A Flicker of Despair

by Brass Polish

Rating: everyone
Tags: Nightmare Moon, Original Character, Spike, Comedy, Adventure, Twilight Sparkle, Random, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 10436

Equestria's future and past are threatened by a dangerous dragon, a Venomodo, and the closest Twilight Sparkle had to a friend at school, hereditary alicorn Amber Aldis.

A dangerous dragon causes havoc in Ponyville, so their newly appointed Royal Taskforce enlist the help of the closest thing Twilight Sparkle had to a friend before leaving Canterlot. But hereditary alicorn Amber Aldis quickly reaches the conclusion that Twilight was a poor candidate for Princess Celestia’s new member of the Royal Family, and devises a plan to take Twilight’s place on the day of the Summer Sun Celebration when Nightmare Moon returned…

Published 2014-11-20 13:50:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-11-20 13:50:02 UTC

1 The Venomodo

Twilight Sparkle wasn’t the only pony who was given a position of authority in Ponyville. Since she and her five best friends controlled the Elements of Harmony, the six of them became a sort of Royal Guard-like team which Princess Celestia named Ponyville’s Royal Taskforce. Proud of this appointment and confident in their abilities to protect their home from danger, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Rarity accepted their assignment and promised to give Twilight every bit of support they could provide. Spike was also quite happy to be assisting a Princess. He was sure to be sending more than just reports on the merits of friendship now. Important memos and royal invitations were likely to be incinerated or belched out on a regular basis.

Twilight managed to get used to having wings, but she still needed practise with flying. And who better to give her some good tips than Rainbow Dash?

“OK, Twilight. Let’s see how fast you can pull out of a dive.”

Rainbow Dash might not have been taking foal steps because Twilight was beginning to fall all over herself imitating her stunts.

“Yikes,” she said to herself after apologizing to Blossomforth for almost crashing into her. “I’m either gonna hurt myself, somepony else or both by the end of the day.”

But later that morning, none of those happened. The only pony who hurt herself in that practise was Rainbow Dash. She was demonstrating how to avoid airborne objects by throwing some frisbees, beating them to the other side of Ponyville and weaving threw them. But one of them hit her on the head and she went off course into the top of a chimney. Twilight had to dive down and catch her before she hit the ground.

“Well, we know you can catch something or somepony falling out of the sky,” Rainbow Dash said as Twilight gave her some icepacks for her bruised wings.

At that moment, Fluttershy ran up to them looking tense.

“Uh, Twilight, we might have a problem,” she said. “A big problem. Like, a code red problem.”

“What is it?” asked Twilight.

“Applejack says she saw some apples fall out her wolf river tree,” Fluttershy told them. “She looked up and saw a… a big d-dragon sleeping in it.”

Rainbow Dash groaned. “You might think it’s a code red emergency, but all we gotta do is get him to leave. It’s no big deal.”

“It could be a big deal,” said Twilight sternly. “You know dragons don’t like ponies.”

“Hey!”

Spike had turned up.

“Oh, come on Spike,” said Twilight, “You know I don’t mean you.”

They made their way to Sweet Apple Acres to the biggest tree in the orchard, the 50 foot wolf river apple tree. Fluttershy was so nervous, she could hardly walk straight. Just about every dragon she ever came across scared her, including Spike when he went on that rampage on his after-birthday. They saw Applejack standing a few feet away from the wolf river tree.

“I told Big McIntosh, Apple Bloom and Granny Smith to stay in the barn until that dragon’s outta that there tree,” she said to Twilight and Rainbow Dash in a low voice.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash looked up into the tree. Twilight had to stifle back a gasp.

“Get outta sight!” she hissed.

She ushered her friends behind a nearby golden delicious tree.

“Spike, run to the library and grab that book on the organic horseshoe era,” she whispered.

With a flash of alarm in his eyes, Spike sprinted away looking back at the wolf river tree to see if the large dragon sleeping in it was waking up. Twilight’s horn glowed. In the distance, Applejack, Rainbow Dash ad Fluttershy saw red lanterns lighting up. This was the way they alerted Ponyville of a code red situation.

“What is it, Twi?” asked Applejack.

“Should Fluttershy just faint right now?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight ignored Rainbow Dash, despite thinking Fluttershy might lose her mind when she told them what they were dealing with.

“That dragon is the spitting image of a dragon I read about a while ago,” she said in a hushed voice. “It’s called a Venomodo. It hasn’t been seen by ponykind since the time when horseshoes were made of plants. Egg Banjo from Coltchester encountered one and lived to write a book about it.”

“So what makes it so dangerous?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Well, you know how a lot of dragon parts can be used to cure something?” asked Twilight.

“Yeah, like d-dragon fat cures burns and dragon tears are good for getting rid of blemishes,” said Fluttershy.

“Well, Venomodos are the exact opposite,” Twilight said, “Virtually every bit of them is a poison. And they despise ponies as much as any other dragon.”

She glanced at Fluttershy for a second.

“Especially pegasi,” she finished. “They really hate ponies who can fly.”

Fluttershy remained standing, but was feeling no better than she had before learning about the Venomodo.

“You shoulda told Spike to get Rarity and Pinkie Pie and our Elements of Harmony,” said Applejack. “We gotta get that thing outta here.”

Twilight shook her head. “We can’t use the Elements of Harmony on it. Or any magic.”

She paused as they looked at her in disbelief.

“If you use any kind of magic on a Venomodo, it’ll explode,” Twilight told them.

“And the same goes for anyone or anything infected by one,” said a voice from the other side of the golden delicious tree.

The four ponies froze in place. There was no doubt that the Venomodo had woken up and either spotted them or heard them talking. No one moved for almost a minute, then at last one of them looked around the tree. Would you believe it was Fluttershy who worked up the courage to stare one of the biggest threats to ponykind in the face?

“A pegasus,” growled the Venomodo with a look of disgust.

He looked around the other side of the tree.

“An earth pony.”

Applejack tried not to shudder.

“More pegasi,” the Venomodo went on. “Oh. And an alicorn. A product of pony royalty.”

He looked around as the four ponies’ imaginations started to run away with them guessing what he would do to them and their community.

“I’m in Equestria, aren’t I?” he asked, facing Twilight.

Twilight nodded.

The Venomodo looked disturbed. “Must’ve made a wrong turn during the migration.”

Twilight had no idea what to do as the threatening monster turned towards Ponyville. Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy couldn’t think of a course of action either.

“There’ll be ponies everywhere,” the Venomodo said loud enough for them to hear. “I’d be outnumbered a million to one if I tried anything.”

They tried not to flinch as the dragon turned sharply around and walked back towards the wolf river tree.

“I think I’ll take my leave.”

Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Applejack were very surprised. Fluttershy couldn’t help but sigh with relief. They watched as the Venomodo knelt down preparing to take off. But before he did, he spat on the tree he’d been resting in.

Applejack went from feeling relieved to affronted. “Why that nogoodnik! I didn’t think you meant spitting image literally, Twilight.”

Twilight wasn’t feeling relieved either. She was sure the Venomodo’s spit must have had some effect on that tree.

Minutes later, Spike ran up to them clutching Twilight’s copy of The Land Before Horseshoes. He was followed by Pinkie Pie and Rarity.

“I saw it take off!” Rarity cried. “You haven’t been attacked have you?”

Rainbow Dash was about to say everything was fine, but she was cut off by an odd noise coming from the wolf river tree.

Twilight magiced the book out of Spike’s hands and began flipping frantically through the pages.

“What’s the problem, Twilight?” asked Fluttershy. “The Venomodo’s gone. We’re all safe.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Twilight replied, not taking her eyes off the book. “Everything that comes from a Venomodo is poisonous.”

“Uh, oh,” Applejack groaned. “All those apples are gonna get infected.”

“What did it do?” asked Pinkie Pie.

Before Applejack could reply, the wolf river tree emitted an odd moan. At last, Twilight found the page she was looking for, and when she did, she yelled to Rarity, who was nearest to the groaning tree.

“Quick, spit on that tree!”

“Excuse me?!” exclaimed Rarity. “How undignified!”

CRACK!

The giant tree practically walked out of the ground, its long roots acting like spidery legs.

“We gotta spit on it before it destroys everything!” Twilight called as it ran away from them. “Rainbow Dash, fly over it!”

Rainbow Dash, wishing she had time to wait for an explanation, took off towards the rampaging tree. But she didn’t get far before her bruised wings started dragging her down.

“Ow!” she cried as she touched down. “I can’t get speed up!”

Applejack took action. She grabbed a rope and threw one end at the tree. She caught one of its branches and quickly tied the other end of the rope to the golden delicious tree they’d been hiding behind earlier. But as the others ran towards the wolf river tree, it yanked at the rope and snapped it.

“It’s too strong!” yelled Applejack as the tree sped off again.

Twilight resorted to teleportation. She moved herself, Spike and her pony friends to the orchard’s entrance. The wolf river tree was now running towards them.

“Get ready!” Twilight called, and she began hocking.

The others followed suit, including Rarity. The tree came nearer and nearer.

“Now!” shouted Twilight, dribbling a bit.

It was Pinkie Pie who spat the furthest and hit the tree. At once, it stumbled and fell forward. Unfortunately, Spike didn’t get out of the way in time and got caught up in the tree’s branches as it tumbled down the slope. Applejack tried to lasso it again, but she couldn’t secure the other end of the rope to the front gate in time. She got yanked towards the tree, sweeping Fluttershy up with her. Now Spike, Applejack and Fluttershy were stuck in the rolling tree. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Pinkie Pie gave chase all the way to a pond. With a massive splash, the tree hit the water.

Then, to everyone’s surprise accept Twilight’s, the tree stood up in the shallow water and started using its branches like arms to help Spike, Applejack and Fluttershy out of the pond and back onto land.

“Uh, thanks,” said Applejack after she was placed gently onto the ground.

She and Fluttershy were a little scratched up from the tree’s bark and branches, but they weren’t seriously injured. Spike got scratched too, but he barely noticed due to his thick hide. But something seemed to be pricking him in the leg.

“So what did that monster do to that tree?” asked Rarity.

“Venomodo’s toxins have odd effects on plant life,” said Twilight, magicing her book there in front of her to show her friends. “When a plant gets spat on by a Venomodo, it comes to life and develops the same drive as one. In this case, that wolf river tree wanted to attack Ponyville. Luckily, Egg Banjo found out that all you gotta do is spit on the infected plant yourself.”

“So now it’ll do what I’d want to do?” asked Pinkie Pie.

The wolf river tree started splashing them. Pinkie Pie was unsurprisingly the only one who found this amusing. Spike wasn’t so much amused as relieved.

“Could you do that again?” he asked.

“What’s up, Spike?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“I feel kinda hot,” Spike replied before the tree splashed him again.

Twilight saw something long and brown lying next to him. It looked like a twig at first, but it was more curved and smooth.

She gasped. “That’s a Venomodo claw!”

Spike, who thought he’d been pricked by a branch, began to worry.

“W-what does that…?”

He fainted before he could finish his question.

Applejack and Rarity looked him over while Twilight consulted her book.

“Getting scratched by a Venomodo causes a form of heat stroke!” she said, beginning to panic.

There was a graph on Venomodos with a nearly empty column on cures. At first, Twilight thought there was no cure for a Venomodo scratch, but when she saw she’d been looking at the wrong row, she was very relieved.

“So what do we do?” asked Fluttershy.

“We need to get him to break the sound barrier,” she told them.

“Break the sound barrier?” repeated Rarity.

“His temperature is going up and cold water won’t be enough to bring it down,” Twilight said. “Only a 768 mile and hour breeze in his face can bring it down and keep it down.”

“I could take him with me into the sky and make a sonic rainboom if my wings weren’t so messed up,” groaned Rainbow Dash.

“Let’s take you both to the Library,” said Twilight. “We’ll do everything we can to cool Spike down and I’ll mix up a potion to rejuvenate your wings.”

She turned to Rarity.

“And don’t use any kind of magic on him. Or else, Ka-Boom!”

Later, Twilight was hurriedly concocting a cure for Rainbow Dash’s sore wings. Everypony else was trying to keep Spike cool. Rarity was fanning him while Applejack and Pinkie Pie were constantly replacing bags of ice on his forehead.

“It’s awful sunny out,” said Applejack. “Fluttershy, do you think you could get a cloud over us to shade Spike?”

“Sure, Applejack,” said Fluttershy, walking towards a window. “It’s supposed to be a clear day today, but maybe Derpy forgot to put the Altostratus clouds away in their right spot again.”

“Hey, I’m coming too,” said Rainbow Dash. “No offence, but I don’t think you could move a big cloud on your own.”

“But what about your sore wings?” asked Fluttershy.

“I can still fly,” replied Rainbow Dash. “Just not fast.”

“I guess we’re lucky that Spike caught something from a Venomodo that can be cured,” said Twilight after Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash left. “The list of poisons is so long and the list of cures is so short.”

“Why wouldn’t you feel lucky?” asked Pinkie Pie. “Is it because you think there’s no such thing as luck.”

Twilight had known Pinkie Pie long enough to know that there had to be such a thing.

“Well, it’s just that there are two diseases a Venomodo scratch can give you,” she said, glancing at her book. “The other is paralysis and that’s a lot easier to cure. All you gotta do is spray the wound with cold water.”

Little did Twilight know that they would soon have to do that…

Author's Note

First MLP:FIM fanfic I ever wrote; September 2013.

2 Amber Aldis

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were on opposite ends of the sky above Ponyville looking for a big enough cloud to cover the library. Fluttershy was the first to spot one. It was drifting away from the town.

“Rainbow Dash?”

Fluttershy was never one to raise her voice.

“I found a cloud.”

There was no sign of her friend.

“Rainbow Dash?”

She turned towards the cloud, grasped it and tried to move it. It began to slide towards her, but it was difficult work for her. It seemed heavier than it looked. Then, Rainbow Dash arrived.

“Oh. You heard me,” said Fluttershy.

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash. “Since I met you, I’ve been practising straining my ears to catch small noises. I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.”

It was tough going. Between Rainbow Dash’s sore wings and Fluttershy’s lack of muscle, the journey to the Library was taking a long time. Suddenly, Rainbow got a cramp and the cloud stopped abruptly. As it did, Fluttershy felt it tilt to one side. Then, to both their surprise and alarm, another pegasus slipped off the cloud and plummeted towards the ground.

“Whoa, she was sleeping on there!” cried Rainbow Dash.

She dived to try and catch the sleeping pegasus, but even with gravity pulling her down, she couldn’t go fast enough to catch her. And they were directly above the pond. Rainbow Dash could see the wolf river tree was still there splashing around.

“Little help?!” Rainbow Dash called.

One of the ingredients for Twilight’s rejuvenation potion had to sit for an hour before it could be added. Before that hour was up, darkness filled the library.

“Ah, good,” said Rarity. “Rainbow and Fluttershy found a cloud.”

And that wasn’t all they’d found.

“Hey Twilight, we’ve got another victim,” said Rainbow Dash and she and Fluttershy flew in carrying the unconscious pegasus. “The Venomodo must’ve spotted her and scratched her on his way back home.”

“Who is that?” asked Pinkie Pie. “I don’t recognise her.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Amber Aldis?”

“You know her?” asked Fluttershy.

“Yeah,” said Twilight, smiling a bit. “She’s a friend of mine from school.”

“Friend?” asked Rainbow Dash. “I thought the only friend you had in school was Spike.”

“Well, I guess she was more of a study buddy,” said Twilight. “So she was the closest thing I had to a pony friend back then.”

She looked at the victim’s mane, which was messy and had a few leaves in it.

“You might not have noticed,” she said to her two pegasus friends, “But…”

She brushed some of Amber’s hair aside to reveal a horn.

“…She’s an alicorn. A hereditary alicorn.”

Amber Aldis’ eyes were shut tight and she was breathing heavily. The scratch from the Venomodo had paralysed her. But like Twilight said, there was a simple cure. One spray of cold water on the wound later, Amber shot upright looking very bewildered.

“What- what happened?! Where am I?!”

She spotted Twilight and lit up… in more ways than one. Her horn turned a bright orange-yellow as if it were on fire.

“Twilight Sparkle?! Is that really you?”

“Hi, Amber,” smiled Twilight.

“How did you find me?” asked Amber.

“Well, my fr-”

But then Amber jumped. She spotted something on either side of Twilight.

“You’ve got wings!” she exclaimed. “How did you do that?!”

Twilight, not bothering to wonder why Amber hadn’t heard of her coronation, told her than she’d become a princess.

“You’re a princess?! Wow. How did you earn that title?” asked Amber, her horn still glowing.

“Princess Celestia decided I’d learned enough about a certain magic to become a leader,” Twilight smiled. “And that was the magic of friendship.”

Amber’s smile began to fade. “Friendship?”

At that moment, the hour glass ran out. The last ingredient for the rejuvenation potion was ready. As Twilight went to add it to the mix, no one saw the light from Amber’s horn go out completely.

Soon, Twilight, Amber, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy were outside looking up at the sky watching Rainbow Dash carry Spike high above Ponyville. Spike felt like a hot coal in Rainbow Dash’s hooves.

“Hang in there, Spike,” said Rainbow Dash. “You’ll be all better in no time.”

Once they were high enough, Rainbow Dash shot downwards. The extra weight of a baby dragon was certainly helping her get speed up. From the ground, the two of them were becoming clearer and clearer. Then at last, there was a loud bang and a whirlpool of colour erupted from Rainbow Dash as she continued to her descent.

“A sonic rainboom,” said Amber. “I’ve never seen one of those.”

As Rainbow Dash pulled out of the dive and zoomed around above the city, Spike recovered completely right before her eyes.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed. “I never thought I’d know what it feels like to be a pegasus pony!”

Spike had the ride of his life that afternoon. His heatstroke was completely gone and he felt fine and dandy.

“I wonder if all the cures for Venomodo poisons are as fun as this!” he said when at last Rainbow Dash set him down on the ground.

That evening, the Royal Taskforce had a celebratory dinner by the pond, which they’d roped off upon lifting the code red from Ponyville. Amber Aldis was their guest of honour and all of Twilight Sparkle’s friends were quite interested in their history in Canterlot.

“We were both studying unicorn magic,” said Twilight. “Amber knew I was Princess Celestia’s pupil and so she asked me if I could help her study more complex spells.”

“I did always want to learn more about magic than flying,” said Amber. “Not that I don’t like being a unicorn and a pegasus in one, but magic was much more appealing to me. The possibilities were endless.”

Amber’s horn lit up a bit.

“But Amber wasn’t a good learner,” said Twilight. “I mean no offence, but…”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Amber. “I was a bit forgetful. So I asked Twilight to help me study. But it wasn’t long before she developed a… pretty interesting opinion of me.”

Her horn dimmed down.

“I thought Amber would make a better flight student than a magic student,” said Twilight. “You did have an average WP number of 9.”

“9?” repeated Rainbow Dash. “At that age? Not bad. Have you ever thought of trying out for the Wonderbolts?”

Amber shook her head.

“I did go to junior flight camp,” she said, “but I didn’t do any better there than in magic school. I just wasn’t interested in becoming a competitive flyer. So I went back to school. I was a year behind everypony else in my grade and I was the only one in my class with no cutie mark.”

Applejack looked at Amber’s flank, which sported what looked like a beam of light with a helical arrow winding its way from its source. “So when dija get yours?”

“About halfway through that year,” Amber replied. “I was trying to find Twilight. No one could tell me where you’d gone.”

“Oh, that must’ve been the year Princess Celestia arranged for me to go to Saltlick City to learn about translation spells from Professor Raisin D’etre,” said Twilight. “I thought I’d left a note.”

“I don’t remember you leaving one,” said Spike. “I had the week off when you left.”

“Well I wanted to see if you could help me study again,” said Amber, “And I wound up searching a part of the school I’d never been in before. Then a breeze blew in an open window and blew out all the lanterns in the hall. For several minutes, I couldn’t see a thing. Then my horn glowed and lit a path to my loft.”

“So your cutie mark signifies your ability to guide yourself in the dark with the light from your horn?” asked Fluttershy.

“Yep,” said Amber happily. “I can find anything with this handy-dandy horn of mine.”

“That’s kind of funny,” said Pinkie Pie, “Because you were the one who needed finding today.”

Everypony had a good laugh at that.

“So tell me about how you became a princess,” said Amber. “You said it had something to do with learning about friendship, right?”

“Yes,” Twilight smiled. “Princess Celestia sent me here to inspect the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, but I wanted to find out if Nightmare Moon was coming back.”

“You mean Princess Luna?” asked Amber.

“What? How do you know about Princess Luna coming back but not about Twilight becoming a princess?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“I’ve been… never mind,” said Amber. “Go on, Twilight.”

Twilight told Amber about saving Equestria from Nightmare Moon’s eternal night, staying in Ponyville to study the magic of friendship, and rewriting Starswirl the Bearded’s unfinished spell after inadvertently swapping her friends’ cutie marks.

“And that’s how you earned your wings?” asked Amber.

“Yep. At the moment, I’m…” Twilight paused. “Rainbow Dash, how would you say I’m coming along?”

Rainbow Dash looked away.

“Oh, come on,” said Twilight, rolling her eyes. “I can’t have been as bad as you.”

Rainbow Dash ignored Twilight. “So where were you when Twilight became a princess?”

Amber groaned. “I’m still a year behind. I went to Saltlick City myself. They’re not very big on politics there. You don’t hear much about what’s going on with the Royal Family around that place. Anyway, I had to pass over Ponyville on my way back to Canterlot. But I ran into that… what’s it called again?”

“A Venomodo.”

“Right. It took one look at me and scratched me right across the wing.”

“You sent that letter to Princess Celestia, right Spike?” asked Twilight.

“Yep. She knows about the Venomodo, Amber’s injury and the clean-up operation tomorrow,” replied Spike.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t be flying yet?” asked Amber.

“Your injury is not like Rainbow Dash’s,” Twilight told her. “It’s a pretty deep scratch. My rejuvenation potion won’t make that any better. It shouldn’t take you more than a day to heal. But look on the bright side. You can definitely use magic.”

“Yeah.”

Amber looked down at her meal.

That’s all that matters, isn’t it? she thought to herself.

The truth was Amber didn’t like the fact that Twilight had to learn how important friendship is in order to become an alicorn princess. She’d never had trouble making friends herself. Even at junior flight camp, some young pegasi offered their support when she was having a hard time. She’d always seen Twilight as antisocial and only wanted her help studying magic because she’d been hoof-picked by Princess Celestia herself to learn lots and lots of spells. There were times when they’d been studying together that Amber thought Twilight was more interested in learning about what she was studying than if her study buddy was learning anything.

That night, Amber couldn’t help but ponder Princess Celestia’s decision as she laid in the bed Twilight had magiced her out of a book.

“Why did she teach Twilight the value of having friends so she could give her wings?” she wondered. “I was born with a horn and wings and I wasn’t opposed to making friends. And magic is my stronger point. So why was I never a candidate?”

She thought about what Twilight told her about the dark morning when she and her friends ventured into the Everfree Forrest to find the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters.

“Nightmare Moon nearly destroyed the Elements of Harmony,” Amber recalled. “If I’d been in Twilight’s place, we could’ve used them as soon as we found them.”

She found the thought of being in Twilight’s place during that time very pleasant. She liked Twilight’s friends and couldn’t help imagine how the scenario would have gone if she’d been chosen by Princess Celestia to learn magic directly from her and to go to Ponyville to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration.

She must’ve dreamt about this because when she next heard Twilight’s voice, she was completely dumbstruck.

“Sorry,” said Twilight, “But we could use some help cleaning up the mess by the pond. Would you mind?”

Amber got out of her bed and stretched. “Sure, why not? What do you want me to do? Inspect the sky; make sure the Venomodo isn’t hanging around?”

Twilight shook her head. “You said it flew away after it scratched you. I think it was pretty disgusted to be anywhere near a place inhabited by ponies. Besides, remember your wing? You should wait until this evening before flying.”

“OK,” Amber sighed.

“So, if you’re not using that bed anymore…”

Twilight’s horn glowed and in a flash, the bed turned back into an open book.

“Meet me at Sweet Apple Acres,” she said before leaving the room.

Amber didn’t get right to work. She had noticed something. The book Twilight had turned into a bed and back again was open to a page with a picture of a Venomodo on one page and a unicorn on another page.

“This must be Twilight’s guide to Venomodos,” she said.

Curiosity compelled her to have a look at the page it was open on. As she read on, she become more and more absorbed.

Pg. 196. ‘Egg Banjo was not the discoverer’s real name. In fact, he was not even an earth pony when he first encountered the horrible creature. In his own time, he was known as Dystopia and he was a unicorn pony. When he and his fellow farm workers were attacked, many of them had been permanently poisoned, and while most would say that Dystopia was lucky to have found cures for some of them, Dystopia himself desperately wished they hadn’t encountered the beast to begin with. Hence why when Starswirl the Bearded claimed to have discovered how to travel back in time and sent out a want ad for a unicorn to try it out, Dystopia jumped at the chance. So he ate a big breakfast of assorted fruits and vegetables and made his way to Canterlot, where Starswirl told him that the time travel spell wouldn’t last long and to go back to a time and place where no one would see him. Dystopia said he would, but he intended to go back and warn Saltlick City about the Venomodo. But when he arrived back in time, he appeared to not have a body. He was a ghostly creature who couldn’t be seen or heard by anypony.’

Pg. 197. ‘Dystopia remembered that one of the carrots he’d eaten had been sliced in half while the rest were still intact. He reached the conclusion that it had been sliced by the Venomodo’s claw and now he was infected by it, and also Starswirl’s new spell. He floated around shouting at his co-workers, and when he approached the earth pony Egg Banjo, he shouted in his ear leaning closer and closer until he found himself being sucked into his friend’s body. To his surprise, he had become Egg Banjo. He wondered if the real Egg Banjo was now a ghost floating around trying to get somepony to see and hear him. But now that he was solid, Dystopia had to warn the farm and the town about the impending danger. The problem was Egg Banjo had a reputation for being a jokester and when Dystopia told him that he had come back in time to warn his co-workers about the Venomodo, they were reluctant to take him seriously. Then the most extraordinary thing happened. Egg Banjo’s head sprouted a horn just like Dystopia’s own. He found he could grow and retract it as he pleased and it was perfectly functional. Now everypony was listening to him, but sadly, he had taken too long to get his message out and the farm’s encounter with the Venomodo went almost the same as the first one. Only this time Dystopia was able to cure the victims quicker. However, he was never able to leave Egg Banjo’s body, or return to the time and place he came from. He was forced to assume the life of Egg Banjo from then on, and the present day Dystopia decided to let him take the credit for discovering the cures for Venomodo poisons.’

Author's Note

Partly inspired by an episode of Red Dwarf; Back to Reality.

3 Poisoned

When Amber finished the page, she heard voices coming from the window. Pinkie Pie’s loud voice carried into the room, shifting Amber’s curiosity towards her and Twilight down below.

“It’s too bad,” Twilight said when Amber approached the window. “We were made Ponyville’s Royal Taskforce because we control the Elements of Harmony. But we couldn’t use them to fix this problem.”

“Oh, well,” Pinkie Pie smiled. “We still fixed it. And I got a new playmate.”

“You mean the tree?” asked Twilight.

“It’s so funny. It rose up from the water with fish on its branches and made everypony who passed by think they were growing on it.”

Pinkie rolled on the ground laughing, while Twilight began her journey to Sweet Apple Acres.

The wolf river tree! Amber thought. Could the Venomodo have sliced any of its apples?

She was seriously considering doing what Dystopia had done.

I could take Twilight’s place… I could go back to that Summer Sun Celebration day. I’ve BEEN in the Starswirl the Bearded Wing. I’ve SEEN the time travel spell. If I find a slashed apple, eat it and travel back in time…

Amber spent almost half an hour deciding whether or not she would take this big and possibly dangerous step. In the end, the temptation was too great for her to resist. But it might have been too late. When she got to Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack told her that Twilight and Spike were collecting the apples that fell off the wolf river tree.

She’ll never let me have one, she thought.

Applejack and Fluttershy were planting a new wolf river tree in the spot the old one jumped out of. Amber and Rarity were pulling carts while Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash loaded them up with twigs and branches strewn along the path to the pond.

“It’s a pity I can’t use my magic to pick up these branches,” Rarity sighed. “It’d save me the trouble of having to heave this dirty thing around.”

Pinkie and Rainbow just chuckled and went about their work. Amber was watching Twilight and Spike in the distance. Spike was picking up squashed and bruised apples and placing them in Twilight’s saddle bags. Amber stared hard at them as she and Rarity followed them from a distance. None of the apples Spike picked up looked like they’d been pierced by a claw.

Then she remembered something. “Hey Rainbow Dash, what did you do with that cloud you found me on?”

“Oh, me and Fluttershy brought it back to where it was,” replied Rainbow Dash. “Outside Ponyville. Schedule says today’s supposed to be sunny and clear again.”

Amber started making a plan.

From time to time, Amber and Rarity had to unload their carts to make room for more branches. Twilight had to unload her bags as well, but it was in a different spot. So Amber was trying to think of a way to get them alone together. Her chance came late that afternoon when she saw a small hole in the ground directly in her path. Pinkie Pie didn’t notice, so when they made their way to the next branch, Amber picked up speed and bounced the cart over the hole so hard, the right wheel fell off.

“Wow,” said Rainbow Dash. “I expected Rarity to try and break her cart, but not you.”

“What, do you think I did that on purpose?” asked Amber.

“I’m just kidding,” smirked Rainbow Dash, not in the least bit suspicious.

As both their carts weren’t very full, Rainbow Dash loaded the spilt branches onto Rarity’s cart. Pinkie Pie took the broken one away, and Amber went on ahead to tell Twilight about the “accident”.

“Well, there aren’t many branches left,” said Twilight. “I guess Rainbow and Rarity can manage the rest.”

“Twilight,” said Amber, “I swear my wing is healed. Can I go up to that cloud Rainbow and Fluttershy found me on?”

“What for?”

“When that Venomodo scratched me, its claw came off. It might still be wedged in the cloud.”

“Oh, that’s a good point,” conceded Twilight, looking up at the sky and spotting the cloud they were referring to. “Alright, if you really feel you’re up to it, go see if it’s there. If you run into trouble, like if your wing starts hurting you and you can’t fly, shine your horn and I’ll come and help you.”

“Got it,” said Amber.

Spike was almost done collecting all the apples on the bank, so Twilight hardly took her eyes off the cloud sitting on the skyline. She saw no sign of Amber or her light for several minutes. Then, when Spike told her they had gotten all the upset apples and they began heading toward the disposal site, Twilight saw a flash of light come from the cloud and took off at once, still wearing her saddle bags. Spike was feeling drowsy from working all day and didn’t notice her leave.

Twilight reached the cloud, but there was no sign of Amber.

“Amber?!” she called. “Are you here?!”

Something popped up out of the cloud and scraped her hoof.

“Ow!”

Amber emerged from the cloud holding a long, brown claw.

“I found it,” she sneered.

All of a sudden, Twilight began to lose all the feeling in her legs and wings.

“Amber! Did- did you… paralyze…?!”

She couldn’t finish. In a split second, she collapsed onto the cloud gasping for breath.

Amber walked up to her, reached into her saddlebags and pulled out an apple that wasn’t scratched or squashed. Then, to Twilight’s horror, she made a gash in it with her Venomodo claw and ate it.

“Whyyyy are you p-poisoning us both?” Twilight managed to ask.

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Amber smirked. “This won’t affect me until I go back in time.”

Twilight would have gone wide-eyed, but her eyelids were getting heavy.

“Why?” she wheezed almost inaudibly.

“Because you were a lousy candidate for Princess Celestia’s new Princess,” Amber scowled. “I can understand Princess Cadance because she can spread love around, so she was the perfect choice for ruling the Crystal Empire. But you had to find everything out the hard way. Not only did you have to earn your wings, but also the right to have great friends. I was born with wings and good social skills. So I’m gonna go back in time and take your place. And I promise you, I won’t be like Dystopia. I WILL change the past. Nightmare Moon won’t have a prayer.”

Twilight suddenly remembered the book she used to make Amber’s bed, but before she could try to say anything to Amber, she stepped off of the cloud and kicked it away. As it drifted away from Ponyville carrying a fully paralysed Twilight with it, Amber began to cast the time travel spell.

Things turned blurry. Amber felt sick in a matter of seconds. She was spinning around and around in a sea of swirling multi-hued lights. She felt as if she’d made her own sonic rainboom after taking a ride on a Dizzitron. But quite soon, the spinning and the brightness stopped. Amber still felt funny. She looked at herself. She wasn’t flying. She was floating. Looking around, she could see a cart in the distance being pulled by two pegasi. And sitting onboard the cart was Twilight Sparkle and Spike.

“It worked!” exclaimed Amber.

And with that, she drifted over to the cart as it was towed towards Ponyville.

The first thing she heard when she approached the cart was Spike reading from a letter.

“…I am sending you to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration in this year’s location, Ponyville…”

Amber couldn’t help but laugh at the look of utter disinterest on Twilight’s face, but she knew from the book she read that they wouldn’t hear her.

“And,” Spike read on, “I have an even more essential task for you to complete. Make some friends.”

Amber decided that this was the perfect time to take over Twilight’s body. She floated right up to Twilight and in an instant, she felt herself being sucked into her body like a sink drain. Things went dark for a second, and then she found herself looking down at the ground from the cart. She gave her head a little shake.

“Look on the bright side, Twilight,” said Spike. “The Princess arranged…”

“You just told me the bright side.”

Amber sounded just like Twilight. Everything was going exactly as she planned.

“I suppose I might as well try and make a few friends,” she went on, surprising Spike. “After all, I pretty much turned everypony at school away. Don’t you think?”

“Uh, well you do tend to blow everypony off,” said Spike.

Clearly, he didn’t suspect a thing.

This’ll be easy Amber thought.

Amber did her best to remember every little detail about Twilight’s first visit to Ponyville and encounter with her friends. Step one was easy; Act surprised at Pinkie Pie’s odd reaction as soon as she said “Hello”.

“Huh,” she said. “Looks like my reputation precedes me.”

“Don’t let that put you off, Twilight,” said Spike encouragingly.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll keep trying,” said Amber. “Um, could you give me a second?”

She trotted off behind a building where no one could see her. She wanted to see if she could sprout wings. Sure enough, two ordinary sized wings popped out with just a thought.

“Hm. I guess I can’t really take these out,” she said quietly to herself. “But hey, like I told Twilight, I was born with wings so I’ll earn new ones in no time.”

Amber’s inspection of the preparations didn’t go completely different from Twilight’s. At the orchard, the Apple family liked her from the start just like Twilight said. Only when they invited her and Spike to join them for brunch, she accepted without a moment’s hesitation. Time seemed to fly past for her because her stay lasted a lot longer than Twilight’s, so she was a bit behind schedule with the next item on the list. But it didn’t matter because Rainbow Dash hadn’t gotten around to clearing the sky yet. There was no bump-into this time around, but when they visited Rarity at the boutique, she was still enchanted when Amber told her she was from Canterlot. And when it came time to inspect the music, Amber introduced Fluttershy to Spike right away.

At last, Amber, Spike and Fluttershy arrived at the library, where Twilight’s surprise party was waiting. Amber felt great to be properly introduced to Pinkie Pie, but unfortunately, Twilight didn’t tell her about the hot sauce so she spent a few minutes drinking out of the faucet before getting into the swing of the party. The night went spectacularly from the introductory chatter, to the numerous party platters, to the conga line, to the piñata, right up to pin the tail on the pony. Amber got along so well with Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Rarity, that when it was time to move on to Carousel Boutique, she was very disappointed. But before she left with her friends, she walked up to the bedroom where no one could see or hear her.

“I hope you can see this, Twilight,” she said to the empty room. “This is the way to serve Princess Celestia.”

The thought of Twilight’s ghost flying around watching her live it up with the ponies who would have become her friends made Amber even happier inside.

Amber never let on that she was worried about Nightmare Moon’s return, as Princess Celestia requested in her letter to Twilight that she give the reading a rest. However, she found it hard to stop looking at the moon as the Mayor began to speak.

“Whatcha lookin at, Twilight?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“Um, nothing,” Amber had to think about what she would say. “I, uh… I just have a funny feeling that I’m forgetting something.”

She decided that rather than consult Elements of Harmony: a Reference Guide like Twilight did, she would simply tell her friends that she’d read it before.

“What’d you forget?” asked Pinkie Pie. “No wait, don’t tell me, don’t tell me. Um, you didn’t brush your teeth? No! You left a light on in the library! Oh, oh, oh! You can’t remember what that piñata looked like! Is that it?!”

“Um, I can’t really tell you what I forgot if I forgot it, can I?” asked Amber with a slight chuckle.

“Oh, right!”

The choir of birds began to sing, the spotlight lit up, the Mayor made her introduction, and Rarity pulled the curtain. There was no Princess Celestia.

“She’s gone!” Rarity said.

“Oh!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie. “That’s what you forgot! You forgot to bring Princess Celestia!”

“I wasn’t responsible for bringing her here,” Amber was trying not to laugh too much given the scenario she was in.

Then came the legendary Mare in the Moon. There was a collective gasp from the crowd as she stood on the balcony looking down on them.

“Oh, my beloved subjects. It’s been so long since I’ve seen your…”

Amber quickly lost the desire to laugh. She began to feel a sense of dread. Nightmare Moon was quite intimidating. Looking around at everypony’s worried faces, Amber began to wonder if she should have mentioned something about Nightmare Moon’s return earlier. Maybe they could have found the Elements of Harmony and used them on her as soon as she returned with her eternal night.

“…What? No on put their hoof on it? What a shame. How could you all forget the tale of the Mare in the Moon?”

“You’re N-Nightmare Moon?!” exclaimed Rarity.

Oops, thought Amber. I missed my cue.

Now it was too late to tell Nightmare Moon that she knew she was coming back after a thousand year imprisonment.

“Yes, I am. And I have returned at long last.”

The crowd gasped again.

“Remember this day, for it was your last. From now on, the night will last forever!”

“Seize her!” the Mayor ordered. “She’s the only one who knows where Princess Celestia is!”

The guards advanced on Nightmare Moon, but she summoned a lightning strike to keep them away. Then she turned into a cloud of black smoke and floated out the door into her everlasting night. Rainbow Dash attempted to chase her, but even she couldn’t keep up with a royal pony sister.

“Rainbow, come back in here!” Applejack called. “Twilight says she thinks she knows what to do.”

While the other ponies were scattering around taking in the untimely darkness and pondering what was to become of Equestria, Amber, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy spoke quietly in the boutique. Spike had dropped off to sleep and was now in a very annoyed Opalescence’s bed.

“Well Pinkie Pie, I remember what I forgot,” said Amber. “I read about how Princess Celestia had defeated Nightmare Moon a thousand years ago using some magical objects called the Elements of Harmony.”

“Elements of Harmony?” repeated Applejack. “What are those?”

“There are six of them,” said Amber. “Kindness, Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity… um…”

She shot a glance at Pinkie Pie to refresh her memory.

“Oh, yeah. Laughter, and Magic,” she finished.

“Did the book say where they are now?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Yeah. Um, you’re not gonna like this…”

Again, Amber was nervous. She’d never gone into the Everfree Forest before, but of course, none of her new friends had either. And she was certain they were her friends, as all five of them agreed to go into the forest with her to look for the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. All the same, as they ventured into the overgrown woodland, her nervous feeling didn’t leave. She remembered that Twilight said the first thing that happened was the ridge collapsed beneath them. She hoped she wouldn’t panic and sprout her wings to fly to safety. Luckily for her, this didn’t happen… because the ridge didn’t collapse.

When Twilight Sparkle told Nightmare Moon that she knew who she was and that she would return that night, the legendary mare grew curious about her knowledge of the Elements of Harmony. So when she went back to Ponyville to find Twilight and discovered that she was reading about their last known location, she’d followed them into the Everfree Forest to prevent them from getting to the castle and the elements. But Amber Aldis didn’t draw attention to herself when Nightmare Moon asked if anypony remembered her. So on this night, Nightmare Moon wasn’t floating around the forest looking for ways to halt anypony’s progress. She was hovering all around Equestria basking in the moonlight feeling larger than life…

Author's Note

Before I got into this game, most of my fantasy insight came from Harry Potter.

4 Unattainable

“Let me know if any of you see any large, scary animals,” Amber told the others as they headed deeper and deeper into the forest without difficulty. “Like, say, a manticore or something.”

“I’d like to see a manticore,” smiled Fluttershy. “They’re like big kitty-cats.”

No manticores. Their journey was only made difficult twice. First they ventured under a dark canopy of trees. They started bumping into each other, stepping on each other’s hooves, stepping in mud but not knowing it at first… but no one saw any trees with scary faces. After that, they had no problem crossing the shallow river, making Amber feel more and more like something was wrong. Their second bump in the road came in the form of a collapsed rope bridge. It was a job for Rainbow Dash.

“If you see anypony there,” Amber called when Rainbow flew to the other side of the chasm, “don’t let them distract you!”

“Who do you expect to be there?” asked Rarity.

“Nightmare Moon?” shuddered Fluttershy.

“Somepony,” said Amber. “I expected something to try and stop us from getting to the castle.”

“Guess we’re just lucky,” smiled Applejack.

Amber began to wonder if her actions had improved the outcome of their trip through the forest.

I’m better for the job than I thought, she thought.

Rainbow Dash had no encounters when she secured the bridge, so now they were all making their way to the castle to find the Elements of Harmony.

“Here they are!” Pinkie Pie called when they got in.

“Rainbow, Fluttershy, would you mind taking them off those pedestals?” asked Amber.

The pegasi carefully picked up each stone slab and placed them in a circle in front of Amber, who couldn’t wait to put them to use.

“Hang on a sec, one of em’s missing,” said Applejack.

Amber looked. There were only five elements. She looked around the statue. There were no other slabs. Rarity and Pinkie Pie looked in the corners of the room. No other slabs. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew around the castle searching every room, cell and tower. No other slabs. Applejack and Amber sprinted around the castle walls. No other slabs.

“I’ll have to use my magic,” said Amber after their fruitless search led them all back to the circle of elements they found. “My horn can guide me anywhere, it should help me find a lost item too.”

“It ain’t too bright, is it?” asked Applejack. “We don’t to get spotted.”

“No, it just shines a path on the floor and the ground,” said Amber. “It’s like a trail with torches set up along either side.”

But Amber had never tried to find something that was unattainable before. The element they were looking for, Magic, was completely insubstantial. So when Amber tried her navigational spell to find the sixth element, the light from her horn seemed to explode. There was a flash of light the size of the castle itself, punctuated by a loud bang like a fire cracker. The six adventurers all had ringing ears and cloudy vision for over a minute.

“Did Twilight blow up?” asked Rainbow Dash, whose vision hadn’t come back yet.

“I don’t know what Twilight did,” Amber said quietly.

Then Rarity gasped. “The elements! They’ve shattered!”

The others squinted in the direction of the circle of elements only to see piles of dust settling at the hooves of…

“Nightmare Moon!”

“How dare you disrespect my beautiful night?!” bellowed the Mare in the Moon. “I didn’t spend a millennium trapped in the moon to give you all a gift and have you try to spoil it!”

“What did you do with the sixth element?!” Rainbow Dash demanded.

And, not even waiting for an answer, she charged at Nightmare Moon. But before she could strike, there was another flash of light. Not from Amber, but from Nightmare Moon.

The bright flash of light was followed by complete darkness.

“What- where am I?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Where all all of us?” came Pinkie Pie’s voice.

Amber lit up her horn and felt panic consume her. She and her companions were in an enclosed, circular, rocky place. There was no doubt where Nightmare Moon had taken them.

“We’ve been imprisoned in the moon ourselves!” cried Amber.

Pinkie Pie immediately took a bite out of the wall. Her face contorted.

“Yuck! This stuff isn’t cheese!” she groaned, spitting chunks of gravel out.

“So how do we get outta here?” asked Applejack.

“I could try teleporting us to Ponyville,” said Amber, hoping with every cell in her body that it would work.

They huddled together and Amber tried the teleportation spell. But it didn’t work at all. They didn’t go anywhere. Amber began to tremble.

“How did this happen?!” she shrieked. “How did this go wrong?! Why were there only five?! I didn’t take forever to accept you all on as my friends! I did everything right!”

“Apparently not,” Rarity replied, shaking quite a bit herself. “And things were going so well, too.”

“No they weren’t! Everything was all wrong!” burst out Amber.

“I thought the forest wasn’t bad,” said Fluttershy.

“Wasn’t bad?! We never got held up by anything! There was no landslide, no manticores, no spooky trees, no weedy sea monsters, no Shadowbolts, no problems at all! Where were they?!”

“What are you talking about?!” demanded Applejack. “Just what were you expecting?”

“I was expecting trials and triumph, not a safe journey and a magical element shortage!”

Amber was falling to pieces. She was curled up in a ball crying her eyes out.

“Alright, calm down,” said Rarity.

“Calm down?! Are you crazy?! We failed! We’re stuck! What did I do?! I can’t believe this!”

“Hey, it wasn’t your fault,” Pinkie Pie said kindly.

“Yes it was! I…” Amber gulped. “I’m not Twilight Sparkle! I’m Amber Aldis!”

And it all came out so fast that they could barely keep up with her as she babbled about travelling in time and invading Twilight’s body.

“You mean you tried to take the real Twilight Sparkle’s place because you thought you could do better than her?!” exclaimed Rarity.

“You were just acting for us?” Fluttershy leered.

“You’re a fraud?!” snarled Rainbow Dash.

Amber couldn’t speak anymore. She just nodded and buried her head in her hooves.

“Well,” Rarity sniffed, “Thank you for letting us take the fall with you, you charlatan!”

“I don’t care if the real Twilight Sparkle was anti-social,” frowned Pinkie Pie. “At least she had Equestria’s best interests in mind. At least she took Nightmare Moon’s return seriously!”

“You’re right,” Amber sobbed. “I don’t understand why, but she did do it right the first time. How could I have left her paralysed on that cloud?”

Twilight was completely immobile.

“Help…”

Her breathing was deep and heavy, yet quiet.

“Please…”

It hurt to open her eyes and even more to speak.

“Help me…”

Even so, she constantly heaved a cry for help whenever she could summon enough strength.

“Can anypony… hear me…?”

“I can hear you!”

Twilight’s right eye shot open and when the pain subsided, there was Rainbow Dash flying up to the cloud she was marooned on.

“Holy jumping jockeys! What happened, Twilight?!”

Twilight shut her eye again and tried to raise her scratched hoof, but it only quivered feebly.

“I need… water…”

“Water? I’ll be right back,” said Rainbow Dash.

She took off and before Twilight could breathe, she came back with a small raincloud. Twilight gave one big effort and stuck her hoof out. Rainbow Dash grasped her raincloud and gave it a squeeze. Water shot out of the end and doused Twilight’s wound. Overwhelmed with refreshment, Twilight opened her eyes and stood up, taking a deep breath and sighing with great relief.

“I can’t thank you enough, Rainbow Dash.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rainbow smiled. “Me and my super hearing powers would never leave a princess hanging. So what happened?”

Twilight told her about Amber.

“She infected herself, too?!” Rainbow was dumbfounded. “How would that help her take your spot?!”

“She read about Dystopia going back in time and taking over Egg Banjo’s body to try and change the past and fend off the Venomodo,” Twilight told her. “But she didn’t know it was made up.”

“Made up?”

“I was too weak to tell her. That book she read was about myths from olden pony times. She thought it was my guide to Venomodos. But there was no pony called Dystopia. Starswirl the Bearded never asked for somepony to be a guinea pig. It was all a legend.”

“So what did that apple do to her?” asked Rainbow Dash.

Twilight looked very concerned. “Eating apples infected by Venomodos causes hallucinations. She fell out of the sky when she stepped off the cloud.”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash feared the worst as they flew down to the ground in search of the infected Amber Aldis. Before long, they found her. She was lying on the ground sobbing, but she was completely unharmed.

“How in Equestria did see survive that fall?” Twilight was amazed.

Rainbow Dash looked around. “She must’ve had a soft landing. Look over there. Fluffle Puff’s out sleep walking again.”

Twilight looked where Rainbow Dash was pointing and there was Fluffle Puff staggering around completely asleep.

Amber began to wail. “I’m so sorry! I was wrong! I kicked Twilight out of her body and tried to do what she did, and all I did was get us all stuck in the moon! I doomed Equestria! I’m so stupid! I couldn’t figure out how…!”

“Ugh! Can’t we shut her up, somehow?” asked Rainbow Dash. “What’s the cure?”

Twilight shook her head.

“There’s no cure?!”

“No, Rainbow,” Twilight sighed. “Egg Banjo and his friends couldn’t find one.”

Amber stopped crying for a second. “Did… did any of you just hear something?”

Rainbow and Twilight looked at her. Amber winced. It seemed that in her mind, somepony had snapped at her.

“I just thought I heard Twilight’s voice.”

Twilight blinked, and gestured to Rainbow Dash to keep quiet.

“Yeah…” Amber squeaked. “The real Twilight. Maybe it’s her ghost.”

She paused, looking around.

“Are you there, Twilight?”

Twilight knelt down to Amber.

“Yes, it’s me,” she said into Amber’s ear.

“It is!” Amber exclaimed. “Twilight’s ghost is here! Twilight, please, can you help us? I’m sorry I took control of your body. You can have it back if you want. I sure don’t want to be in it anymore. I’ll take being a ghost to being stuck in…”

“Calm down, Amber,” said Twilight. “You may have made a big mistake, but I won’t let you rot in there forever. I can help you, Amber. I can take you back to before you went back in time.”

“You can?!”

“Yes. I can take you back to where you came from,” Twilight said.

“She can help us!” Amber cried with delight. “She can fix everything!”

Amber began jumping gleefully. It was safe to assume that everypony in her head was doing the same.

“What are you going to do?” whispered Rainbow Dash. “You can’t use magic on her. She’s infected.”

“I’m just gonna try and make her hallucinate what we’re seeing right now,” Twilight replied quietly. “If I can make her think I’m transporting her back to Ponyville, maybe she’ll see this place as it is.”

Rainbow hoped she would. Twilight leaned back to Amber.

“OK, now close your eyes,” she said in Amber’s ear. “After you hear a bang, open your eyes. You’ll be back in Ponyville safe and sound.”

Amber shut her eyes tightly. Rainbow walked up to Amber’s other ear, Twilight counted to three, and they both blew into Amber’s ears causing her to hear a bang.

Amber took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She looked around.

“Twilight!” she exclaimed. “Rainbow!”

Amber leaped into the air full of happiness and relief.

“I’m back! I’m back!”

She turned to Twilight and bowed her head.

“Twilight- I mean, Princess Twilight. I want to apologise for what I did. I could have ruined Equestria’s future. Please, could you tell me how you found the sixth Element of Harmony? I promise, I won’t try that again. I just can’t figure out where I went wrong.”

“You mean after you poisoned a princess and…!”

“Stop it, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight hissed. “She means it. She knows she was wrong.”

Rainbow reluctantly subsided.

“You see Amber, the book on the elements said that a spark would make it appear and I tried to make a spark out of magic,” Twilight told Amber. “And it didn’t work and Nightmare Moon shattered the stone slabs. But when I heard the others coming and calling for me… when I realized I wasn’t on my own anymore… I felt a spark ignite inside me. And that’s what made the Element of Magic come to me.”

Amber looked away. “That’s why Princess Celestia chose you. You had to learn about friendship the hard way to create a spark and bring back the missing element.”

“Look at me, Amber Aldis,” said Twilight.

Amber, more ashamed than worried about what Twilight might do to her, looked the princess in the face.

“You’re still infected,” Twilight told her bluntly. “You wanted to focus more on your magical abilities than your flying abilities, but if you use magic now, you’ll… you’ll…”

Amber shook and began to tear up again.

“I suppose you punished yourself,” Twilight added.

“Wait, you mean you’re not gonna throw her in prison?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Hey, didn’t you hear her?” Twilight chuckled. “She already was imprisoned in the moon. Now she’s trapped in a magic-free life. I don’t think she should go to prison.”

Amber smiled weakly. “You’re too kind, Twilight.”

“I do have a request, though,” said Twilight.

The following morning, Princess Celestia received a letter from Ponyville.

“Dear Princess Celestia,

How right you were when you said Princess Twilight still has a lot to learn and to teach others. And last night, a very valuable lesson was learned about learning lessons. It doesn’t matter when you learn something important, whether you figure it out a long time ago or had to be taught by somepony wiser than you. Knowing more about something than somepony else doesn’t make you better than them. It doesn’t matter when you learn an important lesson, just as long as it’s not too late.

Your faithful subjects,

Twilight Sparkle and Amber Aldis.”

Author's Note

From here, I found myself writing one new story every week until the week of the Season 4 premier.