Pony Gear Solid

by Posh

13. Beneath the Blood-Stained Sand

The darkness that was so impermeable and all-consuming at the start of Twilight's journey was manageable once she was in the thick of it. With her light shining from her horn, illuminating her way, it wasn't so bad. It wasn't even the worst part about the tunnel. The tunnel itself was the worst part about the tunnel.

She'd made her peace with the dark and the cold and the occasional crumble of dirt from the ceiling powdering her scalp. Unfortunately, then Twilight's mind related the interminable march down tunnel with the sensation of being swallowed by a whale. Try as she might, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being urged deeper and deeper toward a big pool of gastric acid that would break her down into her component proteins for nourishment and—

"The heck is wrong with you, Twilight?" she snapped, shaking her head. "Is this seriously what you think about when you're all by your lonesome?"

The word echoed in the confined space. Lonesome, lonesome, lonesome...

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Stupid acoustics."

Okay, so it turned out that even the whale thing wasn't the worst part of traveling through the tunnel. It was the fact that she had to do it with nopony to talk to. Rainbow was ahead, Killjoy behind. Snake was...

Who even knows? Yakyakistan The Neighchelles. Somewhere not here. It doesn't matter.

And the others were back in Ponyville. That left Twilight alone to delve deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth, isolating herself further with every step she took. Once, that wouldn't have bothered her, but she'd grown used to relying on her friends for comfort and support. Now, she had nothing but her own mind to keep her company.

My creepy, creepy mind filled with creepy, creepy thoughts. Why do I even have friends?

The fog thinned out the deeper she went. At the outset, she was up to her fetlock in iridescent mist, but the farther she walked, the more it faded, until the ground was totally unobscured. Twilight could see the footsteps of whatever had hatched from the egg: deep, round gouges roughly as big around as her hoof, less like footprints, and more like holes from stakes driven into the earth. She discovered them via the age-old trackers' trick of stumbling in one and going "wagh!" in surprise, and watched her steps a little more carefully after that.

Not that she really needed a trail to deduce what direction the thing had taken. Besides a leftward curve that bent her path at a near ninety degree angle to the entrance, the tunnel ran linearly, on a gradual incline. It simplified things, but it also meant that the magic she was counting on to see her through was more or less useless. The acoustic cartography spell – or "sonar whatsit," as it was apparently known to layponies – was a nifty bit of sorcery with many applications, but it was best utilized by multiple unicorns working in concert to canvas an area. Used by a single caster, its effective range was painfully limited, not to mention headache-inducing. As long as the tunnel maintained its trajectory and didn't start forking into forks which forked into still more forks, she figured she'd save herself time and effort and minimize how much she relied upon the spell.

She was half an hour into her trip, washing down a bland piece of green ration with a swig of metallic-tasting water from a Guard-issue canteen, when the tunnel abruptly ran out. Ahead of her was a sheer drop, and a vast expanse of darkness that the light from her horn could barely penetrate.

Fortunately, it wasn't the only lighting spell she knew.

The beam emanating from her horn receded, coalesced into a brilliant white sphere, and shot to the cavern's apex. It hovered, a heatless, miniature star that forced Twilight to momentarily squint and shield her eyes with her hoof before her she could adjust enough to gaze inside.

Beyond the tunnel's exit was a chamber, ovoid in shape, and massive in size and scale – you could probably fit Canterlot Castle's ballroom inside of it five times over, with room to spare. Two tunnels were dug into the walls on ground level, one on the opposite end of the cavern from her, roughly aligning with the tunnel she'd been walking, the other dug into the wall on her left.

Those, however, were minor details. It was the contents of the chamber which made Twilight wonder if she was hallucinating.

Below her stretched the crumbling remnants of two stone buildings, barracks-style structures running parallel to one another, on opposite sides of a cobblestone path which extended into the tunnel opposite Twilight. The structure on the right was remarkably intact – all four walls still stood, though the roof had collapsed, revealing an interior packed to the brim with dirt. The building on the left, by contrast, was an abject ruin. Only one corner of its walls remained standing; the rest had fallen into rubble long ago.

Twilight teleported to the bottom of the chamber, in the center of the cobblestone path, gazing into the abyssal darkness of the tunnel ahead. She glanced down at the stones beneath her hooves, and, frowning, tapped them twice. She was met with an echoing clop-clop. Twilight walked to the building on her right, did the same with its wall, and got another clop-clop in response.

So... probably not a hallucination, then. Nice to know I'm not crazy.

Although that would at least have been an explanation for what she was seeing. Try as she might to recall something to make sense of what she was looking at – perhaps a note from a half-remembered lecture, or a passage from a text – she came up dry. Nothing in her education or experience could explain the existence of a ruined civilization beneath the frontier.

Which would mean that I'm the first to find it. Oh, I could publish a whole thesis on this...!

A noise from the tunnel ahead – a rough, sandpapery sound that brought to mind what Snake might sound like after a tracheotomy – killed Twilight's academic enthusiasm.

Eight golems, their black carapaces glinting in the artificial light, emerged from the inky darkness in a V-shaped rank, and advanced on Twilight in lock-step. Seven pairs of pale blue eyes on seven blank faces regarded her. The eighth – the one in the middle of the rank – had eyes as dead as the others, but it met and held Twilight's gaze, drawing back its lips in a snarl.

That one's got a bone to pick.

Twilight fired a thin, pink lance that blasted a hole directly in the middle golem's path. Gratifyingly, it actually flinched, though it never lost its grin, even when the whole rank came to a stop. She looked from one end of the line to the other, keeping her horn lowered, daring one of them to take another step forward.

Then the middle golem spoke. "You're all alone. Where's your friend, the murderer? I invited him for a reason."

Twilight looked up with a start. That it said anything at all came as no surprise – Chrysalis had spoken through Cherry before, after all. But its voice was a blend of the changeling's own and the Chrysalis's coquettish tones, and that was profoundly disturbing.

She swallowed her nervousness, and hoped the Queen didn't notice. "Snake's around. Needed elsewhere."

"So he snubbed me." The golem's smirk split into a wide, toothy grin, exposing a row of chipped and blunted fangs. "Between his discourtesy, and your little outburst just now, my sense of hospitality is being seriously strained. I'll have to find him, and express my displeasure personally."

"Yeah? What about you?" Twilight snapped. "You sent a surrogate instead of meeting me yourself. You're a worse hostess than I am a houseguest."

"Ah, do excuse me. I'm, how to put it..." The golem frowned, rolling a hole-ridden hoof idly in the air as it thought. "Indisposed. Tied up, one might say. Don't worry, you can address your questions and comments to my puppet here. You might say he... speaks with my voice?"

Chrysalis giggled at her own pun.

"Funny," said Twilight. "Please give me my friend now."

"Don't be like that," Chrysalis cooed. "I won't fault you for wanting to skip the foreplay, but come on! I know you well enough to know how curious you must be right now. When else but now will you ever have the chance to indulge your inner historian?"

"Presumably, when I go home, after I'm finished with you." Twilight's patience was hanging by its last thread. "I doubt there's anything you could tell me that I couldn't find out for myself."

"Oh, there's nothing like the arrogance of an ivory tower intellectual. Still, I can't pass up the chance to lecture the biggest pedant in Equestria. I hope you don't mind if I savor the moment a little."

The other golems fanned out, breaking ranks and encircling Twilight, while Chrysalis's puppet took to the air. It rose until it was almost of a height with the miniature sun lighting the room, its profile lost in the glow, and Twilight had to look away.

"Welcome, Twilight Sparkle!" The two voices, entwined in their foul harmony, shook the chamber with enough bass and gusto to make Luna herself die of Royal Canterlot Voice envy. "To the lost rrrrrrealm... of Canterbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrria!"

Unimpressed with her boisterousness and perfectly rolled "r"s, Twilight shifted her attention to the other seven golems, who stood in a loose ring around her. She assumed the Queen's theatrics were no more than a diversion, to draw her attention away from the coming ambush.

But they didn't move a millimeter. Somehow, for Twilight, that inaction was the last straw.

Chrysalis's puppet hovered in the air a moment longer before descending slowly to the ground, dropping to its hooves, and stilling the rapid beating of its wings. Its grin became a surprisingly self-conscious smile.

"Too much? I don't get the opportunity to play up the whole 'archvillain' thing to a non-changeling audience very often."

"Oh, stop," Twilight snapped. "I didn't come here to chat with you, and I certainly didn't come for a history lesson. I don't care what this place is called, or who built it, or when, or why. I have zero interest. Zero. Less than zero. There is no way to mathematically quantify how little I care."

"You're not fooling me. Come on, ask—"

"No. You have put me through hell today, with your games and your ambushes and your riddles wrapped in enigmas, and I am officially through with all of it. I'm not going to indulge you, or your pathological need for hero/villain banter, any longer. I want Rainbow Dash, and you're going to give her to me, or I swear, I will cave this whole stupid city in on itself, and let you dig your way out!"

The scholar in her raged at her angry dismissal of a perfectly legitimate line of academic inquiry. Every other iota of Twilight's being delighted in how aback Chrysalis was taken, the plain, naked shock on the puppet's face.

Then it sneered. "That's a bold threat, Twilight, but we both know you'd never act on it."

"You sure about that? You don't know me."

"Oh. Is that what you think?" The puppet laughed darkly. "This is going to be more fun than I thought..."

The golems encircling Twilight edged closer, tightening their perimeter. Strategically, being surrounded meant little; Twilight could conjure a dozen different countermeasures for it in her sleep. Eight golems, using run-of-the-mill encircling tactics – Chrysalis's opening move was utterly failing to impress.

Although... who knew how many were waiting in the wings?

"You're right about one thing, however. I did get sidetracked." The puppet took a measured step forward. "I thank you for indulging me, but it's time to get down to brass tacks. You're in no position to be issuing threats, even if you were willing or able to act on them. I have a decisive numerical advantage over you, so I suggest you trot along with the honor guard here, and not make a fuss. Play nice, and I promise that you and Rainbow Dash can spend what time you have left hugging and braiding each other's hair and singing happy little pony songs."

"You're not taking me anywhere."

"Of course I am," said Chrysalis in that saccharine, patronizing way. "It's just a question of whether you'll go under your own power, or whether I'll have to break every bone in your miserable body and drag you."

The threat rolled off her tongue casually, with no more menace behind it than an invitation to Sunday tea. How to respond? Twilight looked to Rainbow Dash to inspiration – what would a brave pony like her do?

Crash into my balcony? Get captured by a cyclops? Ignore Scootaloo?

No, no, and no.

...Say something punky to bait them into attacking, and pick them apart as they come?

Better.

"Think you got what it takes?" She did her best to emulate one of Rainbow Dash's cocky grins. "Come and try, uh... Sparky."

The golem's face dropped into an expression of confusion. It cocked its head, eyes narrowing.

"Sparky?" it mouthed. It shook its head with a disgusted snort.

Only the fact that she was staring down a deadly foe kept Twilight from cringing to death.

I think I'll just stick with the whole "righteous anger" thing from here on out.

The golem sucked its teeth.

Then all eight charged inward, toward her, at once.

What she lacked in badass pre-fight one-liners, Twilight made up for in magical prowess. A shimmering pink dome appeared around her body, and the golems collided with it from all sides. Then the barrier expanded and burst, flinging the attackers away. Their wings beat furiously to fight off the momentum generated by the force of Twilight's attack, and most were able to right themselves in the air.

One wasn't. It struck the crumbled building to Twilight's left with enough force to shatter rock. Its remains lay amid a pile of fallen stones and a cloud of fine powder.

She stared, mouth open, for a split second, before the seven still active streaked at her, again from all sides. Twilight set her eyes front and blasted a target of opportunity out of the air with a point-blank shot to its face. Another came at her from behind, and got a chitin-cracking buck in the face for its trouble.

One crept into Twilight's blind spot, and caught her with a sucker punch to her cheek. Stars burst in the corner of her vision; she whirled right to face her attacker, reared onto her hind legs, and caught the golem by its shoulders with her front hooves.

Its fangs flashed, and it thrust toward her face with its horn. Twilight parried with a thrust of her own, locking their horns together, and they grappled, baring their teeth. The golem's wings propelled it forward, and Twilight took a staggered step back to brace herself.

Her horn shimmered, but something landed on her back, caught her mane in its teeth, and pulled. The deadlock was broken, and the bolt that she'd been preparing to cast fired harmlessly into the ceiling. The golem she grappled with sank its teeth into her exposed neck.

She screamed, and her aura winked out. Through the haze of pain and shock, she realized that bite wasn't a killing strike. It was too shallow, and the golem had missed her carotid.

Of course. Chrysalis doesn't want me dead.

She beat her hoof against the golem's head. The first punch made it grunt and jerk; the second dislodged it from her neck, and it snapped its bloody fangs at her nose in reprisal. Twilight fought to refocus, ignoring the trickling sensation from her neck. Sparks fizzled at the tip of her horn, and she thrust toward the golem's eyes. She didn't pierce either of them, but the light and heat made the golem hiss and pull away from Twilight, who fell back to her hooves. The golem on her back still clung to her mane and was trying desperately to restrain her while the others swarmed her from the front.

There was still a spearhead in her saddlebags, she remembered. Twilight pulled it free and, without looking or thinking, stabbed at the golem on her back. Through her aura, she felt it penetrate a soft, squishy surface. She'd caught the golem in its vulnerable eye. Its grip on her mane loosened.

Push it deeper.

Twilight shut her eyes and withdrew the spearhead, with most of the golem's eye still stuck on the point. Her telekinesis flung the still-squirming body into one of the incoming golems, knocking it out of the air. Then she dropped the weapon, pivoted, coiled her legs, and pounced, landing on top of the one-eyed golem, knocking it out, and further pinning the one underneath.

Twilight lowered her horn until it was pressed against the squirming golem's forehead. She shut her eyes.

Leave it, and it'll just go after you again. Put it down.

She fired. When she opened her eyes, the golem was moaning and unconscious, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth.

A shadow fell over her – one of the golems was overhead, plunging toward her. Twilight hurled the spearhead telekinetically, through the golem's wing. Then she flashed, vanished, and reappeared on top of the dirt-packed building, in time to see her attacker crash into the spot she'd just vacated. It rolled, came to a stop, and lay twitching.

Five down.

The last three rose to take her on three sides. Twilight stretched out with her senses, found some loose rubble, and pulled several sizable lumps of stone into the air. She flung the first rock and dropped an unwary golem with a blow to the head. Twilight flung a second, but her target weaved away before it could hit, and was too busy laughing at Twilight's error to see the rock reverse course in midair and collide with the back of its head.

She didn't see the bodies land, didn't know whether they lived or not, and was too preoccupied to hate herself at that moment either way.

The last golem landed in front of Twilight, the one Chrysalis had approached her with at ambush's onset. Twilight could tell by the leer.

Twilight pounced, but the golem pulled away. It hovered, lazily dodging a rapid-fire string of blasts – a distraction from the swarm of rocks hurtling toward it from the sides. It saw them coming at the last second, and dodged two, but one caught it in the chest, then another tore through its wing. A cry of pained surprise tapered into manic laughter, and it dropped to the ground with its one remaining wing beating in futility.

Twilight galloped to the edge of the roof and teleported to the ground with her back to the golem. Her hind leg caught it in its ribs; she spun and rammed it with her shoulder, driving it against the nearby building. Twilight reared and pinned its forelegs against the wall, and pressed her glowing horn against the center of the golem's forehead.

You won't be a killer. It's not even alive.

Through it all, the golem kept laughing. The light from Twilight's horn caught in the golem's eyes, and she saw her reflection – the bruises on her face, the tired circles beneath her own eyes, and her furious grimace.

This is a kindness. Do it.

"What're you waiting for?" the golem hissed.

Twilight's jaw clenched.

"You burned a whole town's worth of them without a second's thought. Why sweat over it now?" It chattered out a mad little laugh. "They're not alive, remember? Living like this is no life at all, remember?"

Sparks crackled, and Twilight stared into her reflected gaze.

I can't. Celestia, I can't do it.

She hurled the puppet away from the wall, sending it tumbling into the center of the cobblestone boulevard. When it tried to rise, Twilight stopped it with a hoof between its wings.

"Let me guess – it's harder when they talk back, right?" The golem shook its head, chuckling scornfully. "You would have saved yourself a lot of trouble by just going quietly, you know."

"Believe me, Chrysalis, it wasn't any trouble at all."

"Now there's a proper quip! Knew you had it in you, Sparky. We'll make a cold-blooded killer out of you yet." The puppet's laughter caught in its throat, and it coughed up a wad of gunk that it spat at Twilight's hoof.

"Where is she?" said Twilight calmly, ignoring her own disgusted impulse.

"Very close by," the puppet wheezed, straining against the pressure. "Pick a tunnel. It doesn't matter which one; they'll both take you to where you're going. They meet at a path deeper into the earth – a road to the forum, the heart of this old city. This sun-scorched realm of hubristic earth ponies, subsumed by ashes, long, long ago."

Sun-scorched... Why did that ring such a noisy, alarming bell for her?

"Or by a volcano, more likely," Chrysalis added. "But that doesn't have quite the same poetry, wouldn't you agree?"

Twilight winced – she hadn't meant to speak that thought aloud. Gently, she eased her hoof of of the golem's body, and it rolled onto its back with a groan.

"See? Knew you were curious," said the golem, propping up on is elbows. "I'm going to ask that you hold off on asking questions until you get here, however. Don't want to exhaust that avenue of discussion before I can see you face-to-face. We have so much to catch up on, after all."

"Fat chance. I'm getting my friend, and we are walking out of here together. That's how this ends."

"Silly filly." The golem shook its head. "Neither of you are leaving here alive. That's how this ends."

From behind came a cacophony of droning wings, pounding hooves, and shifting rubble. Twilight turned to see the golems, alive and fully conscious, storming toward her rapidly, as the one at her hooves laughed.

Then they fell, in sprays of green gore and chitin chips, swatted out of the air by suppressed gunfire.

Twilight stared, unblinking and unmoving, as her mind struggled to process this.

"The tin man," the golem at her hooves hissed. Twilight looked down again – its head was turned toward one of the tunnels, and a red dot danced along its forehead. "Of course. You would befriend that—"

Then its head exploded like an overripe honeydew, peppering Twilight with shrapnel and flecks of fluid.

Twilight stumbled back, heart thundering in her chest, and frantically searched the room. Her first thought was that Snake had stayed after all, that he came after her. But the attack had come from the wrong direction – from her golem's left, not from above – and the only gun he had with that red light was his tranquilizer.

Snake didn't fire that shot.

With a tremble that she couldn't suppress, Twilight turned to face that tunnel, where a single point of pale blue fire burned amid the darkness.

Trenton edged into the light with catlike fluidity, the barrel of a suppressed pistol leveled at the center of Twilight's head. His bulky vest was pitted with holes from changeling horns, and the left side of his head bore a dent the size of Twilight's hoof, as well as a smear of green that covered the blank mask where his face should have been. The gun was new, too; he hadn't been carrying that in the Everfree. The bodies the Guard found in the orchard were cut up, she recalled, but the hilt of his sword didn't poke up from behind his shoulder. Had he lost it? Traded it out for the gun?

He's a good enough shot that he doesn't need it, I suppose.

Trenton came to a stop beside a pile of rubble, where Twilight had buried one of the golems. He stared at her, and cocked his head to the side.

"You're injured."

It was like he'd flipped a switch and reactivated her pain receptors. Her bite wound started to sting again, and she felt twin trails of blood sliding down her neck. Painful, but only a flesh wound, and nothing to worry about. She wondered why he'd taken notice.

Twilight smoothed her mane over the bite. It was already full of dirt and changeling viscera, and it stank of corn whiskey; mashing in a bit of blood on top of it all couldn't hurt. "Yeah, well, you look like you've seen better days yourself." She scowled. "What're you doing down here?"

"The same as you, I believe," said Trenton. "You came to Dodge, as I did, found the town abandoned, as I did. You were waylaid up above by these... changelings? Yes?"

Twilight offered no reply.

"Rainbow Dash identified them as such. I wouldn't have known otherwise." Trenton's looked at the headless puppet. "We were ambushed shortly after our arrival in town, and as I fought them off, she fled. They seized her before I could get her back, and dragged her to their lair. I've been here ever since – scouting, planning... waiting."

"For what?"

"To see if you would ever arrive. To see if you would venture below in search of her. You did, although by a different route than I." He returned his gaze to Twilight. "And to see if your human companion is the man I think he is."

"You mean Snake?"

"If you insist." He sounded annoyed. "Where is he, exactly? The Queen neglected to ask for specifics."

"Survivor," she blurted automatically. "Cherry Jubilee, the ranch owner. I asked him to stay with her while I came down here."

"There was no one else who could have?"

"It's just the two of us out here." She thought about fluffing her fib with a tall tale about Pinkie Pie and Rarity patrolling the orchard, but didn't want to push her luck. A lie like that could easily balloon past her ability to contain, and the situation was already precarious enough.

"Is that so? And where did you get Royal Guard saddlebags?"

Her heart skipped at the reminder of Trenton's uncanny familiarity with Equestria. "They're my brother's. He's the captain of the Royal Guard. Left them at my house the last time he stayed over."

She started to sweat nervously. If she could see the holes in her own story, then there was no doubt in her mind that he could, too. But, finally, he dropped out of his shooting stance, slid the pistol into a holster on the front of his vest, and straightened his posture.

"I'll be brief," he said. "You and I want the same thing. You want Rainbow Dash back, and I want to give her back to you. If we work together and move quickly, we should be able to—"

"No." The audacity of his suggestion made Twilight funnel more energy into her aura, brightening it dangerously.

Trenton nodded. "Of course, naturally, you're disinclined to trust me—"

"You tried to kill us all yesterday!" Twilight thrust an accusatory hoof at the ninja.

"On the contrary. If you'll recall, I was the only thing actively not trying to kill you yesterday."

Twilight seethed, but when she thought about it... Trenton had fought to cripple and disable, not to kill, and he'd had them at his mercy more than once.

Including just now. He could have blown me away; he didn't.

But that didn't exactly make her want to trust him.

"You kidnapped Apple Bloom." Twilight dug her upraised hoof into the dirt. "You threatened to cut Spike's throat!"

"The alternative to kidnapping the foal was killing her," said Trenton. "Either would have guaranteed that you would pursue me, which was what I wanted, but I chose to spare her. As for the dragon, that was a bluff. I don't expect you to believe me, but I never intended to harm him."

"Screw. You. For thinking I'm gullible enough to believe you." Twilight lowered her head so her horn was level with Trenton's chest; a very dark part of her mind wondered if she could channel enough energy to punch a hole clean through him if she had to. "You can defend yourself however you like, but you're still one of the people holding a gun to Equestria's head, and I'm not going to forgive and forget that just because you give me your word—"

"Pegasus Wings is about to attack Ponyville."

Well that certainly shut her up. "What did you say?"

"The powers that be know that you and your friends represent the most obvious threat to their plans, besides the Princesses," he continued. "They are taking great pains to isolate your town, to keep you from interfering. A no-fly zone issued without warning or explanation, a fire which conveniently cuts railroad transportation from Ponyville to Canterlot – all part of the plan from the beginning, naturally, but they had no intention of moving on the town directly until you gave them a reason to."

"How would you even know that?" Twilight demanded. "Don't tell me you're still in the loop after helping us escape last night. Not to mention what you're pulling right now."

Behind their backs, I'll bet.

"I know both Macbeth and the Commander well enough to predict their actions with a very high degree of accuracy," Trenton replied. "Both realize that you are a threat they cannot abide. It will take time to form a plan of attack, and to reposition their forces to execute it, and they will quarrel endlessly about it, but I guarantee that, within a day now, the hammer will fall on Ponyville."

Twilight gathered enough focus to reform her aura, and trained her horn on Trenton.

"You see me as the enemy," said Trenton. "With good reason. But you have a scholar's instincts; you are driven by logic and reason and evidence. Consider the occasions I've had to kill you and your friends. Consider that I had a clear shot on your head just now, and deliberately did not take it."

"'I can kill you but I don't want to' isn't the best basis for a partnership," said Twilight.

"What about a token of goodwill? A gift of arms and ammunition?" Static crackled faintly in Trenton's voice. "I trust your friend found the carbine I left for him. And there is more – supplies, tools, even my vehicle. All of it is yours, in addition to Rainbow Dash's safe return. All to put you in the best possible position to survive the coming battle. If you cannot trust me, then trust what you've seen, and ask yourself what the point of all of this would be if it were really my will that you all die."

The light around her horn dimmed as her uncertainty grew and gnawed at her. "Suppose I mull it over, and I still decide you can't be trusted."

"Would you trust me over Chrysalis? The path she gave you will lead you into a trap, but I know another route of which she is unaware." The fire in his eye flickered and extinguished and did not relight. "We have a narrow window of opportunity within which to work. Something above has drawn the Queen's attention – your friend, I assume – and she has committed all of her forces to dealing with him. She alone remains to guard Rainbow Dash."

Twilight worked her jaw in silence as Chrysalis's strategy unraveled before her. The ambush was weak because the bulk of her army was going after Killjoy and her detachment. That was the whole point of luring her and Snake into the hive. It was divide and conquer – deal with the two of them personally while her army faced the Guard, with neither in a position to help the other.

"By myself, I cannot defeat her," Trenton continued. "I tried once already, and the fight was... inconclusive. I doubt you could prevail where I did not, but together, we might be able to effect a successful rescue, with time enough for you to return home, warn your friends, and prepare a defense against Macbeth's incursion. Or we can continue to waste time here, debating and fighting, while Rainbow Dash languishes in captivity."

Work with him, or fight him – a dilemma with no preferable decision. Maybe he didn't want her and her friends dead, and maybe his offer of help was genuine, but Twilight had no reason to assume that his motives were on the level. She remembered the soldiers he killed in the forest – "no witnesses," he'd said, as if that was all the explanation necessary. They'd been on his side, and he murdered them in cold blood without hesitation. What guarantee did Twilight have that he wouldn't do the same to her if she became inconvenient?

Well, what's my third option? Turn back?

That was no option at all. Sunk cost fallacies be damned; she'd come too far and fought through too much to quit with Rainbow Dash's life on the line. She had to see this through, no matter what, whether that meant linking elbows with Discord and lalala-ing across a springtime meadow, or spelunking in a dank cavern with someone who did terrible things to her spine the night before.

Not gladly, though. She had been drawn into one trap by Chrysalis, and snagged by Trenton in what may as well have been another, swapping out nemeses within the span of a few minutes. It made her feel helpless, like a feather in an updraft, subject to the fickle whims of the wind. No will of her own, no control of her own destiny, pulled this way and that by some apathetic entity who scoffed at the idea of her own agency.

She wondered if that was how she made Snake feel.

So Twilight swallowed her pride, let her aura vanish completely, and looked into the ninja's eye. Its glow had returned, though it was lost in the brilliance of the light she'd created – not a blaze, but an ember, like the guttering tip of a cigarette worn to a nub.

"At least tell me why," she said quietly. "Why you're going against your allies all of a sudden. Why you care."

Trenton's shoulders rose and fell ponderously – a stiff, robotic shrug that he seemed to be consciously forcing. "The magic of friendship?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't patronize me."

"There is no answer I could give you that you would find satisfactory. Anything I say, you will think either suspicious, a half-truth, or an outright lie. The truth is on a need-to-know basis, anyway." He turned toward the tunnel from which he'd emerged. "So, what you do need to know, I'll tell you along the way. Decide for yourself what to believe."

The second tunnel generally followed the same trajectory as the first, conveying them eastward despite the occasional dip or curve. The scattered remnants of ancient buildings littered the path, too, sculpted chunks of limestone and marble that Twilight occasionally stumbled or climbed over. It was as if whatever dug the tunnel just barreled through the ruins of the city, breaking whatever was in its path without stopping to think about it.

Too late, it occurred to Twilight to ask Chrysalis about the egg.

Trenton briefed her as they walked, describing the specifics of Rainbow Dash's condition. She'd suffered moderate injuries when she was pinned by the rubble in the castle – fractures in her hips and a broken hind leg – in addition to battle damage from IRVING. Trenton had assumed her wounds would prevent her from making a break for it, so long as he kept a close watch on her.

He obviously didn't know Rainbow Dash as well as he thought.

It was such a Rainbow Dash thing to do. Of course a broken leg wouldn't stop her from trying something bold and borderline stupid in the middle of a fight. Normally, that was something Twilight might have scolded her for. Instead, she felt a swell of pride for her friend.

Of course, it might have been easier on me if you hadn't tried anything at all, Rainbow...

So Trenton armed himself with a handgun taken from the arsenal he'd prepared for Snake, tracked his quarry to what he estimated was the center of the hive, and attempted a rescue, only to be fended off by Chrysalis herself.

"That would explain your, uh..." Twilight coughed. "Disheveledness, I suppose. Of course, if you're thinking that the two of us'll succeed where you failed, then keep in mind – Chrysalis has an army of hundreds behind her. There's no guarantee she won't bring in reinforcements if the fight goes against her. Two of us versus her? Might go alright. Two of us versus her, plus a legion of back-up? I'm feeling a little less solid about our odds."

Twilight came to a stop at a fallen marble archway that lay across the middle of the path – a rare piece of Canterbrian architecture that her new friend, the angry egg monster, couldn't have bothered to break while passing through.

Or maybe it was part of the ceiling and got dislodged by its passing. Annoying, either way.

She became aware of Trenton standing uncomfortably close behind her, the glow from his eye mingling with the light from her horn.

"Solid," he mused. "Was that a pun?"

"It was not."

"My apologies. I've come to expect puns from your kind." His eye scanned along the archway. "If she does bring reinforcements, then we will have some warning. While most of my onboard sensor suite is inoperable in Equestria, my analog systems are sensitive enough to track the movements of each individual member of this hive. Only while they are underground, however. If they re-enter the hive, in any number, we will know."

"Better than nothing, I guess." Even broken and toppled, the arch was taller than she was – three and a half Twilights high, reaching almost to the cavern's ceiling. "So, in your estimation, how many is Snake dealing with right now?"

"Factoring in those slain between the three of us, and not counting Chrysalis herself, I would put them at three hundred and forty-nine individuals. None of whom, I should point out, have demonstrated the kind of shape-shifting abilities for which the species is named. Or any sort of magical abilities, for that matter."

"Huh, funny – wonder why."

Can't go around it, can't go over it. Guess I could always just teleport over the arch, though without a clear image of what's on the other side... Oh, who am I kidding; it's just more endless, cylindrically carved—

Then the arch shifted and rose. Trenton had it propped on one side, his palm pressed flat against the marble surface. He stared silently at Twilight before jerking his neck toward the path.

"Thanks," Twilight said acidly. She trotted under the arch, ignoring a fleeting feeling of anxiety, and heard it topple to the ground when Trenton dropped it.

If he was trying to intimidate me, then he... ugh... kinda succeeded.

"I had hoped you would have an explanation for their reduced abilities." Trenton's voice showed no sign of strain from lifting the arch. "My knowledge of changelings is unfortunately limited."

As was her own. The safest assumption was that changeling magic was tied to their soul – no soul, no shape-shifting. No catapulting from the sky like a gooey green booger of bug-death, either. Maybe stripping away her brood's species-defining trait was a trade-off that presented some sort of advantage, but if so, Chrysalis hadn't demonstrated it.

"Three hundred and forty-nine of them, versus the two of us. That doesn't seem lopsided to you?" Twilight looked over her shoulder at Trenton, slowing her steps to avoid tripping on anything. "All you've really done is reinforce my point."

"They pose no immediate threat."

"No immediate threat." Twilight's eyes narrowed. "They could still win their fight up above and come back down to reinforce Chrysalis. Or she could decide that they'd do more good down here than up there and just pull them out altogether."

"I don't foresee that happening," said Trenton. "Consider your earlier encounter with Chrysalis. The pride, the vanity, she displayed in speaking with you. I would wager that pride is why she is choosing to face you herself, rather than overwhelm you with superior numbers. She has a vendetta against you which demands satisfaction, and she is proud enough to do that herself, regardless of whether or not her forces prevail against that man."

And wasn't that a happy thought, although Twilight wondered what the reason was for this singular focus on her. Finding Cadance and exposing Chrysalis's scheme might have set into motion the Queen's downfall, but it was Shining and Cadance who expelled her from Canterlot. She loaded the gun, but her brother and his wife pulled the trigger.

Darn it, now I'm starting to think like Snake, too. Or, at least, in Snakey metaphors.

"You seem disquieted," Trenton observed. "Concerned for him?"

For Snake? He was the one person she could safely assume was out of harm's way. But the ponies who were up above were facing almost three-to-one odds. It was ironic that Killjoy had been worried about Twilight going into the tunnel alone. This new development in mind, whether she had it worse than Twilight or vice-versa could be the subject of a lively and spirited debate.

"Can you blame me?" Twilight grumbled. Appearances needed maintaining, after all. "Those are long odds for anypony. Or anyhuman, rather. Anyone?"

Settle on "anyone."

"Not for him," said Trenton dismissively. "You ought to have faith in his abilities. He is far too redoubtable to be undone so easily."

Well then, it's a pity he's not actually up there, or I might not be so worried about Killjoy and the others.

For a time after that, they fell silent. Their walk was scored only by the ambient noises of travel – footsteps on dirt, the soft tinkling of Twilight's aura, the occasional rumble of her mostly empty stomach... More than once, she felt compelled to dip into her rations again, and had to stop herself. The fact that she had Royal Guard saddlebags had already drawn Trenton's curiosity once. She didn't think for a second that he'd actually bought her tall tale about Shining Armor leaving them behind. An occasional sip from her canteen was probably safe, but munching on flavorless, Royal Guard-issue dried grass rations could raise further questions  from her tenuous ally.

Eventually, they came to another branch in the road – the spot that Chrysalis had mentioned, where two tunnels diverged, one leading to Rainbow Dash's location. That one plunged diagonally into the earth, while the other curved rightward, due south. The light from her horn failed to penetrate the first; it simply stretched forward, on and on, a tunnel beneath a network of underground tunnels. The redundancy made Twilight snort with bemusement, but there was something else to it that unsettled her, an unshakable feeling of dread clawed at the edges of her perception. Call it a premonition, or intuition, or just good old fashioned paranoia, but Twilight didn't like the look of that tunnel.

Nor the fact that Chrysalis had urged her to take it.

"You said you knew another route, right?" said Twilight. "That this one'd take me into another ambush?"

"I do. This presents an ideal choke point – no twists, turns, forks or branches. A good place for Chrysalis to lay an ambush." Trenton pointed down the tunnel curving to the right. "But there is an entrance to a structure whose interior is still accessible down this one. A convenient shortcut."

Twilight took another glance down the eastward tunnel, mulling her sensation of dread. Chrysalis may have been trying to lure her into a trap, but it didn't stand to reason that the alternative was preferable. She trusted Trenton as far as she could throw him.

Actually, depending on his weight, and given optimal wind conditions, I could probably toss him quite a distance via levitation.

As far as Fluttershy could throw him, then. Fortunately, Twilight didn't have to take either of them at their word. She shut her eyes and inhaled deeply.

Trenton took an impatient step toward her. "Are you listening to—"

Twilight raised her hoof to silence him. She exhaled, and her mind emptied of errant thoughts and cares, until all was silence, and all she saw in her mind's eye was an endless expanse of black.

Against that darkness, she projected a light, a starburst that pulsed in time with the rhythm of her heart. She concentrated on that light, on growing it with each pulse. Brighter and faster it flashed, matching her heart on every beat, until all at once, it expanded to fill her vision.

And, with a soft gasp of release, another light burst from her horn and expanded, passing through earth and brick and marble, and building an image in her mind. It was vague, blurry, like a landscape glimpsed through a foggy window pane, and she tried to sharpen it, to bring it into focus.

What she got was a picture in her mind's eye of a lopsided, asymmetrical pretzel – loops and whirls that fed back into themselves, an underground ouroboros, with vast expanses of unexcavated earth in the spaces between. Only the area immediately around her was clearly defined; the lines and edges of the distant tunnels were blurry. She couldn't even see clearly all the way back to the chamber where she'd fought the honor guard.

But she could discern hollow pockets embedded in the walls, rectangular voids where roofs had not caved in, buildings whose insides were still accessible. And there was a cluster of them, close together, to the south, with an edge brushing against the wall of the tunnel that Trenton insisted on taking. That was his shortcut: a dilapidated structure that hadn't collapsed beneath the weight of the earth pressing down on it.

Yet.

Twilight found herself flushed and breathing heavily when she opened her eyes, a slight lather having built up along her body from the stress of the spell. Trenton was staring patiently at her.

"So, yeah," she panted. "Think, ah, we'll be taking... the, uh..." She gestured down the rightward path.

"Do you need a moment?"

Twilight shook her head.

"Would you care for a cigarette?" Trenton asked dryly.

Twilight's response was a bewildered gaze and a second, slower shake of her head.

The shortcut's entrance turned out to be a small gap in the tunnel's wall, just above the floor. Behind the layers of earth were the edges of a broken brick wall, forming a hole just wide enough for even a human to squeeze through. The darkness inside was neither inky nor interminable, and when she shone her light through it, Twilight saw the comfortingly familiar sight of a dusty floor in dire need of a good sweeping.

Twilight teleported inside, dust swirling around her hooves from the burst of displaced air. She found herself at the bottom of a shallow, hexagonal pit, whose lines and angles matched perfectly with those of the room itself, and lit her aura, saturating everything in vivid pink hues. The room was ornate, yet unfurnished, and except for a broken clay vessel at the edge of the pit, every last surface was marble, gleaming faintly beneath a thick layer of dust.

The familiarity made her smile – this was a luxury bath, not unlike the ones that Rarity liked to indulge in. Yet there was a sense of scale and grandeur to this place that made Aloe's and Vera's fixtures look like the dirt-streaked linoleum tubs of a low-rent city tenement.

Then she looked at her hooves and winced. Speaking of filthy bathtubs...

A silty carpet coated the floor beneath her, and her hooves steadily sank into it the longer the stayed immobile. An irrational fear of quicksand spiked through her, but it vanished when she experimentally tugged one hoof and found that it popped free with no struggle. Feeling slightly embarrassed, she hopped out of the pit, hooves echoing noisily, while Trenton slid feet-first through the hole. The room was only slightly taller than him, and his head came within inches of scraping the ceiling when he stood.

"This is one room in a vast complex," said Trenton. "Areas exposed to the open air are inaccessible, but enclosed spaces, like this one, are still navigable."

"I'm not surprised. Chrysalis said that this was an earth pony civilization. They're good at what they do, no matter the era." Twilight idly batted a shard of clay with one of her hooves. "But we also saw buildings that'd collapsed or caved in over the years, so I'm guessing the architects didn't bring their A-game to everything they built in this city. Just for ponies who could afford it."

"An engineering masterpiece of marble and gold, made to suit the decadent tastes of the bourgeoisie, now a dead ruin beneath the bloodstained sand. Marx and Engels would approve."

"Uh..." Twilight frowned confusedly. "Whom and Whogels?"

"Irrelevant." Trenton gestured toward the room's exit, a half-open wooden door that looked like it'd crumble to dust if Twilight pushed it hard enough. "That way."

Don't bring it up if it's irrelevant, jerk.

The door did not crumble to dust when Twilight stepped through, into a much more spacious area where the air was thin and stale and faintly sweet. She brightened the light around her horn, and saw a room lined with dusty bronze benches and coal-filled braziers.

And, everywhere, a grim tableau of desiccated corpses.

On one bench rested the body of an earth pony, his legs curled beneath him like a cat. Another was alone in the middle of the room, with a dark stain spread out beneath him; Twilight looked away from that body with a whispered curse when she saw the jagged shard of pottery between its hooves. Two bodies sat in a distant corner of the room, amid a pile of empty cups and tipped-over jugs. Their backs were propped up against the wall, their bodies draped in what she belatedly realized was a thick brown blanket, and their heads rested tenderly against one another.

Chrysalis had suggested, rather off-hoofedly, that this city was destroyed by a volcanic eruption. If that were true, if it was a deluge of ashes that buried this place, then these ponies would have been sealed inside whatever rooms or buildings they'd happened to be in. When the reinforced roof of this room failed to cave, the trapped ponies would have asphyxiated as they slowly consumed all the oxygen in the room.

Faced with that choice, no wonder that one opted out.

But she wondered at that couple in the corner – what the connection between them was, whether they'd known each other, been close, been intimate. Or whether they'd been strangers who simply chose to comfort one another at the end. Had they opted out too? If she lifted the blanket, would she find more shards of pottery? Had they spiked their drinks with something lethal? Or did they just wait? Quietly, in comfort, together?

It didn't matter. Not really. Trenton pointed to another door, and she stepped through it, her eyes stinging.

The next room was no larger than the last, yet far grander at the same time. The ceiling, with branches of inlaid gold along its surface, curved overhead, supported by arches carved into muscled stallions and coyly smirking mares. There was another door in the far wall, above which a single window ran the length of the room, its glass miraculously unshattered. Earth pony engineering truly was marvelous. But when Twilight shone her light through the window, she saw only dirt pressed against it.

Probably nothing but more of the same past that door. Guess that's not the way out.

This room was furnished, too, though instead of plain bronze benches against the walls, there were beds of sculpted marble along the room's center. Dead ponies rested in them, in ones and twos and sometimes threes, their bodies draped in thick furs.

She didn't linger over the bodies this time. Her attention instead went to the reliefs along the wall beside her, which depicted – perhaps predictably – earth ponies.

Earth ponies at a gallop, pulling carts laden with rocks. Earth ponies piling stones, raising roofs, carving columns. Earth ponies gathered on the steps of a building, beneath an intricately carved portico. The reliefs told the story, Twilight realized, of the city's foundation. She walked along the wall, watching with morbid fascination as the scenes grew increasingly disturbing, despite the stunning artistry.

Earth ponies in armor, chests puffed, heads held tall. Earth ponies with hooves curled around spears, with mouths clutching swords or drawing bowstrings. Earth ponies locked in mortal struggle with unicorns, and pegasi, and minotaurs and griffins...

The reliefs ended at the room's corner, next to a mosaic covering the entirety of the far wall. Twilight stepped back to see it as a whole.

It showed the city at what looked to be the height of its power, splendidly white with a golden dome at its center. The sun burned overhead, a corona of red with orange rays lashing chaotically toward the ground. The city's population mustered, in the streets and on the rooftops, and raised their weapons, to challenge the ominous red star.

That symbol...

It wasn't quite a dead ringer for the one in the book that she and Snake found. But the resemblance was striking.

A dull ache throbbed beneath Twilight's horn, and she rubbed herself with a groan. Staring at that wall raised questions upon questions upon questions – normally, a challenge she'd relish. Here, and now, with the fate of Equestria and the life of her friend on the line, it was just one more thing to make her head hurt.

She noticed a blue glow spread across the mural.

Speaking of headaches...

"Tragically ironic, isn't it?" Trenton remarked. "One need only look around to see how this city's history of conflict ended for them. Scorched by the sun, and subsumed by ashes."

Twilight's eyes traced over the red sun, down to the bottom of the wall. There were spots where the tiles were shattered, amid half-moon marks that dug into the plaster beneath. Somepony had survived the fall of the city long enough to take out some frustration on this mosaic.

"Not that Chrysalis is a remotely reliable source, but it could just as easily have been a natural disaster that wiped this place out, rather than someone's sunny wrath," said Twilight. "I seem to recall reading something about the badlands being the caldera of an inactive volcano. That's close enough that a significant eruption could have affected this place."

"Possibly. Human lore, too, is rife with stories of restless spirits and wrathful gods meting out vengeance – tales invented to explain the inexplicable. But here, the rules are somewhat different. Our gods, if they exist at all, do not live among us, as yours do. So I've learned to keep an open mind."

"The Princesses aren't gods," Twilight said flatly. "And they don't claim to be."

"Just so," said Trenton. "But I did not mean them."

He knew. But of course he knew. Macbeth had known, had thrown it in her face. Why wouldn't Trenton know too? "Macbeth's god-emperor, right? What do you know about it?"

"Little. Much of what I know comes from Macbeth himself, and he is hardly a reliable source on anything. Exile has dulled his wits, I'm afraid. Exile, and his preoccupation with avenging himself upon the princess who wronged him."

"Okay, so he's crazy," Twilight pressed. "I know that much already. But what did he tell you?"

"If he is to be believed, then once there was an alicorn who wielded tremendous power. Who felt that power entitled him to rulership, and extended his reach across the known world, only to vanish from recorded history, and for Equestria to rise from the ashes of his empire." Trenton looked down at her. "What do you know about it?"

"What do I know? Nothing." The blue light was shining right in her eyes, forcing her to squint and turn away. "I found some scraps and made some inferences. The gateways that connect our two worlds –  he built them, and invaded yours."

"Yet he is as conspicuously absent from human history as he is from yours. One imagines he didn't get very far. Ironic for a self-proclaimed god to be utterly forgotten by his subjects and their descendants. All the power and glory in the world, and so little to mark his existence."

Trenton turned away from the mosaic and strode toward the other end of the hall. "But perhaps it is for the best he is forgotten. A figure of such bloodshed and violence gels poorly with the grand narrative of Equestrian history."

Twilight followed, keeping her eyes off the corpses in their beds. "What do you know about our history?" she muttered, fully cognizant of the fact that he knew a disturbing amount about their history.

"Much and more."

Trenton stopped at the far wall, pressed his palm against it, and pushed. With a faint squeak of protest, the wall moved inward, and slid aside to reveal a hidden chamber. Inside was a dusty corridor of unpolished granite, perpendicular to Twilight's perspective. She peeked inside – to her right was a dead end. To her left, the corridor stretched on into the darkness.

"Well, I'll be," Twilight muttered, poking her head inside. "A servant's passage. Guess they weren't exclusive to Equestria."

The servant's passage was an old tradition, helping the help to move around upscale manors or establishments while keeping them out of sight and mind. They could still be found in ritzy places with histories stretching into the distant past. Of course, their construction was eventually outlawed once the Princess passed reforms to protect the peasantry, but their use...

Aristocrats cling harder to some traditions than others. Classism didn't end when feudalism did. A walk around Canterlot is proof enough of that.

"Yes, I'm familiar with them," said Trenton. "Little surprise that they should exist in a place like this."

Yet another thing he inexplicably knew about.

The surface of the granite was lined with with shallow scratches and gouges. They looked deliberate, and she leaned further into the chamber for a closer look. She blew a puff of breath over the wall, scattering a layer of dust, and saw crude etchings of ponies in battle armor trudging up a hill, a facsimile of the historical reliefs that had disturbed her. However, instead of wielding swords and spears and grimacing with soldierly fury, they had massive phalluses jutting out of their bellies, which they thrust gleefully ahead like lances.

She disguised her laugh as a cough and backed out of the passage. "This'll take us where we need to go?"

"With so much of this complex buried or destroyed, passages like this one are the only reliable means of moving from one end to the other." He gestured at the opening. "Will you lead the way?"

Twilight gave Trenton a look. Ally of convenience or no, she didn't like the idea of having her back to him in such a narrow, confined space.

He seemed to understand and ducked inside without another word. She followed after him.

The passageway was dark, yet oddly spacious, offering enough room for Twilight to move with little constraint. Trenton was less fortunate; he had room to walk and stand, but had to hunch his head and angle his body to the side.

Every few meters or so, Twilight passed a thin, rectangular hole in the right wall. Peering into them, she could see chambers similar to the one they'd entered the complex through, with benches and pits and the occasional corpse or two. These ones were smaller, though. If the hexagonal room with the silty pool had been meant for multiple ponies to use, then these ones were meant for individuals.

Or for couples.

Nearly every inch of the walls was etched with graffiti, still perfectly legible after the passing of the years. Most of what Twilight saw was puerile, primarily carvings of unrealistically endowed stallions doing highly inappropriate and anatomically implausible things to one another. There were a few mares, too, but those lacked the crudeness and comical exaggeration of their male counterparts' anatomy, except for the one standing on her hind legs who seemed to be spraying milk over the delighted bodies of six other ponies in togas.

The togas were a recurring theme in the pictures, Twilight noticed. They seemed to indicate the political and economic elite, and they were almost always depicted in shameful, undignified scenarios, having terrible things done to them – often by the unrealistically endowed stallions. It was crude political satire, the work of underprivileged ponies mocking the mares and stallions that the bathhouse catered to. The mere existence of the servants' passage suggested a gross economic divide between the ponies who luxuriated in the facilities, and the ponies who served them. Where else could they vent but away from the prying eyes of the upper crust? And where better than a space that no upper-crusty-pony would ever dream of venturing into?

Twilight's face burned at the thought that Equestria had once been not so different. Its history may not have been one of war and conquest, but a divide between aristocrats and the peasant class? Exploitation of the have-nots by the haves? That was familiar. Shamefully, painfully familiar.

To Trenton, as well as to me. She glared suspiciously at him.

"Tell me something," said Twilight. "You knew what a servant's passage was before I even explained what they were. How's that work?"

"Your kind did not invent the practice of oppressing the underprivileged. Humanity has its own history of doing just that. Our own equivalents to what you see here. Although, the term itself I gleaned from your literature."

"You've read our books?"

"Your world, and your kind, have been known to us for decades. The gateway, the ruins surrounding it, evidence of your existence. But what little we could learn from those ruins was fragmented, and ancient. Too old to serve much good in the here and now."

Twilight shivered. Us. We. Who is he talking about, exactly? Who's financing your little expedition, Trenton?

Trenton shifted his body to step over someone's remains – a body, small enough to be a child, though it was too mummified for Twilight to know for sure that it was. She scurried over it quickly.

"So, yes, I've read your literature. Your history, too – your legends and lore, everything from children's fables to historical accounts, from the mundane to the farcical to the fantastical. The rebellion of Nightmare Moon, and the strife which preceded and followed her. The first Hearth's Warming, and the lighting of the Bonfires of Friendship. Fables about star-maidens, and dead things which dream of song in the deep places of the world. Slaymare."

"You've read Slaymare?" Twilight frowned. "Am I the only one in the whole furshlugginer world who hasn't?"

"Reading it was a waste of time. It did little to expand my understanding of your culture – a preachy rag, I thought, full of gratuitous sex and violence. I doubt it would be to your taste."

Common ground, at last. Perhaps we can use that as the basis for a negotiated peace. Or perhaps not.

"I'll take that into consideration if the urge ever strikes me to pick it up." Twilight cocked her head. "You're a voracious reader, aren't you? Must've taken some time to get through all of that."

"You should say what you mean," Trenton chided. "To answer your real question, yes. I've spent a great deal of time in your country. A year, or thereabouts – learning everything from history to geography to military disposition. Infiltrating many of your major population centers, too. Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Stalliongrad. Canterlot, I avoided, however – I did not want to risk an encounter with your Princess. Though I did chance to see her from afar while scouting Ponyville. She's quite impressive. And large. Her hair fascinates me."

"Yeah, I think I would have noticed a big blue cyclops bipeding his way around Ponyville," Twilight muttered, saying it more to reassure herself than in response to him.

"I am exceptionally gifted at staying out of sight. Though, even if I were not, the optic camouflage unit certainly helped matters. A shame it ceased to function – I grew too dependent on it, most like. It would certainly help matters along if I had it now."

The corridor intersected with another going left. Trenton took the turn, Twilight following closely before he could get too far out of sight.

"So you bummed around Equestria," she said. "To, what, read our books and get the lay of the land?"

"In part. But also to form inroads, connections, with locals. An onsite intelligence network, if you will. Macbeth was my first contact – I met him in the Everfree Forest, shortly after arriving in Equestria for the first time."

Twilight snorted. "I'll bet he was of tremendous help."

"On his own? No. But he was open to the possibilities presented by my arrival. He answered questions, as many as he asked. I explained my intentions, and when we parted, he gave me a name – an old accomplice who had connections within Celestia's regime. That pony took care of the rest. Before long, I had a small network of informants operating under the Crown's nose. It's how I got my message to you, and how I intended to arrange Rainbow Dash's release once you and your friend arrived to claim her."

"How's that?"

"One of my contacts was an employee of Cherry Hill Ranch. No harm in telling you – he is probably dead now."

"Seems like a random spot for an intelligence operative." Something occurred to Twilight, and she stopped, Trenton slowing down when he realized she was no longer in step with him.

"Do you have someone in Ponyville?" she asked.

Trenton looked over his shoulder at her. "If I say yes, you will question my motives for revealing such a sensitive piece of information. If I say no, you will naturally assume that I am lying. So I will leave it to your imagination."

Darn it, why did he have to say that? Whatever I imagine's gonna be, like, a hundred times worse than the reality.

She hissed with frustration. And that's probably why he said it.

Trenton paused in front of a piece of wall that had been knocked inward, and now leaned against the corridor's wall – a hidden door that opened into a new room. Trenton ducked inside, with Twilight close behind. It was predictably ornate, given the standard set by the previous rooms they'd been in. White stucco walls, stained brown, with faded reliefs depicting gloriously muscled and armored ponies, a staircase leading up to a terrace, and a pair of doors flanking it. Signs hung over the doors, with words written in an archaic script that Twilight, after a moment's careful squinting, was able to decipher. "MARES," one read; "STALLIONS," the other.

Opposite the stairs were double-doors of wrought iron. One had been broken off its hinges, and lay on the ground with a dent in its middle. The other was rusted in place. A pale green glow from the outside crept past the threshold, but barely penetrated the bathhouse's interior.

"You've gone quiet," Trenton observed. "Is your paranoid, anxiety-wracked mind conjuring improbable scenarios of spy-related intrigue and betrayal?"

That was why he said it! That jerk!

"No." Twilight paused. "Kind of. It's difficult to wrap my mind around. How could so many ponies could possibly just... betray Equestria like that? And for Macbeth? He's not exactly a household name as far as villainy goes. Nopony I know'd go out of their way for him."

"There are fewer than you might think," Trenton assured her. "No more than a few dozen, most of which operate independently, communicating with one another via dead-drops and cut-outs. Most aren't even aware of whose interests they're serving – they work under the impression that they are facilitating a coup to place Mi Amore Cadenza on the throne."

Twilight balked at that. "What?!"

"Oh yes. Celestia's niece is extremely popular with the masses. Some – not the thousands that Macbeth believes, but enough to make a difference – would rather see her on the throne. Which is precisely what Macbeth wishes to do: place her on the throne and rule as regent, exiling Celestia and executing her cabinet. Advisers, ministry heads, the Captain of the Guard – he would clean house, completely, and rule using Cadenza as a puppet."

"That's insane!" Twilight cried. "That would never work! For a multitude of reasons!"

"Not the least being that Cadenza is far too loyal and unambitious to go along with such a coup, even if Macbeth were not planning to execute her husband. But convincing him that Equestria had tired of Celestia's rule, and feeding that delusion, is how I've secured his compliance for as long as I have."

Trenton led Twilight through the broken iron door, into the cavernous, heavily excavated ruins of what had once been the forum of a great city. Its earthen walls were pockmarked like cheese with pony-sized tunnels, on all sides and all heights, and covered in globs of a phosphorescent green substance that lit the chamber in a sickly glow. Buildings like the one they'd been in protruded from the walls, little more than exposed facades.

At the end of another cobblestone road – perhaps the same one from earlier – was the gold-domed building Twilight saw in the bathhouse's mural. The dome itself had oxidized and blackened over the years, and its curvature was only partially visible beneath a crust of dirt, but the building it crowned still exuded a sense of grandeur and power.

"There are more tunnels on the opposite side of that building," said Trenton, pointing at the dome. "Smaller, better suited to changeling proportions – an actual underground hive, with an exit leading up to the cherry orchard. Chrysalis fought to keep me from entering the dome from that side. That is where she is keeping Rainbow Dash."

"That's quite an assumption you're making. You could easily be wrong."

"I am not wrong, though."

"Care to explain how you know that?"

Trenton stared at her, silently, before moving toward the building, beckoning for Twilight to follow. She did with a heavy sigh, cantering to keep up with his long-legged stride.

"Alright, tell me something else, then." She looked up at her unwanted companion. "All this time and effort spent studying Equestria, reading our books, traveling around the land..."

"You want to know why."

Desperately.

"Actually, I was going to ask what you think of us. Your impressions."

Trenton stopped, rather abruptly, and his eye flickered as he stared at Twilight. "Idle curiosity?"

Twilight shrugged. "I'm just interested in an outsider's perspective."

"An outsider's perspective? Very well. Your people are a paradox. An inherent, and baffling, contradiction in terms."

That was not the answer Twilight was expecting. She figured he'd be blunt and tactless, but she was still hoping he'd mince words at least a little.

"Excuse me?"

"Your beliefs, your system of government, the values on which you base every aspect of your civilization, are fundamentally flawed. Yet your country flourishes – not by defying those values, but by embracing them, without vacillation. Consider your Pax Equestria. With no military body to deter outside invasion, and surrounded by more belligerent species, Equestria should have fallen long ago. If anything, disarmament has kept the peace better than a military body ever could, and the country, though stagnant, remains stable. All the more striking when contrasted with human civilization."

Trenton resumed walking, reaching the stairs leading up to the dome, where a row of columns supported a portico over the entrance. Beyond the columns, the interior of the dome was lit in the same green glow as the excavated chamber.

"Human society is a frothing sea of stated and unstated value systems," Trenton continued. "Rife with little hypocrisies where those values clash and cannot be reconciled. High-minded ideals trumpeted about, yet bent or outright ignored when they become inconvenient, and often used as ex post facto justification when atrocities are committed. Here, though... 'friendship' is more than a notion paid lip service. It is taken to heart, and enacted in every stratum of your civilization. No hypocrisy. No subterfuge. And you flourish because of it. Practice and encourage it."

Twilight thought back to the Operator and shivered.

Perhaps we're not as innocent as you think.

"You ask me what I think of your kind." He craned his head up to regard the shaped tops of the columns – the stallions holding the roof aloft. "In truth, I find much about you admirable. Your friend will never admit it, but... I am certain he feels the same way."

For the first time since meeting him, Twilight was absolutely certain that Trenton was not lying to her. It was an odd feeling.

"If that's the case," she said softly, "then why are you trying to hurt us? The army you've brought here, the things you're trying to do – you're putting that society you admire at risk."

Trenton's eye blacked out, and he stood rock-still for several long seconds, before it came to light again. "He who submits to heaven shall live. He who defies heaven shall perish."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"It was not my idea."

With no further elaboration, he slipped inside the dome.

Twilight stared after him, contemplating in silence. There was no way of knowing for sure how much of anything Trenton said to her was true, and how much of it was fiction. If the plan he described actually was Macbeth's ultimate goal. If there was a hidden intelligence network gumming up the gears to help Pegasus Wings take Ponyville unawares.

If he actually does admire us, or if that's another lie in a series of lies. But what possible purpose would such a lie serve?

She shook her head – it didn't really matter. Maybe Trenton was being authentic with her, but that couldn't be reconciled with the cold, hard facts of his actions. He had a goal, an agenda that she didn't fully understand. He brought Pegasus Wings to Equestria, apparently on someone else's behalf, and whether he personally endorsed it or not, he was helping facilitate a coup d'etat against Princess Celestia.

And maybe they could actually find common ground. Heck, maybe they already had. But, somehow, Twilight doubted that would be enough to put an end to their conflict. There was another interested party here, something bigger than Trenton, something which he answered to. If he'd come this far, despite his misgivings, then she doubted she could persuade him now.

Guess we're both feathers, then. Just caught in different winds.

Twilight sighed and entered the dome after him.

The floor shook – a slight, yet disconcerting, tremble that vibrated up through Twilight's hooves. It all but glowed, too, bathed as it was in the changelings' light source – the same substance that lit the exterior – and her every step filled the chamber with a reverberating clop. Inside, it was hollow, and empty, with rings of marble benches circling around the middle of the chamber, and little else by way of pony-made embellishments.

Thankfully, the changelings had redecorated.

The light source here was concentrated, rather than spread about on the walls and ceiling, and emanated from a single point: a massive, tear-shaped dollop of the stuff, suspended by a thick strand that descended vertically from the top of the dome, like a chain holding a chandelier. Branch-like strands of the sludgy substance shot radially from the center of that mass, sticking to the walls to help keep it suspended. Stuck in its center was the body of a changeling. Its limbs were snapped off at the joints, its horn was smashed, and its head was tucked against its chest as though it was asleep.

Hanging lankly around its head, pierced by the broken stump of its horn, was a curtain of oily, blue-green mane.

Twilight, dizzy, sucked in a shocked breath. "Sweet Celestia, that's Queen Chrysalis."

Trenton's head snapped down toward Twilight. "That is Chrysalis?"

She looked up at him, anger rising despite her light-headedness. "Were you lying to me when you said you fought her?!"

"No, I thought..."

"Thought what?"

Trenton stared, silent and stoic, his face a barren mask and his body language betraying nothing. But when he spoke, it was with a quaver of uncertainty Twilight had never heard from him before.

"What did I fight, if not the Queen?"

Laughter echoed through the dome, a low, mocking titter that sent shivers rippling through Twilight's coat. Her horn lit reflexively, and Trenton's hand flew to his holster, though he didn't yet draw the gun.

"To be fair..." Her neck lifted, and she grinned, exposing an incomplete set of broken teeth. "Neither of you are necessarily wrong."

The Queen's eyes opened. Glassy, turquoise spheres gazed vacuously at Twilight.

The eyes of a golem.

"You look shocked, Twilight," Chrysalis observed. "A little on the pale side. Something I can help you with?"

"What did you do?" Twilight whispered, trembling with horror.

"We both know the answer to that. I'm not sure how you know, exactly, but I'll enjoy taking my time puzzling it out." Chrysalis's grin fell into a smirk. "You ought to be thanking me. Here I've gone and done you a favor, nipped a threat in the bud before it could blossom. Instead, you look liable to lose your lunch."

"The whole brood – all of them. And the Queen too. This is... this is genocide." The thought galvanized her; her sense of equilibrium returned, and her horn shone brighter as anger resounded in her voice. "What you've done is unforgivable!"

"What I've done? What about what she's done? What she was planning to do?!" Chrysalis snarled back. "If you knew her heart the way I do, Twilight Sparkle, you wouldn't stand there in judgment of me. Shall I tell you of her plans to gorge herself on you and your friends for as long as your bodies could survive? How about the way she delighted in mocking Cadance while she starved to death below Canterlot? Better yet, why don't I describe the night she stole into your brother's bed, and whispered in his ear that she just couldn't bear to wait until after the wedding?"

A cold sensation gripped Twilight.

"Chrysalis does not deserve your sympathy," the golem spat with finality. "She was a contemptible whore, consumed by vanity and gluttony and lust. I did the world a favor by destroying her. I did you a favor, you precious, sanctimonious little fool."

Twilight's eyes unfocused, and her gaze drifted to the floor beneath the Queen's golem. She knew the Queen was a force for evil, maybe even capable of atrocities like this one. But to be slapped in the face with a reminder of her depravity, and such a personal one at that...

"What? Nothing to say to that? No more moral outrage? No shock and condemnation?" It shook its head disgustedly. "How about you, Tin Man? We haven't heard from you yet. Surely, a dyed-in-the-wool patriot like yourself would approve."

Trenton's fingers closed around his pistol. He drew it and fell into a shooting stance in one swift motion.

"Please." The Queen's golem rolled its eyes. "Trust me, Twilight, he's laughing on the inside. As are you, I suspect."

"How dare you." Every jibe the golem made in Chrysalis's voice strengthened Twilight's resolve. "How dare you accuse me of some great moral failure while you sit upon a throne of corpses!"

"You're speaking figuratively, right?"

Twilight screamed and fired a bolt that punched through the bottom of the teardrop.

"Temper, temper," the Queen's golem laughed, unintimidated.

"What was the point of all of this murder? Huh?" Twilight snorted and dug her hoof against the floor. "Answer me! What was the point?!"

"The muuuurdeeeeer, as you so melodramatically put it, was purely incidental. Fallen Canterbria was my prize – more precisely, the secrets buried within. Dodge was just unlucky enough to have been built next to it – a handy playground where I could stretch my legs and do as I pleased. As for Chrysalis and her brood... well, there's a funny story behind that. And it begins, as the best stories do, with an epiphany.

"You see, one night, as Chrysalis was busy defiling your brother, she found herself consumed by the vaguest notion that something had gone terribly wrong with the world. She couldn't for the life of her say what, but something, or someone, that should not be, was. And that so unnerved her that she sought a way to secure her future, and that of her brood – a failsafe, in case seizing Canterlot didn't go as planned.

"So she did some digging through the Canterlot archives. Found something that looked promising. Found some no-name scholar shut-in to translate it pro bono. Set about destroying you and the royal family with plan-B sitting in her back pocket. And, when it all came tumbling down, when you and yours drove her and hers away, she came here, to Dodge, in search of that which would ensure her survival in the tribulations to come.

"Of course, she didn't count on me following the same trail of breadcrumbs. Didn't know I was waiting in the wings while she and her slaves excavated this dead city. And when she found what she came for, while she was savoring her moment of triumph... I descended on her."

The golem licked its lips with a pale, dry tongue.

"You should have seen her face when I wrested control of her brood away from her. The outrage, the panic, the agony, as her children set upon her like a pack of feral dogs. She could have saved herself, of course – it was well within her power to fend them off. But she couldn't bring herself to harm them. So they ripped her limb from limb, smashed her horn and left her an invalid, strung her up as an everlasting monument to my victory, in the heart of a dead city, forgotten by the world above... all while she wept, bitterly cursing the irony. That she should bring her children to this place in search of a means to save them. Only to doom them, and damn herself in the process.

"She cannot hate her children, so she hates herself for what she allowed to happen to them, almost as much as she hates me for doing it to them in the first place. Of course, she can't hurt me, but you... you, she really does not like. You were, after all, responsible for her defeat in Canterlot. In part, at least. And that makes you a convenient outlet for her anger."

The golem inclined her head to the side. "How did he put it...? 'It's man's thirst for revenge that drives the times.' Words spoken by a dead man, a long time ago. Fool that he was, he at least had that much right. Who knew it applied to changelings? And ponies, too."

A bullet ripped through one of the golem's legs, severing it from Chrysalis's body. The golem looked bemusedly at the stump, and snorted with laughter.

"You too, tin man? One of you is a bad influence on the other, clearly."

Twilight stared at Trenton – his finger rested on the trigger of his pistol.

"Misfire," he said, monotone.

Another tremor ran through the floor, interrupting her before she could put too much thought into it. Startling as it was, it at least reminded Twilight that she had better things to do than tolerate the boasts of a dead changeling.

"Cute story, but I'm tired of hearing you talk. I'm tired of you, just speaking generally, in fact. I'm here for my friend. What have you done with her?"

The golem's eyes drifted upward. "Oh, you know. She's hanging around." She giggled.

Fuming at the dead Queen's insolence, Twilight craned her head back, and was greeted by the sight of Rainbow Dash dangling from the ceiling, encased in a green cocoon that left only her head exposed. Her face, bandaged across her cheeks, was purple from the rush of blood to her head. She wore no expression – she was out cold.

"Tragic, isn't it?" the golem purred. "To have come so far, only to have your goal so tantalizingly close, and so beyond reach. You must be beside yourself right now."

Laughter echoed through the dome. Twilight was only half-listening. Her magic honed in on the thin strand of solidified goop that kept the cocoon suspended. With a flash, the strand snapped, and the glob plunged toward the ground, only to be caught in a teleportation field and brought to the floor before it could reach terminal velocity.

The laughter abruptly ceased.

"Well then," said the golem bitterly, a frown creasing her face. "I suppose I forgot that you could do that."

Twilight ignored her and bounded to the cocoon. She knelt, and her hooves scraped against the gunk, scrabbling to free Rainbow. A telekinetic glow joined the struggle, and soon she'd sloughed enough away to extract the cocoon's occupant. Twilight groped at her neck, found what she was looking for – the pulse, steady and strong – and released a sigh of immeasurable relief.

Rainbow...

The anger drained out of Twilight, and she slumped over Rainbow Dash, touching their foreheads together. She wanted to do more – collapse beside her and cling to her, clutch her close to her chest and empty herself of all her pent-up emotion, weep her sorrow and her joy into her mane.

Not the time. And not the place.

Twilight swallowed her sobs and blinked back her tears and straightened her body.

"Come on, Rainbow," she whispered. Another glow enveloped the unconscious mare's body. "Let's go home."

She heard Trenton step closer to her. "She's less a burden to me than she would be to you. Let me carry—"

Twilight shot him a stare with such vehemence that Trenton actually took a step backward and tensed.

The message received, Twilight lifted Rainbow's body and placed her lengthwise over her own. Years of carrying Spike – far heavier than his size would suggest – had toughened her back muscles. Even when combined with the contents of her saddlebags, Rainbow Dash was not the burden Trenton imagined she'd be. Her limp legs and dangling head, though, made her cumbersome.

"Touching," the golem sniffed. "Truly inspiring, the lengths to which you'd go for somepony you care about."

Twilight looked up at golem, the sight of her sending anger flooding through her veins again. It was time to leave, and yet there was part of her that couldn't let her constant pissiness and insults go unanswered. Wanting for a rejoinder, though, she settled for another question.

"Who are you?"

The golem smiled a greasy smile. "Oh, it's tempting to tell you now – more tempting than you could possibly know. But I think I want to keep that to myself. You're going to be in for a shock when you find out who's beaten you, and I want to see that look on your face with my own eyes."

"Be hard to do that when I've put this place behind me. This might be your last chance to gloat."

"I daresay I'll have more." The floor shook again, hard enough that Twilight staggered momentarily before regaining her balance. "I told you, Twilight, you're not leaving here alive. I'm going to break you, as I broke Chrysalis, and then I'm going to bleed you dry. I'll burn the world above to the bedrock, and dance among its ashes, but you... You get to be a part of a bold new tomorrow."

The golem turned its head to address Trenton, its smile souring. "As for you... you have nothing that I want. And make no mistake, when I'm done running roughshod over this place, I'll be calling in a debt that your puppetmasters owe me."

Trenton answered with a second shot that pulped Queen Chrysalis's head.

And with one final tremor, and a flash of green light, the floor beneath her lifeless body exploded. Telekinesis and shields batted chunks of earth and marble away from Twilight and her unconscious burden. Trenton merely backed away.

A hand extended from the hole in the floor, fingers curling around its edge. Another hand joined it, and a shape emerged, something black and gargantuan, that caught the light of the mass suspending Chrysalis's body.

Twilight turned, secured Rainbow Dash on her back, and ran.