Rainbow Dash groaned. It'd only been a short while - to be more specific, half an hour ago - since the three groups had went their separate ways, but already she was getting bored. The dead didn't even put up a fight as her lance impaled them and inflicted fatal wounds, putting them to rest once again. She was dying for a real challenge, a challenge where somepony like King Sombra himself would actually strike back and put up a decent fight.

"This isn't how I roll," Rainbow muttered to herself as her lance once again struck an undead, decapitating it.

"Heya, Rainbow! Ya alright over there?" Applejack's accented voice reached Rainbow's ears as she turned her head to see the farmpony trotting up to her, having just knocked out another undead with her magic-enhanced legs.

"Totally," Rainbow replied half-heartedly, waving her off with a hoof.

"Ya don't seem so ta me, y'know. If there's anythin' botherin' ya, ya can just tell me since Ah'm yer friend," Applejack told her, clearly concerned about her friend's irregular behavior.

"Look, AJ," Rainbow began, her tone frustrated, "I'm perfectly fine, so don't bother with anything, okay?"

Applejack opened her mouth to speak but was cut off as Rainbow interrupted quite rudely.

"I'm fine," the pegasus repeated firmly. "No need to worry, I'm not like about to die or something."

"No offense, but yer actin' like ya are," Applejack grumbled.

Rainbow sighed. "Alright, alright, I give up," she said, exasperated. "It's just that everything's so boring here. The dead don't even put up a fight... they just, like, die really easily. We shouldn't have chosen the middle."

Applejack chuckled. "So that's what ya've been frustrated 'bout all along? It's borin' here 'cause the dead die too easily?"

Rainbow Dash nodded.

"Not ta be annoyin', but yer the one who wanted ta come here in the first place, y'know," the farmpony reminded her, to which Rainbow's face flushed with embarrassment.

"Yeah, I know I did, and now I regret my choice a lot," Rainbow responded, sighing.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up as an idea came to her head.

"You wanna go for a fly, AJ?"

Applejack froze. "What? Ah don't even know how ta fly with these wings yet! Besides, if we get spotted by ol' Sombra's undead, he'll know we're here!"

"Oh, AJ," Rainbow chuckled. "You worry too much about little things. Who cares if we get seen by those rotting corpses? With me on your side, we'll beat Sombra and rescue Twilight in no time."

"Don't be too overconfident, Rainbow; Sombra's got thousands of dead fightin' against us!" Applejack retorted. "Ya think yer able to handle thousands of decayin' dead bodies? Besides, we need the element of surprise so we can beat Sombra without a lick of fuss!"

Rainbow rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Ugh, fine, whatever. When you're dying to fly soon, though, I'm not gonna help you with it."

Applejack gave her a small smile. "That's not gonna happen, sugarcube. Anyways, let's get goin'; we've got an empire to save."

Spike took a deep breath before opening his mouth, summoning forth torrents of green flame. It engulfed the undead in front of him completely, incinerating it until it was nothing more than a pile of ash on the ground.

"Ooh, nice one, Spike! They really spiced up your fire! Get it? Spicy?" Pinkie Pie giggled, her mane slightly poofier than before if not completely.

"Right," Spike responded, his tone sounding rather bland, "how are you adapting to your armor, then?"

"My armor? Oh, well, I'm adapting to it perfectly! Like, since all those big bad dead ponies always have big frowns on their faces, I can detect them from 50 miles away with my visorscope! Isn't that great, Spike? Isn't it?" Pinkie grinned.

"It certainly would be helpful if you'd use that to your advantage right now instead of babbling about it," Spike muttered under his breath, still feeling rather furious from having been paired up with Pinkie instead of his crush, Rarity.

"Huh? What'd you say, Spike? I didn't hear you!" Pinkie sang, which irritated the young dragon even further.

Mustering up the best smile he could fake, he replied, "I was just saying how your armor's great. I mean, even if the dead wanted to ambush us, we would already know where they are before they could do so, all thanks to that awesome visorscope of yours!"

Pinkie gave Spike a huge smile. "I always knew you'd say that! Oh, Spike, you're my bestest friend ever! Wait a minute, is that even a word?"

Spike chuckled. "Maybe, Pinkie Pie. But I guess if you want to know the truth, you'll have to find Twilight. She's the one with all the knowledge around here."

Suddenly, his eyes widened as he realized what he'd just done. Sneaking a glance at Pinkie, he noticed that her expression had shifted to one of sadness... which immediately confirmed his suspicions.

"I'm so sorry, Pinkie! I didn't mean to say that!" Spike gasped.

"It's okay, Spike," Pinkie murmured, her eyes having adopted a faraway look, "at least memories of the old Twilight can distract me from the Twilight we have now."

Spike was, for lack of a better word, confused. "What do you mean?"

Pinkie merely stared at him in response before giving Spike a smile that would have fooled him had he not noticed that her smile did not quite reach her eyes. "Nothing, Spikey. Let's just get moving."

"I guess," Spike mumbled before following Pinkie as she led him in the direction of the Crystal Castle.

Author's Notes:

I'm so sorry about the long delay for this chapter! I've been working on some other secret projects lately. Anyways, I hope you'll be able to forgive me with the addition of this chapter.

By the way, if you were looking forward to the six friends reaching Crystal Castle at the end of this chapter, sorry if you were utterly disappointed. I planned that for the next chapter; besides, if everything goes alright and no more delays happen, with about three more chapters this story will be over.

Don't worry though, I've got a sequel in mind!

EDIT: I hate to do this to y'all, but this story is on hiatus until further notice. Sorry. Oh, and you may have noticed that I've removed all the pictures for each chapter. This is due to Imgur breaking, and since I can't seem to find the original pictures on my computer, the only way was to delete them all.