Cloud woke up early in the evening, as in Equestria she was always an Early Bird. But today, something was off.
She shook Crunch awake, "Where's Thunder?"
"How would I know?" Crunch groaned, rolling over. The deep blue mare grumbled something and trotted over to Thunder's bed. Then, she had an idea.
Although Cloud couldn't use magic, and had no interest in it, once Thunder had forced the pegusas to take some lessons on it. She had somehow remembered all of it, giving her a wide variety of spells to know of- although she couldn't use them. And she knew who could help her. "Shell!" she whispered into the unicorn-turtle's ear. The mutant pony yawned, but stood up.
"Huh?" Shell Gem blinked.
"I need you to cast a spell for me," the pegusas replied firmly.
Shell gave her a confused look, "OK- but I'm warning you, I'm not too good at magic."
The mares trotted, Cloud in the lead, to where Thunder usually slept. "It's a tracking spell," Cloud noted, "Here's how it works..."
After a few minutes of explaining and a couple of failed attempts, Shell finally got it right. Her aura was cherry red, which was good in Cloud's eyes- the red, glowing trail didn't blend in with the ground. Since Shell was wide awake by now, she pestered the other mare until she finally agreed to let the mutant come. So, there they were, following the red path.
It was taking forever for them to get to Thunder. "So, Shell. you know what I think?" Cloud said to make time go faster.
"What?" Shell replied.
"I think you could be a great magician. I mean, sure, you had a little help from Rarity- but she was never that good at magic herself. You could get a magic cutie mark, like Thunder!" Cloud exclaimed, picking her pace up to a canter. Shell looked down at her blank flank. Although she had a shell, the end was curved just enough to see her whole flank.
"..You think?" Shell replied hopefully.
Cloud would of said 'Of course!' if she hadn't spotted Thunder on top of a building. "Aha!" she said quietly, "There she is!"
"I'll follow from the ground; You fly up and try to get him," Shell planned. Cloud nodded and bolted upwards.
She smiled and said, "Thunder! We've been looking for you!"
The Alicorn looked over, eyes wide. His Alicorn wings unfolded and he dashed away. "Oh, no you don't!" Cloud growled. She was certainly much faster then him- her cutie mark resembled a cloud, because that's what she liked, and a tornado, because she was fast.
The chase was on. She's faster then me- but not on the ground! he thought boldly, landing with a thump and starting to gallop on the now-dark streets. But as he did so, Shell started to chase after him, and Cloud was still coming from the sky.
"Faster!" the Alicorn said to himself absentmindedly. He looked back to see if he had lost them, but he ran into the wall, knocking himself unconscious.
Cloud offered, "I'll carry him back to the layer."
"No," Shell smiled, "I got this."
And with a red spark of the horn, Thunder was lifted into the air. But that's not what Cloud was looking at. "Why are you staring at my flank? I don't like people doing that," Shell said fiercely. But Cloud just pointed to the image that had appeared on Shell Gem's flank. A black-and-white magician's wand.
Rarity and Shell celebrated the latter's cutie mark until Thunder woke up. Then it got serious. Calamity, Harmony, and Cloud were above him. The turtles, Rarity, and the rest of the Elements were surrounding him on the ground.
"There's no escape, Thunder- so don't look for a way out," Calamity warned. Her serious tone didn't match the small smile on her face.
Rarity talked then, "So, Prince Thunder Bright, tell us- Why were you running away?"
Thunder stared at Cloud, and didn't say a word. "He's not gonna talk," Leo sighed.
"He doesn't' have too," Shell said matter-of-factly. She trotted up to Thunder and touched his forehead, right under his horn, with her own. "This is only gonna hurt for a second," she said as her horn glowed red, "This is one of the spells Cloud told me about."
The red aura on her horn glowed bright and both ponies fainted.
"Don't try waking them up," Cloud warned. She understood what Shell had done. "This is all part of the spell."