Chapter 10: Hunting for Answers

Big Mac snapped awake under the tree, laying flat on his back for some unknown reason. Looking around he knew what he had just seen was a dream, but it was going to be the last. Big Mac was done with the weird dreams he's been getting lately, and he was done with all of the creepy things he's been running into. As Big Mac stood up he felt something in his ear catch on the grass, and when he moved his hoof to look at it he felt something metal. After fidgeting around for a moment he managed to pull it out...

"My pa's wedding ring?" Big Mac asked slowly as he turned the ring around in his hooves, eyeing it closely. How did this get in his ear? It wasn't there when he woke up in the morning, nor did he head down to the china cabinet to put it in this morning...

Getting out of bed he made his way towards the dresser, where a small wooden box sat. Opening it up he found his wedding ring and put it in before heading out for work.

"Oh you have got to be buckin' me," Big Mac complained, the memory making him want to facehoof hard enough to knock himself unconscious. Thankfully he remembered that he had a ring in his hoof, so he managed to avoid a trip to Ponyville Hospital. Not quite knowing what to do with it he put the ring in his yoke for safekeeping rather than making his way all the way up to the house to put it away. Right now he had more important things to do, all of them being finding Pinkie and getting to the bottom of all this nonsense.

Arriving in Ponyville Big Mac could tell that finding Pinkie was going to be a pain, just by judging by all the ponies that were milling about, so he had to narrow his search to three specific places. Sugarcube Corner, Twilight's Library, or somewhere near Rainbow Dash. For any other pony he would add Rarity's boutique to the list, but Pinkie hasn't been allowed in there since she accidentally replaced Rarity's pink string with cotton candy. Using his powers of deduction Big Mac decided that somewhere near Rainbow might be a good place to start considering most of the time he saw Pinkie she was bothering Rainbow Dash.

Making his way towards Rainbow's cloud house he saw the rainbow colored tail hanging down off a low flying cloud that was lazily drifting around. At first it seemed like he wouldn't be able to get Rainbow's attention, but the mare happened to look over the edge of the cloud just as Big Mac decided to head home.

"Hey Mac, what are you doing all the way out here?!" Rainbow shouted, getting his attention, "The farm's that-a-way!" Big Mac looked back to see Rainbow accurately pointing towards the farm, a slight smirk sitting on her face.

"Have you seen Pinkie Pie recently?!" Big Mac shouted back up, hoping Rainbow would give him accurate directions, but her suspicious glare made him worry. Was Rainbow in on whatever was going on too? Before anymore thoughts could come to the front of Big Mac's mind Rainbow spoke up.

"Why do you need to find Pinkie?" Rainbow asked, using her wings to lower the cloud down so she didn't throw out her vocal cords trying to talk with Mac. He was a little surprised that Rainbow was being so secretive about all this, especially since it didn't concern her at all, or so Mac thought. For all he knew the situation was only as big as him and Pinkie, but in reality, it involved most, if not all of Ponyville, possibly even Equestria.

"Well, I've been having weird dreams and such, all of them having to with her, so I was hoping to talk with her about it," Mac answered honestly, a simple smile creeping across his face as he hoped it would make Rainbow want to tell him. Rainbow watched him carefully before shrugging and being just as honest with him.

"I got no clue in the moon where that crazy pinkie mare is, but you should go check with Twilight," Rainbow said lazily before she pushed the cloud she was on back up to where it had been when Mac arrived, her blue flank quickly plopping down into it as she tried to take another nap. Shrugging it off Mac decided to listen to Rainbow's advice and head to the library, where hopefully the smartest mare in the entire town, who happened to be a princess, would know where the pink menace was.

"Twilight, you here?" Big Mac asked as he slowly pushed open the library doors, barely dodging a book that went whizzing past his snout. The flying book caught his interest, and with one look he could tell what was going on.

"Can't talk!" Twilight shouted from the middle of the library, her Alicorn power coming in handy as she slotted books into the selves at lightning fast speeds, "Monthly reorganizing of the library!" Big Mac watched in awe as Twilight used her magic to control the path of over a thousand books at once, putting them into the correct places based off the organizing system she had created when she came to Ponyville. Twilight hadn't come up with a name for it yet, but she did say it was miles above the Hoovesy Decimal System that most libraries used in Equestria.

"I can see that," Big Mac said as a collection of non-fiction books shot past him, one of them coming so close that it actually nicked his mane a bit, "When you're done with that do you think you could help me fine Pinkie Pi-"

*SMASH, THUD, CRASH*

Every single book Twilight had been controlling sudden felt the laws of gravity and momentum take over as each one either fell to the ground or shot across the room at unbelievable speeds. One said book was flying towards Twilight, but in her stunned state she failed to notice it in time, allowing the book to impale itself on her horn.

"What do you need Pinkie Pie for?!" Twilight asked quickly, paying absolutely no attention to the Encyclopedia of Transportation Magics that was stuck onto her horn.

"I just want to talk to her, that's all," Big Mac said cautiously, knowing the crazed look that Twilight had all too well. Last time she had that look he ended up going bananas over her old doll, which he still kept to this day because of the lingering effects of the spell, coupled with how adorably s-

"Everything okay Mac, you look like you've seen a ghost?" Twilight asked, taking notice to Mac's eyes suddenly shooting open.

"Eeyup, just remembered something I rather I hadn't," Mac said, shaking his head so the image of Smarty Pants would get out of his mind, "Now, about why I came here?" Twilight stared blankly at him for a moment before she remembered why he had shown up, which was also why she had one of her favorite books stuck to her face. She thought for a few minutes as she put all the books back into piles, a large frown showing up on her face when she saw that one of the books had smashed the glass container that the Elements of Harmony sat in.

"...Last I saw her she was heading towards the bakery..." Twilight said absently as she stared at the Elements, the bittersweet memory of the mistake that somehow created this situation, and made her into an Alicorn Princess to boot. Twilight seemed lost in thought so Big Mac left her alone, trotting out of the library quietly and making his way towards the bakery, hoping that Twilight's information was correct.

"Why hello dearie, what brings you here today?" Mrs. Cake asked, knowing that it was fairly rare for Big Mac to saunter into town for no real reason.

"Is Pinkie here?" Big Mac asked, getting straight to the point. Mrs. Cake seemed a bit flustered by his question but she was still happy to answer him considering she knew he wouldn't do anything to hurt Pinkie. She actually thought that Pinkie might enjoy the company, as well as the help she would get with the twins wanting to use her as a moving jungle gym at the moment. After Mrs. Cake pointed him upstairs Big Mac made his way up the stairs, finding Pinkie half way through her bedroom door with the twins climbing all over her.

"B-Big Mac what are you doing here?!" Pinkie asked quickly, startled by the red stallion's sudden appearance.

"I was hoping we could talk about something..." Big Mac said, his nerves finally catching up with him. What if she hadn't been having the same dreams? What if he was just going crazy? What if this was another of his sister and her friend's crazy schemes? What if-

"Oh, that..." Pinkie said, her hair deflating slightly. She was just as, or possibly more, nervous as he was, she just wasn't as good at hiding it. While he remained stoic and seemingly calm Pinkie's heart rate began to rise and she began breathing so fast that she was almost panting for air while her nervousness began to grow. Big Mac patiently waited for her to calm back down before pressing the matter even more, afraid that if he did she might have a heart attack or seizure just based on how she was acting. The twins seemed to notice that something was off as well, so the two of them hopped off of her and headed for their room so they could play with their toys.

"So..." Big Mac stated once he thought Pinkie was calm enough.

"So..." Pinkie echoed, not knowing what she was supposed to say in this kind of situation. The two of them just stood where they were and looked at the floor, neither of them daring to look up at each other until the other made a move to advance the conversation. Sadly, neither of them did anything until Mrs. Cake came upstairs to use the bathroom.

"If you two need a private place to talk just head into our bedroom over there, it's the most private place in the house," Mrs. Cake said with a smile, her interjection making both Mac and Pinkie stir as they realized that it might be a good idea to get somewhere a bit more private so they could really talk it all out. In no time at all the two of them were sitting down on the edge of Mr. and Mrs. Cake's bed, still silent until Pinkie decided to say something.

"I'm guessing you want an explanation for all this, huh?" Pinkie asked, still refusing to look at Mac.

"Eeyup" he replied, which made a small smile slip across Pinkie's lips.

"Ok, now... Where should I begin?" Pinkie asked herself out loud, allowing Big Mac to give her a response, although she wasn't really asking for one.

"The beginning would be nice," Mac said, sounding like more of a smart ass than he had intended, but it still got the job done. Once Pinkie had composed herself and figured out what needed to be said, she began to speak.

"So a little while ago Twilight got a new spell..."