I threw the nasty, slimy creature out of my hooves and toward a bush before I lowered my forelegs and wiped them against the dirt. I truly hoped I wouldn’t need to touch that thing again.

The repulsive animal squawked as it hit the ground before it quickly turned to face me. It shot me a glare with its brightly glowing red eyes as it hissed at me. I responded by using one of my forelegs to kick a spray of dirt into its face. That seemed to get the message across, as after that it squawked again before slithering off into the underbrush.

I watched it go. A few moments later, I was satisfied it wasn’t coming back. I turned my attention to the hunk of stone on the ground in front of me.

It was a pony with wings and a horn, petrified into an inanimate statue with an expression of surprise on her face. Before she was turned to stone, I could clearly see that her coat and mane colors were exactly the same as mine. No doubt this pony was the real Twilight Sparkle.

My body was tense. I could feel something inside of my chest beating rapidly, and I felt like I was ready to gallop away from here at any moment. As I lifted a forehoof off the ground, it trembled slightly outside of my control. I brought my forehoof to my chest and started to rub it in an attempt to get the beating thing to calm down.

I understood how lucky I was. That stupid idiot Chrysalis had told me that Twilight and her friends defeated Chrysalis’ army. I didn’t have time to ask for any details at the time, but I believed I understood correctly what an army was. If only six ponies were capable of defeating one, then each one of those ponies must have been extraordinarily powerful. If Twilight had seen me just now, she would have destroyed me immediately. I would’ve had no chance.

I was lucky to find that animal that could turn creatures to stone by looking at them. I was lucky to find out that its powers didn’t work on me. I was lucky I decided to bring it with me to defend myself from the other animals in this forest. I was lucky to spot that bright light through the trees and get into a good hiding spot before Twilight found me. I was lucky that Twilight fell down right in front of me. I was lucky that Twilight didn’t see me as I rushed to use the animal on her. I was lucky to be alive.

It was important to think clearly. What was necessary for me to consider? What should I do next? I felt like it was impossible to focus right now. Pushing a lot of air out of my nose and mouth seemed to help me feel a little bit more calm. I did that some more, until the beating thing in my chest gradually started to slow down. I brought my forehoof away from my chest and put it down on the ground, and I swallowed the liquid that had pooled up in my mouth.

A stray thought had me wondering why there was liquid forming in my mouth. What was it, and what was it for? Forget it, that wasn’t important right now. The important thing was Twilight.

I didn’t know how long the animal’s magic would last. Twilight could turn back into a pony at any time, and she would see me standing here. The thought spurred me into making a decision. I had no evidence, but it seemed logical to me that if I destroyed the statue, Twilight herself would also be destroyed when she reverted back into flesh. So that was what I had to do.

I stepped up to it and started to bash the stone with my forehooves. I quickly learned that this was not a good idea. After a couple of hits, my hooves began to feel a sharp tingle running through them. That tingle quickly turned into a throbbing pain that traveled up my forelegs as I kept going. I had to stop after that. It just hurt too much.

I lay down onto my belly to get my weight off my forehooves, and I brought them close to my chest. But that didn’t seem to help much, and they continued to hurt just the same as before. All I could do was grit my teeth and wait until the pain slowly dulled.

I couldn’t lay on the ground here forever. Every moment I waited was another moment I was in danger. I forced myself to put my hooves under me and pushed myself back into a standing position when the worst of the pain had faded. It still hurt to move my forehooves, but I had to deal with it.

Even worse, when I examined the statue, I saw that I had done nothing to it. It was completely undamaged. That pain was for nothing.

"Ah!" I exclaimed as I jerked back. Something on my head just moved! I brought my sore forehooves up to the top of my head to feel around and investigate. All I could find were my ears, seemingly flopped over and laying flat. My ears must have drooped involuntarily, and I had to assume that was the movement that startled me. Why would my ears do that?

Again, that wasn’t important. I could figure my body out later. I had to keep focused.

So what else could I do? I looked up to gaze at the tip of my horn. I wished I still had my telekinesis. Maybe dropping the statue from high enough in the air would be able to destroy it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use any of my magic. What came so naturally to me before now produced no results. I tried to use it in the exact same way I had previously, and nothing happened. I must have made some kind of mistake that crippled my body when I revived myself.

So what else? There was no point in contemplating things I couldn’t do. What could I do to stop Twilight from coming back? Think.

Every idea I came up with was discarded as either impossible with my current abilities, impractical, or would simply take too long. I didn’t want to risk being around Twilight when the animal’s magic wore off, and the longer I took to destroy her, the higher that risk became. My ideas slowly started to become more outlandish. I stopped myself when I realized I wouldn’t be able to come up with anything workable.

My most promising idea was to get my hooves on the supposedly all-powerful Elements of Harmony that Chrysalis had wanted. If they were truly as powerful as I had been led to believe, I was sure I could use them to destroy the statue. But the major issue there was the fact that I had no idea where these Elements were. I thought I saw them inside that evil Tree before it tried to kill me, but that was obviously a trap, so those were probably fake.

So that was it. I had no good ideas. I didn’t know if or when Twilight would become free of the stone, and I couldn’t do anything to prevent it. And when she did, no doubt she would be coming for me. I had only one option left.

Run.

I had to get as far away from her as possible as quickly as possible.

I felt the urge to just start galloping as fast as my hooves could take me in a random direction, but I forced that urge to be silent. Blind panic like that was something an idiot would do. I had to think about this carefully. Which way was safe to go? How would I even make myself safe from an extremely powerful pony who could defeat armies? Was she capable of tracking me no matter where I went? Should I leave this forest — I had to assume that it had an ending, because I honestly had no idea if it did or not — or stay inside of it?

And I couldn’t assume that Twilight was the only one who would be after me. A creature like Chrysalis certainly wouldn’t be the forgiving type if she learned that I managed to revive myself, and it was highly likely that she was still around. I managed to hold her off with some difficulty last time, but now that I had no magic I really didn’t want to run into her again.

All that said, I was sure of only one thing. Simply getting away from the statue of Twilight was a great first step, and I could perhaps get some answers to my questions after I gathered more data. If I recalled correctly, there was a small clearing up the hill Twilight had come crashing down. Maybe I could use the better view in order to visually pick out the best direction to start traveling in.

I turned on my hooves to face the slope before I unfurled my wings. However, just before I was about to begin flapping them, I stopped myself. I was about to try to fly on instinct, since that would’ve been the easiest way to get up the hill, but it seemed that I was so distracted with thinking of a way to escape from Twilight that I forgot I couldn’t fly anymore. Just like with my magic, I had learned earlier that even if I flapped my wings in the exact same way I did previously, I simply couldn’t get off the ground.

I felt my ears flop down against my head again for some reason as I folded my wings back to my sides. At the moment, I felt like I wanted to lay down and do nothing as I became overwhelmed with despair at my crippled state. I was glad to be alive and have a body again, that was true, but if I had known that I would come out of the revival process as nothing more than a hollow shell with no magic I would’ve waited longer to try and find an alternative.

I dismissed the thoughts with a quick shake of my head. This was no time to be getting dragged down into those kinds of emotions. No matter how crippled I was, I was here now with this body, and getting destroyed by Twilight would certainly be permanent this time. I had to focus on survival, which meant I would have to climb the hill the hard way.

I started making my way up the slope. It was quite steep, so it was difficult to find good places to set my hooves and keep my balance. The dirt kept sliding out from underneath me and down the hill as I tried to put my weight on it, causing me to slip more than once. Luckily I always managed to catch myself with my other legs, so I didn’t take a tumble back to the bottom. On top of that, this steep climb brought the aching pain in my forehooves back to the forefront of my senses. It was something I had to ignore for now, but I would probably need to take a rest later when I got further away from Twilight.

Finally, I made it to the top, and I stepped into what I remembered should have been a field of grass in the clearing. Instead of the field, however, the ground was completely torn up. A series of large holes, seemingly placed randomly around the clearing, turned what should have been flat ground into treacherous terrain. Stalks of uprooted grass and clumps of dirt were strewn around these holes, as if it was all violently sprayed about.

And off near the middle of the clearing, I noticed the forms of three ponies, each looking down into a hole.

The surprise caused the air to get stuck in my nose for a moment, and when I tried to suck more in, I instead felt like I was choking on the air. My body made me involuntarily cough. I tried to suppress it immediately, but it was too late.

The ponies all looked up. Before I could even consider running away, they had spotted me.

"Twilight!" they all shouted.

Oh no. These ponies must have been traveling together with Twilight. They must have known what I did to her.

One of the ponies had wings, and it began to flap its way over to me while the other two ponies started to run toward me. I considered if I should still try to run away from them, but I quickly saw that it would be pointless. The winged pony was fast.

As it grew closer, I was able to make out its colors and face. It turned out that this was the apathetic blue pony that Chrysalis had created alongside me. That was a surprise. What was her name? Rainbow whatever? I seriously hated her attitude, and I didn’t want to deal with her right now.

When she reached me, I snorted and rolled my eyes. "You again?"

Rainbow Whatever blinked as she hovered in front of me. Then she pointed one of her forehooves toward herself. "Huh? Me?"

I took in some air, ready to give her a piece of my mind. But just as I was about to lay into her, I noticed something. Her face. She didn’t look apathetic. She looked confused and worried. But most tellingly, she was gazing at me intently, like she was looking at something important.

Suddenly, my mistake hit me. There was absolutely no way that apathetic blue pony would have been able to revive herself as I had. It took me years to gather enough power to do so. Years of exerting myself daily, giving it my all to slowly increase my magic and my reach. I didn’t even know for sure if it was possible to do it, or if my method would even work. Most days I wondered what the point of trying was, if it would be better to just give up. It certainly would have been easier. Only my determination kept me going.

So again, there was absolutely no way the lazy featherbrain would be able to do what I did. Which meant that this could only be the real Rainbow Dash — that was her name.

The thing inside of my chest was beating rapidly again. So fast it felt like it wanted to burst out of me. Despite all of my determination, it wasn’t worth it after all. There was nothing I could do against a pony as powerful as Rainbow Dash, who could defeat armies almost single-hoofedly. I had no magic, no surprise attack, and no gross slimy animal to turn her to stone with. Plus, those other two ponies had caught up with her and were standing beside her, facing off against me. No doubt they would assist her if I tried to fight. I was defenceless, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was impossible to do the impossible.

I closed my eyes and waited.

"Twilight?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Oh, had Twilight broken free of the stone already? Well, at least she could have her revenge against me personally.

I felt the slight breeze caused by Rainbow Dash’s wings die down as I heard her land on her hooves.

"Twilight? Are you okay?"

I gathered the courage to open my eyes. At least I’d be able to see Twilight blast me. I craned my head to the left to look behind me. But there was no Twilight. I turned my head to the right. But there was no Twilight there either.

"Princess Twilight?" a voice that wasn’t Rainbow Dash’s said. I turned my head to look at the wingless white pony who spoke.

"Do you require medical attention?" he said.

What?

I looked down at my chest. My eyes widened in realization.

Did they seriously think I was Twilight?

I looked back up at the group in front of me. All of them were staring at me, waiting for me to respond. It was hard to believe this was really happening. I had just given up, but suddenly I actually had a chance to make it out of here alive due to these ponies’ pure stupidity.

I blinked a couple of times and then let a bunch of air flow out through my nose. That helped me abate my panic a little. I’d better respond to these three idiots quickly, before their brains started working. I gathered my courage as I sucked some air back in. It was important to project my voice confidently and articulately.

"No," I stated firmly. "I don’t need any help. I’m not injured."

Rainbow Dash’s eyes moved as she scanned my body. I hoped she was only looking for injuries and hadn’t noticed anything suspicious.

Abruptly, Rainbow lunged forward and rubbed her nose against my cheek. I recoiled as soon as I registered what was happening, moving back a couple of steps. I stared at Rainbow warily. What was that? Some kind of strange show of dominance?

Rainbow Dash was looking at me with a confused frown on her face. "Are you sure you’re not injured?" she asked.

"I’m not," I reiterated.

I was lucky that wasn’t a harmful attack just now. I was way too slow to react. I would have to keep my guard up and be ready to react quickly the next time one of these ponies made a sudden move.

"What happened to you during the fight?" Rainbow Dash asked. "We didn’t see where you went. We thought you got swallowed by the wurm thing."

Was Twilight’s group fighting some creature? I thought I felt the presence of a large animal nearby, and I did hear sounds of a struggle while I was in my hiding spot, but I was in no position to see what was happening. It would make sense if Rainbow and the other two were distracted by something, since they didn’t come and help Twilight when she fell. In response to Rainbow Dash’s question, though, I guessed there was no harm in saying what actually happened to Twilight here.

"I crashed down a steep hill. It took me a while to get back on my hooves and make my way back up here," I said.

Rainbow Dash tilted her head. "How did you go from getting eaten by that monster to falling down a hill?"

How? She was right, that made no sense.

If I still had my magic and was about to get eaten by a creature, I would have teleported away. But I had no idea if that was what actually happened. Still, Rainbow’s gaze was getting to me, so I just blurted it out.

"I teleported, and then I fell," I said.

Rainbow practically deflated as she sighed with relief. "Oh, good. I was really worried about you when I saw that thing take a chomp at you, you know."

Seeing Rainbow Dash relax like that triggered my own body into relaxing as well. All that tension I had been holding on to since spotting these ponies suddenly melted out of me, and I let my shoulders sag. The beating thing in my chest had also slowed way down by now, no longer making me feel like I had to get away from this situation at all costs.

Of course, just because I had relaxed didn’t mean it was time to be stupid. I still had to be careful, but it seemed like I wasn’t in any imminent danger of being killed. Rainbow Dash and the two shiny idiots truly thought I was Twilight Sparkle. As long as I didn’t give them a reason to believe otherwise, I would not be harmed.

Now that I could think more clearly without my mind being blinded by panic, I had to admit the case of mistaken identity made sense from their point of view. I looked exactly the same as Twilight, since Chrysalis created me to be a copy. I had emerged from the exact same place Twilight had disappeared to during the chaos of the group’s alleged fight. There were no overt indications that I wasn’t the same being as Twilight.

The question now was: what should I do next? Should I go along with this charade, or try to quietly slip away?

Before I could consider my options, I was interrupted by Rainbow Dash hopping up into a hover. As she looked at me, the corners of her mouth turned upward. She pointed at herself with one of her forehooves. "We’re fine too, by the way. We totally showed that thing who’s boss, and then it ran away like a total loser."

I nodded. "Uh huh. So what do we do now?"

I figured it was fine to go with the flow for now. I could figure the big picture out later, when I had more time to think. But I had no idea what Twilight and her group were doing here, so I’d let Rainbow Dash take the lead. That way they wouldn’t suspect me if I suggested we do something contrary to their goals.

Rainbow sighed. "You already know what I think, but I know you don’t agree. We should rest until morning before we continue on."

Interesting. Did Twilight and Rainbow Dash have an argument? Maybe the group’s bonds were weaker than Chrysalis led me to believe. If it was possible to exploit those cracks, I should factor that into my decision on whether I should stay or leave.

But more importantly, where were Rainbow and Twilight going? How could I ask without exposing myself?

Rainbow flapped her wings harder and flew higher into the air. Then she rotated around as she hovered in place, seemingly searching the ground in the clearing thoroughly.

When she was done, she came back down to hover at my eye level and let out a huff. "Never mind. I can’t find the tents. They must’ve got lost during the fight somewhere, and it’s too dark to have any hope of searching around and finding them. We have no choice but to head for the castle now."

Castle? I only knew of one castle in this forest. The mere thought of it sent an involuntary shiver through my body.

"The… Castle of the Two Sisters?"

I tried to make my question sound more like a statement, but I guessed that didn’t work very well since Rainbow Dash still raised her eyebrow.

"Yeah?"

Well, the good part was that I knew where Rainbow wanted to go without having to think of some roundabout way to ask the question. The bad part was that it was the last place I ever wanted to return to.

I swallowed. If that was this group’s objective, then there was no way to avoid going to that castle if I wanted to keep acting like Twilight, was there? Unless I decided right here and now to give them the slip. But I hadn’t considered the benefits and drawbacks of this situation in depth yet, and I didn’t want to make a hasty decision. Once I left, there was no coming back. On the other hoof, if I stuck around, I could still decide either way whenever I wanted.

All I had to do was make sure not to go near that evil Tree, and everything would be fine.

I straightened my legs and back, standing with confidence. "Right. Let’s go."

I turned around and began to walk in the direction of the castle. If I recalled correctly, it wasn’t too far from here.

After taking a few steps, Rainbow called out from behind me. "Uh, Twi?"

I stopped and turned my head to look behind me. Rainbow and the two white ponies hadn’t moved.

Rainbow pointed with a hoof in the direction opposite of the one I was heading in. "The flares were that way."

Flares? What were those? I had no idea what she was talking about. In any case, they were irrelevant.

"The castle’s this way," I replied, pointing my own forehoof forward.

"That’s the way we came from, Twilight," Rainbow said.

I shrugged. This was a truly pointless argument, and I was already feeling done with it. The thing was, I didn’t know how the power dynamic worked within this group. Was Twilight Sparkle ranked lower or higher than Rainbow Dash? Regardless, my patience was wearing thin, and I couldn’t help but let my frustration show through.

"Are you coming or not?" I snapped, before facing forward and storming off.

I gained a bit of distance before I heard the sounds of three sets of hooves quickly following after me. I gently released some air out of my nose in relief. I was glad I didn’t lose my tenuous position here because of some absolute nonsense. Plus, it was good to know that I could be a little assertive while pretending to be Twilight and the group would still follow me.

Rainbow Dash settled into a hover just to the right of me. She was looking at me like she wanted to say more, but when I looked at her in return, she simply turned her head forward and began looking at the trees.

I was baffled. Why had she even contradicted me in the first place? She said we were meant to head for the castle, so I was taking us there despite how much I didn’t want to. What was the issue?

Whatever. I had no desire to worry about the thoughts of idiots.

As I walked, I noticed the pain in my forehooves had faded to a dull ache instead of an awful throb. It appeared that we spent long enough standing around and talking that they had some time to rest. That was good. Pain was annoying, and was certainly one of things I disliked the most so far about having a body again.

Though I wouldn’t say it was all bad. Other sensations were… interesting. Like, for example, the ground underneath my hooves. I focused my awareness on the bottoms of my hooves while I walked, aiming to feel the texture of the dirt as much as possible. I noticed earlier that the sensitivity of my hooves increased a lot when I concentrated on them like this. Weird.

But back to the dirt. It felt packed down, but soft, with a slight give to it when I put my weight on it. What made dirt feel this way? And why? What even was dirt, apart from brown stuff on the floor? Why was it brown? Why was it on the floor? It was fascinating.

"You’re not going to use your light?"

Rainbow’s voice broke me out of my reverie. I looked up at her, confused.

I took a few moments to think. What light could she be referring to? I played back my memories of my encounter with Twilight before I suddenly got it.

The bright light through the trees that prompted me to find a hiding spot when I saw it. Was that Twilight’s doing? If so, she was an undeniable fool. That light made her position visible from very far away. If she hadn’t used it, she might’ve been able to get the drop on me. Not to mention that the animals in the forest would be attracted to something like that. No wonder the group got into a fight.

I wouldn’t be repeating her mistake.

"No, I decided we should stay hidden. A light like that will announce our position to everything in this forest," I said.

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth as if to say something. Then she rolled her eyes and huffed before looking away from me.

I had no idea what her problem was this time, but at least she didn’t start with another senseless argument. Wonderful.

I turned to the left after passing a tree to keep us on the correct pathway toward the castle. Rainbow and the other two ponies seemed caught off guard by my sudden turn, and they scurried to catch up to me.

"Where are we going now?" Rainbow asked exasperatedly.

Wow. This winged pony sure was noisy. It almost made me wish the apathetic Rainbow Dash were here instead. As much as I hated her attitude, at least she didn’t engage in all this yapping.

"The castle," I said, never breaking my stride.

"I thought the castle was that way." Rainbow pointed in the direction we were walking a moment ago.

"And now it’s this way."

Rainbow groaned. "Twilight, you’re not making any sense. You’re not even using your map. How do you know it’s this way?"

A confusing thought came to mind. Did Rainbow not understand how the forest worked? Why would these ponies enter the forest if they didn’t know how to navigate it?

Granted, it wasn’t like this when I was first created. Something obviously changed during the time my body was destroyed. Did they think the forest worked the same way it did back then?

Should I even bother to explain it? I supposed I couldn’t get away with just blowing Rainbow off, as much as I wanted to. Twilight Sparkle would probably share information with her allies, and if I didn’t, Rainbow would start to get suspicious of me.

I cleared my throat. Explaining the gist of it ought to be good enough.

"The forest is full of magic that messes up places and time," I started. "At one moment, a place will be in a certain location in the forest. At the next moment, the place can move to another location. Or it can stay where it is. As far as I can tell, it’s pretty random whether or not a place will move, and how long it will stay where it is. It’s also impossible to predict when it will happen, or where it will end up.

"Similarly, there are areas where time will go faster than normal, and areas where time will go slower. The speed increase or decrease isn’t very substantial. You won’t go years into the future by spending a day in one of these areas. At most, a day will perhaps be a day and a half. The magic that makes these areas can also move around, independently of the magic that moves places.

"Now, on to the topic of navigation, which is what I’m sure you actually care about. If you want to go to a specific place in the forest, you can’t just walk toward it in a straight line. If you do, either it will move away before you’re able to reach it, or the place you’re passing through will move while you’re standing on it, taking you to a random location. You’ll just walk around aimlessly forever.

"Instead, you need to feel the magic of the forest around you. If you pay attention, you’ll be able to feel what I call ‘pathways.’ These pathways are magical links between all the places in the forest, and are disconnected from physical reality. This means that even if your destination moves, or the place you’re standing on moves, it won’t matter. You’re taking a magical route, not a physical route, so you can always get to your destination no matter what. Does that make sense to you?"

Luckily, my ability to feel the magic of the forest was not hampered by my inability to cast magic with my horn. I didn’t know what I would do if I was forced to be as clueless as these ponies.

Speaking of clueless ponies, the three of them were staring at me with bewildered expressions.

"Wow," Rainbow Dash said eventually. "I wasn’t expecting a sudden Twilight Lecture. When did you figure all that out?"

I made a turn to the left again as I searched for an answer. We were just about at the castle.

"Er… when I fell. It all suddenly came to me." A terrible answer, I knew, but I couldn’t think of anything more plausible quickly. I just hoped they were too dazed by my lecture to question it.

"That makes sense. I’ve had something similar happen to me before too," Rainbow Dash said. "And you don’t need your map to find these ‘pathways?’"

I wanted to laugh at how easily Rainbow bought my flimsy explanation. I managed to keep my mirth off my face, though.

But what was a map? I had no idea. I’d just dismiss it.

"No, that’s useless," I said.

Rainbow tilted her head. "You just gave up on it after spending so much time working on it?"

"Yes," I said. "There’s no point in keeping useless things."

Rainbow Dash paused before replying. "If you say so, Twilight."

This was obviously not the answer Rainbow was expecting Twilight to give, but it couldn’t be helped. I simply didn’t have enough information about Twilight Sparkle to act convincingly in these situations.

Before I could try to figure out what the correct answer might have been, we emerged into an open area.

A short green field extended out from the tree line, but was cut short by a broad canyon carving through the land. The field resumed on the other side of the chasm, but was once again quickly interrupted by a solid wooden wall made out of large logs. Sticks that had fire set to their tips were placed at regular intervals along the top of the wall, lighting the whole area up in a dim orange glow.

I could see the tops of the crumbling and half-destroyed spires of the Castle of the Two Sisters sticking up behind the wall. In addition to the castle, I also saw the darkened grey forms of the heads of a couple ponies standing behind the wall’s parapet. It seemed that these ponies were wearing the same shiny things that the two white ponies traveling with me were wearing, because I could easily see the orange light from the sticks reflecting from the shiny surfaces on their heads.

I was unsure of what was happening here with all this. It looked like the ponies were fortifying this place, but why would they build a wall around that old trashed castle so quickly? They certainly weren’t here when I was last in this area a few days ago.

More importantly, were these ponies supposed to be Rainbow Dash’s allies? I turned my head to question her, only to catch her alighting on the ground with a loud huff.

"Finally!" Rainbow exclaimed. "We actually made it back to camp tonight! I was sure we were going to have to keep wandering around the whole night. I seriously wasn’t looking forward to not getting any sleep and feeling even more totally exhausted."

She looked at me, and after a moment’s pause she flashed me a smirk.

"You know, I feel kinda bad saying this, but I was actually starting to doubt your abilities a little back there."

Rainbow averted her eyes as she brought a forehoof up to scratch at the back of her head. But the next moment her eyes snapped back to mine.

"But you pulled through and got us here safe and sound with that whole ‘magic pathway’ mumbo jumbo." She grinned widely, and one of her forehooves shot out to hit me on my shoulder before I could even think to dodge it. "Great work, Twilight!"

Earlier she lunged at me with her nose, and now with her hoof? A rush of indignation and anger washed over me at her second random attack against me.

"Halt!"

Any thought of action against Rainbow Dash was interrupted by a sudden harsh voice from the direction of the wooden wall. I looked toward it, and I saw quite a few more ponies standing behind the parapet. Every single one of them was wielding a dangerous-looking crossbow and they were all pointed right at us.

"We know you’re there!" one of the ponies on the wall shouted. "Identify yourselves!"

I swallowed. What did the stupid featherbrain lead me into?

Author's Note

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