Back in ponyville, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy and a teenage spike are showing Sapphire the town – Spike being absolutely thrilled about the possibility of a new friend despite the mystery behind her. Twilight decided that it was best if she stayed in ponyville with Fluttershy rather than in Canterlot. Soon after arriving in the quaint little town, Rarity dyed Sapphire’s mane a solid marine-blue to make her look less like Rainbow, who was still napping from her hardcore flight earlier. While merrily trotting away from the spa, Sapphire bumps into a galloping, nearly-breathless Marble in between a lively discussion with Applejack. Pinkie yelped in excitement and bear hugged her sister, causing her to drop her saddlebag, and then hastily introduced her to sapphire, who quickly greets her. Marble squeals, breaking off pinkie’s stranglehold, scooping up her saddlebag and running off towards the train station. “BYE MARBLE!” Pinkie yells after her, telling a confused Sapphire that she is usually like that.

At the end a day filled with activities all the four friends appreciated, Sapphire slumped into Fluttershy’s sofa in her cottage and fell asleep. Twilight visited Fluttershy that night to ask of the progress. Fluttershy sadly responds that although they had fun doing things like throwing mini-parties, baking cakes, sowing dresses, bucking apples and taking care of animals, nothing seemed to jog her memory. And since they had their duties at the school of friendship the next day, they may not have enough time to do so until the end of the week! Twilight sighs thoughtfully and says that this calls for more drastic measures, and they both watched Sapphire sleep soundly on the couch, concerned over who she really is.

The next day Twilight excuses all her friends and Spike from their morning duties in the school of friendship to call them over ‘the Sapphire issue’. She tells Sapphire that only the pony who put the memory suppressing spell on her could remove it, or somepony stronger. Sapphire gives Twilight permission to try, after Twilight warns her that it could be slightly painful. Twilight’s horn begins to glow and a beam of purple light shoots towards sapphire. After a short pause, Sapphire screams in pain and Twilight stops abruptly with a look of terror on her face. Everypony looks towards sapphire to see if she was alright, except Rainbow Dash, who furiously asks Twilight what the hay that was. Twilight tells her that the spell would only be that painful if it was completely unsuccessful – which would only be possible if the caster of the spell was magically much, much stronger than Twilight. Worrisome silence filled the room

Suddenly an out of breath Ocellus bursts tore through the silence as she burst into the room, shouting for Princess Twilight. Not allowing Twilight to ask why and how she was there, she burst into an explanation, saying that she was scared and was told to find Twilight here, and the tree of harmony had gone bonkers. The last line having a profound effect on everypony in the room, except Sapphire of course. “The tree of what now?

After hastily teleporting to the tree of harmony, they all find the magical crystal treehouse pulsing with red light and developing cracks as the rest of Ocellus’s friends desperately and hopelessly tried to stop it from collapsing. Twilight pulls them all back in a nick of time as large chunks of it finally fell. The thing was, when giant chunks of now-black crystal hit the ground, they would shatter with a bang and simultaneously turn to dust – disappearing completely and without a trace. Just like that, the entire tree was gone in minutes, Twilight stood there, dumbfounded, with everycreature else as Starlight Glimmer teleported to the scene with an out of breath Sandbar – too late to provide help.

Not knowing what else to do, Twilight returns to canterlot with her friends, more determined than ever to recover sapphire’s memory. She feels that her memories hold the key to whatever just happened. But she would have to delay that endeavor, as a travel-weary Fleetfoot crash-landed at the gates of canterlot castle, surprising everypony as her search party had not yet returned – everypony had thought something terrible had happened to her. Considering what did, they were not far from the truth. Everypony just stood there, shocked, as Rainbow Dash and Twilight ran to her. She looked like she had been whipped and scarred by somepony very cruel. She looked at Twilight in the eyes and wheezed, “Invasion… Canterlot… Army… Three days…” before passing out. Many ponies had heard her in the eerie silence and their gossip quickly started a canterlot-wide panic. Twilight assured the ponies that everything was fine and ordered them to remain calm, but the destruction of the tree of harmony left her just as uneasy as the population – the timing of it was too perfect to be coincidental. Invasion? Army? Three days was too little to prepare! In her own little panic attack she called both Fizzlepop Berrytwist back to canterlot for military consulting and Shining Armor to create a shield in case of a worst-case scenario to Canterlot from the Crystal Empire.

At the end of the very same day, as these two ponies boarded the train for Canterlot from the Crystal Empire, Marble got off and made her way to the crystal palace. Security was slightly tighter than usual, but not as tight as Canterlot’s was going to be due to the recent threat. Marble took a deep breath and told herself to do what Nebula told her to do and she would be fine. Better than fine really – the plan was pretty much flawless. Despite being responsible for the destruction of the tree of harmony she felt a strange calm over herself as she made her way to the crystal heart. Not wasting any time, she opened her saddlebag and took out the silvery metal feather whose strange magic had destroyed the tree of harmony. Then she threw it at the heart and shattered it completely. The noise got the attention of the guards, who ran over and captured her, but not before she was able to scoop up some of the crystal shards that had fallen from the central area of the heart. They presented her to Princess Cadence, who immediately recognized her and demanded an explanation. Normally, Marble would cower in fear and quietly sob, but something had changed in her. “You will find out soon enough Princess.” She said with a sly and foreboding smile that was completely foreign to her face.

“You will find out very soon…”