The Mane Five, including Spike, were freaking out. Badly.

Ever since their realization the day before that they'd have to personally search for their lost friend instead of bickering, each and every one of them had travelled to every place possible within the bounds of Ponyville, desperately trying to discover at least one clue as to where Twilight could have gone.

As expected, their attempts were futile.

"Ah don't know about y'all, but Ah'm startin' to suspect that there's somethin' fishy behind Twi's disappearance," Applejack was saying as the six friends gathered in a small, run-down barn at Sweet Apple Acres. The barn was their secret hideout, hidden in a rather remote area of Sweet Apple Acres that no one ever laid a hoof upon. "This isn't like her, y'know, vanishin' like that," she added.

"Well, of course, darling. We all know that Twilight would never do something like this without leaving behind a note or something," Rarity answered matter-of-factly, her tone bland. The fatigue from endlessly searching for her friend for hours was catching up to the white unicorn; her sapphire blue eyes were like a husk of their former selves, their usual bright and vibrant color having faded to a light blue so light that you could even say they were a milky white color instead.

"Erm, Rarity, are you okay?" Fluttershy asked quietly, noticing the lack of color in her friend's eyes. "You don't look so great... I guess."

"I'm perfectly fine, Fluttershy, thank you very much!" Rarity suddenly seethed, turning on her pegasus friends furiously. Fluttershy, having never seen the snowy mare like that before, immediately shrank away in fear, trembling visibly.

"Sorry, dear," Rarity apologized, her temper fading, "all this stress about Twilight is making me quite... unlike myself, I believe."

"We can definitely see that," Rainbow Dash joked, only to be met with a threatening glare by Rarity. "Right, right, I'm sorry. Anyways, shouldn't we get to the point instead and actually do something about this?"

"She's got a point," Pinkie Pie agreed, her usual cheerful mood clearly dampened.

"How about startin' from the beginnin', gals? Ah say we pay the Golden Oak Library a visit," Applejack suggested, "maybe we can find some clues there that Spike didn't."

"Great idea!" the others exclaimed in unison. Rainbow Dash immediately took flight and bolted out of the barn through the pony-sized hole in the ceiling, while Fluttershy trailed behind, her wings flapping at a much slower pace. Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie, and Spike followed the two pegasi as they led them to their desired destination.

As soon as the six friends approached the treehouse, they knew something bad had happened. The treehouse's appearance wasn't appealing at all, the entire structure having been mutilated and destroyed. Debris was everywhere, so they were careful not to step on any of them - in case of a possible injury - as they made their way to the front door.

"Whoa, did a tornado sweep through here? Sure looks like it," Rainbow Dash remarked as they finally approached the entrance to the library. The door that once stood there, proudly guarding the interior of the treehouse, was now only splintered wood barely attached to hinges.

"Oh my, what happened here? Spike, darling, was it like this when you left this morning?" Rarity asked the young dragon, who only responded with a sad shake of his head.

"Knew it," Pinkie sighed, her mane now completely straight as sadness finally took its toll on her and deflated it.

"Ah guess we're goin' in, right? The inside's still stable enough," Applejack said uncertainly. Slowly, the others nodded, and followed the orange mare's lead as she reluctantly stepped inside.

"Ah, how glad I am to see that you're all here," a malicious voice sneered as an all-too familiar pony appeared in front of them, her horn crackling with dark magic.

"Twilight!" they all gasped in unison, unable to believe that their friend was the sinister-looking pony standing before them. Twilight's entire appearance seemed darker: her light purple body was now a deeper purple than before, her once lavender eyes were now a cold crimson red, her height had increased to that of Princess Celestia's, but most shocking of all... she had grown wings! Her wings were undoubtedly smaller than the Royal Sisters, but they were definitely larger than the average pair a pegasus would have. Besides, that wasn't the main thing, as the main thing was that her new wings was colored a mixture of purple, green, and white. It didn't match up with the normal color scheme a pegasus's wings would have, and that was the color of their coat, whatever color it may be.

"T-Twilight? Is it really you?" Fluttershy stammered, fear coursing through her as she tried to avoid staring into those cold, merciless red eyes. She didn't really believe that it was her friend; Twilight's eyes would never hold such hate or fury.

"Twilight, darling! How'd you get those wings? Does that mean you're an alicorn now?" Rarity was bombarding her with questions, to which she received no answer to any of them. Still, she tried, making it a goal to at least coax one answer out of her friend's mouth.

"Twi, look, we're all glad to have finally found ya, but Ah've got a few questions to ask first," Applejack began, raising her voice above Rarity's to ensure that Twilight could hear her properly. "Did ya get a new make-over or somethin'? That doesn't seem like ya style, y'know. Also, why are ya standin' in the middle like yer the one who caused all this mess? You wouldn't destroy yer own home... right?"

To Rarity's surprise, Twilight finally opened her mouth to speak. It made Rarity jealous of the fact that Applejack managed to coax an answer out of Twilight in about one minute, while she'd spent about five minutes doing so and still didn't get at least one proper answer. Really, it did. However, she was still curious as to what Twilight had to say, so she managed to keep her temper in check for the time being.

"In reality, I did. This is no longer my home, Applejack, so I destroyed it," Twilight answered coldly.

"What do you mean by that, Twilight? This is your home!" Spike suddenly burst out. "Why would you ever destroy it?"

"Look, Twilight, I don't know what kind of prank you're pulling, but... did something happen that caused you to do this? We're your friends, Twilight, you don't have to hide anything from us!" Rainbow Dash said. Five minutes had gone by since Spike had question his caretaker, but still Twilight remained completely silent.

"My friends?" Twilight suddenly spat. "You were never my friends; you lied to me from the beginning! You became my friend only to use me! You think that's called friendship, pretending to be my friend even though you never were? Thankfully, I finally saw past your lies to the truth, so I won't be your manipulated puppet anymore!"

"Twi, have ya gone crazy? We'd never lie to ya! We are yer friends!" Applejack exclaimed, her emerald eyes wide with disbelief.

"Yeah, Twilight! What do you think you're saying?" Rainbow Dash nodded vigorously.

"Twilight, darling, this isn't a light matter to joke about. We've never lied to you, nonetheless even manipulate you in secret like you say!" It was Rarity this time, now completely focused on talking sense into Twilight instead of envying Applejack.

"T-Twilight, they're saying the t-truth," Fluttershy supplied, trying to help the others quite feebly.

"Your words mean nothing! The only real truth here is that my life's been full of lies ever since I came to Ponyville! Ever since I got acquainted with you liars!" Twilight snarled, shocking the others. "And now, to pay for ruining my life, I'll make you suffer the same pain I felt when I learned the truth!" Immediately, her horn powered up with dark magic as she sent six black balls flying toward them, all rather large in size.

"Fluttershy!" Rarity gasped, slamming into the yellow pegasus and getting her out of harm's way since she had just been petrified with fear a second ago.

"You aren't our Twilight!" Rainbow Dash was shouting, taking flight to the sky. "Our friend would never hurt us!"

"Oh, but she is, my dear, and she wouldn't hesitate at all to hurt you now." Immediately, silence dominated the room as all eyes turned to the armored stallion that had just appeared beside Twilight.

"King Sombra!" the group exclaimed in unison. "How did you escape again? We defeated you with the Crystal Heart back at the Crystal Empire!"

"Perhaps that may be, my little ponies. However, my good subject here Twilight helped me attain enough strength again to be able to escape my pathetic little seal. Haven't you noticed the recent reports of missing ponies, my dears? That's my - or more specifically, Twilight's doing - since she was ponynapping ponies and draining their energy in order to convert it into dark energy for me," King Sombra smirked.

"So that is Twilight?" Rainbow Dash's eyes widened, having just realized the truth.

"Why, of course it is! You actually doubted that? How foolish of you," King Sombra laughed.

"No, it can't be," Rarity whispered, horror etched clearly on her face.

"Then what'd you do to her? Why is she acting all creepy-like?" Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes.

"Oh, I simply helped her see the truth," the king responded simply.

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the awkward explaining of Twilight's new appearance; I'm not really good at explaining character appearances.