The sudden lurch of the carriage beginning its descent rips your focus from its fixed point in the starry horizon.

You press your side against the firmly locked door and look out at the mountain below. The three vertically ordered ringed districts of the city are bustling with life and light, and even from your windy vantage point, you can just barely see the ponies below going about their lofty business. From here, you can actually point out the business district, sprouting out from the left edges of the middle district.

So that’s where Anon lived! You find it strange how you never visited him up here. He never really invited anypony to his house, always opting to come home any time he wanted to see any of you.

The ghost of pain spreads through every vein in your chest as the memories bring you right back around to the current situation. Just as quickly as it comes, though, you banish it to the depths of your mind.

Focus, Twilight. Right now, act on facts, not emotions.

Your resolve renewed, you cast a glance at Spike, who seems to be echoing you if his tepid, lingering gaze forward is anything to go by.

“Are you alright, Spike?”

“Huh?” he says, startled into his usual demeanor. “Yeah, I’m good. Just… hanging in there.”

You give him a reassuring smile. Both of you know it’s forced, but he seems to appreciate the gesture nonetheless, flashing his own grin back at you.

“Just a little bit further and we’ll work on getting him back home.”

“I know,” he replies, seemingly not swayed by your words of encouragement. “I just… I can’t stop worrying. Something about this feels weird, Twilight.”

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel the same. Unsure of what to say, you scooch closer to him, reaching your hoof out for a hug. He readily accepts it, and as he sinks into your embrace, you bring your other hoof around him for comfort. Some possibilities for what you could say swell within you, and a few even reach the precipice of forming words, but in the end, you aren’t really sure what to say to comfort him without sounding like you’re deflecting, or telling him to suck it up, or dismissing his concerns altogether.

So, in place of that, you stay silent.

“You know what I mean?” he asks, breaking the hug a bit to look up at you.

You nod.

“We’ll get him back in no time, Spike. You’ll see.”

How long will you regurgitate that before it becomes reality, you wonder?

Silencing your inner detractor, you take another quick glance out of the carriage. Oddly enough, it doesn’t look like you’re being taken to the usual landing area just inside the castle’s main gates; if you were, the guard retinue would be coming in from the side of the castle onward. Instead, you see canterlot start to disappear underneath the carriage as they look to circle around the castle.

A frown takes hold of your brow; you don’t remember there being any landing zones on the backside of the mountain. Sure, there are the peak’s springs just past the castle, but there isn’t much room to land there for a carriage this size. Where are they taking you…?

That anxiety you’ve been forcing a lid on threatens to bubble over as hundreds of different scenarios and reasonings flash through your head, each one cut off as the next one starts. They’re amplified by an untold amount when you lean over and see that your carriage has started heading straight for a rock face just beyond the lowest point of the castle. For a moment, you think your fliers are just maneuvering for a turn, but when they hold their line, you start panicking.

You practically throw your head out of the window, eyeing the guards out front.

“What’re you doing?!” you yell, catching the attention of the left rearmost pegasus.

“Going in for a landing, ma’am,” the guard replies, the sheer audacity of his apparent confusion astounding you.

“We’re about to hit the cliff face, not land!”

His confusion deepens for a second before it’s wiped away in favor of a smirk.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” he says, something conniving hidden within his reassurance. “There’s nothing to worry ab-”

“Private, explain what’s happening to her or the whole team gets fifty poles,” the surly stallion from earlier says from somewhere within their formation.

The private’s cocky smirk instantly makes way for stone-faced terror as he glances quickly back at his superior before returning to you.

“The platform is obscured by an illusion spell’s area of effect. When we get close enough, you’ll be able to see it clear as day.”

Even though that was supposed to lessen your nerves, your hoof still grips your seat with a force only black holes could rival. From where you are, it still looks like you’re about thirty seconds out from a direct impact with the mountain.

Deep breaths, Twilight.

“T-Thank you.”

“Of course, ma’am,” the private replies, voice now laden with professionalism. You slide back into your seat, still high-strung.

“Uh, Twilight?” Spike chimes in from beside you, leaning out of his own window. “Why are we-”

“Illusion field, we’ll pass through it any second now.”

The sentence comes out at a speed you didn’t quite intend, betraying your anxiety.

“S-sorry, it's just- it’s really convincing.”

He chuckles half-heartedly, clearly uncomfortable with the oncoming rock face as well. Even informed, you yank Spike from his spot and hold him as close as you can, eyes shut tight as you draw ever-nearer. Come to think of it, this is like one of those roller coaster rides in Manehattan, but with a much more heightened sense of imminent doom. In all honesty, you can’t say you’d recommend it to anypony.

A few moments later, though, you feel an unmistakable gust of magic rush past you, a cold wind grazing over your fur for a split second.

You just barely lift your left eye open.

In front of you, what once was nothing but crags of rock is now a runway going all the way into the mountainside. Looking back at where you came from, you see the night sky as if it were shards of dotted black glass, all mirroring each other ad infinitum. You’ve tried illusory magic before, but you’ve never quite been able to get the hang of it beyond the basics. Whoever cast a field of this size and detail was either seriously talented or had been studying the art for decades. Either way, it’s an impressive feat.

You’re ever so slightly jolted by the sensation of a smooth landing, and as your team of fliers begins to slow on the runway, you take in the strangeness of the hidden enclave. The walls and ceiling are all simply the jagged innards of the mountain itself, dotted abundantly with glowing stone to provide a fair amount of light to work under. The floor is a solid slab of what looks to be concrete, the runway underneath you marked by solid white lines going all the way to the end of the cave.

Something that surprises you is just how spacious the area is; from the outside, it looks relatively cramped, but now that you’re here, it’s like you’re in the middle of a smaller-sized warehouse. That wouldn’t be an entirely apt name for it, though; there are copious amounts of carriages and other modes of transportation uniformly placed around the rearmost wall, most of them appearing to be outfitted for battle.

This is no ordinary takeoff platform - this is a war hangar.

Thankfully, there aren’t that many ponies in here working. If it were busier, you’d be much more worried.

Eventually, your carriage comes to a stop, and your entourage shucks their flight reins. Before you can even think about stepping out, the officer leading them comes around to your side and opens the door for you.

“Follow me, miss Sparkle,” he says, making room for you to disembark. “We’re right on schedule.”

Spike joining you at your side, you match the guard’s brisk pace as he leads you toward the back left side of the hangar. The halls leading out of the giant room look like they’ve also been carved out of the mountain; as you walk through them, the only decor you can spot are torches periodically placed to grant some usable lighting. It smells slightly damp, as if the outside weather had never reached this far inward.

As you’re following along, a question for the guard gnaws at you.

“Was there a reason why Princess Celestia chose to have us enter this way? I’ve never seen these passages of the castle before.”

“She’ll fill you in on everything once we reach her,” he stonewalls, just as curt with you as he was with the private. As much as his dismissal irks you, you suppose you understand. He’s more than likely been sworn to secrecy.

Before long, the hallway culminates, smooth stone impeding your progress. Just before the dead end is a small gap on the left side, large enough to hold several ponies.

“One moment,” the guard says, pulling a pendant from an indentation in his chest plate.

He heads over to the wall and feels around with his wing for a second, grunting a tad when he finds something that you can’t quite see in the dim lighting. With his hoof, he centers his hoof over where his wing is, and replaces his outstretched feather tips with the pendant. Blue lines of magic pulse outward in intricate patterns, overlapping each other repeatedly until the image of a sun forms, its light overpowering that of the torches.

The guard retracts the pendant and steps back a few paces, resituating the pendant on his armor. A resounding clunk rings out from the door as it begins to slide backwards, filling the gaps that were there before. You take a step back yourself, even though you’re already far enough away.

A surprisingly loud scraping of stone-on-stone fills the air as the wall slides open, revealing the dimly lit restricted area of the royal library. The air within rushes to fill the hallway, the familiar scent of old books wafting into your nostrils.

Your jaw drops. You had always assumed the off-limits area was for forbidden tomes, dangerous literary artifacts, and the like.

...okay, maybe that's still its primary purpose, but your point stands.

How long has this passage been here? A question for later, you suppose, since the guard isn’t exactly one for stunning revelations.

“Right this way,” he gently orders.

He opts to let you and Spike pass through first, holding a hoof out toward the library as if to hurry you both along. You oblige, stepping through the threshold and gawking at the shelves around you, this being your first time in this all-but-fabled section of the library.

Most of the books are nameless, but a few titles here and there catch your eye. On the Manipulation of Spirits, An Anarchist’s Elixirs, The Grimoire of Shadows… it’s about what you expected, honestly.

Now’s no time to be distracted, though - not with things as they are.

As the guard follows after you, the wall behind him begins to close once more, revealing a bookshelf on its inward face. Curiously enough, as it scrapes along just like before, it eerily makes no sound at all from this side. A few moments later, the false wall settles back into its natural state, no visible trace of the doorway remaining.

An aural cancellation spell for the library side of the entrance makes sense. It would probably wake up half of the castle, otherwise.

The guard continues on as you follow his lead.

“The Princess is in her private study,” he informs you, voice low despite nopony else being around to overhear him. “I’ll escort you there.”

“Oh, you’re okay. We know our way around the castle.”

He turns to you, his stern gaze leveling your confidence.

“She ordered that I accompany you.”

Okay, that makes you nervous.

“O-Okay. Lead the way, then.”

Your forced giggle comes out as more of an uneasy whine than anything. The three of you are silent as you begin your walk through the torchlit halls of the castle.

You remember being afraid of these ornate passages at night when you were a filly. Something about the way the shadows lengthened whenever you weren’t looking, only to stop whenever you would hold them under your gaze. Tricks of your young mind, of course. Over time, the castle was a second home to you, irrespective of the state it was in.

Tonight, as you move from hallway to hallway, that filly you used to be makes herself known quite strongly. The anxiety’s origin differs, but the end result is the same disquieting feeling from all those years ago.

It’s one that you manage to quell, though, and as you draw nearer to your mentor’s dwelling, you can feel it fading. The mere knowledge of her presence is enough to assure you that everything will be okay, that things will be solved as soon as you join her side - that peace that she always seems to bathe the room in.

It takes some time, but eventually, the three of you find yourselves outside of her office. The hallway it’s housed in has no torchlight to speak of; rather, the windows cast a sufficient amount of dim, blue moonlight inward, providing more than enough illumination to be able to see.

From under the door adorned with her cutie mark, you can see the faint glow of candlelight, its glow just barely reaching through from what must be her desk. The guard makes his way over, his armor clunking softly as it shifts along his back. The three knocks of his hoof upon the wooden door reverberate a bit in the otherwise soundless hallway.

“Your Majesty?” he calls out, his tone softening a tad when addressing her. “Miss Sparkle and her companion are here.”

There’s no response at first, but after a few seconds, you hear the muffled, yet unmistakable swish of a horn coming alight with magic. It’s active for a few moments before the handle of the door is awash in her pastel yellow aura. The door is pulled open, and a wide grin - as bright as the situation allows - finds its way onto your face.

Ever the image of grace, your mentor returns a smile that is untethered by circumstance; if you were to judge by appearances alone, you might say nothing has even happened. If you look closely, though, minor tells can be found.

The ethereal wind in her hair isn’t quite as active, each wave passing by a fair bit slower than they usually do. Her posture is upright, but she’s leaning almost imperceptibly more to one side than the other; she’s been on her hooves all day.

Even her expression, as perfectly constructed as it is, isn’t safe from your scrutiny. Her eyelids are just a bit too taut for this to be genuine, unabated happiness to see you - she’s stressed, and far more than usual at that. Had you known her for a day shorter than you do now, you suspect you would never have picked up on any of these. Those books on reading expressions from a few years back helped, too, but still.

“Thank you,” she says warmly, bowing her head to him as he salutes her.

“My pleasure, ma’am,” he replies, ending his salute. “Is there anything else you need from me?”

“Not presently, no - I have everything taken care of from here. You may rest for tonight, Captain Vigil.”

The captain ends his salute, flashing a quick, yet grateful smile at his commander.

“Thank you, ma’am. Have a good rest of your night.”

“You as well.”

With one last nod from the captain, he turns and leaves the same way you arrived, armor clicking even as he moves out of your line of sight.

“I can’t begin to tell you how good it is to have you both here,” Celestia says with an exhale. “Today has been eventful, to say the least.”

She leans down to nuzzle you, which you wholeheartedly return.

“It’s good to see you too, Princess.” You retreat from the embrace, eager to get to the heart of the matter. “What happened? S-sorry, not to jump right into business, it’s just - we’re really worried.”

“There’s no need to apologize, Twilight,” she replies, her grin diminishing a bit. “I understand. I only wish your visit were under better circumstances.”

She gestures to the inside of her study with a hoof. You and Spike oblige, heading in side by side.

It looks like Celestia’s redecorated since the last time you’ve been here. The bookshelves line the left hoof side of the room now. Usually, there would be one or two missing due to your mentor’s nightly leisure reading, but they’re all present and accounted for tonight. She’s moved most of her knick-knacks and memorabilia to the right side, all placed on various shelves and displays, whereas before they were on pedestals.

Immediately out in front of the desk are a few leisure cushions strewn about on the floor, no doubt for when she has time to take a break from whatever’s going on. Though undoubtedly spacious, the room in its current state seems much cozier than it used to; it’s certainly earned its name as a study, rather than an office masquerading as one. Apart from her desk, of course, which boasts a ridiculously high stack of scrolls in the intake basket, with comparatively little in the outgoing one. Her hot plate for tea is on it as well, a steaming cup on an elegantly designed coaster next to it.

“Make yourselves at home,” she says as she closes the door behind her, making her way over to her desk. “I can pour you some tea, if either of you would enjoy it.”

“Would you mind if I had some?” Spike asks, taking a seat on one of the cushions.

“Of course not.” Her smile returns to its full force as she grabs the kettle atop of the plate with her magic, pulling a mug from one of the drawers of her desk as well.

“Coincidentally, I just so happen to have brewed some chamomile, which I’m told you’ve acquired a particularly strong taste for.”

“Heh, guilty as charged, Your Highness.”

His tea poured, she hovers it over to him. He grabs it out of the air by the handle and blows on the steaming beverage.

“Would you like some as well, Twilight?” Celestia asks, the kettle still held in her aura.

“I’m okay for now, but thank you. I don’t want to be too reliant on tea to put me to sleep.”

You remove your saddlebags with your magic, wresting a notepad and fountain pen from the depths of the leftmost one.

“I brought some scratch scrolls along with me so that I can visually map out the situation. W-Whenever you’re ready, of course! I don’t want to rush you.”

Celestia doesn’t respond right away; nodding with a gentle hum, she departs from behind her desk and moves to sit on one of the cushions, directly across from you and Spike. You take a seat as well.

“I apologize if it seems like I’m being dismissive of your concerns,” she begins. “Today has been extraordinarily stressful, so I try to lighten the mood whenever I can.”

She breathes deeply.

“But we can save that for another time. For now, we’ll attend to the situation at hoof. Are you ready to begin, Twilight?”

You hover the pen over the parchment.

“I’m ready, Princess.”

She nods, her smile disappearing.

“A train - one of many under the Friendship Express railway company - was expected to arrive in Canterlot today around noon, with a leniency of five minutes of delay at the most.”

That’s the train that Anon boarded - the timing matches up exactly. You scribble away, underlining important details.

“At around ten minutes past its expected arrival, Canterlot Station sent out an inquiry to the station in Ponyville, formally asking if the train had departed later than scheduled. Ponyville replied that it had left as planned, and an investigation was launched roughly two hours after the first correspondence, thanks to their specialty mail services.”

“Sheesh,” interjects Spike. “Maybe the rail offices should’ve hired a letter-sending dragon.”

“If only,” Celestia replies dryly, the ghost of a smirk on her lips.

“The investigation itself was much quicker, however. Two Pegasi survey teams from both stations were sent out to comb the railway from their end onwards, both of them intending to meet in the middle and exchange any findings.”

A short silence follows, in which Celestia takes a sip of her own tea.

“A-and that’s… not what happened?”

She replies with a gentle shake of her head as she sets her cup back down.

“Both teams convened about six miles before the railway started heading up the mountain. They found the wreckage of the train there, most of its cars derailed and strewn about the surrounding area.”

Your pen stops; your fears weren’t misplaced.

“Was, um…” Your voice is meek as it leaves you.

You swallow hard.

“Anon was on that train, right?”

Your mentor nods solemnly.

“He was among its list of passengers, yes.”

You frown; the specificity of her wording piques your curiosity. Still, you let her continue, opting to have the full picture of events before firing off your myriad of questions.

“Needless to say, both survey teams stayed with the survivors to assist in whatever way they could, save for two pegasi they sent back to each station to report what they had found.”

She pauses; a deep sigh escapes her nostrils, accompanied by a deepening frown, gaze pointed at the floor.

“There were a few casualties. Given the state that the train was in, though, I… suppose that was to be expected.”

Your heart sinks.

No, no, no, no, he can’t-

You practically explode out of your seat, pen sent clattering to the floor as your aura’s grip on it releases, on all four hooves before anypony can even blink.

“Is Anon okay!?”

Spike recoils next to you, surprised by your outburst. Celestia appears surprised as well, but maintains her calm composure.

“He wasn’t there.”

…

What?

“W-what do you mean?”

She looks away for a second, more than likely contemplating how to proceed.

“I suppose I should start with when I found out about the incident,” she began again, her attention fully on you. “When word of what happened reached me, I canceled the rest of today’s schedule and accompanied several relief teams to the crash site. Seeing what had happened to those innocent little ponies, it was…”

Her face strains as she looks away for a brief second; an uneven sigh escapes her, and she focuses on you once more.

“In any case, once I had found out that Anonymous was on the train, I scoured the wreckage for any sign of him, but he wasn’t there. A vastly expanded search with investigation teams yielded nothing, either; it was as if he was never there to begin with.”

…That doesn’t-

“As the last of the survivors were being transported to the nearest hospital, one approached me and told me his account of what had happened. According to him, the train had been wrenched from the tracks by something - he couldn’t see what - and bathed in a strange red light.”

“After a few moments of being hoisted high into the air, the light suddenly vanished, and the train was dropped from its suspension. Eventually, he came to, and after checking himself and others for injuries, he noticed that the two cabins behind the one he was riding in had vanished - the first of which housed Anon, according to Ponyville Station’s passenger documents.”

He vanished along with the train car…?

“Hearing this, I traveled back to where the train had initially been lifted to see if I could find anything else of note. It took some time, but I eventually found a runic circle, its etchings carved into the ground around the tracks, barely visible even to a trained eye.”

Celestia stands and begins conjuring an image with her magic. In front of you, cast in her golden glow, lies her vivid recreation of the circle, scaled down to fit in the space in front of you. If memory serves you right, this looks like it’s geared for large-scale teleportation, which would align with that survivor’s testimony. The ringed inscriptions do form a complete band, but…

“There are some components missing.”

Pride briefly colors your mentor’s features.

“A keen observation, Twilight. Which components?”

Let’s see here…

“It looks like the runic equation for distance, direction, and elevation are all absent. If I’m reading it correctly, it looks like the catalyst rune is missing, too.”

Celestia nods her head, dispelling the projection.

“Exactly. Everything that could have been used to identify the destination of the train or the source of the magic was expunged - only the circle’s basic construction remains.”

A deaf pony could hear the gears turning in your head.

“S-so…”

Celestia meets you in the middle with a steely, serious gaze.

“The train was attacked by somepony.”

Your mouth opens, but no words leave; they’re all caught by the lump in your throat. You were ready for bad news, but to think the situation surrounding him was this dire…

“What’s more,” she continues, “I believe I know who their intended target was.”

“Who?” you manage to choke out, throat still tight.

“Sitting one car behind him - the only other one that was taken - was the young heiress to the throne of Griffonia.”

Bewilderment throws itself atop your already-boiling pot of emotions.

“What was she doing in Equestria…?”

“We don’t know yet,” Celestia replies. “I sent word of what’s happened to the royal family of Griffonia, but haven’t gotten a reply. Given the distance between our nations, it might take a few days for us to receive one.”

She walks around to the other side of her desk, taking a seat and pouring herself some more tea.

“Hence why I chose to have you both enter through the hangar. Whoever did this, they conducted this skullduggery mere miles from the capital of Equestria; I cannot afford to risk your wellbeing. If their list of targets extends to you, I would much rather have you close by.”

Y-You!?

“W-w-why would they target me?”

Celestia looks confused for a moment, but realizes her misstep quickly.

“I’m sorry,” she soothingly reassures you. “I didn’t mean to startle you - it’s simply a precaution. Right now, there are too many unknowns to draw any conclusions for certain. I would simply like to keep those I care about as close as possible.”

Oh. Okay, you suppose that does make sense. Goodness… you were a few seconds from fainting, you think.

“In that case, can you bring my friends here, too? I know they’re probably not in danger, but with everything going on, I just… don’t feel good about leaving them in Ponyville.”

“Of course, Twilight. I’ll send a carriage for them as soon as I raise the sun tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Princess.”

Smiling, she nods at you with a gentle hum before continuing to rummage through her paperwork.

And so, the room enters silence once more. Looking over at Spike, you can almost feel his dejected anxiety from where you’re standing.

“W-what…” he stammers out, taking a few moments to compose himself before continuing. “What can we do to help? We can’t just sit around while he’s out there somewhere!”

Is there even anything you can do to help right now? You’ve faced down evil before, sure, but nothing like this. Discord, Nightmare Moon, Sombra… all boisterous, present, and easy to understand. These ponies? You don’t even know their name yet.

“Actually,” Celestia replies, looking up from her paperwork. “That’s another reason why I’ve called you both here.”

“Tomorrow, I’m going to be sending out the Arcane Board’s top magic scholars and analysts to study the teleportation circle we found earlier, myself and Luna accompanying. I’d like it if you joined us in the endeavor.”

Had the circumstances been different, you’d be awed… no, floored at the opportunity to collaborate with some of the greatest living minds in Equestria. Now, though, all you feel is cold, focused determination.

“I’ll go. I just hope that my input will be valuable to everypony.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Celestia replies with a slight frown, “Your observations will hold just as much weight as theirs, I assure you.”

Hearing that from her puts a smile on your face despite the circumstances. Still, though…

“Celestia?”

“Yes?”

“He’s going to be okay, right?”

The sentence leaves you as it would that little filly from so long ago; full of uncertainty, all hinging on the promise of an elder.

Celestia doesn’t falter, not even for a second.

“Of course, Twilight. No matter what, he’s coming home.”

Even though the rational part of your mind knows that there’s no way she can guarantee that, your faith in her overcomes its foregone conclusion. It doesn’t assuage your fears fully, but it’s enough for you to finally be able to let your guard down. When you do, it becomes strikingly apparent just how exhausted you are; with one or two deep breaths, you’re already laying back down on the leisure pad.

“Feeling tired?” Celestia asks, again focused fully on both you and Spike.

“More than I thought I was, evidently.” You trail into a yawn at the end of your sentence, one that Spike shares as he stretches out.

“I’m getting there, but this is a lot to take in,” he chimes in once his yawn is over.

“In that case,” Celestia replies, “why don’t you two get some rest? The investigation will start early tomorrow, so you’ll need as much sleep as you can get.”

As much as your mind still races, your body demands its nightly stillness.

“That sounds…”

Another yawn.

“…really nice right about now.”

“Splendid. I’ve prepared the ambassador suite down the hall from my quarters for the both of you.”

Your eyebrows shoot up despite your fatigue.

“The ambassador suite? Princess, you didn’t have to do that just for us.”

“I insist. Like I said - the closer, the better.”

You giggle to yourself.

“In that case, I think I’m going to go lie down. Today was… a lot.”

Celestia nods. She flicks her eyes across you, more than likely judging her fatigue for herself as you wearily rise to your hooves.

“I’m afraid it’s only going to get more complicated as we proceed, my dear pupil.”

She catches herself before she can make you further anxious.

“Ah, but we have more than enough time for that in the morning. For now, you needn’t worry; I’ve instructed for there to be a posting of guards outside the door to your room at all times, so that you may rest unburdened.”

Your smile spreads from ear to ear. The amount of gratitude that you feel for her is immense.

“Aren’t you going to bed, too?” Spike asks.

“Not yet, I’m afraid,” Celestia replies, sifting through a heft stack of paper before plucking one out of the middle. “I still have some paperwork to finish. By all accounts, don’t wait on me - I hope you have a wonderful night’s rest.”

“I’ll give it my best,” Spike jokes, to which both of them giggle.

She grins at you two, and you return your beaming smile right back.

“Goodnight, Princess.”

“Sweet dreams, Twilight.”

You resituate your saddlebags across your shoulders, and with a final wave, you and Spike depart for your bedroom. You may have only just arrived, but at least for tonight, rest will come easy.

Lots of talking this chapter. Dialogue is hard.