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Prologue: Today, I die930 words
Chapter 1: I can't pilot that!2,706 words
Chapter 2: An unfamiliar ceiling2,485 words
Chapter 3: Too close for comfort2,885 words
Chapter 4: If music be the food of love, play on (part 1)2,548 words

Chapter 4: If music be the food of love, play on (part 1)

Mi Amore Cadenza

I was woken from my drunken stupor by a shrill scream echoing around the apartment. I sighed, and made my way to Twilight’s room, where I found her in the throes of another nightmare—the third one this week. I laid down beside her, holding her head against my chest, whispering soothing words into her ears.

“Shh, shh, its okay, you’re safe, I’m here now.” I carried on whispering as she cried, her sobs muffled by my fur. Eventually, she exhausted herself back to sleep and I set her head down on the pillow. I looked at her, a smile tugging my lips. So beautiful, so brave. I thought. Oh Twilight, how I love you so. As kind and noble as your brother. I felt a familiar pain tug on my heart. No, don’t think of that. I left the bedroom and made my way to the kitchen, opening the fridge and retrieving one of the many cans of cider that filled it. I took a long draught, releasing a small burp at the end.

“Excuse me,” I giggled softly, the ache in my heart fading. I looked at the clock on the wall. 4 am. Damn, can’t turn up to work too drunk. Again. I quickly finished off the can and returned to bed, stumbling down the corridor. I’ll quit drinking soon, I promised myself, recognising the familiar lie for what it was. Slipping beneath the covers, I fell into a deep sleep, my dreams haunted by a familiar white stallion. Oh Shining...

---

Twilight and myself wandered through the impromptu worksite that had sprung up around the colossal corpse of Shamshel, Doctor Whooves babbling on about some science thing. Twilight seemed interested, so I tried to keep up with the conversation.

“I am amazed that the body is in perfect condition! We might be able to get a working S2 engine from it!” The Doctor rambled on, hooves flailing madly in excitement.

“An S2 engine? What’s that?” Twilight asked.

“The Super Solenoid, or S2, engine works on the theory of the same name that I devised just prior to Second Impact. It is essentially a naturally occurring organ that can potentially generate an infinite amount of energy—making the Angels virtually immortal. I've never been able to replicate it in a lab, but now that I have an undamaged specimen, I should be able to reverse engineer one. Or at least I would, if I was the one overseeing the project. Instead, it is being added to the Manehatten-3 project under the directions of my colleague, Dr Dark Matter.” There was a surprising amount of bitterness coming from the Doctor, but he quickly composed himself. “But just think of what we could achieve if we could replicate it—free, never ending energy!”

“Yes,” I replied dryly, “I can hear the coal companies screaming from here.” Whooves snorted and Twilight giggled, causing me to smile in return. It's good to see her laugh and act normal. I thought, remembering last night. We hadn't talked about it yet, or any of her other night terrors. We rounded a corner and saw Princess Celestia talking to a couple of Whooves’ assistants, who were quite clearly intimidated by the large Alicorn. The Doctor galloped off to rescue them, leaving Twilight and myself behind, an awkward silence developing.

“So, uh, do you want to talk about last night?” Twilight asked, surprising me.

“Only if you want to,” I replied neutrally. The silence stretched on as we just stood there, pawing the ground.

“Its the same dream,” Twilight said after a moment. “Every night, the same damn dream, for the past 15 years. And they are in it,” she said pointing at the dead angel ahead of us. “Why? Why are they in my dreams?”

“I don’t know, Twilight, I just don’t know,” I said, placing my foreleg around her neck and holding her close. But Shining knew, didn’t he? A traitorous part of my mind whispered. No, I whispered back, she must never know what happened to him. I will keep her safe.

“I think they’re warnings,” Twilight continued, oblivious to the turmoil within me. “I think another attack is going to happen soon. And I'm scared. Not of dying, but of failing, failing in front of the Princess.” Twilight looked at the tall white alicorn, who had not once sent a glance our way, too busy talking to Doctor Whooves, before looking back at me, tears in her eyes. “And most of all, I’m scared that she doesn't care for me.”

I wiped away her tears with a hoof. “Oh Twilight. Remember this—I will always care for you, no matter what,” I said, before kissing her lightly on the forehead. “Now enough of this crying, don’t you have a date to get to?”

Twilight stomped a foot in frustration. “Its not a date! Pinkie's just a good friend of mine, that's all.” I laughed at how easily she got wound up.

“Okay, okay, whatever you say. Either way, you're going to be late.” Twilight went wide-eyed at this, and shot off towards the exit, leaving me behind chuckling in her wake. After she had gone, I turned around, only to find myself face to face with Celestia herself. “Your highness!” I stammered out.

“Cadance. Walk with me,” She said, turning and walking away. I quickly caught up with her. We wandered down through the worksite in silence. “Tell me, do you really care for her?”

I stumbled, the question surprising me. “Yes, Princess. Deeply.”

“Good. Someone has to.”

“Do you?” I asked, wincing at the brashness of my own question.

“Do not forget yourself, Cadance. You are no longer a princess.” I lowered my head in shame, unwanted memories rising unbidden. “But to answer your question, no, I don’t. At least, no more than any other pony in Equestria. Maybe, in another time and place, I would have. But the last 14 years have been harsh on everyone.” We stopped, and I realised that we had simply walked in a circle, returning to where we had began. Celestia looked me in the eye. “Look after her, for she is more important than you realise.” A shiver ran up my spine as Celestia walked away, leaving me alone with my thoughts. More important than I realise? She makes Twilight sound like a tool, a playing piece. Is that all we are to her? And for what purpose? Oh auntie, what happened to make you so cold?

---

Later that afternoon, I stood in an observation booth within Nerv headquarters, many miles below the surface. Before me was a large hangar, in which an EVA—Unit 00, codenamed MOON—stood. Tall and equine shaped, as with Twilight's eva, the prototype EVA had a few differences. Where Twilight's was purple, MOON was grey, and it had no cutie mark. It also lacked the horn module Twilight's had. Overall, the prototype EVA gave of a sense of incompleatness, as if it hadn't been finished. Its repairs had been compleated, and Luna was fit enought to attempt to pilot it once more. Hopefully we won't have a repeat of the last performance. I thought, thinking back to the disaster one month ago.

---

“Okay, initiate start up sequence,” the Doctor commanded to his assistants. The MOON’s eyes lit up with a green glow as the entry plug containing Luna was inserted to the back of its head. The Princess and I stood stock still as it took one step forwards, then another and another.

"The synch ratio is spiking!" called one of the Doctors assistants, a white unicorn with a spikiy blue mane and red sunglasses—Vinyl Scratch, I think she is called. "It's all over the place—we've lost contact with the pilot! the EVA is going beserk!"

The Doctor began screaming orders, but I could only watch in horror as the MOON slowly, casually and deliberatly lifted a hoof and kicked the observation booth, denting the solid steel wall and cracking the reinforced glass. It roared and struck out again and again, trying to crush Celestia, who just stood there, staring impassively. The room began to fill with orange foam, hardening on contact with the air and restricting the movements of the MOON. Suddenly, the entry plug ejected itself, flying out of the EVA and slamming into a wall, crumpling under the impact.

"LUNA!" Celestia screamed, her face showing the first emotion I had seen on it in months—fear. She galloped out of the room, reappearing a few minutes later in the hanger. Ignoring the now deactivated Eva trapped in the rapidly solidifying foam, she dashed over to the crumpled entry plug and ripped off the door with her magic, pulling a bloody body out of the hatch, cradling it until the paramedics arrived.

---

"And end the test. Well done, everybody, the test was successful," the Doctor announced, bringing me out of my reminiscences. I looked around and realised that the test had gone off without a hitch whilst I was lost in my memories.

"So Luna can return to active service now?" I asked, the Doctor nodding a confirmation. Good, I thought, Twilight won't have to fight alone anymore. No sooner than I had finished speaking alarms began ringing thought the base. There are no drills booked today, which means...

"There's an Angel approaching!" Octavia said, confirming my fears.

---

"Are you okay?" I asked Twilight as she changed into her plug suit. She nodded, but still looked unhappy. "Did your date go well?"

"It wasn't a date!" Twilight all but screamed at me, causing me to laugh. "Yeah, it went fine," she said, sighing.

"But..."

"Pinkie is leaving town for a couple of weeks. She said she couldn't tell me where she was going—it's a surprise, apparently."

"Well, two weeks isn't that long, and I am sure that she had a good reason to keep it from you." Twilight nodded at my words, just as Luna walked in.

"Congratulations on passing your synch test, Luna!" Twilight called out, startling the blue alicorn. "Here, I got you a gift." She began to pull out a brightly coloured parcel from her saddlebags.

"A gift?" Luna said, clutching the parcel with a confused expression on her face. "We have never recieved a gift before."

"Are you going to open it?" I prompted. Luna quickly tore off the paper to reveal a large book.

"It's a biography of Star Swirl the Bearded!" Twilight exclaimed happily.

Oh Twilight, you and your books. I thought to myself. Although I was surprised to learn that despite all your reading, the only spell you know is you telekinesis. My eyes wandered down to her rather fine looking flank. Especially since magic is supposed to be your special talent. I suppose the lack of a proper teacher didn't help, even after civilisation was restored.

I looked back up, noticing that Twilight was still talking animatedly to the bewildered alicorn. I took notice of Twilight's expression, how close she was standing and a myriad of other visual clues. Ah, so that's how it is, I thought to myself. Twilight is infatuated with Luna! I almost giggled with delight. This was something I could help with. Turning away slightly to hide my actions, I cast one of my signature love spells—nothing major, just enough to give things a slight push in the right direction. Celestia did order me to look after Twilight, after all.

Turning back, I was met with a surprising sight—Luna had embraced Twilight in a hug. Maybe my spell was stronger than I thought, or perhaps Luna was also attracted to Twilight.

"Thank you, Twilight Sparkle," Luna bellowed.

"You're welcome," stuttered Twilight, flattening her ears.

"Come on you two," I said, "into the EVAs now." They nodded and left for the hanger, whilst I headed to the command center.

Upon reaching the command center, I looked around. Up on one wall was a large view screen with feeds from both EVAs, their entry plugs and from various cameras around the city. In front of the screen was a bank of computers connected straight to the MAGI- a group of three AI's who managed the day to day runing of Equestria among other things. Sat at the computers were Vinyl and Octavia—they seem to do everything around here. We can't be paying them enough—with Doctor Whooves looking over their shoulders. Behind us, up on a balcony, was the Princess, aloof and indecipherable.

I took my position besides Whooves and looked up at the screen, which was displaying an image of the latest Angel- codenamed Ramiel. Where do we get these names from? I wondered, before gasping in surprise at its colossal size. The previous angels had been large, yes, but roughly the same size as an EVA, or a medium sized skyscraper. Ramiel, however, was easily half the size of Canterlot-2, a huge mirror-blue octahedron, hanging in the air, defying the laws of gravity. How can we beat this one? I despaired.

"What's the plan, Princess?" I asked.

"Twilight ascends to the surface first, to probe for weaknesses and hold it off, whilst we equip the MOON with a rifle. Once Luna is ready, she will join Twilight on the surface and move into a support position."

I nodded, accepting the simple, bare bones plan for what it was—without proper intel, we were at a distinct disadvantage.

"Launching the MAGIC in 5...4...3...2...1...launch," Octavia said. Moments later, we saw the MAGIC appear on the surface several miles above us. Twilight dashed out of cover, opening fire with her rifle only for the shots to become blocked by an A.T field.

"I'm detecting a large energy spike," Vinyl informed us. I watched with a fascination that quickly gave way to horror as Ramiel fired a laser at Twilight, striking her EVA in the chest. Her scream of pain echoed around the command center as the LCL in the entry plug boiled.

"Activate emergency teleport!" I ordered. "Bring her back down here now!" A bright flash indicated that my order had been followed. I glanced at the screen showing the inside of the MAGIC's entry plug, an unconscious Twilight floating in it, parts of her fur burned off.

A motion on the main screen caught my attention. A drill had extended from the base of the Angel, and was currently digging its way through the earth. I did a quick calculation in my head and came to a terrifying conclusion.

"It's right above us," Octavia said, echoing my thoughts. "And it's coming straight down."

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