Dash flew down with reckless abandon as the basket plummeted, the screams of the occupants driving her to fly faster and faster with front hooves outstretched before her. She did not avert her gaze to the swelling thunderclouds as they crackled violently, nor to the ground as it slowly approached.

The wind rushed through her mane, her eyes watered, yet through it all she pushed herself. Her wings propelled her madly, flapping and flapping to the point they seemed to buzz. They even felt as though they were pulsing with raw power that only now started trickling from her feathers.

The screams got louder and much more hysterical as the thunderclouds sent more bolts in an attempt to hit the basket. "Hold on everypony!" Rainbow called. In a matter of seconds after that utterance, she was going fast enough that the very air itself was trying to stretch her cheeks wide and peel them right off of her face.

A flash of horror hit her as she realized the basket was still a football field's length ahead of her. It merely amplified when a bolt whizzed over Scootaloo's head, narrowly missing by mere inches. This made her blood start boiling, and her chest compacted slightly with a building ache the closer she got.

Still, she continued to plummet in the hope that she could catch up to the basket, flying right in the face of coming-and-going electrical bolts that barely grazed her as she passed. For a few seconds, time slowed drastically as sparks danced in front of her hooves. All she could hear was the howling of wind; even the panicked screams emanating from the basket were almost entirely drowned out.

Then white started to overtake her vision almost entirely, leaving the tiniest tunnel for her to see through. The air tried its best to rend Dash in half, stretching her until she almost reached breaking point. The bolts got more heated in their attempts to strike the basket, though it simply dropped just out of range each and every time. Still the only sound she heard was the air in her ears.

Yet, the wind itself was drowned out in a matter of seconds as a deafening boom rang through the air, during which Dash felt a strong pulse from her still-beating wings as she descended to the basket with split-second haste. Leaving a sparkling rainbow trail and a glimmering ring in her wake, she caught up to the basket in mere seconds and clamped her front hooves onto its rim.

Seconds after that, the ground below seemingly expanded, eager to meet her. Before she could crash herself and her passengers, she veered at a sharp 90 degrees, jostling everyone within the basket, yet keeping them from death's door in one fluid motion.

Spotting Ponyville not too far away, she raced to it without hesitation, getting her charges away from the onslaught of lightning bolts and to safety. It took another few seconds, but she found Golden Oaks and simply dropped the basket off to let it land in its branches.

"I'll deal with the thunderclouds! Stay put!" Dash ordered as she then turned a full 180 and darted straight back to the source of her bubbling anger.

"Alright!" she barely heard Shining call out behind her. Dash pressed on, wings still flapping, though now she was already decelerating to the point that the trail she left was fast dissipating. She cared not for the gawking stares from the streets below as she flew overhead, because right now she had bigger fish to fry, and she intended for the entire mass to be fried thoroughly.

By the time she got to the gathering thunderclouds, she found Soarin already working on getting rid of them. She spotted little yellow blots adorned with thunderbolt-like protrusions in the clouds, which Soarin grappled with his front hooves and yanked them right off their lofty perches before sending them flying with a firm throw to the Everfree's outermost tree branches.

Then, he angled his body mid-air and kicked the cloud, making it hiss and release a few buckets' worth of rain. He moved onto the next nearest cloud without waiting for the first to finish emptying itself, grabbing the next yellow blot and repeating the process over again. She eagerly joined in, rushing right to the very front lines of the clouds and seizing several small, yellow, and circular bodies with her front hooves.

She dropped them unceremoniously prior to bouncing between the clouds she'd torn the forms from, forcing them to empty their rain reserves before hopping over to the next batch to jostle off of their crackling clouds. Effortlessly sending some more yellow bodies to crash-land in the canopy, Dash felt some of her boiling blood cool off a smidgen.

But only a smidgen. There were still crackling clouds hovering over the forest, each one affixed with a tiny yellow body at their individual epicenters. "Oooooh, you ectoplasms are gonna pay for threatening Scootaloo…" Dash murmured to herself, her tone equal parts angry and laced with venom.

"Did everypony make it out of that near-miss okay?" Soarin called as he dispatched another ectoplasm with a firm kick straight off its cloud.

Dash turned to Soarin momentarily. "In one piece, but I didn't stick around long enough to check! Had to decelerate before something worse happened," she called back as she rounded up another hoofful of ectoplasms to dump upon the forest below. She paused to look at the mass of clouds still present and accounted for, brow furrowing when she saw that, despite her and Soarin's currently best efforts, they didn't even put a dent into the stormfront.

Which made her blood start boiling yet again. Her wings pulsed, feathers rippling with a faint blue glow that almost blended in seamlessly with her coat as the limbs worked to keep her aloft. Her nostrils flared and she puffed out her chest, blowing air out prior to once again darting about grabbing as many ectoplasms as she could hope to carry. This time, she used her tail to grab another half-dozen or so of the creatures, likewise using it to throw them down in tandem with those in her front hooves.

Soarin glanced at Dash and saw her particular approach to the still-growing stormfront. "You sure that's a good idea?" he cried. "They could shock you through your spine, with your tail as a medium!"

"I've been through worse!" Dash shot back, at that point laden with another bundle of ectoplasms that were shaken off and promptly dropped down to the canopy. "Soarin, stop griping! If we don't deal with this now, Celestia knows what it'll do once it decides it wants to outgrow the forest!"

Soarin gulped, ears pinning back when the balloon's rather spectacular and unexpected bursting into flame came into the forefront of his thoughts. He shook his head to rid himself of the thought before he heard a growing crackle behind him. He twisted around and gaped, finding himself face-to-face with a blot as big as he was tall, with two lightning-shaped horns and small beady white eyes glaring back at him. It had stubby hands which crackled with growing balls of plasma, and a jet-black bowl-shaped bottom that was anchored into the cloud it came in on.

"Dash, we got lightning sprites!" Soarin called as he twisted vertically, mere seconds before he gave the sprite in question a good two-hoofed kick in the face that sent it careening a few feet away.

But the sprite did not get off its cloud; if anything, the cloud was dragged with it as the force of the kick propelled it a bit. It stopped after about a second, re-orienting itself and leveling a glare at Soarin, tiny hands still aglow with plasma balls that consumed more and more energy.

"Great, little Prickleplot's charging," Soarin seethed, snorting with his own eyes narrowing. He lifted his front hooves and bashed them together in a manner reminiscent of knuckles cracking, but he stopped before his hooves could even part as Dash charged from behind him with another wad of ectoplasms in her hooves and tail.

Dash homed right in on the charging sprite, and it turned to her with plasma balls growing as wide as a pair of wings. Before she got within a foot of it, she twisted around so her back hooves would be the first to meet the creature. At the same time she connected with it, she dropped the ectoplasms she was carrying. This time the assault wound up sending the sprite off the cloud, arcing over a few more, and subsequently crash-landing in the forest below.

This was followed by a lightning bolt tipped with a plasma ball shooting up from where the sprite landed that arced the opposite way, but as it came closer Dash lifted a hoof and yawned into it. She dropped the hoof before perching on a cloud and calmly side-stepping aside. The bolt stopped where she was flying prior to coiling around itself until it compacted into an orb-like structure, whereupon it exploded in a loud boom and a dazzling shower of golden sparks.

A few sparks hit Dash, but they landed on her uniform and only singed it slightly. She turned to where the sprite had landed and snorted. "I could dodge that asleep," she scoffed, directing her attention to the rest of the cloud front. She assumed a frown on her muzzle when about seven more lightning sprites cropped up not too far away, this time with another batch of ectoplasms flanking them.

In that moment, her frown turned into a small but wicked smirk. Her ear twitched when she heard the sound of beating wings encroaching on her location, and turned to her left to find that it was Soarin. She lifted a hoof and gestured to the sprites. "I don't think you suppose that those are the source of the storm?" she asked.

"Not entirely sure, Dash," Soarin replied, turning to the sprites as the ectoplasms behind them merged and sparked violently, seemingly pulsing as more and more ectoplasms converged upon the scene to heap upon the dogpile. The sprites sported grim expressions, and each one in turn was crackling with two plasma balls at the ready. "But they don't look too appreciative of our retaliation."

"Buck 'em. They came really close to hurting Scootaloo, her friends, Twilight's brother, and two diplomats. That's crossing a line in my book," Rainbow scoffed, nostrils flaring again. She turned to the gathering ectoplasms, a brow quirking when more and more heaped onto the pile with their own thunderclouds. The sprites hopped forward, hands raising to the sky as their charges built up and up.

Rainbow flapped her wings again and wasted not one second flying towards the sprites, darting to them before they could unleash their plasma balls. She went to one after the other, firmly kicking them into the still-growing mass of converging ectoplasms, causing their own charged and concentrated bits of electricity to loudly explode on impact with said ectoplasms.

This caused the already-massive swell of clouds that remained to merge with both the sprites and the ectoplasms, forming a roiling dark grey mass that viciously rumbled and sparked as it twisted into a new form with a distinct pulse of yellow mana. Dash flew back to Soarin and turned to the growing mess that rapidly swelled and contorted into the shape of a house-sized lightning sprite with three horns on its head.

The two pegasi looked at the monstrosity as it turned from sable to golden in color, hovering on a cloud large enough to support its singular black foot. It stared back at them with eyes glowing, and it raised its hands to start charging them with more electricity. The orbs it generated crackled ominously before it threw them at the duo who immediately flew out of the way.

The orbs exploded before they could come into contact with the trees, and the sprite started charging another volley, slowly turning to where its quarry had flown to the side. It lifted its arms to launch another strike, but Dash caught sight of something shooting up from a clearing at the behemoth's side that was before concealed by clouds.

That something came with a distinctive red glint, in addition to another of glass. The gigantic sprite turned to it as it came closer with a whistle before flicking a hand and swatting it out of the air, causing it to plummet back down in a dangerous spin. Then something else flew toward it, from the same clearing, and Dash faintly heard a buzzing of wings as the two connected just above the canopy in addition to glass breaking and a splashing of liquid.

Dash's eyes zeroed in on the anomaly, and she flew over to it only to gape as she found that the second entity was a thin form with a distinct red mane, clawed horseshoes, and an arrow perforating her head just beneath her horn. On top of that, glass stuck out of her cranium in broken shards that gleamed with a bluish tint. As if to complete the look in a mockery of a crown, a few vines of poison ivy draped her head, adding flourishes of green to crimson.

Despite the new additions to her cranium, Katie still hovered in the air, but she did not shake her head to rid herself of her unwarranted and impromptu splinters. "What did you do?" Dash asked, pupils shrinking as blue spots started to dot Katie's body spontaneously.

"I was taking a trip through the Everfree with Anna and Zecora, and we were on our way back to Ponyville when we caught sight of this," Katie explained, lifting a hoof and pointing at the lightning sprite that turned its attention to her.

Soarin flew over, shouting at Dash, "What are you doing, we have to deal with that thing pronto!" He stopped when he saw Katie, gasping as the spots on her body started rippling with blue mana. "And now you're sick?!" he exclaimed.

Katie rolled her orbs and looked below, ignoring Soarin in favor of spotting two forms that stayed on the ground in the clearing. "Fire another one, I got an idea!" she called.

"You sure?" Dash heard Anna call back.

"Do it, or this thing'll barbeque us all!" Katie retorted, lifting her forelegs above her head and waving them about. She stopped when the tell-tale crackle of growing electric balls rumbled through the air, and she, Soarin, and Dash all turned back to the lightning sprite that still loomed over them.

Dash and Katie exchanged glances. "Alright, what's with the spots?" Dash asked.

Katie tilted her head a little. "Made to catch an arrow laden with a poison joke brew, and well… your eyes still work, don't they?" she retorted. The growing crackle made her ears twitch, and she turned once more to the big sprite that lifted its orb-tipped arms again. "Change in plans!" she cried, turning downward and descending to the canopy as fast as she could.

"Wait!" Soarin cried, immediately flying after her. Dash tailed after him, and the three just barely reached the canopy when the sprite unleashed its coalesced spheres of lightning right onto them, which they narrowly missed as they exploded behind them.

Another object whizzed up from below, one which Dash caught sight of. She twisted out of the way and grabbed its tail with a lightning-fast hoof before it could stray any further. She brought it to her face to find a crystal arrow with a glass bottle of blue-tinted liquid crudely tied onto the shaft with more vines of poison ivy.

Dash turned to Katie as another ominous rumble rang out into the air. Katie merely nodded back and gestured to the sprite. "Well, poison joke doesn't seem to do much to me," she snorted. "But now I wanna see what it does to Mr. Three Horns over there."

Dash's jaw dropped. "Y-you mean…?"

Katie nodded again. "Damn straight," she answered flatly. Dash's face hardened and she turned to the lightning sprite, brow furrowing as it charged up another volley of crackling orbs. She flapped her wings and ascended straight up with the bottle-tipped arrow in her hoof. The sprite turned to her as she climbed higher and higher, slowly lifting its arms once more in tandem with her ascension.

But then Dash angled herself at a sharp 135 degrees and launched herself bodily towards the behemoth, gaining momentum and speed as she let gravity do most of the work. She stopped only when she landed squarely on the sprite's head and thrust the arrow onto its cranium, both breaking the bottle and splashing its contents on the target, whilst at the same time firmly stabbing it. She catapulted off not a second later, first going up before sharply U-turning back to the canopy.

Katie and Soarin had dropped to the ground by the time she joined them, in addition to an armed Anna and saddlebag-laden Zecora, both of whom just looked up at the sprite as it discharged its orbs on itself without firing them. She, Soarin, and Katie also turned to the sprite as it then lifted its hands to its head and started pawing around in an attempt to find where the arrow went.

"I have noticed that the sprite's volleys never stray near the canopy," Zecora intoned, frowning a little as blue splotches started growing on the sprite's head for all to see. "Perhaps it will not—or cannot—attack even one tree."

Katie turned to Zecora, both ears perked. "Translation?" she queried.

Zecora turned her attention to Katie, her frown deepening a smidgen. "Have you seen the Everfree maim itself once, through magic or creatures thus far?" When Katie shook her head, Zecora continued, "It seems that even this wild wood must maintain some semblance of order, which I'll admit sounds a little bizarre." She turned back to the sprite as it shrunk and shrunk with a hiss, at which point the blue splotches completely overtook it.

"Huh, so poison joke is useful," Anna noted with a smug grin spreading on her face. She loaded an unburdened arrow into the drawstring and fired, watching as it sailed until it hit the still-shrinking sprite in the cranium and caused a swell of crystals to exhume from the inside outward. With a final hiss the fiend burst into flame, and the clouds that were generated evaporated shortly after. In seconds, the sky was momentarily ashy before giving way to a clear crystal blue. "Well, that was a bit boring."

Her smile dropped when she turned to find Dash looking at her with dilated pupils and pinned ears, who then spoke in a rapidly-turning-frantic tone. "We gotta check on Lance and Maria. Those ectoplasms and sprites managed to strike the balloon, and I didn't stick around to check when I saved them and the basket and dropped them off at the library."

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

The first thing Lance heard as he came to were a series of clamoring voices, and out of them, he could make out one mumbling and the other screaming in hysterics. How or why, though, eluded him, and so he laid in the blackness with eyes shut tight.

"... he's still breathing," a hollow feminine voice murmured, and Lance stirred faintly at the feeling of four small and distinctly cold hooves planted firmly upon his barrel. "His nose scrunched! He's waking up!" the voice declared before the hooves scuttled off of his body. Only when he confirmed a second later that his nose did indeed scrunch slightly and that the intruder had gotten off of him, he slowly cracked his eyes open.

He didn't get them parted more than an inch before a green-and-tan blot rushed him, hefted him up on all four hooves, and wrapped forelegs around him tightly. This was followed by a hysterical laugh before the entity peeled themself off of him, and stared at him as he opened his eyes the rest of the way to find a haggard face, a frazzled mane, and pinprick pupils. "Anna, I'm fine," he stated in a subdued tone. Afterwards he looked around the room and realized they were gathered in the basement.

"F-fine? Y-you almost d-died! If Rainbow Dash d-didn't heft up the balloon's basket when sh-she did…" Anna began, eyes watering before a brown talon arched around from behind her, grappled her by the shoulder, and pulled her sharply back. As that happened, Lance turned his attention away from Anna and towards the talon, then he turned his gaze a little upwards before spotting another form still sporting a wing-cast.

Then Sarah tottered around Anna and stopped at her side, eyes leveled at Lance as a small frown graced her muzzle. "Anna's been gushing over you sideways, and—" She stopped when the basement door opened and Maria ran up behind Anna, prior to going around her. She wasted no time homing in and then pouncing Lance in the chest with a shriek that sent him staggering back. She wrapped her forelimbs around the base of his neck with a whimper.

"Daaaaaaddy," Maria wailed, clinging tightly to his neck and burying her face in his barrel. "Big scary clouds…" she hiccupped and sniffled. "S-scary clouds made b-big monster…"

"A monster?" Lance repeated, ears flattening against his head. He turned to Anna and wrapped a leg around Maria, eyes glinting in askance.

Anna slowly nodded. "The ectoplasms merged to form a lightning sprite the size of this library," she clarified. "But it was taken out with a poison joke brew and two arrows to the face."

Lance took a few seconds to let it sink in before he let off a heavy sigh. He rubbed Maria's head with his hoof and looked around before spotting Katie in front of a few bookshelves a few trots away. He saw what she sported on her body and slowly lifted a brow. "Do I want to know?" he queried rhetorically.

Katie tilted her head. "I think my new afflictions speak for themselves," she snorted. She turned to the still-sniffling Maria, whose fit had calmed down a bit. "Though honestly, I don't really feel that all different." She turned to one end of the room, looking at something behind Lance before nodding in that direction.

Lance slowly turned to find Rainbow and Soarin looking at him, the latter with a small frown and the former letting out a sigh that held a note of relief. "I think we can agree that we're not doing the balloon again anytime soon?" Rainbow asked.

Lance nodded. "I've had enough heart attacks for today, thank you," he answered. Something clicked in his head, and he looked about once more to discover that nobody else had so much as trotted a step through the basement door, though he did hear voices murmuring above. "Where's everyone else?"

"Zecora's talking with Twi, the Crusaders went home for the day, and Shining's getting everyone else to regroup here," Rainbow answered, smiling when Lance turned back to her. "We should take it easy for now."

"I agree," Soarin stated, nodding fervently. He took a few seconds to spread his wings and stretch them, grunting as he felt some bones pop here and there prior to closing them. He smiled. "Ah, nothing like a good stretch after dealing with a bunch of ectoplasms and lightning sprites," he chirped.

Dash likewise spread and stretched her wings, though she had to curl the joints into configurations vaguely resembling fists before some of her bones popped. "You said it," she agreed, uncurling and closing her wings once she made sure no more bones would pop. She turned to Anna, who had begun taking some deep breaths. "You look like you need a nap."

Lance turned to Dash again and rolled his eyes. "Give her a few," he said tersely. He flinched when he felt Maria shifting and leveled his gaze at her, and he smiled as she mumbled and turned her head.

Dash also looked at Maria in that moment, sitting on her haunches as she saw a pair of closed eyes. "Well, at least she's relaxed now," she chirped in a whisper.

Lance lowered his head to nuzzle Maria between the ears, causing her to open her eyes blearily and look around before she turned up to see her surrogate. Lance pulled back with a chuckle and said in a soft voice, "Your claws are still on the back of my neck. Could you let go, please?"

Maria obeyed and stumbled onto the ground, standing on all fours for a full minute before her head dropped to where her feathers ended and the tarsi of her talons began with eyes closing once more. Still standing thereafter, she gave a soft snore.

"Guess she tires out quickly," Soarin noted, his voice low.

"Give her a break, she's just a kid," Katie scoffed, causing Soarin to turn to her with a warbling smile forming on his face. The others, sans Maria, followed suit shortly afterwards.

Anna slowly walked up to Katie, her steps hesitant and almost silent. When she reached the splotch-bespectacled wraith, she lifted a hoof and gestured to the arrow in her skull. "Uh… want me to remove that for you?" she asked.

Katie rolled her orbs. "Go ahead. I probably won't feel a thing," she answered, whereupon the raised hoof dropped and she caught sight of Anna's horn glowing. The green aura seized her head, but she did not protest in any way as the arrow was also embraced prior to giving way to a few tugging motions. After a few tugs, the arrow slid out, coated faintly with very dark green goo that congealed fast.

"Is that… your blood?" Anna queried, garnering a nod from Katie as the new wound oozed a little.

"Yeah. Still flows through me like anyling's blood does," Katie replied with an earnest shrug of her shoulders. Anna's jaw dropped as the wound started to pulse with blue mana and simultaneously close of its own volition, and before long it healed to the point that not even a scar lingered. In addition to that, a blue splotch on Katie's bridge shrunk during the rather bizarre process.

Anna eyed Katie critically, reeled in her jaw, and sighed after a few seconds. "Hold still. Gonna get the glass off of you." She grappled Katie in her magic again, and hastily plucked the shards of glass as fast as she could manage, though she did not throw them callously to the side once they slid out of pale chitin and drew some more droplets of viridian blood. The wounds pulsed with mana, the spots closest to them shrunk about an inch in diameter, and the small lacerations healed near-seamlessly.

Finally, the poison ivy vines were the last things to be lifted off, though they did not leave any sort of rash or itch that Anna could see. She took a step back, still holding the arrow and shards and vines in her magic with a jaw that once again fell open.

Katie lifted one of her own hooves and probed around her head and neck, orbs shrinking when she realized that the only thing left of the wounds that she could feel were the droplets of blood that managed to escape. "Poison joke… makes me heal faster?" she squeaked in sheer disbelief.

Her wings spread out, but she closed them just a second later as she turned to her legs and found their holes pulsing and likewise closing shut with a swell of mana. Sinew reformed around exposed bone, followed next by chitin, until all that remained was a faint scar where each perforation had been.

Her split grin started glowing, but by that point, the blue spots on her body shrunk until they could be seen no longer and the pulse of mana died before it could start on her lack of cheeks. Katie's jaw likewise dropped, left only to swing with a crack of bones. She turned to Anna, orbs merely the size of pinpricks, wings snapping open again.

Anna made the arrow, shards, and vines vanish in a flare of light and silently nodded before turning to Lance and the others. Dash and Soarin simply stared straight back with similar expressions, while Lance managed a pair of widened eyes and nothing more. Sarah gulped, but did little else. Silence hung in the air again, and for a few minutes on end nobody dared to even attempt to break it.

At least, until the voices above multiplied in a feverish conversation, and the sound of hoofsteps echoed into the room from the door, making everyone sans the still-asleep Maria to direct their attention to it. A second after that, Shining Armor entered the room, and this time he had a tortoise with a propeller strapped to its shell and goggles over its eyes perched on his head.

If not for the shock of Katie's unexpected semi-regeneration, Lance would have smiled at the tortoise on Shining's head. As it was, though, all he could manage was opening his mouth about an inch before lifting a hoof and gesturing to Katie with it. "Alright, what is…" Shining trailed off as he turned to Katie and blinked as he registered the lack of holes in her legs. "What in the name of Faust…"

"Poison joke did this to me," Katie answered in an uneasy voice.

Shining managed a grimace. "P-poison joke?" he stammered, prompting the tortoise on his head to also look at Katie with an accompanying grunt.

Katie slowly nodded. "Poison joke," she repeated. Then she finally turned her attention specifically on the tortoise. "And whose is that?" she asked, which caused it to crane its neck and tap at the stem of the propeller with its nose. It turned back as the propeller began spinning with a golden glow, lifting off of Shining's head and flying rather fluidly in the air for a full minute before it descended and settled on Rainbow's back. All eyes followed the reptile up until the moment its feet landed on a blue-and-yellow uniform.

"The tortoise is mine," Rainbow answered, craning her neck to nuzzle the reptile. "How ya doing, Tank?" Tank gave a grunt and managed a small smile at Rainbow before taking flight again and subsequently hovering all the way over to Lance and making his head into a perch.

Lance looked at Tank cross-eyed. "This is very weird," he remarked, earning a tap on the forehead from one of Tank's feet. He turned his attention to Shining as soon as Tank lifted off of his head and flew back over before perching on Shining, whereupon he heard him clear his throat.

"Well… I wanted to inform you that I've gathered everyone, and that they want you all to come upstairs," Shining said, smiling a little as Tank tapped him on the head.

Anna nodded and turned to Maria, trotting over to her before lifting a hoof and jabbing her in the shoulder with it. Maria lifted her head, sluggishly opened her eyes and grumbled, wings spreading as she directed her attention to Sarah instead. "Whaaa?" she groaned tiredly.

Sarah turned to Maria and stood on her back legs before coming to her, kneeling, and picking her up with her talons in one go. "Shining wants us upstairs," she answered.

"But I wanna sleeeeep," Maria whined, wings closing as Sarah held her to her barrel.

Shining let his smile widen just a smidgen. "Uh… I'll go upstairs and tell everyone to keep their indoor voices," he stated, and with that, he turned tail and trotted out of the basement. Then Sarah ambled after him on her hooves, clutching a fast-dozing Maria as tightly and securely as she could manage. Katie trotted after the two, her gait noticeably less unsteady as she went. Soarin and Rainbow went with her, leaving just Anna and Lance in the basement.

The former turned to the latter and went right up to him before staring him in the eye. "Can we… not do the balloons until after you can fly again?" she asked in a subdued tone.

Lance did not hesitate in nodding in assent. "Yes. That's a good idea," he said in a hushed voice. Anna lifted her front legs and hugged him again, and he returned the gesture. The two broke the embrace and turned to the basement door a second later, shifting to go single-file before trotting to it. They went out of the basement, through the small hall, and up the winding stairs leading to it to find that, indeed, everyone else had already gathered into the main room of the library.

They turned to Fenrir, who donned a rather amused grin as they noticed that he had a rather large backpack on his back which was so full with many colorful gems that it was almost at bursting point. "So… how was your day?" Lance asked with a slight frown.

Fenrir's smile widened. "Splendidly. I found a trio of my Mythonian brethren, and they allowed me to search their quarry. They even handed me this two-strap satchel to take whatever gems I found with me," he answered.

Rarity piped up with a rather wan smile, "Of course, I went with him to meet his fellow dogs, and helped him find the gems."

Anna turned to Rarity, a brow raised. "How'd they treat you?" she asked.

"Well… more of a nuisance, but they didn't stop me and Fenrir at all," Rarity answered. "They were afraid that I'd start… for a lack of better words, pouting like a petulant child."

Lance and Anna exchanged looks at that, then turned back to Rarity. "I… don't know how to respond to that," Lance said after a few seconds of silence. He turned to Pinkie and noticed she was no longer carrying the Cake twins. "Where're the babies?"

Pinkie smiled. "Oh, I took them home and put them to bed, and then I had a talk with Mr. Cake. I told him I was heading for Fantasia in a few days and all that other good stuff, except for the fact that we have a wraith with us," she answered in one breath.

"And speaking of heading back," Matt interjected from behind Lance, causing him to whirl around, "We've all agreed to board the train tonight."

For a few seconds, silence hung again. This time it was Twilight who broke it, "So, is everyone ready?" All eyes fell onto her and heads nodded immediately, with some faces hardening and others easing a little. "Alright. It's still light out, so we'll board the train when it gets dark out. Sound good?" Another series of nods answered her in unified silence. She deflated a little at this, but nodded back just once. "But before we go to the train, there's just one last thing I need to take care of while I'm here."

With that, she turned to the door, opened it with a quick flick of magic, and trotted out without an iota of hesitation. She closed it behind her before galloping down the road as fast as she could.