The Return

Twilight, as per usual, was up late, she had NOTHING to write to Celestia, how could she let this happen???? No friendship problem, and too late to MAKE a friendship problem. she stared at the empty scroll in frustration, quill in her magic grasp. "AAAGGHHG," she yelled in frustration, though her attention was quickly taken away from the paper, as a bright beacon of light shined briefly for 5.22 seconds from the Everfree Forest up to the sky. Her eyes widened.

"Spike, wake up!"

"what now, Twilight?" the drowsy dragon asked, still half asleep.

"Take a note, we have to notify Celestia Immediately!"

"Can it wait? it's 1AM"

"NO! Look outside, Spike!"

The small drake took a look outside the window to see... nothing.

"Twilight, you're hallucinating, you need to get some sleep. Now if you don't mind I am going to resume mine."

"You don't understand, there was a beam of light! it came from the Everfree forest, PLEASE! We need to send something to Celestia!

Spike, who had been scribbling something on a scroll as she talked, not wanting to argue, sent it off with his dragon fire and they waited for a response, after all, what else could they do?

Celestia was unpleasantly woken from her slumber by a single scroll that hit her horn in a very uncomfortable way. She groggily got up to read it. It was short, sweet, and to the point. But something about it concerned her. She read it over and over again trying to figure out what Twilight could possibly mean by that. She had no explanation and decided it would be best to see for herself. With that, she took to the night sky silently towards ponyville. She hoped this was just a minor thing and not a huge problem, though she would have to prepare for the worst, because she had no idea what to expect.

Twilight arrived to the Everfree forest just in time to see it vanish before her very eyes. There was no explosion, no magic pulse, no sign that some dangerous spell had even been set off, just poof, gone. There was, however, Zecora's hut in the distance in one direction, and the Castle of the two sisters in the other. There wasn't much evidence of an attack, or really anything of how this could happen at all, how could anything be powerful enough to remove a forest of Chaos magic? Even Celestia herself could not do it. Thoughts ran through her brain until she noticed the silhouette of a pony in the distance, very close to the castle of the two sisters. "Who is that pony?" she wondered, "Could they be the cause of this? How did they have this much power?"

~~~

It was a particularly warm and peaceful night upon Ponyville. Celestia noted that there were no beacons of above Ponyville. She thought it was just her faithful student hallucinating due to lack of sleep from studying some bizarre topic. That was until she noticed that the Everfree forest was missing. That was not something you see everyday. She had a clear view the Everfree castle. She landed on the edge of the now Everfree Valley. She found her royal student nearby.

"Twilight, I am afraid to ask, but do you know what happened here?" Celestia asked, completely skipping all formalities due to the bizarre circumstances presented before her,

"I wish I could tell you, but you know about as much as I do, Princess. Though, it looks like there is a pony over there that showed up after this happened, maybe he knows something."

There was in fact a pony in the distance, a very familiar looking pony. They were observing them from a distance, but quickly started approaching towards where Celestia and Twilight were standing. Celestia recognized him.

"It can't be...." Celectia nearly whispered in surprise and possibly a bit of fear.

"What is it Princess? Do you know them?"

Jason was close enough where Celestia could see him clearly. Same lime green mane, though it was a bit more curly than she remembered, same teal coat, same deep brown eyes, but his right forehoof was metal. She noticed how it seemed to function exactly like a normal forehoof, and how Matthew didn't seemed bothered by it. A genuine smile formed on his face when he noticed Celestia.

Celestia didn't have time to react as the figure shifted into a full sprint, tackle-hugging her to the ground. "Tia, is that really you? You have grown so much " Jason inquired in a chipper tone.

Celestia took a moment to recover from the initial shock, but quickly replied in a similar tone, "You seem to have grown too, Matthew. It has been too long since I've last seen you!"

"Yeah, but I must say it is great to be back. Last time I saw you, you were a little foal, I remember that I could hold you in my arms. Anyway, I'd love to see how much the kingdom has grown over the years. Also, I want to know what happened to the Everfree kingdom, is there an explanation on that?"

Celestia thought about telling him, but decided just to say, "that is a story for another time."

Jason chuckled "Fair enough."

Twilight decided to bud in "Celestia, who is this? And why are they an Alicorn like you? I thought only Princesses could be Alicorns.

Celestia and Jason (Matt) shared a glance, and then shared a laugh at that statement.

Jason replied with, "Princes can be alicorns too, it is just a little more uncommon. believe me, there are quite a few of us. Anyway, who might you be? he quickly gave a knowing (he did not know) glance at his sister, assuming this purple alicorn was her daughter.

Twilight proudly introduced herself, "I am Twilight Sparkle, personal Student of Princess Celestia."

"Wow, that makes a little more sense," he said, hiding his light embarrassment from his original assessment, "so you are the personal student of my younger sister here?"

Twilight didn't know how to respond to that. She froze, her mind was racing with thoughts again such as, "Celestia had another sibling? Why have I never heard about this? He is older than Celestia?!"

"I think I broke her" Jason (Matt) joked, "I think she's lose it if I contacted some of our other siblings, ah, sis?"
That sentence broke Twilight even more, she could not find the words to say or thoughts to think.

Celestia nodded slightly and made a noise that con only be described as "mm." Celestia thought about something for a moment. "You will stay with me and Luna in the Canterlot castle if those terms are acceptable to you.

"Sounds good Tia, is that nearby or will I get to stretch my wings for a bit?" Jason had asked

"It is a large distance from here, but I am sure you are capable of flying with me" Celestia confidently stated.

"Sounds good. By the way, when I left Equestria, Luna was only a few months old, so do you think she'll remember me? You know her better than I do, so..."

"Well, brother of mine, there is only one way to find out. Come along, I'll show you the way," Celestia said, spreading her wings and preparing for flight.