Failure, Eternally Retold, Part Three: Morality

Celestia looked over the destruction on the edge of Ponyville. Sweet Apple Acres was now gone, and the area that had appeared in its place had created an awful stink. It was absolutely loaded with trash, and had been on fire when it arrived. She'd had to call in an emergency rainstorm from Cloudsdale just to keep Ponyville safe.

Worse than losing Sweet Apple Acres, a staple of Ponyville as well as being their primary food source, she had Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash as panicking heaps before her. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been meeting in their clubhouse, and that was part of the area that had disappeared. Applejack moreso than the other two, as Big Macintosh and Granny Smith were also gone.

"You have to tell us how to fix this!" demanded Rainbow. "I can't just leave Scoots and her friends in a fiery hellhole!"

"Rainbow Dash, I'm doing ev--"

"This trash fire stole mah family from me!" interrupted a distraught Applejack. "I'll do whatever it takes to bring 'em back!"

"Sweetie Belle may not have been the best sister, but she was mine," sobbed Rarity. "Please, Princess, if there's anything we can do, we'll do it!"

Celestia gently placed her hoof on Rarity's shoulder. "I know you're all hurt by this, and I promise, I'm doing everything I can to mitigate the damages. Princess Luna has a plan to close these tears as soon as we find Twilight. To that end, we've set up multiple patrols in places we expect her path to cross."

"Send me out there!" demanded Rainbow. "If it means saving Scootaloo, I'll find Twilight right away!"

"We can't draw too much attention to the area," answered Celestia. "We've had sightings of the cloaked ponies that used to be here in the area, and they've grown violent."

"All the more reason we should be out there fightin' 'em off," growled Applejack.

"Please, princess, Twilight's our friend," begged Rarity, tears streaming down her face and ruining her makeup. "We have a vested interest in helping her with this. Isn't there anything we can do?"

Celestia simply shook her head. "Not until we find her. Once that's done, I'm sure we could find something for you to do, but until she's been sighted, the best thi--"

"We found her!" shouted Spike, running up to the group. Panting and wheezing, he pushed a note to Princess Celestia.

She ripped it from his claw and quickly scanned through it. "One of our forward scouts says Twilight was spotted in a tavern in Cornfield."

"Let's go, then!" Applejack picked Spike up on her back and jumped onto Celestia's chariot.

"I can only take one of you," instructed Celestia.

"I'll fly alongside," offered Rainbow. "Don't worry about me."

Rarity wiped her face with her hoof, only serving to smear her makeup. "I suppose it's best if I stay behind, then. Somepony has to clean all of this up."

"We'll be back as soon as we can," promised Rainbow. "We can't leave it all on your shoulders."

With a mild smile, Rarity hugged Rainbow. "Best of luck, my dears." She pulled back and shooed them away. "Off with you, now. The sooner you regroup with Twilight, the better it will be for Equestria."

Celestia jumped up onto her chariot and nodded, and her escorts took off.

"So, what's this tavern we're goin' to?" asked Applejack after a few minutes of flying. "You said it was in the middle of a cornfield?"

"No, it's in a town called Cornfield," explained Celestia. "It's so small that the ponies living there just decided that, if they had to have a name, they would just register as the easiest name to remember."

"So they named it Cornfield?" asked Rainbow, flying alongside the chariot.

"Their chief export is corn, and there aren't a lot of ponies living there. It's a tiny farming community."

"So where is it?"

"It's right on the Equestrian and Belican border," chimed Spike. "And I mean right on the border. Half the town hangs over both sides."

"It doesn't matter where it is," growled Rainbow. "What matters is that we make it there with all due haste. That's where Twilight is, and she's the one who knows how to rescue Scootaloo."

Applejack sighed. "I guess we don't really need to know the whole history of the place. Is there anything we do need to look out for once we arrive?"

"Twilight and Fluttershy are travelling with a human," informed Spike. I don't know if either of you have seen one before, but that one in particular, we think, is the reason this whole mess started."

"We've run into a few bad humans during this conflict, but some of them seem to be okay," added Celestia. "I tried to have him brought to me at the start, but a crossed wire meant that he ended up in the dungeon. By the time I found out, he was already gone. I've been trying to catch up ever since." She lowered and shook her head. "That's been my greatest regret during this conflict, is not being able to expedite the process."

"There's no sense in regretting your decisions," huffed Applejack. "What happened in the past can't change. It can only influence how you would act in the future. If we went back in time to the exact moment you made that decision, you'd only know what you knew then, and you would make the same decision."

Celestia nodded. While it wouldn't do her any good to think about how she made poor decisions in the past, she could make better decisions because of them. At any rate, she had something to work towards, and that was a start. She could help Twilight, and that was something to be happy about.

It was late evening when they set out from Ponyville, and a few hours after sunset, she saw Applejack beginning to nod off. She opened her wings and flew over next to Rainbow. "You'll be wanting to find Twilight as soon as we arrive, right?"

"Absolutely," she answered, furrowing her brow in determination. "The minute we touch down, I'll be off looking for all three of them."

"I thought you might say that. Take my place in the chariot and rest."

"I'm fine. I don't need rest."

"That's an order," added Celestia. "A few hours of sleep now, and you'll be able to fly even longer if it takes more time to find her."

"I'll just find her quickly."

"You'll find her even more quickly if you rest. Now, Rainbow."

Begrudgingly, Rainbow moved over into the chariot and settled in. In the next fifteen minutes, she, Applejack and Spike were all asleep. It was Celestia that would be flying through the night. It would be morning when they arrived.