> Operation: Ponies
>  by Sammy LeDerp
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> All I Wanted Was Some Cake
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Gundam Wing character designs are based entirely off of SapphireGamgee’s creations of them as ponies. All credit for their designs go directly to her. Her depictions of them as ponies were so moving that I felt the need to write about them. If you wish to see them, please visit her Deviantart account under that name.
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With the war between the Earth and the space colonies over, peace can now exist in the universe. The little things in life can be enjoyed without having to fear an entire city being demolished by mobile suits. Both colonies and the Earth were rebuilding with great cooperation and respect for each other. Even the Gundam pilots, who fought hard for what they believed was the right thing to defend, could actually have normal lives.

Quatre’s birthday was coming up, and he wanted the other four pilots to attend a small birthday party. It was just going to be the five of them. He had rented a cabin on the shores of a beautiful lake back on Earth and had planned for all of them to spend the weekend there. Weeks before everything was set in stone about the location, he tried to make contact with everyone via email, but then realized how hard this was going to be. The pilots had gone down separate paths at the end of the war and were barely speaking with each other. Quatre spoke frequently with Trowa since he was practically his best friend. However, Duo and Wufei seemed to always be busy. Heero never responded to anything. Eventually, Quatre got fed up with everything and sent out an email invitation with information and details, deeming it mandatory that they all went to the birthday party.

Now at the time of the party, there is no one to be seen in the cabin besides Quatre himself. It was a quaint little cabin, fully furnished and with electricity. All it had was the kitchen, a hallway stemming to the bathroom, and a very large interior room that would be where they would hang out on their sleeping bags. His was already set up with his sack and things. He had brought movies in his carry-on to watch on the 24” HD flat screen television that was propped on the wall. The room was practically empty except for those things and the grandfather clock that ticked away in one of the corners. Quatre was in the kitchen prepping the table with a pink plastic cover, along with plates and utensils. The delicious chocolate birthday cake was waiting atop the counter with pink icing that said “Happy Birthday.”

The blonde haired, blue-eyed teen was wearing a simple white apron around his body, shielding his usual pink-collared shirt and purple vest. Humming a little tune, he finished placing the utensils and plates on the table and turned to the fridge. Opening it, he took out a vase holding a variety of colorful flowers and placed it as the centerpiece of the table. Suddenly, the grandfather clock chimed and he quietly walked out of the kitchen to see the time. It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The time he said for everyone to be there.

Suddenly there was delicate taping at the door. Quatre hopped on his tip-toes to answer it and saw two of the pilots standing before him with bags. Trowa, with his outreaching brown hair covering half of his face, smiled at Quatre. The Chinese pilot, Wufei, stood behind him with his hair tied up tight and nodded. His form of being approachable. 

“Trowa, Wufei!” exclaimed Quatre, throwing his hands up into the air. “I’m so glad you could make it!”

Trowa and Wufei quickly came in with their multiple bags and plopped them down on the ground by the television. Trowa stood there in his long-sleeved dark blue shirt and placed his hands in his pants pockets.

“We wouldn’t miss this for the world,” he said. “Isn’t that right, Wufei?”

Wufei was now sitting on the ground, setting up his black sleeping bag. “Seeing as I had no one to train with this weekend, this seemed like a good alternative.” He looked up at Quatre, who now was standing close by Trowa. “Where’s a place I can meditate?”

“You can go closer down the lakeshore away from everything, if you’d like.” said Quatre. “But if you want to meditate, could you please wait until tomorrow? I really want to try and catch up with you guys!”

“That’s true, we haven’t seen each other in almost a year, so I’m sure many things have happened in each other’s lives.” said Trowa. He bent down to his bag, unzipped it, and pulled out a wrapped present. “This is for you, Quatre.”

“Thanks, you shouldn’t have!” giggled Quatre, as he took the present from Trowa. He also walked up to Wufei, who pulled out a present as well. “I’ll put these on the counter in here.”

Quatre trotted into the kitchen with the presents as Trowa began setting up his own sleeping bag next to Wufei. Wufei was finished and was now going through his bag looking for something. He pulled out incense and began to the process of setting that up to use by his sleeping quarters. Quatre returned and moved his sleeping bag and other things and began setting up opposite of his friends on the wooden floor.

“So, I’ve brought some DVDs we can watch, but I know that the television has cable,” he said as he resettled himself. “Have you guys watched TV lately?”

“Well, whenever I have the chance I do.” answered Trowa as he sat down.

Wufei snorted with his eyes closed, and legs cross, breathing in the relaxing smell. He was clearly disobeying Quatre’s wishes. “Television rots your brain.”

“Well, there’s this show that’s actually going to start really soon that I’ve been watching,” explained Quatre. He brought his legs up to his face and propped his chin on his knees. “It’s a cartoon.”

“Oh?” Trowa let out. “What’s it called?”

And with the biggest smile and no shame, Quatre looked at his two male friends to give them his answer. These were people he had fought a long, hard, grueling war with, killing people and destroying mobile suits. And this is what he said.

“It’s called ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’!”

“…Excuse me?”

There was a loud knock at the door, much louder than Trowa’s knock. Quatre got up and left his astonished friends behind. Opening the door, this time it was Duo who stood there, dressed in an all-black, short sleeved work-like top, with a white shirt underneath that was rolled up on his arms. The white collar against the black by his neck gave him a priestly touch to his appearance. He too had bags with him and looked at Quatre under his black cap.

“Hey buddy, what’s going on?” asked Duo.

“Nothing really, come on in,” said Quatre, motioning for his friend to walk pass him.

“Thanks a bunch,” said Duo, his long brown braid swishing as he walked into the cabin. 

He placed his bags next to Quatre’s stuff and looked at the other two that were there. Trowa had his hand over his mouth and Wufei was no longer meditating---instead, he was now lying on his back, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“Hey guys, how’s it been?” said Duo, putting his hands on his hips. When he didn’t receive a response, he bent down to get a more level look at his friends. “You guys look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Quatre walked up to Duo and giggled. “Some people take the kind of news I told them harshly sometimes. Duo, do you watch ponies?”

Duo straightened himself up and looked at Quatre. The birthday boy had a goofy grin on his face, awaiting Duo’s response.

“Do I watch…ponies?”

“Yeah! I figured you, out of everyone else in our group, probably do!”

“Why the hell would I take time out of my life to go and find horses to watch?”

“He’s referring to a cartoon show.”

Heero, dressed in his casual green tang top and black pants, walked out of the hallway that led to the bathroom. He shook some pieces of glass out of his thick, brown hair with his hands. He closed his eyes and starting blurting out information as he walked up to Duo and Quatre.

“My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, developed by Lauren Faust and produced by Hasbro studios, is a show that was initially made for little girls, but has acquired the attention of the teenagers of the universe, even male viewers.”

“Heero, are you part of the brony community too?!” asked Quatre. His happy expression turned into a confused one. “Wait, how did you come in here?”

“The window to the bathroom here was really weak,” said Heero. He picked a final piece of glass off of his head and flicked it. “You’re going to want to replace that.”

“Wait, you climbed through the window?” Duo shook his head. “You haven’t changed a bit. Can’t you be a normal person and walk through the front door?”

Trowa seemed to have been released from his trance and looked up at Heero. “Heero, how much do you know about this show?”

“I’ve just gathered information on it,” said Heero, opening his eyes. “It seems to be a popular thing, so I thought I would learn about it and observe this type of community. I’ve never seen the show.”

“Oh my, we should watch it!” shouted Quatre. “It’s going to be on soon! A brand new episode!” He got down on the floor and started looking through his bag. “Let me find the remote control and we can all watch it together!”

Wufei groaned and rolled on to his stomach so that he could plant his face into his sleeping bag. Trowa sighed and shook his head. Duo looked around at his friends. No one was trying to stop Quatre in trying to find the remote, however no one seemed to be pleased about watching a cartoon show made for little girls either. He put on a goofy smile and threw out his arms.

“Listen, Quatre, you’re a great guy and all, but I really didn’t come here to watch you have a sexual identity crisis or something like that,” said Duo. “All I wanted was some cake---“

“I found it!”

Quatre pulled out a small, black remote and hurriedly scurried over to the TV so he could sit right in front of it. He flipped on the TV and scrolled through the channels. Everyone else watched in silent horror as he finally found the desired channel. The show had just started and the theme song had begun. Quatre sat back and started singing the song along with the ponies on the screen.

“I used to wonder what friendship could be---“

Duo groaned, threw his hat down on the floor and kicked it. He spun around and started scratching his nose.

“I say we just leave this joint, Heero, this was such a waste of time---Heero?”

It was then that Duo noticed Heero wasn’t standing next to him anymore. The Gundam pilot had moved to sit next to Quatre in front of the TV screen. The show had officially begun and the entrancing scene was the inside of a beautiful throne room, where a large white pony sat looking worried. Her sparkling rainbow hair flowed in some apparent breeze, and her golden crown symbolized her royalty. She had wings and a unicorn’s horn, and was looking out the window.

Quatre squealed, clenching his fists. “It’s Princess Celestia! Isn’t she so pretty?”

“Do you feel that?” Heero whispered.

Quatre looked at Heero, puzzled. His sense of excitement had left him. “What do you mean?”


	The princess pony sighed on the screen and shook her head. “Oh, I need help. But this time I need more than just Twilight and her friends. This evil is too great. Who should I call upon?” Her horn began to glow a gold color as she closed her eyes. “Maybe these young warriors will be able to help me…”


There was a large bang and everything suddenly went dark for all of the pilots. They were swooped up by something that felt like a hand larger than themselves and thrown into nothingness. A whooshing sound was all they could hear, and it was greater than their screams. There was the sense of being pulled through a wind tunnel in all kinds of directions, never in a straight line. Suddenly, after what seemed to be a few minutes, there was another large bang and their bodies were piled all together on a floor, surrounded by a bright light.

With Quatre’s vision, though blurry, he was able to see certain things come to motion as he opened his eyes. One thing that was crystal clear was Princess Celestia herself walking up to him, smiling.

“Yes, you all will do…”

> Celestia's Request
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As the group of warriors slowly regained vision and mobility, they began to untangle themselves from the mess that was them. They had all ended up in a pile on Princess Celestia’s throne room floor like a glob of spaghetti. There were no guards, no other sign of life anywhere except for them. The sun poured through the stained glass windows, making the very air sparkle. As Princess Celestia walked up to the group, the pilots began noticing very odd differences in how their bodies felt. Wufei couldn’t quite feel his hands, and Duo could swear that feathers were smacking him in the face.

Celestia stopped in front of Quatre’s body as he stumbled to get himself up. “Yes, you all will do…Quatre, Duo, Heero, Wufei, and Trowa.”

Quatre shook his head to clear his vision and shook it once more for assurance that what he was seeing was real. And it was. Celestia stood in front of him, looking down with a low-spirited smile on her face. He almost melted on the spot.

“Princess Celestia?” he asked in wonder. “Is it really you?”

“Yes it is, my little ponies.”

“Ponies…oh my God!”

Quatre glanced over and looked at his friends. His jaw could have dropped to the floor. The other four stood facing each other in disbelief. Their delusion was over, though they wished it wasn’t. Their vision was clear, though they wished they were blind.  They were, in fact, ponies. Four of them were pegasi, to be exact.

Duo was a black pegasus with a thin golden chain around his neck, a cross hanging down at the end. His Gundam’s sabre scythe was his cutie mark. Wufei was a blue pegasus with red bands of cloth around all four of his hooves. His cutie mark was an Asian red dragon. Trowa was a pegasus with a coat that was like a dark yellow. His cutie mark was a clown mask. Heero was a green pegasus, with a gun with a feathered background as his cutie mark.

But Quatre was a special one. Quatre was an Alicorn. He was a magnificent white that almost made it look like he could shine. His cutie mark was an assortment of four diamonds around a centered purple one; the other diamonds were red, yellow, green, and blue.

Poor Duo couldn’t believe his own eyes. He kicked his front hooves into the air so that he was in a standing position and nearly fell to the ground. Jumping back on to his legs, he looked around nervously, like he was going to have a mental breakdown. 

“Just what the hell is going on here?!” he cried, shaking in confusion.

“I have summoned you all here to help me and my sister,” answered Celestia, as the three silent pilots examined their new bodies. “Possibly even Equestria itself.”

Duo held up a hoof and pointed at Celestia. “But you’re just a pony…unicorn…thing! You were inside the TV!” He looked up at the ceiling and actually gave the room a good look around. “Does this mean we’re inside the TV too?”

“I will admit that I’m thoroughly confused.” said Trowa as he sat down on the ground.

“I really have no time to fully explain, and I apologize for that.” said Celestia. “However, you must please listen. I used up the majority of my magic to summon you here, so this plan must work. Thus, you need to understand what is going on.”

Her horn glowed and a large brown book appeared out of thin air. The group of five gathered around her as the book opened itself, flipping through hundreds of pages on its own. The book was so worn that it was amazing the pages didn’t fall right out.

“I have summoned you here from another dimension to help save Ponyville, and even Equestria, from an evil that is trying to return.” explained Celestia. The book landed on a page where there was a picture of a menacing dark void drawn in swirling circles. “Beyond this world is a spiritual realm where great darkness frolics. This place has existed since the dawn of pony-time and has grown stronger as the years have gone by. Sometimes these dark forces are able to escape through something called the Abyss, as drawn in this book. The Abyss rarely opens, and when it does, dooms emerges.”

The book flipped open to another page where a gothic black mare in armor stood on her hind legs with a nightmarish look about her.

“These forces play with the weakness in your hearts and can turn you into something you may not want to become, imprisoning you in its possession.”

The book flipped again to a unicorn with glowing green eyes with black streams coming out of them.

“Sometimes they can even bargain with you so that you can gain more power, in exchange for your soul.”

The book slammed shut and disappeared in a puff of smoke. The five pilots watched silently as Celestia shook her head and continued her story.

“When the Abyss appeared in my reign, it had taken a long time for me to come up with a spell to seal it up. By the time I had done so, some of its evil forces still lingered. They had claimed King Sombra, and soon after, my own sister.”

“So what you’re saying is that the Abyss is opening again.” said Heero.

Celestia looked shocked. “My, you’re very…quick. But yes. It is opening again in spurts, which tells me that somepony is trying to force I open. Princess Luna has a strong connection with this evil, and has told me that she feels its presence during the night somewhere in Ponyville.”

She closed her eyes and huffed, then looked at the pilots very sternly.

“I am asking you all to assist my sister in searching for this pony who is trying to bring this great evil back to this land.” said Celestia. “Starting tomorrow, you shall all make home in Ponyville and act as my own secret operatives to bring this pony to my attention. I would ask Twilight Sparkle and her friends to aid me, but I know that they can also be corrupted.” She walked solemnly over to the stained glass window of Nightmare Moon being defeated by the Elements of Harmony. “The forces are weak right now, so I want this taken care of before something terrible happens again.”

The door to the throne room opened with a long creak and Princess Luna entered. Her mane wasn’t sparkling like it would at night, and her coat was a light purple. She walked in almost nonchalantly, completely ignoring the group of ponies that was in there. Approaching her sister, she cleared her throat and began to speak.

“Sister, I am bored with this afternoon,” said Luna, lifting her hoof as she spoke. “Might we partake in some fun?”

Hooves were stomped in excitement as Quatre tried to contain himself at the sight of the younger princess. Duo awkwardly began inching away from him as Wufei shook his head in disappointment, not even daring to look at the sight of him.

“Princess Luna!” exclaimed Quatre.

The call grabbed her attention. She turned and walked up to Quatre, examining his physical features. She took great notice of his horn and even greater notice of his wings, as his were flapping quite vigorously.

“Are you…a relative of ours?” Luna asked quietly.

“Luna, these ponies will be assisting you in the search of the Abyss summoner,” called Celestia. Her horn glowed and outlined each pony as she began naming them. “These are our partners, Quatre, Trowa, Heero, Wufei, and Duo.”

“We did not agree to any terms like that, female.” said Wufei.

Once again, Celestia looked stunned. It was the first time she was addressed in such a way. Luna as well seemed to have been hurt by that, even though it wasn’t directed to her.

“Wufei, watch what you say!” said Quate, glaring at his blue friend.

“No Quatre, I think you really need to listen to us.” said Duo. “I’m calling a group huddle.”

He walked far away from the sisters, right up to the entrance door to the room. The rest of the pilots followed, with Quatre’s head pointed to the ground. He had lost all of his happiness because he had felt what was coming. All five ponies circled each other closely and as tight as could be and began their talks, as the two princesses watched at a distance.

“Ok, so first I’m going to admit, this is the weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever been a part of.” whispered Duo, as Wufei nodded. “We’re ponies. Horses with wings. Quatre, I don’t know what the heck you are, but that’s your own problem. Second, I didn’t agree to come here and be transformed to do someone’s dirty work.”

“This place has no connection to me.” said Wufei. “And being given orders from a mythical equine is beneath me. I agree with Duo.”

Quatre shook his head. “But guys, Princess Celestia needs us! She is depending on us to help her!”

“I can’t quite see any other way out of this myself,” said Trowa. He rubbed his chin with his hoof. “She seems to be a powerful creature at that to be able to summon us from an entirely different dimension. In theory, she could do whatever she pleased with us if we didn’t obey her wishes.” He put his hoof down and looked at his fellow pilots. “For a creature of her power to want to call on us for aide is a serious matter.  I say that we should help.”

Everyone now looked at Heero, who was going to be the tie-breaker. He was staring at the ground, taking in all of this information, considering all of the possibilities. After thinking for a moment, Heero looked up and gave them his response.

“Mission accepted.”

> First Impressions Are Important
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The following morning was a wonderful one. The grasslands of Equestria were growing wild as the sun beat down and warmed them. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. Through these fields, train tracks were placed, helping lead the familiar pink train of the land to its next destination. Upon this train, in a private car, the Gundam ponies sat conversing with themselves. They had been on the train for an hour already after leaving the station from Canterlot. Each individual had their own black pony satchel Princess Celestia had given them, along with enough Bits for a week and food for the day.

While four of the pilots sat on one side of the car talking, Quatre was opposite to them doing his own business. He was lying down on the train bench with his legs folded underneath his body. Resting on the bench in front of him was a small black book which he was reading, flipping the pages with the blue magic emitting from his horn.

Suddenly, the speakers on the train crackled.

“Ponyville! Our next stop is Ponyville!”

The four jabbering pilots were silenced by the announcement, as the speakers crackled again to end the transmission.

“Ponyville is right around the corner,” said Trowa. He turned his head to face the window behind him, gazing at the scenery of the hills. “I wonder what the town will be like?”

“It’s probably nothing but smiles and rainbows.” replied Wufei. “I wouldn’t be too concerned about the town. This is only a temporary situation in this world.”

“We should try not to stand out as much as possible.” said Heero. He moved his satchel so that it was in front of him, and pulled out a piece of paper from inside. “Here is the deed to the house Princess Celestia has given us. Our first objective is to locate our lodgings.”

“Speaking of the princesses, I think Princess Luna has a thing for me.” said Duo, leaning his head into Heero’s personal space, as they were sitting next to each other.

Wufei, Trowa, and Heero turned their attention from their serious conversation to the black pegasus. Duo leaped off the bench and began strutting around with a big smirk on his face.

“We had some alone time talking last night, and I think she was totally digging me." Duo continued, flapping his wings in pride. 

He walked right passed Quatre, swishing his tail, which hit Quatre’s nose, causing him to wrinkle it. Once he reached the end of the car, he spun himself in the air with his wings and landed dramatically so that he could face his fellow ponies.

“Can you not see it? The God of Death and the Princess of the Night!” Duo exclaimed. His smirk quickly left his face and was replaced with a look of fear in his eye. “Oh my God, what the hell am I saying?! She’s a pony!”

To that, he began repeatedly banging his on the wooden train floor. As the audience of three watched, Quatre was the only concerned one to break out of his trance and say something.

“Duo, it’s ok!” he said. “Please, stop before you hurt yourself!”

Duo rolled himself on to his back, wings spread out. “I have so many issues right now…”

“Quatre, since Duo had mentioned private time with one of the princesses, didn’t you have some time alone with Princess Celestia last night?” asked Trowa, drawing everyone’s attention away from the weeping pony on the floor.

Quatre at first stared blankly at the question. Then he put on a smile and nodded. The book he was reading was then completely highlighted with his magic, as he lifted it up into the air.

“Yes, that’s right! She gave me this book!” he answered. The book went back on to the bench and he flipped another page. “Princess Celestia had given me this book of spells. She said that since I can use magic, it would be best for me to start learning how to use it, so that I’m able to perform certain tasks like the unicorns.”

The answered seemed sufficient to the other pilots, as all three nodded in unison. They then continued to discuss the things that should be taken care of upon arrival to Ponyville. Quatre looked away from his friends as his magic book was lifted again and brought closer to his face. It was to hide the fact that he was riddled with concern, and he knew he was showing it; with his ears flattened and his mouth quivering, it was obvious. He didn’t want to tell them the other part of the conversation that he had with Princess Celestia.


“Quatre, if anything were to happen, there is a certain white magic spell in this book that can be used for attacking. I want you to study it and learn it. And Quatre, please remember…there is nothing more important in life than the bonds of cooperation and friendship within your group.”


Reflecting on the conversation now, he still wasn’t sure what Princess Celestia had meant. All he knew was that there was always friction between the Gundam pilots, even when they were working together. Sometimes going solo in battle without listening to what anyone else had to say was more important to certain ones than anything else. If the bonds of their friendship were going to have some sort of factor in their mission, Quatre was sure that there was going to be trouble.
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The train finally reached its destination: Ponyville. As it came to a screeching halt, Quatre quickly put his book back into his satchel. The Gundam ponies lined up at the door and flitted right out into the open air, avoiding the gap, and landing on the platform. Many different kinds of ponies were in the surrounding area doing a variety of activities; boarding the train, leaving the train, buying tickets at the booth, or just standing around chatting. There was a broad dirt path behind the station that led to the actual town.

Quatre chuckled with excitement and flew up into the air. He instantly took the lead to the path as his friends just watched him. He hovered in the air and turned to look at them.

“Come on, guys, Ponyville’s this way!” he said. “I’ll race you guys to the first set of buildings down there!”

As no one else seemed to want to take that challenge, Duo flew up into the air next to Quatre. “You’re on, blondie!”

The two of them darted through the air at great speed, kicking up debris that was on the ground. The other three pilots didn’t seem to really care about racing, and so trotted down the path in their wake. It didn’t take long for Duo and Quatre to reach the first shops on the border of Ponyville. In the end, they both tied, gasping for breath. Other pegasi that flew around them gave them strange looks, as they wiped sweat off their faces. To any other pegasus, the distance between the station and the border of town was nothing. However, the pilots were still getting accustomed to their bodies, and flying with wings was a very new thing to them.

The town below them was bustling with activity. From the town hall to the library, to the bakery shop and markets, ponies were actively being one with their community. Laughing was all that could be heard from the sky above.

“Well, that was a great race!” said Quatre, once he finally caught his breath.

“Sucks that we tied though,” said Duo.

“Hey! Will you guys come down from there?”

Quatre and Duo looked down to see that Heero was calling for them directly below. The small group on the ground gave space as the racers dropped to earth.

“We agreed to try and not draw attention to ourselves.” said Heero.

Duo shook his head. “I agreed to no such thing! If I’m going to be stuck being a pony for who knows how long, I might as well try to like it!”

“Well, we’re agreeing to it now.” said Heero.

Duo sighed and shook his head. Quatre looked down at the ground, feeling guilty for initiating the race. The group continued their walk into the town, glancing at the inhabitants and the buildings. Even though Heero had thought they were just grabbing everyone’s eyes, no one actually seemed to notice them at all. They had quickly adapted to the easy-going pace of the ponies in the area.

“Anyway, the deed says that it’s a large two-story house located around town hall.” said Heero. He examined a few of the houses that they were passing. “I suppose we just look for a house with a for-sale sign. Looks like all of these homes have two floors. It might be a common theme.”

As they continued on their trek to town hall, Duo had slowed his pace down to the back of the gang, as he mumbled about Heero being a “lousy good-for-nothing.” A chill went down his back and his ears perked up. Stopping in his tracks, he glanced over his shoulder. Nothing was too out of the ordinary, except for ponies selling apples and other fruits in carts. However, battle combat told him that he was being followed. He looked back up at the group and noticed that Heero was paying particular attention to him as he continued to lead the way. Heero then turned his head forward to see where he was going.

“He feels it too,” mumbled Duo, cautiously looking around. “But why isn’t he doing anything?” Duo nervously laughed to himself. “Maybe he’s offering me as a sacrifice?”

With that, he picked up speed to catch up to the gang. Eventually they were able to find town hall and all of its beauty. It was a three-leveled, dazzling tower with the colors yellow, pink, and brown. To them, it almost resembled a cupcake.  Fountains with pony statues were implanted on its grounds, and flagpoles decorated the area. Out of nowhere, Trowa pointed to one of the homes that stood out in the fore-front.

“That’s the only for-sale house around here,” he said. “It must be ours.”

As the pilots walked up to the house, the feeling of being watched had finally passed Duo’s body. He shook it off with great relief as the ponies stopped in front of their new house. It was most definitely a two-story house, with its wooden walls and thatched roof. There was a small balcony on the second floor. A stone fireplace was seen peeking out from the roof. It resembled the homes that had been depicted in more colonial times, before mobile suits were ever invented. A brown porch with stairs led up to the finely painted red door.

Wufei walked up to the for-sale sign and gave it a good kick. He sent the sign flying, broken in half. Both pieces landed in a nearby fountain. A few ponies in the nearby area stopped to stare at them.

Duo walked up to Quatre and nudged him in the side. “You think he took his aggravation out on the sign or what?”

The white alicorn gave off a nervous smile. To avoid the staring, the pilots quickly entered their new home. The home wasn’t furnished at all. As the ponies took off their satchels and left them in the large living room, they explored their new home. There were no beds, no couches---not even a tub to bathe in. Even though the home was bare, it was still quite large and would easily be filled up. Besides the living room, there was a room where it could be perfectly turned into a kitchen, a washroom on the first floor, along with three bedrooms there and two more on the second floor. Only one of the rooms upstairs led to the balcony. The walls were painted a faint yellow and the entire house smelled of flowers.

After the inspection of the house was done, the ponies congregated to the fireplace that was jutting out of the wall. Duo propped his head against it with Heero by his side. The others stood right by the fireplace’s opening.

“I think what we should do now is get some furniture,” said Trowa. “At least beds for tonight, if possible. We have enough money to do that, and Princess Celestia will be sending us care packages with food and Bits weekly.”

Wufei scuffed at the floor. “You’d think royalty would have this place set up for us, considering what we’re doing for them.”

“Yes, that’s a great idea!” shouted Quatre with glee. “We’ll decorate this place up right so that it looks like we’re just normal ponies! We’ll get some paintings, and vases, and…”

As Quatre went on and on with his list of future purchases, Duo had gotten the same feeling from before again. His eyes widened and he looked all over the room. Suddenly, pieces of soot crumbled from within the fireplace, and a large object fell down. It kicked up dust and a large cloud of soot, causing everyone to cough and back away. Out of the cloud of blackness popped out a pink pony, with cotton candy-like pink hair and balloons for her cutie mark. She had on the biggest smile ever. She got on her hind legs, took in a great breath and started to bellow.

“Wel—“

It didn’t take long for this surprise pony to be surprised herself, as Heero pinned her body to the floor within two seconds. Right before he lifted a hoof up to send a pummeling blow to this pony’s face, Quatre levitated Heero into the air. The green pegasus was now nothing but a helpless lump of hate, glaring at the pink pony and at Quatre.

“Heero, don’t hurt her!” ordered Quatre. “That’s just Pinkie Pie!”

The Element of Laughter, un-phased, hopped on to her legs and started bouncing around the entire floor. Duo, Trowa, and Wufei huddled into a tight pack in the middle of the room as Pinkie Pie started encircling them with her bouncing.

“Oh boy, how do you know my name? Did somepony tell you? How do you know anypony here? Because you’re new! And I know you’re new, because I saw you all walking around in town, and I was like ‘Wow, these ponies are new!’ only because I’ve never seen you before, so I followed you guys to your house and decided to surprise you!”

“That was probably not in your best decision considering we have Heero.” mumbled Trowa, making Duo snicker.

Quatre decided to put Heero back down. As soon as his hooves touched the floor and the magic went away, Pinkie Pie bopped her way up to Heero. She ‘oohed’ at the cutie mark on his hip, sticking her face right into it.

“I like it!” shouted Pinkie Pie. She perked her head up at Heero. “What kind of cutie mark is it?”

“It’s a gun.” Heero simply answered.

“A gun? What does a gun do?”

“It’s something I’m going to use to blow your brains out if you don’t leave right now.”

Trowa walked up to Pinkie Pie, who had cocked her side to the side, staring at Heero.

“Maybe it’s best if I show you to the door.” he said.

“Okie-dokie-lokie!” giggled Pinkie Pie.

With that, Trowa calmly walked out the door first, as Pinkie Pie followed, still hopping. Within a few seconds, Trowa ran right back in and closed it shut. All of a sudden, there was a knocking to door. Before Trowa could do anything, Heero had smoothly run up and pushed him out of the way. With his one obstacle gone, Heero answered the door to find Pinkie Pie sitting right outside, holding a tray filled with dozens of chocolate cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles.

“How did you get back here so quickly with those?” asked Heero.

Pinkie Pie completely ignored his question. She jutted out her arms so that the cupcakes would be right in Heero’s face.

“Since you guys don’t want to hang out right now, I thought I would still bake you cupcakes!” she squealed. “I work at Sugarcube Corner! It’s the greatest bakery ever!”

“I’ll kill you.”

Duo popped his head in between the tension arousing and sniffed at the cupcakes. “These smell great! Thanks a lot!”

He grabbed the tray with his mouth and quickly backed up inside. Heero slammed the door on Pinkie Pie’s face as she started to say something else. Bringing the tray back to the fireplace area, Duo picked up a cupcake with his hooves and chomped right into it. Quatre walked over to the fireplace and used his magic to start getting rid of the gunk that was now all over the floor. Trowa and Wufei just looked at each other, shaking their heads. As Heero stood at the door, boiling with rage, Duo sat on his rump, laughing with his mouthful of food.

> The First Night
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	By the time night fell, the house looked livable. For the entirety of the day, the pilots had spent it all shopping for the house, their individual rooms, and food for the week. The living room had two sets of couches, and a coffee table with a vase with roses. A metal basket with firewood was next to the fireplace for those cold nights that would eventually come. A welcome mat that said ‘Home Sweet Home’ accompanied the inside by the front door. A bookshelf with many titles concerning Equestria, Ponyville, and even fiction stories was in one of the corners of the living room. The kitchen now had counters, cabinets, and a fridge. The washroom had a walk-in tub, and a sink with a mirror.

Each pilot’s room was customized to their own perfection. While the house itself was left for debates and fights about what to do with it, no one had any say about what to do with a specific person’s room.

Entering Quatre’s room, he was the one who owned the balcony. Quatre was sleeping away in his bed, purple covers halfway off his body due to the room’s temperature. A wooden picture frame with the group as ponies hung above his bed. He had talked his friends into taking a group photo; some objected, some didn’t, but either way it happened. Quatre was in the middle, looking ecstatic, with his friends surrounding him. Duo was laughing, messing with Quatre’s hair. Wufei was looking at the camera with a stern look. Trowa was chuckling while looking at the alicorn, and even Heero was giving off a slight smile.

The room was painted a light blue, with a matching blue circular rug in the center of the room. The moon’s light shown through the faint curtains, which covered up the locked glass door leading to the balcony. A desk rested on one side of the room, where his magic book was.

There was a light tapping on the glass door of the balcony. Quatre stirred in his sleeping as the tapping continued. He lifted his body and rubbed his eyes.

“Who’s there?” he asked. His bed was in a position where he couldn’t see the entrance too well.

"It’s Luna.”

At that, Quatre jumped out of bed and walked up to the door. With his magic, he pushed the curtains apart to see that it was, in fact, Princess Luna. Her dark mane was sparkling with stars, like the cosmo itself. Quatre undid the lock and opened the door.

“Princess, what are you doing here?” asked Quatre.

“I’m doing my nightly inspections of the town, and I’m requesting that you join me.” answered Luna.

“Oh, okay.” yawned Quatre. “Let me just go wake up the others.”

Before Quatre could turn around, Luna stopped him by putting her hoof on his shoulder.

“This first night will just be you and I.” she said.

Luna turned and jumped off the balcony. She dove, and then sprang right back up into the air, flapping just above the railing. Quatre walked off on to the bare balcony, closing the doors magically behind him. He too joined her in the air, and they both flew off into the sky.

The town was eerily quiet at this time of night. Only a few ponies were roaming the streets below, chortling and giggling as they left the bars. The moon was full and bright, illuminating both of the alicorns. There was barely any wind at all to deter them as they made their course through the clear, starry sky.

“Why is it just you and I?” asked Quatre, as he flew next to Luna.

“Sister has instructed me to teach you how to detect the evil forces of the Abyss,” answered Luna. “She says that there might be a time where it won’t be safe for me to roam the night, over even raise the moon. If that ever happens, we are both counting on you to do these nightly rounds, with your magical powers. You studied that certain spell, correct?”

“Yes, it was called the Spell of the Heart…but Luna, I don’t understand,” began Quatre. The laughing below stopped as the drunken ponies entered their respective homes. “Princess Celestia said that you were only able to detect them because you had a strong connection to the evil. Is it because you were transformed into Nightmare Moon?”

“Yes. They had possessed me.”

“Then how am I going to be able to detect them?”

The princess didn’t say anything to that. At this point, they were flying above the shopping district, which was strictly nothing but the shops. No lights were on, for all the shop owners were clearly sleeping in their own beds. Luna’s horn began glowing with black sparks, and she suddenly dove to the streets. Quatre wasn’t as quick as her, and so was startled when she suddenly left him.

He lowered himself to the cobblestone road in that area, as Luna’s horn sparked even more. She was paying close attention to a certain shop. From what could be told by the sign, and the merchandise in the display window, it was a hat supplier. Luna nodded her head in the direction of the shop and Quatre walked up to her.

“Your lesson begins now.” she said. “Walk up to that shop.”

The pilot didn’t need to know any skill to feel what he was feeling. There was a lingering feeling of dread in his stomach, and his legs began to shake. But he knew he needed to do this if he was going to help. So he began his march to the shop.

As the sounds of his hooves echoed against the walls of all the buildings, it suddenly felt like his body was purged with a great force of water. He fell to his knees, gasping for air. Quatre tried to lift his head up, but something was pushing it down. It felt like he really was drowning, as he was filled with the sensation of being dragged down into the depths of a body of water. Quatre collapsed on the ground, and visions of the past began flashing before his eyes, replacing Ponyville.

He was now in Wing Zero. Yes. He was piloting it. And the battle field before him was very familiar. He was in space. Two mobile suits were present in front of him. They were the enemy, of course. No doubt about it. There would be no other reason why they were fighting him.

“Anyone who stands in my way…is my enemy…”

The scene in front of him changed to a comfortable room. He was sitting in a chair, playing his violin. Someone else in the room was playing music with him. It was another young man playing the flute. It was…

“Trowa!”

Quatre was back in Wing Zero. He was being pummeled into the walls of a landing base as the doors were being shut to keep the metallic debris out in space. He tried his best to move his suit, but the other kept holding him down. He heard Heero’s voice yelling at him, but it was being overshadowed by Quatre’s own wails of sadness.

The scene changed once more to nothing by black. Quatre was an alicorn once more, standing in the immense darkness.

“You know, he never forgave you for what you did.”

Out of the darkness stepped out another Quatre pony, only this one was very much different. Instead of the pilot’s friendly eyes, the eyes of this pony were nothing by pools of black. This pony laughed as it walked closer to Quatre. The pilot could do nothing but try to back away, but something was stopping him. It was like a wall was directly behind him, keeping him from going anywhere.

“You shot down your own friend. You let the Zero system take over you.”

“That wasn’t my fault!” shouted Quatre. His body was shaking so badly, it was a miracle that he was standing. “I didn’t know what it could do!”

“You almost killed your friend, and you left him out there for dead.”

“Heero wouldn’t let me go! I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean for any of that to happen! To Trowa…to the satellite…”

He lost his cool, if he had any to begin with. Quatre started to cry uncontrollably as his counterpart got to his face and snickered. Suddenly, his mind received a wave of pictures and they were put into a scene in his head, like a film. Quatre was walking out on to Sandrock’s platform, as a pilot from the opposing Gundam did the same. It was Trowa, with his hands up in the air.

“Put your hands down…I’m the one who surrendered first, remember?”

It was this that brought strength back to Quatre. He glared into the deep, eyeless sockets of his enemy and growled. The ‘other’ Quatre stood there, unaltered.

“Even after what I did, they still remained my friends!” yelled Quatre. “Mistakes happen, I am human! But what matters is that I felt guilty! I feel guilty to this day! Yes, the one who was as close to a pacifist as Relena, was controlled by a mobile suit and went around destroying things! If I didn’t surrender to my feelings of sadness and guilt, I wouldn’t even consider myself human!” His horn began glowing with a white color, sending his enemy backing up a few steps. “I don’t need some Quatre telling me what I’ve done wrong! Because even after my mistakes, my friends and I finished the war together!”

A white beam blasted out from the tip of Quatre’s horn and hit his enemy square in the chest. The pony was picked apart into pieces of light, revealing a dark beast underneath. It howled and disappeared as the light sent it into oblivion.

The dark scene cleared and Quatre was now back in Ponyville. He was laying on the ground as before, with Luna standing over him. Quatre struggled to get to his hooves, and when he did, he nearly toppled over again. His horn was aching and he was exhausted.

“I feared you weren’t going to make it,” said Luna. “If it conversed with you any longer, I would have had to step in and destroy it myself. Thankfully you used the Spell of the Heart and destroyed it.”

“Luna…”groaned Quatre, shaking his head. “What just happened?”

“You had walked right into one of the evil forces from the Abyss,” said Luna. “It had just escaped from a small opening. As the opening closed, the force found you and latched on to your soul.”

“But…why did you let me do that?”

Luna opened her wings. “There was no other way for you to acquire your ‘connection’ to the forces. I had to let it possess you. And for that, I am sorry.”

Quatre didn’t know what to say. One of the princesses of the land had deliberately put him in harm’s way. Luna leaned down to him and whispered in his ear.

“Try being in that kind of hellhole for a thousand years.”
_____________________________________________________________
The Gundam pilot landed on his balcony to return to his bed. As he walked back into his room and locked the glass door, he watched the silhouette of Princess Luna fly across the moon. Quatre moved to his bed and jumped right into it. As he walked around his mattress to grab his covers, his eye caught the picture of his friends hanging above the bed.

To think that the following night, Princess Luna wanted them to come along to begin looking for the unicorn causing all of this frightened him. But at that moment, he made a promise to himself.

“I won’t let anything happen to you guys…I swear.”

> The God of Death Loves Cupcakes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	There was no question about the smell coming from downstairs. Quatre woke up to his nose taking in the savory smell of pancakes. He jumped out of bed and opened the curtains to the balcony. Once again, yet another sunny morning in Ponyville. There were only just a few wisps of clouds in the sky. Quatre turned and opened the door out into the single hallway of the second floor. The red carpet started from his door straight to the stairs, with a bedroom on the adjacent wall.

As he walked out of his, the other bedroom door opened, and Trowa came walking out groggily. He had complete bedhead and his hair was all over the place. He shook his head, and magically his hair went right back where it always was.

“Do you smell that?” asked Trowa, walking over to the stairs. “I don’t recall us buying pancake batter yesterday.”

Suddenly it sounded like bodies were hitting the floor downstairs with yelling. In a jiffy, Trowa and Quatre ran down the steps and around the fireplace, to find that a pile of pilots were blocking the entrance to the kitchen. Wufei and Duo were struggling to keep Heero on the ground, as he did his best to buck them off. He was huffing and puffing, clearly furious. And soon it became apparent as to why.

The scent of pancakes was coming from a large stack of them, lying on the tray that was used for the cupcakes the day before. And more were still being made, by none other than Pinkie Pie herself. She had on a baker’s hat as she flipped the pancakes in the frying pan over the stove. Quatre turned around to look at the coffee table to see that plates and cups were set up, along with a container of syrup and a jug of orange juice.

Quatre hovered over the quivering mess of ponies and landed in the kitchen, just as Pinkie Pie put the rest of the pancakes on the tray.

“Good morning, Pinkie Pie!” he said. “How did you get in here?”

Pinkie Pie giggled and rolled her eyes. “The same way I came in yesterday, down the fireplace! I mean, how else was I supposed to come in this morning?” She punched him in his shoulder. “You guys keep your door locked! That’s really weird!”

“Hey, can we come up with a solution to this?” grunted Wufei, as Heero started to struggle even more.

“Yeah, this guy is starting to get really crazy!” shouted Duo.

“Let me at her!” yelled Heero. He started banging his hooves on to the wooden floor, acting like a complete child. “I’ll kill her! She keeps on sneaking into my house! I’ll kill her!”

The two pilots hopped off of him as his body was taken over by blue magic. Heero’s arms and legs waved wildly in the air as Quatre brought him over to Pinkie Pie.

“Heero, this is Pinkie Pie.” Quatre said slowly. “She is a friend. Pinkie Pie, this is my friend Heero. My name is Quatre, and the others are Trowa, Duo, and Wufei.”

Pinkie Pie smiled so wide it was possible to see every single tooth in her mouth. She grabbed Heero’s arm and started shaking it violently; her version of a hoofshake. If it wasn’t for Quatre controlling him with his magic, Heero would have broken the pink pony’s arm. He was gritting his teeth in complete frustration because of the mere fact that she was touching him.

“Hi there, I’m Pinkie Pie! I hope you guys like my pancakes! I felt so bad that we couldn’t hang out yesterday, so I came back today to make that up!”

The front door was being knocked on. In a flash, Pinkie Pie went from standing happily in the kitchen to quivering underneath the coffee table. Heero still continued to float in the air as everyone stared in confusion at her. Everyone except for Trowa, that is. His curiosity only last a moment and was the only one who moved on to something else. He walked up to the door and unlocked it to reveal a purple unicorn with sparkles as her cutie mark, along with a tiny purple dragon with green spikes.

“Good morning,” said the unicorn. “My name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is Spike, my dragon. I’m sorry to intrude, but have you seen a pink pony around here?”

Trowa calmly pointed to Pinkie Pie. She squealed when her cover was blown, and attempted to dash off to somewhere else, when she was caught in a magenta blob of magic. As she floated in the bubble, she decided to do spins and twists, keeping herself entertained.

“Pinkie Pie, this was not part of our 'Hide and Seek' game,” scolded Twilight, as she moved Pinkie Pie closer to her. “I never said to go into other ponies’ homes. That’s rude!”

“But they are new ponies! I wanted to make them breakfast!”

Twilight became interested at the ponies, who were now forming around Trowa.

“Oh, you’re the new ponies in the area?” she asked. “I heard that a house with a whole lot of ponies was just bought. I’d ask for your names, but I really need to take this pony out of here.” She moved further into the street, carrying a very excited Pinkie Pie out with her. “I’ll see you all later, and welcome to Ponyville!”

With that, Trowa closed the door and Heero was instantly dropped from his enchanted imprisonment. He lay there on the floor like a defeated, angry puppy.

“The fireplace is going to get boarded up tonight.” he said.

Duo walked up to his head, smiling down from above. “Gee, isn’t that funny? You seem to be upset when others don’t use the front door. Maybe that’s something you should consider doing when you turn back into a human?”

Heero had nothing to say to that. His scowl held enough to be used for words. With his magic, Quatre lifted up the tray of pancakes and began walking over to the table. Without needing orders, Wufei picked up the skinny part of the vase that was on the table in a very uncomfortable way with his mouth, and moved it away on to the floor. The pancakes had replaced its spot and everyone took in a deep breath of air to really soak up the aroma.

“Alright everyone, let’s eat!” said Quatre, as he sat down on the floor in front of his respected plate.

Everyone else did the same. No one did anything after that, because it was unclear on what to do next with this meal. Duo looked at everyone and sighed.

“How the hell are we supposed to eat these without being able to use utensils?” he said, moving is arms in the air. “We don’t have fingers!”

It was a good question that was left unanswered, until Trowa made his move. He leaned in to the tray of pancakes and picked one right off the top with his teeth. Slowly and gracefully, his head retreated back to his plate. He munched on the pancake that he was holding with his mouth, letting half of it hang down with no shame. Duo looked disgusted. 

Quatre, who was sitting next to Duo, used his magic to do basically everything; pour a glass of orange juice, put multiple pancakes on his plate, pour some syrup on them, and eat them. And all of this was with the use of his horn.

Duo squinted his eyes at Quatre, who was humming away because of the joy the pancakes brought him.

“You and that horn of yours make me sick.” he said.
____________________________________________________________________
After breakfast, Quatre ordered his fellow pilots to begin the hunt for the evil unicorn, by looking for clues and suspicious ponies. Everyone had gone their separate ways to cover more area across Ponyville. Unfortunately though, it wasn’t made clear on how one should begin this kind of search. Without the use of computers and other pieces of technology, there was nothing that could even give the pilots a good lead. They were going at this blind.

The God of Death was out on the prowl, catching the attention of every pony on the streets. Mentally, he thought it was because of his good looks, but on the contrary, it was something completely different. He was looking down every alley, and going through every trashcan that he saw. He was peeking through every shop window by mushing his face against the glass so he could see inside. He even messed up flower gardens looking for anything, which gave a pony named Roseluck every right to hit him with a newspaper when he did that to her’s.

Running out of ideas, Duo decided to sit at a café table outside with a frontal view of the street, and stared at the ponies who walked by him. To keep his space without having a waiter make him leave, he ordered a cup of tea. His table was shaded by a polka dot umbrella, keeping the sun well out of his eyes. He sat there, motionless, intent on catching something. When his tea came, he told the waiter to make a tab for him. Disgruntled by the thought, the waiter huffed and walked away, leaving Duo alone with his cup. He took a sip of the blue tea cup using his two hooves and sighed. This was going to be a long day.

He sat there for over an hour pony-watching with his chin on the table, bored out of his mind. His cross lay hanging against the edge of the table. Duo had finished his cup of tea a long time ago, and was refusing refills from the waiter. Nothing exciting was really happening; every pony that was on the streets seemed entirely normal. His gut wasn’t pointing him in any direction. The only thing Duo took in was that the mailmare, who was a fellow pegasus, couldn’t deliver mail for shit. The waiter came back, this time with two ponies.

“Sir, I am now going to politely ask you to leave,” said the waiter. He pointed to the two others. “You have been sitting here for an extended amount of time doing nothing. We have limited sitting areas, and this couple would like to eat.”

Duo looked at him, disappointed. “Sure, I’ll let them sit here. But could you at least be thankful that I have been trying to save your butt for the past two hours?”

The black pegasus left the bewildered group and walked into the crowd. If he couldn’t watch the ponies, he would listen to them. As he walked, Duo’s ears turned in every direction to hear as much of the conversations that floated around him. Still nothing that really hooked him as suspicious. When he passed an empty alleyway, he did hear something though. He stopped to look straight down into it, and all that he could tell was that it led to a dead end. He had heard something fall from above, possibly a rooftop.

Stealthily walking down the alley in a crouching position, Duo was prepared for anything, as he walked up to the only thing that was present there. Something small was on the ground. Coming closer to it, he noticed it was a rock---a shiny black rock, to be exact, with diamonds inside. He poked it, and nothing happened. 

“Well, alright then.” Duo said to himself, as he sat down on the ground. He looked up at the sides of the buildings. They didn’t even have windows. “Where did this thing come from?”

“BLACK PEGASUS!”

Duo jumped as Pinkie Pie tackled him. She got him in a tight hug and he couldn’t even fend for himself. Gasping for air, Duo felt like his eyes were bulging out of his head as Pinkie Pie swung him around. She finally let him go and he slumped to the ground.

“Oh my, did I hug you too hard?” asked Pinkie Pie, giggling.

Duo coughed and shook his head.

“Oh good, I was worried!” said Pinkie Pie, clapping her hooves. “By the way, what’s your name again?”

“It’s…Duo…” answered the pegasus. He straightened himself up and got on to his legs, getting in more air to his lungs. “Duo Maxwell. But I’m also known as…the God of Death.”

Pinkie Pie raised an eyebrow. “That’s a funny name.” The feeling of oddness left her and she started bouncing in place. “Hey, would you like to bake cupcakes with me right now?”

This was a hard decision for the Gundam pilot, as he tapped his chin with his hoof. He had been told to look for clues, but nothing was really coming his way, besides a rock. And cupcakes were delicious. He weighed it out, literally with his arms, and then decided.

“Sure, I’ll go with you! It’s better than what I was doing anyway!”

The two walked out of the alley together, leaving the rock behind. As they both entered the crowd once more, their new adventure was at Sugarcube Corner.

When they arrived at the shop, Duo gasped. The entire thing looked like a birthday cake, with its chocolate-brown roof with frosting, and the candles on top of the tower. He then noticed right then and there that his stomach was growling. Duo hurriedly followed Pinkie Pie up the steps and into the shop, where he was hit again by the smell of sweets. Ponies of all kinds were sitting around, eating cakes and cupcakes, and even some cookies. A register was there as they entered, where a blue pony was working it. As she took the money from the customer there, she looked over to see Pinkie Pie.

“Oh Pinkie Pie, there you are!” she called. Pinkie Pie waved at her. “I’ve been here taking orders, and I’ve got cupcakes in the kitchen that still need frosting. We’re running low on them, so could you decorate those and make another batch for me?”

“Sure, Mrs. Cake!” replied Pinkie Pie. She nudged Duo in the side. “Come on, let’s decorate!”

She hopped right passed the register and into the kitchen, along with Duo. A huge tray filled with vanilla cupcakes was sitting there on the counter, along with dozens of different kinds of frostings in squeezable tubes. Duo walked up to the tubs and couldn’t believe the kinds of flavors.

“This is a sick collection of tasty things you’ve got here, Pinkie Pie!” he said. “You’ve got cotton candy frosting, chocolate frosting, and even mint!”

“You bet I do!” said Pinkie Pie, as she went to one of the cabinets in the kitchen. “We’ve got everything here!”

She walked right back to Duo balancing a container of rainbow sprinkles on her back. In one swift buck, it flew off and landed safely on the counter. Pinkie Pie grabbed one of the tube frostings with her hooves and giggled.

“Alright, let’s get to it then!” she said. “We’ll do these and then bake our own!”

Duo eagerly picked his own tube of frosting and Pinkie Pie randomly began the insane color explosion that was going to be the kitchen. She had started a frosting tube shooting fight. Before either of them had known it, they had finished decorating the cupcakes by chance, only because their aim was not the treats. No, they were aiming for each other with the tubes of frosting, laughing all the way. 

Walls and windows were sprayed with different sparkly colors, as the God of Death and the Element of Laughter lost their minds and had at it. Duo took the aerial offense and shot frosting down from the air, but that didn’t stop Pinkie Pie from popping up on top of the refrigerator and shooting him in the back. In one swift dive, Duo grabbed the sprinkle container and flew right back up into the air. He started shaking it, making it rain sprinkles all over the kitchen. Pinkie Pie just sat on the ground with her head up high and her mouth wide open, catching all the sprinkles with her tongue.

As they continued the frosting fight, Duo felt a sincere happiness in him. It was the first time he could ever imagine himself being truly happy. And he couldn’t believe it was a pony that made him feel this way.

> The Pilots' Confrontation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Late in the afternoon on that same day, Quatre, Heero, Wufei and Trowa were relaxing on their couches in the living room of their home. Quatre was sipping tea from a fancy little white teacup; he had just bought a new set that day. Trowa was sitting right next to him, staring blankly at Heero and Wufei on the opposite couch. The blue and green pegasi were having a staring contest and were on round ten. Currently, Heero had the most amount of wins. If this didn’t entertain him, sometimes Trowa would blow at the hair in front of his eyes if he got even more bored. He really had nothing else to do, for the entire gang was waiting patiently for Duo to come home. They were going to discuss their findings after a long day of researching.

Wufei’s eyelids were twitching as Heero continued to look at him blankly with no hesitation to blink. As his eyes began to water, Wufei finally blinked and grunted. He rubbed his eyes and Heero gave off a very satisfying smile.

“That’s eight wins for me, Wufei.” said Heero. “We should probably stop.”

“No!” cried Wufei, as his eyes literally gave off tears. He removed his hooves from his face and glared at Heero with red eyes. “I demand another round!”

“Are you really sure about that?”

“Yes! I must reclaim my pride and honor!”

Quatre finished his cup and calmly put it on the table. “Wufei, I think if you continue, you’re really going to hurt your eyes.”

The fight over Wufei’s “pride and honor” going into another round continued; Trowa gave blowing his hair up into the air another go. The door to the house then burst open and Duo came trotting in, covered in a rainbow of frosting. His hooves were tracking the material in as well, noted by the prints he was leaving as he came hopping up to his friends. In his mouth, he was carrying yet another glistening tray of chocolate cupcakes. The fighting ceased as Duo happily put the tray down on the table. He jumped on to the couch Heero and Wufei were sitting on, and landed right next to the green one.

“Hey everyone, what’s up?” said Duo, waving at all of them.

“Wufei’s eyes were going to pop out of his skull.” replied Trowa.

Duo leaned over Heero’s body and looked at Wufei. “Really? Why were they gonna do that?”

“They were not going to pop out of my eyes, Trowa,” said Wufei. He crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling. “Your eyes don’t just pop out of your head during a staring contest.”

With Duo’s brown hair right under Heero’s nose, he was able to detect the scent of baked goods. There were also specks of sprinkles nestled in his tight braid. Now that Duo’s body was touching his, frosting was being rubbed all over his front. With a single arm, Heero was able to push Duo out of his face and positioned him so that his back was against the couch.

“Why do you smell like sugar and happiness?” asked Heero. He pointed at the cupcakes. “And where did those cupcakes come from?”

Duo put his hoof up to his mouth and laughed with such a grin, Quatre almost let his mouth drop to the floor. The motion had shocked the other pilots as well---except for Heero, who was a little more concerned over the fact that he now had frosting on his body. It wasn’t as if Duo never laughed; he laughed almost whenever he had the chance. But this was a different kind of laughter. His usual laughs were always weighed down with negativity, such as stress, fear, or nervousness. This laugh that he had emitted from his mouth was one that was practically weightless and full of the airiness that was life itself.

“I made them with Pinkie Pie!” answered the God of Death himself. “We were baking at Sugarcube Corner and got a little out of hand!” He brushed some sprinkles out of his bangs with his hoof. “We had a frosting shooting contest, and I’d say I won!”

“You baked cupcakes…with a pink pony?” asked Wufei.

“Uh-huh! We had so much fun! She’s a blast to hang with!”

Suddenly, Duo was picked up by Heero and was tossed over the couch. Duo tried his best to grab on to the couch’s headrest before he fell, but his reflexes just weren’t quick enough. He hit the ground with a loud thud. Heero looked over the couch with his front legs supporting his weight as Duo lay there rubbing his head.

“You got frosting all over me,” said Heero. “Go right into the washroom and get yourself cleaned up. And make it fast, because I’ve got to clean myself up too.” He motioned to the majority of the living room floor and even the couch, which also had frosting on it. “Then after you’re done, clean up your mess.”

The house was filled with Heero’s anger as Duo got himself on to his legs. He looked at Heero, who was still glaring down at him, and grunted. Walking to the hallway that led to the washroom, he was swishing his tail, as if to somehow annoy his enemy. Then he turned around and had his usual smirk on his face.

“Before I go in, I’ve got a question for you, Heero,” said Duo.

Heero sat back down on the couch, not even looking in Duo’s general direction. “What is it?”

“Would you rather me lick the frosting off of you, or pull that stick of yours out of your ass?”

With that, Duo ran right into the washroom and slammed the door. The locking mechanism to its door was heard and the water to the tub started pouring. The look on Heero’s face was priceless. The poor pony’s eyes were mostly white, for they had widen due to the comment that was said to him. Quatre and Wufei did their best to stifle their laughs at Heero’s lost expression. Trowa looked at all three of them, just as lost.

“I had no idea Heero had a stick in his rectum,” he said.

Quatre and Wufei lost it at that and clutched at their sides as Heero started smacking his forehead with a hoof. Quatre grabbed on to Trowa’s stiff body and shoved his face into his shoulder to try and give him support. His body was becoming weaker because of his lack of air. Wufei started poking Heero in the side with such force he almost had him topple over on to his side at one point.

“Well, Heero, what’s it going to be?!” asked Wufei. He started clapping his hooves viciously. “I have been re-honored due to your humiliation!”

“I hate all of you,” mumbled Heero, as he now was rubbing his hoof into his forehead. “I hate every single one of you.”

After a few minutes, a clean Duo announced his return to the living room by banging a metallic object. In his mouth he was carrying a silver bucket with a dry rag hanging over its edge. It kept on hitting Duo’s upper legs. The bucket was as big as his head, and it was weighed down by the water he was carrying inside it. The pegasus carefully lowered the bucket to the ground by the doorway so that he could begin his cleaning.

“I left the water in the tub for you, Heero,” said Duo. With his teeth, he moved the rag into the water to begin soaking. “You’d better go in now, or else it’s going to get cold.”

Without even an answer, Heero climbed off the couch and made his way to the washroom. Duo picked the new wet rag out of the bucket and let it plop on the floor. He sighed and shook his head. If he were a human, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. He could get on his hands and knees and get this place cleaned up in no time. But since he really didn’t have any hands, this was going to be tough. Suddenly, the rag was highlighted with blue magic and it began washing the floor all on its own. Quatre walked up to him and smiled.

“I can’t just let you do this on your own,” he said. “I know it was an accident.”

Duo smiled, and before he knew it, he was nuzzling Quatre’s head with his own. “Thanks, buddy.”

As the rag moved its way from the floor to the couch, Trowa cleared his throat.

“I say we go over what we found in town today,” he said. “Does anyone have anything to say concerning findings?”

“I can vouch for me and Heero that we found nothing,” said Wufei, raising his arm. “We both had the same idea and found each other at town hall. We intended to find out if other new ponies, specifically unicorns, had moved into the area recently. The clerk wasn’t very helpful at all, and no matter how many times we demanded it, she wouldn’t release us those files.” Wufei snorted. “If we were back in our world, Heero would have had those files on his computer instantly.”

“I kind of had the same idea, only I went about that one differently,” explained Quatre. The rag had successfully cleaned the couch and flew right back into the bucket of water. “I went to Twilight’s house and asked her if there were any other ponies that were new around here, because we all wanted to find others like us.” He sighed, as he levitated the bucket into the kitchen area. “Unfortunately, she said we were the only new ponies that had moved here in months.”

“That really doesn’t tell us much, except that we are the only new ponies in this town,” said Trowa. He scratched at his chin and looked up at the ceiling. “This unicorn could have lived here for years and only just started trying to open the Abyss. Maybe this unicorn doesn’t even live in town at all. There are surrounding pieces of land one can live on around Ponyville. But at least this tells us that a newcomer isn’t the cause of all of this.” He shook his head in disappointment. “You have all had better luck than me. I wasn’t able to find out anything at all.”

Quatre looked at Duo, who was eyeing the cupcakes. “And did you find anything today, Duo?”

The black pegasus grinned and nodded. He then proceeded right out the door, but was only out there for a moment. Duo’s shadow was let into the house by the setting sun. He walked right back in with the shiny black rock he had found earlier that day, carrying it in his mouth. He dropped that to the ground next to Quatre’s leg.

“I found a rock!” announced Duo with pride.

It was at that moment Quatre’s stomach lurched. It was as if something had hooked his insides. Just then, his horn started sending off black sparks violently, making Duo jump right on over to the other side of the room. This had quickly gotten the attention of the other pilots in the room, as Trowa flew off the couch to Quatre’s side. He proceeded to try and touch the horn with his hoof, but Quatre smacked it away.

“Don’t touch it!” he yelled.

“Quatre, what’s going on?” asked Wufei, positioning himself on the couch so that he could see well enough.

The alicorn himself didn’t quite know how to answer that. It was because he was sensing the evil forces of the Abyss. He just didn’t know where the signal was coming from. It wasn’t even night out, when these things were supposed to happen. Quatre looked around the room for answers, when suddenly it hit him like a bag of sand. He looked down at the black rock before him and saw that, right underneath that object, was a dark, swirling opening filled with nothingness. It was about the size of his hoof.

Quatre leaned his head down to examine it when he heard a cynical laugh that was all too familiar to him. It was his own laugh, but it certainly wasn’t coming out of his mouth. An image of his counter-self, with black, empty eye sockets flashed through his mind. Quatre whinnied and kicked himself right on to his back legs, flailing his front ones in front of him. Suddenly, a black cloud shot right out of the Abyss, and the opening closed up. The cloud darted right down the hallway where the washroom was.

“Quatre, what the hell is going on?” asked Duo, as he slowly walked right back up to him and the rock.

At first, Quatre was silent. He was shaking so hard, he couldn’t even stand straight. But why was he scared? Had he not faced his “other self” just before on his own? Now in the presence of his friends, he couldn’t even summon up any courage to refute the feeling of helplessness. Trowa tried to balance him out, and comfort him at the same time, by putting a hoof on his back. Wufei decided it was time to get himself involved and got off the couch. He picked up the black rock, and without any care, brought it close to Quatre’s face. This made the pony quiver even more.

“You lost control when you saw this,” said Wufei. “What is so bad about this rock?”

Somehow, out of all of this, Quatre was able to give out an answer.

“The Abyss…came out from the rock.”

“What?” whispered Trowa. “How could you see that? I didn’t even see that, and I was standing right next to you.”

Quatre’s eyes began to tear as he remembered everything from the previous night. “I went out with Princess Luna last night, and I got my own connection with the evil forces by having one possess me. Now I’m able to see, sense and fight them.” His muscles instantly tightened and his eyes were filled with fear. “Something came out of the Abyss just now and went down the hallway.”

“Isn’t Heero in the washroom down there?” asked Wufei.

Not even thinking about it, the group ran to the washroom, right before the door was kicked out into the hallway. Heero momentarily flew out, by then was grabbed by something Quatre couldn’t even believe. The group had seen a monstrous claw made out of water catch Heero and pull him back into the washroom. The pilots ran into the bathroom to see exactly where that claw had come from.

Spiraling into the air from the tub, water had formed into what resembled an Asian dragon, its body taking up most of the free space of the room. The group stood there in horror at the colossal creature. Heero was struggling in the water dragon’s hand for freedom, trying to wiggle himself out. When this didn’t work, he chopped the hand right off by the wrist with the brute strength of his free front leg. The hand disappeared and turned right back into water, hitting the bathroom floor with a splash. The dragon cried in agony, until it was silenced by the formation of a new hand. Heero flew to the sink and was balancing himself out on its edges with his spread wings.

“How is this even happening?” asked Quatre in wonder, as the water dragon growled, licking its lips. “The forces…can possess inanimate objects?”

The water dragon made another go for Heero and launched an arm in his direction. The pilot made his move just in time, as he darted into the air, missing the attack. The water dragon’s hand smashed the sink and mirror to pieces with pure water force, creating a huge hole in the wall.

“We have to do something!” cried Duo. He got into a pouncing position. “I’m going to help!”

“No, Duo, stop!” yelled Quatre. 

But it was too late, as Duo flew into the air passed Heero, straight at the water dragon. He got right up to its face, and with the momentum of his flight behind him, punched it right in its snout. Like before, the attacked area of the dragon turned into a puddle of water on the ground; and just like before, it quickly regained its physical appearance. Without warning, it opened its mouth and wrapped its long tongue around Duo’s stomach.

“Hey, what the hell is this?!” cried Duo.

His reaction time was once again too slow to do anything, and his body was rolled up into the water dragon’s mouth. Duo was swallowed whole, and he could be seen being pushed down its throat into the dragon’s stomach. He was banging on the stomach’s walls, yelling something, but nothing could be heard. Only air bubbles came out of his mouth, and it soon came to his attention that he couldn’t breathe. He brought his hooves up to his neck and was coughing, choking on water. The water dragon was now eyeing the small group that was staring at it on the floor.

“Quatre, do something!” yelled Wufei.

With a great amount of hesitation, Quatre nodded. “Wufei, Trowa, get behind me!”

The two other ponies did as they were told as Quatre’s horn started to glow white. The beam that was building up wasn’t as strong as last time. He could feel it already. The water dragon roared and Quatre released the white beam. It hit the enemy right in the chin, shooting water at the ceiling. The water dragon reeled in pain as it gripped the wounded area. In a rage, it swiped its claws right at Quatre, but its attack was stopped as Heero dive-kicked its arm, destroying yet another hand.

Heero got on all fours now on the floor next to Quatre, ready to leap at any second. He looked at Quatre, who was trying to charge up another Spell of the Heart attack. Try as best as he could, this beam was taking longer because of the negative commentary behind him being so distracting.

“Quatre, take a better hit this time!” yelled Wufei. “What kind of attack was that?!”

“Wufei, please stop yelling at him!” shouted Trowa, as he got into a pouncing position. He was preparing himself for anything at this point.

“No, I will not stop yelling at him!” Wufei continued. “Duo is dying in there, and he sends out a lousy attack!”

“Wufei, shut the hell up.” said Heero, as he had turned his attention back to the dragon.

The water dragon had regained its hand once more and had recovered from Quatre’s previous attack. It was snarling at the group now, eyeing Quatre’s horn tentatively.  In his head, the arguments of his friends continued, from the ones overheard now to the ones earlier. He barely felt any power in his horn at all. The water dragon launched itself at the group and Quatre closed his eyes, sending his beam of magic at his enemy.

Suddenly, there was something of a liquid-like explosion and he was soaked with water, head to hoof, as an ear piercing screech was heard. Quatre opened his eyes to see that the entire washroom was now covered in water and that the dragon was gone. Heero sighed, returning to a normal standing position, along with Trowa. Coughing was heard coming from inside the tub, and the pilots rushed on over. Duo was laying there on his side, eyes closed, coughing up water.

“Duo!” cried Quatre. He rubbed his hoof on Duo’s back. “Duo, are you going to be alright?”

Duo opened his eyes and coughed up one last bout of water. “The God of Death had a close one just now, and that’s saying something.”

“Well, I’m glad that dragon was defeated.” said Trowa.

“Yeah, I’m glad Quatre finally used something that was powerful,” sneered Wufei.

“That was not Quatre.”

The four pilots on the ground turned around to see Luna standing where the door used to be. Her expression was nothing less than displeasure as she walked through puddles up to the pilots, smashing glass chips along the way. Her body was stoic, making even Wufei impressed by her presence. Duo gathered enough strength to hoist half of his body out of the tub to see the princess.

“It was I who used the Spell of the Heart on the water dragon,” said Luna, as she stopped in front of Quatre. “You are lucky that the evil force had decided to possess the water instead of one of you. At least those who have no connection to the evil were able to see it because of that. If I hadn’t planned to come here to summon you all for a mission around the town this evening, you would have all been dead.”

Quatre lowered his head in disappointment. Duo, who was right behind him, didn’t know what else to do but rub his friend’s back.

“It’s ok, buddy, you tried,” he said.

“It is not his fault that his spell failed!” shouted Luna. Her voiced echoed across the whole house, sending shivers up everyone’s spines. “It is everypony else’s fault that it had failed!”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Heero.

“The Spell of the Heart is only as strong as the wielder’s heart,” Luna explained strongly. She eyed every single pilot as she began her next sentence. “It is your bickering and fighting and lack of care for any other living being that has caused this spell to fail this evening! This young pony was able to pull this spell off just last night when remembering a fond memory of a friend, yet he wasn’t able to do the same just now while actually being with his friends! Your weak friendship is corrupting Quatre’s heart, thus weakening the very spell that is meant to protect you all, himself, and everypony else!”

Nothing could be said to Luna’s lesson. As Quatre began to cry, everyone else looked at each other with guilt-ridden faces. Luna turned her back to them and ruffled her wings.

“You all will not be coming with me tonight. I hereby declare that any future nightly missions be cancelled. You all can’t even allow Quatre to protect you, thus becoming nothing but mere nuisances to me, while I am still allowed to linger Ponyville in the night.” 

She brought her wings back in and continued walking into the hallway, leaving them all silently behind. As her hooves walked out the door, Quatre dropped to the floor in tears. His friends huddled close around him and joined him on the floor, minus Duo, who didn’t have the energy to do so. Heero, being the closest, propped Quatre’s head on to his arm and slid his hoof through his hair in an effort to calm the pony down. But it was of no use. Quatre continued to sob into Heero’s neck, feeling helpless as ever, as they all sat there in the wreckage that once used to be their washroom.

> Mother Twowa
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“I’m not coming out!”

“But, Quatre…your food is going to get cold…”

“Trowa, please…just go.”

Like a puppy looking for its owner, Trowa sat outside Quatre’s closed door the following morning, speaking to him through the wood. He had been relentlessly at this for the past hour, just sitting there on the carpeted floor. Quatre’s door was locked, and it seemed that he wasn’t going to be opening it anytime soon. His tail whished every now and then with his ears folded down at the back of his head. Trowa was listening intently to try and catch any sounds from the inside; whenever he did hear something, his ears perked up, only to be dropped again when the door didn’t open. The sun was twinkling through the house from its windows, inviting warmth into the surrounding, though Trowa feared that none of it was reaching Quatre.

The smell of burnt toast trickled its way up the stairs as breakfast was made. Trowa scratched at the door with the tip of his hoof, but received no response. He heard movement on the carpet behind him and looked over his shoulder to see that Duo had just landed there. He walked up to Trowa and nudged him in the side.

“Hey buddy, breakfast is done,” said Duo. He glanced over at the door. “He’s still in there?”

“Yes, and he won’t come out at all,” replied Trowa. He looked down at the ground and sighed. “I feel so bad. And to think that this was all our fault.”

After Luna had left the night before, the whole group was devastated. The black rock was sealed away in an enchanted box Quatre charmed up in his room. This pony was depressed for the rest of the time being. When Heero and Wufei were cleaning up the remains of the washroom, Duo and Trowa had tried to get him to eat some of the cupcakes that were still in the living room. It was in effort to try and cheer him up. Quatre wouldn’t even dare, as he sat on one of the couches with a lifeless look in his eye. He had bluntly told them that he just didn’t want to eat or do anything anymore. After multiple failed attempts, something had made Quatre snap and he picked up the tray of cupcakes and threw them at the fireplace. The treats were destroyed and smeared against the brick contraption, and Quatre went and locked himself in his room, staying there since.

Duo shook his head. “I wouldn’t put so much pressure on yourself about it. You and I weren’t the ones being asses the entire time we’ve been here.”

“I still feel like we could have done something,” mumbled Trowa. “I still feel like our entire team should share the fault.”

“Guys, come downstairs!”

Heero was calling, and Duo and Trowa had no reason not to follow his orders. Leaving Quatre finally alone to be, they flew downstairs to the living room, where plates of burnt toast waited for them on the coffee table. Heero and Wufei were sitting on their own couch, already eating. The newcomers decided to sit on the other couch together, and both grabbed their own pieces of toast. There was no butter, no type of jam. There weren’t even cups or a jug of juice. The disgusting breakfast without its lovely charm reflected how each pilot felt on the inside.

To them, it was forever until someone actually said anything, though it really only was a few minutes. Heero was the brave one to strike up a conversation first, after he wiped the black crumbs from his mouth.

“So how’s he doing?” he asked, looking straight at Trowa.

“Not good at all,” answered Trowa. He was slowly chewing on his piece of burnt toast. “He’s refusing to leave.”

Heero nodded his head for his reply. More minutes passed until words were spoken again.

“He’s going to waste away in there if he doesn’t come out to at least eat,” said Wufei. He looked up at the staircase. “Has anyone tried to fly up to Quatre’s balcony to get in?”

Trowa nodded. “That’s locked too, and the curtains aren’t open.”

“I guess it’s best to just leave him be then,” said Duo. He looked at Heero, who had just finished his third slice of toast. “Did you get someone to come in and fix the washroom?”

“Yeah, I went to one of the shops early this morning,” replied Heero. “They said they’d send someone down here today to replace the mirror and sink.”

As soon as Heero had finished his sentence, someone began knocking at the door. Before anyone could even do anything, Heero sprang up to answer the door with his authoritative figure. Everyone turned their attention to the door as the green pegasus went to get it.

“That must be the repair pony,” said Trowa.

“Heero, if it’s Pinkie Pie, don’t punch her in the face!” yelled Duo, as he popped another piece of toast into his mouth.

The door opened, and it wasn’t Pinkie Pie, nor was it some repair pony. It was a grey pegasus in a blue suit, with a matching blue hat that had a package stitched into it. She had yellow hair and what looked like bubbles on her hip as her cutie mark. In her mouth, she was holding a golden envelope. It was quickly whipped out as the pony handed it right to Heero, who was still trying to analyze the pony as to whether or not she was a threat.

“Hello there!” she said. “I’ve got a letter to a Quatre from Canterlot!”

Duo nearly dropped his toast. “Hey, you’re the crappy mail pony that kept on flying into buildings yesterday!”

The mailmare bent her head to the side to get a better look at Duo, as her golden eyes became crossed over with a big smile on her face. Without a word, Heero took the envelope from her and shut the door. He examined the object very carefully. The front of it said nothing but Quatre’s name in curly letters. He flipped the envelope multiple times to see if it was see-through, but to his dismay, the paper was too thick.

“There’s no return address on it,” said Heero as he gave it one more look.

“That must be from the princesses,” said Wufei. “Hopefully it’s them telling us we can go home.”

Trowa jumped off the couch and walked up to Heero. He held out his hoof in the direction of the envelope.

“Please, let me take this to him.” he said.

Heero looked at the hoof that was placed before him and nodded. Trowa took it with his two hooves and began his flight up the stairs. Small inaudible conversations were heard from the top, when suddenly there was the sound of a creaking door, and then nothingness. Heero returned to his spot next to Wufei and closed his eyes. He dug his body into the back of the couch with his arms crossed, as if in some attempt to make himself comfortable to fall asleep. 

Duo turned himself around so that he could face the other pilots. “Wow, I can’t believe he finally opened the door. We should have had Trowa go up with some toast too.” After looking at the small pile of black bread that looked like it could have been cooked by a dragon, he laughed. “Actually, we probably saved his life.”

A door opened again somewhere upstairs and everyone’s eyes were turned in that direction. Someone was coming down the stairs, and by the look of the legs, it was Trowa. Though what was on top of his head almost put everyone there into cardiac arrest.

Nestled at the top of his head, but somehow not ruining his hairstyle, was a foal. And it wasn’t just any other foal. This foal in particular had beady blue eyes and ruffled blonde hair. He was also a white alicorn, and to Trowa’s good luck, was thankfully diapered. As he walked up to his fellow pilots, without losing balance because of the extra weight on his head, the little foal squealed. Trowa had a letter in his mouth and spat it out to speak. It gently flew through the air and landed on the coffee table, against the pile of the burnt breakfast.

“Everyone, I would like to introduce someone special,” Trowa began. He cleared his throat and with his eyes, looked up at the young one. “This is Quatre, our new baby.”

“What?!”

It was a cry in unison that made the foal squeal once more. Duo and Wufei jumped out of their seats and stood on either side of Trowa. The foal looked at the both of them and clapped his tiny hooves together, sticking his tongue out. Their mouths gaped as they tried to comprehend what they were seeing.

Without removing his gaze from Trowa, Heero briefly removed himself from the couch so that he could grab the letter that was on the table. Changing the direction of his eyes to something slightly more important, he shook the letter and began to read it aloud for the others to hear:


“To my precious warriors,
I have been told of the events that occurred last night and I’m deeply disappointed. My younger sister feels that I should send you all back and look for replacements---however, that won’t be necessary. My sister has been on the moon for over a thousand years, and out of all the people in this land, should not give up on those who have trouble making friends.

For this, I have a test. Within this letter, I have sealed away an Age Spell that is to make Quatre much younger. He is the one true thing holding you all together as friends. Without him, you are nothing because no cooperation can be met on friendly terms. Thus, my test is to see if you can begin treating others nicely without Quatre’s help. For this, you will have to care for him in this state. If you have passed, he will return to his normal pony form. If you have failed, he will not transform back until you have reached my objective.

I have faith in you all. Be well.”


As Heero had finished reading the letter, Quatre was busy away making bubbles with his spit. Duo shook his head and nearly collapsed to the ground.

“This is…Quatre?” he said. “And we have to…take care of him?”

“Apparently, yes,” said Trowa. “This shouldn’t be too hard.”

Wufei forced out a laugh. “You think this shouldn’t be too hard? Never in my life have I ever had to care for a child!”

Suddenly, Quatre’s wings started buzzing away and his body was lifted off of his resting spot. He bobbed up and down in the air as he flew around without a cause. His tiny wings just weren’t enough to keep his heavy body going. As he flew around in circles, he finally found a new spot to stay in, and decided that Heero’s lap was a good place. Heero quickly threw the paper back on to the table as the foal dropped on to him. He looked up into Heero’s great, big eyes and smiled.

“Heewo!” said Quatre.

Duo got on to his hind legs and pressed an arm against his chest, simulating a heart attack. With this, he fell to the ground, chuckling, as Trowa moved his body as to not get hit. Wufei just stood there, shaking his head. Finally, he stomped a hoof against the floorboards.

“Does this princess think this is some kind of joke?” he said. “How are we supposed to take care of him? We don’t even have anything that babies need!”

With his hoof, Heero brushed Quatre’s mat of hair. In this form, his friend seemed to be quite at peace with the world---the complete opposite of what he had been for the past couple of hours. This Quatre seemed to be quite content with having his hair played with. Smiling, Heero took both of his hooves and gentle twisted them against Quatre’s head, making the foal give off a high-pitched laugh.

This scene had definitely attracted the attention of everyone else, as Duo got back on to his legs. He got close to Trowa’s ear and put his hoof in front of his mouth, so that no one else could hear him.

“Since when did Heero start liking people?” he asked. “And did someone spike his toast?”

“I heard all of that, Duo,” said Heero, as he continued playing with Quatre. Duo jumped in fear and became as stiff as a statue. “I have a plan.”

“Oh really?” asked Wufei. “And what is this plan of yours?”

Heero stopped playing with Quatre’s hair for just a moment to look at the three of them. “We’re going to have to get supplies. Diapers and toys will do. Also, we’re going to need food that he can eat for today.”

“For just today?” asked Wufei, completely bewildered. He walked over to Heero’s couch and put his front legs on the armrest. “Do you seriously think that Quatre will only be a foal for just today?”

Duo laughed and walked up behind Wufei, giving him a good whack on the shoulders. “It’s called ‘having faith’, which is something I wasn’t really expecting coming from Mr. Destructo here myself.”

“Duo, I’m trying to be nice here, don’t push it.” said Heero, shooting him a quick glare. He then turned to Trowa. “Why don’t you and Wufei go out and get the supplies? Duo and I will stay here with Quatre, waiting for the repair pony.”

“Got it,” said Trowa.

Wufei removed his body from the furniture and started for the door. Just as Trowa began walking away, Quatre stopped giggling. As Wufei opened the door to step outside into the hustle and bustle, the foal began whimpering when Trowa placed a single hoof out of the house. He was stopped by Wufei’s outreached arm across the opening and was forced to turn around to see silent globs of tears streaming down Quatre’s face.

“Twowa,” Quatre said in a squeaky voice. The tears seemed to become larger when Trowa didn’t answer, and Heero picked the foal up and moved him into the air, away from himself. “Twowa!”

Lost without words, Trowa could do nothing but point to himself for a confirmation. Little Quatre started sobbing and nodding his head, swinging his arms in the air. As fast as he could, Trowa called to his summons and ran right up to the young one. Ecstatic, Quatre stopped crying and began the climb up to the top of Trowa’s head, stretching every facial muscle of his carrier as he pushed his hind legs up the way. He sat atop his mountain and sighed with relief, going back to sticking his tongue out for his own amusement.

“Dude, it’s like you’re his mother,” said Duo in astonishment.

“Then it’s settled then,” said Heero. He got himself off the couch and stretched out his legs. “Trowa and Duo will wait here for the repair pony, and Wufei and I will go out shopping.”

Duo spun his head around as Heero walked passed him to join his comrade at the door. “Wait, what?”

He received no response to his inquiry as the two others left the house, closing the door behind them. He walked up to the door and just stood there, motionless. Gurgling was heard behind him, and he turned to see that Quatre was drooling all over his chin. Based on the disgusted look Duo was giving him, Trowa lay down on the ground and forced the little pony off his head by picking him up and putting him down. It was just in the nick of time, as the first drop of saliva hit the floor instead of the previous target. 

Quatre’s wings fluttered as he blinked his tiny eyes, making Trowa chuckle. He got down as low as he could on the ground so that his chin was touching the floor. With that, he scooted his body up to the foal. With a quick puff of air, he blew right into his face. Quatre giggled so loud and ferociously that he almost knocked himself flat on his back.

Duo shook his head and stuck his tongue out. It was just too adorable for him.  A knocking came to the door and was answered by the convenient pegasus that was there. It was a strong, big, brown stallion, with a yellow worker's helmet and a tool belt around his stomach. Looking around the large pony, Duo could see that behind him were other stallions with similar get-ups right by the porch, along with a mirror, a new sink, and pipes.

“Mornin’,” said the stallion, nodding his head to Duo. “Uh, we were called here to fix your washroom. Is this a good time?”

Duo smiled. “This is an excellent time. Trowa, how about we take Quatre out?”

Trowa looked up at Duo, who had moved away to let the workers in. As they came trotting in with their big hooves and equipment, shaking the whole house, Quatre huddled close to him. The little foal was shaking at the sight of the stallions. Trowa nodded and got himself back up. In a single sweep, he picked Quatre up gently with some skin behind his head and flung him into the air. He skillfully caught him on his head. With that, the two of them were out the door, leaving the repair ponies to do their work.
__________________________________________________________________
A walk around the town seemed to do Quatre some good. As he continued bobbing along on Trowa’s head, he waved at ponies that they passed by. His absolute sweetness about him seemed to draw the attention of the young mares that happened to see him. Many of them bolted for Trowa to try and get him to stop and talk to them. It was out of jealously that Duo kept on dragging him away from the mobs of mares. They didn’t even receive any peace from them when they stopped at the ice cream shop to eat. 

It wasn’t until later on that afternoon when they had discovered the park that the groups seemed to lessen. With such a widespread amount of land, between the fountains and the trees, the ponies could go anywhere. With the sun beating down on them, Trowa and Duo had found a shady spot underneath a great big oak tree on a hill to settle down under. It was a decently deserted area. Quatre flew off Trowa’s head towards a patch of dandelions, only a few feet in front of them.

Duo leaned himself against the tree’s trunk and looked at Trowa’s back. It wasn’t like he had a choice of how to view his friend, because he wasn’t anywhere near him. He was just at the edge of the tree’s shade because Quatre had now found other patches of flowers to fly to within the sun’s rays.

“Yo, Trowa,” said Duo. Trowa looked over his shoulder at the call. “You don’t have to watch him like that. You can come back here and just relax.”

Trowa looked at him for a second longer, and then turned his head to face frontwards. “You know, I don’t believe he had a mother.” As he watched Quatre try to tap a butterfly he had just discovered, he smiled. “For this very moment, he deserves some love.”

Like a screw in a hole, Trowa turned his body halfway around to now face Duo, for Quatre decided that he was bored with the flowers and was headed to the tree. As he flew, he suddenly stopped and hovered in the air right between the pilots. His horn then started glowing a bright blue and his body started shaking like crazy, almost like he was vibrating. Out of nowhere, a small enclosed sandbox appeared below him, and Quatre dropped right down into it to play with the sand.

Duo and Trowa exchanged the same type of look of amazement to see that Quatre, even at this age, had the power to summon something like that. The tiny alicorn was now trying to make a pile of sand by pushing it all together with his hooves. When he felt satisfied, he used his magic to levitate a nearby rock and bring it over to him. It then dropped right on top of his sand pile.

“Sandwock!” cried Quatre, clapping his hooves together. He looked at Trowa, who was now walking up to him, for approval. “Sandwock!”

“Good Lord, he thinks it’s his Gundam,” muttered Duo, as he shook his head with a smirk.

Quatre threw himself upon his sand pile and started squirming around, making beeping noises one would hear from a robot. Trowa sat right outside the sandbox to look at his dear friend. Quacking was heard somewhere nearby, and a group of ducks emerged to their area. They were walking towards the sandbox, marching to their quacks. Out of fear of him getting trampled on, Trowa grabbed Quatre and removed him from his play area. He placed him right in front of him and held him in a hug. Just before the animals had the chance to get in there, a yellow pegasus with long pink hair swooped down from above. Her silent descent made Duo yelp in surprise.

The pony hovered just above Quatre’s sand pile. She had pink butterflies as her cutie mark. The ducks instantly stopped in their tracks upon seeing her.

“Now ducks, it isn’t very nice to invade someone’s space when they’re playing,” the pony said. She was so quiet, both Trowa and Duo had to listen very hard to hear her. “The foal was trying to play, so please watch where you’re going next time, ok?” The ducks didn’t make a sound to her. “Thank you very, very much!”

The pony looked over at Trowa, who was the closest to her, and mumbled something of an apology. It was hard to hear her because she had covered up her mouth and seemed too shy to even look right at him. Trowa stared at her and didn’t say a word. Little Quatre lifted up his arms and started giggling at the ducks, who had now started parading alongside Trowa’s body. This seemed to help motivate the yellow pegasus, because now she had gotten all up in Trowa’s face to see Quatre.

“Oh my goodness, he is such a cute foal!” she cried. She petted Quatre’s head, who smiled right at her. “Oh my, oh my, he’s so nice and adorable! So very, very adorable! And he seems to really like you!”

“Thank you,” said Trowa. He held out a hoof for her to shake. “My name is Trowa.”

Alarmed by the advance to her, she put her hooves up to her mouth again in fear. “My name is F-Fluttershy.”

Duo flew up right next to her, which freaked her out even more.

“And I’m Duo!” he shouted.

Poor Fluttershy was quivering in midair now, not knowing what to do. It was then that Trowa noticed that the quacking was becoming much quieter, and he looked to see that the group of ducks was now at the bottom of the hill, heading in the direction of town. Just then, he also saw something else. As the group of ducks walked along, they passed Wufei and Heero, who were carrying saddle bags filled with things. Fluttershy noticed this as well, and darted away to follow her ducks just as Wufei and Heero approached the small group.

“Where have you guys been?” asked Heero, as he and Wufei started releasing their bags from their bodies. “And who was that?”

“Quatre was scared of the workers, so we left the house,” explained Trowa.

Duo landed right back on the ground, watching as the little yellow dot with the ducks went closer and closer to the town. “And that was the strangest pony I’ve seen here. She’s just as strange as the mailing one.”

From his bag, Heero took out a jar of orange baby food. Placing it on the ground and holding it in his hooves, he twisted the cap off with his teeth. He spat it out and pushed the jar close to Quatre with his nose.

“Here you go,” he said, as Quatre took the jar from him. “I bet you’re hungry.”

The foal nodded and dug his little snout into the mushy goodness that was inside the jar. From within Wufei’s bag, he pulled out a blue rattle. Quatre stopped eating and looked up at the toy, his face covered with orange pureed food. Wufei walked up to Quatre with the toy in his teeth and dropped it on the ground right next to him.

“I hope you like it,” said Wufei. He looked away with a smile on his face. “I bought you blue because I felt weird if I bought you a pink one.”

Quatre giggled and using his magic, he started shaking the rattle. Duo moved himself closer to the group as well. Everyone was now surrounding both Trowa and Quatre, as the foal continued to laugh at his brand new toy. Duo used his hoof to mess up Quatre’s hair.

“You know what, I’ve got to say, this wasn’t as bad as I thought,” he said. He smiled and chuckled. “I thought watching this guy all day was going to be a problem, but the real problem was all the mares coming up to us, trying to steal this little guy!”

“I told you all this wasn’t going to be a problem,” said Trowa. He gave Quatre another quick hug. “If you just show compassion for something, and you truly mean it, you won’t get any problems at all.”

It was at that moment where everything went from calm to hectic. In a puff of purple smoke, little Quatre disappeared, and Trowa suddenly felt a large weight against his front. It was so unexpected that he had to push the weight to keep himself balanced. Heero and Wufei, who were right in front of the foal, were kicked in the face with rather large white hooves.  Duo was smacked in the face with a hoof of his own and fell right to the ground.

Once the smoke cleared, Quatre was there, in his normal form. He was lying on his back, completely disoriented, blinking his eyes rapidly and still covered with baby food. As his friends around him were rubbing sore areas of their bodies, he hoisted himself up into a sitting position. Trowa rubbed Quatre’s head as the alicorn stared at his creation in the sandbox.

“Is that supposed to be…Sandrock?”

> It's Never Too Late
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The hours after Quatre had turned back into his regular-ponyself were somewhat enjoyable. The group went to a café for an early dinner and had sat on one of the outside tables to eat. It was quite a sight to see and experience, as Quatre and the rest of the gang heard the tale of what was once the little foal from none other than Duo himself. Of course, he put his own spin on it to seem more comical. Little Quatre had no recollection of ever being a foal, so the stories that were told were delightful. 

Upon returning to the house, the repair ponies had finished their job and were waiting to get paid. It was unfortunately after the payment was made that the Gundam ponies realized they should have checked the results before that. The new sink and mirror looked nice, and new pipes were put into the washroom; however, the patched up wall didn’t look good at all. What used to be a flat surface now looked like a glob of glue had been poured on to it, and was coated a darker shade of the adjacent walls’ color. Because of this, the group thought it best to just pick up some materials and tools at the store and re-do the whole thing. Quatre even got a container of paint and decided to decorate the washroom with a calming purple color.

With the extra wood that they had bought, Heero did as he said he was going to do. He boarded up the fireplace. With a look of pure satisfaction, he super-glued the wood to the brick so much, Heero was sure no one was going to be able to get through the opening. He was now on the defense, for he was to make sure that no crazed pink pony was going to enter his house without his permission and knowledge ever again.

And now it was the following morning, and the pilots were up and ready for the day. Well rested and in high spirits as well. They seemed to be getting along better that morning than any other day. Breakfast had been eaten and all the ponies were bathed. When everyone was ready, the white alicorn had the group huddled in a circle by the front door, with him being in the center. It was time for serious business.

“Our objective for today is this,” he began. He coughed to clear his throat. “We’re going to find out more about that rock I have locked away upstairs. It’s safe for now in my box because of my spell, but that doesn’t mean we get to lounge around here not doing our job.”

“So then what do you propose we do?” asked Trowa.

“We’re going to Twilight’s place!” answered Quatre with a smile. “She lives in Ponyville’s library, so it would be the main source of information. I think it’s a good place to start.”

Duo shot his foreleg up into the air, having it miss Heero’s ear by a mere centimeter. Any closer, and the black pegasus would have gotten a good beating.

“Shouldn’t we just try to get in touch with the princesses? I mean, that Celestia one is the one that summoned us here in the first place. Wouldn’t they know something about that rock?”

“I think if the princesses were aware of something like that, they would have told us in the first place,” replied Wufei, as he moved on over to lower Duo’s arm.

Duo’s ears flattened a bit by having his question being shot down.  He quickly shrugged it off as Quatre moved to the door. Opening it, the morning sunlight pierced into the home, shining brightly into everyone’s eyes. Quatre stood in front of the rays with a confident stance, looking quite intimidating with his wings spread, though that wasn’t his intention at all.

“Let’s fly on over there!” he shouted with glee.

Thus, the pilots moved on out of the house and took off into the sky, with Quatre in the lead. They flew off in something of a V-formation, whizzing past other pegasi in the sky. The speed that the group picked up was impressive, catching the eye of other ponies in the air. Though they were quite hard to even catch within sight, for they were nothing but a blur of different colors.  It didn’t take long for the group to pass over the large tree that was Ponyville’s library. Quatre swung around in the air and dove down to the ground, having the group follow him.

They landed with a gust of air right in front of the door to the library. The tree looked as beautiful as ever, with its lush green leaves and the scent of peace. A telescope rested on one of the balconies on its higher branches, looking out into the sky. A drawing of a lit candle was etched into the red door that invited them to come in.

Trowa examined every inch of the tree with a critical eye. “This is the library?”

“Yeah, isn’t it a quaint little thing?” said Quatre, as he looked over to the pilots. “It’s such a nice place!”

The other ponies looked at each other with raised eyebrows as Quatre went to the door. He banged on it lightly with his hoof and stepped back, awaiting a reply. The door creaked open, and Spike’s head poked out of the small opening. The purple dragon looked almost surprised to see Quatre standing there with a group behind him.

“Oh hi there, Quatre!” he said, throwing the door completely open. “These are the ponies you live with, right? I kind of remember seeing them at your house.”

“Yes, these are my friends,” replied Quatre. He walked up closer to the door and pointed at it. “Is it alright if we came in? We’d like to look through some books.”

“Sure!” said Spike, nodding his head. He moved out of the way to allow the pilots access to the inside of the library. “Twilight, Quatre and his friends are here!”

Quatre trotted right into the archive of books as his friends followed in awe. The library was much bigger on the inside, with what looked like hundreds of books just on the ground floor alone. The group separated and wandered about the library, walking up to every bookshelf. Desks were scattered here and there with adjoining chairs for reading and other scholarly work.  Wufei took a seat at one of them so that he could get a better look at his surroundings. He took it all in with a smile, much like one that would be seen on a child’s face when presented with candy. Duo nudged Heero in the side to take notice of it. 

A second floor high above revealed what looked like a bedroom with two beds and other personal items. Twilight was laying down on her own bed up there, reading a book, but had looked up when she had heard Spike call her. Quatre approached the bottom of the stairs and waved an arm up at her.

“Good morning, Twilight!” he shouted up the staircase. “I was wondering if you could help us with something.”

Twilight closed the book, and with her magic, moved it to her own desk close to her bed. “Sure, I’ll be right down.”

“This is the best place so far in this entire town!”

The sudden shout from Wufei made even the calm Trowa jump out of his trance while gazing at different titles. As Twilight came marching down the stairs, the blue pegasus met her halfway as he darted up the steps.

“You!” he called to her. “Are you the one that owns this library?”

Twilight looked over at Quatre before answering for help from the sudden, blunt question. Quatre frowned and cocked his head in curiosity. The purple unicorn returned her attention to Wufei, who was waiting for her to say something with an inpatient gaze.

“Well, yes, I am, I guess,” said Twilight, looking nervously at the pony before her.

Wufei began poking her right in the chest, violating her personal space that he was clearly not caring about.

“I am flattered to make your acquaintance,” he said. “To hold such a place of residency means that you are an individual of high intelligence and actually care about scholastic studies. You have my respect.” He lowered his head as a sign of this respect of his. “You may call me Wufei.”

With that, he flew off on to the other side of the library and began looking at the higher shelving units of books. Twilight was left stunned and continued her walk down the stairs, keeping her eye on Wufei. When she had finally reached the bottom, she was met by her familiar, who had gotten her a glass of water during the interaction. She took the cup with her magic and quickly gulped down its contents. It was returned to Spike, who walked right off with it to have it cleaned.

Quatre chuckled at Twilight’s face. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t expect any of my friends to act that way at all.”

“That’s alright,” she said, after calming down. She looked at Quatre and smiled. “I guess I just never expected to find another pony like myself who really cared about books. Now, what did you need help with?”

“I was wondering if you had any books on magical elements, and I don’t mean the Elements of Harmony,” said Quatre. Somewhere in the background, he heard Wufei’s shouts of glee. “Do you know of anything like that?”

“Not that I can think of,” replied Twilight, as she scratched her chin. She squinted her eyes as she thought. “Is it for a potion or something?”

Quatre’s eyes averted to the ceiling and he gave off yet another nervous laugh. He hated lying. “Well, not exactly. It’s more like for my own personal knowledge and studies.”

A crash was heard in the library as Trowa and Duo were covered with a pile of books. Somehow, one way or another, shelves had given way and had toppled right on over the pilots. They dug their heads out at the top of the paperbacks for air, with an open book sprawled out on Trowa’s head. He didn’t seem to care. Duo started laughing at the sight of him. Twilight cringed as Wufei flew over to try and help his friends out of the pile. Heero joined them too, only he took the book that was on Trowa’s head and brought it over to a nearby desk to read it.

“Oh sweet Celestia, my library is going to become a huge mess,” muttered Twilight. She looked back at Quatre with a concerned expression. “And this is for your studies for the princess, you said? Your distant cousin? Is that what you told me the other day?”

Quatre nodded. “Yes, that’s right! She says she wants me to get a better idea of the magical world for the family!”

Twilight sighed. “If it’s for the royalty bloodline, I guess I can accept it.”

As she moved over to the mess of books and ponies, Quatre saw that Heero was motioning for him to come over. He walked right on pass his struggling friends and stood next to Heero, who was sitting in a chair. A miniature lamp was turned on to help read the fine print on the pages of the book. It was open to a page with a black and white headshot drawing of a unicorn in medieval clothing, with a cloak and a straggling beard.

“What did you find?” whispered Quatre, as he peered at the page.

Heero pointed at the drawing of the pony. “This seems to have been a sorcerer back in olden times. Look at what he’s wearing.”

His hoof was pointing at something that Quatre hadn’t noticed at first. The sorcerer pony was wearing a necklace with a crystalline container covered with a cork. What struck Quatre odd was what was inside it. Tiny pieces of rock were being held within, and from what could be seen, looked like the same texture and crystal fragments of the one that he had locked away in his room. He looked at the subtitle underneath the drawing, where a name was listed of the pony.

“Merlin the Manic,” mumbled Quatre.

“Seems like a pretty unoriginal name,” huffed Heero.

Quatre leaned over more to read the page opposing the drawing. As his eyes scanned the page, his magic highlighted the book to bring it closer to him. Heero watched him silently read the book when suddenly it disappeared out of sight in a cloud of blue sparkles. Quatre blew them away as fast as he could before anyone else noticed.

“That’s for further reading at home,” he said.

As Twilight finished cleaning up the books, her magic went into repairing the broken bookshelf. While she was distracted with her own business, the other ponies joined Heero and Quatre in their own little group.

“I think I found something that might help us out,” whispered Quatre. “Let’s head out and go back to our place.”

“I’m completely fine with that,” said Duo. He touched his forehead that was still pounding from the avalanche of books. “I think I’m going to lie down in my bed for a while. My head is killing me.”

Just as he finished speaking, there was a knock at the front door. Spike, who had just re-entered the library part of the home, was the one to open it once more. He was greeted by having the door smack him in the face and send him flying, as Heero’s favorite pink pony jumped through the entrance and landed right in the middle of the room. She had on a polka-dot party hat and was blowing a noise maker in her mouth. Shouts and cheers echoed behind her from the outside to reveal that dozens of ponies were standing right there by the door.

With the sudden commotion, Heero’s battle instincts took effect and launched himself into the air for attack. Quickly, both Duo and Wufei jumped on Heero to keep him pinned to the floor, like they had the other morning. Pinkie Pie spat out her noise maker and started jumping around the room.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” she sang, as Spike fumbled around the room with his dizziness. “Welcome to Ponyville!”

“Oh wow, we’re going to have one of Pinkie Pie’s special welcoming parties!” shouted Quatre, flapping his wings in excitement. “This is great!”

Pinkie Pie sprang up next to Twilight, who had just finished fixing the bookshelf. “I’m doing it better this time by having the party outside! You’re library is just too small for all of the dancing that we’re going to have!”

“Pinkie Pie, these ponies have been here in town for a few days already,” said Twilight. “Isn’t it a little too late for a welcoming party?”

“No way!” shrieked Pinkie Pie, appalled by the thought. “It’s never too late for a Pinkie Pie party!” 

With her sugar-injected energy, she spotted Duo on the floor and jumped on top of him. They rolled on the floor together, and she somehow threw him into the air and tackled him to the ground once more in a tight hug. Heero seemed to have calmed down and Wufei released him from his grasp. He walked over to Duo’s rescue and grabbed him from the pink one. Duo coughed, gasping for air, as Heero placed him besides himself. Pinkie Pie jumped in place, giggling.

“Oh hi there, Heero!” she yelled.

“I’m going to say this once and never again,” Heero said to her calmly. “The only reason I’m not trying to choke you right now is because this isn’t my home. That being said, don’t you ever sneak into my house ever again. You’re in way over your head if you do.”

Out of nowhere, a blue party hat was strapped on to Heero’s head. The rubbery string snapped in place under his chin, and Pinkie Pie collected Duo as if he were her own. In a flash, she ran out the door with the yelling black pegasus in her arms.

An orange pony with a brown cowboy hat popped her head into the entranceway. She had tiny freckles across her cheeks and straw-colored golden hair tied into a thick ponytail. As she spoke, she had a Southern accent in her voice.

“Come on guys, get yerselves out here!” she said. “We’re havin’ a grand ole’ time!”

With that, Quatre was the first one out the door. He whizzed out with his wings and landed in a crowd of excitement. The entire town was filled with flags and colorful banners across every building. Confetti and sparkles covered the cobblestone ground beneath his hooves, and music was playing somewhere in the distance. Tiny stands were set up with different kinds of treats and fruits where ponies were standing in line to receive for free. Quatre was received with many hugs and welcomes and he skipped further into the crowd as ponies started speaking with him.

The others in the library also entered the scene. As Twilight walked off on her own, Trowa, Heero, and Wufei were left by themselves. They were awkwardly standing there as other ponies passed by waving hello to them and giggling.

“What is this all about?” asked Wufei.

“Apparently it’s some sort of town event,” said Trowa. He looked about and smiled. “I honestly didn’t think this place could get anymore happier.”

“I guess this means we should enjoy ourselves then,” said Heero. Wufei and Trowa watched as he started walking away. “Quatre needs us to be happy and friendly to make that spell of his happen.”

It was then agreed upon in their own type of silence that they were to go on their own paths during this party. As Wufei made his way through the crowd in search of anything that caught his interest, he kept on being harassed by the young mares. They were all commenting on his sleek mane that was in his tight ponytail. He would stop every now and then to have a small chat with one, but it wouldn’t last long at all. With his “solo” type of personality, this most definitely not where he belonged.

At one point, he had found an isolated table and sat down at it. All he wanted was some form of peace and solitude. But he knew that it wasn’t to last very long, as a light blue pegasus flew up by him and sat at one of the other chairs at the table. She had rainbow stripes in her hair, and had a rainbow lightning bolt protruding out of a white cloud as her cutie mark. She propped her head on her hooves as Wufei continued to stare out into the crowd, annoyed at her very presence. 

“Hey, you seem to be a different kind of pony,” said the rainbow-maned pony. “Not one for crowds, huh?”

“Not really, no,” Wufei quickly said. He looked over at her, as his eyes tried to tell her to leave.

“You get used to it after a while if you’re someone as awesome as me,” said the pony. She kicked her hind hooves up on to the table and pushed her body back, making the chair lean on its edge. “The name’s Rainbow Dash.”

“Charmed.”

“With a sleek body like yours, I bet you’re a fast flyer,” said Rainbow Dash. “You want to have a race?”

Wufei became intrigued. “Is that a challenge?”

“Well, I guess it’s a challenge, but not right now,” said Rainbow Dash. She fixed her seating and got up from her chair. “Maybe in a day or two we could have a race. I don’t want to miss this killer party, and I’d like to get to know you more before the race.”

“Ah, you get to know your opponents before battle,” said Wufei, nodding. Rainbow Dash looked confused at his last word. “I will agree with you on this. Care to walk around some more?”

“Sure!” shouted Rainbow Dash.

Wufei got up from his chair and walked on off with his new partner. Somewhere off in another part of the event, Trowa was talking with a small group of mares. He spoke of his time spent in his traveling circus group, making the mares swoon and gasp at the antics and tricks he used to do. As the conversation dispersed and he was about to continue his walk, he was approached by yet another pony. A white unicorn, at that, with a curly purple mane. Her cutie mark was a collection of diamonds. 

She walked up to him and closely examined his face and his body. Trowa stood there, trying to turn in circles to get a better look at the pony that was poking and prodding him.

“Good sir, you have such a carefully toned physique,” she said. She took a step back and pointed at Trowa’s legs. “With such legs as yours, your balance must be perfect.” 

“Well, yes. As I told the others, I’m part of a circus.”

She decided the next best thing to do was to press her nose right against Trowa’s. “And you have piercing eyes, and your hair is absolutely marvelous.”

She batted her long eyelashes and smiled. Trowa took a step back to try and get some space between him and this mare.

“Thank you, I really don’t know what else to say,” he said. 

“You, dear sir, are a beautiful stallion!” cried the pony. “If only there were more of them like yourself! Us fashion designers would have an easier life trying to come up with new styles!” She raised her hoof in his direction. “Have you ever considered modeling?”

Trowa couldn’t believe he heard what she said. He looked all over his body to see exactly what she saw. Besides his hair, he never really cared for his looks. But to hear coming from someone else the factors that apparently made him attractive was something new to him. He got closer to the pony and sat down right in front of her on the ground.

“Do you really think I’m that good looking?” he asked her.

“Why yes, of course!” She yelled. She began lightly brushing through Trowa’s hair with her hoof. “I’ve been thinking of expanding my boutique shop to include designs for males and I’ve been looking for somepony to model for me. My name is Rarity. Would you like to help me?”

Trowa nodded his head up and down, when he suddenly felt his face get warm. Unbeknownst to him, he had acquired a slight blush to his cheeks. The two of them continued to speak of future endeavors together as the party continued around them. Duo passed them in the flow of the crowd, munching on cupcakes in his mouth. Pinkie Pie had dragged him to her cupcake stand when the party first began, where she had over one hundred different kinds. He must have had over a dozen cupcakes while he was there, and he even helped her hand out the food to other ponies. He looked down at his cross, which had frosting on it.

He swallowed the food in his mouth and sighed. “I’m going to have to clean that when we get back.”

Duo passed yet another stand that was gathering quite the amount of attention. Stopping just a few feet away from it, he sniffed the air and grinned. It was the scent of chocolate that made his mouth water. Duo made his way through the crowd to the stand as the other ponies around him made way for him. He put his hooves up on the stand to speak to the green pony that was behind it.

“Do you have any chocolate bars?” he asked her.

“You betcha!” replied the pony. She got down, fumbled around a bit, and brought back up a bar for Duo. “Here you go!”

“Thanks a bunch!” replied Duo.

With the speed of a cheetah, he shoved the entire chocolate bar into his mouth. His stomach was now extremely happy with him. Duo continued his travels down the path, but not too far off from the stand, he saw the back of a familiar pony sitting down on the ground. It was Quatre, who was hunched over close to a bush. Duo feared that his friend was getting sick, so he ran over to check up on him. He put his hooves on the pony’s shoulders and peaked over his shoulder.

“Buddy, are you alright?” he asked him.

He didn’t expect to see what he saw. Quatre had an entire pile of different kinds of chocolates lying in between his legs. His entire face was covered with the stuff and his cheeks were completely filled with it. They both stared at each other with wide eyes in an awkward silence. At one point, Quatre hunched over his sweets some more, as if to protect his food from passersby.

“Dude, I swear I’m not going to eat your candy,” said Duo, taking a step back. “But you’re going to be okay, right?”

Quatre nodded his head and began the consumption of his chocolates again. Unconvinced and freaked out, Duo made his way away from his friend and kept at his regular pace through the party. Not too far from him was Heero, looking grumpy as ever. He was sitting at a table right by where a music booth was set up with two very big speakers, sipping a chocolate milkshake. Something of a barrier was made right in front of the booth to create a dance floor, where ponies were having the time of their lives. The DJ was a white unicorn with a stylish blue mane, wearing large sunglasses over her eyes. All she was playing was nothing but techno music.

As the green pegasus finished his drink, he scratched his face. The rubber string from the hat was starting to really irritate him. He took the party favor off his head and placed it on the table. Right then, Twilight walked up to him with a bounce in her step.

“How do you like the party?” she asked him, as she stood next to his chair. “Are you having fun and making more friends? And I don’t think I caught your name. Quatre was telling me the other day that you guys wanted to meet more ponies here.”

Heero looked at her and pushed his cup away. “My name is Heero. And to be honest, I’ve been trying to enjoy myself, but this isn’t my scene.”

“Parties really weren’t my thing either at first, but then my outlook on things changed once I moved here,” said Twilight, laughing at the thought of her former self. “I was always wrapped up in my books back in Canterlot and just never had the time to make friends. I came here and didn’t really like this place at all at first.” Heero seemed to have become interested, so she motioned to the rest of the ponies around them with her hoof. “But then one thing led to another, and I just feel so much better about myself now. I’ve made many friends and life is just so great for me.”

Following her pointed direction, Heero stared off into the crowd. Everyone else did seem to be having a swell time out there dancing and such. However, the very notion of him trying to get to know the other ponies well didn’t seem to be sitting too well. He was here for a mission, and the only other things he had to make sure were that the other pilots were content and Quatre was happy.

The music came to an abrupt stop and Twilight and Heero looked up at the sound booth. Pinkie Pie was there behind the stand, whispering something into the DJ’s ear. Whatever she had said made the DJ laugh and her horn started to glow. The CD that she had in the player was taken out with her magic and was replaced with another one. She tapped the mike that was there and the speakers crackled.

“I have a special request from the kickin’ pony that started this jam today!” she yelled into the mike. “Would a Heero and our dear friend Twilight get on the dance floor?”

Though they were two very different ponies, Heero and Twillight had the same gut feeling of horror. Pinkie Pie was suddenly behind them and started pushing the two of them towards the dance floor. Heero protested and did his best to push her away, but for some reason she just kept at him. The two of them were thrown over the barrier and landed right in the middle of the dance floor.

“Alright you two, this song is for you! Now dance!”

Music started playing and it turned out to be a slow orchestrated piece. The other ponies that were on the dance floor made a large circle surrounding them as Heero and Twilight got back up on to their legs. All of them were staring at the two, waiting for them to begin dancing. Heero looked around, shaking his head, but then met Twilight’s face. She seemed to be just as embarrassed, but her face had gotten red. She sighed at the ground.

“We might as well get this over with because it won’t end until we do it,” she said. She looked up into his eyes and smiled. “I’ve never danced with anypony, so sorry if I get all of this wrong.”

She got on to her hind hooves and let out her front ones for him to grab. Heero contemplated the idea of just flying right out of there, but something was mentally stopping him. Was it the proposition of dancing with this unicorn? Was it the possibility of making a new friend? He wasn’t sure himself as he hesitantly did the same as her, and they began to dance. They moved in small mini-circles, twirling to the motion of the music.

As their dancing continued, the other ponies on the dance floor joined them with their own partners. Soon it almost turned into a ball without the formal wear, as the sound of the strings got louder and more dancers joined. The other Gundam pilots flew over to see what was going on and hovered above the scene. Duo was the first one to point out Heero and Twilight down below in the dancing mob.

“Well lookie there, it looks like Heero has a little girlfriend!” yelled Duo. He smirked and tried to hold in a laugh. “I can’t wait to bug him about this one!”

Quatre smiled as he looked down at his fellow pilot. Even though it didn’t seem like his was enjoying himself, with his angry look, Heero was having a good time. Quatre could feel it in his heart as it warmed his body. In fact, he could tell from the way his friends were acting that they were all having fun with the other ponies. Even Wufei seemed less stern in his appearance. 

The white alicorn wiped some chocolate off of his mouth in content.  With that, he lowered himself back into the crowd, along with his other pilots. There was a party to go back to.

> Memories Resurfaced
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The party that lasted well into the evening left Quatre a very groggy and sickly feeling pony the next morning. He woke up lying down on his stomach with his legs spread out across the bed. The room smelled intensely of chocolate and he could hear the others downstairs talking. His eyes flickered open like shades that struggled to rise, and he came to see that he had drooled all over his pillow. The room spun in front of his face and his stomach churned something horrible. Quatre attempted to lift himself out of bed, but instead his front legs gave in to his body weight and he fell crashing on to the wooden floor. There he found the cause of the strong aroma---a basket full of chocolates, right at his bedside.

With his nose inches away from it, the smell crawled into his nostrils like bugs. He instantly felt nauseous and rolled his body away from the basket until it finally hit the soft surface that was his carpet. He lay there on his back with his wings out, staring at the ceiling. Quatre could barely remember what happened to him yesterday, and he was sure he didn’t drink. Just the thought of alcohol made him gag.

Quatre rubbed his eyes, trying to get rid of this feeling of sickness. “Princess Luna came to stop the party…”

Yes, that’s correct. Dear Luna had come right as she raised the moon and interrupted the party. She had ordered all of the ponies to retreat back to their homes.

“That all makes sense because of everything that’s going on with the Abyss,” mumbled Quatre. He removed his hooves to look back up at the ceiling with his big, blue eyes. “Yet to me, she didn’t feel strong at all. In fact, all I could feel from her was sadness---”

The doorknob to his bedroom turned and Quatre moved his head to see that Trowa was there. Half of his body was inside the room. He sighed, and Quatre felt a wave of relief wash over his friend. The alicorn blinked his eyes rapidly and actually went over what he had just experienced.

Wait, how can I feel his feelings?, he thought to himself.  And Princess Luna’s feelings…how could I feel her’s as well?

“We were afraid you weren’t going to wake up at all,” said Trowa. His speech broke Quatre out of his mind. “It’s so late in the morning. It’s very uncommon for you to be sleeping at this hour.”

“I feel absolutely awful,” Quatre gurgled. He was finally able to get himself into a sitting position on his rug. “I can barely remember anything about yesterday. No one forced me to drink alcohol, did they?”

“No, not at all,” said Trowa, shaking his head. At this time, he fully entered the room and walked up to his friend. “It seemed you had eaten too many chocolates and had gone sugar crazy. You were flying all about the party come the end of it and you were just shooting your magic everywhere, turning miscellaneous objects into frogs. When Luna stopped the party, your body finally gave and you went into a sugar coma.”

Quatre groaned with embarrassment and covered his face with his hooves. With his own hoof, Trowa rubbed the other’s hair.

“Don’t worry,” he said in a comforting voice. “No one was upset. They all thought it was extremely funny. Even Pinkie Pie loved what you did.”

“That’s not the point!” moaned Quatre, shaking his head. He didn’t want to show his face, even to Trowa. “I didn’t know I was doing that at all! I can barely remember what happened yesterday! Why would I even eat chocolate like that? I generally eat so well!”

“Hey, our little buddy’s up!”

The joyous black pegasus that was Duo hopped into the room, startling even Trowa on his silent entry. He noticed that something was bothering Quatre and jumped right on over to him. He nuzzled his head hard against his, until Quatre started laughing. Duo’s bangs were tickling the side of his face. With a smile on his objective’s face, Duo had stopped to witness it.

“There, that’s better now!” he said. “I don’t even want to see a sad or upset look on your face right now, because we’ve got a job to do!”

Quatre wiped away the tears that had formed under his eyes because of his laughter and looked at Duo. “What do you mean by that? What job?”

“There’s someone waiting for you downstairs,” said Trowa. He tapped his chin with his hoof, looking quizzically around the room in search of a thought. “I believe she said her name was Applejack.”

With that, Quatre got up on to his feet and nodded. He started his way out the door and down the stairs, with Duo and Trowa in his trails. The front door to the house was open, and the first thing he noticed was the quietness that was leaking in from the outside. It sounded as if barely any ponies were roaming the streets, for there weren’t the sound of hooves trotting or voices talking. As he got to the stairs and turned to the couches, he saw that Wufei and Heero were sitting down on them, along with Applejack. No one was saying a word.

He noticed right off the bat something was wrong. It was like a splash of water hit him from her direction, and it made him cold and worried. She was sitting solemnly with her cowboy hat on her lap, circling her hoof around its rim. Her green eyes shot up at him as he approached her, attracted to her sadness. Applejack put on a smile to try and cover up her feelings, but it was already too late to do even that.

“Howdy there, Quatre,” she started. She held out a hoof for him to shake, which he took eagerly with a concerned look about him. Trowa and Duo sat on the other couch to watch them. “Ah don’t think ah introduced mahself to ya yesterday, but ah’m Applejack.”

Quatre nodded, not saying a word. He wanted her to speak without him forcing her to do so. Applejack sighed, shaking her head.

“Ah hate doing stuff like this, but ah need to,” she said. Applejack took in a deep breath and sighed once more. “Ah’m sorry, but ah didn’t want to say anythin’ until ya came down. There’s somethin’ goin’ on in town. A fever of some sort, ah dunno. The stuff spread overnight like fire catchin’ on to dry wood. All the little ones have it. It’s gotten so bad that some of ‘em have been sent to the hospital to be looked at.”

Duo gasped dramatically, looking wildly around the room at his other pilots. “That’s terrible!”

“It explains why it’s been so quiet this morning outside,” said Trowa, nodding his head.

“What if it’s just food poisoning of some sort?” asked Wufei, waving his foreleg at every word he said. “You all had so many vendors yesterday giving out free food. Does anyone even check if it’s all of good quality before the food is given?”

Applejack shook his head. “Our food makers here make the best of the best. Nothing would have gotten through.”

“But why do you need my help?” asked Quatre, pointing to himself. “My medical experience only goes so far, and---”

Applejack put out her hoof into the air to stop him. He took that sign to be silent and put his own back on the ground.

“Ah’m not sayin’ ah want ya to fix anyone,” said Applejack. She put her hat back on to her head, adjusting it so that her ears were sticking out so she could hear. “Lots of things are goin’ on. There are some ponies out there that can’t pay for their filly’s hospital bills. Mayor Mare is holdin’ a fundraising talent show event in two days to raise some money to help make sure every filly can be looked at. This is what ah need yer help with.” She looked at every pilot at first, but then looked back at Quatre. “The Apple family would like to buck a good chunk of our trees for apples to sell at the event and sell ‘em for cheap. Every Bit will go straight to the fundraiser. But mah big brother, Big Macintosh, is out of town out in Appleloosa. Mah Granny is too old to do this, and ah’m not letting mah little sister Applebloom do anything. She ain’t sick, but her friends are. Her job until all this blows over is to stay on the farm and relax.”

“It sounds like you’re shorthanded,” commented Heero.

“You betcha ah am,” said Applejack, nodding her head. She adjusted her seating to cross her legs. “If ah try to do everythin’ by myself like this, nothin’ ain’t gonna go mah way. Ah need some help buckin’ ‘em, and ah need some work done on the roofs of the house and barn. Twilight said to come see ya’ll. Quatre, would you and your friends be able to help me today?”

She looked at him with such weak eyes; Quatre knew he just couldn’t say no. He nodded with a confident smile, to which she threw her arms around his neck in a great, big hug. Quatre fumbled his legs a bit, for he really didn’t expect her to react like that.

“Thank ya so much, ya have no idea how much this means to me!”

“We can start right now if you’ll take us to your place,” said Heero.

Applejack got back down on the ground, leaving a very red Quatre. “Absolutely! Let’s head on out!”

With Heero and Wufei getting off the couch, everyone gave Applejack the position of leader as they left their home. The streets of Ponyville were practically empty on this very cloudy day. The shops and stands were open, but there wasn’t a sign of activity surrounding them. The ponies that the group did pass didn’t give them the usual friendly smile, nor was anyone really talking. They all seemed to be on a steadfast goal that they must reach, as some were seen speeding home with their saddle bags filled with items. As Quatre and the group walked by some homes, agonizing coughs from young ones could be heard coming through the walls and windows into the streets.

Without anyone really stopping to chat with them, it didn’t take the group long to get to the country side. It was here that the wind seemed to pick up just slightly, which was made apparent by the movement of Applejack’s hat; yet it was not enough for it to signal any form of a storm. They walked up and down the grassy hills until Sweet Apple Acres could be seen resting atop of one the hills. Beyond that seemed to be acres of acres of fully grown apple trees, covered with plump red apples. Somewhere off in the distance on the farm, a dog’s barking could be heard.

As they walked passed the barn and approached the little farmhouse, the pilots soon realized that amount of work that needed to be done. Dozens of boards to the roof of it were missing, for they had fallen right on to the ground. Comparing it to the damage that that barn’s roof had was almost nothing, because it seemed to be missing even more. Three red toolboxes with a single hammer and multiple nails in each were placed right at the front door of the house, where Applejack had walked up to one to touch it with her hoof.

“Ah dunno just what in the hay happened to this place,” she sighed. “Ah woke up to this. We didn’t get no storm last night, so ah don’t understand this at all.”

Duo walked up to her and put a reassuring hoof on her back. “Don’t worry, we’ll fix this place right on up.”

Applejack smiled and nodded. With her teeth, she bent down and picked up the toolbox that was right there by her by the handle and walked up to Heero with it. She placed it down by his leg, and did the same with another one for Quatre. Since Duo was right there by her, Applejack just gently pushed a toolbox to him.

“Ah wanna have ya’ll three work on the roofs,” said Applejack. “You three look like you’d be pretty darn sturdy up there on them rooftops with your wings and footin’.” She then turned to Trowa and Wufei. “You two can come with me. With your strong legs, we’ll be done buckin’ apples in no time. Ah’ve already got buckets and carts out by the trees out in the orchard waitin’ for us.”

Trowa and Wufei looked at each other with cocked heads, their mouths scrunched up in thought. It was the yellow pegasus who raised his hoof to propose a question.

“What exactly is ‘bucking’?” asked Trowa.

“Ya’ll don’t know what bucking is?” asked Applejack. She received two shakes of heads. “Ah guess ya’ll don’t really get this farmin’ life out in Canterlot, huh? Ya just kick them trees and make the apples fall. Ah know ya’ll are pegasi, but ah find this more efficient than flyin’ around them trees.”

“So we just aggressively attack trees?” asked Wufei. He didn’t even wait for a response. He turned around and started walking in the direction of the orchard with a fast pace. “That’s fine with me.”

With a silent flap of his wings, Trowa was in the air as he went to catch up with his friend. Applejack was on it too with a hurried walk, when all of a sudden, there was a huge gust of wind that came out of nowhere. It whipped her hat right off of her and it started to fly away. She noticed the absence of her dear friend and stopped to look around to see where it went. Duo flew into the air and caught it with his forelegs, descending to the ground before the wind current blew him somewhere else. He put the edges into his mouth and walked up to her, then sat down on his rump with the present in hoof.

“Here’s your hat back,” said Duo. “You should be careful with it on this windy day.”

Applejack looked behind her to see that Trowa and Wufei were so far away from the house. They had almost made it to the apple trees. With a smile on her face, she shook her head and pushed the hat into Duo’s chest.

“Ya know what, ah’ve really gotta catch up with yer friends,” she said. She turned and started a graceful trot, following their path. “Ya can keep it fer right now!”

With his newfound object on his person, Duo wasn’t sure what to do with it. He looked down at it and tried to imagine him being something of a cowboy, riding a great steed towards the sunset, with gun holsters and everything. He mischievously chuckled and put the southern hat on his own head, as Quatre and Heero walked up to his front.

“Wow, that looks pretty cool on you, Duo!” shouted Quatre. He tapped the edge of the hat so that it would go down over Duo’s eyes. “It’s really your style!”

“What are you, some sort of space cowboy?” asked Heero, with his usual tone of annoyance.

Duo lifted the hat off his head to adjust it a bit. “Well, maybe I am some sort of space cowboy!” He looked up at the sky and scratched his chin. “Though I’ve got to admit, I now have this strange craving to ride a motorcycle.”

“Well, don’t get carried away with your fantasies,” said Heero, as he walked away from Duo to the house. He was going for one of the toolboxes. “We’ve got a sub-mission to complete.”

Duo got on to his legs and stuck his tongue out in Heero’s direction, for he took the advantage that he was doing it to Heero’s backside. Quatre sighed, shaking his head with a smile.

“Heero and his missions,” he muttered. He sighed once more, and then brought the other toolboxes over to himself and Duo. “Come on, let’s get this done for Applejack, Mr. Space Cowboy.”

Duo, now filled with joy again, picked up a hammer and grinned. “I’m the best space cowboy ever!”
__________________________________________________________________________________
With their quick speed and strength, the fixing of both buildings was done in less than an hour. Quatre took the lead once more and guided his friends through the process of efficiently putting everything back together so that they wouldn’t come off again. Duo insisted on wearing the cowboy hat for the duration of the job, even though it kept on escaping his head just as it did to Applejack because of the force of the wind. He seemed somewhat proud of it, and it gave him a good swing in his flights. At one point, the accessory flew off and hit Heero right in the face as they were repairing the house. Both Quatre and Duo were sure that the hat was going to be ripped in half right then and there, but to their surprise, it wasn’t. Heero had calmly placed it back on Duo and continued with his work of hammering boards.

As the morning turned into the afternoon, the three pilots had finished the roofs and were met on the ground by Applejack, Trowa, and Wufei. All three of the ponies had huge carts filled to the brim with red, delicious apples that they had effortlessly trekked back to the house with. As they unattached themselves from the carriers, Applejack quickly surveyed the buildings by glancing at them.

“They both look great!” she yelled. “Ah’m impressed with ya’ll! Nothin’ like having three strong stallions do a great favor for ya!”

Met with this compliment, the three being addressed weren’t sure how to respond. Heero just scratched his head and nodded. Quatre instantly started blushing and kicked the ground with his front leg, digging a small hole in the dirt. Duo smiled, and yet again, put the hat into his mouth and walked up to Applejack. He placed it on her head with no objections from the mare this time. She turned to look at Trowa and Wufei, who were now flying above the carts, moving the fruit around, inspecting the quality of the apples.

“And ya’ll are one of the best buckers outside of the Apple family ah’ve ever seen!” Applejack said with pride.

Both pegasi briefly looked up from their new job to respond to her in unison.

“Thank you.”

“Now, would ya’ll like something to eat?” asked Applejack. She walked up to the front door and opened it with her hoof, inviting the others inside. “We don’t have much, but ah can make ya’ll sandwiches.”

With his magic, Quatre levitated all of the toolboxes above his head and nodded. “Thank you, that’s very kind of you! I’ll bring these in with me as well.”

“Nah, ya can just leave ‘em out here,” said Applejack, as the others filed inside. “They’re just tools. Ain’t nothing gonna happen to them, ah promise.”

Quatre carefully placed the boxes back on to the ground and hopped his way into what was the kitchen of the Apple family’s home. It had a tiled floor with plain white walls, but even with this it gave off the sense of a home. Pictures of the family were strung up in frames, and one with a great width hung above the table. Dozens of ponies were in this photograph, and labeled on the frame in a gold plate was titled ‘Apple Family Reunion.’ The others had already squeezed themselves into the very small wooden table by moving more chairs from the nearby living room to that location. Duo patted on an empty cushion chair right between himself and Trowa, signaling for the white one to sit down. Quatre did as he was told and flew on to the seat, wiggling his body down into the tight fit between body and table. 

As he did this, Applejack was moving things around inside her refrigerator and came back with a large jug of something foamy and orange. She left the table and returned again with jugs for each pilot. Quatre caught a whiff of the liquid that was inside the container and put both hooves up to his nose to cover up what he considered to be a foal stench.

“Is that alcohol?” he asked with a nasally voice.

Applejack began pouring the drink for each of her guest. “You betcha! It’s the family’s secret cider recipe. Big Macintosh makes this stuff and has a glass every day after he’s done workin’. Helps relax ya.”

As she approached Quatre, he wildly swung his arms in protest. His rapid motions nearly smacked both Duo and Trowa in their respected heads. They took each arm and pinned them to his sides.

“Please, I-I really don’t like alcohol,” said Quatre, shaking his head. “Would you happen to have apple juice? I’d much prefer that.”

Applejack looked at him funny, and then put on a smile. “Sure, I’ll grab you one of Applebloom’s juice boxes.”

She went back once more to the fridge, and Quatre calmed down quite a bit when he watched her pull out a green juice box with her mouth. With her head tilted, Applejack walked up to Quatre with his request and tossed it on to the table. She went back over to the cabinets and began searching through them for food that they could all eat. Quatre let out the blast of air that was clinging in his lungs as he used his magic to remove the straw from the container.

“That was a close one,” he said, as he poked the straw through the designated hole at the top of the juice box.

Everyone at the table exchanged the same look of confusion as they simultaneously gripped their jugs with their hooves. Quatre leaned his head into the table to suck on his straw, humming quietly to himself---or at least, he thought he was.

Duo booped the side of his friend’s nose to get his attention. “Dude, how old are you? I mean, does it even matter how old you are at this point, actually? We’ve been through so much crap with everything---” He made a circle in the air to symbolize what he meant. “---and you flip out and lose your mind over alcohol?”

Quatre finished his sip and looked at Duo. “Alcohol isn’t good for you. I’d rather not indulge in it.”

The alicorn couldn’t have put it better, for Applejack was just about to learn what it was like to house four drunken Gundam pilots in her home.

Being not very avid drinkers, it didn’t take long for those who drank the cider to become intoxicated. Soon the entire house was overrun by chaos and was practically flipped upside down, if it were even possible. Applejack, with the help of Quatre, ran all over the small building to try and capture the rabid pilots before they did harm to themselves. This was something very hard to accomplish, as Quatre knew he and his friends were professionals at getting themselves out of every situation. The others whizzed around the house without a care.

As the two of them entered the once beautiful living room, with its magnificent furniture from past relatives, Applejack nearly cried. Quatre started rubbing her back with his hoof. They reached the center of the room and just stood there dumbstruck. Papers were everywhere, including old photographs and books. Single rugs had been kicked up against the walls. The furniture was flipped on to its side, and Trowa was seen jumping in place on the only chair that was placed in its upright position.

“What in tarnation do you think yer doing?!” yelled Applejack, stomping her hoof on the ground.

Trowa stopped his jumping and landed on the ground, not gracefully at all, as he usually would have. He stumbled up to Applejack and Quatre, tripping over his very legs.

“Hey, hey, did you guys know I was a clown?” he asked them. Almost as soon as he said that, Trowa put his hoof up in front of Quatre’s face, shaking it. “Quatre, don’t answer that, the question’s for Applejack!”

Applejack pushed the leg back down and away from Quatre. “Ah don’t care what ya were, do ya see what ya’ve done to mah house?”

Her faced was suddenly smushed as Trowa pressed his nose up against her’s. He started laughing to himself, the smell of alcohol escaping through his breathe.

“Hey, I’ve got a joke for you!” chortled Trowa.

“Oh really?” asked Applejack, moving back so that she was sure Trowa could see the annoyed expression on her face.

Trowa wouldn’t have it and he pressed his face up against her’s again.

“Knock knock!”

“Who’s there?”

“Merry!”

“Merry who?”

“Merry Christmas!”

Trowa lost it at his own joke and dropped straight to the floor, laughing hysterically. He clutched at his stomach as he rolled along the wood. Quatre could tell that Applejack was not amused at all, for he could swear that steam was coming out of her ears. Her entire face was lit up with rage. To try and leave the situation, Quatre looked around the room to see if he could find any more of his friends. Sobbing was heard coming from the kitchen and he walked up to its entry way, carefully peeking his head inside. Wufei was sitting at the table with his head in the folds of his arms, crying at the top of his voice.

“Hey Wufei, are you going to be alright?” asked Quatre, wrapping a foreleg around the opening and on to the kitchen wall.

The wails of despair grew even louder, and Quatre took that as a negative. He slinked back into the living room, where Applejack was now standing on top of Trowa, trying to talk some sense into him. He was still laughing uncontrollably, and she had his front legs pinned to the ground so that they wouldn’t move.

“Listen, ya’ve gotta get ahold of yerself!”

“But I have so many more knock-knock jokes! Don’t-don’t you want to hear them?!”

In a clean whoosh, Quatre watched as a black blurr flew through the air at great speed, swooped down, and grabbed Applejack’s hat. She got off of Trowa’s body and was now feeling the blank spot on her head, looking around for the perpertrator. And that one pony would be Duo, as he skillfully kicked over Trowa’s former chair and stood on its arm rest, wearing the cowboy hat on his head. He started doing a little jig and was humming to himself.

“Hey, give that back here!” ordered Applejack, pointing at Duo.

Duo looked at her with lustful eyes and sat down on his ordained arm rest. With his imagination, he began playing an invisible guitar and started to sing.

“Some people call me the space cowboy…yeah, some call me the gangsta of love…”

After he said that line, he pointed at Applejack, who stood there with her mouth wide open.

“Look girlie, it don’t look like you’re gonna get any from him right now,” Duo slurred, as he rocked his head back and forth, his braid whishing away. “Why don’t ya come right on over here and get some lovin’ from your pal Duo?”

Applejack gasped, not knowing what to say to those words. She put a hoof up to her mouth and just started making gibberish noises. In a hurry, Quatre got in front of her to block her view from whatever Duo was now attempting to do to attract the mare.

“Listen, I’m really sorry about this,” he said, trying to spout out his words as quickly as possible. “I don’t know what’s gotten into them---well actually, I do know what’s gotten into them, but either way, I apologize! I warned them! I really did!”

Suddenly there was a loud smack, and Quatre turned to face the staircase. Heero had tried to fly down the stairs, but his body slammed him against the sidewall instead. He rolled down the steps and landed at the foot of it all with a grunt. Upon getting up, he walked over to the corner where the staircase met the wall and placed something down on the floor that he was holding in his mouth. It was a red button, one that looked like it belonged on a wooly sweater. He lifted a hoof over it, teetering on his other legs.

“I’m a trained assassin!” cried Heero. He threw his head back and gave off a short laugh. “This mission is over! Our cover is completely blown! I will now blow this whole house up with a press of this button!”

“What in tarnation are ya talkin’ about?” asked Applejack.

“Hey, hey, Heero!” yelled Trowa. He lifted up a hoof and started shaking it in the air. “That’s not funny!”

The green pegasus let out a maniacal laugh and stomped a heavy hoof on to the red button. He jumped in the air with a yelp, giving off a mock explosion, and then proceeded to fly right out the front door. Literally. With his body, he took the wooden door right off its hinges and it was flung outside. Duo giggled to himself and started rubbing his head.

“That’s probably the closest to an actual suicide attempt I’ve seen him do in a while,” he said.

Now outside in the front, Heero flung himself hard on to the cold, hard dirt. He rolled himself a few feet away from the house, laughing all the way. He stopped at some point and landed on his back, allowing for his laughter to slowly cease. He could feel the blades of grass move around his body in a weird sensation, as the winds made them dance. Through the clouds, single rays of sunlight shot through, hitting him right in the face. In such a peaceful state, Heero had almost forgotten he was a pony.

“Hey mister, are you alright?”

Heero turned to see that a young filly, accompanied by a dog, was walking up to him. She was a yellow color, and had a bright red mane. In her hair was a big pink bow that was tied to keep her head in check. The dog that was with her was about her size. Something of a sheep dog it was, with its ruffled patches of white and brown. The dog reached Heero first and started sniffing his face. Frazzled by the sudden creature, he pushed it away with his hooves.

“Winona, that ain’t nice to do to guests!” cried the little one. She had finally reached Heero and stood next to the dog. “Ah’m sorry about that. Ah was takin’ Winona out fer a walk ‘round the farm. Ain’t nothin’ really to do when yer sister won’t let ya leave.”

It was like a shot down his spinal cord. Heero sprang up into a sitting position and started backing away from the filly and the pet. He had broken out into a cold sweat and was now breathing heavily, clutching at his chest.  In his drunken state, he was mentally having a hard time keeping his bearings. Heero wouldn’t have known it, but his pupils were now the size of peas. He looked around rapidly, searching for answers, as a headache started to appear. Where was he? He was still in Ponyville, correct? Though he was sure of it, the comparison his mind made of this little pony with her dog, to the girl and her own puppy that was flashing before his eyes made him question everything.

“Uhh…mister?”

Heero pointed at the filly, trying to form words. “But you’re…you’re…”

His hoof was grabbed by the young one, which somehow brought him back to reality. It calmed him down just enough for him to begin controlling his breathing.

“Ah’m Applebloom, if that’s what yer tryin’ to say,” said the filly. She sniffed at his arm and stuck out her tongue. “Have you been drinkin’ mah big brother’s cider? Ah don’t understand why big ponies like that stuff! It does crazy things to yer head!”

So her name was Applebloom. That’s right. And she was a pony. Heero sighed, finally fully coming back to his senses. The green pegasus watched as she walked up to his side to examine his cutie mark with a quizzical look about her. Loud crashes were heard coming from inside the house, which perked Winona’s ears up. With a quick bark, she ran right through what was once the front door to see the commotion. Now it was just Heero and Applebloom out there by themselves, with the wind flowing through their hair. 

With a smooth sweep, Heero picked the filly up and brought her into his lap, who at first struggled to be freed. She stopped when she realized that there was no intent of harm coming from the stranger. He held her close to his chest with his chin on top of her head.

“My name…is Heero.”

> Luna's Retreat
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As the afternoon sun raised high into the sky, eventually three of the pilots were wounded up by Quatre and Applejack. With the alicorn’s magic and the earth pony’s skill with lassoing animals, Duo, Wufei and Trowa were all caught by their legs and bound. Though it really wasn’t his style, Quatre levitated his friends out into the back behind the house and dropped them to the ground. He summoned a great, big metallic cage around them, so that even if they were to somehow break out of their ropes, there was less of a chance of them escaping that. With their moans, and sobbing, and occasional fits of laughter, they stayed there rolling in the dirt. This gave both Applejack and Quatre a chance to clean up the house and fix the things that had broken.

Heero was the only one that wasn’t put into the cage, and Quatre made a firm decision on that. Having little Applebloom by his side seemed to bring out a part of the Wing pilot that Quatre had always known was somewhere deep inside him. He wasn’t acting violent, irritable, or crazy anymore, but was being very friendly and brotherly to her. Heero could bring out his gentleness if he felt comfortable in allowing it to leave him. Just knowing that brought a great deal of warmth to Quatre’s heart.

As he and Applejack repaired the front door outside, they both heard the younger sister giggling somewhere behind them. Turning around, both she and Heero were just a few yards away in the grass. Heero was lying on his back with Applebloom sitting on his chest in what looked like a play fight. They were pretending to punch each other with both of their hooves meeting at the same time, defending one another from attacks, and tapping each other’s cheeks. Quatre levitated tools with his blue magic and smiled, as he watched the scene unfold. Heero took Applebloom off of him and sat up, and then started punching the very air. He was saying things to her that she took great interest in by jumping up and down on her hind legs, as she tried to copy him in his punching moves.

After everything was taken care of, the other pilots weren’t released until Quatre was sure that all of the alcohol had left their system. By that time it was very much into the late afternoon, with the sky a golden pink, and the stars were slowly appearing in the sky. The ponies inside the cage were sleeping everything off. They all awoke to a loud “poof” as the prison disappeared in a puff of blue smoke, and the ropes holding their legs together became undone. With nothing less than a pounding headache, the three sat on their hindquarters rubbing their foreheads. Quatre stood before them, looking very displeased, with his eyes squinting and brow furrowed.

“I hope you all now understand why I don’t drink alcohol,” he said. His face then lost the aggressiveness and smiled, making ice bags for each pilot appear on top of their heads. “See if you can balance those there for a few minutes. They’ll help you feel better. Applejack says so.”

Wufei pat his ice bag to put more pressure into the coldness seeping into his skull. “I feel disappointed in myself that I had lost complete control. She must never want to see us again.”

“No, she’s fine!” laughed Quatre. “I had told her a little bit about each of you guys, so she seemed to feel bad about getting mad at you all.”

“Wait, what exactly did you tell her?” asked Trowa. He got on to his legs, perfectly balancing the much needed gift on top of his head. “You have to be careful about what you say with ponies here, you know. We’re on a secret mission.”

“I wouldn’t try to badger him about it, Trowa,” mumbled Duo. He got up and tried to gain his footing. “Quatre isn’t a stupid guy, and from what I can kind of remember, Heero shouted something about being an assassin. Now Heero was the stupid guy for saying that to her.” 

He closed his eyes tight and flattened his ears, preparing his body for a good thrashing. One that never came. It was then that Duo had opened his reopened eyes and noticed something. With a single leg, he began pointing to every pilot, muttering numbers under his breath. When he got to himself, he put his hoof back down and looked at Quatre.

“Hey, where’s Heero?” asked Duo.

“He’s actually been playing with Applebloom the entire time,” said Quatre. He raised a hoof and pointed all over the grounds. “They were just having the time of their lives out there!”

Wufei and Duo walked up to each other and glanced at their eyes, right before they started bombarding Quatre with a multitude of questions.

“You allowed a drunken pilot to associate himself with a child?”

“Why the hell wasn’t he put in the cage too?! Man, that’s not fair!”

“What if he hurt her?”

“What if he really did try to blow this place up?!”

Further away from all of these words where they couldn’t even be heard, the pilot in question was sitting with Applebloom on a tall hill overlooking the apple trees and the sunset. They were side by side, their bodies barely touching each other. Heero was a silent stone while Applebloom was a busy bee. She was collecting little yellow flowers from the spot she was sitting in, and was doing her best in making a circlet with them by using her teeth and hooves to tie them together. She was humming a cute tune to herself as she worked on her project. When she was done, she put the flower crown on Heero’s lap.

“It’s done!” cried Applebloom. She clapped her hooves as Heero picked the crown up to examine it. “Me and mah sister used to make ‘em all the time! Do ya like it?”

Heero smiled and put the crown on his head. He looked down at Applebloom, who was now pressing her hooves into his side so that she could get a good look at him.

“It’s cute,” he answered. “What do you think?”

Applebloom snickered and put her body back on the ground. “It actually kind of looks funny on ya. Ah thought it would be a good idea. Ya can take it off.”

“No, I’ll wear it.”

The stars were now more present in the sky, twinkling to their own rhythm.  The sun was halfway over the horizon of the land now and it was starting to get dark. Applebloom sighed and lay down on the grass with her legs spread out. She planted her chin into the dirt, and raised her gaze up to the heavens.

“Ah really like the stars,” she whispered. She looked at Heero, who was also looking up at them. “Heero, what do you think about the stars? Do you like them?”

The sky had turned purple and the balls of gas became even brighter. It had come to his attention that as the sun was now almost gone, the sight of the full moon was upon them. Heero’s eyes glistened, just like the cosmos above their heads. This fascinated the filly, for the stallion seemed to be in deep thought. He wouldn’t answer her questions for another minute, but would continue to stare out into the nothingness of space.

“The stars are beautiful,” Heero finally said. “But they get boring after a while of being so close to them.”

“Huh?” Applebloom wasn’t really sure how to take that answer. Then she saw his wings and laughed. “Oh, yer talkin’ ‘bout flying up there!”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Heero!”

Both ponies looked behind them to see that the Gundam group had arrived. Quatre was in the lead and walked up to the two of them, as Duo made the other two stop dead in their tracks. He pointed to Heero’s head and started whispering to them, snickering with his little grin. Trowa seemed to find the flower crown just as amusing as he contained his own laughter, while Wufei just looked un-amused because of Duo’s comments.

“Hey Heero, we should get going back to the house,” said Quatre, as he reached them. He looked down at Applebloom and waved a hoof. “Hello, Applebloom! I’m Quatre!”

Applebloom waved back, as Quatre turned his attention to Heero’s new sign of royalty. Somehow the yellow flowers nestled within the mat of brown hair didn’t seem out of the ordinary, yet at the same time it was something very strange to see. The slight breeze pushed the smell of the flowers to his face, and he was tempted to lean into Heero’s hair to sniff the crown. The green pegasus took it off his head and held it out in his hooves.

“Could you send this ahead of us back to my room?” asked Heero. He looked down at Applebloom, smiled, then back at Quatre. “I don’t want to lose it.”

Quatre nodded and took the crown with his magic. In a puff of blue, sparkling smoke, the item was gone, headed straight to the house. With that comment, Applebloom jumped on to her legs and tackled herself right into the green pegasus. It was her form of a hug, as Heero gave his own indication of kindness with a nuzzle to the head with a hoof. Quatre smiled at the two of them, as he also heard the reactions of his fellow pilots behind him. He turned to see that Duo had fallen to the ground on his back, his body twitching. Trowa was standing over him, poking him with his legs, while Wufei stood there speechless.

When Trowa looked up and saw Quatre’s concerned face, he waved him off.  Just as soon as he did that, Heero gave one last big hug to Applebloom and departed from her side, heading right up to the black pony on the ground. With his front legs, Heero picked Duo up and threw him into the air. Duo yelped and twirled to straighten himself out before flapping his wings to catch himself. He hovered in the air and looked down at the one who antagonized him. 

“Hey, what the hell was that for?” asked Duo, throwing his arms out.

“Watch your language,” said Heero, as he walked under Duo. “There’s a child nearby.”

A joyful hum was heard as Quatre too walked under the flying pegasus. Wufei and Trowa followed, with the blue one still trying to shake off what he had seen. Duo flew up to the alicorn to catch up to him, and continued to stay at a decent pace to fly right above his head. With Heero as the leader now, they were heading off the farm and through the grassy hills once more, as the day officially turned into night.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Walking through the streets of Ponyville during the night made Quatre very uneasy. With the silence all around them, it reminded him of the first night he had ventured out with Luna. The breezy wind that had been at Sweet Apple Acres had now reached here, as the flags flew and hanging signs of nearby shops swayed with their creaks. The echoing of their hooves, and Duo’s flapping wings, confirmed what Quatre was thinking. Not a pony was in sight, and not even the bars seemed to be open. The only lights that were coming from anywhere were from the dismal little candles in some of the homes, and the very brightness of the stars and moon themselves.

Quatre quickened his pace and caught up with Heero, who seemed to be just as tense as he was. His eyes were darting all over the place, his eyes flickering to every small sound. Quatre looked behind him to see how his to his other friends were doing. Trowa and Wufei looked to be tired, but nothing else. The yellow one yawned and the blue pegasus was fighting through his sagging eyes. Quatre looked all around in the air for Duo and couldn’t see him at first; it was his golden cross that gave him away. His black coat made him blend into the darkness almost completely, and his purple eyes looked to have their own glow to them.

“We shouldn’t have stayed as long as we did,” said Wufei. Now to complement Trowa’s yawn, he gave off his own. “Princess Luna made it clear that she didn’t want us roaming Ponyville at night.”

“Hey, she didn’t say that,” Duo pointed out. “She said that we weren’t going to be going on secret night-time missions because of our screw-up.”

To this, Wufei huffed and slowly began accepting the wrongness to his statement. Trowa looked around, his own ears twitching.

“Speaking of which, where is Princess Luna?” he asked. “Shouldn’t she be out here protecting the town?”

“I’m sure she’s around here,” answered Duo, but his own doubtfulness was showing through his voice. He coughed to clear that up. “The moon is up and the stars are out, and doesn’t she bring that stuff?”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

Quatre’s seriousness was brought to light as his own thoughts were confirmed through his friends.

“When Luna was banished to the moon, Princess Celestia took control of both day and night,” continued the alicorn. His steps became heavy as his body started becoming more alert to the area. “If we haven’t seen Luna by now, that means that she has lost control of the night and is at the castle. Celestia must think it’s too dangerous for her sister to be out.”

“Well then, wait a second,” started Duo, as he lowered himself closer to the ground next to Quatre. He was barely flying now. “Doesn’t that mean that maybe it’s too dangerous for us to be out then?”

“Quatre can protect us,” said Heero. His sudden statement into the conversation brought a clearer focus to the situation at hand to the others. “I know he can.”

And yet another sign that Heero was changing, possibly for the good. Quatre was so touched by his words that he walked closer to him and nuzzled his head. It was the best and only thing that he could do right now, for as soon as he did that, he started concentrating on his surroundings. The pilots huddled closer to each other with Quatre in the middle, forming a close net of friends. With the alicorn being their top defense and offense with his magic, he himself had to be protected at all cost. Every organism that crossed their paths was given a quick once-over, from the occasional mouse to the annoying fly.

With just a few blocks away from town hall, Quatre’s horn gave off the familiar black sparks that everyone knew too well. They all stopped, and the outer ponies looked around for any signs of enemies. Quatre looked at his horn to see that these sparks weren’t as big, nor strong, as the ones he had felt previously. Almost intuitively, his eyes floated to a barrel that was outside one of the many dark homes in the area. Flapping his wings for a second, he leaped over his friends’ heads and walked on over to the very object that gained his most dire attention.

“Quatre, what do you think you’re doing?” hissed Wufei. He leaned his body forward, yet didn’t move his legs an inch. “Return immediately to us!”

It felt like his head was in a misty swamp, for his ears couldn’t comprehend what his friend said. Quatre continued his journey to the barrel, and upon reaching it, his horn stopped sparking. He placed his hooves over the edges to get a look inside to see its contents, with his horn now glowing a bright blue color for light.

“Oh my…”

His friends walked up to him and peaked into the barrel as well. What was inside it were ten black rocks, the same as the rock that was charmed and locked away in Quatre’s room. They sparkled under the magical blue light.

“There are so many of them,” muttered Trowa. He looked at Duo, who was standing right next to him. “The single one that you found the other night is nothing compared to this.”

“They don’t seem to be dangerous,” said Quatre. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but something inside him was telling him so. “At least not yet. The presence of the Abyss hasn’t made it full force with these rocks, but we should still take them back home with us so that I can hide them away.”

The rocks levitated with his magic, and they were off. In a short dash back to the house, the pilots threw their door wide open and made room for Quatre, who ran up the stairs to his room. As he entered it, he walked over to his desk where the magic book, the library book and his enchanted box was. It was something like a purple jewelry box, holding on to its possessions with two golden locks one could just flip up to open. Using his hooves, Quatre did just this, right after he enlarged the box more to hold its new items. He then closed it as fast as he could, releasing a great deal of relief.

His eyes drifted to the book that Heero had originally found for him back at Twilight’s library, the very one that he said he was going to read. The thought of the sorcerer that was depicted inside its page flashed through his mind, and he grabbed the book with his teeth. Lugging it downstairs, he met his fellow pilots by the foot of it and brushed passed them. The living room was lit up by the workings on the lights on the ceiling. Quatre took the book to the table and threw it down, and just as aggressively with his magic, started flipping through the yellowed pages. He found his goal and peered through the paragraphs about the unicorn with his rock.

“Merlin the Manic,” Quatre started, as the others crowded around him. “It says here that his actual name was Merlin White and he was a white magic user, who was head doctor of a village that used to reside within what is now the Everfree Forest, before it was deemed unsafe.”

Quatre’s eyes scanned the page, and continued reading off everything that he felt was important.

“It says here that one day he went to the mountain where Canterlot was in search to replenish his magical herbs, and that he returned with large quantities of these black rocks. In combination with his magic, he used these rocks to help him with his procedures and operations, which would not end in the patient’s favor. The leader of the village than banned him from any more medical cases and questioned him as to why he suddenly started using the rocks. Merlin then told him that…it was because the voices told him to.”

“A good healer gone stark-crazy mad,” snorted Wufei, shaking his head. “Is there anything else?”

Quatre nodded his head as his eyes continued to waver about the page.

“After this was done, something of a plague spread across the village, affecting only the fillies, colts, and foals. They were seen with high fevers and other severe ailments. With no one else in the village qualified to treat them, they sent for help from neighboring settlements. But by the time help arrived, it was too late and everyone who was sick had died. Merlin was accused of using black magic and was going to be kicked out of the village.”

“You make it sound as if that didn’t happen to him.” said Heero.

With his magic, Quatre closed the book, along with his eyes. “That’s because that didn’t happen to him. Merlin died.”

“Did it say how he died?” asked Duo. “Did the villagers just go nuts on the guy or something?”

There was hesitation to this answer, as Quatre rubbed a hoof in between his eyebrows. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and continued.

“It said that the villagers had found him murdered and ripped to pieces in his own home. No pony came up to it, not even the other unicorns. And they didn’t think it was a creature, because the village had guards on its borders at all times.” Quatre looked at all of his friends before he said his next sentence. “Merlin’s pieces, along with all of his rocks, were buried in an unmarked grave in an undisclosed location in the forest.”

“But how is that even possible, when we have those same rocks upstairs, and appearing all over town?” asked Trowa. “Does this mean we’re dealing with a ghost?”

Without time to even think about that question, an envelope suddenly appeared before the group, hovering just above the book. This startled all of the pilots, making them take a step back. It was cloaked with a sparkling, purple essence. The envelope opened itself and presented to them a letter. Quatre stepped forward, reading the parchment aloud.


“Quatre and friends,

I am no longer able to protect Ponyville, or even Equestria. The Abyss has gotten too strong for me to handle, and sister has instructed me to stay at home and hide. She has told me that you all have passed her test, and I must agree that your bonds are starting to become mended. Upon seeing you all yesterday evening, I can believe that Quatre’s heart is becoming more powerful with these new memories. Thus, I am entrusting you all the task of scavenging through Ponyville at night and fighting away this evil, as I sit here in hopes of our salvation.

Do not fail us.”


As soon as the letter was finished being read, it exploded into tiny particles, drifting away into nothing. All of this sudden news left the group of friends with nothing to say. They stood in a circle, staring at the floor, as the information spun through their heads. It was Quatre, with his blue eyes filled with determination, who pounded a hoof on to the floor with enough strength to shake the entire living room.

“We may still not fully understand what’s going on here, but I can’t let history repeat itself!” he shouted. “Innocent lives are becoming gravely sick, and if it’s what I’m thinking, it’s because of those rocks being left out there in the open! This was a step in the right direction, but now we’ve been given full responsibility on what happens to everyone that lives here! It’s time to get to the bottom of this before anyone dies here, and we’ll handle this like the amazing team that we are!”

With great gusto, Quatre threw his hoof out into the open. He looked around at his friends, who were beaming with pride from his little speech. Duo threw his hoof in next, followed by Wufei. Trowa followed, and Heero’s green hoof finishing off their circle completed it. All five of them shouted and threw their arms up into the air at the same time, with excitement and enthusiasm.  Their pact was created, one that could never be broken. With the wind howling and rattling the windows, Quatre couldn’t have been more satisfied to know that the group of ponies that were around him laughing were something he would like to call his friends.

> Rainbow Races
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Wufei awoke the next morning, prepared for his usual routine. As a man dedicated to keeping his body in the most appealing condition to admire his strength, he was one that was always true to his training schedule. The sun had barely risen, which gave his red room a dark bloodied color. The house was quiet, and the only things he could hear were the birds chirping outside his window. This was his signal to get up. He jumped out of his cot and stretched out every appendage, including his wings. They ruffled back into place as he cracked his neck twice by bending it side to side. Wufei threw himself on to the cold, wooden floor to get on his back, propping his front legs behind his head. It was with this position that he would begin his one hundred sit-ups, followed by his two hundred push-ups, and many more exercises. These would never take him very long to do, as he was accustomed to this amount of work he put on his body for over a year now.

After he was done with his workout in his room, he grabbed a white towel from his closet and whipped it on to his blue back by using his teeth. Wufei walked over to the door and opened it, exiting into the living room. As his hooves clopped against the floor heading to the washroom, he was surprised to see that Heero was up as well. The living room was just as dark as Wufei’s bedroom, but anyone could see the fixated, intense blue eyes, even with the lack of light that was about them.  The green pegasus was just sitting on the couch, his front legs crossed over his chest. His eyes were focused precisely on the door. 

“Do you ever sleep?” asked Wufei, as he stopped walking.

“Not really.” Heero didn’t move a muscle to recognize Wufei’s presence.

“What are you doing, then?” asked Wufei. “I never see you up when I do my work out.”

“I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

“Anything.”

As he saw that this conversation was meaningless and going nowhere, Wufei continued his walk to the hallway where the washroom was. He was stopped once again by the sound of Heero’s voice.

“I’m going to leave in a little bit to go to Sweet Apple Acres.”

Wufei turned around, his eyes squinted. “And just what are you going to be doing there? Playing with that kid?”

Silence was his answer, as Heero’s gaze against the front door grew only stronger. Wufei rolled his eyes and proceeded to the washroom, closing the door behind him. As he walked up to the tub, he threw the clean towel on to the floor. Soon the faucet was on and the bath was running with nice, refreshing warm water. He periodically checked its temperature to see if it was to his tastes, and when it was, he hovered himself into it. Wufei sat there, motionless and with his eyes closed, if only for a few minutes. He sank lower into the tub until even his snout was hidden under its waters.

He was reflecting on what had been said to him yesterday while he, Trowa, and Applejack were working within the apple trees. At one point, Rainbow Dash had flown in to take some apple from the orchard, but when she saw Wufei, she began talking to him. She spoke of the racing proposition she had mentioned at their welcoming party, and had wondered if he was still up for it. But of course he still was, so they had agreed that the next day they would race. The meeting time would be at noon, right above town hall.

With his nostrils, Wufei produced many tiny bubbles in the water, blowing air out of his body. Today was that day, and he was physically prepared for it. Now it was time to work on his mental abilities with something to relax him for the next hour. His eyes shot open, and he flung his body over one side of the tub, the opposite of where his towel was. He pulled it back in with a bath toy between his teeth. It was a yellow, rubber duck, which Wufei let into the water, watching it float away in front of him. He grabbed it again with his two front hooves and smacked it, making it squeak. 

After his bath was done, and he had dried off with the towel, Wufei left the washroom to find that Heero’s body on the couch was replaced with Duo’s. He was sipping away on a small carton of apple juice. As soon as he noticed his companion had entered the room, he put the container down and waved.

“Mornin’, Wufei!” said Duo.

Wufei nodded at him. “What’s the situation for breakfast?”

“I guess it’s whatever you want,” Duo shrugged. He pointed at the kitchen. “I bought some juice boxes this morning, and we’ve still got a bunch of sweets from Pinkie Pie’s party.”

“Is that really all that we have?” asked Wufei. Duo nodded, making the blue pony sigh. “That’s nothing substantial at all. This won’t be good for my race today.”

“You have a race today?” asked Duo, tilting his head. “With who? If it’s with Heero, you missed him. He booked it out of here when I woke up.”

“No, it is not with Heero at all,” replied Wufei. He tightened every muscle in his body so that he could straighten his pose, making him look intimidating. “It is with a bold mare that goes by the name of Rainbow Dash. She claims that she is the fastest flyer in all of Equestria.”

There was a scramble of hooves from the second floor, followed by Quatre’s voice at the top of the staircase. Wufei turned around to witness what was going on, as the alicorn carefully crept down the stairs, but stopped halfway once he saw his friends. Quatre gave them a nervous smile and even giggled. He continued his walk down the stairs and got to Wufei, where his smile grew even wider.

“Good morning, everyone!” said Quatre, as gleefully as he could.

“Quatre, you’re acting really weird,” said Duo. He picked up his juice carton and sucked on it again. “What’s going on?”

Another set of hooves began walking down from the second floor, and the sight that befell them made Duo drop his drink. It was Trowa who descended from the staircase in quite the tight jumpsuit, as it made it all the way down to the end of his upper leg. It was made up of multiple different patterns of red, greens, and blues. The suit had slits on the sides for his wings, which seemed to glisten with golden glitter. He ruffled them a little, making the sparkles fall to the floor. Wufei looked like he was going to be sick as a green tint appeared under his cheeks.

“Quatre, thank you very much for helping me get my costume on,” said Trowa. He looked at his body, lifting his hooves. “If it wasn’t for your magic, I don’t know how I would have put this on myself.”

“What kind of injustice has happened to you?!” yelled Wufei. He stomped in place and turned his head to Quatre. “Quatre, explain this to me!”

The alicorn’s ears flattened themselves against his head. “Well, Trowa got a package this morning and it was from Rarity. This was in it, along with a letter.”

Wufei shot Trowa a menacing glare that could have penetrated the very wall. It didn’t seem to affect him, since he was still examining his entire body. He spread his wings out fully, sending the golden sparkles into the air. Some landed on Quatre’s snout, causing his nose to twitch and make him sneeze.

“Trowa, how could you be wearing something like that?” asked Wufei.  This caught the dressed-up pony’s attention so that he would stop moving around. “I know that you are a clown, but how could you be wearing that horrendous get-up made by that supposed fashion designer?”

Trowa flapped his wings feverishly and flew right up to Wufei’s face, pressing his nose against the blue pony’s face. His backside was pointed up into the air, and it looked like steam was coming out of his very nostril. His green eyes looked like they were turning a shade of red with the rage that was emitting from his bones. This sent Wufei back a few steps in worry, but Trowa followed along with him. His teeth grinded against themselves as something of a growl came out from within his throat.

“Don’t you dare say anything bad about Rarity!” hissed Trowa. As he continued, Quatre flew up into the air to try and push his body to the ground, and slowly succeeded. “She is a magnificent mare and I will kindly ask you to refrain from saying anything negative about her!”

“Alright, alright, I will watch what I say!”

Trowa huffed through his nose like a bull, folding his wings up tight. Quatre patted his head in an attempt to calm his friend down. With all of this drama, the only thing besides the heavy breathing coming from the angered one was the sounds Duo was making. He was obnoxiously sipping from his juice box, his eyes glued to the scene of Trowa actually expressing rage. The juice box was closing in on itself with all of the pressure he was putting into it. Trowa whipped his head away from his friends to the direction of the door, and walked around Quatre to reach it.

“She is requesting me to perform in the talent show tomorrow evening,” he said, throwing the door open. It hit the wall with a bang. “I will be going to her boutique now to practice on my balancing act. Good-bye.”

Almost as if nothing had happened at all, Trowa calmly and collectively left the house, into the streets of Ponyville. Quatre walked halfway out the door to wave his friend off. After a mere moment of doing this, he turned around and sighed with a smile. In his mind, that confrontation could have gone in a far worse direction, and he was glad that he had been there to stop it.  Wufei was stunned in his spot on the floor, and it looked like his expression of fear was frozen on to his face. Duo threw his juice box on to the floor, random droppings coming from its straw. He walked up to Wufei and began poking his cheek to try and get some sort of reaction.

“Hey Wufei, you still in there?” asked Duo.

After three more pokes, Wufei came back to this world and swatted Duo’s arm away from his face.

“I am fine, Maxwell!” shouted Wufei. He walked up to the door next to Quatre and peeked outside, watching as their clown walked away into the distance. “I didn’t think he could lose his composure like that.”

“I bet he has a crush on that Rarity chick,” said Duo, snickering at his own comment. He skipped outside and jumped into the air, doing little circles a few feet off the ground. “The guy fell in love with a little pony! That’s the funniest thing ever!”

“You’re one to talk, Duo!” said Quatre, as his head bobbed by tracing the black one’s path. “When we first came here, you were flaunting about yourself and Princess Luna!” His cheeks reddened and he turned his head to the ground. “You were also flirting with Applejack, which was really embarrassing to watch.”

Duo waved every single comment off with his arm as he continued to do tricks and spins in the air. At a drop of a coin, he was able to change direction without a moment of hesitation. His cross would shine in the sunlight when it was hit, momentarily blinding his friends and those around him. Other ponies had stopped to watch. Even with this condition, Wufei watched in awe at Duo’s aerial skills, as he shot up higher into the air. He walked out on to the street to get a better view of the act, with his friend flying above him. Wufei spread his own wings, but didn’t take off---he just looked at them. Doubt crossed his face, but just as it had come, he forced it out of his mind, only to have it return to him again.

With tiny flutters, Duo hovered back down to the ground, bowing to his little audience. Quatre got up on to his hind legs and clapped with his hooves in applause. Duo did multiple bows to the villager, but was stopped when someone tapped his shoulder. He looked forward to see that it was Wufei, shyly avoiding eye contact with him.

“You seem to be a skilled flyer,” said Wufei, casually coughing every now and then. “Mind if you teach me some of those tricks before my race with Rainbow Dash today?”

“Wait, you’re racing Rainbow Dash? Are you sure about that?”

This voice swimming with concern had come from Quatre, who was now advancing towards them. Wufei’s ears straightened up, his short tail flicking about.

“Yeah, is there a problem with that?” he asked. “Do you think I won’t win?”

Quatre had stopped walking and held a single front hoof in the air. He opened his mouth to say something, but immediately shut it when he saw the pain Wufei was trying to hide within his eyes. Instead of saying his original thoughts, he put on a soft smile for his friend.

“No problems here,” Quatre said gently. “You’re going to be just fine.”

“Good.” Wufei said quickly. He turned his head to look at Duo. “Now, about those techniques of yours. You will teach them to me, correct?”

Duo sat down and shrugged, his eyes blinking rapidly. “Sure, I guess so. It’s not like you to ask for favors or anything, Wufei.”

“Don’t mind any of that, just go back inside and grab your bag,” said Wufei, pointing at the braided one. “I’m starving, so we’re going out for breakfast first.”

“Are you kidding me?” asked Duo, throwing his arms up into the air. “I already told you, we’ve got food in the house!”

“And like I’ve already told you, that food isn’t sufficient for a race. We’re eating healthy this morning, and you’ll be buying us breakfast.”

Though not at all pleased with this order, Duo got back on to his legs and stomped to the house, huffing and puffing all the way. Wufei looked up into the sky in the direction of town hall, where its different colored flags swayed gently in the almost unnoticeable breeze. The atmosphere was unlike the one that was present the day before, where the winds rocked every single house with its power. Though cloudy, it was sunny; with this, however, it still didn’t change the one common factor that both days held. The streets were still bare of its young ones giggling and laughing, and the adults still remained in their stressful state.

Even though he was living in his own mind at the moment, Wufei felt Quatre’s presence approaching, and wasn’t shocked when he was next to him. They stood, side by side, watching the very flags change course in the breeze.
____________________________________________________________________________
The sun stood directly above the three pilots, beating down on their backs, as they were now above the tallest point of town hall just a few hours later. Wufei flew around impatiently in circles, sometimes even breaking out of one to create his own figure-eight patterns in the sky. Quatre and Duo were lying on a large cloud together, legs folded in, casually chatting away. The others hadn’t discovered that their pegasi abilities allowed them to sit on clouds and control the weather, so while they were waiting, Quatre showed them. As other pegasus ponies flew by, Quatre would stop talking to wave at them as a friendly greeting. This made even the oldest of mares blush at him.

With every pony that flew their way, Wufei become more and more agitated. At one point, he suddenly flew to town hall’s peak and got on top of its ball. He stomped all four of his legs repeatedly, grunting with every movement. Quatre and Duo ended their conversation when they saw this and rushed on over to him, leaving their cloud behind.

“I don’t understand it!” howled Wufei. He stopped jumping and shook his head. “Where is she? Rainbow Dash said at noon she would be here!”

“I’m sure she’ll be here soon!” said Quatre, flying right up to Wufei’s body. He placed his two front hooves on his shoulders to try and steady him. “Knowing her, she’ll be here in a second, I promise!”

Just as soon as he said that, a cerulean blur mixed with rainbows sped passed them in the sky, zooming right by Duo. The motion caused him to spin in the air like a dradle. The mass of blue came to a mid-air stop, revealing itself to be none other than Rainbow Dash. She flipped her mane to get the hair out of her face, smiling all the way. Wufei got off of his perch as she flew up to the group of three.

“Sorry about that, guys!” shouted Rainbow Dash. “I was getting my cheerer ready for me!” She rubbed the tip of a hoop against her chest, as if it could make it shine by doing so. “The greatest flyer in all of Equestria can’t go into a race with her cheerer!”

Suddenly Wufei’s eyes widened and he looked at his two friends. One, being Duo, was holding his head to try and get over the fact that he was seeing stars. The other, Quatre, was frantically waving his arms about, not sure as to what he should do to help his friend. Wufei pointed to them with a sense of pride in his voice.

“These are my cheerers,” he said. “Quatre and Duo.”

Rainbow Dash nodded, crossing her arms. “That’s pretty cool that you’ve got two.” She put on a smile and let out a nervous chuckle. “Well, my cheerer is worth two cheerers, so we’re equal!”

“And where is your cheerer?” asked Wufei, his eyes searching for other pegasi.

“She’s at her place with the animals,” replied Rainbow Dash, pointing off into the distance where trees started to gather. “She’s Fluttershy. The race will be at her house.”

“F-Fluttershy?”

Now it was Duo who had to help his friend, for Quatre’s wings decided to not work and almost sent him falling down. Duo had hooked him underneath his front legs and was flapping his wings even harder to carry the extra weight. The pure white face of the alicorn was now a flushed red; he scrambled his arms so that he could cover his face, as his mouth let out a squeal.

“That’s a little weird,” said Rainbow Dash, her eyebrows raised. “Is he going to be okay? We’ve really got to get going.”

Wufei slapped his hooves to his eyes, for he couldn’t bear to watch this. Duo leaned in to whisper into Quatre’s ear, his breath tickling its inner parts, making that part of his body twitch.

“Dude, get a hold of yourself,” he said quietly. “Wufei is going to have our heads!”

Quatre nodded and vigorously rubbed his face one last time. He squirmed out of Duo’s grasp and was now flapping his own wings, keeping his body afloat in the air. With that being done, Rainbow Dash nodded her head and took off into the sky where the forest was. Startled by the sudden burst of speed, Wufei bolted after her, leaving both of his friends to try and catch up with them.

The mare was moving so fast, but even at her pace, Wufei was catching up to her with increasing acceleration. Soon he was flying right next to her, his arms out in front of him. With her rainbow mane slapping the air behind them, Rainbow Dash smirked at him, a daring look in her eye. She was met with the very same from Wufei. She kicked up speed and was now crashing through clouds with him, having Duo and Quatre behind to deal with the puffy white pieces smacking in their faces. It had now turned into a miniature game for them, to beat down every cloud that was in their path. They were inadvertently clearing the skies for the ponies below, who waved up to them in thanks for their actions.

Soon they were flying over a tiny wooden cottage on the outskirts of the dense woods. It was settled next to a babbling river, a bridge connecting it to a path that led to town. The area was ordained with thick bushes, bird houses, and flowers. Further ahead of them was some sort of cloud shaped obstacle course, with what looked like rings made out of the fluff. Rainbow Dash shot down from the air, followed close behind by Wufei. They promptly landed right at the front door, kicking up a gust of dirt. Rainbow Dash flitted the material away with her wings, chuckling, as Duo and Quatre landed behind them, gasping for air. She gave a good punch to Wufei’s shoulder, as he stood there trying to keep his cool. He wasn’t going to admit it, but it felt like his lungs were going to collapse and that his heart was going to burst out of his chest.

“That was pretty fun, wasn’t it?” asked Rainbow Dash. “Just as I thought, you’re a pretty good flyer! I can’t wait for this race!”

“Same.”

With as much enthusiasm as she had, Rainbow Dash pounded her hoof into the wooden door. Slowly, it began to creak open, and a shaking yellow pegasus poked her head out. It was Fluttershy, hiding half of her face with her long, pink hair.

“H-Hello?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. When she realized who was at her door, she opened it wider, stepping outside. “Oh, it’s Rainbow Dash.” She moved her head to the side to see the two stallions standing further back. “And is that...Duo?”

At first, Duo’s eyes held nothing but confusion as he looked right at the yellow pony. Finally, something clicked in his head and he waved right at her.

“Yup, that’s me!” he shouted. His boisterous voice made her cringe. “I’m surprised you remembered my name!”

“Well, yes, I couldn’t ever forget it,” said Fluttershy. She flattened her ears. “You were so very loud.”

The noise of someone hyperventilating was heard, and Duo turned to his side to see that Quatre had turned beet red again. His chest was heaving in and out, and his wings were flapping at the speed of light. Even feathers were flying out from the wild motions. Fluttershy gasped and walked up to him, as Rainbow Dash gave him the same weird look from before and Wufei shook his head in shame.

“Umm, excuse me—” started Fluttershy, as she reached a hoof out to Quatre. “—but are you going to be okay?”

All breathing stopped, as Quatre fell on to his side, a happy smile on his face. Fluttershy yelped in fear and began flying around in circles above the fallen stallion. Duo walked up to Quatre and kicked him gently in the leg; there was a reflex of the body kicking back, so at least he wasn’t dead. Laughing awkwardly all the way, Quatre pushed himself back up on to his feet, but was immediately tackled by the yellow mare. She grabbed hold of his body from the front and started speaking at the speed of light.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay? That was so scary! You’re going to be okay, right? Oh dear, oh my, please be okay!”

“I-I’ll be fine!” squeaked Quatre, his face still flustered. His eyes darted everywhere and he brought his shoulders close to his neck. He held out a hoof for Fluttershy to shake. “My name is Quatre.”

Fluttershy lightly touched it. “Hello there. I’m Fluttershy.” When she felt that there was no threat, she put on her own sweet smile. “Oh, you look just like this little foal I saw the other day with my ducks!”

Quatre squealed again. “Really? You really did?”

“Yes, and he was so cute!” replied Fluttershy, rolling her eyes up to the sky. By doing this, she missed Quatre’s little dance. “This pony named Trowa was watching him. Duo was watching him too!” Her eyes went to Duo, who had a hoof up to his mouth. “How is the little baby pony?”

“You know what, he’s got a little fever today,” said Duo, who was trying to hold in his laughter. “He’s all red and stuff. Mama’s taking real good care of him.”

“Yeah, yeah, can we get on with this thing?” asked Rainbow Dash, stomping a hoof into the ground. “I want to start racing!”

Not waiting for an answer at all, Rainbow Dash bent her knees and took off right back up into the clouds. Wufei did the same to catch up with her. Duo left the ground as well, but he didn’t get far until he realized that Quatre and Fluttershy weren’t behind him. He turned to see that the two of them were conversing on the ground, with the mare shaking in fright. Quatre was talking to her and reassuringly put his hoof on her head. She nodded and said something to him in response. Quatre and her slowly ascended, with the alicorn taking hold of one of her arms to help her up. She was doing her best not to panic, with the tiny tears rolling out of her eyes being her only release. When they reached Duo, he grinned and took her other arm, and went along with them to their destination.

The racing course made out of clouds wasn’t too far off from Fluttershy’s house. It was enclosed by its own cloud ring to keep the race track together. When they reached it, they landed on a cloud platform with two poles, holding red flags on them. The group had landed right in between them. The track itself had many things to it; cloud rings to fly through, random cloud blocks, and even narrow pathways that looked it would create a single-file stream. Not too far off from them was another platform with its own set of red flags.

“Okay, so this is it!” yelled Rainbow Dash. “It took me forever to make, but I wanted to make sure this was good enough for the both of us!”

“It seems like a worthy course,” said Wufei, as he surveyed the whole thing. “You put a lot of work into it.”

“Well, I’m the best around here, so yeah!” Rainbow Dash said with a cocky laugh.  She got really close to Wufei and started pointing to the different obstacles. “Okay, here’s the course. First you’ve got to go through all ten of the rings, okay? You can’t hit them at all. Then, what you’re gonna want to do is kick out fifteen of those clouds. I made thirty in total, so that’s fifteen for both of us. And then, after that, you’ve gotta go through the pathway I made there.” She rocked her head in the opposite direction of Wufei’s face. “Now, you’d think once you get to the pathway, the winner be pretty much be a set deal, because you can’t go around anyone. But once you get out, you’ve still got at least another thirty feet to get to the finish line!”

“It sounds like a promising race.” said Wufei, nodding.

“Umm, excuse me, Rainbow Dash?”

The mare in question turned around to spy Fluttershy shaking like a leaf. Quatre was calmly petting her head to soothe her, but it didn’t seem to be working.

“W-where can the three of us stay?” asked Fluttershy. “I don’t want to get us hurt.”

“You guys can chill on the sidelines over there!” shouted Rainbow Dash, pointing to the course outline on her right.

With that being cleared out, Fluttershy darted over there in flight, leaving Duo perplexed. He poked Quatre in his side to get his attention, for he was now looking all around him at the wonders of the heavenly area.

“Hey Quatre, what’s up with her?” he asked. “She couldn’t fly up here without us, but then she just goes and does that by herself.”

“She’s just scared, that’s all,” answered Quatre, moving his eyes to her. He waved at her, and she shyly wove back. “She doesn’t like heights. Come on, let’s go over there.”

As the two of them went to join Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash was revving herself up for the event. She got low and kicked at the ground, digging into the cloud they were standing on. Wufei did the same as her, and they simultaneously spread their wings to get ready. The three cheerers were watching intently at the suspenseful wait; Duo and Quatre were sitting next to each other, but the alicorn made it his duty to have Fluttershy on his other side. She was pressing her hooves up to her mouth and mumbling many things at once that didn’t even sound like a type of language. Nervous sweat was coming out of her pours, along with more tears, as her eyes kept on darting to the ground below. 

Quatre noticed this, and pressed his hoof against her back. The tension that she was holding in her muscles was released, and he felt it in the pit of his stomach. It was like it was turned into knots, even more so than the ones it were in now. She put her hooves down and smiled at him, a blush forming in her cheeks. Quatre smiled back, but continued to think on what he had just felt.

“Alright, we go when I say go, okay?” asked Rainbow Dash.

Wufei nodded.

“1...2...3...go!”

And they were off as fast as lightning. Rainbow Dash was instantly in the lead, for she had turned into a stream of colors before Wufei’s eyes. He couldn’t be behind her, not at the very start of the race. He flapped his wings harder and tried to pick up speed, as the jungle of cloud rings quickly approached them. As he best he could, he tried to swerve around and pass her, but she was moving her body in random directions, making that idea almost impossible.

They had reached the rings and she was still in front. But at this point, Wufei was right on her tail, sweat droplets forming around his brow. Rainbow Dash passed through the first five rings in front by herself, but after that Wufei was by her side. This seemed to shock her at first, but then it only increased her want to win. The rings were big enough to fit the two of them as they streamed through the rest together. Now it was on to getting rid of the cloud blocks in a timely manner.

As that process began, Duo and Quatre’s ears were being pelted by the screams coming from the quietest of them all. Fluttershy was belting out her cheers, yelling at the very top of her voice.  She was moving her body in every which way, going with every chant she could think of. Quatre was eyeing her carefully, but at the same time, giving support for his own friend by shouting. Duo was trying to top Fluttershy by hopping up and down in place, hooting and howling.

“Hi there, everypony!”

The cheer group ceased as the three of them turned to meet their visitor. Applebloom was with them, along with Heero. He was holding her close to his chest, as his own body was in a vertical position. He was just beyond the outline of the race course, and seemed intent on staying there, for he wasn’t moving any closer with the filly in his arms. She seemed absolutely delighted and waved at the group, but it was Fluttershy’s shriek that wiped the smile off of her face.

“Oh my gosh, Applebloom!” she cried. “What are you doing, it’s dangerous up here!” She glared right at Heero, showing her strong, maternal side. “She shouldn’t even be here! She’s supposed to be on the farm so she doesn’t get sick! You bring her right back to the ground this instant!”

“Aww, come off it Fluttershy, it’s okay!” said Applebloom. “Applejack just wanted to see how ya’ll were doin’, ‘specially you, Fluttershy. She knows ya don’t like heights.” She pushed her head back to look up at Heero, her bow brushing against his chest. “Also, we’re gonna try gettin’ mah skydivin’ cutie mark today!”

“Skydiving?” repeated Quatre. He turned to fully face Heero. “And what does that entail?”

“Well, that’s easy!” giggled Applebloom. She threw her arms up into the air. “Heero’s goin’ to let me go, and ah’m gonna land on the ground!”

Duo smacked his face. “Heero, are you on crack?! Why are you trying to teach this one how to be Evil Knievel and do all the crazy things you do?! She doesn’t even have a parachute!”

“That’s never stopped me before,” said Heero with a mischievous grin.

Applebloom giggled some more. “Well duhh, that’s ‘cause you’ve got them wings!”

“Heero, just please bring her back to the farm in one piece,” ordered Quatre, waving an arm at him.

Almost like they were twins, both Heero and Applebloom sighed together. And just as suddenly as they came, they were gone; Heero took a nosedive with her to the ground. Even though that put Duo and Fluttershy in a fearful position for the filly, Quatre was sure that Applebloom was going to be fine. The three of them turned around just as the racers finished their last cloud blocks simultaneously. Now they were heading for the narrow pathway.

Wufei was giving it his all to try and get in front. Rainbow Dash and him were neck and neck, and only one pony could get in front for this last obstacle. He could feel the soreness in his wings, but he knew that he couldn’t give up now. Yet this goal of his was crushed, for somehow Rainbow Dash was able to let out another spurt of energy. She flew right in front of him just as they both entered the pathway. With its sharp turns, Wufei had to do everything in his power to not smack his body right into a wall. He concentrated on the flailing rainbow tail in front of him, and lowered his speed just a bit to give them space for turns. This also allowed him to save up on energy. He remembered the distance between this obstacle and the end of the course; if he could just let it go then, he might have a chance.

They had just popped out of the exit, and Wufei could hear the yells coming from the cheering section far behind them. This was when he gave it all he got. With the last amount of energy he had, he shot up next to Rainbow Dash once more. The end was in sight, and with their bodies almost the exact same distance from each other, it could be anyone’s race. 

Unfortunately, this would be a race shared by the two opponents, for they both crossed the finish line at the same time.  Rainbow Dash came to an almost complete stop on the platform and used her wings to slow down her momentum. Wufei, however, did not have this technique, and thus skidded out when his hooves touched the cloud. He toppled over on to his side and his body continued moving, sending him rolling over the edge and on to a cloud a few feet below. The softness of its cushions catching is weak and tired body, Wufei groaned in pain. He tried to get to get himself up, but instantly collapsed on the first attempt. The stress the race put on his whole body was incredible.

Rainbow Dash stood over him just as he tried to get up a second time, but failed. She stuck her face close to his.

“Are you okay there?” she asked him. “I didn’t expect you to just fall off like that.”

“I…I lost.”

“No, we tied.”

Wufei shook his head, moving parts of the cloud beneath his chin. “You don’t understand. I’ve now lost my honor and dignity to a pony. I thought I was going to win.  I am a disgrace. I’ve lost not only my pride, but I have lost this race against you, Rainbow Dash.”

Suddenly, his body was lifted up and held in the air by none other than his opponent. He allowed for this to happen, for there was nothing he could do. His body was completely limp and hung there in her arms like a sack of potatoes.  Rainbow Dash looked him straight in the eye with a gentle, yet strong gaze.

“Listen, you didn’t lose,” she said. “I told you, we tied. Which means that you are equally as good as the fastest flyer in all of Equestria.” She shook her head, frowning a little. “Isn’t that enough to keep your pride? That you’re on par with the best of the best?”

Wufei closed his eyes and smiled. It was then, at that point, she he knew she was right. 

“I guess I didn’t come to that realization.” he said.

“I mean, you know, I’m not a big fan of tying myself,” said Rainbow Dash, tossing her head to the side. She chuckled at her own words. “Oh well, what’s done is done, right?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Thank you for teaching me that and showing me what I am truly capable of. It was a good race.”

As Wufei and Rainbow Dash landed right back on the cloud for the pilot to rest, the cheering group was on their way over there to see what was going on. The sun was now shifting into a later part of the sky to signal that the afternoon was getting on its way. Every pony checked in on Wufei, and he assured each cheerer that he was going to be fine. He overheard Quatre speak with Rainbow Dash on what to do to treat his fatigue, and words such as ‘bath’,  ‘sleep’, and ‘food were tossed around. At this point, Wufei didn’t care quite what happened to him at the moment. He was busy reflecting on the lesson had just learned. Maybe losing over the little things wasn’t right to start fussing over and losing control---it was the bigger obstacles that you had to win. Things such as losing at a staring contest, or even tying in a race shouldn’t be treated as such a big deal. Those are the things one should try and enjoy. However, there was one thing that Wufei must not lose, or else he would never forgive himself or his teammates: that was this mission.