Heartache: Cherished Friendship {Book the First}

Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Pinkie took in their surroundings with wide eyes. During their desperation as they solved riddles, they hadn’t noticed how Ponyville changed. The buildings were no longer clean and pretty. The paint on the walls were peeling off. The windows were cracked, some of them completely broken. Doors were hanging from their hinges, some of them completely off. There were holes in the roofs made of straw. Decorations around the town lost their elegance. The cobblestone streets were cracked.

The mares walked toward the fountain of the town, which was cracked and empty of water. They were saddened to see their beloved town in such a state, but their sadness was soon replaced by surprise as a mare appeared from behind the fountain. The mare was smiling in a disturbing way, staring at the three mares with wide eyes, her pupils merely pinpoint dots. Her fur and hair was tangled, the strands sticking at odd angles. Since she was an earth pony, she didn’t have messy wings, which Dash and Fluttershy considered to be lucky. The mare slowly crept towards the ponies, the same creepy smile still pasted on her muzzle. The three friends backed away. They turned around.

They were planning to run back, but a stallion was creeping towards them just like the mare, blocking their way. They looked around them. More insane townsponies were creeping toward them, surrounding them. They looked up to the sky, thinking that will their escape, but found that pegasi were swarming the sky. A few unicorns were standing on the roofs, their horns ready to blast the three friends out of the sky. There was no way out. The three friends huddled together, their backs against each other as they watched in fear at the townsponies.

Pinkie had an idea. She withdrew her party cannon, and aimed at the sky. She blast confetti into the air. The confetti didn’t harm the pegasi in the sky, and that was Pinkie’s plan. She couldn’t hurt a friend, and everypony in the town were considered her friends. She nudged her two best friends and smiled. The others understood, and smiled along with her. They faced the townsponies, smiles pasted on their muzzles. It seemed like the three mares were putting on cheerful masks to look friendly to the townsfolk, but the friends knew the masks were all fake. Rainbow and Fluttershy’s smiles were strained, and Pinkie’s smile was huge, showing her teeth. Pinkie’s smile looked sort of like the creepy smiles on the townsfolk, except it was less creepy. Her eyes were also as wide as the eyes of the townsfolk, only instead of insanity in them, her blue eyes showed anger and impatience. They need to save the world, and Pinkie doesn’t like the fact that her friends of Ponyville were trying to stop them.

The confetti Pinkie had shot from the cannon earlier were being chased by pegasi. They zipped through the air, trying to catch the colorful confetti. They were distracted. Some of the confetti floated to the ground and on the roofs, and soon the pegasi weren’t alone in chasing the confetti. Unicorns and earth ponies were trying to catch them as well. Pinkie, Rainbow, and Fluttershy took their chances, and escaped from the crowd while they were distracted by the confetti.

They had done it. They solved “the Nightmare’s words” about smiling. They entered the castle. Fear and dread washed over them. The Nightmare was nowhere to be seen.

They scanned their eyes throughout the room. The steel chains that had once prevented the Nightmare from escaping had broke apart. The Nightmare had escaped. The mares almost lost all of their hope. The Nightmare could be doing horrible deeds to Equestria this very minute. Questions and worry flowed through them. What if they were too late? What if their friends were already dead? What will the future hold? What will their futures be? What was that sound?

Indeed, the mares were hearing something. It sounded like someone was struggling against something. They listened carefully. It was coming from the kitchen. They made their way to the kitchen. What they saw surprised them.

Starlight and Spike were tied up in ropes. Starlight’s front hooves and Spike’s front legs were tied behind their backs. Their back hooves and legs were also tied together, stretched out in front of them. They were gagged, so all they could get out of their mouths were desperate hmms. As each second passed by, their hmms grew more and more desperate. The three friends saw why. A kitchen knife hung by a rope was hanging in front of their faces, swinging back and forth like a hand of a clock. The rope tied to the handle of the knife was tied to the ceiling. From there, no one knew what was the rest of the contraption, but at the end of the invention sat a kitchen timer. It was ticking away by each second, reaching closer and closer to zero. Somehow, the kitchen knife in front of their friends’ faces would stab their friends once the time is up. Of course, magic was playing a part in this horrible plan.

Hurriedly, the three best friends walked over to Starlight and Spike to untie them. Rainbow knocked over the contraption purposely, making a satisfying crash. They helped Starlight Glimmer and Spike to their feet.

“Oh my gosh!” Pinkie said. “Are you two alright? When you disappeared, we were really worried about you. Now the Nightmare disappeared and the whole world is doomed!”

They didn’t reply. Starlight slowly turned her attention to them. Her face was blank. Then, she leaped for Pinkie’s throat, snarling with wide, insane eyes. She tackled Pinkie to the ground. Pinkie gasped, then gurgled, clasping Starlight’s hooves around her neck with her own hooves. Fluttershy and Rainbow watched in horror. Rainbow made a move toward Starlight to try to pull her away from her pink friend, but before she could put a hoof on Starlight, Starlight kicked with her back hooves. Rainbow was so surprised that her friend kicked her that she wasn’t able to dodge Starlight’s hooves. Starlight bucked Rainbow with such a force that Rainbow was sent flying out of the window.

Luckily, the window was open, so Rainbow wasn’t hurt by shattered glass. It wouldn’t be long until Dash comes back, and Fluttershy knew that. She thought she could help Pinkie until Dash comes back. She began to walk to Starlight, but felt something tugging her tail. She looked back. Spike was clutching her long, pink tail, pulling it. She tugged. He tugged back. Fluttershy faced forward and tried to reach for Starlight. They were too far. She pulled and Spike yanked. Soon, a tug of war began. Fluttershy tried her best to yank her tail out of Spike’s grasp, but Spike was a stronger dragon than she thought. Or, maybe she was weaker than she thought. Spike gave her tail a good yank, and she fell to the floor, face first.

Suddenly, Starlight stopped strangling Pinkie. Starlight gasped, her eyes widened, and she scrambled off Pinkie. Pinkie let out a last gurgle before jamming oxygen into her lungs, clutching her throat.

Starlight stood up, staring at Pinkie. Spike shut his eyes, shook his head, then opened his eyes. He realized what he was doing, and let go of Fluttershy’s tail. He stood with Starlight, staring at Fluttershy, whose face was still flat on the floor. Pinkie and Fluttershy got up to their hooves at the same time, but the only one who wasn’t standing in the kitchen was Dash. Fluttershy and Pinkie looked around the kitchen, but the only other pony-and dragon-they saw were Starlight and Spike. Starlight was shaking her head, staring straight ahead of her, while Spike simply looked depressed, looking down at the floor.

“No,” Starlight murmured. “No.”

Then in a whisper, “What had I just done?”

Starlight collapsed on the floor, hugging herself as she wept, devastated that she had attempted to hurt a great friend. Spike sat on the floor next to her, hugging himself as he cried along with Starlight.

Pinkie immediately rushed over to comfort Starlight and Spike. Fluttershy wanted to help, but she was also concerned for Dash. She rushed over to the window Dash had flew out of.

Fluttershy scanned the skies. The pegasi of Ponyville were still flying through the skies, but they were quite some distance away from the window. Surely Dash couldn’t have been caught by them. Where is she? Fluttershy thought. The blue pegasus was nowhere to be seen. Fluttershy slowly lowered her gaze to the ground. She had to suppress a scream of shock and despair.

She found the Nightmare.

The Nightmare was facing away from the castle. In front of the Nightmare was Rainbow Dash, caught and trapped. Townsponies surrounded them. The Nightmare was jabbing the very point of Twilight’s horn into Rainbow’s chest. Although it seemed like Rainbow was being stabbed, the tip of the horn was not driven deep enough to puncture her skin.

“I know you’re up there,” the Nightmare said, startling Fluttershy. “You’re in the kitchen, both of you. Come down here this instant.”

From the ground, Rainbow shifted her eyes to the kitchen window and saw Fluttershy, or at least what she can see of her friend with the Nightmare in front of her. Fluttershy looked back at her sadly. She stepped away from the window, and looked down at Pinkie. Pinkie looked back at her. She seemed to have heard what the Nightmare had said. Pinkie stood up, and the two best friends made their way to the door. They both looked back at Starlight and Spike, who were still huddled on the floor, crying. Fluttershy and Pinkie wished they could help them, but for now, they must help Rainbow. Somehow.

Applejack and Rarity watched as Twilight flew around frantically, zipping back and forth while shouting utter nonsense. During the first few moments of her panic, she wasn’t uttering nonsense. She was asking the same question over and over: why didn’t the last memory recovered? Now, she is facing anxiety, muttering complete nonsense. She zipped through her mind, completely ignoring her two best friends.

Suddenly, Applejack couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted to roar into the abyss of glittering purple and pink, to let out her anger and frustration. Instead, she walked over to Twilight. She heard Rarity gasp behind her and ignored her. She continued to make her way toward Twilight, who was still flying around frantically.

“Twilight!” Applejack shouted. The alicorn didn’t respond.

“Twilight!” Applejack cried out again. “Twilight! TWILIGHT, LISTEN TO ME!”

The alicorn stopped flying, shook her head, and faced Applejack.

“Yes?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

Applejack stepped closer to her friend. “Twilight, you need to calm down,” she said.

“CALM DOWN?!” Twilight roared, “Applejack, we failed to restore my last memory, we’re trapped in my own mind, and you ask me to calm down?!”

“Yes, Twilight,” Applejack said flatly, “Ah’m simply asking you to calm down after all we’ve been through.”

“Applejack, how are you doing that?” Rarity asked, awestruck.

“Yeah Applejack,” Twilight said, noticing something for the first time. She wondered how she didn’t realize it for the first time. “How is that possible?”

“What?” Applejack asked.

“You’re flying!” Rarity exclaimed.

Applejack looked down and saw the truth. “Wh-what?! How am I doing this?”

“Let me try!” Rarity said, giggling. She stepped forward, and before long, she was walking on air just like Applejack. She joined with her friends, smiling. Twilight smiled back, and Applejack replaced her face of shock and disbelief with a smile of her own. Twilight stopped flapping her wings, and she stood on air with her friends.

“I think we can walk on air because we’re souls,” Twilight said. “Maybe this is how ghosts fly.”

Despite the serious troubles they’re in, they laughed. Their laughs weren’t the happiest ones. Their laughs were quiet and almost sad. Yet, the laughs were still laughs. They were the kind of laughs that might be heard from someone if they are slightly sad, but that someone was being comforted. This was exactly how Twilight felt. She was sad, but she was also grateful that her friends were trying their hardest to help her. It almost made her sad even more.

Suddenly, bright white light flashed beneath the mares. They quickly looked down. The light seemed to come from the bottom of Twilight’s mind, and it seemed to be growing, reaching to the mares, toward the top of Twilight’s mind. The three mares “walked” away, and stood at a distance to watch the light. The light stopped growing when it seemed to reach the halfway point between the bottom and top of Twilight’s mind. A large, floating rectangle faded into view at the top of the light. The rectangle was holding the memory of Twilight becoming an alicorn.

“What,” Twilight whispered. “How? It worked, but it didn’t before. What did we do that helped?”

“Well,” Applejack replied. “Ah’m not really sure, but maybe, just maybe, the last memory came back because we all realized something. We realized that through dark times, we’ll always support each other. When we realized that, it helped bring a little bit more light into the dark times, just like how all of this memory restoring brought light to your originally dark mind. When we laughed for the first time in a long time, the light in our dark times grew brighter, and the light in your mind grew brighter as well. I think that’s how it happened. It happened because we made our own light, to actually become happy. I bet this might become our best memory yet.”