Flight turned to look over her shoulder at the churning waves. "Oh, stars... I thought she was right behind me. I swear, we were just chatting about some... 'Flight Camp' thing when the waves started, but I didn't even hear her yelling." She turned back to look at Kaylee. "Guess I might've been yelling too loud, huh?"

"Well, whatever—it doesn't really matter right now," Kaylee said, giving another look towards the waves of the pond that had risen so high that she couldn't see clearly across to the other side. "Scootaloo can probably make it on her own until this... earthquake thing stops. And even if she can't, we sure as heck can't get over there without drowning."

"Point," Flight agreed, biting her lip as she shifted her legs antsily. The rumbling was starting to subside, though the tall waves persisted in the centre of the pond—an odd, unnatural sight indeed. "Okay, that can't just be a normal earthquake," Flight said, pointing to the waters with a hoof. "There's gotta be, like, weird magic stuff."

Kaylee pursed her lips. "Maybe. I don't know. What I do know is that we should probably get over to the others. Cotton's hornlight went out, so we should... figure out what that's all about."

Flight nodded briskly and then the two of them ran off along the shoreline, water still lapping at their hooves. As the muddy ground curved with the water, however, the fillies kept going straight, finding themselves back in the thick of the forest, small bushes and damp grasses brushing by their hooves as they galloped past. Once or twice, Kaylee nearly ran them into a thick tree trunk that sneaked up on them in the dark, but she was able to swerve away quickly to avoid an impact.

After several dozen metres, they curved their trajectory to match the bend in the pond where they had watched the adults walk off to. By that time, the rumbles had disappeared completely, the ground still but for their thundering hooves. Then, a couple minutes later, burst free from the forest into another small clearing with a similar shoreline of mud black as the night sky. There stood two mares, a pink one—Mochi—and a dark green one—Even Later, and then the rusty-coated form of Clove Hitch stood further back, over by the opposite side of the clearing. Beside him lay the limp body of a pony and, as Kaylee approached, she recognised it as Cotton Fluff.

"Kevin! Flight!" Mochi exclaimed as the two fillies burst forth from the bushes, her eyes wide. "Oh, thank Argent you fillies made it over here!" She blinked. "Where's Scootaloo?"

"We don't know!" Flight exclaimed, taking deep breaths as she skidded to a halt in front of Mochi and Later. "We got separated and we were hoping that she would make her way over here, or at least that we could find you guys first."

"That's good—we need to stick together," Later said, nodding. She had a grave expression on her face and, even in her own faint hornlight and that of Kaylee's, there were distinct bags under her eyes, so purple that they almost looked like bruises. "It was stupid for us to split up. Urgh!" Later suddenly exclaimed, bending over and clutching her cranium with one of her forelegs. Wincing, she looked up. "I've got a monster headache," she explained, frowning. "I don't even know what's going on here since I just fuggin' woke up, but it doesn't seem like any of you know what's going on either."

"It wasn't a natural earthquake, that's for sure," Clove said, stepping forward. "It came much too suddenly and we're nowhere near a fault line. This was magic-induced, for sure. I just don't know... how." He sighed, scraping at the mud with a hoof. "It doesn't help that I don't have a horn to help me figure it out."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry that I wasn't awake," Later grumbled, shooting him an annoyed look. "Though, by the looks of it, I doubt I would've been much help if I had been." The mare glanced down at the brown mare who was still lying limp. "Dunno what her problem is, but she's the only unicorn here that was awake. Bet it's got something to do with that."

"What happened to her?" Kaylee asked. "We saw the light go out, but that's it."

"That's basically all that happened," Mochi said. "As soon as the rumblin' started, she just up 'n' passed out. She got sucked into the water, too, and then I couldn't help 'cause I fell over and had a hard time gettin' up—the poor mare's lucky she didn't drown."

"Heh, is everybody gonna take a turn at passing out?" Clove joked, wearing a wry smile as he looked down at Cotton's limp form. "Who's next? Mochi?"

"I'll pass, thank ya very much," the pink mare replied, rolling her eyes. "Never had much interest in not bein' awake, myself."

"I'm glad that Cotton's okay," Later said, a contemplative expression on her face, "but I really have to wonder what happened to Scootaloo. Really, in just a moment when we get all our things together, we should pack up and start trotting around to the other side. She went across from where you guys were, right?"

Kaylee nodded. "She and Flight were about in the middle of our side of the pond, so she probably just got pulled in the other direction."

"Great... we can just circle 'round," Later replied. "That takes us closer in the direction of the capital, too." She paused. "Gah... I really hope she didn't drown or something. I mean, she can't have. Right?" She looked to Kaylee, who just gulped, frowning. Then, sighing, Later reached down to lift up her saddlebags onto her back. Kaylee noticed that, curiously, she didn't use her horn to do so, rather bending down to loop them over her neck.