When The World Is Gone

-- Our Group Meetup: Before The Flashback: Twilight Sparkle --

As the morning sun begins to rise I have only one thing on my mind: breakfast. My tummy rumbles, I'm starving. I haven't had a decently good meal in a long time. All the food I have has already expired passed its expiration date.

This is not my house, I am unfamiliar with the concept of owning my own place. I just move from random house to random house in search of food and a comfortable place to stay. This is only temporary.

I lay on my back against a nice warm and comfy bed, I wish I could just lay here all day and read a book, but I have work to do. The world can't be saved if there's no one left to save it.

Light shines in from the right side of me where a big window resides, Fluttershy sleeps next to me silently breathing in soft breaths, her soft pink hair, touches my back and I turn myself to the right side and give her some more room. Fluttershy moves closer to me in her sleep and cuddles against me, and coos in her sleep, she smiles, and I feel her warm embrace, and for once its is calm and peaceful, no sound is heard throughout the entire house.

Rainbow Dash, with her rainbow colored mane and tail, has her own little bed on the far right of me. She snores at a medium volume. Rainbow Dash hogs the entire bed.

I just lay here enjoying the peacefulness of the morning. The softness of the light blue covers against me, and the satin feel of a comfortable pillow is just how I like it.

Sleeping upstairs is nice, Fluttershy is a nice sleeping buddy to have around, especially in cute moments like this when our little dreamer is smiling adorably and doing cute things in her sleep.

I yawn silently and close my eyes. Fluttershy grips me tighter and nuzzles up against me, I wonder what kind of dream she is having.

"Oh, my..." Her soft voice speaks, Fluttershy's awake and she's probably noticing what she's done. She jumps off the bed immediately, "I'm sorry Twilight."

"It's alright, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," she blushed when she looked at me.

What was so wrong about her snuggling up against me? Is there certain laws a pony should abide by?

"Whoa! What's going on here you two lovebirds?" Rainbow asked, looking at us with a sly grin.

"Were not in love!" Fluttershy yelled, looking embarrassed.

"Don't think I didn't see what you did there Fluttershy. I saw you with your hooves all over Twilight, you wanted her and you know it."

Fluttershy hid her face within her hair, her cheeks as red as an apple.

"C'mon don't poke fun at Fluttershy."

"I wasn't. She's all yours Fluttershy." Rainbow Dash saluted her and walked outside our door and headed downstairs, the smell of breakfast started to fill the entire house. I haven't smelled anything as wonderful as the smell of a nice meal in years. It smelled like apple pie, but I didn't care what I had for breakfast, I'd take anything.

Apple Pie can only mean one thing: Applejack was making breakfast. She was a great cook with expertise on how to make everything taste like heaven in your mouth, our mouth's watered for Applejack's cooking. We followed Rainbow downstairs to the kitchen where a delicious Pie was sitting on the table. "Good mornin'", she tipped her Stetson hat and greeted us with her southern twang.

"Your up early, Applejack,"

"Like always, you know me I'm an early riser." Applejack has always woken up early with a smile on her face, she was a regular morning pony.

I changed the subject, "Was any mindless spotted last night?"

"Nope, luckily I had Pinkie Pie to help me keep watch, we took shifts to make sure you guys were safe." Pinkie Pie is good at staying awake the whole night. With Pinkie's kind of energy Applejack could stay up months without ever needing sleep, Pinkie was just that hyper. With her high pitched voice and random sense of humor Pinkie Pie was fun to be around and definitely brought laughs to our little group of six.

We are so different from each other I wonder how were able to contain this chaos and work together. Applejack, is honest and hard working, Fluttershy is shy but kind, Rarity generous, but only on special situations, Rainbow Dash is bold, daring and loyal, Pinkie Pie brings laughter and is chaotic, and I'm good at using magic and love reading books.

Today, Rarity is sleeping in, longer than usual, but she always says, 'I need my beauty sleep!' and puts back on her sleeping mask, which darkens the room even more. She is a drama queen. She comes from a family who used to live around the fancy part of Equestria.

I look out the window and see our abandoned town of Ponyville. Its lifeless and dull. Sometimes I wish someone would come and make this day somewhat more exciting than usual. I can't spend the rest of my life staying inside here waiting to get captured by the Siren's.

I need to train for the moment when I can fight back against them and know I'll win. I need to get stronger with my magical abilities. I feel like everypony could benefit from training. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash could train to fly faster to avoid capture.

Rarity and I could learn to use higher ranked spells. And Applejack and Pinkie Pie could exercise to help build up their strength.

This would be a good plan and work in our favor. I'll ask them about it later and see if they'd like that plan. But right now I want to enjoy a nice apple pie made by Applejack.

Rarity walked downstairs and was wide awake. Her hair was perfectly curled and brushed. Her teeth were perfectly white, everything was kept to perfection, "Good morning, darlings!" she greeted us with her regal accent still supporting her Canterlot manner.

"Your hair looks lovely," Fluttershy complimented.

"You missed out on a delicious apple pie."

"I did?! why didn't anyone wake me?"

Rainbow Dash snickered, "We did, you just wanted some more 'beauty rest' Dahling!" She mimicked Rarity's accent.

"Not funny," Rarity looked stern, with a straight face.

Pinkie burst out laughing, "That was great Rainbow Dash! I haven't seen you try to do that!"

They hoof-bumped each other, and continued eating the last pieces of their pie.

"Applejack, we need to get out of here," Rarity said suddenly. Her voice filled with fear.

She gestured her hoof for us to look outside. In the distance there was a small group of ponies and theyes were moving closer to Ponyville.

They were at a good enough distance where we would be able to sneak into another building without being seen.

"Let's go to my old barn cellar, we should be safer there."

Applejack showed us to the back entrance of the house and we started running outside behind the poniless buildings towards Applejack's old farm.

The ponies were walking along the roads, their expressions lifeless, with their fully green eyes. They were minions of the Siren's.

They worked for Sonata, Aria and Adagio, doing their dirty work, while they sit around the castle feeding off of their negative energy that they willingly give up, by fighting against one another.

It's so sad to see that these ponies once used to be a neighbor or best friends from a long time ago. In fact a while ago Fluttershy saw her mother walking the streets. For days she cried, because she saw how terrible her Mom looked. Her mother's hair was a rats nest, she looked like she hasn't slept in years, but that's probably true.

I've never seen a mindless sleep, they've always looked tired, and had bags under their eyes. They always walked so slowly, almost zombie-like.

Soon, we were at Applejack's farm. An old sign hung above the entrance it says: Sweet Apple Acres, in red lettering on arched wood.

Applejack lead us to her cellar located to the side of her red barn house.

We passed acres and acres of dead apple trees.

She opened the cellar doors and gestured us inside. She was the last one to close the door.

The cellar was completely, black darkness with only a sliver of light from the cellar doors to give us light, but it was roomy.

"Do you have a light or something to shed some light to this dark room?" Rarity asked.

"Here, let me light my horn," I said, and the room brightened with a purple glow from my magic.

"That's better, thank you Twilight."

We would be staying here for a while until we were for sure the mindless were gone, "What can we do to make this silence less boring?"

"We could tell each other stories," Fluttershy suggested.

"How about we tell each other something personal, if your willing to share it? I've always wanted to know more about everyone. I just think you all are so interesting."

We all nodded.

"Fluttershy, how about you go first?"

"Uh.... Okay..." she said, her voice at a light whisper. We got closer to her so we could hear her better.

"I already know what your going to say, Fluttershy."

"You do?"

"Yeah, you showed me this morning," and winked at her, she blushed again.

"What did she show you this mornin'?"

"She has a little crush on Twilight," Rainbow stated, matter-of-factly. "She was snuggling against her, rubbing her face against Twilight's neck. And she was doing this all in her sleep. She must've had one of those dreams."

"Someone's smitten kitten!" Rarity realized. Fluttershy hid behind me covering her face from everyone. "You intrigue me Fluttershy."

"Okay, let's move on Fluttershy is super embarrassed, I don't want her to explode from embarrassment, so let's move on to Rainbow Dash."

"Okay, this is something that only Fluttershy knows, but I'll tell you guys anyway," she paused and took in a big breath, "You know a few days before the concert, when there was a huge Sonic Rainboom in the air?"

I don't recall anything, but the rest of them nodded, "That Rainboom made in the sky was made by the one and only Rainbow Dash!" She pointed at herself, and doing a heroic pose in front of us.

"How can that be you?"

"Fluttershy will tell you once she's returned to her quiet, shy self, she was the reason I made the Sonic Rainboom in the first place!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, there were some guys picking on her that day, making fun of her that she couldn't fly, so I stepped in and turned the fight into a little competition to get their minds off of Fluttershy. I raced against those two bullies and won, but before I did I started gaining speed, eventually going so fast I broke the sound barrier and made a sonic Rainboom!"

"And that was the day when I got my awesome cutiemark!" She showed us her cutiemark which had a cloud with red, blue, and yellow coming out of it like a lightning strike.

Rainbow Dash was proud of herself for boasting about her spectacular Sonic Rainboom. However, it showed that she loved the attention. Which makes her feel self-centered. Rainbow Dash is like that sometimes, but she's great at sticking by our side.

"Wow! that's weird! I got my cutiemark on that same day too!"

"Yeah! an' mine too!"

"Me three!!"

Wow, that's really weird."

"Let's tell our cutiemark stories!! I'll go first!" Pinkie said excitedly, "A long time ago, before the Last Concert I used to work on a rock farm with my entire family."

"You? You worked on a rock farm Pinkie? I thought you would've done something way different.

"That's why I'm telling you this story, now shush! As I was saying I used to work on a rock farm with my family, I had my Mom and Dad, Inky, Blinky, and Maud work there along side me. They were my sister and I loved them.

"So one day I decided to surprise them with a little party to help brighten their spirits and when I showed them the party, I saw a Sonic Rainboom and realized my talent was throwing parties and making ponies happy! They really enjoyed the party and hoped I'd do more," she paused,  "And that's the story of how Ponyville was made."

"Um, Pinkie you were talkin' about your cutiemark an' how you got it."

"Next time I'll tell you about how I saved the day with pumpkins."

We all face-hooved ourselves for getting us into that one.

"Do you remember how you got you cutiemark, Twilight?" Rarity asked.

"No," I said immediately, "I probably don't have anything special about me anyways."

"That's not true. There's always something that makes a pony unique."

"Well I don't feel that special."

"C'mon, now," she moved closer, sitting right beside me, "Don't get yourself down in the dumps, there will be something that makes you special."

"There will?"

"Yes, when you remember, you'll realize just how special you are."

Suddenly, a knock was heard from the cellar door, and the moaning of ponies.

"There here!" She yelled in a low whisper.

-- Our Group Meeting: Before The Flashback: Twilight Sparkle --