"You're sure this will work?" I asked Twilight as I sat down on a bench with her in the Canterlot hedge maze. I had the Hunter outfit on, and we were waiting for the bad guy to come to us.

"Very certain, and very optimistic," Twilight said. "I've already set the perimeter, the bubble's in place, and you likely didn't notice it, but I tested its effects on you."

"What? When?"

"Before we went into the garden. It didn't affect you at all, and that's a good thing. All we have to do now is sit here and look pretty."

About three hours and four books later, Twilight glanced up from her reading. "I think we have him."

I set my book down and got up to go look. "I'll go beat him up."

"Bring him back alive!"

"Of course." I started walking through the section of the maze that was in what Twilight called a Slowdown Bubble, designed to slow down everything in it, except the caster, while anything affected by it wouldn't notice a thing. With the total magic immunity I had, I was able to walk right through it with no problems at all.

After ten minutes of searching, I found him. Green and brown armor, a large silver bow and shield, humanoid design, a bit taller than me, and a set of lenses over his left eye. He was still moving inside the field, albeit at an incredibly slow pace.

I didn't wait to start my attack. I destroyed his armor, took his weapons, and lastly, broke his legs, all without fire or music magic. After a punch to his gut, I pulled him back through the maze to Twilight. "Found him."

"Hold him still, please. I'll have to cancel the field to find out where he took everyone he foalnapped." As soon as I had him restrained, Twilight let the Slowdown field vanish.

The first thing to happen was the hunter guy letting out a LOUD scream of pain and agony. He was in a lot of pain, and I felt kind of bad about hurting him. After a flash of magic from Twilight, he started to calm down. "What. . . What happened to me?"

"You fell for a trap," Twilight explained. She motioned to the empty bench and we put him on it. Just to make sure he didn't try anything, Twilight cast a super sticky seat spell, holding him in place.

He narrowed his eyes at the Princess and a cocky smirk started developing. "So those sisters did remember me." His voice had a low rasp to it, like medium sandpaper. "But. . . Did they ever think about everyone they let die by sealing me?"

"Yeah, it crossed their minds a few days ago. We're not about to let it happen again." At Twilight's answer, the smirk dropped like a ton of bricks. "So, will you tell us where and why you took everyone or am I going to have to pull it from your mind?"

"I'll tell you why: I'm a collector, and I like my trophies. That they're often pony shaped, and alive, is merely semantics. Of course, I have to take care of them, so I collect a few here and there to do that for me."

"You took a team of maids from the castle, didn't you?"

"A decent challenge, that one was. And they are performing spectacularly."

I decided that I'd heard enough and smacked him across his face. "So, where are they?"

"Safe and secure, deep in a diamond dog tunnel system. You'd have to mount an expedition to make it through to find them, because I’m not about to tell you anything else.”

“I guess we’ll just have to do it this way, then.” Twilight lit her horn and started reading his mind, as per the plan.

“This is easy,” I considered as she did her thing. “Traps, OP magic fields, knowing about the target ahead of time, it’s great. Why don’t we do it this way more often?”

“Well, this is convenient,” Twilight noted. “They’re in the tunnels near Ponyville.”

“You’re absolutely sure they’re there?” The Hunter teased.

“Yes, I am. I wasn’t expecting your mind to be so. . . chaotic, though. But, when Pinkie Pie and Discord both live in town, you get used to it.”

The Hunter’s face dropped a bit. “Discord’s alive?”

“You know him?”

“He’s my older brother. Always the joker, he was. At least until our creator, our father, gave him the boot after he betrayed us. It was a steel toed left boot with candy cane laces and an orange slice spur.” The Hunter’s body started to relax. “Our father’s name is Za - hurk! Blegh.” He suddenly died, a Southwest solar flare floating out of his body before exploding.

We both looked at the dead body for a while. “So. . .” I started. “That was. . . anticlimactic.”

“That it was. Go collect his weapons. I’ll get rid of the body and catch up to you.”

I did as Twilight said, retracing my steps through the maze and picking up the bow and shield. “Hmm. This shield looks more like - yes, it’s actually a very broad sword. Odd design.”

The Princess caught up to me very quickly. “You can keep those, if you want.”

“I think I will. Can you teleport them to my room?” A moment later, Twilight did as I’d asked, and the weapons were no longer an immediate concern.

The rest of our trip back to Ponyville was filled mostly with the sounds of Twilight’s quill on parchment as she wrote stuff down. I simply took a nap on the train.

“I take it the fight went well, Yang?” Luna asked in the dreamscape, putting my own dream on pause.

“Yeah,” I answered. “It went very smoothly. He hit the Slowdown field, I beat him up, Twilight got information from him, and then he up and died. Kind of boring, for once. We’re going to rescue everyone he kidnapped."

"That is excellent to hear. I shall inform Celestia about this and have her organize some guards at the train station to help ensure order when the freed captives arrive."

“You do that. I’d like to return to my nap, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” A moment later, I was back in my dream, looking at clothes, clothes, and more clothes. It was all very fashionating.

A hoof gently shook me. “Wake up, Yang. We’re almost there.”

“Hmm?” I opened my eyes and saw Twilight there. “Alright.” After getting a yawn out and stretching, I felt my stomach growl. “How about we get a late lunch first? Can’t exactly do the rescuing on an empty stomach, right?”

“Let me see if Spike wants to join us after we get off. I’m sure he will, but he could be busy with something.”

“Couldn’t you just teleport from here to the castle?”

Twilight contemplated the question for a moment. “I could, yes, but it’s not really the right way to go about it, you know? Besides, I literally can't teleport you right now.”

“Yeah, I suppose I can see where things would get weird.” I'd also forgotten about the Hunter outfit's outright immunity to magic, which was a nice feature. "Any idea what you want?"

"Hmm. . . No, not really. I'll think about it."

Things were busy as usual at the Carne Den when I showed up. There were a number of ponies getting off the train that followed me there as well. Thankfully, they all went to the front entrance instead of following me to the back.

I had only been leaning against the shed for a few seconds when Twilight appeared in front of me with Spike. "So, how much convincing did it take?" I asked the Princess.

"Only one question," Twilight answered.

"It was a two word question," Spike explained. "And I already know what I want."

Lunch with Twilight and Spike was rather uneventful, but the food was good, as usual. Thankfully, we had some privacy by sitting out on the patio, which was empty because it wasn't Friday. Once we were done and I'd brought in all the dishes to be cleaned, we left to go rescue the kidnapped victims.

"You know, as important as this is, it just feels kind of. . . Dull, you know?" I noted as we walked through town.

"Yeah, it kind of does," Twilight agreed. "I'm sure the task of moving all of them will be a bit trickier, though. We'll have to set up a series of marker spells for everyone to follow. . ."

"Why not just teleport as many of them out as you can?" Spike suggested. "I can stay up top to show them the way to Ponyville, and the rest can walk out with you."

"That. . ." Twilight stopped walking as she mulled the idea over. "Spike, you know the way to the diamond dog tunnels, right?"

"Of course I do."

"I want you to take Yang there and talk to the dogs first. I'm going to see if I can organize something with the hospital for field medical services. We may have sick and injured victims to worry about."

Spike gave a sharp salute. "You got it, Twi." After she left to go do her thing, he led me along the path to the diamond dog tunnels. "Do you think the diamond dogs will remember you? It’s been a while since you’ve been in the area.”

I thought back to my one fight with them. It was one fueled and guided only by rage with no technique or skill. "I hope they do, and that they don't cause us any trouble because of that."

"Spike?"

"Yes, Yang?"

"Why are you getting a fishing rod that's stashed in a tree far away from any water?"

"Pinkie stashed it up here." Spike dropped the rod and a tackle box down to me before he jumped down as well.

"That answers even less!"

"There is no answer to Pinkie Pie," Spike said as he reclaimed the fishing gear and started walking again. "There probably never will be, and we'll all be safer that way. Anyways, this is for Diamond Dog Diplomacy Emergencies."

"She has things stashed for something that specific?"

"She has things stashed all over the place for all kinds of emergencies. Just don't think about it, and you'll be fine." After a couple minutes of walking, we came up to a diamond dog hole. Spike put a bone shaped gem on the end of the rod's line, which was very thick and brightly colored, and lowered it into the hole. "Now, we wait."

I sat down and waited with Spike. "So, anything interesting happening?"

"Not much, no. The disgraced nobles have been pleading for their titles and belongings back, and I'll admit, it's kind of fun to throw them out of court for that. The rest seem to have learned their lessons on obsessing over petty revenge and have dropped their campaign against you. Fancy and Fleur didn't learn anything, though."

"They didn't need to."

"No, they didn't."

The sound of paws scurrying up the tunnel ended the conversation, and a moment later, a diamond dog came out. "You want somethiiiinnnnnn. . . ?" His last word trailed off when he saw me.

Spike did the talking. "We have good information that there's a large number of foalnapping victims hidden in the tunnels under here."

"I swear, we didn't do anything!" the dog immediately pleaded.

"Never said you did. In fact, the guy who admitted to it has already been taken care of. All we want to do is find the victims and get them out. If you help us, we can negotiate some kind of payment."

The dog looked at me fearfully. "She's not going to hurt us, right?"

"Only if you provoke me," I calmly answered. "Leave my hair alone, and that will go a long way in your favor."

"I'll tell the pack." The dog disappeared down the hole a moment later.

I turned to Spike. "I guess I left a lasting impact on them, huh?"

"Yeah, you did." A look of realization came across Spike's face. "That was a pun, wasn't it?"

"Guilty as charged."

Twilight came back with a number of medical ponies, who immediately started setting up after the Princess joined Spike and me. “How did the talks go?”

“Pretty easily,” Spike said. “I told them the three ways it could go: help us, and payment can be negotiated. Stay out of the way, and nothing happens. Get in the way, and we have Yang.”

I held up a hand and said, “I didn’t agree to those terms, but I hope the Dogs never find out.”

“It looks like things will go smoothly. Are you ready to go down, Twi?”

A number of bright orange stakes and a very big roll of similarly colored ribbon appeared with a teleport. One stake got planted in the ground before the end of the ribbon was tied to it. “Ready.” At her cue, we jumped into the hole, confident that nothing would stop us.

We got stopped at a stone wall. “Umm. . .” I had no idea what to make of it. “You’re sure this is the right way, Twilight?”

“It was straight from his memories, so it can’t be wrong,” Twilight assured. “Did he set a barrier that would activate on his death?”

“Excuse me for a moment.” Spike left the group to go do something.

“Maybe he was able to alter his own memories when he knew he was about to die?” I suggested.

“Not with the Slowdown field,” Twilight countered. “Especially with how you, from his perspective, beat him up faster than the blink of an eye out of nowhere.”

“He had to have been hurting, but he still seemed to have it together towards the end.”

“I doubt that. Magic requires concentration, especially when it comes to the mind.”

Spike returned with a wary diamond dog, stopping the discussion. “Has this wall always been here? Nothing on the other side?”

The dog got his paws on the wall and started inspecting it. “Feels fine. Not hollow.”

“Huh. Well, thanks, big guy.” The dog walked off without another word.

“So maybe he did alter his memories. . .” Twilight mused again.

I went up to the wall to inspect it myself. “There had to be a reason, if he did alter his own memories that quickly, he’d go with this wall. But why?”

Suddenly, I felt music. “I CAME IN LIKE A WRECKING BALL!”

Something big and heavy suddenly slammed into my back and sent me through the wall, into a vast, well lit cavern, filled with lots and lots of ponies. “Ow. . .”

“Pinkie!” Twilight nearly shouted.

“What?” Pinkie innocently asked.

“It’s Pinkie, don’t question it,” I thought to myself as I got to my feet. “Uh, hello, everyone. We’re here to get you out of here.” I looked back and saw Pinkie, sitting on a comically large wrecking ball, talking with Twilight. The wall was broken, pieces of it littering the floor.

“How did she get a wrecking ball?” a stallion asked me.

“It’s Pinkie Pie. Don’t question it. In fact, just don’t question anything she does. Twilight!”

“Yes, Yang?” Twilight ended the conversation and swept the rubble away with her magic.

“Do your thing, get the worst of them out of here. The ones who were here first are probably the most likely to-”

“I am aware of that,” Twilight politely interjected before getting to work.

Twilight was able to teleport most of the ponies out, and surprisingly few of them needed more medical attention than a bandage or two, though it wasn’t a stretch to say they all needed a good bath.

The ones that came with us, much more recently captured, didn’t put up a fuss as we went through the tunnels, Twilight collecting the stakes and ribbon along the way. The dogs didn’t help us as we left, but they didn’t get in our way either.

Finally, after multiple hours underground, we were back outside. The sun was already starting to go down, the shadows just starting to lengthen. “You got things from here, Twilight?” I asked.

Twilight looked around at everything that was going on for a moment before answering. “I’ve got it from here. You can go home if you want. Or you can stay here.”

“I’ll go home, then.” With a wave, I left the professionals to do their thing and started walking home.

As I was passing through town, my idle gaze wandered over to the spa. “Do I?” I checked my belt pouch and saw that it was empty. At that moment, I knew what I had to do and broke into a full run.

I got back to the spa with some time to spare before they would have closed, and was relaxing in the water while Aloe washed my hair. As she was working her magic, Lotus came in. “Miss Xiao Long?”

“Done already?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t clean your clothes. I can’t pick them up with my hooves.”

“Hm?” I tried to figure out why she wouldn’t have been able to clean my clothes before I realized what was going on. “Oh geez. Magic is how you can do stuff with your hooves, right?”

“Yes.”

“They’re unaffected by magic. Are they already wet?”

“No, they’re not.”

“I’ll clean them when I get home, then. What I wouldn’t do for a washing machine and dryer.”

Once I got home, I used the buckle to change to the clean and comfortable Path of Blossoms and flopped onto my bed. It was a busy day, and I was tired. The question of how the buckle worked on Hunter when other magic didn’t briefly crossed my mind before I dropped it and let myself zone out.

As a case of THE TRANQUILITY started to come over me, I decided to call it an early night and go to sleep once I was under the blankets. Peaceful sleep came swiftly after that.

Author's Notes:

Not much to say on this one.