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Twilight Manages to Screw Up More Than Usual

by Fire Gazer the Alchemist

Chapter 24: The Worst Kind of Snakes

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Shining Armor enclosed his last pursuer in a light magenta bubble. The changeling hit the side of his shield before it could slow down and hissed angrily. He turned to the dragon on his back, grinning. “Just like the rest?”

Spike nodded. “Just like the rest.”

Pounding on the wall of the shield, the changeling screamed a few choice words at them, but they were too muffled to decipher. With a flick of his magic, Shining launched the bubble into the air. The changeling lurched up with a look of surprise plastered on its face. Just as the shield was about to hit the ceiling, Shining cut off the magic holding it together. Freed from his prison, the changeling had all of half a second to celebrate before its head slammed into the ceiling, knocking it unconscious.

As it fell, Shining reached out with his magic and grabbed it by the tail. He turned to the tunnel behind him, a long, downward slope that had a dozen other knocked out changelings at its base. He tossed the last one down, watching it roll into a gentle collision with the rest.

“Done and done.” Spike clapped his claws together. “Nice job, Shining.”

“Thanks.” He flashed his adoptive brother a grin and turned back to the tunnel they’d come from.

“Time to go get Cadance then, right?”

Shining nodded. “I just hope Twilight and her friends are doing okay. I really thought I could’ve led Chrysalis away…”

Spike gave him a pat on the top of his head. “Don’t worry about Twilight. She’s got this.”

“You sure?” Shining started walking, the big brother in him unable to not worry about his little sister.

“Totally sure.” Spike grabbed a clawful of Shining’s mane as they ascended one of the tunnels. “Twilight’s prepared like crazy for this trip. There’s no way she’s going to let an overgrown gnat get the better of her.”

He offered a half-smile. Knowing Twilight’s knack for over preparation, Spike may just be right. Besides, Twilight had come a long way from the tiny filly he kept seeing her as; it was time to stop worrying so much about her.

And as Captain of the Royal Guard, he had a job to do.

Picking up the pace, Shining cleared the top of the tunnel and broke into a trot. He could feel Spike bouncing along his back and clinging tightly to his hair, but he didn’t slow down now that they were on a more level path.

Although they’d been battling changelings on their way out here, Shining had taken careful consideration to mark each turn with a well aimed magical bolt to the sides of the walls. Now the burn marks he’d left were like neon signs directing him where to go.

Left, right, right, left, up… Shining narrowed his eyes as he saw the opening to the chamber. His horn sparked to life, prepared to face another horde of changelings when he arrived.

Except there weren’t any.

Shining and Spike entered the chamber to find a knocked out princess and a giant, gaping hole in the wall. Shining’s horn fizzled out, reflecting the twinge of disappointment he felt at the lack of violence to be had.

Turning his attention instead to Cadance, Shining trotted over to her. Her legs were pinned to the wall in the same gunk that had encased their horns, her hair was a frazzled mess and her usually vibrant coat was paled.

Her head was slumped to the side and her eyes shut. The only indication that she wasn’t a corpse was the steady, but weak rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

“Spike, get her down from there,” Shining said.

“Roger that.” Spike hopped off of Shining’s back and went to Cadance. He inspected her bonds for a moment before breathing a gentle flame onto her encased leg. The waxy substance slowly began to melt just moments later.

Content knowing Cadance would soon be free, Shining’s guard instincts kicked in and he looked around the room. Even though no changelings were nearby, he couldn’t help it.

“S-Shining…?”

Shining Armor turned back around after hearing his name slip out in such a fragile voice. Cadance’s eyes were partially opened; they looked glassy.

“Shining…” Cadance whispered again.

“I’m here,” he told her. “Don’t worry, you’ll be free soon.”

Tears welled up in Cadance’s eyes and trailed down her cheeks. Before Shining could even blink, she was sniffling uncontrollably and shaking.

“I ruined everything,” Cadance cried.

Spike stopped breathing fire for a moment and looked up. “Cadance?”

She kept sniffling and Shining wasn’t even sure how to react. “Er… c-come on now, it’s going to be all right. We’ll get you out and—”

“It’s not all right!” Cadance yelled, her voice hoarse. “Don’t you get it? It’s my fault! The changelings, they attacked us because they wanted me! They caught us because I couldn’t keep anypony safe! I stood there and watched as you tried to take on Chrysalis alone and now she has all of my magic on top of hers!” She wept, sobs coming out ragged and choked. “A-Auntie was right not to trust me with anything important. She knew I’d only screw it up.”

Shining clenched his jaw and looked down to Spike, who had an expression on his face that basically screamed ‘say something, you idiot!’. Unfortunately, Shining didn’t know what it was that he should say to that. Not helping was the fact that while Cadance had been apparently dealing with her insecurities, all Shining had done was antagonize her every time he opened his mouth.

...Yeah, he’d been a jerk.

Not that he wasn’t kind of justified in his jerkiness, but stlll...

Cadance coughed out another sob, hanging her head low. Shining sighed, not knowing what to say.

“Spike, hurry up and get her out of that, will ya?”

He blinked. “O-Oh, right! Sorry.” He went back to breathing fire on Cadance.

Shining shifted his gaze back to his sobbing ex. The words he needed to say still weren’t coming, but he had to give her something.

“Are you planning on giving up?”

Cadance blinked back a few tears as she looked up at him. “What else is there to do? Chrysalis is insanely powerful right now, and I’m…”

Shining paused for a moment, searching for something to say. “I know it seems hopeless, but we can’t stop trying because of that. So what if you’ve screwed up? Everypony does at some point or another. It doesn’t define who you are, not unless you give up.”

Cadance remained silent for a moment, before sighing. “But what can we even do?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out, okay?”

Cadance looked to the ground, considering the alternative, before glancing back up at him. “O...Okay.”

“Good.” Shining glanced down and saw that her hindlegs were slipping free of the waxy goo that encased them. Spike stopped his controlled burn and switched to her forelegs.

Okay, Cadance is almost free. Once Spike finishes up, then we can go catch up to Twilight and her friends.

...I hope they’re all right.

It was an uneasy feeling, not knowing if his little sister was safe or not. His training as a Royal Guard had prepared him for what to do in a lot of possible scenarios, and even some impossible ones—honestly, when was he ever going to come face to face with a magic sucking demon from Tartarus? Surprisingly though, ‘getting caught by shape-shifting bug monsters and trapped underground while possibly losing your sibling’ wasn’t one of them.

He’d have to update the training regimen when he got back.

“Any sign of them?” Spike asked as he switched over to Cadance’s final leg.

Shining blinked, coming out of his thoughts. He didn’t know if Spike meant Twilight and her friends, or the changelings. Giving the room a quick glance over he shook his head. “No. But I have an idea where they might be.” His gaze settle on the gaping hole in the wall. He didn’t know what had made it, but whatever it was it would probably lead them to Twilight.

“Okay, we’re good.”

Shining turned around to see Cadance slip free of the last of her prison. Too weak to move, she slumped forward and fell to the ground. She was caught before contact, thanks to his magic.

Cadance made a few cursory attempts to move her legs, but it became clear pretty quickly that she was in no condition to move. Lifting her head, Cadance struggled to focus on Shining. “Uh… could you…?”

He clenched his jaw at the thought, but didn’t have many options. “Yeah, sure.” Shining levitated her up and set her down gently on his back. She weakly gripped his neck, letting him know to take it slow or risk knocking her off.

As her body nestled against his, Shining was forced to think about on a hundred memories similar to this. But they were memories he’d sooner forget than relive.

“Let’s go.”

“Shouldn’t I free her horn, too?” Spike asked.

Shining glanced back to Cadance. Her eyes were already shut and her breathing had slowed, a clear indication that she was already out cold. “She’s out of magic at the moment, so let’s not waste anymore time and let her get some rest. Besides,” he turned to the hole. “We need to focus on Chrysalis.”


For whatever reason, the snakes were focusing on Chrysalis.

Maybe it was just their instincts kicking in, giving them a desire to eat bugs, or maybe Twilight was just lucky. Either way, she scrambled to move away before they changed their minds.

“Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope!” Lyra stumbled back as fast as she could, shrieking in terror at the slithering monstrosities. Twilight couldn’t really blame her for that; she was halfway to doing the same.

“Okay, I can’t decide if this is cool or terrifying.” Vinyl pried one of the snakes off of her forelegs and tossed it to the side. “I’m leaning towards terrifying, though.”

Octavia neared Twilight as she backed away. They watched them slither around, the ones not swarming Chrysalis drifting aimlessly.

“Y-you don’t think the baby snakes also—” Octavia didn’t get to finish her sentence before one of the second generation snakes opened its maw and spewed out another pit’s worth. “—Nevermind!”

Twilight sucked in air through her teeth, wishing she hadn’t spent the last of her magic already. A few well placed blasts would make this problem easy to deal with. But now that all the snakes could multiply, seemingly endlessly, she knew it wouldn’t be long before the problem couldn’t be contained.

She looked to the one snake free spot in the room: the air. Derpy hung there, covering her mouth with worry as Twilight found herself, yet again, envious of those wings. Though, she’d settle for a ledge or something right now. Snake-breathing snakes were the epitome of Tartarus spawn, but she was willing to bet that they sucked at climbing.

Her eyes raced across the room, looking for any ledge-like havens. The best she could find was the hole Chrysalis had punched into the room. Turning back to her friends, she raised her voice to match the screaming. “Girls, over there!”

Bon Bon took a break from frantically swinging her frying pan to look up. “Good idea!”

She switched to offense, her frying pan rocketing snakes out of the way left and right as she cut a path through. Lyra followed close behind, wincing as the snakes were easily able to recuperate their losses.

Twilight’s eyes widened as each of the new snakes that popped out merely opened their mouths and vomited out more. They were multiplying at an exponential rate; pretty soon they’d be swimming in scales.

She felt Octavia grab her hoof and pull. “Come on!”

They lurched forward, Twilight stumbling to match Octavia’s pace as they ran on top of a thin layer of snakes. A few tried to worm their cold, scaly bodies up her legs, but she screamed and flailed, launching them away.

As they neared the tunnel, Vinyl, Lyra, and Bon Bon joined them. Twilight didn’t see Derpy, but expected her to be somewhere in the snake-free air.

Twilight looked up and saw something that made her breathe a sigh of relief. Chrysalis’ blast earlier had carved out a section of the wall, giving them a nice little cliff to stand on.

Kicking away the last of the clingers, Twilight hurried up the tunnel and climbed onto the ledge. Her friends all joined her a second later, each struggling to find space to stand on, but safe and bite free.

She turned around to see them, just to be on the safe side. Lyra, Octavia, Vinyl Bon Bon…

Where was Derpy?

Twilight instinctively looked up, expecting to see flapping gray wings, but was met with an unexpected emptiness. With a blink of concern, she looked out over to the sea of snakes and gasped.

Derpy was hovering over the center of snake heap, struggling to lift something out of their hold. Something black. With holes.

She’s not… “Derpy, what are you doing?”

“What does it looking like I’m doing?” Derpy yelled. “I’m trying to save her!”

“Derpy, she kidnapped us, don’t risk your neck trying to help her!” Vinyl called out.

“But she doesn’t deserve to die!” Derpy’s muscles strained as she tried to lift Chrysalis away from the snakes. “Come on! We can’t leave her here!”

“Derpy, don’t…” Twilight sighed. She was right; if they left Chrysalis here, they would be no better than her. Probably worse, in fact. Not to mention Derpy probably wouldn’t let up on the issue and might get hurt in the process. “All right, Derpy, we’ll help you.”

“What?” Octavia asked.

Twilight looked to Lyra and Vinyl. “You two still have magic left, right?” They nodded slowly. “Well don’t just stand there, help her out.”

Lyra’s jaw slid open. “T-Twilight, are you sure?”

She nodded. “Just hurry up and do it before I try to myself and pass out.”

Vinyl and Lyra shared a look, one adamantly a no and the other a tentative yes, respectively. For a moment it seemed like the two were locked in a silent debate and Twilight waited for their answer through the sounds of Derpy’s grunts and the snakes hissing.

“Okay, fine. We’ll help her.” Vinyl finally groaned. Both her and Lyra stepped forward, horns alight.

Twilight looked back out the the scaly ocean. After a minute of just Derpy’s continued struggle, she worried that maybe her friends had lied. Then the blue and gold glow of their magics began shining through the snakes and two more of Chrysalis’ legs became visible.

Snakes rained down as her body made its way into the air. Twilight could see the strain on Lyra and Vinyl's faces, but the kept lifting regardless.

Between the three of them, they managed to haul the unconscious queen free of the knee-deep snake pit.

Derpy grunted as she flapped furiously, not letting go until she was certain all of Chrysalis was safely in the tunnel, even after Vinyl and Lyra casually dropped her face first into the dirt.

Twilight inspected Chrysalis, who looked worse for wear. The snakes had not been merciful to her as her legs, body, and face had severe bite marks on them. As much as she didn’t care for Chrysalis, Twilight at least hoped the snakes weren’t venomous. Well… maybe it was more like she hoped their venom wasn’t deadly.

“So what now?” Bon Bon asked.

“Now…” Twilight pressed her lips together.

The snakes kept multiplying at an ever quickening rate; already they looked neck-deep. If this continued, the tunnel wouldn’t be safe for much longer.

“Twilight?”

Her ears flicked. Whirling around, she saw her brother and Spike trotting down the tunnel from the other side and on his back: Cadance.

She breathed a sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about… I guess. “Shining, Spike, you’re okay!”

Vinyl flashed a grin. “Hey, Hot Stuff.”

Shining skidded to a stop, his brow furrowing. “Uh…”

At first, Twilight was worried Vinyl was making things awkward for him at the worst possible time, but when she followed his line of sight she noticed he was looking at Chrysalis and the snakes instead.

“What the heck happened here?” Spike asked.

“A lot that we really don’t have time to explain,” Twilight said. “Shining, please tell me you still have magic left.”

“‘Course I do, but what—”

Twilight pointed to the snakes. “Bubble them! NOW!”

Shining flinched at the urgency in her voice and his horn snapped to life. Not even a second passed before a shield appeared over the throng of snakes, sealing them in a space barely five feet above the ground. Twilight gritted her teeth as she looked them over. Given their rate of exponential growth, she estimated that they had two, maybe three minutes before Shining’s shield became full.

“Anypony want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked. “Seriously, why are there snakes?”

“It’s a…” Twilight chewed the inside of her cheek. “I don’t even know how to describe it, honestly.”

“You should just tell it like it is, Smart Mare,” Vinyl said. “We’ve got bad news, worse news, horrible news and a little good news.”

“Bad news?” Shining asked.

“An ancient demon-thing broke free and made a bunch of snake-breathing snakes,” Lyra told him.

He nodded. “Worse news?”

“He freed Nightmare Moon,” Octavia said.

Shining winced. “Uh… the horrible news?”

Derpy’s face contorted into a wince-smile. “He also made the Elements disappear.”

Shining took a deep breath. “Oooh…”

Spike looked around his legs and over at Chrysalis. “I’m guessing she’s the good news?”

“Yeah.” Bon Bon spun her frying pan proudly. “We got her.”

“Yikes…” Shining said, apparently choosing to focus on the bad, worse, or horrible news over the little bit of good. “So… what’s the plan?”

“Working on it,” Twilight said in a tone she was sure Shining could translate into ‘I’ve got nothing, please help!’. “But first, how’s Cadance?”

Shining shifted to give them all a front row view of her. Twilight couldn’t help but wince at the sight she saw. Cadance looked… just a little bit better than completely awful. Given what she’d been through, Twilight could understand that, but it didn’t stop her jaw from unhinging a little.

Shining nodded, the way his lips were pressed together told her that their reaction was about what he expected. “She’s exhausted, but alive.”

“No thanks to this one.” Vinyl gave Chrysalis a light kick.

The Changeling Queen shifted and started groaning.

Everypony flinched as the Changeling Queen stirred. Vinyl practically leapt back, throwing her hooves in the air. “Uh… my bad.”

Twilight cringed as Chrysalis shook and her eyes fluttered open. They were glassy as she started to focus, but already her body shifted as she tried to sit up.

“I got this.” Bon Bon stepped in front of them, frying pan raised. Confusion and then fear flashed across the queen’s face, and then the frying pan flew at her.

“WAIT!”

Bon Bon’s hoof halted, the pan inches from Chrysalis’ face, and she turned to the source of the shout: Derpy. “Are you serious right now?”

“Sorry, but I just thought…” Derpy bit her. “Maybe she could help us?”

“You want to befriend her, don’t you?” Octavia asked bluntly.

“S-She could help!” Derpy protested.

“Yeah, no offense, Derpy, but the last super powerful villain you wanted to make nice with is currently on her way to kill Celestia,” Vinyl said. Twilight winced. “You don’t exactly have a perfect track record when it comes to this.”

“Well we need somepony to take care of the snakes,” she argued.

“Snakes? What?” Chrysalis tried to sit up further and groaned. After giving her head a thorough rubbing that probably relieved nothing, she looked up at them. “By the hive, what did you ponies do to me?”

“We frying panned you.” Bon Bon twirled hers threateningly. “And we’ll do it again too.” She reared back, ready to strike again.

During the exchange, Twilight glanced back over to the snakes. Already they were pressing against Shining’s shield, giving them even less time that she’d hoped for. His magic stretched to keep them held, but before long it would pop, and probably send snakes flying in all directions.

“Wait,” she called out.

Bon Bon lowered her hoof. “What, you’re not seriously thinking about it, are you?”

“Derpy has a point,” Twilight said, earning a smile from the mare. “Somepony’s got to take care of those snakes.”

“Again with the snakes. What are you all even talking about?” Chrysalis asked. All at once, they pointed off to Snake Ocean. Chrysalis’ jaw slammed against the floor. “What did you ponies do to my hive?”

“It wasn’t us,” came Vinyl’s indignant reply. “It was the demon statue guy who did it.”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t,” Twilight interjected. “You see it, right? And yes, those snakes are spitting out more snakes. If you don’t do something about it, your whole hive will be overrun in a matter of hours, you understand?” And probably Equestria in a matter of days.

Chrysalis furrowed her brow, but only for a second. She scoffed a Twilight and turned her head. “I don’t see why I should bother helping you out though.”

“Because if it weren’t for Derpy, you’d be buried alive right now,” Twilight said, pointing to the gray mare in question.

Derpy gave an innocent smile and wave. Chrysalis regarded her for a moment before hissing angrily and starting to stand.

Bon Bon raised her frying pan. A flash of worry scurried across Chrysalis’ face, but was soon overpowered by anger and her horn burst alight.

“Enough.” Shining stepped between the two, careful not to jostle Cadance. He turned to Chrysalis with a stern look and a strained tone. “Look, after essentially screwing us over, you kind of owe us one. Besides, you’ll be picking up snakes one way or another because my shield is about to break, got it?”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and stood up so she could tower over Shining. She bit back a cringe, noticing for the first time the bite marks sprinkled over her legs. Her eyes darted to the snake pit, pressing against his shield, before they shot back to glaring him down. “Got. It.”

“You’re actually going to help?” Lyra squeaked out, surprised.

“You’re not exactly giving me a choice.” Chrysalis stalked away to the base of the tunnel.

Octavia turned to Twilight. “Are you sure we can trust her?” Twilight shrugged. “Oh, well that’s reassuring.”

“I think we can, at least for this,” Derpy said.

“No offense, Derpy, but you trust everypony.” Vinyl grunted. “As for me, I think that overgrown gnat can go—”

“I can hear you!” Chrysalis yelled, forcing Vinyl to swallow her next few words. “And no, I’m not going to betray you idiots. The amount of magic it will take to clean up your mess won’t exactly leave me with enough to kill you and take care of my swarm.” She tapped her chin. “Well, maybe I could afford to seriously maim a few of you.”

“Shield’s coming down, guys!” Shining warned.

Twilight braced herself as the exponentially growing snake population exploded out of the shield. The noise in the room went from silent, to a loud pop, to a flurry of hissing. Twilight’s ears folded down at the sudden ferocity and she closed her eyes to avoid seeing the horror of the snake tsunami.

When she wasn’t buried alive in an instant, she felt okay enough to take a peek.

Chrysalis had taken the tidal wave at full force, firing off a burst of magic that vaporized any airborne snake. Their numbers were quickly replenished by the ones on the ground, however, and Chrysalis snarled.

Her horn released a devastating blast of magic, cutting right to the ground and slicing across the room. Twilight shuddered, thankful she had not been on the receiving end of that attack.

The snakes, uncomprehending and uncaring, just slithered about and spat out more of themselves. Chrysalis kept up her onslaught, turning as many of them to ash as possible.

“Dang…” Vinyl whistled lowly.

Chrysalis turned her head, glaring at them. “What are you morons still doing here? Leave already!”

“Where exactly are we supposed to go?” Shining fired back.

Twilight eyed the hole she’d punched into the roof a few minutes ago. “Up there!”

Necks craned in the direction she was looking at. Spike furrowed his brow. “How did that get there?”

“I made it.” Twilight turned to Shining. “Do you have enough power to make another shield?”

“Of course.”

Twilight looked to her friends and then up to the hole. Her eyes narrowed as she judged the size of it, which wasn’t easy with the charred snake bits flying across her vision. Chrysalis’ shouts of exertion weren’t exactly helping either.

“Everypony get close,” she said. Her order was met with confused glances, but a hurried motioning was all it took for them to reluctantly crowd around. “Okay Shining, can you make a shield right beneath us?”

With a nod and a flash of his horn, the deed was done. Twilight almost didn’t noticed the shift from standing on dirt to standing on a pink—er… light magenta—magical disk.

“Great,” she eyed the hole once more about to open her mouth when she was beaten to the punch.

“I see where you’re going with this.” Shining’s horn blinked a little and the shield lifted off the ground. Twilight saw her friends each flinch reflexively as they were torn away from the ground. Well, all except Derpy, who kept her gaze focused on Chrysalis as they ascended.

“Good luck!” she called down.

“Don’t come back!” Chrysalis yelled up, blasting more snakes.

“Looks like you did make a new friend, Derpy,” Vinyl said.

“Kinda…” She mumbled back.

Chrysalis’ work was almost done, but Twilight could tell she was expending a lot of energy to vaporize each newly formed snake. She hoped Chrysalis would have enough energy to get them all; she did not want any of them slithering around Equestria.

“Eeep!”

Twilight’s ears folded down as a high-pitched squeak slammed into them. She looked over to the offender, only to see Lyra clinging to Bon Bon, eyes shut and body shaking.

“Uh, what’s up with her?” Spike asked.

Bon Bon gave a slightly uncomfortable smile as Lyra tightened her grip. “She has a… thing, about heights.

“Don’t say that word,” Lyra whimpered.

“Hang on, we’re almost there,” Shining said.

Twilight looked up to see her hole rapidly approaching. Soon they’d be out of this nightmare. Then all they’d have to deal with was... Nightmare.

And Discord.

Oh geeze.

Now that the immediate danger of the snakes was under control, the gravity of the situation began to weigh on Twilight. An insane chaos spirit was on the loose, the Elements were gone, and Nightmare was planning on… killing Celestia.

At this point, did it really even matter if they were free?

“Here we are.” Shining’s voice propelled her out of her thoughts. She looked around to see they had officially left the cave. The shield set them down on a grassy knoll in what appeared to be the Everfree, before dissipating and letting them finally touch the surface again.

“Oh thank Celestia!” Lyra leapt off of Bon Bon and hugged the ground.

“Great job, Shining,” Octavia said.

He smiled. “Not a problem.”

“Well, that’s my coltfriend for you.” Vinyl grinned.

He froze. “Wait, what?”

Twilight chewed the inside of her cheek. They didn’t have time for this banter! They had to… to… do something. She just didn’t know what they could do.

Lyra rolled over on the ground, giving off a sigh of content that caught in the back of her throat. “U-Uh, guys… why is the sky purple?”

Twilight blinked and looked up. Sure enough, the usual blue sky now had a new purple coloring to it.

“Uh… that’s unusual,” Octavia observed.

Shining furrowed his brow. “What in the heck…?”

“Didn’t that Discord guy say something about the sky being purple?” Derpy mentioned.

Twilight’s eyes widened. “You don’t think…”

“So the guy who can make snake-breathing snakes can also turn the sky purple.” Lyra sat up, biting her lip. “I… I don’t like where this is heading.”

“If he can do all that, is there even a limit to his power?” Twilight asked.

A silence descended over everypony, no one in particular wanted to have to answer that.

“We need to get the Elements of Harmony back,” Shining said. “Like, now.”

A soft groan came from the mare on his back. Twilight frowned. “I think you should get Cadance to a hospital first. She needs to be able to rest after what happened.”

Shining looked back to the pink heap of exhaustion. From the way his lip curled Twilight could tell he was torn between keeping her safe and finding a way to keep Equestria safe. Not an easy choice, but she knew they wouldn’t be able to properly find the Elements or battle either of the two supervillains currently running around if they had to keep looking out for her.

“Okay,” he finally said with a sigh. “I’ll head back to the nearest town.”

“That would probably be Ponyville then,” Vinyl told him.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Uh, how do you know that?”

Vinyl pointed behind her. “I’ve got a pretty good landmark.”

Turning, Twilight did a double-take as she saw the abandoned castle that they’d originally found the Elements in. “What the—”

“I guess Chrysalis’ hive extended all over the forest,” Octavia reasoned. “And we were dragged back almost to the start of all of this.”

Derpy looked around and pointed off to the east. “Okay, so if you go that way, you should be in Ponyville within the hour.”

Shining glanced in that direction. “You sure?”

“Positive,” Derpy said. “Even if you overshoot it, you’ll run into this weird tree-hut thingy with a zebra in it. If you talk to her, she’ll rhyme you back to Ponyville in no time.”

Shining knitted his brows together. “O-Okay.”

He started moving and Twilight glanced down to Spike. “Uh, do you think you can go with him?”

Spike looked up at her, blinking in confusion. “Oh, uh… okay, sure.”

Twilight smiled as he bounded after Shining. He’d probably be much safer back in Ponyville than he ever would be with her right now. It was one thing she wouldn’t have to worry about at least.

“Bye girls,” Shining called back, earning a few waves in his direction. “When you find the Elements, see if you can meet up with us in Ponyville, we’ll figure out what to do from there.”

“Okay.” Twilight figured that was as good a plan as any right now.

“See ya, Hot Stuff.” Vinyl waved with a sultry wink. Shining whipped around and hurried into the deadly forest.

She turned back to her friends. Now that it was just them, she honestly didn’t know what to do. They didn’t have even the slightest clue about what Discord had done with the Elements of Harmony, but they all knew they needed them if they wanted a hope of defeating both him and Nightmare Moon.

“So what’s the plan, Smart Mare?”

Twilight blinked. “Uh…” Each of her friends’ expectant eyes met hers and slowly but surely they all came to the same conclusion.

“You don’t know what to do?” Octavia asked.

“I… don’t?” Twilight hoped the questioning inflection would entice her friends to help her think, opposed to sending them into a panicked spiral.

Octavia fired off a worried look and it seemed like panicked spiral might be a winner. Then…

“What about that tree?” Bon Bon asked.

“W-what?”

“The Tree of Harmony,” Bon Bon clarified. “That’s still a thing, right? Maybe it can help?”

Lyra nodded in agreement. “Yeah, didn’t you have some sort of tracking spell cast on it? Did that like, wear off or something?”

And just like that, the tick in Twilight’s brain was back. Like the feeling of a song getting stuck in your head again, after working so hard to shake it two days ago.

She’d been so caught up in their capture and subsequent escape that she hadn’t even noticed the gentle nudge in the back of her head with directions to the Tree!

“Just a hundred and thirteen meters…” Her head jerked to attention and she stared off in the direction of the castle. “In that direction…”

Vinyl cocked an eyebrow. “Uh, Smart Mare?”

Twilight forgot to answer. She brushed aside her exhaustion and started running.

“Whoa, Twilight?”

“Where are you going?”

She barely registered turning her head around. “This way, girls!”

There was a pause—likely because her friends needed time to shoot confused glances at each other and shrug—before the sound of running picked up behind her.

Twilight narrowed her eyes as she darted out of the knoll and into the thick woods. Now that she was paying attention to that tick again, it was driving her mad, forcing her to keep going with an insatiable itch.

Left up ahead, go straight for thirty meters, then…. Down?

Her sprint slowed to a jog and then a walk as the itch in her brain practically screamed that she was on top of the Tree. Twilight looked around, poking her head through the foliage and gasping. She looked back, seeing her friends catching up to her, and the castle not much further.

“Geeze, Twilight,” Derpy said, landing next to her. “You sure can run when you want to.”

“Mind telling us what’s going on?” Octavia asked, taking a few deep breaths.

“You have to see for yourselves,” Twilight told her. She brushed some branches to the side, letting her friends poke their heads through and take a look.

“Holy crap!”

“Is that…?”

“No way.”

Twilight stepped forward, drinking in the sight for a second time. A swift decline of a cliff, leading to a small cave. Standing proudly in the center was a massive, crystal tree.

“The Tree of Harmony,” Twilight said, confirming what they were all thinking. Confirming what the itch in her head was screaming at her. “That’s really it girls.” She smiled. “And it might just be the key to finding the Elements again.”

Next Chapter: Magic Touch Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour
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