Cutie Marks have disappeared
Chapter 1
Some pony is back.
It was a beautiful day in Ponyville. Every pony did what they are usually doing every day.
Twilight Sparkle was at the library searching for some old books that she had not read in years. Spike was busy looking at his muscles on the mirror in the backroom.
"Looking good Spike, and all this work in a one week. Now I am finally so strong that I can lift Rarity up with only one arm."
"Spike!!!" - Twilight Shouted.
“Well, maybe not”, said Spike as he went to see what Twilight wanted from him
"Spike! Can you come over here? I need to find..."
“The book of Evil Curses?”- Interrupted Spike, while running to Twilight’s bookshelf.
“No, I need to find....”
“Celestia’s Old Fashion Guide?”
“No No No.... sigh* Wait… Did you say Old Fashion?”
“ Yeah, the book that tells all about how to dress like a fancy old lady. It was so boring that I read only the first few words from the first page.”
Twilight and Spike both laughed.
“ Heh Vauh! That book sure looks something…”
“Yeah... So what book did you need?”
“ Well... I was looking for the ‘Daring-Doo: The Lost Magic Words’ storybook. And I can't find it in this bookcase at all. It's supposed to be here.”
“Maybe Rainbow Dash borrowed the book for awhile?”
“No, it can't be possible.... She had read that book for a long time ago. And I know it for sure!”
“Or maybe she loved the book so much, that she decided to keep it for herself.
“Spike, I don't really think Rainbow would steal a book from our library. And in addition, she is a very loyal friend.”
“Well what do you know...Maybe you don't know everything about Rainbow… ”
Suddenly a loud scream came outside the library. "What was that?" asked Twilight and ran to the window to check what was going on. Twilight saw a huge crowd of unicorns standing in line waiting to get inside a very big red tent which had been erected in the ground. One unicorn was coming out of the tent yelling and jumping in joy, carrying a book. Curious about what was going on, Twilight and Spike headed for the tent and noticed a familiar curly haired pony.
“What is going on here, Pinkie?" asked Twilight from Pinkie Pie who was standing in the line.
“Hi Twilight! You never guess who has come to Ponyville?”
“Uuhh... Who...?”
“It's so funny! Trixie is here.”
“Not ‘the great powerful’ Trixie?” - deadpanned Twilight.
“Silly you. She has totally changed. She is selling a book about powerful magic to the unicorns. Can you believe that?”
“Okay? Why are you so interested about magic so suddenly? I mean you don't know anything about magic and you are not even a unicorn.”
“Oh yeah, but I want to read it just for fun. And who knows, maybe I’ll learn something new besides magic.”
“What Pinkie?”
“New cupcake recipes of course!”- said Pinkie with a HUGE grin.
“That's it! I'm going inside that tent and see what’s all this fuzz about. Please step aside every pony." Twilight began to run through the line with a determined expression on her face. Spike run after Twilight and shouted "Hey Twilight slow down, wait for me." When Twilight arrived to the tent entrance, she discovered that every pony leaving the tent had a book named “Powerful Trixie Magic” and everyone was happily talking about Trixie’s new look and change in attitude. Twilight walked in slowly and watched what it looked like inside. She saw the line of unicorns leading to a counter with Trixie signing and handing books. What surprised Twilight was Trixie's appearance and overall demeanor.
Trixie had a black hat with one red feather and Trixie powers text signed logo in the front of the hat. She was sitting a front of an purple colored table with lots of books where her face was printed on the front cover of the book. She was smiling with a magic wand in her teeth. Trixie herself had a serene look in her eyes and was flashing a big smile. Not the smug kind she had the last time, but more sweet kind.
Behind Trixie was a poster of her standing in front of a black background printed with large font text "Trust my magic!" After giving away another book, Trixie noticed Twilight.
“Well looks who's here! Isn't it Twilight Sparkle and her purple assistant Spikey-Wikey?”- said Trixie.
“Yes and you are the selfish not so powerful Trixie. I can see that you haven't changed a bit of the last time I saw you. What are you planning now here in Ponyville?”
“Oh please! I have really changed. And look, I am selling books now. And every bits are going to charities for helping the sick poor little fillies in Canterlot.”
“Well I don’t believe you. Hard to believe that”
“Take a look at the book then, before you start to judge me.”
Using her magic, Twilight took one of the books in the counter.
“Blackhoof Press Brothers?”
“Yes it is the book publisher that pressed all those fancy papers in that hardcover book.”
“I have never heard of that company before!” - said Spike curiously.
Twilight browsed the pages one by one slowly for herself and was surprised by all the mysterious magic that was printed in the pages. All magic she saw seemed useful.
“Where did you get all these magic spells?
“You think I am some kind of thief do you? I have done a lot of research for many exhausting months.
“Sure you did.” - Said Twilight irritably.
“Oh so you think I’m lying now?”
“I know you are lying because you have lied before, remember?”
Twilight was very angry now and Spike tried to calm her down. Trixie stayed tranquil. They stared each other long and quiet, until Trixie broke the silence.
“You should leave now before I call the guards. And please take this book with you. Maybe you will learn something.”
“Come on Spike, We have to find more evidence and get to the bottom of this.”- said Twilight. She levitated the book for Spike to take and started to walk slowly toward the exit and grumped with an angry face impression.
---
After a little walk away from the tent, Spike decided to break up the silence.
“I don’t know about this Twilight. I mean… I was thinking that what if Trixie really has changed? I mean come on Twilight, she has been gone so long from here. Don’t you think you could have been more careful about what you said to her?”
“No, I don’t say anything before we know a little more about what Trixie is planning. She could have a revenge on us.”
“Hay Twilight! There you are… I have been looking for ya all over the place.”
Applejack ran over to Twilight and was really nervous about something.
“Hi Applejack, is something wrong?” - asked Twilight anxiously.
“There’s something happening at the Apple Acres. Ah need your help!”
“What is it?”
“Ah’ll show it to ya. Come on yall!”- shouted Applejack, who immediately galloped fast back to Apple Acres, with Twilight and Spike right behind her.
They finally arrived and Applejack showed the problem.
“There! Look at the apple trees!”
Applejack pointed to the trees with dead leaves and black apples. Most of trees were like this, with a few healthy ones, although couple of healthy trees appeared to be slowly turning into one of the “dead trees”
“......Interesting”- said Twilight, while observing the phenomenon.
“Do you know what it is?”- asked Spike curiously
“I’m not sure.”
Twilight went to inspect one of the trees. She studied the leaves, which looked like they had been on fire. Looking at the apples, she grabbed one of them. The apple was pitch black with few brown little spots. She took a bite and immediately spit it out.
“What did it taste like? – asked Spike.
Twilight answered with the bitter taste still in her mouth and serious look on her face
“Sour and lifeless. I think there might be something about this in books. Let’s head back to my library, Spike. Applejack, you stay here and collect the apples from the healthy trees as fast I can.”
“Have ya figured out something?” – asked nervous Applejack.
“Possibly, but I need to be sure.”
Twilight and Spike immediately left to find the answers, while Applejack started bucking the normal trees as fast she could to save apples.
When they finally got to the library Spike jumped off from Twilight’s back and started to run towards the bookshelves and started his search.
- Okay so let’s see... Magic is friendship? No... How to make artificially babies? Definitely not that one... Aha... The Legends of Forgotten Unicorn Magic.
- Spike, aren’t you supposed to keep order in here? I mean it’s very difficult to find anything when all books are in random places.
- Oh yeah, but you are always the one who misplaces the books after reading them.
Twilight sighed to herself and came closer to the book Spike had found. She took the book from spikes hands, and began to browse the book from page to page.
- Aha! Looks like it’s some sort of very old evil powerful magic that has caused all this.
- Can you reverse it Twilight?
- Hmm… The book says it can do much more than just change apples to dead black. It can cause more chaos? This magical spell has a connection so that the good spells would work.
- So this is some sort of a side effect?
- Not exactly Spike. According to this book, you have to do something bad that allows the good magic to be used.
- Do you think Trixie has something to do with this?
- It’s lightly possible, but we need to gather more information before jumping to any conclusions.
- Right... So are you now finally starting to collect information about how to stop apples from
dying before we have Dead Apple Acres instead? We don’t have much time.
- Yes… you are absolutely right.
After Twilight had read the pages she was stunned that the book didn’t have any information about reversing the spell.
Then she found something she didn’t notice the first time. One page was missing.
- Spike? Here is a page missing. It looks like someone has torn the page away from this book. Did something
happen that could have caused this?
Spike suddenly remembered something and became nervous.
- Well… now that I think about it…. when I was checking the books the other day, Rainbow Dash came and pulled another one of her pranks. I was holding a book wide open and accidently blew fire on one of the pages. Sorry….
Solemnly Twilight answered
- *sigh* Perfect… What else could go wrong now? Wait…. That’s it. We just write a letter to the princess. She must have gotten the page when you accidently sent it away. Spike, write a letter please.
- Sure thing Twilight.
Dear Princess Celestia!
Have you received any book pages lately from Spike? We have a big problem here in Ponyville. Apples are turning dead black in Apple Acres and we need to find a spell to fix this. We think that missing page would have some answers. We hope you answer as quickly as possible.
Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle
PS: Do you know anything about a book company named: Black hoof Press Brothers?
- You can send it Spike, now we just have to wait for her to answer.
- Yeah, like forever. I’m hungry Twilight.
- Ah Spike, we have plenty of food here. Just take a look at the fridge.
- Yeah, But there are no apples.
Spike said sadly, while he slowly was walking away. Twilight just laughed at that sentence but changed to serious expression very fast and started to walk around impatiently. Meanwhile Spike took a bite of a banana and mumbled something for himself.
It did not take long time before Princess Celestia’s letter arrived. Twilight ran to Spike and immediately started to read.
Dear faithful student! I have not received any missing pages.
You should probably take better care of your library books.
Greetings from Princess Celestia
- BETTER CARE? Doesn’t she trust me anymore? And it’s your fault not mine.
- That’s strange. If Princess Celestia doesn’t know anything about the page, where could it be then?
- Hmm…. so what are we missing? There must be something we can do… Let’s go back to Apple Acres.
The duo immediately went off to start the plan.
Rainbow Dash came to see Apple Jack in the late afternoon.
- Hi Apple Jack! what’s up?
Rainbow Dash looked at one of the apple trees and curiously tasted one of the apples with her teeth. She immediately spitted out and looked at Aj with a little angry face.
- What the hay? Heh… did you forget to buck the apples in time or what? They really taste worse than rainbows.
- No Rainbow, They’re all just like this.
- Okay? Well… is there any other ways than just buck them all? I mean… Have you asked Twilight for help?
Maybe she knows spells or two to fix this?
- Yeah... She’s at the library and trying to read her books about this magical issue. ugh… this is
really getting to my nerves now.
- Okay... Let me handle this. I think this Pegasus knows what to do here.
- Oh Really?
- Yeah… I’m going to use my super duper awesome tornado powers. And then, all the apples are
gonna fall like so fast.
- Come on ya… show then what ya go for.
Rainbow dash took her position, stretched out her wings and took a little spin on the air in front of one of the trees, but then something strange happened. She could not make her flying skills powerful enough to make a drying tornado that would blow the wind hard right through the apple leaves.
- What in Equestria? I can’t use my wings?
Apple Jack started to laugh at Rainbow Dash.
- Ya forgot to practice all right.
- No, I mean… this feels kind of… different. I have never felt like this before?
- Except that time when we were at that Discord’s complex trap yards?
- Yeah… but this is much worse. I can’t do my tricks again.
Right when Rainbow Dash had talked her sentence, every apple at the apple acres was blacked out. They could smell and even hear the buzzing magical forces going through every apple nearby.
- Oh no! And now all the apples are lost.
- Looks like some pony is using her worthless time to save deadly apples.
Apple Jack and Rainbow Dash turned their head back and saw a stallion they never seen before. He was a green pony with a purple white striped tail and mane. He was wearing brown hugely round glasses.
- Who the hay are you?
Asked Rainbow Dash very irritated.
. Oh sorry, did I forget to introduce myself? My name is Mr. Green Hoof. Don’t ask me where I got my silly name.
- Mr. what now?
- Mr. Green hoof please. Don’t make fun of me. I can’t tolerate the word FUN in the dictionary.
- So Mr. umm… Green hoof? What’s your business?
- Oh! You are actually asking me this? Well… Certainly I’m not going to tell you about myself. But if you
really want to know me… Why don’t you ask Ms. Trixie?
- Trixie? You mean the powerless Trixie?
- Powerless? Oh no she is not powerless. she is very powerful. And you know what? I could
make you suffer in pain, just with one single spell. That’s right I’m going to send you to my dungeons.
- Now listen you tough guy, go play around with some other pony with your own size. We are not scared of you.
- Well. Do you want to find out what I’m capable of?
- Really funny.
Before anything could really start to happen, Twilight Sparkle came running with full speed to Apple Jack. She had a very worried look.
- Listen Apple Jack, I think I know now how to reverse the spell… What? Wait who is that green pony over there?
- Well is it Twilight Sparkle? In that case I will spare you and your friends for now. But be aware... I’m not finished with you.
After that, he immediately used his magic to teleport himself out of sight. Rainbow dash had his angry mode on, and she was really pissed off about that green pony. He took some desperate nervous hoof steps and looked like she would attack any pony who would dare to step her/his hoof in front of her. Apple Jack said some words to calm down the Pegasus while Twilight tried to ask as many questions as she could. Who was this green pony? What did he mean about sparing them when Twilight came back? What was his connection with Trixie?
- We don’t know Twily. He’s name was something green… was it Green Hoof?
- Green Hoof?
- Yeah... That green mud has no chance against me. What does he think he is?
- Calm down ya. Now what do we do with all the apples?
- We need to gather all ponies and have them bring Trixie’s magic books. Trixie may be connected to all of this,
so we may have to dispose of the books and track down this Black Hoof Press Brothers company.
- But how? There are maybe hundreds of ponies, reading that book right now? And they may not give their
books away so easily.
- Well, we just have to try no matter how difficult it may end up being.