Strange Voice on the Phone

"They're worried we'd try to help her escape. I don't know The whole situation seems hopeless. I sure hope they find her soon. Once we find her we can finally start to sort out this whole big mess," said Applejack.

"No!" said Rainbow Dash angrily slamming her hoof on the floor again.

"No?" said Fluttershy "What do you mean 'no'?"

"No! Forget the soldiers, we have to go find Twilight! She could be in big trouble and I am not going to just sit around and wait for news! We have to act now!" she said once again slamming a hoof on the ground.

"I agree with Rainbow," said Rarity. "Twilight is our friend and we can't just wait for someone else to find her!"

"Yeah!" said Pinkie standing up "Twilight could be in a whole lot of danger! We need to go find her."

"Any chance your Pinkie Sense can help us with this?" asked Fluttershy.

"We'll have to see," said Pinkie thoughtfully. "But It doesn't really work that way so I doubt it."

"I am all for this idea y'all but how are we going to get past the guards? They're watching our every move to stop us from doin' exactly this!" said Applejack. "If we get caught, we could get in serious trouble and then there is no way that we could help Twilight." The excitement that they were feeling about going to find their friend subsided a bit as they thought about what to do about the guards.

"Well, I can have some of my animal friends make a distraction," said Fluttershy. She flew over to the window where there was a small bird standing on a branch next to the window. Fluttershy beckoned the bird and whispered to it and after a few seconds the bird flew off.

"What did you tell it to do?" asked Pinkie. Fluttershy blushed and pawed at the ground a bit.

"Oh, well, I might have gone overboard with it but a Pegasus has got to do what a Pegasus has to do. Twilight might be in trouble!"

"Okay, well what did you do?" asked Rarity with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, I asked the bird to umm..." she shrank back a bit. "talk to my bear friends for me," The jaws of the other four dropped.

"You just asked a bunch of bears to attack the royal guards watchin' us?" said Applejack, her eyes wide with shock.

"Oh no, I would never! I just asked them to scare them...a lot," said Fluttershy meekly.

"Whoa, way to go Fluttershy!" said Rainbow with an impressed chuckle.

"Well now that we got that settled, where do we search first?" asked Pinkie.

"I suggest we start in the Everfree Forest. It was where..." said Rarity they all shifted uncomfortably.

"Sounds good to me," said Applejack. "All we have to do is wait." They did not have to wait long. In a little less than 10 minutes, they heard the angry growls of no less than four bears and the startled yelps of the royal guards watching them. They all went over to the window and saw six royal guards running away as fast as their legs would carry them, screeching in fear as four gigantic brown bears chased after them. Once they were out of sight, Fluttershy and Rainbow lowered the other three down from the window and they all bolted in the direction of the Everfree Forest as fast as the possibly could

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Shining Armor paced around in the Mayor's office. As he continued to think about what to do now that Twilight was missing, his pacing became more and more frantic. He had ordered three different regiments out to different roads out of Ponyville in an undoubtedly vain effort to find his sister. He was highly considering simply hoofpicking a group of his best men to search for his sister with him. He nodded to himself. He liked that idea. He opened the door to pick his men and to his surprise, an unkempt Battle Charge was standing directly in front of the door, a hoof raised. He had just been about to knock when Armor opened the door. "What the heck happened to you?" he said with a raised eyebrow. Battle Charge took a few seconds to catch his breath and then answered.

"We were staking out the apple farm where the other five were when outta nowhere were attacked by bears. No injuries to the men but unfortunately, the five escaped from the house. We're putting together a few men to look for them," said Battle Charge. Shining Armor waved away this idea.

"No, we're stretched too thin as it is. I kind of regret not including them in the investigation in the first place. They could have helped."

"Oh come on, you know that they could have also hindered the investigation. They're biased and they're not going to follow protocol," said Battle Charge chidingly.

"FORGET PROTOCOL MY SISTER IS IN DANGER!" yelled Armor. Charge flinched from being yelled at. Armor regained his composure and sighed. "Now, I'm going to pick some of my finest men to go out and search for her myself. We'll start in the Everfree Forest. We can transport to the middle and work our way out."

"Oh come on you know that the forest is dangerous. If she is in there she might not..." a glare from Armor silenced him.

"If she is in there we have to get in there as soon as possible," said Shining Armor. Charge nodded in agreement.

"Well then let's get going."

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The five friends of Twilight ran as fast as they could to the Everfree forest. When they reached the outskirts they immediately ran in. The first place they looked was around Zecora's house. They asked Spike and Zecora if they had heard anything suspicious but the pair were no real help. As they ran around the forest, they made sure to stick together for fear that the dangers of the forest would separate them and they would be lost. They searched for hours with absolutely no luck. They found themselves too tired to continue without a break and they decided to rest for a bit to discuss their plans. "We have nothing to go on!" said Applejack helplessly. "What do we do now? We can't look through every inch of the forest, it's simply too big for that!"

"Well, there has to be a landmark or a cave that is significant for Twilight or someone who knows about Twilight," said Pinkie Pie. Rarity brightened.

"The castle where we found the elements!" The five of them nodded excitedly at this idea. They all ran towards the castle, each with a new sense of determination, they somehow all felt that Twilight was there.