Picking up a southward current of powerful wind, and with their engines at full capacity to outrun the army they knew was drawing nearer to Canterlot, the airship swung down around Hoofington, across a vast, uninhabited prairie, and brought itself in sight of the swamps south of the Everfree Forest in the space of four days.

It was just after dinner, and most of them were in their cabins, playing cards. By Applejack’s reckoning, they would be able to land in the swamps on the following afternoon, and they would then have half of the Elements.

Rainbow and Fluttershy sat on the deck to watch the swamps’ slow approach, not talking, but enjoying the warmth under a magical dome of hot air. Since Vanilla’s visit, Rainbow had been experimenting with her magic, not enough in Twilight’s mind. She could heat and cool the air around her, and, with enough time, create condensation, but the magic’s simplicity had failed to inspire her excitement.

Beside her, Rainbow had left the salt pillar from the coast, its taunting message bold against the white, flat sides. Only an hour before, she had sent Trixie a letter detailing their flight across the lonesome Equestrian northeast.

“You know what? I’m doing it.” She took the block in her hooves and held it to the dying light.

Fluttershy watched without comment as she fumbled the pillar for a moment before striking it against the deck, snapping it in rough halves. As soon as she did, a cloud of white powder puffed up into her face, and she reeled away with a sneeze. Batting at the air, she shook her head, and Fluttershy stifled a laugh. “Was all that waiting and wondering just for sneezing powder, Rainbow Dash?”

“Stupid draconequus,” Rainbow said, hurling the two pieces off the ship without a thought. She sighed and sat back, suddenly colder. In the minor distraction, she had lost her spell, and they were again exposed to the summer night. “Oh well.”

“I don’t think we need your weather magic again.”

“That’s fine.” She looked around. “So what do you suppose it was all about?”

“It could have been a complete ruse. A mind game.”

“Yeah, I was thinking that too.” She studied the dark distance. “You can’t feel it from here yet, can you? The Element?”

“We’re not close enough.”

Rainbow nodded, noticing, as she did so, a large, pink jewel around Fluttershy’s neck. “When did you start wearing yours?”

“I thought I’d try it tonight. I don’t think it’s a good idea to just leave our Elements in Twilight’s bags. That’s how Princess Celestia lost them, after all. Um, not that I’m suggesting she did anything dumb. She had them in a vault.”

“Wonder how he broke in,” Rainbow said.

Fluttershy only shook her head.

“I mean, Canterlot Palace is the strongest, most well-protected place in all of Equestria. It should have been impossible.”

“It should have been impossible for him to get the jump on the princesses,” Fluttershy said. “And then devise a master plan in the few days we were figuring out what had happened.”

“Do you think his master plan involves us getting half the Elements before he can even invade the capital city?” Rainbow asked, smirking.

“Um… I don’t know. He might be trying to buy time. I really don’t know.” She heaved a light, airy sigh. “I don’t know very much at all. I thought the princesses were more powerful than to let something like this happen, though.”

“Is that bitterness in your voice?”

“No,” Fluttershy said, her voice firm. “Maybe a little.”

“I get you, Fluttershy.” She twitched her nose from the salt cloud and sneezed again. “Madness.”

The following morning, they were just approaching the edge of the swamps, passing over a wide, slow river, which Twilight identified as the same one that encircled Ponyville. Its path took it from Canterlot Mountain, around their tiny town, through the swamps, past Draught Castle, and down a deep canyon in the deserts to the far south, before crossing Equestria’s border to terminate in some freezing lake in the middle of the minotaur continent.

“We’ll hover over the swamps until Fluttershy finds the Element, and then grab it nice and quick,” Twilight said. “I’d like this to be fast and efficient.”

“What makes you think it will be?” Big Mac asked. “Ah’m not tryin’ to put a damper on nothin’, but the last one was a production, an’ Ah’m told the first one was too.”

“Those had their own special locations and circumstances,” Rarity said. “Trottingham had monsters, and the coast… well, we were all there. This is looking more like Discord just tossed it in there as he passed by.”

“Yer just sayin’ that ‘cause we’re not havin’ a week’s worth of adventure before collectin’ it,” Applejack said.

“A most welcome change,” Octavia said.

Twilight turned around at the hatch opening, and Rainbow came out, a letter in her teeth.

“You’re getting faster at writing those, Dashie!” Pinkie cried.

“Twilight, send this immediately,” Rainbow said. “It’s important.”

“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked, enveloping the letter in her magic to send it to Trixie.

“Trixie’s in trouble.”

“Whoa, hold up,” Applejack said.

“Did we just find our week’s worth of adventure?” Pinkie asked.

“We already had a Trixie adventure, though,” Fluttershy said.

“What kind of trouble?” Octavia asked.

“It’s… I don’t know,” Rainbow said. “It’s bad, though.”

“You don’t know,” Applejack repeated. “How d’ya know she’s in trouble, then?”

“I don’t know! I just do!” She growled. “You sent it, right?”

“I did it right in front of your face,” Twilight said.

“I don’t know, girls. It’s just… intuition, I guess. Something’s wrong, I can feel it.”

Everyone looked at Pinkie, who only shrugged and smiled. “I don’t get my Pinkie Sense much anymore.”

Applejack glanced at Octavia, who did not react. Her conversation with Pinkie on the subject, Octavia had assumed, was private.

“Well, let’s hope it’s not serious, whatever it is,” Rarity said.

“It’s all we can do,” Twilight said. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry to say this, Dash, but, unless we’re in the neighborhood, we won’t be returning to Manehattan. It’s way too far out of the way, and we always get in trouble there.”

“I would not be surprised if it is those two con artists,” Octavia said. “Strawberry and Lacey Kisses.”

“Aw, crap, I should have asked about them,” Rainbow said. She looked at Twilight. “I get it, Twi.”

Twilight smiled, a little guilt coloring her tempered face. “Good.” They exchanged looks for a moment.

“Where do we go after the swamps?” Big Mac asked.

“The nearest unaddressed city will be Applewood,” Octavia said, and there was a small stir. “The largest city in Equestria, and the heart of tourism.”

“Uhhh, I’ve heard of it,” Pinkie said.

“We ship tons of our apples there every year,” Applejack said proudly, and Big Mac nodded.

“And I have a few of my designs there,” Rarity put in. “And it’s where the biggest names in fashion live. Hoity Toity, Photo Finish… I think Fleur dis Lee has a summer home there.”

“That stuck-up skeleton is big enough to have a summer home in freakin’ Applewood?” Rainbow said.

“You know of her?”

“How could I not?”

“You don’t follow fashion, though,” Applejack said.

“Uh… well, sometimes I get a magazine or two by mistake.”

“A magazine or two?” Rarity asked. “Rainbow, dear, is there something you’re not telling me?”

Rainbow blushed and looked down. “I kind of like the pictures,” she mumbled.

Rarity keeled over in laughter with Pinkie, who thumped the floorboards loudly.

“It’s not like I care about it at all! I just like the colors, okay?”

“Dashie’s a magpie! Dashie’s a magpie!” Pinkie screeched, clutching her chest.

“Ohhh, hoo boy,” Rarity sighed, getting back up. “Darling, I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“What can ya tell us ‘bout Applewood, Miss Octavia?” Big Mac asked.

Octavia paused in thought. “There is a lot to take in, even after your first time. The first time I went there was with an ensemble to perform at a wedding, and Hoofington was the largest town with which I was familiar. The sheer amount of lights was enough to give me pause. The colors can be disorienting.”

“I read that Applewood uses more electricity in a day than Ponyville does in a year,” Twilight said.

“That would not surprise me. The entire city is powered by the Whitewater Stampede, running through Appelwood Dam.”

“We saw that river in Trottingham,” Twilight said. “It formed up in the aqueducts.”

“It becomes the largest, strongest river in Equestria closer to Applewood.”

“With the one dam to power the whole city?” Big Mac asked. “Ain’t that the definition of puttin’ all their eggs in one basket?”

“One very large, fortified basket, yes,” Octavia said. “I have heard criticism of the decision before.”

“That’s a disaster waiting to happen,” Rarity said under her breath.

“Well, Rarity just jinxed it,” Rainbow said.

“That’s not how jinxes work,” Twilight said.

“Applewood is the entertainment capital of Equestria,” Octavia continued. “Anything you can imagine, you can do there.”

“Example?” Applejack asked.

“Concerts, raves, gambling, drinking, shows, extreme sports, orgies, drug use—”

“Orgies?” Pinkie repeated.

“Disgusting,” Rarity mumbled.

“Did you go to one?” Rainbow asked quietly.

“I was invited,” Octavia said.

“This sounds like a story,” Applejack said.

Octavia shrugged. “It was after my ensemble and I opened for Sapphire Shores. We decided to go to one of the local bars—Zero Point Five, it was called. An ice bar. One of my peers knew the owner.”

“Um, excuse me, but what’s an ice bar?” Fluttershy asked.

“Imagine a bar, but the walls and furniture are made out of ice. They are a cheap novelty for a city that lies in the desert.”

“Glowing description,” Rainbow said. “Keep talking.”

“After several drinks, we all got out and piled into a limousine. I remember there being many ponies with us then that were not before. We drove for a while, and I was completely lost when we stopped. It was the… Celestia, what was the hotel name?”

“The Crystal Castle?” Rarity offered.

“It was not that tawdry.”

“Comet Tail?” Fluttershy said.

“That sounds familiar,” Octavia said. “It was near the Comet Tail. Oh, Inspire. That is what it was.”

Rarity whistled low, and the others looked at her. “Inspire is one of the best hotels in Applewood.”

“It was a shame that that was the only experience I had in it.”

“Wait, so you went to the… er, the gathering?” Applejack asked.

“Of course.”

“Octavia, gross,” Twilight said.

“I did not enjoy myself, if it makes you feel any better. I tried to get involved, but wound up in the corner with the same rotation of partners until one of them fell asleep between my legs. She had been drinking since that morning, I was told.”

“What about the gambling?” Rainbow asked.

“Nearly every hotel has a casino, and there are several that are independent of their hotels. You can spend an hour in the Sky Kiss casino, get tired of it, and walk across a block to the Southern Lights. Alcohol is everywhere, and many other drugs, if you know where to look.”

“And… you do?” Rarity asked.

“Some of my band mates liked to partake.”

“This place is sounding kind of scummy,” Twilight said.

“In a way, it is. However, you can also have a great time without touching a single drug or drop of alcohol. The shows there are the best of the best. Artists come—came, I suppose, now—from around the world to perform. Around the world. And the night life is gorgeous, once it stops being disorienting.”

“Ah’d like to see it,” Big Mac said.

“I’m guessing we will after the swamps,” Twilight said. “How long from here to Applewood, anyway?”

“Based on the way our air current’s been runnin’, maybe four to five days,” Applejack said.

“Oh, um, I’m sorry, but speaking of the swamps, I can feel our Element,” Fluttershy said.

They hung over the swampland, their shadow slowly growing atop a damp mound. The warm smell of vegetation floated up at them, and a few gray clouds shared the bright sky; Rainbow said they didn’t look like rainclouds. Twilight was perched at the front, ready to push any bothersome treetops away from the ship.

They sunk into mud and silt, leaning until their lower propellers were nearly touching the stagnant water that pooled at their landing. The sun had disappeared behind grasping treetops, and the humidity was a weight on their chests, but, even before they got out, the most immediate concern was the insects.

With no contiguity to the country’s rivers, nearly all flow had stopped, leaving water circulation to the clouds and the pegasi who controlled them, in areas where they did. Mosquitoes, gnats, flies, lacewings, and countless others filled the air like living motes of glowing dust, stirred up in a geyser at their sudden arrival and filling the swamp with a high, minuscule drone.

Twilight put up a shield, and, in response to Rarity’s pleas, four smaller shields for her hooves, and they moved down into the swamp. Mud squished and sucked at each step, and they let the slope carry them into a greenish, shallow lake. Trees broke its surface and filled their view, with speckles of insects clouding the shield’s exterior, and black lines of dirt and living things writhing in the sudden cross-section produced as the shield pushed water away from their legs.

“Twilight, did Trixie write back to you yet?” Rainbow asked.

“No, not yet,” Twilight said. “But it’s only been a few hours. She never gets back to you that quickly.”

“Still got that feeling, Dashie?” Pinkie asked.

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “I don’t know, something tells me she’s in trouble.”

“Trixie has traveled on her own since she was a filly,” Octavia said. “She has encountered many difficulties in her time. I am sure that she can take care of herself, whatever she runs into.”

“I hope so.”

“Meanwhile, I would like to talk about some of the difficulties we are about to face. Twilight, how dangerous is this swamp?”

“I heard there’s poison gas in swamps,” Rainbow said.

“Where’d you hear that?” Big Mac asked.

“Daring Do.”

“There… can be, yes,” Twilight said. “But my shield should be able to filter most harmful gasses out. What we need to worry about is slipping in mud.”

“Not me,” Rarity said happily.

“You can still trip over roots,” Big Mac said, lifting his hoof out of the water briefly to take a larger step.

“Yeah, and then you’d get a face full of mud,” Rainbow said, flying overhead.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Rarity said, stopping to look down at the stagnant water around her shield. “Are there leeches in here?”

“Probably,” Twilight said.

Rarity said no more, but Twilight could see her movement stiffen.

“It’s not far, though,” Fluttershy said.

“The leeches?” Pinkie asked.

“The Element, you scatterbrain,” Rainbow said. “Twilight, seriously, let me know as soon as she writes back, okay?”

“Okay, okay,” Twilight said. “She’s going to be fine, though. I don’t know what’s got you so worked up all of a sudden.”

“It’s a gut feeling, Twi. Us normal ponies get them from time to time.”

“I’ve got a gut feeling too!” Pinkie cried, stopping. They all paused to look at her, and she waited, eyes wide. “C’mon,” she mumbled. Her stomach growled, and she shrieked laughter, toppling into the mud with Big Mac, laughing as well.

“Twilight, is this poison gas the same gas that they administer for dental surgery?” Octavia asked.

Twilight giggled. “I doubt it, Octavia. It’s probably a mix of hydrogen sulfide and methane. You wouldn’t laugh about it.”

“I’m suddenly thinking about what Octavia would be like under anesthesia,” Rarity said.

“That’s one way to get her to fall asleep,” Rainbow said.

“Oh, wow, that must be the funniest thing that I have ever heard,” Octavia said.

“Sorry.”

“I love it when you make fun of me for my insomnia.”

“Okay, okay, let’s settle down,” Big Mac said, standing back up. “Fluttershy, where’s that Element?”

“Follow me,” Fluttershy said, taking flight through a low patch of hanging foliage.

“Seriously, those kind of jokes are my favorite, because they take something that is a constant source of misery to me and make light of them,” Octavia said as they started walking.

“Okay! Geez, Octavia, I get it,” Rainbow said. “You can stop now.”

“You of all ponies should know that stopping is something that I have a hard time doing.”

“Will you two shut up?” Applejack asked. “RD, don’t tease the poor mare, an’ Octavia, calm down. It was one tasteless comment, that’s all.”

“Holy ravioli!” Pinkie cried from the front. “We’re at the edge!”

“Is the Element there?” Big Mac asked.

“It must be,” Fluttershy said. “It’s too close to be on the other side.”

The group rushed through a dense barrier of bushes and ferns to suddenly stop behind Pinkie, the immediate emptiness of an expanding sky stunning them. Beyond the flora, the water waited against nothing, and Pinkie marched along its rim.

“This is amazing,” Twilight said, edging toward the end of their section. “I’ve never seen it up close like this.”

“The water?” Rarity said. “We were over an ocean of it not long ago.”

“No, I know that. But the very edge, where it just stops.” She lowered her head to the swamp surface. “Fascinating. No active magic here at all.”

“Fluttershy, where are you goin’?” Applejack asked.

Fluttershy made no response, and Twilight turned around in time to see her pushing through more soggy foliage.

“Fluttershy?” Big Mac called, trotting after her.

“Wait up!” Pinkie cried, pushing ripples across the fetid water in her gallop to join them. Twilight followed, the others cautiously behind her.

Applejack saw it immediately, what had drawn Fluttershy’s attention. Along the glass-smooth edge of standing water, there winked small, opaque lights, like a tiny trail of low stars. Fluttershy kept her distance, but Pinkie did not, following the lights loyally, nose to the water’s surface.

As they drew closer to one another, Fluttershy stopped, looking around slowly with pricked ears. Applejack could hear their breathing around her, shallow and high, and she looked to her hooves. They were cold in the mud.

“I don’t feel good,” Rainbow said.

Applejack looked over. The picture of her surroundings slithered past, her friends blurs in the scene, static. Rainbow stood at a distance, walking without moving, and Applejack couldn’t see her eyes. “No, this ain’t right.” She looked down at her hooves again. The ground was an indistinct, brown visage of long shadows and hard points of light. Somewhere, her hooves were orange bands, curving downwards.

“Get out,” Rarity said.

A white ember floated across her field of vision, weaving between trees and gliding over still, glossy water. Colored curls rose from below, obscuring her view of the ground like discarded wires. She felt cold, the tips of her ears and nose throbbing, her eyes dry. Her breathing was slight.

More chromatic sparks danced before her eyes, some behind pieces of the aspect, some superimposed onto it like projections. Stars twinkled and wandered, and someone, somewhere, was speaking as if from miles away. She tried to turn her head, but her body did not respond, and the view wobbled without changing. Solid stripes of light skewered the ground and water like rails, many loose, some terminating near her body.

A large, orange flower bloomed nearby, and her eyes strayed to it, caught in a pull that was guided by the rails. Deep in the nebula of color and cold, electric fuzz, one rail snapped to her jaw and locked in. She twisted her head, right and then left, and with an alarmed cry galloped forward, impelled. The flower did not move from her sight, and the rails converged.

Spindles of dark green skewered the purlieu of her turning sight, a silent tornado of heavy color. The air around her seemed still, even as cold splinters of light passed up around her head and stippled her fur. She heard only her own breathing, and her thoughts, often steady, were a soft, sloshing mass in her head. She had forgotten the others and also the rails as they dissolved in motion; she was suddenly stuck looking into a mouth of moss and shadow, motionless.

Then, loud and clear, as solid and gentle as a wine glass, someone else spoke. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

She opened her eyes to a soft, yellow mountain. She rolled over and saw flat, blue sky, and closed them again.

“Rarity, are you okay?” Applejack recognized Octavia’s voice, worried. She stretched and got to her hooves, drawing her friends’ attention.

“You all right?” Rainbow asked.

“Fine,” Applejack said.

“Thank goodness,” Octavia said. She leaned to help Rarity up.

“Hey, Ah’m fine too, thanks fer askin’.”

“You do not have a head wound.”

“Wait, Rarity’s hurt?”

“It looks like it’s just a scrape,” Twilight said.

“I only didn’t heal it because I want to figure out what’s going on first,” Fluttershy said. “Whatever happened, it was magical.”

Applejack turned slowly, taking in the scenery. “Ah’m seein’ that.” The buzzing, slopping swamp had been replaced with a wide, empty prairie, broken only by a slope down several miles to the north. The air was clean and cool, and she could smell fresh flowers on the light wind. Behind where she had gotten up, the ship leaned on a side turbine, throwing them all under a massive, smooth shadow.

“I cannot tell where we are, but it is the afternoon, and it is chilly. That suggests that we are on the south side of Equestria,” Octavia said.

“Ain’t the swamps on the north end?”

“Closer to the middle,” Twilight said. “But we traveled a long ways, regardless.”

“Do you think it was Vanilla again?” Pinkie asked.

“Could be. Rainbow, would you fly up there and let us on our ship?”

While Rainbow went up to lower the ramp, Twilight turned a circle, stopping to face a mountain chain to the west. “If we’re where I think we are, those are the Friesian Mountains.”

“The Friesian Mountains,” Octavia said, following Twilight’s gaze. “I performed at the foot of one of them once. It was one of my least favorite shows.”

“Why would you perform at the foot of a mountain in the first place?” Big Mac asked. They filed onto the ship.

“It was part of a Hearth’s Warming charity event. The Manehattan Philharmonic wanted us performing somewhere picturesque.” She went to her cello case, leaning on the rail, and inspected her instrument. “I have always hated the cold.”

“Then I think you’re gonna hate the second half of this adventure,” Rainbow said. “‘Cause we’re pretty much wrapped up in the north section, right, Twilight?”

“Pretty much,” Twilight said. “We need to go to Hoofington still, but that’s it.”

“What about the swamps?” Big Mac asked. “Did no one find the Element before… whatever happened?”

They collectively shook their heads, and he walked to the side, to look at the mountain chain. “Guess we should turn back.”

“I think we should continue our search where we are,” Rarity said. “We know we have an Element waiting in those… swamps. We still have three unaccounted for, though. Why fly all the way up there just to turn back into the south immediately afterwards?”

“I agree,” Twilight said. She turned at the sound of the back hatch opening, and froze momentarily. A unicorn horn was emerging, platinum-white, and attached to a familiar, bright body.

Applejack stepped forward boldly. “What do you think yer doin’, bargin’ in on us like this? Now of all times!”

“And a fine hello to you too. That’s some way to address your savior,” Vanilla said.

“Savior?” Pinkie repeated.

“How else do you think you escaped the swamps?” He smiled sympathetically. “Such a shame, that.”

“Why are you here?” Octavia asked.

“I didn’t want to leave you to your own devices after plucking you out of your predicament, so I thought I’d stick around until one of you found me.” He jerked his head, flipping his striking, black and white mane back delicately. “Alas, my patience wore thin, though. Such uninspiring reading material you have, Twilight.”

“Get on with it,” Rainbow said. “We don’t have time for you.”

Vanilla smiled, laugh lines appearing under his eyes as they turned to meet Octavia’s. “I’d have warned you if I were paying attention to your progress for longer than I was. By the time I saw where you were, it was already too late.”

“What do you mean?” Rarity asked.

“After your experience with the Element of Honesty, did you not think there would be some kind of trick to getting the next one? That Discord would just leave it lying around in the muck for anyone to take?”

“I suppose we didn’t think about it,” Twilight said.

“I definitely didn’t!” Pinkie said.

“You got excited and charged forward, and we’re both lucky I thought to go looking for you,” Vanilla continued. “You would have perished otherwise, most likely.”

“What were we caught in?” Big Mac asked.

“Wide area dissociation enchantment. You may have seen some lovely, orange flowers nearby.”

Pinkie gasped. “Like the ice flowers in the snow coil!”

“What?” Rarity asked.

“Exactly,” Vanilla said. “Blooming, growing sigils. One of his more beautiful ideas, quite lacking in the barbaric uncreativity in many other of his tricks and traps.”

“But why’d you save us at all?” Applejack asked.

“Typical Applejack, skeptical as always. Have I not said on multiple occasions that I’m on your side?”

“You have,” she started.

“I would think this, if nothing else, would prove it.”

“Where are we?” Rarity asked, taking a single step in front of Applejack as she made to protest.

“South. Very south. Middle of nowhere.”

“We can see that,” Rainbow said.

“Then why ask me?” He grinned.

“We missed an opportunity to get an Element of Harmony thanks to you,” Applejack said, shifting astride Rarity.

“And you were so close to getting it too. Rarity, come here please.”

Rarity only looked at him.

“Not a spell enhancement, but a favor I want to do for you.”

She stepped forward, never taking her eyes off him or his smile.

“I noticed this a while ago.” He reached out a hoof and gently tapped her horn; she winced, and he nodded. “There. All better.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I fixed your injury. You can thank me later.” He turned to leave, looking back for a parting comment. “You’re keeping up, by the way. At this rate, I believe you can defeat Discord.” He was gone easily.

All eyes went to the top of Rarity’s head.

While Applejack navigated them toward the distant mountains at Twilight’s suggestion—start with a landmark, and go from there—and Rainbow paced across the deck, Rarity reacquainted herself with her estranged magic. First simply levitating some of Twilight’s books, then constructing a spherical shield around herself and then Fluttershy as she flew alongside the ship, she ended prancing along the gunwales with gouts of delicate, shimmering, magic membrane coming from her horn, to fade and glitter away in the afternoon sun, great jellyfish with gentle, mile-wide phantasms of shadow on the vibrant ground below.

“He may be suspicious, but you have to admit, he did a marvelous job of healing my horn,” she said. “I’m never going to take magic for granted again.”

“Ah still don’t know,” Applejack said. “Don’t it seem convenient that he should do it now?”

“Not really,” Pinkie said. “She’s been out of magic since Fillydelphia.”

“He’s only visited us a few times,” Twilight said. A letter unfolded from her horn, and Rainbow had rushed over before she could levitate it up to her.

“She’s clearly okay if she can write back to you,” Rarity said.

“Sorry for being concerned,” Rainbow said. She sat by the wheel to read. “Whoa.”

“What is it?” Applejack asked.

“She’s moving to Appleloosa.”

“Wait, what? Really?”

“Why would she want to go there?” Rarity asked.

“Apparently Manehattan’s getting too dangerous.”

“Are Strawberry and Lacey still going at it?” Pinkie asked.

“She didn’t say, but crime is really on the rise, and all over town. Big crime, too.”

“Big crime?” Fluttershy repeated.

“Businesses shutting down, ponies getting hurt, stuff like that.”

“How have those two not been stopped yet?” Rarity asked.

“They’re sneaky,” Pinkie said.

“Please. Strawberry lit a fire in Rose Tower our first day back. That’s sneaky?”

“He had that stupid DJ do it,” Rainbow said. “Yeah, Trix mentioned him.”

“Trix, huh?” Applejack asked, smirking.

“He’s getting the public whipped up. There was a protest outside her neighborhood recently, she said. The police got involved.”

“So she’s headin’ west to escape all the chaos.”

“Her and her agent, Globe Trotter. They were packing today.”

“See, Rainbow? Nothing to worry about,” Twilight said.

“Yeah.” She folded the letter. “I guess… not.”