Twilight slept soundly in her room, letting the comfortable covers of her bed warm her through the morning. As she slept, she began to groan and tumble in her bed, jostling and moving the covers around as she began to struggle. Opening her eyes slowly she saw a heartbroken and depressed dragon sitting on her bed, " Spike whats wrong?" Twilight asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Twilight, we got a letter from Celestia." Said spike,holding it in his hand, almost in tears.

"A letter, but what's on it and why are you crying?" Asked Twilight, sitting up in her bed, wiping a tear from his eye.

" It says that...that...we are leaving Ponyville forever." Spike said.

"WHAT!" Twilight yelled.

Speedster studios present

An Alchemy student short story

With permission and love of Hasbro and the great goddess Faust

Equestria's Mirage

"Give me that letter" Twilight yelled, her horn glowing purple as she took the paper from his claws. Her eyes wide with shock as she fumbled around for a light to read. Lighting up a candle, she began to read the letter, her voice trembling as she began to read,

Dear former student.

"Former student?"

I have found your recent studies and achievements to be, in short, lacking. You have failed me at every turn so far and your studies into friendship to be deplorable. You allowed yourself to be beaten, driven mad, and broken too many times to be a proper student

"This doesn't make sense, Celestia KNOWS the reasons for all of the events thats happened to me before. Why would she do this?"

Most troubling are the Mare Do Well incident, the Wedding which you could have stopped if you had given either situation an thought, and the mass murder of several clones. All of which you could have done something about if you were intellegent, but you are not. It appears that I have placed too much faith in you.

" The mare do well...but Me, Dash, and the others already talked about it and made up. There were so many apologies going around after the wedding that I thought we were doing more apologizing than having a good time for a bit and the MURDER? but they're just magical constructs how could she...

Thus you have been found not only to be unworthy of your 'friends' but unworthy of being my student. I have no need of a student who can not take my lessons seriously and will hurt her friends as much as you have. You are hereby ORDERED to return to Canterlot, be dismissed from my teachings, and then be sent away so you will never disgrace my or anypony else's presence EVER again. If you do not arrive by today, I will be sending guards to escort you tomorrow.

" Banished? Dismissed? take...t...taken from my friends?" The letter dropped from Twilight's horn as she sat there in utter shock, " This is...this can't be happening! Spike,come on, we got to tell the others."

"Twilight...I can't" Spike said as he walked to the door, sullen.

"Why not?" Twilight said, looking at spike, eyes wide with shock.

"Because," a smile slowly came across Spike's face as he looked to Twilight, "Celestia found my parents! They created a portal spell for me so I can go home and spend time with them. Can you believe it?!" With that, Spike ran out the door and did not look back.

As she watched her brother run out the door, her leg began to tremble in sorrow as tears filled her eyes. She tried to speak, but no words came to her as she collapsed to the floor on her legs, crying her eyes out.

Wanting to catch up to say her goodbyes, Twilight ran out the door after him. However, as she got outside, she found no one there except for the busy streets of ponyville, " He...he didn't even say 'goodbye'." Twilight lowered her head, some tears rolling down her cheeks.

Somewhere in the streets, an egyptian cat watched and smiled. Its light green eyes shining with the sunlight.

Twilight began to walk through Ponyville in search of her friends. The letter was heavy on her mind, not to mention the loss of a dear friend. She didn't care who it was that told her to leave town, no pony tells her to leave any one of her friends and she was determined to find out why the princess was doing this. After all, Twilight thought, There is no way she would do this for no reason at all. The first thing to do, would be to find her friends and tell them what is going on. As she walked, she saw a blonde pony walking down the street head down, "Applejack!" Yelled Twilight.

"Sorry Sugarcube, can't talk right now..." Applejack said as she walked away from Twilight, a sullen look in her eyes as she got farther away. With her back turned to her friend, she let out a sigh as if she regretted ignoring her " I got to help get Braeburn settled in at home."

"Applejack, this is important I have-" Twilight put a hoof onto AJ's shoulder to stop her, but watched as AJ turned away with a jerk.

"Ah am sorry Twi but Ah cant help you right now," she said, squinting her eyes to hold back tears, "Ah need to help my cousin," and with no sign of turning back, the orange mare began to walk away with her head down.

"But I have to tell...you...that the...," Twilight slowly stopped her news, watching as her friend slowly left her, too far to be heard.

Turning up to a flying sound, she caught a look at a blue pegasus, "Rainbow, I need to tell you something important!"

" Sorry Twi, can't talk. Fluttershy is missing and I have to find her." Said Rainbow Dash as she began to look around in a circle along the sky for a few seconds, keeping her eyes on the ground for any sign of the missing pegasus. Taking the time to land once in a while to look in certain places to see if she missed anything.

" Wait, Fluttershy's missing?" Twilight asked, looking up with an eyebrow arched.

"I don't know. I flew by her home about a half hour ago to get some food for Tank and I found the place empty. I thought she might've gone for a walk...but then I noticed that some of the animals looked hungry, like they haven't been fed in a few days.." Dash said as she begins to look around and then takes off once more to look.

" I'll try to help look for her," Twilight said as she watched the rainbow contrail fly off, " As...soon as I fix my own problems." She then lowered her head as the realization that she will soon be leaving her friends and would be unable to help Fluttershy at al,l began to sink into her mind. Walking to the boutique and the Sugar Cube Corner turned up nothing but locked doors and signs that they would be back tomorrow.

Feeling alone, broken, and without any help she walked slowly to the train station only to encounter a broken down train. 'No trains today' they said, 'some accident involving a rock' they reported. 'It would be fixed in a week,' they stated. 'No way to arrive in Canterlot,' they all told her.

If you do not arrive today, I will send guards, These words passed into Twilight's mind and left her feeling like her world had completely shattered. She felt lost and alone; more important, she felt as if she had been deserted by everything she held faith in.

Somewhere, a brown and sleek cat watched the purple unicorn and smiled. Slinking away slowly, it kept its body close to the shadows. It's brown fur seeming to be black as pitch as it walked away, but not before turning its head over the shoulder to look at Twilight and chuckle to itself.

The next morning, Twilight awoke slowly. She was about to ask for Spike, but then she remembered that Spike had left her and that she would soon have to leave her family behind. Getting out of bed she heard some yelling and fighting outside, "What's going on? Applejack?" Twilight asked as she got out of the library and watched as her friend was being taken away.

" We are arresting this filly for murder is what is going on!" Just facts said as he dragged Applejack away.

"Murder? Who did she..." Before Twilight can finish her question, Applejack answered.

"Braeburn, I killed him last night." Applejack said, looking at Twilight in the eyes, " I had to Twi, I had no choice."

"No choice, but..." Twilight asked looking at Applejack, getting interrupted by the blonde pony.

" Twi, he was drunk...he was going to kill Applebloom. I had to protect her." Applejack said as she was carried away.

Before she could say anything, a loud sound of lighting was heard coming from Sugar Cube corner. Worried she ran to the store and saw, "R...Rainbow?" In front of her, Rainbow dash was standing over Pinkie's charred corpse, panting in rage.

" I...had to do it Twilight, I had..." Rainbow Dash turned away from the fried body of the pink pony as she walked to another part of the store.

"Dash...what happened? Why did you...kill Pinkie?" Twilight asked as she watched Rainbow go to a yellow body on the floor.

" I found Fluttershy." Dash said, picking up the yellow form, holding it close to her. " I cam here to see if Pinkie had seen anything. When I came, I heard a quiet scream and ran to the basement. I saw...I saw PINKIE MURDERING HER! She had her knives in her body, cutting her to ribbons. I...I could only see red as I went to her, demanding why. She came up with some BS about Flutters being evil and trying to turn ponies into babies to fill her sick desires and was trying to save us all. I didn't buy it for a second and fought her. She put up a good fight, for a while. Then I brought in a lightning cloud from outside to finish her flank! She died begging me to understand, I didn't listen." Dash then cradled the dead pegasus in her legs, whimpering while Twilight left the building.

As she walked to where the carriage would be waiting, she could hear noises from the Boutique. Curious, she looked inside and saw Rarity, petting a dead cat and looking like a deranged mare. Twilight could make out the words 'mommy's still pretty, mommy's still pretty' from outside of the window. Slowly she backed away in horror unable to take all of the pain and horror that she has been seeing in the past day in. That was when the carriage came in and then took her away.

Somewhere an egyptian cat watched and smiled her eyes glowing green.

Twilight stood in front of Celestia, listening to everything that she had said and the reasons as to why she was now expelled from her teacher's services. But in reality, her mind was not really there. Her mind was back in Ponyville and what had become of her closest friends. She could only think about what was going on and tried to wrap her mind on what could cause it, " ARE YOU STILL THINKING OF YOUR 'FRIENDS"? Don't you remember how they could abandon you in an instant just when their own goals are in sight. Remember?"

"They did not abandoned me, we talked it over after everything was said and done. They had plans to talk to me after the reception, even if I was wrong. It was their intention all along to apologize to me, talk to me about what had happened, and try to make up for it. They told me, no matter how mad they would get...they would NEVER abandoned me." Twilight said, her mind only on the good times with her friends.

" Such devotion." Celestia said, shaking her head in disapproval. She then began another talking down to Twilight, point out every fault that she had, However, Twilight became distracted by the blue tail of a cat. Following it, she chased the feline down the hall until she came into a room surrounded by glass windows. Watching the cat she noticed that the creature had a moon on its forehead. Watching it closely, she noticed that the cat had pointed its paw to the first of the windows. Twilight looked carefully, " Wait, thats...me, asleep in my bed. And thats, some hand putting us in green orbs and taking us away from our homes. and thats us, asleep in another...This is a dream! THIS ISN'T REAL!" Yelled Twilight as she concetrated her magic into a powerful burst, shattering the orb that she was in.

Waking up slowly, she looked around her surroundings. She saw that she was in a room held aloft by pillars, lit by burning torches. The room was surrounded by strange symbols that shown different stories, of people falling before the power of a cat god, and in the very back of the room was a throne. Draped across the arms was a bipedal creature, who looked at Twilight menacingly, " Well, look who woke up." The creature said as she stood up, she was clothed in a red top and a piece of clothing covering her loins. Walking slowly, her grey fur shone within the darkness. "I want to congratulate you Twilight Sparkle, on being the first one to break out of your nice little nightmare."

"Who are you?" Twilight asked, getting a good look at the feline head that sat on top of the body, noting that she must be a cat-something hybrid.

" The name, is Mirage."

Author note: Oh, quick, who is going to know who this girl is and where she came from?

End chapter 1