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"Why do I have to do this?" Twilight frowns as she rides upon a chariot pulled through the air by two pegasi.

"Celestia wrote it in the letter, you need to get out more Twilight." Spike answers as he looks down at Ponyville, scanning the new scenery.

"Ugh, I have studying to do and contraptions to build! This is wasting my time." She complains. The chariot lands in an empty street and she dismounts it, scoffing at the pegasi, they glare at her and take off.

Spike follows her, "Well then let's just do this as fast as we can, Celestia arranged for you to stay in a library, so she's probably expecting you to take no time at all."

"Good, first objective?"

"To Sweet Apple Acres!" Spike announces and points northwest.

Twilight turns to lead the way, but a bouncing pink pony bounds at her from that direction. A shiver runs down her spine, her breathing picks up, "Spike we have to hide." She states calmly, while looking around frantically for a good spot.

Spike raises a brow, "Why?"

Twilight grabs Spike and dives into an alleyway, holding a hoof around his mouth until the pink pony passes them by. "You know that really annoying pony I try to avoid?" Twilight releases Spike.

"Minuette?"

"Yeah, that one has the same vibe, like if she notices me she'll never stop trying to be my friend until I eventually just have to accept that they will be there in my presence, talking about nonsense until I come up with an excuse to be away from them." Twilight glares into the distance for a moment before her vision is filled with pink causing her to scream at the top of her lungs.

The pink pony joins her in screaming, until Twilight calms down, with a giggle the pink one introduces herself. "Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie, I saw you run off and I couldn't tell who you were which meant I probably hadn't met you yet 'cause I can tell who somepony is with just a glance and if I haven't met you that means you're new here because I know everypony in Ponyville and- ... where'd you go?"

Twilight had galloped most of the way to the orchard before slowing down, "Well, good thing that mouth running of hers covered her hearing."

"Man I'd think you practiced watching ponies eyes but you rarely ever make eye contact."

"Peripherals Spike, you can see things without looking directly at them, I had to watch for the moment she looked away and to be sure nothing suddenly blocked our escape." She trots up to Sweet Apple Acres, "Now let's handle this quickly."

"Sweet Apple Acres is handling banquet preparations, sounds like we get to taste some food." Spike smiles.

"Yee-haw!" An orange pony calls out as she bucks a tree, shaking every single apple loose in an instant. They all fall perfectly stacked into containers placed below. The mare stands there proud of her accomplishment.

Twilight approaches her, "Excuse me, I'm Twilight Sparkle and-" The orange mare interrupts Twilight by grabbing her hoof.

"Howdy there... uh," Twilight keeps her foreleg rigid and firmly planted to the ground while glaring at her, the orange mare takes a step back with a concerned look, "Sorry, I was just trying ta shake yer hoof. Anyhow, pleasure ta make your acquaintance Miss Twilight, I'm Applejack, what can I do ya for?"

"Your farm is overseeing the food preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, I'm here to make sure you're doing your job."

"Yeah, can we sample some of the food?" Spike asks excitedly.

"'Course!" Applejack runs over to a triangle sounding it off and calling out, "Soup's on everypony!" A mass of ponies flock from every part of the farm. Twilight is once again filled with dread as she seeks an escape she scrambles to avoid getting run over, a table is shoved in her path and the many ponies gather around. Applejack takes the spot by her side. "Now, lemme introduce you to the Apple Family!"

"I'd rather you didn't" Twilight frowns.

A pony holding a plate with an apple fritter darts in from the group, "This here is Apple Fritter." Applejack introduces as the pony darts away leaving the plate on the table, another pony darts in with a pair of caramel dipped apples on a stick, Applejack turns to introduce her, "Apple Bumpkin." She says as she turns back to find nopony by her side.

"Are we going to sneak away from everypony we meet?" Spike asks.

"They obviously had the food handled, I can't be bothered to stick around any longer than necessary." Twilight reveals an apple she snagged from the farm and hands it to Spike, "Sorry we didn't get to taste anything."

"That's okay, I know you hate crowds." Spike takes the apple and bites into it, looking at the list he swallows before speaking, "Next is weather. A pegasus named Rainbow Dash should be working on it."

Spike and Twilight scout the cloudy sky, "Wow she's terrible." Twilight looks down just in time to see a blur of colors flying toward her, she jumps aside and it slams into a nearby puddle spraying her with mud.

"Ugh, gotta work on the landing." The blur turned out to be a pegasus with a rainbow mane.

Twilight wipes mud away from her eyes and glares at her, "Would you happen to be Rainbow Dash?"

The mare looks back and jumps to her hooves, spraying a bit more mud around, "The one and only! Why, you heard of me?" She asks with excitement in her eyes.

"No, I'm here to make sure you do your job, so get to clearing the sky." Twilight demands.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get to that once I'm done practicing." Rainbow Dash darts up through a low cloud, clearing the mud from herself before standing atop it.

"No. Now. Before I report you for your lackadaisical behavior." Twilight stomps to make her point clear.

"Woah, take it easy, I'll have it done in ten seconds flat. Check this out!" Rainbow Dash darts from her cloud which dissipates and begins rapidly destroying every cloud in sight.

At about the five second mark Twilight shakes the mud off herself and decides to move on, "What's next Spike?" But he was too distracted by Rainbow Dash to notice the question.

Once Rainbow is done she lands on a nearby bridge, "See? ...uh, were you even watching?"

Twilight ignores Rainbow, waiting for Spike's answer. "Oh, heh, decorations." Spike gives Rainbow an apologetic look before leading Twilight to the town hall. Rainbow rolls her eyes and takes off back to her practice.

Once inside the hall Spike's eye lock forward, "... Beautiful."

"Oh, good, I don't care about aesthetics so you're a better judge, guess we're done here." Twilight turns about and heads out.

"No! I meant, uh..." Spike says, flustered.

"Nope! No time, next thing!" Twilight calls as she walks away.

Twilight watches from the bushes as a yellow pegasus gets a flock of birds to sing, but she notices one of them is off rhythm. "Do you hear that?" She asks Spike.

"Hear what?"

"One of them isn't singing right, stay here I'll fix it." Twilight marches forward grabs a rock and lobs it at the off rhythm bird. Narrowly missing, the rock hits the branch just under the bird and they all disperse. The yellow pegasus looks back to Twilight in shock. "Well, singing birds was a dumb idea anyway, get some better music before the Summer Sun Celebration."

"Twilight!" Spike catches up and tugs on her tail, "You can't ask her to do that!"

The pegasus turns from looking shocked to amazed in a flash, "I-is that a talking baby dragon!?" The pegasus bolts toward Spike only to find herself muzzle to muzzle with Twilight.

"Fix. Your. Birds." Twilight growls.

She gulps and backs off in fear. Spike looks out from behind Twilight and waves, "Hi, my name's Spike."

"Uh, hi Spike. I'm Fluttershy." She waves back, still nervous about the pony between them.

Twilight turns away and heads toward the library.

"Not another step." Twilight throws a hoof out in front of Spike.

"What now?"

Twilight examines the library, "That sound isn't the rustling of leaves from the tree."

"Sound?" Spike tries to listen for anything unusual but doesn't pick up a thing.

"There are ponies in there." Twilight crouches down and sneaks towards the nearest window.

"Well it is a library."

"Are you going to tell me they are in there reading with the lights off?" Twilight scans the room from the window but can't see in the darkness. Her keen hearing is still picking up whispers and hushed laughs from within. "Hmm, every town should have a siren system, I could rig it to-"

"Maybe something less extreme Twilight."

"Fine. Remember back when you started breathing fire you sometimes only got smoke?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you do that on purpose?"

"There go the fire ponies, looks like they figured out it was a false alarm." Spike says as he keeps on eye out the window.

"Great, good job today Spike, we finished our chores and there's plenty of time for reading while we wait for the celebration to start." Twilight picks out a lot of books from the shelves and begins looking through them.

"Yeah, are you sure we did everything right? I mean we really did seem to spend no time at all checking up on things."

"We found the errors and made the corrections, there was nothing more for us to do. Just eat the cupcakes those ambushers ditched and don't think about it." One of the books catches Twilight's attention, "Super Naturals, interesting."

"Finally, I'll get to go home after this." Twilight finds a place in front of the crowd gathered in town hall.

Small murmurs fill the room which Twilight found acceptable until a higher pitched voice broke the atmosphere. "Hey it's you I'm sorry about the library I was planning this huge surprise party but I think somepony knocked over a candle? We got the fire ponies as quick as we could but the smoke went away really fast then you were already inside so if I -"

Pinkie Pie is interrupted by a team of birds singing a short tune before a spotlight descends and points towards the town's mayor. "Fillies and gentlecolts, as mayor of Ponyville it is my great pleasure to announce the beginning of The Summer Sun Celebration!" Happy cheers fill the room.

Twilight becomes somber and tunes out the mayor, before the incident this was supposedly her favorite event of the year, but now it just seems dumb. She didn't have a care about how long the days and nights were. Celestia can raise the sun without much effort and once a year she makes a show of it like it's something special. She can't imagine what all the other ponies are excited about, it doesn't make any sense to her. She wonders if when her previous self took that magic test, she got any warning of what would happen, that her memories would be erased and she would be stripped of all her magic.

"...Princess Celestia!" Twilight is brought out of her daze and looks up to the opening curtains. The room falls silent as it's revealed there's nopony behind them.

"All that work and she doesn't even bother to show up." Twilight sighs and walks to the door as the hall fills with panicked whispers. Twilight leaves, shutting the door behind her, then taking a seat on the steps.

Spike sits beside her, "Well, you never liked this sorta thing anyway, let's go home."

"Yeah, never did..." Twilight stands solemnly, her ears perk up as light flashes and thunder sounds from within the town hall. A maniacal laughter fills the air. Twilight knows something is wrong and turns to head back in, but the doors burst open and a shimmering could of purple smoke wisps off towards the Everfree forest.

"Come back here!" Rainbow calls out and attempts to give chase, but it's too fast.

Twilight's eyes look to the moon, the shadow of a mare no longer upon it. "No... Spike, steel yourself!" Twilight sweeps Spike up and puts him on her back, she then goes into a full gallop towards the Everfree.

"Where are we going!?"
"Where are you going!?"

Both Spike and Rainbow ask in bewilderment.

"Nightmare Moon cannot be allowed to do as she pleases. Celestia used the Elements of Harmony to banish her to the moon but if Celestia didn't show up here that means Nightmare already got her. We have to defeat her before she finds the Elements and destroys them!"

"How do you know all that?" Rainbow asks.

"I'm Celestia's personal student, I know a lot."

"Cool, so you know how to stop her?"

"Take Spike and meet me at the castle, you should be able to see it from there."

"I can, you sure you don't want me to go with you?"

"I'm sure, if I'm by myself I can travel freely."

Twilight feels Spike lifted from her back. "But Twilight, I-"

"I need you in the sky Spike." Without another word they separate and Twilight is left to traverse the Everfree Forest alone.