Remnant

The room began to calm, as Sunny and her friends slowly found their nerves calming after the intensity of the moments seconds earlier. Each one was utterly unsure of how to react, still drinking in the emotions, and thoughts, they had just ran through in such a short time.

“Oookay, so that…was not a vision,” Pipp finally spoke up, hesitantly making her way back towards the table.

Her voice seemed to be the inciting action for the others to snap out of their shock. They each took a sigh of relief, thankful for the tremors finally stopping. Composing themselves, they looked amongst themselves, before all eyeing the table where the Elements lay.

Zipp, ever fixated on mystery, darted towards the Elements, picking up Loyalty and inspecting it closely. “You think that was Magic?”

“It sure sounded like the voice in my dream now that I think of it,” Izzy added, hopping out from behind Hitch.

Hitch trotted forwards, looking over the Elements with Zipp. “Well, I’m not gonna make assumptions here, but whatever that was, it sounded like it was making a threat.”

“And a threat is exactly what Nightmare Moon was when Twilight and her friends got the Elements!” Sunny cheered. “Don’t you guys get it?! Magic is our test! That’s the obstacle we have to face!”

“So you’re saying we restored magic, just for us to have to face it now?” Hitch grumbled.

Sunny shook her head. “No, no! What that was was the avatar of Magic—not the concept of magic itself. I’m not sure if that’s how it was when Twilight and her friends faced Nightmare Moon, but the Element of Magic itself is what’s facing us.”

“Oh! So like, Twilight Sparkle?” Misty questioned.

The unicorn’s ears immediately folded back, as Sunny gave her a gobsmacked look. Her concerns quickly faded as the mare began to burst out in laughter, shaking her head.

“Of course not!” Sunny guffawed. “Twilight Sparkle? Being bad? Please!” She wiped a tear from her eye, struggling to hold back giggles. “She was the hero of Equestria, alongside her friends.” She tapped the journal Misty had given her. “She was the opposite of malicious. Plus, she isn’t around anymore, none of the Element bearers are.” Scrunching her muzzle, she thought for a moment. “This has to be the Element of Magic acting on its own accord. I mean, there hasn’t been a major threat to Equestria in moons, so perhaps it’s taking its own action against us?”

“Hehe…y-yeah!” Misty followed, nodding her head frantically. “Makes sense to me! Nopony and nothing is really dangerous nowadays!”

Zipp raised a brow. “It does? Why in Equestria would Magic itself threaten us? And what was with the whole ‘we’ schtick it was giving.”

“The Elements brought friendship and harmony to Equestria,” Sunny replied. “Of course, the bearers were a huge component of that, but I think Magic itself is safeguarding the concept of the Elements of Harmony, and testing us. In turn, ‘we’ must be referring to the other Avatars of the Elements.”

Pipp crossed her forelegs, leaning back in one of the table’s chairs. “Seems a touch convoluted to me…”

“But is there a better explanation? The only ponies aware of the Elements even being back are us, and the only Element missing is magic! So, it would only make sense that arguably the most powerful Element can and will act on its own accord if need be,” Sunny retorted. “My dad told me about this thing called the Tree of Harmony, and it could apparently manifest its own identity. So, with so much stored up magic over so many moons, it isn’t too crazy to think that the Element of Magic can do something similar.”

“I’ll be honest, if you told me that and I hadn’t been here to witness what just happened, I’d absolutely think you were crazy,” Hitch grumbled.

Sunny playfully nudged his shoulder. “Says the stallion who thought the idea of uniting all the pony tribes again was crazy~”

“Touché.”

“I think it makes sense!” Izzy chirped, leaning over the table and eyeing Sunny closely. “So what now?”

Sunny remained silent, thinking to herself. She had a hunch of what was going on, but to execute it meant she had to figure out some kind of connection. Maretime Bay, Zephyr Heights, and Bridlewood all were rather peaceful, with no looming threats or worries around. If there was a journey to be had, and an obstacle to overcome, there had to be some kind of catch. Going around the three main provinces of Equestria wouldn’t make sense to connect back to the Elements. The Unity Crystals had served their purpose, and were the hosts of magic in the land for all they knew, which meant whatever challenge they faced loomed beyond the lands they knew.

There were endless possibilities. Some magical reality they had to enter, some dormant beast in the mountains, or even perhaps a journey to the lands outside of Equestria’s borders. Though, as she thought about them harder, none of those options made much sense. What was presented to them was in relation to ancient Equestria, to the world before theirs, and to the times when peace and harmony reigned as it did now. All sounds and sights were tuned out from Sunny, as she sunk into her imagination. Endless possibilities were being ticked off a mental list, each one not sufficient enough to be reasonable. It felt like an endless task, but she tried to reorchestrate her approach. It was the Elements of Harmony she and her friends were dealing with, and they had one main connecting factor.

And then it hit her.

“Ponyville.”

“Pardon?” Hitch sat down at the table, unamused by Sunny’s response to Izzy’s question. “Ponyville?”

Sunny didn’t make eye contact with him, beginning to pace around the Brighthouse’s kitchen. “Ponyville. That has to be it.”

“I don’t think she’s even paying attention to you right now, Hitch,” Zipp teased.

Rolling his eyes, Hitch sighed. “Wouldn’t be the first time she’s done that.” He stood up, trotting in front of Sunny. Raising a foreleg, he stamped it against the ground. “Sunny!”

“H-Huh?!” Sunny blurted, shaking her head as she was torn away from her thoughts. “O-Oh! Sorry!” She turned to the others, blushing. “I…uh…got a little wrapped up in my head there.”

Pipp rested her cheek on her hoof, tapping the Element of Generosity with the other. “So what was that about Ponyville?”

“Right, my bad.” Sunny motioned for Hitch to sit at the table with the others. Seating herself as he did, she laid her forelegs on the table and looked between her friends. “We need to find Ponyville.”

Misty’s curiosity began to grow. She had heard the name many times from Opaline, usually in a rather negative light during one of the alicorn's monologues. From what she knew, it was where Opaline’s enemies lived, and where they spent the rest of their days after her and subsequent villain’s defeats—with the exception of Twilight Sparkle who ruled the land while in Canterlot.

“That’s where Twilight and her friends lived, right?”

“Exactly!” Sunny exclaimed. Pausing, she eyed Misty. “Wait…how’d you know that?”

Misty recoiled, scrambling for a response. “Oh! Well…I uh..” She spotted the journal, hastily pointing towards it. “I read it in that!”

Glancing down at the journal, Sunny blushed again. “Oh…right…” Clearing her throat, she looked between her friends once more. “But yeah, what Misty said. It’s where Twilight and the other Elements became friends. It was their home, the birth of their friendship, and the place of their legend. If Magic was anywhere, it’d be there.”

“And how exactly are we gonna find it?” Pipp bluntly asked.

A smirk split Sunny’s muzzle, as she eyed the princess. “My dad left me a gift before he passed away.”

“When the heck did we have a basement? And why did nopony tell me?” Pipp huffed, eyeing Sunny running all around.

Zipp wrapped a wing around her sister, sighing. “Probably because you’d have asked to make it a filming studio or something.”

"Fair...I guess..." Pipp grumbled, refocusing on the earth pony running about.

Sunny shuffled through the chests in the room, scampering to and from different parts of the Crystal Brighthouse’s basement. Mumbling furiously to herself, she dove into storage container after storage container, eagerly searching for something. Her friends watched from afar, heeding Hitch’s advice to not interfere with her when she was like this—a determined mare of Sunny’s caliber was not to be trifled with.

The disappearance of magic left many aspects of ancient Equestria lost to time, but there were still some remnants of the world before their generation. Sunny’s late father was more than a scholar and researcher—he was a preservationist. He had a wellspring of knowledge of the old world, and he bestowed that knowledge to Sunny in his time roaming the land. With his passing, his research halted, but he left behind a flame of passion in his daughter.

That flame was now burning brighter than ever.

After the collapse of her home, thanks to the nefarious actions of Sprout, Sunny had to gather up her things, and more importantly her father’s research, and store them in varying boxes all around the Brighthouse’s basement. She hadn’t gone through them much at all, still saddened by any reminders of her now gone childhood home, but the developments as of late had quenched that sorrow with excitement.

Growing impatient, completely lost to the mare’s sudden surge of energy and watching her toss aside clothes and trinkets, Pipp stamped her hoof and called out to the pony. “Sunny! What the hay is going on?!”

Sunny paused her scrambling, quickly whirling around and facing her concerned friends. “W-wha? How long have you all been waiting there?”

“Ten minutes,” Hitch started, walking up to her and placing a forehoof on her shoulder. “You literally had us come down here.” He dragged a hoof over his face, sighing. “Listen, Sunny, instead of scrounging around like some maniac, why don’t you tell us what’s going on so we can help?”

Izzy perked up behind him, bouncing a singular time in place. “Yeah! Diving into these boxes seems suuuper duper fun! I wanna help!”

Sunny looked between her friends, before glancing over at the mantle she had carefully placed the Elements of Harmony on. Sighing to herself, she wiped sweat off her brow. “I-I’m sorry. I just…got caught up in my excitement.” She looked over the various boxes, gnawing her lip in concern. “I know exactly how we can find ancient Equestria.”

Zipp trotted up to the mare, giving her a quizzical look. “And you’re looking around your old stuff because…?”

“Because I need to find a map,” Sunny answered, turning away from them all and looking through another box. “My dad wrote one up only a few days before he died. He told me it was his biggest dream—discovering ancient Equestria.” She sighed, pouting her lips. “I don’t even know if it’s accurate, but it’s the best lead we have.” She looked between each of her friends, smiling. “My dad never went through with the journey since it was too dangerous, and I didn’t after he died for the same reasons, but now with friends like you by my side and magic, I think I - we, can.”

“And where exactly does that map lead?” Hitch asked curiously. “Ancient Equestria is kind of a broad statement, don’t you think?”

Sunny perked up, giving the stallion a friendly smile. “The one place that may have real, accurate books and research on the Elements of Harmony, and more importantly answers about Magic’s avatar.”

“Which would be?” Pipp inquired, her interest peaked. “You think it’d lead right to Ponyville?”

Sunny sighed, understanding deep down just how insane of a goal she was hoping to reach, but she answered her friend all the same. “It may sound bizarre, but not just Ponyville,” she turned away from them, eyeing the Elements, “but Princess Twilight’s castle itself.”