Twilight enjoyed many subjects, especially when the media was text, but her two favourites were easily spellbooks and play-by-plays of massacres. At the moment, she was levitating a 300-page glossy hardcover book full of the latter. Across the bedroom, Spike was sitting on the lower bunk eating baby carrots. As Twilight contently savoured the photograph on page 120, she wished that she could just see someone die in front of her, right now. As she was thinking this, Spike put his hands on his neck and began to choke. She looked up from the book.

“Spike? Are you okay?”

He nodded. After a couple more seconds, he vomited some chewed-up carrot and a letter onto the carpet. Twilight took the ribbon off the letter and unrolled it.

“‘This is Celestia. Well, technically it’s one of Celestia’s domestic workers writing this down. Yes, I really want you to write that. Because my hoofwriting sucks. Well, magicwriting. Yes, just do it. You remembered the confirmations that I wanted you to write everything down, right? And that, and this? Good.’”

“Do you have to read all this aloud?”

“Yes. Um... ‘Solar Eclipse has stolen the Cheddar Wheel of Balance.’”

“Who?”

“One of the royal guards.”

“What was he doing with a name like that?”

“Spike, that’s racist. ‘So now I have one elite guard that turned evil and three that are just dead. Anyway, he’s in a base built into Teal Mountain, so if you could kill him that would be great.’”

Other than the ones who lived there, Sugarcube Corner was deserted when Twilight came in.

“Hey, Twilight.”

“You’re good at gathering ponies, right? Get the group together.”

“What’s up?”

“The Cheddar Wheel of Balance got stolen.”

“What?! How long do we have before everypony turns evil?”

“About a week. It shouldn’t take that long, just get them together. I have shit to do.”

“Okay. HEY, CHEESECAKE!”

A cream-coloured stallion teleported in front of the counter. “Yeah?”

“I’m saving the world for a few days, you know what to do.”

“All right.”

After three hours of no business, Double Chocolate Cheesecake would go on to be sacked for swearing at his first customer.

It was a clear day, an hour before sunset but still warm. Five of the world-saviours were assembled in front of Fluttershy’s house.

“Now for the tricky one...” Pinkie Pie said. “Do you know where Rainbow Dash is, Fluttershy?”

“No.”

“Well, what are we gonna do? Twilight?”

“I don’t know. Obviously one of us will probably see her tomorrow, but that’s a whole day wasted....”

“Ah got an idea,” Applejack said. “It worked last week.” She tilted her head slightly upward, just enough for it to be clear she was looking at the sky. “RAINBOW DAAASH!”

“You just tried that when I got you,” Pinkie said.

“So?”

“What are we all gonna do, sit down and scream ‘Rainbow Dash’ into the sky all night?”

“Sorry....”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait,” Twilight said. “I guess I didn’t think this through....”

“AJ could’ve been right,” Pinkie said. “It would’ve been dumb to not at least try to start now.”

“I’m just embarrassed.”

“And nervous about the fate of the world?”

“A bit, but that’s not the main thing.”

And so everyone went back home and felt bad for not screaming for Rainbow Dash every few minutes. Yet even with saving the world delayed, Twilight still had a problem to deal with.

“Uh...” Spike was right there in the front room eating straight from the three-litre box the ice cream came in. “That was quick.”

“Spike?”

“You never told me I couldn’t do this.”

Twilight closed the door behind her, walked up to him, and drew her hoof back. “Do you have anything better than that?”

“You could let me eat it and let my body take care of the punishment.”

“Uh-huh.” Just as she was about to throw the punch, she relaxed her leg, looked at it for a moment, and put it back down. “Something about this doesn’t feel right.”

“Is it punching your adopted child?”

“I don’t know. I just can’t put all of my weight into this.”

“I think that’s what it is.”

At the stroke of midnight, there was a door that someone in the Sweet Apple Acres barn had to get. As the only one awake, this fell to Applejack.

“Rainbow!”

“Why are you so excited? I’m just here to sleep.”

“The world needs savin’ and none of us knew where you were.”

“Oh. Can we do it tomorrow?”

“Yeah. You know, you don’t seem very worried.”

“I’m just tired.”

“But everypony could turn evil.”

“So? Maybe the actions judged evil by who or whatever is trying to change it line up with our ideas of good.”

“The whole planet’s gonna be a murderfest.”

“We need to live cooperatively to survive, let alone enjoy ourselves. Assuming you’re defining ‘evil’ as pure self-interest—”

“Let’s get you to bed.”

The next morning, everyone was assembled in front of Fluttershy’s house, including someone supplied by the state who was just there to teleport them.

“Are we all ready?” Twilight said.

“Yeah!” said the others apart from Rainbow Dash, who was still waking up, and Fluttershy, who was Fluttershy.

The chauffeur teleported the group to the base of the road that led up Teal Mountain. It was an anonymous mountain pass, a couple hundred metres of flat, grassy generic ground before it suddenly became a mountain on either side. Gravel roads six or seven metres wide hugged both sides, although there were no buildings, trees, or anything else in the middle to stop the whole thing from being one incredibly wide road if someone had the will and resources. The road up was similar, for as long as there could be a road. It was a climb from 1,000 to 2,500 metres to the top where the giant sculpted skull awaited them.

“Are we it?” Twilight said. “Is there anypony in the military who’d like to help?”

“Oh, you did something much harder than this before. Besides, he doesn’t have an army either, so you should be fine.”

“Do we have to do serious climbing or is it just walking uphill?”

“It’s a bit of a hike, obviously, but you don’t need icepicks or anything.”

“Well... I guess it seems easy enough. Hey, Rarity, give me a granola bar.”

Rarity, the one chosen to carry a paper bag with some sandwiches and assorted snacks in it, fulfilled the request.

“When do we start?” Pinkie said.

“Ammera minna nit deasa nanola ma,” Twilight said.

“What?”

She swallowed the bite. “Now.”

The path wasn’t very safe, the classic cliff up on one side and cliff down on the other, getting gradually narrower as it got further up. It wasn’t long, about two or three hours to walk if it was flat, but in reality it was slightly uphill. About halfway up, the now dirt path was about a metre wide, and Rarity sat down like a cat.

“Ponies?” she said. As she was the last in the row, everyone turned around.

“You’re so lazy,” Twilight said.

“You said we had a week. Can’t we rest for a minute?”

“You’re just lazy. Right, Applejack?”

“Ah’ll back you up on that.”

“Her job is to kick trees so hard the fruit literally falls off, of course that’s what she’ll say.”

“Fine. Pinkie Pie.”

“Yep, you’re lazy.”

“See? Her job involves standing all day.”

“What are you going to do, force me to keep walking?”

Twilight went past the other four and constricted Rarity’s neck with her magic. Rarity looked down and began to make loud choking noises. After about ten seconds, Twilight released her, and she immediately began to take slow, heavy breaths.

“Twilight?” Fluttershy said, meekly even for her.

“What?” She didn’t look away from Rarity.

“Di... did you really... need....”

“Yes.”

The next problem came with just a few hundred horizontal metres and several dozen vertical metres left, as there was a pony-made obstacle set on the path: hundreds upon hundreds of banana skins. The now rock path was half a metre wide, so a slip in the right direction could result in a possibly fatal fall, at least for Applejack and Pinkie Pie.

“What are we going to do?” Twilight said.

“You could just levitate ‘em outta the way,” Applejack said.

“Oh. I guess that would work.”

She went along picking up the banana skins, throwing them off the path at each switchback.

The front room of the hideout was a hollowed-out cube with nothing to cover up the rock it was carved into. It contained a lamp, a bed, and an adjacent bedstand with the Cheddar Wheel of Balance and Solar Eclipse’s laptop on it. The grey artefact-stealing unicorn and his one minion, a spring green mare with a striped red and white mane and tail, were together in the room but not doing anything in particular.

“Do you hear hoofsteps?” said the minion, Peppermint.

“No. You’re probably just paranoid.”

Someone knocked the unpainted beech door. “I think I did.” She went up to it. “Who is it?”

“Uh... it’s the pizza.”

She opened the door. “Oh, wow! Oh, you’re a pegasus, that makes sense.”

“Peppermint, that’s Rainbow Dash!”

“What? Oh, you’re right! Hey, you’re not allowed in here.”

“Yes, I am.”

“What? Hey, Eclipse, did you—”

“Don’t let anypony in!”

“Okay. Sorry, but you can’t come in.”

“I’m ready,” Twilight said.

Rainbow got out of the way.

“Peppermint?” Eclipse said.

“Yes?”

“Could you move?”

She did. With the field now clear, it was time for the magic knockout bolt shootout, or waiting for Twilight to tilt her head in front of the doorway to see how good Solar Eclipse’s reaction time was. After a tense at first but quickly boring fifteen seconds, she looked through the doorway, fired the bolt, and snapped her head back to let Eclipse’s shot fly out into the sky. The part before the shots were fired was then repeated, and she noticed that he was unconscious.

“I got him,” she said. The six of them rushed in and Peppermint got on her chest. Twilight went across the room and took the laptop off.

“Is this... no, this is the real one. I expected it to be in a safe or something.”

“Can we go?” Pinkie said.

“Well, Celestia wants him dead. Can anypony do that?”

“Ah’ll snap his neck,” Applejack said.

“Okay.” She went back across. “Now, who are you?”

“I surrender. Please let me live.”

“Well, I guess I don’t see what harm you could be.”

“And what about our opinions?” Pinkie said. “I say we vote!”

“Okay...” Twilight said. “What’s your vote?”

“I vote to let her live.”

“Don’t kill her if you don’t have to,” Rarity said.

“Don’t be a war criminal,” Applejack said.

“Okay, see how pointless that was? Rarity and Applejack just agreed on something.”

“Sounds like a thought-terminating cliché to me.”

“Anyway, she can live.” She took the Cheddar Wheel of Balance. “Now let’s head back down.”

“Can’t you teleport us?” Rainbow said. “You’ve already been to the bottom.”

“Yeah, once. Besides, you can just fly down. You could even glide down.”

And so they all embarked upon the return trip by hoof, except Rainbow Dash who made the trip by wing.

“Look at them, having to walk,” Rainbow said, lying on the grass by the intersection, her hooves supporting her head. “Not really, I can’t even see them from here.”

It got less funny as she got bored, then more funny as she thought about not having to walk again, then less funny as she got hungry, then more funny as she thought about not having to risk her life even after completing her mission, then less funny as she thought about up to two of her friends possibly dying. It was beginning to get dark when they made it down.

“Okay, I don’t mahnd that she didn’t come with us,” Applejack said, “But sleepin’ is just disrespectful.” She pushed her gently. “Hey, Rainbow Dash....”

“Don’t bother with the gradual escalation,” Twilight said, “I’m pissed that she didn’t have to come down with us.”

She slapped her in the face a few times. “Hey, Rainbow Dash.”

“I said don’t bother—”

“Again with the dictatorship,” Pinkie said. “We need to—”

She kicked her in the ribs. “WAKE UP!”

“Hm...? Oh, you’re here.” She slowly stood up, one leg at a time. “I’m reeey to go.”

Everyone was taken back to Fluttershy’s front garden.

“Well, I had a good time,” Rainbow said.

“We already discussed everything without ya,” Applejack said. “Now we’re all tired and we wanna go home.”

“Oh. Will anypony let me in tonight?”

“You can stay with me on one condition,” Pinkie said.

“Yeah?”

“I want you to at least put a little emotion into it.”

“What?”

“I’m not saying I want you to act like we’re married, I don’t want that, but if you could at least cuddle a bit instead of basically using me as a toy, that’d be nice.”

“Er... okay.”

“I mean, if that’s not your thing tonight, that’s fine, just don’t come to me.”

“I can’t find an alternate way to interpret that that makes it make sense.”

“I want you to listen to me talk instead of immediately falling asleep on the floor.”

“I can do that.”

“Okay.” Next Chapter: Chapter 10: The Number of Comments I Require Estimated time remaining: 18 Hours, 3 Minutes