The Cutie Mark Crusaders awoke the next day ready to head again to Twilight's castle. Sweetie Belle was eager to ask her about the strange feeling in her horn, and none of them had yet lost interest in earning their cutie marks writing the newest princess's life story. Immediately upon exiting the clubhouse, though, Applejack hailed them.

"Why hey there girls! C'mon up and join us for breakfast, we could really use y'all's help today getting ready for the reunion!"

"Aww," Sweetie Belle drooped, "do we have to?"

"Well, I can't make you, sugarcube, but Applebloom does, and I bet Rainbow'd be real sad if Scoots didn't wanna back her up. The reunion's starting in five days and we could really use the help. 'Sides, there's pancakes in it for y'all, and Granny made way too much pie, so better'n good chances of some of that for lunch."

Sweetie pouted on general principle, but couldn't keep her mouth from watering just a little. Beside her, Scootaloo aborted her own sulk at the mention of Rainbow Dash. Applebloom just shrugged.

"It isn't like Twilight's going anywhere," she said, "we can catch up with her tomorrow."

The other two nodded, and they followed Applejack off towards the farmhouse. As they approached, the smell of pancakes and syrup wafted over the orchard.

"I wish we could get pancake eating cutie marks," Sweetie grumbled.

"If you could, you'd have been first in the class, Sweetie," Scootaloo said.

"You'd have gotten your 'drooling over Rainbow Dash' mark first," she shot back.

"Yeah I've heard that one before, get some new material."

"She's just jealous," Applebloom said.

"I am not! You stay out of this!"

Walking just behind, Applejack sighed and started trying to figure out which jobs the Crusaders could be safely left to do on their own.

Twilight similarly awoke fully prepared to research new magical scans, only to be similarly derailed: in her case, by a delivery from Celestia, via Spike.

"Oh, this is exciting," she told him, scanning the letter, "she's sent the agenda for the next few months! She'll be sending along the first few requests for our friendship services, until we can set up a system for dealing with them here, and we can expect those within a week. Also some additional staff and new jurisdictional laws. She thinks the top two floors could house a courtroom and other things so that we can run Ponyville and the area South ourselves and keep some of the load off Canterlot, that's a good idea. Oh! And here's a list of things from the old castle in the Everfree that might be useful! So much work to do!"

"Jeez, I've never heard anypony so excited about work. Not even Applejack!"

"Spike, these are exciting changes! And we get to be right at the middle of it! This is the kind of thing I was excited about doing when I first became a princess! Sure, it'll be a lot of work, but we'll have our friends to help, and Celestia says she'll be coming too, in a few weeks!"

"Well, you'll have your friends to help after this weekend."

"Oh right," Twilight frowned, "the reunion. Well, we have the guards until then. We can start with the castle, they can use more training dealing with the Everfree anyway. We'll leave today!"

"Ugh," Spike said, "that castle is so spooky."

"Why don't you stay here, then? I was planning to do some research into magical detection and analysis today. I obviously won't have time for a little while, but it'd be a huge help if you could pull the relevant books for me."

"I dunno. What if you need me out there?"

Twilight nuzzled him. "It feels like we've been to the castle almost as often as we've been to the market, and this time I'll have guards with me. We'll be fine, and it really would help if my number one research assistant could get that project ready for me."

Spike brightened and saluted. "Consider it done, your highness!"

Twilight glared at him, but couldn't help but giggle. Leaving him to it, she hurried off to find Last Standing and organize the trip.

Sweetie Belle had a completely successful start to her day. She'd stayed at her parents' house the previous night, both to appease their desire to occasionally see her, and to reduce the chances she'd be waylaid into more farm work before she could head to the castle. This plan succeeded admirably - she rose later than the Sweet Apple Acres' roosters for once, enjoyed breakfast with her family, and by late morning found herself trotting happily in the direction in the still strangely new crystal tower-cum-tree that loomed over the town.

She reached the castle only to find a guardpony standing rigidly outside the gate. With the way their uniform armor disguised their natural coloration and hid their cutie marks - Twilight's guard's coats were the same pristine white of Celestia's, but their armor was a lavender not unlike the Princess's coat - Sweetie couldn't tell if it was one of the same ones that they'd met on their ill-fated late night visit. She trotted up, hoping that the guard's presence meant Twilight had settled on a permanent guard rotation, rather than that she was unavailable.

"Hello sir," she said in her best harmless schoolfilly tone, "is the Princess in?"

She noticed the guard's rigid stance relaxing a little. Harmless schoolfilly worked every time.

"Sorry little lady," he said, "you just missed her."

"Rats, I really need her help on a project. Any idea when she'll be back?" She broke out the watery eyes for good measure.

"I'm afraid you're out of luck," it seemed for a moment like he'd stop there, but then he looked at the watery eyes again, and was lost. "She took most of the guards on a mission to the old castle in the Everfree. Something about retrieving research materials. She said they'd need all day to gather everything, and they don't want to be tromping through the forest at night, so I don't expect them back until tomorrow afternoon. You really did just miss them, I don't think they left more than half an hour ago."

"Awwww," Sweetie said, "thanks anyway, sir." She gave him a smile and saw him nod and smile a bit in return, then she trotted off back the way she'd come.

As soon as she turned the corner out of sight, though, she made a hard turn towards the edge of town and broke into a gallop. She figured if they'd only left half an hour ago, and were planning to go all day, she could probably catch up before they'd gone too far into the forest. Certainly not any further than she and her friends had gone before.

She felt like she'd probably made a personal best time to the edge of the forest, but still there was no sign of Twilight or her guards. She was getting winded, and had to slow her pace a little, but pressed on regardless. She briefly wondered if they'd somehow taken another route, but dismissed the thought - nopony would tromp off through the trackless parts of the Everfree compared to following the path. So she pressed on, her gait gradually slowing.

She lost sight of town distressingly quickly. Ponies used the path often enough, either to go to Zecora's hut or to visit the old castle, that it was well-worn and she was in no danger of getting lost, but she always forgot how dense the Everfree was. She barely felt she'd left Ponyville's outskirts before nothing of the town was visible through the tangled brush, vines, and branches, and the false-dusk of the dense canopy was complete. Enough daylight penetrated that she could follow the path without issue, even with unlit horn, but she could barely see more than two or three of her body lengths off the path through the gloom and vegetation.

As fatigue slowed her, her hoofbeats softened, and she began to be able to make out the softer sounds of the forest. Birdsong filled the air, though none of the birds were kinds she recognized from town, despite barely being out of sight of the forest's entrance. The chaotic trees and strange weather created errant breezes, which rustled branches and grasses and played across Sweetie's coat.

None of it was exactly threatening - in fact, in another context, it might have been pleasant - but it was all so different. Combined with the weird green-tinted half-light, Sweetie found herself glancing nervously around the forest. The hard-packed earth of the trail showed no hoofprints, and she wondered again if Twilight's group had taken a different route. She glanced behind her, and saw that the dry soil was tough enough that her own passage was leaving no trace she could see. Still, she wavered, gazing at the trail she'd tread, and strongly considered heading home.

Just as she was about to turn around, though, her ears pricked up at the sound of a branch snapping behind her and to the left, from the direction of the deepest parts of the forest. Not long after, it was followed by the heavy sound of a large creature moving through the undergrowth. Sweetie'd thought her heart was already pounding from running, but now it sounded nearly as loud in her ears as the snapping branch had. She found her wind again and, all thoughts of moving towards the sound gone, she began to gallop again, going flat-out down the trail deeper into the forest.

She kept her ears pricked as much as she could, straining to hear over the sound of her heart and hoofbeats. She thought she could hear the crunching sound coming steadily from behind, but couldn't be sure whether it was real or a phantasm brought on by her growing panic. She glanced behind, hoping to make something out, but whatever she'd heard (was hearing?) wasn't on the trail, and the dense undergrowth kept her from being able to make it out.

Then the trail hooked sharply to the left, and the undergrowth cleared over a large patch of poison joke - probably the same one that her sister and friends had stumbled over on their first trip to Zecora's. The bright blue plant reflected so much of the dim light it seemed to glow, and it's strange poison kept the patch free of the otherwise ubiquitous undergrowth, allowing her to see clearly if dimly clear across the large patch. At the far side she saw a form of the same size and shape as a pony, and stopped suddenly, fear replaced with confusion.

"Twilight?" she called, "Zecora? Who's there?"

No answer came, but the figure shuffled a little closer to her. Something about its movements looked strange or forced, though Sweetie couldn't tell quite what it was a this distance, through the gloom. She felt an unseasonable chill at the sight, and took a few steps back. The figure turned to look at her, and its eyes glowed with dim blue light. From the darkness of the undergrowth behind it, three more pairs of glowing blue eyes appeared, and the creature began shuffling towards her.

Sweetie had seen enough. She screamed and took off again full-tilt, rushing down the path as quickly as her aching hooves and protesting legs would take her. Before long she heard other hoofbeats echoing through the woods in time with her own, and looked back to see the glowing blue eyes disturbingly close behind her.

"Twilight! Twilight!" she yelled, though more out of desperation than any hope that anypony could hear her at any distance. Then she was panting too hard to speak at all. She kept her eyes locked on the trail in front of her, too frightened of what she might see behind her, though she couldn't stop herself imagining how close the creepy pony-like creatures might be. Her flanks and legs ached, and she could hear almost nothing over the pounding of her heart. Her eyes watered, and she felt like she could barely go on.

The trail turned left again, heading deeper into the forest towards the castle. Sweetie rounded the bend and saw another group of ponies ahead of her. She flagged for a moment, almost collapsing in despair, but her momentum carried her forward close enough to make out the wings on the lead pony's back, and the purple-tinted armor on the others.

"Twilight," she gasped out again, and saw the princess turn to face her, wearing a confused frown, "Twilight, help..."

She stumbled as she approached, her vision swimming. The guards turned too, falling into a combat stance, and Twilight's horn lit up. Sweetie felt herself floating in a magical field, but then her vision faded, and she passed out.

Author's Note

I considered having Sweetie pass out before she realized it was Twilight's group for maximum cliffhanger value, but even though I have the next few days off and should have the next chapter up soon, it seemed like a bit of a jerk move.

Thanks for reading.