While her friends desperately search for their missing friend, Sunny Starscout must escape her captors and warn her friends of the villains' despicable plans to eliminate harmony itself.
Sunny Starscout has disappeared, and her friends are frantic. While everypony else reluctantly agrees that the earth pony is not somepony they can trust anymore, her friends refuse to accept this fact and resolve to find Sunny and lift her of the curse they are sure has been placed on her. However, they are warned that, if they assist a traitor, they themselves will be considered traitors in their own right. Meanwhile, Sunny is held captive in the company of three of Equestria’s worst villains who have dark plans for the land once they succeed in taking it. Assisting them are two ponies who have dark intentions of their own. Sunny is still recovering from the effects of her curse and has no hope left for the future… until she discovers the plans that these villains have for her friends. She needs to find them and warn them. All of Equestria will be at stake.
WARNING: Contains no relation to My Little Pony: Make Your Mark or My Little Pony: Tell Your Tale. This is strictly related to events that happened after My Little Pony: A New Generation.
The filly rested her hoof on the door, gently pushing it open and wincing at the creak it made. She led the way into the lighthouse, her two companions following close behind. The largest creature of their little group remained outside, scouting the perimeter of the lighthouse. He would have been elsewhere, except that all three of them needed to be present tonight, and none of them trusted their two pony ‘allies’ to be on their own. So here they all were.
She mentally scoffed at how scared the pegasus was acting. It wasn’t like there was anything in this place that could hurt them. They had seen Flurry Heart leave just a few seconds ago, and Sunny Starscout would be fast asleep right now. They would just have to get in, do the spell, and get out again - everything else would play out from there.
Permafrost had left to go make sure that Flurry Heart wasn’t rushing back, which meant that the filly was left with Sour Lavender and her partner-in-crime, who was disguised as a unicorn. The exile looked around with a distasteful expression.
“She really doesn’t care much for messes, does she?” she scoffed, kicking the door closed behind her. It shut with a loud clack, and the filly glared at her.
“If he gets caught here, it’s game over,” the filly hissed. The exile caught up to her and lowered her head to speak to her.
“Then why did we bring him?”
“He knows his way around this place more than we do,” the filly retorted, turning to the pegasus. “Stay here and keep watch.” Without even waiting for him to agree, she and the exile left him for the lift that carried them to the second floor of the lighthouse, where Sunny Starscout slept peacefully.
Not for much longer, the filly thought with relish. She looked around the room and glared at each decoration featuring something she knew, something that brought flashes of pain and anger every time she saw one: a tapestry on the wall of Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark, another one above the bed of Celestia’s, a blue bag resting on a chair with pins displaying yet more cutie marks. The filly’s wing brushed against something - a wooden pendant of Twilight Sparkle’s mark. She slipped this under her wing and turned to the exile.
Reading the question in her eyes, a wall of green light surrounded the exile, burning away her disguise and revealing who she really was - a tall creature with the wings of a bug, gaping holes dotting her wings, mane, and body. Her green eyes narrowed at the orange earth pony sleeping soundly in her bed, and her crooked horn lit up a sickly green.
The exile shot a beam directly at Sunny Starscout, and it connected at her forehead. The earth pony twitched in her sleep but didn’t wake up. Three more beams extended from the earth pony where the first met her forehead. One beam connected to the filly’s head, another to the exile’s. The third twisted out the open window to where she knew the large creature was waiting. With one last push, the exile completed the spell, and the light dimmed and disappeared.
“There,” the exile gasped, exhausted. She caught the filly looking at her with a worried expression and straightened, glaring at the younger pony. “I hope that was worth it.”
She scolded herself for feeling for her companions. If she wasn’t careful, she would fall into friendship’s trap. The filly closed her eyes and mentally reached towards the sleeping earth pony… and felt something.
It was as if somepony had opened another channel in her brain. Instead of just sending thoughts and commands to her mind, there was another one… one she could feel, but didn’t quite have access to. The earth pony instinctively flinched as she felt somepony trying to reach into her mind, and in the filly’s head, she felt the walls and barriers around Sunny Starscout’s mind grow stronger.
Well, this pony was resilient.
But so was the filly. And while she couldn’t do anything big right now, she could work little thoughts in through the cracks. She visualized gently pushing a thought down the tunnel that connected her mind with Sunny Starscout’s: Magic is dangerous and cannot be trusted.
Her personal refrain. Unless magic was in the hooves of ponies who would change Equestria for the better, it should be disposed of. Magic created social division, and that was what the filly wanted to get rid of. She wanted an Equestria where ponies weren’t looked down upon because of their magic, or lack of it. Everypony would be treated as equal, and as for all the magic? She would hang onto that. Keep Equestria safe with it.
For now, though, having that in her head would keep Sunny Starscout from turning to magical alternatives for defeating them, and from thinking that it was a magic spell cast on herself.
“Did it work?” the exile demanded, and the filly shushed her, watching the sleeping earth pony. There was a change in her expression - instead of looking cheerful and carefree and friendly like it used to, her brow furrowed, her jaw tightened, and the filly knew she had been successful.
“It worked,” she announced, and the exile let out a sigh of relief. “At least, for me it does. I don’t know about you guys.”
“You’re the one who wanted to do this,” the exile snapped. “Why do we have to be connected, again?”
“For the same reasons I suspected,” the filly said smugly. “Just as I thought, Sunny Starscout will not be an easy pony to break. I will only be able to do so much to weaken her, but to really and truly break her, it will take all three of us. Just don’t use the mind link until I say so - she may detect that there’s something different, and that could jeopardize the whole plan.”
The exile grumbled. “Whatever. Flurry Heart could be back any minute. We should go before we get caught.”
The filly shrugged and led the way back to the lift and down to the first floor. As the exile stepped off, the filly remained, and the exile turned back to stare at her. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “If anypony sees you, we may as well turn ourselves back to stone already!”
“I’m going to scout this place out,” the filly snapped. “You know what they said about magical crystals - if these ponies have the Elements of Harmony, we need to get rid of them before they use them against us! I’m going to find where they are.” The filly thought for a moment. “We need to draw them away so we can steal them. With me altering Sunny Starscout’s mind, they’re already going to be on their guard.”
The exile let out a long, suffering sigh. “Fine. I’ll take the others, and we’ll go cause some distractions so that these ‘new Guardians’ will leave.” She paused. “Be careful. Don’t ruin the whole plan.”
As the filly rose in the lift, she grinned. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
She rose to the top of the lighthouse, and as she stepped off the lift, she had to marvel at the spectacular view that she could see from the windows. The ocean to one side and Maretime Bay to the other with the moon and stars above her - it was like flying, but without the hard work of flapping your wings.
Don’t get distracted, the filly chided herself. Focus on the mission.
In the center of the room was the light for the lighthouse, and underneath that… The filly approached, intrigued. Three crystals were joined together and inserted below the light, though these weren’t anything like the Elements of Harmony that she remembered. The filly gently touched one of the crystals and froze.
There was a magic connected to these… a very familiar magic.
It was the same kind of magic that stripped her of her power; the very same power that obliterated the Windigos. The same magic that came from one purple alicorn and her power of friendship.
“Twilight?” the filly whispered. Then she shook herself.
Twilight Sparkle was gone. Dead. This magic couldn’t be related to her. And she couldn’t let herself get pulled into the trap that this pony had set. She was stronger than that.
A lamp was sitting behind the crystals, and the filly turned it on. The light shot glowing images of earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns galloping around the room. Very pretty, but not the kind of thing that she was looking for. Surrounding the lamp, as if guarding it, were tiny figures of Twilight Sparkle and her friends. The filly winced and stumbled back to the lift. The Elements of Harmony were not up there.
A quick scan of the second floor told her that the Elements were not there, either, so that left only one place - the ground floor. The filly spotted a glass case in a corner, covering four crystal necklaces and one beautiful crown.
She smiled. Gotcha. As she turned to leave, something rubbed against her coat, and she reached under her wing to pull out the necklace that Sunny Starscout had in her room. The six pointed star seemed to burn into the filly’s soul, and she felt another rush of pain, followed by anger. The filly hurled the necklace against the wall, where it snapped in two with a sickening crack. She trotted out the door as fast as she could and took off into the night sky.
She was back again. Sunny Starscout and her friends were in the Crystal Empire, and one of her partners had acquired an important resource that Sour Lavender called a ‘cell phone’. It could store information and send messages and play moving pictures and all sorts of things. This one had belonged to one of the friends of Sunny Starscout, and they had been able to collect plenty of information about the earth pony. This ‘Pipp’ character wrote down a lot on her phone, even if she didn’t, as Sour Lavender put it, ‘post it’.
The filly had no idea what that meant, but she was deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt, only because he knew more about this new world than any of them other than Permafrost.
Once again, she pushed open the door and winced at the creaking sound, only this time, she was accompanied by Permafrost himself, and the unicorn looked no more excited about that than she did. He had been taught the necessary magic spells to undo any possible enchantments that may be protecting the Elements and had stuck with them thus far, but the filly still didn’t fully trust him.
As the two ponies neared the glass case holding the Elements of Harmony, the filly closed her eyes and opened up the link between her mind and Sunny Starscout’s. She gently nudged a thought down the tunnel and slipped it around the earth pony’s mental walls that would keep her from noticing anything. She nodded to Permafrost, and the unicorn stepped forward, lighting up his horn. For a pony who had been raised without any knowledge of how to use magic, the filly had to admit that this pony was both skilled at casting and learning new spells - and that thought unsettled her.
Permafrost’s icy blue magic beam wrapped around the glass case, pressing in tighter and closer until the glass cracked and shattered. The magic beam swirled around the Elements, and the filly had a fleeting thought that, if he wanted, he could steal the Elements right then and there. But for some reason, he went forward with the spell. The beam exploded suddenly, slightly scorching the wall behind it.
The filly stepped forward and gently scooped the Elements into her bag, holding the crown reverently in her hooves, staring down at her reflection in the lavender gem. She felt a wave of sadness that she didn’t understand and slipped it into her bag.
Even when they weren’t being wielded by their bearers, the Elements were extremely powerful.
Permafrost took a step towards the door, but the filly shook her head. She flapped her wings and leaped gracefully onto the lift, giving the unicorn a look that made him come after her.
Upstairs, the unicorn once again performed the spell, this time around the three crystals that she now knew were the reason that magic had returned the first time and the pony tribes had come together again. She took these as well, wincing at the familiar feeling of Twilight Sparkle when she touched them. Permafrost retreated to the lift, eager to get out, but the filly caught the figure of Twilight in the corner of her eye, and was suddenly filled with anger. This was a pony who believed in friendship and second chances who allowed an orphaned filly to be locked in the worst prison in Equestria and then turned to stone. She then abandoned them for Celestia knows how long before they were released into this new world - alone, confused, and scared.
The filly reared and knocked all the figures down, throwing them across the room. She kicked the lamp out of the way and knocked over the whole stand. With a wordless cry of rage, she flew down the shaft for the lift - Permafrost had already left as soon as she started her tantrum. Her eyes landed on the pictures by the door, one of them slightly tilted.
Why should these ponies get happiness and she didn’t? Why did they get everything they ever wanted and she was repeatedly abandoned?
She knocked the pictures down and stomped all over them, cracking the glass and breaking the frames. All the while, tears streamed down her face, and when she was done, the filly curled up on the floor and sobbed.
A few minutes after her tears had stopped, the filly heard hoofsteps, and she darted around a corner so that she was hidden from whoever came in the door.
It was a pink earth pony with a golden mane piled up on her head and pink cat-eye glasses. When she saw the destruction before her, the mare’s breath caught in her throat, and she turned to run back to the town. As soon as she was gone, the filly wiped her eyes and ran outside, spreading her wings and taking flight.
She had the Elements of Harmony. She had almost complete control over the only pony who could really pose a threat to her and her partners. Her dream was so close she could almost taste it…
They were arguing. Again. Sunny Starscout curled up and rested her chin on her hooves, trying to block out the sound. Surprisingly, hearing villains argue was one of the worst things ever… mostly because they were arguing about her, and how they wanted to use her.
Tirek - the big bulky centaur creature - wanted Sunny dealt with, and she did not want to know what that meant. He thought she was far too dangerous to be left alone.
Chrysalis - the exiled changeling queen - wanted to keep Sunny captive to use as leverage against her friends to keep them from retaliating against the three of them. It had worked once before, so she saw no reason why it wouldn’t work again.
Cozy Glow - the pegasus filly - wanted to mind control Sunny and force her to fight for them and against her friends, saying that it would break their spirits much more effectively.
Neither was winning. Neither was backing down.
So for now, Sunny was chained to the wall in the main room of the villain’s headquarters, where she could get a front row seat to all of their arguments and disagreements and evil planning. They never tried to hide anything from her, and it didn’t matter - she couldn’t tell her friends anyway. And Sunny had been allowed to keep her bag - the “Legion of Doom”, as they liked to be called, had taken out all the contents that they viewed as dangerous: the Journal of Friendship, her father’s research. Without much left to do, Sunny tried to pick up the scattered remains of her life.
It had been revealed to her that the Legion of Doom had cast a spell on her that allowed any one of them - or all of them - to enter her mind. They would have access to everything in there, if Sunny let them, and Cozy Glow spent weeks wearing Sunny down until she was ready to break. Then she called her pals to come and completely take control over her.
All the horrible feelings, the strange thoughts, the memories disappearing, that had all been because of these… creatures. Sunny knew she should be angry, but for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Was she upset about the whole ordeal? Yes, of course! But she felt like there was more to this than she was seeing. And Sunny had never been a very good pony at getting really, truly angry. There was one exception to this - two exceptions, actually. A pegasus and a unicorn.
The same ponies who had used a memory stone to wipe her friends’ memories of her and all they had accomplished together were here, helping these villains. Sunny remembered that they had done that. She just couldn’t remember what they had accomplished together. Or what happened after that. They must have gotten their memories back, because she had fleeting images of what must have happened after that, and her friends were there.
But there was so much she couldn’t recall, and it broke her heart. She could barely remember her father, her friends, her home…
“All right, enough!” she heard Tierk shout, and Sunny winced at his loud voice. “We can’t proceed with the plan until we figure out what to do about this Sunny Starscout, and we aren’t getting anywhere.” The centaur glared ruefully at the pegasus and the changeling. “I agree that she may still have her uses-”
“-so we make them bargain for her,” Chrysalis interrupted. “They would do anything to get her back - we can make them surrender the kingdom for her return.”
“So we can be back in control of a land with our worst enemies running around on the loose planning to defeat us,” Cozy Glow snorted. “I thought you would have learned your lesson after that didn’t work last time.”
“Obviously we won’t let them run around,” snapped the changeling, “we’ll capture them and hold them captive. But it would save so much time.”
“You’re always the one saying that we should be careful!” Cozy Glow retorted. “Was all that nonsense about being ‘patient’ and ‘good things come to those who wait’ just a bunch of horse feathers so that you could save time at the end?”
Chrysalis growled, and Tirek said, “If we rush things, it will fail. We don’t know what these ponies are capable of, and we can’t take any chances. If we want to use Sunny Starscout as leverage, we will need to keep her with us to make them hesitant to attack us.”
“Or we could just go with my idea,” Cozy Glow offered. “It solves all the problems.”
“I’d rather go to Tartarus than do your idea,” Chrysalis snapped, and the pegasus foal glared at her. “We keep her with us, but chained up.” As if to reinforce her plan, the changeling lit up her horn and yanked on the chains that held Sunny to the stone wall. The earth pony winced, and Chrysalis snarled at the pathetic demonstration.
“Anyway,” Cozy Glow said loudly, bringing the exiled queen’s attention back to the other two villains, “how do we know what’s going on in the world right now?” She reached under her wing and pulled out a small device that Sunny recognized as Pipp’s cell phone. “This thing can only tell us so much.”
Tirek reached under the stone slab that served as a table and pulled out a large ball that looked like a giant eye. He set it on the table and turned to the others.
“Grogar’s seeing eye?” Chrysalis said skeptically.
“I figured out how it works,” Tirek protested, lighting up his horns and blasting the ball with magic. It flooded with black before showing an image of Zephyr Heights.
Sunny lifted her head, intrigued. This may be the only way she could know what was going on outside her prison.
The image zoomed into the city until you could make out pegasi guards marching down the streets and hanging up posters every few meters. The picture zoomed in even more so that they could see what was on the posters… and what she saw made Sunny’s heart stop.
She didn’t remember anything after Cozy Glow had taken over her mind. It was as if she had been merely a puppet while she escaped from Zephyr Heights and retrieved a bell that the villains hung onto and watched every waking second of the day. She didn’t know what she had done, what had happened. All she knew was that she woke up in an unfamiliar place, chained to stone. Perhaps she had done some awful things when she was under Cozy Glow’s influence, but she didn’t know about them and perhaps never would.
“Well,” Chrysalis said after the three villains had read the notice, “that does put a bit of a damper on our plan.”
“Her friends will still try to get her back,” Triek disagreed. “You know how Twilight Sparkle and her friends were - they would do anything for one of their friends. Why should these ponies be any different?”
“Because they’re not Twilight Sparkle,” Chrysalis explained in an agonizingly slow voice.
“Yes, but she’s descended from her,” Cozy Glow intervened, pointing a hoof at Sunny. “And they bear the Elements of Harmony - or, at least, they did. But there was a reason the Elements chose Twilight Sparkle and her friends, and there was a reason they chose these ponies.”
“So we know what to do with her,” Tirek interrupted, jerking his head at Sunny. “But what’s our next step? The ponies will be on their guard right now, but we don’t know what her friends will do. Until we know that, we can’t proceed to the next phase of our plan. So what do we do right now?” He looked between Chrysalis and Cozy Glow and saw that they already had a plan.
“I suppose that it might be a good time to take the other tribes out of the equation,” Cozy Glow said slowly.
“Just think,” Chrysalis hurriedly continued as Tirek opened his mouth. “Flurry Heart knows about the other tribes, but hardly anypony else does, and certainly not all of them. If she convinces the others to join their side, we may never win this.”
“But if we stir up a little chaos,” Cozy Glow added, “they won’t want to help ponies at all. Maybe we can even promise them a fair place in society if they surrender to us.”
Tirek thought about this. “Or they could go to war with the ponies, and while they’re distracted by that, we execute the next stage of our plan, which will cause more chaos and confusion. The ponies will wear themselves out… if they win.”
“Of course they’ll win,” Chrysalis scoffed, “they’ll have the only alicorn in Equestria on their side. But they will be worn out. If we suddenly swoop in and take over while they’re still recovering, there will be nopony to stop us.”
“What if they lose, though?” Cozy Glow intervened. “Or they have some kind of peace treaty or whatever? Her friends know about us - Flurry Heart made sure of that. They won’t be fooled by a war or something. Didn’t those ponies say that they’ve already had things like that? They’ll be too smart - we have to make sure that the other tribes stay neutral for now.” When she saw the looks on the others' faces, she hastily added, “But of course, if we need to, we can always… encourage them to join.”
“That’s more like it,” Tirek growled. He blasted the seeing eye with another beam of magic, and it darkened again. He set it under the table once more and stood up. “So who will go and who will stay?”
“I’ll go, obviously,” Chrysalis snapped. “I can easily blend in.”
“I should go, too!” Cozy Glow enthusiastically volunteered. When the others glared at her, she retorted angrily, “Face it, I’m the best at all of us for manipulation. If you’re going to spread rumors and convince creatures to let the ponies get defeated, you’ll need my help. You can say that I’m an outcast from pony society who sympathizes with their cause or something.” She made a pouty face as the changeling and the centaur considered the option.
“Fine,” Tirek eventually snapped. “Only because I’m the best at keeping an eye on those ponies.”
“Are you really that scared of a pony chained to the wall?” Chrysalis scoffed.
Tirek glowered at her. “I’m talking about the unicorn and the pegasus,” he said in a voice that seethed anger and dripped venom. “Say what you want about ponies being gullible, but I don’t trust them. They’ve been dividing the pony tribes and spreading lies and rumors for years now.”
The three villains parted ways, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow leaving out the mouth of the cave to head to the ‘other creatures’, while Tirek, after fixing Sunny with a glare, left to go find Permafrost and Sour Lavender. Sunny was still lying with her head down, but she was staring at the place where the seeing eye had been without really seeing anything at all.
They wouldn’t have done that…
Would they?
I did leave and go to three of the worst villains Equestria has ever seen and basically handed myself to them.
But would they really do that?
Still, there was no denying what she had seen in the seeing eye. The guards had been posting notices of the most recent decree of the queen that took effect in all of the land - Sunny Starscout was officially wanted for treason to Equestria.
She, Sunny Starscout, was now considered a traitor.
The sunshine leaking through the windows and cloudless sky did not match the mood of the ponies inside the Zephyr Heights castle. The tension was palpable. You could cut it with a knife. And it was all about to come to a head.
Inside the throne room, Queen Haven sat on her throne with Phyllis Cloverleaf and Alphabittle to her right, Zoom to her left. In front of her stood six ponies: Flurry Heart, Zipp Storm, Pipp Petals, Izzy Moonbow, Sprout, and Hitch Trailblazer. They all wore identical expressions of anxiety and fear.
“So tell me one more time,” Haven said, standing up and rubbing her head, “what exactly happened?”
Hitch, Sprout, and Zipp groaned. Flurry stepped forward, the calmest of the group, and said, “Sunny was helping me set up stained glass windows, but she was acting a little… different. She seemed to zone out, as if she wasn’t really there, and I went to get everypony else. Then… it was as if Sunny disappeared. She was there, but it wasn’t… her. She would never have said those things, never have acted like that.” The alicorn lowered her head. “She ran off, and we followed her to the airstation, but when we got outside, she had disappeared.”
Haven turned to Alphabittle, who looked sullen and depressed. “And you say that…”
The large gray unicorn sighed. “We were watching the Tree, just as you asked, and then Sunny came out of the tunnel. These three creatures emerged from the shadows, and she walked up to them as if she were working with them. She gave them a bell, and then we tried to stop them, but it was like they threatened to hurt her if we got any closer. So… we let them go.” He bowed his head shamefully.
“Your Majesty,” Izzy said, stepping forward. “What if Sunny wasn’t acting in her own mind? What if somepony else was controlling her?”
“Is that possible?” Phyllis asked, looking at Flurry, who nodded.
“Mind control is a very advanced kind of magic, one I don’t see anypony from this time doing anytime soon. But these creatures aren’t from this time. It is possible that they were using Sunny in some way-”
“This doesn’t change the fact that she walked away,” Zoom interrupted, “to our worst enemies, no less!” She sighed and addressed the six ponies on the throne room floor. “Look, I don’t want to think that Sunny did anything wrong anymore than you do, but this is serious. We don’t know what she could be doing with them, mind controlled or not. If anypony sees her again, we won’t know if she can be trusted. We have to take action.”
Zipp, Pipp, Flurry, Hitch, and Sprout all started yelling at Zoom, though Izzy surprisingly remained quiet. Haven held up her hoof, and they all fell silent.
“I am sorry,” she said, “but Zoom is right. We can’t know if Sunny really is Sunny anymore, and this could wind up being a matter of national security.” She bowed her head, hating what she had to say. “I hereby decree that Sunny Starscout is charged with treason.”
“What? You can’t do that!” Hitch shouted.
“She did nothing wrong!” Sprout protested.
“Sunny is not a traitor!” Zipp snapped angrily.
“You can’t arrest her!” Pipp wailed.
“Please, Your Highness, if you would just reconsider-” Flurry started, but the queen held up a hoof, and they all reluctantly quieted down again.
“I don’t like it,” Haven said miserably, “but it is what must be done. Zoom, I want notices posted in the city. Say that I’m going to publicly address everypony later today. I expect that there will be a lot of ponies with questions.”
“Starting with us,” Sprout interrupted heatedly, ignoring a warning look from his mother. “How can you charge Sunny with treason?”
“By law, betraying your land qualifies as treason,” Haven explained with a heavy heart. “And Sunny walked into an enemies open wings-”
“It wasn’t of free will!” the red earth pony snarled. “Sunny wasn’t being Sunny!”
“She also saved everypony from going to war on multiple occasions,” Zipp joined in, stepping up next to Sprout. “Doesn’t that qualify her for a pardon or a less severe sentence or something?”
“That’s not how it works,” Pipp whispered, and Zipp wheeled around to face her.
“Well, fine, if you want our friend arrested!” she snapped, her wings flaring, and Pipp immediately backed down.
“Your sister is right, Zipp,” Haven said. “But we can bring her in for a trial. However, I’m afraid that the only evidence that will present itself will point to her being guilty.”
“But she wasn’t herself!” Hitch said.
“I believe you,” Haven interjected before the others could start protesting again. “But it doesn’t matter whether or not I do. By law, the accused must be brought in for a trial. If you can find real evidence other than your stories - because that is the only thing Sunny has in her defense: testimonies of other ponies - then there may be a chance that she may be found innocent.” The queen sighed. “But that would mean…” She looked Zipp in the eye. “You know what it would mean.”
The pegasus bowed her head and nodded. The other ponies gave her a strange look.
“What?” Pipp asked, preparing for the worst.
Zipp sighed. “It would mean… By helping a traitor, we ourselves would be considered in the same league as said traitor and be charged with treason, too.”
Pipp gaped. “But… but we’re princesses,” she spluttered. “Doesn’t that - can’t we-”
Her older sister snorted. “There was a warrent for our arrest a little more than a month ago,” she said, glaring at her sister, “twice. Just because you’re a royal doesn’t mean you’re excused from every aspect of the law.” Pipp winced at the unpleasant memory and decided to focus on the fascinating patterns of the throne room floor.
“I’ll do it,” Sprout said, stepping forward with a defiant look in his eyes. “Sunny’s my friend. I’m not going to leave her in such a state, no matter what your law says.” He lifted his head and fixed Queen Haven with a stern look.
“Me, too,” Hitch chimed in.
“Same here,” Zipp added, tossing her head and rustling her wings. Her sister and Flurry nodded in unison. The five ponies all turned to Izzy, who bit her lip.
“Guys… maybe we should…” the unicorn started, but Hitch butted in.
“Sunny’s your best friend!” he exclaimed, and Izzy winced. “Of all the ponies who would ever leave her hanging, you are among the least likely to do it!”
“Izzy, are you sure that you’re not being mentally invaded by an evil force?” Zipp asked.
“It’s not that,” she assured them. “But… doing this would mean we’re charged with treason, so… I mean, would Sunny really want us to do it?”
“What has gotten into you?” Pipp asked as they surrounded the unicorn, who played her last card.
“Sunny told me that if - when - things went south, she wanted us to stay safe and out of it - she made me promise that I would keep you guys from going after her!” Her voice quieted to a whisper. “I didn’t want to. I want to help Sunny just as much as you guys, but she made me promise.”
“Izzy…” Pipp walked forward and put her wing around the unicorn. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
She sniffed. “Sunny didn’t want me to. She told me about how she was feeling strange and getting strange thoughts in her head, but she didn’t want me to tell you guys because she thought it would put you in danger, and she didn’t want that.”
“See?” Hitch exploded, waving his hoof at Izzy and glaring at Haven. “See? Sunny knew something wasn’t right - she knew something was in her head! Isn’t that enough?”
“What more do you need, a signed confession from whoever was doing it?” Sprout added.
“That actually isn’t a bad idea,” Alphabittle muttered under his breath, and Phyllis shoved him, though as he was so big, this had about the same effect as a playful nudge.
“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” Haven began, but Flurry stepped forward.
“With all due respect, Your Majesty, we rarely ever do,” she said. “My aunt had no idea what she was getting into when she arrived in Ponyville for the first time. Sunny didn’t know what she was getting into by going on a quest to retrieve magic crystals that may or may not bring back magic. I think we can improvise.”
“I don’t care if the whole world’s hunting us down,” Hitch declared heatedly in a final tone. “I am going to find my friend and I am going to prove to all of you that she’s innocent.” He whirled around to face the others. “Who’s with me?”
Everypony raised their hooves, matching determined looks on their faces, and Zipp led the way out of the throne room.
“Sprout,” Phyllis called, running down to catch her son by the arm before he left. “Wait. Are you sure… all of this is really a good idea? Maybe you should let the others handle this. They have saved the world, after all,” she added with a weak chuckle.
“I’m going after Sunny,” he told her, gently pulling his hoof away. “Look, we’re all here because - I can’t shake the feeling that it’s my fault. And I owe it to Sunny.”
“But the treason…”
“It’ll be fine,” he assured her. “We’ll figure it out.” He pulled his mother into a hug before hurrying to catch up with his friends.
“Are you sure about this?” Alphabittle asked Haven up by the throne after the queen dismissed Zoom to inform her troops of recent events. “Maybe you could search for a loophole or something? I mean, it’s Sunny Starscout - there has to be some kind of exception, right?”
Haven sighed and shook her head. “I wish there were…” Her head suddenly snapped up. “Actually, there might be… But for now, the law stands. I wish it could be any other way.”
“But what do we do?” Phyllis asked by the door, staring after her son. “I can’t let him - them - go into danger like this while I sit back and do nothing.” She looked down at her hooves, wishing that there was a way she could help.
The queen stood and spread her wings. She, too, glanced at the door and visualized the ponies who had just left through it. Deep down inside, despite the dire consequences they would have to face, she was glad that Sunny had such devoted friends who would go to the ends of the earth to help her. If the loophole she thought was there was really there, then they all might have a chance of getting out of this.
“There may be loopholes in the law,” she decided. “I will look through it and see if I can find anything. In the meantime, the threat of these three villains still looms, as well as new efforts to search for Sunny Starscout.” She turned to Alphabittle. “I imagine Sunny’s friends will have her search covered, but I will need you to take a team of ponies - earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, anypony - for the legal side of things.” The large gray unicorn nodded and stepped off the dias, trotting over to the door. Haven then turned to Phyllis. “I understand that, before magic returned, you had a factory that created defense mechanisms.” The earth pony mare lowered her head shamefully, hoping they wouldn’t have to bring up who Canterlogic had been originally created to defend against. “Do you think it’s possible to develop something that would work against these creatures?”
The founder of Canterlogic thought about it. “I suppose we could try,” she decided. “This kind of magic, though, I’m not sure technology will be enough to stop.”
“At least attempt it,” Haven agreed, and Phyllis nodded before exiting the room after Alphabittle. The queen of Zephyr Heights took a deep breath and turned to look at one of the many stained glass windows now displayed in the throne room. “I hope I’m doing enough,” she whispered. “I hope they have what it takes.”
Flurry Heart was waiting in the airstation while the others prepared to go look for Sunny. As she wasn’t from this time period and most of her belongings were either frozen beyond repair or still in the Crystal Empire, it had taken her a dishearteningly short amount of time to pack. She sighed and surveyed the station around her for what felt like the last time.
Everything was feeling final these days. As if a big battle was coming, but she didn’t know when, she didn’t know where, she didn’t know with who. All she did know was that it would be awful and destructive.
Out of the corner of her eye, Flurry spotted the box full of Friendship Journals pushed against the bookshelf. Likely that these were printed but never got sold. She used her magic to levitate one over to her, feeling that she would need a reminder of what was in it in the days to come. And while it was nowhere near as valuable as her aunt’s original journal - Sunny had that one, so Celestia only knows where it would be now - the lessons were all still there. She slipped the purple book into her bag just as the elevator creaked and lowered Sprout into the room.
“Where’s everypony else?” he asked as he stepped off the lift.
“How should I know?” Flurry responded, rolling her eyes and smirking playfully. “You guys are slooow…”
“Oh, I’m sorry, have you been specially trained for preparing for a life changing quest to save your friends from the forces of evil?” he retorted.
Flurry grinned. “Maybe.”
“That, I don’t doubt,” came Zipp’s voice as she lowered herself into the room, followed by Pipp, who was double-checking to make sure that her phone was tucked under her wing. Flurry noticed that, while she was in Zephyr Heights, Pipp would frequently let her phone out of sight, but as soon as she stepped outside the city limits, she kept checking to make sure she had it on her. Flurry didn’t blame her - losing her phone while they were walking to the Crystal Empire had clearly taken a toll on the young pegasus.
Zipp pushed the lever on the lift, and it began to rise again. She trotted over to Flurry and Sprout with Pipp behind her. “So, where’s our first stop?”
Before she could answer, the lift once again began to creak, revealing Izzy and Hitch. The unicorn and earth pony leaped out of the basket as it reached the ground and trotted over to join the group by the large window.
“I was thinking Maretime Bay?” Flurry suggested. “Sunny’s lighthouse. There might be some clues as to where she went and who took her. Besides, there’s the disappearance of the Elements of Harmony to think about. Whoever’s behind that, they clearly know what they do.”
“But Sunny wasn’t taken at her lighthouse,” Pipp argued, “she was taken at the Tree of Harmony. And these villains clearly wanted to make sure that she knew where to find them - they likely won’t be as careless to reveal themselves again unless it’s part of an elaborate plan.” She noticed Zipp looking at her with a proud and surprised expression and fluffed her wings, holding her head a little higher. “Is there an entrance to the Hall of Princesses from the Tree?”
Flurry thought about it. “I believe there’s an entrance in the Castle of the Two Sisters… and the Tree is right on top of the ruins.”
“Maybe we should go there,” Izzy chimed in, “and look for any clues about where they might have taken Sunny. Then we’ll go to Maretime Bay and search Sunny’s lighthouse.” She raised her hoof to show that she agreed with the plan, and everypony else did the same. Flurry turned and marched towards the airstation’s door.
“Aren’t we going to the Hall of Princesses?” Zipp asked, gesturing to the bookshelf.
“If we were,” Flurry said, pausing and turning to face them, “we don’t know where we would end up. It’s a bit of walking, but then we can search for the entrance after we look at the Tree.” She used her magic to pull open the doors and trotted outside. The other ponies shrugged and followed.
Once out on the streets, Pipp took over and led them through the maze of backroads until they arrived at the entrance to the secret exit out of the city.
“Why are we avoiding the guards?” Izzy asked as they ducked behind a dumpster to avoid a patrol. “We haven’t done anything terrible yet… have we?”
“We openly pledged our allegiance to Sunny,” Zipp hissed in an undertone. “That’s enough to charge us with treason right there. And now we’re trying to sneak out of the city - any guard would think that we’re up to no good, princess or not. I mean, when have we ever snuck out of the city when things are alright?”
“That is a fair point,” Izzy admitted.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Hitch led the way down the narrow tunnel, sometimes walking so fast that he disappeared from view and would come back annoyed at how slow they were walking.
“Can you guys hurry up?” he once said, prancing his hooves anxiously. Flurry knew that, if he didn’t have to wait for the others, the sheriff would run all the way to the Tree of Harmony himself. “Sunny needs us!”
“She only left yesterday,” Pipp grumbled at the back of the line.
“She didn’t leave,” Hitch corrected, “she was stolen. And if you want to get her back, then hurry up!” The stallion bounded away into the dark tunnel while everypony else groaned.
“It’ll be fine,” Izzy told them encouragingly. “Hitch just wants to find Sunny. We all do.” The unicorn thought for a moment. “You know, when Sunny and I were heading to Zephyr Heights, we sang a song to help the time pass.”
“Yes!” Pipp exclaimed at the same time Zipp yelled, “No!”
“Try something new, take a chance, just believe it!” Pipp started singing, and Zipp groaned, flapping her wings to hover just off the ground so she could clap her hooves over her ears.
Izzy grinned and sang along. “Let out your light, shining bright, can’t you feel it!”
“Oh stars, please no,” Zipp whispered in a quiet prayer, now clasping her hooves in front of her. Flurry laughed and joined in, and the princess quickened her step until she was right behind Hitch. Flurry, Pipp, and Izzy purposefully increased their volume so that the ponies back in Zephyr Heights could probably hear them. They sounded terrible, but they didn’t care. Flurry felt like this was the most fun she’d had since they pulled the pizza prank on that guard.
Zipp let out a sigh of relief when she saw the crystal door in the side of the tunnel wall, indicating that they were at the end of the road. Hitch stopped suddenly, causing Zipp to bump into him.
“What?” she hissed. He gave a sharp jerk of his head at the opening to the tunnel where sunlight was pouring in, and Zipp turned around to see her friends rounding the corner, still singing their hearts out. Zipp snapped at them to be quiet, and once they saw the look on her face, Pipp, Izzy, and Flurry shut their mouths simultaneously.
“What’s going on?” Sprout whispered to Hitch, crouching beside the sheriff - the tunnel widened out here.
“Don’t know,” he muttered under his breath. “Stay here.”
The stallion crept forward until he was right beneath the hole. He cautiously poked his head out and looked around. All of a sudden, he jerked his head back inside and backed away from the opening.
“Guards.”
“What?” Pipp shrieked, and Zipp shoved her hoof in her sister’s mouth to keep her from screaming anything else.
Izzy lit up her horn and opened the door in the wall, gesturing to the others to follow. They hurried up the crystal staircase and shut the door behind them. Even so, it was only when they reached the first room in the heart of the tree that they dared to breathe again.
“Where’s Flurry?” Sprout asked, spinning around in a circle and noticing that the alicorn was not present.
A bright yellow flash lit up the room, and Flurry Heart appeared. Everypony jumped but managed to just barely refrain from screaming.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I had to cover the door with dirt so nopony would find it, and… woah.”
“Isn’t this place amazing?” Izzy danced around the room with a huge grin on her face. “It’s the Tree of Harmony, and apparently it used to be made entirely out of crystals, but then magic disappeared, and-”
“I can’t believe it’s still here,” Flurry marvled. She noticed her friends looking at her strangely and said, “I only saw it a couple of times - I’m amazed that it’s all still somewhat intact.”
“Uh, guys?” Hitch was peeking out of a window that was hopefully concealed from outside viewers. “We may have bigger problems.” He stepped to the side as Zipp, Pipp, Izzy, Sprout, and Flurry came rushing over to peer outside.
“Oh, no,” Zipp muttered under her breath.
Zephyr Heights guards were swarming around the tree, at least a dozen of them that Flurry could see. She blinked and shook her head. No, it wasn’t just pegasi - there were earth ponies and unicorns as well. She recognized Zoom, Thunder, and… Alphabittle. The large gray unicorn was standing in the midst of it all, looking like he was searching for a friend, not an outlaw.
At least some ponies may still believe us, Flurry thought ruefully.
“How did they get here so fast?” Pipp hissed.
“They probably didn’t have to walk through a cramped tunnel with obnoxious singers,” Zipp grumbled. “The pegasi can fly, and the unicorns can teleport.” She turned to Flurry. “Couldn’t we have just teleported?”
She blushed. “Probably. But then we would have ended up right out there, where they could see us.”
“You don’t think they’re really after us right now, do you?” Izzy sounded worried. She wrung her hooves together. “M-maybe they’re just looking for clues on those three villains.” Even as she said it, the unicorn didn’t look very hopeful.
Sprout narrowed his eyes at Alphabittle. “Nah. They’re looking for Sunny.”
“How do you know?” Hitch demanded.
The former deputy pointed at the large gray unicorn. “Because that is what you looked like for the first few hours after Sunny disappeared.” He studied the sheriff again. “Actually, you still look like that.”
A guard passed right by the window, and everypony ducked.
“So what do we do now?” Izzy asked in a hushed voice once they had passed.
Flurry took another look at the treehouse around them. “We’re not going to find anything out there if they’re looking in the same place as us, and nothing we find won’t have been found by them first.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” Zipp mused. “Don’t you have a finding things spell?” The alicorn nodded. “Then use that.”
“I can guarantee that none of the ponies out there are as skilled as you are,” Izzy added helpfully.
Flurry sighed and lit the tip of her horn. She stood up and trotted downstairs to the door and out into the tunnel. She groaned and turned to look at the others, who had followed her. “I knew it,” she said, “everything’s out there-”
She froze as her horn started tugging her in another direction - back towards Zephyr Heights. Curious, Flurry allowed it to lead her to another door hidden in the wall a little ways away from the first. This one was made of wood and iron and looked like it had been there for hundreds of years. The others looked somewhat unimpressed by this, but Flurry noticed something carved into the ancient wood: a sun and a moon.
“Uh, Flurry?” Zipp said cautiously as the alicorn pushed the door open, wincing at the loud creaking sound it made. “Perhaps we should-”
The pegasus cut herself off as Flurry trotted into the door and disappeared from sight, confident as you please. Hitch and Sprout exchanged a look before going after her, followed by Izzy, Pipp, and Zipp. Izzy and Flurry lit their horns, so there was a bit of light, enough to illuminate a stone staircase with no railing going around the edge of the pit in circles, disappearing beyond the horn light.
“What is this place?” Pipp murmured to her sister, but it was Flurry who answered.
“The Castle of the Two Sisters. It used to be where Celestia and Luna lived - they were sisters - when they ruled Equestria before Luna turned into Nightmare Moon and Celestia used the Elements of Harmony to banish her to the moon. After that, Celestia moved her castle to Canterlot, and this castle was left to ruin.”
They reached the bottom of the staircase, and Flurry looked around until she found yet another wooden door with a sun and moon carved into it. As she reached for the handle, she froze. The tip of her horn illuminated a small coral pink feather caught in the hinges.
“What’s going on?” Zipp demanded, instinctively stepping towards her sister.
Flurry didn’t answer - at least, not with words. She used her magic to pull the feather free and show it to the others, saying, “We aren’t the first ones down here.”
“This looks familiar,” Hitch commented as the group rounded a corner and faced a long hallway illuminated by electric LED lights that gleamed off the walls.
“It certainly wasn’t here last I knew,” Flurry added. She ran her hoof along the wall. “Whoever was here made some… renovations.”
“Including dungeons!” Izzy said spiritedly, pushing open a door and sticking her head inside. “Guys, take a look at this!” She moved to the side as the other ponies joined her at the door and peeked inside.
“Oh my stars,” Pipp whispered.
“Nope. I’m leaving,” Zipp announced, spreading her wings as if she was making sure she could still do that. She rubbed her ankles as if experiencing a painful memory.
“Why?” Flurry asked, using her magic to push the door open more. “What happened here?” Even she could see that something was wrong - the room was full of small rooms made of metal with bars in front of them like prison cells. Chains and cuffs were bolted to the floor, but there was hardly enough room to take a step if you were wearing them. One of the cells looked like a fight had happened there, with scratch marks on the floor and drops of something that looked like… Flurry swallowed the bile in her throat, looking away.
“This is where we were captured,” Zipp growled, her eyes full of anger. “And had our memories wiped.” She accidentally nudged one of the cuffs as they walked further into the room and hissed at the rustle it made.
“Who would do something like this?” Flurry demanded, making her horn glow brighter so that they could see the whole room.
“Somepony very evil,” Zipp snapped, hovering by the door like she was anxious to get out.
“I don’t think we’re going to find anything here,” Sprout supplied, looking as bewildered about this place as Flurry was. “There doesn’t seem to be anything… recently.” He turned to Hitch, who was uncharacteristically silent, his eyes downcast. “You okay?”
“Hm?” The stallion lifted his head and blinked, mentally rewinding the conversation. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just… remembering.”
“If this is the Castle of the Two Sisters,” Flurry murmured to herself, “then that means that the throne room is…” She spread her wings and flew to the door, poking her head out and looking to the right. “This way.” The other five ponies followed the alicorn as she led the way through doors and down corridors, each one seemed to have been modernized and industrialized. Nevertheless, the layout of the fortress seemed to be about the same. They were doing well until they reached the cave-in.
“Aaand we’re trapped,” Zipp muttered unhappily, wrapping her arms around herself as she hovered over the group. Her sister spread her own wings and put her hoof on Zipp’s shoulder.
The rocks, rubble, and stone slabs were surrounded by a sunny yellow glow before disappearing in a bright flash of light, leaving a large opening that the alicorn stepped into without hesitation. The others exchanged a look before following.
“Where do you think we are?” Pipp whispered.
Zipp shuddered uncomfortably. “Probably miles under the earth with tons of dirt and rock pressing in on us at every turn, just waiting to collapse on us,” she said with a voice that was a tad bit too high-pitched for her liking. Her sister noticed and nudged her.
“It’ll be fine,” she comforted her. “Flurry can protect us.”
For some reason, that made both Zipp, Hitch, and Sprout a bit more grumpy, and Sprout muttered under his breath, “She couldn’t protect Sunny.”
“Sh!” Izzy shushed him, noticing that the light from Flurry’s horn dimmed slightly.
“Uh, we’re here!” the alicorn said instead with forced cheerfulness. She stepped into a large chamber and moved aside so the others could come inside. The remnants of the throne room were surrounded by a huge dome of earth and rock that didn’t look natural…
“This is amazing,” Izzy said, lighting her own horn for more light. Zipp flew up to the roof and gently rapped her hoof against it, looking doubtful of its ability to hold itself up.
“This is strange,” Flurry whispered, turning to look back at the tunnel they had just come through. “This should be completely buried by now… Random pockets of air don’t just appear in random places under the earth.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but was distracted by something. “What’s that?”
They all listened. “It sounds like… crying?” Izzy supplied, turning to look at the cracked stairs leading up to the raised platform that held the two thrones, barely held together.
“Careful,” Flurry called as the unicorn approached the stairs. “This place is riddled with traps.”
Izzy nodded and carefully peered around the throne with a sun on the top. She gasped, making the others jump and immediately resort to worst case scenarios.
“Sunny?”
“You found her?” Hitch interrupted, racing up to the unicorn’s side followed by Sprout, Zipp, Pipp, and Flurry. “Sunny? Are you okay?”
Flurry squinted into the darkness and brightened her own horn - Izzy’s had gone out from shock.
Huddled in a heap behind the throne was the shape of an earth pony with her head buried under her hooves. Flurry’s light caught off the glossy pink mane streaked with red, yellow, and blue and an orange coat. The figure lifted her head, and her blue-green eyes glimmered with tears.
“Hitch?” she whispered, her voice cracking as it dared to hope. “Izzy? You - you came for me?”
“Of course we came for you,” Zipp butted in, grinning. “Why wouldn’t we?” She started forward, but her sister threw an arm across her path.
“Zipp, wait,” Pipp started, but the older pegasus easily brushed her off.
“What?” she snapped. “It’s Sunny! We found her, and now we can go back and show everypony that she’s not dangerous.” She tried to fly towards her friend, but Pipp once again stopped her.
“I-I think it might be a trick,” she said. “Just… let me try this. Please.”
The pegasus landed on the ground and picked up a small rock from the cracked stone and gently rolled it towards Sunny. As soon as the pebble made contact with the earth pony mare, it vanished in a bright flash of pink light. The chamber suddenly lit up with a bright red light, and a wailing siren echoed throughout the underground dome.
“We have to get out of here!” Pipp shouted over the noise. She turned and ran through a dark doorway leading away from the throne room and away from the rest of the fortress, the others following in a daze. This new tunnel was riddled with cracked stone slabs and vines curling along the walls, and soon they were only making their way by the light of Pipp’s phone - Izzy and Flurry were still looking like their minds were back with the Sunny trap. They all were.
Pipp skidded to a stop at an intersection and turned to their resident Ancient Equestrian expert. “Which way, Flurry?” The alicorn didn’t answer. Pipp grabbed her shoulders and forcefully shook her. “Which way?”
Flurry blinked and looked around. She spotted a rotting tapestry on the wall and turned to the tunnel on the left. “That one will take us to the library,” she murmured. “That’s where we need to go.”
Pipp nodded and Flurry lit her horn so they had more light. The two led the rest of the group through a labyrinth of buried hallways and cracked corridors until they finally - finally - entered into another large room, this one full of books. Like the throne room, it was mostly uncovered, but Flurry discovered the source of this - as the ruins had been buried, a large slab of rock had settled over the library and kept it from being buried.
The six ponies collapsed to the ground, exhausted.
“I can’t believe it,” Zipp murmured. “They… Sunny…” She choked back tears and turned to her sister. “How did you know?”
“Flurry said this place was riddled with traps,” Pipp said modestly, shrugging. “And it’s not like giant pockets of air form under the earth everywhere. And the fact that Sunny was there, unguarded… it just seemed like too much of a coincidence.”
“You saved us,” Flurry said defeatedly. “They knew exactly how to mess with us.”
They were silent for a little bit until Pipp reached into her bag. “Before I forget… I got these for you guys.”
“Seriously?” Zipp snorted. “A cell phone?”
“For communication,” Pipp retorted, passing them out. “If we ever get lost or seperated, then we’ll have these to let the others know where we are.” She hefted the last phone in her hoof before putting it back in her bag. “I was going to give them to you guys earlier, but then Sunny…” She paused and took a deep breath.
“It’s okay,” Izzy said encouragingly. “Thanks, Pipp.”
She smiled and noticed Flurry was gone at the same time everypony else did. They whipped their heads around to see the alicorn fussing over a chair, trying to pull it back but unable to because of rocks trapped in the mechanism.
“Um, Flurry?” Hitch ventured, standing up. “What are you doing?”
“Trying…to…get…this…open,” the alicorn gasped, wrapping her magic around the chair and giving it a good tug. It flew backwards and cuffed her in the lip, but it didn’t fall all the way to the floor. A clunk reverberated through the room, and a section of the wall slowly slid to one side, the stone rubbing against stone and making dust fly into the room.
“Woah.” Zipp spread her wings and flew over to inspect the new room with Flurry. “What is this?”
“A secret room,” Flurry said, rolling her eyes and smirking, “obviously. And if there’s any place in this castle where there would be an entrance to the Hall of Princesses, this would be it.” She trotted inside and started looking around. Zipp and Hitch exchanged a look before they all followed in suit.
The room had been spared the worst of the decay, but it was still very dusty. Pipp gently prodded a faded pillow and sent up a cloud of dust that had them all hacking.
“Sorry,” the pegasus whispered sheepishly.
“Found it!” Izzy said enthusiastically, pushing a book aside to reveal a horseshoe in the wall with seven cutie marks carved into the stone around it. Flurry stepped forward and placed her hoof on the horseshoe, her cutie mark on the wall glowing as it recognized her touch. She turned the shoe, and the wall slid away, revealing a tunnel into which she stepped without hesitation. Zipp lifted her hoof, about to take a step forward, when she spotted the book that Izzy had pushed away. The faded brown leather cover depicted an image of two ponies in slightly rusted gold.
Curious, the pegasus flipped open the cover and saw that it was all hoofwritten, meaning it must be a journal of some kind.
“Zipp!” called her sister, just inside the doorway. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah,” she answered, picking up the book and sliding it into her bag. Sunny had found a journal that turned out to be very useful - perhaps this one would as well. She spread her wings and ran into the Hall after her friends.
“Stupid blasted rock!” Cozy Glow yelled, hurling the tiny pebble across the room, where it shattered upon impact with the wall.
“You said they would fall for that,” Chrysalis snapped. “You said that would work!”
“It should have!” the filly retorted. “Believe me, I know how friendship works, and they would have done anything to get her back! If they found her just waiting here, why wouldn’t they fall for it?” She growled and kicked another rock at the wall.
“Perhaps they knew it was a trick?” the unicorn suggested, cowering under the glare that the exiled queen sent his way. “M-maybe they had a spy or something…”
“This was a meaningless detour,” Chrysalis hissed. “It took us a day and a half to get here, and now we have to make sure he doesn’t run off and stab us in the back, and what do we have to say for it all?” She whirled around to face Cozy Glow. “That these ponies are somehow managing to sneak past us at every turn!”
The filly bristled. “They have no idea what we’re up to,” she said, her voice low and dangerous. “They might as well be going blindfolded. We have their friend, and the most powerful pony of the age, in our clutches. We have a powerful weapon and we will use it.”
“You’re forgetting Flurry Heart,” the queen contradicted, hissing as she said the name. “That pony’s the offspring of Shining Armor and Cadance, and she’s as related to Twilight Sparkle as Sunny Starscout. Furthermore, she is an alicorn - a real one. If you ask me, she’s more of a threat. We should focus our efforts on kidnapping her.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Cozy seethed. “The same strategy won’t work again - you of all ponies should know that.” She turned to look at the place where they had set a fake Sunny Starscout to lure her friends in. “Look, these ponies like Flurry Heart well enough, but there’s a kind of bond that they had with Sunny Starscout - something that they don’t have with the princess. Taking Sunny Starscout was the logical option - she’s even more powerful than Flurry Heart. She just doesn’t know it, and we want to make sure she never does - not until we need her abilities for our own purposes.” She faced the seething Chrysalis again. “Or do you have a better idea?”
The changeling growled and snapped, “Fine. They’ll have been long gone by now - and we do still have the upper hoof so far.” She whirled around to face Permafrost, who took a fearful step back. “Come on. We’re leaving.”
After the two had left, Cozy lingered a bit longer. She spread her wings and hopped onto one of the decaying thrones. Though these were far from the kind of chair she imagined for herself (she would appreciate it if hers was new and not a thousand years old), there was still a kind of elating feeling that she got when she sat in a throne - like the whole world was laid out before her, waiting for her decisions and carrying out her wants and needs.
Not much longer, she told herself. Soon the world will be mine.
Sunny lifted her head as Chrysalis stomped into the villains’ headquarters, Permafrost stumbling along behind her. The changeling waited until Tirek poked his head out of his cave and nodded to acknowledge her before she shoved the unicorn unceremoniously into the water - the cave was surrounded by a filthy brown lake and the stone walls were punctured with holes and waterfalls - before joining the centaur in one of the adjoining caves.
Cozy Glow flew in behind them and said nothing at what was happening in front of her. She noticed Sunny looking and closed her eyes.
In her head, Sunny felt like a tunnel had opened up inside, a second channel besides her own, felt something crawl inside her mind and suddenly take control-
She gasped, sitting up. It was dark out. The villains were all gone - the fire was absent from all of the caves, indicating that they were either asleep or gone. Not that either changed her current predicament.
It didn’t matter if she could get out of these chains and make her way to her friends. For one thing, she was considered a traitor and would be arrested on sight. For another, Cozy Glow would just invade her head and call her right back. She might even make Sunny do something awful to her friends just because she could. No, Sunny was better where she was - her friends were safer.
A light ignited in one of the tunnels, a frosty blue instead of the warm gold that came from fire. Sunny sat up, curious, when Permafrost entered the room, his horn lit to provide light. When the torches were out, the entire fortress became as dark as the night outside it. When he saw that she was awake, the unicorn snorted and carefully picked his way down the stone ramp.
“You know you’ve lost, right?” he sneered when he was eye level with Sunny. “You may have saved Equestria before, but you’ve never dealt with anything like these ponies.”
“Are you saying that they’re better than you?” Sunny asked innocently.
Too late, Permafrost realized his mistake. “No - that’s not what I - they have different strategies than we did,” he spluttered. “Tactics that you have never dealt with in your life - skills and powers you could only imagine. The world you’ve saved has branded you a traitor. Your ‘friends’ don’t care about you. Trust me, my little pony - you lost before you knew there was a fight.”
“I haven’t lost,” Sunny retorted, drawing herself up. “As long as I have my friends with me-”
“Ah, but you don’t have your friends,” Permafrost interrupted, looking pleased now at the turn this conversation had taken. “You’re all alone, and you yourself believe that you’re far too dangerous to ever return. What a sad, sad story. It would be such a shame if everything you worked so hard to build - everything your father dreamed about - simply crumbled.”
A blazing anger filled Sunny’s veins, and a fierce love for her father and friends, and she stood up, taking a step towards the unicorn, her eyes flashing.“Friendship cannot simply crumble,” she snapped. “You can’t defeat it, no matter how hard you try. There will always be ponies - ponies like my father - who will fight against it. Nothing I have built will crumble, and nothing you can do will ever change that.”
For the first time, Sunny registered the fear in Permafrost’s eyes. She paused, then noticed that the unicorn was bathed in a golden light even though his horn had gone out. She turned and walked as far as her chains would allow her to peer onto the surface of the murky water.
Her wings and horn had returned, but now there was something… different about them. Instead of being purely gold, they shimmered with all the radiant iridescent colors of the rainbow. And was it just her, or were they brighter, too? There was something else as well - the stripes of color in her mane matched her wings and horn, shining brighter than ever. Her mane was floating just off her shoulders and was flowing though there wasn’t a breath of wind to be had. And it wasn’t just her wings and horn and mane that were glowing - it was her entire self. Sunny blinked, but the image didn’t change.
She turned to look at Permafrost, but the unicorn was gone. Sunny took a deep breath and felt it fading away - her wings and horn disappeared, her mane returned to normal, and she stopped glowing - if that had even been what had happened. Still, the fear in Permafrost’s eyes…
Sunny had thought that turning into a temporary alicorn had been the extent of her magic, but now… now she was wondering if there was more. More to the power of friendship than she had thought.
With a sigh, she settled down again, her chains clacking as she did so. Even if she did have lots of magic, that didn’t help her. She could still be mind controlled at a moment’s notice-
Mind controlled.
Whenever Sunny felt Cozy Glow take over her mind, it felt as if another channel opened up in her head, a… connection of sorts.
If it could work one way… why not both?
Cautiously, Sunny lowered the few remaining defenses she had left - not that they did any good. Cozy Glow could still invade any time she wished. But they did keep the pegasus filly from just reading Sunny’s thoughts every moment of every day. She gently prodded around until she felt something - something different.
A mind link.
Excited now, Sunny envisioned trotting down a long tunnel, the link that connected her mind with Cozy Glow’s, and suddenly she felt something else.
Sunny carefully, gently worked her way around the barriers and walls surrounding Cozy’s mind. She didn’t want to control her - that would be cruel and wrong. And there was no way she would be able to pull that off without the pegasus filly noticing. She merely wanted to understand - what made this pony tick, what did she want, why did she want that, what her plans were.
All of a sudden, she passed through, and she could see things…
She was crouching around a corner, the shadow of a large creature with four legs and two arms looming on the wall in front of her, not wanting to hear but unable to stop…
She was setting off to an unknown land, intent on robbing it of its magic, fueled by anger and a determination to prove herself…
She was facing a creature standing on two legs with large, bat-like wings as he lifted a necklace off his neck - a golden triangle - and handed it to her, his eyes large and apologetic. He lifted his claw, and two ponies suddenly burst out, wings spread and horns ablazing, wrapping her in beams of light and dragging her down while she roared…
She was trapped in a small cage on a rocky tower deep under the earth, her only company being a large three-headed dog guarding the only entrance and exit, the only thing she had to look forward to being scratching another mark on the floor every day, her only pastime being plotting her revenge…
She was running down an alleyway, covered in a heavy, dark cloak, hurrying away from that awful place, desperate to get away…
She was standing in front of a pony, a plain brown unicorn stallion, her mouth opening, his eyes glazing over, the glow from his horn being sucked away, and she felt herself growing stronger…
She was looking down at a small purple alicorn, opening her mouth, the alicorn’s horn lighting up and being sucked dry, and so much power flowed through her veins as she grew stronger and more powerful and grew to a colossal size, towering over everything in her way, the most powerful being in the land, with everything she had ever wanted, and yet, there was still an empty void inside…
She was facing down six ponies, surrounded by a glowing rainbow light as they shot a shining rainbow straight at her, and she could feel her power being stripped away, herself growing weaker and weaker and weaker until she reappeared back in her cage, back with the three-headed dog, back with the claw marks on the bottom of the cage, back to plotting her revenge…
She was sitting in her cage as a letter materialized in front of her, and she just stared at it, shocked, wondering who would write to her in such a desolate place, but when she read it, she had the most wonderful, perfectly evil idea that would show those ponies…
She was being tortured by a pink pony with cymbols and party hats and teacups, and then she gave up her magic, the little magic she had left, to get those ponies out of there, and there was a part of her that felt good about it, something inside that filled the void that she thought stealing magic would…
She was suddenly transported out of her cage into a cave with her new cell mate, where she was joined by a changeling, a pony of shadows, and an ancient ram that she had heard stories of when she was young…
She was sitting at a campfire with the filly and the changeling as they laughed together and plotted evil plans together and just had fun together, and she could feel the void inside her filling up, and it was the best feeling in the world, so content and full and happy…
She was hit with a massive rainbow, power stripped away once more, squashed by a giant cupcake, and then… zapped, and she felt her limbs freezing up, and she felt like she had failed…
She was free, she could move again, breathe again, and she had no idea where she was, and everything was so strange and unfamiliar and she hated it so much, and she wanted to go back, back to her time period, back to her home, back to the ponies and creatures she knew…
She was sticking with the filly and the changeling, because she was scared, she was alone, she didn’t even have the ponies to exact revenge on anymore, and they were all she had left now, all she had left…
She was herself again. Sunny gasped as she pulled herself back into her own mind.
That had been… interesting. She could still feel her heart racing as she had been dragged from one memory to the other, everything such a blurred mess that she couldn’t quite sort it out, but three things were very clear.
One, that had not been Cozy Glow’s mind. That had been Tirek’s. Which meant that she was not only connected to Cozy, but to all three.
Two, Tirek was fueled by a burning hatred and a thirst for revenge, along with a thirst to prove himself, because he felt unworthy. The memories had all been a crazy jumbled mess, but Sunny was sure of that much. The pain and agony had been what remained constant throughout the rollercoaster of his mind.
Three, Sunny had been able to enter his mind. She had been able to see his thoughts, experience his memories, feel his feelings.
She took a deep breath and raised her barriers again. But this time, they were stronger - she knew what they would try to use to get past them. She felt a bit of closing off, felt something inside her recede ever so slightly.
As days passed, Zipp continued to grow more and more frustrated. They weren’t making any progress.
They hadn’t found much in Maretime Bay, other than the fact that Sunny’s lighthouse had been completely trashed, and that the Elements of Harmony were really, truly gone, along with the three unity crystals that Sunny, Izzy, Zipp, Pipp, and Hitch had worked so hard to find and put together. That fact alone was enough to make Zipp angry - somepony was stealing all of their hard work, the symbol of all they had been through together. They knew that somepony with magic had to have been behind the theft, and given the fact that Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow had both recruited Permafrost and Sour Lavender and knew spells and ancient magic that other unicorns may not get their hooves on for years, it wasn’t a stretch to assume that they were capable of something like that.
Without being able to go into town to talk to the other ponies, they could only guess what had happened - it was clear nopony had been around. Flurry would occasionally leave via the Hall of Princesses to return - cautiously - to the Castle of the Two Sisters to search the ancient spell books for anything like what they were seeing. She hadn’t found anything yet.
Being so close to Maretime Bay - and seeing Phyllis return the day after them - was clearly hard on Sprout, so the former deputy set to learning how to make his own pizza, which resulted in several failed attempts that only made him more determined to perfect his own recipe. Izzy offered to help, and between the two of them, you couldn’t enter the kitchen without your mouth immediately watering. Hitch once said that Sprout should open his own pizza restaurant, and the stallion looked like he seriously considered the idea. So then Izzy helped him turn Sunny’s kitchen into a mock restaurant, and Pipp and Hitch would impersonate a different pony every time they went to order pizza.
Hitch would occasionally sneak out of the lighthouse and into the town, under heavy disguise (this meant a mustache, a pair of wings, and a fancy wig Izzy fashioned) to hear what the news was and to get supplies when they needed it.
Izzy had insisted that they clean up Sunny’s lighthouse, and Hitch had agreed, but that didn’t take long, so they decided to stay for a couple days while they planned their next move. And as they were traitors to Equestria at this point, they couldn’t leave the lighthouse or let anypony know that they were there.
Which gave Zipp time to look at the book she had taken from the Castle of the Two Sisters. There didn’t seem to be any life-changing clues about the Guardians of Harmony or Ancient Equestria or anything like that, but she still found it interesting.
“Zipp?”
Her head snapped up and turned to see Pipp standing on the lift. “Hi?”
“What are you doing?”
“Just… reading,” Zipp said, closing the book and sliding it under her wing as her sister approached. “Why?”
Pipp worlessly pointed behind her, and Zipp turned to see that it was dark out - like, completely dark. The only light came from Sunny’s lantern that projected glowing pictures of earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns on the glass walls of the top of the lighthouse.
“Sorry,” the pegasus said bashfully, standing up. “I… didn’t realize it was so late.”
“You’ve been up here for hours,” Pipp told her, sliding over a plate with a piece of cold pizza that Sprout had made earlier that day. “You missed dinner, and everypony else is asleep.”
“How long did it take you to realize I was up here?” Zipp asked between bites of pizza.
“Not that long,” Pipp assured her arily. “Izzy saw that the light was on upstairs, and I convinced everypony to go to bed - they’re exhausted.” She said it like she wasn’t, but Zipp could see the dark circles under her eyes and the way her sister swayed ever so slightly like she was about to collapse.
She nudged her. “We all are.” Zipp slid away the empty paper plate, looked out the window at the stars, and sighed. “It really is beautiful, isn’t it?”
“I know, right?” Pipp grinned, but her hoof didn’t automatically gravitate towards her phone like Zipp thought it would. “We never see stars like these in Zephyr Heights. It’s kind of nice to be away from the city for a while.”
“What?” Zipp’s jaw dropped in mock shock. “Breaking news, highly popular Princess Pipp Petals reveals that she enjoys being away from the city and her hundreds of adoring fans! What will be next - will she admit that it might be time to take a break from her phone and enjoy life as it is?”
Pipp shoved her, and they laughed. Zipp reached behind her to turn the lamp off so they could see the stars better, and Pipp laid her head on her sister’s shoulder.
“Remember the first time Mom took us flying?” Pipp asked, and Zipp shrugged. “You were so excited because you thought it would be actual flying, and when you realized it was all fake, you made the absolute most hilarious grumpy face I have ever seen. I only wish I got a picture.”
“I don’t,” Zipp shuddered, “because then you would use it to torture me every second of every day and I would never hear the end of it.” She paused and turned to her sister. “You would do that, and you know it.”
“Maybe,” Pipp admitted, grinning.
They were silent for a while until Zipp sighed and plucked up the courage to say something she really needed to tell her sister.
“Pipp… at the Castle of the Two Sisters. I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you said that it was a trap. I just… I wanted to find her so bad that I forgot everything else. I… I feel like it’s my fault that we lost her. If we had just been honest, maybe we could have held out a little longer… enough to find help. I grew up lying to my entire kingdom and I hated it, but now I’ve lied to one of my best friends. I really just want to keep you safe, but I feel like I’m doing a horrible job.”
Zipp lowered her head, and Pipp put her hoof on her sister’s shoulder.
“You’re doing an amazing job,” she told her. “Between you and Hitch and Sprout, and me, of course, we’re practically invincible. And it’s not your fault that we lost Sunny - it’s those awful villains’ fault, and we’re going to make them sorry they even considered the idea. You were just doing the best we could with the situation. I mean, sure you could have opened your mind to more ideas, but we all have our flaws. We’re not meant to get rid of them, but work around them. And besides, I don’t care if you turned evil and tried to take over the world - you’ll still be the best big sister I’ve ever had.”
“I’m the only big sister you’ve ever had,” Zipp reminded her.
Pipp shrugged. “Still the best. Unless, of course, you think you’re not?” Zipp whacked her with her wing, and the two laughed and hugged. Pipp’s wing brushed against something, and she broke away to see what it was. “What’s this?”
“Just… something I found in the Castle of the Two Sisters,” Zipp mumbled, feeling strangely embarrassed. “I think it was written by the ponies who lived there.”
“And they were sisters,” Pipp said. It wasn’t a question, but Zipp still nodded. “What’s it about?”
Zipp shrugged. “Just their everyday life. It talks about their castle - did you know that there’s a Hall of Hooves?”
Her sister shuddered. “I’m glad we don’t have anything like that - it sounds frightening.”
“Or… do we?” Zipp tapped her chin. “Perhaps if we went exploring we would step in the wrong place and activate a trap slide that would transport us to a hidden cellar underneath the castle where Mom keeps the trophies of all the ponies who figured out our flying was fake-” She cut herself off, snickering at Pipp’s horrified expression.
“I have a sinking feeling like that would be something Mom would do, and it is not comforting.”
“I just found it interesting,” Zipp said. “There’s not much in there that could help us, but… I don’t know, I think it’s cool.”
Pipp flipped through the book, asking, “Did they ever fight?”
“A lot,” Zipp laughed, “and one of them ended with the younger sister turning to darkness and forcing the older sister to imprison her in the moon for a thousand years. I hope that none of our fights get that bad.”
“Would you imprison me in the moon?” Pipp asked seriously.
“What? No,” Zipp protested, then caught Pipp’s look. “W-well maybe, if you - you know - if you needed to be, but if I had a choice, then-” She stopped as the younger pegasus began snickering. “Oh, fantastic, you’ve got a sense of humor.”
“Were you worried I didn’t?” Pipp placed her hoof over her heart, looking hurt, though her eyes gleamed mischeviously.
“Well, I was worried you left it back in Zephyr Heights, we left so quickly, and you brought so much other stuff,” Zipp conceded, but Pipp fell silent at the mention of their hometown.
“I miss it,” she whispered. “I know it wasn’t your favorite place in the world, but… I mean, Zephyr Heights was the only home I’ve ever known, and now that we’re… out here, and I see that there’s so much more to life… It makes me feel so small. And alone. I miss the comfort of having a home, a somewhat normal life, ponies who loved me…” Her eyes flitted from the stars above them to the floor. “I miss Mom.”
Zipp wrapped her arm around her sister and pulled her in. “I miss her, too,” she confessed. “But I don’t have to miss her that hard - I have you.” She wrapped her wings around Pipp. “And I promise that I would never, ever, not in a thousand years, banish you to the moon.”
A slightly hysterical laugh escaped from Pipp. “I think you still would.”
“Maybe.” Zipp squeezed her sister tighter. “But if I do, I will have a very good reason for doing so, though I will have to restrain myself whenever you pack your canopy bed for a camping trip.”
“Promise you’ll always be there for me?”
She didn’t usually like to make promises - it was far too easy for circumstances to come up in which they would need to be broken. But this was one she knew she would be able to keep.
“I promise.”
“Thanks, sis.” Pipp yawned. “I love you.”
Zipp nudged her sister gently with her muzzle. “I love you, too. Always have, always will. Even when you’re insufferably annoying with your phone.”
Pipp let out a quiet laugh and leaned into her sister, her heavy eyes closing as she fell asleep. Zipp barely managed to stifle a huge yawn before she, too, felt her eyes shutting and her body lowering to the floor.
And that was where the other ponies found them the next morning - two pegasi royal siblings curled up together on the floor, an open book next to them, fast asleep.
Flurry Heart growled in frustration and kicked a book away from her, then felt extremely guilty and ran over to see if it was alright. She sighed and brushed off the cover before setting it gently on a pile before returning to the hidden room in the Castle of the Two Sisters.
Nothing. She let out a growl and sank defeatedly to the floor. Absolutely nothing.
She should have expected it. After all, her aunt had done the same thing - search every book and scroll for a way to rescue ponies from Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow - and come up with no results. But Twilight Sparkle had her friends - five ponies and a dragon who stuck by her side no matter what, who were willing to die together. The bond that Twilight and her friends had sometimes made Flurry ache inside, wishing she had something like that.
But she didn’t. And she had a sinking feeling that she never would.
Sunny did, she thought. Sunny and her friends… Sweet Celestia, I wish I had friends like that. I wish I had somepony to count on. She took a deep breath. Everything she ever had was gone now. And she was scared. She was alone, and the only ponies she could count as friends…
She couldn’t protect Sunny.
Flurry winced as she recalled the memory. They were right. She was a pitiful excuse for a princess. She made problems worse instead of fixing them. Perhaps they should leave her behind and go after Sunny on their own. Then they might actually be able to find her without Flurry dragging behind and slowing them down by making mistakes…
She should have spotted the fact that coming there was a trap. She should have found a cure for Sunny’s strange behavior. She should have kept her from leaving. She should have at least gone after Sunny and defeated those three villains right then and there. She knew where they would be - stars above, she was a terrible princess and an even worse friend. She couldn’t do anything right, let alone protect her friends. And how could she protect them if she was so scared of him that she couldn’t say his name, couldn’t even think about him without her heart freezing over in fear.
“Are you okay?”
Flurry jumped and looked over her shoulder to see Izzy stepping around a pile of books and steadying it with her magic. “How did you get here?”
“Teleported,” the unicorn said modestly, shrugging. “It’s really because of Sunny - she found a letter in her journal from her father and was so excited that she insisted I at least try it so she could get to Zephyr Heights faster.” Surprisingly, her ears didn’t droop and her eyes didn’t fill with sadness like the other ponies’ did whenever they mentioned Sunny. Izzy noticed Flurry looking and said, “It’s easier to talk about her then pretend she didn’t exist.” She sat down next to Flurry. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” she lied. “Just… looking.”
“For answers.” Flurry’s head jerked up as the unicorn finished her sentence. “About Sunny and how to get her back.”
“How’d you know that?”
Izzy drew herself up proudly. “I have a very good sense for what other ponies are thinking and feeling. It comes from living in Bridlewood for my entire life, being the only cheerful one while everypony else was so sad all the time, and seeing other ponies’ sparkles.”
“Sparkles…” Flurry frowned. “What are sparkles?”
“Well,” Izzy said, adjusting her footing, “I used to think it was a measure of a pony’s emotions - brighter when you’re happy, dimmer when you’re not. But then we discovered Princess Twilight Sparkle’s castle in Bridlew - the Everfree Forest, and that had a sparkle, so I think it’s connected to one’s magic as well as your emotions. Kind of like… showing what potential you have.” She gave Flurry a small smile. “And your sparkle is very dim right now. So I think you’re feeling defeated, alone, and thinking about Sunny.”
“Wow.” Flurry let out a long, low whistle. “That is scarily accurate.”
“I was always afraid to really think about what somepony’s feeling, and even more so to tell them,” Izzy admitted sheepishly. “Back in Bridlewood, everypony was kind of feeling the same thing, so that was kind of boring, and when I went to Maretime Bay, I figured out that earth ponies thought unicorns could read minds, and that probably wouldn’t go well.”
“I think it’s amazing,” Flurry told her, and the two shared a smile. “And, yes, I was thinking about Sunny,” the alicorn admitted, using her magic to levitate a book towards her and open it, flipping through the pages. “I can’t find anything about how to help her.”
Izzy put her hoof on the top of the book and gently pushed it down from in front of Flurry’s face. “I don’t think the solution to Sunny’s problem can be found in a book,” the unicorn said. “I think it comes from within. Sunny always believed - she does believe - in friendship and harmony. If there’s any way to help her, it would be that.”
Flurry sighed and reltented, pushing the book off to the side. “I’ve been thinking about Sunny’s wings and horn. How does that happen?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Izzy admitted. “I was hoping you could tell us? Sunny thinks it’s because she’s supposed to represent unity and friendship between the three pony tribes, and that’s why, but you’re saying nothing like that has ever happened before for you?”
“Special ponies turn into alicorns,” Flurry explained, “but only when they’ve earned it… or when they steal magic from others. But all I know is that, once you become an alicorn off of non-stolen magic, it’s permanent - the wings and horn never go away. That’s what makes Sunny so unique. Her’s come and go as she pleases.” The alicorn blew a frustrated sigh and leaned back against the stone wall, her eyes closed. “I wish I knew why and how.”
“You and me both,” Izzy said jokingly. “Maybe we’ll never really know for sure.”
Flurry opened her eyes and stared at the purple unicorn. “You’re a smart pony, Izzy Moonbow.”
Izzy blushed. “Thanks, but I’m not as smart as you. Or Zipp. Whenever you get all science and magicy, it’s like you’re speaking a different language.”
One of the walls inside the secret room suddenly slid to the side and vanished, depositing Zipp, who carried a book under her wing. She stopped when she saw Flurry and Izzy, causing Pipp, who was right behind her, to bump into her and send both of them sprawling. The book Zipp had been carrying went flying through the air, and Izzy caught it with her magic before it crashed to the floor.
“Oof. Sorry, Zipp,” Pipp muttered. “Now, can you please get your wings off of me?”
Zipp sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yes.” She somehow managed to take off, hovering over her younger sister as she brushed herself off. Zipp turned to Flurry with an apologetic grin.
“Sorry. I just wanted to return this book.” She looked around and froze. “Where is it?”
“Izzy has it,” Pipp said, pointing to the unicorn, who had opened the brown leather-bound volume and was absently flipping through the pages.
“What’s it about?” Flurry asked curiously, trotting over and reading it over Izzy’s shoulder.
“Just some kind of journal,” Zipp explained, looking slightly embarrassed that she had been caught returning it. “I found it when we were leaving and thought it looked interesting, so I brought it along to look at.”
“The Journal of the Two Sisters,” Flurry whispered, taking the book from Izzy. “I wondered what had happened to it.” She looked up and saw the question in the other ponies’ eyes. “This was written by Celestia and Luna, the first alicorn rulers of Equestria, when they were younger,” she explained. “They wrote down everything - arguments, solutions to problems, anything they were feeling. My aunt found it, and it inspired her to write a journal with her friends about the friendship lessons they had learned. This journal remained here in the castle, though.”
“That’s in pretty good condition for being over a thousand years old,” Pipp commented.
“Yeah,” Flurry muttered, flipping through it. She stopped at the last page - an entry written by Celestia:
I just sent my sister to the moon.
My only sister, my sweet little sister whom I swore to protect at all costs…
I failed her. I failed our parents, I failed everypony. I didn’t see the warning signs, I didn’t help make the situation better, I didn’t do anything about it until it was too late. I was the source of the problem - if it wasn’t for me, she would still be here. Equestria deserves a better ruler than I. And because I didn’t do anything - because I failed her - she was consumed by darkness, and I had to get rid of her. I had to do it… I hate myself for it.
I’m sorry, Luna. If you ever read this, know that I am so, so sorry. I wish so many things could have been different. I love you, little sister.
The passage was faded from age and smudged with what looked like tears.
Flurry had heard the story of Nightmare Moon many times from Celestia, Luna, her aunt Twilight and her friends, and even the version that was told to fillies every Nightmare Night. And yet it had never occurred to her how close that situation was to the one she was in.
Celestia felt like she failed her sister when she let - made her turn into Nightmare Moon, forcing her to banish Luna to the moon for the next thousand years. Flurry felt like she failed Sunny when she failed to help her friend when she was in trouble, allowing Sunny to be taken over by Equestria’s worst villains and kidnapped. And Celestia had never given up hope that her sister could come back - and Flurry wasn’t going to give up hope, either.
Izzy was right, Flurry thought with a smile. The real answer comes from us - our love and hope and friendship.
“Flurry?” Zipp asked nervously, approaching the princess. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve figured something out.”
“I think,” Flurry began slowly. “I think I know what to do about-”
“What’s that?” Pipp suddenly asked, her ears perking up. The other ponies froze; ever since the trap Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow had set with Sunny, they had learned to respect Pipp and her attention to detail. She often caught things that the rest of them missed.
“What’s what?” Izzy asked nervously, stepping towards the entrance to the Hall of Princesses.
“That… that sound.” Pipp shook her head. “It’s coming… it’s coming from the throne room.” She turned to her sister. “Should we investigate?”
“We have to know what these villains are planning next,” Zipp said, lifting her head. “Izzy, go back to the lighthouse with Flurry - me and Pipp will go check this out. They’ve already got Sunny,” she hurried on as Flurry opened her mouth to protest. “We don’t know if they want you or not, and that’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”
“But what if they see you?” Izzy asked, looking scared for her friends’ safety. “You won’t have somepony with magic to get you out of there.”
“I’m very sneaky,” Zipp contradicted, tossing her head. “Trust me when I say that I’ll be fine.”
“No,” Flurry said as Izzy nodded and lit up her horn, teleporting away. “I’m going with you. I’m not sitting in a lighthouse while you guys risk yourselves. Trust me when I say that I’ll be fine.” She spread her wings and lifted into the air, flying towards the tunnel that led them to the throne room. “Besides, I know how to get there, and you don’t.”
The three princesses flew down the hallway, avoiding walking to minimize sound. When Zipp cautiously poked her head into the throne room and declared the cost clear, Flurry lit up her horn, causing a glowing yellow sheet to spread across the entire room, scanning it.
“We’re good,” she whispered. “Whoever was here has left.”
“Guys?” They whirled around at Pipp’s fearful tone. The younger pegasus pointed a shaky hoof at the center of the room. “What is that?”
Flying forward to investigate, Flurry made her horn glow brighter. The sunny light reflected off of a huge black jagged crystal that had forced its way through the floor, causing the stone around it to crack and upend.
Flurry felt her heart stop and her blood freeze over. Her breath came out in short gasps, and her wings suddenly stopped flapping, making her plummet to the floor.
“Flurry?” Zipp soared underneath the alicorn and grunted as her full weight hit her. She soared into a controlled landing and deposited Flurry on the ground. “Stars above, Pipp, she’s shaking,” Zipp told her sister, unable to keep a layer of fear out of her voice. “Do you think it was a trap?”
Pipp flew down and grabbed Flurry’s shoulders, shaking them gently and then more fiercely. “Flurry? Flurry?”
“I hate this,” Chrysalis grumbled, glaring down at her orange hooves.
“Why? You look great,” Cozy Glow told her encouragingly, though her tone gave away her real feelings. “Besides, nopony can see you except for me.”
Chrysalis shot her a withering glare that lacked its usual fierceness, instead filled with what looked like… fear? Regret? Anxiety? Cozy Glow shook her head, sure she had been imagining it all. “I hate,” the changeling hissed through clenched teeth, “the feeling. Ugh, it’s the worst.”
Cozy Glow peeked around the rock formation they were hiding behind to look at the changeling hive, virtually unchanged since her and Chrysalis’ time. Cozy Glow was posing as a pony who was secretly sympathetic towards the changelings, and Chrysalis was posing as… a changeling. Her story wouldn’t be questioned, which was why she wanted to do this alone and without any help.
Well. Cozy’s story wouldn’t be questioned, either, because she was very persuasive. Nopony would even know the difference… or the truth.
The sun was hot above them, and Cozy Glow put a hoof in front of her face to shield her eyes. If this was brutal now… how had it been when Chrysalis was in charge? Was it even more miserable? How had her subjects stood it? They didn’t, she reminded herself. They unfairly kicked her out and painted her as the bad guy - which I guess she kind of is. But she was trying to be a good leader, and now they’re getting rid of everything she did. How is that fair?
She grumbled as she sat back down, leaning against the cool rock. Everypony looks at us and sees only villains - and that’s all they’ll ever see. Why don’t they give us a chance - a real chance? Why don’t they try to understand?
“Are you done grumbling and groaning?” Chrysalis snapped, standing up. In her disguise, Cozy Glow hardly recognized her - an orange changeling with shades of purple around her wings.
“You don’t have to be so mean,” Cozy said innocently, standing up and tossing her head. “Part of being a team is that we respect each other.”
“Team,” the changeling growled. “I hate this so much.”
“There’s a reason Twilight Sparkle and her friends always beat us,” Cozy reminded her. “It’s the only way to beat them as well. You do want to get your kingdom back, don’t you?” She mentally smirked as the exiled queen growled but complied. She knew what made all of them tick - she wasn’t so sure if they knew what motivated her.
“Can we go now?”
Cozy Glow shrugged. “Sure. You just had to ask.” She trudged behind Chrysalis as they walked, looking around with a wide-eyed stare of wonder and awe. She kept her head down, heeling to Chrysalis so that the other changelings wouldn’t get suspicious.
Stars above, I hate this, she thought to herself, careful not to let her emotions show. It’s only temporary, Cozy. Soon, Chrysalis will be the one following you around.
“Halt!” a changeling by the entrance to the hive called, spreading one of his wings in front of the doorway. His companion did the same, forming an X with their wings, clearly demonstrating that they weren’t allowed in without a good reason to be. “Who goes there?”
Chrysalis looked them in the eye and smiled pleasantly. “My name is Morphosis, and I came to speak to your leader.”
“Our leader?” the second changeling snapped, narrowing his eyes at her. “We’ve never seen you before. Why do you need to see the Queen Monarch? And why have you brought a pony with you?”
Cozy had to decide whether to be offended by the guard’s loathing of her or to accept it. She decided on the former, lifting her head slightly in indignation.
Chrysalis’ wing twitched as she said, “I’m not from around here. I live in the forest outside of Zephyr Heights, forever in shame because those ponies refuse to let us in. But things are changing. I bring news to the queen, news I think she will want to hear right away from some creature who’s seen it firsthoof.”
“And the pony?” the first guard questioned.
The changeling jerked her head at Cozy. “She sympathizes with us. And she knows more things than I do - she’s completely trustworthy.”
It took all of Cozy Glow’s self control to not burst out laughing at that, and she was very proud of it. Instead, she fixed her features with a helpful, cheerful, kind, and definitely trustworthy smile that seems to sway the guards.
“All right,” the first guard relented, folding his wing in, the other following somewhat reluctantly. “We will take you to see the queen, but if you try anything funny, you’ll find yourselves wishing you hadn’t tried anything.”
Chrysalis nodded and glared at Cozy Glow, jerking her head at the entrance as she followed the guards inside. Cozy lowered her head and obediently followed.
The inside of the hive was just as the outside - the bland gray walls covered with green plants and colorful flowers that made it seem almost… homey. Sweet smells filled the air, and Cozy found herself smiling, only noticing when Chrysalis glared at her and bared her teeth. She could tell that the spell of the place was wearing on the changeling, too, but she was refusing to let it show.
The throne room was at the top of the hive, and it had no roof or walls - completely open to the refreshing breeze. Cozy took a deep breath and felt herself relax. The guards took them to the foot of a large stone throne draped with strands of flowers. Chrysalis kneeled, and Cozy followed her example.
“Visitors from outside the hive, Your Majesty,” one of the guards said, gesturing to them. “They say they have news for you.”
“Really?” came a voice, female and smooth and comforting. Just listening to it made Cozy Glow relax. “It has been many years since a pony has walked into our fair kingdom. Tell me, pegasus, what kind of news would you have for me that is so apparently urgent?”
“Your Highness-” Chrysalis started, getting to her feet, but the new voice cut her off.
“I asked the pony,” she said calmly, and Chrysalis settled down, seething. “Well, young filly? Speak.”
Cozy Glow looked to the exiled queen beside her for encouragement, but there was none. “...Your Majesty,” she said, standing up and lifting her eyes to meet the queen’s.
Queen Monarch was a surprisingly darkly colored changeling with stripes of bright orange. Her purple eyes looked familiar, but Cozy Glow couldn’t place where she had seen them before. Unlike the rest of her tribe, the queen had two slender horns protruding from her head. She pinned Cozy Glow with a calm, collected gaze.
Cozy took a deep breath and continued. “The pony tribes have united,” she began, and the other changelings in the room took a collective breath. “Magic has returned, and they have begun to come together again. However, they have - as I have noticed - not asked any of you to rejoin them. In fact, I have seen no mention of your tribe in any of the ponies’ history. It is as if they have simply wiped you from existence.”
“Yes?” Monarch said, tilting her head. “We have known that they do not know of us. What does this mean to you?”
“I was wondering…” Cozy glanced at her colleague and saw Chrysalis watching her with an anxious gaze. She quickly looked away, but the emotion on her face was enough to make Cozy hesitate. “Perhaps you would like to take this time to rejoin society. Open the borders of your kingdom and show your subjects what the world is like outside this hive.”
“Is that possible?”
“Well…” Cozy rubbed her arm sheepishly, as if she were embarrassed to say such a thing. “It would be… except that the ponies are having a bit of a crisis right now. The pony most responsible for bringing the ponies back together has been charged with treason, and her friends as well. Equestria will soon be in a state of chaos so absolute it may take them a while to get out of it. They would never let you join them in such a state, so for now, I believe the best thing to do is stay out of it and let them sort themselves out. Once they do, I will return and let you know that now is the time to give your kingdom the life it deserves.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a look on Chrysalis’ face - something that looked like surprise and… pride. But she blinked and it was gone.
Monarch tapped her hoof against her chin, thinking. “I see no reason why we should help the ponies. After all, they have denied us for years. If they will soon be in a state of madness, the aftermath could provide the right conditions that would allow my subjects to reintegrate. Yes, I do believe…”
“Wait,” Cozy Glow suddenly interrupted, a new idea coming to her. “Well… me and Morphasis here were planning to fight back against the ponies. But we would not be able to do very much alone. We would appreciate it… if you considered helping us.” She looked up at the sky and, as if noticing the position of the sun for the first time, gave a little jump. “We should be going. Thank you for your time, Your Highness.” She bent her legs in a bow before gesturing to Chrysalis, and the two spread their wings and flew away. Chrysalis was silent for the entire flight, and when they made it to the group of trees just beyond the kingdom, she shifted back into her original form and whirled around to snarl at Cozy Glow.
“What have you been hiding?” she hissed. “Have you done something like this before? Why are you so convincing and good at it?”
Cozy blinked, unsure if she had heard correctly. “I… I’m very persuasive?” she tried, not knowing what to say. “That’s how I work - manipulation and alliances and fancy talk. I know it’s not as effective as threats in your eyes, but for me-”
“I could not have done it better myself if I rehearsed it a hundred times,” Chrysalis muttered under her breath, massaging her forehead. “All right. Fine. You’re doing all the talking from now on. I’ll get us in, and then it’s all on you. Deal?” She stuck out her hoof. Cozy blinked and hesitates before taking it.
“Deal.”
Chrysalis looked over Cozy’s head to a small gap in the trees and hissed, “Get down,” shoving Cozy to the ground and flattening herself against the grass. “Someone’s looking this way.”
Now curious, Cozy slowly inched towards a bush and peered through the leafy green foliage. Indeed, a pale blue changeling with hints of pink was staring intently at the place where they were hiding, her blue eyes narrowed in concentration. Had she seen them? If she had, she didn’t give any indication as she shook herself and flew off.
“Maybe keep your disguise on until after we’re out of the kingdom?” Cozy suggested in a voice that was barely below a whisper, and Chrysalis nodded slowly.
A scroll suddenly materialized in front of Chrysalis with a pop, and she let out a yelp, scrambling backwards as the scroll fell to the ground. She glared at Cozy Glow though she hadn’t made any indication of her emotions. The changeling lit her horn that eerie green and unrolled the piece of paper. A slow smile spread across her face.
“It’s from Tirek,” she said, and Cozy flew over to hover behind the changeling as she read the letter over her shoulder. “He says the next phase of the plan worked perfectly - couldn’t have gone better, in fact.”
“Are we sure it was smart to let him out so early?” Cozy asked as Chrysalis teleported the letter elsewhere. “What if he does something irrational?”
“He won’t,” the changeling said arily, putting on her changeling disguise again and lifting into the air. “I know how villains work - he’ll assess the situation first, especially after he lost so soon last time. Once he finds out that everything’s changed, he’ll be a little disoriented, but then he’ll go to get what he wants, only to find out that it’s next to nothing now. But then our brave little group of heroes will discover him, and he will pick a fight with them.” Chrysalis flew above the trees, Cozy Glow behind her.
As they left the changeling kingdom behind, Cozy Glow grinned and said, “Next stop: dragons.”
She finally came to, blinking as she sat up. She was in Sunny’s lighthouse again… that was strange. Hadn’t she been in the Castle of the Two Sisters before? She was in the room that Sunny had given her to stay in back before… before all of this…
“Urgh…”
“You’re fine,” came Izzy’s voice. “I’m not sure what happened, but you’re fine now.”
The unicorn came into view - she looked exhausted but cheerful. And was that worry? “What do you mean?” Flurry slurred, thumping back in bed, suddenly very tired. “What happened?”
Izzy bit her lip. “I only know what Zipp and Pipp told me… You went to go see what was going on in the Castle of the Two Sisters - there was a strange noise, and you went to investigate. The villains weren’t there, but there was a giant black crystal, and when you saw it, you freaked out and sort of… fainted.”
As the unicorn described it, a horrible sound echoed in Flurry’s ears: a cold, thunderous laugh that glorified in her misery-
“Flurry? You okay?”
Izzy was holding her hoof, levitating something over to her. “You should eat,” the unicorn said, pressing a plate of pizza into her hooves. “You’ve been out for two days.”
“Two days?”
“Well, more like a day and a half,” Izzy amended. “Relax, nothing terrible’s happened. I think you were just stressed. You’ve been under a lot of pressure lately - there’s nothing wrong with a little R&R.”
“I missed out on two days?”
“Like I said, it was just a day and a half.” Izzy nudged the pizza closer. “Come on, Flurry. You’re going to be fine. You have to be fine.”
“I… you’re right, Izzy. I’m just…” Flurry sighed. “This whole situation… I always feel like I’m alone. Like there’s nopony I can call on for help… nopony left at all. Everything I knew is gone, and I-I’m never going to really recover from that. And then Sunny disappeared, and Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow are free, and now Sombra-”
That name. That name. That name made her heart skip several beats, made her blood freeze, made her feel lightheaded like she was going to pass out again. She could feel herself swaying, threatening to tip-
“I gotcha,” she heard Izzy say comfortingly. “It’s okay, Flurry, everything’s going to be fine.”
“No,” she whispered. “No, nothing is fine.” She took a deep breath and thought of her mother - that usually calmed her down. But now it didn’t - it just made her more panicked. She thought of her aunt, her aunt’s friends, literally anypony…
Her thoughts landed on Sprout. Zipp. Pipp. Izzy. Hitch. Sunny.
Her friends.
She could feel her pulse calming down, the feeling returning to her hooves. Her breathing returned to normal, and she took a deep breath.
These ponies were her friends.
“I’m alright now,” she told the unicorn, sitting up and using her magic to pick up the slice of pizza and bring it to her mouth. “Just a little… shaken up.”
“You still haven’t told us why,” Izzy said. “A-and it’s perfectly okay if you’re not ready for that,” she amended hurriedly as Flurry winced. “Just know that… when you are… we’re here for you, Flurry. We’ll always be here for you.”
“I know that,” she whispered. “And thank you. You’ll have to forgive me, I’m a little…” She shrugged, at a loss for words. “You know.”
Izzy laughed. “Yup. Anyways, we were thinking we should plan where we should go next, but we didn’t want to make any decisions without you. Do you think you’re up for it now, or do you want to wait-”
“Now,” Flurry said, standing up and shaking the nausea from her head. “We’ve delayed long enough - I don’t want to waste any more time. Besides, I - I think I know what to do about Sunny.” She started towards the door, her steps wobbly and small. Izzy stood next to her so Flurry could put her weight on her, and the two staggered out and up to the top of the lighthouse where the others were waiting.
Zipp lay out a map on the platform underneath the giant lightbulb, where it wasn’t messing with the lamp or Sunny’s toy figures. Everypony gathered around her, and she and Pipp held it down with their hooves.
“I think we should explore the Castle of the Two Sisters more,” Hitch began, pointing his hoof at where the ruins were on the map. “These villains clearly knew we would look there. They may have put the trap there to make us assume that the real Sunny wasn’t there - and we haven’t even seen it all. There might be worse things hiding there.”
It sounded logical to Flurry… except for the giant crystal now in the throne room. “Um, maybe not do that.”
“She’s not going to be in Maretime Bay,” Sprout reasoned. “There wouldn’t be anywhere for her to hide, unless there’s a system of secret tunnels underneath the city, and if there was, I feel like we would have found them by now.”
“There might be in Bridlewood,” Izzy offered. “Or in what’s left of Ponyville - these guys are clearly going to be disoriented. They might stick to the places that they know.”
“And there could always be something left from Ancient Equestrian times in Zephyr Heights, but as we are considered traitors now, I think we should stay away from the cities,” Zipp pointed out. “Even Ponyville. They might turn us over if it meant them getting what they want.”
“Midge would never-” Pipp began to protest.
“I’m not talking about Midge,” Zipp interrupted. “I’m talking about much more desperate creatures than him.” Pipp nodded as she realized who her sister was talking about.
“Speaking of places they know,” Flurry said, suddenly getting an idea, “what about their old headquarters? From my time. Back when they first tried to work together to take over Equestria - they couldn’t have met in any of these places. It would have been too obvious, and Chrysalis is the only one who could effectively disguise herself. Like Izzy said, everywhere they once knew is either changed or in ruins now. They won’t want to find any random place - only somewhere they know they’ll be safe.” She studied the map over Zipp’s shoulder.
“Evil villain headquarters,” Hitch muttered to himself. He turned to Sprout, as the stallion was muttering to himself. “Um, where would you put it, Sprout?”
He frowned. “Maybe… someplace nopony would go. In both our time and theirs. Where’s a map of Ancient Equestria? Didn’t Sunny have one?”
Zipp leaned back and groaned. “Yes, and she left all her father’s research in Zephyr Heights… and none of us can go there.”
In response, Flurry lit up her horn and vanished in a flash of bright yellow light, reappearing a second later, using her magic to hold up a worn and faded map. “You mean this map?” she asked with a smile, enjoying the others’ astonished faces.
Sprout was the first to recover. “Yes… can you put them side by side?” He and Hitch held the new one down with their hooves, next to the first.
There was silence for a while as the former deputy thought until, finally, he reached over Pipp’s hoof and pointed at the modern map: “There.”
Flurry leaned over to see what area he was indicating. It was a chunk of land down the river from the Everfree Forest - or what was left of it, directly south of Maretime Bay. It was one of few areas that was virtually unchanged, looking like a bland, nearly dead forest with swamps puncturing the miserable-looking place. She did have to admit that it looked very… villainy. Nopony would ever think to look there - it was so undesirable.
“Then that’s where we’ll go next,” Zipp said in a decisive voice, rolling up both the old and new maps, giving them to Pipp. “We just need an hour at least to gather supplies, and then-”
“Wait,” Izzy interrupted, looking at Flurry. “What do we do about Sunny? What if she’s… not her?” She took a step towards the alicorn, her expression pleading. “You said you had a way - at least an idea. What is it? Do you think it’ll work?”
“You know a way to save Sunny?” Hitch and Sprout said at the exact same time.
“...Maaaybe?”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Zipp demanded, pushing off of her front hooves, which were resting on the table, to rise to her full height, her wings flaring.
“I wasn’t sure of it,” Flurry protested. “In fact, I didn’t even think about it until Izzy told me.”
The unicorn blinked, confused. “I did?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “When did I do that? I think I would remember doing that.”
“When we were talking,” Flurry said arily. “Anyway, I think the way to bring Sunny back is through the magic of friendship.”
Silence.
“That’s it?” Zipp said incredulously. She sank back into her seat, grumbling, “Why didn’t we think of that before?”
“How do you know it’ll work?” Pipp asked, landing next to her sister.
Flurry flinched; she had been hoping to avoid this subject. “I… have experience with mind control,” she admitted. “When… actually, before I was born, over a thousand years before that, the Crystal Empire was taken over by… by…” She took a deep breath and forced any thoughts of him out of her head. “By a very bad pony,” she substituted lamely. The other ponies gave each other looks, and she rushed on.
“He hid the Crystal Heart and enslaved the Empire’s citizens, mind controlling them. Celestia and Luna eventually turned him into shadow and banished him into the ice, but the Crystal Empire disappeared with it. It reappeared a thousand years later, and my parents… were sent to watch over it, because the… the very bad pony came back with it.
“My mom put a protective shield around the Empire to protect it, but without the Crystal Heart, it was impossible to hold him off for very long. And while the Crystal ponies had been freed of the mind control, there was a lasting effect - they could hardly remember anything from a happier time. Without the ability to be happy, they couldn’t power the Crystal Heart anyway.
“My aunt eventually found the Crystal Heart just as the very bad pony managed to make his way into the Empire, but Spike the Brave and Glorious-” a smile came to Flurry’s lips as she said it - this was her favorite part of the story, “-delivered the Heart to my mother, who restored it to its rightful place, and the Crystal ponies shared their love and light with it, destroying the very bad pony forever.
“Or… so we thought. He eventually was… brought back, and this time, he took over the Crystal Empire again, my aunt and her friends used the Elements of Harmony to defeat him, he came back and destroyed the Elements, and my aunt and her friends had to use the magic of friendship inside them to defeat him, releasing all of Equestria from his mind control.
“So I think we need to do the same thing - use the magic of friendship inside of us to free Sunny. I’m not entirely sure it’ll work - I’ve never seen something like the kind of spell she’s under - but we have to at least try, right?”
“I agree with Flurry,” Izzy said boldly, stepping forward and lifting her head. There was something familiar about the story the alicorn had just told them, but she decided to worry about it later. “After all, a little hope is better than none at all, right? And we have to try. For Equestria. For us. For Sunny.”
Her words had a rallying effect on the assembled ponies. Zipp flapped her wings so that she hovered over them.
“All right, everypony. We’ll search this area that Sprout found, and if we find Sunny, then… we’ll do sparkle and rainbows and magic stuff. Still not entirely clear on how that will work, but… yeah. Get supplies for…” She frowned and did some mental calculations. “Two weeks. We don’t know how long we’ll be out there for, and it’s always good to have extra. Meet me in the entryway in an hour and a half.”
Everypony nodded and began to disperse. As Flurry flew to her own room to find her bag, Pipp caught up with her.
“Flurry? That very bad pony you were talking about - in your story? Was he… was his name King Sombra?”
That name. Flurry felt herself freezing up, felt her mind go blank, felt the breath leave her lungs, felt her legs give out from under her, felt Pipp holding her up. She took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to clear the fog from her brain.
“I… I can’t remember,” she mumbled, nodding at her door. “I’d better go pack…”
She stumbled off, and Pipp put her hooves on her hips.
“Okay, that pony is hiding something.” Her expression softened as she watched Flurry’s tail disappear into her room. “But what… and why?”
Darkness seemed to come earlier that day - or maybe Sunny was just more preoccupied. She was no longer lying there pitifully, waiting to be rescued but not wanting to be rescued. Of course, that was what all the Legion of Doom saw - they had no idea what she was really up to.
It was very exhausting work, trying to decipher what the villains’ evil plans were and how they managed to make it into her mind while also trying to be completely secret about her own presence. She feared that, if they realized she was there, they would also realize she was up to something, and send her whole plan down the drain.
After completey fortifying herself against Tirek (she hoped) and discovering his motivations (he wanted to feel worthy of himself and prove himself to his father), she tried reaching out to Chrysalis next. But the changeling former queen had a very hard mind to gain access to, so Sunny scrapped that plan and instead tried to see if she could wiggle her way into Cozy Glow’s mind - the pony behind most of her strange behavior.
It was always the same at first - being dragged from one memory to another and getting a brief glance at what made the villain who they were - but for Cozy Glow, it was different. She didn’t know how - maybe, by using it more, Cozy had a stronger link with Sunny, and she with Cozy.
But whenever Sunny was pulled through a memory of a young Cozy Glow, she really felt it. She felt the raw anguish, the blinding fury, the smothering hatred, the horrible glee whenever she devised a plan and it seemed to be working all right. Of course, whenever Sunny entered a memory she felt whatever the pony - or centaur - or changeling - was feeling, but never this strongly before.
It was… strange. And a bit unsettling.
Chrysalis and Cozy Glow had returned from their quest to some of the “other tribes” to report to Tirek and make sure that everything here was fine and dandy. They’d held a meeting the day before - and now Sunny wanted to know what had happened. She could see it through Tirek’s eyes… but she’d seen a lot of things from the centaur’s perspective lately. She wanted to see what it was like from a fellow pony.
Come on, she whispered to herself, her eyes shut in concentration. Cozy Glow. Let me in.
She was zooming up a long tunnel and was met with prickly barriers and mental walls that were not as strong as they could be. She probably doesn’t think that anypony would dare try and enter her mind, Sunny thought with satisfaction, wriggling around them.
Whenever a pony was farther away, it was harder for Sunny to form a connection with them than if they were right, say, in the same evil headquarters. But she still managed. She just had to hope that the connection wouldn’t get shaky and suddenly quit all of a sudden right before she found out something important. That seemed like the kind of cruel joke that life would decide to play on her next.
And suddenly she was in; she resisted the flood of memories and the blind rage that came with them, instead focusing on a specific memory - one of yesterday.
We’ve managed to convince the changelings and the dragons to stay out of it and potentially join in on our side later, Chrysalis reported gleefully. She lit up her horn and lifted one of the cupcakes in front of her, dropping it into her mouth and licking her lips to get the last of the icing. I say we should go North before Flurry Heart and her troublesome friends discover that something’s wrong up there. Once they do, they’ll be swarming the place.
Cozy Glow shrugged. Fine with me. What’s next? Yakyakistan and Griffonstone?
Across from her, Tirek grunted and pulled out a rolled-up map and set it on the table, unrolling it and pointing at the two kingdoms above Equestria. Even if there were any Crystal ponies left, the Crystal Empire will be taken care of, he said, slashing his sharp claw through that part of the map.
Sunny shuddered. What did that mean?
We’ll leave in the morning, Chrysalis decided after wolfing down another cupcake - the changeling was in a surprisingly good mood. She noticed Cozy hovering next to her, silent, and said dryly, You certainly look excited.
Huh?
You’ve been acting off for days, Chrysalis pointed out, ever since we came back from the Dragon Lands. What’s up?
Thinking about what? Tirek questioned suspiciously, lifting his hands off the map so that it sprang back into its original state.
About… now, Cozy Glow confessed. Just how different things are… are we really trying to take over a world that we have no idea what it is anymore?
And what do you suggest we do about THAT? Tirek snapped, rolling his eyes and groaning at the fact that this was what was making his partner-in-evil act so strange. He stopped as he was struck with an idea. We could ask Sunny Starscout…
Cozy Glow winced. Yes. Um. About that… I’ve been having a bit of… trouble with her.
Trouble? Chrysalis interjected sharply, glaring at the filly. What kind of ‘trouble’? And why did you just decide to tell us now?
Not a lot of trouble, Cozy Glow said hurriedly. Just… a little resistance is all. And not even that. She’s… getting stronger, I’d guess? I can still control her, but… I don’t know. It’s like there’s a slight push when I try to get into her mind. Just a polite and firm NO. She noticed the looks on her companions' faces and added, It’s nothing I can’t handle. Likely just getting a bit of a break, so she thinks she can beat me now. I’ll deal with her. When we get back, we’ll force her to tell us what happened.
Why waste the time, though? Chrysalis said thoughtfully. Why not just grab any random pony while we’re out there and force them to tell us? She hissed as she realized the flaw in her plan. But Sunny Starscout knows more than all the other ponies combined. If we want to find out anything, it has to be her. She turned to Tirek. Make sure she doesn’t get too cocky while we’re gone. If you get even the slightest hint that she’s about to pull something on us, enter the mind link and put a stop to it. We can’t risk losing such a valuable bargaining tool.
As if I’m nothing more than an empty smoothie cup, Sunny thought heatedly, not a pony with feelings and friends!
Friends that, if they’re smart… should stay away.
I can handle Sunny Starscout, Tirek hissed, glaring at the other two as if daring to say that he couldn’t. What if she’s getting help? Inside help that tells her how to get free?
Chrysalis realized what the centaur was saying before Cozy did. You mean… those two ponies?
Would they do that? Cozy asked, a bit suspicious. They seem to hate her.
They’re ponies, Chrysalis snorted, of course they’ll help each other.
Would they? Cozy thought. Would they really? Just because they’re ponies… Well, they didn’t help me. Why would they help her? You survive by caring for yourself.
Still… it must be nice to have somepony to look after you. To care for you, to help you up when you fall. She shook herself. What am I thinking? This is exactly the kind of thing Chrysalis warned me about - friendship is a trap that will pull you in and destroy everything.
Don’t fall into the trap, Cozy. Don’t fall into the trap.
She took a deep breath. We should be leaving. Tirek, keep an eye on the ponies - all of them. But especially Sunny. The centaur nodded, and the pegasus and changeling turned to leave.
Sunny sighed as she pulled herself out of the memory, Cozy Glow’s thoughts still ringing in her head. There’s more… there’s a lot more than I realized, Sunny thought to herself. Cozy Glow wanted freedom - she wanted ponies and creatures to get along and not be divided by magical capabilities. That was why she wanted all magic gone from Equestria and in her own hooves. She was tired of being shoved and pushed aside and looked down upon because she was an orphan - as far as Sunny could tell - and couldn’t do any magic other than flying. And now she was believing Chrysalis - friendship was a disease meant to tear down everything they loved, replacing it with far less worthy things.
Despite all that, Cozy Glow was jealous - jealous of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, jealous of Sunny and hers. She was jealous that some ponies could have happiness and friendship and a good life, while she was left to rot. Which was why she wanted to be done with it all: if she couldn’t have it, nopony could have it.
Or maybe she believed that she was the only pony that deserved it.
Sunny sighed and stood up, walking in a circle before curling up again, giving her legs some exercise. She closed her eyes and reentered Cozy’s mind, but this time, searching for something specific - a memory of any friends that the filly might have had once.
Perhaps, if she saw that there was good in friendship, she would believe that it wasn’t all bad, and that there was hope.
There - a memory of Cozy Glow sitting on a picnic blanket in an apple orchard with three other fillies - a white unicorn with a curly pink and purple mane, an orange pegasus with a short magenta mane, and a yellow earth pony with a red mane and a huge pink bow. The unicorn picked up a flashcard with a picture of three diamonds on it and showed it to Cozy Glow.
“Um… Intelligence?”
Sunny carefully picked up that memory and nudged it towards Cozy Glow’s conscious mind, where she would see it. Almost immediately afterward, she felt a slight jolt of surprise, followed by something like… sadness? Guilt? Grief? Sunny wasn’t sure - but she did know that Cozy knew the memory existed, and she felt something from it.
Upon further investigation, Sunny found that there were a lot of these memories hidden in the filly’s mind - one at a time, for now.
She wasn’t sure why she wasn’t doing this for Tirek or for Chrysalis. Perhaps it was the fact that Cozy Glow was a pony like her and therefore easier, but she had a feeling it wasn’t that. Maybe it was that Sunny remembered what it felt like to have no hope - to feel like everything was wrong and untrue and she didn’t know what to do anymore. She knew what it felt like to feel all alone without anything to hold onto.
But she also remembered her friends - six of the most amazing ponies in the world. Always there for her, always fighting for her, refusing to let her go even when she was being taken over by a group of evil creatures intent on world domination, risking being charged with treason and arrested just to go after her and try to find her, standing up for her, not leaving her heart no matter how hard she tried to convince herself that they had to go on without her. Her mind said that her friends were better off without her, that they had to go save the world, that she couldn’t stay with them, but her heart said, with every beat, They’re coming. They care about me enough that they’re coming. I have hope that they are my friends and they care about me.
Cozy Glow didn’t have that hope - all she had was a longing for something she convinced herself that she could never have, something she thought was evil. And she had no idea what to do about it.
It had never occurred to Sunny that some ponies were just as trapped in their own minds as she was in hers.
Queen Haven of Zephyr Heights didn’t remember feeling this distressed since her husband left.
She understood why - deep down inside her, she didn’t blame him for leaving behind the life of glory and luxury and dishonesty for a life of truth and hard work. It was what made her fall for him - and she still loved him for it to this day.
Perhaps having honest stallions who worked hard to get what they had in life was her thing, because she saw that in Alphabittle.
The large gray unicorn had returned the day before and had hardly left her side as Haven tore through every aspect of the law in Zephyr Heights, frantically searching for something - anything - that would save her daughters. And their friends, of course. But mostly her daughters.
Something bumped her hoof; she looked up, startled, to see a small cup of tea sitting there, with a small critter next to it, holding a miniature jar of milk, looking up at her expectantly.
“Er… no, thank you,” she tried awkwardly, giving the critter a pat on the head and gently scooting him away. He squeaked indignantly and bounded back to his original spot, making it very clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. Haven sighed and put down the stack of papers she was slowly making her way through and said, “Oh, all right.”
The critter chattered happily as he gently poured a cloud of milk into the golden tea, stopping just where Haven liked it. He nudged the cup towards her and scurried away again. Haven picked up the cup, took a sip, and sighed, feeling herself relax.
“You’ve been at this for hours,” Alphabittle said, standing at the doorway, leaning down to let the tiny critter clamber onto his hoof, where he lifted it onto his back. The room was full of papers and books and boxes of both, so much so that the unicorn couldn’t get any farther than the door. He surveyed the mess and smirked. “I wasn’t aware that you got rid of your desk… and the shelves… and just about everything in here.”
Haven groaned and gently set the cup of tea down before letting her head fall onto the sea of papers that covered her desk. “It’s a mess in here,” she muttered into the paper.
“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Alphabittle stammered as he took a step towards her and knocked into a tower of books, sending it toppling to the ground. When Haven made no reaction, he shrugged and waded through the ocean of paper, shoving it to the side and leaving a huge path in his wake.
Haven sighed and turned her head so that she was looking at Alphabittle. “I miss them,” she whispered. “I’m worried about them.”
“Pfft. They’re probably fine,” he tried to comfort her. “Look, they’ve saved our flanks how many times now? They’re just as capable as anypony, and they’ve got their friends in case things get messy.”
“You think things are going to get messy?” Haven said in a panicked voice, sitting straight up.
Alphabittle hesitated. “...No, but in case they do, they’ll be able to get out okay. They’ve done it before.”
Haven slumped back into her seat, rubbing her eyes. Alphabittle couldn’t help but notice that they were lined with dark circles and were much duller than usual - without the usual sparkle that he always noticed whenever he looked at her.
“When was the last time you slept?”
The queen blinked, trying to remember. “I think… two days ago? Maybe three?” She shrugged. “I’ve had more important things on my mind.”
“By all the stars,” the unicorn muttered. “You’re going to fall asleep on your hooves if you don’t get some rest, and you can’t fix this if you’re falling asleep on your hooves.” He stepped aside and pointed at the door, but Haven shook her head.
“I can’t,” she almost whimpered, her eyes getting misty. “My little fillies are going to be charged with treason, and I have to find a way to free them, but I haven’t found anything. I - I failed them.” She threatened to slump over and collapse onto the floor, but Alphabittle caught her before that could happen. He set her back upright, dusting off her wings.
“Like I said. Falling asleep on your hooves,” he said with a decisive nod. He looked down and saw that one of the many papers was stuck to the bottom of his hoof and tried to shake it off.
“I’ll be fine,” Haven insisted, picking up a book and opening it to the first page. At the sight of the lines of words in size 1 font, she slumped and nearly pitched forward, just barely managing to stop herself from falling asleep with a law book for a pillow. “Just… a little more…”
“You’re going to work yourself to death.” Alphabittle growled and lit up his horn, trying to grab the stubborn piece of paper from his hoof. Instead, he grabbed his whole hoof and tugged himself up so that he was hanging upside down… with a piece of paper still stuck to his hoof. Alphabittle doused his horn, and the unicorn crashed to the floor, sending up a cloud of paper and toppling books. At the noise, Thunder and Zoom - Haven’s most trusted guards who had returned with Alphabittle - peeked into the room and decided that they did not want to know why the queen and the unicorn were poking their heads out of a massive pile of paper that filled half the room while still more drifted down from the ceiling. The two guards withdrew their heads and gently shut the door.
Haven gave Alphabittle a dirty look, and he tried for a sheepish and apologetic smile.
“Anyway,” she said through clenched teeth, pulling herself out of the pile and settling on top of it, “perhaps you should go… challenge some of the guards to a dance off.”
“Eh. My dancing ego’s never been the same since Sunny Starscout beat me,” he said, shrugging and having a lot more trouble extracting himself from the mountain of paper than Haven. “Course, she never would have done it if your daughter hadn’t stepped in.”
The queen of Zephyr Heights set down her book and laid her head on top of it, facing Alphabittle. “I wish…” She stopped. “I mean, I’m proud of them - I’m proud of all that they’ve done, but… I just wish they could use their mother more often. It feels like they’re growing up too fast… and I’m missing out on it all.” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I hope they’re okay…”
Alphabittle gently pushed aside a book and picked up his little critter, setting the tiny creature on his head. “I hate feeling useless,” he admitted. “Like everything’s out of my control and I can’t do anything about it.”
Haven gave a small chuckle. “I know what you mean.” She stirred some papers with her hoof. “Can I ask you something?”
The unicorn shrugged. “I mean, you just did, but…”
The queen surprised herself by laughing. She didn’t remember feeling this good in ages. “How do you know what the right decision and the best decision are? And… how do you pick which choice you make?”
Alphabittle was silent, thinking. His tiny critter spotted a flash of blue and squeaked, scurrying off across the field of white to dig out the teacup, which he then brought back to Alphabittle with a proud look on his little critter face.
“Well… I’m not exactly sure I’m the best pony to ask,” he finally said. “I mean, I’ve made a lot of choices that weren’t right or the best, so…”
“None of us have,” Haven said quietly.
“True,” Alphabittle admitted. He thought for a little bit more. “I think… that the right choices are based on love and care and friendship… while the best choices are based on logic and fact and are the smartest thing to do with what you have. And if it were up to me… I would always pick the right choice, because…” He shifted his hooves under the sea of paper. “When I was a foal, I didn’t have a lot of friends - so I felt like I needed to prove myself. So I started playing games, but I still didn’t have many ponies who really cared about me, and now that I do, I… don’t want to lose that.”
“I keep getting afraid that the choices I make will make me lose that,” Haven whispered. “So I’m scared to make many choices right now unless I’m sure that they won’t make me lose anything.”
“Every choice makes us lose something,” Alphabittle said, freeing one of his hooves and setting it on top of the paper ocean. “We just have to make sure that it’s not the things that matter most to us.”
Haven gave him a small smile and took his hoof. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “you don’t have to prove yourself to me.”
“But you need to get some sleep,” Alphabittle told her, stubbornly refusing to let the topic go. “I’ll keep looking for you.” He pulled out his second front hoof and tried to drag his entire body out with varying degrees of success. Finally, he lit up his horn and carefully, gently surrounded himself in his own magical aura, lifting himself up and out of the hole. Paper cascaded over the side to fill the gap, and Alphabittle set himself down next to Haven, who was stumbling to her feet.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled as Alphabittle tried to help her. She yawned, rubbed her eyes, took a step… and promptly collapsed and fell asleep.
Alphabittle chuckled. “Yeah… fine is how I would put it, too.” He used his magic to lift her up and uncover a plush armchair from the sea of paper, setting the queen gently in it, where she continued to snore. He turned back to look at the mess he had made and wilted before sighing and lighting up his horn once more.
Haven yawned and blinked open her eyes. She was sitting in a soft chair in her office, but it was… clean. A roaring fire sent waves of warmth over the room, and lying next to her chair was a large unicorn, snoring like an elephant.
“Your Majesty.”
With a start, Haven turned to see Zoom Zephrywing standing in the corner of the room, standing at rigid attention. Beside her sat her companion, Thunder, who had his head resting against the wall and was slightly drooling in his sleep. The blue pegasus looked slightly embarrassed at the behavior of her partner.
“What time is it?” Haven murmured, rubbing her eyes and sitting up.
“Two in the morning,” Zoom replied. Upon seeing the queen’s confused look, she added, “You’ve been asleep for a day.”
Normally, Haven would have been outraged - all the time she could have spent looking for her daughters just wasted on an extended nap! But, for some reason, she felt calm and composed now, her head clear of exhaustion. She stood up and stretched her wings, looking around for all her law books and papers.
“He said to give you this,” Zoom interjected, nodding at Alphabittle and holding out a piece of paper to the queen, who accepted it and studied it. There was a large hoofprint on the back that she had an instinctive feeling belonged to Alphabittle, and on the front…
Her heart stopped as she read through it. This was it. This was the loophole she had been looking for!
“I take it that it’s something good?” said the conscious guard, noticing Haven’s delighted expression. Zoom suppress a yawn and snapped back to attention before the queen could notice, but Haven caught the gesture out of the corner of her eye.
“This is perfect, thank you,” she told the pegasus. “You are relieved from duty for the day - I imagine you must be exhausted.”
Zoom flushed. “I’m sure I can watch you for a little while longer,” she started, but Haven interrupted.
“You should get some sleep. I’ll be fine,” she told her. Zoom nodded and bent down to scoop up Thunder and sling him across her back, staggering out into the hallway. Haven walked over to the window - she could walk through her office now! - and pushed it open, giving her a breathtaking view of the city below. Just a few days ago, her daughters and their friends were going on a day-long exploration of Zephyr Heights… that felt like so long ago…
“The right decisions are based on the heart,” she whispered to herself. She caught herself looking over at Alphabittle as she said it.
And in her heart she knew: there was more she could do to help.
“Urgh,” Pipp muttered as her hoof sank into a mud puddle. She pulled it back out again with a satisfying sound and wiped it on the grass, wrinkling her nose. “Are we almost there?” she asked with a hint of a whine in her voice.
Her sister sighed above her. “For the last time, Pipp, I did a scout a few minutes ago, and it looks like another day’s walking at least,” she reported, executing a flip. “And trust me when I say that it isn’t going to get any easier than this.” She eyed her younger sister as she sighed and grumbled. “You could fly, you know.”
“But my wings are too tired,” Pipp moaned. “I’ve been flying all day, and if I don’t let them rest, then I’ll get cramps!”
“You are impossible,” Zipp muttered, and Pipp flung a bit of mud up at her.
“Calm down, everypony,” Flurry tried to console them. “I’m sure it’s not as far as it looks, right, Zipp?” The pegasus shrugged, and Flurry glared at her. “We’ll make it there tomorrow, I’m sure of it, and then we can look for Sunny. She’s gotta be around here somewhere.” She squinted through the fog and tried to identify the murky shapes in the distance.
“I hate this,” Hitch grumbled, stepping lightly around a puddle. He shook his head to try and clear it of all the water that his mane had collected over the past couple of days, but it made no difference, except that Sprout got drenched. The red earth pony managed to keep the map from getting wet, and he gave Hitch a dirty look, which the sheriff shrugged off.
“You do not hate this,” Flurry contradicted, “you’re just tired. And wet. Besides, this is the only way to find Sunny, so-”
“It’s not the only way,” Hitch retorted, “we’ve got magic! One spell, and poof, Sunny’s back, everything’s fine, la-dee-la, happy ending.” He glared at Flurry. “Or is your magic just above helping your friends?”
“It is not,” Flurry said hotly, drawing herself up. “I’m not trying because I know it’ll be useless! They wouldn’t kidnap somepony as important as Sunny and leave her so that a simple magic spell can sort the matter out. Trust me, I know these guys and how they think-”
“Do you really?” Sprout interjected, sliding the map into his bag where it wouldn’t get wet. “Have you ever tried being one? Because it really puts everything into perspective for you.”
“I’ve heard stories-”
“So all we’re going off of is a few stories, not actual experience?” Pipp said, rolling her eyes. “I’m so glad we’ve got such a capable pony in charge.” She hissed as her sister dumped a load of water on her head by shaking off her wings.
Flurry spread her wings and shook the water out of her mane. “I know a lot more than you think!” she told Pipp, her voice growing louder with anger. “Believe it or not, I was born into a world of chaos where evil kept trying to destroy the forces of harmony, and everything didn’t always end so quickly that awful things didn’t happen! Have you ever had your friends and family nearly freeze because of you and something you couldn’t control? Have you ever been kidnapped and separated from your parents when you weren’t even a year old? Have you had your kingdom overtaken by a pony of pure darkness that infected every citizen with his mind control and forced your parents to bow at spear point? Have you ever been given the burden of being Equestria’s last hope that friendship and harmony might still make it through? Do you have any idea what it feels like to wake up some hundred years into the future where everypony you love and care for is gone?”
“Have you ever had your friend mind controlled by a group of evil villains unlike anything you’ve ever dealt with?” Hitch snapped, taking a step forward.
“Have you ever had to lie to your entire kingdom, giving them false hope that maybe things weren’t as bad as they actually were?” Zipp added, giving a frustrated growl as a leaf full of water dumped on her back.
“Have you ever had your own mother only care about you because you go along with everything she says and can sing some good songs?” Pipp retorted, shaking out her wings.
“Have you ever had ponies avoid you whenever you walked down the street, not knowing whether or not they could trust you because you made a mistake that any of them would have made?” Sprout said, his green eyes full of exhaustion and anger.
“Maybe we wouldn’t be here if you had done more for Sunny than lie to her!” Zipp said.
Flurry opened and closed her mouth, temporarily at a loss for words. She shook herself and said, “Well-”
“EVERYPONY STOP!!!”
They all turned to see Izzy, standing a little ways ahead of them, looking exhausted, sad, and even a bit heartbroken. The unicorn lit up her horn and created a transparent purple bubble around them that sent waves of heat wafting over them.
“Look,” she said in a tired voice as she trotted over to them. “We’re all tired, we’re all wet, and we all want to find Sunny - but we’re not going to do that by arguing. Yes, we all have parts of our lives that we don’t love as much as the others, but that doesn’t mean that some of us are better or worse than everypony else. And we’re all friends here - that means that we stick together, no matter what.” Her voice broke and became a little more than a whisper. Izzy took a deep breath and wiped at her eyes. “Is this what Sunny would have wanted us to do?”
Zipp landed next to her sister and looked at the ground as she pawed at it with her hoof. Everypony else looked elsewhere, not sure how to speak.
Flurry took a deep breath. “You’re right, Izzy. And, guys… I’m sorry for how I acted. You’re right, I have no idea what we’re really up against other than stories I’ve heard… and that scares me. It’s bad enough that I’ve lost just about everything - I don’t want to lose anything else.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Hitch and Sprout muttered at the same time, and Pipp and Zipp also gave their apologies. They all turned to look at Izzy, who in turn looked up at the sky.
“I think it’s going to start raining,” she said, and everypony groaned. “So… maybe we should set up camp right…” The unicorn frowned, scanning their immediate surroundings. She spotted a break in the trees and pointed to it. “There.”
Izzy led the bedraggled ponies into the small clearing, barely big enough for the six of them. As it was slightly uphill, the ground was drier and the fog lesser. Hitch, Sprout, and Zipp went to go find somewhat dry firewood while Izzy, Flurry, and Pipp set up a shelter. Well, Izzy and Flurry set up a shelter. Pipp pulled out her replacement cell phone and tried to get a signal.
A single fat drop of water plopped on Flurry’s muzzle, and she looked up at the cloudy sky with a worried expression, saying, “At least we’ll be getting out of this rain.”
The unicorn levitated a few logs and stuck them into the mud, forming a large rectangle, as well as a few more along the long sides of the rectangle. Flurry added more branches as crossbeams, and the two balanced thick, leafy branches on the top. The alicorn picked up some vines and tied the roof down.
“There,” she said with a proud voice, she and Izzy stepping back to admire their work.
“Oh, thank hoofness,” Pipp said in a relieved voice, dashing under the roof and huddling in the corner. She sighed and said, “It’s so much warmer in here.”
A little more work had some more branches stuck along the sides, perpendicular to the ground to act as walls, with a hole for a doorway. Not much longer after, Hitch, Sprout, and Zipp came back with firewood, and Flurry shot the small pile they had made with a magic spell that set it aflame.
The six ponies sat around the fire, feeling their exhaustion catch up with them.
Zipp stretched and yawned as she lay down beside her sister, mumbling, “This is much better.” Pipp leaned into her and murmured her agreement as she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
“Eh, it’s not perfect,” Flurry said, using her magic to adjust one of the sticks. “I would have liked to have something that we could use to secure it better, but…”
“It’s fine,” Izzy told her, gently putting her hoof on the alicorn’s. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
Flurry gave a rueful smile. “Guess it runs in the family.”
That night, as Izzy had thought, the rain came, icy sheets of it, pouring down and flooding the path that the ponies had originally been taking, making the temperature drop from warm and miserable to just above freezing and miserable. Their little hut didn’t keep out all the leaks, so Flurry and Izzy took turns casting protective shields around the stick house during the night and into the morning, as the rain showed no signs of stopping.
“It’s too unsafe,” Sprout protested. “If somepony walks by and sees something magicky and glowey, they’ll know where we are, and we aren’t exactly on the good side of the law right now.”
“Who would be walking around in this weather?” Pipp asked, growling at her phone. She managed to get a signal, but it was incredibly weak, and it took about five minutes for any one pixel to load.
“I’m just saying,” Sprout said, spreading his hooves.
“He does make a fair point,” Hitch added. “There aren’t a lot of ponies who know how to do complicated magic yet - or any magic at all. But everypony knows about us, and they know that we can. Anypony with a brain could put together that magic usually means us.”
“But nopony is out here,” Pipp said again, emphasizing every word. “Why would they be?”
“They could be a bunch of creepy villains that want to take over the world and have brainwashed our friend and are supposedly out here as well,” Zipp pointed out, getting a wing swat from her sister. “Or any kind of strange social-outcast creature.”
“Not helping, Zipp,” Pipp muttered under her breath. “Besides, it’s either that or get soaked, and if we get captured, at least we’ll be dry.” She turned back to her phone and carefully studied the screen. “Oh, great. This says that the lovely weather won’t clear up for at least another hour. So… we’re stuck here.”
“At least there’s food?” Izzy said optimistically, reaching into her bag and pulling out an apple, tossing it into her mouth.
Flurry yawned and looked over at Izzy, who nodded and lit up her horn a bright purple. Flurry’s own horn went dark, and the alicorn stumbled over to a corner and curled up, asleep within moments. She was taking much longer turns than Izzy was, though the unicorn tried to get her to have equal time.
The rain didn’t clear up for two more hours, and when it did, the ponies emerged from their ramshackle hut to find mud even worse than the day before, fog even worse than the day before, and the clearing trashed, with no indication of where they had come from or which direction they were supposed to go, which immediately put all of them in such a good mood, as you can probably guess. Sprout pulled out the map and spread it out on a rock.
“I think… we’re supposed to go that way?” the red earth pony suggested, pointing one way. “Or maybe it’s that way,” he said, pointing the opposite way. “I don’t even know which way is which anymore - they all look the same.”
Flurry came up next to him and looked at the map herself. “I think it’s that way,” she said, pointing at the direction Sprout had originally pointed to. “Look, you can see that big boulder in there.” Sprout nodded and rolled up the map again, and the six ponies set off in that direction. And after walking for hours and making many directional changes, night had fallen, and they were forced to admit that they were totally and completely lost.
“Great, just great,” Zipp muttered to herself. Flurry overheard and turned to glare at her.
“Then why don’t you try to come get us… unlost!” she snapped, turning back to the map. “Okay, we definitely took a wrong turn there. Maybe if we backtrack a little bit…”
“But it would be faster if we follow the river and make it back to the original path,” Sprout contradicted, tracing out his suggested path on the slightly damp paper. “Faster is better, right?” he asked Hitch, who was standing behind him, and the sheriff shrugged.
Flurry shifted her hooves in the muck. “I guess we do want to find Sunny faster,” she said slowly, which Sprout took as an agreement. He nodded to the right and said, “This way, guys.”
The mud and grime and puddles left over from the rainstorm made their progress excruciatingly slow, Zipp, Pipp, and Flurry, the only ponies with wings, finally just offering to carry everypony so that they weren’t slowed down by the conditions on the ground at all, but Hitch and Sprout firmly refused while Izzy cheerfully said that she was fine on the ground.
After a few more hours of walking, they were no less lost. Sprout’s muzzle was within an inch of the map, searching desperately for a way out, but he found none.
“Well, this is fantastic,” Zipp said as she shook out her wings.
“Your negative attitude is not helping!” Sprout yelled from the ground. “Could you try to focus on something positive for a change?”
“Okay,” Zipp said cheerfully, “I’m positive that we are permanently and forever lost in this wonderful place that you brought us to. What a wonderful day.” As she spoke, her tone shifted from falsely cheerful to sarcastic. Sprout glared at her.
“All right, everypony, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Izzy said nervously, stepping between the two, fearing another fight coming on.
“Fighting isn’t going to magically teleport us out of here,” Flurry added, swooping over to nudge Zipp. “If it would, then I would tell Sprout that pineapple belongs on pizza-”
“It most certainly does not!” the stallion said hotly.
“-and we would find Sunny in ten seconds flat,” the alicorn continued as if nothing had happened.
Pipp grumbled and looked up, searching for anything above the entire earth other than fog and clouds and gloom. Was that… a darker patch there? But it couldn’t be clouds… why was it glowing? She squinted so that she could see better.
“Guys, look!” she said excitedly, pointing at the patch of night sky visible between the clouds, in the opposite direction they were heading.
Shining against the velvety darkness of the dark night were six stars, five surrounding the fifth, glowing slight shades of purple, pink, orange, yellow, blue, and white. Flurry took a step forward and tilted her head at the shape - it looked vaguely familiar.
“I think we’re supposed to go… that way,” Izzy said slowly as the stars alternately blinked brighter and dimmer - that definitely wasn’t normal star behavior.
Zipp tilted her wings, swinging around to face the constellation. “Well, what are you slowpokes waiting for?” she demanded, grinning as she did a loop-de-loop. “Let’s go find Sunny!”
“Call me crazy,” Hitch ventured after a while, “but this seems to be the exact spot we were in… days ago.”
Flurry took her eyes off the sky and looked around them - he was right. “Well. That’s… strange.”
“Stranger than following a bunch of stars?” Zipp said, walking next to her sister and wincing as she ruffled her wings. After flying for days on end, her wings had cramped up, and she was now resorting to walking and avoiding the smug looks Pipp kept giving her.
“I think the strangest thing,” Pipp added, “is that we followed a bunch of stars to a place we had already been. Does anypony else get the feeling that they’re not leading us to Sunny?”
“Does anypony else get the feeling that we must be insane to follow the directions of glowy things in the sky?” Sprout muttered to himself.
Izzy waved it off. “We’ve done worse things. Besides, do stars usually do… that?”
She gestured to the bright sky, the sun beating down overhead, and the cluster of stars that were still visible despite the time of day. And they were still flashing. Flurry hoped that nopony else saw them and got an idea into their heads that wouldn’t turn out so good for them…
The red stallion shrugged. “I saw a bunch of stars fall down to earth once, and right after that, I met a ghost from the past. So… maybe it is normal, and we just never noticed.”
“Where are they even taking us?” Pipp whined, lifting a hoof and shaking it a little. “My hooves feel like they’re about to fall off.” She fixed her face with a woeful expression, and Zipp scoffed, thwacking her sister in the face with her wing before trotting off.
Flurry studied the sun, and then the stars. “It looks like… north? And a little west. I’m not sure why… Maybe whoever’s making them do that wants us to find something?”
“I… I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Flurry murmured. “I hope it’s not a bad sign…”
“Uh, guys?” Izzy said tentatively, not wanting to point anything out but also knowing that this was something that she couldn’t keep to herself. “Is it just me, or… do they look like they’re getting closer?” She squinted at the sky. “I think I can see it more clearly now…”
“It’s stopping,” Hitch realized, quickening his pace. “Whatever it wants to show us, it must be just up there.”
The six ponies practically ran across the remaining flat plains they were currently on and dashed through the dark forest over which the stars had stopped, Izzy and Flurry lighting their horns to give them light. Pipp made their progress a little slower by tripping over a log and ‘limping’ for the next few meters before Zipp told her that there might be bears in these woods, and her hoof seemed to miraculously heal right then and there.
Night had fallen, the six stars brighter than ever now, when they burst into an open clearing, looking up to confirm that the constellation they had been following was, indeed, right above their heads.
“Everypony, split up,” Flurry commanded, spreading her wings and surveying the scene below her. “Something important has to be here somewhere.”
They all dashed away to different corners of the clearing, Izzy lifting rocks with her magic, Hitch lifting rocks without magic, Sprout pawing at the roots of the trees, Zipp and Pipp joining Flurry in the air. Flurry and Izzy eventually had to run around, answering the calls of everypony else when they needed better lighting. Despite all this, it was Pipp who finally found it.
The pegasus was trotting along the ground, giving her wings a rest, her phone out and flashlight on, scanning the ground, when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Caught on a thorn bush was a piece of weathered paper, fluttering meekly in the thin breeze.
She carefully approached the bush, apprehensive, as anypony would be after everything they had been through, and carefully untangled the paper. Her eyes scanned the title, and she froze.
“Uh, guys?”
“Pipp, if this is another excuse, I swear by all the stars, I am going to-” Zipp started, but her sister cut her off.
“It’s not that! I - I think I found what we’re looking for.”
Flurry landed in front of the pink pony and took the paper from her, quickly reading it. Her blue eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. She looked up at Pipp, at a loss for words. “Th-this is a spell,” she whispered. “A spell for… for a mind link. A mind link that allows one pony to put thoughts in the head of another… and take memories out. A mind link that can make a pony lose themselves.”
“Like with Sunny!” Izzy exclaimed, a huge grin spreading across her face. “Do you know what this is? This is proof! Proof that she wasn’t herself - we can use this! Everything’s going to be fine now!”
“Right,” Zipp said unenthusiastically, kicking at the ground. “Except that we have no proof that this is the spell that was used on Sunny.”
“So it doesn’t matter?” Pipp’s eyes filled with tears, and she stuck out her lip.
“No, it does,” Flurry said quickly, comforting the younger pegasus while Zipp rolled her eyes. “We just need to find one more piece of evidence… and that unfortunately will be a lot harder to find than this. We either need Sunny so that we can show everypony that this was the spell cast on her - I know a spell that reveals any magic cast on a pony. Or we need one of the villains who did it to her to come up and confess to it, which is something that I don’t think they’ll be very inclined to do.”
All of a sudden, a scroll popped into existence in front of Izzy, who gave a little jump before grabbing it with her magic. She unrolled it and looked at the signature at the bottom, her eyes widening.
“It’s from Alphabittle!” she said excitedly, talking over everypony else’s excited exclamations. “Listen - Dear Izzy, I hope this finds you safe and unharmed. And everypony else, too. Especially Pipp and Zipp - I just know that their mother will never forgive herself if something terrible happened to them. Speaking of the queen, she believes she has found a loophole that she can exploit, but the chances of it working are slim, so she hopes you will be able to find something else to help.” Izzy nodded at Pipp, who tucked the spell under her wing where it rested next to her phone.
“Unfortunately, what I am writing to you about has nothing to do with Sunny - it has something to do with Flurry Heart. Phyllis has detected more strange magical activity north in the Crystal Empire, but Haven can’t spare anypony to go check it out - every unit she can spare is looking for Sunny. I have faith that it will be you and your friends who find her, though.
“Me and Haven were both wondering if you and your friends could go see if anything is going wrong in the Crystal Empire - it could possibly have something to do with Sunny, and even if it doesn’t, you may just discover that a new villain is approaching who is out to destroy Equestria - who knows, really? Your friend, Alphabittle.
“P. S. This is Queen Haven. I’m sorry I can’t do more. Zipp, Pipp, I love you and I hope you will be home soon.” Izzy frowned at the paper. “That’s all there is.” She rolled up the paper and noticed Flurry’s panicked expression. “Flurry? Are you okay?”
“I feel it now,” the alicorn whispered. “I felt it before, but - but now I know. The Crystal Empire - it's in danger.” She looked at the assembled ponies and spread her wings. “I’ll go. Alone. It’s my kingdom, and I’m responsible for it. The rest of you, keep looking for Sunny. I’ll come find you later.” She prepared to take off, but Zipp grabbed her hoof.
“Oh, no no no no,” the pegasus said firmly, pinning Flurry’s hoof to the ground. “You are not going anywhere alone. We’re coming with you. Right?” Everypony else nodded. “If you’re going to the Crystal Empire, then so are we. We’re basically jumping at any leads we can get at this point. If your home is in danger, then it might have something to do with those villains - and they might have Sunny with them. In a way, we aren’t exactly straying from our mission.”
“But Sunny…” Flurry swallowed. “Sunny’s counting on us. We can’t just abandon her. What if she really is down there, and we miss her?” She took a deep breath. “I think we should keep looking for Sunny. The Crystal Empire isn’t much now - just an empty city. I think… I think it can wait. For a little while, at least.”
The words were hard to force out, but once she said them, she knew she had made the right choice. The ponies were nodding while also giving her concerning looks, but they were turning around, they were going back to the forest. She breathed a huge sigh of relief.
As they walked, Sprout caught up to her. “Hey,” he said quietly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Flurry said quickly - a little too quickly. Sprout gave her a look, and she sighed. “Okay, not fine. I just had to choose between my friend and my kingdom - I always hoped that I would never have to do that. And now that I have, have I even made the right choice? What if Sunny could get out on her own, and we don’t need to go looking for her? What if she was right that we should stay away? What if something terrible happens to the Crystal Empire while we’re away, and I wasn’t there to stop it or save what’s left?” She shook her head and studied the ground passing under her hooves. “I know what I said - that it’s only an empty city. But it used to be so much more than that. And I don’t want to give up hope that it could be something like that again.”
“You sound like Sunny,” Sprout told her. “Always hopeful.” He nudged her playfully. “I’m no expert, but I think a good ruler should be hopeful - and I think you would be a really good ruler.”
Flurry surprised herself by smiling. “Thanks, Sprout.” She tilted her head at the sky and thought. “What are you going to do when this is all done? You know, after we save the world a dozen times and things have finally cooled down a bit,” she added teasingly.
He thought for a bit. “I think it would be fun to open a pizza shop… but not in Maretime Bay. Too awkward. But… maybe in Zephyr Heights or Bridlewood?” he added hopefully, looking at Zipp and Izzy, who both shrugged.
“Well, I know what I’m going to get to do,” Zipp grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Get to be queen, woohoo.” Despite her tone, Flurry thought she caught a hint of a smile on the pegasus.
“I want to open my own mane salon!” Pipp said excitedly, bouncing on her hooves. “Oh, and it can also have a stage, because of course, and I think I’m going to call it…” She frowned, thinking and tapping her hoof to her chin. Her face lit up. “Mane Melody,” she whispered in a hushed voice as if the name were sacred.
“I’m going to show all those ponies in Zephyr Heights how to pick up their own litter,” Hitch announced, glaring at Zipp. “Promise me that, once you’re queen, you will make your citizens take better care of their city.”
“Maybe I’ll just have you do that,” Zipp said, lifting her head regally but unable to keep from snickering.
“What about you, Izzy?” Pipp asked, and the unicorn fell silent to think.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. “But I do know that, whatever it is, I’ll want to hang out with you guys - my best friends. Oh, and Sunny, of course,” she added hurriedly.
Flurry laughed. “Of course.” She trotted up beside the unicorn and grinned at her. “Izzy, I think that’s what I want, too.”
Hoofsteps. Sunny lifted her head and blearily blinked open her eyes to see Tirek walking down one of the stone ramps that led to the rest of the stone structure. His eyes met hers, and she flinched under the piercing gaze of his creepily yellow eyes that seemed to glow sometimes. But she held her gaze, and it was Tirek who looked away first this time, and that seemed to have him scared. He closed his eyes and focused, and Sunny felt something battering against the walls of her mind, but she held firm.
Tirek glowered at her, but Sunny could read him well enough now - there was a layer of fear under the frustration and the indifference. She cautiously lowered her barriers and opened the mind link to see what he was thinking.
…getting stronger. Not safe. Dangerous. Knew we should have gotten rid of her. Even without her friends, she’s much too powerful. Don’t know how Cozy Glow intends to control her. Just like her ancestor. That’s not good. Too powerful, too strong, too dangerous, too… hopeful. Not good. Not good at all.
Wait… Tirek paused. Something’s off…
Sunny quickly withdrew from his mind and put up her walls again. She had to be careful about how much time she spent in their minds - they were bound to notice she was there.
Unlike Tirek and Cozy Glow, Sunny had not found a way into Chrysalis’ mind - and the thought worried her. And unlike Cozy Glow, Tirek had very few memories of a happier time, very few memories of any friendships he may have had. Sunny theorized that he tried to forget them as quickly as possible to strengthen himself - and he did have a lot of time locked in Tartarus. Cozy Glow, on the other hoof, either didn’t know she had so many memories of friends, or secretly wanted them. Nevertheless, for both villains, Sunny found happy memories and reminded them of better days - days with friends. Days they were happy. She didn’t force them on the pegasus or the centaur. She would simply push it into their conscious mind.
Tirek was a lot better at hiding his reactions than Cozy was - Sunny could barely detect anything from him. Cozy Glow was a different matter - every time she remembered her groups of friends (from what Sunny could tell, the filly mainly hung out with the three other foals she had seen quizzing Cozy, but she eventually became friends with most of her school), the pegasus’ mind became sad and guilty.
But her mental walls refused to come down. Sunny still had to slip between the cracks - and even those were becoming increasingly few and far between.
Tirek picked up a book lying on a stone table and flipped through it, turning and slouching back to his room with the book in hand. Once he left, Sunny set her head down on her hooves again, sighing and wishing she could get back to sleep. She had been dreaming about her father - she usually did when she was stressed. But this was different. There had been… something else in the dream, something she was pretty sure was important. Maybe if she went back to sleep, she would catch it…
Sunny closed her eyes and took deep, calming breaths, feeling herself drift off into dreamland.
Her father was sitting underneath the Tree of Harmony, the bright pink leaves contrasting against the dark night sky. Stars glittered above her, gleaming like tiny diamonds scattered throughout the heavens. A cool breeze lifted her braid off of her shoulder just a tad, and Sunny felt herself breathing a sigh of relief.
“Dad?” she whispered, taking a step towards the pony by the huge tree. “Dad, it’s me - it’s Sunny.”
He made no response. Sunny took another step forward, saying, “Dad? Daddy, are you - are you okay?” She took another step, and another, and soon she was running, running towards her father, touching his shoulder, and he felt so real, and yet so far away, and she was shaking him, saying, “Dad, look at me! Dad!”
And then he did look at her, and his eyes were empty, dull, unknowing, and her heart broke inside her as she realized that this, while he looked like him, was not her father.
“Who are you?” she whispered, unable to keep the tears from forming in her eyes. “Where’s my father? What have you done to him?”
The pony before her shifted - his coat rustled, and he wasn’t her father anymore, but a different pony, one with a blue coat and a candy pink mane, one she recognized all too well - Candy Floss, the pony who almost single hoofedly brought the pony tribes to war. He turned to Sunny, and his lips curled into a cold, cruel smile.
“Anything and everything, my little pony,” he whispered in a deathly low voice. “Anything and everything to get what I want. You should understand that - you would do the same thing.”
“No.” Sunny’s voice was thick with unshed tears. “No, I would never do the things you’ve done.”
Candy Floss stood up and slowly approached her; she stumbled back. “Oh, really?” he said quietly. “Even if it was for your friends?” Her hoof tripped over a rock, and she fell to the ground, and Candy Floss towered over her, leaning down so that his face was inches from hers. “Wouldn’t you do anything - anything - to be with them again?”
“Nothing as awful as you,” Sunny stammered, but in her heart, she knew that he was right. She would do anything to be with her friends again - but she couldn’t. She could never be with her friends again. She could never…
“Really? Well, my little pony,” Candy Floss said, his voice shifting, growing deeper, more mealovent than anything Sunny had heard before, “I’ll be testing that theory.”
The pony shifted again, his coat turning a dark gray, his mane turning black as shadow, a tall, curved horn growing from his forehead, his eyes a piercing red that made Sunny wish she could crawl up inside her and never have to come out again. He lifted his head to the heavens and laughed, a bone-chilling, blood-freezing laugh, and the sky turned red, crackling with black lightning.
Sunny stumbled to her hooves and looked around - she was standing alone now, but in front of her were Hitch, Sprout, Izzy, Zipp, and Pipp, their eyes completely an unnatural green, their faces passive, their colors dimmed. They made no movement as Sunny ran up to them - it was as if they weren’t… themselves.
“Sunny!”
She whirled around to see Flurry, trapped in a cage of jagged black rocks, approached by the shadow pony, his horn lit. The alicorn tried to light her horn, but more black rocks on her horn prevented her from dong so, she shouted, “Sunny, help me!” and the shadow pony shot a blinding blast at her, and Flurry Heart disappeared-
“NO!”
Sunny felt as if she were outside herself, she felt anger building in her chest, felt her wings and horn coming back, felt strange new power rushing through her veins, felt herself lifting into the air, golden streams of magic flowing off of her like water, vaporizing once they hit the air, felt her horn, crackling with lightning, lighting up, felt a rage like she had never felt before as her gaze landed on her friends, her helpless friends, and this pony who dared to do this to them-
A wordless scream escaped her mouth, and a blinding light suddenly enveloped her, burning away everything, and then-
She was standing in… nothing. An endless expanse of starry sky stretched out underneath and around her, and she was standing on a path of stars… She was still an alicorn, her wings and horn gleaming with a rainbow sheen over the gold, but she felt… calmer now.
Like nothing was there to hurt her anymore.
She heard a gasp, and she turned around to see… a pony. A regular earth pony, but he looked… different. He had a dark blue coat and a purple mane that looped into curls around his ears. And his eyes… They were a bright blue, a blue that looked unsettlingly like Flurry Heart’s, but they were different. Like they were the shape of a crystal or something. Around his neck was a pendant of a crescent moon made of pure white crystal, and it appeared to be… glowing.
“Sparkle,” he breathed, his voice barely audible. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You are… the last Sparkle. Aren’t you?”
Sunny inclined her head as a yes, and the mysterious pony let out a sound of disbelief. “Who are you?” Sunny demanded, taking a step forward and spreading her wings, casting a golden light over the other pony. “And why should I trust you?”
“I-I have a message for you,” the pony spluttered, coughing into his hoof. “They have been lied to. Deceived. They do not know the truth, and they will fight for a lie. Tell them the truth, Sparkle. Tell them the truth and befriend them… or everything you built will fall.”
She opened her eyes, gasping - she was back in the cave-fortress-evil-villain-hideout - whatever you want to call it. It was still the middle of the night, but now two ponies were sneaking outside, aided by the light of a frosty blue unicorn horn…
“What are you doing?” Sunny called, standing up and squinting into the cursed darkness.
Permafrost froze, but Sour Lavender did not. He whirled around and marched up to Sunny, bold as you please. His partner hissed at him to get back, but he didn’t listen.
“Places you don’t need to know,” he muttered, and Sunny recoiled at the wretched scent of his breath. “Things you don’t need to tell anypony. And if you do…” The pegasus leaned in, his face an inch from Sunny’s. “Well, let me say that it won’t be pretty.”
“You’re going to betray them, aren’t you?” Sunny guessed, and he took a step back in surprise, nearly bumping into Permafrost, who was right behind him. The unicorn fixed his gaze on Sunny, and his eyes narrowed. “You’re going to pretend to go with them, pretend to help, and then you’re going to stab them in the back.”
“What’s it to you?” Sour Lavender snapped.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Sunny pleaded. “Trust me, I’ve had these guys in my head - they aren’t going to take betrayal lightly. You’ve already gotten yourselves in big trouble by following these guys - trying to turn the tables on them isn’t going to work. You’re just going to make things worse for yourselves, and-”
“Since when has Sunny Starscout ever cared about what other ponies are doing?” Permafrost interjected, his horn sparking and glowing brighter. “Since when has she cared about other ponies’ safety?”
“Longer than you,” she retorted. “You don’t have to be my friend for me to care about you.”
“Wow,” Permafrost said, slowly clapping his hooves. “That was really moving. And since you care about us so much, why don’t you throw us in jail again? That showed me just how much you care about other ponies.”
“Oh, no, other ponies had laws that decreed that you be punished for crimes you committed, how awful,” Sunny said dryly. “Look, I had nothing to do with that-”
“Then don’t say you have our best interests at heart,” Permafrost snapped, grabbing Sour Lavender’s arm and pulling him away. “And if you value your friends, you’ll keep your mouth shut. Perhaps we’ll spare them after we finally get what we want.”
As they vanished into the dark, Sunny called after them. “Everypony has a story,” she said. “They all have hopes, dreams, thoughts, feelings. Some ponies are just really bad at listening to them. Some ponies choose to focus more on themselves than on other ponies - and that leads to a warped perception of the world that isn’t true at all. You can’t say that you know other ponies when you don’t know them at all.”
Silence.
“I may not know you,” Sunny added, “but I know what will happen, and it won’t be good. Can you really blame me for at least trying to warn you?”
The two ponies didn’t answer, but Sunny had other things to worry about. She had a mysterious dream pony to think about.
Permafrost tore away from the main headquarters of the Legion of Doom, his pegasus comrade close behind him. The ground passed beneath him at a frightening speed, and he was going so fast that several branches thwacked him in the face, but he didn’t care. He was fueled by anger, blind rage, all directed at one pony.
“Um, Permafrost?” Sour Lavender ventured hesitantly. “Uh, we were supposed to turn back there-”
“Silence!” the unicorn snapped, whirling around and running the other way. Sour Lavender blinked, confused, before following. He had never seen Permafrost act this way - usually, it was Candy Floss who did the whole storming-off-in-a-blind-rage thing.
The night sky above was already dark, devoid of a moon, and the stars did little to light the way. Even worse was the thick canopy above them, making it almost impossible to see. Permafrost had lit his horn, but the cold blue glow only stretched a little bit around them, and Sour Lavender, for all his confident banter and boastful comments, was feeling a little afraid. He nearly stepped on his unicorn companion’s hooves, and the hiss that Permafrost gave him was more than enough warning to never do it again.
“Here,” Permafrost whispered, stopping all of a sudden. The pegasus bumped into him, but the unicorn was so distracted with what was in front of him that he either didn’t notice, didn’t care, or didn’t feel like scolding. He crouched low, dousing his horn and creeping forward in a crawl. Sour Lavender gave him a strange look before following. Finally, Permafrost held up a hoof, and the pegasus inched up beside him, halting behind a thorny bush and peering through the holes.
In front of them was a camp, a small camp, with just a campfire in the center of a clearing and six ponies spread out around it, fast asleep. Permafrost narrowed his eyes at the ponies - he recognized all of them except for the pale one with the curly mane curled up beside the red earth pony. She had wings and a horn, but they were solid, real, not at all like Sunny Starscout’s. There was a kind of air around her that made the unicorn think that she wasn’t from this time - it was the same strange aura around Tirek, Chrysalis, Cozy Glow, the Legion of Doom. An aura of ancient, strong magic that hadn’t been ripped away and then returned. This was a pony who was not like the rest.
But it was not the pony he was looking for. The pony he was looking for… was right next to this strange pony - the stallion who had jumped in the way between Candy Floss with the memory stone and Sunny Starscout. The pony who had almost dragged ponykind into war the first time magic was returned.
The kind of pony who was desperate to do something - anything - to save his friends. Pay any price. Make any sacrifice. All these friendship ponies were like that - selfless and saving the day and whatnot. Really, it was quite exhausting.
“What are we even doing here?” Sour Lavender demanded under his breath. “Why do we have a death wish?”
“We do not have a death wish,” Permafrost muttered, slowly standing up. “We have ambition.” He took a step into the clearing and stopped, standing still as the other stallion - Hitch Trailblazer, if he remembered correctly - rolled over in his sleep, and the white pegasus - Zipp Storm, crown princess of Zephyr Heights - threw her wing over him, not waking up.
“I think ambition is a death wish,” Sour Lavender whimpered as he creeped after Permafrost, the two approaching the red earth pony - Sprout. Son of Phyllis Cloverleaf, owner of Canterlogic. His association had collected quite a bit of information over the generations.
Permafrost lit up his horn, the cool blue light contrasting with the warm golden glow of the smoldering remains of the fire. He shot a beam of light straight at the earth pony, and it connected at his forehead. The stallion twitched but didn’t wake. A second and third beam stretched out from where the original met the pony’s head, connecting with the unicorn and the pegasus’ heads. Permafrost muttered the words of the spell under his breath, and with a final push, the spell was finished, and the beams of light vanished.
Breathing hard, the two turned to see one of the pegasi stirring - the younger one, the pink one with the fluffy wings and the cell phone obsession - and sitting up, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. Both ponies simultaneously let out a fearful snort, and Permafrost teleported them both out of there, reappearing in their original spot.
“Like I said,” Sour Lavender panted, kneeling on the ground and trying to catch his panicked breath. “Ambition - death wish.”
“We got what we needed,” Permafrost snapped, shushing him and peering into the campsite. The fool pegasus was checking her phone, groaning as no connection showed up. “Now we have a potential bargain that will save us in the future - something that will give us a leg up.”
“Can we get the valuable bargaining tools in safer ways next time?” Sour Lavender asked, standing up and shaking out his wings. “And can we go now?”
Permafrost rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he snapped, turning to leave.
The walk back was much slower than the walk there, though Permafrost wasn’t completely sure he did that intentionally or not. He had a lot on his mind, so he assumed it was on purpose. Besides, who in their right minds would want to run back to three of the worst villains in Equestria? Just the fact that they went around declaring that made Permafrost feel inferior, like all the things he and Sour Lavender and Candy Floss had done had amounted to nothing. Sure, they basically had - but they were still impressive feats, right?
You would think, Permafrost grumbled to himself as he trudged along, that other villains would recognize and appreciate the deeds of others. Perhaps things were different where they were from. Or maybe we are just that - a bunch of inferior failures who couldn’t bring down one earth pony with a magic memory-erasing rock. He growled in frustration and kicked a nearby rock so hard that it lodged itself into the trunk of a nearby tree.
The Bureau of the Protection and Separation of Equestria’s Citizens, or the B.P.S.E.C., was founded around a singular goal - ponies were not meant to live together. They were just too different - there was nothing to go off of, no reason to do so. So they originally focused on spreading rumors about the other pony tribes, to make them distrust each other. The other tribes saw what was happening and decided that they didn’t want any part in it, so they withdrew to their respective kingdoms. The ponies eventually divided, and the B.P.S.E.C. wiped everypony’s memory to keep them safe and happy.
It should have been a flawless plan. A perfect plan. One that seemed to work exactly how it was supposed to - at least, at first.
But of course the old ‘Guardians of Harmony’ (Permafrost sniffed whenever he heard the name, as he always saw them as destroying harmony, not protecting it) had to write down absolutely everything, and somepony got their dirty little hooves on that, and they just had to go about spreading the word that “harmony and friendship means we should work together and not divide” and all that nonsense. And then they passed it onto their children, and their children, and their children, and that was how Sunny Starscout became the absolute worst pain in Permafrost’s flank literally ever.
That pony was foolish - there was no way around it. The stupid mare simply refused to see and acknowledge defeat, even if it was dancing in front of her face. For the stars’ sake, she was mind controlled! Her worst enemies could enter her head at any point in time, and she had the guts to still go around spreading all of her useless friendship riff-raff.
Don’t pretend to know ponies when you don’t really know them at all.
Permafrost snorted. As if he needed to be told that! Really, she should listen to her own advice. She had no idea - no idea what he’d been through, what he’d done, what had been taken away from him. She didn’t know what he was feeling, she didn’t know what he wanted, she didn’t know what he would do to get it.
Stupid mare. Caring about other ponies would get you killed - that was the first thing he remembered his father telling him.
Unbidden, the image of his father’s face suddenly swam in front of him - a stern-faced stallion with a grayish-bluish coat and a stiff purple mane, his violet eyes empty of any love or care, but this was how Permafrost learned how to live - it was better this way. He didn’t need his father to care about him… right?
He felt a jolt deep inside him, and the world suddenly wavered in front of him; he faltered and stumbled over a rock, crashing to the forest floor. As if from across the world, he head Sour Lavender make a cry of surprise, felt hooves around him, dragging him away, and he couldn’t do anything about it, and he hated it, but right then, he didn’t care, because he was remembering, things he swore never to remember, and yet-
It was his first time in the hidden fortress, his father pushing him forward from behind, his face a slab of stone, his footsteps unfaltering, unstopping, yet agonizingly slow-
Clop. Clop. Clop.
His father shoved him unceremoniously into a dark room, a room lit only by a glowing green stone in the center, and around it were a total of four ponies - two fully grown ponies, one a mare and one a stallion, and two foals, looking just as afraid to be there as he was. His father pushed him up beside them, and with a jolt, he noticed that one of the foals was a pegasus and the other an earth pony. He looked fearfully at the older ponies, and saw that the mare was a pegasus and the other stallion an earth pony as well.
He scooted away from the pegasus - in the eerie green light of the stone, his purple coat and pink mane looked strange and most definitely evil - and bumped into the earth pony, who shared his fearful expression. He started - he wasn’t aware that earth ponies had the brains to be scared or frightened. Or have any feelings, really.
Somepony snorted, and the three colts looked to see another pony stepping out of the shadows, and this one was a unicorn with a pale yellow coat and a dark green mane that was slightly overgrown. The new pony eyed the foals with distaste, and he felt himself straightening, wanting to show this unicorn that he was able and capable.
“These little wimps are the ones we’re entrusting our legacy to?” the unicorn snapped, rolling his eyes. “Doubtful.”
“We’re doing the best we can,” snarled the pegasus, her wings flaring in indignation. He took a step back and eyed her apprehensively. “There’s not a lot of ponies willing to commit themselves now - everypony’s happy enough where they are.”
“Whatever,” the unicorn growled, stepping forward and picking up the glowing green stone. “Let’s just get this over with.” Staring down at them with a frown, the unicorn addressed the other three ponies in the room. “Erase what makes them weak, easily defeatable. I expect this will be quite a lot.” The pegasus sniffed, but he felt like he was the only one who noticed.
The unicorn turned and focused on the young earth pony first, holding the stone high, and it blasted a beam of green light directly at the tiny, shivering colt.
He gasped - this must be magic. I thought all magic was gone, he thought. But if this is here… then maybe other magic can come back, too.
The colt glowed green, and glowing ribbons were pulled out of his head as if by some magical force and sucked into the stone. He thought he saw what looked like a blue-gray stallion with a purple and blue mane and glasses, a wooden pendant hanging from his neck of a six pointed star, but they were there and gone before he could look again. When the stone finally dimmed again, releasing the colt from its grip, the tiny pony collapsed to the floor, shaking. And when the colt stood again, the look that he gave the other ponies was different.
He stepped back in shock - and fear. This was not the same sniveling pony that had stood there before - there was an emptiness in the colt’s eyes, but now a fierce gleam, too, one that scared him. Would the same thing happen to him? What would the stone take from him?
The unicorn sniffed and turned to the pegasus colt and repeated the same process, but he didn’t watch this time. He looked at his father, at the green light reflected in his father’s eyes, the stone cold expression, and for the first time in his life, he felt really afraid. Something was about to be taken away from him - something he wasn’t sure he was ready to lose.
As the small pegasus staggered to his hooves with that same new, frightening gleam in his eyes, the unicorn turned to him, lifted the stone, and he braced himself for the worst-
The doors were shoved open with a BANG, and a pegasus dashed into the room, panting. The unicorn lowered the stone, looking at the newcomer with distaste, but he felt like he could have hugged this pony. Whoever the pegasus was, he had just saved him from something awful.
“Pardon my intrusion,” the pegasus gasped, “but the - the royal family. In Zephyr Heights. They - they can fly.”
“What?” the unicorn snarled, shoving the stone back into place and whirling to face the other pegasus in the room. “What sort of thing is this? Magic can’t be returning - we would have felt something.” He glared at the earth pony in the room. “You. Stay here. Everypony else, come with me. We’re going to infiltrate this system and find out what’s going on.”
With a swish of his tail, the unicorn was gone - taking his father with him.
And when they returned three days later, the unicorn seemed to have forgotten that there was one little colt who hadn’t had his memory wiped - one little colt who still remembered…
An earlier memory: He was held in the arms of a beautiful gray unicorn, her blue eyes sparkling, her silver mane cascading over her shoulders, and she was singing him a song, and it was so lovely, and there was another colt there, one older than him, one who was nearly full grown, with a gray coat like their mother and a scraggly purple mane that was already beginning to turn white, and his father was there, looking proud - an expression that he had never seen on his face again. And then he was ripped from his mother’s arms, and she and the older colt disappeared, and he was left with his father - his cold, distant father-
“Perm! Hey! Snap out of it!”
Somepony was slapping his face, and Permafrost blinked his eyes open to see a purple pegasus standing over him, looking worried, and when Sour Lavender saw that he was awake, something that looked like… relief crossed his face.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. The purpose of erasing all memories of feeling loved or cared for or really anything was to keep them focused on their mission and completely unsentimental.
If this pegasus was acting like he cared about Permafrost… something went wrong.
“Don’t call me ‘Perm’,” he muttered, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. It was still dark out. How much time had passed? It felt like none at all. Sour Lavender sat back as he stood up, and the world swam in front of him again, but he forced the dizziness away - he was not weak. He was strong. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The pegasus looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. As they trudged along, Permafrost heard Sunny Starscout’s voice in his head.
Can you really blame me for trying to save you?
She’s trying to protect us, he thought, and that, combined with the memory of his mother, of being loved, cared for, warmed his whole body, right down to the tips of his hooves, but his heart remained hardened.
Caring about other ponies will only bring more trouble than they’re worth, he reminded himself.
Don’t let the darkness in. Don’t let them see who you really are. Don’t let them think you’re weak and insignificant.
“Shh, Flurry, it’s okay!” She felt hooves gently shaking her, heard the wobble of concern in Izzy’s voice. “Please wake up!”
Her eyes snapped open and she lay there, breathing heavily, as the ponies around her stepped back, still looking at her with concern clearly etched on their faces. Flurry rested her hooves on the ground and pushed herself into a sitting position, looking around, heart still racing. “Wha-what happened? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Zipp said slowly in a tone that clearly suggested otherwise. “Just… you.”
“It was like you were having a nightmare,” Izzy told her, offering her a hoof and helping her stand up. The sky was still dark, her friends’ faces lit by the dying embers of the campfire.
“I… I was.” Flurry swallowed, remembering his laugh, feeling the dread seep into her bones, that awful, awful feeling- “It was… really awful. I’d rather not talk about it now. But I… I saw Sunny.” There was a collective gasp from the other five ponies, and she started talking before they could clamber her with questions. “Only for a second. I was fighting a very… very powerful pony, and as he overpowered me, I turned, and Sunny was standing, alone, and I called out to her, I asked her to help me, and she looked at me, and then-” Flurry stopped, shaking her head. “But I… I think it was her. I think it was the real Sunny. I’m not sure how, but I think we were… communicating somehow.”
Strangely, it was Sprout who seemed to really believe her, at first. He caught her eye and nodded, confirming this, his green eyes sparkling with hope.
“You saw Sunny in a dream?” Hitch asked incredulously. “That… that makes no sense.” He put his hoof to his head and tried to wrap his mind around what Flurry was saying, and what this would mean for them. “Can you, like, communicate or something?”
Flurry frowned. “Maaaybe?” She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I think she could hear and understand me, but if we could actually talk…”
Izzy gasped. “We could ask her where she is!” the unicorn declared, giving a little bounce and a huge grin. “That’ll make things so much easier than just wandering around Equestria and hoping we bump into her.”
Zipp gently put her hoof on Izzy’s shoulder and said, “Yeah… I don’t think it’s going to work like that.”
The unicorn deflated. “Why not?” she pouted.
“Just think about it,” Pipp told her, “would they really let Sunny know exactly where she’s being held captive on the off chance that she escapes or finds a way to communicate with the outside world? My guess is she could tell us what the inside looks like… but not anything about the outside or its surroundings.”
“But we could still give messages, right?” Izzy said, looking desperate. “Tell her that everything’s going to be fine, and that we’re looking for her?”
Flurry shook her head sadly. “Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow can see inside her head, read her thoughts. If they knew that she could talk to us through dreams, they would probably take control of her mind and force her to tell them everything. I’m sorry, Izzy, but it’s not safe. There’s nothing we can do.”
“What if she figured out how to resist it?” Izzy’s purple eyes were a little wet, and she blinked furiously to keep the tears from forming. “There - there has to be a way. Right?”
Everypony avoided her gaze, and the small flame of hope Izzy had been hanging onto suddenly vanished as her eyes welled up with tears. The unicorn let out a sob, turned, and dashed off before anypony could see her crying.
“Izzy!” Hitch called after her, looking at the others with concern in his eyes. “I’ll talk to her,” he assured them, running after Izzy.
Flurry watched them run off and wilted, feeling that this was her fault. She shouldn’t have mentioned it… giving her friends false hope was the last thing she wanted to do. She turned to the other ponies, saying, “Guys, I-”
“Stop.” Zipp held up her hoof. “None of this is your fault. You can’t help if Sunny decides to randomly drop into your dream, and not telling us would probably make you go insane.”
“We don’t blame you,” Pipp assured her.
“What if Izzy’s right?” Sprout spoke up, lifting his gaze from the ground. “What if there is a way to communicate with Sunny?” Flurry opened her mouth, and he hurried on. “Trust me, I’ve known Sunny longer than anypony, other than Hitch. If there’s anypony that can figure out how to resist a super evil mind control spell, it’s her.”
Zipp huffed, but it wasn’t at Sprout. “I’m tired of sitting here and doing nothing,” she said, sitting on the ground, her wings hanging at her sides. “I want to actually do something - I want to find Sunny and free her and get my mom back.” She wrapped her wings around her and blinked away the tears that had formed at the mention of her mother. Pipp put her hoof on her sister’s shoulder and gave her a little squeeze.
Flurry rubbed her eyes and glanced at the sky. “It’s the middle of the night. Let’s try and get some more sleep, and we’ll talk about this more in the morning.” She shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll see Sunny again.”
The ponies nodded and trotted off to their respective spots, curling up on the ground in the dying light of the fire. Flurry sighed as she laid her head down and closed her eyes.
“I wish you were here,” she whispered, though she wasn’t quite sure who she was saying it to. Her mom? Her aunt? Sunny? She missed them all, and after all this time, the thought that she might never see some of them - or any of them - ever again, broke her heart.
“Izzy?”
The unicorn sniffed and turned her head to see Hitch carefully approaching. “Oh. Hi, Hitch.” She dragged her hoof across her muzzle and sighed as a cold night breeze ruffled her mane and cooled her tear-stained face. “What’re you doing?”
“I came to see if you were okay,” the stallion said, shrugging modestly as he sat down beside her. He paused, then said, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said in an unconvincing tone, trying to keep her voice from wavering.
“You don’t look fine,” he insisted, pushing back a lock of hair that had fallen in front of her face. “I know the stress of everything has been getting to you, but we have to have faith that things are going to get better. We’ll get her back, trust me.” He flashed her a grin. “And maybe we won’t even need to. She’ll probably rescue herself, come find us, and tell us that there was no reason to worry about her.”
“Heh. Wouldn’t that be nice,” Izzy muttered, her shoulders slumping. “I wish it were that easy.” She took a deep breath to try and calm herself down. “But one thing I’ve learned is that nothing in life ever comes easy.”
“That’s true,” Hitch admitted. “But we can still hope for the best, can’t we? I mean, we’re all friends here, right?”
“Friends,” she whispered, her hoof gravitating to her mane. She reached up to where, just under her crystal headband, a piece of paper was kept, and pulled it out, unfolding it and laying it on the ground in front of her. Even though it was dark, Hitch knew what it said. It was the letter that Sunny had sent out with her father when she was just a foal: Dear unicorns and pegasi, you have friends in Maretime Bay. Come visit us!
Just looking at it reminded Hitch of Sunny, and it gave him hope that, if something as small as this foal’s drawing could start a chain of events that led to magic returning, they could get his friend back.
Izzy sighed, and, as if reading his mind, said, “It’s crazy that this is what really started everything - me coming to Maretime Bay, Sunny finding out that unicorns had no magic, going on a quest to Zephyr Heights and finding out that they had no magic either, going on a quest with all of you guys, that crazy fight back in Maretime Bay, and then magic returning… which let to all of this.” She looked behind her, where you could just barely see the dim glow of the campfire from here.
“That’s… actually what I was thinking,” Hitch confessed. He fell silent, then plucked up the courage to ask, “Can unicorns really-”
“Read minds?” Izzy finished. The two looked at each other and burst out laughing. “No, we can’t do that,” Izzy finally said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’ve always just been really good at guessing what other ponies are thinking or going to say or what they’re feeling because I can see their sparkles - and also because I usually have to imagine the other side of every conversation I have. Most unicorns weren’t up for talking. Except for Alphabittle, and all he wants to talk about is winning.” She rolled her eyes and grinned fondly at the memory of the gray unicorn.
“That must have been hard.”
She nodded. “It was. It was like I was the only one feeling in a world of ponies who couldn’t - or wouldn’t - feel anything.”
“I can’t believe that nopony saw how awesome you are,” Hitch said. “I mean, you’re… you.”
Izzy giggled. “Since it’s coming from you, I’m going to assume that’s a compliment,” she said. “Coming from another unicorn… it’s probably gonna be an insult.” She lowered her eyes to the paper in front of her. “But knowing that I had friends somewhere… it just gave me hope that things would get better.”
She sat bolt upright, her eyes widening with excitement as a new idea struck her. “Maybe… maybe we can give that hope to somepony else. Somepony who needs it.”
Sunny was standing directly in front of him, her eyes widened with anticipation and worry.
Sprout yelped and leaped back, same as her. They stopped and studied each other, and it finally dawned on Sprout, in his dazed state, that Sunny was standing right in front of him.
“Sunny?” he tried, daring to hope.
The mare gasped and covered her mouth with her hooves. “Oh my stars, it worked!” she squealed. “Sprout! Hi!” She enthusiastically waved her hoof at him at a mile a minute, so fast it was practically a blur.
He blinked uncertainly. “Um… hi?” He took a step forward and studied Sunny’s grin (which he swore, over and over again, was the real power source behind the sun). “Are you… real?”
She laughed, and oh, that sound, that joyous sound, how he had missed hearing it. Just that alone made all his fears and worries disappear, and he now knew, without a doubt, that this was the real Sunny - only she could laugh like that, could smile like that, could simply exist the way she did. Nopony would ever be able to replicate Sunny’s… Sunnyness.
“Of course I’m real,” she said, looking very proud for being so, “and you’re real, too! At least, I think. Hm. Are you real?”
“Um.” He sat back on his haunches and poked one of his arms with his hoof. “I think so?”
“Oh, wonderful,” Sunny grinned even wider, “that means it worked! I can actually talk to you guys! Do you have any idea how amazing this is?”
“I think so,” he said, feeling his own face shift into a grin that was probably very goofy, though he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. “I mean… I’m the one you’re talking to.” He was struck by a sudden thought. “Does this mean we can permanently talk to you? Can you tell us where you are? Sunny, we’re co-”
She put her hoof to his mouth to silence him, her eyes suddenly sad, her grin fading. “I wish I could talk,” she whispered, sounding close to tears - clearly, this wasn’t good news. “But these villains - the Legion of Doom - they can read my mind, see my thoughts and memories. If they knew I was talking to you - or if they heard anything you told me - it would be game over, Sprout. They’d come and do something awful to you, and I - I can’t let them do that.” She stepped back and looked into his eyes. “I need you to tell them that - we can’t communicate telepathically in any way, and written messages would be too hard to conceal. I’m sorry, but unless I find a way around it, there’s no way to communicate with you guys. Trust me when I say that I’m trying as hard as I can.”
“But you can resist, can’t you?” he said desperately, his faint hope crumbling away. “You can - you can fight it, right?”
“I thought I had it,” she said. “I thought I could put up walls and barriers and be able to keep them at bay or hide my thoughts, but - Cozy Glow. She’s a tad bit too smart for my liking, and… she’s using things I can’t resist to get in - thoughts and feelings of friendship and trust and hope. If I block those things out… I don’t think I’ll be able to make it, mind link or not.” She sighed and turned away from him. “Besides, every time I do this… it makes the mind link open and easier to access. There’s no way to do it… yet.” She looked back at him, a new fire in her eyes that lifted his spirits as well as hers. “I’m going to find a way - I’m going to get back to you guys."
Jinx Evergreen lit up her horn, and the window in front of and a little above her glowed a bright forest green and rattled. The young unicorn struggled to move it for a minute before giving up, her horn and the window dimming as she sat down on the grund.
“It’s no use,” she told her companions. “It’s locked.”
“That’s why we have you,” Lofty Skies insisted, flapping her wings so she could hover just off the ground. “Obviously I could open the window myself, but I can’t undo the lock from out here.”
“Can’t you do a magic spell or something?” Rose Blossom asked, still looking hesitant about why they were doing this.
The small unicorn shook her head dejectedly. “I can’t do many spells yet,” she said mournfully. “All I can do is levitate a couple things - and even then, I’m not very good. I nearly impaled my dad’s glasses with a hairbrush once. They are very dangerous weapons.”
“It doesn’t need to be a spell,” the pegasus insisted, soaring over to the window and gesturing to the frame. “The lock is right there. It just needs to be jiggled a little bit.” She looked expectantly at Jinx, who sighed and lit up her horn again, this time wrapping her magic around the small switch on the top of the window frame, gently moving it from one side to the other. There was a small click, and the lock gave way.
“Yes!” Lofty Skies pushed open the window and gestured to her friends. Jinx and Rose looked at each other before Rose Blossom took a step back and just barely managed to leap through the open window. Jinx surrounded herself with her magic and shakily lifted herself through the window.
“Ow!” she cried as she bumped her head on the top of the frame. “Ack!”
“Why are we doing this?” Rose asked, looking around the abandoned lighthouse and taking a step closer to her friends, then took a step back, as if she couldn’t decide whether or not to stick with them so they could protect her or distance herself so that it looked like she had nothing to do with this whole scheme. “We shouldn’t be doing this. Let’s go home.”
“No!” hissed Lofty Skies, already over by the elevator. “There’s something I want to show you - something our parents aren’t telling us!”
“Our parents already don’t tell us anything!” Jinx retorted, using her magic to slide the window closed. “For all we know, you could be showing us a fascinating new bug that you discovered that was supposed to be extinct or something.”
“It’s not that! Well, that would be very cool,” Lofty Skies admitted after both the unicorn and the earth pony foals gave her a dirty look. “But this is different! This is really important!”
“Please just make it quick?” Rose Blossom asked as she and Jinx stepped onto the lift, and it began to rise as soon as it felt their weight. “My parents have a curfew, and it already started, and if I’m caught, then they’ll probably be really angry and I’ll never be able to play with you guys again.”
“That would be bad,” Jinx agreed, stepping closer to her friend and wobbling a bit as the lift continued to move. “But we’d still play with you anyway.”
“Besides, they’ll probably make an exception for this,” Lofty Skies assured them both, having given up on flying after she failed to keep up with the lift and ended up nearly flattened. Now, she was standing precariously close to the end, trying to act as if this was what she had been wanting to do all along. “Seriously, girls, this could be the end of the world.”
Jinx rolled her eyes and whispered to Rose Blossom, “She probably just found out that there’s going to be this mayonnaise-apocalypse-” She paused, her eyes going wide, and she said, like it was second nature to her, “Bing-bong!” before her voice lapsed back into her normal tone. “-thing that’s going to, I don’t know, destroy ketchup and mustard.”
“That would also be bad, but this is different!” the pegasus insisted, huffing as she jumped off the lift as it arrived at the top floor. “Come look!”
The top of the lighthouse took both Jinx and Rose’s breath away. The walls and roof were made of glass, and in the center was the massive lens that stood taller than all three of them stacked on top of each other. Underneath the lens was a small lamp and six small figures of ponies - the two foals could recognize earth ponies, pegasi, a unicorn, and what looked like a mix of all of them in the bunch. The small toy ponies were surrounding an indent in the metal base, which used to hold three crystals that represented the three different tribes, but now-
Now it was empty.
“They’re gone?” Rose Blossom burst out, running up to the contraption and pushing Lofty Skies aside to see for herself. The pegasus wobbled a bit, spreading her wings to regain her balance.
“But… how? And who? And why? And how?” Jinx spluttered, joining her friend.
“You expect me to know?” Lofty Skies flapped her wings, lifting into the air and hovering over her friends. “And that’s not even the beginning.” Her friends turned to her, their matching expressions both suggesting that, if this wasn’t the worst part of it, they didn’t want to know what the worst part of it was. “You might want to sit down for this.”
The two other foals sat in perfect unison, their wide eyes trained on Lofty Skies as she gently landed in front of them and folded her wings in.
“A few days ago,” she began, “I was flying by here, and I saw a pony up here, reading a book - and it was Princess Zipp.” Jinx and Rose gasped - they knew the ponies who had worked to bring magic back, and that they were now considered traitors for reasons they didn’t know. “I thought, she couldn’t be here. So I came back the next day, and I peeked inside, and they were all there. Zipp, Pipp, Izzy, Hitch, Sprout, and a new pony I didn’t recognize, but she had wings and a horn. But Sunny wasn’t anywhere. I looked every day, and I never saw her.”
The pegasus filly was pacing in front of her friends, getting agitated. “Why would Sunny Starscout’s friends - who are all considered traitors - be hanging out at Sunny’s lighthouse, while Sunny herself is nowhere to be found? I don’t know. Then, one day, they left, and I came in here to investigate, and when I came up here, I found that.” She pointed at the lens behind them. “The magic crystals are missing!”
“Okay, this is very strange,” Rose Blossom interrupted, glancing up at the moon visible through the transparent roof, “but I still don’t see why you’re acting like this is the end of the world. These ponies have saved the world before - they’ll figure it out in the end. Right?”
“Listen to me!” Lofty Skies stood in front of her friends now. “Sunny Starscout, probably the most powerful pony in Equestria, is gone. The magic crystals that brought magic back and symbolize unity between ponies have been stolen-”
“We don’t know if they were stolen,” Jinx interrupted, holding up a hoof. “Maybe, when you saw everypony here, they were getting the crystals for… something.”
“Why would anypony take a week to get three crystals?” The pegasus spread her wings, angry that her friends weren’t hearing her. “And if they weren’t stolen, then how do you explain… this?” She stepped back to reveal an ugly black scorch mark on the floor. “Because this definitely wasn’t here before.”
Jinx Evergreen opened and closed her mouth, at a loss for words. Rose Blossom saved her.
“Look, Lofty, I get that you want to find out what’s going on, but maybe we should leave this to the big ponies.”
“No!” The pegasus shook her head. “No, no, no! They wouldn’t understand! Not like we do! We sort of helped save the world last time - we can do it this time, too! I know that we were meant to do this ourselves!”
Her friends exchanged a look, uncertain.
“Something’s wrong,” Lofty Skies said, her voice pleading. “I can’t explain it, but I can feel it in my heart. Something isn’t right in the world, and something terrible is coming. The grown-ups don’t have the kind of friendship that we do - you saw how easily they were willing to separate again! We can’t just sit here and do nothing! We have to do something. We have to protect our magic. We have to protect our friendship.”
Jinx stood up, took one more look at the empty space where the crystals should be - and the figures of ponies around it. “Okay,” she sighed. “I’m in.”
Lofty Skies blinked. “What? Really? You - you mean it?”
“You guys are my friends,” Jinx said fiercely, stepping forward and lifting her head. “I’m not going to lose you. Besides, I’ve been having a strange feeling lately, too. Something is definitely off, and I’m all for finding out what it is.”
Lofty Skies grinned and leaped forward to hug her friend. The two then turned to Rose Blossom, the question written all over their faces. The earth pony foal bit her lip.
“Okay, fine,” she relented. “We already ran off before… if it means saving the world, I guess I’m willing to do it again.”
The pegasus grinned and spread her wings, pulling in her best friends for a hug. “Thanks, guys,” she whispered. “You’re the best, you know that, right?” She released the other two fillies and put her hoof in the middle of the circle they made.
“From now on, we are the Crusaders of Harmony,” she said, lifting her head and folding in her wings. “We will do whatever it takes to keep harmony and friendship alive in Equestria.”
Jinx put her hoof on top of Lofty Skies’. “I’m in,” she said.
Rose Blossom did the same. “Me, too.”
“Crusaders of Harmony on three,” the pegasus said, grinning irresistibly. “One… two… three!”
The three foals threw their hooves into the air and all shouted in unison, “CRUSADERS OF HARMONY!” Then they burst out laughing for a few seconds before Jinx Evergreen got serious again.
“So, where do we go first?” she asked, looking to her friends for advice.
“We follow Sunny’s friends,” Lofty Skies suggested, and then realized the flaw in her plan before the others could tell her. “But we’d have no idea where they’re headed. We need to ask somepony for help, somepony we can trust…”
Rose Blossom gasped as the answer came to her. “Midge! We can talk to Midge and the other creatures in the Everfree Forest!”
“Yeah! I bet they’ll at least know something!” Lofty Skies turned to her two friends, her expression and tone both completely serious. “Girls, we leave for the Everfree Forest at sunrise. Leave a note for your parents, gather supplies, come up with a story - anything. Something tells me we’re not going to be seeing Maretime Bay for a while. Um, Jinx, what are you doing?” For she had just noticed that the unicorn was standing at the window and staring at the path that led out of Maretime Bay, hardly listening to a word her friend was saying.
“Huh? Oh, I was just… I was just wondering why Queen Haven and Alphabittle are coming to Maretime Bay.” The unicorn pointed a hoof out the window, and her friends rushed to join her.
Sure enough, a group of pegasi guards were trotting stiffly into Maretime Bay, with their queen and Alphabittle at the lead. The two looked a bit uncomfortable, like they were suddenly expecting the surrounding guards to turn on them at any moment. But they rounded a curve and disappeared behind the pastel buildings of Maretime Bay.
“Hm.” Lofty Skies tapped her chin. “Seems like something’s happening - something I think we should know.”
Rose Blossom paled. Jinx Evergreen said, “You aren’t suggesting-”
“Please?” The pegasus’ eyes widened and she rearranged her face into a pouty expression. “I can’t stand not knowing things, you know that!” When her two friends hesitated, she seemed to take that as an agreement, and she let out a whoop as she flapped her wings, lifting her a few feet into the air before she landed again, leading the way to the lift, saying, “The very first mission of the Crusaders of Harmony is a go!”
The feeling of being away from the clouds and arching bridges and open-to-the-sky nature of Zephyr Heights made Queen Haven feel hopelessly grounded and trapped, a feeling she was all too familiar with, as the lack of being able to fly did tend to have that effect on ponies, her included. Though she would never admit it herself, she supposed this was also part of the reason she pretended to have the ability to fly - she couldn’t stand feeling so helpless and awful. And now, with her daughters on the run and the fate of Equestria in the balance, she was constantly having that feeling, in the sky or not.
As if he could sense what she was thinking, Alphabittle syruptitously gave her a little nudge, to let her know that he was there and that everything would be fine. Simply being in the presence of the unicorn made Haven feel better, and there was always that knowing look in his eyes, the look that made some part of her remember that unicorns were rumored to have the ability to read minds, though she felt like this was something… different. Not a mystical power but a kind of connection - one she wasn’t all too eager to lose anytime soon.
She kept her eyes forward, her expression clear, her head high, shoulders back, wings folded neatly on her back, all her steps careful and deliberate. She didn’t so much as flinch as ponies scrambled to get out of the way ahead of her. Alphabittle would occasionally pause to give a passing pony a small smile or use his magic to help somepony out, but Haven had to act as a queen would, as if she had nothing on her mind other than this mission, this highly important mission. This was how a queen was supposed to act, as she had been taught, and nopony could know that anything might possibly be wrong.
Because something was wrong, something very, very wrong. Haven had risked her position, her reputation, her entire life over sending a letter to her daughters to try and warn them of some mysterious behavior that Phyllis Cloverleaf and Canterlogic had picked up from up north. She wished she could do it again, but right now, she didn’t dare - not unless it was vitally important.
Though after today, she might have something vitally important to tell them.
“It’s going to be fine,” Alphabittle whispered to her, and she felt the tension ease out of her shoulders, unaware that it had been there in the first place - but clearly, he had known. “We’re just going to have a nice, friendly chat, and then we’ll go back home, and you can tell them all about it.”
She jerked her head, and he snapped his mouth closed, looking behind him to see if any of the guards had noticed. Thunder, Zoom, and the other four guards were still standing at rigid attention, marching in eerily perfect formation, giving no indication that they had heard anything. Then again, they look like that all the time, Haven thought ruefully. She took a deep breath as they approached the Canterlogic building, the tallest building in the town, though it paled in comparison to even the smallest of structures in Zephyr Heights. Haven felt a flash of pride for her hometown.
Still… would I throw it all away to be with my girls again?
Yes. Yes I most definitely would.
“All right, what’s up,” Alphabittle suddenly said, jerking her back to reality. They were trotting into the building and were greeted by a large green earth pony with a reddish-brown mane, a collar with a tie, and a Canterlogic staff name tag. Haven squinted to read the neat print on the small card: Toots.
Toots cleared his throat. “If you’ll follow me, Your Majesty and… company, Ms. Cloverleaf’s office is this way.” He quickly mopped the sweat off his forehead and led them to a large cylinder that turned out to be an elevator, and Haven was impressed - it looked much more high-tech than hers, though lacking a certain style that she usually looked for. Thunder and Zoom crowded into the elevator with Haven, Alphabittle, and Toots, but the other four guards were forced to remain on the ground floor.
“Hm?” Haven muttered to Alphabittle under her breath, in answer to his previous comment.
“You’re thinking about something,” he replied, shifting his hooves as much as he could in the cramped space. Thank hoofness he was taller than just about everypony besides Toots - Haven had heard of some nasty incidents that involved unicorns, tight spaces, and visits to the hospital.
“I’m not thinking about anything,” she retorted, her face passive. “Nothing worth mentioning, anyway.”
“Yes, you are.” He flashed her a grin, and she felt her expression melt for a split second before she remembered who she was with and quickly kept her features cool and neutral. “You’ve got your thinking face on.”
“I have a thinking face?” Haven turned to Zoom and Thunder, the latter shrugging while the first remained silent.
“Yup,” Alphabittle reported, a tone of pride in his voice. “It looks something like… this, I think?”
He scrunched up his forehead and stuck out his lip and stared intently at the opposite wall of the elevator (was it really opposite? It was round, so it was all basically the same wall, but… Haven shoved the thought from her mind before she could think about it too much) as if it would yield if he stared at it hard enough.
“Stars above,” Haven groaned, “please tell me I do not look like that.” She turned to the others for confirmation, and found that Toots and Thunder were snickering, and even Zoom had let an amused smile slip through. She huffed and closed her eyes and turned up her nose, as if she were far too superior to even look at them. Still, it was difficult not to let a smile of her own slip out - whenever Alphabittle did an over-the-top and inaccurate yet hilarious impression of anypony or anything (one time he tried to make the face that a tulip would make, but that was a whole other story), she usually found herself laughing, real laughter, and felt her heart warming.
But this was not an empty chamber in Zephyr Heights; this was public, and she must act like a queen here even when she didn’t feel like one - even when she felt like squealing with laughter like a little foal. Especially when she felt like doing that.
The elevator’s glass doors whooshed open, and Toots stepped out first, standing to the side as Haven followed him. The nervous stallion cleared his throat and sent the elevator back down for the rest of her guards before leading the way down the hallway, stopping outside a door with a shiny bronze plaque reading Phyllis Cloverleaf - owner. Toots knocked three times before pushing the door open and entering.
Phyllis Cloverleaf’s office was small but tidy. There was a wooden desk spread over with a thin layer of papers, a few photographs and vases of flowers and other trinkets around the edges. A few chairs were set against the wall opposite it, and behind the desk was a map of the Canterlogic facility. On the wall opposite the door was a bulletin board displaying blueprints and sketches and dozens of Post-It notes on what must be the newest project at the factory. Phyllis herself was sitting at her desk, looking at a picture, which she quickly slammed to the desk to hide it as the others entered. Unfortunately, she placed it with the image facing up, and by the time she realized her mistake and corrected it, Haven caught a glimpse of Phyllis standing with a stallion with a coat the same green color as an apple and a tiny colt with a bright red coat and golden mane.
“Er, thank you, Toots,” Phyllis said, standing and sliding the now face-down picture frame off her desk and into a drawer, pushing the drawer closed. Toots bowed his head and backed out the door, closing it behind him.
As soon as he was gone, Phyllis relaxed. She turned to the leaders of the unicorns and pegasi with a worried look on her face.
“Just so you know, I’ve disabled the security cameras in here and checked it for hidden microphones… multiple times. So anything you say or do in here will be completely confidential, and nopony will know.” She pawed at the floor nervously. “You know. In case there was… anything that you had to say that was… you know.”
Somewhere, deep within her, Haven knew what Phyllis wanted to ask but was too afraid to put into words. Perhaps it was some kind of mother sense, but she said, “We haven’t heard back from them, or seen anything, so, as far as we know, he’s fine. They’re all fine.”
Phyllis sighed in relief and looked at her desk, where a picture of her family was stashed. “I hope so,” she whispered.
“You know them. They’re resourceful, all of them. Izzy’s probably keeping all their spirits up with her little gifts and songs and other things,” Alphabittle tried to console them. The simple attempt was enough to make Haven want to hug him.
Phyllis’ mouth twitched into a small smile. “And Hitch is organizing litter patrols.”
“And Pipp’s recording the entire thing on her cell phone while her sister follows her around, groaning and rolling her eyes,” Haven added, and the three of them smiled. It hadn’t occurred to Haven until this moment how much she missed not just her daughters, but all of their friends - Izzy with her cheerful grin and bouncy attitude, Hitch with his sturdy dependability, Sprout with his genuine earnesty, Flurry Heart with her kindness and willingness to give ponies second chances, and Sunny. Sunny with her hope and faith and inability to give up.
Haven desperately hoped that she would be okay. She had grown quite fond of the earth pony.
“You said you hadn’t heard back from them,” Phyllis questioned, realizing the weight of Haven’s words. “Did you send them a message or something?”
The pegasus and the unicorn exchanged a glance, but Haven knew that this was one earth pony she could trust with her secret. “We did,” she began slowly, lowering her voice and glancing at the door. “We told them about those strange signals you were getting from the Crystal Empire, and that we were doing everything we could. But I haven’t dared to do it again. Besides, there - there hasn’t been much to say.” She shifted her hooves and looked down.
Phyllis nodded, slowly. “Speaking of those, I assume you would like to see them?” Her suspicion was confirmed with a nod from both of them. “Follow me.” However, she stopped at the door, her hoof hovering over the doorknob. “Actually,” she changed her mind, turning back to her desk and rummaging around in it. “If you get a moment, could you send this to Sprout, please? Just to let him know that-” She broke off, giving Haven a blank envelope and hurrying back to the door before she traveled too far down a path of emotions.
Haven looked from the letter to Alphabittle, a question written on her face, and the unicorn gave a small nod. Haven then slipped the letter under her wing and followed Phyllis out of the room.
Zoom Zephyrwing anxiously paced in front of the door that led to Phyllis Cloverleaf’s office, her fellow guard standing by the opposite wall, immersed in his cell phone.
They’ve been in there for a while, Zoom thought, her panic growing. At least five minutes. Her queen’s instructions had been to wait outside the room while she had a private discussion with Alphabittle and Phyllis Cloverleaf, but it was taking all of Zoom’s self control not to go bursting in there, wings spread and shields at the ready, to rescue her queen from imminent danger that she could only begin to imagine. Despite the fact that all three pony tribes were on good terms with each other now, when it came to her queen, Zoom didn’t entirely trust her with anypony else - especially with the fact that the new enemies that Equestria was facing apparently had the ability to control ponies’ minds.
The very thought sent shivers through her wings as she thought of Sunny Starscout being mind controlled, if that was what really happened. The guard and the pony in Zoom were constantly fighting with things like these - her inner guard would say that Sunny had broken the law and was an enemy and a danger to Equestria, while her inner pony would insist that there had to be some kind of mistake - the Sunny she knew would never have done this.
If Zoom could find a way to somehow get rid of one or the other, leaving her with only one mindset, she would do it in a wingbeat. But, she would ask herself, if that were to happen, who would I give up? The ability to be a pony, to have friends and feelings and care for others? Or the ability to commit herself to protecting her queen and keeping her home safe?
Argh. Why did decisions have to be so hard?
Thunder looked up suddenly, his face alarmed.
“What?” she snapped. Her queen could be in danger right now, and she wasn’t there to protect her, and she would never forgive herself if something like that happened, but at the same time, if it had to come between that and-
Stop it. This is your purpose - this is your life. You can’t toss it all out the window like that.
“You were growling,” Thunder informed her, his expression now more concerned than alarmed now. “Are you okay?”
As if sympathy was what she needed right now. “I’m fine,” she said quickly, resuming her pacing as his gaze returned to whatever he was watching on that ridiculous phone of his. Now and then, she looked at the oak door as she passed it, wondering if she should press her ear to it or push it down or something like that. And with every tiny blip or bleep that came from Thunder’s phone, her patience wore thinner and thinner.
“What in Equestria are you doing?” she eventually demanded, whipping her head around to glare at him. He jumped, losing his grip on the device and almost sending it clattering to the ground.
“Nothing!” Thunder said as he scrambled for a hold on his cell phone. Zoom caught a glimpse of a pink pony with a purple mane adorned with a golden crown and bright hazel eyes, and her anger melted away at the sight of Princess Pipp.
“You’re watching Pipp’s old videos?” Zoom scoffed, tossing her head, pretending to not care. Caring about other ponies made her look weak and not at all like the kind of pony you would want protecting the queen of Zephyr Heights, so she tried to look like she didn’t whenever she was on duty.
“No! I mean, yes,” Thunder mumbled, turning off his phone and sliding it under his wing, a trick he had learned from the princess. “I just miss her, that's all.”
The worst part about it was, Zoom felt the exact same way. Her job was to protect the queen, but she also felt she was entitled to protect the princesses as well, and she had unintentionally grown quite fond of them over the years, in a way that she never felt about Queen Haven. When Haven was first arrested and a warrant put out for the arrest of the princesses, Zoom had felt like she had failed. She hadn’t known that the royals couldn’t fly, but she still felt like she was entitled to protect them, flying or no. Despite that, she listened to her inner guard’s advice, pretending like the queen had deserved her fate. How relieved she had been when the queen was given back her throne - now she didn’t have to fight herself to make her decisions.
And she had thought that had been that. Everything was fine again - her inner arguments were over smaller matters that didn’t carry half as much weight as that one. Then magic was in jeopardy, the royal family on the run again, but this time, Zoom chose to listen to her inner pony, choosing to stand with her queen. But that had ended with her memory getting wiped - that awful, awful feeling of not knowing who she was or what she was doing or if it was right.
So now that the princesses themselves were once again in jeopardy - and she had a sinking feeling that the queen was, too - who would she listen to? Would she betray the ponies she had been sworn to protect for the sake of the law - ponies she now realized that she truly cared for? Or would she risk losing herself to stay loyal to them?
The argument was giving her a headache, and she gritted her teeth, rubbing her temples under her helmet with her hoof. Then she noticed that Thunder was giving her a concerned look again, and she stood up straight, ignoring the jabs of blinding pain that were shooting through her head.
Stand tall. Stay loyal. Protect. Obey the law. Make the right decision. Make the best decision. Don’t let them see you as weak. Don’t be weak. Be strong.
Loyal. Protect.
Obey. Law.
Which to choose?
The door opened, and Phyllis Cloverleaf led the way out, followed by Her Majesty and Alphabittle. Zoom and Thunder stood at rigid attention as they exited. Zoom was thankful for a distraction, and another came from the other end of the hallway, as that nervous earth pony was back - Toots, she thought his name was - with the rest of the guards, all looking like they had perfectly pleasant voices in their heads that didn’t argue and fight and demand her attention that she had to pick from, and neither of the options were appealing.
“Thank you, Toots,” Phyllis Cloverleaf said. Zoom blinked - was it just her, or did the earth pony sound like she was about to cry? She cleared her throat and tried again. “You are excused.” Looking relieved to get away, Toots nodded to both Phyllis Cloverleaf and Queen Haven before he scurried out of there. Alphabittle looked thoroughly offended that he hadn’t acknowledged him, but Queen Haven put her hoof on his shoulder, giving him a reproachful yet teasing look that put Zoom immediately on guard. Was this a trick? A ruse planned by the unicorns to get in the pegasi’s inner circle, gaining their trust before they launched an attack where they stole their magic and took over their city?
Stop thinking like that, she commanded herself.
But still… all the same. Her eyes narrowed at Alphabittle, and the unicorn seemed blissfully unaware. I’m watching you, buddy. If you try so much as one thing with my queen… Then she realized that everypony was following Phyllis down the hall and scurried into formation beside Thunder.
“Where’re we going?” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.
Thunder shrugged. “Something about magic and readings and scanners and fancy technology that I’ll never understand,” he whispered back.
Once again, they were led to the elevator, with Phyllis Cloverleaf, Alphabittle, and Queen Haven squishing in with Zoom and Thunder. Phyllis pressed a button, and they descended down past the first floor and into the basement. Once there, Phyllis remained in the elevator to bring the rest of the guards down, and Zoom had to give her props for doing it herself instead of waiting for somepony else to do it - or just letting them figure it out on their own.
Her commander had done that in training - gave them all shields, set them in front of a bunch of automated unicorn robots, and told them that they couldn’t go to lunch until they had blocked every last horn on those unicorns.
That had not gone well.
Zoom kept her eyes open as Phyllis led them through the factory to wherever they were going to see these fancy signals that Queen Haven had apparently taken an interest in. There were many things that looked harmless, but she wasn’t going to be taking any chances. Some of the ponies down here were quite surprised to see the group of pegasi and a unicorn with their boss - one even looked like it was about to faint.
Phyllis pushed open the door, and led Queen Haven and Alphabittle into a small room. Zoom hesitated before following, and apparently Phyllis had the same idea, because she said, “Maybe they should wait out there - it gets pretty crowded in here.”
The queen started to nod, but then she stopped, catching Zoom’s eye. The guard immediately assumed a straight posture and a blank expression. “Ms. Zephyrwing can join us. I trust her completely.”
Feeling a rush of pride, Zoom followed her queen into the room, resisting the urge to grin like a foal presented with ice cream. As it was, once Phyllis shut the door, she put her guard up.
The room was full of computers and instruments and a giant map of Equestria that, for some reason, had a red blinking light up in the northern mountains. Zoom narrowed her eyes at the map - she didn’t trust all this fancy technology as much as Thunder did - the only use she had for her cell phone was receiving messages from her commander about emergencies.
Also in the room was another earth pony, this one bubble gum pink and a darker pink mane in a pinned-up ponytail. She, too, wore a collar and tie like Toots, and the name on the tag said, in neat print, Sweets.
Toots and Sweets, Zoom thought to herself, resisting the urge to snort. It sounds so ridiculous.
“I heard that you detected something like this a few weeks ago,” Haven began, frowning at one of the bleeping computers. “Does this mean-”
Phyllis shook her head, having guessed what she was thinking. Zoom kept her face passive, but in her mind, she was trying to figure out what her queen was talking about. Then she remembered meeting a light pink alicorn by the elevator, one who appeared to be not exactly from this time. She was supposedly from up north…
Those were already there - we picked them up as soon as we turned this thing on. A bit alarming, wasn’t it, Sweets?” The other earth pony nodded empathetically. “And they were more of alerting us that there was a pony with powerful magic up there, and we think there was a very powerful spell cast - but if it was there, it disappeared before we could take a good look at it. And there’s always been a constant signal, some kind of magical artifact up there that’s probably very powerful. But this…” Phyllis Cloverleaf shook her head and gestured to the red squiggly lines on the screen. They looked jagged and seemed to form shapes that looked like crystals. “It seems different. A different kind of magic, or a different purpose for it. Perhaps something that is… less lovely than Flurry Heart.”
“So, there’s something dangerous up there?” Alphabittle demanded, his horn sparking. Zoom had noticed that unicorn horns tended to give off a little magical feedback when the unicorn in question’s emotions were running a little high. “What are we going to do about it?”
Haven sighed. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I have all the guards I can spare hunting Sunny and… the others down. I don’t think I’ll be able to contribute anything.”
Somewhere, deep down inside, Zoom wanted to raise her hoof and volunteer to go check it out by herself. She would take down whatever evil was brewing up there and prove to her queen that she was a good, loyal guard that she could count on and trust… and the rational side of her knew that would never happen like she was envisioning it.
Wait. These machines could detect magic - powerful magic, even magic from ponies. It could detect Flurry Heart, and she was a… what did they call it? An alicorn? Yes, that was it. A pony with both wings and a horn. Just like Sunny. So did that mean…
“Our best hope,” Haven was saying, “is that they’ll get our message and go investigate. Other than that, there’s not much we can do at the moment except pray.”
Phyllis nodded and pushed open the door, leading the way out, but Zoom hung back, eyeing the earth pony sitting in front of one of the computers. It suddenly began beeping more than usual, showing a new pattern of squiggly lines, these ones that were less jagged and sharp than the other ones, forming what looked like stars for brief moments before it disappeared again as Sweets pressed a button. She caught Zoom looking and said, “We’ve been getting that one occasionally, though I can’t pin-point its exact location, and it doesn’t seem to be much of a threat.”
“Uh, huh,” Zoom nodded, tilting her head at the earth pony. “Your machine… it can it detect ponies? Like, if they had a lot of magic?”
She nodded. “Of course, we tuned it to only sense a lot of magic, so that pony would have to be very powerful, but it’s possible, of course.” She beamed with pride and sat up straight. “Like I always say, ‘Magic is science that hasn’t been explained-’ ”
“Right, great, thanks,” Zoom said quickly, hurrying out of the room as she caught sight of the queen leaving. She closed the door behind her and hurried into her spot.
“Where were you?” Thunder muttered under his breath, but she didn’t answer.
Her inner guard and inner pony had gone silent, as if they had found a common ground. The reasoning behind it may vary depending on who she was listening to, but both sides of her could agree on at least one thing - Sunny Starscout must be found.
Sunny hadn’t seen the mysterious pony in her dreams ever since that day when he told her the message, and she repeated it to herself under her breath at night, when Tirek, Permafrost, and Sour Lavender were asleep: “They have been lied to. Deceived. They do not know the truth, and they will fight for a lie. Tell them the truth, Sparkle. Tell them the truth and befriend them… or everything you built will fall.” She growled frustratedly to herself. “What does that mean?”
Some of the message was clear - somepony had obviously been tricked, convinced that a lie was the truth. But who was it? What was the lie they had been told? What was the truth? Who was deceiving them?
And somehow she was supposed to tell… whoever it was the truth, and befriend them, or it was basically the end of the world. He had said that “everything you built will fall”, which she could only take to mean that, if she did not succeed, friendship would fail with her. The kind of friendship that she had worked so hard for - that her father, that her ancestors had worked so hard for.
She refused to let that happen.
But how was she supposed to tell these ponies the truth when she didn’t know the truth herself… and couldn’t even get out of here?
“He called me ‘Sparkle’,” she said to herself as she paced around her little prison, as far as her chains would allow her to go, and as quietly as possible. One night, she had been pacing, her chains clanking not exactly loud, but Tirek came down and shouted at her that, if she couldn’t be quiet, then he would bolt her hooves to the floor. “He knows who I am… or, at least, who my ancestor was. But… how?”
She paused to look at her reflection in the water. From what she had seen of Twilight Sparkle, the legendary alicorn and Sunny herself shared no physical resemblance. Whereas her ancestor was lavender with a dark purple mane streaked with a brighter violet and pink, her eyes a deep purple, and her wings and horn solid and definitely not gold. Sunny did have some purple-ish accents in her mane, but nothing close to what Twilight must have had. Maybe it was her wing? Maybe whoever that pony was had associated being an alicorn with being related to Twilight Sparkle. She was probably one of the most famous alicorns there was… had anypony remembered her. Now, the most famous alicorn was probably Sunny herself.
But that pony clearly didn’t know her name - he just called her ‘Sparkle’. So he was living somewhere that was excluded enough that nopony made it there to tell him of recent events. Where would a pony live where he couldn’t hear the reasons for why magic returned, disappeared, and then reappeared, all within the span of a few weeks?
Wait… Something in her mind randomly connected.
Izzy had said that Sunny’s sparkle was lavender. Twilight Sparkle was lavender. Was that a coincidence? Pure chance? Or was it fate? Some kind of magical connection?
Perhaps it wasn’t a physical appearance - perhaps it was something else. Something Sunny couldn’t see, but he could. He had seemed like he saw other things that most ponies couldn’t see. He was clearly a messenger, though - she doubted he knew many of the answers to the questions that she longed to ask him.
Speaking of questions she wanted to ask him, she had to add “How did you know I was a Sparkle?” to her ever-growing list, alongside “Who are you?”, “Who’s being deceived?”, “How do I befriend them?”, “What’s the truth that I’m supposed to tell them?”, and many others.
“Okay. Calm down, Sunny,” she commanded herself. “Think it through.” She paced restlessly as she thought hard.
“They have been lied to. Think. Who would go around lying to ponies? Oh, of course, the villains!” She gasped as another idea came to her. “They’ve been talking about ‘other creatures’ - it’s not ponies that are being lied to, it’s them! Creatures like - like Midge! And the other creatures in the Everfree Forest!”
Now very pleased with herself, Sunny moved on to the next puzzling part of the message. “They will fight for a lie. Well, that’s unsettling. So, obviously the Legion of Doom has convinced them of something untrue, something they will fight for. What would it be?” Her thoughts wandered to Permafrost and Sour Lavender. “Of course! They’ve probably been convinced that ponies want them gone, or that they’ve forgotten completely - which is true, in a way, but that is not our fault - or that they’re going to… fight them. So these creatures should attack the ponies first! Yes! That’s it! They’ll aid Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow’s conquest of Equestria, and then they’ll manipulate them into giving them their kingdoms, and they’ll rule the whole world!”
She was happy to have figured it out, but the concept that creatures she hadn’t even met - creatures she didn’t even know - were preparing to attack her home.
“Moving on. Tell them the truth and befriend them. Easier said than done, if it’s true that they hate ponies… and since I can’t leave this place without getting my mind taken over.” Sunny was honestly amazed she had been able to keep the mysterious pony with a message for her to literally go against everything they were doing for so long. But for a while, she had been feeling the presence in her mind of the other villains growing fainter, and not because she was getting better at putting up mental walls to protect herself.
It was as if they were… losing interest in her. Slowly and unintentionally letting her go. She didn’t dare to hope, though. If she exploited that, they would surely notice and rein her back in.
“Still don’t know how I’m going to get out of here… if at all.” She frowned. “Maybe it’ll be all mental communication? Like in their dreams? Somehow, that seems less likely and more likely at the same time.” Sunny sighed and took a deep breath, feeling her exhaustion catch up with her. A huge yawn escaped her mouth, and she decided to give into the overwhelming feeling - maybe she would see the mysterious pony in her dreams again.
She curled up on the stone and closed her eyes. However, instead of falling into a dream like she usually did the moment she fell asleep, she opened her eyes to find herself back in the starry realm, her wings and horn out, their normal golden color. And a little ways away from her sat the mystery pony - she was sure it was him, he had the same pale necklace around his neck - sitting very still, with the crystal charm clasped between his hooves, his forehead creased in concentration.
“Hello?” Sunny tentatively asked, taking a step forward.
His eyes popped open, and when they landed on her, he gasped and sprang to his feet. “It worked! It actually worked! I didn’t think it would!”
Sunny was reminded of her attempt to reach her friends through their dreams, and smiled at the bittersweet memory - how she missed them. She would give just about anything in the world to be with them right now.
“I have so many questions,” she said instead, taking another step towards him. “Okay, first of all, who-”
He put up a hoof to stop her. “As much as I would love to talk all night, time is of the essence,” he said, reaching behind him to pull out a scrap of paper. “I’ve been told to give this to you - you’ll know what to do with it. At least, that’s the hope.” He smiled sheepishly. “And - also I have another message for you.” He cleared his throat. “You are free. They have been distracted, and therefore have loosened their grip on you, though it isn’t completely gone.”
Sunny took the scrap of paper from him, confused. “Wait! What does that mean? When will I see you again? Can you answer at least one of my questions? Who are you?”
The only thing she heard as the dream rapidly faded around her was, “We will meet again soon, Sparkle.”
She gasped, sitting bolt upright. Still in her hoof was the tiny scrap of paper that the mystery night pony had given her in her dream - so it was real. She unfolded it, wondering what could possibly be so important.
It was a spell - a spell for unlocking any lock that hadn’t been specially enchanted to resist this one specific spell.
You are free.
For the time being, anyway. Stars only knew when Cozy Glow would be back in her head.
Sunny took a deep breath. She had a mission now - a quest she must embark on. But she could not risk endangering her friends - and from what she had heard, they would soon have quite enough on their plates. The Legion of Doom was always talking about a ‘him’ who would be reeking havoc up north - and she didn’t have to be a genius to guess that this new pony would be targeting the Crystal Empire. Flurry’s home. Sunny hoped she could find a way to warn her friends - from the way the villains talked, this new threat was a force to be reckoned with.
This is not the time to hesitate, she told herself. If you’re going to do it, do it now.
She reached down inside her and pulled the alicorn magic from inside her, feeling the usual warmth spreading from her heart to the tips of her hooves. Taking another look at the scrap of paper to make sure she had this right, she sighed and lit up her horn, whispering, “Aperta.”
Something in the lock mechanism clicked, and her chains fell off her hooves. Sunny’s breath caught in her throat - there was no going back now. She would probably get caught and have her mind invaded and everything would be for nothing and she would have failed and this was a mistake and she should stay here and-
Calm down. Deep breaths. Just do what Dad would do. And right now, he would get out of here.
She stood up - it felt so strange to do it with hooves that weren’t held down by chains! - and shakily stepped away from them. She looked around and decided that nopony would notice she was gone for a while - at least, that was the hope. So there wasn’t any harm in snooping around a little bit to see what these villains were planning, right?
Besides, she thought to herself, I want my journals back.
The Legion of Doom had confiscated both her father’s journal and the Journal of Friendship when Sunny had first arrived, and she was not leaving until she had retrieved them. Who knows? They might be useful in the days ahead.
Of course, there were stone pathways that slanted up and out of the cave, but Sunny had already figured out that those lead to bedrooms and other less-interesting parts of the cave. So she headed, instead, to their meeting room, three stone chairs surrounding a stone table, the crevices in the walls filled with books, a few torches lay silent in their brackets, and a wooden chest stood by the wall.
The Journal of Friendship was sitting on the table, open to a passage about - Sunny paused before she scooped it up, scanning the page. Hm. King Sombra. He was that evil shadow pony who had tried to take over the Crystal Empire and enslave its citizens, if she remembered correctly. A chill ran down her back as she realized that this must be the distraction that the villains were planning to draw Equestria’s attention away from the Legion of Doom.
She wished she could tell her friends - especially Flurry Heart, she deserved to know more than anypony - but if her hunch was correct, they would know themselves soon enough.
And maybe it would be worth something to play by the villains’ plan for a while - her friends would deal with Sombra like Sunny knew they could, and she would sneak around disabling the Legion of Doom’s potential allies against the ponies, convincing them to switch sides. She had to try, at least. And she had to find that mysterious dream pony.
Sunny slid the Journal of Friendship into her bag and scanned the room, trying to decide where her father’s journal could be. She spotted the chest by the wall and trotted over to it, feeling that it would be as good a place as any. Sunny pushed open the lid and rummaged around inside, careful to put everything back as she had found it. Her spirits plummeted as she realized that her father’s journal was not in there.
Where was it?
Sunny took one more look at the room, narrowing her eyes at every detail, when something caught her eye. One of the torches - it had a faint line on the stone around it.
Like it could be pulled out of the wall.
Lighting up her horn, Sunny surrounded the dark torch with golden light and gently eased it out of the wall, wincing at the grinding noise of stone against stone. There, in the hollow behind it, lay her father’s journal. Sunny’s face lit up, and she grabbed it, holding it protectively to her chest as she replaced the torch. Then she put it in her bag with the Journal of Friendship and ran back into the main chamber, facing the yawning opening that served as an exit from her prison.
“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered. Even as her wings and horn faded, the hope that was building in her chest never wavered as she dashed away into the night.
Cozy Glow was thrown backwards by the force of the former changeling queen’s yell, and she desperately flapped her wings to right herself. Tirek looked like he would rather jump in the lake than face Chrysalis’ wrath.
“How could you let her escape?” Chrysalis demanded, advancing on the centaur. “She was chained to the wall, for Celestia’s sake!”
“I-I don’t know!” Tirek stammered, looking to Cozy Glow for support, or help, but she had none to give. His wild eyes landed on the unicorn and pegasus who were also cowering from the raging changeling, and he pointed an accusing claw at them. “It was their fault! I told them to keep watch over her, no matter what it takes!”
Permafrost seethed, and opened his mouth to snap back at him, but Sour Lavender jerked his head, and the unicorn fell silent, though he didn’t look happy about it.
Good for them to know their place, Cozy Glow thought scathingly. She didn’t trust them.
Chrysalis paced angrily around the meeting room. “I knew we should have put a spell on those,” she spat, whipping her head around to stare at the chains that had once held Sunny Starscout, barely visible through the door. “Then we would know the moment she tried to escape!” She whirled around to face Cozy Glow, and she sensed that she knew what the topic of her shouting match would be. “But you said that we wouldn’t need to!” Chrysalis snapped, her eyes flashing. “You said that there was hardly a need for chains - you said Sunny Starscout would be unable to leave!”
“It should have been that way!” Cozy yelled back. “We should have - I should have known everything that went on in her head!” She glared at Chrysalis, a biting retort on her tongue. “But I wasn’t the one who cast the spell - that was you. Maybe you did something wrong, and-”
“Don’t you get started,” Chrysalis hissed. “In fact, if it wasn’t for you-”
“Stop it!” Tirek wrestled his way in between them and put a hand to each of their chests, pushing them away from each other, though they continued to snarl at each other. “You’re bickering like fillies, and it is not helping! Sunny Starscout got away, but she’s one pony on her own. She’s not dangerous unless she has her friends with her.”
“The first thing she’s going to do is go find her friends!” Cozy Glow snapped, pushing away from him. “This was all a big mistake!”
“This was your idea!” Chrysalis informed her.
“And you made it fail!” she yelled back.
“QUIET!!!” Tirek roared, clamping his hands over his ears. “She’s obviously gone! There’s nothing we can do about that right now! So let’s make a plan so we can do something about it!”
“Don’t let her make the plan, though,” Chrysalis scoffed, rolling her eyes and stalking over to a stone chair. “She’ll probably suggest something completely ridiculous that is guaranteed to fail, and give our enemies the upper hoof.” She turned up her nose as Cozy Glow lowered herself into the seat across from her, and Cozy felt her anger boiling under her skin, and she longed to punch this ignorant changeling’s muzzle in-
“We need a way to track Sunny Starscout,” Tirek announced, taking the final seat and glaring at the other two. “I thought you had found a way to do that,” he said to Cozy Glow.
She glared back. “The mind link was supposed to be unbreakable!” she seethed, slamming her hoof on the table and wincing as she made contact with the hard stone. “I want to know how she managed to get rid of it. I can’t even enter her mind anymore!” She slumped in her seat and pouted. “It’s like it was in my reach, but now it’s slipped away.”
“What a helpful analogy,” Chrysalis quipped, and Cozy’s eyes practically shot lasers at the changeling. “In the meantime, we can now count the mind link out. It’s completely useless now unless something reopens the connection.”
Cozy Glow sat up, a new idea coming to her. “Yeah,” she said slowly, “something to reopen the connection… something like an overwhelming amount of power that you can’t control?”
In the corner of the room, Permafrost started, his eyes wide, but none of them noticed. An evil smile spread across Chrysalis’ face as she realized what Cozy Glow was saying. “Yes,” she said in the same tone, “something like that. Would be such a shame if, at the same time, we also gained a powerful ally that nopony could stand up to.”
“Very sad,” Tirek agreed, his eyes gleaming with pleasure. “I do believe we have a new plan for what to do with Sunny Starscout.”
Cozy Glow frowned as a new idea came to her. “But how are we going to keep her from her friends?” she asked, slumping again. “She’s going to want to run to them as soon as she gets out of here, right? And if she’s with them…”
Chrysalis sighed. “More ‘friendship is magic’ nonsense,” she huffed.
“The same way we were already planning to distract them,” Tirek pointed out, reaching forward to grab something, but his hand closed on empty space. “Aaand she took the book.”
“Great,” Cozy groaned. “Now she can have access to information that we used to be the only ones who knew. This is getting better and better.”
Tirek lit up his horns and pulled one of the torch brackets out of the wall, revealing an empty hollow behind it that previously held another book that they had decided would be best to be kept out of the hooves of Sunny Starscout, because it would probably give her ideas that would not be very beneficial to their plans. He growled and shoved the torch back into place, singing his hand in the process, which caused him to yelp and shake his steaming hand around in the air, trying to cool it off.
Chrysalis snorted and stood up. “So now she’ll be able to figure out everything,” she snarled. “Oh, how this day has taken a turn for the better.”
“Not so fast,” Cozy reminded her. “We’ve convinced the other creatures to join our cause, and I’m very convincing.” She gave her most adorable smile to prove she was correct, and Tirek and Chrysalis snorted. “That pony won’t stand a chance trying to convince them - if she even thinks about it. I doubt she even knows they exist.” She leaned back and smirked at them, as if she were better than them.
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Yes, and we should count on your convincibility skills to save our flanks,” she snarked.
Cozy assumed an innocent smile. “Remember, we’re supposed to work together,” she reminded them, blinking her eyes infuriatingly. “If there’s a problem, we have a better chance of fixing it if we work together as… as… partners in crime! Besides, the only reason we didn’t win last time was because we were arguing and gave Twilight Sparkle and her friends a chance to obliterate us! Are we going to make the same mistakes again?”
Tirek and Chrysalis looked at each other with bored, annoyed expressions, though they had to admit that Cozy Glow was right. With a heavy sigh, each of them gave their consent. Cozy Glow’s smile widened. Even other villains were so easy to manipulate.
“Well, now that that’s all sorted out, I’m going to go get some fresh air,” she said, standing up and flapping her wings to raise her into the air. Ignoring the others’ suspicious looks, Cozy flew outside and perched on top of the cave that they had their headquarters in. The cool night breeze ruffled her mane and calmed her down. She looked up at the bright stars twinkling in the night sky, and a smile came to her face.
You may be free now, little pony, she thought, but not for long.
As she said it, she subconsciously reached out to Sunny Starscout’s mind, though the tunnel that used to be so open was blocked. No, not blocked - it wasn’t there at all. It had slipped from her grasp, and the very thought was infuriating. How could she have been so stupid? She should have realized that Sunny Starscout was getting too powerful - she should have checked in more often.
And now there were the memories that had been resurfacing after she had tried so hard to suppress them. Memories of Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle, three ponies who may have been the only actual friends she’d ever had - which made the fact that she had gained them through manipulation all the more sour. Thoughts of Sandbar, Smolder, Gallus, Yona, Silverstream, and Ocellus, a group of friends, each more unlikely than the last, and the reason that Cozy Glow’s first attempt to drain Equestria of its magic had failed. Despite that, Cozy had nothing but jealousy for their close friendship that wasn’t a product of lies built upon lies built upon convincing acts, that wasn’t for the purpose of world-domination or gaining power, that was so genuine and pure that she wished she had something like it.
Stop, she thought, though it carried no force behind it like it usually did. STOP, Cozy Glow. Don’t fall into friendship’s trap. Remember what it did to you. Remember what it took from you.
Magic is dangerous and cannot be trusted. Magic is dangerous and cannot be trusted.
Friendship is magic. Friendship is dangerous and cannot be trusted.
Friendship… cannot be… cannot…
“ARGH!!!” Cozy clutched her head in her hooves. “Why does this have to be so hard?” she yelled up at the stars. “Why can’t anything be easy?” Her eyes narrowed on a cluster of stars in the sky, five surrounding a sixth, all slightly glowing unnatural colors. She opened her mouth to keep yelling, but instead, all that came out was an agonized whisper: “Why am I doing this?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she clapped her hooves to her mouth to keep from saying anything else, looking around frantically to make sure she wasn’t being overheard. Slowly, she lowered her hooves and looked down at them - these hooves were hers. And yet… she could hardly recognize them. All she could see in them was… theft. Hurt. Pain. Accusations. Lies. All of it.
Was this who she was now? Her hooves started trembling, and she wrapped them around herself, the tears pouring from her eyes. Who was she? Why was she here? Why was she doing these things? These awful, awful things that just ended with ponies getting hurt - with her getting hurt?
She needed help - she needed a friend.
With a gasp, Cozy Glow sat straight up, shocked at what she had just admitted to herself. But, strangely, she didn’t feel angry at the thought, but more of a sense of yes, this is what you need to do, go do it.
But did that mean that… that she was just like everypony else? Vulnerable to the spell that friendship cast, ready to embrace it after everything that it had done to her?
A friend would be nice, she cautiously thought. Then I could use them for information and as a leverage against Sunny Starscout and her ridiculous friends. Just like I did with the Cutie Mark Crusaders and every creature else at that school.
But deep down inside, she knew - she didn’t want a pretend friend that she could manipulate to use for her own purposes.
She wanted a real friend - a pony who would stand by her side no matter what, who she could confide in, tell her deepest secrets, who would laugh with her and play with her and make her heart soar with happiness and simply be there for her like nopony ever had been…
You’re getting off track, she thought in a panicked tone. Don’t distract yourself. When you finally get what you want, everything will be fine.
Friendship is power, friendship is magic, and magic and power should only be in the hooves of ponies who will use it for good - to protect any and every pony. Chrysalis and Tirek can rule with terror if they’d like, but I’m going to make my citizens happy in the way I never was. They don’t need magic, they don’t need anypony other than me. Once I get my way, everything will be fine.
In Zephyr Heights, two ponies were standing on the highest balcony in the palace, gazing over the city as the sun set, though the city was every bit as alive as it was during the day. The bright lights from Zephyr Heights seemed a thousand times brighter in the dark night, and the city practically glowed.
Queen Haven sighed. “It seems such a shame to leave it,” she whispered. “Every time I assert that this is what I must do, I look at the city, and suddenly, I have doubts again.” She leaned her head against the shoulder of the unicorn standing beside her.
“You don’t have to go after them,” Alphabittle told her. “You know this city needs you.”
“But they need me more.” It was barely audible, but it felt so good to say it aloud. “Every minute they’re away, I feel like I’m… that I’m missing something. Something important.” She looked over the city in all of its beauty and said, “It would be worth giving all of this up… if I could just be with them for one more day.”
“If you go…” Alphabittle cleared his throat. “If you go, then I’m going, too.”
A sob escaped her throat, but it wasn’t of pain - it was one of happiness. “I was hoping you would say that,” Haven said, leaning into him and shivering in the cold night.
“We can go inside if-” Alphabittle started, but Haven cut him off.
“No, it’s fine. I just… I wanted to see it one last time.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s so pretty.”
“You built all of this.” The unicorn shifted his feet and looked at her.
“No, they build all of this.” Haven corrected, straightening. “A queen must never take credit for the actions of her citizens. They did all of this. I just… supervised.”
“Encouraged. Provided. Stood there and looked beautiful.” Alphabittle grinned and lowered his head so she could swat him with her wing. “I speak nothing but the truth.”
“Poor you. If only you had a shred of self esteem,” Haven quipped, rolling her eyes but sharing a smile with him. She tried to ignore the fact that her heart was currently beating a mile a minute and that her face was heating up, so she didn’t know whether she was blushing or not.
Alphabittle pulled her into a hug, and the two looked above the city, to the black night sky above it. The palace was far enough above the rest of the city that you could see some of the stars - though not as much as you would be able to from anywhere else in Equestria. Still, seeing the glowing dots of light shining up there, surrounding the pale, glowing moon gave Haven a sense of peace. It was as if she could sense that her daughters were okay. Still, she had a sense that something was coming - something that would put her little fillies in danger.
And she had to be there for them - to see them, to protect them, to just be with them one last time in case something went… wrong, and-
Don’t think about that, she commanded herself. Think of something that makes you happy. She turned to Alphabittle and felt a smile coming to her lips. Something happy.
Lofty Skies touched down in front of Sunny Starscout’s old lighthouse and immediately began pacing while she waited for her friends, a bag hanging from her middle that held everything (she hoped) that she would need while she and the other Crusaders went to go save the world.
“Where are they?” the pegasus muttered to herself. She flew over to the window that Jinx had left unlocked and pushed it open, flying inside and throughout the entire lighthouse to see if her friends were hiding anywhere inside. She decided not to question why the kitchen looked like a miniature pizza restaurant.
As she finally made her way to the top of the lighthouse, something caught her eye - the lamp that was sitting underneath the giant lens in the center, surrounded by the figures of six ponies. Lofty Skies took a closer look and saw that the lamp was designed to have light shoot out of the top and through the crystal in the top, fracturing and spreading the light farther. And there was the giant lens right above it…
The pegasus began to get an idea. She and her friends obviously knew how important friendship was, and how important harmony was to maintain - but did everypony else?
What if she left behind a reminder, to show ponies that they could be friends? The unity crystals that Sunny Starscout and her friends had put together had been stolen - she and her friends were going to find those and bring them back as another reminder. But for the time being…
Lofty Skies positioned the lamp so that it was directly underneath the lens and turned it on. Sure enough, light poured out of the top of the lamp and was fractured by the crystal, but once it hit the lens, it was projected across the entire room, golden images of earth ponies and unicorns and pegasi and stars, galloping around in circles.
Surely everypony would see this, the filly thought with a satisfied nod. She rearranged the pony figures so that they stood protectively around the lamp once more, so that, if anypony came to investigate, they would see that ponies used to be friends - and hopefully remember that they were right now.
The pegasus flew back downstairs and out the window, which she carefully shut the window and turned around to see a pony poking their head out from behind one of the trees, frantically gesturing to her. Not just anypony - a green unicorn with a purple mane that Lofty recognized.
“Psst!” Jinx looked behind her and waved frantically. “Over here!”
Lofty Skies flew over there and skidded to a stop next to Rose Blossom. “Isn’t this exciting?”
“This is terrifying!” Rose corrected her, fiddling with the strap on her saddlebag. “Our parents are going to ground us for sure this time!”
“Does it matter?” Lofty put her hoof in front of her. “We made a pact that we would always stay friends, no matter what! Remember? That’s why we ran away the first time! And now we’re doing it again! Except it’s not just for us - it’s for everypony!” Jinx and Rose didn’t hesitate now as they put their hooves on top of Lofty’s.
Jinx gasped and pointed to the lighthouse. “Look! What is that?”
Rose Blossom scurried to see, but Lofty Skies already knew what her friend was talking about.
“A reminder,” she said.
Sunny crouched behind a tree as she watched Cozy Glow fly back inside. She had been trying to gain her bearings - she had no idea where she was - but seeing the pegasus in such a state had her mind in a conflicted state. She wished she could reach her… but she didn’t want to risk the filly reopening the mind link and trapping Sunny back in her grasp.
But would it be worth it if she showed Cozy what it was like to have friends and happiness?
Not if she couldn’t save the world and get back to her friends, Sunny told herself firmly. She had to believe that.
Still, a part of her wondered.
The cave that she had been trapped in was actually a large stone formation that was strangely in the shape of a skull of what looked like a ram, complete with the large, curved horns. It was sitting right in the middle of a muddy brown lake and, with the torches gleaming inside it, the eyes looked like they were alive, and seeing her.
Sunny shuddered and backed away. She had to get out of here. If only she had a map…
Wait. She did have a map! Reaching into her bag, she pulled out her father’s journal and flipped to the page with his final message to her - the message that had gotten her into this whole mess. Sometimes, when Sunny couldn’t sleep at night because she felt like everything she and her friends were doing was failing, she pulled out her journal and read her dad’s message, and it always filled her with hope and encouragement.
Right now, though she didn’t need any of that - just being free was enough for her. Sunny pulled out the map and opened it, trying to pinpoint her location based on her surroundings. Clearly, she had to be somewhat close to the sea, and according to this map, the other creatures lived on the other side of a very big channel of water.
Well. This got a bit more complicated. But she would figure it out. She had to. She didn’t have any other choice.
First step: get as far away from here as possible. Then, when the sun came up, she could find her way east, and then figure out how to cross the water. Of course, she could probably just fly… yes. She would probably just do that.
Sunny nodded confidently and turned away from the villains’ cave and made her way through the wilted jungle surrounding it. She finally came to a clearing where she decided to rest for the night, and curled up under a tree that was significantly softer than sleeping on a slab of stone. Her eyes grew heavy, but when she opened them again, it wasn’t quite dawn - close, but not quite. The stars were growing dimmer and the sky lighter, but… she paused.
Was that star growing… brighter instead of fading away? Sunny stood up and watched it, and… yes. It was growing brighter and brighter until she realized that it wasn’t a star, but a… lantern?
A small pink lantern with a piece of paper attached to it.
As the lantern came to a rest in the middle of the clearing, Sunny dashed up to it and took off the piece of paper that it held. Her eyes immediately filled with tears of happiness, for it was the exact same drawing that she had sent on a lantern just like this all those years ago, the one that had been found by Izzy. A unicorn, an earth pony, and a pegasus were all having a picnic together, and the words Dear unicorns and pegasi, you have friends in Maretime Bay. Come visit us! were written in crayon by a young foal.
Sunny smiled and tucked the paper away into her dad’s journal - a reminder of her friends. Taking a deep breath, she turned and faced the sunrise.
As a princess of the Crystal Empire, and having been given a proper crystaling, Flurry Heart was well attuned to the Crystal Heart and the Empire itself. She had a sort of sixth sense that told her when her home was in danger, and she was getting that feeling right now - more than ever.
Before, it had been there, but it had been so slight that she had hardly noticed it - though she should have. Her mother had always told her that, if there was a little bit of danger, there was a lot of danger, and she should always pay attention to those things.
But Flurry didn’t. She didn’t and now she was going to pay the price.
It was the same dream she’d had the night before Sunny started acting strange: her, walking through the empty castle in the center of the Empire, her horn lit, trying to see through the pressing wall of darkness, calling out but hearing only echoes in response.
Then there was a shred of light ahead - the throne room doors were open. Flurry rushed forward only to skid to a halt - and this was where the dream changed. Instead of her parents being imprisoned in a cage of black crystal, it was her friends, Sunny, Sprout, Hitch, Zipp, Pipp, and Izzy. Jagged black crystals pushed their way up and out, surrounding the pony on the throne, and when Flurry saw him, she lost herself to fear.
The shadow pony laughed, and her heart would stop, her blood would freeze, and tendrils of blackness would wrap around her, dragging her down, until she couldn’t see anything, couldn’t remember anything, lost herself completely-
Flurry jerked awake, breathing hard. It’s just a dream, she told herself. Just a dream. And yet, she couldn’t quite convince herself that.
She stood up, trying to catch her breath, as she looked around their camp. Everypony else was sleeping peacefully, giving no indication that they were having awful nightmares about their worst enemies coming back. Flurry decided it would help her if she went for a fly, and she spread her large wings, rising above the camp as the cold night rush air rushed into her face, whipping away her worries.
As she hovered there, Flurry turned north… and stopped.
Even from here, she could see the dark light gathering on the horizon, like a storm in the distance, gathering strength until it would strike with full force, leaving a path of destruction in its wake.
Then she felt something, like her soul was being pulled away from her by force, her heart splitting in two. Flurry let out a cry of pain and forgot to flap her wings, plummeting down to the ground faster than a speeding Wonderbolt. Luckily, it wasn’t that much of a fall, and her fear and panic overwhelmed her pain.
“Izzy.”
“Murph.”
“Izzy, wake up.”
“Urgh… what?” The unicorn yawned and blinked open her eyes to see Flurry standing over her, looking absolutely terrified. “Flurry? What’s going on?”
“He… he’s back.”
“What? Who?”
“He-” Flurry’s voice caught in her throat, and she forced it out. “King Sombra. He’s back.”
