Chapter 2: The Troubles Begin

The next day began like any normal day. Ponies woke up, ate their breakfast, and then they headed off towards their various jobs. There was nothing at all in the sky that suggested that very strange and unfortunate things would soon be happening all across town. Gilda and Rainbow Dash woke up inside their cloud castle and after a light breakfast, they went off towards their jobs. Rainbow Dash had some cloud clearing to do while Gilda had to train her students at the local gym. After a couple hours of hard work, their work shifts ended and they walked with each other and talked. Rainbow Dash and Gilda chatted about new stunts that they were trying to make and they joked about whatever they felt like. All of a sudden a terrified scream pierced the air. Gilda and Rainbow Dash flew towards the noise and arrived at Carousel Boutique.

The boutique looked normal. The door wasn't broken open and the windows were all intact. The only thing that stood out was their friend Rarity. The white unicorn was laying on the floor and trembling. She looked scared for her life. This was not something that the two friends were used to seeing.

"Rarity what's going on?" Rainbow Dash asked urgently as she quickly approached the unicorn and placed a foreleg around her in an attempt to calm her down.

"Are you okay?" Gilda asked at the same time as her eyes searched the room for thieves or other dangerous types.

Rarity whimpered in fear and pointed to her stockroom. The pegasus and the griffon ran towards the room, entered it, and their jaws dropped in shock at what they saw. The room was a complete mess. There were torn pieces of fabric lying around. A shelf had been roughly snapped in half. A good amount of fabrics, threads, and equipment had been stolen right from the room. But the one thing that stood out more than anything else in the room was a mark that was carved into the back wall.

The mark was a very strange and curious sight. It had depicted three distinct shapes that were surrounded by a circle and separated by three lines that stopped short of the center. One of the marks was the shape of a fist. Another mark was in the shape of a book. The third of the symbols took the form of a flame. In the very center of the circle there was an stranger marking. This one was a small circle that was surrounded by an oval and had a vertical line going down the middle. Rainbow Dash was completely baffled at what she was looking at.

"Did you see where they went?" Rainbow Dash asked Rarity. "Whoever they are?"

Rarity shook her head and held back her tears.

"Don't worry Rarity." Rainbow Dash said reassuringly. "We'll find who did this. Right G? Uhhh G?"

Rainbow Dash turned around and saw that Gilda was nowhere in sight. One moment she had been standing right next to Rainbow Dash in the stockroom and now she had completely vanished from the boutique. There wasn't a trace of the griffon anywhere in the building.

"That's weird." Rainbow Dash mumbled. "Where'd she run off to?"

Rarity didn't know where the griffon had gone. She was too concerned with the state of her own boutique. Rainbow Dash bid her farewell and headed off to find her friend. She spotted Gilda hanging around the town square looking rather nervous. Rainbow Dash frowned slightly as she approached her friend.

"Hey G." she began. "Why'd ya run off like that?"

"Huh?" Gilda asked in a distracted tone. "Oh hey Dash. I coulda sworn I told ya I was gonna look for whoever robbed Rarity's place. Didn't you hear me?"

Rainbow Dash shook her rainbow maned head. She had heard nothing of the sort. She wanted to talk to Gilda about her behavior but she could already tell that she would get no answers from the griffon. The duo walked onwards in silence until they heard another yell. In an instant, both the pegasus and the griffon took off towards the source of the commotion. This time they had been drawn to Sweet Apple Acres. Next to the barn they saw an extremely disgruntled looking Applejack. The cowgirl was pacing about and muttering angrily to herself.

"Ah can't believe it." Applejack grumbled furiously as she continued her pacing.

"AJ what's wrong?" Rainbow Dash asked in a concerned tone.

"Some no good pony stole all the apples in this farm." Applejack replied hotly. "When Ah get my hooves on them."

Rainbow Dash noticed that the strange mark from before had been carved into the side of the barn. Applejack said that she had no clue what the mark meant since she had never seen it before. Rainbow Dash tried to point out the symbol to Gilda but the griffon had vanished once again. There was no sign of her anywhere on the farm. Rainbow Dash was definitely getting very curious and a bit annoyed by her best friend's odd behavior. After assuring Applejack that she would catch the thief, Rainbow Dash flew off into Ponyville to find Gilda again.

It took a little while but soon enough Rainbow Dash managed to find her best friend Gilda. The brown and white griffon had seemed even more distracted and nervous than she did before. Rainbow Dash wanted to talk to her but she felt it best to protect Gilda's privacy. She didn't want to get Gilda angry or anything. The two friends walked on until they saw Lightning Dust. The daredevil flier was covered in ash and she had an extremely angry look on her face. The two fliers quickly approached their friend to find out what had happened.

"Lightning what the hay happened to you?" Rainbow Dash asked her friend in amazement.

"Some haybrains messed with my cannon." Lightning Dust said angrily. "Instead of launching me sky high, the thing just exploded. They left this next to it." She tossed down a plank of wood that bore the same exact mark as the barn at Sweet Apple Acres and the stockroom at Carousel Boutique. Mumbling darkly to herself about what she'd do if she found whoever messed with her cannon, Lightning Dust stormed away in rage. Rainbow Dash tried to point out the mark on the wood to Gilda, but the griffon didn't pay attention. She hastily pointed out SugarCube Corner and then she suggested that they should stop by to see Pinkie Pie and have a bite to eat.

The pegasus nodded in agreement. While she was concerned about her best friend's curious behavior, Rainbow Dash was starting to get a little bit hungry. The two friends headed towards their destination. When Rainbow Dash and Gilda entered the bakery, they immediately ducked for cover. Pinkie Pie was standing on a table and she was angrily hurling cupcakes at them. The pink pony had an unusually angry look on her normally cheerful face.

"Stay back you big meanies!" she shouted. "You're not stealing anything else from me!"

"Pinkie relax it's just us!" Rainbow Dash yelled as she dodged past the flying pastries. She might have been hungry for some cupcakes but she preferred to feed herself.

Pinkie Pie calmed down a bit. Well at the very least she stopped bombarding the duo with cupcakes. She said that somepony had broken into the stockroom of the bakery and stolen some of the bakery's most delicious frosting. The pink pony led the way into the stockroom and just like every incident before, the symbols were at this scene too. They had been smeared onto the wall with frosting. Rainbow Dash tried to point this out to Gilda but the griffon didn't seem to want to listen. Rainbow Dash was starting to get irritated at her best friend. Why was she making up these excuses to not talk about the mark? The duo left the bakery and before Rainbow Dash could open her mouth to talk to Gilda, they heard another scream of terror.

Quick as a flash, they followed the frightened screams until they arrived at Fluttershy's cottage. The timid yellow pegasus pony was cowering in fear. When she saw her friends she silently pointed towards her chicken coop. The chickens were squawking and raising a ruckus. It took no time for the duo to figure out why they were acting this way. All of the eggs had been stolen and once again the mark had been left here too. This time it had been left behind with chicken feathers that had been poked into the side of the coop. Rainbow Dash gently assured her friend that they'd find out who stole the eggs and they'd bring the eggs back safe and sound. Gilda had once again vanished from sight and Rainbow Dash was now beyond annoyed. She was getting pretty angry.

The rainbow maned pegasus tried to talk to Gilda but the griffon ignored her. Rainbow Dash was not used to being ignored by anypony. It was especially odd that it was her best friend that was giving her the silent treatment. Rainbow Dash gave Gilda a very suspicious gaze as the duo walked onwards. Rainbow Dash had decided to talk to Twilight Sparkle. Maybe the alicorn could shed some light on the situation. She did know more about anything than anypony Rainbow Dash knew. Hopefully she would know what the mark meant since Gilda was refusing to talk.

When the duo arrived at Twilight Sparkle's castle they were greeted with a very angry purple alicorn. Twilight Sparkle's gaze of intense anger softened when she realized that it was her friends that had come to her castle. She explained that a number of books had been stolen. When her friends asked if she knew who did it, Twilight Sparkle pointed out a mark on the wall that had been left there with black ink.

"Okay G." Rainbow Dash said fiercely. She was determined to get some answers from her friend. "Just what's going on here? What does this mark mean? And why do you keep disappearing whenever we see it?"

Gilda stuttered for a bit under Rainbow Dash's stern gaze and then she quickly sprinted out of the castle. Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle gazed perplexedly at the spot where the griffon used to be. Then they shrugged it off. Gilda may have been acting extremely oddly but right now they had more important things to deal with. Twilight Sparkle told Rainbow Dash to gather everypony that had been affected by this mark and the pegasus ran off. Within minutes she returned to the castle and she had brought her friends with her.

"Okay everypony." Twilight Sparkle said. "Let's try to figure out what exactly is happening here."