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                   Equestria and Beyond                    
                        -by lowfn-                         
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                         Equestria                         
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Equestria
Twilight Sparkle was simply reading in her library, trying to improve upon her cooking skills after the terrible pie she made the other day.
She looked up from her book and smiled as she saw her friends enjoying their visit to her library. Pinkie Pie was reading a Daring Do book with Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy was petting her bunny, Angel, Rarity was looking at the 'latest' magazine, and Applejack was toying with Spike and both were laughing all the while.
Just as Twilight finished her book she heard a knock from outside the door. She and her friends seemed frightened by this, due to the sudden large amount of missing ponies around Ponyville, and the rest of Equestria as well! She stood back from the door and slowly opened it using her magic, ready to blast whatever villain that was there to smithereens.
What she saw standing in the doorway was no criminal, but in fact Princess Celestia. "May I come in, Twilight," the Princess solemnly asked, with her head held low. Twilight nodded and the Princess stepped in and sat down near the others. As Twilight was closing the door, after looking around to see if there were any wrong-doers, she asked, "Why are you here Princess? Not that I don't want you here, I love it when you visit, but I'm sure it wasn't to just say hello."
Twilight's friends stopped their activities and turned their heads to see just why the Princess was here. She spoke softly, still with that unhappy, sad tone, "As you all are aware, many ponies have gone missing around Equestria and, I fear elsewhere too. I have absolutely no idea what could be causing this, but I am sure whatever it is, it will try to take us too." Rainbow Dash interrupted the Princess and spoke with a concerned tone, "Where are you going with this?"
The Princess finally lifted her head to meet their gaze and said, "I need you all to figure out what is taking our citizens, I would try and send some guards with you or even go by myself, but I need the guards and me here to help keep the ponies from disappearing at an even faster rate."
Twilight spoke up, "Why us? We don't even know where to start looking! There's no evidence left behind, no clues, th-"
Celestia waved her hoof and showed Twilight a map of Equestria and beyond. "There is a land far from here called Cervidas. If my knowledge of it is correct, it contains vast amounts of knowledge in their center-city, Concordia. You can get to Cervidas by going straight to Eternity's Bridge." She ran her elegant hooves along the map as she described each of the locations.
Everypony but the Princess looked at each other in confusion, not having ever heard of this far away land of Cervidas. Not even Twilight, with her extensive knowledge of these types of things, understood this.
Applejack ended the silence by asking, "How in the hay are we going to get there? I don't wanna sound like a slacker, but I'd appreciate not walking a million miles." Twilight looked to her and nodded, "She's right, the trains are closed due to the disappearances and the only other way to get there is walking, or flying, and I'm not used to my wings enough to trust them with that distance."
Celestia's mood seemed to lighten up only slightly by hearing the others talk, "You do not need to worry about that, I have some transportation for you all arranged at Fillydelphia. Although, you will have to walk there on your own. Now quickly, we don't want to waste any time." Twilight and her friends all were leaving the library and said out to the princess, "We won't let you down!"
They were all walking in silence to the Everfree Forest, scared that somepony could be lurking in the fog surrounding their small town.
The walk through Everfree was not at all eventful, a few of them slipped on the way, but other than that they had a smooth and calm walk to the other side.
They arrived to Fillydelphia and found a group of 15 guards around a strange metal contraption with small puffs of steam coming out of it. When the guards saw the six ponies, they walked into the Everfree without a word at all.
"What do you suppose this ugly thing is," Rarity commented.
"It appears to be some strange moving machine, like the one the Flim-Flam brothers used, but smaller," Twilight answered as she eyed the machine.
Applejack hopped in the machine and laughed, "I remember when them two got run outta town when their cider tasted like rocks! Ha!" Pinkie Pie joined in on Applejack's laughing, "Yea that was funny! I bet some colts turned that cider into stink bombs!" And for once, in a very long time... All of them laughed and were truly happy.
Twilight turned the machine on and started a course for Eternity's Bridge.
Pinkie spread her arms out like wings on top of the machine and was singing along with the others as they drove to the bridge.
As they saw the coastline their machine stopped driving, and only as slowly moving forward due to it's inertia. All the ponies hopped off and came to the bridge. It was somewhat frightening seeing the long bridge fade away into the mist beyond.
"Well girls," said Twilight, "Let's get walking."