Nighttime at Fluttershy’s cottage was a quiet affair. Much as she enjoyed peace and tranquility, there was always something to do during the day: some animal that needed tending, a meal to prepare, a trip to Ponyville, or any of a dozen distractions. At night, however, most of the animals were snuggled in their nests, and the ones that were awake during the night, out of respect for their caretaker, only bothered her if it was urgent. Everything was clean and mended, and those few pony friends she had were either fast asleep or, in the case of Twilight Sparkle, buried in a project and uninterested in company.
So it was that Fluttershy slept deeply, covers pulled under her chin, a little smile on her face as she dreamt of peaceful things. There was nothing to wake her, no urgent screech or chirp, no pony knocking at her door, only the faint light of the night sky shining through her window.
Dawn broke significantly ahead of schedule and much faster than usual. It was accompanied by a high-pitched whistling sound that fell in pitch even as it increased in volume. Fluttershy fidgeted in her bed, but she didn’t wake.
When the explosion went off, it threw her out of bed, blankets and all.
It took her a moment to recover from the shock, and a moment more to untangle herself from her bedding and gingerly nose her front door open. The regularly scheduled night had resumed service, but the light of the moon was enough for Fluttershy to almost immediately spot the source of the sound: a shallow crater scarring the earth where a significant portion of her front lawn had been, smoke rising slowly from its center. There was something in the smoke, something about the size of a pony, but more she couldn’t tell.
“Hello?” she called, venturing out of her home, the thought of a possibly injured animal overcoming her natural timidity. “Is anypony hurt?” There was no response, and step by step she ventured closer to the crater, trying to make out what had fallen.
As the smoke thinned, she gasped, “Goodness!”—for what lay in the center of the crater was nothing she’d seen before.
It was a star—a five-pointed star, its color close to her own, its outlines plump and cheerful. Streaked with scorch marks and stained with dirt, it nonetheless looked as nonthreatening a thing as Fluttershy could think of, especially for something that had apparently fallen from the sky and punched a hole in her lawn. Still, she hesitated to approach it, moving one hoof first forward to take a step, then backward to fidget, before finally committing to walking into the crater to examine the star more closely.
It looked ceramic on closer inspection, glazed and shiny where the fall and the landing hadn’t blackened it, and appeared to be a solid thing; Fluttershy could see no seams, nothing protruding from its surface. If not for the violence it had visited on the earth, she would have assumed it was some decoration somepony had carelessly dropped.
Fluttershy held up a hoof again, biting her lip as she gingerly reached out for it, her fear of the unknown almost keeping her from making contact.
Almost, but not quite.
As her hoof touched the surprisingly cool surface with no ill effect, Fluttershy let out a little sigh of relief.
Then her mind burst with imagery, her body going rigid.
The night sky glowed, then exploded, the stars rushing at her with impossible speed, only to be replaced by more stars, hundreds, thousands coming into view before they shot past, buzzing like uncounted angry bees. Then, with a sickening suddenness, she swung around, seeing the stars gathering together into a thing, a shape in the darkness, with a solid center and wispy arms curled around it, something like a sleeping starfish.
The thing stopped growing smaller, then abruptly began growing bigger again, rushing at her—or rather, her rushing at it, stars screaming past her as she traveled faster than she could imagine, her friend Rainbow Dash’s speed immeasurably slow compared to this. Even as she began to slow down, even as one of those millions of stars failed to slide past her but instead became a sun in a black sky, even as a ball of blue came out of nowhere and struck her in the face, she couldn’t understand just how fast and how far she’d gone, her mind paralyzed by the assault.
The impact with the shape plunged her into darkness, and yet she still perceived. A diagram appeared before her, golden lines and curves incredibly dense, then swelled until it seemed greater than all the million stars, for it was a greatness she could comprehend. There were loops and swirls and circles, wheels within wheels, carefully printed symbols interlocking with each other, and all of it danced around a central point of light, humming with every instrument of the orchestra, a sound that only grew in intensity with each passing moment.
Helpless, she fell into the light, into the crescendo—
—and started awake cradled in Rainbow Dash’s grasp, still lying on the ground next to the crater, eyes enormously dilated, the light of the stars dancing in them. Looking at Rainbow Dash without seeing her, Fluttershy spoke words of terrible intensity.
“We have to go to him. He’s so lonely.”
Rainbow Dash could only stare, not understanding what had happened to her friend, fearing the unknown.
M Y L I T T L E P O N Y
W O R L D S B E Y O N D
The Stars Our Destination Part I
Written by Fred M. Sloniker
Daytime in Ponyville was a bustling time. Ponies went about their business, as they did every day: walking down the streets, conversing with each other here and there, tending their gardens, going shopping in the open-air market. As a shadow passed overhead, however, the ponies turned their attention skyward, and their thoughts and words turned from the ordinary to murmurs of confusion and rumor, wondering what it meant.
The shadow was cast by three flying carriages, two of them typical carriages of the Royal Guard, each pulled by two pegasi and carrying stern-faced unicorn guards. The third, however, was larger, sturdier, and most significantly fully enclosed, with no windows and a sturdily barred door, as if to confine something—or someone. It was also pulled by two pegasi, but four more flew in formation around it, watching the skies warily.
The carriages flew past Ponyville, descending as they did, and touched down next to Fluttershy’s cottage, where nearly the entirety of Ponyville’s police force—all three of them—watched over the strange yellow object that had fallen from the sky. The four unhitched pegasi flew a guard formation in the sky above; the unicorns disembarked, two moving toward the larger carriage, two examining the shiny star as the police shied away.
The door at the back of the larger carriage glowed, intricately geared locks turning and thick bars sliding, then swung open, revealing a chamber that contained only heavy chains and sturdy padlocks. The unicorns who had opened the door then turned their attention to those chains, lifting them out of the way while the other two unicorns levitated the star out of its crater and, carefully, into the carriage. As soon as it had touched down, it was shackled and locked into place, then the door secured behind it.
Without a word, the unicorns re-boarded their carriages, and the formation took flight once again, their pegasus escort falling in. The police remained, glancing uneasily at each other, looking up at the sky as the guards led the carriage to its ultimate destination: Canterlot.
“It’s a message,” Twilight Sparkle’s enormously magnified eye declared.
Rainbow Dash’s voice protested, “They couldn’t have just sent a letter?” Twilight turned from the magnifying glass to see her friend hovering protectively near Fluttershy; Applejack and Rarity had taken it a step further, bracketing Fluttershy on either side. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stood watch as well, though at a reserved distance, most of their attention on Twilight. Only Pinkie Pie was absent from the formation, as she took the opportunity to peer into the magnifier almost as soon as Twilight stepped away.
Gesturing violently at Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash continued, “Look what that thing did to Fluttershy!” To the casual observer, not that there were any in one of Canterlot’s most secure magical laboratories, Fluttershy looked unharmed. If the hypothetical observer took a second look, however, she would notice that Fluttershy’s eyes were still extremely dilated, her pupils dancing with the light of the stars.
Fluttershy hastened to reassure her friend, smiling serenely. “I’m all right, Rainbow Dash. It didn’t hurt me. It just wants us to go.”
“So you’ve been saying for the last day or so,” Applejack said, giving Fluttershy a harsh look, then shifting the look to the yellow star that hung suspended in the center of the chamber. Previously invisible seams had been opened, revealing a soft, pulsing light inside a hollow chamber, like an empty medicine capsule. “Seems more like a case of bad mojo to me.”
“It didn’t mean to do that to her,” Twilight said, though she did look concerned on Fluttershy’s behalf. “It tried to give her the entire message all at once, and she wasn’t able to handle it. She should get better once she’s had a chance to absorb it all.”
Spike, who’d been standing at Twilight’s side as she examined the star, wondered, “So what’s the message?” Twilight brightened at the prompt, turning back to the floating capsule. This close to it, she could see that the interior of the star was covered with glowing lines and sigils, all of which seemed to tie into a central crystal that pulsed with light, slowly cycling through the colors of the rainbow.
“I think I can project it for everypony to see,” she replied, her horn beginning to glow. “Hang on …”
The central crystal begin to glow, echoing Twilight’s magic—and then a gigantic image appeared above the star, startling Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Spike, and Applejack. Twilight looked satisfied, Fluttershy just smiled, and Pinkie Pie looked up, saying, “Ooo.”
The princesses, on the other hand, looked shocked. Princess Celestia was the first to speak. “Do you know what this is, my faithful student?” she asked, voice unsteady; Twilight’s smile of satisfaction faded at that sound, and she turned first to Celestia, then to the spiral-armed image as it turned slowly in the air. It took her a moment longer than it had for her mentor, but soon her face turned shocked as well.
“That’s amazing,” she breathed.
“So what is it?” Rainbow Dash, who was significantly less impressed by the image, asked the question the others wanted the answer to.
She wasn’t expecting Princess Luna to provide it.
“It’s a chart of the stars … as seen from outside.”
“Outside?” Rainbow Dash blurted. “Outside of what?”
Princess Luna looked almost giddy as she explained. “Ponies used to think the stars were just dots on the night sky, but that’s just not true.” She reached out with her own magic, touching the star capsule, and the image magnified even further, the lights within it plastering against the walls of the room, the farther ones growing dim or fading entirely. Only one light remained in the center of the room, growing from a single point into a cheerful glowing ball.
“This is what they look like from Equestria,” Luna continued, as the assembled ponies, even Princess Celestia, watched in wonder. “But each and every star is actually a sun, just like ours, so far away that we can only see the tiniest bit of their light. Even if you and your children and your children’s children’s children traveled as fast as they could, you’d never reach even the closest one.”
Rainbow Dash looked unimpressed. “Bet I could reach one.”
Luna looked to Rainbow Dash, offering an impish smile. “Maybe. Do you have four million years to find out?”
Rainbow Dash went still.
“Begging yer pardon, ma’am,” Applejack piped up, “but one of them stars is blinking.” She gestured at the wall with a hoof; Luna looked, nodded, then adjusted the image again, the ponies watching as it focused on just one arm of the galaxy. Near the tip was the dot they now knew represented Equestria, blinking brightly—and much farther in the arm, another star flashed.
“That’s where he lives,” Fluttershy said, drawing attention to herself again. She seemed unaware of this. “He’s showing us how to reach him.”
Rarity turned her head to Fluttershy and raised an eyebrow. “He who?”
“The one who sent the message,” Fluttershy replied.
“And do you know anything about him?” Rarity continued.
Fluttershy looked somberly at Rarity. “He wants to meet us... but he can’t leave. He’s so lonely.”
At the non-answer, Rarity looked to Twilight, who shrugged. “There’s nothing in the message about him. Just where he is and that he wants whoever finds the message to come to him.”
Rainbow Dash had gone from awestruck silence to a full-on sulk. “Well, how’re we supposed to do that if he’s so far away?” That was Twilight’s cue to return her attention to the capsule.
“There’s more to the message,” she said, focusing her magic again and causing the map to vanish, replaced by the golden diagram from Fluttershy’s vision.
Rarity gazed at the diagram with awe, her eyes tracing its intricate designs. “What is that? It looks wonderfully rococo.”
Twilight’s eyes fixed hungrily on the diagram as well. “It’s a spell diagram,” she replied. “But I’ve never seen one so complicated!”
“That’s because it contains several spell diagrams within it,” Princess Celestia said, breaking her silence. “Whatever this is meant to do is complex indeed.”
“I’ll say,” Twilight said, beginning to indicate parts of the diagram with a hoof. “That’s a shielding spell. That one’s for moving things … that one is for making fresh air.” She paused, indicating a fourth major section of the diagram. “I’m not sure what that part is. It looks like a way to project energy, but it doesn’t seem to do anything with it.”
Princess Luna’s smile was gone as she spoke.
“It is a weapon.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
“Such spells were not unknown many centuries ago, when Equestria was not as peaceful as it is now,” Luna continued, her voice fallen back into archaic rhythms as she gazed soberly at the diagram. “It is a simple weapon, as they go. A beam of magic that can pierce through all but the strongest of spells.”
This time, the silence was broken by Applejack. “Well, what in the hay’s he doing sending us weapon plans? That just ain’t right!”
“That’s just a part of it,” Twilight replied, turning away from the uncomfortable topic and back to the diagram. “This part here is for seeing things at great distances … here’s a communication spell …” She fell silent, eyes darting across the diagram; the others watched her, waiting for her to finish her thought.
After a long moment, Twilight’s eyes widened in wonder. “It’s a star chariot.”
“A star chariot?” Rainbow Dash blurted, her expression, like most of the ponies, that of confusion. Only Fluttershy and Princess Luna seemed to understand.
“Of course!” Luna said, brightening again. “How else would you follow the message?”
“Are you telling me,” Rainbow Dash continued, gesturing at the diagram, “that this is just a fancy chariot blueprint?”
Twilight turned her attention to Rainbow Dash, speaking rapidly. “No, don’t you understand? Pegasi can only fly so high because the air gets too thin to support their wings, not to mention too cold—”
“Uh, hello?” Rainbow Dash retorted, pointing first at one wing, then the other.
“—but this chariot wouldn’t be limited by that. It could go up … forever! And incredibly quickly! If I’m reading this part right, it could make the entire trip in less than a year!”
The others gaped.
“It’d keep the air clean, protect the ponies inside from anything dangerous … you’d have to bring your own food and water, but the design shows how to scale it up or down. We could make the chariot as big as we wanted!” Twilight flung a foreleg at the diagram.
Rarity looked at the diagram again. “That’s as may be,” she said, “but a spell like that … it looks too powerful for any pony to cast.”
Twilight was a step ahead of her, though. “Oh, you wouldn’t even cast a spell like this! It’s more of an enchanted item. You’d need trained crafters … engraved runes, gems to control the magical flow … probably a whole team to put it all together … but we could do this! We could make a star chariot!”
“I think you may be neglecting a detail, Twilight Sparkle.”
Eyes turned to Princess Celestia, who inclined her head, then tipped her muzzle toward the diagram. “At the center of the diagram. Can you tell me how much power the spell would call upon to be completed?”
Twilight turned back to the diagram, considering the symbols for a moment. Then her jaw dropped. “Oh my gosh.”
“Indeed,” Celestia said. “I can think of only one force in all of Equestria that can unleash that much power.”
“The Elements of Harmony,” Twilight breathed.
Another silence fell over the group, only to be broken by an unexpected source.
“Well, we just have to go!”
Eyes turned back to the star hanging in the center of the room—or rather, to Pinkie Pie, who had her hooves resting on the edge of its open cavity, her head turned to face them. Her pupils seemed to fill her entire face, and stars sparkled inside them.
“Somepony needs us to throw him a party!”
Twilight let out a soft sigh, wondering why she was even surprised Pinkie had touched it.
“This is going to be the single biggest project anypony has ever done,” Twilight said, looking at the other ponies over the planning table. When the scope of the project had become apparent, they, the princesses, and a selection of Canterlot’s best and brightest had come together to decide just how they were going to respond to their summon to the stars.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Pinkie enthused, eyes still star-struck, thumping her forehooves on the table. “Let’s go!”
Then the pink party pony burst into song.
We’ve got a lot of things to do!
Let’s go without delay!
I’ve never thrown a space party,
And our guest needs one today!
Twilight put her hooves up on the table as well.
We’ve got a lot of things to do;
that means we need a plan!
We’ll need blueprints, charts, and timetables
and a master diagram!
She shot a look at Rainbow Dash, who was snoring suspiciously energetically. “You could at least pretend to pay attention.”
Some days later, when Rainbow Dash found herself in charge of the largest team of pegasi she’d seen in one place, she was considerably more enthusiastic.
We’ve got a lot of things to do!
We need to start somehow,
So get your flanks up in the air
And go get some clouds right now!
Pegasi flew hither and yon under Rainbow Dash’s direction, spinning in circles over the sea to suck water into clouds, then pushing them together to form a base that was spreading an ever-greater shadow over the land near Canterlot.
We’ve got a lot of things to do—
“This project’s pretty keen!” she noted, looking up from a blueprint of the cloud to the cloud itself.
We’re gonna make the biggest cloud
That the world has ever seen!
Another large team, this one of unicorns, swept over the cloud in pegasus-drawn chariots, focusing their magic on the surface of the cloud, leveling it and giving it an odd shimmer.
What will we find when we go exploring?
What will our future hold?
We’ll never know unless we go,
So we’ll just have to be bold!
One of the unicorns jumped, with some trepidation, off of her chariot and onto the cloud—and didn’t fall through. The others followed suit in short order, beaming with pride, as the first bounced up and down a few times, giddy with success.
Applejack was put in charge of the next task: organizing the transportation of everything from soil to stone, trees to tile, bunnies to bricks from points all over Equestria to the construction site. The supplies, largely borne by earth ponies, traveled up freshly-built spiral ramps to the top of the cloud itself, where she directed them to their destinations.
We gotta lot of things to do.
We’re off to the frontier!
So pack yer wagons, load yer carts,
And get this train in gear!
Ponies dumped load upon load of soil onto the cloud, smoothing it out into farmland, creating entire orchards and fertile fields from scratch. Applejack, naturally, focused most of her attention there.
We gotta lot of things ta do
To build a flying town!
We’ll need grass and trees and crops and tools
To really settle down!
But there was more than farmland to recreate; elsewhere, ponies laid stone on cloud, then wood on stone, laying out streets and organizing buildings according to the master plan.
Building ourselves a whole new city
Right from the smallest stone!
We have to leave our world behind,
But we’ll bring along a home!
Pinkie Pie, eyes long since having reverted to normal, handed out yet another pie from one of several open-air cafeterias around the building site. “Let’s keep things moving, ponies!” she called as the next pony in line stepped up. She’d been put in charge of morale, an important task with so many ponies busy with such a massive undertaking.
Fluttershy had recovered as well; she’d been given the task of making the difficult decision of who would go and who would stay. She led a team of doctors, nurses, and veterinarians as they examined ponies and animals alike, looking for any sign that they weren’t up to the challenge.
We’ve got a lot of things to do,
So please give us your best!
If you’re sick or weak, you shouldn’t go;
That’s why we have this test!
One of the doctors peered puzzledly at the pegasus in front of him, who was taking a simple vision test. He wasn’t expecting to pass her—
“Property of Ponyville Clinic, please do not remove.”
—but after she’d read the tiny sticker at the bottom of the chart, he’d felt he had to.
Even if it hadn’t been the chart in front of her.
Not far away, Fluttershy looked over the animals that had made the cut, at least so far.
We’ve got a lot of things to do,
And we all must do our share!
Be you bee or dog or bird or hog,
We need you to be there!
Large signs had been posted around the growing cloud city, a rising bar showing the progress of construction so far—and a mark indicating where they should be on a schedule that was surprisingly rapidly reaching its end.
Gotta keep moving, ever faster!
Wanna get done on time!
Everyone wants to see this city
Into the sky climb!
Rarity, with Spike acting as her assistant, carefully pulled another engraved crystal from her saddlebags, placed it in the cloud, then looked around at the nearby landmarks. All across the cloud, unicorns did likewise, following Twilight’s master plan.
We have a lot of things to do
That must be done with care!
This crystal must be turned just right—
“I’d adjust it just a hair,” Spike suggested. Rarity made a thoughtful noise, shifting the crystal slightly with her hoof, then nodded.
We have a lot of things to do,
But there’s no call for haste!
A job done right is a lot of work
That hasn’t gone to waste!
Not everyone working on the project shared Rarity’s attitude. As the deadline loomed, ponies worked ever harder and faster, determined not to fall behind.
What do the ponies up there look like?
What if they turn out mean?
Will we make new friends in the stars?
We just won’t know ’till we’ve seen!
The city was not the largest in Equestria, nor was it the smallest. Most of its buildings were no more than a few stories tall, but they were packed close together on streets that had been planned before there was even a surface to put them on, circular streets meeting radial avenues, all of it neat and tidy. Even the farmland was carefully planned, arranged around the exterior of the city to maximize crop yields and minimize harvest labor, and the parks and gardens that broke up the city’s monotony did so by design.
At the center of the city was a golden tower, the tallest building in the city, every inch of its surface covered in runes, sigils, and gems. In front of the tower, a stage had been set up, and a meeting called around it; almost everyone was there, anticipation written on their faces. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were up on stage, and before them, in full regalia, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Pinkie Pie was the first to speak.
We had a lot of things to do,
But now we’ve got them done!
So laugh and cheer and celebrate
and have a bit of fun!
Twilight stepped forward.
We had a lot of things to do;
Now there’s just one more feat!
We’ll call upon the Elements
To make it all complete!
The crowd sung out as the six concentrated, bringing forth the light of the Elements.
All our hard work is just beginning;
All of this was the start!
Now we are going to the stars
To put them in our heart!
We’ve got a lot—
We’ve got a lot of things to do!
On the last word, a rainbow blasted outward from the Element-bearers, rushing through the crowd with no more impact than a vigorous breeze, passing through stone and wood and cloud effortlessly, causing the many crystals scattered across buildings all over town to light up with an inner fire. As the wave reached the border of the cloud, it stretched both upward and downward, under the cloud and over the tower, enclosing the city in a shell of rainbow colors—which swiftly faded to be no more visible than a soap bubble.
Fireworks went off behind the stage as Twilight Sparkle strode forward to make it official.
“Everypony, Harmony City is ready for takeoff!”
“Now you take good care of Granny Smith, y’hear?” Applejack demanded, jabbing a hoof into Big Macintosh’s chest for emphasis. “Ah don’t wanna come back from this little jaunt to find anything’s gone wrong on the farm.” Each of the Element-bearers had business to attend to before they could set out, and Applejack’s had brought her back to Sweet Apple Acres.
Apple Bloom looked beseechingly up at Applejack from Big Macintosh’s side. “Are ya sure Ah can’t come with ya, big sis?” she pleaded, and at first she thought she’d succeeded, as Applejack’s face softened into a smile.
“You know Ah’d never forgive myself if something happened to you, Apple Bloom, and we’ve got no way of knowing just how dangerous this’ll be.” Applejack reached out, mussing Apple Bloom’s mane with a hoof. “Now don’t you worry none. Twilight’s got some fancy gizmo to let her send letters to the Princess, and Ah’ll be sure to let you know how things are going up there. You just focus on yer chores and yer homework, aright?”
Apple Bloom couldn’t help smiling at the mane-mussing, but the smile faded at the thought of missing out on an exciting adventure. “Yes, Applejack,” she replied in the same sullen tone she used whenever she’d been given a particularly unpleasant chore.
At the Carousel Boutique, Sweetie Belle received a similar disappointment. “You never let me do anything fun.”
“Now, that’s just not true, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity retorted, distracted by packing her equipment and fabrics. “Why, just last week, didn’t I let you help me organize the repeater crystals?”
“You only did that because Spike had to help Twilight,” Sweetie Belle sulked. Which was true, but all the same the accusation rankled Rarity. “You won’t even let Mom and Dad come along!”
Rarity sighed, turning to face Sweetie Belle. “The ponies who are going on this journey are all young, strong ponies who’ll be able to take care of each other if things get dangerous. I love Father and Mother dearly, but they aren’t as young … or as fit … as they used to be. They have to stay here, and you have to stay with them.” Sweetie Belle continued to pout, up until Rarity crouched to pull her into a hug. “I’ll miss you very much, Sweetie Belle,” she murmured. “Now, promise you won’t be any trouble while I’m gone, all right?”
“I promise,” Sweetie Belle sighed.
She was already regretting that promise not an hour later, as Rarity and her luggage where whisked away from the Carousel Boutique on a royal chariot. It didn’t take long for Scootaloo and Apple Bloom to make their appearance.
“No luck, huh?” Scootaloo wondered. Sweetie Belle’s posture, slumped on the steps, was all the answer Scootaloo needed.
“What’re we gonna do?” Apple Bloom whined. “Big sis is gonna go up to the stars without us!”
“What if we’re supposed to get cutie marks for being astronauts?” Scootaloo pointed out. “We can’t do that if we’re stuck here!”
Sweetie Belle said nothing.
“And Ah just know miss Cheerilee’s gonna spend the whole time giving us homework about space,” Apple Bloom griped. “Like she knows anything more about it than we do.”
“Aw, I bet you can do all sorts of cool stunts that high up!” Scootaloo added, pantomiming zooming through the air as she did so. “Rainbow Dash’s probably gonna invent, like … a hundred billion new stunts, and I won’t even be able to see!”
Some of the ponies at school had, rather uncharitably, called Sweetie Belle slow. It was true that, on occasion, she took a moment to understand what occurred instantly to other ponies. That was not, however, an indication that she was stupid … at least, no more so than any other foal.
“Maybe we don’t have to stay here,” she said, smiling cunningly.
“Whaddaya mean?” Apple Bloom wondered, Scootaloo looking curious as well.
Sweetie Belle gestured in the general direction of Sugarcube Corner. “Well,” she said, drawing out the word, “some of the other ponies who’re going haven’t finished packing. Pinkie Pie looks like she’s taking the whole shop!”
“And with so many packages …” Apple Bloom began, brightening as she followed Sweetie Belle’s train of thought.
“… we can stow away with somepony’s luggage …” Scootaloo continued, grinning even brighter than the other two.
As one, the three chorused, “… and get into Harmony City! Cutie Mark Crusader Astronauts! Yay!” They slapped their hooves together in their traditional gesture of triumph.
There was just one fly in the ointment. “But I promised Rarity I wouldn’t get into trouble,” Sweetie Belle realized, face falling.
“You won’t get into trouble,” Apple Bloom reassured her. “With all those ponies right there to watch over us? ’Specially Twilight and all her friends? Why, Ah bet we’d be safer there then here in Ponyville!”
Scootaloo grinned. “Yeah, I bet Rainbow Dash can take on any space ponies that try to give us any trouble.” She shadowboxed a bit, little wings buzzing.
Sweetie Belle brightened. “You’re right,” she proudly proclaimed. “I mean, what could go wrong?”
On the outskirts of town, Fluttershy was giving Amethyst Star instructions on the care and feeding of her animals. Those instructions had been going on for some time, and the pinky-purple pony was beginning to fidget.
“—now you must be careful not to overfeed the gophers. They’re on a diet, and they’ll try anything to get extra food—including raiding the other animals’ food, so watch out for that. Put the skink’s medicine in a cherry tomato, and make sure she eats it and doesn’t just hide it in her mouth. You need to change the hummingbird feeder every week, even if it doesn’t look like it needs it. Oh, I hope I’m not forgetting anything!”
“Fluttershy,” Amethyst said, as gently as she could, “you’ve already told me how to take care of each and every animal here. Three times. I’ll manage. Now, don’t you have a chariot to catch?”
Fluttershy started at that, taking a few steps toward the waiting carriage, then turning back to look at the white rabbit that stood on her doorstep. “Now, you be good for miss Amethyst, okay, Angel bunny?” She smiled hopefully, and the rabbit shrugged, which she seemed satisfied with, at least enough for her to get in the carriage.
Even as it begun to take off, though, she thought of more to say. “I’ll write you every day! You let me know if you get sick or hurt! Don’t let the weasels—” The rest of her advice was inaudible, as even calling to Angel she was too nervous to raise her voice.
Amethyst watched Fluttershy’s carriage depart for a moment, then turned to Angel, offering a cheery smile. “Well, I hope you and I will get along swimmingly while Fluttershy’s gone,” she offered.
Cold black eyes without an ounce of pity locked onto hers. Amethyst began to sweat.
“Oh dear,” she said.
The inside of Harmony City’s central tower was, if anything, more elaborate than the outside. In the center of the floor, the star capsule that had started it all had been seemingly tied down with knots and veins of metal and magic; glowing lines of energy branched like roots out to the walls, then climbed them to reconnect at a large spherical gem in the center of the ceiling. Chairs were attached to rails, allowing them to move both horizontally and vertically, positioning ponies in front of any number of displays and controls, each one displaying a different view or diagram.
At the moment, the only view of interest to Rainbow Dash was one of the stage just outside, where Twilight Sparkle was giving a speech. It wasn’t a particularly interesting speech, in Rainbow Dash’s opinion, but it beat staring at some barely-comprehensible graph of nothing in particular.
“It is both an honor and a privilege to be able to speak to you today,” Twilight said, both to those present in person and to the ‘movie’ cameras made possible by the star capsule’s instructions. “Without all of your hard work, Harmony City wouldn’t even exist. Each and every one of you has made history. Tonight, thanks to you, we plan to make more.”
One of the wall panels showed a simplified diagram of the Equestrian solar system: planet here, sun there, moon on the other side. On the planet, a gold dot blinked steadily.
Suddenly, a purple dot appeared, a label next to it filling in with tiny runic symbols. Rainbow Dash didn’t notice.
“We’ll begin by testing the basic functions of the city: the drive, the shield, the sensors, and so on. Once we’ve finished those tests, we’ll use the drive to explore the underside of Equestria, a topic of much debate among leading scholars. We’ll be sending images and sounds as they happen to stations all over Equestria, so you’ll be able to watch with us as we explore the frontier.”
The purple dot spawned a dozen smaller dots, each of which attained a label of its own. These dots began to approach the planet … and, more specifically, the gold dot.
“But much as we’d love to spend years exploring Equestria’s hidden land …” Twilight looked at a crowd that had suddenly adopted rather flat expressions. She smiled awkwardly. “Okay, much as I’d love that … we have a mission. Harmony City wouldn’t be possible without the gift we received from somepony out there, somepony who couldn’t come to us. Tonight, we take the first step in going to him.”
Ponies begun to look up, murmuring to themselves. Twilight didn’t notice right away. “Now, we have some final preparations to be made before tonight’s test, so you all need to …”
She trailed off, noticing and looking up herself. A half-dozen dark specks had appeared in the sky, rapidly getting larger, more appearing behind them. “What are those?” she murmured to herself.
Then a beam of darkness reached from the largest—the nearest—and punched a hole in the stage right next to her.
Inside the tower, Rainbow Dash fell out of her chair as, simultaneously, the purple dots turned red and a strident alarm began to sound.
Ponies screamed, beginning to run in all directions; Twilight, who’d been thrown from the stage by the force of the blast, staggered to her feet, then looked up again—and gaped.
The city was being swarmed by dark objects, similar in size and shape to the star capsule, but with leaner, crueler lines. From their undersides, they were firing beams of dark energy, strafing the city, targeting buildings and ponies alike.
Twilight Sparkle stood frozen at the sight.
Rainbow Dash burst out of the tower, gesturing at the sky even as she approached Twilight. “Twilight! What’s going on out here?” Twilight’s other friends, who’d been listening to her speech from the crowd, approached as well, looking to her for leadership.
Twilight’s thoughts raced. “Applejack, Fluttershy, get everypony somewhere safe. Pinkie Pie, Rarity, I need you in the control tower with me. Rainbow Dash, get whoever you can up there to fight those things off. Use the Personal Protection Modules—”
“The Stormguards,” Rainbow Dash insisted.
Twilight put a hoof to her face. Really? Now? “Fine, the Stormguards. Go!” Rainbow Dash offered a quick salute, then zipped off in a blur, as the others ran off to do what needed to be done.
Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie hurried into the tower, each taking a station. “Pinkie, what’s our status?” Twilight demanded, her own position standing in front of the star capsule. Pinkie pushed a few buttons on her console in reply, examining the screen.
“Eleven meanies attacking the city, and a big fat meanie way up high,” she called.
“Can we power the shield?” Twilight asked, turning to Rarity, who was already examining a diagram showing power flows throughout the city.
“Yes, but the smaller … things … are already inside it,” Rarity replied.
Twilight nodded. “Do it anyway,” she said.
A burst of rainbow light shot out of the top of the tower, some of the city’s stored energy being released, and struck the soap-bubble barrier, which became more and more opaque as a result, blue skies and shining sun being occluded by the shimmer of color.
Rainbow Dash, however, had her eyes on something a lot closer to earth: one of a number of buildings scattered around Harmony City that contained Stormguards—or, as Twilight Sparkle had unimaginatively called them, Personal Protection Modules.
She and her group of brave recruits charged into the building, which was filled with individual fitting stations, and each of them chose one. Rainbow Dash, naturally, chose the closest one, stepping into the individual hoof holes. When all four hooves were in place, the station activated automatically, bringing pieces of golden armor from storage and clamping them to her body: greaves, light barding, and a band around her brow.
It was only a few seconds before she and the others were released and could leave the building—a few seconds too long with those black stars zapping everything in sight. Rainbow Dash rounded on the others, who looked uncertainly at her and at the skies.
“Okay, if you’re not a natural flier—” She looked at the earth ponies and unicorns she’d rounded up. Each Stormguard had a pod-shaped module fixed to a flap over each wing hole; hers were folded out of the way and inactive, but theirs were fitted in place and glowing gently. “—focus on getting ponies away from those things. The rest of you, buck those things out of the sky!” She crouched, then leapt, and the rest followed suit, if not quite as swiftly.
It only took Rainbow Dash a few seconds to reach the nearest of the stars, which on closer inspection was covered in lines of blue energy, giving it a sort of bruised look. Even as she approached, though, it turned its attention to her, lancing out with a ray of darkness—which she dodged almost negligently before spinning in the air and hitting the thing with her back hooves.
Rather than a satisfying crunch, the impact produced only a deep thrum, as a black sphere became briefly visible over the device. It was still thrown away by the impact, but not nearly as far as Rainbow Dash had hoped.
“You’ve got a shield?” she protested, flailing her hooves about. “That is so not fair! Hang on, this thing has a shield too.” She glanced down at the armor, then had to bolt to one side as the dark star fired another beam her way. “Whoa, hey, hold on!” she yelped as it fired again and again, flying after her into the cityscape. “I haven’t turned it on yet!” She weaved through the streets, zipping around buildings and ducking through alleyways, but the star followed her all the way.
Suddenly, as Rainbow Dash turned a corner, she saw a panicked pony standing in the middle of the street and looking around wildly. She easily dodged the pony, then turned back, intending to scoop her up and carry her to safety—only to see the dark star already there, its beam about to fire.
Rainbow Dash threw herself in front of the other pony as the beam lashed out, carving a furrow in the street before fixing on target—
—and splashing over a rainbow-colored shield in front of her. She smirked, eyes narrowing.
“Gotcha,” she said, then reached full speed from a standing start, her shield fading back to translucency as she collided with the star and rammed it into the street. She ground it against the stones until its own shield, raised at the impact, abruptly collapsed, leaving sparks to fly from its surface. After a few seconds, she stopped, looked at the star, then grinned as it failed to do anything.
“Rainbow Dash one, evil space stars zero!” she announced, then launched herself to find another.
As ponies throughout Harmony City began getting things under control, Twilight Sparkle began to relax.
“We’ve got everypony in one of the Emergency Party Shelters!” Pinkie announced. The shelters were, in fact, in case something went wrong with the city’s shield, but Twilight had long since learned to pick her battles with Pinkie Pie.
Spike had shown up and made himself useful by grabbing a console. “I show only three—no, make that two attackers left. Wow, she’s taking ’em down fast,” he said, looking at a map of the city where gold dots struck red ones and caused them to vanish; one dot in particular was moving quite swiftly.
“We’ve had some damage to the power conduits, but nothing we can’t fix in a day or two,” Rarity added, gazing intently at her own diagram of the city, scattered reds and yellows in a sea of green.
Twilight let out a sigh of relief. “All right,” she said. “Pinkie, try to send a message to the big contact. Find out why they’re attacking us and what they—”
Spike interrupted urgently. “Twilight! That big thing just launched more attack thingies!”
“How many?” Twilight asked, eyes widening.
Spike mumbled to himself as he counted the screen. “Another dozen or so. They’re almost here already!”
There was a moment of silence. Then the sound Rainbow Dash had heard when she struck the black star’s shield was heard again, only much louder.
“They’re shooting the shield,” Rarity murmured, adjusting her controls to get an image of the related power levels. “It’s holding for now, but we’ll need to turn part of it off to let Rainbow Dash and the others—”
Then there was an explosion, and part of Rarity’s diagram turned red. The already-white pony blanched.
“… the last attacker inside the shield just … deliberately flew into one of the power conduits. The explosion …” She worked some controls, but more and more of the diagram turned red. “We’re going to lose the shield in less than a minute.”
Twilight turned to Pinkie, expression bleak. “Call them. Ask them what they want. Call them!”
Pinkie turned to her controls. “This is Harmony City calling Big Floaty Space Thingy. What do you want from us? Do you want a party? Because I can totally throw you an awesome party … Hello? Anypony up there? Can you stop shooting at us, at least?”
The thrumming sound continued. If anything it was louder.
“They won’t answer,” Pinkie said, turning to Twilight, looking as helpless as Twilight had ever seen her.
Twilight looked at the diagram on Rarity’s screen, showing the continuing failures in the crystals and symbols that focused the city’s power into its shield, the bar representing the shield’s strength growing shorter and sorter.
Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Spike all looked to her for an answer. There was only one she could think to give.
“Fire …” She paused, choking on the words. “… fire the main beam. Target the largest contact.”
They stared at her in shock.
“Do it!” she barked; they jerked, turning to their consoles.
“Locking on target,” Spike said, touching multiple buttons on his console. A square and two lines appeared on his screen, surrounding the largest vessel and moving toward each other.
“The main beam is charging,” Rarity added, pushing more buttons, the diagram changing to show a bar rapidly filling even as the shield power fell. “Full power in ten seconds.”
Pinkie Pie just looked at her console, saying nothing, as Rarity counted down.
“… seven … six … five …”
The three shapes on Spike’s screen became one, a square with a crosshair inside it. “Target is locked. Standing by to fire.”
“… two … one … main beam charged.”
Twilight hesitated a second more.
“Fire.”
From the outside, Harmony City looked like a giant, flattened bubble of rainbow, its interior only vaguely visible. Small black dots danced around its exterior, lashing out at that bubble with tiny rays, doing nothing to it—but with the sacrifice of one of their number, it was only a matter of time before the bubble vanished and the ponies inside were vulnerable.
Then, somewhat ahead of schedule, the colors of the bubble drew back to the point they’d come from at its very top, forming a huge ball of light. As the ball of light grew, leaving only a faint soap-bubble shield behind, it began to hum, the sound growing louder and higher-pitched by the second—only to abruptly cut off as the ball finished soaking up power.
For a second, all was silence.
Then the ball became a line of light, stabbing into the sky with all the violence of a Sonic Rainboom—but where that bloomed with all the colors of the rainbow, this was a terrible white. It lasted only a few seconds, but when it faded, it seemed the sun had gone with it, daylight only a vague gray by comparison.
High over Equestria, the ship that had launched its attack hovered, a flattened disc similar in shape to Harmony City’s shield, though a solid piece of material rather than the ephemeral shield around a flying city. Its surface was covered in seams that glowed dark blue, as did various orbs and projections and cavities of alien design. It was great and strong and ominous, and already it prepared a third wave of fighters.
Then the beam hit it, and it was consumed from the inside out by light and magic, evaporating into nothingness in less than ten seconds.
Over the streets of Harmony City, the fighters exploded as well, their debris showering down as ponies looked out of their shelters, wondering what was happening. Assuming that the lowered shield and the falling debris meant the battle was over, they began to cheer, venturing out into the streets and celebrating victory.
Rainbow Dash, hovering in the air, slowly removed her sunglasses, gaping at the spot where the main beam had fired. After a moment, she found words to describe what she’d seen.
“So … awesome!”
Only three ponies weren’t celebrating, and all of them were in the control tower.
“Target is … completely destroyed,” Spike said, looking at a now-empty screen. “All of the smaller attackers blew up when it did.”
Rarity added, “The shield is holding, but only just. We won’t be able to power it again until repairs are complete.”
Pinkie Pie said nothing.
Twilight Sparkle gazed up at the ceiling. She couldn’t see what had just happened, but she bore its weight nonetheless.
“What have I done?” she murmured.
To be continued …