Suddenly, in a flash of light, Twilight Sparkle had instantly emerged in front of everyone through the use of her teleportation spell, which came as a surprise to all of her friends. Even though it was unexpected, Fluttershy reacted quickly at the first sight of her friend and swiftly sped over to the unicorn .
"Twilight! I'm so glad you're here! Things have been falling apart without you!" she exclaimed in a panic—no longer showing any of the fortitude and initiative she was before, with the seriousness the others were getting out of Fluttershy now gone from them all.
"Falling apart? I think you might be overreacting to whatever it is you're talking about, Fluttershy."
"But it is! Nopony's found anything good on this whole trip and we haven't learned anything and we've completely messed up this trip and didn't make it as good as you wanted it and—mmph!" went Fluttershy; having been cut short by Twilight, who promptly shoved her hoof over Fluttershy's mouth.
"Fluttershy! Calm down!" she shouted. "You shouldn't get so worked up over things like that!
"I shouldn't?" Fluttershy asked, ceasing her panicking for a moment.
"Of course not! I wouldn't expect you all to enjoy this to the extent that I am—and believe it or not, things hadn't been going so perfectly for me, either."
"Really? I thought out of anypony that you would have found something already."
"...well, I'm not saying I didn't...because I did, and it's certainly an item of great interest!"
"Really??"
"Yah don't say?"
"Is it better than the shield me and Spike found??"
"You'd better believe it!" Twilight responded boastfully.
"Well, let's see it!"
"This better be good..." Rainbow said unenthusiastically.
Twilight proceeded to use her magic to open her saddlebag and remove the cloth bag from within. She then opened the cloth bag and lifted out the green substance—using her magic to float it out so everyone could see it. The response from her friends was less than enthusiastic.
"Oh, how...interesting..."
"Yeah! It's pretty neat whatever it is!"
"That's the big discovery? Some mold??" Rainbow looked peeved, but then gave a hefty sigh of exasperation. "You know, Twilight, it's things like this that show me how much you don't know what's cool and what isn't."
"I agree with Rainbow Dash—for the most part," said Rarity. "It is simply revolting that you would bring such a vile material and actually show it in front of us all. Why would you do such a thing?"
"Calm down, Rarity. I know this appears to be mold, but it is most certainly not."
"Then what is it, Twilight?" asked Spike.
"Well, I examined it closely after I first discovered it on one of the still hanging bridges between two of the sentry posts. I felt its surface and scanned its texture, and this showed me that this matter is definitely not a mold of any sorts."
"Fantastic, so it's not mold. That still doesn't mean it's a great discovery!" Rainbow Dash shouted irately.
"It is to me, as I am also really interested in finding out exactly what type of material this really is," she said as she looked at the substance closely once more.
"Well, I'm not."
"Me neither."
"Well, I'm with you all the way, Twilight!"
"Ah guess ah agree."
"I do, too!"
"I do, too, as well!"
"That's great to hear—at least for most of you. Oh yeah! Another interesting discovery I almost forgot to mention was that this wasn't the only bit of that substance I found—there was a bunch of it scattered all along the bridge! Such a thing makes me speculate that there may be more of this stuff around here..."
"You mean like over there?" Pinkie Pie called out as she pointed towards a nearby collapsed bridged that lay half-buried in the sand. Upon Pinkie's indication of additional matter in close proximity, Twilight hurriedly ran over to the subsided bridge, and, sure enough, saw dozens of splotches of the unknown green matter strewn all across the bridge's remains.
"Yes!" Twilight exclaimed excitedly after inspecting the matter. "This is the same exact substance as I found before! Good eye, Pinkie!"
"Hee hee, thanks! I always thought my eyes were pretty good!" she said, stretching out her eyelid and poking her eye.
"This is going better than I expected! Maybe there's even more of this stuff on the other towers!"
"I think I see some up there, Twilight!" Spike shouted at he pointed up towards the top of one of the wooden posts holding a sentry post up, and everyone could see several varying sized blotches of the unknown material on one side of the post.
"You're right, Spike!" Twilight used her magic to float herself up to the spot Spike had pointed out. "You know, I really wish I had checked over here earlier."
Not long after Spike's discovery was examined by Twilight did Fluttershy unearth an additional amount of the mysterious glop on one of the sentry post bridges that was hanging so precariously from the tower it was attached to. Soon everyone was now doing their part in locating the whereabouts of additional sources of the inexplicable vestige—even Rainbow Dash felt herself unable to stand around doing nothing, and went to assist her friends with their search. Rarity, however, told herself how that she wouldn't be able to keep up with her friends in their scavenger hunt, and elected to withdraw to the interior of the train station and wait out the rest of the trip in comfort—at least, as close to comfort as she could get being in an abandoned building.
The sun drifted through the sky high above Equestria; the hot day had passed by into the peak of the much cooler evening, refreshing the land with calm breezes and the gentle radiance of the oncoming moonlit sky. Twilight and her friends were hard at work all the while, having collected an abundant accumulation of the unidentified matter. It wasn't until after the collection was completed that everyone realized they had no proper containers in which to carry all that they had amassed, unfortunately. This was especially hard on Twilight, who became very upset upon learning this fact.
"Hmph!" A flustered Twilight went as she slumped down on her bottom. "I can't believe I didn't plan for this! Now all of the work we put into collecting these specimens won't amount to anything!"
Rarity yawned as she emerged from the train station. "What's going on? Are we all finished here?"
"Yes, and thanks for your help, by the way," Applejack replied scornfully.
"Oh, come now. You can't expect somepony like me to do this type of manual labor. I'm much more suited to work that's not so...grubby."
"That is so like you," she replied in a nettled tone.
"Yes, yes it is," Rarity replied proudly.
"Just forget it, Applejack. We have something more important to deal with right now," said Rainbow as she pointed towards the irked Twilight.
"Don't feel too bad about this, Twilight," said Spike
"Yeah. Nopony expected to find this stuff when we came here. Especially not so much of it."
"Yes. We should consider ourselves lucky that we were even able to discover something as amazing as this. I mean, we did come out here to learn, after all."
Twilight sighed. "Yes, I suppose you're right, Fluttershy. After all, knowledge is an important thing," she said, with the others agreeing wholeheartedly.
"And besides, you still have that bag with the stuff that you first found before!" Pinkie Pie stated.
"Oh! That's right, Pinkie! In all the excitement I almost forgot!" Twilight retrieved the bag from her saddlebag and checked on her sample which still remained within the small sack. "It's fortunate that we still have this. I mean, something's better than nothing, right?" her friends agreed with this as well. "Precisely. Now I have something to analyze and show to the princess when we get back home."
"Home? Do you mean we're leaving??" Rarity excitedly inquired.
"Yes. I was so excited earlier that I had already told Spike to send out the letter telling Princess Celestia that it was time for our return, so she would know to send the train out to pick us up. It should be along any minute now."
"Boy, you're really eager tuh show the princess what yah found, aren't yah?"
"Yes, I am. I can't wait to show the princess what I've unearthed. Who knows? It might be something never before found in Equestrian history," Twilight gasped. "Maybe I'll be placed in a book for my discovery! Or maybe I'll have my own book all about what I found!" As Twilight grew more and more excited, her ramblings became more aspiring for herself, as she really believed what she found was the finding of the century.
During Twilight's long-winded vocalizations, the train had just arrived at the station to take everyone back to Ponyville. Spike proceeded to push Twilight towards the train—while she was still going on about her great discovery.
"We'd better get her on the train before she bursts."
"Yeah! I don't want Twilight all over me! Yuck!"
After Spike pushed Twilight onboard and the other ponies entered the train as well, the conductor blew the steam whistle to signal their departure. The train rode down the circling tracks and began its journey back to hometown of this group of seven friends. As night befell the land of Equestria, the light from the moon gleamed upon the Equestrian sentry posts: the aged yer still mighty structures that stood the test of time, and will continue to do so for many generations of Equestrians to come.