Twilight's train pulled into the Canterlot station and she made her way over to the hospital. The whole trip over she was left to wonder what was so secretive about Soarin's condition that the princess didn't want to write it down.

As she stepped into the lobby, one of the royal guards was there waiting for her. "Princess Twilight," he said while giving her a deep bow. "Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are expecting you. Please come this way."

She followed the guard to large room in the back of the hospital, a guard stood at attention on both sides of the door. One of them unlocked the door as she approached to let her inside.

Once inside she found her mentor, Princess Celestia, waiting for her and next to her was a very tired looking Princess Luna.

"Princess Twilight! It's so good to see you again," said Celestia. "How has your time away from Canterlot been? I hope your return to Ponyville has been relaxing."

"Well I wouldn't exactly call it relaxing. You know Pinkie. It's been one crazy party after another," reflected Twilight. "That and Rainbow Dash has been Tartarus-bent on teaching me to fly."

Celestia smothered a chuckle that sounded of falling rainwater. "Hehe, well you look much better than when you left. I'd say the time you've spent away has served you well and it's good to see your friends haven't changed their attitude towards you, despite your new title and station. Make the most of these moments, Twilight. You'll cherish them forever."

"Princess Luna," Twilight focused her attention toward the bedraggled princess. "Forgive me for saying, but you look awful."

"Indeed. 'Twas a long night for us and we have been unable to sleep." Luna carefully took a sip of the coffee she was holding.

"She's just upset her date ended the way it did."

Luna's coffee sprayed out of her mouth, "Tia!"

Twilight's eyes lit up as she ran over and gave Luna a few playful jabs with an elbow. "Does Luna have a very special somepony?"

"It's...It's not like that," Luna was backing away with a mad blush on her face. "And I don't want to talk about it, not yet anyway."

Celestia gave her sister a somber look. "Luna, you can't keep information like that hidden. Not in these circumstances."

"Princess Celestia, I think it would be wrong of us to pry into her personal life like this. If she wants to tell us, she can. But as a good friend, I respect her privacy."

Luna smiled at Twilight, "we appreciate your concern Twilight. But my sister is correct. The Wonderbolts make up a branch of Equestria's military and I cannot in good conscience withhold information from an investigation that relates to the country's security, despite my...personal feelings. However, I would like you give your opinion on Soarin's condition before I divulge those details.

"I will do my best not to let you down," she enthusiastically pulled out a notepad and quill.

"Hehe," chuckled Celestia. "Eager to learn as always I see. Unfortunately this is where I must leave you now. Other duties require my attention and I'm still trying to keep this from spiraling into a panic."

"I won't let you down either, Princess." Twilight saluted her mentor.

"I know you won't, Twilight," and with that, she knocked on the door and the guards let her out.

"Come this way, Twilight Sparkle," Luna beckoned her over to a curtain drawn around a hospital bed. "We are eager to know what you make of this."

Twilight approached the curtain and drew it back to reveal a pegasus stallion laying on his back. An IV was running into a leg and several sensors were attached all over his body with a readout of his vitals showing next to the bed. His coat and mane had lost all color and when Luna pulled back the sheets, Twilight could see his flank was missing its cutie mark.

Twilight immediately casted a magical field off her horn, settling it down over the unconscious Wonderbolt. Using it to see what what happening to the magic inside his body, but it just left her scratching her head.

"Luna! What is this?" She panicked as she recast her spell several times. "What exactly is going on here?"

Luna answered her calmly, sounding like she expected this kind of response. "Please tell me what you think is going on here?"

"I can only make a guess, but it's like something ripped the magic right out of him. I can't trace any magic in him at all. Wait," noticing a slight pull from his chest. "There is a little bit still in there, right around his heart. It seems it's just barely enough to keep him alive." She snapped her head to stare at her. "Who did this?! How did this happen?!"

Luna exhaled slowly and started pacing around the room. "I was chasing the pegasus Storm Chaser after he ran out on our...date," Luna gritted her teeth, looking a bit annoyed. "And right before he would've collided with Soarin, I saw dark smoke start to pour off his body moments before he passed right through our patient here."

"So we know the name of the pony who did it," Twilight thought over this. "But I don't see how a pegasus could do what you described by...wait," she paused for a moment, running the last thing she said through her head. "He was your date?!"

"Yes, he was."

"How did that happen?!"

"...And then he jumped off the balcony. Everything else you already know." Luna was scowling and grinding a hoof into the ground.

Twilight stood there slack-jawed as Luna told her tale. But as the story finished, she slid up to her and wrapped her up in a hug. "I'm sorry you had to retell the story. That couldn't have been easy."

Luna leaned into the hug, "I appreciate the gesture Twilight Sparkle, but rest assured I will be fine." She narrowed her eyes a bit, "but have no doubt, I'll have some very serious questions when I catch up with him. Now back to the matter at hoof. I need your help finding out what happened here. You are far better versed in any recent magical discoveries and my knowledge, while vast, is very outdated."

The Element of Magic pulled out of the hug and stepped back up to the bed that Soarin laid in. "I'll see what else I can find out. I can't promise anything this early though." She went back to casting various spells over the body.

"That's all I can really ask of you. I thank you."

Twilight ran a spark of magic up and down the lines of his body, looking for anything that stood out. She opened an eyelid and flashed a light in it to find no reaction. Next she tried tugging on a few feathers...no reaction. She then casted a very intrusive spell where his cutie mark should be, but all that got her was a face full of stallion flank.

Nothing.

Nothing, nothing, and more nothing.

She was about to give up when she remembered something from one of the books she found in Random's collection about energy in the body versus the energy in the world, how it's all connected, and how 'belief' can show you hidden truths. It seemed like a very strange approach to magic and sounded like something that if the magic school board heard her say, they would probably laugh her right out of the building. But maybe, just maybe.

She casted another wide field over Soarin's body and instead of looking for something, she tried 'believing' something was there. All the while cringing inwardly that she was even considering using a method that made the writer sound like he smoked some fancy grass. She was about to give up and swear never to tell a living soul about this crazy idea, when she started to feel something tug her horn to the space above his body.

"What are you doing here?" Came Luna's voice from across the room.

Twilight, feeling all embarrassed, stopped the spell she was casting and looked over to Luna, ready to make some excuse about weird method she was trying. But Luna wasn't looking at her. In fact, her eyes were closed.

"And how are you here in the middle of the day?"

Was she talking to someone? There was no one else in the room with them and Luna was making a grimace like she was trying hard to concentrate on something.

"But what are you doing here?"

Twilight moved over to sit in front of the lunar princess and watched her closely. After a while, Luna's breathing started to slow and her face was turning a few shades paler. She was about to poke her to see if everything was ok when Luna's eyes shot open and she stared at the far wall with a stark expression plastered across her face.

"Is everything ok, Luna?" Asked Twilight, feeling concern for the other pony in the room.

Luna seemed to take a moment to recollect herself. "We...are whole, Twilight Sparkle. But we must leave you now. I trust you can continue the investigation on your own?"

"You can count on me, Princess." Twilight gave her a small salute and watched as Luna exited the room.

Turning back to the stallion on the bed, she tried to find that 'tug' she felt a moment ago. It didn't take too long to find this time, but sure enough, something in the space above him pulled on her magic. She focused harder and harder on the space above him, despite the headache she was getting from pouring so much power into untested magic. Just when she was about to collapse from the strain, something clicked in the spell and everything fell into place.

Above them was small, blue...thread? A line? What exactly was that? She let out the breath she had been holding and as she did so, the line became more solid and stretched out, with one end leading into the body on the bed and the other running out the door.

She walked towards the door to see if she could follow it, and sure enough, as long as she kept her horn glowing, the thread staying hanging in air. Not having anything else to go on, she decided she'd follow this line to see where it went. Knocking on the door, the guards let her out of the room and she followed the thread down the hallway and out of the hospital.

The thread continued to lead her down the street. She collected a couple sideways glances from the Canterlot locals as she followed the trail that was leading her...somewhere. They wondered for a moment before moving on with their day what the newest princess was doing running down the street with her horn glowing, although none of them could see what she was chasing as she wove up and down the roads.

Eventually it lead her up to a large building in the entertainment district where she almost ran head first into a guard who was blocking the entrance.

"By court order, the cloud stadium is closed today," the guard said very mechanically, not even looking at who he was talking to. He must've been repeating the same line all day.

"Closed to everypony, even a princess?" She didn't like using her status like that but she really didn't want to lose the path she was following.

His eyes came back into focus at he saw her for the first time. "Princess Twilight?!" He reeled back a bit, startled. "What are you doing here?"

"Following a lead on the investigation," Twilight looked around the guard as the string was leading into the door. "I need to get in there," she pointed at the door.

"Yes of course Princess," the guard hastily opened the door. "You'll find several officers inside doing the same, including Commander Spitfire. I'm sure anything you can add to their findings will be a big help."

She made her way inside the stadium to find several guards walking up and down the stands, closely looking over every nook and cranny. Following the thread down to the center of the stadium, she stopped right when she got to the edge. The thread went out further into the cloud layer.

"Princess Twilight. What brings you here?" The voice came from overhead, startling her a bit and almost making her lose the spell she was holding onto. She looked up as a yellow pegasus with a red and orange mane touched down next to her.

"Commander Spitfire," she gave her a small nod. "I'm currently following a lead in the Soarin case and it's brought me here."

"Well any new information you find, we'll be happy to have." Spitfire looked up at the rest of the guards as they looked over the stadium. "We haven't been able to find anything and we've been at this all night after taking Soarin to the hospital. How's he doin by the way? Any of his color come back?"

"Sorry to say, no he's still still out of commission," shaking her head. "But I found a bit of magic on him and it lead me back here, and..." she said shakily as she pointed out over the edge of the stands. "Gulp...out there."

Spitfire looked out to the arena and then back to Twilight with a smug look. "Still haven't found your sky legs I see. Well the bulk of the arena is covered in clouds. You should be able to walk around out there easily enough. I need to check on the rest of the guard, but let me know if you find anything." And with that, she flew away, leaving Twilight to her own devices.

Twilight nervously looked out over the edge at the clouds. She once used a spell to walk on clouds but she hasn't tried walking on them without it since getting her wings. She mentally prepared herself to jump off the solid ground onto the less than solid clouds, reminding herself all the while that everything will be fine. Besides, if this goes wrong she can always glide to safety. Right?

She jumped off the edge, a little panic welling up inside her as she did so. She quickly descended to the cloud layer, the fluffy white mist growing ever closer. And then she bounced off it a few times and she found herself standing on it just fine. "Well I got worked up over nothing," she berated herself.

She managed to keep her horn glowing through that whole ordeal, and although it took her a minute to find the thread of magic again, find it she did and she followed it as close to the edge as she dare get.

Twilight just about ran out of cloud when the thread suddenly ended in a big ball of...mess?...yarn?...whatever you want to call it. It wove in and around in one big mess and then it seemed to lead out straight down for a couple feet before fading into a different color, a green color.

"Commander Spitfire," she called up to the pegasus. "Can you get me a chariot? I think I found something."

Night was starting to set in the Whitetail Woods and it was a lovely evening despite how Random's day started. He had to utilize astral magic in front of others. Fortunately the ponies he had to use it in front of had secrets of their own they wished to keep.

But before that he had to use a bit of the stolen pegasus magic to get free from the pin that mare had him in. He didn't expect somepony to jump him that badly. Well, serves him right for dropping his guard like that and hopefully Cloudkicker didn't understand what exactly he did. I mean, the pegasus tribe stopped the mandatory training of their young in elemental arts shortly after the founding of Equestria. Well, some probably still keep up the tradition.

He looked up the stars that started to peek out from night's veil. So many nights just like this one and only a few more were left before he had to accomplish what he came back to Equestria for.

"There you are, you crazy stargazer," Whisper flew up to him while carrying something in her hooves. "You always have to pick a different spot every night, don't you? Do you have any idea how many places I have to check just to find you, you crazy colt."

A grin plastered his face, "oh come now, I'm not that young."

"Yeah, yeah. Get out your walker, you old fart. Anyway, I found it." She flew over to him, holding the object in her grip out to him.

Random unwrapped a cloth from around the object and looked at it in the moonlight, his eyes going wide at the item. "Can it be? We found the real one?" He reached out to place a hoof against the charm she held. It was a silver triangle with a red gem and out of the top of it was the head of a unicorn sporting a pair of wings.

"The Alicorn Amulet," as his hoof rested against it, long dark tendrils wrapped up his foreleg and bringing a grin to his face. "It is the real one! Do you any idea how many imitations I found over the centuries?"

"Probably a lot," Whisper shook her head as she relinquished the amulet. "So are sit there reminiscing all day or are you get on with it."

"Heh," he laughed while taking the amulet in his magical grip and bringing it closer. "I guess I am tempting fate, aren't I?" He placed it against his neck, latching it into place.

"Yeah, you are. So get on with it."

"Pushy fairy. Well let us begin then." He looked out to the sky while the gem against his chest started to glow an angry red.

Twilight flew through the sky on a chariot while following the green thread south. She'd been holding this spell for the last several hours and if it wasn't for the large magical reserves she had at her disposal, she would've passed out a long time ago. That didn't mean it wasn't taking its toll on her. Her eyes were drooping along with the setting sun.

She slapped herself across the face to wake herself up. There was no guarantee she'd be able to find this trail again if she dropped the spell. But she was so tired.

"Everything alright Ma'am," came from one of the two guards pulling the chariot, having heard the impact.

"Just having trouble staying awake," she got out between gasps as she looked out at the path before them. "It helps the path is in a straight line. I'll be fine, just keep flying."

They followed the spell back to the outskirts of Ponyville before making their descent. Twilight recognized the place they were landing as the place of her flight lessons the day before. She stumbled out of the chariot and her horn flickered a bit as they touched down.

"Are you OK, Princess?" One of the guards looked over to her.

"I'll be fine," she stumbled up to the cliff edge. The thread of magic traced down to right in front of the cliff edge...and then it just vanished.

In a panic, Twilight looked all around the cliff edge to try to find where the signal had gone. She went back to where it disappears and tried to increase the intensity of the spell. The effort of keeping that spell up for so long though finally caught up with her and exhaustion hit her like a hammer. She fell over on her side as the spell fizzled out.

"No no no no," she scrambled back to her hooves in a panic and tried to get the spell working again, but she couldn't even find where the signal broke anymore. "We lost the signal," she told the guards. "We'd probably have to go all the way back to Canterlot to get a signal again."

The guards looked at each other for a moment and seemed to come to a decision amongst themselves. One of them faced her, "forgive our forwardness, Princess. But you are in no condition to make the trip back to Canterlot tonight. We think it would be best if we instead took you home since that's much closer."

Twilight was feeling a little dejected after coming this far, "yeah, you're right. Besides, I don't think going back would help anyway. There was no mistake while I still had it, the signal just vanishes there." She pointed at the cliff. She slowly got back onto the chariot. "OK," she sighed. "Take me home."

They got back into the air and started to head towards the library when they noticed a bright red glow coming from the Whitetail Woods. "What is that?!"

"Are you sure this is safe?!" Whisper shouted to Random from behind some rocks at the edge of the clearing as Random himself glowed as bright as the midday sun.

"Oh it's definitely not safe. But don't worry, I got this." His horn was glowing brighter and brighter. "I may want to hurry though before somepony sees this."

"Is there a reason you keep tempting fate?!" Whisper worriedly shouted back from her hiding spot.

"Old habits, I guess. Too often interesting things happen when I do." Red electricity was arcing down his body to his back. His eyes were glowing a bright red and he was cringing in pain. He took a deep breath and then arced his back, pointing his horn skyward. Red light shot out of his horn like a lance and out of his back like a pair of wings. The light spiraled upward like a drill until it collided with the sky.

The Dreamer appeared in the dreamscape in front of his door. Not even a moment later, the Dreamwatcher appeared a couple of paces away and just sat there watching, not saying a word.

He took a few steps forward and used his horn to cut open the empty space in front of him, causing shadows to pour through the crack he made.

The door behind him flew open and the beast stuck its head out, opened its mouth wide and just started inhaling the encroaching shadows eagerly. Growing larger as it did so.

Random continued to pour more energy into his horn, the amulet growing hot against his chest. The space above him started to crack and tear as shadows wrapped their way down the lance of light and onto his body. Despite his pain, he smiled with glee as he started to pull the shadows into himself. They rushed into him like water into an endless void, never being able to fill the space no matter how much it rushed out.

He could see Whisper trying to shout something to him out of the side of his vision but he couldn't hear her and he couldn't stop what he was doing now. He pulled harder and harder until the shadows trickled down to a thread and he took that thread and pulled on it with all his might.

The fissure above him started to bulge and break, spilling out light as it did so. Excitement overwhelmed him as he pulled a green orb out of the void. He licked his lips as he pulled it closer and closer, savoring the end of a long hunt. Opening his mouth wide, the orb fell into his mouth and he swallowed it with no small effort. As the lump ran down his throat, he felt something at his chest crack but he paid it no mind. The energy hit his stomach and rushed through him like a river, filling his soul in a way that he hadn't felt in many years. Parts of him that were broken, mended themselves and fortified themselves.

As the last of the shadows were consumed by the beast, a green star fell through crack towards the Dreamer's waiting embrace. The beast's maw stretched around its jailer, ready to feast on this morsel that had escaped it for so long.

Jaws snapped around the Dreamer as he held the star to his chest. As soon as he did so, the teeth of the beast stopped their descent and it started to retreat back towards the door. Green chains burst out of the beast's body, causing it to howl in pain as it was tightly bound and dragged back into the door.

"I did it, Whisper," a manic grin crept across his face. "Thank you my friend."

Whisper gave a half smile, her eye twitching a bit. "Well I'm happy for you but you want the bad news or the worse news?"

Random's smile fell at her response, "what happened?"

"I think someone spotted your lightshow, even though they're probably not close enough to see all the details." She pointed in the distance where he could see a golden chariot flying through the air being pulled by two stallions in Canterlot livery.

"Is that the bad news or the worse news?" Great...what kind of excuse was he going to have to come up with to deflect Princess Twilight?

"The worse news is I think you broke your necklace," she suddenly hid behind the rocks again, ducking for cover.

Random looked down at his chest, cracks were quickly tracing throughout the gemstone on the surface of the amulet and it was vibrating harder and harder. "Oh crap..."

Suddenly the amulet exploded and darkness took him.

Author's Note

Welp, I just blew up the OC and in spitting distance of Twilight. What's going to happen next? Not even I know for certain. My ideas seem to take on their own life when I start typing them out.
Join us next time on "This BS I'm writing"

Edit to chapter 4: 11/10/20
I had to change how Random got out of the pin Cloudkicker had him in. I really didn't like the idea I originally ran with. (I will try not to make a habit of retconning stuff I already published, I'm still a very new writer.)