….Pinkie landed in the throne room of Princess Celestia, where said princess was taking a sip of tea.

Celestia had to spit-take when she saw Pinkie appear out of thin air. “Pinkie?! How… how did you get here so fast?! I teleported the letter to you not even two minutes ago!”

“Jumped over the break in the chapters.” Pinkie said, breathing heavily.

“You… what?!”

“Look, I’ll explain later! Right now, tell me more about what you mean that Twilight’s missing!”

The princess could tell that Pinkie would not tell her anything else right now, so she shook her head and got off her throne. “Walk with me.” Celestia said as she briskly passed Pinkie. Pinkie bounced after her. “Or bounce with me… whatever works.” Celestia added.

“Where are we going?” Pinkie chirped.

“Someplace where we won’t be overheard.” Celestia said quietly, nodding subtly at the guards all over the edges of the throne room.

A few minutes later, Celestia and Pinkie walked/bounced into the Princess’ private quarters. Pinkie had never been in here before; there was a large rug with a sun on it, and fireplace similar to twilight’s in the corner. There were also couches on either side, and a large office desk along one wall with a filing cabinet.

Celestia went over to the filing cabinet. There, she used her magic to levitate out a slim manila file, the contents of which she spread across her desk. Pinkie went to take a look. The first thing she saw was a picture of Twilight in the canterlot train station.

“Two weeks ago,” Celestia said, “Twilight went over to the city of Manehattan, on royal business. Business seminars, conventions, and the like.

“Then, a few days later, Twilight was on her way to a conference in the city. She’d taken the opportunity to practice with her wings; she hasn’t gotten too skilled with them yet.

“To be quite frank, we don’t know that much about what happened next, primarily because Twilight had no escorts, despite our sincere warnings. All we know is, she took off from in front of the hotel to fly to the meeting a half mile away, on the other side of Manehattan island.” Celestia was silent for a few moments.

“…annndddd?” Pinkie prompted her to continue.

“And nothing. Twilight never arrived at the conference. The last time she was seen was when she was flying away from the hotel. She couldn’t have gotten lost; she could have just cast a simple location spell, or even ask ponies on the street if need be.”

“So throw up a search party! Comb the city for her!” Pinkie cried.

“We are currently doing just that. We’ve been doing that for over a week now.  We’ve managed to roughly triangulate the area where she disappeared via eyewitness accounts-“

“Whoa whoa back up a second. DISAPPEARED? Are you sure she didn’t just get kidnapped or something?”

“For starters, I doubt anyone could kidnap Twilight without at very least obtaining serious injury. She isn’t exactly helpless. Furthermore, multiple smog-clearing weatherponies specifically saw her quite literally disappear in midair. One second she was flying, then there was a burst of energy of some kind, then she was gone.”

“Burst of energy? You mean like magic? Did she just teleport?”

“Yes and no. Twilight’s magical energy is a pinkish-purple, while this burst of energy was apparently black. It certainly wasn’t Twilight’s magic, and it almost didn’t look like…” Celestia stopped for a moment, pausing as if to think.

“Almost didn’t look like what?” Pinkie questioned.

“never mind.” Celestia said, looking away.

“Okay…” said Pinkie slowly. “and what do you need us elements of harmony for?”

“To put it bluntly, anything which can kidnap even a minor alicorn princess will probably require the elements of harmony to be defeated.”

“Makes sense.” Pinkie said. “So I’m guessing that now is when we travel to Manehattan?”

“Yes, and I’ll send you the location of Twilight’s dissapearance, but first… I want you to go see Lyra Heartstrings.”

This surprised Pinkie. “Lyra? That crackpot conspiracy nut who sees monsters everywhere she looks?”

“Yes… although I wouldn’t put it so harshly. Go to Lyra and ask her about the ruins of Manehattan.”

“Okey dokie loki!” Pinkie said cheerily. Then she ran and took a big leap across the room…

…Only to faceplant on the other side.

“Oopsie…” said Pinkie, picking herself up off the floor. “I must have used up more Pinkie Strength® then I thought jumping over that first chapter break. I don’t think I can do it again… Princess, would you mind teleporting me back to Ponyville?”

“Sure…” the Princess said slowly, bamboozled as to what had just happened. With a touch of effort, the Princess sent Pinkie on her way back to Ponyville.