Progress

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

Chapter 1

Before we get started, let me tell you something about progress: it is unstoppable. It is occurring all the time, everywhere, indefinitely.
You cannot stop it.
You may be able to struggle against it; to start a desperate attempt to escape its adamant grip, but it won’t use you anything. At the end of the day, you will have lost the fight – you will find yourself grown old, worn out, and faced with a world you won’t even recognize anymore.
You will see; after all, we are nothing but dust grains in the wind of change; nothing but drops in the everlasting flow of time, impelled by the merciless force we call progress.
The story I am about to tell you is about a mare who learned exactly that lesson – who learned how drastically her world can change in the blink of an eye, and how little she –despite being a Princess and one of the most powerful ponies in all of Equestria- can do about it.
She learned it all, and she learned it the hard way.
Her name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is her story.

Chapter 1

It began on a dull Sunday in November. Autumn was almost over, and the hidden afternoon sun barely managed to heat up the country. Along with the stiff breeze that blew over the frozen area, the lack of warming sunlight kept the temperatures at frosty 41 degrees.

A shiver ran through her body as her hooves touched the cold concrete of the platform and a gust of icy wind blew into her face.

She let her glance wander over the deserted station. “Where is he?”

With growing confusion, she scanned the place once again. “Really, where is he? He said we’d meet at noon, why is he late?” she asked herself, the frosty air causing puffs of warm air to rise in front of her.

Another gust of wind swiped her fur as the train behind departed, leaving the small station behind. Casting a wistful look over her shoulder, she watched her only chance to return to Ponyville anytime soon drive off.

Her teeth began to chatter as she turned her head back towards the platform. Most of the few ponies that had arrived with her had already left the station; safe for a single senior that was busy sweeping up the fallen leaves of a nearby trees.

She rubbed her freezing hooves against each other, trying to protect them from the merciless cold. “Come on, BBBFF, where are you?” she whispered breathlessly, “You can’t let me down now!”

She waited for another minute, then cast a desperate glance at the deserted platform in front of her, and concluded that her partner had stood her up. Letting out an angry snort, she then turned around and headed towards the exit of the small station.

Feeling her anger grow, she kicked up some snow and growled, “What’s wrong with him? He’s never bailed on me before!” She stopped for a moment, then looked to the ground and huffed, “Though I can imagine what has happened: there’s probably been an ‘important’ captain of the guard-thing that had to be done first!”

Slowly, her head sunk and she sighed, feeling how a single tear shot into her eyes. It froze before she could blink the moisture away. “More important than picking up his little sister in time…”

She was just about to reach the small exit door when she heard it; that familiar voice she had known ever since early foalhood. “Twily!” it sounded throughout the station, involuntarily sending a shiver of happiness through her spine.

Twilight Sparkle spun around, her muscles aching due to the frosty temperatures. There he was; facing her with an embarrassed smile, he had stepped through the opposite entrance of the station and now trotted towards her. Shining Armor, her big brother, did not bail on her. It didn't soften the anger though.

His snow-white fur and blue mane were slightly unkempt by the severe wind blowing over the platform. His cerulean eyes gave her an apologizing look as he made his way across the platform and towards her.

She frowned at him, but said nothing.

“Sorry I’m late!” He shouted over the platform, “I wanted to leave earlier, but Cadence needed my help with something. Didn’t mean to stand you up.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, yet still remained silent.

Her brother approached her and gently rubbed his muzzle against her side, saying, “Hey, don’t you begin to pout now. Do you want to end our little trip before it’s even begun?”

The thought of their imminent excursion brightened her mood considerably and she looked up, facing her brother and saying, “No. No, of course not.” She looked to the side slightly embarrassed, “Sorry if I was a little huffy.”

Shining Armor gave her a warm smile, saying: “It’s fine. I was late after all.” Turning away from her and facing the exit, he added, “Now, I think we should get a move on. The wind is freshening steadily and we want to arrive before sunset, don’t we?”

As if by command, the icy wind made Twilight’s skin creep and she followed her brother, saying, “Of course, I’m right behind you.”

During the walk to the exit, a cloud of awkward silence seemed to hover above them, until Shining Armor finally started a conversation. “So … how was your trip? Quite long, I guess.” He asked over his shoulder with a light chuckle in his voice.

With a weak smile, Twilight replied, “Yeah, I’m on my hooves for quite a while now. … Couldn’t really sleep on the way here.” she added hesitantly.

“So you’re just as excited as me?” her brother asked eagerly.

Making an effort to return the smile, Twilight turned her head back, looking at the abandoned dirt road that appeared in front of them. “Of course I am.” she said, “If it turns out that Celestia was right and there are signs of Queen Chrysalis’ existence to be found in the Crystal Mountains, what does that mean for us? What does that mean for Equestria? Would she try to start another attack? Would we be prepared?”

Doing his best to hide his embarrassment, Shining Armor slowly nodded and turned his head away, muttering, “Yeah … that’s bugged me too. I mean … a return of Chrysalis … that would be horrible.”

Twilight couldn’t hold back a smile. Certainly, she knew that they wouldn’t find any signs of the presumed dead queen of the changelings. Even if she would have survived her literal expulsion, Twilight was sure that the Crystal Mountains were one of the last places she would go. After all, Chrysalis would most likely aim at rebuilding her empire and taking revenge on Twilight and her friends. An eternal ice desert certainly wasn’t the best place to pursue that kind of goal.

No, Twilight knew the reason why she had traveled to the Crystal Empire, even though Princess Celestia had never told her directly, the signs had been more than obvious.

Ever since her coronation and following move to Canterlot, Twilight hardly ever had time for her private life. Her daily routine was littered with ‘Princess-training’ -as Celestia tended to call it-, lessons in politics and economy, and of course –what Twilight loved the most of all- formal soirées. She had to spend entire evenings just smiling, looking magnificent, and, well, being a proper Princess. Always knowing that the smallest semblance of misconduct would cast a poor light on not only her and Celestia, but on all of Equestria. Needless to say, Twilight was overwhelmed.

However, Princess Celestia seemed to have noticed that the drastic change of lifestyle had strained her student – more than what was good for her.

Of course, she couldn’t just have sent the new Princess on vacation – Princesses never took a vacation, and it would have been abhorrent to Twilight’s strict schedule to give her some unfounded time off.

But Celestia had a plan, for she knew another pony whose job made it hard for him to stay in touch with the ones he loved. Somepony who was closer to Twilight than anypony else.

So she had approached the newest Princess and sent her to the Crystal Empire, telling her to meet with Shining Armor and follow up rumors about a possible hideout of Queen Chrysalis.

However, both of them knew what Celestia had intended with sending them on this mission: she wanted them to take some time out; to spend some time as brother and sister, not as Princess and captain of the royal guard.

And so it happened that Twilight caught her big brother off guard as she flung her foreleg around his neck. “But you can’t believe how glad I am to finally spend some time with my BBBFF.” she whispered into his ear with tears of happiness in her eyes.

Shining Armor, slowly understanding what was going on, acknowledged the hug, and said, “The same goes for me, Twily. It’s been too long since we did something together. Just the two of us.”

“Too right!” Twilight approved, enjoying the touch of her brother’s soft fur on her ear.

“And even if we don’t find something, the trip was definitely worthwhile.” Shining Armor added with a slight cackle in his voice.

Twilight smirked, “Yeah, if we don’t find something!”

Noticing that his sister was slightly shivering from the cold, Shining Armor said, “Are you cold?” he pointed a hoof at a small saddlebag on his back, “I’ve got an overcoat with me.”

Twilight, making an effort to hide her chattering teeth, ended the embrace with her brother and backed off. “No thank you. It’ll be fine if we keep moving.” She said, tilting her head into the direction of the distant mountains, “We want to arrive before sunset, don’t we?”

Her brother nodded. “Of course, let’s get going then.”

A few moments after the two ponies had continued making their way to the foot of the mountain, Shining Armor turned his head towards Twilight and asked, “So, how’s the whole … princess-thing going so far? Are you getting along?”

She couldn’t hold back a dry smirk: she had heard that question so many times in the time since her coronation, she’d already worked out a standard-answer: “It is very nice. Hard to get used to, but definitely a great honor.” She would have said to every other pony asking her about it.

However, her brother got to hear her real opinion. “It’s horrible!” she said with a severe lack of enthusiasm

Shining Armor gave her a staggered look, but remained silent.

“Don’t get me wrong!” she quickly added, “It’s a great honor to be a Princess, and I am especially honored to be alongside Celestia, but…” she sighed, “I miss my life as a unicorn! Those times when I was just Twilight, the normal, ordinary student, not Princess Twilight Sparkle, the future co-ruler of Equestria!”

“Twilight, you-“

“I mean, it’s just so…” she flourished her hoof, trying to find the words to express her feelings, “It’s just so much at once! The world as I know it has been turned upside down basically overnight!”

“Twily-“

“Everything has become so complicated! Do you know how much pressure comes with being a Princess!?” she asked her brother with widened eyes, “You have to be dressed up to the nines all day, have to smile every time other ponies show up, have to consider everything you do twice…” she sighed deeply, “I miss my easy life.”

“Sis!”

“I mean, all that wouldn’t be so bad if I would have had some time to accommodate myself to it! To get used to it step by step! But no, I just got plunged in at the deep end! I was-“

Her brother gently placed a hoof on her mouth. “You have to stop being so stressed, little sister.” He said softly, “Yes, there has been a lot of change in your life within a short period of time; yes, you have been thrown in at the deep end, but that’s something everypony experiences in his or her life. The world changes - sometimes quicker, sometimes slower, but it changes steadily. And sometimes it just moves faster than you. Sometimes, it just presents you with a cruel ultimatum, and expects you to deal with it.”

Shining Armors sudden revelation into philosophy kept Twilight quiet more than his hoof.

“But the essential thing is that you don’t let it throw you off the track!” Shining Armor assured her, “Even if it’s caught you off-guard, you can’t allow it to get you down. It may seem hard now, but trust me, as soon as you get used to it, as soon as you’ve caught up with the course of time, it’s going to be a lot easier!”

Staring at her brother with her mouth hanging open, Twilight said, “…uhh...wow.”

Shining Armor leaned forward and rubbed his muzzle against hers, saying: “Don’t worry, sis. It’s gonna be alright.”

Slowly raising his head and looking at the road ahead of them, he added, “But we should really carry on now. The sun is lowering already.”

With a quick shake of her head, Twilight loosened herself from her stiffness and said, “Yeah. Yeah, we should move on. You’ve got the map, right?”

Getting under way, her brother pointed toward his saddlebag and said, “Overcoat, map and rations; it’s all in here!”

“Alright then.” Twilight said, noticing that an anticipative grin formed on her face, “Then let the adventure begin!”

She didn’t know how long they had been walking already - seven, eight hours at least. The sun had set an eternity ago, at about the same time when they had crossed the snow line.

The ascent to the first mountain could only be described with the word ‘torture’. Twilight certainly wasn’t the pony to whine about trifles like aching legs or hurting hooves, but she definitely had a hard time keeping her mouth shut as the seemingly endless ascent ahead of her and the pain-enduing rocks underneath her hooves had gotten attended by a stiff, icy breeze and rotten-cold snowflakes landing on her unprotected fur.

Shining Armor, who didn’t seem to be affected by the bone-chilling cold - or was good at hiding it - had offered her his overcoat several times already, but she had always declined. As Celestia had told her, being a Princess meant to be prepared - or to deal with the consequences of one’s carelessness.

She had forgotten to bring a coat.

Of course, it had grinded on her nerves; she had known that she would have been better off with the coat, but accepting the desired garment would have meant to ignore one of the most important lessons Celestia had taught her, and she couldn’t stand to disappoint her beloved mentor.

So she had clenched her teeth and continued her journey, following her brother on their seemingly endless ascent to the spot Celestia had made out for them.

In the meantime, the wind had grown from a stiff breeze to a howling storm, blowing loads of snow into her face and feeling like an icy knife stabbing at her body over and over again. She didn’t make an effort to hide her chattering teeth anymore; the omnipresent wind whipped loud enough to muffle every noise coming from her.

And even if her brother would have heard her chattering, what could he have done about it? He couldn’t magically shut the storm off, and the overcoat in his saddlebag would have kept Twilight warm for no more than ten minutes at most.

More and more she found herself asking the reason why Celestia had chosen exactly that place for her and her brother to follow up on rumors. Theoretically, Chrysalis could have been hiding at every thinkable place; there were more than enough spots in Equestria that could serve as hideouts – places that were more comfortable to explore than an icy summit.

But she had always put those thoughts off: She should be grateful that Celestia had charged her with that ‘mission’ in the first place; asking the implications decisions would have been more than rude.

Still, by then, at least ten hours after their departure, she felt her anger grow with every step she took. She couldn’t exactly define it though: it was not the kind of anger directed at somepony or something certain. It was just anger - anger at herself for forgetting an overcoat, anger at the merciless snowstorm around them, anger at the exhausting and unnecessarily long ascent, anger at the deep snow for freezing her hooves off, anger at the dark for taking her sight, anger at Celestia for sending them into that icy hell, anger at her brother for walking all the time; for not finally saying that they had arrived.

That thought made her hesitate and remember something: they had planned to be at their first destination before sunset. That was several hours ago! Twilight clenched her teeth and sped up, quickly catching up with the barely visible silhouette of her brother.

“Shouldn’t we be there already!?” she shouted over the deafening howl of the wind.

“What!?” he yelled back.

“SHOULDN’T WE HAVE ARRIVED HOURS AGO!?” Twilight shouted with all of her remaining power.

Her brother hesitated for a second, then nervously bit his under lip and looked to the side.

That could only mean one thing. “You do know where we are, right?” she asked, her voice slightly quavering, “RIGHT!?”

Shining Armor pulled a soaked piece of paper out of his drenched saddlebag and tried to read from the blurred inkstains on it. “Well, we are … right here!” he said, pointing a hoof at the map. It went straight through.

“Shit.”

“YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHERE WE ARE!?” Twilight yelled at him.

Her brother reluctantly shook his head.

Taking a look around, she realized the quandary they were in. Her shivering grew stronger, though not because of the cold. “No. No, no, no! That’s not good!” she mumbled with growing despair, “We’re in the middle of nowhere, caught in a blizzard, and have hardly any provisions with us! That’s not good! That is not good!”

“Keep calm, Twily! We’ll just go back where we came from.” Shining Armor said and turned around, “No problem at all. Just let me go ahead and I-“

She held him back with one hoof, harshly cutting him off: “No, you are not going ahead! Because you have already brought us here!” she snarled at him and turned around, “I’ll go ahead.”

“Be careful, Twilight!” her brother warned her, “You don’t know how thick the snow is; there could be crevasses everywhere!”

“Yeah yeah.” She said, slowly disappearing in the nightly snowstorm, “Crevasses – in a solid mountain. Good one.”

“Actually, we should be moving on one of the many glaciers at the moment!” Shining Armor shouted with growing concern and got under way, running after his sister, “It’s dangerous to walk alone!”

“Well,” Twilight shouted over her shoulder, “if we should be moving on a glacier according to your great map, I’m sure I have nothing to feeeeeeeeaaaAAAAHHH-“

“Twily!” Shining Armor sprinted over the thick layer of snow, searching the seemingly impenetrable darkness for his sister, “Twilight where are you!?”

“D-down here.” The muffled answer came after a few seconds, echoing from somewhere in front of his hooves.

He lit his horn, using the light to search the ground.

His jaw dropped. There, right in front of his hooves, was a hole as big as a full-grown stallion and so deep he couldn’t see the end.

“Twilight!” he yelled, leaning his head forward and searching the hole for signs of the purple mare.

“I’m here!” The hesitant answer came from the bottom the crevice; a weak, purple light shimmered through the ice, “I … I think I’m stuck!”

“No! No, this can’t be true!” Shining Armor shouted with growing despair, “Why didn’t you listen to me!? I said it was dangerous!” he yelled down the hole.

“I know what you said! I … I simply overreacted, alright? Just … just help me find a way out!”

Shining Armor, well-knowing that there was no other way out than back to the top, suppressed a curse and shouted, “A-alright! I’ll call help! Just … hang in there, sis!”

"What else would I do!?” Twilight replied, “Just hurry up, please! It’s getting cold down here!”

“Of course! I’ll be back in a second!” he ensured her and ran off, leaving Twilight alone in the crevasse.

A shiver ran through her spine as the still falling snow landed on her head. Her body was locked between two walls of ice that formed a nearly perfect V. Her rear legs and wings were completely immobilized, her body and front legs could only be moved by a few inches.

The chattering of her teeth intensified. Burning pain started to come from the spots where her body touched the massive ice walls.

In a desperate attempt to prevent herself from becoming hypothermic, she rubbed her front hooves against each other, additionally blowing her pained breath against them.

“S-s-stupid!” she panted, breathless from the cold air entering her lungs, “S-so stupid! I sh-should have s-s-stayed with him! S-s-stupid me!”

With horror, she realized that the piercing cold around her stuck abdomen slowly vanished, making way for a feeling of total numbness.

“No! No!” she squealed, tensing her muscles in an attempt to squirm against the unyielding ice around her body, “Don’t- Don’t freeze!”

But she quickly ended her struggle against the omnipresent ice, well-knowing that it would be futile; she wouldn’t manage to break the ice just by the power of her legs, and wasting her precious energy on attempting the impossible would be sheer suicide.

No, she knew all she could do was wait; wait for her brother to come back and save her, save her from a misery she’d caused all by herself.

Feeling the freezing numbness slowly crawl up her body, she held, realizing the issue: “If I wouldn’t have walked away; if I wouldn’t have let my anger act for me, I wouldn’t be here now.”

Her shoulders dropped; the snow that had collected on her head began to burn like fire. "I … I let my emotions get the better of me. I did exactly what a Princess should never do!”

The numbness reached her chest; she felt her body going limp and her eyelids getting heavier with every second.

“I-I’m a bad princess. Heck, I … I don’t even have the right to call myself ‘Princess’ anymore! A real princess would have never allowed her emotions to cause such trouble! A real princess would have kept a cool head and found a way out of that dilemma!”

Her extreme undercooling and exhaustion caused her neck to go limp; her head smashed against the opposite wall with a dull thud. She hardly felt the pain though.

“So I guess that’s what I deserve. I die because of my own shortsightedness. I freeze in a bloody crevasse. … Maybe … maybe it’s the best for everypony. Who would like somepony who can’t even take care of herself to rule over an entire country?”

Her eyelids began to lower. “I just hope … Shining Armor … Princess Celestia … my friends … I hope they won’t mourn me.”

Finally, her eyes closed; the icy wall of the crevice disappeared and made way for omnipresent darkness.

“There’s no reason to mourn a failure.”

Chapter 2

Grass.

Grass everywhere. Nothing but ankle-high grass, as far as the eye could see. The sap green meadow she was trotting on waved in a slight breeze. The magnificent yellow sun in the cloudless blue sky warmed up her fur as she jogged forward, led by the feeling in her hooves.

After only a few moments of crossing the seemingly endless, lush pasture, she spotted them in the distance; a group of ponies. Two earth ponies, two pegasi, and a unicorn.

Words couldn’t express how happy she was to see them. Due to the strict schedule she had to abide by as a Princess, she had hardly time for her friends.

And so, seeing them here, knowing that there were no duties, no obligations to meet, that she could just be Twilight again and have fun with her friends like a normal pony, made her happier than she had ever been before.

“Girls!” she shouted, “Girls, I’m here!”

The mares’ heads turned towards her simultaneously; happy smiles formed on their faces as they recognized the lavender friend and waved at her.

She made two steps - in that brief two steps, Twilight learned how quickly progression can be interrupted by fate - and suddenly the sky went dark. The ground became a waste. Her friends disappeared. And it got really, really cold.

A deafening thunder ran through the clouds above her head and an avalanche of snowflakes loosened from the heavy cloud cover, raining over her fur, blocking her view and coating her body with an icecold shroud.

Twilight opened her mouth to shout for her friends, but instantly regretted her decision. The thick snow squall quickly filled her mouth, taking her breath away and muffling every kind of noise that tried to escape her throat.

Her eyes widened; the muscles in her chest spasmed in a desperate attempt to scream. Yet all she could bring out was a muffled growl, choking at the seemingly endless snow in her mouth.

Before she could take a step forward, her vision blurred and the world around her turned black. With a weak moan, her legs yielded and she fell to the snow-clad ground, landing on the covered grass with a muffled thud.

Her head shot upward.

Gasping for breath, she opened her eyes, just to let out a painful groan and instantly squinch them shut again as the broad sunlight blinded her.

For a few moments, she just sat there, struggling to catch her breath and keeping her eyes closed.

As her adrenaline rush slowly faded away and her breath slowed down, she carefully examined the ground she was sitting on, only vaguely remembering what had happened before she had fallen asleep.

To her very surprise, her hooves touched neither ice, nor grass. The ground was hard, pebbly; the little stones caused a light tickle at her flank.

Twilight carefully opened her eyes, paying attention to not get blinded again. As her vision slowly cleared, she could hardly believe what she saw.

Right in front of her was the bank of a small river. The water was crystal clear and –concluding from the wet stones she was sitting on- icecold.

With her neck aching for some reason, Twilight slowly turned her head to examine the area. Nothing worth mentioning could be found to her left; for miles and miles, nothing but the crystal river and an ill-kempt –almost withered- meadow at each riverside.

She turned her head the other way round. The same sight; a clear river, bounded by two withering plains. Though in the distance, she managed to spot something; the glary sunlight still made it hard for her eyes to focus, but after a few seconds of reflection, she knew what was in front of her.

She was looking at a glacier.

Twilight couldn’t explain why, but the mere sight of the ice made her skin creep. With a shiver running through her body, she turned away.

As her look wandered up to the cloudless sky, the inevitable question finally popped up in her head. “What happened?” she asked aloud. Her voice sounded strained, exhausted and croaky.

Turning her head once again and looking at the riverbed, she added, “And where in Equestria am I?”

With her abdomen beginning to freeze, she started an attempt to get to her hooves. Her lack of strength body made itself felt - only with a quick lunge, she could keep her shaky legs from yielding.

She remained still for insurmountable amount of time. If somepony had happened to been walking by, they would find a lavender pony looking like she had just gone through a mid-life crisis.

By the time she noticed that her standing position had solidified, she carefully took a step forward, doing her best to keep her balance.

She met minimal success. Her legs wobbled, but she was able to stand.

However, they were about to fail her as her brain snapped to attention. “Wait! Where am I? Where’s Ponyville!?” her head spun around, searching for the answers in her environment, “What the heck has happened!?”

Nopony was there to answer her; the dead silent surroundings only got broken by the inconsistent sounds of the river.

Suddenly, a noise sounded from the sky and made her head shoot upward. There was a white object protruding from the deep blue of the sky. She first thought it was a dragon, but quickly put that thought off since dragons needed to flap their wings to fly. No, the object was definitely soaring; it hovered through the air without making a move to flap its extraordinarily large, stiff wings.

Confused by that unexpected sight, Twilight gasped and recoiled as suddenly, several colorful lights blinked on its elongated, round, yet thin body.

The noise came to her ears again, undoubtedly coming from the odd machine in the sky. She couldn’t identify the sound though; it resembled a hairdryer, just a whole lot louder and…mechanical.

With her attention still on the white object, Twilight slowly turned her head, wondering where it may have come from.

“Maybe it escaped from the Everfree Forest…” Twilight said to herself, seeing the creature disappear in a cloud to her right. Her eyes suddenly widened, “But if it escaped from the Everfree Forest…” she turned her head, looking into the direction the object had disappeared into, “No…” she mumbled, “This can only mean trouble!”

With her legs still shaking, she turned around and trotted into the direction of the flying object, using all of her concentration to keep herself from stumbling and falling over.

After only a few moments of jogging, she noticed that her breath had gotten increasingly heavy. Despite the cold temperatures, beads of sweat had formed on her forehead.

Letting out breathless pants, Twilight slowed down and changed to a slow walking pace. “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I run properly anymore?” she asked herself, “It feels like if I hadn’t run for years!”

In that second, something unexpected happened; with a muffled splat, something loosened from her horn and landed on the ground right in front of her hooves.

Twilight stopped dead in her tracks, lowered her head, and looked at the mysterious lump: it had about half the size of her hoof, had the shape of a flat cake, and was as white as snow.

Leaning her head forward to give the object a closer look, she mumbled: “Is that…?”

Another lump loosened from her horn, yet this time landed right on the tip of her nose. “Ice!” she squealed and instinctively recoiled, hastily shaking her head to get rid of the cold vexation on her face.

The young Princess froze in her movement as her look fell on the first lump again and she started to reflect, “There was ice on my horn…” a mental image started to form in her head, “Ice … Ice … Ice coming from…“ finally the fog in her mid seemed to clear; she saw it right in front of her mind’s eye, “a glacier!”

“The glacier! The crystal mountains! … Shining Armor!” Twilight yelled as the memory returned bit by bit. She span around, searching the riverbed for her brother, yet well-knowing that she wouldn’t find him.

“What … what happened?” she asked out aloud, “We … we were lost. And I …” she could feel how her face turned pale, “I ran off! I fell into a crevasse and…” Twilight stumbled, “froze to death?” she raised an eyebrow, asking herself, “Am I … am I dead? Is this my afterlife?”

After giving that idea a serious consideration, she quickly shook her head, unable to hold back an amused smirk. “Afterlife, of course!” she chuckled, “Even the most naïve ponies should know that something like a life after death isn’t scientifically possible.”

“Still…” she let her glance wander over her environment again, “What happened? Where’s Shining Armor?”

Her look got caught by the glacier to her left. “Could it be that …” the gears in her head began to turn one by one, “Hmmm … the river … the ice on my horn … it would all make sense.”

Her body stiffened. “But that would mean…” her face turned even paler, remembering the last seconds before she had passed out; her shoulders dropped, “It was all my fault that I got trapped in the ice.” She voiced her insight, “I … I imperiled Shining Armor. I imperiled our mission. I imperiled myself!” her head sank to the ground as she seemed to lose every kind of motivation, “I … I failed as a Princess.”

In the second the words left her mouth, she felt a tear running down her cheek and powerlessly sat down; the cold pebbles of the riverbank sent another shiver through her spine.

But she couldn’t feel the cold; she couldn’t feel anything at all. “I put other ponies at a risk. The last thing a Princess is allowed to do.” she whispered powerlessly, “I bet Celestia is mad at me! I bet all of Equestria is mad at me!” she sighed, resting her head on her foreleg, “And they have every reason to do so. I failed my own brother! I put my own emotions over our aim and screwed up everything!” she slowly closed her eyes, whispering, “Maybe they’ll just banish me right away. I deserve nothing better.”

For a moment, she rested like that, too downcast, too depressed to make a single move.

However, the return of the noise she had heard before made her look up. And indeed, there it was again: the same soaring, white creature with the same, stiff wings, flying into the same direction and emitting the same, hairdryer-like noise.

With growing discomfort, Twilight watched it fly over her head and disappear in the clouds again.

“Already two of them? Mother of Celestia, this can’t end well.” she muttered, unable to miss hearing the anxiety in her voice.

Before Twilight knew what was happening, she had gotten to her hooves and turned into the direction the creature had disappeared into; her lifesaver-instinct had gotten the better of her once again.

“Somepony has to do something about that! I’ve never seen one of those before, but a creature of that size can’t fly over Equestria without causing chaos!” she said to herself.

Twilight broke into a gallop, the murmur of the river steadily accompanying her steps. “And I’m sure that if I can do something about that thing, I can show those ponies that I didn’t fail! That I’m worthy to be called a Princess!”

Though the bitter disillusionment quickly overhauled her as her breath turned into a heavy panting and she was forced to slow down her pace. “How does it come that I’m that much off form!?” she wondered breathlessly, “I know that a lack of physical activity can make you get a little short-winded, but I would have never thought that being caught in ice for a couple of hours can throw you off the track that extremely!”

She froze in her movement as a nasty thought popped up in her mind. “I … I was in there for only a few hours … right!?” she asked into the deserted scenery in front of her.

Remembering that her brother wanted to call help, she turned her head and looked at the distant silhouette of the glacier. “Didn’t he find me?” she asked herself, “Did ... did he return at all?”

Her discomfort began to grow. “Maybe he left me in there deliberately! Maybe he was angry at me for ruining our trip!” a knot seemed to form in her chest as her mind kept on drawing conclusions, “Maybe he just said I had a tragic accident and left me to die there! What would keep him from doing so!?” Her legs seemed to turn to jelly, “After all, I was the one who aborted his only chance to have some time off due to my own stupidity! Maybe he wanted to take revenge for the ruined excursion!”

Before she could finish her line of thought, the noises of a third machine soaring over her head made her startle once again. She didn’t need to look up; just by following the origin of the noise, she knew that it had crossed the sky right above her head and headed into the same direction as its two predecessors.

“But forget about that for a second! As long as there’s an unknown, potentially dangerous object soaring over Equestria, my personal concerns can wait!” she decided, stamping her hoof in determination.

With that, she shoved the worries concerning her brother aside and got under way again, this time moving at an easier pace.

After a few moments of trotting along the riverbank, she found herself wondering where the creatures might have been heading, which inevitably led to the question of her own position.

Twilight looked over her shoulders and gave the barely visible glacier an appraising look. “If I lost Shining Armor there…” she thought aloud; her look wandered over to the sun which was at the zenith, right ahead of her, “And the sun is there…” her eyes widened, “Oh no! Those things are heading to Ponyville!”

Her pace quickened again; the pebbles poked into her hooves, “This won’t end well! This won’t end well!” she said, lifting her head and looking out for more of the creatures, “I just hope my friends can handle things until I arrive!”

She couldn’t exactly tell how long she had been walking already. In the constant change between the short sprints and the longer jogs, she had lost every sense of time, hearing nothing but her own heavy breathing and the constant murmur of the river at her side.

But the monotony seemed to make her walk easier: despite the burning pain in her lungs, she had managed to keep her pace surprisingly constant; her legs showed hardly any signs of fatigue.

However, she slowed down as she spotted something in the distance: shimmering silver in the light of the afternoon sun, they had instantly attracted her attention. Railroad tracks.

Knowing that they would lead her to the next city –most likely to Ponyville- Twilight left the riverside she had been walking on behind and trotted towards them.

Upon coming closer, she noticed something about them; something she had never seen on other rails before: right next to the metal tracks was something that reminded her to lampposts: small, metal constructions, about 20 feet tall, with one foot in diameter. The posts appeared to be connected to each other with a thick, black cable that ran from post to post, hanging with a little sag.

But Twilight had no eyes for such minor details: determined to reach Ponyville as soon as possible, she stopped next to the railroad embankment and continued on her way right next to the rail line, heading into the direction she suspected Ponyville to lay in.

Falling back into her monotonous trot, she quickly found her thoughts drifting off. With a frown, she thought of her friends: how would they react to her missing note? Would they be sad for losing one of their friends? Or would they just call her fate an at-fault accident and remember her as a willing, yet inept Princess? Would Shining Armor even tell other ponies the story of her alleged demise? Would ponies even want to hear it?

The young Princess quickly shook her head, cutting her line of thought. “Come on, snap out of it!” she commanded herself, “Nopony has lost faith in you! Why should your friends - why should your own brother just give up on you!? Just because you’ve made a mistake and let your anger get the better of you?”

In order to prove herself, she shook her head, “No, that’s just ridiculous! Stop worrying about twisted theories and focus on the important things!” she said to herself and looked at the tracks which carried on to the horizon where they finally disappeared behind a little hill, “Save Ponyville, then you can think about other things!”

With that she sped up a little - her breathing quickened again; beads of sweat rolled down her face. But her determination made her forget about her exhaustion: Ponyville was in danger, and it was her duty to save it from the unknown objects.

Still, she couldn’t keep some bitter questions out of her mind. “But why didn’t Shining Armor rescue me then? Didn’t he find me anymore? Didn’t he remember my position?” she remembered that her head was covered in snow as she fainted, “Maybe I was buried under the snow? … Then still, why didn’t he dig for me? How hard can it be to scoop some snow aside?”

Once again, Twilight’s thoughts got interrupted by a noise. Instinctively, she moved her head upward, searching the sky for another one of the flying objects. However, this time the noise didn’t come from the sky, and it wasn’t the -meanwhile familiar- roar of the flying machines.

No, that noise definitely wasn’t a roar: it was a muffled swoosh, reminding Twilight to the sound of escaping gas.

Her glance checked her environment for the origin of the noise and finally got stuck to the tracks next to her: not only that they appeared to be slightly trembling, Twilight could have sworn that the noise was coming from them.

It took her a few seconds to put one and one together and spin around. What she saw froze the blood in her veins.

She had seen trains before – of course, she had gotten to the Crystal Empire by train after all. However, the thing that dashed towards her with a felt speed of at least 1000 miles per hour definitely wasn’t a train.

Its body was light blue, comparable to that of the machine she had seen in the sky before: elongated, round, streamlined. A large windshield and two white headlights suggested that whoever operated the thing could see her; could see that there was a mare standing directly next to the tracks and staring at the approximating vehicle with disbelief.

Twilight remained in her tensed position for a second, feeling paralyzed from shock. She had already seen a lot of things in the comparatively few years of her life, and had actually thought there was nothing that could surprise her any more. However, the encounters she had made in the past hours –first the flying objects, now the weird rail vehicle- slowly but surely managed to eat away at her poise.

An unmistakable, ear-shattering honk coming from the approximating vehicle interrupted her thoughts and enabled her flight instinct. Without thinking, Twilight gave a sudden jerk to the side and landed hard on the withered grass next to the railroad. Just split seconds later, the vehicle thundered past her with a deafeningly loud roar.

Hastily raising her head and gazing after the disappearing vehicle, Twilight asked herself the only reasonable question. “What in Equestria was that thing!?”

Even though it had been over within split seconds, she had managed to catch a glimpse at its side: it was at least 100 feet long, appeared to be divided into multiple partitions, and had a nearly continuous line of mirrored windows integrated in it; an antenna-like device connected it to the cables above the rails.

What Twilight had noticed at a second glance was that it had in fact wheels; that it was rolling on the tracks just like any normal train.

“Was that … a train?” Twilight asked aloud, though she knew that this couldn’t be: trains weren’t that streamlined; trains needed a steam locomotive to move, and above all, trains weren’t that silent: that thing had literally crept up on her; every normal train would have been audile from at least a mile distance.

Her look went up to the cable-construction again: reconstructing her journey from Canterlot to the Crystal Empire, she concluded that it hadn’t been there when she had entered the train the previous day.

But she quickly shook her head and got to her hooves again: the previous day, the still existing stress from her training, the anticipation to meet her brother again, and the thrill of an imminent excursion had kept her mind busy; the last thing she had been aware of was if there had been some kind of new gimmick above the rail.

“Probably just another part of that modernization-program Princess Luna commended all the time.” Twilight thought to herself and got under way again, this time keeping a lot more distance to the tracks.

Though she couldn’t help but wonder what the cables were good for: she suspected that they had some connection to the odd rail vehicle, but not with all the will in the world could she imagine how two or three black cables could replace a full-value steam engine.

Taking a mental note to ask Princess Celestia about the usefulness of the construction, Twilight shook her head and focused her look on the horizon again.

As she trotted on, she found her thoughts drifting off again, and remembered the map of Equestria she had committed to memory years ago. She hesitated and slowed down, “If I started off in the Crystal Mountains…” she marked the place on the imaginary map in her head, “…and want to go to Ponyville…” with a quick calculation, she made a rough estimate of the distance she had to cover – her jaw dropped.

“Mother of Celestia, how could I ever forget about that!?” Twilight wondered aloud, “Ponyville is at least a day’s journey away from the Crystal Empire! Getting there by hoof will take even longer!”

However, she hesitated as an idea popped up in her head. Raising an eyebrow, she turned her head and gave her body a look. “Unless…” she stretched her wings and eyed them skeptically.

Since her departure from Canterlot, she had hardly ever made use of them. On the one hand because the already icy wind in the Crystal Empire, combined with the chilly airflow that came along with flying, would have probably turned her into a soaring ice cube in no time.

On the other hand because she simply didn’t trust herself to fly: of course, from watching Rainbow Dash for all the years, she had gotten a rough idea of how challenging it was to cut a fine figure in the sky, but she would have never thought that there were so many factors to take account of, so many muscles to move at once, and generally so many responsibilities coming along with flying – moving in the air wasn’t the same as moving on the ground after all.

But she knew that there was no other way: she could either start an attempt to fly, or walk all the way to Ponyville; a journey that would have taken an entire day – at least.

So she hesitantly flapped her wings and slowly took off, feeling her heartbeat speed up as her hooves lost contact to the ground.

Though as she had feared, she lost control over her flight path after a few moments and drifted to the left, coming uncomfortably close to the cable that hung above the railway.

Knowing that cables usually were live, Twilight’s eyes widened in horror and her wings -apparently overwhelmed by the sudden load of commands they received from their master- suddenly folded, making the alicorn fall and crash onto the railway.

“Ouf! Dang it!” Twilight hissed and jumped to her hooves, saving herself from the tracks with a hasty dive. She didn’t know if those weird trains ran at certain times, but she definitely didn’t want to find out either. After all, there could be one approximating right in that second; Twilight wouldn’t hear it until it was too late.

She quickly got to her hooves and gave the railway a cautious glance: no trains, far and wide. With a relieved sigh, she turned her head and looked at her wings: still slightly shivering from the adrenaline in her veins, they were spread apart and waiting for her commands.

“Alright…” she mumbled and took a deep breath, “Let’s try this again.”

Once again, she flapped her wings; her hooves slowly lost contact to the grassy ground.

“Just remember what Princess Celestia and Rainbow Dash have told you,” she said to herself, “Keep calm and flutter on!”

It seemed to work: slowly but surely, she arose from the ground and hovered above the rails.

“Now careful…” Biting her tongue in concentration, she turned her body by 90 degrees and faced the unkempt scenery in front of her.

“Hey, it’s not that difficult!” Twilight noticed with a smile on her face. Using all of her concentration to fly straightforward and not crash into the cable next to her, she slowly accelerated, flying along the rails and heading into the direction of Ponyville.

“Actually…” she noticed with increasing joy, “it’s quite easy once you get used to it!”

However, her short trip into the air wasn’t destined to last longer than a few moments – shortly after taking off, she felt the muscles in her wings beginning to ache and pants of exhaustion escaping her mouth.

“Easy … but … very exhausting.” she panted and inevitably slowed down. The ache in her wings seemed to grow stronger with every move she made and shortly had developed into a sharp pain that made her clench her teeth and tears show up in her eyes.

“Come on! I can’t…!” she tried to spur herself, “Ponyville … needs me!” Yet it was futile: after a few more seconds of desperately struggling against her exhaustion and still getting nowhere fast, she reluctantly lowered and finally landed on the arid meadow.

Turning her head and caressing her aching wings, she mumbled, “Well, so much for flying there.”

With a wistful sigh, she turned her head back and looked into the distance, knowing that the city she aimed for was still miles away – that she would have to spend the rest of the day and most of the following night with walking.

“Well…” she sighed powerlessly and took a step forward, “Here we go.”

Chapter 3

She couldn’t go any further. She was too exhausted, too hungry, and too tired to continue her journey. Certainly, she had known that almost completely crossing an entire country by hoof was a big deal, but she had never imagined that it was that exhausting: despite walking for no more than half an hour, she already had the feeling that she was on her last legs, having difficulties to keep her eyes open, and sluggishly placing one hoof in front of the other.

With the surprisingly hot evening sun burning down on her fur and a total lack of freshening wind, she trudged up a small hill, panting louder than she had ever panted before, confident that she would drop dead any second.

“Just … one … more … step!” she whispered breathlessly, squinching her eyes shut to protect them from the seemingly endless flow of sweat that ran down her face, “Ponyville … Equestria … they need me!”

With the next, painfully slow step, and after a felt eternity of marching uphill, she finally reached the hilltop; a huge, grassy plain presented itself in a valley right in front of her.

Letting out an exhausted, yet satisfied pant, Twilight slowly lifted her head to catch a glimpse of what still lay ahead of her.

She caught her breath.

Twilight would have expected to see Ponyville in the distance - it was about dusk, thus way too early for her to reach her destination, but since the sky was clear and she could see for miles and miles, she had expected to see the small village appear somewhere near the horizon.

However, what lay ahead definitely wasn’t Ponyville. With a lot of good will and lively imagination, she could consider it a city, though never before had she seen a city like that.

At first sight, the city looked surprisingly similar: with its enormous stone buildings that reached for the sky, its paved roads that connected the houses to a monumental network, it inevitably reminded Twilight to Manehatten - the metropolis she had visited not so long ago, together with her friends.

However, at second glance, Twilight noticed that the city in front of her was everything but comparable to Manehatten: while the buildings of Equestria’s biggest city were different in shape and color, making the whole city look as diverse as a bowl of candy, the houses that presented in the valley looked similar altogether: monotone, grey blocks, adorned by equally monotone, mirrored windows. The entire city seemed to consist of nothing but dull, cold concrete and rejecting, mirrored glass.

But what was much more conspicuous than the buildings’ monotone construction style was their sheer size: Twilight had been to several big cities with monumental buildings –technically she lived in an enormous palace herself at the moment- but the dimensions of the city in front of her burst all limits of what she had seen so far.

An average house in Ponyville was suited to shelter one, at most two families; the palaces in Canterlot and the Crystal Empire were indeed a whole lot bigger, designed to accommodate the royal family and their attendants, but the constructions in front of her … it looked like each of them could accommodate an entire city itself.

Staring at the buildings with her mouth hanging open, Twilight suddenly noticed a nauseating stench in the air: the mixture of sewage, decay, and something that reminded her to the fumes of a burning oil lamp made her contort her face in disgust.

“What in Equestria is that place?” she asked, holding her nose with her hoof, “Where’s Ponyville?”

The deafening noise of another passing train that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere made her give a startled jerk to the side and let out a horrified squeal.

It took Twilight a few moments to recover from the shock and get back to her hooves. Once she was standing upright again, her mind clear enough to comprehend what had just happened, she looked back at the train.

Following the vehicle, her glance passed the short distance from the hill she was standing on, through the valley which –as she noticed but then- appeared to be filled with several railways and asphalted streets, until it finally arrived at a narrow tunnel portal in the outskirts which the train disappeared into.

“What the…?” Twilight mumbled but cut herself off as she noticed some movement on the roads in front of the city. Contrary to her expectations, the streets were neither filled with ponies, nor with carts or carriages.

No, moving on the streets were, well, she couldn’t tell. The things that were moving on the asphalt seemed to be machines … or animals? The fact that they were moving on their own, passing the streets’ curves and straights without any external help, suggested that she was looking at animals, yet their appearance –their body was blocky, more or less square-shaped and seemed to be made of metal, yet had windows at all four sides; tires made of a black material connected them to the street- suggested that they were pony-made machines.

However, before she could give the vehicles a closer look, the ear-shattering noises coming from them made her back up and contort her face in discomfort.

“What the heck are those things?” she covered her ears, “And why does everything I encounter today have to be that terribly loud?”

In spite of the deafening noises around her, caused by the trains, as well as the driving and flying machines that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and all of a sudden seemed to be all around her, she couldn’t help but notice that her curiosity had been awoken - she had never seen a city of those dimensions before, and was starting to wonder who or what would expect her in this massive concrete jungle of a city.

She wasn’t even sure if she could actually call it a city; after all, she hadn’t seen any other ponies leaving or entering the houses yet; the same went for the trains or the other vehicles.

Who said that they were getting moved by ponies after all? Ever since she had woken up by the riverside, she hadn’t spotted a single pony.

Her body suddenly stiffened as an idea popped up in her mind: maybe she had been transported to a different world! That would definitely explain the weird vehicles and oversized cities.

And that meant … she could be the first one to discover a new species! She could become famous as the one who lighted on a before then undiscovered civilization!

Her mood seemed to brighten up within seconds, and she galloped forward, heading towards the enormous city and already seeing her face in one of Equestria’s most famous newspapers.

Her head felt like if it was about to explode. An overload of emotions, sensations and confusion seemed to press against her skullcap and caused the young Princess to suffer an indescribable pain of both, physical and mental nature.

In the first instance, she was disappointed: contrary to her expectations, the concrete desert was in fact a city, and it was in fact populated by ponies – earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi all alike.

However, even though disappointment was one of the major emotions she felt, it easily got overshadowed by her confusion.

Trotting over the increasingly scarce spots of grass and keeping a safety distance from the streets and rails, she had cautiously approached the city. On her way there, she had finally found out what was with the blocky vehicles moving on the streets: since she had seen ponies sitting in them, she had concluded that those were popular means of transportation, despite the disgusting stench and terrible noises they caused.

And as if all that hadn’t been enough, it seemed the ponies sitting in the vehicles had had fun scaring her to death by making their machines produce deafening horn-like sounds, for every time one of those odd things had passed her, she had almost jumped out of her skin from the suddenly occurring racket.

Even though she had been curious to find out where those things came from and what they were powered with, she didn’t dare to make an attempt to stop one of them, since she doubted that the ponies –concluding from the both, confused and disgusted looks they gave her while passing by- would stop their vehicles for her.

And so the way to the city had dragged on. The realization that she hadn’t discovered a new species - that the beings she had encountered were nothing but normal ponies; the omnipresent roaring of the traffic, as well as the tainted air around her that had made it increasingly hard to breathe, had drawn on her nerves, making her clench her teeth and pant with anger.

However, as she had slowly approached the city –still steadily accompanied by the noises, the stench, and the disappointment- she had spotted a huge sign right in front of her – and gasped in disbelief.

It hadn’t been the sign itself that had made her jaw drop –of course she had seen those signs before, mostly used for advertising purposes- it was its content that had made her stop dead in her tracks and look at the billboard with widened eyes: enlightened by multiple bright strip lights, written in inviting, crimson letters, it read: “WELCOME TO PONYVILLE, CITY OF DIVERSITY! pop. 680,000”

She read the text again, not believing what she was looking at. “Is that … is that a bad joke? Is somepony trying to play a trick on me?” she asked out aloud, knowing that there was nopony to answer her.

Her look wandered over to the brightly enlightened silhouette of the city whose beaming lights seemed to cut through the moonless night like a knife.

“This can’t be Ponyville! Ponyville is a small, sedate village, not a metropolis!” Twilight clarified with growing discomfort.

It took her a few more moments of nervously trotting up and down in front of the sign until finally, for the first time since her awakening, her brain conceived of an idea. Suddenly, all the changes, all the novel vehicles, the tainted air, and of course the weird transformation of Ponyville from a village into a huge city, seemed to make sense to her, and she asked herself, “How long have I been caught in that crevasse!?”

In the second her words faded away, the noises around her all got drowned out by the ear-shattering howl of a siren and Twilight found herself brightly enlightened by the beam of a big spotlight.

Instinctively, she span around, trying to face the origin of the sudden nuisance. She quickly regretted her decision, seeing as now the bright light blinded her, and all she could spot in the glaring beam were the silhouettes of two ponies and a set of red and blue blinking lights.

“Well well well, what do we have here?” a rough, male-sounding voice came from one of the ponies, “A little nudie enjoying an evening stroll?”

“Wha- what!? Nudie? Who are you? What are you talking about!?” was all Twilight’s startled mind could come up with.

“Ponyville Police Department.” The other pony –a mare, concluding from her throaty, yet female voice- replied dryly, “Consider yourself arrested.”

“What!? Arrested!? Are you kidding!?” Twilight stammered unbelieving, watching horror-stricken as the ponies left their original position and started walking towards her.

Finally seeing them in the bright light, Twilight noticed that they were dressed: cobalt blue uniforms covered the mare’s light blue and the stallion’s dark grey fur; their crow-black manes were mostly hidden by blue caps with golden emblems on them.

Loosening something that reminded Twilight to shackles from a belt around her waist, the mare soberly pattered, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

“Court of law?” Twilight squealed, glued to the spot, “I-I’m sorry, but there seems to be a misunderstanding! You see, I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle and I-”

“Yeah, and I’m Freddy Mare-cury. We should hang out some time, chat about how great it is to be a dead celebrity.” The stallion replied dryly, then approached her and ruggedly grabbed her fore- and hind legs, tying them up with the pair of shackles he had received from his colleague.

“What are you doing!?” Twilight yelled at him and instinctively grabbed his body with her magic, levitating him away from her.

Yet before she could start an attempt to escape, she felt the cold metal of a small ring getting shoved onto her horn. “Don’t make it worse than it already is, kiddo.” the mare snarled at her, “You’ve violated the law and now you’re gonna come with us!”

“Leave me…!” Twilight wanted to use her magic to get rid of the second pony, but quickly noticed that –except for emitting purple sparks- her attempts to make use of her magic had no effect whatsoever. “What the buck have you done to my horn!?” she squealed at the mare.

“Standard measure if the arrested pony tries to defy their detention.” The stallion who had returned in the meantime answered her question and grabbed her shackles, tearing her into the direction of the light source.

“Why the hell are you seizing me? What have I done wrong!?” Twilight shouted and struggled against the cuffs around her hooves.

With a dry smirk, the mare walking next to her said, “Are you serious? You’re walking around like a savage and ask us what you’ve done wrong!? Kid, you sure have humor.”

“Like a savage? What in Equestria are you talking about!?” Twilight snapped at the uniformed ponies.

“You’re nude. That’s what she means.” The male pony replied dryly, “I don’t know where you come from, but as long as I’m on duty, nopony in all of Ponyville walks around like that.”

“What are you-“ Twilight wanted to say, but got cut off as the stallion stopped in front of the light source which turned out to be another one of the vehicles that Twilight had seen on the street around her. Just like the other ones, it was mostly blocky, about five times as long and two times as wide as a pony, and had a black and white color scheme; a set of colorful blinking lights was fixed to its roof.

“Now, into the patrol car.” the mare commanded her harshly and placed a hoof on Twilight’s back; the stallion opened a door at the vehicle’s side.

Twilight’s body stiffened: neither did she know what would await her in that ‘patrol car’, nor where those ponies would bring her. But she knew one thing: there was nothing in the world that would make her set a hoof into that thing.

She tried to use her magic again, but got the same results as earlier: a short fizzle, a silent poof, nothing more.

But she still had an ace in the hole. After pausing a moment to collect her power, she suddenly pushed herself away from the vehicle. With a clearly audible thud, her body collided with that that of the mare who got caught off-guard and knocked down, letting out a loud gasp as she crashed onto the floor.

Feeling the adrenaline rush through her veins, Twilight flapped her wings with all of her power and took off after a split second.

“Ha! Didn’t see that one coming!” she shouted over her shoulder, feeling how a smile was beginning to form on her face as she saw the patrol car vanish into the darkness of the night.

“Stop right there criminal scum!”

Before Twilight knew what was going on, she felt the stallion’s buff body smash into hers and the iron grip of his forelegs fling around her wings.

“He’s a pegasus!? Damnit, why didn’t I notice that!? He was right in front of me!”

Twilight struggled, using all of her remaining power to fight against his grip. But it was futile - after what lay behind her, Twilight was surprised she had actually managed to take off at all; the fact that the stallion had managed to overwhelm her in not even five seconds was less pleasant, but not surprising either.

Carrying the struggling Princess in front of him, the stallion slowly lowered to the ground where his partner was waiting with another, bigger pair of cuffs she quickly applied to Twilight’s wings, preventing them from moving without causing serious pain to their owner.

“I’m gonna use the rest of my good will to ignore that attack.” the mare hissed into Twilight’s ear while tightening the cuffs, “Scandalization will get you a steep fine, attacking a police officer on duty will bring you into jail!” she turned Twilight towards the patrol car and added, “Now get in the car!”
Before Twilight could act, she felt the hooves of the mare giving her flank a powerful kick and throwing her into the vehicle.

A gasp escaped her mouth as she landed on a hard plastic bench in the car’s back. With a loud smash, the door closed behind her; a plastic ‘click’ followed.

Doing her best to hold back a horrified scream, Twilight span around and smashed her shackled hooves against the door, yelling: “Let me go! You can’t do this to me! I have committed no crime!”

The two ponies either didn’t hear her screams or simply ignored them, seeing as they rounded the vehicle without giving her a further look and opened two other doors in its front.

The peculiar machine seemed to prostrate as the ponies simultaneously entered and sat down on two seats in the front row, the mare sitting in the vehicle’s left half and laying her hooves on a black steering wheel in front of her.

Twilight shot forward, but -due to her tied up hooves- ended up staggering and smashing her head against an acrylic glass window that separated her from the two other ponies. It took her a few moments to sit up recover from the unexpected head blow. However, once she could see clearly again, she used all of her power –which wasn’t too much at that point- to smash her hooves against the glass and yell, “Let me go this instant! I … I will tell Princess Celestia about it!”

The ponies closed their doors with a loud smash and the stallion, turning his head towards Twilight, soberly asked her, “About what? That we arrested you for committing a crime? Good luck with that.”

“I have committed no crime whatsoever!” Twilight yelled, struggling against the shackles, but quickly realizing that she couldn’t free herself from their iron embrace.

“There’s no point in discussing that, kid.” The mare said; Twilight thought she had heard a touch of empathy swinging in her voice, “We’re just doing our job after all. And if somepony’s got her head in the clouds and feels like walking around like in the old times,” the mare raised a hoof and placed it on something that looked like a small lever, located directly next to the steering wheel, “It’s our job to do something about it.”

In that second, an ominous growl awoke in the vehicle’s front and Twilight felt how it accelerated not too gently.

The little filly inside her began to show through again, faced with absolute uncertainty: what would happen to her? Where would she go? Who or what were those ponies? And above all: what had happened to this world? What had happened to the small village she had spent the past few years of her lifetime in? Where had it gone?

Facing the uncertainty about her fate, Twilight sank back into the plastic bench seat she was lying on, and felt a tear running down her cheek.

She cried.

It didn’t take long until the silence of tears dripping onto the plastic of the seat got broken by muffled sobs coming from the young Princess.

The firstly silent noises quickly grew louder and louder, driven by Twilight’s despair, until finally a not so silent whimper escaped her mouth.

She couldn’t remember when she had cried the last time. Of course, she had shed tears multiple times –she had learned that it was pointless to hold them back early enough- but since her foalhood, she had never had a real crying fit again – until then.

Twilight knew that crying wouldn’t help her; that it would neither tell her what had happened, nor make those ponies let her go, but she didn’t care. She wanted to cry, she needed to cry, and she had to cry.

Even as the stallion turned around and, doing his best to give her an empathetic look, said, “Hey, no need to weep like that.” Twilight didn’t look up. “Look, you’re gonna be taken to the police station where you will stay for the night. Tomorrow you’ll get interviewed by a parole officer who will find out how we can proceed further.” The stallion explained to her, “If you can pay the fine or have somepony do it for you, you’ll be a free pony before noon.” he tried to comfort her.

But Twilight still didn’t look up. Neither did she understand what she had done wrong or what this pony wanted from her, nor did she want to.

No, all she wanted to do was wake up; find out that all this was just a terrible nightmare; a nightmare that had scared her to death, but was over now.

But she knew that this was no dream. It was far too realistic, felt far too lifelike to be merely a product of her imagination.

No, she knew that this was real life; that she had been captured by two uniformed ponies, had been thrown into a weird vehicle and told that she was under arrest; that Ponyville, the town she had known and liked since her first arrival, had turned from a sleepy little town into a stinking, dirty city; and above all that she had not the slightest idea where her friends were; whether they had changed in the same way her beloved hometown had.

And so, having no idea what laid ahead of her, where exactly she was, or what had happened to the ones she knew and loved, she curled up in a ball, hearing nothing but her own sobs and the monotonous growl of the vehicle, and slowly drifted away into dreamland, still nourishing a small hope that she would be in the Ponyville library again upon waking up.

Chapter 4

She was laughing. Laughing like she hadn’t laughed for a long time.

She couldn’t explain it – not even to herself. After all, her situation didn’t give her a reason to be happy or even laugh: after the vehicle had stopped, the two ponies had torn the nearly unconscious from crying Twilight out of her plastic prison and led her through seemingly endless, with glaring strip lights enlightened corridors until finally they had stopped in front of a white metal door, loosened the shackles around her body and hooves, yet kept the magic-blocking ring around her horn, and shoved her into a small, barely enlightened room with plain, grey concrete walls and a single, metal-grilled window that wasn’t bigger than a foal.

Too drained to even think straight, Twilight had stumbled over to what she had identified as a bed and dropped herself onto the uncomfortable foam mattress, falling asleep within seconds, and forgetting about the misery she was stuck in.

There she was now: having awoken at about sunrise, she had realized that the nightmare she was in was still lasting on, yet had still been too tired to bother her head about it.

The first thing she had noticed upon leaving the scratchy polyester bedding was that somepony had pulled her some clothes on: her purple fur was covered by an orange overall; only her hooves and tail stuck out from underneath the scratchy fabric.

Since she hadn’t known when or if the two ponies that had captured her the day before would return, she had decided to do something helpful and get an overview of the room she was in.

It hadn’t taken her long to examine the cell in the minutest detail – there wasn’t much to examine after all. The room was about five times as long and four times as wide as her; the bed she had slept in had turned out to be a bunk bed – the upper mattress had appeared to be just as thin and uncomfortable as the one she had spent the night in.

Apart from the bed, there wasn’t much more to be discovered in the room: a set of two dark grey, locked lockers stood opposite to the sleeping accommodation; the tiny window she had noticed the night before was –along with a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling- the only light source, causing the room to be just as dusky as in the night before.

After rattling at the metal door opposite to the window –her only possible way out- and realizing that it wouldn’t open, not even if she bucked and gave it a powerful kick –what had ended up with her falling over and groaning with pain from her aching legs- she had finally accepted that there was no way out, not until the two ponies would return and unlock the door for her.

It had taken her mind a few more moments to catch up with her current situation: she was trapped. For the first time in her life, she had been locked up - trapped somewhere without knowing when or if she would ever be free again.

That realization, along with the lack of sleep and the confusion about everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours –was this really the future? Had she –Twilight Sparkle- really traveled time? And was that –a dark, cold, stinky concrete desert- really what Ponyville was destined to be?- had finally pushed the red button in her head and thrown her mind into turmoil.

With her thoughts descending into chaos, Twilight had slowly walked over to the middle of the room, then sat down on the cold concrete, and started grinning.

She couldn’t help but to be reminded to Pinkie Pie: the pink pony had always told her that laughing –and if not laughing then at least smiling- could solve nearly any problem. “Smile and the world will smile back at you!” was one of the best lessons Twilight had learned from her since their first encounter so many years ago.

So Twilight had smiled, had literally contorted her face to a beaming smile. But that hadn’t been all: shortly after, she had started to giggle; first silently, then always louder and louder until finally, her reboant laughter echoed throughout her tiny prison, reflected by the bare concrete walls, thrown back at her like siren call.

By no stretch of the imagination could she explain why she was laughing. She was just laughing – laughing in the hope that it would make all her problems magically disappear; laughing in the hope that she could just return to her old life and forget about all the unpleasant experiences she had made in the ‘new’ Ponyville so far; laughing safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t help her at all; that it would only make it worse since the other ponies could hear her and declare her insane for sitting in an empty room and laughing like a maniac.

So, slowly but steady, her laughter slowed down and tears formed in her eyes. Shortly after, her giggle had been completely replaced by fitful sobs and a shallow puddle of tears had formed on the concrete under her body.

“Oh who the heck am I kidding!?” she whined, “It’s all my fault that I ended up here!” she smashed a hoof onto the ground, “Why didn’t I just stay with Shining Armor!? Why did I have to run away!?”

Her look fell onto the puddle next to her body and she suddenly silenced. Without words, the face she saw in the reflection showed her how much she had been through in the near past: surrounded by dark circles, her tear-soaked, jaded violet eyes stared back at her; her formerly neat, purple mane was unkempt by the long night on her hard pillow, was bristly and showed first signs of spliss.

“Mother of Celestia…” Twilight whispered to herself, “I’m a wreck.”

Contorting her face, she used her teeth to scratch an itch on her foreleg, certainly caused by the peculiar suit she was wearing. With an angry groan, she –still unable to use her magic- leaned her head forward and grabbed the upper end of a zipper she had spotted at the overall’s side just now.

A few moments, a couple of contortions, and several furious snorts later, Twilight had finally managed to free herself from the scratchy outfit and took a second to enjoy the regained feeling of freedom around her body.

Just as her thoughts were about to drift off again, a voice made her startle and let out a silent squeal. “Your time has come, prisoner.” The deep, female voice came from the other side of the thick metal door, “You have violated the law, and now you will pay!”

Twilight span around; her look wandered over to the door: a small window situated in its lower third –at about the height of Twilight’s stomach- had been opened and a pair of violet eyes gave her a petrifying look through the opening.

“Because you, erm…” the eyes wandered to the side for a second, presumably checking some kind of name tag that was fixed to the door, “Twalait Spahkel, have infringed Paragraph one of Article eighteen of the Equestrian basic law, which clearly states that, and I quote, ‘A civilian of Equestria may not practice nudism outside his or her private property. Exceptions are officially designated areas and other ponies’ private property, subject to the condition that the other stallion or mare agrees with nudism being practiced on his or her property.’, unquote.”

“…What!?” was all Twilight could bring out, “Nudism!? Basic law? What in Equestria are you-“

“Silence!” the voice interrupted her, “You have been found guilty by the district court of Ponyville. A crime as serious as nudity in public can and will only be punished with death penalty. You have ten minutes until you will be brought to your death row cell.”

“Death row!?” Twilight squealed with growing despair, “But … but those two other ponies said I would be free before noon! How can you-“

“I said silence!” the voice shouted at her; the eyes widened with rage, “You should have thought about that before you decided to take off all your clothes and run around like a wild animal!” Filled with disgust, the eyes’ gaze wandered over Twilight’s exposed body. “Just look at you: even after being arrested, you still didn’t learn your lesson; you still behave like a … like a wildpony. Pathetic. Simply pathetic, I tell you.”

“But-“ Twilight stammered unbelieving, “How can you … How can you … kill other ponies? That’s … that’s just-“

“I SWEAR TO CELESTIA IF YOU DON’T SHUT YOUR FACE THIS INSTANT I WILL COME IN THERE AND LIGHTEN THE ELECTRIC CHAIR’S WORKLOAD!” the mare on the other side of the door yelled on top of her lungs. She closed the window with a loud smash and added, “I’ll come back in ten minutes. Better say your last prayers.”

Without thinking, Twilight shot forward and slammed her hooves against the window with all of her power, yelling, “No! No, please! Please come back! Please!”

A couple of seconds passed until the window got opened again, making Twilight step back. Giving her an annoyed look, the mare asked, “What? What do you want, you animal?”

“P-please,“ Twilight stammered, feeling tears flooding her eyes, “Please let me go!” A shiver ran through her body as she remembered the words the mare had used – death penalty, death row, and electric chair. “I … I don’t want to die!” Twilight added, hearing her voice quaver with despair, “N-not here!”

The eyes narrowed, then silently disappeared behind the white metal of the door.

“Please!” Twilight yelled at the metal of the door, her voice about to break, ”Please come back, I-“ The words seemed to dry up in her throat as the massive metal door suddenly flew open, missing her face by mere inches.

Before Twilight knew what was happening, she got hit by a white blur that caught her off-guard, grabbed her by her shoulders, and threw her over, pinning her to the ground.

“Surprise!” her assailant shouted joyfully; her voice now sounded astonishingly familiar.

As Twilight’s vision cleared, the first thing she was the pair of Violet eyes, yet this time looking happy and joyful instead of evil and furious. Casting a quick glance to further examine her attacker’s body, Twilight saw that she was a pegasus: while the white of her coat reminded her to Rarity, the rest of her was the spitting image of Pinkie Pie: her gold-blonde hair and tail had exactly the same shape as those of her friend; her violet eyes seemed to shine in the same way Pinkie’s did, and her face was adorned by the same beaming smile Twilight knew and liked from the pink pony.

Yet unlike her friend, the pony above her wore a uniform – the same model she had seen on the ponies that had captured her the day before: consisting of dark blue pants, a shirt and a cap, it covered most of her body, except for her neck, head, tail and wings.

“P-Pinkie…” Twilight mumbled, but quickly got drowned by the white pegasus as she raised herself in the air and, facing Twilight with eyes widened in excitement, asked, “So? Did I get you? Did I? Did I?”

“What … what the hell are you talking about?” Twilight asked, getting to her shaky hooves and wiping the tears from her face, yet still keeping an eye on the levitating pegasus in front of her.

“Well, duh!” the pegasus said in a surprisingly familiar way and landed on the ground in front of Twilight, “Did you believe it? Did you really believe what I said?”

Looking at the uniformed pony in pure disbelief, Twilight stuttered, “I … I don’t-“

The mare’s body suddenly went limp and she gave the pale Princess an unbelieving look. “You believed it, didn’t you?” she shot forward and flung a foreleg around Twilight’s neck, “Aww, sorry if I scared you. I actually thought everypony would know that death penalty is abolished for more than seventeen years by now.”

Twilight, slowly getting the mare’s point, turned her head towards the smiling pony and asked, “So … so you-“

“I played a trick on you, silly!” the pegasus confessed joyfully and rubbed a hoof on Twilight’s head, “Seriously, did you really think we would kill somepony just for following her natural instincts?” she giggled heartily, “No! No, that would be downright barbaric!”

Twilight was speechless. She had seen ponies playing sick jokes on others before, but that was just … she couldn’t find the words to describe it. Giving the pegasus a look that went far beyond the term ‘disgusted’ she wanted to say something, but got cut off as her tormentor picked up the overall that laid next to them and handed it to her, saying, “But if you don’t want any more trouble, you should throw that on. We’ve got some stuffy-pants here who aren’t that okay with ponies being ‘au naturel’, if you know what I mean.”

Twilight, still too shocked –and disgusted- to think of a proper objection, hesitated for a second, but then reached forward and grabbed the uncomfortable garment, reluctantly slipping back into it. Her skin began to itch again, but this time she oppressed the urge to scratch herself.

The other pony, apparently noticing Twilight’s discomfort, said, “Don’t worry, you’ll be allowed to wear something more comfortable as soon as you’re out of here,” her eyes widened, “Oh, silly me! I got totally carried away!” she turned towards the –as Twilight noticed but then- still opened exit door and added, “Come on, we gotta head to the interrogation room if we want to get you out of here as soon as possible!”

She trotted off, but abruptly stopped in front of the door and hastily turned around, flying back to Twilight and saying, “Oh, and I almost forgot about that too!” she landed in front of Twilight and used her mouth to loosen a large keyring from her belt.

Unsure what was to come next, Twilight took a cautious step backwards, doing her best to hide her shaky legs but knowing that they looked like columns of jelly.

Grabbing one of the keys with her mouth, the white pony focused Twilight and said, “You gotta stay here, silly! We want to get rid of that annoying horn-cuff, don’t we?”

Instead of replying, Twilight remained silent, focused the gaping hole in the wall opposite to her and, realizing that freedom was just a short sprint away, tensed the muscles in her legs like a predator about to pounce.

The guard seemed to notice Twilight’s intention, since her happy smile vanished instantly and she frowned at her prisoner, saying, “Hey don’t you fool around now?” she dropped the keyring and turned her head, loosening a pair of cuffs from a thick black belt around her waist, “Because if you attempt an escape, I’m gonna have to make use of those,” she said and showed Twilight the metal construction, “And I want to apply them just as little as you want to be shackled.”

With that, she slowly lowered the shackles and put them down on the ground in front of her hooves. Tilting her head to the side, she gave Twilight a happy smile and said, “So, do you want me to lead you off like a convict or can we spare the fuss?”

Twilight remained silent, unsure what to do: on the one hand, every single muscle in her body told her to grab the chance; to take to her heels and escape from the concrete hell she was stuck in. On the other hand, she didn’t know how agile the pegasus in front of her was: regarding the speed she had had while entering the cell and the almost immediately following jerk into the air, Twilight couldn’t help but assume that –if she would attempt an escape- the white pegasus would dash after her immediately, catching her off-guard, throwing her over once again, and putting her in irons. The chances of escape on that way didn’t seem too high.

Bearing that in mind, Twilight reluctantly relaxed her muscles and, her look focused on the guard, said, “You … you promise nothing will happen to me?”

Before Twilight could react, the pegasus picked up the keyring, shot forward, and inserted a small key into the ring around her horn. With a brazen clink, the metal clamp dropped to the floor and landed in front of Twilight’s hooves.

“Of course not, silly!” the white pony giggled, “I guess it’s your first time here then?”

“Y-yeah, I … I guess.” Twilight stuttered, still not sure if she could trust the pony that had played a more than cruel trick on her no five minutes ago.

“Well, then I can comfort you!” the pegasus assured her with a confident smile, “You’re not gonna stay here for long. Even though scandalization is considered a crime, it’s only charged with a bail of a hundred bits, so you just have to pay it and you’ll be free again!”

Twilight’s eyes widened, “One hundred bits!? But … I don’t have any money with me.”

The mare’s smile vanished for a second, but quickly returned as she said, “Well, no problem! No problem at all! We’re just gonna call somepony and ask them to lend you some money. No big deal!”

Before Twilight could reply, the mare turned around, facing the opened exit door, and said, “Come with me, please. I’ll show you where the telephones are!”

“…what are-“

The pegasus suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and span around. Facing Twilight with a dauntingly serious look, she then said, “No funny business, alright?”

Twilight, remembering what would happen if she was in mischief, slowly nodded and said, “N-no. No, of course not, ma’am.”

The guard leaned forward and brought herself face to face with Twilight. With a petrifying stare, she asked, “Pinkie Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a-“ Twilight wanted to recite the well-known pledge, but cut herself off in the middle of the sentence. “Wait!” she said, giving the mare an unbelieving look, “How in Equestria do you know about the Pinkie Promise?”

“Well, duh!” the pegasus replied, rolling her eyes, and leaned back, “I happen to know its inventor.”

“You … you know Pinkie Pie?” Twilight asked, having a hard time to keep herself from yelling.
Returning the unbelieving look, the uniformed mare blinked several times and asked, “Y-you’re kidding, right?” Without leaving Twilight time to answer, she raised herself into the air and, still giving her a wide smile, said, “I’m her cousin, silly! Isn’t that obvious?”

“C-cousin?” Twilight stammered unbelieving, noticing that –on second thought- the pony levitating in front of her had surprisingly many things in common with her friend.

“Of course! How didn’t you notice earlier?” she asked her and lowered to the floor again, “Ponies always say we’re as alike as two peas in a pod!”

Laying her head to the side and stroking her chin with her hoof, Twilight said, “Pinkie Pie never told me that she has a cousin. I always thought her family consisted exclusively of rock farmers…” her look wandered over to the mare’s wings, “And earth ponies, at that.”

“Ouh, that’s a long story,” the mare commenced and flung a foreleg around Twilight’s neck, “You see, my great great great uncle Rock Roller has always had a weakness for winged mares and-”

“It’s alright!” Twilight cut her off, “It’s alright, I believe you.” She eyed the uniformed pony again, “But still, how does it come I’ve never met you before? We usually introduce our friends to our relatives.”

The mare’s smile weakened and she released Twilight from her grip, “Well, Pinkie and I haven’t seen each other for quite a while. You know, she grew up on a rock farm in Ponyville, I grew up in Los Pegasus - that’s quite a distance to span.” Her smile returned, even stronger than before, “But then I found that job at the Police Department and shortly after, Pinkie joined me!” she explained, showing the Princess her shiny teeth.

Leaving Twilight no time to could ask questions, the mare’s smile vanished again and made way for a look of confusion, “But how do you know Pinkie Pie? Are you one of her friends?” she asked her with an excited look.

“Well, yeah.” Twilight replied, busy ordering her thoughts, “My name is Twilight Sparkle and I-“

She got cut off by the mare who gasped loudly and rushed, “Ohmygosh! You are Twilight Sparkle? The Twilight Sparkle!?”

“Y-yeah, I guess…” Twilight stuttered.

“Oh my gosh! You’re alive!” the pegasus shouted, her face contorted with pleasant surprise as she jumped for joy, “We thought we’d have lost you in that glacier!”

“I … uh … I guess so?” Twilight stumbled, watching the ecstatic pegasus as she jumped up and down, almost smashing into the ceiling with every jump.

“Goodness, I have to tell Pinkie!” the pegasus shouted and turned around, heading towards the exit door. Right before leaving the room, she looked over her shoulder and shouted, “You stay here! I’ll be back in a second!”

Before Twilight had realized what was going on, the pegasus was gone and she was all alone again. She took a deep breath, then lowered herself to the ground and slowly sat down.

A deep sigh escaped her lips as she leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. “For Celestia’s sake, why can’t this just turn out to be a dream? Why can’t I just wake up in Ponyville and realize that Luna has played a silly joke on me?”

She slowly raised her head and looked at the opened door at the opposite end of the room; the urge to escape grew stronger again. “I could give it a try. I would just have to find a way out before somepony sees me.”

It took her a few seconds to come to a decision. With a determined snort, Twilight tensed the muscles in her legs and mumbled, “Alright, it’s now or never!” Feeling how adrenaline shot through her veins, she hastily rolled over, jumped to her hooves, focused the exit, and dashed forward.

“And I was all like ‘Goodness, I have to tell Pinkie!’ and ran out of the room.” the familiar voice came to Twilight’s ears, accompanied by the sound of hooves running over concrete. Changing her mind within split seconds, Twilight tensed every single muscle in her body and slid across the concrete, grinding to a halt right before the exit door.

“And you’re sure it’s Twilight? You know this isn’t a topic to joke about.” Another, almost similar voice replied in a more serious tone. Twilight, knowing that the guard was about to return, hastily slid backward and got to her hooves in the middle of the room.

“Well, see yourself!” the first voice announced happily. With that, the silhouettes of two ponies stepped into the doorframe of the exit door. Before Twilight could identify them, the right one jumped into the air and yelled, “Twilight!”

Only split seconds later, Twilight felt how someone flung their forelegs around her neck and squeezed with a power she had only expected from a body builder.

As her vision slowly cleared, all she could see was pink fur; a fluffy pink mane tickled the side of her face. “Pinkie Pie?” she produced, barely able to breathe due to the iron grip around her neck.

“Oh Twilight you can’t believe how glad I am to see you!” the pink pony raved into Twilight’s nape, “I thought you were dead!”

“Well, I…” Twilight wanted to reply, but then cut herself off and flung her forelegs around her friend, acknowledging the hug, enjoying every second of it.

She felt a tear of joy running down her cheek as she buried her face into the soft fur of her friend. For a short moment, the feeling of insecurity was gone, and she felt save: save from the fate that was in store for her, save from the dirty, fetid city out there, and save from the uniformed ponies.

“Uh, Pinkie…” the voice of the white pegasus came to Twilight’s ears, “I really hate to interrupt you, but I just as well hate to upset our boss, so…”

Pinkie Pie suddenly stiffened, “Of, of course!” she said and loosened herself from Twilight’s embrace. Twilight, suddenly lacking someone to lean on, was about to stumble forward, but quickly got caught by Pinkie who grabbed her hoof and tore her towards the exit. “Come on, Twilight! You have to tell me everything!”

What Twilight noticed but then was that her friend was uniformed too: except for her neck and hooves, her pink fur was entirely covered by the blue uniform Twilight already knew; the only difference was that Pinkie Pie had passed on a cap; her fluffy pink mane bounced as unfettered as always.

Overwhelmed by questions popping up in her head, Twilight decided to ask the first and most urgent one: “Where are we going?” she said to the hurrying pink pony.

“To the interrogation room, silly!” Pinkie replied, as happy as always, “There’s still some official stuff to do!”

“So you’re going to take care of her from now on?” the white pony asked as they passed her.

Giving her cousin a happy smile, Pinkie replied, “Of course, what else should I-“ she cut herself off and suddenly stopped dead in her tracks; Twilight bumped into her friend’s back with a muffled thud.

The pink pony smashed her face against her hoof and said, “Oh, silly me! How could I ever forget about that!?” she turned around and pointed a hoof at the pegasus, “Twilight, that’s Surprise, my cousin.” Pointing a hoof at the alicorn and looking at her cousin, she added, “Surprise, that’s Twilight! You know, the pony I told you about like…”

“A bajillion times!” Surprise ended her sentence with a spontaneous jump of excitement. Before Twilight could back up, the pegasus grabbed her hoof and shook it gushingly, saying, “And as for me: I’m so super-duper mega happy to finally meet you! Pinkie has told me so much about you, but finally seeing you in person, that’s just…!” her body spasmed as her face contorted to a radiant smile, “I’m so happy I could just scream!”

Twilight pulled her hoof back and, with a slight blush on her face, said, “Well, it’s nice to meet you too, Surprise. I honestly wouldn’t have expected to meet somepony like you in that place.” She admitted, letting her glance wander over the bare walls of the austere cell.

“We actually hear that surprisingly often.” Pinkie said, “Though I don’t get it - when somepony has made some mistakes and landed in prison, the best way to help them is giving them a smile!” turning her head towards her cousin, she asked, “Am I right?”

“You sure as hay are, Pinkie!” Surprise answered, returning the smile.

“But … I don’t understand!” Twilight stuttered, turning her head towards Pinkie Pie, “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in Ponyville!?”

“Duh, this is Ponyville, silly!” Pinkie corrected her indulgently.

“But why are you here? Why aren’t you at Sugarcube Corner? And why in Equestria is everypony here wearing those weird uniforms!?” she hit her friend with questions.

“All in good time, Twily! We don’t want to be in that sticky cell longer than we have to, do we?” Pinkie replied and grabbed Twilight’s hoof again, tearing her past surprise and through the exit door.

The walk trough the building took no more than two minutes. Following her friend through seemingly endless, plain, white hallways and passing dozens of uniformed ponies who rushed past them without a word of greeting, Twilight had quickly lost every kind of orientation.

All the more was the relief as Pinkie had finally stopped in front of a wooden door and said, “Here we are! Enjoyed the little tour through the police station?”

Once again, Twilight had no time to answer, for her friend had already opened the small door and entered the room. “Come in, no need to be afraid!” she shouted over her shoulder.

Twilight gulped, but hesitantly took a step forward and stepped through the door.

The glaring light of a large lamp at the ceiling made her squinch her eyes close as she entered the room and looked for her friend. The comparably small chamber was completely filled out by a wooden table in its middle; the only contrast to the bare, white walls and ceiling was a small window opposite to Twilight.

“Come in, take a seat!” Pinkie invited her and pointed at one of two chairs that surrounded the table.

With her confusion written on her face, Twilight walked over to the seat. Her look focused on her friend, she asked, “What is this room good for? What are we supposed to do here?”

“We’re just gonna have a little talk!” Pinkie replied joyfully as she took a seat on the chair opposite to Twilight’s, “You know, about me, about you, about your recent descent into criminality…” she explained and giggled.

With growing discomfort, Twilight approached the chair and sat down, facing her friend with the most unconcerned look she could put on at the moment.

Noticing the worry in Twilight’s eyes, Pinkie leaned back on her chair and said, “Aww you gotta stop taking everything so seriously, Twily! You’re looking at me like if I was about to kill you!”

“Why am I here?” Twilight asked, “Why are you here? Where are we? What in Equestria has-“

Twilight got cut off by the deafening sound of an air horn echoing throughout the room. Her look fell on Pinkie’s right hoof which held the device right in front of her face. With a happy smile, the pink pony said, “One at a time, Twilight! I understand that you’re kind of confused because of all that … detention-thingy going on, but I can only answer what I understand!” she explained and stored the horn in a small box underneath her chair.

Twilight shook her head to loosen from the stiffness the shock had brought over her and took a deep breath, then slowly started over. “Alright … alright. Where am I?”

“At the Ponyville Police Department, silly!” Pinkie replied instantly and put her hooves up, “Has nopony told you about that-“

“What the hay is a police department?” Twilight cut her friend off, “Why did I get arrested!?”

For the first time since their unexpected encounter, Pinkie’s smile grew a little weaker and she sighed. Giving her friend a pitying look, she said, “You know, Twilight, it’s always hard to talk about those things, even for somepony like me.”

“Wha- what in Equestria are you talking about?” Twilight asked her with widened eyes.

“I’m going to tell you.” Pinkie hesitantly announced, maintaining eye contact all the time, “You will understand a lot of things … but you won’t be happy about it.”

“Just spit it out!” Twilight urged her, “I’m tired of being in the dark!”

“You were gone for thirty years.” Pinkie Pie explained cautiously; her smile had completely vanished, “Many things have changed in that time. Many, many-“

Pinkie Pie’s voice seemed to fade away as Twilight’s vision blurred. “Thirty years. I’ve been gone for thirty years!” the words echoed in her mind, “I’ve missed that large amount of time just by … being gone!” Her legs began to shake as her body staggered back and forth on the chair. “Everything … has changed! And I … missed it!”

“Twilight, you okay?” the worried voice of Pinkie Pie came to her ears.

Before the words had faded away, Twilight keeled over and fell off her chair. A weak moan escaped her mouth as her body collided with the hard concrete floor.

“Twilight!” Pinkie Pie came to her ears and she felt the touch of two hooves flinging around her body and holding her head up, “Come on Twilight, get up!”

She was fully conscious – even though the shock had been enormous, the unconsciousness had faded away in the second her head had smashed onto the floor. Still, she didn’t open her eyes – for the second time that day, the little filly in her had shown through again: following the concept of ‘what I can’t see isn’t there’, she had kept her eyes closed, still nourishing the hope that she would wake up in her bed at the Ponyville library upon opening them.

However, her common sense had quickly gotten the better of her again, defeating her naïve urges and making her realize that hopes and wishes wouldn’t help her either – that she had to deal with the situation she had gotten herself into.

So she reluctantly opened her eyes; the broad ceiling lights blinded her once again.

“Thank goodness, I thought I’d have lost you – again!” Pinkie said with a happy smile.

“Ugh.” Twilight produced with a weak moan, “Thirty years? Really?”

“Yeah that’s quite some time, isn’t it?” Pinkie giggled and offered Twilight a hoof to help her up.

Twilight, reluctantly getting to her hooves, shook her head and said, “I … I just can’t believe it! I mean…” Overwhelmed by a sudden qualm, she stumbled over to the table and dropped herself back onto her chair, “Thirty years!”

Pinkie Pie sat down too, folded her forelegs, and gave her friend an empathetic look; a weak smile remained on her face though. “I can imagine how you’re feeling right now. I mean, if I try to remember life before you disappeared…” she craned her neck, looking at the ceiling of the small room, “That’s a difference of, like, worlds!”

“You don’t say…” Twilight mumbled and leaned forward, resting her head on her hooves.

It took a few seconds until she had collected the power to look up again. Eyeing her friend’s outfit, she added, “So I guess it’s a crime to walk around without clothes now?” she asked with a certain touch of bitterness in her voice.

Pinkie nodded confirming, striving after a smile, “Yeah, it’s … quite hard to explain though.” She said and tugged at the sleeve of her blue shirt, “I guess somehow it’s just gotten … normal to walk around like that.”

“Good gracious…” Twilight sighed; her head slowly sunk onto the table.

“Yeah…” Pinkie said compassionately. Her beaming smile finally returned, “But hey, look at the bright side! You’re back! You’re alive! You’ve got the world in your hooves!”

Twilight couldn’t exactly tell why, but for some reason, Pinkie’s words sparked something in her head – something she seemed to have completely forgotten about during the past 24 hours.

“Wait!” she shouted; her head short upward, facing her friend with widened eyes, “What about our friends!? Have they … changed too? I mean, I know that you haven’t changed, but…” a shiver ran through her spine as she thought about how much Ponyville had changed, “Have they changed!?”

Pinkie, still facing her with a wide smile, said, “Oh don’t you worry your little head about that! Our friends still are the same super-duper ponies they’ve always been!”

With a sigh of relief, the muscles in Twilight’s body relaxed and she sank back into her chair. “Could you…” she mumbled, addressing Pinkie Pie, “Could you call them here, please?” she gently rubbed her aching forehead with her right hoof, “I … I just want to see them at the moment.”

Her friend remained silent, making Twilight look up and give her an asking look. “Well,” Pinkie hesitantly commenced. Even though her face was still adorned by a broad smile, Pinkie’s worried eyes revealed her true feelings: even though she did her best to hide it, Twilight could see that her friend –deep within- was about to break out in tears.

“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked, noticing the worry in her voice.

“What?” Pinkie asked and turned her head towards her; her smile didn’t vanish. “N-nothing’s wrong! Why should something be wrong? There’s nothing wrong at all!”

“Pinkie,” Twilight replied dryly, “You can’t lie to me. Now come on, tell me!” She hesitated, then added, “Did … did something happen to our friends?”

Pinkie’s smile grew weaker with every second as she said, “N-no! I mean, I think so. At least … I hope so.”

“So you don’t know where they are?” Twilight concluded with quavering voice.

“Y-yes, of course I do!” Pinkie ensured, making a massive effort to restore the put-on smile on her face, “I mean … I know that Rainbow Dash is still around. And … I guess Applejack is still working at Sweet Apple Acres. As for Fluttershy … I think she still lives somewhere at the edge of the Everfree Forest, but I’m not really sure about that.”

“And Rarity? What about her!?” Twilight asked impatiently.
Instantly, Pinkie stopped struggling for a smile on her face. Pouting at her friend, she said, “Oh believe me, you don’t wanna know! I tell you, there are meanie-pants, and there’s Rarity!”

“W-what happened?” Twilight

“Please, just…” Pinkie said and lowered her head, making a deterrent gesture with her hoof, “Let’s not talk about her anymore, okay?”

“But why-“

“Aaanyhow,” Pinkie cut her friend off and looked back up; her signature smile had returned, “Don’t you think we should tell Dashie that you’re here? I’m sure it would make her day! … Something she could really use at the moment.”

“What was that?” Twilight asked and leaned her head forward.

“I said we should tell Rainbow Dash that you’re not dead.” Pinkie said and loosened something that looked like a black plastic box from a holder on her chest.

“But you said something more, something about-“

Twilight got gut off by Pinkie who pressed a button on the black box in her hooves and held it in front of her mouth. With the sweetest voice Twilight had heard in a long time, Pinkie said, “Daaaashie! Could you come to the interrogation room for a second, please?”

A few seconds passed until the device produced sounds again: a voice that reminded Twilight to that of Rainbow Dash, yet sounded a lot more … strained was the only word Twilight could think of to describe it, let out an annoyed moan, then replied, “For the last time, Pinkie Pie, it’s Detective Dash to you!”

“Yeah yeah, Dashie! Now come on over! There’s somepony you sure wanna meet!” Pinkie replied joyfully.

“Pinkie I swear to god, if that’s some kind of stupid joke, I’m literally gonna-“

“Don’t be so grumpy!” the pink pony cut her off, “Now swing your flank over here! I promise, you won’t regret it.”

A sigh came from the device’s speaker, “Can’t that wait? I’m on lunch break, you know?”

“So what?” Pinkie replied with a confident smirk, “I believe the fastest pony in all of Equestria can come over here and still have enough time for her lunch, don’t you think?”

The voice grumbled something incomprehensible, then, with a noticeable amount of reluctance, said, “Alright. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Better not let me down.”

“You know I would never do that, Dashie!” Pinkie ensured with a smile and lowered the device. Giving Twilight a satisfied look, she then said, “Dash will be here in a few minutes!”

Twilight didn’t reply; all of her attention was focused on the black device Pinkie was just about to re-attach to her chest. “What’s that … thing?” she curiously asked her friend.

“Oh that?” Pinkie asked and pointed a hoof at her chest, “Nothing, just my walkie-talkie. Everypony working here gets one of those.”

“And you just … communicated with Rainbow Dash? With the help of that thing?” Twilight asked and leaned over the table, bringing herself face to face with the device.

Pinkie loosened the box again and handed it to her friend saying, “Duh, silly! That’s what a walkie-talkie is good for!”

“Amazing…” Twilight muttered, carefully eyeing the plastic speaker. A few moments passed until she looked back up and, coming to the next question that preyed on her mind, asked, “But … anyway, What brings you here? Why are you wearing those clothes? And why aren’t you at Sugarcube Corner!?”

“Well, hehe…” Pinkie hesitantly answered; her smile seemed to turn plastic again, “I would lie if I would say that I got here all by myself, but…”

“But what?” Twilight probed, eager to find out about how her friend could end up at a place like that, “What happened to The Cakes?”

“Hehe,” Pinkie replied with a put-on giggle, “I guess it would take too long to explain it –even to somepony as smart as you, hehe- but … in a world where huge companies basically own the market for sweets and pastries, it’s hard to sell hoof-made products – at least at the price we used to sell them.”

“I … can’t quite follow your drift, Pinkie.” Twilight admitted, “So you mean they had to close Sugarcube Corner?”

Affecting the worst laugh Twilight had ever heard, Pinkie shrugged and said, “That’s the way the ball bounces, isn’t it? I mean, hehe, the ones you have loved like your own family for the better half of your life are running on empty and have to shut down their life work and fire you. Hehe. You find yourself home- and jobless and, hehe, are forced to live on the street!”

“Oh my gosh,” Twilight said and leaned back on her chair in dismay, “Pinkie that’s just horrible!”

“It’s alright!” Pinkie said with a lighthearted wave of her hoof, “To my very luck, Rainbow Dash found me only a few months later and made that job at the Police Department clear for me. Everything’s fine now!” she confidently assured Twilight.

“So Rainbow Dash is working here too?” Twilight asked confused, “What about her job at the Weather Patrol?”

Again, Pinkie smiled and shrugged carelessly, “Who knows? Who cares? You can ask her when she’s here though.”

Twilight nodded slowly and relaxed her tensed muscles, trying to ignore the urge to scratch herself – if she would have been alone, or at least not in some sort of huge, unknown building, she wouldn’t have hesitated to rip the annoying garment off her body and enjoy the freedom her instinct craved for, but she was sure that if somepony –maybe even Pinkie Pie; Twilight wasn’t sure about how much she could trust her friend after everything she had heard about Pinkie’s past- would alert the other police ponies around, she would definitely land in her cell again, only that this time she wouldn’t come out this easily.

Trying to break the awkward silence that had laid over the two ponies, Twilight gave Pinkie a curious look and asked, “So what was that with Rarity? What has she done that you don’t want to talk about her?”

Once again, Pinkie smiled at her friend and giggled, “Oh it’s nothing serious, silly! She’s just a little … out of touch with the real world.“ Pinkie cut herself off as the door to the small room flew open and the sound of hooves trotting over concrete echoed from the walls.

The two mares’ heads spun around simultaneously; their gazes fell on the pony that had just entered the small room: the slim, cyan mare gave Pinkie Pie an annoyed look and said, “Here I am. What’s so important?”

“Dashie, you’re finally here!” Pinkie noticed joyfully, “You see, I wanted-“

Pinkie was the one to be cut off this time, as Twilight shouted, “Rainbow Dash!” and arose from her chair, flying over to the pouting mare and flinging her forelegs around her neck, “You can’t believe how glad I am to see you!”

Rainbow Dash, apparently too astonished to give an immediate response, said, “T-Twilight?”

“Isn’t that incredible!?” Pinkie asked her friend, her voice beaming with happiness, “A patrol found her in the outskirts yesterday evening! She’s been frozen in that glacier for the entire time!”

Rainbow Dash finally seemed to get a grip, as she loosened from her stiffness and weakly acknowledged the hug, saying, “Wow, that’s … great.”

“I know right!?” Pinkie asked and shot forward, joining the two mares and turning their embrace into a group hug, “Now we can be together again! Like in the old times!”

Twilight felt how a shudder ran through Rainbow Dash’s body and she loosened herself from the hug. “Yeah … old times…” she muttered and slowly stepped back.

It was in about that moment that Twilight noticed that her friend –just like every other pony around- was dressed; yet unlike the police ponies she had seen before, Rainbow Dash wore a white button-up shirt combined with a black jacket and a pair of black pants; the walkie-talkie Twilight knew from Pinkie’s uniform as well as a golden badge were fixed to her chest.

But what attracted Twilight’s attention even more than Rainbow Dash’s unusual clothing was the keen smell coming from her: while Rainbow Dash usually was the pony that –thanks to the long times she spent in the sky every day- had the cleanest body odor, she now emitted a mixture of old sweat, dried-up alcohol and -above all- smoke.

Twilight couldn’t help but scrunch up her nose and take a step backward as awkward silence set in yet again.

“So,” Pinkie spoke up after a few moments, “You know what I first thought when I saw that Twilight was still alive?” she paused, waiting for an answer that didn’t come, “This calls for a party!” she yelled and happily bounced up and down.

“Pinkie. No.” Rainbow Dash dryly put her off and placed a hoof on her shoulder, pinning her to the ground.

“Oh come on, Dash! Stop being such a party pooper!” Pinkie said and turned her head towards her friend, giving her an asking look.

“For the last time, it’s Detective Dash!” Rainbow Dash yelled at Pinkie, “And I’ll stop being such a ‘party pooper’ if you stop making a goddamn joke out of everything! Life isn’t a party!”

Dumbstruck by this unexpected turn of events, Twilight looked at both of her friends, then opened her mouth to say something but got cut short as Pinkie Pie spoke up. “But we can be happy; we can make jokes! For the sake of pie, our long lost friend has finally returned!” the pink pony justified herself, “Now show some happiness and let us see a smile!”

Rainbow Dash brought herself face to face with Pinkie Pie; the look she gave her showed unspeakable amounts of annoyance, anger, and despise – something Twilight had never seen in her friend’s eyes before.

With razor-sharp voice, Rainbow Dash hissed, “Fuck you.” she turned around, facing the door, “Fuck all of you! I’m sick of your shit!” with a powerful tug, she opened the door, “For fuck’s sake, I need a cig!”
The cyan mare trudged through the exit door and, without giving her friends a second look, smashed it, sending a deafening echo throughout the room.

“What the heck was that?” Twilight was the first to speak up after a few seconds of silence; she turned her head towards Pinkie Pie, giving her a look that barely managed to express her confusion.

“Well,” Pinkie said, to Twilight’s very surprise still with a happy smile on her face, “She can be a little grumpy from time to time. You’re gonna get used to it.”

“But that,” Twilight pointed a hoof at the door, “Wasn’t ‘grumpy’! That was downright rude! What the heck happened to Rainbow that makes her act like that?”

For the third time that day, Pinkie shrugged, “I don’t know. I mean, she’s been like that for several years by now, but never told anyone why.”

It took Twilight a few seconds to come to a conclusion. Clenching her teeth in determination, she stepped forward and said, “I have to follow her! I have to find out what’s wrong!”

Before she could reach for the door handle, she felt a hoof on her shoulder that –not roughly, but far from gently- held her back. “I’m afraid I can’t let that happen, Twilight.” Pinkie’s surprisingly sober voice came to her ears.

Twilight’s head shot around, looking at her friend with widened eyes, “What!? Why not?”

“Duh, you’re still under arrest, silly!” Pinkie giggled; her voice had regained its usual easiness within split seconds. Faster than Twilight could react, the pink pony shot backward, sat down at the table and –seemingly out of nowhere- pulled out a printed piece of paper she placed on the tabletop in front of her, “But don’t worry, just fill out that form here and you’ll be a free pony in no time!”

Raising an eyebrow, Twilight turned around and trotted back to the table, critically eyeing the paper: according to the tiny, barely readable paragraphs, she was required to fill in her full name, as well as her age and place of residence.

Giving her friend a skeptical look, Twilight asked, “And that’s everything? I just have to fill that out and then I can go?”
The pink pony nodded affirmatively.

“But the ponies that captured me said something about a fine. Coming to think of it…” she raised an eyebrow, “Your cousin, Surprise, also mentioned an administrative penalty.”

“Oh that!” Pinkie said with a dismissive swing of her hoof, “Never mind the fine! It’s not like anyone would care about it anyway.”

With growing skepticism, Twilight responded, “But I can’t leave without paying my fine!” she contorted her face, “Even though I find it weird that somepony gets arrested for not wearing clothes in public, I have obviously committed a crime and now I have to account for it!” Twilight declared with a determined stomp of her hoof.

Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. “Oh you and your 'royal sense of responsibility'! Oh well, if you insist on taking the square-way out,” she stretched out her hoof, holding it in front of Twilight as if she wanted to shake hooves, “Please hand me the hundred bits!”

Twilight hesitated. In the heat of the moment, she had completely forgotten that all of her savings were still in her room in Canterlot; that –at least for now- she could be considered completely bankrupt. “Well … I …” she stuttered.

“Don’t have any money with me?” Pinkie completed her sentence with a cheeky smile, “Oh Twilight, you wouldn’t believe how often I’ve heard that sentence already!” she reached into the breast pocket of her shirt, “But what kind of pony would I be if I wouldn’t help a friend in need?” keeping the smile, she pulled out a black wallet and placed it on the table, giving it a gentle shove and making it slide over to Twilight, “Take what you need!”

Twilight used her magic to pick up the wallet and look inside. “Pinkie, are you kidding me?” she asked her friend with an unfazed look on her face, “Why the heck are you storing paper in your wallet? It’s made for money, not for paper snippets!”

With a slightly deriding giggle, Pinkie said, “Oh poor, innocent Twilight!” she leaned forward and pointed at the greenish strips of paper, “That is money! It just has the form of a bill instead of a coin!”

Twilight pulled one of the strips out and eyed it skeptically, “Are you serious?” In fact, the piece of paper appeared to have two large numbers, as well as a picture of Princess Celestia and the words ‘BANK OF EQUESTRIA – FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE’ on it. “Impressive…” Twilight said to herself, “So that piece of paper has the value of…” she looked at the printed number, “Twenty bits?”

“Of course!” Pinkie confirmed, “Now, how much do you need?”

“What?” Twilight asked; her head shot upward, “No! No, thank you, Pinkie, but I can’t accept your money.”

“Twilight please!” Pinkie said and leaned back on her chair, “Do you want to pay your fine or not?”

Twilight hesitated, her look focused on the chunk of money in her hooves. Certainly, she wouldn’t leave the building without paying what she had to pay –what kind of Princess would she be if she would do something that would equal a theft- but asking her friends to pay for something she had caused all by herself – that just didn’t feel right.

“Now just take it, Twi!” Pinkie invited her with a confident smile, “It’s alright, really.”

“Hmm…” Twilight mumbled, more to herself than to Pinkie. Coming to a decision, she hesitantly grabbed a bunch of bank notes from the purse, stored it in a pocket of her overall, then looked up and gave Pinkie a determined look, “I’ll pay it back as soon as I get the chance, I promise.” she assured her friend.

The pink pony put her off with a casual swipe of her hoof, “No hurry, Twilight. Contrary to certain other ponies,” she frowned out of the small window next to them, “I know how important it is to help a friend when she’s in need.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked and raised an eyebrow.

Still frowning, Pinkie turned away from the window and said, “N-nothing.” She shoved the paper over to Twilight, “Now come on, we want to make you a free pony, don’t we?”

Chapter 5

The paper was surprisingly easy to fill out – it reminded Twilight more to a survey than to an actual form, for all she had to do was answer some simple questions and give some personal information.

“Okay, I think that’s it.” She said and slid the paper back to Pinkie Pie who picked it up and gave it an inspecting look. The pink pony read for a few seconds, then began to chuckle, making a massive effort to hold it back, but failing miserably.

“What’s so funny?” Twilight asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“A-are you serious?” Pinkie asked, still unable to contain her amusement, “Residence: The Ponyville library? Occupation: Princess!? Bwahaha!”

“What’s so funny about that? It’s where I live and what I do!” Twilight justified herself.

“Yeah, maybe a hundred years ago!” Pinkie said, her voice still quavering, “Sorry, but that,” she pointed at the paper, “Isn’t exactly what my bosses want to read.”

“What else should I write, then?” Twilight asked, confused and slightly annoyed by Pinkie’s sudden laughing fit, “Should I just make something up?”

“No, of course not!” Pinkie replied hastily, “We just have to … adapt it a little.” she craned her neck, making a reflecting pose, “You don’t happen to know the official address of your home, do you?”

Twilight blinked at her friend, not understanding her question, “What do you mean? It’s the library. In Ponyville. … I believe there’s only one tree-shaped library in the city.” She added with a light chuckle in her voice.

“Hmmm, yeah…” Pinkie mumbled to herself. Lowering her head and looking at Twilight again, she said, “Nevermind, I’ll have somepony look it up.” She looked back at the paper in front of her, “And about that Princess-thing…”

“What about it? I am a Princess, you know?” Twilight said, skeptically raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, the only problem is that those governmental stiffie-pantsies don’t see it as a legit occupation.” Pinkie explained, “It’s like if I would say I was the conqueror of the moon or something like that!” she giggled.

“…What!?” Twilight asked visibly confused, “What do you-“

“Ha! I got it!” Pinkie interrupted her and jumped up from her chair, “Government official! That’s the right term!”
Before Twilight could act, Pinkie pulled a pencil out of her breast pocket and scribbled something on the paper. “Alright!” she reached for Twilight’s hoof, shaking it amicably, “Congratulations, Twilight! Your detention is officially over!”

“T-thank you, I guess…” Twilight stuttered, just to be cut off once again.

“Now, we'll just have get you out of that stupid overall and you’ll be out of here in no time!” Pinkie announced and rushed forward, hurrying out of the room and pulling the confused Twilight behind her.

Once again, getting torn through the seemingly endless building had managed to deprive Twilight of every kind of orientation; she had been forced to blindly follow her friend through the narrow hallways without knowing where the pink pony was heading.

So once again, she sighed in relief as Pinkie finally stopped in front of a door and said, “Here we are! Don’t worry, this will take only a minute!”

“What are we-“ Twilight wanted to ask, but Pinkie had already entered the room and gestured Twilight to follow her.

“Oh well…” Twilight sighed and stepped inside.

In opposite to the other rooms she had seen that day, the room she was in now didn’t manage to amaze her: it was just a locker room – plain, grey walls, unspectacular wooden benches, bare, green lockers; nothing more.

Pinkie Pie hurried forward and stopped in front of a locker situated in one of the room’s corners. Tearing it open with a quick tug and hastily rummaging around it, she said, “I’m afraid I can’t offer you any new clothes, but if you’re fine with wearing my plainclothes,” she pulled a pair of cyan pants out of the locker and threw it over to Twilight who dodged the sudden assault with a quick jump to the side, “I think it’s certainly better than walking around in a convict uniform.” the second piece of cloth –a pink t-shirt- flew over to Twilight, yet this time was faster than her and landed on her head.

“Ugh. Do I really have to wear those things?” Twilight asked the obvious question as she pulled the shirt from her face.

“Well,” Pinkie said and closed the locker, “you don’t have to. I mean, I didn’t really have the impression that you liked sitting in that sticky detention cell, but if I’m wrong, feel free to go ahead!”

With a mumbled curse, Twilight opened the zipper at the side of her overall and finally freed herself from its scratchy embrace, noticing that Pinkie demonstratively turned her head away from her.

“Oh come on!” Twilight said and slipped into the pants, “Really?”

“Just go ahead, Twily!” Pinkie said without turning her head, “I’m not looking!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight snapped at her while putting on the pink t-shirt, “Come on, we never wore clothes earlier. Don’t act like if it was something new.”
“Sorry Twilight,” Pinkie said over her shoulder, yet kept her eyes closed, “Force of habit, you know?”

“Yeah yeah,” Twilight grumbled and grabbed the bundle of bank notes from the overall in front of her hooves, storing it in one of her newly-gained pockets, “Force of my flank!” Addressing Pinkie Pie, she spoke up, “Alright, I’m dressed now. You can look again.”

Instantly, Pinkie span around and, grabbing Twilight by her hoof once again, said, “Alrighty then! Let’s get you out of here!”

“What about the overall?” Twilight asked while passing the exit door.

Without turning her head, Pinkie said, “Don’t mind it! I’m sure someone’s going to put it away sooner or later!”
With a skeptical frown, Twilight replied, “I’m not so sure about-“

“Now come on,” Pinkie interrupted her and shot forward, “You wanted to look for Rainbow Dash, didn’t you?”

Twilight sighed, but remained silent and hurried after Pinkie, quickly losing herself in the labyrinth of grey hallways.

A couple of minutes later, the two ponies finally passed a large milk glass door and Twilight found herself outside again, blinded by the broad light of the midday sun.

Even before her eyes could spot her, a cloud of blue smoke floated over to her and made her scrunch up her nose in disgust. She turned her head to the right and saw her: leaning against the brick wall of the building, Rainbow Dash hung her head low and looked to the ground; her right wing held the suspected causer of the stench: a small, white rod, not longer than two inches, that emitted a constant stream of bluish smoke at one end.

“Dashie, there you are!” Pinkie noticed joyfully and span around, facing the pegasus with a happy smile.

The cyan mare slowly raised her head; thin strands of smoke escaped her mouth and nose. “What do you want?” she asked; her voice sounded even croakier than before.

Doing her best to give her friend a smile, Pinkie said, “Well, we wanted to-“

“What the hell is wrong with you, Rainbow Dash!?” Twilight interrupted the pink pony and stepped forward, “What happened? Why do you suddenly act like if you wouldn’t give a damn about your friends!?”

“Because I don’t.” Rainbow Dash responded dryly and dropped the smoking object to the ground, “And now leave me the hell alone. I don’t need your company!” she snapped at Twilight and stretched her wings, taking off in the blink of an eye and dashing vertically upward.

“Oh no you don’t!” Twilight growled and took off for her part, speeding after her friend with clenched teeth. She didn’t know what had happened to her friend, but she was more than eager to find out.

The young princess couldn’t tell if her sudden anger made her develop extra power or if her friend was just flying extremely slow, but for some reason, she had approached Rainbow Dash after only a few seconds - her exhausted gasps came to Twilight’s ears; her rainbow tail was about to touch the tip of her nose.

Making an effort to hide her heavy breathing, Rainbow Dash turned her head and, over her gasps, said, “I … said … leave me alone!” she clenched her teeth and, under massive efforts, flapped her wings a little faster, arduously gaining a little advance to her friend.

But it was futile: without making a noticeable effort, Twilight caught hold of her friend’s rainbow tail and gave it a hard tug. The two ponies stopped instantly; Rainbow Dash desperately tried to free herself from Twilight’s grip, but it was more than obvious who was in charge of the bundle.

“Leave me alone!” Rainbow Dash spat at Twilight and squirmed. Turning her head and giving Twilight a petrifying stare over her shoulder, she growled, “I don’t want to hurt you, Twilight, but if you leave me no other choice, I’m gonna have to-“

“Quit talking nonsense.” Twilight hissed back and gave Rainbow Dash’s tail another tug, catching her off-guard and pulling the cyan pegasus closer to her. Taking advantage of her friend’s perplexity, she quickly flung her forelegs around her body and carried the struggling mare to the ground.

“Lemme go! Lemme go!” Rainbow Dash growled, realizing that she stood no chance against Twilight’s hard grip, “Twilight I swear to god I'll kick your fuc-“

She didn’t manage to finish her sentence, for in that second, the two mares landed on the floor and Twilight, remaining on top of Rainbow Dash, pinned her to the ground, paying attention not to hurt her, but completely preventing her from moving.

“Relax, Rainbow!” Twilight urged the still struggling mare, “You have to calm down!”

Though contrary to her expectations, Twilight’s invitation only made the cyan mare struggle harder and she had to make use of her magic to contain the squirming pegasus. “Relax my ass! This shit you’re doing here is illegal! I’m gonna sue your royal flank for criminal assault!” Rainbow Dash spat at her friend, flames burning in her eyes.

Pinkie Pie, who had trotted the short distance from the building’s exit to the two mares’ current position, stopped next to Twilight and said, “Whoa there! What in the name of Celestia is going on!?”

“Argh!” Rainbow Dash groaned under the pressure of Twilight’s magic, “That whore won’t let me go! Tell her to release me!”

“Not unless you don’t tell me what’s wrong with you!” Twilight responded confidently.

“Nothing is wrong!” Rainbow growled. Giving Pinkie a demanding look, she said, “Tell her, Pinkie! I’m as alright as ever!”

The pink pony hesitated, eyeing both of her friends with skeptical looks. After a few moments of silence, she turned her head towards Rainbow Dash and hesitantly said, “You know, Dashie. The old Rainbow Dash would have never flown off when her friends wanted to talk to her.”

“But-“

With growing self-confidence, Pinkie continued, “And the old Rainbow Dash would have never called one of her best friends a ‘whore’!”

“But she has-“

Pinkie’s face became angrier with every second, “And ultimately, the old Rainbow Dash would have shown at least a tiny sign of happiness when her lost friend has returned after 30 whole years! At least a teeny tiny sign of happiness!”

The cyan mare remained motionless for a moment, then sighed deeply and dropped her head, resting it on the cold asphalt of the sidewalk the ponies were standing on.

“I think you can let her go now, Twilight.” Pinkie muttered and stepped back, “She won’t fly off again.”

Obeying, Twilight arose from the rainbow-haired mare and released her from the grip of her magic; her friend remained lying though.
In the second Twilight wanted to take a step forward and look if she was alright, Rainbow Dash –barely understandable- muttered, “I’m sorry.”

Twilight hesitated, “What?”

“I’m sorry, alright?” Rainbow Dash literally belched the words out and raised her head, looking at the Princess with glazed eyes, “I acted like a total fuckhead. You happy now?”

Making an effort to smile, Twilight softly nodded her head and said, “It’s okay, Rainbow. Everypony has a bad day from time to time.” She offered her a hoof to get up.

Just as Rainbow Dash had gotten to her hooves and was about to say something, the general background noise coming from a road opposite to the police station got drowned out by a thrilling ringtone coming from the walkie-talkie on Pinkie’s chest. “Officer Pie, I do not remember releasing you into lunch break!” the slightly irritated voice of a stallion came from the device’s speaker, “Move your flank back in here. There’s work to be done!”

“Oh, hehe…” Pinkie giggled and grabbed the black box, “I’ll be there in a second, Joe!” she assured the stallion at the other end of the line.

“Sorry you guys,” she said to Twilight and Rainbow Dash, “duty calls!” she turned around, facing the building again, “I’ll see you as soon as my shift is over, alright?” she wanted to trot off, but suddenly stopped herself, “Oh, and Twilight,” she said and focused the purple mare over her shoulder, “Keep a stiff upper lip, alright? Life in the city can be tough.” With that, she trotted towards the large entrance door and quickly disappeared behind the bare brick façade of the building.

Silence hung over the two mares for a second; then Twilight turned her head towards Rainbow Dash and asked, “So … what now?”

The cyan pegasus gave her an unbelieving, slightly condescending smirk. “Seriously?” she grunted more than she was speaking, “You’re asking me what you should do now?”

“Well, I actually asked you what we should do now.” Twilight corrected her friend, “I mean…” she mumbled and let her glance wander throughout her environment. She was caught in a concrete desert: surrounded by houses that had at least five times the size of houses in Ponyville and having only a black street as contrast to the grey of the omnipresent concrete, she felt a sudden craving for a plain, green meadow rising up inside her.

She looked for other ponies: while the streets were well-filled with the odd vehicles –their terrible stench had already managed to defeat every potential sensation of hunger inside her- the sidewalks next to the street were nearly empty: apart from one or two stallions in black suits, a mare that took her foal for a walk, and two filthy-looking stallions in yellow reflective vests, her environment was basically desolate.

“…I honestly don’t know where to go.” Twilight hesitantly completed her sentence.

“And you think I do?” Rainbow Dash replied unbelievingly, “Twilight, I’m a detective, no freaking fortuneteller! How the hell should I know where the hell you want to go!?”

“W-well…” Twilight stuttered, “Where are you going?”

Pulling a keyring out of her pocket, Rainbow Dash replied, “I was just on my way to an investigation near the Central Garden. That is, until you interrupted me.” A growl escaped her throat, but she quickly fought it down and shook her head, adding, “I can give you a lift if you want.”

The thought of a garden; of a soft, green patch of grass made Twilight nod her head without thinking further.

“Alright then. Follow me.” Rainbow Dash said and turned around, walking along the building and heading towards a large opening in its façade. Twilight shrugged cluelessly, but –faced with a lack of alternatives- trotted after her friend and quickly caught up to her.

“Coming to think of it,” Rainbow Dash muttered to herself, “I think the old library isn’t that far from the Central Garden.”

“The old library?” Twilight asked slightly confused.

They passed the large opening and entered a huge room that reminded Twilight to a basement: barely enlightened, it was equipped with nothing but some small ceiling lights and two exit doors in the grey walls.

On second look though, Twilight noticed that the room wasn’t completely empty: she spotted several of the road vehicles standing in different corners of the room; none of them seemed to be manned by a pony though.

“Your former home, egghead.” Rainbow Dash answered her friend’s question with a light chuckle in her voice.

“My … my home?” Twilight stuttered, needing a few seconds to count one and one together, “So, that means … you’ll take me home?” she asked, suddenly feeling a wave of euphoria rise up inside her.

Without turning her head, Rainbow Dash shrugged casually and said, “If you say so.” She grabbed a key from her keyring with her mouth; a deafening bleep echoed throughout the room; Twilight saw an orange light flashing at its other end and gave a startled jerk.

“Now come on, I don’t have all day.” Rainbow Dash urged her friend and trotted over to one of the vehicles.

Twilight, still feeling the adrenaline rush through her veins, obeyed and trotted over to her friend, skeptically approaching the vehicle. It looked mostly similar to the one she had seen the day before; the only difference was that it was completely black and lacked the set of blinking lights on its roof.

Rainbow Dash opened a door in its front and dropped herself onto a seat, gesturing Twilight to do the same. “Come on, enter already. My lunch break is over for twenty minutes!” she summoned her impatiently.

Twilight –unable to miss noticing her once again shaking legs- hesitantly trotted forward and stopped in front of a door at the other side of the vehicle, unsure what to do in order to open it.

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” Twilight heard Rainbow Dash growl as the cyan mare leaned over to her and opened the door from the inside, “You could at least do something by yourself!”

“S-sorry…” Twilight muttered absentmindedly and sat down on the seat next to Rainbow Dash, noticing that the unpleasant smell of smoke her friend seemed to emit almost continuously was nearly omnipresent in the cabin they were sitting in. She scrunched up her nose and, intending to show her friend that she was able to cope with the new technologies surrounding her, used her magic to close the door and gave the cyan mare a weak, yet proud grin.

But she had already lost her friend’s attention: rolling her eyes, Rainbow Dash grabbed her keyring and inserted a small, plastic-coated key into a lock next to the steering wheel in front of her. The black vehicle awoke with a soft growl and Twilight winced noticeably, yet managed to hold back a squeal this time.

With a dry smirk, Rainbow Dash rested her front hooves on the large wheel in front of her and, without looking at her friend, said, “Oh you’re gonna have a bad time here, egghead.”

Before Twilight could question her friend, the vehicle jerked forward and pressed her into the scratchy fabric of her seat.

With proficiency that –at least Twilight thought so- could only result from many years of practice, Rainbow Dash used the steering wheel to maneuver the vehicle past the obstacles in her way and towards the gap in the wall that indicated the exit.

“What do you mean with ‘bad time’?” Twilight finally asked as their vehicle shot out of the darkness of the building and into the broad sunlight of the day, merging into the continuous flow of other vehicles on the road.

“Well…” Rainbow Dash said and shrugged carelessly, her look always focused on the street in front of them, “Remember when Moonbutt came to Ponyville for the first time?”

It took Twilight a few seconds to realize what her friend hat just said. She slowly turned her head towards the cyan mare; her eyes widened in disbelief, “Excuse me!? Did you just call Princess Luna ‘Moonbutt’!?”

“Yeah yeah,” Rainbow Dash put her off, “Luna, Lulu, Moonbutt, whatever. When she came to Ponyville, she didn’t have the slightest idea of how things were running here, right?”

“…and?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well,” the pegasus commenced and brought the vehicle to a standstill in front of a red traffic light, turning her head towards her passenger, “Don’t you see some kind of, you know, similarity here?”

“What do you-“ Twilight replied but cut herself off as she got her friend’s point, “Are you kidding?” she asked her with widened eyes, “Luna was gone for a thousand years, I only for thirty years! You … you can’t compare that!”

With a huff, Rainbow Dash turned her head back and said, “Thirty years, thousand years … where’s the difference?” she let out a weak sigh, “Time means nothing nowadays, Twilight. A lesson you’ll learn sooner or later.” With a dry smirk on her face, she looked back up and said, “But if you’re so sure about being up to date, please tell me what that is.” She said and grabbed a small parcel from a tray between their seats, presenting it to her friend.

“Well, that’s…” Twilight leaned forward and read the small text on the white carton, noticing that the dominant, smoky stench that filled the room came from inside the box, “…’Mareboro’? What in Equestria is-“

“And how do you call the thing we’re sitting in, huh?” Rainbow Dash probed before Twilight could answer, “I’m sure those things didn’t exist back in your days.”

“It looks like a-“

“And what about those odd speech-boxes here?” Rainbow continued with growing anger and pointed a hoof at the black box fixed to her chest, “Do you know what they’re good for?”

“I-“

“And why in Tartarus is everyone wearing clothes all the time!?” she threw her hooves into the air and smashed them against her covered chest, “Why did you get arrested for not wearing some!? Come on, tell me, you little smartass!”

“It’s alright, Rainbow Dash! Calm down!” Twilight interrupted the raging pegasus. Slowly turning her head away, she mumbled, “You know, I was just hoping. I was hoping that I didn’t miss that much. That I could just, you know, continue where I stopped when I left.”

Rainbow Dash hesitated; her head slowly sunk onto the wheel as she weakly mumbled, “Hoping…” She remained like that for a second, until the muscles in her body tensed and she growled, “Oh no!” Suddenly, her head shot upward; her stiff upper body turned towards Twilight as she yelled, “Hoping won’t bring you shit! Depend on your hopes and this shithole of a city will eat you whole and alive!”

The young princess felt tears flooding her eyes as she rested her head against the window in her door and whimpered, “I ... I was just…”

“Yeah, I once was too! And look at me now!” Rainbow Dash yelled and angrily smashed a hoof against her stained shirt, “I’m wearing fucking rags, I’m driving a rusty, old pile of junk, I’m living in a filthy apartment I can barely afford…!” she smashed a hoof against the steering wheel, “For fuck’s sake, my life is a complete pile of shit!”

Twilight wanted to reply something, but in the second she opened her mouth, the traffic light in front of them switched to green and Rainbow Dash spurred her car; the growling noise coming from its front –presumably where its engine was situated- filled the small room and drowned out every noise that tried to escape Twilight’s mouth.

Resting her head against the door, she watched her friend steer their vehicle through the broad streets of the city; the muscles in her forelegs were tensed to the maximum, her teeth clenched. “Trust me, if there’s one thing I’ve learned,” she hissed, her look stoically focused on the crowded street, “then it’s that you can’t depend on anything or anyone. Don’t pin your hopes on someone else, don’t think that anyone on this goddamned planet gives a flying fuck about you!”

Twilight took breath in order to say something, yet hesitated, realizing that she wouldn’t find the right words to comfort her friend. So she sighed deeply and turned her head to the side, watching the scenery of the metropolis as it rushed past her window.

She still didn’t know how to describe it: she had often read about megacities – places where thousands, maybe even millions of ponies live in a localized manner; yet the only place those cities appeared were science-fiction books; stories that were set in the distant future, that told stories about heroic ponies who saved Equestria from all kinds of threats.

But those were all stories; fictional happenings made up by ponies who were paid for thinking of those things. The situation she was in was real: she was caught in the future; she was in the middle of a city that burst the limits of her imagination; and she had no idea of what to do or where to go – it felt in fact like if she was caught in one of her sci-fi novels. Though with a wistful sigh and a short glance at her emaciated body, she realized that, neither physically, nor mentally, could she compete with the heroes of her books.

Trying to take her mind off things, she shook her head and, moving her glance away from the skyscrapers whose roofs she couldn’t look at, even if she craned her neck to the maximum, let her glance wander throughout the vehicle.

To her surprise, its structure wasn’t much different to that of a carriage: there were two seats in the front, three in the back, and four doors at each side, a small window integrated into each. She inspected the area in front of her seat: a large, black box –presumably one of the ‘walkie-talkies’ Pinkie Pie had mentioned earlier- divided Rainbow Dash’s from her seat; her look made its way over to a tray in front of her seat, passing something that reminded her to a radio, and resting on a black piece of metal.

Raising an eyebrow, she leaned forward and lifted it with her magic, eyeing the object with growing interest. It appeared to be shaped like an ‘L’; while one end looked like a handle, the other end was square with it and had some similarity to a pipe, showing a narrow opening at one end; a thin bow of metal connected the two elements and covered something that looked like a small lever.

“What in Equestria is that thing?” Twilight asked curiously, her look still focused on the object.

Rainbow Dash turned her head towards her; her eyes widened instantly. “Hey, hooves off that thing!” she yelled and shot forward, wrenching it from the grip of her magic and throwing it to the ground in front of her hooves, “That’s not a toy!”

“What the hay, Rainbow?” Twilight said and gave the cyan pegasus a confused look.

“Leave it.” Rainbow Dash told her dryly and hastily leaned back, focusing her attention on the traffic around them again, “That’s nothing for you.”

Instead of obeying her friend, Twilight unhesitatingly leaned forward and picked the object up once again, continuing her inspection, “What is it then? Some kind of tool?” she span it around, making the small opening face her, ”What’s that lever good for?”

“For fuck’s sake!” Rainbow Dash yelled and leaned over to Twilight once again, yet this time grabbed the object and tore it over to her, putting it into a small sheath fixed to a belt around her waist, “When I say ‘leave it’ I want you to leave it! Not to pick it up again!”

“What is that thing, Rainbow Dash? Why won’t you tell me?” Twilight asked the cyan mare flabbergasted, “Friends aren’t supposed to keep secrets from-”

“I said it’s none of your business!” Rainbow snapped back, “There are some things in Equestria you don’t need to know about!”

“But-“

“And now stop asking questions or I’ll chuck you out on the spot! You’re still sitting in my car after all!” Rainbow Dash clarified unambiguously and stiffly turned her head back.

That was a clear statement. Concluding from her behavior earlier that day, Twilight would have really trusted her friend to make it reality; to leave her all alone in a basically foreign city.

So she remained silent and leaned against her door again, well-knowing that her friend wasn’t up for a conversation.

Several minutes passed like that; Rainbow Dash focused on the chaotic traffic around her, Twilight looked out of the window, still dumbfounded by the breathtaking size of the scenery passing by.

To Twilight’s surprise, the silence got broken by Rainbow Dash who, while they were waiting in front of a red traffic light, let out a deep sigh and said, “Look, I’m sorry for yelling at you. My life hasn’t really been that easy recently and … I hardly sleep and … yeah, sorry for overreacting.”

Pleasantly surprised by that unexpected turn of events, Twilight sat up and turned towards her friend, giving her a friendly smile and saying, “It’s alright, Rainbow. Everypony can have a hard day from time to time … or a hard month.”

The pegasus nodded weakly and turned her head back towards the street, softly accelerating her car as the traffic light switched back to green.

“But still,” Twilight carefully started over, “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking, what has happened?” she asked curiously, “What about your job at the Weather Patrol? Your cloud house? What has become of all that?”

Rainbow Dash let out a moan and closed her eyes for a moment. “Do you really wanna know?” she asked with a noticeable touch of anger in her voice.

“Why of course!” Twilight replied without hesitating, “You’re my friend, and I want to know what’s wrong with you so that I can help you with it! That’s what friends are for!”

Slowly, the cyan mare turned her head to the side and looked at Twilight. “As much as I hate to put a damp on your enthusiasm…” she commenced, frowning at her friend, “But it’s your fault.”

Those words hit Twilight like a sledgehammer – the world around them seemed to blur as she –seemingly in slow motion- set up on her seat and, with pounding heart and widened eyes, looked at her friend. “Wa- what!? N-no, this can’t be! You must be kidding!” she stuttered unbelieving.

Keeping a straight face, Rainbow Dash turned her head back and said, “I actually didn’t want to talk about it, but now that you asked…” she hesitated, clenching her teeth and letting out an angry snort, “Yes, it is all your fault!”

“But … why? How?” Twilight asked with growing despair, “What did I-“

“You disappeared.” Rainbow Dash answered her question soberly, her face still contorted with anger, “You ran away and got lost in the Crystal Mountains.”

Twilight couldn’t help but notice a shiver running through her body as the memory of the icy hell she was stuck in popped up in her head. “Yes, but … what does it have to do with you? How did that make you lose your job and house?” she asked, not making an effort to hide her confusion.

Rainbow Dash dropped her face into her hoof. “And I thought you were smart enough to count one and one together.” She growled to herself.

“What!?”

“Look,” Rainbow Dash said and turned her head towards her, “When the great, new, young Princess gets lost on a mission her own mentor has sent her on, what do you think happens?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow, “Well, I-“

“Right!” her friend cut her off unhesitatingly, “The Princesses move heaven and earth to find her! They send hundreds of guards into the Crystal Mountains and literally comb the whole area. And what do her best friends do?”

“I think-“

“Right, they do the same! They forget about their everyday lives, drop everything, and spend day and night ploughing through tons and tons of snow!” Rainbow Dash continued her explanation and turned her head back, “Now let me ask you something: when the search –an undertaking that costs hundreds of bits per day- lasts on for several months and still remains inconclusive; when the guards lose their motivation and more and more quit their jobs, what happens? What do the Princesses do?”

Twilight remained silent, feeling tears flooding her eyes once again.

“They give up! They just declare her missing in action and go home!” the pegasus continued, regardless of her sobbing friend.

The young princess turned her head away, trying to hide the tears that now began running down her cheeks.

“Yes, they all left! They all gave up hope!” Rainbow Dash explained bitterly, “Even her best friends left after a couple of years!” She paused for a few seconds to let her statement sink in, then added, “Everyone but one.”

Twilight felt the desire to cry out loudly rise up inside her as she turned around and faced her friend with tearstained eyes, slowly getting her point.

“Yes, one mare stayed to the end. One. Loyal. Mare.” Rainbow Dash continued without turning her head, “She forgot about everything around her and just focused on finding her friend. She spent days, months, hell even years in those damned mountains, doing nothing but plowing through the endless ice desert, hoping that she would find her lost friend!”

“Rainbow, you-“ Twilight whispered, but got cut off by a weak sob coming from her throat.

“Do you know what that meant for me, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked her, her anger now mixed with a distant wistfulness, “I had to give up everything. I couldn’t maintain my house, I got fired for not appearing at work, I missed the acceptance test for the Wonderbolts…” she oppressed a sob, stiffly staring at the street, “All my plans just … crumbled into dust.”

“Why didn’t you-“

“But you know me!” Dash continued; the muscles in her forelegs began to tense again, “I didn’t just give up! I tried! Again and again! I tried to both; to spent the days with training and the nights with searching for you. I wanted my job back; I wanted my life back!” she clenched her teeth, noticeably disgusted by the memory, “And I didn’t want to believe that you were dead!” her breath quickened; her grip around the steering wheel tightened with every second, “Everyone told me to give up. Everyone said I should just accept your demise and live with it.” Her breathing turned into snorting, “But I didn’t! I kept on searching you for three whole years!” her head shot around, facing Twilight with eyes widened with rage, “And for what!? For nothing at all! I froze my ass off just to be faced with even more empty snowscape! Every single fucking day!”

“But why-“

“Do you wanna see what that cold has made of me!?” Rainbow Dash yelled and tore her shirt off with a hasty movement of her right hoof, granting Twilight full view of her exposed upper body.

She gasped. Several tufts of the cyan fur were missing, revealing the view on Rainbow Dash’s skin: some spots looked like if they had just been burned, some had the color of a ripe plum; others were severely scarred. Yet what stuck out the most were her wings: while they usually were covered with light blue feathers, looking soft and fluffy, they now reminded her to a dying tree, having only a fraction of their former number of feathers.

Too aghast to give a proper reply, Twilight stuttered, “W-wha? I-is that f-frost-“

“Do you have any idea how terribly frostbite hurts!?” Rainbow Dash yelled at her, pointing a hoof at the scarred spots of skin, “I could burn each and every single inch of your skin with a fucking blowtorch and it wouldn’t hurt as much as it hurt me back then!”

Twilight gulped with discomfort, doing her best to give her friend an empathetic look. She knew that she had to say something, but the thoughts popping up in her head –the seemingly endless list of things Rainbow Dash had sacrificed for her- had literally made her lose her tongue.

With a both, furious and wistful sigh, Rainbow Dash turned her head back and accelerated her vehicle again; her shirt remained unbuttoned, granting Twilight full view on the scars she had –more or less directly- caused, and torturing her with endless amounts of self-reproaches now popping up in her mind.

After a felt eternity of silence, Rainbow Dash finally spoke up again. With another wistful sigh, she said, “But I wish the frostbite was everything. After all, physical pain vanishes with time – either your injuries heal, or you learn to ignore the pain. But mental pain remains forever.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked carefully, apprehending to already know the answer.

To her very surprise, the reply came without a derogatory comment about her lack of knowledge: Rainbow Dash slowly turned her head towards her and, with the most drained look Twilight had ever seen, said, “My wings.” She pointed at the scraggy extremities, “I can barely fly anymore.” She paused and tried to oppress a wistful sob, “I lost my hopes of getting my job back, my dreams of becoming a Wonderbolt…” another sob made its way up Rainbow Dash’s throat, “…and Scootaloo.”

Twilight choked from the horror rising up inside her, yet managed to bring out a mumbled, “W-what do you mean? I-i-is she…?”

“It’s my fault!” Rainbow Dash yelled and punched her steering wheel with all of her force, “How the hell am I supposed to be her role model when I can’t fly any longer? What reason did she have to look up to me? To a fucking earthbound pegasus-crip!?”

Without leaving her friend time to react, Rainbow Dash grabbed a thin wallet from the tray between their seats and threw it over to Twilight who grabbed it with her magic and hesitantly flipped it open. Her look fell onto a small passport photo that was glued to the inside of the purse: it showed a young mare, dressed in the orange overall she knew all too well from her short stay in prison, and looking into the camera with a dull, angry frown. Her mane and coat were an absolute mess - unkempt, scruffy, and stained with several greyish blotches; several smaller bruises and scars across her face testified some rough times she must have been going through in the past. Twilight could only guess who the pony on the picture was.

“I told her that drugs were nothing to joke with!” Rainbow Dash yelped furiously, “I told her that she would get in trouble for experimenting with that stuff! But did she listen to me!?”

Twilight remained silent, well-knowing that the question was rhetorical – the photograph in front of her answered all of her questions at once.

“No!” her friend yelled out, “Of course not! Why should she listen to me anyway!? I’m a fucking cripple!”

“Now come on, Rainbow.” Twilight, glad to finally have found a point to contradict her friend, interrupted her, “That really isn’t-“

“You shut the hell up!” Rainbow Dash furiously cut her off and suddenly jammed on the brakes; her vehicle came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the road, “It’s your fault that she’s turned into a god damn junkie!”

“…with all due respect, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight hesitantly replied, “I understand that you’re upset, but-“

“I said shut up!” the cyan pegasus cut her off again, “It’s all your fault! Don’t even try to bluff it out!” she planted herself in front of Twilight, her teeth clenched in anger, “If you wouldn’t have gotten lost in that glacier, everything would be fine by now!”
“Okay,” Twilight said, trying her best to comfort her furious friend, “Okay, I understand that I’ve made a mistake by running away.” She jugged, trying to hide her shaking body, “But I promise you, if there’s anything I can do to help-“

“Get lost.” Rainbow Dash finished her sentence and pointed a hoof at the door behind Twilight. Her voice was calm again, but still quavering, reminding Twilight to a volcano that was just about to erupt.

“No.” Twilight replied decisively, “I have caused all that trouble, and I will help you-“

“I said fuck off!” the cyan pegasus snarled at her, her eyes beginning to widen again, “Get out of my car! Pronto!”

Twilight rebelliously shook her head, “No, Rainbow Dash. I will not go until you don’t-“ she silenced abruptly as her look fell onto Rainbow Dash’s right wing: she had grabbed the peculiar black tool from its holster on her belt and now pointed it at Twilight, aiming for her chest.

“You will go. Now.” Rainbow Dash said with a terrifying calmness.

“R-Rainbow, what are you doing?” Twilight asked, her horrified look steadily focused on the odd device in front of her.

“This is your final warning.” Rainbow Dash growled through her clenched teeth, “Get. Lost. Now!”

Doing her best to suppress the quaver in her voice, Twilight stuttered, “R-rainbow Dash, please! Let us talk like-“

She didn’t manage to finish her sentence. In that second, a deafening boom ran throughout the cabin of the vehicle and the window glass behind her burst with a terrifying shattering sound; the device in Rainbow Dash’s wing emitted a thin stream of smoke.

“I won't fumble next time!” Rainbow Dash yelled on top of her lungs, “Now fuck off!”

Twilight definitely didn’t need to have that told twice – she didn’t know why her friend reacted that aggressively, but she definitely didn’t want to risk her life trying to find out. Letting out a horrified scream, she jumped through the now gaping hole in the door next to her and took to her heels, hurrying away from the vehicle with her furious friend in it, and getting into safety without looking back.

It had taken her a few minutes of running to notice how soft the ground underneath her hooves was. After casting a quick glance over her shoulder and realizing that Rainbow Dash’s car was completely out of sight, she slowed down and finally came to a halt, catching her breath with exhausted gasps.

“What … in Equestria … was that?” she asked herself over her gasps. She had seen Rainbow Dash losing her mind before; she had even seen her downright furious during their first encounter with Discord, but never would she have imagined that the cyan pegasus could snap like that - that she would even maroon her best friend in a place she didn’t know at all.

And the device Rainbow Dash had pointed at her – was it a weapon? It did break the car window after all, but would she ever do this? Would she ever threaten her friend with a weapon?

Twilight noticed her legs suddenly turning into butter and preventatively sat down, noticing that the ground she was sitting on was made of slightly withered grass.

“No…” she mumbled to herself, “This can’t be true. This just can’t!” she slowly raised her head, taking a look around: to her very surprise, she was surrounded by grass – at least two miles of the grassy green surrounded her, and she noticed how the soft sensation underneath her body sent a delightful tickle through her spine.

Though her enthusiasm quickly faded again as she noticed what was behind the grass. The horizon was covered by grey concrete – encircling the small meadow, and making her feel like caught in a prison once again.

Feeling deprived of every kind of power, she slowly lowered her head again and rested it on her hooves. A weak sigh escaped her lips as she closed her exhausted eyes – she knew that taking a nap in between the concrete jungle wouldn’t help her situation, but at the same time she didn’t know what could do otherwise – Rainbow Dash would definitely be the last pony to help her right now, Pinkie Pie was more than beyond reach, and her other friends … no, she didn’t want to think about them – she already had enough reasons to cry, she didn’t need three other ones.

Trying her best to keep her spirit free of her outside world, Twilight slowly drifted away, feeling how the distant noises of passing cars rocked her to sleep.

Author's Note

Yup, that's it for the time being. I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.