Fireflight

by Tangent

Rating: everyone
Tags: Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Other, Self Insert, Fluttershy, Adventure
Length: 6794

A young Firefly unitentionally takes a sledgehammer to causality when she bucks Starlight Glimmer in the head on the way down to save Fluttershy as Rainbow Dash defends the shy filly's honor in a race against some bullies back in Flight Camp...

Years before a certain prophesy would come to fruition, a young pegasus filly fell from the sky near Las Pegasus, only to be rescued and taken in by Burning Sky and Dragonfly, a newlywed pegasi couple on leave from the Equestrian Air Guard for their honeymoon. Adopted and named Firefly by the very ponies who caught her out of the sky, the young filly is secretly a being from another reality, a former human who had been a fan of a popular show that had portrayed this very world (or one very similar to it), with no idea what had brought her here, why she was now a pony, or even when in the timeline she happens to be.

Once she figures out that she's in the past, with years before Princess Luna returned as Nightmare Moon, young Firefly resolves to simply stay out of the way and let events happen as they should. However, once she sees Princess Twilight Sparkle and Spike the Brave and Glorious appear out of a bubble of complex looking magic, Firefly feels an incredible sense of liberation, believing that it no longer matters what she does or doesn't do as everything would correct itself once Twilight dealt with Starlight Glimmer and returned to the future.

So Firefly decides to buck Starlight Glimmer on the way down to save Fluttershy.

After all, if nothing she did right now mattered anyway, why not be the hero? What harm could it possibly do? :twilightsheepish:

And thus my SI takes a sledgehammer to causality, breaking Starlight Glimmer's spell in the worst way possible for two mares and a dragon from the future and changing the course of history forever. :facehoof:

But hey, at least Fluttershy is okay, right? :twilightsheepish:

What do you mean Fluttershy's Cutie Mark is different now!? :twilightoops:

Cover rendition of Firefly by Equestria Prevails.

This pic of Firefly is pretty much what inspired me to write this story... :twilightsmile:

Published 2018-01-04 03:10:06 UTC
Last updated 2018-01-05 19:07:58 UTC

Prologue: Taking a Sledgehammer to Causality

FIREFLIGHT

Yet another MLP:FiM SI by Tangent

Whose alternate SI's keep messing up causality

Beta-readers: Angelform, Baran3, and W34v3r

Prologue

Firefly glided gently among the clouds, enjoying the peaceful sensation of the air flowing across her body and through her control feathers.

A far cry from when she had first appeared in Equestria four years ago in a flash of lightning above Los Pegasus. If the vacationing couple who ended up adopting her hadn’t spotted her fall in time to catch her, she probably wouldn’t have survived hitting the ground.

Granted, it probably would have been quick, and Firefly had already been barely conscious at the time, so a lot of the fear from anticipation had been absent as well, but it still wasn’t a pleasant thought.

In any event, Burning Sky and Dragonfly had taken her in, named her, and diligently helped her ‘regain’ her ability to manipulate things with her wings, hooves, and mouth. Two years ago, when they noticed her clumsy first attempts to fly, they helped her improve her technique and train her agility, speed, and stamina in the sky.

One day, she was going to be in the Air Guard, just like Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Hornet (Daddy's side of the family had a lot of bug related names), and like Grandpa Strato used to be before he retired.

For now though, she was just going to enjoy what private flying time she managed to get at the Junior Speedsters’ Flight Camp.

And try not to get in the way of the events unfolding around Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

Well, at least she knew when roughly in the timeline she was now, since they were all in Flight Camp together. Dash had just made friends with Gilda the other day, and Fluttershy…

Seriously, what had Fluttershy’s parents been thinking when they signed her up for the Junior Speedsters’ Flight Camp? Maybe they had made a mistake and thought that they had sent her off to Sky Dancer Camp? It would have suited the timid filly’s temperament better, and she certainly looked like the type that would come out of that awkward growth phase more graceful than she went into it.

Granted, Firefly did realize that she might be being a little biased due to the vague memories she retained of the show whose setting she found herself living in. Not that everything lined up completely with what she remembered so far, but enough had that she was reasonably sure that some of the big events were set to take place in a few years.

All she had to do was stay out of it all and let it happen while serving her new country in other ways.

When an odd flash caught Firefly’s attention, she found herself looking at the arrival of Twilight Sparkle and Spike as they fell out of a complex looking bubble of magic.

Which meant that Starlight Glimmer was around here somewhere, getting ready to prevent Rainbow Dash from performing her very first Sonic Rainboom.

In a way, it was very liberating for Firefly, knowing that it didn’t matter what she did or didn’t do because it was all going to be wiped away when causality was corrected.
Which was why, when Firefly spotted Starlight Glimmer getting ready to cast a spell at Rainbow Dash, she decided to deliver a flyby buck to the head on her way down to save Fluttershy.

Yeah. Screw trusting the ability of a swarm of butterflies to catch a pegasus. Firefly was going to make sure that Fluttershy made it to the ground safely.

All she had to do was reach her first…

*O o O o O*

Starlight Glimmer groggily shook her head in an attempt to clear it as she fell uncontrolled through the clouds on her way to the ground below.

What the buck had just happened?

Desperately, she recast her flight spell, which barely flickered into place but slowed her fall to a gentle drift nonetheless. This wasn’t good. If Twilight Sparkle caught her while she was still recovering from whatever hit her, that would be it for her little revenge scheme. She had to act quickly, even though she doubted that she’d be able to use enough control to just stop the filly gently. Still, it had to be done, and if one little filly just happened to get hurt in the course of her revenge then what of it?

When the Sonic Rainboom came, Starlight almost fell out of the sky again because it came from below her instead of from wherever the the young racers happened to be in the clouds above.

And the color of the transonic aura wave-front was all wrong. More of an alternating pink and purple rather than being the colors of a rainbow.

Something else had gone wrong other than what Starlight had planned on, and she wondered what it meant for the spell that she could feel getting ready to pull Twilight Sparkle back unto whatever future was forming from this change of events.

And then a second Sonic Rainboom happened among the clouds above.

And causality, just like her spell, shattered.

*O o O o O*

Two pegasi fillies looked up at the rainbow colored shockwave spreading across the sky.

"Three guesses who caused that one," Firefly commented lightly, even as she wondered why this version of reality hadn't unraveled yet. Did she screw up somehow when she bucked Dimlight Dumber on the way down to rescue Fluttershy?

"I think we both know who that is," Fluttershy replied as she turned her attention back towards her new friend's sprained wing. Sure, it was nice of Rainbow Dash to defend her honor by racing against the class bullies like that, and the second rainboom was an indication that her chromatic friend had most likely won, but it was Firefly who had noticed that she had fallen and had broken the sound barrier first when she flew down to intercept her before she hit the ground. Unfortunately, Firefly's immature wings couldn't quite take the strain of pulling out of that dive while also carrying the added weight of another filly, forcing the pair to angle for a softer water landing near the shore of a pond.

Neither of the two downed fillies would be returning to the Junior Speedster's Flight Camp until someone noticed that they were missing and came down to look for them, which might take a while. In the meantime, Fluttershy tended to her injured friend as best as she could, improvising makeshift splints for her wings.

"So, uh, Fluttershy?"

"Yes?"

"While we're waiting, would you mind listening to an idea about a story I'd like to write someday? I'm calling it 'Battleship Archipelago'."

"Okay."

Neither filly noticed that they had acquired their Cutie Marks until after they had been found.

*O o O o O*

Fizzlepop Berrytwist stared in wonder at the bouncy pink Earth Pony who, against all prior experience with every other filly or colt her age, seemed to be determined to be her friend despite the bursts of uncontrolled magic caused by her broken horn.

Yes, her broken horn was dangerous, but Pinkie Pie insisted that was all the more reason that she needed a friend to cheer her up and help her through the hard times. A friend who was unafraid of the risks involved with approaching a filly with uncontrolled magic. A friend whos dream was to travel Equestria, spreading joy and laughter to any and all who might need it.

It was inspiring, and Fizzlepop felt as if a great weight had lifted from her heart.

She resolved to follow Pinkie Pie and help her any way she could as they traveled across Equestria and beyond.

Oddly enough, the two eventually ended up on Mount Aris on the far coast of the Bone Dry Desert, where they managed to start up a much needed resistance cell that helped the hippogriffs repel the forces of the Storm King with their unique abilities, becoming national heroes of both Hippogriffia and Sequestria.

But that's another story entirely.

*O o O o O*

Princess Celestia cautiously glided towards the two ponies whose duel had wrecked a sizable portion of what had been a camp for young pegasi fliers. One of them did indeed appear to be an alicorn as the initial reports had claimed. One who bore a suspiciously close resemblance to her newest personal student, Twilight Sparkle, right down to her having the very same Cutie Mark and young dragon companion of the same coloration as baby Spike. The other was an angry lilac colored unicorn who was showing signs of severe magical strain and possibly a concussion. Not that the alicorn didn’t also look tired, but the unicorn definitely looked to be the worse off of the pair.

Noting that she hadn’t been noticed yet, Princess Celestia motioned for her guards to land quietly as she did, and approached the pair in silence. This appeared to be a natural break in whatever conflict the pair were engaged in, and if she was lucky she might find out what they were fighting about before she intervened.

And, as luck would have it, she did indeed seem to have arrived during the more verbal portion of whatever argument they were having.

“...I had given them true friendship! And you took it all away!”

“You took away their Cutie Marks, Starlight! Of course they turned on you when they found out that you had retained your own! You were lying to them!”

“I had to! I’m the only one who knows the Cutie Mark Removal spell! I’m the one who created it!”

“Why would you make such a horrible spell?”

“You want to know why I invented that spell? Fine, Princess, I’ll tell you! Because Cutie Marks destroyed the only friendship I ever had! Because Sunburst got his Cutie Mark and I didn’t, he got sent away to Magic School and I didn’t. I never heard from him again!”

“But...”

“And when I had finally, finally, made my own little utopia, a village without Cutie Marks, a village where everyone was the same and Cutie Marks couldn’t destroy friendships, you and you and your friends came along and ruined everything! You took away my friendships, so I’m going to make sure that you never get yours, Princess Twilight Sparkle!”

“You’re crazy!” the young dragon interjected.

“I AM NOT CRAZY!”

“You brought us all back in time just to rub it in our faces as you made sure that the one event that Twilight credited as connecting the Elements of Harmony before they even met each other didn’t happen as part of a twisted revenge scheme. Sounds crazy to me,” the dragon snarked.

“Spike has a point,” Twilight Sparkle agreed, revealing the young dragon’s name and confirming her own identity as the (or rather a) future version of a certain little filly back in Canterlot.

“I agree,” Princess Celestia stated, deciding that it was time to reveal her presence to all involved.

“Princess Celestia!” If anything, the sheer look of joy and relief on the dragon and new alicorn, and the look of trepidation on the unicorn, only served to further confirm what she had already found out.

“Princess Twilight,” Celestia responded formally, acknowledging the status of the other alicorn as revealed by the preceding argument. The somewhat hurt expression this caused spoke of the deeply personal relationship the other alicon must have had with her. “And you must be Spike. Or at least older versions of the young filly and dragon I had just met earlier today. Now who are you, Starlight...”

“G-Glimmer...” the unicorn stammered. “Starlight Glimmer.”

“Before we continue,” Celestia announced, "I need to know one thing: Can you reverse your spell and return Princess Twilight, Spike, and yourself to the portion of Neverwhen from whence you came?”

“Ah… No? I mean, the spell broke when the event I came back to prevent happened anyway. Twilight and I should have already been automatically projected back into the future, but we’re still here.”

“So you are truly cut off from your native causality, and this is a new branch of time rather than a closed chronological loop?”

“Oh no...” Twilight Sparkle visibly paled, immediately realizing what Princess Celestia was implying. A moment later the young dragon looked ill as well.

“Ha! Yes! That’s right! I still win!” Starlight Glimmer cackled gleefully.

“No, Starlight Glimmer of Neverwhen, you do not ‘win.’ You stand before me, guilty by your own admission, of the crimes of attempted genocide by means of temporal manipulation; of attempted regicide by means of temporal manipulation; and deliberately breaking causality and risking an extinction level event. Normally, I would sentence you to Tartarus for crimes of such magnitude, but I do not believe it to be secure enough to hold a unicorn that can create spells that can manipulate time to the extent that you have demonstrated. Starlight Glimmer of Neverwhen, I hereby declare you to be Despair of Loneliness and sentence you to the Palace Gardens. Your case will be reviewed again at some point in the future when the full extent of the actual damages you have caused and how they might be corrected or compensated for has been determined, but for now: To Stone With You!”

“But...”

But no further protest came from the now petrified Starlight Glimmer as Princess Celestia moved to comfort the grieving alicorn and dragon.

*O o O o O*

Several hours later, after Firefly and Fluttershy were discovered to be missing and eventually found and recovered from the ground under the Junior Speedsters' Flight Camp, Firefly could only express her disbelief about what she and Fluttershy had missed while they were gone...

Author's Note

Just a bit of a heads up on how and why Princess Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, and Spike the Brave and Glorious didn't return to their future when Rainbow Dash successfully performed her very first Sonic Rainboom.

It's because Princess Twilight and Spike got sent forward when a divergent event happened before the key event took place. Which is to say Firefly's Sonic Rainboom. However, the three also stayed behind in the 'past' as a sort of Schrödinger's Echo, not that any of them realize this. When the 'key' event that Starlight's causality loop was focused on happened anyway, the last vestiges of the spell shattered, stranding them in the past because they were already in their proper future.

Mind you, none of them have anyway of knowing this, and for all this version of Princess Celestia knows Starlight Glimmer may have destroyed her native reality. She won't know for certain until she depetrifies Starlight on or after the original date the spell was cast once they catch up to it and takes a reading.

Celestia, being Celestia, hasn't told Princess Twilight this bit for several reasons. Only one of which being not to get the other alicorn's hopes up in case Twilight's native causality is indeed no longer there to find.

Chapter One, Part One: Opening Gambits

Princess Twilight smiled sadly as she observed her student, her daughter, and her former self read over the book that had set her on the path to becoming the Bearer of the Element of Magic all those years ago. She still missed the friends she had lost when she had become detached from her original causality, but she had grieved and moved on with her life, making new friends and starting a family of her own.

The Princesses (Celestia and herself) had initiated a discrete search for the young filly Twilight would end up taking in and raising as a beloved daughter shortly after the transtemporally displaced alicorn's arrival. A search made difficult by having only a name, coloration, and the name of a friend named Sunburst who would have just entered the magical education system. A search made tragic as by the time the young filly had been located, young Starlight Glimmer had just become even more alone in the world due to the loss of her parents.

Princess Twilight was still not sure if the search itself had somehow butterflied into the events leading up to the accident, or if the Starlight Glimmer she had fought simply hadn't gotten around to ranting about that part of her tragic past. Whatever the truth was, the revelation that Starlight the younger was now an orphan had removed any remaining desire Princess Twilight had harbored about sneaking into the palace gardens with a sledgehammer and crushing a certain statue into fine rubble.

Spike, or rather Spikoran now (to differentiate himself from his newly hatched and named native analogue), had been dubious about her adoption of the grieving filly, but the three had ended up bonding over their shared grief and had grown close as they finally put their pasts behind them and moved on with their lives, with the young Starlight Glimmer becoming Princess Twilight's very first personal student.

And a rather surprised Sunset Shimmer becoming Twilight's second personal student shortly afterwards, once the Twilight Princess had realized that the angry young mare hadn't run off through the Mirror Portal yet.

Princess Celestia hadn't initially known how to take the fact that her older student had been poached out from under her but, after seeing an immediate improvement in Sunset's attitude with the difference between her teaching methods and Twilight's, had graciously accepted that it may have been for the best.

And Sunset herself had...

Whups! It looked like the little study group was splitting apart, with young Twilight and Starlight rushing off to no doubt inform Princess Celestia of the impending return of Nightmare Moon. And her own apprentice no doubt seeking her out to accuse both Princesses of meddling. Again.

Which, to be fair, they were actually both guilty of this time, even if the cause was a good one.

“I know you’re watching this!” Sunset Shimmer called out as she looked around. “You can’t help looking in more personally whenever the two of you are up to something, and this has your hoofprints all over it!”

“I suppose it does at that,” Princess Twilight admitted as she dropped the invisibility spell and emerged from behind the bushes. When one has a purple coat, it was prudent to take that extra step when you wanted to be stealthy. Not that it always helped. “I notice that you don’t seem to be too upset with us this time.”

“It helps that you at least explained why the two of you need to be mysterious and ambiguous sometimes, even if I don’t always get the direct answers I want,” Sunset commented. “And, I suppose, it also helps that you have more free time to take a direct hoof in our studies. Thanks again for taking me on as your apprentice, by the way. I know your time with your daughter is precious to you.”

“Yes, she is,” Princess Twilight admitted easily. “But you, too, are my precious student. How could I not take you as my apprentice, having seen the potential you can reach? And… well… I may not have been as close with your other self as I was with my other friends, but we were still friends. And I like to think that we have become friends as well.”

“Tell me about her,” Sunset asked. “The other me, I mean. Sometimes I feel like I’m being set on a pedestal, and you’re holding me to some perfect standard or something. It’s kind of hard living in my own Shadow, y’know?”

“Why do you think I try to stay out of my younger self’s life so much? She has her own life to live. She shouldn’t be worried about trying to be me,” Princess Twilight stated with a slight smile. “But no, your other self was hardly some perfect paragon of virtue. She started out every bit as angry, frustrated, and resentful as you were when we were introduced. In fact, from what I was given to understand, she ran off to another world altogether shortly after I was taken on as another of Celestia’s personal students.”

“I ran away?” Sunset asked, having a hard time picturing herself doing such a thing.

“No,” Princess Twilight corrected, “she ran away. To another whole world slightly out of sync with ours, where time flowed more slowly than it did in the part of Neverwhen we came from. So she was still an angry teenager when I first met her. Granted, given that the portal transformed me into a teenage version of the local dominant species, and Spikoran became a dog, it might have just been that the portal itself was unstable.”

“What species did you turn into?”

“Something called a human. We don’t have them in our world. Picture a creature with the upper body of a hornless centaur and a lower body like an ape or monkey and you’ll be pretty close. Or like a smaller, less scary looking troll. Only generally skinnier for their size.”

“Weird,” Sunset commented as she tried to imagine what humans looked like. "And you probably should have started with the comparison to trolls."

"Probably," Twilight agreed, seeing her student's point. “Anyway, I got used to it pretty quickly. The hardest part, besides figuring out how to walk on just two legs, was dealing with hands. Imagine that, instead of having hooves at the end of your forelegs, they ended in a sort of flat panels with five wriggly miniature forelegs attached to them. Totally creeped me out the first time I saw them in place of my own hooves.”

“Don’t Spike and Spikoran have hands pretty much just like that?” Sunset asked, cocking a brow.

“Yes, yes, I know they do. Still freaked me out to actually have them myself though.”

“And, if I may note, we’re getting a little sidetracked,” Sunset observed. “Should I be worried about what you aren’t telling me about my other self?”

Princess Twilight sighed before responding. “Not really, but before I do tell you, I need to show you something so you can have some perspective. Walk with me.”

Sunset Shimmer trotted alongside the purple alicorn quietly until they eventually stood before one of the statues in the Palace Garden.

“Tell me, Sunset, do you know who this is?”

“This is Despair, right? I mean, the statue is called Despair of Loneliness, so that’s her name, isn’t it?”

“It is now, although she never went by it. She had another name once, but it was changed to protect the innocent.”

“Who was she?” Sunset asked. “The history books don’t say.” Then a disturbing thought occurred to her. “She’s not my other self, is she? I don’t see the resemblance.”

“No, she’s not your other self, although this could have potentially been her fate had she not realized how far she had fallen and reached out for help when she did. No, Despair was another pony altogether. One who had lost the only friend she ever had and had never made another afterwards to fill the gaping void left behind in her heart. One who blamed Cutie marks for this loss, and after her first plot was stopped, engaged in a mad scheme of revenge to wipe out the friendships she saw as the cause of her failure. Despair was a madmare, and a very powerful unicorn, and she tried to rewrite time itself, dragging Spikoran and myself along to rub her revenge in our faces.”

“Then why make a statue of her?” Sunset wondered. “I never really understood why such ponies or creatures got immortalized in stone in the Palace Garden alongside great heroes and historical figures.”

“Funny you should mention that,” Princess Twilight commented. “Immortalized in stone, I mean.”

“Wait… This is actually her!? The real Despair?” Sunset exclaimed in shock. She had heard rumors, of course, that some of the statues in and around the Palace had once been living ponies or monsters, but she hadn't thought that any of them were actually true.

“Yes,” the Princess explained sadly. “As I said, she was a madmare in complete denial on top of being a powerful and resourceful unicorn of with a truly great magical potential. And she had enough skill and knowledge to modify one of Starswirl the Bearded’s time spells. Princess Celestia had no other choice, as much as I would have wished otherwise. Despair was too much of a danger to Equestria as a whole to entrust to any other form of incarceration, including Tartarus itself. She had, after all, already broken causality, or Spikoran and I would have been able to return to our own time long ago instead of being refugees of Neverwhen.”

“Had…” Sunset began to ask hesitantly. “had I gone mad?”

“Eh, little bit,” Princess Twilight stated, wiggling a hoof. “The other Sunset stole an artifact of magic, took it to the other world, and used it to try to turn a school full of humans into a demonic army to bring back to Equestria. However, unlike Despair, when the other you was defeated, she knew enough to reach for help and accept it when it was offered.”

Sunset fell over at that particular revelation, then stood up again and got in Princess Twilight’s face. “Wait, what!? You’re telling me that the other me tried to raise a demon army to take over Equestria!?”

“Yes.”

“A demon army transformed from the student body of just one school?”

“Yes.”

“Are humans some sort of super creature or something?”

“Not really. They seem to be generalist omnivores for the most part, and what studies I’ve been able to do on them suggest that they used to be gatherers and persistence hunters before they became civilized.”

“Okay, so they aren’t a super powerful base species to make demonic soldiers from. Was the school really large?”

“Not really, no.”

“Was she planning on converting the rest of a city’s worth of humans or something?”

“Not as far as I know. The portal was kind of right there, and she was just going to come straight to Equestria with what she had at the time.”

“Was the other me some kind of idiot?”

“Hardly,” Princess Twilight denied. “But she was already kind of mad for power and she did try to misuse a magical artifact against it’s known purpose in a bid for power. That sort of thing tends to affect the judgment of anyone attempting such things. Once she was separated from the artifact, her reasoning cleared right up again and she saw what she had been doing.”

“Ouch,” Sunset winced. “Well, I know the lesson that I’m taking from this one: I’m never touching any magical artifact I ever come across!”

“That’s not the lesson I’m trying to teach here, although it does highlight what can happen if you misuse powerful magical artifacts,” the princess pointed out. “I actually do expect you to use such artifacts from time to time, but only as necessary, and hopefully in the way that they were intended to be used.”

“Don’t try to take over a country with just an army made of one school’s worth of transformed monkeys?”

“While that is a tactically sound conclusion, that’s not the lesson either,” Princess Twilight chided.

“Don’t mess with time travel if I can at all help it?”

“I’ll give you extra credit for that bit of wisdom, but that’s not it either.”

Sunset thought for a moment before trying again. “That sometimes redemption is possible, even when the crime seems great, so it should be offered when possible, but sometimes… Sometimes redemption just isn’t possible, and the hard choices must be made for the safety of everyone.”

“Yes. That’s the one,” Princess Twilight agreed. “That said, I fully expect my younger self to be heading off to Ponyville soon, on the pretext to ‘make some friends.’ Although, given that this version of me already has friends, that particular bit may be more straight forward than what I had experienced. I am sending you to Ponyville as well, to help her and make sure she doesn’t get it into her head to try to fight off Nightmare Moon by herself.”

“So Nightmare Moon is returning!” Sunset concluded. “Wait. Are… Are we going to have to kill her?”

“I should certainly hope not! Princess Luna became a friend of mine!” Princess Twilight proclaimed. “Besides, I think Princess Celestia would get more than a bit upset if you committed regicide against her sister.”

Sunset Shimmer fell over again at that bit of news.

“Just try to help my counterpart solve the problem, and don’t let her (or anyone else, including you) face Nightmare Moon alone. Think more ‘adventuring party’ than solo or squad mission, and apply the sort of thinking that helps in those situations.”

“So, dangerous, but not specifically life threatening?”

“More or less. You will find suitable ponies in Ponyville to become boon companions for your upcoming quest. Princess Celestia has slowly been guiding such ponies there ever since it was founded.”

"One of her long games, huh?" Sunset observed dryly.

"Pretty much," Princess Twilight nodded. "Annoyed me too, the first time I found out about that bit. Even though I know why she did it that way."

“This is one of those things that won’t work if you tell me everything ahead of time, isn’t it?”

“Unfortunately, yes. It is. I can give hints, and you can guess, but if I flat out told you or you went in knowing everything ahead of time, the chances of success drop significantly. I'll be able to explain it all in full once certain conditions have been met but, until they occur, you are just going to have to wait.”

“And this is why I like being your student! You at least tell me these things instead of just being enigmatic and saying that I would understand later."

“To be fair, I do that too.”

“Yes, but you also tell me why you tell me things like that! Princess Celestia used to drive me up the wall because she wouldn’t even tell me that much!”

“You’re welcome?”

Sunset chuckled. “Well, I suppose I better get going. I have a quest to prepare for after all.”

“Good luck. Oh, and you’ll have a mission budget and a billet assignment as well. Just stop by my office and ask either Spikoran or Stella for the papers before you leave.”

“Got it! Thanks!” Sunset called back as she began to trot off.

Once she was sure she was alone again, Princess Twilight looked up at the stony form of Despair as the petrified madmare stood silently on her pedestal. "My student looked right at you and saw no resemblance between you and my precious daughter. Sunset would have said something if she had. I'll take that as a good sign."

Princess Twilight still couldn’t see how her precious Starlight could have become the raving madmare that her counterpart from Neverwhen had been, but it just highlighted how important friendships could be, and how losing even one friend could cause enough despair to drive a pony crazy.

Hmmm, maybe it would be best if she told Starlight that two of her friends were just being sent away on tasks rather than abandoning her or some other silly notion like that.

Might be a good idea to make sure that Starlight could attend Moondancer’s party too, and pass on the message to the rest of their friends.

*O-(A Short Time Later, in the Palace)-O*

“YOU WHAT!?”

It had been a long time since Princes Celestia reflex-teleported out of fear.

At least several centuries at a minimum.

(And not last Tuesday because she was absolutely not scared of the big hairy spider that she found hiding in her closet. Because that never happened. Ever.)

*ahem*

Perhaps she should have informed Princess Twilight that she had decided to send Starlight Glimmer to Ponyville along with their respective students before they actually left Canterlot?

“GET BACK HERE! I’M NOT DONE YELLING AT YOU YET!”

Well, on the bright side, Celestia was now a lot less nervous about her sister’s impending return as she currently had an entirely different angry alicorn to worry about now...

*O o O o O*

"Looks like we have a Royal Guard chariot coming in," Firefly commented as she and Fluttershy flew safety patrol. Being a small rural town so close to the capitol, Ponyville didn't have a dedicated Guard force as such, instead having a volunteer militia. Granted, as Ponyville was situated right on the edge of the eldritch, monster infested, Everfree Forest, these volunteers were mainly comprised of reserve and auxiliary members of the military.

Case in point being Firefly and Fluttershy, who were both members of the Junior Air Auxiliary despite having moved to Ponyville some time ago for reasons that she was still not clear on. Something about the experience being good for them, which sounded awfully suspicious to her, but it did seem to be working out well so far. So, meh, whatever.

Firefly still wondered how she and Fluttershy ended up living in the same cottage on the edge of the Everfree Forest that Fluttershy had in the show (albeit without the associated animal occupants). Granted, it had been available, and between the two of them they had been able to buy it outright instead of having to rent-to-own two separate homes, so there was that.

"I see them," Fluttershy acknowledged. "They're brining in three unicorns... and a baby dragon?"

"Seems so," Firefly agreed.

"Want to meet them at their landing point and see if they need anything?"

"Yeah, but Mayor Mare assigned us to Safety Patrol for the Celebration."

"You know as well as I do that it's make-work, Firefly. Everypony is too busy helping to set things up for the Summer Sun Celebration to get into trouble. Even the fillies and colts. Besides, according to the clock tower, our assigned patrol time just ended."

"Well, that's not suspiciously convenient or anything," Firefly snarked.

"Oh hush, you. Mayor Mare probably just wanted to surprise us. Let's go see if they need anything."

"Sure."

*O o O o O*

Twilight cocked a brow upon seeing a pair of pegasi mares wearing Air Auxiliary armor flying in to meet them at their projecting landing point.

"Looks like Juniors," Sunset commented. "I didn't think Ponyville even had a dedicated Air station for them to be assigned to."

"As far as I know, it doesn't," Twilight replied. "According to Shiney, Ponyville should only have a volunteer militia force at most. Proper support for a Junior Air Auxiliary program isn't in the town's budget. They most likely commute to Canterlot for the program there. However, there are a lot of members of the reserve and auxiliary forces living here. I just thought they were mostly unicorns and earth ponies. Air Auxiliary posts tend to be located in mountain or cloud communities, or in more isolated villages farther away from potential reinforcements."

"Or, you know, they could have been part of the program somewhere else and then moved to Ponyville at some point after earning their armor," Starlight pointed out. "Once it's theirs it's theirs. They proved their trustworthiness."

"Wanna recruit them for the quest?" Spike asked. "The party could use some armored flankers. We're a bit heavy on the glass cannon side of things."

"This isn't Ogres and Oubliettes, Spike," Twilight admonished. "And I still can't believe Princess Twilight told you to recruit an adventuring party for me, Sunset. Why not just give the quest directly to you?"

"Because I've already been on missions for Princess Twilight, and she assigned me to assist with the assignment that Her Momjesty gave to the two of you. You need the leadership experience."

"Would you please stop calling Princess Celestia 'Her Momjesty', Sunset?" Twilight complained. "What if she heard you?"

"She'd probably laugh," Sunset retorted.

"She's got a point, Twilight," Spike agreed.

"I still can't believe that Mom is interfering with one of Princess Celestia's plots like this," Starlight commented.

"I can," Sunset countered. "Princess Twilight is very protective of her family. And it makes even more sense if she agreed to let Celestia assign both of you to whatever this mysterious task is."

*O o O o O*

"I KNOW YOU'RE HIDING SOMEWHERE IN HERE, CELESTIA! HOW DARE YOU SEND MY DAUGHTER OFF ON A DANGEROUS MISSION WITHOUT TELLING ME FIRST!?"

"Should... Should we do something?" One of the palace guards asked another as Princess Twilight ripped yet another set of thirty hoof tall reinforced oak doors off of their hinges with her telekinesis and tossed them aside like they were made of balsa wood.

The other guard looked back at the hoofprints leading across a trail of now shattered marble tiles, several wrecked doors left in the Twilight Princess' wake, and the growing collection of guards cautiously following the angry alicorn, then shook his head. "Nah. They got it covered. Let's stay at our post. That's even more important now that there isn't an actual door here anymore."

"Fine by me."

*O o O o O*

"I suppose," Twilight admitted grudgingly. "Although it would have been nice if Princess Celestia had actually told me that she already knew about the impending return of Nightmare Moon instead of letting me think she was blowing me off."

"I told you what I safely could, Twilight," Sunset reminded her younger friend.

"Yeah yeah, it's one of those stupid missions where actually knowing certain things ahead of time reduces the probability of success for certain parameters," Twilight recited. "Which, since Princess Twilight told you as much as she did, actually disqualifies you from being the mission leader."

"No. The fact that the Twilight Princess assigned me to be your support disqualifies me from taking mission lead. This is your mission, Twilight. Princess Celestia gave it to you fair and square. Besides, the experience will be good for you!"

"Are you sure it's not too late for me to switch over to being one of Princess Twilight's personal students? At least she gives you actual mission parameters when she sends you out to do something. All Celestia gave us was 'You will go to Ponyville to oversee the setup for the Summer Sun Celebration. Oh, and try to make friends!' I have friends! And most of them are back in Canterlot! We're missing Moondancer's party because of this mess!"

"Try to look on the bright side, Twilight," Starlight advised.

"There's a bright side to all this?"

"Maybe in Ponyville you can finally get away from that persistent rumor that you're an obsessively dedicated Princess Twilight cosplayer that misplaced your fake wings. Mom still gets giggle fits over that one whenever she hears it."

"One time!" Twilight exclaimed at the reminder of the pet peeve. "One time at a birthday party when I was nine years old! How does that make me an obsessive cosplayer!?"

"I still can't believe that the cosplay rumor is more popular than the illegitimate daughter one," Sunset remarked.

"Mom and Dad sued the paper and forced a retraction, with proof of my lineage, for that one," Twilight replied. "Now the papers just speculate whether or not I was named after her or if we're related in some other way whenever the topic comes up. Which is usually only once or twice a year now, unlike the cosplay one which seems to come up at least once a week every time I go out to do my own shopping."

"At least no one thinks that you're just a pet or costume accessory," Spike stated, putting his own two bits in. "'Nice purple iguana you got there. Did you get it for your costume?' my scaly ass."

"Language, Spike," Twilight admonished.

"Yeah yeah."

"Might want to cut this particular conversation short if you don't want those rumors spreading to Ponyville," Starlight interjected. "We're about to land, and it looks like those two are planning to meet us."

"All right, everypony," Twilight started as she regained her composure. "Get your game faces on, and..."

"Hah! I knew it!" Spike declared triumphantly. "Starlight, you hit the local shops for gear, and I'll see if I can find a place that sells chips and soda..."

"WILL YOU STOP TRYING TO TURN THIS INTO A GAME OF OGRES AND OUBLIETTES ALREADY!?"

Author's Note

Here's Fluttershy, with the Cutie Mark that she got saving Firefly, when she proved to be too heavy for the (at the time) smaller Firefly to carry and maintain altitude. Being saved by, and then immediately saving, Firefly has had a profound effect on Fluttershy...