Meanwhile: Equestria, Ponyville.

“Where is she!?” shouted a certain cyan Pegasus. “She said that she was practising egghead stuff with you, and now she ain’t here. So Where is she?” Rainbow was leaning over Trixie as she lay curled up on the floor with her head in her hooves

“I don’t know!” Came the response of Trixie as her interrogators continued to bombard her with questions of Twilights location. After the spell had gone wrong and Twilight had vanished along with Spike, Trixie had tried every spell she knew to try and locate them but they had all failed. Sweetiebelle had then ran off to find Rarity and that had led to the entirety of Twilights friends finding out about her disappearance, it had all gone downhill from there.

“Ah’ don’t rightly know what you were doin’ with them spells, but Twilights gone and you were the last pony to see her.” Applejack said, tilting her hat so that she could glare at Trixie. “Twilight may’ve took pity on ya’, but ah’ never did trust ya’.”

“Please, I don’t know where she is. The spell wasn’t supposed to teleport the caster.” Trixie cried as Rainbow dash lifted her up and plonked her down in a chair and tied her up.

“Um, girls? Maybe we should stop. She sounds like she is telling the truth.” Came the meek voice of Fluttershy, to which no one seemed to notice.

“Sweetiebelle came running to me in tears over how Twilight and Spike were gone after she had been told that they would be okay. The only other pony in the area was you Trixie, so you must know something.” Rarity said as she pressed a hoof on the backrest of the chair that Trixie was tied to.

“Why won’t you believe me?!” Trixie shouted fearfully. “I haven’t done anything wrong, why would I want to hurt Twilight?!”

“Because you still want to be the best unicorn around, and Twilight was in the way of that goal.” Rainbow spat, “You are still just an egotistical braggart who wants nothing more than to be on the top.”

“Girls, please stop. This isn’t right.” Fluttershy said, slightly louder than before but still not loud enough to be heard.

“How will I be able to make a party for Twilights birthday if Twilights not there? HOW!?!” came the hysteric wails of Pinkie as she cried literal waterfalls of tears.

“Please stop. I don’t know where twilight is.” Trixie said with tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes. “I’m not a braggart anymore, and I don’t care about being at the top.” She said sadly but she suddenly gained a look of anger and looked straight at Rainbow. “Hey! And isn’t that hypocritical coming from Ponyville’s most ‘awesome’ mare?”

This comment sent Rainbow over the edge. She flared out her wings and dived at Trixie at full speed. Trixie managed to lift her rear legs up in time to block Rainbows assault, but ended being flung back anyway. Trixie and her chair then hit one of the bookshelves hard causing the chair to break apart and bounce her forward a couple of feet. The impact of the chair had caused more than a bit of pain for Trixie though, as could be seen by the fact that the bookshelf was starting to teeter over. Trixie managed to look up in time to see the bookshelf failing onto her back end with a sickening crunch. Trixie stared at the bookshelf that had landed on her for a few seconds until the pain finally registered.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” Trixie screamed at the top of her lungs, almost shattering the windows of the library. The others stood there in shock of what had just taken place, apart from Rainbow who was slowly getting up from her meeting with Trixie’s hooves. Rainbow was only a foot or so away from Trixie when she finally got up she saw what Trixie had been screaming about and almost threw up. Blood could be seen leaking from underneath the bookshelf where Trixie’s bottom half was. Fluttershy was the first to break out of her shock and quickly flew over to Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow, you need to get the doctors here as fast as you can.” she said in a tone that broke no argument. Rainbow silently nodded her head and flew straight towards the hospital. “Rarity, I need you to fetch me some clean cloth and then get me some warm water.” Being talked to managed to snap Rarity out of her shocked state and she quickly galloped off to find sheets. “Applejack, I need you to get me as some antiseptics and painkillers from Twilights medicine cupboard. They should be upstairs in her bathroom.” Applejack tipped her hat and headed towards the stairs. “Pinkie, I need you to come over here and help me get this cupboard off of her legs.” Pinkie hurried over to Fluttershys side and turned to look at her in rapt attention. “Okay Trixie, we’re going to lift this bookshelf off you now.” Fluttershy then grabbed her saddlebags and pulled out a small hat which she proceeded to hold in front of Trixie’s mouth. “I want you to bite down on this hat as we lift the cupboard, okay?” Once Trixie had bit down on the hat, Fluttershy and Pinkie started to lift the bookshelf off of Trixie, causing her to scream in pain through the hat. They managed to get the bookshelf off of Trixie and Pinkie used some furniture to hold it up.

“I’ve got some cloth for you darling, where do you want them?” Rarity said as she came back into the room. She trotted over and almost fainted at the state of Trixie’s rear end. Her legs had multiple pieces of bone sticking out of them and you could tell that her pelvis had been shattered from the impact. It didn’t look like the spine had been broken but Rarity couldn’t really tell considering she was running back into the kitchen to throw up.

“Pinkie, can you get me a sheet of cloth please to help clean up this blood?” Fluttershy asked while continuing to assess Trixie’s wounds.

“Oh my goddesses!” Came a male voice from the doorway, Fluttershy turned to see Dr Care and Nurse Redheart standing just inside the library. The doctor quickly rushed over to Fluttershys side and opened up his doctor’s bag, taking out a pair of glasses.

“Ah’ got the antiseptics and painkillers Shy!” Applejack shouted as she descended the stairs. Once she reached the Doctor and Fluttershy, she place down the Painkillers and the Antiseptic next to them.

“Okay everyone out, I need as little distraction as possible.” The Doctor said in a loud voice, he then turned to Fluttershy “Miss Shy, you can stay. We might need your help with this one.”

As Pinkie, Applejack and Rarity were leaving, they saw rainbow sitting on her haunches outside, with her back to the library. Her head was in her hooves and her wings lay limp by her side.

“Why did I do that?” Rainbow asked as the others joined her. “We didn’t even know if it was her fault, and I go and tackle her over a comeback that I deserved. Twilight would be so disappointed.” Rarity put one of her hooves over Rainbow’s shoulder.

“We were all a little bit out of sorts at the time… well maybe not Fluttershy. Anyway, the point is that you made a mistake, and you were a little bit hysterical at the time. I think twilight would forgive you.” Rarity said reassuringly.

“But I didn’t hurt Twilight, I hurt Trixie. All she ever did to us was beat us at a magic show, and we go and label her as the main suspect immediately. I wouldn’t blame her if she decided to sue us, the law would certainly agree.” Rainbow said dejectedly.

They sat there in silence for a about ten minutes until they heard the door behind them open, when they turned around they saw Nurse Redheart and Fluttershy standing there.

“We’ve done all we can for her with what we have and the chariot that will take her to the hospital is on its way.” Nurse Redheart said while taking off her surgical mask. “She had a fractured pelvis, three breaks in her left rear leg and two in the other, all of which were compound. There was no spinal damage so she will recover and be able walk again, it will just take time.”

“Do you know how long it will take?” Rainbow asked hopefully.

“About a month at least, although we can’t be too sure.” Redheart replied. She then waved over to somepony behind the mares. They turned around to see a white and red chariot pull up being pulled by orderlies from the hospital. Two of them unhitched themselves from the chariot and trotted in with a stretcher between them. About a minute later they trotted out with a sleeping Trixie on the stretcher, followed shortly by the Doctor. After exchanging thanks, Doctor Care and Nurse Redheart climbed onto the back of the Chariot with Trixie and rode off to the Hospital.

Meanwhile: Utah, Zion National Park

Four figures stood by the southern passage leading back to the Mojave. Three of them were facing the last and talking to each other happily. The one facing the three was a man covered from head to toe in bandages and wore a Kevlar vest with the letters SLCPD on each side of his chest. The second person was wearing a suit of well-crafted armour made of leather and reinforced with thick pads. He had blond hair and wore a pair of reading glasses. The Third person was a woman who wore a black shiny trench coat, light brown trouser, black boots and a blue and white scarf. Her hair was also blond and she wore a pair of completely black Sunglasses that covered her eyes completely. The last person was the most noticeable of them though, for one she stood over them by at least a foot. She had a dark brown hat with a red ring slightly above the brim with sunglasses neatly tucked over the brim, resting on top of her head. She wore a sleeveless duster that fell down to just below her knees, it also had the picture of an ace with the number 21 imprinted on the back. On her face was a metal device that covered her mouth and nose, attached to the device were two tubes that bent round into a small yellow canister behind her head.

“Thank you again Joshua” The tallest one said to the bandaged one. “This info will be very useful when we get back to Vegas.”

“It is my solemn duty to try and correct my mistakes, and any information that hinders the legion takes me one step closer to that goal.” Joshua said, bowing his head as he did so. “I hope you use this information well Courier.”

“I will, don’t worry.” The tall one turned to the person her left. “Arcade, you got everything you brought with you?”

“Yes, I’m not a child.” Arcade said back.

The Courier then turned to her companion on the right and asked “You ready to go Willow?”

“Yep, I’m all ready to get back home.” Willow responded with a mock salute and a small giggle.

They then turned and left through the southern passage and started the two week journey back to the Mojave. Although a certain Purple Alicorn would say that it was two weeks too long.

Author's Note

This chapter is here to help break up the Darkness of the previous with some sad and some hints to some of the choices I made in my playthrough.

Relevant Mods:

Willow - A Better Companion Experience
Authentic Burned Man

Ta-ta for now.