closer to the two.

"Hey, mind if I talk with you for a moment?" She asked.

"Sure," Star Twinkle replied.

The two then walked to a corner, away from everyone else and Applejack started whispering so that nopony else in the room would hear them, much to the stallion's confusion. "Say, do you think that Pinkie Pie's family never had a real Hearth's Warmin' Eve?"

"What?" The stallion returned in his confusion. "What gives you that idea?"

Applejack explained herself. "You know, with all those weird traditions, like eating rocks, looking for rocks or hiding presents, don't you think that their Hearth's Warming Eve could be improved a little bit?" She asked.

Star Twinkle lowered his eyebrows. Having all those things being told to him made him realized how weird it all was again. "It's not really what I would have imagined if someone asked me about Hearth's Warming Eve," the stallion had to admit.

"Right, right?!" Applejack replied.

"But-" Star Twinkle continued. "Those are their traditions and that means that we should just let them celebrate the way they want. We are guests here after all," he further explained.

Of course, Applejack knew from where the stallion was coming from but she kept thinking about how her family and she were not really happy during most of the day, celebrating Hearth's Warming Eve the Pie way. In her eyes, something was missing.

"I know they have their traditions and we have ours, but I just want them to see how much better theirs could be," the mare whispered under her breath.

"What?" Star Twinkle asked. He couldn't quite understand what she was saying, even though she was standing right in front of him.

But Applejack quickly brushed it off again. "Forget it, we better go and grab some sleep for tomorrow," she said before she walked to her mattress and laid down, placing her hat next to her before closing her eyes already.

Star Twinkle decided to do the same. He was not looking forward sleeping on the ground and would like to spend the night in a comfy bed as well but seeing how the day was not really in his favor anyway, he just ignored that and laid down to get some sleep as well.

The next morning...

It was to be expected, Star Twinkle was someone who highly valued his sleep and the mattress, where he was sleeping in, was not enough to do satisfy him enough. He ended up having a pretty rough night and decided to get up earlier. Everything was still silent when he woke up so he guessed that he was still the first one to be up now.

The stallion carefully sneaked past the two bunk beds to go to the open window, grabbing some fresh air and waking himself up. It actually was doing wonders, his eyes quickly got blinded from the sun, forcing his tiredness away. What blinded him though was not the sun though. The lights that he saw came from down below, much to his surprise.

There were lights and decorations that were not present yesterday. It was classic decoration that you would see at Hearth's Warming Eve in almost every other town. Of course, Star Twinkle wondered why it looked like that now, and who was responsible for it. The answer surprised him though. It was Applejack.

Did the Pie family give her permission to do this? Unlikely, since no one seemed to be up so far. The memories of Star Twinkle's and Applejack's last conversation then came flooding back. "Is this what she meant with improving the Pie family's Hearth's Warming Eve?" The stallion wondered.

Before any other thought crossed the mind of the stallion, he started to walk downstairs and outside without waking up someone in the house. He needed to do something and fast.

The stallion was outside, Applejack didn't notice him so far and merely continued putting more lights around the farm without a single care in her mind. He approached the mare as she continued decorating the place.

"Applejack, what are you doing!?" Star Twinkle asked.

The mare quickly turned around and greeted her friends with a smile. "Morning, Star Twinkle. What do you think of this place?" She asked.

"Does the Pie family know what you are doing to their farm!?" The stallion asked in a panic.

"Uh...no..." Applejack replied hesitantly. "But I'm sure they'll appreciate it once they see all this," she said confidently and nervously at the same time.

But only a few seconds later, Applejack got an answer to that.

"What. Happened. To. My. Farm!" Limestone Pie said with the rage of a thousand thunders. Clearly not the sound of someone who was happy about Applejack's changes around the farm. Everyone else was standing at the door now as well, and not one looked really happy about the changes that Applejack did to the farm.

The mare sensed how things were getting a little tense so she tried her best to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible.

"It's Hearth's Warmin', Apple-style! We've been doin' everythin' your way, I thought we could mix it up a bit!" She explained before she rushed over to Marble Pie."You could raise the Equestria flag up this pole because you're the youngest Pie! Ma and Pa Pie, we'll cook you up a meal you'll never forget! And look, we all get presents without havin' to find 'em!" She said as she pointed to a pile of presents not too far away.

Pinkie Pie, who also looked a bit too surprised about all these changes "...Yeah, this is gonna be great! All the stuff she's said. Right, everypony?" She said in a poor attempt to support Applejack.

But her father was not sharing his daughter's opinion. "Pinkamena Diane Pie!" He exclaimed in a stern voice. "Truly thou cannot favor this madness!" He asked.

Pinkie Pie quickly got nervous. "Well, I wanna be one big family!" She answered.

"But what about what we usually do?!" Limestone Pie asked.

"I, um, well, I-I don't know!" Pinkie Pie replied breaking out in tears seconds later. "Don't make me choose!"

Applejack quickly realized how she made a mistake and still tried to calm everyone down again. "I didn't mean to cause a fuss... Why don't we just open presents around the flag pole? It'll be fun, you'll see!" She said. It was obvious that she was a little too overwhelmed by the whole situation and the last thing she wanted to do was make everyone feel unhappy about any of this.

"Excuse me," Maud Pie then said in the middle of this mess. She was standing in front of the flagpole that Applejack put in the ground not too far away from the house. "You planted your pole on a fault line," she informed everyone as she inspected the pole closely.

"What does that mean?" Star Twinkle asked.

He soon got an answer to his question. The ground started to shake and cracks were spread across the whole farm. Eventually, the cracks wandered over to Holder's Boulder, making it fall over and drop into the crater just behind it.

"Nooooooooooooooo!" Limestone Pie screamed in anger.

She and her family rushed over to the cliff to see the condition of Holder's Boulder. There didn't seem to be any major damage, which was expected since it was a pretty big and massive rock. Still, it being down in a cliff didn't help to make anyone feel better. Soon, Limestone Pie and Pinkie Pie's parents looked over to Applejack and shot daggers at her with their eyes.

"Oh, boy," Applejack said nervously. She knew that this was not good at all, even a blind pony would see that now.

Limestone walked over to the mare, causing Applejack to take some steps back in fear. There was no telling what The eldest of the Pie sisters would do after what happened to her precious boulder.

"I hope you are happy now!" She said into the face of Applejack.

"I didn't mean for this to happen!" Applejack immediately threw back nervously.

"Well, it doesn't matter!" Limestone Pie replied angrily. "You ruined our farm and threw Holder's Boulder down the cliff!"

Star Twinkle needed to defend Applejack. The latter one was an accident after all and Applejack couldn't be blamed for that. "Applejack didn't mean for anything like this to happen, she just-"

But the stallion immediately stopped once Limestone Pie was directing her angry glare at him. Star Twinkle wanted to help Applejack but he also didn't want to end up in this crossfire.

"It's okay, Star Twinkle..." Applejack then interrupted. "I know I am at fault here..." she added with a frown on her face, taking full responsibility in all of this. "I'm sorry for ruining your Hearth's Warming Eve," she said before she walked away from the group and inside the house again. She stopped at the door for a moment though. "It might be better if we leave," she said in an upset tone.

Limestone Pie only grunted in response, she did not even attempt to stop Applejack from leaving. She turned towards her family. "Let's try and Holder's Boulder back up," she ordered before she was on her way down to the crater to get the boulder back up to its usual spot again.

The rest of her family followed her shortly after. The farm was left in a very bad state because of the cracks from before and was in a desperate need to be repaired but Holder's Boulder was more important now so they focused on this problem first.

Pinkie Pie was still leaving behind, she clearly felt responsible for this situation as well. "I just wanted our families to like each other," she said with a frown on her face and tears starting to form in her eyes.

"Come on, Pinkie Pie," Star Twinkle said as he approached the mare. "It's not your fault or Applejack's, things just...didn't work out too well so far," he added.

"And maybe they never meant to be..." Pinkie Pie said with a frown on her face before she left to join her family, helping them to bring Holder's Boulder back up again.

Star Twinkle felt bad for everyone, if the mood between all the families were bad so far, then there was no hope left at all now. The stallion didn't quite know what to do and just joined the Apple family and his parents on the second floor, where they decided to retreat to at this moment. There he could see how the Apple family already packed their stuff, in order to leave.

"You really want to leave?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yes," Applejack replied. "We already did enough damage after all," she figured.

Granny Smith agreed to that. "Prob'ly best if we head back to Sweet Apple Acres. Maybe in time we'll be friends again, but for the now it's best if we give them a little space," she explained.

"I wish we didn't have to," Apple Bloom said in an upset tone. "I really like Maud. She's sweet once you get to know her. They all are...This is the worst Hearth's Warmin' ever."

There didn't seem to be much that Star Twinkle thought he could say to cheer them again. They already decided that leaving this farm was for the best. The same could not be said about Star Twinkle's parents though. They stood in the same room undecided about what to do next. They had nothing to do with what Applejack did to the farm and didn't want to end up in the crossfire as well but at the same time, it felt weird staying here after all the things that happened.

"Should we...leave as well?" Rainfall Twinkle suggested much to the surprise of her husband.

"Aw...I had so much fun so far," Sunny Twinkle said with a frown on his face.

Star Twinkle looked around the room. Frowning faces, instead of happy ones, definitely not what he expected from this year's Hearth's Warming Eve. It was not what he expected at all, and his bar was very low, to begin with after being part of some traditions today. Was it really supposed to end this way? Was this how the three families would end up in the end?

That did not sit right with Star Twinkle at all. He looked over at his parents. "Mom, Dad...we need to help the Pie's with the Boulder," he said determinedly before he turned around to the Apple Family. "You need to help too!" He asked of them.

"You really think that's a good idea, after all, what I did?" Applejack asked. She couldn't believe that Star Twinkle was demanding something like this.

"It's better than doing nothing," Star Twinkle casually replied. "I'll be honest, I don't really care which tradition is better or makes more sense but I do agree with what Pinkie Pie said before, that I want us all to feel like a big family on this day. I don't give up on that, that's why I will go down there and help the Pie's," he explained before he walked out of the room to rush down the crater and assist Pinkie Pie and her family.

Mixed reactions were left in the room, surprise, confusion, and even motivation, the latter one being present in Sunny Twinkle now, who walked towards the door now. "They need more than one pony to help them out right now!" He said determinedly towards his wife.

"Yes!" Rainfall Twinkle agreed. The determination of her husband seemed to have rubbed off on her at this moment. She quickly followed her family and decided to help too.

This only left the Apple family who was struggling to make a decision. It felt as if there was still a little push needed for them to help out as well. And it just so happened to come in the form of a big present that popped out from one of Applejack's luggage, that she didn't pack so far.

A card was attached to it, which Applejack quickly read out loud. "To Applejack, from Pinkie Pie. Cousins forever," she said with tears starting to run down her cheeks shortly after.

"You just found your first Pie Hearth's Warmin' present ever!" Apple Bloom, congratulating her big sister on that.

Applejack started laughing before wiping away some tears from her eyes. "Only Pinkie Pie could hide a present in someone else's luggage...What a great tradition," she said in realization.

Meanwhile...

As expected, getting Holder's Boulder out of the crater was pretty difficult. The whole Pie family was trying their best to move it but it wouldn't move an inch even with six ponies pushing it.

"Come on... you... boulder, come on... agh!" Pinkie Pie said in a straining voice as she pushed the egg-shape boulder.

"I'm pushing as hard as I can too," Maud said in her usual deadpan voice.

Eventually, they stopped after realizing that they could not move it one inch away from its spot. "Rrrgh, it's hopeless!" Limestone Pie exclaimed in frustration.

"You need some helping hooves?" Star Twinkle asked.

The Pie's turned around and saw Star Twinkle, Rainfall Twinkle, and Sunny Twinkle approaching them and offering them their help. But given how things turned out recently, Limestone Pie quickly refused their help.

"We can help you too!" Applejack then said with her family standing behind her.

Now there was even more fuel for the Limestone Pie anger train. "What do you want?!" She asked, pushing her help off as well.

But Applejack wanted to set things straight. She needed to speak her mind and tell everyone how she felt. "I wasn't tryin' to take your traditions away, I was tryin' to share ours. I was so focused on us bein' one big happy family, I thought we needed the same traditions right away. What I should've done was to learn about yours and teach you about ours. And over time, we'd make new traditions together," she explained before she took her hat off. "I'm sorry, y'all," she then apologized.

Her speech was definitely leaving an impact on the family, they could see how she felt bad about everything that she caused. They looked at each other but most of them had their sight on Limestone Pie since she was the angriest about the whole situation.

The mare noticed the looks that everyone gave her and decided to give Applejack an answer. "Well, don't just stand there! We got a boulder to move!" She said inviting everyone to help out with Holder's Boulder. "And I'm in charge," she added.

Shortly after all the families started pushing Holder's Boulder out of the crater. It actually started moving now with so many helping hooves pushing it. It was not easy but slowly and surely they managed to get it out with combined efforts.

"I think we've just invented our first combined tradition!" Pinkie Pie pointed out. "Pushing Holder's Boulder out of the quarry! I can't wait for Applejack to knock it over next Hearth's Warming!" She added happily.

Besides that being a terrible idea, Star Twinkle remembered Pinkie Pie to more important things. "Push now, talk later!"

Later...

Holder's Boulder was placed on its original spot and with some repairs around it, it was secured again. All the families worked together to repair and clean the farm as best as possible, leaving it in an acceptable state again. Everyone decided to just forget what happened and continued celebrating Hearth's Warming Eve.

But this time, they combined both of their traditions. They made dolls out of rocks, and placed them over the fireplace, ate sweets and rocks, for those who still wanted them, and presents didn't need to be hidden away.

Suddenly, everything felt a lot happier and enjoyable, not because not everyone had to go through some new and weird traditions anymore but because there was actual hearth warming in this house now. Everyone quickly got along with each other once they had the time to spent some time with each other.

It was nice, Star Twinkle thought that at least. But he could quickly see how everyone else was having fun as well. Apple Bloom spent time with Maud Pie, Big McIntosh and Marble Pie warmed up to each other, the parents and Granny Smith exchanged some nice words with each other, and Limestone Pie started to be nicer to Star Twinkle as well.

"Hey, Star Twinkle!" Pinkie Pie then said before she placed a weirdly shaped present in front of him. Her placing it made the whole ground shake for a moment, given its size and its likely weight.
"Here is your present," she said happily

"Well, I wonder what's inside," Star Twinkle said, of course knowing what was inside just by looking at the shape of it. He quickly ripped the paper away and it was revealed to be a big rock. "Wow, thanks Pinkie Pie..." Star Twinkle said with an amused smile on his face. It was the thought that counted after all, and he was sure that she was putting a lot into her present. Either that, or it was part of another tradition that he didn't know of yet.

"Happy Hearth's Warming!" Pinkie Pie said to him.

"Happy Hearth's Warming to you too Pinkie Pie," Star Twinkle replied before he got hugged by the mare only a second later.

"Applejack told me that you were the one changing the mind of everypony when they were about to leave," the mare said quietly to him.

"She did?" Star Twinkle replied.

Pinkie Pie nodded. "Yup, which means that it is because of you that we're having this amazing time now," she explained.

Star Twinkle was a little embarrassed to hear that. "If you say so," he said a little nervously. "I'm just happy everything turned out well," he said.

The stallion was sure that Applejack would have returned either way. They were practically family, after all, there was no way that she would have left without setting things straight again. She would have done something even if Star Twinkle didn't say anything...right?

"Attention, everypony!" Apple Bloom said gathering everyone to the middle of the room now. "Maud wants to sing some Hearth's Warmin' carols that she wrote!" She announced.

The whole family then formed a circle around the mare and listened.

"The first one is about rocks. They're all about rocks," Maud explained in a deadpan voice.

Star Twinkle chuckled. "I would have been surprised if they weren't," he thought to himself.

Shortly after, he could feel the legs of his parents laying on his shoulders as they listened to Maud's singing. All three of them were happy to be part of this visit. The family came here without any traditions to bring to the table but after a day like this, they happily picked up some of them for future Hearth's Warming Eves. Now Star Twinkle would actually be looking forward to this celebration.

110. Too Scary?

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Nightmare Night...

It was that time of the year again. Nightmare Night, the day where ponies would go candy hunting from house to house or scare each other, to name a few popular things. Normally, Star Twinkle would spend this day at home like any other day but that changed after his first Nightmare Night with his friends.

This gave the stallion a chance to actually appreciate the day a little more. He never really had the time to look at the decoration that everypony put all over Ponyville. His first Nightmare Night was not giving him the time for this. He never could take in the scary atmosphere that everyone tried to give to Ponyville on this special day. Needless to say, he was impressed.

Watching all the little ponies walking around in scary costumes having fun was making Star Twinkle pretty happy wandering around town. It almost made him feel bad for missing it all those years before. Better late then never, is what he kept telling himself.

The stallion quickly saw some familiar faces in the form of Granny Smith and Big McIntosh. They were loading some haystacks on a cart next to them. Granny Smith noticed the stallion and waved him over to them. He sensed how he was about to be asked to help them out.

"Hello, Granny Smith, hi Big Mac," Star Twinkle greeted.

"Hello there, Star Twinkle," Granny Smith greeted back. "Be a dear and help us with those haystacks," she said, wasting no time getting to the point.

"Sure," Star Twinkle replied annoyed. He just went on did as the elderly mare demanded. He picked up one of the haystacks and put them on the cart next to him. As he was about to pick up another one though, he quickly noticed someone hiding and shaking under it. "Fluttershy?" He asked confused.

It didn't take long till Granny Smith and Big McIntosh noticed the mare as well. "Fluttershy? What're you doin' out and about? It's Nightmare Night, remember?" She asked.

Star Twinkle didn't even think about that until Granny Smith mentioned it. From what his friends told him, Fluttershy usually spends Nightmare Night at home because she is too scared to leave the house so it certainly was a surprise to see her outside now.

"How could I forget?" Fluttershy replied as she came out of her hiding.

"Then what are you doing outside?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I need to buy some food because I forgot to stock up..." the mare replied nervously.

"But aren't you afraid to go outside at Nightmare Night? Can't you do that tomorrow?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Well, you see..." Fluttershy was about to explain but Star Twinkle was taking a shot in the dark because he had a pretty good guess.

"Angel?"

Fluttershy nodded. "Yes..."

Star Twinkle sighed. He was starting to wonder who of those two was the pet and who the owner. What kind of owner gets thrown outside to buy something for their pet after all?

Having remembered why she left her house, to begin with, Fluttershy quickly saw an opportunity after looking at all the hay around her. "I don't suppose I could borrow a few pieces of hay from you? You do seem to have quite a lot," she asked.

"We need it for the Apple Family Haunted Maze," Granny Smith replied. "The scariest maze that there ever was. Who knows what lurks inside?" She then added in a scary voice, which had its full effect on Fluttershy who began shaking intensely.

"Oh, I'm sure I don't," she replied.

Seeing how easily scared Fluttershy was, Granny Smith decided to get further with her scary performance. "Is that a mummified pony that just leaped out at ya?" She said, pointing behind the scared Pegasus.

"I don't know. Is it?" Fluttershy replied before she clung to Star Twinkle in fear.

"Could you please not-" Star Twinkle said, trying to stop Granny Smith from continuing but the Earth Pony mare was too much into her act already to quit now.

"And what's that crunchin' sound beneath yer hooves? Maybe it's the bones of ponies that didn't make it out alive!"

"B-B-B-B-Bones?!" Fluttershy replied.

"And are those peeled grapes or a thousand slimy eyeballs starin' at ya from beyond the grave?" She said as she literally pointed towards some peeled grapes next to the mare.

"Please tell me they're grapes!" Fluttershy replied in fear as she was clinging even harder to Star Twinkle.

"Oh, I'll never tell," Granny Smith replied followed by maniac laughter which was accompanied by conveniently placed thunder and lightning behind her.

This was the final blow to Fluttershy who was now screaming in fear and ran away from all of this.

"Please don't ever do that again," Star Twinkle asked of the elderly mare. He would like to not get more piled up on him.

It didn't take long till Star Twinkle found the mare again. This time she was hiding inside a barrel, which was still filled with water. Not the best picture of her right now. The stallion helped her out of the barrel, offering her his hoof. The mare accepted, she was really embarrassed and knew how miserable she must have looked to him right now.

"If you really are that scared of this day, then you shouldn't force yourself to get outside. This is bound to go pretty bad," Star Twinkle advised. He was thinking not only about Fluttershy's mental state but also about her safety. The stallion got worried just thinking about it and would like it if it wouldn't even come to this.

But Fluttershy knew all those things already. "I know...it's just..." she said before pausing again.

"It's what?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

The mare took a deep breath before continuing. "I am scared to go outside at Nightmare Night, I'm really really scared!" She said. There was no convincing needed for Star Twinkle though, pretty much everyone could tell who would spend one minute with her on this day. "But..." Fluttershy then continued. "Everyone is having so much fun on this day, including you and the others. Now that I am already outside, I was thinking of seeing the others..."

"Hey, that's a good idea!" Star Twinkle replied.

"You think?" Fluttershy replied happily for the first time which seems like forever.

"Yeah, sure," Star Twinkle said. "I bet you won't be that scared if the others are with you," he figured.

Seeing Fluttershy scared so much was certainly not making him feel well so he needed to help her out. He can't imagine how Fluttershy was hiding in her house every year because she was too scared to leave her house. This situation was making him remember how he used to hole himself up in his house as well. The difference was just that he was doing it willingly and not out of fear, that must be a lot worse. She and the rest of the girls were constantly helping him out with those kinds of things when they met and now someone else needed help, which was the perfect opportunity for him to repay this.

"I was on my way to Twilight's castle, everyone else is there to get ready for later. Just join us," he offered.

Fluttershy liked that idea. It was better than running through Ponyville alone with scary things all around the corner, an easy decision for the mare. "Let's do that," she said happily.

Star Twinkle was happy to hear that. "Then let's go," he said before he turned around to walk towards Twilight's castle. As he was on his way through, he suddenly felt Fluttershy getting really close to him, like a puppy clinging to its mother while walking through a dangerous forest. "Fluttershy...um..." was the only thing Star Twinkle could bring out in his surprise.

"I-it's still a little far so...I would feel a little safer if I'm with you..." she said in a sheepish voice.

"This close?" Star Twinkle replied nervously.

Fluttershy only nodded embarrassed in response as she walked literally right next to him. The mare was still scared, so Star Twinkle couldn't blame her reacting this way. That's what he was thinking at least. Apart from making him feel a little bit embarrassed, she was not getting on his nerves or bothering him too much so he just ignored her clinging to him this close and continued to walk towards the castle.

Later...

The two ponies opened the doors to Twilight's castle. It was very dark in the entrance hall, barely any lights were lit. Given how today was Nightmare Night, this was probably intentional to give the castle a scary vibe. It was a good dedication to the holiday but it was terrible timing with Fluttershy setting hoof into the castle today. The mare was about to leave as soon as she saw the dark hall in front of her and Star Twinkle needed to convince her to continue.

"It's okay Fluttershy," the stallion said. "It's just a little dark," he added.

"Yes but what if there is a monster inside this castle!? We wouldn't be able to see it if the room is this dark! It could jump us from every corner! Or what if the ceiling would collapse!? We wouldn't even know where to stand on to not get crushed!" The mare said in a panic, her eyes widened and wandering from one spot to another of this room.

Star Twinkle had no idea where this was all coming from all of a sudden. Here he was thinking that he was a little paranoid at times but Fluttershy was clearly on another level. It was also pretty unrealistic, something that Star Twinkle made sure to let her know.

"I think if there was a monster in here, Twilight and the others would have let us known that or take care of it already. And this Castle looks far from collapsing anytime soon so I don't think we need to worry about the ceiling dropping on our heads," the stallion explained. He couldn't believe that he needed to tell Fluttershy those things in the first place. Now it no longer looked like paranoia but rather an unhealthy amount of imagination.

Fluttershy seemed to have come to the conclusion that she was maybe overreacting a little bit and walked further inside the castle, she was still clinging to Star Twinkle, even more so than outside, but at least she was making progress.

"And now we just walk around the castle and look for the others, and prove to you that there are no monsters in here," Star Twinkle said as he took a few steps forward, slowly, with Fluttershy right next to him.

"Okay..." Fluttershy replied nervously.

The two slowly made a few steps forward only to stop shortly after as soon as something appeared at the end of the hallway. This something was casting a shadow on the walls that came relatively close to what Star Twinkle would call a monster. Like before, Fluttershy was clinging to the stallion in fear and closed her eyes, as if that would make the monster go away. Star Twinkle kept telling himself that there were no monsters in Twilight's castle but Fluttershy's stories and the way she was acting right now didn't help to make him feel sure about that.

Luckily, reality was hitting the stallion in the form of Spike, who was wearing a costume, funny enough, it was the costume of a two-headed purple dragon. One of the heads being Spike's and the other one being part of his costume, which he dragged after himself.

Needless to say, Star Twinkle was relieved. "Oh, it's just-"

"AAAAH!"

The same couldn't be said about Fluttershy though, who didn't notice that it was Spike wearing a costume due to her being way too scared right now.

After a few moments, Fluttershy managed to calm down, thanks to Star Twinkle and Spike, the later one apologizing for scaring her.

"You think it's scary now, just wait until it's done," he said, as he kept fighting with his costume to not let the head fall down constantly.

"That's okay. I'll take your word for it," Fluttershy replied. She clearly thought of it to be scary enough already.

Suddenly, Spike came to a realization after looking at Fluttershy. "Hey, wait a minute! It's Nightmare Night and you're here and not holed up in your cottage! Does this mean what I think it means?" He asked.

"That I foolishly forgot to stock up on food for Angel and had to go out to get him something but got spooked in town so I came here hoping Twilight had some lettuce I could give him?" Fluttershy replied nervously in with fear in her voice.

"Oh," Spike replied. That was definitely not the response he was expecting. "I thought maybe you decided to come out with us tonight," he said.

"Goodness, no! I couldn't be out tonight. I just couldn't," Fluttershy replied out of reflex. She completely forgot the reason for her visit for a moment.

"Technically speaking, you already are out right now," Spike pointed out.

"Exactly," Star Twinkle agreed. "And you did come here to hang out with the others, remember?" The stallion said.

Fluttershy, while looking a little bit confused still, remembered. "Yes...you're right..." she said with little confidence in her voice.

"Is that true?" Spike replied happily and with surprise in his voice. "Then let's go to the other. I know they'd be super excited," he added.

"You think so?" Fluttershy asked surprised.

"You would make them so happy if you joined in. They wouldn't believe their eyes!" Spike said happily, he already could imagine the smiles on his friends faces. "Come on, Fluttershy, what do you say?"

The mare considered this idea at least. She was here already, so there was no reason why she shouldn't go and at least say hello to her friends. It sounded like everyone was having a lot of fun already, the giggles and laughter echoed through the halls of the whole castle.

The three arrived at one of the library rooms of the castle, everything was dark in there, which was probably deliberately to set the atmosphere of this day. From the looks of it, Star Twinkle, Fluttershy, and Spike just stumbled in the middle of a spooky story that Pinkie Pie was telling everyone.

"And then it got very, very quiet and suddenly they realized the balloons had never been inflated!"

There was a possibility that this story was probably a lot scarier if they would have heard the rest of it but judging from that conclusion alone, it sounded more like a weird one. Despite that though, everyone did Pinkie Pie a favor and screamed, only to break out in laughter afterward. A clear proof that it was not the scariest story ever told.

Rarity was the one who wanted to top this story though. "Did I ever tell you about the night that the mannequin came to life and haunted all the costumes?" She started.

Rainbow Dash's interest was quickly peeked. "What happened?" She asked curiously.

"I just told you, darling," Rarity replied. "A mannequin came to life and haunted all the costumes," she explained, making this story sound even weaker than the last and causing only Pinkie Pie to fall over in shock.

Star Twinkle rolled his eyes. "If those are the scary stories, then I have no doubt that Fluttershy will get too scared today..." he figured, thinking about the mare's well-being.

Without a warning, Fluttershy turned on the lights. "Hi, everypony," she greeted them.

This caused everyone to scream in fear. Maybe it was because no one expected to hear Fluttershy's voice for today, or the "scary" stories that they told themselves so far, but Star Twinkle began to seriously wonder how easily scared the girls can get today.

"Fluttershy, what are you doing here?" Twilight asked, which pretty much took the words out of everypony else in the room. "Is everything okay?" She then asked, figuring that there must have been an emergency if Fluttershy was outside her cottage at Nightmare Night.

"Everything is fine," Fluttershy quickly assured. "In fact, it's more than fine. I've decided to join you in your Nightmare Night festivities," she announced proudly.

Rainbow Dash was immediately doubting that though. "Seriously? You? Out? Tonight?" She said in disbelieve.

"Well, she is out of her cottage now," Star Twinkle pointed out.

Since no one seemed to believe the mare so far, Fluttershy explained everything to them. "Every Nightmare Night, I shut myself in my cottage and refuse to come out until morning. But it's just like when I was afraid to sing in front of anypony. If I hadn't given it a try, I never would've found out how much I enjoy it," she said.

"And we'd have missed out on how great you sound," Applejack added, making the Pegasus blush in response.

It's just like Spike said before, everyone couldn't believe it at first. But once they got around that news, they came to the realization that one of their friends was joining them on this day.

"Fluttershy with us on Nightmare Night? Why, that's positively the most wonderful news I've heard in ages!" Rarity expressed happily.

Of course, Pinkie Pie was looking forward to it as well. "You can get dressed up in a costume with us and play Nightmare Night games with us and eat candy apples with us!" She said in excitement.

"Don't forget the best part," Applejack said. "Goin' through my family's corn maze!"

Of course, Fluttershy already knew all about the maze from Granny Smith, who did her best to make it sound as scary as possible. Too scary, judging from how Fluttershy reacted just by hearing that name again.

"Oh, right. The maze," Fluttershy said nervously.

Star Twinkle quickly signaled Applejack that it might not be a good idea to drag Fluttershy there yet. "Uh, only if you're up for it," Applejack added after she realized what the stallion wanted to tell her.

But Fluttershy didn't want to let her down. "Oh, I am! I am ready to take on Nightmare Night!" She said with some hesitation in her voice.

Whether she was ready or not, hearing that she was about to try out spending Nightmare Night with them was enough for them to be happy. They were looking forward to having Fluttershy join them on this day. They began cheering loudly to celebrate it, much to Fluttershy's despair who was jumping back and crawling on the ground, shivering in fear.

"Uh...Fluttershy?" Star Twinkle asked, grabbing the attention of the mare again.

The mare giggled nervously in response. "Just practicing," she said before she laughed nervously.

Fluttershy deserved respect for giving Nightmare Night a try after such a long time but her friends had a slight suspicion that it would not be the easiest task to make Fluttershy enjoy Nightmare Night as much as they all did.

Later...

Of course, like every Nightmare Night, everyone needed some fitting costumes as well, which is why everyone went to Carousel Boutique. Rarity already made some costumes for every single one of her friends, including Star Twinkle, who was inside the small changing room of the boutique while the girls changed in Rarity's room.

The stallion didn't waste much time and tried the costume on before he walked outside to present himself. Since Rarity didn't expect Fluttershy to join in, she still needed to find a costume for her but once Star Twinkle stepped out and showed himself, she couldn't help but giggle at the sight of the stallion.

"My, my, you look stunning!" The mare complimented. Of course, she would say that. She made the costume after all.

"It does look really good on you," Fluttershy complimented as well.

The stallion looked at his costume as well, and he had to admit that he liked it as well. He was wearing a white armor and helmet, similar to the ones that the Royal Guard was wearing only fancier and more heroic-looking.

"What do you say?" Rarity then asked in excitement. "I did a smashing job didn't I?" She asked as she got a little bit too close to the stallion's face.

"Y-yeah, sure!" Star Twinkle replied nervously. The mare was a little too close for his liking. "It does look really good, thanks Rarity," he said in honest gratitude, making Rarity giggle in response.

From how in awe Fluttershy was looking at the stallion, she seemed to like Star Twinkle's costume as well. "You look like a hero out of a fairy-tale," she commented.

"Exactly!" Rarity agreed. "Really fitting if you ask me," she added proudly.

But Star Twinkle was not too sure about that. "Hero" would be a long stretch for him. Wearing armor like this made him almost feel more like that pony in the black armor, who attacked him once if anything else. Not a really good thought to have at the back of your head while walking around dressed as a knight.

The stallion started to feel a little bit embarrassed to have the girls admiring him like that so he desperately needed to change the subject.

"What about Fluttershy? Did you find something fitting?" He asked.

"We are working on it," Rarity said before she went back to going through her costumes, in order to find something for her friend. Rarity was already dressed for the occasion and wore a sea-pony costume, which consisted of a long tail, she had over her hind legs.

The other girls were not done yet so Star Twinkle had no choice but to help out with the costume choice as well. But Rarity was already going through most of her costumes and came to the conclusion that they were not really fitting for Fluttershy.

"Mummy? No. Headless pony? No. Vampire fruit bat? Ugh, definitely no," she said as she went through one costume after another. "You see, Fluttershy, the beauty of Nightmare Night is that you don't have to dress up as something scary," she explained.

"Example number one," Star Twinkle said, referring to his knight costume which was anything but scary.

"Ooh! Yes," Rarity then said, which is usually a sign of her inspiration hitting her. "This one will look gorgeous on you. Period costumes are all the rage this year," she said as she presented the mare a beautiful, yet kinda traditional looking dress. But Fluttershy did not seem to like it at first sight, which was not unnoticed by Rarity. "What? No good?" She asked confused.

Fluttershy explained what she didn't like about the costume and it left Star Twinkle and Rarity a little surprised.

"What if we encounter something terrifying and need to get away quickly? All those layers could slow me down, or worse, make me trip!"

The first thing that came to mind to Star Twinkle was that she could always fly away to prevent tripping but since this was Fluttershy's first Nightmare Night, the best was to just play along so that Fluttershy would not feel too bad about it.

"Oh. I never... considered that. Never fear!" Rarity said before she turned around to fetch another costume immediately. As she turned around she accidentally slapped Fluttershy with her tail. Maybe it was a very subtle way from the gods of fashion to get back on Fluttershy because she didn't like the first costume.

"Ooh, now this is a real stunner!" Rarity said before she presented Fluttershy another costume.
"I call it "Masquerade"! Just a simple black dress underneath but with this ornately decorated mask!" She explained.

"A mask?" Fluttershy replied confused.

"No?" Rarity asked confused, wondering what could be the problem now.

Again, Fluttershy explained herself. "They can just be so difficult to see out of."

"Yes, but this one has eyeholes," Rarity explained, while even pointing at said eyeholes.

"W-What about being able to see what's to the left or right of me?" Fluttershy further pointed out.

There was no point in discussing this any further with Fluttershy so Rarity decided to just give up. "I suppose your vision would be somewhat obscured," she said before she put away the mask again. "It's your first Nightmare Night out and about, and we do want you to be comfortable."

"Why don't you just pick what you want to wear?" Star Twinkle suggested. He was a little bothered by watching this all without it going anywhere after all.

Fluttershy liked that idea and quickly managed to decide. "What if I just wear the dress?" She said, referring to the black dress that Rarity gave her already.

Being the fashionista, she was, Rarity was a little shocked to hear how Fluttershy didn't want to wear the complete costume but again, she gave into her friend's demands. "Oh, sure, dear. That's... fine," she said disappointed before she turned towards Star Twinkle. "It's so plain, it's frightening."

The stallion smiled awkwardly in response. "Perfect for Nightmare Night," he figured.

While Fluttershy was going to the changing room to put on her costume, everyone else walked into the room with their costumes on now. As the creator of those costumes, Rarity was highly impressed by how good they looked on the girls.

"Oh, my! Look at all of you! My costumes fit you to a T!" She said proudly.

Twilight was wearing a golden armor, which definitely was inspired to an old armor that the Royal Guards used to wear, Applejack wore a lion costume, Rainbow Dash looked like an astronaut, and Pinkie Pie was a disco dancer from times before Star Twinkle was even born.

"Hoo-wee, we're gonna have the best time!" Applejack said happily.

This was also the first time where the rest of the girls saw Star Twinkle and his costume. Rainbow Dash was the first one to show how impressed she was by it. "Cool costume!" She simply said. She probably liked to wear it herself.

"Our costumes kinda fit, don't you think?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah, looks like it," Star Twinkle replied. He couldn't help but think that this was maybe intentional from Rarity.

Pinkie Pie was about to jump over to the stallion as well but the roller blades on her hooves, which were part of her costume, made it quite hard so she decided to simply slide over to him. "Not really," she said as she slid past the two before sliding right back to them again on her way back. "If it were fitting, then you, Twilight, should be dressed like a princess so that Star Twinkle could save you," she figured.

Twilight lowered her eyebrows for a moment. "I am already a princess so I am glad that I am wearing something else," she said. The mare was a little oblivious to what Pinkie Pie was actually hinting at with those words.

Before things became awkward however, Fluttershy showed herself to everyone in her costume which consisted of the black dress that she chose before.

Seeing how something was clearly missing, Rainbow Dash asked the obvious. "Hey, Fluttershy, where's your costume?"

"I'm wearing it," Fluttershy replied.

Pinkie Pie immediately gasped. "I get it!" She said before she rolled over to the Pegasus. "You're a robber escaping into the night!"

Fluttershy shook her head.

"You're a ninja escaping into the night!"

Fluttershy shook her head again.

"You're black licorice escaping into the night!"

Fluttershy shook her head once more before finally revealing it to everyone.

"Close. I'm going to a masquerade ball. Without the mask," the mare explained.

No one really got it, not even Star Twinkle, and he was there when she was choosing that "costume". Still, the stallion was coughing into his hoof to signal that someone should say something.

Twilight quickly got it and reacted accordingly. "Oh, that's great! Isn't it great?" She said towards the rest of her friends, prompting them to say something as well.

"Oh, yeah," Rainbow Dash said.

"So creative," Pinkie Pie said.

"Great costume," Applejack.

It was obvious that they tried to not make Fluttershy feel weird, especially since this was her first Nightmare Night, and therefore, the first time she was wearing a costume. They didn't want to ruin all that. Still, it was a little bit weird.

Later...

For the start, the group decided to go to Sugarcube Corner to play some games. The first game was a classic pin the tail on the pony game, only as Nightmare Night variation. In this game, you had to out the horn on a picture of Nightmare Moon. There were more games to choose from but Pinkie Pie tried to hold off from them because she thought they were too scared for Fluttershy. It didn't matter though, everyone was having fun anyway.

It was Rainbow Dash's turn now. Pinkie Pie put a blindfold over her eyes, gave her the horn, and spun her around.

"Round and round and round you go, where you stop nopony knows!" Everyone said as the mare was still spinning around.

"Okay... go!" Pinkie Pie said, releasing the mare again to let her start.

Of course, Rainbow Dash had little problems losing her orientation and walked right towards the picture while adding a few spins and flips on her way to show off. She then pinned the horn on the picture on almost the right spot and removed her blindfold to look at her accomplishment.

"Good luck beating that, Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash said in a boasting tone.

Next was Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie was about to put the blindfold over her eyes but Fluttershy got a little nervous in response to that. "Well, um, it's just that if I'm blindfolded and somepony were to leap out in front of me, I'd never have the chance to defend myself," she explained.

Again, a pretty long stretch from her but then again, no one was forcing her to play so for most of her friends, it was okay.

"That's fine, darling. You don't have to do anything you don't want to," Rarity said.

"We're just glad you're here," Twilight added.

"Why don't we try another game?" Star Twinkle suggested.

Pinkie Pie liked to hear that. "We don't have to finish that game. I have another one I know you'll love!" She said before she pointed towards the next game. "Bobbing for apples!"

Fluttershy was walking up to the game and to the surprise of everyone, she gulped nervously.

"Fluttershy, what's wrong?" Twilight asked.

The Pegasus explained herself. "It's just that, um... What happens if, when my head is deep down in the water, some kind of scary monster appears? How would I even hear to know I was under attack?"

This was starting to sound ridiculous. "How does this mare live her daily life like this?" Star Twinkle wondered. It could be that Fluttershy was acting like this because it was Nightmare Night and she expected something scary to happen each second.

"Time for candy!" Pinkie Pie then said in an attempt to save the mood.

"It is?" Fluttershy asked confused.

Pinkie Pie jumped over to some candy bags, each of them having funny drawn faces of her friends on them. "I made candy bags. Each bag has been made with each of you in mind, complete with each of your favorite candies!"

Star Twinkle slowly walked over to his bag and looked inside. He couldn't help but try one of the sweets that were inside, one of them being one of his favorite. "Mhhh...dark chocolate," he said in a satisfied tone, making a weird face in the process, which in return put a grin on Pinkie Pie's face.

The rest of the group went to their bags as well, including Fluttershy, who for some reason was hesitating. Something was wrong once again, it seems.

"What if when I'm eating one of these chewy taffies, my mouth becomes glued shut and I can't scream for help?" She said.

The ponies looked at each other confused. This was getting out of hoof. Fluttershy's crazy imagination was almost taking over the whole thing.

Star Twinkle decided to step up and say what everyone else was probably thinking now. "I never thought I would be the one saying that but...aren't you being a little bit paranoid?" He said in the best way to not hurt the mare.

It didn't take long until Fluttershy was being aware of this as well after taking a look at everyone's faces. She started to feel bad. "Oh, goodness. We've only just started to celebrate Nightmare Night together, and I'm already taking all the fun out of it, aren't I?" She said with a frown on her face.

Of course, no one wanted to make her feel bad. "You're not taking out all of the fun," Pinkie Pie said.

Except for Rainbow Dash. "Just, like, ninety per—" She was about to say until everyone shot some glares at her. "...Some of it," she then added, putting it mildly.

It was natural for Fluttershy to be nervous to participate in Nightmare Night for the first time, especially since she was so scared of it for almost her whole life but ruining the fun for everyone else was definitely not what she was having in mind.

"I really wanna do this. But there's just so many things that terrify me about tonight. I couldn't possibly predict what might upset me," she shared with her friends.

The night was not necessarily ruined by Fluttershy's action but some things could definitely be improved. That is what gave Twilight the idea that might help the mare out.

"Unless... you were the one doing the scaring!"

Rainbow Dash immediately burst out in laughter "Her scaring us?" She said before she continued laughing uncontrollably before she realized how everyone was looking at her, asking her to stop. "Oh. You're being serious," Rainbow Dash then said in her realization.

Twilight explained herself. "The thing you hate is being scared, but if you're the one doing the scaring, then..." she said, prompting Fluttershy to finish.

It didn't take long until the mare connected the dots. "Then I can help you all have fun and I can still be a part of Nightmare Night!" She said with a smile on her face.

Star Twinkle quickly thought of this as a good idea as well. "And as a bonus, you won't get scared because you are the one doing the scares," he further pointed out.

It didn't take long until everyone was convinced that this was the best solution for the situation. If Fluttershy was not up to getting scared then she needed to be the one to do the scares.

"You like that idea?" Twilight then asked Fluttershy, seeing how everyone was pretty much on board.

"I think I do!" Fluttershy said happily. "And I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I think I have the perfect idea for how I'm gonna do it!" She said confidently.

"Really?" Pinkie Pie asked surprised. "Oh, this is so exciting!"

Fluttershy then walked outside with a teasing grin on her face and spooky voice "Meet me at my cottage in an hour," she said as she was outside the door just to peek her head inside again. "Oh, I'm excited to see everypony soon!" She added with her normal voice again.

Once the mare left Sugarcube Corner, the group was left there wondering what Fluttershy could have planned for them. Rainbow Dash was still doubting that Fluttershy would succeed in scaring them but she, as well as the others, were willing to give it a try.

Star Twinkle was actually pretty sure that the mare would come up with something good. "Well, as a pony who is scared of pretty much everything, maybe she has some decent ideas," he told himself.

One hour later...

As agreed, everypony was going to Fluttershy's cottage one hour later. After Fluttershy left so confidently, everyone had high hopes of this visit being rather scary. Her cottage, standing there in the dark, was already giving off a surprisingly very spooky vibe to the group. As the group opened the door to Fluttershy's home, they were greeted by a dark and empty room, which, again, looked promising.

"Welcome to Fluttershy's tea party!" Fluttershy said in a spooky voice, inviting everyone into her house

"Did she just say "tea party"?" Rainbow Dash asked unimpressed.

"It sounds like it's a scary tea party?" Twilight guessed.

Rainbow Dash could only sigh in response. She was not looking forward to this at all and could already smell that it would not end well.

"Tea parties can be scary..." Star Twinkle said. From his experience, awkward silence during a tea party could be the worst. That would only be a personal nightmare for him though, and he was pretty sure no one else would get scared by this at all.

"Have a seat," Fluttershy said, inviting her friends into her cottage once more. The ponies did what she said and sat down, waiting for whatever Fluttershy had planned for them. "Don't be scared of what awaits you. Go on. Pass the sugar," she asked of them. Rarity then did as she said and levitated the cup of sugar to Applejack who had to find out that it was empty. "Oh, no! There is none! You're a terrible host!" She added with a spooky voice again.

A clear fall on the face for this scary attempt...

But the scariness continued. "Rarity, put your coat on!" Fluttershy then asked of the mare.

"Why would I do that?" Rarity asked confused.

"You need to cover up because no one has complimented your dressssssss!" Fluttershy said in a scary voice.

Star Twinkle's back already started to shiver, not because anything here was scary but because he realized how bad this all was. And he had a slight suspicion that it was not getting any better.

"Pinkie Pie, look to your left and ask your best friend to pass the cucumber sandwiches!"

Pinkie Pie did as Fluttershy said and looked to the left. "Huh?" She said confused. "I can't. There's nopony there," she said pointing to the empty seat next to her.

"That's right. Because she didn't care to show uuuuuup."

"What?" Pinkie Pie replied confused. It was a really bad sign if even Pinkie Pie was thinking that this was weird.

Fluttershy did not notice how no one was impressed or scared by any of her...scares and just continued.

"A friend who didn't come through. That must scare you to the coooore."

Even listening to her explaining her scares didn't make it any better. In fact, it made it even worse, like a joke that someone explained to you after not laughing about it.

"Quick, everypony, look behind you!"

Everypony played along and did as Fluttershy said. A bunch of drawn pictures were hanging from the ceiling all of a sudden. The drawn pictures were ponies from some of those foreign comics that are popular among a lot of young ponies in Equestria.

"Uh, what are those?" Rainbow Dash said in an unimpressed tone once more.

"Well, the one on the farthest left is..." Star Twinkle started to explain until he noticed how everyone was looking at him. The problem was not the pictures itself after all but rather that some pieces of paper were not scary. "Uh...doesn't matter," Star Twinkle said in retreat. He would have liked to impress the girls about his knowledge with those shows after all. But again, that was not the problem here.

"They're unplanned guests. Your woooorst nightmare. You don't have enough food for them!"

This was almost sad. Maybe if someone was ready to put a lot, and the emphasis was on "a lot", imagination into all of this, then maybe this would end up being scary. But Fluttershy was expecting everyone to get scared by hoof-drawn pictures. Even if real uninvited guests would show up, there was a huge difference in feeling a little awkward and being scared, something that Fluttershy did not seem to understand.

The mare was not even noticing how her friends reacted to her "scares" and just continued. Her next "scare" included her throwing a cat wind up toy on the ground next to them. "Oh, no! There's a tiny kitten that needs a home! But you are over-scheduled right now. You don't have time to help!"

Another poor attempt from the mare...

"Wow...this really blows," Star Twinkle said out loud without thinking, earning him a glare from most of the girls in response.

Still, everyone could understand how the stallion was saying that he was not the only one getting a little bored by now.

"I said, "You don't have time to help!" This should appear to scare you!" Fluttershy then said after she heard no reaction from any of her friends. For the first time now, Fluttershy peeked out from her hiding place to see what was wrong.

"Why don't you look terrified? You showed up to a party and everypony was extremely disappointed in you. Can you imagine anything more upsetting?" She asked in a normal voice, wondering why no one was shaking in their boots.

"It was a really good try, darling, but the scares at Nightmare Night are of an entirely different nature," Rarity explained, trying not to hurt her friend's feelings.

"It was really creative, though," Twilight added. "I never would have thought of... all this," she said as she pointed towards Fluttershy's attempts to scare them all.

"I don't think anyone would have thought of this..." Star Twinkle said without thinking about Fluttershy's feelings again, earning him some glares from Twilight.

But nothing that Star Twinkle could have said would have made the situation worse anyway. Fluttershy was all aware of how bad she was in all of this. "Oh, I'm just not cut out for this. Just go on without me," she said with a frown on her face.

"Oh, no. We couldn't possibly," Rarity said.

But Fluttershy was insisting on it. "You have to. This is the night you look forward to all year."

Pinkie Pie then had an idea. "We could... stay here?" She suggested, which caused Rainbow Dash to immediately throw a look of disapproval at her.

"It's okay," Fluttershy replied in a heavy voice. "I really want you all to have fun. This is how I spend every Nightmare Night. Please go. I'll be fine," she said as she opened the door so that her friends could walk outside.

They didn't like leaving her like this but things just happened and Fluttershy wanted everything the way it used to be again and her friends respected that.

"Eh, it's funny. I actually thought she had an idea for something really scary for a second there," Pinkie Pie said.

"She definitely tried her hardest," Applejack said.

The door to Fluttershy's cottage closed again and Star Twinkle looked back. The last thing he saw was a big frown on the mare's face. He felt bad for her but at the same time, he could understand it. With Nightmare Night being the scariest day, or rather, night of the year, an easily scared Fluttershy was probably not too excited for it. Then again, Star Twinkle was at this point as well and used to spend his time alone at home at this time of the year. Fluttershy was different though, she wanted to spend time with her friends at this day but was just too scared, unlike him, who used to have no friends to spend time with and just accepted his situation.

"Am I supposed to stay with her so that she wouldn't be alone? No one else is walking back..." the stallion thought to himself. "She said she was fine though..."

It was hard for the stallion to decided what to do but eventually, he decided to go with the rest of his friends. Rarity went through all the trouble of making a costume for him and Applejack worked hard for that maze as well so he felt as if he needed to appreciate their work too.

"There should be enough time. Maybe I'll spend some time with her after we are done here," he then decided.

It made Star Twinkle feel better knowing that he decided to check up on her later. He knew that she would be home anyway so there was nothing that should get in the way of that. For now, he focused on having fun with the rest of his friends though.

Later...

The group arrived at the maze that the apple family has set up. After all the talking from Applejack, everyone was highly excited to finally go in there.

"Everypony's linin' up for the corn maze, y'all! Let's go!" Applejack said, keeping the excitement up as they finally entered it.

Star Twinkle looked a little bit worried though. "You know, after our last adventure inside a maze, I still feel a little weird about this," he said to his friends.

Rainbow Dash quickly took advantage of that. "What? You're scared now?" She said in a teasing tone.

Even if Star Twinkle was scared at this moment, he would definitely not admit it to Rainbow Dash. There was no way that he would do her a favor like that.

Everyone else seemed to be excited to finally go into this maze, however. "Oh, yeah! I can't believe we're finally doin' this!" Spike expressed happily.

It didn't take long until someone was greeting them at the entrance. It was a hooded figure who quickly removed it to reveal a horse mask beneath it.

Everyone screamed.

But the screams turned into laughter really quick. It was more random than it was scary after all. It was also a little bit obvious that Granny Smith was the one beneath that mask, which removed the scary factor as well.

The group was invited to walk inside the maze, hoping that the rest of it would be a little bit scarier.

"It's a good thing Fluttershy isn't here because she would never be able to handle this!" Rainbow Dash said to the other.

"Yeah, probably not..." Star Twinkle agreed. Judging from that tea party early on, this would have been already too much for her.

Despite the maze not being that terrifying to the group, some ponies were screaming from a distance so there was still hope that scarier things were ahead of them.

And one of those scares showed itself in the form of a stallion who was sneaking up on the unsuspecting ponies. A mummy! A big mummy appeared behind the group in an attempt to scare them.

"Boooo... Eeyup," the mummy said.

Everyone immediately laughed in response. It was obviously Big McIntosh. And while his size would probably give him some points when it came to being scary, it was still Big McIntosh, who was anything but scary, especially if you know him personally.

The group just continued their way and left the stallion who was returning to his corner again to wait for the next visitors that he could scare.

As they made their way through though, there were some sounds coming from beneath their hooves.

"What. Is. That. Sound?" Rarity asked nervously.

Everyone started looking down as soon as Rarity pointed out that sound. "It looks like... bones!" Pinkie Pie then said in fear, causing everyone to scream in fear.

But Rainbow Dash was taking a closer look at those bones. "Looks like a bunch of dried sticks painted white to me," she said unimpressed.

Star Twinkle's eyes widened in his realization. "So that is why I needed to paint all this wood white at work today," he thought.

Applejack was a little bothered by Rainbow Dash's reaction. "Hey, try to keep up the illusion, would ya?" She said.

Of course, Applejack did not want the work of her family to be in vain but the "scares" inside this maze were pretty unimpressive so far and really hard to defend. There is no denying that a lot of work went into all of this but this was supposed to be a scary maze and so far, the scary was not hitting the group all too well. There was still some of the maze left to discover though so maybe there was some heavier stuff coming up.

The group was walking through some kind of cavern. It was really dark in there so Rarity did everyone a favor and used her magic to create some light. As soon as everyone could see something though a bunch of eyeballs could be seen hanging from the ceiling...which kinda smelled like grapes. This could have been scary if Star Twinkle didn't already know that those were grapes. But despite that, the group ran out of the cave while screaming just to play along.

"Agh! What was that?" Applejack then said out of the blue, causing everyone to stop for a moment. She really was trying to sell that this maze was scary now.

But Spike actually fell for it. "Don't you know?" He asked nervously.

"Uh, o-of course I do. It was, uh..." Applejack then said as she walked closer to the others with a nervous look on her face.

Soon, the whole group was closer together, there must have been something that Granny Smith set up that not even she knew about, judging how scared Applejack was now. The answer then revealed itself in the form of three ghosts that floated in front of the group now. Star Twinkle was looking closer at them to find some strings or something else on them but he couldn't notice anything.

"Wow, those look really good," Star Twinkle said in an impressed tone. "How did you manage to do that Applejack?" He then asked. But all he received was dead-silence in response. "Applejack?" He then asked before he turned around to see that he was the only one standing there now. "Girls?"

Once the stallion realized that he was alone, the thought of those ghosts being real finally crossed his mind. The three ghosts let out some spooky moans and Star Twinkle started screaming before he ran away in fear with the three ghosts following him right behind.

"Hey! Where are you all!?" Star Twinkle screamed through the maze. "Argh!" The stallion then fell down a hole in the middle of the maze and dropped into a dark place. Ignoring the pain from the fall, the stallion looked around to find out where he was.

It was then when a light was starting to turn on in front of him.

"Ahh!" Star Twinkle screamed.

"Ahh!" Twilight screamed back. She was the one who turned on the light with her magic just now.

After this shock, both of them caught their breaths again. The rest of the group was inside this dark room, which turned out to be some kind of tunnel as well, all of them looking around nervously and scared. In the meantime, someone or something was blocking the hole where Star Twinkle came falling through, trapping him and the others inside this tunnel.

"What is going on here!?" Star Twinkle asked.

Soon, everyone was looking at Applejack in the hope to get some answers from her. To their surprise though, she didn't seem any less scared than the others.

"Uh, I don't know! I don't know what's goin' on!" She replied in a stressed-out tone.

"What do you mean? Didn't you help plan this?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Applejack was about to tell Rainbow Dash that this was not the case but she then saw how Granny Smith was sitting not too far away from them in a rocking chair, which highly calmed the mare down again.

"Whew. There's Granny Smith. Not that I was ever scared, 'cause I wasn't. I'm a pretty good actress when I wanna be," she explained as she walked up to the elderly mare.

"Wait..." Star Twinkle then said. "Wasn't Granny Smith at the entrance before?" He asked around.

"Ahhhh!" Applejack then screamed as she ran past the group in fear.

Wondering what this was about, the group looked towards Granny Smith, only to realized that her skull was rolling towards them. After a second of processing what was happening in front of them, the group joined Applejack to run away.

In the next corner, the group was catching their breath again. They were also praying to Celestia that this just now was not the real Granny Smith that they saw.

"Applejack, didn't you know about any of this?!" Spike asked, in the name of everyone else who was present.

"Alright, I got to admit I didn't know about any of this, but maybe they're just tryin' to make it interestin' for me, too! I'm sure Granny Smith or Big Mac is behind this," she guessed.

But that quickly turned out to be wrong as soon as everyone heard Granny Smith's muffled voice coming from above them.

"Are those peeled grapes or eyeballs starin' at ya from beyond the grave?" She said before she started laughing maniacally before you could hear a short "Eeyup" coming from Big McIntosh followed by a scream that some fillies gave from them.

Whatever exactly was going on up there was not important but it did prove that Granny Smith and Big McIntosh were up there and not down here to scare everyone.

Applejack started to become more and more nervous. "That's what we were supposed to do! I don't know why we're down here! This is really scarin' me now!" She said while her teeth started chattering while Pinkie Pie did the same right next to her.

But there was no time to get scared by this because the next thing was already ready there to get them. It came in the form of some kind of green fish-like monster that screamed at them and before probably going up to the group to eat them.

"How did that get down here?!" Pinkie Pie asked in fear.

"I don't know! We are down here too!" Star Twinkle said.

Pinkie Pie stopped screaming for a moment. "Oh! Good point," she admitted before the roar of the monster in front of her scared her again.

"RUUUUUUUUUN!" Rainbow Dash screamed.

That was a word that did not need any repeating. Everyone ran away from the huge monster but as expected, it came chasing them. This created quite some panic and the group could not focus where they were running to.

Before they knew it, they accidentally ran into a big spider web that stopped them in their tracks.

"I can't see!" Pinkie Pie said, who had the tail from Rarity's costume on her face.

"I can barely move!" Rainbow Dash said as she struggled in this web. "It's like glue!"

Meanwhile, Star Twinkle saw how the monster was drawing closer to them, eager to grab them as a snack. "It's getting closer to us!" The stallion informed, prompting someone to do something.

Star Twinkle's call for help was heard by Twilight who concentrated her magic. Shortly after, everyone was teleported outside and on the other side of the web. The monster ran into the web and didn't manage to break through to reach its prey.

"Let's get out of here!" Star Twinkle advised, causing everyone to run.

As it happened, the exit was not too far away and the group was finally outside again. They were all surprised to see that the exit led to a little cliff that was quite a distance away from the maze. Time to wonder how they would get down here quickly enough was not available since the next thing started to appear in the form of a hissing sound.

"What is it now!?" Star Twinkle said in a mix of fear and frustration.

The noise came from a dead tree not too far away, where something was hanging upside down from a branch. A strange sense of Deja Vu struck the group for some reason. It was a pony with bat ears and wings laughing at them. It was a bat pony. This pony came diving towards everyone to attack them, on the second dive, it managed to snatch away the second head from Spike's two-headed dragon costume.

Ghosts, a giant monster, and now a bat pony. Too many things to comprehend that quickly. No one knew why all these things were after them and they didn't know what to do. Everyone was struck by fear and shivered. All they could do was cuddle together and hoping that this was just a bad dream.

Everyone expected another dive from the bat pony but that did not happen. Instead, the bat pony looked confused and hesitant. It then began to slowly float down to the ground and lowered its head.

"Oh, my! I'm so, so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?" The bat pony said in a pretty familiar sounding voice.

Maybe it was the fear that clouded their vision but everyone just now noticed that this bat pony looked awfully similar to Fluttershy. The yellow coat and the pink mane pretty much gave it away but the voice is what confirmed it. On closer inspection, everyone could notice how the ears and wings were not real and that it was in fact, their friend.

"Fluttershy?" Applejack asked confused.

"All those scares just now?" Star Twinkle asked.

"It was you the whole time?!" Rainbow Dash asked.

Fluttershy nodded quietly in response.

"I can't believe it!" Twilight said in shock.

Rarity couldn't believe it either. "That... was..."

"THE BEST THING EVER!" Pinkie Pie added with an added squee.

The fear left everyone as soon as the danger of being eaten was gone and everyone smiled again.

"It was way more terrifying than the most terrifying thing I could have thought of!" Rainbow Dash added in her excitement.

"You out-nightmared the scariest part of the corn maze!" Applejack said.

Star Twinkle was sure that there were many things scarier than that maze but he decided to keep that to himself.

Twilight then finally popped the most important question. "How did you do all this?!"

Fluttershy gladly explained everything to them. "After you left, I realized that I wasn't ready to give up on Nightmare Night. So I asked Granny Smith if I could try to make the maze even scarier for my friends."

"You came up with all of this?" Rainbow Dash asked confused.

"I had some help," Fluttershy replied. The three ghosts from before showed up again and revealed themselves to be a bunch of birds that were just carrying some bedsheets above their heads. "Angel was the scary figure that kept scurrying after you in the maze," she said as her pet rabbit Angel showed up wearing a vampire costume. "Fuzzy Legs made the sticky wall that made it difficult for you to see and move," she said while a spider was crawling outside from inside her mane. "And, of course, Harry was the especially scary monster," she explained while the monster revealed itself to be her bear friend, who removed his mask in front of everyone.

Everyone couldn't believe it. The Pegasus mare that was afraid of her own shadow managed to scare all of her friends to the core. It was impressive, to say the least, that much everyone could agree on.

"Wow! That was inspired!" Twilight said.

"You have to do this every year!" Pinkie Pie agreed on.

Everyone quickly agreed that this was a really good idea since Fluttershy seemed rather gifted in this. The only one who, surprisingly, was not agreeing with that was Fluttershy herself though.

"We could celebrate Nightmare Night together every year. But the truth is I really don't want to," she said.

"You don't?!" Pinkie replied confused.

"But you've done it. You found a way that we can all have a fabulous time together," Rarity pointed out.

Star Twinkle seemed to have realized what the problem was though. "You don't like scaring us, right?" He guessed.

At first, everyone didn't believe that, especially since Fluttershy was so good at it but the mare confirmed it herself. "It's true. While doing all this I realized something. You all may love Nightmare Night and I may be good at being a part of it, but it's no fun for me to see my friends feel like they're in danger, even if I know they're not. I really don't like it. It's just not my cup of tea," she explained.

"Spoooooooooky tea?" Pinkie Pie asked.

"No. Just regular tea," Fluttershy replied with a smile on her face. "We do lots of fun things together, but I'm afraid this just isn't gonna be one of them. Actually, I'm not afraid. I'm perfectly fine with it," she said confidently and happily.

It didn't take long until her friends were all behind her decision. Star Twinkle himself could actually relate to all of that. For him, Nightmare Night is still something that he needed to get used to and he was not particularly a fan of getting scared if he was being honest. Her opinion on Nightmare Night is something that he could understand all too well.

But of course, his friends understood as well.

"If you are happy with it, then we are, too," Twilight said in the name of everyone else before the whole group ended up having a big group hug, including the animal friends of Fluttershy.

After this little adventure, the whole group decided to go home. The scares were all taken care of and everyone had a lot of fun. Fluttershy said that she was going home to read a good book under the cover of her own bed along with her animal friends. This sounded a little boring to the rest of her friends but this is how Fluttershy wanted to spend her Nightmare Night so everyone respected that. And while next time they will probably not spend Nightmare Night together again, it was still fine knowing that everyone was having fun their own way.

Author's Notes:

The other title that I had in mind for this chapter: To scare or not to scare?
But I thought that was a little bit too much XP.

I hope you enjoyed this part after this long of a break, which doesn't seem to get any shorter it seems...sorry...

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

111. The Smokey Mountains

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At the Iron Hammer...

In the middle of the day, Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were setting up everything for the rest of their workday. Steel Hammer was carrying a cart filled with tools and wooden boards and pulled it next to the entrance to the workshop before wiping away some sweat from his forehead. This cart was clearly meant to be pulled by two stallions given how many things were on it.

"That is a lot of stuff..." Star Twinkle said, sensing a lot of work marching towards him.

"It sure is!" Steel Hammer said. "Today we are going all around Ponyville to make some inspections. Mainly on almost every building where we worked on so far, which is a lot," the stallion admitted much to his own surprise.

"Great..." Star Twinkle replied with a nervous smile on his face.

This all sounded like a lot of work, a lot of work for Star Twinkle that is. He is gonna be very exhausted by the end of the day, this much he could tell, which is why he was not looking forward to all of this. Secretly, Star Twinkle was praying to Princess Celestia herself that something would come up that would prevent him from this exhausting day of work. Then, by some weird and fortunate coincidence, something actually did come up.

Twilight, who appeared in a magic flash in front of the two stallions was looking around the place confused until her eyes made contact with Star Twinkle's.

"You!" She said.

"Me!?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

The mare then grabbed his shoulder. "You. Come with me!" She said before she used her magic to teleport herself and Star Twinkle away from the scene.

Needless to say, this sudden appearance of Twilight confused Steel Hammer. The stallion looked at the pile of work that was supposed to be shared between him and Star Twinkle and there was a heavy sigh coming from him as soon as he realized that he had to do it all on his own now.

"Welp...gotta start early I guess..." Steel Hammer said before he decided to get to work, feeling a little bit abandoned right about now. He couldn't say that he was too surprised about this though since it happened quite often after Star Twinkle befriended the girls.

Meanwhile...

Star Twinkle and Twilight appeared inside the castle, in the throne room to be exact. Inside there, Fluttershy was already present as well. Of course, everything was going a little too fast for Star Twinkle to figure out exactly what was going on but soon he started to get a pretty good idea. It took him not too much time to notice how the flanks of Twilight and Fluttershy were both glowing, meaning that they were called by the map just like the rest of their friends before. That meant that Star Twinkle was invited to go along with them.

Twilight didn't even bother explaining the situation and went towards a bookshelf in one corner of the room to fetch some books that she put inside some bags standing not too far away from her. It was just now that Star Twinkle realized what a mess this room was, there were books scattered all over the place and things written on blackboards which looked like some kind of formulas that the stallion didn't even remotely understand. What he did understood though was why the place was in this state. Knowing Twilight, she probably did a lot of research to prepare herself for this trip.

"I bet you are pretty excited to be finally called by the map, judging by how this place looks," Star Twinkle guessed.

"Of course, I am!" Twilight said in a highly excited tone. "Ever since the map called us, I've been doing a ton of research," she added before she teleported all over the room to show how her preparing looked like. "Testing out potential friendship problems. Diversifying my solution portfolio..."

This confused, Fluttershy who, for the first time spoke up after waiting patiently for everyone to get ready so far. "Ever since the map called us? But that happened five minutes ago," she mentioned.

Star Twinkle's eyes widened as soon as he heard that. From what it looked like around here he figured that it Twilight was spending the whole morning setting all this up but that apparently was not the case.

"I know!" Twilight replied happily, not realizing what the two ponies were so shocked about. "But I wanna be one hundred percent prepared! I mean, I'm the Princess of Friendship. How would it look if I couldn't solve a friendship problem?" She explained with the later sentence sounding a little bit more nervous. Knowing Twilight, she was worrying way too much about failing at this mission and felt pressured. A very typical Twilight behavior.

"Don't worry too much, Twilight," Star Twinkle said. "We two are going with you too after all," he assured.

Fluttershy couldn't agree more. "Oh, I'm so lucky I'm being sent with you two," she expressed happily. "Speaking of which, where are we going?" She then asked, which is the same thing that Star Twinkle was wondering too.

Twilight pointed towards the map in the middle of the room. The Cutie Marks of Twilight and Fluttershy were still hovering above a certain spot, and as expected, Star Twinkle's Cutie Mark was nowhere to be seen.

"What is this place?" Star Twinkle asked, hiding his disappointment of not being called by the map again.

"The Smokey Mountains!" Twilight replied.

"Oh, I've never been there before," Fluttershy said as she took a look at the place herself which looked like two smaller mountains standing not too far away from another.

"Neither have I," Twilight said. "And there isn't a lot of information on them. All I could find was this," she said before she showed the two ponies a book with a picture from those mountains on them. "The Smokey Mountains harbor the most beautiful valley in all of Equestria between its two majestic mountain peaks," she explained.

"That's gorgeous. And where there's nature, there's a ton of animal friends!" Fluttershy said happily, getting a lot more excited about this trip now.

The same couldn't be said about Star Twinkle though. When he was being "called" to Griffonstone, Twilight was telling them how majestic and amazing that town would be but then he arrived at the place and it was the complete opposite. He figured that if the map was calling them to this place then there was obviously something wrong with it. The stallion decided to not point it out to not kill the excitement of the two girls.

"I can't wait to get started!" Twilight said, proving Star Twinkle's point. "I'm a little nervous since that's all I could find. I usually like to be a bit more prepared," she added.

Star Twinkle and Fluttershy just looked around themselves after hearing that. "Even more prepared?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yeah, you seem pretty prepared to me," Fluttershy agreed on.

But the three wasted enough time and decided to finally get going. Twilight already prepared some things for the group to take to the Smokey Mountains. Three heavily filled saddlebags were waiting for the ponies, the emphasis was being put on the words "heavily filled".

"Are those for us?" Fluttershy asked confused, fearing that she would collapse instantly after attempting to lift her bag.

"What did you put in there?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Oh, just some snacks, books, blankets, books," Twilight casually listed.

"You said "books" twice," Fluttershy pointed out.

"There are a lot of books," Twilight replied.

Star Twinkle couldn't say that he was surprised to hear that but realizing that he had to carry one of those bags did not really make him feel too well. But before he knew it, Twilight used her magic to put a saddlebag on him and one on Fluttershy, the later one clenching her teeth and shaking from the weight on her back.

The stallion had to admit that it was not impossible to wear that thing on his back but knowing that he had to carry it for a pretty long time was making already feel pretty exhausting. Still, looking at Fluttershy made him think that it could be a lot worse. The saddlebag was clearly too heavy for the little and petite Pegasus. As a more than average strong Earth Pony stallion, he should offer his help but that would mean that he had to carry two saddlebags, and one of them was already pretty heavy.

"Why do I have to be like this?" Star Twinkle thought to himself before he went over to Fluttershy.

"You want me to carry your bag?" He offered.

Fluttershy looked back at the stallion with hesitation in her eyes. "Oh no, that would mean that you have to carry two bags," she replied, trying to talk the stallion out of this crazy idea.

Star Twinkle regretted saying his next words. "It's not that heavy for me, I can manage another one," he straight out lied right into Fluttershy's face.

The mare was still having some doubts but she just had to face that this saddlebag was way too heavy for her so, in the end, she took upon Star Twinkle's offer. "Thank you," she said happily.

Twilight overheard all of this and used her magic to remove the bag from Fluttershy and placed it on Star Twinkle's bag. One of those ponies felt highly relieved and another one was immediately regretting his decision. Here Star Twinkle thought he avoided a hard day of work after Twilight took him to the castle only to be dragged into something equally exhausting.

As if all this wasn't bad enough, Star Twinkle got another headache as he followed Twilight outside. She was leading them to her balloon, which was most likely their way of traveling for this trip, much to Star Twinkle's dismay.

"Great...first those bags and now this?" He said in his frustration while breathing heavily because of the weight on his back.

But Fluttershy tried to calm down the stallion. "Flying is not that bad," she said, with some low confidence in her voice. "Unless you are flying way too high or under bad circumstances...like into a storm or something..." she further pointed out.

"Thanks..." Star Twinkle replied, feeling not one bit better after those words at all, something that Fluttershy noticed as well but didn't comment on.

In the meantime, Twilight was still highly excited about this trip. "What do ya think our friendship problem's gonna be?" She asked. "Do you think it'll be a problem about lying?"

"I'm sure we'll find out when we get there," Fluttershy pointed out.

"Yeah!" Star Twinkle agreed before he threw his two saddlebags in one corner of the balloon. The good thing was that he didn't have to carry them on his back all this time but having to travel like this was almost as bad for him. The stallion decided to lay down on the ground until they would arrive at the Smokey Mountains to avoid having to look down from this height.

It couldn't possibly take that long after all...

Later...

"Ooh! Could it be about when two friends just randomly decide to do something together, but they forget to invite the third friend, and the third friend feels left out?" Twilight asked.

"I don't know..." Star Twinkle replied with his eyes covered by his hooves as he laid on the ground, waiting patiently for the balloon to arrive at their destination.

"Or where one friend tells another friend's secret after they asked them not to?" Twilight asked.

Questions like this made up the majority of this trip, much to the dismay of both Star Twinkle and Fluttershy. The first one being a little bit more focused on the trip with the balloon than the mission itself.

"I'm sure we'll find out once we get there," Star Twinkle said.

"Um...about that..." Fluttershy said. "We are here," she pointed out as she left the balloon.

Star Twinkle opened his eyes and looked outside the balloon to find out that it already landed on the ground and that the two girls were already on their way.

"Oh..." Star Twinkle said in his realization before he stepped outside the balloon in relief to follow the two girls.

There still seemed to be some way to go for the three though. Again, Twilight was leading the way while Star Twinkle carried both, his own, and Fluttershy's saddlebag again. Seeing how Twilight was flying up at the air, and how Fluttershy followed her right behind, Star Twinkle already felt more exhausted. Now he had to carry those two bags while flying, something that he was not too good at in the first place.

Fluttershy saw how the now into a Pegasus transformed stallion was groaning and panting heavily and was getting a little concerned. "Should I carry my bag again?" She offered, fully knowing that she would have problems carrying it.

Shortly after, Twilight also noticed the trouble that Star Twinkle was having with those two saddlebags. "Here. Lemme get that," she said before she used her magic to levitate the bags in front of her, something that Star Twinkle wished she should have done earlier.

"Thanks," Star Twinkle said in gratitude, now he could finally relax his muscles again without the two bags on his back.

"Sorry I've been a little skiddly-bopty-boo," Twilight said, which made no sense to Star Twinkle and Fluttershy at all. "I just can't believe this is finally happening!" She said in excitement.

Star Twinkle was glad to see that Twilight was having fun at least. But despite her claiming to have done a lot of research, Star Twinkle was having his doubts about this mission being easy. In fact, it wasn't even his experience from the last mission but rather his pessimism that caused him to think like this.

Just now, without Star Twinkle realizing it at first, the three ponies were flying right between the Smokey Mountains up in the air. He was so focused on following Twilight with those heavy bags on his back that he must not have noticed it so far.

"Watch out!" Twilight then suddenly shouted towards the stallion, causing him to get quite startled because of this.

Out of reflex, Star Twinkle turned his head around to where Twilight was looking at and he noticed something coming flying towards him. "Whoa!" The stallion let out before he ducked under whatever that object was just now.

It didn't end anytime soon, more and more things came flying towards the three ponies, forcing them to dodge out of the way each time.

"Whoa! What in Equestria is happening?" Twilight asked in her confusion.

By now, Star Twinkle noticed that the things, that were launched at them, were all one specific object.

"Are those...pumpkins?" Star Twinkle asked in confusion.

"It's nothing like your book said it would be!" Fluttershy pointed out. There was probably not a single book in all of Equestria that would have prepared them for a situation like this.

"Oh, boy. I'm feeling very unprepared. Where do we even start?" Twilight asked, feeling pretty helpless already.

Of course, all this talking happened while the three were still dodging in midair. Not the best place to have a talk, that much they could agree on.

"How about we get out of here before anyone of us gets hit!?" Star Twinkle suggested. He desperately wanted to get away from this bombardment.

The three decided to one of the mountains, the one where the flying pumpkins were coming from. Maybe it was because they were busy dodging most of the time but they just now noticed some houses on top of the mountain they were flying towards, something that Twilight's book did not inform them about.

As the three ponies came closer to the mountain, they noticed some ponies loading another pumpkin into a wooden cannon, ready to fire it across the sky.

An elderly mare was taking charge of this situation. She was an Earth Pony with a light brown coat, a beige-colored mane, blue eyes, and, fittingly, a pumpkin as a Cutie Mark. She was also wearing a blue vest. "Ready... Aim... Fire!" She ordered, sending another pumpkin across the valley of the Smokey Mountains.

On the other mountain, far in the distance, there was a fortress. This must have been their target all along and Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Fluttershy just happened to be in the way of whatever that was.

Once, the three ponies were out of guesses what exactly those ponies were doing, Twilight asked away. "Hello. Excuse us, but what are you doing?"

The elderly mare looked back at Twilight and gave a short answer. "We're pumpkinin' our neighbors!"

That was the only information that the three could manage to figure out themselves.

"Yes, but, um, why are you... "pumpkining" your neighbors?" Fluttershy then asked. This should have been the first question that they should have asked, in hindsight.

The mare threw a glare over to the other mountain. "Well, because the McColts are just plain rotten," she simply said before looked back at the three ponies and came to a realization. "Hey, wait a tick. Who are you three?! You're not spies for the McColts, are ya?" She asked, getting a lot more suspicious now.

Twilight then introduced herself proudly. "I am Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship. And I am here to solve your friendship problem," she said.

The other two quickly followed with their introduction.

"I'm Fluttershy, and... um... I'm here, too," Fluttershy said.

"Star Twinkle," Star Twinkle simply said.

It was just now that they realized how not important they seemed compared to a princess right next to them to the normal folk of Equestria.

"Ma Hooffield," the mare said while shaking hooves with Twilight. "Pleased to meet ya, but you're wastin' your time. We don't have a friendship problem. We have... a McColt problem," she said in a serious tone.

"And there's absolutely no friendship there," another pony added in agreement.

The situation seemed a little bit tense already but Twilight was not letting herself get pressured by it and took a quick look into one of her books to find some answers. "Well, maybe there could be if we figure out what the McColts did to make you so mad," Twilight then suggested.

But Ma Hooffield was not too sure about that. "Oh, they done so many things. Why, just today, they shot pebbles at our farmhouse an' wrecked it," she said before she pointed towards said farmhouse which was completely in ruins. "See, we're not very good at buildin', so all it took was a little pebble. But still!" She explained which Star Twinkle, with his schooled carpenter eyes could see already.

During all this talk, one of the ponies already prepared another pumpkin to be launched. What that pony did not notice was how one of those pumpkins was serving as a mouse for a bunch of mice, much to Fluttershy's shock who quickly came to the rescue before the poor animals would have been launched across the valley.

In the meantime, Twilight already figured out what would be the solution to all of this. "I know what to do. We're gonna talk with these McColts and hear their side of the story. Once we have all the facts, we can put an end to this using reason and rationale," she suggested.

Star Twinkle, Fluttershy, as well as Ma Hooffield, all seemed to agree to this idea, even if the later one was a little bit against it.

"And while we are there, could you please stop launching your pumpkins?" Star Twinkle asked. The reason for him to ask that was that he was not looking forward to getting a pumpkin thrown at him while being over to the other mountain.

"Oh, alright," Ma Hooffield finally agreed.

"Thanks," Twilight replied before she was already on her way to the other mountain. "C'mon, Star Twinkle, Fluttershy."

The two followed right behind. They were hoping that it would go as easy as Twilight thought it would be but Star Twinkle had his second guesses. It couldn't be that easy.

Later...

The three flew over to the other mountain across the valley. Twilight knocked on the giant wooden doors and waited for a response.

"State your business!" A stallion shouted down to the three ponies.

Another pony, a mare, also appeared next to the stallion. "Don't even bother. They're probably spies for the Hooffields," she figured. "Pumpkin!" She then shouted, which sounded like an order towards someone inside the fort.

"We are not Hooffields. We are-" But before Star Twinkle could finish his sentence, a pumpkin was dropped directly on his head, which splattered on impact and leaving quite a mess on him, not to mention giving the stallion quite a headache.

"Hey!" Twilight then said seeing how Star Twinkle was pretty much attacked for no reason. "Please stop this!"

The stallion from before took a closer look at Twilight and then gave a little signal to everyone to hold off the attack for a moment. He later came to a surprised realization. "Hey, wait! You're an Alicorn! I thought just the three princesses were Alicorns," he said.

"There are four Alicorn princesses in Equestria now. I am Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship," Twilight said, again in a proud tone.

"And I'm Fluttershy," Fluttershy said. "And the one you threw a pumpkin on is Star Twinkle," she added, seeing how Star Twinkle was still a little too mad about that to introduce himself.

"We have a new princess? When did that happen? A-A-And how did the Hooffields come by a princess spy?" The stallion on top of the gate asked in confusion.

"We are not spies!" Twilight replied before she turned towards Fluttershy and Star Twinkle, the later one still removing some remains of that splashed pumpkin that was thrown at him. "Why does everypony assume we're spies?" She asked.

Shortly after, the gate started to open after some sounds that could be heard on the other side, indicating that there were a lot of locks that had to be unlocked in order to open it. When the gate finally opened, someone appeared in front of the three ponies.

A rather short Earth Pony stallion with a pale blue colored coat, dark blue colored mane and beard, and lemon green colored eyes. He was also wearing blue dungarees and a hat that was a little too big for a stallion of his size.

"Because we don't get a lot of visitors. I'm Big Daddy McColt. You caught us at a weird time. We're in the middle of a giant feud with our...TERRIBLE NEIGHBORS!" He screamed towards the other mountain in a loud voice, causing the trees to shake and a building to collapse simply be the impact of his voice. Hopefully, this will not trigger another pumpkin bombardment from the Hooffields while the three ponies were still here.

"Well, actually, that's why we're here – to solve your problem with the Hooffields," Twilight explained.

"So you're here to help us get rid of 'em," Big Daddy McColt concluded from those words which caused the rest of the ponies inside the fort to cheer in happiness.

"No!" Twilight exclaimed, putting a stop at this immediately. "That's not what I meant at all!" She said.

This caused quite the mood change of Big Daddy McColt, who was now looking rather serious. "Well, if you ain't fer us, you're agin' us," he told the three ponies.

Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Fluttershy looked rather nervous after hearing that. They wanted to help and not get into trouble with anyone but so far no one was making it any easier. The McColts invited the three into the fort, despite still being a little bit suspicious of them.

Twilight took this opportunity to explain the situation more clearly. "We are not on anypony's side. We're here to help you become friends again," she said.

"Well, that's gon' be hard," Big Daddy McColt replied. He did not like this idea one bit. "I don't believe we've ever been friends with the Hooffields!" He added.

"But you could be!" Twilight said. "They're just really upset you ruined their farmhouse," she explained.

"Wait a hog-wogglin' minute!" Big Daddy McColt replied in his surprise. "We only did that because the Hooffields pulled the pin out of our wagon wheel!" He explained before he pointed at said damaged wagon. "A whole week's worth of food rollin' down the mountain. Us McColts are mighty fine builders, but we don't know the first thing about farmin'. We have to travel a ways away to buy our food," he further explained.

"Well on the upside, you are getting food to eat launched at you," Star Twinkle pointed out. It was not the best thing to get out of this situation but at least it was better than nothing.

Unfortunately, Big Daddy McColt was not sharing the same optimism on this as Star Twinkle did. "Yeah, really nice," he said in a sarcastic tone. "Now, we'll be stuck eatin' the pumpkins the Hooffields launched at us. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup, pumpkin quesadillas, pumpkin paella, pumpkin cheese, pumpkin pie, pumpkin frittatas... Actually, that all sounds pretty good. But it'll get old!" He exclaimed at the stallion.

"Yeah...I guess you're right," Star Twinkle agreed with a nervous voice. Just like Twilight, Star Twinkle didn't want to take any side. At least Twilight now had both sides of the story which would indicate that the Hooffields started all of this but that didn't really matter since both of those groups didn't really were into the idea of talking to each other.

Twilight, once again, took her book filled with notes and tried to find a solution for all of this. Star Twinkle decided to not interrupt her and took a look around the fort. Most of the ponies were busy cleaning up all the pumpkins and making them into something edible.

In the meantime, Fluttershy was taking care of a squirrel that had problems gathering the food that the McColts gathered and gave it a piece of pumpkin to help it out. Fluttershy seemed to take care more of the animals around here than anything else, which was not surprising, it was Fluttershy after all but it didn't help the situation at all.

Finally, Twilight was done reading and came up with a solution. "Have you tried meeting at a neutral location, talking about your problems, and really listening to each other?"

"Yeah, that actually sounds like a good idea," Star Twinkle agreed.

But that was not to Big Daddy McColt's liking. "What?! No! They'd sooner launch their dinners at us than listen to us," he said. For some reason, Star Twinkle had a feeling that the McColts were not too much about listening as well.

But Twilight was confident enough to take care of this issue. "Well, they'll listen to me. I'm an impartial third party," she said.

"Not to mention a princess," Star Twinkle added. For him, it was worth a shot trying that at least. If they were not listening to each other then the words of a princess couldn't hurt. It's not like Star Twinkle or Fluttershy had any other idea right now.

So Twilight was flying right between the two mountains and prepared a spell. This spell was amplifying her voice and making it easy to hear for everyone who was present. The mare then started to make peace between the two groups.

"Attention, Hooffields, and McColts! I'm not on anypony's side, but I can see you're both wasting time and resources on being mean to each other. Ponies are supposed to help each other and be kind. So let's stop this senseless fighting!" She said across the valley in a loud voice with everyone listening and not interrupting her.

There was a bit of silence after that speech, making it hard to see if her words reached everyone. Twilight landed next to Star Twinkle and Fluttershy with a victorious smile on her face.

"There. That should do it. Ready to go home?" She said, believing that everything was taken care of already.

It was too good to be true, which made Star Twinkle really suspicious. "I think we should wait a little bit to see how things turned out, don't you think?" He suggested.

Fluttershy then pointed something out that Star Twinkle didn't think of until she mentioned it. "But if we solved the problem already, shouldn't our cutie marks be glowing again?" She pointed out as she looked at her flank.

"Oh, yeah," Twilight realized before she looked at her flank as well. "They should be glowing any minute now..." she said as she patiently waited for that to happen.

But instead of a glowing, there was a tomato appearing on it, much to the confusion of everyone. "What?" Star Twinkle wondered as he began looking to where that tomato came from only to get one smashed right into his face.

What followed was a rain of tomatoes, that flew all over the fort, forcing everyone to take cover inside. Since Star Twinkle was pretty much blinded, he had to be dragged by Twilight until they managed to get inside a building to escape all of this.

"At least they are providing the McColts with some different food now," Star Twinkle said before he removed some remains in his mane with an annoyed look on his face.

Twilight sighed in defeat before she ripped a page out of her book. "So much for potential friendship solution number twenty-eight," she said.

"What do we do now?" Star Twinkle asked.

"I guess we should find out why the Hooffields are launching tomatoes now," Fluttershy figured.

With that in mind, the three went across the valley one more time to talk with the Hooffields and why they stopped their ceasefire even though they agreed on stopping it. When the three ponies arrived there, they could see the Hooffields placing more tomatoes into some slingshots to fire them at the McColts.

"One at a time, Greenhoof," Ma Hooffield advised to one of the ponies. "If you smoosh them tomaters in the slingshot, they won't break on the McColts," she added.

Twilight approached Ma Hooffield with a stressed-out expression on her face. "What are you doing? I asked you to stop fighting," she said.

Ma Hooffield seemed a little bit surprised to hear that. "Oh, is that what you were hollerin' about? We thought the McColts rubbed ya the wrong way. So we tomatered them for ya. My mistake," she replied.

Star Twinkle face hooved after hearing that. This sounded more like as if those ponies were too eager to start fighting than anything else. But at least they listened to Twilight now and stopped the attack for now.

That was until some haystacks came flying towards them and buried some of the Hooffields and Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Fluttershy beneath them. Ma Hooffield was not taking that too well and responded accordingly.

"Reload the tomater slingshots! We're gonna paint their mountaintop red!" She screamed, getting this little war started once again.

In the meantime, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Fluttershy emerged from beneath the haystack. "Well, that didn't work. I was so sure it would," she concluded.

Seeing how many haystacks came flying towards them made it clear that it didn't change the situation at all. It almost felt as if it was even worse now. Just like before, Fluttershy was more worried about the animals around here than anything else though which was understandable but it didn't help. It almost made Star Twinkle wonder why Fluttershy was called by the map in the first place.

"It was a good plan," Fluttershy said as she helped a little tortoise to get some cover under a bush. "We need to think of another one. And soon. This fight is really affecting the animals around here," she explained.

"Not to worry. I'll just, uh..." Twilight said before she flipped through some more pages to find an answer in her book. "...find the root of the problem and work from there," she then said after getting a helpful hint from her book.

Star Twinkle lowered his eyebrows. "You needed to look into your book to come up with that?" He wondered, feeling that this was a more obvious approach to this situation.

But Twilight ignored the stallion's words and went on ahead to find this root. "Pardon us, Ma, but do you remember what started this whole feud in the first place?" She asked towards Ma Hooffield. If there was one pony who would know the reason then it would be her.

"They know what they did," is what they got as a response from Ma Hooffield.

"...And...what is that?" Star Twinkle asked, demanding a better explanation from the mare.

Ma Hooffield turned towards the stallion. "Why don't you go over and ask them yourselves!? We are busy firing at them at the moment," she explained before she went on and continued firing tomatoes across the valley.

Because Ma Hooffield was not providing the three ponies with a good enough answer they had no choice but to go over to the McColts and ask them.

"They know what they did!" Big Daddy McColt told them.

"This is not helping at all..." Star Twinkle said annoyed after he heard that answer.

"I'm starting to think neither of you know what either of you have done," Twilight concluded after "hearing" both side's stories now.

"Sure, we do," Big Daddy McColt claimed. "Them Hooffields did us a grave injustice some time ago for some reason," he said.

"Okay, backup plan to the backup plan," Twilight said, coming up with another idea. "Maybe we can find some common ground that you can bond over. What do you do when you're not fighting?" She asked.

Big Daddy McColt had a simple answer for that. "That's easy. Gettin' ready to fight," he said determinedly.

Star Twinkle's head started to hurt listening to both of those families. The worst thing was that no matter what they asked or who they asked there was no end in sight of this battle.

...

"What do you hope to get out of fighting?" Fluttershy asked Ma Hooffield.

"The satisfaction of winnin'!" Ma Hooffield replied.

...

"Of winning what?" Twilight asked Big Daddy McColt.

"The fight, of course! To prove our family is the best!" Big Daddy McColt replied.

...

"The best at what?" Star Twinkle asked Ma Hooffield.

"Winnin'! Haven't you been listenin'?!" Ma Hooffield replied.

...

All this walking back and forth between the two mountains was not only exhausting but also frustrating since it was not getting anywhere. The three were already back on their way to the Hooffields and Twilight was drowning in notes that she was writing throughout this whole trip.

Looking through all of those notes though only got the mare to one conclusion "The only thing they have in common is that they both want to win a fight, and neither of them know what it's over. How can I end this feud if I don't know what it's about?" She asked.

"Yeah, really," Star Twinkle agreed. "Besides, I don't think they really know why they are fighting in the first place," he said. The stallion was starting to get a little bit annoyed by this whole mission already.

Luckily, Fluttershy seemed to still be willing to come up with an idea. "Ooh! Maybe somepony just needs to say they're sorry," she suggested.

Twilight liked the idea. "That's a good idea. And friendship solution number forty-eight. But we can move it up," she casually added.

Star Twinkle couldn't believe what he was hearing and felt as if he was the only one seeing the problem here. "There is no way someone is gonna apologize to anyone around here. Have you not seen how fixated they are fighting with each other!?" The stallion pointed out.

But Twilight insisted on trying it anyway. "It's still worth a shot," she simply said before she walked up to Ma Hooffield to get her into apologizing to the McColts.

There was no way that Ma Hooffield would listen to Twilight but just like she said before, it was worth a shot. That made it all the more surprising once the elderly mare gave her answer.

"Okay, let's apologize," she replied after Twilight was asking her.

"Really?" Twilight asked in her surprise.

"Really!?" Star Twinkle asked in surprise and shock.

"Sure," Ma Hooffield casually replied. "Give us some time to prepare a present as a surprise for the McColts and then we head right over," she explained before she went off to get to work at said present.

Star Twinkle was surprised that this idea actually worked. He was pretty sure that they were all way into fighting to even consider apologizing to each other. Or maybe that was the reason why they wanted to apologize so that the fighting would finally stop. It must have been pretty tiring to fight each and every day after all. This made it all the better to see how Fluttershy's plan worked.

A little later...

Equipped with a freshly made carrot cake that was three times the size of a pony, Ma Hooffield, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Fluttershy were on their way to the McColt fort to end this fighting. All it took was for the McColts to accept this cake and everything would be over, meaning that the three ponies could finally go home.

"I'm so glad you agreed to do this. This apology cake will go a long way to making amends between you two," Twilight expressed happily. She was really glad that her words seemed to have reached Ma Hooffield at all. "Which part of my argument changed your mind? The part where I said the benefits of friendship outweigh the cost of war or the part where I said forgiveness is an investment in happiness?" She then asked the mare who was walking next to her, pulling the cake behind her.

"Yeah, yeah. All of it," Ma Hooffield responded, showing little interest in Twilight's words now.

It didn't take long until Twilight noticed the lack of interest that Ma Hooffield was showing towards her words. "Wait. Are you even listening to me?"

"I think there will be enough time to talk about this later..." Star Twinkle pointed out. The was no guaranty that everything would be settled with a cake, even if its size was pretty ridiculous.

After what felt like an eternity of walking, the four ponies finally arrived at the fort.

"Who goes there?!" They were greeted by the same pony that talked to Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Fluttershy before, from on top of the gate.

"It's Ma Hooffield," the elderly mare shouted back.

The McColt stallion reacted accordingly. "Hooffield alert! Arm the cannons!" He ordered. Shortly after, a bunch of cannons appeared from over the walls and were aimed at the four ponies in front of the gate. Star Twinkle quickly jumped behind the cake to take cover before something was thrown at him again.

Ma Hooffield then quickly explained the situation."I came with an apology cake!" Is all she needed to say to get the attention of the McColt.

The stallion, on top of the gate hat spit running down his mouth as soon as he noticed the cake behind the four ponies. "Did you say "cake"? As in...cake?"

"Consider it a gesture of goodwill from us to you," Ma Hooffield offered.

More guards, who overheard the whole thing, appeared next to the stallion on top of the gate, all of them starting to slurp as soon as their eyes made contact with the cake.

"I haven't had cake in ages," a mare said from on top of the gate.

"Open the gates!" The stallion guarding the gate then ordered before the giant door then opened and the four ponies could enter the fort along with the cake.

The McColts started gathering around the cake admiring it and taking in the smell from it. They really looked happy about seeing that cake inside their fort and could barely contain themselves from jumping at it and taking a bite off of it.

"Oh, it's such a bee-utiful cake," one of the McColts said, speaking pretty much out what everyone else was thinking right now.

This was a good sign. It didn't look as if the McColts were refusing this cake anytime soon. Star Twinkle himself had to admit that the cake looked rather delicious. There was a lot of work put into it from the Hooffields.

"Think of this as more than just a cake. It's the first step in the long road to forgiveness," Twilight explained.

"Nothing says "let's be friends" like a cake that says, "Let's be friends!"" Fluttershy explained. "I wrote that in icing on the top," she then whispered to Star Twinkle with a happy grin on her face.

And with that, the situation was handled pretty well. It seemed as if the McColts accepted the cake, and therefore, the apology, meaning that the fighting was over and that Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Fluttershy could return home again.

...If it wasn't for something that the three ponies were unaware of...

The cake started moving and out of the top of it, members from the Hooffields emerged. "For glory!" They shouted before they threw cake pieces and frosting at every McColt that they could see, forcing them to run away.

As soon as the ponies jumped out of the cake to plan their next attack though, a trap was triggered beneath their hooves, causing them to get captured by a net that Big Daddy McColt set up. He most likely saw through the trap of the Hooffields long before they stepped into the fort.

"McColts! Assume Delta Force formation!" Big Daddy McColt then ordered.

The McColts formed a triangle-shaped formation with Big Daddy McColt in front of it and began charging right at Ma Hooffield, causing her to run outside again.

"What is even happening here!?" Star Twinkle exclaimed in his frustration as he continued to watch the battle unfold outside of the fort along with Twilight and Fluttershy.

Ma Hooffield kept running away from the McColt family but not without luring them into another trap. The rest of her family was already waiting with some more catapults and slingshots to ambush the unsuspecting family.

"Ready... aim... fire!" Ma Hooffield then shouted, giving her family a signal to attack.

The catapults fired multiple vegetables, like corn, melons, carrots, and even self-made muffins at the McColts, who barely managed to save themselves from this rain of food by covering their heads with their wooden shields.

Shortly after, Ma Hooffield ordered the rest of the Hooffields to charge at the McColts to continue the fight. By now, Twilight caught up to her and confronted her about what happened inside the fort.

"Ma Hooffield, you planted ponies in that cake?!" She asked.

"Yeah!" Ma Hooffield replied, accompanied by some maniacally sounding laughter. "Wait. Were you serious about apologizin'?" She then asked in complete obliviousness.

"Urgh!" Star Twinkle groaned in his frustration. He was pretty sure that he never met anyone more stubborn and hard to deal with as in the few hours he was here.

"Why in Equestria would we apologize?" Ma Hooffield said as she pushed both Star Twinkle and Twilight out of the way before shaking her hoof aggressively at the McColts. "We didn't do anythin' wrong!"

"What're you talkin' about?!" Big Daddy McColt said angrily after overhearing those words. "You done so many things wrong!" He said as he walked up to the mare.

"Not as many as you!" Ma Hooffield returned with an angry glare.

The two ponies growled at each other angrily and it was only a matter of time until they started fighting just like everypony else around them. Soon the whole valley was filled with ponies beating each other up, one could say that things escalated rather quickly. Either that or this is how it looked around here every single day.

Star Twinkle attempted to talk with some of the ponies in order to stop them from fighting but it didn't work out too well. The Hooffields and the McColts were just too focused on fighting each other that they didn't pay any attention to him at all. The stallion had the bright idea to position himself between two ponies. "Would you stop with all this!?" He asked of them but as soon as he was done talking the two ponies charged at each other which meant that Star Twinkle was caught up in their little fight as well. He managed to get out of that rather quickly and was greeted by a rather worried Fluttershy.

"Are you okay!?" She asked in concern after seeing the stallion barely escape that clash.

"Yeah, yeah," the stallion replied annoyed. This whole situation was starting to take its toll at the stallion. "I suppose you don't have any idea how to stop all this?" He asked.

Fluttershy shook her head. "No...I tried talking to them but they wouldn't listen," she said in a sad tone as she watched all this unfolding in front of her. "I just wish that all this fighting would stop. IT really is hurting the animals living around here. I just barely managed to save this little fella," she explained before she showed Star Twinkle a little squirrel, that he just noticed was sitting in her mane.

As usual, Fluttershy seemed to be more worried about the animals than the Hooffields and the McColts. This led Star Twinkle to believe that she was not going to be a great help in all of this and the Twilight needed to be the one to come up with a solution.

But Star Twinkle just now realized that Twilight was nowhere to be found, at least not nearby. It didn't take him too long to find her though. Twilight decided to sit down in a quiet corner, far away from the fight where she ripped out one page after another and threw them away with a frown on her face.

Star Twinkle and Fluttershy got a little worried about seeing that. "Um, Twilight? We should probably get back there. I mean, if you need a break, that's fine, but we really can't do this without you," Fluttershy pointed out.

Twilight sighed in frustration. "I don't know if we can do this at all. Even if I make things right, they're just gonna fight again," she explained.

Star Twinkle walked up to the mare, trying to cheer her up again."We still have to do something. That's why we...err...you two were sent here after all," he pointed out.

But it didn't look as if Twilight was convinced by those words. She kept looking down with a frown on her face. She didn't know what to do and gave up. Star Twinkle couldn't really blame her. She was so excited to finally be called by the map and then she ended up failing completely. This must have been really difficult to take in for her.

The stallion had to admit that he was at a loss as well. In his desperation, he turned towards Fluttershy who, just like so many times before, was rather attending the animals in this valley. She was looking under a bush to see a few critters hiding under it, shaking in fear.

"Hey, little fellas. Oh, that's okay, you can come out," Fluttershy assured them with her gentle voice.

It did not take long for those animals to come out, seeing how Fluttershy was putting no harm to them, unlike some ponies who still were busy fighting not too far away from them. Some more animals showed up from everywhere and approached the mare. This was the first time since their arrival that the three ponies saw that many animals in one spot. It was a pretty refreshing sight compared to what they've seen so far.

Star Twinkle was about to appreciate this sight but then a weird noise was completely taking him by surprise. Twilight, as well, heard that noise. "What was that?" She asked confused.

As it turns out, that weird sound came from a squirrel, one of the animals that surrounded Fluttershy and was still holding its belly. Fluttershy, as an animal expert, instantly knew what was going on.

"Oh, you poor things! There isn't enough food here for you!" She concluded before she took a closer look at some of the critters. "And you're freezing! I'm gonna take you all home with me and get you all hot cocoas. How do you feel about book clubs?" She asked the animals who seemed to not be entirely against that idea.

Twilight stood up from her spot and began thinking. She remembered what she read about the Smokey Mountains before setting off on this trip. It was just now that she realized that nothing here was the way it was described in this book.

"I don't get it. This was supposed to be the most beautiful valley in all of Equestria. What happened?" Twilight wondered.

It was true that Twilight's book was depicting this valley in a much better light and who knows from when the picture inside the book was, things are bound to change over time after all, but this whole place looked vastly different. Dry rivers, dead trees, the flowers were trampled, only to mention a few things. Something happened that ruined this place completely.

All it took to figure out how this place ended up like this, was Star Twinkle taking a quick look around, towards the battlefield to be precise. "I guess "they" happened," he figured.

This place might have been a beautiful and peaceful place before but if the Hooffields and the McColts kept fighting here over and over again, then it made sense that the place must have taken a turn for the worst. As the stallion watched the ponies fighting in the distance, he noticed that there was plenty of food for everyone but it was used in the fight instead of being eaten. This was a little messed up to watch actually.

The critters then tried to say something to Fluttershy, who was listening carefully and after they were done, she looked as if she came to a realization.

"They know what happened here!" The mare then said with wide-open eyes.

"What?" Twilight replied in surprise.

"You mean they know why the valley ended up like this?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yes!" Fluttershy answered. "They even know why the Hooffields and the McColts are fighting!" She further added.

"Really!?" Star Twinkle replied. This was very valuable information that could fix this whole mess.

"Then we have to tell everyone!" Twilight said, feeling as if this could be their last chance to solve this problem.

"But how?" Star Twinkle asked. "They are too busy fighting each other, they'll never going to listen to us!" He pointed out.

Twilight looked more determined than ever which was surprising since she was about to give up a few minutes ago. "Leave that to me," she said before she spread her wings and flew towards the battlefield to put her plan in motion. Star Twinkle was not sure what exactly she was trying to do but he trusted her enough to follow right behind with Fluttershy coming with him as well.

Not much has changed around the battlefield, the Hooffield and the McColts were still at it without mercy and with no end in sight. Twilight was hovering in the air between the ponies in hope that her voice reached them.

"Stop! You have to listen to me!" She shouted but no one listened to her. All the ponies were too busy fighting to even take notice of the princess. In fact, she accidentally got hit with a cupcake in the face. There is a lot that the Princess of Friendship was ready to endure but now she started to get fed up by all of this and took some more drastic actions. "Everypony freeze!" She shouted, her voice echoing through the whole valley, accompanied by a magic blast that engulfed everyone around her.

She used a spell to keep everyone frozen in place. It was highly effective and actually stopped everyone but it put a lot of strain on Twilight in return.

Star Twinkle had to admit that he was impressed by this. "Whoa," was the only thing he could say after witnessing this.

But there was no time to be impressed. "Fluttershy! You have to tell them! It's a lot harder to freeze an army of ponies than just six of them!" Twilight said prompted.

Fluttershy was a little nervous to speak to so many ponies at once but it only took a glance over to Star Twinkle who was putting his full trust in her right now.

The mare took a deep breath before she walked between the ponies to speak to them. "Before you keep fighting, there is something you should know!" She said in a raised voice. The mare then shared her story with everyone and hopefully, whatever the critters told her hopefully would put a stop to all of this.

"...Long ago, there were two best friends...Grub Hooffield and Piles McColt...

When they found the valley between the Smokey Mountains, they knew it was something special. So they made a promise to each other to protect and preserve the valley for all its adorable furry inhabitants. But they disagreed on how to go about it. Grub wanted to start by planting crops so that everypony would have something to eat. But Piles thought it would be better to start by building a shelter to protect them against the cold and wind. The two ponies were unable to come to an understanding, so Piles went ahead and built a shelter anyway, exactly where Grub was gonna start his farm! Grub was upset, so he tore down Piles' shelter so he could plant his crops! They kept fighting back and forth until it turned into a feud! The valley suffered from the constant destruction until finally, the Hooffields and McColts moved to separate mountains. Even then, the valley and all the animals in it continued to be caught in the crossfire."

Listening to Fluttershy seemed to have taken some effect on the Hooffields and McColts. Their battle-ready expressions were replaced with regret and it was clear that their will to fight was gone as well.

"You see? By fighting, you're destroying the very thing that brought you here in the first place! So it's time you both put your differences aside and come together!" Fluttershy said. "If not for yourselves, then for the sake of these cute and cuddly guys!" She asked of them as she showed them all the critters that were affected by the fights in this valley.

Ma Hooffield and Big Daddy McColt looked at each other. They were both frowning and felt bad about everything. Fluttershy's story was definitely affecting them.

"Aw, shucks, we never meant to hurt you little critters," Big Daddy McColt said.

"Yeah, we're sorry!" Ma Hooffield apologized.

One of the critters, a squirrel, was saying some words into Fluttershy's ear. "They say they accept your apology," Fluttershy then translated.

Star Twinkle was certainly happy to hear that and walked over to Twilight who was still straining herself to keep up the spell. "I think you can unfreeze everyone now," the stallion said, figuring that everything was settled now.

"Oh, right!" Twilight then said in her surprise, she must have been a little bit too focused on keeping up this spell to notice what everyone was talking about.

The spell then got lifted and everyone was freed again. No one made any attempt to continue the fight and everyone helped each other up, it was the most peaceful thing that Star Twinkle has seen since he came here.

Both leaders of the group then decided to have a serious talk about the future of this valley, a rather short one at that. It was not as if there was much to agree on in the first place anyway.

"Ma Hooffield? We promise we won't fight you no more," Big Daddy McColt said.

"Us too, except we promise not to fight you. I suppose it doesn't matter who's right. We're both wrong," Ma Hooffield replied.

"That's one thing we can agree on," Big Daddy McColt said.

The two leaders then sealed everything by spitting into their hooves and shaking hooves with each other. A little bit disgusting but not any less meaningful.

Star Twinkle sighed. "I guess that takes care of that," he said while looking over to Fluttershy who was happy that everything turned out this way.

Twilight shortly joined the two leaders and congratulated them on acting this way. "This is wonderful! I am so proud of you two!" She said happily.

"Aw, thanks, princess," Ma Hooffield replied happily as well. "Though I would just like to point out that I was the, uh, first to admit I was wrong," she then added.

"Oh-oh..." Star Twinkle said, sensing some problems coming up again.

"That may be, but I promised not to fight first. That counts for more!" Big Daddy McColt said, countering the words of Ma Hooffield immediately.

"Oh, yeah?!" Ma Hooffield then replied annoyed.

The two ponies growled at each other. It was only a matter of time till a new fight would break out, much to everyone's dismay. However, the critters quickly put an end to this by scolding the two ponies, combined with the scolding looks on everyone's faces.

It didn't take long until Ma Hooffield and Big Daddy McColt apologized to each other again.
"Oh, all right. We don't have to speak animal to know what y'all are sayin'," Ma Hooffield said before she turned towards Big Daddy McColt once more. "Truce?"

"Truce," the stallion replied.

Later...

This time the fighting and arguing came to a complete end and the Hooffield and the McColts worked together to restore the valley to its former glory. In the matter of a few hours, the place looked a lot more lively again. From growing new crops to building shelters for the animals, both families worked hard together to make the place look the way their ancestors wanted it to be. Speaking of their ancestors, a fountain of their very image was created in the middle of the valley to remind everypony what the Smokey Mountains were intended to be.

Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Fluttershy were also helping out a lot to make this all happen and looked at what could be archived by simply working together. It sure was beating all the fighting and arguing that they had to watch for the majority of this day.

"Woo-hoo! Ain't that a pretty sight?" Big Daddy McColt said.

"Sure is!" Ma Hooffield replied. "The McColts are gonna help us rebuild our homes! Good ones this time," she added.

"And the Hooffields are gonna help us grow some crops!" Big Daddy McColt said.

"Not pumpkins," One of the McColts pointed out. They sure were having enough of those for a long time after all.

Of course, hearing all of that put a smile on the three ponies that came to this valley. "And best of all, no more fighting," Star Twinkle further pointed out.

"That's right!" Ma Hooffield agreed. "Thanks for teachin' us that friendship is so much better than winnin' a silly argument," she said before she and Big Daddy McColt walked away to took charge of more tasks that needed to be done around here.

In the meantime, Twilight's and Fluttershy's Cutie Marks started to glow, a familiar sight for Star Twinkle which confirmed that their work here was done.

"Yay!" Fluttershy expressed happily with a bright smile on her face. "I told you we'd figure it out," she said towards Twilight, who wanted to give up not too long ago.

"We did, and we didn't need my friendship portfolio to do it. We just needed each other," Twilight admitted before she gave Fluttershy and Star Twinkle a big hug.

"Right," Star Twinkle agreed. In fact, he realized that Fluttershy seemed to be the only one that knew what to do from the very beginning by just looking at the animals around the place. He felt bad for thinking that she was wasting time taking care of the animals instead of the ponies around here.

"So..." Twilight then said before she looked over to Star Twinkle with an excited look on her face. "That only leaves you to be "officially" called by the map."

For some reason, hearing the word "officially" made Star Twinkle feel a little bothered. He secretly wished that someday he would be called by the map as well but as of now, all of his friends were called and he was still left out. Even if he was about to be called by the map now, all of his friends were called before which could mean that he would be called alone and that was not making him feel too good.

The stallion did his best to hide those thoughts and luckily, Twilight was too caught up in her excitement to notice that. "So, what do you think will happen next? What will your mission end up being?" She asked.

"Who knows?" Star Twinkle replied, trying to show some optimism in front of the girls.

"I'm sure we'll find out when we get home," Fluttershy said.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle said. "So let's go and- Oof!" The stallion said in a straining voice after Twilight used her magic to put the two saddlebags from earlier this day on the stallion's back again.

"What if it summons all seven of us to another place? Or another pony we weren't expecting? What if it wants us to solve other kinds of problems, like quantum physics, or why the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?" Twilight suspected, getting lost in her own thoughts after a while.

Of course, Star Twinkle and Fluttershy did not know the answer to those questions. All that Star Twinkle knew now was that he had to carry two way too heavy saddlebags on his back and that he had to fly back on Twilight's balloon. And that was not too his liking at all...

112. The Countess

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A whole bunch of ponies gathered a little bit outside Ponyville, all of them working hard to set up a stage for an upcoming concert. Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer were also part of those ponies, the two carpenter ponies couldn't be missing when it came to set stuff up after all. Still, they were not told for whom this concert was supposed to be. That really didn't matter to Star Twinkle though, he just continued his work.

Star Twinkle carried some big apple decorations on his back. "Where do we put those?" The stallion asked the pony in charge of all of this, which surprisingly was none other than Applejack.

"Up on the stage with them," she said pointing at a specific location on the stage.

Star Twinkle did what he was told and went to the stage to place the apples on it. Some of his friends, like Rarity and Fluttershy, were putting some ribbons on the stage, as well as Rainbow Dash who was helping to put some ribbons around the place. All this while Applejack was overseeing with a keen eye and making sure that everything was going well.

Ironically, Twilight, the pony who was usually the one in charge of things like this, was praising Applejack for her work on all this. "Wow, Applejack! Are you sure you've never managed a concert before?" She asked in awe seeing how she could not have done it any better.

"Well, it turns out doin' up a concert's the same as settin' up a rodeo," Applejack replied in her modesty.

"And thanks to Pinkie's connections organizing the Ponypalooza Rock Concert, we've got quite a lineup for the Helping Hooves Music Festival."

Star Twinkle had to stop for a moment after hearing that Pinkie Pie was managing a Rock Concert before but he decided to get back to work. That was until he almost got a heart attack by Pinkie Pie popping up in front of him all of a sudden.

"Star Twinkle!" She said in her excitement before she did the same with the rest of her friends as well. "Twilight! Applejack! Rainbow Dash! Rarity! Fluttershy! Spike! Pinkie Pie! Oh wait, that's me," she said as she looked into a glass window that two ponies were carrying around, speaking to her own reflection.

"Everypony!" The mare then shouted across the place asking for everyone's attention.

Everyone was walking towards Pinkie Pie to see what this fuzz was about shortly after. "What is it, Pinkie?" Twilight asked curiously, wondering what the pink pony was so excited about.

"I have the most amazing news ever! It is totally gonna freak your frizz!" Pinkie Pie assured.

Unless the mare wasn't telling everyone that all the work was done, Star Twinkle was not too curious about her news, Pinkie Pie had the tendency to get a little bit too excited about the smallest things after all.

"Well, spill it, Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash prompted in an impatient tone.

Pinkie Pie then finally explained. "It wasn't easy. In fact, it was terribly difficult. But I have managed to book the biggest pony pop star in all of Equestria as the main attraction of the Helping Hooves Music Festival!" She announced.

Applejack was taking a quick guess of who that could have been. "Sapphire Shores?"

Pinkie Pie was shocked and offended to hear that though. "Sapphire Shores?! Please! Sapphire Shores is merely the second biggest pony pop star in Equestria," she corrected in an offended tone.

"Who would have thought," Star Twinkle casually added. He clearly was not seeing a big difference about the second and the most popular pony in the first place, not that he knew anything about pop stars to begin with to throw in his opinion at all.

But despite the stallion's comment, Pinkie Pie continued to share her good news and revealed the name of the biggest pony pop star of Equestria to everyone. "I have booked the one, the only, Countess Coloratura!" She said proudly.

Everyone immediately awed in response after hearing a name that Star Twinkle never heard before. He was about to ask who this pony was but Applejack also did not know that name and was faster.

"Who in the hay is Countess Coloratura?" She asked unimpressed.

And as soon as Star Twinkle saw the reaction of everyone around the place, he was happy that Applejack got ahead of his question. Everyone was clearly shocked to see how Applejack did not know about the most popular pony pop star of Equestria. Meanwhile, Star Twinkle was looking around in confusion. This was clearly not the best moment to admit that he never heard about this pony as well so to save tail, he decided to gasp as well. It was pretty awkward though since it was so much more delayed than the gasps of the others.

Pinkie Pie was so shocked that her mane started to stand up and got all messy. "My frizz has been freaked!" Was all she replied.

Apparently, for everyone around, not knowing a pony pop star was a pretty big deal. It was no surprise that Applejack was not into stuff like that, she probably could list a bunch of country singers on the top of her head instead but expecting her to know pop stars was a little bit much.

"Pinkie Pie, who is this Countess Coloratura pony?" Applejack asked once more since all she got was shocking reactions instead of answers.

After fixing her mane again, Pinkie walked up to Applejack. "Uh, I just told you that she's the biggest pony pop star in Equestria! How-how-how-how-how have you not heard of her?!" She asked pressingly as she pretty much climbed up on poor Applejack.

"Don't know," Applejack could just reply. "Though I did know a gal named Coloratura when I was just a filly," she added before she started laughing and snorting after realizing something. "Wouldn't it just be the funniest thing if that Coloratura and this Coloratura were the same Coloratura?" She said amused.

By now, Pinkie Pie was getting a little bit suspicious about all this. "Do you mean to tell me that you actually know Countess Coloratura?" For some reason, Star Twinkle could sense some kind of jealousy in her voice. It would be a hit in the face if that would be the case if the farmer pony, who never heard of this Coloratura before, knew the most popular pop star in Equestria from fillyhood.

But Applejack quickly came to the conclusion that this was not the case. "Well, I don't think it's the same pony, since my friend wasn't any sort of high-falutin' countess," she said.

"A lot of things can happen over the years," Star Twinkle figured.

Pinkie Pie knew exactly how to get an answer to that though. "Do you remember her cutie mark?" She asked. If it were two different ponies, then they should have two different Cutie Marks, every Cutie Mark was unique after all.

Applejack still remembered her friends Cutie Mark and described it to Pinkie Pie. "Sure do. It had this super colorful bunch of musical notes that just shimmered in the light," she said.

"You mean... like this?!" Pinkie Pie then replied, showing off her flank that had a photo of Countess Coloratura's Cutie Mark. Why Pinkie Pie was sticking a photo of someone else's Cutie Mark on her own flank was begging some questions but that was not important. What was important though, was that the Cutie Mark on the photo looked exactly how Applejack described her friend's Cutie Mark.

"Well, fancy that! That there's the very same cutie mark!" Applejack then confirmed.

Pinkie Pie looked really stressed after hearing that. It could have helped if Applejack had pulled some strings for the festival, with her being a long friend with this pony after all. "Do you have any idea the number of hoops I had to jump through to get her to perform at the festival?! A whole lot of hoops! That pony is very demanding!" She explained.

"Nah," Applejack responded.

Pinkie Pie couldn't believe what she heard just now. "Yah!" She returned.

"I completely understand," Rarity said. "We artists require certain necessities in order to do our best work," she added.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle agreed. "Not everyone could just book the most popular pony pop star in Equestria after all," he figured.

Applejack was not too sure about that though. "This was clearly some sort of misunderstandin', 'cause Rara was just as down home as me!" She explained.

Again, all eyes widened up around Applejack and then fixed themselves on her. "Rara?!" Everyone asked in surprise.

Applejack explained. "Even that big name was too fancy for her, so I shortened Coloratura to "Rara"!"

More and more secrets and surprised seemed to surface between Applejack and "Rara". For the sake to avoid more shocked reactions, Applejack decided to share some stories about her and little Countess Coloratura, something that everyone had to admit, was very curious about.

"We had the best time at Camp Friendship! Rara was just so easygoin'! We were like two apples from the same branch. One day, Rara and I prepared this song for the camp talent show. When we performed, she belted it out, singin' in the most colorful, clear voice I'd ever heard! I was about to tear up just listening and playing along with her." There was a hint of nostalgia in Applejack's voice, not to mention a lot of happiness. There were clearly a lot of good memories back from that time.

"After camp, we wrote to each other for a bit, but...then we lost touch," Applejack added, her voice sounded sad just saying that. "But Rara always did want to go to Manehattan to try and make it big. But a demandin' diva? Just you wait, Pinkie," Applejack said as she put a hoof around her friend. "Once Rara gets here, you'll see she's just a plain old pony like you and me," she assured with not the slightest hint of worry in her voice.

"I don't have to wait – she's here!" Pinkie Pie then said in excitement as soon as she realized that some ponies were coming towards them.

"Really?" Applejack replied, looking forward to meeting her long lost friend after such a long time.

Four ponies were leading the way to the bunch of ponies. They carried what looked like a giant golden gem with them, which they placed on the ground. Shortly after, the gem opened and revealed itself to be some kind of cabin, that was transporting someone. The pony inside slowly walked down to the ground.

It was an Earth Pony mare with a light aquamarine gray-colored coat, a light orchidish gray-colored mane, that had purple streaks in it, and opal colored eyes. She also wore a black veil, and a really fancy purple leather jacket, along with some spiked hoof bracelets around her hooves.

Judging from an entrance like that, Star Twinkle came to the conclusion that this pony was Countess Coloratura. If there was one pony that would have an entrance like that, then it would be a pop star like her. Her appearance was accompanied by some pop music that came out of some speakers that set themselves up after the golden gem opened.

Needless to say, this was not the entrance that Applejack expected. She was rather confused unlike everyone else who seemed to lose their minds that someone so popular was visiting the little town of Ponyville.

"Countess Coloratura!" Pinkie Pie screamed in excitement, bouncing up and down on the spot before she fainted and dropped to the ground.

"Clear the way!" One stallion, leading a bunch of ponies behind him said as he and Countess Coloratura literally walked over Pinkie Pie as they made their way to the stage. "Stand back! Keep your hooves and tail to yourselves!" It looked like that one stallion in front was some kind of manager of Countess Coloratura or at least someone who was in charge of a few things. He was an Earth Pony stallion with a white coat, a pale light grayish-pink mane, and gold-colored eyes. He was also wearing some glasses and a blue suit.

Countess Coloratura, that pony in the suit, and some ponies who were dressed pretty similar like the pop singer, probably some background dancers, walked towards the stage, while ignoring most of the ponies around them, mainly because the pony in front kept them away.

Applejack was taken back by how this old friend of hers was dressed like that and how distanced she felt from anyone around her. "So..." Star Twinkle started, he was noticing how Applejack was looking at Countess Coloratura all this time. "Is this Rara?" He asked.

The answer did not come right away, probably because Applejack was not too sure herself. "I don't know, she looks like her but..." was the first thing she said before she watched that pony some more seconds only to come to one conclusion. "No... that can't be her," she added before she walked towards that mare to make absolutely sure of it.

Countess Coloratura did not turn around as Applejack came walking towards her but Applejack still decided to talk to the singer, much to the dislike of her manager who just shot a disapproval look at the farm pony. "Um... hi. Remember me? We met at Camp Friendship? I gave you the nickname "Rara"?" Applejack asked almost sheepishly as if she was no longer believing that this pony was her friend.

The pony pop star was confused at first but she clearly made an attempt to remember. It didn't take long until a smile formed on her face and she turned around. "AJ?" The mare asked.

This confirmed it. Countess Coloratura and Applejack knew each other from fillyhood. "Yeah! Heh. Howdy, Rara!" Applejack replied with her smile on her face. She was really happy seeing how her friend was remembering her as well.

But before they could exchange more words, the pony in the blue suit whispered some words into Countess Coloratura's ear. The mare then nodded before reaching out her hoof, using some kind of stamp to put something on Applejack's cheek.

"Hoofsies!" She then said happily followed by a short laugh.

The mare then walked away and left a pretty confused Applejack who was just rubbing her cheek in response and looked at Star Twinkle who could only shrug his shoulders in response.

"Ooh, you got hoofsies from Countess Coloratura!" Rarity noticed as she took a look at this heart-shaped mark that was on Applejack's cheek now.

"What are hoofsies?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Rarity explained. "Countess Coloratura only gives hoofsies to someone who she thinks are very special," she said.

This was good to know and Applejack would be happy about that if there wasn't literally a line of ponies standing in front of the pop star, all of them getting a hoofsie as well and walking away happily. "Yeah... real special," Applejack commented after seeing that before she rubbed that heart away from her cheek.

Pinkie Pie appeared next to the three ponies. "I'm sure she is just busy with all this "getting ready for her performance" thing," she said before she noticed how Countess Coloratura's manager was calling for her. "Speaking of which!" The mare said before she went over to the two ponies to take care of things.

What Pinkie Pie said made sense to some degree. You just don't become the most famous pony pop star by doing nothing and Countess Coloratura probably put a lot of work into her career. There was a good chance that she was too stressed to afford to spend time with anyone right now.

Still, Applejack was looking rather worried, something that Star Twinkle noticed. "I'm sure you will have time to catch up once everything is taken care of for the event," he said.

That did not seem to be the main concern of Applejack though. All she wanted to see was how her old friend was still the pony she once knew from fillyhood, which is why she decided to stay and watch her from afar. There was not much talking coming from her though because her manager, his name was Svengallop by the way, was busy taking care of the things that Countess Coloratura demanded.

"Do you have the water imported from Rainbow Falls that I requested for Countess Coloratura?" The stallion asked Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie Pie, of course, being the overly prepared pony like always had everything ready. "I have twenty glass containers full right here!" She said as she presented them to the stallion.

Svengallop took a quick glance at the bottles that Pinkie Pie showed him and immediately found a flaw in it. "Did I not tell you to provide straws in all of Countess Coloratura's beverages?" He asked offended.

Pinkie Pie looked a little puzzled. "Uh, I don't think so," she replied confused. "But lucky for you, I have the biggest straw collection in Equestria!" She said proudly before she took the chance to present one of her straws to the stallion. "I call this straw Fernando," she said with a wide smile on her face as a strange feeling of flamenco seemed to have surrounded the area for a moment.

But Svengallop was not impressed at all and just walked past the mare and Fernando to take a look at some of the other things that needed to be there for Countess Coloratura.

"Floral arrangements from the royal Canterlot gardens... Chocolate éclairs made by Gustave le Grand... A selection of crystals from the Crystal Empire... Freshly picked cherries from Cherry Jubilee's farm separated red from yellow..." He listed, all of those things surprisingly being present as well.

Star Twinkle had to admit that he was impressed by how Pinkie Pie managed to get all those things, but then again, it was Pinkie Pie and she always made sure to be well prepared for everything that she planned.

Svengallop had to admit that everything was to his liking and walked back to Countess Coloratura. "Well, by some miracle, your requests have been reasonably met. So let us move on... to rehearsal!" He said before he and Countess Coloratura walked away to take care of said rehearsal.

Pinkie Pie looked back at Star Twinkle and Applejack who were watching all of this happening. "See? Demanding!" She just said before she walked away as well.

Applejack still couldn't believe that this diva was her old friend from fillyhood and she made sure to let everyone know that. "The Rara I knew didn't hide behind a veil givin' out fake stamp kisses, sippin' up imported water, and needin' her cherries separated," she said in disbelieve.

"Oh, I do understand," Rarity said. "Sometimes it's hard to see our friends change," she said before she looked over to Star Twinkle. "And sometimes it's for the better! Do you remember when Star Twinkle was a lot more grumpy than he was now?" She added almost teasingly.

"Thanks, Rarity..." Star Twinkle replied with a bothered expression on his face.

"You're welcome," the mare replied, not realizing Star Twinkle's reaction to her words.

But Applejack was still thinking that the thing with Rara was a little bit more different. "She's become a whole other pony!" She pointed out.

Rarity was still being optimistic though. "Trust me. Once you see Countess Coloratura perform, you simply won't believe it!" She assured.

From what they could tell, Countess Coloratura was about to do a rehearsal in a few minutes so they might as well stay and watch. Applejack was still a little bit worried but she was looking forward to hearing her old friend sing again and Star Twinkle couldn't help but being curious about how good the singing of the most popular pony pop star sounded like.

It didn't take long until the lights on the stage turned off and the song started, leaving everyone in excitement to see Countess Coloratura perform in front of them. The lights turned on and off to the rhythm to Countess Coloratura as she danced her way down the stairs.

"Time for the spectacle
Time for the show
The lights are bright and the colors glow
I'm not just anypony
I think you know
The time is now, it's about to blow!"

After she made her way down, the music became louder and wilder accompanied by a light show with so many colors that no one could even count them. As the song continued, the lights kept on and a bunch of background dancers were dancing along with Countess Coloratura's singing.

"Razzle dazzle
Glitz and glam
Turn it all up, it's a spectacle
Razzle dazzle
Glitz and glam
Turn it all up, it's a spectacle
Give me more
Razzle dazzle
Glitter eyes, big surprise
Lights, cameras"

The lights and special effects accompanying the song were going crazy and looked pretty impressive. Countess Coloratura's singing was, of course, pretty amazing as well. She had a pretty powerful voice that was demanding authority. All the effects and the background dancers only complimented that further. It was a spectacle to look at, that much was sure.

"Razzle dazzle
Glitz and glam
Turn it all up, it's a spectacle
Hear the applause
Here to impress
Not just a pony, I am the Countess!"

The song ended and everyone who watched was cheering and clapping as expected, Star Twinkle included. He had not really a comparison to other pony pop stars but he definitely enjoyed that song even if it was a little bit too flashy for his taste.

"Wooow! Awesome!" A really excited Steel Hammer shouted across the place, sharing his excitement for this song.

Star Twinkle couldn't help but look at him and chuckle, seeing how his boss was so excited. The complete opposite was the case for Applejack though. She was neither cheering nor visibly happy to listen to this song.

"Rarity was right! I don't believe it!" Was all she said in response to this song.

"What do you mean?" Star Twinkle asked confused. That was a rather mild reaction to an awesome song like that after all.

Svengallop was not too far away from complimenting Countess Coloratura after her performance. "Oh, my shining star! Thanks to the sparkling costumes, dazzling choreography, and brilliant vocal effects that I designed, your performance was spectacular, Countess Coloratura!"

"Oh, thank you, Svengallop!" Countess Coloratura responded happily.

Still, Applejack noticed how something was off by listening to that conversation of those two. "Correct me if I'm wrong here, but that feller isn't actually complimentin' Rara. He's complimentin' all the bells and whistles he's piled on to make her Countess Coloratura," she pointed out in a bothered tone.

"He seems to be proud of his work, that much is clear," Star Twinkle agreed after watching the guy for a while.

But Rarity quickly took care of what those two Earth Ponies took as a misunderstanding. "Oh, no-no-no-no-no, you don't understand. Creating all those elements is a lot of work, and Countess Coloratura's performance wouldn't exist without them," she explained to the two.

"If you ask me, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing," Applejack said before she walked away towards the stage.

This was all really bothering Applejack. The change that her friend went through didn't sit right with her at all and she was desperately hoping that the Rara she knew was still inside this fancy pop diva. Just like before she made sure to stay close to listen to her conversation with her manager. Star Twinkle just quietly tagged along, it was not as if he had anything better to do anyway.

"Oh, if we're all done here, I'd love to go back to my trailer and rest, Svengallop," she said in an exhausted tone.

This is where Pinkie Pie stepped in. "Actually, right now you're scheduled for your meet and greet with the schoolponies!" She mentioned.

Svengallop was really annoyed to hear that. "Ugh. I can totally get you out of meeting with the schoolponies, Countess," he said towards the mare.

Applejack was glaring at the stallion. She did not approve of the way he was acting so far at all. However, her expression changed to a happy smile as soon as she heard Rara's response. "Absolutely not. My favorite part of any event is meeting with the schoolponies!" She said in an almost demanding tone as if she was not okay with Svengallop suggesting that at all.

For the first time now, Applejack was seeing the friend that she knew all these years ago. It made her happy to see that her Rara was still in there somewhere. Realizing that, the mare walked up to the stage. "The schoolponies'll be so happy to hear that, Rara!" She said before she led the way and asked Rara to follow her.

The two then walked over to where the schoolponies were waiting while Star Twinkle decided to stay where he was, he had the feeling that he should let the two alone for a moment, even if it was just the way to the schoolponies. The moment, the two were out of sight though, Svengallop approached Star Twinkle from behind and threw a mean glare at him.

"You!" He said in a serious tone out of nowhere, making Star Twinkle flinch for a moment.

"Y-yes?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

"You and that other pony...stop hanging around Countess Coloratura that much. You are bothering her, not to mention that you make her look bad by hanging around her so much!" He pointed out.

"Making her look bad?" Star Twinkle asked confused. "What do you mean? Applejack is an old friend of Rara, that is why she wants to spend time with her," he explained.

"First of all," Svengallop replied annoyed as he moved his face closer to Star Twinkle. "It's Countess Coloratura! And secondly, she doesn't need friends, all she needs is me to take care of everything!" He explained. "Now if you excuse me, I need to get everything prepared for the event!" He added before he walked past the stallion in an annoyed fashion.

Star Twinkle was left a little bit confused by this behavior. He was not sure if that Rara would share that opinion too because she was not looking mad or upset whenever Applejack was around. This all reminded him of what Applejack said about Svengallop and how he wanted to only praise his own work. He kept the words of this stallion in mind and decided to tell Applejack on the next opportunity, she was with the schoolponies and Rara right now so Star Twinkle went to them as well.

When he arrived at the school, he already saw laughing fillies and colts from afar. Rara seemed a lot happier as well, much to Applejack's delight. "Now that's more like the Rara I remember," she said as she walked towards Star Twinkle.

It was a pretty bad time to tell her but Star Twinkle decided to tell her about Svengallop and how he was thinking about what would be the best. Applejack already was having a hard time liking the guy because of what he said and did so far so there was no way she was not believing him of course. As soon as she received that news, she walked away from Rara and the schoolponies to not bother them about this.

"I knew this guy was fishy but that is just mean!" She said in a mad tone.

"Maybe he just takes his job a little bit too seriously?" Star Twinkle said, not wanting to come to any quick conclusions already.

"But that doesn't give him the right to decide who Rara needs to spend time with!" Applejack said. She was clearly being offended since this was one of her friends that they were talking about.

The two were about to decide what to do with this information but they noticed someone talking in the distance. It was Pinkie Pie and she sounded a little bit distressed so they decided to cut their discussion short to check it out.

"But... I got everything you requested!" The mare said towards what looked like Svengallop.

"That was for Countess Coloratura! This is for me! And what I want is premium oats!" He demanded in a strict tone.

"Oh! Well, we have lots of tasty oats right here in Ponyville!" Pinkie Pie replied before she presented said oat to the stallion.

"I would not feed those to a chicken!" He said in disgust before he slapped the plate of oat away. "I want top-of-the-line Appleloosan oats!" He said before he took a look around to come up with one more task. "Next, it appears that we are surrounded by apple trees. Bring me five hundred pre-peeled, pre-cored apples, and I want those things in twenty-four hours!" He demanded.

Pinkie Pie gasped in shock. "But that's impossible!" She said, strangely enough. Star Twinkle was sure that she was pulling off more impossible things before after all.

"Do you want me to pull Countess Coloratura from your little podunk charity show?! Because I will!" Svengallop then threatened before he walked away and left Pinkie Pie with his unreasonable tasks.

It was a pretty big shock to hear that from Svengallop, although, not surprising. That he would go so far to cancel the event was just proving how much he cared about all of this. This was something that Rara would definitely not approve of.

Pinkie Pie, while still being really frustrated about all this, noticed how Star Twinkle and Applejack were approaching her. "Star Twinkle! Applejack! Svengallop just made all of these new demands and he said—"

"We heard, Pinkie," Applejack interrupted.

"To think that he would go so far..." Star Twinkle added worriedly.

"Yes, Rara would never agree with all of this, I'm sure of it!" Applejack said in a pretty confident tone. "We have to tell Rara to fix things up again!" She then suggested.

"Yeah," Star Twinkle agreed. This was the best thing that they could do after all. Once Rara was aware of all of this she might think about looking for another manager, someone who would share the same way of thinking that she did and wasn't thinking about selfish demands.

The two wasted no time to go to Rara and tell her about her manager. As soon as they approached her, Apple Bloom came running towards the two ponies. "Did'ja see, sis?! Did'ja see?!" She asked in a pretty excited tone. Applejack did not exactly know what she was referring to but she smiled nonetheless after seeing her sister this happy.

"Is this the little sister you wrote to me about, AJ?" Rara asked.

Apple Bloom widened her eyes in surprise. "Hold on, Applejack. You wrote to Countess Coloratura about me?!" She asked in disbelieve.

"AJ said you were the best little sister ever, Apple Bloom!" Rara said, leaving Apple Bloom in a state of shock while looking at her big sister with an open mouth. The same could be told about Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, who all stood not too far away. They must have been really big fans of Countess Coloratura judging from this reaction.

As cute as this all was though, Applejack still needed to talk about some more serious issues. "Alright now, you'd best get along, little ponies," she said, asking the three fillies to leave them alone for a moment. Rara seemed to be in a rather good mood after spending a little bit of time with the schoolponies. She was laughing for the first time since she arrived in Ponyville. This just made it harder for Applejack to tell her about what was going on behind her back. But still, it had to be done.

"Uh... Hey, Rara, you mind if I talk to you about your manager?" Applejack asked.

"Sure, what about him?" Rara replied.

Star Twinkle decided to remain quiet while Applejack did the talking. If there was someone that Rara would listen to, then it was her old friend after all.

"Well, while you were meetin' with the schoolponies, he was demandin' all sorts of stuff from Pinkie Pie," Applejack explained.

Rara did not see a problem in that though. "Svengallop works very hard as my manager, AJ, so if he needs some things when we're on the road, I don't see anything wrong with that," she replied.

What she said made sense and would be understandable if Svengallop's demands were reasonable and didn't threaten to cancel the whole event which Applejack quickly got to now.

"Well, do you see somethin' wrong with him tellin' Pinkie that if she doesn't get those things by tomorrow, he'd pull you from our charity festival?" Applejack further informed.

"What? But he knows how important charity is to me, and leaving the festival would completely ruin my image!" Rara said.

"I'm afraid Svengallop doesn't give a pickled pippin about your charity work," Applejack further explained.

Now Rara seemed a bit angry to hear Applejack saying all those things about her manager. "That's not true! Svengallop has always supported me in all my interests. You're just saying those things because you're jealous!" She accused Applejack off.

"Jealous of what?" Applejack replied offended. "A pony who hides behind a veil so thick she can't see when somepony's usin' her? No, I'm not jealous of that, Rara!" She shot back at her old friend.

It didn't take much to realize that things were not going too well. Star Twinkle knew that things would escalate a little bit more if they continued to shout at each other like this so he decided to diffuse the situation.

"Um...there is no need of you two to get so-"

"You stay quiet!" Rara shouted in the face of the stallion.

"Yes, ma'am!" Star Twinkle replied before remaining quiet again and abandoning his plan right away.

Once Star Twinkle backpedaled again, Rara was returning her focus on Applejack again. "I am not Rara! I am Countess Coloratura! And while we may have been friends when we were young, we have clearly gone in different directions!" The mare said before she took her leave.

This did not play out the way Applejack expected. Rara did not believe her at all and put all of her trust into her manager. It was frustrating, to say the least. Star Twinkle knew that Applejack wasn't taking it too lightly so he decided to say something.

"Hey, Applejack-" He started before he got interrupted almost immediately by the mare.

"Can you believe it!?" She said angrily. "She thinks so highly of herself that she doesn't even listen to an old friend!? If that's the way she wants it then just let her be!" She said in a really mad tone before she walked away from the scene.

Star Twinkle should be shocked to hear this but for some reason, he saw right through what Applejack said. This was her way to let of steam, and he was just unfortunately, the only pony around to be targeted. He decided to not let up though.

"I know you are not angry at her Applejack. She is not the one who is to blame for all of this," the stallion said.

Applejack sighed in response after stopping for a moment. "I know, I know," she replied before she turned around to face the stallion again, letting him see how bad she felt about how things turned out. "It just ain't right! He's manipulatin' her, and she's just not seein' it!"

Star Twinkle tipped his chin for a moment before coming up with a solution for this problem. "All we have to do is let her see how her manager is acting behind her back," he suggested.

The mare really liked the sound of that. "I'm sure there is a way to pull that off!" Applejack said confidently. "There is no way I'm lettin' that lousy Svengallop use my friend like that!" She said before she was on her way to talk with Rara one more time to set things straight for good.

Seeing Applejack like that again made Star Twinkle rather happy. It was not like her to give up that easily, especially when it came to a friend. This was not only about making sure that the event was happening, but it was also important for Rara's future and Applejack was not gonna stand there and look at how one of her friends was taking advantage of like this.

A little later...

Back at the stage, Rara was waiting for everything to be taken care of for the event. Applejack was just arriving at the stage with Star Twinkle following close behind. She attempted to talk one more time to her old friend.

"Countess Coloratura!" She shouted up the stage to where Rara was standing at.

Rara seemed positively surprised. "Wow, AJ, you said my real name," she said happily.

"I said your new name, but I saw the real you hangin' out with those schoolponies yesterday. And I know somepony that'd prefer if you stop doin' those little events," Applejack said.

"Ugh, not this again," Rara replied annoyed before she turned around again. She did not want any of that anymore.

"Come on now. You've just got to give me a chance to prove what I'm sayin' is true," Applejack asked.

"And just how are you going to do that?" Rara asked.

Star Twinkle stepped up and joined in the conversation. "We came up with a plan and if you go along and do exactly as we say, then you can see yourself if Svengallop has your best interests in mind," he explained.

Rara was looking over to Applejack as if she wanted to confirm if she could trust Star Twinkle's words. It was just now that Star Twinkle realized that they were not properly introduced to each other which might be the reason for Rara's hesitation. Applejack just gave her a soft nod while smiling and that was enough to convince Rara to go along with all of this. She was convinced though that this would all be a huge waste of time.

Later...

After agreeing to Star Twinkle's and Applejack's plan, Rara was walking up and down the stage in the search of Svengallop. Star Twinkle and the rest of his friends were not too far away as well. They decided to watch from afar and waited for everything to be in place.

It didn't take long until Svengallop heard Rara calling his name and came running to her. "Here I am! Did you need something?" He asked as he bowed down to the mare for a moment.

Rara knew what she was supposed to say at this moment but she was still feeling a little nervous to see how Svengallop would react to it. "Yes, I was... considering... m-maybe canceling the contest with the schoolponies...?" She said in a heavy voice. Even though this was all part of the plan, it did not feel good to say it out loud.

Much to Rara's surprise and shock Svengallop was practically beaming as soon as he heard that. "Countess, this is wonderful! I've been waiting forever for you to cancel that pointless schoolpony contest," he said.

"You... have?" Rara replied confused.

"You do it at every charity event, and it does absolutely nothing to promote the Countess Coloratura image that I built! Consider it canceled," he said with not a single hint of regret.

Rara could not believe what she was hearing and only looked at Applejack who watched all of this unfolding in front of her. Of course, she was not surprised one bit by all of this.

"Pinkie Pie!" Svengallop then screamed across the stage, causing a pretty stressed out Pinkie Pie to come running towards him.

"Yes, Svengallop, sir!" The mare said before she coughed up an apple while catching some breaths.

Pinkie Pie was pretty exhausted and a mess to look at because she was taking care of Svengallop's demands the whole time. She could only hope that there were not more demands heading towards her now.

"We are making some adjustments to the show. Follow me!" Svengallop said as he prompted Pinkie Pie to follow him backstage.

Star Twinkle was watching how the two were walking away and he began smiling. Everything was going exactly as planned so far. The next step was for Twilight to take action who, until now, was pretending to do some work around the stage. The mare was flying after them, out of sight of course, and took care of the rest.

In the meantime, Rara came walking down the stage to talk with Applejack. "He seemed really happy about canceling the contest," she said with a frown on her face.

"Of course he was!" Applejack replied. "That's because he was happy!" She pointed out.

But Rara was still in denial about all of this. "Maybe he was just happy because he thought I was exhausted? And canceling the contest was a good way for me to relax a bit?" She figured. "Maybe he was just thinking about my well-being?" She asked.

Applejack was shaking her head, she couldn't believe that Rara was still defending that guy.

"Does your well-being include not being allowed to have any friends as well?" Star Twinkle said, much to Rara's and Applejack's confusion. "That's what he told me," he explained.

Meanwhile, Twilight came back from her mission with a confident smile on her face. "Everything is taken care of!" She said victoriously.

Star Twinkle was happy to hear this and smiled. "Alright," he replied.

Rara was still a little confused though. "What has been taken care of? What did you do?" She asked.

"You'll see," Star Twinkle replied.

Svengallop and Pinkie Pie now came back from behind the stage, "Okay, Countess Coloratura, all taken care of!" The stallion said proudly.

This was the perfect opportunity to let Twilight take care of the rest. She used her magic to create a screen on the stage that showed Svengallop and Pinkie Pie's conversation from behind the stage. Twilight was recording all of it and played it so that everyone could see the real Svengallop in all of his glory.

"Cancel the contest for the fillies and schedule me a spa treatment. Now that I don't have to oversee a rehearsal with those brats, I have time for the works! You know the drill! Deliver, or the diva ditches your dippy charity!"

It was a short conversation but it was enough to open the eyes of Rara. Needless to say, she was shocked to see the footage and walked up to her manager.

"So that's how you've been managing things?" She asked angrily.

It was plainly visible that Svengallop was nervous to be caught like that but he tried to play it off professionally. "Yeah, so? What's the problem?" He asked.

"The problem is, is you've been using my name to intimidate ponies to get what you want!" Rara said.

"But I work incredibly hard for you! I deserve everything I get!" Svengallop replied.

"But not because you scare ponies into thinking I won't perform for their charities otherwise! I would never do that to my fans! Which is why you should have known that I would never cancel the schoolponies' contest!"

"Hmph. All this charity and schoolpony contest nonsense is just remnants of that boring little Rara I met back in Manehattan!" The stallion said in disgust.

Rara was pretty mad that the pony she was trusting the most was not seeing the real problem in all of this. "You clearly don't understand the real me!" Was all she could say to this as she lifted her veil off from her face.

"Ha, that's a joke!" Svengallop said amused. "I made you somepony! What can you even do without me? Good luck, Countess Coloratura! Good luck," he said before he walked off as if he just won the war even though he clearly lost the battle.

Rara just now lost her manager, that is something that hit everyone else. "Oh, Rara, I'm so sorry. Are you gonna be okay for the concert tonight?" Applejack asked in concern.

Rara might be a good singer but her performance was more than singing. Countess Coloratura was known for colorful costumes, skilled background dancers, and special effects, all of which were taken care of by Svengallop who now was no longer working for her.

Still, Rara was confident that things will work out well. "Of course. After all, the show must go on!" Is all she said.

Later that evening...

Quite a crowd had gathered in front of the stage, all of them expecting a usual flashy Countess Coloratura performance from Rara. Star Twinkle and the rest of his friends were waiting as well. Rara sounded pretty confident when earlier this day, even though she lost her manager who was taking care of all the stuff that would make a performance from Countess Coloratura possible.

Everyone was just hoping that things turned out well in the end, Star Twinkle included. This was a charity event so the focus should not be on how good the performance of a singer was to make it successful but that was not what was at stake here. If Rara's performance would end up being mediocre then her image would surely suffer from it. But knowing that Applejack was there for here and Rarity was helping with the outfit backstage is what made him feel a little bit better.

As soon as Rarity then started appearing next to him in the crowd though, he began to get a little bit worried again. "How is she doing?" The stallion asked.

Rarity hesitated to answer at first. "Well...um..she is not...doing terrible..."

She was not good at lying, that much was sure. Things did not go as planned. According to Rarity, Rara was freaking out a little bit backstage after realizing that Svengallop was the one managing all the things around her Countess Coloratura image. Since he was gone, all of those things were gone as well, leaving a pretty frustrated Rara behind.

"That is not good," Star Twinkle commented. "Where is Applejack?" He then asked.

But as soon as her name fell, Applejack appeared next to Star Twinkle, Rarity, and the rest of their friends. She looked rather happy or at the very least relieved. "All has been taken care of," is all she said.

"So you took care of all the special effects and such?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Nope," Applejack replied casually and calmly.

No one knew what to take away from this. It did not really sound as if things have been taken care of if that was the case. It was too late now anyway, Twilight appeared on stage and announced Rara already.

"Good evening, everypony! Welcome to the opening night of the Helping Hooves Music Festival! Now it is my great honor to introduce you to our headlining act – Countess Coloratura!"

The curtains opened and Rara was revealed to the audience. Much to the shock of everyone though, she was not wearing a flashy costume or had background dancers with her. There was just Rara, sitting next to a piano in her usual get up.

"This song may be familiar, but yet, it's totally different. Kind of like me, Rara," is all she said before she prepared herself to play.

Star Twinkle looked over to Applejack as if he tried to find some answers and the mare actually gave him one right away.

"Svengallop might have turned her into Countess Coloratura and acted like your friend so he could enjoy the perks that came with bein' a star. But the real perk of friendship is gettin' to see your friend bein' true to their self. And when Rara is simply herself, then she is the brightest of them all."

The stallion took those words to heart before he looked at the stage again. Rara played a beautiful song on the piano, something slow and not fast, unlike what you would expect from Countess Coloratura. Of course, everyone was pretty confused to not see the pony that they all expected, which was funny since it was the same pony nonetheless but still every pony in the audience remained quiet and listened to the song that Rara began to sing for them.

"I'm here to show you who I am
Throw off the veil, it's finally time
There's more to me than glitz and glam, oh-whoa
And now I feel my stars align

For I had believed what I was sold
I did all the things that I was told
But all that has changed, and now I'm bold
'Cause I know
That I am just a pony!

I make mistakes from time to time
But now I know the real me
And put my heart out on the line
And let the magic in my heart stay true

Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa

And let the magic in my heart stay true

Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa

Just like the magic inside of you"

Everyone still remained quiet and listened to the song with an open heart. All the unicorns in the crowd started to use their horns as lights to create a sea of colors. Rara had such a powerful voice even without any special effects. In fact, her voice sounded even better than it ever did before.

"And now I see those colors
Right before my eyes
I hear my voice so clearly
And I know that it is right

They thought I was weak, but I am strong
They sold me the world, but they were wrong
And now that I'm back, I still belong
'Cause I know
That I am just a pony!"

The crowd started cheering loudly. They were blown away by this performance. Hearing Rara singing like that was just beautiful. Star Twinkle himself had to admit that he never heard a better song before and it was all thanks to Applejack. He was about to tell her that in the middle of the song but then he saw how she was having tears in her eyes listening to Rara's singing. It felt wrong to say anything right now so Star Twinkle decided to remain quiet. He wanted her to enjoy this song. Hearing a friend singing like that after so many years was probably warming her heart at this moment.

Star Twinkle continued to listen to this song again and he realized that it was a pretty bad time to interrupt anyone while it was still being sung.

"But now I know the real me
And put my heart out on the line
And let the magic in my heart stay true

Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa

And let the magic in my heart stay true

Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa

Just like the magic inside of you

Just like the magic inside of you..."

The song was done and Rara looked at the crowd with a smile on her face. What she received as a crowd cheering back at her in amazement. There was not a single pony in the crowd that didn't enjoy this song. This was the best performance that Rara did so far and Svengallop was most likely furious if he was somewhere in there listening to the crowd.

"Thank you, everypony!" Rara said. Tears were visible in her eyes as well. It must have felt really great to finally sing the way she used to after all those years. "When I arrived at the Helping Hooves Music Festival, I had forgotten who I really was! But then an old friend reminded me what real friendship is about, and she told me that if I was true to myself, I couldn't go wrong!" She explained while she looked at Applejack, who soon had all the eyes in the crowd focused on her, making her quite nervous in the process, Understandable, Star Twinkle would react the same way.

"So I have a very special surprise for her. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, come on up!" Rara asked of the three before they walked up to the stage to join her for another song. The song that she promised to sing with them earlier.

"Equestria, the land I love
A land of harmony
Our flag does wave from high above
For ponykind to see"

Rara then offered a hoof to Applejack to join her up on the stage something that she accepted right away with a smile on her face. This was a song that Rara used to sing back when she and Applejack were at camp Friendship. Yet another thing from her fillyhood that Applejack appreciated being brought back.

"Equestria, a land of friends
Where ponykind do roam
They say true friendship never ends
Equestria, my home"

The song ended with a hug between the two friends. Both were happy that things ended up like this and that they got to meet each other after such a long time.

Star Twinkle was looking at the two mares hugging each other. He smiled and was happy for them. Still, no matter how happy this scene was to look at, some other things were circling around in Star Twinkle's mind.

For some reason, instead of Applejack and Rara, Star Twinkle imagined himself and Summershine in this exact situation. Summershine, the pony he only had little memories of, if any at all, was someone who he knew used to be his friend. But that was about it, there was nothing more. He wanted to know more, more about him and Summershine's past but he didn't remember anything because of this memory erase spell that Summershine supposedly used on him.

The expression on Star Twinkle's face turned into a slight frown. He wished that things with him and his supposedly friend would end up just like this, just like with Applejack and Rara.

"Someday...right?" Star Twinkle said beneath his breath as he continued watching the reunion of two close friends in front of him.

Author's Notes:

The Slice of Life chapters for this season are done and there are five more chapters planned for Season 5. The next two will be the Cutie Re-Mark so you better get excited about it. As for the three chapters after that...I'm curious about what you think might happen. I think you will like what I have in mind...I hope O_O.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

113. Re-Marked - Part 1

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It was one of these days again where Star Twinkle would have stayed home, figuring out what to do with the rest of the day. But instead, he got the chance to listen to Twilight talking for hours now. She had the opportunity to give a speech to a bunch of magic students and wanted to make sure that she would be well-prepared. This is where Star Twinkle came in. Along with Spike, he was tasked to listen to Twilight's speech so that she would get some practice in.

"If somepony had told me when I was a blank flank that one day I'd give a speech to a class at Celestia's School of Magic, I wouldn't have believed it, but I hope that I have been up to the task because I can tell that all of you are and that the future of Equestrian magic is in good hooves," she said, concluding her speech.

Spike was clapping after the speech was done. "Wow, hehe. That was even better than...the first eleven times," Spike complimented.

The little dragon expected Star Twinkle to clap for Twilight as well but to his surprise, the stallion was fast asleep right next to him. Spike had no choice but to push the stallion to make him wake up again.

"Eh? Wu-what?" Star Twinkle cleverly responded before he realized that Twilight's speech was over. "Oh! That was good! Better than the first ten speeches!"

"Eleven..."

"Eleven!" Star Twinkle corrected.

Luckily, Twilight was so caught up in her practice that she did not notice how the stallion was just now waking up. "Eh, I don't know. I'd like to be able to get through the whole speech without looking at the cards," Twilight explained, something that the two did not like to hear.

"Come on, Twilight! You can't be nervous about giving a speech to a bunch of magic students!" Spike pointed out.

"Oh, I'm not nervous, Spike," Twilight replied. "But I do have to set a good example, especially for magic students. That's why this speech has to be..."

Spike let out a sigh. "Perfect?"

"Exactly," Twilight replied happily. "Let's go through it one more time," she suggested before she began clearing her throat and started the speech again.

Star Twinkle groaned heavily. He began sitting back on his seat again and made sure to take another nap. He already could tell the speech himself a6 this point. This was all Twilight being too prepared for something that Star Twinkle was sure she could ace through anyway. The only reason why Star Twinkle still "listened" to her was so that she would feel more confident and safer. But having to listen to her for hours was just boring and making him wish that the speech would already be over.

Later that day...

The time for the official speech was finally here. To Star Twinkle's surprise, the whole town hall was filled with young ponies who actually seemed rather interested in Twilight's speech, which, of course, she managed to do without any problems. It would have been a surprise if she would make a mistake at all, considering that she spent half of the day repeating that speech to Star Twinkle and Spike.

Speaking of those two, they still had a hard time keeping their eyes open during the speech. Having a whole room filled with eager magic students didn't change the fact that it was still the same speech that the two have listened to for what felt like a hundred times. It did make it easier to take a nap during all of this though.

All eyes and ears were focused on Twilight while she was giving her speech while a projector, that Star Twinkle and Spike took care of, was showing some pictures behind her. Fittingly, the current picture was showing the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

"Obviously, the long term effects of...the simultaneous acquisition of cutie marks has yet to be determined, but..." the mare said before she took a little sip of water which was her sign to Star Twinkle and Spike to put in the next slide so that she could continue her presentation. "Ahem. Next slide, please," Twilight asked of her currently sleeping helpers.

The two didn't notice and kept napping in the middle of the speech. Luckily, Moon Dancer, who was sitting next to them, gave the two a little nudge.

"Oh!" Star Twinkle replied once he noticed someone poking him in the side, which caused Spike to wake up as well.

The little dragon noticed how he missed his cue and instantly went and grabbed the next slide to put into the projector in front of him. He did put in a picture of him on the beach, followed by the next one being upside down at first but Twilight didn't notice it as she continued her speech. By the time she turned around again, the right one was showing, a showing Twilight and the rest of her friends.

"I can speak from my own experience that the power of Cutie Mark Magic is very real, and in the instance of my friends and I, it can be traced to a single event!" She explained before the next slide showed a picture of a Sonic Rainboom along with some pictures of her friends showing up around it. "Without Rainbow Dash's race to defend Fluttershy's honor, this Rainboom wouldn't have happened. Fluttershy might never have discovered her love of animals. Applejack might never have realized that she belonged on her farm. And Pinkie Pie might never have decided to leave hers. It might be hard to imagine Rarity without her sense of fabulousness. But it's even harder to fathom what my life would be like. Without this Rainboom, I might not have gotten into magic school. Celestia wouldn't have taken me on as her pupil or sent me to Ponyville to meet my friends."

Star Twinkle, who decided to try staying up now, was hearing those words many times before but they still were stuck with him. It was crazy to think that one event in the past was determining the lives of so many ponies. And of course, he was the only one who was not part of it, as always. It wasn't even funny anymore. So many times did Star Twinkle feel as if he was left out of certain things that the rest of his friends were part of. This Sonic Rainboom was one of them. He never saw that Rainboom, it didn't affect his life or changed it for the better. He figured that, if his friends wouldn't have seen it, then he wouldn't have met them so to a certain point, he was still grateful for that but knowing that he was the only one who didn't see it, made him still feel sad.

"And the most powerful thing about Cutie Mark Magic that I found is the connection I share with them..."

Then, all of a sudden, Twilight's facial expression changed. The smile, that she had on her face during the whole speech so far, vanished and her eyes popped open. At first, Star Twinkle thought he imagined things but he could clearly tell that something was wrong. Twilight was kept looking at a certain spot in the crowd as if she saw something or someone she didn't expect at all. Star Twinkle looked to where Twilight was looking at but he couldn't tell what caused Twilight to react like this.

"But, um..." Twilight then said before she began looking at some of her cards in front of her to get back on track with her speech again. "The real question about... Cutie Mark Magic is... who it seems to affect."

From this point on, Twilight's speech was sounding a little bit more nervous. There could be a possibility that she was simply blacking out for a moment and didn't know how to get back into her speech but Star Twinkle doubted that. Twilight saw something that worried her and he was curious to know what it was.

Later...

The speech was over. All of the magic students already left the building and Star Twinkle and Spike waited in front of the building for Twilight to come out.

"Hey Spike," Star Twinkle said. "Did you notice how Twilight was a little bit...off during the last half of her speech?" He asked.

The little dragon was yawning heavily and stretched his arms before scratching his back. "Huh? Did you say something?" He then asked confused. Clearly, Spike was sleeping throughout most of the speech after changing the slides.

Star Twinkle was hoping that Spike would tell him that he just imagined those things. Luckily, Twilight was walking out of the building shortly after so he could just ask her directly. She still looked a little bit nervous, the first thing she did was looking around after setting hoof outside. There was definitely something going on.

"Okay, mind telling me what is wrong?" Star Twinkle straight out asked.

Twilight looked surprised to hear that. She was sure that it wasn't too obvious the way she acted during her speech. She began moving away from the building and asked Star Twinkle and Spike to follow her. She was really cautious and wanted to get away from the building as fast as possible. Star Twinkle still wanted an answer so he quietly and patiently followed her. They went towards Twilight's castle in quite a hurry, all while the mare was looking back as if she feared someone was following her.

"Star Twinkle?" She then asked, breaking the silence which went on for what felt like forever. "Did you see someone suspicious in the audience?"

"So you did see someone!" Star Twinkle replied. "Who was it?" He asked.

The answer came fast. "Starlight Glimmer."

Spike quickly picked up on that. "Starlight Glimmer?" Of course, he didn't know that pony since he never met her but Twilight told him about her.

Star Twinkle recalled that name immediately. "That pony who enslaved that one town and who stole our Cutie Marks?" He asked. Clearly, those were the highlights that came to mind when he thought about that mare.

"I was sure I saw her. But when I looked again, she was gone! I'm just worried what she could be up to," Twilight said in a worried tone.

"Nothing good, I bet," Spike said. "I heard she wasn't very happy the last time you saw her.," he added.

But Twilight was not feeling bad for what she did, far from it. "Forcing everypony in her village to have the same cutie mark wasn't right. We had to do something!" She explained.

"And now she's coming back for revenge," Spike figured. "Uh, or she was just really interested in your speech!" He added. But both Star Twinkle and Twilight heavily doubted that.

"Honestly, I'm not really sure what I saw," Twilight said with concern in her voice. "But as long as I have my friends, I know everything will be all right," she added while looking at Star Twinkle specifically. "Maybe I was just more stressed about that speech than I thought."

"Yeah. That sounds better than Starlight Glimmer coming back with an evil plot for revenge," Spike figured.

"Well, when you say it like that, it does sound kinda silly," Twilight replied amused.

The three continued their way towards Twilight's castle. Twilight might not be as concerned as she was before but Star Twinkle began to get a little bit paranoid now. "But...just in case, what should we do? Should we go and tell the others?" He asked before he opened the door of the castle for Twilight and Spike.

Twilight was trying to come up with something as she walked towards the throne room of her castle. She figured that it couldn't hurt to be at least on guard for the rest of the day. "I'll try to figure something out. Can you go and tell the others?" She asked of Star Twinkle.

Of course it was up to the stallion to go and fetch the others, much to Star Twinkle's annoyance. But in case that Starlight Glimmer was actually roaming around in Ponyville. In the meantime, Twilight would hopefully have a plan ready for the worst-case scenario.

But all of that was thrown out of the window as soon as the door to the throne opened. Star Twinkle was about to leave but as soon as he saw someone waiting inside the room, he had shivers running down his back. There she was, sitting in Twilight's throne with a smug smile on her face as if she already won a battle that Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike were not even aware of taking place. It was, of course, Starlight Glimmer.

"Welcome home, Twilight!" She said, greeting back the princess in her own castle.

This was a huge problem. Someone dangerous and evil was sitting right in front of them and just by looking at her sinister smile was telling them that she was not forgetting what happened in her town. This proved to be true as soon as the mare pulled out a scroll and used her magic on it. The spell reacted to the table in the middle of the room, revealing the map that usually only showed up whenever one of the girls was sitting on their throne.

Twilight rushed towards the table in her confusion. "What are you doing, Starlight?" She asked, demanding an explanation from the mare.

Starlight Glimmer laughed in response. "I'd tell you, but I don't want to ruin the surprise!" She said in a sinister tone before she looked upwards at the spell above her. "Won't be needing that anymore," she added before she threw away the scroll that she used moments ago.

Strange lights formed above the table and clock ticking could be heard. Some kind of portal opened up and Starlight Glimmer was sucked into it. "What is happening here!?" Star Twinkle asked in all of this chaos.

"I don't know!" Twilight could only respond.

After some more magic lights, things settled down again. The spell, whatever it was, was gone, and so was Starlight Glimmer. The only thing left was the scroll that Starlight Glimmer threw away before vanishing into this portal.

"Where'd she go?" Spike said, asking the most important question now.

"And what did she do?" Star Twinkle added.

"I don't know," Twilight could only repeat. "But I think we better find out!"

"Easier said than done..." Star Twinkle said. He had no clue what even happened so finding out where she went was even harder to find out.

Luckily, there was one thing that was left from all of this. It was the scroll that Starlight Glimmer used before this whole spell started. Spike picked it up to see if there were any clues on it. "I guess we could start with this," he said before he attempted to read the scroll.

But to Star Twinkle's and Spike's surprise, Twilight screamed out. "Spike, no! Don't touch that!" She said in a panic. But it was too late. As soon as Spike touched the scroll on the ground, the portal from before opened up.

"Again!?" Star Twinkle shouted as he tried to resist being sucked into the portal above him. It was no use though, there was nothing he could do to prevent being sucked into it. It was the same for Twilight and Spike as well. Before they knew it, all three of them got sucked into the portal above them. Once inside, the three found themselves flying through what felt like a magic tunnel. It was as if they were traveling to a different dimension or something else that they could not explain at all. There was no way for them to control where to go too, it was as if they were falling towards the end of wherever this magic tunnel wanted them to go.

And after a while of getting dragged through all of this, they finally were outside again. The first thing they saw after getting out was clouds, so that was a good sign that they were not inside this magical wormhole tunnel or whatever it was they were in.

There was no time to take in the scenery though since there was still one problem. They were still falling, and this time, it was towards the ground, at full speed. It went without question that everyone was screaming their lungs out. That was until Twilight remembered that she had wings and could stop herself from falling any second by just spreading her wings. As soon as she got her balance back, the mare used her magic to grab Star Twinkle and Spike before they hit the ground.

It was a close call, and they all managed to get away with only a little shock. Everyone managed to land on the ground unscathed. "Thanks," Star Twinkle said to Twilight before she released her spell.

Now they could finally take a look at their surroundings to see where they actually landed at. There were clouds everywhere around them, and Pegasus Ponies only, a very familiar view. They recognized this place immediately, it was Cloudsdale.

"Cloudsdale? Starlight doesn't even have wings! Why would she come here?" Spike asked, bringing up a pretty good question that didn't even cross Star Twinkle's mind up until now.

"I don't know, Spike, but it looked like she could fly with just magic! Keep your eyes open. We don't know what she has planned," Twilight advised while she did just that, looking around the place to see if she was nearby.

Star Twinkle tried to find out why Starlight Glimmer wanted to go to Cloudsdale, there must have been a reason why she was choosing this place. The first thing that came to mind was the weather factory, the place where all the weather of Equestria was taken care of. Starlight Glimmer could be planning to manipulate the weather for some evil scheme.

"Coming through!"

Then suddenly, someone was dashing right between them at high speed, barely avoiding the three as they were still trying to figure out what to do next. "Woah! Watch out!" Star Twinkle said in his surprise before he noticed that the voice sounded a little familiar to him. "Wait...was that..."

Spike looked at the Pegasus that flew past him and noticed how familiar she looked to him as well. "Isn't that Rainbow Dash?" He asked confused.

Everyone took a closer look at the Pegasus flying away in the distance. There was no denying, that blue coat and the rainbow-colored mane were all on spot. Still, there was something off about her.

"Did Rainbow Dash look really young to you too?" Twilight asked in an unsure voice.

"And I didn't see a cutie mark," Star Twinkle added. "Does that mean..."

Spike, surprisingly had a pretty explanation of what was going on. "...We traveled back in time to when Rainbow Dash raced the bullies who made fun of Fluttershy and performed her first Sonic Rainboom?"

In every other scenario, Star Twinkle would call Spike crazy or tell him that his imagination was running wild but this time his guess was pretty close to what Star Twinkle had in mind as well. To confirm his thought though, the stallion looked around further to spot a certain other pony. He quickly found said pony, a little slender yellow coated pony with a pink mane. It was Fluttershy, a little younger, just like Rainbow Dash but it was most certainly Fluttershy. This was enough proof for him to believe that what Spike said was true.

Twilight, however, was still in denial. "Spike, only Star Swirl the Bearded could do something like that, and even his spell just went back a week! How could Starlight do more than the greatest wizard in Equestria?" She asked.

It was now that Spike noticed how the wind was blowing something against his legs. It was the scroll from before, the one that the little dragon picked up and caused them all to land in this time. Spike picked up the scroll again, luckily, this time there was no portal opening up and he could finally take a good look at it.

After his eyes wandered across the scroll, he decided to show it Twilight. "With this," he said before he handed it to the mare.

"What is that?" Star Twinkle asked. He had to admit that he was rather curious about what was written on it as well.

It took only a quick glance from Twilight to recognize that scroll and her eyes began to shot open. "Star Swirl's spell! Oh, no!" She said in shock.

Of course, with his limited knowledge about magic, there was no way for him to tell apart that scroll from any other but he did remember how Twilight used it before to travel back in time. "So that proves it, we're in the past," Star Twinkle concluded.

"Cool! Come on, let's go!" Spike then said in excitement as he ran towards where Rainbow Dash was flying to.

"Go where?" Twilight asked confused.

"To watch the race. I don't wanna miss the Rainboom!" The little dragon said before he accidentally walked on a cloud and fell through it. Luckily, Twilight was there to catch him with her magic before he would fall towards the hard ground.

While the situation was pretty confusing, Star Twinkle and Twilight had to admit that you don't get to see a Sonic Rainboom every day, and knowing that this one would be the first was only making it more memorable.

"Guess we just have to keep our eyes open," Twilight said in advice.

Star Twinkle realized that she was talking about Starlight Glimmer. She must have been somewhere around here as well which meant that the ponies in Cloudsdale could be in danger. "Yes, got it," Star Twinkle replied.

Later...

At the starting line, young Rainbow Dash was getting ready to start her race to defend Fluttershy's honor. Star Twinkle, who was in his Pegasus Form to prevent himself from falling through the clouds, Twilight and Spike were sitting near the starting line and waited for the race to start. It was weird watching this race, especially since all of them knew who was gonna win it but it was also interesting to see how things unfolded and how the Sonic Rainbow came to be and seeing it live in front of them.

When the race started and the racers accidentally knocked off Fluttershy, who was giving the signal for the start. Twilight's instincts kicked in and she spread her wings to save her but Spike quickly pulled her back again.

Star Twinkle would like to help her too but he knew what it would mean if they interfered with anything in the past. "She'll be fine," he said with a smile on his face.

Twilight grinned back at the stallion. "Yeah...I know," she said. Of course, she knew, they came from the future after all.

The three continued to just silently watch the race. Rainbow Dash and the bullies, she was racing against, flew through one cloud ring after another and even though the bullies were playing a little bit dirty, Rainbow Dash managed to always catch up to them. She certainly was very competitive even in her younger days.

Looking at the race was all good but Star Twinkle was still keeping his eyes open. "Why did Starlight Glimmer want to travel back in time? And why here?" He wondered. The stallion remembered how Twilight already claimed to see her back in the city hall. "Why would Starlight Glimmer watch Twilight's speech? Has it something to do with us being in this time?"

In the meantime, the race was entering its final phase. The last lap was coming and any minute, Rainbow Dash would unleash the Sonic Rainboom, the one Rainboom that was so important to Twilight and her friends for getting them their Cutie Marks. Star Twinkle did not forget the fact that he was the only one who was not included in this connection and frowned the moment he thought about it.

That is when it hit him and his eyes popped open. "I know what Starlight is after," he said in his realization.

"What was that?" Twilight asked. She was a little too distracted watching the race instead of listening to Star Twinkle.

As if things wouldn't be bad enough, before Star Twinkle could even explain things, he saw Starlight Glimmer revealing herself, levitating out of a cloud with the help of her magic. The stallion knew what was going to happen next but it was already too late.

The moment where Rainbow Dash was reaching her max speed, Starlight Glimmer shot at her and froze the little Pegasus in place. "Hey! What gives?" The filly asked confused, wondering what was happening to her right now.

"Oh no," Star Twinkle could only say after he saw that he was already too late.

Twilight did not understand what was worrying the stallion but she knew that Starlight Glimmer was responsible for it so she decided to confront her about it. "What did you do?!" She asked in anger.

But Starlight Glimmer already knew that she won and smiled back at the princess. "You are about to find out," she simply said.

A second later, the portal that brought Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike into this time appeared above them again, sucking them in once more. Just like before, they could not fight it and they found themselves inside that magic tunnel again.

After another crazy flight through this weird magic tunnel, and a harsh landing on top of it, the three got back up on their hooves and claws again. They were no longer in Cloudsdale anymore, judging by the absence of clouds around them. The table from Twilight's castle was right next to them, meaning that they arrived back from where they started. Only that there was something else missing, much to Star Twinkle's shock, who could only stand there with an open mouth.

Twilight, who just got up as well did not seem to have noticed anything different yet. "Ugh... I don't know what Starlight's up to yet, but we'd better figure it out before it's too late," she said, determined to set things straight again.

"Um, Twilight?" Spike said, who also already noticed what happened. "I think it already is."

The mare did not understand right away due to that crazy flight from before still making her feel a little bit dizzy and all but once she took a look around, she started gasping in shock.

Her castle was gone.

The table, as well as the thrones still remained but the castle around them was completely gone and the three found themselves on a meadow next to a lake. There wasn't even a sign of there being any building at all.

"The castle...is gone?" Spike asked confused.

"The map pulled us back, but whatever Starlight did in the past changed things here!" Twilight concluded.

"But why? And how did we get here? Where's here?" Spike asked in his confusion.

"More like when," Twilight corrected.

"Right," Star Twinkle added. "We're in the present, are we?" He asked.

Twilight nodded in response. "Yeah, looks like you figured it out as well," the mare said before she began to explain things to Spike who was still needed to be up to date on all this. "Starlight altered Star Swirl's spell, then somehow used it on the map to travel into the past and change something! Once she did, the map pulled us back to the present!" She explained.

Spike finally began to understand the situation he was in. It didn't make it any less complicated though. "So we're back where— I mean when we started?"

"Not exactly," Twilight replied. She pointed towards the map on the table. Up until now, Star Twinkle didn't even notice it but the map looked no longer the same as well. "Everything's different. Look. The map doesn't even make sense anymore! The Crystal Empire takes up half of Equestria!"

Star Twinkle's mind was already figuring out why that would be. He had a pretty good guess how it all came to this, not only Starlight's interference but also why the Crystal Empire was making up half of Equestria. It was not too hard to figure out what was going on for him but at the same time, it did not help the three out in this situation at all so thinking about it could wait a little. The was only one thing that he needed to know.

"So, what do we do now?" Star Twinkle then asked

Twilight tried to figure out a solution for all of this but she came to the conclusion that this was beyond her. This, in turn, gave her a good guess, however, to tackle this problem. "This is too big to handle on our own. We need to find our friends and get help!" She suggested.

If things were too much to handle for one pony, then take help from someone else. This is something that Twilight realized in all of her adventures. This situation was no different. They needed help to figure out what to do next. They needed to find their friends.

But Twilight seemed oblivious about one problem in all of this, something that Star Twinkle was already aware of. He decided to remain quiet though just to not crush the little hope that they had. There was also a chance that he could be wrong. There was only one way to find out, and that was going to Ponyville.

Later...

When the three arrived in Ponyville there was quite a surprise waiting for them. The whole town felt abandoned and the few ponies living there barricaded themselves inside their houses and closed their windows as soon as they saw Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike waking through the roads. On top of that, the town was in pretty bad shape as well. The houses looked as if they were not properly taken care of for a long time.

Spike had one sentence that summed up what was going through Star Twinkle's head as well. "I'm gettin' a bad feeling about this."

"I know, Spike, but this is Ponyville. How bad could things be?" Twilight replied, trying to stay positive still.

The first friend, they decided to visit was Pinkie Pie in Sugarcube Corner. They could use some cheering up right about now after walking through this sad town. But again, what they found was not what they were expecting.

"Is that Sugarcube Corner?" Spike asked after he took a look at the building that was supposed to be Sugarcube Corner.

It was another poorly maintained building. This was especially surprising since Sugarcube Corner was usually a pretty fancy and bright place. But instead, it was actually one of the direst looking places that they came across.

"I don't understand," Twilight said in shock.

"I do," Star Twinkle said. His theories started to all make sense right about now. He still decided to remain them to himself.

Seeing in what state Sugarcube Corner was instantly worried Spike about Carousel Boutique. The little dragon rushed over to that building and only found barricaded doors and windows.

"Rarity?" He shouted desperately while knocking on the barricaded door in front of him.

"I don't think Rarity is here..." Star Twinkle said.

Realizing that, what Star Twinkle said, was most likely true, the little dragon sunk his head in sadness, causing Twilight to comfort him a little. "I'm not sure anything we know is the same. But I know one place that could never change!" She then said with confidence in her voice.

The mare was leading the way to Sweet Apple Acres. Whether something in the past was changed or not, she was positive that the farm would always stay the same. Her surprise was big once she arrived at the place though. Her guess was wrong, the whole place had a whole different atmosphere around it. Black clouds were all over the place, created by the huge chimneys of the barns. They took a look inside one of the barns to see machines making cider without love or care. This whole orchard turned into an industry side. The three couldn't believe their eyes.

"What a sad sight..." Star Twinkle said, summing up what Twilight and Spike were thinking right now.

While the three still tried to understand what was going on here, a mare walked outside the barn, loading some barrels on a cart. An Earth Pony mare wearing plain brown clothes and a hair net around her mane and tail. Those clothes made her look really different but that pony was still someone familiar, much to everyone's delight.

"Applejack?!" Twilight said in a mix of happiness and confusion before she rushed over to the mare to give her a hug. Seeing a friend for what felt like ages create actions like those.

However, Applejack did not seem to be too fond of that greeting and pushed the mare away. "What can I do for you?" She asked in an almost bitter tone.

"It's just so good to see you! We couldn't find Pinkie or Rarity or Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash, but I just knew you'd still be here!" Twilight said happily.

Applejack went back to her work. "Of course I am. This is my home. But who in tarnation is Pinkie Bow and Flutterdash? Or you for that matter?" She asked bothered.

"You... don't know who I am?" Twilight asked with a frown on her face.

"Nope. Honestly, the only name I recognize is Rarity, but she left for Manehattan years ago," Applejack explained.

Spike quickly picked up on that. "Probably to become a world-famous fashion designer, I bet," he figured.

"Not that I know of," Applejack quickly replied. "Last I heard, she went to help with the cause like everypony else," she added.

Star Twinkle and Twilight looked at each other confused. "The cause?" Star Twinkle then asked.

Applejack walked up to the three with a pretty confused look on her face. "The war against King Sombra and the Crystal Empire?"

"What?!" Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike said in shock.

In hindsight, that would explain the map from before. "Is that why the Crystal Empire made up half of Equestria?" He figured.

By now, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike must have looked really suspicious. A war is not something that you can be unaware of, especially if you are living in the land where it's taking place. "Where have you two been?" Applejack rightfully asked.

"Actually, it's when," Spike corrected, a detail that was not necessary to know after just hearing that there was a war going on.

Going into too much detail would probably confuse Applejack even more so Twilight tried to keep it short. "I know this is hard to believe, but you and I and those other ponies I mentioned are friends!"

But Applejack highly doubted that. "Did you bump your head on a crate of cider or somethin'?" She asked.

"I'm telling you the truth! And if you come with me, I'll prove it," Twilight explained before she walked away, expecting Applejack to follow her. The Earth Pony had no interest in all of this though and turned around, only to get dragged behind by Twilight's magic eventually.

A little later...

The four were walking through the dirt road of Ponyville. Applejack figured that resisting was pointless because Twilight wouldn't listen anyway so she decided to follow close behind. It was really awkward having someone who was supposed to be your friend following you and not remembering anything about it. Twilight tried her best to get a conversation going multiple times but each time she failed. Applejack did not know any of them and this war was definitely shaping her differently than the Applejack that they knew from their time.

"This is so weird..." Star Twinkle thought as he continued to walk to Twilight's table. He was already a master when it came to awkward situations but this was weird on so many new levels for him.

"Quick! Hide!" Applejack then said in a hurry before she dragged the three with her to take cover beyond some houses.

"What? What is going on?" The stallion asked confused.

Applejack pointed towards the sky. There were three Pegasus Ponies, wearing black breastplates flying past them in the air. They looked familiar, two of them had a gray coat and one of them a yellow one. On top of that, the yellow-colored one had one metallic wing.

"Wait...is that Steel Wing?!" Star Twinkle asked in his confusion.

"You're right, it looks like him," Twilight figured after taking a closer look at him.

"Their armors...they are soldiers from King Sombra. And judging by how those are Pegasus, I assume they are members of the Storm Wings," Applejack explained.

It was Steel Wing, a member of the Storm Wings. Then the other two Pegasus were most likely Featherbrain and Cloud Head, the two ponies that were always accompanying him on his missions. Something didn't quite make sense to Star Twinkle though.

"I thought this war was going on between the Crystal Empire and Equestria? Why are the Storm Wings part of this too?" The stallion asked.

But Twilight figured that they should return to the table first. Applejack could explain the whole situation later. It didn't take too long before the four found themselves in front of the Cutie Mark table again. Applejack was surprised to see this table and all the thrones at this place. She lived her whole life in these parts and claimed to never have seen this before.

"Alright, you got me. This table is new. But I still don't see what this has to do with you and I bein' friends," Applejack said.

Twilight then began to explain the situation to the mare "Another pony named Starlight Glimmer used this map to travel through time and change things in the past. For some reason, the map's here but everything else is different!"

"Different how?" Applejack asked.

"Well," Star Twinkle started. "There is no war with King Sombra from where...err...when we came from," he explained.

"Maybe you could tell us how the war started, then we can figure out when everything changed!" Twilight asked.

Hearing that those strangers come from a time where there is no war was probably really hard to listen to. It sounded too good to be true for Applejack. She probably thought that Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike were just crazy.

But despite all of that, Applejack decided to explain things to those strangers. "That's easy enough," she said followed by a sigh.

"When the Crystal Empire returned, it brought King Sombra back with it. And it didn't take long for him to force every one of his subjects to fight for him against Equestria. He managed to take over most of Equestria with his army of Crystal Ponies. As if that wasn't bad enough, this group of Pegasus, the Storm Wings, were offering their forces to King Sombra as well, making his army even stronger. Even with Princess Celestia leadin' the charge, it still takes every last pony in Equestria doin' their part, workin' day and night, to keep up the fight."

Hearing that story was not really surprising Star Twinkle. It was exactly as he thought to be precise.

"I just can't believe it! We stopped King Sombra! You and me and all of our friends!" Twilight said.

"But not here," Star Twinkle added.

"Yes," Applejack agreed. "We aren't friends. At least not here," she added.

Hearing those words from Applejack was making the three feel really sad. Twilight had no choice but to accept these words as facts in this timeline. "Right," she said with a frown on her face.

Meanwhile, Applejack wanted to return to her own work. "Look. I hope all this helped, but I really need to get back to cannin' those apples," she said.

"Thank you. We're going to set things right," Twilight promised.

Applejack was letting out a heavy sigh. "I hope you do," she said before she walked back to the farm again. After Applejack was gone, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike were pretty much left where they were before. Those were a lot of information to take in for the three.

"So... how are we gonna set things right?" Spike asked.

"I don't know!" Twilight replied."The only thing we know for sure is that Starlight stopped the Rainboom," she added.

"Exactly," Star Twinkle said. He figured now would be the best time to share what he had come up with all this time. "I think that was her plan all along."

"But why?" Spike asked confused.

Star Twinkle explained. "Twilight, you said you saw Starlight watching your speech in Ponyville, right?" He asked, causing Twilight to nod in response. "I bet that is how she came to know about that connection of the Sonic Rainboom and your friends. She knew that all of you got your Cutie Marks at the same time by watching the Sonic Rainboom. I don't know why but I think her plan was to stop the Rainboom from happening so that you and your friends would never end up meeting each other. I mean, why else would she go back to Cloudsdale at this specific time?"

Twilight had to admit that what Star Twinkle said was making sense. It didn't explain her reasoning for doing it but she also saw Starlight stopping Rainbow Dash from doing the Rainboom. "And with the Rainboom never happening, a whole lot of events were changed because my friends and I were not there to fix them," she figured.

"Yes," Star Twinkle replied. "For example, King Sombra was never stopped by us because I guess you never saw the Rainboom and Princess Celestia didn't take you as her student. This meant that you were never sent to Ponyville, never met the others, which should have not there to begin with because they never saw the Rainboom as well, and you were never sent to the Crystal Empire to stop King Sombra from returning," the stallion summarized.

Spike's head started to spin after taking in all of this information at once. "I hope you don't expect me to keep with all of this," he said as he was holding his head in confusion. "So we all knew why things happened here but how is that gonna help us fix things?" The little dragon asked.

Star Twinkle had to admit that he didn't think about that. "I...have no idea..." he replied in defeat.

Spike looked at the map once more. "It sure is strange that everything around us changed but for some reason, the map is still here," he casually mentioned.

That was exactly the bit that helped Twilight to realize something. "Spike, that's it!" She said in a surprising boost of excitement. "The map is connected to the Tree of Harmony! It must sense that something isn't right! That's why it's still here!" She explained.

"So?" Star Twinkle asked. He couldn't see how that was helping them out in this situation at all.

Twilight explained. "Remember when Starlight used Star Swirl's spell? She used it on the map! Which is still here!"

Star Twinkle started to realize what Twilight was getting at and her excitement wandered over to him now as well. "Does that mean we can use it too? To go back in time?" He asked, his voice filled with hope now.

"Yes!" Twilight replied. "I'll just use Starlight's version of the spell and go back a little earlier and stop her before she even knows we're there!" She said before she started opening the scroll to use it on the map.

STOMP!

Then suddenly, Steel Wing landed right on the map in front of Twilight, preventing her from continuing. She jumped back in shock and accidentally dropped the spell right in front of the Pegasus stallion. Steel Wing looked at the scroll next to his hooves and picked it up. He took a closer look at it for a moment with a serious look on his face.

"Uh...we kinda need that back so if you don't mind..." Twilight said in a nervous voice as she slowly approached the stallion, only to get interrupted by Featherbrain and Cloud Head, who landed right in front of her.

This was bad, Steel Wing got the scroll, the thing that could help them fix everything. The Storm Wings were working for King Sombra for some unknown reason which meant that they were enemies of Equestria, enemies of them. This was not going to end well.

Steel Wing closed the scroll again and looked at Star Twinkle, Twilight and Spike with a serious look on his face. "I don't know what this is but it looks like some kind of spell. We'll be taking that with us, maybe King Sombra can find a use of it," he figured.

"You can't do that!" Twilight exclaimed. "We need that scroll to fix everything!"

"Sorry," Cloud Head replied. "If that spell turns out to be something really powerful, then King Sombra needs to see it," he said.

Star Twinkle stepped up to the three. "Why are you working for King Sombra? I thought the Storm Wings want to protect and help the ponies of Equestria. Why did Cyclone Wing join King Sombra and not Princess Celestia?" He asked.

Steel Wing jumped off the table and locked his eyes on Star Twinkle. "You seem to know the Storm Wings from way back. Cyclone Wing used to be our leader. If things would have stayed like that, then we Storm Wings would have happily helped Princess Celestia fighting off that crazy king. But with our current leader..."

Star Twinkle completely forgot about that. Of course, with him and his friends not being there, they would not have encountered the Storm Wings. That meant that the one who was leading them would still be Mystic. And knowing Mystic, he would never join with Princess Celestia because of his hate for her. It all made sense why the Storm Wings joined King Sombra now, Mystic probably saw a chance to take care of Princess Celestia for good by joining the Crystal Empire.

Featherbrain turned towards Steel Wing. "Is it really good to talk about King Sombra like that? We are working for the guy after all," he figured.

Steel Wing clenched his teeth in anger. "Whatever! You think I care anymore which power-hungry Unicorn is ordering us around anymore?!" He said in anger before he looked at the ground with a frown on his face. "It feels like forever when it was just us six helping out the ponies of Equestria instead of fighting others in a war! This is just too messed up!"

The Pegasus was clearly not happy about this whole war going on in Equestria. On top of that, Mystic, who was responsible for giving the Storm Wings a bad name, and King Sombra, who was starting a war, were just ordering them around to do things that they didn't like doing. Star Twinkle knew that the Storm Wings were not evil. They just found themselves in a situation that they couldn't escape from.

At least not until now...

Star Twinkle walked even closer to the three Pegasus. "What if I told you that this scroll is going to fix all of this," he said.

"What?" Steel Wing replied confused.

"That scroll can change everything back to normal. It can turn things back to how they are meant to be," Star Twinkle explained.

"And how are things meant to be?" Steel Wing asked back.

Star Twinkle began to smile. "No war, no Mystic ordering the Storm Wings around, and no more fighting for someone you don't want to. We met you and your brothers before, and we know that you want to help and not hurt. If you give us back that scroll, then all of this is going to stop."

Steel Wing walked up to the stallion with a serious expression on his face. His sky blue eyes staring into Star Twinkle's light green eyes. The Pegasus looked at the scroll in his hoof and back to Star Twinkle. A moment later, he was handing him the scroll back again.

"Boss?!" Featherbrain asked in shock.

"Should we really do that?! This could be a trap!" Cloud Head pointed out.

Steel Wing turned towards the two. "I really want things to go back the way they were before," he said before he turned back to Star Twinkle again. "For all I know, you could be a spy from the Royal Guards or something but if there is even the slightest chance of what you are saying is true, then I'm willing to take it."

Star Twinkle smiled in response. "Thank you," he simply replied.

"We promise that we fix things!" Twilight said.

Shortly after, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike stepped on the map and Twilight used her magic to start the spell that Starlight used before. As expected from Twilight, just after watching Starlight performing the spell, Twilight managed to copy it with no problem. The portal started opening and Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike were sucked into it again, finding themselves back inside that magic tunnel again.

Steel Wing, Featherbrain, and Cloud Head watched all of this unfolding in front of them and they certainly got a little bit confused about what was happening. Featherbrain moved closer to Steel Wing with a confused look on his face.

"So...did they come from the future?" He asked confused.

The yellow Pegasus shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe?" He simply replied.

"Darn..." Featherbrain replied with a frown on his face. "Should have asked if I got a mare friend in the future," he said with a hanging head. The other two Pegasus just shook their heads after hearing that.

Meanwhile, in another timeline...

At the end of the tunnel, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike arrived back in Cloudsdale again. Twilight's spell seemed to have worked perfectly. Star Twinkle instantly turned into a Pegasus again to prevent himself from falling through the clouds.

"What now?" Star Twinkle asked.

"All we have to do now is find Starlight and—"

ZAP!

Before Twilight could finish her sentence, she, Star Twinkle, and Spike got shot by a magic beam which trapped them inside some kind of gem prison. They couldn't move at all on top of being really confused about what happened to them. There was only one explanation, however. It was Starlight Glimmer, who was levitating herself towards the three.

"Well, finding her will be easy! But stopping her's gonna be harder than you think," she said with a smug smile on her face. She must have expected them, which was weird since Twilight used Starlight's spell to make them appear in this time before Starlight appeared. As if she was reading everyone's mind, Starlight happened to explain why that was the case. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I created that spell to send myself back in time. So even when you cast it, I still get sent back here. It wasn't difficult to change Star Swirl's spell. He'd already done the hard part. But figuring out I could use the map to go to any time or place and pull you along with me?" She said before she started laughing at her victory. "I even impressed myself with that. I knew you'd try to stop me. You're so predictable. Why else would I leave the scroll behind? Touching it triggered the map to whisk you here and watch me erase the one thing that linked you with your friends!" The mare stepped on the gem prison beneath her which long before started to sink into the clouds below it. "My village was a sanctuary of equality, where nopony's cutie mark allowed them to feel superior! It was a special place, and you and your friends took it away! "Now it's my turn to take something special from you! Without the Rainboom, you and your friends will never form your special cutie mark bonds! Cutie marks for cutie marks! Sounds like a fair trade to me!"

After she fully revealed her plan and had nothing more to talk about anymore, the mare stomped down on the gem and let the three fall through the cloud and towards Equestria. Of course, Star Twinkle wanted to break free but there was nothing he could do in this situation. He was trapped and he couldn't even transform into a Unicorn to try and teleport out of this. Luckily, Twilight was already working on breaking out. She focused her magic and with a big magic shockwave, the gem shattered and the three of them were free again. Spike was about to fall down due to the lack of a pair of wings but Star Twinkle quickly caught him before he would fall towards the hard ground of Equestria.

"I'm starting to get real sick of falling down places," the stallion said annoyed before he let Spike climb on his back.

"Tell me about it," Spike added. He couldn't even fly or magically grow wings in time to prevent any of that.

Twilight was joining the two shortly after. Since Starlight Glimmer was nice enough to share her plan with them, it was clear what to do next.

"So, in order for the future not to change, we just have to prevent Starlight to do anything here, right?" Star Twinkle guessed.

"That's right," Twilight said before she flew to where they last saw Rainbow Dash and the bullies, and hopefully not, Starlight Glimmer. "we have to keep our eyes peeled. We have to stop Starlight as soon as Rainbow Dash and those bullies race by!"

"Got it!" Star Twinkle replied as he followed the mare closely.

"Um," Spike then said with a heavy voice.

"So be ready," Twilight advised as she kept scanning her eyes throughout all of Cloudsdale.

"I know, but—"

"Because she could pop up anywhere!" Twilight said, not listening to the little dragon one bit.

"Like over there?" Spike then said before he pointed towards some of the bullies who were standing next to Fluttershy and Starlight Glimmer.

"Not good!" Star Twinkle said once he realized that something bad was about to happen and flew right towards those ponies with Twilight following right behind.

The three landed right next to the group of ponies. None of them seemed to have noticed them since Starlight Glimmer seemed to have grabbed their full attention. "Just remember how you'd feel if someone said those things to you," is the last thing they heard before Twilight decided to put a stop to this.

"What's going on here?" Twilight asked angrily.

"Oh, I was just reminding these two colts how hurtful teasing can be," Starlight explained casually.

"Well, don't!" Twilight said, again in an angry tone towards Starlight Glimmer. Of course, out of context, those words would sound pretty mean to the two colts and young Fluttershy, something that Twilight realized just now as well. "I mean... you were?" She then asked surprised.

"Of course!" Starlight replied, playing the innocent one in this situation. "In a world where everypony is unique, some are bound to feel more special than others. But that isn't a license to be cruel, is it?" She explained.

"No, of course not..." Twilight figured.

"Oh, isn't it a shame we don't live in a world where everypony is equal? No one would ever tease anyone there! Wouldn't that be nice?" Starlight Glimmer said as she gave the small ponies around her a big hug.

Star Twinkle could only clench his teeth at the mare in front of him. Not only did she stop Fluttershy from getting bullied and letting Rainbow Dash defend her, but she also tried to subtly drop her equality mentality into those ponies.

"Come on, Fluttershy. Maybe I can help you get through the course this time," one of the bullies then said in a friendly tone.

"Well, I-I sure could use the practice..." Fluttershy replied hesitantly before she followed him.

It was hopeless. This might have been a good deed but it was happening for the wrong reasons and only made things more complicated. And knowing that made it all the more frustrating.

Twilight walked up to Starlight with a glare on her face. "I know you only convinced those bullies to not tease Fluttershy to stop the Rainboom!"

"Oh, that's not true," Starlight replied offended. "I convinced them not to be bullies because everypony should be equal. Stopping the Rainboom is just a bonus," she explained.

Just at this moment, young Rainbow Dash was flying past them. It was probably too late but Star Twinkle figured that if Rainbow Dash still created the Sonic Rainboom, then maybe things would get back on track again. "Maybe we can still save this. Twilight try if you can convince Rainbow Dash to do her Rainboom," Star Twinkle said, in the hope to still get this situation turned around.

"On it!" The mare replied before she followed the young Pegasus with Spike hanging into her.

Meanwhile, Starlight Glimmer was just laughing at the poor attempt of Star Twinkle and Twilight to try and stop all of this. "How sad. You already lost and you haven't even realized it yet," she said amused.

Star Twinkle turned towards the mare with a glare on his face. "I know you are mad at Twilight but that doesn't give you the right to just change the future like that."

Starlight glared right back at the stallion. "I told you before, Cutie Marks for Cutie Marks!" She said as she angrily stomped on the ground. "It took me years to build up my town and create harmony and then you all show up and take all of it away! I think it's only fair for me to do the same to you!"

"But what you did back then was wrong! You can't take away the Cutie Marks of others and force them to be equal. You claim that they were happy but all you did was talking all this nonsense into them!" Star Twinkle shot back.

"This nonsense was making them a lot happier, they just didn't know how much better their lives were without Cutie Marks!" Starlight now shot back.

"Why do you think that Cutie Marks are so bad? There must be a reason for that, right?" Star Twinkle asked.

Now Starlight's expression seemed even more bitter than before. "That's none of your concern," she said angrily.

After that small exchange, Rainbow Dash was flying past the two again. "No! Wait!" Twilight threw at her in frustration. Things were definitely not going well on her end.

And of course, Starlight couldn't help but pour more salt in this open wound. "Gee, Twilight, what's the matter? Couldn't convince her to do the impossible? That's too bad," she said in her amusement. Twilight was about to say something in return but suddenly, the portal from before opened up above her and sucked her, Star Twinkle, and Spike inside again.

In another time...

The three were going through the magic tunnel once more. When they reached the other end, they found themselves in what looked like the Everfree Forest. Star Twinkle was not liking this rough landing each time one bit. He got back up on his hooves while sighing loudly.

"I'm assuming that things didn't work out too well with Rainbow Dash?" Star Twinkle asked annoyed.

"No," Spike replied.

In the meantime, Twilight was getting the scroll ready again. "This is gonna be harder than I thought. We'll have to try again! I don't want to live in that awful future we saw!" She explained before she opened the scroll.

"I...don't think you'll have to!" Spike then interrupted with a panicked expression on his face.

Before Star Twinkle could even turn around to see what created that reaction, a spear was pointed directly at him, too close to his liking. A bunch of ponies surrounded the three, all of them pointing their spears at them and with angry looks on their faces. They all had weird face and body paints on them and two of them were looking awfully familiar.

"Pinkie? Fluttershy?" Twilight asked confused.

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were also among them but of course, since this was a future where none of them knew Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike, they did not recognize them.

"Silence, changeling!" Pinkie Pie said in an unusually angry tone.

"All servants of Queen Chrysalis found in these woods must be...destroyed!" Fluttershy said in an even more surprisingly angry tone.

There was no telling what was going on in this time now but whatever it was, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike already found themselves in danger and could not return to the past right away. Starlight Glimmer interfering in the past seemed to have brought them into another alternate future and before they could stop her, they first had to look for a way out of this situation.

To be continued...

Author's Notes:

And after what felt like an eternity, a new chapter rises on the horizon. I hope you still are excited about a new chapter each time, even though they come out with a bigger delay each time. Sorry XO.

Anyway, the Season 5 Finale started, and let's just see what some of the other timelines look like in this story, they might be some differences just like in this chapter ^^.

Also, the season will not be over after the next part, there is still a three-parter coming right after that. I'm curious to hear what you think I have planned for that.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

114. Re-Marked - Part 2

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After a failed attempt to stop Starlight Glimmer from changing the future again, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike found themselves in another time again. This time they landed in the Everfree Forest surrounded by ponies who all pointed their spears and angry glares right at the three, ready to attack any second now, much to their dismay.

"Alright...how about we all put those spears away and calm down?" Star Twinkle suggested nervously only to get even more spears pointed at him in return.

"Quiet! Changeling!" Fluttershy growled at the stallion.

"Wait! We're not changelings!" Twilight replied nervously. "We're ponies! And he's a dragon!"

Pinkie Pie walked up to Spike to make sure that what Twilight said was true. "A likely story! Do something dragonish!" She demanded. Of course, Spike's first guess was to breathe fire to prove his innocence but all he managed to do was belching up some smoke due to him being a little pressured right now. Pinkie Pie had to cough a little after getting smoked at like that. "That works!" She said before she took a few steps back again.

Fluttershy then moved closer. "The servants of Chrysalis will do anything to save their evil skins!" She said, in order to get everyone rallied up once more.

Luckily, as soon as things started to get messy, someone's voice echoed through the forest and prevented the ponies to do anything. "Stop! If they are changelings we'll soon see. Though I think they're not what they appear to be," a very familiar voice said coming from on top of a tree.

"Zecora!" Twilight said in relief. The zebra seemed, as usual, pretty reasonable to talk with. She jumped down from the tree and walked up to the three with a glare on her face but at least she didn't look as if she was about to attack anytime soon, much to Twilight's delight. "Please, you have to listen," she asked of her.

Zecora seemed to be the leader of those ponies. Everyone stepped aside and Zecora pulled out a green salve. "Beneath this salve, no changeling hides, for it reveals the truth inside," she said before she rubbed it on Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike.

This salve turned out to be the same stuff that was on all the ponies, and zebra, in this forest. After Zecora put the salve on Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike, something unexpected happened. They started to glow and judging from Zecora's reaction, that was not supposed to happen. Everyone besides the zebra took cover as this was happening in front of them.

"We are glowing. Is that good?" Star Twinkle asked nervously.

Pinkie Pie slowly walked next to Zecora while keeping a close look at the three. "What does it mean?" She whispered to Zecora before she walked back again.

Zecora seemed to know what was going on and explained. "The meaning is far worse, I see, for it is we who should not be."

It almost sounded as if Zecora, just by painting the three with this salve managed to get the whole picture of what was going on now. Still, Twilight offered to explain everything to the zebra.

"I'm sure you can," Zecora replied. "But let's not talk here. Chrysalis and her army will soon draw near!" She said before she led the way with all of the ponies around following her, including Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike.

After only a few meters, Star Twinkle noticed how there were ponies positioned in the trees to keep a look around for intruders. Zecora and all the other ponies completely settled down in the Everfree Forest.

"So...what is the story here?" Star Twinkle asked.

Zecora explained. "The changelings took over not long ago. Though I'll wager in your world that isn't so," she replied. This sentence proved that she was aware of Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike not originally coming from this world.

"Chrysalis and her army tried to take over Canterlot, but my friends and I stopped her," Twilight said.

"Those friends as you know them are not here, alas. But tell me how all this came to pass," Zecora said.

Twilight explained. "Starlight Glimmer, a pony who traveled back in time to stop my friends and me from ever coming together!"

"And it is these friends you have in life that keep Equestria free from strife?" Zecora asked.

"I guess so. But this is the second time we've come back and this world is even worse than the last one! If Starlight keeps doing the same thing in the past, how could the present be so different?" Twilight asked in her confusion.

In order to explain this Zecora stepped up to a little stream of water. "Time is a river, where even the tiniest changes seen can lead to a cascade of effects downstream." The zebra put down her hoof on the water stream, which in turn, changed the way how it was flowing.

Star Twinkle began thinking about Zecora's words and came up with what could happen in this world. "I assume that Cadance was never found by you after Chrysalis disguised herself as her, which was enough to make sure that she would take over Canterlot," the stallion further figured.

It was not hard to figure out what events could have taken place by thinking about what is unfolding in this world now and what things needed to be left out, in this case, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and the others never meeting each other. What was really fascinating about all this was how all of this happened just by removing seven ponies from this world.

"Are the others and I really that important to ensure the safety of Equestria?" Star Twinkle wondered. But then the stallion shook his head. "No...not me...Twilight and the others were influenced by the absence of the Rainboom. But what about me? Obviously, I've never met the girls because of all this. How does my life look in this or any other world?"

Star Twinkle was wondering how the future was influenced by just Twilight and the others never meeting but what was keeping him thinking was how his life must have looked like in a world where he never met the girls. But he had to keep those thoughts to him for now since he and everyone else arrived at the place that Zecora wanted to show them.

"This part of the forest is dark and damp, but it's done well to hide our camp," she said as she revealed the place where she and everypony else was hiding from the Changelings.

There were multiple huts, made out of the wood and leaves of this forest with ponies living inside. It was quite surprising seeing so many ponies living in the Everfree Forest, one of the places that were deemed to be too dangerous to live in. But then again, Zecora was living there as well in Star Twinkle's, Twilight's, and Spike's time.

"This is cozy," Spike commented. Considering what state the world was in now this place looked really nice to live in.

Just when Star Twinkle and Twilight were about to take in the scenery as well, some ponies jumped out of the bushes and ran over to Zecora and the others.

"Please! You have to help us!"

"The changelings attacked Ponyville! We barely escaped with our lives!"

To the surprise, of Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike, it was three ponies they knew all too well. "Rarity?! Rainbow Dash?! Applejack?!" Star Twinkle asked in his surprise before he started to walk to them in order to help only to be stopped by Zecora.

"The only changeling attack I see is the one that come here looking for me!" She said angrily.

Applejack then walked up to the zebra with a sinister smile on her face. It seemed to be just like Zecora expected. "It's taken quite a while to find you, Zecora," the mare said before she revealed her true form in front of everyone.

Green flames started to engulf the body of the mare grew in size and it turned out that this pony was not just simply a changeling but instead queen Chrysalis herself, much to the shock of everyone around.

The queen laughed after seeing how scared everyone was at her sight."What a lovely village you've chosen to stage your little resistance. It looks absolutely delicious!" She said as she licked her lips. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were ready to defend themselves, much to the amusement of the Changeling Queen. "Oh, come now, Zecora. You're vastly outnumbered."

Everyone was not sure what the Changeling Queen meant by that until they started to hear humming from afar and even above their heads. Queen Chrysalis came not alone, she brought what looked like her whole hive with her. The place was literally swarming with Changelings and it was just as the queen said, the ponies in the forest were vastly outnumbered.

"I know you don't want your charges hurt. Come quietly to the dungeons of Canterlot and I promise to leave the others alone," Queen Chrysalis offered generously.

But Fluttershy was heavily doubting the words of Queen Chrysalis. "Why would she ever trust you?!"

"Even if there's a chance Chrysalis will honor her word, shouldn't you try?" Twilight suggested.

Zecora was not thinking that this was an option though. "Race to the map while we hold off their attack. Stop Starlight and put the whole world back on track!" She said while her eyes were still locked on the Changeling Queen.

"She's right, Twilight!" Star Twinkle said. "We have to go back and make sure that things never turn out like this!"

In the meantime, Queen Chrysalis was waiting for an answer. "Time to make a decision, Zecora!"

The zebra was giving a quick response. "Even if what you are saying were true, we'd never surrender to a creature like you!" She exclaimed before she and the ponies behind her rushed towards the Changelings.

The two factions clashed and a big fight was breaking out between Zecora and the Ponies of the Everfree Forest and Queen Chrysalis and her Changelings. As much as Star Twinkle, Twilight and Spike wanted to help out in this fight, they had to make sure that the future would be back on the right track again.

"If we go back to the past and stop Starlight then all of this is never going to happen!" Star Twinkle said as he, Twilight, and Spike ran back to the map again. With all these Changelings raining from the sky, making their way back was a lot harder now but the three managed to fight their way through the forest slowly.

"There it is!" Spike exclaimed.

Twilight prepared the scroll to activate the spell but she stopped as soon as she saw someone landing on the map. A Changeling wearing black armor around his chest and a black helmet. He was soon joined by some more Changelings landing next to him.

"You are an Alicorn..." the Changeling in the black armor said with a stern look on his face as he looked over to Twilight.

Some more Changelings appeared and saluted to the one in the black armor. "Commander Cercus, the whole forest is surrounded!"

"Good," Cercus replied. "Make sure that those three over there are brought to the queen. Especially the Alicorn," he ordered.

More and more Changelings filled the place and snuck up closer to Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike from all sides. "We need to get to the map, Twilight!" Star Twinkle said in a hurry.

"I know!" Twilight replied. "But I can't activate the spell like this! I may risk bringing all these Changelings back to the past as well!" She pointed out.

"That...would not be good..." Spike agreed.

With Starlight to deal with there were already enough problems to deal with, not to mention that Changelings were not exactly on good terms with ponies in the first place. If anything things would turn out even worse with them around.

"So we have to get them away from the map?" Star Twinkle asked. A sudden rush of adrenaline caused the stallion to run towards Cercus, he remembered how he and his friends fought against the army of the Changelings back in Canterlot and came to the conclusion that he could overpower them too.

The Changeling commander made him quickly regret that decision though. He flapped his wings and jumped a few meters over Star Twinkle's head and landed right down on him, pinning the stallion on the ground, much to Twilight's shock.

The other Changelings began to laugh. "You see that? That pony thought he could take on the commander," one of the Changelings said.

"Yeah," another Changeling said. "No pony is a match for Commander Cercus. He is the right hoof of the queen after all," he added.

Star Twinkle, with his face in the mud, groaned in frustration. "Wish I knew that before."

Twilight took action and shot a magic beam at Cercus, forcing him to jump away to dodge, releasing Star Twinkle in the process. Unlike Star Twinkle's poor display of strength, Twilight's magic managed to keep Cercus at bay. The Changeling realized how he was backed into a corner by the Alicorn Princess and had no choice but to get more serious.

"Bring Tagma over here!" He then ordered.

Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike reacted in surprise after hearing that name. Tagma was not part of Queen Chrysalis and her Changelings, at least not in their time. Things were obviously different here again but what they saw was not at all what they expected.

Tagma, the usually very cheerful and happy Changeling from their time was chained by some other Changelings and dragged towards the commander. He looked really weakened and miserable. His yellow headband was almost ripped apart and the was no sign of a smile anywhere to be found on his face.

"Tagma?" Star Twinkle said in shock and surprise.

The Changeling looked towards the stallion. A glimpse of confusion could be seen under the exhausted expression of Tagma. "Who...are you?" He asked in a weak voice.

But there was no time left for the two to get into a conversation. Cercus walked up to Tagma and opened his mouth to absorb something from him. Tagma's legs started shaking and there was a straining expression forming on the Changeling's face. Whatever Cercus did to him was very painful looking. Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike wanted to interrupt this but all the Changeling around them would have most likely stopped them in their tracks.

After Cercus was done, Tagma dropped to the ground and fainted. Cercus must have sucked out some energy from the Changeling, his body began to glow in a green light and he turned around to face Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike again and judging from the look on his face, he was ready to fight.

"What did you do to him?!" Star Twinkle asked.

But Cercus didn't answer and readied himself to charge at the stallion. Green flames started to form in front of him and he flew at a crazy fast speed right towards the three. After working through the shock of realizing how fast Cercus was, the three barely managed to jump to the side to avoid him. The Changeling was so fast that he couldn't stop properly after his attack and crashed right into a tree, mowing it down in the process as if it was a twig. Star Twinkle was shocked to see how this could have been him if he hadn't dodged in time.

"What happened to him?" Spike asked confused. "How did he get so strong all of a sudden?!"

One Changeling strangely felt committed to answering that question. "It's thanks to little Tagma here," he said as he petted the weakened Changeling on the ground. "He is the only Changeling that can create love out of nothing and our queen uses it to strengthen our hive with it," he explained.

Star Twinkle could practically feel how Cercus was not approving of that Changeling to reveal such information to some random ponies but he was too busy to position himself again for another attack.

Something was telling the three that Cercus was not planning to miss this time so Twilight needed to act quick. She used her magic to teleport herself, Star Twinkle, and Spike right on the map, followed by pushing everyone besides the three off from the map with her magic. Cercus saw the three appearing on the map and flew upwards before then diving down on them at high-speed.

In the meantime, Star Twinkle was starting to get really nervous. "Twilight, we need to go...NOW!" He pressured.

Twilight was well aware of that as well and quickly prepared the scroll of Starswirl the Bearded. Despite Cercus and some other Changelings coming after them in a hurry, the mare actually pulled off to activate the spell in time and the three disappeared just before Cercus crashed right into the map and destroying it in the process. Tagma who was just barely aware of what was happening just lowered his eyebrows in confusion.

"Who were those three?" He wondered quietly.

Meanwhile...

Inside the magic tunnel again, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike started to get accustomed to traveling through time and space like this. They calmed down enough to start developing a plan on what to do next when they arrived on the other side again. By the time where they would appear in the past again, Starlight Glimmer would most likely already wait for them.

Despite that, Star Twinkle and Twilight immediately acted as soon as they were landing on the other side. Once Star Twinkle's and Twilight's hooves touched solid ground on Cloudsdale again, they were attacked. Twilight was prepared this time and used a shield spell to protect everyone. Star Twinkle then scanned his eyes around the place to spot Starlight Glimmer until he found her. "There!" He then said, pointing at her directly, followed by Twilight shooting magic at the mare.

Starlight Glimmer, who was standing on a cloud a few meters away just easily hopped to the side to dodge the attack. "Not bad, but it's gonna take a lot more than that!" Starlight said unimpressed by Star Twinkle and Twilight's attempt to stop her.

"Lucky for you, there's more where that came from!" Twilight said in a determined voice. She was ready to keep up this fight to make sure that Starlight Glimmer would be stopped this time.

A battle between the two mares across all of Cloudsdale began. One beam after another was shot from both of them, Twilight managed to dodge all attacks but so did Starlight. Most beams destroyed the clouds all around them which was luckily something that could be fixed afterward. The frustrating thing was that Twilight did not manage to get a hit on Starlight.

"You've really gotta work on your aim," the pink mare commented on Twilight's poor attempts to stop her before the battle continued.

Star Twinkle was shooting some magic at the Starlight Glimmer as well, but in comparison to Twilight's shots, his were so pathetic that Starlight simply ignored them. "I can't do anything!" Star Twinkle said in his frustration before he gave up and let Twilight deal with this situation. The worst-case scenario would be that he got in Twilight's way to fight Starlight Glimmer. There was no way he could keep up with this battle. If he transformed into Pegasus, then he would not be able to use magic and he could not fly around like Starlight with the help of his magic while also attacking at the same time. All he could do was to stand here and wait for Twilight to win this battle.

Unfortunately, that didn't seem to happen anytime soon. "They look evenly matched," Spike commented as he watched the fight between the two mares. "You think Twilight can beat her?"

Star Twinkle had to admit that seeing Twilight struggling to defeat Starlight was making him a bit nervous. That is until he realized something more important. "She doesn't have to," he said in his realization.

"What do you mean?" Spike asked.

The stallion explained. "Remember, all we need to do is preventing Starlight Glimmer to get in the way of the Rainboom. As long as Rainbow Dash does her Rainboom then it's fine. Twilight needs to keep her at bay until then."

That was really the only plan that they had at this moment. If Twilight would fight with Starlight the whole time, then Starlight would not have time to stop Rainbow Dash from performing her Sonic Rainboom. This meant that the future would not change. Of course, that was easier said than done, Twilight could not fight forever after all but it was the only thing to do now.

"This is amazing!" A young voice said next to Star Twinkle.

The stallion was surprised to hear that voice and quickly recognized it. "Uh oh," he said as soon as he noticed that the voice belonged to young Rainbow Dash, who was sitting right next to him, chewing some popcorn and watching the battle between Twilight and Starlight.

Shortly after, the battle between the two mares came to a little halt due to both of them getting a little exhausted. It was then when Twilight turned around and noticed all the little fillies and colts watching the battle, including Rainbow Dash.

Twilight reacted in shock seeing the little Pegasus here instead of continuing the race and setting the future back on the right track again.

"What are you doing? You have to finish your race!" Twilight said.

"No way! This is way more exciting!" Rainbow Dash replied excitedly.

Star Twinkle sighed in frustration. Things already changed which meant that the future must have changed already as well. And Starlight Glimmer didn't really have to do anything in order to make it happen.

That didn't mean that she wasn't enjoying her victory however, "See? You can't stop me no matter what you do," she said.

Twilight turned towards her to say something but before she was allowed to do that, she Star Twinkle and Spike were sucked into the magic portal again. They left Cloudsdale with another failed attempt to stop Starlight Glimmer and were now on their way to another future.

In another time...

After going through the usual procedure again, the three came out of the portal once more. Going through all of this was pretty tiring by now and was no longer fun at all. Star Twinkle, who landed on his face again, got back up on his hooves to see where he landed this time. It was, again, the Everfree Forest but this time everything felt a little bit different compared to their last visit.

Star Twinkle spotted a big difference as soon as he looked up at the sky, something that Spike noticed as well. "That's strange," the little dragon commented.

Twilight just now got back up on her hooves. She was obviously a little bit exhausted from her battle with Starlight and was taking things a little bit slow to catch her breath again. "Well, you obviously don't mean us falling, because that's becoming pretty routine," she still commented in an annoyed tone.

"No, it's just the other times we've come back, it's been day! But look!" Spike then pointed out before he pointed towards the sky.

The mare looked up and just now realized that it was dark. "Why would the map bring us back to a different time of day than when we left?" She asked confused.

"We are traveling through time. That should be the least of our concerns," Star Twinkle replied.

However, Spike quickly noticed that there was no time to sit still and think about that. "Um, maybe we should figure it out later!" He said before he pointed at the map.

Some visitors appeared and stood on the map, and they were no friendly ones at that. They were timberwolves, dangerous creatures living in the Everfree Forest. Everyone took a step back to not anger those creatures.

"Twilight, can you take care of them?" Star Twinkle asked. The mare started to activate a spell but she was way too exhausted for that from her fight with Starlight Glimmer. "Guess not..." Star Twinkle figured.

By the time where Star Twinkle attempted to transform into a Unicorn, there were already more timberwolves, too many for Star Twinkle to deal with. They also seemed to have noticed the three judging by how some of them started howling loudly.

The three had no choice but to run away from those creatures. The timberwolves were right behind them but luckily Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike were quick enough to outrun them. Still, being out here in the Everfree Forest was dangerous so they needed to go somewhere safe. It did not take long until they came across something. A castle.

"The Castle of the Two Sisters!" Twilight said.

The three almost forgot that this castle was in the Everfree Forest. It did look a lot more different than they remembered though. In fact, it looked as good as new. Star Twinkle didn't know how it used to look back in the day but he would guess that this was really close of how it used to look.

Some more timberwolves howling from behind did remember them that there was no time to take a look at the castle. "Well, don't just stand here!" Spike said in hurry.

Star Twinkle and Twilight went inside the castle and closed the giant doors behind them. They were safe for now it seems. They also had a chance to look around the place and admire how much different it looked.

"This place looks a lot cleaner than I remember," Spike said.

"Yeah..." Star Twinkle added. He had the feeling that he should know why this was the case but he couldn't quite put it so far.

In the meantime, as the three walked through the halls of the castle, somepony was decorating the place with some banners. It was a white-coated Unicorn mare with a purple mane and blue eyes. She was also wearing a purple suit. "Rarity?" Twilight asked once she realized that this pony, in fact, was Rarity.

The mare turned towards the three with an annoyed expression on her face. "The castle isn't open for viewings today. The tapestries all need changing. Again."

"Rarity, it's me!" Spike then said happily as he hopped in front of the mare.

But of course, the Rarity from this time would not know Spike since they've never met here. Twilight never visited Ponyville after all. And Rarity brutally reminded him of this.

"I don't socialize with dragons. I don't know anypony who would," she said in a harsh tone before she continued her work and left a rather sad Spike.

Despite that, Twilight attempted to talk with her friend from another time, in the hope that she would listen to her just like Applejack from one of the other timelines. "Rarity, you have to listen to me! The future of Equestria's at stake!"

Naturally, Rarity was really confused and ignored the words of the mare. "I don't know how you know my name, but I am far too busy to entertain some tourist's ridiculous fantasies," she said annoyed.

"It's no use Twilight. Remember this is not the Rarity we know," Star Twinkle pointed out.

"You're right," Twilight replied with a frown on her face. "We have to get back to the map so we can stop Starlight from changing the past because every present we come to is worse than the last!" She said in a sudden rush of frustration.

Unfortunately, someone was overhearing those words, someone whose voice they would not like to hear at all right now.

"Time travel, you say?" The voice said which caused the three to get pretty scared for a moment. It was also just now that everyone noticed who was on the banners that Rarity placed all around the castle. They showed the picture of an Alicorn mare with a black coat wearing a light blue armor and helmet. The very same mare was sitting on the throne at the end of the hallway and looked at the three with a sinister smile on her face. "Now that's something I would like to see," she said before she started laughing.

"Oh no," Star Twinkle said as soon as he saw this mare. It was Nightmare Moon, or rather, Princess Luna when she was still evil. In this time, Nightmare Moon was not stopped by the Elements of Harmony it seems. And it didn't look as if she turned good on her own as well.

A bunch of guards lined up in front of the princess, all of them wearing black intimidating looking armor. The Princess got up from her throne and flew over to the three. "Tell me how you came by this magic to travel through time," she asked.

Needless to say, having Nightmare Moon standing right in front of you was enough to make Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike nervous enough to not answer right away, much to the dislike of one of her guards.

"You better answer the princess!" One male guard said in an angry tone.

Star Twinkle's ears stood right up as soon as he heard that guard speak. "That voice!" He thought in surprise.

The stallion then removed his helmet to reveal himself as none other than Star Twinkle's boss, Steel Hammer. "If you don't, then you'll end up in the dungeon faster than a hammer down on a nail!" He said in a threatening tone.

Something confused Star Twinkle in this situation. Steel Hammer did not seem to recognize him. They both knew each other since he was little so it made sense that he would recognize him. It confused Star Twinkle a little, he would be working at the Iron Hammer anyway even if Twilight would have not come to Ponyville. The Sonic Rainboom should have not affected all of this.

But the stallion had no time, nor was he in the position right now to ask any questions. Not while Nightmare Moon was standing right in front of him who was still demanding an answer. "Nopony in my kingdom but me should possess a magic powerful enough to change time," she said.

"Your kingdom?" Spike then asked.

"Who else?" Nightmare Moon asked, wondering who could be more important than her.

Star Twinkle knew what Spike was about to say next and he tried his best to signal the dragon that it was a really bad idea to continue speaking. But unfortunately, it was too late for that.

"Um... Celestia, of course!" Spike said nervously.

All of the guards looked at each other. They knew that this was something that could anger Nightmare Moon really quickly. Luckily, for everyone around, Nightmare Moon took it as a funny joke and began laughing. "My sister has been imprisoned in the moon for years!" She said amused before she looked outside the window. Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike just now realized that the Image of Princess Celestia was on the moon, just like before with Nightmare Moon in their time.
"But it is no less a fate than she'd sentence me to!" She added in a bitter tone before she turned towards Twilight again. "Now, reveal to me the source of this time magic!" She demanded once more.

Being surrounded by guards and Nightmare Moon nonetheless was a pretty bad situation to be in and Twilight knew that. She had no options left. "...Alright," she said in a heavy tone.

"Twilight, no!" Spike said.

"We have no choice, Spike," Twilight replied.

Star Twinkle also had his concerns about this. "Are you sure?" He asked, which only got him a nod in response before she turned towards Nightmare Moon.

"I can take you to it, but you'll have to get past the timberwolves," Twilight informed.

But Nightmare Moon was not scared one bit of course. "I am the ruler of all of Equestria. Do you think I can't deal with timberwolves?" She said in an offended tone.

"No. I know you can," Twilight replied in a serious tone. She was speaking from past experiences of course.

Nightmare Moon was not stupid and realized that Twilight was probably trying to pull off something so she prepared herself for that. "And if you were thinking of trying to escape..." she said before she took Spike and summoned some chains around him. "...it would be very unfortunate for your friend," she advised.

If Twilight really had planned something then it would have become really difficult about now. There was no other option but to obey Nightmare Moon for now.

A little later...

Back outside, Twilight was leading back the way to the map, all while Nightmare Moon was making quick work of any timberwolf that dared to cross her path. In the meantime, Spike was chained up and in the possession of one of Nightmare Moon's guards. Star Twinkle was also carefully watched by the guards, especially Steel Hammer, who was staring at him for a while now. It made Star Twinkle feel unease, one of the reasons being that Steel Hammer was usually a friend of him and not a guard for someone who he once fought in the past.

"You are Starfall Twinkle, are you?" Steel Hammer then said out of nowhere.

Star Twinkle was shocked to hear this. "Yes, so you do know me!" He replied before he realized how strange that must have sounded now. "I am working for you after all!" He accidentally added with a slip of his tongue.

Steel Hammer shook his head in disappointment. "It's been a while...I think the last time I've seen you was when you visited Ponyville with your parents all these years ago," he explained.

"Visited?" Star Twinkle questioned. "That must have been the day where I decided to stay in Ponyville, right?" He asked.

"Good one," Steel Hammer replied in a series tone. "Think I would have remembered that. You and your parents went back to live in Canterlot again. A shame really, I miss Sunny and Rainfall..."

That all didn't make any sense. Star Twinkle remembered the day when he and his parents visited Ponyville when he was still young. That was the day where he decided to stay in Ponyville with them for a few years, or in his case, for the rest of his life. What confused him was how his life changed with the absence of the Sonic Rainboom. Why did his life change? He should be living in Ponyville regardless.

"How is that possible?" Star Twinkle wondered. "The Sonic Rainboom happened when Rainbow Dash was very little, I shouldn't have been much older than her. So why did my life changed with it not being there?"

The Sonic Rainboom changed the lives of Twilight and the others, not seeing the Rainboom caused them all to never meet in Ponyville because some events changed that caused them to not live in Ponyville. Star Twinkle grew up in Canterlot but he and his parents moved to Ponyville for some years. Star Twinkle decided to stay in Ponyville and his parents returned to Canterlot. In this timeline Star Twinkle was not living in Ponyville, according to Steel Hammer. The question was just how that was possible. His life should have not changed that much until Twilight visited Ponyville but again, Steel Hammer said that Star Twinkle didn't live in Ponyville at all.

It was confusing and strange and Star Twinkle put a lot more thoughts into all of this than he should at this moment but it just wouldn't leave his mind like that. And after putting all those thoughts into one big picture, he came up with a theory.

"Did I...see the Sonic Rainboom as well?" He wondered. That was the only explanation that made sense. The Sonic Rainboom didn't happen and Star Twinkle's future changed, so that had to be it. "No...that can't be...I would remember that, right?"

Images flashed before the stallion's eyes. Summershine, the pony who supposedly erased some of Star Twinkle's memories with a spell. He just now remembered that. Was that why he didn't remember? He tried to think and the images started to look a lot more clearer now.

Star Twinkle, when he was little, a pony that looked a lot like a younger version of Summershine, and five more other ponies stood there looking up at the sky at a...Sonic Rainboom?

More and more images started to appear in front of his eyes.

Pictures of Summershine and the five ponies when they were older...
Princess Celestia trapped inside some kind of magic sphere...
Fire spreading around in Ponyville...
Star Twinkle standing in the middle of the flames who then turned into a gray coated stallion...
Summershine charging at him inside, what looked like the Castle of the Two Sisters...
Some other pony that he could not identify...a pony with a red coat and a red and white colored mane...
And lastly...the pony in the black armor...

Star Twinkle took a huge breath and his eyes were wide open.

"We're here," Twilight said as soon as she arrived right in front of the map with Nightmare Moon right behind her.

The stallion looked around confused. He was disorientated and didn't know where he was for a moment. All these pictures in his head looked so real as if here was experiencing all of it just now. No one seemed to notice the confused state that he was in right now. It did not take long until he calmed down again and focused on what was happening in front of him.

Nightmare Moon took a look at the map with some interest in her eyes. "How does it work?" She asked.

Twilight explained. "A pony from my time used this spell to travel back and change the past," she said.

Nightmare Moon formed a sinister grin on her face. "And now you will give this spell to me! With it, I will ensure that the Elements of Harmony are never found and my reign lasts forever!" She said victoriously.

"But it won't," Twilight replied.

"What?!" Nightmare Moon asked confused.

Twilight began to spread her wings. "In my world, my friends and I found the Elements and used them to defeat you! And I will do everything in my power to bring that world back!" She said determinedly.

"No!" Nightmare Moon said angrily before she shot at Twilight but it was too late because Twilight teleported herself away already.

Star Twinkle saw how Twilight was putting her plan in motion and decided to join in. He went to the still chained up Spike and took him away from the guards. Twilight, who was now standing on top of the map, saw that and teleported the two to her and shortly after, activated the scroll to go back to the past.

"Noooooo!" Nightmare Moon screamed. She could not prevent Twilight from escaping from her grasp. Things happened way too fast for her to even react to all of this. The three successfully escaped this time again.

In another time...

Twilight decided to act quickly this time. As soon as she, Star Twinkle, and Spike came out of the other side of the portal again, the mare shot at Starlight Glimmer and returned the favor of getting trapped inside a crystal.

"Direct hit!" Star Twinkle said.

After experiencing all these bad futures, Twilight was now more determined to fight against Starlight Glimmer than ever. "Now more than ever I know how important it is to stop you!"

But Starlight Glimmer was not intending to stop either and used her magic to break out of the crystal in an instant. "Well, good luck!" She said confidently before she flew towards Rainbow Dash again.

All the mare did was pushing the little filly as she was racing against the bullies. That was enough to already change the course of the future and just like before, the portal opened up above the heads of Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike sending them to yet another future.

They landed outside of Ponyville and as soon as realized what happened, they already saw what was going on. In the distance was Lord Tirek, who used his magic to destroy everything around him. Fortunately, he did not notice the three appearing out of nowhere and they decided to keep it that way by just returning back to the past in an instant.

Back in the past again, Twilight decided to go again with her "shoot-as-soon-as-she-left-the-portal-strategy". This time, Starlight Glimmer moved to the side and dodged, which caused Twilight to hit Rainbow Dash in the distance instead. Starlight Glimmer couldn't help but slowly clap afterward for helping her out like this.

"Not good..." Star Twinkle said before he, Twilight, and Spike got dragged into the portal once more.

This time, they appeared in Ponyville and landed in a pile of stuffed animals while pie was raining from the skies. It didn't take long until they figured out who was responsible for that. Not too far away from them, they saw Princess Celestia and Princess Luna getting chased by Discord who was riding on a unicycle.

The three saw enough and just used the scroll again to go back. Once back in Cloudsdale, they saw Starlight Glimmer messing around in the past by helping Fluttershy to fly through some rings with the help of her magic. This resulted in Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike getting sent back through the portal again.

They appeared outside of Ponyville once more. This time, everything looked a little bit more industrial and they soon found out why that was the case. The Flim Flam Brothers were ripping out some trees with some kind of machine. The three had no idea how it possibly came to this future but they that it was bad enough to go back and stop Starlight, that one was sure.

The three appeared back in Cloudsdale and Starlight Glimmer already waited for them. "Up for another race-ending fight?" She asked, ready to continue the fight.

Star Twinkle looked at Twilight. She was starting to get really frustrated by all of this. Starlight Glimmer was too strong to be stopped and she also seemed to be as determined as Twilight so there was no telling how long this all would continue.

"No. You were right. We can't stop you," Twilight said in an almost defeated tone. "But you can't stop me from trying, and we could be stuck doing this for all eternity!" She added.

"If that's what it takes to keep you and your friends from getting your cutie mark connection, then I'm game!" Starlight Glimmer replied.

"Okay, that's enough Starlight!" Star Twinkle then said in a rush of frustration. "Your revenge aside, you can't possibly want the future to be ruined for everyone in Equestria!"

"I don't," Starlight Glimmer replied. "All I'm doing is ruining your lives just what you did with mine!" She said.

Star Twinkle slowly came to the conclusion that Starlight Glimmer wasn't even aware of what consequences her actions in this time would have on the future.

"What you're doing goes way beyond cutie marks!" Twilight pointed out. "Everything we do here in the past – even the smallest change – can snowball into an avalanche of trouble for the future!"

But Starlight did not listen. "Oh, next I suppose you'll tell me that "the fate of all of Equestria hangs in the balance"!" she asked mockingly.

"But it does!" Star Twinkle replied.

Again Starlight didn't listen. "Spare me your overblown egos! No group of friends, not even Princess Twilight's, is that important!"

Then without a warning, Starlight Glimmer shot at Rainbow Dash, making her stumble and lose the race again. It didn't take long until the portal opened up again to drag Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike into another future.

Starlight Glimmer already had a victorious grin on her face again and Star Twinkle was getting sick of seeing it. He transformed into a Pegasus and charged towards the mare, something that she didn't expect. She was surprised enough to not react in time until it was too late.

The stallion was holding on tight to her so that she would get dragged with them to the future. "Hey! Let go of me!" The mare said angrily.

"No! You're coming with us!" Star Twinkle replied.

Twilight completely supported this plan and prepared herself to be dragged to the future one more time. "I don't know how important other ponies' friendships are to the future, but I can show you what the world is like without ours!"

And just like that the four of them traveled through the magic tunnel to land in another future once more...

???...

Darkness...

That was the first thing that came to mind as soon as Star Twinkle laid eyes on this future. He had no idea where he, Twilight, Spike, and Starlight were right now. The map was next to them as usual but that was about it. It looked like a wasteland around them, there was nothing, no plants, no town, no life.

Spike looked up to the sky. "Did Nightmare Moon took over this time as well?" He asked.

He was referring to how dark the sky was at this time. But Star Twinkle somehow doubted that. The sky was not dark in a normal way. Normally when the sun was down, the sky turns into a dark blue color with stars in it. But this sky didn't look like that, instead, it was pitch black as if someone was taking out all the colors from it. The same thing could be said about everything else around them, everything looked pale, gray, and without any life in it. It felt as if there was an absence of light in this world.

"I think that has to be the worst future we've been in yet," Star Twinkle concluded.

In the meantime, Starlight Glimmer, who was standing a few hooves away from them, just tried to make sense of what she saw, or rather, what she couldn't see in this case.

"Where are we?!" She then asked.

Twilight gave a quick answer. "The future. Or rather, the present."

Starlight Glimmer walked up to the mare in her confusion. "But there's nothing here!"

"I wish I could say I was surprised. But every world I come back to is worse than the last. I don't know why my friends and I are so important to Equestria, but we are," she explained.

"I don't believe you!" Starlight Glimmer shot back angrily.

"Come on, Starlight, look around!" Spike said.

"That is why I dragged you here, Starlight," Star Twinkle said. "It's just like Twilight said, everything in the past affects the future even the tiniest act," he explained. "And what you're doing leads here. We know we can't stop you, but I thought showing you this might change your mind," the stallion said.

Starlight Glimmer turned towards the stallion, her face showing more anger than ever before. "Change my mind? You don't know anything about me! I was perfectly happy before you and your friends ruined what I built!" She explained.

"I don't know what happened that led you to make your village without cutie marks, and I'm sorry my friends and I had to take it away," Twilight apologized.

Starlight Glimmer was about to explode in anger after hearing that but she was interrupted by Spike screaming in fear and hiding behind Twilight. "What is wrong, Spike?!" Twilight asked. The little dragon pointed up at the sky and everyone looked at it immediately after. All of them started to widen their eyes in fear as well.

A giant pair of white glowing eyes were looking down on the four in the middle of the dark sky. They were bigger than anything that Star Twinkle has ever seen and the fact that these pair of white-colored eyes were looking directly at him, made him feel really uneasy and scared. "What is that?!" He said in fear.

But there were more surprises waiting in the distance. As soon as everyone started to get "accustomed" to those giant eyes in the sky, they began noticing how some ponies approached them from afar. The word "some" was a bit of an understatement though. There were around hundreds maybe even a thousand ponies slowly walking towards the four. It was a scary sight to look at.

"What is going on here?!" Twilight asked. "What happened in this time?!"

"Does it matter?! Let's get out of here!" Spike said before he climbed up on the map in fear.

Twilight and Star Twinkle followed right away but Starlight Glimmer continued to look at this army of ponies making their way towards her. Star Twinkle jumped off the map to get her. She was his enemy but that didn't mean that he wanted her stranded in this time, even if it meant that she would continue messing up the past again.

The stallion walked in front of the mare. "Hey! We need to go!" He said.

But it had no effect on her, it looked as if Starlight Glimmer seemed to be paralyzed. "Is that...me?" She asked in shock.

Star Twinkle was confused to hear that and looked over to the ponies approaching them. They were a little bit closer so he had a better view of them now. All of the ponies looked like the rest of this place, pale and without colors. Their coats and manes were grayed out and their eyes were also glowing in white light, just like the two giant pair of eyes in the sky.

As soon as the stallion looked over to the ponies, a shiver ran down his back. "What?" He said in shock.

First, he saw Starlight Glimmer between the ponies, which was the reason why the mare got so shocked in the first place. But that was not all. Many he ponies he knew were there as well, some of them including, Steel Hammer, Twilight, Summershine, Mystic, some of his friends, and even...himself.

"Just what is going on in this time?! What happened to cause this?!" The stallion asked himself.

"Star Twinkle!" Twilight exclaimed, to snap the stallion out again. Fortunately, Starlight Glimmer snapped out of it as well and jumped on the map. She used her magic, which gave Twilight some concern. "What are you doing?!" She asked, fearing that Starlight Glimmer was up to something.

"You wanted to know what happened to me didn't you?!" She said in a mix of anger and panic. "I'm about to show you!" She said before she used a spell on the map. A light emerged from the map and everyone got sucked into it which caused them to leave this terrible world behind.

Just after the four vanished, the giant pair of eyes in the sky slowly closed again, leaving the whole place in a much darker tone again. Whatever transpired in this time seemed to have a huge effect on the world and Star Twinkle and the other were sure glad to have escaped it.

In another time...

After another trip through a time portal, Star Twinkle, Twilight, Spike and Starlight found themselves in what looks like a quiet and peaceful little town. A complete contrast of what they saw a minute ago, and a welcome one as well. The place looked like a town straight out from a colorful picture book and had something nice and soothing about it.

"Where are we?" Twilight asked.

Starlight explained. "That map of yours is connected to every part of Equestria, and this part is my home," she said before she led the way to show the three something.

The mare was not making any moves to fight against them so that was a good start if it was only for Starlight to prove something to them. Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike followed her to the window of one of the houses and she asked of them to look through it.

Inside the house were two small ponies. One of them looked like a lot younger version of Starlight Glimmer and the other one was an orange coated unicorn colt. The later one used his magic to build a tower of books in front of young Starlight, who was clapping and laughing in response.

"Who is that?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Sunburst," Starlight Glimmer replied. "A friend of mine. We did everything together. In fact, I don't remember us ever being apart. Until today," she said with a frown on her head before she looked through the window again. She obviously knew what was going to happen next and Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike were curious to see what it was.

Young Starlight Glimmer took away one of the books from below in order to put it on top of the already shaking book tower. As soon as she removed the book though the tower started to fall down right on her. The filly was taking cover but luckily Sunburst managed to catch all of the books before they would fall down on Starlight.

Shortly after, a light surrounded Sunburst, and he used his magic to put the books all back into their shelves. Everyone had a good guess about what was happening right now. A Cutie Mark was appearing on Sunburst's flank, an orange sun with sun rays coming out of it and six blue stars around it.

Of course, Sunburst was so happy and overjoyed by his Cutie Mark that he had to show it to everyone outside immediately. He was greeted by a lot of cheers by the other ponies and he was so happy about his new Cutie Mark that he didn't notice how young Starlight Glimmer was starting to cry.

"And just like that, my friend was gone," Starlight Glimmer said. "His family recognized his magical talent and sent him off to Canterlot. I never saw him again," she explained before she sunk her head.

Spike was confused to hear that. "Well, why not?" He asked.

Starlight turned towards the little dragon with an angry expression on her face. "Because of his cutie mark!" She shouted in his face. "He got his, and I didn't! He moved on, and I didn't! I stayed here and never made another friend because I was too afraid another cutie mark would take them away, too!" She said in a mix of anger and sadness.

There were tears building up in Starlight Glimmer's eyes. Remembering and seeing all these memories again must have really hurt. Star Twinkle could understand why the mare was blaming Cutie Marks for all of this after losing a friend because of one.

But Twilight was disagreeing with that. "That's ridiculous. A cutie mark can't take your friends away," she said.

Starlight Glimmer swiped her tears away. "Not everypony's lucky enough to get her cutie mark at the same time as her friends!" She pointed out. Shortly after, the time portal opened up again and brought the four back to Cloudsdale.

In another time...

Back in Cloudsdale, Starlight Glimmer landed across Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike. From the looks of it, she did not plan to stop continuing with her plan. In fact, she was more determined to pull it off now than ever.

"You don't know what it's like to lose a friend because of a cutie mark. But once I stop the Rainboom, you will!" She said. The mare then used her magic to teleport Twilight's saddlebag to her. This was really bad because inside that saddlebag was Star swirl's scroll and Starlight quickly took it out. "And when I destroy this scroll, there'll be no way for you to change it!"

"You can't do that!" Star Twinkle said as he took a step forward to reason with Starlight Glimmer but as soon as he took that step, the mare started to rip the scroll a little which sent down shivers on Star Twinkle's, Twilight's and Spike's spines.

"Starlight, you're right! I don't know what you went through!" Twilight said in a panic. "But I do know you can't do this! I've seen where this leads, and so have you!"

"I only saw what you showed me! Who knows what'll really happen?" Starlight replied.

Twilight, again, tried to reason with Starlight. "I've seen it a dozen times! Things don't turn out well in Equestria without our friends!" She explained.

"Ugh!" Starlight Glimmer said in disgust. She already heard enough about Star Twinkle, Twilight, and the rest of their friends. "What's so special about your friends?! How can a group of ponies that are so different be so important?!" She asked angrily.

Star Twinkle slowly took another step forward. "I used to think that as well. But being different is what makes our friendship strong!"

Starlight Glimmer started frowning. "I thought Sunburst and I were the same. But we turned out different, and it tore our friendship apart!" She said with tears running down her cheeks before she ripped the scroll a little bit further. It was only inches away from being completely ripped apart now.

"So try again! Make new friends! And if something that you can't control happens that changes things, work through it together! That's what friendship is!" Twilight said. "And it's not just our friendships that are important to Equestria! Everypony's are! When yours ended, it led us here. But just imagine all the others that are out there waiting for you if you just give them a chance!"

Starlight Glimmer started to look a little bit more unsure about going through with her plans. Those words got the mare thinking. "How do I know they won't all end the same way?" She asked helplessly.

"Because you will make sure they don't," Star Twinkle replied. "If friendship is important to you then you will hold on to it and make sure that it lasts. Maybe you were not able to do that back then but with some help I know you can do it now," the stallion explained.

"And we are ready to help you," Twilight said before she offered her hoof to Starlight Glimmer.

The mare was looking at the two ponies in front of her, they both had sincere smiles on their faces. She knew they were not trying to trick her or anything. They were offering their help to Starlight Glimmer who was desperately wishing for things to go back they were they were with her old friend Sunburst.

Starlight Glimmer looked back at Rainbow Dash who was in the middle of her race. This was her last chance to interrupt it and change the future one more time. But that is not what she did. She was hesitant but eventually, she reached out her hoof to Twilight and accepted it. Fittingly, the Sonic Rainboom happened a few seconds later just how it was supposed to be.

Everyone looked at the beautiful Rainbow colors spreading across all of Equestria. Twilight already saw it when she was little but seeing it this close up was a whole different experience. Star Twinkle looked up at the Rainboom as well and a strange sense of Deja Vu was hitting him.

The picture of him, Summershine, and those other five ponies was appearing in front of his eyes again. They were all looking up at the sky to watch a Sonic Rainboom, which Star Twinkle suspected to be the same one that was happening in front of him. Does that mean that somewhere in Equestria, right now, Star Twinkle was watching the Sonic Rainboom with those ponies? Did it change his life as well?

Those were questions that he had to answer another time because the time portal was appearing above the heads of everyone again. They were sucked in and brought back to the future again which hopefully was still the same because nobody was interfering this time.

Back in the future...

The four appeared back in what looked like inside Twilight's castle. After yet another hard landing, the portal closed itself again but not without sucking in Star Swirl's scroll. With the scroll gone now, there was no way to go back to the past anymore, much to everyone's delight. After the portal closed a big blinding light emerged from the map and spread all around Ponyville. A good sign that things returned to normal again.

Spike immediately kissed the ground that he was standing on. "One Castle of Friendship – check!"

A second later, the door to the throne room opened and Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie stood in the doorway. And all of them looked how they were supposed to as well.

"What in Equestria was that?!" Rarity asked.

"Is everypony okay?" Fluttershy asked in worry.

"Can you do it again?" Pinkie Pie asked in excitement.

They also acted how they were supposed to. "One group of amazing friends – check!" Spike confirmed.

"So...we are home?" Star Twinkle asked.

"Yeah, Star Twinkle. It looks like we're home!" Twilight replied.

Things returned to normal it seems. With Starlight not preventing Rainbow Dash to pull off her Sonic Rainboom nothing was changed in the future. Starlight Glimmer would have probably been really upset if that was the case.

This is when Applejack actually pointed out Starlight. "Uh... what's she doin' here?" She asked with her eyes locked on Starlight Glimmer in distrust.

Starlight Glimmer had a hard time looking at everyone so Twilight decided to speak up for her. "Actually, it's kind of a long story," she simply said, causing Starlight Glimmer to smile uncomfortably.

A little later...

Outside the throne room, a very nervous Starlight Glimmer was walking up and down the hallway waiting for what Twilight had in mind for her. She began to shriek as soon as she heard the door opening and saw Star Twinkle walking towards the mare.

"Are they done? What is going to happen to me? Am I gonna be exiled from Equestria?!" She asked in a panic.

Star Twinkle simply walked up to the mare in order to comfort her. "They are still talking. I just figured that I should join you here so that you don't get too worried," he explained. "Looks like I'm a little late though..."

Starlight Glimmer avoided eye contact with the stallion. She seemed to be too ashamed to even look at him. "That's nice of you considering what I've done to you and your friends. If I were you, I would not even speak to me anymore," she admitted.

Star Twinkle looked towards the throne room door. "I'm not sure what exactly Twilight has planned for you but I know it will be something that will be in your best interest," he explained.

"Why?" Starlight Glimmer asked confused. "I enslaved a whole village, took away your Cutie Marks, and almost changed the future of all of 'Equestria for the worst! How can she ever forgive me for that?!"

By now, Star Twinkle, as well as the rest of his friends, have dealt with a lot of stuff, including ponies or other creatures taking over Equestria like Nightmare Moon and Discord. All of them were forgiven and Starlight Glimmer, who wanted to change, was no exception. And Star Twinkle wanted to make sure that Starlight Glimmer had nothing to fear.

"It'll be fine," he just said with a smile on his face.

Starlight Glimmer didn't even have enough time to take in those words because the door opened next to her. Spike waved her over to him and Starlight Glimmer took a deep breath before following him inside. Star Twinkle also went back inside and walked next to Starlight Glimmer. When she entered the room again, she felt as if she was under a trail and felt really nervous and scared about what was coming towards her.

"I know there's no excuse for what I did, but I want you all to know that I'm ready for whatever punishment you think is fair," Starlight Glimmer said in a heavy tone.

Twilight explained. "I've been thinking a lot about how badly Equestria fared without just one group of friends. Because even when one friendship dies, the results can be disastrous."

"I know first-hoof how true that can be," Starlight Glimmer replied with her head hanging down and a frown on her face.

"And that's why I've asked you here. If you're willing to learn, I'm willing to teach you what I know," Twilight offered much to Starlight Glimmer's surprise. "I've seen you magic talent first-hoof and I'm sure with some guidance and help, you'll have the power to make Equestria an even better place," she assured confidently.

Starlight Glimmer looked at Twilight with an unsure expression on her face. "How do I start?" She asked in a hushed tone.

"Starting is easy!" Twilight assured. "All you have to do is make a friend! And you've got eight of them right here," she said before she invited everyone to a big group hug with Starlight Glimmer in the middle.

The mare who once enslaved a village and attempted to ruin Twilight's future was now crying in happiness. "Thank you so much!" She said while sobbing heavily. "I promise I will not throw away that chance you're giving me," she said happily.

The change would not come tomorrow but instead would take some time. Twilight figured the best thing to do was to get Starlight Glimmer accustomed to the concept of Friendship again. For that, the mare started spending time with each one of her new friends. She also needed to apologize to everyone in her village for what she put them through. This all could be archived one step at a time with some help from her new friends.

But for today, Star Twinkle, Twilight, Spike and Starlight had enough adventures for today and decided to work on all of this starting from tomorrow. Twilight offered Starlight Glimmer to stay in a room inside her castle and Star Twinkle was going home to rest.

It was crazy to think that just a few hours ago he was traveling through multiple timelines. But somehow, as always, everything turned out fine. Still, some events from today got the stallion thinking as he laid in his bed looking up at the ceiling. He could not stop thinking about the Sonic Rainboom and how it was the thing that connected Twilight with every single one of her closest friends except Star Twinkle.

That is what he thought until now but those images that he saw earlier today got him thinking that this might not be entirely true. Judging from what his memory showed him earlier, he seemed to have seen the Sonic Rainboom as well when he was younger. Whenever he tried to remember more details, his head started to hurt so he just stopped. This was the case for a long time now. His memories were a complete mess and from what he knew, it was all because of Summershine.

The last time he saw him, Summershine explained that he used a memory erase spell on him for some unknown reason. Star Twinkle's memories were telling him though that Summershine was a close friend of him. There was no telling how much he could believe that though because of how messed up it was. How many things could he believe were true that Summershine told him or what he saw in his memories? It was frustrating. By now Star Twinkle just pushed those questions aside because he had little hope to ever get answers. There were more important things to take care of than what was going on inside his head. One of those things was getting some sleep after this exhausting day.

So the stallion closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.

Author's Notes:

Those were some interesting timelines that got visited in this chapter, right?
Fun Fact: Cercus, the Changeling Commander, is the same Changeling that appeared in the story "Legend of Friendship - Outcasts" which covered Tagma's backstory. I just didn't have a name ready back then XD.

And yes, the last world, the one with the giant eyes, was a different one from what you saw in the show. And you can bet that I will not tell you what exactly was going on at that time. That is all left to your imagination ^^.

There are still three more chapters of Season 5 left and I hope you are excited because they are three custom chapters. What do you think will happen? Who do you think will appear in those chapters? Let me know ^^.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

115. The Other Half - Part 1

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An uneventful day in Ponyville...

Star Twinkle was on his way to Twilight's castle. He pulled a wagon behind him, filled with some small furniture and other stuff that indicated that someone was moving. Twilight asked him to help with Starlight Glimmer's room. Now that she was about to be Twilight's student in all things related to friendship, Twilight figured that it would be best if she lived inside the castle as well. And Star Twinkle was tasked to help Twilight to decorate and find a new room for the mare.

It didn't take long until Twilight greeted the stallion after he entered the castle. "There you are!" The mare said in an excited tone. "Come on! Over this way!"

This behavior confused Star Twinkle a little. "Why are you so excited?" He asked.

The mare explained as she led the way through the castle with Star Twinkle following right behind. "I'm just so excited to get a new roommate. I want everything to be perfect for Starlight once she returns." A very predictable answer after Star Twinkle thought about it.

"I can tell," Star Twinkle replied. He then looked back at the cart behind him. "Still, what are all those things that you asked me to gather? There are a little bit random if you ask me."

Of course, there was furniture in the cart, some things like small chairs and shelves, something that fits in a room. However, there were some other things in the mix that didn't make much sense for Star Twinkle. Just to prove his point, the stallion took out one random thing from the cart. "Do you really think she needs a kite?"

"You think she doesn't like kites?" Twilight asked, completely missing the point of what Star Twinkle actually wanted to get at.

Star Twinkle looked at the kite with a tired expression on his face. Pointing the problem out would end up dragging this out longer so Star Twinkle decided to just keep it like that. "I don't know...maybe?"

Twilight was aware of all that though. "I don't know much about Starlight Glimmer but I do know she is trying her best to change her ways. I'm just making sure that we'll support her, even if it just means that we're making this place a little bit more comfortable."

Star Twinkle was still not sure how a bunch of random items was gonna accomplish that but it was probably Twilight's overly prepared intentions that were responsible for that. He put the kite back in the cart again and Twilight decided to teleport both of them, as well as the cart inside the castle to save some time. The stallion was not aware that he was about to help further but from the looks of it, it was already too late so he just continued setting everything up in Starlight Glimmer's new room.

Meanwhile...

On a small hill not too far away from Ponyville somepony was silently looking over the small town watching the ponies going on with their daily lives. It was the pony in the black armor, the same pony that attacked Star Twinkle at Twilight's coronation and, unbeknownst to everyone, took care of Starlight Glimmer while she tried to escape with everyone's Cutie Marks back at her town.

"Ponyville..." a stallion said as he walked up to the hill to join the pony in the black armor in watching this view. "It's been a while," the stallion added in a nostalgic-sounding tone.

The stallion had a red coat, a white mane with red stripes in it, and red eyes. His name was Arcana, a pony that Summershine met on his journeys through Equestria. The unicorn that he was supposedly after for some unknown reason. When Summershine came across him, the pony in the black armor was with him as well which meant that the two were most likely working together. This time they seemed to be on the move for something

"I bet you are happy to see this place too, right?" Arcana asked which only earned him more silence from the pony in the black armor. "I guess we waited long enough. I could sense that he was almost fading away that time. Luckily you made sure that this was not going to happen. We can't really take more risks and need to act now, he's probably not getting any stronger anyway now that the Elements of Harmony already awakened inside of him," the stallion explained.

Shortly after more ponies appeared behind him, five to be exact. Arcana turned around and looked at them confidently. "Time to get everyone in position," he said before the five ponies split and walked in different directions towards the town. "...And let's get the elements back," he said with a sinister grin on his face before he used a teleport spell to vanish along with the pony in the black armor.

A little later...

At Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack, as usual, could be found attending her job and greatest hobby, apple bucking. After another tree being stripped off from its last apple, the mare decided to take a little bit of a break for a moment. She was at it for a while after all.

"Phew! That is done! Now to go back to the barn to grab one of Granny Smith's freshly made apple pies," she said as she waved herself some air with her hat before putting it back on her head and turning around to go home. To her surprise though, somepony was standing in her way. "Oh! Howdy! Can I help you?" She asked in a friendly tone.

The pony who stood there was an Earth Pony mare whose coat and mane color was a little grayed out. But under those grayed out colors a red-colored coat and a yellow mane could be distinguished. She also had weakly purple eyes, and three bitcoins as a Cutie Mark.

As Applejack was looking at the mare a strange sense of familiarity struck her. "Hey, do I...know you?" She asked.

But instead of answering, the mare kicked over a basket filled with apples, scattering them all over the place with an emotionless expression on her face. Needless to say, Applejack did not like that one bit. "Hey! What do you think you're doing!" The mare asked angrily. As soon as Applejack got angry though, the mare continued to kick over more stuff and wreak more havoc at the place all while not explaining her actions at all.

Eventually, after Applejack realized that she was being ignored, she decided to jump into action. "I don't know what your problem is but nopony is messing up my farm like this!" She said before she followed the mare to deal with her.

...

Up in the clouds, not too high above Ponyville on a little cloud, Rainbow Dash was taking one of her precisely timed naps after taking care of the clouds, something that she humbly worked on for today. The mare let out a yawn and began stretching, having rested long enough it seems. "So boring..." she said while rubbing her eyes. "Maybe Applejack is done with her work already," she said before she got up from her cloud to make haste for Sweet Apple Acres only to be stopped by a thunder flying past her. "Whoa!" She said in a startled tone. "Hey! Careful!" She said as she turned towards the culprit.

There he was, a Pegasus stallion standing on top of a black cloud that he used to shoot lighting out of. Much like Applejack's visitor, the coat and mane of this pony had grayed out colors, a dark blue coat, a white and dark blue mane, yellow eyes, and a shooting star as a Cutie Mark.

"Don't play around with a rain cloud like that...you..." she said before she realized that this stallion was not someone she recognized but at the same time was looking a little bit familiar.

The stallion was not thinking about listening to Rainbow Dash though. Instead, he kicked the cloud in front of him to shoot another thunder at her. This time, Rainbow Dash moved to the side to easily dodge the thunder. It didn't take long until she started losing her temper already. "Okay, you want some trouble?! I give you some trouble!" She said before she charged at the stallion, causing him to fly away. Rainbow Dash was right on the stallion's tail, to her surprise, he was actually pretty fast which only further made the mare mad.

As the two were racing in the clouds over Ponyville, Pinkie Pie, who carried a little present on her back, caught a glimpse of those two. "Looks like Rainbow Dash found a new friend to race with," she figured after watching how angrily Rainbow Dash was following the stallion.

Then, in an instant, something jumped past Pinkie Pie and removed the present from her back. Pinkie Pie only noticed how the weight of the present leaving her back and inspected her back with her hair without looking at it until she eventually did look at it and gasped in shock. "Who took my present?!" She shouted in anger. "I need to hide that present for Pumpkin and Pound's birthday in five months!" The mare exclaimed, demanding the one who stole from her to show itself.

The culprit did not stand too far away. A grayed-out Earth Pony stallion with a yellow coat, a light orange mane, red eyes, and a whoopee cushion as his Cutie Mark. The present was sitting on the stallion's back. After a short stare towards the mare, the stallion ran away.

"Hey! Get back here!" Pinkie Pie screamed through the street before she rushed after the stallion to get her present back again. Unfortunately, the stallion was pretty quick on his hooves and managed to outrun even Pinkie Pie which resulted in a pretty long chase through Ponyville.

As she passed Carousel Boutique, a screaming and distressed Rarity could be heard inside, something that Pinkie Pie didn't notice during her wild chase. It sounded as if she had her own problems to deal with.

"No! Not the dresses!" The mare said in a panic as she went back and forth between one corner of her boutique to the other. "Spike! Help me!" She said as she caught a dress that was thrown towards her.

"On it!" The little dragon said before he collected more of the dresses that were scattered across the room.

The pony that was responsible for that was a Unicorn Mare whose coat and mane color were also grayed out. She had a purple coat, a dark purple mane, and light blue eyes. Her Cutie Mark was a light blue book. This mare simply jumped from one corner of the room to another and threw all of Rarity's precious dresses to the ground, something that was enough to leave Rarity in quite a panic. "Not that one! The fabric is really sensitive to dust!" She exclaimed.

But that didn't stop the mare from continuing. More and more dresses got scattered all over the place and left the whole place in a mess which was just too much for Rarity to comprehend. She found herself almost fainting by how her dresses were treated. Rarity spent the majority of her time screaming in terror while Spike desperately tried to keep the boutique in a presentable state.

...

In the meantime, Fluttershy had to deal with some problems as well. The mare was sitting inside her cottage, hiding under her couch accompanied by some of her critter friends. She was obviously scared about something.

"Is she gone now?" She asked nervously.

A squirrel next to her jumped over to one of her windows and took a peek. Outside, right in front of her cottage stood a Pegasus mare. She had a light blue coat, a white and light blue straight mane, light orange eyes, and a pink flower as a Cutie Mark. Needless to say, the colors of her coat and mane were slightly grayed-out as well. The mare was glaring at the cottage as if she expected Fluttershy to come outside any minute now. Eventually, someone did walk outside but it wasn't Fluttershy, it was her pet rabbit, Angel. The little rabbit seemed really annoyed about Fluttershy being too intimidated to leave her house to go shopping for him.

Angel immediately started nagging at the mare in front of the cottage in his anger and even growled at her in hope that she would finally leave. However, the Pegasus mare slowly looked down towards the rabbit and clenched her teeth in anger, throwing a glare at the rabbit and intimidating him instead. Angel quickly pulled back again with a nervous grin and went inside, closing the door behind him. Once inside, he shrugged his shoulders as if he wanted to say "I did what I could".

"Oh, dear..." Fluttershy replied in a frustrated tone. "I guess we are staying home for today," she figured. "I'll bring out the board games!" She then said in a quick mood change, trying to see the positive thing about this situation, which caused Angel to facepalm in response.

As it turns out, each of the girls has to deal with some kind of nuisance. Those ponies that started appearing did not seem to have the best intentions. There was also something eerie about them, something unnatural and...not real. Whatever was the case about them, they were after Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy. And all they could do was to take care of them for now before things start to escalate.

Meanwhile...

In the meantime, two ponies invited themselves into Star Twinkle's house. Arcana and the pony in the black armor took a look around the house, looking for something. The two met at Star Twinkle's bedroom after what looked like an unfruitful search.

"He isn't here," Arcana figured as he kept looking through Star Twinkle's bedroom. His voice didn't seem too bothered about this though.

The pony in the black armor took a look around the room as well and slowly turned its head around each corner to slowly scan through it. Its head was then focused on the little fishbowl next to Star Twinkle's bed. The pony looked at Comet, Star Twinkle's pet goldfish who didn't move an inch even though after he noticed that he was being stared at.

"If he is not here, then maybe we go and visit someone else?" Arcana said after figuring that staying here was a waste of time. He looked out of the window from where you had a nice view at Twilight's castle. "We don't want royalty to interfere with our plans after all." The stallion said with a smirk on his face.

The stallion closed his eyes and concentrated. His aim was to teleport himself and the pony in the black armor, the latter one just putting down a can of fish fodder before readying itself for the spell and vanishing alongside Arcana. Fish fodder was then pouring down on Comet after the pony in the black armor, for some reason poured some into the bowl.

Comet didn't react to it though...

Shortly after, both Arcana and the pony in the black armor appeared inside the castle, in the main entrance to be exact. Arcana opened his eyes again and immediately saw a beam of magic coming towards him. It was quite a surprise but thanks to his reflexes, the stallion managed to barely duck under the shot before shooting an angry glare at whoever was shooting at him. His surprise was great as soon as he realized who it was.

"Looks like we're being expected?" He asked towards the pony in front of him.

The pony revealed himself to be Summershine, whose horn was still glowing from the shot before and who was ready to keep more of them coming. "You are not getting any further!" He said in a serious tone before he concentrated some magic with his horn. "I know what you are after and I will make sure to stop you!"

Arcana laughed in response. "Funny. If you would know what were are after then it's even more foolish of you to stand in our way," he said amused, seeing Summershine's appearance not as an inconvenience but rather a blessing. "We came here to get one half but you just presented us with the other half so all you just did was changing the order," he explained.

Almost on command, the pony in the black armor stood ready to fight in place of Arcana which caused Summershine to react in worry as soon as he looked at it. The reason for that was because he knew who was behind that helmet...

Meanwhile...

Unaware of the visitors in this castle, Star Twinkle and Twilight continued to work on Starlight Glimmer's room. Even though Star Twinkle ended up doing most of the work while Twilight gave the orders.

"More to the left please..." Twilight said while Star Twinkle followed and pushed a couch across the room. "Or maybe to the right?"

Of course, being ordered around like that was not much to the stallion's liking. "I'm sure Starlight Glimmer can move her stuff on her own if she is not satisfied with the placing," Star Twinkle said, in an attempt to flee from this work.

But Twilight disagreed. "I want her to relax as soon as she gets her. What good would it do if she had to work as soon as she got here?" She pointed out.

"I'm sure she could easily do it with her magic," Star Twinkle pointed out.

After moving some more stuff around, the two took a look at the room. There was a bed in the middle of the room, a bookshelf right next to it, of course, filled with some books that Twilight thought Starlight Glimmer could need for her studies, a study desk on the other side of the room, some plants in the corners and much more. It did look really comfortable and Star Twinkle had no doubt that Starlight Glimmer would think the same. But one look to his right showed him that Twilight was not so sure about that.

"She will like it," Star Twinkle said.

Twilight reacted surprised to hear that. She was under the assumption that she cleverly hid how nervous she was. "I guess I'm just a little bit nervous," she admitted.

"Yes...a little..." Star Twinkle commented.

"It's just..." Twilight started, feeling the need to explain herself for acting this nervous. "I never had a student before and I am just so proud that Starlight is ready to learn and change herself. I don't want her to feel as if I don't support her. I want her to know that I stand fully behind her, even if it is something as little as a nice-looking room for her to live in." Twilight looked over the room as if she was scanning through it again to make sure it was as comfortable as possible or if there was something, anything that could be improved still. Star Twinkle was thinking that it was just Twilight being too fixated on little details but it was more complicated it seems.

But Star Twinkle was still sure that Starlight would be happy whatever Twilight was preparing for her. "I'm sure Starlight already appreciates that you decided to take her under your wing much more than any room that you provide for her," the stallion figured.

"Yes, maybe," Twilight replied. "You're right!" She then added with some more optimism this time. "But...just in case, how about we go and build her some brand new furniture?" She suggested.

"And with "we" you mean me, right?" Star Twinkle asked, fearing that more work was sneaking up to him now. Before the stallion could think about that though, some loud noises could be heard outside in the halls of the castle. "What was that?" Star Twinkle asked after turning his head towards the door of this room.

"I don't know," Twilight replied, who was none the wiser as he was. "Let's go and check," she said before she opened the door and walked outside the room.

The noises got louder the closer the two got to the entrance hall and as soon as they arrived at the main entrance, they saw magic beams being fired all over the place. Three ponies were fighting in Twilight's castle. "What in the name of Celestia is going on here?!" Twilight rightfully asked in her confusion.

The battle came to hold as soon as everyone heard the princess's voice echo through the castle. On the right to Star Twinkle and Twilight was a familiar face. "Summershine?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Of course, Star Twinkle was glad to see this stallion again but he was also confused about why he was here now. That, however, was quickly replaced by the question of why he left the last time they saw each other without a warning. Summershine himself did not seem to be too excited to be here, in fact, he looked over to Star Twinkle as if he saw a ghost.

There were more ponies, however, and as soon as Star Twinkle remembered that, he looked over to his left. One of the ponies he did not know, but the other one was someone he already came across before, the pony in the black armor. "That's the pony that attacked me after your coronation," Star Twinkle explained to Twilight.

The mare quickly picked up on that and took a step towards the two ponies. Judging from her first meeting with Summershine and how one of the other ponies was attacking Star Twinkle in the past, she felt as if those two other ponies needed to be kept an eye on more closely.

"Who are you? And what are you doing in this castle?" She asked.

The pony with the red coat bowed down. "Apologies, princess," he said in a mocking tone, which only was indicating that his bow was also just an act to mock Twilight. "It seems your castle is in the crossfire of our little battle. We'll try to be a little bit more considerate," he said, again, in a mocking tone.

It was obvious to Star Twinkle and Twilight that those two ponies and Summershine were not associated with each other on friendly terms. Summershine kept looking at the two with a serious expression on his face as if he was ready to fight any second. But despite Summershine throwing daggers with his looks, the red-coated unicorn went ahead to introduce himself properly. "For those of you who don't know me and those of you who forgot...the name is Arcana, I'm a scholar, or at least I was for the longest time," he said with pride in his voice.

"And what is a scholar doing here fighting inside the castle of a princess?" Star Twinkle asked.

Arcana chuckled for a moment. "Funny. The reason for that is talking with me right now," he said, giving Star Twinkle a really bad feeling about what exactly he meant with that. Arcana then looked over to Summershine. "Unfortunately, someone decided to get in our way," he explained.

Star Twinkle and Twilight didn't know what to make out of all this. Still, there were some facts that helped them to decide how to act. For one, there was Summershine, who Star Twinkle didn't know much about except that he was an old friend that he forgot about due to a spell, one that Summershine claimed to be responsible for. On the other side, there was one pony he didn't know at all, who was accompanied by a pony that attacked him way back. The two sides were not looking completely trustworthy but one was definitely worth siding with a little bit more.

"Those two are bad news, are they?" Star Twinkle asked Summershine, deciding to put his trust into him for now.

"They are," the stallion replied. "I'm sure they are after you and me," he explained.

Twilight was a little confused to hear that. "Why?"

But Summershine avoided eye contact. Star Twinkle knew that he was not gonna explain why. "Let's deal with them first," he said. "But! After that, you will explain some stuff to me...err...us! Without running away afterward," Star Twinkle demanded.

Summershine was seeing how Star Twinkle was a little bit suspicious to him. He couldn't blame him. "I will. He is the one I was after anyway so there is no reason for me to run away," he explained.

Arcana, once again, chuckled after he overheard this conversation. "I can see the bond between you two is really strong," he said in a sarcastic tone. "Maybe we should give you some time so that you get to know each other better again," Star Twinkle was already getting a little bit bothered by the words of that pony. He clearly did not think of anyone in this castle as a serious threat.

"Be careful." Summershine then said in advise. "It might just sound as if he is overly confident but he is actually pretty strong when it comes to magic," he explained.

That warning was taken seriously by Star Twinkle but Summershine did seem to forget that a princess, who also happened to be the Element of Magic, was standing right next to him. And Twilight was not liking those obviously not friendly visitors in her castle. "I don't know what you want from Star Twinkle but I will not stand by and just watch idly by. Leave this castle now I am forced to throw you out!" She said in an unusual menacing tone. She definitely did not take too kindly to those visitors and was ready to fight them as well.

Star Twinkle felt as if he was dragged into a fight that he would like to avoid but then again, the pony in the black armor did attack him in the past already, and judging by how its face was looking right at him the whole time, he was sure that this encounter would not go differently.

On the bright side, it was three against two, so the Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Summershine already had the advantage in numbers. They were also in Ponyville, home of most of their friends, which reminded the stallion of something that would only increase their advantage.

"If we're lucky, the others arrive here soon and help us out too," he said towards Twilight.

Twilight's eyes widened. "That's right! We all agreed to meet in the castle to work on Starlight's room!" she remembered. "If we buy some time then we surely can take care of those guys with our friends help," she figured.

Arcana, who overheard the whole thing, snickered. "I wouldn't count on that, princess. No one is gonna come and help you for a while," he said in an amused tone.

The stallion sounded way too confident saying those words and Star Twinkle had a bad feeling that Arcana did something to make sure of it. "What did you do?" He asked, demanding an answer.

Seeing Star Twinkle worried like that made a grin form on Arcana's face. "I could tell you but how about I'll show you instead?"

The Unicorn then used a spell. A screen was forming in front of everyone that showed them what was going on all around Ponyville. Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Summershine could see Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie who were either attacked or in some other way distracted by five ponies. While Star Twinkle and Twilight looked at the five unknown ponies as if they tried to figure out who they were, Summershine already looked at the screen with a surprised expression on his face.

Star Twinkle saw these ponies before. In the past, those ponies would occasionally appear in either his dreams or some flashing pictures that haunted him from time to time. However, every time he tried to form a thought connected to those ponies, his head started to hurt as if it was preventing him to remember completely as if he was not supposed to figure out who they were.

While Star Twinkle was having a hard time with all of this, Twilight clearly remembered seeing them back then at the Tree of Harmony. They appeared as some kind of ghosts as soon as she and the rest of her friends opened the chest that would end up helping them defeat Lord Tirek. Anything beyond that was cloudy. They looked familiar but she didn't know why.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Summershine then shouted at Arcana angrily, snapping both Star Twinkle and Twilight out of their thought processes. "You did something to them, didn't you?!"

Arcana quite enjoyed the frustration that started to build inside Summershine's mind. "I didn't do anything to them, no. How was I supposed to do that? They are gone after all, and who was responsible for that?" He then asked in a mocking tone.

"But then..." Summershine returned before he lowered his head as soon as Arcana's words began affecting him now.

Suddenly, a magic beam was shot at Summershine, coming right from Arcana. The stallion took the opportunity to strike while Summershine was not paying attention. Summershine saw the beam heading towards him by it was too late for him to get out of the way and he knew he was about to get hit. That is when Star Twinkle came rushing to his aid and knocked him out of the way before he got hit, much to Arcana's dislike.

Both stallions laid on the ground now, one of them being really annoyed by how Summershine was letting his guard down this easily. "Pay attention!" Star Twinkle scolded. "I don't know who these guys are but they are up to no good, right? I also have no idea who these ponies are but can we all talk about this after taking care of these two?"

As a sign of agreement, Summershine got back up on his hooves to once again set his sight at Arcana. "Well said," the Unicorn stallion agreed. "I am tired of talking too. We came here to retrieve something after all," he added before he looked over to the pony in the black armor with a grin on his face.

It didn't take long until the armored pony charged towards the two stallions. "Here it comes!" Summershine said before he got ready to defend himself. His first instinct was to shot at the pony which the pony in the black armor dodged by jumping into the air. This pony wanted to make sure to fight in close distance. Its sight seemed to be set on Star Twinkle who was ready to prepare himself for the impact of that pony landing right in front of him.

However, the pony's attack was interrupted. A shield was forming around Star Twinkle. The pony in the black armor landed on top of it and found itself unable to reach Star Twinkle. One glance to its right showed him that Twilight was the one who set up the shield, followed by a magic attack aimed at it. The pony had no choice but to jump back and increase its distance between itself and the three ponies again. But Twilight would not let him increase the distance further because she decided to hold him in place with her magic. Arcana watched all this unfolding in front of him and seemed annoyed and impressed at the same time. He came to this castle with one goal in mind and there were just too many ponies to deal with at once. But despite that, he did not seem to be too worried.

"How annoying," is all the stallion said.

In the meantime, Summershine saw an opportunity to attack the pony in the black armor while Twilight was holding it in place. One magic shot was head right towards the trapped pony and no matter how much it struggled, there was no way to get out of this situation. That was until Arcana jumped in and created a shield around the pony to protect it from the attack, freeing it from Twilight's spell in the process. Star Twinkle and Twilight were surprised to see how Arcana easily took care of that situation and Arcana smiled arrogantly in response. As if the Unicorn wanted to intimidate everyone, he stepped forward, ready to take part in this battle as well. The pony in the black armor looked over to Arcana before looking back at Star Twinkle again, which started to creep Star Twinkle out by this point.

"This pony is looking at me the whole time," Star Twinkle thought. "There are other ponies in here as well, you know?" It's not as if he was wishing for this pony to go after Twilight or Summershine instead but knowing that this one unknown pony was after him was certainly not to his liking either.

The pony in the black armor and Arcana were now standing next to each other ready to attack together from the looks of it. This was not good, that much everypony was aware of. "Let's go!" Arcana then said, leading the charge of the attack.

The Unicorn stallion used his magic to send a wave of magic towards everyone. It was followed by another wave that transformed the crystal ground of the castle into a little wave of crystals that was coming right towards Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Summershine. While Star Twinkle didn't know how to get out of this in time, Twilight already reacted and shot at the wave, transforming it back into fixing the floor again. By the time that mess was fixed, however, the pony in the black armor came already charging from the right side, right towards Star Twinkle again as expected. Summershine already noticed the pony and readied a spell to deal with it though. Unfortunately, Arcana was there to interrupt. As soon as Summershine shot at the charging pony, Arcana aimed at the floor with his magic and a wall raised up from the ground that blocked Summershine's shot. The pony kept charging and Star Twinkle didn't know what to do in response. Twilight was still there though and she used a spell to switch places with Star Twinkle, a move that caught the pony in the armor off-guard, causing it to halt in the last second while Twilight was already shooting at it. When the beam was about to connect though, Arcana surprised the mare with the exact same move that she did before and switched places with the pony in the armor before he used a shield to protect himself from the blast.

Everything happened so fast and Star Twinkle was so stunned by how everyone besides him was keeping up with each other. And knowing that he was the one they were after only made him feel like a total burden. He did his best to stay on guard for upcoming attacks though. It didn't take long until the next one came right away. The pony in the black armor continued to relentlessly charge at Star Twinkle. "Give me a break!" Star Twinkle exclaimed in his frustration as he watched the pony coming for him again.

But Twilight was there to support him. "Don't worry!" She said before she prepared her magic to support Star Twinkle. As she was about to do something though, a shield was lifted around her, trapping her for a moment. It was obviously the doing of Arcana who did not let Twilight continue. Summershine, who watched how Twilight got caught, had to act quickly and did something against the pony in the black armor that kept charging towards Star Twinkle. But Arcana was not having that and teleported himself in front of the stallion to stop him and to keep him busy. In the meantime, Twilight already broke out of the shield around her by force. She saw how Arcana was stopping Summershine so she decided to went back and focus on the pony in the black armor while he was not paying attention. The pony in the black armor kept charging at Star Twinkle but there was still enough time to interrupt. Twilight saw how Arcana was blocking Summershine from stopping the armored pony so there was no chance that he could interrupt her again so she began to shoot at the charging pony.

This time, the pony in the black armor was prepared and just jumped over the shot. Arcana also noticed figured he should interrupt. Summershine was of course, right next to him but that was not bothering him one bit. One quick spell was taking care of the situation for him. His horn glowed in a bright light which soon spread around the whole room, blinding everyone. Summershine got it the worst since he was standing right in front of him and Twilight who was carefully aiming now also had a hard time placing her shots correctly.

The pony in the black armor was seeing the perfect opportunity to go up against Star Twinkle now. Its back was turned towards Arcana so that blinding spell was not affecting it too much. The same couldn't be said about Star Twinkle though. With no one else there to support him, Star Twinkle had no choice but to do the defending himself. The last time he fought against this pony their strength seemed to be even but Star Twinkle was stronger now. At least that's what he kept telling himself. The same could probably be said about the armored pony too.

The pony in the black armor finally reached Star Twinkle and tackled the Earth Pony. Star Twinkle steeled himself for the impact and managed to use his hooves to lower the damage. He still got hurt a little but not as much as he expected given how the pony in front of him was wearing full armor. It almost felt as if the pony in the armor was not really trying to hurt him. That guess of Star Twinkle proved to be right as soon as the pony in the armor focused some magic in its horn. This charge just now was only an act to get closer to Star Twinkle. Before the stallion realized that though the spell of the armored pony went off. A teleport spell made both Star Twinkle and the pony in the black armor disappear, much to the shock of Twilight.

"Where did they go?" Twilight asked.

"I don't know. Doesn't really matter," Arcana casually replied after he saw how the hard part of his plan was over now.

It was not good that they were separated like that, this much Twilight knew. But Summershine saw a whole other problem in this scenario. "What are you planning?!" He asked Arcana, much to Twilight's confusion who didn't understand why the stallion suddenly lost his composure like that. The stallion then looked over to Twilight. "We have to find them!"

"On it!" Twilight responded. She had no idea where they were but they must still be close. She decided to just teleport around the castle until she would find them. She was sure that Star Twinkle would be able to take care of himself but seeing Summershine worried like that worried her as well so she went on and prepared a teleport spell.

"I don't think so!" Arcana exclaimed. The stallion was a little faster to cast a spell before Twilight could teleport away. A wave of magic emerged from the Unicorn which traveled to the walls and made them glow for a moment.

Twilight noticed that but decided to ignore it and focused on teleporting. She expected to be teleported by now but that did not happen, much to her confusion. "I can't use my teleport spell?" She said in surprise. Obviously, that was because of Arcana's last spell so her eyes quickly shifted towards him, who could not look more amused at this point.

"I hope you don't mind that I allow those two to have some more private time. I would be really saddened if you just left me here after all," he said in a mocking tone with a smile on his face.

Arcana used a spell to prevent anyone from leaving the hallway, trapping him, Twilight and Summershine here. This only made Summershine feel more frustrated and angry. "You planned for this didn't you?! You wanted those two to be alone right?" He shot at Arcana while he clenched his teeth in frustration.

Arcana was a little surprised to be asked that question. He then had a guess of why Summershine reacted the way he did. "Could it be...that you know who is behind that armor?" He asked. Summershine did not say anything in response but Arcana knew from this silence that his guess was right and shook his shoulders. "No wonder you were acting so stressed the whole time," he said.

Of course, Twilight was wondering what they were talking about since she was the only one being left out of this. "What is wrong? Why is it so bad that the two of them are alone? Who is behind that armor?" She asked.

Summershine felt obligated to tell Twilight. It would help her to understand why he was so nervous. "I don't really understand it myself," he said. From the sound of it, he didn't want to believe what he said himself though so as soon as he said it, Twilight was having a hard time believing it too. And judging from Arcana's smile on his face, Summershine seemed to be telling the truth.

"But...how is that possible?" She asked confused.

All Summershine did in response was to look towards Arcana with a glare on his face who then felt obligated to do some explaining himself. "You could say that I had a hoof in that," he admitted smugly.

Meanwhile...

Not too far away from the entrance hall of Twilight's castle, in another hallway, Star Twinkle was already in a fight with the pony in the black armor. It kept using magic, indicating that there must be a Unicorn behind that armor which would make this battle a little bit more difficult. But worrying about what kind of pony was behind that armor, it was still relentlessly attacking him which was demanding his full attention. One charge after another, and one magic beam following the next one.

Star Twinkle was already panting in a corner after this barrage of attacks. "I need to go and find the others to help me. I can't defeat this pony on my own." He concluded before he abandoned this battle and headed for a door to escape from this battle. But with the pony in the black armor making sure to be on Star Twinkle's tail, that was pretty unlikely. Star Twinkle got constantly shot at until he stepped away from the doors and turned towards his opponent again. "Okay...not gonna happen..." the stallion figured.

There was no other way out of this. He needed to fight. Star Twinkle transformed into his unicorn form to be able to fight back. Shortly after, he was the one shooting beams at the pony, forcing it to dodge out of the way for once. It was a nice change for once, something that the green Earth Pony was thankful for. Still, Star Twinkle would run out of magic at some point and the pony in the armor dodged every shot like a master so this was all just to postpone the inevitable. There was still hope that Twilight or Summershine would show up any time soon so maybe all he needed to do was holding out for that. Knowing that didn't make the battle easier though. And it wasn't as if the pony in the black armor was just sitting there letting itself get shot at by Star Twinkle. With the ability to use magic himself, Star Twinkle was struggling a little less now.

"Who are those ponies?" This sudden question popped up in Star Twinkle's head. "And what do they want from me? Why does all this have to happen to me?!" Star Twinkle's attacks started to get a lot more aggressive in response to his frustration and confusion.

It was difficult to tell if the pony in the black armor was having more trouble now due to the lack of seeing its facial expression but its movement certainly got more hectic after Star Twinkle seemed more focused on fighting back. Still, Star Twinkle did not manage to get one hit in so far. Both of them stood still for a moment to catch a break in this battle. Star Twinkle was thankful for that. He was getting carried away a little too much and exhausted himself more than he planned to. He was taking advantage of this quiet moment as much as the pony in front of him would allow. Unfortunately, that was not a lot since the pony in the black armor charged towards him again.

Star Twinkle figured that this could go on forever. Those two would end up attacking each other over and over again until one of them was defeated and from the looks of it, Star Twinkle was more likely to lose this battle. He decided to return to his previous plan, which was running away from this battle to join with Twilight and Summershine. That was his only chance of winning. Surely, Twilight and her magic alone would be enough to deal with this pony. But to archive that he needed to get away from here first. Unaware of Star Twinkle's plan, the pony in the black armor kept charging towards him until Star Twinkle waited to the last moment to transform and jump over it in his Pegasus form. His plan was to fly out of range of this pony.

"This pony should have a harder time hitting me with its magic while I'm this high up," Star Twinkle figured. "Bless the architect for making the ceiling of this castle this high up...which I guess would be the Tree of Harmony?" To make sure that the pony in the black armor was not shooting him in the back from down there, Star Twinkle decided to take a look at the ground. To his surprise, the pony was nowhere to be found, much to his confusion. "Did it leave?" He wondered. That would be good. He didn't like how it disappeared like that but at least now he could figure out a solution for all of this. But as expected, things were not going the way he thought. He quickly noticed that the reason for the pony not being down there on the ground was because it was up here with him, flying right behind him. "It can fly?!" He said in shock before he went and flapped his wings harder to get away.

Multiple questions started popping up in his head. "It can use magic and fly? Is this pony an Alicorn?" He wondered. Images of his battle against Summershine in Ponyville during Lord Tirek's attack started to flash before him. Summershine turned out to be a Unicorn who could transform into an Alicorn. "Does this pony have the ability to transform too? It's not using magic right now...is it an Earth Pony like me? Can it only have either a horn or wings like me?"

Asking himself those questions right now proved to be a mistake since the pony in the black armor managed to catch up to him while he was in thoughts. The pony gave Star Twinkle a quick tackle. It didn't damage him too much but it was enough to make him lose his balance and dive towards the ground uncontrollably until he eventually stumbled right through a door leading to one of the many rooms of this castle.

Of course, the pony in the black armor followed right behind and entered the room as well, it was Spike's room and to the surprise of the pony, it was empty. It slowly entered the room to take a look around, there were not many places to hide, a bookshelf, a small table in one corner of the room, and other things that were not fit to hide a stallion behind or beneath them. The pony then got a small bed smacked across its head from behind. It was Star Twinkle, who was simply hiding behind the door until the pony would enter the room.

After this little sneak attack, Star Twinkle left the room and ran again. "I have to replace that bed later..." he said before he turned around to see the armored pony right on his tail again. "I guess that armor was protecting it a little too much if it is up again," he figured.

The two ran through the castle and the armored pony was tackling Star Twinkle once more but in the process, both of them stumbled and rolled inside another room of the castle. This time it was Starlight Glimmer's room. Star Twinkle was laying on the ground with the pony in the black armor above him who seemed to be a little dizzy from the last attack. The Earth Pony quickly kicked it away from him and tried to look for the door. Unfortunately, the pony in the black armor stood right in front of it and blocked Star Twinkle's only exit now.

"You'll not gonna let me go do you?" Star Twinkle asked but all he received was silence. "Jokes on you though, every room in this castle has a secret exit!" The stallion said before he charged to one corner of the room. The pony in the black armor instantly followed the stallion in order to stop Star Twinkle from getting away. But that is exactly what the stallion wanted. He was just bluffing and wanted the pony in the armor charging towards him. Star Twinkle quickly turned back to his Unicorn form and shot at the charging pony and for the first time, got a hit in. His shot was well placed on the head of the pony which caused its helmet to come off and making it roll towards Star Twinkle. The green pony caught his breath again after that attack and looked over to the pony in front of him to see who was actually behind that armor.

Star Twinkle's breathing got slower, after he saw the face of the pony in the black armor for the first time, he forgot how to breathe for a few seconds. "...W-what?" Was the only thing he could say in response. Shock, surprise, confusion, disbelieve, all those things were now mixed inside Star Twinkle's head. All the questions he ever had in his life seemed minor compared to the question he was about to ask the pony in front of him.

"Why do you..." he said as he looked at the face of the pony, which made him feel so uncomfortable that he could barely manage to finish his question. The more he looked at the pony, the harder it was to form words in his mouth. All because of that face he was looking at.

Those light green-colored eyes...

That light green coat...

That dark green star-shaped mane...

"Why...do you look like...me?"

The pony in the black armor. His face looked exactly like Star Twinkle's, down to the very last hair. The only difference was the horn on Star Twinkle's head at the very moment and the armor that the armored pony was wearing.

"No..." the Star Twinkle in the armor replied. Even his voice sounded exactly like Star Twinkle's which made the situation even more creepy and uncomfortable. But the words that followed were what sent a shiver down on Star Twinkle's back.

"You are the one...who looks like me..."

To be continued...

Author's Notes:

And here I am back after a huge delay. Sorry...that's all I can say...

Anyway, the "official" Season Finale started and I hope you got shocked by this reveal at the end. Did you see it coming? Do you know what it means? You'll get more answers in the next chapter, I can tell you that much ^^.

Keep the theories coming though, I'm interested to hear what you came up with.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)

116. The Other Half - Part 2

View Online

Inside Twilight's castle, in the room that was soon to be Starlight Glimmer's room, Star Twinkle and the pony in the black armor were still standing across each other looking each other in the eyes. A creepy thought considering that they were both the same pair of eyes.

The pony in the black armor turned out to look exactly like Star Twinkle, down to the very last hair. An almost crushing silence was filling the room where Star Twinkle and the pony in the black armor were in. The fact that Star Twinkle was looking at someone who looked exactly like him was way beyond his understanding and he desperately wanted answers to many of his questions.

"Face? My Face? The pony in the black armor, that attacked me back then. Why does this pony look like me?" Those were only a few questions in his mind right now. The silence in this room was much to his dislike, he almost wanted the pony in the black armor to answer them. But at the same time, he didn't. What kind of answers would he get? Would he be able to understand them? This was too much to handle for him. But then he remembered that he already got an answer before. An answer that confused him even more. "You are the one who looks like me." That is what the pony said before. What does that mean? Star Twinkle was supposed to look like the pony in the black armor? Why?

With all these questions circling in Star Twinkle's head, the pony in the black armor spoke again. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore," he said, his voice sounding exactly like Star Twinkle's, which made the stallion feel rather uncomfortable. "It would have been easier on you to know less but I guess that can't be avoided anymore..." the pony in the black armor said in a heavy tone.

Star Twinkle was conflicted to find out more, it was making him feel uncomfortable to even look at the pony in front of him but whatever was happening here could not just be ignored. There was a pony in front of him that looked exactly like him after all. Even if the truth would scare him, he needed to hear it.

The pony in the black armor then continued. "I am Star Twinkle...the real Star Twinkle," is what he said in a serious tone.

Without even listening to any more words coming out of the mouth from the pony in front of him, Star Twinkle quickly replied. "No, you're not! I am Star Twinkle!" He said in a mix of anger, frustration, and confusion.

"Well...you are not entirely wrong..." the pony in the black armor replied. "You are a clone, or rather, another half that was based on me," he added.

"Clone? Another half?" Hearing all those words were starting to make Star Twinkle a little mad. "Yeah, sure! Do you think I fall for something like that?! You are probably a Changeling that transformed into me or something like that!" The stallion concluded. The pony in the black armor kept silent. Talking with Star Twinkle while he was like that seemed pointless after all. "That's right! This Arcana guy and those other five ponies he showed us! They are Changelings too! This all makes a lot more sense than you claiming to be the real Star Twinkle!"

"But I am," the pony in the black armor replied with not a single hint of doubt in his voice.

Seeing this pony this calm and talking so casually started to get on Star Twinkle's nerves. "I am the real Star Twinkle! I don't know who exactly this Arcana is but he obviously is bad news! I would never work together with someone like that!" He exclaimed.

"So you say that you know yourself better than anyone else?" The pony in the black armor asked.

"Of course I do!" Star Twinkle shouted back. "I'm the real Star Twinkle after all!"

The pony in the black armor quickly picked up on that. "Then tell me, when or where you have met Summershine for the first time?"

"I...err..." Star Twinkle replied losing his momentum after hearing those words.

"You do know that you two are friends, right?"

"Yes..." Star Twinkle said before he started thinking. Of course, he didn't know anything besides that. The only reason he knew that, to begin with, was because of some dreams and images that popped into his head here and there. All those images simply gave him the impression that he must know Summershine and was a close friend to him.

"Do you know about the others?" The pony in the black armor then asked. "The ones that Arcana showed us before. Tell me their names," he demanded.

Star Twinkle felt pressured. He felt he shouldn't be, especially since he didn't need to prove anything to this pony that looked exactly like him. That pony was simply someone who looked like him or a Changeling that transformed into him. It could also be a spell of some kind. It had to be.

"Do you remember the fire that happened in Ponyville? Did you remember how it started?" The pony in the black armor asked.

"He even knows about that?" Star Twinkle wondered. He remembered those dreams where he could see an image of a burning Ponyville, it was one of those memories that kept haunting him over and over again.

"Do you remember what happened after Ashgray's attack in the Castle of the Two Sisters?" The pony continued to ask.

"Ashgray?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "Who is that?"

Several images popped into Star Twinkle's head as soon as he heard that name. His head started to hurt and feel as if someone was scratching on a blackboard right next to both of his ears. He grabbed his head in pain and collapsed to the ground while screaming.

Summershine...
Burning Ponyville...
Those five ponies...
Ashgray...
Castle of the Two Sisters...

It was as if all these weird dreams were played right in front of his eyes over and over again faster than he could keep track. Thankfully, this flash of images went past as fast as it came but not until the stallion was laying on the ground panting heavily. It didn't make sense. All those things the pony in the black armor mentioned, were very specific to the things that Star Twinkle saw in his dreams. All those things that made his head hurt just thinking about them.

Star Twinkle, while still laying on the ground looked up to the stallion with tired eyes. He looked at the same eyes that he used to see in his mirror countless times. "How...do you know all those things?" He asked in a heavy voice.

The pony in the black armor looked right back at the stallion with a serious expression on his face. "Because those are my memories. And judging from your reaction just now, you, a clone of mine, seem to have bits and pieces of them still inside your head." The stallion explained. Then suddenly, magic started to form something on his forehead. A horn. He transformed into a Unicorn just like Star Twinkle, much to his shock. "I'm sorry but...you and I need to become one again. Only then..." a magic glow started to form on the pony's horn, he was ready to fight again. "Only then, things can be how they used to be!" He said before he charged at Star Twinkle which caused the fight to continue once more.

Meanwhile...

In the meantime, while Star Twinkle had to face the pony in the black armor, Twilight and Summershine were dealing with Arcana. For the moment, the battle came to hold though after Summershine told Twilight who he saw behind the helmet of the pony in the black armor.

"Star Twinkle?" Twilight asked. "The pony in the black armor looks like Star Twinkle?"

"Yes," Summershine replied in a heavy tone. "I saw it with my own eyes," he said before he glared over to Arcana. "And I know you are the one responsible for this!"

The red unicorn shook his head almost proudly in response. "I guess there is no reason to hide anything after coming this far."

"What did you do? Was it a spell?" Twilight asked.

"It was," Arcana proudly replied. "A clone spell," he added.

"A clone?" Twilight replied confused. "The pony in the black armor is a clone of Star Twinkle?" She asked.

Arcana was shaking his head in response "No," he replied. "The pony in the black armor is Star Twinkle. The real Star Twinkle," he explained.

Now it was Summershine's turn to be confused. "What do you mean?" He asked.

Arcana was highly enjoying the confused expressions on Twilight's and Summershine's faces so he felt generous enough to explain the situation further. "The Star Twinkle that lives here in Ponyville along with you princess...is nothing but a clone created by me."

Hearing that confused Twilight. Summershine did tell her that the pony in the black armor looked like Star Twinkle but he didn't know exactly the reason why that was the case. That only made it harder to believe for the mare but one glance over to Summershine caused her to believe what Arcana said to be true. With clenched teeth, Summershine was throwing daggers at Arcana with his eyes. If what Arcana said was true, then the real Star Twinkle was most likely being manipulated by him which gave Summershine even more reason to take care of Arcana.

But before the fight would continue, Twilight still wanted some answers. "I heard about cloning spells, they are not easy to pull off though," she admitted, probably speaking from experience. "But...Star Twinkle...I saw him spending time with us all this time. I saw him exhausted, sleeping, hurt, and much more. A clone that was created with a spell can only last a few minutes at best and even then, they are not stable or don't have much of an own will. Like with the legend of the mirror pool," the mare summarized. As a pony with a huge knowledge about magic she was aware that there would be ways to clone someone but just as she explained, that always would come with some kind of drawback. The first thing that popped into her mind was the incident where Pinkie Pie cloned herself with the mirror pool, which, of course, ended in chaos. "What I'm trying to say is that if Star Twinkle really is a clone, just like you said, then how is it that he lasted this long? That is just impossible," she pointed out.

Arcana was visibly offended hearing the mare speak about this stuff. "Don't even dare compare my clones with the ones made out from a pool. And yes, what you said is true. Cloning magic is difficult to perform, and those who can do it end up creating clones that last only a short amount of time or that can only function in a pretty basic way," the stallion explained. For once, he did not seem to talk down on the mare like he did all this time before. Talking about this topic genuinely must be something that he was pretty knowledgeable about to the point that he was enjoying it. But this only lasted until he began smiling proudly. "It just happens that the pony who created that clone is the one who has mastered it to more than anyone else in Equestria," he said, obviously referring to him. "The clones that I create can last forever, as long as there is still magic inside of them. Which reminds me...there was just recently a time where Star Twinkle's magic was running really low and he was about to disappear," he pointed out.

There more the talk about cloning and a real or clone Star Twinkle continued, the more Twilight looked back at some events in the past. One recent one specifically stood out to her. It was when Starlight Glimmer removed Star Twinkle's Cutie Mark. After Star Twinkle's Cutie Mark was removed he was weakened a lot more than her or the rest of her friends. She began to think that this was due to him being a clone too. But just considering Arcana's words to be true was just too hard to accept. The Star Twinkle that she met in Ponyville was supposed to be a clone that was created by Arcana? What was that supposed to mean? That all the friendships and adventures that happened up until now were not real? This all came out of nowhere and now she just had to accept it as the truth?

Arcana was picking up on the confusion that was spreading inside Twilight's mind. "If you still doubt my words then why don't you ask Summershine? Just looking at his face tells me that he knows what I am saying is true."

Twilight did look over to Summershine who seemed to be in deep thoughts. He didn't want to believe Arcana's words but deep inside, he knew that it was true. The reason for that was because of his previous encounter with the pony in the black armor not too long ago...

...

It was back then...

One day, Summershine's Cutie Mark appeared on the Cutie Mark map in Twilight's castle much to everyone's surprise. Star Twinkle got curious about that and wanted to investigate it with his friends so they went to the place where the map pointed at; the Forgotten Castle, the place that Fade, Mystic, Tagma, Rosa, and Wildheart used to hide in. Why exactly the map was showing Summershine's Cutie Mark, or why it was pointing at this place, was not clear to anyone but they wanted to check it out anyway. The only pony they stumbled across though, was Mystic, who they were forced to fight against.

Little did they know, that Summershine was actually not too far away, inside the castle, where he met the pony in the black armor. A fight broke out between them, Summershine knew that this pony was working together with Arcana, someone who he knew, meant danger to Equestria. He didn't know who was behind that armor but in the middle of the fight, the helmet of the pony in the Black Armor and its face were revealed to the Unicorn.

"...What?...You?" He said in shock as soon as he saw the pony's face for the first time. A light green coat, a dark green star-shaped mane, and light green eyes...The pony behind the black armor looked exactly like Star Twinkle. "What is going on here?" Summershine asked, demanding an answer from the pony in front of him. "Why are you wearing this? You are wearing this armor to play a prank on me? That one pony who was with Arcana...it was wearing the same armor. But that was not you, right?!" The unicorn asked, hoping that this was not the case in the slightest.

But the answer he got was exactly the one he didn't want to hear. "You mean back then inside that cave, right?" The pony in the black armor replied, proving that it was indeed him back then.

Summershine didn't quite know how to react to this. "But why? For what reason? Does Twilight and the others even know about this?"

"They don't," Star Twinkle replied.

There was still no explanation that Summershine could find about this. "Listen, you don't know Arcana. I don't know what he did or told you but whatever it is, you have to stay away from him! He is dangerous and can't be trusted! Those ponies that are with him...they are-"

"My friends..." Star Twinkle replied in a serious tone. An answer that Summershine did not expect. "Or at least they look like our friends..."

By now Summershine was even more confused. "Wait...you know who they are?" He asked.

"Should I not?" Star Twinkle shot back. "Should I have forgotten them, as you intended it?" He added in a bitter tone.

Again, Summershine was confused to hear those words. The reason for that was simple. The last time Summershine and Star Twinkle met, back in Ponyville during Lord Tirek's attack, he said that he was using a memory erase spell on Star Twinkle. Star Twinkle should not remember those ponies that were with Arcana, nor should he even remember that Summershine was using a spell on him. He guessed that Arcana was telling him those things but he had no idea why.

"You think that I like forgetting my friends? That I would feel better forgetting them because they were gone?" Star Twinkle said with a serious tone in his voice.

"No, that's not why I did that! It was because I wanted to keep you safe! You remembered what happened back then too, right?" Summershine shot back.

But Star Twinkle's serious expression didn't change one bit. "I remember that you are not who you used to be anymore. I don't know if it was by your own intentions or not but I do know that I have to take matters into my hooves to get our friends back," he said determinedly. "If it means that I have to work with someone like Arcana to make that happen, then I'll do it!"

"Why?!" Summershine asked confused. "We are friends! Why do things have to be like this?" The stallion asked helplessly.

It was at this point where Summershine blamed himself for everything. Back then, he erased the memory of Star Twinkle and everyone in Equestria with a spell. He did that to keep everyone safe, or at least he told himself that. But in return, it seemed to have led Star Twinkle down this path now. It was like a huge misunderstanding that led to a more serious problem now. And Summershine had to deal with it in some kind of way.

"Summershine!" A voice then screamed the stallion's name from downstairs. A voice that sounded all too familiar to Summershine.

"Huh?!" Summershine then said in confusion. That voice sounded exactly like Star Twinkle's. But that could not be possible because Star Twinkle was standing right in front of him now, wearing that black armor.

While being distracted by all this, Star Twinkle put on his helmet again. The stallion had a good feeling that some ponies were coming up to complicate things so he decided to escape by jumping out of the window of the castle. Summershine was too slow to react to this in time and the pony in the black armor escaped.

A few seconds later, Star Twinkle, as well as Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie all stepped into the room in a haste with Star Twinkle in front. Once the stallion arrived inside the room, he took a good look around. There was no one in here anymore, much to his frustration.

"He was here...I know it..." Star Twinkle said as he lowered his head in defeat. He was sure that Summershine was there because of his Cutie Mark appearing on the map in Twilight's castle, which was the only thing that has driven him to come to this place. His friends were quick to comfort him about this but it still felt like a loss.

Unbeknownst to any of them, Summershine was watching the seven ponies in this room from outside. The stallion tried to make sense in all of this. One moment, Star Twinkle was standing right in front of him revealing himself to be the pony in the black armor but one moment later he was entering the room along with his friends. This means that the Star Twinkle behind the armor and the one accompanying Twilight and the others were two different ponies. Obviously, that was enough to be confused. He was able to conclude who was responsible for it. And that made him only more determined to track down this someone.

...

Silence was filling the throne room in Twilight's castle. The words of Arcana telling everyone that the pony in the black armor was the real Star Twinkle and the one hanging out with Twilight and her friends in Ponyville was a clone, were now accepted as a fact. The armored Pony knew and remembered things that Star Twinkle from Ponyville didn't. As much as Summershine hated to admit it, Arcana was probably telling the truth. The fact that Arcana seemed almost proud about all this was proof enough.

"Okay," Twilight then said in order to break the silence. "Let's all just assume that what you are saying is true," she said, even though, Summershine's facial expression made it look as if he already believed Arcana. "Why did you make a clone of Star Twinkle? For what reason?" She asked, which Summershine had to admit, wanted to know the answer to as well.

Arcana, surprisingly, was willing to answer. "My objective has not changed since the last time I visited Ponyville...I want the Element of Harmony." Summershine was not surprised to hear that. Arcana was immediately trying to get the Elements of Harmony back then as well as soon as he and the rest of his friends found them. Arcana looked over to the stallion with a smile on his face. "I know that the power of the Elements of Harmony was split into two halves, one half being inside Star Twinkle and one being inside Summershine. Once I was aware of that, I decided to get to Star Twinkle so I could get his half since you ran off to who knows where," he explained, referring to Summershine. "There was only one problem though. For some reason, the Elements of Harmony were asleep inside of Star Twinkle so he was useless to me. But luckily, I was able to improvise."

"What did you do?" Summershine immediately asked.

Arcana ignored those words and just continued. "I went back to Ponyville to get my revenge on you and your friends. I returned to the castle of the two sisters first. That is where I found him, laying on the ground unconscious, with a scroll next to him that looked like a warning for Princess Celestia. I assume you were the one who wrote it?" The stallion asked. Summershine clenched his teeth in anger. He did leave that scroll to inform Princess Celestia about Arcana so that she could take care of Star Twinkle. "The scroll said that Star Twinkle was connected to the Elements of Harmony so I got interested in him. But unfortunately, Princess Celestia arrived at the castle shortly after so I had to remain hidden. I followed her as she returned the stallion home with guards keeping a close look on him for a while, which made it hard to keep an eye on him. But I knew that my patience would be rewarded if I decided to stay close."

"Can you get to the point?!" Summershine asked angrily. It was certainly not fun listening to Arcana basically stalking his best friend.

Once again, Arcana continued, he seemed to enjoy telling the stallion all of this stuff. "I managed to get close to Star Twinkle and even shared some knowledge of the Elements of Harmony. It was worth a shot to ask him about them if it meant that I would find out something about him or you. I got rewarded for that risk. I should thank you for not mentioning me to him. It made things quite easier for me," he said with a smug smile on his face. Of course, that was the last thing that Summershine wanted to hear, it only made him feel more responsible for everything that happened. "I don't want to spend all day explaining things to you all so I just get to the point. Star Twinkle, the real Star Twinkle joined up with me to stop you, Summershine," Arcana explained.

"Liar!" Summershine shouted back. "He would never join someone like you!"

A moment later, Twilight put one of her front hooves on the stallion's shoulder to calm him down. "I don't know fully what this is all about but...right now, Star Twinkle and the pony in the black armor are probably fighting somewhere. We need to help him and standing here talking with this pony is only wasting time," she explained. Hearing those words did calm Summershine down a little and made him realize that it is not too late to set things right again. "I suggest we deal with this pony first before we ask further questions." She said in a rush of determination before she stood ready to fight.

There was a stare-down happening between the three ponies. The air in the room got a little bit more serious. That was until Arcana started chuckling. "Looking at your faces makes it almost look as if you think you can even hold a candle to me," the stallion said with not a single hint of concern in his voice. "But by all means...try."

Meanwhile...

Not too far away, both the armored pony and Star Twinkle continued their fight with the latter one having a lot more problems than before. On top of both of them being equally as strong, Star Twinkle's mind was just a mess. He could not focus on the battle while being fed with all this information at the same time.

"Me? A clone?" Star Twinkle thought before he saw another beam being fired at him, forcing him to dodge clumsily. "I'm not a clone! All these times...what would they all mean if I was a clone?" More and more magic beams were fired at him as those thoughts crossed his mind and each time he felt those attacks getting a little bit closer. He couldn't fight properly with all those things in his mind. And before he knew it, one of the beams connected and Star Twinkle was shot against a wall

The stallion was hurt but he still managed to at least sit up again. He saw the armored pony walking towards him slowly. A serious expression was on his face as he looked down at Star Twinkle. "This doesn't have to go this way. Just give up and everything will be over without any more pain," he offered.

For Star Twinkle this was all still very strange. This pony did not seem evil nor did he enjoy beating up Star Twinkle. This raised the question of why they were fighting in the first place. This is when Star Twinkle remembered. "You said you wanted things to be the way they used to be...what do you mean with that?" He asked.

The armored pony answered with another question. "Do you remember our friends?" He asked but as expected from Star Twinkle and his messed up memory, there came no reply, not that the pony in the black armor expected one in the first place. "The ones that Arcana showed us before. Happytrade, Nightsky, Brilliance, Crash, and Lightbeam. Those five, along with Summershine are the ponies that we grew up with in Ponyville, the ponies that we shared our fondest memories with. After the battle with Ashgray, those five were meeting a rather unfortunate fate..."

"What do you mean with unfortunate fate? You said it was those five ponies from before? The ones that are fighting against my friends?" Star Twinkle asked in his confusion.

The pony in the black armor shook his head. "Those five ponies are merely clones created by Arcana based on some of my memories," he explained. "It was by my demand. I thought that just like you, they would sooner or later remember or at least have their personality returned to them. But unlike you, someone who was created by half of my existence, those five were created by my memory which is not enough. They are just mindless shadows of themselves," he said with regret on his face."I was still okay with that though since I could see them again at least..." Suddenly, anger started forming on his face. "Something that was not that important to Summershine."

Star Twinkle was surprised to hear that. "What does Summershine have to do with that?" He asked.

The pony in the black armor explained. "Did you know that he was the one who used a memory erase spell to remove those five from the memories of everyone? Or that he left Ponyville instead of finding a way to return them to us? He had the Elements of Harmony, And I did too! I'm sure they could have fixed everything! But he ran away after erasing everyone's memories instead of finding a way to save our friends!" The pony in the black armor started clenching its teeth in anger. "That is why I need to get the Elements of Harmony residing inside you and Summershine to get my friends back! And if that means that I have to join up with someone like Arcana then so be it!"

There was clearly more going on than just that. At least that's what Star Twinkle figured was happening here. Whatever the reasons were though, he did not plan on giving up that easily and started getting back on his hooves again. "But before that, you and I need to become one again? Is that what you are saying? Why is that even necessary? I thought you were supposed to be the real Star Twinkle so wouldn't that mean that you would have the Elements of Harmony inside you, instead of me?"

The pony in the black armor stood battle-ready as well. "If I were gone for too long from Ponyville, Princess Celestia would have gotten suspicious and then tried to go after Arcana and me. The only reason for your existence was to make her think that Star Twinkle was still living peacefully in Ponyville. As for the Elements of Harmony, I'm not too sure myself why they manifested inside of you and not me. Maybe it has something to do with you spending time with Twilight and the others. That doesn't matter now because I will get them back!"

Star Twinkle was getting sick of being called a clone and all the other stuff that got thrown at him by now. He decided that the only way to stop all this was to just not lose this battle here so he continued the fight with the pony in the black armor to settle things.

Meanwhile...

Another pretty stressful and difficult battle was taking place inside the castle. Even though it was two against one, Arcana seemed to have no problem keeping up with both Twilight and Summershine at the same time. At the very moment, Twilight was shooting at the stallion but all he did in response was using a spell that turned the floor in front of him into a wall that absorbed the blast. As Arcana was occupied with that, Summershine teleported behind him to shoot at the stallion, only to miss because Arcana teleported away. Arcana then positioned himself a few meters away from the two only to snicker at their sad attempts to fight him.

"I can't believe we can't get a hit on him!" Twilight said in her frustration. "It's like he knows a counter to all of our spells."

Arcana chuckled in response. "That might be the case actually. But I am sure that ponies like you, who were born with a natural talent for magic, know how to deal with this easily, just like everything else in your life," he said mockingly.

"What do you mean with that?" Summershine replied.

The red-coated unicorn could only shake his head in response. "I'm just saying that you maybe should actually put some effort to archive something," he said before he looked over to Twilight. "I mean getting the title of a princess handed to you is speaking volumes about your efforts right now," he added with a grin on his face.

Needless to say, Twilight was not too happy to hear those words thrown at her. "You think I became a princess without deserving it?" She asked.

"Precisely," Arcana quickly responded.

This is what started to make Twilight angry. "Okay, that's enough!" She then said after clenching her teeth for a moment. Arcana enjoyed the anger in Twilight's voice and smiled smugly. "I don't care what you say or think about me but if you say that my title as a princess is undeserved then you are not offending only me but my friends as well!"

"Why is that?" Arcana smugly asked.

Twilight explained. "It's because it was thanks to them that I even got this far. All this time I helped them as much as they helped me. It all took plenty of hard work and it is thanks to our combined efforts that I was named the Princess of Friendship. So when you say that I don't deserve the title as a princess, you also mock them and their work that eventually led me to this point!" She said as she glared at Arcana with a serious expression on her face. Summershine looked over to Twilight and began smiling, seeing how the mare was not letting herself be discouraged by Arcana's words. It helped him to grab some courage as well.

However, Arcana did not seem impressed at all by that speech. "So you are saying that you becoming a princess, is partly thanks to your friends?" He asked.

"Yes!" Twilight replied.

It felt as if the tension in the room was rising, mainly because Arcana's smug smile was completely gone and threw a very serious expression towards the mare now. "Then let me ask you something..." he started with a serious tone in his voice before he started asking. "Where are their wings?"

Twilight was a little bit taken back by this question. "What?" Was all she asked in response.

"Where are their wings?" Arcana repeated. "Or in some cases, their horns? Where is their transformation into an Alicorn?" He kept asking before he pointed all around himself. "Where is their fancy castle? Or their royal status? As far as I am concerned only you got all of those things," he said while looking directly into her eyes demanding an answer to those questions. But the answer didn't come right away, prompting Arcana to continue. "It is strange that you claim to have earned all those things because of the help of your friends but somehow, only you got rewarded."

Twilight's confidence started to waver a little bit from hearing those words. She couldn't help but accept that it didn't seem fair.

Arcana continued, in fact, he was answering his own questions. "If I'm not mistaken, your destiny, your special talent, is magic, right? And it also happened that you were chosen by the Element of Magic. Oh! And don't let me forget that Princess Celestia herself was the one who further taught you. It was only a matter of time until she would decide to make the "most special pony" into a princess."

"I'm not the most special pony in Equestria!" Twilight replied.

"Please..." Arcana replied with a disgusted tone in his voice. "I hate ponies like you...ponies who don't even have to work for anything that they accomplish because destiny was just lucky for them. You being a prodigy in magic, being chosen by the Element of Magic, becoming the student of Princess Celestia, becoming a princess? All of those things were given to you on a silver plate by destiny. All it took was just some time to unfold."

"That is not..." Twilight replied with a shaking voice before she looked down at the ground with a frown on her face.

But Arcana was not done talking to the mare. "I bet there are ponies out there who would give their left hoof to be blessed with half of the things that you got. But no, there are ponies out there who try to make the best out of the things that they were given by destiny to become special...or something that they strive to be," he said before he looked at his own hoof. "Seeing someone who excels at everything in an instant for what you had to work hard for only makes you feel like a weakling, someone who is wasting his time and energy and ultimately, his life."

Twilight and Summershine could tell that Arcana was talking from experience judging from the anger in his face.

"So what do you do if you are in a position like that?" Arcana then asked. "Easy...you work hard. Harder than everyone else!" He then looked at his Cutie Mark, which was an open book. "My special talent was studying, learning from books, taking in information relatively quickly by just reading. But what I really was interested in was magic and spells. Of course, with my special talent, I managed to teach myself some spells even if the act of actually casting them was still a challenge. I spent every day teaching myself and practicing new spells because my goal was to become a Unicorn who was unmatched in terms of magic!" Arcana's facial expression became angrier just before he was about to continue telling this story. "But...I had a friend with the same goal and unlike me, he was blessed with a talent for magic."

As soon as he said that, his eyes were locked at Twilight and Summershine, who was also gifted with a talent for magic. Just another reason to detest them further.

"Every spell I invented, he already mastered it! Every time I was done mastering a spell after days or weeks of practice, he managed to do it in an instant! All because he was born with a talent for magic and I wasn't! And eventually, he reached his goal and became known for his talents in magic as the great Unicorn Sun Swirl."

Twilight immediately recognized that name. "Sun Swirl? The Sun Swirl?"

Summershine, however, did not know this name. "Who?" He asked confused.

The mare explained. "Sun Swirl was rumored to be a decedent to Star Swirl the Bearded and just like Arcana said, he was known to be one of the most talented Unicorns in Equestria," she said before she looked over to Arcana again, her face starting to look worried and confused. "But...that can't be!"

"What do you mean?" Summershine asked, not seeing what the problem was.

"Well...Sun Swirl lived hundreds of years ago. And Arcana claimed to be a friend of his?" Twilight said confused.

Summershine started to see the problem. Arcana was not looking as if he was joking though. He had a sinister smile on his face to return the confused stares of the two. For Summershine there were only two possibilities, the first one was that Arcana was just lying to them for whatever reason. The second one would indicate that Arcana is much older than he looks.

Arcana formed a grin on his face. He seemed to enjoy the confused looks on their faces. "Allow me to show you how far hard work and dedication can bring you and how it easily can outmatch gifted ponies like you."

A magic aura started to surround Arcana's horn, his face looked a lot more focused than before, indicating that he was a little bit more serious now. Summershine was not looking forward to dealing with a serious Arcana and just looked over to Twilight as if he wanted to warn her. It was already too late though. A magic light emerged from Arcana, his spell was done and Twilight looked in shock at what she saw. In front of Arcana were three more Arcana's, all of them looking exactly like him, perfect clones created from his magic.

"Just like back then..." Summershine commented, who was a little less surprised by this sight but not too excited about it either.

Arcana, however, was grinning. "Let's continue this little "fight" shall we? Let's see if you gifted ponies can keep up." He said confidently before he, and his clones, stood ready to continue the fight.

Meanwhile...

Both Star Twinkle's continued their fight only a few rooms away. Exhaustion was making its way to Star Twinkle who was having trouble keeping up with the pony in the black armor. On the upside though, the Star Twinkle in the black armor seemed to start panting as well. Star Twinkle started to stop thinking about all this clone talk and just straight out accepted it as truth. Right now, it didn't even matter considering he had to fight against someone of equal strength. He simply didn't have time for it now. But the Star Twinkle in the black armor was not letting up and was bent to go on with his plan to become one again. This begged the question of why they were fighting to begin with.

"Let's assume we become one again for one moment..." Star Twinkle said, hoping to put a hold on this fight, if just for a moment. "What then? You get rid of me and obtain the Elements of Harmony and then?"

"I will go and get the other half as well...the one residing inside Summershine," the pony in the black armor replied before he looked to the left, where the Throne room was most likely located. "But I guess Arcana will be taking care of that, which means I have to deal with him instead..."

"But that is what we are all doing right now!" Star Twinkle exclaimed. "Then why are we fighting against each other if we have the same goals! We should work together with Summershine to defeat Arcana and then figure out something!"

"No!" The pony in the black armor shouted back. "Summershine can not be trusted! Not while he is still inside him!"

"He?" Star Twinkle replied confused.

"He ran away and as it turns out, he does not have an interest in getting our friends back! I have to take things in my hooves! I have to do it alone! I can't trust anyone else!" The pony in the black armor explained.

Hearing words like these only made Star Twinkle feel bad. The worst thing about it was that he could hear himself in this pony, which, ironically was him. Summershine was supposed to be his friend but all he could hear was how this pony in front of him wanted to "take care" of things on his own. Would Star Twinkle have done the same things if he was in this situation? A weird question considering that the pony in the black armor was Star Twinkle. This pony got lost and was confused just like how he used to feel. Being around Arcana probably didn't help out either.

The pony in the black armor was determined to go through with his plan though. "I am the original so once we become one again, I will take control and make sure to set things right," he explained.

Star Twinkle was not happy to hear that. "And what happens to the other?" He asked.

"Gone..." Star Twinkle got as a reply. "We used to be one after all. And becoming one again will be one step to return everything the way it was supposed to be!"

The stakes just got a lot higher. Star Twinkle couldn't help but get scared by the thought of vanishing just like that. He stood ready to continue the fight. Both of them were in their unicorn form but they were also really exhausted already. This battle was not meant to go on any longer and they both knew it. They decided to go for one last charge to end it.

Both of them started running at each other. Time felt as if it was slowing down. Many thoughts were crossing Star Twinkle's mind. "Will I vanish? Why? Is that gonna make everything better? If he...the real Star Twinkle takes control...will things be for the better for everyone? For the friends that I can't remember? Will the friends that I made now be okay with it? Am I even okay with this? Do I even have a chance? I'm a clone after all..." The pony in the black armor was charging at Star Twinkle but if felt as if he was running in slow motion. This pony's eyes were filled with determination while Star Twinkle's were filled with regret, confusion, and sadness. "Would I have done things the same way? Would I have really joined Arcana and then try to do things on my own?" Star Twinkle started feeling sad. Just looking at the pony in the black armor made him realize that he was absolutely serious. "Yes...I would...but not anymore! I know better now. There are things that you can't do on your own no matter how hard you try...and this pony...I...have not realized that yet."

Both Star Twinkle's focused their magic and ran horn first at each other. Once they clashed against each other a magic explosion caught both of them, filling the whole room in a bright light. "I will bring them back. Things are gonna be the way they used to be..." The pony in the black armor said just moments before he was surrounded by the light completely.

Pictures from the past...

The day when Star Twinkle first visited Ponyville all these years back...
A younger Star Twinkle, together with his friends, was looking at the sky with smiles on their faces...
The Running of the Leaves Race that he participated in with Summershine...
The fire in Ponyville...
Some pictures of events that happened in the Castle of the Two Sisters...
...
Then, the last pictures turned into that time where he met Twilight and faced of against Nightmare Moon...
The night of his first Grand Galloping Galla...
The day everyone was celebrating his birthday and where he got his Cutie Mark...
The moment where he watched how Twilight was crowned as a Princess...

Memories from both Star Twinkle's started to mix up. They started to become one, formed one being again. No clone and no original anymore. Was it for the better or worse though? And what is this one pony gonna do once it was complete again?

Meanwhile...

As the battle between the two Star Twinkle's concluded. The battle between Twilight, Summershine, and Arcana and his clones was still ongoing. As if fighting one Arcana wasn't bad enough now Twilight and Summershine had to deal with four of them and it felt as if all of them were equally as hard to fight against. Obviously, they were outnumbered Arcana's magic knowledge was also Superior to theirs. Suddenly, Arcana claiming to be a rival of Sun Swirl, one of them greatest Unicorns in history, was no longer that unbelievable. It was also bad news since Twilight and Summershine still had to help Star Twinkle who was fighting right now as well. And it wasn't even as if Twilight or Summershine were doing bad or not good when it came to working together, Arcana was simply overpowering and outnumbering them. One shot of magic was countered by two, one blocked shot meant another attack coming from another side. Eventually, the battle came to a hold with one side being heavily exhausted while another was just grinning and enjoying every second of this "fight".

"So...are continuing this dance or do you just surrender to let us all save some time?"One of the Arcana's said smugly. Summershine was getting really frustrated that he was getting mocked like that but unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to slap that grin away from Arcana's face. "Something does not add up though..." Arcana said as he looked over to the Orange colored Pony. "Is it just me or did you get weaker since the last time we met? Why are you not using this fire magic like before?" He wondered.

Summershine clenched his teeth angrily. Twilight couldn't help but wonder as well why Summershine was holding back on that. In fact, Summershine managed to hold of her and all six of her friends at once back then. He did not use his fire spell once though during this fight.

"I assume you only use this spell if you mean to harm other ponies or plan to destroy stuff?" Arcana said mockingly.

Those words seemed to have struck hard, given how Summershine was looking with a face filled with regret.

But Twilight was not taking it too lightly that Arcana was saying those words. "I don't think you are in the position to say things like that!" She said, in order to defend Summershine.

"Things like what? The truth?" Arcana replied.

Twilight stepped up for the Unicorn next to her. "Even though he attacked Star Twinkle a while back here in Ponyville, I don't think that Summershine is a bad pony. Something inside me is just telling me that! And I have a feeling that there must be some reason why he did those things," she said, again, defending Summershine, something that he appreciated dearly.

"Whether it was willingly or not does not really change what he has done," Arcana countered. "I mean think about it, Star Twinkle, his so called best friend decided to oppose him as well. I remember, the reason why Star Twinkle decided to team up with me was because he saw Summershine attacking a peacefully village, if I remember correctly. It was after that when Star Twinkle decided to do something himself. After all, he could no longer trust his best friend."

For a moment, Twilight thought Arcana was just making up things but one glance over to Summershine was enough to disprove that. Summershine slowly lowered his head in regret. It was as if he was just reminded of some painful memories which he liked to forget. Seeing the Summershine in regret, however, was proof enough that there must have been some reasons for those things to happen, just like his attack on Star Twinkle. It was just the missing context that Twilight lacked so far in order to understand.

"That was...I didn't mean..." Summershine said in a shaking voice.

It was at this moment, where Arcana saw his chance to attack. While Summershine's head was lowered and distracted by the things that Arcana mentioned, and Twilight looking at him in concern, not paying attention, Arcana shot Summershine with a magic beam right on. The orange-coated pony fell backward and landed on his back with a pain-filled expression on his face. Twilight could just watch seeing him knocked away like that. She immediately tried to rush towards him but three Arcana's jumped in front of her to block her path.

While Twilight was blocked off by those three Arcanas, the fourth one, presumable the original one, was walking slowly towards Summershine, who was still laying on the ground in pain. "Now...let me finally take what I came here for," Arcana said before he used his magic to lift up Summershine in the air. As soon as Twilight noticed what was happening, she tried to come to Summershine's rescue but the other three Arcana's were there to prevent exactly that. "Right about now the battle between Star Twinkle and his clone should be over. Which means after taking your half of the elements, all I have to do is take Star Twinkle's half." Arcana said with a grin on his face. His words were a clear proof that he never intended to fully work with Star Twinkle in the first place and planned to betray him. "Should not be too much trouble after I got your half to make myself stronger. And then...I am one step closer to becoming the most powerful Unicorn in Equestria!"

Summershine tried to free himself from Arcana's magic but he was too weak, there was nothing he could do to defend himself while Arcana took the elements inside Summershine away and Arcana enjoyed every second of this moment and smiled victoriously. Twilight desperately tried to go between them but Arcana's clones were watching her closely, there was nothing she could do to save Summershine in time.

But then...slowly, Arcana's expression changed from happy to confused and then angry. The stallion levitated Summershine closer to his face and stared furiously into his eyes.

"Where are they?!" He exclaimed.

But Summershine was not sure why there was such a sudden change in Arcana's mood. "What?" Is all he could reply.

Arcana clenched his teeth angrily. "The elements! There are gone! What have you done with them?!" He shouted into Summershine's face, much to his confusion. Still, Summershine was not sure what this was about.

Then, faintly, steps could be heard. Someone slowly walked towards the throne room. All eyes were on the doorway, to see who was approaching them. Arcana began to smile again and Twilight looked in shock as soon as they saw who it was. Of course, there were only two other ponies in the castle right now and just as Arcana predicted, the battle between both Star Twinkles was done and only one of them was left.

It was Star Twinkle...wearing black armor...

Twilight's jaw dropped in shock. "No..." she said in a shaking voice.

Arcana began to calm down as soon as he remembered how one part of his plan was still working out the way he expected. "Looks like your battle is over...and of course...there was no way that a clone was gonna defeat the original."

Star Twinkle looked over to Summershine who laid on the ground and was still in pain. Shortly after, without hesitation, a horn started appearing on Star Twinkle's head and he began to shoot at Arcana, forcing him to dodge by teleporting out of the way. Arcana had a good guess what was happening here and was not too surprised. "As expected...you are betraying me? Are you?"

Twilight took advantage of this confusion and teleported right next to Summershine to see if he was okay. Moments later though, Star Twinkle was standing in front of the two, looking at them with a hard to judge expression on his face. Twilight could only look at him confused. Star Twinkle looked over to Arcana and then walked in front of Twilight and Summershine, a clear gesture that he was about to fight alongside them.

Arcana tried to comprehend what is happening right now. Why would Star Twinkle, who swore that he would take care of Summershine, attempt to protect him now? He might consider Arcana a bigger threat though and wanted to deal with him first and considering how Twilight and Summershine both had problems dealing with Arcana, Star Twinkle most likely saw a bigger chance to win against Arcana if he teamed up with them.

But then Star Twinkle said something that confused everyone in the room.

"I take care of him alone," he said without a single hint of doubt in his voice.

Naturally, Arcana raised his eyebrows in confusion. "What did you just say?" He said with an offended tone in his voice. He couldn't even begin to understand what Star Twinkle just said.

Twilight immediately disagreed with this idea. "No! We fight him together. Summershine and I could barely keep up with him so there is no way that you..." she said without thinking before stopping in mid-sentence. Of course, she didn't want to talk down on Star Twinkle but he was not stupid and was well aware that Twilight was leagues above him when it came to magic. All the more surprising why Star Twinkle wanted to go alone.

By now, Summershine managed to get up on his hooves again, if only slowly and accompanied with some pain though. "Listen, if we all work together, then maybe we can win this," he said, even though his panting in the middle of the sentence made him not sound too convincing. "There is no way he can keep this up for much-"

"I remember now," Star Twinkle interrupted. Summershine's face was colored in surprise after hearing that and he looked over to Star Twinkle, who didn't turn around as he continued explaining. "I remember my friends...Happytrade, Crash, Brilliance, Nightsky, and Lightbeam. I remember how we all grew up in Ponyville, how we saw the Sonic Rainboom, I remember us getting into a fight in the Running of the Leaves Race," he said with a smile on his face which then turned into a frown shortly after. "I also remember Ashgray, the fire in Ponyville, and I am well aware of what you did Summershine."

For Arcana, this was all interesting to listen to. "You remember now?" He pointed out. " But you knew all these things, to begin with, didn't you? Unless...the one who is in control...is the clone?" He concluded.

Star Twinkle glared at Arcana. "As far as I'm concerned, both of us were real, like two sides of a coin. But now were are one again."

Arcana chuckled in response. "And what now? You plan on taking revenge on me for splitting you into two? If I remember correctly, you came to ask me for help, meaning you are to blame for this whole mess," he said with a grin on his face.

Star Twinkle looked down in regret. "I know," he replied, fully aware of this. "And no, this isn't about revenge," he said before he started taking of his black armor bit by bit. "I'm going up against you because I want to protect my friends and..."

As the last piece of his armor then came off both Twilight and Summershine were stunned by what they saw. "Star Twinkle you're a..."

The stallion then stood ready to fight against Arcana and readied his horn with magic. "...because I am the only one who can defeat you now!" He said before he spread the wings on his back as well, revealing himself to Arcana as an Alicorn.

Arcana was understandably confused by this sight for a moment but it didn't take long until he began laughing again. "Really? I already dealt with one Alicorn and a Unicorn which were both born with a gift for magic," he boasted. "And let's not forget, I still have an advantage when it comes to numbers," he added before the other three Arcana clones appeared behind him as well, all of them having the same evil grin on them.

Summershine couldn't help but think that this was still a bad idea but Star Twinkle looked not one bit worried for some reason. Star Twinkle was also not someone who would take unnecessary risks so for him claiming that he could beat Arcana came as a big shock. Obviously, the wings and horn on Star Twinkle were already a big enough surprise but Summershine's attention was drawn towards his Cutie Mark, which also seemed to have changed from a white star to a star which was filled with the colors of a rainbow (From up to down: red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue, and purple).

No one really knew what was going on or why Star Twinkle was so confident all of a sudden but Twilight and Summershine decided to wait and see how things would play out. And for now, that meant waiting for Star Twinkle battling Arcana on his own.

"I hope you realize that you are just making it easier for me to get my hooves on the Elements of Harmony, do you?" Arcana said before he started focusing his magic and grinned as if he already won the battle.

But Star Twinkle wasn't saying anything and kept looking at Arcana with an almost confident determination to win this battle. The stallion spread his wings and focused magic in his horn as well before taking a battle ready stance. The battle was about to begin and sooner or later everyone would find out if Star Twinkle could back up his words of defeating Arcana alone or not...

To be continued...

117. The Other Half - Part 3

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Twilight's castle...

Two fierce battles were unfolding inside the castle of Equestria's newest princess. In the throne room, the princess of Friendship herself was working together with Summershine to fight off Arcana, an intruder who wants to take the Elements of Harmony that reside inside both Star Twinkle and Summershine. And only a few rooms away, a battle between Star Twinkle and the pony in the black armor was taking place, who revealed himself as the real Star Twinkle while the Star Twinkle that lived in Ponyville was just a clone. One was a battle of strength and the other a battle of emotion and will.

The latter one was about to end with one last charge from both Star Twinkles. Both of them were in their Unicorn form and ran towards each other with magic emitting from their horns. Once they clashed, a light started to fill the whole room with both of the Star Twinkles in the center of it.

...

Memories started flowing into Star Twinkle. He found himself in the middle of what looked like an endless place where everywhere he looked at, all he could see was just the color white. "Where am I?" He asked, hoping that someone would miraculously answer.

"Your memories," someone actually replied. It was the Star Twinkle in the black armor who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

Star Twinkle looked over to the pony. "My memories?" He asked confused. "But...there is nothing!" He pointed out.

"Exactly..." the pony in the black armor replied. "A perfect replication of your memories. Just like how you are a replication of me."

Hearing those words no longer made Star Twinkle angry or frustrated. He looked over to the pony in the black armor. He looked exactly like him, down to the last hair. It was as if he was looking at a mirror. He saw the serious expression that he looked at so many times in his past while looking at his own reflection.

Star Twinkle let out a defeated sigh. "I really am just a clone, am I?" He asked.

The pony in the black armor started to show a little sympathy for Star Twinkle. "Does that make you sad?" He asked. "Does it make you sad knowing that your whole existence was just to be a substitute or that you were meant to return to me anyway? Are you frustrated that the time you spent with your friends in Ponyville was less important because you were a clone?"

After hearing those words, Star Twinkle lowered his eyebrows. "Huh..." he said, much to the pony in the black armor's confusion.

"Huh?" He quoted confused.

"Now that you said all those things..." Star Twinkle said as he began to come to a realization. "I don't think I am sad about any of those things...which is weird because those are the exact things I was worried about. But as soon as you said it I came to realize that there is no reason to be afraid."

The pony in the black armor was confused to hear that. "So you accept to become one again? I told you before that I will be in control since I am the original, and I intend to go on with my plan to take the Elements of Harmony from Summershine to get my friends back."

But Star Twinkle was not too sure about that. "And I think you will not do something like that." He said confidentially.

"What makes you so sure about that?" The pony in the black armor replied curiously.

Star Twinkle explained. "We are gonna become one again, that means that our memories will become one as well. Even though this place is completely white I do have memories of my own too. They might not be the same as yours but they are still there," Star Twinkle assured.

"So I get your memories and then what?" The pony in the black armor asked. "I have my mind set and your memories will not make a difference. It's my memories that are important after all."

Just as the pony in the black armor said those words, Ponyville started appearing behind him followed by his friends, Summershine, Crash, Brilliance, Happytrade, Lightbeam, and Nightsky appearing next to him.

It was the first time that Star Twinkle could have a good look at the ponies who were supposed to be his closest friends. He wished that he could remember them and his past with them but there was sadly nothing. It made him sad but still, he also had the memories that he made while living in Ponyville.

"Wrong..." Star Twinkle returned. "If we become one, it's not only your memories that matter...but mine too!" He said.

Followed by his words, another version of Ponyville appeared behind him. It looked exactly the same with the only difference being the ponies appearing next to him. They were Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash.

The groups of ponies were facing each other like mirror images. Two memories right next to each other, so different but so similar at the same time. "If we become one so will our memories...and our experiences..." Star Twinkle said with a smile on his face. "You see? That's why I am no longer afraid or worried."

"No," the pony in the black armor replied. "I'm afraid I don't understand. Do you think that you will be the one in control after our merge?" He asked.

Star Twinkle shook his head and explained. "I will learn to understand how you feel and you will know how I do and the pony that will emerge with all these memories knows what to do next."

"Pretty confident thinking." The pony in the black armor returned. "So you are betting that it will go that way? I assure you that I, as the original, will still maintain control and do things my way, no matter if I happen to get your memories."

But Star Twinkle smiled back at the pony. "And I assure you that once you have my memories, you will understand why I am so confident," he said.

"Only one way to find out," the pony in the black armor said before he closed his eyes. The ponies beside him started vanishing and turned into dust of magic which then flew right into the stallion. The same happened with all of Ponyville behind him. They were his memories and they started flowing right back inside of him.

The same thing happened on Star Twinkle's side once he closed his eyes. Everyone and everything around him vanished and went into him. There was only Star Twinkle and the pony in the black armor left. They both opened their eyes and took a few steps forward and looked at each other before reaching their hooves out. As soon as their hooves connected, they too started to vanish and what was left was a completely white space.

But then slowly, Ponyville started appearing again. All the ponies that lived there started to form in this little town who went to do their usual things like working, playing, napping, eating, and many other things. Among those ponies were also Star Twinkle's friends. Summershine could be seen delivering some packages to the ponies in town, Brilliance could be seen walking through town while reading a book that she levitated in front of her face. She accidentally walked into Crash who just laughed it off. Happytrade was setting up a market stand at her usual spot. Lightbeam was flying through the air where she was looking for her brother Nightsky who she found napping on a cloud. Moments later, Rainbow Dash could be seen flying through the air practicing some air maneuvers. Fluttershy could be seen buying some carrots with Angel on top of her head pressuring her to buy them. Meanwhile, Applejack was walking past her pulling a wagon filled with apples behind her. Unbeknownst to her, Pinkie Pie was sitting inside the wagon munching some apples. Then there was Rarity who seemed to have bought some accessories for her dresses which Spike carried for her. Twilight then walked up to Summershine and he gave her a package that he had to deliver to her. It was then that Twilight turned towards someone.

Star Twinkle walked up to the two of them and slowly all of his friends started appearing next to the two, all of them looking at him with smiles on their faces. As Star Twinkle walked up to them, his blank flank turned into one having six stars on it, in the colors of orange, purple, light blue, dark blue, yellow, and red. It then turned into one big white star which moments later was filled with the colors of a rainbow. The colors inside of it from up to down were: red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue, and purple. The stallion smiled and joined the twelve ponies in front of him before everything went white again.

Moments later, in the throne room of Twilight's castle...

Star Twinkle stood in the middle of the room face to face with Arcana who was backed up with his three clones. Summershine and Twilight were standing behind Star Twinkle who, with newfound confidence, and equipped with a horn and wings, claimed to fight Arcana on his own. Twilight could still not believe what she was seeing, Star Twinkle had a horn and wings at the same time, making him into an Alicorn now.

And while Arcana was still a little confused about Star Twinkle's actions and appearance, he still did not feel threatened. In fact, he felt as if Star Twinkle was joking right now.

"So...in case I just misheard you...you just said you wanted to fight me on your own?" He asked mockingly.

"Yes. I will defeat you on my own," Star Twinkle claimed once more.

It was as if those words echoed through the room for a moment. But again, Arcana was not threatened, in fact, he started to laugh until tears started coming out of his eyes. "I don't know how you became an Alicorn but it clearly made you turn into a better comedian!" He said before he wiped away his tears. He then looked at the stallion with a mocking expression on his face. "The princess of friendship, the Element of Magic herself, and Summershine couldn't beat me! And you, Star Twinkle, think you can even hold a candle to me?" He asked before he started laughing at Star Twinkle again loudly.

Having to listen to the sound of Arcana's laughter was something that Twilight and Summershine were not too happy about. Despite that though, Star Twinkle's expression did not change and he kept looking at Arcana with determination.

Eventually, Arcana noticed the unchanged expression on Star Twinkle's face and how he was not joking. He actually believed that he could beat Arcana which caused the unicorn to stop laughing. Star Twinkle was standing there in full belief that he could beat Arcana and knowing that made him really angry. He started to clench his teeth in anger and narrowed his eyebrows. "DON'T MOCK ME!" He shouted before he shot a magic blast at Star Twinkle out of nowhere to rub that determined expression off of his face.

Star Twinkle narrowed his eyes and was ready to counter. He shot a white magic beam towards Arcana's and both beams collided. Star Twinkle managed to not only stop it but after a few seconds, the beam managed to easily overpower Arcana's. As soon as Arcana noticed what was happening, he teleported away before he got hit by Star Twinkle's beam. Unfortunately, for him though, one of his clones was not too fast to get out of the way and got hit directly, sending him on the floor and knocking him out. A few moments later, Arcana appeared again and looked over to his knocked-out clone before looking back at Star Twinkle once more. "Excuse me?" He said in disbelieve.

Twilight's jaw dropped as soon as she saw what happened in front of her eyes. Star Twinkle managed to overpower Arcana's shot just like that. Summershine was also at a loss for words and didn't know what to say at this moment. Both of them decided to wait for how things would continue to play out.

By now even Arcana was taking things seriously. He didn't know how Star Twinkle got so much stronger all of a sudden but he decided to no longer take this situation lightly. Arcana and his two remaining clone's horns started glowing and all three of them started shooting at Star Twinkle. He could not block all of these shots at the same time after all. Star Twinkle was forced to dodge the shots and while he was busy focusing on the shots, one of the clones started shooting the ceiling, causing some rubble to fall towards Star Twinkle. The shots were only meant to distract him so that Arcana could blindside him like this.

Star Twinkle quickly took notice of what was happening and looked upwards. Of course, the other two Arcana's were not stopping with their magic beam assault so he had to focus on that as well. In response, Star Twinkle breathed out for a moment before he raised his head and a white magic barrier started appearing around him, protecting him from the shots and the rubble that fell on him.

Arcana couldn't believe that Star Twinkle managed to avoid this. His focus shifted on the barrier around him and he started to think but seeing Star Twinkle's serious expression again as soon as the barrier was gone made him angry again. A little stare-off happened with Star Twinkle looking focused and serious and Arcana being angry.

Shortly after, Arcana, as well as his two clones teleported away, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. He looked all around the room to find them but then he suddenly noticed that he could not move. One of the Arcanas was behind him and used his magic holding him in place with his magic. The other two Arcana's appeared from Star Twinkle's left and right, both of them charging towards him with magic in their horns. They attempted to attack from both sides at close range so that he could not block his attacks all while being frozen by Arcana's magic.

In response, Star Twinkle clenched his teeth and white light started to come from his body which then transformed into a shockwave that pushed back all three of his attackers at once. But while being pushed back, Arcana showed some of his determination and went in right away again. He shot at the ground and transformed it into a swamp which slowly managed to drag Star Twinkle down a little. This is when he decided to make use of his wings and flew up to avoid them. Another Arcana used his magic to summon some vines from inside the swamp to catch Star Twinkle with it but the Alicorn managed to dodge all of the vines that tried to grab him.

The third Arcana then shot towards the ceiling some more to make more rubble rain down on Star Twinkle. It became harder to dodge all of these things so he figured that he had to do one thing and that was to take care of one of the Arcana's and reduce their numbers. Star Twinkle started flying towards the one that shot at the ceiling and focused his magic. That Arcana stood ready to teleport himself away but he was caught off guard as soon as Star Twinkle disappeared.

"What?!" Arcana said before he was blasted by a magic beam coming from behind which managed to knock him out.

The other two Arcana's appeared next to each other and saw how one more clone was knocked out, reducing their numbers to two now. Both of them started to look really mad now and continued to put more pressure on Star Twinkle.

One of them used his magic to make the walls of the castle come closer towards Star Twinkle in order to crush him. Star Twinkle decided to fly forwards to escape these walls but one of the Arcanas was teleporting himself right in front of the stallion and held him with his body. All while the other Arcana was standing back watching it in the back with a smile on his face.

Then, the walls closed with both of the stallions between them. Rightfully, Summershine and Twilight gasped in shock. Not only did Star Twinkle get crushed but Arcana just sacrificed one of his clones to take care of Star Twinkle. A pretty despicable act. But then Summershine's and Twilight's reaction turned into a more relieved one, much to Arcana's confusion. But he already knew why they reacted like that and turned around. He saw Star Twinkle flying in the air behind him. Arcana looked back at the walls which started to go back to their original positions again. In between was his clone, who managed to put a magic shield around him but still got hurt by the pressure of the walls and collapsed to the ground. But Arcana was not showing a single sign of regret or any emotion towards that clone and looked back to Star Twinkle again.

"You are just willing to treat your clones like that?" Star Twinkle asked, feeling pretty disgusted by this.

Arcana smiled in response. "Of course, they are clones after all. They are created to serve a purpose and then vanish again. You were split into a clone before too, you should know that," he explained. But Star Twinkle just kept looking at Arcana with an angry expression on his face. The red-coated stallion felt almost relieved to actually get a reaction out of the stallion. "I'm beginning to understand why you got so much stronger. It's obvious that you can thank the Elements of Harmony inside your body for that...but also your reunion with your clone."

The unicorn then focused some magic in his horn and all of his knocked-out clones started glowing. "Splitting into a clone will half your whole being...that includes your strength, and your magic too," he said before the three clones started disappearing and all that was left was Arcana, the original one.

Summershine took notice of what the unicorn said and he concluded that by Arcana splitting into four, his strength and magic must have been split into four as well. And now with his clones gone, he most likely returned to his true strength. With his original strength returning him, Arcana was all the more serious to continue this fight now.

It was one against one and Arcana planned to not take any chances anymore. He stood ready to finish things and so did Star Twinkle. They were facing each other focusing on their opponent's movements like two cowboys at high noon. Arcana knew that Star Twinkle is gonna wait until he made a move first so that he could respond to it. The unicorn focused his magic and Star Twinkle stood ready for whatever would come next. But Arcana tried to be subtle so that Star Twinkle would not know how to react.

Then Star Twinkle choose a change of tactic and flew right at Arcana. However, the Unicorn began to smile and prepared himself for a counterattack. "I know what you are trying," he said with a smile on his face. Star Twinkle then disappeared and Arcana immediately turned around. "There you are!" He then shouted before he turned around and fired a magic blast at Star Twinkle who was now right behind Arcana. The Unicorn saw through Star Twinkle's attempt to teleport right behind him and reacted before he could attack. But something caught Arcana off guard. Star Twinkle was gone in an instant. It was almost as if it was an afterimage that he hit just now. Soon, Star Twinkle appeared a few meters away from Arcana causing the Unicorn to fire at him once more. And again, Star Twinkle disappeared.

"What!?" Arcana said in shock before he fired at Star Twinkle some more, each time with the same result. Soon, he figured out what exactly was happening and he didn't like it one bit. "He is not teleporting..." he figured as he watched Star Twinkle closely each time he managed to dodge away in time. His horn was not glowing. He was not using magic. "He...is moving this fast?" Arcana realized.

Star Twinkle then came from the side and charged at Arcana but the Unicorn turned towards him and teleported away in time, causing Star Twinkle to hit the breaks in his charge, making him stop. Arcana appeared a few meters away from the stallion and smiled. "That's what's going on..." he said in his realization. "Now your appearance makes a lot more sense...combine that with the Elements of Harmony inside you..." he mumbled under his breath as he rubbed his chin. "I guess that is as far as I can go then..." he realized before he grinned at the stallion, much to Star Twinkle's confusion. "But don't think that will not go out with a bang!"

Arcana then charged what seems to be all of his magic in his horn. He was ready to unleash a magic beam unlike any other. Twilight could feel the amount of magic flowing through the air and it got her worried immensely. "He had that much magic at his disposal?!" She said in shock. And rightfully so. The ground began to shake and Arcana was practically radiating magic at this point. There was a huge blast coming towards them.

Despite all that though, Star Twinkle did not seem as worried as he should be in this situation. He stood ready and focused his magic as well. The stallion's body started to glow in a white aura. It looked a lot more calmer on Star Twinkle's side but for some reason, Twilight and Summershine could feel a great amount of magic as well, just a different kind of it.

It was unclear if Arcana could feel the amount of magic coming from Star Twinkle, given that he was focusing a lot of magic at the same time, which is why he was not worried at all. Then, with all of his might Arcana aimed and fired. "TAKE THIS!" He shouted before he fired a huge blast at the stallion.

The blast completely ruined the ground it traveled through and made the whole room shake violently. It didn't take long until Star Twinkle shot as well and a slightly smaller beam was heading towards Arcana. The two beams collided just like back before their battle began, this time there was more of a struggle. The collision between the two beams created shock waves that made it hard for Twilight and Summershine to keep their balance. It must have been even worse for Star Twinkle.

Arcana began to grin after realizing that Star Twinkle kept struggling to keep the magic beam at bay and finally saw his victory approaching. But Star Twinkle was not giving up yet and focused more on his magic. It was surprising how this smaller beam managed to hold back the huge beam from Arcana already. Star Twinkle clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes until he let out a shout. What followed was his beam getting bigger and stronger, strong enough to fight off Arcana's magic. The unicorn was shocked to see how he got overpowered and before he could react properly, he was blasted away by the white beam and got knocked into the wall behind him. The stallion let out a pain-filled scream before he then dropped to the ground, defeated.

Twilight and Summershine couldn't believe it. Arcana was laying on the ground motionless after getting hit by Star Twinkle's magic directly. "He did it," Summershine commented in surprise and shock.

When the battle finished, Star Twinkle stood there taking a deep breath. Twilight slowly walked up to him, not sure how to act towards him considering that not only was an Alicorn now but this Star Twinkle could also be different because of his merge with the pony in the black armor. Just when she was about to say something, Star Twinkle took another breath, and both his wings and his horn vanished again, making him turn back into an Earth Pony again. For a moment there, Twilight was a little disappointed because she thought Star Twinkle was a permanent Alicorn just like her but then she realized that it was just a transformation like many times before.

When Summershine saw him turning back into an Earth Pony, he figured that it was his Terra Unisus transformation. But unlike before, where he could transform either into a Unicorn or a Pegasus, for some reason he was able to transform into an Alicorn. He put one and one together and thought that his separation into two Star Twinkles was the cause of not being able to transform into an Alicorn like it was supposed to be. Judging from what Arcana said, when someone is divided like in Star Twinkle's case, then their strength and magic was cut in half, making it impossible to access the full power of the transformation, which then resulted in Star Twinkle only growing a horn or wings separately.

Star Twinkle noticed how Twilight walked over to him and looked at her. Twilight immediately wanted to find out one thing. "So...are you...our Star Twinkle or...?" She asked, not being too sure how to put the question. She was worried nonetheless.

A smile then formed on the stallion's face, removing some of Twilight's worries. "It's kinda weird to explain but deep inside I feel as if...I'm still the same pony since the day we met. Just with more memories," he explained with a grin on his face.

Hearing that made Twilight grin in response. It was a little short-lived though because she noticed how Arcana was slowly trying to get up. Weirdly, he had a smile on his face. "Not much of a surprise that I lost..." he mumbled as he slowly got up with his legs shaking heavily. He looked over to the three ponies in front of him. Then, magic started to leave his body, something that he did not seem to be bothered about. "I guess I got too impatient, which ended up ruining my plan. That's what you get for putting just a little bit of trust in others. Guess I am the only one to blame for my failure," he admitted. Surprisingly, he did not seem too mad or even disappointed. This worried Star Twinkle and the others and they felt as if this battle was not over yet. Arcana then smiled at the three ponies almost victoriously. "This is not over though. I will become the most powerful unicorn in Equestria... it's only a matter of time..."

And with those words, and a confident smile on his face, the stallion vanished into thin air and all that remained was magic particles in the room, which eventually vanished as well, leaving only Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Summershine in the room.

Meanwhile...

Unbeknownst to what was going on inside the castle, Applejack was still fighting off that visitor who was messing up things on her farm. The pony who was messing up things for her was Happytrade, or, if what the real Star Twinkle said before, a clone made out of his memories of her. She kept making a mess of the place by knocking off barrels filled with apples or just straight out smashing apples. All while Applejack chased her across the whole orchard.

"Listen, I don't know what your beef is with me or my farm but I won't let anyone get away after messing up my-"

But in the middle of the sentence, Happytrade stopped and looked in surprise. Magic particles started flying away from her body and with a confused look on her face, the mare slowly vanished into thin air.

"What in the hay? Now she just vanishes on me?" Applejack said almost bothered by how she was not able to get payback for her ruined farm.

But just when the mare tried to start thinking about fixing everything on the farm again, Rainbow Dash came flying by at high speed. "Applejack!" She said before she landed in front of the mare. It was just then when the Pegasus pony noticed in what state the farm was. "Whoa! What happened here?" She asked.

Applejack explained. "Well, there was this mare that popped out of nowhere and started to mess everything up before then vanishing into thin air!" She said annoyed.

This sounded awfully familiar to Rainbow Dash. "Wait...did that pony literally vanish into thin air? As in disappearing on the spot?" She asked.

"...Yes? Why?" Applejack asked.

Rainbow Dash then explained that something similar happened to her as well. This stallion appeared out of nowhere and attacked her before then vanishing into literal thin air. The two mares concluded that those were not normal incidents that happened to them so they decided to go and visit Twilight. Rarity, Spike, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie had the same idea and went to the castle as well, causing all five of them to arrive there at the same time.

"What are you all doing here?" Fluttershy asked confused.

"Let me guess..." Rainbow Dash started. "Somepony appeared and either attacked or messed up things for you, and then vanished again?" She said.

"Messing things up things is quite an understatement!" Rarity said annoyed. "My whole boutique got ruined!" She exclaimed.

"I know, right!" Pinkie Pie added. "Although chasing that pony all over town was kind of fun!" She said with a grin on her face.

"So I assume we all came here for the same reason?" Applejack asked. "To see if Twilight knows anything about all of this?"

Everyone nodded in response. The fact that those ponies just disappeared into thin air definitely was not a normal thing so they figured that it may have something to do with magic. Their best bet was to ask Twilight if she knew what was going on. In the worst-case scenario, she was dealing with somepony inside the castle as well. As soon as everyone noticed that this could be the case, they quickly rushed inside the castle and headed to the throne room.

While basically kicking down the door, the six stood ready to help out with whatever problem Twilight was dealing with. "Don't worry Twilight! We'll help you!" Rainbow Dash said, ready to kick some butt.

But once Twilight noticed them marching into the room, she promptly asked them to be quiet, much to their confusion. Everyone looked towards the middle of the room. They saw Star Twinkle and Summershine facing each other. Of course, they had some questions regarding Star Twinkle's new Cutie Mark and Summershine being here but they decided to keep quiet because of Twilight's demand.

The two stallions looked at each other. There was no telling what was going on inside both of their heads right now and Twilight would lie if she said that she wasn't interested to find out how this meeting would unfold.

"You said you remembered?" Summershine finally said in order to break the silence between them.

"Yes," Star Twinkle replied.

"Everything?" Summershine asked.

"Everything," Star Twinkle replied. "Which is why we need to have a little talk now," he said as he walked up closer to Summershine who was visibly feeling a little uncomfortable by that point. "But before that..."

SMACK!

Star Twinkle used his right front hoof and punched Summershine right in the face, making him fall to the ground. Everyone was shocked and confused to see that and stood there with dropped jaws. Summershine also got surprised by this sudden punch and got up on his hooves again while rubbing his cheek.

"Hey! What was that for?!" He rightfully asked before glaring at the stallion in front of him.

"That was for thinking that you could do everything on your own!" Star Twinkle explained.

"I had to!" Summershine threw back. "Looking back at it, it was probably not the best way to do things but all I wanted was you to be safe. That's why I had to erase everyone's memories!" The stallion explained.

"And you thought that I would just be okay with all of that? That I would be happy to forget all my friends and live in Ponyville as if nothing happened?" Star Twinkle asked.

Summershine started to look a little bit more troubled. "I knew Arcana was still out there, trying to go after the Elements of Harmony and so was Ashgray. I wanted to deal with them and protect you."

"But all on your own? I could have helped you all along!" Star Twinkle responded.

"That's what I wanted to prevent!" Summershine replied. "You think I wanted to lose my last friend too?!"

"They were my friends too!" Star Twinkle exclaimed.

Hearing that seemed to have opened Summershine's eyes. He didn't know how to respond. As the others watched this argument, they almost wanted to step in to stop them from yelling at each other. But fortunately, after this last outburst, Star Twinkle seemed to be in a calmer state of mind again.

"I miss them too, Summershine. And I'm sure there is a way to get them back. But there is only so much one pony can do." The stallion looked at his own hooves with a frown on his face. "I wanted to take things in my own hooves as well and ended up joining up with Arcana. That was wrong, I got lost and thought I could fix things on my own..." the stallion walked past Summershine and towards the rest of his friends with a smile on his face. "Friends are there to help you when times are difficult, to take some of the load off from your back. They are there to support you the best they can and help you solve every problem. Friends...help and trust each other." The stallion then turned back to Summershine with a warm smile on his face. "And we are friends too...are we not?"

Summershine's face looked lost, sad, and filled with regret. He looked at Star Twinkle who was smiling at him. And even though, everyone else in the room didn't quite know what was happening, they still supported wholeheartedly what Star Twinkle said and smiled at the stallion as well.

It didn't take long until Summershine smiled too. "Some Element of Friendship I am..." he said as he looked at the ground with shame on his face. He could only hide his shame by smiling. "You're right...I should have not tried to take this all upon myself. It clearly did not work out."

"It still can," Star Twinkle said. "But this time we work together!"

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash added, finally breaking the silence of the group.

She was followed by Rarity. "I'm still unsure what exactly transpired here but I do know that a friend of Star Twinkle is a friend of ours," she explained.

"Yup!" Pinkie Pie said. "The more friends the better!"

Fluttershy also joined in. "You seem to have patched up things between you two so there is no reason why we shouldn't help out," she said.

Twilight walked up to Summershine. She fully agreed with everything that her friends said. Still, there was one thing that needed to be taken care of first. "Before that though, do you two mind filling the rest of us in as well? I'm sure there are some things that happened between you two and Arcana that we all should know first."

"Yes!" Applejack agreed on. "Like, who even is this Arcana you keep talking about?" She asked. Given how nopony besides Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Summershine saw Arcana, they had all the rights to know what was even going on in the castle.

Star Twinkle scratched his head. "Yeah, that sounds fair. There are quite some things that need to be explained."

Just after saying that, someone else started entering the room with some luggage behind her. It was Starlight Glimmer, who was ready to move into the castle. "Twilight, I brought my stuff! Where do you want me to put-" But she stopped mid-sentence as soon as she saw how filled this room was. "Did something happen?" She asked awkwardly.

"We don't know yet," Spike said.

A little later...

Now with everyone in one place, it was the perfect time to explain some things. Still, the battle with Arcana did leave the castle in quite some state so everyone worked together to fix up some things before Star Twinkle and Summershine would explain everything as best as they could.

"Where to even start..." Summershine said while rubbing his chin in confusion.

Just then, Pinkie Pie offered the stallion a cupcake. "Looks like somepony needs some brain food," she said happily. "I figured that this would be a long story so I prepared some snacks for everypony." It was then when Summershine started noticing how filled the table was with snacks and desserts. Spike even started munching some already.

"When did you prepare all that?" Summershine asked confused.

Pinkie Pie explained. "I always prepare some snack just in case someone is ready to drop a long story."

Summershine looked over to Star Twinkle confused but all he got in response was Star Twinkle shaking his head as if he wanted to say "Don't question it."

Everypony then sat down in their respective thrones, except the ones who didn't have any, which would be Star Twinkle, Summershine, and Starlight Glimmer. While everypony was fixing things, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Summershine already filled everyone in about what happened in the castle.

"So let me get this straight," Applejack started. "This pony named Arcana showed up in this castle and attacked you? And he was also the one who sent those pony after each of us?"

"And did you just say that Star Twinkle turned into an Alicorn?" Rainbow Dash added.

"And the pony in the black armor was here as well?" Fluttershy asked.

"Girls easy!" Twilight interrupted. "I know you all got questions, I have too but let Star Twinkle and Summershine explain everything to us," she said as she started getting comfortable in her throne.

Star Twinkle scratched his head after he realized that most eyes in the room were now focused on him. It made him feel a little bit awkward but it couldn't be helped. Everyone deserved to know the full details about some things in the past.

"Well, first of all...I guess you can pretty much forget most of the things that I told you about my past. You all know me as somepony who never experienced friendship before meeting you all. But that is not true...I did have friends in the past...really good friends in fact..."

Rainbow Dash had to interrupt. "And why did you never mention them before?"

Again Twilight asked of her to keep it down. "Let's all ask questions later, Rainbow Dash. We should listen to everything they have to say before that."

Star Twinkle was glad that Twilight was taking care of everyone like that. It certainly made it easier for him. And after everyone was quiet again, he continued. "As I said, I had really good friends in the past. I've met them all after my parents took me to Ponyville for the very first time when I was still a little colt. I've happened to meet them all on the same day, we all didn't really get along at first but after we all saw Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom in the sky, we all became inseparable."

Rainbow Dash grinned proudly after realizing how awesome she and her Sonic Rainboom was.

"It was also at this moment where I got my Cutie Mark," the stallion added, which prompted some ponies in the room to ask questions again. After all, they all saw how Star Twinkle got his Cutie Mark on his birthday not too long ago. They decided to stay quiet though. "It was then when my parents decided to stay a little while in Ponyville after they realized how I finally managed to find friends here. So much for my past, which brings us to the next thing," the stallion said as he looked over to Summershine.

"Right," Summershine replied, knowing what Star Twinkle was referring to. "I guess I'll start with the Elements of Harmony." He figured. "You see, when I was younger, I was in Princess Celestia's school for gifted Unicorns because of my gifted talent for magic. I must have left quite some impression on Princess Celestia because she was asking a pretty difficult task of me. She knew that the seal that would hold Nightmare Moon imprisoned in the moon would soon break so she decided to prepare for that. She wanted me to find the Elements of Harmony in the Castle of the Two Sisters and figure out how to use them in the unfortunate event when Nightmare Moon would return. With that task given to me, I decided to go to the castle along with my friends, the ponies that Star Twinkle mentioned. But once we found them, somepony appeared...somepony who wanted to steal them from us."

"Arcana," Twilight guessed.

Summershine nodded in response. "We managed to fight him off back then by activating the Elements of Harmony and returning them to their original form again. As it just so happened, I and my friends were chosen by them.
Happytrade represented the Element of Honesty,
Nightsky represented the Element of Loyalty,
Brilliance represented the Element of Generosity,
Crash represented the Element of Laughter,
Lightbeam represented the Element of Kindness,
and I represented the Element of Friendship."

And again, more questions popped up. Another group of ponies who were chosen by the Elements of Harmony before Twilight and her friends? It was almost exhausting how many questions were circling around the heads of some of the girls.

"I wasn't there when all of this happened," Star Twinkle added. "I must have been visiting my parents at that time," he figured.

"Yes," Summershine replied. "It was shortly before you visited and...everything else happened." He said before taking a brief moment to get to the next event in his past. "We had a friend...or at least we thought he was one."

Star Twinkle then took over. "His name was Ashgray. He was a unicorn pony who claimed to be an archaeologist and wanted to visit Ponyville to take a closer look at the Castle of the Two Sisters."

Summershine continued. "One day he told us that Princess Celestia was trapped inside the castle so my friends and I came to her rescue. She was trapped inside a spell and I was not able to free her by any normal means. That's when Ashgray suggested using the Elements of Harmony. And I was foolish enough to get the Elements of Harmony and played right into his hooves..." the stallion explained with regret in his voice.

"It was all part of his plan," Star Twinkle said. "He was most likely the one who trapped Princess Celestia in the first place and just wanted us to get the elements for him. When we returned to the castle, the rest of our friends were knocked out and Summershine got attacked as soon as we stepped into the castle with the elements."

Twilight was a little worried. "This Ashgray pony sounds strong if he managed to take you all on, not to mention Princess Celestia herself..." she said as she rubbed her chin.

"We managed to defeat him though," Summershine added. "Or at least we thought we did..."

Star Twinkle explained. "Summershine and the others managed to use the Elements of Harmony against Ashgray and turned him into stone, just like what we did with Discord. However, Ashgray did something to me at the last second. I'm not too sure myself but I think he managed to put his mind into my body so that he could control me. I didn't notice it right away but when I did, things started to get out of control and he took over my body completely..." Star Twinkle visibly looked uncomfortable as soon as he started saying those things.

Summershine seemed relieved to hear that. "I figured as much. When I saw you in Ponyville starting that fire, I knew that something was wrong. Not to mention that you had a horn and wings just like Ashgray in his Terra Unisus form."

This all sounded strangely familiar to Twilight. She remembered how, when she took a sip from Zecora's potion back then, she saw pictures of Star Twinkle as an Alicorn starting a fire in Ponyville. She was happy to hear that nothing of that seemed to have been Star Twinkle's fault and smiled.

Meanwhile, Summershine continued his explanation. "With Star Twinkle's body, Ashgray went after the rest of our friends and took away their Cutie Marks, and with it, their connection to the Elements of Harmony. He took them all for himself in the hope to be able to control the Elements of Harmony."

Hearing about someone removing Cutie Marks, made everyone quickly remember what Starlight Glimmer did to them. Needless to say, the mare felt very uncomfortable as soon as everyone looked at her. "Sorry..." she just said with an awkward smile on her face. Of course, no one was pointing hooves at her, they just couldn't help but be reminded of the things that happened in Starlight Glimmer's hometown.

Again, Summershine continued the story. "I was worried about Star Twinkle so the only thing I could think of to take care of this situation was to offer my body for Ashgray to take over. He was after the Elements of Harmony so there was no reason for him to take Star Twinkle's body after all. After he took my body, I managed to keep control over again but only after he already took care of the rest of my friends..." He said with a heavy tone in his voice. "Which pretty much brings us to right now. I had the Elements of Harmony inside me and Ashgray was slumbering inside me as well so I decided to split the element's power in half and entrusted one half with Star Twinkle. If Ashgray would have awakened with the full power of the elements inside me, then there is no telling what he would do with it. Then there was also Arcana who needed to be taken care of. So I used a memory-erase spell to remove the memories of me and my friends from everyone, left Ponyville in the hope to control Ashgray's power, deal with Arcana, and find a way to somehow get our friends into this world..."

"And while you did all of this..." Star Twinkle said before he gave an explanation of what happened to him in the meantime. "I joined up with Arcana because I thought you could no longer be trusted..." he said with regret in his voice.

"I was wondering about that..." Summershine said. "Shouldn't your memories be erased about me? How did you know about me in the first place?" He asked.

Star Twinkle scratched his head. "I think it was because of the Elements of Harmony inside me. They seemed to have protected me. However, later, when Arcana made a clone of myself and placed him in Ponyville, my memories seemed to have mostly gone to the real Star Twinkle, the one who was with Arcana wearing that black armor."

Summershine rubbed his chin. "Makes sense, the memory erase spell also didn't work on Ashgray. Probably because he was inside me the whole time, along with the elements," he figured. Without realizing it, the two were at the end of their story. "I guess that covers most of it...any questions?"

Rainbow Dash was the first to ask questions. "Yeah! How about...who is going to remember all of this?! You know how much stuff you just dropped on us?!" She complained.

But Pinkie Pie seemed to disagree. "I thought it was pretty easy to understand. Do you want me to repeat it for you?" She offered. But clearly, Rainbow Dash had enough storytime for today and refused.

"I guess you don't need to sweat all the details..." Star Twinkle said after realizing that this was all a lot to take in. "I think the most important part is to tell you that you spent all this time with a clone of mine and...well, I don't know...I hope that doesn't change anything between us all," the stallion said, hoping that things would still be the same from now on.

Applejack was quick to reply to this. "Of course nothing changed between us. As far as I'm concerned, you are still the same old Star Twinkle," she said.

"Exactly," Rarity added. "Even if some crazy things happened in your past, that doesn't change a thing between the time we spent so far," she explained. Star Twinkle could not be happier to have friends like these. He started smiling after seeing how lucky he was.

"Well," Twilight started. "I think this was enough story for today. If anyone is interested in something else, then we should ask questions another day. Today was a pretty stressful day for everyone after all," she concluded before she attended Starlight Glimmer. "We also still need you to get settled in Starlight."

"Yes!" The mare responded nervously before she followed Twilight.

It didn't take long until everyone else started leaving as well. They also had to go back and fix the messes that Arcana's clones caused. It was a good point to end. This left Star Twinkle and Summershine both leaving walking outside the castle. Summershine told Star Twinkle that he was about to go back to his home here in Ponyville to stay. This time he was not about to leave. As the two were walking outside though, Star Twinkle couldn't help trying to figure out what their long-term plan was from now on.

"I guess we just have to find the other half of the Elements of Harmony and then figure out a way to get our friends back," Summershine said.

"Find?" Star Twinkle asked. "But we have both halves now, don't we?"

"Yes...that is something I meant to say earlier..." Summershine said with a bothered expression on his face. "You see...when Arcana tried to get the elements out of my body he asked me where they were..."

"What do you mean?" Star Twinkle asked confused.

Summershine looked at the stallion with a serious expression on his face. "Do you remember when I attacked you, back when Lord Tirek tried to take over Equestria? Before that, I tried to take care of him myself but Tirek and Discord managed to defeat me and rob me of my magic. After that...things are very blurry..."

For Star Twinkle, something did not make sense in that story. "He took away your magic? But you attacked us, while clearly using magic at that time," he pointed.

Summershine nodded in response. "I assume that Tirek only took my magic away and Ashgray's. That is why he was in control of my body at that time. That is where things start to get weird...because after I woke up in the hospital in Ponyville...I could feel that he was...gone...and not only him but my half of the elements went with him as well," he explained.

"What does that mean?" Star Twinkle asked. "What does gone mean in this case? Can he just vanish along with the elements?"

"That is exactly what's worrying me..." Summershine replied. "Again, my memories from that time are really blurry but here is a guess. When Tirek took away my magic, Ashgray took control over my body and before he came to Ponyville, he must have done something to the elements before, to ensure that they would still be with him somewhere..."

This is when Star Twinkle realized why Summershine was so worried. "So you mean...the elements, your half of the Elements of Harmony...are somewhere out there?" He guessed.

Summershine nodded in response. "Either somewhere...or...with someone..."

Meanwhile...

Far away from Ponyville somepony was making his way through an empty forest road. The steps, along with the wind that blew through the trees were the only noises that could be heard as the pony made its way towards a certain place inside the forest.

It didn't take long until the pony stopped on a little cliff looking down at the destination that he was headed to. The pony looking down the cliff had a dark purple coat and a dark blue w-shaped mane with yellow stripes in it. It was Mystic, former leader of the Storm Wings and former member of the Outcasts. Star Twinkle and his friends happened to cross paths with him not too long ago. All the pony did was grin deviously while his purple eyes turned red for just a moment before then returning to purple again. The Unicorn suddenly grew wings on his back and jumped off the cliff while heading to the place in front of him.

The Forgotten Castle...

Author's Notes:

Here is an early Christmas present in form of the Season 5 Finale.
Granted there was a lot of exposition in this chapter but I still hope you were entertained.

The next thing in planning is the next Equestria Girls movie (Although, who knows when I will get to write that...)

So yeah, there is gonna be a break of unknown length most likely but I hope you continue to be as patient as before XP.

With all that said, please consider leaving a review or some other kind of feedback and make sure to follow me or this story to always be up to date with everything that I upload.

See you all in the next chapter.
Bye Bye ^^.

Reading Order:

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 1 + 2(Chapter 1 - 53)

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Diary of The Storm Wings

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 3(Chapter 54 - 65)

Equestria Girls - The Legend of Friendship

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 4(Chapter 66 - 91)

Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship

The Legend of Friendship - Harmony

My Little Pony - The Legend of Friendship Season 5(Chapter 92 - 117)