Twilight's Legendary Quest for Vodka

A lavender unicorn sat alone in her study, deeply immersed in the wonderfully fascinating world of whatever it was she was doing at the time. It certainly wasn’t going to get her anywhere in life. Nopony would ever have a use for something like that. It didn’t really matter anyway, because a small purple lizard barreled through the door, almost shattering its hinges, leaving (dis)organized magical study documents scattered in his wake and vomiting a small scroll with a ribbon attached.

“Twilight, come quick! Something's happening!” He left, excited, or terrified, the same way he came, apparently not noticing the letter he involuntarily threw up. Twilight opened up the letter with her magic, examining it.

"Hey. I'm stuck. Come up to Canterlot. Bring somepony tough because these overpowering thugs are really annoying." The letters were written scrappily and lazily. The loops were wide and badly-drawn. Yep, definitely Celestia.

“Huh?” Twilight asked, completely forgetting that thing which she was doing before. She exited her library, only stopping to let escape a primal vocalisation of her anger at not being able to remember what she was just doing. Having her thoughts torn apart and re-digested to the point when she no longer believed she was even thinking, she collapsed, unable to comprehend how somepony as smart as her could possibly forget something she was just doing. She chalked it up to Spike distracting her.

* * *

“Come on, Twilight! Before it's too late!” Spike shouted, in what he thought was Twilight’s general direction, from the center of town. It was irrelevant, as he was holding a microphone to his reptilian lips at the time.

“What do you want?” Twilight inquired as she approached Spike.

“Just… just l-look up.” Spike trembled in his place, not daring to look at whatever it was toward which he was indicating.

Subconsciously, she did as she was directed. She felt her stomach drop at the sight of the massive hunk of blazing, porous stone hurtling toward her at, seemingly, the speed of sound. It was huge! From that speed and apparent size, it must have been hundreds of miles wide. It was also quite far away, still. Yep, I'm still the smart one. She felt herself let go of a breath she had not consciously realised she had been holding. Trotting over to Spike, she conveyed an important message.

“Spike, I want you to go and send Applejack to me. Be quick. Don't mess up. This is really important. Don't ask any questions, because I probably won't be able to answer them.”

“Yes, Twilight Sparkle... ma'am?” Spike affirmed vehemently, raising his purple claw to salute valiantly. He spun around to bear on the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. "I'll be right back!" He shot off at, probably, one of his best running speeds yet. Twilight had never seen him move so quickly. “I can’t disappoint Twilight! I just can’t!” Spike shouted at himself, fearing for his life or anything else that may be at stake if he would somehow screw this up.

Several minutes later, arriving at the door of the house at Sweet Apple Acres, he knocked. The door opened and a familiar face answered. Applejack. "Howdy, Spike! What're you here for?"

"Twilight sent me to come get you. She told me I couldn't mess up."

"Huh. That sounds really important."

"That's exactly what Twilight said! She even used italics! Come on, she said to be quick!"

"All right, all right!" Applejack stepped through the front door, closing it behind her. As the dragon started running back, she decided it would be best for both of them if she was close behind him, so she pushed hard off the ground and galloped up beside him.

"So, Spike. You say she said this is really important? What's it about?"

"I don't know," he replied honestly.

"Oh, righty then. Did she say anythin' at all?"

"She told me not to ask, so I didn't."

"Hm. I hope it's not bad. That seems to happen a lot in this country." Applejack had a distinct look of concern on her face.

"I know, right? But yeah, I think it is. There's a giant meteor coming straight at us. Look up there." Spike pointed a claw in the direction of the meteor, or asteroid, as Twilight had called it, and the orange farm pony did so.

"Oh, boy. Ain't this excitin'. Ah! There she is, Spike!" Twilight was standing in the exact same position, staring into the huge rock, as if trying to figure out exactly what was going on. As Applejack approached Twilight, she asked, "What's goin' on, Twi?"

"Hmmm... HMMMM... *HHRRRRRRMMMMMM...***"

"Um... Twi?"

"Nope. I've got nothing. All I know is we need to get moving and go to Canterlot. Now. Just you and me. And Spike."

"Why me?"

"You'll see when we get there. Celestia said she needs somepony physically strong. Someone's in the palace."

"Uh oh! We'd better get movin', lickety-split!"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I just said," Twilight reminded Applejack as she noticed a train arriving at the station only twenty metres away. What a strange place to have a train station, she thought. "Looks like the train is just on time." Applejack nodded. She and Spike followed Twilight to the oddly convenient station.

* * *

"I really hope the princess isn't in trouble. What if she's not there when we get there?"

"Don't worry, AJ, she can handle herself just fine."

"But... what if she's..."

"No. Don't think that way."

"But—"

"Stop it, AJ! She'll be fine. Trust me. Who is Celestia's number one student here?"

"Yeah... I'm just... worried is all."

"That's fine, but don't let it ruin your mood. We're almost there, anyway." Twilight was looking out of the train's window as they arrived at Canterlot Station. The streets were completely deserted. "Huh... that's weird."

"I know!" Spike interjected. "There are usually ponies everywhere! What's going on, Twilight?" He was panicking.

"SPIKE!" Twilight slapped him across the face with a hoof, trying to stop his streak of panic. "Calm down, Spike!"

"Wh-what? OH! Right, yeah, I should probably... calm down..." He visibly settled and his speech smoothed. "Thanks, Twi."

"I'm always here for you, Spike." She nuzzled him, bringing a smile to his face, but they were running out of time. "The train stopped, let's get to the palace as quick as we can!"

The trio left the vehicle in a hurry to get to the palace. A window on a building near the station, Joe's donut shop, had been smashed. "We'd better hurry," Twilight urged. They quickened their pace slightly and noticed some more damaged properties, which only made them run faster. The image of the legendary palace began to come into sight over a cobblestone bridge. It seemed to have some light stains which weren't there the last time Twilight had crossed it. A flash of red was visible to the side for a split-second, then whatever — or whoever— was there, was suddenly gone.

They finally reached the large front door of the palace, immediately noticing some words written on it in bold black paint. "T-O-O-S-L-O-W. Too slow? What in the hay does that mean?" Forgetting it, Applejack bucked open the door with all her might and allowed the three access to the, slightly less majestic than usual, building. "Twilight, something's wrong. I can feel it."

"I know, me too. Spike and Applejack, you had better stay back. There might be something terrible in the next room." They quietly approached the door to Celestia's grand hall. One step at a time. "Stop." Spike and Applejack immediately ceased movement.

"Twilight, are you sure that's—" Applejack started.

Twilight was already right in front of a crack between the great doors. She concentrated on the handles, her horn glowed brightly and the doors were enveloped in her magic, throwing them apart with such force that they almost cracked the walls holding them.

"Stop right there! What—" The room was empty. No monsters. No Celestia. Something was wrong.

Applejack leapt around the corner to look. "Oh no! She's gone! What are we gonna do now!"

"I... I don't know. Wait. A note!" Twilight noticed a small piece of parchment guarding the throne of the Sun Princess. She teleported over to examine it and began to read.

"Twilight, why are you taking so long? I'm trying to write while these thugs are restraining me. They've disabled my horn. I don't know why they're doing this, but you'll probably need to get to the Elements of—" The rest of the message had been torn off. It looked like someone — or something — had done it on purpose.

"Oh no... the princess is gone! We have to find the Elements of Harmony!"

"Dagnabbit! This? Again?! Okay, fine. Where do we start now?"

"We start at Canterlot Tower. That's where the Elements are."

"Well, that would have been only a few seconds' walk, but since we took twenty seconds to talk, we must have subconsciously made our way there anyway," Applejack stated as the other two realised she was correct, and they were currently standing right next to the door, which was wide open, that connected the main room to the shelf which contained the Elements of Harmony. Of course, the Elements were gone. Applejack sighed.

"Come on! Get close to me. We're going back to Ponyville," Twilight ordered. Spike and Applejack did exactly as she asked and closed their eyes.

* * *

In a flash of blinding violet light, the group found themselves laying on the muddy ground outside the mighty Everfree. Spike was completely covered in mud and leaves by the time they were all standing. "Awwww. I hate mud."

"Whoa, Twi. Cuttin' it a bit close there, don't ya think?" Applejack asked, and despite the question's rhetorical nature, Twilight responded directly.

"Yeah, I guess. What the..."

"What?"

"Look." She pointed a hoof at the town of Ponyville, above which a massive, metal cube was hovering. She noticed that the asteroid was no longer there.

"What is it?"

"Do I look like I have a clue, Applejack? But seriously, we need to find out what's going on here." Twilight started towards the town, her two team members following closely behind her. On the outskirts of the town, ponies were slamming doors and closing their curtains, hiding from the and the cube. A minty green mare outside seemed to be relatively calm, as if accepting that they were all going to die horribly, somehow. Twilight took the chance to ask what was happening.

"Hi, Lyra. What, exactly, is going on here?"

"I don't know. After we saw that big rock, something weird started happening. This cube kinda just showed up out of nowhere," she responded. Twilight continued toward the cube.

In the center of town, ponies were collapsing and staring in horror at the ominous cube above their doomed village, with a little bit of confusion. Spike arrived, screaming at the thing to go away. He knew it was of no use, but it was all he could do not to lose his sanity. If he didn't, fear would take hold and he wouldn't be able to help Twilight with whatever important mission she had planned.

Soon after, the massive steel cube shifted slightly, then slammed into the beloved statue of Princess Celestia in the center of town, almost in slow motion. First, snapping the stone in the neck, then cracking the four legs. The cube didn't slow, pulverizing the statue and sending a shockwave of air and crushed rock into the faces of everypony within a couple of dozen metres.

The citizens of Ponyville stared at the giant cube for what almost felt like centuries, while nothing happened. Then, something was different. Strange symbols began to glow on all five visible faces of the cube. A loud shrieking sound cut through the intense silence, causing some ponies to collapse and clutch their temples with their hooves, screaming. A strange, orange, glowing wind seemed to flow out of the symbols, appearing to gravitate toward the nearest ponies in the vicinity. The glow intensified. A tall, shadowy figure seemed to block out some of the light of the cube.

“I’M BAAAAAAACK!”

What? Was that letter just a distraction?

“Who are you and what are you doing here?!” Twilight shouted. The dark figure shifted slightly, letting out an echoing laugh.

“You mean you don’t recognize me? Oh, how foolish of me it was to assume that you would, with your clearly limited intelligence.” he replied. Twilight growled in return. He simply moved through the air, as if flowing with it. Stopping on the top of the ancient cube, he allowed it to begin to form cracks, which started spewing out rainbow coloured goo and fireworks all over the ponies, turning them into toasters. Giant flowers with big teeth grew from the tops of all of the little houses in the area. The glowing symbols disappeared in a white flash to reveal the draconequus standing atop it. “How about now?”

Twilight simply gaped, then shouted back: “How... how did you get back?!”

“Oh, my little pony. Isn’t it obvious?” Discord asked. There was a simple silence for a few moments until Discord finally broke it. “Well? Are you stumped or what?”

"I... don't know. I don't... we imprisoned you!"

“Well, now! I can see you're confused, but I don't care. Let’s get right to it.” Discord interjected. “I’m going to wreak chaos, and you’re going to deal with it.”

"No, because I know where the Elements of Harmony are!"

"Oh, the Elements of Harmony. You mean these little toys?" Discord held up a large history book which had been commonly assumed to be fiction. Inside it, were all 6 Elements. Twilight gasped. "I learned my own lesson from last time. Don't put them all in one place."

“Oh yeah? Well I can still get rid of you! This time, my spell's going to work!” Twilight countered.

Discord yawned. “I can see you’re quite confident, but that’s exactly what you said last time. Go ahead. Do your worst.”

Twilight simply nodded, scrunching up her eyelids in concentration. Her horn started glowing, sparks flying off it. She let out a fierce war cry and a massive explosion of rainbow light radiated outwards from her horn, bathing Ponyville in it. Discord screamed in pain until his physical form just shattered. Tiny sparkling fragments of his former body were pulled away in a light breeze.

Twilight had won.

A smile slowly grew on her face as she realised her magic could rival the Elements of Harmony. "Haha! YES! I really thought that wouldn't work!"

"Whoa, nice one, Twilight!" Spike cheered.

"Yee-haw! Not bad at all, Twilight!"

"OH, *WHAHAHAHA!* This is rich. I'm going to put this on the internet right now." Discord reappeared in another flash, looking smug. He conjured a laptop out of thin air, seemingly of Sony branding. He hit a bunch of keys, hit enter and then clapped the laptop into nothing with his hands.

"The... what? It didn't work? But I fixed what was wrong with the first fail-safe spell! Why didn't it work?" Twilight asked in desperation. "This isn't fair!"

"Life is unfair. You should get used to it." Discord yawned.

"Shut up! You shouldn't even be here! What's going on?!" Twilight snapped. "So, Discord. How are we supposed to beat you this time?" she asked directly.

"Well, I thought I'd mess with you a bit more, this time," Discord replied nonchalantly. "Hmm... how about... right! Now, listen closely or you won't get your precious little town back from all this delicious chaos. Again. A brew from the bloom of Solanum tuberosum. Shall you not have it, you can forget it."

"You and your stupid riddles..."

"Work it out before day's end and you will keep your memory of the puzzle. You know what that means," Discord warned. "MuahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA*HAHAHAAAAAA!*" he echoed, vanishing to leave Twilight to her impossible challenge.

"Come on, guys. Let's go home."

* * *

Twilight and her entourage had arrived back at a giant tree with lots of books in it. It was probably where she lived. "Now, you two! Look through my collection and see if you can find a book on potatoes," Twilight commanded, scaring the dragon and the orange pony into working. They weren't at it long, about twenty-five seconds by Twilight's count, before she stopped them. "Stop! I think I found the book right here," she notified, examining the cover of the tome. "The Elements of Potato: A Reference Guide. It was under 'P'. You think I wouldn't learn to pay attention from the last time?"

"Eeyup! That sounds like the right one, Twilight! Let's take a look at it right now!" Applejack snorted. The entire group seemed to know the scientific name of potatoes off by heart. How odd.

"Good," Twilight said, turning back to the large, encyclopedic book in front of her. She turned to the contents page with her telekinesis. "Now... let's see... brews, page 1482. Wow, that's only at 'B'. How many pages does this thing have?" She turned to the last page, looking closely at the bottom-left corner. "Wow, I've never seen that number before. Well, on to business! Page 1482... yes. Brews. Potato beer... eh, never heard of it. Vodka. Vodka! That's it! What normal pony hasn't heard of vodka?!" Twilight exclaimed, looking quite pleased with herself. "Oh. There are seven Elements of Potato. Only six are known. Vadko, Vokda, Ovkda, Dokva, Odkav and Akdov. The seventh is a complete mystery. It is said that the last known location of the Elements was in Sweet Apple Acres, in a metal box under Applejack's house. Huh. That's weird. Why would the book say that?"

"Let's just get this over with." Applejack accepted, knowing she had no choice. Twilight was going to tear her house apart.

"You realise I'm going to have to tear your house apart, don't you, AJ?"

"I guess so. Just hurry up."

"Then, let us begin our quest for Vodka!" Twilight cheered, the grin quickly slipping off her face when she saw Applejack's rage-contorted muzzle.

"Why, you—"

* * *

"Applejack, we're here. You might want to block your ears." Twilight warned. "You wouldn't want to hear this, would you? Your entire living space being destroyed without any hope of defense?"

"Well, now that you put it that way... NOPE!" Applejack replied, forcing her eyes shut and shoving her hooves over her ears as if her life depended on it. "I'm just... f-f-fine like this."

"All right, then." Twilight looked at the massive building centering the farm, eager to get started. She began by focusing her attention on the large, wooden posts supporting the outer corners of the monolithic structure. "Right... right... break the bonds, weaken the whole."

"Uhhh... how long is this going to take? All this waiting is kinda freakin' me out," Applejack interjected.

Twilight didn't notice Applejack's question, and had rendered the giant plywood polyhedron susceptible to immediate obliteration via tapping it with a hoof. Yes, it was made of plywood. "All right... now for the roof." Her horn flared, sending a wave of violet energy toward the roof of the precious space, lacerating its roof and allowing all of the dirt and bird droppings on top to begin sliding on through the cracks.

"Can you please just do it already?!" Applejack pleaded.

"Of course. Just first, I have to get rid of this giant door on the end."

"Giant... door?" Applejack's eyes shot open, allowing her to witness the massive gate of the barn being cracked and crushed. A multicoloured blur shot down from the sky, impacting the ground beside Twilight and sending a large plume of dust into the air.

"Hey! Aww, come on! I spent hours rebuilding that! What are you doing?!" Rainbow Dash claimed in a slightly-higher-than-normal pitched voice.

"Nearly done..." The barn exploded in purple. Shards of glowing wood shot out from the source of the explosion, showing the ponies with splinters. Luckily, they had thick skin.

Applejack bristled. "Twilight, you just destroyed the BARN!" Twilight had, indeed, just destroyed the barn.

Twilight's face was graced by a look of abject shock as she realised she had just destroyed the wrong building. "You... I thought..."

"No! That was completely unnecessary!"

"Well, the treasure is still under your house. Oh no... I'm sorry, AJ," Twilight stated, leaving her friend to gape in shock.

"Get on with it, you incompetent moron!"

"Um... yeah. Now that I think about it, does your house have a cellar?"

"Uh, yeah! Oh my... wait... you didn't even need to destroy the house?! Why, of all the—"

"I'm so sorry! Sorry, Applejack! Let's just... go to the cellar!"

"Fine," Applejack said simply, radiating an air of hostility. "Granny, Apple Bloom and Big Mac are gonna be mad at me for lettin' you do this!"

"Well, I'll vouch for you," Twilight assured as she swung open the door of the cellar in the ground.

Inside, shiny, black, square surface was embedded in the wall. Twilight went over to investigate. "Hmm... let's see. What happens if I push down on it?" she asked, pressing on the highlighted section. It clicked and popped open, revealing a small scroll. "Aha!"

"Huh, that's weird. We never noticed that thing before. Assumed it was nothin'."

Rainbow Dash piped up. "Hey, is that a map? Gimme that, I'm really good with those things; I'm a pegasus, you know?"

"Hey, wait, Twi! Didn't you say the last known location of the Elements was right here?" Applejack questioned.

"Elements? You mean, like, Elements of Harmony? Aren't those in your house? I can—" Rainbow was cut off by Twilight.

"Not this time, Dash. We're looking for the Elements of Potato. A set of mysterious bottles of alcoholic beverages passed down through the ages. I told AJ and Spike here already: Six are known, one is not. Oh look, the image on the map is moving!" Twilight said, staring the the strange map. "It's saying to go to Discord. And AJ? I said: the last known location was here, not the Elements."

* * *

"You say you want me to magicize all up on this little paper here? Fine. You solved the puzzle. You'll soon find it's nothing compared to what you will have to face in the coming days. Or weeks. Or months. Or years... You know what? We'll see if you even last one day." He snapped his lion-paw fingers, making the map glow brightly for a few seconds. "There. I did what you wanted, now leave me alone."

"Let's move!" Twilight yelled at her companions.

"Definitely! I hate Discord just as much as the next pony!" Rainbow Dash asserted, coming down from her little cloud to give a salute with her hoof.

"Oh, wait! You may want to know one more thing about that map there. You will have to come back to me every time you find an Element. You see, they are all linked, and can only be found in order, and require my super-duper awesome magic to show you, on the map, the location of the next."

"Right. Let's go find those Elements!" shouted Twilight.

"Yeah! We'll all need supplies for the trip though!" said Dash, receiving a 'and?' look from Twilight.

"But she destroyed all my stuff!"

"Rainbow, you go and get what you need. We'll meet back here in an hour. I'll let you use my stuff, AJ."

* * *

Exactly one hour later, the three ponies and one dragon arrived back at the center of town, after having collected supplies. Twilight now had a grappling hook, a large book and three healing potions. Rainbow had arrived with a box of chocolate and four power drills.

"Why are you looking at me like that? You never know when you might need four power drills!"

"Okaaaay. Well, now. Where does the map say we need to go?" Twilight looked at the map for a while, taking in every detail. "Hoofington Castle? All right. That's a fair way away. We're going to need water," she said, just as a elderly green earth pony stallion strolled past, pulling a giant cart full of bottles of water. She sidled over to him and winked. The pony turned his head, nodded, and... continued walking. "Drat! I guess we'll have to pay." 25 bottles cost 50 bits. Twilight had 50 left.

And so, the group began their trek across the Equestrian Desert, heading straight for Hoofington.

Author's Note: This chapter was almost completely rewritten. It no longer has all of that ridiculous terrible crap. If that's what you were here for, it's gone now. Sorry.

-bjshnog