With all the delicate caution of a pony who had constructed hundreds of ships in bottles, performed oral surgery on dragons, and negotiated international politics for millennia, Celestia gently laid her now sleeping sister down to rest on her bed. The tenderness of her motions as she placed a kiss on Luna's cheek and pulled up the sheets belied the storm of fire and fury that raged within. Something had harmed her dear baby sister, and that something would pay dearly.

Celestia had long played the smiling diplomat, slow to anger and quick to laugh, while her sister took the more severe and militant role. Back in the old days, when conflict was more common, Luna had been the proverbial steel to Celestia's silk, responsible for meting out the crown's justice by night as her sister offered beneficence and mercy by day. Their adoption of such roles had owed a great deal to individual temperament; Luna had always tended toward terse and commanding, while Celestia had a long fuse and a penchant for small talk. However, part of it lay with the results when the end of that fuse was finally reached. When she had experimented at being the steel rather than the silk, it coincided with the introduction of the term "scorched earth" into common parlance.

Sickly crimson light spilled in through the window from the setting sun, flooding the room with the bloody tint of a battlefield. Celestia sighed and attempted to stretch a sore spot out of her neck. The day's ordeal had certainly been as physically and emotionally exhausting as any battle she had ever participated in. Unfortunately, there was no time to rest or celebrate victory. The consequences of canceling an entire day's schedule needed to be faced. Appointments needed making up and rescheduling. The Night Court needed informing (in a way that wouldn't cause panic), that Luna would be absent a few days to recover. Most importantly, there was a perpetrator out there that needed a large helping of divine wrath.

After casting one last look down at her peacefully sleeping sister, Celestia turned to leave. Taking a final moment to compose herself, she dropped the wards surrounding the room and opened the door to find one of her guards waiting patiently on the other side. From the fatigue visible in his stance and the slight grumbling of his stomach, it appeared he had been attentively waiting for her exit for the better part of the day.

“Your majesty! Urgent news from mid-morning! My apologies for not relaying it sooner, but you were otherwise occupied and physically unreachable.”

“No apologies necessary lieutenant. I set those wards myself and was engaged with an issue of the absolute highest priority. Now, what is your news?”

“Facility R-1 has been attacked. No recorded fatalities as of yet, but numerous injuries and extensive damage to the facility itself. The crystal communication system is still undergoing repair, so updates have been limited to physical messengers. ”

Celestia forced herself to stop clenching her jaw, lest the sound of her grinding teeth disturb the entire castle.

“Escaped, along with the assailant, identified by staff as Twilight Sparkle. Current whereabouts of both individuals remain unknown as of the latest update.”

Back to square one then. Damnit! If Twilight has Rainbow Dash back and under her thrall, she’s likely to go to ground and never stick her head up again.

Eight minutes and a rapid briefing of critical personnel later, Celestia made her way to the flight deck. She stifled a yawn and chased it by draining the coffee mug levitating beside her, grimacing at the dark liquid that was more suited to her sister’s taste. Caffeine was needed, but there simply wasn’t time enough to enjoy a proper cup of tea. One more thing Twilight had taken from her this day. Tossing the now empty mug to an aide behind her, Celestia stepped into the vehicle which took off into the sky the moment she reached her seat.

Sitting in silence as the wind howled and the land below rushed past at a dizzying pace, Celestia wore an expression that shot straight past pensive and directly into brooding. As much as she wanted to believe that Twilight wasn’t the one responsible for Luna’s condition, that theory was looking ludicrously implausible. Even leaving aside the fact that she could count with two hooves the number of ponies beside Luna and herself who were familiar with that kind of dark magic (and one of them had been disintegrated by the Crystal Heart), it would take some seriously willful blindness to discount the timing as a coincidence.

An attack on the secret facility holding Rainbow Dash during the window when Luna was incapacitated and she herself fully occupied with treating her? The time when it would be most difficult for Canterlot to organize a speedy response? No. It was definitely Twilight. Whether it was a premeditated tactic or simply an attack of opportunity hardly mattered. Twilight had done this to Luna, and for the first time, when she thought of Twilight’s name, the phrase “faithful student” was not reflexively appended by her mind. Instead of images of a smiling bookish schoolfilly and daughter figure, there was only a collection of facts, like a mental dossier. Skills, habits, and motivations. Nervous tics and tells. Possible physical weaknesses or psychological blind spots. Fears and insecurities to be exploited.

As the chariot began its descent, Celestia was pulled from her thoughts by the view below. The thick overgrowth of thorny vegetation that normally concealed the outpost was gone. Everything within a half mile radius had been knocked flat, as if by an immense shock wave. In the center was a hole like a gaping wound in Equus itself. A wound in the process of scabbing over with a series of tarps being set up by a small group of guards below. It was at least something to keep any passing pegasus from wandering in out of the sky.

Stepping out of the now grounded vehicle, she saw a familiar well muscled pegasus approaching to greet her, sporting several alarming new bruises and bandages.

"Your majesty." He snapped a smart salute, not betraying even a flicker of discomfort from his injuries.

"Terrible, but slowly getting better. We've at least finally gotten the work crews started clearing debris and patching things up, though it'll be a while before we can do anything substantial about that." He pointed a hoof toward the massive hole. "It was a real mess earlier. Those of us who were still in a state to move around when all the action was over were busy dragging the rest to the infirmary. Add the fact that we're still trying to get the blasted comm system fixed, and well, we only managed to get an engineering corps team in here to start a proper cleanup about 2 hours ago."

"My apologies for my unavailability commander. There was an...incident in Canterlot that required my attention."

"I figured it had to be something big. The castle was a powder keg of nervous tension. Was it related to the attack here?"

"Your captain had his hooves full quelling rumors and maintaining order, and I'm sure I didn't do him any favors by barging in looking like death warmed over and requisitioning the nearest dozen ponies with sufficient security clearance along with two wagons of medical and construction supplies."

"It's not as bad as it looks. I also slept a good part of the day before waking up in the infirmary and figured I'd rested enough."

"I had to go. Needed somepony with the rank to bark orders around and get reinforcements from Canterlot. That, and the good doctor hadn't woken up yet."

"I see. Shall we get to it then? I'd like a full report and a tour of the damages."

"Of course." He turned once again to the breach. "I suppose that would be the obvious starting point. Our first guess was some kind of meteor strike, but when we investigated the bottom of the shaft, we detected unusually high levels of gold with some residual magical energy. As best we can tell, it was some kind of artificial slug thrown at high speed from a great height."

Celestia peeked over the edge of the maw, the bottom too deep to be seen in the last fading rays of sunset. "What did it hit on the way down?"

"It tore straight through the main generator. It also destroyed the relay switch two floors down that was supposed to activate the backup generator, so we had about 2 minutes of blackout before somepony managed to hit the manual override."

The commander spread his wings and started a gentle glide down the shaft. Celestia silently followed.

"Along with the scorch marks, we've gathered enough accounts from those who directly engaged with the intruder to reconstruct a route and rough timeline." He stopped at one of the floors and turned into the adjacent hallway. "We believe she came down here, all the way to stairwell B, where first contact occurred shortly after the power was restored."

The tour made a brief stop at a room filled with exhausted looking unicorns fussing about a gigantic flickering crystal, scribbling notes on a white board, and opening up the panels of a dozen different consoles to go over every inch of their innards. A tired expression came across the commander's face.

"Any progress yet?" he asked with an apparent lack of optimism that the answer would differ from the last several times he had asked it.

"If by progress, you mean progressively driving me up the bloody wall, then yes!" came a response in a heavy Trottingham accent. The slender blue unicorn with a cutie mark of a matrix filled with ones and zeroes continued to rant, not bothering to turn around. "It defies all sense and reason! We get a signal for about five seconds, then the frequency goes all wobbly. Every time we implement a fix to lock it down, it resets itself and the spell network kicks back some error message about needing administrator permission. I am the bloody administrator!"

"Obviously! But we've swept every inch of every console twice and fuck me over afternoon tea, but I can't find where it's coming from!"

There was a brief beat of silence as he placed the newcomer's voice, then whirled around in utter mortification. "P-Princess! I-uh-welcome! Repairs to the communication system have unfortunately hit something of a snag."

Celestia closed her eyes and reached out. The room buzzed with dozens upon dozens of interlocking spells running from the network of machinery. Each major component hummed with its own unique flavor, heavily based on it's manufacturer and further made unique by a lingering influence of any past unicorn who had serviced or operated it. Finding a specific bit of malicious spellcraft in that network would be akin to the proverbial needle in the haystack. Unless of course, the piece one was looking for hummed with a flavor that one was intimately familiar with. Then it was like searching for a needle dyed bright purple and doused with lavender perfume.

Celestia's horn lit with a golden glow, and down from the crevice of an overhead crossbeam joint floated a small crystal. She held the device in front of her for the gathered ponies to see, then encased it in a translucent bubble, cutting off the signal.

The effect was immediate. The large crystal ceased flickering, followed by a row of flashing red lights on several consoles switching to a solid green. The technicians hurriedly sent out a few test messages and several cheers of relief and enthusiastic hoof bumps when they came back positive. The blue unicorn from before simply stared dumbfound at the now isolated spell crystal.

"All of that trouble because of this little thing? And it wasn't even hardwired into the system! Remote hijacking of the initialization protocols? How is that even possible?"

"I suppose being the chief designer of the underlying architecture would be a start."

"What? Wait...you mean..." He quickly pulled over a pair of saddlebags and took out a well worn tome emblazoned with the title 'Piezoarcanic Telecommunications Field Manual'. Directly below was the author's name, T. Sparkle. "Huh."

The pair resumed their tour, following the path Twilight had taken through the facility and noting small white x's marking where various incapacitated personnel had been found. A frown crossed the princess' face as something become increasingly apparent. Twilight had taken a direct path to Rainbow Dash's room.

"It definitely seems that way. We haven't the slightest clue how, though. If she was able to get in to do any recon, I doubt she'd need to blow her way in so dramatically. Everypony here is professionally tight lipped, and floor plans are a strange choice for idle chatter anyway. Add the fact that we've all been stationed here and living on site for the duration of the project, and nopony would have even had the opportunity to leak anything."

Troubling. How would Twilight even get the location of this facility in the first place, much less the floor plans? Access to somepony on the original construction team? But how would she even get the list of names to even begin tracking one of them down? How would she find the proper project code name and relevant files for a facility she didn't even know existed?

It didn't make any sense. Twilight would have to have actually been there during construction, or had some informant on staff at the time. Twilight didn't seem the type to be secretly running and maintaining a subversive spy network for years. There was certainly another who fit that profile though. One Twilight had apparently encountered recently. Celestia resolved at the next available opportunity to check the construction staff roster against Twilight's little 'gift' from a few days back.

Thoughts of the considerable purges that still needed to be orchestrated based on that document were interrupted by their sudden arrival at what had formerly been Rainbow Dash's room. Celestia took a moment to stare in awe at the destruction and gaping jagged hole that had once been the door.

"A bit inelegant, but I suppose I shouldn't be terribly surprised given her choice of entrance to the base itself."

"That's what we thought at first, but upon closer inspection, we determined that the door was in fact blasted open from the inside. It turns out Rainbow Dash managed to somehow get out of her restraints during the power outage, knocked out the doctors, then got into the general anesthesia supplies and blew the door. She pocketed a hooffull of syringes of sedative and carved her own completely independent swathe of destruction. Given that Twilight Sparkle wasn't with her when she came charging into my office, it's likely they just missed each other."

"Oh?" Celestia said nothing more, with only a slightly raised brow inviting him to continue.

"Yes, well, it didn't go great for me, as you might have guessed. Few things let you know just how old you're getting quite like getting KO-ed by some hotshot academy rookie, no matter how good her training scores are. Moving on, I've been informed that after I was out of commission, she grabbed the intercom controls to do a bit of gloating. After that, we don't have any direct eye witness confirmation, but we assume both Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle left through the breach. We can't confirm whether or not they actually encountered each other before or after leaving."

"A bit black and blue, but he's doing fine now. He should be waiting for you in his office."

Celestia made her way to the familiar office, which happened to be in one of the few locations untouched by the conflict. Two quick, authoritative knocks elicited a "come in" from behind the door. She entered to find the room already prepped for a meeting, projector warmed up and ready with a series of slides and various documents lined up on a table. Waiting patiently behind a large desk, and wearing a slightly less form fitting lab coat than she recalled, was the lead neurologist and project director.

"That's one way of putting it. Too many more eventful days like this, and I'll be in an early grave."

"So, now that I've got the general overview from security, what was the medical situation of our patient right up until the unfortunate disruption?"

"Well, to start, I could not think of worse possible timing. As you know, we had previously tracked the influence of the enchantment to a small bridge of tissue running into the amygdala. Despite dispelling the original magic, the patient's condition remained unchanged. We decided to move ahead with a surgical procedure to destroy that bridge with a neuroscope. We were in the process of conducting the procedure when the catastrophic power loss occurred."

"We didn't have much of a chance to do an examination, as she was loose by the time the lights came back on, but we are confident that there are certainly no impairments to her speech or motor functions. As for emotional stability and regulation of aggression, well, we've been sorely lacking a baseline to compare to. Spatial and analytical reasoning seem in good shape, given her inventive escape from the room. I'm confident there was no significant unintended damage stemming from the disrupted procedure."

"There still remains the question of whether the primary goal of the surgery was accomplished or not. The power went out right as we were completing the destruction of the tissue bridge. As soon as I was mobile again, I scoured the remains of the room for the printouts."

He adjusted the projector, displaying several pages that looked like they had been to Tartarus and back. Some parts were crumpled, torn, singed, or had something spilled on them, sometimes all at once. He pointed at a line on a graph that rose steadily before coming to an abrupt halt.

"Here's where the power cut out." He pointed at the sudden flatline. "Now, what we expect to see when excising the target tissue is just this sort of build up, followed by a sharp dip the moment the target is destroyed. Unfortunately, from the look of this curve,—"

"The dip should be right around where the power cutoff occurred," Celestia finished for him. "

"Exactly. It's down to a matter of milliseconds. I've poured over it again and again, but we just don't have the kind of resolution to say with absolute certainty whether or not the target tissue was severed before the power went out. The best I can say is there's about a 70% chance it did."

"And we're still not certain what, if any, behavioral changes such a result would correspond to."

Celestia helped herself to a glass of water provided on a nearby table while she focused her thoughts. If Rainbow Dash remained unchanged and devoted to Twilight, and they were reunited, there was very little that could be done. They would go deep into hiding and it could be years before they were found. If she was still under the effect but separated, they were all back to square one, trying to catch one or both of them while they stumbled about in search of each other. Finding and tailing Rainbow Dash covertly might in fact be the best way to find Twilight. If Rainbow Dash was freed from the spell's influence, then what? Would she eventually turn herself back in and help in capturing Twilight? Try to exact retribution herself? Would she just want to go home and think things over?

Maybe there was something she was missing? Some middle ground? If the procedure had some effect on Rainbow Dash, surely that would be cause for concern to Twilight. She'd want to know more, perhaps as much out of legitimate concern for her marefriend's health as for maintaining hegemony over her mind. Where would a desperate, and increasingly bold Twilight turn?

A plan of action began to form. It was a long shot to be sure, and it was likely nothing would come of it, but it was at least proactive and something a step better than 'sweep Equestria and wait for something to turn up'. With a bit of luck, it might just send Twilight running right into her hooves.

Twilight swept her eyes over the forest canopy above in her fruitless search for the troublesome pegasus. Hadn’t she heard her detailed speech on why they needed to stick together from now on? The last thing they needed this close to their goal was to get separated and maybe spend a few more months trying to find each other again. She really didn’t want to keep pushing her luck with breaking into and out of highly secured areas full of guards.

“Dash! If this is some kind of joke, it isn’t funny!” A brief jolt of panic struck.

What if she changed her mind about being with me? What if she recovered her emotional connection, but it’s all negative and she hates me now? What if she got eaten by a monster? What if she ran off with an evil version of me visiting from another dimension? What if I’m the evil version and she ran of with the GOOD version of me from another dimension?!

“Relax, egghead,” a voice called out from above. I can tell you’re doing one of those ‘what if’ cascades in your head again. I just went to gather some berries and nuts. Now let’s get these back to Applejack and Fluttershy so they can turn it into lunch.”

Twilight looked up and gave a sigh of relief, just in time to see her once and soon to be marefriend get blindsided by a beam of golden magic.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight spun around to find the source. What she saw caused her jaw to drop and her heart to attempt leaping up past it.

“Hello there, Twilight.” Princess Celestia stood serenely in a patch of golden sunlight streaming down through a hole in the treetops. She wore a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“It’s a beautiful day outside,” Celestia remarked, ignoring Twilight’s sputtered question entirely. “Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming.” She paused to examine a butterfly that had momentarily landed on her outstretched fetlock before sending it on its way. “On days like these, fillies like you...”

In an instant, everything was fire. The surrounding vegetation burned as Celestia’s mane and tail transformed into a raging inferno. A small blue flame flickered in the center of her left eye.

Twilight bolted awake, flailing and thrashing in fear and confusion as she became tangled in her sleeping bag. The others were quickly awakened, partially by the noise of all the commotion, but mostly by her inelegant tumbling into them in the close quarters of the tent designed for two ponies rather than four.

Both Applejack and Rainbow Dash were on their hooves and braced for a fight within a second. Fluttershy had reflexively shot to the top of the tent and retreated to a corner to cower. A magenta bubble shield quickly popped up around Twilight as she teleported herself out of the tangle of bedding and back onto her hooves with her back to one of the walls.

After a few dozen racing heart beats passed, the group began to relax as it became clear they were not under attack. With a glower that expressed in rich detail her lack of amusement, Applejack turned to Twilight.

"I-I don't know. I guess I, uhh..." embarrassment began to creep in as adrenaline drained away, "Sorry, I think I just had a bad dream?"

"Oh my," Fluttershy called down from her corner where she still cautiously hovered. "Do you think it's...?"

Twilight shook her head. "No, I don't think it's Luna. I didn't feel any attempt at a trace, and I've taken certain precautions against that anyway. I think it's just the regular old fashioned kinda nightmare."

"Wonderful. Now that that's resolved..." Applejack settled back down on her end of the unzipped sleeping bag the four of them were sharing as bedding and pulled the blanket back over her head. Dash was already snoring, having wasted no time crashing back to sleep as soon as it had become clear there was no imminent danger.

"Right. I'm just gonna go stretch, maybe get something to drink. I'll be right back." Twilight moved to exit the tent.

"Um, me too." Fluttershy quickly followed Twilight out, zipping the entrance shut behind them.

The two began a slow circuit of the campsite, the dull roar of crickets and cicadas providing accompaniment to the sounds of their soft hoofsteps. Fluttershy urged herself to say something, to take advantage of this rare window of being alone with Twilight since this entire ordeal had begun, but she came up empty.

"Hm?" She snapped out of her thoughts and looked up to see Twilight wearing an awkward expression as she glanced between her and the row of bushes up ahead. It took her a moment to catch the hint. "Oh! Um, sorry." She quickly backed up a few paces and waited behind a tree for Twilight to finish her business.

Say something!

What? 'Hey, I'm still really into you. Wanna make out and/or run away together?' What would that accomplish? I already KNOW she doesn't feel the same way about me. Stating what she almost certainly already knows, because she's not utterly oblivious and I'm not a master of deception, isn't going to change that.

Approaching hoofsteps signaled that Twilight had finished her business, and the two soon resumed their walk. Eventually, Fluttershy scraped together the courage to speak.

It would have taken an expertly trained eye to see the ripple of tension that passed over Twilight in the dim starlight. It passed quickly, resulting in only a deep inhale and exhale through the nose.

"I know you used it to make Rainbow Dash love you, and it seems like you could use it to make a pony fall in love with somebody else, or at least Chrysalis certainly seemed to think so."

"What I'm wondering is...purely theoretically...would it be possible to cast the same spell on yourself? Make yourself..."

"I'm not sure, though even if it were possible, it would probably be a bad idea for the same reason it's a bad idea to perform surgery on yourself. Doubly so for brain surgery."

As soon as Fluttershy disappeared back into the tent, Twilight let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, relieved there had been no hypothetical followup questions.

It was true that she wasn't certain if casting the spell on herself was feasible, but it wasn't as if she had ever tried to put any thought into it. She was inventive enough that if it were possible, she probably could have figured out some kind of safe means of doing so had she tried. But the thought had simply never crossed her mind until now. That instead of changing Dash, she could just change herself and sidestep all the ethical problems. Reprogram herself to reciprocate the feelings she knew a certain pony already had for her. She would have jumped at that idea once.

So why hadn't she? Once she had decided to cross the line on magically altering a pony's mind, why was it Rainbow Dash who had to change to fit her desires and not herself? Something in her simply balked at the idea of simply not loving Rainbow Dash anymore. It seemed too much an abandonment of a core part of her identity. Even as she rationally recognized that learning to not love Dash had been exactly her goal for over a year, that she wouldn't miss that love when it was gone, that she would be just as happy with Fluttershy or whichever pony she enchanted herself to love as she would be with Dash, because that's how she designed the spell to work. There shouldn't be any difference between what the spell induced and the 'real' thing, because it was real.

Unless of course, she thought her own love for Dash was somehow different. Some extra special thing ordained by fate that took priority. Some self-absorbed notion that her own unrequited feelings were intrinsically more important to satisfy than those of anypony else, even if she should theoretically end up just as happy either way. Maybe she was just a massive hypocrite who talked a good moral consequentialism game when it came to mucking around with the brains of others, but still considered her own head inviolate.

Given the storm this line of thinking on a hypothetical possibility had already unleashed, Twilight decided to place the academic question of whether self-casting her spell was actually theoretically feasible at a very low priority. It was better if it stayed 'probably not possible anyway' a bit longer. She turned back toward the tent. It wouldn't be long until morning, and there was a long day of travel ahead of them.

As the pair of shears snipped neatly through the last of the thorny vines, a soft magenta glow enveloped the flower, guiding it into a waiting jar.

Twilight delicately placed the container back into her saddlebags with a victorious grin. It was unusual to find Heart's Desire growing this far north of the heart of the Everfree. She had hardly believed her eyes when she spotted a distinctive violet shape at the edge of the dry creek bed where they had stopped for a rest. Perhaps luck was turning her way for once.

"Cool. What else do we need again?" Rainbow Dash asked from where she hovered overhead, snacking on a cucumber and daisy sandwich.

"A dragon scale and some hydra blood. At least that's what I used last time. Any sufficiently acidic venom should work, and I might be able to make do with a couple wyvern scales, or anything in the draconic family. The Heart's Desire is essential though."

"Yeah." Twilight began to walk back to where Applejack and Fluttershy were packing away the remains of their lunch, but paused as a thought that had been nagging her all morning returned. "Say, Dash?"

Rainbow Dash swallowed the last remnants of her sandwich and gave a confident nod. "Absolutely. I'm 100% behind this."

"Well, I want to do things right this time. Properly documented consent and all that. Something to show that this was actually your choice. Not that I think it'll make up for what I'm definitely guilty of, but I'd rather not be accused of it twice. Also, maybe there's a slight chance it might stop them from immediately trying to 'cure' you against your will."

"If it means avoiding anymore extended involuntary hospital stays, then I'll sign anything! Get me a quill and I'll do it right now."

"Well, aside from the four of us, nopony really knows that you're not still under the effect of a spell right now. Actually, Fluttershy and Applejack don't really know either. They kinda just have to take our word for it. As for the rest of Equestria, they really wouldn't have any reason to think that I didn't just enchant you and then have you sign whatever I wanted, or that the first spell was never actually broken in the first place."

"So, we just need some kind of proof that my head is currently spell free! You can do that, right? Do some spell to take a picture of my brain or something?"

Twilight gave a nod. "I can, but not here. I'd need specialized equipment to both resolve the picture, and stamp it with the right metadata to show it was authentic and not something I just drew up."

"Well, we're coming up on Balitmare soon. The Baltimare General Hospital should have a neurology ward with a neuroscope and imaging setup that would work for us. The tricky part would be getting inside to use it without getting caught."

"So let me get this straight, now I need to break INTO a hospital so I can be strapped down and have a pony poke around in my brain?"

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes hard enough for them to pull the rest of her body into a barrel roll as she let out an exasperated sigh. "Sure, why not? It's not the craziest thing I've ever done. And if it means I'll have evidence to throw in the faces of any ponies saying I can't make my own decisions, then I'll do it."

Twilight gave a relieved nod. "We should reach the outskirts of town in about an hour. I'll have thrown together some kind of plan by the time we get there. Hopefully one that doesn't involve a smoking crater and a pile of battered medical personnel."

Mane, tail, and coat freshly tinted black from the last of the stage dye she had 'borrowed' from Trixie, Twilight peeked over the edge of the cloud to study the city streets below.

"So what's the plan?" asked Rainbow Dash from beside her, whose utterly conspicuous mane and tail remained too wild to be tamed by any amount of dye. "Do we wait to ambush two of the doctors or nurses, knock them out, and steal their uniforms?"

"No need. Take a look." Twilight pointed a hoof out toward a small building with a sign displaying a variety of hats, helmets, goggles, vests, gloves, and general work attire.

"It's just...I thought there was some kind of law or licensing thing? Like, you have to show you're actually a nurse to get one? They don't check ID or anything?"

"Nope. They don't particularly care. They even usually have sales around Nightmare Night and Hearts and Hooves Day."

"Alright, I'm gonna head in, then go to that art supply store over there. When I give the signal, drop down and meet me in that alley.

There was a bright flash, then Twilight was on the ground and entering the shop door. Rainbow Dash pushed the cloud over the mentioned alley and watched Twilight emerge with a small shopping bag before walking a few blocks up and entering another store adorned with images of paint brushes and chisels. Two minutes later, and Twilight had made her way to the alley, levitating a large parcel. She gave a quick snap of her tail, the signal for Dash to quickly drop out of the sky and join her.

Twilight removed the lid, revealing a large amount of white powder. "Plaster. Now hold still."

The pair of saddle bags Rainbow Dash had been carrying rose off her bag and tucked themselves into a hiding place behind a nearby dumpster. Two water bottles floated out from Twilight's bag and emptied their contents into the powder, transforming it into a wet mush as Twilight stirred it with her magic. At the same time, strips of cotton bandages rose from the bag and began to wrap themselves around Dash's head and hindquarters, spreading across most of her body until she was almost entirely encased and her mane and tail were completely hidden. Large globs of wet plaster floated up and began smearing themselves over the bandages. Within minutes, the plaster had hardened and Rainbow Dash was encased in a full body cast, completely unrecognizable, save for a pair of magenta eyes that spoke of mild irritation at the sudden restriction of movement.

"Just until we get into the cranial imaging room. I can teleport us right out afterward. In fact..." The soft purple glow rose over her horn as she set down an anchor point behind the dumpster. "There. Now there's only one thing left that we need. Wait here."

Unable to do more than shift slightly in place, Rainbow Dash waited as Twilight disappeared around the corner, trying desperately not to think about her current inability to scratch any itches that might arise. After an unknown amount of time that was likely no more than a couple minutes, but still enough to worry about whether Twilight had been caught and whether she would be stuck in this alley for days until somepony found her, she spotted Twilight turning back around the corner with a wheelchair in tow. She soon found herself hovering off the ground and gliding gently into the seat.

"Okay, so we're just gonna walk right in. Don't say anything. Just sit tight and let me handle it."

It was only a matter of a few blocks until they reached the hospital, though measuring by the pace of their heartbeats would suggest it was closer to a 10k marathon. Near the entrance to the squat, flat building stood a line of wheelchairs like one of the cart returns in a big city supermarket, likely the source of their pilfered transportation. The doors parted automatically as Twilight, nurse hat sitting neatly on her midnight black mane, pushed the chair bearing a now undeniably itchy Rainbow Dash through the entrance.

Twilight held her breath, hoping nopony would stop her to ask why a patient in full body cast that should clearly be in a room already was being wheeled in from outside. That would lead to a hastily constructed lie about a transfer from another hospital, which would likely lead to paperwork checks, which had a very high chance of ending in taking the building by force when her freestyle fabrication proved ineffective. Suffice it to say, she held a strong preference for the scenario that didn't involve blasting up a hospital.

Fortunately, the pony at the front desk proved inattentive, incurious, or both, and Twilight and her 'patient' were allowed to keep moving. Once clear of the reception area, she spotted a pair of plastic receptacles attached to the wall and stocked with spare clipboards, pencils, and blank patient sheets. She quickly snagged one of each in her telekinesis and began scribbling some improvised patient notes while keeping an eye peeled for the neurology ward.

Come on. Come one. Where is it? Radiology? No. Poison control? No. Trauma? No.

She was weighing the relative risks of stopping to ask someone for directions vs looking increasingly suspicious by continuing to wander around blindly, when a dark hazel pegasus bearing a doctor's coat and name tag turned the corner in front of her, bringing them face to face.

"Flying accident. Three broken ribs, multiple fractures in each wing, dislocated shoulder joint on right foreleg and sprains on the other three, and a lost tooth." Twilight recited her cover story with all the perfunctory precision of a guard report.

The doctor gave a low whistle. "Must have been some accident to cause all that." He glanced down to the still silent Rainbow Dash in the chair. "What happened? You fly into a wood chipper?"

A cold sweat formed on the back of Twilight's neck as she rushed to improvise something. "She—"

" Just trying to do a phoenix fall into a triple mongoose twist with a reverse quarter pitch on the down stroke." Rainbow Dash piped up, seizing on the initiative. "I almost had it. It was going great until the ground got in the way, then that brick wall, then that second brick wall, then those trees."

Though it seemed little more than gibberish to Twilight, the doctor seemed to understand. "I've heard of recklessness, but that could give the notorious Rainbow Dash a run for her bits. You're lucky to even have all your pieces close enough together to reassemble."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine, I swear! Swear to Cell...Sally...Celestia." Rainbow Dash insisted, a bit of a mumbling slur creeping onto the end of her words. Ms. Uptight here insists I need to go get my brains scanned. Something about routine check blah blah post-cranial trauma blah blah bruising blah. Waste of time if you ask me. I'm fit as a cello. Speaking of which, morphine is awesome."

"It is indeed." The doctor gave an empathetic nod and then turned his attention back to Twilight. "I'm guessing you're looking for one of the imaging techs to get you set up, right?"

The doctor gave an exasperated sigh and shake of his head that appeared well practiced.

"Figures. I swear, those guys are flakier than the entire dermatology clinic." The barely suppressed smirk betrayed the fact that he had been dying for an excuse to try out that line for some time now. Twilight gave a polite snort in response. "Don't worry, I know one of their common loitering spots."

Twilight quickly fell in behind him as he turned and began a swift march down a nearby hallway. Keeping her eyes forward, she leaned down and whispered to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash whispered back. "Ponies keep forgetting that I'm kind of an expert when it comes to head injuries, particularly ones caused by feats of awesomeness. This isn't anywhere near my first run through the system."

The doctor stopped a few paces ahead of them and turned into a small break room that was barely larger than a utility closet. Twilight briefly wondered if it had in fact been a closet that some enterprising ponies had converted via the addition of two chairs, a small table, and a vending machine. One of the chairs was occupied by an ashen grey unicorn with a neon green mane, currently engrossed in a magazine. A loud clearing of the doctor's throat sent the startled unicorn scrambling to his hooves.

"She's somepony who needs you to actually do your job for once," the doctor cut in, "now get examination room A prepped."

"Fine." With a roll of his eyes and a belabored sigh, the tech walked out the door, throwing Twilight a gesture to follow him.

Twilight braced for a series of questions that never came. Their guide could not have been less interested in their names or stories, and remained silent as he set a brisk pace to their destination, presumably operating under the philosophy that the sooner this job got done, the sooner he could get back to slacking off. By the time Twilight followed him around the last corner, he had already retrieved the appropriate key from his ring and was busy turning it in the lock of a large set of double doors. When opened, they revealed a harshly white room with a large reclined chair surround by banks of machinery.

Once inside the room, he moved even faster, flicking switches, turning knobs, and checking calibrations in a storm of activity. After about two minutes of frantic fiddling, he turned to face Twilight.

He let out a pained sigh and pointed at a block of controls. "Directional controls are there, but you'll just want to use magic for the direct movement. Center wheel controls depth." He pointed to a large screen with a prominent button below it. "That prints the current image. Got it?"

Though she didn't detect any magic at work from the unicorn, she could still feel every pore in his body willing her to answer in the negative so he could leave. Fortunately for him, that suited her just fine.

One would have thought he had just found an oasis after days of wandering in the desert, from the wave of relief that briefly washed over him before he was out the door without another word.

"Great, he's gone. Now get me out of this itchy thing!" Rainbow Dash called from her seat.

A magenta glow encased the plaster shell around her moments before it split apart with a resounding crack, freeing the trapped pegasus within. At the same time, the double doors closed and locked themselves, with a nearby desk and filing cabinet repositioning themselves as a makeshift barricade for good measure.

"Alright, up in the chair! Let's hurry!" Twilight ordered as she moved to take a closer look at the controls.

Rainbow Dash hesitated as she approached the vacant chair. The hair on her back stood on end as she stared at several familiar looking pieces of machinery hanging above it. Gritting her teeth and pushing back the unpleasant memories, she took the last few steps and climbed into the seat.

"So, uh, how...invasive is this going to be? You going to be doing much poking around?"

"Not at all. This is just imaging equipment. It's not even capable of doing any kind of surgical work. At least, not without some serious modification." Rainbow Dash gave a small sigh of relief, but her hind legs continued an involuntary fidget. The sooner they were done and she was away from anything even resembling a hospital, the better. "Alright, I'm about to start, try to keep your head still so I can get a good focus."

The moment Twilight focused her magic into the controls, some kind of strange power surge pulsed through the system. A bright golden aura flashed over the machinery for a fraction of a second before vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. It had come and gone too quickly for Twilight to make heads or tails of it, but something about it triggered her instinct for trouble. It could have just been a sign of poor maintenance, a blown arcanic capacitor or an unaligned resonance chamber, but the part of her that had kept her alive and out of a maximum security cell in Canterlot was screaming at her to get out. She looked back to the controls. There was no telling when another opportunity like this would present itself.

Princess Celestia sat in her chambers, sipping tea while reviewing security briefs. Repairs on the Hoofington facility were proceeding well. As for the changeling threat, loyal forces were almost in position to seize all the infiltrators in one sweep, minimizing the risk of any slipping away and assuming a new cover.

There were no updates regarding the search for Twilight. After her initial check in at the bunker, she had moved quickly on a long shot plan that relied on Twilight being just the right amount of desperate to know exactly what the doctors had been up to. She had visited every major hospital within 50 miles of the bunker as part of a "surprise secret royal inspection" and personally buried a small silent alarm spell in all the imaging equipment, keyed to respond to Twilight's unique magical signature. A similar cantrip to the alarm on the restricted section of the library, but of significantly longer range and tied directly to Celestia herself. There was more than a strong chance that it would never pay off at all, but at least it was something proactive.

She was just about to pour herself another cup of tea and move on to signing transfer orders when a beacon lit up in her mind.

The teapot fell to the table, taking the cup with it as it tumbled over the edge, spilling its contents across the carpet as Celestia spun and lunged for the nearest window. Fortunately, for the window's sake, it was already open as Celestia vaulted through it and spread her wings.

It was possible, even likely, that Twilight would have bolted as soon as the alarm tripped, but Celestia held out hope that, with a bit of luck, she might be able to get the drop on her former student. At the very least, if she could just get within a few hundred meters, she should be able feel out Twilight's magical signature as long as she was actively looking for it.

She had already weighed the merits of sending a message ahead to the town's guard force who, despite being woefully outmatched, could still throw up an interdiction cordon around the town. She had ultimately decided against it. After witnessing Twilight's tampering with the crystal hub at the bunker, Celestia couldn't ignore the possibility of Twilight tapping the communication lines. On the chance that Twilight hadn't fled as soon as the spell had been tripped, it was better to maintain silence until right on top of her. That was why the spell fed to Celestia directly instead of broadcasting to the local garrison. This was something Celestia needed to put an end to herself.

"Careful now. Steady," Applejack coached as Fluttershy cautiously wielded the tongs in her mouth and approached the large metal box sitting over a fire that served as their makeshift oven.

While Twilight and Rainbow Dash were off on some kind of heist like secret mission (of which the only information shared was "the less you know, the better"), Fluttershy had gone into town to shop for the necessary supplies for her current, no less nerve wracking mission. Attempting to bake a banana cream pie via campfire.

She worked the tongs around the handle and gently pulled open the door of the small compartment. A wave of hot air escaped and hit her in the face, pulling a bead of sweat out of her forehead that raced down toward her right eye, prompting a squint to avoid stinging disaster. Reaching further in, her tongs found the edge of the pie tin. At a glacial pace, she moved backwards, extracting her prize and working to keep her head absolutely level. Her neck might as well have been a steel rod, an extension of the tongs gripped between her jaws that ran uninterrupted down the length of her spine.

Slowly placing one hoof in front of the other, she approached the flat rock that served as their counter space. Once the pie tin was over the chosen position, she ever so slowly bent her knees, setting the newly formed pie crust down with all the gentleness she would normally bring to bear in bandaging the wing of a baby bird. Once it had finally come to rest, she dropped the tongs, stepped back, and wiped the sweat from her brow with a relieved sigh.

"Thanks," Fluttershy responded, still looking as if she might faint from the tension at any moment.

"The rest should just be a trot in the park in comparison. All cold prep. Just gotta fill in the fruit, custard, cream, and all that good stuff."

Fluttershy's prediction proved correct as the next few minutes transformed the empty crust into a fully realized banana cream pie.

"I think we should add just a bit of cinnamon on top," Fluttershy assessed. "Twilight and Rainbow Dash both love cinnamon."

While Applejack dug around in their supplies, Fluttershy took a moment to admire the monument to her domestic skill. Her imaginings of Twilight's face upon returning to lovingly prepared baked goods were interrupted by a bright flicker on the horizon. No, not exactly the horizon. It was most of the way up the great Canterhorn mountain. Right where Canterlot would be. A bright fiery glow like a shooting star, only it wasn't arcing across the sky, but growing bigger. No, it was growing closer.

Fluttershy couldn't help but worry that it had something do with Twilight and Rainbow Dash's errands for the day, and that her provisional dinner plans would be taking a hard rain check.

Stay safe Twilight.

"Almost there..." Twilight's tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth as she kept her eyes glued to the screen. "Just a little...bit...more..." She increased the magnification by three percent and attacked the focus knobs, fighting to keep the picture clear. "Got it!"

There it was. A patch of amygdala with the faintest bit of scarring around a protrusion that might once have been a neural bridge, now severed.

"In fact, I think I might be able to...if it's been recent enough....yes, yes!" Several more knob twists and dial turns brought up a series of filters. "If I can just find the right tracer spell they used, it'll be perfect."

One last button press brought up a filter that showed the area saturated in a sparkling pink effect, the remnant of the tracer the doctors had used for targeting during the initial procedure. Such routine medical spells would normally fade away harmlessly over the course of a week, but with the procedure still so recent, there was enough of it left to serve as definitive proof that this was an image of the target area, and the operation had been completed successfully.

Twilight slammed a hoof down on the print button, snapping up the still warm pieces of paper as they came out of the tray.

"Don't have to tell me twice!" Rainbow Dash replied as she vaulted over the seat to land next to Twilight.

A violet flash enveloped them both as they disappeared and reappeared at the marker previously laid down in the alley. Retrieving the hidden pair of saddlebags, Twilight stuffed the papers inside before handing them off to Rainbow Dash.

After a quick nod of acknowledgement from Rainbow Dash, there was another flash and the filthy brickwork of the alley was replaced by the greenery of the lightly wooded hoofhills outside of town. Twilight nearly fell off her hooves as she gave a sigh of relief.

"See? What did I tell ya? Nothing to stress over, egghead. In and out without a hitch. Didn't even have to bust any heads."

Twilight shot Rainbow Dash an amused look. "I seem to recall you being just as concerned about all the possible things that could go wrong."

"Nah," Rainbow Dash dismissed the accusation with a wave of her wing. "You must have been imagining things and hallucinating from all the paranoid worrying."

Twilight gave a slight chuckle in response. "Well I suppose I can get a bit carried away sometimes. You're right, though. It did all go off without a hi—"

Their conversation was interrupted by what was presumably a meteor striking directly in front of them. The shock wave knocked them off their hooves and the air was suddenly filled with dust and smoke from surrounding vegetation that had burst into flames.

Before Twilight had even finished finding her hooves and wiping her eyes clear, she felt an interdiction field wash over the area. A gust of magical wind cleared the smoke, revealing the form of Princess Celestia standing tall, even amidst the smouldering indentation left by her landing.

"Hello, Twilight. Be advised, if in the next three seconds the next words out of your mouth are anything other than 'I surrender', you are going to have a bad time. Do you want to have a bad time?"

Heart of Loyalty

by PonyAmorous

Chapter 17