The Friendship Express, Southwest Line, between Canterlot and Ponyville.

July 13 of the Year One of the Post-Reconciliation Era (PRE). Twenty-two days after the events from the episode “Friendship Is Magic”, two days after “Bridle Gossip”, and a week before the events of “Feeling Pinkie Keen”. Tuesday.

In her dreams, the unicorn named Blueberry Frosting imagined that she was something else…dreamed that she was a being with huge, majestic wings that could soar over the countryside. A being completely above the cares and worries of being a pony.

In recent years these dreams were what kept the idle rich pony going. She would book tickets on the Ponyville Express, over and over again. Not to see Ponyville—there was nothing worthwhile in that village for her. No, it was so she could descend the Canterhorn, could peer out of the window in a state between wakefulness and sleep. So could fantasize soaring for real. Being her true self…for real.

The train was making its way down the Canterhorn from Canterlot. As it rounded the bend, Lemon Peel turned her head to take in the view.

“Hmm!” she exclaimed in her Bittish accent. “That is quite a view! You don’t see a sight like that back home.”

“Mm,” Lipstick Vanity said absently, her head buried in the fashion magazine. “I’ve been told it’s quite remarkable.”

“It would help if you looked at it, Dear,” Upper Crust said, tapping her withers with a hoof.

Lipstick raised her head, a bored expression on her face. That shifted into muted wonder as she took in the full panoply of Equestria in Summer, as seen from far above. “Ooo!” she exclaimed thoughtfully, before turning her attention to her hooves. “I wonder what color boots would best complement that?”

Lemon Peel was a pale-yellow earth pony with a voluminous brighter yellow mane and tail. The mane was medium length and curled up around her shoulders. She had sky blue eyes, faint orange eyeshadow and an abstract cutie mark in various yellow tones of concentric circles, each with a squared-off corner pointing at her head. She would tell other ponies that it was supposed to be a lemon in cross section (complete with peel), but only modern artists tended to agree with her. She was wearing a blue pullover with a red stripe down the front and sheer white hose over her rear legs. She was taking up a seat of the train, facing out the window.

Lipstick Vanity sat on the seat behind her in a similar pose, with a low green glass divider between them. She was a bluish-gray unicorn with striking mulberry eyes, slightly-less striking dark purple eyeshadow and a definitely-more-subdued straight purplish-gray mane. Her cutie mark was a white flower bud. She was wearing a dark red vest.

Upper Crust was in the aisle, leaning over both of their shoulders. She was a grayish-yellow unicorn with dark blue eyes and cyan eyeshadow, her wavy mane and tail having alternating colors of grayish indigo and light gray. She was wearing a white polo shirt with a pink sweater tied around her neck like a cape that mostly covered her cutie mark of three green dollar signs. (Dollars were the currency of the minotaurs, trade with which being the source of her family fortune.) She was also wearing matching pink earrings and a spring green bead necklace. She had been sitting on the seat across the aisle from the other two.

Seeing the others talking, Blueberry Frosting roused herself to see if she could get in on the conversation. She was a cornflower blue unicorn mare with disturbingly bright cerise eyes, no eyeshadow, and a fluffy mane in two shades of purple. She had a cupcake topped with her namesake for a cutie mark and a purple jacket with wide lapels and a daisy in the buttonhole. She noticed that Lemon was gathering her bags. “Wait, are you leaving us, Mrs. Peel?”

“I’m afraid so,” Peel said, her eyes on her bags. “As I said at the start of the trip, I have some relatives in Ponyville who will let my son and I stay with them. The prices in Canterlot are simply too steep for me.”

“You’re staying in Ponyville?!” Blueberry exclaimed. “That place is a dump!”

Lipstick and Upper Crust both nodded their heads in agreement.

“Oh it can’t be that bad,” Peel said lightly. “After all, didn’t a group of Ponyville ponies save Princess Luna from the Curse of Nightmare Moon less than a moon ago?”

“Not really,” Lipstick said contemptuously.

“But Princess Celestia told the newspapers—” Peel began.

“Celestia told the papers what she had to, Mrs. Peel,” Upper Crust explained.

Peel gasped at the casual way the other mare had just addressed the Princess.

“Everypony knows that it was really her personal student—and Canterlot resident—Twilight Sparkle that did all the work. Those Ponyvillians just carried her equipment.”

“And probably dropped them a bunch,” Blueberry joked. “Ponyville ponies are so stupid!”

Peel frowned. “Do you have an eyewitness report? Mare Trotting Monthly would love an exclusive story.”

“Well…no,” Upper Crust admitted. “But there’s no way that a bunch of backwater mud ponies could possibly pull something like that off using their elementary school educations! Err…no offense on that ‘mud pony’ remark, Mrs. Peel.”

Peel glanced up at her non-existent horn. “None taken,” she said without emotion.

“Hay!” Blueberry exclaimed. (And yes, she absolutely didn’t say “Hey”.) “You should stay with Lipstick and I! That way you can go shopping with us in Los Pegasus today, and we can swap out your Trottingham fashions for real Equestrian fashions! We’ve got a room open back in Canterlot, don’t we, Lips?”

Lipstick raised an eyebrow, silently waiting for her roommate to realize the problem with that proposal.

Peel shook her head. “You’d have to make room for not only myself, but my young son when he arrives. As well as, well…conjugal time with my husband when work allows.”

“Oh,” Blueberry said simply. “How young is your son?”

“Six.”

“Oh. We don’t get along well with children.”

“At all,” Lipstick added coldly.

Upper Crust rolled her eyes at Blueberry’s stupidity.

Blueberry’s eyes suddenly lit up. “But what about—”

She wasn’t able to complete that sentence, because the train chose that moment to suddenly grind to a halt, throwing Lipstick over the barrier and into Peel, Peel to the ground, and Blueberry and Upper Crust to roll all the way down the aisle and into the connecting door.

“What happened?” Peel asked from under the other mare. After extricating herself, she tried to see what the problem was from the window, but only saw the same view of the valley below. The opposite window only showed the side of the mountain.

She and the other ponies composed themselves and waited for some kind of announcement. Eventually, there was one, although it wasn’t addressed at them: “Could all engineers please assist with removing an obstruction at the front of the train?”

A few seconds later three burly earth pony stallions came through the door behind them, walked down the aisle at a brisk pace, and disappeared through the forward door. Any ponies in the aisles quickly jumped into their assigned seats before they could be trampled.

“Hmph!” Upper Crust exclaimed. “How rude!”

“What do you suppose is blocking the train?” Peel asked. Without waiting for an answer, she walked down the aisle and tried to open the door.

“Oh, you can forget about that,” Upper Crust said with a smirk as she approached. “The doors on this train are not only locked but magic-resistant, so only authorized ponies can use them.”

Peel looked calmly over her shoulder. “I don’t see a sign to that effect,” she noted.

She made a motion of looking for said non-existent sign, only to do a double-take on discovering a “MARE WANTED” sign posted right next to the door—she needed to be sure it wasn’t for her. “That doesn’t count,” she said lightly, hoping nopony noticed her reaction to the sign that was there. “Therefore, if I do manage to open this door, I can’t get in trouble.” More trouble, she added to herself.

Upper Crust stopped next to Lemon Peel and looked over her shoulder. “Oh, you’ll never—”

Click! Push! Shove!

“—Oh. You did.”

Peel stepped through the door and down a step to the ground between the train car and the side of the mountain. She was soon joined by most of the other ponies in the car. Together they crept forward until they could spy on the engineers and conductor, who were scratching their heads as they looked at the boulder that had crashed into the tracks.

Actually, the boulder wasn’t the problem—that was rolled down the side of the mountain without a fuss. What was a problem was the damage the impact had made on the tracks, severing and twisting them far too much to be driven over. This was no longer a problem that had an earth pony solution, unless that earth pony happened to be carrying smelting equipment on his or her strong back. And worse, the sound of another train could be heard approaching behind them. This problem looked to be something that might affect dozens or even hundreds of ponies if not addressed immediately.

As the bystanders watched, the conductor and ticket agent consulted together. After a few seconds, the ticket agent produced a large golden whistle, one the other ponies had never seen before. Blowing on it created no sound but did produce a cloud of orange magic that raced up the mountain, seemingly right for the palace, backlit by the rising sun.

One of the pegasi pointed a hoof at the palace. “It’s the Princess!” he exclaimed. There was a gasp from the other eagle-eyed pegasi, but it wasn’t long before everypony could clearly see that Princess Celestia herself was flying straight for them. The crowd shuffled nervously and backed up a bit. Lemon Peel took the opportunity to back herself all the way to the rear of the crowd. Her three Canterlot friends, confused, followed her.

Before those friends had a chance to question her, Princess Celestia dropped down for a heavy—and impressive—landing. “What appears to be the trouble, gentlestallions?” she asked.

The ticket master quickly bowed, pulling his cap down with a hoof as he did so. “Sorry to bother you, Your Royal Highness, but the track here is in need of repair.”

“I see,” the Princess said with a gentle smile. “If you all would give me a little space…”

“Oh, of course, Your Highness!” one of the engineers exclaimed. The other stallions then quickly withdrew until they were at the front of the crowd of passengers.

As a new arrival to Equestria, Lemon Peel found that she had to overcome a number of false beliefs about how the country worked, one of which was the reason why she was at the back of this crowd. The one about no crime existing in Equestria, because Princess Celestia could at any moment read the mind of any pony in Equestria she wanted, scanning them for evil thoughts. That wanted poster she had seen had disproven that story—not that she would have even stepped hoof in Equestria if she had truly believed in it, but better to be safe than sorry, as they always say. In any case, the fact that the poster had mentioned that the criminal in question had committed one of her train robberies from Canterlot Station itself…

Peel began moving forward through the crowd, hoping to have the opportunity to see the remarkable Solar Princess of Equestria up close and personal. Unfortunately for her, the view was completely blocked by the group of burly engineers. All she could see was a glow the color of the sun coming from Celestia’s presumed location, which grew and grew, before suddenly exploding outward.

Peel gasped, staggering to the ground, one hoof to her heart. For one panicked moment she looked herself over, then sighed with relief.

The Princess looked over her work with a critical eye, making sure that the repaired tracks were strong enough to stand up to the weight of multiple trains. “Well if that is all…?”

“It is, Your Highness,” said the conductor, averting his eyes. The crew of the train had returned to their previous places after the repair spell’s glow had faded.

The passengers were all bowing.

Celestia pursed her lips slightly at the unwanted adoration. “I’d best return to my duties then.” She looked over at the observing crowd. “I hope you all have a pleasant trip!” she exclaimed. She then immediately launched herself into the sky and flew back to the palace.

At that moment Upper Crust had finished pushing her way through the crowd. “Princess Celestia!” she quickly exclaimed into the sky. “On behalf of my fellow Canterlot passengers, may I…” She sighed, seeing that the Princess clearly hadn’t heard her. “Horseapples,” she muttered under her breath—yet another attempt at brown-nosing averted. She stalked back into the crowd, which parted to make way. “What was that about?” she asked Peel as she helped her to her hooves.

“Oh, I’m somewhat sensitive to unicorn magic,” Peel said sheepishly.

“All aboard!” the conductor cried out, signaling the others to re-board the train.

As she climbed back into the train car, Lemon Peel cast one last look at the distant figure of Princess Celestia—the most-powerful pony in all of Equestria. She might not be all seeing or all knowing, but the sheer magnitude of that blast… She found herself feeling equal amounts of awe…and fear.

The amount of magic that had been summoned by the Princess to repair that track had been significantly more than the amount that she had actually used in casting the spell. The excess—the explosion of magic that had floored the only individual present who could see it—drifted in the air for a bit, before congealing into a pony-sized ball of concentrated energy that rolled down the mountain. It rolled invisibly all the way down and then continued rolling through the streets of Ponyville, passing through building after building without any ponies noticing. As it traveled it pulled in little bits of stray magic that had been generated by all of the other ponies in Ponyville: larger amounts from unicorns, but pegasi and earth ponies contributed as well. As it traveled it very slowly increased its speed, pulled by a mysterious force. It entered the Everfree Forest about two hours after Princess Celestia’s initial spell had been cast.

The blob of invisible magical energy slowed after entering the forest, contracting and concentrating as it wandered erratically for another hour. Finally, it settled on one random Everfree denizen: a lowly tarantula. The blob contracted and contracted, glowing a faint red as it entered the body of the spider.

The tarantula convulsed, twitching her legs in pain. Slowly at first, the magic it had absorbed caused her to grow, bigger and bigger. The delicate creature bloated out, screaming once the magic had given her the ability to scream. Her animal mind was re-wired by the magic, and her eight black eyes flashed over to red.

The now transformed gigantic spider turned until the buildings of Ponyville were visible in her sights. With a bellow of rage, she raced out of the forest, with one single-minded goal: Destroy Ponyville and every pony within it.

Notes for Chapter 1.

Expectations-setting time.

Sonata Dusk is an important character. Much of the plot wouldn’t happen without her. Nevertheless, she doesn’t actually do that much in Part 1, so don’t get your hopes up for tons of cute Sonata antics. Twilight Sparkle is the main character, just like with the series. Yes, you heard me right: this is Part 1. Of…two or three, I haven’t decided yet. This an alternate-universe version of the whole of Friendship Is Magic and even if I only cover a fraction of the episodes, there’s still tons of original content, and that’s way too much to fit into a single story. Even split up, this is more than 100,000 words. I think this part is an enjoyable read all by itself, resolving like 80% of the plot threads and having a really good ending. Part 1 covers all of Season 1, most of Season 2, and a few episodes from Season 3, and Part 2 covers the fallout from the ending of Part 1. Things move slowly in Part 1 to set everything up, but I believe that future parts will go much faster through the seasons, which is why I think I can finish it up with only one or two more parts.

Also, if you’re interested in the episode order I’m using for this story, see this blog entry.

Ponyville.

“Monster!”

The cry rang out over the Ponyville marketplace, galvanizing the ponies into action. The shopkeepers did their best to protect their wares in the precious seconds afforded them, kicking support poles out of the way to shut storefronts, or at least throw a dirt-colored tarp over their items. They then joined the other ponies in a rapid stream out of the market plaza, before looping around as if to re-enter it. There a ramp led downwards, under the Records Building.

Just as the ponies began to enter the underground space, the gigantic Mexicoltan redknee tarantula, five times the height of a pony, crawled into town. Without hesitation she immediately began tearing down every building she could see. Her blood-red eyes were brimming with rage.

At the back of the stream was Mrs. Lemon Peel, interrupted in her tour of the village. The visitor allowed herself to be pulled along as she looked around her. She was equal parts horrified by the sight of the creature rampaging behind her, and in awe at the determination of the ponies around her. Mrs. Peel had witnessed multiple instances in the past where ponies faced with danger had degenerated into near-suicidal panic. But this group was disciplined. They had a plan in their retreat, and they knew it would work.

“There it is!” cried out a voice in the sky, the voice of the pegasus Rainbow Dash, flying overhead and acting as scout. “Now where’s Pinkie Pie?”

“I got ‘er in my sights!” came the voice of the earth pony Applejack, whirling a lasso over her head with her mouth and somehow managing to speak quite clearly despite that.

A great cheer erupted from the fleeing crowd of ponies.

“Aim for the front-left leg,” directed the voice of the unicorn Twilight Sparkle. The visitor pony had to crane her neck to see her, as she was standing on the roof of the Records Building beside a cowering pegasus. “Fluttershy says that she seems a bit lame in that one.”

By this time Lemon Peel had been swept into the underground structure, so she had to hear rather than see what happened next. The crowd had by this point slowed from a run into a brisk walk, as future obstructions slowed them down.

“Look out!” cried the receding voice of Rainbow Dash.

“There you are!” the extremely close voice of Pinkie Pie cried out. She was right in the visitor’s face, back-pedaling as fast as she was walking.

Peel cried out in shock.

“I’m Pinkie Pie,” she said, ignoring her outburst. Then she reached out and tapped Peel’s muzzle with a hoof. “And you’re Mrs. Peel,” Pinkie said, glancing up at the tip of her own mane. She produced a clipboard from that mane. “First order of business: Are you here for the day or are you moving to Ponyville?”

Peel looked around her wildly, trying in vain to reconcile the current conversation with the current crisis. “I…I’m moving here,” she said. “My husband got a post with the Royal Guard and…”

She was stopped by a pink hoof pressed against her lips. “Normally I’d be all for hearing your complete origin story, Emma, but right now I’m overdue to help my friends take down a nasty critter. Can I put your welcome party down for this Friday?”

Peel looked back over her shoulder at the sounds of scuffling between the pony defenders and the giant spider. “Alright,” she said. “Pardon me for asking, but shouldn’t you be, um…helping?” She looked back to see that Pinkie Pie was nowhere to be seen. Despite the fact that she was an earth pony, Peel craned her neck up to see if she had somehow flown away, as that was the only possible way Pinkie could have left the confines of the narrowing tunnel.

“Cowabunga!” her voice could be distantly heard. It did indeed sound like she was falling from a considerable distance.

“Nice landing!” Rainbow Dash complimented her.

Apparently, Pinkie was now on the tarantula’s head.

“What…but…how?!” Peel demanded of the pony walking beside her, the town’s self-appointed tour guide.

“That’s just Pinkie Pie,” Braeburn said with a sigh. “Ponyville’s one-pony welcoming committee.”

“When did she learn my name? I’ve never seen her before in my life!”

“Remember when she touched your muzzle? It was probably then.”

“What?!”

Braeburn sighed. “Like I said, it’s just Pinkie Pie. I swear, the ponies that haven’t changed their minds ‘bout Ponyville after seeing the monsters, all flee after meetin’ Pinkie Pie. She’s completely harmless though.”

Along the left inside wall of the artificial cavern was a large, opened door, a wooden oval that resembled a bank vault door. Big Mac stood at the ready to swing the door shut at a moment’s notice. Standing beside him was Mayor Mare and her assistant Raven. “Seventy-eight, seventy-nine…,” Raven counted as the visitor and her guide walked past them.

The path ahead split into two narrow passageways, each only wide enough for a single file of ponies. The visitor was jostled towards the left-side passage.

“Mrs. Peel, where’d ya…” Braeburn’s voice called out.

A hoof reached out and yanked the earth pony Lemon Peel rightwards, towards the other passage.

“Sorry about that,” the guide said. “That one’s for unicorns and this one’s for earth ponies.”

“Thank you, Braeburn,” Mrs. Peel said. She looked over at the passage she was no longer headed towards and saw that indeed only unicorns were passing through it. There was a faintly glowing blue substance coating the roof of the hallway, and the horns of the unicorns slid along it. In the passage she was now walking through, the same substance was on the floor instead of the roof, and an odd tingle passed through her hooves as she walked on it.

Braeburn saw where Peel was looking. “Don’t worry about that none,” he assured the visitor. “We’re just giving up a tiny part of our magic to power the defenses.”

“What about the pegasi?” Peel asked, seeing no passage set aside for them.

“The pegasi don’t take to enclosed spaces very well…except Fluttershy,” Braeburn explained. “They’re perching on top of Town Hall right now.”

It was at that moment that Lemon Peel finally emerged into the central cavern, lit by natural sunlight piped down from the surface of the plaza above. There was enough room for all the ponies—including the re-united unicorns—to gather, but the majority of them kept walking, taking numerous curved paths that led up to differently sized smaller caverns. All of the mini caverns looked out over the main cavern, and the acoustics of the place ensured that anypony standing at the central lectern could be heard by all.

Peel stopped for a moment in confused recognition. “Do…do they already know?” she whispered to herself.

Braeburn nudged Peel’s shoulders with his own. “Welcome to the Bunker, the pride and joy of Ponyville!” he exclaimed. “Pokey Oaks built it seventy-five years ago, and Ponyville never would have survived to the present day without it. Ain’t it incredible?”

“That it is,” Peel replied. “How deep does it extend?”

“Oh, this is it,” Braeburn said, suddenly very serious. “That was the number-one rule Pokey laid down: ‘Take the ponies out of natural sunlight’, he said, ‘and they’ll stop caring about whether the surface world lives or dies.’”

And indeed, the entire cavern complex was lit by piped-in sunlight.

Braeburn’s smile returned. “Come on, let me show you around.”

Braeburn and Lemon Peel stopped at the entrance of one of the larger caverns, a classroom, with Cheerilee front and center. Pony parents dropped off their children here, in hopes that whatever brief lesson she might improvise might distract the students from the stress of what was going on outside.

"Why do we need class?” Snips whined as he was dropped off. “It’s summer!”

“Hey, look Snips!” his friend Snails said, pointing to the name of the lesson on the board: Monsters.

The pair raced into the classroom after that. Shortly afterwards Cheerilee completed a roll call: “…Sweetie Belle, Truffle and Twist. That’s everyone!

“Now that we’re all here, let’s begin.” She underlined the word “Monsters” on the chalkboard with a piece held in her teeth. “What can you tell me about monsters?”

Braeburn was prepared to continue the tour but stopped on seeing Mrs. Peel watching attentively. “I could use a bit of a lesson myself,” he whispered to his companion.

In the classroom a flurry of hooves popped into the air, and Cheerilee started calling on them.

“They’re big, giant…monsters!” Snips exclaimed.

“They eat ponies for breakfast!” Diamond Tiara exclaimed. Quickly collecting herself she added, “But I’m not scared.”

There was a clamor of other voices. With a frown, Cheerilee stomped her hoof, and the students quieted down.

“Perhaps I need to be more specific. Where do monsters come from? Snails?”

“The Everfree?”

“Yes, most of them do come from the Everfree,” Cheerilee admitted. “But monsters can show up anywhere, at any time. Where, in general, do monsters come from?”

Most of the hooves went down. Twist’s, though, started shaking frantically, accompanied by a quiet “I know! I know!”

Cheerilee smiled indulgently. “Twist?”

“They’re made from exsesss magical energy!” Twist exclaimed with a lisp.

“That’s right!” Cheerilee said, turning to write the words “Rogue Magic” on the chalkboard. “Do you remember last week, when we talked about where ponies get their magic from?”

“Sunlight!” the students chorused.

“Yes, but ponies cannot convert all of the sunlight they absorb into magic. The excess is called…” She waited in vain for an answer, before tapping the words on the chalkboard.

“Rogue magic?” Scootaloo said experimentally.

“Yes, rogue magic,” said Cheerilee. “Rogue magic wanders around, invisible, until eventually enough of it gathers together near some innocent creature. That creature is then transformed into a monster! Today’s monster was just an ordinary spider before rogue magic turned it into a hulking mass of destruction!” She seemed perhaps a little too enthusiastic over the mental image conjured by that last sentence. Seeing the looks on the foals’ faces, she calmed herself down. “Anyway, the vast majority of monsters only have a limited store of rogue magic, and when they use that up they turn right back into the creature they originally were.

“What Applejack and her friends are doing right now is wearing the monster down and trying to keep it from causing too much damage. By doing this for long enough, the problem solves itself, and we can all go back into the daylight! Now, are there any questions?”

A nervous hoof rose into the air.

“Yes, Truffle?”

“Miss Cheerilee, if monsters are innocent creatures before being transformed, why do they all want to hurt us?”

“That’s a very good question, Truffle! The fact is, nopony knows why all monsters want to hurt ponies and destroy the things that ponies built, just that they do.”

Another hoof.

“Yes, Scootaloo?”

“What happens to the monsters that you can’t wear out?”

Cheerlilee frowned a little. “Those monsters eventually get tired of fighting and go back into the Everfree, to come back out and fight another day. And when enough of the same kind of monster get together, they breed and create a whole new race of monsters. That’s why the Everfree is so incredibly dangerous.”

There was a moment of silence as the pony students contemplated all of the horrible breeds of monsters believed to live in the Everfree.

Eventually another hoof rose into the air.

“Yes, Featherweight?”

“Could we make the monsters go away if we used less magic?”

“Hmm…another good question. Mrs. Peel, could you help the class out by answering some questions?”

Lemon Peel, startled to be called out, walked cautiously into the room.

“Class, this is Mrs. Peel, a reporter for a magazine called Mare Trotting Monthly. Her husband, Ragamuffin, is the Princess’ newest royal guard! She told me that she and their son Pipsqueak are moving to Ponyville.”

This earned a round of “oohs” and “aahs” from the class.

“Mrs. Peel and her family are from Trottingham, which was only recently added to Equestria,” Cheerilee explained, using a mouth-held pointer to show where on a world map the city was located. “Trottingham is part of the Griffish Isles, which as the name suggests is mostly populated by Griffons. We’ll cover the history of those islands in a future lesson. Tell me, Mrs. Peel, are there any monsters on the Griffish Isles?”

“Other than the sea monsters?” Mrs. Peel said cheekily. “We have a lot of those.”

“Technically those are sea creatures, not monsters,” Cheerilee corrected.

“Try telling that to them,” Peel joked. “But otherwise, no, we do not have any monsters on the Isles. There isn’t enough magic to sustain them.”

“Any why is that?”

“Not enough ponies, and being so far north, not enough sunlight.”

“And what’s life like in Trottingham?” Cheerilee asked.

“Not very good for ponies,” Peel answered with a frown. “The rocky ground barely yields enough food to live on. The weather is completely uncontrolled, and when we earth ponies get sick, we get really sick.”

“Yes, Sweetie Belle?” Cheerilee said in response to a raised hoof.

“Earth ponies? What about the pegasi and unicorns?”

“Oh, there are none of them in Trottingham. They get sick and have to leave if they stay longer than a month.”

Cheerilee nodded sadly. “That’s why we put up with monsters, class. Because otherwise Ponyville would be just like Trottingham.”

The students nodded silently in agreement that they definitely didn’t want to live in Trottingham.

Lemon Peel realized that her hometown had just been insulted, but just sighed and started walking towards the door.

“Oh wait!” Scootaloo exclaimed, jumping up and waving her hoof in the air.

“Yes, Scootaloo?” Cheerilee asked.

“Is your husband really in the Royal Guard, Mrs. Peel?”

Peel walked back with a proud smile. “That he is, Scootaloo. He is in fact the very first recruit from Trottingham.”

Another hoof. “Yes, Diamond Tiara?”

“Why are you moving to Ponyville? Aren’t the guards supposed to live in Canterlot instead of in this dump?”

“Diamond Tiara! Mrs. Peel, I apologize for my rude student. You don’t have to answer that question.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Mrs. Peel said, relaxing a bit. And you’re far from the first to ask, she added mentally. “You see, the royal barracks are for soldiers, not for their families. I looked around Canterlot, but prices there are a bit much, and we would like to save money for our relatives back in Trottingham. So my cousin Applejack recommended Ponyville.”

“Applejack’s your cousin?!”

“Snips! Raise your hoof first.”

Snips raised his hoof.

“Well, we know the question now, so remember that for next time. Mrs. Peel?”

“Well, she’s actually my third cousin. Applejack’s great-grandmother was the sister of my great-grandmother, and she and her family traveled to Equestria to settle in the new town of Ponyville. The Apple clan originally came from Trottingham.”

There were now a lot of eyes eyeing the world map, and some students looking forward to that lesson on the Griffish Isles.

After all, the Apple Clan were Ponyville’s self-appointed Defenders, and every pony in town owed their lives many times over to Applejack and her relatives.

Notes for Chapter 2.

One of the side caverns of the Bunker was located right under Town Hall. This was the Situation Room. The room lacked the sunlight illumination of the other caverns, but instead the six walls of the room were lit up with images from outside: a set of camera obscuras projected strategic views down a series of mirrors to allow the ponies in the Sit. Room to monitor the monster…and what the ponies on the surface were doing to stop it.

“Thunderlane, could you please move your right rear hoof? You’re blocking the view,” Raven calmly said into a speaking tube leading up to a widow’s walk surrounding Town Hall’s roof.

“Huh? Oh, sorry,” the pegasus could be heard to reply before the obstructed view cleared.

Raven and the Mayor were surveying the situation from just outside the circle that was painted in the center of the room. There were a half-dozen other ponies trying to stay out of the way, all curious as to how the battle outside was progressing.

Inside the circle, taking in all of the views, was a very-frustrated Rarity. “Rainbow Dash!” she exclaimed into a tube in vain—the pegasus could be seen hovering over the battle, shouting warnings to Applejack and Twilight, instead of hovering at her assigned post atop Town Hall. “How can you relay my brilliant plan for tying up the monster with the super thread I invented if you’re not here to receive it?!” With a huff, she turned to the pony standing silently beside her. “Is there anything else they could be doing?”

That pony was Dr. Fauna, the town’s veterinarian. “I keep telling you, I never specialized in invertebrates in college. That colt Snails could probably be more help to you than I am.” At that moment a thick strand of webbing shot out of the tarantula’s abdomen to ensnare Applejack. “I do know that tarantulas are not supposed to be able to shoot webs like that!”

“It’s a monster,” Rarity said with exasperation. “They love breaking the rules. Most of them don’t even respond to Fluttershy’s Stare! But I would like to know what the rules in this case are!”

Dr. Fauna sighed. “All right. A tarantula is an arthropod, with an exoskeleton. That means they are run by hydraulics.”

Rarity hummed in thought.

“I’m sure Fluttershy told your team all this already.”

“Possibly. Now go on.”

Dr. Fauna sighed once again.

Standing in front of one of the panels was Bon-Bon, a severe frown on her face.

A moment later, Lyra turned a corner and spotted her. She then looked around her at the situation room and sighed. It reminded her of other situation rooms from her past—ones that were offensive rather than defensive in nature. Quietly, she walked over so she was standing beside her friend. “Hey, Bons. What’s up?” she asked.

Bon-Bon said nothing.

With a roll of her eyes, Lyra lightly nudged her.

After acknowledging her, Bon-Bon responded by pointing silently at the projected scene before them.

Lyra sat down and looked at the scene for a few seconds, then back over to Bon-Bon to figure out the source of her seething. “Is it Twilight Sparkle?” she ventured at last.

“I just don’t trust that unicorn!” Bon-Bon hissed.

Lyra looked at the screen once again, hesitation showing on her face. So often in the past had she faced screens like this, only to watch helplessly as friends and allies fell before the unstoppable hordes. But not family—that happened during the part of her life when she had no family.

But things were different now. Equestria was different. These ponies would prevail, and afterwards Lyra would be able to return to her new parents, the ponies who had given her back her stolen childhood.

Twilight was now on the ground, having used a spell to rescue Applejack from her confinement. She was now running around the tarantula and blasting it with percussive rays of magic while the earth pony recovered from the contact poison coating the web. At Rainbow’s barely-heard exclamation, Twilight leapt back before one of the monster’s legs could grab her.

“She looks like a great addition to Applejack’s team!” Lyra exclaimed, beaming like a filly. “In fact, wasn’t the monster-fighting team all Apples before Twilight joined? With two unicorns and two pegasi, they are sure to wear any monster down much faster.”

Bon-Bon turned angrily on her friend. “And while they are doing that, how much rogue magic are they generating?” she demanded. “Twilight Sparkle wastes magic at a ridiculous rate—” (The unicorn took that moment to loudly teleport a total of two body lengths.) “—See? Like that! And Rainbow Dash is nearly as bad with that Buccaneer Blaze trick of hers.”

Lyra frowned for a moment, being forced to put her adult guise back on. “That isn’t the real reason,” she said. “You don’t believe that she’s reformed.”

This caught the attention of the other ponies in the room.

“What? No! Of course she’s reformed!” Bon-Bon said loudly.

The other ponies turned back to the battle.

Bon-Bon sat down and pulled Lyra in close. “No, I don’t believe it,” she whispered.

“Despite saving the town and, I don’t know, the whole world when she took down Nightmare Moon?” Lyra asked with a smug grin.

“Look, I know her type,” Bon-Bon explained. “The hot-stuff genius who thinks she’s going to change the world and doesn’t really care about any pony other than herself. You were here a few times in the years before the Summer Sun Celebration. You saw what she was like during her visits.”

“Yeah, I saw,” Lyra admitted. She failed to mention that she knew Twilight far before that period as well, and had witnessed her descent into mania. “She was convinced that she could clean out the entire Everfree all by herself, and all she wanted us to do was plan the celebratory party and prepare a pit for the mountain of monster bodies she planned to drag out. If Princess Celestia didn’t keep sending out guards to drag her back to Canterlot, she’d probably be in a pine box by now.”

“Multiple pine boxes,” corrected Bon-Bon. “She says she had a change-of-heart bonding with her new friends in the Everfree, but this was the same mare that tried to hire Applejack, Monster Hunter Supreme, to be her sherpa right after Nightmare Moon went into the Everfree. Her sherpa!” She ducked down when the raised volume once again attracted unwanted attention for a few seconds.

Lyra quietly took in the audience reaction. “I think something happened to her in the Everfree,” she whispered. She changed to a normal tone of voice to declare, “I think she’s changed.” She stared at Bon-Bon, challenging her to call Lyra on that statement.

“And I think, at best, that she’s just exchanged one obsession with another,” Bon-Bon replied.

There was a cheer from the rest of the room. Bon-Bon and Lyra turned to see that Fluttershy was picking up the now normal-sized tarantula to return it to the forest.

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” Lyra challenged, pointing at the screen. Twilight was headed right for the cavern entrance, Spike running out from his designated hiding spot to join her.

“You know what? I will!” Bon-Bon said with a huff, getting up and walking out.

Lyra continued to watch the image of Twilight. She remembered the sweet little unicorn with rotten people skills that she used to be, before she became consumed by monster hunting. In Lyra’s eyes, it was almost like Twilight had become possessed by a … but those sorts of things didn’t happen in Equestria.

She sighed, remembering the N-Verse, remembering the last time she had stared helplessly at a screen. “I’m sorry I failed you, Rozetri,” she whispered as she turned to leave.

“Did you see that?!” Twilight demanded as she stomped her way to the Bunker to make her report to the Mayor. “Pinkie Pie just dropped out of the sky! How did she do that? Did you see a pegasus drop-lifting her? Because I didn’t see a pegasus drop-lift her!” A few strands of mane popped loose from the side of her head.

Spike shrugged. “Nopony can figure out Pinkie Pie.”

Twilight turned on him. “Who says?”

“Everypony in Ponyville. That’s what I heard.”

“Oh, really? Well mark my words, Spike: by this time next week, I will have completely explained Pinkie D. Pie.”

“Wait, she has a middle initial?” Spike asked.

Twilight ignored him.

“Ah, Twilight Sparkle! Congratulations on vanquishing the monster!” the Mayor cried out. She was standing at the entrance of the Bunker, and was splitting her time between speaking with the unicorn mage and acknowledging each pony as they exited.

“Oh, well the planning as always was Applejack’s,” Twilight said demurely, smoothing down her wild mane.

“And I performed the aerial reconnaissance!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, flipping into place above them. “In fact, if it wasn’t for me, you would have been toast!”

“Yeah, I saw you!” Spike exclaimed. “How were you able to predict that spider’s movements every time?”

Rainbow spent a moment reviewing the battle in the head, and realized that she had in fact perfectly predicted every one of the monster’s moves a split-second in advance. Even the webbing of Applejack could have gone much worse if she hadn’t been forewarned by Rainbow Dash. And Rainbow had no idea how she had done this.

“Well, she obviously was able to see the tarantula’s tells from the air, which we couldn’t see from the ground,” concluded Twilight. “Right, Rainbow?”

“Err…right.” No one noticed the lack of Rainbow’s trademark enthusiasm in that statement.

“Anyway, you make a great team! Bravo!” exclaimed the Mayor.

“I’ll be sure to let Applejack know.”

Mayor Mare looked around her. “Where is Applejack anyway?”

“She needed to go back to Sweet Apple Acres,” the barely-audible voice of Fluttershy could be heard from behind Twilight’s back. “She’s teaching her sister how to harvest apples today.”

With a nod, the Mayor and her assistant left to make their way back to Town Hall. Fluttershy made her exit at the same time.

Unseen by the others, Mrs. Peel made a beeline for the farm as soon as she learned where her cousin was heading.

“Applejack has a sister?” Spike asked Twilight. “How come we’ve never met her?”

Rarity took that moment to march past them. “I’ll get started on repairs,” she announced. “Again.”

“Wait, I’ll help!” Rainbow Dash declared.

Rarity pointedly ignored her as she continued on into the town, the large spool of unused super thread floating behind her, ready to be deployed in argument against the proud pegasus at the best possible opportunity.

Twilight watched the pair leave with a bemused smile on her face.

Spike tugged on her leg. “I said: How come we’ve never met Applejack’s sister?”

“Oh Apple Bloom?” Twilight replied absently. “She’s being home-schooled by the Apple Clan.”

“OK, but how come she never comes into town? I mean, I don’t think I’ve run into any fillies with Applejack’s accent.”

“It’s a…” Twilight waved a hoof in the air absently. “Some sort of Apple tradition. Or more like, little Apples have to learn all the Apple traditions before they are allowed to be seen in public. Something like that.”

“So when will we see her? When she gets her cutie mark?”

“Ha!” Twilight barked. “According to Applejack, her sister is due to get her mark sometime in the next hundred moons, if she’s lucky. Come on, I want to get repairs finished ASAP, so I can get some time in my booth before sunset.” She marched off towards the market square, without bothering to see if her “number one assistant” was following.

Spike was instead looking around him at all of the ponies of the town, most of them setting up shops of their own. They all looked so confident, guided by their cutie marks in how their lives intersected with the destinies of all ponies. He looked sadly down at his forever-blank flank. “At least she’s gonna get a mark someday,” he mumbled.

Then he noticed that he was alone. “Hey, wait for me!”

(I'm waiting until Chapter 6 to post notes, as there aren't enough for this chapter.)

Further down the road, Applejack was just entering the grounds of Sweet Apple Acres when she was suddenly joined by her third cousin. Applejack gave the newcomer a glance, noting that she was no longer wearing the outfit or makeup she had on when she arrived in Ponyville.

“Cousin,” Lemon Peel said.

“Cousin,” Applejack answered.

They were approaching the farmhouse.

“Ah, how should I address the Matriarch?” Mrs. Peel asked.

“Same as everypony else,” Applejack said as she crossed into the living room of her house. “We don’t hold much stock in titles, Agent.”

Peel rolled her eyes. “Understood.” She turned her head to see Granny Apple sitting in a rocking chair right before her. Big Mac was standing sternly at her side and as Peel watched, Applejack took her place on the opposite side with a matching expression of doom.

“Granny Smith,” Peel said with a deep bow. “It is an honor.”

Granny chuckled. “We don’t hold much stock in empty gestures, neither. You owe no fealty to me, Cousin.”

Peel nervously cleared her throat. “Ahem. That was in small part to make up for a lack of communication for the past—”

“—Thousand moons?” Granny Smith asked pointedly.

Applejack put on a rather satisfied smile at seeing Lemon Peel’s discomfort at this statement.

“Shall I drop my…” She gestured at herself with a hoof.

“Since when has that become a custom of the Lemon Clan?” Granny asked.

“Err…well…I wasn’t sure what sort of customs the Apple Clan might have imposed in the interim.”

“I can name on my four hooves the number of times in the past hundred moons that I’ve needed to look any different from the way you see me right now,” Granny Smith said with some pride. “The Apple Clan works the same as the Lemon Clan. Better, even, since so few know our secret. We live off of the honest love of those we honestly protect.”

Lemon responded to this last statement with a raised eyebrow. “Really.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Applejack asked in a low voice.

“Aren’t the Apples responsible for the very monster attacks you’re protecting ponies from?” Lemon asked lightly.

Big Mac had to hold Applejack back from lunging at Lemon in response to that question.

“Is that the way Lemons run things back in the Isles?” Applejack accused.

“We can’t control the monsters. Nopony can,” Big Mac stated calmly.

“We have more reason to stop those monsters than anypony,” Applejack said.

“Oh, and why’s that?”

“They killed our parents.”

That shut up the smug Lemon. “I’m…I’m sorry. That was very presumptuous of me.”

Granny sighed deeply. “You’re forgiven. Now please get on with the reason why you’re here.”

“Erm…yes,” Lemon finally said. “So, if you’re willing to overlook both of those grievous faux pas, we of the Lemon Clan would like an update on your current state of infiltration with the ponies of Ponyville. How have you managed to keep your secret from so many ponies for so long, here in the very heart of Equestria?”

Applejack shrugged. “There are some who know. And those few can be trusted without question. As for the rest, why should anypony suspect us? We are the perfect Equestrians. We provide a vital service for Ponyville and other towns, and the apples from our orchards are loved by ponies rich and poor. Having so many orchards then explains why we Apples live scattered across Equestria—we’re taking the long view.”

“That’s right,” affirmed Granny Smith.

“I appreciate that,” Peel said. “Speaking for the Lemon Clan, we appreciate that. And now we need to know the rest. How, with so much exposure, are you keeping your…our secret? The Lemons desperately need to know.”

Granny, Applejack and the silent Big Mac shared a confused look. “What changed in the Griffish Isles?” Applejack finally asked.

“You don’t know?” Peel asked in disbelief. “Has Princess Celestia really kept the activities of Night Lancer and the OEDC a secret from even you?” She pronounced the acronym as “ode sea”.

“I thought the Outer Equestria Development Corporation was your problem, not ours,” Big Mac said.

Peel looked with surprise at Big Mac, as if unaware that he was capable of speech. “Not anymore. After decades of successfully stone walling them, they were finally driven out after a government investigation into Lancer’s exploitation of the Griffish Isles. They left for good a few months ago.”

Granny nodded thoughtfully. "I remember hearing stories as a filly of all of the awful things that the Lancers did to everypony on the Isles because they thought they could get away with it. What happened to Night Lancer?”

“He didn’t go to jail, if that is what you were hoping,” Peel said bitterly. “But his company was nearly driven to ruin. I hear they are off on the opposite end of Equestria, chasing after an orichalcum mine in the middle of nowhere that probably doesn’t exist.” She put on an evil grin to add, “I like to imagine that slimy toad Lancer being forced to wield a pick like the common ponies he despised, out in the hot desert sun.”

“So, it appears that congratulations are in order,” Granny said. “But that doesn’t explain what you need us for.”

“When OEDC were forced out, the Equestrian government took over their debts,” Peel said, “and Princess Celestia assumed direct control of the settlement of those debts.”

Applejack and Granny groaned in unison. “I think I know where this story is heading,” Applejack said.

“After settling the debts, the Princess determined that the best way to continue improving the standard of living in the Isles was if they were annexed to Equestria.”

“Yup,” Big Mac said with a sad shake of his head.

“She eventually manipulated affairs to the point that we had to agree to be annexed. Any other action would have been too suspicious.

“That was a week ago. Now we need to get our affairs in order as soon as possible, before the influx of ponies exposes our existence to the world. You’ve pulled it off for decades. Now the fate of us all depends on keeping our true identity a secret from the ponies.”

Granny nodded grimly, a flash of green fire washing briefly over her eyes. “Nopony must ever learn of the existence of Changelings in their midst,” she declared.

A few minutes later, after Lemon Peel had been situated in the guest room on the second floor of the Apple farmhouse, Applejack went down to the ground floor of the barn. Seeing the pet dog Winona resting in a corner she gave her a belly rub. Then she walked over to a corner of the barn not visible from outside, opened a secret door, and stuck her head down into the underground passage. “Have you finished your studies, Bloom?” she asked.

The yellow head of a filly with a red mane popped out of the hole. Its pink bow was easily bigger than the head. In her mouth was an open book showing a pony bucking an apple tree. She put the book down and looked up. “Sure, thing, Sis!” she exclaimed with a lighter version of Applejack’s accent. “What do you think of the bow?” She clambered up out into the barn and into the late-afternoon sunlight which was providing illumination through the open barn door.

Applejack backed up a few steps. “I think it looks fine, Bloom. Mighty fine. Now show me Winona.”

In the time it took to blink, Apple Bloom had been replaced by a copy of Winona, with barely a flash of green light.

Applejack shifted into another dog, a greyhound. She walked carefully around Apple Bloom’s Winona impersonation, taking sniffs in a few locations. Bloom’s eyes watched the proceedings with rapt attention as she remained perfectly still.

There was another flash, and Applejack was a pony again, with Apple Bloom following suit. “Very good!” Applejack exclaimed, which caused her sister to hop excitedly from one hoof to another. “High marks on that assignment.”

“That was fun!” Bloom exclaimed. “Although…not so fun for Winona when I was studying her.”

The dog whined a bit when the sisters looked at her and laughed.

Applejack looked back at Apple Bloom. “You forgot the bow, though,” she observed.

“No, I didn’t,” Bloom replied, turning to pick up the bow lying on the ground. “You said that it’s safer not to include clothing items in the transformations.”

Applejack nodded, smiling with pride. “That’s right—I did tell you about that. Musta slipped my mind. You’ll be passing yourself off among ponies any day now.”

“Any day” couldn’t come fast enough as far as Apple Bloom was concerned.

Seeing how much Bloom was working herself up, Applejack said, “Mrs. Peel has moved in.”

“Yeah, I felt her coming in,” Bloom said. She was referring to the sense possessed by all changelings that allow them to detect the locations of other beings based on the emotions they were radiating. Changeling emotions were distinctly different from pony emotions. “She felt…different from us Apples. Are all Lemons like that?”

“Lemons are not all the same,” Applejack replied, “but Mrs. Peel’s family will feel like her.”

“When is her son coming?”

“In a couple of weeks,” Applejack said. “Pipsqueak only just underwent his maturation transformation.”

“So, he has to learn how to be a pony just like I am?” Bloom asked.

“That’s right,” said Applejack.

“I can’t wait to talk to other ponies!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“Patience,” Applejack cautioned. “You’re nearly ready. Patience. Now let’s go outside and try putting your bucking theory to practice.”

A couple of hours later, with Ponyville nearly restored to its pre-monster-rampage state, Twilight was happily occupying her booth at the edge of the marketplace. “Want to join the Pony Preservation Pact? Ask me how!” a banner hanging over the booth read.

Twilight was at the back of the booth, organizing her portable library. Once she had that ordered to her satisfaction she set up a large wooden lectern. With a loud double-BAMF of teleportation, she returned with a large and fragile tome held aloft in a faintly green bubble of protection. Gently, she put the book down on the lectern, enveloping the top of the stand. A touch of her glowing horn made the spell semi-permanent, allowing her to relax.

“It’s a funny thing,” Twilight told Spike. “Just as I was teleporting out of the library, I caught a purple rhododendron bloom outside the window in the corner of my eye, and that made me think of that time on the beach when my sister spilled her bags and her birthday present spilled out, a present with a fresh rhododendron tucked into the bow.”

“Twilight,” Spike said warningly. “That wasn’t your memory.”

“Right, I don’t have a sister,” Twilight said with a blank face. She groaned in frustration. “I don’t want to remember those things, not even the good ones! It’s terribly wrong for me to be witness to so many private moments of Princess Luna. But they just keep spilling into my mind when I dream. I wonder if Celestia or Luna have some sort of spell to stop it?” She pulled out a scroll and quickly wrote out a note, which Spike then sent off to the palace.

“You did what you had to do,” Spike told her afterwards. “Diving through her memories was the only way to defeat Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight knew that far more than “diving” had been done, but she chose to withhold this fact from her assistant.

A reply appeared by dragonfire at that moment, and Spike read it aloud to Twilight. In short, there was no way to remove the memories from Twilight’s brain, not even the buried ones she hadn’t unpacked yet, because it stood a good chance of scrambling those memories into Twilight’s own memories.

Twilight sighed. “I guess I’m stuck with them,” she said wearily.

Spike looked up at the large tome on the lectern, and thought of a way to distract Twilight from her gloomy thoughts. “So what do you want to work on today?” he asked brightly. “The binding artifact, or the very first monster entry?”

“The first monster entry, I think,” Twilight said, firmly banishing her dark thoughts as she prepared herself for her work. Delicately using her telekinesis, she opened the tome to a bookmarked page and began to study the calligraphed words, making notes in a floating notepad with a feather quill.

“Twilight Sparkle!” cried the accusing voice of Bon-Bon.

Twilight scowled for a moment, before replacing that with a bright grin as she turned to face the first visitor to her booth all day. “Bon-Bon! It’s good to see you! Are you here to find out more about Equestria’s premiere monster-hunting organization?”

“You mean the one you founded as a filly?” she asked scornfully.

Twilight put on a confused expression. “Are you trying to put a negative light on a filly’s dream of saving all the ponies in Equestria from the Monster Menace?” she asked.

“Well…no,” Bon-Bon backpedaled. “But ‘premiere’?”

Twilight shrugged. “I did my research, and there are no other monster-hunting societies in Equestria today.”

“No other publicly known monster hunting societies…” Bon-Bon muttered.

“What was that?”

“No, you know what?” Bon-Bon said with a fake grin matching Twilight’s from earlier. “You’re right. The Pony Preservation Pact is the premiere monster-hunting society in Equestria. What precisely are the goals of the PPP?”

Twilight floated over a pamphlet from a neatly aligned stack. “As you can see here, our mission is the study and control of all kinds of monsters, with the goal of eliminating their threat long-term.”

Bon-Bon studied the pamphlet carefully in order to find the passage that Twilight had just quoted, and then produced a near-identical pamphlet from her saddlebags, a copy that made Twilight rather nervous. “It’s a funny thing, because I have your PPP pamphlet from just three months ago, and it says that your goal is to destroy all monsters in Equestria, not control them.”

“Yes, well I was wrong,” Twilight said in a small voice.

“What was that?”

“I said that I was wrong!” Twilight exclaimed. “Applejack was right about how to deal with monsters, and I was wrong. Our time in the Everfree facing Nightmare Moon’s traps, and then curing Princess Luna of her curse, taught me that valuable lesson, as well as the power of friendship. I have admitted those mistakes in public several times, Bon-Bon.”

“Alright, I just wanted to be sure,” Bon-Bon said with a victorious smirk. “So, I might be interested in joining your society.”

“Really?!” an incredulous Twilight asked, leaning forward in anticipation.

“But I want to know that this is a competently run organization. You say you plan to study monsters, to find the best way to ‘control’ them. Where do you have the results of this study documented?”

Before she had even finished the question, Twilight had levitated a whole stack of identical paperback books, sliding one of them over to Bon-Bon for her to inspect.

Bon-Bon spent a few minutes flipping through the book. “Hmm…” she said. “Yup, yup, that one’s right. And this one, and this one, and this whole set here. Hmm…Wait, that’s how you stop a manticore?”

Twilight put on a victorious smirk of her own. “Did I surprise you with that one? You’re not questioning me, are you?”

“Well, it looks reasonable, but I wouldn’t know for sure unless I saw it with my own eyes.”

Instead of being insulted by the rebuke, Twilight grinned again, this time genuinely. “A fan of the scientific method! You would make a fine member of the PPP!”

“I haven’t committed yet!” Bon-Bon snapped.

“But you do know an awful lot about monsters,” Twilight said, leaning in once again. “Some would say a suspiciously large amount of information about monsters.”

“I live in Ponyville,” Bon-Bon quickly replied. “Knowing how to handle monsters is a necessary survival skill.”

“I suppose so,” Twilight said, getting out of Bon-Bon’s muzzle.

“Did you gather all of this knowledge yourself?” the earth pony asked.

“No! I’d have to live a couple of lifetimes to pull that off,” Twilight said with a laugh. “Most of my knowledge is from the founders of the science of monster hunting: Star Swirl the Bearded and his student Princess Luna.” She gestured towards the open tome in its protective bubble, and the library behind it. “I have here the complete set of Star Swirl’s Monster Encyclopedia, and the Miscellanea.” She patted a hoof on the stack of paperbacks she had presented earlier. “I compiled these myself, containing entries on only the monsters which have been spotted in the Everfree,” she explained, “along with anything else likely to spawn from the known animals and plants of that forest.”

“The complete Star Swirl library?” Bon-Bon asked, craning her neck forward to try and take in all of the books. “I haven’t had a chance to read any of those since I moved to Ponyville. Isn’t a complete set expensive?”

“Oh, ridiculously expensive. But Princess Celestia allowed me to charge the set to her personal account, after I convinced her that it was a necessary investment in Ponyville’s future.”

“Is…is there any chance that I might be able to check out a volume or two?” Bon-Bon asked plaintively.

“Well, they’re in the reference section of the Golden Oaks Library,” Twilight explained, eagerly setting her trap, “so you can read them any time you visit and take notes. But I only allow members of the PPP to take them home.”

“Members like me!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, suddenly landing beside Bon-Bon. “I joined on the night we hunted down Nightmare Moon!”

“The night we reformed Princess Luna,” Twilight gently corrected.

“Yeah…that.”

“And while I definitely welcome you as a member, Rainbow, I seriously doubt you’ll be taking home any of the volumes of the Monster Encyclopedia any time soon.”

“What? Is that what you two were talking about? Boring egghead stuff? Forget that! I joined the PPP so I can learn how to kick some monster butt!”

The other two nodded. “It certainly is true that ‘kicking monster butt’ is the best part of the job,” Twilight admitted, before turning to Bon-Bon. “So, are you willing to close the deal and join the Pony Preservation Pact?”

Bon-Bon shifted from one hoof to another, trying to find a way out of getting talked into joining Twilight’s little club. “Wait!” she exclaimed. “That manticore trick—that’s not in the Encyclopedia. Where did you get it?”

“Oh, it was from one of the later monster hunter’s journals,” Twilight answered.

“Which one?” Bon-Bon challenged.

“Well, it wasn’t from the Morari Manuscript…I think it was from Volume 7 of Princess Luna’s Collected Monster Observations.”

“Can I see the relevant passage? Out of academic curiosity.”

“Oh of course,” Twilight said, turning back to her bookcase. “Let’s see…Volume 7…Volume 7. Spike!”

“I’m right here,” Spike said. He had indeed been standing right next to Twilight this entire time.

“Where’s Volume 7 of the CMO? I see 6 and 8, but not 7.”

“Back at the library.”

“Why?!”

“Because it’s by far the biggest one next to the Miscellanea, and we never needed it before now.”

“Well go get it!” Twilight exclaimed.

“What, now?!”

“Yes, now!” Twilight shouted. “I’ve got a recruit on the line.”

“Do you know how big that book is?” Spike replied. “I don’t think I could even pull it on the cart! Why don’t you teleport and get it?”

Twilight got in Spike’s face. “Because I’ve got the pony skills, and you don’t! If I leave you here, I’ll come back to an empty booth!”

“Do you distrust me that much?” Spike said with a pout.

“YES!” Twilight screamed. “Now get going!” She teleported Spike over to the library.

Given the patch of scorched ground left behind, the transport was not a pleasant one.

“Um…” Rainbow said, alerting Twilight that the entire conversation had been overheard.

Twilight looked up in shock, as if her sudden burst of rage had come from some pony other than her. After reviewing her memories for a moment, she said, “Excuse me, I’ve got something much more important to do,” in a tone of complete shame.

Then she teleported out with another scorched patch.

Bon-Bon turned to Rainbow Dash. “What was that?!” she demanded.

“Hey don’t ask me,” Rainbow said. “Spike told me she’s done that a lot in the last couple of years: yell at him and then beg him for forgiveness five seconds later. He says he likes the ‘apology gems’, but the rest of it tires him out. I, uh, didn’t believe him at the time.”

“But…that was horrible!” Bon-Bon replied. “He may only be a dragon, but the Princess herself told us that Twilight Sparkle was in charge of raising Spike like he was her own son.”

Rainbow Dash nodded sadly.

Bon-Bon shook her head. “If this is the way she treats her ‘son’, I shudder to think what serving under her in her club might be like.”

“She never treats us like that.”

“That’s even worse!” She looked over the new pamphlet, and the book of monster-hunting secrets, before putting them both in her saddlebag. “I’ll look these over in the morning, when my head is clear. I’ll try my best to give her an honest answer about joining or not in a day or two, but I can’t guarantee that this frightful display will not have an effect on my opinion.”

Rainbow shrugged as Bon-Bon walked away, then set about shutting down the booth for the night.

“I don’t get it either,” Rainbow said to herself. “Ever since Nightmare Moon, she has tried to be the best friend of every pony in Ponyville. It’s like she’s got a Spike-shaped hole in her heart.

“At least she knows that there’s something wrong with her.

“Maybe it’s a curse. But does she know that?”

“I swear, I don’t know what comes over me!” Twilight pleaded to Spike, who was sitting atop a whole pile of “apology gems”.

“Doesn’t stop you from doing it again,” Spike said around a mouthful of crystal dust. He wasn’t sad, or angry. It was like he had confided to Rainbow Dash: By this point, he was just tired.

“I’ll do something about it, I swear! I’ll ask the other parents in Ponyville for advice.”

“Why don’t you start with Applejack? Everypony says that she’s practically the mother to every colt and filly in town.”

Twilight nodded eagerly.

“And when you see her, tell me what Apple Bloom looks like. I’m curious.”

Twilight nodded once again.

Spike looked over at the clock. “Now go get that big book before your protection spell expires.”

Twilight looked over at the clock in a sudden panic. “The Miscellanea!” she exclaimed and prepared to teleport.

“Twilight!”

“Yes?”

“Take your time.” Spike pointed at the scorch marks on the floor.

Twilight let out a breath. “Right.”

She came back twenty seconds later instead of the planned two seconds.

After setting the large book up in its permanent position in the library, under the permanent protection spell, she turned sheepishly back to Spike. “So…what would you like to do for the rest of the evening?”

Spike looked down at his gem pile, sighed, and got up and climbed down it. “I’d like to help you with your research. I am your assistant, right?”

Twilight smiled gratefully. “Right. What would I do without you, Spike?”

“Make a big fat mess of things,” Spike replied, in the tone of a frequent answer to a frequent question. “So, the very first monster entry?”

“Yes, the very first monster entry,” Twilight repeated, walking over to the fat tome and pulling her notebook and quill back out. “I’m convinced that this entry is a genuine Star Swirl journal entry, and not a forgery as everypony else thinks. What elements of style can I use to prove that I am right?”

She pointed down at the magically-protected page—the first monster entry. In Twilight’s opinion it was the inspiration for the entire study of monster hunting. The entry was for a long-extinct breed of monster, the Siren. And the woodcut illustration clearly depicted Sonata Dusk.

Is there some kind of rule that says that you have to provide a kick to make the reader want to read the rest of the story at the end of Chapter 5? Because I keep unconsciously writing my stories to keep doing that.

Canterlot.

Late that evening.

Moon Dancer waited several minutes in hope that the frantic knocking on her door would go away. Why would any pony in their right mind want to talk to her? At this hour?

Unless it was Twilight Sparkle with an apology?

The door was practically ripped off its hinges.

“Twilight?!”

It was not Twilight. It was, in fact, even more unbelievable. Moon Dancer rubbed her eyes several times, looking at the small stallion before her each time to be sure that she wasn’t hallucinating. Finally, she dared to address him: “…Dad?”

The stallion huddling in the shadows coughed piteously. “C…could I come in, Moondancer?”

“Yes…yes, of course!” She stepped back so the stallion could come inside. Here she could finally get a good look at him.

The unicorn stallion looked like a complete mess. Parts of his dark pinkish mane and tail had been shorn away, while his yellowish-gray fetlocks were long. He retained only a single sleeve of his business suit front.

Moon Dancer gasped. “What happened to you?”

The stallion shut the door, ducking down so he wouldn’t be visible from any of the windows. “Monsters,” he declared. “Horrible black monsters. They looked like ponies, but with holes in their legs and manes, insect-like wings, and crooked horns. Like a twisted parody of an alicorn.” He peeked out the window for the second, ducking back down at sight of a moving shadow on the street. “They came out of nowhere. Only a couple dozen members of the Badlands Expedition escaped with our lives.”

“That’s awful!” Moon Dancer exclaimed.

“But that’s not all,” the stallion continued. “The entire way back, we saw shapes in the darkness. Three more of my team were snatched up from their beds, pulled into shadows by those dark hooves, and then never seen again. They could be watching us this very second!”

Moon Dancer, realizing how exposed she was at this moment, used her magic to shut all the curtains in the house and douse most of the lights. “W…what will we do?”

“I need to get help,” Moon Dancer’s father pled to her, holding his forehooves together in supplication. “I’ve got the others staying in a hotel in Canterlot for now, but I can’t be sure they are safe even here. The Princess needs to send troops out to the Badlands, to hunt those monsters down before they take any more innocent ponies.”

Moon Dancer looked away. “Yes, that would be the right thing to do,” she said to herself. “But it’s not going to be easy. Nopony in Canterlot trusts you, or anypony else from OEDC, after the Griffish Isles Scandal.”

“I know,” said Night Lancer, CEO of the Outer Equestria Development Corporation. “The very reason we moved to the Badlands was to get out of the public eye, to get rich enough off of orichalcum mining to buy our way back into power. But this is a threat to all of Equestria. You believe me, don’t you, Daughter?”

Moon Dancer pulled Night Lancer into a tight embrace. “Of course I believe you, Daddy! I’m glad you finally came to me for help. There were times when I thought you might have forgotten you have Morning and I as daughters altogether.” She held her father at hooves’ length, her eyes wet with happy tears. “But you don’t need to worry anymore. As a graduate student of Celestia’s School of Magic, I can get you in touch with Princess Celestia, Princess Cadance, Princess Luna…anypony that you need to convince of your story. In a matter of days everything will be better.”

You see, Moon Dancer had been born Moon Lancer. Her mother had changed all of their names once it became clear that Night loved making money far more than he loved them. But Moon had never stopped loving her absent father.

Night Lancer pulled his daughter back into a hug. “Oh, thank you, Daughter! I love you.”

“And I love you too!” Moon Dancer declared joyfully, her eyes tearing up again.

Unseen by Moon Dancer, Night Lancer opened his eyes, which were now green and vertically slitted. “Yes,” the being actually known as Queen Chrysalis said smugly as she grew stronger on her love, “I know you do.”

Notes for Chapters 3, 4, & 6. (Chapter 5 had no notes.)

I didn’t want to write the complete tale of the pilot episode in this alternate universe. Because Twilight Sparkle spends most of it as an insufferable jerk, and I simply don’t want to write Twilight like that. So, here’s how it ends.

And here are the notes for the chapter.

The way to Castle Everfree.

June 21, 1001. The last day of the Princess Era (PE), which preceded the Post-Reconciliation Era. Known somewhat melodramatically to later generations as The Night That Never Ended. “Friendship Is Magic, Part 2”.

Rainbow Dash flew back over the chasm, the end of the rope bridge clutched in her teeth. In a moment she had looped it around the post. “See?” she asked with a cocky grin. “I’d never leave my friends hangin’!”

Twilight Sparkle rushed forward, sending a wave of magic through the pegasus. “That’s impossible! I was nearly blinded by how much mental magic that construct was using against you!”

Rainbow blinked. “I didn’t see any magic. Is that some kind of unicorn thing?” She addressed the last question at Rarity.

“I think it’s a Twilight-and-Princess-Celestia thing,” Rarity speculated.

And Changeling thing, Applejack thought to herself.

“So how did you do it?!” Twilight insisted. “How did you resist? With the magic level I saw, she should have either made you her permanent slave, or turned you into a vegetable!”

Rainbow thought for a moment. “I said ‘no’.”

Twilight hunched over, pulled her mane with her hooves and let out a strangled scream.

“Relax, Twilight!” Applejack said in a soothing voice, running a hoof over Twilight’s withers. “We non-unicorns have quite a few tricks you might not be aware of. Rainbow here just used the purity of her heart to stay true.”

Twilight looked up. “‘Purity of her heart’? That’s a thing?”

“Sure it is,” Applejack said with complete sincerity.

Twilight let in a big breath, then slowly let it out. “Alright. Let’s…let’s go into the castle.” She led the way across the rope bridge.

With a pleasant smile and her eyes fixed on the bridge and its crossing ponies, Applejack reached up and roughly pulled Rainbow Dash to the ground. She waited until the others were out of sight and hearing, before turning on the pegasus. “Seriously now, how did you do that?” she hissed.

Rainbow shrugged. “I just said ‘no’,” she repeated. “Once that ‘Shadowbolt’ got close enough to me, I just knew something was up. I figured you were using one of your granny’s charms to protect us or something.”

“Granny doesn’t have any charms like that.”

“What, really?” Rainbow shuddered. “You mean I was face to face with Nightmare Moon using her ‘unstoppable brainwashing spell’ and I won? What are the odds?!” She then took to the air and flew over the chasm, whistling some Wonderbolts anthem to herself.

Applejack shook her head incredulously and followed after. With nopony watching her, she glanced back in the direction of her farm, and worried for the hundredth time about the state of her little sister. Members of the Apple (and Lemon) clan of changelings are born immature and go through several stages before they are strong enough to metamorphose into their full reformed states. Apple Bloom had formed her cocoon as a result of sharing her love with a terrified Applejack after Nightmare Moon had made her first appearance.

Applejack found Twilight surveying the castle, running her magic up and down the walls. She positioned herself right next to the unicorn and waited.

“Well,” Twilight finally announced. “There are no traps, that I can detect. After the things I’ve witnessed tonight, I can no longer be certain of anything.”

“You’ve done great, Twilight,” Applejack said. “You’ve spotted all kinds of traps that would have slowed us down or worse.”

Twilight wordlessly gave a nod of thanks, then walked cautiously into the foyer of the castle, followed by Applejack.

The others hung back for a minute. Applejack gave them an accusing look, and they followed shamefully.

“OK, maybe I was expecting you two to explode or something,” Rainbow Dash admitted. “But in my defense, those traps are vicious.”

“This place is in a state of severe disrepair!” Rarity exclaimed after entering the main room of the castle. And indeed there were numerous holes in the walls and ceiling.

Twilight put her hoof up to the scorch marks at the edge of one such hole. “This is the location where the newly-created Nightmare Moon fought Princess Celestia to a standstill. The Princess was forced to fight down her emotions after witnessing the brutal death of her own sister, Princess Luna.” She turned to the painted wall around the hole, a painting depicting the two sisters walking side by side. The image of Luna was the one that had been nearly obliterated by the hole. “Princess Luna was Star Swirl’s chief student in the art of monster hunting, and the greatest monster hunter of all time following his disappearance. Sadly, this monster was too much for her.”

Suddenly the halls rang out with Nightmare Moon’s tartaric laughter. “Is that the story that ‘Dear Tia’ told to her ‘faithful student’?”

“Nightmare Moon!” Twilight exclaimed, turning to look up at the ceiling.

“Show yourself, Nightmare!” Rainbow cried out. “Or are you scared to face six of us at once!” She raised her front hooves into a fighting stance.

“Insolent foals!” the voice of the Nightmare replied. “I am the very essence of Fear! None of you have a chance of stopping me. Not even you, ‘Monster Hunter’!”

“I have memorized all of the writings of your victim, monster, and I have no doubt that I will vanquish you!” Twilight taunted.

“The ‘greatest monster hunter of all time’?” Nightmare replied mockingly. “I have the complete set of Luna’s posthumously-collected writings before me as I speak. No doubt part of an idiotic ploy by Celestia to ‘cure me’ upon my inevitable return. I see they even misquoted me: ‘The demoness Empusa travels to the surface to seduce unwary travelers. The only way the would-be victims could defend themselves was by slaughtering her.’ Idiots! Empusa was completely invulnerable to physical harm—she could only be banished by slandering her.”

The other ponies started in shock. For the quotation from Luna’s Observations, Nightmare’s voice had reverted to that of an ordinary pony, a voice that Twilight thought bore a strong resemblance to Princess Celestia’s. A horrible suspicion arose in her mind. “How…how did you know that? Scholars have only deduced that correction in my own generation. Did…did you absorb Luna’s mind when you destroyed her?”

Another tartaric laugh. “No, no, Twilight Sparkle! I did not destroy Luna. I am Luna.”

“No!” Twilight exclaimed. “You lie! No pony has ever become a monster!”

“I had no choice!” Nightmare Moon’s voice cried out bitterly. “My cutie mark cursed me to this fate! As Celestia was the Mare of the Sun, I was the Mare of the Moon, and the night! Denied the light magic born of sunlight, I was forced to rely on dark magic to protect the ponies against the monsters.”

“And dark magic corrupts the user,” Twilight said in shock, completing Nightmare’s thought.

“Precisely! The others shunned me for my dark thoughts and appearance, and eventually even my own sister told me she could no longer love the thing I was becoming! Until finally, Luna died to give birth to me! But I possess all of her tortured memories. And I will revenge myself on all ponies for what they did to her, by bringing Eternal Night to Equestria!”

“And eternal night…will inevitably turn all ponies into monsters,” Twilight said in despair.

“Now come upstairs to face me, Twilight Sparkle. Do not bring your companions unless you wish to see them suffer horribly at my hooves. I know it was you who saved each of them when I tried to single them out for conversion or destruction.”

Twilight looked back at the others in confusion. All of them knew that Twilight had failed in every case, that all of the ponies ending with Rainbow Dash had saved themselves.

Applejack sighed. “Another unicorn supremacist,” she muttered under her breath.

“Take as long as you wish,” the Nightmare added in a magnanimous tone. “Or flee back to civilization and allow me my ultimate victory. The choice is up to you.”

“Is…is it true?” Fluttershy asked. “Was Nightmare Moon once a pony?”

“Yes,” Twilight said, her head bowed.

“And you’re going to face her alone?” Rainbow asked incredulously.

Twilight sighed. “You heard what she said. She has tested all of you. Now it’s my turn.”

“But this isn’t a fair fight! Nightmare Moon cheats!” Rainbow exclaimed.

“Well, you did say that you read all of her books, back when she was a pony,” Rarity said slowly. “So in a sense you know how she thinks. Perhaps you can use that against her.”

“Perhaps,” Twilight said listlessly.

Applejack took Twilight aside. “A moment, gals?”

The others walked over to the other side of the room. Pinkie meanwhile had been spending the time drawing mustaches on all of the Lunas painted on the walls. In such a serious situation, she felt that the only thing she could contribute was jokes, and that wasn’t needed right now.

Applejack gestured to the ceiling, and Twilight cast a noise- and thought-blocking spell around the two of them.

“It’s hopeless,” Twilight said. “She’s far stronger than I am. And I haven’t memorized Princess Luna’s Collected Observations. It’s too rambling to follow in most cases. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Look, Twilight,” Applejack said, staring straight into the reluctant unicorn’s eyes. “She just admitted that she’s a pony corrupted by dark magic. And you told me earlier that you studied how to counter dark magic. So just suck it all out of her, and our problem’s solved!”

“It’s not that simple,” Twilight explained. “A pony’s personality is formed by three factors: their temperament at birth, the fate imposed upon them by their mark, and the sum total of their experiences. Luna became Nightmare Moon over the course of decades, and every memory shaped by dark magic contributed to her fall. To cure her I’d have to re-write the majority of those memories. Which…let’s not even get into how absolutely wrong it is to basically shove your hoof up their back and turn a pony into your own personal puppet. When it comes down to it, I don’t have the knowledge of those memories…or even the mental capacity to do something like that. It’s impossible.”

“So you’re saving you can’t save her.”

Twilight nodded sadly. “I’m sorry that I can’t carry out your wonderful philosophy.”

“Then destroy her,” Applejack said coldly.

“What?”

“She’s going to overthrow Pony civilization. Where do cutie marks come from?”

“Light magic.”

“Exactly. You were absolutely right when you said that she’ll turn us all into monsters. After a couple generations, there won’t be any pony left with cutie marks. And then, even if by some miracle she’s defeated and light returns to our lives, it will be life without cutie marks. Because the first mark was a fluke, and marks only come from being around ponies with other marks.” Applejack took a deep breath. “Nightmare Moon winning is the end of ponykind. Forever. I hate it, it goes against everything I believe in how monsters should be treated. But Nightmare Moon…has to go. And with Princess Celestia locked in the sun, you are the only pony on the planet who has a chance to defeat her.”

There was a knocking on the sphere that enclosed the two ponies. Pinkie Pie was waving at them and pointing at the Elements of Harmony book she somehow managed to sneak all the way here from the library.

Applejack and Twilight rolled their eyes in unison. “Or we can use the Elements,” they said.

Twilight ascended the stairs and stepped into the throne room. The first thing she saw was five stone spheres on a dais, each marked with a different symbol. There was no sign of Nightmare Moon. Quickly, she lowered each sphere to the ground and put them in a circle around her. She fired up her horn and began to siphon magic into the artifacts. But just then a swirl of magic the color of the night swept the spheres up and over to the empty throne, where Nightmare Moon materialized, laughing.

Angrily, Twilight pawed a hoof, and lowered her head to charge.

“You’re kidding,” the Nightmare said incredulously. “You’re kidding, right?” She stepped forward and braced herself to receive the physical attack.

Twilight charged, Nightmare Moon charged, and at the last moment Twilight used teleportation to bypass the Nightmare entirely and re-unite with the spheres. Once again, she tried to energize the spheres. A crackle of energy ran over them. “Just one spark! Come on, come on…”

“No, no!” Nightmare Moon cried out in fear. She teleported behind the glowing spheres and blasted Twilight into the opposite wall, but the magical reaction continued for a time.

And then it just fizzled out.

Twilight gasped. “But…where’s the sixth Element?”

Nightmare Moon laughed in triumph. “You little foal!” she cried. “Thinking you could defeat me?” She raised up her hooves and stomped them down amongst the stones, releasing enough magical energy to pulverize them. The gems that briefly appeared during this process made it clear that yes, these were the Elements of Harmony. Emphasis on the past tense. “Now you will never see your Princess, or your sun! The night will last forever!”

Twilight could now see the full extent of Nightmare Moon’s power. It was the power to move the moon and the entire night’s sky. It was enough power to destroy the whole of the Canterhorn with a single thought. Twilight stood no chance of defeating her.

It was at that moment that the other five ponies burst into the throne room, led by Rainbow Dash. “We don’t care what that monster does to us, Twilight,” she cried. “If this is the end, we’re facing it beside you!” One look at their faces showed that they all shared that sentiment.

Twilight gasped in realization. “You think you can destroy the Elements of Harmony just like that?” she taunted. “Well you’re wrong, because the spirits of the Elements of Harmony are right here!”

“What?” the Nightmare replied.

About two minutes later.

Nightmare Moon screamed as the whirlwind of rainbow energy engulfed her.

A beatific Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes, which were a bright glowing white…

Time stopped. Twilight and her newly-realized friends floated in formation. Nightmare Moon reared back in panic, the magical tornado around her frozen in place.

And now the decision had to be made: What was to be done with the monster?

Twilight couldn’t move. But she could think. And she could sense her friends around her with the new senses that the Elements had temporarily bestowed upon her. Not only their serene expressions with the Elements around their necks, but hints of their thoughts and emotions.

So what are you going to do, Twilight? Pinkie Pie’s thoughts addressed her. They were just as happy and bubbly as her speech, perhaps more so. The thoughts of Pinkie Pie resembled the joy of a young filly experiencing the best Hearth’s Warming ever.

I…I feel like anything’s possible in this place, came the thought of Applejack. The thoughts sounded older than the physical earth pony, the voice of a pony who has experienced a lifetime of hardship over a too-brief fillyhood.

Encouraging thoughts and feelings came to Twilight from the others. All of them trusted her to make the right decision in this place. Even Applejack.

I know we’ve fought this entire time, Applejack told her. But I trust you to do the right thing now. Even more than I trust myself.

Yes, show us one of your ‘Trusted Twilight Sparkle Solutions’, Rarity thought at her.

We believe in you, Fluttershy quietly assured her.

We all believe in you, Rainbow Dash chimed in. Think your way through this like you always do.

Twilight mentally nodded. She did think her way through her problems. And for once it appeared that she had an infinite amount of time to do this right. But first, she needed data…

“Show me how Nightmare Moon came to be,” she ordered. She did not move her lips, but somehow the sounds formed anyway.

The Elements responded to her request. Before them appeared a screen showing a very young Luna, then only a unicorn, being bullied by some of the other young ponies in her village. Her normal magic failing her, she drew on another source, and blasted her enemies away, causing them to run away from her in fear. The other ponies of the village would never trust her again.

“Wait!” Twilight commanded. The image of the next memory, one involving a just-cutied Luna, froze in place. “Can I see all of Luna’s memories?” This was, just to be clear, a query as to what was possible, not an order to actually display all memories all at once.

YES. The thought was nearly overwhelming, and seemed to be composed of thousands or even millions of mental voices in unison.

You can do it, Applejack thought in realization. You can reform Luna.

Yes, literally re-form her, Twilight thought bitterly. But it would be the most-horrific personal violation imaginable. Every embarrassing moment imprinted upon my brain so I could never forget it, while Luna’s mind is smoothed out as flat as glass, leaving only the most-basic of memories. I’d save us all, but how could I live with what I would have to do to her!

Do it, a faint thought drifted into their conversation, the voice that Nightmare had imitated earlier. The voice of Princess Luna. End this eternal torment and do it!

Twilight paused, overwhelmed by the weight of her choice. And then… It doesn’t have to be that bad, she thought at the weak fragment of Luna within Nightmare Moon. Not if you help me. We can create your new mind together, then implement it all at once.

I…I do not know if there’s enough of me left to do that. I do not know which memories to keep, and which to wipe away. But…I trust thee, Twilight Sparkle.

I’ll make the best Princess Luna I can. The…the ‘perfect princess’ that Celestia always told me about.

Yes, thought Luna. I would like that.

Twilight began to raise a wall around the two of them.

Wait! Rainbow thought. We want to help.

This act will have a cost, Twilight told them sternly. To my sanity. And even with Luna’s consent, it is a crime, one I alone will answer for. She finished raising the magical wall before the others could stop her. Having named her as their leader within this thought space, she was more powerful than all of them together.

After a subjective period of twenty or more hours for Twilight and Luna, but only a few minutes for the others, time resumed. The glowing lights grew in intensity until they were blinding, and every pony in the room collapsed.

Some period of actual time passed. The others began to revive.

“Ugh, my head!” Rainbow Dash said as she slowly rose to her hooves.

“Everypony okay?” Applejack asked.

Rarity got up, and saw that her severed tail had been restored. “Oh, thank goodness.”

“Why Rarity, it’s so lovely,” Fluttershy commented after getting up.

“I know!” Rarity replied. “I shall never part with it again.”

“No. Your necklace,” Fluttershy corrected. “It looks just like your cutie mark.”

Rarity checked. “What? Ooh. So does yours.”

Fluttershy looked down, and gasped.

“Look at mine! Look at mine!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“Aw yeah!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed on examining hers.

“Gee, Twilight!” Applejack exclaimed. “I thought you were spoutin’ a lot of hooey at the end there, but I reckon…” She stopped on seeing that Twilight was still unconscious. “Twilight?” She gently shook the unicorn’s shoulder. “Twilight, are you alright?”

“She is quite alright, I assure you,” a new voice addressed the group.

The five awake ponies turned at once and gasped, as a spark from the sun grew and approached until it materialized into the form of Princess Celestia. As the others bowed to her, she walked over and looked down for a moment at the form of Twilight Sparkle. Then with a sigh she lowered her horn and used her magic to revive her.

Twilight gasped loudly as she jumped to her hooves. “Princess Celestia!” she exclaimed. Then she looked over at the small dark form huddled in the corner. “I…I’ve done a horrible thing, Princess,” she said, lowering to the floor and presenting her stretched neck for summary judgment. “I violated the mind of your sister.”

“You saved my sister,” Celestia insisted. “And if you’re wondering how I knew, the Nightmare kept my mind linked to hers, so that I might be forced to witness all of her horrors without being able to do anything about it.”

“But I…”

“You did what I thought was impossible, what I had given up on eighty years ago. You gave me back my sister.”

“But I…”

“I can think of no solution better than the one you came up with, Twilight,” Celestia pronounced with authority.

“But the crime…?”

“We live in an absolute monarchy. Well…diarchy, now.” She looked fondly over at her huddling sister, and beckoned her over.

A gangly and seemingly-adolescent Luna rose to her hooves and ran over to stand before the much-taller Celestia. “I’m so sorry!” she cried. “I missed you so much, big sister, and I did such awful things…I think. The memories are awfully fuzzy. But I know they were unforgivable.”

“Nonsense,” Celestia said sternly. “As I said, this is an absolute diarchy, Twilight Sparkle, and if I decree that you…and my sister…be forgiven for ‘unforgivable crimes’, then you are forgiven. In fact, it will be the condition for the continuance of my reign.”

“That is a gross misuse of power,” commented a voice. It sounded sort of like Pinkie, but that pony couldn’t possibly say anything thing that sarcastic. Also it sounded rather metallic.

Celestia smiled to herself for a moment on hearing it. “Yes it is,” she said smugly. She then looked Luna over critically for a moment. “You reverted her to adolescence,” she noted to Twilight.

Twilight cringed. “Yes, the most painful, embarrassing moment in a mare’s existence.”

“It’s perfect,” Celestia declared. “This adolescence will be nowhere near as awful as the original, and I will ensure that she will grow up into exactly the mare that Luna always wanted to be. It also will be over in months instead of years.” She turned to look down at the small alicorn who was nestled under her wing. “I remember every dream you ever told me, little sister.”

“Even the ones that you ignored at the time?” Luna said in a trembling voice.

“Especially the ones that I ignored at the time. Come on, let’s head home. I’ve missed you terribly, and there’s a whole wing of the palace I built especially for you.”

Pinkie Pie, now restored to her normal self, loudly blew her nose on a materialized hooferchief. “Hey!” she suddenly realized. “You know what this calls for?

“A party!”

Several hours later.

Applejack completed her report to Granny Smith.

“And she doesn’t know?” Granny asked. “Even with all of your minds joined, she doesn’t know what you are?”

“None of them do,” Applejack replied. “It’s as if…the Elements themselves shielded that knowledge from them. It went both ways, of course. I saw far less of their emotions in that space than I do in the real world.”

“All right,” said Granny, stroking her chin in thought.

Big Mac ran into the room. “It’s time,” he told them tersely.

Granny and Applejack quickly followed Big Mac into the barn and down the secret passage into the lair under the barn. A hard-shelled green cocoon tethered to the ceiling was thrashing around.

With three flashes, the three ponies were replaced by three changelings with the same general color schemes. The changelings shared their love with the being inside the cocoon, who was finally able to break free and slide out of the shell. It was a small yellow changeling, with red eyes and belly, and orange wings. As the other changelings continued to feed her love, she rose to her hooves and with a smile gave some of her love back to her family.

“I’m back!” Apple Bloom exclaimed. She put a hoof to her throat. “And my voice sounds like a pony now!” She looked around her. “What did I miss?”

With a whoop of joy, Applejack scooped up Apple Bloom and ran up the stairs to the barn, taking them two at a time and heading from there straight out into the front yard under the setting sun. Big Mac and Granny Smith cried out in alarm, but Applejack paid them no heed.

“Wait, Big Sis,” Bloom exclaimed. “I haven’t put on a…” And that’s when she saw the sun for the first time in her life. “Wow…!” she exclaimed. “I know you told me but…wow!”

“We didn’t think we were getting this back the whole time you were cocooned,” Applejack told her. “I went into the Everfree with the Princess’ apprentice, risked exposure at every turn, because I wanted my sister to see the sun.”

Apple Bloom’s jaw dropped, before she kneeled down to hug her sister.

She didn’t have to tell Applejack how much she loved her, because the changeling could feel every drop of it.

Ponyville Hospital.

Shortly after midnight. July 14. Wednesday. Six days before “Feeling Pinkie Keen”.

Giving birth to twins is not easy for a mare.

Treated with as many pain-relieving spells and medicines as was safe, Cup Cake finally delivered Pound and Pumpkin after several hours of agony.

Present at the birth were the doctor (Dr. Horse), the nurse (Nurse Redheart), and the birthing unicorn (Amethyst Star). Nopony else was permitted to witness the event, as was traditional for all pony births.

The newborns were cleaned and swaddled. The doctor and nurse left the delivery room. The birthing unicorn took her place beside the mother and waited until she was well enough for the birthing conversation.

As always, the mother, on being presented with the facts, decided to use the services of the birthing unicorn. And so Amethyst Star’s special purpose was called upon yet again.

She never really liked using it.

Only then was Carrot Cake permitted to see his new son and daughter.

(Pinkie Pie meanwhile had been cheering on the birth from the waiting room so enthusiastically that she had passed out.)

The streets of northern Ponyville.

Sunrise.

There had been a thunderstorm overnight, leaving the cobblestones slick with moisture. Lemon Peel made her way carefully down the road, looking for the café that Applejack had recommended to her as a good pony-watching spot. She passed a dozen other ponies setting up their businesses for the day.

“Monster! Help!”

The various ponies looked towards the source of the cry, wondering what to do. “Monster” meant to go southeast to the Bunker. The cry of “Help” came from the north, the direction of the hospital. Somepony should try to rescue that pony, but most monsters were far too powerful for any but the best-trained of ponies to tackle, and then only in a coordinated group.

Lemon Peel spent no time thinking. She just ran into danger. It was what she had been trained to do.

Rarity was the first of the Ponyville Rescue Team to arrive. She saw a giant snake attempting to swallow Amethyst Star, just off of her shift at Ponyville Hospital. “Giant” in this case was less threatening than usual: instead of being the expected five or ten times the height of a pony, the rearing snake was only twice a pony’s height. Atop the snake was a pony in a black and white outfit. Her rear legs were locked around the snake’s neck, stopping it from swallowing, and she was pummeling the creature with her forehooves.

Rarity was quite capable of handling any number of minor monsters by herself. A snake was not one of them. The best she could do was try and grip Amethyst with her magic, but the whipping head of the snake made that impossible.

A few seconds later Twilight Sparkle materialized. She looked the situation over, and then immediately cast a spell on the snake to make it sick. As usual for monsters, she had to use far more mana than should have been expected for a creature of its size. “Sorry for being late,” she explained to Rarity as she continued to cast. “Teleportation misfire.”

Rarity looked over her shoulder at the Golden Oaks library. “Try walking next time,” she said with considerable restraint.

There was a loud “poof!” and as Rarity turned her head back to the monster attack, she saw a small garter snake slink away.

“I’m here!” Rainbow Dash cried out as she landed. “Where’s…Did I miss it?”

“Yes,” said Fluttershy, who had also arrived at that moment. She went after the snake to see if it was badly injured.

Rarity smiled with satisfaction as she managed to catch Amethyst and lower her to the ground before she hit the pavement.

“So who takes credit for this one?” Rainbow asked. “Twilight? Rarity?”

“I’d say that this pony should get the lion’s share of the credit,” Rarity said, gesturing to Lemon Peel.

“Oh well, it was nothing,” Mrs. Peel said, smiling modestly. She gave a small regretful look down at her wardrobe.

“Oh! I simply must fix that!” Rarity exclaimed, taking her aside. “Free of charge, of course. We have to express our thanks.”

“I’d pay for it if you didn’t Rarity,” said Amethyst, limping their way. She was dripping with the contents of the former monster's mouth.

Rarity cast a spell on the unicorn, removing most of the serpent saliva.

“We’ll get you to the hospital, Amethyst,” Twilight said. “Can you walk?”

“Not really,” Amethyst said with a wince.

Twilight looked over at the two pegasi, who flew over to pick up Amethyst and carry her…

“…Back to the hospital,” Amethyst noted. “Oh joy.” I should have known better, she told herself. Using my special talent always leads to a monster attack.

Applejack arrived at that moment. She looked around her to see that there was nothing to do, then turned and returned to the stand she was setting up.

(Pinkie Pie was meanwhile still passed out at the hospital. She didn’t crash very often, but when she crashed, she crashed.)

The two ponies faced each other on the rain-slicked street.

“The name’s Rarity, the local fashion designer,” the white unicorn said to the newcomer, presenting a hoof clad in a yellow rainboot.

“Lemon Peel, medium-term visitor,” the earth pony replied, bumping it with her own forehoof boot.

As she made herself presentable, Rarity took the moment to fully take in what Lemon Peel was wearing: a white beret, a black sleeveless top, a pair of white leggings on the rear legs ending with two black stripes at the cuff, and two pairs of white rain boots with black stripes in front. The top had been stained and scuffed in the battle, the leggings needed to be un-bunched, and the boots only needed polishing. An easy job for Rarity.

(The beret was pristine.)

Lemon Peel walked over to a corner, putting her pannier over her withers. A case the size of her torso was then lightly tossed onto her back. “My portable typewriter,” she explained to Rarity. “I’m a magazine columnist for Mare Trotting Monthly.”

Rarity began to walk towards Carousel Boutique, with Mrs. Peel by her side. “Out of Trottingham?” she guessed.

“Yes. Was it the accent?”

“That, and the ensemble. Eye Bait’s fashions are unmistakable.”

Peel smiled. “I have an exclusive contract to wear his creations for a month before they officially go on the market.”

“Then you are a mare of means, as well of action,” Rarity commented. Having reached her place of business, she proceeded to unlock it, letting Peel inside.

“Action first, before means,” Peel replied. Having reached Rarity’s work area, she stepped behind a screen for a moment, returning with her removed clothing. Rarity meanwhile removed her rain attire and freshened up her mane and tail with a spell.

Rarity then put Peel’s whites in the washer, adding the necessary cleansers. She pressed her horn to the crystal to get it started.

Lemon Peel looked over at a nearby clock. “Do you mind if I get some writing done? I have to get this next article sent off by noon. I have it all in here”—she gestured at her head—“but I need to get it on paper.”

“Oh, go right ahead,” said Rarity. “I have to get the shop opened up anyway.”

As Rarity went around opening windows and setting up ponykins displaying her latest fashions, she cast the occasional glance towards her guest. She saw her set up the typewriter on a desk, put some paper in, and immediately start typing. Line after line of text came out of her like she was some sort of machine, her lips moving silently, her eyes focused intently. When one page was finished, it was deftly pulled out with her mouth and put face down on a stack. Then another page was inserted, and the process continued.

When she finished, Mrs. Peel looked over to see Rarity watching, mesmerized. “I hope I didn’t distract you from anything important,” she said lightly.

“Oh, nothing of the sort!” Rarity replied. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that the washer was finished. Whites went into the dryer, blacks went into the washer, and both machines were soon started up. “So, what have you been writing about?” She leaned over to take a look at the completed manuscripts. She failed to spot a single error in the conversational article.

(She also failed to spot the report that was encoded within the article. Lemon Peel, with her decade of experience as an agent of the Griffon Isles Protectorate, had been sneaking reports into her articles so many times that she could do it on the fly now, with no reduction in her typing speed.)

Peel tapped lightly at the pile of typed pages. “Well, this is my last article on Canterlot, which is where I was first staying before Applejack invited me to stay with her. I could write an article or two about you next.”

“Moi?” Rarity asked, pointing at herself. “What about me interests you?”

“I believe I have you to thank for the sun’s continued operation.”

“I can’t give you an interview on that,” Rarity said curtly. “At least not with just me. Nightmare Moon was a group operation. We have agreed to have all interviews of our experiences that night collectively.” She put on a sympathetic expression. “I hope that doesn’t come across as too demanding. We’ve unfortunately had an experience where our separate recollections did not precisely match, and that fact was used by an unscrupulous source to try and prove that we were a pack of liars.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” said Mrs. Peel. “If you could suggest a time and place, I would be happy to accommodate.”

“I’ll speak with them and let you know,” Rarity said. “Are you still interested in an interview, Lemon, on something other than that?”

"Mrs. Peel,” the disguised changeling said, her lips pursed.

“Beg pardon?” Rarity asked awkwardly.

“Please call me Mrs. Peel. Not Lemon. It’s…it’s probably not as necessary here in Equestria as it was in the Isles,” Mrs. Peel explained. “Things are much more…male-oriented there. If a stallion or tercel, or even a mare, called me ‘Lemon’ instead of ‘Peel’, that tended to mean that I was something less in their eyes. Children and females there are called by their first names, even strangers. Males are always called by their last names, and only they deserved respect. I am Mrs. Peel, and if only because I am married, I am worthy of being considered an equal with any Mister.”

Rarity was taken back by the passion conveyed by the pony before her. “I see,” she said. “Then I will certainly respect your wishes, Mrs. Peel. My question from before still stands: can I assist you with anything other than The Night That Never Ended?”

“There is one thing you might be able to help me explain to my readers, as a ‘pony on the street’.” She reached into her pannier and pulled out a copy of the same poster she had spotted on the train ride from Canterlot:

WANTED

B10,000 REWARD

FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE ARREST
OF THE GANG OF PONIES KNOWN AS

“THE MUTES”

ADULT MARES AND STALLIONS OF ALL BREEDS, WEARING TAN CLOAKS
AS WELL AS THEIR LEADER, THE PONY KNOWN AS

“THE BASILISK”

ADULT MARE, PROBABLY A UNICORN, MEDIUM BUILD.

WANTED FOR AT LEAST 56 ARMED ROBBERIES
(IN EVERY STATION ON THE LINE,
INCLUDING MANEHATTAN AND CANTERLOT)
AND FOR 87 COUNTS OF BRAINWASHING
UNARMED, BUT CONSIDERED TO BE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO APPREHEND YOURSELF. CONTACT THE NEAREST RAILWAY OFFICIAL

“My readers were under the impression that crime of any sort was unknown in Equestria. What do you have to say to that?”

Rarity squirmed a bit under the leading question, then saw the glint of a smile in her interviewer’s eye. “Well, I would say that Equestria, while superior in many ways to our neighbors, is not in fact perfect. Criminals such as the ones depicted here are rare, but they are not completely unknown. If I might dare to turn this interview around, what do you think of the poster?”

Taken off guard, Mrs. Peel gave the poster a onceover. “Why? Is this one of your works?”

“Oh no,” Rarity said. “I do hope that my style will shine through in anything I create, in whatever media. I just wanted to know: As somepony who came from a place with more crime than Equestria, what do you think of the poster?”

“Well frankly I think it’s a joke,” Peel replied. “I can understand being vague about members of the gang, as their membership might vary, but to say so little about the ringleader? There is no identifying information given whatsoever! Even her breed is a guess. Why waste the illustration on the pony in the cloak? And finally, I would think that the ‘brainwashing’ charge should receive considerably more attention than the robberies.”

Rarity smiled. “For the most part, those were the same points I brought up with the Equestria Railway officials when they first put up that poster. Despite being one of the Basilisk’s victims, I was ignored.”

“You’ve seen this character?”

“Oh yes,” said Rarity, leaning back. “We had quite a lengthy conversation on the subject of color-matching in fabric before she revealed herself as the infamous ‘Basilisk’.”

“Then you know what she looks like.”

“Oh no, I have no idea what she truly looks like. You see, the actual pony I thought I was conversing with lives far off of the rail lines and has multiple witnesses affirming that she was in her shop the entire day of the robbery.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When she decided to rob the train, she looked different. In fact, she looked identical to me, although her voice didn’t change.” Rarity looked Mrs. Peel straight in the eye, eager to see how she would react to this revelation.

Lemon Peel froze, absolutely paralyzed with fear. “She…she can change her appearance?” she finally whispered. A rogue changeling, she thought, the worst possible thing to happen to us. Why now, of all possible times?

“Oh yes, completely at will,” Rarity said lightly, showing no sign that she took Mrs. Peel’s extreme reaction as anything other than normal. “Quite a useful ‘special talent’ for a pony in the train-robbing business to have, don’t you think?”

“Y…yes. Quite a special talent!”

“The authorities refuse to reveal that fact. Afraid of sparking a panic.”

“Indeed,” said Peel, her nightmare of changelings in Equestria revealed flashing before her eyes.

“Hence the vague illustration.”

“But what about the brainwashing?” Peel asked, desperate to change the topic.

“A complete lie,” Rarity said with a smile. “This ‘Basilisk’ figure is a very compelling speaker—no magic involved there; I can assure you. She has a well-practiced spiel, that I got to hear spoken from my own mouth, about what she’s spending all of the stolen loot on. She’s founded some sort of paradise outside Equestria, a place for every misfit creature in the world to ‘live as themselves, free from all of the lies.’ A couple of ponies took her up on her offer on the robbery I witnessed, escaping with her at the next station. They undoubtedly became ‘Mutes’ for the next robbery. She had some smoke bombs to cover her tracks. Good old, non-magical smoke bombs.”

Peel nodded. “The kind that smells like moldy hay?”

“The same,” said Rarity.

“That’s a Knight Industries product,” Peel said.

“The Canterlot novelty company?”

“No, the Trottingham novelty company of the same name. Founded by my father, Questing Knight. Rather confusing to have the same name for two entirely different things, depending on which part of the world you live in. We get mail misaddressed to the other company constantly. Technically I run the company now, although I do it through proxy. I prefer my current ‘action’ profession to being a CEO.

"So why the charge of ‘brainwashing’? Sensationalism?”

“No, pressure from the families,” Rarity replied. “Many of these volunteers belong to rich families, and they bring a portion of their riches with them when they defect. Now I believe the reason why these individuals are disaffected, the reason why they chose to join the Mutes, is because of their families, if you get my meaning. But the families are certainly not going to admit that when they pony up a substantial part of that 10,000-bit reward to get them back. So Equestrian Rail is forced to add that charge of ‘brainwashing’. In tiny print.”

Peel laughed, somewhat bitterly. “I understand exactly what you’re talking about when it comes to the unfair pressure a wealthy family can put upon you. Thank you, Rarity. I should be able to craft an excellent article from this interview. Now hold on while I finish my notes.”

Rarity finished cleaning the reporter’s clothing while she worked, getting a good look at the mare’s boots. They certainly gave her some ideas for her upcoming winter line.

And after that the pair discussed Trottingham fashions for hours.

As soon as she had the chance, Lemon Peel made her way back to Sweet Apple Acres. She saw Granny Smith napping in the living room, and rocked her gently to wake her.

“Eh, what’s going on?”

“I need to ask you about something, Granny.”

Granny’s eyes focused on Mrs. Peel. “Oh, it’s you. What’s your question?”

“What does the Apple Clan know about The Basilisk?” Peel asked, showing Granny the poster.

“Who?” She put a pair of spectacles on. “Oh…her. I can see why you’d be worried. I had some Apples take a lot of train rides until they were robbed by her. She’s just a pony, not a changeling.”

Peel breathed a sigh of relief, but then thought of something else. “But still—she can change her shape.”

“No, she can’t. It’s some kind of illusion magic. Apple Strudel told me that one of her disguises flickered a bit when the light was really strong.”

Peel nodded. “Alright. Then she’s not a threat to us.”

“Well…she’s the same threat to us as she is to any other pony. Catching her makes for a more-peaceful Equestria. And a peaceful Equestria is a loving Equestria.”

“True. Very true. I wonder why she calls herself ‘The Basilisk’.”

Granny laughed. “Because she’s got a brain in her head, that’s why. She’s not Twilight Sparkle, which means that she probably only has the one magical power. A villain that names themselves after their one and only power is not going to last very long. I guarantee you that the one thing ‘The Basilisk’ absolutely can’t do, is anything that a real basilisk can do.”

“Alright.” She then remembered something that she had forgotten to ask Rarity. “Do you happen to know why her gang are called ‘The Mutes’?”

Granny nodded with a wry smile. “More cleverness. They commit their crimes in complete silence, letting this Basilisk character do all the talking. But not just that. Do you see that vial hanging around the pony’s neck on the poster?”

“Yes?”

“That’s the Basilisk’s insurance policy. You see, a Mute doesn’t have any special tricks to avoid being caught, so the train ponies catch one or two every year. Do you know what happens then?”

“What happens?”

“The Mute breaks that vial. Somehow or other, it contains all of their memories before they joined. All of their memories before they learned any of the Basilisk’s secrets or plans. With the vial broken, the memories of being a Mute are replaced by memories of when they were wanting to be a Mute.”

“Wait…” Peel said as she worked out the consequences of what Granny was saying. “Does that mean that they lost their memories of their past life when they became a Mute? When their vial was created?”

“Maybe. Maybe,” said Granny. “My changelings certainly never saw anything other than absolute loyalty in any Mute they encountered.”

“That’s diabolical!” exclaimed Mrs. Peel. “Rarity was wrong—there certainly is brainwashing going on. It’s just happening after recruitment instead of before.”

Here are the notes for this chapter.