Scootaloo barged into the Carosel Boutique and started scooting around inside looking for clues. Pinkie Pie followed and searched around herself, but her mood seemed down and so were her unexplained powers of intuition. Pinkie just looked around with a lack of enthusiasm at the ground and noticed that it was it's usual disorganised chaos. Fabrics seemingly lying everywhere without order or organisation and needles and threads all over the place. It was Scootaloo that was determined and thought to check behind every curtain that was decorating the room. This was when she saw it, behind one of the many symmetrical curtains was a heavy metal door, it looked like a safe.

Pinkie walked over and examined it. "Is this Rarity's safety deposit box"? she asked. Scootaloo looked closely at the door and found a combination lock with 5 letters. They were jumbled to spell, LVNRH. The combnation could have been anything as each space could be all 26 letters of the alphabet.

Then they heard something impact the door from the other side and a tiny dent started to show on their side.

"There's somepony in there!" Scootaloo shouted.

"and they want to get out." Pinkie Pie continued.

Scootaloo put her ear to the door, but as hard as she strained she could hear nothing other than the impacts against the door.

"What could the password be Pinkie?" Scootaloo asked, "Our friends are probably in there!"

Pinkie Pie shrugged, as she felt useless. Her intuition was gone, she could have normally probably known the answer for no logical reason, but now she was a worthless earth pony with nothing special about her. She just wanted to be out of her more competent friends' way.

"What could Rarity be hiding in there? What would her password be?" Scootaloo asked Pinkie Pie frantically hoping for some magical wisdom from the normally amazing pink pony.

"I don't know" Pinkie Pie snapped. She lowered her head onto the ground and folded her legs under her and started crying. "Waaaahhhhh! I wish I wasn't a dumb earth pony.”

Scootaloo stared at her a moment and wanted to comfort the pony, but felt she didn't have time. There were ponies in trouble beyond that door. The orange filly started moving the letters around on the combination, she tried every 5 letter word she could think of that Rarity might use.

RARITY didn't fit, DRESS, Emerald didn't fit, Ruby was too short. MONEY, JEWEL, Diamond didn't fit either. Scootaloo kept trying every word she could think of, her vocabulary wasn't very big yet, she thought over words they practised in her spelling tests at school, she never was a very good student and she felt like she was going to come to regret it. Scootaloo stopped and felt like giving up, the password could be anything.

Pinkie Pie was watching Scootaloo struggle and panic at the door. She really wanted to help, but how? She let her negative emotions simmer down and started to think, it wasn't long before an idea struck her.

"Scootaloo, stop". Pinkie Pie requested.

"Not now Pinkie, I have to keep trying" Scootaloo replied.

"No Scootaloo, I mean, I think there is something more important to Rarity then all the gems in Equestria" Pinkie stood up and regained some of her self confidence"

"Um... Oh right!" Scootaloo nodded and tried some other words. Sister! no doesn't fit, Um? Sweetie, Sweet, Sweetiebelle" Scootaloo called out each word she tried, it was taking a long time as it took a while to spin through the whole alphabet.

She put SPIKE in wondering if Rarity secretly liked the dragon as much as he obviously like her. But it didn't work either. She kept trying more involving Rarity's sister. Scootaloo jumped in excitement when she heard a click as soon as just spun the last dial to E, to spell BELLE. "I got it, I got it". She shouted in excitement and relief.

Pinkie Pie jumped impossibly high off the ground and shouted. "Woooohoooo!" But then went dead serious in anticipation of seeing what was behind the door. Pinkie's hair however was still straight and a bit grey. Pinkie felt like she wouldn't be herself again until she knew her friends were safe.

Scootaloo quickly opened the heavy door.

Latex pony watched down from the top of a tree, dozens of Ponyville unicorns were following Twilight Sparkle and Applejack into the depths of the Everfree forest. This could be a problem she thought.

"We should split up a bit, so we can cover more ground" Twilight ordered her followers like a drill sergeant. Some of the unicorns split off from the group. "Applejack I want you to go with them, the leadership of an element of harmony is needed in each group.

"Ah ok Twi, you be careful now" Applejack nodded. Twilight goes up to the farm pony and gives her a long hug. "You be extra careful Applejack". The orange pony nods and starts to turn away to the other group, but pauses and gives the purple pony some final advice.

"Please try to keep ya'll emotions under control, we dun want anypony ta get murdered, even if they seem to be deservin' it". Twilight stares at her friend and she sighs in feigned submission.

"Okay Applejack I will do my best". Twilight then turns around and heads in the opposite direction. "I will try my best to kill him slowly and painfully" She mutters under her breath and laughs. "Eeeeheehee".

The latex pony sees a dangerous look in Twilight's eyes, they actually scare her, but when the amount of ponies surrounding the purple pony halves she regains some of her courage. "I can do this" She whispers to herself.

"Okay come on ponies, I want to see if Zecora knows anything.” Twilight commands and starts heading in the direction of the cottage. The unicorns surround her like a shield, there were about 16 of them Latex pony guessed. She climbed down from the tree and started to warm up her horn, she knew if there was any pony that could best her, it would be Twilight, so she needed to be sneaky rather than try a brute force duel.

She followed the ponies carefully, her black latex helping a lot to keep her hidden in the dark woods. She even used a simple spell to mask her hoofsteps. She knew that if she used anything too extravagant, the unicorns would detect it with their magic detection spell. She kept following them for ten minutes while she formulated a plan in her head.

"We are just about there" Twilight announced. "Zecora is sure to know some way to help.”

That was it, that was the cue that she had to act now, before she had more obstacles to deal with. The latex clad pony focused the magic in her horn. She thought about Redblood and Fluttershy and the house that they occupied. She imagined the basement she had become familiar with, she struggled as she tried to push her magic deep underground. Tears started forming in her eyes as she yelped at the pain the spell brought her. It was needing to reach deep into her reserve of magic and then because that wasn't enough it had to take away some of her physical well being too.

The unicorns’ heard first the noise from the pain the dark pony was in, but then their horns lit up bright as they detected the powerful magic that was coming from behind them.

"Huh?" Twilight turned around to see the latex covered pony and called out. "Who goes there?"

That was all the hesitation that was needed. With no guard put up by Twilight and her horn busy on the detection spell, the two of them popped out of existence leaving several unicorns standing there confused.

"Where did they go?" A light blue pony with a white and blue mane asked.

"I don't know Lyra, they just disappeared, they must have teleported somewhere" a pink unicorn with a purple mane replied.

Applejack wandered through the depths of the forest, she felt kinda bad that she wasn't much use on this search as an earth pony. But then an idea struck her, she was the leader and she would use what she had learned.

"Ponies wait ya'll ah have an idea.” Applejack ordered,

The unicorns all stopped in their place and turned to her.

"Why are ya'll stayin' in a tight group? ya'll should spread out so we can cover more area, just like plowin' a field" She explained.

The unicorns nodded their agreement and started to spread out in a line.

"Now ah want y’all to be able to see a pony to ya left and right, spread out as much as ya can, but keep an eye on each other.”

The unicorns about 20 of them formed a really long line that would sweep through the forest like a massive rake. They all smiled at each other as they realised that this would cover so much more ground that they would be 500% more effective.

Applejack only revelled in her pride for a moment as she led the group. She used her strong legs to run up and down the line of ponies to make sure they all stayed together while at the same time being as far apart as possible. She quickly got exhausted and decided she should just trust the group to stay together and walk with them in the middle. She leaned on a tree and sat down to relax for a bit as she caught her breath.

"Ya'll go on ahead, ah'll catch up in a few minutes" Applejack shouted to them as she breathed heavily.

Latex pony had been following the group but was focused on one orange pony in particular, Applejack.

"Very clever Applejack" The latex pony whispered in commendation. "But you had no idea I was following you, you just made yourself vulnerable, I'm sorry for this".

Latex pony sneaked through the bushes as quietly as she could and hid herself directly behind the tree Applejack was leaning on. She pulled out a syringe of horse tranquilizer and got ready to pounce.

"Whew ok, ahm ready to keep going" She called out to the unicorns that were now nearly out of sight. She would just have to run for a bit and then she could relax to a walk. As soon as she got up, she felt something sharp penetrate her flank. The tranquilizer that was pushed into her bloodstream worked so fast, she immediately collapsed. She tried to cry out with a weak dull squeal and then fell asleep.

The latex pony again focused her magic aiming for Redblood's basement. It hurt even more this time she had already cast this spell only 30 minutes earlier and she could feel the last of her power going into this final spell. The two of them teleported out of existence and it was only at the last moment that the unicorns detected the strong magic and headed back in excitement only to realise they couldn't find their leader. They had broken their rank and now felt alone without the element to guide them.