The sun shone brightly warming the ground of Equestria. With the beginning of the spring, the weather started to change to a softer and more welcoming one. Spring was the time of the year when ponies of all of the Equestria started coming back to life and work.

In a southern part of the country, though, spring isn’t a time of the year when everything was coming back to life and work. Southern lands was always the land of unstoppable life, the land of unstoppable motion. It was an unpleasant discovery for the royal guards.

The motion of things here stops only at night or especially hot day. Some places like local markets are more overcrowded than other places and guards quickly learned that they shouldn’t go there alone.

In the towns, guards were met with interest. Locals, especially kids, wanted to learn mundane things from guards and guards wanted to give the same in return but Mualim and Suelmann’s allies used that. Ever since, guards were forced to use the violence, which developed into raids of commoners’ houses, weaponry and sharp tool confiscation and quite violent interrogations.

They had to learn some important rules. The main ones were: a guard must always be on… well, on guard. Also, the only weapons must be guard’s weapon and only in guards’ hands, and probably the most important one, never show your back to abyssynians or saddle arabians. Blaze was made to learn those rules after arriving to the town of Meowzara… Or, if being correct, to the camp near Meowzara.

After a week since his arrival, Blaze was at the camp. He was cleaning his shield. The armor and sword were already cleaned, sharpened, patched up and ready for use. On that day, some of his new companions were also at the camp, bustling over the boiling pot. They were also making quite a noise and Blaze reluctantly listened.

“…I broke up with her,” One of the guards replied. Blaze skipped the question, they asked.

“What? You broke up with… But, she has the beauty of a muse and she is also such a sweetheart,” his friend said.

“You are describing her as if you know her,” he looked at his companion with doubtful look. “Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if you know her that well. That’s why I left her. Here, though…”

“You want to go to that abyssinian...?” His friend asked. This made Blaze to raise his glance from the shield to the company of four guards. “Uhm, what was her name…”

“Djameowla,” guard replied. “But I would like to end with cooking before going to her.”

“Are you with an abyssinian?” Blaze suddenly asked. The whole crew sitting there immediately jumped in the sits.

“Huh,” the guard, who was speaking about an abyssinian and who was actually the main cook in the camp also jumped but after noticing Blaze, he quickly remembered everything. “Oh, you are the new guard that came a week ago, right?”

“Yes. Blazing Spear is my name,” he introduced himself. The only one with whom Blaze had spoken was Captain Jay Bourbon, an old friend of Solar Lance. He was the one who was teaching Blaze when he arrived. “My question is still open.”

“Yeah, I’m fancying an abyssinian,” the guard replied.

“Is that safe?” Blaze asked.

“Why, come with us and learn it for yourself. The soup…” He bow down and took and spoonful from the pot. “Is ready. Guys, you know what to do. Don’t you dare to not leave us some. Rapid Fire, come with me.”

“You are really eager to see her,” Blaze noted when they were out of the camp. The guard was in a real hurry. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“Oh, I forgot that?” He quickly muttered. “Well, I’m glad to meet you, Blazing Spear. I am Kitchen Knife. This is Rapid Fire, my friend and companion.”

“Glad to meet you,” Blaze said.

“That’s good,” Kitchen Knife replied. Soon they were in the town. The little clay shack of the Djameowla wasn’t too far from the edge of the town and they quickly came to stop. For some reason, Blaze got a really bad feeling, so when Knife knocked on the door, Blaze quickly drew his sword.

“Hello, darling,” Kitchen said when the door opened only a little. Then, the door swung quickly. Female abyssinian with white coat jumped out of the house and into the hands of Kitchen.

“Watch out!” She said but Blaze was already in motion. He knocked both of them to the ground and hide behind the shield. It was the right decision because a crossbow bolt dented the golden shield.

“Well, let’s rock, baby,” Blaze said after seeing Rapid Fire already helping both Knife and abyssinian. With those words, he went into the house. Fight there ended quickly. When Knife and Rapid get into the house, Blaze already dealt with a trio of abyssinians.

Meanwhile, Twilight was at her own house. She had a sealed package, which was delivered to her by a lonesome night guard. In the letter, which came along with the package it was said that lunar guards had raided a shelter of certain “ex personal student of Celestia”. Luna didn’t described what they found there exactly but the most peculiar thing is sent to her.

When Twilight unraveled the package, she found a scroll. When she looked at it she found some hieroglyphs. For some reason, when she looked at it, her gaze was set frozen on it. Only after a minute, she managed to get the delusion away.

What was that? She thought to herself. Well, I believe I need to do more studies to see if that spell is about… Wait, a minute… A spell!?

She was at the loss of words. She looked at the scroll again, but hieroglyphs were still there to decipher. This time, there also wasn’t any delusions. Twilight meanwhile checked everything out but still couldn’t find why she thought that behind those symbols, a spell is hidden.

No, she thought. I didn’t just thought this out. After that delusion, this thought is stuck in my head.

After a little musing, she made an incredible discovery. Saying that the thought stuck in Twilight’s head firmly is the same as saying nothing, since it was as if her own brain refused to accept any kind of explanation.

It was unexpected and Twilight even got into a little prostration. She didn’t knew what happened and what she needs to do. She quickly came to sense and decided to go to Luna.

Twilight quickly got Spike to work at library instead of her and without telling her friends about it, she got a train straight to Canterlot.

In Canterlot, she didn’t spent any time and went straight to the castle. Night guards that met her in the castle were going to throw her out of the castle at first, since Luna wasn’t waiting for guests. Twilight however showed them the letter and the Luna’s wax seal, which she kept with her. Guards after seeing that, decided to accompany Twilight to Luna.

When they came to Luna, they found Luna dealing with mountains of paperwork. She then raised her look to Twilight and night guards, she immediately cheered up, “Twilight! You came right on time. Guards, proceed to your duties. We would like to have a talk with this unicorn.”

When they left, Twilight put a chair next to the table and took a seat. “I see that you busy.”

“Busy?” Luna raised a brow. “This work is worse than Tartarus, Twilight. If galley slaves must do one task of rowing while I put in use my brain and eyes… For what?”

“Well,” began Twilight. “The work of the ruler is to make their subjects work for the country.”

“Country. Yeah, for the country,” she sighed. Then, she grabbed a sheet of paper from one of the piles and passed it to Twilight. “Look.”

“Um…” Twilight hummed as she researched the paper. “It’s an application about funding.”

“And?” Luna looked at her, waiting for something.

“And?” Twilight replied, not knowing what Luna requires.

“Oh,” Luna sighed once again. “Listen here. It’s from Steel Fetlock’s Production. It’s a concern that produce metallic trinkets and garments, armor and regalia. They are one of the wealthiest companies in Baltimare. By the way, if I’m not mistaken, you’ve been hiding in there, right?”

“Well, yes,” Twilight replied. “Still, what’s the matter?”

“You see, owner was asking for more funds. He wanted to introduce new technologies of merchandise’s production,” Luna said.

“You’ve seriously improved your vocabulary since our last meet,” Twilight noticed.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Luna replied as she passed another sheet to her. “Here. It’s a petition. Would you guess from who?”

“From who?” Twilight asked.

“From workers of that company,” Luna answered. “They say, owner of the company didn’t pay them for quite a while and they ask for justice.”

“And?” Twilight said observing the petition.

“What and?” Luna asked. “What do you mean?”

“Do you believe to those “workers”?” Twilight asked, highlighting the word “workers”. “Cause, I’m not really sure about this. Look here. At first, it didn’t say which amount of time those workers weren’t receiving payment. Then, there is those mentioning of all those new technologies, owner already introduced into the production. It wouldn’t bother me, if it wasn’t for the amount of mentioning this, as if they are more concerned about them instead of lack of payment.”

“So?” Luna asked, trying to get Twilight’s idea. “You want to say that someone out there wants me to deal with the owner of the company just because of new technologies?”

“Well, yes,” Twilight agreed. “In my opinion, some of workers are afraid of losing their jobs, because something like conveyor belts or something since it’s requires less workers and more specific knowledge required for the users. They probably think if owner would start to deal with the problems this petition will cast on him, they will stay on their work for a longer time.”

“I see,” Luna mused. “And what do you suggest?”

“Get some night guards,” Twilight replied. “They will quickly learn the situation and will make the right decision.”

“Oh, it is wise,” Luna grinned. Then, her look turned to bothered one. “Hmm, why we haven’t thought of these. It’s probably due to our lack of sleep. We’ve been dealing with that for hours… Well, what do you want, our savior?”

“Savior?” Twilight repeated. “Meh, too sophisticated… Whatever, I want to ask you about this.”

She showed her the letter and the Luna sent to her. “So, you already found a solution?”

“Not really,” Twilight replied. “I just want to learn everything there. Who? Where? Why? I also want to know what exactly I should do with all of these… Oh, and why me?

“Well, some of these questions will be left unanswered, since they require details of mission, night guards undertook. As you can understand, we can’t tell them to you,” Luna replied. “For your other questions… Listen, we choose you because other mages failed to learn secrets that scroll has.”

“They failed?” Twilight asked.

“Yes,” Luna agreed. “Some said that those hieroglyphs are from language unknown to them, other said that those aren’t words at all.”

“I see,” Twilight nodded. “I would have decided myself that this is a joke, but if there wasn’t for that thing. You see, when I looked on the scroll, I lost myself for a minute. After I had got myself snapped out of it, I found that in my head, there is a thought that the scroll is the spell. I tried to make an explanation, why this couldn’t be a spell, but I failed. This thought is now stuck in my head.”

“Oh, is that so?” Luna asked. After Twilight confirmed it with a nod, Luna grinned. “Yes! I thought, there was much more about this spell!”

“You had a bet?” Twilight asked, judging by the princess’ reaction.

“What? No! Of course not,” Luna declined. “How could even have a thought like this?”

“Whatever…” Twilight replied. After a moment of thought, she said, “So I need to make some research on that spell and… Tell you?”

“Right,” Luna said. “We require you to learn all from the information from the scroll in order to make a clear decision if the spell is useful or not. If you are successful, then we even allow you to use that spell but only with altruistic motives, or when we, with the sister, would have benefits from it. After you will decipher the scroll, though, you need to pass it to us and keep in mind that the spell here mustn’t be learned by anyone except you or mages, that we point out. Are these conditions satisfying you?”

“Yeah,” Twilight after a little thought agreed. She decided that for a prank, this scroll has too many spells on it. “I agree.”

After that, Twilight left her. On her way, back to Ponyville nothing extraordinary happened. In Ponyville though…

“Pinkie Pie?!” Twilight gaped, as her friend stood there. On her face, there is an embittered look.

“How could you?!” Pinkie immediately accused Twilight. For some reason, Twilight felt guilty, even though, Pinkie hadn’t tell her the reason of her reaction. “How could you go somewhere when I wanted to throw a secret party for all my friends?”

“But…” Twilight was about to say something, when she just realized something. “But, Pinkie! How could I know that you are planning a party if it’s a secret?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But, at least, you came early. Come. Everyone is at my place.”

“Wa-ait!” Twilight was about to retort but she was fiercely pulled by Pinkie. Soon, Twilight found herself in Sugar Cube Corner. In there, she found all her friends and even Spike. “Guys, I… What all of you are doing here?”

“Havin’ fun?” Applejack replied. She with the Rainbow were arm-wrestling. “Ya can’t see?”

“I can,” Twilight said. “Even you Spike?”

“Yeah,” Spike looked at Twilight, not liking her tone. “After a good day of working, a little refreshment won’t harm… Especially with Rarity.”

“Oh, you are spoiling me, Spikey-Wikey,” Rarity replied, cooing with Spike. Twilight felt weird looking at this particular scene and the party their friends were throwing. Her thoughts were about other matters.

“Well, it’s just… I have an important task to undertake,” Twilight replied. “I must go.”

Everyone in the café turned to her. Loving and caring before, now they were for some reason quite embittered by that. Before and after, they probably would understand and let her go, but now for some reason, they thoughts were fogged. Only one way of thinking, each of them saw.

“You… Y-you don’t want,” Pinkie mumbled. Her mane and coat immediately lost color, her curly mane got flat and her whole become limp. She drooped and almost cried, but Rainbow immediately rushed in for help. She got a glass of punch to her and started to soothe her.

All looked accusingly on her. Twilight suddenly felt really bad. In normal case, she would have sensed something strange in the actions of her friends. That party all of a sudden and that weird reaction. This time, Twilight’s brain was too wrapped around the scroll. She couldn’t think straight.

Twilight ran out the Sugar Cube corner. She was feeling really bad but she had little thought about friends and their party. Even when she stormed into her own house and awoke Dusk this way, she paid little attention to his complaints. Dusk after seeing his efforts in vain, he sighed and flew off to the forest. In winter, when he had nothing to do, he found out a new hobby of helping Fang in foraging.

“What do you need, miss?…” Venom was about to hiss out but Twilight refused her help.

“Don’t bother,” she said, not bothering herself about Venom. After saying that, she immediately got to the desk and grabbed the scroll. After getting the scroll into her view, she get that delusion right away. This time, it wasn’t just a minute a standing still, but actually controllable hallucination. Twilight was absolutely aware of herself, she could move, cast spells and even could get her look away from the scroll without anyone’s help.

Delusion was also different this time. Instead of freezing her in place, making her watch nothing, the magic made hieroglyphs translate themselves. She was reading it but the words were telling nothing.

It was a spell and in the scroll, there was even a description of what the spell does. Description though was something like “after casting the spell, everything will be good, all your values will be satisfied and there will be only harmony.”

I̴ ̷n̸e̵e̸d̶ ̵t̶o̶ ̷l̷e̵a̷r̵n̵ ̸w̶h̷a̶t̴ ̷e̴x̶a̷c̸t̵l̷y̸ ̵t̷h̶i̸s̵ ̸s̶p̸e̸l̷l̷ ̷d̶o̶e̷s̵, she thought. Wait, what? What was that?

The thought felt alien.

Hmm, despite how I feel about, I must learn what that spell do exactly before I report the results to Luna, she thought.

She looked at the matrix. It was strange, pretty much like those spells from Discord. It didn’t increase her confidence in safety of casting it but she decided to cast it nevertheless.

It wasn’t really hard or long. Her horn lit with all-colored light and the feeling from the magic was all too familiar.

When she tried to remember when she used such magic, it suddenly stopped. Twilight started to look around, trying to find anything. When she saw nothing, she was about to look for a mistake she did and cast the spell once again, when in the middle of the room a rainbow light shone. When it disappeared, Twilight saw Elements of Harmony in her room.

“What,” Twilight stood there, while being shocked.

“What are thossssse?” Venom was already there. While being astonished, she was looking at the golden attire.

“These…” Twilight gulped. “Elements of Harmony… But they mustn’t be here.”

“I sssssee,” the snake-familiar replied. “Calm down. Your heart will jump out of your body.”

“How?!” Twilight almost screamed. Her hands though were already gathering the Elements. “I-I…”

“Hide it,” Venom said.

“That’s obvious,” Twilight replied. On the other hand, she quickly shoved the elements into the cupboard. “What’s next?”

“Thisssss act isssss illegal,” Venom said. “Go hiding.”

“Celestia will reach for me even if I go to Tartarus,” Twilight looked out of the window. “I’ll go to my friends, probably. I believe they know a better solution.”

“Fine, missssstresssss,” Venom said, while already crawling to the open door. When the room was empty, she closed the door and was on her way to the Sugar Cube Corner. Not only because she needed their opinion on what happened but also to amend for her actions. In Sugar Cube Corner, though…

At first, Twilight noticed that ponies were looking weirdly at the confectionary. They were whispering of something and the entourage was screaming of something extraordinary happened.p-[

What?... What happened? Twilight asked herself as she hurried to the doors of the Sugar Cube Corner. When the door swung, she saw it. “Girls?! What… What happened?”

“That’s horrible!” Rarity screamed but her shout was muffled. A tablecloth was wrapped around her head. “I’m not sure what happened but that’s horrible. My pretty face is gone. I was just sitting here after you have gone and suddenly Pinkie Pie started giggling. That got everyone attention but I then started to smell smoke. Then, there was pain and when it ended, I find my face deformed, disfigured, burnt and scorched… Don’t look at me, I’m ugly!”

“I can’t see your face,” Twilight replied. After seeing that she didn’t change her mind and she continued with crying and mourning, she turned to other friends.

“Ha-Hah-Ha!” As Rarity mentioned, Pinkie was giggling and her laugh was loud, unstoppable and there was no clear reason why she was laughing. Twilight was sure that magic was the reason but simple folk was already guessing if Pinkie was attacked by ghost of tickling or someone told her a good joke.

“Pinkie… Pinkie…” Twilight was raising her voice each time. “Pinkie!”

“Yeah! Yeahahah! Twili-ahhahah!” Pinkie tried to stop laughing and come to senses but failed to do so. Twilight sighed and gave up. Applejack and Rainbow Dash ended their strength contest and looking at them, Twilight made two suggestions. It was definitely magic and that magic was the cause why Applejack and Rainbow Dash stopped their competition.

Applejack was floating in midair. She tried to get her hat but her hand was getting through as if she was a ghost. Twilight still noted that other gear was on her, which Twilight found quite strange.

Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, was looking similar to Pinkie, except from the unstoppable laughing, she had unstoppable twitching. Spasms and convulsion hit every body-parts and Rainbow Dash was a sorry sight to behold. Her hands were hitting table, her face, the other hand. Her legs were constantly stepping.

“Girls! What happened?” Twilight asked, even she already guessed the cause. Applejack had a brief glance on her and continued with her actions.

“A moment, Twi,” she said as she tried to grab her hat once again. Twilight quickly grabbed the hat with magic and put on her head. “Twi! Get mah hat back to me.”

Instead of saying anything, she used her magic and placed it on Applejack’s head… Or if being correct, she placed it in air above her and it fell on the ground. When Applejack sadly looked on the hat, Twilight put it on her own head.

Rainbow right after that had her fingers in the mouth. Twilight quickly pulled out Rainbow’s fingers out of her mouth, right before her teeth grinded into each other.

“Rainbow, where is Fluttershy?” Twilight asked. Rainbow pointed but the palm quickly straighten up and slapped her in the face. When Twilight approached the coach, where Fluttershy was sitting, she found her in the deep sleep. “I believe, I can’t wake you up, sleeping beauty... Rainbow, can you walk?”

“I will try,” she said and tried to stand up. She was successful at first but then her knees bent. After she sat back on the coach, her wings started flapping and she raised from the coach again. After making a step, she made a step back.

After seeing that, Twilight only sighed. Twilight get her magic working. She already had Fluttershy in her magic grip and very soon, Rainbow Dash was floating next to Fluttershy behind Twilight. Unlike Fluttershy, Rainbow was harder to carry around since she was constantly twitching and convulsing.

“Pinkie, I hope you can move,” Twilight said, looking at giggling mare. She raised from her seat.

“I-hah-I ca-ca-Hahahah!” She tried to reply, but had another surge of laugh. Nevertheless, she followed her. Applejack and Rarity also was there going after Twilight.

“So, Twi,” Applejack began. When they were going through the city, everypony were staring at them. Applejack and Pinkie Pie didn’t bother, even though they were having the second most eyes-catching looks right after Twilight with two mares in her telekinesis. Rarity who was shuffling right behind them and who was trying to cover her face even though it was hidden under the layer of tablecloth. Due to it, she was constantly stumbling at Pinkie. “What happened?”

“Listen here,” Twilight looked around at her friends sitting in her library. “This began back at…”

“Get ready,” voice empowered by the magic rang over soon-to-be battlefield. Elite forces of royal guards stood in front of an army consisting from saddle arabian mercenaries, local abyssinian militia and other vagabonds. Equestrian party was highly outnumbered, but they had more technologically advanced gear, more developed tactics, fighters that are more experienced and discipline. “We will win because those beggars has no chance against our superior tactics!”

The guards stood on the sand dune, enemy camp that stood ahead was situated on another. Right now, the camp was removed due to the upcoming fight and first shots were taken at the shields that were the first things set up in guards’ position. Guards meanwhile were waiting for shields to be put down since most of them were already aiming at the enemy while the melee minority was ready to raise the shields and cover their shooters.

Celestia and general Grim Dawn who replaced Shining Armor were cleansing the Abyssinia and they recently brought order to major city Purra. After that, they received an information that a large number of troops were gathering nearby and this way, they were lead to their current place.

“Aim precisely,” the voice of Grim Dawn rang again as he stood among the troops. “Put the shields down on three. Three. Two! One!”

When the shield were down, the great explosion burst in the place of enemy’s position. A ray of light shot from the skies.

“What…” Dawn mumbled. Then, he understood something and turned around. “Celestia!”

Celestia was in front of them, constantly flapping with her gorgeous and broad wings. Her horn was lit up but since spell was already casted, the light was fading away.

Then, she open her eyes and look on the guards with her purple eyes. “I announce the end to this crusade. We are going back to Canterlot.”

This got everyone by surprise. They just stood there, some of them looking back at the sand dune, where their survived enemies were fleeing.

Grim Dawn was confused for far less time. “Are you all deaf? Pack your things up and march to Purra. While in the city, you have an hour to do whatever you need to do there.”

That get everyone out of their trance. They quickly started to pack things up but then they quickly realized that they had nothing and nowhere to pack things up since they left most of their noncombat gear in the camp near Purra.

After that realization, they suddenly noticed Grim Dawn and Celestia far ahead. They organized the marching line and went to catch up their commanders.

Soon, they were in the camp next to Purra. Before Celestia and Grim Dawn had managed to get to their tents, the camp bustled with an activity. Someone was picking the tents, other were arranging groups that will be sent to other camps in order to tell them about the end of crusade. There was many more activities but two haven’t paid attention.

When Grim Dawn entered his tent, he found two of his friends and companions that were of great service here in the deserts of two southern countries. They both were well-known monster slayers that Grim Dawn knew well, and who accepted his offer to look for any kind of creatures in here.

“What is all the fuss over there?” Harold, male gryphon with grey coat dressed in mail over linen garment, asked. He was armed with two blades sheathed behind his back. When Grim Dawn asked about it, Harold said that there was a moment when a blade got broken in the worst moment possible.

“Crusade is over,” Grim Dawn casually said as he get to his table.

“Over?” Hell Song, male unicorn with white coat raised his brow. He wore a simple brown jacket and a brimmed hat. On his belt, there were two revolvers holstered.

“Yeah, we are going back,” Grim mumbled as he put his belongings into the camp bag. Sleeping bag, the map of local area, tokens and other small things went into the empty space of Grim Dawn’s bag. The little furniture, which are a couple of tables and a chest, would be sold at Purra on the way back north.

“Hmm, I see,” Harold grumbled. “Look, I really liked our times, but I am leaving you. I am a hunter, not a mercenary.”

“Consciousness doesn’t make us less beasts,” Hell Song smirked. “I will stay with you. I liked our time together.”

“Nah, I’ll quit,” Harold grumbled once again after seeing that Hell clearly wanted to continue accompanying Grim. After saying these words, he went to exit and from outside, Grim and Hell heard, “clear the way, fatass.”

“What’s wrong with him?” A chubby guard, who clearly was the one that stumbled upon the Harold, entered the tent.

“He is always like this. Don’t worry,” Hell snickered.

“What do you want, guard?” Grim asked.

“Well, general Grim, you see…” Guard hesitated. “There are some issues that requires your attention.”

“Are you kidding me,” Grim roared, but the guard was already nowhere to be seen. “And I wanted to check that new exotic brothel in Canterlot.”

“Exotic, you say?” Hell rubbed his chin. “And what exotic is there in that… Brothel of yours?”

“I’m not sure but they were saying something about bunnies,” Grim replied.

“Bunnies?” Hell raised his brow, and then the realization hit him immediately. “Woodlanders?”

“Probably, I don’t know,” he said. “They also said that this brothel in Undercity.”

“Undercity…” His tone lowered. “You know, I’m not so eager about it all of a sudden.”

“I understand,” Grim nodded. “Well, if night guards didn’t break this place down then there is nothing to be afraid about. At least, owners don’t hide anything. Besides, owners allows customers stay incognito. One of my friend wanted to learn about another who went there on other day and owner didn’t tell a thing about him.”

“Well, at least that…” He replied. “Still, I don’t think I would like to try it out. I would rather spent my time in Canterlot.”

“Well, it’s your decision,” Grim said as he headed towards the exit. Outside, he found the fat guard and another guard. They lead them towards the crowd of guards, who were the source of the camp’s ruckus.

Curious… Blaze wondered. He was that second guard who was with the fat one. He heard the whole conversation and now was thinking about that place Grim was talking about. I believe I know that place.

“…So,” Rainbow began. She was sitting unsteadily, making hectic moves with her head and body. Her appendages were tied up to her seat. “Do you mean to say that Luna sent you that damned spell, which is responsible for all of this?”

“Yeah,” Twilight nodded. “At least, I think so.”

“Hmm…” Applejack hummed. “Don’t ya think…”

“I’m not sure,” Twilight replied. “We’d better ask Luna ourselves… But not in the state, all of you are at the moment.”

“And what do you suggest, darling?” Rarity asked.

“Well, the spell summoned Elements of Harmony,” Twilight noted. She put aside the hat of Applejack and brought the golden crown, her Element, closer to herself. “I believe we can use them to… Heal ourselves as we did to Luna.”

“Twi… Ah hope, ya didn’t forget somethin’,” Applejack said. Twilight at that only smirked. She quickly grabbed Applejack’s necklace and throw to her. Applejack due to her reflexes grabbed the thing flying to her.

“I had my doubts about that,” Twilight said as the ghost Applejack actually was able to touch and keep the necklace in her hands. “Well, here, get them on yourselves and we will…”

Twilight didn’t say the end of the sentence, though. Immediately, after she put the crown on her head, her eyes lit with white light.

Their friends shrugged after that, but put on their necklaces. The last one of all of them was Rarity as she put Fluttershy’s one on its owner.

Light…

There was only Light… And Tranquility.

Tranquility, yes!

…And, Peacefulness.

It’s Peaceful here…

No worries… No dark thoughts… No fears…

Keep it up!

In the place devoid of anything, clear of anything bad and good alike, a soul was sailing. Not a single being would tell you why that soul appeared in that place or where that place was.

There it was… Just existing. Without purpose, without troubles or concerns… There wasn’t anything that could change that, until…

What… What is that?

A blob of light… Pretty much like that soul…

The soul looked at it… Something was off.

To understand what that thing was, the soul tried to get closer to it… But to no avail. Even though, that place, where the soul was, had an illusion applied to all objects, which made them move, everything in there was stationary. The concept of movement was lacking in there, so the soul had to put all the efforts in order to embrace the concept. And it did.

It didn’t require creation of legs of wings. To appear somewhere, one must think of appearing in that place. As strange as it is, it is a simple way to move around in that place. Probably it’s the only way to move there.

When the soul looked closer on the sudden object, it noticed how the said object was similar to it, but in the same time, the object was quite different. Both of them were blobs of light, but the soul was bigger and sentient, while the object was little and there was a feel that it is a part of something… Something similar to the soul?

What if… The soul jumped into the said object. It became suddenly dark, which startled the soul a bit. Then, the world around get more colorful. Huh?

The place around was different. For some reason, the soul recognized this as the school. But for whom?... And what is a school?... No, wait. I know what a school is. It’s a place where I study and learn… But what did I learn here.

Then, she saw what a purple creature. Pony. Unicorn. A little one. The soul thought. It didn’t recognize the unicorn, but for some reason it was somewhat familiar.

Is this a memory? The soul asked itself, while watching a little unicorn performing a magic feet in front of other unicorns. Are they testing her?

The little unicorn was failing their expectations. She was trying but she couldn’t find the right spell or maybe the spell was too complicated. She was on the verge of an absolute failure but then…

A multicolored explosion happened. It could be not only seen from the big window above but also heard and felt.

That explosion didn’t only startled everypony in the room but also caused a sudden surge of magic from Twilight. Many things started to happen there. Twilight was glowing like candle in the pure darkness. Ponies in the room started to turn into different thing. The egg that probably must be turned into something instead was hatched. The little lizard then suddenly grew.

All kind of things were happening right until a high white unicorn with wings came in. Her horn lit and the magic surge stopped. Then, one by one, all of magic mishaps were nullified.

“I never seen such a powerful surge,” that high winged unicorn said. She then turned to the little purple unicorn. “Especially from the little one like you. I see a great potential within you. Would you like to become my personal student?”

“Uh, princess,” one of the testers called princess. “What about another…”

“She will be fine with that,” princess replied, already guessing about whom the mage worried. “Don’t worry.”

With that, the vision has ended and the soul was in the whiteness once again. This time, there was much more of white spots, which were memories.

The soul started to check memories one by one. All of them were about that purple unicorn. For the soul, it was just an entertainment right until something changed.

After watching the last memory, the soul thought that it would return to its previous existence but something appeared in there. In the pure whiteness, there was a black spot.

The soul was scared to come closer. Something was malicious about it. It was evil. It would bring only pain.

For a long period of time, the soul was hesitating. It tried to look for something else, to find white spots, but to no avail. The soul even thought that the black spot had been anchored to her. No matter what it tried to do, it couldn’t get further than… A certain distance.

Eventually, the soul accepted its fate and embraced the black spot.

It was a memory, pretty much like the previous ones. It showed Twilight once again in some kind of library with little Spike by her side.

Twilight was shown at different ages all other times. This times, she was somewhere at the age of nine and she was anxious about something.

It was strange that the soul knew that pony and could even tell her age. There was some kind of familiarity and with each memory piece, this feeling was getting stronger and stronger.

That dark memory, as soul called them, showed how Celestia, the big white alicorn, found out about books on forbidden magic.

When Celestia was checking Twilight’s homework, she noticed how anxious Twilight was. Since homework was once again done perfectly, Celestia grew suspicious.

After Celestia affirmed the good grade, she let Twilight go, while looking somewhere else. When Twilight got Spike in her backpack and together they went out, the soul followed and it had no ability to peek on Celestia.

After receiving knowledge of Twilight secret stashes, soul guessed what is going to happen though. For some time, all was fine but then it happened.

Suddenly, there was a strange feeling in the horn. It tingled. An abyss has opened in her stomach and skin get pale. She ran.

With this, the memory ended. Soul returned to its world and it found some more black spots of memories.

After that, the soul was seeing only black spots.

She saw it all. Streets of Canterlot and streets of Baltimare and other cities. Parents sighing at her, knowing that they might get into troubles, if they don’t arrange things right. Gangsters of Baltimare, bandits on the roads and other pirates, thieves and thugs.

Little white spots were also there. Each time, it was like a breath of fresh air. The soul was savoring those especially longer.

As any line of misfortunes, this one ended. One big white memory appeared afterwards. It was about defeating Nightmare Moon and finally finding friends.

After that, there wasn’t really much any bad memories. Twilight finally has found her place in the world, her home and most importantly, someone, she can rely on.

The soul was looking at the memories. The last memory from that line of memories was about a strange thing happened to her. Twilight was tasked to research some kind of spell and after casting it, some weird stuff happened to her friends. Trying to solve this out, Twilight and her friends put on Elements of Harmony...

With that, memory ended. Soul was abuzz, in a complete welter of thoughts. Something was wrong. Twilight’s thoughts didn’t fade away. They actually grew in quantity and the soul started to learn things that were never mentioned in those memory pieces. Spells, Discord and his tricks, other stuff.

Then, suddenly, the soul looked around. What? Where… Where am I? What is this place? Twilight! Twilight!

The soul stirred to sudden feeling of how wrong things were around.

It watched the memories once again and found out that episodes from Twilight’s life now were an uncut line that showed Twilight’s life.

Who am I? Who is Twilight? Why I have her memories?... The soul thought as it went through existential crisis. With no memories of its own, the soul was affected quite badly by Twilight’s memories.

In normal circumstances, one would panic at sudden overtake by someone else memories, but the soul after thinking a little bit, has calmed.

Twilight is… The soul went through memories once again. The last one, about Elements of Harmony induced a realization. Twilight is… Me? Am I Twilight Sparkle?

Things suddenly felt normal.Twilight quickly raised her hands and there they were. Hands felt like hands. She flexed the fingers, touched her face and other parts of her body.

Then, it came once again.

What... What is wrong? Why it came back?

Twilight looked around. A white light around and nothing else. She looked back, trying to find the answer in her memories. The realization hit her quite quickly.

“My friends! Where… Are they?” Twilight shouted. The sense of wrongness only grew stronger. Then, something went wrong.

The white world became black, then once again white. That switch of colors started to accelerate with each time and after reaching probably the highest speed, everything turned black.

After a second or so, the blackness dissolved. Before her, stood a mansion, abandoned and forgotten. The land around though, didn’t stood out. It could’ve been looking absolutely dead, if it wasn’t for an enormous amount of greenery. Green color of plants however was dull and faded.

Behind a mansion, an abrupt cliff could be seen. Twilight didn’t know what was there, but judging from the sound of a waves, the sea was there.

After looking around, a sudden need to look at mansion arose. If being correct, to look at certain window. When Twilight raise her eyes to that window, she saw a familiar pink face. Pinkie Pie stood there, but only briefly and soon Pinkie disappeared from the Twilight’s sight.

Twilight immediately headed into the mansion. Before she entered, someone else stopped her.

“Don’t enter,” the feminine voice said. “It’s too dangerous!”

“Why is it so?” Twilight asked, as she turned around.

Before her, stood a earth-pony mare, a way younger than Twilight. Grey dirty coat, brown hair with twigs and other litter and only eyes were emerald green and were looking flawless compared to the rest of the body. There were also a lot of scars and bruises, and her mundane clothes were ragged and torn.

“A ghost,” she replied.

“Are you sure?” Twilight raised her eyebrow. “This mansion don’t look like it’s inhabited by anyone living but ghosts?”

“I’ve been there just now,” she said. “There are many ghosts, but the main one, with pink coat… She threw me out. That’s why I’m so beat up.”

“Well, I can help,” Twilight offered her help, even though she was anxious about that mare’s words.

“There is my mother. I must help her,” the mare said. “You can go with me, just make it sure, you won’t get hurt.”

After saying this, that mare quickly opened the door and entered the mansion. Twilight followed and right after she got in, the door shut without any effort from both ponies.

After a minute of going through dark corridors, Twilight suddenly asked something. “Hey, what is your name?”

“Weeping Willow,” After a little pause, the young mare said.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight said. When Twilight was about to say something else, an amulet on Willow’s neck glowed with blue light. “Huh, what’s wrong with your… Amulet?”

A transparent pony has went through a door. “Oh, mister Lamp Light, how are you?”

The figure was quite old, somewhere at the age forty. Short silver mane was too bright. The body was rounded and plump, but since there wasn’t grease spots on the clothes. Actually, clothes were spick and span if it wasn’t for the blood on white shirt.

“Oh, Willow, it’s you…” The figure said with otherworldly voice. “Missis Pie there have gone completely mad. She has stormed through the whole mansion… Then… And then.”

“Don’t worry, I know what happened,” Willow assured him. “I’ve been there. She actually was following me.”

“Oh, I didn’t know,” he said. Then, the ghost quickly changed the topic after noticing the other mare, “Hmm, and who are you, miss?...”

“Twilight Sparkle,” she replied. “Excuse me, sir… Are you a ghost?”

“If you were first to ask me that question, I’d been offended,” he said. “Yes, I am a ghost, though, if it wasn’t for this young lady, I’d still would think I’m alive. She helped me understand what I am. With her help, I even regained some memory regarding my death.”

“Yeah, that’s all interesting and stuff, but me and Twilight have some important business with missis Pie,” Willow quickly spluttered.

“Good luck to you, then,” Lamp Light said, looking at the backs of mares, moving away.

Two mares went through the hallways and stairs. They met much more ghosts, and each time, the amulet of Willow glowed.

Eventually, they raised to the level of the attic. They tried to look for missis Pie on the level, where Twilight saw Pinkie but it was absolutely empty. On the attic though…

Right after they raised, they heard a laughter. They quickly rushed through an awfully littered attic. Both Willow and Twilight almost fell here and there a couple of times, but they managed to get to their destination.

Behind one of the doors, they found a middle-aged earth-pony mare with similar color scheme as Willow. She was tied up and unconscious. Around her was a drawn circle and judging by it, Twilight quickly realized that it was a ritual of some sort. A figure who stood or rather float over the body though…

Pinkie! Twilight mentally shouted.

“Mommy!” Willow tried to get to the mare but stopped in the middle of her track. A barrier of some sort was on her way.

“It was about time,” the ghost said. Without that eerie and otherworldly effect, her voice was the same voice Pinkie Pie had. The ghost was looking like Pinkie, aside from the clothes, which were old-fashioned. There was also an aura of some sort around her. “You shall witness how my dear sister will return to this world!”

“No, you can’t!” Willow shouted as she tore her amulet’s string and with it in her hand, she tried to get past barrier. She failed, but amulet made the ghostly figure wince a little bit. Also for some reason it was able to pass through the barrier. “I won’t let you.”

“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted. That got the ghost’s attention. “I don’t understand what you up to, but don’t do that.”

“Oh, and I don’t know who are you, or how you come to know that name,” the ghost said, as she turned to Twilight. “But I believe you also scheming something against me. So, get lost.”

She swept her hand. Even though, Pinkie was an earth-pony, that gesture of hers created a magical forcewave. Twilight flew through the room and smashed the wall. The wood creaked, but still managed to withstand the force of the hit.

Twilight tried to arise. Something held her pinned to the ground and despite putting all her efforts, she couldn’t stand up.

All she was able to do was rising her head. When she looked at her friend, she felt sudden magical surge. She didn’t like the feeling of it and her brain started feverishly looking for a solution.

A couple of times, Twilight looked at Willow’s amulet. An idea in her head sprang to life eventually and Twilight looked for the barrier-breaking spell. She find one and cast it. The ray shot next to the amulet.

It lead to an explosion. Willow’s amulet shot its tendrils into the hole and there the magic of an amulet met with magic of the ritual and that lead an explosion with a flash of blinding light.

Twilight lied there, blind and unable to do anything. In her ear, there was some kind of sound, some voice.

When the deafness, blindness went off, Twilight felt that magic that kept her in one place wear off. She raise from the floor and looked around.

The room was empty, except for the ritual’s remains and a lonely pink ghost that stood by the window. Twilight came closer to her and looked outside. There she saw Willow and her mother.

“Pinkie,” Twilight quietly called for the ghost, when two earth-ponies disappeared from the sight.

“Twilight,” Pinkie suddenly turned around. An evil looking ghost now suddenly was that easygoing and chaotic pony that she knew. “It’s been so long… Wait, no. It… Wasn’t?”

“Hey, Pinkie!” Twilight grabbed Pinkie by her forearms and looked into Pinkie’s eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Memories…” Pinkie mumbled. “The last thing was when we put those garments, right?”

“Of course,” Twilight nodded.

“I…” Pinkie shrugged as her eyes went big and wide. “It’s just… I remember how I was… a countess of these lands. I remember how I lost my sister… Why I can’t remember her face, though?”

“It’s okay, Pinkie…” Twilight soothed, not thinking much what she said. When she realized her words, though, she quickly corrected herself. “Um, it’s not okay, but… Just shrug it off. It’ll probably go away soon.”

“I don’t know,” Pinkie replied. Her face had that sad look and her poofy mane deflated a bit.

“We still need to help other girls,” Twilight said. “They are probably in the same situation like you.”

“I guess so,” Pinkie said, and that got the pink earth-pony out of her state. “By the way, how we will… get to girls?”

Around them, there was nothing. A white light.

It soon dissolved, leaving them in another place. This time they were in a city of some kind. Well, the city was actually outside and two of them were on a railway station.

Quite soon, they heard the sound of combat. They headed to the source of the sound. The station looked abandoned at first look, but after getting a better look on things, they saw it was livened and used previously. Actually, they saw open lockers with fresh things and trashcans filled to half with different litter, which actually made them think that even if it was abandoned, it happened not long time ago.

At the exit, there was a strange device. When they came closer, Twilight noticed a magical laser. Twilight was about to warn Pinkie when she actually hit it. It didn’t cause an explosion or something, but instead a hologram appeared. It showed a unicorn stallion. The hologram couldn’t tell much more, but unicorn looked old, with short white mane and little wrinkles on his face.

“Welcome,” suddenly, the hologram started to speak. “Welcome to Sunset-city. You have chosen or have been chosen to relocate to the safest place in whole Maretonia. We, The Party, are trying to restore peace and order in other parts of the country, but that is not something you must bother now. You must bother now about how you could be of use to us, The Party, unless you are expecting rightful death, rebel. As of now, I, James O’Bright, wish you to have a good day. Please, keep in mind that we are watching. The Party… Is… Watching…”

“Wow,” Pinkie said at the sudden hologram. After the welcome speech was said, Pinkie commented, “Grim.”

“I guess so,” Twilight agreed with Pinkie. “I wonder what is happening here…”

Another shot and a cry of pain returned them to reality. They went to the exit and when they were outside, they saw gigantic building that oppressed them with all their size and proportions.

They didn’t keep attention on that for a long period of time, since quickly they found the place of battle.

They stumbled upon that place by accident. Around the corner, they saw three stallions beating the other into a pulp. Stallion on the ground was, judging by his look, a simple commoner. Other three stallions though had the same uniform. It was clothes with patches of hard material. On their sleeves were ribbons of bright red colors with some kind of an emblem.

One of them, after hearing girls’ steps, turned his head and noticed them. He patted on his comrades’ shoulders and after they raised their heads, he made a gesture towards them. The three of them stopped beating the lying stallion and they moved towards them.

“Stop right there, citizens,” one of them said. “A curfew in the city. You are arrested until the further investigation.”

Both girls just stood there, confused. Suddenly, one of the stallions raised his stun baton and ran towards girls. Girls tried to reacted, but even more suddenly a gunshot was made and another two followed it.

Three stallions fell dead. Then, some ponies have come out of one of the building. A couple of them helped the lying stallion to rise up and get to the building, while others were pointing guns at girls.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked.

“It’s not your cause,” one of them said. “Move along and mind your business somewhere else.”

“You know…” Pinkie was about to retort, but Twilight rather rudely silenced her.

“We understand,” Twilight quickly replied. “Continue with your business now.”

Girls actually went away. “Why?!” Pinkie whispered loudly.

“Let’s just say, we didn’t want to get into troubles,” Twilight said. “Besides, we’re not going to lose them, so don’t worry.”

Twilight lead Pinkie to somewhere. When they returned to the railway station, Pinkie asked, “Um, and why we returned?”

“They are here,” Twilight replied. “And something big is incoming. Look at how ponies are coming here.”

Like she said, ponies were flooding the little square in front of a railway station. Though, you wouldn’t say that those ponies were coming because they were excited about something. By the looks of it, you would say that those ponies were escorted here since there were many armed ponies, who were constantly overlooking the crowd.

After five or ten minutes, a train arrived to the station. Some sort of a carriage has arrived to the station.

Everything was still for a minute. After that, all of a sudden, two ponies ran out of the station and said something to someone in the carriage. Their conversation was short and the carriage started to move away after the end of the conversation.

Things escalated quickly from that point. Twilight felt a magic impulse and before she understood the nature of it, the carriage exploded.

Then, gunshots were made. Twilight looked at the crowd and saw them screaming and panicking. Many fled.

Guards despite the efforts couldn’t do anything much about ponies. Actually, unknown attackers have taken care of most of them.

“Look there,” Pinkie said, pointing at station. Plenty of guards came out of the building. Then, among the crowd of guards, they noticed a hooded figure, accompanied by couple of guards. “Let’s follow.”

Twilight silently followed. No one has noticed them, since they ran through the crowd, but with all the hustle, they couldn’t move quickly through the crowd.

When they actually made it to the station, they thought that the one they were following was gone. Rather quickly, they found out, he wasn’t.

Four brave ponies were engaged in combat with those three. They were armed with homemade arms.

Even though they were outnumbered, those three ponies actually prevailed in the combat. They were using arms of better quality. They wore armor, which was even better than the ones, those guards from the alleyway had. The one in the middle, who hid his identity, used his firearm.

When only one brave stallion was left, a window over them broke. Easily recognizable orange pony jumped out of that window and fell on one of the elite guards. When Twilight looked closer, she noticed a kitchen knife that went deep in the neck of that guard.

Applejack raised up, knife at the ready. She then saw a gun pointing at her.

She never took the shot. The last living from the followers took the shot instead of her.

Everyone were standing in their places for a couple of seconds, until realization him them all. The incognito and his guard ran away, Applejack followed them and Twilight with Pinkie ran after Applejack.

Their run ended quickly. After the two in lead took a turn, they stumbled into piles of rubbish. They might’ve get over it, but incognito was quickly running out of energy. Besides, that pile had a lot pointy stuff on its surface.

A little pause was enough for Applejack and others to catch up with the two. After Applejack heard the steps behind her, she turned around but she glared there only briefly and a stern look was thrown to the incognito.

“Your agents?” She spat out.

“If they were mine, you would’ve been dead by now,” he said dryly and coughed a couple times. After he breathed in a couple of times, he continued, “And I would’ve been back at quarters.”

“Well, this is over, then,” Applejack said. “Nothing will stop me!”

“Before we check that out… Care to answer my question?” He wheezed. Applejack raised her eyebrow, but still nodded. “Good… Well, miss Applejack… There was a question, which I wanted to ask you personally… You are so good at destroying things. Have you ever created anything?”

“What do you mean?” Applejack asked him.

“What I mean…” He smirked. At this point, he managed to calm his breath and removed the signs of dyspnea. “The history never liked destroyers. I can name you many, who created a lot, who invented a lot, who built a lot, but destroyers… Bad news for you, miss Applejack. Since you failed at everything I named, you and your little rebellion have failed too. Goodbye, miss Applejack.”

With those words, he aimed a gun at Applejack. Twilight was at the ready though.

A ball of energy flew at the guard standing next to still incognito pony. An explosion still made it and incognito flew into the pile of rubbish. The gun fell out of his hand.

When the bolts of electricity stopped to strike out of the body of the guard, Applejack ran to incognito. She started smashing him with her fists. When Twilight and Pinkie come closer, the entire disguise was removed from incognito stallion. They saw an old and pretty familiar face. James O’Bright.

“Let me tell you something,” Applejack said, with gritted teeth. “To create, build or invent things, ponies must be happy and confident in future. You haven’t provided us with that. Ponies also must be educated. You haven’t provided us with that either. At last, you, instead of helping us, commanded us to do impossible things and then you whipped us for every “fail”. So, let me spell it for you. We are not destructing what you have built. We are bringing justice.”

After every word, she hit him. When she ended, James was dead.

“Now, you,” Applejack said, addressing to Twilight and Pinkie, but not turning to them. Only now, Twilight noticed the lack of accent in Applejack’s speech. “Who are you?”

“Applejack,” Twilight replied, not really understand what to say to her friend. “It’s us, your friends.”

“Twi?” Applejack turned around. “What?... Wait, where are we?”

“What is the last thing you remember, Applejack?” Pinkie asked.

“Ah…” Applejack was about to reply, when she remembered things. “What the hay?”

“This is fine,” Pinkie assured her friend. “I’m going through the same. Don’t worry, it will pass soon.”

“Ah…” Applejack was at loss of words. She snapped out of it quite soon. “Twi, what do we need to do?”

“We need to help to others,” Twilight replied.

“But how?” Applejack asked.

“You will see,” Twilight said, while looking around.

The city around them started to vanish before their very eyes. Rather quickly, they were met by pure whiteness, which then started to turn into another city. In moments, three stood in a city, which was awfully similar to Canterlot.

When girls looked around, they noticed ponies. All with sly, arrogant looks. In real Canterlot, not every noble can be seen with such face. At least, not all the time.

Everyone in that city, though, had such face. If nobles had a more subtle look, commoners had clear faces that say, “I’ll stab you in the back”.

“Humph,” Applejack hummed, as she looked around. “What should we do, Twi?”

“At first, we need to find our friend,” Twilight replied.

“I found her,” Pinkie called, pointing at a wall.

“Yeah, let me have a look,” Twilight whispered, noticing how with each second they drew more and more attention. When they went to that wall, they saw a poster there with a white unicorn on it. “I guess she looks like her.”

“Ah think the same,” Applejack nodded. “Too bad, I ain’t seeing her cutie-marks.”

“So, you are interested in Elusive’s show?” A voice of the unknown came from behind.

“Who is speaking?” Twilight asked, as she turned around. Before her was a unicorn with navy blue coat, black mane, with some of it dyed into pink and brown eyes.

“Oh, I’m nothing, but a simple servant of arts,” he replied. His words like his glance were sweet like a summer day or a spoonful of honey. “But if you interested in my name, then call me Trickster.”

“So, Trickster,” Twilight was about to formulate the question when Trickster impatiently replied.

“Yeah,” he said.

“We would like,” Twilight didn’t like his habit to interrupt speeches.

“You would like to visit the show?” Trickster interrupted her.

“Argh…” Twilight grumbled. “Yes, we would highly appreciate that. What would you like us…”

“To do?” He raised his eyebrow. “Are you mercenaries, girls?”

“Well, we are,” Twilight said. She briefly glanced on her friends and she saw they weren’t against the idea.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he looked at them reassuringly. “Actually, I have a special offer. You will help in my play and I will let you to get into the backstage. Maybe I even would arrange a meeting with miss Elusive.”

“Well, we really need to meet her, so I guess we will accept your deal,” Twilight said, looking at her friends. They nodded.

“Then, follow me,” he said, making a gesture to follow him. They weren’t going for far too long. The theatre was in five minute of walk. When they entered it via a backdoor, he turned to them and whispered. “Please, wait for some time. I will look if I can arrange a meeting. Also, our performance starts in thirty minutes.”

They haven’t managed to get a meeting with Elusive, but they managed to talk with a couple of other actors and actresses.

At first, they tried to get someone describe how Elusive looked. They wanted to get description of Elusive’s cutie-mark. Eventually, one actor remembered three blue gems, which served her as a cutie-mark. He commented that her talent is probably being as beautiful and refined as the gems are.

While they were looking for information about Elusive, they gathered additional information and they didn’t like it.

For a couple of months, ponies were disappearing. All who had been found, were dead.

Many victims were guests who were invited to backstage. Some ponies started to blame Trickster for that, but there were no proof of it.

Girls quickly thought of Trickster and shrugged. Even though he was kind and sweet, after hearing those words from actors mouths, girls thought how fake his behavior was.

They agreed to be more cautious around Trickster each time he was with them.

In their waiting, they encountered Trickster a lot. He tried to be helpful, telling about the meeting with Elusive, the beginning of their play and doing other small things.

With new knowledge about Trickster though, girls tried to be at distance from him. In their straying, they stumbled upon interesting thing. Twilight, for instance, a script. She didn't like what she read there.

The script suggested some kind of drama with Elusive and Trickster in main roles. At some point, characters of Trickster and Elusive will be not only alone, but he also will shoot her.

This was probably one of the scariest moments there. Twilight noted a another couple of moments, where they or Rarity’s life is at the stake, but that was the most dangerous one.

When Twilight put the script aside, someone shouted that the first act is about to begin. Twilight rushed outside. When she met, Pinkie and Applejack she asked them, “Have you found anything?”

“Ah found props,” Applejack said. “They were getting’ it on stage, though.”

“Did they get a gun?” Twilight asked.

“They did,” Applejack remembered, as she scratched her head. “An ancient one with a single bullet in barrel.”

“And you, Pinkie?” Twilight called Pinkie, who was looking around with suspicious eyes.

“Oh, I found something,” she nodded. “Just follow me.”

When they came to that place, Pinkie found, there were a door and a Trickster.

“Oh, girls,” he smiled. “I’ve been trying to found you. I wanted to tell you about a nice place, where you could’ve seen the whole play.”

“And,” Twilight raised his eyebrow.

“Here,” he pointed at the door. “This leads under the stage. There at the very end, you can find a seat and a lever. That is a prompter’s booth. Sit there, pull the lever and you are closest audience to see the play.”

“Um, thanks,” Twilight replied. “Is that…”

“Here is the key,” he put it in front of them. After girls stood in their places for a second or two, Trickster got suddenly angry. He put them in hand of Twilight and said, “Just get in there. I have other important stuff to attend to.”

Girls didn’t wait for another shout out like this. They quickly get into the little chamber under the stage. Suddenly, the door behind them closed and the distinct sound of lock’s snap.

Twilight quickly rushed in. When steps on the other sides got distant, she put her key into the lock. As she expected, the key didn’t fit.

“What should we do, Twi?” Applejack asked, as she watched how effortlessly the key was moving in the keyhole.

“Let me think,” Actually, Twilight already got a plan in her mind. “We shall be breaking in.”

With this said, she threw useless key to Applejack and casted a spell. The gray ray shot into the key hole and soon there was nothing. No lock now kept the door closed.

“Go there,” Twilight said, as she opened the door. “Get to the stage, but don’t intervene until I tell you to. I shall be there.”

With this said, Pinkie and Applejack were gone, while Twilight moved to the door on the other side. The little chamber had a couple of doors on both sides with another door was on the very end. It was closed pretty much like the door behind Twilight, but with her spell, she quickly get to the other side.

Trickster at least was truthful about prompter booth. Some stairs lead to a little platform with a mechanism that fit into description given by Trickster. A seat on the floor with a lever by the side. A seat was a fine armchair with some kind of a lectern there. Lever had three position, the closest to chair was “Up”, in the middle, there was “Stop” and the third one was “Down”. Over chair a hole in ceiling was situated.

When Twilight got closer, she heard voices. When she sat on the seat, the muffled voices became clear voice of actors in play.

Meanwhile, Twilight was measuring the height of the room. If she stood on the chair, her head would’ve been sticking out of that hole. Chair was suggesting that she needed to be sitting there.

Eventually, she pulled the lever. The mechanism started to move up. Soon, she quickly pulled the lever back, so seat stopped moving. Actors could’ve seen only the tip of Twilight horn.

Twilight waited, trying to remember the words from the script. She was listening and at some moment, when she recognized the words, she pulled the lever. Eventually it stopped by itself, probably due to reaching the mechanism’s maximal capacity. Twilight in that position was only head over the stage. She looked at how she was sitting and noted that the lectern was situated not so awkwardly and she could read the script easily if she had one.

She quickly returned to the play. It would’ve been interesting if it wasn’t for Trickster. Actually, his play was quite good, if not masterfully.

Soon, the time came to the decisive moment. Actors got out of the sight, leaving only Trickster. Soon, Elusive with another actor came and Elusive lied on the coach there. Her elbow into the armrest, her hand against the palm.

“Why you were calling me, my “beloved” fiancé,” she said, emphasizing the word beloved. In the play’s plot, she was a daughter of a very rich noble and he was giving her in marriage to another rich noble. She was in love with another noble, drastically poorer then her fiancé.

Their dialogue was going by the script. Eventually they came to the moment when he with words “Then, let no one marry you” aimed his dueling pistol at her.

Twilight pushed the lever making the chair descend. Meanwhile, she also shoot a simple tackle spell, which probably known by all the unicorn in Equestria. She heard the shot and someone’s scream. Her heart sank at that, but she quickly understood that scream didn’t belong to Rarity.

“Who was that?!” Trickster shouted. Twilight only saw how he fiercely turned to the audience and to prompter’s booth especially.

“What do you mean by “who was that”?” Someone replied to Trickster.

“Oh, Mister Patron,” his voice suddenly become meek. “I meant, who was that misfit, who put the real gun among the props.”

Twilight didn’t hear a thing after that point. She ran, quickly remembering the layout of the rooms. Her memory didn’t let her down and she quickly get to Applejack and Pinkie, who stood behind the stage curtains.

“…I’ve lost lots of money,” Mister Patron said. He briefly glanced back at Twilight and said to Trickster, “And there are someone, who told me that you are one to blame.”

“Who?” He said, in his eyes a feigned astonishment. Twilight and other girls went on a stage and stand next to Patron. Twilight looked around. Guests gasped, but many of them had their doubts about Trickster. “Them? You… You believe them?”

“I have no reason to believe them, I know,” he said. “Their actions even costed me some bits, but actions of that murderer costed incomparably higher. Ponies are dying and most importantly, they are dying in my theatre. It’s unacceptable.”

“That’s logical,” Trickster replied.

“These mares would like to talk to you,” he said, letting girls to get in front of Trickster. He scowled at them, but remained stoic.

“Well, first of all, why you have locked us up in that room under stage?” Twilight yelled.

“I haven’t done that,” Trickster yelled in reply. “Actually, I’ve never even been there.”

“You came from that direction,” one of the actors said. “It’s unlikely, you’ve missed the door, that leads under stage.”

“I’ve been really excited about our play, so I’ve missed their yells,” Trickster parried. “Besides, since you’re here, you broke the door. You’re sabotaging us!”

“They’ve been peacefully asking us before the play,” someone put their words.

“You put the real gun instead of fake one,” Trickster accused girls.

“I’ve seen you yesterday hanging around props,” someone said.

“And I remember that you brought some suitcase yesterday,” the other one said.

Suddenly, Trickster growled and crouched. Twilight quickly put up defense and almost immediately, a thrown knife deflected from the shield, Twilight put up in front of her.

Trickster got angry at such display and rushed towards Twilight. She cast a stunning spell at him and the limp body fell in front of her.

Someone whistled. Soon, some armed ponies get on the stage and put shackles on Trickster. Mister Patron gave a little speech to the audience, where he said that the play is over and there isn’t going to be one for week or two, since they need to restore everything. He also suggested free tickets for their next play to everyone.

Before he left to make tickets for all, he made a little conversation with Twilight.

“…And tickets to you, especially,” he said and tried to pass her, but Twilight replied.

“Um, we would like to have a personal conversation with Elusive,” she said.

“She will give as much time as you needed,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

Twilight nodded and she with Pinkie and Applejack headed to Elusive. She asked them how she could be of service and they asked her to get to some place where they could speak in person. She led them to her dressing room.

“So, and what do you want to speak about?” She asked, as she sat in front of a table with mirror and makeup stuff.

“Hey, Rarity,” Twilight began. Before continuing, she looked at, waiting for the reaction.

“Yes, darling,” her look changed in some way. She then looked around and startled a bit. “What…”

“What is that thing, ya remember, sugar cube?” Suddenly, Applejack asked.

“I remember…” She said, before her eyes widened. “Oh.”

“It will pass,” Twilight assured Rarity. “Don’t worry. Girls already forgot all those fake memories.”

“I see,” she replied, as she watched her friends nodding to Twilight. “So, what we need to do?”

“We need to help the rest of our friends,” Twilight said. She then looked around and as she expected the reality was slowly vanishing, transporting them to whereabouts of another friend of theirs.

The place they found themselves in was a way different from previous places. Comparing to previous locations, that place was a complete wilderness. Woods were around them, hiding even more woods.

“Ah guess, we should go foragin’,” Applejack suggested.

“Are you hungry?” Rarity asked.

“Nope,” Applejack replied, but still looking around for something edible.

“It’s all an illusion,” Twilight said. “It’s unlikely that we will die of hunger.”

“Ah understand, but still,” Applejack nodded. She then moved through the foliage. Girls followed.

Applejack was running in front of them. She was constantly stopping only to start moving once again. Eventually she stopped.

“What is there?” Twilight asked, as she fell out of bushes.

“Ah’m not sure,” Applejack replied. “Those bushes moved, so ah decided to follow. Ah lost it, though.”

Looking around, they found themselves in a clearing. Nothing was weird or outstanding until they noticed a motion somewhere in the bushes. Twilight went there and some animal jumped in front of her.

Panther was ready to make another jump to end Twilight, but something happened. A swift shadow ran past panther and something poked at animal’s leg. This gave Twilight and other a moment to end the predator’s life first.

Twilight then looked at bushes behind panther, but everything was still. Twilight went there and after a little search, she found tracks.

“Someone been here,” Twilight stated. “Let’s follow them.”

“Wait,” Rarity screeched. When everyone turned to her, she said, “can’t you see? Those bushes are so dense. I fear my clothes don’t fit for the task on hand.”

Only now, Twilight noticed that her friends were dressed the same way as they were back when she was retrieving their memories. She in the same time, kept her usual attire.

“Don’t be afraid to ruin them,” Twilight replied. “It’s unlikely, that you will keep these clothes when we will return.

“Still, there is also Rainbow Dash to save and who knows where we will end up,” Rarity said, but went into the debris nevertheless.

When Twilight ran, she understood why Rarity was complaining about clothes. Only her leather pants were durable enough to withstand the twigs and thorn. Her cloak and shirt were constantly stuck by pointy things, that vegetation around grew. Soon enough, neat clothes of every girl were thorn and dirty.

Eventually they found themselves on the edge of the ravine. On the very bottom, a water brook passed. Two rabbits were sitting next to the brook and a pony figure was standing over them. Since said pony didn’t wore any kind of hood or something like that, girls quickly identified her as Fluttershy.

Fluttershy stood there with a spear at the ready. Her spear though was nothing but a sharpened branch.

After seeing how tense Fluttershy was, Twilight started to look in the direction Fluttershy was looking. She saw there several caves in the walls of the ravine. Out of the caves, a couple of manticores were coming out.

Girls startled at that, but Twilight quickly snapped out of it. She was about to jump into the ravine when she saw how actually deep the ravine was. Instead of jumping, she started to climb down the cliff.

She was descending quite quickly, but she thought that when she would be down there, Fluttershy would be already dead. She looked down there and saw how manticores were slowly moving towards Fluttershy.

Twilight stopped. She looked down at her friend, not knowing what to do. Then, it hit her.

She quickly casted the very same spell, she once casted back when she was helping Applejack. In her hand, a ball of energy appeared. Soon, it flew through the air and exploded after hitting the head of manticore.

Fluttershy used the situation for her own advantage. The spell hit the manticore in the back, but the one in front still lost its attention. Fluttershy jumped and prodded the paw with her spear. The manticore roared and swung with its paws.

Fluttershy flew back to two rabbits. The spear was stuck in manticore’s paw firmly.

Fluttershy, after losing her weapon, grabbed both rabbits and ran in the opposite direction. Twilight looked there and found a way up on a cliff.

Twilight raised her look and saw Pinkie and Applejack on the way down. “Girls! Get back on the cliff and move to Fluttershy.”

They quickly got back on the cliff and looked around. After they noticed where Fluttershy was running, they rushed to meet them.

Twilight meanwhile shot another ball of energy into already wounded manticore. Rarity meanwhile was throwing stones at the other manticore, which was getting out of the shock.

Eventually Twilight get back on the cliff and she with Rarity ran towards the forest. When Twilight threw a quick glance to Fluttershy, she was already up on a cliff and ran towards the forest with Applejack and Pinkie. Manticores down in the ravine were only getting out of the shock. By the time they themselves would get up on the cliff, girls would disappear in the woods.

Soon after Twilight entered the city, they stumbled upon Fluttershy and other girls.

“Oh, that was close,” Fluttershy sighed in relief. “Who are you? I’ve never seen anypony in a really long time.”

“Fluttershy,” Twilight called.

“Yes, Twilight,” Fluttershy looked at her. She blinked a couple of times and then she gasped. “What? Where are we?”

“What is the last thing, ya remember, sugar cube?” Applejack asked.

“I… What?” Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “What are… These?”

“Don’t worry. You will forget that,” Twilight said and looked around. “Hmm, something’s wrong.”

Something definitely was wrong. Reality didn’t change even a little.

“Hmm,” Fluttershy also looked around waiting for something to happen. Then, she turned to Twilight and called for her. “Twilight. I’m not sure what needs to happen, but I guess there is still something for me to do. I promised to the parents of these two rabbits, that I will get them home safe and sound.”

“Well, let’s do this,” Twilight sighed in agreement. “It’s not like we have a better solution.”

“Wait, Fluttershy,” before they started moving, Applejack called Fluttershy. “Ya said, ya promised somethin’ to two rabbits?”

“Hmm, this might sound weird,” Fluttershy began. “But, I guess, I understand animals now.”

“What?” Applejack raised her eyebrow at that strange sentiment.

“Let’s just get these little cute puffballs back to their parents,” Twilight suggested.

“Quick Paw don’t agree with you,” Fluttershy said, as she grabbed both rabbits and one of them squeaked into Fluttershy’s ear.

“Whatever,” Twilight replied. Meanwhile, she thought if Fluttershy’s going crazy or maybe Elements of Harmony gave her some specific abilities.

Soon after, they went deeper into the forest. Eventually, they found the little clearing. There were a couple of rabbit holes and two rabbits in Fluttershy’s hands started squeaking and squirming. Fluttershy put them in front of one and more mature rabbit come out. They had a conversation, but for girls, that conversation was one-sided, since they couldn’t understand what rabbit was saying.

They moved aside and reality started to fade. Fluttershy gasped, but quickly came to senses. Soon, they came to Rainbow’s place.

They found themselves in a dark place. They waited for some time to become acquainted with darkness.

At first, they saw wood around them, over them and under them. The room around them was a ship’s cabin at the bow of the ship. The wall in front of the door was inclined in a strange way. That wall was much closer to the opposite wall in the bottom rather than at the top.

The interior of the room wasn’t something extraordinary. A hammock, a couple of drawers and that was it. There weren’t any windows or portholes in the room.

Then, there was a sound of descending the stairs. Girls sat in the room in a complete silence, waiting for the newcomers.

Gibberish sound came from behind the door and suddenly it was opened wide. Two swashbucklers threw somepony into the room, while guffawing abhorrently. They shut the door and went upstairs.

Female pony tried to raise, but she failed since she was tied up. She didn’t fail to swear and curse.

“You, fucking betrayers,” she cursed. “When I will cut these ropes, you shall drown in your blood. Bastards! Scurvy dogs! Sons of the bitches! I will make you walk the plank! All of you! I will maroon you somewhere in the desert!”

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight shouted. She tried to call for Rainbow Dash a couple of times before, but Rainbow Dash was too busy at reviling the cutthroats, that threw her there. After Twilight increased the volume of her voice, Rainbow Dash finally looked at the pony figures engulfed in the darkness of the cabin.

“I shall…” Rainbow Dash choked on another curse and turned around. “What, where?… Who are you?”

“It’s us, Rainbow Dash” Twilight replied.

“Eh, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash said, as memories came back to rainbow-maned pegasus.

“What can you remember?” Twilight asked.

“What do you?…” She mumbled, rubbed her mane and all of a sudden her eyes widened. “What the hay! These…”

“Don’t worry, darling,” Rarity said. “It doesn’t matter. Soon, we will be home…”

“I’m not sure, but I guess, there is still something we should do,” Twilight said as she looked around her. “The change of reality is a quick process. Here, even after half a minute, nothing changed… Rainbow Dash!”

“Yes,” Rainbow jumped from a sudden call.

“Tell me, Rainbow,” she began. “Where are we exactly?”

“We are on the board of Grim Stripe, the fastest air corsair that ever flew in the skies of Equestria. Captain Swift Wind once owned it. She was my… That Rainbow Dash’s friend. After the rebel of the crew, she was slain and I was thrown here. They said, I’m gonna be a good slave to some moneybag. Ugh.”

“Don’t worry,” Applejack assured Rainbow. “Just show us the armory and we will clean the ship from snakes.”

“Wait!” Rainbow shouted. “They are going to feast soon. Let’s wait and strike when they won’t be waiting for it.”

Girls agreed and waited. Pirates actually feasted and girls were hearing that, despite the muffling.

One time, two pirates from before came into the room. They throw a dish with some leftovers and threw a couple of comments about Rainbow. Rainbow threw a couple of comments in reply and took the dish. Girls meanwhile hid behind the door, which was opening inside the room.

Soon, the sounds of reveling pirates came to halt. Twilight shot the door’s lock and they were free.

Immediately, they split into pairs and went to deal with pirates. Luckily, pirates kept their weapons with them, so their liquidation was quick.

When other girls were slowly killing drunk pirates, Rainbow and Twilight were looking for specific pirate. They found him in Swift Wind quarter.

Blade Horn was unicorn who stood behind the rebel. He had silver coat and brown mane. He was laying in luxurious bed. He held a bottle of booze in one hand and a masterwork saber, with golden handle and inlaid gems.

Rainbow didn’t spend a lot of time and hit the head of Blade Horn with the bottle of booze. Then, she took the limp body by hands, while Twilight took the body by legs. They brought him on the board.

Soon, the unicorn was brought back to life with some booze spilt on his face. The first thing he saw was the infuriated face of Rainbow.

“Swift Wind wants you at her place,” she said to him.

“Wait, wait!” he started panicking, but the chair that he was tied up to, was already flying to the ground below.

“We might’ve thrown him into a propeller,” Twilight said, as she looked how unicorn figure was shrinking. “At least, we wouldn’t spend the magic inhibitor.”

“Let’s not wear out the mechanisms,” Rainbow replied. The air ship had two giant propellers that allowed it to stay in air and additional one that moved it.

“Look,” Twilight asked Rainbow to stay. “The ground below is already disappearing.”

Rainbow only smirked at that. They looked at that for some time and they go to girls. After they combined, reality around them started dissolving until they were left in a complete blackness. Soon, they disappeared from there in a white flash.

Back in Twilight’s room, five ponies grunted, awakening and rising from their places.

“Girls,” suddenly, Spike’s voice came from behind the door. “Are you fine there? Do you need help?”

“Spikey-darling!” Rarity was the first to come to her senses. “Please, bring some water.”

“Right away,” he yelled. Soon he came in with a tray. “Here you go!”

“Thanks,” Rarity thanked Spike, but she found it impossible to drink. The fabric was covering her head completely, so she took it off. “That’s better.”

“Look,” Rainbow yelled. “I don’t twitch like I’m zapped… And, Rarity, your face don’t look like it was put into an oven.”

“Oh, is it?” Rarity said, not believing Rainbow out of surprise. When her fingers assured her that the coat on her face restored, she laughed delightfully. “Yes, it is!”

They were having fun until they noticed someone missing. They looked at the bed and saw that Twilight was still lying there senseless.

Girls tried to do anything about it, but it was for vain. Suddenly, Twilight stood up and opened her eyes. Her eyes though were concealed with a white light.

Then, a flash of light shot from her eyes, blinding everyone. When the light died out, girls found that the tiara, the Element of Magic, which was on Twilight’s head, was connected with other Elements by rays of light.

Magic started swirling around them. The sudden influx of magic was so powerful that even earth ponies and pegasi felt the changes.

That magic started to gather around Twilight. Her coat started to glow and in the end, everything exploded.

When the magic suddenly started to gather in the room, Spike started panicking. When everything exploded, he yelled and rushed into the room. Girls were thrown into the walls.

Luckily, every girl was fine and with grunts, they raised. They gasped when they saw that the place, where Twilight was, there was nothing except the Element of Magic.

“Where am I?” She looked around. She was nowhere, in the black nothing. She tried to remember where she was back when she tried to help her friends, but she failed. She was losing memory of her time back she was helping her friends to retrieve their memories.

At first, she was swimming through the void, but at one moment, she found some kind of a road. It was a platform of slightly brighter matter, which was going somewhere forward.

After she stepped on the platform, something started to happen. To her right and left many screens appeared. They started to show her life from the very birth to her recent adventures with her friends.

“What is this place?” Twilight asked no one in particular, but she still received a reply.

“I don’t know. I never was here,” a very familiar voice came from behind. “Hello, Twilight. Long time, no see, eh?”

“Not really,” Twilight replied to Discord’s question. “What is… Wait, you never was here?”

“Tsk, tsk… I’m not sure where you was, but I guess it wasn’t good for your ears,” Discord said. Then, he got a weird black box with a stick pointing out of it, and he said, “Agent Purple Butt, I repeat I never was here. I repeat I never was here.”

“I understood,” Twilight sighed. Discord had been a little bit chaotic before, but now he was just childish.

“Good,” he replied, as the weird boxy thing disappeared. “By the way, it’s not good that you understand a mundane thing, which was repeated a three times. It’s good to keep at least a little portion of my remaining strength.”

“What?!” Twilight yelled at the sudden revelation. “You don’t have powers in here?”

“Yes, I don’t,” he replied. “Or, no, I do… Eh, well, whatever.”

“Hmm, strange,” she said to herself. She quickly checked and found out that her magic was working fine and there weren’t any limitations. “Do you know what’s wrong with your magic?”

“Nothing I can think of,” he said. “Except, there is that white ball, which sucks all of my magic.”

“Sucks? Where…” She was about to ask him, but she saw how Discord was pointing somewhere.

In that direction, at the very end of the platform, she saw it. A white ball of light, flying on the same level as her head.

“What is this?” she asked herself, as she slowly approached.

“The only thing I know is that I don’t like it at all,” Discord grumbled. Then, he looked at Twilight and saw how she was dangerously close to the ball. “Twilight, wait.”

However, she already touched it. The light consumed all. Discord tried to shield away from it, but it consumed him completely.

Twilight, who was in the middle of this, was feverishly looking around trying to find a way to escape. Quite soon, she stopped that, because the light was soothing. She started relaxing from that. Then, the light before her became even brighter. In the last moment, some figure appeared in front of her. The only things that Twilight remembered were a warm smile and crimson mane.

Twilight gained consciousness quickly as if she awoke from a quick dreamless slumber.

She looked around. It was her house in the hollow-out tree, which also served as Golden Oak Library to the city of Ponyville. Something was weird about the scenery though. It was… Clean?

She remembered how it was a bit dusty in here. She was either reading or hanging out with girls, so she kind of didn’t had time to clean in here. Only Spike comes into that room once a week, while doing an annual wash-up. She also kept a lot of worthless garbage here as well as books and stuff she had no time to deal with.

Her room though was clean and neat.

Then, a strange sensation came. Something was on her back. When she observed the feeling, she understood that that something was pulling her backwards and therefore it was connected to her.

She looked over her shoulder and saw… Feathers?

Feathers. Purple feathers. Purple feathers on a purple wing. The same thing was on the other shoulder.

She has wings.

She is alicorn now.

Twilight was in the middle of thinking whether it’s going to be troublesome or beneficial to her when someone opened the door.

“Who… Twilight?” Rainbow Dash meekly said, not believing her eyes. Then, she exclaimed, “Girls! Twilight is her and… She is an alicorn?”

“Right. I am…” She replied, though not with the same happy mood, which Rainbow had.

“Why the sour look? That’s great,” she tried to assure her friend. “Flying is so great. You will love every second spent in the air.”

“I guess, I will,” she mumbled. “The only thing is… How I will learn to fly? I never seen a book about that.”

“And you never will,” Rainbow replied. Sounds started to come from the door behind Rainbow. “Young pegasi were thought personally by their parents… But, I guess, I can teach you.”

“Wow, that’s would’ve been great,” she said. “By the way, how you are dealing with them every day?”

“What do you mean?” Rainbow raised her eyebrow.

“It’s just…” Twilight tried to look for a way to impress her dissatisfaction. “Those things on your back. They are big and take a lot of space.”

“What?” Rainbow didn’t understand her at first, but after she saw how Twilight’s wings were fidgeting and flapping against each other, she smirked. “Well, just fondle ‘em.”

“Fondle?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, like this,” she turned around. One of Rainbow’s wing was turned to the other wing and it was also pressed by it. The other wing was also turned to other one and it was covering it.

“I shall try,” Twilight said. It took her a couple of minutes to find out how to control the appendages. Other girls and Spike were already in the room, silently marveling the sight of their friend. “I… I guess, I have a problem here?”

“What’s wrong?” Rainbow said, as examined her friend’s back. She quickly understood the problem. “Oh, I… I don’t know Twilight. I never met anypony with these.”

Twilight’s wings were enormous. If Rainbow’s wings while folded by her back, only barely touched each other bases. Twilight’s ones due to their size just simply didn’t fit in the cavity between her wings.

“Umm,” Rainbow brushed her hair. “We will think something later.”

When Twilight looked around, she saw her friends. All of them were looking at her with awe, as Twilight expected, but she noticed something else. There, in their eyes, she saw relief and disbelief as well.

“Hello, girls,” Twilight smiled, even though she didn’t like the faces, her friends had. “By the way, why do you have faces like these?”

“Like what, darling?” Rarity asked.

“I’m not sure, but it’s like you are seeing a ghost.” Twilight replied.

“Well, that’s pretty… Accurate,” Applejack said.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.

“Well, you see…” Applejack began.

“You see, there was this light, that started swirling around,” Pinkie continued. “Then, there was this strange sensation, like static electricity, and then, boom! We were blinded by the lights, and we couldn’t sleep until you appeared in our sights.”

“I see,” Twilight nodded. “Well, back, after we retrieved Rainbow’s memories, I found myself in the dark place. I was moving through it and found a platform. When I stepped on it, there was a white sphere and when I touched it, I appeared here, in that appearance.”

“And what do you plan to do?” Rarity asked.

“I’m not sure, but I guess, I need help,” Twilight suggested. “I plan to ask Cadence and maybe Celestia?”

“Celestia?” Everyone repeated.

“Are you sure about that decision?” Rarity added.

“Well, yeah,” Twilight nodded. “Firstly, because it will piss her off completely. Secondly, I’m not sure how I can hide this from her or anyone who will tell her. Thirdly, it’s not likely that she will kill… Besides, we still need to retrieve the Elements.”

“Sounds fair,” Applejack said. “But when?”

“In time…” Twilight replied. “Now, I want a relief. Let’s celebrate!”

“Let’s celebrate!” Other girls shouted.

Blaze looked at the building in front of him. It was familiar… No, it was the same as he remembered. The Rabbit Hole.

He stood there for like a minute, before entering. Inside the place however, he saw a scene quite different from what he used to see. First of all, waitresses.

After he took a seat, a pony waitress came by. There was also a rabbit waitress. Both of them were dressed quite freely and her dress was revealing as much as hiding.

“What do you want, sir?” The pony waitress asked. She put a menu in front of him.

“Bring some beer,” he said. He didn’t open the menu and this confused the waitress. “Ask Basil which one. Also tell him that Blaze came.”

“Fine, sir… Blaze?” She said. After Blaze nodded, she took the menu, turned around and went upstairs. Soon, familiar rabbit came down with that waitress. He showed the waitress the beer mark, Blaze liked and headed to him. Basil had a newspaper with him.

“So, you are now qualify as brothel, yeah?” Blaze asked, as he looked around once again.

“You guessed right,” Basil nodded. “Now, the name is quite symbolic.”

“Uhm, by any chance, haven’t the client under the name of Grim Dawn come to this place?” Blaze asked.

“Sorry. Confidential information,” Basil said. “Our clients come incognito and stay incognito.”

“Well,” he mused. He noted the newspaper and made decision to ask about it later. “Then, is there any other exotic brothel here in Undercity?”

“Not those, I heard off,” Basil rubbed his chin. “A plenty is in Canterlot up there, I’m sure of it, but here there is definitely no other aside from us.”

“And…” Blaze looked around trying to find what he would like to know more about. He quickly noticed the target, as she had a magnetizing look. “Girls… How they got here?”

“Jeremy got them here,” Basil replied. “That’s a long story, but soon after you and Lance parted ways, Jeremy returned with her and another rabbit. He told us that there was an unsuccessful pirate raid on their ship. It ended with pirates’ complete defeat and liberation of many galley slaves. Those two got along well with Jeremy, but he couldn’t think up a way pay up to him. They had nothing on them and they didn’t know anything that will be useful to him, so he decided to… “Invest” into our facility. I had been thinking a lot about making a good brothel out of our little place.”

“Are they fine with…” Blaze asked, but Basil understood the question by its half.

“Don’t worry,” Basil said. “They say nothing really changed to them. They’ve been living like this before the slavery.”

“Oh,” Blaze looked differently at the rabbits-waitresses.

“They say, what really changed is their popularity,” Basil added. “We are offering a more fair and cheap prices. For exotic girls up there, you must pay really a lot, so many of our customers are those, who aren’t squeamish to go down here.”

“I see… Is it Royal News?” Blaze suddenly asked, looking at the newspaper that Basil was reading.

“No, it’s Canterlot Daily,” Basil replied. “You will hardly find any Royal News in Undercity.”

“I see,” Blaze said. “What article?”

“About that crusade of yours,” Basil replied. “The author predicts a heavy rebellion in Abyssinia and Saddle Arabia. He suspect that they might even overthrow government. What do you think about it?”

“Another crusade and this rebellion there will come to an end. New king will be even more loyal to Celestia,” Blaze replied. Then, after a little thought, he asked, “Have you heard about Twilight Sparkle?”

“She is on the first page, if you haven’t noticed,” Basil replied, while putting his newspaper so Blaze would have a better look.

“What do you think about it?” Blaze asked.

“I?” Basil pointed at him. After Blaze nodded, he rubbed his chin in thought. “Well, I can only hope that this Twilight don’t have anything against the Wood Kingdom or its residents… And, if she do, then I hope, she isn’t too much into politics.”

“Oh, don’t worry. Twilight is a good pony. Besides, Celestia isn’t really the one who will share the power willingly,” Blaze said.

“She gave power to her sister, Luna,” Basil pointed out.

“Not to Twilight. That I can be sure of,” Blaze replied. He then looked at the mug, from which he took a sip every now and then. It was empty and Blaze got some bits on the table. “Well. It was a nice talk. Have a nice day.”

“You too, friend,” Basil replied to Blaze, as he was heading to the exit. “You too.”

Author's Note

So, this is the end of the book... But not the end of our story.
The second book is on the way.