The Two Sisters

Izzy, Sunny, Hitch, Pipp, Zipp, Luna, Discord, and of course Appleslice and Winter all sat around the large table in the dining room of Zephyr Heights Castle. After celebrating Hearths Warming with family and friends, they were now all gathered in a meeting to discuss what they knew and how to get Celestia and the others back from Limbo.

"So.. what do we know?" Asked Sunny, preparing to write down notes in her journal. Hitch spoke up.

"Well, I believe we should start from the beginning when we traveled to Ponyville, and work our way to now," he said. Sunny nodded in agreement.

"Good idea Hitch. Alright everypony, what happened when we traveled to Ponyville?" Sunny asked.

"Well, I'd say that when we found Twilights Castle, it was a huge step forward in learning about Akira and the attack on Equestria." Said Izzy.

"Speaking of which, where's the spirit Twilight? I haven't seen her in a while." Said Zipp. Sunny pulled out the book from Twilights Castle from her saddlebag and set it on the table.

"She's right here. She agreed to travel with me to help study any artifacts we come across in Canterlot. She may not have all of the original Twilights memories, but she's still useful," said Sunny. Now it was Pipps turn to speak up.

"So, did like anypony else find that table in the throne room weird? Maybe we should head back and check it out," said the Pegasus.

"A splendid idea!" Discord shouted from the end of the table, opening a portal to the castles throne room. Sunny waved a hoof.

"No, not now. We need to focus on tracking the chain of events for the last 2 months in case we missed something."

Discord frowned and looked through the portal at the glowing table. Sunny's, Izzy's, Pipp's, Zipp's, and Hitch's cutie marks all hovering over the maps curent location. From across the table, Luna smiled and nodded towards Discord.

"Patience Discord, she needs to figure it out on her own," the princess said.

"Figure out what?" Sunny asked.

"You'll see little one." Luna said smiling. Discord closed the portal as Sunny stared at Luna for a second before going back to writing.

"Alright then, moving on from the castle. We know how I was able to reform Luna so fast. Elemental Queen and all. But what I don't get is who tampered with Discords memories?"

"And mine for that matter," said Luna. Sunny looked at Discord.

"You restored all of her memories with a single potion.. were you lieing to us about anything?"

The draconequus held up a claw, "I swear on Celestia that I did not take away her memories. Or lie about losing mine."

Sunny could tell he was being genuinely honest.

"Alright, then that is one mystery we have to solve. Moving on," she said quietly, writing in the journal.

"What about your alicorn earth pony transformation thing?" Said Hitch. "You only seem to sprout the wings and horn when its necessary."

Sunny pondered this for a moment.

"You're right, I don't understand why I keep switching back and forth," she looked at Luna. "You know more about the Elemental Queen than anypony else Luna, do you know why?"

The blue alicorn shook her head, "I haven't the faintest clue. Sorry Sunny," said Luna.

"So... so far, we traveled to Ponyville, found the book. Met the spirit Twilight, met Discord, I reformed Luna after Discord released her from the moon. Came back, Equestria was being invaded by Winter. Defeated him, reunited Luna and Winter back together. Had that crazy ass dream about the realm of the past, present, and future. Which wasn't a dream and was a real place. Then celebrated Hearths Warming, and now we're here. Sounds about right?" Sunny said, flipping through her journal. Everyone around the table nodded and murmured "yeahs" and "yups".

"So what's next?" Appleslice asked, taking her hat off and brushing some dust off it.

Sunny thought for a few minutes while everyone waited for her to respond.

"Everypony is still trapped in Limbo, right?" She asked, grabbing a marker and starting to draw on a large sheet of paper. "All we know is that this artifact used by Twilight trapped them all, then disappeared without a trace." Sunny began drawing the world, represented by a circle with ponies in it. Then Limbo, represented by a fire with ponies in it.

"Sunny," Zipp spoke up.

"Hm?" The Queen looked up at her friend.

"If all of Equestria was sent to Limbo, where did our ancestors come from? Wouldn't there have been nopony left?"

Discord began coughing violently and procured a glass of water out of thin air, beating his chest with a claw. Everyone looked at him as beads of sweat ran down his face.

"Discord," said Sunny, "is there something you'd like to tell us?"

The draconequus looked around nervously at everyone sitting at the table.

"What? Me? Why if course not, I have nothing to share at all." Discord took a sip of water as Luna stared daggers at him.

"Discord you know that information is classified, don't you dare say a word." The princess scolded.
Sunny looked at Luna.

"Say a word about what? If there's something we need to know Luna. Now is the time to tell us." Everypony nodded in agreement. Luna let out a sigh.

"Go ahead Discord. Tell them."

The draconequus stood up and poofed to the middle of the table floating in the center.

"Years ago, when Twilight was ruler of Equestria. She begun a program to preserve ponykind in the event of a natural disaster or apocalyptic scenario." The draconequus snapped his fingers and the room around them morphed into a laboratory room of some kind.

"To enable the survival of your species, she had the best minds in Equestria work for years to develope these."

Two scientific looking ponies in lab coats entered the laboratory and clicked a button on the sleek white wall. A door built into it sliding back as a pod was revealed with a pony inside.

"Cryogenic stasis pods. Invented to keep anypony in a suspended animation until the world outside was deemed suitable enough to live in. This is where you came from after the incident."

The room faded back to normal and Discord sat back down in his seat.

"Woah woah woah, hang on," said Hitch. "You're telling us that we are descendants of ponies who were put into cryostasis pods in the event of a major disaster?"

Luna nodded, "Im afraid so Sheriff. You are the 4th generation of ponies since the originals were awoken by Discord."

"How did Twilight even get that kind of technology??" Asked Pipp.

"Years of magical research and advancement. The ponies in stasis were not affected by the artifact because they weren't registered as alive. Their bodies were completely frozen in time. Heartbeats, brain activity, blood flow, breathing, all suspended mid-second." Luna said.

Everyone around the table took a moment to take all of this in. Sunny looked around at her friends. Izzy looked at Sunny.

"How do we get the others back Sunny?" The unicorn asked. The apricot earth pony thought for a minute.

"With magic of course." She said smiling.