Rainbow Dash flew at a low altitude through the starlit sky adorned with a thin crescent moon, the wind whistling in her ears and through her mane as she darted over some trees like a speeding bullet. She looked up for a split-second, brow furrowing at some stray clouds that idly floated about, before climbing higher to avoid a particularly tall tree. She did this with such speed it almost looked like she jutted up at a 90-degree angle.

She continued to climb, wings flapping with such haste they looked to be little more than blurs wavering at the sides of her body. The pegasus stopped mid-air to perform a horizontal loop, noticing that from here, she could see all of the Everfree Forest, and the small town directly adjacent to it.

"Hey, Dash, what're you doing out here flying this late?" a masculine voice called out, causing the mare to dart her head about every which-way she could. She immediately spotted another form flying towards her at a slow gait, a very pale blue stallion that almost looked white in the light of the moon. He had a very dark blue, windswept mane that appeared to not have been brushed through, and emerald eyes glinting with curiosity.

"Having trouble sleeping. The weather going out of control has been bugging me lately, and everypony in Ponyville just would not let me hear the end of it," Dash replied, a frown forming on her muzzle. "I should be asking you the same thing, Soarin."

Soarin chuckled, before the sound died in his throat to be replaced with a heavy sigh. "Yeah, I get what you mean. Spitfire told me to stay on watch for any more unusual shifts in the weather tonight," he replied, and in a moment, his eyes went wide and that spark of curiosity within his emerald irises flickered tenfold. "Oh, did you see that big airship with the black balloon that came a few weeks ago?" he asked, his question causing Rainbow to pale a bit.

"Er... yeah, I did," the cyan mare mumbled, raising a front hoof to awkwardly rub at the back of her head with it.

Soarin's face hardened. "You did? Could you tell me what the hay that was about?" he questioned.

Rainbow's hoof dropped, and she sighed as if she’d been bested in combat. "It's a Fantasian airship," she stated.

Soarin's jaw dropped open for a second before it clacked shut. He shook his head, pupils dilating as he stared at his fellow pegasus. "You're kidding," he murmured.

"I wish I was," Rainbow replied, nodding slowly. Something clicked in her head, but she gave it no more recognition than a twitch of the ear. "Did you read the newspaper today?"

"Yeah, why—" Soarin stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening to the size of saucers. "Wait, wait, hold up. You mean... you mean the hotel scandal article?"

"Yep," Dash answered in a flat voice. "That one."

"Oh... oh..." Soarin mumbled, his shrinking irises averting every which-way for a moment before he calmed down with a few deep breaths. He affixed as level a look on Dash as he could muster, though the resulting small frown on his muzzle made the expression he aimed for seem off. "Well, I was hoping the Fantasians got a better welcome in Equestria with open hooves, and instead three of them got..." he paused, searching for words, "used, to put it very mildly."

"I'm with you on that one. Nopony should be raped, even if they came from a completely different planet," Dash conceded with a nod.

Soarin nodded back, his frown turning into a grin. "Y'know, I think I can give them the perfect gift that might at least make them feel a bit better," he began, his grin widening.

Dash quirked a brow. "What would that be?" she asked. "Aside from maybe showing those rapists what for," she mentally murmured. "I hope that'll teach 'em."

"A few pies, one for each Fantasian. Could you tell me how many came to Equestria, so I don't accidentally give them a pie too many?" Soarin asked, a tiny glint shimmering in his eyes.

The cyan mare blinked and put a hoof to her chin. Her eyes averted to the sky as she let off a low, thoughtful "hrrrrmmmmm..." After a moment, she began tapping at her chin, her mouth twitching to form various frowns that ranged from barely noticeable to very pronounced. Another moment passed before she dropped her hoof and turned back to the stallion with a mask that betrayed little emotion. "Ten Fantasians. Eleven, counting their pet cat," she answered.

Soarin's shoulders began flinching violently, almost like they had clothespins clenching various spots upon them. He chuckled, though the laugh was uneven and even slightly off. "I-I see," he stuttered, trying for a grin that looked lopsided because his lower jaw kept on shaking out of tempo with the rest of his cranium. "M-maybe I'll get th-the kitty treats, t-too."

"Soarin, are you okay? All of a sudden, you're stuttering like somepony stuck a vibrator up your plothole and started holding a knife to your throat. No offense," Dash mused, a brow shooting up as Soarin's grin widened and he frantically nodded.

"N-none taken. I-I'm fine," the stallion answered. He started taking a few deep breaths and managed to calm his bout of quivering in a moment, somewhat. "I-it's just that I gotta p-practice a lot tomorrow. Y-y'know, standard Wonderbolt t-training, only much h-harder."

"How much harder than kicking and moving clouds and making giant tornadoes are we talking here?" Dash continued, her brow still raised.

Soarin took another series of deep, calming breaths before answering, "Using hail in the standard rainbow-making process. Something about making the sun's rays reflect just right. And then using the hail to pretty up the performance next week, without dropping or breaking a single chunk."

Rainbow's eyes widened. "Sounds pretty rough. Well, I'm going home. Hope you do an awesome performance next week," she said, and with that, she darted off into the deep dark blue of the sky, leaving a six-colored trail that gleamed with the moon's faint light in her wake.

"Thanks," Soarin called out as Dash vanished into the night. He turned away and flew the way he had come, eyes still glinting with that curious spark as he ascended higher and higher, his sights set on the floating mass of rainbow-oozing clouds in the barely-illuminated distance.

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

Spike sighed as he and Twilight sat in the library at the table, with only the tabloid and Celestia's letter keeping them company. "Maybe it was Shining who made the arrests, Twilight. The paper did say he was involved in the whole hotel scandal."

Twilight tapped at her chin with a hoof, then rubbed her temples with it. "Well, he is captain of the guard... alright, I can get behind that reasoning. Still doesn't really explain why he had his ears yelled off three times, according to the letter," she murmured.

"Well, we'll have to ask the Fantasians when they show up. Shining's still gonna be on guard duty anyway," Spike suggested, shrugging his shoulders.

"Makes sense," Twilight conceded with a nod. She stood up abruptly and shot a quick glance around the library. She jumped to the nearest shelf and started grasping books in her magic, seemingly at random. "No... no... not that one," she murmured to herself as she browsed the shelves, sometimes levitating herself to scan the ones that otherwise remained out of her reach.

"Twilight? What are you looking for?" Spike asked, a brow shooting up as Twilight continued to scour through the rows of leatherbound paper.

The unicorn did not heed the drake's inquiry, instead flying to another high shelf to raffle through its contents. In fact, she paid little attention to anything that wasn't a shelf of books. After a few moments had passed wherein she did nothing but pull stacks of books off of shelves to scan them before putting them back, she found a particular shelf that sat in a wide frame all to itself. This one had been laden with a horseshoe-like indent on the back, and it rested on the side of a flight of stairs going up.

"Huh?" she mused, raising a hoof to touch the indent. It slid deeper into the wood with a loud click, and the wood containing it split into two halves from the top of the frame which held it. The wood framing the indent slid to the side, releasing not one sound as it shifted, and revealed a cylindrical structure going down into the earth. This structure did not have any sort of light source; Twilight peered down and found what looked like an empty abyss marked by great gnarly tree roots.

Spike ran up to Twilight and went wide-eyed at what she had found. "Another hidden compartment?" he asked, turning to the unicorn with a perplexed frown on his face.

"Seems like," Twilight replied, turning to meet the drake's gaze. "Stay here. I'll take a look at what's down there."

"But you could hurt yourself!" Spike pointed out, his frown deepening before receding as a lavender hoof patted his head.

"I know how to levitate myself, Spike. I'll be fine," the unicorn replied, her horn glowing with magic that embraced her entire form and emitted a brilliant amethyst light from its tip. With that, she bounded down the chute head-first, going slowly to avoid reaching speeds at which she couldn't shove the blasted roots aside.

It took a few moments to reach a point where the unicorn didn't need to worry about shoving aside tree roots, but by the time she passed the last twisting wooden tendril, she groaned as she looked up and then back down. There didn't seem to be an end to the damned tunnel, given that her light did not reveal a floor of any kind whatsoever. She kept going down for another two minutes, only to land on her face upon what felt like a mixture between gravel and sand.

Twilight rose onto her hooves after taking a few more seconds to recover from the impact, shaking her head free of the grit as she stood up. She trotted forward, finding herself on a winding slope that went down for a bit. "Who made this thing go underground?" she mused aloud, just as she came to a small rectangular room.

This place housed little more than a tiny aged wood bookshelf no taller than she was, and an equally small collection of books adorning its shelves. Next to that stood a small nightstand and chair, caked in dirt, moss and grime and riddled with splinters. Twilight approached the bookshelf, carefully picking up the bunch of books and sighing as some of them crumbled as soon as they were lifted from their resting places. The books that hadn't crumbled floated around her and past her eyes, stopping as she looked at their titles to scrutinize them for a bit.

"'Olde Folk Tales...'" Twilight murmured to herself, as if another soul had been present with her. She sighed and set that book back on the shelf before regarding the next one that came to her face. "'Songs of Hearth's Warming...'" That went on the shelf to join its bookmate. "'Arcane Magicks of the Everfree...'" That, too, returned to its place with magical aid. "'Bizarro Enchantments for the Everyday Lyrist...'"

The unicorn paused, tilting her head for a moment as she studied this book's title. "I'll take you upstairs," she mumbled, making the book vanish in a flash of magic before moving onto the next book, one with a terribly worn leather finish. "'Before the Barrier... written by Starswirl—'" Twilight stopped herself, eyes widening to the size of dinner plates as she looked at the book's supposed author. She set it on the nightstand and hastily looked at the other books' titles before setting those back on the shelf and making the whole thing vanish in a violet light.

She turned her attention to the lone book on the aged nightstand and trotted to it, using magic to open the cover and start scanning the pages. The first sentence in, she found, had been written in what looked like a diary-type format, complete with dates and times that were so smudged she had to do a double-take to assess what they were. Then there came the details after that; at first, it was some kind of drivel about preparations made to utilize something.

Something—Twilight couldn't tell what, because a thick layer of ink that looked fresher than what was in the paper thoroughly blotted most of that page out—that seemed to include the world Fantasia in one of the few clean spots. "Who would ever scribble all over this book? Why? This is a priceless artifact, for pony's sake!" she sighed when she reached another large blot of ink just a page later. The unicorn continued to read, brow furrowing as she found more smudges and massive black blots before stopping at a rather particular page.

"Hrm... 'I sit in this dismal place, contemplating; writing out what I have learnt thus far in the strangest cavern Fantasia has offered to me yet. Traversing this forsaken network of caves in my company is Clover, who currently lays to sleep away the dreary night; ‘tis like a mare of noble birth might do to one’s sire in the days of darkness.'" Twilight's brow shot up as she stopped reading to contemplate this for a moment. She continued reading, finding a bit of banter about these caverns that the papers detailed before the mare came upon a loose piece of parchment between the worn, warped pages.

She pried it out effortlessly with but a jerk of her head and a flick of magic, holding the parchment to one side as she resumed where she left off when more dastardly smudges and ink blots impeded her progress. Using her magic to flip through the rest of the pages in a way it looked like a breeze wafted through them from the side, she found that the rest had been obscured by ink. Either that, or in the case of many more pages, had its words smeared so terribly it was almost as if somepony took an eraser to the damned tome and went to town with it.

Amidst the literary destruction, however, stood out two sentences near the end of the book, as clear and concise as a slap to the face from a levitating brick. "'As the stars gleam in the night sky like the moon, so too shall the forests whisper in the winds and bring about the hope in Fantasia... I must needs figure out if this muttering of Fantasian natives could betoken to an event of a kind that eludes me; and with a feeble hope I pray that I understand its musings before my faltering life comes to an end.'"

This discovery prompted a few questions out of the unicorn, ones that echoed in the room and went unanswered as she stood alone in this tiny dismal space. "Who would desecrate this memoir, especially if it's by Starswirl the Bearded? And who would hide it under the library?" she groaned, stomping a hoof as her face set in a scowl. She made the book vanish in another brief flare of light before turning her attention to the lone parchment she had yet to study.

"Let's see what you have to offer," Twilight murmured as the paper came up to her face much like the books had earlier. She found a few sentences on the paper, detailing things like 'focus mana into your horn' and 'make sure the caster has sufficient mana'—standard stuff. "I learned these things before I got my cutie mark. This is foal's play for me," she chuckled to herself.

That's when she stumbled upon a series of strange runes, framed between two circles and the silhouette of a dagger in the center of the second circle. The unicorn studied the runes, brow furrowing. "These runes... that's funny. I can't read them. Note to self: study whatever language these runes are written in as soon as possible," she thought as her mind continued to process what had been written on the paper.

She turned to the nightstand and chair. "No use salvaging those pieces of furniture," she groaned to herself before making the parchment vanish in a flash of light. She took a deep breath and channeled mana into her horn, turning the glow already radiating from the tip from a light purple to almost white in a second. Then, materializing in the air before her, the runes on the parchment came to life, foreign symbols spinning with the circles as if they were part of a turning gear.

Once the runes ceased spinning a moment later, a blade as long as her body shot out from the innermost circle, one formed of a brilliant white light compacted into corporeal form. It sped towards the chair and stand tip-first, slicing through them with ease before cementing itself to the junction of blade and hilt in the dirt wall. Twilight gaped as her eyes adjusted to the change of light, pupils dilating as she spotted odd protrusions that came from the hilt that looked a little bit like pairs of wings.

In fact, the overall shape of the blade looked strange. Twilight pried it out of the wall with her magic to study the weapon more closely, and after taking in the contours and the slender hilt, it hit her. "This is almost like... no, exactly in the shape of..." she trailed off, mouth quivering as the gravity of the situation set in on her.

The unicorn made the sword of light vanish and quickly turned around, galloping to the chute as her mind began racing with wild thoughts that jumbled together so fast it was almost like setting hoof in Fantasia all over again. Upon reaching the chute, she grasped herself in her magic and shot upwards like a rocket, slowing down when she reached the gnarled roots to tenderly shove them aside as she climbed higher.

Twilight reached the main floor of the library, sighing as her hooves landed on the wood floor and the door to the once-hidden compartment closed. She glanced around to find Spike idling about near the table. The drake spotted her, and began running up to greet her with a glimmer of some kind of emotion in his eyes. "Find anything?" he asked.

Twilight answered by summoning the pile of books and their shelf, letting the aged bits of wood and parchment and leather stand at her side. "A hefty bit," she replied. "Spike, could you take these books and store them in the bedroom, please? I'm off to see Zecora again."

The drake nodded. "Sure thing. After I'm done with the books, though, I'll probably hit the hay," he chirped with a small grin. His smile broadened as the unicorn rose a hoof to pat him on the head.

"Oh, and be careful with these books. They're old and haven't been cared for properly," Twilight added, waiting until Spike gave her a nod of understanding before she rushed to the front door, threw it wide open with her front hooves, and galloped off into the night. She bounded onwards, softly smiling to herself as she noted the lack of ponies out and about at this hour.

She kept going, hooves propelling her body as fast as they were able, and before long a dark and dismal forest came into view, complete with the trodden dirt road that cleanly divided it in two. Above it, brewing violently, a forming gathering of thunderclouds swirled about, shooting off bolts of lightning that never once touched the trees. Twilight steeled herself and went onwards, keeping to the path for a few moments before diverting, flinching as lightning flashed overhead and created an extensive shadow in front of her in its wake.

The mare sighed and still kept on going, her horn glowing with a dull amethyst light. With the light came a dull throb, pounding away in her cranium like she had been repeatedly hit on the head with a plastic cup. In seconds, the glow fizzled out and ceased to exist, once more darkening her immediate surroundings. Twilight rolled her eyes to nobody in particular and grumbled to herself, "Stupid me, I should've stayed home and let my mana recuperate. Oh well, there's no way I can get there now."

The unicorn turned around and sighed for the upteenth time. "I'll head over to Zecora's tomorrow," she mumbled in resignation as she trotted onto the path and began making her way back to the library. She did not hear the sound of leaves rustling, nor did she see that a pair of glimmering eyes hiding behind the bushes watched her as she vanished into the distance.

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

Fluttershy sat on a bed in a dark room with a fireplace and a chest resting at the foot of the bed. She watched as Angel slept in a nearby bed of his own, chattering with a face set in a scowl. The bunny shifted about in his sleep, the dim lighting doing its best to hide some kind of cloth that rested on his head. The yellow pegasus sighed to herself, voice barely audible, "I hope you get better, Angel Bunny. That ball of hail could've hurt you really bad, but I'm glad it didn't."

The bunny chattered, still snoozing, and Fluttershy smiled at his form before she turned to the other side of the room, spotting two windows very faintly reflecting the starlight in the night sky.

She blinked upon seeing a rainbow streak appearing in the expanse outside, seemingly dividing it in two and glimmering with liquid silver for the barest of instants before it faded like a firefly's tail light. Silently, the lone pegasus crept out of bed and shuffled to the window, carefully dragging her hooves in a way that made very little noise. Slowly, oh so slowly, she reared on her back legs and pushed the panes of glass apart once within reach, flinching when they groaned a little in response. As soon as the new opening had been widened enough, Fluttershy flared her wings and flapped madly.

She darted out of the window, pausing to turn around and close it again before directing her attention to the sky. The pegasus spotted another prismatic trail, heading towards a lone cloud structure in the night that lazily floated near the town. A breeze wafted by, briefly catching her mane and tail and lifting them in a manner not unlike that of hair being brushed. Fluttershy angled herself and started ascending up, wings slowing to languidly flapping at the bare minimum as her feathers caught the tail of the fleeting gale.

Riding the wind enabled her to cross the distance from the place she left moments ago to the cloud structure all on its lonesome. Fluttershy rapidly flapped her wings when the makeshift porch came into view, stopping herself before she could crash through the front door or nearest wall. For a second or two, she glanced up and spotted rivers of liquidated color pour from the sides of the building and a tri-colored bolt of lightning hanging above her before turning to the door and raising a front hoof to knock on it.

Another moment passed, and she knocked again when nopony answered. "Coming!" a voice called from within, followed by the sound of hooves hitting the soft clouds with dull thuds. The door opened, and standing inside the doorframe was Rainbow Dash. "Hey, Shy. You need something?" she asked.

"Um, I saw you flying above the Everfree from my cottage," Fluttershy replied, a small frown on her face. Her head tilted slightly as she asked, "Is something wrong?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I flew about for a bit to wear myself out. Then I bumped into Soarin, and he started asking me..." Rainbow's voice fell as she trailed off, leaning in to Fluttershy's face before she finished, "about the Fantasians that came back here with us."

Fluttershy's eyes widened. "Oh, dear, that's worrying. Did you tell him anything?"

"No, only that there were ten of them—eleven, if you went and included their cat," Dash replied, sighing heavily. "Soarin wanted to give them pies as make-up gifts for the fact that they weren't... warmly welcomed. And cat treats."

"But Rainbow, three of them got raped," Fluttershy murmured, pupils shrinking as she spoke. "I really don't think pies would make them feel better about the mess they've landed in."

"Try telling that to Soarin," Dash retorted with a huff. "I wouldn't be surprised if Celestia basically let the victims strangle the rapists with their front hooves... and set of claws. We both saw what happened to those dozen or so wraiths that started calling two of them 'toys.'"

"That's true, but maybe Celestia'll compromise with them, and they did help heal the little filly. Unless things get really bad in Canterlot, I don't think they'll try something," Fluttershy murmured with a nod. She donned a small smile as she further ventured, "Did Soarin do anything else?"

"No, but he did tell me that he was only flying late because he was practicing for the Wonderbolts performance next week," Dash answered, shrugging her shoulders. Her ears twitched as a roll of thunder echoed in the air around herself and her fellow pegasus, and she started flapping her wings. "I don't think it's supposed to storm tonight," she mumbled as her wings lifted her off of the cloud floor.

Fluttershy spread her wings and began flapping likewise. "Maybe the weather's still acting strange. Would you like me to help you clear any stray thunderclouds?" she asked.

Dash ceased flying and landed on the cloud floor, staring at Fluttershy with widening eyes. "Wait, wait, whoa whoa whoa," she mumbled at a rapid-fire pace as her pupils started dilating. "You, help me with the freaky weather?" When the yellow pegasus nodded, Dash started gaping. "Um, you've seen what it did earlier today, right? To the roofs in Ponyville?"

"I've seen the damage, but that doesn't mean I can't help," Fluttershy replied curtly, eyes narrowing slightly and face hardening. "I want to help you clear any stray clouds so that something like the storm earlier today doesn't happen again. Some of my animal friends got really badly hurt, and maybe some of the other ponies in Ponyville got hurt too."

Rainbow relented with a slight flinch. "Well, when you put it like that..." she paused, wings twitching momentarily. "Alright, I'll let you help. Just be careful, okay?"

Fluttershy's visage relaxed, and she donned a small smile again. "That's what friends are for, right?" she asked, earning a chuckle from Rainbow.

"Oh yeah, that's what friends are for!" Dash cheered, a smile spreading on her face as she rose a hoof and set it on Fluttershy's shoulder.