Lies// Story: The Change// by PowerLine

After we were told about Applejack and Apple Bloom being missing, we went back to Rarity's to figure out the situation. It turned out that Rarity had recieved a mysterious letter that had said that Applejack and Apple Bloom had never made it to Manehattan. It just so turned out that Rainbowdash had stopped by looking to ask Rarity to make her a flying outfit when the mail arrived. Rarity had read the letter, panicked, and told Rainbowdash to get Sweetie Belle and me as fast as possible.

"Where in the wide land of Equestria could they have ended up? The way there only has one road for pony's sake!" Rainbowdash questioned.

"Well, if it really is only a single road to get there, then why not try to search for them along that road, or maybe even just outside Manehattan." I said.

"Good thinkin' Scoots!" Rainbowdash said an she rubbed me on my head.

"Looks like that may be our best bet for finding those two. We better prepare for an expedition like this if we expect to go so far." said Rarity.

For the next half hour, we spent time packing ourselves up for the journey and would return the next day to leave for Manehattan. Rarity found an emergency list of things we might need for such a trip, which she had pre-prepared for such a use.

~~EMERGENCY LIST~~
-Saddle bag
-Water
-Tent
-Sleeping bag

Rarity had said that she would take care of the tent situation, but that she wouldn't pack quite as heavily as she had done on our previous camping trip. In the morning, I returned to Rarity's house where the others were all waiting for me.

"Is everypony ready to--"

CRASH!

Everypony looked around at each other in shock, and it took us a moment to figure out what happened. Something upstairs had fallen over, or banged against a door or something of the sort. Rarity quickly ran upstairs to see what the issue was, and returned a few minutes later claiming that one of her clothing racks had fallen over.

"Now then, is everypony ready to go?" Rarity exclaimed.

"YES MA'AM!" We all chimed in.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

We reached our stopping point about halfway to Manehattan just after sunset. Our journey had so far been long and taken quite a bit longer than we had all expected. In order to get to our stopping point fast enough, we had to catch a few taxis that were passing at the time. We had kept an eye out for any signs of Applejack or Apple Bloom, but we hadn't seen any yet. I only hoped that they had been alright, and that nothing too bad had happened to them.

After we arrived at our stopping point, we promptly set up camp and went to bed; we were all to tired from our expedition to stay awake any longer. Later on in the night, I had been woken up by Rarity who had crept out of the tent as quietly as she could; apparently not quiet enough. I decided to follow her because it was a little peculiar that she should be up so late. Closely following her, but far enough away that she didn't notice, I followed her into the woods and hid behind a tree after she stopped walking. She let out a light whistle in the tune of what sounded like some kind of bird. Suddenly, other hoovesteps started appearing from multiple sides, one so close to me that I almost gave my position away in fear. The hoovesteps had seemed to all stop about where Rarity had, and a discussion fired up soon after. All of the voices were too quiet to hear, although I could only tell that it was mostly colts that were in the group. The voices promptly dissipated and I tried peeking to see what had happened. Without any notice of hoovestep or breath, Rarity passed right by the tree that I was hiding behind just as I started to take a look. I froze in my place, and waited until she was far enough away that I could follow. This time, she seemed to simply be returning to the tent instead of going to some other random place in the woods. When I got to the outside of the tent, I waited until I could clearly hear Rarity snoring before I entered; I didn't want her to suspect me of following her. She finally began snoring again and I entered as quietly as I could, placing my hooves carefully on the ground so that I made as little noise as possible. I crawled back into my sleeping bag and went to sleep. I was so curious that night of what business she could possibly have out in the woods with a bunch of random strangers. It was that mystery that put me to sleep.

Author's Note

Much like the other chapters, I tried to fit in a few things here and there to hint at things that would occur later on, some easier to spot than others. Also, this will most likely be the average chapter size, more just because of how the chapter planning has flowed so far. So far I have planned until Chapter 4. After that I will be working more on Voltage so I could try to get that done a little more as well as to add dramatic effect. Anyway, I don't want to spoil too much more. See ya!