The train tracks snaked through the mountains towards Canterlot. A deep valley marked one side, while a steep rocky face lined the other. Between them, the five-car train worked its way up an increasingly steep incline, its steam engine puffing away as it tried to keep the entire machine moving at a steady pace. Back at the rearmost car, the sole group of passengers sat in a tight semi-circle, deep in conversation.

“–and that’s why, though he’s not necessarily evil, Mystar must still be stopped at all costs. Whatever it is he’s up to,” Twilight said. She grinned and took a deep, satisfied breath at the completion of her speech.

Three bored, half-awake faces looked on.

“Thanks Twilight,” Applejack finally said after several moments of silence. “That was, uh… insightful.”

“Wait, I’m confused, how did he manage to get all those plague rats into the lord’s wine cellars when he was still underrrrmmplh…” Pinkie started to ask, only for Dash to reach over and muffle her silent.

“Yeah, real great Twilight. Glad we got that out of the way and never need to repeat it all again,” Dash said. She smiled and nudged Pinkie in the ribs. Pinkie responded by twirling her leg in the air around Dash’s head, though Dash didn’t notice.

“I didn’t want to leave any details out,” Twilight said proudly. “Plus I figured that since we had the whole train car to ourselves, and plenty of time before we get to Canterlot, I’d utilize it all as best I could. Now, what was the second question?”

“I think it was the one I asked several times back when you were getting started,” Dash said. “Which was me wondering what exactly we’re supposed to do once we get to Canterlot.”

Twilight nodded and took another breath. “Yes, right. Well, I’ve put a little thought into it, and I believe there’s essentially one truly important step we must complete once we arrive,” was as far as she got when she abruptly vanished. The other ponies blinked and stared before slumping back into their seats.

“Well, that was bound to happen eventually,” Dash said.

“Right when she was really trying to get us into the plot, too,” Pinkie added.

Applejack sighed and glanced around. “Well, no tellin’ how long she’ll be gone. I guess we can settle in an’ plan ahead a bit ourselves.”

Dash raised her hoof. “All in favor of going straight to the Princess as soon as we arrive?”

“Twilight really seems like she’s against that plan,” Pinkie said.

“Twilight’s being her usual overachieving paranoid self,” Applejack said. “Which is usually all well an’ good, but right now we’ve got a coltnapped, uh, dragon, an’ a whole mess of curses from some ancient, somewhat-evil magician’s book, which is now set to run around Canterlot an’ cause even more trouble.”

“So for once, getting a little help from a higher power might be a pretty good idea,” Dash finished.

“Aww, come on girls, we can figure this one out.” Pinkie reached her front legs around the other two and pulled them in close for a hug. “We’ve always come out ahead when these strange, mystical, dangerous, death-defying, older-than-Equestria challenges come popping out. Why would this time be any different? Plus, from what I can tell, Twilight seems a teensy bit more stressed out than usual. So we gotta get her back down to the safer levels, because those are a lot more fun.”

“I’m glad you’ve got so much confidence in us, Pinkie,” Dash said as she slid out from under Pinkie’s grip. “Really, it’s inspiring.”

Applejack leaned forward to escape her end of the hug. “Of course, I will say that I haven’t the foggiest idea how best to explain this to the Princess.”

Dash paused and rubbed the back of her neck. “True. In terms of everything that’s ever happened to us, this is pretty top tier on the weirdness scale. Still, I figure we can think of something, or even just skip the curse park and go straight to the–”

A rattle shot through the train car, jostling the three ponies across their seats. Their heads immediately snapped over to look out the windows at the scenery rushing past. On one side of the car, there was only the gray side of the mountain. On the other, the open air over the deep gorge. Another bump pushed them around even further, cracking a window in the process.

“Can we go somewhere that doesn’t start fallin’ apart on us? Is that so much to ask?” Applejack straightened up her rear leg before it popped off entirely.

“Hang on; I’ll take a quick look.” Dash sauntered over to a window facing the canyon and popped it open. A blast of cold, rushing air hit her in the face, though she didn’t flinch as she leaned her head out and looked towards the front of the train.

Almost immediately a rocky outcropping along the side of the track brushed along the side of the train, striking Dash square in the cheek. Her entire head detached cleanly from her body, sending it slumping back to the train floor while her skull turned into a red blob on the ride of the granite. A quick fountain of blood poured out of her newly clipped arteries to create a fresh coat onto a side wall of the train’s interior. The body itself twitched back and forth before settling down in the large red puddle, right next to where a new Dash *POP*ed back into existence.

“Eh, saw it coming,” Pinkie said with a yawn.

“I’m glad to see you’re takin’ all this so well, Pinkie.” Applejack said. She worked to suppress her gag reflex and avoided looking at the gore nearby. “An’ Rainbow Dash, you know you can just look through windows, right? No need to stick your head outta nothin’.”

Dash rolled her eyes, but before she could say anything, the train jumped a meter into the air. The three living ponies and one headless pony were tossed around the train car like ragdolls, collapsing in a series of awkward positions once the train managed to somehow come back down on the tracks. All save for Dash, who caught herself in the air and flapped around looking confused.

“Something must be attacking the train!” she shouted. A few more jolts ran through the car in response.

Just then, Twilight reappeared with absolutely no fanfare.

“And that is, of course, to find the location of Mystar’s crypt,” she said. Then she blinked, absorbed the new scene, and sighed. “How long was I gone?”

“Ah, don’t worry Twilight, you didn’t miss much,” Pinkie.

Twilight’s eyes wandered along the blood-covered wall to where Dash’s body had wedged itself after the lurch.

“Except that,” Pinkie admitted.

The train lurched to one side, then back to the other, nearly tipping over into the gorge altogether before righting itself again.

“Oh, and the train’s under attack by something,” Pinkie further admitted.

“Look!” Applejack pointed out a window. A large brown object hurled past and down over the precipice. It was followed by another, and then another. A vast flurry of dark brown and grey objects flew past the window in a variety of sizes and speeds. A few bounced off the roof of the train car on the way down, leaving large dents along the way.

“Boulders… it’s an avalanche!” Dash exclaimed.

“But they always clear off all the excess rocks along this track,” Twilight said, a few beads of sweat sliding down the back of her neck. “Not to mention all the protection spells the castle guards put on this train. This shouldn’t be happening!”

Dash flew over to her. “Well Twilight, I’ve got a body missing a head that says otherwise.”

“Uh, Rainbow Dash, this didn’t do that, that one rock sticking out of the ground did,” Pinkie pointed out. “At least, I think that’s what that was. I only got a quick look at it as it went by and took a little off the top.”

As the train moved around a wide bend, Dash carefully pressed her face against a window and looked over towards the front of the train.

“Yup, it’s definitely an avalanche,” she said as another series of blows left a line of craters in the train car roof. “Although… that’s weird… it looks like the rocks are going right over the other cars. They’re hitting the ground and shaking the track a lot, but the only ones actually hitting us are the ones that are, well, hitting us back here.”

The four ponies glanced up. A rock the size of a barn door crashed partway through the roof, tearing open a gaping wound in the metal and giving them all a small view of the semi-cloudy sky overhead.

“That is weird,” Twilight said. “Why would the rocks only be coming down on this train ca– oh, wait, it’s because of you, Rainbow Dash.”

“Yeah, I was gonna say,” Applejack added.

“Seems obvious to me!” Pinkie said.

“You know, it really could just be a coincidence this time.” Dash shrugged and glanced around at the others when a shadow appeared overhead. She glanced up in time to see a four ton boulder come crashing right through the hole in the roof and crush her where she flew. The force of the impact immediately wedged the weighty stone into the floor. Dash's crushed body was hidden underneath, except for her two rear legs, and part of her wing which still stuck out. The stone shifted in place as the train jostled it around, and one leg, already swelled at the sudden increase in pressure with the loss of circulation, popped open and sprayed two seats in a bright crimson shower. At the same time, a second, smaller rock came down through the ceiling. It ricocheted off of the floor and imbedded itself into Dash’s still-intact leg, cracking through the bone and giving the blood and loose tissue a new hole to sludge out of.

When a fresh Dash came back into existence, she had three exasperated heads staring at her.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Dash sighed. “I got it.”

While several more boulders bounced off the roof, Dash popped open a window and flew out into the open air. Immediately the crashing along the roof ceased, and the shower of rocks over the gorge increased. Dash flew alongside the car, dipping and weaving between the stones that came hurtling down around her.

“Wow, this is one looooooong avalanche,” Pinkie said. “You’ve gotta admire its spirit.”

“Why wouldn’t she just fly a little farther away?” Twilight asked as she studied Dash’s movements. “The rocks can only bounce out so far.”

“You know Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said. “Always tryin’ to challenge herself.”

A particularly jagged boulder skipped off the train roof and clipped Dash along her back. She lurched down as blood spiked into the air, falling for a few meters while her wings struggled to catch up. Two more boulders coming from different directions managed to catch her at the same time, squishing her between them to the point in a fast crunch of rock and flesh. What few bones of her that remained intact managed to get themselves wedged in several of the rocks’ crevices, effectively binding them together like glue. While the whole mess continued tumbling down the side of the mountain, another Dash appeared in the air in mid-flap, her face as determined as ever.

“Not bad,” Pinkie said with a whistle. She leaned forward to shout out the window. “Be sure to focus on where you want to appear again! Like we practiced!”

“I got it, Pinkie!” Dash shouted. Another stray rock rebounded off the back of Dash’s neck, severing her spine so fast her body didn’t even realize she was dead. Her wings continued to flap while her legs dangled limply in the breeze. Her head angled down with her tongue hanging out and her eyelids twitching. Finally reality caught up with her muscles, and she plunged down to the ground. Another Dash appeared overhead in time to watch the spectacle, which she studied with a renewed interest.

“There’s nothin’ important down there, right Twilight?” Applejack stared down into the canyon. “Wouldn’t wanna ruin anypony’s day by havin’ them find a whole heap of bodies.”

“Not that I know of, no.” Twilight shook her head. “Anyway, I should probably ask: did I miss anything else important when I was gone? Or was it just rocks falling?”

“Well…” Applejack rubbed the back of her neck and shot a quick glance to Pinkie. “We got to talkin’, an’, uh, we think it really might be a good idea to go talk to Princess Celestia about all this.”

Twilight opened her mouth to say something, only for Applejack to hold up her hoof.

“Now just hold up there, Twilight,” Applejack said. “I know what you’re gonna say. ‘Cause you’ve been sayin’ it anytime we even come close to bringin’ up the Princess. But the fact of the matter is, we’re in one crazy situation here, one that’s apparently headed straight to Canterlot to awaken some ancient power an’ even more magical mischief. Not to mention all the bodies that Dash keeps leavin’ around.”

Outside, Dash dived between a particularly large pair of boulders and looped back up into a brief spot of open air. She kept a close watch on the falling rocks alongside the train, and thus completely missed an incoming crow until it was right in front of her. The crow, for its part, was also watching the rocks, and so it was that the two flyers collided at full speed. The crow went beak-first through Dash’s right eye, piercing straight through into her gray matter. Dash immediately went limp. This time her wings crumpled with her, and she plummeted through the air with her brains leaking out of her destroyed eye socket. The new Dash quickly swooped down to catch herself and free the struggling, still very-much-alive bird from her old head.

Back in the train, Applejack gestured out to the whole scene. “See, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. An’ we haven’t even gotten to Canterlot yet, an’ there’s just no tellin’ what sort of madness is gonna come our way there. This is just too much bloody craziness for us to handle on our own.”

Twilight raised a hoof of her own, then paused. Her eyes drooped to the floor. “…okay, look. I understand what you’re saying, and I know you’re right. This is a crazy, messed up situation we’re in, and we are headed straight to where the Princess is anyway. She probably knows all about Mystar, and probably even met him so many hundreds of years ago.”

“I get the feelin’ this is all building up to you still sayin’ no,’ Applejack said.

Twilight sighed. “It’s two things. First, and I mentioned this to Rainbow Dash before, but the magic that started all this? That was cast by the book but technically powered by me? That’s the sort of magic that nopony, and I mean nopony, should be casting. Plenty of unicorns have gotten into a lot of trouble for a lot less, and I don’t want to be one of them. But more than that, it’s, well… look at where I am in all this. In how long I’ve been in Ponyville, and all the adventures and problems we’ve faced, and lessons I’ve learned, and all of that.”

“And parties you’ve attended!” Pinkie said. “Priorities, Twilight, come on, can’t forget that when making a list of accomplishments.”

“My point is,” Twilight continued, “that I– we’ve all been through so much, most of it on our own, that at this point I should be able to do this one my own, too.”

“I said that earlier!” Pinkie clapped her hooves. “We’re one tough group! No problem too big, no monster too fierce, no magic too wacky!”

Twilight smiled at her, and went on. “I mean, I want to, but it’s more than that, too. This is a major magical challenge all its own, and I need to prove that I can get through it without calling the Princess for help. I don’t want to disappoint her by having her find out I helped cause all this, and I don’t want her to think I’m not skilled enough to deal with a serious problem. I know she’s got big plans for me. Anypony can see that. So it’s time I started, well, working without the training scrolls, as they say.”

“Who says that? Pinkie asked.

Applejack rolled her eyes and put a reassuring hoof on Twilight’s shoulders. “Twilight, it ain’t a sign of weakness to ask for help. Never has been, never will be. You know that by now. Shoot, you’re the one who helped me learn that. An’ you definitely know better than to think that the Princess will think less of you or somethin’ in a situation like this. I mean, haven’t you been wrong about that pretty much every time you’ve thought it?”

“I know, I know. Like I said, everything you’re saying makes perfect sense. But… but…” Twilight paused for thought.

Outside, the valley started to vanish from view as the train moved through a small divide through the mountain. Dash curved to one side to stick close to the train. She quickly dodged her way through a series of dead tree branches sticking out along the new rock wall. Suddenly a fresh boulder careened over her head, hit the wall, rebounded back towards the train, and slammed Dash in a full broadside. Both Dash and the boulder came crashing through one of the rear windows of the train car, sending pieces of wood and glass flying everywhere. Scrapings of Dash’s hide, along with her rear left leg, were ripped off as she was pushed into the car. The rest of her quickly flattened itself under the weight of the rock. A fresh blood trail flowed along with the gigantic stone as it skid along towards the end of the car. Her wings were still visible, along with portions of her skull and a long piece of entrails that had managed to get itself wrapped along a piece of glass. It cut into the intestines at several spots, spilling digestive fluids all over the floor.

A piece of a bench smacked Applejack at the shoulder, causing her whole body to break apart. Her head rolled towards the forward set of benches while Dash appeared overhead.

“Whoops, sorry,” she said, before flashing a grin and flying back outside.

Releasing a long exhale, Twilight went to work collecting the various pieces of Applejack that had rolled away.

“My point is,” she said, “is that I’m looking at all this as… as a kind of test. One that I must pass, and must pass using what I’ve got with me right now. You want me to ask for help? Well, I have you guys to help me, if I truly need it. Which I likely will, so I admit it makes it a little hard to really apologize that you two had to get pulled into all of this in the first place.”

“Think nothing of it!” Pinkie smiled. She shot her legs out along the perimeter of the car, snooping around until she located all of Applejack’s limbs and her isolated torso.

“Oh yeah, I’m havin’ a ball here,” Applejack’s head grumbled. “But alright Twilight, fine. You think we can do all this by ourselves, I’ll go with ya. An’ I’ll give it my all. Still, should things take a turn for the crazier once we get ourselves into Canterlot… well, at what point would you consider it acceptable to head to the Princess?”

“If things well and truly get out of hoof –and I say that while acknowledging what’s going on right now– then I’ll agree to go get her,” Twilight said. A purple glow appeared on her horn as she approached Applejack’s head, then disappeared as the thought better of it and elected to pick her up with her front hooves. “Until then, we’ve just got to stay confident. We get to Canterlot and we track down the book–”

“Assumin’ it’s really headed there,” Applejack muttered, “an’ didn’t just hightail it into the Everfree Forest or somethin’ back in Ponyville.”

“–then we find the answer at Mystar’s crypt, because that’s where it’s bound to be,” Twilight said. “We stop the curse, we get Spike back, and we save the day. Just like we’ve done before. All we need to do is stay on guard, keep our wits about ourselves, and, above all, keep from losing our heads.”

Applejack groaned. Pinkie raised her hoof.

“Come on, Twilight,” she protested. “Let the rest of us have one of those for a change.”

“Huh? What?” Twilight raised an eyebrow, then shook her head as she reattached Applejack’s. Around them, the motion of the train noticeably smoothed. The rumbling in the distance stopped, and the abrupt lurches that had been marking the journey periodically ceased. The rock shower faded away as well, leaving Dash flying alongside the train in increasingly tight quarters. She dipped back inside right before the train passed through a tunnel, and then out into a considerably flatter section of the mountains.

“I think we’re out of that,” she said, flapping some dust out of her wings and slumping down into one of the few intact seats. “Good thing, too. I dunno how many more rocks this car could take.”

The group glanced around their surroundings. The car was in shambles. Several huge boulders were deeply imbedded within the floor and walls, each of them with one of Dash’s pulverized corpses wedged beneath them. Several of Dash’s limbs, far more than could fit any one body, slid around the blood-soaked floor. More blood dripped off the walls, seats, windows, and ceiling, and an array of loose blue feathers fluttered through the air.

Applejack took a sharp breath and kept it in, working at her throat with a hoof. “I think my gag reflex has just given up completely an’ gone home.”

“Much as I hate to say it, I think I’m used to it,” Twilight said. “I think I’m gonna research a few memory wipe spells when this is all over.”

“All those horror movies are never gonna be the same.” Pinkie giggled. “Now they’re just gonna make me laugh even harder.”

The train passed over a long bridge, moving over a split in the tracks along the way. The car gave one final bounce, and Applejack’s head hopped right off her shoulders.

“Well that’s just outright typical, now ain’t it?” she snapped. Pinkie shot her legs out and caught Applejack’s head a fraction of a second before it hit the ground. “That wasn’t even some weird accident; that was just the train doin’ what it always does! What’s next, somepony slams a door in my face an’ it blows my back out?”

Dash’s face opened into a fiendish grin. “Hey, come on Applejack, relax. Don’t lose your–”

“Twilight already said that one.”

“Aww, come on Twilight, save some for the rest of us!”

“That’s what I said!” Pinkie exclaimed. She tossed Applejack’s head back on her shoulders and wandered to the window. “Hey look, we’re almost there! I can see the train station.”

“Already?” Twilight walked to the window. “That was… faster than I remember. Although I guess I was rather distracted at the end there and just lost track of where we were.”

Twilight heard grunting behind her, and turned around. Dash was pressed against one of the boulders, pushing it out of the way just far enough to snatch her body out.

“Come on guys, gimme a hoof with all these.” Dash held a flattened torso in her hoof, exposed ribs showing off a somewhat impressive display of crushed, partially skewered organs. With a flick of her wrists, she tossed the body out the nearest open window. It hurled over the side of a low wall running along the track, disappearing into a bush.

The other three girls moved in, each grabbing a body or body part and tossing it out a window. Twilight tried to levitate a leg, only for it to shoot out the roof of the car like a rocket. She blinked, and saw it come back down as a tiny speck off in the distance.

“Oooh, very nice hang time on that one, Twilight,” Pinkie said.

“Well, that takes care of all the big stuff,” Applejack said a few moments later. “Still leaves this big, bloody mess, of course. Don’t really have time to clean that up.”

“Twilight could try to magic it away,” Dash said.

“Right, except I might just make the whole train disappear instead, which isn’t much better.” Twilight shook her head. The motion of the car grew steadier and steadier beneath her hooves; the train was pulling into the station. Distant shouts could be heard emanating from both the engine car and the platform.

“Anypony got any ideas then?” Dash asked. Applejack and Pinkie looked at each other, then Twilight. She paced back and forth for a moment, her eyes shut in deep concentration.

Suddenly, her eyes snapped open. “Alright, I might have something. Rainbow Dash, is there any chance you could–”

And then Twilight vanished into thin air. The other three let out a long, simultaneous groan.

“I think that curse is specifically timed to bum us out when it kicks in,” Applejack said.

Dash nodded. “Yeah, at least mine is much more random. Still, what are we gonna do now?”

The train made a few more brief chugs forward, then came to a complete and total stop. They had arrived at Canterlot, and, against all odds, they were right on schedule.

Applejack nudged her face against a window. “Conductor’s headed this way.”

“Wait! I’ve got an idea!” Pinkie shouted. She tossed her legs around the others and drew them in for a tight huddle. “Alright, so just bear with me a second here, but I think this will work. Rainbow Dash, how many feathers can you spare right now?”

Outside, the conductor’s frenzied voice caught up with his approaching hoofsteps.

“…am really just so very very sorry about all this, it’s never ever happened before, not on this line, I tried to come back to check on you earlier but the door jammed on us somehow and we clearly couldn’t go back so we just kept moving forward and I suppose that I couloh please just don’t sue us pleasepleaseplease…” His words poured out of him so fast they blurred together. He wiped the sweat from his brow and reached over to unlatch the train car door.

A wave of blue feathers spilled from the doorway, washing over the beleaguered conductor from hat to hoof. He wiped his eyes clean to be met with the sight of Pinkie barreling towards him.

“It was horrible!” she cried out. “Just horrible! They zoomed in from every direction and hit us like that ton of rocks that also hit us! It was a massacre!”

“I don’t– what?” the conductor strained to look past Pinkie, but she continued moving forward out of the car. Applejack and Dash moved in on either side of her, and the three ponies made an effective wall that pushed the conductor back onto the platform.

“Yeah, it’s a mess in there, partner,” Applejack said. “What with all those, uh… what would you say, uh, hit us, Pinkie?”

“Bluebirds!” Pinkie wailed melodramatically, one hoof on her forehead. She collapsed forward onto the ground. “A whole flock of them! Enough to fill a dozen pies!”

“Blackbirds filled the pies, Pinkie,” Dash whispered.

“Not any pies I’ve been making,” Pinkie whispered back.

“Uhhh…” the conductor blinked and stared at the girls. Pinkie leaned in and grabbed his face.

“I’d be careful about going in there if I were you,” she warned. “Those little guys were serious bleeders. They were popping like the balloons at Pokey Pierce’s birthday party, and that’s as popped as balloons can get. Except these balloons were filled with blood and guts and juices and bones that might look like they were too big to fit inside a tiny bird, but I assure you, that’s where they came from, so there.”

“Also, there’s a few rocks,” Dash added. “Big ones. Really big. Like, huge.”

“She’s tryin’ to say you’ll need a new roof to this train,” Applejack said.

“Rightio!” Pinkie pulled back from the conductor and sighed. “It was a traumatic experience for all of us, but I think we can get through it. Which we will. So we’re just gonna leave now and go recover. Waaaaaay over there, which is away from here. So… bye!”

With a wave and a smile, Pinkie grabbed her companions and rushed down the platform and around a corner into a side alley. The conductor was left standing alone in front of the train, still coughing up the occasional feather. He took a few tentative steps forward to glance inside the train car, whereupon he immediately put a hoof up to his mouth to keep the vomit back.

Over in the alley, Pinkie breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well that went well!” she said with a smile.

“Oh yeah, the perfect getaway,” Applejack deadpanned.

“You could’ve used more Rarity in your performance. And probably less of my feathers.” Dash glanced back over her wings. One had been nearly stripped bare for Pinkie’s display.

“Well next time you get a wing chopped off, save it,” Pinkie replied. “You never know when we might need them. Anyway! Time to get our tails on into Canterlot! Are we all ready?”

Dash stopped scratching her wing and looked up. “Hey, wait, aren’t we forgetting somepony?”

Pinkie did a fast headcount. “One, two, aaaaaaaaaaaaand… three. The group of us minus Twilight, just like I planned.”

Applejack and Dash stared at the still smiling Pinkie.

“Uh, Pinkie, did your little plan have any way of gettin’ Twilight over here undetected?”

“Nope!” Pinkie said with unembarrassed glee. “I did not think that far ahead!”

At that moment, Twilight reappeared back in the train car.

“–fly out a hole so you… can… uh…” Twilight blinked. She stood just to the left of one of the boulders. The bewildered and nauseated conductor stood before her. The bloodied wreckage of the car surrounded the two of them, punctuating the awkward pause with a steady stream of blood drops.

Twilight sighed. “I vanished again, didn’t I?”

The conductor stared, slack-jawed. “…a bluebird flock?” he muttered weakly.

Twilight glanced around. “Uh… sure. Let’s go with that.”

The conductor took a moment to collect himself before responding. “Ma’am, I have no idea what went on in here, or what you’re talking about. So what I’m gonna do is duck out real fast to puke my lunch out, and let you slip out. Then I’m gonna come back, decouple this car, and shove it into a gorge. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

Twilight opened her mouth to speak, then sighed again and nodded. “Works for me. Good luck with that.”

She barely got her words out before the conductor scampered from the train car, making a bee-line for the bathroom. Twilight stood still for another few moments, then quickly moved past the blood-spattered rocks and twisted, gore-coated metal and out onto the platform. She spotted Pinkie peeking around a corner at her, and waved.

“See? Here she is,” Pinkie said as Twilight scurried up. “No problem-o whatsoever-o.”

Dash grinned and bumped hooves with Pinkie. “Real smooth plan as always, Pinkie.”

“Okay, so we’re actually in Canterlot. Great.” Applejack turned to face Twilight. “Where to now?”

“We’ve got to find the crypt, and we’ve got to find the book,” Twilight said. “I need to do a bit of digging at the palace archives, but if we spread out on our way over there and pay strict attention to our surroundings, we may hear something about it before–”

“Oh hey, there it is.” Pinkie pointed out towards the platform, causing everypony’s head to snap in her direction.

Back at the train, the small assortment of other passengers was departing. Those who didn’t look dazed looked bewildered, and those who didn’t look bewildered look litigious. Twilight peered between them to see where Pinkie was indicating, and then, all of a sudden, she saw it. Lurking between two luggage carts and past an overloaded and overworked porter, a lumpy shape in a brown trench coat and small black hat fumbled its way forward. With every shaky step, the coat pulled up just a tad to reveal the edge of a rolled-paper tentacle.

“How the hay did we miss that back in Ponyville?” Dash asked.

“Ponyville nothin’, how’d we miss it on the train with us?” Applejack rubbed her eyes as she watched the book lumber down along next to the train cars towards the station gates. None of the other ponies on the platform took notice of it, busy as they were sorting out their recent train journey with a green-faced conductor.

“Well, it is a pretty good disguise,” Pinkie said with the utmost sincerity. “Good thing I’ve got such a sharp eye, or we might’a just missed it.”

“Enough chatter,” Twilight hissed. She crouched low to the ground. “We’ve got to follow it!”

The group huddled together and watched the book make a beeline for a small side path by the front gates. As it hopped over a small puddle, the coat flickered up even higher. Twilight stifled a gasp when she a small dragon tail hanging limply down from under the thick cloth. She quickened her pace.

The path turned into a small back alley behind a row of shops in Canterlot’s main plaza. Though the buzz of market activity floated throughout the air from the front, the book and its small group of pursuers were the only souls around in the back. It skipped forward and around a tight bend in the path. Twilight was running at this point, taking the corner at full speed only to skid to a sudden stop as soon as she turned. The others piled up behind her, Pinkie reaching out to stop Applejack’s leg from popping off in the process.

The book stood at the opposing end of a small, otherwise deserted courtyard. Its hat and coat lay limp on the ground in front of it, while Spike hovered in a small, shimmering ball behind it.

“You guys were never ones to take a hint, were you?” the book’s dry, menacing voice shot out.

“Tenacious, aren’t we?” Pinkie said. She smiled wide, only to turn to a frown when she saw Spike. “Now give Spike back, you coffee table sized bully!”

The book snapped a tentacle in Pinkie’s direction. “Oh hey sure, since you asked so politely… no! What would you do with it anyway? Honestly, this stupid little lizard was driving me up the bloody wall on the way up here until I finally shut it up.”

“Well then why do you even want him?” Applejack asked.

The book scratched its binding thoughtfully.

“Spite,” it finally said. “Well, there’s actually another more important reason, but I prefer this excuse. Now you bunch be good little ponies and wander off. I went through enough trouble putting that brilliant disguise together to get here, and I don’t need the likes of you here to slow me down fur– whoa!”

The book made a hasty jump to one side as a bright purple beam of energy fired out of Twilight’s horn. The shot barely missed the book, and continued forward to bounce off a trash can lid, then off a small lantern hanging over a door, off another trash can lid, go down onto a sewer grate, bounce back onto a high fence post, and finally straight down at Dash.

The light completely enveloped her body on impact, going on to crack the asphalt beneath her. It scorched her mane clean off and melted her eyes right out of her sockets. Feathers molted, blood boiled, bones cracked, and skin cooked. In a second the light was gone, and a flash-fried Dash stood perfectly still. A light gust of wind brushed through the courtyard, and she crumbled into a pile of ash on the ground. A new Dash *POP*ed right back in where she had stood, now hoof-deep the dusty version of herself.

“Twilight!” Dash groaned. “What’d we talk about? And since when could you do a spell like that, anyway?”

Twilight eyed the cremated Dash carefully. A fine stream of liquefied fats had managed to work its way free onto the pavement and ooze towards the nearest storm drain. “Uh, actually, that one’s new to me.”

“That’s because your curse is meant for normal unicorns!” the book snapped. It brushed itself off and straightened a few ruffled pages. “Not overpowered magical superfreaks like you. What ever happened to you lot just being able to do nothing more than open a door from the other side of the room? There’s never any problem amplifying that. Hopefully you’ll now see the benefit of your little disappearing acts, it’s for the good of public safety! Honestly, what kind of ponies are you?”

“The awesome kind!” Dash flapped her wings and hopped into the air, blowing up a small swirl of her ashes. Pinkie and Twilight took several big steps back to avoid getting any in their faces. “You might as well give up now, there’s no way you can really stop us. Especially not me, since I’m just gonna keep coming at ya.”

“Can we cut the chatter an’ just tackle the varmint already?” Applejack leapt over her friends towards the book. It readied a tentacle to thrash out at her, only to be distracted as Dash swooped in from on high. It quickly whipped its papered appendage up, clipping her wings and sending Dash into a nosedive towards a nearby wrought-iron fence. She crashed onto it neck-first, sending an ornamental pole straight through her throat and out the through the base of her skull. Her body immediately went limp and slid down the pole with a long, drawn-out squeak as her blood lubricated the metal. A few bits of skull and hair marked the top of the pole where she first went in, and a large puddle formed on the ground as her body reflexively vomited up another helping of blood and bile.

Meanwhile, the book leaned back to dodge Applejack’s lunge. With a flick of its pages, it whirled around and struck her in the abdomen. She was sent sprawling across the yard, stopping only when she fell into a newly-appeared Dash. The sudden stop caused Applejack’s front legs to pop off and roll towards the gutter. Pinkie hopped around the two of them in a blur of movement, only to trip over one of the legs and fall onto her face.

“Look, I’d love to stay longer, but playing the developmentally disabled always gives me a bad taste. Gotta run!” On that note, the book levitated Spike back up next to itself, leapt over a dumpster, avoided Pinkie’s outstretched legs, and disappeared down another alley.

“After it!” Twilight shouted.

Dash glanced over at her body stuck on the fence post. “So, we gonna move me, or what?”

“No time! Let’s go!” Twilight shouted again.

Pinkie and Dash quickly popped Applejack’s legs back on, and the group tore off after the book. The alleyways continued in a series of tight corridors and sudden turns along the rear of the buildings, taking the ponies deeper into the center of Canterlot. Every few turns they caught a glimpse of the book’s rearmost tentacle or Spike’s waving tail.

“There sure are a lot more alleys in Canterlot than I would’ve thought,” Pinkie said.

“They’re part of an older design of the city,” Twilight said. She hopped through a broken fence and through a wide puddle. “A lot of them run through the older sections of the city. Years ago, city guards could use them as quick routes to get from any part of Canterlot straight to–”

“The palace!” Applejack cried. The group rounded a final corner to see the alley open up into a main street. Directly ahead of them were the main steps of the palace. At the moment they were jam packed with ponies, both governmental and civilian. A line of gold-plated guards kept watch along the stairs, evenly spaced and standing unflinching between the throng of the crowd.

“Anypony see it?” Twilight asked.

Dash flew a few meters in the air and squinted. “I’ve got nothing! Just a lot of regular ponies and guards.”

“I don’t think it would’ve headed up through there,” Applejack said, gesturing to the main steps. “Couldn’t really blend in, an’ it doesn’t look like those guards are raisin’ a fuss over anythin’ right now.”

“Well it had to go somewhere, there was no other place for it to go back there,” Twilight said.

“There!” Dash pointed off to one side of the alley, just before it emptied out into the street. A small storm grate had been wedged open, leaving just enough space for something pony-sized to wiggle through.

Pinkie was the first to reach it. She knelt down and stuck her head through. “Wow, there’s a lotta space in here! These Canterlot ponies sure know how to build a drain.”

“Any idea where it went?” Applejack asked.

“Hang on, lemme see…” Pinkie skipped and twirled like a top, her head spinning around in the hole. “Looooooks like… that way!

“Can’t see where you’re looking, Pinkie,” Dash said.

“Over there!” Pinkie raised a hoof above ground, pointing straight at the palace. “It’s the biggest tunnel, and I can see bits of paper on the ground.”

“What’s it headed over there for?” Applejack asked. She turned to Twilight, who had her eyes closed in concentration. “Twilight? Any ideas?”

“I think… I think…” Twilight rubbed her temples. For a few moments, she kept still, her mind racing. Then, with a small gasp, her eyes snapped open. “Of course!”

She turned and faced the others. “You three get down there and find it. Stop it if you can, but be careful.”

“What’s goin’ on, Twilight,” Applejack asked. “Where’s that thing headed?”

“Same place I am: the palace,” Twilight said. “I think I know what to do next, but I need you to try and slow it down. I’ll meet up with you soon.”

Before the others could say anything else, Twilight hurried forward and vanished in the crowd. Dash flew up to watch her go, then dropped back down next to Applejack.

“Guess she figured it out,” Dash said. “You’d think she’d say a bit more first.”

Pinkie pulled her head out of the hole and looked at Dash upside down. “Come on Rainbow Dash, she’s got to get this adventure moving! And so do we. We’ve had too much dead weight already slowing things down, so let’s go!”

Before the others could react, Pinkie wrapped her arms around them and yanked them down into the tunnel. One of her legs flicked back up the hole, felt around on the ground, then pulled the grate back in place over the hole. A few meters away, a young colt started crying to his mother about giant pink snakes in the sewers. She did not believe him.

Up at the main doorway to the palace, Twilight nodded hello to a few familiar guards and slipped through past the crowds.

“So crowded tonight,” she mused to herself. “Never a moment’s peace. Well, no matter. Things should be plenty empty in the library, as always.”

She grinned and sped through the spacious front hall, towards the second set of stairs. She had just touched the first step when a familiar voice called out, stopping her dead in her tracks.

“Twilight Sparkle!”

Twilight’s blood froze. Slowly, she turned around and found herself face-to-face with Princess Celestia, flanked on either side by an impressive entourage of royal ambassador and government officials.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight cried. “I was just, uh, I mean, uh…”

“My most faithful student,” Celestia said. “I’ve been looking for you all evening. There’s something I need to talk to you about. Do you have a moment?”

Twilight gulped and tried to ignore the beads of sweat rolling down her brow.