Chapter 13

Into the Woods

The Everfree Forest was just as Twilight remembered it, but her memories of the place were bittersweet. Every time she that had ventured inside, she had been attacked either by a possessed alicorn princess, an ornery cockatrice, or a gang of vicious timberwolves, so she was starting to wonder what else this dumb forest had in store for her.

“Um, Twilight?” came a soft voice from beside her. Fluttershy had flown up to her side as they walked, getting uncomfortably close. “I-I think we should go back and, you know, let the royal sisters handle this. You see—”

“Fluttershy,” Twilight sighed, moving over to remind Fluttershy about the concept of personal space, “I know you’re scared, but—”

“I’m not scared!” the pegasus shrieked, drawing the attention of the whole group. “I-I mean, not that I n-need to say that, but....”

As she trailed off, Twilight motioned for everypony to get back to whatever private conversations they were having. Page was by herself at the front, Rarity was chatting it up with the new earth pony, Mezza, and the rest of Twilight’s friends had formed their own cabal as well.

“But Twilight,” Fluttershy insisted in a whisper. “What about those nine ponies back in Everdale? You’ve been forgetting about them this whole time, but they’re still ponies! They didn’t respond to anything Pinkie and I did, but I’m sure they just need a little bit of attention to get back to their normal selves.”

“There’s nothing we can do about that right now,” Twilight sighed, wishing that Fluttershy hadn’t brought that up. Those nine ponies had been a wild card ever since the beginning, especially now that they could be reasonably sure that King Sombra wasn’t involved. Had those nine ponies been accomplices, acting lethargic to throw them off the scent? It was possible, but there was no motive for an insane plot like that.

“B-but it could help us out somehow! What if it wasn’t S-S-Sombra? What if it was changelings with their whole love-eating creepiness?”

“I wondered about that too,” the unicorn admitted, slowing down her pace so that nopony else could listen in. She didn’t want to start a panic, after all. “But from what we know about them, that’s not how their feeding habits work. You see, they find their prey and leech off of their emotions so slowly that it would usually take weeks to notice, at least, according to that book in my library. If this was the work of changelings, those nine would have recovered within days, not to mention that somepony they had positive feelings for would have been replaced as well. I mean, Shining Armor recovered immediately after their queen had been feeding off of him for weeks, and even at the worst part of it, he was still surprisingly lucid.”

Twilight had expected Fluttershy to squeak and cower at the description of changeling behavior, but she just stared with an eerily eager smile. “Wow,” she mused, “that’s absolutely fascinating! Oh, maybe I was wrong about them! They may not be that cute, but I would love to meet one of them, assuming they weren’t trying to—”

“Okay, moving on now. Whatever those nine were up to, we’ve got to find Preston. I wish we could have gone back and told Cadance and the others about everything, but we would have lost Page if we had taken the time to step into the jail and explain everything. Maybe they’ll figure something out while we’re out here, since Shining has never been good at sitting around and doing nothing.”

“Well, okay, but—”

“Alright,” Page barked at the intrepid adventurers that she was leading. “Based on what I can tell, the entrance has to be around this general area. You see, the guard shack had the window facing this section of the forest, so based off of the angle of the shack and the perimeter of the forest, we can triangulate the position to be within a radius of nearly 300 feet from this spot here.”

“You can’t do that!” Twilight exclaimed, doing her best to distract herself from the fact that she was traipsing around the most dangerous forest in Equestria and looking for a town that probably didn’t exist. “That’s not even how something like that works, you know. First, you’d need to be able to accurately calculate the—”

“That’s it,” Rainbow groaned, hovering in between the two ponies, “I’m stopping this nerd-fest before it starts. Page, you’re saying it’s around here somewhere, right? That’s close enough for me, let’s split and start searching.”

Twilight had an entire lecture prepared for Page about how triangulating a position required at least some spatial knowledge from all positions, but it seemed that basic mathematical principles were going to have to take a backseat to practicality. “Rainbow, hold up,” she sighed, looking around the immediate area. They were on the outer fringe of the forest, meaning that they could still leave if they wanted to, but there was something she had to check. “Splitting would help us find it faster, meaning that we would be closer to finding Preston, but I’m pretty sure that if this mystery town really does exist, they’d have some kind of security around.”

“Security?” Rainbow asked. “Well, we could just take them out once we find them, couldn’t we?”

“No, Rainbow! I thought you read those tactical assault guidebooks that I lent you, but it looks like somepony is behind on their assigned reading. If you had read those, you would have known that you must always try to start a fight on your terms, not theirs. Since they’re probably watching out for us right now, assuming Preston is still ahead of us, splitting up would put us all in needless danger.”

“Eh, I can take ‘em on,” the pegasus grumbled in response, lowering herself to the ground.

“I’d rather not risk it, but I’ve still got a few spells that I saved up for a rainy day. And before you ask, yes, I know it’s not raining. My big brother taught me all about barrier spells, but there’s one in particular that would come in handy right now, one that I’m pretty sure he invented himself!”

“I didn’t know he had such a creative side to him,” Rarity remarked coyly.

“Well,” Twilight clarified, “it’s not so much about inventing a spell as using an existing one in a creative way. You see, the basic barrier spell will serve as a solid wall to living creatures, so most unicorns simply set it up and forget about it. What my brother discovered is that, while it is innately a defensive spell, we can also use it offensively. This is a simplified version of the spell he and Cadance improvised in order to give the changelings the boot back in Canterlot, but somehow he managed to make it separated by race, which still baffles me in regards to the sheer amount of power—”

“Get to the point,” Rainbow grumbled.

Indignant over being cut off in the middle of her lecture, Twilight huffed. “Fine, I’ll just show you then. We’re short on time anyway. Everypony, gather around me.”

The seven ponies followed her orders without questioning, allowing Twilight to focus her energy around them. She heard a few gasps as she molded her aura into solid matter, creating a tiny pink bubble around them. It was incredibly dense, making the shield nearly impossible to see through, but that was only because the spell wasn’t finished yet.

With a burst of magical energy, the shield exploded outwards, the size of the bubble multiplying exponentially as Twilight fueled its unyielding growth. Any living creature that wasn’t in the bubble would be sent flying because the equivalent of a giant pink wall of bricks would be flying straight at them. Sure enough, she could hear the shriek of a cockatrice and a manticore in the distance as they were pushed to the perimeter of her shield.

“Twilight!” shrieked Rarity, thankfully having waited until the spell was finished to yell in her ear and break her concentration. “That was absolutely spectacular! I may not have the raw potential that you do, but I know enough to appreciate a beautiful display when I see one.”

“Thank you, Rarity. I’m sure my brother wouldn’t mind telling you all about it if you find the time to ask him.”

Page didn’t let Rarity respond, jumping in between the two. “Well, either way, you just made life a whole lot easier. Everypony, split up and search the area. If you find the entrance, holler out, okay? C’mon, move it!”

Before anypony could object, Page darted off into the forest, leaving the remaining seven ponies behind. “We should have split into twos or something,” Twilight groaned, shaking her head and surveying her surroundings. “I mean, we can be reasonably sure that we’ll be safe in this bubble, but—”

“It’s okay Twilight, we’ll stick together!” Pinkie exclaimed, hopping over to Rarity and grinning.

“Well, you don’t have to, but it’s better safe than sorry, I guess,” Twilight sighed. “I’ll give us a half hour before we start meeting up again. Sound good?”

There were mixed murmurs of approval from the group, ranging from excitement to sheer terror. The first to leave was Rarity, with Pinkie hopping in tow, followed by Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Applejack offered to go with Mezza, but the antsy mare politely refused, leaving the farm pony to go off by herself.

“Well, looks like we’re going together!” Twilight remarked, trying her best to act strong so that Mezza wouldn’t be afraid. For being the oldest pony in the group, she seemed to be the least mature.

“N-no, I’m fine,” she stammered, backing away. “The more we split up, the quicker we can find her.”

Before Twilight could object, she found herself alone in the Everfree Forest. While she was worried about Mezza, she was sure that there was a reason for the earth pony to go off by herself. The bubble should be sufficient to keep out everything dangerous, even a manticore, but that didn’t stop Twilight from being apprehensive.

Regardless, she was going to have to start searching.

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“Any better?”

“N-no, hurry, I don’t—”

“Okay, hold on, I’ll—”

“Stay away from my wife!”

As Red lay on dusty bed in her cell, the voices in the jailhouse devolved into nothing but a cacophony of confusing cries. She had stopped paying attention to them a long time ago, drowning them out in a vain attempt to focus on other things. The last thing she wanted to think about was poor Nightowl being mind controlled into telling them everything he knew. Though, it could be worse. He could be getting blackmailed.

Staring up at the bland, gray ceiling, she went through Preston’s note in her head. It had been difficult to read from start to finish without losing face, but she had gotten the message loud and clear. So had everypony else. She may have been a little bit confused at first, but now she knew exactly what was going on.

“You two realise that they’re going into the forest, don’t you?”

“They’re what?!”

“That letter was from Preston, saying that he was running off into the forest to find some clues, so of course they’re going to—”

“For Celestia’s sake, why can’t I have a normal sister?”

That was another thing Red didn’t want to think about. Why did those six ponies have to be so infuriatingly nice? It would have been infinitely easier if they had been the judgmental, opinionated heroes that she thought they would be, but then Preston had to go and say all of those embarrassing things too....

The thought of Preston made her bite her lip, forcing herself to keep quiet so that nopony would see the crack in her emotional armor. Every time she thought of that friendly pegasus, she forced herself to focus on something else.

“Shining, go after them, I’ll be fine here.”

“No, if we’re going after them, we’re going together.”

“Well, looks like I’m free then. Guess the justice system just isn’t what it used to be.”

“No, if we go, you’re all coming with us.”

It was becoming difficult to tune out their voices. So everypony had read that letter, huh? The wording had been careful, but the message had been understood, even if Red didn’t see why everypony wanted to read it. But wait, if they were going into the forest, they might....

Thinking about the possibilities made her heart sink. She had already resigned herself to the fact that she would remain a prisoner for the rest of her miserable life, but there had been a small glimmer of hope for some semblance of a fairy tale ending. Circumstances being what they were, there was no way that things would go back to the way they had been, not after Dotted Line had made the first move. As much as she hated her old boss, there was a part of her that still wished that he was around to tell her what to do, barking orders at her until her hearing was gone. She hated the fact that everything was so vague now.

“You may be a prisoner, but you could have escaped anytime that you wanted to.”

“With the way you’re talking, I’m starting to wish I had.”

“Too bad. We’re going once Nightowl is back to normal. How much longer?”

“Just give me a minute! I need to focus!”

They were planning on leaving? Red wasn’t sure whether to be happy or terrified. She had backed herself into a corner after Page had woken up, leaving her with no choice but to wait for the inevitable and pray that everything would turn out okay. The chances of that happening were akin to the the chances of being born an alicorn, but there was nothing that she could do about it.

Despite her helpless position, Red still had a few options. The possibilities were severely limited, but if she followed the only course of action available to her, there was a chance that nopony else had to become a victim. On the other side of the coin, if she followed through and everything turned sour, Everdale wouldn’t be the only town to disappear in the coming weeks.

“Th-there! I think I got it!”

“I... what am I...?”

“Nightowl! You useless lummox, you had me worried!”

“F-forget about me, we have to—”

“Say another word and I’ll smother ya.”

Right now, Red was going to have to play her cards carefully. It was likely that the Elements of Harmony wouldn’t believe Page about the hidden town, so there was still hope that they would give up their witch hunt. In the best case scenario, they would catch up to Preston and drag him back here, but Preston wouldn’t....

Red’s breath caught as her throat constricted. Forget about him. Even if the entirety of Equestria told him that his friends were guilty, he wouldn’t believe them. There was no way that anypony would be able to stop him from investigating these disappearances, especially considering his old job as a freelance reporter.

No, she wasn’t going to think about him anymore! Even though he could easily put himself into harm’s way with his foalhardy attitude out there, she wasn’t going to let herself spend any more time on the subject. His idyllic naivete and positive outlook had always been a ray of sunlight during these past few weeks, giving Red the courage to push onward. If only he had stayed behind and tried to cheer her up some some.... Preston always knew how to—

“Red, wake up!”

Jolting out of her self-loathing daydream, Red founding herself staring into the cold, tired face of a white unicorn. Shining Armor, the captain of the Royal Guard and prince of the Crystal Empire, was trying to get her attention. In any other situation, she would have been flattered.

“We’re going after the others. The Everfree Forest is extremely dangerous, even for the Elements of Harmony. And don’t even think about running away.”

Red nodded, unable to conjure up the energy to speak a single word in response. This was the worst possible scenario, but how was she supposed to do anything about it? Even if she tried to run away and stall them from venturing into the forest, she wouldn’t get very far with two of the most powerful ponies in Equestria hunting her down.

Heart pounding, Red heard the click of her cell door unlocking. She could give a vain attempt at convincing them that they were all walking into a trap, but nopony would believe her. She couldn’t blame them. The only evidence that she could have used was long gone by now, and even that would have been a stretch.

Resigned, Red accepted her helpless state. Any action she could take would most likely result in an even more depressing tragedy than what had already come to pass. She couldn’t afford to take a gamble like that, not when she wouldn’t be the one to pay the price if she failed.

After all, self-sacrifice is easy. Sacrificing others isn’t.

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The Everfree Forest was just as gloomy as Twilight remembered it to be, which wasn’t helped by the fact that she had gotten stuck wandering around by herself. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair or anypony else in her search, but at least she didn’t have to worry about a cockatrice sneaking up on her again. The thought sent shivers through her spine, but her barrier had ensured that no living creatures remained inside of the perimeter.

After a solid ten minutes of navigating treacherous slopes and hills, Twilight saw some movement in the brush ahead of her. Instinctively, she stepped back and readied a teleport spell, wondering if anything could have broken through the barrier without her knowing.

Thankfully, instead of some frightening beast, the creature that emerged from the undergrowth was nothing more than a rainbow-maned pegasus, one that was doing a terrible job at hiding.

“Horsefeathers,” Rainbow Dash spat as she leapt out of the bush, shaking like a dog to get the twigs out of her mane. “You haven’t seen a shifty-eyed, suspicious, and totally guilty earth pony run this way, have you?”

“Who, Mezza?”

“No, Fluttershy.”

“But—”

“Of course it’s Mezza!” Rainbow blurted, growling quietly. “She was acting all suspicious, so I started tailing her. But then this stupid mane of mine made me stand out like Luna in a snowstorm, so—”

“Hold up, Rainbow,” Twilight interjected, frowning. “Suspicious? What made her look suspicious?”

“She had the whole shifty-eye thing going on! She kept looking over her shoulder, like somepony was following her!”

“Uh, Rainbow, you were following her. And she was all alone. In the Everfree Forest.”

“But that was before she saw me! You’ve gotta believe me on this, Twilight!”

With a groan, Twilight realized that arguing with Rainbow wasn’t going to accomplish anything. “Fine, fine, we’ll look for Mezza, but we need to keep an eye out for that hidden entrance as well. Considering the fact that I didn’t accidentally send Preston flying with my barrier spell, he’s either way off course or he’s already found it.”

“Huh, I forgot about him,” Rainbow grumbled.

“He’s the reason that Page went flying out here so suddenly! Heck, he’s the reason we’re out here right now! If I had things my way, I would’ve waited until tomorrow so I could get at least some semblance of sleep!”

“Woah, sorry,” Rainbow apologized awkwardly, starting to back off. “I guess.... Okay, let’s get looking! Yeah!”

Sighing, Twilight chastised herself for letting her lack of sleep affect her demeanor. This was painfully similar to what had happened with Princess Luna, which was another reason that she wanted to take a nap, but it seemed that the real world wasn’t going to wait for the world of dreams, even if she just wanted to apologize.

“Er... I should go now,” Rainbow mumbled, obviously starting to feel uncomfortable. “You know, split up and cover more ground! Right! See ya!”

Twilight didn’t realize that she was making a scary face until Rainbow had already zipped off into the woods. She wanted to say something, but her thoughts were still stuck on Princess Luna and her involvement so far. She had directly intervened by sending Shining Armor and Cadance to help them out, but on top of that she somehow managed to single out Mezza and send her to Everdale as well. But how had she known about Mezza's connection to the town? What were the limits of her powers?

Heedless of the time that passed, Twilight continued to wander aimlessly. She knew that she was supposed to be looking for this hidden town with a silly anagram for a title, but they weren’t going to be able to catch up to Preston, even if she fell right into it at that very moment. The barrier she’d created around their section of the forest would be plainly visible from miles away, meaning that Preston would have already come to investigate it if he was still somewhere nearby.

A rustling sound off in the distance brought Twilight out of her sleep-deprived trance, startling her to attention. How long had she been spacing out? A half hour? An hour? She had no idea, since the sun didn’t shine through the canopy of the Everfree Forest very well, but it seemed that nopony had found the entrance yet, otherwise they would have called out and gathered them all together. In fact, she was about to do so herself.

Off in the distance, rather far away from where she was now, Twilight thought she heard somepony talking, followed by a soft thud. It wasn’t very loud, but over the eerie stillness of the  forest around her, it was nearly crystal clear. Once the voice got louder, Twilight began to make out a few words.

“... you? But I thought—”

The voice abruptly stopped. Twilight stayed perfectly still, even though she was pretty sure that nopony would hear her rustling around in the bushes. Who was...?

“N-no, Dolce, I didn’t...! Wait, stop! No! Please!”

The scream that followed spurred Twilight into action, galloping off towards the source of the sound before she could begin to process what was going on. Normally, she would have already hatched a plan before she even moved a hoof, but the recent stress had left her drained.

Okay, Twilight, focus! The voice sounded like Mezza, from what I remember about her. Dolce is the name of her daughter, the one that disappeared six years ago, meaning that—

In spite of her best efforts to focus, Twilight nearly tripped over a wayward root, barely avoiding a nasty tumble down a surprisingly steep slope. The only thing that she could think about was the fact that Mezza was in danger, or even worse, that Mezza had seen her daughter. From the way that conversation went, it didn’t sound like their reunion had been a happy one, but there was also the fact that Twilight was getting close to edge of her barrier, making her wonder if the altercation had somehow taken place outside.

“Alright, who’s there?!” came another shout, this time much closer, though it seemed to be further off to her left than before. “Come on out and put up your dukes, you little coward!”

“Rainbow!” Twilight cried, identifying the voice as she burst through another set of bushes and into a small clearing. Much to her surprise, the clearing was entirely empty, making Twilight wonder if she had lost her sense of direction. There was an indent in the grass by the edge of the barrier, like somepony had been standing there for a while, but then, Twilight remembered Rainbow’s voice from earlier, spinning to her left and dashing off into the thick brush once more in a desperate attempt to find out what was going on.

As Twilight emerged from the bushes, her eyes widened in disbelief. There, about five feet from the edge of the barrier, stood the statue of a pony up on her hind legs, a look of horror frozen on her face. It reminded Twilight of one her last misadventures into this forest, when Fluttershy had single-hoofedly saved her from a cockatrice, only this time... it wasn’t Twilight who had been petrified.

At a loss for words, Twilight looked pleadingly over to Rainbow Dash, who was hovering around the perimeter and diving into bushes at random. In a hurried, desperate attempt and making sense of the scene, Twilight quickly trotted over to investigate the statue up close, heart pounding.

Just as she had suspected, the stony form of Mezza stared lifelessly away, facing a full 180 degrees away from the barrier. The frozen mare was reared up on her hind legs, perfectly balanced, with her mouth frozen open in mid cry. From the small details that Twilight could remember about her encounter with a cockatrice, the process was nearly instant once one made eye contact with the creature. Because the petrification started at the hooves and worked its way upward, the cockatrice effectively had its target trapped from the moment they locked eyes with each other.

Had this been a spell? Twilight knew of certain spells that could mimic the effects of animals, but those were locked away in the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the Canterlot Archives, meaning that only relatively few ponies knew of their existence. Reversing the effects was still something that even Twilight couldn’t find any research on, which worried her even more. The only way to reverse the effects of petrification involved finding the cockatrice that had caused it and forcing it to stare at the victim again, which was how Fluttershy had managed to save her before.

It was only after thinking about the creatures that Twilight realised how absurd this situation was. She had created this barrier in the first place to make sure that none of the monsters would be able to attack them!

“What in tarnation?”

“Oh my stars!”

One by one, the rest of Twilight’s friends appeared from the bushes, eyes wide and mouths agape. Page was the last one to arrive, flying into the clearing at breakneck speed, but her reaction was no different from the others.

“You can’t be serious!” Page barked out as she landed, choosing to cover up her unease with aggression. “What happened to your barrier?!”

“It’s still up, just give me a moment!” Twilight snapped irritably, quickly thinking of a way to explain this. Without realising it, she began to think out loud. “Okay, the barrier’s up. No living creatures but us are inside, but somehow—”

“She still ended up like this,” Pinkie stated, finishing Twilight’s sentence. Even though she didn’t have her hat and pipe, her detective’s demeanor was on full display. “We’ve got ourselves a noggin’-knocker of a problem here, don’t we?”

“Could you be serious for two seconds?!” Page belted, catching Pinkie by surprise. “This isn’t funny! You all heard her shouting, right? She was talking to her daughter, Dolce, so there’s only one option here! Her daughter found her, decided that she knew too much, and had to shut her up!”

“But how does that even work?” Twilight asked, doing her best to remain calm. “There’s no known spell to cause something like this, much less fix it! Nopony has been brave enough to study a cockatrice for long enough to find a way to imitate their powers, much less cure them. The only way that Fluttershy managed to save me from one was by forcing it stare at me again!”

Page huffed, her righteous fury fading. “Fine, let’s go find one and undo this.”

“That’s not how it works! It has to be the same one that turned her to stone in the first place, but finding that one would take hours!”

“Hours?” Page huffed incredulously. “W-we don’t have hours. We’re going to have to leave her and fix her up later.”

“No, we’re not leaving her here. If we’re going to continue on, we’re taking her with us.”

“We’ll just have to take her back here to cure her once everything’s over!” Page exclaimed, her attempts at hiding her unease becoming more and more obvious by the second. “Look, we’re not going to find the cockatrice inside of Eccondale, okay?”

“We haven’t even found it yet!”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” the pegasus stated, looking like she was taking more joy in that statement than she had any right to. “I found the entrance right before I heard Mezza shouting something.”

In her frustration, Twilight wanted to lecture her about not telling them about this sooner, but even Twilight knew that there had been no time to bring it up. It didn’t help that Page was acting like a smug little filly, but Twilight was going to be the better mare and step down this time.

“Fine, let’s take her along,” she sighed, trying to remember the deep breathing exercises that Cadance had taught her. “We might not be able to find her again if we leave her out in the open.”

She watched as Page stumbled over her words for a moment, apparently finding it difficult to talk to somepony without arguing with them. Page shifted around as everypony stared at her. “I-I’ve got it covered, don’t worry. I was thinking the same thing about the entrance to Eccondale, so I left a little trail of sticks on my way here.”

Nopony replied. It was difficult to talk about somepony they had just met in a way that made it sound like she was dead, but Twilight knew that they didn’t have time to sit around and feel sorry for themselves. She’d learned that lesson back at the hotel.

“Lead the way,” Twilight sighed after weighing her options. “But either way, I’m bringing her with us. And don’t try to talk me out of it.”

Thankfully, Page didn’t press the issue, choosing instead to ignore it altogether and start making her way out of the clearing. Twilight couldn’t be sure whether the pegasus’ sudden exit was fueled by frustration or fear, but she had a feeling that it was the latter. Nopony felt comfortable discussing heavy topics like this out in the open.

Before Page could get too far ahead, Twilight glanced hesitantly at the statue behind her. Nopony had known Mezza at all, outside of a name and a face, but it still hurt to see her like this, even if there was a small possibility that she could be cured in the near future. Trying not to think too hard about Mezza’s unfortunate situation, Twilight enveloped the petrified mare in magic and levitated her off of the ground.

“Girls, let’s walk and talk,” Twilight called out, giving each one of her friends a forced smile before she followed after Page. Just like before, she had to act as the leader, otherwise their group might fall apart before they could fix this mess. “We’ll share information about who was with who the whole time, just in case one of us saw something important.”

“If we had,” Rainbow grumbled, “we would have said something already. But we already know who’s responsible for this, we just need to find them and knock their lights out before they try anything else!”

Gingerly stepping over an exposed tree root, Twilight tried to focus on walking, talking, thinking, and levitating a statue at the same time. It wasn’t easy. “First things first, girls. Rainbow, you’ve got some explaining to do for ditching Fluttershy, so tell me everything that happened after you left.”

Fluttershy, who was sticking a little too close to Applejack, looked away. “I-it’s fine, she didn’t mean to—”

“Fluttershy, it’s fine,” Rainbow interrupted, looking away. “You don’t have to cover for me on this one. It wasn’t cool of me to just leave you like that, but Mezza was just acting so suspicious!”

“B-but I thought I was getting better!” Fluttershy exclaimed, taking everypony, including Page, by surprise. “I’ve been working so hard at not being a scaredypony, but then I started thinking about dragons and all sorts of nasty meanies like that and—”

“Dragons?” Twilight asked, trying to keep Fluttershy from going on. “What made you think of that? Well, either way, don’t worry about it. Honestly, I’ve been scared silly since I woke up. I’m sure even Rainbow Dash gets scared every once in awhile.”

Twilight had a spell on standby to gag Rainbow Dash if she tried to deny it, but it seemed that she wouldn’t need it. Rainbow, seeing the threatening look from Twilight swallowed air before apologizing. “It doesn’t change the fact that I ditched you. And I didn’t even manage to stop—”

“Rainbow,” Twilight sighed, cutting her off anyway, “don’t even think about blaming yourself. We don’t have time for a pity party. You saw Mezza looking nervous, right?”

“Yeah, I tried to talk to her, but she took one look at me and bolted!”

In any other situation, Twilight would have joked about how that was everypony’s reaction, but she kept herself in check. “And you followed, left Fluttershy, and then lost track of Mezza?”

“Yeah. Thanks for rubbing it in.”

“Sorry, but I had to know. Did anypony else see anything strange?”

Pinkie managed to raise a hoof without breaking her stride. “Oh, I did! Rarity got some twigs in her mane and didn’t freak out!”

“W-wait, I have twigs in my—?!”

“Pinkie,” Twilight groaned, unable to muster up enough energy to yell at her. “Something important. Did any of you see Mezza besides Rainbow and Fluttershy?”

Applejack raised a hoof, looking conflicted. “I caught up with her after we started lookin’, but she just shrugged me off like I wasn’t even there. I tried to keep up with her, but she insisted that she was just as right as rain, telling me to head the other way. I... feel like I could’ve done somethin’ about this.”

Twilight, clenching her teeth, watched as Applejack lowered her hat a little bit. “Trust me,” the unicorn whispered, “we all share the blame here. Anypony else see her?”

“Pinkie and I did,” Rarity mused, looking pensive. “You see, there was some movement in the bushes, and, you see, I thought that it could be a monster, but Pinkie—”

“I jumped in and tackled her to the ground! Wham! But then it turned out it was just Mezza, so I—”

“Pinkie, let me tell the story. You see, she was spying on us for some reason, but when we asked her why she was sneaking around like that, she gave us your message, Twilight. You see—”

“Woah, hold on,” Twilight interrupted, raising an eyebrow. “What message?”

“Why... to split up, of course.”

“What?!” Twilight shrieked, nearly stopping their little parade in its tracks. “I never said that! That doesn’t even make any sense! Why in Equestria would Mezza lie about that?”

Pinkie, looking as serious as a poofy-maned pink pony could manage, pursed her lips and continued walking, dragging everypony along at her measured pace. “Well, there’s a couple options here. Either she wanted us to cover more ground more quickly, which I highly doubt, or she wanted to make sure that nopony was following her.”

Twilight was about to ask why, but Applejack jumped in first. “I think I know why,” she offered. “She probably knew where the entrance was and wanted to get there first.”

“That’s possible,” Pinkie posited, frowning, “but not likely. We’re on our way to the entrance right now, assuming Page got the right place, so why would Mezza have been way back there if she was trying to get here first? There's also the fact that this Dolce character purposefully left us some valuable information about her and—”

“We’ll answer those question later,” came an authoritative shout from the front of the pack. “We’re here.”

Twilight turned back around to see that Page stopped in front of a sheer cliff face with a path of sticks leading right into the middle of it. It wasn’t as large as some of the other cliffs in the Everfree Forest, but this one was overgrown with a combination of vines and bushes.

“I told you I wasn’t making things up,” Page announced dryly, pushing some of the vines aside and revealing what appeared to be the entrance to a small cave.

“It’s just a cave,” Rainbow called out, flying over to the entrance and taking a quick peek inside. Based on the lack of reaction, Twilight assumed that she didn't see anything. “I’d bet you bucks to bits that there’s at least one hundred caves in this forest, so don’t get your hopes up.”

“No, this is it,” Page argued haughtily, “you just haven’t gone far enough in. Take a look.”

It was obvious that Rainbow wasn’t as eager as she was pretending to be, but she swallowed her pride and dove in. “What am I supposed to be—Woah!”

“Rainbow!” Twilight shouted, joined by a chorus of her friends. Immediately assuming the worst, she lead the charge past the wall of vines, hooves clattering loudly behind her as they plunged into the darkness ahead. Almost as soon as they entered the cave, Twilight skidded to a stop, catching a small light out of the corner of her eye.

There, about five feet further into the cave, a hazy stream of light fell from above. Compared to the utter blackness of the area around them, the meager light that made it through the canopy of the Everfree Forest was dazzlingly brilliant, accentuated by the few flecks of dust that sparkled in it. From what Twilight could guess, there was a hole in the roof where a small amount of light somehow seeped in, illuminating the object below it in an otherworldly aura.

As soon as Twilight saw what it was, she knew why Page had been so confident. There was no doubt that this was the entrance to Eccondale, not after seeing this. There were only two places that had this familiar statue, one with two pegasi flying side by side in perfect symmetry. One was Everdale... and they had just found the other one.

There was only one problem: one of the pegasi's heads had been broken off, giving Twilight the distinct feeling that they weren’t going to get a very warm welcome in Eccondale.