Sweetie Belle and the Quest for Knowledge

Chapters

Chapter 1 - Recovery
Chapter 2 - Investigation
Chapter 3 - The Flying Crusader
Chapter 4 - School
Chapter 5 - Twilight Time
Chapter 6 - Witching Hour Activities
Prologue - Conspiracy

Chapter 1 - Recovery

Sweetie Belle woke up with a groan, shifting uncomfortably in her bed. Soft light filtered in from the window signifying that the morning that just arrived. She looked briefly around the room, reminding herself of the now familiar surroundings. All around her was white. White sheets, white curtains, white walls and a white marble floor. Weird for a bedroom to be sure but nothing too out of the ordinary. No, that came from the numerous bottles of pills and the portable thaumic-circulation-test machine on the bedside table. Shaking herself from her groggy state, Sweetie Belle finally remembered where she was, a small patient bed in Canterlot General Hospital. It turned out that Ponyville’s services were not capable in completing her care and so for the past two months she had been recovering here.

Using all her concentration, Sweetie Belle just barely managed to use her magic to depress the button on top of her bed. Normally, such an action would have been trivial for a unicorn—even one as young and inexperienced as her—but a ring on her horn prevented all but the slightest magic to form, making the task nigh insurmountable. Not a minute later, her unicorn mare nurse, Nurse Good Will, entered the room. She had a pale blue coat and a darker blue mane with two simple, white stripes through it and—to the best of Sweetie Belle’s knowledge—always spoke in a calm or cheery tone.

“Good morning, Sweetie, are you ready to get started on the day?” Good Will asked rhetorically. The nurse already knew that Sweetie was ready; the filly wouldn’t have called her up if she wasn’t. Good Will even went as far as lifting the filly off her bed and making the sheets before the filly replied.

“Yeah…” Sweetie murmured half-heartedly giving herself up to the levitation magic of the nurse. The nurse let her down gently and allowed the far smaller filly to lean on her as they moved very slowly to the washroom.

Sweetie Belle had spent the last three months recovering slowly but surely. The first month she was asleep in a coma and it was another month of physical therapy before she could successfully walk on her own for more than a minute. Despite that—especially early in the morning before breakfast—it was difficult to move around without help. Sweetie Belle let out a sigh in disappointment at how slow her recovery was being. Sure she had been told it would take six months, but she was nevertheless feeling very frustrated with everything. It didn’t help things that she needed help doing even basic things like having a bath or going to the washroom. It was a very embarrassing and humbling experience … even if she was starting to get used to it over the past months.

“So Sweetie,” Good Will started in her usual cheery tone. “How did your physiotherapy go yesterday? I heard that Doctor Wellbeing is letting you return to Ponyville. Do you want to talk about that?”

Sweetie Belle stopped in her tracks, her eyes growing wide and her face smiled when she processed the nurse’s words. “Oh!” she suddenly exclaimed, “That’s right! I can’t believe I forgot! Yeah, Doctor McGrouchypants said that in a day or two I should be good enough to move back into Ponyville!”

The nurse’s face was smiling fondly at the filly’s sudden exuberance. ‘I really wish I could make her act like that all the time,’ Good Will sighed internally, ‘She must be the most depressed pony I’ve ever seen. All she does is stay in her room and frown.’ Then the nurse herself frowned, “It isn’t nice to call Doctor Wellbeing a ‘McGrouchypants’; he might not smile a lot but he does his job well and he cares about you.”

Sweetie Belle made a small sheepish smile at that but said nothing. ‘In this situation,’ Sweetie Belle thought clinically, ‘it is probably not ideal to speak anymore. I was hoping that making fun of McGrouchypants might move the discussion towards Ms.Good Will’s work-life and maybe get her talking about her interest in the Doctor. She goes on about him forever. If she gets any hint that we’re talking about me, she’ll probably end up talking about my ‘problems’ again.’ It didn’t take long for these thoughts to make her feel guilty. ‘My f-friends told me that manipulation was okay. Getting ponies to do what you want is n-natural. Then why does it make me feel so bad.’

“Still, I really want to know what you think about the move,” the nurse continued. “I may not ever see you again and I don’t want to leave you feeling down-in-the-dumps like you were this morning.”

‘Darn,’ Sweetie Belle cursed. ‘Sometimes I wonder if Tablet really told me everything I needed to know about manipulation…it only works, like, half the time. Then again, it might be that after a month the nurse has just finally figured it out.’ She sighed, ‘I guess that means I have to satisfy her curiosity and let her ‘help’ me until she forgets about it again.’

“Fine…I just don’t know what to say though…” Sweetie Belle lied, sighing, “I thought I would be moving around more by now and that maybe my friends would come around more often.”

The nurse nodded her head approvingly. “Well then it is a good thing you are leaving then,” she said before hastily adding, “not that I wouldn’t want you to stay longer! You are such a well-behaved filly but having a young thing like you cooped up in a hospital for months must be so boring.”

The two then turned in and nurse began drawing the bath. Luckily ponies didn’t wear clothes so it was a simple matter of the nurse plopping the white bundle of fur into the water and scrubbing her lightly with the brush and soap. Luckily for Sweetie Belle, the nurse seemed satisfied with leaving the conversation at that. This meant she could think.

‘To be honest, I don’t think anypony could really understand what I feel,’ she thought, moaning approvingly as the nurse scratched an itchy tangle on her back fur with the brush. ‘Even everypony that knows what happened would think I’m crazy—let alone Nurse Good Will—but having the Tablet interface with my brain was the best thing that ever happened to me … well maybe except for having Rarity as a sister. Now that it’s gone though, I feel like I’m only half a pony.’

The nurse—now finished with her coat—now began to wash her mane. ‘I can ignore everything else,’ Sweetie Belle continued, ‘I can ignore that I can’t even do any real magic anymore or that it hurts to move sometimes or that my friends don’t visit me as much as I like, but I can’t ignore how important the Tablet was to me. Near the-the end, I just thought of it like another piece of my mind. That even if that otherworldly pony were to take it away that it would just show up some time and answer all my questions like it used to.’

Thinking about how it got taken away left her really bitter. ‘How could I be so stupid?! I don’t even want to think about what that stupid electric-y alicorn-y thing did to manipulate me into giving up the Tablet!’ Sweetie Belle pouted. ‘I guess I never really stood a chance though … If it really could perfectly simulate my mind in real-time, it would have little difficulty manipulating me to do whatever it wanted. Although that makes me wonder what it could really be planning…’

It was at this time that the nurse finished putting the shampoo in her mane and washing it, Good Will then moved to her tail. ‘No,’ she thought, shaking her head slightly, ‘there isn’t any point even thinking about it now. That’s all behind me. Now … now I guess I get back to my regular life again. No tablets, no world-ending magic devices or ancient machines.’

She just laid there melancholy in her thoughts. Just like every day for the past two months, she ended up thinking about her adventure. Three little fillies evading capture, traveling across Equestria and saving the world. It was like a whole other life from the one she had. She learned so much. She couldn’t even imagine what it would be like without knowledge of metaphysics and science. There was this wide world full of unknowns just waiting for her to discover them.

Still, she couldn’t help but remember her ‘old’ life. Helping her sister around the boutique or—less often—their family home, caring for and being cared by her sister. Loving parents and a life filled with her friends. The smiling faces of Apple Bloom and Scootaloo as they crusaded for their cutie marks. It was at that thought that she looked back at her flank, just as blank as those times.

She had lived both those lives now, but neither had given her a cutie mark. Were either of those answers wrong? Should she keep trying one or the other or should she find some ‘happy medium’.

‘This is something Tablet could have helped me with. He would just say something like *Neither option seems optimal. This device recommends performing a simulated annealing non-deterministic analysis of the search-space using personalized heuristics of the time-cost-benefit associated with family, friends and the pursuit of knowledge.* and would solve the problem in a matter of moments.’ She sighed. This was the same roadblock she always faced every day. ‘How do I choose what to do, when my future hangs in the balance? I can’t just think through every possible scenario and find the right answer like Tablet could. How does anypony make these important decisions without thinking of all the possibilities? How do I make everypony happy? How do I make myself happy?’

It was at this moment that she noticed Nurse Good Will’s mirthful expression. It turns out that she was finished with Sweetie Belle’s bath for a while now and was enjoying the thoughtful expression that was plastered on the filly’s face. Said filly blushed self-consciously and looked away, letting the older mare lift her out of the tub and dry her off with a towel.

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” the nurse said, still keeping her mirthful expression. “You seemed to be thinking of something really important.” She let the filly lay on her back this time, knowing full well that the filly wouldn’t be up to any more exercise until she had breakfast. “Do you want to talk about it?”

To both of their surprise, Sweetie Belle did. “Um, how do you know if you are making the right decision? Like, if the choice is really hard, like choosing between which of your best friends you want to hang out with.”

The nurse thought about that, far longer than either of them expected. Good Will didn’t want to just give her some silly answer like ‘Go with your gut’ or ‘Flip a coin’. To the nurse, Sweetie Belle was more than a patient, she was a sad filly going through a hard time in her life. She was reminded of a similar time in her life, a time when her father never came home one day and her mother wouldn’t talk to her. It was in times like that that a pony needed another pony the most and she wanted to be there everyday for her.

“That’s a pretty difficult question, Sweetie,” the nurse began, “nopony can know everything.” Sweetie Belle nodded sadly. “That doesn’t mean you give up though. Let me tell you a secret.”

For some reason, the prospect of knowing a secret unlocked some deeply entrenched aspect of her filly mind. She listened in rapt attention.

“When I got my cutie mark, I didn’t know what I wanted to do either.” That ‘secret’ left Sweetie Belle more than a little disappointed but she still took notice when the mare pointed down to her cutie mark which, for the most part, had been ignored by the filly. It was a simple thing, a smiling heart. It sort of reminded her of her teacher Cheerilee, although hers was three smiling flowers. “I got it helping my friend feel better after her brother left to join the Royal Guard. Still, it didn’t take me long before I realized that ‘making ponies feel better’ was a bit of a broad special talent to have.”

Sweetie Belle thought briefly on that. “How did you know that this is what you wanted to do, then? Did you have somepony you knew that was a nurse? Or did you figure out that helping sick ponies was just something you were really good at.”

The nurse smiled, “Neither,” she stated simply. At the filly’s confused face she elaborated. “Using your example, maybe you can get your friends to have fun together, or maybe you can decide that just staying in would be better. Maybe, you might even ignore your best friends that one night and go out with cute colt instead.” The nurse said that last sentence with a wink, causing the filly to flush bright red and look away. This, in turn, caused Good Will to laugh. “See, the choice is never as simple as that. Sometimes the best decision is to do something you would never think of.”

“But aren’t those bad decisions? I normally only think about good choices. I don’t think I could purposely make a bad choice,” Sweetie Belle said incredulously.

The mare tisked and shook her head. “No, no, you can’t let yourself be so closed-minded. Sometimes you’ve got to ‘think-outside-the-box’. Just because it isn’t something you personally want to do, that doesn’t mean it is a bad choice. If you’re wrong, then you learned something new. I would have never in a million years thought that I would be a nurse for sick ponies. To the old me, doing that just seemed so tedious; so boring. I never had a fun experience in a hospital. Then one day—after quitting a job at a nursery school for foals—I saw a simple ad in the paper talking about nursing school and that was that.”

“Really?! You went through years of nursing school just because of a newspaper ad?!”

“Yep, I walked in, signed up, met my husband, got married and became a nurse, all because of a newspaper ad.” The nurses’ nostalgic smile suddenly turned serious. “Listen, Sweetie. I’ve been taking care of you for two months now and I like to think I know you pretty well. One thing I’ve realized though is you have a pretty big problem, especially for a filly.”

This sudden change of mood through Sweetie for a loop. “Huh? What problem?”

“You don’t do anything new! For the past two months all you have been doing is staying in your room, reading or just staring at the ceiling all day. You never take a walk in the park, never explore the hallways or talk to anypony that nopony introduced to you. You're only hurting yourself doing that.”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. “Of course I do new things. I read new books and I think about new things all the time.”

The two now finally found themselves in Sweetie’s hospital room again and so the nurse held off any further conversation until the filly was, once again, laying down on her bed.

“I’m telling you, Sweetie Belle, that isn’t enough,” the nurse replied. “Sometimes you will find that a choice is out of reach. When that happens, instead of trying to stretch yourself harder and harder trying to reach a decision, maybe just change your perspective. I guarantee that no matter how silly or bad that change may be, you will be one step closer to deciding.”

With that, the nurse left.

It was a few hours since then. Sweetie Belle had eaten breakfast and was soon almost ready to start lunch. All throughout that time she tried to distract herself with one of the books Twilight had given her during their last visit ‘Biological Thaumaturgy: The Influence of Equinocentric Aetherial Disturbances on Benthic Macroinvertebrates' but, for some reason, the vaguely defined effect of pony magic on the development of ecosystems could not stray her thoughts. No matter how she tried to avoid it, she always returned to what the nurse had said. ‘I really don’t do anything new, do I?’ Sweetie Belle admitted. ‘New books and new ideas, sure, but not new experiences. All the best decisions I made were from doing something I never would have done without somepony encouraging me. Founding the Cutie Mark Crusaders, going on Crusades for talents I knew I wouldn't enjoy by were surprisingly fun, trusting the Tablet to teach me all these new things; heck, even just deciding to ask the nurse that question wasn’t a bad idea either. I mean, not all decisions like that are good ones—giving up Tablet sure wasn’t—but even that was a learning experience … I guess. The nurse is right. If I want to make the best possible decision, sometimes I need to expand the search-space to encompass even heuristically inadvisable options.’

It was right then that her sister and Doctor Wellbeing showed up. Rarity was looking as good as always, with a simple purple dress. Conversely, the elderly dark-grey unicorn stallion wore a simple lab coat and looked as grumpy as ever. It didn’t take Rarity long before she galloped over and glomped her sister.

“Oh, Sweetie Belle, darling,” Rarity exclaimed between sobs, “I’m so sorry I missed my visit yesterday!”

Sweetie Belle—struggling to breathe under her sister’s all-encompassing hug—pushed her away with all four hooves. “It’s fine, sis! You were busy, I get it. You know you don’t have to visit me everyday, alright?”

Rarity looked like Sweetie Belle grew a second head, but she quickly recovered. “Oh it isn’t alright at all, little sister! In fact—if it wasn’t for all my friends convincing me not to—I would have moved to Canterlot in a heartbeat. After failing you the first time, there is nothing that will stop me from being there for you as much as possible!”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes and sat on the side of her bed for the doctor. The filly had long since given up on convincing her sister to come in less often. She was lucky that her sister could at least do plenty of business in Canterlot in the meantime or Sweetie Belle would have worried that her sister would be bankrupt in a matter of weeks. She appreciated the gesture, of course, Sweetie Belle did love her sister, but she just wished that she would spend more time with her friends and stop feeling guilty for something she couldn’t be blamed for. She was the one who fell in the hole, she ran away and she risked her life. Nothing her sister could have done would have changed any of that.

The doctor—now seeing that Sweetie Belle was hanging off the bed—began to perform her physical. “Alright,” he began, “you know the drill, forelegs forward.” When she did so, he tapped each one twice, testing the reflexes. He then slowly felt the muscles and did a quick scan with his horn to gauge the bone and muscle mass. “Forelegs look fine. Definitely not perfect but the muscles are no longer atrophied and I would gauge that your bones will be fully recovered in a few weeks.” He made an identical analysis on the hindlegs and came to the same conclusion.

This wasn’t his specialty, which was horns, so he took a little longer than normal to do the full-body physical but he finally came to his conclusion. “Well, it looks like all the physiotherapy worked. You are in excellent shape. A few more weeks of proper exercise and bedrest and you will be back to normal.”

At this, Rarity started being teary-eyed. “Oh that is excellent news! So is she ready to come back to Ponyville? Oh please tell me she is.”

The doctor nodded his head slowly, “Maybe …”

After that non-committal remark, he lit up his horn and lifted the portable thaumic-circulation-test machine from the bedside table. It was a simple mechanism. One end was a simple ring that sat at the base of the horn which had wires leading to a simple box with several dials and buttons.

“Okay Sweetie Belle,” the doctor said as he placed the box on the bed, “now make sure to concentrate on not doing any magic while I take off your limiter and place the sensor on your horn.”

The filly nodded, her face changing to yield a determined stare. The doctor quickly removed the horn-ring and placed the sensor on her head.

“Alright you can relax now,” the doctor said. Just as she did so, the box began to beep and whirl. “It looks like you still don’t have control of your magic output. That is to be expected.” The doctor reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a pen which he laid on a forehoof. “Okay now, Sweetie, could you please try and lift the pen. Try and use as little magic as possible and slowly build it up, if you can.”

Sweetie Belle nodded and focused intensely on the pen. This was the most significant problem with herself now, she had very little control of her magic. Her Prefrontal Thaumaturgic Ganglia was scarred, which meant nothing regulated her magic. Without an inhibitor ring, her magic would slowly leak out and make her tired all day. Worse, without conscious effort, she could accidentally cause a ‘Thaumic Cascade’ or ‘magic kickback’. For a regular pony, this was natural and occurred if somepony tapped a unicorn’s horn during a spell or they messed up the thaumic calculations. This merely caused the spell to fail or at worst, maybe their horn would heat up and they would have a little headache. For Sweetie Belle though, one bad spell, and she would never be able to perform magic again … if she was lucky. That was the second use of the ring, it ensured that—no matter how much she tried—she could not produce enough magic to do any permanent damage.

“That’s good, thanks,” the doctor replied, letting Sweetie Belle pant in relief as the ring was put back on her head. Sweetie Belle probably didn’t need to concentrate as hard as she did, but she was smart enough to not take any risks.

The doctor stood up and walked to the foot of her bed where a small clipboard hung. He lifted it up and, using the pen, wrote in the updated results of the tests.

“Well?” Rarity pleaded, “Can my sister leave? Is she good to go?”

The doctor thought intensely. “Maybe …” he replied.

Both Rarity and Sweetie Belle groaned at that. “Oh come now, darling,” Rarity exasperated, “this is a ‘yes-or-no’ question. You said she’s fine physically, but how is her magic? Will she be alright with just irregular checkups every month? I assure you that Ponyville has an excellent hospital and-”

The doctor put a hoof up, quieting the mare immediately. “I’m just not sure,” the doctor responded. “While her body has made great strides in recovering, her horn has done little.” He gave a sigh of frustration and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Really, in all my years I have never seen such a bad case. I hate to admit it, but there is very little else I can see helping but time.”

“Then?” Sweetie Belle looked up, hope painfully clear in her eyes.

“Yes,” the doctor let out reluctantly. “I suppose I could-”

“Oh thank you!” Rarity said, hugging the stallion painfully. “You don’t know what this means to-”

“I can imagine,” the elderly pony gasped, forcing the mare off with a little more force than necessary. “Now, that being said, it won’t be sunshine and rainbows from now on. There are several conditions to your sister’s release.”

He moved away from the bed such that he was facing both of the white unicorns. “First: never, under any circumstances, is Sweetie Belle to remove her limiter except at the express consent and presence of either me or Princess Twilight Sparkle. I have spoken with her on one of her visits and she generously took it on herself to learn the magic-sealing spell which would prevent catastrophe should it ever occur. Only us ponies.” He turned to Rarity. “Rarity, you must take great care in ensuring that your sister does not remove her limiter and I must have your promise not remove it yourself. You may understand the risks, but you are not trained to handle them.”

Rarity gulped, but nodded.

“Alright. Second: She must continue her thaumiotherapy with the Princess. For the past month, I have been spending a few minutes each day ensuring that Sweetie Belle properly takes care of her horn and exercises it without the limiter. The ring otherwise prevents her horn from getting proper exercise. I am unsure whether this will improve her situation in the long run, but regardless, she mustn’t let her horn atrophy from disuse or it will not grow as she gets older. Once again Rarity, I must ask that you not take this task on yourself.” Rarity nodded with more confidence this time.

“Finally, she is to visit back here once a month. The princess has promised to send me regular updates and I trust that she knows what she is doing, but there are a few complications that she may not pick up without the proper equipment we have here. Since you have been making regular trips to Canterlot thanks to your new store, I imagine that this shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Not a problem at all, darling!” Rarity responded, her smile as wide as a mile. “This is the best news I’ve heard since I learned my little, itty-bitty sister was going to survive that harrowing ordeal.” Her eyes got a little misty again as she thanked the doctor.

“It really is no problem. Please, take as long as you like to get ready and you may leave at any time. I will update the receptionist and she will finalize your departure.”

As the doctor left, Rarity quickly turned to her sister and hugged. “Oh this is truly The. Best. Possible. Thing. I bet you can’t wait to get back to your friends. It will be just like old times.” This happy attitude only lasted a little while, however, before her face melted back to the concern she had entered with. She quickly entered ‘overly-attached-sister’ mode as Sweetie Belle dubbed it.

“So have you got all your homework done?”

“Yes”

“Did you eat alright? Are you sleeping well?”

“Yeah …”

“You don’t sound alright. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Sweetie Belle replied, turning to her sister with a small grin. “Really, I’m glad to be finally out of the hospital.”

“Alright,” her sister responded. She wasn’t exactly convinced, but she would have time to figure that out. All the time in the world now.

As they walked out, Sweetie Belle changed the topic, anything to avoid talking about the things she had been brooding about all morning. “So why are you dressed up so much? Did you have a client to meet?”

“Oh, why yes! There was this delightful mare that Fancy Pants introduced me to. You know Fancy Pants right? Anyway, so this mare wanted a dress for a ball and she…”

For the rest of the trip home, Sweetie Belle managed to keep her sister talking about the various dresses she made, the clients she met and the gossip in both Ponyville and Canterlot. It wasn’t as enjoyable as Sweetie would have liked, but she was content. If she could just listen to her sister, if she could just avoid her problems like this forever, she might be happy enough to get by. However, she couldn’t and she wasn’t. No matter how much she tried to pay attention to her sister, no matter how interesting she tried to convince herself the mindless gossip was, she couldn’t avoid her dilemma. The all-encompassing, mind-consuming problem she had spent two months without an answer to.

‘What do I do now?’

Author's Note

That's it for the introduction. In the next few chapters there will be a a lot less thinking and more doing, but I hope that I've kept people interested thus far and given you a taste of what is to come.

I will try to keep up a regular schedule for submissions. Look forward to more soon.

Chapter 2 - Investigation

“Alright, Bon Bon, I’ll be out for the rest of the night!” Lyra yelled back into the home she just left.

“Okay, Lyra. Don’t work too hard at the bar and-” Bon Bon began before she was cut off by the unicorn.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. No…obsessing. I’m just making a quick stop at the library on the way there, that’s all. I promise.”

Bon Bon sighed, but smiled all the same. “I—I’ll miss you. Come back soon.”

“I will.”

With those final words, Lyra left.

When Lyra knew she was out of hearing distance, she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Urgh. Why do I never have enough time in the day to do everything?! If it isn’t work, it's Bon Bon. I don’t necessarily regret spending more time with her, but it’s seriously cutting into truth-seeking time!”

Lyra grumbled a bit more before—finally—a cooler head prevailed and she thought a little more clearly. “Well, if I want to spend more time truth-seeking, I’ll either need to cut time out of my schedule with Bon Bon—which will cause her to hate me—or I cut out some of my time at the bar, which will likely make the Boss annoyed. Well, if it is between annoying my boss and getting more time to study precursors, I know what I’d rather want.”

It didn’t take her long after that to reach the library—that is to say the Friendship Castle Library. Although it would be missed, it was clear—after Twilight's friends dug up the Golden Oaks Library four months ago—that the old library was not going to be rebuilt. Still, Ponyville shouldn’t have been so surprised. It was clear the newest Princess would have very little time or resources to spend on getting it into working order again. Heck, it took nearly two months for the new library to even be open to the public, and all the newest Princess needed to do for that to happen was books on shelves. Apparently the newest Princess not only had to deal with Equestrian internal affairs, precursors, and some research project she had started, but was also taking orders from the magic table in the ‘circle of thrones’. Everything surrounding Twilight Sparkle was just a confusing mess. How the mare did everything and still found time to sleep was anypony’s guess.

'Well, it's about time ponies stopped guessing,' Lyra thought.

These trips to the library weren’t purely for the study of Pre-Discordian era history and culture. No, there weren’t nearly enough books on the topic to last more than maybe a few days reading. After all, the age was more or less destroyed by the eponymous Avatar of Chaos. No, she was here for one mare.

“Hello, Princess,” Lyra spoke politely as she entered the castle. She walked past the alicorn as Twilight and her dragon companion made their way out of the library. Lyra exuded an air of enthusiasm…in an attempt to distract them from her true reason for being there.

“Oh, hello … Lyra…” the alicorn muttered back, clearly preoccupied with the books she and Spike were carrying.

When the door shut and Lyra was left alone in the library, Lyra looked around the room. Like all the other rooms in the castle, this one was made entirely of crystal—although the seats surrounding the tables were given additional cushions. It’s no surprise that the princess—who no doubt spent much of her time here—would ensure everything was comfortable. On all the walls were tall bookshelves that reached to the ceiling and several ladders were strewn throughout for easier access to the higher shelves. Lyra found herself quickly climbing one of these ladders so that she could put an ear up against the ceiling. Casting a spell, she could now make out faint sounds coming from Twilight’s bedroom.

“Alright Spike,” the female voice said, clearly Twilight. “Can you put the books down over there? I won’t need them right away.”

“Alright Twi,” Spike replied followed by a loud thump. The suddenness nearly caused Lyra to fall off the ladder but she somehow managed to cling on. Grumbling, she re-cast the spell she just lost and put her ear back to the ceiling.

“So is this for…that thing?” Spike continued.

“Yes, and if we are going to talk about it, I’m going to have to soundproof the room.”

‘Urghh,’ Lyra groaned. ‘They do this every time! Every day for the past two months, thwarted by her darned soundproof spell! What is this big secret and why is she so paranoid! It isn’t like anypony is listening in on—never mind. I just wish there was some way to break through without Twilight knowing about it.’

It seemed that Spike was equally frustrated. “Really, Twilight? It isn’t like there is anypony listening in and I don’t want to wait two minutes every time we need to talk. Let me look.” After a moment’s delay he spoke up again, saying, “See? Nopony outside the door or out the window. I have an idea! Why don’t you just scan to see if there is anypony listening in? That would take less time, right?”

Lyra heard a sigh before Twilight relied. “Oh fine … well, you’re right. There’s only Lyra in the libr-. Right, Lyra." Twilight then lowered her voice to a whisper—although that did not prevent Lyra's spell from picking up her words. "Look Spike, I’m not saying any sensitive information about that with her around. She’s been going on about this for months.”

‘I take offense at that,’ Lyra thought, 'although I can't deny that she's right … given the circumstances.'

“But it isn’t like she could hear us from the library, right?" Spike pleaded. "Don’t you need to be like, well, you in order to cast a spell needed to hear though ten hooves of crystal?”

There was a sigh again. “Alright…just this once. Seriously though, if you had just let me do the soundproof spell, we would already be talking about it right now.”

‘Yes!’ Lyra thought triumphantly. ‘I knew investing three months into learning those cool spy-movie spells would be worth it! The truth always prevails!’

“So you said that you’re going to be taking care of Sweetie Belle’s treatment, right Twi?” Spike asked.

‘Sweetie Belle? What does she have to do with anything. Actually, now that he mentions it, I haven’t seen her come into the shop since…’ Her eyes went wide. ‘Since the precursor discovery! Oh Celestia, how could I be so stupid!’

“Yeah. I mean it’s either that, or she has to ride all the way to Canterlot and back every weekend. She doesn’t deserve that and there’s no way I’m going to let that little filly’s life be any more complicated than it already is.”

“That’s just it, Twi, you’re making your life more complicated to make hers easier. I know that she’s been through a lot, but couldn’t somepony else do this? I mean, you already have your research on that communication thingy, the precursor business, whatever your princess duties are and the Crystal Table quests. Speaking of which, when did you start following the orders of furniture? I mean, apart from that time when-”

“Yeah, yeah, we all know the story. I was stressed, Pri- Celestia had a test. I was convinced that Celestia's writing desk was my exam proctor, I get it. I’m … better now. Anyway, I’m not following orders … I’ll figure out how that table works too … someday. Being able to know where me and my friends are needed in Equestria is just … too convenient to pass up.”

“Still, why can’t you just have somepony else help Sweetie Belle with her horn? I mean, couldn’t … uhm … Rarity help?” Lyra noted that he spoke that name with a particular twinge.

“Rarity, really? Look Spike, she’s a good friend and would do anything for her sister, but I don’t think she would be ready to handle a sudden—possibly fatal—Thaumaturgic Cascade if it happens. Apart from me, Doctor Wellbeing and a few other highly specialized magical doctors, only maybe Celestia or Luna have enough ability to handle something like that without irreversible damage to Sweetie Belle.”

He sighed, “Twilight, I just don’t think it’s a good idea to-”

“I know, okay, I know exactly what you're trying to say. I’m getting too in-over-my-head for my own good. Maybe you're right. Maybe I’m just not ready to be a Princess. If we call off the meeting with the bureaucrats next week, I'm sure I can avoid any permanent political damage and-”

“Come on, Twilight," Spike scolded. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm sure a little re-adjusting of your schedule and that extra hour-or-so a week will fit right in. We’ll make a list, just like old times.”

Twilight giggled. "Old times? I'm sure my number one assistant of all dragons would know that I'll never give up my lists!" There was a shuffling of paper. “Now item one-”

‘Hmm,’ Lyra thought, takin her ear from the ceiling and releasing the spell now that their conversation was essentially over. ‘So something happened to Sweetie Belle at the exact same time that the precursor stuff was discovered. Apparently, a ‘Doctor Wellbeing’ is looking over her. Yes! Finally, a lead! Now I just need to-’ Her mind’s wandering stopped when she looked at her watch. “Horsefeathers!” she whispered. “I’m late for work!”

She stumbled clumsily down the ladder to the floor of the library and sprinted off to work. “The Boss isn’t going to like this, not one bit!”

Lyra was hastily packing her lyre away and was about to leave the Silly Filly bar when a strong hoof tugged on her wither. Startled, she turned back to see a strong earth pony mare with a burgundy mane and brown coat looking down on her. It was her boss, Malted Wheat, wearing her usual worn apron and even more worn expression.

“I don’t like this, Lyra, not one bit.”

Lyra groaned. “I know, Boss. I don’t mean it but sometimes I lose track of time and-”

“I know, no need to explain it. It’s just who you are.”

“Great!” Lyra said cheerfully, hoping that now she was out of trouble. “In that case, why don’t I-”

“But…”

Lyra went back to sulking. ‘There is always a ‘but’ with these things.”

“...it’s unacceptable.” The mare concluded with a grunt as she sat beside the unicorn. It was clear from her posture that she was uncomfortable with this 'heart-to-heart'. “Look. I know you might think I’m being harsh, but I can’t act any other way when you don’t take this job seriously…and I’ve been lax for far too long.”

“Now wait just a-”

Lyra’s interruption did not stop the mare one bit, and Malted Wheat’s commanding tone left Lyra’s meek objection in the dust. “Your filly friend isn’t going to help you out of this one. I don’t care that you are just ‘distracted’ or ‘misunderstood’ but this behavior has gone on for too long. I have to draw the line somewhere. I’ve looked around town and there are a few other ponies who would be willing to do your job. I don’t like it—they are asking for more money than you and I doubt they are as good—but I need a competent and consistent worker.”

“S-she isn’t my filly friend…” Lyra whimpered. Of all that was said, that was all she could object to.

Malted Wheat sighed. “Here’s the deal. I’m willing to let you start a little later if you…need it but you will need to make it up some other way. Washing dishes, taking out the trash, whatever you see that needs doing until I’m satisfied you’ve earned your keep. You make it up to me, I’ll keep you on. But, you need to come in when you say you will. I need notice. Some ponies come in expecting entertainment and I need to tell them when that is. Every time you’re late, you’re making me look like a foal.”

Defeated, Lyra gave her assent. ‘This isn’t really a good deal,’ Lyra groaned internally, ‘it isn’t like I’m showing up late because I want to. How am I supposed to give her notice if I lose track of time? Not to mention that the only reason I’m doing it is because I want more time to find out about precursors. This…extra work sounds like it will take even longer to finish then the usual stuff. That kinda defeats the whole purpose.’

Regardless of Lyra’s grievances with this new policy, she couldn’t do anything but agree. Her boss had her on the ropes now. Malted Wheat had covered all her bases whilst leaving Lyra’s completely exposed. One wrong move and Lyra would be fired—and worst of all—the Boss could truthfully say she ‘tried everything she could’.

In her grumpy mood, she went back home, completely forgetting about what she heard about Sweetie Belle.

Or at least, she had forgotten about it for a day. There was nopony—not even her boss—that would be getting in Lyra's way in this. This was to be the biggest task she would undertake in her life.

It didn’t take her long to track down Doctor Wellbeing’s practice to Canterlot and that very weekend she made a trip there. Bon Bon wasn’t thrilled to be left alone for another weekend but Lyra did promise to make it up to her next weekend. Still, Lyra wasn’t a foal. She knew that it wouldn’t take much for somepony to discover that she knew if she wasn’t careful. Instead of asking around, she discreetly walked around the outside of the hospital and peered into all the rooms she could. It didn’t take her long to find a little white filly in a second floor room reading a book.

Okay, so maybe Lyra didn’t consider that—after the first floor—she would need to climb a nearby tree to peer into the remaining rooms—which wasn’t very discreet. Lyra also didn’t notice any of the strange looks given by the ponies trying to enjoy the nice garden outside the hospital, but in her mind at least, Lyra was being inconspicuous. Luckily for her, none of the ponies were hospital staff and so they just figured she must be one of the mental cases and therefore mostly ignored her unusual actions.

Even more lucky was the fact that Sweetie Belle’s room was right next to one of the hospital lounges for visitors. She probably could have also waited outside the room and listened in on anything inside from the hall, but this made it far less likely to be noticed. So—just as with Twilight—she sat on a couch in the lounge, opened a book in front of her, and cast a spell to listen in. From her viewpoint, she wouldn’t be able to tell if anypony came in or not so she had to keep the spell cast at regular intervals. With the book out, though, it would just appear like she was flipping the pages with her magic.

It took an hour-or-so, but eventually somepony came into the room. At this, Lyra immediately held the spell and listened in rapt attention.

“Hello again, Sweetie, how have the doctors been treating you?” the first voice, a female one, said. It sounded a bit melancholy.

“Oh, hi, sis. It’s been fine. I mean, the physical therapy hurts but it’ll make me better, right?” the second voice said, equally melancholy. Based on the context, Lyra figured the first voice was Rarity and the second was her sister Sweetie Belle.

“That’s right, darling. I also hear that you just got some good news, is that right?” Rarity asked with a certain amount of mirth in her voice.

“Darn,” Sweetie cursed, “Go figure; you could weasel it out of somepony. Yeah, they said even if my horn doesn’t get any better—with the progress I’m making in the physical department—I should be back home in Ponyville in a month!”

Rarity coughed awkwardly. “Well, I hardly weaseled the information, darling, although a lady has her ways. Nonetheless, this is excellent news! As such, Twilight helped me find a little something to celebrate.” This was followed by a rustling that Lyra couldn’t make out.

“Oh, Oh! Is that the thesis on the Thaumaturgic creation of aliphatic crystallized copolymers?! I thought that they weren’t going to release that research for another month!”

‘Huh?’ Lyra thought, ‘Why the heck is a filly doing so excited by some complicated research paper?’

Rarity sighed. “Yes, Sweetie, the thaumaturgic co-thingy. Anyway, Twilight said she was able to pick it up from some 'review board' before they…um, did whatever it is they do. Seriously dear, why do you care about this … stuff? I honestly can’t make heads or tails of any of it: ‘A series of aliphatic-aromatic poly-carbo-thingies poly-buty-carbo-whatsit-co-whatever PBCTs, were synthesized using the ‘Rolling Tri-Carat’ Method and-’ oh, I give up. Seriously, is this even written in Equish?”

Sweetie Belle giggled. “Well, it’s just saying that they were able to successfully ‘roll’ multiple chemical substrates of plastic together using magic to form this ‘PBCT’.” Seeing her sister’s deadpan expression, she quickly added, “Oh, um, PBCT is this really cool plastic which not only bio-degrades but is also moldable at higher temperatures making it perfect for use in industry!”

‘Okay, now I’m really confused. She actually knows what all that means?!’ Lyra shook her head and grinned darkly. ‘Oh, I’m not sure what’s going on but this is the best secret ever!’

Rarity groaned again. “That still doesn’t explain why you care. Just because that … thing made you smarter doesn’t mean that you need to waste your time reading these silly things. You used to be so much more interested in fashion, art and music. What changed?”

“It isn’t a thing, Rarity! Tablet was one of my best friends and it helped me see that there is so much in the world I don’t know! I still like fashion and stuff I guess, but there are more important things for me right now! I need to read this thesis if I’m going to be any help to Twilight…or at least to convince her I can help. She is planning on creating sophisticated lattice structures to make some form of new magic ‘super-crystal’, but she’s been too busy to work on it on her own.”

‘Precursor technology making ponies smarter?!’ Lyra thought. ‘There's no other explanation! Now I know why the Princesses wanted to keep this a secret! This isn’t just the discovery of a decade but the millenium! There are still so many questions though, why is she here in the hospital? Why is Rarity so against all of this and what is this ‘Tablet’ exactly? Based on the context, it must be some magical artifact.’

Rarity didn’t respond for a bit, but there was more shuffling. “Well, as much as it disappoints me to say, at least you are getting back to some definition of normal. It’s at least better than the past month of sulking you had. No, you won’t hear complaint from me again. You are my sister and I will respect the choices you make. Just…try to remember how you used to be, please? Whether I—or you—like it or not, that Tablet changed you.”

“I know…and one of these days, I’ll get everything figured out. But that precursor facility in Boiling Rock did more to me than just zap my horn— It made me realize that there are so many things I can do if I put my mind to it. I can't go back to old Sweetie Belle anymore.”

They were both silent for a moment. “And for that, know that your sister is proud of you. You went through that harrowing ordeal and you are still my sister, no matter what. Now, why don’t we go to the cafeteria and get you some ice-cream? I know there are still plenty of things about you that remained the same and-”

“-and I can promise you that my love of rocky-road ice-cream will never change!” Sweetie Belle concluded with an adorable squeak.

It was at this point that Lyra cancelled her spell and thought. To the other ponies however, it looked like the unicorn was having an epileptic fit with all the giggling and shaking that was going on. ‘OhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygosh! There is another precursor ruin! Wait, wasn’t boiling rock where that earthquake… Where there wasn’t an earthquake! Ohmygosh! The possibilities! A ‘Tablet’ that makes ponies smarter, an ancient precursor ruin hidden by the government that caused…something to happen!’

She stopped giggling and shaking in time for a manic grin to form on her face.

‘I’ve got more investigating to do!’

‘Well, that might have been a bust, but this, this is a sure thing,’ Lyra thought, holding a pair of binoculars to her face.

Lyra, having donned a fedora, trenchcoat and reflective black sunglasses, was now observing the Ponyville Train Station, the last stop on her path of investigation.

‘Now that I look back on it, the past month really sucked,’ Lyra thought, growing bored looking at the empty platform. ‘I tried researching everything that Sweetie Belle talked about: Mind Magic, her condition, heck, even the plastic ‘rolling’ thing for creating ‘lattice structures’ or whatever.’

Lyra sighed, being once again reminded of her limitations. She had not taken a science course, even a social science course since High School. Apart from learning that Sweetie Belle must have had a large dose of magic through her horn at once, she didn’t learn anything useful. ‘Anyway, I had to treat Bon Bon to a night on the town to make up for leaving for Canterlot a month ago so I couldn’t even go to the Boiling Rock Precursor Site until two weeks ago. Even then, it turns out that the whole place was swarming with EUP Guards. Oh yeah, all that science equipment and guards were just for the ‘relief effort’ right? Hah, I wouldn’t have believed them even if I didn’t know the real truth.’

Of course, Lyra was just a civilian. More importantly, she was a civilian trying to stay undercover until she had some real, substantial proof to show. She could not just sneak her way past one hundred guards or ask around. Still, she was certain she was right when she saw the very same Archaeologists that were in the newspaper working at that very site. That all but clinched it for her. This had to be a precursor site.

Unfortunately, every entrance was well guarded with rotating shifts and they had no doubt been concerned with how much she was loitering around the area by now. She was about to call it quits when she saw that somepony—or in this case somebuffalo—had placed a few ‘Missing Pony’ posters around town. What surprised her even more was that they weren’t about missing locals. Apparently three out-of-town fillies had bought a sack-full of digging equipment for rent from the local general store and never returned to pick up their deposit. She recognized the details on the poster immediately. Not only did it describe Sweetie Belle, but her friends too.

Which led to the here and now. After being barred entrance to the Boiling Rock site, she turned her attention back to Sweetie Belle. After listening in on Sweetie Belle’s patient room again the weekend prior, she got a confirmed date for when she would leave back for Ponyville. For the rest of the week, she tried—albeit unsuccessfully—to get more information from Twilight, the Apple Family, Sweetie Belle’s family or Scootaloo’s family. None of those leads could pan out.

The Apple Family was too keen and they kicked her out practically as she stepped hoof on their property. Twilight had also gotten back to putting up her soundproof barriers again; Lyra would probably have to wait weeks, if not months, until she got lazy or safe enough to not cast. Luckily, she didn’t have any problem with Scootaloo’s or Sweetie Belle’s houses, but unfortunately they never seemed to speak about the issue at all. It might even be that they weren’t ‘in-the-know,’ and with Rarity all alone at the Carousel Boutique, there was no reason for her to ever bring up the topic.

‘Still,’ Lyra thought, ‘despite all the setbacks, I’m confident I’ll win in the end. Now that Sweetie Belle is back in Ponyville, it is only a matter of time before she slips up and speaks to her friends or family about things. All that’s left is time, patience and a little sleuthing and I will have all the answers I need.’

Lyra put on a smug expression before levitating the binoculars back up to her face. “And the best part is,” she whispered, “nopony suspects a thing.”

As Lyra correctly surmised, Sweetie Belle was unaware of the unicorn mare scrutinizing her as she stepped off the train at Ponyville station. The day was clear, the sun was shining and Sweetie Belle could finally get back to the life she had before all this precursor stuff changed it.

“Well, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity began to ask as she departed after her sister, “how do you feel? Is Ponyville just as you remembered it?”

Sweetie Belle looked around to the town surrounding her and frowned. ‘It really is … and yet it isn’t,’ she thought before turning away from her sister, ensuring her frown was obscured. ‘Everything's the same … but me. There are ponies walking along the streets in their usual, carefree way. The merchants at the stalls near Town Hall are busy manipulating ponies into buying their goods, their competition with the big-name Barnyard Bargains ensuring that the local market remains efficient as per the effects of Consumer Sovereignty. Rainbow Dash is busy in the air, pushing back the warmer air today to ensure that the cold front in from the east tomorrow has enough humidity to keep the clouds in the air for an optimum rainfall. Everything is exactly as it has always been, but I see everything so differently now.’

“Sweetie Belle?” Rarity asked, concerned that her sister had not spoken or moved in over a minute.

“Oh,” Sweetie Belle replied in shock, shaking herself from her melancholy. “Right, sorry, let’s get back to the Boutique,” she said, smiling. “Yep, Ponyville is just as I remembered it. Nice and quiet and stuff.”

Rarity smiled back. ‘She clearly needs to get used to everything. I’m sure she will be back to normal in no time, and I know just the thing.'

“Surprise!” the cacophony of voices shouted as Sweetie Belle and Rarity entered the Boutique.

Sweetie Belle was—of course—shocked. She shouldn’t have been considering that Pinkie Pie had already thrown a ‘Congratulations on Saving the World/Not Losing Your Magic’ party two months ago. It only made sense that she would throw her a ‘Congratulations on Making a Sorta-Full Recovery’ party now. Still, her shock turned to smiles and tears as she saw all her friends again.

“Hey Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo yelled as she and Apple Bloom rushed passed all the other ponies crammed into the Boutique. “You’re finally back!”

“Yeah!” Apple Bloom confirmed, “Ah don’t know ‘bout y’all but Ah can’t wait to get back to Crusadin’ with the three of us!”

Sweetie Belle tried to hype herself up like her friends, but she wasn’t feeling it. Seeing her friends made her very happy and she was thankful to finally be back to ‘normal’ but she couldn’t shake herself out of this horrible feeling that things just weren’t right. Rarity also noticed her sister’s lack of enthusiasm but thought she was unsatisfied with how often they came to see her. Ultimately, though, she ignored this and—seeing she wasn’t going to be needed for a while—got the rest of the party-goers to back away and let the fillies talk.

“Oh, I can’t wait either,” Sweetie Belle replied calmly, “have you done anything new?” She briefly looked at their flanks. “I see you still don’t have your Cutie Marks though…”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo giggled at that. “Yeah,” Scootaloo replied with a sigh, “but, hey, half the fun is trying, right?”

“So what have you been doing?” Sweetie Belle questioned, grabbing herself some punch from the nearby refreshment table. “I know you visited two weeks ago, but a lot can happen.”

“Oh yeah!” Apple Bloom replied, “Didn’t Twilight get all mopey about the library gettin’ destroyed or somethin’? I remember my sis and her friends dragging the entire old library-tree across town because of that!”

“No, no,” Scootaloo chastised, “that was a while ago; when that Table-thing started sending them all over Equestria. I think that was even before our adventure. No, nothing really happened this week. Well, I guess there’s all this talk about building some type of bear-o-city or something for Twilight.”

“A Bureaucracy?” the white dictionary offered.

“Yeah, that’s it!” Scootaloo agreed. “Apparently there’s going to be a lot more ponies moving in to make Twilight more legit or something.”

“Doesn’t make much sense ta me,” Apple Bloom added, “you’re either a Princess or not, right?”

“Well,” Sweetie Belle started, “technically Twilight isn’t really a ‘princess-princess’ yet.”

“Huh?” they both asked, raising their eyebrows.

“Well, I mean, Twilight is a princess, but she doesn’t have any responsibilities like making new laws or anything. The bureaucracy is a bunch of ponies who make sure that Twilight sees all the important things a princess needs to take care of and that the decisions she makes get put to use by the rest of Equestria.”

“Wait,” Scootaloo questioned, trying to wrap her head around the problem, “don’t the princesses do all that? Why do they need other ponies to tell ponies what to do when the princesses tell ponies what to do? That just sounds really confusing and complicated.”

Sweetie Belle sighed, even she wondered why bureaucracies were so complicated, although for other reasons. “Well, I guess you could say that the princesses are still ponies. They can make decisions but they aren’t going to go to Ponyville—for example—and make sure ponies are doing what they said they should.”

“Ah kinda get that,” Apple Bloom said, trying to wrap her head around it as well, “but ain’t that what the guard ponies are supposed ta do?”

“Well you see,” Sweetie Belle said, getting into full lecture mode now, “when you get down to it, it's more like a whole collection of systems comprised of…”

“...and so with innovations in automated assembly and mass distribution carried over telecommunication systems, the basic understanding of intellectual property would require that either: A) the existing bureaucratic architecture be corrupted by monopolistic interests, B) the bureaucracy be completely overhauled with new ideas of shared responsibility which could undermine existing corporate interest or C) a new bureaucratic system governing balancing the public and private interests of the population be-”

It was about forty minutes into her explanation on possible changes in the bureaucratic process to meet the variety of developing needs of government when she realized several of the party’s ponies had stopped their individual conversations to listen attentively to what Sweetie Belle had to say. This sudden notice of attention made Sweetie Belle realize that she may have made a bit of a mistake.

“Urghh,” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo groaned.

“This is sooo boring, Sweetie,” Scootaloo spoke, looking physically ill and holding her head, “and my head hurts. Remind me never to ask you anything again.”

However, one of the ponies—who Sweetie Belle noticed eventually as Diamond Tiara’s father, Filthy Rich—disagreed and spoke up in this sudden lull in the lecture. “Don’t stop yet, little filly! You caught my interest with this idea that short-term economic output could be driven by the aggregate demand of a market.” His eyes were practically sparkling as he continued, “If I could convince Princess Celestia that the fiscal political action you mentioned could stabilize the long term consequences of the private sector’s selfish view of the macroeconomic model, she might consider reducing the current heavy micromanagement of industry!”

“Well, that may be, but-” Sweetie Belle started, only to be cut off by another pony.

“Oh, are you taking questions now?” a mare in the crowd asked. “Because that ‘legislative assembly’ you were talking about in the ‘tripartite political system’ sounds like it would really make the whole noble aristocracy we have obsolete. Don’t you agree?”

“Hey, I’m all for that,” another pony agreed.

“Yeah, those ponies are jerks,” said another.

“Huh, what’s going on? Who are jerks?” Twilight asked, breaking off from her chat with Fluttershy when she saw the crowd of ponies that seemed to have formed.

“Well Princess Twilight Sparkle,” Filthy Rich began to answer, “I think we have a filly genius on our hooves. Her ideas on a ‘Free Market Economic Model’ are really inspiring.”

“Yeah,” the political mare from earlier enthusiastically agreed, “but you can’t forget her political ideas of the separation of state powers! Thoughts like that could really change Equestria for the better.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide at the short-term personal implications, “What!”

The mare, realizing her mistake, quickly backtracked. “Oh, no no, not like that! I mean, the separation of governance into a legislative assembly, judicial court and executive Triarchal branches, of course! I would never dream that you weren’t suited to lead us Princess!”

Twilight breathed a short sigh of relief but still wanted desperately to change the topic of conversation. Unfortunately, she would immediately regret thinking that when Scootaloo asked, “I’m completely lost. Did the tablet teach you this Sweetie-”

Twilight immediately placed a hoof in the poor filly’s mouth. “Hehehe, what a kidder Scootaloo. Clearly I taught Sweetie Belle all this during Twilight Time of course,” Twilight lied, speaking the line she rehearsed for just this situation (Excuse #43 on the ‘List of Possible Reasons for Sweetie Belle’s Sudden Strange Behavior’). “I’m glad she has been thinking for herself on these complicated topics. Hehehe. But really Sweetie Belle, you should talk to me before you talk about your ideas in front of a crowd of ponies.” Twilight emphasized those last words with both her voice and a slight twitch of her right eye which made Sweetie sweat a bit and shift awkwardly.

Most of the ponies seemed to have bought this excuse, but before anypony could ask any more questions, Twilight teleported to in between the three fillies. “Alright, I think it’s time for the fillies to head on home now.”

“What’s this about Apple Bloom headin’ home?” Applejack asked, picking the worst time to enter the conversation. “Ah reckon she’s still got at least an hour left in her before she needs ta head on home.”

“No, I think she should head on home,” Twilight replied. “Scootaloo’s been talking about ‘tablets’ of all things,” she continued, nudging her friend, “the fillies are obviously so tired they can’t think straight, right?”

Applejack, now realizing the implications, agreed. “Oh, right. That’s makes sense, sure. Well, uh, Apple Bloom has some stuff ta do on the farm tomorrow anyhow, so , uh, we should probably head on back so we can have a fresh start on the day tomorrow and stuff. Yeah, that’s it.” Applejack barely got out between fidgeting her hooves and looking around nervously. She was clearly uncomfortable even with half-truths—after all, they would have an early morning the next day.

“Sorry, Pinkie,” Applejack spoke over the crowd to where Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were talking. “Looks like me and Apple Bloom are headin’ back to the farm for an early night’s sleep before farmwork tomorrow!”

“Okay,” Pinkie Pie said a little sadly before perking back up. “Well have a good night, you two!”

“And I think you are a little tired too, aren’t you Sweetie Belle?” Twilight asked in a demanding sort of way.

“Hehe, yeah Twilight,” Sweetie Belle chuckled nervously, “I sure am beat from that long train ride. We’ll talk later everypony.”

The rest of the ponies grumbled their assents, not happy that such enlightening conversation was cut short but understanding that Sweetie Belle was ultimately still a little filly.

There was one pony listening that wasn’t grumbling, however. Lyra—still in her fedora and trenchcoat—was sipping some punch by the refreshment table as her face formed a little smirk. ‘Looks like Applejack does know something about this ‘tablet’ too,’ Lyra thought, ‘It hasn’t even been more than a few hours and I’m already learning new things.’

The smirk turned into a full grin.

‘It won’t be long before everypony will know the full truth about precursors. I’d bet my lyre on it.’

Chapter 3 - The Flying Crusader

Taking Twilight’s ‘advice,’ Sweetie Belle went to sleep. Between the train ride back, her still recuperating body, and the surprise party she really was exhausted. The fact that she practically gave away to the whole town that she was different did not make staying at the party any easier, of course, but it wasn't the only reason by a long shot. ‘Now that everypony knows they have something to benefit from talking to me, they won’t stop,’ Sweetie Belle thought, groaning at the prospect. ‘By the principles of Utilitarianism, they will continue to do so until I find some way to make the cost of doing so greater than the benefit. The only question is how? Well, I suppose as long as I distract myself with something until school starts next week, it’s unlikely anypony will bother me.’

Her thoughts were disturbed, however, by distant voices emanating from downstairs. ‘The Boutique shouldn’t be open this early,' she reasoned, 'who could that be?’. Deciding that going downstairs to find out who it could be was preferable to her current laziness, she got out of her bed and went down into the kitchen to find out.

“Good morning, everypony,” Sweetie Belle said wearily, still not completely awake. This drowsiness must have been the case as she completely missed the fact that not only was Rarity there, sitting at the small table in the kitchen, but her parents were there as well. “Wait. What are you doing over here, Mom and Dad?”

The three unicorns at the table smiled at the filly’s entrance. Her father, Hondo Flanks, was the first to speak up, “Oh, like we need a reason to visit our lovely daughters!” The moustached unicorn quickly took another bite from his eggs before continuing, “I’ll have you know that we felt just awful that we couldn’t visit you as often as we would have liked at the hospital.”

Her mother, Cookie Crumbles, continued the conversation as soon as she was finished a piece of toast. “We’ve just been so busy, dontcha know.” She quickly took a bite out of a pancake before she spoke up again. “If it wasn’t one of your father’s hoofball tryouts in Vanhoover, it’s been me getting completely swamped with work at the restaurant. We’ve been getting more and more business at La Lune d’Everfree ever since we received our very own princess here in Ponyville. We’ve had to extend our hours just to keep up with the reservations! Why, it seems like every pony in Canterlot has been down here, and—of course—our restaurant is the only one ‘fancy’ enough to cater to their needs, you know? Even a simple pastry chef like your mom can’t catch a break!”

Rarity, sensing the incoming tension building in the room, tried to head it off. “Oh don’t you worry, Father, Mother,” Rarity responded, looking nervously at everypony in the room, “Sweetie Belle hasn’t said a word against you about that.”

“Yeah, sis is right. Everything is alright,” Sweetie Belle said with a sigh. ‘It isn’t like it would be the first time they forgot about me,’ Sweetie Belle thought. ‘Although, if it wasn’t for their negligence, I wouldn’t get to spend so much time with my sister!' she then realized, picking herself back up. 'I mean, it all makes logical sense. Dad has his Vanhoover Manticores to coach and Mom has her job as patisserie. I was a lot more frustrated about this before, but I’m old enough to make my own decisions now. If I need help, I have my friends and Rarity to give it.’

Rarity frowned at this reaction from her sister, however. Rarity might not have been able to read the filly's mind, but it was clear by the indifferent expression that her sister was far too used to their parents’ perpetual absence. Still, as her mother spoke up again, it seemed that the issue was dealt with for now.

“Well, don’t you be worrying about that no more, you hear, Sweetie Belle?” Cookie continued with a smile. “I know that I’ve been putting it off for a while, but I’ll be more than happy to get back to teaching you all that fancy cooking I promised you. I guarantee that you’ll be cooking like me and your sister in no time. This whole situation has reminded me and your Dad how special you are and that we need to spend much more time together. I promise to make it up to you.”

“Right, thanks,” Sweetie Belle mumbled as she got up to the table. Her mane was ruffled sympathetically by her father but she ignored it, instead rolling her eyes as she leaned into the chair. This maneuver wasn’t as sneaky as she thought it was, however, as—though missed by her parents—it was caught by her sister who once again gave a worried expression.

A short amount of pleasant conversation was then discussed: Hondo discussed the new hoofballers he was scouting, Cookie talked about a new lemon tart she made to entice the Canterlotans, and Rarity discussed her new innovations she was planning for her summer line. Sweetie couldn’t bring herself to listen intently to any of it, her mind easily drifting to her thoughts on thaumic lattice structure manipulation and the nuances of manifold geometry in spellcasting. Before she knew it, breakfast was over and Sweetie Belle’s parents were leaving, saying their goodbyes to them at the door.

“We’re sorry again, sport,” her father spoke, ruffling her mane again. “We’ve got to head out. Don’t you know it but your mom has work again today and your dad needs to go over his new roster and pick the best of the best! Those new hoofballers won’t hire themselves, you know? I promise though, we will be spending much more time together next week.”

With that, they left. Sweetie Belle once again rolled her eyes, going back to her unfinished pancakes.

Rarity sighed and sat back down at the table, looking back to her sister. “They are good parents, if not a bit thick-headed, darling,” Rarity sympathized, placing hoof on her sister’s withers. “They might not be around that much for you, but when I was your age, they were everything to me. Goodness, half of the reason I’m so…refined—I guess the word would be—is because I wanted to grow up and wait tables for Mother’s restaurant.”

Rarity sat back a bit, a wistful expression on her face. “When those snobs at the restaurant told me—a little filly at the time—that I wasn’t mature and cultured enough to work there, I have no doubt they just wanted me to go home and forget the whole thing. I mean, can you imagine a filly working at a fancy restaurant? Oh, but I was—and am—nothing if not determined. I went home and spent months learning how to be a proper lady. I went back, but again, they said I wasn’t ‘cultured enough’.”

Rarity giggled. “I still had it in my head that if it wasn’t my speech, then it must have been my looks. The reason I got my talent in dressmaking was because I couldn’t afford the genuine article. Class plays, dolls, friends, I practiced dressmaking everywhere I could so that I could make the perfect dress. ‘Surely that would show them I had just as much culture as the rest of them’ I thought. I enjoyed the idea of being a lady so much—of dressmaking, proper speech and etiquette—I forgot the whole reason I did it in the first place. I never went back, nor did I look back. I had found who I was.”

Sweetie Belle was still pouting, but it was also clearly evident that she was hiding a genuine curiosity at the story. Rarity decided to take this moment summarize, “The point I’m trying to make is that inspiration can come from the most unlikely of places and it would be a terrible waste if you didn’t let Father and Mother into your life. Everypony thinks I must have been adopted because of how different our parents are to me, but the reality is that they are the reason for it. If there is anything my friendship with Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash has taught me, it is that you can never have too much diversity in the company you keep.”

“What’s the point, though?” Sweetie Belle groaned. “It isn’t like I haven’t tried to get them to pay attention before. You should know how helpful I try to be…or at least tried to be. Well, at least you noticed. Dad just laughs and rustles my mane and mom just ignores it completely! I’ve thought it through, and I’m happier the way it is now, with you.”

Rarity gave her sister a stern stare. “Then you tell them, you sit them down and explain yourself. I remember a certain somepony saying ‘there are so many things I can do if I put my mind to it.’ Well, that doesn't need only apply to just your-”

Unfortunately—or luckily, depending on your point of view—this lecture was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“One moment!” Rarity yelled at the door before turning to her sister. “Now, Sweetie, we will talk about this later, but try to think about all the good everypony in Ponyville does. Neither I nor your friends are the be-all and end-all that ponies have to offer.”

Rarity then answered the door, leaving Sweetie Belle to stew in her thoughts for a moment. This didn’t last long, however, as Rarity brought back the ponies who were at the door. Two familiar fillies.

“Scootaloo! Apple Bloom!” Sweetie Belle cried, grabbing her friends into a group hug. “I’m sorry I wasted all the time we had together yesterday with that dumb lecture and-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Scootaloo cut off with a roll of her eyes and a grin. “Come on, we all know why and we don’t care. We were your friends when you were a dictionary, it shouldn’t surprise you that we’re still your friends when you’ve moved on and become an encyclical—um, encircle-something-”

“Encyclopedia,” Sweetie Belle chipped in, not missing a beat.

“-exactly. I’m just glad everything is back to normal. Whatever your normal is,” Scootaloo saying that last part with a smarmy look.

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom agreed. She gave each of them a silent gesture. “And now that we’re back together, we can finally get back to being-”

“THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!” they all yelled in unison. Luckily Rarity had smartly left the room when they got together so as to save her precious ear drums.

“Yay!” Sweetie Belle finished, giggling but with tears welling in her eyes. “Oh my gosh, girls, I missed this so much.”

Apple Bloom nodded her assent, “We all did. Without ya, it just hasn’t been the same. Not ta mention that Scoots’ parents grounded her for the whole first month ya were away. It turns out she didn’t ask permission for the money and supplies for our adventure after all.” Scootaloo gave and uncharacteristic squeak of embarrassment at that, followed quickly by an awkward cough.

“Well, we need to go right now!” Sweetie Belle voiced enthusiastically. “We only have a week before school starts and I want to get as much crusading as possible done before then!” Sweetie Belle concluded, finally giving in to her friends’ exuberance. They all jumped up and down and giggled as they turned to leave.

However, before Sweetie Belle could get out the door, she felt a sudden tug on her from behind, causing her to stop and her friends to leave her behind, well out of earshot. Turning to see what it was, she found herself held in place by her sister’s magic.

“Now, Sweetie,” Rarity began in a slightly chiding tone, “I know that you want to jump right back into your crusading again, but remember, you’re not yet fully recovered! I want you to play safe, you hear?”

“I know,” Sweetie Belle groaned. Rarity looked back with a deadpan stare at her sister’s indifference, but that softened with what came next. “No really, sis, I know,” Sweetie Belle continued waving her forehooves at nothing in particular. “How can I not? All I can do now is think! Bone marrow loss, muscular atrophy, my horn. Really, that’s just extra on top of everything. I ruined any chance I had at being normal the moment I ran away and became smart.” Sweetie Belle had surprised herself when that last word was said in disgust.

Rarity knelt down and hugged her sister. “Oh, Sweetie, you know I didn’t mean it that way. Just…be careful, alright? I let you out of my sight for a minute and just look what happened to you! If you were to—”

“No, sis, you aren’t allowed to feel bad about that,” Sweetie Belle said, pushing away from their embrace to look intently into Rarity’s eyes. Rarity was shocked at how authoritative Sweetie Belle sounded. Sweetie briefly turned back to make sure her friends were still out of earshot before continuing, “I forgave whatever it is you think you did wrong. I went in the cave, I lied to everypony and ran away. I put my friends' lives in danger.” She looked away at that, but quickly turned back around, staring at her sister in full force. “You can trust me. That isn’t a mistake I’m going to ever make again. This is just going to be nice regular fun,” she paused and teared up slightly only to wipe it all away, "just like old times."

With that, Sweetie jumped out of her sister’s forehooves and ran for her friends who—because they could not hear a word of the conversation—had looked upon the scene in confusion. Rarity—on the other hoof—looked back on what happened with surprise and concern.

‘I guess the saying is true: ‘once choice begins, innocence ends’. I just hope you haven’t started making your choices too soon, sister. I may not like it, but there is no turning back the clock on innocence.’

She looked at the happy fillies running to their clubhouse. If one hadn’t heard what just happened, you would think they were perfectly normal, innocent foals. ‘It’s just … you are too young to be ending your childhood so soon but it’s also my duty as your big sister to protect you, Rarity thought, conflicted. She sighed and turned back to the house and to the beginning of her work day.

'Oh Celestia, why does this have to be so hard.’

The three fillies sat in their clubhouse, going over what they were going to do today. All the earlier exuberance was gone and everypony but Sweetie was slumped over a table in the center of the room; one covered paper scrawled with various scribbled ideas.

“Okay,” Sweetie Belle said, trying to summarize what she just heard, “so, while I was gone, your tried water polo, letter writing, oil dredging, babysitting, crane driving, train conducting, and river relocating-”

“-but still no Cutie Mark,” Scootaloo concluded with a grumble. “It’s gotten so bad that our list of activities is starting to look more like a badly written dictionary!” She emphasized this by holding up the list, which was now over forty pages thick of failed ideas. “How can Babs Seed make it look so easy? She joined last, but got her mark first!”

“What about Silversmithing?” Apple Bloom asked, not hiding the fact that she just opened the page to a random page in the dictionary she was holding.

“Done. We got kicked out when we tried making matching CMC bracelets,” Scootaloo replied. “Not to mention that the only silversmiths in town are … Silver Spoon’s family," she finished with a shudder. "Lion Taming?”

“Did that too once,” Apple Bloom shivered. “Also, doin’ anything that has to do with the Cutie Marks Ah got when Ah had the Cutie Pox is a no-go for me. Ah draw the line at hang-gliding, but Ah still have nightmares about tap-dancin’ and speakin’ Fancy. Trying to hold back several ferocious lions is definitely on that side of the line.”

Sweetie Belle collapsed on the table like her friends. “Isn’t this exactly what we did at our last CMC meeting?” Sweetie Belle asked, reminding the three of the time when Sweetie was hiding the existence of the Tablet from the rest of them against her will. “Doing the same thing every time is going to get pretty boring soon; not to mention that we’re going to have to start doing boring things like ‘tax-returning’ or ‘flower-watering’ if we keep this up.”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom assented sadly, “but what can we do? I mean, there’s no point doing things we’ve already done and we’ve pretty much run out of all the fun options. Still, we can’t give up, right?”

“Of course not!” Scootaloo exclaimed, sitting up. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders never quit!”

Sweetie Belle hummed while she thought, ‘Well, if none of the regular activities are doing anything, maybe we should try something nopony has done before…’ Then it hit her, the perfect idea. Something that they all could do, that played to each of their skills, that they all would enjoy and—most importantly of all—was highly likely to get them their Cutie Marks.

“There is one thing we haven’t tried yet,” Sweetie Belle said with a big grin.

“Oh, oh!” Scootaloo cried, jumping onto her hooves. “I know that look! Whatever it is, count me in!”

Apple Bloom however, was more hesitant for the same reason. Sweetie Belle was, after all, the one who typically kept the fillies thinking sense most of the time. The last time she made a suggestion with a big grin like that, they were getting a special somepony for Cheerilee.

Sweetie Belle saw her friend’s hesitance and quickly added, “Don’t worry Apple Bloom, it isn’t anything bad, I promise.”

The three fillies, now informed of the plan, made their way back to the Sweet Apple Acres to ask Applejack for the appropriate supplies.

“So what will we need from sis again?” Apple Bloom asked as the three finally made it out of the small forest separating their clubhouse from the farm proper. The farm was now in sight.

“Well,” Sweetie Belle started, going into her saddlebags to get the list she had made, “according to the plans, we’re going to need a: saw, chisel, wood bore or drill, some hinges, some screws and a screwdriver, sandpaper, carpentry glue, some plywood, and a whole lot of wooden planks and rods. Also, we’ll probably need some twine to bind the wooden pieces together as they dry from the glue.”

Apple Bloom nodded, “Sounds about right for a typical CMC project if you ask me,” she replied, thankful for the group's now extensive knowledge of construction they had acquired when developing the various catapults, fireworks, and other tools necessary for attaining their Cutie Marks. She reviewed the materials in her head. “No hammer and nails though? I would think this would need as many nails as possible, considering.”

Sweetie Belle shook her head. “No, nails are too easy to get knocked loose if you hit them the wrong way. Normally, you can just figure out what directions the forces acting on the system are and then just angle the nails appropriately, but you can’t do that with this. Forces can come from all sides!”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Scootaloo agreed in an I-think-I-understand sort of way, “I mean, considering that it is a-”

“Hey you fillies,” Applejack interrupted seeing the fillies finally come into view from her position at the house. “So yer all finished with Crusadin’ for the day? Ah was just about ta call y’all in fer lunch.”

“Nope!” Apple Bloom replied. “We’re just gettin’ started sis! Sweetie Belle made up a whole plan and everything!”

Applejack gave a knowing nod. “So then that means our supplies will be seein’ a sudden decrease, Ah take it?”

The three crusaders had the courtesy to at least look embarrassed. “Well,” Sweetie started—coughing slightly to hide her embarrassment, “it’s mostly wood and tools. I made up a list of the stuff here.” She hooved over the piece of paper she read earlier to the orange mare. “Would you be able to bring all this stuff to our Clubhouse some time later today? We need to go into town to get the rest of the supplies-” The fillies’ stomachs grumbled in unison at the thought of all the walking. “-Um, well, after we’ve had lunch of course,” she finished, squeaking.

“Well, alright,” Applejack concluded after giving a quick look at the list. “Most of this stuff could just come right outta the emergency barn repair supplies, not that we should need them any time soon. At least, Ah hope the darn thing can stay up fer a whole week.” She said that last part out of earshot of the fillies.

With their bellies full of food and their determination renewed at the progress they had already made thus far, the three fillies set out into town to acquire the remaining supplies they would need.

“Alright,” Sweetie Belle said, looking at her list, “it looks like there are a few stops to make. We need to visit my sister, Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie before heading back.”

“Let’s visit Pinkie Pie last,” Apple Bloom proffered with a grin, “that way we can get somethin’ at Sugar Cube Corner before we head back.”

“That’s a great idea,” Scootaloo agreed. “Also, why don’t we visit Rainbow Dash first!”

The two fillies rolled their eyes. “Let me guess,” Sweetie Belle observed, “because she’s ‘totally awesome’ right?”

“Well, duh,” Rainbow Dash concluded, stunning the fillies. The rainbow pegasus swooped down from her perch on a cloud above them, landing in the middle of the three.

“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo exclaimed.

“How did you know we were looking for you?” Sweetie Belle asked. “I was actually going to save speaking to you for later since it’s almost impossible to find you in any one place.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Rainbow Dash brushed off. “No one task can tie down this mare. That being said, I was just catching some z’s in napping spot #2 after morning stunt practice when I heard you fillies talking about me.”

“Napping spot #2?” Apple Bloom asked.

Rainbow Dash pointed to the cloud hovering over some of the Apple Trees. “Yeah, the Sweet Apple Acres’ cloud. I’d name it #1 if I didn’t count my bed, considering I sleep on both of them almost as much.”

“But don’t clouds dry up eventually?” Sweetie Belle countered. “It wouldn’t last as a napping spot very long.”

“Oh yeah, but I’m head weather mare so I can always keep a cloud or two in the area. Besides, there are always napping spots #9, #33 and #118 for when I can’t get a cloud in a moment's notice,” she finished with a shrug.

“You really keep track of all those?” Sweetie Belle asked. “That doesn’t seem like you at all. No offence, but the only pony I know that would make a list that long for anything are Twilight and maybe Pinkie Pie—because who knows how many hidden things she has stashed around Ponyville…”

“Look,” Rainbow Dash said with a sudden seriousness in her voice and expression. “If there is one thing I take as seriously as flying, it’s napping. I need at least 4 hours extra sleep if I’m going to perform at my best, so I make sure there are plenty of places I can go to get some nap time.”

It didn’t take long for the two CMC to giggle at Rainbow’s need for ‘nap time’. Scootaloo—the only one not to giggle—nonetheless looked on in confusion.

“Hey, it’s true! You try flying faster than sound, then come tell me you don’t need a couple extra breaks every day,” Rainbow concluded, crossing her arms in a pout. “Besides, you try getting some shuteye around Pinkie Pie without, like, a million contingency plans,” she added under her breath. Seeing that even Scootaloo was beginning to crack up, she coughed to get the their attention. “Anyway, what do the Cutie Mark Crusaders need from the one-and-only Rainbow Dash?”

Sweetie Belle—once again reminded of the reason she was here—looked down at her list. “Oh right, um, Scootaloo said that you apparently have three sets of helmets and goggles we can use.”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom chipped in, “I remember you giving me a pair when we tried hang gliding when you were helping me get my Cutie Mark.”

Rainbow Dash thought a moment before it clicked. “Oh right! That was forever ago, but yeah, I have a few extra ones lying around. A stunt mare as awesome as me goes through one of those at least once a month. Just give me a sec and I’ll go grab you some.”

It was not quite a second, but the fillies did not have to wait long before Rainbow Dash’s eponymous contrail came flying back with the promised headgear. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo said before awkwardly hoofing the ground. “Um, would you be able to come by some time later this week? We’ll probably have something to show you.”

Rainbow Dash looked at her with an eyebrow raised but ultimately shrugged. “Sure. I’m guessing you’re not telling ‘cause it’s a surprise?” She waited for Scootaloo’s assent before continuing, “Well, in that case, I’ll definately be there. Just let me know ahead of time ‘cause, you know, I have stuff I’m doing and…stuff…um, later!”

Realizing that the conversation was starting to turn in a lame direction, Rainbow Dash took the initiative and quickly flew back to her cloud for another nap.

“Okay, speaking of leaving,” Sweetie Belle remarked, attempting to segue back on topic, “so is anypony against going back to see my sis next?”

“I don’t know,” Apple Bloom criticized, “shouldn’t we go to Twilight’s first since her stop has the lighter load?”

“Well, it might be lighter, but my sister will have a cart so that should make both trips easier.”

“Can we just go already!” Scootaloo exclaimed. “Let’s go to Rarity’s, then Twilight’s, then we can go to Sugar Cube Corner.”

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes but conclusively decided her friend was right.

“Well, at least we have something to look forward to.”

“Four rolls of canvas, two rolls of silk, black and red fabric dye, sewing needles, thread, and forty meters of double-braided rope,” Rarity stated, reading back the list her sister just gave her. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had arrived at the Carousel Boutique not more than ten minutes prior and Sweetie Belle had just finished explaining to her sister what they needed.

“That’s it,” Sweetie Belle assured, giving a very convincing look of pure innocence…

…to which her sister was not immune. Rarity sighed. “Alright, well I can’t really say no to any of this. I just want to remind you again to stay out of trouble. Although—save for the rope—I don’t know what you could make with this that could put any of you in danger.”

“Oh, you’ll see-” Scootaloo remarked before Sweetie Belle could kick her quiet.

“Hehe, silly Scoots,” Sweetie laughed, “always kidding around. We won’t be in any real danger, honest!”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Well, I trust you,” she relented before waving them off with a hoof. “You can take what you need from the back of the boutique but be quick about it. Go! I have commissions to finish.”

“...and so,” Sweetie Belle spoke, ending her argument, “that is why I will need one of your high output thaumic crystals, a twin-foci conduit and an axle thaum-mechanical transducer, preferably within 50-60 Neighton-meters of torque at 3500 rotations per minute.”

Twilight facehooved, simply stating, “No.”

“Please?” Scootaloo entreated emphatically. “We really need this for the project. Obviously it can’t work without the crystals or folkees or transmodulators and stuff!”

Exchanging a silent message to one another, they simultaneously looked up at their purple pony princess patron with sad puppy eyes.

Twilight felt physically ill denying them anything, but as a responsible adult, she pressed forward. “No means no, Crusaders. It was bad enough that I gave you a potions book and left you unsupervised on Hearts and Hooves day when it was clear you would be performing alchemy, but this is going too far! There are too many dangers with this type of technology that you are unprepared for. I don’t even think that I could allow this even with my personal supervision.”

The three fillies all dropped their heads, moaning in disappointment—that is, until Sweetie Belle quickly looked up with a grin and whispered something to the other two Crusaders.

“Oh, well that’s too bad,” Scootaloo hinted.

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom agreed, “we had something to show you, but Ah guess it doesn’t matter now.”

Twilight wasn’t convinced, “No offense, Crusaders, but I doubt that there is anything that you could show that would change my mind.”

Sweetie Belle hummed, “Well that must clearly be the case. After all, it isn’t like we know what we’re doing, right?”

Twilight frowned, shaking her head. “No, I know you’re smart fillies, it’s just that-”

“After all,” Sweetie interrupted, “it isn’t like a certain somepony let me have all those thesis papers on lattice structure production. No, because that somepony would have to know that I would then have the ability to reverse engineer and design a method of production.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide, “You didn’t-”

“I did,” Sweetie Belle said in a sing-song voice. She grinned a surprisingly innocent smile—given the situation. She might have been doing something a little ‘underhooved’ but she was still proud of her accomplishment. She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out another piece of paper. “I discovered a method to form the lattice structures of that precursor crystal you found!” she said, showing Twilight the piece of paper.

Twilight looked over the sheet in front of her. To anypony else, it might have been just unintelligible math and even to Equestria’s top mages the algorithms would have just represented a series of unrelated processes that would no doubt result in a jumbled mess. To Twilight, however, the modulation of different processes at various frequencies, times and angles laid out a clear and elegant flow from beginning to end.

‘With the processes detailed on this piece of paper,’ Twilight thought, ‘even a completely random slurry of garbage could—with enough time, energy and practice from a skilled unicorn mage—be used to produce the high-quality precursor crystal with a 1% chance of success! That may not have been a lot, but considering the cost of production and the price such crystal would sell for, this single piece of paper is easily worth millions of bits in the right hooves.’ Twilight smiled, ‘Why, with a little experimentation and trial-and-error, I bet that even the issue of the non-deterministic breakdown of matter inherent to all magic could be minimized.’

“Sweetie…do you know what you just made?” Twilight stated, her voice quivering. She looked up to see the unicorn filly in question beaming a smile. “You know what, you can keep this paper,” she said, hoofing the paper back to the filly like it was made of poison ivy.

“Huh? Why?” Sweetie frowned, uneasily taking back her paper. “Is that not enough? I promise I could do more, Twi-”

Twilight put a hoof to Sweetie’s withers and sighed. “This is more than enough, but I can’t take this. To anypony else, that piece of paper would be their life’s work and I will not take that from you. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before but it is clear that I have underestimated you, Sweetie Belle. Our next Twilight Time—and there will be one, I don’t care how busy I am—we will need to talk later about your future. For now, though, you should keep that.”

“So—?” Scootaloo asked conspiratorially, nugging Twilight gently in the side with her forehoof.

“Yes,” Twilight relented with a sigh, “you can have one of my spare five-thaum crystals, a tri-foci, and a 6000 RPM axle transducer. That is the only configuration I have that will supply the torque you need, assuming you correctly gear-down the system. That being said, you are not allowed to turn it on without my supervision.”

The three fillies groaned but did none of them spoke up against the terms.

“Princess Twilight?” a well-dressed mare asked in an aristocratic tone. She had—until now—been standing with a few other equally well-dressed ponies on the other side of the castle hall. “I know you said that you did not want to be disturbed while you spoke to these…delightful fillies, but the other nobles are growing rather impatient. Now that you are finished, could you please move back to the throne room. We would like to discuss how your addition to the bureaucracy would-”

“Yes, yes, thank you, Upper Crust,” Twilight exasperated. Turning to the fillies, she said, “Looks like this is all the time I have. I’m sorry but you can pick up the equipment tomorrow. I’ll make sure that Spike knows what you need—Celestia knows if I will have enough time to give it to you myself.”

With that, they all left; the Cutie Mark Crusaders dragging their fabric-laden cart to Sugar Cube Corner and Twilight back to her meeting.

‘I can’t believe how short-sighted I’ve been!’ Twilight thought. ‘That filly is going to change the world in ways I can only dream of. Whether it is their Crusades, or any research materials I can provide, I’m going to do my best to make sure she is properly supported.’

She looked on at the nobels filling the throne room, bickering amongst themselves. ‘Because otherwise,’ she grinned, ‘I doubt anypony will be ready for the progress she’ll make.’

“Thank Celestia,” Sweetie Belle gasped, collapsing onto the floor while resting her head onto their usual table. Usual, that is, because it was the very same table in which the CMC was founded.

“You’re tired already?!” Scootaloo questioned. “We’ve only been walking around for a few hours.”

“Come on Scoots,” Apple Bloom criticized, “we saw her in the hospital only two weeks ago. She needs more time to get better is all, then she will be runnin’ along with us in no time!”

“It’s okay Bloom,” Sweetie Belle remarked, sitting up, “let’s get some milkshakes, talk to Pinkie, and then get back to the project at hoof.”

“Did somepony call my name?” an energetic voice called out from back of the store. The three Crusaders barely had enough time to ask themselves who the voice could belong to as its owner came to them. “Hiya girls! Whatcha doin’?” Pinkie Pie asked, bringing a hoof to her chin. “Did any of you ponies hear somepony say my name?”

“Yeah, that was us,” Apple Bloom confirmed. “We wanted to ask you something-”

“Actually,” Sweetie Belle interrupted, “could you get us some milkshakes, the ‘usual’.”

“Okie-dokie, vanilla for Sweetie Belle, strawberry for Apple Bloom and chocolate for Scootaloo?” Pinkie Pie verified, barely waiting long enough to ensure there were no objections before zipping back under the store’s counter, grabbing the necessary implements, and making the ice-cream drinks. None of the fillies talked, nor looked away from the spectacle before them; half the fun of ordering a milkshake at Sugar Cube Corner was seeing Pinkie Pie work the ‘Pinkie Magic’. Ice cream flew, utensils and glasses were put out, bowls and whisks were operated, and the optimum blend of sugar, milk, eggs, cream, bananas, and the more specialized ingredients were mixed. All in the span of seconds. If they blinked, they would miss it.

“Alright, Crusaders, here you are!” Pinkie Pie proclaimed, hoofing them the beverages and breaking them out of their trance. “Enjoy!” She was about to leave but instead hovered awkwardly in the air in clear defiance of classical physics. “Oh, wait,” she chuckled, “that’s right. You said there was something else you needed?”

“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle confirmed, “actually, we need the propeller you use for that ‘Pinkie-copter’ thing you have.”

“Oh yeah! Actually, I just got it fixed again after it got damaged last week. I’ll tell you a secret,” Pinkie Pie brought all of them together conspiratorially. “Don’t fly into thunderstorms!” she whispered loudly.

The other fillies rolled their eyes. They may not be very old, but even they knew that much.

Once Pinkie Pie looked around briefly to ensure her secret was safe, she nodded her head and went upstairs. A few unsettling crashing sounds could be heard before she came back down with a good-as-new metal bi-propeller. “That should do it!” Pinkie Pie announced with a grin. “Also, the ground-adjustable pitch on it should be perfect for your aircraft design!”

The three crusaders looked at each other and then back at Pinkie Pie, confused. “Huh,” Scootaloo faltered, “how did you know we were making an aircraft?”

“Oh, silly,” Pinkie Pie giggled with a dismissive wave, “obviously if you want a propeller—especially one with big, long fans like this one—you have to be making an aircraft. I should know, I built one too!”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were surprised by this revelation. They had never thought that Pinkie Pie could be smart enough or patient enough to actually build something like that on her own and had just assumed it was something she bought somewhere. Sweetie Belle knew differently—or at least, Sweetie Belle knew how it was possible. Her ‘Pinkie Sense’ wasn’t something she would underestimate.

“Well thanks for that,” Scootaloo chipped in, eager to move the group along now that she was done with her milkshake. “We had better get going, right Crusaders?!” The others gave weak non-committal responses but ultimately agreed.

“Well, alrighty girls,” Pinkie Pie acknowledged with a smile, “I can’t wait to see what you make!”

It would not be until the next day however, that they would get started on their ‘project’. By the time they finished unloading all their supplies at their clubhouse, it was time for dinner and—in the case of Sweetie Belle—that meant it was also time for her early bedtime. With only six days—including that day—remaining before school started, they would need all the time they could get to complete the aircraft. Otherwise, their time would be redirected to other, more scholarly—and boring—pursuits. So the next morning, the Cutie Mark Crusaders agreed to meet together in front of their clubhouse. At the crack of dawn, they would get an early start on their most ambitious crusade yet.

Apple Bloom was the first to arrive—of course, being the closest—and had begun getting ready by pulling the remaining supplies out of the cart full of the wooden and metal equipment that her sister had left for them yesterday. It had rained the night before, so they made sure to keep everything either wrapped up in the carts or in their clubhouse to avoid being soaked.

It was in the midst of this setup that she saw Scootaloo coming up in the distance with her scooter. “Has Sweetie Belle shown up yet?” she asked, grabbing the supplies from the wagon she had attached to her cart. In their excitement, they had forgotten to grab seating, so Scootaloo took the liberty to ‘procure’ some from her family’s porch. It isn’t like they would use them anyway.

“Oh good, ya got some chairs,” Apple Bloom recognized, “Ah can’t believe you‘n Sweetie Belle made this whole complex design and didn’t even put in the most important part! To answer yer question though, nah, Sweetie hasn’t shown up yet. She had ta stop off at the castle first ta get the engine, remember?”

“Oh right,” Scootaloo admitted, awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck. “I should have volunteered to do that, considering her condition, but-”

No sooner did Scootaloo say that did Sweetie Belle make her way out of the collection of trees near their clubhouse and into the clearing. “It’s no problem, Scoots!” Sweetie Belle interrupted, clearly having heard Scootaloo’s admission. “It was better that I picked-up the equipment anyway, since Spike wasn’t completely sure he had the right stuff.”

“So, this should be everything then?” Scootaloo asked, having finished unloading the chairs into the small pile that had now accumulated at the base of their clubhouse.

Sweetie Belle reviewed the materials: a bunch of wooden rods and planks, assorted carpentry tools, a few long screws and a screwdriver, three carriage wheels, three sets of goggles and caps, two bolts of canvas, some silk, rope, a couple bottles of fabric dye, sewing needles and lots of thread, the magic crystal, a tri-foci conduit, an axle thaumio-mechanical transducer, and a metal ground-pitch-adjustable propeller.

“Yep,” Sweetie Belle confirmed, “everything is here. We have everything we need to develop a heavier-than-air fixed-surface/adjustable-control-surface aircraft.”

“Bleh,” Scootaloo gagged, emphasizing the motion with a hoof pointed to her open mouth. “That name is just awful. I mean, it’s just so…dictionary-y and boring.”

Sweetie Belle had to agree. It may have been functional and descriptive, however it was anything but elegant. “What about ‘Powered Glider’? Since it’s basically a glider with an engine.”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both scrunched their faces in disappointment. “Nah,” Apple Bloom contended, “What about just ‘Flyer’? ‘Cause, ya know, it flies?”

Scootaloo facehooved, “Oh, come on, any pegasus or blimp is a flyer. Whatever we’re going to call it, it’s got to be unique!”

“Then what about calling it an ‘Airplane’?” Sweetie Belle offered, “It flies in the air and its wings act as geometric planes creating differential air-pressure and … lift?” Even she thought that was a bad idea towards the end.

Scootaloo sat down this time, giving her an opportunity to double facehoof. “No. We are not going to name it something so lame.”

“Well,” Sweetie Belle pouted, “if all these ideas are so bad, why don’t you give one?”

Scootaloo grinned. “Oh come on. It’s obvious!”

The two other fillies looked to one another, unconvinced.

“There’s only one machine that could get us our Cutie Marks.”

“Oh?” Apple Bloom asked skeptically. “And what could that be?”

“The Flying Crusader”

The final day before school would start had finally arrived and the Crusaders were still hard at work.

The aircraft was mostly complete. The wing—a simple design with a mathematically pre-defined wooden frame covered in canvas—was already completed, as were its ailerons. Similarly, the horizontal and vertical rear-stabilizers along with their elevators and rudder were finished and attached to the wing by a simple thick wooden pole. Additionally—since Sweetie Belle wasn’t lying when she said this wouldn’t be dangerous to her sister—Sweetie Belle had finished fashioning a parachute from the silk and rope and it was now placed securely into a compartment in the wing. Now, all that remained was Apple Bloom to finish with the suspension and wheels, Scootaloo to finish with the frame, and Sweetie Belle to finish the system which controlled the ailerons, elevators and rudder and activated the parachute in an emergency.

“...hey, Scoots,” Apple Bloom gestured with a wave, “could ya get me the screwdriver? Ah need ta loosen up the screws on the axle so Ah can grease-up the wheels.”

“Sure, Bloom,” she replied before putting the screwdriver back into her mouth, “jush girv ‘e a seshind ‘ah ‘inish ahashing ah ‘rane.”

Apple Bloom—now left with nothing to do for a moment—looked over to Sweetie Belle who was underneath the frame, attaching ropes to some pedals. “Hey, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom inquired, “how are you doing?”

“Well, I’m just attaching the control surfaces to these pedals so that we can control everything from the pilot seat.”

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes, “Ah know that, Sweetie Belle, we’ve been workin’ on this fer almost a week. Ah mean, how are you feelin’? You’ve been tired all week and I was wondering if you were feeling better?”

Sweetie Belle stopped what she was doing and moved out from under the frame to grin at her friend. “Oh right. Yeah, I’m doing much better, thanks. I think I have the same energy that I used to now.” She frowned for a moment before shaking her head. “I mean, I’m still not able to carry as much as I used to and it’s hard to lift things over my head, but I think after a little more physical therapy I should be back to normal.”

Apple Bloom nodded at this. “Yeah. When mah brother hurt his back apple buckin’ a few months ago, he was out of it fer a few weeks. The last thing to get back ta normal was liftin’ and carryin’ things.”

Scootaloo interrupted this conversation by hopping down from on top of the frame. “Here’s the screwdriver,” Scootaloo indicated, hoofing it to Apple Bloom who went to work greasing the wheels.

Turning to Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo grinned a wide smile. “I also want to thank you for coming up with this, Sweetie Belle. I don’t know what it is, but working on the Crusader has been awesome! The idea that I can make something that can fly—and not boring like those slow, dumb blimps—but actually fly like a pegasus? It’s just incredible! I mean, I’m not sure I told you this, but the reason why I wanted to take things apart and put them back together during Twilight Time was because it lets me design things that I can’t do myself.”

Sweetie Belle cocked her head in confusion, “Huh? I thought you said that you did that because ‘anything that didn’t have anything to do with your scooter was boring’.”

Scootaloo chuckled awkwardly at that and rubbed her fetlocks together. “Yeah, I mean it was sorta like that at the beginning, but not really.” She sighed and sat down, looking seriously. “Okay, so here’s the story. It all started a few weeks after we started Twilight Time. I was going home on my scooter, when I went over a random rock in the road and it broke. It wasn’t anything major; just the clamp cracked, causing the handlebar to come apart from the deck. I didn’t know that at the time, though, since I never really thought about actually fixing things myself. So I just did what I normally did and went to the hardware store to ask them to fix it. The problem was that it was a holiday and the store was closed.”

Sweetie Belle smiled. “I think I get it now. There was no way you could wait until after the holidays to ride your scooter, so you fixed it yourself.”

“Hey, no interrupting!” Scootaloo objected with a fake pout. It was especially obvious that she wasn’t offended when she put back on her trademark smirk. “Anyway, you’re totally right, though. After those first couple Twilight Time sessions, I though 'hey, maybe I could actually fix this myself!' I read the instruction manual and figured out what the problem was, but I didn’t have another clamp to fix it with. So instead, I fixed the old one by taking an extra piece of metal and welding it to the break in the clamp with one of Dad’s torches.”

“What!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed in shock. “That’s really dangerous! I don’t just mean ‘ziplining’ dangerous, but one-wrong-move-and-you-could-permanently-injure-yourself dangerous!”

Scootaloo waved a dismissive hoof. “Yeah, yeah, I know that now. I mean, I paid for it when I singed my hoof on the welding torch.” She proved this by lifting up her left hoof. Just where the hoof wall met the sole, there was a patch that was darker than the rest. It was clear the injury was sustained a long time ago, however, as it was almost unnoticeable unless one was looking for it. “I was lucky I only used it for a little bit, since—at the time—I didn’t know I needed a facemask when welding. Not to mention that working on thin metal should have been the job for a MIG weld rather than an arc.” Scootaloo shook her head. “Jeez, I was so dumb back then. Anyway, a few months later, Twilight asked who fixed my scooter during Twilight Time and she forced me some read books about welding and to talk to my Dad about how to safely use the blow-torch. Don’t worry, I won’t be hurting myself like that again. I’m way too awesome at welding now.”

“Huh?” Sweetie Belle said in bewilderment. “When did that happen?”

Scootaloo facehooved. “Oh, sorry, this all happened while you were in the hospital. I mean, the ‘Twilight figuring out about me burning my hoof’ thing happened just before you left, but I learned welding while I was grounded. I was actually only supposed to be grounded for two weeks because I took the money and stuff, but after Dad found out about how I burned my hoof, he grounded me for the full month.”

Sweetie Belle internally facehooved. ‘Argh,’ she thought, ‘if I had known Scootaloo could weld, I would have made the Flying Crusader out of metal to reduce the weight and increase the durability! I need to remember to actually ask my friends how they can help and not just assume things…I’ve missed out on so much!’

“So anyway, after I fixed up my scooter, I thought for sure that I had my Cutie Mark.” She sighed. “There must have been something missing, I guess, since I obviously didn’t get it. Still, after that I couldn’t stop taking things apart and putting them together. There’s just this…good feeling in knowing every little thing about my scooter or the wagon when I use them. Knowing how to take care of them or knowing what to do to fix it just makes using them…I don’t know, it’s special in some way, like they are an extension of myself somehow.” She then gagged. “Urgh, that was sappy. Anyway, so that’s why I like doing this sorta thing. I can’t explain it without it sounding lame, though.”

Sweetie Belle smiled. To her, it did not sound lame at all. The story was pretty sappy—and she had to stop herself from giggling at her friend’s expense—but it reminded her of what she felt when she woke up the day after the Tablet had taught her while she slept. It really was like everything in the world was more special; as though every new thing she had learned made life more meaningful.

“No, I totally get it, Scoots,” she affirmed, patting her friend’s back, “and when we’re all finished, you will fly this thing and get your Cutie Mark, I know it!”

Scootaloo smiled genuinely at that and turned to press her hoof against the wooden frame behind her. “For some reason,” she mused, “I think this time you might be right.”

It was finally done…for the most part.

The frame was attached; the wheels and suspension made for a smooth ride—when it was not in the air of course—and all the controls were spring-loaded and ready for testing. All that was left was to put the seats in and embed the engine into the wing. So while Sweetie Belle prepared the engine—as it was far too heavy for any of the fillies to attach without help—and hid the aircraft under a tarp for unveiling later, Scootaloo went out to get Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie while Apple Bloom went out to get Applejack, Twilight and her sister.

An hour later—now nearly dinner time—everypony had arrived and were sitting in the clearing near the club. Sweetie Belle was off to one side with Twilight testing the engine. While that was happening, Apple Bloom made sure everypony was seated and attentive…or at least as attentive as ponies like Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash could be. Scootaloo was intent on foiling this plan by chatting up a storm with her idol.

“Thanks, everypony, for comin’,” Apple Bloom proclaimed. Everypony was curious as to what could be underneath the tarp—despite the fillies explaining to most of them what they were doing—so all the ponies in attendance quickly stopped what they were doing and gave Apple Bloom their full attention. “Alright, now that Ah have yer attention,” she said before turning to Sweetie Belle, “is the engine ready, Sweetie?”

“Yeah,” the unicorn filly nodded, “Twilight and I just finished the calibrations. We just need to put it in, although we can do that afterwards.”

“Alright,” Apple Bloom agreed. The fillies had already agreed that she would be the one to give the speech, since Scootaloo was bad at giving speeches and Sweetie Belle would just ruin it by channeling her inner Twilight and going into unnecessary detail.

After a measured cough, Apple Bloom began, “So as you ponies already know, we had talked to each of y’all about gettin’ supplies for this ‘project’. Normally we wouldn’t give a speech or nothin’ but since y’all gave us so much stuff, we figured y’all deserved some sorta ‘presentation’. What’s behind us is a ‘powered glider’, as Sweetie Belle would say-”

At that, Twilight gasped—as she had, quite foolishly in her hindsight, forgot to ask what they were building. Now that she heard it, it all clicked into place.

“-yeah, so anyway. The reason we did this was ‘cause we figured the best way any of us was goin’ ta get our Cutie Mark was to all work together and get Scoots ta fly.”

This time it was Rainbow Dash to gasp, quickly looking down at the orange filly at her legs. Said filly blushed briefly and looked away. “Wow,” Rainbow Dash stated ruffling Scootaloo’s mane, “that sounds pretty awesome.”

“So over the past week, Sweetie Belle designed the wings and controls, Ah built the frame and the suspension, and Scoots put everythin’ together.” Apple Bloom—grinning at the attention Scootaloo was getting from Rainbow Dash—decided to conclude by saying, “Really though, the pony who really deserves credit for this is Scootaloo though. Ah might’ve actually carved the wood since Ah know a lot ‘bout carpentry and Sweetie Belle used her fancy mathematics ta figure out what shape ta make the wings, but it was Scoots who brought it all together. It mighta been a lot of ‘gut instinct’, but if it wasn’t fer her gettin’ Sweetie’s head outta the clouds and telling me how ta properly link the joints and rig up the frame, we wouldn’t be shown y’all anythin’ today.”

At this point, Scootaloo was beet red and hiding behind her hooves. Apple Bloom had no doubt her friend would have her revenge for this in the coming days, but for now, she honestly felt she deserved all the credit. ‘If it means she get her Cutie Mark,’ Apple Bloom thought, ‘then it’d all be worth it.’

“Now without further ado,” Apple Bloom finished, running back and grabbing the tarp, “here is ‘The Flying Crusader’!”

At that, the tarp fell and the aircraft was unveiled to those in attendance. It had three spoked wooden wheels and a wooden frame. Three chairs were also mounted to the frame with cushions for comfort. These chairs were more like stools that the fillies laid on, however, since sitting down quickly got uncomfortable. The wings, control surfaces, and stabilizers were covered in fabric and small—but strong—rope attached the ailerons, elevators and rudder to pedals on the floor of the frame surrounding the front-most chair. Two additional ropes hung from the wing that attached to the parachute stored inside and the soon-to-be-attached engine. To make it their own, of course, the three had used the fabric dye to completely cover the canvas wings and the parachute with the Cutie Mark Crusader logo and their names. All that was left now was to fit the propeller to said engine and place it into the hole at the front of the wing.

“Wow, girls,” Twilight got out, “this is really impressive.”

“Are you kidding, Twilight?!” Rainbow Dash criticized, floating in the air in excitement. “This isn’t just impressive, it’s awesome!”

Rarity, however, wasn’t as impressed with this new development as her friends. “Um, Sweetie, dear?” Rarity asked nervously, “Could you explain to me exactly how all this is safe?” She pointed at the large wooden flying machine. “I don’t think I have to explain to you why taking to the air in that—that flimsy wooden thing is anything but safe!”

Sweetie Belle sighed, jumped to her hooves, and calmly walked to the machine and pulled a handle hanging from the wing and just overhead of the pilot’s seat. Immediately after, a compartment in the wing was forced open a thick clump of fabric shot out from the rear of the aircraft in a sudden bang from the spring-loaded system. This caused everypony but the Crusaders to jump back a bit.

“See, sis,” Sweetie Belle declared, lifting and spreading the silken fabric about the ground. “This is a parachute. If anything should happen, all we have to do is pull that lever and this will pop out, immediately stopping everything. We’d just fall to safety. Not to mention that we have Rainbow Dash just in case, right?”

The pegasus in question hovered in silence for a moment, pondering whether she would do it. Eventually, her need to see this thing—and by association Scootaloo—take to the sky made the decision easy and she nodded her assent.

Rarity was still concerned, but considering not only Rainbow Dash, but also Twilight was there with her in case anything went wrong, she did feel safe a little safer in letting her sister do this. “Alright,” she relented, “but I don’t want to hear you doing any of this flying business without somepony there to make sure you’re safe, alright?”

Sweetie Belle wanted to say something sarcastic, but knew that Rarity wouldn’t take it the right way, so all she said was “Thanks”.

Another five minutes went by, but Sweetie Belle—with the help of Twilight—attached the propeller, sunk it into the designated hole on the aircraft, and screwed it in place. Everything was finally ready to go and so the fillies strapped on their helmets and goggles, and strapped themselves into their seats. Scootaloo was at the front, being the pilot, and Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were directly behind her, to the left and right respectively. The field around them was populated by the occasional tree, but they were pointed down a clear grassy ‘runway’ which was devoid of any rocks or bumps for several hundred meters. Twilight made sure of this by flattening it out with her magic when Rarity came to her about the concern. With that out of the way—and the five supervising mares looking safely on from the sidelines—there was nothing stopping the Crusaders from having a successful liftoff.

“Alright,” Twilight said, bending down beside the aircraft with a grin. “It looks like you are ready to go.”

The fillies all nodded their heads, too nervous to say anything at this point.

“Alright,” Twilight continued, “well—as Sweetie Belle confirmed with Rarity—you have the parachute and Rainbow Dash if anything goes wrong, and I can also help guide you down safely with telekinesis if you need it.” Twilight looked again briefly at the machine. “I know that Rarity is too concerned with your safety right now to say it, and Rainbow Dash is too proud, but we’re all proud of you fillies. Really, I almost feel that calling you ‘fillies’ at this point seems pretty foalish. You might not have your Cutie Marks but you’ve all done so much that we really should be treating you as proper mares, capable of making your own choices.”

Stepping away from the machine once more, she looked at Scootaloo now. “Well, Captain Scootaloo,” she smirked, “you’re the pilot. Start the engines whenever you’re ready.”

She didn’t need to tell Scootaloo twice. With a beaming smile and a quick move from her left forehoof, she pulled a rope and powered-up the engine. What started off as an uneven clunking quickly turned into a constant loud buzz as the propeller began to maintain a constant high speed.

Now no longer within earshot of the ponies in the audience, it was up to the fillies to do everything themselves. “Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle yelled over the noise of the engine, “What does the engine say the RPM is at?”

Scootaloo looked up and read the readout. “Hold on, it’s increas—no wait it stopped! Um, it’s currently about 36!”

Sweetie Belle was about to ask if Scootaloo meant 3600 since the dial was in multiples of one hundred, but she didn’t bother. There was no other reading that would make sense. “Alright! That should be good enough! You can release the brakes and keep the elevators and ailerons pointed up! That will get us to take off! Watch out once we’re in the air though, otherwise we might end up flipping upside down!” Scootaloo started grinning but that was immediately stopped by Sweetie Belle kicking her left hind leg. “I’m serious! Once we’re off the ground you need to keep it steady or we! Will! Crash!” Scootaloo nodded solemnly at this and released the brakes.

Immediately, the machine lurched forward at a quick pace, bringing a grin right back to Scootaloo’s face. Soon, the Crusader had travelled over one hundred meters and the fillies could see the front wheel begin to unsteadily leave its earthly tether; only for the whole thing to lurch back to the ground with a thump. One or two more of these oscillations, however, and the front got high enough for the Flying Crusader to really take off. Jerking suddenly skyward, it easily left the canopy of trees around them behind. True to her word, Scootaloo began to ease off the pedals, pushing them in the other direction in order to stabilize the flight path and slow down the engine.

Just as the glider finally leveled out, Rainbow Dash flew in beside them. “Wow!” she announced. “This is, by far, the coolest thing you fillies have ever done!” She flew a little closer and—hearing the loud buzz of the engine—realized that they might not have heard her. “Hey Scootaloo! How does it feel being up here, flying alongside the one-and-only Rainbow Dash!”

Scootaloo, however, did not hear her hero. This time, though, it was not because of the engine noise. No, the reason she could not hear was because she was too busy absorbing all the things she was feeling. The vibration and sound of the engine encasing her from all directions, the wind flowing past her face, the sense of pure control; that gravity—the one thing that always held her back—was now completely at her mercy. This control was only amplified by her thorough understanding of the machine she rode. After spending a week talking with her friends, after testing and designing every piece of the machine, she could feel where everything and how everything moved. How the slightest twitch of a hoof could cause it to bank left or right; how the wind pushed against canvas and gave it lift; how the spinning of the pitched propellers gave it thrust.

These feelings coalesced, washing over her all at once. It was like a dichotomy of control and release; that—at once—she both gave herself willingly into these feelings and was also in complete control of them. Her muscles tightened on the controls as the anxiety she had washed away in a sea of pure adrenalin. It was only then that she realized her idol beside her and the ponies behind her were trying to vie for her attention … and that her goggles were beginning to mist up from the tears she was shedding. She brought her free hoof—the one that controlled the rudder—up to her face to wipe her eyes and goggles of moisture and finally perked up her ears to listen to what was going on around her.

“Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom yelled behind her, “are ya alright!”

“Yeah!” Scootaloo responded, the grin on her face bigger than ever. “This is the happiest, most awesome moment of my life!” She banked left and right, almost to confirm to herself that the moment was real.

Rainbow Dash nodded. “Well, that’s what I wanted to hear! Bet you can’t catch me!” Just as she finished, she sped off into the distance.

That did it for Scootaloo. Pulling the engine rope all the way down, the aircraft sped forward, chasing after the rainbow contrail. It was clear to Scootaloo that Rainbow Dash was not going nearly as fast as she could, but Scootaloo did not care. There could always be improvements to the design, she would catch up some day. For now though, she felt it was just her and her ‘sister’, sharing the same sky. Now, though, she wasn’t being held up. It was her ingenuity, and the ingenuity of her friends that brought her here.

For an hour they flew. On catching up with Rainbow Dash, she began to circle them, giving words of encouragement.

“You’re doing great, squirt!”

“Come on, fly over here!”

“Hey, fly through this cloud!”

Using her hero’s words for motivation, she became more and more liberal with the controls. As time went on, she moved from performing tighter and tighter turns, to going in and out of dives, to even doing loops. The ponies looked on in amazement at the show being put on, surprised at the versatility of the flimsy machine. Sweetie Belle’s math held, ensuring that the only the steepest angles of attacks would stall. Throughout her flight, Sweetie Belle coached Scootaloo in how to fit her innate pegasus instincts of flying to the controls she used.

It turned out that Scootaloo was a natural, however, and even Sweetie Belle—very far out of her element—could teach her very little. After all, Scootaloo was a pegasus and things like the aerodynamics of flight was elementary knowledge. So for the most part, both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom just sat back and enjoyed the scene unfolding in front of them. They too were relishing in their achievement, though not nearly as enthusiastically as their friend.

All good things must come to an end, however, and Twilight joined the little airshow they were making to inform them as such. “Hey Scootaloo,” she informed, “it’s time to come down now!”

“What!” Scootaloo cried over the roar of the engine.

“I said, it’s time to land! It’s time for Sweetie to go home and for all of you to have dinner!” Twilight clarified.

“Okay!” She replied before turning to Sweetie Belle. “Um…Sweetie? So how do I land this thing?” She blushed.

“You need to find a big open space and then turn off the engine. Once it lands, friction should take over and stop it!”

“Wait, should! I’m not sure that’s a good idea!”

Twilight was able to pick up bits and pieces of the conversation. “Do you want me to help you land?” she asked.

“No!” Scootaloo retorted, “We’re fine! I got this!”

Scootaloo calmed down, focusing on the controls. It was just simple pieces of rope, connecting two pieces of wood together, but right now, it was the difference between making it unscathed and crashing into the ground. She could just forget about all this, turn off the engine and let Twilight magic them to safety. However, she was determined. She and her friends designed the Flying Crusader, she and her friends built the Flying Crusader, and now she was the Flying Crusader.

It would be she and her friends who would land it, too.

She looked at her surroundings. All around them were the trees of Sweet Apple Acres and the Everfree further in the distance. It would probably take them a minute or so to get back and land where they came from so Scootaloo decided on an alternative. The roads of Ponyville were straight, roughly flat, and most importantly wouldn’t have rocks jutting out to ruin the wheels. As such, the choice was clear. Looking out to the left in the distance, Scootaloo saw the top of Town Hall. Continuing forward, she flanked the town until she could see the front of the building. She knew that if she aimed for the front, it would bring her right over Main Street, the longest and straightest road in Ponyville.

Lined up now, Scootaloo still couldn’t see the road from beyond the trees, but it did not matter. She continued forward, only meters above the treeline when she cut power to the engine.

“Wait, what!” Sweetie Belle asked jabbing her friend with a hoof. “Why did you turn off the engine now! We’ll crash!”

“No we won’t, Sweetie,” Scootaloo said, adjusting her goggles, “trust me.”

Sweetie Belle did—not that she had much time—as they found themselves heading right for the treeline.

However, this was just what Scootaloo was waiting for as she pressed down with her rear two hooves, causing the ailerons and elevators to shoot up, and with them so did the wing. Just as she did this, a sudden gust of wind picked up, pulling them up and over the treeline and into the town. Like this, they were in the perfect position to land. Coming in with the nose up, the rear wheels gently landed on the street. Mares and Stallions—who until now had been trying to enjoy the quiet of the evening or taking their friends and family to dinner—were now running for their lives as the flying machine came barreling past.

Twilight could only groan and facehoof at not somehow preventing this mayhem from unfolding. Despite her concerns, however, she did not stop it. She had watched Scootaloo line up the flight path and coming in as low and as slow as possible. She could not know for sure, but she felt that she could trust Scootaloo to do the right thing. After her little speech telling them that they were old enough to make their own decisions, it would be hypocritical now to stop them.

Scootaloo, likewise, felt completely confident. With the rear wheels on the ground and the town hall rapidly coming into view, she turned the engine back on and put it in full reverse. At this point, she couldn’t use the parachute; if she opened it now, the sudden braking force at the high center-of-gravity would cause the Flying Crusader to split in half right over the fillies’ heads. Instead, she had to trust in her ability to gauge her deceleration and the amount of road she had left.

Road that was quickly running out.

The second Twilight realized this as well, she also realized she was way out of position. ‘Oh no! I was so worried about making a choice, I forgot to get myself into position just in case!’ she thought and immediately teleported.

It would be too late however, as right at the last moment, Scootaloo pulled up the brakes and turned sharply, causing them to skid to a stop mere meters from the Town Hall.

Unfortunately Mayor Mare had chosen just this time to finish her work and was leaving the building, only to see the large wooden glider to stop itself right in front of her. “Oh my goodness!” the Mayor cried, collapsing into a shivering mess. “What is this?”

Twilight then teleported in. “Scootaloo! Are you okay?”

Rainbow Dash also chose now to arrive on the scene. “That. Was. Awesome!” she proclaimed, grabbing Scootaloo in a sudden hug. “Oh my gosh! You coming in right over the treeline, and a gust of wind was like woosh and then all the ponies running away from your crazy landing and then rolling to a stop right at the last second? So! Cool!”

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight yelled, “Why didn’t you try to stop it?”

She shrugged. “Meh, the worst thing that could have happened at that speed is they crash and sprain something. I do that practically every other training session. They weren’t in any real danger.”

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, however, were not nearly as impressed. “Oh Celestia, Ah think…Ah’m gonna be sick,” Apple Bloom barely got out in between grunts, attempting—successfully for now—to hold the contents of her stomach in.

Sweetie Belle was not faring much better. “Urghh,” she grumbled, “I think I might be allergic to flying. I definitely have motion sickness, that's for sure.”

During all of this, Scootaloo’s smile had not lost its lustre one bit. Now that it was over and the adrenalin finally faded, she released a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Once Rainbow finally released her from her hug, Scootaloo slumped down in her seat. “Oh wow, that was the most frightening thing since Luna had to cure my nightmar—er, yeah…” She cut herself off, thinking, ‘Rainbow Dash didn’t need to know about that.’ “Still,” she continued, “it was also the most exciting, most awesome thing ever, right?” she inquired from her idol.

Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement. “Oh yeah!” she agreed before immediately shaking her head. “Er—I mean, maybe except for my Sonic Rainboom or any of the times I saved Equestria,” she finished, attempting to salvage her awesomeness.

“Oh come now, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight chastised, “that’s no way to speak to a filly that just earned her Cutie Mark.”

“Cutie Mark?!” everypony repeated, looking down at the now no-longer blank flank of Scootaloo.

“Oh my gosh, Scoots!” Apple Bloom cried out, “It’s true!”

In true Rainbow Dash fashion, Scootaloo handed this newfound revelation with reserved poise and a calm demeanor.

“Oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh-” she rattled on, jittering in her seat and looking at everypony in unconstrained pride.

“What does it mean, squirt?” Rainbow Dash asked, genuinely interested at the unique image.

Scootaloo took a few deep breaths, realizing that she wasn’t acting nearly as cool as she should be in front of Rainbow Dash. “Well,” Scootaloo started, leaning back on the Flying Crusader with indifference. When her brain finally caught up with what she heard, she looked down quizzically at the design. “Huh, well it’s pretty clear that the spanner must be because I like building and fixing things so much. I figured I would probably get a Cutie Mark like that ages ago—maybe with a scooter or something—but it never came. The wings, though, I'm not sure about. Maybe the Flying Crusader somehow? Though see how the gear and the wings join up? Wait, I was talking to Sweetie Belle earlier about that, actually! Recently, I’ve had this feeling. When I use something I built or fixed—like my scooter—I would just have this connection.”

‘How could I not know she liked fixing and building things so much that she got a Cutie Mark for it!’ Rainbow Dash mentally chastised herself. ‘How could I not know such an important thing about my biggest fan!’ She frowned, partially because of this, but also because she didn’t quite understand what that meant. “So you got your Cutie Mark because you were really into flying this machine you built?” she asked.

Scootaloo groaned, shaking her head. “No, it’s not like that. Uh, how to explain. Like, knowing everything about how each little piece works together, how the pedals moved the flaps, knowing exactly how long the wings are and at what angles; it got me to the point where I almost believed this thing was a part of me. Like, after all that flying we did to get the hang of things, I felt like I could shut my eyes and sense exactly how far away the wingtips were or what position the rudder was in like they were my wings,” she emphasized that last remark by tapping a pedal which adjusted the rudder left and right. “When I was making that final approach above the trees—I don’t know how—but I swear I could feel the wings of the Crusader and I could feel this—this buildup of wind. Somehow I knew that there would be the perfect gust of wind I needed to make it over the trees.”

Rainbow Dash still looked confused but Twilight seemed to understand what she was saying and stepped in. “That actually makes sense, Scootaloo,” she said with a grin. “There is a lot of evidence that Cutie Marks can tie a pony’s magic to an object that they use. Just like how a unicorn can pick up a rock with telekinesis from a distance, any pony can extend their magic to make a connection to any object. Applejack has told me about how she can know when one of her trees is ready to be bucked just by feeling it and we all know that Fluttershy has a connection to her animals and can understand them. It isn’t limited to living things either. I’m sure Rarity could tell you about her connection to gems.”

Scootaloo’s eyes looked hopeful. “So you mean that I actually did have a connection? It wasn’t just my imagination?”

Twilight shrugged. “I don’t know,” she replied before giving the filly a big smile, “but I can imagine that there will be plenty of Twilight Time sessions to figure it out.”

“Sweetie Belle!” a voice cried out in the distance.

Sweetie Belle—now having mostly recovered from her nauseousness—was able to safely respond without risking any oral spillage. “R-Rarity! Over here!” she yelled, immediately recognizing the owner of the voice.

When her sister came into view, Rarity cried out, “Oh Sweetie Belle! You told me that this was all safe, that there was nothing to worry about! What happened!” She went over and brought her sister into a bear hug…which didn’t help her stomach-situation. The rest of the ponies were there as well, with Applejack grabbing hold of her sister similarly to what Rarity had done and Pinkie Pie just hopping in place, watching everything unfold.

“Ugh,” Sweetie choked, “please, sis, I don’t feel so great.” Her sister immediately let go, looking into Sweetie’s eyes with intense worry. “Nothing went wrong. Scoots needs a bit more practice and she could have probably picked a better place to land, but Twilight and Rainbow Dash were right with us the whole way!”

Rarity was about to retort when Mayor Mare spoke up. “Alright, this reunion is touching and all, but-” she cut herself off to stand up straight, “-if there is no emergency, could you please get take this somewhere else! Some of us want to go home!”

Chapter 4 - School

“Urghaaagh…”

For Sweetie Belle, the previous night felt like the worst one ever. Although her headache—caused by the crazy landing Scootaloo performed the night before—had subsided, the leftovers from the motion sickness had prevented her from having a restful sleep. While she was lucky enough not to throw up like poor Apple Bloom, she still felt an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach, even now. She wasn’t even at the door before she resolved that—if she had any say in the matter—she would never do that ever again.

‘It was a lot of hard work, that’s for sure, with the building and the flying and the…landing…’ Sweetie Belle thought. Her tired eyes then sparkled and a small smirk made itself present, ‘…but Scootaloo got her Cutie Mark!’

At that thought, she straightened up in pride at her contribution. ‘Finally, the Cutie Mark Crusaders are making significant progress! I knew that Babs getting her mark was a sign of good things to come! Not only that, but Scootaloo got the best Cutie Mark ever! She was flying like any daredevil pegasus in that flying machine.’ Reminded of that ride, her stomach lurched and she groaned. “Well, it isn’t the fun kind of flying, that’s for sure,” she muttered, “but Scootaloo sure seemed happy about it.”

Sweetie Belle made her way out of her room, yawning all the way down the steps of the Boutique and into the kitchen, where her sister was waiting to greet her with a large assortment of food on the table.

“Good morning, sister!” Rarity exclaimed.

“Please, Sis, could you tone it down a little?” Sweetie Belle suggested as she winced, rubbing her temples and turning her head away from the noise.

“Oh, Darling, I’m sorry,” Rarity consoled in a loud whisper, wrapping her sister in a big hug, “just let me know if there is anything that I can do for you.”

“I’m fine, really,” Sweetie Belle denied, rolling her eyes and moving to escape her sister’s embrace. ‘Jeez, I wish she wouldn’t coddle me so much,’ she thought still failing to get out of the hug. ‘A hot water bottle on my head, soup in bed, and singing lullabies last night. Seriously, just for an upset stomach. I mean, after last night, if she would just give me some medicine and send me to bed early like she used to, I would have been much happier.’

“I’m serious, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity replied, looking serious indeed. “You looked positively infirm after that ‘rollercoaster ride’ last night. You nearly passed out! You can’t be getting yourself into these ridiculous situations in your condition.”

“I’m not a foal, Sis,” Sweetie Belle contended, finally getting out of the hug and turning her back on Rarity. “So what if I got a little sick,” she continued as she turned back to face her sister, “Scootaloo got her Cutie Mark! If that isn’t something worth getting sick over, I don’t know what is! With my smarts now, it’s only a matter of time before we all get our Cutie Marks, our destinies! I’m tired of not knowing what to do with my life, and the only way I’ll ever figure it out is outside doing Crusading with my friends. If I get a little sick, that’s a small price to pay.”

Rarity put on her best disarming smile and spoke her next words carefully, trying as best as she could to defuse the situation. “Darling, Sweetie Belle, I know what you want to do—and I am not saying I will stop you from doing it—but why should you pay a price at all? Why must you think that these new crusades should be so dangerous? Your old ones were bad enough, but one wrong move in that flying death-trap and it could have been all over! I bet that if you just-”

“Just do something carefully and safely?” Sweetie Belle finished. Upon seeing Rarity’s hopeful smile, she said, “No, after almost four months in the hospital—just lounging around—I've had it with doing things I know will work out. The nurse at the hospital said that I never did anything new, that I had no…spontaneity.

"Well you know what, she was right! My time at the hospital, the old crusades, they were just repeats of things I had done before. The same methods with the same results. I never looked at the big picture; never tried to see things from a different perspective or take a risk. What happens when I do? Scootaloo gets her Cutie Mark! This isn’t coincidence and I’m not going back to what I did before. If this is what my destiny is, the only way to find out is to live it; or I will regret it.”

During this response, Rarity was thinking what to say next with apprehension and dread. ‘I knew this rebelliousness was coming the moment she left the house to build that flying machine, but what do I say? Do I let her keep risking herself with these dangerous stunts, or do I force her to stop and potentially end what little childhood she has afforded herself? She’s right that with her smarts, it would only be a matter of time, but what of her experience? She isn’t an adult and her intelligence could get her hurt or worse!

‘She only got sick this time with that dangerous flying machine—and that was under supervision—but what about next time? If she does something complicated, like potion making or steam engine construction. She could unknowingly put herself in danger without anypony there to save her if she needs it.’

However, despite the immediate need, looking at the determined face of her sister made it clear that she couldn’t make any decision rashly. ‘If I say anything now, I might drive her to get into even more trouble. I’ll need to talk to Twilight about this. It’s lucky that her first day of class is today, because I don’t think I’m ready to help Sweetie Belle though this yet.’

“Alright,” Rarity conceded with a sigh, “I see your point and we will talk about this later. Whatever is going to happen, we will both need some time to think it over. Whatever the case may be, school is about to begin and you need to eat, wash and get ready.” She nudged her sister to the table of food. “Move! I will not have a dirty filly off to her first day back at school. Oh, just think what the others would say.” She said, trailing off as she realized how late they both were with this latest distraction.

“Now remember, Sweetie, you have your magical therapy with Twilight after school!” Rarity yelled out to her sister as Sweetie Belle left from the front entrance of the Boutique. Rarity waited until Sweetie Belle was just out of sight before she turned the sign on the door to its ‘open’ side and returned back inside.

Sweetie Belle—now finally out of the overbearing clutches of her sister—was free to walk by herself to an intersection near the end of the street. It was here that she would meet Scootaloo; a ritual that began when they found each other walking to their first day of class, even before they had met Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom was absent, even now. Since Sweet Apple Acres was on the other side of town, it was easier to just meet her at school instead.

“H-hey Sweetie Belle…” a timid voice came from her left.

She turned to see her orange friend—who at the moment was giving an excellent Fluttershy impression. “Scootaloo?” Sweetie Belle asked, confused by her friend's meek voice and asocial demeanor. “What’s up? I thought you would be super happy today? You got your Cutie Mark! Why are you so…well, not you?”

“Oh y-yeah,” Scootaloo replied nervously, shifting slightly from side-to-side, “and I totally was—happy I mean. It’s just, well, about the Cutie Mark…I, um, you see…”

“Yeah?” Sweetie Belle asked as they both unconsciously made their way to school. She looked back at her friend’s flank to make sure that the mark was still there. “What is it? I can see you didn’t lose your mark.”

Scootaloo sighed, turning away slightly. “I know it’s stupid, it’s just, well…” she said, turning back, “…am I still a Crusader?”

“Well, duh, of course you—” Sweetie Belle started.

“No! Don’t just say that Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo interjected in a huff. “Think about it. I-I can’t crusade for something I already have, so how can I be a Crusader?”

Sweetie Belle was at a loss for words, not because she thought that Scootaloo was right, but that she was even considering it at all. She hadn’t really given the issue much thought since they all shared a dream with Apple Bloom a while ago. Still, it was a no-brainer that Scootaloo was still a Crusader, it just wouldn’t make sense otherwise. So, thinking quickly—as every moment was only making Scootaloo worse and worse—she looked at the schoolhouse coming into view and got an idea. “You can still crusade, Scoots, you would just be a different kind of crusader.”

Scootaloo looked down groaned. “Well sure, whatever right? I mean, I wouldn’t really be crusading though and—”

“Hey!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed in an attempt to snap Scootaloo out of her morose outlook. “You’re still going to help us get our Cutie Marks, right?”

“Well, yeah I guess, but—”

“—and I don’t remember there being anything in the Cutie Mark Crusader Oath about quitting. In fact, wasn’t half of it just different words for friends, right?”

“Hey! I fixed that, remember?”

“Well, are you still a friend?”

“Yeah! Of course!” Scootaloo admonished. “How could you think that I wouldn’t still—”

“Then you are a Cutie Mark Crusader, and that is that,” Sweetie Belle finished in a tone that brooked no further argument. Still, she could see that her friend was not entirely convinced. “Look, Crusaders are fighters right? Fighters for a goal? Well, how do fighters train?”

“They punch and kick stuff, I guess…” Scootaloo trailed off, not really understanding the point.

“No, they train under a teacher. You think Apple Bloom picked up all those Kung Fu moves all on her own?”

“I suppose not-”

“—because she didn’t. Everypony could use a teacher, and what better teacher than somepony who’s done their Crusade, right? Hay, maybe we’ll even give you a new title like ‘Senior Crusader’ or something.”

“Heck no, Sweetie Belle! That makes it sound like I’m a senior citizen or something!” Scootaloo giggled. “T-thanks, Sweetie Belle, I don’t know how you said all that so well, but I needed that. I—”

She was about to continue that thought, but instead quickly wiped her eyes and coughed instead.

“Hey, Sweetie Belle! Scootaloo!” a voice called from the distance. Sweetie Belle turned away from Scootaloo to see that Apple Bloom had come to meet them just outside the school. “Hey girls, did I miss anything?” she asked, noticing that the two were looking at her rather awkwardly.

“Well—” Sweetie Belle began to say.

“Nope!” Scootaloo cut-off, eager to avoid that subject at all cost. “Hey Apple Bloom, so did you manage to get the glider back to the farm alright? Sorry I couldn’t stick around, but Rainbow Dash wanted to teach me this cool flying trick she thought up for it and—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Apple Bloom waved it off with a hoof, “no need ta explain or nothin’. Ya just got your Cutie Mark; Ah wasn’t gonna do nothin’ ta stop ya from havin’ fun. Besides, the glider was on wheels and with ma sister’s help, it was a cinch gettin’ it back ta the farm. Ya woulda done the same for me, Ah know it.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Scootaloo replied.

“Oh! This is so great I could just jump for joy!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, grabbing both of her friends into a group hug. “We’re all back together, Scootaloo has her Cutie Mark, and we still have a few minutes before class starts.” She turned to Scootaloo, “So, you want to show off your Cutie Mark to everypony?”

Scootaloo scowled at this, however. “Afraid not, Sweetie,” she said, tilting her head to point at something behind Sweetie Belle.

“Show off what now?” a voice giggled from that direction.

“I think they said something about a Cutie Mark, Di,” another voice replied.

The three fillies turned, only to face two obnoxious ponies to match the voices: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. They had their usual smug expressions, which could only mean that they were—as usual—up to no good.

“Yeah, that’s right!” Scootaloo proclaimed, rising to the challenge and proudly straightening herself up. “I got my Cutie Mark.”

“Oh, well then,” Diamond Tiara acknowledged. Seeing the proof emblazoned on Scootaloo’s flank, she quickly realized that her usual bullying wasn’t going to work at the moment.

Thinking quickly, she continued, saying, “Oh, wow, that is a surprise. At this rate, the rest of you blank-flanks might even get your Cutie Marks by the time you’re my Daddy’s age.” The two laughed out loud at the thought. “Besides, I bet that your Cutie Mark isn’t anything special.” She leaned in a bit to the left to get another brief glance. “Oh, a wrench with wings? Haha! Let me guess, your destiny is to juggle wrenches for a living? Oh! Or maybe you put tiny foam wings on stuff like arts-and-crafts. Isn't that adorable, Silver?”

“Oh, that must be it, Diamond, that's just precious,” Silver Spoon agreed, both of them again laughing at the thought.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes at this. “Oh, you would think that, wouldn’t you? No, it means that I can build and fly flying machines better than anypony. Just ask Rainbow Dash!”

“Wow, really?” Silver Spoon faltered, genuinely surprised and impressed.

“Ha!” Diamond Tiara rebutted, not shocked in the slightest. “Is that the best lie you could come up with? That you—with your little itty-bitty foal wings—could actually fly?” She turned to her friends and leaned in conspiratorially. “Don’t bother believing her, Silver Spoon,” she whispered, loud enough for everypony to hear, “she’s just embarrassed by what her Cutie Mark really means.”

“That is what it means, rocks-fer-brains,” Apple Bloom attested. “We made glider and flew all over Ponyville for hours yesterday. Ya must have seen it, Diamond, even with a thick head like yours.”

“Whatever,” Silver Spoon scoffed, “I bet you just flew a kite around or something to pretend.”

“Hey, want to bet that Scootaloo can’t even prove this 'special talent' of hers?” Diamond Tiara asked Silver Spoon rhetorically. She pointed a hoof at the filly in question accusingly. “Well? Why don’t you fly around for us if you really are so good at it?”

“Yeah,” Silver Spoon agreed as they began to laugh mockingly. “You know what, Di? I bet with all her hot air, she’ll just float away anyway!”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were both now seething with anger and annoyance. Sweetie Belle, however, was strangely calm and collected. *Hmm,* Sweetie Belle thought, *considering my past experience with these bullies. With the right words, pressing on their insecurities could lead to a favorable outcome.*

Sweetie Belle placed a hoof on the withers of each of her friends and gave them a nod as a silent signal to them to play along with what she was about to do.

“Oh?” Sweetie Belle asked Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. “That seems a little hypocritical of you two, don’t you think? I don’t remember seeing any of you performing any of your special talents. Why not give us a demonstration right here and now? After all, Scootaloo just got her Cutie Mark yesterday so she hasn’t had much chance to practice. Just imagine. If she sees a show by two experts like yourselves, she’ll be able to put on a much better show, right?” She ended that sentence with a wink and a nudge to her two friends.

“Huh?” Scootaloo questioned, taking a moment to understand what Sweetie Belle was trying to do. “Uh, oh! Yeah, what Sweetie Belle said!”

“Yeah!” Apple Bloom agreed. “Why don’t you two show us what you got!”

“Well, fine!” Diamond Tiara blurted out, not willing to step down from a challenge to her image. “Still, uh, I think Scootaloo should go first, she’s the one who needs the most help, obviously. How can we know about all the improvements she need to make her special talent less stupid unless she does it, right?”

“That’s true,” Sweetie Belle relented, her agreement coming to the surprise of her friends; but she quickly responded back, “but you and Silver Spoon have had yours far longer, so it should be like second nature, right? So why don’t you show how it is done.” She then put a hoof up to her mouth in mock fright and gasped. “Or wait! Could it be that you can’t do your special talents?”

“Ha! You wish!” Diamond Tiara sputtered before quickly reining herself in. “Anyway, obviously everypony knows that my special talent is being better than everypony else, and I’m proving it right now!”

“You mean, even better than Princess Celestia?” Sweetie Belle criticized.

“Uh…well, not her…” Diamond Tiara struggled, “but certainly better than ponies like you!”

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow, “How?”

“Obviously because I have a Cutie Mark, duh!”

“But Scootaloo has a Cutie Mark too now,” Sweetie Belle pointed out. Again she gasped in feigned shock. “Does that mean you're not better than us anymore?”

“No, I-” she fumed. “Silver Spoon! Why don’t you show them up with your awesome talent!”

“Well…” Silver Spoon lamented softly, “I-I don’t have my filigree tools or any silver wire so I can’t-”

“Well,” Sweetie Belle smiled smugly, “I guess that means you must not have any special talents either—”

“We do so!” Diamond Tiara cried, “I’m better than all of you! My dad has more bits than your families and I can get anything I want, so there!”

Sweetie Belle giggled, “So you are saying that if a slug had more money than you, it would be a better pony?”

“What…n-no, that wouldn’t make any sense!”

“Oh wait!” Sweetie Belle said, coming to a sudden epiphany. “That’s it! You must have paid somepony to get those marks for you!” Diamond and Silver looked like they were about to retort but Sweetie Belle cut them off, looking to her friends. “Don’t you remember, girls, that time when Diamond brought in that butler to perform all those stunts to get everypony to like her?”

“Yeah?” Scootaloo said, surprised at this sudden change in Sweetie Belle’s demeanor.

“Uh…sure, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom agreed with equal hesitancy.

“Yeah, she must have paid that butler to get her that Cutie Mark! Why else would she think that money makes her better than other ponies? Apparently it can get you everything.” Sweetie Belle’s then became contemplative. “Still, this idea seems a bit off, maybe I should ask everypony else about what they think.”

Just then, the schoolhouse bell rang, signifying that class was to begin shortly. Sweetie Belle smirked and looked at her friends, saying, “Well, I guess that means we’re all out of time. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anypony that the two most bratty and annoying ponies in class can’t even do their special talent for even one measly minute. Let’s go.”

As they left, Apple Bloom spared a passing glance back at Diamond and Silver. They were speechless, their mouths were agape in surprise at what Sweetie Belle just said to them.

“Wow, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom commented, “remind me not ta get on your bad side. Ah feel sorry for them now. Doncha think that was a mite harsh?”

“Really, you think so?” Sweetie Belle asked hopefully, “That’s what I was going for. Oh, I've never done that before, but it felt so good to beat them at their own game like that. I mean, could you believe what they just said to Scootaloo?” She turned to the pegasus, “They thought you were lying about your Cutie Mark! I mean, how dumb do they think we are? Even if you were lying, ponies would figure it out anyway, so why bother?”

Scootaloo—who, despite her calm demeanor, had been a bit hurt by what the bullies had said—shook off her surprise at her friend and grinned. “You know what, Sweetie, you’re right! They deserved every word of that, and if they decide not to pick on us now because we can dish it out better than they can, then all the better!”

Listening to all this, Apple Bloom frowned. “Ah don’t know about all that,” she said as they entered the schoolhouse. “Ah mean, sure, if anypony deserves a good ribbin’ for what they’ve done, it’s them. Still, doesn’t it make us as bad as them if we start bullyin’ back? Not to mention all that stuff you said about spreadin’ rumours behind their backs. To be honest, Ah don’t even know what Diamond’s mark means—Ah forgot on account of it bein' so long ago—but Ah’m sure they earned it like everypony else. Ya can’t just buy a mark. If ya could, it wouldn’t be worth Crusadin’ for.”

They all took their seats before Sweetie Belle rejoined the conversation. “Well, it isn’t like I was actually going to do any of that,” Sweetie Belle responded, “I just wanted to get under their skin for once. Now we have…leverage in case they try to bully us again.”

Apple Bloom was even less convinced by that line of reasoning. “What was wrong with just ignoring them like we usually do? You weren’t here, but over the summer holidays they didn’t even bother us once. This seems pretty mean; not to mention that it sounds kinda like blackmail.”

Sweetie Belle sighed, rolling her eyes, “Yeah, I guess you’re right…maybe. I’ll try to-”

“Alright class! It’s time to get started!” Cheerilee interrupted cheerfully, bringing their conversation to a premature end.

“We’ll talk later,” Sweetie Belle whispered before Cheerilee continued.

“Good morning, class!” Cheerilee exclaimed in her teacher-sing-song voice.

“Good morning, Miss Cheerilee,” the students responded. Some of them even seemed genuinely happy to be there.

“It’s so great to see everypony again! I hope you all had a wonderful summer vacation!” Cheerilee said with a smile.

The students responded with a mixture of answers, but they all seemed relatively positive.

“It sounds like you all had some exciting stories, I’m sure. Well, speaking of stories, I am also proud to announce that our very own Scootaloo got her Cutie Mark just yesterday!” At that, everypony muttered amongst themselves, some straining to catch a glimpse.

“Yes, yes,” Cheerilee continued, “it is all very exciting and I’m sure Scootaloo won’t have any complaints about coming to the front of the class later today and telling everypony all about it.” If Scootaloo’s newfound poise and expression was any indication, she would not have any trouble at all.

“Miss Cheerilee!” Diamond Tiara spoke up above the murmuring. “Why does she get special attention. I’m sure many of us—especially me—have way better stories from our summer holidays that would beat any lame story Scootaloo would have.”

Cheerilee frowned a bit. “Diamond Tiara, you should know by now that everypony—yourself included—got a chance to share their Cutie Mark story with the class. It is only fair that Scootaloo has a chance too.”

Diamond Tiara grumbled but didn’t say anything further. Cheerilee raised an eyebrow at this. Normally it would be at least a good minute of arguing before she stopped, but there was something off about the filly today. Not that Cheerilee would complain about this newfound obedience, of course.

“Well…anyway, if there are no more interruptions…” Cheerilee dared, waiting a moment for any form of response. When there was none, she continued with a smile, “Good! In other news, I'd like to welcome back Sweetie Belle!"

The other students didn't give her quite the same looks as they gave Scootaloo on account that her presence was far more obvious. "As you know, Sweetie Belle had an accident while out with her sister searching for gems and had to stay in the hospital all through Summer Vacation." Her face darkened as she continued, "What many of you might not have noticed, however, is that this accident has caused Sweetie Belle to lose her magic."

The whole class—save her friends—gasped at this; even Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara didn't say a word. Still, even without their jeering, she didn't enjoy being reminded of it.

"Yes, I know, it really is quite shocking, and I hope that everypony is supportive of her as she recovers."

A few ponies raised their hooves at this, but Cheerilee shook her head, saying, "I won't be saying any more than that. Any other information about this is something her family has asked that I keep private. If you want to know anything else, you'll have to ask Sweetie Belle herself."

Once again seeing that the class was silent again. It was then that Cheerilee realized that it probably would have been a better idea to save some sort of happy news for last. Unfortunately, what she would say next wouldn't be joyful in the slightest. "Well—now that all that is out of the way—why don’t we get back to the focus of everypony’s first day back at school, the placement test!” Despite Cheerilee's best efforts to play up the event, everypony groaned in response. Still, at least that was better than silence.

“Yes, I know, nopony likes the placement test, but it is really important! Not only does it tell me what you remember from last year, it also can help you avoid a lot of extra work.” She continued speaking as she hoofed out the test. “If you have any questions about the test, feel free to raise your hoof and I will help you as best as I can. That doesn’t mean I will be giving you the answers, however.” She looked at both Snips and Snails especially when she said this, since they were the ones who usually asked most of the questions.

As she finished giving them to each of the students, she went back to the front of the class. “This is a very long test,” she finished, “so it may take you all class to finish it. You will still have recess and can play with your friends. I only ask that you don’t talk about the test with them. Most of your tests are different anyway, but it is still wrong to give your friends any help; this is about what each of you know on your own.”

Seeing the glazed looks of her students, she realized that she had run out of the allotted attention-span they would give her. “Well, anyway, good luck,” she started before being reminded of one final thing. “Oh, right! Some of your tests also have a question that asks you to write a story. Feel free to take those pages home at the end of class and finish it by Friday. I don’t expect you to finish that part today.”

Sweetie Belle—having heard the speech given for the past five years—had largely ignored what was said and was already going over the test in front of her. She could easily tell at a glance that most ponies wouldn’t be able to answer everything correctly. There were just under 100 multiple choice questions, a few fill-in-the-blank and a big writing question. It went over every topic they had gone over last term, so even if a pony had done some studying before the test, they would have no hope of possibly covering everything. Sweetie Belle learned that the hard way.

‘I guess it must be a test designed to measure a pony’s long term memory,’ she thought idly, filling in the time waiting for Cheerilee to tell her to begin. *If that’s the case, this will be the perfect test of the Tablet’s pre-education compression. The only way to complete this test successfully is if the Tablet preserved all former memories. Otherwise, the new information’s syntactic and cultural bias—or lack of such—wouldn’t provide the adequate clarification needed to comprehend the exact wording provided in answering the multiple choice questions, as proven in cross-cultural psychological surveys detailing the effects of ethnocentrism on the analysis of these types of limited-response questions, particularly in tests attempting to gauge and objective idea of mental capacity or intelligence. Therefore, assuming that-*

“Umm, Sweetie Belle?” Cheerilee asked, breaking the filly out of her thoughts.

She looked up at her teacher with before looking around her in confusion. “Huh?” she replied, only now realizing that she had completely missed on what had gone on around her.

“Um, you can start now,” Cheerilee replied, tapping her hoof to the paper in front of her with a knowing smirk. She then turned back to the front of the class, having realized that her student had simply ‘zoned-out’.

Sweetie Belle grinned embarrassedly, looking around shyly, only to see the giggling faces of her classmates.

“Hehe, right. I’ll just start now…”

“Alright, class. That’s enough for now,” Cheerilee exclaimed, breaking the ponies out of their concentration.

It took the class a moment to realize that they were free to leave before they all suddenly jumped into action and ran out of the schoolhouse and into the yard outside.

“Please, don’t all run out at once-” Cheerilee started before cutting herself off. Her voice was drowned out by the cheers of her students trying to savour their well-deserved moments of freedom. Almost everypony was already clambering out the door with reckless abandon. Cheerilee took a moment to sigh before doing her best to get everypony out in an organized fashion.

As Sweetie Belle tucked in her stool and made her way out the doors behind everypony else, she thought about the test, still surprised at the difficulty she was having. It wasn’t that any one question was challenging or confusing, rather it was that she couldn’t seem to remember what she had learned. While she could perfectly recall the math, science, Equish and social science portions, she had trouble in the history, arts and relationships sections.

‘I don’t get it,’ she thought, biting into her pencil a little in frustration, ‘I never had problems in those subjects before. In fact, art used to be my best one. I should know this stuff. Sure, I only did a little homework at the hospital because I only missed a few weeks of class, but it has only been four months and I've done these tests before, no problem. Is something the Tablet did?’

She broke out in a cold sweat at the implication. ‘I-I never thought about it, but what if the Tablet did something wrong? It was made by precursors, for precursors, right? Could it have miscalculated and removed pieces of my memory? I mean, I knew that it would do a lot of shuffling to fit everything in my brain, and I figured that it had some algorithm to ensure that everything would fit without losing anything, but what if it was wrong? I remember Rarity and a lot of things about my past, but what if I forgot something important, something so ‘me’ that losing it makes ‘me’ not…me. Like a secret diary I kept that I don't remember now, or somepony I met that who nopony else knows about. How would I find out if I don’t remember? Oh, why was I so stupid! I was such a stupid filly and didn’t ask these really important questions and now I will never know and-’

“Sweetie Belle!” somepony yelled next to her, causing the unicorn filly to topple to the ground in shock.

“Gah!” Sweetie Belle replied, bringing a hoof to her poor ear. “What the hay was that for!”

“I’d ask you the same question, Sweetie. I called out your name a whole bunch of times,” Scootaloo huffed as Apple Bloom offered a hoof to help their friend back on her hooves.

“Huh?” Sweetie Belle asked as she finally righted herself. “What do you…oh, I spaced out again,” she finished as she looked about, realizing that—just like in the classroom earlier—the whole environment around her had changed without her realizing it. She was near the edge of the schoolyard far away from where everypony else was playing.

“Yeah, ya kinda did, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom agreed as her expression became somber. “Ah don’t want to bring up bad memories or nuttin’, but the last time ya were like that, that Tablet-thingy was in yer head. It—it isn’t still there, is it?”

Sweetie Belle sighed. “No,” she replied, shaking her head, “although sometimes I wish it was.”

“What!” Scootaloo and Apple Bloom yelled in tandem.

“Why would you want that!” Scootaloo continued.

“Yeah!” Apple Bloom agreed, “Wasn’t that the whole reason why we went on that crazy adventure with ya? Ta get rid of that thing messin' with your mind?”

“Well, not really,” Sweetie defended, “I mean, maybe at first; but it didn’t take long before I realized how great it was. With the Tablet, I could do anything! Run away from an entire country, save the world, you name it!”

“Yeah, but aren’t you already super smart now?” Scootaloo contended. “I mean, what could the Tablet-thingy do that you can’t just do yourself? You pretty much designed most of the glider yourself. Sure, I helped a lot and was able to understand everything you did, but that’s because I got my Cutie Mark doing it.”

‘Well, the Tablet could tell me my destiny, probably,’ Sweetie Belle thought in melancholy. “Well, whatever, it doesn’t matter anyway, it’s gone now.”

“That still doesn’t explain why ya keep ‘zonin’-out’ all the time,” Apple Bloom said, bringing them back to the topic at hoof.

“I don’t know,” Sweetie Belle moodily waved off, “I just am, I guess. It’s not like it means anything. It’s probably just because I’m thinking more or something.”

“That may be true, but you’ve also been kinda grumpy,” Apple Bloom noted, “not to mention you looked pretty angry when you talked down to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon earlier. Ah don’t remember ya bein’ so flippy-floppy with your feelin’s before.”

“Well, you would be too if you lost as much as I did!” Sweetie Belle cried out. “Maybe I don’t like writing things with my mouth again or putting in all that work at Twilight Time, only for some random accident taking my magic away and ruining everything! Why do I have to keep losing things again and again! First my free will, then my magic! What’s next, huh!”

‘Maybe my memories?’ she thought, tearing up and looking away. She honestly wasn’t sure the reasons for these changes herself, but Sweetie Belle definitely felt good saying it.

Apple Bloom was deeply concerned about her friend now. Sweetie Belle used to be the type to let her emotions get the better of her, but Apple Bloom noted that those times were usually about somepony getting on her nerves. For all the time Apple Bloom knew her, Sweetie Belle never had internal turmoil and recently, she took for granted that Sweetie Belle had accepted that she could no longer use magic.

Feeling a bit guilty that it had come to this, Apple Bloom attempted to think of some sort of silver lining to all of this. ‘Sweetie Belle’s right,' she thought, 'Ah never thought about it, but Ah reckon she’s lost a lot more than most ponies. If Ah was in her horseshoes...' She shook her head.'Oh, snap out of it, Apple Bloom. Think! Wait, that’s it, thinking! All the smarts she has is somethin' good, right?!’

“Come on, Sweetie Belle, it ain’t that bad,” Apple Bloom comforted, bring a hoof to her friend’s withers, “just think of all the good things.”

“What, like this newfound ‘intelligence’?” Sweetie Belle lamented, already seeing what Apple Bloom was getting at. She sniffed slightly and tears welled up in her eyes as she continued, “I’d trade it all back just to have my magic again and to forget about all these…worries I have now. I may not have been the smartest filly, but at least I was happy… To be honest, I don’t think I’ve even been happy since I woke up in the hospital.”

“Now that’s just stinkin’ thinkin’,” Apple Bloom contended. “Don’t ya remember when we were workin’ on the glider? Ya were pretty happy then; and when we finally came in after the landin’? Ya can’t tell me that those tears were ‘cause ya were sick.”

“But none of that really mattered,” Sweetie Belle countered. However, seeing Scootaloo—who had only been listening until this moment—look at her with an annoyed expression, Sweetie quickly amend her statement. “I mean, sure, Scootaloo got her Cutie Mark and I was really happy for her, but then what? No amount of making gliders or getting ponies Cutie Marks is going to get me my magic back. I’m like this for good.”

“But imagine all the things you can do now!” Apple Bloom continued, undeterred by Sweetie Belle’s self-condemnation. “Didn’t ya just show Twilight yesterday some type of amazing new science thing? Ah remember Twilight sayin’ that that piece of paper would be the life’s work for any other pony. Don’t ya think that bein’ able ta do that’s a bit better than some dumb magic. Although Ah might be biased and all, considerin’ Ah’m not a unicorn or nothin’.”

“Yeah, Apple Bloom’s right!” Scootaloo agreed, finally seeing a point in the conversation that she could jump in and help. “I used to think like that too. I didn’t tell you girls about it, but every once in a while—usually when Rainbow Dash or my parents would go to Cloudsdale and I’d be stuck at home—I would look up at the weatherponies moving the clouds around and I would get all depressed and stuff. Every pegasus could fly but me and it sucked. You know what, though? Being able to design and build my wings that let me be up in the sky with Rainbow Dash was way better than anything I thought that flying could be."

“I—I guess?” Sweetie Belle responded hesitantly, more confused than anything. “Still, I don’t get what that has to do with me and my magic. Sure that worked for you—I mean, you got your Cutie Mark for it—but what does that have to do with me?”

“Don't you see? For some reason, I thought that using the wings I was born with to sail through the air like Rainbow Dash was some sort of important thing. I thought ‘Nothing could replace the feeling of preening myself for the big race’ or ‘Feeling the wind through my feathers as I flapped them in the breeze’, but I was wrong. I may not know much about flying, but flying that glider was definitely the best thing ever. It was even better than Rainbow Dash holding me up as we flew over Winsome Falls, because it was me. I beat fate and flew anyway and you can do that too, Sweetie. You already do magic!”

Sweetie Belle didn’t respond, rather she gave her pegasus friend a deadpan look.

“No, really, you do! It’s because of that magic that I was able to fly at all!”

“Oh please, Scootaloo,” Sweetie Belle sighed, rolling her eyes, “if you say the ‘magic of friendship’—”

“No, no,” Scootaloo denied vehemently, “magic crystals!”

“Magic crystals?” Sweetie faltered, looking at her friend incredulously.

“Yeah, that paper you made; you can make magic crystals with it, right? Well, if it worked so well to get me flying, why not use them yourself!”

Sweetie Belle looked away for a moment. When she turned back, she put a hoof out as if to convey something but then put it back down, evidently still thinking. ‘Well, if I publish this, it would make them cheaper...’ she thought.

“Well, yes, possibly…” Sweetie Belle spoke, continuing the previous train of thought out loud, “but thaumic crystals—the ones that generate power—have always been a prohibitively expensive form of renewable energy. Bit-for-bit, they could never really match a unicorn's output. Therefore, apart from basic revolute and prismatic transducer motors for very small-output, lightweight, and/or non-unicorn applications, nopony uses them for anything else. It’s only things like automatic door latches or remote distress beacons or something. Certainly nothing like transfiguration or even telekinesis. Nopony researches it, and even if I get something to work, it would just be something anypony could use.”

The other two looked at each other, both equally confused. Still, Scootaloo spoke up, “Well, I’m not really sure what you said, but that last part sounds like me, doesn’t it? That doesn’t matter though. So what if there are some things that other pegasi can do that I can’t or that anypony can use flying machines. I know that I’ll probably never be as fast as Rainbow Dash—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to quit! I may be the only machine-flyer in Equestria that doesn't fly a dumb blimp, but that also means I'm the best one too! Someday, maybe I can make something faster than Rainbow Dash, or maybe some sort of big flying machine that can move big things really far and fast! The possibilities are endless!”

Sweetie Belle just stood there thinking for well over a minute as both her friends looked on in worry. Apple Bloom wanted to say something else, fearing that maybe Scootaloo had said something that belittled the heartache that Sweetie Belle was going through, but just as she was about to respond, Cheerilee called them back in.

“Alright everypony! Recess is over! You have to finish your tests!” This call was reciprocated by a cacophony of groans and moans as the previously happy fillies and colts sauntered their way back inside.

Scootaloo, seeing that Apple Bloom was unwilling to move her friend back inside gave Sweetie Belle a quick shove. “Hey, did you hear Miss Cheerilee?” she asked, “We have to go back in now. We can talk about this later if you want, okay?” Scootaloo internally gagged at the idea, but didn’t show it. All this ‘feelings’ stuff was never something she liked, even if she was getting better at it now that there was nothing holding her back anymore.

“No…” Sweetie Belle whispered, shaking her head. “No, I’m alright, Scoots. I just—I just…” She groaned. “Oh, jeez, I’m sorry girls; we ended up completely missing recess because of me. I’ve just been so down and confused and my heart got in the way of my head. You’re right! I can’t be a magical pony like Twilight, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to quit.”

As the three walked back to the classroom, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo let out a breath of relief that their friend was finally back to normal…well, whatever was ‘normal’ now for Sweetie Belle.

“I don’t even know why I even spoke out like that, to be honest,” Sweetie Belle commented with a sigh as they went to their seats. “I guess I just thought—somewhere deep down—that I’d get my magic back somehow and that realization that it wouldn’t just…came out all at once. I’m really sorry for worrying you girls. Could you forgive me?”

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom rolled their eyes.

“Really? Is that even a question?” Scootaloo asked, “After you told me that I could still be a Crusader, of course I forgive you."

"Wait, why didn't ya think you're still a Crusader, Scoots?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Alright, settle down, class," Miss Cheerilee said now that everypony was sitting.

'Thank Celestia,' Scootaloo thought.

"I'm going to want to know what you meant after class, Scootaloo," Apple Bloom whispered.

Scootaloo, realizing that she wasn't likely to get her friend to forget her 'slip-up,' looked over to Sweetie Belle with pleading eyes. The unicorn filly only shrugged and giggled, prompting a look of defeat and a groan from Scootaloo.

'You know what,' Sweetie Belle thought as she looked down on her test with renewed vigor, 'maybe I didn't lose all that much after all.'

Author's Note

Hey everypony,

Sorry for the delay, I had some 'personal reorganization' to do and had far less time to work on this then usual.

To make up for it, I made you all a quiz (the same quiz that Sweetie Belle took)! Let me know if you are smarter than an Equestrian 5th Grader*! Feel free to skip over any question that is obviously impossible to answer (because it is about Thaumaturgy or something) and use this solution key** to let me know how you did!

I also redid the Epilogue to Sweetie Belle and the Tablet of Knowledge. I only realized after I started writing this story that it really only rehashed the first chapter or so and did nothing to advance the plot in any way. The new epilogue (while not necessary to read to know what's going on) hopefully adds a bit more substance to the underlying plot of this second book in the series.

*not really, its closer to 6th/7th grade, but I needed to make the reference.
** solutions not guaranteed correct since I'm a human that *occasionally* has the dumb

Chapter 5 - Twilight Time

Spitting out the bland pencil from her mouth, Sweetie Belle could finally relax; she had finished the test. Unfortunately, now the waiting would begin; she was one of the first to finish.

It used to be that Miss Cheerilee would let students go outside and play in the yard if they had finished early. That was before the CMC though. Sweetie Belle had this great idea to use such “valuable” free time to crusade for their Cutie Marks. Sweetie Belle already tried and failed to get a business Cutie Mark so she could be more like her sister, but Apple Bloom had overheard Applejack saying that being a door-to-door salespony was the easiest job in Equestria, and that was pretty much the same thing in her mind. So while Cheerilee was distracted with the other students taking the test, Sweetie Belle figured they had a shot at getting that Cutie Mark. It turns out that when three underage fillies wander around Ponyville unattended—peddling goods to ponies and telling them sad stories to manipulate them into buying their products—the teacher responsible for them gets a lot of criticism.

As such, Sweetie Belle was forced to stay in her seat, her mind wandering to all the drama that had occurred over the course of the day. ‘So,’ she thought absentmindedly, ‘Rarity is convinced that I’m going to hurt myself with my crusading, Apple Bloom is probably thinking that I’m going to blackmail anypony to get my way, and Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon are probably going to get back at me somehow for all the stuff I told them.’

She sighed, sitting up at her desk to briefly stretch—she had been sitting in it for a while. ‘Well, ignoring Rarity—since Sis is pretty stubborn about this sort of thing—I can probably convince Apple Bloom once I talk to her. If I control the conversation, state my case, and promise to avoid threats of social humiliation to get the desired outcome…even if it is really effective, then she’ll definitely forgive me.

‘The real question is Diamond Tiara; what comes next is up to her, I guess? Apart from ‘raising the stakes,’ anything else she could possibly do would probably be beneficial. That was whole point. It was doubtful the situation would get worse, but there is good chance things could get better. So if that’s true, the only preparation I need is if she makes things worse. In that case, do I make matters even worse in return?

‘It may seem silly to think about, but if I’m more patient than she is, or if I can escalate the conflict too high for her to handle, then she is unlikely to ever bother us again. It’s just like what the Tablet taught me: *A legitimate threat of rapid escalation of conflict that outweighs the reward the aggressive party would gain from initiating said conflict will likely prevent aggressor action.* It’s straightforward—if not blunt—geopolitical theory. The problem is that what Diamond Tiara sees as ‘too much’ is probably too much for my friends too. Is she really so annoying that I’d risk doing it alone, and how far would she go? How far will I need to go?’

She thought on that for a moment, but realized quickly that it was too complex to think about purely in her head. She took out a piece of paper and began to scribble a rough list. On it, she wrote her options for socially undermining her rival as well as the various things she could do to get them back should Diamond Tiara try anything crazy. Steal her tiara and hide it, falsifying letters to her dad confessing to bad things, or even having a mix up with her dad’s shop and having them ship a few tons of supplies to their house instead of the store.

She also wrote down Diamond Tiara’s behavior, mannerisms, the types of responses she had to similar situations, as well as the environment around her that could reinforce or hinder any final decision she might make. The result was an incredibly complex web of associations which Sweetie Belle attempted to weight for a decision matrix. Sweetie Belle hoped to use a similar algorithm that the Tablet had in order to give a probabilistic view of Diamond’s decisions.

Ultimately, Sweetie Belle simply couldn’t get a clear picture. Unlike the trivial calculations done for decision matrices in engineering reports or economic analysis, the more she added, the more she realized that too many factors were either beyond her control or simply unknown. She groaned in frustration. *Decisions were so easier when there was a non-deterministic self-learning heuristic-driven machine aiding in the decision-making process,* she thought, *How do ponies live with themselves when every decision is made with such a vague understanding of the outcomes?*

Realizing that the decision matrix wasn’t going to give her the “objective” result she wanted, she quickly scribbled on it in frustration, crumpled the paper up, and stuffed it in her desk. She would just have to come to terms with this idea of “uncertain responsibility.” After all, she had already made a decision that helped her friend get her Cutie Mark; she would probably need to make a lot more than that to get her own. The world wouldn’t get any more straightforward.

These pensive thoughts were finally ended when Cheerilee called for the end of class. “Alright, everypony,” she gleefully exclaimed in her typical cheerful tone, “that’s it, the test is finished! I’m afraid you don’t have any more time, so make sure to circle any last minute answers before I come to collect them!”

At that, many of the students who had been done for some time tried to hand their tests in right away so that they could get home as-soon-as-possible. “Everypony settle down!” Miss Cheerilee asserted, “You will remain in your seats while I collect the test. We have Scootaloo’s presentation, remember?”

As Cheerilee said this, she nodded her head at the newly marked filly who beamed back in pride. Not wasting any time, Scootaloo quickly strutted her way to the front, not squandering the opportunity to smirk haughtily at Diamond Tiara—who scowled in return—as she went by. When Scootaloo reached the end of the room, she spun around quickly on her hind legs, faking to clear her throat in order to get everypony’s attention. Despite her serious face, however, the rapid fluttering of her tiny wings was a dead giveaway of her nervous excitement.

With great enthusiasm, Scootaloo began her presentation, “Alright, everypony, prepare yourselves for the awesomest Cutie Mark story you have ever heard!”

Regrettably for Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo’s presentation skills were clearly adapted from Rainbow Dash’s self-indulgence. If Sweetie Belle hadn’t heard the same story told at least ten times from Scootaloo the night before, she might have paid attention to the whole thing, but as it was, it was one of the most boring things she sat through her entire life.

That wasn’t to say that the presentation was awful—on the contrary, like her idol, Scootaloo had great charisma and could certainly grab a pony’s attention. That being said, she was pretty bad at trying to teach things and she was prone to random tangents like how awesome certain flying patterns were. It got to the point that the other fillies were groaning constantly from the tediousness of her speech on aerodynamics or the inane subtle differences between a pegasus and the glider’s flight. Still, with her expressive description of the feelings and emotions she felt, the story was pretty empathetic. Most of her audience definitely paid close attention at these other, more interesting sections.

Luckily, it wasn’t long before the speech was over. As much as Scootaloo reveled in talking about herself, it was plain on the faces of her fellow students that they wanted to leave. So with a few final words from Miss Cheerilee reminding everypony about their homework due on Friday, the three fillies were finally able to leave the schoolhouse behind, grateful that the test and school was finally over.

“So, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, how was the test?” Scootaloo groaned, not really expecting an answer. “I already know you both did better than me, again.”

“Whatever you say,” Sweetie Belle replied as she rolled her eyes, “it isn’t like you always beat me at these tests every time or anything.”

Scootaloo shook her head, “Maybe last year, but you’re like a super-genius now! How can I beat that?! Not to mention that Apple Bloom’s memorization skills are like the best ever.”

Sweetie Belle sighed, “Just because I know a lot more then I used to, doesn’t mean I know everything. I definitely got near-perfect on the math, science, and Equish parts, but everything else was all fuzzy. I’m not sure if it was the Tablet or what, but I definitely didn’t remember any of that stuff from last year.”

Apple Bloom—who until now had been looking left and right for something—had finally found what she was looking for. “Hey, girls,” she said, pointing a hoof to their right, “we should probably apologize to them before we head off ta Twilight’s place.”

They all turned to see where she was pointing. Scootaloo raised an eyebrow in confusion, “You mean, behind Diamond Tiara?”

Apple Bloom hit her friend in the barrel, “No, doofus, Ah am pointing at Diamond Tiara! Silver Spoon too! We really should apologize for what we said to them this morning.”

Scootaloo yelped from the suddenness of her friend’s attack, but was quick to groan in response; both at the minor pain, and at the suggestion. “Are you still on about that?” she questioned, “It isn’t like they ever asked us to forgive them for all the stuff they did!”

“Well…maybe, but it still ain’t right,” Apple Bloom responded in a huff. “Ma Sis always says that ya have ta ‘treat ponies like ya want ta be treated’ and Ah’d want an apology.”

Sweetie Belle decided to get in between the two before things got worse. “You’re both right. Scoots, you don’t need to say anything, it was my fault it all happened anyway. Still, it isn’t like it’d hurt to tell them sorry; hopefully they’ll leave us alone like before.”

They both seemed mollified at that. Sweetie Belle took this opportunity to leave her friends behind and run after the two bullies before they left the schoolyard.

“Hey Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon!” Sweetie Belle yelled as she made her way over to them. Just as the two noticed her coming, Diamond put away a crumpled piece of paper that they were looking at into her saddlebags.

“Oh? Well if it isn’t little ‘Miss Blackmail’ herself!” Diamond Tiara snapped. “Don’t think that we’ll come beg for your forgiveness just because you pulled that stunt this morning.”

“Yeah!” Silver Spoon agreed. “It doesn’t matter what you say, we know you’re just full of hot air like your friend.”

Sweetie Belle—clearly still taking umbrage with the two—gave each of them a sharp, angry stare. Instead of snapping back, however, she stood up straight, took a deep breath, and calmed down before saying, “Look, I’m not asking you to say sorry. In fact, I wanted to apologize for what I said today. I didn’t mean to—”

“Didn’t mean to?!” Silver Spoon said with a look of disgust. “How can you even say that when—”

Diamond Tiara nudged her friend with a hoof, interrupting Silver Spoon before she could continue herself, “Ha, just listen to yourself, Sweetie Belle. I’ve never heard such an ungrateful apology since that one banker my father had to deal with. You know what? We won’t accept your stupid apology and both Silver Spoon and I are going to prove—once-and-for-all—that we are better than you. Just you wait!”

With that, the two of them turned around and galloped off, leaving a very stunned Sweetie Belle in their wake.‘What just happened?’ she thought as she turned around and slowly trotted back to her friends. ‘I knew that there was a chance that they might want to make things worse, but I never thought they would do so because of an apology. It’s true that it wasn’t the most sincere apology in the world, but that’s only because they were making fun of Scootaloo and me just before I said it. Are they really that sensitive? That the slightest insincerity or insult gets them this riled up? Well, if that’s the case, the path going forward is pretty clear.’

“So, how did it go?” Apple Bloom asked just as Sweetie Belle joined her and Scootaloo at the road in front of the school.

“Yeah, it looked like they left pretty quickly,” Scootaloo added. “Did they even care or did they just say something dumb like usual.”

“Actually…” Sweetie Belle confided, “not only did they not accept the apology, but they said that they were going to get back at me for it; well not ‘it’ as in the apology, but because of what I said this morning.”

“What?!” Apple Bloom replied, “Why would they do that?! Ah mean, what ya said wasn’t very nice and all, but it was hours ago. Ya said sorry and everything, right? What more do they want?”

“I don’t know why you’re surprised,” Scootaloo maintained with a shrug, “they’re the biggest jerks I know. Of course they would ignore an apology and try to get back at us. What else would they do?”

Sweetie Belle sighed, ‘If I’d known it would turn out like this…’ she thought dejectedly. “What’s done is done,” she lamented, “let’s talk about something else.”

Apple Bloom was still upset though. “Still, Sweetie Belle, they were probably going to ignore us until you said all that stuff this morning. Ah don’t exactly blame ya for sayin’ all that stuff to them—and it is their fault for bein’ jerks—but Ah can’t be friends with a pony who goes around blackmailin’ ponies into doin’ what they want. Even if ya weren’t actually gonna do it, it’s still wrong.”

Sweetie Belle looked away for a moment, not out of guilt, but rather because she had to quickly think what to do next. ‘Why did you have to bring that up now Apple Bloom?’ she thought. “Listen, Apple Bloom, I’m really sorry it happened but I weighed the possibilities, honest! They seem to care a lot about appearances and I thought that they would step down rather than fight back. From there, it—what?” Apple Bloom was shaking her head, causing Sweetie Belle to cut short.

“It doesn’t matter why ya did it,” Apple Bloom said, “what’s wrong is wrong. You said sorry, and Ah’m glad ya did—even if it didn’t turn out so great—but ya gotta promise me that ya won’t go around doin’ stuff like that again.”

‘I wish she wouldn’t say ‘stuff’ like that, I feel like I’m going to be walking on eggshells around her forever,’ she thought apprehensively. “Alright, I promise that I won’t try to blackmail them and I’ll try to hold back, but I’m not going to just let them do whatever they want.”

Apple Bloom sighed, “Ah can agree ta that, Ah guess.” She then turned to Scootaloo with a frown, “Well, besides that, there is still one more thing Ah wanted to clear up, what did ya mean when ya said ‘Ah wasn’t sure Ah was a Crusader no more’ in class today?”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened and she immediately looked to Sweetie Belle to support. Seeing that her friend wasn’t going to say anything that could possibly damage her pride, Sweetie Belle stepped in. “Oh, she was just asking—since she got her Cutie Mark—if she was still a Crusader or not.”

Scootaloo looked at Sweetie Belle with betrayal in her eyes as Apple Bloom shook her head, “Scootaloo, you know that—”

“I wouldn’t be so hard on her, Apple Bloom,” Sweetie Belle continued with a smirk, “it isn’t like we shared somepony’s dream about that very issue or anything, right?”

Apple Bloom shut up pretty quickly at that. It might have happened several months ago, but it wasn’t every day that you shared a lucid dream with your friends.

Scootaloo gave Sweetie Belle a quick smile when Apple Bloom wasn’t looking, both in gratitude and in a wordless thanks.

“Well, it looks like everything is all wrapped up, then,” Sweetie Belle concluded, grabbing her friends in a group hug; hoping to give positive reinforcement to her promise and get everypony back on track. “Well, why don’t we all head off to Twilight Time then. Hey Scootaloo, I’m sure that Twilight would love to hear what you want to do now that you have your Cutie Mark!”

Scootaloo grimaced. “Well, you see…actually, I was hoping to fly again with Rainbow Dash today. She said that she could get off early from managing the weather today, so…”

Sweetie Belle looked at Apple Bloom for a moment before the corners of their mouths turned up in an unspoken agreement.

“Well, Ah guess that’s okay,” Apple Bloom conceded with an exaggerated sigh, “it ain’t like we could fit that overgrown pile of wood inta the castle, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle giggled, “and if it’s anything like that presentation you gave, Twilight would probably fall asleep before we could get a turn. How would she teach us anything then?”

“Hey!” Scootaloo glowered; however, as soon as her friends started giggling, she quickly joined in. “Well, alright then.” She then got a little emotional, quickly rubbing her eyes before saying, “Thanks, girls, I mean it. If it wasn’t for you…well I probably wouldn’t have my Cutie Mark at all.”

“Don’t let Rainbow Dash see that face, then,” Sweetie Belle quipped, pointing at the redness that had formed around her eyes.

Scootaloo looked like she was about to give a snappy comeback, but instead simply smiled and let out one last chuckle before heading off to Sweet Apple Acres and her glider.

“Ah don’t know ‘bout you, Sweetie Belle, but do ya think that Scootaloo’s gotten a bit more…level-headed since her Cutie Mark?” Apple Bloom asked, a quizzical expression on her face as she watched Scootaloo leave.

Sweetie Belle put a hoof to her chin in thought but quickly shook her head. “No, I bet if Rainbow asked her to go into a crazy nosedive only to pull out at the last second or something with the glider, she’d probably do it.” She looked out into the distance, seeing their friend giving a little skip every few steps as she trotted to the farm. “I think it’s more that there’s nothing holding her back anymore. Remember how she said that she was worried about her wings but never told us?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I don’t think the old Scootaloo would ever tell us that; she’d be too proud, right?”

“But Ah thought that Scootaloo never cared about what anypony thought.”

“I think she does, or at least she did. It’s like she’s more free or mature? Urghh, it’s too hard to explain.” Sweetie Belle scratched her head in confusion, trying to find the right words to say.

Apple Bloom looked on in sadness for a moment, thinking about what that implied about past-Scootaloo before she shook her head and grinned. “Well, whatever it is, what she’s got now sounds pretty awesome to me.”

“Yeah! So what are we waiting for?” Sweetie Belle said as she reared back before coming back down on all fours with a giddy hop. “Let’s get to Twilight’s, get our Cutie Marks, and get some of that for ourselves!”

“Yeah!”

As they both raced off towards the castle, Sweetie Belle’s eyes narrowed into a look of determination. ‘That’s right,’ she thought, ‘nothing’s holding Scootaloo back now, and I won’t be held back either. Soon, I’ll find my destiny and be free of this indecision, just like her.’

“Hi Sweetie Belle, hi Apple Bloom,” Princess Twilight Sparkle called out as the two fillies came into view. It looked to the two of them as though Twilight had been waiting there for some time as she had been sitting down next to the door until this point.

“Hi Twilight,” Apple Bloom responded immediately.

“Hey Twilight…” Sweetie Belle responded in a far more reserved tone then her friend. ‘That’s can’t be good,’ she thought, ‘Twilight never greets us at the front door of the castle; she’s usually too busy with something or another. What does she want…’

“Apple Bloom,” Twilight entreated the filly nervously, “why don’t you go on in and set up your alchemy set and lay out your reagents. I have to talk to Sweetie Belle for a bit.”

“Oh, okay…” Apple Bloom agreed, ultimately not seeing any reason to disagree and getting a confirmation from Sweetie Belle that it was alright.

“So, Twilight,” Sweetie Belle inquired, “if I were to guess what you want, does it have to do with what I told Sis this morning?”

Twilight sighed and looked the filly in the eye for a moment, a flash of concern on her face before she answered the question, “Yes. Rarity voiced some concerns about your most recent ‘crusade.’ Your sister wanted me to talk to you about what we’re going to do from here on out.”

“Look, Twilight, it’s as I said to her,” Sweetie Belle asserted, “I’m not going to stop just because there are risks. There’s always going to be risks and I can’t have my sis babying me like a foal. If I’m to find my destiny, I’m not going to find it crusading for basket-weaving Cutie Marks. I need to try everything I’m good at in all the ways it can be done. Scootaloo wanted to fly and was good at putting things together, so we put together a flying machine. It worked. Apple Bloom and I are going to do the same things.”

“Yes but—”

“Also, remember when you got your Cutie Mark? I remember the story; you turned your parents into plants! Or Rainbow Dash; any other pony flying that fast would be in the hospital at best! Not everypony can just be magically pulled to a rock like my sister. I’ve literally tried everything to—”

“I agree!” Twilight finally got out in a lull between words, interrupting Sweetie Belle of her rant.

“Huh? What?”

“I said I agree, Sweetie Belle.” She sighed, looking away wistfully. “You’re right. For me to realize my destiny, I had to make a mistake. I needed to realize that I wasn’t powerful enough and that only with the help of my friends—even ones I hadn’t met yet, tens of kilometers away—to fill me with the magic I needed to realize my potential.”

She turned back to Sweetie Belle with a serious look on her face. “None of that would have come without opportunity. I entered Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns two years before the average and if I had been a minute later, it wouldn’t have happened. No, Sweetie Belle, I didn’t want to talk to you so that you could stop your Crusades.” Twilight rolled her eyes, “Unlike your sister, I remember all the times you went into the Everfree for your Cutie Marks.” Sweetie Belle at least had the courtesy to look embarrassed at that fact. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders have gotten themselves into plenty of trouble in the past and this change to more…fulfilling pursuits is a good one.

“Rarity is just worried. If this was before the…incident, I bet she would let you do what you want, but now? I think she blames herself because of what happened two months ago. Now you are doing things she doesn’t understand and she assumes the worst. She knows that the Everfree Forest is dangerous and you should be forbidden from going in. She knows that certain things like bungee jumping should have a pony there to supervise, but building a flying machine is different. Rarity doesn’t have any reference for how dangerous those things are.”

“Then what can I do?” Sweetie Belle asked in a pleading tone, “There’s no way I could teach her about every little thing.”

“That’s right, but there is a way around that; to control the risks and keep your sister happy.”

“I’ll do anything,” Sweetie Belle begged, realizing Twilight was likely trying to find some compromise she missed. “The way my sister sounded though, she probably wants me to be with somepony all the time. Rarity doesn’t seem to mind Twilight Time, but there’s no way I can get my Cutie Mark by coming over only a few hours a week, I’ll never find my special talent at that rate!”

Twilight smiled, “That’s what I hoped was the problem. In that case, the solution is simple. Neither me, nor Rarity wants to limit the things you can do, but we also don’t want you to put yourself in needless danger either. In that case, I decided to make you and Apple Bloom my newest lab assistants!”

“Lab assistant?” Sweetie Belle asked rhetorically. “You have a lab in the castle? I remember that you used to have one in the basement of the library, but I don’t remember what you did. What does that even mean?”

Twilight smiled, “Always asking the right questions. There was a lot of extra room in the castle so I just decided to dedicate one to science!”

“You can do that?”

Twilight just stared at her for a moment before nervously pawing at the ground with a forehoof. “Oh…um, well probably; I’m a princess after all.” She quickly teleported a scroll and quill to herself and jotted something down, then causing it to disappear as quickly as it appeared. “Well, either way, I’m sure that I can expedite the rezoning documents to within a day or two.”

Quickly moving back to the topic at hoof, she continued, “As for your other question, you and Apple Bloom will be conducting experiments with a few more lab assistants I plan on inviting to work in the castle with me. Although officially I’m the Princess of Friendship, you know how the old saying goes, friendship is magic—”

“Actually, I think you are the one who said that first,” Sweetie Belle interrupted.

Twilight looked a bit sheepish at that, “Ah, right. Well anyway, just because my career has changed, doesn’t mean my Cutie Mark has. Between all these new ‘table’ adventures, dealing with the new bureaucracy, and still finding time for my friends, I don’t have as much time doing what I’m really passionate about: magical research! Even if I can’t do it personally most of the time, I can at least promote it and help other ponies do their own.”

Sweetie Belle thought about that for a bit, “So what you’re saying is that Apple Bloom and I would be able to do what we wanted in your lab so long as we let you in on what we’re doing every once-in-a-while?”

“Right!” Twilight exclaimed while hopping up and down in excitement. “Oh it will be so great, you’ll see! I haven’t got the lab set up quite yet, and you will need to go through some classes on lab safety, and I still need to hire some other assistants to watch over you and—”

“I get it Twilight, there is still some work to do,” Sweetie Belle chipped in, rolling her eyes.

“Hey!” Apple Bloom’s voice yelled out from inside the castle, “Are you two gonna stand outside the castle all day or are we gonna actually get some Twilight Time today!”

Twilight, having only now realized she had been talking to Sweetie Belle for the last five minutes grimaced. “Sorry Apple Bloom, we’ll be there in a second!” she yelled back. Turning to Sweetie Belle, she said, “Well, this will affect Apple Bloom too. It would probably be a good idea to finish this discussion with her.”

“Alright, so let me get this straight,” Apple Bloom said, having just heard from Twilight regarding the new position, “We would be able ta use this new lab whenever we want, for whatever we want, and all we would have ta do is let ya in on the research?”

“Within reason,” Twilight affirmed, “as long as it is original research and I approve of it first then it is fine. Just think of it as extended Twilight Time you can use to find your Cutie Marks.”

“Why didn’t ya offer this before now?” Apple Bloom asked. Sweetie Belle wondered the same thing.

“I didn't want to split you girls up,” Twilight replied. “I had always considered you for this, Apple Bloom. You are far enough along with Herbal and Structural Alchemy that you could really benefit from having time for yourself to really progress, but I couldn’t see Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle here doing anything that would warrant a lab. Even with Sweetie Belle learning magic, it was more of a practical nature. Now that Sweetie Belle has shown a significant interest in the more theoretical aspects of Thaumaturgy and Scootaloo is going to be busy refining her glider and flying, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get you in on this without potentially sacrificing the great friendship you three have for eachother.”

“Aww shucks, Twilight,” Apple Bloom smiled, “that’s mighty kind of you. Ah don’t know about Sweetie Belle, but that sounds perfect! Zecora’s been tryin’ ta teach me the more advanced things in Zebra Potion-makin’ but it’s almost entirely just memorization. I really want to try doing something new rather than just copyin’ some old zebra’s recipe, but Twilight Time is just too short to make anythin' important.”

“Yeah, that does sound like a pretty good deal,” Sweetie Belle agreed, before sighing. “Still, just doing research might not get me my Cutie Mark…but I guess I’ve never really tried it before either. I bet it would be something I’m pretty good at.” Sweetie Belle nodded her head. “I can’t say it will work, but I suppose I can promise you and Rarity that I won’t do anything dangerous outside this new lab until I’m sure it won’t.”

“Oh that’s just great!” Twilight exclaimed, “I know that you two will be perfect for lab work and I’ll make sure you have plenty of fun too! We’ll get you started with Lab Safety at the end of the week! Now then, why don’t you two show me what you have been working on this past week…”

“Hmm,” Twilight thought aloud, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anypony prove a theory that the Aetheric Field is comprised of invisible particles, Sweetie Belle.” Twilight giggled, “Next thing you’ll be saying that gravity is made up of particles too. While your math seems sound, you have to actually prove it or it's just an idea. Still, this is exactly why I think this lab arrangement is perfect. You fillies have such new and interesting ideas.”

She turned to Apple Bloom. “That being said, while it was a good effort, your potion to quickly decompose plant waste into soil could use more work. It was smart idea, I’ll admit—combining Zecora’s plant growth potion with acid to rapidly absorb and break down the compost—but please try using smaller quantities first. You used a mild acid so you should have known better than to use the full-strength plant growth potion. It’s going to take a lot of work cleaning the castle with all these vines growing everywhere. Thankfully we tested in this empty room rather than the library.” Twilight shuddered at the thought.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes, “Then maybe ya should have given me the stronger acid. It’s really hard ta change Zebrican potions. Lots of the ingredients don’t make a lick of sense. You would think that removing Arborea Bark from the recipe wouldn’t change anything but it ends up causing the growth potion to burn things instead. Seriously, just using a stronger acid would be a lot easier.”

Twilight sighed, “Well, that will be something to think about asking for once the lab is ready, but science can't be done when you don't understand the things that are going on, Apple Bloom. In the meantime, I would recommend that you talk to Zecora about teaching you why the reagents are in the potion instead of just learning about them.” Twilight looked at the clock above the door. “Oh, would you look at the time, I think it is time for you fillies to head home for dinner.”

Apple Bloom sulked for a bit in the knowledge that she made so little progress in the past two hours but quickly shrugged it off. “Alright, well I’ll see you later Sweetie Belle, goodbye Twilight.”

They both waved as she left through the door.

“Well Sweetie Belle? Aren’t you going to leave too?” Twilight asked, her tone betraying her need to get to her other—no doubt important—business.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Sweetie Belle asked, pointing a hoof to her horn.

“Your horn?” Twilight pondered before her eyes widened in realization, “Oh my goodness, your therapy! I’m so sorry Sweetie Belle, I completely forgot! We’ll do that right away; it should only take a minute.”

Twilight scrambled out the door yelling to Spike—who had been enjoying himself with a comic in the library—to quickly get all the equipment necessary to monitor Sweetie Belle’s condition and help with any therapy that needed to be done. When Twilight and Spike returned, they had a thaumometer, a small rubber ball, thaumic-circulation machine and a bunch of scrolls and quills.

“Alright, Spike, put the machines over there,” Twilight said, pointing to an open spot next to Sweetie Belle. “Now, Sweetie, I’ll quickly take your measurements, run a circulation test, and test your magical strength.”

“So the usual, then,” Sweetie Belle replied sharply.

“Right,” Twilight continued, although she didn’t miss the clear irritation Sweetie Belle was showing for the procedure. “From what Rarity told me, you and Doctor Goodwill never were on good speaking terms. I met him myself once at a conference and I can understand why; he isn’t the friendliest of ponies. That doesn’t mean we have to be too. Why don’t you tell me about your research, the one you showed me yesterday.”

“Twilight,” Sweetie Belle sighed, “it’s fine. You really don’t—”

“I know, Sweetie, but I can appreciate how uncomfortable this therapy can be, and I don’t want to make it any more uncomfortable. Besides, I actually want to know more about your crystal research.”

“Crystal research?” Spike piped up, although it was more with his stomach than his brain.

Twilight giggled, “Yes, although not the edible kind, Spike,” Twilight then put a hoof to her chin, “although, maybe—”

Sweetie Belle groaned, “Don’t give him ideas, Twilight,” she turned to Spike, “it is just for crystals that can generate thaumaturgic fields, that’s all. I doubt you would find them tasty like gems.”

“Oh…” Spike pouted involuntarily. Seeing that they weren't going to talk about anything interesting, he decided that now was the perfect time to leave.

“Thanks for the help Spike. Now, that being said, Sweetie,” Twilight said, bringing the thaumometer to Sweetie’s horn, “why don’t you tell me why you did that research while I take these measurements.”

Sweetie Belle didn’t really need to think about it, “Well it’s pretty obvious, it’s because I want to do magic. I mean, my horn isn’t improving so I just figured that I could make something that would fix it.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow, as she jotted down some of the readings. “But I don’t see how making a magic crystal would get around the issue. They don’t exactly have a lot of uses. Wouldn’t doing something to cure the problem—your Prefrontal Thaumaturgic Ganglia—be better?”

“Yeah, maybe, but I researched into any kind of biological solution and couldn’t get anywhere. Anything short of nanotechnology could only fix some of the scarring since you can’t cure it with magic. Obviously with the Aether the way it is, creating something small like nanites are next to impossible.”

“Nan-what?” Twilight asked.

“Small robots,” Sweetie Belle waved off, “it doesn’t matter, it was a dumb idea. I also thought about making an artificial horn. If I could bypass the ganglia and create an artificial failsafe, I thought that maybe I could channel magic through that. It wouldn’t be perfect but I would be able to do most things.”

Twilight was surprised at the filly’s ingenuity. Although she knew Sweetie Belle had somehow grown smarter, it was clear that she also possessed the ability to “think outside the box” too. “So what was wrong with that idea?“ Twilight asked curiously, “If that worked, we might also see earth ponies or pegasi doing magic like unicorns can!”

“Yeah, that was the problem,” Sweetie Belle elaborated, “there is already a lot of research done into it. Anypony who wants to do magic like unicorns have tried to make an artificial horn. Unless we can solve the magical erosion that breaks down materials when exposed to magic, the only way to make a horn is to have it heal itself somehow, so that’s out.”

“Then why thaumic crystals?” Twilight asked, putting the thaumometer away and beginning the circulation test by taking the ring off of Sweetie Belle’s horn and replacing it with the one on the machine. “You might be right that those other ideas won’t work, but at least they could work. Apart from certain special motors, thaumic crystals aren’t very useful.”

Sweetie Belle knew what to do and tried focusing her magic while Twilight performed the test. “Well, it might not work now but there is something that the Tablet told to me; that the Aetheric Field is made up of particles: Exotic Hole Quasiparticles.”

“So that is where that idea earlier came from,” Twilight noted. “While the idea isn't unheard of, every mage who has tried has failed. I mean, the idea is as old as magic theory itself, but Starswirl the Bearded clearly laid out a proof which fundamentally contradicts that idea.”

“I know,” Sweetie Belle acknowledged, “or at least, I figured that was the case—since it was so hard to find anypony else who had asked the question—but everything else the Tablet told me is true! It won’t be too hard to prove either. I have this idea of creating a device that can store and amplify thaumic energy that relies on the principle. If I can do that, then maybe I can store and amplify the magic in my horn.”

Twilight shook her head. ‘The idea is crazy,’ Twilight thought, ‘but if it was true, then it might start a new Golden Age of Magic. Every magical device can only take other forms of energy like from the Ponyville Dam and transmit it over magical lines to power magical devices. If she could find some way to better use that magic power, then there might be more practical artificial uses than just to turn street lights on or make the wheels in this thaumic-circulation machine turn.’

“Well, it does sound like a good plan, Sweetie Belle,” Twilight ultimately concluded, “but it all sounds so far fetched. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up in case—”

“SWEETIE BELLE! WHERE ARE YOU!” a voice boomed from outside the castle.

“That sounds like Sis…” Sweetie Belle sighed. “I guess I should probably get going.”

Twilight looked at the filly in concern, “But I still haven’t finished your therapy.”

“The circulation test is done, right?”

“Yes, I just finished, but—”

“Well I should leave then. There isn’t much more to do; I can tell you for certain that my horn hasn’t gotten any better. It would be pretty pointless to do the magical strength tests.”

“Oh Sweetie Belle, don't think like that! You don’t have to—”

“SWEETIE BELLE! ARE YOU IN THERE?!”

“Let’s tell Rarity the news before she gets any more frustrated,” Sweetie Belle half-joked, quickly running out the door before Twilight could form a rebuttal.

She made her way to the entrance where her sister was being placated by Spike.

“See, Rarity,” Spike exasperated in relief, “there’s Sweetie Belle.” Spike had clearly been taking the full force of Rarity’s concern.

Rarity—upon seeing her sister—pounced the poor filly in a stranglehold, causing Sweetie Belle to struggle uselessly in an attempt to get away.

“Air…please…” Sweetie Belle barely got out as she felt herself slowly lose consciousness from the current bone-shattering hug.

“Oh, right,” Rarity faltered, immediately dropping her sister to the floor, “sorry, Sweetie. I guess I get a little carried away sometimes.”

‘A little,’ Sweetie Belle thought, gasping for the sweet, cool air around her. “It’s…fine. We…were a little late in…getting my therapy done, but we can go home now.”

It was at this point that Twilight finally caught up with Sweetie Belle. She had to pack up and carry all the therapy equipment with her so she had taken a little longer to get there. “Here, Spike,” Twilight declared before unceremoniously dumping all the equipment in front of the dragon’s feat. “Can you take this back into the storage room, please?”

“Are you sure that you can’t—” Spike started.

“Yes, Spike. I’m sorry, but I need to speak to Rarity before she and Sweetie Belle head home.”

“Alright,” he agreed, reluctantly taking the entire heap in a comical pile over his head before slowly waddling down one of the castle’s hallways.

“So,” Rarity stated, bringing Sweetie Belle and Twilight’s attention back to her, “how did the little ‘discussion’ we talked about go, Twilight?”

“Fine, great even,” Twilight assured, “Sweetie Belle has agreed that—until she explores all the avenues of research my lab can provide—she will be my lab assistant.”

“Alright,” Rarity acknowledged, although it was clear on her face that it still wasn’t an arrangement she entirely agreed with.

“Rarity, it will be fine, I promise you that.”

“But how can you know for cert—”

“Rarity, it will be fine,” Twilight implored, “there will always be trained scientists with her, I will personally train her how to use all the equipment, and there will be guards posted in this castle at all times, for pony’s sake.”

“I—I know, Twilight,” Rarity lamented, “it’s just hard letting go. I mean, when she was in the hospital I knew what she was doing. She was safe and I could see her, but now—”

“I know, Rarity, I know,” Twilight reassured, comforting her friend with a hug.

This scene unfolding in front of her was making Sweetie Belle feel very awkward. ‘I knew Sis was being protective, but was she always feeling this bad? I don’t even want to think about what she would be like without Twilight and the others helping her.’

“Alright, Sweetie Belle,” Twilight said, breaking out of her hug with Rarity, “you should go home now. I’m sure there are still plenty of things you and Rarity need to get done before you can begin your new destiny here, right? Still, just imagine how much all of Equestria will benefit!”

“Yeah, well anyway,” Sweetie Belle segued back on track, “I may not like it, but if it will keep everypony happy I guess it is alright.” She pointedly looked at her sister when saying that last part.

Rarity looked away, “I’m only doing it for your own safety, Sweetie Belle. Twilight convinced me that this is the best way, and it is certainly better than the alternatives, right?”

Sweetie Belle remembered their conversation that morning and shuddered. The idea of being forced to do terrible Cutie Mark Crusade ideas and never getting her Cutie Mark was currently her worst nightmare imaginable. Deciding that no further words were needed, Sweetie Belle pulled her sister on out of castle and back home.

“Well goodbye, Rarity, Sweetie Belle,” Twilight called out as they left the castle, “I’ll be sure to let you know when the lab is ready and if there needs to be an adjustment in the therapy schedule.”

“Alright, Twilight,” Rarity smiled back, “you take care.”

Unseen by either of the three ponies, a shadowy figure emerged from the bushes outside the castle.

Lyra had only woken up a few hours earlier—for she had to work very late on weekends—and missed out on ~~stalking~~ watching the three fillies at school. As such, she didn’t know where they were until she followed Sweetie Belle’s sister when she suddenly left her boutique, crying out her sister’s name. There was no way that Lyra would miss such an obvious opportunity for new knowledge like that.

Lyra had been ~~stalking~~ watching the three fillies all last week as they built their flying machine, and she now had all the information she needed to understand what had happened that eventful week two months ago. She knew about the Tablet, the government cover-up, Sweetie Belle’s newfound intelligence, the precursors, and that some giant crystal had threatened everypony. What she didn’t know was all this new information she had just overheard being spoken in Princess Twilight’s castle’s lounge.

‘This is insane,’ Lyra thought, looking on the figures of Sweetie Belle and Rarity rapidly fading in the distance, ‘how could Twilight do such a thing! A ‘therapy session’ which clearly caused Sweetie Belle discomfort and then the little filly is suddenly the Princess’ personal lab assistant?! And then there was Rarity. It was obvious that she didn’t like the arrangement but Twilight was clearly using their friendship to manipulate the poor mare’s feelings! Is this how our newest Princess treats her friends, manipulating everypony because of ‘the benefits for Equestria?!’ I thought I might have had more time but at this rate, it might already be too late!’

Lyra started to get worried. ‘What can I do? I can’t just tell a newspaper about what I know. Even if they believe me, the government would just shut it down. I can’t even record their conversation with a phonograph; everypony knows how to magically edit those things nowadays; it isn’t good enough proof. What could I—’

And then she realized it. One method that could prove definitively that she wasn’t making everything up.

‘It’s going to be very risky, but it’s my only shot. I think it’s time that I finally get my hooves dirty and bring this whole conspiracy to light! Or my name isn’t Lyra Heartstrings!’

Chapter 6 - Witching Hour Activities

“Well it’s another day of class,” Scootaloo grumbled.

She and Sweetie Belle had just met up at their usual street corner and began to trot their way to their second day of class.

“Oh come on, Scoots, school isn’t so bad,” Sweetie Belle replied, slowing herself down to meet the more lackadaisical pace of her friend.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t really mean much coming from a brainiac like you,” she muttered loud enough for Sweetie Belle to hear.

‘Maybe she is still upset about the test yesterday?’ Sweetie Belle thought. Deciding that a change of topic was for the best, she inquired, “How did flying with Rainbow Dash go yesterday?”

“Oh yeah!” Scootaloo exclaimed, her demeanor shifting from morose to ecstatic in an instant, “Rainbow Dash said I was so awesome, she wanted me to be involved in her Wonderbolt Training Regimen! I’m not sure how much The Flying Crusader can take, but I’m sure I can fix it if I crash or anything.”

“I don’t know, Scoots,” Sweetie Belle hesitated. “That sounds pretty dangerous, even for you. If Rainbow Dash is going to be too busy with her training, wouldn’t that mean she won’t be able to rescue you in time if anything happens?”

Scootaloo dismissed the criticism with a wave of her hoof. “Oh please, like Rainbow Dash even needs to worry about that. Did you think all I did yesterday was fly? I already added a spring-loaded seat to force me out of a crash if it happens and a personal parachute. All this on top of the parachute for the glider. Not that any of that will probably even matter. Rainbow Dash crashes at super-fast speeds all the time and always comes out fine.” She smirked. “Jeez, Sweetie, you almost sounded like your big sister for a moment there.”

Sweetie Belle’s cheeks puffed up in annoyance but she nevertheless said nothing to that. ‘Well, that all sounds perfectly safe,’ she thought. “But wait,” Sweetie Belle considered, “wouldn’t that mean that you’re going to be spending less time with Apple Bloom and me?”

Scootaloo scratched her neck nervously, “Yeah,” she admitted before sighing, “I guess that would mean I’d be spending less time with you girls.” She groaned, kicking stopping her trotting to kick a rock in the dirt. “Jeez, I’m sorry Sweetie Belle. I didn’t even consider what my friends would think about all this. What kind of friend does that make me? Look, why don’t we—”

“It’s alright, Scoots, really,” Sweetie Belle reassured amidst giggles, “it’s actually a good thing that you’ll be too busy to hang out with us right now.”

“Good?!” Scootaloo repeated with a confused expression and a faint hint of anger, “How could not crusading with my friends possibly be a good thing?”

Sweetie Belle realized that she might have been a little too vague and decided to clear things up before Scootaloo came to the wrong conclusion. “Well, actually, yeah. Twilight said that you might want some time to yourself to use your new special talent, so she gave us an offer to work with her as lab assistants in the castle!” Sweetie Belle clarified eagerly.

“Really?” Scootaloo asked skeptically, “I don’t remember there being a lab. Did she build it just for you or something?”

Sweetie Belle put a hoof to her chin. “Maybe? I didn’t ask. She did sound like she was really excited to have it, though,” Sweetie Belle clarified. “She said she would have offered to make us lab assistants earlier, but it wouldn’t have made any sense since Apple Bloom was the only one of us into that stuff. But now—”

“But now I’m doing awesome air stuff and you’re super smart,” Scootaloo finished with a smile. “Well, I guess leave it to Twilight to somehow schedule all that perfectly, I guess.” She breathed a sigh of relief, “So we’re good?”

“More than good, Scoots, great!” Sweetie Belle replied emphatically, “It’s not like you’re going to be gone forever or anything, right?” She smirked, “In fact, I bet you won’t even last a week before you come back begging me for my fluid dynamic equations."

Scootaloo had attempted to put on faux anger at the tease, but she actually looked visibly worried. She had a pretty good grasp of the graphs and classical mechanics that Sweetie Belle taught her during that week of non-stop glider construction and from Sweetie’s notes, but she still had a very hard time wrapping her head around the calculus and laminar/turbulent flow concepts Sweetie used to flesh-out the basic wing design. Still, Scootaloo wouldn’t back down. “Ha! You wish, Sweetie. I actually have a bunch of ideas of my own I got from watching Rainbow Dash fly that will blow you away. Just you wait!”

They both giggled at each other’s antics for a few moments before they finally arrived at school.

Seeing that Apple Bloom wasn’t anywhere to be seen, they both began to wait for her at their usual spot in front of the schoolyard gate.

“So, Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo began, “how did Twilight Time go? I mean did you—”

Scootaloo unfortunately couldn't get another word in edgewise as Diamond Tiara walking up from behind them.

“Hello, you two,” Diamond Tiara spoke in a sing-song voice, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes at the blatant taunt while Scootaloo huffed, saying, “Yeah you are, not like you care. We’re waiting for a friend, which—of course—doesn’t have anything to do with you, so why don’t you just buzz off.”

“Oh come on, Scoots,” Diamond Tiara pouted in a facetious manner, “why are you being so mean. Spoon and I haven’t done anything to you in months.”

“Yeah, except calling me a liar about my Cutie Mark to my face,” Scootaloo maintained, “not that I even need a reason at this point, considering how much a jerk you usually are.”

Contrary to the reaction she expected Diamond Tiara to take—talking back in a passive-aggressive or angry way—instead she took a deep breath, calmed down, and smiled. “That’s all in the past now. I don’t want to be enemies with you. Sweetie Belle on the other hoof, well, she said some pretty hurtful things and I want her to apologize.”

“I already did, but you didn’t accept it,” Sweetie Belle contended, sighing. “If you want, I can say it again. I’m—”

“Nah-ah-ah,” Diamond Tiara cut-off, shaking her head, “I want you to say it in front of everypony in class.”

“Really…” Sweetie Belle deadpanned, letting out a sigh. “You know what, fine; that’s actually not so bad. Can we at least wait for Apple Bloom to show up? I have some thing I want to talk to her about before class starts.”

“Of course!” Diamond Tiara smirked, “The more ponies to see you humiliated, the better!”

Sweetie Belle didn’t even deign to respond.

“…and so that’s what happened while you were away, Apple Bloom,” Sweetie Belle finished, catching her friend up on what Scootaloo was planning to do and that they were fine with it.

“Yeah, and now Sweetie Belle’s going to apologize to the troublesome twosome in front of the whole class for some dumb reason,” Scootaloo groaned, pointing a hoof at Diamond Tiara who giggled at her mentioning the whole class.

“Really?” Apple Bloom gawped. “Well that’s awfully good of ya, Sweetie Belle,” she said before muttering, “although that sounds entirely unnecessary.”

“Yeah,” Diamond Tiara smirked, “we are all so proud of her.”

“Why you—” Scootaloo retorted, glaring at the bully before she was cut-off by Sweetie Belle’s foreleg.

“Why don’t we all go inside now and get this over with,” Sweetie Belle invited with a small grin, moving the leg that held her back in a gesture for Diamond to go to the door.

“No, Sweetie Belle, I insist, after you,” Diamond Tiara giggled, using the same gesture.

Not planning on playing any more games, Sweetie Belle grumbled under her breath and did the easy thing; marching on across the yard, up to the schoolhouse steps, and through the door.

Just as she did so, she felt something hit her head.

“What the—,” Sweetie Belle got out before her vision was suddenly clouded by a noxious white cloud. She stumbled a bit, waving the white dust from her face as she coughed it in and out of her lungs.

‘Is that—’ she thought while she tried to remove the remaining dust from her airway and her eyes quickly cleaned and restored her vision. She then looked up at where whatever it is came from and as she did, she felt a weight fall from her head and onto the floor. Turning back, she looked to see the culprit: a blackboard chalk eraser. Upon her realization, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon—the latter of whom had been inside the entire time—were giggling at her misfortune.

“Seriously,” Sweetie Belle gagged with a vicious stare. Unfortunately this did not have the intended effect and only resulted in another round of laughter by the two.

“What the hay was that for?!” Apple Bloom stated, marching past Sweetie Belle and coming face-to-face with the two. “Sweetie Belle was coming in to apologize to the whole class for you; and you do that?!”

Silver Spoon sobered up a bit at that, but Diamond Tiara—still in a fit of giggles—managed to reply, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was with you the whole time."

“Then Silver Spoon did it,” Scootaloo accused, standing next to Apple Bloom. “Whoever it was, you were still the one that told Sweetie Belle to come through the door first so don’t go saying you’re innocent.”

Silver Spoon looked troubled, “DT, I thought you said that if she agreed to—”

“Come on, Spoon,” Diamond nudged, “do you think somepony like her,” she emphasized with a hoof to Sweetie Belle, “would mean anything she says?”

“You take that back, you jerk!” Scootaloo exclaimed before rushing at Diamond. She was about to push her when Apple Bloom held her back from turning it into a brawl.

“Girls, forget it!” Sweetie Belle advised, highlighting her remark by calmly taking her seat and brushing the last of the chalk from her hair.

Scootaloo gave them a sharp glare but eventually pulled herself out of Apple Bloom’s grasp and they both made it to their seats.

“Don’t expect your apology now,” Sweetie Belle glared at Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon in turn.

Diamond Tiara just grinned.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get it eventually anyway.”

The rest of the day proceeded much like that, to the chagrin of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were relentless with their ‘pranks.’

After the chalk brush “accident,” Diamond Tiara raised a hoof during class and told Cheerilee that Sweetie Belle had hidden something bad in her desk. When the teacher came over, she found a convincingly forged note Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had planted there earlier—addressed from Sweetie Belle to the two—stating how she would beat them up at lunch for not backing down from her blackmail attempt. Sweetie Belle denied both the letter’s legitimacy and the contents and claimed that Diamond Tiara had forged it. Seeing no evidence that either case was true, she chastised them both.

That attempt may not have worked as Diamond Tiara had expected, but she did not stop there.

During the first break, Sweetie Belle went into the yard with her friends, only to find herself at the center of a rumor that she had lied about her disability. The rumor said that she had convinced Cheerilee it was true to hide the fact that she was just lazy and terrible with magic. The CMC confronted Diamond about it, but as usual she denied the allegations. Instead, Diamond Tiara turned the questioning back on Sweetie Belle in front of the class during the recess, asking her to prove her disability is real. Realizing that there was no way to prove a lack of magic, Sweetie Belle had to back off, only further infuriating her and her friends.

Not even lunch was safe. As Sweetie Belle opened her lunchbox, she found it covered in worms. Luckily Granny Smith had packed—as usual—far too much food for Apple Bloom and they still managed to make do by eating the other two meals between the three of them.

It was beginning to become all too clear to the crusaders that Sweetie Belle was the intended target of these incidents.

“What did you do, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom asked worriedly, “Ah don’t mean ta say it’s your fault or nothin’ but this can’t just be because of what ya said yesterday, right?”

“I don’t know,” Sweetie Belle groaned, clearly fed up, “I was in the hospital to two months before this. There’s no way I could have done anything then. The only time I’ve seen them at all since then was yesterday with you girls.”

“Why are you two even looking for reasons at all?” Scootaloo objected, “They’re bullies, plain and simple. They have been bullying us for fun for years. Have you thought that maybe they’re just making up for the past two months? Maybe they are just doing it all because of what Sweetie Belle said yesterday. Whatever it is, we’ve got to do something!”

“But what can we do?” Apple Bloom asked, conflicted that her family’s brand of ethics wasn’t helping the situation, “We can’t just bully’em back! That’d make us as bad as they are!”

“No, they would just be the rotten bullies that started it and we would be getting justice and stuff,” Scootaloo retorted, causing Apple Bloom to pause and reconsider her position.

“Why don’t we just leave things alone for now?” Sweetie Belle asked the two plainly during the lull in her friends’ conversation. Throughout this conversation, Sweetie Belle was surprising calm, not seeming to look at all concerned about the situation. She was still most certainly annoyed, but not to the degree the other two had come to expect.

“Huh? Why?!” Scootaloo protested, “They aren’t going to stop if we don’t do something! I’ve never seen them being as annoying as they are now. Even when you and I ‘ruined’ her cute-ceañera!"

‘You’re probably right, Scoots, she won’t stop,’ Sweetie Belle thought. ’*Past experience dictates that she is likely to continue until graduation.* That being said, I can’t get you two involved, especially now that I know they are only going after me.’ She shook her head, “Maybe after a few days she’ll see that I’m not bothered by any of their dumb ‘pranks’ and they’ll stop,” she pointed out. ‘It’s true. They’ll stop, one way or another.’

“Yeah, Ah think Sweetie Belle’s right,” Apple Bloom chipped in, “besides, there’s no way they can get away with doin’ what they’re doin’ forever. Once Cheerilee catches ’em she’ll be keepin’ an eye out. They’d have ta cut it out then.”

“Well, I guess it’s your decision, Sweetie,” Scootaloo sighed, “Just let me know if you ever decide that you’re actually going to do something.”

Sweetie Belle looked away grimly, ‘I won’t…’ she thought.

As expected, the bullying continued for the rest of the day.

Between lunch and when they finally left for home, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had managed to somehow deflate a ball the CMC were playing with when Sweetie Belle caught it, “accidentally” trip her on the way back from recess, and replaced all of her pencils with quills—which without ink were pretty useless. None of these were particularly severe, but Sweetie Belle had had enough. If she didn’t get back at them soon, she might do something she would really regret. Despite as much as she considered what she could do, she realized that with her friends still around, she couldn’t escalate the conflict the way she wanted. So as Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon left together to go home—completely free of any retribution—she glared at them in quiet fury.

Sensing her frustration, Scootaloo asked, “Sweetie Belle, are you alright? Just say the word and I’ll be right with you for some awesome payback! I was actually thinking of this sweet idea of dyeing their—”

“No,” Sweetie Belle reluctantly denied, “it’s…no big deal. We can talk more about stuff like that if it gets any worse. For now, just…let them go.”

“Are you sure? Like sure-sure?” Scootaloo insisted, “I really wouldn’t mind if—”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Sweetie Belle affirmed, although her clenched teeth she had while responding did not agree with her words, “Why don’t we all head out. You’ve got practice with Rainbow Dash, and Apple Bloom and I have to talk to Twilight about stuff.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Don’t push it, Scoots,” Apple Bloom cautioned, “Ah know that Sweetie Belle’s pretty upset right now—Ah know Ah would be—but she’s tryin’ ta be the better pony. Besides, Sweetie’s right. If we don’t get over ta Twilight’s and talk about her plans for teachin’ us about her lab equipment right away, we might not be able ta talk to her at all today.”

Scootaloo sighed, “Alright, fine, I’ll drop it. I won’t lie, there are a lot of things Rainbow Dash and I wanted to do today.” At the thought, her outlook immediately brightened. “I’ve been having some problems with the propeller pressure while trying to keep up with Rainbow at high speeds. What I was thinking is that maybe I could use that high pressure air somehow, but apart from completely changing the aerodynamics of the glider, I’m not sure how that would work.”

That went right over Apple Bloom’s head, but Sweetie Belle seemed to understand. “I think I might be able to help,” Sweetie Belle offered, “I know I joked about it earlier, but you don’t need to beg me to help you understand fluid dynamics. If you want any help at all, just ask.”

“I will,” Scootaloo replied shyly before turning back. Before she set off though, she stopped and seemed to think for a moment. “Oh! Before I go,” Scootaloo added, still facing away from the two, “Dash and I were thinking of having an airshow sometime soon to show off our awesome flying.”

“We’ll be there!” Apple Bloom promised.

She turned back to them with a smirk. “What I mean is, you two better have something worth celebrating by then or Rainbow Dash and I are just going to completely show you up, and that would be lame.” With that last word, she galloped away, ensuring she had the last word.

“Why that little—” Apple Bloom muttered with a small smirk herself.

“She’s right. I mean, Twilight probably is making the best lab in Equestria,” Sweetie Belle specified, “We’ve got to make something awesome at some point or we really will look lame. Something that will make even Scootaloo’s jaw drop.”

Apple Bloom grinned, chuckling a bit at the thought of Scootaloo’s amazement, “Well, what are we waiting for?”

“Goodbye, Twilight,” Sweetie Belle said, finally leaving out the door to the princess’ castle with Apple Bloom in tow.

“Goodbye, girls! I hope to see you early next week with the good news!” Twilight replied, her drowsiness from a long day—evident on her face—reducing the rest of what she said into enthusiastic mutterings involving “science” and “fun.” When it was clear the fillies were no longer paying attention, she went back into the castle and shut its enormous doors.

“Well that took a long time,” Apple Bloom remarked once they were safely out of earshot.

“I don’t know what we expected,” Sweetie Belle sighed, “we were lucky we needed to wait only an hour to talk to Twilight. From what Spike was telling me, that with how she has booked her schedule, she hasn’t had any free time for the past two weeks. I think she actually had to cancel a meeting to talk to us.”

“At least we were able to get some stuff done,” Apple Bloom sighed, “I at least made some progress on the soil potion—though I’m not sure how ‘awesome’ that will be for the airshow—and you got to read some stuff.” Apple Bloom then put a hoof to her chin in contemplation. “Actually now that I think about it, you were reading something near Twilight’s desk. I hope it wasn’t any of her ‘off-limits’ stuff. You know how she is when we—”

“No of course not,” Sweetie Belle answered quickly, “she just had a book that would help with something I’m planning.”

“Something for the airshow?”

“Well, it could help,” Sweetie Belle hesitated, “but anyway, Twilight seemed pretty busy.”

“Yeah, Ah kinda feel bad for her,” Apple Bloom lamented, before a breaking out into a small grin, “although she seemed a little too happy to cancel that meeting.” Her mirth dropped again at the implications, “It’s actually not that surprising that she would be that happy. My Sis was tellin’ me about how she ain’t seen hide or hair of Twilight all month!”

“That’s what Rarity was saying too,” Sweetie Belle agreed, “They only meet when there’s a disaster or if that table thing sends them on some adventure or another. I hope that once she gets the new lab working, she can spend more time with her friends.”

“Ah don’t know how she does it,” Apple Bloom said with a shake of her head, “Just havin’ Scoots flyin’ her glider without us these past two days has me missin’ her something fierce, and we see her every day at school!”

“Well, Twilight said that we could get started on the special lab training tomorrow and that the lab might actually be open as early as next week! Hopefully we’ll be ready in time. I want to get started right now!”

As Sweetie Belle finished speaking, they both noticed Carousel Boutique in the distance.

“Well, I guess this is my stop,” Sweetie Belle said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Apple Bloom.” With that, she went towards the shop.

“Yeah, see ya Sweetie!” Apple Bloom responded back with a wave of goodbye, “Don’t forget to think of something awesome for the airshow!”

Sweetie Belle nodded her affirmation before entering the Boutique and shutting the door. As soon as she was inside, she scowled. “Well that was a terrible day,” she muttered.

“Is that you, Sweetie?” Rarity said from the kitchen, having heard the bell above the door chime.

“Yeah, Sis, I’m back,” Sweetie Belle replied, removing her once-spoiled lunchbox and headed straight to her room.

‘Still,’ Sweetie Belle thought with a smirk, ‘I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be much better. I’ll make sure of it.’

“Lyra! What did I tell you?!” Lyra’s boss, the burgundy-maned, brown-coated mare Malted Wheat, yelled. “I told you that if you want time off, you have to give me notice! You can’t just tell me that you need time off on the same day that you ask for it! You try that again and you’re gone! This is your last warning, Lyra, you do this to me every time!”

Lyra winced at the verbal assault. ‘I knew I forgot something with this brilliant plan of mine,’ she groaned internally, ‘I know I said that I didn’t have much time to save those poor fillies Rarity and Sweetie Belle and to expose the truth, but is it really worth losing my job or increasing the likelihood of getting caught just to avoid leaving it off for just one night?’

She rolled her jaw, desperately trying to “pop” more hearing back into her ears. “I’m sorry, Boss. I forgot—”

“Lyra,” the bartender growled, “you didn’t forget. I’ve given you too many warnings already. I’ve let you off easy, I’ve cut you slack for all those times you’ve come in late, if at all! Then, the moment I reign you in and give you just a little leeway? You abuse that slack for all its worth! Other workers would beg for a boss as nice as me!” She punctuated that last sentence by slapping the towel she wore on her withers to the bar in front of her in a great “fwap” while staring the mint-green mare dead in the eyes.

“No! I forgot, honest!” Lyra pleaded, waving her hooves in front of her face. She genuinely did forget in this case. All that ~~stalking~~ watching she had done with the fillies the past week as well as her plans and documentation of everything she had heard and seen had taken up all of her free time and left her a very distracted mare. She could note a drop in the level of thought she had put into her truth-seeking recently.

Malted Wheat sighed, picking up the towel back up from off the bar’s counter and went back to drying the glasses from the noon-day crowd. “Well if you forgot, then I will forget we had this conversation.”

Lyra couldn’t back down that easily though if she wanted her plan to work flawlessly. Still, she knew that with her current predicament, she would need to make concessions. “What about tomorrow?” she bargained, “If I get off work early tomorrow—or rather Wednesday morning—at 12:30am, I’ll make it up whenever. I promise!”

Her boss looked like she was about to chew out the unicorn again, but instead gritted her teeth in silence. After calming herself down for a few moments, she rolled her eyes. “Well, I suppose we can do this one foal step at a time. Fine, you can get off work and I’ll have you working the kitchen Friday night. I could use some help preparing for the weekend, I guess, so count yourself lucky. See? Aren’t I a stand-up gal when you ask me ahead of time?” The evil smirk she gave was telling of what this “kitchen work” would likely detail.

“Right! Well, I better get to work then,” Lyra responded with perhaps more gusto than necessary, “Don’t want you thinking I’m a bad worker!”

“What did I say, Boss, it’s 12:30am and not a single complaint!” Lyra beamed. Everypony else might have been dead tired at such an hour, but Lyra got up at 2pm every day; midnight was barely evening for her.

“Lyra, you’ve never had a complaint, except from me,” Malted Wheat groaned. “You’re a great musician, everypony knows it—and it will be a sad day if I ever lose you—but it’s your consistency that’s on review right now.” She pointed to the door. “Well, a deal’s a deal, get out of here. I don’t want to see you until tomorrow. We can discuss your extra kitchen duties then.”

”Thanks a lot, Boss,” Lyra replied as she quickly exited the Silly Filly bar.

“I wasn’t kidding, Lyra,” her boss muttered. “One wrong move and you’re gone.”

Lyra crept into her shared home/business and quietly shut the door behind her.

It wasn’t the first time entering this way, in fact due to her late hours, she always had to. Bon Bon was a very light sleeper and so Lyra had to be dead quiet on arrival from work or else she would wake her. ‘It probably had something to do with being a spy. Probably why she doesn’t care about all my quirks either,’ Lyra once mused. She never asked to be certain. That was a part of her friend’s life they very rarely discussed.

That light sleeper was going to be an issue tonight.

Lyra slowly sneaked her way up the stairs—avoiding the second, seventh, and eleventh steps which she knew would creak—and then went to her roommate’s door. Lyra had been oiling up the doors hinges for the past week to avoid detection for this day. While Bon Bon had been away during the afternoon for various errands, Lyra had been practicing opening the knob in complete silence. Now by both turning the knob while simultaneously holding the internal mechanism in her telekinesis, the door swung open with only a dull “whoosh” before finally resting on a rubber doorstop. The occupant of the room only slightly stirred from the pressure difference.

Succeeding in the easy part of the plan, Lyra bent on all fours; distributing her weight as she slowly slunk towards the wardrobe. She opened the door—whose hinges she also oiled—with the delicate grace of her magic. The closet door was a lot less bothersome thanks to the bedroom’s carpet floor muffling the opening sounds and the lack of any lock or mechanism keeping it closed. Herein lay her prize: Sweetie Drop’s all-black cat suit, grappling hook, and rope.

Lyra didn’t dare remove these items before now. If Bon Bon had caught a whiff of what she was about to do tonight, she would probably hate her forever if she was lucky. ‘She doesn’t need to know,’ Lyra rationalized as she carefully took the objects out with her magic, ‘besides, it would take too long to explain to her how important this all is! That’s even if she was willing to listen to me!’

Leaving the way she had entered, Lyra moved to her own bedroom where she put on the cat suit and tied the rope and hook together around her waist. In addition to this, she put on a black ski mask she kept under her bed as well as some yellow winter boots she hadn’t worn since Winter Wrap Up. The latter wouldn’t do much to help her blend into the night, but it would keep her coat color concealed as the cat suit only went to the neck and fetlocks. It also helped to keep possible dirt and mud off the suit; Lyra wouldn’t be able to explain that to Bon Bon if she found out.

For the security of the package she aimed to retrieve that morning, she also brought a thin piece of canvas she had sewn herself. It would protect the document from any wear-and-tear should she need to leave in a hurry. It also would enable her to place the canvas in her suit without it being detected. If anypony saw her flee, they wouldn’t even know what she was up to.

With everything ready, she moved out to her target: the Carousel Boutique.

‘The plan is simple,’ she thought as she crept into the backyard and began to prowl amidst the bushes of her neighbors, ‘I just need to climb into Sweetie Belle’s bedroom on the second floor—where she is staying while her parents are on vacation—take her notes on that “magic crystal” research she was working on, and escape without being seen. Then all I need to do is give it to my mathematician friend at Canterlot University who owes me a favor. Once it’s out in academia and in the media, Twilight will be forced to reveal Sweetie Belle’s intelligence to the world! By her own admission, Sweetie Belle is the only pony who understands what’s written there. If she tries to hide Sweetie Belle and claim ownership herself, it will be easy to get the media’s attention on it and reveal the truth!’

She was now only a few blocks from the Boutique and just climbed over the seventh backyard fence that night only to find herself amid a carefully planned garden. She recognized it as the one the flower sisters: Daisy, Roseluck and Lily Valley. She couldn’t just go through the well-kept garden; not without one the sisters finding out about it. Deciding to play it safe, she instead took the longer route through the neighbor’s yard.

‘The plan isn’t foolproof, though. Twilight could easily deny that she had anything to do with the paper. If I tell the media everything I know—with a mathematician’s assessment and the research providing credible proof—everything would be proven eventually. This conspiracy won’t be able to hold weight for long under scrutiny; I know it didn’t when I was looking into it. Still, I need this proof; without something important like this, it’s just one mare’s word against the princess and hero of Equestria. The only thing I regret about this is it might make poor Sweetie Belle a celebrity without really giving her a choice. Still, it’s better than what’s happening now, and if it means that the truth is revealed, it’s worth it.’

Now she was finally within visual distance of the Boutique. Unfortunately this was the most difficult part: infiltration. If her timing was poor, she might end up getting caught by one of the Ponyville Patrols when she was making her escape. Between Twilight’s coronation, monster attacks, and Sweetie Belle’s escape from a cordon that had been placed around Ponyville, Twilight’s patrols had only gotten stricter. The only time she knew that she would be in the clear was at 1:15am when the patrol changed shifts. She knew this confidential knowledge because half the patrol filled her bar at the end of her shift. If she left in time for this rotation, she knew the coast would be clear regardless of how the home invasion turned out.

This was the reason for her to leave early; the final insurance that even the worst case got her home without being found out.

‘This is it,’ Lyra thought as she nervously stuck her head out from one of the bushes she was using for cover. She looked down the wide-open plain to her left and right for guards. This was one of the main reasons for this careful planning; Carousel Boutique was on the edge of the town’s limits and so there was no bushes or houses for cover. Once she committed, it would be difficult to flee if she was discovered. Cat suit or no.

‘The coast is clear, this time is,’ she checked her watch, ‘12:58. This is it, now or never!’

With a great leap, she galloped across the field as fast as she could, quickly going around to the back of the shop. She then stood up against the wall—between two of the windows—in an attempt to make herself as obscure as possible. As she did this, she also checked her surroundings; looking for anypony who might have spotted her.

There were none to be seen.

Satisfied that there was nopony around, she took her grappling hook attached to the rope and threw it at the smaller, second-story balcony. Unfortunately, her aim was off and so it took three tries before it successfully latched to the balcony ledge. Luckily for Lyra, these failures were of little consequence as the cloth roof of the building dampened most of the noise. She tugged at the rope and—confident that the hook would hold—slowly climbed her way to the second floor.

It was during this ascent that Lyra reminded herself why she was doing it in an attempt to assuage her frustration with the idea in the first place. ‘Remember Lyra,’ she thought, ‘you need to climb to avoid being caught. You learned this from your observations last night; while Sweetie Belle is in her sister’s room sleeping, Rarity is on the couch right next to the stairs. If I don’t do this, we will probably wake her up. That’s not even taking into account that the front door has a bell on it. Rarity might not be a powerful unicorn alicorn like Princess Twilight, but the things she’s done with the other Elements are not something I could compare to. Having to face her is a risk I’m not willing to take.’

It took Lyra almost two minutes, but she finally made it up and over the second floor railing and onto the balcony. As an aside, Lyra was surprised that the balcony had no doors leading to the bedroom, but rather two large windows. Regrettably for Lyra—as with most indoor spaces at night—the partial moon outside was lighter than the inside, resulting in the bedroom’s interior being mostly obscured by the reflection of the window. Nonetheless, she checked the window and was satisfied with the lack of movement inside. Taking the necessary risk, Lyra slowly opened the window with her magic—cringing at a quick squeak it made—and slid inside.

As she closed the window softly and turned, she froze as she found herself immediately confronted with several ponies.

‘What! That’s impossible!’ she thought, frantically waving her legs in front of her to dissuade any attempts these new individuals could have at grabbing her. Upon realizing she was still disguised, she figured the best bet would be to flee the scene before she was caught. Turning hurriedly, she was about to open the recently closed window when she found herself again encountered by a pony at the window. She stopped in her tracks, now finding herself completely surrounded.

“I—umm, that is…this all just a mistake—” she got out, her mind going into overdrive. It was at this point that she realized the ponies had not moved at all since she entered. ‘What are they waiting for?!’ she thought, ‘They must know that they have me where they want me. So why—’

Looking closer, she found out why. The ponies were all an identical pale white, their features faded and expressionless in the dim moonlight and they all were undergoing the same fantastical leaping pose. ‘Dummies?! What kind of sadistic pony would—’ she facehooved, ‘fabric models, right. Jeez I’m such an idiot…’

She then heard a noise behind her and nearly jumped to the ceiling. She turned quickly around but found everything as it was. Then a sudden flap of the curtain on the window beside her gave her another shock. Deciding it best to calm her nerves for a moment before she gave herself another panic attack, she distracted herself by looking around the room again.

Directly in front of her was a half door leading downstairs, both top and bottom sections left firmly shut. On her right was the bed where the sleeping form of the filly lay, still thankfully motionless despite the commotion. On the left end of the room was a small workstation and sewing machine where Rarity did her craft. Next to it was a shelf piled high with various fabrics, threads and writing materials. Beside the desk was a full length mirror and another table where she drew up new designs; some of these designs were still there, left unfinished. On the other two walls behind her were the windows she came from; pale moonlight entering through them being the only source of illumination the room had.

She moved to the door and opening the top portion quietly—surprised that both sections didn’t open together—and finding nopony outside who could have caused the noise she had heard. She sighed, turning back to go to the desk where she was sure to find the research paper. It was nowhere in sight, however.

‘Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no!’ Lyra thought, again panicking. Moving carefully but swiftly around the room, she searched for any sign of the research. ‘I know she came back here right after showing it to Twilight, it has to be here! She wouldn’t have just given it to her friends or given it to her parents when they visited a few days ago, right? Oh no, did I make such a stupid mistake? There’s no way I could have known she wouldn’t keep it here! This isn’t fair!’

She heard another noise as she went back to search for the paper on the desk again. Turning around, she found that—just had been the case after her previous panic—she could not see the source of the disturbance. ‘Stop jumping at noises, Lyra!’ she thought, chastising herself, ‘You don’t have time for this!’

Still, she had to make sure.

She went back to open the door, when she was briefly distracted by some paper on the bedside table on the opposite side of the bed. ‘Hey, I didn’t check over there. Maybe the research paper is in that pile!’ Despite the distraction, though, she had to investigate the noise just to be sure. Turning back to the task at hoof, she opened the upper door and looked out left, right, and center into the hallway, finding it just as it was before: deserted. ‘Well, that’s enough of that,’ she thought, moving slowly back to the other side of the bed.

Right next to the bed on a small table was the small pile of paper sitting at the base of an alarm clock. Carefully sorting through the paper—so as not to stir the sleeping form to the filly not one meter away—she delved past the assorted documents ranging from a crude map of Ponyville to some plan to take something or another. She wasted little time on these, instead uncovering a small group of papers at the bottom entitled Atomic Lattice Structure Manipulation using Thaumic Field Effects. It was covered almost exclusively in complex diagrams and large sophisticated formulas; only small scribblings in the margins attempted to explain what everything meant.

‘This is it! This is the document!’ she thought, frantically pulling out the thin canvas sheet from her suit and placing the paper gingerly inside its protective covers. She finally took the moment to breathe a sigh of relief, ‘Take that Bon Bon, or should I say Sweetie Drops! I can be a super-secret spy pony too! Special Agent Heartstrings, oh yeah!’

She had just placed the canvas back into her suit when the door beside the bed suddenly burst open, producing Rarity and Sweetie Belle from the room outside.

“Come out, villain!” Rarity cried out, looking towards the open window and her desk at the other end of the room. She held a ceramic vase in her magic and—with her nervous but angry expression—looked very intent to use it.

More than the shock of the sudden development unfolding was the fact that the filly wasn’t in her bed. Lyra took a brief moment again to check back-and-forth both at the white unicorn filly and the form of the filly still in the bed. ‘What? How is—but why—this doesn’t make sense!’ Lyra thought. Remembering her panic just moments earlier, she decided that while she was still disguised, it was best to flee before she could be caught. She had the research paper, all she needed to do now was get out of there.

This would prove to be a mistake.

Rarity—who until now had not seen the hard figure on the other side of the bed—was started by the sudden movement beside her and let out a shriek in fright, throwing the vase as hard as she could at the perpetrator. Her aim was true—thanks to years of fine-detail telekinesis—and the vase collided directly with Lyra’s forehead and horn, breaking the ceramic construction into pieces.

At the impact, Lyra stumbled forward, clearly dazed by the impact. Turning she gave the pair a final shocked look before her legs gave out and she collapsed. As unconsciousness began to overtake her, her focus again was on the filly whom not only was not where she should be, but whom had also been replaced by a fake in the bed. A filly that looked back at the thief with equal confusion.

‘How could…she have known? What…happened?’

“Goodnight, Sweetie,” Rarity cooed as she tucked her little sister into her bed for the night. ‘It’s only right she sleep in my bed,’ Rarity thought, ‘with Mother and Father away on vacation again, Sweetie Belle needs—no deserves to sleep in a comfy bed. It also doesn’t hurt that her sleeping here forces me to leave my Fall Line for later; I know I tend to overdo it when deadlines start to creep closer.’

“Yeah, Rarity, goodnight and everything,” Sweetie Belle replied, embarrassed by the—in her opinion needless—doting by her sister, “can I just get to sleep now?”

“Oh, of course, darling,” Rarity smiled, “still, I don’t know why you’re so tired that you went to bed this early. Why, we just had supper! It isn’t because I interrupted your therapy with Twilight is it?!” She looked to the side with guilt, “If I had known I would have just waited patiently for you here. Oh I’m so, so sorry about—”

“I’m just tired, that’s all,” Sweetie Belle asserted, followed by a yawn. “You didn’t really interrupt anything anyway,” Sweetie Belle added, “all the important tests were already done by then.”

“Well okay,” Rarity conceded, worry still on her brow, “just remember that if you need anything—anything at all—that you’ll let me know, okay?”

“Yeah, got it, Mom,” Sweetie Belle grumbled, her eyes now beginning to droop as she rolled them.

Rarity frowned at the sarcasm, but didn’t want to argue now that Sweetie Belle was showing the telltale signs of her drowsiness. Instead, she closed the door behind her and went back down the steps to the first floor of the Boutique.

‘Alright, time to start the plan!’ Sweetie Belle thought, dropping the fake “tired” act and sitting up in bed.

She grabbed the alarm clock from next to the bed and twisted off the two bells that sat atop the clock face. ‘Even without the bells, the gem encased in the clock will still vibrate at the right time,’ she noted. She set the clock to midnight and placed it in her pillow. She had tested it three times the week before and—despite the discomfort of sleeping on a metal clock and the vibrations going on underneath the pillow—she found she could both fall asleep and wake up as expected. In this way, she could wake up in complete silence; the usual alarm being loud enough that even her sister downstairs might wake up from it. A risk she didn’t want to take.

To complete the setup, she placed the bells she had taken off onto the floor beneath the bedside table. That way, even if her sister were to come it, she would be unlikely to find anything amiss. Even if she notices the alarm clock is missing, she wouldn’t want to disturb Sweetie Belle by looking for it.

Now with everything ready, Sweetie Belle finally went to bed for real. She felt nervous and restless atop the metal clock but still felt herself fall asleep quickly nevertheless. After what the Tablet had done to her mind, she never had a problem sleeping. Going to sleep early and resting for six whole hours, she knew that—even after her plans tonight—nopony would be the wiser. When her sister came to wake her up the next morning, everything would already be done.

The perfect alibi.

Just as with those previous “test” nights, she was indeed awoken by her silent alarm; its intense vibrations burrowing into her skull directly like a pile driver. It was like a million snakes all coiling around her head and hissing.

“Sweet Celestia!” Sweetie said in strident susurration, suddenly springing separate. She sought sweet sanctuary from such a ceaseless, skull-striking system as swiftly as speed sanctioned.

Moving out of the bed, she put her hooves to her head in an attempt to ease a literal and ‘alliteral’ migraine that had formed. ‘Why do—do I do this to myself,’ she thought through the pain. She turned to the pillow, opened it up, and clicked the button atop the clock, stopping its shaking.

Getting back on track, she took the bells from the floor and once again attached them to the alarm. For added security, she also set the alarm to her sister’s usual wakeup time. Although it was unlikely for her sister to take such small details to heart, Sweetie Belle wasn’t a pony to take unnecessary risks anymore. With everything back the way it was, she picked up the sheets on the small bedside table, reviewing again the plan she would implement that night.

She had tried doing something similar to this a year ago; it was how she invented the clock trick in the first place. When she was grounded—after she and Apple Bloom had converted one of Rarity’s bolts of fine silk into canvas in an alchemy accident—she attempted to get a ninja Cutie Mark. She woke up before the sun came out and snuck around town. Even with a similar six hours of sleep she still felt sluggish at night. She barely made it home after just an hour of “ninja-ing” so every minute of her plan would have to be vital.

‘That plan is extremely simple, but it will be tough to do without getting caught,’ she thought to herself. She looked at the notes she had made and the crude map of Ponyville and committed all the details once again to memory. She didn’t want to bring her plans with her. Not only would the pieces of paper be awkward to carry without needless additional baggage like a saddlebags, but it would be hard to work her way out of getting caught if her entire scheme was only one read away.

With her plans stored again in her memory, she went over to Rarity’s workbench on the other end of the room. There she grabbed a pair of scissors Rarity used in her dressmaking, a small spade she had retrieved earlier from the garden shed, and a small cotton ball; the only things she would need. In addition, she took a few bolts of fabric and tucked them into her bed to create a facsimile of her sleeping form. It wouldn’t stand to close scrutiny, but in the dim light it would be good enough for somepony like Rarity who wouldn’t suspect anything.

With her preparations complete, Sweetie Belle slowly trotted down the stairs. She didn’t need to worry about her sister waking up just from the slight squeaks of the stairs or her dull hoofsteps; Rarity was a heavy sleeper. Sweetie Belle was actually worried once that her sister might even dream right through a fire with how deep she slept. The time she burnt juice when her parents came over assuaged that fear.

Once she was on the main floor, she crept by Rarity on the couch—who was mumbling in her sleep about mulled apple cider of all things—and over to the kitchen where she grabbed a hoofstool. Moving it beside the door, she stood up on it and placed the cotton ball into the doorbell’s clapper. ‘Now it won’t make any sound,’’ she observed, grinning to herself for her forward thinking.

Now with the bell silenced, she would be free to enter and leave through the front door without waking up her sister. Taking the opportunity this granted, she immediately headed out to her destinations: the Rich and Silver residences.

Sweetie Belle’s first stop on her little midnight “tour” of Ponyville were the Silvers; Silver Spoon’s family. They lived only a short trot from her house in the south-west end of Ponyville, near her own family’s house.

‘I’m not sure if it’s bad luck or what,’ Sweetie Belle mused wistfully on her way, ‘but if it wasn’t for Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and I would have probably been the best of friends; I had even visited her house once. We lived almost right next to each other and Sis still asks Mr and Mrs Silver for help with some of the fine filigree work if she even needs special jewelry for her rich clients. Unfortunately, I was pretty shy back then and Diamond Tiara was not.’ She giggled, feeling a deep pit in her stomach form at the sudden guilt. ‘Now because of that I’m going to break into her house.’

‘No!’ she thought, trying in vain to shake the awful feeling away, ‘I shouldn’t feel guilty for them. *Diamond Tiara is the one at fault for taking these acts of aggression far too seriously. This is the logical response, there is no reason to be upset.* They’ll never back down if I don’t do this.’

With that thought finally out of her mind, she focused her outlook and determination on the task at hoof; she marched onwards to the house. She had to be careful of the guard patrols, but doing so was very easy now that she knew about their schedules. While she was waiting for Twilight today—or yesterday as it now was—she had committed all the pertinent routes of the guards to memory. She luckily was able to distract Apple Bloom with an idea of using a basic—rather than acidic—solution for her new soil potion and then later after they had left with Twilight’s lack of free time. *It is useful to know how to distract a friend when necessary* Sweetie Belle noted.

Continuing on to the Silver residence, she made the choice to walk down the main street. She knew the schedule of the guards and this neighborhood was mostly filled with young families. That meant that even for her clandestine stroll, she could use the main street with little fear of being noticed. There was of course the outside risk of being spotted, but she needed to be quick; her stamina was already depleting. Not being caught wouldn’t mean much if she fell asleep before she could make it back home.

The guards would make their rounds of the street at 11:18pm, 11:50pm, 12:22pm, and 1:34am, taking 9 minutes to go from one end of the street to the other. Normally there might have been some deviation in these times depending on how fast or slow a particular guard is, but not with this schedule. Twilight was extremely distraught when Sweetie Belle—a filly—had managed to escape her cordon the last time. Now every guard checked their watches to keep up with the schedule and rotated regularly so that they knew where every guard would be at any given time. If Twilight needed to find a guard or if another guard needed backup, they would know where to find it.

Of course, this played right into Sweetie Belle’s hooves; she had no fear of being caught by a guard on this stretch of road from 12:00-12:15 or at 12:45-1:00 when she returned.

When she reached the house, she took a moment to convince herself of its layout once again. Like many of Ponyville’s more recent developments, the Silver residence was a two-story townhouse which shared both its walls with its neighbors. This resulted in the three being terraced with the Silvers in the middle. As it turned out, the left neighbor had changed the typical layout to incorporate two distinct floors which allowed one pony to own a separate floor for cheaper than a typical one-story cottage elsewhere in the town.

What made the latter information particularly useful was that from the backyard—which had not been fenced in yet—the second-floor was accessible via a flight of wooden steps to the balcony; a balcony which was flush to the one the Silvers owned. By going through the backyard, walking quietly up the steps, and then climbing over the small wooden railing, Sweetie Belle could make her way to the second floor of the Silvers’ house and have direct access to Silver Spoon’s bedroom’s rear window.

‘That’s all I could find out in one night, unfortunately,’ Sweetie Belle thought in dismay, ‘I couldn’t check to see what type of window Silver Spoon had or even trying a test-run before tonight. They only just started bullying me at school after all and there was no way I could sneak into their backyard during the day or ask them without looking conspicuous. If I can’t open the window somehow, then I’ll have to try again another time. There are only so many risks I can take before it’s too risky. If they bought their windows from the same place Rarity did, however…’

It was as she thought, fortunately. Just as with her sister’s home/business, the windows that kept the elements away from Silver Spoon’s bedroom were bought from the same manufacturer: Whinny’s Windows. This setup was so necessary to her plan because all of the company windows used the same latch to lock the window from the inside. A latch Sweetie Belle was all too familiar with.

Taking out her scissors, she carefully stuck it into the bottom of the window frame. When the scissors were opened, they were just slim enough to make it through the crack that was flush with the windowsill and into the room beyond. Moving left to right, Sweetie Belle passed the scissors under the latch, creating a faint “click” as the latch popped out of a hole in the windowsill and became unlocked. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve used this trick to get out of being grounded,’ Sweetie Belle giggled softly to herself as she put the scissors away again. Her amusement was short lived, however, as she opened the window and—looking inside—was reminded once again of the severity of what she was undertaking.

On the other side of the room slept Silver Spoon, snoring softly. Her mane was undone of its usual braids and draped messily about the bed. Her glasses placed carefully on the bedside table, but Sweetie Belle’s goal weren’t these. As much as her glasses were such a clear identifier of who she was, she didn’t want to impair the bully. ‘Stealing her glasses would be dumb anyway,’ she thought, repudiating the idea entirely, ‘she probably has extras and she probably wears them because she has to. She wouldn’t care if they were gone. No, for her it would have to be these.’

The objects of her focus was on a small workbench that sat right next to the window: a heat-gem soldering gun, tweezers, pliers, a magnifying glass stand, various hooked tools, different sized chisel solder tips, and a cleaning tray filled with what looked like iron gauze and sponge, each showing significant signs of use. The way that the tools were neatly placed in a mahogany box labeled Silver Spoon on a brass nameplate despite being well used made it clear that the tools were highly practical and sentimental to the filly sleeping only a few meters away. ‘This is it, Silver Spoon’s filigree tools,’ Sweetie Belle thought with a malevolent grin, ‘I can already imagine her face at school tomorrow.’

The grin faded as she looked to find a small note engraved on the inside of the lid:

To our loving daughter,

Work hard and have patience. No matter the challenges life throws your way, remember that we will be always with you. —Mom & Dad

She didn’t know what it was about the sentence, but it completely ruined the mood she had built up over the course of the night. The feelings of sweet revenge, the cold rationality and necessity of what she had to do, even the anger and betrayal she felt for a filly she thought could be her friend; they were all downplayed by a feeling of guilt.

“Why does this need to be so difficult!” she whispered, turning to the sleeping filly behind her. “This is necessary!” she said, pointing an accusatory hoof, “I need to show you I’m not all talk or you won’t ever leave me alone!”

The sleeping filly’s only response was to roll slightly to the side and to proceed with her faint snoring again.

‘What am I getting all worked up for?’ she thought, unconsciously drying her tearing eyes with a hoof, ‘She’s going to get it back once she leaves me alone. It’s her fault that I have to resort to this in the first place!’

Taking the tools, she put them into the box and—closed the lid gently—placed it outside on the balcony. With the box out of the room, she climbed over the windowsill once again, cautiously closing the window shut behind her. Using the scissors—this time moving right to left—she locked the latch again, leaving no trace of how she entered.

Now safely outside again with her prize, she looked for a place to hide it. There was no way she would carry the tools home with her, just to leave such criminal evidence laying around where it could be connected to her. After hopping over the balcony railing and back down into the neighbor’s backyard, she found a freshly dug plot of soil near some bushes further back; likely dug up for gardening.

With the spade she had brought from the Boutique, she dug into the patch, creating a small, deep hole. She placed the box into it which left a good foot of dirt above it. The box had a good veneer so it would probably last a week or two before it became really damaged. ‘If she and Diamond Tiara don’t stop all this by then, then I don’t care what happens,’ Sweetie Belle thought bitterly.

She then buried the hole and spread the excess dirt around the rest of the patch to avoid leaving an obvious mound. The hole was deep enough that it could only be discovered if the neighbor planted a tree in the spot. Still, it wasn’t perfect. The deeper soil mixed in with the topsoil to leave the area of dirt slightly discolored; but with the spreading around she did, the area to cover was much larger and it was unnoticeable unless one was looking for it.

With her job done to her satisfaction, she left for her second target: Diamond’s tiara.

It was a little before 12:40am when she arrived at the Rich mansion on the east side of town, near the train station. It wasn’t a “mansion” mansion where one might expect a film star to live, but it was still much larger than the rest of the regular houses in town—although still smaller than the hospital or town hall. It was two stories tall with the same timber-framed walls and thatched roof that was the typical Ponyville aesthetic, but instead of the usual wattle-and-daub for the infill that the rest of Ponyville used it used plaster making it look more uniform and smooth than the other buildings. The column support structure on the first floor and the enclosed backyard pool also helped to separate it from the "unwashed masses."

Luckily enough, the infiltration and theft for this mission would be easy compared to the earlier one. This was good because Sweetie Belle was running out of both time and energy. If she did not complete the mission and get back home in 20 minutes, she would be unsure how much longer she could keep awake. The reason for why was apparent to anypony who wandered up to the residence after dark: Diamond Tiara’s bedroom window was open and a tree branch hung only a few centimeters from the ledge.

Sweetie Belle had initially been confused as to why such a blatant flaw was allowed to exist, even before she thought of this plan—not that she never fantasized about going into her room at night and dyeing her hair or drawing “stupid” on her forehead. She was able to get context when trying to distract her father, Filthy Rich, after he cornered her for more information on economics last week:

~~~

“Oh that?” Filthy Rich replied, smiling with a small chuckle in good humor, “Well that’s all thanks to my Little Angel. She can be really creative when she wants to.”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes.

“Oh it’s true!” Filthy asserted, “When I built the house, I had decided to leave the big tree next to the plot intact; it reminded me of one just like it next to the house my father had built. I didn’t think of it at the time, but a branch rubbed up right against my poor daughter’s window! Well as you can imagine, I insisted that we remove it immediately, but to my surprise, My Darling Daughter would have none of it. Instead, she suggested I just keep the window open at night to keep it from scratching.

“I agreed, but it was only a couple of nights later that I found out why. When I grounded her for some reason—oh I forget why now—but when I grounded her, I caught both her and her friend, Silver Spoon, playing in her room. Of course, I sent her friend right home—Diamond was being grounded after all—but it didn’t take me long to put two-and-two together. Silver Spoon had snuck in using the branch and open window.” He laughed. “I couldn’t exactly take down the branch after I had learned that! Of course I had to leave that for her. Every child needs a secret or two of their own.”

Upon finishing his little monologue, he quickly realized his audience and coughed into his hoof embarrassingly, “Ahem, well sorry about that. Let’s get back to this ‘supply-side’ economic policy you were discussing.”

Sweetie Belle could only groan.

~~~

Of course, Sweetie Belle didn’t let Filthy in on the other reason he should have taken that branch down. ‘Luckily I’m no blabber mouth; only he, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and I know about such a security flaw. Thankfully, Iwould never let something so sensitive get into the hooves of somepony who might use such information for personal gain—or revenge,’ Sweetie Belle thought sarcastically with a grin.

Sweetie Belle made her way up the tree, over the branch, and into the room. The room was what she expected; dolls everywhere, pink and white decorations that matched her princess ponysona to a tee. Unlike Silver Spoon, Sweetie Belle felt no twinge of guilt as she looked at the extravagance; exacting her revenge on Diamond Tiara would be as easy as breathing. She quietly snuck to the bed where Diamond was sleeping and took her tiara from the bedside table and quickly made her exit the way she came.

Also unlike Silver Spoon’s house, she quickly realized she couldn’t just bury the tiara nearby. ‘It wouldn’t be a good idea to put it here,’ she thought as she looked around at the well maintained and manicured plot of land, ‘I’m pretty sure they have gardeners regularly come through here. Even the smallest change could be spotted and all of my hard work would be for nothing.’ While the discolored dirt wouldn’t be noticed by Silver Spoon’s neighbor—who was no gardener if his/her lack of flowers were any indication—professionals would probably notice that immediately.

Instead, Sweetie Belle decided to head back home, tiara in tow. Just like with the box of tools, she couldn’t exactly leave the tiara laying around her home just waiting for somepony to find it. Passing the train station, she noticed a patch of mismatched dirt near the base of the station. Figuring it was a good a place as any, she took her spade and again dug a deep hole, placing the tiara in, and then reburying it. The discolored dirt around the hole helped camouflage it enough, although it was still different enough that she could find it again if she looked…probably. ‘I’ll worry about those minor details when I’m less tired,’ she thought.

With all the evidence out of her hooves and buried, she did not hesitate to gallop back home—guard patrols or no. The feelings of sleep coming on was the best motivator, ironically, to get home and to bed as fast as possible. If she was caught now, it might look suspicious but nopony would be able to find proof she did anything, especially if she threw the spade away.

At 1:04am, she arrived back at the Boutique. She was so dead tired, she completely missed the rope dangling from the back of her home and instead she simply trotted inside.

As was the case when she left, the bell atop the door didn’t chime. With her sluggish mind, it took a moment for Sweetie Belle to remember that she had put a cotton ball against the bell’s clapper. Despite her drowsiness, however, Sweetie Belle wanted to see her plan to the end, and so brought the hoofstool back to the door and removed the cotton, throwing it in the garbage before replacing the stool again.

Now Sweetie Belle could get caught without penalty; after all, she’s just “getting up for a glass of water” or some other excuse. Too tired to care, she trotted lazily up the stairs and opened the bottom section of the door—causing both parts to open—and immediately shutting it as soon as she saw a dark figure near the desk on the far right side of the room.

‘Who the hay is that!’ Sweetie Belle thought, placing both her hooves over her mouth to prevent a scream that was ready to burst from her gut. If she hadn’t been so scared of being caught earlier and trying to keep her voice down all night, she might have let out that scream, but luckily her reflexes did her a service. ‘Who knows what that pony might do if they found out I was here?!’ she thought frantically, hearing hoofsteps coming closer from the other side of the door, ‘well I can’t wait to find out, I need to go now!’

Her fear got the best of her, however, and she found herself unable to move from the door. ‘Come on, Sweetie Belle, move!’ she thought frantically, her panic only making her want to move less. The intruder wasted little time getting there and opened the upper half of the half door, looking out into the hall directly behind her. ‘Do they not know you need to use the bottom handle to open a half door?’ she thought, her curiosity overriding her fear momentarily. She was close enough that she could hear the masked pony’s breathing, the rhythm causing the filly’s own breath to catch tightly in her throat.

The perpetrator seemed to be satisfied with what it saw and so shut the door again.

‘Alright, no more fear, Sweetie Belle!’ she thought, ‘I need to get my Sis right now!’ She slowly got back on her hooves and made her way quickly down the stairs.

When she got to the ground floor, she made her way to the Chaise Lounge Rarity was using for a bed; a black eye mask covering her face. Sweetie Belle—tired, afraid and desperate—paid little heed to subtlety and vigorously shook her sister awake, whispering, “Wake up! Wake up, please!”

“Wha—whazzat—” Rarity muttered, shivering and jittering awake. She sat up and looked around, “Who’s’ere?” she said, her vision still completely obscured by the eye mask.

Sweetie Belle reached up and pulled the black covering away. “Rarity, it’s me,” Sweetie Belle whispered.

“Huh? Sweetie Belle, what are you—” She looked at the clock. “What are you doing up so late!” she hissed.

“That’s not important,” she dodged, “there is a pony in my room! I’m not sure if it’s a mare or a stallion, though. They were all covered in black clothes and—”

Rarity’s eyes went wide and she toned out the rest of what her little sister had to say. Instead, she got up, moved to the other end of the room, picked up a vase—the closest, heaviest object she could hold in her magic—and quickly climbed the stairs. Sweetie Belle barely able to follow behind.

“Rarity, you shouldn’t do this!” Sweetie Belle whispered, not wanting to get the attention of the pony in the bedroom, “We should just get the guard and let them handle it.”

Rarity had stopped listening; the adrenaline drowning everything out. ‘I’ll protect you, Sweetie, don’t worry!’ she thought. She swung the bedroom door open. “Come out villain!” she cried out, looking towards the open window and her desk at the other end of the room.

Suddenly in her peripheral vision, she saw a black form leap out from behind the bed. ‘Who—’ she thought before instinct took over. Seeing the black form suddenly come into view caused her to close her eyes, yell, and throw the vase at it as hard as she could with her magic in the form’s general direction. She wasn’t even looking when she heard a sickening crash of ceramic. By the time she opened her eyes, the mare beside her had collapsed onto the ground.

Suddenly realizing what she had done, Rarity rushed over to thief, the pony’s eyes closing shut. “Oh my goodness! I didn’t mean—it was—the pony came out of nowhere and—” Rarity got out frantically, unable to get her wits about her.

She turned to her sister who—for some reason or another—was moving rolls of fabric off of the bed. “There’s no time for that Sweetie Belle!” she yelled, “The whole room is a mess! Just go to Twilight’s and get the guard…” She looked at the thief, then back at her sister. “…and get them to bring a doctor too. She’s unconscious or…” she shivered, not willing to contemplate the possibility. “I’d go but I don’t want to leave you alone with…whoever this is.”

She pulled the ski mask that had been on the pony’s face to reveal none other than…

“Lyra?”

Author's Note

Gosh darn show messin' up with mah canon! :ajbemused:

Twilight and Lyra being friends before coming to Ponyville is canon? Well Lyra and Twilight are no longer friends (as should be apparent from the previous chapter)! Take that show! :flutterrage: No matter what you throw at me, I can take it! :raritycry: This story will be canon! :raritydespair: (Please writers, if you have any shred of human decency, please don't break my story with all your canon Lyra details... The story could barely handle Lyra knowing about Bon Bon being a monster hunter before coming to Ponyville... :fluttercry: )

Also, Filthy Rich's house is also now canon?! Well fine, it isn't like I described his house for a paragraph and had to rewrite that section or anything...(stupid writers and their...writing)

Prologue - Conspiracy

It was a beautiful spring evening in Canterlot. The sun had been hotter than average, but the cool wind had made the day delightful. This was especially true for the two Royal Guards who stood at attention in front of the Royal Court. Their gold plated armor was stifling in the heat, so they took any gust of wind as a blessing. Normally that—and minor leg pain from standing around—would be the only thing they would have to worry about in this situation, but today was different.

“Hey, what do you think about all this?” The dark grey unicorn stallion on left of the large court entrance asked.

“About what?” the white pegasus stallion on the right groaned, shifting his spear from the left side of his withers over to the right. “Guard duty? With you, it is as pleasant as always. Praise Celestia...” The lackluster salute he gave was matched only by the seething apathy in his tone.

The sarcasm was lost on his friend. “Guard duty? No. I’m talking about the ‘urgent business’ that Princess Celestia left on! What could be so important that the Princess had to leave personally—without her carriage, no less—and leave the running of Equestria to Princess Luna, even though it’s still light out?”

The pegasus rolled his eyes. “Oh, so that’s why we were turning down all the court petitioners at the door. I thought it was because there was a party and they weren’t invited.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention, my friend,” the unicorn replied, ignoring the obvious sarcasm.

The pegasus facehoofed. “Look. Whatever it is, it isn’t our concern.”

“Still,” the grey stallion continued, “what do you think it could be? A world-ending disaster? Discord’s return? A premonition of a prophesied pony plague primed to pounce on ponykind?!”

“No,” the pegasus stated candidly. “Don’t you think the Princess would warn ponies about some disaster like that? Besides, isn’t Discord already released?”

“What?!”

“Oh, come on. That was like, months ago. Anyway, I’m more worried about Princess Luna then whatever Princess Celestia is doing right now. I’ve heard from the Night Guard that she’s been trying so hard to ingratiate herself with the citizens that she barely sleeps. When we started guard duty, she looked like she was about to collapse at any moment, and that was six hours ago. I don’t think she slept at all since yesterday. I don’t know about you, but I’d be a bit more nervous about a grumpy, all-powerful alicorn princess less than 100 meters away than...”

Before the pegasus could finish, however, the two felt a sudden, sharp gust of wind, which nearly toppled them over. They turned towards the source of the disturbance to see that an extremely worn-out Princess Celestia had just landed between them.

Still panting she asked—without her usual vigor, “Could…could you open the door?”

The two guards stood in shock. They looked to each other in confusion before they both pushed the large doors open for the Princess.

She nodded her thanks to them before entering, leaving the two guards still in stunned silence.

When the princess was out of listening range, the unicorn spoke. “Wow, Princess Celestia looked exhausted. Do you think we should follow her? Whatever got her to rush back so quickly has got to be important!”

The pegasus smacked his friend upside the head with his wing, eliciting a small yelp from the unicorn. “Are you stupid?! The last time both of the princesses were tired like that, Tirek escaped from Tartarus and nearly destroyed Equestria! If you want to follow, it’s your death wish. I’m going to stand guard for another hour, collect my pay, and spend my weekend off with my marefriend like a sane pony.”

The unicorn reconsidered how smart following their Princess inside would be after all.

Princess Luna was rhythmically tapping her hoof on her throne anxiously.

It wasn’t the first time she took over her sister’s duties—that had been a real mess. The fact that she couldn’t sleep before-hoof and was unprepared to take on the overwhelming responsibility, however, made doing a proper job nearly impossible. In her state, she had a difficult time keeping up with her duties, let alone those of her sister. Luckily, she was still new enough to the throne that she could afford to rely on that as an excuse. Indeed, were it not for that, the nobles might have been offended when she teleported them out of the throne room and barred all those wanting to enter.

All this was, of course, done to ensure that the most vital of responsibilities were done as soon as possible—definitely not because Princess Luna thought the nobility was composed of drooling buffoons. No, such thoughts would unseemly for a Princess.

Despite these efforts to make things easier for herself, however, she had not had a wink of sleep in over twenty-four hours and it was starting to wear her down. Fortunately, she had found a way around that. Canterlot housed some of the finest brewers of a—relatively—recent discovery, ‘coffee’. She discovered that after drinking four-or-so cups an hour, she was more than able to take on both the day and the night courts. ‘I’ll show you, sister!’ Luna thought, ‘N-n-nopony c-can perform the royal duties better than o-ourself! ‘Tis but c-c-children's entertainment for us!’

“G-guard!” Luna cried, more than getting the attention of the Night Guard standing a few feet away from her. “Tell us- me. T-tell me, is there any news of my sister?”

“No, Your Highness,” he responded, the thestral stallion clenching his fanged teeth slightly from the auditory onslaught. “There have been no new reports except an update of seismic activity to the south-west. That is to say, it still has ceased, as it has for hours now.”

“Yes! That is the reason We- I am so ... concerned. ‘Twas nary a few hours prior that my sister absconded from the castle on her investigation of a powerful magical presence to the south-west that came with the quake. The quake has desisted its stirring, so why has my sister not yet returned?”

“Still, Your Highness, you shouldn’t worry. I’m sure-”

“Worry? Thy princess is not worried. ‘Tis no need for fear, so long as I protect Equestria. Verily, even with our sister gone, there is ... ‘mild concern’ at best. I am sure she will return soon.” The twitching and body tremors from Luna’s over-caffeination was clearly visible and was more than a mild concern for the Night Guard, but he stayed silent.

Suddenly, the door to the court was opened and the object of their discussion trotted quickly towards them. “Luna! There is something urgent that must be done!” Celestia replied.

“Oh, sister!” Luna cried, meeting her sister halfway and embracing her in a hug. “I was so worri-” She caught herself when she heard the guard behind her giggling quietly. She straightened up self-consciously. “W-we- I mean, I was slightly apprehensive with regards to your safe travel in investigation of whatever magical presence revealed itself. Tell us- me, what happened? What needs to be done?”

Celestia took a moment to collect herself. “We must … we must send a company of the Royal Guard to a small hill on the outskirts of the Buffalo settlement of ‘Boiling Rock’ immediately. It should be near Los Pegasus from what I was told. I never went to the place. In fact I never even left Ponyville before returning here.”

Luna’s confusion was plain on her face, but the current appearance of her sister was more than enough to convince her that the situation warranted immediate action. “Alright,” she replied, assuming more information would soon follow. Turning to her guard she asked, “Nightwing, c-could you get word to the guard captain in Los Pegasus to send a company of his finest to this Boiling Rock settlement immediately? There should be means of magical communication in the castle postal office.”

He saluted. “By your leave, then, Your Majesty.” With the nod of Luna’s head, the guard flew out the door.

“Now, Tia,” Luna sympathetically asked, returning to face her sister with a stern look. “Thou shalt expound to Us how such action cameth so requisite … and how cometh thou portray such an uncomely ragged posture?! This dilemma thou speakest must assuredly be one of great peril!”

Celestia sighed, both at the situation and at her sister’s deep regression back to the old tongue. “Well, the situation is ... a little complicated, but I wouldn’t go as far to say dangerous. Still, a minor situation could spiral quickly into a major one with little trouble, so I felt…some cleaning up was warranted.”

Luna hurumped. “Do not play coy with Us, sister! We would hearken unto thy whole story ere We commit Our judgement. It hath been many of our moons since We have seen thee in such a sorry state as this!”

Celestia groaned, “The old tongue is slipping, Luna.”

“Oh quiet thy fleeting japes, ere their haste miss thy purpose entirely! Thou hast explications to give! If thou givest it quick enough, We mayhap make swift slumber ere mine night!”

Celestia stopped groaning, but rather giggled in spite of herself. She liked this side of her sister. However, seeing the redness and bags of Luna’s eyes, she immediately stopped. She was now reminded that she had left her sister in charge of the nation for a whole day with no word. “Right, and I am sorry-”

“Do not speak of such things,” Luna said, turning to her sister with a soft smile. She took a deep breath before continuing. “We- er I would do it again if you asked it of me.” Turning back to her sister, she flamboyantly waved her hoof around and continued, returning to the Old Tongue, “Prithee! Speak of thine harrowing tribulations which hath left thee in such a sorry state!”

“I will … although we should probably do so in a more private location,” Celestia said, gesturing to the throne room around them. Luna noticed that a few of the castle maids and guards—whom up until now were listening in from the doorway—quickly shuffled along to their regular duties.

“Yes,” the dark alicorn said, grinning at the thought of the rumors this would no doubt cause, “t’would be a sound idea.”

They stepped out onto a balcony and flew to one of the tall towers which served as both an observatory and Luna’s bedchambers. “This will be secluded enough,” Luna stated as they entered the room. “Besides, I would like to get as much sleep as I can once we have finished speaking of this.”

Celestia frowned. “I’m not sure the tale is so important that I need to explain it tonight Lulu. Perhaps we can continue this in the morning when-”

Luna shook her head, “You will speak now,” she stated, leaving little room for retort. “We will be the judge of how important your story is. We have missed enough of thine actions already. We grow concerned with your avoidance.”

Celestia rolled her eyes. “You know it isn’t like that Lulu. You are clearly exhausted and have earned your rest…but I suppose you won’t leave this be.” Celestia sighed and then began the story. “Well, it all started a week ago when Rarity’s sister found a unique ‘metal cave’ near Ponyville.”

“Oh, I remember thou speaking to your student about this. ‘Twas even in the paper-of-recent-events! Ancient artifacts, if I remember correctly.”

“Former student, and yes. Although—as it turned out—one of these magical objects found itself latched to the consciousness of that young filly.”

Luna looked to her sister seriously, “Is she alright?”

Celestia frowned. “I am still not sure. As it turns out, however, it wasn’t this magical parasite that caused the filly’s current dilemma. You see, it forced her to remain silent about its existence, but also told her that if she travelled to a certain place, it would no longer hold sway over her.”

“Naturally—being a filly—she innocently agreed, correct?”

“Exactly. Unfortunately, she also got her other filly-friends involved and, as expected, Twilight and her friends gave chase. They even informed me to have the Royal Guards on alert.”

“Yes,” Luna said, remembering sending out some of her guards as well. She put a thoughtful hoof to her chin. “Why was all of that necessary, though; and why can I not remember news of the fillies’ capture?”

“It was because they weren’t,” Celestia replied, putting up a hoof to silence any potential objection. “It turned out that this artifact was giving her very 'intelligent' suggestions on how to escape. I don’t remember all the details, but it involved the Tree of Harmony, of all things.”

The gears in Luna’s head turned before she came to the correct conclusion. “Then, this place she went and the magical presence-”

“Precisely, one-and-the-same,” Celestia interjected in agreement. “It seems that 'it' led poor Sweetie Belle into the ruins of an ancient civilization and activated a magical conduit of immense power.”

“Sister!” Luna said, jumping to her hooves. “What are we laying around here for! A small company of guards might not be enough to-”

“It’s fine, Luna,” Celestia replied, stopping her sister’s thought. “You can sense it, just as I can, that the magical presence is gone now. That earthquake earlier, it turns out, was the ruins destroying itself. We still don’t have the whole picture—the filly is resting in the Ponyville hospital at the moment—but I confirmed with Discord that the threat is likely over.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Luna interjected in annoyance, putting a hoof up. “Wherefore dost the explosive destruction of the ruins occur? Also, how is the filly back in Ponyville already and why is Discord involved in all this! Although, I am not surprised ...”

Celestia smiled. “Somehow, Sweetie Belle, the young filly I mentioned, was able to teleport her friends to Ponyville using the power of the conduit before the ruins destroyed itself.”

Luna stared on in shock. “How could such a filly- I imagine it was likely another act by this parasitic artifact?” Celestia nodded her assent. “Still, shouldn’t the explosion have been even more massive than that? That presence I felt was no minor thing! Were Tirek of such strength, even our combined might would not have stood against him! If a conduit pulling that much power from the Aether was destroyed-”

“Yes,” Celestia agreed, “I have no doubt that all of Equestria if not the World would have felt the effects. If what Twilight said was true, then Sweetie Belle went into the Aether and pulled the magic back.”

Luna sighed, looking down somberly. “Then she is lost. Though we owe her more than she … wait. Didn’t you say she was resting in Ponyville hospital?!”

Celestia smiled again. “Yes. In fact, thanks to my former student and the Tree of Harmony, Sweetie Belle was brought back.”

“Are you certain?” Luna said with an incredulous look. “Again, the Tree of Harmony has aided us. Since when has it been so … involved in equine affairs? Save for when we recovered the Elements from its branches, I never heard a word of it doing anything at all!”

Celestia pondered that for a moment and then shrugged. “I guess it’s fate. Whenever there is an obstacle to overcome, Harmony helps us finds a way to overcome it. Since we have had … an abnormal increase in threats to Equestria, I would suppose it, too, has increased its aid.”

Luna groaned, “‘Tis always ‘Harmony’. As nice as it is a concept, I would prefer it if we could protect this nation martially without such unpredictable support. It only deigns to help us when we are in serious trouble …”

Celestia rolled her eyes, “This is Harmony. It only stands to reason that it only helps when there is disharmony or trouble. Why would the Tree make efforts to improve things when everypony is harmonious and fine?”

Luna sighed, resigning herself. “Alright, fine … but that still does not explain Discord. Why does that thing find himself slithering out of the cracks?”

Celestia frowned. “I understand why you feel that way, but he really is reformed. He is still … well, troublesome to say the least, but it is an honest kind of trouble that ties well into his nature. He actually was a great help; if it wasn’t for him, we may not have known about Sweetie Belle’s location until it was too late.”

“So he cause no problems at all?”

“Actually … no, now that I think about it,” Celestia responded with a hint of surprise. “I suppose I will have to thank him.”

Luna’s incredulous look melted into surprise as well. “Huh … well, I suppose if Equestria can give myself a second chance, it is only just that we give him one as well; even after his betrayal to Tirek. It seems that your decision to free him once more was not the mistake I had made it out to be after all.”

Celestia nodded her head. “When the Elements of Harmony were sealed away back into the Tree, I was worried that I had made a mistake, that Discord—no longer held back by the threat of petrification—would cause havoc once more … but it has been months. Apart from his traitorous actions you mentioned—which as I later found out was only because he wanted a friend—and ‘forgetting’ about his plunder seed vines, he has done nothing too chaotic that it would even threaten the livelihood of an individual pony, let alone Equestria. Fluttershy at least comfortable in his presence on a regular basis.

“Still, we have become sidetracked in this conversation. You have clearly told me why you are so worn, flying to and from Ponyville while dealing with the Tree of Harmony and Discord could not have been easy.” Luna smirked. “There is still the nature of what we must do henceforth. As much as we should congratulate this filly for possibly saving Equestria, we must also ensure that she won’t try to find any more powerful magical conduits in the future.” Luna chucked before turning serious again. “Also, there is the matter of this company of soldiers you have sent to secure this ‘ancient ruin’ and what announcement we will have to make to the peasantry.”

“Citizens, Luna,” Celestia admonished lightly. “And I agree. We have little choice but to provide guards for Sweetie Belle, not just for Equestria’s safety, but her own. As for the ruins … well, we do have a policy regarding ancient artifacts, and we should not treat it any differently from any other. We will document and secure any potentially dangerous artifacts that remain and keep them away from the public. As for what to tell the public … we should just state that it was a natural disaster. An earthquake that caused … perhaps an aquifer near this ‘Boiling Rock’ to become unstable?”

Luna shook her head, “As much as I would like to agree, this type of discovery should not be hidden. The average pony may not care for such dangerous relics, and the relics will be secured, but should we really hide this away completely? If a filly could stumble on one of these ruins, others will surely follow someday. In the past, lying to the populace never seems to be the correct course of action, no matter how justified the intentions.”

Celestia turned away and paced for a moment before giving her response. “It has worked so far, Luna. The archives and the vaults are filled with artifacts too dangerous for common use and our scientists have learned much from their study. Public disclosure comes with unintended side-effects. The other nations and even private citizens will demand access. An arms-race could suddenly spark, or an entrepreneurial pony could upset the economy with an ill-timed invention, or an undiscovered byproduct could make ponies ill. Until the mechanism for this new source magic is uncovered and safely disseminated through published research, I will not risk the future on such an unknown.”

Luna nodded her head slowly. “I understand … but do not forget the cause of the 3rd Griffon War. I only mean to avoid such a tragedy from repeating itself.”

“That was an isolated incident, sister,” Celestia criticised. “One thousand years ago, we did not have the resources to adequately protect ourselves as we do now. The entire company of EUP Guardsponies we send is more than enough to stave off any bandits that might crawl out of the woodwork like in that incident. Equestria has never been safer then it is now. It is highly unlikely that rumors will cause more havoc than the truth like it did then.”

“Alright, sister, I won’t breathe word of these new artifacts.” Luna consented, in equal parts agreement and drowsiness. Luna—now lacking the caffeine hyperactivity—had deep black rings around her eyes which drooped slightly. She really needed her sleep.

Celestia smiled, “I know you were never one for subterfuge, sister, but if it can save ponies’ lives, and the integrity of Equestria, it is the right thing to do. You will not regret it.”

Celestia left Luna alone. ‘There are only a few hours left until she must raise the moon,’ Celestia thought, ‘and she needs all the rest she can get.’ Still, Celestia was left with a sense of unease. ‘I don’t know what it is about this time in particular, but it just never feels right to lie—even to white lie—to my little ponies.’

Despite her misgivings, Celestia would not make the announcement. The explosion would be an earthquake, nothing more.

An aquamarine mare woke up to the quiet chirps of birds near her window and the smell of spiced candy and chocolate. To most ponies this would be a delightful way to start the morning, but for the unicorn it was enough to make her want to puke. After all, when one lives upstairs to a candy store and lives with the owner, you inevitably taste the product.

A lot.

After ‘sampling’ well over five-hundred candies and chocolate the day before—many of…questionable quality—she vowed to never touch the stuff ever again. Still, she couldn’t sleep in. Not because she had work to do as the entertainer at the Silly Filly bar. She only worked nights. No, the real reason was her hobby, to search out the truth in all things … or as others would call it, being a paranormal/conspiracy nut.

“Lyra!” a voice called from outside the bedroom. “Are you awake? I’m going to open the store soon and I want your opinion on some last minute changes to the candy-counter!”

Lyra’s eyes—which until now had been shut—almost burst out of their sockets. ‘Ohnononono!’ she thought in a panic, ‘I am not trying another candy for as long as I live!’

She quickly got out of bed and opened her window. There was a moment’s hesitation. She hadn’t thought of what she would need. Her lyre? Her bit-bag? This delay—as it turned out—was far too long, and just as she was about to leap, she was suddenly pulled back to her bed by a pair of hooves.

“Now Lyra,” the vicious, hoof-appendaged predator admonished. “I know you’re weird, but I won’t have you jumping out of a second-story window until you have at least had a shower.”

Lyra groaned, her latest attempt at freedom once again foiled by the pick and blue-maned menace. “Alright Bon Bon, but please, no more candy! I-um, I have a place to be and won’t have time today, sorry!”

“Well, alright,” Bon Bon sighed. “We can at least have breakfast, right?”

Lyra felt a bit guilty now, she really did like being around her friend. “Of course! Just, uh, let me clean up.”

When Lyra came down from her shower, Bon Bon was sitting quietly at the kitchen table, eating blueberry pancakes, cereal and juice. Another spot with an identical nutritional configuration was laid out for her. Lifting the knife and fork with her magic, she sat down and began eating.

“So Lyra,” Bon Bon asked, lifting her head from her food, “you left early yesterday too. What’s going on? Is this about that ‘vampony’ business again? I thought you left their ‘coven’-thing.”

Lyra quickly swallowed a pancake before she replied. “No no, I’m done with that after the whole ‘sparkling’ phase that popped up ever since that new ‘book’ came out. I’m sorry I couldn’t talk about it yesterday, but I’m actually really interested in ‘precursors’ again!” Lyra said enthusiastically.

Bon Bon sighed. “Again ... really Lyra? Apart from maybe your ‘Seaponies-are-evil’ phase that was probably your worst obsession of the lot. I remember I had to spoon-feed you because you wouldn’t eat anything. Not to mention that you had covered your whole room in paper and thread. Please Lyra, I know you are all about the truth and stuff, but shouldn’t you wait until there are some hard evidence before-”

“Hey, seaponies are evil! Have you heard their music?! Anyway, that’s the reason why precursors are so interesting again! There is new evidence!” Lyra exclaimed, grabbing anewspaper clipping from across the table and handed it to the earth pony mare, who was more than a little concerned at the hastily scrawled writing on the edges. “See! It says that Princess Twilight and some other ponies found a ruin just outside of Ponyville! I wanted to tell you yesterday, but I was so excited, I just had to rush over and talk to Twilight and-”

“Oh Lyra,” Bon Bon groaned, remembering all Lyra’s crazy theories about aliens, humans, and government mind-control. “Please don’t tell me you heckled our princess about your theories.”

“Hey, I don’t heckle … much,” Lyra said, her self-righteous indignation melting into a pout. “Well, she wouldn’t let me talk anyway, she just teleported away! For a princess, she can be pretty rude.”

Bon Bon smiled, ‘At the very least she isn’t in trouble again,’ she thought. “Alright Lyra, just please try to be calm about it this time? Even if you’re right-”

“And I am!”

“-nopony is going to listen to you if you sound like a crazy pony.” Bon Bon knew at this point in their friendship that there was no way to get Lyra to stop … but she could at least bring her back to earth. “Just … take a deep breath and tell me what you’re going to do.”

Remembering the plan she had made last night, her face glowed with excitement. “Well, first I’m going to go to the new library and research everything I can about Pre-Discordian history! Then I’ll meet up with Twilight and ask to join her team! Then we’ll all work together to-”

“Lyra…” Bon Bon groaned.

“Yes, Bon Bon?”

“You’re not an archaeologist. There’s no way Twilight is just going to ‘let you on the team’. Not to mention you have a job already. You work 6-2am at the ‘Silly Filly’, you won’t have time for all this.”

“Well obviously I would have to quit my job if-”

“No Lyra!” Bon Bon fumed. “This ‘truth-seeking’ thing is fine…as a hobby, but your special talent is that lyre. I’m sure they will be fine without you, but you need a real job with real money.”

Lyra sighed. “You just don’t understand. My cutie mark isn’t just about making music, it’s about poetry and stories too! I can’t help but delve into the lore and mythology and try to find the truth. It would be like you making candy, but somepony else selling it. It just feels … wrong when all I do is play music.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “Hardly ‘all you do is play music,’ Lyra. All your free time is dedicated to your hobby, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean you can just quit your job! A lot of ponies have talents that don’t quite fit into a profession. I doubt the the mail mare's bubble mark has anything to do with delivering mail, but she doesn’t seem to have a problem keeping her job, and she’s happy too!”

Bon Bon settled down a bit now, finally getting all that out of her system. “Lyra, can’t you just try to tone it back a little bit? I know you are excited and I can relate. When I discover a new candy combination, I can’t sleep until I’ve got it right…or I realize that it wasn’t as…appetizing as I thought it would be. That being said, I care about you and all these obsessions aren’t healthy. Even at my worst, none of mine ever threatens my livelihood or my career.”

Lyra wanted to retort, to give an impassioned speech on the merits of truth and the righteousness of her ‘quest for knowledge,’ but one look at the moisture threatening to leave her friend’s eyes gave her pause. ‘Am- am I really taking this too far?’ Lyra thought, ‘No, that can’t be right.’

“I’m sorry, Bon Bon, but I have to,” Lyra said, not willing to look Bon Bon in the eyes across the breakfast table. “Princess Twilight herself is involved. This has to be true. If there is one thing I know about her, she doesn’t put her name on things haphazardly!”

Bon Bon sniffed loudly but refused to sob. ‘Oh, I hate it when she’s like this,’ she thought. ‘Still, I can’t give up hope. Without you, who knows what could happen to her. You just need to tone down her enthusiasm a bit. One week and she will be back to her cheery, happy, normal self. Think, there must be something.’ She looked at the newspaper clipping again and did notice something was odd.

“Lyra?” she asked, causing the aquamarine mare to look up with a smile. “Where does it say that Princess Twilight put her name on this?” Lyra’s smile immediately turned into a frown.

“It- it doesn’t,” Lyra admitted, but before her friend could speak up she quickly amended, “but I know because she told me herself! She, uh, said something about the paper being right. Oh yeah! She said that the paper was ‘exactly like her discussion’ or something like that.”

“But then why didn’t she put her words in the paper, then? To me it just sounds like they were making an assumption and one of the archaeologists went behind their back and told the paper about some theory without any evidence.”

“That means it is up to me to figure it out, then! I know with just a few weeks of research I’m bound to-”

“No Lyra! It is not up to you! Please, for Celestia’s sake just let it go!” Bon Bon exclaimed, tears now readily falling down her face. She could barely get the words out between sobs. “This is too much, Lyra! You can’t do all this at once, it … it isn’t fair! You can’t do this to me again! Not after that week-long Seapony binge! I’m sick of staying up late, not knowing where you are or finding you passed out on your desk and having to beg with your boss to let you keep working when you miss work the next day! I’m not going to- to be your friend if you can’t even care for yourself!”

Bon Bon was crying uncontrollably now, her hooves pushing the food in front of her to the floor so she could rest her forehead on the table and cover her head with her hooves. ‘I- I can’t take it anymore…’ she thought, clouds of anger clouding their every word. ‘Why can’t Lyra just go back to the silly filly who sang dopey songs about vampires and witches on her lyre?! The one that would spend hours making funny stories about my candies fighting the evil pastries at Sugarcube corner when the competition was getting the better of me. That-that silly filly that made me fall in love with her…’

Bon Bon was so distracted with her anger that she didn’t notice when a warm fuzzy body wrapped itself around her, finding some purchase on her seat. “I’m so, so sorry, Sweetie Drops, please don’t cry,” the soothing voice said, whispering Bon Bon’s favourite nickname into her ear. “I just- just get ahead of myself sometimes, right? You know me. Why don’t I help set up the shop and we can have a nice lunch before my shift starts. We haven’t done that in a while. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

‘That would be nice,’ Bon Bon thought wistfully before her previous anger caught up with her again, mixing in a painful mix of melancholy. ‘I just wish you could give me more, Lyra. Friends don’t live together, or give each other cute nicknames or cry in each others’ forelegs. Why can’t you show that you love me like I know you do? Why do I have to play second fiddle to your obsessions? Why do we need to argue and hurt each other before you do something nice like this?’

“Don’t worry, Bon Bon,” Lyra continued, “this won’t be like the other times. It will just be a little bit at a time. I promise.”

Bon Bon sniffed loudly and wiped her tears, looking up to her friend. However, the frown and the feelings of defeat didn’t leave her face.

‘I wish I could believe you, Lyra.’