Castle Of Friendship - Ponyville

The pale purple unicorn was busy studying some magic books in her room at the Castle of Friendship. Her face was scrunched up in concentration. Suddenly, her concentration was broken when her light and moderate purple mane became itchy. She scratched it rapidly to get rid of the itch. Starlight Glimmer sighed. She should have showered that morning. She went back to her book.

Her concentration was broken yet again when she heard the knocking of the front door.
"Who is it," she snapped in frustration.
"The Great and Powerful Trixie wishes to be let in," a flamboyant voice said.
Starlight's frustration vanished on the spot as she heard the voice of her friend and happily let Trixie in. The very light blue mare trotted in wearing a purple wizard's hat with blue and yellow stars that obscured the top of her blueish white mane and a purple cape with blue and yellow stars that covered her blueish white tail and her cutie mark.

"Trixie has just returned from her amazing and spectacular magic show and now she's here to see you, Starlight."
"You've saved me from a boring day of studying as usual, Trixie," Starlight said with a dramatic tone in her voice.
Trixie trotted next to the chair Starlight was sitting on.
"What's on the agenda today?"
"Well, it's been a few days since my friends left for their Friendship Mission, and I'm kinda starting to get worried,"
Starlight said, using her magic to levitate a saddle bag onto herself. With Trixie following her, she went into the kitchen and levitated some food into her saddlebag.
"Are you coming, Trixie?" she asked.
"Admittedly, Trixie has been getting burned out from all the shows lately, so sure," she said. "Where are we going?"
"Vanhoover," Starlight said.
Trixie's eyes lit up at the mention of Vanhoover. She explained to Starlight that she had been there once during her 'Apology Tour' after the Alicorn Amulet incident.
"Good," Starlight said with an air of seriousness. "You might be able to help me with directions."
The two friends booked a ticket on the Friendship Express for Vanhoover.

The ride on the train was uneventful as usual. The landscape slowly turned from country to land with lots of suburbs and tall buildings. Starlight's eyes were wide with wonder. She had never been in a big city like this.

The train came to a stop next to the center platform at Waterfront Station. Starlight trotted to a flight of black stairs. To her surprise, the stairs were moving. Trixie laughed at her.
"It's called an escalator, Starlight," she said between laughs. "You stand on it and it moves you up. You don't have to trot."
Starlight went on the escalator and stood still. Trixie was right. She didn't need to trot up. A few seconds later they both reached the floor above.
To their right, there was a flight of stairs that the sign hanging on the ceiling said would lead to the PegaTrain. Straight ahead were doors that provided the exit out, and the area between had various fast food stands and a cart that sold candy, soda, and potato chips.

"So what do we do from here?" Trixie asked impatiently.
"Well, we search this very large city, giving us a small chance at actually finding Twilight and the others." Starlight said, unsure if they would be able to find them.
They exited the building and walked up the street. They came across a four way intersection.
"Should we go right, left, or straight, Miss. Directions?" Starlight jokingly asked.
Trixie's face turned to disgust.
"Heck no, Starlight. I've been down on Hoofstings before. The street is full of drunks who don't know what personal space is, so I say we go straight."

They continued to trot through the city. Starlight saw an alabaster mare with a neatly curled purple mane.
"Rarity!" she exclaimed. "I'm so happy to see-"
Trixie blocked her with her left foreleg.
"No no no. That is a Rarity impersonator. Her name is actually Germane."
"My friends have impersonators now?"
"Anypony famous has at least one impersonator."

They continued to search many of the streets but they had no luck. Over time they started to get tired, so they decided to hop onto a bus. The bus was pulled by a couple of burly stallions. There was a young grey earth stallion wearing a light blue cap and a light blue shirt who made sure that the two purchased their tickets. Starlight read the name tag on his shirt. It said ' 'S. Shunpone'. They took their seats at the back of the bus. They noticed a tiny bipedal creature seated next to them, wearing a trench coat and a hat. Starlight took a closer look. She noticed a light green scaly chin and a light purple face; It was Spike. She tapped his shoulder. The distraught baby dragon looked up and his expression lit up when he saw Twilight's student.
"STARLIGHT!" he exclaimed, pulling her into a tight hug. Starlight could feel some tears dripping onto her fur.
"Where's Twilight and the others?" she asked softly.
"I don't know. One moment we solved a friendship problem and then the next moment, we were knocked out. When I woke up, they were gone. I tried looking for them and that's how I ended up here. Twilight gave me some bits in case we got separated so that I could get a bus to the train station."

Starlight put her hoof around Spike in a comforting manner.
"Now we can go find them together."
Suddenly Starlight heard a rumbling sound. She looked at Spike, who shrugged in confusion. She looked to her left where she saw a blushing Trixie.
"Sounds like somepony is hungry," Starlight teased.
Suddenly the conductor shouted to make sure he was heard over all the passengers' conversation.
"We are now stopping at the Horse Coltingwood PegaTrain Station."

"Ooh, let's go to that pizza place!" Trixie cried out. " That place was great last time I went there."
As night was starting to fall and the city was about to have one of its infamous rainfalls, all three of them agreed to go, and so they waited for the bus to stop at the PegaTrain station. Hopping off, they could hear the train over them on a guideway elevated ten feet above them. They could see a large sign that read 'Mega Good Pizza" above the doorway of a small building right next to a bar on it's left side. They trotted across the street and entered the establishment.

***
Control Room, Ricktaki Manor

Talzotl leaned over to his microphone, knowing that his voice would be transmitted as the growling, monstrous voice, and gave an angry growl that would send shivers down the spines of many ponies. On the screen he could see that Rainbow Dash and Applejack did not show any sign of fear. Then he could barely see that behind them, a frightened Fluttershy was curled up into a ball and Pinkie Pie was rubbing her back trying to comfort her. The unicorn looked away and buried his face into his forehooves, trying not to look at the pony who looked as if she was about to cry. Control your emotions now, Talzotl. You're better than this, his mind said sternly. Of course, if Talzotl had really been better than this, then he would not have held the six ponies in his Escape Room captive. If he really had been better than this, then he would not have blackmailed a particular pony who had dared to cross him when he tried to obtain an object that would make him lots of money. If he had been really been better than this, then he would not have crossed paths with a bunch of criminals who offered him a substantial amount of money.

At least he could take a break. He decided to leave his mansion to get himself a large pizza. Seeing on a T.V in his control room that it was going to rain, he decided to don his dark red cloak and take a large cart to put his pizza. He had once made the mistake of levitating his pizza with him to his manor when it was pooring rain. By the time he had gotten home, the rain water had soaked through the cardboard pizza box and into the pizza. It tasted watery and had lost most of its flavor as a result.

Going upstairs, he almost went out the front door when a thought came up to him. He went to his kitchen and stared at the phone plugged in to one of the electrical outlets. Not only did pegasi control the weather, they also collected electricity from lighting from thunder storms that was stored in special glasses intended to be used to power cities that needed the energy. It was better than using magic, as it would no doubt tire many unicorns.

Perhaps I should call one of my friends to keep watch on the prisoners, he thought.
No. That was not an option, for he had not spoken to them for a long ever since the Incident. Even then, he doubted that they would like what he was doing and would most likely release them at the first opportunity they got.

He went out the front door, got his his box shaped wooden dark blue cart out of the garage, and went down the path to the wall that seperated the mansion from the rest of Equestria. He opened the portcullis with a button he had installed on the wall. He made it so that it had a fifteen second timer before the portcullis closed to discourage would-be burglars.
He trotted down the dirt road from the top of the large hill that the mansion was on, which was called 'Strong' or the "Hill of Strong'. He lit up his horn and kept it on until he was clear of the forest he was about to trot into and saw lamp posts that were lit for the night that Princess Luna was slowly bringing forth.

***

Mega Good Pizza, Present

The three friends had gone up to the lightly tanned earth stallion with a slightly striped brown mane who looked to be about his late teens. He was the server.
Starlight ordered a tomatoroni pizza with cheese. Trixie ordered a cheese pizza and Spike ordered a gem pizza with extra cheese. An odd order for sure but the restaurant knew how to make gem pizza in case a civilized dragon that could fit inside the building came in to order the gem pizza. For obvious reasons, ponies never ordered it themselves unless it was a dare done by a group of rowdy teenagers. The server could remember his manager telling him that story and how one pony had ended up at the hospital for broken teeth.

The server sliced up the pizzas and gave them each two slices of their orders. Starlight paid him twelve bits and they sat down at the table right behind the glass door which was closed to keep out the cold air from the rain. They engaged in conversation. As they talked, a pony wearing a red cloak trotted in and went up to the server. He ordered a bit of everything and while waiting for his order, he engaged in small talk with the server as if he knew him. Once he got what he ordered, he thanked the server and went outside where he carefully placed the pizza box inside the cart which was parked on the side of the road. However, the pony did not go unnoticed, for a pair of eyes was staring at him intently. A pair of dragon eyes.

As Starlight was eating her pizza, she looked up and noticed that Spike, who was sitting across her, was looking at something, as if he had remembered seeing it before.
"What's wrong, Spike," she asked with concern.
He looked back at the female unicorn.
"Do you remember me mentioning the red cloaked pony who had broken into the Castle of Friendship?" he asked.
"Of course," Starlight responded. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I just saw him walk in and out of this place."
Starlight got up quickly, discreetly opened the glass door, and took a quick peak outside. She could see a pony wearing a dark red cloak entering a convenience store.

She returned to the table her friends were sitting at.
"I think Spike and I have found our mystery pony."
"But I thought we were looking for Twilight and her friends?" Trixie whined.
"Yes, Trixie," said an annoyed Starlight. "But this mysterious pony might know where they are. Let's go."
The three friends exited the restaurant quietly. Starlight cast an invisibility spell on herself and took a peak through the store window.
The cloaked pony was currently at the drinks section trying to decide which pop he should get.
Perfect, Starlight thought. She went back to her friends and opened the cart door with her magic.
"Everypony get in the cart. We're stowing away."
Spike dived in first and Trixie reluctantly got in. Starlight was the last one to get in and she used her magic to slowly close the door so that it would not loudly snap shut and alert the cloaked pony.
She noticed two things: One was that she somehow felt somewhat weightless. Two was that Trixie was squashed on the edge of the pizza box.
"Get off!" Starlight snarled at Trixie. "We don't want the pony to know that we're in here, remember?"
"Um not to burst your bubble," Spike began "but won't the pony notice that the cart will be really heavy when he starts pulling it?"
Trixie glared at the dragon.
"That's the thing," Starlight answered "I think he put a spell on this cart that made it easy to pull heavy things that might be put in here."

As if on cue, the cart started moving, which meant that the mysterious pony was pulling the cart to wherever he lived. Starlight put her right forehoof to her muzzle to tell Trixie and Spike to be quiet. A lot better than just shouting the word angrily like she once did to Twilight. They would finally solve the mystery of this mysterious pony and where Twilight and her friends were currently at.

Author's Note

So that is it for this chapter. As you can see, the action is REALLY starting to pick up. Also I got the first riddle from this website called "Easy Riddles" as I'm not really good with coming up with lots of riddles. The second riddle I created and the third riddle was from "Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders".
Anyway as usual, please comment what you liked, or if there's anything I could improve.
Brohoof /)