One morning in Ponyville, Twilight was busy in her new castle, sorting out books given to her by Princess Celestia to replace the ones destroyed by Tirek. She was interrupted by Spike, who arrived with some pony, a unicorn mare, that she didn't recognise.
The mare had medium-dark green fur, along with neatly maintained feathers of the same colour around her golden-brown hooves, and maroon coloured eyes, which had some dark freckles between them. Her wavy mane was a dirty yellow, with a fringe extending to just above her eyes, and was plaited behind her ears. A small deep blue headband separated the plait from the fringe. The mare's tail was also plaited, alternating between the dirty yellow of her mane and streaks of light blue. On the mare's flank was a bronze hexagon, with a line in the lower half of the hexagon parallel to the two bottom edges. A banner with a star in the middle of it covered the lower edges of the hexagon. The mare carried a brown saddlebag, contents indeterminable by the thickness of the fabric and the closed flap, and wore a wooden necklace that depicted a creature with the front half of a pony, including the forelegs, and the tail of a fish.
"Twilight, this is Kimberly. She said it was urgent," said Spike.
Kimberly bowed before speaking.
"Princess Twilight, I have come from Poniton, near the northern border with the Frozen Wastes. We need your help urgently." said Kimberly, in a South Welsh accent.
"Please don't bow to me. What do you need help with?" inquired Twilight.
"Ponies are disappearing, and those that remain are starting to panic. We have no idea why ponies are disappearing, or where they are going."
"Strange. The map hasn't done anything different recently."
Kimberly gave Twilight a look that said her map could be shoved somewhere that the sun didn't shine.
"I'll get the girls to help."
"Thank you."
Twilight already had her reservations about Kimberly, as the latter had a slight distortion of her voice, although she decided that these reservations could wait until they had resolved the problem in Poniton. Twilight told Kimberly to stay at her castle door while she gathered her friends.
When Twilight returned with her friends about half an hour afterwards, Twilight's friends introduced themselves to Kimberly. This involved Pinkie being her typical over-the-top self, making Kimberly shy away from her, although the others were more reserved and introduced themselves in a much more rational way. Twilight asked Kimberly what would be the best way to reach Poniton, and the latter replied that she had walked to Canterbury, which was the nearest place to Poniton with a station, and caught the train.
The group trotted off to the Ponyville station and had to wait about a quarter of an hour before a train heading northwards arrived. During this time, Twilight asked Kimberly about her cutie mark.
"I'm a Bronze League Heroine – the very best of the very worst. I can do quite a lot of things, but they tend to be done badly, go wrong, or in a way that is fascinating to watch because everything is done in an unusual way. Those that don't go wrong or aren't done badly, I stick to doing." replied the mare.
Twilight diverted the conversation elsewhere.
"You told me why you want us in Poniton. Do you have any more information about... the issues there?" asked Twilight.
"I'm sorry, but I don't. I told you all that I could about them."
Most of the others had better things to do than look for something with limited information, and Rainbow Dash, in particular, was frustrated. After a few insistent questions, Kimberly began to ignore the pegasus.
When the train arrived, the group boarded.
After several transfers along the way, they arrived in Canterbury in the late afternoon, and Kimberly began to lead the way to Poniton. From the brief look that they had, the Mane Six thought that Canterbury was about the same size as Manehatten, but had a similar architectural design as Canterlot.
In the early evening, the group stopped by a lake and stream, with the idea of reaching Poniton the following day, after they had been refreshed by a night's sleep. The lake had a small area of short grass around it, with a much larger area by the path where the group could sleep. There were several species of flowers dotted around the grassland, and various weeds were littered around the banks of the lake. Around the grassland was a forest thick enough that no light could be seen through it. A faint smell, like an old bonfire, hung in the air. Kimberly confirmed that they were close to Poniton, but that the town should survive until the following day.
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie went into the lake and started moving around like they were treading water near the bank, with only their heads above the water. Rainbow called out to Twilight, who was standing on the bank, watching them.
"Come on in, Twi, the water's lovely." stated Rainbow Dash.
Twilight decided to dive in, and she did so but didn't realise that the water where she dived in was about a foot deep, so the alicorn ended up with the majority of her midsection and hindquarters sticking out above the water. Pinkie and Rainbow stood up, with water around their hocks, and started laughing. This also got a humorous response from Kimberly, Rarity and Applejack, the former two who smirked and the latter who chuckled. Needless to say, when Twilight had freed her head from the weeds on the lake-bed, she was not particularly happy. This incident attracted something from the deeper part of the lake, as the tail of a large fish appeared above the surface of the water, which made a large splash when it went back under.
"Kim, what was that?" asked Applejack.
"The lake's most notable resident." replied the unicorn.
"Notable? Why?"
"Her species is critically endangered."
"Critically endangered? My goodness. What is she?" murmured Fluttershy.
Kimberly pointed back at the lake, where a body started to form. As it got closer, it became clearer. The front half of a pony, complete with the forelegs, combined the tail of a fish, like the one on Kimberly's pendant. It surfaced, near Twilight. The body was a light turquoise in colour, and had gills and fins near the tail. Along the back was a long, semi-transparent fin. The mane was made up of three colours – yellow, green, and white – and had a small red bow in it. The eyes were a deep green in colour. The neck had a small set of gills on it while there were two small fins on the side of the jaw. The creature spat water out of its mouth, which went into Twilight's face.
"A lakespony! I've never met one before." exclaimed Fluttershy.
"Lakespony?" questioned Rainbow Dash. "Don't you mean seapony?"
"No. Seaponies don't have forelegs. Lakesponies also have gills in different places, and have the most amount of fins out of all the sentient aquatic animals."
"That'th true." said the lakespony, in a Central English accent with a lisp. "And thurfathing for too long can be dangerouth for them while I can thtay thurfathed indefinitely."
"Of course – lakesponies have a small pair of lungs." said Fluttershy, remembering what she had been told about lakesponies.
"But why are you here? Don't you want to live at sea where there's more room to swim about?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"Lakesponies are freshwater animals. She, or more accurately, her gills, wouldn't be able to tolerate the salt." lectured Twilight.
"Why are we discussing her biology before we even know her name?" asked Rarity.
"Exactly." seconded Applejack.
"She's called Water-Lily." stated Kimberly.
Water-Lily began making clicking noises to Kimberly, who, when the lakespony had finished, started clicking back at her. This went on for several minutes before Applejack interjected.
"What is it with this clicking?" questioned the farm pony.
"Thorry. I was athking Kim what you all were doing here, and catching up with what thhe wath doing." replied Water Lily, apologetically.
"Don't you fret none. S'nothing wrong with it, sugarcube."
Water-Lily hoisted herself onto the bank, and flopped over to a sunny patch of ground, and began to sun herself. This made an image of a green laughing sawfish on her side prominent. Rarity quietly asked Kimberly what sort of special talent gave you a sawfish for a cutie mark. The green unicorn replied that lakesponies didn't have cutie marks, but, because of the environment that they live in, they have a mark on their sides for identification. Kimberly called out to Water-Lily.
"Lily, how did you get your sawfish?"
Water-Lily replied that, when she was about five years old, her father took her aside, and told her that, as she had most definitely noticed, lakesponies had an identifying mark, and that she was at the age where she was able to choose hers. Water-Lily asked him how to choose, and he told her to wish for something unique to her to appear on her side. He warned, however, that she could only choose once, and, once chosen, the identifying mark would be impossible to change. Water-Lily, because she was fascinated by the colour green and what she'd heard of sawfish, wished for a laughing green sawfish to appear on her side, and it did, causing Water-Lily to be euphoric for a short time afterwards.
After a little while, the other ponies were in the lake, apart from Rarity and Kimberly, the former who didn't want to ruin her mane or tail, and the latter who stated that she was intensely aqua-phobic, and wouldn't dare go into the lake. This increased Twilight's suspicion surrounding the green unicorn, although she decided not to tell her friends about them.
When the sun was sinking low on the horizon, Water-Lily slid back into the lake with a trail of bubbles coming from her mouth and saying what sounded like "They are the prey, and we are the hunterth!", while the ponies still in the lake at that point got out and dried themselves. While Rainbow Dash and Applejack fetched wood for a fire, Pinkie and Rarity were setting up rather oversized tents and Fluttershy was inspecting the local flora, Twilight took Kimberly to one side, near the tree line.
"Kimberly, something's up. What is it?"
"I'm really concerned about Poniton, and I fear we may be too late."
"We'll be there in the morning, so don't be too concerned."
Twilight understood that Kimberly's concern might have been causing her to behave strangely, but this conversation didn't stop her being suspicious. As Kimberly began to walk away, Twilight cast a spell to enter Kimberly's mind, which was a lot more trouble to cast than it should have been. Kimberly stopped dead instantly.
In Kimberly's mind, Twilight was in a corridor of a large, and very new-looking, industrial building. The walls were white and had several notices on them, one of which seemed to say that it was someone's 50th birthday on the 3rd of March 1981. Near Twilight was a sign with a heading in a language that she couldn't understand with the number three and directions to other parts of Kimberly's mind, including one with the number four leading to an unfinished part of the building. The floor had patterned hexagonal tiles on it, which, when Twilight's mind comprehended the design, depicted long green vines on a brown background, with pink and white flowers on the vines. Two pipes ran along one of the walls, and rectangular lights on the ceiling ran perpendicular to the corridor. At regular intervals along the hallway were red lights. What piqued Twilight's curiosity was the very pale colouring that everything had, although her eyes had already adjusted to it. The red lights began to flash, which made Twilight nervous, before a clinical, and rather disinterested, robotic female voice started to speak over a PA system.
"Priority warning. Perimeter defences bypassed. Security systems are compromised. All units on alert."
As she walked around a corner, Twilight was spotted by a tall white humanoid with glowing red eyes. The brown shirt had four pockets, a high neck collar with orange trim, and orange cuffs, shoulder pads, and trimmed bottom. The trousers, which were also brown, had orange panelling on the sides, and the shoes were dark brown with laces.
"You really shouldn't be here." stated the humanoid in a robotic male voice, and began to advance towards Twilight.
"Logging report to Kimberly and SKALA." the humanoid continued before it grabbed Twilight by the throat.
Twilight started struggling against the humanoid's grip.
"You are becoming hysterical." commented the humanoid, which carried on throttling Twilight.
Twilight continued to struggle, but she was eventually able to loosen the humanoid's grip around her throat to free herself.
"This is futile." the humanoid said.
Twilight quickly left Kimberly's mind and discovered that she had red welts on her neck from the encounter. Kimberly started moving again, walked over to Twilight as she gave her a glare of death, growled that she had lost some of her trust in the princess, and trudged off back to the lakeside.
That night, Twilight had a dream where Princess Luna visited her.
"Twilight Sparkle, something bothers you." stated the lunar princess.
"Yes, it's Kimberly. She just doesn't seem quite right. Something about her is... lacking." replied Twilight.
"I see Kimberly every night: she lies awake on the ground, basking in the moon's light. Go! Talk to her!"
Twilight abruptly awoke and stuck her head out of her tent. At this time of night, the air was pleasantly cool, thanks in part to a light and gentle breeze that was blowing. Crickets were chirping, and Twilight could faintly hear bats and owls making noises in the distance. Twilight left the tent and began looking for Kimberly.
A/N: reviews would be appreciated, as there are some areas in this chapter that I am unhappy with.