Nightmare and I had kept to small talk, just to keep ourselves sane. I was talking with her about when we would be getting back when a dark smoke started covering both of us. She just started an evil laugh as we fell into the void.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Nightmare Moon leave in the same manner we got off of the moon. I had been laying on my side with a strange unicorn looking at me. “Who might you be?” She said, making some of the ponies below begin chattering.

I slowly got up, realizing that I was in the town hall of Ponyville. I had only been here once with Dash, and that was to let me help her clear the clouds around it. My head felt worse than my body did. While rubbing my head, I explained myself. “I am Skyward Flame. Can somepony explain to me what’s going on?” I looked out a window and saw a lavender unicorn galloping away, with a very familiar pegasus on her tail. Before anypony could say anything, I flew through it to follow her.

“Are you a spy?!” Was all I heard as I trotted inside, followed by four other ponies. A orange earthpony gripped Dash by the tail and pulled her back. When she turned to face her, her eyes stopped on me. She lunged at me, sending me onto my back laughing a bit.

“Told you I’d be here for the festival.” The other five ponies just stared at us, confused looks written all over them. Dash stepped back and gave me a certain look, and I just nodded to it. Getting back to my hooves, I faced all of the ponies in the library. “I’m Skyward Flame, Dash’s brother.” They still looked at me strangely, and I just shrugged.

The lavender unicorn started looking around frantically once more, mumbling to herself the entire time. “Where is the book on the Elements of Harmony?” She thought to herself aloud. A very strange pink pony was bouncing around with a book in her mouth, dropping it next to the unicorn.

“It was under E!” She exclaimed as she bounced away. Such a strange mare.

The unicorn began reading aloud, but my mind was elsewhere. I thought I heard a strange noise from outside, but found it as nothing important and went back to the six ponies. “In the... Everfree Forest.” Was all I heard as we somehow were outside the forest. I assume that the pony used some mass transport spell or something. We all began our trot into the unknown.

After a song, manticore, crying sea serpent, and a falling lavender unicorn, we all came to a broken bridge. Taking that the unicorn almost fell AGAIN, Dash offered to fly to the other side and fix it. While she was over there, she started looking around frantically. A few moments later, these strange outfitted pegasi were talking with her.

“Oh no. Rainbow Dash!” The unicorn yelled as the center pegasi’s eye flashed yellow and the fog clouded our view.

A protective feeling of anger flared and my wings shifted, making the ponies behind me gasp. I took a few deep breaths and they shifted back to normal, just in time for Rainbow Dash to fix the bridge. I flew over and made it to the entrance, not wanting to talk about my issues with them for the moment. When they entered they quickly trotted to the area where these stones were sitting.

After heaving all of them down, the unicorn sat herself a good few inches behind them. The others left, but I stayed in the room. “The elements!” Was all she could say before the same mist that took me from the moon appeared. It proceeded to surround the elements, and the lavender unicorn jumped in to it, getting teleported away.

Her friends bolted in and looked around. “Twilight?!” The orange one called out.

I flew to a window and saw flashing lights coming from one of the towers. I whistled to get their attention and pointed my head in the direction of the tower. They started galloping to the tower, with me following right behind them.

I looked all around the town. Celebrations were being had over the return of Celestia and Luna. Twilight gets to live in the library so she can stay with her friends, Dash is the element of loyalty (go figure), and me... Well, Celestia is coming over, so let’s hope she still isn’t going to banish me. Again.

When she finally came to me, she bared a smile. I was just confused. What could she be smiling at me about? She knelt down to my level. “Skyward Flame, I wish to apologize for the five year banishment. It turns out that the earthpony mob was framing you, and has been caught. Is there anything I can do to for you?” I just gave her a look that said ‘I told you so’.

I looked over at Rainbow Dash, who was now doing the same to me. “Yeah, there is.” She leaned down and I whispered my request to Celestia.

She got up and turned to her sister. “I think that can be arranged.” I gave her a nod of thanks as she went and returned to her sisters side. I turned and started trotting to Dash when a chill ran down my spine. I looked around and saw nothing, but heard a voice.

“Flame...” I looked around frantically, finding nothing. “Behind you.” I turned around to see me, but he was different. He was transparent, and his eyes were red. I couldn’t help but feel a little scared at this, as this is the first time I have seen or heard him. I took a few trots closer to him, inspecting every aspect of him.

“You let them die, you know. You should have acted sooner.” The false me started trotting right through me, making me feel odd. When I turned, he was starting to laugh at me. “Because of you, dad and mom were killed. It’s all your fault...”

I gripped my head and shut my eyes. “Shut up...” He kept going on about how it was my fault they died. It was maddening, and my wings were agreeing with me. They were twitching like crazy, luckily they weren’t their blade form though. He kept going on and on about everything that would have never happened if I acted sooner. “S-Shut up...” He kept going on. I lost control of my wings and they shifted to their blade form. “Get out of my head!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, drawing a lot of attention to myself.

I opened my eyes to see a worried Rainbow Dash looking me in the face. “Sky, are you alright?” I just shook my head. The other me had disappeared, but I knew better than to think that was the last I would see of him.

I switched my wings back to normal and let out a sigh. “I... I’m fine. Just having a flashback.” Luckily for me, everypony bought it. Dash told me to go to her house and rest, and that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t hear from that thing the entire time I was alone, and it made me happy. Drifting to sleep, I wondered if I would ever be normal. Things just don’t seem to add up for me...