Author's Note

Warning: Pony type swearing ahead!

And I've been busy for the last two weeks, but now I'm back.

Leaving Ponyville, Finding A New Shelter

"For the last time Rainbow, you don't have to be sorry!" Twilight said worryingly.

The Mane... Five, were walking in deep snow. They checked the train station which they thought headed to Canterlot, but instead it was abandoned, figures.

When Rainbow saw the deep snow that would cause trouble for them, she was pounded with guilt as she was the one who made the snowstorm.

"No! This is all my fault! The snowbies are more powerful, the snow makes it hard to walk in, and we have to walk all the way to Canterlot!" Rainbow cried.

"Rainbow this is unlike you. We need you to put it together." Applejack said.

Rarity tapped Twilight's shoulder. "Um? Twilight?" She started to ask.

Twilight turned to Rarity. "Yeah?"

"Couldn't you just teleport us there?"

"I tried! Many times actually. But something's negating my magic."

"Maybe this is all a test by Celestia and she's blocking your magic?" Pinkie judged.

"Celestia wouldn't do this, she cares too much about her ponies so she would NEVER put them in danger just to give us a test."

"Well... she is a troll." Pinkie said to herself.

"What?" Twilight raised an eyebrow at Pinkie Pie.

"Nothing!" She said playfully.

Twilight turned to Rainbow Dash and saw that her head was still drooping low. She put on a stern face and stepped in her way, making the rainbow maned pegasus stop.

"Alright Rainbow! You need to stop that right now!"

Rainbow, still sad but confused, asked, "Stop what?"

"Being... So... Depressed!"

Pinkie grabbed Rainbow by the shoulders and started shaking her wildly. "Give us back the real Rainbow Dash!"

"I want the old Rainbow Dash back too." Twilight agreed, with a more concerned face.

"B-But, I am the real Rainbow Dash!"

Twilight shook her head. "The Rainbow Dash I know would have denied her mistakes, being stubborn as always. Not mope around like a filly who didn't get her candy."

Rainbow tried to intervene, but Twilight continued.

"She would also be trying her best to stay positive, and would find a way to help her friends. Even those who are not around."

Rainbow's head drooped low once again. "Y-You're right...." She looked up at Twilight and the rest. "I'll try to be... me. But I need some time to think things over first."

"Alright." Twilight and the others smiled and continued to walk forward. "I hope the real Rainbow Dash returns soon. We need her. She's part of the team." She thought.

They walked a few more miles. The snow fell harshly, covering their sight from the beautiful city on the mountain known as Canterlot.

Suddenly, four of the five mares heard screeching. Rainbow continued to walk straight in thought and she eventually walked into Rarity's rump.

Rarity did not notice however, as she was too shocked at her surroundings.

About a dozen snowbies. More than half of them was covered or spiked in ice.

"Whatdowedo? Whatdowedo?" Rarity whispered.

Another screeched.

"Just stay calm. We obviously need to buck these things into the next cider season before we can move on. Better to keep our heads in check." Applejack explained.

They took their stance a bit longer. Twilight glanced at Rainbow and she looked really angry for some reason. She simply shrugged it off and went back to examining the situation.

Applejack stared at the closest snowbie to her. She proceeded to run up to it and buck it like she does an apple tree.

The snowbie, covered in ice, budged slightly, but didn't look as if it took any damage. It screeched once again.

Applejack quickly noticed this and retreated back to the group.

"It's like I said before! Most of them merged with the ice from the storm, and now they are more durable." Twilight told.

"Didn't that hurt Applejack?! It looked pretty tough." Rarity asked, undoubtedly worried for the farm mare.

"Ah bucked plenty of apple trees in my time. Ah think I could buck almost anything and not feel a thing." She explained.

"Alright. I'll take care of the ones with the ice-" Twilight tried to plan as she was interrupted by Pinkie shooting a party cannon at one of the ice snowbies, surprisingly defeating it.

Twilight blinked. "As I was saying, me and Pinkie Pie will take care of the ones with the ice." She planned.

So then they went to work. Applejack easily dismantled three with some bucks, and Rarity took one out by melting it slowly with her, somehow mobile, blow dryer. Pinkie blasted three with her party cannon, and Twilight simply used her magic to disassemble the last four of them.

Soon after, they heard some pounding. They all turned to the noise and saw something that horrified them.

Hunched down on her knees was Rainbow Dash. She was in a state her friends didn't like seeing. She was angry. Not mildly angry, but furious. She had her teeth clenched together very hard. The other mares could swear that they heard some teeth crack. And while in this angry state, she repeatedly punched the snow beneath her, which her friends guessed that was what the snowbie before her once was. She kept punching and punching. Grunting while doing do.

"Rainbow? Rainbow, stop!" Twilight tried to tell her.

But it was in vain. Rainbow didn't stop. It didn't even seem that she heard her. She was so consumed by rage that she didn't even notice her friends trotting up to her.

Pinkie covered her eyes. "This Rainbow Dash is even worse! Make it stop! Make it stooop!"

Rainbow continued to wail on the snow beneath her.

Applejack rushed up to her and grabbed a winding punch. "It's done Rainbow! Ya can stop now!" She yelled.

Rainbow's eyes widened as she looked up at the frowning Applejack, and back down to the bullied pile of snow.

"I-I..."

Twilight was still concerned about the situation. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Rainbow picked herself up and began, along with the others, to run down their path yet again.

A couple more minutes passed, and the five thought they were in the clear, causing them to start to slow their pace.

"You think we're safe?" Rarity asked.

"Those things are pretty slow. I think we'll be okay from the ones back there. Hopefully, there aren't any around here." Twilight was sure she saw Pinkie Pie's pink coat turn a bit darker, and that her mane got a little less puffy, but she didn't put any thought into it.

"Huh, that's weird..." Applejack started to comment.

"What is darling?"

"Ah don't reckon seeing this much trees on the way to Canterlot."

"Are you sure? We usually ride the train there so maybe you've missed them." Twilight predicted.

Applejack shook her head. "Ah've been on the train to Canterlot and back so much ah can't even count. And I know ah didn't see this much trees."

They all looked around their zone, and it looked like a forest. More specifically, the Everfree forest.

But it wasn't the Everfree. Was it? Surely they didn't go the wrong way. No pony knew, and they wouldn't take the chance.

All of them looked at each other, and they soon knew that they were thinking the exact same thing.

"Uh...? Maybe we should hurry to get OUT OF HERE!" Pinkie yelled as she immediately ran for her life, making the others panic and away too.

Little did they know, they were going the right way all along, but many obstacles will slow them down significantly.

After about an hour, you could see the Mane Five walking slowly down a path. They only just exited the forest and all but Applejack seemed tired.

"Can we just please rest for just a moment." Rarity whined.

Twilight gave her a sad look. "I wish we could, but we would be too vulnerable to the snowbies. We need to find a shelter or something-"

"Found one!" Pinkie interrupted.

All eyes turned to Pinkie who was pointing to... not one shelter of some kind, but many.

In fact, it was a city!

"Woah!" All but Pinkie said in amazement.

"Has there always been a city in between Ponyville and Canterlot?" Applejack asked.

"N-No..." Twilight replied.

They were all now walking down one of the streets. All around looked like abandoned homes, destroyed shops, and... snowbies.

The group of mares turned frightened, but soon went into fighting position.

Twilight and Applejack made a glance at Rainbow, and they saw, albeit a little less, raged pegasus.

They were both about to say something when somepony called out, "Hey! Over here!"

All heads turned to the call and they saw a small brown earth stallion with a little red kerchief around his neck. He was standing at a doorway to a game/comic store.

"Bro! What are you waiting for?" He began when the Mane Five didn't budge. "Hurry the buck up!"

The mares hesitated for a second but soon ran for the door in a panic.

As soon as they entered the building the dwarf stallion slammed the door closed. He proceeded to put his ear to the door to listen for any approaching snowbies.

When he was certain that no monster was coming, he let out a sigh of relief and looked at the five mares.

"Follow me." He commanded, as the brown stallion began to walk down a hallway.

Twilight was the first to obey, and the others soon followed her.

After thirty seconds or so, Twilight began to ask, "So... who are you?"

"My name is Gang Gang."

Twilight raised an eyebrow at the name, but she didn't want to make him feel bad. "Oh, well greeting Mr. Gang-"

The mysterious stallion began to laugh. It was an unusually high pitch laugh that made the others grimace and stop walking.

"You actually believed that. Yooo!" After a bit more laughing, he began to speak normally. "The name's Shock Wave. Me and my boys were just chilling here, trying to survive."

"Oh, you have kids? What were you doing at the door then?" Twilight asked.

Shock shook his head dramatically. "They aren't my kids, they are my "boys", my friends. And anyways, it's my stupid turn to be the watcher. The watcher basically makes sure that no snobster gets inside."

"Snobster?" Rarity asked astonished.

"Those... things outside. That's the name we came up for them." He explained.

Rainbow gritted her teeth and pushed Applejack out of her way.

"Hey!"

Rainbow ignored her and put all her attention on Shock Wave. She was angry.

"They. Are called. Snowbies!" She boomed.

The stallion didn't flinch. "Jeez. Sure, whatever suits your flank."

He started to walk off again, making the others follow.

"The rest are in the living room. Apparently this game shop was also a house. So we decided to stay here until it ran out of supplies."

"Where's the ponies who own this place." Applejack asked.

"We... kind of made sure that they weren't walking around in "snow form"."

"Oh..."

They approached a door, and Shock opened up and yelled. "Yo! Found some mares!"

In the living room were three long couches. There were seven stallions, two of which were holding game controllers and were slumped against the couch rather than sitting on it. The other stallions were indeed on the couch sitting properly. Another stallion stepped out from what looked like a kitchen.

"Siiick." He said.

In front of the couches was a game. You could see what looked like a first-pony vision of a unicorn firing magic blasts from her horn.

"Just chill here for a bit, it's all good." Shock said, causing Twilight to nod.

"Yo shock!" One of the stallions, a red pegasus, called.

"Yo Incinerator, what's up?" Shock replied.

"Come bro."

"What?"

"Just come bro!" He demanded.

Twilight turned her attention to the other stallions who were paying attention to the video game. She sighed and turned to her friends.

Applejack asked, "What are we going to do?"

"Well, they're being nice enough to let us stay. I say we stay the night and leave."

"That sounds good. We needed some rest anyways." Rarity agreed.

Twilight's ears twitched and caught onto something. She heard a noise, it seemed like arguing.

"Try to find somewhere to sit down. I'll be right with you in a moment."

The others nodded and Twilight began to track down where the noise was coming from.

The noise led her to a slightly opened door. As she came closer, the noise became clearer. She soon stopped when she noticed she could understand clearly what they were saying in there.

"...understand the princess, but did you have to bring the other four too?!" The stallion sounded like Incinerator.

"What did you expect me to do yo? Leave the others to get eaten?"

Incinerator grunted. "Now we have more mouths to feed man! We're running out of supplies already!"

"You know what Game Changer would want us to do!"

Twilight busted through the door, not wanting the argument to go any further. "We have food and supplies! We can share with all of you."

Incinerator frowned, not noticing that Twilight was spying on them. "But what will happen after that's done? We're finished man!"

"No, we're not. Never give up hope." Twilight said.

"Well, do you have any ideas princess?"

"Of the matter of fact, no, I don't. But we can fix this. I need to get to Canterlot to find Princess Celestia."

"And what will that do? What if you find her and even she doesn't know how to stop this?"

"I don't know. But what other option do I have? At best, if she doesn't know how to stop all this, we'll start a new civilization, mourn about the loss of ponies afterwards. But right now, I will not give up hope. And neither should you."

After her quick speech, the room went quiet.

After a sigh from Incinerator, he said, "I'm sorry, I'm just really stressed right now."

"And that's okay too. Who wouldn't be stressed right now." Twilight said.

After some silent seconds, Twilight spoke. "My friends and I are leaving tomorrow anyways. We need to get to Canterlot to try to stop this mess."

As she was about to leave, Shock Wave said, "We'll roll up with you."

Twilight was confused by sentence. "Roll... up?"

He sighed. "We'll come with you."

"Oh. It's alright. You don't have to-"

"No. It would be better than just staying put, doing nothing while other mans are suffering and crap."

"Okay. That's very kind of you." Twilight was about to leave when, "By the way. What... exactly is this place? This... city?"

The other two stallions raised an eyebrow at her. They gave each other confused looks and Shock said, "How don't you know what this city is?"

"I've never seen this city before? In fact, I've never seen any civilization between Ponyville and Canterlot." She explained.

Shock scratched his head. "Well... I don't know about in between Ponyville and Canterlot, but you're in Fillydelphia."